Great Events from History
1901-1940
Great Events from History
1901-1940
Editor
Robert F. Gorman Southwest Texas S...
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Great Events from History
1901-1940
Great Events from History
1901-1940
Editor
Robert F. Gorman Southwest Texas State University
Salem Press Pasadena, California
Hackensack, New Jersey
Editor in Chief: Dawn P. Dawson Editorial Director: Christina J. Moose Production Editor: Andrea E. Miller Acquisitions Editor: Mark Rehn Design, Layout, and Graphics: James Hutson Research Supervisor: Jeffry Jensen Additional Layout and Graphics: William Zimmerman Manuscript Editors: Judy Selhorst, Photo Editor: Cynthia Breslin Beres Andy Perry, Anna A. Moore Editorial Assistant: Dana Garey Research Assistant Editor: Tim Tiernan Cover photos (pictured clockwise, from top left): Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel, 1930. (The Granger Collection, New York); Orville Wright in flight, 1909. (The Granger Collection, New York); Hammer and Sickle. (The Granger Collection, New York); Gold coffin of King Tut, photographed in 1922. (The Granger Collection, New York); Picasso’s Guernica. (The Granger Collection, New York); American troops landing in France, 1918. (The Granger Collection, New York) Copyright © 2007, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or in the copying of images deemed to be freely licensed or in the public domain. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997). Some of the essays in this work originally appeared in the following Salem Press sets: Chronology of European History: 15,000 b.c. to 1997 (1997, edited by John Powell; associate editors, E. G. Weltin, José M. Sánchez, Thomas P. Neill, and Edward P. Keleher); Great Events from History: North American Series, Revised Edition (1997, edited by Frank N. Magill); Great Events from History II: Science and Technology (1991, edited by Frank N. Magill); Great Events from History II: Human Rights (1992, edited by Frank N. Magill); Great Events from History II: Arts and Culture (1993, edited by Frank N. Magill); Great Events from History II: Business and Commerce (1994, edited by Frank N. Magill), and Great Events from History II: Ecology and the Environment (1995, edited by Frank N. Magill). New material has been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Great events from history. The 20th century, 1901-1940 / editor, Robert F. Gorman. p. cm. Some of the essays in this work originally appeared in various Salem Press publications. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58765-324-7 (set : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-58765-325-4 (v. 1: alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-58765-3261 (v. 2 : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-58765-327-8 (v. 3 : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-58765-328-5 (v. 4 : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-58765-329-2 (v. 5 : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-58765-330-8 (v. 6 : alk. paper) 1. Twentieth century. I. Gorman, Robert F. II. Title: 20th century, 1901-1940. III. Title: Twentieth century, 1901-1940. D421.G629 2007 909.82'1—dc22 2007001930 First Printing printed in the united states of america
Contents, VOLUME 1: 1901-1907 Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Keyword List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv List of Maps, Tables, and Sidebars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lxxxi Maps of 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xci
1901 Early 20th century, Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Early 20th century, Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1901, Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1901, Discovery of Human Blood Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1901, Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1901, Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 1901, Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 1901, Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 1901-1904, Kipping Discovers Silicones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1901-1911, China Allows Some Western Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 1901-1925, Teletype Is Developed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 January, 1901, American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 January 1, 1901, Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 January 10, 1901, Discovery of Oil at Spindletop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 February 4, 1901, Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 February 26, 1901, Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 May 27, 1901, Insular Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 July 1, 1901, Canada Claims the Arctic Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 August 30, 1901, Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 December 10, 1901, First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 December 10, 1901, Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 December 12, 1901, First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 December 19, 1901, Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
1902 1902, Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity . . . . 1902, Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels . . . . . . . . . . . 1902, Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing . . 1902, Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism . . . . . . . . . 1902, Hobson Critiques Imperialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1902, James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience 1902, Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings . . . . . . . . . . . . v
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77 81 84 87 91 94 96
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1902, Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 1902, McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 1902, Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 1902, Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 1902-1903, Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 1902-1913, Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 January, 1902, French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 January 1, 1902, First Rose Bowl Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 January 30, 1902, Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 February 17, 1902, Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 March and June, 1902, Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 March 4, 1902, American Automobile Association Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 April, 1902, Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 April-June, 1902, Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 April 11, 1902, Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 May 8, 1902, Mount Pelée Erupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 May 12-October 23, 1902, Anthracite Coal Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 May 31, 1902, Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913, Expansion of Direct Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 June 12, 1902, Australia Extends Suffrage to Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 June 16, 1902, Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 June 17, 1902, Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 August, 1902, A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 August 12, 1902, Founding of International Harvester Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 September 27, 1902, Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 December, 1902, Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 December 2-5, 1902, Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
1903 1903, Delaware Revises Corporation Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903, Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903, Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903, Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903, Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903-1904, Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903-1906, Pogroms in Imperial Russia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903-1957, Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 5, 1903, Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 14, 1903, Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor . . . . . . . February 23, 1903, U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce. March 14, 1903, First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . May, 1903, Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 22, 1903, Platt Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 23, 1903, Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 6, 1903, Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 1, 1903, First Tour de France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 2-September, 1903, Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
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188 192 195 199 203 206 210 213 217 219 222 226 230 234 237 239 242 244
Contents August 9, 1903, Pius X Becomes Pope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fall, 1903, Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade. . . . . . . . . . . . . Fall, 1903, The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . October 1-13, 1903, Baseball Holds Its First World Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 10, 1903, Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union . . . . . . . November, 1903, Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 3, 1903, Panama Declares Independence from Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 18, 1903, U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 10, 1903, Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity December 17, 1903, Wright Brothers’ First Flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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247 250 253 256 259 264 268 271 275 278
1904 1904, Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1904, First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1904, Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1904, Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter . . . . . . . 1904, Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy . . . . . . . . . . . . 1904-1905, Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs . . . . . . . . . . 1904-1905, Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control . . . . . . 1904-1905, Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1904-1907, Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics . . . . . 1904-1908, Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air. . . . 1904-1908, Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory. 1904-1912, Brandenberger Invents Cellophane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January, 1904-1905, Herero and Nama Revolts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 9, 1904-September 5, 1905, Russo-Japanese War. . . . . . . . . . . . March 14, 1904, U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities . . . . April-May, 1904, Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System . . . . . April 8, 1904, Entente Cordiale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 18, 1904, L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics . . . . . . May 18, 1904, International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade . . . . . . . Summer, 1904, Construction Begins on the Panama Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . September 7, 1904, Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet. . . . . . . . . . . . . October 31, 1904-1906, Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism . . . . . . . . . November 7, 1904, Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres . . . . . . . . . . . November 16, 1904, Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube . . . . . . . . . . December 26, 1904, Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut . . . . . . December 27, 1904, Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival . . . . . . . . .
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281 283 286 288 291 295 298 302 305 308 311 314 317 320 323 327 331 334 336 340 344 346 348 352 355 359
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362 365 369 372
1905 1905, Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905, Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography . . . . . 1905, Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity . 1905, Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1905, Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905, Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity . . . . . . . . . 1905, Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia . . . . . . . . . . 1905-1907, Baekeland Invents Bakelite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905-1907, Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks . . . . . . January 3, 1905, Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service . . . . . . . . January 5, 1905, National Audubon Society Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 22, 1905, Bloody Sunday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 30, 1905, U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust . . February 23, 1905, First American Service Organization Is Founded . . . . . . . March, 1905, Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 31, 1905, Tangier Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 17, 1905, U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law . . . . . June, 1905, First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1905, Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 27, 1905, Founding of Industrial Workers of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . July 11, 1905, Founding of the Niagara Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1905, Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August-December, 1905, Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry Fall, 1905, Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . Fall, 1905, Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1905, Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 26, 1905, Norway Becomes Independent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 30, 1905, October Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 24, 1905, Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater . . . . November 28, 1905, Sinn Féin Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December, 1905, Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion . . . . . . . . December 9, 1905, Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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376 378 382 385 388 392 396 399 402 406 408 411 413 417 421 425 428 432 436 440 443 447 450 452 456 459 462 465
1906, Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass. . . . . . . . . . 1906, Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906, Publication of The English Hymnal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906-1907, Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1906-1910, Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure . . . 1906-1913, Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll . . . . . . . . . . January 11, 1906, Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement January 12, 1906, American College Football Allows the Forward Pass . . . . . . . February, 1906, Sinclair Publishes The Jungle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 12, 1906, Establishment of the British Labour Party . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, 1906, Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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468 471 474 478 481 484 487 490 492 494 497 500 504 507 509 513 516
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Contents April, 1906-1908, Azusa Street Revival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 18, 1906, San Francisco Earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 10-July 21, 1906, First Meeting of the Duma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 26-27, 1906, First Grand Prix Auto Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 27-29, 1906, International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded . . . . . . June 30, 1906, Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 20, 1906, Finland Grants Women Suffrage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 4, 1906, First German U-Boat Is Launched . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 19, 1906, Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1906-October, 1907, Persia Adopts a Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 6, 1906, Launching of the Dreadnought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 25, 1906, Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools . . . . . . . . December 10, 1906, Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron . . . . . . . December 24, 1906, Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 30, 1906, Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India .
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520 522 526 529 531 534 538 541 545 549 552 555 558 561 564
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567 570 573 576 579 582 584
1907 1907, Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers . . 1907, Famine Strikes Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1907, Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers. 1907, Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions . . . 1907, Lumières Develop Color Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1907, Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History . . . . . . 1907, Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Contents, VOLUME 2: 1907-1915
1907 (continued) 1907, Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1907, Publication of James’s Pragmatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 16, 1907-February 14, 1912, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States. January 26, 1907, The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences . . . . . . . . . . March, 1907, Romanian Peasant Revolt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 14, 1907, Gentlemen’s Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 19, 1907-April, 1914, Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, 1907, Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 14, 1907, Formation of the Plunket Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1907, Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 31, 1907, Formation of the Triple Entente . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1907, Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October-November, 1907, Panic of 1907 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 18, 1907, Second Hague Peace Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 22, 1907, Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 22, 1907, Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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587 591 594 597 600 603 606 608 611 613 616 618 622 625 629 632
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635 638 642 644 648 651 654 657 661 664 667 670 674 677 681 683 686
1908 1908, Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908, Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics . . . . . . . 1908, Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908-1909, Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908-1915, Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory . . . . . . . . . . January 11, 1908, Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims January 21, 1908, The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama . . January 27, 1908, U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts . . February 3, 1908, Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts . . February 11, 1908, Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter . . . . February 24, 1908, Muller v. Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 29, 1908, Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts . . . . . . . . April 8, 1908, Harvard University Founds a Business School . . . . . . . . . . May 13-15, 1908, Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources . . . . May 26, 1908, Oil Is Discovered in Persia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1908, Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works . . . . . . . . June 26, 1908, Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots . . . . . . . 2-v
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 July 24, 1908, Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 26, 1908, Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 3, 1908, First Issue of Pravda Appears. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 7, 1908, Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November-December, 1908, Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research November 1, 1908, Belgium Annexes the Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 28, 1908, Christian Science Monitor Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December, 1908, Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 3, 1908, Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 21, 1908, Cairo University Is Inaugurated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 26, 1908, First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 28, 1908, Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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689 692 695 697 699 703 707 710 713 716 719 721
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723 726 729 731 734 737 741 744 747 751 753 756 759 762 766 769 772 776 778 781
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784 786 790 792 796 800 803 807
1909 1909, First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909, Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype” . . . . . . . . . . . 1909, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909, Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909-1913, United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909-1929, Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January-August, 1909, Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 12, 1909, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded February 20, 1909, Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March, 1909-1912, Republican Congressional Insurgency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 4, 1909, U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April, 1909-August, 1911, Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . April 6, 1909, Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 19, 1909, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2, 1909, Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 25, 1909, First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 5, 1909, Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 19, 1909, First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1909, Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1909, Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1910 1910’s, Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . 1910’s, Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era . . . . . . . . 1910, Angell Advances Pacifism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1910, Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced . . . . . . . . . . . 1910, Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1910, Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House . . . . . . 1910, Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses . 1910, Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity” . 2-vi
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Contents 1910, Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1910-1913, Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement . . . . . . . . 1910-1930, Great Northern Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, 1910, Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April, 1910, Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis . . . . . . . . . . April 5, 1910, First Morris Plan Bank Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 31, 1910, Formation of the Union of South Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 25, 1910, The Firebird Premieres in Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 1, 1910, U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 22, 1910, Japanese Annexation of Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 5, 1910, Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mid-October, 1910-December 1, 1920, Mexican Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . November 25, 1910, Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace
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811 814 818 820 823 827 830 833 836 838 841 843 847
1911, Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1911, Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1911-1912, Italy Annexes Libya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1911-1920, Borden Leads Canada Through World War I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1911-1923, Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 15, 1911, Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow . . . . . . . . . . . . March 25, 1911, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 28, 1911, Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria. . . . . . . . . . April 3, 1911, Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony . . . . . . . April 14, 1911, Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo . . . . . . . May 15, 1911, U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason” . . . . . . . . May 29, 1911, U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company . . July 1, 1911, Agadir Crisis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 24, 1911, Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September, 1911, Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art . . . . . . . . . September 4-15, 1911, Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools. September 14, 1911, Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. . . . . . . . . . Fall, 1911, Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 10, 1911, Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty. . . . . . . . . . . . . November 20, 1911, Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres . . . . December 2, 1911, Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences . . . . . . . . . December 14, 1911, Amundsen Reaches the South Pole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 31, 1911, Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System . . . . .
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849 852 856 859 862 865 868 873 876 879 882 886 890 892 897 900 904 906 909 913 916 919 922
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925 928 932 935
1911
1912 1912, Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre 1912, Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious . . . . . . 1912, Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art. . . . . . . . 1912, Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy . . . . . . . 2-vii
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1912-1913, Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938 1912-1914, Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942 1912-1915, X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945 1912-1929, Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 948 January, 1912, Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950 January 8, 1912, South African Native National Congress Meets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954 February 23, 1912, International Opium Convention Is Signed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 956 March 3, 1912, Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 959 March 7, 1912, Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 962 Spring, 1912, Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965 April 9, 1912, Children’s Bureau Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 968 April 14-15, 1912, Sinking of the Titanic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 972 May 5-July 27, 1912, Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975 May 29, 1912, L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 977 June 4, 1912, Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . 980 June 7, 1912, Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 983 July 10, 1912, Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 986 August, 1912, Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 988 August 4-November, 1912, U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991 August 7 and 12, 1912, Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 August 14, 1912, U.S. Public Health Service Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998 October, 1912, Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001 October 12, 1912, First Conference of the Society of American Indians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005 October 18, 1912-August 10, 1913, Balkan Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1008 November 5, 1912, Wilson Is Elected U.S. President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011
1913 1913, Apollinaire Defines Cubism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary . . . . . . . 1913, Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars. 1913, Husserl Advances Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, Salomon Develops Mammography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913, Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913-1927, Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past . . . . . . . . . . . January, 1913, Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking . . . . . . . January 17, 1913, Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere . . . . . . February 17-March 15, 1913, Armory Show. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 25, 1913, U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized . . . . . . . . . . . March 1, 1913, Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 4, 1913, Migratory Bird Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 31, 1913, Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres. . . . . . May 14, 1913, Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 20, 1913, Passage of the First Alien Land Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-viii
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1015 1019 1022 1025 1028 1031 1034 1037 1040 1043 1045 1049 1053 1056 1059 1063 1067 1070 1074 1076
Contents May 29, 1913, The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1913, Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code . . . . . . . . September, 1913, Anti-Defamation League Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . November 5, 1913, Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct . . . . . . . . December, 1913, Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution . . . . December 19, 1913, U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley December 23, 1913, Federal Reserve Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1079 1082 1085 1088 1092 1095 1099
1914, Rutherford Discovers the Proton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1914, U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts . . . . . . . . . . . January 5, 1914, Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday . . . . . February 13, 1914, ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music . March, 1914, Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management . . . . . . . June 28-August 4, 1914, Outbreak of World War I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 28, 1914-November 11, 1918, World War I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 15, 1914, Panama Canal Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 1, 1914, Last Passenger Pigeon Dies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 5-9, 1914, First Battle of the Marne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 15, 1914, Irish Home Rule Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 22, 1914, Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare. . . . . . September 26, 1914, Federal Trade Commission Is Organized . . . . . . . . . October 15, 1914, Clayton Antitrust Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 15, 1914, Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws . . . . . October 30, 1914, Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I . . . . . . . . . . November 5, 1914, British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans . . . . November 7, 1914, Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic . . . . . .
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1103 1106 1110 1114 1118 1121 1124 1130 1133 1137 1140 1143 1145 1149 1153 1156 1158 1161
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1164 1168 1171 1174 1177 1180 1183 1188 1192
1914
1915 1915, Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1915, The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation . . 1915-1919, National Birth Control League Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 19, 1915, Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids. January 25, 1915, First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made. . . . . February 19, 1915-January 9, 1916, Gallipoli Campaign Falters . . . . . March, 1915, Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle . . . . March 3, 1915, Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation . . . . . . . . . . April 22-27, 1915, Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops. . .
2-ix
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Contents, VOLUME 3: 1915-1923
1915 (continued) April 24, 1915, Armenian Genocide Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 28-May 1, 1915, International Congress of Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May, 1915, Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 7, 1915, German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 20, 1915, Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1915, Denishawn School of Dance Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September, 1915-February, 1916, McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin September 5-8, 1915, and April 24-30, 1916, Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences . . September 11, 1915, Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain . . . . . . . . . October, 1915-March, 1917, Langevin Develops Active Sonar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 21, 1915, First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony . . . . . . . . . November 25, 1915, Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity. . . . . . . . December 8, 1915, Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers . . . . . . . . . . . . December 17, 1915, Malevich Introduces Suprematism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1195 1199 1202 1206 1209 1211 1215 1217 1220 1223 1227 1230 1233 1235
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1239 1242 1245 1247 1250 1253 1256 1259 1262 1266 1269 1272 1276 1279 1282 1285 1288 1292 1295 1299
1916 1916, Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1916, Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1916, Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1916, Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1916, Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity . . . . . . . . January-June, 1916, Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . February 21-December 18, 1916, Battle of Verdun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 15, 1916-February 5, 1917, Pershing Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 24-29, 1916, Easter Rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 31-June 1, 1916, Battle of Jutland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 5, 1916, Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice . . . . July, 1916, Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management . . . . . . . . July, 1916, New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law . . . . . . August, 1916, Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy . . . . . August 25, 1916, National Park Service Is Created . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 8, 1916, United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission. September 11, 1916, First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens . . . . . . . . . . September 19, 1916, American Institute of Accountants Is Founded . . . . . . October 16, 1916, First American Birth Control Clinic Opens . . . . . . . . . November 7, 1916, First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress . . . . . . . . 3-v
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1917 1917, American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917, Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917, National Woman’s Party Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917, De StijlAdvocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917, Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917-1918, Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church . . . . . . . . . . 1917-1920, Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence . . . . . . . . . . . 1917-1924, Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917-1970, Pound’s Cantos Is Published . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 31, 1917, Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code . . February 5, 1917, Immigration Act of 1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 26, 1917, Mount McKinley National Park Is Created . . . . . . . . . . . March-November, 1917, Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . March 2, 1917, Jones Act of 1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 6, 1917, United States Enters World War I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 13, 1917, U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I . . . . . . . . . April 30, 1917, Formation of the American Friends Service Committee . . . . . . May, 1917, Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter May 13-October 17, 1917, Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal . . . . . . . . . June, 1917, First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918, Espionage and Sedition Acts . . . . . . . . . . July 8, 1917, United States Establishes the War Industries Board . . . . . . . . . . September 15, 1917, Forbes Magazine Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 20, 1917, Canadian Women Gain the Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 3, 1917, U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax . . . . . . October 15, 1917, France Executes Mata Hari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November, 1917, Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson . . . . . . . . . November 2, 1917, Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. November 6-7, 1917, Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution . . . . . . . . . . December 6, 1917, Halifax Explosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 6, 1917-October 14, 1920, Finland Gains Independence . . . . . . . . .
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1303 1306 1309 1312 1315 1318 1321 1324 1328 1332 1336 1339 1343 1347 1349 1353 1356 1358 1360 1363 1367 1371 1374 1377 1379 1383 1385 1389 1393 1397 1399
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1403 1406 1409 1412 1416 1419 1422 1425 1428 1431 1434
1918 1918, Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918, Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation . . . . . . . 1918-1919, Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government . . . . . . . . . . . 1918-1919, Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918-1921, Russian Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 8, 1918, Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy February 6, 1918, British Women Gain the Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 24, 1918-August 11, 1920, Baltic States Gain Independence . . . . . . . March, 1918-1919, Influenza Epidemic Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 3, 1918, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1918, Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography . . . . . . . . 3-vi
Contents July 3, 1918, Migratory Bird Treaty Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 26-November 11, 1918, Meuse-Argonne Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November, 1918-June, 1920, Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I . . . . . . . . . November 5, 1918-November 2, 1920, Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era December 1, 1918, Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence . . . . December 21, 1918, Birth of Czechoslovakia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1437 1440 1444 1447 1450 1453
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1546 1549 1551 1555 1558
1919 1919, Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919, Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919, German Artists Found the Bauhaus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919, Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919, Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919-1920, Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919-1921, Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919-1933, Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 15, 1919, Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 19-21, 1919, Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities . . . . . . . February 1, 1919, Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2-6, 1919, Lenin Establishes the Comintern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 15-May 9, 1919, Formation of the American Legion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, 1919, Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements . . . . . April 13, 1919, British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 28, 1919, League of Nations Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 4, 1919, May Fourth Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 15-June 26, 1919, Winnipeg General Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 19, 1919-September 11, 1922, Greco-Turkish War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 20, 1919, National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded. . . . . . . . . . . . June 28, 1919, International Labor Organization Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 28, 1919, Treaty of Versailles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 31, 1919, Weimar Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1919-May, 1920, Red Scare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 10, 1919, Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery. . . . . September 22, 1919-January 8, 1920, Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions . October 1-9, 1919, Black Sox Scandal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 6, 1919, Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory . . November 16, 1919, Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1920 Early 1920’s, Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra 1920’s, Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920’s, Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard . 1920’s, Harlem Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920’s, Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit . . . . . . . . . 3-vii
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1920’s, Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early 1920, Britain Represses Somali Rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920, Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation . . . . . . . . . . . 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920, Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920-1921, Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created . . . . . . . . . . 1920-1922, Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920-1924, Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920-1925, Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1920-1930, Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 3, 1920, New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 16, 1920, Formation of Les Six . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 16, 1920-December 5, 1933, Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 19, 1920, American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 14, 1920, League of Women Voters Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 25, 1920, Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 1, 1920, United States v. United States Steel Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 26, 1920, Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . May-November, 1920, Great Iraqi Revolt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 7, 1920, Group of Seven Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 16, 1920, Canonization of Joan of Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July, 1920, Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers . . . . . . . . . . July 10, 1920-September, 1926, Meighen Era in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 20-September 17, 1920, Formation of the American Professional Football Association August 20-November 2, 1920, Radio Broadcasting Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 26, 1920, U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 8, 1920, U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery . . . . . . . . November 20, 1920, Formation of Qantas Airlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 13, 1920, Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 13, 1920, Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established . . . . . . . . . . December 29, 1920, General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure . . . . . . . . . . . December 29, 1920, Rise of the French Communist Party. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1562 1566 1568 1571 1575 1578 1583 1587 1590 1594 1597 1601 1604 1607 1610 1614 1618 1621 1625 1628 1630 1633 1636 1638 1641 1644 1648 1652 1654 1657 1659 1663
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1665 1669 1671 1673 1677 1680 1683 1686 1689 1692 1695 1698 1701
1921 1921, Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, Man Ray Creates the Rayograph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921, Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921-1922, Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin . . . . . . . . . . . 1921-1923, Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921-1923, Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment 1921-1923, Scandals of the Harding Administration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921-1923, Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System . . . . . . . . . . 3-viii
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Contents 1921-1924, Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921-1948, King Era in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March, 1921, Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 18, 1921, Poland Secures Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 20, 1921, Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany . . . . . . . . . . May 10, 1921, Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres . . . . . . . . . . . May 19, 1921, Emergency Quota Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1921, Moplah Rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 8, 1921, First Miss America Is Crowned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 11, 1921, Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 11-13, 1921, and March 25-31, 1925, Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control November 12, 1921-February 6, 1922, Washington Disarmament Conference . . . . . . . . . . . November 23, 1921-June 30, 1929, Sheppard-Towner Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1705 1709 1711 1715 1719 1721 1725 1728 1730 1734 1737 1741 1745
1922 1922, Eliot Publishes The Waste Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1922, First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1922, First Meeting of the Vienna Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1922, McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets January, 1922, Izaak Walton League Is Formed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 1922, Reader’s Digest Is Founded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 2, 1922, Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction . . . . . . . April 16, 1922, Treaty of Rapallo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June, 1922, New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated . . . . . . . . July 24, 1922, League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine . . . September 22, 1922, Cable Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 24-30, 1922, Mussolini’s “March on Rome” . . . . . . . . . . . November 4, 1922, Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen . . . . . November 13, 1922, Ozawa v. United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 10, 1922, Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize . . . . . . . . . December 14, 1922, Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela . . . . . . . . . . .
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1748 1751 1754 1757 1760 1763 1767 1772 1775 1777 1779 1782 1784 1788 1790 1794
1923, A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research . 1923, Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs. . 1923, Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy . . . . . . . . . 1923, De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light . . . . . . .
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1796 1798 1802 1804
1923
3-ix
Contents, VOLUME 4: 1923-1930
1923 (continued) 1923, Discovery of the Compton Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1923, Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams . . . . . . . . . . 1923, Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation . . . . . . . . . . 1923, Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1923, The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle . . . . . . . . 1923-1939, Cambridge Ancient History Appears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 11, 1923-August 16, 1924, France Occupies the Ruhr . . . . . . . . . . . February 15, 1923, Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues” . . . . . . . . . . March 3, 1923, Luce Founds Time Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 5, 1923, Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions . . . . . . . . . March 14, 1923, American Management Association Is Established . . . . . . . . April 9, 1923, U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws . . . . . Summer, 1923, Zdansky Discovers Peking Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 26, 1923, Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence . . August 27-September 29, 1923, Corfu Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 1, 1923, Earthquake Rocks Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1923, Teapot Dome Scandal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 1, 1923, Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia . . . October 18, 1923, Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 8, 1923, Beer Hall Putsch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 10, 1923, Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . December 29, 1923, Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television .
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1807 1810 1814 1817 1820 1824 1826 1830 1833 1838 1840 1844 1847 1850 1853 1855 1857 1862 1865 1869 1871 1873
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1877 1880 1884 1887 1889 1892 1896 1899 1903 1905 1909
1924 1924, Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula . . . . 1924, Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis . . . . . . . 1924, Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature . . . . . . 1924, Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food . . . . 1924, Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1924, U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa . . . . . . . . . . . 1924-1932, Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity . . . . . . 1924-1976, Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire . . . . . . . . . . January 25-February 5, 1924, First Winter Olympic Games . . . . . . . . February, 1924, IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line . . . . . . . . February 12, 1924, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York 4-v
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 March, 1924, Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars. . . . . . . . March 31, 1924, Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting . . . . . . . May 21, 1924, Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 26, 1924, Immigration Act of 1924 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 28, 1924, U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2, 1924, Indian Citizenship Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1924, Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 7, 1924, Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1924, Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil. . . . . . . . . . . . September 1, 1924, Dawes Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 1924, Surrealism Is Born . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 21, 1924, Halibut Treaty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 4, 1924, Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December, 1924, Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems . . . . December 4, 1924, Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres . . . . . . . . December 10, 1924, Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation
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1912 1915 1918 1922 1926 1929 1931 1935 1938 1941 1943 1947 1949 1953 1956 1959
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1962 1965 1968 1972 1976 1980 1983 1987 1990 1993 1997 2001 2004 2007 2011 2014 2017 2020 2024 2027 2030 2033 2037 2040 2042 2044 2047 2050 2054
1925 1925, The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925, Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement . . . . . . 1925, Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques . . . . . 1925, Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes . . . . . . . . . . 1925, Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States . . . . . . . 1925, McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925, New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925, Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925, Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells . . . . . . . 1925, Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness . . . . . . . 1925-1926, Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925-1927, Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques . . . . 1925-1935, Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change . . . . . . 1925-1979, Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 1, 1925, Bell Labs Is Formed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 5, 1925, First Female Governor in the United States . . . . . . . . . . February 2, 1925, U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail . . . February 21, 1925, Ross Founds The New Yorker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 28, 1925, Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions . . . . Spring, 1925, Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . April, 1925-May, 1927, German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge April 10, 1925, Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby May-June, 1925, Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 1, 1925, Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony. . . . . . . . . . . . . May 5, 1925, Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 17, 1925, Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 17, 1925, Geneva Protocol Is Signed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 26, 1925, Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush . . . . . . . July 10-21, 1925, Scopes Trial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-vi
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Contents July 18, 1925-December 11, 1926, Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought . . . . . August 7, 1925, West African Student Union Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 14, 1925, Norway Annexes Svalbard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 30, 1925, Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity . October, 1925, Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty . . . . . October-December, 1925, Baker Dances in La Revue Nègre . . . . . . . . . . . October 23, 1925, Greece Invades Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November, 1925, Armstrong Records with the Hot Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 28, 1925, WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry . . . . . . . . . . . . December 14, 1925, Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2058 2062 2064 2066 2069 2073 2076 2079 2082 2086
1926, Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926-1927, Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926-1949, Chinese Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 16, 1926, Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket . . . . . . . . . . . . May, 1926, Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 3-12, 1926, British Workers Launch General Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 12-15, 1926, Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 20, 1926, Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System . . . . . . . . May 20, 1926, Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes . . . . July, 1926, Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars . . . . . . . . July 18, 1926, Treaty of Ankara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1926-September, 1928, Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures . August 6, 1926, Ederle Swims the English Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 9, 1926, National Broadcasting Company Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . September 25, 1926, League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention . . October 22, 1926, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation December, 1926, Keaton’s The General Is Released. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2089 2092 2096 2099 2102 2105 2109 2112 2115 2119 2122 2124 2129 2132 2135 2139 2142
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2146 2148 2152 2155 2158 2161 2164 2168 2172 2175 2179 2182 2186
1926
1927 1927, Heidegger Publishes Being and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1927, Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking . . . . . . . . . . 1927, Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis . . . . . . . . . . . 1927, Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1927, Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1927, Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1927, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 1, 1927, British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered . . . . . . . . . . . February-March, 1927, Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle . . . . . . February 21, 1927, Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act. February 25, 1927, McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking . . . . . . . . . . . . May, 1927, Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 17, 1927, Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie . . . . 4-vii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 May 20, 1927, Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight . . . . . July 17, 1927, Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel . . . . August 4, 1927, Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor . . . . . . . . . August 23, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 6, 1927, The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie” . . . . . . . . . December 4, 1927, Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club . . . . . . . December 27, 1927, Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot
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2189 2193 2196 2199 2202 2206 2210
1928, Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog . . . . . . . . . . 1928, Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1928, Smith-Hoover Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1928-1932, Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January, 1928, Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer . . . . . March, 1928, Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 19, 1928, Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 11, 1928, Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry. . . . . May 15, 1928, Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 18, 1928, Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1928, Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling . July 2, 1928, Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1928, Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 27, 1928, Kellogg-Briand Pact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September, 1928, Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 17, 1928, Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East . October 1, 1928, Stalin Introduces Central Planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 10, 1928, Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature . . . . . . . . . . .
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2213 2216 2219 2222 2225 2228 2230 2234 2238 2240 2242 2246 2249 2252 2256 2259 2263 2267
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2269 2273 2276 2279 2282 2285 2288 2292 2295 2298 2301 2304 2306 2309 2311
1928
1929 1929, Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1929, Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film . . . . . . . . . . . 1929, Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1929, Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1929-1930, The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater 1929-1938, Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram . . . . . . . . . 1929-1940, Maginot Line Is Built . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January, 1929, All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War . . . January, 1929, Trotsky Is Sent into Exile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 11, 1929, Lateran Treaty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 14, 1929, Valentine’s Day Massacre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 17, 1929, League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded . . . May 16, 1929, First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement . . . . . . . . June 3-August 28, 1929, Tacna-Arica Compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 15, 1929, Agricultural Marketing Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-viii
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Contents July, 1929, Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July, 1929-July, 1931, Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems. . . . . . August 23, 1929, Western Wall Riots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September, 1929-January, 1930, The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel October 7, 1929, The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 24-29, 1929, U.S. Stock Market Crashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 29, 1929-1939, Great Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 8, 1929, New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public . . . . . . . . . . . November 19, 1929, Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Winter, 1929-1930, Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope . . . .
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2314 2317 2321 2323 2327 2331 2335 2340 2343 2347
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2350 2352 2356 2360 2364 2368 2370 2373 2376 2380 2383 2386 2389 2394 2396 2400 2403
1930 Early 1930’s, Mass Deportations of Mexicans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1930’s, Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1930’s, Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States . . 1930’s, Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . 1930’s, Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1930’s, Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines . . . 1930’s, Jung Develops Analytical Psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1930’s, Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems . . . . . . . 1930’s-1940’s, Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking . . . . . . . 1930, Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1930, Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere 1930, Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus . . . . . . . . . . . 1930-1931, Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond . . . . . . . . 1930-1932, Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy . . . . . . . . . . 1930-1935, Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 1930, Crane Publishes The Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 1930, Luce Founds Fortune Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4-ix
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Contents, VOLUME 5: 1930-1937
1930 (continued) February 18, 1930, Tombaugh Discovers Pluto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 12-April 5, 1930, Gandhi Leads the Salt March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 31, 1930-1931, Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster . . . April, 1930, Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas . April 2, 1930, Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . May 30, 1930, Canadian National Parks Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 6, 1930-August 27, 1934, First Manned Bathysphere Dives . . . . . . . . . June 17, 1930, Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1930, Nation of Islam Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1930, Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception . . . . . . . August, 1930-1935, Bennett Era in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 29, 1930, Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded . . . . . . . . September, 1930, Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . September 8, 1930, Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation . . . . . . September 27, 1930, First Grand Slam of Golf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December, 1930, Du Pont Introduces Freon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 11, 1930, Bank of United States Fails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2407 2410 2414 2418 2421 2424 2427 2430 2434 2437 2440 2442 2445 2448 2452 2454 2457
1931, Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1931, Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1931-1932, Gangster Films Become Popular . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1931-1935, Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass . 1931-1941, The Group Theatre Flourishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2, 1931, Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 5, 1931, India Signs the Delhi Pact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 19, 1931, Nevada Legalizes Gambling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, 1931, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture . . March 25, 1931-July, 1937, Scottsboro Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April, 1931, First Electron Microscope Is Constructed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 14, 1931, Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 1, 1931, Empire State Building Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 8, 1931, Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 27, 1931, Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon . . . . . . . . . . . . . July, 1931, Yellow River Flood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2461 2464 2467 2471 2474 2477 2480 2483 2486 2490 2493 2496 2499 2503 2506 2509
1931
5-v
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 July 26, 1931, International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2512 November 17, 1931, Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2514 December 11, 1931, Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2517
1932 1932, Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1932, Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism . . . 1932, Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought . . . . 1932-1935, Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives . . . . . . . . 1932-1940, Development of Negritude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January-February, 1932, El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians . . . . . . . . January 7, 1932, Stimson Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 22, 1932, Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created . . . . . . . . . February, 1932, Chadwick Discovers the Neutron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 9, 1932, De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil. . . . . . . . . . . March 19, 1932, Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 23, 1932, Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations . . . . . April, 1932, Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 23, 1932, Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 23, 1932-August, 1934, Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature . May 20-21, 1932, First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman . . . . . . . . . . . July 3, 1932, Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres . . . . . . . . . . July 18, 1932, St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 21-August 21, 1932, Ottawa Agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 28, 1932, Bonus March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 1, 1932, Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . September, 1932, Anderson Discovers the Positron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 25, 1932, Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables. . October, 1932, Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November, 1932, Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure . . . . . . . . November 8, 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President . . . . . . . . December, 1932-Spring, 1934, Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union . . . . . . . Winter, 1932, Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism
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2521 2524 2527 2529 2532 2535 2538 2540 2544 2547 2549 2552 2555 2558 2562 2566 2569 2572 2575 2578 2581 2583 2586 2589 2593 2596 2599 2601
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2605 2608 2612 2615 2618 2622 2625 2628 2632
1933 1933, Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career . . . . . . . . . . 1933, Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals . . . . . . . 1933, Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs . . . . . . 1933-1934, First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed . . . . January 2, 1933, Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s . January 23, 1933, Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute January 30, 1933, Hitler Comes to Power in Germany . . . . . . . . February 24, 1933, Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations . . February 27, 1933, Reichstag Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-vi
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Contents February 28, 1933, Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor . . . . . . March, 1933, Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating . . . . . . . . . . . . March 4, 1933-1945, Good Neighbor Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 9-June 16, 1933, The Hundred Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 23, 1933, Enabling Act of 1933. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 5, 1933, U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established . . . . . . . . . . May 18, 1933, Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 16, 1933, Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System June 16, 1933, Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act . . . . . . July 6, 1933, First Major League Baseball All-Star Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 2, 1933, Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . August 11-13, 1933, Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians . . . . . . . . . September, 1933, Marshall Writes The People’s Forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 8, 1933, Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam . . . . . . . . . . . Fall, 1933-October 20, 1949, Lewis Convenes the Inklings . . . . . . . . . . . . October 18, 1933, Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation . . . . November-December, 1933, Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay November 16, 1933, United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime . . . December 8, 1933, Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous . . . . . . . . . . . . December 17, 1933, End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule . . . . . . . . . .
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2637 2640 2644 2646 2649 2652 2656 2659 2663 2667 2670 2672 2674 2678 2681 2683 2687 2690 2693 2695
1934, Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934, Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934, Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals . . . . . 1934, Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934, Squier Founds Muzak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934, Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934, Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934-1935, Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934-1938, Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy . . . . . . . . . . 1934-1939, Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934-1945, Radar Is Developed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 1934, Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed . . . . . . . . . . February 6, 1934, Stavisky Riots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 16, 1934, Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act. . . . . . . March 24, 1934, Philippine Independence Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 23, 1934, Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 6, 1934, Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established . . . . . . . . . June 10, 1934, Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress . June 18, 1934, Indian Reorganization Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 26, 1934, Federal Credit Union Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 28, 1934, Taylor Grazing Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 30-July 2, 1934, Great Blood Purge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 1, 1934, Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy . . . . . . . . . . Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953, Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine . . . . . . . . October 16, 1934-October 18, 1935, Mao’s Long March . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2697 2701 2705 2709 2713 2716 2718 2722 2725 2730 2734 2736 2740 2742 2745 2748 2750 2754 2757 2761 2764 2767 2770 2773 2777
1934
5-vii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 October 19, 1934, Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society . . November, 1934, Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons. . . . . . . December, 1934, Stalin Begins the Purge Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 1, 1934, Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts . . . . December 6, 1934, Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet . December 29, 1934, Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties . . . . . . .
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2780 2784 2786 2790 2794 2797
1935, Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes . . . . . . . . . 1935, Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1935-1936, Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January, 1935, Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength . . . . . . . . . . January, 1935, Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 1935-October 27, 1938, Carothers Invents Nylon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 12, 1935, Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York . . . . . . . February 19, 1935, Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama. . . . . . . . February 27, 1935, Temple Receives a Special Academy Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 8, 1935, Works Progress Administration Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 15, 1935, Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . April 27, 1935, Soil Conservation Service Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 27, 1935, Black Monday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 10, 1935, Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July, 1935, Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 5, 1935, Wagner Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 14, 1935, Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 23, 1935, Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control . . . . . . . . . . . August 29, 1935-June 30, 1939, Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater . . . . . . . . . August 31, 1935-November 4, 1939, Neutrality Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 6, 1935, Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team . . . . . . . . . . . . October 10, 1935, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 11, 1935-July 15, 1936, League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy . October 23, 1935-November 15, 1948, King Returns to Power in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . November-December, 1935, Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy . . . . . . . . . . November 5, 1935, Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 10, 1935, Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 27, 1935, New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2799 2802 2806 2809 2813 2816 2820 2823 2827 2830 2834 2837 2841 2843 2846 2850 2853 2857 2860 2865 2868 2871 2875 2879 2882 2885 2888 2891
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1935
1936 1936, Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core . . . . . . . . . . . . 1936, Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope . . . . . . . . . . 1936-1946, France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors . . . January-March, 1936, Consumers Union of the United States Emerges. January 1, 1936, Ford Foundation Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . January 26, 1936, Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London . . . . 5-viii
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Contents January 28, 1936, Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District February 4, 1936, Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation . . . . . . . . . . . . February 4, 1936, Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy . . . . . . February 17, 1936, Corporatism Comes to Paraguay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 7, 1936, German Troops March into the Rhineland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 11, 1936, Boulder Dam Is Completed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 15, 1936-1939, Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 19, 1936, Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . June 25, 1936, The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 17, 1936, Spanish Civil War Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 1-16, 1936, Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 2-18, 1936, Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November, 1936, Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 2, 1936, BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program . . . . . . . . November 11, 1936, Reciprocal Trade Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 23, 1936, Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 23, 1936, Luce Launches Life Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 25, 1936, Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact . . . . . . . . . . December, 1936, Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace . . . . . . . . December 10, 1936, Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2911 2915 2919 2923 2927 2930 2935 2937 2941 2945 2948 2951 2953 2956 2960 2963 2966 2969 2971 2973
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1937 1937, Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937, Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937-1938, Aalto Designs Villa Mairea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937-1939, Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes . . . . . . . . . . . January-September, 1937, Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element . . . . . . . . January, 1937-February, 1940, Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon. January 6, 1937, Embargo on Arms to Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5-ix
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Contents, VOLUME 6: 1937-1940
1937 (continued) February 5-July 22, 1937, Supreme Court-Packing Fight . . . . . . . . . . . . . March, 1937, Delaware River Project Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March, 1937, Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 14, 1937, Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism. . . . . . . . . . . . April 1, 1937, Britain Separates Burma from India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 26, 1937, Raids on Guernica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 6, 1937, Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 26, 1937, Egypt Joins the League of Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 27, 1937, Golden Gate Bridge Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June, 1937, Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever . . . . . . . . . . . June-September, 1937, Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope. . . . June 2, 1937, Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July, 1937, Picasso Exhibits Guernica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 7, 1937, China Declares War on Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 19-November 30, 1937, Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition August 17, 1937, Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance . . . . September, 1937, Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 2, 1937, Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding . . . Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938, Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man . . . October, 1937, The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers . . . . December, 1937-February, 1938, Rape of Nanjing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 21, 1937, Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . . . . .
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3066 3069 3072 3076 3079 3083 3087 3090 3093 3096 3098
1938 1938, Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1938, Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide 1938, Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25 . . . . . . . . 1938, John Muir Trail Is Completed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1938-1950, Golden Age of American Science Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January, 1938, Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 4, 1938, Our Town Opens on Broadway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 10, 1938, Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . February 12-April 10, 1938, The Anschluss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 3, 1938, Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia . . . . . . . . March 18, 1938, Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties . . . . . . . . . . . 6-v
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 March 21, 1938, Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising . . April, 1938, Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia . . . . April 5, 1938, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 26, 1938, HUAC Is Established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 7, 1938, Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees . . . . . . . . . . . June 21, 1938, Natural Gas Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 25, 1938, Fair Labor Standards Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 25, 1938, Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 6-15, 1938, Evian Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 17, 1938, First Grand Slam of Tennis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 29-30, 1938, Munich Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 5, 1938, Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 22, 1938, Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy . October 30, 1938, Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds . . . . . . . . . . November 9-10, 1938, Kristallnacht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December, 1938, Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 10, 1938, Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. . . . . . . .
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3149 3152 3156 3159 3163 3166 3170 3173 3176 3180 3184 3186 3190 3193 3195 3198 3201 3205 3209 3213 3215 3219 3223
1939 1939, Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique . . . . . . . . 1939, Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1939, Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT . . . . . . . . . 1939-1945, Nazi Extermination of the Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1939-1949, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music. January 2, 1939, Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall . . . . February 15, 1939, Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes . . March 2, 1939, Pius XII Becomes Pope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 31, 1939, Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins . . . . . . . . . . . April, 1939, The Grapes of Wrath Portrays Depression-Era America . . . . April 7, 1939, Italy Invades and Annexes Albania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 30, 1939, American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair . . . . . . May 16, 1939, First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins . . . . . . . . . . . June 12, 1939, Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame. . . . . . . . . . . Summer, 1939, Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church . . . . . . August, 1939, United States Begins Mobilization for World War II . . . . August 17, 1939, The Wizard of Oz Premieres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 23-24, 1939, Nazi-Soviet Pact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 1, 1939, Germany Invades Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 10, 1939, Canada Enters World War II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 1, 1939, Rockefeller Center Is Completed . . . . . . . . . . . . November 30, 1939-March 12, 1940, Russo-Finnish War . . . . . . . . . . December 15, 1939, Gone with the Wind Premieres . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6-vi
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Contents
1940 1940, García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1940, Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1940-1941, Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images. . . . . . . . . . . . April-May, 1940, Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War . . . . . . . . . . . April 9, 1940, Germany Invades Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May, 1940, Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic . . . . . . . . May, 1940, Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning . . . . May 10-June 22, 1940, Collapse of France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 16, 1940-1944, Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps . . . . . . May 26-June 4, 1940, Evacuation of Dunkirk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 14, 1940, United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy . . . . . . . . June 30, 1940, Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic July 1, 1940, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 10-October 31, 1940, Battle of Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August, 1940, Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere . . . August 3, 1940-March, 1941, Italy Invades British Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . August 16, 1940, Ogdensburg Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September, 1940, Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 1, 1940, First Color Television Broadcast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 12, 1940, Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered . . . . . . . . . . September 13, 1940, Italy Invades Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 7, 1940, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 13, 1940, Disney’s Fantasia Premieres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December, 1940, Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism . . . . . . . December 30, 1940, Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles . . . . . . . .
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Appendixes Bibliography . . . . . . . . . Electronic Resources . . . . . Chronological List of Entries . Geographical Index . . . . . . Category Index . . . . . . . .
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Indexes Personages Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXXVIII
6-vii
Publisher’s Note cluded, plus new appendixes, numerous sidebars, quotations from primary source documents, lists, maps, and illustrations.
Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940, is the eighth installment in Salem Press’s ongoing Great Events from History series, which was initiated in 2004 with the two-volume Great Events from History: The Ancient World, Prehistory-476, followed by The Middle Ages, 477-1453 (2 vols., 2005), The Renaissance & Early Modern Era, 1454-1600 (2 vols., 2005), The Seventeenth Century, 1601-1700 (2 vols., 2006), The Eighteenth Century, 1701-1800 (2 vols., 2006), The Nineteenth Century, 1801-1900 (4 vols., 2007), and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Events (2 vols., Fall 2007). In 2008, twelve more volumes will join the series: The 20th Century, 1941-1970 and The 20th Century, 1971-2000—bringing the total number of events covered to more than 5,000.
Scope of Coverage The early twentieth century receives worldwide coverage with the priority of meeting the needs of history students at the high school and undergraduate levels. The events covered include the curriculum-oriented geopolitical events of the era—from World War I (1914-1918) and the Russian Revolution (1917) to the rise of the German Nazi Party , the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the eruption of World War II in Europe (1939). Essays also address important social and cultural developments in daily life: major literary movements, significant developments in art and music, trends in immigration, and landmark social legislation. Among the many broad subjects that receive extensive coverage are Europe’s changing political divisions and shifting alliances, the struggles of women around the world to gain the right to vote, the development of trade unionism and the labor movement, and the global impacts of the Great Depression. The early twentieth century was also a time of immense advances in science and technology—discoveries and innovations that rival those of later years for the fundamental changes they brought to daily lives. At the beginning of the century, aviation was in its infancy and the automotive industry was just beginning. By 1940, passenger air travel was safe and increasingly affordable, and automobiles had become reliable and ubiquitous. The drudgery of housework was lightened with the invention of such appliances as the vacuum cleaner and the electric washing machine, and the development of radio broadcasting and talking motion pictures changed how many people spent their leisure time. Advances in medicine during this period were groundbreaking: In addition to the discovery of penicillin, scientists learned the causes of and developed vaccines, treatments, and tests for numerous diseases, including yellow fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, syphilis, and diabetes. Discoveries in astronomy led to a greater understanding of the universe and Earth’s place within it, and physicists such as Albert Einstein developed theories that pointed the way to the nuclear age.
Expanded Coverage Like the rest of the series, the six current volumes represent both a revision and a significant expansion of the material on the early twentieth century in the twelvevolume Great Events from History (1972-1980). The present set incorporates virtually all the essays on the early twentieth century from the Chronology of European History: 15,000 B.C. to 1997 (3 vols., 1997); Great Events from History: North American Series, Revised Edition (4 vols., 1997); and Great Events from History II (20 vols., 1991-1995). These volumes form the foundation on which the new and greatly expanded series is built. However, that foundation now forms only a fraction of the whole. Across the entire new series, more than one-third of the text will be completely new. In addition, the new series adds hundreds of illustrations, tables, primary source documents, lists, appendixes, and finding aids in the form of keyword, geographic, categorized, personage, and subject indexes. The new content in the current installment, The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940, constitutes one-quarter of the original set: To the 830 original essays we have added 207 completely new essays—commissioned especially for the new series and appearing here for the first time— for a total of 1,037 essays. Bibliographies for all the old essays have been expanded and updated, and all essays are cross-referenced internally. A section containing maps of world regions in the early twentieth century is inxi
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dia (12), Indochina (1), Indonesia (1), Iran (4), Iraq (3), Ireland (12), Italy (28), Japan (12), Java (1), Kenya (1), Korea (2), Laos (1), Latin America (20), Latvia (1), Libya (1), Lithuania (2), Macedonia (2), Manchuria (2), Martinique (2), Mexico (6), Moldovia (1), Mongolia (1), Montenegro (1), Morocco (3), Namibia (1), Netherlands (11), New Zealand (5), Nicaragua (1), Nigeria (2), North Pole (1), Norway (6), Ottoman Empire (8), Palestine (4), Panama (5), Paraguay (1), Peru (2), Philippines (2), Poland (9), Portugal (3), Rhodesia (1), Romania (1), Russia (54), Saudi Arabia (2), Scotland (3), Senegal (1), Serbia (2), Sierra Leone (1), Slovenia (1), Somalia (2), South Africa (6), South Asia (12), South Pole (1), Southeast Asia (6), Soviet Union (4), Spain (7), Sweden (9), Switzerland (18), Tanganyika (1), Tibet (2), Turkey (8), Uganda (1), Ukraine (4), United States (487), Venezuela (1), Vietnam (1), Wales (4), Worldwide (2), Yugoslavia (1), and Zimbabwe (1).
By category, the contents of the set include events that fall into one or more of the following areas (many essays are counted under more than one category): Agriculture (12 essays), Anthropology (8), Archaeology (6), Architecture (13), Arts (37), Astronomy (32), Atrocities and war crimes (23), Banking and finance (18), Biology (32), Business and labor (72), Chemistry (26), Civil rights and liberties (54), Colonialism and occupation (41), Communications and media (20), Computers and computer science (3), Crime and scandal (14), Dance (15), Diplomacy and international relations (100), Disasters (14), Earth science (23), Economics (38), Education (12), Energy (13), Engineering (15), Entertainment (25), Environmental issues (59), Expansion and land acquisition (26), Exploration and discovery (5), Fashion and design (12), Genetics (10), Geography (2), Geology (9), Government and politics (173), Health and medicine (58), Historiography (5), Human rights (18), Humanitarianism and philanthropy (8), Immigration, emigration, and relocation (12), Independence movements (20), Indigenous peoples’ rights (20), Inventions (50), Laws, acts, and legal history (109), Literature (52), Manufacturing and industry (18), Marketing and advertising (10), Mathematics (16), Military history (28), Monuments (2), Motion pictures (41), Music (47), Natural resources (30), Organizations and institutions (102), Philosophy (15), Photography (5), Physics (52), Prehistory and ancient cultures (9), Psychology and psychiatry (8), Publishing and journalism (61), Radio and television (20), Religion, theology, and ethics (28), Science and technology (194), Social issues and reform (69), Sociology (5), Space and aviation (17), Sports (20), Terrorism (8), Theater (22), Trade and commerce (80), Transportation (32), Travel and recreation (3), Urban planning (7), Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest (100), Women’s issues (33), World War I (24), and World War II (22). The scope of this set is equally broad geographically, with essays on events associated with these modern countries and world regions: Africa (27 essays), Albania (1), Antarctica (2), Arctic (1), Argentina (1), Armenia (1), Atlantic Ocean (3), Australia (9), Austria (19), Balkans (8), Belarus (2), Belgium (4), Bohemia (1), Bolivia (1), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2), Botswana (1), Bulgaria (2), Burma (1), Cambodia (1), Canada (30), Caribbean (4), Chile (1), China (12), Congo (1), Corfu (1), Croatia (2), Cuba (2), Cyprus (1), Czechoslovakia (3), Denmark (7), Djibouti (1), East Asia (25), Egypt (5), El Salvador (1), England (104), Estonia (1), Ethiopia (1), Europe (5), Finland (5), France (92), French Guiana (1), Gambia (1), Germany (104), Ghana (1), Greece (3), Hungary (4), In-
Essay Length and Format The essays have an average length of 2,000 words (2-4 pages) and adhere to a uniform format. The readyreference top matter of every essay prominently displays the following information: • the most precise date (or date range) of the event • the common name of the event • a summary paragraph that identifies the event and encapsulates its significance • where appropriate, any also-known-as name for the event • the locale, or where the event occurred, including both early twentieth century and, as relevant, modern placenames • the categories, or the type of event covered, from Arts to Government and Politics to Military History to Transportation • Key Figures, a list of the major people involved in the event, with birth and death dates, brief descriptors, and regnal dates or terms of office where applicable The text of each essay is divided into these sections: • Summary of Event, devoted to a chronological description of the facts of the event • Significance, assessing the event’s historical impact • Further Reading, an annotated list of sources for further study • See also, cross-references to other essays within this Great Events set xii
Publisher’s Note Special Features A section of historical maps appears in the front matter of each volume, displaying world regions in the early twentieth century to assist readers in placing the events’ locales. Accompanying the individual essays are an additional 80 maps, quotations from primary source documents, lists, and time lines—as well as more than 500 illustrations: images of artworks, battles, buildings, people, and other icons of the period. Because the set is ordered chronologically, a Keyword List of Contents appears in the front matter to each volume that lists all essays alphabetically, permuted by all keywords in the essays’ titles, to assist readers in locating events by name. In addition, several research aids appear as appendixes at the end of Volume 6:
words in this set follow the American Library Association and Library of Congress (ALA-LC) transliteration format for that language. However, if another form of a name or word is judged to be more familiar to the general audience, it is used instead. Pinyin transliterations are used for Chinese topics, with Wade-Giles variants provided for major names and dynasties; in a few cases, common names that are not Pinyin are used. Sanskrit and other South Asian names generally follow the ALA-LC transliteration rules, although more familiar forms of names are used when deemed appropriate for general readers. Titles of books and other literature appear, upon first mention in each essay, with their full publication and translation data as known: an indication of the first date of publication or appearance, followed by the English title in translation and its first date of appearance in English. If no translation has been published in English, and if the context of the discussion does not make the meaning of the title obvious, a “literal translation” appears in roman type. In the listing of Key Figures and in parenthetical material within the text, “r.” stands for “reigned,” “b.” for “born,” “d.” for “died,” and “fl.” for flourished. Wherever date ranges, such as “1823-1877,” appear appended to names with none of these designators, readers may assume that they signify birth and death dates or, where the contexts indicate, terms of office not considered “reigns.”
• The Bibliography cites major sources on the period. • Electronic Resources provides URLs and descriptions of Web sites and other online resources devoted to period studies. • The Chronological List of Entries organizes the contents chronologically in one place for ease of reference. Four indexes round out the set: • The Geographical Index lists essays by regions and countries. • The Category Index lists essays by types of event, such as Agriculture, Architecture, and Arts. • The Personages Index includes major personages discussed throughout. • The Subject Index includes persons, concepts, terms, battles, works of literature, inventions, organizations, artworks, musical compositions, and many other topics of discussion.
The Contributors Salem Press would like to extend its appreciation to all who have been involved in the development and production of this work. Special thanks go to Professor Robert F. Gorman at Southwest Texas State University, who developed the contents list and coverage notes for contributing writers to ensure the set’s relevance to the high school and undergraduate curricula. The essays were written and signed by 568 historians, political scientists, and scholars of regional studies as well as independent scholars. Without their expert contributions, a project of this nature would not be possible. A full list of their names and affiliations appears in the front matter of this volume.
Usage Notes The worldwide scope of Great Events from History often results in the inclusion of names and words that must be transliterated from languages that do not use the Roman alphabet, and in some cases more than one system of transliteration exists. In many cases, transliterated
xiii
Contributors Wayne Ackerson
JoAnn Balingit
S. Carol Berg
Salisbury State University
Bancroft Intermediate School
College of St. Benedict
Michael Adams
Mary Pat Balkus
Jack Bermingham
CUNY Graduate Center
Radford University
Pacific Lutheran University
Bland Addison
Jane L. Ball
Christopher J. Biermann
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Wilberforce University
Oregon State University
Richard Adler
Grace A. Banks
John W. Biles
University of Michigan—Dearborn
Chestnut Hill College
Sam Houston State University
Peggy E. Alford
Art Barbeau
Robert E. Biles
Eastern Oregon University
West Liberty State College
Sam Houston State University
Patricia Alkema
Russell J. Barber
Cynthia A. Bily
Independent Scholar
California State University, San Bernardino
Adrian College
Craig W. Allin Cornell College
Nicholas Birns David Barratt
New School University
Independent Scholar
Emily Alward Henderson, NV District Libraries
Michael S. Bisesi Carole A. Barrett
Medical College of Ohio
University of Mary
Michael S. Ameigh SUNY, College at Oswego
Kent Blaser Richard Barrett
Wayne State University
University College of the Cariboo
James H. Anderson Somerset Community College
Wayne M. Bledsoe Thomas F. Barry
University of Missouri, Rolla
Himeji Dokkyo University
Madeline C. Archer Duquesne University
Devon Boan Kathleen M. Bartlett
Belmont University
Florida Institute of Technology
Christina Ashton Independent Scholar
Paul R. Boehlke Rose A. Bast
Wisconsin Lutheran College
Mount Mary College
Mary Welek Atwell Radford University
Nathaniel Boggs Jonathan Bean
Alabama State University
Southern Illinois University
James A. Baer Northern Virginia Community College
James J. Bolner Bruce Andre Beaubouef University of Houston
Louisiana State University, New Orleans
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Erving E. Beauregard
Margaret F. Boorstein
University of Dayton
C. W. Post College of Long Island University
Sue Bailey
Richard P. Benton
Tennessee Technological University
Trinity College
Nancy R. Bain
Charles Merrell Berg
Ohio University
University of Kansas
Siva Balasubramanian
Meredith William Berg
Southern Illinois University
Valparaiso University
Amanda J. Bahr-Evola
Lucy Jayne Botscharow Northeastern Illinois University
Gordon L. Bowen Mary Baldwin College
John Boyd Appalachian State University
xv
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 William Boyle
Michael H. Burchett
Dennis Chamberland
SUNY, College at New Paltz
Limestone College
Independent Scholar
Michael R. Bradley
John T. Burns
Frederick B. Chary
Motlow State Community College
Bethany College
Indiana University Northwest
John Braeman
William H. Burnside
John Dennis Chasse
University of Nebraska
John Brown University
SUNY, College at Brockport
Anthony D. Branch
Susan Butterworth
Victor W. Chen
Golden Gate University
Salem State College
Chabot College
Cynthia L. Breslin
Joseph P. Byrne
David L. Chesemore
Independent Scholar
Belmont University
California State University, Fresno
Thomas C. Breslin
Sherry Cable
Judy Arlis Chesen
California State University, Northridge
University of Tennessee
Capital University
Charles Cameron
S. M. Chiu
Independent Scholar
Temple University
Gary A. Campbell
Lawrence I. Clark
Michigan Technological University
Independent Scholar
Edmund J. Campion
Richard H. Collin
University of Tennessee
Louisiana State University, New Orleans
Elise M. Bright University of Texas at Arlington
John A. Britton Francis Marion University
William S. Brockington, Jr. University of South Carolina—Aiken
Byron D. Cannon Alan Brown
University of Utah
Jaime S. Colome
Richard K. Caputo
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Livingston University
Daniel Brown
Yeshiva University
James J. Cooke
California State University, Fullerton
Jon R. Carpenter Kenneth H. Brown
University of South Dakota
Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Brian J. Carroll
University of Mississippi
Richard G. Cormack Independent Scholar
California Baptist College
Robert W. Brown Pembroke State University
Albert B. Costa James A. Carroll
Duquesne University
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Dallas L. Browne
Maureen Needham Costonis
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Fred V. Carstensen
Laura R. Broyles
P. John Carter
Independent Scholar
St. Cloud University
Michael L. Broyles
Nicholas A. Casner
Collin County Community College
Boise State University
Susan J. Buck
Gilbert T. Cave
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Lakeland Community College
Vanderbilt University
University of Connecticut
John K. Cox Wheeling Jesuit University
Mark S. Coyne University of Kentucky
John R. Crawford Kent State University
Norma Crews Elisabeth A. Cawthon
Mary Louise Buley-Meissner
Independent Scholar
University of Texas at Arlington
Richard A. Crooker
University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee
E. L. Cerroni-Long Eastern Michigan University
xvi
Kutztown University
Contributors LouAnn Faris Culley
Marcia B. Dinneen
Chiarella Esposito
Kansas State University
Bridgewater State College
University of Mississippi
Marsha Daigle-Williamson
Daniel D. DiPiazza
James Feast
Spring Arbor University
University of Wisconsin
Baruch College, CUNY
Frederick E. Danker
J. R. Donath
Elizabeth Fee
University of Massachusetts, Boston
California State University, Sacramento
The Johns Hopkins University
Sudipta Das Southern University at New Orleans
Randall Fegley Georgie Donovan
Pennsylvania State University
Appalachian State University
Edward J. Davies II University of Utah
John W. Fiero Daniel J. Doyle
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Pennsylvania College of Technology
Jennifer Davis University of Dayton
K. Thomas Finley John Duffy
SUNY, College at Brockport
University of Maryland
Mary Virginia Davis University of California, Davis
Patrick Fisher Joyce Duncan
Seton Hall University
East Tennessee State University
Nathaniel Davis Harvey Mudd College
Nancy Elizabeth Fitch John P. Dunn
Randolph Macon Woman’s College
Valdosta State University
Scott A. Davis Mansfield University
Richard D. Fitzgerald Steven I. Dutch
Onondaga Community College
University of Wisconsin—Green Bay
Frank Day Clemson University
Dale L. Flesher Jennifer Eastman
University of Mississippi
Clark University
Dennis R. Dean University of Wisconsin—Parkside
Donald W. Floyd Robert R. Ebert
SUNY—ESF
Baldwin-Wallace College
John H. DeBerry Memphis State University
George J. Flynn Samuel K. Eddy
SUNY, College at Plattsburgh
Syracuse University
Bruce J. DeHart
George Q. Flynn
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
David G. Egler
David L. DeHart
George R. Ehrhardt
Appalachian State University
Elon University
Bill Delaney
Satch Ejike
Independent Scholar
Independent Scholar
Joseph Dewey
Eric Elder
University of Pittsburgh—Johnstown
Northwestern College
Tom Dewey II
Corinne Elliott
University of Mississippi—Oxford
Montana Institute of the Arts
Jeffrey R. DiLeo
Robert P. Ellis
Indiana University
Worcester State College
Lesa Dill
Peter C. Engelman
Western Kentucky University
New York University
Univesity of Miami
Western Illinois University
William B. Folkestad Central Washington University
Robert G. Font Font Geosciences Consulting
Michael J. Fontenot Southern University at Baton Rouge
John M. Foran Independent Scholar
Robert J. Frail Centenary College
David Francis University of Washington
Ronald K. Frank Pace University
xvii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 John K. Franklin
Nancy M. Gordon
Gillian Greenhill Hannum
Graceland University
Independent Scholar
Manhattanville College
Gregory Freeland
Robert F. Gorman
Claude Hargrove
California Lutheran University
Southwest Texas State University
Fayetteville State University
Susan Frischer
Margaret Bozenna Goscilo
Stephen A. Harmon
Independent Scholar
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburg State University
John F. Gamber, Jr.
Lewis L. Gould
William Harrigan
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
University of Texas at Austin
Canisius College
Hans G. Graetzer
Jasper L. Harris
South Dakota State University
North Carolina Central University
Noreen A. Grice
Fred R. van Hartesveldt
You Can Do Astronomy LLC
Fort Valley State College
Jimmie F. Gross
Baban Hasnat
Armstrong State College
SUNY, College at Brockport
Gershon B. Grunfeld
David Haugen
Southern Illinois University
Western Illinois University
Scot M. Guenter
Robert M. Hawthorne, Jr.
San Jose State University
Unity College in Miami
Daniel L. Guillory
James Hayes-Bohanan
Millikin University
Bridgewater State College
Lonnie J. Guralnick
Hans Heilbronner
Western Oregon University
University of New Hampshire
Robert E. Haag
Bernadette Zbicki Heiney
Naugatuck Valley Community College
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania
Eugene Garaventa CUNY, College of Staten Island
John C. Gardner Delaware State College
Keith Garebian Independent Scholar
Thomas P. Gariepy Stonehill College
Mitchel Gerber Southeast Missouri State University
Judith R. Gibber New York University
Karl Giberson Eastern Nazarene College
Paul Giles Portland State University
Lawrence W. Haapanen Jane M. Gilliland
Lewis-Clark State College
Butler County Community College
John A. Heitmann University of Dayton
James M. Haas K. Fred Gillum
Southern Illinois University
Colby College
Peter B. Heller Manhattan College
Cathy Moran Hajo Donald Gilman
New York University
Ball State University
Terry Heller Coe College
Irwin Halfond Richard Goedde
McKendree College
St. Olaf College
Arthur W. Helweg Western Michigan University
Celia Hall-Thur Sheldon Goldfarb
Wenatchee Valley College
University of British Columbia
Michael F. Hembree Florida State University
Glenn S. Hamilton Harold Goldwhite
University of Central Oklahoma
California State University, Los Angeles
Susan E. Hamilton
New Mexico State University University of Hawaii at Hilo
Douglas Gomery University of Maryland
Diane Lise Hendrix Howard M. Hensel USAF—Air War College
Mark D. Hanna Miami University
xviii
Contributors Charles E. Herdendorf
Julapa Jagtiani
Joseph C. Kiger
Ohio State University
Syracuse University
University of Mississippi
Mark C. Herman
Duncan R. Jamieson
Leigh Husband Kimmel
Edison College
Ashland University
Independent Scholar
Kay Hively
Elizabeth Jarnagin
Richard D. King
Independent Scholar
Drew University
Ursinus College
Carl W. Hoagstrom
Albert C. Jensen
Vernon N. Kisling, Jr.
Ohio Northern University
Central Florida Community College
University of Florida
David Wason Hollar, Jr.
Jeffrey A. Joens
Benjamin J. Klebaner
Rockingham Community College
Florida International University
City College of CUNY
Donald Holley
Richard C. Jones
Jim Kline
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Texas Woman’s University
Independent Scholar
Thomas W. Judd
Robert T. Klose
SUNY, College at Oswego
University College of Bangor
Pamela R. Justice
Douglas Knerr
Collin County Community College
University of Cincinnati
Richard C. Kagan
John P. Koch
Hamline University
Independent Scholar
Rajiv Kalra
Grove Koger
Minnesota State University, Moorhead
Boise Public Library, Idaho
Mathew Kanjirathinkal
Kevin B. Korb
Park University
Indiana University
Burton Kaufman
Ludwik Kowalski
Kansas State University
Montclair State University
Edward P. Keleher
Gregory C. Kozlowski
Purdue University—Calumet
DePaul University
Timothy Kelly
Robin M. Krause
Chatham College
Clark University
Dan Kennedy
Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel
Independent Scholar
Auburn University at Montgomery
William B. Kennedy
Lynn Kronzek
Clarion University
University of Judaism
John P. Kenny
Rebecca Kuzins
Bradley University
Independent Scholar
Christine Kiebuzinska
Marc J. LaFountain
Virginia Tech
State University of West Georgia
Diann S. Kiesel
Craig B. Lagrone
University of Wisconsin Center— Baraboo/Sauk County
O.I. Analytical, CMS Field Products
Kimberley M. Holloway King College
John R. Holmes Franciscan University of Steubenville
Earl G. Hoover Independent Scholar
Glenn Hopp Howard Payne University
Ruth H. Howes Ball State University
Mary Hrovat Indiana University
David Hsu Boston University
Marsha M. Huber Otterbein College
Ronald K. Huch Eastern Kentucky University
Raymond Pierre Hylton Virginia Union University
John Quinn Imholte University of Minnesota, Morris
Margot Irvine University of Guelph
John Jacob Northwestern University
Gary Land Andrews University
xix
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Linda Rochell Lane
R. M. Longyear
V. L. Madhyastha
Tuskegee University
University of Kentucky
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Ralph L. Langenheim, Jr.
Janet Lorenz
Paul D. Mageli
University of Illinois—Urbana
Independent Scholar
Independent Scholar
Karl G. Larew
Renée Love
Frank N. Magill
Towson University
Lander University
University of Southern California
Caroline Godwin Larson
Robert Lovely
David W. Maguire
Independent Scholar
University of Wisconsin—Madison
C. S. Mott Community College
Eugene Larson
David C. Lukowitz
Joseph T. Malloy
Los Angeles Pierce College
Hamline University
Hamilton College
William Laskowski
R. C. Lutz
Laura Gray Malloy
Jamestown College
CII
Bates College
Donald L. Layton
Robert G. Lynch
Nancy Malloy
Indiana State University
University of Dallas
Smithsonian Institution
Douglas A. Lea
Judith N. McArthur
Nancy Farm Mannikko
Kutztown University
University of Houston—Victoria
National Park Service
Katherine Lederer
Michael McAsey
Gregory P. Marchildon
Southwest Missouri State University
Bradley University
The Johns Hopkins University
Daniel Y. Lee
William M. McBride
Carl Henry Marcoux
Shippensburg University
U. S. Naval Academy
University of California, Riverside
Douglas A. Lee
Janet McCann
S. A. Marino
Vanderbilt University
Texas A&M University
SUNY, Westchester Community College
Jim Lee
Sandra C. McClain
Fort Hays State University
James Madison University
Joseph Edward Lee
Branden C. McCullough
Winthrop University
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
James D. Matthews
Richard D. McGhee
Laurence W. Mazzeno
Arkansas State University
Alvernia College
Roderick McGillis
Barbara J. Messamore
University of Calgary
University College of the Fraser Valley
Renée Marlin-Bennett American University Lynn University
Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux St. Louis University
Saul Lerner Purdue University—Calumet
Leon Lewis Appalachian State University
James Edward McGoldrick Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Michael W. Messmer
Thomas Tandy Lewis
William J. McKinney
Hwa Soon Choi Meyer
Indiana University
Seton Hall University
John L. McLean
Andre Millard
Missouri Valley College
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Paul Madden
Ken Millen-Penn
Hardin-Simmons University
Fairmont State University
Virginia Commonwealth University
St. Cloud State University
Guoli Liu College of Charleston
James Livingston Northern Michigan University
Roger D. Long Eastern Michigan University
xx
Contributors Gordon L. Miller
Anthony J. Nicastro
William E. Pemberton
Independent Scholar
West Chester University
University of Wisconsin—La Crosse
Liesel Ashley Miller
Terry Nienhuis
Robert T. Pennock
Mississippi State University
Western Carolina University
University of Pittsburgh
Randall L. Milstein
Joseph L. Nogee
Louis G. Perez
Oregon State University
University of Houston
Illinois State University
George R. Mitchell
Burl L. Noggle
Toni A. Perrine
Purdue University
Louisiana State University
Grand Valley State University
Ellen F. Mitchum
Edward B. Nuhfer
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Space Center
University of Wisconsin—Platteville
Independent Scholar
Rex O. Mooney
Anthony Patrick O’Brien
Nis Petersen
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Lehigh University
New Jersey City University
Charles H. O’Brien
Alan Prescott Peterson
Western Illinois University
Gordon College
George O’Brien
John R. Phillips
Georgetown University
Purdue University—Calumet
John F. O’Connell
Donald K. Pickens
College of the Holy Cross
University of North Texas
Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie
Steven L. Piott
Oklahoma Baptist University
Clarion University
Robert J. Paradowski
Troy Place
Rochester Institute of Technology
Western Michigan University
Gordon A. Parker
Marguerite R. Plummer
University of Michigan—Dearborn
Louisiana State University, Shreveport
David B. Parsell
Marjorie J. Podolsky
Furman University
Penn State—Erie, The Behrend College
Christina J. Moose Independent Scholar
Otto H. Muller Alfred University
Turhon A. Murad California State University, Chico
Charles Murphy Independent Scholar
Alice Myers Simon’s Rock College of Bard
John Myers Simon’s Rock College of Bard
Robert A. Nagy University of Wisconsin—Green Bay
Judith A. Parsons Indira Nair
Sul Ross State University
Carnegie Mellon
Francis Poole University of Delaware
Steven K. Paulson William T. Neese
University of North Florida
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Laurence M. Porter Michigan State University
D. G. Paz William Nelles
University of North Texas
University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
P. Ann Peake
North Central University East Tennessee State University
Byron Nelson West Virginia University
Auburn University
Victoria Price
King College
Lamar University
Constance A. Pedoto James W. Pringle
Miles College
Peter Neushul California Institute of Technology
Edmund Dickenson Potter
Thomas P. Peake
Bryan Ness Pacific Union College
Josephine K. Portillo
Purdue University
William A. Pelz Institute of Working Class History
xxi
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Carolyn V. Prorok
Russell Roberts
José M. Sánchez
Slippery Rock University
Independent Scholar
Saint Louis University
George F. Putnam
Charles W. Rogers
Vicki A. Sanders
University of Missouri—Saint Louis
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Riverside Military Academy
Wen-yuan Qian Blackburn College
Richard Sax Daniel W. Rogers
Fort Lewis College
Somerset Community College
Edna B. Quinn Salisbury University
Daniel C. Scavone Deborah L. Rogers
University of Southern Indiana
University of Maine
Gregory P. Rabb Jamestown Community College
Jean Owens Schaefer Karl A. Roider
University of Wyoming
Louisiana State University
Nancy J. Rabolt San Francisco State University
Elizabeth D. Schafer Douglas Rollins
Independent Scholar
Dawson College
Srinivasan Ragothaman University of South Dakota
William J. Scheick Jill Rollins
University of Texas at Austin
Trafalgar College
Cat Rambo Independent Scholar
Rosemary Scheirer Carl Rollyson
Chestnut Hill College
Baruch College, CUNY
Steven J. Ramold Eastern Michigan University
Beverly Schneller Evelyn Romig
Millersville University
Howard Payne University
R. Kent Rasmussen Independent Scholar
Harold A. Schofield Robert E. Rosacker
Colorado Women’s College
University of South Dakota
Eugene L. Rasor Emory & Henry College
Joseph A. Schufle Paul Rosefeldt
New Mexico Highlands University
Delgado Community College
Kevin B. Reid
Larry Schweikart
Henderson Community College
Courtney B. Ross
University of Dayton
Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Elizabeth L. Scully
Charleston Southern University
University of Texas at Arlington
John K. Roth Ralf Erik Remshardt
Claremont McKenna College
University of Florida
Robert W. Seidel Los Alamos National Laboratory
René R. Roth H. William Rice
University of Western Ontario
Shorter College
Nancy J. Sell University of Wisconsin—Green Bay
Emanuel D. Rudolph Betty Richardson
Ohio State University
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr.
University of Wisconsin Towson University
Douglas W. Richmond University of Texas at Arlington
Indiana University Indiana University at Kokomo
Arthur G. Sharp Independent Scholar
Virginia L. Salmon Northeast State Community College
Brian L. Roberts Northeast Louisiana University
Roger Sensenbaugh
Allen Safianow
Edward J. Rielly Saint Joseph’s College of Maine
Alfred Erich Senn
Martha A. Sherwood University of Oregon
M. David Samson Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Paul A. Shoemaker University of Nebraska
xxii
Contributors Thomas E. Shriver
Christy Jo Snider
Irene Struthers
University of Tennessee
Berry College
Independent Scholar
Stephen J. Shulik
Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Taylor Stults
Clarion University
Independent Scholar
Muskingum College
R. Baird Shuman
A. J. Sobczak
Susan A. Stussy
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign
Independent Scholar
Independent Scholar
Robert Sobel
Donald Sullivan
New College of Hofstra University
University of New Mexico
John A. Sondey
James Sullivan
South Dakota State University
California State University, Los Angeles
Patricia J. Siegel SUNY, College at Brockport
Catherine Sim College of Marin—Kentfield
Sonia Sorrell Donald C. Simmons, Jr.
Pepperdine University
South Dakota Humanities Council
Timothy E. Sullivan Towson University
Ronald N. Spector Sanford S. Singer
Office of the Chief of Military History
University of Dayton
Cynthia J. W. Svoboda Bridgewater State College
Joseph L. Spradley Paul P. Sipiera
Wheaton College
William Rainey Harper College
Frederic Svoboda University of Michigan—Flint
Michael A. Steele Shumet Sishagne
Wilkes University
Christopher Newport University
J. K. Sweeney South Dakota State University
Leon Stein Amy Sisson
Roosevelt University
University of Houston—Clear Lake
Robert M. Swerdlow New York University
James H. Steinel Andrew C. Skinner
St. John’s University, New York
Brigham Young University
Glenn L. Swygart Tennessee Temple University
David L. Sterling Claudena M. Skran
University of Cincinnati
Lawrence University
Larry N. Sypolt West Virginia University
Joan C. Stevenson Genevieve Slomski
Western Washington University
Renée Taft
Martin V. Stewart
Council for the International Exchange of Scholars
Independent Scholar
Clyde Curry Smith
Middle Tennessee State University
Robert D. Talbott
University of Wisconsin
Paul Stewart
University of Northern Iowa
Clyde J. Smith
Southern Connecticut State University
South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics
Ruby L. Stoner
Joyce Tang University of California, Berkeley
Independent Scholar
Gary Scott Smith Grove City College
Gerardo G. Tango Carmen Stonge
Consulting Geophysicist
Duquesne University
Harold L. Smith University of Houston—Victoria
Eric R. Taylor Gerald H. Strauss
University of Southern Louisiana
Bloomsburg University
Steven Smith University of Virginia
Nancy Conn Terjesen Geralyn Strecker
Kent State University
Ball State University
Thomas M. Smith University of Oklahoma
Wilfred Theisen Fred Strickert
St. John’s Abbey
Wartburg College
xxiii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Terry Theodore
Harry E. Wade
Cynthia J. Williams
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
East Texas State University
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Thomas J. Edward Walker
Philip F. Williams
Pennsylvania College of Technology
Arizona State University
William T. Walker
Bradley R. A. Wilson
Chestnut Hill College
University of Cincinnati
Theodore O. Wallin
John Wilson
Syracuse University
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Peter J. Walsh
Nathan Wilson
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Independent Scholar
Shawncey Webb
Raymond Wilson
Taylor University
Fort Hays State University
Ivan Weinel
Theodore A. Wilson
Independent Scholar
University of Kansas
Henry G. Weisser
John D. Windhausen
Colorado State University
St. Anselm College
T. K. Welliver
Michael Witkoski
Clarion University of Pennsylvania
University of South Carolina
James M. Welsh
Shawn Woodyard
Salisbury State University
Independent Scholar
Winifred O. Whelan
Scott Wright
St. Bonaventure University
University of St. Thomas
Thomas L. Whigham
Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes
University of Georgia
Indiana University
D. Anthony White
Rassoul Yazdipour
Sonoma State University
Academy of Entrepreneurial Finance, Los Angeles
Maxine S. Theodoulou The Union Institute
Ann Thompson Independent Scholar
Eric Thompson Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi
H. Christian Thorup Cuesta College
Leslie V. Tischauser Prairie State College
Ryan M. Touhey University of Waterloo
Alecia C. Townsend Price Waterhouse
Anh Tran Wichita State University
Paul B. Trescott Southern Illinois University
Anne Trotter Rosemont College
William M. Tuttle University of Kansas
Mary S. Tyler University of Maine
Nancy A. White Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur
Mississippi State University
Eastern Michigan University
Clifton K. Yearley SUNY at Buffalo
Richard Whitworth Charles F. Urbanowicz
Ball State University
California State University, Chico
Ivan L. Zabilka Lexington, Kentucky Public Schools
Garrett L. Van Wicklen George Vascik
University of Georgia
Miami University
Loretta E. Zimmerman University of Portland
Thomas A. Wikle Mary E. Virginia
Oklahoma State University
Independent Scholar
Edward A. Zivich Calumet College
Clarke Wilhelm Denison University
xxiv
Keyword List of Contents Act, Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff (June 17, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2430 Act, Indian Citizenship (June 2, 1924). . . . . . . . 1929 Act, Indian Reorganization (June 18, 1934) . . . . . 2757 Act, Migratory Bird (Mar. 4, 1913) . . . . . . . . . 1067 Act, Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp (Mar. 16, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2742 Act, Migratory Bird Treaty (July 3, 1918) . . . . . . 1437 Act, Natural Gas (June 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . 3116 Act, Philippine Independence (Mar. 24, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2745 Act, Reciprocal Trade (Nov. 11, 1936) . . . . . . . 2960 Act, Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery (June 16, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . 2663 Act, Roosevelt Signs the Social Security (Aug. 14, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2853 Act, Sheppard-Towner (Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . 1745 Act, Taylor Grazing (June 28, 1934). . . . . . . . . 2764 Act, Wagner (July 5, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2850 Act and Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug (June 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising, Wheeler-Lea (Mar. 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . 3101 Act Creates a Federal Airways System, Air Commerce (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2112 Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, Defense of India (Mar., 1915). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183 Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance, Miller-Tydings (Aug. 17, 1937). . . . . . . . . . 3044 Act Limits Political Contributions, Corrupt Practices (Feb. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2024 Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy, Tariff (Aug. 5, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772 Act of 1917, Immigration (Feb. 5, 1917) . . . . . . 1336 Act of 1917, Jones (Mar. 2, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . 1347 Act of 1924, Immigration (May 26, 1924) . . . . . . 1922 Act of 1933, Enabling (Mar. 23, 1933) . . . . . . . 2649 Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System, Banking (June 16, 1933). . . . . . . . . 2659 Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control, Banking (Aug. 23, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2857 Act Promotes Western Agriculture, Reclamation (June 17, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes, Railway Labor (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . 2115
A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research (1923). . . . . . . . . . . . 1796 Aalto Designs Villa Mairea (1937-1938) . . . . . . 2982 Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival (Dec. 27, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Abdicates the British Throne, Edward VIII (Dec. 10, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2973 Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney (1912-1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942 Absolutes, Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1972 Abstract Algebra, Steinitz Inaugurates Modern (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731 Abstract Art, Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932 Abstract Art, Soviet Union Bans (1934) . . . . . . . 2709 Abstract Ballet, Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces (June 2, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766 Abstract Painting, Formation of the Blue Four Advances (Mar. 31, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1915 Abstract Painting Opens in New York, Exhibition of American (Feb. 12, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . 2820 Abstract Space, Fréchet Introduces the Concept of (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481 Abuses of Minority Rights in India, Muslim League Protests Government (Dec. 30, 1906) . . . . . . . 564 Academy Award, Temple Receives a Special (Feb. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2827 Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement, First (May 16, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2306 Accountants Is Founded, American Institute of (Sept. 19, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292 Acid Cycle, Krebs Describes the Citric (Mar., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3005 Act, Agricultural Marketing (June 15, 1929) . . . . 2311 Act, Cable (Sept. 22, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1779 Act, Canadian National Parks (May 30, 1930) . . . 2424 Act, Clayton Antitrust (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . 1149 Act, Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman (Feb. 21, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . 2175 Act, Emergency Quota (May 19, 1921) . . . . . . . 1725 Act, Fair Labor Standards (June 25, 1938). . . . . . 3119 Act, Federal Credit Union (June 26, 1934) . . . . . 2761 Act, Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (June 25, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3122 Act, Federal Reserve (Dec. 23, 1913) . . . . . . . . 1099
xxv
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Air Travel, The DC-3 Opens a New Era of (June 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2941 Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns, Fokker (May, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1202 Airlines, Formation of Qantas (Nov. 20, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1652 Airmail, U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for (Feb. 2, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2017 Airmail Delivery, U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental (Sept. 8, 1920) . . . . . . . . . 1648 Airplane Flight Across the English Channel, First (July 25, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 Airways System, Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2112 Albania, Italy Invades and Annexes (Apr. 7, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3184 Alcoa, U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1892 Alcoholics Anonymous, Formation of (June 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2843 Algebra, Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731 Alien Land Law, Passage of the First (May 20, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076 Alienation, The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of (1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1168 All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War (Jan., 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2292 All-Star Game, First Major League Baseball (July 6, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2667 Allied Troops, Germany Uses Poison Gas Against (Apr. 22-27, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192 Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling, Gamow Explains Radioactive (Summer, 1928) . . . . . . 2242 Ambassadors Is Published, Henry James’s The (Nov., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Amendment, Platt (May 22, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . 234 Amendment, Proposal of the Equal Rights (Dec. 10, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871 America, The Grapes of Wrath Portrays Depression-Era (Apr., 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . 3180 America, Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3230 America Is Crowned, First Miss (Sept. 8, 1921). . . 1730 American Abstract Painting Opens in New York, Exhibition of (Feb. 12, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . 2820 American Art Opens in New York, Whitney Museum of (Nov. 17, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . 2514 American Automobile Association Is Established (Mar. 4, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 American Ballet, Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates (Dec. 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2794
Act Provides State Wildlife Funding, Pittman-Robertson (Sept. 2, 1937) . . . . . . . . 3050 Act Redefines British Democracy, Parliament (Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756 Act Regulates Branch Banking, McFadden (Feb. 25, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2179 Act Regulates Public Lands, Mineral (Feb. 25, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614 Act Restricts Price Discrimination, Robinson-Patman (June 19, 1936) . . . . . . . . 2937 Act Sets Penalties for Polluters, Oil Pollution (June 7, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1935 Act Strengthens Labor Organizations, Norris-La Guardia (Mar. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . 2552 Active Sonar, Langevin Develops (Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223 Acts, Espionage and Sedition (June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918) . . . . . . . . 1367 Acts, Neutrality (Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939) . . . 2865 Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon (Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940) . . . . . . . . . 2992 Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code (Aug., 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082 Advertising, Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over (Mar. 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . 3101 Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1568 AEG Turbine Factory, Completion of the (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781 Africa, Formation of the Union of South (May 31, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830 African Native National Congress Meets, South (Jan. 8, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954 African Student Union Is Founded, West (Aug. 7, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2062 African Tribal Art, Artists Find Inspiration in (1906-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 Agadir Crisis (July 1, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 890 Age for Women, Great Britain Lowers the Voting (July 2, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2246 Ages of Rocks, Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine (1905-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Agreement, Ogdensburg (Aug. 16, 1940) . . . . . . 3276 Agricultural Marketing Act (June 15, 1929) . . . . . 2311 Agriculture, Reclamation Act Promotes Western (June 17, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Air, Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . 308 Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2112 Air Traffic, Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial (June 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . 3262
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Keyword List of Contents Analytic Method in History, Meinecke Advances the (1907). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582 Analytical Psychology, Jung Develops (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2370 Andalusian Dog, Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An (1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2213 Anderson Discovers the Positron (Sept., 1932) . . . 2583 Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall, Marian (Jan. 2, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3166 Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs (1923). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1798 Andromeda Nebula, Hubble Determines the Distance to the (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1877 Anesthetic, Introduction of the First Injectable (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 Angell Advances Pacifism (1910). . . . . . . . . . . 790 Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets (Jan. 30, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Ankara, Treaty of (July 18, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . 2122 Annexation of Korea, Japanese (Aug. 22, 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838 Annexes Albania, Italy Invades and (Apr. 7, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3184 Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria (Oct. 7, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697 Annexes Libya, Italy (1911-1912) . . . . . . . . . . 856 Annexes Svalbard, Norway (Aug. 14, 1925) . . . . 2064 Annexes the Congo, Belgium (Nov. 1, 1908) . . . . . 703 Anschluss, The (Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . 3093 Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468 Antarctic Expedition Commences, Australasian (Dec. 2, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 916 Anthracite Coal Strike (May 12-Oct. 23, 1902). . . . 152 Anti-Comintern Pact, Germany and Japan Sign the (Nov. 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2969 Anti-Defamation League Is Founded (Sept., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085 Antibiotic, Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3243 Anticoagulant Heparin, McLean Discovers the Natural (Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916) . . . . . . . . . 1215 Antitrust Act, Clayton (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . 1149 Antitrust Laws, Labor Unions Win Exemption from (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153 Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure (Nov., 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2593 Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres, Jooss’s (July 3, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2569 Apartment House, Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800 Apollinaire Defines Cubism (1913) . . . . . . . . . 1015
American Banking System, Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the (June 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . 2659 American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament (Jan., 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded (Jan. 19, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607 American College Football Allows the Forward Pass (Jan. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303 American Film Spectacle, The Ten Commandments Advances (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1820 American Friends Service Committee, Formation of the (Apr. 30, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1356 American Indians, First Conference of the Society of (Oct. 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005 American Industrial Design, Loewy Pioneers (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2279 American Institute of Accountants Is Founded (Sept. 19, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292 American Legion, Formation of the (Mar. 15-May 9, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1493 American Management Association Is Established (Mar. 14, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1840 American Musical to Emphasize Plot, Show Boat Is the First (Dec. 27, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2210 American Novelist, Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major (1920-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1587 American Professional Football Association, Formation of the (Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920) . . . . 1638 American Science Fiction, Golden Age of (1938-1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3079 American Service Organization Is Founded, First (Feb. 23, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 American South, Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the (1921-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1705 American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair (Apr. 30, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3186 American Tobacco Company, U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the (May 29, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . 886 Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2352 America’s Progressive Era, Republican Resurgence Ends (Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920) . . . . . . . . 1447 “America’s Sweetheart,” Pickford Reigns as (1909-1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737 Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air (Mar. 19, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2230 Amritsar, British Soldiers Massacre Indians at (Apr. 13, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1497 Amundsen Reaches the South Pole (Dec. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919
xxvii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Art Nouveau Movement in the United States, Tiffany Leads the (1902-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Art Opens in New York, Whitney Museum of American (Nov. 17, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2514 Art Opens to the Public, New York’s Museum of Modern (Nov. 8, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2340 Artificial Contraception, Lambeth Conference Allows (Aug., 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2437 Artificial Element, Segrè Identifies the First (Jan.-Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2989 Artificial Insemination, Ivanov Develops (1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Artificial Kidney, Abel Develops the First (1912-1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942 Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed, First (1933-1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2615 Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art (1906-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 Artists Form Die Brücke, Avant-Garde (Summer, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 Artists Found the Bauhaus, German (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1460 Arts and Crafts Movement, Cranbrook Academy Promotes the (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1965 ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music (Feb. 13, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114 Asia Coprosperity Sphere, Japan Announces the Greater East (Aug., 1940). . . . . . . . . . . . . 3272 Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (Sept. 14, 1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 904 Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg (Jan. 15, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1479 Assembly Line Begins Operation, Ford (Mar. 1, 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063 Assyrian Christians, Iraqi Army Slaughters (Aug. 11-13, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2672 Astaire-Rogers Dance Team, Top Hat Establishes the (Sept. 6, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2868 Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455 Astronomy, Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio (1930-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2394 Atlantic Ridge, German Expedition Discovers the Mid- (Apr., 1925-May, 1927). . . . . . . . . . . 2030 Atmosphere, Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper (Jan. 17, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053 Atmosphere, Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer (1930) . . . . . . 2383 Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Callendar Connects Industry with Increased (1938) . . . . . . . . . . 3069 Atmospheric Circulation, Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in (1919-1921). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474
Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal, Marian (May 13-Oct. 17, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1360 Aqueduct, Completion of the Los Angeles (Nov. 5, 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1088 Aqueduct, Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles (May 21, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 Arabia, Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi (Mar. 3, 1938). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3096 Arabia, Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi (1912-1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 948 Arabs in Palestine, Great Uprising of (Apr. 15, 1936-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2935 Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution (Apr. 15, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2834 Architectural Prefabrication, Prouvé Pioneers (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2979 Architecture, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist (Spring, 1931). . . . . 2486 Arctic Islands, Canada Claims the (July 1, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Argonne Offensive, Meuse(Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1440 Arica Compromise, Tacna(June 3-Aug. 28, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2309 Arizona Become U.S. States, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and (Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912) . . . . 594 Armenian Genocide Begins (Apr. 24, 1915). . . . . 1195 Armory Show (Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913) . . . . . . . 1056 Arms to Spain, Embargo on (Jan. 6, 1937) . . . . . 2996 Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry (Aug.-Dec., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 436 Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting (Nov. 5, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2885 Armstrong Records with the Hot Five (Nov., 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2079 Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles (Dec. 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3301 Art, Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal (1906-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 Art, Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in (Sept., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897 Art, Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019 Art, Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932 Art, Soviet Union Bans Abstract (1934) . . . . . . . 2709 Art and Fashion, Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2813 Art Deco, Paris Exhibition Defines (May-June, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2037 Art Exhibition, Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate (July 19-Nov. 30, 1937) . . . . . . . 3040
xxviii
Keyword List of Contents Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars, Zwicky and (1934). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2718 Babe Ruth, New York Yankees Acquire (Jan. 3, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1597 Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts (Aug., 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613 Baekeland Invents Bakelite (1905-1907) . . . . . . . 385 Bailey Circus, Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and (Oct. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629 Bakelite, Baekeland Invents (1905-1907) . . . . . . . 385 Baker Dances in La Revue nègre (Oct.-Dec., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2073 Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet (Dec. 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2794 Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine (Nov. 2, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1389 Balkan Wars (Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913). . . . . 1008 Ballet, Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American (Dec. 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2794 Ballet, Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract (June 2, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766 Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts (Apr. 5, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3107 Ballets Russes Astounds Paris, Diaghilev’s (May 19, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762 Balloon, Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by (May 27, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2506 Baltic Canal, Soviets Open the White Sea(Aug. 2, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2670 Baltic States Gain Independence (Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . 1425 Bank of Austria Fails, Credit-Anstalt (May 8, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2503 Bank of United States Fails (Dec. 11, 1930) . . . . . 2457 Bank Opens, First Morris Plan (Apr. 5, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827 Banking, McFadden Act Regulates Branch (Feb. 25, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2179 Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System (June 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . 2659 Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control (Aug. 23, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2857 Banking and Industrial Sectors, France Nationalizes Its (1936-1946) . . . . . . . . . . . 2899 Banking System, Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American (June 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . 2659 Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin (1921-1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1689 Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes, Chapman Determines the Lunar (1935) . . . . . . . . . . . 2799 Atom, Cockcroft and Walton Split the (Apr., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2555 Atom, Hahn Splits the Uranium (Dec., 1938) . . . . 3143 Atomic Nucleus, Rutherford Describes the (Mar. 7, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 962 Atomic Structure, Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify (1912-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938 Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation (Sept., 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2445 Auditors, Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2464 Audubon Society Is Established, National (Jan. 5, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396 Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences (Dec. 2, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 916 Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service (May 15, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2238 Australia Extends Suffrage to Women (June 12, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Australia Is Formed, Commonwealth of (Jan. 1, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Australian Parliament, First Woman Elected to (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1669 Australopithecine Fossil, Dart Discovers the First (Summer, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1938 Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina (Oct. 7, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697 Austria Fails, Credit-Anstalt Bank of (May 8, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2503 Auto Race, First Grand Prix (June 26-27, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529 Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, First (Aug. 19, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, Number of U.S. (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2158 Automobile Association Is Established, American (Mar. 4, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke (Summer, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama, Odets’s (Feb. 19, 1935). . . . . . . . . . 2823 Award, Temple Receives a Special Academy (Feb. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2827 Awards Honor Film Achievement, First Academy (May 16, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2306 Axiom of Choice in Set Theory, Levi Recognizes the (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Axiomatization of Set Theory, Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Azusa Street Revival (Apr., 1906-1908) . . . . . . . 520
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bell Labs Is Formed (Jan. 1, 1925) . . . . . . . . . 2011 Bell 300 Telephone, Dreyfuss Designs the (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2976 Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture (1934) . . . 2697 Benefits, Great Britain Establishes Unemployment (1920-1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1590 Bennett Era in Canada (Aug., 1930-1935) . . . . . . 2440 Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram (1929-1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2285 Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich (June 2, 1937) . . . . . 3031 Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin (Dec. 14, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2086 Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 Beriberi, Grijns Suggests the Cause of (1901) . . . . . 14 Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2521 Berlin, Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in (Dec. 14, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2086 Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women (Sept. 19, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Bernadette Soubirous, Canonization of (Dec. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2693 Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues” (Feb. 15, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1830 Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin, Banting and (1921-1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1689 Beta Decay, Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of (Nov.-Dec., 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . 2687 Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses, International (July 26, 1931) . . . . . 2512 Big Bang Theory, Lemaître Proposes the (1927) . . . 2155 Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music (1939-1949) . . . . . . . . . . 3163 Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2605 Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu (July 24, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892 Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia, Cerletti and (Apr., 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3104 Biosphere, Vernadsky Publishes The (1926). . . . . 2089 Bird Act, Migratory (Mar. 4, 1913) . . . . . . . . . 1067 Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, Migratory (Mar. 16, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2742 Bird Treaty Act, Migratory (July 3, 1918) . . . . . . 1437 Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods (1917) . . . . 1306 Birth Control, Sanger Organizes Conferences on (Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925) . . . . 1737 Birth Control Clinic Opens, First American (Oct. 16, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295 Birth Control League Forms, National (1915-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171
Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3066 Barnum and Bailey Circus, Ringling Bros. Buys (Oct. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629 Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria (Mar. 28, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation, Germans (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1814 Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Baseball All-Star Game, First Major League (July 6, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2667 Baseball Hall of Fame, Dedication of the (June 12, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3193 Baseball Holds Its First World Series (Oct. 1-13, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474 Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater, The Bedbug and The (1929-1930) . . . . . . . . . . . 2282 Bathing Suit, Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1558 Bathysphere Dives, First Manned (June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . 2427 Battle of Britain (July 10-Oct. 31, 1940). . . . . . . 3267 Battle of Jutland (May 31-June 1, 1916). . . . . . . 1266 Battle of the Marne, First (Sept. 5-9, 1914) . . . . . 1137 Battle of Verdun (Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916) . . . . . . 1256 Bauhaus, German Artists Found the (1919) . . . . . 1460 Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones (Apr.-June, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2269 BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program (Nov. 2, 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2956 BCG Is Developed, Tuberculosis Vaccine (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1683 Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity (Dec. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . 275 Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater, The (1929-1930) . . . . . 2282 Beef Trust, U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the (Jan. 30, 1905) . . . . . . . . . 402 Beer Hall Putsch (Nov. 8, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . 1869 Bees Communicate Through Body Movements, Frisch Discovers That (Spring, 1919) . . . . . . 1495 Being and Time, Heidegger Publishes (1927) . . . . 2146 Belgian Congo, Lever Acquires Land Concession in the (Apr. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879 Belgium Annexes the Congo (Nov. 1, 1908) . . . . . 703
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Keyword List of Contents Bombing Raids, Germany Launches the First Zeppelin (Jan. 19, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1174 Bond, Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical (1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2389 Bonnie and Clyde, Police Apprehend (May 23, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2748 Bonus March (July 28, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2578 Book Sales, Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize (1926-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2092 Books, Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback (1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2802 Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner (Aug. 30, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Borden Leads Canada Through World War I (1911-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859 Border Patrol, U.S. Congress Establishes the (May 28, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria Annexes (Oct. 7, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697 Botswana Natives Limited Representation, Advisory Councils Give (1920). . . . . . . . . . 1568 Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student (1921) . . . 1665 Boulder Dam Is Completed (Mar. 11, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2930 Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton (Dec., 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710 Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3149 Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion, Schiaparelli’s (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2813 Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament, American (Jan., 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Boxing Champion, First Black Heavyweight (Dec. 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719 Boy Scouts, Baden-Powell Establishes the (Aug., 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613 Boycotts, Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary (Feb. 3, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661 Braggs, X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the (1912-1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945 Branch Banking, McFadden Act Regulates (Feb. 25, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2179 Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice (June 5, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Brandenberger Invents Cellophane (1904-1912) . . . 314 Braque’s Cubist Works, Salon d’Automne Rejects (Summer, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683 Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism, Huxley’s (Winter, 1932) . . . . 2601 Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel (July 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2193 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of (Mar. 3, 1918) . . . . . . . 1431
Birth of a Nation, Griffith Releases The (Mar. 3, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1188 Birth of Czechoslovakia (Dec. 21, 1918) . . . . . . 1453 Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation (1919-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474 Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion, First (Dec. 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719 Black Holes, Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of (Feb. 15, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3170 Black Monday (May 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . 2841 Black Musical Film, Hallelujah Is the First Important (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2273 Black Sox Scandal (Oct. 1-9, 1919) . . . . . . . . . 1538 Blade, Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art, Der (Sept., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897 Blood Cells, Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990 Blood Groups, Discovery of Human (1901) . . . . . . 10 Blood Purge, Great (June 30-July 2, 1934) . . . . . 2767 Blood Transfusion, Crile Performs the First Direct (Dec., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462 Blood Vessels, Carrel Rejoins Severed (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Bloody Sunday (Jan. 22, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting, Formation of the (Mar. 31, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1915 Bluegrass Music, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define (1939-1949) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3163 Blues,” Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted (Feb. 15, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1830 Blues Era, Handy Ushers in the Commercial (1910’s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786 Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Boat Is Launched, First German U(Aug. 4, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541 Body Movements, Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through (Spring, 1919) . . . . . . 1495 Boer War, Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the (May 31, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure (1912-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938 Bolshevik Regime, United States Recognizes Russia’s (Nov. 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2690 Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution (Nov. 6-7, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1393 Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church (1917-1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318 Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks (1905-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Broadcasting, Fessenden Pioneers Radio (Dec. 24, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561 Broadcasting Begins, Radio (Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1641 Broadcasting Company Is Founded, National (Sept. 9, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2132 Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered, British (Jan. 1, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2168 Broadcasts The War of the Worlds, Welles (Oct. 30, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3137 Broadway, Our Town Opens on (Feb. 4, 1938) . . . 3087 Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics (1904-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Brush Company Is Incorporated, Fuller (1913) . . . 1028 Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1802 Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature (Dec. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3147 Building Opens, Empire State (May 1, 1931) . . . . 2499 Bulgaria, Greece Invades (Oct. 23, 1925) . . . . . . 2076 Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2213 Bureau of Investigation, Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. (Dec. 10, 1924) . . . . . . . 1959 Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation (July 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692 Bureau of Mines Is Established, U.S. (July 1, 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 836 Burma from India, Britain Separates (Apr. 1, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3012 Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking (Jan., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049 Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2216 Business Empire, Howard Hughes Builds a (1924-1976) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1899 Business Leaders for World War II Planning, Roosevelt Uses (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . 3246 Business School, Harvard University Founds a (Apr. 8, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, Publication of (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Briand Pact, Kellogg- (Aug. 27, 1928) . . . . . . . 2252 Bridge, Crane Publishes The (Feb., 1930) . . . . . . 2400 Bridge, Dedication of the Sydney Harbour (Mar. 19, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2549 Bridge Collapses, Tacoma Narrows (Nov. 7, 1940). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3292 Bridge Opens, Golden Gate (May 27, 1937). . . . . 3022 Britain, Battle of (July 10-Oct. 31, 1940) . . . . . . 3267 Britain, Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great (Sept. 11, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220 Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, Great (Apr. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1621 Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits, Great (1920-1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1590 Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, Great (Oct. 1, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women, Great (July 2, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2246 Britain Represses Somali Rebellion (Early 1920). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1566 Britain Separates Burma from India (Apr. 1, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3012 British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered (Jan. 1, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2168 British Commonwealth of Nations, Formation of the (Dec. 11, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2517 British Crown Colony, Cyprus Becomes a (May 1, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2040 British Democracy, Parliament Act Redefines (Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756 British Labour Party, Establishment of the (Feb. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans (Nov. 5, 1914). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1158 British Schools, Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in (Sept. 4-15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . 900 British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar (Apr. 13, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1497 British Somaliland, Italy Invades (Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3274 British Telephone System, Parliament Nationalizes the (Dec. 31, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . 922 British Throne, Edward VIII Abdicates the (Dec. 10, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2973 British Women Gain the Vote (Feb. 6, 1918) . . . . 1422 British Workers Launch General Strike (May 3-12, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2105 Broadcast, First Color Television (Sept. 1, 1940). . . 3282 Broadcast Medium, Radio Develops as a Mass (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1562 Broadcasting, Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio (Nov. 5, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2885
C, Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin (1928-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2222 Cabaret Voltaire, Dada Movement Emerges at the (1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Premiere of The (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1575 Cable Act (Sept. 22, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1779 Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts (Feb. 29, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670
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Keyword List of Contents Canyon, Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings (Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . 2992 Canyon from Mining Claims, Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand (Jan. 11, 1908) . . . . . . . 651 Capital Punishment, Sweden Abolishes (1921) . . . 1680 Capitalism, Lenin Critiques Modern (Jan.-June, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1253 Carbon Dioxide, Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric (1938) . . . . . . . 3069 Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy (Oct. 22, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3134 Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace (Nov. 25, 1910) . . . . . . . . 847 Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature (Nov., 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2953 Carothers Invents Nylon (Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2816 Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels (1902) . . . . . 81 Carriers for Airmail, U.S. Congress Authorizes Private (Feb. 2, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2017 Cartel Covering the Middle East, Oil Companies Cooperate in a (Sept. 17, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . 2259 Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen (Nov. 4, 1922). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1784 Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company (Apr. 11, 1902) . . . . . . . 146 Casa Milá Apartment House, Gaudí Completes the (1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800 Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard, Donham Promotes the (1920’s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1551 Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1403 Catholic Encyclopedia, Publication of The (Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . 606 Cave Paintings Are Discovered, Lascaux (Sept. 12, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3285 Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism (1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . 2524 Cellophane, Brandenberger Invents (1904-1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 Cells, Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990 Celtic Revival, Abbey Theatre Heralds the (Dec. 27, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform, Canada (Oct., 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778 Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Central Planning, Stalin Introduces (Oct. 1, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2263 Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars, Hertzsprung Uses (1913) . . . . . . . . . . 1034
Cairo University Is Inaugurated (Dec. 21, 1908) . . . 716 California Schools, Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in (Oct. 25, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (1938) . . . . . . . 3069 Cambridge Ancient History Appears (1923-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1824 Camera and Telescope, Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt (Winter, 1929-1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2347 Campaign, Smith-Hoover (1928) . . . . . . . . . . 2219 Camps, Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death (May 16, 1940-1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3253 Camps Begin Operating, Nazi Concentration (Mar., 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2640 Canada, Bennett Era in (Aug., 1930-1935) . . . . . 2440 Canada, King Era in (1921-1948) . . . . . . . . . . 1709 Canada, King Returns to Power in (Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948) . . . . . . . . . . 2879 Canada, Meighen Era in (July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1636 Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778 Canada Claims the Arctic Islands (July 1, 1901) . . . . 54 Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation (Sept. 8, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2448 Canada Enters World War II (Sept. 10, 1939) . . . . 3213 Canada Through World War I, Borden Leads (1911-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859 Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement (Aug. 1, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2581 Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat (1904) . . . 281 Canadian National Parks Act (May 30, 1930) . . . . 2424 Canadian Women Gain the Vote (Sept. 20, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1377 Canal, Construction Begins on the Panama (Summer, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 Canal, Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic (Aug. 2, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2670 Canal Opens, Panama (Aug. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . 1130 Canal Zone, U.S. Acquisition of the Panama (Nov. 18, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Cancer, Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine (Jan., 1928) . . . . . . . . . 2225 Cancers Are Caused by Viruses, Rous Discovers That Some (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803 Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous (Dec. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2693 Canonization of Joan of Arc (May 16, 1920) . . . . 1630 Canonized, Thérèse of Lisieux Is (May 17, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2044 Cantos Is Published, Pound’s (1917-1970) . . . . . 1328
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Chromosome Map, Sturtevant Produces the First (Fall, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 906 Chromosome Theory, Morgan Develops the Gene(1908-1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648 Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits, Sutton Proposes That (Dec., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Church, Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox (1917-1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318 Church, Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox (Summer, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3195 Circulation, Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric (1919-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474 Circus, Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey (Oct. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629 Citizenship Act, Indian (June 2, 1924). . . . . . . . 1929 Citric Acid Cycle, Krebs Describes the (Mar., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3005 City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology, The (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1962 Civil Liberties During World War I, U.S. Curtails (Apr. 13, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1353 Civil Liberties Union Is Founded, American (Jan. 19, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607 Civil War, Chinese (1926-1949) . . . . . . . . . . . 2096 Civil War, Russian (1918-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1416 Civil War Begins, Spanish (July 17, 1936) . . . . . 2945 Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established, U.S. (Apr. 5, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2652 Civilians, El Salvador’s Military Massacres (Jan.-Feb., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2535 Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain (Aug. 2-18, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2951 Clayton Antitrust Act (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . 1149 Clinic Opens, First American Birth Control (Oct. 16, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295 Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography, Einthoven Begins (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 Clyde, Police Apprehend Bonnie and (May 23, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2748 Coal Strike, Anthracite (May 12-Oct. 23, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom (Apr., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2555 Code, Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising (Aug., 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082 Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy, Production (1934-1938). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2725 Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres (Nov. 7, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Collapse of France (May 10-June 22, 1940) . . . . . 3250 College Football Allows the Forward Pass, American (Jan. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia (Apr., 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3104 Chadwick Discovers the Neutron (Feb., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2544 Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic, Florey and (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3243 Chair, Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue (1918-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1412 Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass (1931-1935) . . . . . . 2471 Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1549 Channel, Ederle Swims the English (Aug. 6, 1926). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2129 Channel, First Airplane Flight Across the English (July 25, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush (June 26, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2050 Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes (1935) . . . . . . . . . . . 2799 Chemical Bond, Pauling Develops His Theory of the (1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2389 Cherenkov Effect, Discovery of the (1934) . . . . . 2701 Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity (Sept. 30, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2066 Children’s Bureau Is Founded (Apr. 9, 1912). . . . . 968 China Allows Some Western Reforms (1901-1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 China Declares War on Japan (July 7, 1937) . . . . 3037 Chinese Civil War (1926-1949) . . . . . . . . . . . 2096 Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees (June 7, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3114 Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 Chlorophyll, Willstätter Discovers the Composition of (1906-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 Choice in Set Theory, Levi Recognizes the Axiom of (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Chopin in Her Russian Debut, Duncan Interprets (Dec. 26, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 Christian Fundamentals Association, Founding of the World (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1458 Christian Science Monitor Is Founded (Nov. 28, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707 Christian Thought, Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses (1932) . . . . . . . . . . 2527 Christianity, Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends (Sept. 30, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2066 Christians, Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian (Aug. 11-13, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2672 Chromosome, McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
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Keyword List of Contents Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239 Composers, Stalin Restricts Soviet (Apr. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2558 Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory, Zermelo Undertakes (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . 311 Compromise, Tacna-Arica (June 3-Aug. 28, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2309 Compton Effect, Discovery of the (1923) . . . . . . 1807 Concentration Camps Begin Operating, Nazi (Mar., 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2640 Conference, Evian (July 6-15, 1938). . . . . . . . . 3125 Conference, Munich (Sept. 29-30, 1938) . . . . . . 3129 Conference, Second Hague Peace (Oct. 18, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625 Conference, Washington Disarmament (Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . 1741 Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities, Paris Peace (Jan. 19-21, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . 1483 Conference Allows Artificial Contraception, Lambeth (Aug., 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2437 Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, Inter-American (Dec., 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . 2971 Conference of the Society of American Indians, First (Oct. 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005 Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources (May 13-15, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . 677 Conferences, Zimmerwald and Kienthal (Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916) . . . . . 1217 Conferences on Birth Control, Sanger Organizes (Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925) . . . . 1737 Congo, Belgium Annexes the (Nov. 1, 1908) . . . . . 703 Congo, Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian (Apr. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879 Congress, Federal Communications Commission Is Established by (June 10, 1934). . . . . . . . . 2754 Congress, First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. (Nov. 7, 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299 Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, U.S. (Dec. 19, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 1095 Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail, U.S. (Feb. 2, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2017 Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic (June 30, 1940) . . . . . 3262 Congress Establishes the Border Patrol, U.S. (May 28, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926 Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax, U.S. (Oct. 3, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1379 Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded (Nov. 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2888 Congress of Women, International (Apr. 28-May 1, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1199
Colombia, Panama Declares Independence from (Nov. 3, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Colony, Cyprus Becomes a British Crown (May 1, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2040 Color and Luminosity, Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star (1905) . . . . . . . . . 369 Color Photography, Lumières Develop (1907) . . . . 579 Color Television Broadcast, First (Sept. 1, 1940). . . 3282 Comedy, Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball (1934-1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2725 Comedy, Sennett Defines Slapstick (Aug., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 988 Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead Publishes (Aug., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2249 Comintern, Lenin Establishes the (Mar. 2-6, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1490 Commerce, U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate (Feb. 23, 1903) . . . . . . . . 222 Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System, Air (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . 2112 Commerce and Labor, Creation of the U.S. Department of (Feb. 14, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Commercial Air Traffic, Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. (June 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . 3262 Commission, United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff (Sept. 8, 1916) . . . . . . . . . 1285 Commission Is Established, Securities and Exchange (June 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2750 Commission Is Established by Congress, Federal Communications (June 10, 1934). . . . . . . . . 2754 Commodity Credit Corporation, Roosevelt Creates the (Oct. 18, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2683 Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed (Jan. 1, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Commonwealth of Nations, Formation of the British (Dec. 11, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2517 Communication Are Discovered, Principles of Shortwave Radio (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1466 Communications Commission Is Established by Congress, Federal (June 10, 1934) . . . . . . . . 2754 Communism, Koestler Examines the Dark Side of (Dec., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3298 Communist Party, Rise of the French (Dec. 29, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1663 Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror, Russian (1917-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1324 Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781 Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct (Nov. 5, 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1088 Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway (Dec. 19, 1901). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women, Bern (Sept. 19, 1906). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President (Nov. 4, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1949 Copland as a Student, Boulanger Takes (1921) . . . 1665 Coprosperity Sphere, Japan Announces the Greater East Asia (Aug., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . 3272 Copyright Law, U.S. Congress Updates (Mar. 4, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753 Cordiale, Entente (Apr. 8, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . 331 Core, Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2893 Core Boundary, Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031 Corfu Crisis (Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923) . . . . . . . . 1853 Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex (May 20, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1209 Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere, Lyot’s (1930) . . . . . . . . 2383 Corporal Punishment in British Schools, Students Challenge (Sept. 4-15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . 900 Corporate Control, Berle and Means Discuss (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2521 Corporate Privacy, Tariff Act of 1909 Limits (Aug. 5, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772 Corporation, Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest (Feb. 26, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Corporation Laws, Delaware Revises (1903) . . . . . 188 Corporatism Comes to Paraguay (Feb. 17, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2923 Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope, Schmidt Invents the (Winter, 1929-1930) . . . . 2347 Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions (Feb. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . 2024 Cosmetic Act, Federal Food, Drug, and (June 25, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3122 Cosmic Rays, Hess Discovers (Aug. 7 and 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Cosmic Rays, Millikan Investigates (1920-1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1594 Cost-Plus Contracts, U.S. Government Begins Using (1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106 Cotton Club, Ellington Begins Performing at the (Dec. 4, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2206 Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478 Coulee Dam, Work Begins on the Grand (Sept. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2678 Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes, Gide’s The (1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1972 Coup in the Ottoman Empire, Young Turks Stage a (July 24, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689
Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon, Adams Lobbies (Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940) . . . . . . . . . 2992 Congress Updates Copyright Law, U.S. (Mar. 4, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753 Congressional Insurgency, Republican (Mar., 1909-1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751 Conservation, Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1406 Conservation Association Is Founded, National Parks and (May 20, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1514 Conservation Corps Is Established, U.S. Civilian (Apr. 5, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2652 Conservation of Natural Resources, Conference on the (May 13-15, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677 Conservation Service Is Established, Soil (Apr. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2837 Conservation Stamp Act, Migratory Bird Hunting and (Mar. 16, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2742 Constitution, Persia Adopts a (Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549 Constitution, Weimar (July 31, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1525 Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code, Mexican (Jan. 31, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . 1332 Constitution Hall, Marian Anderson Is Barred from (Jan. 2, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3166 Construction Begins on the Panama Canal (Summer, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 Construction Leads to Disaster, Hawk’s Nest Tunnel (Mar. 31, 1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . . 2414 Consulting Firm, McKinsey Founds a Management (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980 Consumers Union of the United States Emerges (Jan.-Mar., 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2902 Continental Drift, Wegener Proposes the Theory of (Jan., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950 Contraception, Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial (Aug., 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2437 Contracts, U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus (1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106 Contracts, U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog (Jan. 27, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 Contributions, Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political (Feb. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2024 Convention, League of Nations Adopts International Slavery (Sept. 25, 1926) . . . . . . 2135 Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery, Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Sept. 10, 1919) . . . . . 1531 Convention Is Signed, International Opium (Feb. 23, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 956 Convention Is Signed in Tibet, Lhasa (Sept. 7, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
xxxvi
Keyword List of Contents Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company, U.S. Supreme (May 29, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . 886 Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason,” U.S. Supreme (May 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882 Court Justice, Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme (June 5, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Court of International Justice Is Established, Permanent (Dec. 13, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1657 Court-Packing Fight, Supreme (Feb. 5-July 22, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2999 Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws, U.S. Supreme (Apr. 9, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 Court Rules Against Northern Securities, U.S. Supreme (Mar. 14, 1904). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts, U.S. Supreme (Jan. 27, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law, U.S. Supreme (Apr. 17, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce, U.S. Supreme (Feb. 23, 1903). . . . . 222 Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust, U.S. Supreme (Jan. 30, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . 402 Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s (Jan. 2, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2618 Cracking, Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal (Jan., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049 Crafts Movement, Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1965 Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1965 Crane Publishes The Bridge (Feb., 1930) . . . . . . 2400 Crashes, U.S. Stock Market (Oct. 24-29, 1929) . . . 2331 Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye (1901) . . . . . 8 Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor (Feb. 14, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers, Bergson’s (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails (May 8, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2503 Credit Corporation, Roosevelt Creates the Commodity (Oct. 18, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . 2683 Credit Union Act, Federal (June 26, 1934) . . . . . 2761 Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion (Dec., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462 Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, Kingdom of the Serbs, (Dec. 1, 1918) . . . . . . 1450 Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs, X-Ray (1912-1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945 Cubism, Apollinaire Defines (1913) . . . . . . . . . 1015 Cubist Works, Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s (Summer, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683 Cultivation of Marquis Wheat, Canadian (1904) . . . 281
Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography, Rise of (Summer, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1434 Cure for Syphilis, Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a (Apr., 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823 Cycle, Krebs Describes the Citric Acid (Mar., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3005 Cyclotron, Lawrence Develops the (Jan. 2, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2477 Cynicism, Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2524 Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony (May 1, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2040 Czechoslovakia, Birth of (Dec. 21, 1918) . . . . . . 1453 D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets, McCollum Names Vitamin (1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1757 D in Food, Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887 Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242 Dáil, De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish (Mar. 9, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2547 Dalai Lama’s Rule, End of the Thirteenth (Dec. 17, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2695 Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog, Buñuel and (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2213 Dam, Work Begins on the Grand Coulee (Sept. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2678 Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, U.S. Congress Approves a (Dec. 19, 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . 1095 Dam Is Completed, Boulder (Mar. 11, 1936) . . . . 2930 Dams, Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1810 Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts (Feb. 3, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661 Dance Opens, Denishawn School of (Summer, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1211 Dance Team, Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers (Sept. 6, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . 2868 Dance The Green Table Premieres, Jooss’s Antiwar (July 3, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2569 Dances in La Revue nègre, Baker (Oct.-Dec., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2073 Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation (Feb. 4, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2915 Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil (Summer, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1938 Dawes Plan (Sept. 1, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1941 DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel, The (June 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2941 DDT, Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3156
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1804 De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312 De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil (Mar. 9, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2547 Death Camps, Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi (May 16, 1940-1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3253 Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska (Oct. 5, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3133 Deco, Paris Exhibition Defines Art (May-June, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2037 Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers, Haldane Develops Stage (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573 Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame (June 12, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3193 Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (Mar. 19, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2549 Deep-Sea Divers, Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573 Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle (Mar., 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183 Degenerate Art Exhibition, Nazi Germany Hosts the (July 19-Nov. 30, 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . 3040 Delaware Revises Corporation Laws (1903) . . . . . 188 Delaware River Project Begins (Mar., 1937) . . . . 3002 Delhi Pact, India Signs the (Mar. 5, 1931). . . . . . 2480 Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I (Nov., 1918-June, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1444 Democracy, Expansion of Direct (June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Democracy, Parliament Act Redefines British (Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756 Denishawn School of Dance Opens (Summer, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1211 Department of Commerce and Labor, Creation of the U.S. (Feb. 14, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Deportations of Mexicans, Mass (Early 1930’s) . . . 2350 Depression, Great (Oct. 29, 1929-1939) . . . . . . . 2335 Depression-Era America, The Grapes of Wrath Portrays (Apr., 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3180 Depression-Era Relief Legislation, Canada Enacts (Sept. 8, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2448 Depression-Era United States, Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2356 Design, Loewy Pioneers American Industrial (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2279 Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s, Coward’s (Jan. 2, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2618 Detective Novel, The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled (Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930). . . . . 2323 Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded (Oct., 1907) . . . . 618
Deutsches Theater, Reinhardt Becomes Director of the (Nov. 24, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456 Development of Negritude (1932-1940) . . . . . . . 2532 Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed (Spring, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608 Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education (1916). . . 1245 Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris (May 19, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762 Diagnosing Uterine Cancer, Papanicolaou Develops a Test for (Jan., 1928) . . . . . . . . . 2225 Diagrams Showing Heredity, Punnett’s Mendelism Includes (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers, The (Oct., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . 3056 Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas, Midgley Introduces (Apr., 1930) . . . . . . . . . 2418 Dictatorial Powers in Italy, Mussolini Seizes (1925-1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997 Die Brücke, Avant-Garde Artists Form (Summer, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 Dietrich a Superstar, Von Sternberg Makes (1930-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2396 Differential Analyzer, Bush Builds the First (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2216 Dinosaur Eggs, Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1798 Diphtheria, Schick Introduces a Test for (1913) . . . 1043 Diplomacy,” United States Begins “Dollar (1909-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734 Direct Democracy, Expansion of (June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Dirigible Bursts into Flames, Hindenburg (May 6, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3017 Disarmament Conference, Washington (Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . 1741 Disarmament Treaties, Japan Renounces (Dec. 29, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2797 Disaster, Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to (Mar. 31, 1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . 2414 Disc Recordings, Johnson Duplicates (1902). . . . . . 96 Discovery of Human Blood Groups (1901) . . . . . . 10 Discovery of Oil at Spindletop (Jan. 10, 1901). . . . . 40 Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect (1934) . . . . . 2701 Discovery of the Compton Effect (1923) . . . . . . 1807 Discrimination, Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price (June 19, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2937 Disease Arrives in the United States, Dutch Elm (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2380 Disillusionment, Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . 1695 Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Dec. 21, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3063
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Keyword List of Contents Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains (1934-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2730 Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2380 Dwarf Star’s Mass, Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White (1931-1935) . . . . . . . 2471 Dwarf Stellar Divisions, Hertzsprung Describes Giant and (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576 Dye, Creation of the First Synthetic Vat (1901) . . . . . 8 Dying Swan, Pavlova Performs The (Dec. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Disney’s Fantasia Premieres (Nov. 13, 1940) . . . . 3295 Disposable Blade, Gillette Markets the First Razor with a (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Distribution of Wealth, Pareto Analyzes the (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490 Divers, Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573 Dives, First Manned Bathysphere (June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . 2427 Doctor Service, Australia Begins the Flying (May 15, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2238 “Dollar Diplomacy,” United States Begins (1909-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734 Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives (1932-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2529 Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . 1551 “Downhearted Blues,” Bessie Smith Records (Feb. 15, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1830 Drama, Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest (Feb. 19, 1935) . . . . . . . . 2823 Drama, The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and (Jan. 21, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . 654 Dreadnought, Launching of the (Oct. 6, 1906) . . . . 552 Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2976 Drilling, Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well (1908). . . 642 Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator (July, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2314 Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Federal Food, (June 25, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3122 Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and (June 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 Drug Administration Is Established, U.S. Food and (1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2164 Drug LSD-25, Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3072 Du Pont Introduces Freon (Dec., 1930) . . . . . . . 2454 Duality of Light, De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1804 Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art (1913) . . . 1019 Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics, Rilke’s (1911-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862 Duma, First Meeting of the (May 10-July 21, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526 Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut (Dec. 26, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park, Indiana (May, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2182 Dunkirk, Evacuation of (May 26-June 4, 1940) . . . 3256 Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy (May, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2102
Earthquake, San Francisco (Apr. 18, 1906) . . . . . . 522 Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily (Dec. 28, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721 Earthquake Rocks Japan (Sept. 1, 1923). . . . . . . 1855 Earthquake Strength, Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2809 Earth’s Inner Core, Lehmann Discovers the (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2893 Earth’s Interior Structure, Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the (1906-1910) . . . . . 497 Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary, Gutenberg Discovers (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031 East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, Japan Announces the Greater (Aug., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3272 Easter Rebellion (Apr. 24-29, 1916) . . . . . . . . . 1262 Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act (Feb. 21, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . 2175 Ecology, The City Initiates the Study of Urban (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1962 Economic Policy, Lenin Announces the New (Mar., 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1711 Economic Sanctions Against Italy, League of Nations Applies (Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936) . . . . . . 2875 Economy, Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German (Aug., 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279 Economy, Keynes Proposes Government Management of the (Feb. 4, 1936) . . . . . . . . 2919 “Ecosystem,” Tansley Proposes the Term (July, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2846 Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars (Mar., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1912 Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars (July, 1926). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2119 Ederle Swims the English Channel (Aug. 6, 1926). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2129 Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures (1913) . . . 1022 Editing Techniques, Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 1968 Editing Techniques, The Great Train Robbery Introduces New (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Element Is Developed, First Artificial Radioactive (1933-1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2615 Elements, Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 Éléments de mathématique, Bourbaki Group Publishes (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3149 Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim (Dec. 3, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Eliot Publishes The Waste Land (1922) . . . . . . . 1748 Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club (Dec. 4, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2206 Elm Disease Arrives in the United States, Dutch (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2380 Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity (Early 20th cent.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Embargo on Arms to Spain (Jan. 6, 1937) . . . . . . 2996 Emergency Quota Act (May 19, 1921) . . . . . . . 1725 Emission Microscope, Müller Invents the Field (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2896 Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie Is Crowned (Apr. 2, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2421 Empire State Building Opens (May 1, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2499 Enabling Act of 1933 (Mar. 23, 1933) . . . . . . . . 2649 Encyclopedia, Publication of The Catholic (Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . 606 End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule (Dec. 17, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2695 Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Establishes the (Nov. 25, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . 847 English Channel, Ederle Swims the (Aug. 6, 1926). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2129 English Channel, First Airplane Flight Across the (July 25, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 English Hymnal, Publication of The (1906). . . . . . 492 Entente, Formation of the Triple (Aug. 31, 1907). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616 Entente Cordiale (Apr. 8, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 Entertainment, Americans Embrace Radio (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2352 Epidemic Strikes, Influenza (Mar., 1918-1919) . . . 1428 Equal Rights Amendment, Proposal of the (Dec. 10, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871 Equations of General Relativity, Schwarzschild Solves the (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1250 Erupts, Mount Pelée (May 8, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . 149 Espionage and Sedition Acts (June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918) . . . . . . . . 1367 Establishment of the British Labour Party (Feb. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 Ethiopia, Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of (Apr. 2, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2421
Education, Dewey Applies Pragmatism to (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1245 Education, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University (1909). . . . . . . . . . . . 729 Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne (Dec. 10, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2973 Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy (Nov.-Dec., 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2882 Egypt, Italy Invades (Sept. 13, 1940) . . . . . . . . 3289 Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in (Mar., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2228 Egypt Joins the League of Nations (May 26, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3020 Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research (Nov.-Dec., 1908) . . . . . . 699 Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis (Apr., 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823 Eight-Hour Workday, Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, (Jan. 5, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1110 Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity (Nov. 25, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1230 Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect (Mar., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408 Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity (Fall, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440 Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory (Nov. 6, 1919) . . . . . . 1541 Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1968 El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians (Jan.-Feb., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2535 Election Law, Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary (May 23, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced (1910) . . . 792 Electricity,” Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807 Electrocardiography, Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with (1905). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 Electroencephalogram, Berger Studies the Human (1929-1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2285 Electron, Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the (Dec. 10, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . 558 Electron Microscope Is Constructed, First (Apr., 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2493 Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia, Cerletti and Bini Use (Apr., 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3104 Electrostatic Precipitation Process, Cottrell Invents the (1906). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478 Element, Segrè Identifies the First Artificial (Jan.-Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2989
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Keyword List of Contents Fair Labor Standards Act (June 25, 1938) . . . . . . 3119 Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1692 Famine Strikes Russia (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570 Famine Strikes the Soviet Union, Great (Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2599 Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership (Feb. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3090 Fantasia Premieres, Disney’s (Nov. 13, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3295 Fantasy Literature, Tolkien Redefines (Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3047 Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct (May 21, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 Farmers Increase Insecticide Use, American (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303 Fashion, Chanel Defines Modern Women’s (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1549 Fashion, Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2813 Fátima, Portugal, Marian Apparitions in (May 13-Oct. 17, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1360 Faulkner’s Career, The Sound and the Fury Launches (Oct. 7, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2327 Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne (Oct., 1905). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management (July, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272 Federal Airways System, Air Commerce Act Creates a (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2112 Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress (June 10, 1934). . . . . 2754 Federal Credit Union Act (June 26, 1934) . . . . . . 2761 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (June 25, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3122 Federal Income Tax Is Authorized, U.S. (Feb. 25, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059 Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1810 Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce, U.S. Supreme Court Upholds (Feb. 23, 1903). . . . . . 222 Federal Reserve Act (Dec. 23, 1913) . . . . . . . . 1099 Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater (Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . 2860 Federal Trade Commission Is Organized (Sept. 26, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1145 Fellowship, Wright Founds the Taliesin (Oct., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2589 Female Governor in the United States, First (Jan. 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014 Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay (Nov.-Dec., 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2687
Eugenics Movement, Founding of the Monist League Leads to the (Jan. 11, 1906) . . . . . . . . 504 Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control (1910) . . . . . 796 Evacuation of Dunkirk (May 26-June 4, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3256 Evian Conference (July 6-15, 1938) . . . . . . . . . 3125 Excess-Profits Tax, U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime (Oct. 3, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1379 Exchange Commission Is Established, Securities and (June 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2750 Exclusion Principle, Pauli Formulates the (Spring, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2027 Executed, Sacco and Vanzetti Are (Aug. 23, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2199 Executes Mata Hari, France (Oct. 15, 1917). . . . . 1383 Exhibition, Group of Seven (May 7, 1920) . . . . . 1628 Exhibition, Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art (July 19-Nov. 30, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . 3040 Exhibition Defines Art Deco, Paris (May-June, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2037 Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York (Feb. 12, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . 2820 Exhibits Guernica, Picasso (July, 1937) . . . . . . . 3034 Exile, Trotsky Is Sent into (Jan., 1929) . . . . . . . 2295 Expanding Universe, Hubble Confirms the (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2276 Expansion of Direct Democracy (June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Expedition, Pershing (Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . 1259 Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code, French (Jan., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Expedition Commences, Australasian Antarctic (Dec. 2, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 916 Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs, Andrews (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1798 Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, German (Apr., 1925-May, 1927) . . . . . . . . . 2030 Experiment, Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop (Jan.-Aug., 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741 Explosion, Halifax (Dec. 6, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . 1397 Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps, Gypsies Are (May 16, 1940-1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3253 Extermination of the Jews, Nazi (1939-1945) . . . . 3159 Extracting Nitrogen from the Air, Haber Develops Process for (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere (Jan. 17, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053 Factory, Completion of the AEG Turbine (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781 Factory Fire, Triangle Shirtwaist (Mar. 25, 1911) . . . 868
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel (July 25, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 First Alien Land Law, Passage of the (May 20, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076 First American Birth Control Clinic Opens (Oct. 16, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295 First American Musical to Emphasize Plot, Show Boat Is the (Dec. 27, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2210 First American Service Organization Is Founded (Feb. 23, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 First Artificial Element, Segrè Identifies the (Jan.-Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2989 First Artificial Kidney, Abel Develops the (1912-1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942 First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed (1933-1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2615 First Australopithecine Fossil, Dart Discovers the (Summer, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1938 First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Aug. 19, 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 First Battle of the Marne (Sept. 5-9, 1914) . . . . . 1137 First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion (Dec. 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719 First Chromosome Map, Sturtevant Produces the (Fall, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 906 First Color Television Broadcast (Sept. 1, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3282 First Conference of the Society of American Indians (Oct. 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005 First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony (Oct. 21, 1915) . . . . . . . . . 1227 First Differential Analyzer, Bush Builds the (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2216 First Direct Blood Transfusion, Crile Performs the (Dec., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462 First Electron Microscope Is Constructed (Apr., 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2493 First Female Governor in the United States (Jan. 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014 First Flight, Wright Brothers’ (Dec. 17, 1903) . . . . 278 First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs, Andrews Expedition Discovers the (1923) . . . . . . . . . 1798 First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1025 First German U-Boat Is Launched (Aug. 4, 1906) . . . 541 First Grand Prix Auto Race (June 26-27, 1906). . . . 529 First Grand Slam of Golf (Sept. 27, 1930) . . . . . . 2452 First Grand Slam of Tennis (Sept. 17, 1938) . . . . 3127 First High-Definition Television Program, BBC Airs the (Nov. 2, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2956 First Important Black Musical Film, Hallelujah Is the (1929). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2273
Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting (Dec. 24, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561 Fever, Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow (June, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3025 Fiction, Golden Age of American Science (1938-1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3079 Fiction, Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern (Feb. 2, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1767 Field Emission Microscope, Müller Invents the (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2896 Fight, Supreme Court-Packing (Feb. 5-July 22, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2999 Film, Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2273 Film Achievement, First Academy Awards Honor (May 16, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2306 Film Editing Techniques, Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1968 Film Musicals, Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2608 Film Musicals, Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . 2705 Film Series Begins, Sherlock Holmes (Mar. 31, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3176 Film Spectacle, The Ten Commandments Advances American (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1820 Film Theater Opens, First Nickelodeon (June, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 Filmmaking, Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2148 Filmmaking, Studio System Dominates Hollywood (1930’s-1940’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2376 Filmmaking Techniques, Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes (1925-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . 2001 Filmmaking with Metropolis, Lang Expands the Limits of (1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2152 Films Become Popular, Gangster (1931-1932) . . . 2467 Films Explore Social and Political Themes, Renoir’s (1937-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2985 Finance Corporation Is Created, Reconstruction (Jan. 22, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2540 Finland Gains Independence (Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 1399 Finland Grants Women Suffrage (July 20, 1906) . . . 538 Finnish War, Russo(Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . 3219 Fire, Reichstag (Feb. 27, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . 2632 Fire, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (Mar. 25, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 868 Firebird Premieres in Paris, The (June 25, 1910) . . . 833 First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement (May 16, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2306
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Keyword List of Contents First Soviet Nature Preserve, Lenin Approves the (Feb. 1, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486 First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim, Elgar’s (Dec. 3, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 First Synthetic Vat Dye, Creation of the (1901) . . . . . 8 First “Talkie,” The Jazz Singer Premieres as the (Oct. 6, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2202 First Talking Pictures, Edison Shows the (1913) . . . 1022 First Tour de France (July 1, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . 242 First Tournament, American Bowling Club Hosts Its (Jan., 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman (May 20-21, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566 First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission (Dec. 12, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made (Jan. 25, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177 First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins (May 16, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3190 First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established (Mar. 14, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 First Vacuum Tube, Fleming Patents the (Nov. 16, 1904). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 First Winter Olympic Games (Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903 First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1669 First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress (Nov. 7, 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299 First Woman Secretary of Labor, Perkins Becomes (Feb. 28, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2637 First World Series, Baseball Holds Its (Oct. 1-13, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 First Xerographic Photocopy, Carlson and Kornei Make the (Oct. 22, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3134 First Zeppelin Bombing Raids, Germany Launches the (Jan. 19, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1174 Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed, U.S. (July 1, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3265 Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby (Apr. 10, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . 2033 Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday, Ford Announces a (Jan. 5, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1110 Flames, Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into (May 6, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3017 Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds (Sept., 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2256 Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube (Nov. 16, 1904). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 Flight, Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic (May 20, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . 2189 Flight, Wright Brothers’ First (Dec. 17, 1903) . . . . 278
First Injectable Anesthetic, Introduction of the (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 First Intentional Radio Telescope, Reber Builds the (June-Sept., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3028 First Issue of Pravda Appears (Oct. 3, 1908) . . . . . 695 First Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Brandeis Becomes the (June 5, 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine (1909) . . . 723 First Labour Party Administration, New Zealand’s (Nov. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2891 First Liquid-Fueled Rocket, Launching of the (Mar. 16, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2099 First Major League Baseball All-Star Game (July 6, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2667 First Major Socialist Movement, Canada’s (Aug. 1, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2581 First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens (1922) . . . 1751 First Manned Bathysphere Dives (June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . 2427 First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes, Aston Builds the (1919). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455 First Meeting of the Duma (May 10-July 21, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526 First Meeting of the Vienna Circle (1922) . . . . . . 1754 First Minimum Wage Law in the United States, Massachusetts Adopts the (June 4, 1912) . . . . . 980 First Miss America Is Crowned (Sept. 8, 1921) . . . 1730 First Modern Polygraph, Larson Constructs the (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1671 First Morris Plan Bank Opens (Apr. 5, 1910) . . . . . 827 First Neanderthal Skeleton, Boule Reconstructs the (Dec., 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710 First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens (June, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded (Dec. 10, 1901) . . . 62 First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, Lindbergh Makes the (May 20, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2189 First Paris Salons, Stein Holds Her (Fall, 1905) . . . 443 First Practical Gyrocompass, Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468 First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 First Primary Election Law, Wisconsin Adopts the (May 23, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded (June, 1917) . . . 1363 First Razor with a Disposable Blade, Gillette Markets the (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 First Record for RCA Victor, Rodgers Cuts His (Aug. 4, 1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2196 First Rose Bowl Game (Jan. 1, 1902) . . . . . . . . . 124 First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens (Sept. 11, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1288
xliii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Formation of the American Friends Service Committee (Apr. 30, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1356 Formation of the American Legion (Mar. 15-May 9, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1493 Formation of the American Professional Football Association (Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920) . . . . . . 1638 Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting (Mar. 31, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1915 Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations (Dec. 11, 1931). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2517 Formation of the Plunket Society (May 14, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611 Formation of the Triple Entente (Aug. 31, 1907) . . . 616 Formation of the Union of South Africa (May 31, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830 Fortune Magazine, Luce Founds (Feb., 1930) . . . . 2403 Forty-Four, Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2158 Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2608 47 Workshop at Harvard, Baker Establishes the (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 Forward Pass, American College Football Allows the (Jan. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Fossil, Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine (Summer, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1938 Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs, Andrews Expedition Discovers the First (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1798 Founding of Industrial Workers of the World (June 27, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425 Founding of International Harvester Company (Aug. 12, 1902). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau (Dec. 2-5, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement (Jan. 11, 1906) . . . . . . . . 504 Founding of the Niagara Movement (July 11, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428 Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion (June 6, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1458 Fourth Symphony, Ives Completes His (1916) . . . 1247 Fourth Symphony, Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His (Apr. 3, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 876 France, Collapse of (May 10-June 22, 1940) . . . . 3250 France, First Tour de (July 1, 1903). . . . . . . . . . 242 France Executes Mata Hari (Oct. 15, 1917) . . . . . 1383 France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors (1936-1946) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2899 France Occupies the Ruhr (Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . 1826
Flight Across the English Channel, First Airplane (July 25, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 Flight by a Woman, First Transatlantic Solo (May 20-21, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566 Flood, Yellow River (July, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . 2509 Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3243 Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced (Nov. 23, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2963 Flying Doctor Service, Australia Begins the (May 15, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2238 FM Radio Broadcasting, Armstrong Demonstrates (Nov. 5, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2885 Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet (June 2, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766 Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns (May, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1202 Folk Songs, Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Food, Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887 Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, Pure (June 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 Food and Drug Administration Is Established, U.S. (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2164 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Federal (June 25, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3122 Food Stamp Program Begins, First U.S. (May 16, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3190 Foods, Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen (1917) . . . 1306 Football Allows the Forward Pass, American College (Jan. 12, 1906). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Football Association, Formation of the American Professional (Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920) . . . . . . 1638 Forbes Magazine Is Founded (Sept. 15, 1917) . . . 1374 Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday (Jan. 5, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1110 Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation (Mar. 1, 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063 Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3152 Ford Foundation Is Established (Jan. 1, 1936). . . . 2906 Forest Service, Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. (Jan. 3, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 Forests, Marshall Writes The People’s (Sept., 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2674 Formal Systems, Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for (July, 1929-July, 1931) . . . . 2317 Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous (June 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2843 Formation of Les Six (Jan. 16, 1920) . . . . . . . . 1601 Formation of Qantas Airlines (Nov. 20, 1920) . . . 1652
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Keyword List of Contents Galaxy, Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our (Jan. 8, 1918) . . . . . . . . . 1419 Galaxy, Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935 Gallipoli Campaign Falters (Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . 1180 Gambling, Nevada Legalizes (Mar. 19, 1931) . . . . 2483 Game, First Major League Baseball All-Star (July 6, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2667 Game, First Rose Bowl (Jan. 1, 1902) . . . . . . . . 124 Game Reserve Is Created, Serengeti (Nov. 19, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2343 Games, First Winter Olympic (Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903 Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling (Summer, 1928). . . . . . . 2242 Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques (1925-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001 Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement (1920-1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1583 Gandhi Leads the Salt March (Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2410 Gangster Films Become Popular (1931-1932). . . . 2467 Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms (1910’s). . . . 784 García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3226 Gas, Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant (Apr., 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . 2418 Gas Act, Natural (June 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . 3116 Gas Against Allied Troops, Germany Uses Poison (Apr. 22-27, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192 Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800 Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter (Feb. 11, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664 Geitel Study Radioactivity, Elster and (Early 20th cent.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Gene-Chromosome Theory, Morgan Develops the (1908-1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648 “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype,” Johannsen Coins the Terms (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726 Gene Linkage, Bateson and Punnett Observe (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474 General and Industrial Management, Fayol Publishes (July, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272 General Is Released, Keaton’s The (Dec., 1926) . . . 2142 General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure (Dec. 29, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1659 General Relativity, Einstein Completes His Theory of (Nov. 25, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1230 General Relativity, Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1250
France Sign the San Remo Agreement, Great Britain and (Apr. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1621 Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President (Nov. 8, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2596 Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481 Freedom Struggle, Defense of India Act Impedes the (Mar., 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183 Freeway Opens in Los Angeles, Arroyo Seco (Dec. 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3301 French Communist Party, Rise of the (Dec. 29, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1663 French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code (Jan., 1902). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 French Socialist Politics, L’Humanité Gives Voice to (Apr. 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Freon, Du Pont Introduces (Dec., 1930) . . . . . . . 2454 Frequency Theory of Probability, Mises Develops the (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1463 Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Friends Service Committee, Formation of the American (Apr. 30, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1356 Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements (Spring, 1919) . . . . . . . . . 1495 Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation, Bjerknes Discovers (1919-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474 Frozen Foods, Birdseye Invents Quick- (1917) . . . 1306 FTC Control over Advertising, Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens (Mar. 21, 1938). . . . . . . . . . . . . 3101 Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated (1913) . . . 1028 Functionalist Architecture, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies (Spring, 1931). . . . . . . . 2486 Functions of the Executive, Barnard Publishes The (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3066 Fundamentals Association, Founding of the World Christian (1919). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1458 Funding, Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife (Sept. 2, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3050 Future of Electricity,” Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807 Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti Issues the (Feb. 20, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747 Galactic Distances, Leavitt Discovers How to Measure (Mar. 3, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 959 Galactic Spectra, Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in (Early 1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1546 Galaxies Are Independent Systems, Hubble Shows That Other (Dec., 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1953 Galaxy, Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York (Feb. 12, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909 Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama, The (Jan. 21, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . 654 Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions, Hertzsprung Describes (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576 Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine (Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2773 Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1972 Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated (June 3, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1931 Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management (Mar., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118 Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2527 Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex, Corning (May 20, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1209 Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems (July, 1929-July, 1931) . . . . . 2317 Gold Rush, Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The (June 26, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2050 Golden Age, Hollywood Enters Its (1930’s). . . . . 2364 Golden Age of American Science Fiction (1938-1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3079 Golden Gate Bridge Opens (May 27, 1937) . . . . . 3022 Golf, First Grand Slam of (Sept. 27, 1930) . . . . . 2452 Gone with the Wind Premieres (Dec. 15, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3223 Good Neighbor Policy (Mar. 4, 1933-1945) . . . . . 2644 Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment, Hašek’s The (1921-1923). . . . 1695 Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts (Dec. 1, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2790 Goods in Response to Hyperinflation, Germans Barter for (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1814 Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India, Muslim League Protests (Dec. 30, 1906) . . . . . 564 Government Management of the Economy, Keynes Proposes (Feb. 4, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2919 Government to Southern Rhodesia, Great Britain Grants Self- (Oct. 1, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Governor in the United States, First Female (Jan. 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014 Gramophone and Typewriter Company, Caruso Records for the (Apr. 11, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . 146 Grand Canyon from Mining Claims, Roosevelt Withdraws the (Jan. 11, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . 651
General Strike, British Workers Launch (May 3-12, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2105 General Strike, Winnipeg (May 15-June 26, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1509 Genetics, Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638 Geneva Protocol Is Signed (June 17, 1925) . . . . . 2047 Genocide Begins, Armenian (Apr. 24, 1915) . . . . 1195 “Genotype,” and “Phenotype,” Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726 Genre, Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925 Gentlemen’s Agreement (Mar. 14, 1907) . . . . . . . 603 Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, First (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1025 German Artists Found the Bauhaus (1919) . . . . . 1460 German Economy, Hindenburg Program Militarizes the (Aug., 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . 1279 German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (Apr., 1925-May, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . 2030 German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania (May 7, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206 German Troops March into the Rhineland (Mar. 7, 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2927 German U-Boat Is Launched, First (Aug. 4, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541 Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1814 Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government (1918-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1409 Germany, Hitler Comes to Power in (Jan. 30, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2625 Germany, Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and (Mar. 20, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1719 Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact (Nov. 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2969 Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty (Oct., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2069 Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare (Sept. 22, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143 Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition, Nazi (July 19-Nov. 30, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . 3040 Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics (Aug. 1-16, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2948 Germany Invades Norway (Apr. 9, 1940) . . . . . . 3240 Germany Invades Poland (Sept. 1, 1939) . . . . . . 3209 Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids (Jan. 19, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1174 Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops (Apr. 22-27, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192 Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York (Oct. 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2871
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Keyword List of Contents Grocery Store Opens, First Self-Service (Sept. 11, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1288 Group of Seven Exhibition (May 7, 1920). . . . . . 1628 Group Theatre Flourishes, The (1931-1941). . . . . 2474 Guernica, Picasso Exhibits (July, 1937) . . . . . . . 3034 Guernica, Raids on (Apr. 26, 1937) . . . . . . . . . 3014 Guns, Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine (May, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1202 Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031 Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States (1930’s) . . . . . . 2356 Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps (May 16, 1940-1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3253 Gyrocompass, Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Grand Coulee Dam, Work Begins on the (Sept. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2678 Grand Ole Opry, WSM Launches The (Nov. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2082 Grand Prix Auto Race, First (June 26-27, 1906) . . . 529 Grand Slam of Golf, First (Sept. 27, 1930) . . . . . 2452 Grand Slam of Tennis, First (Sept. 17, 1938) . . . . 3127 Grapes of Wrath Portrays Depression-Era America, The (Apr., 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3180 Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory, Einstein’s Theory of (Nov. 6, 1919) . . . . . . . 1541 Grazing Act, Taylor (June 28, 1934). . . . . . . . . 2764 Great Blood Purge (June 30-July 2, 1934) . . . . . . 2767 Great Britain, Women’s Institutes Are Founded in (Sept. 11, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220 Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement (Apr. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1621 Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits (1920-1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1590 Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia (Oct. 1, 1923). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women (July 2, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2246 Great Depression (Oct. 29, 1929-1939) . . . . . . . 2335 Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union (Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2599 Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The (Apr. 10, 1925) . . . . . . . . . 2033 Great Iraqi Revolt (May-Nov., 1920) . . . . . . . . 1625 Great Northern Migration (1910-1930) . . . . . . . . 818 “Great Paradox,” Russell Discovers the (June 16, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Great Plains, Dust Bowl Devastates the (1934-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2730 Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques, The (Fall, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine (Apr. 15, 1936-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2935 Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, Japan Announces the (Aug., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . 3272 Greco-Turkish War (May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . 1511 Greece Invades Bulgaria (Oct. 23, 1925) . . . . . . 2076 Greed Premieres, Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece (Dec. 4, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1956 Green Table Premieres, Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The (July 3, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2569 Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925 Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation (Mar. 3, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1188 Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi (1901) . . . . . 14
Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Hague Peace Conference, Second (Oct. 18, 1907) . . . 625 Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom (Dec., 1938) . . . . 3143 Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia (Apr. 2, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2421 Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573 Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots (June 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686 Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory (1903-1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Halibut Treaty (Oct. 21, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947 Halifax Explosion (Dec. 6, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . 1397 Hall of Fame, Dedication of the Baseball (June 12, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3193 Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2273 Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976 Hammurabi’s Code, French Expedition at Susa Discovers (Jan., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era (1910’s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786 Harbour Bridge, Dedication of the Sydney (Mar. 19, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2549 Hard-Boiled Detective Novel, The Maltese Falcon Introduces the (Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930) . . . . . . 2323 Harding Administration, Scandals of the (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1698 Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier (Nov. 11, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1734 Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638 Harlem Renaissance (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1555
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576 Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 1034 Herzegovina, Austria Annexes Bosnia and (Oct. 7, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697 Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays (Aug. 7 and 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Hetch Hetchy Valley, U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in (Dec. 19, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095 Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp (1901). . . . 17 High-Definition Television Program, BBC Airs the First (Nov. 2, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2956 Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2360 Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames (May 6, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3017 Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy (Aug., 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279 Historiography, Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises (Summer, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1434 History, Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582 Hitchcock, Lone Wolf v. (Jan. 5, 1903) . . . . . . . . 217 Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense (1934-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2722 Hitler Comes to Power in Germany (Jan. 30, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2625 Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage, Poiret’s (Spring, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820 Hobson Critiques Imperialism (1902) . . . . . . . . . 91 Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet (1905) . . . . . 372 Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25 (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3072 Holiday Begins Her Recording Career, Billie (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2605 Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age (1930’s) . . . . . 2364 Hollywood Filmmaking, Studio System Dominates (1930’s-1940’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2376 Holmes Film Series Begins, Sherlock (Mar. 31, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3176 Home Ownership, Fannie Mae Promotes (Feb. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3090 Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created, Ireland Is Granted (1920-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1578 Home Rule Bill, Irish (Sept. 15, 1914). . . . . . . . 1140 Homeland in Palestine, Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish (Nov. 2, 1917). . . . . . . . . 1389
Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine (Oct., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001 Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 Harvard, Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 Harvard University Founds a Business School (Apr. 8, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 Harvester Company, Founding of International (Aug. 12, 1902). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . 1695 Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 852 Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts, Danbury (Feb. 3, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661 Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster (Mar. 31, 1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2414 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, Hoover Signs the (June 17, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2430 Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity (1924-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896 Health Service Is Established, U.S. Public (Aug. 14, 1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998 Heart-Lung Machine, Gibbon Develops the (Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2773 Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere, Kennelly and (Mar. and June, 1902) . . . . . . . . 134 Heavyweight Boxing Champion, First Black (Dec. 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719 Heidegger Publishes Being and Time (1927) . . . . 2146 Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle (Feb.-Mar., 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2172 Help Literature, Carnegie Redefines Self(Nov., 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2953 Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation (Oct. 22, 1926) . . . . . . . . . 2139 Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published (Nov., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Henson Reach the North Pole, Peary and (Apr. 6, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759 Heparin, McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant (Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916) . . . . . 1215 Hercule Poirot, The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1571 Hereditary Traits, Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry (Dec., 1902) . . . . . . . . . 180 Heredity, Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 Herero and Nama Revolts (Jan., 1904-1905) . . . . . 317
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Keyword List of Contents Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism (Winter, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . 2601 Hymnal, Publication of The English (1906). . . . . . 492 Hyperinflation, Germans Barter for Goods in Response to (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1814
Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson (Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385 Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation (Dec. 10, 1924) . . . . . . . . . 1959 Hoover Campaign, Smith- (1928) . . . . . . . . . . 2219 Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (June 17, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2430 Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan (1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484 Hormone Insulin, Banting and Best Isolate the (1921-1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1689 Hormones, Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of (Apr.-June, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Horror, Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2461 Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary (Nov. 16, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1544 Hospital Care, Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2269 Hot Five, Armstrong Records with the (Nov., 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2079 Hours Law, U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum (Apr. 17, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire (1924-1976) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1899 HUAC Is Established (May 26, 1938) . . . . . . . . 3111 Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2276 Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1877 Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems (Dec., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1953 Hughes Builds a Business Empire, Howard (1924-1976) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1899 Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling (1908) . . . 642 Human Blood Groups, Discovery of (1901) . . . . . . 10 Human Electroencephalogram, Berger Studies the (1929-1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2285 Human Productivity, Hawthorne Studies Examine (1924-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896 Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics, L’ (Apr. 18, 1904). . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Hundred Days, The (Mar. 9-June 16, 1933) . . . . . 2646 Hungarian Folk Songs, Bartók and Kodály Collect (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Hungary, Horthy Consolidates Power in (Nov. 16, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1544 Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, Migratory Bird (Mar. 16, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2742 Husserl Advances Phenomenology (1913) . . . . . 1037
IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line (Feb., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905 Ideals in Rings, Noether Publishes the Theory of (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1677 Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia (Aug. 2-Sept., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Imagist Movement, Pound Announces the Birth of the (Spring, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965 Immigration Act of 1917 (Feb. 5, 1917) . . . . . . . 1336 Immigration Act of 1924 (May 26, 1924) . . . . . . 1922 Immunity Research, Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering (Nov.-Dec., 1908) . . . . . . 699 Immunization Against Typhus, Zinsser Develops an (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2386 Imperial Russia, Pogroms in (1903-1906) . . . . . . 210 Imperialism, Heart of Darkness Critiques (1902) . . . 87 Imperialism, Hobson Critiques (1902) . . . . . . . . . 91 Income Tax Is Authorized, U.S. Federal (Feb. 25, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059 Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems, Gödel Proves (July, 1929-July, 1931) . . . . . . 2317 Inconsistency for Formal Systems, Gödel Proves Incompleteness- (July, 1929-July, 1931) . . . . . 2317 Independence, Baltic States Gain (Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . 1425 Independence, Finland Gains (Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 1399 Independence, Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares (Dec. 1, 1918). . . . . . . . . 1450 Independence, Poland Secures (Mar. 18, 1921) . . . 1715 Independence, Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for (1917-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321 Independence Act, Philippine (Mar. 24, 1934) . . . 2745 Independence from Colombia, Panama Declares (Nov. 3, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Independent, Norway Becomes (Oct. 26, 1905) . . . 450 India, Britain Separates Burma from (Apr. 1, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3012 India, Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in (Dec. 30, 1906) . . . . . . . 564 India, Plague Kills 1.2 Million in (1907) . . . . . . . 584 India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, Defense of (Mar., 1915). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183 India Signs the Delhi Pact (Mar. 5, 1931) . . . . . . 2480 India Undergo a Decade of Change, Women’s Rights in (1925-1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Insular Cases (May 27, 1901). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Insulin, Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone (1921-1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1689 Insurance Industry, Armstrong Committee Examines the (Aug.-Dec., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . 436 Insurgency, Republican Congressional (Mar., 1909-1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751 Intentional Radio Telescope, Reber Builds the First (June-Sept., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3028 Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace (Dec., 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2971 Interchangeable Parts, Cadillac Demonstrates (Feb. 29, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670 Internal Constitution of the Stars, Eddington Publishes The (July, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2119 International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade (May 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded (June 27-29, 1906). . . . . . . 531 International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses (July 26, 1931) . . . . . . . 2512 International Congress of Women (Apr. 28-May 1, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1199 International Harvester Company, Founding of (Aug. 12, 1902). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 International Justice Is Established, Permanent Court of (Dec. 13, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1657 International Labor Organization Is Established (June 28, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1517 International Opium Convention Is Signed (Feb. 23, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 956 International Sanitary Bureau, Founding of the (Dec. 2-5, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 International Slavery Convention, League of Nations Adopts (Sept. 25, 1926) . . . . . . . . . 2135 Interstellar Matter, Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 Intervention in Nicaragua, U.S. (Aug. 4-Nov., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991 Interwar Cynicism, Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses (1932). . . . . . . . . . . 2524 Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics, Brouwer Develops (1904-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Invades and Annexes Albania, Italy (Apr. 7, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3184 Invades British Somaliland, Italy (Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3274 Invades Bulgaria, Greece (Oct. 23, 1925) . . . . . . 2076 Invades Egypt, Italy (Sept. 13, 1940) . . . . . . . . 3289 Invades Norway, Germany (Apr. 9, 1940). . . . . . 3240
Indian Citizenship Act (June 2, 1924) . . . . . . . . 1929 Indian Opinion, Founding of the Weekly (June 6, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Indian Reorganization Act (June 18, 1934) . . . . . 2757 Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park (May, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2182 Indianapolis Motor Speedway, First Auto Race at the (Aug. 19, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 Indians, First Conference of the Society of American (Oct. 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005 Indians at Amritsar, British Soldiers Massacre (Apr. 13, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1497 India’s Untouchables, Poona Pact Grants Representation to (Sept. 25, 1932) . . . . . . . . 2586 Indochinese Ports, Japan Occupies (Sept., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3279 Industrial Design, Loewy Pioneers American (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2279 Industrial Organizations Is Founded, Congress of (Nov. 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2888 Industrial Poisons in the United States, Hamilton Publishes (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976 Industrial Reconstruction Institute, Italy Creates the (Jan. 23, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2622 Industrial Recovery Act, Roosevelt Signs the National (June 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2663 Industrial Sectors, France Nationalizes Its Banking and (1936-1946) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2899 Industrial Workers of the World, Founding of (June 27, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425 Industries Board, United States Establishes the War (July 8, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1371 Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Callendar Connects (1938) . . . . . . . 3069 Influenza Epidemic Strikes (Mar., 1918-1919) . . . 1428 Injectable Anesthetic, Introduction of the First (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 Inklings, Lewis Convenes the (Fall, 1933-Oct. 20, 1949) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2681 Inner Core, Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2893 Insecticidal Properties of DDT, Müller Discovers the (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3156 Insecticide Use, American Farmers Increase (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303 Insemination, Ivanov Develops Artificial (1901). . . . 23 Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat (June 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 Institute of Accountants Is Founded, American (Sept. 19, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292 Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain, Women’s (Sept. 11, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220
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Keyword List of Contents Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony (1916) . . . . 1247 Izaak Walton League Is Formed (Jan., 1922) . . . . 1760
Invades Poland, Germany (Sept. 1, 1939) . . . . . . 3209 Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . 2368 Invents Bakelite, Baekeland (1905-1907) . . . . . . . 385 Invents Cellophane, Brandenberger (1904-1912) . . . 314 Invents Nylon, Carothers (Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2816 Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp, Hewitt (1901) . . . 17 Invents the Ultramicroscope, Zsigmondy (1902) . . . 110 Investigation, Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of (Dec. 10, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . 1959 Investigation Begins Operation, Bureau of (July 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692 Investment Scheme, Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an (1919-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1470 Ionosphere, Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the (Mar. and June, 1902) . . . . . . 134 Iran, Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize (1925-1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2007 Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians (Aug. 11-13, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2672 Iraqi Revolt, Great (May-Nov., 1920) . . . . . . . . 1625 Ireland Is Created, Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern (1920-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1578 Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created (1920-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1578 Irish Audiences, The Playboy of the Western World Offends (Jan. 26, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597 Irish Dáil, De Valera Is Elected President of the (Mar. 9, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2547 Irish Home Rule Bill (Sept. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . 1140 Iron for Red Blood Cells, Whipple Discovers Importance of (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990 Islam Is Founded, Nation of (Summer, 1930) . . . . 2434 Islands, Canada Claims the Arctic (July 1, 1901) . . . 54 Isotopes, Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455 Isotopes, Thomson Confirms the Possibility of (1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811 Italy, League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against (Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936) . . . . . . 2875 Italy, Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in (1925-1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997 Italy Annexes Libya (1911-1912) . . . . . . . . . . . 856 Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute (Jan. 23, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2622 Italy Invades and Annexes Albania (Apr. 7, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3184 Italy Invades British Somaliland (Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3274 Italy Invades Egypt (Sept. 13, 1940). . . . . . . . . 3289 Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination (1901) . . . . 23
James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 James’s Pragmatism, Publication of (1907). . . . . . 591 James’s The Ambassadors Is Published, Henry (Nov., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy (1930-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2394 Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1558 Japan, China Declares War on (July 7, 1937) . . . . 3037 Japan, Earthquake Rocks (Sept. 1, 1923) . . . . . . 1855 Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere (Aug., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3272 Japan into World Markets, Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings (Jan. 30, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men (May 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2042 Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports (Sept., 1940). . . 3279 Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools (Oct. 25, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties (Dec. 29, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2797 Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, Germany and (Nov. 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2969 Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations (Feb. 24, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2628 Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded (Aug. 29, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2442 Japanese Annexation of Korea (Aug. 22, 1910) . . . 838 Japanese in California Schools, Japan Protests Segregation of (Oct. 25, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Japanese War, Russo(Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London, Tudor’s (Jan. 26, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2908 Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie,” The (Oct. 6, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2202 Jehovah’s Witnesses, International Bible Students Association Becomes (July 26, 1931) . . . . . . 2512 Jewish Homeland in Palestine, Balfour Declaration Supports a (Nov. 2, 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . 1389 Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Brandeis Becomes the First (June 5, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Jews, Nazi Extermination of the (1939-1945) . . . . 3159 Joan of Arc, Canonization of (May 16, 1920) . . . . 1630 Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype” (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726 John Muir Trail Is Completed (1938) . . . . . . . . 3076 Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings (1902) . . . . . . 96
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Klan Spreads Terror in the American South, Ku Klux (1921-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1705 Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act, Eastman (Feb. 21, 1927). . . . . . 2175 Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs, Bartók and (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism (Dec., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3298 Korea, Japanese Annexation of (Aug. 22, 1910) . . . 838 Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy, Carlson and (Oct. 22, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . 3134 Kowalska, Death of Maria Faustina (Oct. 5, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3133 Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle (Mar., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3005 Kristallnacht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3141 Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South (1921-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1705 Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2148
Jones Act of 1917 (Mar. 2, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . 1347 Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres (July 3, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2569 Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism, Céline’s (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2524 Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction (Feb. 2, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1767 Jung Develops Analytical Psychology (1930’s) . . . 2370 Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928 Jungle, Sinclair Publishes The (Feb., 1906). . . . . . 509 Justice, Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court (June 5, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Justice Is Established, Permanent Court of International (Dec. 13, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 1657 Jutland, Battle of (May 31-June 1, 1916) . . . . . . 1266 Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test (1923) . . . 1817 Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2612 Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932 Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity (Jan., 1938) . . . . . 3083 Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2461 Keaton’s The General Is Released (Dec., 1926) . . . 2142 Kellogg-Briand Pact (Aug. 27, 1928) . . . . . . . . 2252 Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere (Mar. and June, 1902) . . . . . . . . . 134 Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy (Feb. 4, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2919 Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine, First (1909) . . . 723 Kidney, Abel Develops the First Artificial (1912-1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942 Kienthal Conferences, Zimmerwald and (Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916) . . . . . 1217 King Era in Canada (1921-1948) . . . . . . . . . . 1709 King Returns to Power in Canada (Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948) . . . . . . . . . . 2879 Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence (Dec. 1, 1918) . . . . . . 1450 Kings Canyon, Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve (Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940) . . . . . . . . . 2992 Kings of Horror, Karloff and Lugosi Become (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2461 Kings River Dams, Federal Power Commission Disallows (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1810 Kipping Discovers Silicones (1901-1904) . . . . . . . 26 KKK Violence, Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to (June 26, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . 1850
La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations, Norris- (Mar. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2552 La Revue nègre, Baker Dances in (Oct.-Dec., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2073 Labor, Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and (Feb. 14, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . 219 Labor, Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of (Feb. 28, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2637 Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes, Railway (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . 2115 Labor Code, Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced (Jan. 31, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1332 Labor Disputes, Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . 2115 Labor Organization Is Established, International (June 28, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1517 Labor Organizations, Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens (Mar. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . 2552 Labor Standards Act, Fair (June 25, 1938). . . . . . 3119 Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153 Labour Party, Establishment of the British (Feb. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 Labour Party Administration, New Zealand’s First (Nov. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2891 Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s (Jan. 28, 1936) . . . . 2911 Lake Victoria Railway, Completion of the Mombasa(Dec. 19, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception (Aug., 1930). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2437
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Keyword List of Contents League of Nations, Egypt Joins the (May 26, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3020 League of Nations, Japan Withdraws from the (Feb. 24, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2628 League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention (Sept. 25, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . 2135 League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy (Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936) . . . 2875 League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine (July 24, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1777 League of Nations Is Established (Apr. 28, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1501 League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded (Feb. 17, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2304 League of Women Voters Is Founded (Feb. 14, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1610 Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances (Mar. 3, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 959 Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations (Spring, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 Legislation, Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief (Sept. 8, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2448 Legislative Reform, Canada Cement Affair Prompts (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778 Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2893 Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory (1927). . . 2155 Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy (Mar., 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1711 Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve (Feb. 1, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486 Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism (Jan.-June, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1253 Lenin Establishes the Comintern (Mar. 2-6, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1490 Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution (Mar.-Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1343 Leopold Form the Wilderness Society, Marshall and (Oct. 19, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2780 Les Six, Formation of (Jan. 16, 1920) . . . . . . . . 1601 Let’s Dance Broadcasts, Goodman Begins His (Dec. 1, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2790 Levees, Chinese Forces Break Yellow River (June 7, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3114 Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo (Apr. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879 Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Lewis Convenes the Inklings (Fall, 1933-Oct. 20, 1949) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2681 Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet (Sept. 7, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Lamp, Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor (1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Land Concession in the Belgian Congo, Lever Acquires (Apr. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879 Land Law, Passage of the First Alien (May 20, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076 Lands, Mineral Act Regulates Public (Feb. 25, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614 Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2152 Langevin Develops Active Sonar (Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223 L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences (May 29, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 977 Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1671 Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered (Sept. 12, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3285 Last Passenger Pigeon Dies (Sept. 1, 1914) . . . . . 1133 Lateran Treaty (Feb. 11, 1929). . . . . . . . . . . . 2298 Latin American Citizens Is Founded, League of United (Feb. 17, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2304 Latitudes, Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate (1935) . . . . . . 2799 Launching of the Dreadnought (Oct. 6, 1906) . . . . 552 Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket (Mar. 16, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2099 Law, New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning (July, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1276 Law, Passage of the First Alien Land (May 20, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076 Law, U.S. Congress Updates Copyright (Mar. 4, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753 Law, U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours (Apr. 17, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 Law, Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election (May 23, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Law in Response to KKK Violence, Oklahoma Imposes Martial (June 26, 1923) . . . . . . . . . 1850 Law in the United States, Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage (June 4, 1912). . . . . . 980 Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron (Jan. 2, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2477 Laws, Delaware Revises Corporation (1903) . . . . . 188 Laws, Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153 Laws, U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage (Apr. 9, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture (Spring, 1931) . . . . 2486 Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising, Wheeler- (Mar. 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3101
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 London, Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in (Jan. 26, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2908 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (Jan. 5, 1903) . . . . . . . . 217 Long March, Mao’s (Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . 2777 L’Orangerie, Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de (May 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . 2186 Los Angeles, Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in (Dec. 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3301 Los Angeles Aqueduct, Completion of the (Nov. 5, 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1088 Los Angeles Aqueduct, Farmers Dynamite the (May 21, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 Lost Generation, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the (Oct. 22, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . 2139 Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto (Aug., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432 LSD-25, Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3072 Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2705 Luce Founds Fortune Magazine (Feb., 1930) . . . . 2403 Luce Founds Time Magazine (Mar. 3, 1923) . . . . 1833 Luce Launches Life Magazine (Nov. 23, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2966 Lugosi Become Kings of Horror, Karloff and (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2461 Lulu Opens in Zurich, Berg’s (June 2, 1937) . . . . 3031 Lumières Develop Color Photography (1907) . . . . 579 Luminosity, Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and (1905) . . . . . . . . . . 369 Luminosity Law for Stars, Eddington Formulates the Mass- (Mar., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1912 Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes, Chapman Determines the (1935) . . . . . . . . . 2799 Lung Machine, Gibbon Develops the Heart(Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2773 Lusitania, German Torpedoes Sink the (May 7, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206 Luxemburg, Assassination of Rosa (Jan. 15, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1479 Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere (1930) . . . . . . . . . 2383
L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics (Apr. 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Liability for Auditors, Ultramares Case Establishes (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2464 Liberties During World War I, U.S. Curtails Civil (Apr. 13, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1353 Liberties Union Is Founded, American Civil (Jan. 19, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607 Libya, Italy Annexes (1911-1912) . . . . . . . . . . 856 Lied von der Erde Premieres, Mahler’s Masterpiece Das (Nov. 20, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913 Life Magazine, Luce Launches (Nov. 23, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2966 Light, De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1804 Lighting Is Introduced, Fluorescent (Nov. 23, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2963 Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight (May 20, 1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2189 Linkage, Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474 Linked Probabilities, Markov Discovers the Theory of (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic (Nov. 7, 1914). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1161 Liquid-Fueled Rocket, Launching of the First (Mar. 16, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2099 Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel, Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Lisieux Is Canonized, Thérèse of (May 17, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2044 Literature, Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in (Dec. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3147 Literature, Carnegie Redefines Self-Help (Nov., 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2953 Literature, Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1403 Literature, Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet (Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934) . . . . . . . . 2562 Literature, Tolkien Redefines Fantasy (Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3047 Literature, Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in (Dec. 10, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2267 Litovsk, Treaty of Brest- (Mar. 3, 1918). . . . . . . 1431 Little Johnny Jones Premieres, Cohan’s (Nov. 7, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Lobotomy, Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal (Nov.-Dec., 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2882 Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2279 Logistic Movement, Principia Mathematica Defines the (1910-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814
McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets (1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1757 Macedonia, Ilinden Uprising in (Aug. 2-Sept., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking (Feb. 25, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2179
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Keyword List of Contents Man, Zdansky Discovers Peking (Summer, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1847 Man and Superman, Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Man Ray Creates the Rayograph (1921) . . . . . . . 1673 Management, Fayol Publishes General and Industrial (July, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272 Management, Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of (Mar., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118 Management Association Is Established, American (Mar. 14, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1840 Management Consulting Firm, McKinsey Founds a (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980 Manned Bathysphere Dives, First (June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . 2427 Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1880 Mantle-Outer Core Boundary, Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031 Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing, Cement (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Mao’s Long March (Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . 2777 March, Bonus (July 28, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2578 March, Gandhi Leads the Salt (Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2410 March, Mao’s Long (Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . 2777 “March on Rome,” Mussolini’s (Oct. 24-30, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1782 Maria Faustina Kowalska, Death of (Oct. 5, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3133 Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall (Jan. 2, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3166 Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal (May 13-Oct. 17, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1360 Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto (Feb. 20, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747 Market Crashes, U.S. Stock (Oct. 24-29, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2331 Marketing Act, Agricultural (June 15, 1929) . . . . 2311 Marketing and Media Research, A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . 1796 Markets, Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World (Jan. 30, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Markets, Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World (Sept. 27, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade, Gillette (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 Marne, First Battle of the (Sept. 5-9, 1914) . . . . . 1137
Machine, Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung (Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2773 Machine, Turing Invents the Universal Turing (1935-1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2806 Machine Guns, Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with (May, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1202 Machine Is Introduced, Electric Washing (1910) . . . 792 Machines, Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2368 Machines in Russia, Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Machu Picchu, Bingham Discovers (July 24, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892 McKinley National Park Is Created, Mount (Feb. 26, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1339 McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980 McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin (Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916) . . . . . . . . . 1215 Magazine, Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry (Oct., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001 Magazine, Luce Founds Fortune (Feb., 1930) . . . . 2403 Magazine, Luce Founds Time (Mar. 3, 1923) . . . . 1833 Magazine, Luce Launches Life (Nov. 23, 1936) . . . 2966 Magazine Is Founded, Forbes (Sept. 15, 1917) . . . 1374 Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis, Mann’s The (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1880 Maginot Line Is Built (1929-1940) . . . . . . . . . 2288 Magnetic Fields in Sunspots, Hale Discovers Strong (June 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686 Mahagonny Songspiel, Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the (July 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . 2193 Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera (Early 20th cent.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres (Nov. 20, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913 Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales (1926-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2092 Maintenance, Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price (Aug. 17, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3044 Mairea, Aalto Designs Villa (1937-1938) . . . . . . 2982 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, First (July 6, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2667 Malevich Introduces Suprematism (Dec. 17, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1235 Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel, The (Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930) . . . . . . . 2323 Mammography, Salomon Develops (1913) . . . . . 1040 Man, Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Man, Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking (Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3053
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Media Research, A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1796 Mediation of Labor Disputes, Railway Labor Act Provides for (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . 2115 Meighen Era in Canada (July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1636 Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought (July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . 2058 Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582 Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist (1920-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1587 Men, Japan Introduces Suffrage for (May 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2042 Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity, Punnett’s (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, Bateson Publishes (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Mercury-Vapor Lamp, Hewitt Invents the (1901) . . . 17 Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded (1915) . . . 1164 Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals, Lubitsch’s The (1934). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2705 Mesons, Yukawa Proposes the Existence of (Nov., 1934). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2784 Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate, Toynbee’s (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2716 Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation, The (1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1168 Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research, Ehrlich and (Nov.-Dec., 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . 699 Metropolis, Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2152 Meuse-Argonne Offensive (Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1440 Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code (Jan. 31, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1332 Mexican Revolution (Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 843 Mexicans, Mass Deportations of (Early 1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2350 Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties (Mar. 18, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3098 Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star (Dec. 13, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1654 Microscope, Müller Invents the Field Emission (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2896 Microscope Is Constructed, First Electron (Apr., 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2493 Mid-Atlantic Ridge, German Expedition Discovers the (Apr., 1925-May, 1927) . . . . . . 2030 Middle East, Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the (Sept. 17, 1928) . . . . . . . 2259
Marquis Wheat, Canadian Cultivation of (1904) . . . 281 Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society (Oct. 19, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2780 Marshall Writes The People’s Forests (Sept., 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2674 Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence, Oklahoma Imposes (June 26, 1923) . . . . . . . 1850 Martyrs Are Executed in Spain, Claretian (Aug. 2-18, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2951 Mass, Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s (1931-1935). . . . . . . 2471 Mass Broadcast Medium, Radio Develops as a (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1562 Mass Deportations of Mexicans (Early 1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2350 Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars, Eddington Formulates the (Mar., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . 1912 Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes, Aston Builds the First (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455 Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States (June 4, 1912) . . . . . . 980 Massacre, Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14, 1929) . . . . . 2301 Massacre Indians at Amritsar, British Soldiers (Apr. 13, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1497 Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, Soviets (Apr.-May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3236 Massacres Civilians, El Salvador’s Military (Jan.-Feb., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2535 Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand (July 10, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 986 Mata Hari, France Executes (Oct. 15, 1917). . . . . 1383 Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement, Principia (1910-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814 Mathematics, Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of (1904-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Mathématique, Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3149 Maximum Hours Law, U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down (Apr. 17, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 May Fourth Movement (May 4, 1919). . . . . . . . 1506 Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa (Aug., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2249 Means Discuss Corporate Control, Berle and (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2521 Measuring Earthquake Strength, Richter Develops a Scale for (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2809 Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug Act and (June 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 Mechanical Respirator, Drinker and Shaw Develop a (July, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2314 Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . 729
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Keyword List of Contents Mondrian’s Neoplasticism, De Stijl Advocates (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312 Monetary Control, Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. (Aug. 23, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2857 Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie (May 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . 2186 Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement, Founding of the (Jan. 11, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . 504 Monitor Is Founded, Christian Science (Nov. 28, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707 Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music, Bill (1939-1949) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3163 Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine, Harriet (Oct., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001 Montage to Filmmaking, Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2148 Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions, Nevada and (Mar. 5, 1923). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1838 Monte Carlo Debuts, Ballet Russe de (Apr. 5, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3107 Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images (1940-1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3233 Moplah Rebellion (Aug., 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1728 Moral Absolutes, Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1972 Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation (Feb. 26, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory (1908-1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648 Morris Plan Bank Opens, First (Apr. 5, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827 Moscow, Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in (Mar. 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865 Moscow, Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in (May 18, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2240 Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte, Hoffmann and (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Mosquito Control, Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever, Reed Reports That (Feb. 4, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Motion-Picture Industry, Sound Technology Revolutionizes the (May 11, 1928) . . . . . . . . 2234 Motion Pictures, Warner Bros. Introduces Talking (Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2124 Motor Company, Hashimoto Founds the Nissan (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 852 Motor Speedway, First Auto Race at the Indianapolis (Aug. 19, 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 Mount McKinley National Park Is Created (Feb. 26, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1339 Mount Pelée Erupts (May 8, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . 149
Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas (Apr., 1930). . . . . . . . . 2418 Migration, Great Northern (1910-1930). . . . . . . . 818 Migratory Bird Act (Mar. 4, 1913). . . . . . . . . . 1067 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (Mar. 16, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2742 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (July 3, 1918) . . . . . . 1437 Militarizes the German Economy, Hindenburg Program (Aug., 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279 Military Massacres Civilians, El Salvador’s (Jan.-Feb., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2535 Milky Way, Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2161 Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance (Aug. 17, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . 3044 Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy (Sept. 1, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2770 Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment (Jan.-Aug., 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741 Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays (1920-1930) . . . 1594 Mind of Primitive Man, Boas Publishes The (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands (Feb. 25, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614 Mines Is Established, U.S. Bureau of (July 1, 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 836 Minimum Wage Law in the United States, Massachusetts Adopts the First (June 4, 1912) . . . 980 Minimum Wage Laws, U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against (Apr. 9, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 Mining Claims, Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from (Jan. 11, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . 651 Minorities, Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for (Jan. 19-21, 1919) . . . . . . . . . 1483 Minority Rights in India, Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of (Dec. 30, 1906) . . . . . . 564 Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability (1919). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1463 Miss America Is Crowned, First (Sept. 8, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1730 Mobilization for World War II, United States Begins (Aug., 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3198 Modern Art Opens to the Public, New York’s Museum of (Nov. 8, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2340 Modernism and Defends Christianity, Chesterton Critiques (Sept. 30, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . 2066 Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, Oldham and (1906-1910) . . . . . . . . 497 Molds, Fleming Discovers Penicillin in (Sept., 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2256 Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, Completion of the (Dec. 19, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nama Revolts, Herero and (Jan., 1904-1905) . . . . . 317 Nanjing, Rape of (Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938) . . . . . . 3059 Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize (Dec. 10, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1790 Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques, Gance’s (1925-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001 Nation of Islam Is Founded (Summer, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2434 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded (Feb. 12, 1909) . . . . 744 National Audubon Society Is Established (Jan. 5, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396 National Birth Control League Forms (1915-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171 National Broadcasting Company Is Founded (Sept. 9, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2132 National Industrial Recovery Act, Roosevelt Signs the (June 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2663 National Park Is Created, Mount McKinley (Feb. 26, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1339 National Park Service Is Created (Aug. 25, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1282 National Parks Act, Canadian (May 30, 1930) . . . 2424 National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded (May 20, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1514 National Wildlife Federation, Darling Founds the (Feb. 4, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2915 National Wildlife Refuge Is Established, First U.S. (Mar. 14, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 National Woman’s Party Is Founded (1917). . . . . 1309 Nationalists Struggle for Independence, Ukrainian (1917-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321 Native Son Depicts Racism in America, Wright’s (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3230 Natural Gas Act (June 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . 3116 Natural Radioactivity, Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering (Dec. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . 275 Natural Resources, Conference on the Conservation of (May 13-15, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677 Nature, Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of (1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1884 Nature Preserve, Lenin Approves the First Soviet (Feb. 1, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486 Navy, United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean (June 14, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3258 Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating (Mar., 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2640 Nazi Death Camps, Gypsies Are Exterminated in (May 16, 1940-1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3253 Nazi Extermination of the Jews (1939-1945) . . . . 3159 Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition (July 19-Nov. 30, 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3040
Mount Wilson, Hooker Telescope Is Installed on (Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385 Mount Wilson Observatory, Hale Establishes (1903-1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness, Woolf’s (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993 Muir Trail Is Completed, John (1938) . . . . . . . . 3076 Muir Visit Yosemite, Roosevelt and (May, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3156 Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2896 Muller v. Oregon (Feb. 24, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . 667 Munich Conference (Sept. 29-30, 1938) . . . . . . . 3129 Mural Is Destroyed, Rivera’s Rockefeller Center (Feb., 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2736 Musée de L’Orangerie, Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the (May 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . 2186 Museum of American Art Opens in New York, Whitney (Nov. 17, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2514 Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public, New York’s (Nov. 8, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2340 Music, ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of (Feb. 13, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . 1114 Music, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass (1939-1949) . . . . . . . . . . 3163 Music, Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587 Music as a Social Activity, Hindemith Advances (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2360 Musical Film, Hallelujah Is the First Important Black (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2273 Musical to Emphasize Plot, Show Boat Is the First American (Dec. 27, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2210 Musicals, Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2608 Musicals, Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2705 Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt (Mar., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2228 Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India (Dec. 30, 1906) . . . . . 564 Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy (1925-1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997 Mussolini’s “March on Rome” (Oct. 24-30, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1782 Muzak, Squier Founds (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2713 My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature, Cather’s (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1403 Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot, The (1920). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1571
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Keyword List of Contents New Yorker, Ross Founds The (Feb. 21, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2020 New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public (Nov. 8, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2340 New Zealand, Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of (July 10, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 986 New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration (Nov. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2891 Newton’s Theory, Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over (Nov. 6, 1919) . . . . . . . . 1541 Niagara Movement, Founding of the (July 11, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428 Nicaragua, U.S. Intervention in (Aug. 4-Nov., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991 Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens, First (June, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research, A. C. (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1796 Nigeria, Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in (Mar. 28, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Night Work for Women, Bern Convention Prohibits (Sept. 19, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Nissan Motor Company, Hashimoto Founds the (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 852 Nitrogen from the Air, Haber Develops Process for Extracting (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Nobel Peace Prize, Nansen Wins the (Dec. 10, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1790 Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity, Becquerel Wins the (Dec. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . . 275 Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron, Thomson Wins the (Dec. 10, 1906). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558 Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays, Röntgen Wins the (Dec. 10, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Nobel Prize in Literature, Buck Receives the (Dec. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3147 Nobel Prize in Literature, Undset Accepts the (Dec. 10, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2267 Nobel Prizes Are Awarded, First (Dec. 10, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1677 Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1406 Noncooperation Movement, Gandhi Leads a (1920-1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1583 Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, Lindbergh Makes the First (May 20, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2189 Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations (Mar. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . 2552 North Pole, Peary and Henson Reach the (Apr. 6, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Nazi Rise to Political Power, Racist Theories Aid (1919-1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1476 Nazi-Soviet Pact (Aug. 23-24, 1939) . . . . . . . . 3205 Nazi Thought, Mein Kampf Outlines (July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . 2058 Nazism, Pius XI Urges Resistance Against (Mar. 14, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3009 Neanderthal Skeleton, Boule Reconstructs the First (Dec., 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710 Nebula, Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1877 Negritude, Development of (1932-1940) . . . . . . 2532 Neoplasticism, De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312 Nerve Fibers Is Observed, Development of (Spring, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608 Nervous System, Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the (Apr.-May, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Neutrality Acts (Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939). . . . 2865 Neutrality in World War I, Spain Declares (Oct. 30, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156 Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay, Fermi Proposes the (Nov.-Dec., 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2687 Neutron, Chadwick Discovers the (Feb., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2544 Neutron Stars, Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2718 Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions (Mar. 5, 1923). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1838 Nevada Legalizes Gambling (Mar. 19, 1931) . . . . 2483 New Economic Policy, Lenin Announces the (Mar., 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1711 New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States, Oklahoma (Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912) . . . . . 594 New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1983 New Republic, Lippmann Helps to Establish The (Nov. 7, 1914). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1161 New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated (June, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1775 New York, Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in (Feb. 12, 1935) . . . . . . . . 2820 New York, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in (Oct. 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2871 New York, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in (Feb. 12, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909 New York, Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in (Nov. 17, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2514 New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law (July, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1276 New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth (Jan. 3, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1597
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence (June 26, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . 1850 Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States (Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912) . . . . . . . . 594 Old-Age Pensions, Nevada and Montana Introduce (Mar. 5, 1923). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1838 Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure (1906-1910) . . . . . . . . . . . 497 Olympic Games, First Winter (Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903 Olympics, Germany Hosts the Summer (Aug. 1-16, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2948 Olympics, Stockholm Hosts the Summer (May 5-July 27, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, Kallet and Schlink Publish (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2612 One-Piece Bathing Suit, Jantzen Popularizes the (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1558 Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2161 Opera, Mahler Directs the Vienna Court (Early 20th cent.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Opium Convention Is Signed, International (Feb. 23, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 956 Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes (Feb. 15, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3170 Opry, WSM Launches The Grand Ole (Nov. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2082 Orangerie, Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’ (May 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . 2186 Orchestra Premieres, Webern’s Six Pieces for Large (Mar. 31, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070 Oregon, Muller v. (Feb. 24, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . 667 Orthodox Church, Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian (1917-1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318 Orthodox Church, Stalin Suppresses the Russian (Summer, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3195 Ottawa Agreements (July 21-Aug. 21, 1932) . . . . 2575 Ottoman Empire, Young Turks Stage a Coup in the (July 24, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689 Ottomans, British Mount a Second Front Against the (Nov. 5, 1914). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1158 Our Town Opens on Broadway (Feb. 4, 1938) . . . 3087 Outbreak of World War I (June 28-Aug. 4, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1121 Ownership, Fannie Mae Promotes Home (Feb. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3090 Oxygen for Space Travel, Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Ozawa v. United States (Nov. 13, 1922) . . . . . . . 1788 Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere, Fabry Quantifies (Jan. 17, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053
Northern Ireland Is Created, Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and (1920-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1578 Northern Migration, Great (1910-1930). . . . . . . . 818 Northern Securities, U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against (Mar. 14, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Norway, Germany Invades (Apr. 9, 1940). . . . . . 3240 Norway Annexes Svalbard (Aug. 14, 1925) . . . . . 2064 Norway Becomes Independent (Oct. 26, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 Novel, The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective (Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930) . . . . . . . . 2323 Novelist, Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American (1920-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1587 Nucleus, Rutherford Describes the Atomic (Mar. 7, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 962 Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2158 Nylon, Carothers Invents (Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2816 Objectivity Movement Is Introduced, New (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1983 Observatory, Hale Establishes Mount Wilson (1903-1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Ocean Navy, United States Begins Building a Two(June 14, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3258 Octet, Stravinsky Completes His Wind (Oct. 18, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865 October Manifesto (Oct. 30, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . 452 October Revolution, Bolsheviks Mount the (Nov. 6-7, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1393 Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama (Feb. 19, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . 2823 Offensive, Meuse-Argonne (Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1440 Ogdensburg Agreement (Aug. 16, 1940) . . . . . . 3276 Oil at Spindletop, Discovery of (Jan. 10, 1901) . . . . 40 Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East (Sept. 17, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . 2259 Oil-Drop Experiment, Millikan Conducts His (Jan.-Aug., 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741 Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia, Rise of Commercial (Mar. 3, 1938). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3096 Oil Is Discovered in Persia (May 26, 1908). . . . . . 681 Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela (Dec. 14, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1794 Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters (June 7, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1935 Oil Properties, Mexico Nationalizes Foreign (Mar. 18, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3098 Oil Well Drilling, Hughes Revolutionizes (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642
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Keyword List of Contents Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities (Jan. 19-21, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . 1483 Paris Salons, Stein Holds Her First (Fall, 1905) . . . 443 Parisian Audiences, L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes (May 29, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . 977 Park, Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State (May, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2182 Park Is Created, Mount McKinley National (Feb. 26, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1339 Park Service Is Created, National (Aug. 25, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1282 Parks Act, Canadian National (May 30, 1930) . . . 2424 Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded, National (May 20, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1514 Parliament, First Woman Elected to Australian (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1669 Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy (Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756 Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System (Dec. 31, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922 Particle Duality of Light, De Broglie Explains the Wave- (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1804 Parts, Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable (Feb. 29, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670 Party, Establishment of the British Labour (Feb. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 Party, Rise of the French Communist (Dec. 29, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1663 Party Administration, New Zealand’s First Labour (Nov. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2891 Party Is Founded, National Woman’s (1917) . . . . 1309 Pass, American College Football Allows the Forward (Jan. 12, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Passage of the First Alien Land Law (May 20, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076 Passenger Pigeon Dies, Last (Sept. 1, 1914) . . . . . 1133 Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner, Booth Receives (Aug. 30, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Patent on an Early Type of Television, Zworykin Applies for (Dec. 29, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1873 Patrol, U.S. Congress Establishes the Border (May 28, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926 Patterns of Culture, Benedict Publishes (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2697 Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle (Spring, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2027 Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond (1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2389 Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement (1902-1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan (Dec. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Pacifism, Angell Advances (1910) . . . . . . . . . . 790 Packing Fight, Supreme Court(Feb. 5-July 22, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2999 Pact, Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern (Nov. 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2969 Pact, India Signs the Delhi (Mar. 5, 1931). . . . . . 2480 Pact, Kellogg-Briand (Aug. 27, 1928) . . . . . . . . 2252 Pact, Nazi-Soviet (Aug. 23-24, 1939) . . . . . . . . 3205 Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, Poona (Sept. 25, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2586 Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran (1925-1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2007 Painting, Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract (Mar. 31, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1915 Painting Opens in New York, Exhibition of American Abstract (Feb. 12, 1935) . . . . . . . . 2820 Paintings Are Discovered, Lascaux Cave (Sept. 12, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3285 Palais Stoclet, Hoffmann Designs the (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372 Palestine, Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in (Nov. 2, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . 1389 Palestine, First Kibbutz Is Established in (1909) . . . 723 Palestine, Great Uprising of Arabs in (Apr. 15, 1936-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2935 Palestine, League of Nations Establishes Mandate for (July 24, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1777 Panama Canal, Construction Begins on the (Summer, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 Panama Canal Opens (Aug. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . 1130 Panama Canal Zone, U.S. Acquisition of the (Nov. 18, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Panama Declares Independence from Colombia (Nov. 3, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Panic of 1907 (Oct.-Nov., 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . 622 Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union (Oct. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer (Jan., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . 2225 Paperback Books, Penguin Develops a Line of (1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2802 Paradox,” Russell Discovers the “Great (June 16, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Paraguay, Corporatism Comes to (Feb. 17, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2923 Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490 Paris, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds (May 19, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762 Paris, The Firebird Premieres in (June 25, 1910) . . . 833 Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco (May-June, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2037
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Philosophy in Man and Superman, Shaw Articulates His (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Photo-Secession, Stieglitz Organizes the (Feb. 17, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Photocopy, Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic (Oct. 22, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . 3134 Photoelectric Cell Is Developed, First Practical (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Photoelectric Effect, Einstein Describes the (Mar., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408 Photography, Lumières Develop Color (1907) . . . . 579 Picasso Exhibits Guernica (July, 1937) . . . . . . . 3034 Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon (May 27, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2506 Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart” (1909-1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737 Pigeon Dies, Last Passenger (Sept. 1, 1914) . . . . . 1133 Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland (May 12-15, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2109 Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service (Jan. 3, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres (May 10, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1721 Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding (Sept. 2, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3050 Pius X Becomes Pope (Aug. 9, 1903) . . . . . . . . . 247 Pius X Condemns Slavery, Pope (June 7, 1912) . . . 983 Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism (Mar. 14, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3009 Pius XII Becomes Pope (Mar. 2, 1939) . . . . . . . 3173 Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India (1907) . . . . . . . 584 Plains, Dust Bowl Devastates the Great (1934-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2730 Planning, Stalin Introduces Central (Oct. 1, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2263 Platt Amendment (May 22, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . 234 Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences, The (Jan. 26, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . 597 Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany (Mar. 20, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . 1719 Plot, Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize (Dec. 27, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . 2210 Plunket Society, Formation of the (May 14, 1907). . . 611 Pluto, Lowell Predicts the Existence of (Aug., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432 Pluto, Tombaugh Discovers (Feb. 18, 1930). . . . . 2407 Poems Speak for a Generation, Auden’s (Sept., 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2445 Poet in New York Is Published, García Lorca’s (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3226 Poetics, Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines (1911-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862
Peace, Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International (Nov. 25, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . 847 Peace, Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of (Dec., 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . 2971 Peace Conference, Second Hague (Oct. 18, 1907) . . . 625 Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities, Paris (Jan. 19-21, 1919) . . . . . . . 1483 Peace Prize, Nansen Wins the Nobel (Dec. 10, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1790 Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole (Apr. 6, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759 Peasant Revolt, Romanian (Mar., 1907) . . . . . . . 600 Peking Man, Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of (Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3053 Peking Man, Zdansky Discovers (Summer, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1847 Pelée Erupts, Mount (May 8, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . 149 Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books (1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2802 Penicillin as an Antibiotic, Florey and Chain Develop (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3243 Penicillin in Molds, Fleming Discovers (Sept., 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2256 Pensions, Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age (Mar. 5, 1923). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1838 Pentecostalism, Welsh Revival Spreads (Oct. 31, 1904-1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 People’s Forests, Marshall Writes The (Sept., 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2674 Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor (Feb. 28, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2637 Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established (Dec. 13, 1920). . . . . . . . . . . . 1657 Pershing Expedition (Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . 1259 Persia, Oil Is Discovered in (May 26, 1908) . . . . . 681 Persia Adopts a Constitution (Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549 Petroleum with Thermal Cracking, Burton Refines (Jan., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049 Phenomenology, Husserl Advances (1913) . . . . . 1037 “Phenotype,” Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726 Philippine Independence Act (Mar. 24, 1934) . . . . 2745 Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Philosopher, Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1686 Philosophy, Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1802 Philosophy, Durant Publishes The Story of (May, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2102
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Keyword List of Contents Population Genetics, Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638 Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States, Guthrie’s (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2356 Porgy and Bess Opens in New York, Gershwin’s (Oct. 10, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2871 Ports, Japan Occupies Indochinese (Sept., 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3279 Portugal, Marian Apparitions in Fátima, (May 13-Oct. 17, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1360 Portugal Is Proclaimed, Republic of (Oct. 5, 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841 Positron, Anderson Discovers the (Sept., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2583 Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, U.S. (Sept. 8, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . 1648 Postwar Disillusionment, Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . 1695 Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques, Eisenstein’s (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1968 Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement (Spring, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965 Pound’s Cantos Is Published (1917-1970). . . . . . 1328 Power Plant Begins Operation, First Geothermal (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1025 Pragmatism, Publication of James’s (1907). . . . . . 591 Pragmatism to Education, Dewey Applies (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1245 Pravda Appears, First Issue of (Oct. 3, 1908). . . . . 695 Precipitation Process, Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478 Prefabrication, Prouvé Pioneers Architectural (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2979 Prefrontal Lobotomy, Egas Moniz Develops the (Nov.-Dec., 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2882 Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). . . 1575 Prepaid Hospital Care, Baylor Plan Introduces (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2269 Preserve, Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature (Feb. 1, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486 Preserve Kings Canyon, Adams Lobbies Congress to (Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940) . . . . . . . 2992 President, Coolidge Is Elected U.S. (Nov. 4, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1949 President, Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. (Nov. 8, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2596 President, Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. (Sept. 14, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 President, Wilson Is Elected U.S. (Nov. 5, 1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011 President of the Irish Dáil, De Valera Is Elected (Mar. 9, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2547
Poetry Magazine, Harriet Monroe Founds (Oct., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001 Pogroms in Imperial Russia (1903-1906) . . . . . . . 210 Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage (Spring, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820 Poirot, The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1571 Poison Gas Against Allied Troops, Germany Uses (Apr. 22-27, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192 Poland, Germany Invades (Sept. 1, 1939) . . . . . . 3209 Poland, Piusudski Seizes Power in (May 12-15, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2109 Poland and Germany, Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between (Mar. 20, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1719 Poland Secures Independence (Mar. 18, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1715 Pole, Amundsen Reaches the South (Dec. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919 Pole, Peary and Henson Reach the North (Apr. 6, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759 Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde (May 23, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2748 Polish Prisoners of War, Soviets Massacre (Apr.-May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3236 Political Contributions, Corrupt Practices Act Limits (Feb. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2024 Political Power, Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to (1919-1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1476 Political Themes, Renoir’s Films Explore Social and (1937-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2985 Politics, L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist (Apr. 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Polluters, Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for (June 7, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1935 Pollution, Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for (Apr. 15, 1935) . . . . . . . . 2834 Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters, Oil (June 7, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1935 Pollution Control, Euthenics Calls for (1910). . . . . 796 Pollution in “The Future of Electricity,” Steinmetz Warns of (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807 Polygraph, Larson Constructs the First Modern (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1671 Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme (1919-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1470 Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables (Sept. 25, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . 2586 Pope, Pius X Becomes (Aug. 9, 1903) . . . . . . . . 247 Pope, Pius XII Becomes (Mar. 2, 1939) . . . . . . . 3173 Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery (June 7, 1912). . . . 983 Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers (Dec. 8, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1233
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment (Dec. 10, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871 Protection of Nature, Soviets Establish a Society for the (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1884 “Protestant Ethic,” Weber Posits the (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Proton, Rutherford Discovers the (1914) . . . . . . 1103 Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045 Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2979 Psychedelic Drug LSD-25, Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3072 Psychoanalytic Method, Freud Advances the (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Psychology, Jung Develops Analytical (1930’s) . . . 2370 Psychology of Management, Gilbreth Publishes The (Mar., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118 Psychology of the Unconscious, Jung Publishes The (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928 Public, New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the (Nov. 8, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . 2340 Public Health Service Is Established, U.S. (Aug. 14, 1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998 Public Lands, Mineral Act Regulates (Feb. 25, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614 Public Relations, Lee Establishes the Field of (Spring, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music (1907). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587 Publication of James’s Pragmatism (1907) . . . . . . 591 Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia (Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . 606 Publication of The English Hymnal (1906) . . . . . . 492 Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, Kallet and Schlink (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2612 Published, García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3226 Published, Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is (Nov., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Published, Pound’s Cantos Is (1917-1970) . . . . . 1328 Publishers of Music, ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and (Feb. 13, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114 Publishes Being and Time, Heidegger (1927) . . . . 2146 Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead (Aug., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2249 Publishes Éléments de mathématique, Bourbaki Group (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3149 Publishes General and Industrial Management, Fayol (July, 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272 Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art, Kandinsky (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932
Prevention of Smoke Is Founded, International Association for the (June 27-29, 1906) . . . . . . 531 Price Discrimination, Robinson-Patman Act Restricts (June 19, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2937 Price Maintenance, Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail (Aug. 17, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3044 Pricing, Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Primary Election Law, Wisconsin Adopts the First (May 23, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Prime Minister of New Zealand, Massey Is Elected (July 10, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 986 Primitive Man, Boas Publishes The Mind of (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement (1910-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814 Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1466 Prisoners of War, Soviets Massacre Polish (Apr.-May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3236 Privacy, Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate (Aug. 5, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772 Prize, Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace (Dec. 10, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1790 Prize in Literature, Buck Receives the Nobel (Dec. 10, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3147 Prize in Literature, Undset Accepts the Nobel (Dec. 10, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2267 Prizes Are Awarded, First Nobel (Dec. 10, 1901) . . . 62 Prizes Are Awarded, First Pulitzer (June, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1363 Probabilities, Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 Probability, Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1463 Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers (July, 1920) . . . . . . . . . 1633 Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy (1934-1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2725 Productivity, Hawthorne Studies Examine Human (1924-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896 Professional Football Association, Formation of the American (Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920) . . . . 1638 Profits Tax, U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess- (Oct. 3, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1379 Progressive Era, Republican Resurgence Ends America’s (Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920) . . . . . 1447 Prohibition (Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933) . . . . . . 1604 Prometheus Premieres in Moscow, Scriabin’s (Mar. 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865 Properties of DDT, Müller Discovers the Insecticidal (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3156
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Keyword List of Contents Quick-Frozen Foods, Birdseye Invents (1917) . . . 1306 Quota Act, Emergency (May 19, 1921) . . . . . . . 1725
Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States, Hamilton (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976 Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, Bateson (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Publishes Patterns of Culture, Benedict (1934) . . . 2697 Publishes Remembrance of Things Past, Proust (1913-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045 Publishes The Biosphere, Vernadsky (1926). . . . . 2089 Publishes The Bridge, Crane (Feb., 1930) . . . . . . 2400 Publishes The Functions of the Executive, Barnard (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3066 Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars, Eddington (July, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2119 Publishes The Jungle, Sinclair (Feb., 1906). . . . . . 509 Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man, Boas (1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Publishes The Psychology of Management, Gilbreth (Mar., 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118 Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious, Jung (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928 Publishes The Story of Philosophy, Durant (May, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2102 Publishes The Theory of Advertising, Scott (1903) . . . 195 Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings, Noether (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1677 Publishes The Waste Land, Eliot (1922) . . . . . . . 1748 Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole, Yeats (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315 Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking, Kuleshov and (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2148 Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded, First (June, 1917). . . 1363 Punishment in British Schools, Students Challenge Corporal (Sept. 4-15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . 900 Punnett Observe Gene Linkage, Bateson and (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474 Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act (June 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 Purge, Great Blood (June 30-July 2, 1934) . . . . . 2767 Purge Trials, Stalin Begins the (Dec., 1934). . . . . 2786 Putsch, Beer Hall (Nov. 8, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . 1869 Pyrex, Corning Glass Works Trademarks (May 20, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1209
Race, First Grand Prix Auto (June 26-27, 1906) . . . 529 Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, First Auto (Aug. 19, 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 Racism in America, Wright’s Native Son Depicts (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3230 Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power (1919-1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1476 Radar Is Developed (1934-1945) . . . . . . . . . . 2734 Radiation Counter, Geiger and Rutherford Develop a (Feb. 11, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664 Radio Astronomy, Jansky’s Experiments Lead to (1930-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2394 Radio Broadcasting, Armstrong Demonstrates FM (Nov. 5, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2885 Radio Broadcasting, Fessenden Pioneers (Dec. 24, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561 Radio Broadcasting Begins (Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1641 Radio Communication Are Discovered, Principles of Shortwave (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1466 Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1562 Radio Entertainment, Americans Embrace (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2352 Radio Show Goes on the Air, Amos ’n’ Andy (Mar. 19, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2230 Radio Telescope, Reber Builds the First Intentional (June-Sept., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3028 Radio Transmission, First Transatlantic Telegraphic (Dec. 12, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling, Gamow Explains (Summer, 1928) . . . . . . . . 2242 Radioactive Element Is Developed, First Artificial (1933-1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2615 Radioactivity, Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural (Dec. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . 275 Radioactivity, Elster and Geitel Study (Early 20th cent.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks, Boltwood Uses (1905-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Radiotelephony, First Demonstration of Transatlantic (Oct. 21, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . 1227 Raids on Guernica (Apr. 26, 1937) . . . . . . . . . 3014 Railroad, Completion of the Trans-Siberian (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239 Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria, Baro-Kano (Mar. 28, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Railway, Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria (Dec. 19, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Qantas Airlines, Formation of (Nov. 20, 1920) . . . 1652 Qing Dynasty, Sun Yixian Overthrows the (Oct. 10, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909 Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure, Bohr Uses (1912-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938 Quantum Tunneling, Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with (Summer, 1928). . . . . . . . 2242
lxv
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Reforms, China Allows Some Western (1901-1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Reforms, Garbage Industry Introduces (1910’s) . . . 784 Refrigerant Gas, Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a (Apr., 1930) . . . 2418 Refuge Is Established, First U.S. National Wildlife (Mar. 14, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Regional Literature, Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1403 Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic, Congress Centralizes (June 30, 1940) . . . . . . 3262 Reichstag Fire (Feb. 27, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2632 Reinforcement, Pavlov Develops the Concept of (1902-1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater (Nov. 24, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456 Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, Invention of the Slug (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . 2368 Relativism Revises Historiography, Rise of Cultural (Summer, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1434 Relativity, Einstein Completes His Theory of General (Nov. 25, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1230 Relativity, Einstein States His Theory of Special (Fall, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440 Relativity, Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1250 Relief Legislation, Canada Enacts Depression-Era (Sept. 8, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2448 Religious Experience, James Proposes a Rational Basis for (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Religious Philosophy, Buber Breaks New Ground in (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1802 Remembrance of Things Past, Proust Publishes (1913-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045 Renaissance, Harlem (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1555 Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes (1937-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2985 Reorganization Act, Indian (June 18, 1934) . . . . . 2757 Representation, Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1568 Representation in Art, Der Blaue Reiter Abandons (Sept., 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897 Representation to India’s Untouchables, Poona Pact Grants (Sept. 25, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2586 Republic Is Proclaimed, Second Spanish (Apr. 14, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2496 Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed (Oct. 5, 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841 Republican Congressional Insurgency (Mar., 1909-1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751 Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era (Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920) . . . . . . . . . 1447
Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes (May 20, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2115 Rapallo, Treaty of (Apr. 16, 1922). . . . . . . . . . 1772 Rape of Nanjing (Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938) . . . . . . 3059 Rayograph, Man Ray Creates the (1921) . . . . . . 1673 Rays, Hess Discovers Cosmic (Aug. 7 and 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Rays, Millikan Investigates Cosmic (1920-1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1594 Rays, Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X (Dec. 10, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Rays of the Elements, Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 Razor with a Disposable Blade, Gillette Markets the First (Fall, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 RCA to Restructure, Antitrust Prosecution Forces (Nov., 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2593 RCA Victor, Rodgers Cuts His First Record for (Aug. 4, 1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2196 Reader’s Digest Is Founded (Feb., 1922) . . . . . . 1763 “Readymades” Redefine Art, Duchamp’s (1913). . . 1019 Reason,” U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of (May 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882 Rebellion, Britain Represses Somali (Early 1920). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1566 Rebellion, Easter (Apr. 24-29, 1916) . . . . . . . . 1262 Rebellion, Moplah (Aug., 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1728 Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope (June-Sept., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3028 Reciprocal Trade Act (Nov. 11, 1936) . . . . . . . . 2960 Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture (June 17, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created (Jan. 22, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2540 Record for RCA Victor, Rodgers Cuts His First (Aug. 4, 1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2196 Recording Career, Billie Holiday Begins Her (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2605 Recordings, Johnson Duplicates Disc (1902). . . . . . 96 Red Blood Cells, Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990 Red-Blue Chair, Rietveld Designs the (1918-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1412 Red Scare (Aug., 1919-May, 1920) . . . . . . . . . 1527 Red Terror, Russian Communists Inaugurate the (1917-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1324 Redshifts in Galactic Spectra, Slipher Presents Evidence of (Early 1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1546 Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever (Feb. 4, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Reform, Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778
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Keyword List of Contents Right to Vote, U.S. Women Gain the (Aug. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1644 Rights Amendment, Proposal of the Equal (Dec. 10, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871 Rights in India, Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority (Dec. 30, 1906) . . . . . . . . 564 Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, Women’s (1925-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004 Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics (1911-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862 Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus (Oct. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629 Rings, Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1677 Riots, Stavisky (Feb. 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2740 Riots, Western Wall (Aug. 23, 1929) . . . . . . . . 2321 Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia (Mar. 3, 1938). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3096 Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography (Summer, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1434 Rise of the French Communist Party (Dec. 29, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1663 Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences, The (May 29, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1079 River Flood, Yellow (July, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . 2509 River Levees, Chinese Forces Break Yellow (June 7, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3114 River Project Begins, Delaware (Mar., 1937) . . . . 3002 Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed (Feb., 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2736 Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald Captures the (Apr. 10, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2033 Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination (June 19, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2937 Rockefeller Center Is Completed (Nov. 1, 1939) . . . 3215 Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed, Rivera’s (Feb., 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2736 Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded (May 14, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1074 Rocket, Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled (Mar. 16, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2099 Rocks, Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of (1905-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor (Aug. 4, 1927). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2196 Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet, Sears, (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1987 Rogers Dance Team, Top Hat Establishes the Astaire- (Sept. 6, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2868 Romanian Peasant Revolt (Mar., 1907) . . . . . . . . 600 Rome,” Mussolini’s “March on (Oct. 24-30, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1782
Research, A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . 1796 Research, Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity (Nov.-Dec., 1908). . . . . . 699 Reserve Act, Federal (Dec. 23, 1913) . . . . . . . . 1099 Reserve Is Created, Serengeti Game (Nov. 19, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2343 Resistance Against Nazism, Pius XI Urges (Mar. 14, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3009 Resources, Conference on the Conservation of Natural (May 13-15, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . 677 Respirator, Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical (July, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2314 Retail Outlet, Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1987 Retail Price Maintenance, Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes (Aug. 17, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3044 Retailers, Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to (July, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 1633 Revolt, Great Iraqi (May-Nov., 1920) . . . . . . . . 1625 Revolt, Romanian Peasant (Mar., 1907) . . . . . . . 600 Revolt and Form a Socialist Government, Germans (1918-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1409 Revolts, Herero and Nama (Jan., 1904-1905) . . . . . 317 Revolution, Bolsheviks Mount the October (Nov. 6-7, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1393 Revolution, Lenin Leads the Russian (Mar.-Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1343 Revolution, Mexican (Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 843 Revolutionary Theater, The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify (1929-1930) . . . . . . . . 2282 Revue nègre, Baker Dances in La (Oct.-Dec., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2073 Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York, Gershwin’s (Feb. 12, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1909 Rhineland, German Troops March into the (Mar. 7, 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2927 Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted (Apr., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Rhodesia, Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern (Oct. 1, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2809 Rickets, McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against (1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1757 Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre, Grey’s (1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925 Ridge, German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic (Apr., 1925-May, 1927) . . . . . . 2030 Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair (1918-1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1412
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus (Mar. 7, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 962 Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter, Geiger and (Feb. 11, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664 Rutherford Discovers the Proton (1914) . . . . . . . 1103
Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays (Dec. 10, 1901). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite (May, 1903) . . . 230 Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President, Theodore (Sept. 14, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation (Oct. 18, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . 2683 Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President, Franklin D. (Nov. 8, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2596 Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act (June 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2663 Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act (Aug. 14, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2853 Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3246 Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims (Jan. 11, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . 651 Rose Bowl Game, First (Jan. 1, 1902) . . . . . . . . 124 Ross Founds The New Yorker (Feb. 21, 1925) . . . . 2020 Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803 Ruhr, France Occupies the (Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . 1826 “Rule of Reason,” U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the (May 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . 882 Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution (Dec., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1092 Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” (June 16, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Russia, Famine Strikes (1907). . . . . . . . . . . . . 570 Russia, Pogroms in Imperial (1903-1906) . . . . . . 210 Russia, Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in (1905). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Russia Claims Millions of Lives, Famine in (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1692 Russian Civil War (1918-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1416 Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror (1917-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1324 Russian Orthodox Church, Bolsheviks Suppress the (1917-1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318 Russian Orthodox Church, Stalin Suppresses the (Summer, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3195 Russian Revolution, Lenin Leads the (Mar.-Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1343 Russia’s Bolshevik Regime, United States Recognizes (Nov. 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . 2690 Russo-Finnish War (Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . 3219 Russo-Japanese War (Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 Ruth, New York Yankees Acquire Babe (Jan. 3, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1597
Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed (Aug. 23, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2199 Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery (Sept. 10, 1919) . . . . . . . . . 1531 St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty (July 18, 1932) . . . . 2572 Sales, Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book (1926-1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2092 Salome Shocks Audiences, Strauss’s (Dec. 9, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465 Salomon Develops Mammography (1913) . . . . . 1040 Salon d’Automne, Fauves Exhibit at the (Oct., 1905). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works (Summer, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683 Salons, Stein Holds Her First Paris (Fall, 1905) . . . 443 Salt March, Gandhi Leads the (Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2410 Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis, Ehrlich Introduces (Apr., 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823 San Francisco Earthquake (Apr. 18, 1906) . . . . . . 522 San Remo Agreement, Great Britain and France Sign the (Apr. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1621 Sanctions Against Italy, League of Nations Applies Economic (Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936) . . . . . 2875 Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control (Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925) . . . . 1737 Sanitary Bureau, Founding of the International (Dec. 2-5, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Saudi Arabia, Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in (Mar. 3, 1938). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3096 Saudi Arabia, Wahh3btism Strengthens in (1912-1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . 948 Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture, Le Corbusier’s Villa (Spring, 1931) . . . . . . . 2486 Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength, Richter Develops a (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2809 Scandal, Black Sox (Oct. 1-9, 1919) . . . . . . . . . 1538 Scandal, Teapot Dome (Oct., 1923) . . . . . . . . . 1857 Scandals of the Harding Administration (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1698 Scheme, Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment (1919-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1470 Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion (Jan., 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2813 Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1043
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Keyword List of Contents Segregation of Japanese in California Schools, Japan Protests (Oct. 25, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, Great Britain Grants (Oct. 1, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Self-Help Literature, Carnegie Redefines (Nov., 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2953 Self-Service Grocery Store Opens, First (Sept. 11, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1288 Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy (Aug., 1912) . . . 988 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, Kingdom of the (Dec. 1, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . 1450 Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet, Balanchine’s (Dec. 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . 2794 Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created (Nov. 19, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2343 Service Organization Is Founded, First American (Feb. 23, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 Set Theory, Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Set Theory, Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . 311 Sewage Systems, Wolman Begins Investigating Water and (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2373 Sewing Machines in Russia, Singer Begins Manufacturing (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Sex Chromosome, McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran, Pahlavi (1925-1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2007 Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow (May 18, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2240 Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy (Jan. 8, 1918) . . . . . . . . . . . 1419 Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator, Drinker and (July, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2314 Sheppard-Towner Act (Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . 1745 Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins (Mar. 31, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3176 Sherman Act, Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the (Feb. 21, 1927) . . . . . . . . . 2175 Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System (Apr.-May, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Triangle (Mar. 25, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 868 Shopping Center Opens, First Major U.S. (1922). . . 1751 Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, Principles of (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1466 Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Soviets Condemn (Jan. 28, 1936) . . . . 2911
Schizophrenia, Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat (Apr., 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3104 Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, Kallet and (1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2612 Schmidt Camera and Telescope, Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the (Winter, 1929-1930) . . . . 2347 Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope (Winter, 1929-1930) . . . 2347 Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality (1908-1909) . . . . 644 Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1701 Scholarships Are Instituted, Rhodes (Apr., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 School, Harvard University Founds a Business (Apr. 8, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 School of Dance Opens, Denishawn (Summer, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1211 Schools, Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California (Oct. 25, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Schools, Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British (Sept. 4-15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . 900 Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1250 Science Fiction, Golden Age of American (1938-1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3079 Scopes Trial (July 10-21, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2054 Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Scottsboro Trials (Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937) . . . . 2490 Scouts, Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy (Aug., 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613 Screwball Comedy, Production Code Gives Birth to (1934-1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2725 Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow (Mar. 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865 Sea Divers, Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep- (1907) . . . . . . . . . 573 Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1987 Seaway Treaty, St. Lawrence (July 18, 1932) . . . . 2572 Second Hague Peace Conference (Oct. 18, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625 Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed (Apr. 14, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2496 Secretary of Labor, Perkins Becomes First Woman (Feb. 28, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2637 Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established (June 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2750 Sedition Acts, Espionage and (June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918) . . . . . . . . 1367 Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element (Jan.-Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2989
lxix
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Smoot Tariff Act, Hoover Signs the Hawley(June 17, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2430 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney Releases (Dec. 21, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3063 Social Activity, Hindemith Advances Music as a (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2360 Social and Political Themes, Renoir’s Films Explore (1937-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2985 Social and Political Union, Pankhursts Found the Women’s (Oct. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Social Security Act, Roosevelt Signs the (Aug. 14, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2853 Socialist Government, Germans Revolt and Form a (1918-1919). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1409 Socialist Movement, Canada’s First Major (Aug. 1, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2581 Socialist Politics, L’Humanité Gives Voice to French (Apr. 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature (Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2562 Society for the Protection of Nature, Soviets Establish a (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1884 Society of American Indians, First Conference of the (Oct. 12, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005 Soil Conservation Service Is Established (Apr. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2837 Soldier, Harding Eulogizes the Unknown (Nov. 11, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1734 Soldiers, Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen (Dec. 8, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1233 Solo Flight by a Woman, First Transatlantic (May 20-21, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566 Somali Rebellion, Britain Represses (Early 1920). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1566 Somaliland, Italy Invades British (Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3274 Sonar, Langevin Develops Active (Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223 Songs, Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk (1904-1905). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Soubirous, Canonization of Bernadette (Dec. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2693 Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career, The (Oct. 7, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2327 Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry (May 11, 1928) . . . . . 2234 South, Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American (1921-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1705 South Africa, Formation of the Union of (May 31, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830 South African Native National Congress Meets (Jan. 8, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954
Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot (Dec. 27, 1927) . . . . . . . . . 2210 Show Trials in Moscow, Shakhty Case Debuts (May 18, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2240 Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony (Apr. 3, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 876 Sicily, Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate (Dec. 28, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721 Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres, Von Stroheim’s (Dec. 4, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1956 Silesia Between Poland and Germany, Plebiscite Splits Upper (Mar. 20, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1719 Silicones, Kipping Discovers (1901-1904) . . . . . . . 26 Sinclair Publishes The Jungle (Feb., 1906) . . . . . . 509 Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Sinking of the Titanic (Apr. 14-15, 1912). . . . . . . 972 Sinn Féin Is Founded (Nov. 28, 1905) . . . . . . . . 459 Six, Formation of Les (Jan. 16, 1920) . . . . . . . . 1601 Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres, Pirandello’s (May 10, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1721 Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres, Webern’s (Mar. 31, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070 Skeleton, Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal (Dec., 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710 Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, Publication of Busoni’s (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587 Skirt Becomes the Rage, Poiret’s Hobble (Spring, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820 Slapstick Comedy, Sennett Defines (Aug., 1912). . . 988 Slaughters Assyrian Christians, Iraqi Army (Aug. 11-13, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2672 Slave Trade, International Agreement Targets White (May 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Slavery, Pope Pius X Condemns (June 7, 1912) . . . 983 Slavery, Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail (Sept. 10, 1919) . . . . . . . 1531 Slavery Convention, League of Nations Adopts International (Sept. 25, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . 2135 Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935 Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra (Early 1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1546 Slovenes Declares Independence, Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and (Dec. 1, 1918) . . . . . . . . . 1450 Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, Invention of the (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2368 Smith-Hoover Campaign (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . 2219 Smith Records “Downhearted Blues,” Bessie (Feb. 15, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1830 Smoke Is Founded, International Association for the Prevention of (June 27-29, 1906) . . . . . . . 531
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Keyword List of Contents Squier Founds Muzak (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2713 Stadium Is Dedicated, New Wimbledon Tennis (June, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1775 Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers, Haldane Develops (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573 Stagecoach, Ford Defines the Western in (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3152 Stalin Begins the Purge Trials (Dec., 1934) . . . . . 2786 Stalin Introduces Central Planning (Oct. 1, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2263 Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers (Apr. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2558 Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church (Summer, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3195 Stamp Act, Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation (Mar. 16, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . 2742 Star, Michelson Measures the Diameter of a (Dec. 13, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1654 Star Color and Luminosity, Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Star Streams in the Galaxy, Kapteyn Discovers Two (1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Starling Establish the Role of Hormones, Bayliss and (Apr.-June, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Stars, Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for (Mar., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1912 Stars, Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the (July, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2119 Stars, Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the (1913). . . . . . . . . 1034 Stars, Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2718 Star’s Mass, Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf (1931-1935) . . . . . . . 2471 State Park, Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a (May, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2182 State Wildlife Funding, Pittman-Robertson Act Provides (Sept. 2, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3050 States, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. (Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912) . . . . 594 Stavisky Riots (Feb. 6, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2740 Steel Corporation, United States v. United States (Mar. 1, 1920). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1618 Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions (Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920) . . . . . 1535 Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887 Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons (Fall, 1905) . . . . 443 Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731 Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity” (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807
South Pole, Amundsen Reaches the (Dec. 14, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919 Southern Rhodesia, Great Britain Grants SelfGovernment to (Oct. 1, 1923). . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Soviet Composers, Stalin Restricts (Apr. 23, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2558 Soviet Literature, Socialist Realism Is Mandated in (Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934) . . . . . . . . . . 2562 Soviet Nature Preserve, Lenin Approves the First (Feb. 1, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486 Soviet Pact, Nazi- (Aug. 23-24, 1939) . . . . . . . . 3205 Soviet Union, Great Famine Strikes the (Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2599 Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art (1934) . . . . . . . 2709 Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Jan. 28, 1936) . . . . . . 2911 Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1884 Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War (Apr.-May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3236 Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal (Aug. 2, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2670 Space, Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481 Space Travel, Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Spain, Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in (Aug. 2-18, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2951 Spain, Embargo on Arms to (Jan. 6, 1937) . . . . . 2996 Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I (Oct. 30, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156 Spanish Civil War Begins (July 17, 1936) . . . . . . 2945 Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed, Second (Apr. 14, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2496 Special Effects, A Trip to the Moon Introduces (Aug., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Special Relativity, Einstein States His Theory of (Fall, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440 Spectra, Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic (Early 1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1546 Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy, Slipher Obtains the (1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935 Speedway, First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor (Aug. 19, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 Spindletop, Discovery of Oil at (Jan. 10, 1901) . . . . 40 Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, Oort Proves the (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2161 Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought, Gilson’s (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2527 Split the Atom, Cockcroft and Walton (Apr., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2555 Splits the Uranium Atom, Hahn (Dec., 1938) . . . . 3143
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Suit Against Alcoa, U.S. Government Loses Its (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1892 Sulfonamides Can Save Lives, Domagk Discovers That (1932-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2529 Summer Olympics, Germany Hosts the (Aug. 1-16, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2948 Summer Olympics, Stockholm Hosts the (May 5-July 27, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975 Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation, Hemingway’s The (Oct. 22, 1926) . . . . . . . . 2139 Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy, Shapley Proves the (Jan. 8, 1918) . . . . . . . . 1419 Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty (Oct. 10, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909 Sunday, Bloody (Jan. 22, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food, Steenbock Discovers (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887 Sun’s Outer Atmosphere, Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the (1930) . . . . . . . . 2383 Sunspots, Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in (June 26, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686 Superfluidity, Kapitsa Explains (Jan., 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3083 Superstar, Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a (1930-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2396 Suprematism, Malevich Introduces (Dec. 17, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1235 Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company, U.S. (May 29, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . 886 Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason,” U.S. (May 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882 Supreme Court Justice, Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish (June 5, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws, U.S. (Apr. 9, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities, U.S. (Mar. 14, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts, U.S. (Jan. 27, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . 657 Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law, U.S. (Apr. 17, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce, U.S. (Feb. 23, 1903). . . . . . . . . . 222 Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust, U.S. (Jan. 30, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 Supreme Court-Packing Fight (Feb. 5-July 22, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2999 Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog, Buñuel and Dalí Champion (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2213 Surrealism Is Born (Oct., 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . 1943 Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code, French Expedition at (Jan., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Stellar Divisions, Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf (1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576 Stellar Evolution, Russell Announces His Theory of (Dec., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1092 Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession (Feb. 17, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Stimson Doctrine (Jan. 7, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . 2538 Stock Market Crashes, U.S. (Oct. 24-29, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2331 Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics (May 5-July 27, 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975 Stoclet, Hoffmann Designs the Palais (1905) . . . . . 372 Stolypin, Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich (Sept. 14, 1911). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 904 Store Opens, First Self-Service Grocery (Sept. 11, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1288 Story of Philosophy, Durant Publishes The (May, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2102 Stratosphere by Balloon, Piccard Travels to the (May 27, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2506 Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences (Dec. 9, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465 Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet (Oct. 18, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865 Strike, Anthracite Coal (May 12-Oct. 23, 1902) . . . 152 Strike, British Workers Launch General (May 3-12, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2105 Strike, Winnipeg General (May 15-June 26, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1509 Strike for Improved Working Conditions, Steelworkers (Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920). . . . 1535 Student, Boulanger Takes Copland as a (1921) . . . 1665 Student Union Is Founded, West African (Aug. 7, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2062 Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses, International Bible (July 26, 1931) . . . . . . . . 2512 Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools (Sept. 4-15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900 Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking (1930’s-1940’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2376 Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map (Fall, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 906 Submarine Warfare, Germany Begins Extensive (Sept. 22, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143 Subway Sketches Record War Images, Moore’s (1940-1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3233 Suffrage, Finland Grants Women (July 20, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538 Suffrage for Men, Japan Introduces (May 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2042 Suffrage to Women, Australia Extends (June 12, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
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Keyword List of Contents Tax, U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits (Oct. 3, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . 1379 Tax Is Authorized, U.S. Federal Income (Feb. 25, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059 Taylor Grazing Act (June 28, 1934) . . . . . . . . . 2764 Teaching Method at Harvard, Donham Promotes the Case Study (1920’s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1551 Teapot Dome Scandal (Oct., 1923) . . . . . . . . . 1857 Technological Totalitarianism, Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts (Winter, 1932) . . . . . . . 2601 Telegraphic Radio Transmission, First Transatlantic (Dec. 12, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Telephone, Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2976 Telephone Call Is Made, First Transcontinental (Jan. 25, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177 Telephone System, Parliament Nationalizes the British (Dec. 31, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922 Telescope, Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio (June-Sept., 1937). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3028 Telescope, Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and (Winter, 1929-1930) . . . . 2347 Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson, Hooker (Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385 Teletype Is Developed (1901-1925) . . . . . . . . . . 32 Television, Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of (Dec. 29, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . 1873 Television Broadcast, First Color (Sept. 1, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3282 Television Debuts at the World’s Fair, American (Apr. 30, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3186 Television Program, BBC Airs the First High-Definition (Nov. 2, 1936). . . . . . . . . . 2956 Temple Receives a Special Academy Award (Feb. 27, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2827 Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle, The (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1820 Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created (May 18, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2656 Tennis, First Grand Slam of (Sept. 17, 1938) . . . . 3127 Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated, New Wimbledon (June, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1775 Terror, Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red (1917-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1324 Terror in the American South, Ku Klux Klan Spreads (1921-1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1705 Theater, Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live (Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . 2860 Theater, Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches (Nov. 24, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456 Theater, The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary (1929-1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2282
Suspense, Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with (1934-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2722 Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits (Dec., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Svalbard, Norway Annexes (Aug. 14, 1925) . . . . 2064 Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge (1924) . . . 1889 Swan, Pavlova Performs The Dying (Dec. 22, 1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632 Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment (1921) . . . 1680 Swims the English Channel, Ederle (Aug. 6, 1926). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2129 Sydney Harbour Bridge, Dedication of the (Mar. 19, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2549 Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet, Fokine’s Les (June 2, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766 Symmetry and Conservation, Noether Shows the Equivalence of (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1406 Symphonies, Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine (1903-1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Symphony, Ives Completes His Fourth (1916) . . . 1247 Symphony, Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth (Apr. 3, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 876 Symphony Premieres to Acclaim, Elgar’s First (Dec. 3, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Synthetic Vat Dye, Creation of the First (1901) . . . . . 8 Syphilis, Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for (Apr., 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823 Syphilis Test, Kahn Develops a Modified (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1817 Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C (1928-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2222 Tacna-Arica Compromise (June 3-Aug. 28, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2309 Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses (Nov. 7, 1940). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3292 Taliesin Fellowship, Wright Founds the (Oct., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2589 “Talkie,” The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First (Oct. 6, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2202 Talking Motion Pictures, Warner Bros. Introduces (Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2124 Talking Pictures, Edison Shows the First (1913) . . . 1022 Tangier Crisis (Mar. 31, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem” (July, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2846 Tariff Act, Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot (June 17, 1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2430 Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy (Aug. 5, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772 Tariff Commission, United States Establishes a Permanent (Sept. 8, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1285
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Towner Act, Sheppard(Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . 1745 Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2716 Trade, International Agreement Targets White Slave (May 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Trade Act, Reciprocal (Nov. 11, 1936) . . . . . . . 2960 Trade Commission Is Organized, Federal (Sept. 26, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1145 Traffic, Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air (June 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . . 3262 Trail Is Completed, John Muir (1938) . . . . . . . . 3076 Traits, Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary (Dec., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Trans-Siberian Railroad, Completion of the (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239 Transatlantic Flight, Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop (May 20, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2189 Transatlantic Radiotelephony, First Demonstration of (Oct. 21, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227 Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, First (May 20-21, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566 Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, First (Dec. 12, 1901). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, U.S. Post Office Begins (Sept. 8, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1648 Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made, First (Jan. 25, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177 Transfusion, Crile Performs the First Direct Blood (Dec., 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462 Travel, The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air (June 25, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2941 Treaties, Japan Renounces Disarmament (Dec. 29, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2797 Treatment for Yellow Fever, Theiler Develops a (June, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3025 Treaty, Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles (Oct., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2069 Treaty, Halibut (Oct. 21, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . 1947 Treaty, Lateran (Feb. 11, 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . 2298 Treaty, St. Lawrence Seaway (July 18, 1932) . . . . 2572 Treaty Act, Migratory Bird (July 3, 1918) . . . . . . 1437 Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets, Anglo-Japanese (Jan. 30, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . 127 Treaty of Ankara (July 18, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . 2122 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Mar. 3, 1918) . . . . . . . 1431 Treaty of Rapallo (Apr. 16, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . 1772 Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War (May 31, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919) . . . . . . . . . 1521 Trial, Scopes (July 10-21, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2054 Trials, Scottsboro (Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937) . . . . 2490
Theater and Drama, The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern (Jan. 21, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654 Theater Opens, First Nickelodeon Film (June, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 Theatre Flourishes, The Group (1931-1941). . . . . 2474 Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival, Abbey (Dec. 27, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever (June, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3025 Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President (Sept. 14, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Theory of Advertising, Scott Publishes The (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized (May 17, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2044 Thermal Cracking, Burton Refines Petroleum with (Jan., 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049 Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes (1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811 Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron (Dec. 10, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . 558 Throne, Edward VIII Abdicates the British (Dec. 10, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2973 Tibet, Lhasa Convention Is Signed in (Sept. 7, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344 Tide at Moderate Latitudes, Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric (1935) . . . . . . . . . . 2799 Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States (1902-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Time Magazine, Luce Founds (Mar. 3, 1923) . . . . 1833 Titanic, Sinking of the (Apr. 14-15, 1912) . . . . . . 972 Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets (Sept. 27, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Tobacco Company, U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American (May 29, 1911) . . . . . . . . . 886 Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature (Sept., 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3047 Tomb of Tutankhamen, Carter Discovers the (Nov. 4, 1922). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1784 Tombaugh Discovers Pluto (Feb. 18, 1930) . . . . . 2407 Tonality, Schoenberg Breaks with (1908-1909) . . . 644 Tone System, Schoenberg Develops His Twelve(1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1701 Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team (Sept. 6, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2868 Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania, German (May 7, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206 Totalitarianism, Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological (Winter, 1932) . . . . . 2601 Tour de France, First (July 1, 1903). . . . . . . . . . 242 Tournament, American Bowling Club Hosts Its First (Jan., 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
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Keyword List of Contents Typewriter Company, Caruso Records for the Gramophone and (Apr. 11, 1902) . . . . . . . . . 146 Typhus, Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2386
Trials, Stalin Begins the Purge (Dec., 1934). . . . . 2786 Trials in Moscow, Shakhty Case Debuts Show (May 18, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2240 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (Mar. 25, 1911) . . . 868 Tribal Art, Artists Find Inspiration in African (1906-1907) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects A (Aug., 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Triple Entente, Formation of the (Aug. 31, 1907) . . . 616 Troops, Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied (Apr. 22-27, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192 Troops March into the Rhineland, German (Mar. 7, 1936). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2927 Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy, Miller’s (Sept. 1, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2770 Trotsky Is Sent into Exile (Jan., 1929). . . . . . . . 2295 Trust, U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef (Jan. 30, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 Truth-in-Advertising Code, Advertisers Adopt a (Aug., 1913). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082 Tryptophan, Hopkins Announces the Discovery of (1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Tsunami Devastate Sicily, Earthquake and (Dec. 28, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721 Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1683 Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London (Jan. 26, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2908 Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster, Hawk’s Nest (Mar. 31, 1930-1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2414 Tunneling, Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum (Summer, 1928) . . . . . . 2242 Turbine Factory, Completion of the AEG (Oct., 1909). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781 Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine (1935-1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2806 Turing Machine, Turing Invents the Universal (1935-1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2806 Turkish War, Greco(May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . 1511 Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire, Young (July 24, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689 Tutankhamen, Carter Discovers the Tomb of (Nov. 4, 1922). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1784 Twelve-Tone System, Schoenberg Develops His (1921-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1701 Twenties in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring (Apr. 10, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2033 Two-Ocean Navy, United States Begins Building a (June 14, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3258
U-Boat Is Launched, First German (Aug. 4, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541 Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence (1917-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321 Ultracentrifuge, Svedberg Develops the (1924) . . . 1889 Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors (1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2464 Ultramicroscope, Zsigmondy Invents the (1902) . . . 110 Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction, Joyce’s (Feb. 2, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1767 Uncertainty Principle, Heisenberg Articulates the (Feb.-Mar., 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2172 Unconscious, Jung Publishes The Psychology of the (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928 Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature (Dec. 10, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2267 Unemployment Benefits, Great Britain Establishes (1920-1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1590 Union, Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political (Oct. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Union Is Founded, West African Student (Aug. 7, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2062 Union of South Africa, Formation of the (May 31, 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830 Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws, Labor (Oct. 15, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153 United States, Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2380 United States, First Female Governor in the (Jan. 5, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014 United States, Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2356 United States, Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the (June 4, 1912) . . . . 980 United States, Ozawa v. (Nov. 13, 1922) . . . . . . 1788 United States, Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 United States, Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the (1902-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . 117 United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy (June 14, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3258 United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy” (1909-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734 United States Begins Mobilization for World War II (Aug., 1939). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3198 United States Emerges, Consumers Union of the (Jan.-Mar., 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2902
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 U.S. Congress, First Woman Is Elected to the (Nov. 7, 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299 U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley (Dec. 19, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095 U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail (Feb. 2, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2017 U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol (May 28, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926 U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax (Oct. 3, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1379 U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law (Mar. 4, 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753 U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I (Apr. 13, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1353 U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Creation of the (Feb. 14, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized (Feb. 25, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed (July 1, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3265 U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2164 U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins, First (May 16, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3190 U.S. Forces After World War I, Demobilization of (Nov., 1918-June, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1444 U.S. Forest Service, Pinchot Becomes Head of the (Jan. 3, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts (1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106 U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1892 U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua (Aug. 4-Nov., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991 U.S. Monetary Control, Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes (Aug. 23, 1935). . . . . . . . . . . . 2857 U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established, First (Mar. 14, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery (Sept. 8, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1648 U.S. President, Coolidge Is Elected (Nov. 4, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1949 U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected (Nov. 8, 1932). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2596 U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt Becomes (Sept. 14, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 U.S. President, Wilson Is Elected (Nov. 5, 1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011 U.S. Public Health Service Is Established (Aug. 14, 1912). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998 U.S. Shopping Center Opens, First Major (1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1751
United States Enters World War I (Apr. 6, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1349 United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission (Sept. 8, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . 1285 United States Establishes the War Industries Board (July 8, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1371 United States Fails, Bank of (Dec. 11, 1930) . . . . 2457 United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime (Nov. 16, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2690 United States v. United States Steel Corporation (Mar. 1, 1920). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1618 Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter (May, 1917) . . . . . 1358 Universal Turing Machine, Turing Invents the (1935-1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2806 Universe, Hubble Confirms the Expanding (1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2276 University Education, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729 University Founds a Business School, Harvard (Apr. 8, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 University Is Inaugurated, Cairo (Dec. 21, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716 Unknown Soldier, Harding Eulogizes the (Nov. 11, 1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1734 Untouchables, Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s (Sept. 25, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2586 Upper Atmosphere, Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the (Jan. 17, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053 Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany, Plebiscite Splits (Mar. 20, 1921) . . . . . . . . . 1719 Uprising Against the United States, Philippines Ends Its (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Uprising in Macedonia, Ilinden (Aug. 2-Sept., 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Uprising of Arabs in Palestine, Great (Apr. 15, 1936-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2935 Uranium Atom, Hahn Splits the (Dec., 1938) . . . . 3143 Urban Ecology, The City Initiates the Study of (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1962 U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone (Nov. 18, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, Number of (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2158 U.S. Bureau of Investigation, Hoover Becomes the Director of the (Dec. 10, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . 1959 U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established (July 1, 1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 836 U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established (Apr. 5, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2652 U.S. Commercial Air Traffic, Congress Centralizes Regulation of (June 30, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . 3262
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Keyword List of Contents Vienna Circle, First Meeting of the (1922) . . . . . 1754 Vienna Court Opera, Mahler Directs the (Early 20th cent.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Villa Mairea, Aalto Designs (1937-1938) . . . . . . 2982 Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture, Le Corbusier’s (Spring, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . 2486 Violation of the Sherman Act, Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in (Feb. 21, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . 2175 Violence, Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK (June 26, 1923) . . . . . . . . 1850 Viruses, Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by (1910). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803 Vitamin C, Szent-Györgyi Discovers (1928-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2222 Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets, McCollum Names (1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1757 Vitamin D in Food, Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases (1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887 Vitamins, Hopkins Postulates the Presence of (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484 Voltaire, Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242 Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar (1930-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2396 Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres (Dec. 4, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1956 Vote, British Women Gain the (Feb. 6, 1918) . . . . 1422 Vote, Canadian Women Gain the (Sept. 20, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1377 Vote, U.S. Women Gain the Right to (Aug. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1644 Voters Is Founded, League of Women (Feb. 14, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1610 Voting Age for Women, Great Britain Lowers the (July 2, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2246
U.S. States, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become (Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912). . . . . . . 594 U.S. Stock Market Crashes (Oct. 24-29, 1929) . . . 2331 U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company (May 29, 1911) . . . . . . . . 886 U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason” (May 15, 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882 U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws (Apr. 9, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities (Mar. 14, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts (Jan. 27, 1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law (Apr. 17, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce (Feb. 23, 1903). . . . . . . . 222 U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust (Jan. 30, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 U.S. Water Supply Begins, Chlorination of the (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote (Aug. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1644 Uterine Cancer, Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing (Jan., 1928). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2225 Vaccine BCG Is Developed, Tuberculosis (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1683 Vacuum Cleaner, Booth Receives Patent for the (Aug. 30, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Vacuum Tube, Fleming Patents the First (Nov. 16, 1904). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 Valentine’s Day Massacre (Feb. 14, 1929) . . . . . 2301 Vanzetti Are Executed, Sacco and (Aug. 23, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2199 Vapor Lamp, Hewitt Invents the Mercury(1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars, Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid (1913) . . . . . . . . 1034 Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies (1903-1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Vending Machines, Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2368 Venezuela, Oil Is Discovered in (Dec. 14, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1794 Verdun, Battle of (Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916). . . . . . 1256 Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, Treaty of (May 31, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere (1926) . . . . . 2089 Versailles, Treaty of (June 28, 1919) . . . . . . . . 1521 Versailles Treaty, Germany Attempts to Restructure the (Oct., 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . 2069
Wage Law in the United States, Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum (June 4, 1912) . . . . . 980 Wage Laws, U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum (Apr. 9, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 Wagner Act (July 5, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2850 Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia (1912-1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 948 Walton League Is Formed, Izaak (Jan., 1922) . . . . 1760 Walton Split the Atom, Cockcroft and (Apr., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2555 War, All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of (Jan., 1929) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2292 War, Chinese Civil (1926-1949) . . . . . . . . . . . 2096 War, Greco-Turkish (May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . 1511 War, Russian Civil (1918-1921) . . . . . . . . . . . 1416
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 War, Russo-Finnish (Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . 3219 War, Russo-Japanese (Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 War, Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of (Apr.-May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3236 War, Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer (May 31, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 War Begins, Spanish Civil (July 17, 1936) . . . . . 2945 War I, Borden Leads Canada Through World (1911-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859 War I, Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World (Nov., 1918-June, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1444 War I, Outbreak of World (June 28-Aug. 4, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1121 War I, Spain Declares Neutrality in World (Oct. 30, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156 War I, United States Enters World (Apr. 6, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1349 War I, U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World (Apr. 13, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1353 War I, World (June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918) . . . . 1124 War II, Canada Enters World (Sept. 10, 1939) . . . 3213 War II, United States Begins Mobilization for World (Aug., 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3198 War II Planning, Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3246 War Images, Moore’s Subway Sketches Record (1940-1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3233 War Industries Board, United States Establishes the (July 8, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1371 War of the Worlds, Welles Broadcasts The (Oct. 30, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3137 War on Japan, China Declares (July 7, 1937) . . . . 3037 Warfare, Germany Begins Extensive Submarine (Sept. 22, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143 Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures (Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2124 Wars, Balkan (Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913) . . . . 1008 Wartime Excess-Profits Tax, U.S. Congress Imposes a (Oct. 3, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1379 Washing Machine Is Introduced, Electric (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 792 Washington Disarmament Conference (Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . 1741 Waste Land, Eliot Publishes The (1922) . . . . . . . 1748 Water and Sewage Systems, Wolman Begins Investigating (1930’s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2373 Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie, Monet’s (May 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2186 Water Supply Begins, Chlorination of the U.S. (1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Wave-Particle Duality of Light, De Broglie Explains the (1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1804 Wealth, Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490 Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic” (1904-1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres (Mar. 31, 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070 Weekly Indian Opinion, Founding of the (June 6, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift (Jan., 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950 Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man (Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3053 Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel, Brecht and (July 17, 1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2193 Weimar Constitution (July 31, 1919) . . . . . . . . 1525 Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics, Hardy and (1908). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638 Well Drilling, Hughes Revolutionizes Oil (1908) . . . 642 Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds (Oct. 30, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3137 Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism (Oct. 31, 1904-1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 Werkbund Is Founded, Deutscher (Oct., 1907) . . . . 618 West African Student Union Is Founded (Aug. 7, 1925). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2062 Western Genre, Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925 Western in Stagecoach, Ford Defines the (1939) . . . 3152 Western Reforms, China Allows Some (1901-1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Western Wall Riots (Aug. 23, 1929). . . . . . . . . 2321 Wheat, Canadian Cultivation of Marquis (1904) . . . 281 Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising (Mar. 21, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . 3101 Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990 White Dwarf Star’s Mass, Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a (1931-1935) . . . . . . . . 2471 White Sea-Baltic Canal, Soviets Open the (Aug. 2, 1933). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2670 White Slave Trade, International Agreement Targets (May 18, 1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York (Nov. 17, 1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2514 Wiener Werkstätte, Hoffmann and Moser Found the (1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Wild Swans at Coole, Yeats Publishes The (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315 Wilderness Area Is Designated, Gila (June 3, 1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1931
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Keyword List of Contents Women Gain the Vote, Canadian (Sept. 20, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1377 Women Suffrage, Finland Grants (July 20, 1906) . . . 538 Women to University Education, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits (1909) . . . . . . 729 Women Voters Is Founded, League of (Feb. 14, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1610 Women’s Consciousness, Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993 Women’s Fashion, Chanel Defines Modern (1920’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1549 Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain (Sept. 11, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220 Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change (1925-1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004 Women’s Social and Political Union, Pankhursts Found the (Oct. 10, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993 Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam (Sept. 8, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2678 Work for Women, Bern Convention Prohibits Night (Sept. 19, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Workday, Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour (Jan. 5, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1110 Workers Launch General Strike, British (May 3-12, 1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2105 Workers of the World, Founding of Industrial (June 27, 1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425 Working Conditions, Steelworkers Strike for Improved (Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920) . . . . . 1535 Works Progress Administration Is Established (Apr. 8, 1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2830 World Christian Fundamentals Association, Founding of the (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1458 World Series, Baseball Holds Its First (Oct. 1-13, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 World War I, Borden Leads Canada Through (1911-1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859 World War I, Demobilization of U.S. Forces After (Nov., 1918-June, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1444 World War I, Outbreak of (June 28-Aug. 4, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1121 World War I, Spain Declares Neutrality in (Oct. 30, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156 World War I, United States Enters (Apr. 6, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1349 World War I, U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During (Apr. 13, 1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1353 World War I (June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918). . . . . 1124 World War II, Canada Enters (Sept. 10, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3213
Wilderness Society, Marshall and Leopold Form the (Oct. 19, 1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2780 Wildlife Federation, Darling Founds the National (Feb. 4, 1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2915 Wildlife Funding, Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State (Sept. 2, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3050 Wildlife Refuge Is Established, First U.S. National (Mar. 14, 1903). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Wildlife Service Is Formed, U.S. Fish and (July 1, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3265 Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll (1906-1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 Wilson, Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount (Nov., 1917). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385 Wilson Is Elected U.S. President (Nov. 5, 1912) . . . 1011 Wilson Observatory, Hale Establishes Mount (1903-1904) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated, New (June, 1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1775 Wind Octet, Stravinsky Completes His (Oct. 18, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865 Winnipeg General Strike (May 15-June 26, 1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1509 Winter Olympic Games, First (Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1903 Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law (May 23, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1686 Wizard of Oz Premieres, The (Aug. 17, 1939) . . . . 3201 Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems (1930’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2373 Woman, First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a (May 20-21, 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566 Woman Elected to Australian Parliament, First (1921) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1669 Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress, First (Nov. 7, 1916). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299 Woman Secretary of Labor, Perkins Becomes First (Feb. 28, 1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2637 Woman’s Party Is Founded, National (1917) . . . . 1309 Women, Australia Extends Suffrage to (June 12, 1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Women, Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for (Sept. 19, 1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Women, Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for (July 2, 1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2246 Women, International Congress of (Apr. 28-May 1, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1199 Women Gain the Right to Vote, U.S. (Aug. 26, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1644 Women Gain the Vote, British (Feb. 6, 1918) . . . . 1422
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Yellow Fever, Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit (Feb. 4, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Yellow Fever, Theiler Develops a Treatment for (June, 1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3025 Yellow River Flood (July, 1931). . . . . . . . . . . 2509 Yellow River Levees, Chinese Forces Break (June 7, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3114 Yosemite, Roosevelt and Muir Visit (May, 1903) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire (July 24, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689 Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons (Nov., 1934). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2784
World War II, United States Begins Mobilization for (Aug., 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3198 World War II Planning, Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for (May, 1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3246 World’s Fair, American Television Debuts at the (Apr. 30, 1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3186 Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin, Berg’s (Dec. 14, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2086 Wright Brothers’ First Flight (Dec. 17, 1903). . . . . 278 Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship (Oct., 1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2589 Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3230 Writers and Publishers of Music, ASCAP Forms to Protect (Feb. 13, 1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114 WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry (Nov. 28, 1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2082
Zdansky Discovers Peking Man (Summer, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1847 Zeppelin Bombing Raids, Germany Launches the First (Jan. 19, 1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1174 Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory (1904-1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences (Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916) . . . . . 1217 Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2386 Zoning Law, New York City Institutes a Comprehensive (July, 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . 1276 Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope (1902). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Zurich, Berg’s Lulu Opens in (June 2, 1937) . . . . 3031 Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2718 Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television (Dec. 29, 1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1873
X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs (1912-1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945 X Rays, Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of (Dec. 10, 1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 X Rays of the Elements, Barkla Discovers the Characteristic (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 Xerographic Photocopy, Carlson and Kornei Make the First (Oct. 22, 1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3134 Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth, New York (Jan. 3, 1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1597 Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315 Yellow-Dog Contracts, U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows (Jan. 27, 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
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List of Maps, Tables, and Sidebars AA’s Twelve Steps (primary source). . . . . . . 2844 Adair v. United States Ruling, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659 ADL’s Mission, The (primary source) . . . . . . 1086 Africa, 1914 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xci Agreement, Text of the Munich (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3131 Albania, 1939 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3184 All Quiet on the Western Front, From (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2293 All-Star Game Winners, 1933-1955 (table) . . . 2668 Allied Offensives on the Western Front, 1918, World War I (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1441 Allied War Effort, Canada Joins the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3214 Ambassadors, The Narrator’s Viewpoint in The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight, 1937 (map) . . . . 2567 Amendment, The Eighteenth (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605 Americans in Panama, Observations on the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Angell’s Psychological Case for Peace (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791 Anschluss, Chamberlain on the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3095 Anschluss, 1938, Germany After the (map) . . . 3094 Antarctica (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 917 Anti-Jewish Pogroms, Lenin Speaks Out Against (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Apollinaire on Art (primary source) . . . . . . . 1017 Appeal of June 18, De Gaulle’s (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3252 Aqueduct, 1913, Los Angeles (map) . . . . . . . 1089 Arctic, The Canadian (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Art, Apollinaire on (primary source) . . . . . . . 1017 Art Nouveau Movement, Notable Figures of the (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Artist, The Freedom of the (primary source) . . . 933 Asia, 1904, Japan and Eastern (map). . . . . . . . 321 Asia and Australasia, 1914 (map) . . . . . . . . . xciii Asiatic Law Amendment Act, Gandhi Protests the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Assassin, McKinley’s (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Australasia, 1914, Asia and (map). . . . . . . . . xciii Awards, 1928-1940, Best Picture (table) . . . . . 2308
Balfour Declaration, The (primary source) . . . . 1390 Balkans After the Treaty of Bucharest, 1913, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010 Ballets Russes, The Paris Seasons of the (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763 Baltic Canal, White Sea- (map) . . . . . . . . . . 2671 Barkla and the Nobel Prize (primary source) . . . 473 Basque Response to the Attack on Guernica (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3016 Battle of Jutland, 1916 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . 1267 Beer Hall Putsch, Casualties of the (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1870 Before the Firing Squad (primary source) . . . . 1384 Belgian Congo (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705 Berg on Wozzeck (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2087 Best Picture Awards, 1928-1940 (table) . . . . . 2308 Birth Control, The Case for (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1738 Birth of an Industry, Sarnoff Announces the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3188 Birthday Call, The Lincoln’s (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745 Borah Argues Against European Involvement (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2866 Boulanger’s Famous Students (sidebar) . . . . . 1666 Boulder Dam (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2932 Brandeis Brief, The Impact of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669 Brave Postnuclear World, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2603 Breton’s Definition of Surrealism (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1944 British India, 1914 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1184 British Isles, 1922, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . 1579 British Somaliland, 1940 (map). . . . . . . . . . 3275 Bucharest, 1913, The Balkans After the Treaty of (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010 Bulgaria, 1925 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2077 Bureau of Investigation, 1908-1972, Directors of the (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693 California, Kings Canyon (map) . . . . . . . . . 1811 Calls for Socialism (primary source) . . . . . . . 2354 Canada Joins the Allied War Effort (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3214 Canadian Arctic, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 lxxxi
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Canal, White Sea-Baltic (map) . . . . . . . . . . 2671 Capitalism Around the World, The Spirit of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Carnegie’s “Six Ways to Make People Like You” (primary source). . . . . . . . . . . . . 2955 “Carriers of Negative Electricity” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559 Case for Birth Control, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1738 Casualties of the Beer Hall Putsch (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1870 Cather’s Prairie (primary source). . . . . . . . . 1404 Causes of Revolt, The (primary source) . . . . . 3181 Chadwick: From Neutrons to Cyclotrons (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2545 Chamberlain on the Anschluss (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3095 Champion v. Ames Ruling, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 China, Nanjing (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3060 Chinese Civil War (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2097 City, Human Nature and the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1963 Civil War, 1918-1921, Russian . . . . . . . . . . 1417 Clansman, Preface to The (primary source) . . . 1189 Class Distinctions, Mao Draws (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2779 Code, The Hays (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2706 Comintern, Lenin on the Founding of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1491 Commerce and Labor, Secretaries of (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Commissioners of Reclamation (sidebar) . . . . . 167 Confession, Jackson’s (primary source) . . . . . 1539 Congo, Belgian (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705 Conservation, Pinchot’s Fight for (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393 Continental Drift (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951 Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (primary source). . . . . . . . 626 Coolidge’s Inaugural Address (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1951 Country Priest’s Despair, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3057 Covenant, The League of Nations (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1503 Coward Comments (primary source) . . . . . . . 2620 Creating the Nobel Prizes (primary source). . . . . 64 Croats, and Slovenes, Kingdom of the Serbs, (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1451
Cultures, The Diversity of (primary source) . . . 2699 Cyprus (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2041 Danger and Promise of Nuclear Fission, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3145 Dart and the Fossilized Brain (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1939 Darwinism, Social (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Day 7 of the Scopes Trial (primary source) . . . 2056 Debs Speaks Out Against War (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1369 Decline of the West, Politics and The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1435 Defending Mendel (primary source) . . . . . . . . 79 De Gaulle’s Appeal of June 18 (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3252 DeMille’s Filmography (sidebar). . . . . . . . . 1822 Democracy, Trotsky on Dictatorship and (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1325 Deporting the “Reds” (primary source) . . . . . 1529 Development, Leopold on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1932 Diabetes, Hormones and (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 144 Dictatorship and Democracy, Trotsky on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1325 Diet, Thiamine in the (table) . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Digestion, Pavlov, Dogs, and (sidebar) . . . . . . 114 “Dilemma in Philosophy, The Present” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592 Directors of the Bureau of Investigation, 1908-1972 (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693 Discovery, The Moment of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894 Diversity of Cultures, The (primary source) . . . 2699 Division of Spain, 1936 (map) . . . . . . . . . . 2946 Doctor’s Interest in Industrial Disease, A (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1977 Duke of Windsor Addresses the Nation, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2974 Dunkirk, Evacuation of (map) . . . . . . . . . . 3256 Dust Bowl, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2731 Dust Bowl Explained, The (sidebar) . . . . . . . 2732 Earhart Sets the Record Straight (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Earhart’s Final Flight, 1937, Amelia (map). Eastern Europe, 1919 (map) . . . . . . . . “Ecosystem,” The First Use of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editor, A Letter to the (primary source) . . lxxxii
. . . 2567 . . . 2567 . . . 1716 . . . 2847 . . . 1769
List of Maps, Tables, and Sidebars Egypt, 1940 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3290 Eighteenth Amendment, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605 Einstein, Young (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 Electoral Vote, 1912, U.S. (map) . . . . . . . . . 1012 Electoral Vote, 1928, U.S. (map) . . . . . . . . . 2221 Electoral Vote, 1932, U.S. (map) . . . . . . . . . 2597 Empire State: Facts and Figures, The (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2500 “End of the world had come, I thought the” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524 English Channel, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . 2130 Epidemic’s Toll, The Flu (primary source). . . . 1430 Equal Rights Amendment, Text of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871 Ernest Rutherford, Modern Alchemist (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104 Ethiopia, 1930 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2422 Eulogy for the Passenger Pigeon (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1135 Europe, 1914 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xcii Europe, 1919, Eastern (map) . . . . . . . . . . . 1716 European Involvement, Borah Argues Against (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . 2866 Evacuation of Dunkirk (map) . . . . . . . . . . . 3256 Everlasting Man, From The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2067 Exposing the Klan (primary source) . . . . . . . 1706 Extermination Camps, Nazi (table) . . . . . . . . 2642 Fantasia, The Music of (sidebar). . . . . . . . . 3296 Fard?, Who Was Wallace D. (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2435 Fascism, Franco’s (primary source) . . . . . . . 2947 Filmography, DeMille’s (sidebar) . . . . . . . . 1822 Fine Philosophies (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2141 Finnish Soldiers, Mannerheim’s Speech to (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3221 Fireside Chat, Roosevelt’s First (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2647 Firing Squad, Before the (primary source) . . . . 1384 First Battle of the Marne, 1914 (map) . . . . . . 1137 First Use of “Ecosystem,” The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2847 Flight, 1937, Amelia Earhart’s Final (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2567 Flu Epidemic’s Toll, The (primary source). . . . 1430 Fossilized Brain, Dart and the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1939 Foundering Position, Titanic’s (map) . . . . . . . 973
Four-Way Test, Rotary’s (primary source) . . . . 407 France, Lascaux (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3286 France, 1903, Tour de (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Franco’s Fascism (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2947 Free Enterprise, Scarface and (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2303 Freedom of the Artist, The (primary source) . . . 933 From All Quiet on the Western Front (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2293 From Heart of Darkness (primary source) . . . . . 88 From Mein Kampf (primary source) . . . . . . . 2059 From Riders of the Purple Sage (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 926 From The Everlasting Man (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2067 From The General Theory (primary source) . . . 2920 From The Junius Pamphlet (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1481 From The Psychology of Management (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119 From The Sound and the Fury (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2329 From The Story of Philosophy (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2103 From The Waste Land (primary source) . . . . . 1749 From Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1687 Führer Makes a Surprise Visit, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2768 Future of Imperialism, The (primary source) . . . . 92 Futurists’ Intentions, The (primary source) . . . . 748 Gallipoli, A Soldier’s Memories of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1182 Gallipoli, 1915 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181 Gamow: Physicist, Cosmologist, Geneticist, George (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2243 Gandhi on Noncooperation (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1584 Gandhi Protests the Asiatic Law Amendment Act (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Gatsby’s First Appearance (primary source) . . . 2035 General Pact for the Renunciation of War (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2254 General Theory, From The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2920 George Gamow: Physicist, Cosmologist, Geneticist (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2243 Geothermal Power Plants (sidebar). . . . . . . . 1026 German Invasion of Poland, The (map) . . . . . 3210
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Germany After the Anschluss, 1938 (map) . . . . 3094 Germany and the Soviet Union Reach an Accord (primary source). . . . . . . . . . . . 1773 Germany’s Warning to Lusitania Passengers (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1208 Gertrude Stein on Gertrude Stein (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444 Gestapo, Heydrich and the (sidebar) . . . . . . . 3161 God, The Temptations of (primary source). . . . 3299 Goebbels on World Propaganda (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1478 Göring Calls for the Removal of Jewish Influence (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . 3142 Grand Coulee Dam (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . 2679 Greco-Turkish War, 1919-1922 (map) . . . . . . 1512 Gregor Samsa Awoke, When (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1169 Group Theatre, Odets and the (sidebar) . . . . . 2475 Guernica, Basque Response to the Attack on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3016 Halifax Disaster, Responding to the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1398 Hammurabi’s Code (primary source) . . . . . . . 122 Hays Code, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2706 Haywood on Industrial Unionism (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426 Health and Life, A Menace to (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2613 Heart of Darkness, From (primary source) . . . . . 88 Henson’s Expedition, Peary and (map) . . . . . . 760 Heydrich and the Gestapo (sidebar) . . . . . . . 3161 Hofmann on LSD (primary source) . . . . . . . 3074 Hollywood, Hughes and (sidebar) . . . . . . . . 1901 Hormones and Diabetes (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 144 Horst Wessel Song, The (primary source) . . . . 2949 How Far Are the Stars? (sidebar). . . . . . . . . 1035 Hughes and Hollywood (sidebar). . . . . . . . . 1901 Human Evolution, Instinct and (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 Human Nature and the City (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1963 Humanist, The Jesuit and the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1882 Humanité: Our Goal, L’ (primary source) . . . . . 335 “I-Thou,” The Power of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1803 “I thought the end of the world had come” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Impact of the Brandeis Brief, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669 Imperialism, Lenin on (primary source) . . . . . 1254 Imperialism, The Future of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 In Flanders Fields (primary source) . . . . . . . 1233 Inaugural Address, Coolidge’s (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1951 Income Tax, Whitney on the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1060 India, 1914, British Indiana Dunes State Park (map) . . . . . . . . . 2183 Industrial Disease, A Doctor’s Interest in (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1977 Industrial Unionism, Haywood on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426 Influence of a Journalist, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536 Instinct and Human Evolution (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 Introducing Sam Spade (primary source). . . . . 2324 Invaders from Mars (primary source) . . . . . . 3139 Italian Libya (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857 Ives on the Nature of Music (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1249 Jackson’s Confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1539 Japan and Eastern Asia, 1904 (map) . . . . . . . . 321 Jesuit and the Humanist, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1882 Jewish Influence, Göring Calls for the Removal of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3142 Jewish Question, The (primary source) . . . . . . 724 Joan of Arc’s Condemnation (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1631 John Muir Trail, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3077 Journalist, The Influence of a (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536 June 18, De Gaulle’s Appeal of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3252 Junius Pamphlet, From The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1481 Jutland, 1916, Battle of (map) . . . . . . . . . . 1267 Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kings, Valley of the (map) . . . . . . . . . . Kings Canyon, California (map) . . . . . . . Klan, Exposing the (primary source) . . . . . Kudos for Ponzi’s Scheme (primary source) .
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1451 1785 1811 1706 1471
List of Maps, Tables, and Sidebars Labor, Secretaries of Commerce and (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Lacrimabili Statu (primary source) . . . . . . . . 984 Lake Victoria Railway, 1901, Mombasa(map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Landing at Le Bourget (primary source) . . . . . 2190 Landsteiner’s Famous Footnote (sidebar) . . . . . . 12 Lascaux, France (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3286 Lawrence on Melville (primary source) . . . . . 1588 Laws and Customs of War on Land, Convention Respecting the (primary source) . . . . . . . . 626 League of Nations Covenant, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1503 “Leave it as it is . . .” (primary source) . . . . . . 652 Leavitt, Shapley, and the Period-Luminosity Scale (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2277 Le Bourget, Landing at (primary source). . . . . 2190 Lenin, Trotsky’s Advice to (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1693 Lenin on Imperialism (primary source) . . . . . 1254 Lenin on the Founding of the Comintern (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1491 Lenin Speaks Out Against Anti-Jewish Pogroms (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Lenin’s Last View of Soviet Government (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1345 Leopold on Development (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1932 Letter to the Editor, A (primary source) . . . . . 1769 Libya, Italian (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857 Life, A Menace to Health and (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2613 Lincoln’s Birthday Call, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745 Little Johnny Jones, One Critic’s Reaction to (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 Little Neanderthal in Some of Us?, A (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712 Living Conditions, A Plea for Better (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798 Lloyd George’s Mansion House Speech of 1911 (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891 Lochner v. New York Decision, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414 Long March, Mao’s (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2778 Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1913 (map) . . . . . . . 1089 Louse, Pity the Poor (primary source) . . . . . . 2387 LSD, Hofmann on (primary source) . . . . . . . 3074 Lusitania Passengers, Germany’s Warning to (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1208
Machu Picchu (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893 McKinley’s Assassin (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Madness, Products of (primary source). . . . . . 3041 Maginot Line (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2289 Major Participants in the Mexican Revolution (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844 Major Sites of Russian Pogroms, 1903-1906 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Making of Sausage, The (primary source) . . . . . 511 Making the World “Safe for Democracy” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1351 Malevich on Color (primary source) . . . . . . . 1236 Mannerheim’s Speech to Finnish Soldiers (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3221 Mansion House Speech of 1911, Lloyd George’s (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . 891 Mao Draws Class Distinctions (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2779 Mao’s Long March (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . 2778 Marconi’s Vision (primary source) . . . . . . . . . 72 Marne, 1914, First Battle of the (map) . . . . . . 1137 Marriage, Shaw on (primary source). . . . . . . . 200 Mars, Invaders from (primary source) . . . . . . 3139 Martinique, West Indies (map) . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Martyr’s Last Letter, A (primary source) . . . . . 2952 Masjed Soleym3n, Persia (map) . . . . . . . . . . 682 Mawson’s Love of Adventure (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 918 Mead Describes a Samoan Morning (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2251 Meet Hercule Poirot (primary source) . . . . . . 1572 Mein Kampf, From (primary source) . . . . . . . 2059 Melville, Lawrence on (primary source) . . . . . 1588 Memorable Screwball Comedies (sidebar) . . . . 2727 Menace to Health and Life, A (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2613 Mendel, Defending (primary source) . . . . . . . . 79 Mexican Revolution, Major Participants in the (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844 Miller’s Philosophical Reflections (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2771 Miss America, 1921-1940 (sidebar) . . . . . . . 1732 Mit brennender Sorge (primary source) . . . . . 3010 Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 1901 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Moment of Discovery, The (primary source) . . . 894 Monism Explained (primary source). . . . . . . . 505 Mosul Province (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2123 Mount McKinley National Park (map) . . . . . . 1340 Muckraker’s Testimony, A (primary source) . . . 970 lxxxv
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Muir, Roosevelt on (primary source) . . . . . . . 232 Muir Opposes the Dam (primary source). . . . . 1097 Muir Trail, The John (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3077 Munich Agreement, Text of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3131 Music, Ives on the Nature of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1249 Music of Fantasia, The (sidebar). . . . . . . . . 3296 Nanjing, China (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3060 Nansen on Understanding (primary source) . . . 1791 Narrator’s Viewpoint in The Ambassadors, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 National Football League Champions, 1920-1950 (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1639 Nature of Music, Ives on the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1249 Nazi Extermination Camps (table) . . . . . . . . 2642 Neanderthal in Some of Us?, A Little (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712 “Negative Electricity, Carriers of” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559 Neutrons to Cyclotrons, Chadwick: From (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2545 “Never . . . Was So Much Owed by So Many to So Few” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . 3271 New Freedom, Wilson Articulates the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013 Niagara Movement, Principles of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 Nicaragua, Private Property (sidebar) . . . . . . . 993 Nickelodeons, The Success of the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Nobel Prize, Barkla and the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473 Nobel Prizes, Creating the (primary source) . . . . 64 Noncooperation, Gandhi on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1584 Nonpartisan League, The (primary source). . . . 1612 North America, 1914 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . xciv Norway, 1940 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3241 Notable Figures of the Art Nouveau Movement (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Nuclear Fission, The Danger and Promise of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3145 Observations on the Americans in Panama (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 October Manifesto, The (primary source) . . . . . 453 Odets and the Group Theatre (sidebar) . . . . . . 2475
One Critic’s Reaction to Little Johnny Jones (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 Opium in the Modern World (time line) . . . . . . 957 Our Town, Wilder on (primary source). . . . . . 3089 Pact for the Renunciation of War, General (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2254 PAHO Member Countries (sidebar) . . . . . . . . 186 Palestine and Transjordan, 1922 (map) . . . . . . 1778 Panama, Observations on the Americans in (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Panama Canal Zone (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Pankhurst’s Prophetic Words (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Paperback Titles, Penguin’s First (sidebar). . . . 2803 Paraguay, 1936 (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2924 Paris Seasons of the Ballets Russes, The (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763 Park, Indiana Dunes State (map) . . . . . . . . . 2183 Park, Mount McKinley National (map). . . . . . 1340 Pascendi Dominici gregis (primary source) . . . . 248 Passenger Pigeon, Eulogy for the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1135 Pavlov, Dogs, and Digestion (sidebar). . . . . . . 114 Peary and Henson’s Expedition (map) . . . . . . . 760 Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Penguin’s First Paperback Titles (sidebar) . . . . 2803 Period-Luminosity Scale, Leavitt, Shapley, and the (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2277 Permanent Revolution (primary source) . . . . . 2296 Pershing Expedition, 1916-1917 (map). . . . . . 1261 Persia, Masjed Soleym3n (map) . . . . . . . . . . 682 Persia, Susa (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Philippines (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Philosophies, Fine (primary source) . . . . . . . 2141 “Philosophy, The Present Dilemma in” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592 Photo-Secession, The (primary source) . . . . . . 131 Pickford’s Press (primary source) . . . . . . . . . 739 Pinchot’s Fight for Conservation (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393 Pirandello’s Vivid Characters (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1723 Pity the Poor Louse (primary source) . . . . . . 2387 Pixley ka Isaka Seme on the SANNC (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 955 Plague Outbreaks, Twentieth Century (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585 Planet X, Searching for (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 2408
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List of Maps, Tables, and Sidebars Plea for Better Living Conditions, A (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798 Pogroms, 1903-1906, Major Sites of Russian (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Poirot, Meet Hercule (primary source) . . . . . . 1572 Poland, The German Invasion of (map) . . . . . 3210 Politics and The Decline of the West (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1435 Ponzi’s Scheme, Kudos for (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1471 Poona Pact, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2587 Portsmouth, The Treaty of (primary source). . . . 322 Postnuclear World, The Brave (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2603 Pound Offers His Help (primary source) . . . . . 1002 Power of the “I-Thou,” The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1803 Power Plants, Geothermal (sidebar) . . . . . . . 1026 Preface to The Clansman (primary source). . . . 1189 “Present Dilemma in Philosophy, The” (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592 Principles of the Niagara Movement (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 Prize Categories, Pulitzer (sidebar). . . . . . . . 1364 Products of Madness (primary source) . . . . . . 3041 Promoting Vitaphone (primary source). . . . . . 2126 Propaganda, Goebbels on World (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1478 Propaganda Battle, The (primary source) . . . . 1354 Proust’s Madeleine Moment (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047 Psychology of Management, From The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119 Pulitzer Prize Categories (sidebar) . . . . . . . . 1364 Radioactive Romance (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 2616 Railway, 1901, Mombasa-Lake Victoria (map) . . . 75 Reclamation, Commissioners of (sidebar) . . . . . 167 “Reds,” Deporting the (primary source) . . . . . 1529 Reed’s Triumph (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . 45 Renunciation of War, General Pact for the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2254 Research, X Rays and (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Reserve, Serengeti Game (map) . . . . . . . . . 2344 Resolution 15 (primary source). . . . . . . . . . 2438 Responding to the Halifax Disaster (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1398 Revolt, The Causes of (primary source) . . . . . 3181 Revolution, Permanent (primary source) . . . . . 2296 Rhineland, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2927
Rhodes Scholars, Some American (sidebar) . . . . 141 Rhodesia, Southern (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1863 Rickets on the Rise? (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . 1758 Riders of the Purple Sage, From (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 926 Romance, Radioactive (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 2616 Romania, 1907 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601 Roosevelt on Muir (primary source) . . . . . . . . 232 Roosevelt Reassures the Nation (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2338 Roosevelt Solves a Problem (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Roosevelt’s First Fireside Chat (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2647 Rose Bowl Scores, 1902-1940 (sidebar) . . . . . . 125 Ross, Thurber on (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2022 Rotary’s Four-Way Test (primary source) . . . . . 407 Route of the Salt March, 1930 (map) . . . . . . . 2411 Ruhr Valley, The (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1827 Russell’s Task, Whitehead and (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 815 Russian Civil War, 1918-1921 (map). . . . . . . 1417 Russo-Finnish War (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . 3220 Rutherford, Modern Alchemist, Ernest (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104 Sacco and Vanzetti on Trial (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2200 “Safe for Democracy,” Making the World (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1351 Salt March, 1930, Route of the (map) . . . . . . 2411 Sam Spade, Introducing (primary source) . . . . 2324 Samoan Morning, Mead Describes a (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2251 San Remo Agreement, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1622 Sanger Argues for Sex Education (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1297 Sanger’s Defiance (primary source) . . . . . . . 1172 SANNC, Pixley ka Isaka Seme on the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 955 Sarnoff Announces the Birth of an Industry (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3188 Sausage, The Making of (primary source) . . . . . 511 Scandinavia, 1905 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451 Scarface and Free Enterprise (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2303 Scientist, The Work of the (primary source) . . . 3157 Scopes Trial, Day 7 of the (primary source) . . . 2056 Scout Law, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . 614
lxxxvii
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Screwball Comedies, Memorable (sidebar) . . . 2727 Searching for Planet X (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 2408 Secretaries of Commerce and Labor (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Seme on the SANNC, Pixley ka Isaka (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 955 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Kingdom of the (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1451 Serengeti Game Reserve (map) . . . . . . . . . . 2344 Seven Sisters, The (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . 883 Sex Education, Sanger Argues for (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1297 Shapley, and the Period-Luminosity Scale, Leavitt (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2277 Shaw on Marriage (primary source) . . . . . . . . 200 Silesia, Upper (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1720 Silicones, Some of the Many Uses for (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Sinn Féin’s Leaders (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . 460 “Six Ways to Make People Like You,” Carnegie’s (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . 2955 Slave Narrative, A (primary source) . . . . . . . 2832 Slovenes, Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1451 Social Darwinism (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Socialism, Calls for (primary source) . . . . . . 2354 Soldier’s Memories of Gallipoli, A (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1182 Some American Rhodes Scholars (sidebar) . . . . 141 Some of the Many Uses for Silicones (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Sound and the Fury, From The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2329 South Africa, 1910, Union of (map) . . . . . . . . 831 South America, 1914 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . xcv Southern Rhodesia (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1863 Soviet Government, Lenin’s Last View of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1345 Soviet Ukraine, The (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1322 Soviet Union Reach an Accord, Germany and the (primary source). . . . . . . . . . . . 1773 Spain, 1936, Division of (map) . . . . . . . . . . 2946 Spindletop, Texas (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Spirit of Capitalism Around the World, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Stars?, How Far Are the (sidebar) . . . . . . . . 1035 Statute of Westminster, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2519 Steelworkers’ Strike Call, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1536
Stein on Gertrude Stein, Gertrude (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444 Storting Votes for Dissolution, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 Story of Philosophy, From The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2103 Stravinsky’s Recollection (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1080 Strike Call, The Steelworkers’ (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1536 Students, Boulanger’s Famous (sidebar) . . . . . 1666 Success of the Nickelodeons, The (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Summi Pontificatus (primary source). . . . . . . 3174 Supporting Theater in Hard Times (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2862 Surprising Snub, A (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . 2472 Surrealism, Breton’s Definition of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1944 Susa, Persia (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Sweden, Undset’s Homage to (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2268 Synge’s Earthy Poetry (primary source) . . . . . . 599 Team “Wonder Drug” (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 3244 Temptations of God, The (primary source). . . . 3299 Texas, Spindletop (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Text of the Equal Rights Amendment (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871 Text of the Munich Agreement (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3131 Theater in Hard Times, Supporting (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2862 Theiler’s Contribution (primary source) . . . . . 3026 Thiamine in the Diet (table) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Thubten Gyatso’s Prediction (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2696 Thurber on Ross (primary source) . . . . . . . . 2022 Time Line of World War I (time line) . . . . . . 1126 Titanic Survivor’s Story, A (primary source) . . . 974 Titanic’s Foundering Position (map) . . . . . . . . 973 Tour de France, 1903 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, From (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1687 Transjordan, 1922, Palestine and (map) . . . . . 1778 Trans-Siberian Railroad (map) . . . . . . . . . . 1240 Treaty of Portsmouth, The (primary source). . . . 322 Trial, Day 7 of the Scopes (primary source) . . . 2056 Trotsky on Dictatorship and Democracy (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1325
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List of Maps, Tables, and Sidebars Trotsky’s Advice to Lenin (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1693 Tutankhamen’s Wonderful Things (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1786 Twelve Steps, AA’s (primary source) . . . . . . 2844 Twentieth Century Plague Outbreaks (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585 Ukraine, The Soviet (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1322 Understanding, Nansen on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1791 Undset’s Homage to Sweden (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2268 Union of South Africa, 1910 (map) . . . . . . . . 831 Unionism, Haywood on Industrial (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426 Upper Silesia (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1720 U.S. Electoral Vote, 1912 (map) . . . . . . . . . 1012 U.S. Electoral Vote, 1928 (map) . . . . . . . . . 2221 U.S. Electoral Vote, 1932 (map) . . . . . . . . . 2597 Valley of the Kings (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1785 Vanzetti on Trial, Sacco and (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2200 Vatican City, 1929 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2299 Vitaphone, Promoting (primary source) . . . . . 2126 Voice for the Workers, A (primary source) . . . . 870 War, Debs Speaks Out Against (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1369 War, General Pact for the Renunciation of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2254 War on Land, Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of (primary source) . . . . . . . . 626 Waste Land, From The (primary source) . . . . . 1749 “We bid you be of hope!” (primary source) . . . . 338 Wessel Song, The Horst (primary source) . . . . 2949 West Indies, Martinique (map) . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Western Front, 1918, World War I Allied Offensives on the (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1441
Western-Front Offensives, 1915-1917, World War I (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1127 Westminster, The Statute of (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2519 When Gregor Samsa Awoke (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1169 White Sea-Baltic Canal (map) . . . . . . . . . . 2671 Whitehead and Russell’s Task (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 815 Whitney on the Income Tax (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1060 Who Was Wallace D. Fard? (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2435 Wilder on Our Town (primary source) . . . . . . 3089 Wildlife Refuge, Pelican Island National (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Wilson Articulates the New Freedom (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013 Woman’s Consciousness, A (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1994 “Wonder Drug,” Team (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . 3244 Work of the Scientist, The (primary source) . . . 3157 Workers, A Voice for the (primary source) . . . . 870 World Propaganda, Goebbels on (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1478 World “Safe for Democracy,” Making the (primary source) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1351 World Series Results, 1903-1940 (table). . . . . . 258 World War I, Time Line of (time line) . . . . . . 1126 World War I Allied Offensives on the Western Front, 1918 (map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1441 World War I Western-Front Offensives, 1915-1917 (map). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1127 Wozzeck, Berg on (primary source). . . . . . . . 2087 X Rays and Research (sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Yangtze Rivers, The Yellow and (map) . . . . . 2510 Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, The (map) . . . . . 2510 Young Einstein (sidebar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
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Africa, 1914 Tunis Algiers Constantine Oran
Tangier Marrakesh
H
S
AR AH
A
TUNISIA
O
ALGERIA
Alexandria Cairo Suez
LIBYA
EGYPT
SPA
NI
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OCC OR
ERITREA
EQ
MBINI MIDDLE CONGO
AL IL AN D
(ETHIOPIA)
Stanleyville
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SO M
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C AME
ABYSSINIA
TO
Lagos
BRITISH SOMALILAND
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Great Events from History
1901-1940
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity
Early 20th century
Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity
Locale: Wolfenbüttel, Germany Categories: Science and technology; earth science; physics Key Figures Julius Elster (1854-1920), German physicist Hans Friedrich Geitel (1855-1923), German physicist Antoine-Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), French physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), English physicist Marie Curie (1867-1934), Polish French physicist Pierre Curie (1859-1906), French chemist Summary of Event The late 1890’s and early 1900’s were a fertile period for discoveries in radioactivity, which is the emission of energetic particles and radiant energy by certain atomic nuclei. These early discoveries were the building blocks for nuclear physics and the nuclear age, which began in the mid-1940’s. Radioactivity was first observed in 1896 by the French physicist Antoine-Henri Becquerel. He found that uranium ore emitted radiation strong enough to blacken covered photographic plates and to discharge a charged electroscope, a device for detecting the presence of electricity and whether it is positive or negative by means of electric attraction and repulsion. In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie, French physicists and chemists, announced the discovery of two new radiation-emitting elements: polonium and radium. In 1903, Ernest Rutherford, an English physicist born in New Zealand, made the discovery that radiation from such elements is composed of three different kinds of energetic rays: alpha rays with a positive charge, which were shown to be ionized helium atoms; beta particles with a negative charge, which were shown to be highenergy electrons; and gamma rays with no charge, which were found to be high-energy photons. Electrons are extremely small, negatively charged particles, whereas photons are a quantum of light that is proportional to the frequency of the radiation. Natural radioactivity is the property—possessed by roughly fifty elements, including radium, thorium, and uranium—of spontaneously emitting alpha or beta rays
and sometimes gamma rays through the disintegration of the nuclei of atoms. Naturally radioactive elements are called radioelements. During the disintegration process, a radioelement emits alpha or beta particles and atoms of a new element are formed. This new element is lighter than the predecessor and possesses chemical and physical properties quite different from those of the parent. The disintegration proceeds from stage to stage with measurable velocities in each case. The existence of radioactivity cannot be discerned without the aid of instruments. The most useful procedures for the detection and measurement of alpha and beta particles and gamma-ray photons are based on the fact that gases become electrical conductors as the result of exposure to radiation from radioactive substances. Because there is a strong electrical field in its immediate vicinity, a rapidly moving charged particle ejects orbital electrons from the atoms or molecules of a gas through which it passes, thus converting them into positive ions. The expelled electrons usually remain free for some time, although a few may attach themselves to other atoms or molecules to form negative ions. The passage of a charged particle through a gas results in the formation of a number of ion pairs and free electrons. The study of radioactivity and the successful use of radiation as a research tool or for other purposes depends on its quantitative detection and measurement. The quantities most often needed are the numbers of particles (electrons, photons, beta) arriving at a detector per unit time and their energies. When a charged particle passes through matter, it causes excitation and ionization of the molecules of the material. This ionization is the basis of nearly all instruments used for the detection of such particles and the measurement of their energies. German physicists Julius Elster and Hans Friedrich Geitel discovered a method of counting alpha particles from the visible scintillations the particles produced on a zinc sulfide screen. Radiation of alpha particles can produce luminescence in zinc sulfide. This luminescence is not uniform; rather, it consists of a large number of individual flashes, which can be seen under a magnifying glass. Each alpha particle produces one scintillation, so the number of alpha particles that fall on a detecting screen per unit time is given directly by the number of scintillations counted per unit time. The screen is dusted with small crystals of zinc sulfide containing a very small amount of copper impurity. The counting is done with 1
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Julius Elster and Hans Friedrich Geitel pioneered research in ion conduction in gases, atmospheric electricity, photoelectric effects, and radioactivity.
Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity the use of a microscope with a magnification of about thirty. This method works well for counting alpha particles in the presence of other radiations because the zinc sulfide screen is comparatively insensitive to beta and gamma rays. During this period of major discovery, Elster and Geitel were actively conducting research on radioactivity in rocks, springs, and air. Elster was on the faculty of the Gymnasium, Wolfenbüttel, Germany, from 1881 to 1919. Geitel was a teacher at Strosse Schule in Wolfenbüttel. Their joint research concerned ion conduction in gases, atmospheric electricity, photoelectric effects, and radioactivity. Elster, in addition to his work with Geitel, built the first photoelectric cell, the first photometer, and the Tesla transformer. Also, he was the first to determine the electrical charge on falling raindrops in 1899. Elster demonstrated that lead is not radioactive of itself, and he also discovered the presence of radioactive substances in the atmosphere that easily break down into unstable elements, which are responsible for atmospheric conductivity. Geitel built the first cathode tube and discovered selective photoelectric effect free energy left in an atom after the transformation of radioactive elements. He built a photometer, invented the photocell with Elster, formulated a law of radioactive fallout, and originated the concept of atomic energy. One of Elster and Geitel’s first collaborations took place in 1880, when they carried out a systematic study of the electrification of hot bodies. From this early work and their perfection of instruments for detection and measurement, Elster and Geitel moved to a determination of other sources of radiation. A basic fact is that the earth is heated from within by the energy released when uranium, thorium, and other radioactive elements naturally undergo nuclear disintegration. As this disintegration takes place, radioactive elements find their way into rocks, soil, water, and air. The total energy released through nuclear disintegration over the earth’s history is more than one hundred calories per gram of earth material. Elster and Geitel discovered in 1901 that it is possible to produce excited radioactivity from the atmosphere, without further agency, simply by exposing a highly charged wire to a negative potential in the atmosphere for many hours. They found that the radioactivity may dissolve with exposure to acids and that the wire would be left unchanged. This discovery, according to Elster and Geitel, had important bearing on the theory of atmospheric electricity. In 1903, Elster and Geitel discovered a property of al2
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Julius Elster (left) and Hans Friedrich Geitel.
pha rays that proved of great importance in radioactive measurement. If a screen coated with small crystals of phosphorescent zinc sulfide is exposed to alpha rays, a brilliant luminosity is observed. Further, the study of penetrating radiation had its origin in their observations that there was a definite transport of charge to the insulated system even after all possible precautions had been taken to reduce electrical leakage over the insulators. The order of magnitude of this residual ionization corresponded to the production of about twenty pairs of ions per cubic centimeter. Elster and Geitel’s discoveries—although less heralded than those of some of their contemporaries— constituted major contributions to nuclear physics and particularly to the understanding and detection of the omnipresence of radioactive elements in the environment. Significance Elster and Geitel’s discoveries led to the realization that not all nuclei are stable. Radioactive nuclei disintegrate spontaneously, releasing energy in the process. Understanding why this takes place was one of the great advances in physics during the first half of the twentieth
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The early work of Elster and Geitel led to the discovery in the second decade of the twentieth century that the atomic nucleus is a source of large quantities of energy. Humans have learned to make nuclear energy available in many different ways: for medical therapy, for power in industry, for energy to propel submarines and ships, for research in biological sciences, and for weapons with great destructive power. —Earl G. Hoover Further Reading Badash, Lawrence. “Becquerel’s Blunder.” Social Research 72 (Spring, 2005). This article, part of an issue devoted to “fruitful errors,” describes Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity. Curie, Marie. Radioactive Substances. 1904. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2002. A translation from the French of Curie’s classic thesis presented to the Faculty of Science in Paris. Very informative on the early days in the study of detection and discovery of radioactive bodies by one of the researchers of the time. Accessible to advanced high school students with a background in science. Mann, Wilfred B., R. L. Ayres, and S. B. Garfinkel. Radioactivity and Its Measurement. 2d ed. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1980. Chronicles the discoveries concerning radioactivity. An ideal source for advanced high school and lower-level college students as well as interested lay readers with some background in physics. Presents mathematical computations in an easy-to-follow format. Includes illustrations and reference list. Rayner-Canham, Marelene F., and Geoffrey W. RaynerCanham. A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005. Acollection of biographical essays on twenty-three women involved in atomic science research in the early part of the twentieth century, including Marie Curie as well as many lesserknown scientists whose stories are rarely told. Romer, Alfred. The Discovery of Radioactivity and Transmutation. Vol. 2 in Classics of Science. New York: Dover, 1964. Collection of essays and original articles in various areas of radioactivity taken from scientific writings by Becquerel, Rutherford, Pierre and Marie Curie, and others. Includes illustrations, photographs, and footnotes. Rutherford, Ernest, James Chadwick, and C. D. Ellis. Radiations from Radioactive Substances. Reprint. London: Cambridge University Press, 1951. Schol3
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century. The field of geology was particularly affected. In natural radioactivity, the unstable nucleus emits several types of high-energy particles and also releases energy in the form of electromagnetic waves similar to light energy. This process results in radioactive decay, whereby an atom is changed to an atom of another element. This means that the number of atoms of a radioactive element decreases with the passage of time. If the rate of disintegration is known, then one can use the measurement of the amounts of the parent and daughter elements to calculate the age of the mineral containing the parent. This is the principle of radiometric dating. One of the more important early discoveries stemming from Elster and Geitel’s work was made by Bertram Borden Boltwood, an American physicist. In 1907, Boltwood discovered that the age of a mineral crystal containing uranium could be determined chemically through ascertainment of the ratio between the number of uranium atoms and the number of uranium atoms plus lead. If the crystal was part of an igneous intrusion, its date could be determined as the time of solidification of the magma. The date of a crystal in metamorphosed sediments was found to be the time of metamorphism, not the time of deposition of the sediment. Only a few of the natural radioactive isotopes are of geologic importance. Some are useful in determining the ages of objects; others are sources of radioactive heating of the earth. Those that have proved most useful are carbon 14, potassium 87, uranium 235, uranium 238, and thorium 232. The requirements for use in dating are a reasonable rate of decay (half-life), retention of daughter isotopes, and the existence of common minerals containing the parent element. The ability to detect radiation also made possible the location of uranium ores. The early work by Elster, Geitel, Becquerel, the Curies, and Rutherford resulted in the development of the most widely used radiation detection instrument, the Geiger-Müller counter (also known as the Geiger counter). This device consists of a metal cylinder enclosed in a glass tube filled with a gas at low pressure. The entrance of a charged particle ionizes the gas enough to cause a current flow, but the current is quenched immediately by the high resistance placed in the circuit. As in an ionization chamber, an entering particle causes a momentary pulse of voltage. Geiger counters are equipped with special cylinders for counting alpha, beta, and gamma particles. The first such counter was invented by German physicist Hans Geiger in 1913 and then perfected in 1926 by Walther Müller. The Geiger-Müller counter is still widely used.
Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity
Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera arly text suited for college students and historians of science. Includes illustrations and references. Taton, René. Science in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 1966. A very good reference for both lower- and upper-level college students. Features sections devoted to mathematics, physical science, earth science, the universe, biology, and medicine. Copiously illustrated. Includes references in each section.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed.
Early 20th century
Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera Gustav Mahler established a concept of operatic performance with the Vienna Court Opera that has been widely described as the outstanding musical achievement of the era and was, in the eyes of many, the last artistic gasp of a great but crumbling empire. Locale: Vienna, Austria Categories: Music; theater Key Figures Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Austrian conductor and composer Alfred Roller (1864-1935), Austrian stage designer Hans Richter (1843-1916), German conductor Summary of Event As the seat of the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna had long been a center of musical influence by the beginning of the twentieth century, and nothing held the attention of the Viennese, and the broader musical community in general, more securely than the opera. Performances were built around familiar stars, and the easygoing attitude for which the Viennese were famous carried over to the operatic stage in the form of pleasant exhibitions of vocal skill. Gustav Mahler first appeared at the opera in Vienna as assistant conductor for a performance of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin (1848, pr. 1850) on May 11, 1897; his extraordinary musical success with that and subsequent performances led to his appointment as director on October 8, 1897. He brought to the royal opera a new concept that each work should be viewed as a complete entity in itself, one in which all operatic elements—orchestra, singers, staging, and scenery—were to be focused on achieving a unified whole. His approach was marked by rigorous standards of technical execution. No detail was too small to receive his careful atten4
tion. For example, in the “Norns” scene from a production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (1874, pr. 1876; the twilight of the gods), the players were required to pay out rope for an extended period, but with no actual rope present; Mahler insisted that the performers practice for hours with an actual rope, although none was used during the public performance. Mahler collaborated with Alfred Roller in achieving new stage designs that were based on light and symbolism rather than on the stereotypical painted backdrops that had for so long inhibited attempts to create the illusions necessary in opera. Roller’s first stage design, for a production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (1859, pr. 1865), bathed the stage in deep red for the passions of the first act, in deep purple to suggest night in the second, and in a pervasive gray for the extended death scene of the closing—all innovative effects for the time. Mahler insisted on complete accuracy from the singers and orchestra in matters of text and tempo; the vocal cadenzas that had accrued to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s scores were deleted, and the Wagner operas were performed without the usual cuts, extending some performances by as much as an hour. Singers were expected to follow exactly Mahler’s sometimes tyrannical directions in matters of interpretation in order to achieve his concept of the complete work. Within a fairly short time following his arrival at the opera, many of the established singers left, as did a significant portion of the orchestra. Those who remained, however, stated repeatedly that the musical ideas they encountered with Mahler compensated for the heavy demands he placed on them. Mahler used his position to encourage many new singing talents. He was constantly searching for new singers, and he often favored performers whose voices might be less than the most beautiful if the singers could sustain the ele-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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ments of dramatic acting that fit with his idea of the whole. This was a marked departure from the reigning tradition of bel canto and all that it implied. Mahler’s attention extended to audience conduct as well, a fact reflected in a published list of rules he established for visitors to the opera. Cannons were to be fired in the city to inform the citizens of the appropriate time they should depart their homes for each evening’s performance; late arrivals, be they aristocrats or not, were refused admission until the first intermission. Mahler also forced each singer to sign an agreement eliminating claques (fans whom singers paid to applaud their individual entries and solos). Persons of both sexes entering the opera house as couples might be required to give proof of their marital status, and strikingly beautiful ladies, who might attract the attention of gentlemen, could be refused admission (a response to the social intercourse for which the Vienna Court Opera had become famous). Those who enjoyed bringing musical scores to the opera were forbidden to turn the pages of their scores because of the distracting noise. Although he continued much of the traditional Italian repertory, Mahler became most famous for the attention he gave to the operas of Wagner, establishing complete performance of the four operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (1874; The Ring of the Nibelungs) and insisting that these and all other works be presented without cuts. Here he came into conflict with the locally revered conductor Hans Richter, who had worked with Wagner at the festival in Bayreuth, Bavaria, and who, presumably, had been anointed by that master as interpreter of his works. Mahler himself, however, was very much a champion of Wagner’s idea of the total work of art; he announced within a short time that he would assume responsibility for all Wagner performances, and soon after, Richter, one of the most celebrated interpreters of German Romanticism, left for London. Mahler came to be recognized as a spokesman for the “music of the future” movement as it had been championed by Wagner, and his uncut performances of Wagnerian music dramas were considered to be among the highlights of his tenure as director. Clearly, Mahler was in control; he imposed his extraordinary talents and musical concepts not only on the performers but on the audience as well. The resulting intensity led to a level of performance acknowledged by all who attended the opera as the outstanding musical achievement of the age—the crescendo of criticism notwithstanding. The impact on Mahler’s own career as a conductor
Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera
Gustav Mahler. (Library of Congress)
and composer was at least twofold. As a conductor, he achieved international recognition as a leading virtuoso of the baton and was invited to appear at many major musical centers, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera. As a composer, he may have had limited productivity, given that his activities with the opera relegated his own composing to the relatively short months of summer, yet his work toward achieving an operatic performance that represents a totality of the composer’s intent also appears in his symphonies, large-scale works that are self-sufficient musical entities, creations that extend well beyond the traditional four-movement sequence. Many of these works carry autobiographical connotations, which may also reflect Mahler’s total and personal immersion in each of his operatic endeavors. Certainly, his awareness of the problems of words and music would have figured in both activities, and a significant portion of Mahler’s compositions call for the combination of orchestra and voices, either solo or chorus. The intensity of his personal involvement with any work he addressed as either conductor or composer may have contributed to Mahler’s personal problems, condi5
Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera tions sufficiently disturbing to lead him to a consultation with Sigmund Freud in 1910. The similarity between Freud’s approach to his new science of psychoanalysis and Mahler’s approach to his creative processes, either as opera conductor or as composer, attracted the attention of many. Significance Although Mahler alienated many with his uncompromising standards and dictatorial musical administration, he also brought to fruition a type of operatic performance that united all facets of the musical theater into the service of one entity: the conception of the composer as interpreted by Mahler. The performance of an opera as a unified whole, one into which all musical elements were cohesively bound, stood as the hallmark of the productions for which Mahler was responsible as director, even when he was not on the podium himself. This was in striking contrast to most existing operatic traditions of the early twentieth century, and the Vienna Court Opera came to be identified as a crucible for new musical ideas and as the center of Viennese cultural life. It was said that Mahler was the second-best-known person in the city, his eminence surpassed only by that of the emperor. Mahler’s fidelity to the composer’s intent, although with some noted exceptions, set the tone for musicians in many other areas, a quality reflected in practices of notation and performance that endured well beyond the middle of the twentieth century. With Mahler as a model, composers annotated their scores with great attention to the nuances of articulation, dynamics, fluctuations in tempo, and similar matters. Performers were expected to respond in kind through the careful and accurate realization of such notation. Gone was the element of change through free additions, inserted improvisations, and “creative” interpretations dominated by performers’ individual personalities. Mahler’s collaborations with Roller in matters of stage design broke with the past and established procedures that were emulated at Bayreuth and in most other opera houses of the twentieth century. Mahler and Roller established the principle of using light instead of fixed lines, symbolism instead of literal and inherently limited statement, to project desired illusions. Mahler’s concern for the whole ensemble led him to place the conductor’s desk on the far side of the orchestra, between the instrumentalists and the audience, the better to command the attention of the orchestra as well as that of the performers on stage. Previously the conductor had worked from an area near the stage where he 6
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 could address the singers directly, with the orchestra seated between the conductor and the audience. Like Mahler’s other innovations, this ensued from his concern for the whole ensemble—orchestra as well as singers. Through his extraordinary musical achievements in the opera house, Mahler restored to Vienna some of the musical glory the city had lost with the passing of Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert. The opera had symbolized all that was great and glorious in the principal city of the AustroHungarian Empire, and the declining political fortunes of that city made these musical developments all the more notable in the eyes of the Viennese. Whether they approved of Mahler or vilified him, there was no question that he was the major artistic and intellectual force in the city. Mahler’s elevation of the complete dramatic concept above the merely musical led to the emergence of a new type of singer, one who above all could project the illusion of the drama. Although this emphasis led to the departure of several prominent stars—many of whom were probably ready to depart for vocal reasons under any circumstances—it also led to the establishment of several new and important operatic careers. Anna von Mildenburg, Leo Slezak, Marie Gutheil-Schoder, and Richard Mayr were among the singers who came forth during Mahler’s tenure, and they dominated the German operatic repertory until well into the twentieth century. Through the process of careful selection of his own singers and painstaking training through many rehearsals, Mahler developed one of the most renowned operatic ensembles of all time. Mahler’s central position on the musical scene and his forceful musical intellect brought him to the forefront among young musicians, such as Alexander von Zemlinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, and Alban Berg, who were champions of new styles in music. Although not always in accord with their views, Mahler and his work as composer and conductor nevertheless stood for what many of these musicians thought was needed to free music from the encrustation of nineteenth century Romanticism. It was from the creative work of these composers, particularly Schoenberg and Webern, that the music of the twentieth century received much of its impetus. —Douglas A. Lee Further Reading Banks, Paul. “Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Modernism.” In The Late Romantic Era, edited by Jim
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ten traditions of the house and the differences among directors. Includes many color plates of the opera house’s interior. La Grange, Henry-Louis de la. Gustav Mahler: Vienna, the Years of Challenge, 1897-1904. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Biographical study depicts the society of prewar Vienna, the range of artists among whom Mahler lived and worked, and Mahler’s engagement and turbulent marriage to Alma Schindler. _______. Mahler. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. Extensive biographical study of Mahler through 1902, presumably based, at least in part, on the original text of Natalie Bauer-Lechner. Much of the text derives from personal correspondence, which is quoted liberally, but the contexts of many quotations are not clearly identified. Many photographic plates, annotations, and an extended bibliography. Newlin, Dika. Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg. Morningside Heights, N.Y.: King’s Crown Press, 1947. A cornerstone for studies concerning musical developments in Vienna around the beginning of the twentieth century. Gives much attention to the relationships among the three composers named and to musical traditions in Vienna; a short chapter addresses Mahler’s tenure as director of the opera. Prawy, Michael. The Vienna Opera. New York: Praeger, 1970. A valuable documentary study of the Vienna Opera, its productions, traditions, famous performers, and conductors. Includes many photographic plates, playbills, and other documents that illustrate the history of this famous institution. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Nov. 20, 1911: Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres; Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres.
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Samson. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991. A study of the broader cultural forces at work in Vienna during the last years of the nineteenth century. Reviews Mahler’s work within the context of the political and cultural firmament of which it was a part. Bauer-Lechner, Natalie. Recollections of Gustav Mahler. Translated by Dika Newlin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980. An account of personal associations with Mahler from childhood through his years in Vienna. Aside from many items of purely personal interest, offers much information concerning Mahler’s musical development and the sources of his ideas. Feder, Stuart. Gustav Mahler: A Life in Crisis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Psychoanalytic biography addresses emotional themes in Mahler’s life and compositions, connecting particular crises with musical themes and works. Discusses Mahler’s consultation with Freud in 1910. Gartenberg, Egon. Mahler: The Man and His Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1978. One of the most accessible biographical studies of Mahler. Includes frequent references to and quotations of source materials, an extensive list of photographs of Mahler and his associates supplemented by biographical sketches, and an extensive bibliography. Kennedy, Michael. Mahler. 2d ed. London: J. M. Dent, 1990. This brief and accessible work is primarily biographical and analytic, but it is supplemented by a calendar of Mahler’s life and activities, a catalog of works, a sketch of Mahler’s associates, and a select bibliography. Kralik, Heinrich. The Vienna Opera House. Translated by Michael H. Law. Vienna: Brüder Rosenbaum, 1955. A useful history of the physical structure known as the Vienna Opera. Addresses many of the unwrit-
Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera
Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1901
Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye After centuries of efforts to create dyes with the brilliant colors of nature as well as permanence and functionality, success marked the dawn of the age of synthesis. Locale: Ludwigshafen, Germany Categories: Science and technology; chemistry Key Figures René Bohn (1862-1922), German synthetic organic chemist Karl Heumann (1850-1894), German chemist Roland Scholl (1865-1945), Swiss chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818-1892), German organic chemist Sir William Henry Perkin (1838-1907), English chemist and student in Hofmann’s laboratory Summary of Event Today, the presence of color in living spaces and daily utensils is largely taken for granted. The precise date when the search began for ways to make human surroundings attractive through the use of color is unknown. By contrast, humankind’s search for the means to obtain and improve on nature’s colors has been recorded and analyzed in great detail. One of many possible critical turning points in this research was the introduction of the first vat dye by a chemist at the German firm Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (BASF) in 1901. The term “vat dye” is used to describe a method of applying the dye, but it also serves to characterize the structure of the dye, because all currently useful vat dyes share a common unit. One fundamental problem in dyeing relates to the extent to which the dye is water-soluble. A beautifully colored molecule that is easily soluble in water might seem attractive given the ease with which it binds with fiber; however, this same solubility will lead to the dye’s rapid loss in daily use. Vat dyes are designed to solve this concern with molecules that can be made water-soluble, but only during the dyeing or vatting process. The structural unit that can be changed chemically and then re-formed involves two groups of a carbon and an oxygen atom connected by two pairs of electrons. Such a carbon-oxygen double bond, or carbonyl group, is easily reduced through the addition of a molecule of hydrogen. After the reduced (or leucodye) crystals are safely trapped within the fibers, they are reoxidized, usually with air. 8
The excellent water-fastness of vat dyes is complemented by the fact that many of them have a very simple chemical structure, which results in great chemical stability and particularly in light-fastness. One modern textbook of dye chemistry asserts that “the fastness properties of vat dyes are surpassed by no other class of dyestuffs.” From prehistoric times until the mid-nineteenth century, all dyes were derived from natural sources. With a few important exceptions, these coloring materials came from plants. Over thousands of years, only about a dozen dyes proved to be of lasting practical importance. Among the most lasting dyes in nature are the red and blue dyes such as those found in alizarin and indigo. Both of these substances have the carbonyl groups characteristic of vat dyes, and both played central roles in the earliest commercially significant synthesis of a vat dye. The development of modern chemistry and that of dye chemistry are closely linked. The early years of the nineteenth century found chemists beginning to study the natural world in a scientific way. In France, AntoineLaurent Lavoisier made chemistry a science by insisting that accurate nomenclature and analysis were essential to progress. In England, John Dalton stated the basic foundation by bringing the Greek atomos, or atoms, into modern form. In Germany, Justus von Liebig promoted intensive laboratory education for analysis and publication of results in scholarly journals. There was great growth, but fundamental problems remained. Organic chemistry, which deals with the compounds of the element carbon and is associated with living matter, hardly existed. Synthesis of carbon compounds simply was not attempted. Considerable amounts of data had accumulated showing that organic or living matter is basically different from the compounds of the mineral world. In general, organic material was considered to be fragile and difficult to work with. Carbon compounds did not fit easily into the well-established electrical picture of rocks, metals, and salts. Researchers neatly, if unproductively, solved this problem by stating that these molecules contained carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and “vital force.” It was widely believed that although one could work with various kinds of organic matter in physical ways and even analyze their composition, such matter could be produced only in a living organism. In 1828, Friedrich Wöhler found that it was possible to synthesize the clearly organic compound urea from
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Bohn’s discovery led to the development of many new and useful dyes. The list of patents issued in his name fills several pages in Chemical Abstracts indexes. The true importance of this work, however, is to be found in a consideration of all synthetic chemistry, which may perhaps be represented by this particular event. By the end of the twentieth century, more than two hundred dyes related to Indanthrene were in commercial use. The colors represented by these substances are a rainbow, making nature’s finest hues available to all. The dozen or so natural dyes have been synthesized into more than seven thousand superior products through the creativity of the chemist. Despite these desirable outcomes, some observers doubt that there is any real benefit to society from the development of new dyes. This must be considered, given the fact that natural resources are limited. With so many urgent problems to be solved, scientists are not sure whether they should devote their time to a search for greater luxury. A more germane question, however, may be whether scientists can afford not to continue the search. If the field of dye synthesis reveals a single theme, it must be that one should expect the unexpected. Time after time, the effort to reach one goal has led to the achievement of something quite different. No one can say with any certainty where the crucial clue to the solution of a problem will be found. Certainly no one would predict that cancer will be cured through dye research. On the other hand, improvements in dyes used for staining tissue are always needed. It is perhaps noteworthy in this context that fifty years after Bohn’s discovery, an English team headed by Professor William Bradley began a long series of studies aimed at determining how Indanthrene is formed. Their efforts were directed not at the synthesis of new dyes but at obtaining a fundamental understanding applicable in other fields of research. Several textbooks on dye chemistry have pointed to the importance of knowledge of that field to other sciences—one more assertion that basic research often reveals the unexpected. —K. Thomas Finley and Patricia J. Siegel Further Reading Fieser, Louis F., and Mary Fieser. Current Topics in Organic Chemistry. New York: Reinhold, 1963. Excellent historical perspective and a clear explanation of the chemistry and backgrounds of the people involved. Gordon, P. E., and P. Gregory. Organic Chemistry in 9
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clearly mineral compounds. The concept of “vitalism” began to fade as more chemists reported the successful preparation of compounds previously isolated only from plants or animals. One especially rich field ripe for exploration was that of coal tar, and August Wilhelm von Hofmann was an active worker in this area. He and his students made careful studies of this complex mixture. The high-quality stills they designed allowed the isolation of pure samples of important compounds for further study. Of greater importance was the collection of able students Hofmann attracted. Among them was Sir William Henry Perkin, who today is regarded as the founder of the dyestuffs industry. In 1856, Perkin undertook the task of synthesizing quinine from a nitrogen-containing coal tar material called toluidine. Luck played a decisive role in the outcome of his experiment. The sticky compound Perkin obtained contained no quinine, so he turned to investigate the simpler related compound, aniline. A small amount of the impurity toluidine in his aniline gave Perkin the first synthetic dye, Mauveine. From this beginning, the great dye industries of Europe, particularly Germany, grew. Trial-and-error methods gave way to more systematic searches as the structural theory of organic chemistry was formulated. The academic and the industrial, the theoretical and the synthetic advanced in large measure through mutual stimulation. As the twentieth century began, great progress had been made, and German firms dominated the industry. BASF was incorporated at Ludwigshafen in 1865 and undertook extensive explorations of both alizarin and indigo. René Bohn, a chemist, had made important discoveries in 1888 that helped the company recover lost ground in the alizarin field. Bohn was well trained, having earned his doctorate at the University of Zurich in studies with Karl Heumann, who had developed two successful syntheses of indigo. In 1901, Bohn undertook the synthesis of a dye he hoped would combine the desirable attributes of both alizarin and indigo. As so often happens in science, nothing like the expected occurred. Bohn realized that the beautiful blue crystals he produced represented a far more important product than he had been seeking. Not only had he created the first synthetic vat dye, Indanthrene, but also, by studying the reaction at higher temperature, he produced a useful yellow dye, Flavanthrone. By 1907, Swiss chemist Roland Scholl had shown unambiguously that the structure proposed by Bohn for Indanthrene was correct, and a major new area of theoretical and practical importance was opened in the field of organic chemistry.
Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye
Discovery of Human Blood Groups Colour. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983. Contains an excellent historical introduction to the general field, along with a specific description of Bohn’s work on several dyes. Ihde, Aaron J. The Development of Modern Chemistry. 1964. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1984. Through superb writing, provides access to this highly technical world for the nonchemist. Gives authoritative information on the scientific and commercial aspects of the dye industry. Rys, P., and H. Zollinger. Fundamentals of the Chemistry and Application of Dyes. New York: WileyInterscience, 1972. Some historical material and an adequate presentation of Bohn’s synthetic efforts. Brief but effective; pays unusual attention to the central idea and general properties. Thorpe, Jocelyn Field, and Christopher Kelk Ingold. Synthetic Colouring Matters: Vat Colours. London: Longmans, Green, 1923. An extremely detailed and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 valuable history of the entire field published only a few years after it became well established. Especially important historically in showing the close relationship between organic and dye chemistry as seen through the eyes of Thorpe’s student Ingold. Zollinger, Heinrich. Color Chemistry: Syntheses, Properties, and Applications of Organic Dyes and Pigments. 3d ed. Zurich: VHCA, 2003. A brief historical introduction coupled with an extensive and technical discussion of a wide range of modern chemical ideas as illustrated by dye chemistry. Written for the specialist, but contains many insights of interest to anyone attempting to see dye chemistry in the historical perspective of developing modern chemistry. See also: 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones; 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite; Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
1901
Discovery of Human Blood Groups Karl Landsteiner investigated the chemistry of the immune response and discovered the A-B-O blood groups, the most significant advance toward safe blood transfusions. Locale: Vienna, Austria Categories: Health and medicine; biology Key Figures Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943), Austrian pathologist and immunologist Philip A. Levine (1900-1987), Russian-born American physician, immunoserologist, and Landsteiner student Alexander S. Weiner (1907-1976), Austrian immunoserologist Summary of Event In the late 1800’s, immunology was developing rapidly as scientists examined the various physiological changes associated with bacterial infection. Some pathologists studied the way cells helped the body fight disease; others favored a central role for noncellular, or humoral, factors. In 1886, George Nuttall showed how serum (the fluid remaining after a clot is removed from blood) can be toxic to microorganisms. Others obtained similar re10
sults, and although debate continued regarding cellular versus humoral immunity, most researchers focused on the humoral response to disease. It was during this period that the term “antigen” was used to refer to any substance inducing a reaction against itself by the host organism. “Antibody” referred to the factor in the serum that could react with the foreign substance. In 1894, Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer of the Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin injected cholera into guinea pigs and observed a series of changes in the cholera organisms: loss of mobility, clumping, loss of stainability, and eventual disappearance. His work inspired others. Max von Gruber, a bacteriologist at the Hygiene Institute in Vienna, was particularly interested in the clumping, or agglutination, of foreign cells. He and his student Herbert Edward Durham discovered that antibodies cause the agglutination of disease organisms and that particular antibodies react only with like or closely related microorganisms. Also influenced by Pfeiffer, Jules Bordet of the Pasteur Institute demonstrated in the late 1890’s that agglutination and hemolysis occurred after red blood cells from one species were injected into another. He pointed out that this response was similar to the body’s reaction to foreign microorganisms.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Karl Landsteiner. (The Nobel Foundation)
Karl Landsteiner synthesized the results of all the experiments noted above and provided a simple but correct explanation. He joined the University Hospital in Vienna and began advanced study in organic chemistry. At the age of twenty-eight, he joined Gruber at the Hygiene Institute in Vienna and soon began a lifelong interest in immunology. Almost two years later, he transferred to the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of Anton Weichselbaum. Landsteiner recognized early the chemical nature of the serological reactions that make immune processes visible. He used Bordet’s work as his model. He made antibodies by injecting harmless forms of bacteria into a variety of animals, and, like Bordet, he independently produced antibodies to the blood cells of another species by injecting guinea pig blood into rabbits. Landsteiner withdrew his manuscript that he had already submitted for publication when Bordet’s article was published in 1898. In 1900, before Ehrlich and Morgenroth had published their work on goats, Landsteiner commented in a footnote that serums from healthy humans agglutinated animal red cells and cells from other humans (the first mention of human isoantibodies). He did not believe there was sufficient evidence to tell whether agglutination was solely a function of disease or a result of individual differences; however, by late 1901, he had elaborated on his footnote and provided the supporting experimental evidence. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar considers Landsteiner’s 1901 paper a logical extension of Ehrlich’s goat studies. Landsteiner took blood samples from his colleagues, separated the cells from the serum, and suspended the red blood cells in a saline solution. He then mixed each person’s serum individually with a sample from every cell suspension. Agglutination occurred in some cases; there was no reaction in others. From the pattern he observed, he hypothesized that there were two types of red blood cells, A and B, whose serum agglutinated the other type of red cell. There was another group, C (in later papers, group O), whose serum agglutinated red blood cells of both types A and B, but whose red cells were not agglutinated by serum from individuals with either blood type A or type B. He concluded that there were two types of antibodies, now called anti-A and anti-B, found in persons of blood types B and A, respectively, and together in persons with blood type C. The absence of antibodies to one’s own antigens was referred to later as Landsteiner’s rule. In 1902, two students of Landsteiner, Alfred von Decastello and Adriano Sturli, working at Medical 11
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Paul Ehrlich, a German physician and brilliant biologist, along with his coworker, Julius Morgenroth, injected blood from goats into other goats and discovered that the goats produced “isoantibodies,” a term that Bordet coined to describe antibodies to cells of the same species. Ehrlich could discern no pattern and barely missed discovering goat blood groups, but he interpreted his results to signify biochemical differences between individuals. He inferred from the artificial nature of the experiment that the reaction may not have any obvious function for the animal. Rather, it might be an unrelated effect of another physiological process and not part of the body’s response to disease. Samuel Shattock, an English pathologist, almost discovered the human blood groups. In 1899 and 1900, he described the clumping of red cells by serum from patients with acute pneumonia and certain other diseases. He could not find the clumping in the serums of normal persons because of his small sample size, and he concluded that his results reflected a disease process.
Discovery of Human Blood Groups
Discovery of Human Blood Groups
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
came the “father of blood groups.” Louis Klein Diamond points out that Landsteiner’s experiments were Karl Landsteiner studied medicine at the University of Vienna from 1885 to performed at room temperature in 1891, during a time frequently described as the golden age of microbiology. dilute saline suspensions, which This period—from about 1876 to 1906—saw a great number of significant dismade possible the agglutination recoveries concerning the causes of disease and the functions of the immune sysaction of anti-A and anti-B antibodtem. Shortly after his graduation in 1891, the twenty-three-year-old physician left Vienna to begin work in biochemistry under the direction of Emil Fischer. ies to antigens on red cells but hid the Landsteiner returned to Vienna in 1896 to work at Vienna’s Hygienic Instireaction of warm “incomplete antitute under Max von Gruber, one of the discoverers of agglutination. There he bodies” (small antibodies that coat developed his interest in immunity and the nature of antibodies, worked in the antigen but require a third submorbid physiology, and in 1900 discovered the human blood groups. In his pastance before agglutination occurs) per announcing this discovery is one of the most famous footnotes in the histo other, yet undetected, antigens tory of medicine: such as the rhesus antigens, which are so important for understanding The serum of healthy humans not only has an aging effect on animal hemolytic disease of the newborn. blood corpuscles, but also on human blood corpuscles from different inFurther developments in blood groupdividuals. It remains to be decided whether this phenomenon is due to ing did not take place for another original individual differences or to the influence of injuries and possible bacterial infections. thirty years. Landsteiner made his discovery Landsteiner’s subsequent experiments proved that the differences were not of the A-B-O blood groups early in the result of some pathology, as previously thought, but were quite normal inhis career. His later contributions to dividual differences, which he was able to categorize into the three basic blood immunology and medicine are nugroups A, B, and O. merous. He was particularly interested in how an antibody reacts with a particular antigen—and only that antigen—and demonstrated that the Clinic II in Vienna with more subjects, tested blood samspecificity is dependent on the chemical structure of ples with the three kinds of cells. Out of 155 individuals, blood factors (usually more than one) present on an anti4 had no antibodies in their serums (2.5 percent), but gen. His extensive investigations in this area are pretheir cells were clumped by the other types of serums. sented in his monograph Die Spezifität der serologischen This fourth rare kind of blood was called type AB, beReaktionen (1933; The Specificity of Serological Reaccause both A and B substances are present on red cells. tions, 1936). Decastello and Sturli proved also that the red cell substances were not part of a disease process when they Significance found the markers equally distributed in 121 patients and Landsteiner’s blood group work was initially ignored. 34 healthy subjects. Others eventually rediscovered the A-B-O blood groups In Landsteiner’s 1901 paper, he anticipated forensic and provided new classifications, which led to confusion uses of the blood when he observed that serum extracted over nomenclature and credit for the discovery. In 1908, from fourteen-day-old blood that had dried on cloth Albert A. Epstein and Reuben Ottenberg suggested that would still cause agglutination. He suggested that the reblood groups are inherited, but the exact mode of inheriaction could be used to identify blood. He noted also that tance remained controversial until the work of Felix his results could explain the devastating reactions that Bernstein in 1924. Results of tests for the A-B-O groups occurred after some blood transfusions. Human-to-human were soon admitted as evidence in paternity cases, and transfusions had replaced animal-to-human transfustate legislation followed that permitted courts to order such tests. sions, but cell agglutination and hemolysis still resulted Ludwik Hirszfeld and Hanna Hirszfeld, army doctors after some transfusions using human donors. In a brief in the Balkans during World War I, tested many soldiers paper, Landsteiner interpreted agglutination as a physiofrom different countries and showed that racial and ethlogical and not a pathological process. He laid the basis nic groups differed in their A-B-O blood type frequenfor safe transfusions and forensic serology, and he be-
Landsteiner’s Famous Footnote
12
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Further Reading Diamond, Louis Klein. “The Story of Our Blood Groups.” In Blood, Pure and Eloquent, edited by Maxwell M. Wintrobe. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. An excellent, very readable discussion (by a knowledgeable insider) of the people involved in the study of blood groups, their ideas, and methodological advances in this area. See also the preceding chapter, also by Diamond, titled “A History of Blood Transfusion.” Erskine, Addine G., and Wladyslaw Socha. The Principles and Practice of Blood Grouping. 2d ed. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1978. The first chapter, titled “History of Blood Transfusion and Blood Grouping,” is recommended; it discusses Weiner’s work more than Levine’s. The text also includes a selective bibliography after each chapter and a helpful glossary. Giangrande, Paul L. F. “The History of Blood Transfusion.” British Journal of Haematology 110 (2000): 758-767. Focuses on the key developments in the early history of transfusion medicine, including Landsteiner’s work on blood types. Includes illustrations and references. Lechevalier, Hubert A., and Morris Solotorovsky. Three Centuries of Microbiology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Details the various related discoveries that preceded and followed Landsteiner’s work. The connectedness of the scientific ideas is broken up by minibiographies of all the major personalities. Includes a limited bibliography. Mazumdar, Pauline M. H. “The Purpose of Immunity: Landsteiner’s Interpretation of the Human Isoantibodies.” Journal of the History of Biology 8 (Spring, 1975): 115-133. A detailed discussion of the relevant ideas and experiments that set the stage for Landsteiner’s work. Emphasizes the elegant simplicity of Landsteiner’s explanation. Race, R. R., and R. Sanger. Blood Groups in Man. 6th ed. Oxford, England: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1975. Known as the “blood groupers bible,” this text (the first edition of which was published in 1950) describes all the blood group antigens. Speiser, Paul, and Ferdinand Smekal. Karl Landsteiner. Translated by Richard Rickett. Vienna, Austria: Hollinek Brothers, 1975. A revision and translation of the 1961 German edition written solely by Speiser. A comprehensive and fascinating description of Landsteiner’s personal life and each of his many scientific achievements. Includes a complete bibliography. Starr, Douglas P. Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. A 13
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cies. Much later, William C. Boyd, an immunochemist, convinced anthropologists to use blood marker distributions in inferring population histories (a practice that is now routine). The most important practical outcome of the discovery of blood groups was the increased safety of blood transfusions, something that, initially, few were able to appreciate. In 1907, Ottenberg was the first to apply Landsteiner’s discovery by matching blood types for a transfusion. Citrate had been discovered to be an anticoagulant in 1890, but it was not until 1914 that it was used in a blood transfusion. Richard Weil, a New York pathologist, discussed this breakthrough in an influential article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1915. He was also familiar with Landsteiner’s work and argued for testing blood to ensure compatibility. Anticoagulants and “cross-matching” were soon part of standard practice. Subgroups of blood type A were discovered in 1911, but it was not until 1927 that Landsteiner, now working at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, and his student Philip A. Levine discovered additional blood group systems. They injected different human red cells into rabbits and eventually obtained an antibody that could distinguish human blood independently from A-B-O differences. The new M, N, and P factors were not important for blood transfusion but were used for resolving cases of disputed parentage. More scientists became aware of the multiple applications of Landsteiner’s blood group research, and in 1930 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Transfusion reactions between A-B-O-compatible people still occurred, and finally, in 1940, Landsteiner and Alexander S. Weiner reported an antibody to another antigen, the rhesus factor, responsible for most of the adverse transfusion reactions and hemolytic disease of the newborn. This and Levine’s work reawakened interest in blood groups, and new methods developed in the 1940’s that led to discoveries of many more antigens. The addition of new antigens has facilitated population analysis and individual identification in paternity and criminal cases, and two world wars and additional methodological advances have hastened the acceptance of the use of blood transfusions for the treatment of injuries and sickness. In 1980, Diamond estimated that more than ten million blood transfusions were being given yearly in the United States. —Joan C. Stevenson
Discovery of Human Blood Groups
Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi study of the role blood has played throughout human history. The chapter titled “A Strange Agglutination” includes discussion of the discovery of blood types and the effect of that discovery on blood transfusions.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels; Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion.
1901
Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi Gerrit Grijns’s proposal that beriberi is caused by a nutritional deficiency in a diet of polished rice led to the concept of vitamins. Locale: Javanese Medical School, Batavia, Java Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Gerrit Grijns (1865-1944), Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman (1858-1930), Dutch physician Robert Koch (1843-1910), German physician and bacteriologist Summary of Event Beriberi is a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin B1, thiamine, in the diet. The name of the disease, which is Sinhalese for “I cannot,” came from the fact that people afflicted with severe beriberi are too sick to do even the simplest things. Beriberi was endemic to the Far East in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its symptoms include stiffness of the lower limbs, paralysis, severe pain, gradual breakdown of the muscles, anemia, mental confusion, enlargement of the heart, and death resulting from heart failure. By the end of the twentieth century, the incidence of severe beriberi was much lower; the disease was found mostly in undernourished people in the rice-eating nations of Asia, Indonesia, and Africa. In industrialized nations, beriberi is seen most often in chronic alcoholics because their limited diets—which consist mostly of alcohol—are deficient in vitamins in general, including thiamine. Very severe thiamine deficiency in alcoholics results in Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, an irreversible disease that causes psychosis and memory loss and requires hospitalization. Despite the fact that the human body’s need for thiamine has been known for many years, a significant proportion of Americans are believed to ingest barely enough thiamine in their daily diets. By the end of the twentieth century, manufacturers enriched many foods inherently low in thiamine (such as white bread, break14
fast cereal, pasta, and white flour) with the vitamin as a health precaution. The best natural sources of thiamine are whole-grain cereals, nuts, and cooked fish (raw fish contains an enzyme that can destroy thiamine). Excessive consumption of tea can lead to thiamine-deficiency symptoms because tea contains a chemical that antagonizes the actions of this vitamin. Beriberi has been known for thousands of years. For example, reference to a disease with its symptoms is found in the Chinese medical literature of 2700 b.c.e. The Orient is the main beriberi zone because of the population’s dietary combination of high tea consumption, use of rice as the main cereal grain, and the common practice of eating raw fish. In 1887, an important early observation on the dietary origin of beriberi was reported by Takagi Kanehiro, director-general of the Japanese navy. Kanehiro became interested in beriberi because one-third of all Japanese sailors had the disease. After careful study, Kanehiro became convinced that the cause of the beriberi was the standard navy diet—polished rice and fish—which was low in protein. He ordered the addition of red meat, vegetables, and whole-grain wheat to the sailors’ diet. After the changes were made, beriberi became rare in the navy. Around the same time, the work of Christiaan Eijkman and his assistant, Gerrit Grijns, began. The Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) was becoming a dangerous beriberi zone. The disease was spreading in epidemic proportions in the armed forces, prisons, and general population. Conditions were so bad in Javanese prisons, for example, that a jail sentence was considered to be almost a death sentence. In some afflicted people, cardiac insufficiency and massive edema (swelling) of the legs, symptoms of “wet beriberi,” predominated. In patients with “dry beriberi,” the main problem was progressive paralysis of the legs. Because of the apparent epidemic nature of the disease, a bacterial origin was suspected. Consequently, the Dutch government appointed a commission composed of two physicians, Cornelius Pekelharing and Clemens Winkler, to study beriberi
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi
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firsthand. A third commissioner, Eijkman, was apGrijns proposed that the disease results from the lack of pointed after Winkler and Pekelharing asked Robert some natural nutrient substance that is found in unpolKoch to join their expedition. Koch demurred but sugished rice and in other foods (that is, a nutritional defigested the substitution of Eijkman, a physician who had ciency). Many scientists now view the work that Eijkjust completed training in bacteriology with him. man began and Grijns continued as the basis for the The commissioners arrived in the East Indies in 1886 modern theory of vitamins. and immediately began their studies. Within two years, In 1917, Grijns likewise returned to the Netherlands. they had shown that beriberi is a result of inflammation By 1921, he had become a professor of animal physiolof the nerves (polyneuritis). Because they isolated a bacogy at the State University in Wagenigen. In 1940, he terium from the blood of beriberi victims, the commiswas awarded the Swammerdam Medal for his developsioners were satisfied that the disease was of bacterial ment of the concept of nutritional deficiency. origin. Winkler and Pekelharing returned to the NetherEijkman was appointed professor of public health at lands, and Eijkman stayed behind to continue the rethe University of Utrecht in 1898. He retained that posisearch and to direct the Javanese Medical School. tion for thirty years and completed many other important Fortuitously, Eijkman observed a disease similar to research efforts during his tenure at the university. In beriberi in chickens. The diseased animals developed 1929, Eijkman and Frederick Hopkins shared the Nobel spontaneously all the symptoms of beriberi. Eijkman Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their roles in the named the disease polyneuritis gallinarum. In the course discovery of vitamins. Eijkman was a member of the of studying the birds, Eijkman had them moved to new Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and a foreign quarters. Strangely, the disease disappeared inexplicaassociate of the American National Academy of Scibly. Upon examination, reflection, and study, Eijkman ences. His other honors included orders of knighthood determined that the food given to the birds after they were moved had changed in one important respect: Thiamin in the Diet Originally, the birds had been fed on Gerrit Grijns proved that thiamin is an essential part of a balanced diet. In the leftover boiled white rice from the ofUnited States, the recommended dietary allowance for children between the ficers’ ward in the military hospital, ages of nine and thirteen is 0.9 milligram per day. For adolescents between but after their relocation they were fourteen and eighteen years old, the allowance is higher: 1.2 milligrams per given unpolished rice because the day for males and 1.0 milligram per day for females. Adult males should concook at the new site “refused to give sume 1.2 milligrams per day, and adult females should consume 1.1 milligrams any military rice to civilian fowl.” per day. The list below gives levels of thiamin found in common foods. On the strength of this observaFood Serving Thiamin (mg) tion, Eijkman set out to determine whether the polished rice was the Lentils (cooked) ½ cup 0.17 cause of the disease. He found this to Peas (cooked) ½ cup 0.21 Long-grain brown rice (cooked) 1 cup 0.19 be the case, because the feedings of Long-grain white rice, enriched (cooked) 1 cup 0.26 unpolished rice cured the disease. Long-grain white rice, unenriched (cooked) 1 cup 0.03 Eijkman postulated that a chemical— Whole wheat bread 1 slice 0.10 perhaps a toxin from intestinal bacteWhite bread, enriched 1 slice 0.12 ria—was the actual causative agent. Fortified breakfast cereal 1 cup 0.5-2.0 Although this concept was not corWheat germ breakfast cereal 1 cup 1.89 rect, Eijkman’s efforts began the sciPork, lean (cooked) 3 ounces 0.74 entific research that later showed that Brazil nuts 1 ounce 0.28 thiamine taken from the outer layer Pecans 1 ounce 0.13 (the pericarp) of unpolished rice proSpinach (cooked) ½ cup 0.09 tected against beriberi. Orange 1 fruit 0.11 Cantaloupe ½ fruit 0.10 In 1896, Eijkman left Java and reMilk 1 cup 0.10 turned to the Netherlands because of Egg (cooked) 1 large 0.03 ill health. At that time, Grijns took over the study of beriberi. In 1901,
Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi and the establishment of an Eijkman medal by the Dutch government. Significance Eijkman’s observations that beriberi was caused by excessive dietary use of polished rice and that it could be cured by the feeding of unpolished rice were extremely important to the understanding of nutrition. His work set into motion a sequence of events that led to the development of many aspects of modern nutrition theory, the evolution of biochemical explanations for several very serious nutritional diseases, and the virtual eradication of beriberi. Eijkman believed incorrectly, however, that a curative material in unpolished rice prevented the action of toxins present in the polished grain. In 1901, Grijns was the first to interpret correctly the action of this unknown substance. Grijns proposed that beriberi developed because diets that used polished rice only lacked an essential substance that was required for the appropriate function of the nervous system. Grijns and other researchers soon showed that many foods contain the antiberiberi factor and proved that these foods could be used to treat beriberi. Further studies were conducted in an effort to identify the chemical nature of the substance involved. In 1912, Casimir Funk proposed that beriberi and other nutritional diseases, such as scurvy and rickets, are deficiency diseases caused by the lack of certain substances, each of which is a “vitamine.” Funk coined the term because, he said, it “would sound well and serve as a catch word.” Others, including Elmer McCollum and Hopkins, had similar beliefs. Soon the term was both accepted and shortened to its current spelling, “vitamin.” Subsequently, researchers isolated several types of vitamins and named them A, B, C, D, and so on, in order of their discovery. A key event was the preparation of a pure antiberiberi factor, thiamine (or vitamin B1), and determination of its structure by Robert R. Williams starting in 1935. This effort led to the commercial synthesis of the vitamin by pharmaceutical companies and to its current wide dissemination. The availability of the pure vitamin allowed examination of its metabolic rate and actions. It soon became clear that thiamine is an essential component (coenzyme) required for the biological action of a great many important enzymes (biological catalysts). The lack of function of these catalysts was shown eventually to be the cause of beriberi. Very similar results with other vitamins led to the concept that vitamins are coenzymes 16
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 or parts of coenzymes and that the deficiency diseases produced by their absence are diseases resulting from enzyme inactivation. Thus Eijkman’s and Grijns’s endeavors to understand beriberi led eventually to the establishment of many basic precepts of nutrition and to the current understanding of the roles of vitamins. — Sanford S. Singer Further Reading Bicknell, Franklin, and Frederick Prescott. The Vitamins in Medicine. 3d ed. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1953. Chapter 3 describes concisely the history, the chemistry, and many medical aspects of thiamine up to 1952. A valuable source for readers who desire historical perspective on thiamine and its medicinal attributes. Includes pictures of beriberi victims and 953 references on the vitamin, its isolation, and its use. Carpenter, Kenneth J. Beriberi, White Rice, and Vitamin B: A Disease, a Cause, a Cure. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Provides a comprehensive account of the history and treatment of beriberi. Includes appendixes, illustrations, and references. Lehninger, Albert L. Biochemistry. 2d ed. New York: Worth, 1975. Chapter 13 of this college textbook contains a summary of the chemistry and biochemistry of thiamine and describes briefly aspects of thiamine enzymology, production of thiamine deficiency, and thiamine isolation. Several useful references appear at the end of the chapter. Lindeboom, Gerritt A. “Christiaan Eijkman.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971. This brief biographical sketch is one of the few sources of information on Eijkman written in the English language. It focuses on his career, providing some insight into his life and his impact on both medicine and the science of nutrition. Includes information on some Dutch sources of biographical information. McCollum, Elmer V. A History of Nutrition. Boston: Houghton Muffin, 1957. Chapter 16 of this interesting book is especially valuable to readers who wish to trace the evolution of the understanding of the chemical nature of the vitamin and the biochemical basis for its actions. Twenty-eight references are cited. _______. The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1922. Chapters 9 and 10 contain useful information on thiamine and beriberi, including the history, symptoms, and treatment of the disease. These chapters discuss the work of Kanehiro, Grijns, and Eijkman; Funk’s isolation of thiamine;
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Williams, Robert R. “The Chemistry of Thiamine (Vitamin B1).” In The Vitamins, a Symposium, edited by Morris Fishbein. Chicago: American Medical Association, 1939. This article describes the synthesis and chemical characterization of thiamine, credits isolation of the vitamin from natural sources, describes Williams’s chemical synthesis and characterization of thiamine, and inventories several aspects of the first evidence for the coenzymatic nature of the vitamin. Includes forty-six references. See also: 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins; 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets; 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food; 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
1901
Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp Peter Cooper Hewitt developed a lamp based on gaseous discharge, leading to significant developments such as the fluorescent light. Locale: Ringwood Manor, New Jersey Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures Peter Cooper Hewitt (1861-1921), American electrical engineer Heinrich Geissler (1814-1879), German instrument maker Julius Plücker (1801-1868), German physicist Summary of Event For all of recorded history, humankind has possessed the desire to bring light into enclosed spaces and to banish darkness with sources of artificial light. Artificial light was first provided in the form of controlled flame, beginning with simple torches and wood fires. Devices such as oil lamps and candles were more effective, and indeed these are often still used today. In the nineteenth century, dramatic advances were made in the field of artificial lighting. The first of these was the development of gas lighting. Flammable gases for use as fuel could be derived from a multitude of sources. By the 1850’s, the streets of several urban areas were illuminated by gaslight. In modern times, light generated in some fashion by
electricity has all but supplanted other sources for everyday use. People have long been familiar with electricity in the form of lightning and static electricity, and such notables as Benjamin Franklin performed experiments to discover the nature of electricity. Luigi Galvani, an Italian physicist, made a critical observation in 1780 when he noticed that an electrical spark caused a frog leg to twitch. Alessandro Volta studied this phenomenon, and his work resulted in a man-made battery, or voltaic cell, for the production of an electrical current in 1794. The battery simplified the construction of a reliable source of electrical current and prompted an outpouring of research involving electricity. The first commercially successful electric light was the electric arc lamp, in which an electrical discharge between the slightly separated tips of two electrodes produces a very strong light. Arc lights were not practical for indoor use, but they were very effective for outdoor applications, particularly street lighting. The light produced was of good quality; however, maintaining the network required a fairly elaborate and labor-intensive support system. In particular, arc lights gave a very favorable appearance to the exteriors of buildings, which led the governing bodies of some cities to dictate their continued use even after suitable alternative systems were available. Of course, construction of these lighting systems was possible only after the development of machinery to provide reliable electric current. 17
1901
and aspects of the work of Williams (who later synthesized thiamine). Smith, Emil L., et al. Principles of Biochemistry. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983. Chapter 21 of this excellent biochemistry text contains a brief description of thiamine and beriberi. Aspects of thiamine biochemistry, metabolism, deficiency, and distribution are addressed. Several references to more technical sources are included. Sure, Barnett. Vitamins in Health and Disease. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1922. Chapter 21 of this basic nutrition text describes the symptoms of different types of beriberi and their treatment as well as aspects of the nutrition, distribution, and medicinal properties of vitamin B1. A useful source for readers who desire a simple approach.
Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp
Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp Thomas Alva Edison envisioned a complete system of electrical supply—municipal and residential lighting—and electrical power for other applications. Although Edison is recognized, along with Joseph Wilson Swan, as the developer of the incandescent lightbulb, it is important to realize that he saw this invention as part of a larger picture. It was his determination that fostered public awareness of and desire for electric lighting, leading to the mammoth electrical generating facilities in existence today. Edison’s electric light relied on the passage of a current through a filament, which became heated to incandescence. For most domestic uses, the incandescent bulb is still the lighting of choice today, even though it is relatively inefficient. Much of the energy provided to a lightbulb is lost as heat. While Edison struggled with the electric light and development of power transmission, other researchers were exploring areas of physics and chemistry that
Peter Cooper Hewitt. (Library of Congress)
18
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 would lead to the development of another type of lighting device. As early as 1675, the French astronomer Jean Picard had observed a discharge of light from a mercury barometer. Subsequently, it was understood that this kind of discharge was stimulated by static electricity, although the cause of the flash of greenish-blue light was unknown. The mercury barometer, invented by Evangelista Torricelli, was simply a long glass tube sealed at one end, filled with mercury, and then placed open end down in a vat of mercury. When such an instrument is prepared properly, the mercury in the tube drops down to a height that is supported by air pressure. Above the mercury in the sealed end of the tube, a good vacuum is created that contains only a slight amount of mercury vapor. This type of vacuum is isolated and thus not easily studied. In 1855, the German inventor Heinrich Geissler developed a simple pump that used a moving column of mercury to generate a good vacuum in a tube. This development came at an opportune time for Geissler, as many physicists were investigating the possibility of forcing electricity through a vacuum. Julius Plücker, a German physicist and contemporary of Geissler, performed a key experiment in this field. Plücker succeeded in passing current through one of these tubes, and in 1858 reported what came to be known as cathode rays. Other physicists studied these rays, including Sir William Crookes, who proposed that the charge flowed through the tube because of movement of some sort of charged particle. Joseph John Thomson conclusively proved this postulate in the late 1890’s and thus is credited with proving the existence of the electron. It was therefore known by the beginning of the twentieth century that in a near vacuum, current in the form of electrons can flow between two electrodes and that electricity can cause a discharge of light in a near vacuum, as Picard had observed. Armed with this knowledge, Peter Cooper Hewitt tried to devise a way to establish a discharge in a glass tube containing mercury vapor at very low pressure. Plücker had shown that when an element is stimulated, it emits only certain characteristic wavelengths of light, or what is commonly known as a line spectrum. This is in contrast to the light of an incandescent bulb, which is a continuous spectrum. Hewitt hoped to use the electrical discharge through the mercury vapor to generate light. In principle, the electrons traveling through the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Hewitt’s invention of the mercury-vapor lamp represented an attempt to use a novel means of obtaining light. Initially, practical applications of the lamp were limited, primarily because of the quality of the light produced. Hewitt developed the mercury rectifier to convert alternating current to direct current and refined the lamp to improve its color characteristics. Many factories used this improved model as a source of illumination. One property of the mercury lamp is that in addition to certain wavelengths of visible light, it emits large quantities of ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light does not pass through ordinary glass, but quartz is transparent to it. By produc-
ing a light with a quartz tube, Hewitt marketed a source of ultraviolet light that was found to be of great utility in biological applications. A related modern use of similar quartz tube lamps is in tanning beds. Placing the electrodes closer together and increasing the pressure of vapor result in the generation of more intense light. This type of lamp commonly utilizes either mercury or sodium. The sodium vapor lamp, developed in the early 1930’s, produces a distinctly yellow light. This type of lamp was widely used as an external source of illumination, especially in streetlights, all but supplanting mercury lamps until refined models became available. Modern city lighting often includes mercury lamps in the vicinity of downtown areas, where the light produced seems to enhance the appearance of buildings, and sodium lights in rural areas and at intersections, where the main concern is visibility of the road and motor vehicles. A related and equally familiar development in the field of gas discharge lighting was introduced in 1910 by Georges Claude, a French chemist who placed various types of gases in tubes. He found that certain elements produced distinct colors. In particular, neon produced a very attractive discharge. By altering the mixture of gases, one could produce a wide variety of colors. The application of these lights, commonly called neon lights, introduced a minor revolution in advertising that is still in evidence in some cities, such as Las Vegas. In the 1930’s, another major development in the lowpressure mercury-vapor lamp took advantage of the fact that mercury emits ultraviolet light when stimulated. Materials known as phosphors undergo fluorescence when they absorb ultraviolet light. In the process of fluorescence, the ultraviolet light energy absorbed by a phosphor is subsequently emitted in the form of visible light. This discovery prompted development of the fluorescent light, in which the interior of a gas discharge tube, very similar to that developed by Hewitt, is coated with a phosphor. The result is a uniform emission of light from the phosphor when the light is turned on. Manipulation of the chemical nature of the phosphor allows for variation in the light produced. Since their initial development, fluorescent lights have become widely used for illumination in office and factory environments, while their domestic use has been somewhat restricted to utility areas in the home. As further refinements to mercurydischarge lamps are introduced, such lamps may become the predominant source of external and internal artificial lighting. —Craig B. Lagrone 19
1901
tube would collide with mercury atoms. This collision would contribute energy to the mercury atoms, causing an electron in each atom to become energized and move to a high-energy state. When the electron returned to its original energy level, light would be emitted with an energy characteristic of the transition. A benefit of this type of light would be that only visible light would be emitted, so the light source would generate very little heat. The tube that Hewitt marketed commercially was 2.5 centimeters (almost 1 inch) in diameter and about 127 centimeters (49.5 inches) in length and was very similar in appearance to modern fluorescent lights. In Hewitt’s original lamp, the glass tube was hung at a slight angle and contained a small amount of liquid mercury. To activate the light, the user tilted the tube so that a stream of mercury stretched from one electrode to the other. The current flow vaporized the mercury, and the mercury vapor was then stimulated by the current to produce light. Hewitt’s first lamp was a direct-current lamp. One of the major obstacles to a discharge lamp was that a large potential was needed to start the discharge, although a much lower voltage sufficed to maintain the discharge once established. This was why Hewitt developed the starting system. Changes that Hewitt incorporated into subsequent versions of his lamp included the addition of an electromagnet to tilt the lamp and an induction coil that provided high voltage to start the lamp. One of the major drawbacks of the light generated was that it produced distortions in the appearance of objects because of the lack of red light in the mercury spectrum. The quality of light was quite useful in photography, however. Further developments would make the light compatible with alternating current and in subsequent years other inventors developed commercially successful lights based on the principle of electrical discharge through a vapor.
Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp
Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan Further Reading Bowers, Brian. Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Presents a concise history of lighting technologies, including fluorescent lighting. Discusses both technical aspects of different lighting technologies and the societal effects of advances in such technologies. Well illustrated, with exploded diagrams and reproductions of etchings. Burke, James. Connections. London: Macmillan, 1978. Excellent volume describes how different innovations are often related to one another through subsequent development. Of interest in the context of lighting is an excellent discussion of gas lighting and the production of fuel for gas lighting. Coaton, J. R., and A. M. Marsden, eds. Lamps and Lighting. 4th ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1997. Comprehensive textbook includes chapters on lowpressure mercury lamps, fluorescent lamps, sodium lamps, and the like. A wealth of theoretical material makes this a challenging work for the layperson, but most chapters are well written. Includes diagrams of the designs of various types of lamps, specifications, and construction techniques. Hall, Stephen S. “The Age of Electricity.” In Inventors and Discoverers, edited by Elizabeth L. Newhouse. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1988. Presents a history of the development of electricity, including discussion of the monumental battle concerning alternating versus direct current. Also offers a good biography of Edison. Well illustrated, with both photographs and artwork. Kane, Raymond, and Heinz Sell, eds. Revolution in Lamps: A Chronicle of Fifty Years of Progress. 2d ed. New York: Fairmont Press, 2001. Written for designers, engineers, and architects as well as lay readers, this book provides a history of the progress made in lamps and lighting as well as information on new lighting technologies. Includes a chapter on lamp phosphors and one on fluorescent lamps. Schroeder, Henry. History of Electric Light. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1923. Written only a few years after Hewitt’s discovery, this source includes an excellent drawing of Hewitt’s lamp. Also provides an excellent history of the development of other types of lights in use at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although obviously dated, contains a wealth of information that cannot be found in more recent texts. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays; Nov. 23, 1936: Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced.
1901
Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan Frederick Hopkins’s discovery of tryptophan, an essential amino acid in human diets, led to a better understanding of diet and nutrition in humans. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; biology Key Figures Frederick Hopkins (1861-1947), English biochemist Sydney W. Cole (1877-1952), student of Hopkins William Cumming Rose (1887-1985), American biochemist Summary of Event In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the field of biochemistry was relatively new. Sir Frederick Hopkins brought new insight into this area of thought when he was able to visualize cells as biochemical machines and piece together the significance of isolated 20
chemical processes on the workings of cells. This research was a result of the background with which Hopkins entered the biochemical field. He had originally been trained in the field of analytic chemistry and soon became an assistant to Sir Thomas Stevenson, the medical jurist at Guy’s Hospital. Hopkins became involved in the investigation of several murder cases, and his analytic chemistry skills helped to gain convictions. Hopkins worked in the medical school by day and in a clinical research laboratory by night. At the invitation of Michael Foster, he began teaching chemical physiology at Cambridge University in September, 1898. Hopkins had no special training in biochemistry. Hopkins’s background in the area of biochemistry and the cell started with protein chemistry. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that are linked together. There are many types of amino acids, but only twenty of them
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
source of protein in a rat’s diet. It was later found that gelatin is deficient in the amino acids tyrosine and tryptophan. Hopkins also published two papers in 1906 on the dietary role of individual amino acids. The first proposed the role of tryptophan as a precursor (starter molecule) for the synthesis of adrenalin. The second paper, published in the Journal of Physiology, alluded to the concept of the “essential amino acid” and was titled “The Importance of Individual Amino-Acids in Metabolism: Observations on the Effect of Adding Tryptophane to a Dietary in Which Zein Is the Sole Nitrogenous Constituent.” The research used zein—a protein from corn—that was made deficient in the amino acid tryptophan. Young mice fed a diet of this protein were unable to maintain growth. Addition of tryptophan enabled the mice to prolong their survival, but they were still unable to maintain growth. In comparison, the addition of tyrosine, an amino acid present in zein, did not prolong survival. Hopkins concluded from this that tryptophan is an important dietary constituent. The following passage shows the scope of Hopkins’s research: “A deficiency in a nitrogenous dietary need not necessarily be one of quantity; the form in which the nitrogen is supplied may determine its efficiency.” Hopkins thus realized that not only the quantity of protein but also the quality of the protein is important. Further research that Hopkins conducted with Harold Ackroyd in 1916 showed that other amino acids were also essential in the diet. This work with the amino acids arginine and histidine indicated that they were important in nucleic acid metabolism (the genetic material). Exclusion from the diet resulted in nutritive failure. When either one or the other was restored to the diet, normal bodily maintenance and growth of the organism occurred. Hopkins reviewed this research in a lecture presented to the chemical society in which he discussed the fate of protein in the body. As the father of biochemistry in England, Hopkins was gratified to deliver a lecture on the chemistry of animals. Hopkins remained active in his career. In 1914, he became the first professor in the new department of biochemistry at Cambridge University. After World War I, biochemistry began to be taught at the entry level in colleges throughout the English university system. In 1925, Hopkins was knighted and awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. His most impressive distinction came in 1929, when he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Christiaan Eijkman for what became known as the vitamin concept. 21
1901
are used to build proteins in humans. Of these twenty amino acids, ten are essential to the diet of humans because humans are unable to synthesize them. These ten essential amino acids are phenylalanine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, threonine, tryptophan, cysteine, arginine, valine, and histidine (in infants). Hopkins’s initial work with proteins dealt primarily with the pure chemical properties of the proteins. In his initial research he was concerned with the isolation and crystallization of proteins. His keen analytic background enabled him to devise a new technique to crystallize pure albumin protein from egg white, and this was the topic of his first published work from Cambridge University. This led to his joint work with Sydney W. Cole, which led to the isolation of tryptophan. A paper that reported on their research in 1901 dealt with purely chemical techniques that showed the Adamkiewicz “acetic acid” reaction resulted from an impurity in the acetic acid. This was proposed because Hopkins had obtained a sample of acetic acid that gave no Adamkiewicz reaction. Hopkins obtained many samples of acetic acid and compared them to determine whether they would react with the protein. Hopkins and Cole concluded eventually that glyoxylic acid was the impurity in the acetic acid and that it was responsible for the Adamkiewicz reaction. In a second paper published in 1901, Cole and Hopkins discussed an undescribed product of protein digestion that was responsible for the Adamkiewicz reaction. Again, Hopkins’s analytic chemistry skills played a large role in the isolation of this product. After the researchers isolated this product, they tested it and found that it gave the tryptophane reaction; thus it was the product that was giving the Adamkiewicz reaction. Cole and Hopkins concluded, then, that the product of the protein digestion was, indeed, tryptophan. The final paper in the series, published in 1903, described the structure of the tryptophan molecule. Hopkins and Cole concluded that the structure was a skatole-amido-acetic acid (later researchers revised this in 1907 to indole-amido-acetic acid structure). This paper was important because it described the first research to employ bacterial decomposition as an aid in determining the structure of a chemical molecule. This, in turn, led to the start of bacterial biochemistry, which was pursued by Marjorie Stephenson, a student of Hopkins. Hopkins subsequently published several papers on proteins, but then his interest turned from the purely chemical nature of proteins to nutritional studies of proteins. In the nineteenth century, it was known that gelatin, a protein, would not support life if it was the only
Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan
Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan Hopkins performed research studies in many other fields of biochemistry and physiology. His research with Walter Fletcher showed that muscle activity and lactic acid production are correlated with each other. Hopkins later worked to discover sulfur-containing vitamins and discovered a tripeptide (three amino acids linked together) called glutathione. He then published a series of papers on the structure and function of the molecule. Hopkins’s impact on the field of biochemistry was immense; at the time of his death in 1947, seventy-five of his students occupied professorial positions around the world. Significance Knowledge concerning the “essentiality of amino acids” has been important in the history of diet and nutrition throughout the world, and Hopkins’s work was at the forefront of this area of research. Hopkins realized that proteins differ and that the differences lie in the amino acid building blocks. By 1935, the last of the essential amino acids (threonine) was isolated by an American biochemist, William Cumming Rose. In continuing the research that Hopkins had begun, Rose found that of the twenty amino acids found in proteins, ten were essential to the diet of rats. He then utilized graduate students in his nutritional experiments, feeding them isolated amino acids. He found only eight amino acids to be essential and then calculated the minimum daily requirement for each amino acid. Rose thus firmly established what Hopkins had begun regarding the essentiality of amino acids. The findings from Hopkins’s pioneering work have been refined greatly since the beginning of the twentieth century. It is now known that human adults require nine essential amino acids and infants require ten essential amino acids in their diet. The nutritional quality of a protein depends on the content of the amino acids found in the protein (as Hopkins suggested) and how well it is digested. Most animal proteins have high nutritional quality in that they are easily digestible and contain all the essential amino acids. On the other hand, plant proteins may lack essential amino acids or may be only partially digestible. Proteins of wheat and other grains may be partially digested only because they are surrounded by husks that cannot be digested. Thus an adult male would have to consume approximately seventy-three slices of wheat bread to meet the daily allowance of protein recommended for the diet. Although plant proteins alone, such as corn protein, may not provide an adequate supply of amino acids, some combinations of plant proteins can provide an ade22
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 quate and balanced mixture of amino acids. For example, the mixture of beans (which are low in tryptophan but high in lysine) and corn (which is low in lysine but contains enough tryptophan) called succotash, used by New World Indians, provides a nutritionally adequate supply of amino acids. Another combination used by Asian populations is soybeans and rice. These combinations provide the essential amino acids required in a diet and can be almost equivalent to milk protein. High-quality nutrition is a worldwide problem because in most parts of the world animal protein is not readily available, and the plants contain low amounts of protein and are usually lacking in essential amino acids. In areas of the world where population growth is outstripping food production, chronic protein deficiencies (called kwashiorkor, or “weaning disease,” in Africa) are occurring. In Central and South America, where protein deficiency is common, an international nutrition board has introduced caparina, a mixture of corn, sorghum, and cottonseed meal. Separately, these plant proteins are poor, but together they have the protein value of milk. Much research continues in the area of nutrition in the early twenty-first century. The pioneering work of Hopkins was only one step toward a better understanding of diet and nutrition. — Lonnie J. Guralnick Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. “Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins.” In Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 2d ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. Useful contribution to a volume containing brief, easy-to-read biographies of more than fifteen hundred scientists from ancient times to the early 1980’s. Some of the biographies are cross-referenced to major advances in the subjects’ fields. Baldwin, Ernest. “Frederick Gowland Hopkins.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 6. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. Well-written, detailed biography of Hopkins for nontechnical readers. Includes references. Carpenter, Kenneth J. “A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 2 (1885-1912).” Journal of Nutrition 133 (April, 2003): 975-984. This second part of a four-part series examines the period in the history of nutritional science when Hopkins was conducting his groundbreaking research. Places Hopkins’s work in the context of nutritional science in general. Needham, Joseph, and Ernest Baldwin, eds. Hopkins and Biochemistry. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer &
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
See also: 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins; 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets; 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food; 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
1901
Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov developed practical techniques for the artificial insemination of farm animals, revolutionizing livestock breeding practices throughout the world. Locale: Russia Categories: Science and technology; biology; health and medicine; genetics Key Figures Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov (1870-1932), Russian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799), Italian physiologist R. W. Kunitsky (fl. early twentieth century), Russian veterinarian Summary of Event A tale is told of a fourteenth century Arabian chieftain who sought to improve his mediocre breed of horses. Sneaking into the territory of a neighboring hostile tribe, he stimulated a prize stallion to ejaculate into a piece of cotton. Quickly returning home, he inserted this cotton into the vagina of one of his own mares, who subsequently gave birth to a high-quality horse. This may have been the first case of artificial insemination, the technique by which semen is introduced into the female reproductive tract without sexual contact. The first scientific record of artificial insemination comes from Italy in the 1770’s. Lazzaro Spallanzani was one of the foremost physiologists of his time, well known for having disproved the theory of spontaneous generation. There was some disagreement at that time about the basic requirements for reproduction in animals. It was unclear if the sex act was necessary for an embryo to develop, or if it was sufficient that the sperm and eggs come into contact. Spallanzani was familiar with the work of Jacobi, who had suggested in 1742 that the sex act was not necessary for reproduction. Jacobi had been able to breed young fish by combining the sex cells of male and female fish in a glass dish. Spallanzani also began by studying animals in which union of the sperm and egg
normally takes place outside the body of the female. He stimulated males and females to release their sperm and eggs, then mixed these sex cells in a glass dish. In this way, he produced young frogs, toads, salamanders, and silkworms. Next, Spallanzani asked whether the sex act was also unnecessary for reproduction in those species in which fertilization normally takes place inside the body of the female. He collected semen that had been ejaculated by a male spaniel and, using a syringe, injected the semen into the vagina of a female spaniel in heat. Two months later, the female delivered a litter of three pups that bore some resemblance to both the mother and the male from which Spallanzani had collected the sperm. Spallanzani was justifiably proud of this accomplishment, but despite his obvious pleasure at the results, he apparently did no other work in this field. British surgeon John Hunter reported that he had used Spallanzani’s technique to impregnate a woman whose husband could not ejaculate directly into her vagina, but he was not uniformly believed. In an era when obstetrical care was provided by midwives, the idea of a male physician in the bedchamber sounded suspicious. James Marion Sims, who tried this technique on an infertile patient in 1866, was likewise discouraged by his American colleagues. It was in animal breeding that Spallanzani’s technique was to have its most dramatic application. In the 1880’s, an English dog breeder, Sir Everett Millais, conducted several experiments on artificial insemination. He was interested mainly in obtaining progeny from dogs that would not normally mate with each other because of differences in size. He followed Spallanzani’s method to produce a cross between the short-legged basset hound and the much larger bloodhound. At about the same time, several French and American horse breeders were using artificial insemination sporadically to overcome certain types of infertility in their mares. Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian biologist who 23
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Sons, 1949. This book for the general reader contains Hopkins’s uncompleted autobiography as well as selected addresses and excerpts from his papers, with commentaries. Gives the reader a good overview of Hopkins’s accomplishments.
Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination
Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination had conducted postgraduate research on the accessory sex glands of animals. He may have heard of the successful artificial insemination of horses when he worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris from 1897 to 1898. Upon returning to Russia, he published a historical essay titled “Artificial Impregnation in Mammals,” which showed his familiarity with the work of Spallanzani as well as that of contemporary animal breeders. Although these techniques were widely used for fish breeding in Russia at the time, they were not used at all in the breeding of farm animals. Ivanov saw the potential to increase the efficiency of horse breeding, and he was commissioned by the government to investigate the use of artificial insemination with horses. Unlike previous researchers and breeders who had used artificial insemination to circumvent certain anatomical barriers to fertilization, Ivanov began using artificial insemination to propagate thoroughbred horses more effectively. His assistant in this work was the veterinarian R. W. Kunitsky. In 1901, Ivanov founded the Experimental Station for the Artificial Insemination of Horses in Dolgoe village in the province of Orlovskaya. As the station’s director, he embarked on a series of experiments to devise the most efficient techniques for breeding these animals. Not content with demonstrating that the technique was scientifically feasible, he wished to ensure further that it could be practiced by Soviet farmers. If sperm from a male were to be used to impregnate females in another location, potency would have to be maintained for a long time. Ivanov first showed that the secretions from the accessory sex glands are not required for successful insemination; only the sperm itself is necessary. He demonstrated further that if a testis is removed from a bull and kept cold, the sperm remain alive. More useful than preservation of testes, however, would be preservation of the ejaculated sperm. By adding certain salts to the sperm-containing fluids and keeping these at cold temperatures, Ivanov was able to preserve sperm for long periods. With sperm preserved in this way, Ivanov was able to impregnate a female with sperm from a male living at another location. Because of the novelty of this technique, Ivanov was concerned that the offspring of such artificial breeding might be abnormal. His subsequent observations eliminated this worry; the offspring of artificial breeding grew and developed at the same rates as did normally bred animals. Ivanov also developed instruments to inject the sperm, to hold the vagina open during insemination, and to hold 24
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the horse in place during the procedure. In 1910, Ivanov wrote a practical textbook with technical instructions for the artificial insemination of horses. He also trained some three hundred veterinary technicians in the use of artificial insemination, and the knowledge he developed was quickly disseminated throughout the Soviet Union. Artificial insemination became the major means of breeding horses. An experiment begun in 1901 was to have even farther-reaching effects. In that year, Ivanov petitioned the Department of Agriculture for permission to attempt artificial insemination of cows. Initially turned down, Ivanov eventually obtained permission to purchase ten cows, which he housed at the Moscow College of Agriculture. The following year, he produced two calves by artificial insemination of these cows. At the Moscow Zoo, he obtained two sheep, which were also artificially inseminated the same year. In 1910, Ivanov had the opportunity to embark on a large-scale study of sheep breeding by artificial insemination in Askania-Nova. Over the next twenty years, more than one million ewes were artificially inseminated using the techniques he developed. Until his death in 1932, Ivanov was active in researching many aspects of the reproductive biology of animals. He developed methods to treat reproductive diseases of farm animals and refined methods of obtaining, evaluating, diluting, preserving, and disinfecting sperm. He also began to produce hybrids of wild and domestic animals in the hope of producing new breeds that would be better able to withstand extreme climatic conditions and that would be more resistant to disease. His crosses included hybrids of ordinary cows with aurochs, bison, and yaks, as well as some more exotic crosses of zebras with Przhevalsky’s horses. He hoped to use artificial insemination to help preserve species that were in danger of becoming extinct. In 1926, he led an expedition to West Africa to experiment with the hybridization of different species of anthropoid apes. Significance Although Ivanov worked on the artificial insemination of a variety of species, his work on cattle and sheep had the greatest impact. By 1936, more than six million cattle and sheep had been artificially inseminated in the Soviet Union. Despite the success of the technique, several decades elapsed before artificial insemination was used on a large scale in other countries. In the United States, Enos J. Perry began the first large-scale facility for artificial insemination in New Jersey in 1938, having learned the techniques while on a tour of Denmark.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Asdell, S. A. “Historical Introduction.” In Reproduction in Domestic Animals, edited by H. H. Cole and P. T. Cupps. 3d ed. New York: Academic Press, 1977. A brief overview of the development of the knowledge of reproductive biology over the centuries. Includes mention of Ivanov and others involved in the advancement of artificial insemination. Includes extensive references to the scientific literature. Bearden, H. Joe, and John W. Fuquay. Applied Animal Reproduction. 2d ed. Reston, Va.: Reston, 1984. Pro-
vides an in-depth explanation of the modern techniques used to manipulate reproduction in farm animals. Particularly useful for its liberal illustrations, including photographs of the instruments and techniques used in the artificial insemination of cattle. Includes references. Foote, Robert H. Artificial Insemination to Cloning: Tracing Fifty Years of Research. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1998. Covers the tremendous changes that have taken place in animal reproduction technologies since artificial insemination was first developed. Provides information from 489 abstracts covering research on artificial insemination in dairy cattle, rabbits, horses, sheep, and other animals as well as humans. _______. “The History of Artificial Insemination: Selected Notes and Notables.” Journal of Animal Science 80, e-supp. 2 (2002). http://www.asas.org/ symposia/esupp2/Footehist.pdf. Reviews the history of artificial insemination, particularly in dairy cattle. Cites major landmarks in development of the technique and notes the people most closely associated with those landmarks. References cited include many classic studies. Perry, Enos J. The Artificial Insemination of Farm Animals. 4th ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1968. Perry published this volume thirty years after he began the first organization in the United States to perform artificial insemination on a large scale. In addition to chapters on the techniques current at that time, a chapter is devoted to the historical background of artificial insemination. References are given to original papers, most of which are not in English. Polge, C. “Increasing Reproductive Potential in Farm Animals.” In Artificial Control of Reproduction. Book 5 in Reproduction in Mammals, edited by C. R. Austin and R. V. Short. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Contains clear descriptions of the technique of artificial insemination as well as drawings of the procedure being carried out on farm animals. Emphasizes the advances in artificial insemination since the time of Ivanov, including methods for long-term preservation of sperm, which were pioneered by Polge. Poynter, F. N. L. “Hunter, Spallanzani, and the History of Artificial Insemination.” In Medicine, Science, and Culture, edited by L. G. Stevenson and R. P. Multhauf. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968. An engaging sketch of early workers in 25
1901
Research subsequent to Ivanov’s work has improved further the methods used to collect sperm and to preserve it. The greatest beneficiaries of these techniques have been dairy farmers. Some bulls are able to sire genetically superior cows that produce exceptionally large volumes of milk. Under natural conditions, such a bull could father at most a few hundred offspring in its lifetime. Using artificial insemination, a prize bull can inseminate ten to fifteen thousand cows each year. This use of superior sperm can continue even after a male’s death if the semen is kept frozen. Artificial insemination also prevents the possibility that a female infected with a venereal disease will spread the infection to a prize male. For dairy farmers, artificial insemination also means that they no longer need to keep dangerous bulls on the farm; frozen sperm may be purchased through the mail. Artificial insemination has become the main method of reproduction of dairy cows. In the 1980’s, artificial insemination gained added importance as a method of breeding rare animals. Animals living in zoos often lack the behavioral repertoire necessary for normal mating, but males may still produce normal sperm that can be used to inseminate females artificially. Some species require specific conditions of housing or diet for breeding to occur, conditions not available in all zoos. Such animals can still reproduce using artificial insemination. Elephants also are frequently artificially inseminated, allowing zoos to house only females and their offspring and not the more difficult-tohandle males. Artificial insemination has also proved effective in treating various types of infertility in humans. Although it had been used occasionally before Ivanov’s time, the widespread use of artificial insemination in the human species was possible only after it was clear that it was successful in animals and that the offspring so conceived were not abnormal in any way. —Judith R. Gibber
Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination
Kipping Discovers Silicones the field of artificial insemination. Includes biographical material on Spallanzani and Hunter as well as a discussion of the controversy engendered in the United States by the work of James Marion Sims. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory.
1901-1904
Kipping Discovers Silicones Frederic Stanley Kipping discovered silicones, which nearly fifty years later found widespread markets because of their unique properties. Locale: Nottingham, England Categories: Science and technology; chemistry Key Figures Frederic Stanley Kipping (1863-1949), Scottish chemist and professor Eugene G. Rochow (1909-2002), American research chemist James F. Hyde (1903-1999), American organic chemist Summary of Event Silicones are examples of what chemists call polymers— at the molecular level, they consist of long repeating chains of atoms. In this molecular characteristic, silicones resemble polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which are familiar plastics in everyday use. Whereas polyethylene and PVC have chains of carbon atoms, silicone molecules have chains composed of alternate silicon and oxygen atoms. Each silicon atom bears two organic groups as substituents, and the oxygens serve to link the silicon atoms into a chain. The silicon-oxygen backbone of the silicones is responsible for their unique and useful properties, such as the ability of a silicone oil to remain liquid over an extremely wide temperature range and to resist oxidative and thermal breakdown at high temperatures. A fundamental scientific consideration with a silicone, as with any polymer, is how to obtain the desired physical and chemical properties in a product through close control of its chemical structure and molecular weight. Oily silicones with thousands of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms have been prepared. The average length of the molecular chain determines the flow characteristics (viscosity) of the oil. In samples with very 26
long chains, rubberlike elasticity can be achieved through the cross-linking of the silicone chains in a controlled manner and the addition of a filler such as silica. High degrees of cross-linking could produce a hard, intractable material instead of a rubberlike one. In the first four decades of the twentieth century, Frederic Stanley Kipping made an extensive study of the organic chemistry of silicon. He had a distinguished academic career, and he summarized his silicon work in a 1937 lecture before the Royal Society of London titled “Organic Derivatives of Silicon.” Because Kipping did not have available to him any naturally occurring compounds with chemical bonds between carbon and silicon atoms (organosilicon compounds), he needed to find methods of establishing such bonds. In this quest, Kipping drew on the discoveries of his predecessors. Previous syntheses of compounds with siliconcarbon links involved the intermediacy of carbon derivatives of other elements. For example, Charles Friedel and James M. Crafts, who prepared the first organosilicon compound in 1863, used diethyl zinc as a reagent for transferring ethyl groups to silicon, replacing the chlorine atoms in silicon tetrachloride. Alfred Stock used dimethyl zinc to form silicon-to-carbon bonds and prepared a small sample of methylsilicone oil in 1919 but did not investigate the polymer further. Albert Ladenburg, who was a student of Friedel, used silicate esters as starting materials and employed sodium metal in some of his procedures. A. Polis also used sodium in a procedure to prepare tetraphenyl silicon. Kipping, in his earliest work, used sodium metal to activate organic halogen compounds, forming organosodium derivatives that could be used to replace the chlorine in silicon tetrachloride by organic groups. In 1901, the French organic chemist Victor Grignard reported on the synthetic uses of organomagnesium compounds—the famous “Grignard reagents”—and Kipping soon realized that these reagents were ideal for organosilicon synthesis (indeed,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Kipping Discovers Silicones
27
1901
alysts. Wilton I. Patnode of G.E. and James F. Hyde of they are probably unsurpassed for this application even Dow-Corning made important advances in this area. today). Hyde’s discovery of the use of traces of potassium hyAlthough Kipping was probably the first to prepare a droxide as a polymerization catalyst for D4 made possisilicone and was certainly the first to use the term “silible the manufacture of silicone rubber, which became cone,” he regarded silicones as a side issue and did not one of the most commercially valuable of all the silipursue their commercial possibilities. His careful expericones. mental work was a valuable starting point for all subsequent workers in organosilicon chemistry, however, inSignificance cluding those who later developed the silicone industry. Although Kipping’s discovery and naming of silicones A few years after Kipping’s lecture before the Royal occurred from 1901 to 1904, the practical use and impact Society, important research was initiated at the General of silicones started in 1940 with Rochow’s discovery of Electric (G.E.) Company’s corporate research laborathe direct synthesis. General Electric constructed a silitory in Schenectady, New York. On May 10, 1940, cone plant at Waterford, New York, and Dow-Corning G.E. chemist Eugene G. Rochow discovered that when began production in Midland, Michigan. They were methyl chloride gas was passed over a heated mixture of joined by Union Carbide in 1957 and Stauffer Chemical elemental silicon and copper, it reacted to form organochlorosilane compounds with siliconcarbon bonds. Kipping had shown that these silicon compounds react Some of the Many Uses for Silicones with water to form silicones. The • In aerospace: fabrics for space suits; windshield and canopy gasket sealimportance of Rochow’s discovery ants; rubber tooling for radome fabrication; optical interlayer laminates; was that it opened the way to a conabrasion-resistant coatings; adhesives, seals, and gaskets; tooling materials tinuous process that did not consume • In construction: glazing adhesives/sealants and elastomers; silicone/polyexpensive metals such as magnesium urethane foam roof coatings; fire-stop foams and sealants; architectural or the flammable ether solvents recoatings and water repellents; concrete pavement joint sealants quired in the Grignard method. The • In electronics: silicone-impregnated electrical insulating tapes; silicone copper acted as a catalyst, and the derubber; adhesives and sealants; elastoplastic resins for coating circuit sired silicon compounds were formed boards; compounds for protecting semiconductor devices; high-purity coatwith only minor quantities of byings, varnishes, and resins; specialty lubricants products. This “direct synthesis,” as • In industrial maintenance and production: elastomers; adhesives; sealants and varnishes; release agents; surfactants; maintenance lubricants it has come to be called, is now real• In medical products and pharmaceuticals: temporomandibular joint ized commercially on a large scale (jaw) implants; small- and large-joint orthopedic implants; long-term and is the most important source of implantable contraceptives; tubing; adhesives; defoamers; fluids; emulsilicone precursors. sions The action of water on the organo• In motor vehicle manufacture and maintenance: heat-, oil-, and fuelchlorosilanes from Rochow’s direct resistant silicone rubbers for molding into a variety of durable parts; spesynthesis is a rapid method of obtaincialty lubricants and materials for noise, vibration, and thermal management ing silicones, but it does not pro• In paints and coatings: additives for high-performance paints, enamels, vide much control of the molecular and finishes; abrasion-resistant coatings for plastics; compounds for temweight. Further development work perature- and chemical-resistant printing equipment components; release at G.E. and at Dow-Corning showed coatings for backings on tapes, labels, stamps, stickers, decals, and food packaging that the best procedure for controlled • In personal and household care products: surfactants, emulsions, fluids, formation of silicone polymers inand powder treatments for use in skin and suntan lotions, antiperspirants, volves treating the crude silicones hair care products, shaving creams, cosmetics, fabric treatments, and launwith acid to produce a mixture from dry products which high yields of an intermediate • In plastics: mold-release additives; catalyst modifiers; chemicals for highcalled D4 can be obtained by distillaperformance applications tion. The intermediate D4 can be • In textiles: waterproofing treatments; fiber chemicals polymerized in a controlled manner through the use of acidic or basic cat-
Kipping Discovers Silicones in 1965. The German companies Wacker-Chemie and Farbenfabriken Bayer, A.G., offered silicones beginning in the 1950’s; by 1968, silicones were being produced also in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, England, Japan, and the Soviet Union. Production of pure silicones rose from about 1,000 tons per year in 1950 to 14,000 tons in 1965 in the United States. World production in the late 1980’s was estimated at more than 500,000 tons. The major forms of silicone are oils, resins, and elastomers. Approximate percentages of the total production consumed in various industries are as follows: paper and textiles, 30 percent; electrical and electronics, 25 percent; construction, 15 percent; automobiles, 10 percent; office equipment, 10 percent; and medical and food processing, 10 percent. In the United States, production of silicones was rapid enough to permit them to have some influence on military supplies for World War II. In aircraft communication equipment, use of silicones for extensive waterproofing of parts resulted in greater reliability of radios under tropical conditions of humidity, where condensing water could be destructive. Silicone rubber, because of its stability to heat, was used in gaskets for high-temperature use, such as in searchlights and in the superchargers on B-29 bomber engines. Silicone grease applied to aircraft engines also helped to protect spark plugs from moisture and promoted easier starting. After World War II, the uses for silicones multiplied. Silicone rubber appeared in many products, from caulking compounds to wire insulation to breast implants for cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. Silicone is also an excellent material for joint implants and is a component of medical tubing. Silicone rubber boot soles walked on the Moon, where ordinary rubber would have failed. Ordinary materials failed in the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986; it is possible to speculate that if silicone rubber O-rings had been used, the accident might have been averted. Silicone oils continue to find a multitude of specialized uses, from lubricating recording tape to preventing tires from sticking in the molds in which they are made. Silicone oils are used in hydraulic fluids and transformer oils, for waterproofing paper and cloth, and for foam reduction in paper mills. They are also used as surface films for automobile finishes and razor blades. Silicone resins were originally developed to serve as binders for glass fibers to produce a composite material for electrical insulation. Their additional uses now include heatresistant coatings for mufflers and catalytic converters on automobiles and electrically insulating varnish. Foamed silicone resins have been used for heat insula28
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion and as components of sandwich-type composite materials. The discovery of silicones cannot be isolated in time to a single day or even a single year. Moreover, silicones as we now know them owe much to years of patient developmental work in industrial laboratories. Basic research such as that conducted by Kipping, Stock, and others served to point the way and catalyzed the process of silicones’ commercialization. — John R. Phillips Further Reading Challenger, F. “Frederic Stanley Kipping.” In Great Chemists, edited by Eduard Farber. New York: Interscience, 1961. This biography was written by one of Kipping’s collaborators. Hyde, James F. “Chemical Background of the Silicones.” Science 147 (1965): 829-836. This short article summarizes some of the chemistry involved in making silicones and focuses on the achievements of Dow-Corning researchers. Kipping, F. S. “Organic Derivatives of Silicon.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A159 (1937): 139-148. Kipping summarizes his work on silicon and places it in context with that of other workers. Many historical accounts draw on this lecture. Kipping ends on a note of pessimism, stating that “the prospect of any immediate and important advance in this section of organic chemistry does not seem to be very hopeful.” Leyson, Burr W. Marvels of Industrial Science. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1955. Leyson, an army officer, was impressed by the uses of silicones in the military. Discusses waterproofing of communication equipment and rubber for low-temperature applications. Liebhafsky, H. A. Silicones Under the Monogram. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978. This rambling and entertaining book is enriched with many photographs of individual scientists, laboratories, and samples of silicones. Includes extensive discussion of the commercial development of silicones and the patent litigation relating to it. The annotated bibliography is extensive and varied and could serve as an entry into the study of twentieth century industrial chemistry research. McGregor, Rob Roy. Silicones and Their Uses. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954. McGregor prepared this monograph at the suggestion of Dow-Corning. Discusses physiological responses to silicones, applications of silicones in various industries, and the chem-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
the Silicones. 2d ed. New: York: John Wiley & Sons, 1951. This book appeared before any other on the subject and was translated into five languages. This edition contains a complete listing of Kipping’s publications on silicon chemistry as well as a wealth of information on the properties and uses of organosilicon compounds. Rochow, Eugene G., and Éduard Krahé. Perkin, Kipping, Lapworth: Success Through Sisterhood. New York: Springer, 2001. Biographical historical novel about the marriages of three sisters to the three chemists named in the title. Provides a factually accurate account of the influence these three women had on the work of their famous husbands. See also: 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye; 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite; Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
1901-1911
China Allows Some Western Reforms Beginning in 1901, Dowager Empress Cixi authorized a series of reforms intended to modernize China and preserve the Qing Dynasty. Locale: Beijing, China Categories: Government and politics; social issues and reform Key Figures Cixi (1835-1908), dowager empress of China, r. 18611908 Guangxu (Kuang-Hsü; 1871-1908), Chinese emperor, r. 1875-1908 Zhang Zhidong (Chang Chih-tung; 1837-1909), viceroy of Liangjiang and minister of military affairs Liu Kunyi (Liu K’un-i; 1830-1902), major government adviser after the Taiping Rebellion Puyi (P’u-i; 1906-1967), imperial China’s last emperor, r. 1908-1912 Summary of Event In the early 1900’s, China’s Qing (Ch’ing) government initiated a series of political, economic, and social reforms in order to modernize the nation and preserve the ruling dynasty. The reform program was only reluctantly
embraced by Dowager Empress Cixi, the dominant figure at court, and other Qing officials, and was a reaction to a century of disasters. In the Opium War of the 1840’s, China had been forced to open its ports to Great Britain and then to other foreign nations; it also had to grant extraterritoriality to foreigners. Beijing was captured and the Summer Palace destroyed by British and French troops in the 1860’s. Millions died during the Taiping Rebellion, which almost brought down the regime in the 1850’s. In the period 1894-1895, China was defeated by Japan, which resulted in the loss of Taiwan, and by the late 1890’s, Germany, Britain, France, Japan, and Russia had carved out “spheres of influence” in China. Although the Qing had been ruling China since the seventeenth century, many Han Chinese opposed the Qing because of its foreign origins. Other Chinese traveled and studied abroad, comparing backward China with more modernized nations, and some, such as Yan Fu, translated into Chinese such Western works as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859). Some Chinese, including Kang Youwei, a leading advocate of earlier abortive reforms, were harshly critical of the reactionary Qing government. Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen) had established the Hsing-chung Hui (Revive China Society), which sought 29
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istry of silicone preparation in simple language. Many of the individual products mentioned are produced by Dow-Corning. Mueller, Richard. “One Hundred Years of Organosilicon Chemistry.” Translated from the German by E. G. Rochow. Journal of Chemical Education 42 (1965): 41-47. This article originally appeared in a German periodical and takes the form of a lecture presented March 27, 1963, in Dresden, Germany. Includes photographs of organosilicon pioneers and contains fiftysix references to their work. _______. Silicon and Silicones. New York: SpringerVerlag, 1987. Relates the story of silicon for the general reader. Tells the history of silicones along with several personal vignettes, including how Rochow treated his own house with silicone coatings to preserve the wooden siding. Discusses silicones within the wider context of silicon chemistry in general. Rochow, Eugene G. An Introduction to the Chemistry of
China Allows Some Western Reforms
China Allows Some Western Reforms
Dowager Empress Cixi. (Library of Congress)
to replace the Qing (also called the Manchus) with a republican form of government. Previous reform efforts had responded to the challenges facing a weakened and weakening China. In the 1870’s, the government launched a “self-strengthening” movement, which was an attempt to reform the military, improve the communications system, and further industrialization, but it was not strong enough to change China’s conservative Confucian society. In the aftermath of China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), in 1898 Emperor Guangxu gave his support to reforming China’s educational system, the military, and the bureaucracy, but Cixi had several of the 30
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 reformers arrested and executed, and removed the emperor, her nephew, from any real power. The Boxer Rebellion of 1900, in which foreigners, including Christian missionaries, were persecuted, led to another Chinese defeat and the payment of a huge monetary indemnity. As foreign troops were capturing Beijing, Cixi and Guangxu had fled west to Xi’an (Sian). They returned only in January, 1902. Cixi, always the dominating figure, accepted the necessity of reform and modernization, but only within certain assumed parameters. She insisted that the Manchu/Qing Dynasty be preserved and that all reforms must come from and be implemented and controlled by the central government. She also ordered senior bureaucrats to suggest ideas for reform, and so Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi put forth a series of reforms under the rubric of the “new policies.” Fundamental changes in the educational system were at the center: Primary and middle schools were to be established throughout China, with a Western curriculum based in part upon recent Japanese educational reforms. Graduates would take the traditional civil service examination, which encompassed the writings of Confucius and the other ancient sages. It was not successful, because the modern curriculum was too challenging and most students chose the traditional schools. The unanticipated result was that in 1905 Cixi abolished the classical examination system, which had been in existence for almost two millennia. If education and its subject matter subsequently became more relevant to the modern industrialized urban world, they also lost the moral center of gravity that Confucianism had so long provided. After China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, the need for military reforms was obvious. The first steps were taken in 1901 in the creation of the new national and modern army in which the officers adopted Westernstyle khaki uniforms instead of traditional Chinese dress, but Manchus held most of the high-level positions. Inde-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
were also waning in the early twentieth century. The queue, the Manchu custom of males shaving their foreheads and braiding the remaining hair in the back, had been imposed upon the native Chinese as a symbol of Chinese inferiority when the Qing Dynasty was established in the 1640’s. By the early twentieth century, many young male Chinese were cutting off their queues, in part because of the influence of Western customs but also as an act of nationalist rebellion against the foreign Qing rule. Long before the arrival of the Manchus, it had been customary to bind the feet of young Chinese women, supposedly to make them more attractive but also to establish the superior position of Chinese males. Manchu women did not customarily bind their feet, and amid all the other changes taking place, foot binding was outlawed in 1911. Finally, in 1902, laws forbidding intermarriage between Manchus and the Han Chinese majority were rescinded. Significance The Qing government’s attempts at reform and modernization in the early twentieth century were a classic example of too little, too late. Many endeavors were underfunded, and some of the administrative and educational reforms created new dissatisfied and impatient elites rather than supporters of the dynasty and government. Cixi died in November, 1908, a day after the death of the reigning (but not ruling) Emperor Guangxu. Cixi had chosen her three-year-old grandnephew, Puyi, as the new emperor. With his conservative father as regent, Puyi ruled for three years. In October, 1911, a rebellion broke out in China’s new army, and Puyi, the Qing Dynasty, and imperial China were quickly pushed aside. A republic was proclaimed, but the 1911 revolution was only a partial revolution, and the new republican government faced many of the same challenges that brought down the Qing. — Eugene Larson Further Reading Cameron, Meribeth. The Reform Movement in China, 1898-1912. New York: AMS Press, 1974. First published in 1931, the work is a comprehensive study of the reform era under Cixi. Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goldman. China: A New History. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. One of the most respected histories of China, with an excellent discussion of the postBoxer Rebellion reforms. Laidler, Keith. The Last Empress. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. A well-written biography of Cixi that discusses her responses to reform demands. Paludan, Ann. Chronicles of the Chinese Emperors. New 31
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pendently from any government decisions, other urban and professional segments of the population were also adopting Western clothes and customs. A number of professional organizations in banking, law, education, and other venues, such as chambers of commerce, were also established. Government reformers and bureaucrats planned to subject these organizations to government control and regulation, and they issued a commercial code to this effect. At the same time, a ministry of commerce was established and placed in charge of construction of a new railroad. The Qing government was also forced to accept the concept of constitutionalism. Mere administrative reform established through despotism, however enlightened and well-intentioned, was insufficient to modernize China. Many Chinese viewed any autocratic government as unacceptable. Japan, with its new constitutional monarchy, had mobilized the power of the nation, defeating China and then Russia in 1904-1905. In late 1905, the Chinese government dispatched two delegations to study foreign governments and their constitutions. They visited Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, and in the fall of 1906, Dowager Empress Cixi promised political reforms, inspired mainly by the successful Meiji reforms in Japan, that would lead to the creation of a constitutional monarchy. Cixi’s constitutional reforms, however, initially envisioned only an advisory popular assembly rather than a legislative body with independent authority, a measure that satisfied few. In August of 1908, she announced a nine-year program that would eventually result in the establishment of constitutional self-government and the convening of a national parliament in 1917. First, she ordered the creation of provincial assemblies, which first met in 1909 with only consultative powers. Their electors were required to meet educational and property qualifications that would eliminate the vast majority of citizens from participation: One study has estimated that only 0.4 percent of the Chinese population qualified to vote. In addition, if the government desired to modernize by centralizing power in Beijing, there were countervailing tendencies that encouraged reform on the provincial and local levels. As urbanization increased during the nineteenth century, particularly in the coastal treaty ports, many of the rural gentry, the traditional elite, had migrated to the growing cities, where new elites were also emerging. There they attempted to expand their economic possibilities and became active in politics. As a result, they were less inclined to give automatic allegiance to the Qing. Several long-standing imperial Chinese traditions
China Allows Some Western Reforms
Teletype Is Developed York: Thames and Hudson, 1998. Includes a discussion of Cixi and Emperor Guangxu. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Includes a descriptive analysis of Cixi’s reforms by one of the preeminent historians of modern China.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty; May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement; 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War; Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan.
1901-1925
Teletype Is Developed The telegraphic transmission of recorded messages enabled speedy communication of news and other essential information. Locale: United States and Europe Categories: Communications and media; science and technology; inventions Key Figures Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot (1845-1903), French engineer and inventor Kent Cooper (1880-1965), traffic manager for the Associated Press news agency Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor Edward Ernest Kleinschmidt (1875-1940), German American inventor Howard Lewis Krum (1885-1961), American engineer Joy Morton (1855-1934), financial backer of the Morkrum Company Summary of Event The nineteenth century origins of the teletype, also known as the teletypewriter and occasionally as the teleprinter, proved to be less important than the device’s twentieth century technical development, which brought it into worldwide use. The teletype—a form of electric telegraph, which it replaced in part—was the outcome of designs and the subject of patent claims on both sides of the Atlantic for many decades. It became identified as an instrument increasingly essential to business, government, and social communication. Although by the late twentieth century the teletype was rapidly being replaced in the newswire services by computerized satellite transmissions that relayed information directly to newsroom computers, the teletype continued to be in demand in areas where printed records of messages were also important. As Samuel F. B. Morse conceived of the telegraph when he developed it in the middle of the nineteenth cen32
tury, it was a device that converted electric pulses coming in over the telegraph wire into written dots and dashes that a human operator could translate at leisure into letters and words. However, before the beginning of the twentieth century, the volume of information being conveyed by telegraph in the pursuit of financial, commercial, administrative, governmental, news, social, and business affairs raised the need for both a practical machine to record incoming messages directly in letter form and a transmitting unit that would convert letters to electric pulses to be telegraphed. Although that need was recognized, a general solution was not immediately at hand. Instead, alternative, partial solutions were brought together before a practical system was developed in 1914 that could send and receive messages using teletypewriters. One of the first of these partial solutions was the duplex technique of transmitting two messages simultaneously, in opposite directions, over the same wire. First put into practice in the United States in 1872, this method was followed in 1874 by inventor Thomas Alva Edison’s quadruplex system. In that same year in Europe, Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot devised his five-pulse code, later modified by Donald Murray, which Edison used in his famous glass-domed stock market “ticker” that came into use in 1870. The ticker reported stock market quotations in a coded pattern of holes punched in paper tape. Users could structure the five-pulse code into thirtytwo different patterns, either by omitting one or more pulses in the sequence of the group of five generated within a fraction of a second or by reversing the polarity of one or more of the pulses. Twenty-six of these patterns were assigned to the letters of the alphabet, and the others were used for such functions as introducing spaces between words and conveying numbers, question marks, and other symbols. The pulse patterns were punched into paper tape, where they could either be deciphered by trained eyes or fed into a machine that would respond to
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The teletype’s role in communications in Europe and the United States was influenced by the growing popularity of the telephone and by the economics of the communications industry, both private (in the United States) and public (in Europe). Wire, cable, wireless, and automatic-
circuit systems continued to multiply during the second quarter of the twentieth century. During this period, these economic and technical developments extended the teletype’s use to major centers of news and of business and government activities worldwide. In 1931, AT&T introduced in the United States the Teletypewriter Exchange Service (TWX), which enabled subscribers to link up their teletypes by telephone lines. In 1932, Western Union introduced a telex network utilizing the telegraph lines, and Europe had its own telex, which spread worldwide after World War II. By 1940, nearly fifteen thousand U.S. teletype stations were tied together by the TWX network, and by 1950 there were more than twenty-eight thousand. During the 1960’s, the number passed fifty thousand, and service was extended to Canada. In 1962, TWX converted to automatic dialing, and subsequently telex absorbed TWX to provide a global network. The service came into widespread use by industry and various governmental agencies. Typically, news reports, administrative messages, and business orders and records were transmitted. The inventors’ dream of 1900 had demonstrated its practicality to all doubters by 1925. By midcentury, it was the major vehicle for written-message transmission and was being incorporated into computercontrolled information networks. The early plateau of sixty words per minute gave way to speeds of one hundred words per minute and then the higher magnitudes afforded by computerized operation. Although the teletypewriter had originated as a communications machine in its own right, it became one of the components—along with the telephone, the teletypesetter, the television screen, and the computer—of numerous and increasingly elaborate worldwide integrated electronic communications systems during the latter part of the twentieth century. By the late twentieth century, special lines connecting several teletypewriters on a continuous basis had become commonplace. Although the costs of such lines were high, methods of sending a number of messages over a single line at the same time became widely used. Mechanical methods enabling five or six teletypewriters to share a single wire in the early part of the century were largely replaced by electronic systems that simultaneously sent signals from as many as twenty-four teletypewriters over a single channel of an ordinary telephone network. During the 1990’s, with the spectacular advances in electronic mail, development of the Internet, and advances in wireless technologies, including cellular 33
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the patterns by typing the corresponding letters. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the state of the art of typewriter engineering and design was not sufficiently advanced to provide practical keyboard machines that would utilize the five-pulse code or the later seven-pulse code introduced by Howard Lewis Krum, which added clarity between transmitter and receiver by using the first and last pulses as “pattern-start” and “pattern-stop” symbols to keep the sender and the receiver synchronized on the same message. Letter-wheel and letter-hammer machines were tried without practical success at first. In 1900, the idea of using a typewriter to send and receive telegraph messages was still a dream of inventors. Then Joy Morton of the Morton Salt family provided financial backing to Howard Krum, a mechanical engineer who brought his son Charles into the enterprise. The Morkrum Company was organized under Krum’s engineering leadership early in the 1900’s and produced a number of encouraging teletype designs. At the start, the company used the five-pulse code, a rotating typewheel, and a stationary roller to hold the paper. The Morkrum teletypewriter slowly came into increasingly widespread use. Under the impetus of Kent Cooper, at that time traffic manager of the Associated Press wire service, teletypewritten reports were being transmitted to the press by 1915. In 1917, the United Press, Associated Press’s competitor, signed the first contract for three private-line teletypewriter services. By 1923, the Morkrum Company had become successful enough with its machines to combine with the Kleinschmidt Electric Company (founded by the developer of the teletype and the high-speed teletypewriter, Edward Ernest Kleinschmidt) to form the Teletype Corporation, which later was acquired by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). Western Union also switched to the teletype and by 1927 had more than six thousand units on line. On the other side of the Atlantic, Britain’s nationalized telegraph service began using British-built Creed teleprinters, expanding their use rapidly as part of an effort to counteract the shrinking use of the telegraph as the telephone grew more popular.
Teletype Is Developed
American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament phones, telegraph and teletype technologies were largely superseded by faster and more efficient electronic systems for communication. —Thomas M. Smith and Peter B. Heller Further Reading Fagen, M. D., ed. A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: The Early Years, 1875-1925. Murray Hill, N.J.: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975. The teletype is only one of several nonvoice communications covered in one chapter of this thousand-page survey, but the numerous historical tidbits, technical information, and evaluation make it useful even to the lay reader. Fang, Irving. A History of Mass Communication: Six Information Revolutions. Burlington, Mass.: Focal Press, 1997. Traces common themes in the complex history of mass communication and examines how various means of communicating have developed out of particular societies and in turn influenced those societies. Includes bibliography, time line of communication developments, and index. Gramling, Oliver. AP: The Story of News. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1940. The story of the largest U.S. news agency, which was the first enterprise after the stock market to make significant use of the teletype. Martin, James. Telecommunications and the Computer. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976. Pro-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vides technical detail and places the teletype in historical perspective. Mott, Frank L. The News in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962. Examines the technical, ethical, and professional factors of the mass media facilitated by the use of the teletype and electronics. U.S. Naval Electronic Systems Command. Principles of Telegraphy, Teletypewriter. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967. Provides technical details and places the teletype in historical perspective. Winston, Brian. Media Technology and Society: A History—From the Telegraph to the Internet. New York: Routledge, 1998. Examines the history of communication technologies from the printing press to the Internet. Emphasizes the influences of social necessity and suppression of potential societal disruption in the development of new media and discusses the roles played by particular individuals in the introduction of new technologies. Includes references and index. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered.
January, 1901
American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament In 1901, the American Bowling Congress held its first tournament, which led to the game’s increasing popularity. The establishment of the American Bowling Congress’s rules and tournament standards propelled bowling from its slightly disreputable beginnings in pubs and drinking establishments to its position in mainstream American culture. Also known as: American Bowling Congress; National Bowling Championships Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Sports; organizations and institutions Key Figures Thomas Curtis (1827-1905), first president of the American Bowling Congress Joseph Thum (1858-1937), influential bowling organizer 34
Frank Briell (1864-1944), first national bowling champion and winner of the 1901 National Bowling Championships singles competition Albert Goodwill Spalding (1850-1915), writer of the rules used by the American Bowling Congress John Brunswick (1819-1896), founder of Brunswick Corporation, industry leader in manufacturing bowling equipment and establishing bowling alleys Summary of Event Bowling is considered to be one of the oldest sports in world history. Its roots reach back as far as ancient Egypt, and the first written record of a sport similar to modern bowling occurred in 1366, when King Edward III reportedly made playing the game illegal so that his troops would concentrate on skills such as archery. Bowling was, however, well established in England by
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
These attempts, however, were not successful until late in the nineteenth century, when a new ideology became associated with the game. Encouraged by Joseph Thum, owner of one of the first modern bowling alleys in the United States, members of the bowling community first attempted to standardize bowling rules and regulations in organizations such as the United Bowling Clubs and the National Bowling Association. Albert Goodwill Spalding also added to these efforts by writing a set of standards for bowling rules in the United States. With the sport’s growing popularity and widespread influence, the number of bowling clubs increased significantly; there were more than four hundred clubs in New York alone. Because of the number of bowlers involved in the sport, however, it was difficult for the differing factions within the bowling community to reach an agreement on all aspects of the rules and regulations, and several attempts to organize the nation’s bowlers failed. On September 9, 1895, at New York City’s Beethoven Hall, the American Bowling Congress was born, and it brought
Bowlers participate in an American Bowling Congress tournament in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1905. (Library of Congress)
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the reign of Henry VIII. The game first entered written culture in the United States when author Washington Irving had his character Rip Van Winkle wake from his long nap to the sounds of the traditional British game of ninepins. By the end of the nineteenth century, Americans had added a pin, giving birth to the American version of the game initially known as tenpin, which developed into modern bowling. By the middle of the nineteenth century, bowling had acquired a reputation as a workingman’s sport, and it was linked to taverns, drinking, immorality, and gambling. Because of its reputation, New York and Connecticut outlawed the game of ninepins in the early years of the nineteenth century, and tradition held that American bowling’s tenth pin was added in an attempt to circumvent the law. After the American Civil War, many club owners, especially German immigrants, attempted to rehabilitate bowling’s image and establish clean and honest clubs with bowling lanes. They hoped to attract families to the sport and to discourage its association with gambling and drinking.
American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament
American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament not only rules and regulations but also a more respectable reputation to the sport. As a result of Thum’s influence, the establishment of the American Bowling Congress, and the leadership of the organization’s first president, Thomas Curtis, standardized rules of the game and regulation lanes and equipment were ready to be implemented in sanctioned, national tournaments by 1901. Curtis was the first to suggest introducing the tournament concept to the sport, and his influence eventually led to the first organized bowling tournament in the United States. Because there was now a governing body that standardized the sport’s rules and offered prize money to tournament winners, the gambling industry’s grip on the sport also diminished, and bowling’s reputation was redeemed. The National Bowling Championship tournament, held in Chicago, Illinois, in January, 1901, was so successful that it became an annual event: The first tournament in Chicago was followed by tournaments in Buffalo, New York, in 1902; in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1903; and in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1904. Even though the sport had been popular for many years and companies such as John Brunswick’s Brunswick Corporation were working to develop superior bowling equipment, records from the first of these tournaments show that the competitors were still using older equipment, such as wooden balls or “loaded” (off-balance) balls. However, after the first years of tournaments, this situation changed and better equipment became widely available. The first tournament was particularly successful in its attempts to gain significant numbers of participants. It hosted both amateur and professional competitors, and this tradition continued. More than forty teams, representing nine states and seventeen cities, competed in the first tournament, and organizers opened the competition to both singles and doubles competitions. More than 100 singles players and 78 doubles participants sought the first national title. Frank Briell became the first national bowling champion after he won the 1901 National Bowling Championship tournament’s singles events and numerous other competitions. Since their inception, American Bowling Congress tournaments have typically lasted from twelve to sixteen hours a day and have extended through more than one hundred consecutive days. Significance Bowling’s popularity increased rapidly following its first successful tournament, and gambling, the main drawback to the sport’s credibility, was all but banished by serious bowlers and leagues when the American 36
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bowling Congress became the official sanctioning body. The congress took over efforts to run the major competitions, gain sponsors and prize money, and standardize rules and regulations. Following the success of the American Bowling Congress, other groups formed their own organizations. African American and women’s organizations soon joined the ranks of professional and competitive bowling, and women’s teams were added to the competitive bowling community shortly after the 1901 tournament. This breakthrough was largely due to the sport’s new “clean” reputation, which grew with each tournament. Although women had been actively bowling since the late nineteenth century, their first organized association was not recognized until 1917, when the Women’s National Bowling Association was established in St. Louis, Missouri. This association for women bowlers held its first tournament in 1918. Although bowling’s golden age took place largely from the 1940’s through the 1960’s, the popularity of bowling as both a participant sport and a spectator sport continued into the twenty-first century. —Kimberley M. Holloway Further Reading Baker, William J. Sports in the Western World. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Discusses the influence of a variety of sports, including bowling, on the development of Western cultures. Luby, Mort. The History of Bowling. Chicago: Luby, 1983. Gives a thorough overview of the development of bowling from its origins through the twentieth century. Mitchell, Elmer D., ed. Sports for Recreation and How to Play Them. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1952. Contains a chapter on bowling that recounts a brief history of bowling as a sport as well as a detailed discussion of the rules of bowling. Pendergast, Tom, and Sara Pendergast, eds. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 5 vols. Farmington Hills, Mich.: St. James Press, 2000. An A-Z reference work that includes an excellent, concise discussion of the history and significance of bowling. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; July 1, 1903: First Tour de France; Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race; Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; Aug. 20Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed
January 1, 1901
Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed
Locale: Australia Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history; independence movements Key Figures Edmund Barton (1849-1920), first prime minister of the Commonwealth of Australia Sir Samuel Walker Griffith (1845-1920), Queensland premier who drafted most of the Australian constitution Sir Henry Parkes (1815-1896), New South Wales politician who crystallized pro-Federation opinion through his 1889 Tenterfield Oration George Houston Reid (1845-1918), first leader of the Opposition of the Commonwealth of Australia and advocate for New South Wales’s interests Jules François Archibald (1856-1919), Sydney journalist who edited The Bulletin, the principal organ of Australian nationalism Summary of Event The Australian continent’s path to federation was not an inevitable one: Australia’s geography made it somewhat self-contained, but its common language and geographic area did not guarantee cohesiveness. The colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania were founded at different times and for different purposes, and they had different positions on the legacy of transporting convicts. Furthermore, New Zealand’s close cultural ties to Australia meant that it might become part of a larger Australian federation, and the essentially ceremonial Federated Council of Australasia, set up in 1885, included Fiji, which also could have become part of the federation. (The Federated Council also included Queensland and Tasmania, although it omitted New South Wales and Victoria, the two most powerful and populous colonies actually on the Australia continent.) In particular, New South Wales had always considered itself large enough to be an independent state. In the
late 1880’s, however, New South Wales communities such as Tenterfield (in the New England region in the north-central part of the colony) began to feel increasingly distanced from the colony’s capital, Sydney. The distance meant that in logistical terms, Sydney was not able to provide the administrative services that Tenterfield needed. Tenterfield was far closer to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, but since the colonies were separate, Queensland could not provide any assistance. The veteran New South Wales politician Sir Henry Parkes addressed this situation in 1889 with his famous Tenterfield Oration. Parkes criticized the tariffs that made free trade between Queensland and northern New South Wales practically impossible. This barrier seemed especially significant given the advances in technology: The telegraph’s dissemination meant that Perth, on the west coast, could be in touch with Sydney almost instantly, thus reducing the psychological distance between them despite the thousands of miles separating the two cities. The main focus of the Tenterfield Oration, however, was national defense. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, British command of the seas had seemed secure, but a number of international issues began to threaten the Australian continent. The French presence in New Caledonia (an issue resolved by the 1904 Entente Cordiale) and the German acquisition of South Pacific possessions in Samoa, Micronesia, and especially New Guinea made Australians nervous and accelerated an awareness of the need for a strong common defense. Furthermore, the emergence of Japan after the Meiji Restoration and the decisive defeat Japan inflicted on China in the countries’ 1894-1895 war made Japan a threat. Beyond the immediate military threat that Japan posed, Australians were anxious—at times to the point of paranoia—about the “yellow peril” represented by Asian people; some Australians imagined that hordes of people from Asia were waiting to swarm across Australia’s shores. Thus, although the Australian federation movement had anticolonial aspects, it also proceeded from ethnic unease and often from outright racism. Parkes died in 1896, seven years after his Tenterfield Oration. Before he died, however, he helped convene national congresses in 1890 and 1891 that made the federation’s forward movement possible. These congresses created the federation’s basic framework, but implementation was delayed for ten years by debate about the federated government’s mechanics. Early on, negotiators 37
1901
Spurred by anxiety over German and Japanese expansion, rising nationalist public opinion, and awareness of the logistical and administrative challenges of remaining separate, the Australian colonies agreed to join together as a federation, which assumed authority as the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.
Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Crowds attend a parade in Sydney’s Centennial Park in celebration of the creation of the Australian commonwealth. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
decided to adopt the British parliamentary model rather than the separate legislative and executive branches used in the United States, but the nature of the legislature and the basis on which legislators would be chosen remained issues of sharp contention. Public opinion was deeply influenced by the period’s journalism and imaginative literature, two factors that played crucial roles in accelerating the development of Australia’s nationalist sentiment. In the 1890’s, balladeers such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson and novelists such as Miles Franklin and the original and idiosyncratic Joseph Furphy made distinctly Australian contributions to world literature. Even obscure poets such as Christopher Brennan, who emulated the French Symbolists, contributed to the 1890’s climate by not aping British models. The single most dynamic force in the cultural arena was Jules François Archibald, editor of the Sydney journal the Bulletin, who promoted nationalist sentiment and popularized the egalitarian image of the Australian male, full of fellowship and brimming with 38
vernacular vigor, that soon became a stereotype. Although the commonwealth’s basic components were in place, the federation’s formation continued to be delayed. New Zealand dropped out less because of its geographic distance than because of the radical direction—and separate political identity—it had taken under the leadership of William Pember Reeves and Richard John Seddon. The smaller colonies, especially South Australia, still held out for a popularly elected senate that would represent their interests and prevent a dual hegemony between New South Wales and Victoria. Sir Samuel Walker Griffith of Queensland became the principal deviser of the constitution’s language, and he reconciled the diverging views of leaders from Victoria who wanted a strong lower house of the legislature and a ceremonial senate, and figures such as Edmund Barton, who, although from New South Wales, recognized that a reasonably strong senate was a prerequisite for successful federation. Barton’s economic concession to other states that wanted special tariffs and other trade protections af-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance It is important to note that the Australian federation was a nationalist movement, not a true independence movement. Australia’s foreign policy still remained in the hands of Britain, and the British sovereign remained the sovereign of Australia, even after federation had been achieved. Compared with the establishment of the U.S. Constitution or even Britain’s Constitution Acts of 1867 (which created the Dominion of Canada), the process of Australian federation was relatively dry and lacking drama. Still, federation was the product of the convergence of many very complex factors, and although it produced a strong, united Australia, such an outcome was not an obvious result of inevitable historical forces. —Nicholas Birns Further Reading Birrell, Robert. Federation: The Secret Story. Sydney: Duffy & Snellgrove, 2001. Not quite as revelatory as
the title promises, but a dramatic treatment of the subject that casts the historical material in an entertaining fashion. Clark, Manning. The People Make Laws, 1888-1915. Vol. 5 in A History of Australia. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1981. Australia’s greatest historian operates as both sage and storyteller in depicting the convergence of the Australian colonies; Clark’s treatment of Henry Parkes is particularly detailed and thorough. Fitzgerald, Ross. The Federation Mirror: Queensland 1901-2001. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2001. An innovative piece of historiography by the leading historian of Queensland that contrasts Queensland in 1901 and 2001. Looks at both the relative controversy occasioned by federation in 1901 and the variety and differing tenor of the commemorative events held in 2001. Howell, Peter. South Australia and Federation. Kent Town, S.Aust.: Airlift, 2002. Discusses the oftenneglected story of how South Australia became a crucial force in reviving the idea of federation in the late nineteenth century. Russell, Roslyn. One Destiny! The Federation Story— How Australia Became a Nation. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1998. A well-researched and lively depiction of the federation process that does not commit the mistake, frequent in Australian historical writing, of being excessively anti-British. See also: June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines; 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament; May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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ter the federation’s creation led to accusations that he was not a sufficiently strong advocate for New South Wales’s interests. In contrast, George Houston Reid was in principle an advocate of federation, but he assumed an equivocal stance toward unity until he was convinced that New South Wales’s concerns were sufficiently safeguarded. Starting in 1898, each colony held a referendum on the draft constitution. In 1900, the British parliament approved the constitution, and the Commonwealth of Australia was officially proclaimed in Sydney on January 1, 1901. Barton became the first prime minister, and Reid was the first leader of the Opposition. The largest city in the new nation, Sydney, was not chosen as its capital; that role went to Melbourne, the second-largest city, until a permanent capital was established in the new city of Canberra in 1908.
Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed
Discovery of Oil at Spindletop
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 10, 1901
Discovery of Oil at Spindletop The discovery of oil at the Spindletop field began the Texas oil boom and led to the growth of a number of important oil corporations. Locale: Texas Categories: Science and technology; geology; trade and commerce; energy; natural resources Key Figures Patillo Higgins (1862-1955), amateur geologist and Beaumont, Texas, resident Anthony F. Lucas (1855-1921), Austrian geologist and engineer James M. Guffey (1839-1930), wildcatter from Pennsylvania John H. Galey (1840-1918), wildcatter from Pennsylvania William L. Mellon (1868-1949), American investment banker Joseph S. Cullinan (1860-1937), manager of a Standard Oil pipeline subsidiary Summary of Event On January 10, 1901, at 10:30 a.m., the first major “gusher” came in at the Spindletop oil field near the town of Beaumont in southeastern Texas. (Spindletop was named for the salt dome just south of Beaumont, which was also known as the “Big Hill.”) This first major oil well at Spindletop initially produced 75,000 to 100,000 barrels per day, approximately 800,000 barrels before it was brought under control nine days after oil was struck. This dramatic discovery made the Spindletop area the first major oil “boomtown” of Texas and shifted the focus of petroleum entrepreneurs to Texas. For much of the twentieth century, Texas was the leading petroleumproducing state in the United States and was one of the fastest-growing areas in terms of population. The Spindletop discovery also led to the formation and development of a number of important oil corporations. Prior to the discovery of oil in Texas, the primary and best-known oil fields in the United States were in Pennsylvania. Officials of the Standard Oil Company believed that few, if any, productive oil fields existed west of the Mississippi River. By 1890, however, evidence of petroleum had been found in Texas, primarily in Corsicana, just south of Dallas. The opportunity to develop the Corsicana oil fields brought two Pennsylvania wildcatters, James M. Guffey and John H. Galey, to 40
Texas. The need to provide pipeline transportation facilities in the area also brought Joseph S. Cullinan, head of one of Standard Oil’s pipeline subsidiaries, from Pennsylvania to Corsicana. With the Spindletop discovery, which would dwarf the production at Corsicana, these three men and many others arrived at the oil fields of southeastern Texas. Guffey, Galey, and Cullinan would form the oil-producing and -refining companies that would eventually become Gulf Oil Company and the Texas Company (Texaco). Patillo Higgins, a Beaumont resident and self-taught geologist, was the first to find evidence of petroleum reserves at the Spindletop salt dome. Despite the ridicule he received for believing that commercial quantities of petroleum were to be found in the Spindletop hill, Higgins formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company in 1892 to exploit the oil and gas reserves. He ran out of funds before he had drilled deep enough to reach the oil, however, and in 1899 he placed an advertisement in a trade journal to lease the field. Anthony F. Lucas, an Austrian mining engineer and consultant, answered the advertisement. In his work as a consultant, Lucas had traveled through the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coast plains. He had often found seepages of petroleum in and around the salt dome formations that occurred throughout the region, and he believed that the salt domes were associated with vast reservoirs of petroleum. Lucas drilled a well on Spindletop in 1899. Although he reached some crude oil, he too ran out of funds for the project. He had difficulty obtaining additional financial backing, because there was no proof in any of the other oil fields of the world to back up his belief in a connection between salt domes and petroleum reservoirs. Through associates in the University of Texas geology department, Lucas came into contact with Galey, who by that time was a partner in the J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company of Pittsburgh. With $400,000 borrowed from the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh, Guffey, Galey, and Lucas renewed efforts to find oil at Spindletop. On January 10, 1901, these efforts reached fruition. After weeks of continual drilling problems, the drilling crew reached a depth of 1,160 feet (about 340 meters). At 10:30 a.m., an oil gusher erupted that could be seen three miles away. In contrast to the first major oil discovery in Pennsylvania in 1859, which flowed at a rate of 20 barrels per day with the aid of a pump, the first Spindletop
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Discovery of Oil at Spindletop
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realized that a greater level of financial and personal involvement was necessary to maintain profitability and expansion. The Mellons bought Oklahoma out Guffey’s interests and in 1907 removed Guffey as president of the J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company. New Mexico as William L. Mellon was subsequently named president of the company, which was renamed the Gulf Oil Dallas Company. Cullinan also realized that the opTexas portunities at Spindletop were much greater than those at Corsicana. In January, 1902, Cullinan formed the Austin Beaumont Texas Fuel Company to refine and Houston market the vast amounts of crude oil San Antonio Galveston being produced in the area. Cullinan also formed the Producers Oil ComSpindletop pany to ensure that the Texas Fuel Company would have a continual Mexico source of supply. The Texas Fuel Gulf of Company proved too small to meet Mexico the increasingly immense task of refining all the crude produced, however, and in March, 1902, its assets were transferred to a new corporation, the Texas Company, capitalgusher spewed 75,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. In ized at three million dollars. Cullinan’s renown from his 1902, the Spindletop field produced more than 18 mildays with Standard Oil led to the continual growth and lion barrels of crude oil, which amounted to 20 percent of success of the Texas Company at a time when approxiall oil production in the United States. This was 93 permately two hundred competitors and other entrepreneurs cent of the year’s national increase in production. By the at Spindletop were failing. end of 1902, almost four hundred wells were bunched toOther major petroleum corporations were born or gether at Spindletop. By 1904, that number had reached grew stronger at Spindletop. Shell Oil Company had its nearly twelve hundred. origins at Spindletop. The Shell Transport and Trading The first six oil wells drilled at Spindletop accounted Company of London had signed a twenty-year contract for more oil than all the other oil wells in the world at that for Guffey’s operations to produce oil for the British time. The rapid and massive exploitation of Spindletop’s navy. Shell’s petroleum transportation investments later petroleum resources, accompanied often by extravagant led it to engage in the other major functions of the oil inwaste, meant that the petroleum reservoirs in the Spindustry. The Sun Oil Company, another Pennsylvania ordletop field were rapidly depleted between 1902 and ganization, grew much stronger at Spindletop. The Mag1904. The exhaustion of petroleum resources, at Spinnolia Oil Company, a Standard Oil affiliate, had its dletop and later elsewhere in Texas and throughout the origins at Spindletop. It later became part of the Mobil Oil nation, eventually led to concerns about conservation. Company. The group of Texas oilmen who ultimately In the very early twentieth century, however, at a time formed the Humble Oil and Refining Company got their of economic opportunity and prosperity, such concerns starts individually at Spindletop. After the Humble Oil were rare. and Refining Company merged with Standard Oil of William L. Mellon, whose family bank had substanNew Jersey, the Humble organization later became the tially funded the Guffey operations at Spindletop, soon Texas branch of Exxon, a Standard Oil subsidiary.
Discovery of Oil at Spindletop Significance The discovery of oil at Spindletop had a number of important long-run consequences. It proved that there were vast reservoirs of petroleum west of the Mississippi River and that petroleum was not limited to the eastern half of the United States. It also spurred other research and discoveries in the Texas and Louisiana salt dome fields, establishing the area as an oil region of permanent importance. This new research in turn propelled further oil-seeking activities and development of oil fields in northern and western Texas, making Texas the leading petroleum state in the nation for much of the twentieth century. By 1929, Texas was the leading U.S. producer of petroleum, producing 35 to 45 percent of the national total, and it became one of the leading oil-producing areas in the world. Texas held the position of the top oilproducing U.S. state until the 1970’s, when Alaska and Texas each produced approximately 30 percent of the national total. The progress of the oil industry in Texas led to the rapid growth of highly lucrative associated industries. In their very first oil strike at Spindletop, Lucas and his team used new techniques—such as rotary drilling, drilling mud, and airlift of oil—that afterward became standard operating procedures for oil producers. All these methods created demand for an industry to produce drill bits and other tools and supplies. The most prominent of the companies supplying this equipment was the Hughes Tool Company, the success of which was the source of the initial fortune of Howard Hughes. The growth of petroleum transportation pipelines created demand for firms to service and supply the pipelines. These organizations, which grew in a symbiotic relationship with the large oil corporations and many other smaller independent oil-producing organizations, were all crucial to the rapid growth of Texas beginning especially in the 1920’s and continuing into the 1950’s and 1960’s. Urban areas such as Houston and the SpindletopBeaumont-Port Arthur-Orange complex, with ports giving access to the Gulf of Mexico, became the sites of many large refining and petrochemical plants. Because of its location on the Trinity River and its proximity to the highly productive oil fields of northern Texas, the Dallas-Fort Worth area grew dramatically beginning in the middle of the twentieth century. The Spindletop discovery opened up economic opportunity in an industry that previously had been monopolized by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. The Texas Company, Gulf Oil Company, and Shell Oil Company were born at Spindletop, and the Sun Oil Com42
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pany grew stronger there. All of these would later provide competition to Standard Oil. Although these growing oil companies remained independent of Standard Oil, practically all had ties to that company, whether selling crude oil to be refined or refined oil to be marketed and sold to the general public. The growth of these corporations, however, transformed the oil industry from one characterized by monopoly (Standard Oil) to one that was more oligopolistic in nature. The dramatic discovery at Spindletop, by proving that major untapped petroleum reserves existed in the United States, opened the door for other opportunistic, risktaking entrepreneurs and organizations. This led to the formation of the aforementioned major corporations as well as many smaller independents that helped boost the economy of Texas and the Gulf coast region. —Bruce Andre Beaubouef Further Reading Clark, James A., and Michel T. Halbouty. Spindletop. 1952. Special centennial ed. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2002. Effectively captures the drama and impact of the birth of the Texas oil industry at Spindletop. Good for those seeking an introduction to the Spindletop discovery and the early Texas oil industry. Written in a popular style, without footnotes or documentation. Goodwyn, Lawrence. Texas Oil, American Dreams: A Study of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association. Austin, Tex.: Center for American History, 1996. Examines the Texas oil industry from its beginnings, focusing on the relationship between individual enterprise and corporate enterprise. Includes illustrations and index. King, John O. Joseph Stephen Cullinan: A Study of Leadership in the Texas Petroleum Industry, 1897-1937. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970. An excellent account of Cullinan’s life, his establishment of the Texas Company, and the early Texas oil industry in general. Larson, Henrietta M., and Kenneth Wiggins Porter. History of Humble Oil and Refining Company: A Study in Industrial Growth. New York: Harper, 1959. A thorough, encyclopedic study of a small Texas company whose founders started at Spindletop and later merged with Standard Oil of New Jersey. Excellent analysis of intraindustry relationships. Melosi, Martin V. “Oil Strike! The Birth of the Petroleum Industry.” In Coping with Abundance: Energy and Environment in Industrial America. Philadelphia: Temple
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Spellman, Paul N. Spindletop Boom Days. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001. History of the discovery of oil at Spindletop and its aftermath focuses on the colorful figures and boomtown atmosphere in southeastern Texas. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. See also: 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling; May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela; Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East; Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia.
February 4, 1901
Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever Walter Reed established that yellow fever was caused by an unknown infectious agent being transmitted by the Aëdes mosquito, thereby laying the basis for experimental medicine in the twentieth century. Locale: Quemados, near Havana, Cuba Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Walter Reed (1851-1902), American physician, bacteriologist, and major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps Jesse William Lazear (1866-1900), American physician and bacteriologist who served as an entomologist on the Yellow Fever Board James Carroll (1854-1907), American physician who served as a bacteriologist on the Yellow Fever Board Aristides Agramonte y Simoni (1869-1931), Cuban physician who served as a pathologist on the Yellow Fever Board William Crawford Gorgas (1854-1920), American physician, colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, and chief sanitary officer of Havana Summary of Event During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, a new understanding of the role of microorganisms in disease, along with improvements in personal hygiene and public sanitation, led to a dramatic decrease in the inci-
dence of diseases such as typhoid and cholera. Yellow fever, however, had foiled all attempts at control. The disease had been known for centuries along the west coast of Africa, where it showed little effect in the native population, probably because generations of exposure had resulted in a high degree of inherent resistance. Europeans, however, had virtually no resistance to yellow fever, and thousands died of the disease during efforts to develop the natural resources of Africa. So deadly was yellow fever to Europeans that the continent of Africa became known as the white man’s grave. The Western Hemisphere remained free of yellow fever until the seventeenth century, when it was probably introduced as a result of the slave trade from western Africa. The first documented epidemics in the New World struck Barbados in 1647 and Yucatán in 1649. The first epidemic in the American colonies took place in New York in 1668. Severe epidemics continued periodically, with 135 major epidemics striking American port cities between 1668 and 1893. Yellow fever was a particularly frightening disease. It attacked suddenly, causing a high fever, headache, and nausea. The eyes became inflamed and the skin took on a yellow pallor. Many victims hemorrhaged internally, producing a black vomit. The mortality rate ranged from 30 percent to 70 percent, with most deaths occurring on the sixth or seventh day after infection. During the Philadelphia epidemic of 1793, more than seventeen thousand cases were reported, with more than five thousand 43
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University Press, 1985. Concisely details the events and impact of Spindletop as well as the early oil industry in Pennsylvania and California. The book as a whole is an excellent study of industrial-governmental relationships in the twentieth century United States. Pratt, Joseph A. The Growth of a Refining Region. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1980. A good comprehensive study of the growth of the oil organizations in the Texas-Louisiana Gulf coast region. _______. “The Petroleum Industry in Transition: Antitrust and the Decline of Monopoly Control in Oil.” Journal of Economic History 40 (December, 1980): 815-837. Good, concise analysis of the growth of the oil firms at Spindletop that challenged Standard Oil’s control of the oil industry.
Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever
Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever deaths. In 1802, an epidemic in Santo Domingo killed twenty-nine thousand of the thirty-three thousand troops sent there by Napoleon Bonaparte for a planned invasion of the United States up the Mississippi River. As a result of these devastating losses, Napoleon changed his plans and the next year negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with President Thomas Jefferson. An epidemic in the Mississippi Valley in 1878 caused the deaths of about thirteen thousand people. More than fifty-two hundred of these deaths were in Memphis, Tennessee, and the financial impact caused the city to lose its charter temporarily in 1879. Two theories developed as to the cause and spread of yellow fever. Some considered it to be a contagious disease that could be spread directly from one person to another. Others believed it to be caused by a miasma, by filth, or by rotting vegetables. The Philadelphia epidemic of 1793 was attributed to a shipment of spoiled coffee
Walter Reed. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 beans. In 1881, Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban physician, became a strong advocate of the mosquito transmission theory that Josiah Nott had proposed in 1848. Finlay went as far as to state that it was probably the Culex mosquito (the name was later changed to Aëdes) that was spreading an unknown infectious agent. He performed experiments in which some individuals were bitten by mosquitoes and came down with yellow fever. His unsophisticated experiments, however, were easily discounted by his detractors. In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, William Crawford Gorgas, a physician and colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, was appointed chief sanitary officer for Havana. Gorgas set out to rid Havana of the filth and disease left by the war. As a result of his campaign, typhoid and dysentery were significantly reduced. Yellow fever temporarily declined but struck again in 1900, this time bypassing the filthiest areas, where the population had a high level of immunity from previous epidemics, and causing devastation in the cleaner sections of town, including the U.S. Army headquarters. It was at this time that Walter Reed was appointed to head a commission to study yellow fever in Cuba. The U.S. Army’s Yellow Fever Board was made up of Reed, Dr. James Carroll, Dr. Jesse William Lazear, and Dr. Aristides Agramonte y Simoni, a native Cuban. With the help of Gorgas, Finlay, and Dr. Henry R. Carter of the U.S. Public Health Service, the group was able, during a brief six months, to remove the veil of ignorance about yellow fever and provide an understanding of the disease that would lead to its eventual control. The Yellow Fever Board’s initial work was aimed at identifying the cause of the disease. The U.S. surgeon general had discouraged pursuit of the mosquito transmission concept, so the investigators went to work to isolate a bacterial agent. They thoroughly studied eighteen severe cases of yellow fever but were unable to isolate any microbial cause for the disease. They thus quickly reached an impasse and were forced to take a new approach. Reed knew of an outbreak of yellow fever in a military prison where there had been no possible direct contamination. It was also known that a ship leaving an infected port might be free of the disease for two to three weeks before an outbreak would occur at sea. The cases in Cuba would jump from one house to another even though the inhabitants had had no contact. Carter also pointed out that a study he did in Mississippi showed an average of twelve days between the first case of yellow fever in an area and a larger second wave. All these facts forced Reed to reconsider Finlay’s mosquito hypothesis.
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Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever
very near death for a time, he survived. A subsequent experiment on In this fragment of a letter that Walter Reed wrote to his wife, Emilie Lawrence another volunteer led to a second exReed, from Cuba on December 9, 1900, Reed’s excitement over his team’s sucperimental case; that volunteer also cess in isolating the cause of yellow fever is obvious. recovered. On September 13, Lazear was It is with a great deal of pleasure that I hasten to tell you that we have succeeded feeding one of the experimental mosin producing a case of unmistakable yellow fever by the bite of the mosquito. quitoes on a patient when another Our first case in the experimental camp developed at 11:30 last night, commosquito came through a window mencing with a sudden chill followed by fever. He had been bitten at 11:30 Deand landed on his hand. Rather than cember 5th, and hence his attack followed just three and a half days after the chance disrupting his experiment, he bite. As he had been in our camp 15 days before being inoculated and had no other possible exposure, the case is as clear as the sun at noon-day and sustains allowed the wild mosquito to feed on brilliantly and conclusively our conclusions. Thus, just 18 days from the time his blood. Five days later, Lazear dewe began our experimental work, we have succeeded in demonstrating this veloped symptoms of yellow fever. mode of propagation of the disease, so that the most doubtful and sceptical His condition deteriorated rapidly, must yield. Rejoice with me, sweetheart, as, aside from the antitoxin of diphand on September 25, 1900, he died. theria and Koch’s discovery of the tubercle bacillus, it will be regarded as the Reed returned to Cuba in October. most important piece of work, scientifically, during the 19th century. I do not He quickly realized that the experiexaggerate, and I could shout for very joy that heaven has permitted me to esmental cases, although certainly imtablish this wonderful way of propagating yellow fever. It was Finlay’s theory, portant, did not completely settle the and he deserves great credit for having suggested it, but as he did nothing to yellow fever issue, because either prove it, it was rejected by all, including General Sternberg. Now we have put it could have been exposed by some beyond cavil, and its importance to Cuba and the United States cannot be estimated. Major Kean says that the discovery is worth more than the cost of the means other than by a mosquito. He Spanish War including lives lost and money expended. He is almost beside requested approval to build an exhimself with joy and will tell General Wood when he goes to town in the periment station in an open field 1.6 morning. kilometers from the town of QueSource: Quoted in Blossom (Emilie M.) Reed, “Life and Letters of Dr. Walter Reed mados, Cuba. The remaining board by his Daughter, Blossom Reed,” in Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever members named this site Camp LaCollection, Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia. zear, for their lamented colleague. Established November 20, 1900, Camp Lazear consisted of seven floored hospital tents and support faAt the request of the Yellow Fever Board, on August cilities. The tents were made mosquito-proof, and each 1, 1900, Finlay supplied mosquito eggs for Reed’s studwas inhabited by one to three nonimmune volunteers. ies. Given that no animals were known to acquire yellow Each volunteer was paid one hundred dollars for particifever, the board members knew they must rely on human pation and another one hundred dollars if he developed experimentation. It was agreed that the first humans inyellow fever as a result of the experiments. From Novolved in the experiments must include the members of vember 20 through December 30, six volunteers were the board. That same week, Reed was recalled to Washbitten by infected mosquitoes. Five developed yellow feington to report on some earlier work he had done in ver, and all survived. Even though these carefully conCuba on typhoid fever. The board agreed to carry on in trolled experimental cases provided strong evidence that his absence. Lazear took charge of the mosquitoes, mosquitoes could carry yellow fever, Reed set out to dewhich were fed on yellow fever patients and then on nine termine if there were other ways the disease could be volunteers. None of these first volunteers became ill, transmitted. In his next series of experiments, three volprobably because the initial patients were too advanced unteers came down with yellow fever after being injected in their illness to have the yellow fever virus in their with blood from patients in the early stages of the disbloodstreams. On August 27, a mosquito that had twelve ease. On November 30, Reed began a third set of experidays earlier bitten a patient in his second day of illness ments to determine whether contaminated clothing and was allowed to feed on Carroll. Within three days, bedding could transmit yellow fever: Seven men slept Carroll became seriously ill with yellow fever. Although each night with soiled sheets, pillowcases, and blankets
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Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever taken from the fellow fever ward of the hospital. All seven men remained completely healthy. For his final experiment, Reed constructed a mosquitoproof frame building with a center wire screen partition. Each side of the building was occupied by a nonimmune volunteer, yet on one side of the partition mosquitoes that had fed on yellow fever patients were released. As expected, the volunteer bitten by the mosquitoes became ill while the one on the other side of the partition remained healthy. The Yellow Fever Board was now satisfied with its experiments. On February 4, 1901, Reed reported the results of the board’s findings at the Pan-American Medical Congress held in Havana. This report was then published in the February 16, 1901, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The mosquito was clearly established as the vector in the transmission of some unknown agent that produced yellow fever. (The discovery of the yellow fever virus was almost thirty years away.) Significance Given the Yellow Fever Board’s findings, it was clear that the way to control yellow fever was to eliminate exposure to mosquitoes. Gorgas quickly set out to do just that by protecting infected patients from mosquito bites and by eliminating places that encourage mosquitoes to breed. In March, 1901, Gorgas launched a house-tohouse attack on mosquitoes. All water containers were to be emptied, covered, or layered with kerosene. Failure to comply meant a ten-dollar fine. Gorgas’s tactics were first met with derision by the populace; however, during the summer of 1901, the number of yellow fever cases in Havana was drastically reduced, and by October, for the first time in decades, no cases were being reported. Within a few years, the entire Western Hemisphere was for the most part rid of yellow fever. One of the most significant consequences of the elimination of yellow fever was that it again became possible to consider building a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The French had started this project in 1881 but had abandoned it because of the deaths of more than twenty thousand workers from yellow fever. Gorgas was promoted to colonel and made the chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone. In the spring of 1904, with the disease that had caused the defeat of the French no longer a major problem, the project was begun. Gorgas was there to see the first ship go through the Panama Canal in 1914. The work of Reed and the Yellow Fever Board had impacts far beyond the reduction of morbidity and mortality from yellow fever. Yellow fever was the first hu46
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 man viral disease extensively studied, and the Aëdes mosquito was the first insect determined to transmit a virus to other organisms. Additionally, the board’s work marked the first time that medical experimentation was performed following a sound scientific method. The board members carried out human experimentation only after careful consideration of other alternatives. All experiments were carefully controlled, and the researchers kept meticulous records. Not only did Walter Reed’s work establish a basis for subsequent studies on yellow fever, but his methods also served as a model for medical experimentation throughout the early part of the twentieth century. —Daniel W. Rogers Further Reading Andrewes, C. H. “Yellow Jack.” In Natural History of Viruses. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967. This exhaustive book presents basic facts of the chemical makeup and nature of viruses in general and explains how viruses spread, how they perpetuate themselves in nature, and how they survive in hard times. The chapter on yellow fever includes the natural history of the virus in the jungle environment. Bean, William B. Walter Reed: A Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982. This very complete biography includes discussions of Reed’s childhood and work in the Indian wars. The information is taken from approximately fourteen thousand pages of letters, papers, and writings of Walter Reed as well as other sources. De Kruif, Paul. “Walter Reed: In the Interest of Science—and for Humanity.” In Microbe Hunters. 70th anniversary ed., with new introduction by F. Gonzalez-Crussi. New York: Harvest Books, 2002. De Kruif was a prolific writer on the historical backgrounds of numerous developments in medicine. Although short on details and full of fictional narrative, this volume presents the work of Walter Reed in a very readable, human manner. Kelly, Howard A. Walter Reed and Yellow Fever. 3d rev. ed. Baltimore: Norman, Remington, 1923. Kelly was the first biographer of Reed and provides some interesting insight into his early years. The major portion of the book deals with the work on yellow fever and its implications. Pierce, John R., and Jim Writer. Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Secrets. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Focuses on the impact of yellow fever in
Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation
the United States. Describes the debates that took place over the cause of yellow fever and Reed’s work to determine its mode of transmission. Reed, Walter, James Carroll, and Aristides Agramonte y Simoni. “The Etiology of Yellow Fever.” Journal of the American Medical Association 36 (February, 1901): 431-440. Reed presented this landmark article at the Pan-American Medical Congress in Havana on February 4, 1901. It provides some background as well as detailed information on all phases of the Yellow Fever Board’s experiments. The article was reprinted in the August 5, 1983, issue of JAMA (pages 649-658). Williams, Greer. “Part Three: Costly Victory—Yellow
Fever.” In The Plague Killers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Greer has drawn on previously unpublished material from The Rockefeller Foundation archives for this volume. He catches the personalities of the scientists involved and imparts a sense of the massive human implications of their work. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control; Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal; 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins; June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever.
February 26, 1901
Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation Financier J. P. Morgan, seeking stability for his steel, railroad, and financial interests, purchased Carnegie Steel, creating U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Trade and commerce; manufacturing and industry Key Figures J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), American financier Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), American industrialist and philanthropist Charles M. Schwab (1862-1939), American industrialist, partner of Carnegie, and president of Carnegie Steel and of U.S. Steel Elbert Henry Gary (1846-1927), associate of Morgan who served for years as U.S. Steel’s chairman of the board Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), chairman of Carnegie Steel and a U.S. Steel director George Woodward Wickersham (1858-1936), U.S. attorney general, 1909-1913 Summary of Event Formal incorporation of the United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) on February 26, 1901, was an epochal event in American industrial and financial history, merging Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire—the country’s largest—into a giant holding company assembled by the manipulative genius of J. P. Morgan, the nation’s most
powerful financier. Preliminary talks between Morgan and Carnegie interests became a prelude to serious negotiations on December 12, 1900, at Manhattan’s University Club. With Morgan seated next to him, Charles M. Schwab, an intimate of Carnegie and president of Carnegie Steel, delivered a speech contrived for Morgan’s ears. Schwab spoke of the prospects of an orderly, stabilizing, more efficient organization of the nation’s steelmaking capabilities, a reorganization that would end cutthroat competition and cure the industry’s cyclical depressions. Morgan was interested and convened a meeting at his home on Madison Avenue early in January, 1901. Attending were Schwab, who at his own risk had not yet reported events to Carnegie, along with Morgan partner Robert Bacon and financial speculator John W. “Bet a Million” Gates. Their discussions lasted through the night, concluding with Morgan’s offer to purchase Carnegie Steel. Shamefaced, Schwab conveyed word of Morgan’s proposition to his boss, who laconically asked his junior associate to meet with him the following morning. Overnight, Carnegie scribbled his calculations and weighed his options. He was close to absolute dominance over the American steel industry, which included Morgan’s own Federal Steel, the National Tube Company, and American Bridge Company. The last of those, like many other competing facilities, was overcapitalized and dependent on Carnegie for steel ingots, and thus was vulnerable. Carnegie already was committed to the 47
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation construction of huge new steel and seamless tube plants and was planning a thousand miles of rail line to challenge Morgan’s railroad interests, over which the two men had clashed years earlier and about which Morgan had insulted Carnegie. Also weighing against a sale to Morgan was Carnegie’s pride in the unmatched quality and efficiency of his operations as well as in the relative solidity of their financing. On the other hand, Carnegie was sixty-five years old. For his own sake and his wife’s, he was eager to retire. His wealth was practically boundless, and he was eager to work as hard giving it away as he had earning it. His philanthropies, along with his golf, were passions. He wanted nothing more to do with the operations of, or financial holdings in, his industrial empire, desiring instead to convert his wealth into easily negotiable securities that would transfer simply to his existing and prospective charities, organizations, and endowments. With these things in mind, he decided to sell. Estimating that an acceptable price would be $480 million, he had Schwab deliver news of his decision to Morgan, who at once responded, “I accept this price.” Several days later, Morgan summoned Carnegie for a final meeting and handshake at the financier’s Wall Street office. Carnegie’s pointed response was a countersummons to Morgan for a meeting in Carnegie’s own West Fifty-first Street mansion. The two met there for exactly fifteen minutes, ending with Morgan congratulating Carnegie (erroneously) for being the richest man in the world. Details of the negotiation took a bit longer and were resolved by the principals’ respective boards and associates by February 26. On March 2, public announcements proclaimed creation of the United States Steel Corporation, a holding company trust. The U.S. Bureau of Corporations subsequently estimated the value of the U.S. Steel transaction at $682 million, but the declared capitalization in 1901 was $1.403 billion, making it the world’s first corporation of such immensity. What Morgan had sought in buying out Carnegie and fashioning the new trust was foremost, but not solely, restriction of competition. Morgan enjoyed a superior university education as well as considerable knowledge of Great Britain and of Europe. Only two years younger than Carnegie, the acknowledged leader of American capitalists, he was an accomplished banker-financier whose gold, loans, and securities offerings had launched, backed, or helped fight many of the country’s major industrial empires. In 1895, his actions had even saved the U.S. federal government from acute financial embarrassment. 48
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 A logical thinker, an orderly, meticulous planner with a penchant for bringing greater coherence and predictability to the country’s economic life while promoting his own legitimate profits, he detested cutthroat competition and the disorder and unpredictability attending it. Carnegie, in his opinion, was one of industry’s rogues, prone to underpricing his goods during economic downturns and forgoing profits to keep plants in operation while in the meantime driving his scrambling competitors to the wall. Moreover, Carnegie’s plans for a giant new pipe and tube plant at Conneaut Harbor, Ohio, and Morgan’s suspicion that Carnegie intended to shift his steel mills into production of finished products and build railroads confronted the financier with prospects of renewed industrial warfare, with its accompanying chaos and costs. The purchase also afforded Morgan opportunities to proceed with a full-scale rationalization and vertical integration of steelmaking and closely related industries. With his massive new cartel-like corporation and his ability to draft into its direction the tested capacities of such men as Schwab, Elbert Henry Gary, and Henry Clay Frick, Morgan appeared able to turn his priorities into realities. Under the rubric of U.S. Steel were half of the twenty major business combinations formed between 1897 and 1901, during the opening years of the nation’s greatest wave of mergers. Seven-tenths of the country’s steel concerns, including twelve of its biggest producers, had joined in Morgan’s grand merger. The capacities of these huge companies were augmented by the inclusion of 138 firms of varying size. Significance Despite its formidable potential, U.S. Steel was far from being a monopoly. At its inception, it controlled only 44.8 percent of American steel production. It had plenty of competition from those steel companies that still accounted for more than half of the industry’s products, among them Bethlehem, Jones and Laughlin, Lackawanna, Cambria, Colorado Fuel and Iron, and Youngstown Steel and Tube. Consequently, the primary objective of Morgan’s giant firm was to further the integration of its own facilities while avoiding the renewal or exacerbation of cutthroat competition. U.S. Steel underwent expansion between 1902 and 1908. The objective was to enhance its independence from the rest of the industry through vertical integration of its operations; that is, the aim was for U.S. Steel to own and manage every constituent of production through to the finished products, including land, ore deposits, coal
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
J. P. Morgan. (Library of Congress)
coal deposits. Of all the purchases, the most important was the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. With headquarters in Ensley, Alabama, it was the South’s largest steelmaker, specializing in the production of open-hearth steel rails and accounting for 59 percent of U.S. production of this item. Equally significant, Tennessee Coal owned more coal and iron ore than any firm except U.S. Steel, and with its raw materials literally on site it manufactured steel at lower cost than anyone else. When Gary negotiated the purchase, the Tennessee company posed a real threat, for it was planning to double its steelmaking capacities. U.S. Steel’s own expansion was extensive. It built a large steel mill at Duluth, Minnesota, close to iron ores of the Mesabi Range. Through a subsidiary, it constructed a huge cement mill near Chicago. Nothing, however, matched the cornerstone of its growth, the world’s largest steelmaking facility. Technically the peer of any, the plant in Gary, Indiana, cost more than $62 million to build. Despite the immensity of expenditures for its new acquisitions and mills, U.S. Steel was able to pay them out of its profits. It realized a return of about 12 percent on its investments while increasing its capitalization. Notwithstanding these achievements, U.S. Steel steadily lost its share of national steel production to other companies. Competitors marketed 60 percent of American steel by 1911. In the meantime, the price of steel, which had risen shortly after Morgan created the trust, remained relatively stable during these years. Clearly, the earlier era of cutthroat competition had given way— although fears of regression remained—to an era of price stability and intraindustry cooperation, as Morgan had hoped it would. U.S. Steel appeared to produce below its full capacity, accepting lower profits in order to forestall outbreaks of price warfare. Industrywide cooperation and the stabilization of steel prices have been imputed to a number of causes, two of which were singularly important: the “Pittsburgh plus” basing point system and the so-called Gary dinners. Both had drawn the attention of federal antitrust investigators prior to 1911 and figured in Attorney General George Woodward Wickersham’s suit filed against U.S. Steel. They had also brought running attacks on the corporation by muckraking journalists, congressmen, reformers, and members of President William Howard Taft’s administration. The “Pittsburgh plus” basing point system meant simply that no matter where a steel product was manufactured and no matter where it was delivered, the quoted price plus rail charges was the same as if the product had been made in Pittsburgh and delivered from 49
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and coking properties, transportation facilities such as iron ore railroads and Great Lakes shipping, plants to produce heavy steel ingots, and mills designed to satisfy various specialty steel orders. By 1901, it was a common belief within the steel industry that the limits of the technically possible were being approached. Schwab himself had called attention to this purported fact. It therefore became trade wisdom that additional efficiencies and profits would derive chiefly from precisely the type of reorganization planned by Morgan. Furthermore, expansion and vertical integration, paralleled by managerial changes, meant that U.S. Steel divisions would no longer pay their potential profits to other firms for transforming raw steel into the thousands of products and specialties (most steel was produced for specific orders) that characterized the industry. Gary, the former head of Morgan’s Federal Steel and one of the principals behind the assemblage of the giant trusts, led U.S. Steel’s expansion, both organizational and geographic, as chairman of its board of directors. Between 1902 and 1908, U.S. Steel purchased seven major steel-related companies, among them Union Steel and Clairton Steel, with their substantial iron ore and coking
Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation
Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation there. Producers used this basing system to stabilize prices, but for many customers it purportedly resulted in geographic price discrimination. The basing system remained a matter of contention between the corporation and the federal government until the 1920’s. The Gary dinners, eventually abandoned while suits against U.S. Steel were pending, began on November 20, 1907, and continued periodically over the next fifteen months. They were designed to bring steel executives together, first to fend off their possible reversion to price slashing as a result of the Panic of 1907 and subsequently, with Gary taking the lead, to exhort industry executives to share information, to work for price stability, and, above all, to cooperate. When government suits to dissolve U.S. Steel on grounds of monopolistic practices were decided in New Jersey’s federal district court and reaffirmed in 1920 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the corporation was exonerated. It had strived for a monopoly, yet the fact remained that 60 percent of the nation’s steelmaking capacity was in the hands of its competitors. Similarly, its intraindustry exchanges of price information and the like were ascertained to be reasonable business practices. Essentially, the judiciary found U.S. Steel to be a “good trust” rather than a harmful monopoly. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Carosso, Vincent P. The Morgans: Private International Bankers, 1854-1913. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. Massive, authoritative, and fine reading. Surpasses other studies in use of fresh primary sources. Excellent on historical context. Good photos, extensive notes to pages in lieu of bibliography, and a valuable index. Splendid and essential, with detailed materials on U.S. Steel. Jones, Eliot. The Trust Problem in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1921. Old but useful analysis resting on public rather than private documentation. Chapter 9 deals with U.S. Steel in some detail. Sections discuss antitrust suits against the corporation. Informative notes and useful index. Ripley, William Z., ed. Trusts, Pools, and Corporations. Boston: Ginn, 1916. Valuable for U.S. Bureau of Cor-
50
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 poration documents and an essay by trust specialist Edward Meade. Chapters 6 and 7 concentrate on U.S. Steel’s organization, production, and prices. Useful for lay readers. Informative notes and good index. Sinclair, Andrew Corsair. The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. Briefer, breezier, and less authoritative than the Carosso book but a good journalistic review of Morgan and friends. In places warmer about the subjects than are more scholarly works. Interesting photos, chapter notes, and extensive select bibliography, useful index. Enjoyable and informative deployment of the Morgan papers. Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House, 1999. Comprehensive biography of Morgan offers insights into the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of the Gilded Age. Explains in easy-to-understand language the financial controversies of Morgan’s time. Includes photographs. Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Authoritative; written sensitively and well. Easily one of the best biographies of Carnegie. The book’s length should not discourage readers, for Carnegie was not only one of the world’s most powerful private citizens but fascinating as well. Fine photos, extensive notes to pages, splendid index. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: The American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Scholarly and authoritative. One of the best overviews of U.S. Steel’s organization and activities is in chapter 11. Updates events to the early 1950’s. Many notes and tables. No bibliography, but a fine working index. See also: May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company; Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Insular Cases
May 27, 1901
Insular Cases
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Henry B. Brown (1836-1913), associate justice of the United States Melville W. Fuller (1833-1910), chief justice of the United States John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), associate justice of the United States Edward D. White (1845-1921), associate justice of the United States Summary of Event In 1898, the United States acquired an overseas empire. Hawaii was annexed by joint resolution of both houses of Congress, and Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands were ceded to the United States by Spain under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the SpanishAmerican War. In a series of decisions known as the Insular Cases, the U.S. Supreme Court was called on to fashion a constitutional compromise whereby the territorial acquisitions desired by the national political forces would be rendered legitimate. The litigation is an excellent example of the flexibility of constitutional and statutory interpretation that the Supreme Court enjoys. The drive to acquire foreign territory was led by Republican chieftains such as Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, whereas opponents of “imperialism” were primarily Democrats. Much of the debate focused on the question of Senate advice and consent to the peace treaty negotiated by President William McKinley with Spain. One of the chief constitutional arguments used by the opponents of expansion was the slogan “The Constitution follows the flag,” which was designed to dramatize the impractical nature of the annexation of territory that offered no prospect of being organized into states. Anti-imperialists such as Senator George O. Vest of Missouri and Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts argued that the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to acquire territories to be held permanently in subjugation as colonies. The power to acquire territories, they claimed, was inextricably con-
nected with the responsibility to organize those territories into prospective states. Moreover, they argued that imperialism by its very nature was contrary to the republican form of government established under the Constitution. Anti-imperialists also cited the Declaration of Independence as a general indictment of colonial arrangements. Vest made another constitutional argument against acquisition of colonies when he interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment’s declaration that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The advocates of expansion contended that the success of the United States in the Spanish-American War destined the nation for a major role in world affairs and that it was naïve to postpone the acquisition of colonies. Apologists for acquisition argued that colonies would provide the growing United States with outposts essential to the nation’s security, ensure its control of the seas, and underwrite the steady growth of its burgeoning industry. Arguments in what the Court called the Insular Tariff Cases were heard for six days in January, 1901, and the Court’s opinions were announced on May 27, 1901. The principles set forth at that time also determined the outcomes of two other cases that had been argued in December, 1899. In DeLima v. Bidwell, the Court divided five to four on the question of the application of the general tariff laws (the Dingley Tariff) to imports from Puerto Rico following the proclamation of the treaty with Spain. In stating the majority opinion, Justice Henry B. Brown said, “We are therefore of the opinion that at the time these duties were levied, Puerto Rico was not a foreign country within the meaning of the tariff laws but a territory of the United States, that the duties were illegally exacted, and that the plaintiffs are entitled to recover them back.” In a dissenting opinion, Justice Joseph McKenna, supported by Justices George Shiras and Edward D. White, contended that Puerto Rico’s status as a foreign or nonforeign country had nothing to do with whether the tariff laws were applicable. It was clear, argued McKenna, that the island was not a part of the United States, and therefore the tariff laws should apply. Justice Horace Gray wrote a separate brief dissent. The justices who dissented in DeLima v. Bidwell were joined by Justice Brown in the companion case of 51
1901
The U.S. Supreme Court determined the constitutional status of overseas possessions of the United States.
Insular Cases Downes v. Bidwell and, as if to dramatize the judicial confusion, Justice Brown again delivered the lead opinion. The question in Downes v. Bidwell concerned the validity of a special tariff law applicable only to Puerto Rico (the Foraker Act). Justice Brown concluded a long opinion surveying the applicable precedents and practices with the declaration that the judiciary must be careful not to impede the development of “the American Empire.” The annexation of distant possessions “inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thought,” might some day be desirable. He continued: The question at once arises whether large concessions ought not to be made for a time, that, ultimately, our own theories may be carried out, and the blessings of a free government under the Constitution extended to them. We decline to hold that there is anything in the Constitution to forbid such action.
Brown went on to rule that Puerto Rico was a “territory appurtenant and belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States within the revenue clauses of the Constitution” and that the Foraker Act was, therefore, constitutional. In a concurring opinion supported by Shiras and McKenna, Justice White introduced his theory of incorporation, which subsequently came to be the prevailing doctrine. According to White, “Whilst in an international sense Puerto Rico was not a foreign country, since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United States, it was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense, because the island had not been incorporated into the United States, but was merely appurtenant thereto as a possession.” It followed from this, said White, that the constitutional requirement that duties be uniform throughout the United States was not applicable to Congress in legislating for the island. Justice Gray solitarily concurred and argued that the law was valid because Puerto Rico was in a transitional stage from conquered territory to statehood. Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller’s dissenting opinion in Downes v. Bidwell was supported by the three justices who, along with Brown, had made up the DeLima v. Bidwell majority: John Marshall Harlan, David J. Brewer, and Rufus W. Peckham. Fuller urged that the Constitution did indeed follow the flag, that Puerto Rico was not a foreign country, and that Congress had violated the constitutional requirement that all taxes, duties, and imposts be uniform throughout the United States. Justice 52
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Harlan wrote a separate dissenting opinion that, among other things, attacked the White theory of incorporation. Many constitutional scholars consider Harlan’s dissent to be one of the great opinions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Harlan asserted that it was not legitimate to argue, as the majority did, that Congress could take away some or any rights from territories of the United States. He held that the Constitution was in force wherever the U.S. flag had been planted. In the case of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, that meant residents of those islands had full constitutional rights and protections from the moment the Senate ratified the treaty making them U.S. possessions. That had been accomplished in 1899, with ratification of the treaty with Spain ending the Spanish-American War. Justice Harlan rejected the racist argument raised by some members of the Court, that the Filipinos and Puerto Ricans were “alien races” not covered by the Anglo-Saxon-inspired Constitution. He concluded his dissent with a warning: “The Constitution is not to be obeyed or disobeyed as the circumstances of a particular crisis in our history may suggest. . . . The People have decreed that it shall be the supreme law of the land at all times.” The majority did not accept Harlan’s view that once a territory becomes part of the United States, its people must have all the protections enjoyed by all citizens. Residents of the new island territories were denied equal protection of the law, chiefly because they were considered to be racially inferior and unready for most democratic rights. Thus, contrary to what Harlan believed to be the ideas of the Framers of the Constitution, the Court supported a policy that allowed people to be governed without their consent. Significance In subsequent cases dealing with the question of the Constitution’s applicability to territories, the Court was presented with questions having to do with the rights of criminal defendants within the rights of constitutional guarantees. Justice Brown again employed the extension theory in Hawaii v. Mankichi (1903) in finding that Congress had not extended the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to Hawaii. It was permissible, therefore, for Hawaii to try the defendant on the basis of any information instead of a grand jury indictment and to convict him on the strength of only nine guilty votes out of a jury of twelve. On the basis of his incorporation theory, Justice White agreed with this opinion, and this time he was joined by Justice McKenna. The next year, in Dorr v. United States, White’s incor-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Cabán, Pedro A. Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898-1932. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Addresses how the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico was formed following U.S. acquisition of the territory. Includes discussion of the impacts of the Supreme Court’s decisions in the Insular Cases. Gould, Lewis L. The Spanish-American War and President McKinley. Lawrence: University Press of Kan-
sas, 1980. Provides useful background material on the acquisition of U.S. colonies. Discusses attitudes of U.S. leaders that led to denial of equal treatment for Filipinos and Puerto Ricans. Henkin, Louis. Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Constitution. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Discusses how interpretations of the Constitution affect the ways in which the United States conducts foreign affairs. Includes information on the impacts of the Insular Cases on U.S. policy. Kerr, James E. The Insular Cases: The Role of the Judiciary in American Expansionism. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1982. A detailed guide to the intricacies of the Court’s decision making. Discusses the attitudes of all nine justices. LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898. 35th anniversary ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998. Describes the attitudes and beliefs of the supporters of expansion. A good summary of events leading to the Insular decisions. Ringer, Benjamin B. “We the People” and Others: Duality and America’s Treatment of Its Racial Minorities. New York: Tavistock, 1983. Massive work discusses the constitutional significance of the denial of rights in the Insular decisions. Describes the impact of those decisions on the peoples in the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Thompson, Winfred Lee. The Introduction of American Law in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, 1898-1905. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1989. An excellent guide to the Supreme Court’s various decisions and to the impact of the Court’s views on the citizens of U.S. island possessions. See also: 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States; 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy”; Mar. 2, 1917: Jones Act of 1917; Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act.
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poration theory was adopted by a Court majority; it held that until the Philippines were incorporated into the United States by Congress, the latter could administer the territory under its general power to govern territory and without honoring all of the applicable constitutional guarantees. Subsequently, the Court held that Alaska had been sufficiently incorporated to warrant application of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments; in Rasmussen v. United States (1905), the Court reversed a conviction of a defendant found guilty on the basis of a sixperson jury. In Dowdell v. United States (1911), the Court applied the same logic but reached the conclusion that the Philippines were not incorporated; therefore, it was permissible for territorial authorities to employ juries of fewer than twelve persons. Finally, in Puerto Rico v. Tapia (1918), the Court ruled that the congressional grant of citizenship to Puerto Ricans did not necessarily mean that these citizens were protected by the traditional constitutional guarantees. Alaska and Hawaii, the two territories that the Supreme Court found to have been incorporated, became states of the Union on January 3 and August 21, 1959, respectively. The Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands never were incorporated, although their inhabitants were declared U.S. citizens. Incorporation was never an issue insofar as the other minor possessions were concerned. —James J. Bolner and Leslie V. Tischauser
Insular Cases
Canada Claims the Arctic Islands
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 1, 1901
Canada Claims the Arctic Islands Following centuries of perilous explorations in the frozen islands and waterways by the United States, Norway, and Canada, Canadian explorer J. E. Bernier staked his claim on the Arctic at Melville Island. Locale: Canada; Melville Island, Arctic Archipelago (now in Canada) Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; exploration and discovery; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures J. E. Bernier (1852-1934), captain of the Arctic who placed a bronze plaque on Melville Island Sir Martin Frobisher (c. 1535-1594), English privateer and early searcher for the Northwest Passage John Davis (c. 1550-1605), British explorer who sailed past the entrance to Frobisher Bay and along the Labrador coast close to Newfoundland Sir William Edward Parry (1790-1855), British navigator who searched for the Northwest Passage Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), British admiral who searched for the Northwest Passage Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure (1807-1873), British explorer who reached Melville Island by sled in 1852 Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920), American civil engineer and explorer Matthew Alexander Henson (1866-1955), American explorer Summary of Event Canada’s claim to the Arctic received a significant boost when, on July 1, 1909, Captain J. E. Bernier placed a bronze plaque on Melville Island that declared the Arctic Archipelago to be Canadian territory. This action, however, was merely one of several that attempted to secure Canada’s claim to the frozen lands that extended from the Canadian mainland to the North Pole. The raising of flags and erecting of plaques, however, were largely symbolic events that carried little weight in international law. These lands were neither occupied nor administered by Canada. European exploration of the Arctic began in the time of Queen Elizabeth I of England, when Sir Martin Frobisher first looked for a shortcut—the Northwest Passage—to the East across the North American seas. During each of his three voyages (in 1576, 1577, and 1578), 54
Frobisher found the passage blocked by Baffin Island. He was followed by John Davis, who searched for a passage around the island in voyages during the period 1585-1587. During his trips, he found the area now known as the Cumberland Sound. With that discovery, Davis also found the entrance to a strait and sound through which Henry Hudson sailed in 1610. William Baffin and Robert Bylot returned to the Baffin Bay area in 1616 to explore the islands and channels leading westward, but because these channels, later named the Jones and Lancaster Sounds, were icy and foggy, the men believed that the bay did not allow passage. For nearly two centuries, this area went unexplored. In the late eighteenth century, however, Samuel Hearne and Alexander Mackenzie reached the Arctic headwaters on separate voyages. They learned nothing of the coastal areas adjoining either the Coppermine or Mackenzie Rivers and did not see any of the Arctic Archipelago, but they did see brief glimpses of Baffin Island’s east shore. The search for a Northwest Passage continued in 1818, when the British Admiralty sent John Ross back to Baffin Bay. Like Baffin, Ross believed that Lancaster Sound was a closed bay without passage into the continent. Sir William Edward Parry, however, proved that the sound was a western gateway to a sea that had been uncharted by previous European explorers. Parry sailed about 800 kilometers along the Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, and Viscount Melville Sound (known afterward as the Parry Channel), and he wintered on Melville Sound, where he could view the banks of the island across the ice-filled water. In a later voyage, Parry lost a ship to the ice as he entered Prince Regent Inlet. Up to that point, all exploration had been curtailed by the short, two-month summers, which created a very small window of opportunity in which explorers could search for a passage. Many locations were frozen for the entire year, and ships could be icebound for years at a time before they were released or splintered in the crushing ice flows. The ice, the harshness of the weather in general, scurvy, hunger, and all the other obstacles slowed attempts to find the Northwest Passage. From 1819 through 1839, canoe and boat parties farther south explored a channel along the shore from the Bering Strait to Boothia Isthmus. John Franklin sailed from English in 1845 with two Royal Navy vessels, and he attempted to enter Lancaster Sound from north of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Canada Claims the Arctic Islands
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Baffin Island. After Franklin failed to return, numerous rescue parties were sent out from England, and a great deal of territory was mapped during the attempts to locate Franklin, who was never found. During the 1850’s, other explorers continued to map the continental shore, Somerset and Victoria Islands, and the southernmost coast of Devon, Bathurst, and Melville Islands. One dramatic voyage involved the Investigator and its captain, Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure. He discovered Prince of Wales Strait and traveled through the Northwest Passage. Unfortunately, however, he put his ship into an icepack at the place where Franklin had been stranded. The ship was buffeted by gale-force winds and thrown onto its side. In September of 1851, McClure made it to the Bay of Mercy on the north shore of Banks Island, where he and his crew were stuck for eighteen months. They would have starved were it not for the arrival of a detachment from England.
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Many others attempted to map regions of the Arctic and to reach the northernmost point, including Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, who filled in many of the gaps in others’ maps and traced almost all of the coasts of the archipelago (up to 77º north) during an 1859 expedition. Areas to the north of McClintock’s expedition were explored by both Americans and Scandinavians, and the channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island and Ellesmere’s eastern shore were mapped in the 1870’s. In 1876, parties reached the top of Ellesmere and the northernmost point of what is now the Canadian territory of Cape Columbia. American explorer William Peary and others from Norway explored even more of the Arctic. Exploration of the Arctic regions had an air of competition. In 1903, a dispute between the United States and Canada over the Alaskan-Canadian boundary along the coast of British Columbia was resolved in favor of the United States, and this action only increased Canada’s 55
Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner interest in securing its sovereignty. J. E. Bernier left Quebec City, Quebec, on his ship the Arctic and sailed northward on 1908. His expedition claimed the North Pole for Canada on July 1, 1909, at Parry’s Rock on Melville Island. Shortly before that, on April 6, 1909, Robert Edwin Alexander Peary, Matthew Henson, and their Inuit guide had made their way north by dogsled to claim the North Pole at Ellesmere Island. Both nations continued to claim sovereignty throughout the twentieth century. Significance In attempts to improve the merit of its claims, Canada established Mounted Police posts on Herschel Island, Craig Harbor, Pangnirtung, and Dundas Harbor. In 1969, the United States sent the Manhattan through northern waters without permission and did so again in 1985 with the Polar Sea, implying its sovereignty. Travel in much of the region remained difficult, even with aircraft and icebreakers, and many impediments prevented the maintenance of significant settlements by either nation. Native peoples continuously occupied these northern areas, however, and began doing so long before Europeans began to arrive. — Lesa Dill
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bedesky, Baron. Matthew Henson and Robert Peary: The Race to the North Pole. New York: Crabtree, 2006. Account of the explorations of these two Americans aimed at young readers. Bertram, Colin. Arctic and Antarctic: A Prospect of the Polar Regions. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons, 1958. An older discussion of Arctic history and Antarctic and Arctic exploration. Confrey, Mick, and Tim Jordan. Icemen: A History of the Arctic and Its Explorers. New York: TV Books, 1998. Arctic history emphasizes explorers and their discoveries. Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape. New York: Charles Scribner, 1986. Discussions of exploration of the Arctic as well as commentary about the natural history of the region. See also: Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole; Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences; Dec. 14, 1911: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole.
August 30, 1901
Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner H. Cecil Booth’s invention of the vacuum cleaner reduced the hard labor of housecleaning and contributed to the improvement of health in homes and workplaces. Locale: London, England Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures H. Cecil Booth (1871-1955), British civil engineer and inventor James Murray Spangler (1848-1915), American janitor and inventor William Henry Hoover (1849-1932), American industrialist Hiram H. Herrick (fl. late nineteenth century), American inventor Melville R. Bissell (1843-1889), American inventor Summary of Event During earlier centuries, carpets were hung on walls as decorations rather than used as floor coverings. Most 56
floors were of uncovered wood, stone, or dirt, and the best way to clean them was to sweep them with brooms. During the nineteenth century, industrialization brought the invention of textile looms that were able to massproduce heavy fabrics that could be used for carpeting materials. Soon, the cost of mass-produced carpets began to drop as availability increased, and the occasional rug was increasingly replaced by wide area rugs in every room of the house. Housewives and servants cleaned these early carpets using small, handheld whisk brooms; they also took the carpets outside periodically, placed them over clotheslines or something similar, and beat them with brooms, wooden paddles, or tools made especially for carpet beating that consisted of large loops of wood, cane, or wire attached to a handle. This technique was pure drudgery, and, over time, it damaged the carpet. Efforts to find mechanical means of cleaning floors can be traced back to the early nineteenth century. In 1811, English inventor Jane Hume received a patent for a device that was designed to make sweeping hard floors easier. It was a box on wheels attached to a handle that
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
England, in 1901. H. Cecil Booth received the British patent for the machine on August 30, 1901; Booth described it as a suction dust-removal machine. Booth’s vacuum cleaner bore more resemblance to a modern lawn mower than to the electric vacuum cleaner of the early twenty-first century. It was large, with a five-horsepower piston-driven motor mounted atop the front, and as it was extremely heavy, it was very awkward to use. It should be noted that large, mobile industrial vacuum cleaners were in use as early as the 1890’s. These large suction cleaners were mounted on wagons pulled by horses and connected to the vacuum nozzle by long, flexible hoses that were strung through doorways and windows to reach the surfaces to be cleaned. These machines were used primarily to provide cleaning services for schools, hotels, theaters, and other buildings that were sites for activities that involved high levels of foot traffic. There were also smaller, nonelectric pistondriven consumer models available before 1900 that created more work than they saved for the homemaker. As a result, they were never accepted. Others were hand operated, with bellows for pumping air. There were vacuumbased air blowers and some cleaners that ran on compressed air. Booth’s vacuum cleaner, although cumbersome and difficult to manage, provided the basis for advancements in suction technology that were to come. Ten years after the Booth patent was filed, lighter-weight and more powerful electric motors began to appear. This meant that vacuum cleaners could be powered by motors small enough to allow a greater degree of portability. In 1908, James Murray Spangler patented a much smaller and more popular version of the vacuum cleaner. He later formed a business partnership with a cousin, William H. Hoover, to market the machine; the new enterprise was called the Hoover Company. Almost a century later, the Hoover upright vacuum cleaner was still an industry leader and distributed worldwide. In 1924, the first hand-luggable vacuum cleaner appeared, originating in Sweden. This early portable came with a flexible hose that could be attached for cleaning hard-to-reach places, furniture, draperies, and wall hangings. Other attachments came along over the years to suit the needs of the times, some using pulsating air to loosen dust and dirt and others employing special rake brushes to clean deep-pile shag rugs. Unlike many home appliances that have come and gone or evolved into contraptions that scarcely resemble their earliest ancestors, today’s vacuum cleaners are very similar in design to the Booth vacuum of 1901. They op57
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contained a pulley for operating a brush in the box that was supposed to pick up dirt and sweep it into the box. Unfortunately, the device did not work as well as the broom it was designed to replace, and it was never marketed. The basic concept was revisited often, however, as carpets came off the walls and onto floors. The first patent for a device actually called a mechanical carpet sweeper was issued to Hiram H. Herrick of Massachusetts in 1858. Eighteen years later, Melville B. Bissell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, came up with a design that worked on floors and had the added advantage of working equally well on carpets. The Bissell carpet sweeper became extremely popular, in part as the result of Bissell’s marketing acumen in addition to its excellent design. In 1896, four Bissell models were listed for sale in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. The Bissell carpet sweeper continued to enjoy a niche in the floor cleaner appliance marketplace long after the vacuum cleaner became ubiquitous in homes and is still available worldwide. The advantage of the Bissell carpet sweeper was its simplicity. It had few moving parts and anyone could use it. It emerged in an era when carpets were used as much for ornamentation as for practical purposes; therefore, the demand for greater efficiency—the mechanism’s ability to pick up more debris over wider areas more often—did not emerge until later. By the end of the nineteenth century, electricity was becoming widely available in the United States and Europe, and with it came many new gadgets that utilized this clean and relatively inexpensive source of power to run motors, to create heat or cold, to provide light, and to perform many other tasks. Some were used in industry, others in the home. Among the many inventions that found application in both places was the vacuum cleaner. The operation of the vacuum cleaner is based on a simple principle of physics. As air is forced from one place to another through the blades of a fan, a partial vacuum is created, and this causes more air to rush in to fill the void. As the fan blades push air out, more air is drawn in. The movement of air is continuous until the fan stops. Inside a vacuum cleaner, a fan forces air through an output valve at the same time it draws air through an input valve—the nozzle or business end of the machine. The suction thus created brings with it loose dust and other particles that are caught up in the rush of air through the system. Beater bars, brushes, and other devices loosen dirt from the surface being cleaned so that it can be drawn into the machine, where it is trapped in a disposable bag or other vessel as the air rushes through the output valve. The first home vacuum cleaner appeared in London,
Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner
Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner erate on the same principle of suction and are used for the same purpose: to eliminate dust and small particles from living spaces. Over the years, vacuum cleaners have increased in popularity as wall-to-wall carpeting has become more common in homes as well as in many commercial and institutional settings. As the technology employed to clean floors in the modern home and office continues to evolve, it is doubtful that Booth’s invention will be pushed aside by some newer, better way of extracting dust and dirt from carpeting. Indeed, the evolution of wall-mounted carpets of centuries past to area rugs, which were, in turn, superseded by wall-to-wall carpeting, has continued with the development of new flooring materials made for use outdoors, on patios, pool decks, walkways, and other areas subject to the merciless elements as well as foot traffic. These new exterior surfaces and the wall-to-wall carpeting found in millions of homes are here to stay. H. Cecil Booth will remain high on the list of pioneers who provided the inspiration for the development of the most useful modern-day home appliances. Significance As electricity reached more and more homes during the early twentieth century, the vacuum cleaner became the carpet sweeper of choice. Modern home construction often included built-in vacuum systems that allowed the operator to plug a hose into receptacles placed strategically throughout the house. Because the electric motor and fan design can be configured to operate at a wide range of suction levels, applications were found quickly for the vacuum cleaner in industry. As with most home appliances, continuous evolution of the technology has brought new uses for the vacuum cleaner. Today, vacuum cleaners come in many sizes and configurations, including wall-mounted, rechargeable handheld appliances that are useful for cleaning small spaces such as kitchen cabinets and automobile interiors. Miniature vacuum cleaners are used in high-tech industrial applications for cleaning dust and particles from microcircuitry, and very large vacuum fans extract and collect particles from the air in and around industrial manufacturing areas to protect the health of workers. Booth’s vacuum cleaner was the forerunner of a long line
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of innovations that made homes and workplaces cleaner and safer. — Michael S. Ameigh Further Reading Galvin, Vanessa, et al., eds. How It Works: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Vol. 19. London: New Caxton Library Service, 1977. Contains a good description, with illustrations, of the vacuum principle as applied in vacuum cleaner technology. Includes a series of early photographs showing horse-drawn vacuum machines and the first vacuum cleaner salesman. Grossinger, Tania. The Book of Gadgets. New York: David McKay, 1974. Interesting descriptions of a multitude of devices used in homes and offices. Includes a good discussion of the evolution of floor-cleaning technology. Includes index. Lifshey, Earl. The Housewares Story: A History of the American Housewares Industry. Chicago: National Housewares Manufacturers Association, 1973. Provides a detailed look at the evolution of the vacuum cleaner, its history, and its applications. Includes photographs, index. Newhouse, Elizabeth L., ed. Inventors and Discoverers: Changing Our World. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2000. A heavily illustrated survey of the evolution of technology from the steam age in the early nineteenth century to the modern age. Russell, Loris S. Handy Things to Have Around the House. Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1979. An interesting survey of the history of a wide variety of household appliances, including vacuum cleaners. Includes numerous photographs and design specifications. Includes index and list of significant patents. See also: 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced; May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex; 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods; Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President
September 14, 1901
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President
Locale: Buffalo, New York; Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; terrorism
Orville Platt (1827-1905), U.S. senator from Connecticut John Coit Spooner (1843-1919), U.S. senator from Wisconsin Leon Czolgosz (1873-1901), American anarchist who assassinated McKinley
Key Figures William McKinley (1843-1901), president of the United States, 1897-1901 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), vice president under McKinley and president of the United States, 19011909 Marcus A. Hanna (1837-1904), U.S. senator from Ohio Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915), U.S. senator from Rhode Island William Boyd Allison (1829-1908), U.S. senator from Iowa
Summary of Event Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency after the death of President William McKinley. At Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, had shot and seriously wounded McKinley while the president was in a receiving line at the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition. When Vice President Roosevelt rushed to the side of the stricken chief executive, the president’s doctors informed him that, despite the severity of the bullet wound to the stomach, McKinley appeared likely to recover. In a move designed to restore public confidence, Roosevelt left shortly McKinley’s Assassin thereafter for a mountain-climbing President McKinley’s assassin was a withdrawn young man by the name of expedition in New York’s AdironLeon Czolgosz, an alienated anarchist who had used the alias “Fred Nieman” dacks. McKinley weakened during (meaning “no man” in German) to refer to his lack of acceptance by the far-left the next several days, however, and radicals among whom he sought acceptance. Suspicious of Czolgosz, Abraby September 13, Roosevelt learned ham Isaak, the editor of the radical periodical Free Society, issued a warning in from a special messenger that the his paper regarding the possibility that Leon Czolgosz might be a spy in their president was dying. Roosevelt midst: rushed back to Buffalo by buckboard and train, but he was unable to reach Attention! the city before McKinley’s death The attention of the comrades is called to another spy. He is well early on the morning of September dressed, of medium height, rather narrow shouldered, blond, and about 14. That afternoon, Theodore Roo25 years of age. Up to the present he has made his appearance in Chisevelt took the oath of office of presicago and Cleveland. In the former place he remained a short time, while dent of the United States. in Cleveland he disappeared when the comrades had confirmed themRoosevelt promised to carry forselves of his identity and were on the point interested in the cause, asking for names, or soliciting aid for acts of contemplated violence. If this ward McKinley’s policies; such a individual makes his appearance elsewhere, the comrades are warned in pledge was necessary because suspiadvance and can act accordingly. cions about Roosevelt’s reliability as a Republican pervaded the leaderIronically, Czolgosz was no government spy: Inspired by the assassination of ship of his party. During his rise to King Humbert I of Italy by another anarchist, Gaetano Bresci, Czolgosz benational stature in the 1890’s, Roolieved that the wealthy and rotund McKinley was indifferent to the plight of the sevelt had often disagreed with the working class and on September 6, 1901, shot McKinley at point-blank range party regulars over issues and tacas the president was greeting people in a receiving line during the Pantics, and he had gained a reputation American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley died eight days later, whereupon Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency, just a as an impetuous politician. Many few weeks before his forty-third birthday. party members saw him as too young and untested to succeed McKinley 59
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The assassination of President William McKinley required the young, exuberant vice president to assume the presidency.
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and win the presidency on his own in 1904. His heroism by federal authorities gave him an attractive but perilous in the Spanish-American War and his record as governor opportunity for leadership. He identified himself with of New York during 1899-1900 had brought him the the reform campaigns that historians have called Pronomination as vice president in 1900. Party elders had gressivism and became the national spokesman for the assumed that Roosevelt had been safely sidetracked for a effort to purify U.S. life of the excesses of industrializasecond McKinley administration. Now he was president tion. of the United States. President Roosevelt attacked his problems with skill In terms of immediate political realities, the new presand energy. He believed that Washington should address ident faced a complex situation. McKinley had been a economic issues, such as the rise of big business, with successful president who had enjoyed good relations national power to demonstrate the authority and supremwith Congress. The nation was at peace and prosperous. acy of the federal government. In March, 1902, he orRoosevelt could build on these political assets to his own dered the U.S. attorney general to file an antitrust suit unadvantage if he made a successful transition to the White der the Sherman Antitrust Act against the Northern House. Elevated to the highest office by tragedy, he Securities Company, a giant and unpopular holding comneeded to establish his capacity to govern effectively. pany for powerful railroads. The U.S. Supreme Court Within the Republican Party, he faced a possible chalsustained Roosevelt’s position in 1904. The initiative eslenge to his leadership from McKinley’s close friend tablished Roosevelt as an opponent of excessive corpoSenator Marcus A. Hanna of Ohio. Hanna disclaimed rate power. Later in 1902, he intervened personally in the any presidential ambitions, but Roosevelt was wary; he hoped to gain the senator’s support for his candidacy in 1904. Roosevelt knew of the power of the Republican senatorial leadership, embodied in “The Four”: Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich of Rhode Island, William Boyd Allison of Iowa, Orville Platt of Connecticut, and John Coit Spooner of Wisconsin. Roosevelt deferred to these party elders on such issues as the protective tariff and sought to work with Congress during his first years in office. Roosevelt came to power at a time when issues of political and economic reform were growing increasingly pressing in the United States. The rise of large industrial corporations and urban centers confronted the nation with the question of whether the national government should regulate business to produce a more just and equitable society. On the city and state levels, reform mayors and governors were advancing programs to pursue social justice for those left behind by the new industrial society. Roosevelt had been a President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a speech in New Castle, Wyoming, in 1903. leader in this process as governor of (Library of Congress) New York. The demand for action 60
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Significance Roosevelt proved to be a charismatic, strong president. He showed how a dynamic leader can use publicity and his personal popularity to deal effectively with Congress and function as a world leader. He succeeded in persuading the American people of the need at that time for a stronger national government. Perhaps his most visionary accomplishment was the advancement of the conservation movement, which alerted Americans to the need
to manage the nation’s natural resources with intelligence and foresight. In all these achievements, Roosevelt focused attention on the office of the presidency and himself, setting an example for future occupants of the White House. —Lewis L. Gould and Rex O. Mooney Further Reading Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. Good brief introduction to Roosevelt’s historical importance. Includes several interesting chapters on the impact of his presidency. Brands, H. W. T. R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Iconoclastic biography of Theodore Roosevelt. Cooper, John Milton. The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. 1985. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2004. A comparative study of the two major Progressive presidents. Presents insightful commentary about the impression Roosevelt made as president. Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Looks at the entire scope of Roosevelt’s presidential tenure. Extensive coverage of the transition from McKinley to Roosevelt. Harbaugh, William H. Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. 1961. Reprint. Newtown, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 1997. Excellent biography includes discussion of the impact of Roosevelt’s accession to the presidency in 1901. Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. Prizewinning account of Roosevelt’s early life ends with McKinley’s death and Roosevelt’s taking the oath of office as president. _______. Theodore Rex. New York: Random House, 2001. Focuses on Roosevelt’s presidential years. Makes use of Roosevelt’s private and presidential papers as well as other archives to create a complete portrait of the man. See also: 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States; May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture; Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit 61
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Anthracite Coal Strike, a dispute that threatened fuel shortages during the winter, in a way that was evenhanded toward business and labor. He was the first president to recognize organized labor as a legitimate element in making governmental decisions. Roosevelt called this approach the Square Deal. These actions ensured that Roosevelt received his party’s presidential nomination in 1904 and defused a possible challenge from Senator Hanna. Roosevelt then secured a stunning landslide victory over his outmatched Democratic opponent, Alton B. Parker of New York, in the 1904 presidential election. He was, he said at the time, now president in his own right. Roosevelt also acted forcefully in foreign affairs. To speed the construction of a transoceanic canal, he backed the actions of a revolutionary junta in Panama in 1903 and cleared the way for the construction of the Panama Canal during his second term. In the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, announced in 1904, he claimed for the United States the right to intervene elsewhere in Latin America in order to maintain the status quo. Roosevelt also acted as peacemaker during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, a mediation that succeeded and won for him the Nobel Peace Prize. He mixed energy with acumen in foreign policy and achieved a central role on the international stage. He was careful in his use of power, however, and was less warlike than his later reputation suggested. As he put it in a famous phrase, he aimed to speak softly but carry a big stick. In his second term, Roosevelt carried forward a campaign of strengthening the authority of the national government to regulate business in the public interest. He pushed through legislation to curb the power of the railroads in the Hepburn Act of 1906, to oversee the quality of drugs offered for consumer purchase in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and to oversee the quality of meat sold in the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Because of such policies, he came into growing conflict with a conservative Congress by the time he left the White House in 1909.
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President
First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Yosemite; Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia; Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot
Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust.
December 10, 1901
First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded On the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, the first prizes that his will established were awarded—the Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature in Stockholm, and the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Locale: Stockholm, Sweden; Oslo, Norway Categories: Science and technology; health and medicine; literature; organizations and institutions Key Figures Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), Swedish chemist, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914), Austrian writer and peace activist Summary of Event The genesis of the Nobel Prizes has been traced to two newspaper items, an advertisement and an obituary. The advertisement, placed in a Vienna newspaper by Alfred Nobel in the spring of 1876, was for a woman with a knowledge of languages to come to Paris to serve as Nobel’s secretary and housekeeper. Countess Bertha Kinsky, then a thirty-three-year-old governess to the baronial Suttner family, had mastery of German, French, English, and Italian. After corresponding with Nobel, she went to Paris and charmed him, quickly becoming not only his secretary but also his friend. Although she left his employ after only a week (to marry Arthur von Suttner secretly in Vienna), she began a correspondence with Nobel that continued while she and Arthur were estranged from his family and, after the Suttner family finally became reconciled to their marriage, when she took up her position as Baroness von Suttner at the family estate. They corresponded about literature, which, next to science, was Nobel’s favorite interest (he not only read but also wrote poetry, dramas, and novels). Bertha von Suttner’s linguistic talents were much greater than Nobel’s, and her writings and involvement in the peace movement made her internationally famous. Through her letters, she shared with Nobel her hatred of militarism, and many scholars have seen her influence in this 62
area, both generally in the principles underlying the Nobel Prizes and specifically in the Peace Prize. The pacifism and idealism that Baroness von Suttner encouraged in Nobel received an added impulse from an obituary notice that appeared in 1888. Alfred’s brother Ludvig had died on April 12 of that year, but the author of the obituary confused Ludvig with Alfred, and so Alfred Nobel was able to read his own obituary. It was a disillusioning experience, for he found that people viewed him primarily as a merchant of death—not an inventor whose discoveries had been forces for good but one whose explosives had made war distressingly horrible. He had believed that his explosives would end war long before Baroness von Suttner’s peace congresses would, because these weapons would force nations to realize that increasingly horrible wars were ruinous ways of solving their problems. When he saw how the appetites of nations for wars were whetted rather than repelled by these new weapons, however, he came to agree with the baroness that more sophisticated and powerful explosives would not prevent wars. Nobel also began to think about how he could use his great fortune, amassed from selling explosives, to advance human understanding and love. In 1889, Bertha von Suttner published a novel, Die Waffen nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms, 1892), in which she depicted the devastating effects that war has on people’s lives. Her book was second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852) in the influence that it exerted on people, institutions, and nations of the nineteenth century. In his letters to the baroness in the years after the appearance of Lay Down Your Arms, Nobel referred to his weapons as “implements of hell” and called war “the horror of horrors.” Before 1889, he had derided most peace efforts, but by 1892, he was actively promoting various peace movements. In 1893, when he reached the age of sixty, his health started to deteriorate rapidly, so he hired Ragnar Sohlman as his assistant and drafted a will in which he left most of his estate to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Nobel’s will stipulated that the academy must annually use a part of the estate’s income to honor
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
the persons who had made the most important discoveries in science and, as Nobel put it in a letter to the baroness, to reward the person who had done most to advance the idea of general peace in Europe. While on a trip to Paris in 1895, Nobel canceled the 1893 will and wrote a new one that became the founding document for the Nobel Prizes. One of the notable differences between the new will and the old was the addition of a provision for a literature prize (Nobel wanted to honor idealistic writings). When the contents of this will were revealed after Nobel’s death on December 10, 1896, his relatives were shocked to discover that their share of his estate constituted a minuscule portion of Nobel’s total assets. Some of them brought suit to break the will, as did a woman who had had a relationship with Nobel, but these lawsuits never came to trial, as the claims were settled out of court through various grants. Finally, after three years of difficult negotiation, Sohlman, the chief executor, succeeded in getting the will accepted by Nobel’s relatives and in moving the prizeawarding institutions—the Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institute, and the Norwegian parliament—to establish specific mechanisms for nominating and selecting prizewinners. On
June 29, 1900, King Oscar II approved the statutes of the Nobel Foundation and the special regulations of the prize-giving institutions, and five Nobel committees began doing their work to select the first Nobel Prize winners. The Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the first Nobel Prize in Physics to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for his discovery of X rays. Although this discovery had been made in 1895 and Nobel’s will stipulated that the prize be given for work done during the preceding year, the physics committee interpreted Nobel’s provision quite broadly to mean that past achievements could be rewarded, given that properly assessing a discovery’s importance often requires tracing its influence over a period of time. The award of the chemistry prize to Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff was for discoveries in chemical thermodynamics and osmotic pressure made in the 1880’s; like their comrades in physics, the committee members for the chemistry prize felt that it can take longer than a year for a great chemical discovery to prove its worth. The first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was given to Emil von Behring for his discovery, ten years earlier, of the antitoxin against diphtheria. In the eyes of many critics and scholars, the award of the literature prize to Sully Prudhomme has proved to be the least worthy in this group of first Nobelists. The committee members mentioned Prudhomme’s “lofty idealism” in their justification of the award, but people throughout the world objected to the choice, pointing out the superior literary accomplishments of Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry, Thomas Hardy, Henrik Ibsen, and others. Close to home, forty-two Swedish authors and artists signed a tribute to Leo Tolstoy (who had not even been nominated). Many members of the French Academy had nominated Prudhomme, and their advice appears to have exerted a strong influence on the members of the Swedish Academy. Unlike the science and literature prizes, which were awarded in Stockholm, the Peace Prize was presented in Oslo by the chairman of the Peace Prize Committee in the presence of the Norwegian Royal Family. The recipients of the first Nobel Peace Prize were Jean-Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy. In 1864, Dunant had helped create, through his writings and other efforts, the International Red Cross, and this and his work for prisoners of war were seen by the committee as important contributions to world peace. Passy had founded an influential international peace society, and the committee probably chose him along with Dunant to emphasize the international character of the Peace Prize. The surprise at the 63
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Alfred Nobel.
First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded
First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded
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literature and peace awards were subject to more controversy than the Alfred Nobel laid the clear foundation for the Nobel Prizes in his will, which science prizes, because political facwas drawn up in Paris on November 27, 1895. tors sometimes affected decisions. Nevertheless, even for these awards, The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the followcommittee members saw it as their ing way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constiduty to recognize achievers who, actute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of cording to the consensus of the best prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatpeople in the respective fields, had est benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, done important, influential, and idewhich shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have alistic work. made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical disThe prestige of the Nobel Prizes covery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most grew rapidly, both because of the important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to pragmatic approach of the Nobel the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstandcommittees and because of the genuing work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done ine needs that the Nobel Prizes met. the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reBefore the Nobel Prizes, most awards duction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace conwere local, national, or narrowly disgresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish ciplinary. The Nobel Prizes, which Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska were intended to be truly internaInstitute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and tional, thus filled a niche, and the that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the prize committees became supranaNorwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy tional arbiters of achievement in the shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not. sciences, literature, and peace. The Nobel Prizes, however, were not alSource: Nobel Foundation. ways free from provincial or disciplinary prejudices. For example, several writers of national epics seem to first announcement of this award was its dual nature. The have been chosen for provincial reasons, and the rivalry idea of a divided prize was not in Nobel’s will but actubetween organic and physical chemists often played a ally originated with Nobel’s relatives, who tried to break role in the selection of winners of the chemistry prizes. the will and compromised in an out-of-court settlement. Nobel laureates have undoubtedly played an imporIn this settlement, they stipulated, among other provitant part in the development of the sciences and humanisions, that in no circumstances should a prize be divided ties. In an examination of the accomplishments of a very among more than three recipients. The selection commitsmall group of individuals and an even smaller number tee took advantage of this provision, which other prize of institutions, however, it is helpful to be aware of the committees have used many times since. richness and complexity of the evolution of science, literature, and peace. According to many scholars, the Nobel Prizes, taken alone, actually distort the understanding Significance of the histories of the various disciplines. In their deWhen the Nobel Prizes were first awarded, they did not fense, members of the various Nobel committees have have the great prestige that they later acquired. To help stated that their awards are not intended to give a balmake the prizes reliable symbols of significant accomanced picture of modern physics, chemistry, medicine, plishment in science, literature, and peace, committee literature, or peace. When the prizes are understood in members, during the formative period of the prizes, seterms of Nobel’s intention—to honor examples of the lected scientists, writers, and peace activists whose acprogress of human understanding and compassion— complishments had already brought them great fame. In they do give a sense of what achievements attained the this way, they added the glory of the winners to the prize greatest international recognition in their time. itself. This process was easiest to perform for the science The Nobel Prizes have honored only a limited meaprizes, as some objective measures of the greatness of sure of pivotal work in science, literature, and peace. In particular discoveries were available in these fields. The
Creating the Nobel Prizes
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the influence of Bertha von Suttner, that the evil consequences of his work seemed to outweigh the good, he resolved to set up prizes that would reward discoveries, writings, and activities that result in the progress of knowledge beneficial to humanity. Throughout his life, he felt that what really mattered was the quest for scientific knowledge and for creative expression in literary and human affairs. He called himself a superidealist and believed deeply that understanding would bring improvement; for him, growth in understanding and growth in love went hand in hand. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), Nobel was given a glimpse into the future evaluation of his life, and he was consequently able to change that life. As a result, each year on the anniversary of his death, prizes in his name are awarded that show concretely that his idealistic goals have an enduring ameliorative effect. — Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Bergengren, Erik. Alfred Nobel: The Man and His Work. Translated by Alan Blair. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1962. The official biography of Nobel, written with the cooperation of the Nobel Foundation. Weaves anecdotes and analyses into a mostly reliable account of Nobel’s development as a chemical inventor and industrial entrepreneur. Also deals sensitively with Nobel’s relationship with Bertha von Suttner. Crawford, Elisabeth T. The Beginnings of the Nobel Institution: The Science Prizes, 1901-1915. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Crawford had access to the early papers of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and its Nobel committees for physics and chemistry and makes good use of the information. An inside look at how academy members selected prizewinners during the first decade and a half of the Nobel Prizes in Physics and in Chemistry. Leroy, Francis, ed. A Century of Nobel Prize Recipients: Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2003. Following an opening chapter on Alfred Nobel, this book traces the discoveries and assesses the contributions of nearly five hundred scientists who have received the Nobel Prize in the fields of chemistry, physics, and medicine. Features chronological tables of recipients. Nobel Foundation. Nobel: The Man and His Prizes. 3d ed. New York: Elsevier, 1972. Written with the cooperation of the Nobel Foundation to commemorate the first fifty years of the prizes, this book’s editions have served as the institution’s official history. In addition 65
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itself, a prize guarantees neither the significance nor the immortality of the accomplishment honored. Indeed, in several cases the awards committees have been clearly wrong or wrongheaded. For example, over the years there have been many complaints about the Swedish Academy’s neglect of writers of the highest achievement—from France, Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry, and Paul Claudel; from Russia, Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, and Vladimir Nabokov; from Great Britain, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, and Graham Greene; and from Scandinavia, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. Instead of choosing these preeminent writers, committee members selected such provincial writers, now largely unread and forgotten, as Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan, Carl Spitteler, and Erik Axel Karlfeldt. In response to these criticisms, committee members have defended their choices. For example, they stated that Ibsen was not chosen because of his negativism, Strindberg because of his iconoclasm, and Hardy because of his lack of ethical idealism. Despite the infelicity of some of the choices, the Nobel Prizes serve an important social function in that they provide the world with a way to recognize achievements that have helped to advance human understanding. In addition to bestowing honor on scientists, writers, and peace activists, the prizes encourage the development of certain disciplines, institutions, and ideologies. In this respect, the prizes in literature and peace particularly tend to fascinate the general public. Committee members in these areas have sometimes used the prizes to attack political movements they viewed as retrograde; for example, many observers saw the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the German journalist Carl von Ossietzky as the Nobel Committee’s way of attacking Adolf Hitler and Nazism. More recently, many viewed the award of the Peace Prize to former U.S. president Jimmy Carter as an implied criticism of President George W. Bush and his policies in Iraq. In literature, committee members often use the prize to call the world’s attention to neglected writers and movements. The durability of any achievement in science, literature, or peace ultimately depends on the depth of its influence on human progress. In a sense, the Nobel Prizes embody the paradoxes that characterized Alfred Nobel’s life and work. He made many important discoveries and hoped that they would be used to advance human welfare. What he witnessed, however, was the use of his discoveries by unscrupulous people and nations for ignoble and destructive ends. When he saw, particularly under
First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded
Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays to histories of the individual prizes, the book contains a biographical sketch of Alfred Nobel by H. Schück and an essay on Nobel and the Nobel Foundation by Ragnar Sohlman. Riggan, William. "The Nobel Prize in Literature: History and Overview." In The Nobel Prize Winners: Literature, edited by Frank N. Magill. Vol. 1. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 1987. Informative essay provides background on the influences involved in decision making regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature. Sherby, Louise S. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-2000. 4th ed. Westport, Conn.: Oryx, 2002. Contains detailed information on Nobel Prize winners through 2000, organized chronologically by prize, as well as a brief history of the prizes. Entries include biographical details about recipients and lists of their relevant publications as well as summaries of their achievements. Features four indexes. Wasson, Tyler, ed. Nobel Prize Winners. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987. Profiles the 566 men, women, and institutions that received the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 1986. Selective bibliographies of original and secondary sources available in English are included at the end of each sketch. Also includes prefa-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tory essays on Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prizes, and the Nobel institutions. (Supplements to this volume have been published at five-year intervals since 1992.) Wilhelm, Peter. The Nobel Prize. London: Springwood Books, 1983. Presents incisive accounts of Alfred Nobel’s life and work and the history of the Nobel Foundation. Describes the foundation’s administrative functions, the nomination procedures, the selection process, and the ceremonies themselves. Also traces the personal odyssey of one Nobel Prize winner from the announcement of his award through the awards ceremony in Stockholm. Beautifully illustrated, with many color and black-and-white photographs. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize; Dec. 10, 1928: Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature; Dec. 10, 1938: Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
December 10, 1901
Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of a new kind of radiation that was emitted by a cathode-ray tube. Locale: University of Würzburg, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), German physicist Philipp Lenard (1862-1947), German physicist Heinrich Geissler (1814-1879), German glassblower and instrument maker Summary of Event Although atomism had been proposed by philosophers in ancient Greece, it was not placed on firm scientific foundations until the nineteenth century, beginning with the work of the English chemist John Dalton. During the nineteenth century, scientists investigated various properties of matter; in physics, this period was marked by ex66
tensive developments in the areas of thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism, and optics. Nevertheless, until the last decade of the century, the atom remained the ultimate, indivisible particle that its name implies. In the 1890’s, three discoveries were made that led eventually to the awareness that atoms have structure: the discovery of X rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895, the discovery of radioactivity by Antoine-Henri Becquerel in 1896, and the discovery of electrons by Sir Joseph John Thomson in 1897. The steps that led to the discovery of X rays began with the invention of the cathode-ray tube by Heinrich Geissler of Bonn, Germany, in 1857. The cathode-ray tube is a partially evacuated glass tube inside of which are sealed two metal electrodes. When a high voltage is applied across these electrodes, positive ions are attracted to the negatively charged electrode and the negative ions to the positive electrode. Because of the kinetic energy acquired by the ions, the molecules of the gas in the tube are excited and radiate electromagnetic energy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and their penetrating power. Consequently, in his first experiments he placed various obstructions in the path of the rays, such as a book and wooden and metal objects. He noted that the degree of fluorescence was little reduced by wood or by a book of about one thousand pages but that lead and platinum blocked the rays completely. Röntgen then placed his hand in the path of the rays and saw that there was a clear outline of the bones on the fluorescent screen. Replacing the fluorescent screen with a photographic plate, he produced the first X-ray photograph. Unable to identify these new rays clearly, he called them simply “X rays” to indicate that their exact nature was as yet unknown; in Germany, they became known as Röntgen rays. The first public announcement of Röntgen’s discovery was made in a brief note to the Physico-medical Society of Würzburg. Within the medical community, there was immediate recognition of the significance of this discovery for medical diagnosis. In January, 1896, an X-ray photograph was made in Paris of a hand with a bullet embedded in it. So impressive was the photograph that popular as well as technical journals immediately reproduced it.
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. (Library of Congress)
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of various wavelengths that are characteristic of the gas in the tube. Julius Plücker, also a professor at Bonn University and a physicist, became interested in Geissler’s tube and suggested a modification whereby the luminous discharge could be confined to a capillary part in the middle of the tube. Plücker was the first to observe cathodic rays (without identifying them) and their deflection in the presence of a magnetic field. Eugen Goldstein of the Berlin Observatory was the first scientist to use the term “cathode rays” in 1876 to describe the various kinds of radiation detected in the tube. Other scientists who used the Geissler tube were Johann W. Hittorf, Sir William Crookes, Heinrich Hertz, Philipp Lenard, and Thomson. Because Crookes had made significant improvements in the design of the tube, it became known as the Crookes tube. Röntgen began his auspicious academic career at the University of Utrecht in 1865, but he soon enrolled at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. There he worked under two famous physicists, Rudolph Clausius and August Kundt, the latter a brilliant experimentalist. After receiving the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1869 from the University of Zurich, Röntgen worked successively at the Universities of Würzburg, Strasbourg, and Giessen. Although his doctoral dissertation had been on the study of gases, he expanded his experimental work to research on pyro- and piezoelectric properties of crystals, surface phenomena of liquids, and dielectrics. In 1888, Röntgen returned to the University of Würzburg, having achieved a solid reputation as a physicist. By 1895, he had published forty-eight papers and had corresponded with eighty of the most prominent physicists of the time. In the 1890’s, Röntgen, like many of his contemporaries, decided to investigate phenomena associated with the cathode-ray tube. On November 8, 1895, Röntgen was working alone in the physics institute at the University of Würzburg, attempting to determine the effect of covering a cathoderay tube with a black cardboard box. He noticed that a paper treated with barium platinocyanide fluoresced, even though it was several meters away from the covered tube; as he was working at night and the laboratory was dark, he noticed the fluorescence easily. Lenard had discovered previously that cathode rays could penetrate a thin aluminum window at the end of a tube and cause fluorescence, but only up to a few centimeters from the tube. Aware of Lenard’s observation, Röntgen realized that he was observing a new, previously undetected kind of ray. He was impressed with the intensity of the new rays
Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays
Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
After the initial discovery, Röntgen measured the properties of X rays: their penetrating power, their ability to cause fluorescence, the refractive index in various media, and their reflectivity. As a result of further experiments, he distinguished between “hard” X rays, those that would penetrate very dense materials such as bones, and “soft” rays, those that would penetrate materials such as human flesh. In addition, he discovered that, although any solid body could be made to generate X rays when bombarded by the cathode rays, the most penetrating rays were produced when platinum was the target. When Thomson identified cathode rays as electrons in 1897, the basic mode of production of X rays—that is, by striking targets with high-velocity electrons—was clearly understood. As is the case with so many other scientific discoveries, Röntgen’s discovery of X rays depended on a con-
siderable amount of work done by his predecessors, but it is still reasonable to credit Röntgen with the clear identification of these rays. Nevertheless, because so many of his contemporaries also worked with cathode-ray tubes, it is not altogether surprising that some of them had, in fact, detected X rays without identifying them. The three physicists who did this were Crookes, A. W. Goodspeed, and Lenard. In 1879, Crookes noted that photographic plates lying near his cathode-ray tube frequently became fogged, but his only reaction was to return the plates to the manufacturers as being faulty. In 1890, Goodspeed of the University of Pennsylvania had virtually the same experience, but he also failed to investigate the phenomenon further. Lenard, in his extensive work with cathode-ray tubes, undoubtedly dealt with X rays, but he failed to distinguish them from cathode rays, which were later identified as electrons. In view of the widespread reception of the discovery of X rays and its recognized signifiX Rays and Research cance, Röntgen was awarded the Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s discovery of X rays was just the beginning of first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. X-ray-related research. Among the many scientists who have been awarded Nobel Prizes as the result of their research using X rays are the following: 1915: William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the determination of crystal structures using X rays. 1917: Charles Glover Barkla received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the characteristic X-ray radiations of the elements. 1924: Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn received the Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries in the field of X-ray spectroscopy. 1936: Peter J. W. Debye received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the determination of molecular structures by X-ray diffraction in gases. 1962: Max Perutz and John Cowdery Kendrew received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the determination of the structure of hemoglobin and myoglobin. 1962: Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice H. F. Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material. 1964: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the determination of the structure of penicillin and other important biochemical substances. 1979: Allan M. Cormack and Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of computerized tomography. 1981: Kai M. Siegbahn received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy. 1988: Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, and Hartmut Michel received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the determination of protein structures crucial to photosynthesis.
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Significance Röntgen’s discovery had an immediate and worldwide impact. The earliest record to appear in a scientific journal was published in the Electrical Engineer of New York on January 8, 1896, only two months after the discovery. In that year, more than a thousand books, pamphlets, and articles about X rays appeared. X rays’ mode of generation and their properties proved to be such fruitful areas for research that between 1896 and 1910, more than ten thousand publications were devoted to them. Röntgen and his contemporaries recognized the significance of X rays as a diagnostic tool for medicine. In addition to using X rays to examine broken bones, physicians began to employ them for other diagnostic purposes, such as to examine the spinal column for defects, to examine the skull to determine the cause of fainting or blind spells, to detect metal objects in the body, and to detect cavities in teeth. X rays helped
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Further Reading Beam Line: A Periodical of Particle Physics 25 (Summer, 1995). http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/ beamline/pdf/95ii.pdf. Special issue titled “One Hundred Years of X Rays” is devoted to discussion of the history and uses of X rays. Articles include “Early History of X Rays” and “Medical Applications of X Rays.” Features photographs, diagrams, and reproduced newspaper articles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Beam Line is published by
the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.) Bleich, Alan Ralph. The Story of X-Rays. New York: Dover, 1960. Provides a brief historical account of the discovery of X rays and their applications in medicine, art, crystallography, and industry. Intended for the general reader. Includes numerous illustrations, glossary, and index. Bragg, W. H., and W. L. Bragg. X-Rays and Crystal Structure. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1915. Written by the father-and-son team who pioneered the use of X rays to study the structure of crystals. Discusses the basic physics of X rays and crystals. Offers much information of historical interest. Includes many excellent photographs and illustrations. Dibner, Bern. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the Discovery of X-Rays. New York: Franklin Watts, 1968. An excellent account of the discovery of X rays. Begins with the contributions made by Röntgen’s predecessors and the influence other physicists had on him. Intended for the general reader. Includes many fine illustrations and photographs. Michette, Alan, and Sawka Pfauntsch, eds. X-Rays: The First Hundred Years. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Collection of essays published in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of Röntgen’s discovery of X rays. Reviews the history of scientific work related to X rays as well as modern applications. Includes an extensive glossary. Thumm, Walter. “Röntgen’s Discovery of X Rays.” Physics Teacher 13 (April, 1975): 207-214. Shows why the common characterization of Röntgen’s discovery of X rays as an accident is not really tenable. Notes the care with which Röntgen examined the phenomenon and the failures of his contemporaries to make the discovery although they were working with the same equipment. See also: 1901: Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp; Nov. 23, 1936: Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced.
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doctors detect chronic conditions such as arthritis, tuberculosis, and bone demineralization. Eventually, it was discovered that X rays can have serious negative effects on the human body. For example, they can damage reproductive cells, thus causing genetic diseases in subsequent generations. Röntgen failed to determine the exact nature of X rays, a task that Max von Laue, another German physicist, accomplished in 1913. Along with Walter Friedrich and Paul Knipping, von Laue successfully demonstrated the diffraction of X rays by crystals and showed that X rays are electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths be–7 –11 tween 10 and 10 meters. The work of these physicists was developed further by English physicist Sir William Henry Bragg and his son, Sir Lawrence Bragg, who used the newly discovered radiation to determine precisely the atomic arrangement of crystals. When X-ray spectra are produced, they consist of a continuous range of wavelengths as well as intense specific lines. The continuous portion, termed “braking radiation,” is caused by the decelerating electrons. The line spectra are given off by the atoms of the target metal as a result of the direct interaction of the bombarding electrons with the electrons of the target. The line spectra are known as “characteristic spectra” because their wavelengths are characteristic of the different target materials. From this fact, English physicist Henry Mosely concluded that X-ray spectra provide clues to the positions of elements in the atomic table. —Wilfred Theisen
Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays
First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 12, 1901
First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic telegraph signal sent without a cable, demonstrating that long-distance electronic communication through open space was possible. Locale: Poldhu, England; St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada Categories: Science and technology; inventions; communications and media; radio and television Key Figures Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian scientist and inventor James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), Scottish mathematician and physicist Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), American portrait painter and scientist who invented Morse code Joseph Henry (1797-1878), American physicist and inventor Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Summary of Event On December 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, to receive a Morse code signal to be transmitted to him from Poldhu, Cornwall, England, a distance of 3,440 kilometers (2,137.5 miles) across the Atlantic Ocean. Humankind was about to enter the era of worldwide electronic communication. The principles of electric telegraphy had been discovered in the nineteenth century, and for years individuals had worked to send the electric signal further and further through various wire conductors. According to David A. Hounshell of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of History and Technology: “The word telegraph originally identified a visual, manually operated signaling system, or semaphore, used to communicate information rapidly over a large distance.” In the nineteenth century, however, as research into electricity progressed, the term was associated with signals sent and received over wires and then without wires. Samuel F. B. Morse was an American artist and inventor who had sailed to Europe in 1832 to study art. On the return voyage, a fellow passenger and American, the chemist Charles T. Jackson, introduced Morse to the principles of electromagnetism, the basis for the telegraph. In 1835, Morse created a transmission device and a code, now known as Morse code (a series of dots and dashes representing agreed-upon alphanumeric sym70
bols), to be transmitted as an electric signal through a wire and received at a distant location. On May 25, 1844, Morse demonstrated the principles of telegraphy by transmitting and receiving over an electric telegraph line that was 64 kilometers (39.8 miles) long, between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland. From Washington, D.C., Morse transmitted this message in code: “What hath God wrought?” Morse was not alone in his work in telegraphy; he borrowed ideas from another American, the physicist and inventor Joseph Henry, who, in 1835, had invented an electrical relay that was the forerunner of Morse’s telegraph. Unfortunately, Henry did not patent his electrical relay, and Morse’s name is the one commonly heard today in association with the telegraph. The application of telegraphic principles proceeded on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1837, the Great Western Railway in England used an early telegraphic signal (with wires strung adjacent to railroad lines) to indicate train speeds. In 1852, Germany and France reached an agreement that allowed telegraph wires to cross their borders to carry messages. Morse and Henry as well as the Scottish mathematician and physicist James Clerk Maxwell and the German physicist Heinrich Hertz all made contributions to the achievement of Marconi. No researcher works in a vacuum; each builds on and borrows from the work of earlier researchers and contemporaries. Maxwell pointed out that electricity and magnetism are really an instance of a single form of electromagnetic radiation, and he demonstrated that what is called “light” results from electromagnetic vibrations of a certain wavelength. What followed from this mid-nineteenth century discovery was the further discovery that electromagnetic waves other than light waves could be propagated or transmitted through space. (In 1968, the International Astronomical Union adopted the figure of 299,792.5 kilometers per second as the speed of light.) As electric energy is transmitted through a wire, it does not travel at the speed of light; rather, it travels at speeds determined by the properties of the conducting medium and associated equipment. Materials such as copper and silver make excellent conductors, but resistance to the transmission of the electric energy is still present, as dictated by the laws of physics. If signals could be transmitted through space, without wires, they would be sent at the speed of light; this is what Marconi
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission
1901
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Guglielmo Marconi (left), with assistant George Kemp, receives the first wireless signals from across the Atlantic Ocean. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
accomplished across the Atlantic Ocean on December 12, 1901. After the initial successes of telegraphy by wire, individuals began to conceive of connecting networks of wires all around the globe. In 1850, a well-insulated copper wire was laid between France and England in the English Channel to carry telegraphic signals, and in 1854 individuals began to consider laying a wire cable across the Atlantic Ocean. According to James R. Chiles, “The first Atlantic cable, which took three attempts in 1857 and 1858 to lay, consumed 367,000 miles [590,503 kilometers] of iron wire and 300,000 miles [482,700 kilometers] of tarred hemp.” On August 13, 1858, President James Buchanan of the United States and Queen Victoria of England exchanged telegraphic messages via this first Atlantic cable. Queen Victoria’s ninety-word message took 16.5 hours to cross the Atlantic. The cable of 1858, however, worked for only one month, and in the 1860’s
two additional cables were laid across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1866, two functioning cables connected North America and England, and by the end of the nineteenth century more than ninety million telegrams were being transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean each year. In 1894, Marconi became familiar with Hertz’s work on generating electromagnetic waves through space by using a transmitter. Marconi conceived of the idea of using these waves through space as a transmission signal or a form of wireless telegraphy: The signals would go through space at the speed of light and not be impeded by the resistance of any wire conductor. While in Italy, Marconi worked on his transmitting and receiving equipment. After he received little support to continue his work on wireless telegraphy in Italy, he was persuaded to go to England to pursue his work. Marconi thought that the transmission of signals through space to be received by ships at sea would be of importance to a maritime nation. He went to 71
First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission
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England because that nation was the world’s greatest cated his earlier test by conducting a series of transmismaritime power, and on June 2, 1896, he applied for and sion-reception tests between the origination station in received the first patent for wireless telegraphy in the Poldhu and the S.S. Philadelphia, which was 3,232 kiloworld. meters (2008.3 miles) away in the Atlantic Ocean, but From 1896 to 1901, Marconi continued to experiment still some people did not think highly of his achievewith transmitting and receiving wireless telegraph sigments. One of Marconi’s daughters wrote in 1989 that nals over greater distances, utilizing the code developed her father’s “scientific work has not been without critiby Morse. In 1894, Marconi had succeeded in sending cism” and that the point his critics seemed to have in and receiving a wireless telegraph transmission 2.4 kilocommon was that “Marconi, rather than an inventor of meters (1.5 miles). He gradually perfected his techniques new devices, achieved his major successes by incorpoand was soon sending and receiving wireless signals over rating components already invented by others.” distances of 6.4 kilometers (almost 4 miles), 14.5 kiloCritics and disbelievers notwithstanding, Marconi meters (9 miles), 19 kilometers (11.8 miles), 50 kilomecontinued with his experimentations and transmissions, ters (31.1 miles), 121 kilometers (75.2 miles), and fiand by the end of 1902 the first official messages, not test nally, in January, 1901, on the south coast of England, he transmissions, were being sent across the Atlantic sent and received a signal over a distance of 299 kilomeOcean. By the early part of 1903, newspaper stories from ters (185.8 miles). New York City were being sent for publication in The Individuals expressed great interest in the ability to Times of London by means of Marconi’s telegraphy, convey messages even greater distances, and Marconi atwhich was undeniably built on the work of Henry, tempted his transatlantic transmission at the end of 1901. Morse, Maxwell, Hertz, and other individuals. Success was not guaranteed, and many thought he was A Nobel Prize, however, is not given to a committee, trying to do the impossible. At the transmission site in and in 1909, Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun shared England, Marconi erected a transmission antenna 48 methe Nobel Prize in Physics. (Braun was honored for his ters (52.5 yards) tall, consisting of fifty copper wires suswork on the first cathode-ray tube, which he had intropended between two towers standing 60 meters (65.6 duced in 1897.) As Marconi stated in his 1909 Nobel lecyards) apart. In Canada, during a winter gale, Marconi ture in physics: sent aloft a kite that had a trailing antenna that was 152 meters (166.2 yards) in length. He received the letMarconi’s Vision ter S on December 12, 1901, when Soon after he succeeded in his attempt to send and receive the first transatlanthe signal was sent from Poldhu to tic radio transmission, Guglielmo Marconi wrote the following description of St. John’s, a distance of 3,440 kilothe event and his reaction to it: meters. Significance When Marconi received the letter S, the world was forever changed, because the transmission of information was no longer limited to a distinct physical medium; information could now be transmitted through space at the speed of light. Even though Marconi was successful on December 12, 1901, he was challenged immediately by individuals and corporations who claimed that he could not possibly have achieved a wireless transmission from Poldhu to Newfoundland. In February, 1902, Marconi repli72
Shortly before midday I placed the single earphone to my ear and started listening. The receiver on the table before me was very crude—a few coils and condensers and a coherer—no valves, no amplifiers, not even a crystal. But I was at last on the point of putting the correctness of all my beliefs to test. The answer came at 12:30 when I heard, faintly but distinctly, pip-pip-pip. I handed the phone to Kemp: “Can you hear anything?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “The letter S.” He could hear it. I knew then that all my anticipations had been justified. The electric waves sent out into space from Poldhu had traversed the Atlantic—the distance, enormous as it seemed then, of 1,700 miles—unimpeded by the curvature of the earth. The result meant much more to me than the mere successful realization of an experiment. As Sir Oliver Lodge has stated, it was an epoch in history. I now felt for the first time absolutely certain that the day would come when mankind would be able to send messages without wires not only across the Atlantic but between the farthermost ends of the earth. Source: Quoted in Eyewitness to History, edited by John Carey (New York: Avon Books, 1987).
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Marconi’s telegraphic achievements coincided with other achievements occurring in electromagnetics. Sir John Ambrose Fleming became a scientific adviser to the company that Marconi founded, and in 1904 Fleming developed a “valve” that could control the flow of electrons in a tube. In 1906, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden invented a system to modulate electromagnetic radio waves that could be transmitted as a form of wireless telegraphy, and radio was thus invented. In 1908, the journal Nature published a brief letter by Alan A. Campbell Swinton titled “Distant Electric Vision,” and television as a form of “wireless telegraphy” eventually came about. The first public demonstrations of television occurred in England in 1926 and in the United States in 1927. Marconi’s contribution evolved into a global telecommunications system that allows virtually instant access to people anywhere in the world, providing they have the appropriate technology. Fiber optics now substitute for copper wires, and signals are transmitted through space at the speed of light to geosynchronous communications satellites orbiting the earth some 36,000 kilometers (22,369.4 miles) above the equator. Although the world has not diminished in size since Marconi’s time, it definitely has “shrunk” through the advances that have been made in the ways in which information can be exchanged and shared since that first transatlantic telegraphic transmission on December 12, 1901. —Charles F. Urbanowicz Further Reading Baker, W. J. A History of the Marconi Company. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971. An excellent book about Marconi and the company he created; it also places telecommunications activities into the context of the times, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1960’s. Braga, Gioia Marconi. “Marconi and Instant Global Satellite Communications.” In Space Thirty: A Thirty Year Overview of Space Applications and Explorations, edited by Joseph N. Pelton. Alexandria, Va.:
Society of Satellite Professionals, 1989. A short summary of Marconi by his younger daughter in a volume that looks at global communications. Chiles, James R. “The Cable Under the Sea.” American Heritage of Invention and Technology 15 (Fall, 1987): 34-41. This article (in an excellent journal on invention and technology) about the copper cables of the nineteenth century concludes with information on contemporary fiber-optic cables across the Atlantic Ocean. Dunlap, Orrin E., Jr. Communications in Space: From Marconi to Man on the Moon. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. This easy-to-read volume, by an individual who built his first wireless station in 1912, provides an excellent overview of progress in communications from the time of Marconi to space exploration. Franco, Gaston Lionel, ed. World Communications: New Horizons/New Power/New Hope. Navara, Italy: Franco, 1983. This coffee-table-style trilingual publication (English, French, and Spanish) provides an outstanding visual presentation of worldwide communications, with information on basic scientific discoveries that have contributed to telecommunications activities. Also provides information on contemporary organizations that regulate worldwide telecommunications policies. Hong, Sungook. Wireless: From Marconi’s Black-Box to the Audion. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Draws on previously untapped archival evidence and recent work in the history of technology to provide a new perspective on the early days of wireless communication. Offers new insights into the relationship between Marconi and his scientific adviser, Fleming. Concludes with a discussion of Lee de Forest’s audion and the shift from wireless telegraphy to radio. Hounshell, David A. Telegraph, Telephone, Radio, and Television. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977. This booklet provides just a small indication of the tremendous amount of information available from the institution that has been affectionately called “the nation’s attic.” In May of 1990, the National Museum of American History (part of the Smithsonian Institution) opened a new permanent exhibit titled “The Information Age” that covers the times from the work of Morse to twentieth century computers. Marconi, Degna. My Father, Marconi. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. For a warm and personal view of Marconi, this book by his older daughter cannot be 73
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The results obtained from these tests, which at the time constituted a record distance, seemed to indicate that electric waves produced in the manner I had adopted would most probably be able to make their way around the curvature of the Earth, and that therefore even at great distances, such as those dividing America from Europe, the factor of the Earth’s curvature would not constitute an insurmountable barrier to the extension of telegraphy through space.
First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission
Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway surpassed. She points out that on the occasion of Marconi’s funeral in 1937, international wireless operators throughout the world halted their transmissions for two minutes in her father’s honor. Shiers, George, ed. The Development of Wireless to 1920. New York: Arno Press, 1977. Twenty articles are reprinted in this excellent volume, including the 1909 Nobel lectures in physics by Marconi and Braun. Contains papers from Fleming and Fessenden. The introductory essay on the “prehistory” period of 1876 to 1920 provides a very good overview of the technical aspects of broadcasting history. Weightman, Gavin. Signor Marconi’s Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the Nineteenth Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003. In addition to describing Marconi’s experiments, this book focuses in large part on the competition that existed among the various inventors who were pursuing the goal of wireless communications at the same time as Marconi. Includes photographs. See also: Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded.
December 19, 1901
Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway The building of a railroad across Africa’s Rift Valley radically altered the lives of millions of people. It shifted the focus of British political and economic activity from the coast to the interior highlands and was a catalyst for bloody rebellions and a massive migration of people both within the region and from India to Africa. Also known as: Uganda Railroad; Rift Valley Railway; Lunatic Line; Lunatic Express Locale: Kenya Categories: Transportation; colonialism and occupation Key Figures William MacKinnon (1823-1893), British executive of the Imperial British East Africa Company who spearheaded the railroad’s proposal and pressured the government for support Lord Lugard (Frederick John Dealtry Lugard; 18581945), British officer who brought Uganda into the Empire and convinced the British public to support the railroad William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), prime minister of Great Britain, 1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886, and 1892-1894 Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery (1847-1929), foreign secretary under Gladstone, 1892-1894, and prime minister of Great Britain, 1894-1895 Third Marquis of Salisbury (Robert Cecil; 1830-1903), 74
prime minister of Great Britain, 1885-1886, 18861892, and 1895-1902 Henry Du Pré Labouchere (1831-1912), British diplomat, journalist, and a radical liberal politician who served in Parliament and was famous for his wicked wit and sharp debates J. H. Patterson (1867-1947), British lieutenant colonel who supervised the building of the bridge over the Tsavo River and hunted the lions of Tsavo Summary of Event December 19, 1901, was a day of celebration for the British in present-day Uganda and Kenya: The last spike in the Uganda Railroad was hammered home by Florence Preston, the wife of one of the engineers. This event marked the completion of one of the most extraordinary railroad projects in the world, and soon afterward the little town of Kisumu on the eastern shores of Lake Victoria was renamed Port Florence. It had taken six years to build six hundred miles of track from the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa to the lake, and the railroad’s workers had been forced to contend with the dangers posed by lions and by the nearly vertical slopes on which parts of the railroad were constructed. Eventually, extensions to the original line were added, and the terminus recovered its name of Kisumu. Political manipulation and unsettled domestic issues dominated the British parliament at the end of the nineteenth century, and this had a significant affect on the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway
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sionaries and further their evangelism. building of the railroad. Three different prime minisMacKinnon hoped that the many advantages he proters—William E. Gladstone, Archibald Philip Primrose posed would draw support from many quarters. UnfortuRosebery (fifth earl of Rosebery), and Robert Cecil nately, Salisbury’s government collapsed in 1892, and (third marquis of Salisbury)—alternated power during Gladstone became prime minister. The three million the last decade of the century in a topsy-turvy manner. pounds initially projected for construction costs required The streak began and ended with the third marquis of an act of Parliament, but Gladstone was against further Salisbury, a Conservative leader who pushed for expanexpansion of the empire and refused to bring the proposal sion of the empire. Gladstone served his last term during to a vote. Meanwhile, Lord Lugard worried that his efthe period between Salisbury’s final two terms; he ran a forts in Buganda would come to nothing if the governLiberal government that argued for better management ment did not intervene, and so he went on a lecture tour of the empire and resisted expansionist policies. Roseand wrote a popular book to rally support. The tour was bery served as Gladstone’s foreign secretary from 1892 successful: Lugard spoke to large crowds of people who to 1894, but he was an expansionist in the Liberal Party. lobbied the government on his behalf. His manipulation of the Uganda situation contributed to The railroad’s prospects were further improved by the the fall of Gladstone’s government, and as a result Rosefact that Rosebery, Gladstone’s foreign secretary, supbery served as prime minister for just a year. ported the project. Rosebery publicly demanded that the The story of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway berailroad be built; if it was not, he said, he would resign gan with a petition to Salisbury’s government in Decemand take Parliament’s support with him. Gladstone ber of 1890 from William MacKinnon, the executive dicalled his bluff, a mistake that contributed to the collapse rector of the Imperial British East Africa Company of Gladstone’s government in 1894. Rosebery was able (IBEA). MacKinnon presided over an ailing company to succeed him as prime minister for about a year, and his that had a mandate to maintain a British presence in the first act in that position was to approve the rail project East African interior once Lord Lugard had defeated the (though its funds were limited). When Rosebery’s govkingdom of Buganda, near Lake Victoria in southeast ernment collapsed in 1895, Salisbury returned. With his Uganda. The cost of remaining in the region, however, support, sufficient funds were finally approved, and the was too much for the company to bear. To alleviate the project began in December of 1895. situation, MacKinnon proposed building a railroad with government subsidy. In his proposal to Salisbury’s government, MacKinnon outlined four Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 1901 benefits that a railroad would bring Sudan Ethiopia to the British government. First, a railroad would allow Britain to mainLake Turkana tain a long-term hold on Uganda, Italian which would facilitate its efforts to Somaliland British Uganda control the headwaters of the Nile East Africa River. According to MacKinnon, a Protectorate Kampala position at the head of the Nile would Kisumu Nakuru assure protection of the Suez Canal, Lake an important link between Britain Victoria and its wealthy colonial holdings in Nairobi ya ate India and the East. Second, it would or contribute to the demise of the reI n d i a n gion’s massive slave trade, since trains would replace humans as forms German O c e a n Mombasa of transportation. Third, the railroad East Africa would create trade in a region that the Europeans had long considered a = Railway route wasteland, and fourth, it would proDar-es-Salaam tect the newly arrived Christian mis-
Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway Throughout the years, there had been a tremendous amount of debate on the merits of MacKinnon’s proposal. One of the most vocal dissenters was Henry Du Pré Labouchere, a journalist and multiterm member of Parliament. His sharp wit captured the public’s imagination: He called the project the “Lunatic Line” and correctly predicted that it would cost twice as much and take twice as long as early plans projected. The train’s nickname evolved from the “Lunatic Line” to the “Lunatic Express,” and though this term was originally used as a pejorative, it gradually became a term of endearment. Over thirty thousand laborers from India were brought in to work on the line, and only twenty-three miles of track were laid the first year. Building a bridge from the island of Mombasa proved a greater challenge than expected, and immediately after its construction workers were faced with continuing the railway through the harsh climate of the Taru Desert. Once they crossed the desert, progress improved dramatically despite several outbreaks of disease such as malaria and smallpox. Workers also faced constant attacks by local peoples who feared that the new “Iron Snake” would only bring them grief. As the railroad rose into the highlands and then across the great Rift Valley—first down the Kikuyu Escarpment and then up the Mau Escarpment, the summit of which rose eight thousand feet—extreme conditions confronted them at every turn. Each escarpment had a nearly vertical slope of more than a thousand feet, so special inclines had to be designed to move the laborers, equipment, and supplies needed to build the trains’ viaducts. Fortunately, the cooler air and abundance of water made for more pleasant working conditions. The construction of the bridge over the Tsavo River Valley proved to be the most difficult segment. Two lionesses began attacking the workers, and more than 140 people were killed; several laborers were snatched from their camp at night and dragged to the lionesses’ lair. An engineer for the bridge, J. H. Patterson, stopped construction to hunt down the lions and had several neardeath experiences in the process. The bridge was not completed until he killed the lions more than a year later. Significance The railroad had a profound effect on East Africa. As a result of its construction, hundreds of thousands of native African people, such as the Masai and Kikuyu, were dispossessed by Europeans who wanted to establish coffee plantations and small towns. One of these towns, Nairobi, would grow so dramatically that it replaced Mom76
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 basa as a center of trade and became the capital of Kenya. Many of the settlers in these towns were Indian laborers who remained in the area after their work on the railroad was complete, and many more migrated to the region to take advantage of the growing economy. By the end of World War II, Indians were the largest foreign minority in the region, and they played a significant role in helping the African people fight for independence. The railroad was critical to the acquisition of Britain’s last major colonial outposts. Unfortunately for the independent nations of Kenya and Uganda, the railroad could not be effectively used for further economic development because the tracks on the extensions were of different gauges, and all of the gauges were too narrow for modern locomotives. Trips were frequently run for tourists, but they could not support the cost of running the line, and it went deep into debt. In October of 2005, the line was sold to the highest bidder, the South African-led consortium Sheltam Trade Close Corporation, and it was renamed the Rift Valley Railway. — Carolyn V. Prorok Further Reading “All Aboard the Lunatic Express.” Economist 377 (October 22, 2005). Reviews the privatization of the railroad by Kenya and Uganda since the line was sold to a South African company. Jacobs, Francine. Fire Snake: The Railroad That Changed East Africa. London: William Morrow, 1980. Gives an overview of the construction of the railroad, that goes into detail concerning the social, political, and economic effects of the railroad in twentieth century East Africa. Miller, Charles. The Lunatic Express. New York: Macmillan, 1971. An in-depth analysis of British colonial politics in East Africa leading to the building of the railroad. Miller emphasizes the railroad’s extraordinary political and economic payoff and compares it to endeavors by other European colonies on the African continent. Patterson, J. H. The Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo. 1907. Reprint. New York: Kessinger, 2004. Nail-biting account of the famous hunt for the lions that terrorized the railroad workers for more than a year, by the hunter himself. See also: Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria; 1916: Completion of the TransSiberian Railroad; Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion; Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity
1902
Bateson Publishes MENDEL’S PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY In his book Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, William Bateson clarified the importance of Gregor Mendel’s 1866 research findings concerning the inheritance of characteristics in plants.
Key Figures William Bateson (1861-1926), English geneticist and evolutionist Hugo de Vries (1848-1935), Dutch botanist and horticulturist Carl Erich Correns (1864-1933), German botanist Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg (1871-1962), Austrian botanist and plant breeder Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Austrian teaching monk and botanist Summary of Event Before 1900, some investigators of heredity concluded that its mechanism is not a blending of characteristics, as was generally thought, but rather that the characteristics are particulate and unchanged by mixing with others, reappearing unchanged in future generations. That is, inheritance operates in a way similar to the combining of various colored balls rather than to the mixing of different colored liquids. In 1900, three of these scientists who were studying plant crosses, Hugo de Vries, Carl Erich Correns, and Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg, independently discovered that in 1866 Gregor Mendel had published a paper giving this particulate explanation along with the regular ratios for the appearance of contrasting characteristics in garden peas over several generations. In the first generation of such a cross, only one trait that was termed dominant, of a pair of contrasting ones, was found in all of the offspring. This is usually known as Mendel’s law of dominance. In the second and succeeding generations, the lost trait, termed recessive, would appear in some individuals. In the second inbred generation, it would show up in one-fourth of the offspring of self-pollinated (or selfed) plants. After the second generation, only twothirds of the dominant-appearing plants carried the recessive traits; the other one-third were pure dominants. Those that carried the recessive traits would have them
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Locale: Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Tübingen, Germany; Vienna, Austria Categories: Science and technology; biology; genetics
show up in one-fourth of their offspring when selfed. Those that were pure dominants would breed true and show only that trait in future selfed generations. Further, in crosses in which several traits were followed at the same time, each one of them was inherited independent of the others, and each showed these same ratios. This result is called Mendel’s law of independent assortment. As early as the eighteenth century, a number of plant hybridizers had noticed the uniformity of the first-generation offspring of a hybrid cross and the lack of uniformity in succeeding generations. None of them noticed that the individual traits were inherited in a systematic way that could be described as percentages or ratios. Mendel was thus unique in keeping careful records of each trait in each generation and in using mathematical ratios to characterize traits. He also noted that it did not matter which trait was examined; all traits behaved in the same manner. In the initial crossing of the two types, it did not matter from which parent the pollen or ovules came. De Vries, who in 1900 was a professor at Amsterdam University in the Netherlands, realized as early as 1889, when he published a book titled Intracelluläre pangenesis (Intracellular Pangenesis, 1910), that one could best discover the key to understanding plant heredity and evolution by hybridizing different types of plants and studying the characteristics of their offspring over several generations. In the following years, he made many such crosses using a wide variety of flowering plants in order to study his hypothesized “pangenes,” or particles that he thought carried the hereditary information. Also, he was interested in sudden changes in plants from one generation to the next, called saltation or mutation. He thought that new species could originate in that manner. In his crosses, de Vries found that the first generation exhibited only one of a pair of contrasting traits and that the second generation had about one-fourth with the lost trait. Sometime before March, 1900, he discovered that Mendel had explained this for peas in 1866; thus he had rediscovered Mendel’s ratios. In March, de Vries submitted a paper for publication in which he reported his ratios for many different kinds of plants and in a footnote referred to Mendel’s original publication. Because of this, he was the first person to be credited with the rediscovery. Correns, who in 1900 was teaching at Tübingen University in Germany, had been hybridizing different races of maize and peas. He was particularly interested in a
Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity
Mendel’s Pea Plants Dominant trait
Recessive trait
Round
Wrinkled
Yellow
Green
Purple flower
White flower
Inflated pod
Constricted pod
Green pod
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Axial flowers
Terminal flowers
Long stem
Short stem
Mendel evaluated the transmission of seven paired traits in his studies of garden peas.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 characteristic in maize heredity called xenia, in which the color of the endosperm of the grain is caused by the kind of pollen the plant received from the male parent. Correns, too, found that the “lost” traits in both types of plants reappeared in one-fourth of the offspring in the second inbred generation. Like de Vries, he independently discovered Mendel’s paper sometime before March, 1900, but he did not submit his paper for publication until April, after he had seen de Vries’ paper. He also gave Mendel full credit for the discovery of the ratios and their mechanism. Correns, however, reported cases where the first generation lacked dominance and showed some uniform intermediate state for a particular characteristic. He had questions about the universality of Mendel’s interpretation for all cases. Correns was a highly respected researcher, as was de Vries, and the papers of both men were disseminated widely, encouraging others to do research to test their explanations. Tschermak von Seysenegg, who had been breeding garden peas and studying their various traits, also noticed the regularity of the traits’ appearance in different generations. He, too, independently found Mendel’s paper when he was preparing to present a lecture on his breeding work as part of his new teaching position at the Land Cultivation University (Hochschule für Bodenkultur) in Vienna. He credited Mendel in a paper submitted for publication in April, 1900. He was a less well known scientist than either de Vries or Correns, and thus his research was less influential. William Bateson, in England, also had been studying actively discontinuous inheritance of characteristics in plants and animals. In 1894, he published a book titled Materials for the Study of Variation Treated with Especial Regard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species. When he received a copy of Correns’s paper, with its reference to Mendel’s work, Bateson searched out Mendel’s paper immediately. He quickly realized the great value of Mendel’s findings for explaining discontinuous variation. Bateson became a strong promoter of Mendelianism, having Mendel’s paper translated into English and publishing it together with his own explanation of its importance for understanding heredity in the book Mendel’s Principles of Heredity: A Defence in 1902. Bateson presented his book on Mendel’s principles as a defense because at that time in England the study of inheritance was dominated by the biometric school founded by Sir Francis Galton. Galton’s explanation of heredity, proposed in 1897, was based on a continuous blending hypothesis in which each ancestor was credited with a certain proportion of the mix. That is, each parent
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Significance The modern science of genetics began with the rediscovery of Mendel’s explanation for inheritance. After 1900, de Vries, Correns, Tschermak von Seysenegg, and many other scientists began to explain their experimental results in terms of Mendelian ratios or exceptions to those ratios. Particulate inheritance, with genes
Defending Mendel In his preface to Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, William Bateson states clearly why he feels compelled to defend Mendel’s work and findings against the criticism leveled by zoologist Walter Weldon. In the Study of Evolution progress had well-nigh stopped. The more vigorous . . . had left this field of science to labour in others where the harvest is less precarious. . . . Of those who remained some still struggled to push towards truth through the jungle of phenomena: most were content supinely to rest on the great clearing Darwin made long since. Such was our state when two years ago it was suddenly discovered that an unknown man, Gregor Johann Mendel, had, alone, and unheeded, broken off from the rest—in the moment that Darwin was at work—and cut a way through. This is no mere metaphor, it is simple fact. Each of us who now looks at his own patch of work sees Mendel’s clue running through it: whither that clue will lead, we dare not yet surmise. It was a moment of rejoicing, and they who had heard the news hastened to spread them and take the instant way. In this work I am proud to have borne my little part. But every gospel must be preached to all alike. . . . Not lightly do men let their occupation go; small, then, would be our wonder, did we find the established prophet unconvinced. Yet, is it from misgiving that Mendel had the truth, or merely from indifference, that no naturalist of repute, save Professor Weldon, has risen against him? In the world of knowledge we are accustomed to look for some strenuous effort to understand a new truth even in those who are indisposed to believe. It was therefore with a regret approaching to indignation that I read Professor Weldon’s criticism. Were such a piece from the hand of a junior it might safely be neglected; but coming from Professor Weldon there was the danger—almost the certainty—that the small band of younger men who are thinking of research in this field would take it they had learnt the gist of Mendel, would imagine his teaching exposed by Professor Weldon, and look elsewhere for lines of work. In evolutionary studies we have no Areopagus. With us it is not . . . that an open court is always sitting, composed of men themselves workers, keenly interested in every new thing, skilled and well versed in the facts. Where this is the case, doctrine is soon tried and the false trodden down. But in our sparse and apathetic community error mostly grows unheeded, choking truth. That fate must not befall Mendel now.
1902
contributed half, each grandparent contributed onefourth, and so on backward by generations. The Mendelian explanation did not fit the biometricians’ laws of ancestral inheritance. This disagreement led to heated controversy. When one of the biometricians, the zoologist Walter Weldon, published an unfavorable review of Mendel’s work and that of those who followed, Bateson was compelled to respond. By doing so, he split the English biology community into two feuding factions, and as a result he had difficulty in getting his research published and in finding a university appointment. Nevertheless, his zeal for the new genetics— genetics was the name he gave the field in a public lecture in 1906—led others, particularly young botanists and zoologists, to join him in experimental research on heredity. Mendel’s paper was cited in 1881 in a major analytic reference book, W. O. Focke’s Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge (the plant hybrids), which reported that Mendel had found constant ratios for characters in second and succeeding generations of peas. Both Correns and Tschermak von Seysenegg found Mendel’s paper through this reference. De Vries may have first learned about Mendel’s work through the bibliography of a paper by the American horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey, who did not see the paper but included the reference from Focke’s book in 1892. It is also possible that de Vries first saw Mendel’s paper when a colleague sent him an offprint of it from his library because he thought it would be useful to de Vries in his work. De Vries was unclear about this when he later tried to recall the event. The literature about the rediscovery of Mendel’s experiments contains some controversy as to whether de Vries gave Mendel enough credit. Correns, for example, believed that de Vries never gave Mendel the credit he deserved. In any case, it is very clear that each of the rediscoverers came to an understanding similar to that of Mendel through his experiments before finding the Mendel paper. Both de Vries and Correns continued to do significant genetic research after 1900. Bateson became the strongest champion of the Mendelian explanation for all types of plant and animal inheritance.
Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity
Source: William Bateson, Mendel’s Principles of Heredity: A Defence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1902).
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Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity on chromosomes, replaced the notion of blending inheritance. The appearance of offspring having characteristics of both parents now could be explained by the large number of characteristics involved, each one operating independently in a particulate manner except when linked together with another on the same chromosome. Within a few years, cytological data connected contrasting traits with sections of chromosomes. This connection, with the use of the term “gene” to describe the controlling unit, provided a physical basis for the particulate explanation of heredity. One early finding was that sexuality is controlled in a Mendelian fashion. Experimental work with various types of organisms showed that the three-to-one dominant-to-recessive Mendelian ratio for the second generation of inbred crosses is the normal situation. When these ratios were not found, further explanations were necessary and were produced, such as lack of dominance; more than two possible contrasting traits for the same chromosomal location, only two of which are present in normal cells; more than one pair of genes controlling the expression of a particular trait; linkage of genes on the same chromosome; and modifier genes that change the expression of a trait. Cytological studies quickly began to supplement breeding experiments. Genetics became a leading field of biological study and, in applied areas, an important and useful tool. Agriculturists used their understanding of Mendelian genetics to develop better plants and animals. This resulted in the discovery of hybrid vigor in corn and other crops, which significantly increased agricultural production. In medicine, it led to a better understanding of heredity diseases such as sickle-cell anemia. Genetics now plays a major role in the interpretation of data in other fields of biology, such as morphology, embryology, taxonomy, physiology, and evolutionary biology. The search for the nature of the gene led to the development of molecular biology. The twentieth century truly can be said to be the century of genetics in biological sciences. —Emanuel D. Rudolph Further Reading Bowler, Peter J. The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Documents the importance of Mendelian genetics after 1900 as well as the social and scientific impacts of the rediscovery of Mendel’s work. Provides good background information for an appreciation of Mendelian genetics. 80
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Carlson, Elof Axel. Mendel’s Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004. Based heavily on early twentieth century sources, this book traces the roots of genetics in breeding analysis and studies of cytology, evolution, and reproductive biology. Highly illustrated. Henig, Robin Marantz. The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Discusses Mendel’s life, including his work, in the context of his time and also relates the rediscovery of his work to developments in the constantly changing field of genetics. Mendel, Gregor J. Experiments in Plant Hybridisation. Translated by William Bateson. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948. English translation of Mendel’s 1866 paper, supervised by Bateson and published in his book Mendel’s Principles of Heredity: A Defence in 1902. Provides a clear description of Mendel’s methods, results, and interpretation of those results, as well as background on breeding experiments conducted by other scientists. This work is basic to understanding why those who discovered it thirtyfour years later were so impressed with its insights. _______, et al. “The Birth of Genetics: Mendel, de Vries-Correns-Tschermak in English Translation.” Genetics, supp. 35 (September, 1950): 1-47. English translations of the original first papers of the three scientists who rediscovered Mendel’s work. Also includes translations of nine letters that Mendel wrote between 1866 and 1873 to Carl Nägeli, professor of botany at the University of Munich, explaining his pea experiments and his later experiments with crossing hawkweeds. _______, et al. Fundamenta Genetica: The Revised Edition of Mendel’s Classic Paper with a Collection of Twenty-seven Original Papers Published During the Rediscovery Era, edited by Jaroslav Kòímenecky. Oosterhout, Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1965. Twenty-eight papers in their original languages published between 1899 and 1904 give the flavor of excitement of the early Mendelian geneticists. A good source to find Bateson’s papers. An introductory essay in English about concepts before Mendel helps to explain why Mendel’s work was so revolutionary and was therefore ignored. Published to celebrate the centenary of the publication of Mendel’s paper. Olby, Robert C. Origins of Mendelism. New York: Schocken Books, 1966. A well-balanced discussion
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for any serious study of the origins of Mendelism. Stern, Curt, and Eva R. Sherwood, eds. The Origin of Genetics: A Mendel Source Book. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1966. Provides a good summary of Mendel’s work and its rediscovery. Includes English translations of Mendel’s papers on plant hybrids and those of de Vries and Correns. Contains a reprint of a paper by the English geneticist R. A. Fisher on the statistics in Mendel’s 1866 paper and why they seem too perfect. Sewall Wright, an American geneticist, responds to Fisher. See also: 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map.
1902
Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels Alexis Carrel’s precise procedures for aseptically rejoining blood vessels increased the range of possible surgical procedures and contributed to the realization of organ transplantation. Locale: Lyons, France; Chicago, Illinois Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), French surgeon and biologist Charles Claude Guthrie (1880-1963), American surgeon Summary of Event As Alexis Carrel noted in 1908, “The idea of replacing diseased organs by sound ones, of putting back an amputated limb or even of grafting a new limb on a patient having undergone an amputation, is doubtless very old.” Despite the antiquity of the desire, however, the dream remained unrealized until surgeons were able to restore circulation through grafted organs and limbs. Carrel de-
veloped a procedure in 1902 for rejoining severed arteries; without this procedure, modern transplantation surgery would be impossible. On one level, it seems like an easy operation—simply take the two ends of severed vessels and sew them together. Blood, however, presents special difficulties. Although it normally clots quickly when exposed to air, it usually remains unclotted inside a vessel. Its ability to stay unclotted depends on an intact inner membrane of a vein or artery: the tunica intima. If this surface is unhealthy or has foreign bodies on it, blood clots may form in the vessel. This condition, called thrombosis, is fatal if the blockage occludes (closes) the entire vessel. Other surgeons before Carrel had attempted to rejoin severed vessels, but their attempts had usually ended in thrombosis and death. There were two general methods for these operations. Surgeons either sewed together the middle and outer layers of the vessel (the tunica media and tunica externa or adventitia) or inserted a fine magnesium tube into the lumen and joined the vessel together. The success of these operations depended on 81
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of the origins of Mendelism, considerations of other interpretations of heredity before and during Mendel’s life, and detailed explanation of the rediscovery of Mendel’s discovery. Clearly written without extensive quotes from original writings, which appear in a large appendix. _______. “William Bateson’s Introduction of Mendelism to England: A Reappraisal.” British Journal of the History of Science 20 (1987): 399-420. Documents the rediscovery of Mendel’s work, but mostly elaborates on Bateson’s role as an early defender of Mendelism. Claims that Bateson took several years to conclude that Mendelian principles were broadly applicable to inheritance in different kinds of organisms. Roberts, H. F. Plant Hybridization Before Mendel. 1929. Reprint. New York: Hafner, 1965. Classical presentation of the background of Mendel’s hybridizing experiments, Mendel’s work, and its rediscovery in 1900. Includes comments quoted from de Vries, Correns, and Tschermak von Seysenegg about their recollections of how they found Mendel’s paper. Includes a chapter on Bateson’s contributions. Essential
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Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels strict asepsis and an accurate union of the ends. Several experimental successes were achieved with these methods, but their translation into surgical practice was difficult to accomplish. According to most accounts, Carrel became interested in this procedure when Sadi Carnot, the president of France, was assassinated in 1894. The bullet that struck Carnot had severed an artery, and the president, despite the ministrations of surgeons, had bled to death. Carrel, who had demonstrated much scientific acumen as a youth, turned his attention to the problem of rejoining blood vessels. He mastered fine stitchery and asepsis and introduced paraffin-covered threads and needles. The key to his procedure was that he rolled back the ends of the vessels and sewed these ends together; the blood then continued to flow uninterrupted through the artery’s smooth inner surface. This step allowed for the resumption of circulation. Carrel finally succeeded in 1902. In that year, he later announced, he had transplanted kidneys in dogs on more than one occasion. Although all the animals died because of septic complications, the kidneys began to produce urine immediately, demonstrating that the joined vessels had, in fact, restored circulation through the organ. In 1905, working with Charles Claude Guthrie, Carrel transferred segments of a jugular vein into a carotid artery. The surgeons discovered that the vein soon underwent structural changes—the caliber of the lumen enlarged and the walls became thicker—to accommodate increased blood pressure. Vein-to-artery grafts often ended in thrombosis, however, so they devised methods to store arterial sections for later use. They discovered that segments chilled almost to freezing and then gently warmed were still viable after days or weeks of such treatment. In the course of these experiments, Carrel soon discovered the limits of grafting or transplantation. He noted that grafting pieces of blood vessels or organs taken from the same animal (he called them “autoplastic donors”) succeeded, whereas tissues from other animals (“heteroplastic donors”) were soon rejected by the host. The further away the species was genetically, the more rapid the rejection. He also noted that blood from unrelated donors usually was fatal to the recipient. Carrel used his surgical techniques to attempt ever more daring grafts and transplants. He and Guthrie continued to work on kidney transplants after 1905 and achieved much greater success than in Carrel’s 1902 attempts. They eventually transplanted other organs and limbs. Although the animals died, Carrel and Guthrie 82
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Alexis Carrel. (The Nobel Foundation)
demonstrated the technical feasibility of these operations on humans. Despite his surgical finesse, Carrel never engaged in clinical practice. All his work, done either at the University of Chicago in 1905 and 1906 or later at the Rockefeller Institute, was entirely devoted to research. The application of Carrel’s work to human subjects—or, more likely, the rediscovery of his work—depended on other surgeons. In 1912, Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the surgery of blood vessels. Significance Carrel’s development of a method for rejoining severed blood vessels was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the realization of the ancient dream of organ transplantation. In order for that dream to be realized, medical professionals needed to understand the physiology of transplantation as well as its technique. Carrel rec-
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Further Reading Carrel, Alexis. Man, the Unknown. New York: Harper & Bros., 1935. Carrel presents his views on humanity’s future. Some saw this volume as prophetic when it was first published; others viewed it as unfounded speculation. _______. The Voyage to Lourdes. Translated by Virgilia Peterson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1950. A thirdperson narrative written by Carrel about his visit to Lourdes in 1903. Documents his earliest interests in the relationship between religion and science. Haeger, Knut. The Illustrated History of Surgery. Ottawa: Canadian Medical Association, 1998. Clearly describes Carrel’s achievement in the context of other surgical advances of the early twentieth century, such
as Rudolph Matas’s strengthening of arterial walls threatened by aneurysm and Friedrich Trendelenburg’s “high ligature” operation for varicose veins. Hardy, James D. “Transplantation of Blood Vessels, Organs, and Limbs.” Journal of the American Medical Association 250 (August 19, 1983): 954-957. JAMA reprinted Carrel’s 1908 article “Results of the Transplantation of Blood Vessels, Organs, and Limbs,” and Hardy commented on it. He reiterated what earlier critics of Carrel’s work had noted, that “the new investigator beginning arterial transplantation research would do well to check first to see if Dr. Carrel did not publish the proposed research at the turn of the century.” Majno, Guido. The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975. A landmark book in the history of surgery that addresses, in clinical and surgical detail, wound management in antiquity. Describes how ancient surgeons manipulated vessels during surgery or closed wounds after it to avoid what is now known as shock, inflammation, and infection. Malinin, Theodore I. Surgery and Life: The Extraordinary Career of Alexis Carrel. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. A popular account that examines the two main aspects of Carrel’s life: as a pioneer in surgical techniques and as a visionary for a political utopia. Nuland, Sherwin B. Doctors: The Biography of Medicine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. A popular history of medicine told from the perspective of its famous practitioners. The chapter on organ transplantation discusses Carrel’s early work as a necessary stage for the successes achieved in kidney transplantation in the 1950’s. Tilney, Nicholas L. Transplant: From Myth to Reality. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. This book, suitable for both professionals and laypersons, traces the evolution of organ transplantation from its beginnings in the imaginations of human beings to its current status as accepted treatment. Describes early transplantation attempts, the evolution of surgical technique, the first successful kidney transplant (in 1954 between identical twins), the introduction of the concept of host tolerance, and scientific advances for suppressing the immune system. Wilson, Leonard G. Medical Revolution in Minnesota: A History of the University of Minnesota Medical School. St. Paul, Minn.: Midewiwin Press, 1989. Outside of Boston, most of the early clinical research and 83
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ognized this problem. He had noted, for example, that blood from nonrelated donors usually was fatal for recipients. Also, rejection phenomena had demonstrated that the underlying issues affecting the success of transplants were biological, not mechanical. Once these physiological issues were settled, Carrel’s techniques entered clinical surgery. Carrel’s work had to be complemented by many other discoveries before its impact on surgery could be fully realized. Karl Landsteiner’s discovery of blood types, published in 1901, solved the puzzle of why some transfused blood, but not all, was toxic to recipients. During the years between World War I and World War II, several scientists worked to devise reliable methods for the storage of blood. Peter Medawar’s insights into immunity explained heteroplastic rejection. Many of the techniques that Carrel developed in the early years of the twentieth century were not applied clinically until after World War II. The first documented cases of artery storage and transplantation occurred in the United States in 1948 and in France in 1952. Although the development of fabric grafts eventually ended most concerns about vessel storage, the use of such grafts would be impossible without Carrel’s technique. His discovery that veins could be grafted successfully to arteries is the foundation of much of the bypass surgery performed today. Carrel and Guthrie’s work on kidney and limb transplantations is a direct ancestor of current transplant procedures. The dazzling virtuosity that surgeons display during these operations depends on the careful suturing of vessels—a procedure first accomplished by Alexis Carrel. —Thomas P. Gariepy
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Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing attempts at transplantation were done at the University of Minnesota. The chapter titled “The Development of Organ Transplantation in Minnesota” documents this work based on Carrel’s surgical procedure.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups; Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion; 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney.
1902
Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing Formation of the Association of American Portland Cement Manufacturers, a short-lived trade association, marked the beginning of manufacturers’ concerted efforts to cooperate on pricing to avoid harmful competition. Locale: United States Categories: Manufacturing and industry; trade and commerce Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Frank A. Fetter (1863-1949), American economist Summary of Event In the century following the close of the American Civil War, three great waves of mergers—combinations of two or more previously independent enterprises into a single enterprise—swept the American economy. The first wave, which took place from 1899 to 1904, accounted for the disappearance of nearly thirteen hundred firms, a figure almost matched by the second wave, which commenced about 1926 and collapsed about five years later. A more modest wave with two crests washed over the business community between 1945 and 1955. Mergers are an ancient part of business history. The significance of these three waves was that each contributed substantially to the emergence of large enterprises that exercised salient or dominant positions within their industries and often within the economy as a whole. Although “bigness” has often been favored in the United States, the power that attends it has also been suspect. Power, particularly of business enterprises, therefore has been held to close scrutiny, as close as varying political climates have allowed. Accordingly, from the time of an initial upsurge of American industrial and financial expansion late in the nineteenth century, antimonopoly or antitrust campaigns have marked the nation’s economic growth. The evolution of the peculiarly American institution of antitrust laws is marked by the 84
Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950. Each sought to patch weaknesses in earlier laws and to strike at new variations on restraints of trade. The portland cement industry, of modest size but with a strategically important role in the economy, fell subject to all these acts. Named for its resemblance to Isle of Portland stone, portland cement was a British invention patented by Joseph Aspdin in 1824. Its manufacture spread to France in the 1840’s, to Germany a decade later, and by 1875 to several plants in Pennsylvania. The superiority of portland cement to natural cement was demonstrated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, and portland cement began developing its own market shortly afterward. Businessman José Francis de Navarro secured American patent rights in 1888 and established his own mill in Coplay, Pennsylvania. Plants proliferated, first in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and then elsewhere, spurred by Frederick Ransome’s development of the rotary kiln. Imports of portland cement exceeded domestic production until the mid-1890’s, but the unprecedented industrial surge that brought the American economy into the premier position in the world also propelled the expansion of American portland cement producers. Economists have argued that characteristics of the cement industry naturally predispose its operators toward collusive or cooperative behavior rather than competition. Its product is standardized; only the advertising and sales services of the mills differentiate one brand of portland cement from another. To average informed buyers, cement is cement. In addition, portland cement mills share relatively constant costs per additional unit and relatively large fixed, or overhead, costs. Mills tend to be widely separated geographically or in small clusters. Their product is of low value per pound, making transportation charges relatively high in comparison with price. Demand for cement tends to be “inelastic”—that is, unresponsive to changes in price. Although the maintenance of free and fair competi-
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Significance Legal probes of the cement industry began in 1916, well into the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson had already shepherded an unprecedented bundle of reform legislation through Congress, including the Clayton Antitrust Act, which amended—some believed put teeth into—the Sherman Antitrust Act, and creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC’s functions included investigation aimed at preventing corporate price discrimination among different customers, preventing corporations from holding stock in other corporations if the practice restrained competition, and ending interlocking directorates among companies serving the same markets. Two major cement industry trade associations were brought under examination. The AAPCM had changed its name to the Portland Cement Association and described itself as a research and advertising organization. After investigation, it was cleared of antitrust law violations. The Cement Manufacturers Protective Association (CMPA) was composed mainly of Lehigh Valley producers. It collected and disseminated monthly trade information on production, inventories, freight charges from each basing point, customer credit reports, and specifics on job contracts. A successful 1916 antitrust conviction and fining of nine West Coast mills for price fixing and apportioning markets led logically to antitrust suits against the CMPA and its members in 1919. They were charged with restricting production, fixing prices, and quoting uniform prices for their delivered orders— that is, for employing a multiple point basing system. The red flag that the CMPA waved in the face of antitrust investigators was implicit in its multiple point basing. By the time of the CMPA’s initial conviction in federal district court (New York) four years later, investigations had shown that purportedly innocent acquisition and circulation of trade information and statistics had resulted in cement supplies that lagged behind demand, thereby producing uniform, noncompetitive prices. Defeated in court, the CMPA was dissolved. In 1929, however, on the advice of an FTC commissioner, it emerged in another guise, mustering industry leaders under the fresh rubric of the Cement Institute. The Cement Institute promptly appealed the decision against the old CMPA to the U.S. Supreme Court. This was not a singular event, for the fate of eight interrelated cement cases hinged on the Supreme Court’s review, as did the fates of several other industries’ trade associations. By the time the Court considered the Cement Institute’s appeal, however, the reform enthusiasm of the Wilson administration had been supplanted by conservative, probusiness Republican presidencies such as Her85
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tion is a basic tenet of American belief and public policy, it had a ruinous ring in the cement trade at the opening of the twentieth century and during the price wars and mergers of the next few years. The structure of the industry, as outlined above, led firms to cut prices in attempts to gain market share. Ostensibly to escape cutthroat competition and stabilize their trade, several operators in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley who produced nearly 60 percent of the trade’s cement founded the Association of American Portland Cement Manufacturers (AAPCM) in 1902. By 1904, members of the organization had resolved to set their prices based on costs in the Lehigh Valley. This effort failed, but in 1907, a new trade organization— comprising sixteen firms headed by the Atlas Company—established a basing point price system. The trade organization failed, but the pricing system stayed in place. That system was similar to those developed in other industries, prominent among them the “Pittsburgh plus” basing point system of steel prices developed by U.S. Steel. Under a basing point system, mills quoted delivered prices to dealers as the mill price plus costs of transportation, but transportation costs included in this reckoning were not the actual costs. Instead, they were costs calculated from some given manufacturing area, known as a basing point. Manufacturers agreed to quote delivered prices that were identical, matched to the price from the nearest basing point. The multiple basing point system employed by the cement industry permitted each mill, wherever located, to quote its price to customers anywhere as the lowest delivered price from the nearest designated base point. Economist Frank A. Fetter, among others, noted that the multiple basing point system was the cement industry’s way of fixing noncompetitive prices. More than 300,000 pages of judicial documentation accumulated between 1916 and 1948 confirmed that the object of the five cement manufacturing “Big Brothers”—Universal, Lehigh, Lone Star, Penn-Dixie, and Alpha—was not to beat “competition” prices but merely to meet them. For decades, industry spokespersons argued that the pricing practices were essential for stability and were arrived at voluntarily. Many economists and lawyers, to the contrary, perceived monopoly price setting aimed at the restraint or elimination of healthy competition.
Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing
Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing bert Hoover’s. These administrations smiled on an unparalleled increase in the number of trade associations, encouraged another wave of mergers, and displayed marked complacency in discovering restraints of trade. The Court showed sensitivity to these conservative tendencies. In 1925, the Supreme Court reversed the CMPA’s federal conviction for restraint of trade. The Court seemed partially persuaded by evidence from some economists that the cement industry’s standardized product, standard freight rates, similar trade practices, and sales to informed buyers—that is, that the character of the industry—made price uniformity inevitable as a result of unrestrained competition. It is an oddity of antitrust study that uniform prices can result either from collusion or from intense competition among identical producers, competition that results in the lowest sustainable price. The Court concluded that the CMPA’s open collection, dissemination, and discussion of minute details of industry operations was voluntary and involved no concerted action regarding either production or prices, although the Court acknowledged that cement prices were uniform throughout the industry. Critics of the decision noted that market conditions naturally justifying price uniformity did not justify a pricing system that required such uniformity. Meanwhile, as cement producers sought to acquire mills closer to their markets, mergers continued through the 1920’s and for the next two decades. The trend toward concentration also continued. Major companies, in fact, operated chains of mills. By 1929, the eight leading producers owned half of the industry’s mills and accounted for half of the country’s cement production. Concentration among the largest firms increased slightly for the next two decades, then leveled off after passage of the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950. What the Supreme Court left unconsidered in 1929, however, the FTC and the Justice Department pursued— namely, the multiple point basing system. The government had won its first cases against the steel industry’s single base point practices (“Pittsburgh plus”) in 1927 and then turned to multiple point systems. These attacks were interrupted only temporarily by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s waiver of antitrust actions, sanctification of trade associations (which revived basing point systems), creation of industrial code authorities, and tolerance of price fixing as integral parts of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. In 1937, the FTC targeted the cement industry’s basing system as the key to the industry’s activities in restraint of trade. By 1943, the FTC 86
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 had filed an order against the Cement Institute that, after some setbacks for the government, reached the Supreme Court in 1948. Speaking for the six-to-one majority, Justice Hugo Black vigorously swept aside a gamut of Cement Institute defenses and outlawed usage of basing point systems, with their freight absorption and “phantom freight” schemes, not only in the cement industry but also throughout American industry. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Edwards, Corwin D. The Price Discrimination Law: A Review of Experience. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1959. Overview of political, industrial, and judicial battles at the center of pricing in the U.S. economy includes discussion of the portland cement industry. Extensive bibliographic notes, appendixes, and excellent index. Hovenkamp, Herbert. Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice. 2d ed. Eagan, Minn.: West, 1999. Covers nearly all aspects of U.S. antitrust policy in a manner understandable to people with no background in economics. Chapter 2 discusses “history and ideology in antitrust policy.” Nelson, Ralph L. Merger Movements in American Industry, 1890-1951. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959. Brief and scholarly, with intelligent summations of materials confirmed by dozens of tables and charts. Invaluable resource on mergers and trends toward concentration in cement and related trades. Includes bibliographic notes and index. Peritz, Rudolph J. R. Competition Policy in America: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Explores the influences on U.S. public policy of the concept of free competition. Discusses congressional debates, court opinions, and the work of economic, legal, and political scholars in this area. Seager, Henry R., and Charles A. Gulick. Trust and Corporation Problems. 1929. Reprint. New York: Ayer, 1988. Scholarly and interesting, a solid work concerning older events. The portland cement industry’s practices and problems are discussed primarily in chapters 16 and 21. Includes extensive bibliography, table of cases, and index. Stocking, George W., and Myron W. Watkins. Monopoly and Free Enterprise. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1951. Wonderful work, still invaluable. Interesting and authoritative, if in places controversial. Chapter 7 addresses the basing point system in the ce-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ment industry, and chapter 8 discusses cement trade associations. Ample bibliographic notes, tables of cases, index. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Clear, authoritative, interesting, and detailed. Chapter 19 concentrates on portland cement industry. Includes more than one hundred ta-
bles, including legal cases. Ample bibliographic notes and index. See also: Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation; Oct., 1909: Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation.
1902
1902 HEART OF DARKNESS
Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism
Critiques Imperialism
Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness revealed the horrors behind the rhetoric of nobility and idealism in which Europeans cloaked their imperialism. Locale: Edinburgh, Scotland; London, England Categories: Literature; colonialism and occupation Key Figure Joseph Conrad (Jósef Teodor Konrad Naufcz Korzeniowski; 1857-1924), Polish novelist Summary of Event In 1874, seventeen-year-old Joseph Conrad left his Polish family to travel to Marseilles, France, to become a seaman. He sailed on vessels of several nations, but he became a British citizen in 1887. In 1890, he left the high seas to travel up the Congo River into the heart of Africa. His trip into the Congo Free State (later Democratic Republic of the Congo) inspired Heart of Darkness, which was published as a serial in Scotland in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in early 1899 and in book form in London in 1902. The story opens at dusk on board the yawl Nellie, anchored in the Thames River at London. Five men are on board, all bound together by their connection with the sea. An unnamed primary narrator repeats to the reader a story told that evening by a seaman, Marlow. As the primary narrator looks out into the night, he thinks back to the days when men such as Sir Francis Drake sailed out from London. Suddenly, Marlow breaks into his reverie, saying, “And this also . . . has been one of the dark places of the earth.” Conrad thus signals to the reader that his story is not going to be a romantic song of praise to empire. Marlow goes on to recall Roman adventurers who came up the Thames nineteen hundred years before. They were only conquerors: “The conquest of the earth,
which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” Marlow suggests that imperial adventures are justified only if they embody “efficiency” and “an idea.” Do efficiency and an idea, such as the carrying of European civilization into other areas, justify imperialism? Marlow seems to think so, but few assumptions remain unexamined as his story goes on. Earlier in his career, Marlow had been hired to command a steamboat for a Belgian company that traded on the Congo River. As he journeyed among company stations along the river, he quickly began to be stripped of his illusions regarding efficiency and idealism. He walked among the litter of abandoned, rusty machinery and noted the waste of aimless, inefficient railroad building. He found chain gangs of African workers dying in misery of starvation and disease. He met the company’s general manager, a greedy careerist unencumbered by either efficiency or ideas. He was surrounded by rootless European “pilgrims” who spoke the word “ivory” as though they were praying to it. Company employees were empty men: “To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.” Marlow heard people talk of Kurtz, who ran the company’s Inner Station far up the river. They whispered his name in the worshipful tones they used to discuss ivory. His efficiency flooded the company with ivory, and his “idea” inspired others. Kurtz is a prodigy, a special being, one man said: “He is an emissary of pity, and science, and progress.” In contrast to the company men who surrounded him, Kurtz began to appear to Marlow as a beacon on a path toward a better world. Marlow moved on upriver into the heart of darkness, 87
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toward Kurtz. His boat carried twenty cannibals, cultursteadily at this truth, the horror that civilization hides ally rooted men with whom he worked and toward whom from itself. he felt gratitude, unlike the manager and pilgrims who The men on the Nellie sat quietly as Marlow finished also traveled with him. his tale. They silently watched the heart of darkness setAs the old steamboat slowly approached the Inner tling on London. Station, Marlow saw human forms moving along the tree line, decayed buildings filled with ivory, slim posts decoSignificance rated by little round balls—which he belatedly realized The twentieth century witnessed explosive change, yet were severed heads—and then a white man, a Russian, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, written at the begindressed in multicolored rags. While the company men ning of the century, retained its fascination for readers. scurried around loading the ivory, the Russian told MarWhat readers found in it changed as the century prolow that Kurtz was ill. The Russian was a Kurtz disciple, gressed, however. The book has been interpreted as a rocaptivated by Kurtz’s ability to articulate “an idea.” “He mantic adventure story, as a slashing attack on imperialmade me see things—things,” the Russian said. ism, as a conservative political manifesto that rejects They brought the dying Kurtz on board. The manager political idealism, as a manifesto for the left, as a psychowas distraught because Kurtz had organized the natives logical journey into the heart of the individual, as a reinto a personal army to drain the whole district of ivory. telling of the ancient myth of the hero’s quest, as an exisThe disruption of Kurtz’s leaving would force the comtential study of alienation and solitude, and as a pany to shut down operations there. Marlow found Kurtz modernization of classical literature’s theme of a descent horrifying—a man who pushed “the idea” to the point of into hell. One could construct a revealing intellectual insanity—but not as disgusting as the empty greed of the trek through the twentieth century just by tracing intermanager and his company. As Marlow brought the steamer back down the river, he spent as much time as he From HEART OF DARKNESS could with Kurtz and heard his last In this famous passage from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow dewords: “The horror! The horror!” scribes his last moments with Kurtz and the announcement of Kurtz’s death Marlow returned to company that followed: headquarters at Brussels, Belgium, and visited Kurtz’s fiancé, the “In“One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tended.” As he rang her doorbell, he tremulously, ‘I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.’ The light was seemed to hear whisperings of within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, ‘Oh, nonsense!’ and stood Kurtz’s last words: “The horror! The over him as if transfixed. horror!” As he sat with her, he was “Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never aware of the death and destruction on seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expreswhich his civilization was built, symsion of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and bolized by the ivory of the piano hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, keys in the quiet drawing room. The and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried Intended had known Kurtz, she said, in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was in all of his nobility and idealism. no more than a breath: With every word spoken, the room “‘The horror! The horror!’ grew darker. She asked Marlow to “I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the repeat Kurtz’s last words; although mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to he wanted to tell the truth, Marlow give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, collected himself and told her that serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his Kurtz’s last words had been her meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager’s boy put his insoname. lent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt: Marlow, who detested lies, had “‘Mistah Kurtz—he dead.’” learned on his journey into darkness that civilization is based on lies. Only Source: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1902). a few, like Kurtz, were able to look 88
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pretations of Kurtz’s words “The horror! The horror!” Critics have often moved far away from Conrad’s main focus, colonialism in the Congo. Conrad was one of the first Europeans to understand what was happening in the Congo. After explorers penetrated the region, European nations scrambled for a foothold in the resourcerich basin. In 1876, King Leopold II of Belgium proposed piercing “the darkness” of the Congo and bringing civilization and Christianity to the region. Such noble words fit the Europeans’ conception of their destiny and burden. In 1884, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, alarmed at the possibility of war among the competing powers, called a conference in Berlin. The conferees turned the Congo over to Leopold as his personal property in return for his promise to open the region for the trade of all nations. Although Leopold skillfully cloaked his work in the rhetoric of humanitarian reform, he turned the Congo into a personal plantation and skimmed off such resources as ivory and rubber. He closed the region to out-
side competitors and used his army to reduce the Congolese to slavery. In the 1890’s, stories of atrocities began to leak out. Europeans read of chain gangs and slave labor, with people’s heads and hands being cut off if they failed to meet their quota of rubber or ivory. They read of a Captain Rom at Stanley Falls who used African heads to decorate his flower bed. By 1908, the Congo’s population had decreased by approximately three million. That year, the revelation of the horrors there finally forced Leopold to relinquish the colony to the Belgian government. Although most Europeans at the time still regarded colonization as an honorable civilizing mission, Conrad’s novel stripped away such illusions. Edmond Dene Morel, the leader of the Congo Reform Association, called Heart of Darkness the most powerful indictment ever written on the subject. Conrad provided one of the few literary attacks on imperialism in Great Britain before World War I. As the decades passed and the European empires crumbled, critics formulated brilliant social, economic, and psychological critiques of imperialism. Yet Conrad never passed out of fashion. He seemed to have anticipated every turn in anti-imperial analysis. Each generation found inspiration and reinforcement in Heart of Darkness. For example, in 1979, American film director Francis Ford Coppola used Heart of Darkness as the source of his antiwar film Apocalypse Now, with the story moved from the Congo to Vietnam and Cambodia. Not everyone wanted to confer anti-imperial sainthood on Conrad. One group of dissenters believed that Heart of Darkness was a Eurocentric work that portrayed Africans as dark and mysterious beings who threatened civilized humans. In 1975, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe attacked Heart of Darkness as racist. Another group of critics argued that Conrad, or at least Marlow, deplored only Belgian imperialism, not colonialism generally. Conrad undoubtedly believed that Africans were inferior to white Europeans. Racism was almost unquestioned in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Conrad did not completely transcend his times. Yet Conrad’s indictment of European atrocities against Africans has seldom been equaled. He avoided turning Africans into stereotypical racial figures or into noble savages. Marlow saw the Africans as humans, not as criminals, enemies, or rebels. Marlow’s language, too, undercut the commonly accepted racism of his time and place. For example, he described the feeling of isolation and fright he felt in Africa: “The earth seemed unearthly. . . . It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman.” He backed away from completing 89
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Joseph Conrad. (Library of Congress)
Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism
Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism the thought with the racial cliché of his day, forcing the reader also to stop and, presumably, think. Conrad was a cultural relativist who believed that all cultures had the right to exist without disruption from the outside. Did Conrad and Marlow condemn only Belgian atrocities and support imperialism generally? That seemed to be what Marlow wanted to do as he began his story. He established efficiency and “an idea” as criteria that distinguish strong-arm conquerors from proper colonists. The Belgian company met neither criterion. Underneath his attack on Belgian exploitation of the Congolese was an indictment of imperialism generally. Marlow interrupted the primary narrator’s opening reverie about the glories of British imperialism by saying that England also had been one of the dark places of the world. Marlow later described finding Kurtz’s eloquent report to the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs; the report was inspired by the noblest expressions of the imperialist civilizing “idea.” Yet Marlow discovered that ideas (and people) uprooted from their culture become evil. At the bottom of his report, in an unsteady hand, Kurtz had scribbled: “Exterminate all the brutes!” Kurtz was a product of all Europe, Marlow said, not just Belgium. Kurtz had a British mother and a French father and had been educated partly in England. Nor is darkness found only in the Congo. Marlow ended his tale in the Intended’s darkening drawing room in Brussels, and the primary narrator ends the story in London with the five men sitting silently in “the heart of an immense darkness.” — William E. Pemberton Further Reading Brantlinger, Patrick. “Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or Impressionism?” Criticism 27 (Fall, 1985): 363-385. This article breaks with most critics who read the novel as a savage attack on imperialism. Brantlinger argues that Conrad unintentionally sanctioned imperialism and racism by using an impressionistic writing style that raises the problem of imperial evil and then backs off under the cover of obscure language. Fleishman, Avrom. Conrad’s Politics: Community and Anarchy in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967. Fleishman carefully traces the evolution of Conrad’s political thinking and places it within the context of his time. Conrad valued order and community, both of which were destroyed by greedy, shabby imperialists. 90
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hawkins, Hunt. “Conrad and the Psychology of Colonialism.” In Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, edited by Ross C. Murfin. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985. Hawkins finds that Conrad anticipated brilliant studies of the psychology of colonization by such researchers as O. Mannoni and Frantz Fanon. The colonist, unable to succeed in his own society, goes to a colony where, through no merit of his own, he achieves domination over others. He is cut off from both his own society and that of “the Other” and ultimately disintegrates psychologically. _______. “Conrad’s Critique of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness.” PMLA 94 (March, 1979): 286-299. Focuses on Heart of Darkness as a case study of imperialism in the Congo, but goes on to argue that Conrad rejected all varieties of imperialism, efficient and inefficient, benevolent and evil, British and nonBritish. Conrad, Hawkins says, believed indigenous cultures had the right to exist without disruption from outside. Hay, Eloise Knapp. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad: A Critical Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Hay’s interesting study distinguishes between the views of Conrad and those of Marlow. She suggests that although Marlow may have sincerely used efficiency and idealism as criteria for judging imperialism, Conrad’s language undercuts Marlow’s views to condemn imperialism generally. Moore, Gene M., ed. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”: A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Contains materials intended to convey a deep understanding of the origins and reception of the novel, including Conrad’s own story “An Outpost of Progress,” a memoir by one of Conrad’s oldest English friends, a brief history of the Congo Free State by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a parody of Conrad by Max Beerbohm. Also presents a wide range of theoretical approaches to examining Conrad’s text. Raskin, Jonah. “Imperialism: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Journal of Contemporary History 2 (April, 1967): 113-131. Raskin describes the fever of imperialism in the Western world at the beginning of the twentieth century. He asserts that Conrad attacks Belgian imperialism in terms that his British audience of that time could understand and accept; underneath, however, is a subtext that attacks imperialism generally. Swisher, Clarice, ed. Readings on “Heart of Darkness.” San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Collection of critical essays aimed at classes studying
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Conrad’s novel. Each selection includes a biography, a chronology, and useful introductory notes. The collection ends with the famous attack by Chinua Achebe in which he accuses Conrad of racism.
Hobson Critiques Imperialism See also: 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism; Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo; Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career.
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Hobson Critiques Imperialism
Also known as: Imperialism: A Study Locale: England Categories: Publishing and journalism; economics; colonialism and occupation; expansion and land acquisition Key Figure John Atkinson Hobson (1858-1940), British journalist, teacher, and political activist Summary of Event John Atkinson Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study (1902), a collection of previously published magazine articles, was inspired by Hobson’s observations of British participation in the South African Boer War. He was highly critical of the pattern of “new imperialism” that began around 1870, in which Britain and other European powers seized control of less developed areas of the world, particularly in Africa and Asia. By 1902, this imperialism had become a highly competitive activity among the major powers, aggravating international tensions and causing the strengthening of military forces. Hobson was distressed that the newly acquired British territories were not allowed to govern themselves. Often, these territories were in areas that were unlikely to receive substantial numbers of European settlers because of tropical climates or unfavorable cultural conditions. British authority was put in place by violence and maintained by an expensive military establishment that governed densely populated ethnic groups regarded as “inferior.” Hobson denounced such racist attitudes; in his view, imperialism undermined democracy and civil liberty at home and abroad. British citizens who gained wealth and power in colonial activities returned home to lives of conspicuous opulence, contemptuous of demo-
cratic processes in both Britain and the overseas domains. In colonial areas, the repressive atmosphere spawned liberation movements that sometimes resorted to violent means. Treatment of indigenous peoples was sometimes tantamount to slavery, as in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), where Belgium’s extremely paternalistic government ruled from 1908 to 1960. Hobson was distressed that a British subject in some foreign land could call for help and provoke an armed British intervention, and so he examined several of imperialism’s most common economic justifications. He found that the extension of British control was not accompanied by substantial increase in British colonial trade, and he emphasized that the net economic value of such trade was far smaller than the measured volume of imports or exports. Instead, Hobson noted that imperialism was closely linked to protectionism. While Britain was operating under a free trade regime, with no significant restrictions or taxes on imports or exports, there was a strong political move to create an empirewide tariff system. Hobson also dismissed the argument that the newly acquired areas provided a suitable outlet for “surplus population.” The British population was not outgrowing its food supplies, and very few persons migrated to such locations. Why, then, had Britain undergone so much violence and expense? Wealthy families sought overseas positions, civil or military, for younger sons who had been displaced by primogeniture. Missionaries needed protection to bring the prospect of salvation. Hobson, however, highlighted pressures from specific, well-organized sectors of the world of business and finance, such as manufacturers of armaments and other export specialties. His chief focus was on the flow of British capital into overseas investments, which had reached a high level in the nineteenth century. British military power was often used to force foreign borrowers to pay their debts, and in the Opium Wars (1839-1841), the Chinese were forced to permit the importation of opium from 91
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In Imperialism: A Study, John Atkinson Hobson identified unique features of imperialism, noted its damaging impact on participants, and traced its cause to the efforts of Western governments to facilitate the flow of capital into less developed regions.
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He admitted there were noneconomic motives for imperialism, from In his study of imperialism, John Atkinson Hobson addresses the future of imdesire for military glory to the wish to perial expansion: save souls. He was convinced, however, that finance capital was able to If Imperialism may no longer be regarded as a blind inevitable destiny, is it influence the news media (with which certain that imperial expansion as a deliberately chosen line of public policy he had considerable personal experican be stopped? ence) to whip up nationalistic fervor. We have seen that it is motived, not by the interests of the nation as a Why should there be such an outwhole, but by those of certain classes, who impose the policy upon the nation flow of capital? Why not invest the for their own advantage. The amalgam of economic and political forces funds domestically to enlarge producwhich exercises this pressure has been submitted to close analysis. But will the detection of this confederacy of vicious forces destroy or any wise abate tion? Here Hobson linked imperialism their operative power? For this power is a natural outcome of an unsound theto a process he had emphasized in preory in our foreign policy. Put into plain language, the theory is this, that any vious writings. Because of the severe British subject choosing, for his own private pleasure or profit, to venture his inequality among levels of incomes person or his property in the territory of a foreign State can call upon this naand wealth, domestic consumption tion to protect or avenge him in case he or his property is injured either by the could not grow fast enough to keep Government or by any inhabitant of this foreign State. Now this is a perilous pace with the rise of output needed to doctrine. It places the entire military, political, and financial resources of this make domestic investment profitable. nation at the beck and call of any missionary society which considers it has a The process was made more severe by peculiar duty to attack the religious sentiments or observances of some savindustrial mergers that created monopage people, or of some reckless explorer who chooses just those spots of earth oly power and monopoly profits. Rapid known to be inhabited by hostile peoples ignorant of British power; the speculative trader or the mining prospector gravitates naturally towards dangertechnological innovation added to the ous and unexplored countries, where the gains of a successful venture will be potential surplus supply of consumpquick and large. All these men, missionaries, travelers, sportsman, scientists, tion goods. traders, in no proper sense the accredited representatives of this country, but Here Hobson entered the debate actuated by private personal motives, are at liberty to call upon the British naover a question that had engaged maintion to spend millions of money and thousands of lives to defend them against stream economists for a century: Can risks which the nation has not sanctioned. It is only right to add that unscruputhere be too much saving? Hobson’s lous statesmen have deliberately utilised these insidious methods of enanswer was in the affirmative. Too croachment, seizing upon every alleged outrage inflicted on these private admuch saving periodically showed up venturers or marauders as a pretext for a punitive expedition which results in in the form of business depressions the British flag waving over some new tract of territory. Thus the most reckand unemployment, which in turn less and irresponsible members of our nation are permitted to direct our foreign policy. Now that we have some four hundred million British subjects, added to political pressures to proany one of whom in theory or in practice may call upon British arms to extrimote exports and foreign investment cate him from the results of his private folly, the prospects of a genuine pax through imperialism. This analysis led Britannica are not particularly bright. Hobson to plead for social reform meaSource: John Atkinson Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (London: K. Nesbit, 1902). sures that would reduce the inequality of incomes and wealth and stimulate domestic consumption. Ironically, the heavy government expenditures assoBritish territories. Relying on such backing, a powerful ciated with imperialism acted to crowd out such attempts investment banking community had grown and was profat reform. iting from securities issued to finance overseas projects. The fear that excess saving could lead to business deHobson recognized that Britain’s overseas investments pression was an old one. It was common in eighteenth could play a valuable role in promoting economic growth century mercantilism and had been prominent in the in low-income areas. However, he felt that this process writings of Thomas R. Malthus. Still, Hobson’s analysis should give more influence to the local population, and did not allow for the possibility that some saving could so he suggested creating some kind of international su“get lost.” He explicitly assumed (as did most contemporary economists) that saving would embody itself in expervisory agency.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 panded facilities of production, but that these would be redundant or misplaced.
China might turn the tables upon the Western industrial nations, and, either by adopting their capital and organizers or . . . by substituting her own, might flood their markets with her cheaper manufactures, and refusing their imports in exchange might take her payment in liens upon their capital, reversing the earlier process of investment until she gradually obtained financial control over her [former] patrons and civilizers.
—Paul B. Trescott
Further Reading Allett, John. New Liberalism: The Political Economy of J. A. Hobson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. Gives a broad view of Hobson, discussing his social and political philosophy as well as his narrowly focused economic ideas. Cain, P. J. Hobson and Imperialism: Radicalism, New Liberalism, and Finance 1887-1938. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Brings the subject up to date, documenting the renewed interest in Hobson’s work in the early years of the twenty-first century. In chapter 6, Cain argues that the 1902 book was only a small and transitory part of Hobson’s views on imperialism, and he struggled with contradictory attitudes toward it. Hobson, John A. Imperialism: A Study. 1902. Reprint. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988. Reprint by the original publisher, with an excellent introduction by J. Townshend placing this book in the context of Hobson’s life and enormous published output. Lutz, Mark A. Economics for the Common Good: Two Centuries of Social Economic Thought in the Humanistic Tradition. New York: Routledge, 1999. Chapter 4 is on Hobson, and it leads into a wide-ranging analysis of the interplay between narrow economics and broad social and psychological dimensions of human welfare. Porter, Bernard. Critics of Empire: British Radical Attitudes to Colonialism in Africa, 1895-1914. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Places Hobson’s critique of British policy in the context of the times. Schneider, Michael. J. A. Hobson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. A concise study focused on Hobson as an economist. Valuable in describing reactions to his work and subsequent empirical studies of aspects of imperialism. The economic analysis is sometimes overly technical. See also: 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism; May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War; Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo; 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria; Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo; Feb. 4, 1936: Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy. 93
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Significance Hobson was a prolific writer, lecturer, and political activist. His was one of many voices (others included Henry George and the Fabian Socialists) deploring the many harsh features of contemporary economic conditions. His work, however, did not impress the professional economists of the times because his theoretical analysis was superficial, and he did not go far enough in presenting empirical evidence for his positions. Still, his work did influence some very powerful people. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin read and praised Hobson’s book in his own Imperializm, kak noveyshy etap kapitalizma (1917; Imperialism: The Latest Stage in the Development of Capitalism, 1924). Economist John Maynard Keynes also praised Hobson (with whom he exchanged correspondence) in his landmark book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), one of the most influential works on economics of the twentieth century. Keynes showed that there could indeed be excessive saving, and that when it was withdrawn from the spending stream to build up idle cash holdings, it could lead to deficient aggregate demand, depression, and unemployment. Hobson’s book was a startlingly perceptive anticipation of many major developments that came later in the twentieth century. The imperialism he deplored was a major factor in the unfolding of World War I, and the spirit of benevolent internationalism that he consistently displayed led to the creation of the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the internationalization of foreign economic aid and investment. He foresaw the difficulties that colonial territories would face when liberated, and he wrote an especially sensitive and perceptive analysis of imperialism in Asia, anticipating the types of conditions that would appear in daily headlines in the twentyfirst century:
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James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience
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James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience The Varieties of Religious Experience, by esteemed American philosopher and psychologist William James, is a foundational work in the psychology of religion and a hallmark of American individualism. Also known as: The Varieties of Religious Experience Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; psychology and psychiatry; philosophy; publishing and journalism Key Figure William James (1842-1910), philosopher and psychologist who founded both the school of American philosophy called pragmatism and modern psychology in the United States Summary of Event William James was born on January 11, 1842, to Henry and Mary James, the eldest son in a very religious family. James’s grandfather, an Irish immigrant, was involved with the building of the Erie Canal and made his fortune while working on it. This left a sizable inheritance to Henry James, Sr., who led his family all over New England and Europe in search of the perfect education for his sons William and Henry, Jr., who later became a famous novelist. After publishing his landmark Principles of Psychology in 1890, James turned mostly to philosophical interests. Following his important work The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy in 1897 and his self-identification as a pragmatist during a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, James was set to deliver his Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland, which would become his monumental The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902). Inherent in the book’s subtitle is the idea that a religious connection is fundamental to human existence. With the importance of religious experience in mind, James stated from the start that his intent was not to defend religion through scientific proofs. Such an endeavor would be fruitless, in James’s mind, even if one could construct such a defense. Instead, the book refers to a skirmish in James’s war with the “absolute.” It is vital to note that The Varieties of Religious Experience is devoid of talk of religious absolutes—that is, religious institutions, ideas, ideals, or rituals—because 94
such absolutes never enter into concrete human experience. Instead, James was concerned with individuals’ religious lives: their feelings, acts, and experiences as they come to terms with their relation or relations to the divine. For his material, James used several examples and recollections from his own life, some labeled as his experiences, some surreptitiously penned as someone else’s. To supplement these examples, James used some data from a student’s study on the religious habits of the Harvard community. He added analyses from religious texts, history, and literature to these examples, creating a veritable treasure trove of instances. The sheer volume of The Varieties of Religious Experience made it appear somewhat scientific, almost authoritative, even though the text was not an especially systematic or rigorous work (a fact that James freely acknowledged). The book’s many examples added to its girth, but James’s definition of “religious experience” was sufficiently general that it required the many examples he provided. The topics discussed in The Varieties of Religious Experience were vast and detailed. In a famous chapter, James wrote about mysticism, although he was not concerned with mystical rituals or mystically based religions. Instead, his only interest was in individual mystic experiences, and he identified four characteristics that he claimed unify mystical experiences. First, mystical experiences are ineffable; they cannot be communicated satisfactorily to another person. Second, mystical experiences possess a noetic quality; that is, they appear to be connected to the intellect. Mystical experiences are also transient, and the subject usually remains passive while the experience somehow happens to him or her. In the chapter, James asked if these experiences might be windows through which humans see parts or aspects of reality that they might otherwise miss. James’s questions were indicative of his approach to talking about religious experience, in which he began with concrete examples and used them to make generalizations—but not laws or rules—that explain rather than govern the experiences to which they refer. In the conclusions to The Varieties of Religious Experience, James asserted that religious experience plays a fundamental role in human life. He even went so far as to say that desire for connection with the divine ranked among the most basic and vital of biological human needs, regardless of whether a religious experience was “true.” In fact, James was not concerned with the truth of
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William James. (Library of Congress)
is useful because it leads to beliefs that cause one to act in certain ways and makes a concrete difference in an individual’s life, broadening perspectives and creating possibilities for new experiences. Human beings need beliefs in order to avoid being tied to the realm of proofs and a bare, earthly, and material existence. Talking about religious experience in a purportedly philosophical manner while leaving out religious institutions left James open to sharp criticism. It was said that he wanted to give people the “right” to believe what they wanted to just to be happy, but that this was not philosophy, properly speaking. He was accused of speaking too loosely about serious matters and attacked for his studies’ lack of scientific rigor. Nonetheless, The Varieties of Religious Experience remains one of the most widely read texts in the philosophy and psychology of religion and in American philosophy as a whole. Significance In addition to his efforts to validate personal religious experience, James rescued religion from the clutches of absolutists. The Varieties of Religious Experience was a cornerstone of religious pluralism. By showing that all people have religious experiences of the personal sort, regardless of their religious affiliations—or lack of them—James showed how similar all people are and how minute the differences among many religions can be. The Varieties of Religious Experience is one of the most important works in the philosophy of religion, but it is also a seminal work in the psychology of religion. In his research, James examined not only outward experiences but also individual states of consciousness undergoing religious experiences. By emphasizing the value of a religious experience to the individual, James drew a strong connection between religion and psychology. While he never intended to prove religious truths scientifically, James did attempt to justify religious belief in a rational manner, arguing that belief helps human beings experience what is otherwise only imaginable. — John F. Gamber, Jr. Further Reading James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. 1902. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 1994. An essential text for anyone interested in religion. _______. The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Dover, 1960. Collection of essays delivered in the rhetorical style popular at the time. 95
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these experiences, only with the experiences themselves. Religious experiences, James said, are useful precisely because they are moments in which human beings find themselves connected with some greater reality or greater part of the whole, since these experiences are not part of humans’ normal cognitive relations. In some ways, The Varieties of Religious Experience was an expansion of the themes found in James’s earlier essay “The Will to Believe” and was written for the same audience in the same style. The main argument of “The Will to Believe” centered on whether or not people have the right to religious belief in an increasingly scientific world. In short, it was an essay that justified faith, and in it, James claimed that there are times when belief in an outcome can help to bring about its reality. For example, a young man who wants to believe that a group of other young men are his friends might wait for this idea to prove itself true and in the process miss making friendships that will last a lifetime. By acting as if it were true, however, he meets the other young men halfway and helps to make the idea that they are his friends true. James argued that the power of belief—and of the religious experiences that engender it—is that it is an instrument of action, not merely a cognitive exercise. Religion
James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience
Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings Menand, Louis. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001. Intellectual history of American thought before World War I. Simon, Linda. Genuine Reality: A Life of William James. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1998. Biography examines both James’s life and his philosophy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method; 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism; 1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology.
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Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings Eldridge R. Johnson’s development of a method of duplicating recordings made on discs enabled the mass production of recordings of popular music. Locale: Camden, New Jersey Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures Eldridge R. Johnson (1867-1945), American inventor and industrialist Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor Emile Berliner (1851-1929), German inventor Summary of Event Although Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, the end of the nineteenth century marked little progress for the industry based on recorded sound. Cheap talking machines powered by spring motors were available in the 1890’s, but recordings, in both cylinder and disc format, were expensive and few in number. The problem lay in duplicating the recordings made in studios. The only method available in the nineteenth century was the pantograph system, a mechanical linkage between two recording machines that copied the spirals of sound from one recording to another. This process was time-consuming, and the recordings produced were of inferior quality. Duplication was so difficult that many companies paid musicians to make scores of recordings of the same song. Edison was the first to believe that the phonograph could be employed to bring popular music to the masses. He developed a simple talking machine that could play prerecorded cylinders, but he realized that there would be no market for recorded sound until companies had a means to make inexpensive copies of recordings. Subsequently, he began experimenting with record duplication in 1887. By this time, the fragile tin foil recording medium used for his first phonograph had been replaced by 96
a more durable wax cylinder. The hardness of the wax was an important factor in storing the signal of the sound wave in the phonograph cylinder. When sound waves vibrated the thin diaphragm of the phonograph, the recording stylus attached to the diaphragm cut a microscopic groove in the wax cylinder. This was called a hill-and-dale cut, because it was cut vertically, up and down in the groove. The vibrations of the reproducer stylus as it traveled along the groove were transmitted to the diaphragm to reproduce the original sound. As the groove cut into the cylinder was the positive impression of the sound wave, a cast of it would make a negative that could be used to make numerous positive copies. The problem was to find a method to make good negative casts from the soft wax of the recorded cylinder. After years of experiments, Edison found that the best cast of a recorded cylinder had to be made of metal, for only metal was strong enough to mold wax duplicates. The first step was to deposit a fine layer of gold onto the recorded cylinder. This was achieved by placing the cylinder in a vacuum and spraying it with gold dust. The gold particles settled into the hills and dales of the groove and assumed the shape of the sound waves engraved into the wax. Then, layers of copper or nickel were slowly electroplated on top of the gold, forming a metal negative—a matrix—of the original. After the original cylinder was removed from the matrix, the cylindrical metal matrix was cut into two pieces to make a mold. A blank wax cylinder was placed inside this mold, and a slight increase in temperature was enough to soften the wax to receive the impression of the groove. After the matrix cooled, it was possible to free the duplicated cylinder from the matrix. By 1899, experimenters in Edison’s laboratory had succeeded in making duplicates from metal matrices, but it took several more years to perfect the process for com-
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mercial use. Each metal matrix left a slightly raised line where the two parts of the mold met. A further problem was the poor sound quality of the duplicates, a result of the slight distortions in the grooves of the recorded cylinder caused by heating and cooling. As Edison was determined not to sacrifice any sound quality in record duplication, research work continued. In the meantime, other inventors succeeded in making acceptable duplicates from disc records. The disc-playing machine—the gramophone—had been invented by Emile Berliner in 1887. Berliner used a lateral cut to inscribe the signal of the sound wave into the groove, the recording stylus moving from side to side rather than up and down as in the Edison system. Berliner made his masters by recording the sound on a zinc disc covered with fatty film and then using acid to etch the sound waves marked in the film. Unfortunately, the duplicates made by this process had a fuzzy sound because the acid ate away some of the sound wave as it etched the signal into the master. The indistinct reproduction of the gramophone made its commercial future doubtful in the late 1890’s. Eldridge R. Johnson, proprietor of a small machine shop in Camden, New Jersey, advanced the technology of sound reproduction and made Berliner’s machine the leading form of recorded sound in the twentieth century. Like many other mechanics of the nineteenth century, Johnson considered himself an inventor, and he obtained several valuable patents. After winning a contract to manufacture spring motors for the Berliner gramophone, Johnson made some significant mechanical improvements to the machine. Concerned with the poor sound reproduction of the gramophone, he started to experiment with the process of duplicating recordings. In 1897, he obtained some test masters from Berliner and carefully examined the microscopic grooves made by the sound waves. His experiments convinced him that the way to make a better recording was to engrave the sound wave into the master rather than to etch it as Berliner had done. Instead of the steel needle Berliner used to record the sound, Johnson designed a miniature cutting tool much like the kind used on the lathes in his shop. A deeper cut meant more distinct sound reproduction and a more resilient impression to endure the wear and tear of the duplicating process. Johnson replaced the zinc disc covered with fatty film
Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings
Eldridge R. Johnson. (Library of Congress)
with a solid wax disc. He took great care to ensure that the surface of the master was perfectly flat. Where others had used ordinary gramophones to record, merely shouting into the amplifying horn to vibrate the recording stylus, Johnson designed a special recording machine that had a rubber hose connecting the recording assembly with the horn used to pick up the sound. A carefully governed electric motor maintained the disc’s revolution at an exact speed, ensuring that the recording was made at an even pitch; even the slightest change in the speed of the disc affected the pitch of the reproduced sound. Once an acceptable master recording had been made, Johnson faced the problem of making a matrix from the 97
Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings wax master—the same problem that Edison had confronted earlier. After more than two years of experiments, Johnson came up with much the same solution. His masters were first covered with a fine layer of metal dust, and then more metal was electroplated onto the primary layer to make the negative matrix. The matrix was then used to stamp the duplicate onto soft wax blanks. The resulting duplicates had none of the surface noise that spoiled the Berliner discs and much louder reproduction than the Edison cylinders. Johnson’s achievement was to transfer the technique that Edison had perfected for the cylinder to the disc. He borrowed from Edison’s prior experiments and used Edison equipment and wax in his duplicating process. By 1900, Johnson had edged ahead of Edison in the race to mass-produce sound recordings. Johnson quickly formed the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 based on his patents and those of Berliner. The company began the manufacture of a line of gramophones and the mass duplication of recorded discs. The advantage of using the disc format was that it was much easier and cheaper to stamp out duplicates than to form them in cylindrical molds. Johnson found it easy to set up the equipment to duplicate thousands of discs a day. Within a short time, Johnson designed machines to stamp out the duplicates automatically. By 1902, the Victor Company had successfully established a large plant to duplicate recordings. It produced more than one million duplicates of recorded discs in that year. Significance The experiments that Edison and Johnson carried out produced a significant advance in the understanding of sound waves and the various elements in the spectrum of sound. Johnson’s innovation, however, marked no advance in the theory of sound or its reproduction; his approach, like Edison’s, was strictly empirical. Although both men used the scientific method in their research and took advantage of the latest equipment, especially microscopes and measuring instruments, their experiments were directed at commercial goals. They did not publish the results of their research, and Johnson did not patent his duplicating process, preferring to keep it a trade secret. The effects of his innovation are to be found in Western society and culture: He opened the way for the masses to enjoy recorded sound. The most immediate effect of Johnson’s innovation was that the trickle of recorded sound in the nineteenth century became a torrent in the twentieth. Once Edison had perfected his duplicating process in 1903, popular 98
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 music was available in both disc and cylinder formats and at a price that most could afford. Recordings that had once sold for more than a dollar each could now be purchased for fifty cents, and the price continued to drop in the years leading up to World War I, when records could be purchased for twenty-five cents. The drop in price made this technology more accessible. A talking machine, with its library of recordings, became as commonplace in the home as the electric light and the telephone. Both Edison and Johnson were concerned with the quality of recorded sound, for they deemed this to be the critical part of the public’s acceptance of the new technology. The excellent sound reproduction of Johnson’s duplicates enlarged the scope of recorded sound. Classical music made by great artists could now be captured on wax. Recorded sound was no longer the preserve of vaudeville artists and minstrel acts. In 1903, the great tenor Enrico Caruso made a series of historic recordings for Victor. Music lovers who had previously spurned the gramophone now rushed to buy one. Caruso was the first performer to sell a million recordings, making a fortune for himself and the Victor Company in the process. The disc-duplicating process was quickly diffused to Europe through Victor’s subsidiary companies. It was copied by the company’s competitors but not improved upon significantly. Johnson’s process was used throughout the industry until the late 1920’s, when electric recording and new record compounds brought changes in the ways sound was recorded and records were duplicated. Yet the basic method of coating the master with a thin layer of metal and then electroplating it to form a matrix remained unchanged. In the early twenty-first century, the matrix was still used to stamp out thousands of duplicates. After 1902, the technology of recorded sound advanced continuously, providing microgrooved, long-playing records made of vinyl, yet the method of duplication remained essentially the same as the one that Johnson devised in 1902. — Andre Millard Further Reading Chanan, Michael. Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music. London: Verso, 1995. Discusses the influence of audio recording on Western society, culture, and economy, and particularly on people’s relationships with music. Includes a brief history of the art of recording sound. Fagan, Ted, and William R. Moran, comps. The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. This reference work
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Johnson’s Victor Company. Compares the achievements of the two men. Vanderbilt, Byron. Thomas Edison, Chemist. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1971. One of the best books written about work in Edison’s laboratory, this volume is much more than an assessment of Edison’s chemical experiments. Provides an insightful and detailed account of the duplication experiments. Welch, Walter L., and Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt. From Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929. Rev. ed. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994. Profusely illustrated and entertaining volume covers the history of the talking machine from Edison's invention to the development of stereo. Yorke, Dane. “The Rise and Fall of the Phonograph.” American Mercury 27 (September, 1932): 1-12. An amusing and well-written account of the early years of the phonograph business as seen by a contemporary. This article relates the general story of this technology in condensed form. See also: Apr. 11, 1902: Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed.
1902
Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory Beppo Levi acknowledged and criticized the axiom of choice in set theory and attempted to justify and carry out infinite choices. Locale: University of Turin, Italy Category: Mathematics Key Figures Beppo Levi (1875-1961), Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932), Italian mathematician and logician Felix Bernstein (1878-1956), German mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918), German mathematician Summary of Event The notion of infinity has been a perennial problem in both mathematics and philosophy. A major question in (meta) mathematics has been whether and in what form infinities should be admitted. The debate between
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Sir Isaac Newton on the use of the “infinitesimal” in seventeenth century differential calculus is only one of many possible examples of this problem. In most pre-twentieth century mathematics, infinities occur only in what might be called a “potential” (inactual, implicit) form. Potential infinity can be illustrated readily with a simple example from limit theory. There is no question of an actually infinitely great or infinitesimally small quantity to be computed or otherwise arrived at. As noted set theoretician Abraham A. Fraenkel has remarked, many nineteenth century mathematicians such as Carl Friedrich Gauss and AugustinLouis Cauchy considered infinity in mathematics to be largely a conventional expression showing the limits of ordinary language for expressing pure mathematical concepts. In addition to the less problematic notion of potential infinity, an equally old problem of “actual” infinity had 99
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contains a reproduction of B. L. Aldridge’s history of the Victor Company. Johnson, E. R. Fenimore. His Master’s Voice Was Eldridge Reeves Johnson. Milford, Del.: State Media, 1974. Written by Johnson’s son, this account draws heavily on primary sources and personal recollection. Although less than critical of Johnson, the accounts of his experimental and business activities are detailed and accurate. Josephson, Matthew. Edison: A Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959. A classic account of the life and work of Thomas Alva Edison. It is the best of the many biographies of Edison, avoiding the excessive praise and harsh criticism that mar other books. Gives a clear account of the duplication experiments. Millard, Andre. America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Covers everything from Edison’s invention of the phonograph to radios and the evolution of stereo systems, tracing the scientific and social developments that have influenced the progress of recorded music. _______. Edison and the Business of Innovation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. This study of Edison’s business activities centers on the phonograph industry and Edison’s struggle with
Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory
Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory long been faced by speculative philosophers and theologians such as Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, and Immanuel Kant, among many others. A major thematic front throughout nineteenth century mathematics and logic was precise clarification of the boundary and relations between actual and potential infinities, in foundational as well as applied mathematics. One of the earliest such efforts was that of Bernhard Bolzano, whose Paradoxien des Unendlichen (1851; Paradoxes of the Infinite, 1950) cataloged a large number of extant and novel conundrums as well as unclear and unusual properties of actual infinities in mathematics. A particular emphasis, to recur repeatedly in later set theory and logic, was the apparent paradox of the equivalence of an infinite set to a proper part or subset of itself, implying different levels or kinds of infinity where previously only one infinity was supposed. The term “set” was first employed in Bolzano’s text as an important mathematical concept. The first major developments in the formation of a consistent and comprehensive theory of actual infinities in mathematics were primarily the work of Georg Cantor. Between 1873 and 1899, Cantor sought to lay the foundations for a new branch of mathematics—called the theory of aggregates or sets—that would not only formalize the mathematically acceptable concepts of infinity but also serve as the foundation for every other mathematical theory and discipline employing infinities. Cantor’s set theory did not begin with philosophical speculations about infinity, but with the problem of actually distinguishing finitely and infinitely many “specified” points, such as the points of discontinuity in the theory of functions. Yet, despite many strenuous efforts, Cantor, as well as Richard Dedekind, Giuseppe Peano, and many other mathematicians, blurred or passed over unawares the distinction of choices implicitly or explicitly made by some kind of a rule or algorithm from which a given denumerable or indenumerable (uncountable) point set was defined. In particular, although the first n members of a subset were seen clearly as selected specifically by a selection or generative rule, neither Cantor nor anyone else explained how such a rule could actually be extended to define likewise the entire (actually infinite) subset. This problem was further complicated by the fact that many mathematicians of the era frequently made an infinity of arbitrary selections, not only independently but also where each given choice depended on the choices previously made. These questions not only undercut the proof method of using “one-to-one” mappings or correspon100
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dences between different sets but also underscored the then-formulating foundational questions of whether “in the last analysis” mathematical entities such as sets are discovered or defined/created. In 1882, particularly, Cantor argued to Dedekind and others that his means of extending the (infinite) sequence of positive numbers by introducing symbols for infinity, such as ∞, ∞+1, and ∞+2, was not merely conventional but a legitimate number choice. Perhaps the simplest example of Cantor’s transfinite numbers is the model suggested by Zeno’s paradoxes of motion. Here, a runner uniformly traverses a road divided into intervals. Although the number of intervals is ∞, the time taken to traverse them is finite (hence the paradox). If the first interval is designated the ωth interval, the subsequent intervals will be the ω+1th, ω+2th, and so on. These numbers ω, ω+1, ω+2, and so on, are the transfinite ordinal numbers first designated by Cantor. Also called into question was Cantor’s related continuum hypothesis, which asserts that every infinite subset of the real numbers either is denumerable (countable by means of a finite procedure) or has the degree of infinity of the continuum. In Cantor’s sense, the continuum is defined by the assumption that for every transfinite number t, 2t is the next-highest number. Equivalently, the continuum hypothesis proposes that there is no (transfinite) cardinal number between the cardinal of the set of positive integers and the cardinal of the set of real numbers. These and other related developments left early twentieth century set theory with a network of fundamental, interlinked, and unsolved problems, all of which somehow involved the notions of selection or choice, linking well-known finite mathematics with the newer mathematics of actual infinities. Nevertheless, very few, if any, mathematicians explicitly considered all these questions from this viewpoint. Peano, an Italian mathematician responsible for the first symbolization of the natural number system of arithmetic, was also coming up against similar inconsistencies in his investigations of the conditions for existence and continuity of implicit functions. In 1892, one of Peano’s colleagues, Rodolfo Bettazzi, investigated conditions under which a limit point was also the limit point of a sequence. Bettazzi underscored the same underlying issue as Peano. The third mathematician to consider this problem of how to justify or actually carry out infinitely many choices was Peano and Bettazzi’s colleague Beppo Levi. Levi was completing his dissertation research, inspired by the set theory work of French mathematician René Baire, who had developed the novel notion of “semi-
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Significance Although Levi’s 1902 paper proved a catalyst for subsequent work by Bernstein, Hilbert, Ernst Zermelo, and many other mathematicians, the direct response to and recognition of the paper was very limited. Basically, although Levi explicitly recognized the axiom of choice embodied in the work of Cantor and Bernstein, he rejected its use in its extant form. This led ultimately to
Zermelo’s 1904 publication that proved the well-ordering principle by use of the axiom of choice. In his 1910 seminal paper on field theory foundations in algebra, Ernst Steinitz summarized the widespread attitude toward the axiom of choice in algebra, topology, and the like. Thus, although explicit examination of the axiom of choice was largely ignored for some time, from 1916 onward the Polish mathematician Waclaw Sierpinski issued many studies of implicit as well as open applications of the axiom of choice. Although Levi in 1918 offered what he called a “quasi-constructivist” improved alternative to the axiom, most mathematicians considered his alternative too limited and unwieldy. In 1927, American logician Alonzo Church sought unsuccessfully to derive a logical contradiction from the axiom. No alternative was developed until 1962, when two Polish mathematicians, J. Mycielski and H. Steinhaus, proposed their axiom of determinateness. Since then, it has been shown that a number of other propositions are equivalent to varyingly weaker or stronger forms of the axiom of choice, as originally recognized by Levi and positively employed as such by Zermelo. — Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Dauben, J. W. Georg Cantor: His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. A good rendering of Cantor’s original set theory papers. Undergraduate-level discussion. Fraenkel, Abraham A. Set Theory and Logic. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1966. Intermediate level. Includes math background material to the debate that arose about the axiom of choice as well as examples of the axiom’s contemporary use. Halmos, Paul R. Naive Set Theory. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1960. An introduction to Cantorian and contemporary intuitive, nonaxiomatized set theory for the general reader. Kanamori, A. “The Mathematical Development of Set Theory from Cantor to Cohen.” Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 2, no. 1 (1996): 1-71. An account of the history of set theory from its beginnings, with an emphasis on the heritage that current set theory has retained and developed. Rubin, Herman, and Jean E. Rubin. Equivalents of the Axiom of Choice. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1985. Although technical, this book includes accessible discussions of most of the subsequent theorems considered equivalent to the Levi-Zermelo axiom of choice. 101
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continuity” for point sets. In 1900, Levi published a paper extending Baire’s investigations of fundamental properties satisfied by every real function on any subset of the real numbers. Without proof, Levi proposed that every subset 1 is equal to the union of subsets 2 and 3 minus subset 4, where 2 is any closed set and 3 and 4 are “nowhere-dense” sets. Levi also asserted that every uncountable subset of the real numbers has the power of the continuum, essentially Cantor’s continuum hypothesis. In another dissertation of 1901, a student of Cantor and David Hilbert, Felix Bernstein, sought to establish that the set of all closed subsets of the real number system has the power of the continuum. In 1897, Bernstein had given the first proof of what is known as the equivalence theorem for sets: If each of two sets is equivalent to a subset of the other, then both sets are mutually equivalent. In his 1901 work, Bernstein remarked that Levi’s 1900 results were mistaken. As a response, in 1902 Levi published a careful analysis of Bernstein’s dissertation in which Bernstein’s use of choices in defining sets came into sharp and explicit critical focus. In Levi’s broad analysis of then-extant set theory, he questioned Cantor’s assertion that any set can be wellordered. Well-orderedness is the property whereby a set can be put systematically into a one-to-one correspondence with elements of another set. Levi pointed out that even though Bernstein had openly abandoned the wellordering principle, Bernstein had nevertheless employed an assumption that it appeared to be derived essentially from the same postulate of well-orderedness. This questionable assumption was Bernstein’s so-called partition principle; that is, if a set R is divided or partitioned into a family of disjoint (nonintersecting) nonempty sets S, then S is less than or equal to R. Following Levi’s proof that Bernstein’s partition principle was valid only whenever R was finite, Levi critically remarked that the example was applicable without change to any other case where all the elements s of S are well-ordered or where a unique element in each s can be distinguished. This statement is, essentially, a summary of what would be explicitly termed the axiom of choice.
Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory
McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome Suppes, Patrick. Axiomatic Set Theory. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1960. Presents the basic principles of more rigorous set theory in terms of the ZermeloFraenkel and Newmann-Bernays-Gödel axioms. Van Heijenoort, Jean, ed. From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Includes many English translations of works by Peano, Russell, Zermelo, Hilbert, and others relevant to set theory. A good introduction.
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See also: June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
1902
McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome Clarence Erwin McClung’s suggestion that the “accessory,” or “X,” chromosome determines sex represented a significant contribution to the evolution of a chromosomal theory of inheritance. Locale: Chicago, Illinois; Lawrence, Kansas Categories: Science and technology; biology; genetics Key Figures Clarence Erwin McClung (1870-1946), American zoologist William Morton Wheeler (1865-1937), American entomologist Hermann Henking (1858-1942), German zoologist Nettie Maria Stevens (1861-1912), American cytologist Edmund Beecher Wilson (1856-1939), American cytologist Walter S. Sutton (1877-1916), American cytologist Theodor Boveri (1862-1915), German cytologist Summary of Event Since ancient times, observers have recognized that although offspring generally resemble their parents, they differ from them in particular characteristics. Most early attempts to explain these similarities and differences were not very successful. In 1866, Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, published a paper on the experimental breeding of garden peas in which he proposed explanations (now known as Mendel’s laws) for the inheritance of traits. Mendel referred to “factors” or units of heredity (genes) but did not realize that his factors were located on chromosomes in the cell nucleus. Because he published 102
his results in a relatively obscure journal, they went unnoticed until 1900. Meanwhile, cytologists (scientists who study cells) were taking advantage of improved instruments and staining techniques to observe the behavior of the chromosomes (darkly staining bodies in the cell nucleus) during cell division. These early cytologists, however, did not recognize that the behavior of the chromosomes was related to heredity. Experimental breeding and cytology appeared to be separate and unrelated areas of research. During the first decade of the twentieth century, however, the two apparently unconnected strands began to converge. By 1900, when three investigators independently discovered Mendel’s paper, it was possible to make such a synthesis, for cytologists had collected a considerable amount of information regarding the behavior of the chromosomes during body cell division (mitosis) and during the maturation of the egg and sperm cells (meiosis). They knew that chromosomes replicate before each cell division and that each daughter cell receives only one representative of each replicated chromosome found in the parent cell. This division results in two identical daughter cells. Investigators also observed that a second type of cell division occurs when gametes (eggs or sperm) are formed during meiosis. Instead of producing daughter cells identical with the parent, the number of chromosomes is reduced by half (haploid). When the egg and sperm fuse during fertilization, the set of chromosomes contributed by the egg match with the set contributed by the sperm, restoring the double (diploid) number. The chromosomes of the offspring, then, are derived equally from the egg and the sperm, assuring that each diploid pair of
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McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome and 1902, McClung postulated that the accessory chromosome is involved in the inheritance of sex. At the beginning of the twentieth century, biologists were divided on the issue of the inheritance of sex, with some asserting that it is determined by heredity and others arguing that it is determined by environment. One popular theory suggested that the fertilized egg exists initially in a sort of balanced state and that environmental factors, such as temperature or amount of food, determine whether it develops into a male or a female. Other investigators, however, insisted that external conditions do not affect sex ratios and that the determination of sex occurs at the time of fertilization or shortly thereafter. McClung’s observations were based on the second view. The “accessory” chromosome was present in all cells of the organism and was present in one-half the gametes of males. Therefore, at fertilization one-half the gametes contained the accessory chromosome and the other half lacked it. Because sex was the only characteristic that McClung could think of that would divide a species into two equal groups, he concluded that the accessory chromosome might be a sex determiner. Miscounting the number of chromosomes in the female Xiphidion, he erroneously concluded that spermatozoa possessing an accessory (X) chromosome were male determiners. In fact, the opposite situation is correct. A sperm bearing an accessory (X) chromosome is female-determining, and a sperm bearing either no accessory or a Y chromosome is male-determining. Although McClung’s misunderstanding of the way in which the accessory chromosome acts to determine sex was soon modified, his results did not resolve the controversy over the role of chromosomes in determining sex. Even McClung considered his ideas about the role of the accessory chromosome as a mere working hypothesis, not proof that sex is chromosomally determined. He recognized that his evidence was largely circumstantial, dependent on the presence or absence of the accessory chromosome in males or females. Given the tremendous variability within the animal kingdom and the scarcity of data on the subject, McClung was unwilling to generalize from his specific evidence to all animals. Even though he considered his evidence in grasshoppers compelling, he was not convinced of its truth for all species. McClung agreed with many of his contemporaries that the environment might play a role in the determination of sex in some species. He also believed in selective fertilization: that the egg could choose whether it was fertilized by a sperm carrying an accessory chromosome or one lacking it. McClung did not have all the answers. 103
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chromosomes in the offspring is composed of a maternal and a paternal representative. Mendel’s “factors” seemed to be distributed in the same way as the chromosomes, suggesting that the factors either were the chromosomes themselves or were located on the chromosomes. Chromosomes as the physical agents of heredity could explain why offspring show characteristics of both parents (because half of the chromosomes are contributed by the male and the other half by the female). As reasonable as such a hypothesis appeared, if it were to be confirmed, a specific trait would have to be traced from a parent’s chromosomes to those of the offspring. Although no trait had been traced from parent to offspring by the beginning of the twentieth century, investigators found a likely candidate in sex inheritance. Clarence Erwin McClung played an important role in this investigation. Although McClung had a wide range of biological interests—including microtechnique, vertebrate paleontology, and histology—he became interested in the role of the chromosomes when, as a graduate student at the University of Kansas, he spent the summer of 1898 working with William Morton Wheeler at the University of Chicago. Wheeler suggested that McClung study chromosome behavior in sperm production in a species of grasshopper. This introduction, as well as the semester McClung spent at Columbia University studying with cytologist Edmund Beecher Wilson, directed his attention to the behavior of the chromosomes. McClung’s studies resulted in a paper titled “A Peculiar Nuclear Element in the Male Reproductive Cells of Insects” (1899). This “nuclear element” had been described in 1891 by Hermann Henking, who followed the behavior of an unusual structure (he did not recognize it as a chromosome) in sperm formation of the fire wasp Pyrrhocoris. This structure, described by Henking as a “peculiar chromatin-element” (“X”) or an atypical “nucleolus,” did not appear to pair up with a partner during meiosis as did the other chromosomes. Henking noted that the male bug had an uneven number of chromosomes and the female an even number. During sperm formation, one-half of the sperm received the “X” body and the other half did not receive it. The half receiving it ended up with twelve chromosomes, whereas the half without it had only eleven. Henking, however, did not recognize the significance of the unpaired chromosome. McClung accomplished this step when, working on the formation of sperm in the grasshopper Xiphidion, he observed the “X” element that Henking had described. In his 1899 paper, he coined the term “accessory chromosome” for Henking’s “X” structure. In papers of 1901
McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome His creative speculations, however, based on accurate observations of a specific group of animals, provided his successors with an important tool they could use to establish a basis for the chromosomal theory of sex determination. Significance McClung’s suggestion that the accessory chromosome in insects functions as a sex determiner represented a significant stage in the evolution of a chromosomal theory of inheritance. His interpretation helped attribute purpose to the movements of chromosomes in general and specifically of the accessory chromosome in sperm formation. Even though his proposal was tentative, he was the first to suggest the relation of a particular chromosome to a particular characteristic. His work not only explained the one-to-one male-female ratio observed in most animals but also, more generally, provided the groundwork for a chromosomal theory of heredity. McClung’s work was acknowledged soon after it was completed by those who incorporated the work into their own research. Because the function of the behavior of the chromosomes was one of the major topics of interest within the early twentieth century biological “establishment,” cytologists were intrigued by new ideas. Thus McClung’s interpretation of the function of the accessory chromosome as a sex determiner was of vital interest to investigators such as Walter S. Sutton and Theodor Boveri, who were convinced that the chromosomes represented the physical basis for heredity but lacked evidence to prove it. Sutton, who had been a student of both McClung at Kansas and Wilson at Columbia University, published his paper “The Chromosomes in Heredity” in 1903, immediately after McClung’s major interpretive paper appeared in 1902. Sutton demonstrated that the behavior of the paired chromosomes during egg and sperm formation parallel exactly the segregation of the paired Mendelian factors in heredity. McClung’s contribution on the accessory chromosome’s importance in the inheritance of sex was important to the understanding of the way in which sex is determined. McClung’s interpretations were considered by Nettie Maria Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson, who collected additional data and provided extensive hypotheses of sex determination by chromosomes. From McClung’s cautious interpretation of his data that sex is determined by a chromosome in certain insects, others recognized the need to gather additional data. They soon realized that the situation could become quite complicated. In many groups of animals, males carry only one unpartnered accessory chromosome (des104
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ignated XO), but in others they have an accessory chromosome plus an additional element, the Y chromosome (designated XY). Females generally have two accessories (designated XX). In some groups of animals, such as birds and some insects, however, the situation is reversed, with males having two accessories (XX) and females one (XO or XY). McClung’s creative interpretation of his data provided other investigators with a starting point to unravel a most complex situation. — Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie Further Reading Allen, Garland E. Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. Although this book is basically concerned with the life and work of geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan, it provides a valuable context for understanding McClung’s contributions. Includes an excellent bibliographic essay. Carlson, Elof Axel. Mendel’s Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004. Based heavily on early twentieth century sources, this book traces the roots of genetics in breeding analysis and studies of cytology, evolution, and reproductive biology. Highly illustrated. Cummings, Michael. Human Heredity: Principles and Issues. 6th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2002. Highly illustrated text aimed at nonscience students presents the complex topic of heredity clearly, without oversimplifying the concepts discussed. Dunn, L. C. A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 18641939. 1965. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. Provides context for McClung’s ideas. Useful volume covers concisely the central ideas in classical genetics from Mendel’s paper up to 1939. Includes a glossary and bibliographies of both primary and secondary sources. Hughes, Arthur. A History of Cytology. 1959. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990. One section of this book considers theories of inheritance. Includes a discussion of the history of ideas on sex determination. McClung, Clarence E. “The Cell Theory: What of the Future?” American Naturalist 74 (1939): 47-53. McClung puts his own work and that of his contemporaries into context and speculates on the direction that future developments in cytogenetics might take. Wenrich, D. H. “Clarence Erwin McClung.” Journal of
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Morphology 66 (1940): 635-688. This work, published on the occasion of McClung’s seventieth birthday, represents one of the most complete biographical sources available. Also includes a complete bibliography of McClung’s work up to 1940. Wilson, Edmund B. The Cell in Development and Heredity. 3d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1937. The first edition of this book, published in 1896, was the outgrowth of a series of lectures Wilson gave at Columbia University in 1892-1893. A classic source, Wilson revised it as new data and interpretations emerged. Includes a massive literature list.
See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map. 1902
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Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States Expansionism by the United States in the Philippines awakened feelings of ambivalence, selfishness, and altruism among the American people regarding treatment of Filipinos. Also known as: Philippine Insurrection Locale: Philippines Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; atrocities and war crimes; expansion and land acquisition; independence movements Key Figures William McKinley (1843-1901), president of the United States, 1897-1901 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Elihu Root (1845-1937), U.S. secretary of war, 18991904 Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964), leader of the struggle for Philippine independence Gamaliel Bradford (1863-1932), American historian Cornelius Gardener (1849-1921), U.S. Army major who served as U.S. governor of Tayabas Province in the Philippines Summary of Event The Spanish-American War of 1898 led to a number of direct territorial annexations by the United States. In December, 1898, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain officially turned over to the United States the islands of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. In the case of the Philippines, the United States paid Spain $20 million. Even with this remuneration, the taking of the
Philippines led to heated debates within President William McKinley’s administration: Should these islands be left to themselves, or should they receive “guidance” from the victorious American nation? In the end, the fate of the Philippines was left to President McKinley, who believed that the Filipinos were ignorant and childlike and therefore unfit for selfgovernment. McKinley chose to “educate, uplift, civilize, and Christianize” them by annexing the islands. Secretary of War Elihu Root was appointed official overseer of this process. He organized and charged the newly created Philippine Commission to maintain the “happiness, peace, and prosperity of the people” and committed the U.S. government to establish courts, municipal governments, a civil service, and schools in the Philippines. Under a policy of “benevolent assimilation,” Filipinos were to be integrated officially into Western culture as espoused and practiced by the United States. Implicit in this cultural ideal was the rhetoric of social Darwinism: natural selection and survival of the fittest. For the most part, Americans viewed Filipinos with a mixture of condescension and scorn, secure in the belief that Filipinos were incapable of managing their own affairs. Attitudes such as these began to manifest themselves in a blend of selfishness and altruism. Many believed that the acquisition of territory by the United States was always motivated by the highest ideals. On the other hand, the American articulation of expansionist policies in the Philippines, which promoted social Darwinist principles, often perpetuated racist notions such as the concept of the “white man’s burden.” This made the wearing of the mantle of expansionism a 105
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Social Darwinism Perhaps more profoundly than any other work, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) and its sequel, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), shaped the development of modern biology and, more broadly, the modern view of human nature. No longer was it possible to accept uncritically the biblical view of creation, with the implied special place of humankind in the divine order. Human beings became creatures among creatures, with a traceable evolution and descent from earlier hominid forms. Darwin’s ideas exerted a wide cultural influence, diffusing into politics, literature, and class relations, especially through Herbert Spencer’s concept of social Darwinism. It was not Darwin but Spencer—a laissez-faire economist and, ironically, a fragile individual—who coined the misleading phrase “survival of the fittest.” However, this misapplied evolutionary perspective was current before Darwin produced his famous work. Spencer was simply the most dogmatic in applying the principles of evolution and natural selection to society. Moreover, Spencer’s writings on competition in business influenced Darwin. Unfortunately, social Darwinism became embedded in much of the popular imagination. Darwin’s ideas were often mistakenly used to justify racism, discrimination, and repressive economic practices. Although Darwin drifted toward agnosticism and did not believe in a divinely sanctioned morality, he did not condone a world of amoral violence and brute struggle for domination. A gentle man who abhorred violence and cruelty, he would have been horrified at the political and social misapplications of principles linked with his name. At the same time, Darwin was not a Victorian liberal and accepted many of the unenlightened views of his age concerning “primitive” cultures.
somewhat difficult task for many Americans. Consequently, the American people responded to the entire Philippine incursion with a mixture of ambivalence, selfishness, and altruism. “Benevolent assimilation” began to be defined by those government officials who were implementing it, and American policy tended to confront public ambivalence with a good dose of patriotic selfishness. In the process, altruism was all but lost as benevolent assimilation was implemented more for American goals than for Philippine self-determination. American benevolence became a policy that thrived on the acquisition of territory for its own end. Any Philip106
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pine opposition to this policy was seen as the failure of the Filipino culture to grasp the ideal of progress, a view that justified McKinley’s assessment of Filipinos’ unfitness for self-governance. American policy in the Philippines was always justified as humanitarian by design, especially when compared with the decidedly inhumane policies of the previous Spanish rule. For their part, the Filipinos apparently did not see any difference between the two outside ruling powers. In 1899, under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippine Insurrection began. Aguinaldo had originally proposed Philippine independence within a U.S. protectorate in return for services the Philippines rendered to the United States against the Spanish during the war. The U.S. government rejected his proposal immediately following the removal of Spanish suzerainty over the islands. Instead of negotiating with the insurgents and assisting the Filipino people in their struggle for selfdetermination, the United States elected to go to war with the insurrectos, using seventy thousand American troops to crush the indigenous independence movement. The United States all but abandoned any pretext of rescuing the Filipinos from latent Spanish oppressive rule by the end of 1899. American ideals of peacefully “civilizing the uncivilized” were soon replaced with racist attitudes and policies that were implemented savagely. The Filipinos, even without significant weaponry, soon managed to return such savagery. This was a shortlived response, as the military and economic power of the United States was, in the long run, too much for the insurrectos. In 1902 the conflict came to an end. Beginning in July of 1901, Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential administration “elevated the application of extreme measures . . . into a policy that was official and acknowledged.” These measures were often brutal. Letters revealing to soldiers’ loved ones the harshness and wickedness of the insurrection began to find their way into print shortly after the Roosevelt policy was put into effect. Writing in the Springfield, Massachusetts, Daily Republican on April 9, 1902, publicist and historian Gamaliel Bradford described the savagery of the infamous “water cure” to his American readers: “placing a man on his back, forcing open his mouth and pouring into him a pail of water, till he swells up like a toad, and then squeezing it out again.” The New York Evening Post of April 8, 1902, described the water cure in more vivid detail: If the tortures I’ve mentioned are hellish, the water cure is plain hell. The native is thrown upon the ground, and, while his legs and arms are pinned, his head is raised par-
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tially so as to make pouring in the water an easier matter. An attempt to keep the mouth closed is of no avail, a bamboo stick or a pinching of the nose will produce the same effect. . . . A gallon of water is much but it is followed by a second and a third . . . a fourth and even a fifth gallon. . . . By this time the body becomes an object frightful to contemplate.
troublesome southern Luzon province of Batangas, had recently instituted new measures for the pacification of the Philippines. Veterans of this new campaign corroborated the resulting action by describing the herding of entire village populations into detention camps, where they were held under the surveillance and guard of American troops to “ensure the isolation of insurgent guerrillas.” According to Colonel Arthur Wagner, the American army officer in charge of isolating insurgent guerrillas in Batangas province, all civilians were to enter these camps with no belongings.
Associated Press dispatches from Manila in the last week of January, 1902, noted without comment that General J. Franklin Bell, U.S. Army commander of the
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Detention centers on average allowed a twelve-foot by six-foot area for each inhabitant. A soldier under General Bell’s command insisted that Bell’s inhumanity exceeded that of the hated Spaniards: “They were content with ‘concentrating’ the miserable women and children left after the devastation of farms and villages, but General Bell marks the husbands and fathers and brothers as criminals to be hanged when caught.” The people of the Philippines were not the only victims during the insurrection. The environment also suffered greatly. The American army, charged with the “extensive burning of barrios” so that the insurrectos could not find sanctuary, destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land in their attempts to pacify the natives. Testifying later before a U.S. Senate committee investigating wartime atrocities, Major Cornelius Gardener stated that environmental destruction on this scale was necessary if the army was going to induce a famine. Apparently, the insurgents—including any village suspected of housing or of even being related to an insurrecto— could not be allowed to find food anywhere. This campaign of starvation was relatively successful. Gardener went on to report that one-third of the population had died as the result of military slaughter, famine, and pestilence.
society at the beginning of the twentieth century and were actualized abroad by American forces in the Philippines. Many American troops looked at the Filipinos as being of one race and condition. Because the Filipinos had dark skin, these soldiers labeled them “niggers,” an extension of the contempt they had for African Americans back home. U.S. government proclamations complemented these feelings. By implying the inferiority of the Filipinos, many government edicts reflected the recently formalized Jim Crow codes of the American South and the segregationist practices of the cities and unions of the North. The individual American soldier in the Philippines became an overseer, a master to an inferior race that needed discipline and training so as to be properly integrated into the Western ideal. The name given to this training was “benevolent assimilation.” The force to implement this assimilation was imperialism, bothersome to many Americans because it showed a powerful nation being driven by brute expansionism, camouflaged by a cultural atmosphere of altruism. Despite these halting beginnings, American administration of the Philippines led eventually to the Commonwealth Constitution in 1935 and a deepening sense of comradeship owing to the common American and Filipino struggle during World War II, after the Japanese invasion of 1941. The eventual liberation of the Philippines from brutal Japanese occupation in 1944, as General MacArthur fulfilled his famous promise “I shall return,” was followed swiftly by Filipino acquisition of independence in 1946. Filipinos enjoyed generally good relations with Americans and with the American government in subsequent years. — Thomas J. Edward Walker and Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes
Significance Many Americans believed that the Philippine Insurrection had to be crushed. The United States had fought for the islands and had officially purchased them from Spain—why give them up to an undeserving indigenous population? Furthermore, if the United States did not control the islands, then the Germans or the British would most certainly colonize them. Finally, the duty to extend Christianity and civilization was part of the American mission to tutor backward peoples. These reasons, along with a foreign policy elite who believed that the United States must prove its power through aggressive policy abroad, help to explain why so little attention was paid to the inhumanity of this mission. To gloss over or cover up any wartime atrocities would show the United States to be weak; any nation that was weak would not expand, and any nation that did not expand would perish. In the eyes of American policy engineers, this attitude provided sufficient justification for the use of extreme measures. “It is not civilized warfare, [because] we are not dealing with civilized people. The only thing that they know and fear is force, violence, and brutality, and we give it to them.” These attitudes, fueled by social Darwinist principles, were pervasive in American 108
Further Reading Delmendo, Sharon. The Star-Entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. History of the troubled relationship between the United States and the Philippines in the twentieth century. Examines several issues, including the longterm effects of American imperialism. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Feuer, A. B. America at War: The Philippines, 18981913. New York: Praeger, 2002. Employs previously unpublished letters, diaries, and photographs to present a look at the Philippine-American War from the point of view of American soldiers, sailors, and marines who participated.
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May, Glenn Anthony. Social Engineering in the Philippines: The Aims, Execution, and Impact of American Colonial Policy, 1900-1913. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Comparative history examines the impact of one set of values on another. Analyzes the values and goals of Americans who made Philippine policy and those of Filipinos on whom it was imposed. Challenges the widely held view of the United States as an essentially successful colonial power. Includes appendixes, index, and bibliographical essay. Miller, Stuart Creighton. Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982. Explores American imperialism as an aberration and as part of a historical continuum, focusing specifically on the conquest of the Philippines. Draws on a wide range of views from generals, presidents, and soldiers to analyze the war itself and its challenge to Americans’ sense of innocence. Includes bibliography and index. Schirmer, Daniel B. Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1972. Carefully researched study of the period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries during which the United States conclusively turned to an imperial course. Focuses on the American anti-imperialists who became active during this era and on the Philippine war they so vigorously opposed. Includes extensive examples from primary sources.
Storey, Moorfield, and Julian Codman. Secretary Root’s Record: “Marked Severities” in Philippine Warfare. Boston: George H. Ells, 1902. Valuable primary source documents the “actions and utterances” of President Roosevelt and Secretary Root during the Philippine-American War, as noted in the “Law and Facts Hearing.” Reprints telegraphic messages concerning American military tactics that traveled between the Philippines and Washington, D.C. Also provides some revealing commentary on this correspondence and on testimony from the hearing. Storey, Moorfield, and Marcial P. Lichauco. The Conquest of the Philippines by the United States, 18981925. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926. Supplements and comments on Secretary Root’s Record (cited above). Suggests that the American people were led, through false statements and suppression of the truth, to support the taking of the Philippines and to believe in the “American mission.” Welch, Richard E., Jr. Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902. 1979. Reprint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. Analyzes the responses of various sectors of American society to imperialism and to the Philippine-American War, revealing the strength of such social forces as racism and patriotism. Includes bibliography and index. See also: May 27, 1901: Insular Cases; 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy”; Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act.
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Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope
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Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope Richard Zsigmondy’s development of the ultramicroscope allowed scientists to measure and identify individual particles in colloid solutions. Locale: Göttingen, Germany Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; inventions Key Figures Richard Zsigmondy (1865-1929), Austrian-born German organic chemist H. F. W. Siedentopf (1872-1940), German physicist and optician Summary of Event Richard Zsigmondy’s invention of the ultramicroscope grew out of his interest in colloidal substances. Colloids are tiny particles of a substance finely dispersed throughout a solution of another material or substance (for example, salt in water). Zsigmondy, whose father, Adolf, was a noted inventor of dental surgical equipment, first became interested in colloids while working as an assistant to the physicist Adolf Kundt at the University of Berlin in 1892. Although originally trained as an organic chemist, in which discipline he took his Ph.D. at the University of Munich in 1890, Zsigmondy became particularly interested in colloidal substances containing fine particles of gold that produce lustrous colors when painted on porcelain. He subsequently abandoned organic chemistry and devoted his career to the study of colloids. Zsigmondy began intensive research into his new field of interest in 1893, when he returned to Austria to accept a post as lecturer at the Technische Hochschule at Graz. He became especially interested in gold-ruby glass, the accidental invention of the seventeenth century alchemist Johann Kunckel. While pursuing the alchemist’s chimera of transmuting base substances into gold, Kunckel discovered instead a method of producing glass with a beautiful deep-red luster through the suspension of very fine particles of gold throughout the liquid silica before it was cooled to become glass. Zsigmondy also began studying a colloidal pigment called purple of Cassius, the discovery of another seventeenth century alchemist, Andreas Cassius. Zsigmondy soon discovered that purple of Cassius was a colloidal solution and not, as many chemists believed at the time, a chemical compound. This fact allowed him to develop techniques for glass and porcelain 110
coloring with potentially great commercial value, which led directly to his 1897 appointment to a research post with the Schott Glass Manufacturing Company in Jena, Germany. With the Schott Company, Zsigmondy concentrated on the commercial production of colored glass objects. His most notable achievement during this period was the invention of Jena milk glass, still prized by collectors throughout the world. While Zsigmondy was studying these substances, many European chemists insisted that purple of Cassius was a chemical compound. Zsigmondy devised experiments that convinced him that it was not a chemical compound but instead a colloidal substance. When he published the results of his research in professional journals, however, they were not widely accepted by the scientific community. Other scientists were not able to replicate Zsigmondy’s experiments and consequently denounced
Richard Zsigmondy. (The Nobel Foundation)
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Significance After Zsigmondy’s invention of the ultramicroscope and his subsequent observations concerning colloidal solutions, in 1907 the University of Göttingen appointed him professor of inorganic chemistry and director of the university’s Institute for Inorganic Chemistry. Using the ultramicroscope, Zsigmondy and his associates quickly refuted all the critics who had denounced his research on purple of Cassius, proving that it is indeed a colloidal substance. That finding, however, was the least of the spectacular discoveries that resulted from Zsigmondy’s invention. In the next decade, Zsigmondy and his associates found that color changes in colloidal gold solutions result from coagulation—that is, changes in the size and number of gold particles in the solution caused by particles bonding together. Zsigmondy found that coagulation occurs when the negative electrical charge of the individual particles is removed through the addition of salts. Coagulation can be prevented or slowed by the addition of protective colloids. These observations also made possible the determination of the speed at which coagulation takes place, as well as the number of particles in the colloidal substance being studied. With the assistance of the theoretical physicist Max von Smouluchowski, Zsigmondy worked out a complete mathematical formula of colloidal coagulation that is valid not only for gold colloidal solutions but also for all other colloids. Colloidal substances include milk and blood, which both coagulate, thus giving relevance to Zsigmondy’s work in the fields of medicine and agriculture. These observations and discoveries concerning colloids—in addition to invention of the ultramicroscope—earned Zsigmondy the 1925 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. After his appointment at Göttingen University, Zsigmondy assembled a research team and began intensive research into colloids using the ultramicroscope. He and his team developed another tool for their investigations, which Zsigmondy called ultrafiltration. Using the ultramicroscope and ultrafiltration, the scientists undertook a detailed study of gels, particularly silica and soap gels (which are essentially coagulated colloidal solutions). This research led to many important discoveries with numerous commercial applications, including the development of products such as shampoo, shaving cream, cold cream, suntan lotion, and deodorant soap. In later years, other scientists using the ultramicroscope and Zsigmondy’s ultrafiltration techniques succeeded in ascertaining the electrical conductivity of colloidal particles. This process led to the development of a 111
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them as flawed. The criticism of his work in the technical literature stimulated Zsigmondy to make his greatest discovery, the ultramicroscope, which he developed to prove his theories regarding the colloidal nature of purple of Cassius. Between 1900 and 1907, Zsigmondy pursued private research. During this period, he completed most of the work for which he was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In pursuing his investigations into colloids, he encountered a number of problems that were unresolvable with the scientific equipment available to him. Up to that time, scientists had attempted to study colloidal particles in organic solutions by observing a cone of scattered light, called the Faraday-Tyndall cone, shone into a solution. This method, however, did not permit the observer to see the individual particles suspended in the solution. Using the facilities and assisted by the staff (especially H. F. W. Siedentopf, an expert in optical lens grinding) of the Zeiss Glass Manufacturing Company of Jena, Zsigmondy developed an ingenious device that permitted direct observation of individual colloidal particles. This device, which its developers named the ultramicroscope, made use of a principle that was already known. Sometimes called dark-field illumination, the method utilizes a light (usually sunlight focused by mirrors) that is shone through the solution under the microscope at right angles from the observer, rather than directly from the observer into the solution. The resulting effect is similar to that seen when a beam of sunlight is admitted to a closed room through a small aperture. An observer standing back from and at right angles to such a beam can see, even with the unaided eye, many dust motes suspended in the air that otherwise are not visible. Zsigmondy and those who assisted him made a number of refinements and improvements in dark-field illumination procedures, and the result was the ultramicroscope. Zsigmondy’s device shines a very bright light through the substance or solution being studied. The microscope then focuses on the light shaft from the side. This process enables the observer using the ultramicroscope to view colloidal particles ordinarily invisible even to the strongest conventional microscope. To a scientist viewing purple of Cassius, for example, colloidal gold particles as small as one ten-millionth of a millimeter in size become visible. After Zsigmondy publicized his findings, scientists in a variety of disciplines adopted the ultramicroscope, finding many uses for it in fields as disparate as medicine and agriculture. It remains an important tool in many fields of scientific research.
Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope
Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement method for separating colloidal solutions from the admixed electrolytes, not only in gold solutions but also in other colloidal solutions. These new methods have had numerous commercial applications that have improved the quality of life for humankind. —Paul Madden Further Reading Hatschek, Emil, ed. The Foundations of Colloid Chemistry. London: Ernest Benn, 1925. Places Zsigmondy in the context of his predecessors. Intended for readers with some background in chemistry. Hauser, Ernst. Colloidal Phenomena. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939. Explores the status of colloid research up to the late 1930’s. Requires a working knowledge of chemical terms and concepts. Kruyt, H. R. Colloids. London: Ernest Benn, 1930. A standard reference in colloid chemistry. Discusses Zsigmondy’s contributions to the field. McBain, James W. Colloid Science. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1950. Includes an extensive and admiring overview of Zsigmondy’s work and his contributions
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to the field of chemistry. Intended for readers with background in chemistry. Sherby, Louise S. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-2000. 4th ed. Westport, Conn.: Oryx Press, 2001. Provides detailed information on all winners of the Nobel Prize in the twentieth century, including Richard Zsigmondy. Each article includes a description of the laureate’s life and career, summarizes his or her important achievements, and provides a list of his or her publications as well as biographical resources on the individual. Four indexes enable readers to find laureates by name, education, nationality or citizenship, and religion. Zsigmondy, Richard Adolf. Colloids and the Ultramicroscope. Translated by Jerome Alexander. New York: Wiley, 1909. Zsigmondy’s account of the development and uses of the ultramicroscope. Somewhat technical, but a valuable source. See also: Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin; 1924: Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge.
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Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement Ivan Petrovich Pavlov advanced the concept of reinforcement, which provided a physicochemical explanation for learning. Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Categories: Science and technology; biology Key Figures Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), Russian physiologist I. M. Sechenov (1829-1905), Russian physiologist Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949), American psychologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English naturalist Summary of Event In April, 1903, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov delivered a surprising address to an international medical conference in Madrid. It was thought that the noted Russian physiologist would discuss his research on digestion, but instead he described new investigations into the links between psychic and physiological processes. The focal point of these inquiries was the experience that begins, perpetuates, or eliminates a given kind of behavior. Although 112
Pavlov did not formally name that concept until the following year, he was referring to reinforcement, the key physicochemical event in the learning process. Physiologists had a general understanding of the structure and functions of the nervous system before Pavlov advanced the notion of reinforcement. They had not, however, answered the crucial question of how learning occurs—that is, how behavior changes on the basis of experience. One group, variously described as mentalists, vitalists, or subjectivists, maintained that thoughts and emotions are not subject to physical laws and that experimental attempts to penetrate the boundary between mind and body are useless. Their materialist opponents, generally called monists, insisted that concepts such as spirit, mind, and soul cloud the issue of higher brain functions; they maintained that explanations of all nervous activity should be sought in the laws of physics and chemistry. Before Pavlov’s work on reinforcement, however, monists lacked a cohesive theory supported by a convincing body of experimental data. They observed animals and drew valuable inferences, and they removed parts of animals’ nervous systems, noted the conse-
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (second from right) and his assistants demonstrate the theory of conditional reflex using a dog. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
quences, and reached conclusions. To gain real insight into learning, however, they required a clear approach combined with ways to measure the physical reactions of healthy subjects. Pavlov provided the solution to both problems. The quantifying technique that Pavlov used to address learned behavior was an offshoot of his 1889-1897 investigations into the effects of the nervous system on digestion. In that project, which won for him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, he diverted the duct of a salivary gland (the parotid) to the outside of a dog’s muzzle so that he could collect the dog’s saliva from a funnel. This procedure, which produced measurable secretions from a healthy animal, underpinned Pavlov’s research into reinforcement. Pavlov’s basic approach to the exploration of brain functions also grew from his experiments on digestion. While monitoring the results of sham feeding (the removal of food from a dog’s slit esophagus after it was
swallowed but before it entered the stomach), he observed unexpected gastric secretions. As the vagus nerve (which originates in the medulla oblongata and enervates the abdominal cavity) had been severed during surgery, he concluded that part of the stomach’s neural control lay in the cerebral cortex. This led him to believe that secretions could provide information about higher neural activity. Thus, by 1897, Pavlov possessed a powerful leading idea and a technical procedure that could provide measurable data on the activity of the brain. He also drew on a number of working assumptions. Pavlov was influenced by I. M. Sechenov, a mechanical reductionist who argued that all behavior can be described in terms of reflexes (motor responses to stimulation), reflexes can be explained entirely in physicochemical terms, and an understanding of complicated human reflex behavior is best approached through the study of simpler animal reflex behavior. Pavlov also knew that Charles Darwin had advanced a complemen113
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order to escape from a puzzle box. Also, while doing research on the diIvan Pavlov had worked on the digestive tract before he worked on his thegestive system, he noticed an intriguory of reinforcement. Pavlov perfected a surgical technique of creating a kind ing occurrence: When the presentaof separate stomach in dogs, which made it possible for investigators to monition of food to a dog was regularly tor secretions and other activity of the digestive process. He was able to deterand closely preceded by an alerting mine the function of nerves in controlling digestion. In 1888 he discovered the signal, such as approaching footsteps, secretory nerves of the pancreas, and in 1889 he studied the functions of other the signal alone caused salivation. gastric glands. His work on digestion, not reinforcement, earned him the Nobel Pavlov directed preliminary investiPrize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904. It is his work on reinforcement, howgations into that type of behavior (the ever, for which he is remembered. conditional reflex) as early as 1897. At some point in the early 1900’s, Pavlov became absorbed with the effects In 1902, Pavlov applied himself of the brain on learned behavior, focusing attention on what came to be known as his theory of conditioned reflexes. He realized through his digestive studies completely to the study of the condithat dogs would secrete saliva and other digestive fluids before they actually tional reflex. The outlines of his thereceived food—such as when the dogs heard the approach of laboratory assisory of classical conditioning immeditants at feeding time. In one of the most famous scientific experiments ever ately took shape, for the basic ideas, conducted, Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell when they much of the terminology, and the learned that the bell indicated that food was soon coming. investigative methods were almost Some critics immediately dismissed his theory, claiming that Pavlov had ready to present. Working in the wellsimply given terminology to what every dog trainer already knew. Pavlov’s acequipped physiological laboratory of complishment, however, was to demonstrate clearly that there is an explicit the St. Petersburg Institute of Experconnection between physiological function and learned behavior. His experiimental Medicine, he issued prelimiment left more of a mark on psychology than it did on physiology. By showing nary findings at Madrid in 1903 and that muscular reflexes of the nervous system could be expanded to include mental reflexes, he opened the question as to what extent human behavior is presented formal results of his recontrolled by learned mental patterns and responses. search in 1905. Beginning in 1918 and for several years thereafter, Pavlov studied the beAlthough his evidence was drawn havior patterns of several mentally ill patients in an attempt to treat them. He from experiments on dogs, Pavlov believed he could alter the behavior of the insane by removing the patients extended his conclusions to the hufrom physiological stimuli that might be considered harmful. Therefore, he man nervous system. He maintained treated insanity with quiet and solitude. that all animals have an inborn neuAt the end of his career, Pavlov used his beliefs about conditioned reflexes ral capacity (the unconditional reflex) to explore the differences between humankind and animals. He found that huto react to events necessary for surmans and animals share some, but not all, reflexive responses; humans, he bevival (the unconditional stimulus). lieved, are different from other creatures primarily because the human brain For example, the sight of food norand nervous system can accommodate more complicated, conditioned reflexes. He came to regard human language itself as the most advanced and mally produced a certain type and complicated form of conditioned reflex. amount of salivation in a dog. As long as the dog was allowed to eat food presented to it, the unconditional reflex endured. Eating the proffered tary viewpoint. Darwin’s evolutionary theory implied food reinforced the unconditional reflex, for the act of that mind had evolved through natural selection—and eating maintained (excited) a neural association between if mind had evolved, the brain and behavior had also the unconditional stimulus and the unconditional reflex. evolved. Darwin’s conclusions thus supported the reWhen a dog was repeatedly shown food but was not alductionist idea that animal behavior can provide insights lowed to eat, salivation weakened and eventually disapinto the workings of the human brain. peared. Pavlov interpreted this to mean that the associaFinally, information drawn from recent observation tion between the sight of food and salivation was actually sharpened Pavlov’s interest in the study of learned bea temporary neural connection that could be broken havior. He closely studied Edward L. Thorndike’s experthrough lack of reinforcement. On the other hand, an iments on instrumental conditioning, which required a unreinforced (inhibited) connection could be reactivated; resumption of eating overrode inhibition and recat to operate an instrument such as a lever or bobbin in
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Significance The importance of reinforcement was first recognized in Russia, where it affected the debate between monistic biologists and state-supported subjectivistic psychologists. The split between government and society during the late czarist period worked to Pavlov’s advantage: While state ideology opposed all brands of materialism, including mechanistic reductionalism, private funding allowed Pavlov to expand investigations into reinforcement. For example, in 1911, the Ledentsov Society financed a series of soundproofed chambers, known as the tower of silence, in which he could study the effects of time intervals on the coupling of conditional and unconditional stimuli. His reputation spread rapidly, and by 1914 he headed an influential school of experimental physiology. The revolutionary period disrupted Pavlov’s work,
but after 1921 the Soviet leadership vigorously supported his research for several reasons: Pavlov’s mechanical reductionism was compatible with the materialistic orientation of the new Marxist regime, his doctrine of reinforcement strengthened the arguments of nurture over nature at a time when the government wished to reeducate the citizenry, and the scientific triumphs of the Pavlovian school had propaganda value for socialism. With state sponsorship, Pavlov and his successors directed large research projects on complex aspects of association through reinforcement. Advances in cybernetics (the comparison of the communication and control systems of human-made devices with those in the nervous systems of animals) caused some Soviet scientists to question the validity of Pavlov’s conclusions. Nevertheless, his school dominated experimental biology, psychology, and cognitive theory in the Soviet Union, and his environmentally based concept of reinforcement undergirded Soviet educational practice. Largely because of the language barrier, non-Russians were unable to absorb Pavlov’s concept of reinforcement until the 1920’s. European reaction was unenthusiastic; continental investigators tended toward Gestalt psychology, a holistic approach to perception that emphasizes complexity and thus was at odds with reductionism. The British identified largely with Sir Charles Scott Sherrington’s efforts to confine reflex action to the spinal cord. The Pavlovian concept of reinforcement had a different reception in the United States, where it was compatible with behaviorism, an indigenous tradition opposed to introspection. Pavlov’s definition of reinforcement had to compete with Thorndike’s, however, as Thorndike had put forward a different definition in 1913 while developing his theory of instrumental conditioning. Thorndike defined reinforcement as any action that causes the appearance of an unconditional stimulus (such as pushing a lever to release a food pellet); according to Pavlov, reinforcement always follows the unconditional stimulus. The sharply differing terminology led to widespread confusion, with Pavlovian reinforcement sometimes described accurately, sometimes as the unconditional stimulus, and sometimes as rewards and punishments. Generally, Americans and Western Europeans admire Pavlov’s meticulous investigations into the conditions effecting reinforcement and associate his original concept with a specific kind of simple learning (classical, or passive, as opposed to Thorndike’s instrumental, or 115
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stored the extinguished link between salivation and the sight of food. That link could also be redirected. If an unrelated stimulus (for example, the sound made by a bell) immediately preceded the delivery of food over a long enough period, it could provoke salivation. In Pavlovian terminology, the coupling of a conditional stimulus (a bell tone) with an unconditional stimulus (the sight of food) produced a conditional reflex. In other words, the bell tone made the dog think of food and then salivate. Moreover, a dog was able to discriminate between similar types of reinforced and unreinforced food. For example, it would stop salivating at the sight of white bread it was forbidden to eat but continue salivating at the sight of brown bread that was regularly fed to it. The linchpin of Pavlov’s theory was thus the notion of reinforcement, which held that animals could associate any two occurrences if the first one promptly and reliably predicted the onset of the second. Reinforcement had a clearly adaptive function, for it provided an animal with a wide range of anticipatory responses to its changing environment. Pavlov’s experimental data, composed of precise, replicable measurements of the volume and rate of saliva in response to a variety of timed stimuli, confirmed the importance of that validating mechanism. The presence or absence of reinforcement, which created conditional reflexes and maintained, extinguished, or resurrected both conditional and unconditional reflexes, permitted an animal to modify its behavior on the basis of experience. Learning took place amid the forging and breaking of neural connections in reaction to changing circumstances.
Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement
Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement purposeful). Pavlovian reinforcement has constantly combined and recombined with various forms of behaviorism, and some of its aspects have been incorporated into theories of language formation and information processing, but it is only one of many currents affecting the course of Western psychological and cognitive theory. —Michael J. Fontenot Further Reading Babkin, Boris P. Pavlov: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. An indispensable primary source rich in anecdotal material, this is a fond memoir by a close colleague. Includes otherwise inaccessible personal and professional information on Pavlov. Comprehensive in scope, although poorly organized and somewhat polemical. Sparsely illustrated and includes notes, a bibliography, and an index. Frolov, Y. P. Pavlov and His School: The Theory of Conditioned Reflexes. Translated by C. P. Dutt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1937. This key work by a Soviet physician who worked with Pavlov treats Pavlov’s career in a systematic fashion but contains ideologically motivated inaccuracies typical of the Stalinist period. It should be read in conjunction with Babkin’s biography. Contains charts, diagrams, photographs, and an index. Gantt, W. Horsley. “Russian Physiology and Pathology.” In Soviet Science, edited by Ruth C. Christman. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1952. A somewhat dated but still valuable work by one of Pavlov’s American students. Contains interesting information on Pavlov’s attitudes toward contemporary scientists and scientific problems. Presents a somewhat argumentative but solid treatment of Pavlov’s school and its influence on various aspects of Soviet scientific and educational thought. Heavily footnoted. Graham, Loren R. Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. This expanded version of Graham’s Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union (1972) offers an excellent treatment of Pavlov’s contributions to Russian physiology and psychology. Includes chapters on the nature-nurture debate, biology and human beings, and cybernetics and computers. Lengthy, with notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index. Gray, Jeffrey A. Ivan Pavlov. New York: Viking Press, 1979. An excellent biography that draws extensively from Babkin and Frolov (previously cited). Particu116
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 larly strong on Pavlov’s intellectual background and research methodology. Pavlov’s work is evaluated in the light of physiological and psychological developments of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Includes diagrams, graphs, and an index. Martin, Irene, and A. B. Levey. “Learning What Will Happen Next: Conditioning, Evaluation, and Cognitive Processes.” In Cognitive Processes and Pavlovian Conditioning in Humans, edited by Graham Davey. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987. An important and provocative essay that discusses the influence of Pavlovian reinforcement on contemporary cognitive theory. Particularly useful for readers interested in information processing. Traces Pavlov’s impact on behaviorism and outlines new directions in research. Pavlov, Ivan P. Experimental Psychology, and Other Essays. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957. A useful primary source that includes Pavlov’s autobiography, the 1903 Madrid speech that contained the first public reference to reinforcement, and the 1904 Nobel Prize speech in which Pavlov first outlined the major elements of classical conditioning. Also includes material on Pavlov’s later attempts to apply aspects of reinforcement to human personality disorders. Includes notes but no index. Todes, Daniel P. Pavlov’s Physiology Factory: Experiment, Interpretation, Laboratory Enterprise. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Explores Pavlov’s early work in digestive physiology through the structures and practices of his laboratory, the physiology department of the Institute of Experimental Medicine. Examines Pavlov’s roles as laboratory manager, experimentalist, entrepreneur, and scientific visionary through his scientific notes and correspondence, unpublished memoirs, and laboratory publications. Vucinich, Alexander S. Science in Russian Culture, 1861-1917. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970. Especially useful to readers interested in history. Places Russian science in the cultural and social context of the postemancipation era. Presents Pavlov’s school as part of a wide, uniquely Russian current in experimental biology. Should be read in conjunction with Graham’s book cited above. Includes notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index. See also: Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones; Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States
1902-1913
Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States Louis Comfort Tiffany’s craftsmanship and design in glassmaking and then in jewelry making influenced artistic trends in the United States and abroad. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Fashion and design; arts
Louis Comfort Tiffany. (Library of Congress)
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Key Figures Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), American decorator and designer Charles Louis Tiffany (1812-1902), American jeweler Samuel Bing (1838-1905), French art dealer and entrepreneur John La Farge (1835-1910), American artist Arthur J. Nash (1849-1922), English-born glassblower
Summary of Event The demise of Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company in 1900 and its succession by Tiffany Studios was a logical development in the career of one of the most gifted and influential designers in the United States. Through his new company, Louis Comfort Tiffany hoped to realize his lifelong ambitions: to promote glass as an accepted, even ideal, artistic medium and to become a trendsetter in American artistic development. Headstrong and volatile, Tiffany at the age of eighteen informed his father, Charles Louis Tiffany, founder of the famous jewelry concern Tiffany & Co., that he wanted neither to go to college nor to secure a position in the family firm. He wanted to be an artist. Tiffany began training in the studio of George Inness, the famous American painter, but longed to expand his horizons. At Inness’s studio, Tiffany was introduced to leading artists of the day as well as to their ideas and philosophies, some of which made lasting impressions. The most influential of these was the Arts and Crafts movement associated with William Morris of England. It stressed honesty of craftsmanship and the importance of designs from nature. It made no distinction between artist and craftsman. Morris had also revived and improved upon the ancient art of working with stained glass as an artistic medium. Tiffany adopted so many of Morris’s ideas that he became known as the William Morris of America. Trips to France and Morocco profoundly changed Tiffany’s life. He was overwhelmed by the richness of color of the stained-glass windows of the great French cathedrals and equally impressed by the earthier colors and more exotic designs found in Morocco. His experiences confirmed his belief in the primacy of color in art, and thereafter he considered himself as much a colorist as an artist. For a time, Tiffany worked as a conventional artist, but he found the work too limited. Inspired by examples of the Arts and Crafts movement he saw at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, Tiffany decided that interior decorating would offer a wider scope for his talents. He formed Louis C. Tiffany and Associated Artists, where he worked with other artists knowledgeable in porcelains, textiles, and exotic carvings. Tiffany added his growing interest in and knowledge of the decorative possibilities of glass. He recognized the potential of glass
Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States as a superb artistic medium, offering a forum for brilliant colors, and he had begun experimenting with glass as early as 1870. Creating more effective forms of glass became his life’s work and the means through which he achieved fame. Tiffany soon became America’s best-known interior decorator. He designed interiors for some of the country’s most famous homes, including the White House, for which he created an enormous decorative glass screen. The screen, which was greatly admired, was fashioned of “opalescent,” a new kind of glass Tiffany had developed in cooperation with artist John La Farge. Tiffany became increasingly involved in his research in glass, and in 1885 he abandoned interior decorating and formed the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. He now could devote himself full-time to perfecting and utilizing glass as an artistic medium. Tiffany’s new com-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
pany was involved primarily in creating stained-glass windows. The cutting process, however, resulted in many leftover pieces of colorful and expensive glass. Seeking ways to utilize them, Tiffany began piecing the fragments together with lead strips in graceful, often stylized and free-form designs to form various objects, the most notable of which were lamp shades. Through his lamp shades, Tiffany became famous as one of the first industrial designers. Seeking further to concentrate his work on glass, Tiffany established his own furnaces in Corona, New York, in 1893. Along with skilled glassblowers, notably Arthur J. Nash, Tiffany developed a further refinement of opalescent glass. The new glass, called Favrile, was introduced to the public in 1896. Tiffany believed that he could realize his objective of becoming an arbiter of taste, bringing color and good design to the masses. Using his glass and the objects fashioned from it as a focal point, and building on his trainNotable Figures of the ing as an artist, craftsman, and inteArt Nouveau Movement rior designer, Tiffany founded Tiffany Studios in 1900. The studios The global Art Nouveau movement had enormous influence over the work of many major artists, designers, and architects in the early twentieth century, inoffered complete design services, cluding those listed below. ranging from interiors to architecture, from garden design to textiles Konstantin Korovin In architecture and jewelry. Craft workers in the stu(1861-1939) Émile André (1871-1933) dios produced most of the articles, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) Georges Biet (1868-1955) and what they could not make was Valentin Serov (1865-1911) Paul Charbonnier (1865-1953) commissioned. Everything, howKonstantin Somov (1869-1939) August Endel (1871-1925) ever, conformed to Tiffany’s ideas Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) (1864-1901) Hector Guimard (1867-1942) concerning good taste. Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) When his father died in 1902, TifIn glassware, mosaics, Victor Horta (1861-1947) fany gained control of Tiffany & Co. stained glass, and other Charles Rennie Mackintosh and merged Tiffany Studios into it. decorative arts (1868-1928) Tiffany & Co. already had a client Charles Robert Ashbee Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) list that included millionaires and (1863-1942) Eugène Vallin (1856-1922) William Bradley (1868-1962) celebrities, American presidents and Henry van de Velde Rubén Darío (1867-1916) European royalty. Although best (1863-1957) Antonin Daum (1864-1930) known for jewelry, Tiffany & Co. Otto Wagner (1841-1918) Auguste Daum (1853-1909) also dealt in porcelain, glassware, Auguste Delaherche In drawing and and other accessories. With the (1857-1940) graphic design merger, Tiffany solidified his place Émile Gallé (1846-1904) Léon Bakst (1866-1924) in the forefront of good taste and Jacques Gruber (1870-1936) Aubrey Beardsley high-quality craftsmanship. Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) (1872-1898) Tiffany’s fame also spread abroad, René Lalique (1860-1945) Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin in large part through the efforts of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1876-1942) Samuel Bing, the Parisian art dealer (1848-1933) Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) Philippe Wolfers (1858-1929) Gaston Gerard (1878-1969) credited with founding the Art Nouveau movement. Embracing radical
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Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States
Significance Louis Comfort Tiffany’s death on January 17, 1933, was scarcely noticed. Even Art News had little to say about his creative life other than that at one time his designs aroused considerable controversy. The post-World War I generation forgot Tiffany; it was the post-World War II generation that rediscovered him and recognized the influential role he had played in the development of twentieth century art and design. In the decades after the 1960’s, a growing field of literature was devoted to Tiffany and his work. The influence Tiffany exerted through his studios can be divided into four general areas: his influence on modern art, his perfection and promotion of glass as an artistic medium, his creation of new and dramatic forms of glass, and his role as a pioneer in industrial design. The Art Nouveau movement roughly coincided with the period of the greatest productivity and influence of Tiffany Studios. The movement was largely ignored by the post-World War I generation, but later art historians saw its radical departure from late Victorian formalism, its free forms and sensuous lines, and its lavish use of light and color as major influences in the development of modern art. Aside from the radical nature of many of his designs, what Tiffany had in common with modern art move-
ments such as Fauvism, post-Impressionism, and abstract expressionism was his emphasis on and treatment of color. It was precisely because of their unorthodox use and exaltation of pure color that the Fauves, or “wild ones,” were so named. Among the more famous Fauve artists were Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, and Georges Rouault. The post-Impressionists also exalted color but arrived at it in a manner similar to that used by Tiffany in glass. Georges Seurat, a leading post-Impressionist artist, achieved his remarkable gradations of color through a process called pointillism, in which dots of color are painted in juxtaposition and left to the eye to blend. Tiffany used the same process in both his opalescent and his Favrile glass. Varying colors in the forms of particles or strands within the glass itself produced an array of iridescent colors depending on the light. Tiffany used the same technique in his painting with mosaics, in which he arranged tesserae (bits of glass or tile) often nearly as small as Seurat’s dots in ways that achieved astonishing color effects. Tiffany’s influence on abstract expressionism in the United States was more direct. Artists such as Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell saw Tiffany as an early exponent of pure form and color in art expressed in glass. Tiffany’s greatest contributions to the world of design and art were his perfection, utilization, and promotion of glass as an artistic medium. He had no desire to imitate the techniques of the medieval masters of stained glass; rather, he wanted to improve on them. Before Tiffany, virtually no important artist used stained glass as a medium. Today it is associated with a growing list of important artists, including Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, and Marc Chagall. Although Tiffany worked on many forms of glass and patented several, the two for which he is best known and that found their fullest utilization in the products of Tiffany Studios are opalescent and Favrile. Opalescent glass was unique in that it contained color and design within it. Both effects were derived from opaque particles floating in suspension that created designs in addition to modifying the degree of transparency or opacity. The composition at the same time created color and scattered light in a unique, even mysterious, manner. Tiffany and La Farge also succeeded in achieving the iridescent quality seen in buried ancient glass. Tiffany’s greatest triumph was Favrile glass, with its incredible beauty and versatility. Its perfection came only after Tiffany had spent many hours in the study of glass chemistry and endless experimentation. Tiffany’s 119
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new designs and the extravagant use of light and color, Art Nouveau was in many ways the precursor of modern art. Tiffany became the leader of the Art Nouveau movement in the United States. In 1913, Tiffany was at the height of his career. Few American artists had earned as much admiration, and few were as well known in Europe. That year was also the year of the famous Armory Show in New York City, which exposed Americans to radical new movements in art such as Fauvism, post-Impressionism, and German expressionism. Many Americans were shocked or even outraged by what they saw, and Tiffany was among them. He railed against the modernists. The master who had done so much to change taste had lost touch; the world of art in which he had been a moving force had now passed him by. Tiffany clung to his theories, but his lush, extravagant designs could not survive World War I. Tiffany outlived two wives who played comparatively small roles in his professional life. His daughters married and left home, and his only son chose a career with the family’s jewelry firm. Louis Comfort Tiffany died in the bleak Depression year of 1933. It was left to later generations to appraise his true genius.
Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States skilled glassblowers, by fusing molten glass of various colors, exposing it to fumes produced through the vaporization of different metals, and skillfully manipulating the molten masses, including variations in the surface areas, produced an astonishingly wide range of colors and effects, from flesh tones to foliage, flowers, and intricate folds of garments. The designs, the colors, and even the textures of Tiffany’s subjects were in the glass itself. The establishment of Tiffany Studios must be seen as an important part of the early twentieth century’s pioneering work in industrial design. Simply stated, industrial design is the creation of handsome and useful objects that can be mass-produced at low cost for the general public. Although always a careful craftsman, Tiffany saw himself as an educator of the people, and he desired to bring beauty to the masses. He saw himself as among the first to design for an industrial age. The best examples of industrial design in his work are his lamp shades. Other practical items his studios produced included trays, tableware, inkstands, jardinieres, clocks, photograph frames, pincushions, goblets, plates, and plaques. For a time, no well-appointed American home would have been without objects of Tiffany design. Lamp shades were among the few items Tiffany massproduced, and they were what caused Tiffany’s name to remain in the public mind when his more elaborate and exotic creations had been forgotten. It may be in the field of industrial design that Tiffany Studios had its greatest impact. — Nis Petersen Further Reading Couldrey, Vivienne. The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Secaucus, N.J.: Wellfleet Press, 1989. Lavishly illustrated and well-presented book spans Tiffany’s entire artistic career and includes illustrations of his early paintings. Links Tiffany to some of the movements in modern art, such as abstract expressionism. An interesting chapter debates whether his works are “kitsch or genius.” Duncan, Alastair, Martin Eidelberg, and Neil Harris. Masterworks of Louis Comfort Tiffany. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998. Comprehensive coverage of Tiffany’s works, including a series of his paintings and many of the objects he designed, by a decorative
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arts consultant and two historians. Splendid color photography. Includes a detailed chronology. Heller, Steven, and Seymour Chwast. Graphic Style: From Victorian to Digital. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001. Visual overview of graphic design style movements since the Victorian era. Includes more than seven hundred illustrations, time line, and selected bibliography. Koch, Robert H. Louis C. Tiffany: The Collected Works of Robert Koch. Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer, 2001. Koch can be considered a pioneer in the “Tiffany revival” of the 1960’s. A student of architecture, he arrived at Tiffany’s works through studying armories and grew fascinated with his subject. This volume contains Koch’s three well-respected books on Tiffany. McKean, Hugh. The “Lost” Treasures of Louis Comfort Tiffany. 1980. Reprint. Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer, 2001. McKean was one of the artists invited to study at Tiffany’s home and tends to be somewhat adulatory. Includes a useful chapter on the hallmarks of Tiffany’s creations. Many photographs. Potter, Norman, and Douglas Jackson. Tiffany Glassware. New York: Crown, 1988. One of the best introductions to Tiffany’s professional career available, even though the emphasis is on Tiffany’s glassware. Includes short biographies of various people who assisted or influenced Tiffany. Tiffany, Louis Comfort. The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany. 1914. Reprint. Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: Apollo, 1987. Reprint of a limited-edition book commissioned by Tiffany’s children in 1914. Covers the range of Tiffany’s creative work, including architecture and landscape, and offers interesting insight into how Tiffany was regarded at the time. Scarcely mentions the famous commercially produced lamp shades. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code
January, 1902
French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code
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Summary of Event In January, 1902, French archaeologists, working under the supervision of Jacques de Morgan in the ruins of the ancient Elamite capital of Susa, unearthed several detached pieces of a black diorite block of stone. This block, which was covered on several sides by carved inscriptions, reached a height of nearly four meters (about thirteen feet) when reassembled. One side bore a representation of King Hammurabi of Babylon, who reigned over the lands stretching from the Mesopotamian Tigris and Ottoman Euphrates river valleys to the coast Empire of the Mediterranean between approximately 1792 b.c.e. and 1750 b.c.e. King Hammurabi was deve picted receiving a corpus of laws r Baghdad from the seated Babylonian sun god Shamash. The other sides of the massive stone bore the inscriptions, in cuneiform script typical of the literra tes River ate cultures of ancient Mesopotamia, of the law code that would become known as Hammurabi’s Code. The fact that the stone block was found in the ruins of Susa, and not in Babylon or a dependent city of the great Babylonian kings, seemed to have a logical explanation. Babylon and Susa were the seats of rival dynasties that were frequently at war
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Key Figures Jacques de Morgan (1857-1924), French archaeologist Vincent Scheil (1858-1940), professor at the French École des Hautes Études Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775-1853), German schoolteacher George Smith (1840-1876), English Assyriologist
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Locale: Susa, Persia (now Iran) Categories: Archaeology; prehistory and ancient cultures; monuments
with each other, both before and after Hammurabi’s reign. It was assumed that, as a result of one or another of the military campaigns pitting Elamites against Babylonians sometime after the middle of the eighteenth century b.c.e., the former carried the possessions of the latter, including the enormous stone monument, to their home capital of Susa. Up until 1902, archaeologists had uncovered very little direct historical information concerning King Hammurabi’s reign. There were a few surviving written records, particularly from the archives at Mari, or Tell Hariri, in Mesopotamia, which was the political seat of Zimri-lim, a contemporary and rival of King Hammurabi. Before Hammurabi conquered Mari in the thirtythird year of his reign and destroyed its main palace (probably along with additional archival materials), Mari’s scribes had described certain aspects of the Babylonian king’s reign. This source provided incidental evidence of political and commercial relations and some information on Babylonian laws. With the de Morgan expedition’s discovery, the importance of Babylonian laws, and particularly Hammurabi’s Code, captured the attention of archaeologists.
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Discovery of the code of laws attributed to the Babylonian king Hammurabi provided evidence that the origins of Judeo-Christian concepts of justice were much older than had previously been thought.
French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hammurabi’s Code Hammurabi’s Code is one of the oldest sets of laws known to humankind. Scholars believe that the code was publicly displayed during Hammurabi’s reign (approximately 1792-1750 B.C.E.), but widespread illiteracy may have prevented fair application of the rules it laid down. Following are the first 8 of the code’s more than 280 rules: 1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death. 2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser. 3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death. 4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall receive the fine that the action produces. 5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge’s bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgement. 6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death. 7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death. 8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death. Source: The Code of Hammurabi, translated by L. W. King (1915).
On the obverse sides of Hammurabi’s monument, opposite the side bearing the inscription of the king and Babylon’s sun god, was a series of ordered columns of writing, apparently representing a list, or code, of laws. One side contained sixteen columns of writing with a total of 1,114 lines. Five columns had been obliterated from this face of the stone monument, presumably by the Elamite “victors” over Babylon, who likely intended to inscribe (but never did) a dedication to their own glory. An additional 2,500 lines in twenty-eight columns were 122
carved into the remaining sections of the surviving monument. Even before the work of concise transliteration and translation could be undertaken, it was apparent that an important section of the text (containing about seven hundred lines) was devoted to a description of Hammurabi himself, his titles, his qualities as a ruler, his dedication to the gods of Babylon, and, most important for archaeologists’ records, enumeration of the cities and districts under his rule. The text of Hammurabi’s Code was most important, not only in terms of numbers of columns and lines of writing but also for its impact on archaeologists’ knowledge of the main lines of Babylonian civilization. A translation of Hammurabi’s Code by Father Vincent Scheil of the École des Hautes Études was published in Paris in October, 1902, only ten months after the expedition to Susa discovered the monument. The content of the code was diverse, but its main concerns included contracts of sale or business (deposits, liabilities, and the like), farming and animal husbandry practices, and dowry and marriage contracts.
Significance The discovery of Hammurabi’s Code did not necessarily revolutionize archaeologists’ knowledge of ancient Babylonian or later Mesopotamian societies; it did, however, help that knowledge take on a much more comprehensive form in a short time. Evidence relating to Babylon’s place in the history of ancient Mesopotamian civilization had been accumulating steadily for more than a century before the French archaeologists discovered Hammurabi’s monument. This evidence should have advanced seriously beyond the realm of massive architectural ruins and pictorial monuments alone when specialists first unlocked the secret of ancient cuneiform writing. Although the first legible transcribed copies of fragments of cuneiform inscriptions had been brought back from the Near East as early as the late seventeenth century, by Cornelius de Bruin, it was not until 1802— exactly one hundred years before de Morgan’s find at Susa—that the cuneiform writing system was “decodified.” Georg Friedrich Grotefend, a modest school-
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This rather rarefied event generated so much interest in the importance of understanding the textual details that portions of a newly discovered treasure of several thousand clay tablets representing the content of Assyrian King Ashurbanipal’s (r. 669-627 b.c.e.) royal library at Nineveh were reexamined carefully. When George Smith, an assistant in the EgyptianAssyrian section of the British Museum, studied the tablets, he discovered the so-called Gilgamesh epic, a mixture of Babylonian religious mythology and history that altered the world’s view of a number of key ancient historical reference points. Primary among these was the epic’s reference, inscribed long before comparable citations in the Old Testament, to the Great Deluge and the role of Ut-napishtim, whom Smith identified as the Babylonian equivalent of the biblical Noah. After Smith undertook a successful search for missing sections of the Gilgamesh tablets amid the rubble at Nineveh, his thesis stood solid throughout the rest of the nineteenth century: Elements of the Bible had not been “tailored” without precedent to fit the original needs of Old Testament founders of the Jewish religion; some could be shown clearly to have been fashioned from preexisting Semitic traditions. Here, then, albeit in literary and religious, not yet legal, terms, lay one of the most important preparatory contributions that would increase the impact of the French 1902 expedition’s discovery of Hammurabi’s Code. It was shown, through translations, retranslations, comments, and recommendations, that the Mosaic code, as well as a number of other elements of legal practice associated with the Old Testament, probably had very distant precedents in ancient Mesopotamian history that had been reexamined and then reproduced in later stages in the history of the same region or other regions. Therefore, the sources for twentieth century scholars’ study of the origins of Judeo-Christian legal principles and practices were, after the discovery of Hammurabi’s Code, necessarily placed farther back chronologically and farther east, both geographically and culturally. It remains somewhat ironic that, despite a nearcontinuous eighteen-year on-site excavation project carried out in the ruins of locations associated with Hammurabi and other later monarchs of Babylon (between 1899 and 1917) by the German architect Robert Koldewey, no landmark textual discovery (as distinct from the uncovering of buildings and monuments) comparable in importance to that of Hammurabi’s Code was made in Babylon in the first part of the twentieth century. —Byron D. Cannon 123
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teacher from Göttingen, Germany, had accomplished this task, working from one of de Bruin’s transcriptions of ancient texts from Persepolis in Persia. Grotefend did not have any of the advantages of word-for-word comparative language texts that Jean François Champollion had when he deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics from the Rosetta stone in the same generation. Grotefend’s findings were announced formally before the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen late in 1802 and published as an appendix to a book on the ancient world authored by a recognized German scholar. The results of Grotefend’s work, employed to expand archaeological knowledge of neighboring and older Babylonian and Elamite civilizations, were not noted for nearly a generation. When attention turned eventually to the study of Babylon, serious advances were made because of English exploration missions interested in major architectural monuments rather than because of the work of philologically oriented scholars. Before his death in 1821, the amateur archaeologist Claudius James Rich had carried out the first serious excavations that attempted to reconstruct the history of the site of the Mesopotamian capital of Babylon. The nature of archaeological finds during Rich’s lifetime and for some years following shows the beginning of a significant, albeit gradual and uneven, trend that culminated only when the French expedition to Susa uncovered the legal texts inscribed in the name of King Hammurabi. Rich left behind in the collection of the British Museum a series of cuneiform tablets gathered in the ruins of Babylon, plus some drawings that would be used to estimate the topographical layout of the ancient city and to reconstruct the presumed appearance of the fabled capital of King Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605-562 b.c.e.), Hammurabi’s distant successor. Meanwhile, the magnificence of pictorial stone reliefs on the sides of public buildings and tombs attracted the attention of archaeologists. The meaning of the cuneiform inscriptions that often accompanied such reliefs seemed to be less immediately pressing as items of scholarly interest to report to European archaeological enthusiasts. Despite general concentration on nontextual vestiges and later Assyrian, not Babylonian, ruins, a significant debate over philological, or historical linguistic, approaches to the ancient past arose by the late 1850’s that would pave the way for recognition of the importance of the discovery of Hammurabi’s Code. A turning point came in 1857, when conflicting scholarly interpretations of an extensive cuneiform inscription attributed to Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria (r. 745-727 b.c.e.), were debated in the Royal Asiatic Society in London.
French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code
First Rose Bowl Game Further Reading Godbey, A. H. “Chirography of Hammurabi’s Code.” American Journal of Semitic Languages 20 (January, 1904): 137-148. Like other editorially authored scholarly announcements concerning the written accuracy of the inscriptions found on Hammurabi’s legal monument (see, for example, “Scribal Errors in Hammurabi’s Code,” in the same volume of American Journal of Semitic Languages, pp. 116-136), this study examines the peculiarities of writing techniques in Mesopotamia during the second millennium b.c.e. Hammurabi. The Babylonian Laws. Translated and annotated by G. R. Driver and John C. Miles. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1955. This annotated translation of Hammurabi’s Code is considerably more extensive than the original English translation listed below. The wealth of detailed information comes not only in attention to the text itself but also in an extensive section offering philological commentary on the words and phrases it contains. _______. The Oldest Code of Laws in the World: The Code of Laws Promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, B.C. 2285-2242. Translated by C. H. W. Johns. Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1903. Reprint. Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2000. The first English translation of Hammurabi’s Code, under-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 taken shortly after the original French translation in 1902. This volume contains a valuable introductory section that describes the actual circumstances surrounding the discovery of the stone bearing the Hammurabi inscriptions. “Hammurabi and Women.” Harper’s Bazaar, April, 1903, 403. Perhaps the earliest popularly oriented article providing factual information from the original French translation published a few months earlier. Addresses an interesting subsection of Hammurabi’s Code. Wooley, Sir Leonard. Digging Up the Past. 2d ed. London: Ernest Benn, 1954. A historical introduction to the field of archaeology. Wooley’s wide-ranging knowledge of Mesopotamian archaeology, based on his pioneer excavations at Sumerian Ur (now Muqaiyir, Iraq), earned for him “senior status” among archaeologists who not only carried out scientific research but also provided very readable accounts of significant stages in the progress of archaeology. See also: July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu; Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen; 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
January 1, 1902
First Rose Bowl Game When the University of Michigan won a lopsided victory over Stanford University in the first “bowl” game in college football, organizers decided not to repeat the competition. However, an annual New Year’s game between western and eastern teams resumed in 1916. Eventually named the Rose Bowl Game, this event spawned many additional bowl games that made football a major part of the New Year’s Day celebrations across the United States. Locale: Pasadena, California Category: Sports Key Figures Fielding Harris Yost (1871-1946), coach of the University of Michigan football team William M. Heston (1878-1963), halfback on the Michigan team Neil Snow (1879-1914), fullback on the Michigan team 124
Summary of Event In 1890, residents of Pasadena, California, a town about seven miles northeast of Los Angeles that boasted a modest population of about five thousand, began attempting to attract free-spending visitors from the frigid Midwest and Northeast by staging an annual New Year’s Day spectacle. The event featured a parade in which horses and carriages were adorned with roses and other flowers, followed by such activities as footraces, polo games, greased-pig chases, and a Spanish game called the “tourney of rings,” which would later supply the name for the “Tournament of Roses.” In 1901, the Tournament of Roses Association decided that a game of football, a sport that was growing in popularity across much of the country, might induce larger numbers of people to visit from the eastern half of the country, especially if the contest featured an eastern team. Consequently, the association looked for two
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teams that would offer an appealing Rose Bowl Scores, 1902-1940 contest, one from the East, the other After 1902’s unevenly matched game, football was temporarily eliminated from the West. After much deliberafrom the Tournament of Roses. The game returned in 1916, and a new station, organizers settled on Stanford dium was built in 1923. Modifications in 1932, 1949, and 1972 gave the Rose University (the nearby team from the Bowl a capacity of approximately ninety-three thousand seats. Following University of Southern California had are the teams (winning teams listed first) and scores for all Rose Bowl Games done little to distinguish itself on the from 1902 through 1940. gridiron that year) and the powerful University of Michigan squad, generYear Teams Score ally considered the best team in the 1902 Michigan vs. Stanford 49-0 country. 1916 Washington State vs. Brown 14-0 Michigan, coached by Fielding 1917 Oregon vs. Pennsylvania 14-0 Harris “Hurry-Up” Yost (whose nick1918 Mare Island-USMC vs. Camp Lewis-U.S. Army 19-7 name conveyed his intensity) had won 1919 Great Lakes-U.S. Navy vs. Mare Island 17-0 all of its ten games in 1901, outscoring 1920 Harvard vs. Oregon 7-0 1921 California vs. Ohio State 28-0 its opponents 501-0. Michigan was 1922 California vs. Washington & Jefferson 0-0 known as the “point-a-minute” team 1923 University of Southern California vs. Penn State 14-3 because of its overwhelming offen1924 Washington vs. Navy 14-14 sive production. Stanford, by contrast, 1925 Notre Dame vs. Stanford 27-10 was hardly a powerhouse, having won 1926 Alabama vs. Washington 20-19 only half of its six games, but it pos1927 Stanford vs. Alabama 7-7 sessed an especially attractive charac1928 Stanford vs. Pittsburgh 7-6 teristic: Its previous coach, who had 1929 Georgia Tech vs. California 8-7 been pushed out after the 1900 season, 1930 University of Southern California vs. Pittsburgh 47-14 had been Fielding Yost. The organiz1931 Alabama vs. Washington State 24-0 ers of the event thought that Yost’s 1932 University of Southern California vs. Tulane 21-12 1933 University of Southern California vs. Pittsburgh 35-0 close connection to both teams would 1934 Columbia vs. Stanford 7-0 spark great interest, and they also 1935 Alabama vs. Stanford 20-13 hoped that Stanford’s experience with 1936 Stanford vs. Southern Methodist University 7-0 Yost’s coaching technique would of1937 Pittsburgh vs. Washington 21-0 fer the team an advantage that might 1938 California vs. Alabama 13-0 make up for its comparatively lacklus1939 University of Southern California vs. Duke 7-3 ter track record. 1940 University of Southern California vs. Tennessee 14-0 The Michigan team had to travel by train for a week to reach Pasadena. Their trip, however, was made more pleasant by the thirty-five hundred sand, approximately eighty-five hundred spectators dollars each team received, the three-dollar daily food alpushed into the park to watch the game, which was billed lowance for each of Michigan’s players, and the chance as a contest between the champions of the East and West. to escape the deep snow covering the Midwest as the Despite Michigan’s impressive offense, Stanford team departed for the West. After arriving, the Michigan held its own in the early part of the game, and for twentyplayers were featured in the parade, in which they were three minutes, neither team scored. Three times, Stanclad in new football uniforms and waved Michigan banford stopped Michigan one foot from the end zone, but ners from a large carriage. The Stanford players also parMichigan finally broke a long play. From the thirty-yard ticipated in the parade. line, Michigan ran a sweep to the right with halfback Thousands of spectators lined the route to TournaWilliam M. “Willie” Heston carrying the ball. Suddenly, ment Park on the campus of Throop Polytechnic Institute Heston reversed direction while the rest of the team (now the California Institute of Technology) on a warm continued right. This play would be named the “naked New Year’s Day; the temperature reached the high eighties. Although the stadium had seating for only one thoureverse” because the ball carrier runs uncovered, or un-
First Rose Bowl Game protected, by teammates. The move took Stanford’s defenders by surprise, and Heston reached the nine-yard line before being shoved out of bounds. Three plays later, All-American fullback Neil Snow powered his way from the six-yard line to the goal line for the first touchdown of the game, giving Michigan a 5-0 lead. According to the rules at that time, touchdowns and field goals both earned five points, and the extra point made the score 6-0. For the rest of the first half, Stanford remained scoreless, while Michigan gradually began to dominate. After a field goal by Ev Sweely, end Chris Redden returned a twenty-five-yard punt for a touchdown. The point-after kick made the halftime score 17-0. Michigan continued to dominate throughout the second half. Neil Snow carried for four more touchdowns, scoring on runs of two, eight, seventeen, and four yards, and the other halfback, Al Herrenstein, scored the final touchdown from twenty yards out. Several missed kicks after touchdowns kept the score under 50, but just barely. With Michigan leading 49-0 and about eight minutes left to play, Stanford captain Ralph Fisher offered to concede the inevitable, and Michigan captain Hugh White accepted. The Stanford team was not only hopelessly behind but also exhausted and injured. Guard William Roosevelt, a second cousin to President Theodore Roosevelt, had played fifteen minutes on a broken leg before being driven out of the game by broken ribs. Michigan, however, was unfazed, despite the team’s lack of familiarity with playing in such warm weather and its long train ride to reach Pasadena. Furthermore, the starting eleven players had played the entire game without any substitutions. Heston gained 170 yards on just eighteen carries, and Snow rushed for 107 yards and five touchdowns, establishing a Rose Bowl record for touchdowns that endured into the twenty-first century. Altogether, Michigan gained 527 yards rushing against Stanford’s 67 and racked up twenty-seven first downs to Stanford’s five. (There was no passing yardage because the forward pass had not yet been legalized.) In addition, the crushing Michigan defense, as good as its offense, recovered nine of Stanford’s fumbles, while the Michigan offense lost the ball only once. The game also proved a winner for the Tournament of Roses Association, which netted a profit of more than three thousand dollars even after paying the two teams. Nonetheless, the lopsided score convinced the organizers that future audiences might anticipate another mismatched contest and would turn out in smaller numbers. The association was also concerned by the threat of another large, unruly crowd, and so it decided not to stage 126
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 another football game in 1903. Other events were featured instead, including a polo match in 1903 and BenHur-style chariot races from 1904 through 1915. Football games between the East and West resumed in 1916. Significance The 1902 New Year’s Day game set the stage for the later institution of the game as an annual event. The contest was moved into a new 57,000-seat stadium in Pasadena in 1923; the stadium was christened the Rose Bowl, and the game was named the Rose Bowl Game. In the 1930’s, other warm-weather locales imitated the Rose Bowl contest by creating similar New Year’s bowls: the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Sun Bowl, and Cotton Bowl. Eventually, dozens of bowl games would spread over several weeks from mid-December through early January. Except for the most prestigious bowl games, excellence was no longer a criterion for a bowl invitation. Organizers and teams alike viewed the bowls as moneymakers, and the visibility created by televised bowl games helped teams recruit high school athletes. Starting in 1998, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system was put into place to determine the Division I-A national football championship. Four bowls (the Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta Bowls) rotated through a four-year cycle in which each stadium hosted the Bowl Championship Series national championship game, the final bowl game of the season. By the twenty-first century, bowl games had become big business and a major part of the holiday season for many Americans. — Edward J. Rielly Further Reading MacCambridge, Michael, ed. ESPN College Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Game. New York: ESPN Books, 2005. Massive volume includes a history of the bowls and a year-by-year record of each football team. Ours, Robert M. Bowl Games: College Football’s Greatest Tradition. Yardley, Pa.: Westholme, 2004. Provides in-depth analysis of the history and significance of the bowl games. Stiles, Maxwell. The Rose Bowl: A Complete Action and Pictorial Exposition of Rose Bowl Football. Los Angeles: Sportsmaster, 1946. Early work remains valuable for its history of the early years of the Rose Bowl. Whittingham, Richard. Rites of Autumn: The Story of College Football. New York: Free Press, 2001. A companion to the ten-hour television series presenting the history of college football since 1901. Includes a chapter on the bowls.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass; Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Foot-
Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets ball Association; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
January 30, 1902
Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets
Locale: London, England Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; trade and commerce Key Figures Sir Francis Bertie (1844-1919), assistant undersecretary in the British Foreign Office, 1894-1903, and head of the Asiatic Department, 1898-1902 Third Marquis of Salisbury (Robert Cecil; 1830-1903), prime minister of Great Britain, 1885-1886, 18861892, and 1895-1902 Lord Lansdowne (1845-1927), British foreign secretary, 1900-1905 Hayashi Tadasu (1850-1913), Japanese minister to Great Britain, 1900-1905 Katsura Tarf (1848-1913), prime minister of Japan, 1901-1906 Komura Jutarf (1855-1911), foreign minister of Japan, 1901-1906 Summary of Event The Anglo-Japanese Treaty was signed on January 30, 1902, by Lord Lansdowne, the British foreign secretary, and Hayashi Tadasu, the Japanese minister to Great Britain. The treaty raised Japan from a second-class to a firstclass world power and signaled the end of Great Britain’s uncontested dominance of the industrial world and world trade. As the major European powers and the United States became increasingly industrialized in the latter half of the nineteenth century, their governments were spurred to search for, and secure, foreign markets for the goods pouring out of the new factories. The Far East was an area of particular attraction for both Great Britain and the United States. Since midcentury, both had been building commercial contacts and outlets, first in China, then later in Japan.
China in particular was ripe for plucking. After the British had forced their way in, in the 1840’s, they continued to expand their influence. They had already acquired Hong Kong in 1842, and they established trading centers in many other cities of China. Badly misgoverned, China was unable to withstand the demands for special status and favorable trade opportunities. Japan, although it had resisted contact with the West, was finally opened to Western influence by the naval expeditions of Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 and 1854. In 1858, in the Edo Treaty, Japan extended trading privileges to a number of Western nations, along with some special privileges common in the Far East, particularly extraterritoriality, or the right of foreign nationals to be tried for criminal offenses by their own consular officials, not in courts of the land where the alleged offenses occurred. Japan experienced rapid Westernization during the Meiji era, beginning in 1868 and extending into the twentieth century. At the same time, Japan began to build a modern military machine, particularly a navy, about which the country sought British advice. Most of the ships added to the growing Japanese navy between 1870 and 1900 were built in British shipyards. The leading Japanese naval officers were sent to Great Britain for training, and British naval practice became the standard in the new Japanese navy. A mark of Japan’s modernization was a commercial treaty signed by Great Britain and Japan in 1894. This treaty provided for the ending of extraterritoriality for British subjects in 1899 (a major aim of the Japanese, for they regarded the concession of extraterritoriality as a mark of inferiority) and made possible the introduction of a modern ad valorem customs tariff, similar to that in use in Great Britain and other major industrial powers. Japan signaled its arrival on the world scene by invading China in 1894. Its modernized army quickly overwhelmed the backward Chinese, conquering both Korea (which previously had been a Chinese protectorate) and 127
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The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 ended Great Britain’s “splendid isolation” and brought Japan into the circle of great world powers.
Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets parts of Manchuria as well as seizing Port Arthur. The Chinese sued for peace and concluded the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan in 1895. The European powers intervened to force Japan to give up some of its gains; they were anxious to preserve unrestricted trade access to all of China. This access was enshrined in the famous “open door” policy of the United States toward China, announced in 1899; all the other Great Powers nominally agreed to it. Meanwhile, in Europe, Great Britain was becoming increasingly conscious of its isolated state. Most of the European powers now had large industrial sectors of their own and competed with Great Britain for marketing outlets in what is now called the Third World. Great Britain was not seriously in competition with Japan. Great Britain was the major European nation trading with China and was anxious to preserve access to that market, but the possibility of an alliance with Japan began to look increasingly attractive as Great Britain found itself overstretched, particularly in naval strength. An alliance with Japan would enable significant elements of the British navy kept in the Far East to be returned to the European theater. There were advantages for Japan, too, in a close alliance with Great Britain. For one thing, it would assure Japan of access to British financial markets, a particularly important consideration at the turn of the century, because Japan’s successful war with China had almost totally depleted military and naval supplies, and the country would need outside financing to rebuild its military and naval resources. Many Japanese saw Japan as the Pacific counterpart of Great Britain, an island nation protected from invasion by the surrounding sea but needing the nearby continent for the natural resources largely lacking on the island. Of particular importance to Japan was Korea. Although Japan had secured recognition of its predominant influence there (Korea was nominally independent), it feared Russian desires. Above all, however, Japan wanted to join the “club” of the world’s Great Powers. Japan and Great Britain carried on an elaborate courtship. Circumstances in Japan were favorable. Both Prime Minister Katsura Tarf and Foreign Minister Komura Jutarf favored such a relationship. The Katsura government had just come to power, and the successful conclusion of an agreement with the world’s leading industrial nation would be a tremendous feather in its cap. Moreover, the Japanese minister in London, Hayashi, was also an ardent advocate of such an alignment. In mid-April, Hayashi telegraphed to his government the outlines of an agreement as he saw it. It would include 128
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 joint recognition of the “open door” in China, freedom of action for Japan in Korea, and military alliance. Should one party to the agreement become involved in war with a third power, the other power would remain benevolently neutral; but if one party should become involved in war with two other powers at the same time, the other party would come to the aid of its ally. The agreement would be confined to the Far East. In Great Britain, the idea of an alliance with Japan met with a favorable reception in two quarters. The British naval leaders, who had long advocated that Great Britain should maintain a navy equal in strength to that of any two other navies, were finding this a costly program. If they could secure naval protection in the Far East by an alliance, much of the British navy stationed there could be reassigned to Europe, where the buildup of the German navy was causing increasing concern. The idea of an Anglo-Japanese alliance also found a fervent supporter in one of the leading permanent officials of the Foreign Office, Sir Francis Bertie. In July, 1901, Bertie prepared a memorandum in which he outlined the advantages to Great Britain in such an alliance. It would forestall any agreement between the Japanese and the Russians for dividing up northern China between themselves. Great Britain could offer naval support to Japan to help protect its dominant position in Korea, and with British support Japan’s navy would far outrank the growing Russian naval presence in the Far East. In return, the Japanese would recognize Great Britain’s paramount commercial interest in the Yangtze Valley of China as well as in southern China; that is, Hong Kong and the adjacent mainland. Although the British doubted at first that the benefits to them of such an alliance would make it worthwhile, by November the notion was beginning to look more attractive. Lord Lansdowne had secured the approval of the prime minister, the third marquis of Salisbury, in October. In November, serious negotiations between Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi began. Great Britain added to the items under discussion a proposal that both navies would cooperate in providing dockyard and coaling facilities for each other. In the end, the public clauses of the treaty were rather general. Both parties agreed to maintain the status quo in the Far East. Both parties recognized the territorial integrity of both China and Korea. Great Britain recognized Japan’s special position in Korea, and Japan recognized Great Britain’s special position in the Yangtze Valley. Each party acknowledged the other’s right to act should public tranquillity in either area be threatened. Should ei-
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Significance Although the treaty resulted in no immediate and obvious business and commercial advantages, in a larger sense the pact had extensive long-range effects. The alliance had one important financial consequence: It made it much easier for the Japanese government, and for private businesses as well, to borrow money in Great Britain. There was still much to be done in rebuilding Japan’s military and naval resources, depleted by the war with China in 1894-1895, and a conflict with Russia over dominance in Korea and Manchuria was looming. The alliance had commercial advantages for the Japanese in the Far East as well. Japanese businesses were encouraged to develop the Korean market, and many Japanese emigrated to Korea, largely in connection with Japanese enterprises there. By 1903, thirty thousand Japanese were living in southern Korea. Japanese nationals had acquired numerous parcels of important waterfront real estate in Korea, although mostly as part of a Japanese government initiative to deny them to Russia, which sought land in Korea for a warm-water naval base. For Great Britain, the advantages were less obvious. To be sure, the fact that the Japanese and British fleets would now work together in the Far East meant that less money would have to be spent on maintaining a fullscale British naval presence there; that in turn would mean lower taxes. The British commercial presence in China was also now more secure; given that Great Britain had a larger trade with China than did all other foreign countries combined, that was a significant advantage. British firms in Hong Kong and Shanghai could look forward to the future with confidence. The risk that other European powers would challenge their dominance in the Yangtze Valley was effectively removed.
The alliance was more important for what it did to the constellation of world powers. It made it possible for the Japanese to challenge, and defeat, the Russians in the Far East in three short years, without fear of intervention by another Great Power, because such action would have triggered British intervention on Japan’s side under the terms of the treaty. Even though the mediation of President Theodore Roosevelt prevented the Japanese from reaping all the fruits of their victory, no one could now doubt that Japan was indeed a Great Power. The alliance was revised in the light of the Japanese victory over Russia. In 1905, a new, more extensive agreement was signed. Japan sought a tighter guarantee, fearing that Russia would seek revenge for its defeat. Great Britain, fearful that Russia would turn its expansive tendencies southward, toward Afghanistan and India, looked for an expansion of the Japanese commitment. Although the Japanese declined to be bound to provide a specific number of troops in the event India was attacked (in retrospect, many British military experts concluded that using Japanese troops in India would not be a good idea anyway), the area covered by the treaty was extended to include India, not only the Far East. Japan received Korea, in effect, as a colony. Each party agreed to assist the other were either of them attacked in the area of interest defined by the treaty, thus binding the two nations more closely in the event of war than had the treaty of 1902. This latter treaty was extended in 1911, continued automatically during World War I, and terminated in 1923 only as a result of the Washington Naval Conference in 1921. —Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Dennis, A. L. P. “The Anglo-Japanese Alliance.” In University of California Publications in International Relations, edited by Edwin Landon and Frank M. Russell. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1934. Presents a relatively brief account of the specifics of the negotiations leading up to the signing of the treaty, based on published sources only. Monger, G. W. “The End of Isolation: Britain, Germany, and Japan, 1900-1902.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 13 (1963): 103-121. Offers a brief summary of the events surrounding the treaty. For more extensive coverage, see the same author’s book, cited below. _______. The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy, 1900-1907. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963. Devotes a full chapter to the Anglo-Japanese Treaty 129
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ther party become involved in war with a third power, the other party agreed to remain neutral. The treaty, to last for five years, was signed on January 30, 1902. No ratifications were required, and the treaty became operative immediately. After five years, the treaty would continue, but each signatory would be entitled to terminate it on one year’s notice. Diplomatic notes were exchanged, providing for close naval collaboration. Although a few carping criticisms appeared in the British press when the alliance became public in February, generally the British press reacted favorably to the treaty. For the Japanese government, it was a triumph to be trumpeted. The favorable Japanese public reaction helped substantially to give the Katsura government an unusually long lease on power.
Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets
Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession and the alliance. Account is based on access to the British diplomatic records as well as on published sources. Nish, Ian. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1948-1907. 2d ed. London: Athlone Press, 1985. Excellent work on the AngloJapanese alliance is based not only on British diplomatic records but also on Japanese records. Covers the period from 1894, the date of the Treaty of Commerce, to 1907, which saw the end of the RussoJapanese War and the completion of the second Anglo-Japanese Treaty. Treats all the negotiations in exhaustive detail. Nish, Ian, and Yoichi Kibata, eds. The Political-Diplomatic Dimension, 1600-1930. Vol. 1 in The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600-2000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Collection of essays provides comprehensive coverage of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Japan from the time
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of earliest contact between the two nations. Includes index. O’Brien, Phillips, ed. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Collection of essays on various aspects of Anglo-Japanese relations in the period directly following the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. Includes index. Steiner, Zara. “Great Britain and the Creation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.” Journal of Modern History 31 (1959): 27-36. Straightforward account based only on British sources. See also: Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War; Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools; Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement; Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
February 17, 1902
Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession The founding of the Photo-Secession established the preeminent school of American art photography at the beginning of the twentieth century and consolidated Alfred Stieglitz’s power as leader of the pictorial movement. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Arts; photography Key Figures Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), American photographer and editor Edward Steichen (1879-1973), American painter and photographer Frank Eugene (1865-1936), American painter and photographer Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934), American photographer Clarence H. White (1871-1925), American photographer and bookkeeper Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966), American photographer Summary of Event Alfred Stieglitz first experimented with photography while he was studying engineering in Berlin during the 130
1880’s. Stieglitz’s early work was in the “pictorial” style then popular in Europe—pastoral landscapes, rustic genre scenes, figure studies, and portraits of fashionable society types influenced by the popular painters of the day: those of the French Barbizon school, Camille Corot, James McNeill Whistler, and German genre painters such as Max Liebermann. By patiently submitting prints to exhibitions and competitions, Stieglitz developed an international reputation as a photographer. When Stieglitz returned to the United States in the 1890’s, he took control of the Camera Club of New York and elevated its journal, Camera Notes, to international prominence as a promoter of pictorial photography. Such moves created tensions within the club, most of whose members practiced the old, technically oriented style of photography, in which correct exposure and sharp focus were the principal criteria for success. The traditionalists called Stieglitz and his fellow pictorialists, most of whom suppressed detail for broad effect, “fuzzyographers.” It was this growing rift within the Camera Club of New York that led Stieglitz to think about forming a new group, one more in keeping with his own sentiments. He envisioned a group of pictorial photographers and their patrons, loosely organized and informal but in large part modeled after the British Linked Ring, an orga-
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Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession
advance pictorial photography by bringing together likeminded photographers and their supporters and by holding exhibitions of the highest quality. Membership in the organization was divided into two categories: fellowship, which required acceptance based on the quality of one’s prints, and associateship, which required only a general sympathy with the aims and spirit of the movement. Among the well-known Photo-Secession fellows were Gertrude Käsebier, a professional photographer from New York known especially for her soft, evocative photographs of women and children; Edward Steichen, a trained painter as well as a photographer; Clarence H. White, a Newark, Ohio, bookkeeper; and Frank Eugene, who had studied painting in Munich. Less familiar today but also The Photo-Secession among the Photo-Secession’s foundOn April 10, 1902, the British magazine Amateur Photographer published the ing fellows were John G. Bullock, following description of the Photo-Secession, which had been founded less Robert Redfield, Edmund Stirling, than two months before. Eva Watson Schütze, William B. Dyer, Dallett Fuguet, Joseph T. Amongst the more advanced pictorial workers in America a definite moveKeiley, and John F. Strauss. Several ment has now taken place; comparable in some respects with the Link Ring of this latter group had been conmovement in this country of ten years or more ago, and at the invitation of the nected with the Photographic SociNational Arts Club of New York, an Exhibition of Photography is being held ety of Philadelphia, which had orgaby contributors who now for the first time come before the public as an organnized high-quality exhibits in the ised body; under the name of the Photo-Secessionists, the main idea of which is to bring together in America sympathetic spirits, whether active photographers 1890’s that had helped to establish or simply those interested in the movement. pictorialism in the United States. The Exhibition is in many respects unique, consisting as it does of “picked” Although no homogeneous Photoprints only, and representing only the very best work ever done in America. Secession style was promoted or enThis American movement is . . . an attempt . . . to produce pictures by means forced, several common denominaof photography. Pictures, that is to say, which shall stand the test of criticism; tors gradually emerged: emphasis on that one would apply to a picture in any other medium; that shall be satisfactory tonalism, on a blurring or softening in composition, colour quality, tone and lighting; that shall have esthetic charm of outlines, and on the suppression and shall involve some expression of the personal feeling of the photographer. of details. Some members of the The photographers who profess these high artistic aims and scrupulously group, including Stieglitz himself, live up to their principles and have the ability to practise them, are necessarily tended toward “straight” photografew in number, though steadily increasing; nor are they engaged in scholastic discussions as to whether photography can be reckoned among the fine arts, for phy, whereas others were dedicated they leave such theorising to the choppers of academic logic. It is not with manipulators, scratching or drawing phraseology they are concerned, but with facts. on their negatives or using “paint“Here is a print,” they say in effect; “has it any of the qualities that you find erly” photographic techniques such in a black and white; does it give you anything of the pleasurable feeling that as the gum bichromate process. The you experience before a picture in some other medium? If not, we try again; but range of styles and techniques pracif, on the other hand, it does, then at least to the extent in which this print has afticed by Photo-Secessionists thus fected you, pray acknowledge that there may be possibility of artistic exprestended to parallel pictorial photograsion in a pictorial photograph. How far the camera is responsible for the result phy in general rather than to define a or how far our own modification of its record, we venture to say is not the quesunique group approach. tion; the sole point, as between you and ourselves, being whether our prints Stieglitz was dedicated to the have aesthetic qualities and will stand the test of the kind of criticism that you apply to other pictures.” cause of establishing photography as a fine art, placing it on an equal foot131
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nization formed in London in 1892 by pictorialists disillusioned with the photographic establishment of their day. The Photo-Secession was officially founded on February 17, 1902, and it held its first exhibition at the National Arts Club in New York City from March 5 to 24 of that year. The exhibit included work by some thirty-two photographers, about half of whom never actually became members of the Photo-Secession. The group was a rather elite body, with only those considered worthy of the honor being elected to membership. Stieglitz had complete jurisdiction; the council of the Photo-Secession simply rubber-stamped his recommendations. The Photo-Secession’s purpose was to
Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession ing with other printmaking methods such as etching and lithography. With this in mind, he wrote prolifically about photography and edited the journals Camera Notes (1897-1902) and Camera Work (1903-1917). He also served as the chief impresario for pictorial photography in the United States, organizing exhibitions, under the banner of the Photo-Secession, at important museums across the country. The critical acclaim that accompanied these shows quickly established the organization’s preeminence. Prior to the Photo-Secession era, photographic exhibitions tended to be organized by categories (such as landscape or portraiture) and often awarded prizes. Stieglitz was instrumental in bringing about shows in which works were included solely on the basis of artistic merit and were aesthetically displayed at eye level in exhibits punctuated by tasteful floral arrangements. He refused to have Photo-Secession photographs exhibited unless they were hung as a group in a setting that met his strict qualifications. Because it was difficult to enforce these exacting exhibition standards, Stieglitz, at Steichen’s suggestion, opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue (later known simply as 291) in New York City in November, 1905. There, in an intimate setting, on burlap-covered walls, Stieglitz exhibited first the work of Photo-Secession members and later, beginning in 1908, the work of avant-garde painters and sculptors as well. These shows, which included works by such important European modernists as Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso, provided Americans with an opportunity to see such work five years before the infamous Armory Show of 1913. In fact, it was Stieglitz’s increasing emphasis on modern painting and sculpture at 291 and in Camera Work that led to the unraveling of the Photo-Secession. Many members felt that Stieglitz was moving away from photography and therefore away from their interests. The last important Photo-Secession show was an exhibition organized by Stieglitz and held at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, from November 3 to December 1, 1910. The show included 584 prints and filled eight galleries, drawing large crowds and positive press coverage. Stieglitz viewed it as the culmination of his dream to have photography recognized as a valid art medium by an important art museum. The Buffalo exhibit marked the end of the PhotoSecession’s major activities as a group. Opinionated and autocratic, Stieglitz quarreled with many of the photographer members, including Käsebier, White, and even 132
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Steichen. Although a notice calling for dues was sent out to Photo-Secession members in 1911, and no formal dissolution of the group is recorded, many of the members turned to professional photography as a livelihood and drifted away from Stieglitz. With the coming of World War I, the group effort that had been the heart and soul of the Photo-Secession perished. Stieglitz continued to show new photographic work when he believed it was important, such as the photographs of Paul Strand, which appeared in the final issue of Camera Work in June, 1917. Increasingly, however, Stieglitz took over the promotion of American modernist painters such as Georgia O’Keeffe (his future wife), Arthur Dove, John Marin, and Marsden Hartley. He remained active as a photographer, however, and his work, writings, and exhibitions mark an important step in the evolution of the art of photography. Significance Although Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession were not the lone pioneers of pictorial photography in the United States, they quickly became the most influential organization in the field. By the end of the nineteenth century, Stieglitz had already established himself as the leading spokesman for the promotion of photography as an art form. He was a master of the printed word as effective propaganda. Between 1887 and 1911, he published more than two hundred articles about photography; many more were penned by those who dedicated themselves to espousing his ideals. This wide dissemination of Stieglitz’s views established his international reputation. Stieglitz gained control of all phases of the pictorialist movement by organizing shows, having his friends review them in his own publications, and even controlling to some extent the sale of the work through 291. The impact of the Photo-Secession on art photography was, as a result, pervasive. During the early years of the organization, many aspiring pictorialists, with varying degrees of talent, signed on with the Photo-Secession. They quickly saw that Stieglitz’s group could promote them in a way no other body could. Also, a certain cachet was attached to belonging to the exclusive society. Stieglitz spoke of his group as the “chosen few” and believed that superior work by a handful of advanced workers could change the course of photography. He was also a tough opponent, with little sympathy for those who did not follow him unquestioningly. Stieglitz was well connected, both in the United States and abroad. He wielded great influence, for exam-
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Alvin Langdon Coburn, whom George Bernard Shaw considered to be the world’s greatest photographer, went on to publish several series of portraits of French and English celebrities, including Men of Mark (1913) and More Men of Mark (1922). He also pioneered in abstract photography, making his famous “Vortographs” in 1917. Coburn spent much of his later life living and traveling in Europe, and he became a British subject in 1932. Thus the Photo-Secession’s influence continued to be an important force, both in the United States and abroad. The most lasting impact of Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession was the growing acceptance of photography as an art form. Most modern museums collect and exhibit photographs on the strength of their aesthetic merits. No longer relegated to the realm of science and technology, photography—in large part because of Stieglitz’s vigorous promotion—is firmly established as a creative art. — Gillian Greenhill Hannum Further Reading Doty, Robert. Photo-Secession: Photography as a Fine Art. Rochester, N.Y.: George Eastman House, 1960. The first important study on the Photo-Secession. Reissued as Photo-Secession: Stieglitz and the Fine Art Movement in Photography (New York: Dover, 1978). Contains numerous photographs, notes to the text, a selected bibliography, a chronological list of exhibitions held at 291, and a listing of Photo-Secession members. Numerous photographs. Green, Jonathan. “Camera Work”: A Critical Anthology. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1973. Large-format book reproduces selected images and essays from Camera Work. Includes an introductory text, notes, brief biographies, bibliography, and various indexes to Camera Work. Homer, William I. Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession. 1983. Reprint. New York: Studio, 2002. One of the standard texts on the Photo-Secession. Includes photographs, a list of Photo-Secession members, notes, brief descriptions of processes used by pictorialists, extensive bibliography, and index. Longwell, Dennis. Steichen: The Master Prints. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1978. An elegantly presented text dealing with Steichen’s early years (1895-1914). Includes notes, plates with commentary, a catalog of plates, a brief essay on Steichen’s printing techniques, bibliography, and index. Lowe, Sue Davidson. Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography. 1983. Reprint. Boston: MFA Publications, 2002. As the title suggests, this provides somewhat anecdotal 133
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ple, with the Linked Ring (of which he was a member) and with similar photographic organizations in France and Germany. He had set out to prove that American pictorialism was on a par with its European counterparts, and in this he fully succeeded. Stieglitz’s journal Camera Work became hugely influential despite its relatively small circulation. Noteworthy authors of the day, including George Bernard Shaw and Maurice Maeterlinck, contributed essays. The photographers featured in its elegant pages benefited from subsequent scholarship and are among the most well known from the era. Stieglitz and Steichen, in particular, are considered leading figures in American photographic history. Stieglitz’s own photographic style was constantly evolving, from the soft impressionism of the 1890’s to the realism commonly associated with such famous images as The Steerage of 1907. In 1910, he created a celebrated series of photographs depicting New York City. It was at this time that Stieglitz effectively abandoned pictorial photography and allied himself with the new practitioners of “straight” photography, such as Paul Strand. Later Stieglitz projects included his close-up portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe and his series of cloud studies, Equivalents, executed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Stieglitz managed 291 until it closed in 1917 and later directed two other galleries, the Intimate Gallery (1925) and An American Place (1929-1946). Both were known for exhibiting avant-garde art. During World War I, Stieglitz served as chief of aerial photography in the American Expeditionary Forces. Later, between 1923 and 1937, he was a successful fashion and portrait photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair. He was in charge of overseeing all U.S. naval combat photography during World War II, and in 1947 he was appointed director of the Photography Department at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where, in 1955, he curated the celebrated Family of Man exhibition. White and Käsebier also continued to be active in photographic circles. White lectured on photography at Columbia University from 1907 on and later established the Clarence H. White School of Photography. Many of his students became prominent photographers themselves, including Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Paul Outerbridge, and Ralph Steiner. In 1916, both White and Käsebier became leading members of the newly formed organization Pictorial Photographers of America. For many disaffected Photo-Secessionists, White took over as leader of the pictorial movement, and Käsebier was his firm ally.
Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession
Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere coverage of Stieglitz’s life, written by a grandniece. Includes family photographs, a Stieglitz chronology, notes that draw heavily on unpublished correspondence, an extensive bibliography, a compilation of illustrations and articles in Camera Work, a list of exhibitions arranged by Stieglitz from 1902 to 1946, Stieglitz’s family tree, and other useful appendixes. Michaels, Barbara L. Gertrude Käsebier: The Photographer and Her Photographs. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. An exceptionally well-documented study of Käsebier’s life and work, including much interesting information about her interaction with Stieglitz and other members of the Photo-Secession. Excellent notes, bibliography, and index. Photographs. Stieglitz, Alfred. Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings. 2d ed. New York: Bulfinch, 1999. This book (the first edition of which was published in 1983, in conjunction with a major Stieglitz retrospective exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.) focuses on Stieglitz’s central vision of photography, which was increasingly about “antiphotographs,” or images that move beyond simple representation. Features seventy-three high-quality plates as well as many excerpts from Stieglitz’s writings. In-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cludes fifty-six letters written by Stieglitz, selected and edited by Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art; Greenough also contributes an introductory essay. _______. “Camera Work”: A Pictorial Guide. Edited by Marianne Fulton Margolis. New York: Dover, 1978. Includes reproductions of all 559 Camera Work illustrations and plates, bibliography, glossary of terms, and separate indexes of authors, titles, and sitters. Weaver, Mike. Alvin Langdon Coburn: Symbolist Photographer. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1986. One of Aperture’s outstanding monographs, with chronology, notes, and bibliography. High-quality, lavish illustrations. White, Maynard P. Clarence H. White. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1979. Another Aperture monograph with brief text, notes, numerous plates, chronology, and selected bibliography. See also: Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York.
March and June, 1902
Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere When Arthur Edwin Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside independently theorized the existence of an electrified layer in the upper atmosphere that reflects radio waves around the curved surface of the earth, their work stimulated new scientific understanding. Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts; Newton Abbot, England Categories: Science and technology; physics; earth science Key Figures Arthur Edwin Kennelly (1861-1939), British American electrical engineer and Harvard professor Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925), English physicist and electrical engineer Balfour Steward (1828-1887), Scottish physicist Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian electrical engineer and cowinner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in 134
Physics for demonstrating radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean Edward Victor Appleton (1892-1965), English physicist who won the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the ionosphere in 1924 Summary of Event On December 12, 1901, only thirteen years after German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered radio waves, Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in transmitting radio signals from Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada. This historic event was difficult to explain, given that it was known that radio signals consist of electromagnetic waves that, like light, travel in nearly straight lines. Considerable discussion took place among scientists as to how Marconi’s signals could propagate around the curved surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Several scientists tried to show that electromagnetic waves of sufficiently long wavelength could bend around the earth’s
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regular way during the day and night, as well as over seasonal and solar cycles. Furthermore, the regular daily variations were disturbed during magnetic storms. These findings suggested that the scientific study of radio propagation could lead to new knowledge about the upper atmosphere. It soon became clear that daily and seasonal variations could be explained by the changing aspects of the Sun and its effect on the charge concentration in the postulated Kennelly-Heaviside layer in what came to be called the ionosphere. The first direct evidence for the existence of the ionosphere was obtained by Sir Edward Victor Appleton, with the assistance of Miles A. F. Barnett in 1924. At the University of Cambridge, Appleton had studied radio signals from the new British Broadcasting Company station in London and noticed the typical variations in their strength. When he took up a new position at the University of London in 1924, Appleton arranged to use the new British Broadcasting Company transmitter at Bournemouth after midnight, with receiving apparatus located at the University of Oxford. By varying the transmitter frequency, he hoped to detect a changing intensity at the receiver caused by changing interference (canceling of wave crests by the troughs of other waves) between the direct waves (along the ground) and the waves that he assumed would be reflected from the ionosphere. On December 11, 1924, Appleton and Barnett observed the regular fading in and out of the signal as the frequency of the transmitter was slowly increased. From the lowest and highest transmitted wavelengths and the corresponding number of intensity oscillations at the receiver, they calculated that the reflection was from a height of about 100 kilometers (62.1 miles). This confirmation of the Kennelly-Heaviside prediction was published in 1925 in the journal Nature under the title “Local Reflection of Wireless Waves from the Upper Atmosphere.” In later experiments, Appleton used an improved technique of rapid frequency changes so that variations in signal strength could be distinguished more clearly from natural fading because of changes in the ionosphere. In 1926, he found that the ionization of the Heaviside layer (E layer) was sufficiently reduced before dawn by recombination of electrons with positive ions to allow penetration by radio waves. Reflection, however, was still observed from a higher layer, where the air was too thin for efficient recombination. The height of what is now called the Appleton layer (F layer) was measured at about 230 kilometers (142.9 miles) above the earth. This result was published in Nature in 1927 under the title 135
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curvature by diffraction (the small tendency of waves to spread around obstacles). Calculations showed, however, that diffraction effects were inadequate to explain Marconi’s results. The correct explanation of radio wave propagation around the curved surface of the earth was suggested in 1902 almost simultaneously by Arthur Edwin Kennelly in the United States and Oliver Heaviside in England. These two men independently postulated the existence of an electrically conducting layer in the upper atmosphere that would reflect radio waves back to the earth. Successive reflections between this conducting layer and the surface of the earth could guide the waves around the curvature of the globe. Heaviside also suggested that the conductivity of this region might result from the presence of positive and negative ions in the upper atmosphere caused by the ionizing action of solar radiation. It is interesting to note that this hypothetical reflector was usually called the “Heaviside layer,” although it was Kennelly who first published the idea under the title “On the Elevation of the Electrically-Conducting Strata of the Earth’s Atmosphere” in the March, 1902, issue of Electrical World and Engineer. Heaviside was a brilliant but self-educated scientist who often had difficulty getting his work published. His ideas were more fully developed than Kennelly’s, but when he submitted an article to The Electrician, it was rejected; it then appeared in the Encyclopedia Britannica in June, 1902. In 1912, W. H. Eccles published the first theory of how charged particles affect the propagation of radio waves. Because he was aware of Heaviside’s rejected article, he apparently attempted to set the record straight by referring to the postulated reflecting region of the atmosphere as the Heaviside layer. In fact, the idea of such a conducting shell in the upper atmosphere had already been suggested by Balfour Steward twenty years earlier. In 1882, as part of his study of terrestrial magnetism, Steward had proposed that electrical currents flowing high in the atmosphere could explain the small daily changes in the earth’s magnetic field. Such variations would be caused by the tidal movements in the surrounding “sea of air,” which were caused by solar and gravitational influences. This explanation of fluctuations in the earth’s magnetism, combined with many peculiar features of shortwave radio propagation, seemed to confirm the existence of the KennellyHeaviside layer, but these phenomena provided only indirect evidence. After Marconi’s demonstration, commercial radio links were established across the Atlantic. Researchers then noticed that the strengths of the signals varied in a
Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere
Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere “The Existence of More than One Ionized Layer in the Upper Atmosphere.” Observations during a solar eclipse in 1927 indicated that the height of the Heaviside layer changed during that event, revealing that ionization is caused by solar radiation, as Heaviside had suggested. Significance The theorization and discovery of the ionosphere were important in stimulating new scientific understanding and advances in technology. Appleton’s magnetoionic theory of the ionosphere showed that electron density and the magnetic field at any layer in the ionosphere can be calculated from the critical frequency for penetrating that layer. In 1931, scientists began systematic experiments to determine the variation of electron densities in the ionosphere, revealing an increase in ionization as the Sun rises and low ionization at night, except for sporadic increases possibly caused by meteoric activity. Noon ionization was found to increase as the sunspot maximum of 1937 was approached, suggesting a correlation between sunspots and increases in the ultraviolet radiation that ionizes the upper layers of the atmosphere. This made it possible to measure the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun even though little of it reaches the ground. During the sunspot maximum of 1957-1958, the International Geophysical Year was established to study geophysical phenomena on a worldwide scale, including their relation to ionospheric variations. The study of the ionosphere has thus contributed to developments in other sciences, such as astronomy, meteorology, and geophysics. Appleton’s methods proved especially valuable in the development of radio communications, radar systems, and their applications in meteorology. Long-distance radio communications, in which the waves are guided around the earth by the ionosphere, became especially important during World War II. A worldwide network of more than fifty stations was established to monitor the ionosphere and to determine the most suitable frequencies for radio transmissions as ionospheric conditions changed. Discovery of the influence of the sunspot cycle made it possible to forecast ionospheric weather and thus to improve the reliability of radio communications. On the standard broadcast band (500-1,500 kilohertz), ground waves travel about 500 kilometers (310.7 miles), whereas sky waves are absorbed during the day but travel by reflection several thousand kilometers at night. At frequencies between 5 and 25 megahertz and distances greater than about 100 kilometers, radio transmission depends almost entirely on ionospheric reflections. On the 136
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 20-meter amateur radio band (14 megahertz), it is possible to reach some part of the world at almost any time of the day or night. The early development of radar was closely associated with studies of the ionosphere. The most powerful radar systems use the over-the-horizon technique of reflecting radar signals from the ionosphere to cover distances up to about 3,000 kilometers (1,864.1 miles), about ten times farther than conventional radar. For reliability, over-the-horizon radar systems depend on computers to chart the constantly changing intensity and thickness of the ionosphere and determine where conditions are best and which frequencies are needed for maximum performance. The ionosphere has thus become an indispensable tool for both communications and national security. — Joseph L. Spradley Further Reading Aitken, Hugh G. J. Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976. A good history of the early development of radio from the discovery of radio waves by Hertz to the work of Marconi. Makes only brief mention of the ionosphere proposal of Kennelly and Heaviside but provides more than one hundred references on the work of Marconi and many useful diagrams of early radio apparatuses. Anderson, Dave, and Tim Fuller-Rowell. “The Ionosphere.” Space Environment Topics SE-14, Space Environment Center, Boulder, Colo., 1999. http:// www.sel.noaa.gov/info/Iono.pdf. This brief report explains the characteristics of the ionosphere as well as ionospheric variability in a straightforward manner. Craig, Richard. The Edge of Space: Exploring the Upper Atmosphere. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. This small book is intended for secondary students and the lay public. It has a good chapter on the discovery of the ionosphere, along with helpful diagrams. Davies, Kenneth. Ionospheric Radio Propagation. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1965. This highly authoritative volume contains most of what is known about the ionosphere from both theory and worldwide measurements. Includes references and indexes. Hargreaves, J. K. The Solar-Terrestrial Environment: An Introduction to Geospace, the Science of the Terrestrial Upper Atmosphere, Ionosphere, and Magnetosphere. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Begins with three chapters that provide
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tion to the Ionosphere and Magnetosphere. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. A very readable and wellillustrated introduction to the history and applications of ionosphere research. An appendix provides background on electromagnetic waves, and a bibliography lists about twenty books on the ionosphere. See also: 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy; 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes. 1902
some basic physics and then covers the neutral and ionized upper atmosphere and the magnetosphere. Suitable for readers with a basic background in engineering or physics. Nahin, Paul J. Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude. New York: IEEE Press, 1987. An interesting and welldocumented biography of Heaviside, with extensive discussion of his contributions to telegraphy, applied mathematics, and electrodynamics. The concluding chapter, “The Final Years of the Hermit,” describes his ionosphere prediction. Ratcliffe, John A. Sun, Earth, and Radio: An Introduc-
American Automobile Association Is Established
March 4, 1902
American Automobile Association Is Established The establishment of an organized national automobile club, the American Automobile Association, helped improve conditions for automobile drivers and increased popularity of the automobile. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Organizations and institutions; transportation Key Figures Frank C. Webb (fl. early twentieth century), treasurer of the Long Island Automobile Club Samuel A. Miles (fl. early twentieth century), manager of the Chicago Automobile Show and a founder of the American Automobile Association Winthrop E. Scarritt (1857-1911), first president of the American Automobile Association Frank C. Donald (fl. early twentieth century), president of the Chicago Automobile Club and first vice president of the American Automobile Association Summary of Event The American Automobile Association (AAA) is a national organization that was formed in 1902 by nine local automobile clubs. The AAA was created to be an advocate of the automobile driver and to work toward improving the conditions of highways and roads. Since it was established, the organization has become involved in every aspect of travel and has developed many services to aid travelers. Frank C. Donald, the president of the Chicago Automobile Club, and Samuel A. Miles, the manager of the Chicago Automobile Show, helped organize the first na-
tional meeting of automobile clubs in the United States. Until that time, automobile clubs had been only local organizations. Donald and Miles sent letters to all the automobile clubs in the United States, inviting members to attend a meeting in Chicago for the purpose of organizing a national association of clubs. The primary reason automobile clubs were formed in the early days of the automobile was hostility toward drivers. Most people in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s disliked the automobile, preferring the traditional horse and buggy. In 1902, there were some twenty-three thousand automobiles on American roads, compared with seventeen million horses. The general public regarded automobiles as unsafe because they traveled much faster than horse-drawn vehicles. The automobile driver had many problems to contend with, including getting stuck in mud or having a flat tire and thereby blocking traffic. In 1902, a driver could get a traffic ticket for blocking the road regardless of the reason. Adding to the dislike of automobiles was the fact that the noise they made frightened many horses, which caused accidents. When a driver joined an automobile club, driving became more pleasant. Club members went on trips together so that if one had a problem, the others were there to assist. Also, when several automobiles traveled together, the drivers were subject to fewer unpleasant runins with the drivers of horse-drawn vehicles. The clubs originally formed as social groups rather than service groups, but many soon became involved in working to improve driving conditions. Most roads were intended for the use of horse-drawn buggies and were not in good condition for automobiles. Few roadside signs 137
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Workers for the Automobile Club of Southern California, a member club of the AAA, install roadside signs marking the Lincoln Highway in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1918. (AP/Wide World Photos)
existed to indicate routes, as buggy drivers seldom went anywhere to which they did not already know the way. The advent of the automobile meant that people could travel much farther in a day, and travelers became more adventurous. Many clubs became involved in improving roads and installing signs. One difficulty some clubs experienced was that they could not provide signs showing the routes to all surrounding cities. The distances were too great, and creating and posting the signs became too expensive. Many clubs worked together to put up signs, but their efforts were limited. Although the local clubs did accomplish some things, the need for a national club became increasingly clear. At first, a New York automobile club wanted to establish control over the other clubs around the United States. When this proposal met with disapproval by other clubs, Frank C. Webb, treasurer of the New York club, suggested that a national association be formed in which all local clubs would have equal power. This proposition was received with more optimism, and the process of creating a national organization began. In the letter inviting clubs from across the United States to attend the Chicago meeting, several goals were 138
listed for a national organization. These included improving roads, sharing ideas, pushing for national regulations and laws for automobiles, protecting the rights of automobilists, and improving the automobile. The letter was sent under the aegis of the New York club (the Long Island Automobile Club), the Automobile Club of America, the Philadelphia Automobile Club, the Chicago Automobile Club, and the Rhode Island Automobile Club. The first meeting, held in Chicago on March 4, 1902, was attended by representatives from nine automobile clubs: the Chicago Automobile Club, the Automobile Club of America, the Automobile Club of New Jersey, the Long Island Automobile Club, the Rhode Island Automobile Club, the Philadelphia Automobile Club, the Princeton University Automobile Club, the Automobile Club of Utica, and the Grand Rapids Automobile Club. Dozens of other relatively large clubs failed to send any representatives. Those who took part in the meeting accomplished four main tasks. First, they established a constitution that kept the same priorities as the invitation letter. Second, they named the new organization the American Automobile Association. Third, they voted for officers, electing Winthrop E. Scarritt from the Automo-
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Significance The American Automobile Association continued to grow throughout the twentieth century and continued to add to the services offered to member clubs. In 1936, the AAA made the provision of emergency road assistance mandatory for all affiliated clubs, with services to include towing, opening locked vehicles, supplying gas, and fixing mechanical failures. By 1992, the AAA had contracted with more than thirteen thousand facilities to provide these services, and in that year, the nationwide
organization fielded approximately twenty-two million calls for emergency assistance. As the AAA grew, it became involved in every aspect of travel, applying its original goal of making travel easier for the automobilist to other means of travel. The AAA published its first guidebook in 1917, and by the end of the twentieth century, AAA travel agencies throughout the United States and Canada were providing maps and guidebooks to members. In 1932, the AAA began offering members maps for drivers that highlighted the best routes to their destinations. In 1992, the organization provided members with more than eight million such highlighted maps, with information on detours, driving time, ferries, and more. In addition to services for members, the American Automobile Association became involved in community service, offering training courses for driver education instructors as well as programs to educate the public about the dangers of drinking and driving. The AAA also sponsored traffic safety courses in high schools and organized safety patrol programs at elementary schools across the United States, greatly reducing the number of accidents involving child pedestrians. In 1985, the association’s board of directors voted to support the passage of mandatory seat belt laws. Shortly thereafter, the AAA started a program advocating the use of seat belts. In the twenty-first century, the AAA employs the latest technology to deliver services to members while it continues to fight for the improvement of roads and highways in the United States as well as to protect the interests of automobile drivers. —Dan Kennedy Further Reading Berger, Michael L. The Automobile in American History and Culture: A Reference Guide. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Comprehensive collection of essays includes discussion of the establishment of the AAA and the organization’s influence on automobile-related laws and travel in the United States. Includes chronology, references, and indexes. Eng, Paul M. “Bits and Bytes.” BusinessWeek, August 12, 1991, 64D. Discusses the AAA’s use of technology to link data of service stations to provide better service for roadside emergencies. Gutfreund, Owen D. Twentieth Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Addresses how the advent of the automobile changed American cities. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. 139
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bile Club of America as president and Frank C. Donald as vice president. Finally, they scheduled a second meeting. On April 1, 1903, the American Automobile Association had its second meeting in New York City at the home of the Automobile Club of America. Members discussed a variety of topics related to motoring and came out in favor of the Brownlow-Latimer Bill, which would authorize the spending of some $24 million to improve roadways across the nation starting in 1904. The federal government was to pay half the cost, with states picking up the remainder. Following initial improvements, the states had to keep up the roads at their own expense. One of the AAA’s member clubs donated $10,000 to help promote the bill. The members also decided at this meeting not to focus their efforts on trying to persuade other clubs to join the AAA. The AAA made consistent progress in combating the public’s dislike of automobiles. When a bill was proposed in New York City that would have restricted any automobile from carrying gasoline within the city, the AAA worked successfully to defeat the bill. In 1907, the AAA started to offer some of the services for which it became well known, providing members with information concerning roads, laws, and facilities. Not long after, the AAA started producing its own road maps, as the organization found most of the maps then available—maps created for bicyclists—to be inadequate for automobile drivers. In 1915, the association began offering assistance to motorists in trouble. Some of the most common problems were flat tires and engine failures; motorists also often ran out of gas or found their vehicles stuck in mud. Local automobile clubs had been formed in large part to assist drivers with such problems, but having a national organization to help all members was a great accomplishment. Given that many drivers experienced difficulties with their automobiles while they were far from home, a national organization was a wonderful aid. Drivers no longer had to travel with local club members to be secure.
American Automobile Association Is Established
Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted Partridge, Bellamy. Fill ’er Up: The Story of Fifty Years of Motoring. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952. Presents the life of an automobile driver during the first fifty years of the automobile. Gives details on automobile clubs and the formation of the American Automobile Association. Describes hardships and setbacks experienced by automobile drivers and discusses laws concerning the automobile.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday; Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
April, 1902
Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted The Rhodes Scholarships were created according to the vision expressed in the will of Cecil Rhodes. Many Rhodes Scholars would go on to become well-known and important members of society. Locale: Oxford, England Categories: Education; humanitarianism and philanthropy Key Figure Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), diamond magnate who left a bequest to endow Rhodes Scholarships in perpetuity Summary of Event Cecil Rhodes’s life and legacy read like a Victorian imperial success story. Rhodes, the son of a vicar in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, did not go directly to college or into the military, as did his five brothers; instead, poor health motivated him to move to the Cape Colony (now known as the Republic of South Africa), where he initially worked on a cotton farm. He soon moved to Kimberley, the center of diamond mining in the region, and from 1871 to 1881 he spent approximately half of each year in the Cape Colony, digging for diamonds and purchasing competitors. During the other six months of the year, he pursued studies at Oriel College, Oxford, where he earned a degree in 1881. Rhodes treasured his undergraduate experience at Oxford, although his path through the university was hardly traditional. Oxford offers only three eight-week terms per calendar year—there are two six-week vacations between the first two terms, and the “long vacation” stretches from late June to early October. All three breaks, and especially the long vacation, are intended for Oxford students to broaden their studies and engage in reading a wider 140
range of material. While Rhodes might well have taken part in such programmatic reading, he spent most of those vacations in the Cape Colony. Rhodes participated in local politics in the Cape Colony in 1881, and throughout the remainder of that decade he developed strong political support among both expatriate British and Boer politicians. By 1888, he was the principal shareholder of De Beers Consolidated Mines, which by 1891 owned 90 percent of the world’s diamond mines. From 1890 to 1896, Rhodes served as prime minister of the Cape Colony. As leader, he acted on his imperialist belief in British superiority and hegemony, seeking unsuccessfully to “paint the map [of Africa] red” with a railway from Cairo to the Cape and even suggesting that the American colonies could be returned to the British Empire. Rhodes died from heart disease on March 26, 1902. His will, probated in April, 1902, left his fortune to Oxford University to support in perpetuity the funding of scholarships for young men, initially only for unmarried males between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five who were citizens of the United States, the British Commonwealth, or any of its colonies. Women became eligible for the competition in 1976, and candidates from Germany were eligible from 1903 to 1914, from 1930 to 1939, and again after 1970. The Rhodes Scholarships qualify successful applicants for admission to Oxford, but each applicant also needs to be accepted formally by one of the thirty-nine Oxford colleges. Rhodes Scholars generally spend two years in residence, and most earn either a second bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, depending on their interests, courses of study, and previous academic preparation. It was the belief of Cecil Rhodes, as articulated in his will, that having young men from English-speaking nations take a degree at one of Britain’s two ancient uni-
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Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted
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versities would create Anglophiles who might Some American Rhodes Scholars continue to disseminate Rhodes’s imperialist Among the many Rhodes Scholars who have gone on to make sigbelief in British superiority. nificant contributions to the world are these Americans: There are quotas for each qualifying country: Thirty-two scholars chosen from the United • Daniel J. Boorstin, historian and U.S. librarian of Congress, States, eleven from Canada, three from New 1975-1987 Zealand, and one from Hong Kong, among oth• Bill Bradley, professional basketball player and U.S. senator ers. Regardless of country of origin, however, • Wesley K. Clark, military officer and politician the four general criteria for selection, articu• Bill Clinton, president of the United States, 1993-2001 lated in Rhodes’s will, have always guided the • E. J. Dionne, journalist selecting committees: literary and scholastic • Russell D. Feingold, U.S. senator • J. William Fulbright, U.S. senator and founder of the Fulbright achievements; energy to use one’s talents to the Fellowship program full, as exemplified by fondness for and success • John M. Harlan II, associate justice of the United States in sports; truth, courage, devotion to duty, sym• Edwin Powell Hubble, astronomer pathy for and protection of the weak, kindness, • Jonathan Kozol, social activist and author unselfishness, and fellowship; and moral force • Kris Kristofferson, musician and actor of character and instincts to lead and to take an • Alain Locke, philosopher interest in one’s fellow beings. The second cri• Reynolds Price, novelist and poet terion is one of the factors that has always • Robert B. Reich, U.S. secretary of labor, 1993-1997 distinguished Rhodes Scholars; in addition to • Dean Rusk, U.S. secretary of state, 1961-1969 being exemplary and superior students, suc• Howard K. Smith, broadcast journalist cessful applicants also are expected to fulfill the • David Souter, associate justice of the United States • Lester Thurow, economist classical ideal of mens sana in corpore sano (a • Robert Penn Warren, poet and novelist sound mind in a sound body). Although world• Naomi Wolf, author and feminist social critic class athletes such as former professional basketball player and U.S. senator from New Jersey Bill Bradley have been Rhodes Scholars, more recreational and intramural-quality athletes, to and from Oxford, England, are covered by the Rhodes such as thirty-ninth U.S. president Bill Clinton—rejected trust, so that economic background or financial hardship by Balliol College but accepted by University College, should not disqualify compelling applicants. Although Oxford—have been more common. women and married men are now eligible to become Rhodes Scholars, the trust makes no additional accomSignificance modations for spouses or family members, seeking inAdmittedly, the first Rhodes Scholarships were limited stead to remain focused on the particular applicants and to men from the English-speaking world; such limiting their ability to benefit from an Oxford experience. criteria were of course consistent with Cecil Rhodes’s —Richard Sax worldview. Greater significance may lie in the fact that, nearly two decades before the League of Nations and a Further Reading half century before the formation of the United Nations, Aydelotte, Frank. The American Rhodes Scholarships. the Rhodes Scholarships represented a sense of how peoPrinceton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1946. ple from around the world could come together, joined Carefully researched overview of the American comby a common cause and the belief that they could make petitions for the Rhodes Scholarships up to the midthe world a better place through study, combined physi1940’s. cal exertion, and teamwork. If in fact collegiate studies Elton, Lord, ed. The First Fifty Years of the Rhodes Trust are intended to provide not only information but also and the Rhodes Scholarships. Oxford, England: Basil skills to help individuals lead thoughtful and productive Blackwell, 1955. This text, still generally available lives, then these criteria gauge an individual’s potential. though of course somewhat dated, reviews the first Rhodes believed that a successful life was one that included active use of both the mind and body. five decades of the annual Rhodes competitions. All costs of the two-year residency, including travel Harrison, Brian, ed. The Twentieth Century. Vol. 8 in
Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones The History of the University of Oxford. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1994. This volume of the history of the university focuses on the twentieth century with an early chapter dedicated to the will and legacy of Cecil Rhodes. Kenney, Anthony, ed. The History of the Rhodes Trust, 1902-1999. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2001. Evenhanded study of the first century of Rhodes Scholarships. Lockhart, J. G., and C. M. Woodhouse. Cecil Rhodes. New York: Macmillan, 1963. Standard biography of Rhodes as a builder of financial and political empire, as diplomat, and as benefactor of the Rhodes Scholarships. Roberts, Brian. Cecil Rhodes: Flawed Colossus. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. Critical biography of Rhodes as the personification of British imperialism in Africa. Draws largely from Rhodes’s personal papers.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Biographical study of Rhodes’s life that uses modern psychological theories and insights into character. Places special emphasis on his accumulation of wealth in South Africa and the legacy of his will. Schaeper, Thomas J., and Kathleen Schaeper. Cowboys into Gentlemen: Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite. Providence, R.I.: Bergahn Books, 1998. Historical study of American Rhodes Scholars, how they were affected by their years at Oxford, and the effects they had on Oxford. See also: May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets; 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation; Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia.
April-June, 1902
Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones William Maddock Bayliss and Ernest Henry Starling proved unequivocally that chemical integration can occur in the body without assistance from the nervous system. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures William Maddock Bayliss (1860-1924), English physiologist Ernest Henry Starling (1866-1927), English physiologist Arnold Berthold (1803-1861), German physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), Russian physiologist Frederick G. Banting (1891-1941), Canadian physiologist Summary of Event Much information is available today concerning the control of secretin release and its targets, but this has not always been the case. At the beginning of the twentieth century, two English physiologists, Sir William Maddock Bayliss and Ernest Henry Starling, were interested 142
in ascertaining what triggers the pancreas to pour out digestive juices as soon as food arrives in the first part of the intestine. They hypothesized that a nerve signal from the intestine could order the pancreas to turn on the juice, and they set up an experiment to test their hypothesis. The investigators dissected the nerves of an animal’s upper intestine and injected stimulating material, such as food from the stomach. To their astonishment, pancreatic juices poured promptly into the intestine. This should not have happened, given that all nerves had been cut, yet some mysterious signal had reached the pancreas and roused it to action. Bayliss and Starling subsequently discovered that the signal is chemical in nature, not nervous. The arrival of acid-laden food causes the intestinal wall to secrete a substance called secretin, which oozes into the bloodstream. Physiologists know that secretin causes the pancreas to secrete a solution high in bicarbonate, which has the effect of buffering hydrochloric acid. Secretin also tends to inhibit motility of the stomach while stimulating the secretion of pepsin (an enzyme that breaks specific internal peptide bonds in a protein). Secretin is the single most important inhibitor of gastrin release and therefore of acid secretion. Starling first used the word “hormone” (from the
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lect the pancreatic and duodenal secretions. The gastric and duodenal secretions are collected separately; gastric juice is usually aspirated continuously through the use of a low-pressure vacuum pump, whereas the duodenal contents are aspirated periodically. Volume, pH, bicarbonate, and enzyme determinations are made on the samples collected from the duodenum. With normal function, there is a rapid increase in flow rate following secretin injection, the maximum flow rate usually being reached in twenty minutes. Aflow rate of 1 to 2 milliliters per kilogram of weight per thirty minutes is usually obtained in normal individuals. The bicarbonate concentration increases with the flow rate and may go as high as 140 to 150 milligrams per liter. As the flow rate increases, there is an associated decrease in enzyme concentration. When pancreozymin is used as a stimulus for pancreatic secretion to test pancreatic function, the procedure is the same as that described for the secretin test. Secretin increases the secretion of bile by the liver, although it does not cause the gallbladder to contract. The site of action of secretin is thought to be the small bile ducts, or ductules. The effect results in an increase in the volume of bile by addition of water and a marked increase in the bicarbonate concentration. The onset of effect is similar to that of the pancreas. Some evidence suggests that an electrolyte fraction may be secreted that is
William Maddock Bayliss. (Library of Congress)
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Greek hormon, meaning exciting, setting in motion) in 1905 with reference to secretin. Today, physiologists know that hormones may inhibit as well as excite. Hormones do not initiate metabolic transformations; rather, they merely alter the rate at which these changes occur. Bayliss and Starling also developed the concept that powerful chemical messengers exist in the common pool of blood and lymph. Secretin has been obtained in crystalline form and is a basic polypeptide. The hormone disappears rapidly from circulation owing to the destructive action of an enzyme called secretinase. Small amounts of the hormone are excreted in the urine. Many materials other than hydrochloric acid stimulate the release of secretin by the duodenal mucosa; water, alcohol, fatty acids, partially hydrolyzed protein, and certain amino acids are all effective. The crude extract that Bayliss and Starling used in their experiment caused the pancreas to secrete enzymes as well as water and bicarbonates. Because purified secretin seemed to stimulate only the output of water and bicarbonate, researchers began to look for the material in the extract that stimulated secretions of the enzymes. In 1943, A. A. Harper and H. S. Raper succeeded in separating a fraction that did not increase the volume of pancreatic juice but greatly increased the enzyme concentrations. This substance was called pancreozymin. In 1966, in the course of their purification of cholecystokinin (CCK), E. Jopes and V. Mutt demonstrated that this hormone and pancreozymin are the same polypeptide. Because CCK was discovered first, the hormone is generally known as cholecystokinin, although some researchers still refer to it as cholecystokinin-pancreozymin. It is now known that actions of secretin and CCK are not as completely separate as previously believed. Secretin augments the action of CCK on pancreatic enzyme secretions, and CCK augments the action of secretin on bicarbonate ion secretions. This augmentation is important in the stimulation of pancreatic fluid when the pH of the duodenum, which is well buffered, does not fall significantly with the entry of a meal into the upper gastrointestinal tract. After secretin and pancreozymin became available in injectable form, tests of pancreatic function were developed that use these hormones as stimuli. After secretin became available in a form pure enough for use in humans, researchers accumulated more experience with it. G. Agren et al. introduced the secretin test in 1936, and it has been used extensively in the United States and abroad. In this test, a double-lumen tube is passed through the patient’s nose or mouth into the stomach to drain gastric juice and into the duodenum to col-
Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones
Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones dependent on the active transport of sodium and is inhibited by inhibitors of ATPase. Secretin causes only a moderate increase in bile flow and none at all if the liver is secreting vigorously already. The pancreas is under the control of both nervous and humoral mechanisms. The nervous control of pancreatic secretion is provided by both the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system. Humoral control of pancreatic secretion is provided by the hormones secretin, CCK, and gastrin. Atropine is said to block the effects of sympathetic stimulations, causing an increase in flow rate, indicating that cholinergic secretory fibers are present in the sympathetic
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 innervation of the pancreas. Stimulations of the vagus, or parasympathetic innervation of the pancreas, result in the secretion of enzymes but have little or no effect on the secretions of bicarbonate. Acetylcholine is the mediator of the vagal effect. Vagotomy and atropine markedly depress the secretions of enzymes by the pancreas. Cholinergic drugs, such as pilocarpine, stimulate pancreatic secretion, whereas atropine and anticholinergic agents produce inhibitions.
Significance Bayliss and Starling’s discovery relative to the existence and manner of action (at the level of the whole organism) of the hormone secretin was farreaching. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, a Russian scientist and great pioneer in Hormones and Diabetes the study of conditioned reflexes, reDiabetes begins when the body is unable to utilize food properly. If food is peated the work of Bayliss and Starnot correctly metabolized, excess sugar accumulates in the blood, and the body ling in 1910 and obtained similar cannot access the energy needed to perform day-to-day functions. When the results. Subsequently, S. Kopec demkidneys are unable to keep up in the extraction of excess sugars from the body’s onstrated in 1917 that a hormone waste fluids, sugars tend to concentrate in the urine. Urine flow is abnormally from the brain controls pupation in increased, and the diabetic is constantly thirsty and consumes much fluid. Huncertain invertebrates (insects), which ger and fatigue are constant companions as the body’s demands for energy go illustrated for the first time that cenunmet. In advanced cases, the diabetic suffers other symptoms: blindness, intral nervous structures can perform fections of the extremities that can lead to gangrene, and a higher incidence of endocrine roles. other conditions, including heart disease. Without control of any kind, the diaThe islets of Langerhans are betic faces a dismal future; for children without treatment, the normal life expectancy following diagnosis is only one or two years. patches of tissue located in the panThe role of the pancreas in the process of digestion gradually became clear creas that produce the hormone insuin the mid-nineteenth century. French physiologist Claude Bernard discovered lin. In 1921, Sir Frederick G. Bantthe role of the liver in the processes of digestion, and some suspected that it ing, John J. R. Macleod, Charles H. played a role in diabetes. Degenerative damage to the pancreases of diabetics Best, and James Bertram Collip, led some to speculate that the pancreas, too, must play a role in the disease. Miworking in Toronto, Ontario, Cancroscopic studies of pancreatic tissue by the German student Paul Langerhans ada, isolated this hormone from the revealed the presence of two distinct types of cells: those that secrete the ordiembryos of animals. The insulin was nary digestive enzyme and islands of cells whose appearance was quite differnext injected experimentally into ent and distinctive. The islands of cells came to be known as the islets of dogs and then into humans (in 1922); Langerhans. There was a growing sense that the powerful protein-destroying it was found to be effective in relievcapacity of the external secretion might be involved in the destruction of the internal secretion in diabetics. ing the symptoms of diabetes. IndiSuch was the situation in October, 1920, when Fred Banting, a part-time viduals suffering from this disease lecturer in surgery at Western University who was interested in carbohydrate are unable to oxidize sugar in their metabolism, formulated the idea of causing the death of the digestive juice tissues. The sugar tends to accumucells and isolating their internal secretion to test its effectiveness against high late in the tissues, often with fatal reblood sugars. Banting contacted John J. R. Macleod, a professor of physiology sults. It is known that insulin reguat the University of Toronto, to propose his research idea. Along with Macleod lates the storage of sugars in the liver and their assistant Charles H. Best and later physician James Bertram Collip, and the oxidation of sugar by the they finally isolated the hormone insulin and prepared an injectable form for body. Diabetes is thus caused by the treatment of diabetes. On January 23, 1922, it was tested on a fourteen-year-old inability of the islets of Langerhans boy dying of diabetes. The injection controlled the boy’s blood sugar, and his to produce adequate quantities of inlife was saved. sulin. In 1923, Banting and Macleod
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Further Reading Grossman, Morton I. “Vitamins and Hormones.” In Advances in Research and Application, edited by Robert S. Harris. New York: Academic Press, 1958. Discusses vitamins and their sources, in addition to the discovery, distribution, and modes of action of the hormone secretin. Further addresses the fate of cholecystokinin produced by the duodenum.
Henderson, John. A Life of Ernest Starling. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Biography covers Starling’s many contributions to medicine and addresses the passionate views he held, and voiced, on many other subjects, including education, Germany, and the British government. Includes illustrations, appendixes, bibliography, and index. Jenkin, Penelope. “Discovery of Hormones.” In Monographs of Pure and Applied Biology, edited by J. E. Harris. New York: Pergamon Press, 1962. A panoramic view of the salient experiments of Berthold, Starling, Kopec, and others. Discusses the mechanism of hormone action as well as the role of the central nervous system. Morgan, Howard E. “Endocrine Control Systems.” In Best and Taylor’s Physiological Basis of Medical Practice, edited by John R. Brobeck. 10th ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1980. An excellent reference text for students in the health professions. Discusses all aspects of hormonal control systems, including hormonal control of growth and protein metabolism. Hormonal control of permeability is well documented for ions, glucose, and amino acids. Schauf, Charles L., et al. Human Physiology: Foundations and Frontiers, edited by Deborah Allen. St. Louis, Mo.: Times Mirror/Mosby, 1990. A conceptual approach to a complex subject. Presents concepts systematically to demonstrate how organ systems interact with one another. Includes diagrams where required for clarification of the reciprocal fields of histology (the study of tissues) and physiology (the study of functions). Stille, Darlene R. “Science and Technology: Internal Medicine.” In Science Year: The World Book Science Annual, edited by Harrison Brown et al. Chicago: Scott & Fetzer, 1980. Includes Science File, a section that provides the “News of the Year” in about fortyfive short articles alphabetically arranged by subject matter, from agriculture to zoology. The genetics section describes the research work of a team of scientists at City of Hope Medical Center who created a bacterial strain able to produce human insulin, a protein hormone used in treating diabetes. See also: 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement; Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System; 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets; Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer. 145
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were corecipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of insulin as a treatment for diabetes. In 1949, Thomas R. Forbes reviewed the work of Arnold Berthold in a paper read before the Beaumont Club at Yale University. In the mid-nineteenth century, Berthold caponized six young cockerels and then returned single testes to the body cavities of some of the birds. The grafts, placed among the intestines, became vascularized. Berthold observed that the host birds continued to exhibit the sexual behavior and accessories of normal young roosters. At autopsy, he found that the nerve supply of the grafted testes had not been reestablished. He thus concluded that, as maintenance of sexual behavior and appearance could not have been accomplished by the nerves (which were severed), the results must have been caused by a contribution of the testes to the blood and then to the action of the added substance throughout the entire body. In the November, 1962, issue of the journal Today’s Health, Donald G. Cooley, an American physiologist, published an article titled “Hormones: Your Body’s Chemical Rousers,” in which he reviewed the experiments of Bayliss and Starling and presented an updated, salient summary concerning the mechanism of hormone action. In May, 1979, scientists at the National Institute of Dental Research in Bethesda, Maryland, reported strong evidence that a virus can cause juvenile-onset, or type 1, diabetes. The most serious variety of the disease, type 1 diabetes is characterized by a lack of insulin. Jiwon Yoon, Marchall Austen, and Takashi Orodern isolated the virus, called Coxsackie B4, from the pancreas of a ten-year-old boy who died of a sudden and severe case of diabetes. The researchers grew the virus in cultures and injected it into mice. Some strains of the mice then developed diabetes. This evidence indicated that the Coxsackie virus can be a causal factor in some cases of diabetes. Nevertheless, the fact that not all of the mice developed the disease indicated that a genetic factor may be needed to trigger development of the disease. —Nathaniel Boggs
Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones
Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 11, 1902
Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company Enrico Caruso’s first serious attempt at recording operatic songs proved an overwhelming success, launching his career as one of the world’s major recording artists. Locale: Milan, Italy Category: Music Key Figures Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), Italian opera singer Frederick William Gaisberg (1873-1951), British executive for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company Nellie Melba (1861-1931), Australian opera singer Summary of Event During the early part of 1902, Enrico Caruso, a wellknown tenor star of European opera, experienced a particularly successful season in Monte Carlo. Opposite the renowned Australian soprano Nellie Melba, Caruso sang his way through countless famous operas. Melba had persuaded Caruso to sing at Covent Garden in London. Caruso had been reluctant to accept the engagement, which would be his first in England, but under considerable pressure from the persuasive Melba, he accepted. Before traveling to England, he returned to Milan to sing in Alberto Franchetti’s new opera, Germania. The opening night was a gala performance attended by royalty and aristocracy as well as by prominent artists of the day. Seated in the audience that night were such men as Giacomo Puccini, Umberto Giordano, and Gabriele D’Annunzio. Of more significance, however, was the fact that seated in the audience the next evening was Frederick William Gaisberg, the manager of London’s Gramophone and Typewriter Company. Along with his brother Will, Gaisberg had come to Milan to find new recording artists. Unable to get tickets to the premiere performance, Gaisberg was able to hear Caruso sing the part of Federico Loewe the following night. Despite the inherent weaknesses of the opera, Caruso sang magnificently. Gaisberg knew from that one evening that he had found a singer whose voice would be perfect for the young recording industry. Alfred Michaelis, the firm’s local representative, was asked to speak with Caruso and negotiate a fee. To everyone’s initial delight, Caruso agreed to make the record146
ings. In 1901, Caruso had briefly tried the new medium, but his first experiment was not a success. A year later, he was more than eager to try again. Caruso was also a canny businessman; in fact, one of the reasons he had hesitated to sing at Covent Garden was that the fee was less than he had been offered to perform elsewhere. Gaisberg and Caruso agreed on a fee of one hundred pounds, for which Caruso was to sing ten arias. Thinking that the London office would seize the opportunity to add Caruso to the Gramophone and Typewriter Company’s list of world-class recording artists, Gaisberg was surprised by the reply to his cable announcing the agreement. Officials at the company cabled back, “Fee exorbitant, forbid you to record.” Gaisberg had heard Caruso sing only once, but that was enough to convince him that he had experienced an unusual talent, and he decided to go through with the project despite what he was told. Years before, the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini had remarked after hearing Caruso sing that the whole world would talk about him. Once Gaisberg had the recordings, the whole world would hear Caruso sing as well. A number of Caruso’s contemporaries tried to dissuade him from participating in such a novelty, but Caruso was not convinced. From their very first meeting, Caruso thought well of Gaisberg, and their friendship had much to do with Caruso’s willingness to sing. During their conversations, Gaisberg cleverly remarked that the recordings would be available during Caruso’s debut at Covent Garden. Caruso quickly grasped that this would widen his audience and perhaps endear him to the English audience that much quicker. Despite this seemingly businesslike approach, Caruso treated the entire recording session with enjoyment and a certain lightness. The session took place on the afternoon of April 11, 1902, at Gaisberg’s suite at the Grand Hotel di Milano. (By coincidence, the suite was directly above the one in which the famed Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi had died.) The ten arias included selections from half a dozen well-known operas. “Questo o quella” from Rigoletto began the session. For the next two hours, Caruso sang with his usual warmth and vibrancy such songs as “Una furtiva lagrima,” “E lucevan le stelle,” and “Celeste Aida.” The hotel room was converted into a makeshift recording studio; the tin horn that Caruso sang
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Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company
Enrico Caruso. (Library of Congress)
into hung five feet from the floor. The accompanist had to use a packing case as a piano stool. Caruso ignored the primitive conditions, and the recording session went smoothly. At the end, Caruso accepted his check, embraced the accompanist, and left hastily for a late lunch with his wife, Ada. One more crucial step still awaited Gaisberg; immediately after the session was over, he sent the waxes of the recordings to be copied. To his surprise, there was not a single failure among them. From this one recording session, the Gramophone and Typewriter Company would make nearly fifteen thousand pounds. When Caruso arrived in London for his debut, the recordings were selling extremely well. For many immigrant Italians who could not afford seats to Caruso’s performance, the newly released recordings provided some comfort. Up until that time, the phonograph industry had been continually plagued by the poor quality of the recordings available. The Gramophone and Typewriter Company
Significance Caruso was unaware that this one recording session would encourage phonograph companies to concentrate more on classical music than they had before. The success of the phonograph had previously stemmed entirely from recordings of popular songs. John Philip Sousa’s band had experienced success recording for Berliner, and singer Harry MacDonough’s renditions of “The Holy City” and “Lead Kindly Light” were two of the highest-selling recordings for Victor. The works of the major classical composers were sparsely represented in the record catalogs of the early 1900’s, however. Because each recording had to be fitted on one side of a twelve-inch record, most classical pieces that were recorded were severely truncated. By 1913, the largest classical entry in the Victor catalog, recordings of works by Ludwig van Beethoven, was limited to three short pieces. Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart received one recording apiece. By far the largest numbers of classical recordings available were those made by operatic singers, because recording a solo voice accompanied by piano was considerably easier than trying to record an entire orchestra. 147
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had been experimenting with wax cylinders at the end of the nineteenth century. Caruso had already had experience with recording on wax cylinders when, in late 1900 or early 1901, he had recorded three cylinders for the Pathé company. These recordings were far inferior to those Caruso completed for Gaisberg. After Caruso became famous, Pathé continued to keep these poorer-quality recordings in its catalog. In the later recordings, Caruso’s rich, melodic voice seemed to overcome much of the problem of surface noise, which had always been a concern of those trying to make accurate recordings. Although the technique used in the Pathé recordings was similar to that used by the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, the results were very different. Caruso’s name would soon dominate in classical recordings. By the time of his death, Caruso had received almost two million dollars in royalties from sales of his extensive recordings. The phonograph was already an important form of entertainment, and over the next thirty years this simple device would transform music and recordings. After Caruso’s London debut at Covent Garden Opera House, his success as an opera singer as well as a recording artist was assured.
Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company Despite Caruso’s recording successes, Nellie Melba— his leading lady in so many operatic performances— began her recording career reluctantly. Prior to 1904, the only recordings Melba had made were private performances for her father. After much persuasion, Melba agreed to release these private recordings, and she then continued to record for Gramophone on a regular basis until 1926. Such stellar performers gave the recording industry a more durable appearance than it had previously had. Like Gaisberg before him, Alfred Clark continued to add prominent performers and composers to Gramophone’s Red Label discs. Claude Debussy, Reynaldo Hahn, and Jules Massenet all became admirers of the phonograph and were pleased to record for the company. Caruso made his first recording with orchestral accompaniment in 1906 for Victor, performing five operatic arias: “Di quella pira” from Il trovatore, “Spirto gentil” from La favorita, “M’appari” from Martha, “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème, and “Salut! demeure chaste et pure” from Faust. Technological improvements had been made, but recording conditions were still primitive; musicians had to perch on high chairs to be heard properly. In spite of the spartan studio facilities, however, Caruso continued to make fine recordings. Caruso’s recording legacy stands as one of the finest among collections of operas and operatic arias. As a musician and businessman, Caruso always seemed to anticipate future trends. Long before radio ever began to challenge the popularity of the phonograph, Caruso participated in the first wireless transmission. Just as he had with the Milan recordings, Caruso was again making history. On April 9, 1909, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Caruso’s voice was transmitted through two microphones placed in the footlights of the stage. The following year, Caruso sang in the first radio broadcast of operatic selections, again from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. Radio, however, had yet to catch the imagination of the American public. The phonograph was still the dominant medium through which most listeners heard the famous voices and orchestras of the day. Radio began to challenge the supremacy of the phonograph only at the beginning of the 1920’s. Even Caruso never broadcast a complete opera, a feat first achieved by the British Broadcasting Company in 1926, when Mozart’s The Magic Flute was transmitted direct from a London concert hall. Spurred by the challenge of radio, recording companies continued with experimentation and research in an effort to improve recording quality. Improvement over the early wax cylinders and disc 148
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reproduction soon interested those musicians who had earlier stayed away from recording. One such skeptic was Arturo Toscanini. The Victor Company had approached him, and he agreed to record sixteen sides. Unfortunately, he was not pleased by the results, and he wanted the recording cylinders destroyed. Working with men and women whose musical standards were extremely high further motivated Victor to seek alternative designs. Through laborious trial and error, Victor’s engineers continued to perfect the disc. By the early 1930’s, they had succeeded in creating records of fourteen minutes per side by increasing the number of grooves per inch and reducing the speed of revolution. The resulting records played at 33 revolutions per minute (rpm) instead of at the much less reliable 78 rpm. Marketing these new discs proved difficult for Victor, however; the LP, or longplaying record, did not become commercially successful until Columbia Records launched its version in 1948. During the Great Depression, the phonograph was almost abandoned. Sales of discs dropped so dramatically that a recovery looked almost impossible. At this time Toscanini, although still disenchanted with the quality of recordings, agreed to complete a number of works before leaving the United States. The resulting recordings were judged to be technically the best that had ever been made. More important, these recordings, which at the time were incomparable, set a new industry standard. This unusual turn of events brought the phonograph industry back to public awareness and ensured that music would continue to be produced on disc. Caruso and Toscanini were close friends, and each admired the other’s talent and skill. Neither man regarded himself as anything other than a committed musician performing always at maximum effort. Between them, and almost incidental to what they sought to achieve in their performance of the great operatic and symphonic works, they provided a catalyst for the emerging recording industry. Caruso’s willingness to record those ten simple arias in Milan in 1902 provided the impetus for the reproduction of fine classical music for all to hear and enjoy. — Richard G. Cormack Further Reading Bolig, John R. Caruso Records: A History and Discography. Highlands Ranch, Colo.: Mainspring Press, 2002. This illustrated volume examines Caruso’s records and recording career in more detail than any previous work. Features a complete discography of Ca-
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Western society, culture, and economy, and particularly on people’s relationships with music. Includes a brief history of the art of recording sound. Gelatt, Roland. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877-1977. 2d rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1977. Much of this book discusses the rise and fall in popularity of the phonograph. Notes all major events but tends to move back and forth between historic periods. Sets Caruso’s contributions in the context of the recordings of the time. Greenfeld, Howard. Caruso. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1983. A well-written, straightforward, and thorough account of Caruso’s life and achievements. Jackson, Stanley. Caruso. New York: Stein & Day, 1972. Includes no new material on Caruso’s life, but the presentation is novel. Jackson has studied Caruso’s career in great detail and is able to postulate some reasons Caruso remained aloof. Includes a comprehensive index. See also: 1902: Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed.
May 8, 1902
Mount Pelée Erupts The eruption of Mount Pelée, the deadliest volcanic eruption in the twentieth century, resulted in the deaths of approximately thirty thousand people. The event also generated an increased interest in volcanology, the study of volcanoes. Locale: Martinique, West Indies, Lesser Antilles, Caribbean Categories: Disasters; science and technology; earth science; geology Key Figures Gaston Landes (d. 1902), teacher of natural sciences in Saint-Pierre, Martinique Pierre Ange Marie Le Bris (1856-1940), commander of the French naval cruiser Suchet Louis Mouttet (1857-1902), governor of Martinique, 1901-1902 Summary of Event Prior to the eruptions in 1902, Mount Pelée had shown signs of increased activity as early as 1889. Earlier eruptions in 1792 and 1851-1852 caused no major damage. Residents of Saint-Pierre, which at the time was the larg-
est city on Martinique and was located approximately eight miles south of the volcano, were lulled into a false sense of security; residents believed that the volcano was extinct. Since late 1901, Gaston Landes, a teacher in SaintPierre, had watched for wisps of vapor from Mount Pelée. By early 1902, residents in Le Prêcheur, almost five miles north of Saint-Pierre and three miles west of Mount Pelée, reported sulfurous fumes. By early April, the fumes had become even thicker and more nauseating. Although Landes had more scientific training than anyone on the island, he knew very little about volcanoes. All of the books available indicated that the main concern was lava flows, which would not threaten SaintPierre or most of the towns and villages because of the deep gorges and ravines surrounding Mount Pelée. At the end of April, Mount Pelée began emitting columns of dust, ash, and steam. A large explosion on April 25 spewed hundred of tons of smoke and debris, including ash, steam, and boiling water mixed with rocks and tree trunks. On May 2, explosions, rumblings, lightning flashes, and darkening clouds of dust, ash, gas, and steam convinced many people to evacuate to Saint-Pierre. 149
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ruso’s recordings (both 78 rpm and cylinder format), newly discovered information on his early records, color illustrations of rare records, and extensive appendixes and indexes. Caruso, Dorothy. Enrico Caruso: His Life and Death. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945. An extremely candid account by Caruso’s wife about what life with the great opera singer was like. Dates and places are hardly mentioned, but the omissions are more than made up for by descriptions of Caruso and revelations about how he viewed himself as an opera singer. Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas. Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family. Portland, Oreg.: Amadeus Press, 1990. A scholarly treatment of the life of Caruso written by his son. Includes a comprehensive discography and a meticulously researched chronology of all Caruso’s appearances. One of the most complete biographies of Caruso. Chanan, Michael. Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music. London: Verso, 1995. Discusses the influence of audio recording on
Mount Pelée Erupts
Mount Pelée Erupts
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Martinique, West Indies
ceived word from Governor Mouttet that he needed transportation to Le States Prêcheur that afternoon, possibly to d e t Atlantic Ocean ni ANGUILLA Haiti evacuate the village. Mouttet enha Dominican ma Republic s couraged the villagers to stay, howPuerto Rico Cuba ever, again promising to evacuate if ANTIGUA AND Cen Jamaica necessary and to send more food. tr BARBUDA ean Sea al SAINT KITTS ribb Antigua Am The governor concluded that the Ca AND NEVIS er ica Montserrat mudflows indicated that the volcano MONTSERRAT South America was dying. He decided that he and GUADELOUPE Guadeloupe his wife would move temporarily to Saint-Pierre to reassure the citizens DOMINICA Dominica that the worst had passed. In the evening of May 6, Landes Mount Pelée noticed that Mount Pelée was expelMartinique Atlantic ling large boulders of molten rock MARTINIQUE Caribbean into the air. On May 7, the volcano Ocean SAINT LUCIA St. Lucia La Soufrière erupted on the British Sea island of Saint Vincent, ninety miles BARBADOS Barbados St. Vincent south of Martinique, killing more SAINT VINCET AND THE than fifteen hundred people and inGRENADINES juring another forty-two hundred. The people on Martinique were reasGrenada GRENADA sured by the news, because they believed that the other eruption had provided a release for some of the pressure that had been building in Mount Pelée. During that day, Mount Pelée produced Some residents of Saint-Pierre began moving into the loud explosions, lightning, and earthquakes, as well as nearby hills or going to Fort-de-France, the capital city. the first of the nuées ardentes (glowing clouds). These The small number leaving, however, was offset by the great clouds of scorching hot gas and volcanic fragthousands of refugees from other villages who entered ments, also called pyroclastic surges or flows, can travel the city. along the ground at speeds over three hundred miles an On May 3, as the ash continued to fall, Governor hour. Their temperatures can be higher than 932 degrees Louis Mouttet visited Saint-Pierre and charged a group Fahrenheit; their heat actually removes oxygen from the of scientists, included Landes, with studying the volcano atmosphere. These first nuées ardentes were small and and recommending a course of action in an attempt to reweak and did not reach any populated areas. assure the citizens of Martinique that the situation was Thursday, May 8, was Ascension Day, and most peobeing taken seriously. Mouttet then traveled to Le ple attended early mass. At 8:02 a.m., the telegraph wire Prêcheur to assess the damage and calm the villagers. between Fort-de-France and Saint-Pierre fell silent. AfThe first deaths from the volcano occurred on May 5, ter hundreds of small earthquakes before 8:00 a.m., when a series of mudflows, also known as a lahars, swept Mount Pelée exploded with a nuée ardente that swept todown the Rivière Blanche and destroyed a complex of ward Saint-Pierre, reaching the city in less than two minsugar and rum factories located between Saint-Pierre utes. Almost everything and everyone in the direct path and Le Prêcheur. The mudflows—a scalding mixture of were obliterated. The nuée ardente reached temperatures water, loose debris, mud, and boulders—flattened and between 392 and 842 degrees Fahrenheit, and it moved at buried the complex, killing twenty-five people who were an approximate speed of 311 miles per hour through the unable to escape the flood, which reached a speed of city. The cloud lasted only two or three minutes, but its nearly sixty miles per hour. destruction was phenomenal. Commander Pierre Ange Marie Le Bris docked the Many of the people in Saint-Pierre had their throats naval cruiser Suchet at Fort-de-France on May 5 and reBa
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Mount Pelée Erupts
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and lungs burned out by the superheated atmosphere, alSignificance Survivor accounts and the condition of the bodies from though their bodies remained intact. Some were steamed to death or charred black. Those who were lucky died inMount Pelée’s eruption befuddled volcanologists. Previously, volcanic eruptions had been confined to explostantly; many survivors suffered horribly until they died sions of molten lava and formations of huge dust clouds. moments or hours after breathing in the superheated gas No one knew of a volcano that burned people alive and and dust. Some people were buried or crushed as the suffocated most of its victims. Mount Pelée’s subsequent buildings collapsed, while others were burned by fires eruptions, however, allowed scientists to study the new that began as the temperatures sparked fires in buildings and exploded kegs of rum. The fires swept across Saintkind of activity. Based on the work of French geologist Alfred Lacroix, American geologist Angelo Heilprin, Pierre at temperatures around 1,652 degrees Fahrenheit American photographer and writer George Kennan, Britand burned for three days. More than twenty thousand ish photographer and geologist Tempest Anderson, and bodies—including Mouttet’s—were never found or identified. Fewer than forty-five hundred bodies, includBritish petrologist Sir John Smith Flett, the science of volcanology gained greater prominence. In 1903, Andering Landes’s, were recovered, and most could not be son and Flett published a report for the Royal Society identified. The total number killed, including estimates for refugees and people killed on the seventeen or eightitled On the Eruptions of the Soufrière and on a Visit to Montagne Pelée in which they proposed a new category teen ships destroyed in the bay, is generally placed beof eruptive action and outlined four distinct stages of the tween twenty-eight thousand and thirty thousand. eruptions. In 1904, Lacroix published the massive La Commander Le Bris was part of an immediate rescue Montagne Pelée et ses éruptions, which became a classic attempt that saved about thirty people from the bay at in the science of volcanology. Lacroix also revived the Saint-Pierre and another four hundred from a nearby vilterm nuée ardente to describe the gas clouds. lage. Initially, the rescuers believed that no one survived Because the kind of volcanic activity on Mount Pelée in Saint-Pierre. However, a cobbler named Léon Compère-Léandre survived at the southern limits of the city, which was at the far edge of the destruction, and a prisoner named Louis-Auguste Sylbaris was found alive in his cell, located in the direct path of the destruction, on May 11. In Le Prêcheur, the May 8 eruption claimed another eight hundred lives but spared the village. The remaining four thousand people were evacuated on May 10 and 11. All of the evacuees went to Fort-de-France, which was unprepared to meet the refugees’ needs. Aid poured in from all over the world, and this helped to ease the burden on Martinique’s government. This assistance was crucial, because Mount Pelée’s activity had not stopped. Its May 20 eruption sent another nuée ardente into Saint-Pierre and destroyed the few remaining structures there, and an eruption on August 30 sent gas clouds to the eastern and southern sides of the slopes, killing two thousand people and destroying four villages with A view from Orange Hill over the ruins of Saint-Pierre to steaming Mount Pelée. a dust cloud bigger than the one that (Library of Congress) struck Saint-Pierre.
Anthracite Coal Strike had never been seen before, such outbursts became known as Peléan eruptions. These violent eruptions, which tend to send material sideways, are often more lethal than vertical eruptions because of their nuées ardentes. Increased study of these types of events led volcanologists to believe that nuées ardentes were a major part of the eruptions of Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum (in Italy), and Krakatau (in Indonesia). —Virginia L. Salmon Further Reading Ferguson, James. “The Tragedy of St. Pierre.” Geographical 74 (May, 2002): 14-19. Briefly discusses the destruction of Saint-Pierre, including photographs and a sidebar with facts on the world’s most dangerous volcanoes. Morgan, Peter. Fire Mountain: How One Man Survived the World’s Worst Volcanic Disaster. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Although it does include a few brief chapters about Sylbaris, the book focuses more on the disaster and on political and social situations in Martinique.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Scarth, Alwyn. La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelée, the Worst Volcanic Eruption of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. An excellent, well-balanced book covering the events preceding and immediately following the eruption. Includes side articles with additional information. Soter, Steven. “Sifting Truth from Pelée’s Ashes.” Natural History 111 (October, 2002): 76, 78. Discusses some of the rumors and fabrications that are widely believed about the disaster. Zebrowski, Ernest, Jr. The Last Days of St. Pierre: The Volcanic Disaster That Claimed Thirty Thousand Lives. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Balanced account of the events before, during, and after the eruption. Includes a chapter about the eruption of La Soufrière on Saint Vincent Island. See also: Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake; Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily; Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan; July, 1931: Yellow River Flood.
May 12-October 23, 1902
Anthracite Coal Strike Presidential intervention to end a strike by coal miners set a precedent for future White House involvement in labor disputes. Locale: Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; government and politics; business and labor Key Figures George Frederick Baer (1842-1914), mine operator and an owner of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad E. E. Clark (1856-1930), grand chief of the Order of Railway Conductors Marcus A. Hanna (1837-1904), U.S. senator from Ohio, 1897-1904 John Mitchell (1870-1919), president of the United Mine Workers J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), Wall Street financier Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Elihu Root (1845-1937), U.S. secretary of war, 18991904 152
William Alexis Stone (1846-1920), governor of Pennsylvania, 1899-1903 Summary of Event On May 12, 1902, 147,000 members of the United Mine Workers, led by their president, John Mitchell, walked out of the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania. The walkout precipitated one of the most important confrontations between labor and capital in U.S. history. Before the strike ended in October, 1902, the nation had reached the verge of panic, the president had nearly ordered federal troops into the coal mines, and influential members of the business community had come to fear widespread social upheaval. The settlement of the strike marked the first time that a president had successfully intervened in a labor dispute as an impartial arbitrator. Through his intervention, Theodore Roosevelt increased the power of the U.S. presidency and his chances of being elected as president in his own right in 1904. The episode also marked a significant step in the emergence of organized labor as a force in national politics. In 1902, the anthracite miners were among the most exploited groups of workers in the nation. With an average wage of about $560 a year, they suffered from irregu-
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Roosevelt Solves a Problem In his autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt wrote about the role he played during the Anthracite Coal Strike. In negotiating with the mine operators to include a mine workers’ union representative on the arbitration commission, he had an important insight: Mitchell and the leaders . . . , quite properly, insisted that there should be one representative of labor on the Commission, as all of the others represented the propertied classes. The operators, however, absolutely refused to acquiesce in the appointment of any representative of labor, and also announced that they would refuse to accept a sixth man on the Commission; although they spoke much less decidedly on this point. The labor men left everything in my hands. The final conferences with the representatives of the operators took place in my rooms on the evening of October 15. Hour after hour went by while I endeavored to make the operators through their representatives see that the country would not tolerate their insisting upon such conditions; but in vain. The two representatives of the operators were Robert Bacon and George W. Perkins. They were entirely reasonable. But the operators themselves were entirely unreasonable. They had worked themselves into a frame of mind where they were prepared to sacrifice everything and see civil war in the country rather than back down and acquiesce in the appointment of a representative of labor. It looked as if a deadlock were inevitable Then, suddenly, after about two hours’ argument, it dawned on me that they were not objecting to the thing, but to the name. I found that they did not mind my appointing any man, whether he was a labor man or not, so long as he was not appointed as a labor man, or as a representative of labor; they did not object to my exercising any latitude I chose in the appointments so long as they were made under the headings they had given. I shall never forget the mixture of relief and amusement I felt when I thoroughly grasped the fact that while they would heroically submit to anarchy rather than have Tweedledum, yet if I would call it Tweedledee they would accept it with rapture; it gave me an illuminating glimpse into one corner of the mighty brains of these “captains of industry.” In order to carry the great and vital point and secure agreement by both parties, all that was necessary for me to do was to commit a technical and nominal absurdity with a solemn face. This I gladly did. I announced at once that I accepted the terms laid down. Source: Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913).
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lar employment, dangerous working conditions, and a cruel paternalism that gave life in company towns a feudalistic quality. As president of the United Mine Workers, Mitchell served as a spokesman for the hardpressed miners. In 1900, he had threatened a strike and won a 10 percent increase in wages, largely through the influence of Republican senator Marcus A. Hanna of Ohio, who persuaded the mine owners that a strike would hurt the reelection chances of President William McKinley. In 1902, despite several attempts at compromise, negotiations between the union and mine owners broke down, and a walkout ensued. The striking miners demanded recognition of their union, a nine-hour workday, more accurate weighing of the coal, and a 20 percent increase in pay. At that time, it was not recognized generally that plentiful bituminous coal could be substituted for anthracite fuel. As winter approached, fear of shortages became widespread among northern urbanites, who dreaded the impending severe weather. In September, the price of a ton of anthracite coal, previously five dollars, reached fourteen dollars. The poor, who bought coal in relatively small quantities, paid a penny per pound, or twenty dollars per ton. By October, schools began to close because they could not afford to buy coal for heat; the meager amount of coal that was available was selling for thirty and thirty-five dollars per ton. Mobs in the West began to seize coal cars from passing trains, and mayors across the nation appealed to the president for help. Republican politicians feared that their party might suffer at the polls in the November congressional elections if the crisis was not resolved quickly. In response to these developments, Roosevelt arranged for an unprecedented conference between coal mining labor and management representatives at the White House on October 1, 1902. George Frederick Baer, owner of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, represented the owners of the coal mines, and John Mitchell spoke for the striking miners. Baer already had infuriated much of the country when he had declared that the rights of laborers would be protected best “not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of this country.” Baer’s imperious demeanor contrasted sharply with the calm and goodwill shown by Mitchell. The daylong conference between the two antagonists failed to produce a settlement, and a peaceful resolution of the crisis seemed increasingly improbable. The operators claimed that the men wanted to return to the mines but feared union violence. However, when Pennsylvania
Anthracite Coal Strike
Anthracite Coal Strike governor William Alexis Stone called out the state militia to protect anyone who wished to work, most of the miners remained on strike. Roosevelt believed that strong presidential action was needed to end the impasse. Rejecting the view that he lacked the power to act, he formulated a scheme that called for federal troops to occupy the mines and operate them in receivership. At the same time, Elihu Root—Roosevelt’s secretary of war, a corporate lawyer, and a friend of the business community— tried to arrange a negotiated settlement. On Saturday, October 12, Root met with J. P. Morgan, the powerful New York financier whose railroads crisscrossed the coalfields. Working in tandem, the two men hammered out a possible compromise. On Sunday, Baer was summoned to New York, where he conferred with Morgan. By Tuesday, an agreement had been ratified by the coal mine operators. The Root-Morgan proposal specified the creation of a five-man independent commission with authority to arbitrate the dispute. The original blueprint did not allow for the appointment of a labor union representative to the arbitration panel, but the United Mine Workers insisted on the appointment of a union man as well as a Roman Catholic priest to the commission. Once again, a deadlock seemed unavoidable. The operators eventually agreed to the inclusion of a priest, but they adamantly opposed seating a union member. President Roosevelt’s creative thinking finally ended the political logjam between owners and workers. He saw that the coal mine owners wanted a face-saving way to have a union man on the commission without granting the union official recognition. Roosevelt named E. E. Clark, grand chief of the Order of Railway Conductors, as a sixth member of the commission. In order to mollify the coal operators, Roosevelt publicly labeled Clark as an eminent sociologist rather than a labor leader. To Roosevelt’s amusement, this subterfuge satisfied the owners and allowed the settlement process to go forward. Once established, the commission worked out a compromise solution for the anthracite strike. The United Mine Workers did not achieve recognition of their union, but the commission did award them a ninehour workday and a 10 percent pay raise. The arbitrators settled the weight dispute, and a board of conciliation was created to help resolve future difficulties. Significance Roosevelt later looked on the Anthracite Coal Strike settlement as a turning point in his administration. In contrast to the Pullman Strike of 1894, when President 154
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Grover Cleveland used his power to break the American Railway Union and end the walkout, Roosevelt acted as an honest mediator between the two sides. The technique embodied what he came to call the Square Deal. The settlement increased his popularity and enhanced his reputation as a spokesperson for the general welfare. At the same time, it demonstrated an appreciation for compromise on Roosevelt’s part that allowed his government to function as a successful intermediary between business and labor. Through his handling of the fuel crisis, Roosevelt took a long step toward making the national government and the presidency vital forces in American life. —Rex O. Mooney and Lewis L. Gould Further Reading Cornell, Robert J. The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902. 1957. Reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1971. One of the best single book-length studies of the coal strike. Uses the papers of John Mitchell and other primary sources to create a thorough and balanced narrative about the origins, development, and consequences of the coal walkout. Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Considers the coal strike in the context of Roosevelt’s efforts to enhance the power of his office and to secure election in his own right in 1904. Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex. New York: Random House, 2001. Focuses on Roosevelt’s presidential years, 1901 through early 1909. Makes use of Roosevelt’s private and presidential papers as well as other archives to create a complete portrait of the twentysixth president of the United States. Phelan, Craig. Divided Loyalties: The Public and Private Life of Labor Leader John Mitchell. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Biography of the leader of the United Mine Workers in the 1902 coal strike that brings out the personal and ethical questions that surrounded his tenure as president of the union. Schaefer, Arthur M. “Theodore Roosevelt’s Contribution to the Concept of Presidential Intervention in Labor Disputes: Antecedents and the 1902 Coal Strike.” In Theodore Roosevelt: Many-Sided American, edited by Natalie Nayor et al. Interlaken, N.Y.: Heart of the Lakes, 1992. This investigation of Roosevelt’s role in the strike credits him with achieving a major enhancement of presidential power through the settlement. Wiebe, Robert H. “The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902: A Record of Confusion.” Mississippi Valley Historical
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Review 48 (September, 1961): 229-251. Argues that the coal strike need not have happened if bituminous coal had been used as a substitute for anthracite. Asserts that Roosevelt’s triumph has been overstated and that J. P. Morgan was the real winner in the contest. Zane, J. Robert. 1902! The Great Coal Strike in Shenandoah, PA. Frackville, Pa.: Broad Mountain, 2004. An interpretive historical account of incidents that took place in Shenandoah during the Anthracite Coal
Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War Strike of 1902, including murders, revenge, and court trial. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World; Spring, 1906: Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations.
1902
May 31, 1902
Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War The peace treaty signed at Vereeniging ending the Boer War marked the high point of British intervention in South Africa and led to a slow British withdrawal. Although the Boers, or Afrikaners, did not win the war, the British retreat allowed the establishment of an Afrikaner government controlled by whites rather than native Africans. Also known as: South African War; Second Boer War Locale: South Africa; Great Britain Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; colonialism and occupation; government and politics; indigenous peoples’ rights; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Lord Kitchener (Horatio Herbert Kitchener; 18501916), British commander Frederick Sleigh Roberts (1832-1914), British general Louis Botha (1862-1919), general and negotiator for the Transvaal Alfred Milner (1854-1925), high commissioner and governor of British South Africa Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), British secretary of state for the colonies Marthinus Theunis Steyn (1857-1916), president of the Orange Free State, 1896-1902 Jan Christian Smuts (1870-1950), negotiator for the Transvaal Christiaan Rudolf de Wet (1854-1922), commander and chief of the Orange Free State during the Boer War Jacobus Hercules De la Rey (1847-1914), general and negotiator for the Transvaal
James Barry Munnik Hertzog (1866-1942), negotiator for the Orange Free State Summary of Event After several years of tension throughout the late nineteenth century, the conflict between British aspirations for imperial control of the profitable gold mines and Afrikaner nationalism finally escalated to violence in 1899. In October of that year, the Second Boer War began between the British and the two Afrikaner republics, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The Afrikaners (South Africans of European, largely Dutch, descent) gained the upper hand early in the struggle, as many Afrikaners in British territories joined their compatriots and rebelled against British control. The Afrikaners, however, were not able to maintain their success. In 1900, the British sent reinforcements led by the generals Lord Kitchener and Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts, and the British quickly regained the initiative. Hardly deterred, the Afrikaners turned to guerrilla tactics, and the war became bogged down for nearly two years. The conflict grew more vicious when the British introduced concentration camps and scorched-earth policies. Soon after, leaders on both sides began contemplating peace. In February, 1901, Lord Kitchener and General Louis Botha arranged a meeting at Middelburg to discuss an end to the war. Lord Kitchener outlined terms, many of which were favorable to the Afrikaners, including British aid for reconstruction and debt as well as official respect for the Dutch language and the Dutch Reformed Church. However, two other aspects of Kitchener’s plan were opposed by the British government. Many officials, led by Governor Alfred Milner, disagreed with the offer of amnesty to Afrikaner combatants, especially for those who lived in British colonies and were thus traitors to British 155
Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War rule. Second, Kitchener’s terms denied native Africans the right to vote until self-government was established. This move evoked negative responses from humanitarian groups in Britain, especially from Joseph Chamberlain, secretary of state for the colonies, who believed that the British had an obligation to protect African rights. On the Afrikaner side, most commandos balked at the idea of allowing the republics to be annexed by Britain as Crown Colonies, even if the future right to self-government was assured. This opinion was vehemently supported by Orange Free State president Marthinus Theunis Steyn. The Middelburg talks were fruitless, but they became the basis for future peace discussions. The war continued for another year before significant negotiations reemerged. In April, 1902, Jan Christian Smuts, Christiaan Rudolf de Wet, Steyn, and Botha took up Kitchener’s offer of a meeting in Pretoria. Milner soon joined them as the official representative of the British government. The attempt was stymied, however, by the Afrikaners’ resistance to the idea of surrendering their independence and Milner’s refusal to end a war he perceived to be close to victory. With Milner’s approval, the British government refused to accept any terms beyond those outlined at Middelburg. After this failed attempt, Afrikaner leaders met to form a committee responsible for negotiating terms with Britain. James Barry Munnik Hertzog and de Wet were chosen from the Orange Free State, and Botha, Smuts, and Jacobus Hercules De la Rey represented the Transvaal. Talks resumed in May, and with Kitchener’s persistence the stalemate was broken. If the Afrikaners agreed to British sovereignty and disarmament, Kitchener believed, the specifics could be settled later. Although many Afrikaners resisted, leaders like Botha made it clear that the Afrikaners were suffering and needed peace. Smuts and Hertzog met with a reluctant Milner to finalize the agreement, the end result of which was almost identical to the terms Kitchener had proposed a year before at Middelburg, except that this time the Afrikaners gained even more concessions. The British promised to prosecute only the Afrikaner rebel leaders in Cape Colony and agreed to pay more than three times the money they had previously offered for reconstruction. Additionally, the British government allowed the clause calling for the disenfranchisement of native Africans to stand; they were more interested in ending the costly conflict than in pursuing humanitarian goals. Milner’s attempts to block the treaty failed as the British government approved the amended treaty. The decision was now in the hands of the Afrikaner 156
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 delegates at Vereeniging. De la Rey agreed with Botha that the war must end, although staunch resisters such as Steyn and de Wet remained. Some Afrikaners hoped for a compromise that made the Afrikaner republics protectorates and not fully annexed colonies, but this idea was soundly rejected by both Milner and Kitchener. Even among those who opposed surrender, it was clear that the shortages of manpower and supplies and the burden on civilians could not continue indefinitely. More important, the African groups who had remained neutral throughout the war were beginning to stir, and the Afrikaners realized the weakness of their position. With these issues in mind, Botha and De la Rey convinced most of the other delegates, including de Wet, to vote in favor of the treaty, and on May 31 the delegation approved the document by a vote of fifty-four to six. Significance The war’s immediate effect was visible in the number of people killed and in the amount of money spent. More than 100,000 British soldiers were injured in the fighting, and roughly one-fifth of them died. The British also spent upward of £200 million on a war that pundits had originally expected to last only a few months. For the Afrikaners, the cost of suffering and destruction was higher. Approximately 7,000 Afrikaners died in the war, and at least 18,000 perished in concentration camps. Other effects of the war, however, were less tangible. Anti-imperialists used South Africa as an example of flawed colonial policy in action, and the British victory was viewed as a superficial one. This opinion was substantiated by British activities over the next few years: After expending such large amounts of resources, the British began to withdraw from South Africa. Milner had his unified South Africa, but the British did not maintain their authority. After the Liberal Party’s victory in Parliament three years later, South Africa was put on the fast track to self-government. By 1910, the British had all but left South Africa to its own devices, with power in the hands of the very people they had fought so hard a few years earlier. The greatest tragedy of the last Boer War and the Treaty of Vereeniging was the loss of native African life, property, and civil rights. Many Africans participated in both sides of the conflict, and few were compensated for property lost during the war. Moreover, thousands of Africans—both soldiers and noncombatants—died in the war, although no reliable estimate on the number of deaths was produced. While the British had initially defended African rights and seemed poised to force the is-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sue on the Afrikaners, this pursuit was sacrificed in the interest of establishing a quicker peace. The British government relented, and the Treaty of Vereeniging promised to establish African freedoms after self-government was achieved. However, when the time came, this stipulation was ignored. At the Treaty of Vereeniging, the British left the issue of African rights to the Afrikaners, and in doing so they created a foundation for the statesponsored apartheid that marked South Africa for most of the twentieth century. —Branden C. McCullough
pilation of scholarly articles on the war, including a chapter on the African perspective before and after the war. Nasson, Bill. The South African War, 1899-1902. London: Arnold, 1999. Highly detailed yet concise account of the war. Includes useful chapters on the consequences of the war. Pakenham, Thomas. The Boer War. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979. Well-researched account full of specific information. The colorful language of the narrative belies the seriousness of the subject matter. Warwick, Peter. Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. One of the best accounts available of the role of Africans in the war and the effect of the end of the war on Africans. See also: Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts; Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets; Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia.
June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913
Expansion of Direct Democracy New measures increased the political tools of direct citizen involvement in government in the United States. Locale: United States Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), president of the United States, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 Simon Guggenheim (1867-1941), U.S. senator from Colorado, 1907-1913 Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), governor of Wisconsin, 1901-1906 William U’Ren (1859-1949), American newspaper editor and legal reformer Summary of Event Although the Declaration of Independence asserts that all “men” are created equal, and, in later years, Abraham Lincoln movingly spoke of government “of, by, and for” the people, there was for many years a gap between such sentiments and political realities. Admittedly, by 1890
the franchise in the United States included all male citizens (women were excluded except in a few western states), but even the enfranchised found their prerogatives circumscribed: They were unable to vote directly for their U.S. senators, and they lacked legal methods to force recalcitrant legislatures to take specific action or to rid themselves of unsuitable elected public officials before those officials’ terms ended. Clearly something had to be done to make government at all levels more responsive to the will of the people. The Progressive movement provided the vehicle for change as it initially sought to bring about reforms on the municipal and state levels. Among those responsible for reform were Wisconsin’s Robert M. La Follette and the now virtually forgotten William U’Ren of Oregon, who has been described as the father of direct democracy. They were joined in their attempts to alter state government by hordes of urban reformers who realized that cities are so tied to their states that correcting fully the basic problems of the former would require changing the latter as well. In one respect the burden was eased by an earlier reform, the Australian (or secret) ballot, the ramifications 157
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Further Reading Farwell, Byron. The Great Boer War. London: Penguin Books, 1976. A worthy survey intended for a general audience. Hobson, John. The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects. 1900. Reprint. New York: H. Fertig, 1969. Excellent work explains both the British economic interests in the war and the attitudes of citizens in Britain toward the war. Lowry, Donal, ed. The South African War Reappraised. New York: Manchester University Press, 2000. Com-
Expansion of Direct Democracy
Expansion of Direct Democracy of which were just beginning to be recognized fully. This new form of voting replaced a system under which the political parties and independent candidates printed different-colored ballots and distributed them to the voters, who then deposited their selected ballots in the proper boxes under the watchful eyes of their employers’ representatives or the local political boss. Obviously, the old system protected those in power. Fraud, bribery, and corruption were rampant. In an attempt to end these evils, Massachusetts adopted the secret ballot in 1888. Through the efforts of such individuals as Grover Cleveland, the system was used nationwide by the election of 1910. Additionally, many Progressive states enacted corrupt-practices laws and limited the amount of money candidates could spend. Similar federal laws followed. The early twentieth century also saw the election of the first great reform governor when La Follette bested the ruling Republican machine in Wisconsin. During his years as governor, 1901-1906, he transformed that state into a Progressive commonwealth, a “laboratory of democracy.” One of his major accomplishments was to give voters increased control over the nomination of candidates for public office. On May 23, 1903, Wisconsin held the first statewide primary to select those who would run in the general election. The primary abolished the old boss-dominated party caucus that had previously chosen the candidates. La Follette’s actions seemed to trigger a chain reaction across the West. In 1904 a young reformer, Joseph W. Folk, smashed the unusually corrupt machine running Missouri to become governor. Slowly but surely, traditional frontier democracy, which had been lost in the Gilded Age, reasserted itself as some states enfranchised women and almost all enacted fundamental political reforms. Nowhere was this trend more apparent than in Oregon, home of the little-known William U’Ren, who indirectly affected national political life as did few of his more famous contemporaries. U’Ren, a blacksmith turned newspaper editor and lawyer, never held a major political office, yet because of his ability to marshal public opinion, he became the unofficial fourth branch of Oregon’s government. U’Ren first grew interested in direct democracy in the 1890’s, after reading of its use in Switzerland, and thereafter he spent a large part of his time working to introduce it into Oregon and the rest of the nation. Oregon adopted the initiative and referendum on June 2, 1902, the direct primary in 1904, and the recall in 1910, thereby putting direct democracy into practice. Initiative and referendum made it possible for the electorate, with a ma158
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Robert M. La Follette. (Library of Congress)
jority vote, to pass laws when the legislature was unable or unwilling to do so and to veto unpopular legislation. Recall allowed the voters to remove an elected official from office promptly if a majority of them were displeased with the person’s conduct. This device was most often adopted in states west of the Mississippi, where its threat was generally sufficient to bring officials into line. Initiative and referendum, being less tinged with “radicalism” than recall, were usually adopted by the more conservative eastern states. Another drive that occurred simultaneously was aimed at amending the U.S. Constitution to allow a direct vote for U.S. senators. The Constitution provided for the election of senators by state legislatures, as a means of removing the Senate from direct control by the “rabble.” By the late nineteenth century, however, the office of U.S. senator had become an item to be purchased like a loaf of bread. In 1907, Simon Guggenheim shocked the nation by publicly declaring what he had spent to gain the office in Colorado.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance With the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, all of the major political reforms proposed by the Progressives had been accomplished. The responsibilities of the electorate had been dramatically enlarged. Control over the quality of government was now in the hands of the voters. The only question remaining was how the voters would exercise their new powers. Over the years since 1913, Americans have developed two opposing views regarding the answer to this question. Critics of the initiative and referendum see these tools of direct democracy as increasingly monopolized by special interests that have the money to spend on signature gathering (to get initiatives on the ballot) and television advertising (to manipulate public opinion). Many also view the initiative process as a threat to public budgets. In contrast, those who champion the right of the voters to take direct action assert that the initiative and referendum make state politicians more responsive to the people and give political outsiders a point of access to the system. —Anne Trotter
Bowler, Shaun, Todd Donovan, and Caroline J. Tolbert, eds. Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. Examines direct democracy in the United States in the late twentieth century to see if it has lived up to the expectations of the reformers of the early part of the century. Cronin, Thomas E. Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989. The tools of direct democracy are reviewed in this illustrated book. Includes bibliography and index. Goldman, Eric F. Rendezvous with Destiny. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952. Highly readable general account of the various democracy reform movements, their goals and accomplishments, from Populism to the New Deal. Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. Provides a brilliant analysis of Progressivism and its leaders. La Follette, Robert M. Autobiography. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1911. Introduces the reader to the thoughts and career of one of the earliest and most important political reformers of the period. Mowry, George E. The California Progressives. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951. Examines the struggles of California Progressives against the Southern Pacific Railroad in their effort to make state government responsive to the will of the majority. Nye, Russel B. Midwestern Progressive Politics, 18701958. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959. A well-documented study of reform and Progressivism in eleven midwestern states. Includes extensive bibliographical information. Schmidt, David D. Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. A history of the introduction of the ballot initiative. Includes bibliography and index.
Further Reading Bowler, Shaun, and Todd Donovan. Demanding Choices: Opinion, Voting, and Direct Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. An examination of how voters make decisions in direct referenda. The authors suggest that although direct democracy has some failings, the voters’ ability to make intelligent decisions about complex policy issues is not necessarily one of them.
See also: May 23, 1903: Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law; Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912: Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States; Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency; Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era.
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As a stronghold of special privilege, the Senate had opposed and often thwarted Progressive measures such as tariff revision, the abolition of child labor, and revision of the method for selecting U.S. senators. Realizing that passage of a constitutional amendment was out of the question, several western states began holding primary elections to select Senate nominees. In some states, the legislatures were bound to abide by the decision of the voters. In 1912, with twenty-nine states using this device to circumvent the Constitution and public pressure for change mounting, the Senate reluctantly yielded and submitted an amendment to the states. Official confirmation of the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, providing for direct election of senators, came on May 31, 1913.
Expansion of Direct Democracy
Australia Extends Suffrage to Women
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
June 12, 1902
Australia Extends Suffrage to Women In 1902, newly independent Australia became the second modern nation, after New Zealand, to extend suffrage to women, an example soon followed by many Western democracies. Also known as: Commonwealth Franchise Act Locale: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Categories: Social issues and reform; civil rights and liberties; women’s issues Key Figures Richard O’Connor (1851-1912), senator for New South Wales, Australia Sir William Lyne (1844-1913), Australian minister for home affairs, 1901-1903 Vida Goldstein (1869-1949), Australian feminist reformer and politician Summary of Event In 1902, Australia’s Commonwealth Franchise Act gave all women the right to vote in elections for the two houses of the new Commonwealth Parliament, the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the right to stand for election to Parliament (although the latter would not happen for another forty-one years). The act excluded “aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Islands of the Pacific except New Zealand” unless they already had the right to vote at the state level. Across Australia, women had campaigned for the right to vote for years. Strong campaigns for woman suffrage had begun in the early 1880’s and were supported by a wide variety of organizations and movements, including the temperance movement and the Social Purity League. The Commonwealth Franchise Act, passed by Australia’s Parliament and signed into law by the governorgeneral on June 12, 1902, was intended to remedy the fact that Australia had no uniform system for voting. Any person who was enrolled and eligible to vote in a state election could also vote in a federal election, but all the states had different systems, using different criteria to determine who could vote. The act was first introduced in the Senate by Senator Richard O’Connor of New South Wales. It was one of the few pieces of major legislation ever introduced in the Senate before being introduced in the House of Representatives. The bill was debated in the Senate for three days before it was passed. The act was introduced into the House on April 23 by 160
Sir William Lyne, the minister for home affairs, who said he had not always been in favor of votes for women but that “some ten or twelve years ago I formed the conclusion that not only was it just to accord women the vote, but that it was in the best interests of the entire community.” The public was highly interested in the fate of the act, and women thronged the galleries and public seating areas on the floor of the House chamber to watch the proceedings. The act passed the House of Representatives on April 24, 1902. There were many objections to the idea of giving women the right to vote. Some politicians, such as Sir Edward Braddon, were concerned that the act would weigh voting in favor of married men, as it was assumed that wives would vote the way their husbands wished. Braddon declared himself puzzled by “the craze . . . for female suffrage which exhibits itself in these southern seas.” William Sawers protested that because there was a higher percentage of women in the cities, rural areas would be underrepresented. Others worried that the distribution of seats among the states in the House of Representatives, originally determined by the percentages of male voters in the states, would be skewed, with the number of seats held by South Australia and Western Australia increasing. Thomas Glassey of the Protectionist Party argued that “women would be influenced by the clergy, by good-looking candidates, and by young men” and that “the extension of suffrage to women would take away their beauty and their charm, and cause them to neglect their domestic affairs.” Despite such arguments, the act was approved by large majorities in both houses of Parliament. The relatively short act (two pages) included five sections, the third of which gave the federal vote to anyone over the age of twenty-one who had lived in Australia for six months, was a natural-born or naturalized subject of the British Empire, and was on the electoral rolls in any federal electoral division. Because women in the states of South Australia and Western Australia could vote at the state level, the act gave them the right to vote at the federal level. Women in the states of New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland, and Victoria achieved the right to vote at the federal level on December 16, 1903, under this act and won the right to vote at the state level in 1902, 1903, 1905, and 1908, respectively. One implication of the act that had not been discussed before its passage was the fact that it made women eligi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Vida Goldstein. (National Library of Australia)
such candidates until World War II, when Enid Lyons of Tasmania was elected to the House of Representatives and Dorothy Tangney gathered enough votes to fill a vacancy caused by the death of a Western Australian senator. Tangney was the first woman to gain endorsement for the Senate from the Australian Labor Party. Significance Following the enfranchisement of Australian women, political parties and the press were eager to offer women voters advice. Several newspapers, such as the Melbourne Argus, provided guides for the new voters, and the electoral authorities of the Home Affairs Department published and distributed instructions on the voting process. Factories, offices, and shops employing women were urged to grant their employees time off on election days so that they could vote, and many did so. Increasing numbers of women began attending political meetings, many of which reserved sections of seats for them, and women also began holding their own meetings, inviting approved candidates to address them and holding mock elections in order to educate themselves on the process of voting. Although women exercised their new right to vote eagerly, they found limited opportunities as candidates, as the established political parties viewed men as being more likely to win votes. Many early woman suffragists in turn distrusted the major political parties, feeling that the parties were protective of men’s interests. Only twenty-six women in total were nominated to run for seats in the Australian parliament before 1943, when shifting attitudes about gender—caused in part by women’s changing participation in society during World War II—led to increased numbers of female candidates and successful elections. Women fighting for voting rights in other countries were encouraged by the success of the Australian women to continue their struggle. Many Australian suffragists, such as Vida Goldstein and Alice Henry, emboldened by their success at home, traveled to England and became involved in the woman suffrage movement there. In 1910, almost a decade after passage of the Commonwealth Franchise Act, the Australian Senate passed a resolution regarding woman suffrage that was then cabled to the British prime minister. It concluded: “Because the reform has brought nothing but good, though disaster was freely prophesied, we respectfully urge that all nations enjoying representative government would be well advised in granting votes to women.” —Cat Rambo 161
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ble to stand for election to Parliament. When, in 1903, at the first federal election after passage of the act, four women received nominations, a public furor arose. Vida Goldstein of Victoria and Nellie Martel and Mary Ann Moore Bentley of New South Wales stood for Senate election, and Selina Anderson stood for the seat of Dalley (New South Wales) in the House of Representatives. These women, all four of whom were ultimately defeated, were the first women nominated for any national parliament in the British Empire. At that time, the majority of Australian citizens felt that it was not respectable for a woman to have paid employment. Working women were concentrated in unskilled occupations and were expected to give up their jobs if they married. This may be one of the reasons that, although many Australian women exercised their right to vote, they were much slower to assume a place in Parliament. The major Australian political parties, which believed that neither male nor female voters would cast their ballots for female candidates, did not support any
Australia Extends Suffrage to Women
Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” Further Reading Irving, Helen. The Centenary Companion to Australian Federation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Provides a comprehensive overview and history of the federation in Australia. _______. To Constitute a Nation: A Cultural History of Australia’s Constitution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Thorough examination of the creation and development of Australia’s constitution. Includes information about women’s and minority issues. Oldfield, Audrey. Woman Suffrage in Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Overview of the history of suffrage movements in Australia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 compares the struggle with that of suffragists in England and the United States. Woollacott, Angela. To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism, and Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Discusses the migration of Australian women to London and their impact on the British Empire, including the English woman suffrage movement. See also: July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women.
June 16, 1902
Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” Bertrand Russell discovered a paradox concerning the set of all sets: Is the set of all sets that are not members of themselves a member of itself? Also known as: Russell’s paradox Locale: Friday’s Hill, Haslemere, England Category: Mathematics Key Figures Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer Georg Cantor (1845-1918), German mathematician and logician who created set theory Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), German mathematician and philosopher who was the founder of modern mathematical logic Cesare Burali-Forti (1861-1931), Italian mathematician Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), French mathematician and philosopher of science Summary of Event The study of the foundations of mathematics can be traced as far back as Greek antiquity. Since then, three major crises have brought into question previously established areas of mathematics. Each of these crises challenged mathematicians either to revise their position or to leave mathematics resting on unstable ground. The first major crisis occurred in the fifth century b.c.e. and was brought about by the discovery that not all geometrical magnitudes of the same kind are commensurable 162
with one another. It was resolved around 370 b.c.e. by Eudoxus of Cnidus, whose revised theory of proportion and magnitude may be found in the fifth book of Euclid’s Stoicheia (Elements). More than two millennia passed before the second crisis in the foundations of mathematics arose. After the discovery of the calculus by Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the late seventeenth century, weaknesses in the foundations of analysis soon became evident. Only after the arithmetization of analysis in the nineteenth century was the second crisis thought to be resolved. After the resolution of this crisis, the whole structure of mathematics seemed to be redeemed and placed on unshakable ground. By 1900, mathematicians had seemingly imparted to their subject the ideal structure that Euclid had delineated in his Elements. Several branches were founded on rigorous axiomatic bases, the terminology had been subjected to close scrutiny, and deductive proofs replaced intuitively or empirically based conclusions. When the third crisis struck, its suddenness was surprising. The third crisis in the foundations of mathematics was brought about by the discovery of paradoxes, or antinomies, in the fringe of Georg Cantor’s general theory of sets. Because so much of mathematics is permeated by set concepts and, for that matter, can actually be made to rest on set theory as a foundation, the discovery of paradoxes in set theory naturally cast into doubt the validity of the whole foundational structure of mathematics. In 1897, the Italian mathematician Cesare Burali-
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Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” concepts not only in their newer creations but also in the supposedly well-established older mathematics. They preferred to call these contradictions “paradoxes” because a paradox can be resolved, and the mathematicians wanted to believe these could be resolved. The technical word commonly used now is “antinomy.” When Bertrand Russell first discovered Cantor’s conclusion about the set of all sets, he did not believe it. In an essay published in 1901, he wrote:
Bertrand Russell. (The Nobel Foundation)
Forti brought to light the first publicized paradox of set theory. The essence of the paradox can be conveyed by a description of a very similar paradox found by Cantor two years later. In attempting to assign a number to the set whose members are all possible sets and to the set of all ordinals, Cantor discovered a fundamental paradox about sets. The basic idea is that for any given set, there is always a larger one; the set of all subsets in a given set is larger than the original one. Cantor showed that there are larger and larger transfinite sets and corresponding transfinite numbers. Cantor’s theory of sets proved that, for any given transfinite number, there is always a greater transfinite number, so that just as there is no greatest natural number, there is no greatest transfinite number. How can there be a transfinite number greater than the transfinite number of the set whose members are all possible sets, given that no set can have more members than this set? By 1899, Cantor thought that one could not consider the set of all sets or its number. This caused mathematicians to recognize that they had been using similar
Russell meditated on this matter and added to the problems of the times his own “paradox.” Some years later, when Russell reprinted his essay in Mysticism and Logic (1918), he added a footnote apologizing for his mistake, stating that Cantor’s proof that there is no greatest number is valid and that the solution of the puzzle is complicated and depends on a theory of types, which is explained in Alfred North Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (1910-1913). Russell had studied the paradox of Cantor and, instead of finding a fallacy in it, had generated his own version. Whereas the Burali-Forti and Cantor paradoxes involve results of set theory, the “great paradox,” which Russell discovered in 1902, depends on nothing more than the concept of set itself. In order to understand Russell’s paradox, one must realize that sets either are or are not members of themselves. For example, the set of all sets is itself a set, but the set of all books is not itself a book. Likewise, the set of all comprehensible things is itself a comprehensible thing, whereas the set of all persons is not itself a person. Take the set of all sets that are members of themselves and call it S, and take the set of all sets that are not members of themselves and call it N. Is N a member of itself? If N is not a member of itself, then N is a member of N and not of S, and N is a member of itself. On the other hand, if N is a member of itself, then N is a member of S and not of N, and N is not a member of itself. Russell’s great paradox lies in the fact that, in either case, there is a contradiction. When Russell first discovered this contradiction, he thought the difficulty lay 163
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There is a greatest of all infinite numbers, which is the number of things altogether, of every sort and kind. It is obvious that there cannot be a greater number than this, because, if everything has been taken, there is nothing left to add. Cantor has a proof that there is no greatest number, and if this proof were valid, the contradictions of infinity would reappear in sublimated form. But in this one point, the master must have been guilty of a very subtle fallacy, which I hope to explain in some future work.
Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” somewhere in the logic rather than in the mathematics. At first, he did not realize that this paradox strikes at the very notion of a set, a notion used throughout mathematics. It was the first of a number of troublesome mathematical paradoxes. Although Russell first published this paradox in The Principles of Mathematics (1903), he had communicated his discovery a bit earlier to the mathematician Gottlob Frege. Russell had sent a letter to Frege on June 16, 1902, in which he told Frege about the paradox. Frege received the letter while the second volume of his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893, 1903; the basic laws of arithmetic) was at the printer. In this treatise on the foundations of arithmetic, Frege had used the theory of sets, which involved the very paradox that Russell noted in his letter. In effect, Russell’s letter broke the foundation of Frege’s work just as his treatise was finished—a project on which Frege had labored for more than twelve years. Russell’s great paradox has been popularized in many forms. One of the best known of these, the “barber paradox,” was introduced by Russell himself some years after his discovery of the great paradox. This paradox concerns the plight of a village barber who has advertised that he does not shave those persons who shave themselves, but he does shave all those persons and only those persons of the village who do not shave themselves. The paradoxical nature of this situation is revealed when the barber asks himself whether he should shave himself. If he does shave himself, then he should not because he has advertised that he shaves all those persons and only those persons of the village who do not shave themselves. If he does not shave himself, then he should, according to his claim to shave all those who do not shave themselves. The barber is in a logical predicament. Significance Although many mathematicians of the early 1900’s tended to disregard the paradoxes because they involved set theory, which was new and peripheral at the time, others were disturbed, recognizing that the paradoxes affected not only classical mathematics but also general reasoning. Russell’s great paradox had a catastrophic effect on the world of mathematics. Since its discovery, additional paradoxes in set theory have been produced in abundance. The existence of paradoxes in set theory clearly indicates that something is wrong. Much literature on the subject has been published, and numerous attempts at solutions have been offered. As far as mathematics is concerned, there seems to be an easy way out. One has merely to reconstruct set theory 164
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on an axiomatic basis sufficiently restrictive to exclude the known antinomies. The first such attempt was made by Ernst Zermelo in 1908, and subsequent refinements have been made. This procedure has been criticized as merely avoiding the paradoxes; certainly it does not explain them. Moreover, this procedure does not guarantee that other kinds of paradoxes will not surface in the future. In 1905, Russell thought that the paradoxes of set theory arose from a fallacy he called the “vicious circle principle.” Simply stated, the principle says that whatever involves all of a collection must not be one of the collection. In other words, if to define a set of objects one must use the set of objects itself in the definition, then the definition is meaningless. This was accepted by Henri Poincaré in 1906, who called these definitions “impredicative.” An impredicative definition defines an object in terms of a set of objects that contains the object being defined. Such definitions are illegitimate; by restricting them, at least one can avoid the known paradoxes of set theory. The restrictions of Russell and Poincaré amount to restrictions on the notion of set, and, although heeding these restrictions provides a solution to the known paradoxes of set theory, there is at least one serious objection to this solution: Although some parts of mathematics contain impredicative definitions that may be circumvented, many others contain impredicative definitions that cannot be circumvented, and mathematicians are reluctant to discard these parts. For example, the least upper bound of a given nonempty set of real numbers is the smallest member of the set of all upper bounds of the given set. This is an impredicative definition that mathematicians are reluctant to give up. Mathematicians have made various attempts to solve the paradoxes of set theory. Some, for example, search for the cause of the paradoxes in logic, and this has brought about a rigorous investigation into the foundations of logic. In effect, Russell’s discovery of the great paradox led to a search for the causes and solutions to such paradoxes in an effort to restore the foundations of mathematics. —Jeffrey R. DiLeo Further Reading Jager, Ronald. The Development of Bertrand Russell’s Philosophy. 1972. Reprint. London: Routledge, 2004. A fine survey of the development of Russell’s philosophy. Part of the book is labeled “The Theory of Logic,” and a subsection of this part, titled “Set Theory and Paradoxes,” provides a good general account.
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Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed. The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1944. A valuable collection containing essays by distinguished scholars on many aspects of Russell’s work. Useful information about the discovery of the paradox appears in a number of places throughout the volume, including statements by Russell on his discovery of the paradox and his attempts to resolve it. Van Heijenoort, Jean. From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. An important collection of classic selections on mathematical logic with introductory notes to each selection. Many are of interest to the general reader. Russell’s 1902 letter to Frege and Frege’s response to Russell are reproduced. See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
June 17, 1902
Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture The 1902 Reclamation Act provided for federal development of irrigated agriculture and eventually transformed the American West. Also known as: Newlands Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history; natural resources Key Figures John Wesley Powell (1834-1902), geologist and director of the U.S. Geological Survey and Bureau of Ethnology Francis Griffith Newlands (1848-1917), U.S. congressman from Nevada, 1893-1903 Frederick Haynes Newell (1862-1932), civil engineer and chief hydrographer of the U.S. Geological Survey Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909
Summary of Event Before 1902, irrigation and reclamation policies in the arid western United States were mostly aimed at promoting private and state initiatives to develop irrigated agriculture. On June 17, 1902, the Reclamation Act (sometimes called the Newlands Act) became law after more than twenty years of discussion and failed federal land policy. The act represented the first of several conservation initiatives undertaken by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration and set a precedent for active federal investment and direction of natural resources management. In 1878, John Wesley Powell’s “Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States” laid the groundwork for land classification according to the land’s capability to produce different kinds of goods and services. Early federal land policy initiatives such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 failed to grasp both the scope of the problem of aridity and the cooperative approaches that would be required to over165
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Kneale, William, and Martha Kneale. The Development of Logic. 1962. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. One of the best historical treatments of its subject. Philosophically oriented and accessible to the general reader. Chapter 11, titled “The Philosophy of Mathematics After Frege,” is an in-depth treatment of the paradoxes of the theory of sets and Russell’s theory of types as well as other solutions to the paradoxes of set theory. Highly recommended as a scholarly treatment of Russell’s paradox. Russell, Bertrand. My Philosophical Development. 1959. Rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 1995. An excellent basic account of the events surrounding the discovery of the paradox and of the paradox in general. Russell clearly articulates his influences and his attempts to resolve the paradox. Essential for the general reader. _______. The Principles of Mathematics. 1903. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. The work in which Russell first published his paradox. The fundamental thesis is that mathematics and logic are identical; that is, mathematics is merely later deductions from logical premises. The book does not contain much mathematical and logical symbolism and, as such, is accessible to the diligent general reader.
Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture
Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture come the problem. Powell proposed that federal lands be classified according to their best use and disposed of based on that classification. He suggested organizing lands and local governments on a watershed basis, providing homesteads of 2,560 acres that included a mix of irrigable land and rangeland, and creating cooperative irrigation districts. Powell’s ideas proved unpopular with Congress because they were at odds with the traditional image of the hardy, independent settler. However, the Reclamation Act of 1902, which was passed a few months before Powell’s death, incorporated many of his ideas. Publicland scholars have come to recognize his report as one of the most significant documents in American conservation history. In 1888, Congress authorized the first waterresources inventory of the arid West. Frederick Haynes Newell, an assistant hydraulic engineer with the U.S. Geological Survey (and later that agency’s chief hydrographer), took charge of the project and set out to measure water supplies, survey potential dam and canal sites, and calculate the area of potentially irrigable land. Congress had authorized Powell, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, to reserve all such sites from entry under the public-land laws. Powell’s reservation of 127 reservoir sites and thirty million acres of potentially irrigable public land angered western congressmen. In 1890, Congress restored the right of entry to all the withdrawn land except that required for dam and reservoir sites. Private funding of irrigation efforts had largely come to a halt by the mid-1890’s. The most profitable sites had already been developed, and many private projects failed in the financial panic of 1893. State efforts to develop irrigation districts in California and Colorado met with little success. In 1894, Congress passed the Carey Act, which granted one million acres to each western state to promote irrigation. The grants resulted in few projects, however, because limited financing was available. A coalition that supported federal financing of reclamation projects eventually emerged among scientists such as Newell and Powell and economic development interests in the West. Francis Griffith Newlands came to Nevada in the late 1880’s to manage the estate of his wealthy father-in-law, Senator William Sharon. Nevada was rapidly losing population as a result of the end of the silver boom. Newlands recognized irrigated agriculture as one method to promote economic stability, and he became a principal in a privately financed project in the Truckee basin. The project failed, and Newlands suffered a financial loss; in 166
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the process, however, he had investigated and acquired many of the potential reservoir sites in the state, which he offered to sell to water users’ associations. Upon his election to the U.S. House of Representatives, he became one of the principal promoters of federal financing of irrigation and a prominent member of the National Irrigation Congress, an influential interest group that promoted reclamation. Upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States. Roosevelt had already become familiar with western land and water issues through his experience as a gentleman rancher in North Dakota. A progressive Republican, Roosevelt also recognized the political advantages that he might reap from running against large corporate interests and supporting public efforts to conserve natural resources. As governor of New York, he had advocated scientific management of natural resources and had already established relationships with Newell and with Gifford Pinchot, a leader of the forest-conservation movement. At the prompting of Newell and Pinchot, Roosevelt made reclamation and forest conservation a major theme in his first address to Congress. Given new support from the president, Newlands’s proposals gained momentum. His bill authorized federal funding of irrigation projects through a reclamation fund composed of proceeds from the sale of public lands in the West. The bill gave the secretary of the interior discretion in selecting and constructing projects and withdrew the reclaimed areas from all but homestead entries. To promote development of family farms, Newlands included a provision that limited each individual to water rights for eighty acres. His intent was to deny speculation in the federal projects and to reinforce the ideal of the yeoman farmer. Newlands’s bill was opposed by western congressional representatives who wanted a larger water-rights acreage limitation and also wanted the lands to be open to other than merely homestead entries. Newlands compromised and raised the limitation to 160 acres, but the bill was defeated in the House. A rival measure with few of Newlands’s provisions passed the Senate in early 1902, and Newlands introduced a new version of his bill. Roosevelt convinced the Senate to incorporate much of Newlands’s language into an amended Senate version, and the Reclamation Act became law on June 17, 1902. Significance Perhaps no single law has had a greater effect on the western United States than the Reclamation Act of 1902.
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Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture
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The projects that eventually evolved Commissioners of Reclamation under the Bureau of Reclamation Although the Reclamation Act’s focus has largely shifted from construction of transformed the face and economy new facilities to maintenance of existing facilities, commissioners of the U.S. of half a continent. El Paso, Denver, Bureau of Reclamation have continued to play important roles in the developTucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and ment of the American West. Salt Lake City could not have grown into great metropolises without the Term Officer massive water development projects 1894-1907 Charles D. Walcott, director of the U.S. Geological and associated hydroelectricity made Survey possible by the act. The agricultural 1902-1907 Frederick H. Newell, chief engineer and manufacturing economies of the 1907-1914 Frederick H. Newell, director western states would also be wholly 1914-1923 Arthur Powell Davis, director different without the act and the work 1923-1924 David W. Davis, commissioner it engendered. The Bureau of Recla1924-1936 Elwood Mead, commissioner mation has constructed dams, power 1930-1936 Mae A. Schnurr, acting commissioner plants, and canals in seventeen west1936-1943 John C. Page, commissioner ern states. Its most widely known 1943-1945 Harry W. Bashore, commissioner projects include the Hoover Dam 1945-1953 Michael W. Straus, commissioner 1953 Goodrich W. Lineweaver, acting commissioner (Boulder Dam) on the Colorado 1953-1959 Wilbur A. Dexheimer, commissioner River and the Grand Coulee Dam on 1959-1969 Floyd E. Dominy, commissioner the Columbia River in Washington 1969-1973 Ellis L. Armstrong, commissioner State. 1973-1977 Gilbert G. Stamm, commissioner This transformation has come at 1977 Donald D. Anderson, acting commissioner a substantial environmental price, 1977-1981 R. Keith Higginson, commissioner however. The increased salinity of 1981 Clifford I. Barrett, acting commissioner irrigated lands, the degradation of 1981-1984 Robert N. Broadbent, commissioner the Colorado River delta, the demise 1984 Robert N. Olsen, acting commissioner of salmon stocks in the Pacific North1985 Clifford I. Barrett, acting commissioner west, and the loss of biological di1986-1989 C. Dale Duvall, commissioner 1989 Joe D. Hall, acting commissioner versity caused by the conversion of 1989-1993 Dennis B. Underwood, commissioner unregulated rivers to reservoirs are 1993-1995 Daniel Beard, commissioner some of the broader costs of irrigated 1995 Stephen P. Magnussen, acting commissioner agriculture and hydroelectric power 1995-2001 Eluid L. Martinez, commissioner production. These costs must be bal2001 J. William McDonald, acting commissioner anced against the benefits that the Beginning 2001 John W. Keys III, commissioner western states and the nation as a whole have derived from economic development. In 2005, the Bureau of Reclamation delivered water to ten policy of providing for a system of family farms. The act million acres of land inhabited by thirty-one million peoalso set a precedent for a growing, activist federal presple. One out of five farmers in the West received water ence in the West that directly controls or influences most from its projects. Its fifty-eight power plants generated forest, rangeland, and water resources in the region. more than forty billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, During the late 1940’s, federal subsidies to reclamaserving an estimated six million homes. tion programs became increasingly contentious. In the In addition to such obvious environmental impacts, early and mid-1950’s, the subsidy issue combined with the Reclamation Act of 1902 had a number of subtler but an awakening environmental movement to block the nevertheless important implications. Political scientists construction of the Echo Park Dam, which had been prohave observed that the concentration of political power posed for Dinosaur National Monument in western Colamong a “water aristocracy” in the western United States orado. was one result of the failure to implement the original
Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture Like other conservation programs designed during the Progressive Era, the Reclamation Act of 1902 envisioned an independent, self-financing funding mechanism to pay for efficient projects. The act established a reclamation fund through the sale of western federal lands. Homesteaders would repay the fund for project construction costs (without interest) within ten years of the time that water became available to them, and the repayments would then allow new projects. By 1914, all projects that could be developed within the ten-year framework had been exhausted. In subsequent acts, Congress extended the period for repayment to twenty years in 1914, to forty years in 1926, and to fifty years in 1934. The last revision allowed for nonreimbursable allocation of project costs to flood control and navigation. This revision was subsequently interpreted to allow use of electricity-generation revenues to pay irrigation costs that were beyond the financial abilities of irrigators. Even with these provisions, however, the development and approval of projects by the secretary of the interior were limited by poor economic returns. When conservation groups, economists, and Southern California water interests combined to block construction of the Echo Park Dam and the larger Upper Colorado River Basin Project in the 1950’s, their action marked the end of an era and the once-potent dream of “making the desert bloom.” By the 1970’s, growing environmental awareness and poor economic feasibility left the Bureau of Reclamation vulnerable to political change. The Teton Dam, one of the bureau’s projects, failed on June 5, 1976, claiming eleven lives and causing damages estimated as high as two billion dollars. In November, 1976, President Jimmy Carter was elected on a platform that stressed environmental protection and governmental reform. In April, 1977, the Carter administration successfully proposed eliminating five of the largest reclamation projects and reducing several others. In addition, the administration proposed reduced budgets and several other reforms that substantially decreased the bureau’s powers. Despite a political ideology that favored western development, Carter’s successor, President Ronald Reagan, implemented budget reforms that further constrained the growth of federal reclamation projects. In the early 1980’s, controversy arose over the original act’s limitation on the size of farms that were eligible to receive federally subsidized water. The government failed to enforce the limitation of 160 acres per farm (320 acres per couple) and associated restrictions on leasing and residency. Attempts by the Carter administration to enforce the law led to the act’s revision during the Rea168
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gan administration. The 160-acre limitation was raised to 960 acres, and growers were required to pay full cost for water used in excess of the 960-acre limit. By 1988, however, the General Accounting Office found that some farms that exceeded the limit had been divided into holdings of less than 960 acres but had continued to operate as single units. For example, the agency identified a 12,000-acre farm that had been divided into fifteen holdings so that it could continue to receive federally subsidized water at a savings of $500,000 per year. One environmental problem facing many reclamation projects has been that of increasing salinity. As fresh water used in irrigation evaporates, it may concentrate and deposit salt in the soil; the elevated salinity levels that result can retard or eliminate crop yields. By treaty, the United States must deliver water containing less than nine hundred parts per million of salt to Mexico from the Colorado River. Because salinity levels were exceeding the legal limit, the United States built an expensive desalination plant near Yuma, Arizona, to improve water quality. Construction on the plant was completed in 1992, but as of 2005 the facility was not being used; it had operated only for a few months of testing immediately after it was built. Abnormally high water levels in the West throughout the 1990’s meant that the United States could meet its treaty obligation to Mexico without operating the plant. In the early 2000’s, restarting use of the plant, given the expense it would represent, was a controversial topic among Arizona taxpayers. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, a related problem caused environmental concern. Increasing salinity prompted construction of a drainage system that concentrated farmland irrigation runoff water in the Kesterson Reservoir. The reservoir attracts many migratory waterfowl, and, in the early 1980’s, biologists observed that many of the birds were being sickened or killed; by the mid-1980’s, researchers confirmed that the cause was selenium poisoning. Selenium, an element occurring naturally in the region’s soils, was being carried from irrigated soils and concentrated in the reservoir. A joint statefederal effort was undertaken to investigate the drainagerelated problems and develop solutions, and in the 1990’s researchers from the University of California became involved in this work. In 2003, they reported some success in using artificially constructed wetland ponds to filter selenium from agricultural runoff. Overall, the Reclamation Act of 1902 proved successful in reaching its original goal of developing agriculture, commerce, and settlement in the American West. The environmental consequences of that development were
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 largely unforeseen at the time of the act’s passage, but they became increasingly problematic in the latter part of the twentieth century. —Donald W. Floyd
August, 1902 A TRIP TO THE
Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1947. Personal recollections of the Progressive governor who was also the most influential early forester in the United States. Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1993. A pointed and thorough journalistic analysis of the costs of water development in the western United States. Stegner, Wallace. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. An essential biographical source by an author whose works define the American West. Stratton, Owen, and Phillip Sirotkin. The Echo Park Controversy. University: University of Alabama Press, 1959. A detailed case study of the administrative policy process used in the Echo Park Dam decision. Wyant, William K. Westward in Eden: The Public Lands and the Conservation Movement. 1982. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. An accessible, balanced treatment of the history of the conservation movement. See also: May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam; Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed.
MOON Introduces Special Effects
Distributed nearly worldwide, Georges Méliès’s film A Trip to the Moon introduced audiences to special effects and championed the use of film for entertainment. Locale: Paris, France Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Georges Méliès (1861-1938), French magician and filmmaker Gaston Méliès (1852-1915), French film producer Auguste Lumière (1862-1954), French inventor, physician, chemist, and botanist Louis Lumière (1864-1948), French inventor and scientist Charles Pathé (1863-1957), French industrialist and film executive
D. W. Griffith (1875-1948), American filmmaker Edwin S. Porter (1870?-1941), American filmmaker Summary of Event When Georges Méliès showed his latest film, the extravagant science-fiction spectacle Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) to a Parisian audience in August, 1902, cinema was young and in search of an artistic identity. The international success of Méliès’s well-designed, entertaining fantasy fare, of which A Trip to the Moon was the best, quickly established audience demand for narrative films. It also made Méliès, the film’s producer, director, actor, and set designer, one of the founding fathers and creative shapers of cinema. Méliès had attended the now-famous first film presentation to a paying audience by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière in Paris on December 28, 1895. Im169
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Further Reading Clarke, Jeanne Nienaber, and Daniel C. McCool. Staking Out the Terrain: Power and Performance Among Natural Resource Agencies. 2d ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. A well-developed assessment of the rise and fall of natural resource bureaucracies in the United States. Includes illustrations, tables, bibliography, and index. Dana, Samuel T., and Sally K. Fairfax. Forest and Range Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. A rich chronological view of the evolution of U.S. conservation and environmental policy. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Classic historical assessment of the Progressive conservation movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Miller, Char. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. Washington, D.C.: Shearwater Books, 2004. Examines the life of Pinchot, a pioneering environmentalist and Progressive politician who teamed with Theodore Roosevelt to advocate multiple uses of the nation’s forested lands.
A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects
A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects mediately, the magician and theater owner was fascinated by the new art. When the Lumières refused to sell him one of their own projector/cameras, Méliès acquired the necessary equipment from British and French inventors and started to show films in his Théâtre RobertHoudin in April, 1896. Unhappy with the films he had to buy, and too much a creative genius to content himself with their storyless, unadorned recordings of reality, Méliès started to make films of his own. Between September, 1896, and March, 1897, he built the world’s second film studio (after Thomas Alva Edison’s Black Maria Studio in New Jersey) in Montreuil, near Paris. There, until 1914, his Star Film Company would produce about five hundred films—an output that made Méliès one of the biggest producers and directors of early motion pictures. In 1902, A Trip to the Moon splendidly showcased Méliès’s successful transformation from stage magician
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to filmmaker. With its painted backdrops, different-scale models, trapdoors, wings, and wires, the film’s studio effects complemented its creator’s editing skills and mastery of photographic effects. All the special effects used in the film were unified by a dramatic story about a flight to the Moon. The fourteen-minute film opens with a view of the Astronomic Club, where President Barbenfouillis (played by Méliès) proposes a trip to the Moon. The technology utilized—a projectile fired by a big gun—had been imagined by novelist Jules Verne in 1865 and required little explanation. The tableau of the Astronomic Club dissolves to reveal the manufacture of capsule and cannon. This filmic dissolve, like the fade-out, was first created by Méliès, who superimposed with increasing luminosity the frames of the next scene over those of the first (or else slowly closed the lens for a fade). The technique of the painted backdrop employed in
A famous comic shot from A Trip to the Moon.
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close of his career in 1912, filmed theater. He thus missed a crucial shift in audience demand: His static camera never changed its position, which was head-on to the stage. By 1909, American audiences—three-fourths of the French film industry’s market—had turned away from fantasy fare and were demanding naturalistic drama. After a bitter forced sale of his studio and the demolition of his theater in 1923, Méliès found himself reduced to selling novelties in a tiny kiosk in Paris. He was rediscovered by film historians, however, and his work was treated to a gala retrospective in 1929; he was awarded the Cross of the French Legion of Honor by Louis Lumière in 1931. With honor also came financial rescue. By the time Méliès died in 1938, his early contribution to the development of narrative cinema and his technical inventions had become widely recognized. Significance The international success of A Trip to the Moon not only shaped audience expectations worldwide but also brought home Méliès’s problems with the piracy of his films, especially in the lucrative American market. To combat this abuse, his Star Film Company established an office under Gaston Méliès in New York City in 1903. Méliès also began to submit paper contact prints to the Library of Congress to protect his copyrights in the United States. Ironically, it was there, and in a private American collection, that most of Méliès’s films survived, rather than in Europe. In addition to distributing his brother’s films, Gaston Méliès began producing his own films for the family company in New Jersey in 1909. His outfit, which was relocated to San Antonio, Texas, in 1910 and to Santa Paula, California, in 1911, produced typical “American” fare, however—mostly Westerns shot out of doors. Gaston’s enterprise ceased operations in 1912; Gaston’s presence in the United States, however, ensured that Georges Méliès’s films were widely available there and were noticed by American filmmakers. Among these, pioneer Edwin S. Porter was impressed by Méliès’s emphasis on narrative and his use of special effects to propel the plot. The opening of Porter’s masterpiece, The Great Train Robbery (1903), for example, establishes its plot with a successful matte shot. Through the window of a railroad telegraph office that is taken over by two bandits, the target of the robbers, a train, is seen coming to a stop. Taking a lesson from Méliès, Porter created this scene by blacking out a part of the live studio action (the window) and superimposing on this “free” part of the frame a second film showing stock footage of a train. 171
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the film’s total of thirty tableaux was one Méliès borrowed from theater and fine-tuned to his new medium. He adapted such relatively conventional trompe l’oeil effects (that is, effects designed to deceive the eye) as the surface of the Moon to the specific optical qualities of his film stock. Because he painted backdrops and props in shades of gray instead of in true colors, the scenery had a plastic look on film. For the voyage itself, Méliès used both a model and a simulated tracking shot. Rather than moving his camera, which would later become common practice with mobile modern equipment, Méliès instead moved his set to show the projectile landing, in a well-executed matte shot, directly in the eye of the “Man in the Moon”—an actor peeping through a painted Moon. From this visual joke, Méliès dissolved to a second, “realistic” landing on the Moon’s surface. To show the scientists encountering the bellicose Selenites, or Moonfolk, Méliès relied heavily on the stop-camera technique, which, according to his memoirs, he discovered quite by accident. Before Méliès, no one had realized that it was possible to stop a camera while filming a scene and then later restart it. Characteristically, Méliès used this idea to give to the old magician’s trick of substituting one object for another a new aura of fantastic realism: The scientists’ umbrellas turn into mushrooms on Méliès’ Moon; when struck by Barbenfouillis’s umbrella, the hostile Selenites disappear in a puff of smoke. For the spaceship’s return to Earth, Méliès employed the rudiments of continuity editing. Every time the spaceship disappears at the bottom of a scene, it reappears at top in the next scene, simulating a long fall viewed from different camera positions. Upon their rescue from the sea, Méliès’s astronauts receive a triumphant welcome and bow to the film’s audience—a gesture carried over from the stage. Ironically, the very success of Méliès’s films, including A Trip to the Moon, contributed to his demise as a filmmaker. Cinema’s undisputed leader from 1896 to 1905—even, after 1903, the owner of an American branch led by his brother Gaston—Méliès found himself unable to adapt. The industrialization of film production, led by Charles Pathé in France, spelled doom for the qualityconscious artisan. In 1911, Méliès agreed to have his films distributed by Pathé; his granddaughter later charged that Ferdinand Zecca, the man in charge of Pathé’s studios, deliberately mutilated Méliès’s films to eliminate a rival. Méliès was aesthetically unwilling to evolve from a position of perfection, and his films remained, up to the
A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects
A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects Once Porter’s star was eclipsed for a lack of continuous filmic innovation, the most gifted American director of the early days of filmmaking, D. W. Griffith, rose to prominence. Griffith’s work, too, shows an indebtedness to Méliès; without the success of narrative films such as A Trip to the Moon, it is hard to imagine demand for Griffith’s highly complex dramatic films. Griffith developed a far more dynamic style of editing and camera work than those who preceded him, but his special effects were still firmly based on Méliès’s pioneering examples, on which Griffith built improvements. To demonstrate spatial movement, Méliès moved his set; Griffith instead changed his camera position and developed the true tracking shot. To track the riders of the Ku Klux Klan in The Birth of a Nation (1915), he even put his camera aboard a car. Griffith exuberantly acknowledged Méliès’s influence, to the point of stating that he owed everything to his French colleague. In Europe, the success of A Trip to the Moon led to two startlingly different developments at the level of national cinema. In France, the freshly founded Société Film d’Art took Méliès’s idea of filming action on a stage to its logical extreme and sought to appeal to intellectual taste by filming theater. Charles Le Bargy’s L’Assassinat du duc de Guise (1908; The Assassination of the Duke de Guise) was the first in a series of influential hits. Yet because the Société Film d’Art’s productions were so inherently stagey—and, indeed, sought to derive artistic legitimacy from their rather regressive form—French cinema lost its position as international leader by the early 1910’s. Whereas the selective adaptation of Méliès’s ideas by the French cinema lacked the artistic freshness necessary to recapture the world market from Hollywood after World War I, German filmmakers rose to international status by looking at Méliès’s work with different eyes. After a brief flirtation with Film d’Art, directors in Germany looked to Méliès’s film, from which they derived an emphasis on the fantastic. The closed world of Méliès’s studio was seen as resembling the human soul—this was incidentally also the reason for Méliès’s appeal to Surrealist filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel. For his popular fare, Danish filmmaker Stellan Rye used Méliès’s technique of superimposition in his haunting tale of a double, Der Student von Prag (1913; The Student of Prague); a huge success, the film was twice remade in Germany. German cinematic expressionism, including Robert Wiene’s masterpiece Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), is unthinkable without Méliès. Unlike its inspiration, German cinema of the 1920’s proved very adaptive. With German audiences 172
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 developing an appetite for more naturalistic-looking fantasy tales, films such as Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s vampire tale Nosferatu (1922) followed another of Méliès’s many leads: Special effects were used for the “realism” they gave to illusion. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) mastered the form. It was this “realist” approach to special effects that brought American naturalistic film back into studios once the development of sound necessitated a tightly controlled production environment. Throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s, Hollywood became synonymous with studio films. Special effects, however, were more commonly used to simulate car rides than to animate fantastic monsters such as the star of the 1933 King Kong, a true successor of Méliès’s fantasy creatures. By the late 1950’s, with a final twist of irony, French (and some American) directors and critics had turned against the studio film. Instead, they championed cinema verité, a very strict form featuring pure, unstaged reality. Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronique d’un été (1961; Chronicle of a Summer) popularized the movement, which appeared to take film back to the Lumière brothers’ original recording of reality. The movement toward realism, of which cinema verité represented the avant-garde, turned back once more with the rise of the science-fiction film. From Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to George Lucas’s six Star Wars films (1977-2005), increasingly sophisticated special effects became the backbone of films with audience appeal as global as that of Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon, the first film to take humanity on a fantastic trip through space and time. —R. C. Lutz Further Reading Barnouw, Erik. “The Magician and the Movies.” American Film 3 (April/May, 1978): 8-63. Places Méliès in the context of primarily French and British magicians. Argues that the stage illusionist’s traditional skills were outmoded by film’s special effects and that magic did not translate successfully onto the screen. Includes illustrations. Cook, David A. “The Evolution of Narrative: Georges Méliès.” In A History of Narrative Film. 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Useful, readable overview. Argues that Méliès helped introduce the narrative, as opposed to documentary, use of film. Lists all thirty tableaux of A Trip to the Moon and reproduces twenty in illustrations. Emphasizes Méliès’s contributions to film.
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2002. Explores the history and cultural reception of special effects in film. Includes discussion of the work of Méliès and his contemporaries. Rickitt, Richard. Special Effects: The History and Technique. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2000. Highly illustrated guide to film special effects of all kinds. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the history of special effects and includes information about Méliès’s work. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres.
August 12, 1902
Founding of International Harvester Company The founding of International Harvester created a manufacturing giant and brought some order to the fiercely competitive farm machinery industry in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Trade and commerce; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884), American inventor and manufacturer of mechanical reapers William Deering (1826-1913), American industrialist and manufacturer of harvesters and grain binders George W. Perkins (1862-1920), partner at J. P. Morgan & Company who was the architect of International Harvester and a member of its board of directors Elbert Henry Gary (1846-1927), attorney and chairman of the United States Steel Corporation Summary of Event After much deliberation and several failed attempts, International Harvester Company was formed on August 12, 1902. With assets valued in excess of $110 million and control of nearly 85 percent of harvester and reaper production in the United States, the company was a com-
bination of the McCormick Harvester Company, Deering Harvester Company, Plano Manufacturing Company, Milwaukee Harvester Company, and Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company. The creation of International Harvester, along with similar mergers that led to the formation of Allis Chalmers in 1901 and Deere and Company in 1911, grew out of the severe economic hardships and uncertainty of the 1890’s and the fierce competition that had come to dominate the harvester and farm machinery industries in the United States. Competition had become so harsh and so damaging to its participants that the era is often referred to as that of the “harvester wars.” The consolidation of bitter rivals, most notably the union of McCormick and Deering, was an attempt to bring stability and ultimately profitability back to an industry reeling from years of cutthroat competition and costly patent disputes. The manufacture and distribution of harvesters and reapers was by the late nineteenth century one of the most conspicuous industries in the United States. It was also an industry dominated by a few large firms held within families, notably the McCormicks and the Deerings. The McCormicks had been in the reaper business from its inception. Cyrus Hall McCormick secured his first patent on a mechanical reaper in 1834 and began selling reapers in 1841. By 1847, he was building a fac173
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Frazer, John. Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979. One of the best books on Méliès in English for students of film. Presents every known surviving film through synopsis, notes on special effects, and critical analysis. Also features a biography and description of Méliès’s cultural environment. Richly illustrated. Includes an excellent filmography, bibliography, notes, and index. Kovacs, Katherine Singer. “Georges Méliès and the Feerie.” Cinema Journal 14 (Fall, 1976): 1-13. Persuasively places Méliès in the tradition of a nineteenth century French spectacle show, the feerie. Part 1 discusses this tradition, and part 2 shows how Méliès’s films use it for their techniques, plots, and themes. Analyzes Méliès’s special effects clearly and emphasizes their popular appeal. Pierson, Michele. Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder. New York: Columbia University Press,
Founding of International Harvester Company
Founding of International Harvester Company tory in Chicago that would help make him one of the nation’s most prosperous business leaders. William Deering was not an inventor, and he entered the harvester trade in 1870, a generation after McCormick, but through aggressive policies and business abilities he posed a formidable challenge to McCormick for leadership in the industry. Despite being challenged by Deering and a handful of other firms, and even after the death of Cyrus Hall McCormick in 1884, the McCormick Harvester Company remained the dominant force in the harvester industry. The heated rivalry that existed between McCormick and Deering had over the years taken its toll on the profits of both companies and had created costly inefficiencies in distribution, losses to dealers, and oversaturation of the domestic reaper and harvester markets. Even though the so-called reaper kings recognized that an end to their costly rivalry would in the end be in both of their interests, all earlier attempts at combination had failed. In 1891, in 1897, and again in 1901, some type of an agreement seemed close at hand, but the differences and old rivalries were always too great to overcome. When William Deering retired in 1901, his sons, Charles and James, took over the management of the company. This renewed hopes that some sort of an agreement finally could be reached in the harvester industry. The merger was accomplished with the intervention of outside business interests and the assistance of some of the nation’s most prominent business leaders, who had a vested interest in restoring and promoting economic stability in a leading American industry and also had personal ties with both the McCormick and Deering families. One of these businessmen was John D. Rockefeller, Jr., whose sister Edith had married one of the sons of Cyrus Hall McCormick, Harold, in 1895. Along with Elbert Henry Gary, chairman of the United States Steel Corporation and a former attorney for William Deering, Rockefeller helped foster the merger that ultimately brought an end to the harvester wars. Established business leaders had reason to fear the instability and destructiveness produced by price wars and cutthroat competition. In early 1902, Gary telephoned the McCormicks to discuss what he and others perceived as a disruptive development in the harvester industry. In an attempt to cut the rising cost of raw materials, the Deerings recently had purchased iron ore deposits and were building their own rolling mill. This development held the potential to prolong and intensify the harvester wars. Even worse for Gary and other industrialists, it could have broadened the type of predatory competition 174
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Cyrus Hall McCormick. (NARA)
that monopolies and established business leaders were eager to avoid. The last thing Gary and U.S. Steel wanted was large manufacturing firms beginning their own steel operations. It became apparent that a consolidation of the leading harvester companies held distinct economic advantages for firms in that industry as well as for others. The details of the merger were worked out over the summer of 1902 in various New York hotel rooms and in the Wall Street offices of J. P. Morgan & Company. The chief negotiator for Morgan was George W. Perkins, then the youngest partner at the firm. Perkins is widely credited with accomplishing what for so long had seemed beyond reach, the creation of a harvester trust. The merger that created International Harvester was organized by the Morgan firm and carried out by Perkins. It was even Perkins who suggested the name for the new corporation. The McCormicks and the Deerings both acknowledged the fact that overseas markets were going to be a large and profitable part of future expansion, prompting inclusion of the word “international” in the new company’s name. International Harvester was the sum of the assets of the five smaller harvester companies from which it was created. To avoid costly antitrust litigation, the merger called for the purchase of the physical assets of the companies rather than of stock in them. After the merger, to
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Significance The creation of International Harvester, like similar mergers in steel, electrical manufacturing, and other heavy industries, signaled both an end to the traditional, family-oriented firms that had dominated in the nineteenth century and the emergence of the modern corporations that would come to dominate in the twentieth century. Modern corporations tend to hire professional managers, exploit economies in production, operate across large markets, and rely on public and sophisticated methods of finance. Ultimately, International Harvester accomplished these things and became a modern corporation, but first it had to be forged out of the rivalries of the leading and distrustful harvester companies. The emergence of International Harvester also signaled the importance and the impact of the interactions among many of the leading industries in the United States. Industrialists attempted to protect their markets and tended to rely on large trusts to provide a more stable economic environment. Clearly, the involvement of Elbert Henry Gary in the negotiations to create International Harvester demonstrates that U.S. Steel, the nation’s largest steel manufacturer, was concerned about protecting its market. The list of prominent American bankers and industrialists involved in the creation of the harvester trust implies that many business leaders had influence and interests across industries.
The substantial role played by J. P. Morgan & Company in the formation of International Harvester emphasizes how the role of financing had changed by the beginning of the twentieth century. Because of the size and complexity of emerging corporations, the days of widespread internal and family-based financing were gone. Corporations and even the federal government had been turning to J. P. Morgan in the 1890’s and 1900’s to help settle financial problems. In addition to its role in the International Harvester merger, Morgan’s firm had played a role in the formation of General Electric, American Telephone and Telegraph, Federal Steel, and U.S. Steel. The formation of such large manufacturing enterprises as General Electric in 1891, U.S. Steel in 1901, and International Harvester in 1902 was indicative of the trend among American corporations to develop and exploit economies of production. Larger firms hoped that by increasing their scales of output they could accordingly lower their average costs of production, distribution, and financial management by avoiding duplication of tasks. After the merger, International Harvester pursued a policy of enlarging both its scale of production and its scope of operations. In the years after the merger, International Harvester expanded its own production facilities, acquired additional machinery shops, and developed new product lines. The development of new product lines was easier after the merger, because intense competition during the harvester wars had led to reductions in budgets for research and development. The company now could afford to devote resources to long-term research. It began experimenting with gasoline-engine tractors in 1905 and within a few years was marketing a successful line of tractors. Eventually, the company’s product lines included trucks, automobiles, construction and earthmoving equipment, lawn and garden equipment, compressors, generators, and pumps for mining natural gas. Another significant aspect of International Harvester was the company’s part in the movement of American manufacturing firms into international markets. In the period from 1903 through 1909, International Harvester opened production facilities in Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, and Russia. True to the name of the new corporation, it began to market its growing line of farm machinery aggressively across Europe, Africa, and South America. In four years, its volume of trade with Russia reached a level equal to the total volume of U.S. farm machinery exports at the time of the merger. The formation of International Harvester created a manufacturing giant but did not immediately end the 175
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provide continuity, to protect the new corporation from speculators, and to attempt to keep peace between the McCormicks and the Deerings, control of the new corporation was placed in a voting trust for the first ten years. This voting trust was given absolute control over the operation of the corporation and acted on behalf of all stockholders. The trust was made up of Cyrus Hall McCormick’s eldest son, Cyrus; William Deering’s eldest son, Charles; and George Perkins. The operation of International Harvester was at first a literal combination of the properties and departments of the five companies that had merged. The corporation’s executive officers were named to provide a balance of power among the old rivals, but given the initial leverage of the McCormick Harvester Company, the balance leaned somewhat in favor of the McCormick family. Cyrus McCormick was named the first president of International Harvester, and Charles Deering was named chairman of the board. Harold McCormick, James Deering, J. J. Glessner, and William H. Jones of the Plano Manufacturing Company all were named vice presidents of the new corporation.
Founding of International Harvester Company
Founding of International Harvester Company years of rivalry within the harvester industry. Although the merger technically created a harvester trust, the corporation retained the old companies as separate divisions of the new corporation. These separations were easy to define, as the new corporation kept the separate brand names as late as 1909. Despite the efforts of George Perkins, it became obvious that old rivalries were not going to disappear simply because of the merger. Unfortunately for International Harvester, it paid a price for the continuation of these old, and now internal, rivalries. The company’s early years did not produce the economic bounty that was expected. Profits were lower than anticipated, and production declined. Perkins, again with the help of Gary, sought in 1906 to negotiate a settlement between the McCormicks and the Deerings. This time the agreement meant a reorganization and restructuring of the company. After these reforms, which further reduced the direct influence of the family managers, the corporation went public in 1908. International Harvester then entered into an era of substantial expansion and prosperity marred only by a protracted antitrust battle with the U.S. Department of Justice. —Timothy E. Sullivan Further Reading Casson, Herbert N. The Romance of the Reaper. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1908. A history of the mechanical reaper in the United States. Tells the story of the McCormick, Deering, and International Harvester companies. Garraty, John A. Right-Hand Man: The Life of George W. Perkins. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. A well-written and thorough biography of the man who negotiated the creation of International Harvester. Presents a detailed and documented account of the formation of the harvester trust.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hutchinson, William T. Cyrus Hall McCormick. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1935. The standard and detailed biography of McCormick. The volumes are subtitled Seedtime, 1809-1856, and Harvest, 1856-1884. They deal with the invention of the reaper, the operation of the company’s factory in Chicago, numerous patent disputes, and various aspects of McCormick’s public and private lives. McCormick, Cyrus. The Century of the Reaper. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931. A history of the reaper and farm equipment industry written by the grandson of Cyrus Hall McCormick. Roderick, Stella Virginia. Nettie Fowler McCormick. Rindge, N.H.: Richard R. Smith, 1956. The story of the life and times of the wife of Cyrus Hall McCormick, who played a significant role in the family business. In a different era, she likely would have become the McCormick company’s president after her husband’s death in 1884. Tarbell, Ida M. The Life of Elbert H. Gary: A Story of Steel. 1926. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003. A valuable biography of Gary, describing his career as one of the leading industrialists in the United States. Wendel, C. H. One Hundred Fifty Years of International Harvester. 1981. Reprint. Osceola, Wis.: Crestline, 1993. An insightful history of the reaper and the companies that came together to form International Harvester. Includes an impressive collection of pictures and diagrams that provide a wonderful overview of the farm equipment industry as illustrated by the evolution of its products. See also: 1905: Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia; Spring, 1906: Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations.
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Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets
September 27, 1902
Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets The American Tobacco Company, a classic trust, and Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Company combined to form the British-American Tobacco Company and agreed to divide world markets. Locale: England; New York, New York Category: Trade and commerce
Summary of Event Establishment of the first American Tobacco Company (dissolved in 1911) and passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act occurred almost simultaneously in 1890. The two events revealed the two principal sides of the unprecedented thrust of the United States toward the premier position among the world’s industrial and financial giants. One side, manifested initially by evolution of the country’s great railroad empires during the last third of the nineteenth century and then by the trustification of scores of enterprises (tobacco among them), reflected individual as well as national pride in sheer size, productivity, power, and economic freedom, attended by all of their social, political, and economic consequences. The other side registered widespread populist inclinations and the fears of interest groups that perceived corporate trusts and monopolies as threats to themselves and to the U.S. economic system and its spirit of free competition. Within two decades, the American Tobacco Company became a classic trust with international ramifications. It sprang from the entrepreneurial drive and genius of James Buchanan Duke, who was born poor near Durham, North Carolina, in 1856. His family, particularly his father, Washington Duke, had considerable experience in the complexities of tobacco culture and marketing. When Duke finished his modest education at the Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York, he joined his father in 1878 in the business enterprise of W. Duke Sons and Company. The company devoted its manufacturing efforts chiefly to cigarettes, which had
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Key Figures James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925), industrialist and founder of the American Tobacco Company William Collins Whitney (1841-1904), financier, philanthropist, and principal director of the American Tobacco Company William Henry Wills (1830-1911), British financier, member of Parliament, and chairman of W. D. & H. O. Wills
gained popularity rapidly after the Civil War. Although the Dukes prospered, their sales for years regularly lagged far behind those of leading brands such as W. T. Blackwell’s famed Bull Durham line. What propelled the Duke firm to leadership among the nation’s cigarette manufacturers by 1890 was James’s gamble a few years earlier on the acquisition of secret contractual rights to James A. Bonsack’s cigarette-making machine, the first of several that would ensure the company’s technological edge on competitors. Eager to direct the firm’s interests personally, James Duke moved to New York in 1884. In 1890, he founded the American Tobacco Company (chartered in New Jersey), which represented a merger of five of the country’s principal cigarette makers. American Tobacco controlled 90 percent of the nation’s cigarette business and had annual profits exceeding $4 million. Duke’s subsequent campaigns were aimed at driving all manufacturers of tobacco products, competitors or not, either out of business or into sellouts, mergers, or other forms of control by his firm. Employing the profits from American Tobacco’s cigarette business, Duke sought primacy over the plug tobacco (compressed cakes of chewing tobacco) trade. A corporate battle from 1894 to 1897 involved American Tobacco’s purchase of five firms that produced smoking tobacco, snuff, cheroot, and plug tobacco. These firms provided the wedge for American Tobacco’s successful entrance into plug production. Continuing reliance on cigarette profits to finance his battle, Duke underpriced many competitors and so wearied others, such as Richard Joshua “Josh” Reynolds’s Liggett & Myers, that in 1898 he was able to absorb them into a new plug combination, the Continental Tobacco Company, essentially a holding company dominated by Duke and his American Tobacco directors. Almost simultaneously, powerful eastern financiers, including William Collins Whitney, Thomas Fortune Ryan, and P. A. B. Widener, acquired two major smoking tobacco firms, along with stock in others, to form the Union Tobacco Company. In this case too a deal was struck, and Union was sold to Duke for $12.5 million. The financiers obtained or retained directorships in American and in Continental, and Duke enjoyed access to the financiers’ vast capital resources. By 1900, Duke’s Continental Tobacco and American Tobacco were producing 62 percent of the nation’s plug tobacco, 59 percent of its smoking tobacco, 80 percent of its snuff, and
Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets more than 92 percent of its cigarettes. Only cigar manufacturing, an anomaly because large cigars were handmade products, lay substantially outside Duke’s control. Integrating American Tobacco and Continental, Duke and his cohorts formed the Consolidated Tobacco Company (a holding company) in 1901. With augmented capital, the company turned to overseas markets. It was no stranger to these, for in the 1890’s Duke had established dealerships in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, and England. Declining profits in England, however, persuaded Duke to mount a serious invasion of the British market that began with Consolidated’s purchase of Ogden’s Limited, a major British tobacco manufacturer. Instantaneously alarmed, thirteen of Britain’s largest tobacco manufacturers combined to form the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland, Limited. These manufacturers included the formidable firms of W. D. & H. O. Wills, John Player and Sons, Lambert & Butler, Hignett’s Tobacco Company, and J. & D. MacDonald of Glasgow, led by William Henry Wills. To hold its turf, Imperial early in 1902 proffered bonuses to businesses that consented to boycott American To-
James Buchanan Duke.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 bacco’s products, hoping thereby to marshal the allegiance of Britain’s major retailers. Through Ogden’s, Duke countered by agreeing to distribute the entire net profits from his firm’s British sales over the next four years, plus an additional £200,000 annually to retailers who handled American’s products. Although Imperial initially threatened to counterattack by establishing factories in the United States, seven months after its formation it entered into a contractual agreement with American Tobacco. Under terms of the agreement, reached on September 27, 1902, the two great combinations parceled out world markets between them. Significance Negotiations between Duke’s trusts and the Imperial combination presided over by Wills produced two documents. The first provided for the transfer of Ogden’s and all of its assets to Imperial, so that the American trust and the British combination could proceed with profitable territorial divisions. To achieve this, a second document created a new corporation, the British-American Tobacco Company, Limited. The new company was subject to joint but unequal ownership by American (the controlling partner) and Imperial and controlled the export trade. Imperial retained the right to purchase and cure the U.S. tobacco leaf that was essential to its British operations but consented not to sell its products in the United States or in American dependencies, such as Cuba, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, except when in company with American or its subsidiaries. American Tobacco, in return, agreed to refrain from interference in Imperial’s domestic markets, except when and if Imperial interests invited it to do so. The British-American Tobacco Company, as the designated authority over international markets and exports of Imperial, Ogden’s, American Tobacco, Continental Tobacco, Consolidated Tobacco, and American Cigar Company, was authorized to purchase all the assets—tangible and intangible—of the export businesses already managed by these companies. These included, for example, W. D. & H. O. Wills’s Australian division as well as American Tobacco’s German subsidiary, George A. Jasmatzi Company, along with many others around the globe. Capitalized at $2.3 million, two-thirds of which in 1904 belonged to Duke’s American Tobacco, and further buttressed by the capitalization of constituent companies of the combination in excess of $235 million, BritishAmerican soon conducted export business of its constituent companies in every country in which tobacco was
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and most expansible export market for British-American Tobacco. The tobacco-smoking habit had come to China, as it had to the West, in the seventeenth century. By the early 1900’s, this habit was satisfied overwhelmingly in China by cigarettes, British-American’s specialty. The Chinese were witness, therefore, to every promotional tactic Duke had employed so successfully elsewhere, including massive advertising and the distribution of millions of free cigarettes to entice brokers, dealers, and customers. There was no lack of competition. The Chinese also manufactured cigarettes and other tobacco products. The Jian family’s Nanyang Tobacco Company, for example, capably withstood competition from British-American into the 1920’s. It finally failed as a result of tax policies of the Chinese government. British-American was a persistent, omnipresent force in many markets. When the Japanese, for example, opened the Manchurian port of Dalny (now known as Dairen), Duke’s export trust immediately opened for business there, offering substantially underpriced wares to beat the Japanese competition. British-American succeeded worldwide and continued to do so after its legal “dissolution,” along with that of the rest of Duke’s American Tobacco empire, by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1911. In fact, substantively very little changed as a result of the Supreme Court’s antitrust decision against American Tobacco. Between 1910 and 1920, Duke companies accounted for the lion’s share of U.S. exports of tobacco. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Cox, Howard. The Global Cigarette: Origins and Evolution of British American Tobacco, 1880-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. An authoritative account of the British-American Tobacco Company’s evolution and growth until World War II. Based on archival materials from a wide variety of sources, including the company’s own records. Durden, Robert F. Bold Entrepreneur: A Life of James B. Duke. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2003. This scholarly biography of James Buchanan Duke includes information about his philanthropy and his avid pursuit of horticulture as well as his success in business. _______. The Dukes of Durham, 1865-1929. 1975. Reprint. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987. A solid, engaging study of the fascinating James Duke, his family, and his intimates. Good material on 179
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not a state monopoly or in which tariffs or taxes—as in Germany, France, Italy, and Japan—largely precluded extensive or profitable sales. British-American enjoyed immense advantages in many international markets. When it commenced operation in 1903, it produced 89 percent of the world’s snuff, 84 percent of its cigarettes, about 76 percent of its finecut and its plug tobacco, and 67 percent of its smoking tobacco and little cigars. As time and market dictated, it sold its products under its own name or under the various brand names of the companies for which it exported. As had been the practice of both American Tobacco and Imperial, British-American showed no compunction about marketing its brands as if they were the products of independent companies or even of competitors’ manufacture. Advertising campaigns were heavily subsidized. Special, sometimes secret, incentives and rebates were offered to brokers and to dealers. British-American resorted to local price cutting through “fighting brands” when it wanted to undercut a competitor’s price. Competitive brands frequently were imitated, and customers themselves were beguiled by such bonuses as free cigarettes and coupons. James Duke’s irrepressible leadership marked every operation throughout his tobacco empire. With the affairs of American Tobacco and its ancillary trusts well in hand by 1903, he turned eagerly to the new prospects offered by British-American. Europe offered few profitable enticements for the enterprise, but the contrary was true of mainland Asia and nearby islands. Duke devoted close attention to the cultivation and expansion of markets in these areas. Like many American entrepreneurs in the years around the opening of the twentieth century, Duke shared the dream of almost limitless profits to be garnered from the dense populations of the Far East. The countries there did not present identical pictures of market potential. The tobacco trade in Japan was what the government decided it was. The markets of India and Australia, like those in nearly all parts of the British Empire, already had been richly developed by Imperial Tobacco prior to 1902. China was another matter. It was fast being carved into spheres of influence by Western as well as by Japanese governments and special interests during the last years of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth. Britain’s strongholds on mainland China centered on Shanghai and the access it afforded to the sixty to seventy million people who lived along the first thousand miles of the Yangtze River. This was the prime market and potentially the world’s richest
Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets
Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits Duke’s dealings with Ogden’s and creation of BritishAmerican. Many excellent photos. Ample notes replace bibliography. Useful index. Jacobstein, Meyer. The Tobacco Industry in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 1907. A still useful, readable, and widely available study with extensive coverage of American Tobacco and British-American. Many statistical tables. Ample informative notes, but no bibliography or index. Jones, Eliot. The Trust Problem in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1923. Old but very valuable. Chapter 8 is excellent on the development of the Duke empire and useful on British-American. Tables, ample notes, extensive and still-pertinent bibliography. Fine index. Solid, clear, objective approach. Ripley, William Z., ed. Trusts, Pools, and Corporations. Boston: Ginn, 1916. Useful because of its fine selection of documents on many of the great trusts. Chapter 8 deals with the Environmental Tobacco empire and its expansion by means of British-American, using U.S. Bureau of Corporations documents. Informative, easy to read, and valuable; a standby among scholars and laypersons alike. Includes tables and notes. Seager, Henry R., and Charles A. Gulick. Trust and Corporation Problems. 1929. Reprint. New York: Ayer, 1988. Chapters 1-6 provide splendid background on the emergence of trusts and the arguments for and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 against them. Chapters 10 and 11 deal in detail with American Tobacco and its related companies, including the deal to form British-American. Some tables, full notes, extensive and still-valid bibliography, and fine index. Stevens, William S., ed. Industrial Combinations and Trusts. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Edited documents and commentary relevant to the development of major trusts. Chapters 7 and 8 are extremely valuable in that they include the Imperial-American Tobacco agreements. Tables, some notes, no bibliography or index. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Sophisticated and authoritative, yet readable. Chapter 11 deals with the Tobacco Trust, American Tobacco, Imperial, and BritishAmerican. Centers on the dissolution of American Tobacco. Useful notes replace a bibliography. Some tables and an excellent index. See also: Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation.
December, 1902
Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits Walter S. Sutton determined that Mendel’s inherited traits of organisms are physically located on chromosomes. Locale: Columbia University Medical School, New York, New York Categories: Science and technology; biology; genetics Key Figures Walter S. Sutton (1877-1916), American geneticist and surgeon Theodor Boveri (1862-1915), German biologist Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Austrian monk and botanist Carl Erich Correns (1864-1933), German geneticist 180
Summary of Event Beginning in 1856, an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel initiated a series of experiments with garden peas that would revolutionize biology in the twentieth century. Mendel cross-pollinated different lines of peas bred for certain characteristics (purple or white flower color, wrinkled or smooth seeds, and the like). From his extensive experiments, he concluded that each garden pea plant carries two copies of each characteristic trait (flower color, seed texture, and so on). He called these traits genes. Diploid organisms have two copies of each gene that may or may not be identical. Different forms of the same gene are called alleles. For example, the gene for flower color may have two alleles, one conferring purple flower
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Mitosis Nucleoplasm Nucleolus Nuclear envelope Chromosome
(1) Early prophase
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color and the other conferring white flower color. In most cases, one allele is dominant over other alleles for the same gene. For example, a plant having two purple flower-color alleles has purple flowers; a plant having two white flower-color alleles has white flowers. A plant having one purple and one white flower-color allele, however, has purple flowers; the dominant purple allele masks the white allele. It was later demonstrated that the encoding of proteins by genes is responsible for dominance relationships among alleles. Because most plants and animals reproduce sexually through the fusion of pollen (or sperm) with egg, Mendel discovered the pattern of transmission of these genetic traits (that is, inheritance) from parents to offspring. Although each individual has two copies of every gene, an individual can transmit only one copy of each gene (that is, only one of two alleles) to each of its offspring. One copy of each gene is transmitted from the male parent and one copy is transmitted from the female parent to each of their offspring. If a parent has two different alleles for a given gene, there is a fifty-fifty probability of either allele’s being transmitted. This is true for each of thousands of different genes conferring different characteristic traits. The inheritance of either allele operates by chance, as in flipping a coin, and that is what makes each individual of a species unique. Mendel summed up the random chance inheritance of different alleles of a gene in two principles. The first principle, allelic segregation, maintains that the different alleles for a given gene separate from each other during the formation of germ line cells (that is, sperm and egg). The second principle, independent assortment, maintains that different alleles of different genes arrange themselves randomly during germ cell production. For example, a person inherits two alleles of the gene for eye color and two alleles of the gene for hair color, one of the two alleles for each gene coming from either parent. Each parent can contribute any combination of the alleles for each gene, such as a brown eyecolor allele and blond hair-color allele, blue eye-color allele and blond hair-color allele, and so on, depending on which alleles each parent possesses. Independent assortment requires that the genes in question lie on different chromosomes. It was only by luck that Mendel studied traits located on different chromosomes, because he did not know that chromosomes are the physical carriers of genetic traits. When Mendel published his results in the 1866 Proceedings of the Brünn Society for Natural History, they were scarcely noticed. Twenty years passed before the importance of his research was understood.
Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits
(2) Mid-prophase
Chromatids Centromere with kinetochores
(3) Late prophase/ prometaphase
Pole Spindle fiber
(4) Metaphase
Daughter chromosomes
(5) Anaphase Chromosome Nucleolus Phragmoplast Nuclear envelope
(6) Telophase (Kimberly L. Dawson Kurnizki)
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Meiosis: Selected Phases
(1) Early prophase I
(2) Prophase I
(3) Late prophase I
(4) Metaphase I
(5) Anaphase I
(6) Metaphase II
(7) Anaphase II
(8) Late telophase II (Kimberly L. Dawson Kurnizki)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 From 1885 to 1893, the German biologist Theodor Boveri researched the chromosomes of the roundworm Ascaris. Chromosomes are molecules composed mostly of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein. They are located within the nuclei of the cells of all living organisms. Boveri studied under Pierre-Joseph van Beneden, who discovered that sperm and egg each carry one-half of the chromosomes needed to begin a new organism. In the late 1890’s, Walter S. Sutton studied chromosomes of the grasshopper Brachyostola magna under Clarence Erwin McClung, discoverer of the sexdetermining X chromosome. Sutton constructed very detailed diagrams of Brachyostola chromosomes during various phases of organismal development, including chromosomal behavior during mitosis (chromosome doubling and separating prior to cell division) and meiosis (chromosome dividing and splitting in sperm and egg production). Both Sutton and Boveri were independently attempting to understand chromosomal structure and function. The breakthrough came in 1900, when the German biologist Carl Erich Correns rediscovered Mendel’s work with garden peas. Correns boldly proposed that the chromosomes of living organisms carry the organisms’ inherited traits. Unfortunately, he did not provide an exact mechanism, nor did he provide detailed experimental data to support his hypothesis. Correns’s hypothesis eventually caught the attention of both Sutton and Boveri. With Correns’s hypothesis, Mendel’s data, and his own research on Brachyostola chromosome behavior, Sutton began to derive a mechanism for the chromosomal transmission of inherited traits. Brachyostola magna is a diploid organism—that is, it contains two copies of every chromosome within each cell of its body. During the process of mitosis for a single cell, these chromosomes duplicate, so that there are four copies of each chromosome. By the end of mitosis, the four copies of each chromosome have been sep-
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Significance The Sutton and Boveri chromosomal theory of inheritance represents a major landmark in the history of biological thought. It reestablished Mendelism and provided a definite physical mechanism for inheritance. It demonstrated the molecular basis of life and thereby launched two successive waves of biological research in the twentieth century: the pre-World War II genetic and biochemical revolution and the postwar molecular biol-
ogy revolution that continues today. The theory has also been very useful for the study of human genetic disorders. Following Sutton’s and Boveri’s work, many geneticists began concentrating on chromosomes and how chromosomal genes actually confer individual traits. The English biochemist Sir Archibald E. Garrod coined the phrase “inborn errors of metabolism” to describe certain inherited genetic disorders, such as phenylketonuria and alkaptonuria. He attributed these genetic disorders in certain individuals to the lack of production of specific enzymes (proteins). He correctly hypothesized that a defective gene in an affected individual causes a defective enzyme resulting in a particular disorder. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, George Beadle, Edward Tatum, and Boris Ephrussi verified that one gene encodes one enzyme by studying eye-color mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and biochemical/nutritional mutations in the pink bread mold Neurospora crassa. Thomas Hunt Morgan and his associates generated hundreds of mutations in Drosophila melanogaster and mapped these mutations to specific chromosome locations, thereby verifying Sutton and Boveri’s theory. The researchers generated mutations by using either chemicals or high-frequency ionizing radiation (for example, ultraviolet light and X rays). This work demonstrated that exposing living organisms to radiation and certain chemicals can cause chromosome and gene damage, often resulting in severe abnormalities and/or death in the exposed individuals and their descendants. Chromosome studies also proved useful as a tool for understanding evolution. Evolution is the mutational changes that occur in organisms over time, thereby giving rise to new types of organisms and new species that are better adapted to the environment. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Alfred H. Sturtevant, and other eminent geneticists obtained evidence supporting Darwinian evolution through chromosome studies of many different species, including Drosophila and Zea mays (corn). In 1928, Frederick Griffith discovered that some substance, which he called the “transforming factor,” could be passed from dead smooth Diplococcus pneumoniae to live rough Diplococcus pneumoniae, converting the rough bacterium into a smooth bacterium. Obviously, the transforming factor was a chromosome, but the chemical composition of the genetic material in the chromosome was unknown. Some biologists believed that the chromosome genetic material was DNA; others thought that it was protein. In 1944, Oswald Avery isolated and purified the transforming factor from Dip183
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arated into two groups of two chromosomes each. The cell then divides into two cells, with each of the two newly formed cells having two copies of each chromosome similar to their single parent cell. If inheritable traits are located on chromosomes, then mitosis would appear to be a very effective mechanism for properly duplicating and dividing the genes up into daughter cells during cell division. Likewise, during the process of meiosis for a sperm or egg cell, the chromosome number is halved from two copies to one copy of each chromosome per cell. This would explain van Beneden’s observations that sperm and egg cells each contain one copy of each chromosome and Mendel’s assertion that each parent can contribute only one copy of each gene to its offspring. The behavior of chromosomes during meiosis explains Mendel’s principles of allelic segregation and independent assortment. Sutton’s conclusions were reported in an article titled “On the Morphology of the Chromosome Group in Brachyostola magna,” which appeared in the December, 1902, issue of the Biological Bulletin. Sutton proposed that chromosomes physically contain genes and that the process of meiosis for sperm and egg production is the basis of Mendel’s two principles. He supported his propositions with detailed diagrams of Brachyostola chromosomes during various stages of meiosis. Boveri followed in 1903 with the same conclusion from his earlier observations of Ascaris chromosomes. Together, the two scientists’ findings culminated in the chromosomal theory of inheritance, one of the basic tenets of genetics and modern biology. The chromosomal theory of inheritance makes four assertions. First, the fusion of sperm and egg is responsible for reproduction— the formation of a new individual. Second, each sperm or egg cell carries one-half of the genes for the new individual, or one copy of each chromosome. Third, chromosomes carry genetic information and are separated during meiosis. Fourth, meiosis is the mechanism that best explains Mendel’s principles of allelic segregation and independent assortment.
Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits
Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits lococci, discovering it to be DNA. In 1953, Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase provided compelling evidence for DNAas the chromosome’s genetic material in experiments using radioactively marked viruses. The same year, James D. Watson and Francis Crick proposed a physical model for DNA and a chromosomal mechanism by which DNA duplicates itself. The study of chromosomal abnormalities is invaluable to the identification of human genetic disorders. An individual’s chromosomes can be studied from blood cell samples, and fetal chromosomes can be obtained from amniotic cells extracted from the mother’s womb (amniocentesis). Many disorders, such as Down syndrome, can be identified before birth. The Sutton and Boveri chromosomal theory of inheritance has pervaded all areas of biology and medicine. —David Wason Hollar, Jr. Further Reading Cummings, Michael. Human Heredity: Principles and Issues. 6th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2002. This highly illustrated text aimed at nonscience students presents the complex topic of heredity clearly, without oversimplifying the concepts discussed. Also addresses the social, cultural, and ethical implications of the use of genetic technology. Gardner, Eldon J., and D. Peter Snustad. Principles of Genetics. 7th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984. This introductory genetics textbook for undergraduates is a detailed, comprehensive survey of the field. Discussions of key concepts are very clear and are supported by excellent diagrams and illustrations. The first three chapters, “Historical Perspectives,” “Mendelian Genetics,” and “Cell Mechanics,” discuss the scientific details of Sutton’s and Boveri’s work. Goodenough, Ursula. Genetics. 2d ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978. This introductory genetics textbook for undergraduates is clearly written, with careful explanations of difficult topics. Includes outstanding diagrams, extensive references, and brief historical sketches of prominent geneticists. Chapter 3, “The Meiotic Transmission of Chromosomes and the Principles of Mendelian Genetics,” describes the genetic basis of the chromosomal theory of inheritance. Lewis, Ricki. Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. This text designed for students who are not science majors explains what genes are, how they function, and how they interact with the environment. Includes discus184
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sion of how the understanding of genetics has changed since completion of the Human Genome Project. Moore, John Alexander. Heredity and Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. This introductory textbook provides an uncomplicated presentation of genetics. The work of Sutton and Boveri is described, along with Mendel’s two principles of inheritance and chromosome behavior during meiosis. Pai, Anna C. Foundations for Genetics: A Science for Society. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. This genetics textbook presents a very down-to-earth discussion of the subject for the layperson. Describes Mendelian inheritance and the Sutton and Boveri chromosomal theory of inheritance and presents very clear explanations of chromosome behavior, mitosis, and meiosis. Raven, Peter H., et al. Biology. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Outstanding introductory biology textbook for undergraduate biology majors. Clearly written and features beautiful photographs and other illustrations. Provides an excellent presentation of patterns of inheritance for lay readers. Sang, James H. Genetics and Development. New York: Longman, 1984. This textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students is a concise but thorough summary of how genes control the development of living organisms. Describes numerous important experiments and includes an extensive reference list. Chapter 3, “Active Chromosomes,” describes the organization of genes on chromosomes. Starr, Cecie, and Ralph Taggart. Biology. 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1989. This introductory biology textbook provides a very clear, concise summary of all biological disciplines. Includes excellent photographs and illustrations. Chapter 13, “Chromosomal Theory of Inheritance,” is an outstanding discussion of Sutton and Boveri’s theory and its relationship to Mendelian inheritance. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map.
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Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau
December 2-5, 1902
Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau The International Sanitary Bureau was formed by nations of the Western Hemisphere to discuss diseases and other health matters specific to the Americas.
Key Figures Walter Wyman (1848-1911), surgeon general of the United States, 1891-1911, and first director of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau Hugh S. Cumming (1869-1948), surgeon general of the United States, 1920-1936, and head of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, 1920-1947 Carlos Juan Finlay (1833-1915), U.S.-trained Cuban physician who investigated yellow fever Carlos Chagas (1879-1934), Brazilian physician influential in the treatment of malaria and discoverer of Chagas disease Summary of Event From December 2 through 5, 1902, the First International Sanitary Convention of the American Republics met in Washington, D.C., to promote health in the Western Hemisphere. The convention gave birth to the oldest continuously operating, region-specific health agency: the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, later known as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The convention’s first meeting involved eleven countries from North, Central, and South America that were brought together by common health concerns. European nations first recognized the need for a cooperative approach to the management of disease, and in the mid-nineteenth century, the chief health concern was the epidemics that swept through the Old World. The Black Plague had shaped the history of the European continent for centuries; cholera was the principal scourge at the time of the International Sanitary Conferences in Europe. The first and second conferences were held in Paris in 1851 and 1859, the third in Constantinople in 1867, and the fourth in Vienna in 1874. These conferences, however, were unsatisfactory for the participants from the New World, because the Europeans focused primarily on cholera, whereas the Americans
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Also known as: First International Sanitary Convention of the American Republics; Pan American Sanitary Bureau; Pan American Health Organization Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Health and medicine; organizations and institutions
were confronting different problems. Although at the time it posed little threat to Europe, yellow fever was a major threat to the Americas. In the 1870’s, a yellow fever epidemic swept through South America from Brazil to Paraguay; more than fifteen thousand died in Buenos Aires alone. By 1878, the epidemic had reached the United States, where it spread the length of the Mississippi River. The yellow fever outbreak resulted in about one hundred thousand cases and had a 20 percent fatality rate. By the time the Fifth International Conference was held, it was clear that world health concerns could not be limited to the Old World. The Fifth Conference was held early in 1881 in Washington, D.C., and control of yellow fever was one of the conference’s central concerns. Ten diplomats and medical experts from the Western Hemisphere served as delegates, and among them was Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban physician who had trained in New York, who served as delegate from Cuba and Puerto Rico. During the conference, Finlay announced his observations that yellow fever required an intermediate agent (or vector) to transmit the disease to humans. That vector was soon recognized as the Culex mosquito Aedes aegypti (then designated as Stegomyia fasciata). Scientific discoveries like this made it clear that an organization specific to the Americas was needed. In 1890, the First International Conference of American States met in Washington to discuss issues pertinent to the hemisphere; the Second Conference was convened in Mexico City in October, 1901. Because of the need for a region-specific organization, the conference recommended the formation of a bureau to represent the American republics, one that would be specifically charged with the formulation of sanitary or health agreements and regulations, including facilitating communication about diseases; studying their transmission, spread, and treatment; quarantining; and regularly holding health conventions to discuss relevant discoveries and treatments. The organization, called the International Sanitary Bureau of the Americas, would be officially known as the Pan American Sanitary Bureau and would have a permanent executive board headquartered in Washington, D.C. The first International Sanitary Convention (as opposed to the International Sanitary Conferences of the nineteenth century) met in Washington from December 2 to 5, 1902. Eleven member countries were represented, and U.S. surgeon general Walter Wyman was designated
Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau as the organization’s first chairman. In 1905, the second International Sanitary Convention again took place in Washington, D.C. Yellow fever continued to be the major focus of discussion; fortunately, efforts at controlling the disease had been successful in Cuba, Panama, and Mexico. Conference delegates decided that national
PAHO Member Countries The International Sanitary Bureau was renamed the Pan American Sanitary Bureau in 1924 and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in 1949. By then, twenty-two countries had signed the Pan American Sanitary Code, which established the organization’s political and budgetary guidelines.
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Member Government
Date of Admission
Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Bahamas Barbados Belize Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela
September 20, 1982 November 14, 1924 October 8,1974 October 2, 1967 September 20, 1982 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 September 27, 1971 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 September 21, 1981 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 September 29, 1977 November 14, 1924 October 2, 1947 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 August 23, 1962 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 September 24, 1984 September 22, 1980 September 21, 1981 September 29, 1976 September 20, 1963 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924 November 14, 1924
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 health authorities were to manage disease control and quarantine for their respective regions and that such matters would not be determined by the bureau. This action proved to be an important precedent that showed the efficacy of local (rather than continental) control of diseases. The third convention met in Mexico City in 1907 and established the Office of International Public Hygiene, the primary responsibility of which was to control yellow fever in the Americas. The convention also established the Sanitary Information Committee, which was designed to collect and disseminate data about public health issues. The name of the next meeting was officially changed from the International Sanitary Convention to the International Sanitary Conference. It met in San José, Costa Rica, from December, 1909, to January, 1910. The change in nomenclature coincided with a change in the nature of the meetings, in which the focus shifted from quarantine issues to promotion of health as a whole. Vaccinations against smallpox and malaria, campaigns against tuberculosis, and promotion of national legislation involving tropical diseases, however, were also of central concern. The fifth International Sanitary Conference met in Santiago, Chile, in November of 1911, and recommended that delegates be recognized as authorities in sanitation and medicine in their individual countries. The sixth conference was scheduled for 1915 but was postponed because of World War I. Beginning in World War I and until the end of World War II, there were three recognized health authorities in the world: the Office of International Public Hygiene, the health section of the League of Nations, and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau. Of these, only the bureau would grow and endure. After the conference’s postponement during World War I, the sixth conference convened in Montevideo, Uruguay, in December, 1920. Several important events occurred during this meeting. U.S. surgeon general Hugh S. Cumming was elected to head the bureau, the first executive committee was created, and a pan-American sanitation bulletin was envisioned. The first bulletin contained articles from authorities throughout the Americas, including the famous Brazilian scientist Carlos Chagas. The articles covered such topics as leprosy, hookworm, tooth care, sanitary engineering, diphtheria, water disinfection, yellow fever, syphilis, tuberculosis, industrial hygiene, and malaria. Ad-
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Significance The last cases of smallpox were seen in 1971, and smallpox eradication provided a model for the eradication of other diseases by inoculation and vector control. In the last half of the twentieth century, PAHO’s emphasis shifted from communicable diseases to chronic diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, and asthma, and emerging diseases such as HIV/AIDS and the hemorrhagic fevers. Although the specific concerns of the Pan American Health Organization have evolved, it has continued its invaluable work and retained a unique identity as an organization devoted to promoting health in the Americas. —Lesa Dill Further Reading Johnson, Harold J. United Nations: U.S. Participation in Five Affiliated International Organizations. New York: Diane, 1999. Discusses the status of the organizations affiliated with the United Nations, including the PAHO. Pan American Health Organization. Pro Salute Novi Mundi: A History of the Pan American Health Organization. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1992. Provides a detailed account of the PAHO. _______. Public Health in the Americas: Conceptual Renewal, Performance, Assessment, and Tools for Action. 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2006. Comprehensive reference work about health and medicine in the region. New editions are published every four years. See also: May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society; 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins; Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established; May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems.
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ditionally, there was a regular feature summarizing the presence of infectious diseases within the Americas. Once again, the name of the conference changed, this time to the International Sanitary Conference and Bureau of the Americas. The name of the bulletin also changed to reflect the different designation. The bureau grew in the two decades leading up to World War II, distinguishing itself as the clearinghouse for health information. Beginning in 1924, the group issued an annual report on health conditions in member countries, appointed epidemiological assistants, and promoted the careful collection of statistical data on member governments. The eighth conference, in 1927, increased the interval between meetings from twelve to eighteen months and proposed a constitution for the Pan American Sanitary Bureau. The constitution was approved in 1934 at the ninth Pan American Conference. Health conditions in the Americas grew increasingly complex during the 1930’s and 1940’s. There were several outbreaks: plague in Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and Chile; yellow fever in Brazil; typhus in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States; undulant fever in the United States; and onchocerciasis (caused by filarial worms) in Guatemala and Mexico. Malaria, tuberculosis, and smallpox were constant problems, and the cancer rate began to increase. The Pan American Sanitary Bureau continued its war on communicable diseases well after the end of World War II. After the creation of the United Nations, the Pan American Health Bureau recognized the need to cooperate on issues of world concern, but there was no desire for the group to be completely absorbed into the World Health Organization. In 1949, the bureau was converted into the Regional Office of the World Health Organization, and its name changed to the Pan American Health Organization, although it continued to maintain its autonomy.
Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau
Delaware Revises Corporation Laws
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1903
Delaware Revises Corporation Laws When the state of Delaware liberalized its corporation code to attract more companies to the state, it became a mecca for corporate headquarters, benefiting the state, the thousands of corporations eventually located there, and executives and board members seeking refuge from legal action. Locale: Delaware Categories: Government and politics; trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), governor of New Jersey, 1910-1912 Alfred I. du Pont (1864-1935), chief executive of the Du Pont Corporation Ebe Tunnell (1844-1917), governor of Delaware, 1897-1901 Simeon Pennewill (1867-1935), governor of Delaware, 1909-1913 Charles R. Miller (1857-1927), governor of Delaware, 1913-1917 Summary of Event Under the leadership of Governor Ebe Tunnell, Delaware passed its original corporation law in 1899. The law was modified for the first time in 1903, after which the legislature made periodic changes to increase the state’s attractiveness to business owners outside Delaware. By 1915, Delaware had acquired a reputation as one of the easiest states in the country in which to incorporate. The legislature nurtured Delaware’s reputation as a businessfriendly state and continued to make changes to entice businesses. Many of these changes were encouraged by members of the state’s famed du Pont family. Others were prompted by outsiders, such as Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, whose changes in New Jersey’s laws gave Delaware the chance to attract businesses that fled New Jersey. That the du Ponts would influence Delaware’s approach to incorporation was no surprise. Ever since Pierre du Pont established his thriving explosives business in Delaware in the early 1800’s, the family had influenced events in the state. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Du Pont organization had established a virtual monopoly in the explosives industry. In fact, the government filed an antitrust suit against the company in 188
1907. That suit forced Du Pont to compete with two new companies created in response to the government’s action, Atlas and Hercules. Both companies, however, were owned largely by members of the du Pont family. Both were incorporated in Delaware, but neither manufactured any explosives in the state. The du Ponts learned early how to circumvent antitrust laws, and they applied their knowledge to create liberal corporation laws in Delaware. Several members of the du Pont family, most notably Alfred, Pierre, and Henry, encouraged the revisions in the state’s corporation laws in the early 1900’s. For example, at the urging of Governor Simeon Pennewill, the legislature modified its corporation code in 1911 to permit incorporation of the Du Pont Boulevard Corporation, which formed to build and operate Delaware’s first cross-state highway as a private enterprise. This was one of the earliest indications that the state legislature would revise the corporation laws as necessary to attract businesses and the income they provided. Ironically, the governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, inadvertently became one of the biggest benefactors to Delaware’s drive to attract businesses through liberalization of its corporation laws. New Jersey was one of the first states in the country to pass corporation laws. By the mid-nineteenth century, New Jersey, along with Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York, had passed general corporation laws that applied to manufacturing, banking, and transportation companies. The Delaware government, on the other hand, was in no hurry to lose control over businesses. In general, state governments in the late nineteenth century did not recognize, or chose to ignore, the benefits of corporations. They thought that corporations were by and large devices for making legal many acts that were detrimental to the public interest. In general, corporate leaders were viewed as people who used their power to exploit labor, stockholders, and the public, and there certainly was good cause for this view. For example, on October 8, 1882, in response to a reporter who asked whether he would compete with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s newly introduced express service, William H. Vanderbilt, president of the New York Central Railroad, allegedly said, “The public be damned.” He subsequently denied making the statement, after a popular uproar ensued. Whether he said it or not, the words typified the attitude of some tycoons toward business and the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
most notably Delaware, to lure companies away. Before leaving office to assume the presidency of the United States, Governor Wilson induced the New Jersey legislature to pass laws that severely inhibited corporations domiciled in the state. For example, the acts forbade holding companies, curtailed interlocking directorates, and provided for the revocation of charters as penalty for infractions of the laws. The laws were not received well in New Jersey, but their passage was welcomed in Delaware. Corporate leaders believed that Wilson had transcended common sense in promoting these laws, which they viewed as personal affronts. Not only did the laws place severe restrictions on corporate activities, but they also attempted to make corporate guilt personal. One of Wilson’s goals was to make corporate leaders responsible for their companies’ misdeeds. This did not sit well with executives, who believed that corporate charters should protect them from responsibility. Faced with the possibility of personal culpability, corporate leaders preferred to move elsewhere. Delaware was a promising choice. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Delaware’s legislators had grown envious of New Jersey’s reputation as a home to corporations. Government leaders realized that tremendous financial potential lay in the liberalization of corporations laws. The turmoil in New Jersey presented them with a unique opportunity to lure companies to their state. New Jersey legislators were not about to lose, without a fight, their state’s status as a home to thousands of companies and the financial advantages they presented. In 1920, under the leadership of Democratic governor Edward I. Edwards, the New Jersey legislature repealed the laws Wilson had promoted, but the damage was already done. Delaware liberalized its corporation laws considerably during the early 1900’s in an effort to attract businesses. Governors such as Simeon Pennewill (19091913) and his successor, Charles R. Miller (1913-1917), pushed for new laws designed to facilitate incorporation. The legislature gave up its traditional method of incorporating one company at a time in recognition of the fact that the practice discouraged entrepreneurs from establishing businesses in the state. General incorporation quickly became the practice in Delaware. One of the by-products of the new approach was an easing of the severe limits on executives’ abilities to run their companies as they saw fit. The state’s new laws allowed managers to run things as they liked with little or no interference from stockholders, directors, or government officials. The laws also addressed the issue of exec189
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public, an attitude that accounted in part for Delaware’s reluctance to establish corporation laws. Legislators in Delaware, like their counterparts in many other states, preferred to pass a specific act to create each company instead of enacting general laws of incorporation. Therefore, more progressive eastern states, particularly New Jersey, more often became homes to large corporations. It took Delaware a while to recognize the benefits of general laws of incorporation. Once the state’s leaders did, however, Delaware became the home of thousands of corporations of all sizes engaging in a wide variety of businesses. Perhaps the biggest boost to Delaware’s switch from strict regulation of business to liberal corporation laws was the antitrust movement that swept the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There was a growing tendency to form trusts in many industries in the country in the late 1800’s. Perhaps the most significant trust was that formed by the Standard Oil Company. The company, incorporated in New Jersey, became a symbol of all that was wrong with trusts. John D. Rockefeller used his position as the head of the world’s largest oil company to squash competition ruthlessly, force railroads into giving him secret rebates, and influence political contests. By 1879, his company controlled 95 percent of the refining capacity in the United States. Rockefeller gave trusts a bad name. Under a trust agreement, the stockholders of the companies whose boards of directors formed the trust deposited their certificates of shares of common stock with a board of trustees and received in exchange certificates of deposit from trustees. Boards of trustees were invested with the power to vote the number of shares of the operating companies they held. This meant they were able to elect members of the boards of directors of the operating companies whose common stocks were deposited with them and thereby control those companies’ policies. These interlocking boards of trustees controlled entire industries, with trusts operating in railroads, tobacco, and oil. By December 31, 1903, 266 trusts were in existence, 234 of which had been formed between 1898 and 1903. The growth in trusts occurred despite the fact that federal laws such as the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and Interstate Commerce Act (1887) had been put in place to curb them. The zeal to limit trusts filtered down to the state level. Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was a staunch antitrust advocate. Consequently, he strove to reduce the powers of the large corporations incorporated in New Jersey. In so doing, he opened the door to other states,
Delaware Revises Corporation Laws
Delaware Revises Corporation Laws utive responsibility. The corporation code, which became the model for other corporation codes across the country, empowered companies to purchase and maintain insurance against liability for their executives in the event of any wrongdoing, “whether or not the corporation would have the power to indemnify [them] against such liability under the provisions” of the rest of the code. Loosely interpreted, Delaware’s code was an invitation to corporations to provide executives with insurance protection that went beyond the lax indemnification standards that had previously existed. This inclusion in the code provided added incentive for corporations seeking to move. Other provisions in the code cut back on stockholders’ interference in corporate operations. For example, the certificate of incorporation included the phrase “creating, defining, limiting and regulating the powers of . . . the stockholders . . . if such provisions are not contrary to the laws of this State.” The vague wording did not actually stipulate that stockholders could not inspect company books. It did, however, give the corporation the right to establish exactly when stockholders could inspect the books and for what purpose, limiting inspections to times when they did not interfere unreasonably with the company’s business. The laxity in the code encouraged executives to experiment with their corporate bylaws with an eye to letting the courts decide whether the provisions were legal. One company included in its bylaws a provision that its board of directors alone would have the power to determine when—if at all—stockholders would be able to inspect the company’s books. The specific bylaw stated explicitly that “except as provided above, no stockholder shall have any right to inspect any account, record, book or document of the Corporation.” The Delaware legislature imposed lower corporate franchise taxes than did competing states such as New York and Illinois. When corporate leaders in New Jersey looked for a new home, they did not have to search any farther than the state’s southern boundary. Companies made a mass exodus to Delaware from New Jersey as well as other states, and new companies increasingly made Delaware their legal home. Significance Applications for incorporation flooded Delaware, and the number of corporations headquartered there has continued to grow over the years. By 1974, 76,000 corporations were headquartered in the state, including such giants as General Motors, General Electric, and IBM 190
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 (International Business Machines). By 2005, more than 600,000 businesses had established their legal homes in Delaware. Many of the companies emigrated from other states to take advantage of Delaware’s liberal corporation code. As of 2005, more than half of U.S. publicly traded enterprises and nearly 60 percent of the Fortune 500 companies made Delaware their home. The state’s liberal corporation laws gave people engaged in all types of businesses the opportunity to incorporate without ever setting foot in the state. According to the state’s code, corporations do not have to have any employees. In fact, they do not even have to maintain a physical presence in the state. All they have to do is operate legally within the liberal provisions of the code and pay the necessary franchise taxes. That means simply that they must, according to the code, “engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized.” The income Delaware derived from the liberalization of its laws represented an enormous benefit to the state and had a major effect on its tax structure. The franchise taxes collected as a result of the influx of corporations became the state’s second-largest source of revenue. In addition, liberalization of the code created a thriving business among lawyers and incorporating firms whose primary function was to assist people from outside Delaware in establishing their own corporations. Perhaps the biggest advantage to Delaware lay in the way the corporation code affected the state’s fiscal policies. In effect, the large number of corporations led to a two-tiered financial structure. The state government obtained its revenues mostly from business and corporate taxes. Local income, on the other hand, came primarily from property taxes. Eventually, the state’s tax structure changed to include a progressive income tax, but corporate franchise taxes continued to play an important role in Delaware’s finances. Moreover, as a large number of the corporations headquartered in Delaware did not maintain a presence in the state, there was no need for large numbers of government workers to process paperwork, and Delaware could operate on a budget smaller than the budgets of some major cities in the area, such as Baltimore and Philadelphia. Companies also benefited from the liberalized laws. Executives realized early that Delaware’s corporation code presented them with a set of well-established corporate law precedents. Over the years, many cases that reached the courts were settled quickly in management’s favor. The stability in the judicial system alleviated executives’ fears about falling prey to whimsical court deci-
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Further Reading Aranow, Edward Ross, and Herbert A. Einhorn. Proxy Contests for Corporate Control. 2d ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. This scholarly but easily understood book focuses on aspects of corporation life to which Delaware paid special attention. Cunningham, John T. New Jersey: America’s Main Road. Maps by Homer Hill. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Presents an excellent analysis of Woodrow Wilson’s governorship in New Jersey and
how his legislation encouraged Delaware to liberalize its corporation laws. Myers, William Starr, ed. The Story of New Jersey. 5 vols. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1945. This multivolume history thoroughly documents New Jersey’s status as a home to corporations and details Wilson’s role in driving companies to Delaware. Peirce, Neal R., and Michael Barone. The Mid-Atlantic States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Five Mid-Atlantic States and the Nation’s Capital. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. Provides a concise history of Delaware with particular emphasis on the state’s corporation code. Stone, Christopher D. Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Provides an excellent description of the relationship between corporations and society and discusses the importance of corporate charters and the responsibilities of executives. Tuttle, Frank W., and Joseph M. Perry. An Economic History of the United States. Cincinnati: SouthWestern, 1970. An excellent overview of antitrust sentiment in the early 1900’s and how it contributed to Delaware’s rise as a home to major U.S. corporations. See also: Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
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sions and strengthened their resolve to remain in Delaware. This stability had a dual effect: It discouraged people such as disgruntled stockholders from filing lawsuits against corporations, and it provided managers with a knowledge of exactly what they could and could not do. Executives knew that if they did end up in court for some reason, decisions would be handed down quickly, generally in management’s favor. These were simply added incentives for corporations to move to Delaware. Delaware’s political and government leaders took advantage of other states’ shortsightedness at the beginning of the twentieth century to build a strong, lucrative corporate base. Their success led other states to emulate Delaware’s approach to liberalization in corporate codes. Consequently, competition among the states cut into Delaware’s success to some extent. The number of new incorporations in the state diminished somewhat over the years, but Delaware remained the acknowledged leader in providing a liberal home for corporations of all types. —Arthur G. Sharp
Delaware Revises Corporation Laws
Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1903
Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte Through innovative and popular designs, the Wiener Werkstätte helped to lay the basis for the establishment of modern art in Central Europe. Locale: Vienna, Austria Categories: Fashion and design; arts Key Figures Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), Austrian architect and designer Koloman Moser (1868-1918), Austrian designer Fritz Wärendorf (1869-1939), Austrian textile magnate Otto Wagner (1841-1918), Austrian architect Dagobert Peche (1887-1923), Austrian designer Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Austrian artist Summary of Event In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the artistic establishment of Vienna, then the capital of a large empire, was conservative to the point of being reactionary. During the 1850’s and 1860’s, the medieval ramparts of the city had been demolished and replaced by a great circular avenue lined, to the dismay of progressive architects and artists, with grandiose buildings lacking in originality of design. The Künstlerhaus (House of Artists), which had been established to promote modern art, was governed by archconservatives hostile to innovative ideas of any kind. The Austrian Museum of Art and Industry and its School of Arts and Crafts, created to foster understanding between art and industry, was equally unprogressive. Abreak came in 1894, when Otto Wagner, a structural rationalist, became head of the Architectural School of the Academy of Fine Arts. Among his students were Josef Hoffmann, who became one of Austria’s leading modern architects, and Koloman Moser, a highly imaginative designer. Wagner encouraged both to develop in new and innovative ways. Another break in the conservative hold on art came three years later, when the avant-garde artist Gustav Klimt headed a challenge to the Künstlerhaus’s monopoly on modern art by forming a dissident group called the Secessionists. Both Hoffmann and Moser joined the Secessionists. That same year, the Museum of Art and Industry installed a new, more liberal director, Hofrat von Scala, who was also a member of the Secessionists. He, in turn, appointed the progressive Felician von Myrbach as director of the School of Arts and Crafts. Both 192
Hoffmann and Moser subsequently joined the school’s faculty. The way was now open to change. In addition to the Art Nouveau style, another influence on the development of modern art at the time was the Arts and Crafts movement developed in England under John Ruskin and William Morris. Dedicated to craftsmanship and individual creativity, the movement’s members hoped to counter the ugliness and uniformity of the machine age through the creation of handsome yet simple designs using honest materials. The movement had a pronounced effect on the Secessionists, who tended to divide into two groups, the stylists and the naturalists. The former were applied artists or designers, whereas the latter were studio or fine artists. Animosity developed between the two groups, in part because the studio artists considered themselves to be superior to applied artists. Hoffmann and Moser saw themselves both as designers and artists. As Hermann Bahr, a leading journalist of the day, stated, what was needed was an organization that would bridge the gap between art and craftsmanship, giving equality to artists and craftsmen alike. Hoffmann and Moser wanted to create such an organization, and Fritz Wärendorf, a wealthy textile magnate familiar with the Arts and Crafts movement from his frequent visits to England, offered financial support. They quickly established the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese workshops), dedicated to the idea that the work of fine craftsmen, or artisans, is equal to the work of fine artists. A combination of the finest materials, superb craftsmanship, and innovative designs (largely created by Hoffmann and Moser) resulted in the Werkstätte’s producing a variety of beautiful objects that delighted a small but wealthy and influential segment of the Viennese bourgeoisie. A successful exhibition in Berlin in 1904 established the reputation of the Werkstätte outside Austria. At first largely confined to working in precious metals, ivory, and leather, the Werkstätte eventually expanded into furniture, enamel, bookbinding, graphics, knitwear, beadwork, embroidery, ceramics, glass, carpets, wallpaper, lacework, and woven, printed, and painted fabric. The objective was the creation of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or complete work of art. The concept already existed in opera, as exemplified especially by the music dramas of Richard Wagner, which combined music, theater, dance, literature, and the decorative arts.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hoffmann realized the objective of Gesamtkunstwerk between 1905 and 1911 with the building of the Palais Stoclet in Brussels. Adolphe Stoclet, a wealthy Belgian industrialist, admired Hoffmann’s architectural designs, and when Stoclet inherited a huge fortune on the death of his father, Hoffmann persuaded him to commission the construction of a house in Brussels completely designed by the Wiener Werkstätte, with no consideration given to cost. The house became a landmark in modern architecture, admired even by Hoffmann’s critics. Every detail, down to the doorknobs, was designed by the Werkstätte. Some claimed it was the most perfect house ever designed. Moser resigned from the Werkstätte in 1907, discouraged by the group’s casual method of operation and the continual waste of expensive materials resulting from lack of planning and supervision. Hoffmann, however, refused to put any restraint on either the artists or the artisans, nor would he entertain the idea, despite repeated suggestions, that the Werkstätte design for the commercial market. The only exception was the Werkstätte’s creation of chairs designed by the firm of Thonet. Dagobert Peche replaced Moser as chief designer. His preference for a softer, more playful and decorative style was a definite influence on the development of Art Deco.
Because the cost of the Werkstätte’s items, although high, never covered the cost of production, benefactors constantly had to be found to cover the deficits. Nevertheless, its creations were increasingly admired and purchased, and the Werkstätte might have existed indefinitely had it not been for World War I. A number of the Werkstätte’s artists were killed during the war, including Klimt. More important, the defeat devastated Austria, leaving Vienna the impoverished capital of a truncated state. In 1920, the Werkstätte mounted an exhibition of items that seemed not only excessively costly but frivolous; it drew largely unfavorable comments and few customers. Peche died in 1923. Hoffmann, although increasingly occupied by his architectural practice, insisted that the Werkstätte’s customary method of operation continue even though customers who could afford the expensively crafted products grew ever fewer with the onset of the Great Depression. Supporters attempted to keep the Werkstätte alive by opening branches in Berlin and New York, but the effort failed. All the Werkstätte’s shops closed in 1932, and the remaining stock was sold at a bankruptcy sale. Hoffmann once commented that were its products to appear in every shopwindow, the Wiener Werkstätte would soon be forgotten. Individualistic styling, superb craftsmanship, and limited production are the characteristics that have made the creations of the Werkstätte increasingly valuable and appreciated and have kept its name alive. Significance It is difficult to establish any direct impact of the founding of the Wiener Werkstätte on the art world of the early twentieth century. The production of the Werkstätte was limited and followed no particular style. Its influence cannot be compared with that of movements such as Impressionism, expressionism, and Surrealism. The Wiener Werkstätte did have considerable indirect impact, however. The art world of Vienna in the last decades of the nineteenth century was almost moribund. Such style as existed was the “Makart style,” named for Hans Makart, who specialized in exuberant and eclectic historical paintings glorifying past achievements of the Habsburg Dynasty, which still ruled in Vienna. The founding of the Secessionist movement in 1897 and the ensuing establishment of the Wiener Werkstätte effected significant changes. Vienna in the decades before World War I was witness to an amazing flowering of modern art of which 193
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Josef Hoffmann.
Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte
Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte the Wiener Werkstätte was an integral part and to which the Werkstätte made lasting contributions felt not only in Vienna but outside Austria as well. Among the greatest composers of the new art was Gustav Mahler, who was also director of the Vienna Court Opera. Mahler’s father-in-law, Carl Moll, a member of the Secessionist movement, organized the first Wiener Werkstätte exhibition in Vienna. In 1902, Hoffmann designed a major exhibition honoring Ludwig van Beethoven for which Mahler wrote an arrangement of the Ninth Symphony and Klimt designed a frieze. Although technically sponsored by the Secessionists, the exhibition actually was the work of the Werkstätte, which was formally organized a year later. In the fine arts, three of the greatest Viennese artists of the day were Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka, all of whom were associated with the Werkstätte. The Werkstätte commissioned and sold Schiele’s works when no other dealers would do so because of the works’ sexually explicit nature. The same support was given to Kokoschka, whose agitated style and “psychological portraits” disturbed even members of the avant-garde. Kokoschka left Austria for Germany to become part of German expressionism. The Werkstätte contributed to literature through bookbinding, lettering, and graphics; it contributed to fashion through textile, clothing, and jewelry designs; it designed the first loose-fitting dress to free women from corsets—a design admired and emulated by Paul Poiret, the Parisian couturier. When the playwright and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal wished the great Eleonora Duse to perform in his new play Elektra (pr. 1903), she agreed to do so only if the Werkstätte designed both her costumes and her jewelry. A connection can also be drawn between the theories of Sigmund Freud, the Viennese father of psychoanalysis, and the works of Schiele and Kokoschka. One of the reasons many of the designs of the Werkstätte were so popular was that they seemed sensuous and even mildly erotic. The greatest impact of the Wiener Werkstätte in the field of modern art and design, however, was inadvertent. In 1907, Joseph Maria Olbrich, the architect of the Secessionist headquarters, and Josef Hoffmann were among those who sponsored the Deutscher Werkbund (German alliance of craftsmen), the aim of which was to enhance the position of craftsmanship through cooperation among art, industry, and handicraft. Whereas the Art and Crafts movement and the Werkstätte had for the most part rejected methods of machine production, the Werkbund embraced them wholeheartedly. 194
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Among the members of the Werkbund was Walter Gropius, a young German architect. In 1911, the same year Hoffmann completed the Palais Stoclet, Gropius designed a building with revolutionary “curtain” walls. Whereas Hoffmann’s building was a magnificent private residence, Gropius’s was a factory that would serve as a prototype for what became known as the International Style in architecture, a style repeated thousands of times all over the world. In 1918, Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, with the intent of creating good prototype designs that would be mass-produced to adorn the homes of the general public. The Wiener Werkstätte, in a sense, became the link between the Arts and Crafts movement of Ruskin and Morris and the Weimar Bauhaus of Gropius. The Wiener Werkstätte can be said to have been the midwife to the birth of modern industrial design. — Nis Petersen Further Reading Adlmann, Jan E. Vienna Moderne, 1898-1918. Houston, Tex.: Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery, 1978. Catalog for an exhibition of Wiener Werkstätte designs mounted by the University of Houston in 1979. Contains instructive short essays on the philosophy of design by authorities such as Friedrich Poppenberg and Walter Gropius. A valuable feature is a list of the initials used to identify works by the Wiener Werkstätte. Brändstatter, Christian. Wiener Werkstätte: Design in Vienna 1903-1932. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. Offers as complete a record as possible of the Wiener Werkstätte’s creative work, from complex, integrated environments such as Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet to individual objects such as enameled-glass stemware by Otto Prutscher and vibrantly colored postcards by Oskar Kokoschka. Heavily illustrated. Delano Greenridge Editions. Josef Hoffmann: Furniture, Design, and Objects. New York: Author, 2003. Provides a comprehensive look at Hoffmann’s designs for furniture, decorative objects, and printed material for the interiors of his visionary buildings. Kallir, Jane. Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstätte. New York: George Braziller, 1986. Kallir is codirector of a New York gallery that specializes in the works of twentieth century German and Austrian artists, and so is knowledgeable about her subject, but some of her assertions, such as that the notion of Gesamtkunstwerk served as a starting point for the establishment of the Werkstätte, may be disputed. The book is divided into five parts: background, history,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 architecture, fashion, and the graphic arts. Includes detailed notes and an excellent chronology. Neuwirth, Waltraud. Wiener Werkstätte: Avant-Garde, Art Deco, Industrial Design. Translated by Andrew Smith. Vienna: Neuwirth, 1984. Catalog of designs from the archives of the Wiener Werkstätte in the Austrian Museum of Applied Art in Vienna. Presents a wide range of styles, from Art Nouveau to proto-Art Deco, but most are uniquely the creations of the designers and artists. Includes examples of furniture, lace, pottery, jewelry, silver, enamel work, and graphics. Schweiger, Werner J. Wiener Werkstaette: Design in Vienna, 1903-1932. Translated by Alexander Lieven. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984. One of the most comprehensive works available in English on the Werkstätte. Schweiger, a native Austrian, is obviously enamored of his subject; this makes some of his
Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising observations open to question. Includes brief biographies of artists associated with the Werkstätte. Profusely illustrated. Sekler, Eduard Franz. Josef Hoffmann. Translated by E. G. Sekler. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. A comprehensive study of Hoffmann’s life, philosophy, and works. Focuses on Hoffmann’s architectural creations, with the Palais Stoclet receiving extensive coverage. Excellent appendixes, including considerable primary material concerning Hoffmann. Many detailed black-and-white photographs. See also: 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea. 1903
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Scott Publishes THE THEORY OF ADVERTISING By placing advertising on a scientific basis, Walter Dill Scott taught American businesspeople how to manipulate consumers’ tastes and buying habits. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts Categories: Marketing and advertising; publishing and journalism Key Figures Walter Dill Scott (1869-1955), American professor of psychology and education Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), German professor of psychology at the University of Leipzig Summary of Event Walter Dill Scott received his Ph.D. in 1900 at the University of Leipzig, where he studied under the famous Wilhelm Wundt, who was attempting to make an exact science of psychology. Scott was fascinated with the potential of this budding science and devoted his life to studying its principles. He was associate professor of psychology and education at the prestigious Northwestern University from 1901 to 1908, professor of psychology at Northwestern from 1908 to 1920, and president of that university from 1921 until he retired in 1939. Scott published many books on the application of scientific psychological principles to business practice. He
was imbued with the spirit of progress that characterized the early part of the twentieth century and sincerely believed that the free enterprise system would provide nothing but good things for the American people. Several of his books dealt with the subject of advertising, and all were popular with businesspeople because he offered advice that was badly needed and unavailable from other sources. Advertising was in its infancy in the early part of the twentieth century. Many businesspeople understood its awesome potential, but no one understood how to make it work effectively and predictably. It was not enough merely to attract attention to a product; businesspeople wanted to know how to make potential consumers remember their products and desire them to the extent that they would purchase them instead of competitors’ products, perhaps even paying a premium for the privilege. In Scott’s first book on advertising, The Theory of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising (1903), he offered six fundamental rules for attracting attention. He went on to discuss in simple language how to make a product remembered, how to make it desirable, and how to motivate buyers to act. One reason for the success of Scott’s books on advertising was that they were copiously illustrated with ad195
Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising vertisements taken from popular newspapers and magazines. Television did not yet exist, and radio advertising was insignificant until the 1920’s; print was thus the primary medium for advertising. Furthermore, advertising of the early twentieth century was mainly illustrated with line drawings or black-and-white sketches, because printing in colors and reproduction of photographs were both in primitive stages of development. Essentially, magazines published “institutional ads,” or ads designed to create appealing images of companies, and newspapers published “retail ads,” or ads designed to motivate people to make immediate purchases. The illustrations in Scott’s books show the dominant forms of advertising of the period. Scott’s first book on advertising had a powerful impact on American businesspeople for other reasons as well. Scott had a distinguished reputation as an innovator in both education and psychology. His book was well written, easy for laypersons to understand, and illustrated with actual advertisements that were often amusing as well as thought-provoking. Scott not only explained his theories in clear terms but also proved them, or at least illustrated their applicability, with numerous examples. Being an expert in the field of applied psychology, he knew how to apply his own psychological principles to influence his readers. Furthermore, he made it obvious that advertising as it existed in 1903 was very much a hit-and-miss operation. No one in the business world knew how to obtain results with advertising on a consistent basis. Readers could clearly see that Scott knew what he was talking about. If an ad he reprinted in his book was effective, he explained why it was effective; if an ad was ineffective or actually repellent, he explained exactly why this was the case based on the psychological principles he expounded. The ads reproduced in Scott’s books may seem quaint and innocuous to modern readers in comparison with dynamic television advertising campaigns that sometimes cost millions of dollars. The principles of psychological manipulation laid down by Scott and illustrated in these advertisements, however, can be seen at work even in the most recent products of twenty-first century advertising agencies. It is easy for modern readers of Scott’s books to understand why particular ads would have been effective and why others would have been a waste of the advertisers’ money. Scott discussed the importance of using direct commands in ads, such as “Buy it now!” In his explications of certain ads, he showed how the use of a picture of an au196
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 thority figure, such as a doctor, can enhance the effectiveness of direct commands. He discussed the art of using coupons and questionnaires in ads to help readers remember products through interaction with the products’ makers. He also pointed out the importance of repetition, one of the most annoying but also most effective aspects of modern advertising on television. In later books on advertising, Scott went even deeper into applied psychology. Probably his most portentous observations had to do with the notion of appealing to basic human instincts such as self-preservation, hunting, parenting, and gaining social status. It is now common practice for marketers to appeal to human instincts to sell almost any kind of product or service. For example, an ad that shows a group of happy and obviously affluent people drinking a certain brand of wine at a dinner party will probably appeal to the viewer’s desire to belong and to be important. Ads showing people buying their children expensive clothing or driving them to school in luxury cars appeal to the viewer’s parental instinct. Because advertising was still in its infancy at the time he was writing, the idealistic and well-meaning Scott did
Walter Dill Scott. (Library of Congress)
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could use advertising to raise profits by increasing demand without improving quality. It may truthfully be said that advertising, using psychological principles first enunciated by Scott, revolutionized American business. Beer provides some good examples of the power of advertising because it is such a heavily advertised product. At one time, thousands of small local breweries operated in the United States; with mass advertising, the market came to be dominated by only a few well-known brands. Large companies can afford expensive advertising campaigns to keep their names in the public’s mind. The world of franchising offers another good example of the power of advertising. It was mainly through advertising that the American landscape came to be covered with franchises of national firms, McDonald’s and other fast-food outlets prominent among them. Although these enterprises are independently owned, the owners have found it profitable to operate under a common name precisely because that common name can be made known to the public. Travelers in unfamiliar surroundings know what they will get at a McDonald’s restaurant; they do not have to risk trying a local establishment. Scott was essentially a scholar and idealist. He did not foresee the harmful ways in which his psychological theories could be used by entrepreneurs who are more interested in profit than in science. It was not long after The Theory of Advertising was published that outcries were heard against abuses of advertising. Over the years, critics of advertising have made many charges. They have claimed that advertising encourages materialism, greed, and selfishness; that it contributes to environmental decay by encouraging consumption and waste; that it promotes alcohol and tobacco consumption and thus contributes to the deaths of half a million Americans annually; that it perpetuates class differences by tempting low-income people to waste their money on lotteries, liquor, and other products; and that it encourages class hatred by creating dissatisfaction, envy, and insecurity. Advertisers defend themselves by noting that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees their freedom of speech. The sheer power of advertising to shape people’s minds, however, did bring about a counterreaction that gradually forced some measures of government regulation and self-regulation by the industry. In 1912, the Associated Advertising Clubs of America adopted the “Truth in Advertising Code” in an attempt to protect members from more stringent regulation by the government. In 1938, the Wheeler-Lea Act gave the Federal Trade Commission jurisdiction over false or mislead197
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Significance Many of Scott’s ideas on the use of applied psychology in advertising seem elementary and obvious to modern readers, who are bombarded by sophisticated television commercials and many other forms of advertising. In Scott’s time, however, the principles he expounded came as a revelation to many businesspeople, who knew that advertising was the secret of success but did not understand exactly how to use it. Within a short time after The Theory of Advertising was published, many companies began employing advertising experts rather than leaving ad creation up to their merchandising departments. Others found it expedient to employ the services of independent agencies that specialized in every aspect of advertising, including layout, illustration, copywriting, market testing, and deciding in which publications to place ads in order to reach specially targeted consumers. These agencies prospered because they could offer their services free of charge to their clients; they customarily received payment from the media—the newspapers and magazines, and later radio and television stations—in the form of a percentage of the fees charged to the clients. Advertising began to reshape Americans’ consciousness. People were conditioned to want more and better things. Automobile advertising is an interesting example. Manufacturers stopped bragging about the durability of cars and began appealing to such instincts as the desire for prestige and the desire to appeal to members of the opposite sex. Advertising helped produce the phenomenon of planned obsolescence by magnifying minor stylistic changes in automobile design in order to make older models seem undesirable. At first, advertising was largely confined to newspapers, magazines, and billboards. With the advent of radio and especially with television, advertising became a powerful force in manipulating not only American buying habits but also American voting habits. Political candidates found that they had to hire advertising experts to shape their public images and present them to the public in an appealing light. Advertising enabled some companies to grow so much that they were able to drive smaller competitors out of business. Many businesspeople learned that they
Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising
Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising ing advertising. In 1971, the National Advertising Review Council was established; this independent selfregulatory body for the advertising industry was formed through an alliance of the Council of Better Business Bureaus with the Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and the American Advertising Federation. In 1970, after considerable debate, cigarette ads were banned from U.S. radio and television. In 1976, the Federal Trade Commission issued a set of rules on the preparation of advertising directed at children. At the end of the twentieth century, some commentators began to raise questions about the ethics of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Advertising on the Internet was a topic of discussion as well, one that is ongoing in the twenty-first century; although American advertisers are legally and ethically required to meet the same standards as those for other media when creating Internet ads, the nature of the Internet makes enforcement of those standards very difficult. The heated debate over advertising continues. Defenders of the rights of advertisers contend that government censorship limits the free circulation of ideas and could lead to consumers’ being misinformed or unaware of beneficial opportunities. Further, they claim that advertising stimulates the economy, creates jobs, encourages the creation of new goods and services, keeps the public informed of important developments in commerce and politics, and promotes wholesome competition for the consumer’s dollar. Those who blame advertising for a multitude of modern problems—including crime, pollution, and trade deficits—call for censorship and regulation. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm went so far as to suggest that advertising could be responsible for insanity, because its overall effect is to create a false conception of reality, which leads to frustration and disorientation. The debate over advertising will not be settled by any easy solutions or compromises. Both the U.S. economy and the world economy are so heavily dependent on advertising that massive regulation of the advertising industry could easily plunge the entire industrialized world into economic depression. Still, governments, including that of the United States, have forced cigarette makers to include messages in their advertising about the adverse health effects of smoking, and, after court judgments against cigarette companies, many have been obliged not only to pay billions in settlements but also to advertise explicit information on the dangers of smoking. Many industries, sensing a need to be more socially conscious, 198
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 have voluntarily allied themselves with popular causes in their advertising. Oil companies, for example, have noted in their advertising how their drilling is compatible with caring for the environment. —Bill Delaney Further Reading Goulart, Ron. The Assault on Childhood. London: Gollancz, 1970. Discusses the many ways in which children are being psychologically manipulated to equate consumerism with success and happiness, along with being conditioned to crave useless products such as Pet Rocks and even harmful products such as cigarettes. Calls for greater public awareness of the growing problem and stronger government control. Jacobson, Jacob Z. Scott of Northwestern: The Life Story of a Pioneer in Psychology and Education. Chicago: L. Mariano, 1951. This first full-length biography of Walter Dill Scott has been criticized for being too laudatory of the subject’s contributions to the science of psychology. Based on notes compiled by Scott himself. James, William. Essays in Psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Collection of writings on psychology by an author whose theories strongly influenced Scott. Shows the scope of psychological knowledge in the early twentieth century, its direction of inquiry, and James’s ideas about the practical application of psychological principles. Ogilvy, David. Confessions of an Advertising Man. Reprint. London: Southbank, 2004. The founder of one of the world’s largest advertising agencies discusses the psychological aspects of advertising and concludes with a chapter titled “Should Advertising Be Abolished?” in which he asserts that it should be reformed but not abolished. A witty, entertaining, and informative book. Scott, Walter Dill. The Psychology of Advertising. New ed. Boston: Small, Maynard, 1913. An enlarged version of Scott’s 1903 work, with additions and modifications. Contains many illustrations of magazine ads of the period, along with Scott’s analyses of their effectiveness. Sivulka, Juliann. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1997. Examines how advertising both mirrors and creates American society. Discusses the growth of advertising, the introduction of products and brands, and how ads reflect and influence cultural trends. Illustrated with more than 150 advertisements.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-inAdvertising Code; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1923:
Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising.
1903
Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in MAN AND SUPERMAN George Bernard Shaw regarded the writing of plays as a means to communicate serious ideas as well as to entertain, and in Man and Superman he presented to his audiences notions of human behavior based in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Locale: London, England Categories: Theater; philosophy
Summary of Event When George Bernard Shaw wrote Man and Superman (pb. 1903), he found little interest among producers in London. The play was long and somewhat short on action. An actor once complained that Shaw’s plays lacked entrances and exits—that is, occasions for actors to storm on and off stage in tempests punctuated by soliloquies. In 1905, however, an American actor, Robert Loraine, successfully promoted a production of Man and Superman in New York, and in 1907 it had another successful run at Harley Granville-Barker’s Court Theatre in London. With the success of Man and Superman, Shaw was clearly established as a playwright of some note. The play has been called one of the best comedies of the first half of the twentieth century; it was certainly the first play in which Shaw began to espouse a Nietzschean philosophy built around the ideas of creative evolution and the life force (the élan vital of Henri Bergson). According to this philosophy, the life force (Shaw’s conception of God) permeates the universe and provides the impetus for creative development, or evolution. Shaw was also interested in biological evolution, to the point of advocating voluntary efforts at eugenics.
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Key Figures George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, socialist, and social commentator Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946), English actor and comanager of the Court Theatre who premiered many new and controversial plays in London
These ideas are also clearly related to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche concerning the Übermensch, or Superman. Nietzsche was convinced that modern culture was decadent and that the human race was losing its genius to the mediocrity of mass production and popular culture, and he presented these ideas in works such as Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft (1886; Beyond Good and Evil, 1907) and Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen (1883-1885; Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1896). Driven by the life force, the Superman would cast aside the restraints of decadent morality and custom and allow his instinctive urges to guide him to new heights of creativity. Such a person must reject all altruistic ethics, such as Christianity’s “turning the other cheek,” which Nietzsche regarded as weak and feminine. Ultimately, the Superman must regard his goal as too important to be compromised by concern about the means of achieving it. (Nietzsche was too sophisticated to allow this to become merely a matter of expediency, but his disciples have not always been capable of such distinctions.) Shaw once denied ever having read Nietzsche, but he published a positive review of an English edition of the philosopher’s works in 1896. Nietzsche’s epigrams were, Shaw said, “written with phosphorus on brimstone.” In his usual deprecatory way, he added, “The only excuse for reading them is that before long you must be prepared either to talk about Nietzsche or else retire from society.” Nietzschean ideas are scattered throughout Man and Superman, but those ideas are also parodied in the play; Shaw was unlikely to adopt anyone’s ideas slavishly. Man and Superman is a play in four acts. Acts 1, 2, and 4 chronicle the rather comical courtship and adventures of John Tanner and Ann Whitefield. Act 3, the most famous, is a dream of Hell, with Tanner and Don Juan and the other major characters as themselves or in recognizable form. It is in this act that Shaw provides a direct discussion of Nietzschean ideas, largely in dialogues between Don Juan and the Devil. Don Juan sees human
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Charlotte, celibate. Moreover, not only did Nietzsche regard the altruistic aspect George Bernard Shaw appended to the published version of Man and Suof human nature as feminine, but he was perman a piece titled “The Revolutionist’s Handbook and Pocket Comalso suffering from syphilis, a fate he panion,” purportedly written by one of the play’s characters, John Tanner, seems to have blamed on the woman “M.I.R.C.” (“Member of the Idle Rich Class”). Shaw used this work to arfrom whom he caught the disease and, ticulate further his philosophical beliefs, including those on marriage, as by extension, womankind. in this excerpt. Ultimately, the word battle is won by Tanner, who establishes that progress There is no evidence that the best citizens are the offspring of congenial depends on biological evolution. Only marriages, or that a conflict of temperament is not a highly important part when that occurs can intellectual creof what breeders call crossing. On the contrary, it is quite sufficiently probable that good results may be obtained from parents who would be exativity move to a new paradigm. Unfortremely unsuitable companions and partners, to make it certain that the extunately for him, the other characters, inperiment of mating them will sooner or later be tried purposely almost as tent on mouthing their own views, fail to often as it is now tried accidentally. But mating such couples must clearly notice. This is, perhaps, Shaw’s way of not involve marrying them. In conjugation two complementary persons saying that those who saw reality at the may supply one another’s deficiencies: in the domestic partnership of marbeginning of the twentieth century were riage they only feel them and suffer from them. Thus the son of a robust, the Cassandras of the day. cheerful, eupeptic British country squire, with the tastes and range of his Although the “Don Juan in Hell” epiclass, and of a clever, imaginative, intellectual, highly civilized Jewess, sode is usually the part of the play that is might be very superior to both his parents; but it is not likely that the Jewcited as Nietzschean, Shaw uses, and in a ess would find the squire an interesting companion, or his habits, his sense sends up, the philosopher’s ideas in friends, his place and mode of life congenial to her. Therefore marriage, whilst it is made an indispensable condition of mating, will delay the adthe rest of the play as well. Superficially, vent of the Superman as effectually as Property, and will be modified by acts 1, 2, and 4 are a romantic comedy. the impulse towards him just as effectually. Ann rejects the idealistic Octavius RobinThe practical abrogation of Property and Marriage as they exist at presson, who is deeply smitten by her charms, ent will occur without being much noticed. To the mass of men, the intelliand pursues Tanner. For most of the play, gent abolition of property would mean nothing except an increase in the the only one who perceives Ann’s intenquantity of food, clothing, housing, and comfort at their personal disposal, tions is Henry Straker, Tanner’s chaufas well as a greater control over their time and circumstances. feur. Straker clearly shares the role of Source: George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy Shavian hero, for he sarcastically ex(New York: Brentano’s, 1903). poses the truth and is amused by the fact that no one heeds him when he does. Ann, however, is the true Übermensch of the play. She does not hesitate to progress coming from the evolution of the artist and man scheme and lie to further her plans. She allows, even enof action into a Superman, but the Devil argues that escourages, poor “Tavy” (Robinson) to think he is her cape from the dreary world comes only in diversion. choice because she wishes to camouflage her real intenBoth agree that the morality and convention of society tions. If the Superman casts aside convention and allows are stultifying and must be ignored by those who expect instinct, the most direct contact people have with the life to grow. force, to guide conduct, then in Man and Superman, Ann Nietzschean/Shavian misogyny appears in the asseris the Superman. Male patronization comes through in tion that women are dominated by the reproductive inthe fact that Ann’s instinct is to use any means necessary stinct. There is no thought of women fleeing motherhood to establish a sexual relationship with the man who apor combining it with other creativity, although in Tanpears most likely to give her superior children, and her ner’s “Revolutionist’s Handbook” (which is appended to energies are not turned to any other sort of creativity. the play), it is suggested that marriage and childbearing Tanner, who is often seen as the Nietzschean figure in the should be separated. Instincts about mating should not be play, denounces convention and insists that he intends to blocked by convention and morality. It might be noted remain free of family and sexual obligations so that he can pursue his work of revolution. When the chips are that Shaw’s marriage was, at the insistence of his wife,
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down, however, he docilely accepts not only Ann but also marriage, ignoring his own handbook, in which he rejects the connection between mating and marriage. Perhaps his surrender is really to his own instincts concerning reproduction, but if so, the fact is ignored in the play. At the end of act 4, Tanner seems to be resigned to his fate and agrees to the conventional relationship that Ann expects—as, apparently, so does he.
Plays were becoming a means of political expression for Shaw. In 1884, he had joined the Fabian Society, a group of largely middle-class socialists who were inclined to think that the way to a socialist economy was mostly education; ultimately, the Fabian Society would be one of the major elements in the organization of the Labour Party. The elitism of Man and Superman, however, points up the idiosyncratic nature of Shaw’s socialism. Despite the working-class character of Straker, little of the play suggests that the author had much faith in the virtues of the proletariat. Nevertheless, Shaw was an effective publicist for and supporter of the Fabians for many years. Although the philosophy of Man and Superman may not have fit Shaw’s socialist principles perfectly, the play did have a part in introducing Nietzsche in England and the United States. Shaw introduced the word “Superman” into English. (He first tried “Overman,” which actually gives a better sense of the meaning of the Nietzschean term.) Shaw was particularly attracted to the ideas of the life force and hero in Nietzsche’s work, and Tanner’s “Revolutionist’s Handbook” is clearly modeled on parts of Beyond Good and Evil. The Shavian hero is often more practical than the sort of Superman Nietzsche seems to be describing, but he is the type who drives toward his goals with little concern for the mores and folkways of his own culture. Clearly, Nietzsche would approve. Shaw gave the Nietzschean life force something of an English twist. In Shaw’s plays, the life force is a matter of practical courage that might be founded on foolhardiness or preoccupation. Either might lead a hero to ignore danger. In neither Man and Superman nor his other Nietzschean play, Back to Methuselah (pb. 1921), does he drift into the contemplation of the eternal in the fashion of Nietzsche. Shaw’s Superman is practical and draws his ideas from common sense. He may, in good British fashion, muddle through. Man and Superman was an important work. St. John Erving suggests that it may be one of the three best comedies of the first half of the twentieth century. It helped to popularize Nietzschean philosophy in the Englishspeaking world and was part of the beginning of a movement to translate serious philosophical ideas into dramatic form. Finally, it was part of the burst of creative activity that established George Bernard Shaw as a major playwright and social commentator; previously, he had been generally regarded as clever but superficial. The published play was his first book success, with five printings in two years. Shaw would remain a respected
Significance The success of Man and Superman was part of a series of critical and economic successes for Shaw in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His plays of the period included Mrs. Warren’s Profession (pb. 1898), Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (pr. 1900), Candida: A Mystery (pr. 1897), John Bull’s Other Island (pr. 1904), and Major Barbara (pr. 1905). This burst of success resulted in Shaw’s never again having to worry about his place in the literary world or about his financial security. Shaw’s marriage in 1898, which provided him with personal and economic stability, seems to have been another factor in his productivity.
George Bernard Shaw. (Library of Congress)
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writer, philosopher, and critic, and by the time of his death in 1950, he had become one of the world’s bestknown writers. Revivals of his plays are common, and much of his work remains widely read. —Fred R. van Hartesveldt
of more than two hundred of Shaw’s contemporaries with whom he had significant associations. Holroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw: The Pursuit of Power. New York: Random House, 1989. This is the second volume of an excellent three-volume scholarly biography. Thoroughly researched, very detailed, and quite insightful. Covers the years 1898-1918, and so is of particular importance to those interested in Man and Superman. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1966. The most accessible of Nietzsche’s major works and the model for John Tanner’s “Revolutionist’s Handbook.” Excellent introduction to Nietzsche’s thought; provides a foundation for further study. Shaw, George Bernard. Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy. 1903. Reprint. Introduction by Stanley Weintraub. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. Complete edition of the play, including all four acts, the “Epistle Dedicatory to Arthur Bingham Walkley,” which stands as a preface, and “The Revolutionist’s Handbook.” The introduction in this edition is provided by a prominent scholar of Shaw’s work. Solomon, Robert C., ed. Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. A compilation of comments about Nietzsche by noted thinkers. Includes Shaw’s review titled “Nietzsche in English,” which was published in Saturday Review in 1896. Anyone interested in Nietzsche will find useful pieces in this volume.
Further Reading Bentley, Eric Russell. A Century of Hero Worship. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1944. This description of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ cult of admiration of great men devotes only a chapter particularly to Shaw. Bentley’s comments about other English thinkers, such as Thomas Carlyle, are valuable for the insights and background they provide to the ideas of Shaw. Durant, Will. “Friedrich Nietzsche.” In The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers. 2d ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953. Although his work is perhaps marred by occasional oversimplification, Durant is greatly skilled at presenting the ideas of his subject in a readable form. Nietzsche’s thought is, to say the least, arcane, and an introduction such as Durant’s chapter is welcome. Erving, St. John. Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work, and Friends. New York: William Morrow, 1956. Erving was personally acquainted with Shaw and a successful critic himself. He admires his subject but is willing to be critical. He includes significant amounts of literary criticism about Shaw’s work, and his lengthy digressions into the lives of Shaw’s friends are both interesting and useful background. A readable and informative biography. Gibbs, A. M. A Bernard Shaw Chronology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. A comprehensive account of Shaw’s life, career, and associations. Draws on a wide range of published and unpublished material to describe Shaw’s extraordinary career as playwright, novelist, orator, political activist, social commentator, and avant-garde thinker. Includes brief sketches
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See also: Dec. 27, 1904: Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival; Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; Jan. 2, 1933: Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s.
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Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel
1903
Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel Konstantin Tsiolkovsky determined by mathematical calculation that the use of liquid propellants was necessary to launch rockets into space. Locale: Kaluga, Russia Categories: Science and technology; space and aviation Key Figure Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), Russian scientist
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Summary of Event Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is one of the three men most often credited with the formulation of rocket theory, along with Robert H. Goddard, an American, and Hermann Oberth, a German. Tsiolkovsky and Goddard both suffered severe diseases in childhood, both became teachers, and both maintained a total dedication to spaceflight. As a young child, Tsiolkovsky was known by the nickname “Bird” for his characteristic flitting movements and lightheartedness. When he was ten years old, however, he contracted scarlet fever, which left him deaf. As a result, he developed a severely limited view of life and buried himself in books. Tsiolkovsky credited to his deafness his dedication to rocket theory formulation and, therefore, his success in that endeavor. His isolation from other people meant that he never participated in most of the social aspects of life. Tsiolkovsky discovered that because of limitations in the literature, it was easier to prove his theories physically than to perform research with the available resources. The young scholar was sent to Moscow to study mathematics and physics; he then added astronomy to his areas of research. Tsiolkovsky believed that, through spaceflight, humans could claim the heavens. It was partially because he lacked funds for materials for experimentation that the young scientist proved his theories mathematically, recording his thinking in meticulously kept journals. When he did perform experiments, he financed them by cutting back on his food allowance, and after a time this caused him to weaken and become ill. Before he was sent home to recuperate, however, he had an experience that allowed him to envision his theory of spaceflight. He was sitting in a city park, watching a crowd of teenagers hopping off a hay wagon. As each youngster jumped off, the wagon lurched forward slightly. It was at that moment that Isaac Newton’s law of
action and reaction came to life for Tsiolkovsky, and he realized what would be needed to propel a rocket into space. In 1879, Tsiolkovsky passed a test for certification as a teacher without ever having attended school himself. As his deafness was a problem, most of his teaching consisted of lectures. When on a rare occasion he asked a question of one of his students, the pupil would have to stand at his side and shout a response into his left ear. Tsiolkovsky’s dedication extended to his expending his meager salary on experimental materials for his classes. His theorizing never ceased. He rose early to study, teach classes, and perform familial duties, and then he experimented in the evenings. Members of the Society for Physics and Chemistry in St. Petersburg heard of Tsiolkovsky through one of his papers, but unfortunately they became enraged because he seemingly had presumed to write a paper on a subject already proven and had called his work original. They later realized, however, that his work was indeed original—he apparently had not known that the theory he set out to prove had already been proven. He was saved by the fact that he had proved the theory using an approach that was entirely different from the original approach. In other words, he had reinvented a concept because of his nonsystematic self-teaching, which was not always well balanced and left gaps in his knowledge. Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev was impressed with Tsiolkovsky and led the drive to gain unanimous approval among the members for the young man’s acceptance into the elite scientific society. In 1885, Tsiolkovsky dedicated himself to aviation, and for two years he spent every moment theorizing about and creating an all-metal piloted balloon. He presented his first public lecture on this project, titled “The Theory of the Aerostat,” at the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow in 1887. Following his lectures and heavy twoyear workload, he contracted a serious illness and lost his voice for a year. He also lost his library and models when his house burned. The only work saved was the lecture he had presented in Moscow. In 1892, Tsiolkovsky moved to Kaluga, where he took up teaching posts at a high school and at a school for the daughters of clergy. This was an exciting move for him, as Kaluga was a busy industrial city with communications with the outside
Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel world. For the first time since his illness, be regained his earlier vigor, and his scientific research escalated. In 1894 he presented “Aeroplan ili ptitsepodobnaya (aviatsionnaya) letatelnaya mashina” (the airplane or a birdlike flying machine), in which he discussed his design for a monoplane, a project that did not appear elsewhere for another twenty years. He also constructed the first wind tunnel in Russia in order to study aerodynamic principles of flight. In 1898 he presented “Issledovanie mirovykh prostranstv reaktivnymi priborami” (exploration of space with reactive devices). Unfortunately, this work was not published until 1903, partially because of its highly technical nature. There was little reaction, although Goddard’s paper “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” published in the same period of time, created a furor.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Between 1903 and 1933, ideas on the fundamentals of space travel flowed from Tsiolkovsky. His was a unique genius in that he could recognize the truth of an idea without requiring experimental testing. Whereas Goddard translated his ideas into tangible products, Tsiolkovsky usually had only his notebooks for proof of his endless creativity. Throughout his years of study and research, he repeatedly returned to the idea of an aerostat, a metalskinned balloon. Tsiolkovsky’s written works are numerous; however, in “Issledovanie mirovykh prostranstv reaktivnymi priborami” he proposed several unique advanced ideas. One of the most important theories included in this work is that only reaction devices would function both within the atmosphere and in space. He also proposed that the black-powder fuels in use at the time would not be suffi-
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky with a model of an early rocket. (Library of Congress)
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Significance Tsiolkovsky’s theories of spaceflight were the basis for actual early flight. Unfortunately, the scientific community did not recognize his work, even after the initial publication of his 1903 paper on liquid-fuel rockets and their design. It was not until 1924, when Oberth republished his work, in both German and Russian, that Tsiolkovsky was termed “the father of space travel.” It was his persistence that made the world examine the possibilities of spaceflight. This same kind of persistence has characterized all human efforts to conquer space.
Because of the remarkable accuracy of Tsiolkovsky’s theories on liquid-fuel rocketry and the success of the technology developed based on his theories, his more far-reaching, somewhat fantastical ideas have not been entirely dismissed. For example, his papers speculating about “unknown intelligent forces” have influenced some modern scientists to pursue the likelihood that there may be intelligent extraterrestrial life in the universe. Tsiolkovsky also predicted the possibility of the establishment of space stations that would serve as interplanetary way stations, servicing rockets en route between planets. He suggested that these could be constructed in space from prefabricated sections carried aloft by large rocket-powered spacecraft. The visionary scientist described his impression of weightlessness, which was remarkably accurate. He surmised that plants grown on a space station, in support of planetary cities and colonies, would grow quickly because of lack of gravity. Solar hothouses on a space station would be closer to the Sun and could grow food and regenerate air for colonization. Liquid-fuel rocket theory made human spaceflight possible. The reduction of mass in relation to velocity made escape from the earth’s gravity a reality. Using liquid as coolant and then as fuel lowered the lift-off weight as well. Both Tsiolkovsky’s “rocket train” and “rocket squadron” multistage configurations, using liquid fuel, made possible the immense thrust necessary to launch a manned spaceflight. From Tsiolkovsky’s observation of Soviet teenagers at play and his subsequent vision of reaction motion, locomotion of spacecraft within the vacuum of space is now a reality. The gliding reentry that Tsiolkovsky envisioned has been used routinely for the safe return of the American space shuttle. The memorial built in Tsiolkovsky’s honor following his death quotes his belief that “mankind will not remain bound to the earth.” Just three years before his death, Tsiolkovsky finally won renown as a Soviet national hero. His determination that humans should not remain earthbound and his persistence in proving the possibilities of space travel strongly influenced modern space technology, as evidenced by the U.S. government’s space shuttle program and by the global cooperation brought to bear in the development of the International Space Station. In fact, the full effects of his remarkable insight and genius have not yet come to fruition, as humankind continues to explore his visions. —Ellen F. Mitchum 205
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cient to carry a rocket into space. He went on to suggest the use of the best liquid propellants. Tsiolkovsky decided that hydrocarbons would be the best explosives, citing problems with hydrogen and the limitations of oxygen. Hydrogen would be difficult to store, because it evaporates quickly. It also absorbs energy when going to the gaseous state, when, at that point, energy is needed. Oxygen would be useful in that it could be used as a coolant in addition to providing air for pilots. It would be necessary in upper-atmospheric flight; it is also extremely combustible, giving off heat, not absorbing it like hydrogen. He discarded the notion of using high-pressure gases, because of the need for heavy, sealed containers that would increase the launch weight. He concluded that, although hydrocarbons would produce 20 percent less thrust, their volatility and lower container weight requirements made them the best fuel. He went on to suggest the use of superheated water for initial tests, cutting costs of launches, and predicted a maximum range of 60 kilometers (37.3 miles). Tsiolkovsky described the parameters of liquid-fuel rocket components, including the “explosion tube,” which, he suggested, should be a cone. In a cone with at least a one-degree angle, the combustion pressure would be exerted on the entire inner surface. The cone should be as long as possible, and the length could be assisted with bends in the structure when needed. Tsiolkovsky also noted the need to pump explosives into the combustion chamber to overcome the pressure of explosion. The fuel pump would actually require limited power and could be an airplane-type engine. He also detailed the control system, including three rudders that would function on takeoff, in space, and for a gliding reentry: horizontal rudder, direction rudder, and lateral stability rudder. Their sizes would correspond to the sizes of airplane rudders. In short, Tsiolkovsky described, in 1903, the fundamental systems that were used many years later for early rocket spaceflight.
Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel
Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory Further Reading Finney, B., V. Lytkin, and L. Finney. “Tsiolkovsky and Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” Acta Astronautica 46 (June, 2000): 745-749. Discusses Tsiolkovsky’s belief that life exists throughout the cosmos and that humans are surrounded by intelligent extraterrestrial species. Gruntman, Mike. Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry. Reston, Va.: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2004. Relates the events that paved the way for human beings to begin exploring space. Describes the early work in rocketry science of Tsiolkovsky and others. Ley, Willy. Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel. New York: Viking Press, 1951. The author is known as probably the most prolific writer of space history. This college-level text is very readable, yet it is dense with information. Details the history of rocketry from the early conceptions. Contains technical tables. Ordway, Frederick J., III, and Mitchell R. Sharpe. The Rocket Team. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1979. This is a detailed history of the development of the V-2 rocket, with developmental references to Tsiolkovsky. College-level reading, with fascinating black-and-white photographs. An excellent resource
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 for readers interested in the history of rocket development. Thomas, Shirley. Men of Space. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1960. These detailed biographies of selected men shed light on their extraordinary work. Those featured in this collection were chosen for inclusion by their colleagues based on their contributions to space exploration. Some are well known, whereas others are acknowledged more by the scientific community than by the general public. Tsiolkovsky, K. E. Works on Rocket Technology. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1965. This is a NASA technical translation of a compilation of Tsiolkovsky’s work. The information is easy to follow; written for the college level. Winter, Frank H. The First Golden Age of Rocketry. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. This is a history of the Congreve rocket and practical developments in the field of rocketry. This is another side of the story of rocketry, necessary for a complete understanding of the topic. Refers to Tsiolkovsky, in passing, as a dreamer. See also: Mar. 16, 1926: Launching of the First LiquidFueled Rocket.
1903-1904
Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory George Ellery Hale built several telescopes that served as tools for observation and developed new techniques for building more powerful telescopes. Locale: Mount Wilson, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figure George Ellery Hale (1868-1938), American astronomer and inventor Summary of Event In the late nineteenth century, observational astronomy had not advanced far beyond Galileo’s first telescope in either power or design. The majority of the powerful telescopes were still small, refracting designs. These telescopes were very similar to those used by ship captains; each contained a fixed eyepiece lens and an adjustable lens that could be positioned to focus the light of an image onto the eyepiece. Larger, more powerful reflect206
ing telescopes were being designed and built; in such a telescope a concave mirror is used to collect light from an object and focus the light onto a series of lenses or an adjustable eyepiece. The telescopes of this period were still individual instruments, primarily powerful eyes without any ability to analyze the visual information they received. Other instruments of physics and chemistry had not yet been coupled with telescopes to exploit their powerful view of the universe. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1890, George Ellery Hale moved to Chicago. At MIT, Hale had access to the 15-inch (38centimeter) refracting scope at Harvard and the experience of Harvard’s astronomers. In Chicago, Hale became involved in the building of a 40-inch (102centimeter) reflecting telescope. The telescope was built at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in conjunction with William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago; major funding was provided by Charles Yerkes. In 1903,
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George Ellery Hale in his Mount Wilson office.
with the success of the Yerkes telescope, Hale left Chicago to establish an observatory at Mount Wilson, California. The building of an observatory at Mount Wilson was initially funded by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The decision to build the observatory atop Mount Wilson was based on the mountain’s elevation, terrain, and proximity to Pasadena. The elevation was considered ideal because it placed the observatory above the clouds, which otherwise would interfere with viewing. This location, more than a mile above the bordering valley, afforded the observatory additional clear days for observing. Another key feature of the mountain was the large amount of trees and other plant life growing there. This vegetation helped to absorb radiant heat; that is, most of the heat reflected from the earth was absorbed by the mountain’s abundant foliage. This ability of the mountain to absorb heat meant that the observatory could be designed for both stellar and solar observation. Solar observation is easily hindered by waves of heat reflecting
back from the earth and distorting the rays of light coming into a solar telescope. The Mount Wilson site minimized this problem. The third advantage of the Mount Wilson site was its proximity to Pasadena, home of the recently established California Institute of Technology. Pasadena was also a major city with access to rail transportation, many large manufacturing companies, and industrial shops. It was an ideal location for the workshops and business offices of the Mount Wilson Observatory. The first project Hale undertook was the moving of the Snow solar telescope to Mount Wilson. The telescope was disassembled at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, where it had been built, and the parts were shipped to Pasadena and transported up the mountain to be reassembled. The pieces arrived in Pasadena by train, but the trip up the mountain was a more primitive journey, involving mules and wagons struggling up winding dirt roads, often delayed by accidents along the route. When the Snow telescope was rebuilt and began ob207
Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory servations near the end of 1903, Hale immediately encountered his first major design problem. The telescope was horizontally designed and rested on the ground in the midst of heat waves reflected off the earth. The California heat became so intense during the middle part of the day that the mirrors of the telescope expanded and distorted, and observation had to be limited to early morning and evening. Hale was disappointed by this brief amount of observation time and also by the quality of the images the telescope was producing. He hypothesized that elevating the telescope would bring it out of the most intense waves of heat and provide cleaner images. To test his idea, he climbed a tall evergreen with a small telescope in hand and compared the image he saw from the top of the tree with the one he had observed at its foot. The experiment convinced him that he was correct in his theory, and he began construction of a trial elevated solar telescope. This new telescope was built as a 60-foot (18-meter) tower. That is, the tower itself was the telescope, and its immovable nature required Hale to rethink traditional telescope designs. The final version of the telescope consisted of a rotating dome atop the tower that housed a mirror for gathering light. This light was reflected down a shaft to the base of the tower, where it was focused by a series of lenses and mirrors. Hale’s innovative design was a great success, allowing solar observers to track the Sun across its path for the duration of the day. In addition, the reduction in the waves of heat that reached the gathering mirror 60 feet above the earth provided observers with more detailed images than they had previously seen. The success of this tower led to the construction of a more powerful 150-foot (46-meter) tower. After building the solar towers, Hale added spectrographs to analyze the data collected by the telescopes. A spectrograph breaks light down into its component parts, which scientists can then analyze to determine the nature of the chemical reactions and components of the lightproducing bodies. The spectrographs at Mount Wilson allowed the scientists to observe the Sun and to see what it is made of. In order to maintain a constant temperature for the spectrographs, which is critical to their ability to function, Hale housed them in wells dug beneath the two towers. This not only provided a constant temperature but also gave the large spectrographs sufficient room to operate properly. Solar observation was not the only role of Mount Wilson Observatory, however. The success of the 40-inch telescope at Lake Geneva inspired Hale to build a 60inch (152-centimeter) telescope at Mount Wilson. This 208
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 telescope was built for its value in observation and to test designs for the building of a 100-inch (254-centimeter) telescope, the largest of its day. In 1906, Los Angeles businessman John Daggett Hooker provided the funds to build an 84-inch (213-centimeter) telescope. A short time later, Hooker increased his funding so the 100-inch telescope could be built. During a visit to Mount Wilson in 1910, Andrew Carnegie announced that he would provide half a million dollars to enable the observatory to mount and house the telescope. With adequate funding and the 60-inch telescope complete, Hale began construction of the 100-inch telescope. Using a modification of the design of the 60-inch telescope housing, Hale was able to construct the building that would house the larger telescope. In fact, the building of the 100-inch telescope was rather uneventful except for the most critical aspect: the telescope’s glass mirror. The glass that was to be used for the mirror was poured in France and imported. No one inspected the glass after it was poured and before it was shipped to the United States, and when it arrived at Mount Wilson, Hale and his colleagues were shocked and disappointed, not because the glass was made from green wine bottles but because it was full of bubbles. Hale was afraid that the bubbles would cause the glass to warp or crack when it expanded and shrank as the temperature changed. The group did not have many options, however, so they decided to take a chance with the glass and proceeded with the grinding and coating required to create the mirror. The bubbles turned out to be harmless, and the construction of the telescope was completed without incident. Significance Hale’s innovative designs for solar telescopes, coupled with the introduction of attached spectrographs, provided the foundation for intense solar research. There was now available a means to observe solar flares, solar storms, and other solar disturbances as well as a method to understand the internal chemical changes that occur with and precipitate these disturbances. The 100-inch telescope provided scientists with a view 200,000 times greater than the capability of the human eye. This great power of sight was soon exploited by astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble. At the time the 100inch telescope was completed, there was controversy among astronomers about the nature of the Milky Way galaxy: What were the “clouds” that could be seen in the Milky Way? Using the 100-inch telescope, Hubble discovered that these clouds are actually distant galaxies and that hundreds of galaxies exist that the naked eye had
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Further Reading Bracher, Katherine. “Fifty Years Ago: The 200-Inch Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar.” Mercury 27, no. 5 (September 1, 1998). A brief discussion of the importance of Hale’s 200-inch Palomar telescope, written on the occasion of the telescope’s fiftieth anniversary.
Brunier, Serge, and Anne-Marie Lagrange. Great Observatories of the World. Richmond Hill, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2005. Oversize volume presents profiles of thirty-six of the world’s leading observatories (including Mount Wilson), ten space-based telescopes, and eleven “observatories of the future.” Focuses on telescope technology. The many illustrations include photographs of the observatories themselves as well as of the celestial objects seen through their telescopes. Florence, Ronald. The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope. New York: HarperPerennial, 1995. Account of the building of the 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar in Southern California focuses on the incredible engineering and scientific achievement the telescope represented and also places that achievement within the social context of the time. Hale, George Ellery. Signals from the Stars. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931. This is Hale’s account of the events that led to the founding of Mount Wilson Observatory and his later involvement in the construction of the Palomar Observatory. Gives an overview of the knowledge gained from the work by the many scientists at Mount Wilson. _______. Ten Years’ Work of a Mountain Observatory. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1915. Hale wrote this book as a defense of the construction of the 100-inch telescope. He goes into much detail about the advances in scientific knowledge, construction techniques, and methods of observing in the hope of convincing the scientific community of the practicality of the telescope. Macpherson, Hector. Makers of Astronomy. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1933. Written while Hale was still alive and active on the construction of Palomar Observatory, this book places Hale in historical context with the great astronomers. Provides some insight into how Hale’s contemporaries viewed him. Trefil, James S. The Moment of Creation. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983. An overview of the origins of the universe focused on the big bang theory. Details Hubble’s work at Mount Wilson and explains the Doppler effect, the expansion of the galaxies, and how stellar distances are measured. Includes illustrations and bibliography. Woodbury, David O. The Glass Giant of Palomar. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1941. An excellent book detailing the creation of Hale’s two giants: the 100- and 200inch telescopes. Includes a brief biography of Hale, a history of the problems encountered at Mount Wil209
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not previously observed. Furthermore, Hubble analyzed the light spectra of these galaxies and discovered that the galaxies were traveling away from the Milky Way. After carefully analyzing the data, he determined that the galaxies farther away were traveling at a greater speed than those closer to the Milky Way. This was the first hard evidence for what would become known as the big bang theory. With the data collected using the 100-inch telescope, scientists were able to determine stellar distances, observe Doppler shifts in the light spectrum, and discover new galaxies. The success of this telescope and the success of Mount Wilson as the premier site from which to observe inspired Hale to build a larger telescope. He soon discovered that the 100-inch telescope provided information that provoked questions that could be answered only by a deeper look into space. In addition, he had proved that large telescopes could be built successfully and that the increased cost of construction was rewarded with an equivalent increase in scientific data. Because of this success, Hale began work on a 200-inch (508-centimeter) telescope in Palomar, California. The location of Mount Wilson had as much to do with the success of the observatory there as did Hale’s genius and the sophistication of the instruments, and the location attracted other astronomers throughout the years. The first infrared interferometer research was conducted at Mount Wilson because of its ideal location. Using two telescopes to observe the same star, the interferometer gives scientists a look at the physical changes a star undergoes as it burns out. Although land-based telescopes have become increasingly sophisticated and are now joined by space telescopes—such as the Hubble, the Compton, the Chandra, and the Spitzer, which capture data in the nonvisible ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum—in the twentyfirst century the Mount Wilson Observatory continues to host several of the most technologically advanced facilities in the world for studying astronomical objects. The 100-inch telescope there remains in active service, and the solar towers collect data daily, adding to the world’s longest continuous record of the Sun. —Charles Murphy
Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory
Pogroms in Imperial Russia son, and the history of Palomar Observatory through its completion. Also examines the foundational work done at Mount Wilson. Illustrated, with a bibliography.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots; Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star.
1903-1906
Pogroms in Imperial Russia Pogroms in imperial Russia marked the outbreak of mob violence against Jewish communities as part of a rising wave of popular unrest in Russia that culminated in the Revolution of 1905. Locale: Russian cities in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, including Homyel’ (now in Belarus), Chilin1u (now in Moldavia), and Kiev, Odessa, and Zhytomir (now in Ukraine) Categories: Government and politics; atrocities and war crimes; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Alexander II (1818-1881), czar of Russia, r. 1855-1881 Alexander III (1845-1894), czar of Russia, r. 1881-1894 Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Plehve (1846-1904), Russian minister of internal affairs Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev (1827-1907), chief procurator of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), Russian minister of finance, later premier, 1905-1906 Summary of Event The early years of the twentieth century were a time of mounting popular unrest in Russia, as rapid and uneven economic change was producing serious social tensions. The peasants, who still made up about 70 percent of Russia’s population, had to cope with a series of disappointing harvests in the central agricultural region as well as high taxes imposed by Minister of Finance Sergey Yulyevich Witte to pay for his program of state-sponsored industrial development. Industrial workers, many of whom were unskilled or semiskilled peasants who sought factory work to supplement their agricultural earnings, faced harsh living and working conditions and low wages. A severe depression, which lasted from 1900 through the end of 1902, worsened their plight. These circumstances gave rise to a growing number of strikes by industrial workers and peasant attacks on the estates 210
of the landed nobility. A new round of mob assaults on Jewish communities in Russia took place against this backdrop of rising tension and confrontation. The situation of the Jews in Russia was difficult even without the threat of physical attacks. With few exceptions, Russia’s five million Jews (almost half of the world’s total number of Jews) were prohibited by law from living in the historical heartland of the Russian Empire. They were confined either to the portion of Poland that was under Russian control or to a region that had become known as the Jewish Pale of Settlement, which included Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova (Bessarabia), and the provinces immediately north of the Black Sea. Even in these territories, the Jews were a distinct and unpopular minority, constituting only 13 percent of the population. Most of the Jews lived in cities and larger towns. They earned their livelihoods as merchants or craftsmen, or they worked in the developing industrial sector. Jews rarely owned land, and those who lived in the countryside were under pressure from the government during most of the nineteenth century to abandon occupations, such as tavern keeping and the operation of mills, that brought them into close contact with the non-Jewish peasants. The government relaxed some of these coercive measures during the reign of Czar Alexander II (1855-1881), but this relatively liberal interlude ended with the assassination of the czar in March, 1881. His successors, Alexander III and Nicholas II, revived and even strengthened the discriminatory policies against the Jews, which remained in force until the overthrow of the monarchy in 1917. The assassination of Alexander II by revolutionary terrorists touched off the first massive wave of pogroms. Anti-Jewish riots had occasionally broken out in Russia in previous years; indeed, an 1871 disturbance that took place in the Black Sea port of Odessa was the first to become known as a “pogrom,” a term derived from a Russian verb meaning “to smash” or “to destroy.” What was new about the pogroms of 1881 was that they were not isolated eruptions of violence. An official report
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counted 259 pogroms in 1881; many Major Sites of Russian Pogroms, 1903-1906 of these spread like ripples from citHelsinki ies and large towns to nearby vilSt. Petersburg lages. Vologda Tallinn Novgorod The ripple effect was related to Parnu Tartu difficult economic circumstances that Pskov were afflicting Russia at the time. Jaroslavl Rostov The assassination of the czar took Riga R place during an industrial downturn Moscow Daugavpils u a that coincided with a series of poor Vitebsk Sovietsk s Kaunas harvests. Unemployed factory workSmolensk Kaluga aliningrad ers and hungry peasants seem to have Minsk Lida Olsztyn been responsible for the spread of the Mogilev pogroms as they wandered from Orel Homyel’ place to place in a desperate search Warsaw for new sources of income. Their Voronezh Voronezh frustrations fed on the shock of the Lutsk murder of the czar, the long-standing Kiev Dn akow antagonism toward Jews by the nonZhytomyr iep Lvov e r Kharkov Jewish majority in the Pale of SettleRi Vinnitsa ve ok Kosice r ment, and a consciousness of official Dnepropetrovsk discrimination against Jews, which Donetsk Miskolc Zaporozhye Krivoy Rog was distorted into a belief that the Botosani recen government approved of assaults on Odessa Cluj Frunze Chilinau Jews. Arad The rapid spread of the pogroms Timisoara Braila Simferopol Krasnodar ad took the government by surprise, so Bucharest its attempts to contain the violence elgrade Constanta were not effective at first. By 1882, o Sochi Mikhaylovgrad Pleven however, the new czar, Alexander III, l a c k S B Varna e Sofia a Burgas despite his personal hatred of Jews, kopje Stara Zagora ordered his provincial officials to take Titov Veles O t t o m a n stern measures to capture and punish Istanbul Zonguldak Xanthi those who attacked Jews and their E m Thessaloniki p i Ankara = Pogrom sites Bursa property. Once the government’s opr e annina position to pogroms became clear, Larisa anti-Jewish outbreaks once again became isolated occurrences. ander III’s stern measures after the 1881 pogroms, reThe second wave of pogroms began in Kishenev sponded in a weak and confused manner. (now Chilin1u), the provincial capital of Moldova, on The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, May 2 (April 19 by the Julian calendar then used in Rusheaded by Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, ordered sia), 1903. Two days of rioting, which began on Easter all priests to preach against physical assaults on the Jews, Sunday and the last day of Passover, left nearly fifty Jews but the government did not vigorously prosecute the perdead and hundreds more injured. In addition, enormous petrators of the Kishinev and Homyel’ pogroms. Only damage was inflicted on Jewish-owned property. A seca handful of the hundreds of pogromists were convicted, ond pogrom took place in Homyel’, in Mahilyow provand almost all of them received lenient sentences. The ince, in September. The attackers encountered effective government prosecutors even suggested during the resistance from Jewish self-defense units, which limited Homyel’ trial that pogroms were actually the fault of the the damage done to the Jewish community. This time, Jews. however, the government, in marked contrast with Alexi
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Pogroms in Imperial Russia
Lenin Speaks Out Against Anti-Jewish Pogroms In late March of 1919, Vladimir Ilich Lenin gave this brief speech condemning the anti-Semitic pogroms that took place during the reign of Nicholas II. Anti-Semitism means spreading enmity towards the Jews. When the accursed tsarist monarchy was living its last days it tried to incite ignorant workers and peasants against the Jews. The tsarist police, in alliance with the landowners and the capitalists, organised pogroms against the Jews. The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. In other countries, too, we often see the capitalists fomenting hatred against the Jews in order to blind the workers, to divert their attention from the real enemy of the working people, capital. Hatred towards the Jews persists only in those countries where slavery to the landowners and capitalists has created abysmal ignorance among the workers and peasants. Only the most ignorant and downtrodden people can believe the lies and slander that are spread about the Jews. This is a survival of ancient feudal times, when the priests burned heretics at the stake, when the peasants lived in slavery, and when the people were crushed and inarticulate. This ancient, feudal ignorance is passing away; the eyes of the people are being opened. It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the workers are the capitalists of all countries. Among the Jews there are working people, and they form the majority. They are our brothers, who, like us, are oppressed by capital; they are our comrades in the struggle for socialism. Among the Jews there are kulaks, exploiters and capitalists, just as there are among the Russians, and among people of all nations. The capitalists strive to sow and foment hatred between workers of different faiths, different nations and different races. Those who do not work are kept in power by the power and strength of capital. Rich Jews, like rich Russians, and the rich in all countries, are in alliance to oppress, crush, rob and disunite the workers. Shame on accursed tsarism which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews, who foment hatred towards other nations. Long live the fraternal trust and fighting alliance of the workers of all nations in the struggle to overthrow capital. Source: Vladimir Ilich Lenin, “Anti-Jewish Pogroms” (1919), in Collected Works, 4th ed., vol. 29 (Moscow: Progress, 1972).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 These mixed signals reflected the government’s anxiety over its inability to stem the rising incidence of peasant and worker unrest produced by poor harvests and the recent depression. Although Russian officials, such as Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Plehve, the notoriously antiSemitic minister of internal affairs, did not, as was widely believed at the time, actually conspire in the organization of the pogroms, they were reluctant to impose severe penalties on the anti-Jewish rioters. They feared that such action would further anger the workers and peasants, thereby leading to additional violent outbreaks. They even regarded the pogroms as convenient diversions for popular discontent, which might otherwise be directed against government authorities. The government’s weak response to the Kishinev and Homyel’ pogroms did not succeed in calming restless workers and peasants. The outbreak of the RussoJapanese War in February, 1904, heightened the political and economic strains in Russia. Popular unrest of all kinds escalated in the summer and fall of 1904, exploding into revolution in the aftermath of the Bloody Sunday massacre of demonstrating workers in St. Petersburg on January 22, 1905. There were forty-three pogroms in 1904, and an average of about six a month took place in the first nine months of 1905. The announcement on October 30, 1905 (October 17 on the Julian calendar), of the October Manifesto, which granted limited constitutional reforms, ignited a massive eruption of violence, which included at least six hundred pogroms during the next two weeks. At least thirty-one hundred Jews died, and more than fifteen thousand were injured. The largest pogrom took place in Odessa, where about eight hundred Jews lost their lives and another five thousand suffered injuries. Significance Having broken the unity of the revolutionary opposition by issuing the October Manifesto, the government moved vigorously to suppress popular disturbances of all kinds: strikes, peasant uprisings, and pogroms. Once again, pogroms became only isolated occurrences rather than part of a general wave of popular unrest. However, the czarist regime had not succeeded in solving the underlying problems that had produced popular violence in the first place. The government still tacitly encouraged ethnic hostility by preserving, at the czar’s insistence, the Pale of Settlement and other discriminatory laws directed against Jews. In addition, the social and economic strains of World War I and the Russian Revolution touched off a new series of pogroms that began in 1917
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and reached their height in 1919-1920, during the Russian Civil War. These continued attacks were a major factor in the emigration of large numbers of Jews from Russia to western Europe and the United States during the early years of the twentieth century. —Richard D. King
Löwe, Heinz-Dietrich. The Tsars and the Jews: Reform, Reaction, and Anti-Semitism in Imperial Russia, 1772-1917. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1993. A revised edition of a book originally published in German in 1978. Rogger, Hans. Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Explores government policies toward Jews, especially the issue of government complicity in the pogroms. Treadgold, Donald W., and Herbert J. Ellison. Twentieth Century Russia. 9th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000. Comprehensive volume includes discussion of anti-Semitism in Russia and the pogroms of the early decades of the twentieth century. Features maps and index. Wistrich, Robert S. Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred. 1991. Reprint. New York: Schocken Books, 1994. A lucid introduction to the history of anti-Semitism since ancient times, written as a companion volume to a three-part British television documentary. See also: Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma; Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente; 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine; Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin; Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded; 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence.
1903-1957
Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies The nine symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams spanned nearly a half century and were instrumental in establishing a school of twentieth century English symphonists. Locale: England Category: Music Key Figures Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), English composer of symphonies and choral works Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American poet Summary of Event In 1903, Ralph Vaughan Williams began work on his First Symphony; his Ninth Symphony, his last, received
its premiere in 1958. For more than half a century, he was the principal figure in English music, at first a new voice and at the end the conservator and transmitter of a distinguished symphonic tradition. Vaughan Williams’s first three symphonies form a kind of triptych. Their composer did not number them, but assigned them titles. The first, A Sea Symphony, was written between 1903 and 1909 and premiered at the Leeds Festival in 1910. The second, A London Symphony, written in 1912 and 1913, premiered in 1914 and was revised in 1920 and 1933. The third, Pastoral Symphony, was completed in 1921 and premiered the following year. The three symphonies depict, respectively, the sea, the city, and the countryside, and they are large-scale works, comparable in their variety and 213
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Further Reading Baron, Salo W. The Russian Jew Under Tsars and Soviets. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Survey by a leading specialist in Jewish history pays scant attention to the pogroms but is a good introduction to the social, economic, and cultural aspects of Jewish history in Russia. Gitelman, Zvi. “History of Soviet Jewry.” In From Mesopotamia to Modernity: Ten Introductions to Jewish History and Literature, edited by Burton L. Visotzky and David E. Fishman. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Discusses the lives of Jews in Russia both before and after the revolution. Judge, Edward H. Easter in Kishenev: Anatomy of a Pogrom. New York: New York University Press, 1992. Case study of the Kishenev pogrom of April, 1903, illuminates the causes of the anti-Jewish riots and graphically illustrates their brutality. Klier, John D., and Shlomo Lambroza, eds. Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. A collection of scholarly essays on the waves of pogroms of 1881-1884, 1903-1906, and 1919-1921.
Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies
Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies scope to novels by George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. A Sea Symphony can be called a symphony only in the sense that it has four movements (the third of which is a scherzo) and is a large-scale composition. Innovative American poet Walt Whitman’s free verse, which provided the text for the symphony, does not lend itself well to tuneful settings, and Vaughan Williams set it as a kind of musical prose. The composer eschewed the use of such traditional symphonic structures as sonata form in the outer movements to avoid breaking the continuity of the verse. Whitman’s often overblown and pretentious language is sometimes reflected in the music. The movements are titled, respectively, “A Song for All Seas, All Ships”; “On the Beach at Night, Alone” (the most effective movement); “Scherzo—The Waves,” which can be done independently, without the chorus; and “The Explorers.” Because of the large orchestra specified, the need for organ and chorus, and the length of the work, this is the least frequently performed of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies. In contrast, A London Symphony is the most popular of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies. Although many musical landscapes and seascapes were written during the Romantic period, such as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony (1808) and Felix Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides (1830-1832), urban musical portraits were rare. Frederick Delius’s Paris: The Song of a Great City (1899) was probably the first major musical cityscape. A London Symphony, which the composer began to sketch in 1912, follows the conventional outline of the four-movement symphony, with the first movement in sonata form and the third movement a scherzo-nocturne depicting London at night. One of the most innovative features of this symphony, and a trait that was to occur in several of Vaughan Williams’s subsequent symphonies, is the epilogue at the end of the marchlike last movement; the epilogue is quiet and repeats the “Westminster Chimes” harp motive of the opening of the symphony. A London Symphony also shows to best advantage Vaughan Williams’s artistic creed of writing music for the people, not for a highly select elite. Vaughan Williams began to sketch Pastoral Symphony in 1916 in northern France, where he was serving with the British Army during World War I. The work was completed in 1921, and the composer made slight revisions in the early 1950’s. In contrast to his preceding symphonies, it is quiet, contemplative, heavily scored only in the third movement, and characterized by modal melodies harmonized by chord streams. It is often considered a “war requiem,” given that many of the com214
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 poser’s younger friends were killed in the war. The first movement is in sonata form, the slow movement contains the specification for a natural trumpet (inspired by bugles heard at a distance during wartime), and the third movement corresponds to a scherzo, but the finale is a quietly pensive movement opening and ending with a distant and wordless soprano solo. The next three symphonies in turn form a triptych. Two modern and dissonant works frame the quiet and contemplative Fifth Symphony; these works were identified by their composer by keys rather than by titles or numbers. Vaughan Williams resented the imposition of programs, and he complained when the mood of his Fourth Symphony was interpreted as rage at the rise of fascism during the 1930’s, or when the bitterness of his Sixth Symphony was seen as a reaction against the optimism of the immediate postwar period. The Symphony in F Minor, better known as the Fourth Symphony, was begun in 1931 and first performed in 1935. It is surprisingly dissonant and violent to those who know only Vaughan Williams’s earlier symphonies. In many respects, it resembles the Fourth Symphony of Jean Sibelius (a composer whom Vaughan Williams highly esteemed and to whom he dedicated his
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Ralph Vaughan Williams. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
retains the episodic structure of the film score. In fact, it can more properly be called five programmatic movements for orchestra, each prefaced by a literary quotation, rather than a coherent symphony. The second movement, a scherzo, uses themes that were used in the film to depict whales and penguins; in this and other ways, the work is reminiscent of A Sea Symphony. The wordless vocal solo in the epilogue fifth and final movement is reminiscent of that of Pastoral Symphony. The third movement is the desolate “Landscape,” which culminates in fortissimo organ chords in alternation with the full orchestra. In contrast with the bleakness of the preceding symphony, the Eighth Symphony of 1956, written when the composer was eighty-three years old, is the most classical in structure and displays a good humor rarely seen in his postwar works. The first movement, “Fantasia,” is subtitled “Variations Without a Theme”; the martial second movement is scored for wind instruments alone; the third movement, “Cavatina,” is scored for strings alone and is one of the composer’s most peacefully expressive works; and the fourth, “Toccata,” makes extensive use of tuned percussion instruments. The Ninth Symphony, in E minor, was finished late in 1957 and given its premiere four months before the composer’s death at the age of eight-five. Coolly received at its first performance, it is perhaps Vaughan Williams’s most enigmatic symphony. The orchestration is quite unusual, including three saxophones and flügelhorn as well as an enlarged percussion section. It is closest in spirit, freedom of musical structure, and compositional techniques, although less complex, to his Sixth Symphony, and it resembles the earlier work in its abstract nature as well as in its use of an epilogue-like slow finale. Significance Vaughan Williams established the twentieth century English symphonic tradition at home and abroad. The English composers of symphonies who came after him— including Arnold Bax, Edmund Rubbra, William Alwyn, and Benjamin Britten—had their paths smoothed by the precedent he set. His influence was felt elsewhere in more subtle ways. For example, the American composer Aaron Copland compared Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony to looking at a cow for forty-five minutes, yet he used its harmonic devices in his own Appalachian Spring (1944) and Third Symphony (1946). The American composereducator William Schuman (1910-1992) used some of the structural devices that unify Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony in his own Sixth Symphony in 1949. Vaughan Williams’s roots were not only in the Anglo215
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Fifth Symphony) in its use of concentrated germ motives out of which the symphony is built. Cast in the traditional four movements, the basic germ motives are stated at the opening of the first movement. The bumptious scherzo is connected to the ironic fourth movement, which ends with an epilogue in which the principal germ motive is treated fugally. The symphony then concludes abruptly with statements of the main germ motives. Many commentators have asserted that this is Vaughan Williams’s greatest symphony, although it is not his most popular. In contrast to the Fourth Symphony, the Fifth Symphony, in D major (begun in 1938 and first performed in 1943), is a serene and contemplative work. Each of the movements bears a title: “Preludio,” “Scherzo,” “Romanza” (the slow movement), and “Passacaglia,” the term for a Baroque form built up on a repeated bassnote pattern. Its mood of affirmation will always be associated with Great Britain during World War II, yet much of it was inspired by John Bunyan’s seventeenth century morality tale The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678); Vaughan Williams worked for thirty years on an operatic setting of Bunyan’s book. One critic has compared the symphonic triptych to Bunyan’s tale, with the Fourth Symphony representing Vanity Fair and the Sixth Symphony the struggle with the demon Apollyon. The Sixth Symphony, which Vaughan Williams began in 1944 and revised numerous times before its premiere in London in 1948, is his most “modern” symphony, going beyond the Fourth in its use of sharp dissonance. The composer resented application of extramusical connotations such as “war symphony” to the work. It is not a triumphant composition; rather, it is ironic and, in places, even bitter. The four movements of the symphony are linked, with the entire fourth movement an epilogue in which the germ motives of the symphony are transformed into a highly contrapuntal work with a prevailingly soft dynamic level. This symphony received more than a hundred performances within two years of its premiere. Vaughan Williams’s final three symphonies also form a triptych, reflecting the composer’s interest in film music, which he did not begin to write until 1940. The seventh symphony, Sinfonia Antarctica, was derived from the music that Vaughan Williams wrote for the film Scott of the Antarctic (1948) in 1947 and 1948. In the following year, he began turning the film score into a symphony, which was completed in 1952 and given its premiere in Manchester in the following year. In five movements, and with a large orchestra that includes organ, wind machine, and women’s chorus, the symphony
Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies
Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies German tradition of Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Edward Elgar, but also in English folk music (he was a longtime member of the English Folk Song and Folk Dance societies and attended their meetings until his eighties). He was also inspired by the traditions of English music of the Renaissance and Baroque music and by the rich tradition of English vernacular church music. His approach was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Through his writing for amateur choirs, brass and wind bands, and school orchestras, he successfully raised the level of musical instruction. His lifelong credo was that a nation’s musical health is represented best not by its premier musical organizations in the major metropolitan areas but by the general level of music making throughout the country, and he conducted amateur musical groups until the state of his health no longer permitted him to continue. He sought to communicate music not merely to professionals but to unsophisticated performers and listeners as well, and he is one of the few composers of the twentieth century who completely succeeded in this endeavor. The symphonies of Vaughan Williams, as well as such other orchestral works as Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) for double string orchestra and the music for Job (1930), have their greatest esteem in England, Australia, New Zealand, and the English-speaking nations of North America. Outside these orbits, performances of his symphonies have become infrequent, but his influence on twentieth century music is undeniable. — R. M. Longyear Further Reading Day, James. Vaughan Williams. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Presents the composer as a part of the post-Romantic reactionary movement in the company of composers such as Debussy and Stravinsky. Demonstrates that the circumstances of Vaughan Williams’s life are reflected in his wideranging, intense music. Douglas, Roy. Working with Vaughan Williams. London: British Library, 1988. From 1942 until the composer’s death in 1958, Douglas served as Vaughan Williams’s musical amanuensis by fashioning the composer’s difficult-to-read musical manuscripts into proper shape. Through the letters and conversations reproduced in this book, which is enriched with photographs and facsimiles of the composer’s writings, one gets a clear view of Vaughan Williams’s deep humanity. Heffer, Simon. Vaughan Williams. Boston: Northeastern 216
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 University Press, 2001. A useful introduction to the composer’s life and work. Also addresses what makes Vaughan Williams’s music both internationally admired and a source of particular pride to the English. Includes bibliography and selected discography. Kennedy, Michael. The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. 2d ed. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. A new edition of a book originally published in 1964. Discusses each of Vaughan Williams’s works in depth. Includes critical opinions of the time and presents a comprehensive picture of each major work. Musical knowledge is helpful but not essential for appreciating the insights of the text. Mackerness, Eric D. A Social History of English Music. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964. Provides a highly readable and nontechnical description of the social milieu from which Vaughan Williams’s music came and of the musical life of the country for which it was written. Vaughan Williams, Ralph. The Making of Music. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1955. Collection of lectures presented for a general audience at Cornell University in the fall of 1954 provides an excellent introduction to Vaughan Williams’s musical ideas and philosophy. Vaughan Williams, Ralph, and Gustav Holst. Heirs and Rebels. Edited by Ursula Vaughan Williams and Imogen Holst. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. The correspondence of Vaughan Williams and composer Gustav Holst, good friends from their student days in 1895 to Holst’s death in 1934, edited by the widows of the two composers. Includes some of Vaughan Williams’s early writings on music. Not only records a great musical friendship but also shows how the two composers worked and relied on each other’s advice. Vaughan Williams, Ursula. R. V. W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. 1964. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. An intimate biography of the composer by his second wife. Makes extensive use of letters and reminiscences by friends and colleagues and presents a vivid portrait of the composer as a person. Especially valuable as a record of his later years. See also: 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal; Dec. 3, 1908: Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim; Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 5, 1903 LONE WOLF V.
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock
HITCHCOCK
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Congress has plenary power over Native American property and may dispose of such property at its discretion. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; expansion and land acquisition
Summary of Event In 1887, after years of agitation and controversy, Congress passed the General Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act or Dawes Severalty Act). Under the terms of this legislation, the president was authorized to allot all tribal land in the United States to individual Native Americans. The standard share was 160 acres to each head of a family, with smaller amounts to unmarried men and children. Negotiations were to be carried on with Native American tribes for the sale to the federal government of the land remaining after the allotments were made and for the opening of the land to Euro-American settlement. The allotment policy, which dominated relations between the U.S. government and Native Americans for more than fifty years, proved to be disastrous for Native Americans. It transformed Native American landownership from collective to individual holdings, thus severing the Indians’ connections with communal tribal organizations, exposed Indians to wholesale exploitation by land speculators, pushed them onto land that was often arid and unproductive, and led ultimately to their loss of control over two-thirds of their lands. Deceit, duplicity, and coercion undermined the honest, but naïve, objectives of the U.S. reformers who espoused allotment prior to its enactment.
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Key Figures Edward D. White (1845-1921), associate justice of the United States, 1894-1910 Lone Wolf (c. 1820-1879), a Kiowa chief Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1835-1909), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1898-1907 William McKendree Springer (1836-1903), Lone Wolf’s attorney Hampton L. Carson (1852-1929), attorney with the Indian Rights Association and Springer’s cocounsel before the U.S. Supreme Court Willis Van Devanter (1859-1941), assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of the Interior
Tribal sovereignty, the allotment policy, and Native American treaty rights came before the U.S. Supreme Court in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock in 1902. In 1867, the U.S. government had signed the Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty with the Kiowas and Comanches, whereby the two tribes relinquished claims to 90 million acres in exchange for 2.9-million-acre reservations in western Oklahoma. A separate treaty placed the plains Apaches on the same reservation. Article XII of the Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty provided that no further cession of any part of the new reservation could be made without the written consent of three-quarters of the adult male members of the three tribes. The commitment to Article XII of the treaty lasted twenty-five years. In 1892, the Jerome Commission, composed of a former governor of Michigan and two judges, was able—through fraud and counterfeit signatures—to secure the necessary three-quarters consent to an agreement for the allotment of land to individual tribesmen and for the purchase of 2.15 million acres of what was denominated as surplus land at a price of approximately ninety-three cents per acre. Almost immediately after the signing of the new agreement, representatives of the Kiowas, Comanches, and plains Apaches claimed that assent had been obtained through fraudulent misrepresentation of the agreement’s terms by the interpreters and that threequarters of the adult males had not consented to the cession. The U.S. House of Representatives ignored their arguments and voted to execute the agreement, but the Senate viewed their claims more sympathetically and defeated the bill in January, 1899. In July, 1900, however, Congress passed an act that allowed the United States to take title to 2,991,933 acres of the Kiowa, Comanche, and plains Apache reservation. After 480,000 acres were set aside as common grazing lands, 445,000 acres were allotted to individual members of the three tribes, and 10,000 acres were committed to agency, schools, and religious purposes, 2 million acres were left to be purchased by the federal government and opened to white settlement. Although some Native Americans approved of the act, Lone Wolf, a Kiowa chief, and others were intent on challenging the act’s constitutionality. They retained William McKendree Springer, formerly chief justice of the Court of Appeals for the Indian Territory, to litigate their case before the federal courts. Springer argued that
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock the congressional act violated the property rights of the three tribes and was, therefore, repugnant to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. After losing in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and in the Court of Appeals for the district, Springer appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock was argued in the Supreme Court in October, 1901, and reargued the following year. The decision was handed down on January 5, 1903. In the Court, attorney Hampton L. Carson, a prominent member of the Indian Rights Association, joined Springer as cocounsel; the Department of the Interior was represented by Willis Van Devanter of Wyoming, who later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice. The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, written by Associate Justice Edward D. White of Louisiana, was characterized by a later commentator as the “Indian’s Dred Scott decision,” and January 5, 1903, as “one of the blackest days in the history of the American Indians.” Justice White spoke of Native Americans in condescending terms, as an “ignorant and dependent race,” “weak and diminishing in number,” and “wards of the nation.” These contemptuous phrases were not original to White; they were epithets that had long been used in the opinions of Supreme Court justices in relation to Native Americans. More important, White ruled that Congress possessed a paramount authority over the property of Native Americans “by reason of its exercise of guardianship over their interests.” In exercising such power, Congress could abrogate provisions of a treaty with a Native American tribe. Justice White then went on to argue that the congressional act of 1900 represented only “a mere change in the form of investment of Indian tribal property from land to money” even though the price paid was below the market value. White held that Congress had made a good-faith effort to compensate the Kiowas for their lands; therefore, there was no violation of the Fifth Amendment. “If injury was occasioned,” White concluded, “which we do not wish to be understood to imply by the use made by Congress of its power, relief must be sought by an appeal to that body for redress and not to the courts.” Even before the Supreme Court had ruled in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, President William McKinley issued a proclamation opening the Kiowa lands to white settlement on August 6, 1901. Lone Wolf watched with chagrin as thousands of potential settlers camped on Kiowa lands near Fort Sill, waiting to register for a lottery; during a two-month period, 11,638 homestead entries were made at the land office. 218
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance The importance of the Supreme Court decision in Lone Wolf should not be underestimated. Justice White’s opinion legitimated the long history of broken promises, of treaties made and treaties ignored, as well as the assertion of plenary authority of Congress over Indian lands. The opinion justified the alienation, between 1887 and 1934, of 86 million acres of Native American property; it also denied Native Americans recourse to the courts to seek redress for the coerced separation from their land and its purchase at bargain prices. In Lone Wolf, Justice White told the Kiowas and associated tribes that they would have to seek relief for their alleged injuries in Congress, and the Kiowas had no alternative but to go to the federal legislature to secure redress. It was not until 1955 that the Indian Claims Commission awarded the Kiowas, Comanches, and plains Apaches $2,067,166 in compensation for the lands taken under the congressional act of 1900. It was not until 1980, in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, that Justice Harry Blackmun, in a majority opinion, held that the Lone Wolf doctrine was “discredited” and “had little to commend it as an enduring principle.” —David L. Sterling Further Reading Clark, Blue. “Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock”: Treaty Rights and Indian Law at the End of the Nineteenth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. A short but comprehensive study of the background and implications of the most significant Native American court case of the early twentieth century. Hagan, William T. The Indian Rights Association: The Herbert Welsh Years, 1882-1904. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985. An account of the organization that participated in the litigation of the Lone Wolf case. Highsaw, Robert B. Edward Douglass White: Defender of the Conservative Faith. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. An analysis of the judicial record of the writer of the Supreme Court opinion in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock. Johansen, Bruce E., ed. Enduring Legacies: Native American Treaties and Contemporary Controversies. New York: Praeger, 2004. Represents an attempt to maintain a “national conversation” on Native American treaties through discussion of related contemporary laws and issues. Legters, Lyman, and Fremont J. Lyden, eds. American Indian Policy: Self-Governance and Economic De-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 velopment. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. A collection of articles detailing trends in Native American life and law in the late twentieth century. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. An exhaustive examination of the legal relationship between Native American tribes and the U.S. government since the time of the American Revolution. Wilkins, David E., and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal
Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor Law. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Reviews the often inconsistent federal legal precedents related to issues concerning Native Americans. Chapter 5, “‘Justices Who Bent the Law’: The Doctrine of Implied Repeals,” addresses the Supreme Court’s political policy-making role in Indian affairs, as particularly illustrated in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock. See also: Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians; June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act; June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act.
February 14, 1903
Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; government and politics; organizations and institutions Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Carroll D. Wright (1840-1909), commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, 1885-1905 George B. Cortelyou (1862-1940), secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 1903-1904 James Rudolph Garfield (1865-1950), commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Corporations, 1903-1907 Summary of Event The Department of Commerce and Labor Act of 1903 created the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, a cabinet department within the executive branch of the federal government. The department included the Bureau of Corporations and the Bureau of Labor. The staffs of these bureaus were to investigate and provide information on corporations, industrial working conditions, and labor-management disputes. The creation of this department and its attendant federal agencies presaged an increasingly activist federal government in the twentieth century, one that would investigate, publicize, and intervene in the dealings of industry, labor-management disputes, and other matters deemed to be of importance to the national economy.
In June, 1884, Congress established a labor bureau as part of the Department of the Interior. In 1888, Congress gave that bureau independent status as the Department of Labor, but its commissioner did not have a position in the president’s cabinet. The commissioner reported directly to the president. When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, public opinion was increasingly concerned with the growing power that large corporations, monopolies, and trusts had in American economic, social, and political life. The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 (in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio), which lasted six months and threatened the nation’s coal supply, exacerbated public and political concern over industrial labor-management relations and was itself a major spur to the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Political pressure from the public as well as from elected officials encouraged Roosevelt to try to arbitrate the coal miners’ dispute by inviting representatives from labor and management to the White House. Although the meeting did not resolve the crisis—the owners refused to accede to the union’s demands—it was significant in that the president had brought labor representatives to the negotiating table. Previous presidents had tended to take the side of business in labor-management disputes. Representatives from the railroads that owned the coal mines attended the meeting, as did Roosevelt’s commissioner of labor, Carroll D. Wright, and John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers (UMW). The crisis still unresolved, Roosevelt created an arbitration commission to investigate the strike. Although no official representatives of the UMW were part of this arbitration commission, as the operators refused such rec219
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With the establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, the U.S. government became actively involved in matters of business, labor, and the national economy.
Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor ognition, Wright as well as other unofficial labor representatives were part of the commission. With winter closing in, making coal supplies an increasing concern, pressure from public opinion, influential business leaders, and elected officials encouraged the strikers to go back to work on October 23, 1902, while the commission arbitrated the dispute. The commission finally forced a resolution on March 22, 1903, giving the coal miners wage increases but no official recognition of their union from the operators. The incident convinced Roosevelt of the need for a permanent federal agency to prevent or help resolve, through arbitration, any such future national economic crises. He also was convinced of the need for an increased federal role in the economy. It was in this context that in early January, 1903, Roosevelt called for the creation of a Department of Commerce and Labor, to include a Bureau of Labor and a Bureau of Corporations. The functions of those agencies would be to investigate the operations and conduct of corporations and to provide the federal government with information about business structure, operations, and working conditions. The bill creating the department also provided for six other bureaus within the department to deal with matters of immigration, the census, navigation, fisheries, standards, and business statistics. Roosevelt adroitly used the opposition of business leaders to enlist the support of the public and Congress for the bill. He publicized a letter from an attorney representing John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, written to Matthew Quay, a senator from Pennsylvania, protesting against such governmental interference. Roosevelt portrayed the opponents of the bill as those very forces of economic and industrial injustice that were increasingly worrisome to the public. By winning public support to his side, Roosevelt obtained overwhelming congressional backing. The bill to create the new department was passed on February 14, 1903. Roosevelt named George B. Cortelyou, his private secretary, as the first secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Roosevelt and Cortelyou did not view the new department as an agency the federal government could use to attack business but as an empowerment of government to expand services to businesses, particularly in providing market information. Cortelyou advised the president on labor disputes as well as on antitrust prosecution. He also advised Roosevelt on the issue of the union shop in the Government Printing Office. As the first commissioner of the Bureau of Corporations, James Rudolph Garfield used the agency to investigate many corporations. He shared Roosevelt’s view 220
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that federal government should regulate businesses, not randomly break them up. Garfield received some outside criticism that the bureau was too lenient in dealing with the “trusts,” particularly regarding an investigation of the United States Steel Corporation, which he and the president thought was a “good” trust. He initiated stringent investigations of the beef and oil industries. The investigation of Standard Oil led to an antitrust suit, and ultimately the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil in 1911. Significance The creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor set an important precedent for the growing role of the federal government in the national economy. It was a significant departure from the policies of the legislative and executive branches in the late nineteenth century, which said that public agencies should not intervene in the private business sphere. The increased federal role in the economy was at times antagonistic to corporations. Investigations by the Bureau of Corporations led to antitrust litigation and dissolution of the American Tobacco Company and Standard Oil. For the most part, however, the Department of Commerce (which split from the Department of Labor in 1913) has by design functioned to help business and commerce in the United States. By distributing commercial and business statistics as well as agricultural and population censuses, the Department of Commerce makes available information that can help people involved in various industries or businesses learn about relevant markets in particular regions or across the nation. This type of comprehensive information, which would be prohibitively expensive for most businesses to collect privately, can be very important, particularly to individuals starting businesses. The department’s national standards for weights and measures facilitate interstate commerce by standardizing the basis for trade and ensuring honesty. The department also helps industry by protecting assets through patent and trademark registration. The Department of Commerce also provides information useful to the maritime and aviation industries by publishing nautical and aeronautical charts. Through its National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the department sponsors the collection and dissemination of weather data, including severe storm warnings, and conducts research relative to coastal and marine resources and the environment. It also organizes emergency responses to oil spills and other environmental disasters. The department is
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Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor
had differences on the issues of labor and corporation regulation, but both advocated continThe U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor existed from 1903 to uing government activism on these issues. 1913, when it was dissolved and the separate Departments of LaWilson came into the presidency in 1913 bor and Commerce were created, each of which was headed by a with a series of progressive commitments, chief cabinet-level secretary. Charles Nagel was the last secretary of among them an added focus on the rights of lacommerce and labor, and William B. Wilson was the first secretary bor. He worked with Congress to establish a of labor. separate Department of Labor, creating a new Term Secretary cabinet position for the secretary of labor. President Wilson’s choice for this position, WilFeb. 18, 1903-June 30, 1904 George B. Cortelyou liam B. Wilson, president of the UMW, reJuly 1, 1904-Dec. 16, 1906 Victor H. Metcalf flected his concern about the rights of labor Dec. 17, 1906-Mar. 5, 1909 Oscar S. Straus Mar. 6, 1909-Mar. 4, 1913 Charles Nagel organizations. William Wilson was the first laMar. 6, 1913-Mar. 4, 1921 William B. Wilson bor union representative to be named to the cabMar. 5, 1921-Nov. 30, 1930 James J. Davis inet. President Wilson wanted a representative Dec. 9, 1930-Mar. 4, 1933 William N. Doak from the ranks of labor to have the authority of a Mar. 4, 1933-June 30, 1945 Frances Perkins cabinet-level position in representing executive July 1, 1945-June 10, 1948 Lewis B. Schwellenbach branch efforts to arbitrate labor-management Aug. 13, 1948-Jan. 20, 1953 Maurice J. Tobin disputes. Secretary of Labor Wilson strengthJan. 21, 1953-Sept. 10, 1953 Martin P. Durkin ened the Labor Department’s Division of MediOct. 9, 1953-Jan. 20, 1961 James P. Mitchell ation and Conciliation and played a significant Jan. 21, 1961-Sept. 20, 1962 Arthur Goldberg role in President Wilson’s efforts to arbitrate Sept. 25, 1962-Jan. 20, 1969 W. Willard Wirtz the Ludlow, Colorado, coal mine strike of 1914. Jan. 22, 1969-July 1, 1970 George Shultz July 2, 1970-Feb. 1, 1973 James D. Hodgson President Wilson also pushed through Congress Feb. 2, 1973-Mar. 15, 1975 Peter J. Brennan the Keating-Owen Act, which barred from inMar. 18, 1975-Jan. 31, 1976 John Thomas Dunlop terstate commerce goods produced with child Feb. 10, 1976-Jan. 20, 1977 W. J. Usery, Jr. labor; the Adamson Act, which gave railroad Jan. 27, 1977-Jan. 20, 1981 Ray Marshall workers an eight-hour workday; and the WorkFeb. 4, 1981-Mar. 15, 1985 Raymond J. Donovan men’s Compensation Act, which provided Apr. 29, 1985-Oct. 31, 1987 William E. Brock workplace insurance to federal employees. The Dec. 17, 1987-Jan. 20, 1989 Ann Dore McLaughlin enforcement of these new laws became the reJan. 25, 1989-Nov. 23, 1990 Elizabeth Dole sponsibility of the Department of Labor. Feb. 22, 1991-Jan. 20, 1993 Lynn Martin The functions of the Department of Labor Jan. 22, 1993-Jan. 10, 1997 Robert B. Reich grew dramatically through the twentieth cenMay 1, 1997-Jan. 20, 2001 Alexis Herman Beginning Jan. 29, 2001 Elaine Chao tury. In the interests of workers, the department became responsible for enforcing laws regarding labor-management relations, child labor, equal pay, minimum wages, overtime, public also engaged in foreign commercial expansion, in the contracts, workers’ compensation, health and safety in promotion of international free trade agreements, and in the workplace, and industrial accidents. The department international emergency relief responses. All these acalso aided businesses by gathering and disseminating tions represent a desire by both politicians and businessmarket information, analyzing costs and standards of people to stabilize industry while promoting economic living, and analyzing trends in prices, employment, and growth. productivity. In addition, it created a number of agencies In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that designed to relieve unemployment, such as the Neighcreated the Department of Labor, separating it from the borhood Youth Corps, the Job Corps, and the Bureau of Department of Commerce. The presidential campaign of Apprenticeship and Training. 1912 had reflected growing public concern with indusIn 1914, President Wilson and Congress created the trial-labor relations and the rights and powers of labor Federal Trade Commission to replace the Bureau of Corunions. Presidential candidates Roosevelt and Wilson porations as the federal government’s primary antitrust
Secretaries of Commerce and Labor
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U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce and corporate investigatory agency. The Federal Trade Commission was the agency established to enforce the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. That act also represented continuing and growing concerns over competition, economic opportunity, and antitrust that grew from the precedent of the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. — Bruce Andre Beaubouef Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. A concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Blum, John Morton. “Theodore Roosevelt and the Definition of Office.” In The Progressive Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. A good introduction to the Progressive politics and policies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Concise, yet detailed in its analysis. Brands, H. W. T. R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Iconoclastic biography of Theodore Roosevelt. Gould, Lewis L. “Immediate and Vigorous Executive Action.” In The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.
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Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Excellent history of the foreign and domestic policies of both of Roosevelt’s administrations. Useful for students beginning study of the Progressive Era. Kolko, Gabriel. The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963. Excellent for those seeking an in-depth and challenging analysis of business-government relationships in the Progressive Era. Kolko contends that new regulations were not a victory for the “people” over the “interests.” Leaders of industry desired regulation that they could help to formulate and influence to avoid competition and stabilize their industries. Miller, Nathan. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life. New York: William Morrow, 1992. This book’s treatment of the Northern Securities case is particularly concise and well done, characteristics that hold for the book as a whole. Good for those with some familiarity with Roosevelt and the Progressive Era. See also: May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded; Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; Mar. 21, 1938: WheelerLea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising.
February 23, 1903
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce The U.S. Supreme Court, through its broad interpretation of the commerce clause in the case of Champion v. Ames, sustained federal powers to prohibit and regulate commerce. Also known as: Champion v. Ames; Lottery Case Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Melville W. Fuller (1833-1910), chief justice of the United States, 1888-1910 John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), associate justice of the United States, 1877-1911 John Marshall (1755-1835), chief justice of the United States, 1801-1835 222
Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927), U.S. senator from Indiana, 1899-1911 Summary of Event In 1903, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal government’s potential to prohibit or restrict commerce. The case of Champion v. Ames, also known as the Lottery Case, altered the delineation between interstate and intrastate commerce under Article I, section 8, clause 3, of the U.S. Constitution, the so-called commerce clause. The circumstances brought before the Court originated in 1895 with an act of Congress. This act made it illegal to transport or conspire to transport lottery tickets from state to state. On February 1, 1899, C. F. Champion sent two Pan-American Lottery Company lottery tickets from Dallas, Texas, to Fresno, California. The tickets were transported by a vehicle owned by the Wells-Fargo
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce ity. These cases continued to expand the essence of interstate commerce. Consequently, the Court resolved that commerce embraces navigation, intercourse, communication, traffic, the transit of persons, and the transmission of messages by telegraph. In the Lottery Case, the use of a vehicle from WellsFargo Express traveling from state to state was relevant. The Court held that this travel provided sufficient intercourse with interstate commerce to allow federal domination. Further, the Court viewed the congressional justification for the creation of the act as being rational. It determined that the federal government is the proper means for protecting U.S. citizens from the widespread pestilence of lotteries. The Court deemed that such an evil act of appalling character, carried through interstate commerce, deserves federal intervention. In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Fuller asserted that the Court had imposed a burden on the state’s powers to regulate for the public health, good order, and prosperity of its citizens. To hold that Congress has general police power would be to defeat the operation of the Tenth Amendment. This argument would constitute the foundation of many later dissenting opinions. This particular conviction never became the majority view. At the time of the Lottery Case, an escalating struggle was taking place between a desire for a strong federal government, called federalism or nationalism, and the states’ right to regulate themselves. This conflict goes as far back in U.S. history as the Constitution itself. After the Revolutionary War, the states regarded themselves as independent sovereigns. The Articles of Confederation allowed only minimal intrusion into states’ internal affairs by the Continental Congress. Faced with the inability of the confederation to function properly, provincial patriotism had to concede. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention, in an effort to fabricate a more concentrated federal government, made many compromises. They maintained within the Constitution, however, certain seemingly insurmountable limits on the federal government. As a consequence, the judiciary generally discerns the Constitution as being a limitation on federal power. Without an expressed or implied grant of authority from within the Constitution, the federal government cannot regulate. This policy is not easily implemented in cases concerning commerce. Under the commerce clause, Congress has the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with Native Americans. The commerce clause seems to conflict with the Tenth Amendment, which assigns all rights 223
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Express Company. Champion was arrested in Chicago under a warrant based on his alleged violation of the act and was subsequently convicted. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for final review, and on February 23, 1903, the Court upheld the conviction in a five-to-four decision. Justice John Marshall Harlan delivered the majority opinion of the Court, and Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller wrote the dissenting opinion. When the Lottery Case appeared before the Court, the power to regulate interstate commerce was a concurrent power shared by the states and the federal government. Prior to the Lottery Case, several Court decisions had begun the process of liberalizing the connotation of “interstate,” favoring federal control. One such case was Gibbons v. Ogden (1824). This decision played a major role in the Court’s final disposition of the Lottery Case by initiating a method for analyzing commerce issues. A review of the facts in Gibbons shows that the state of New York granted a monopoly to Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton in the operation of steamboats in the waterways of New York. Under the monopoly, Aaron Ogden managed two licensed steamboats that ferried between New York and New Jersey. Thomas Gibbons obtained a coasting license under a 1793 act of Congress and began competing with Ogden. Gibbons’s steamboat was not licensed to operate under the New York monopoly. The pressure of additional competition encouraged Ogden to bring action in a New York court to prohibit Gibbons from operating. Writing for the majority in Gibbons, Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, which held the New York monopoly law to be unconstitutional. In Gibbons, the Court aspired to denote interstate commerce. Gibbons’s attorneys argued that interstate commerce is traffic to buy and sell, or the interchange of commodities. The Court agreed that interstate commerce includes traffic but added the notion of intercourse. Generally, the term “intercourse” connotes exchange between persons or groups. With this notion, the Court reasoned that interstate commerce does not end at external boundary lines between states but may be introduced into the interior. The justices determined that commerce may pass the jurisdictional line of New York and act upon the waters to which the monopoly law applied, thus concluding that the transportation of passengers between New York and New Jersey constituted interstate commerce. In the Champion v. Ames decision, the Court went on to reference other decisions that sanction federal author-
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce to the states unless such control is prohibited or delegated to the U.S. government by the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment is said to contain the states’ police powers. Further, the Constitution does not expressly exclude states from regulating interstate commerce. It simply limits the federal government’s jurisdiction over interstate trade and precludes interference with purely local activities. To add another complication, consider the Constitution’s supremacy clause, Article VI, paragraph 2. This states that if legitimate state and federal powers are in conflict, then the national interest will prevail. This
The CHAMPION V. AMES Ruling
power is enhanced by the Court’s broad interpretation of the “necessary and proper clause” (Article I, section 8) in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). This ruling gave Congress a discretionary choice of means for implementing implied powers. From a political perspective, it is notable that both the McCulloch and Gibbons cases came before the Court while John Marshall was chief justice. Marshall served under President John Adams as the secretary of state and was a devout federalist. During Marshall’s tenure as chief justice, the Court vested within its jurisdiction an unusual allotment of power. It assigned to itself final interpretation rights over the constitutionality of all federal and state laws brought before the Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Champion v. Ames, delivered by Justice John Marshall Harlan, includes this paragraph concerning the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce: It is said . . . that if, in order to suppress lotteries carried on through interstate commerce, Congress may exclude lottery tickets from such commerce, that principle leads necessarily to the conclusion that Congress may arbitrarily exclude from commerce among the states any article, commodity, or thing, of whatever kind or nature, or however useful or valuable, which it may choose, no matter with what motive, to declare shall not be carried from one state to another. It will be time enough to consider the constitutionality of such legislation when we must do so. The present case does not require the court to declare the full extent of the power that Congress may exercise in the regulation of commerce among the states. We may, however, repeat, in this connection, what the court has heretofore said, that the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the states, although plenary, cannot be deemed arbitrary, since it is subject to such limitations or restrictions as are prescribed by the Constitution. This power, therefore, may not be exercised so as to infringe rights secured or protected by that instrument. It would not be difficult to imagine legislation that would be justly liable to such an objection as that stated, and be hostile to the objects for the accomplishment of which Congress was invested with the general power to regulate commerce among the several states. But, as often said, the possible abuse of a power is not an argument against its existence. There is probably no governmental power that may not be exerted to the injury of the public. If what is done by Congress is manifestly in excess of the powers granted to it, then upon the courts will rest the duty of adjudging that its action is neither legal nor binding upon the people. But if what Congress does is within the limits of its power, and is simply unwise or injurious, the remedy is that suggested by Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, when he said: “The wisdom and the discretion of Congress, their identity with the people, and the influence which their constituents possess at elections, are, in this, as in many other instances, as that, for example, of declaring war, the sole restraints on which they have relied, to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments.” Source: U.S. Supreme Court, Champion v. Ames, 188 U.S. 321 (1903).
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Significance The ruling in the Lottery Case had an immediate influence on U.S. society. Social reformers quickly seized on the rationale provided by the Court and began prompting Congress to regulate. In 1906, Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana successfully proposed a meat inspection amendment to an appropriations bill. The amendment, which prohibited the interstate shipment of meats that had not been federally inspected, received an influential recommendation from President Theodore Roosevelt. Additionally, Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle (1906) greatly intensified popular support for Beveridge’s cause. In The Jungle, Sinclair, an active socialist, characterized the life of a worker in the Chicago stockyards in such a compelling manner that President Roosevelt was induced to investigate the meatpacking industry. During the same term, Congress also approved the Pure Food and Drug Act. Later, Beveridge proposed another bill based on the commerce clause. This legislation attempted to exclude from commerce goods produced by child labor. Beveridge was certain that the Lottery Case settled the constitutionality of his proposal, but convincing his colleagues of this proved to be
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U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce The Court has applied various constitutional tests to interstate commerce throughout its history. Initially, the Court viewed interstate commerce as physical movement between states. Soon it began examining federal jurisdiction based on the direct versus indirect influences of the law in question on interstate commerce. By the middle of the twentieth century, the Court began examining whether the purely local activity had an appreciable effect on interstate commerce. Another offspring of the commerce clause is the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The ICC consists of experts who aspire to protect and represent the public in matters of transportation in interstate commerce. This agency has immense powers and is not without its opponents. The need to unite the country necessitated a strong centralized government, but debates persist over the effects ensuing from the expanding role of the federal bureaucracy. Some critics perceive the federal government as an inadequate regulator of business, particularly in the area of environmental protection. Other commentators reason that businesses have become dependent on the government as a form of protection from competition. Still others assert that business enterprises cannot mature and flourish because of excessive government control. The judiciary appears to recognize one conspicuous restriction on the federal government’s authority. Regardless of how significant the legal arguments are, most courts hesitate to make decrees that will prohibit major industries from operating. In addition, certain potentially negative economic effects, such as the loss of many jobs, particularly in the automotive, steel, and oil industries, act as subtle legal shields from overly zealous government intrusion. — Brian J. Carroll Further Reading Amar, Akhil Reed. America’s Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2005. Examines in turn each article of the Constitution and explains how the framers drew on English models, existing state constitutions, and other sources in structuring the three branches of the federal government and in defining the relationship of that government to the states. Breyer, Stephen. Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. In this book, which is based on the Tanner Lectures on Human Values that he delivered at Harvard University in November, 2004, Stephen Breyer, associate justice of the United States, defines the term 225
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arduous and unsuccessful. Congress finally passed the Child Labor Act in 1916, but the Court declared it unconstitutional in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918). It would be another decade before such a law would be held valid under constitutional scrutiny by the Court. Despite this setback, the precedent established in the Lottery Case was adequate to sustain a wide variety of laws intended to limit the movement of harmful goods. During the early twentieth century, the Court upheld the exclusion from interstate commerce of impure foods, white slavery (involuntary prostitution), obscene literature, and articles designed for indecent and immoral use. With only some antithesis, the Court continued to reform the meaning of interstate commerce to enhance federal control. A greatly extended application of the clause can be found in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964). This case implicated the constitutionality of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act strives to eliminate racial discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, and similar places. The owners of the Heart of Atlanta Motel disputed the constitutionality of the act. It was the motel’s policy to refuse lodging to people of color. It advertised in several surrounding states, and approximately 75 percent of its guests were from other states. The Court upheld the constitutionality of the act. The tests employed by the Court were whether the activity is commerce that concerns more than one state and whether the act showed a substantial relation to a national interest. The Court postulated that the operation of a motel might appear local in nature, but it does affect interstate commerce. The Court resolved that a motel accommodating interstate travelers is engaged in commerce that concerns more than one state. Again, as in the Lottery Case, the Court determined that the evil averted by the act was a legitimate national concern. The rationale offered by the Court in Heart of Atlanta Motel exhibits the accumulation of many years of precedents. The Court asserted that the same interest that led Congress to deal with segregation prompted it to control gambling, criminal enterprises, deceptive practices in the sale of products, fraudulent security transactions, improper branding of drugs, wages and hours, members of labor unions, crop control, discrimination against shippers, the protection of small business from injurious price cutting, and resale price maintenance at terminal restaurants. The Court affirmed that Congress, in many of these examples, was regulating against moral wrongs. It concluded that segregation is a valid moral issue that would support the enactment of the Civil Rights Act.
First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established “active liberty” as a sharing of the nation’s sovereign authority with its citizens. He argues that the Constitution is a guide for the application of basic principles to a changing society rather than a rigid legal means for restricting that society. Presents examples in the areas of free speech, federalism, privacy, affirmative action, statutory interpretation, and administrative law. Cox, Archibald. The Court and the Constitution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. A well-organized approach to major Court decisions. The author was a former solicitor general and the first Watergate special prosecutor. He details how the Court has kept the Constitution an important instrument. Fellmeth, Robert C. The Interstate Commerce Omission. New York: Grossman, 1970. Presents an encompassing view of the problems haunting the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Center for Study of Responsive Law produced the report, and Ralph Nader wrote the introduction. Gunther, Gerald. Cases and Materials on Constitutional Law. 10th ed. Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1980. A well-written textbook that discusses the immense area of constitutional law. The text has remarkable
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 depth but has a tendency to ask more questions than it answers. Provides a superior foundation in beginning constitutional research. Hilsman, Roger. To Govern America. New York: HarperCollins, 1979. An admirable compilation of data describing all features of government, including many peripheral aspects, such as philosophy and the future of American democracy. Mason, Alpheus T., and Donald Grier Stephenson, Jr. American Constitutional Law: Introductory Essays and Selected Cases. 12th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998. Acommendable review and analysis of constitutional law. The authors present this complex subject in a clear manner. Tindall, George B. America: A Narrative History. 5th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. A constricted narrative that shapes U.S. history into an eventful story. Presents history organized in themes such as “judicial nationalism.” See also: June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act; Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts; Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
March 14, 1903
First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established The establishment of Pelican Island in Florida as the first national wildlife refuge in the United States began a movement toward increased concern with wildlife conservation. Locale: Pelican Island, Florida Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures Jay Darling (1876-1962), American artist, cartoonist, and wildlife preservationist Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 John Clark Salyer II (1902-1966), American biologist and wildlife preservationist Summary of Event At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was evident that serious wildlife conservation problems existed in the United States. Plume hunting—the killing of birds to 226
gather showy feathers for use as decorations on hats and dresses—was rampant, as the feathers often sold for almost five hundred dollars a pound. This practice was decimating bird populations throughout the nation. In addition, many fish-eating birds were being destroyed by fishermen who wanted to protect their own access to fish that they could catch and sell. President Theodore Roosevelt, an experienced outdoorsman, explorer, and hunter, was appalled at the slaughter of birds that was taking place. At the urging of the American Ornithological Union and other concerned groups and individuals, on March 14, 1903, he issued an executive order establishing Pelican Island on the east coast of Florida as a wildlife refuge. The new refuge was the first in what would become the largest and most comprehensive system of wildlife refuges in the world, preserving more than ninety million acres of wildlife habitat by the end of the twentieth century. Like most conservation actions, the establishment of the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System had a long, of-
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First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established
ten turbulent gestation period. Federal withdrawal of lands to be protected for wildlife began in 1869, when the U.S. Congress established the Pribiloff Reservation off the coast of Alaska to protect the northern fur seal, which had been hunted almost to extinction. One of the first steps toward the establishment of a refuge system occurred in 1892, when President Benjamin Harrison established the Afognak Reservation in Alaska to protect local wildlife. The Lacey Act of 1900 gave the Bureau of Biological Survey true power as a conservation agency. Roosevelt used this legislation to place the federal refuges under the bureau’s control. In 1904, Roosevelt established by executive order fifty-one other national wildlife refuges in seventeen states and in the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. (By the end of the twentieth century, every U.S.
state had a national wildlife refuge within its borders.) More than sixteen million acres were protected as refuge lands on June 30, 1940, when the Bureau of Biological Survey was transferred to the Department of the Interior and renamed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most of the early national wildlife refuges were either islands designated as sanctuaries for colonial nesting birds or game ranges intended to prevent the extermination of native big-game mammals such as elk and bison. On January 24, 1905, Congress authorized the president to set aside a portion of the Wichita National Forest in Oklahoma for the protection of game animals and birds. No funding was provided for this refuge, so the U.S. Forest Service managed it until 1935, when it was transferred to the Bureau of Biological Survey. The first national wildlife refuge specifically autho-
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge Gordon
Brewton Riverview Jay
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Warrington Gulf Shores
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Indiantown
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North Palm Beach
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Fort Myers Cape Coral Sanibel Bonita Shores Naples Park
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Belle Glade Lake Worth Lehigh Acres Boynton Beach Delray Beach Immokalee Boca Raton Sandalfoot Cove Margate Pompano Beach
Golden Gate Naples Manor
Fort Lauderdale Hollywood
Marco
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Tamiami Richmond Heights
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First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established rized by Congress was the National Bison Range, which was created by a congressional act on May 23, 1908. On March 4, 1913, the National Elk Refuge was established. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, ratified in 1918 by Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, established the international framework for managing migratory waterfowl in North America. It also emphasized the acquisition and management of refuge lands. The first waterfowl unit of the system to be authorized and funded by Congress was the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. In 1924, Congress appropriated $1.5 million to purchase bottom lands along the Mississippi River between Wabasha, Minnesota, and Rock Island, Illinois, primarily to preserve waterfowl habitat. The Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929, authored by Senator Peter Norbeck and Congressman August H. Andresen, legislated the establishment of additional federal refuges, but Congress provided no funds for these acquisitions. Jay “Ding” Darling, as head of the Bureau of Biological Survey, obtained $8.5 million to purchase lands for the refuges from two of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the Emergency Acts and the Works Progress Administration. The bureau had until June 15, 1935, to spend the money, and all of it had to be spent in the eighteen states designated as the drought belt. Darling hired biologist John Clark Salyer II to find, evaluate, and buy suitable lands for refuges by the deadline. Salyer did such an outstanding job in obtaining the needed lands that he remained as chief of the Division of Migratory Waterfowl in the Fish and Wildlife Service until he retired in the 1960’s. Senator Norbeck was so impressed with the progress that Darling and Salyer had made in establishing the National Wildlife Refuge System that he obtained another $6 million for the system from Congress by unanimous consent, a legislative feat usually reserved only for national emergencies. Funding for the purchase of national wildlife refuge lands remained uncertain and limited by the whims of congressional action until 1934, when the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, also known as the Duck Stamp Act, was passed. Under this legislation, all waterfowl hunters sixteen years of age and older were required to buy “duck stamps” (sold at U.S. Post Offices), which they then signed and pasted onto the backs of their state hunting licenses. Revenues from the sale of the stamps were to be used to acquire and manage wetlands for waterfowl. Congress thus shifted the tax burden of funding refuges from general taxpayers to wa228
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 terfowl hunters. (Darling, who was an artist, designed the first duck stamp in 1934; each stamp sold for one dollar.) The Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of March, 1934, expanded the scope and authority of the Biological Survey by recognizing wildlife and recreational values on federal water development projects. At least seven major refuges were established by the Resettlement and Farm Security Administration’s program to purchase submarginal farmlands. The Inter-American Treaty of 1942 committed the United States to a continuing program of wildlife protection and husbandry. During World War II, the facilities of the National Wildlife Refuge System deteriorated badly, and no new lands were purchased for preservation. Problems with crop depredation by migratory waterfowl, however, led to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s resumption of land acquisitions. In 1948, Congress passed the Lea Act, authorizing the federal government to acquire lands in California for waterfowl management. Wildlife refuges were established on which crops were grown to lure migratory birds, and commercial crop losses were reduced dramatically. Colusa, Sutter, Merced, and Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuges were added to the refuge system because of the Lea Act. Eventually, revenues from the sales of duck stamps could not keep up with escalating land prices. In 1949, the cost of a duck stamp was increased from one dollar to two dollars (by 2005, the price was fifteen dollars). In 1961, Congress also authorized a seven-year accelerated program of purchasing wetlands with an advance of funds against future revenues from sales of duck stamps in the Wetlands Loan Act. In 1956, Congress passed the Fish and Wildlife Act, establishing a national fish and wildlife policy and authorizing the secretary of the interior to acquire refuge lands for all forms of wildlife. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, established in 1964, provided funds for this 1956 legislation. From 1956 to 1976, refuge acreage doubled through withdrawal of federal lands and through acquisition. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 reaffirmed the Fish and Wildlife Service’s role in conserving endangered and threatened species and authorized the use of Land and Water Conservation Fund moneys to acquire refuge lands for the protection of endangered species. Significance Since the 1960’s, the National Wildlife Refuge System has been the cornerstone of wildlife conservation activities in the United States. The enactment of the Wilder-
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tual management priorities and activities of each individual national wildlife refuge. By the early twenty-first century, opinions concerning the proper purposes of the National Wildlife Refuge System differed widely. Some believed that refuge lands should be public hunting grounds, whereas others argued they should be totally protected wilderness. Some saw them as nuisance areas harboring animals that destroy crops on private lands; others thought they should be public playgrounds where any activity should be permitted. Regardless of opinions, each refuge has a primary or dominating function, and the principle of compatibility determines what activities are acceptable on a specific refuge. The most important objective of land use in these areas continues to be the protection and husbandry of all animals and plants associated with the areas’ particular ecosystems. The entire refuge system continues to be based on the idea that the wildlife on refuges is for the enjoyment of the public. In 1997, the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act provided for the organic management of the refuge system, strengthening its mission, clarifying the compatibility standard for public use of refuges, and requiring the development of a comprehensive plan for each refuge. — David L. Chesemore Further Reading Butcher, Russell D. America’s National Wildlife Refuges: A Complete Guide. Lanham, Md.: Roberts Rinehart, 2003. Provides descriptions of all refuges in the U.S. system, including the species of animals found on each refuge. Also includes information on the accessibility of each refuge and the facilities available. Defenders of Wildlife. Putting Wildlife First: Recommendations for Reforming Our Troubled Refuge System. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1992. Provides many excellent suggestions for improving the management of national wildlife refuges. Fischman, Robert L. The National Wildlife Refuges: Coordinating a Conservation System Through Law. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003. Presents the history of all legislation related to the National Wildlife Refuge System and offers a detailed breakdown of the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act. Includes maps, a chronology, and index. Grove, Noel. Wild Lands for Wildlife: America’s National Refuges. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1984. Provides a wealth of infor229
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ness Act in 1964 led to the classification as wilderness of several million acres of system lands. The Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 formalized the use of National Wildlife Refuge System lands as a means of protecting threatened and endangered species. National refuge lands were added to protect such animals as bluntnosed leopard lizards and San Joaquin kit foxes. From 1940 to 1962, the mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System shifted from an emphasis on protection and enhancement of wildlife numbers to an emphasis on the use of system lands for “outside” purposes. This shift occurred because of increased demand for outdoor recreation areas as well as pressures for the commercial exploitation of other natural resources on refuge lands. Since 1962, the system has emphasized compatibility of uses. All uses of national wildlife refuge lands must be compatible with the primary purposes for which their specific areas were established. The issue of compatibility, which first appeared in federal law in 1918, has been central to the administration of the refuge system since the early 1940’s, acquiring formal legal prominence with the enactment of the Refuge Recreation and Refuge Administration Act of 1962. This act recognized the need for the recreational use of refuges but emphatically stated that such recreation must be limited in type and scope so that it does not compromise the purpose for which refuges were created. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 more than doubled the size of the National Wildlife Refuge System, adding more than seventy-seven million acres to it. By the end of the twentieth century, the system included more than 477 refuges, waterfowl production areas, and cooperative projects covering more than ninety million acres. More than thirty million people visited lands in the system each year to hunt, fish, photograph, and enjoy the views that wildlife species provide. In the 1980’s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s approach to refuge lands changed from a focus on protection to a focus on expanding the lands’ uses. In 1989, activities harmful to the wildlife in these areas were occurring on nearly 60 percent of all national wildlife refuge lands. In 1992, a report by the Commission on New Directions for the National Wildlife Refuge System (Defenders of Wildlife) titled Putting Wildlife First provided an extensive outline of needed changes in the system. The authors of the report stressed that refuges must be protected from activities outside their borders, such as air and water pollution. They argued that biological principles, not economic pressures, must determine the ac-
First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established
Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite mation on the National Wildlife Refuge System. Illustrated with outstanding photographs and maps. Laycock, George. The Sign of the Flying Goose: The Story of the National Wildlife Refuges. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1973. One of the best histories of the National Wildlife Refuge System available, written in an enjoyable style. Includes detailed accounts of many key refuges. Murphy, Robert W. Wild Sanctuaries: Our National Wildlife Refuges—A Heritage Restored. New York: Dutton Press, 1968. Excellent coverage of the na-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tional wildlife refuges. Includes many details on specific refuges and their histories. See also: Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated.
May, 1903
Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir camped together in Yosemite, an event that contributed to the future preservation of Yosemite and the High Sierra. Locale: Yosemite National Park, California Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 John Muir (1838-1914), American naturalist and wilderness preservationist John Burroughs (1837-1921), American naturalist Chester H. Rowell (1844-1912), California state senator Benjamin Ide Wheeler (1854-1927), president of the University of California at Berkeley George Pardee (1857-1941), governor of California, 1902-1906 Robert Underwood Johnson (1853-1937), American conservationist and editor of Century Magazine Summary of Event In May, 1903, two of the most notable citizens of the United States took a walk in the woods and mountains of one of the nation’s natural monuments, California’s Yosemite National Park. John Muir, a self-educated, Scottish-born naturalist who had been reared in rural Wisconsin, and Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard University-educated aristocrat from New York who had become president of the United States, spent a weekend together, communing not only with nature but also with each other. In spite of their vastly different backgrounds, 230
the two had much in common. They were both famous naturalists, essentially self-taught. Both loved the wilderness, with its beauty and challenges, and both were committed to preserving as much of that wilderness as they could. They found walking and talking among the glories of nature rewarding. Muir had spent most of the previous several decades hiking and climbing in his beloved Sierra and elsewhere. Roosevelt had camped in the north woods of Maine while still in college and had lived for months at a time in the Badlands of the Dakotas when he was a rancher. He had become a renowned big-game hunter, and, prior to his weekend with Muir, he had spent several days with another famous naturalist, John Burroughs, at another scenic wonder and national park, Yellowstone. For Muir and for Roosevelt, the wilderness had its own rewards. Both men had broadly political concerns. Roosevelt’s presidency coincided with a national reform movement called Progressivism. The conservation of natural resources was one of the Progressives’ major campaign themes, and Roosevelt, as the nation’s first Progressive president, had come to exemplify the conservationist cause, both as an activist and as a symbol. He had assumed the presidency in September, 1901, when William McKinley was assassinated, and in the following eighteen months he had little opportunity to escape from his official duties. He had hunted in the South in 1902, but his only reward had been the emergence of the Teddy Bear motif when he refused to shoot a small bear brought to him while he was in camp. A trip into the wilderness of the West would give him a needed break from presidential routine.
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Roosevelt’s reputation as a biggame hunter had led critics to refer to him as a butcher. Roosevelt vehemently disagreed—a hunter, he argued, is not a butcher. When Roosevelt first considered a trip West in the spring of 1903, however, he had written to the superintendent of Yellowstone Park, asking about the possibility of hunting mountain lions if they were not legally protected. Roosevelt’s request became known, and the result was much unfavorable publicity. Always the politician, Roosevelt abandoned his hunting plans and asked John Burroughs, an old friend, to accompany him to Yellowstone, where they spent two glorious weeks. Shortly before he left Washington, Roosevelt wrote to John Muir, indicating that he would like to spend a few days with him at Yosemite— just the two of them, with no politics involved. It is likely, however, that Roosevelt’s trip to Yosemite and his Theodore Roosevelt (left) with John Muir at Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley. (Library weekend with Muir combined perof Congress) sonal rewards as well as political considerations: Burroughs and Muir, with their national reputations as natwith a cook and two packers, left the other members of uralists, would soften the accusations against Roosethe presidential contingent, which included California velt’s hunting proclivities, and Roosevelt would get an governor George Pardee. The first night, they camped opportunity to escape the White House for the wilderunder the giant sequoias, the famous Big Trees in the ness. Mariposa Grove in Yosemite Valley, sleeping on everMuir was scheduled to take a trip to Europe and Asia green boughs. After a day’s rugged ride, they spent the in the spring of 1903. Chester H. Rowell, a California following night at Glacier Point, high above the valley state senator who, like Roosevelt, was a Progressive Refloor. The next morning, Sunday, they awoke covered publican, wrote to Muir in March and indicated that the with four inches of snow. Camp that night was at president was going to be in California and wished to Bridalveil Meadow, at the base of El Capitan, one of the spend a few days with Muir in the High Sierra. Muir at most recognizable of the massive rock formations that first thought he could not cancel his overseas journey, surround Yosemite Valley. Unfortunately, neither Roobut after an appeal from Benjamin Ide Wheeler, presisevelt nor Muir left an extensive record of their three dent of the University of California at Berkeley, and after days together. Roosevelt’s expertise was in birds and anreceiving a personal letter from Roosevelt, Muir yielded. imals; Muir’s primary interests were botany and geolBy spending a few days with the president, he comogy. Muir was impressed by Roosevelt’s command of mented, “I might be able to do some forest good in freely natural history, and he later commented to his wife, “I talking around the camp-fire.” The president and the never before had so interesting, hearty, and manly a compreservationist both loved the wild country for its own panion.” To an acquaintance he wrote, “Camping with sake, but each was also motivated by political and policy the President was a remarkable experience. I fairly fell in considerations. love with him.” On Friday, May 15, 1903, Muir and Roosevelt, along
Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
possible to prevent its destruction by lumber interests and other users of In his autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt described his 1903 visit to Yosemite the wilderness areas. One day after with John Muir: leaving Muir and Yosemite, Roosevelt ordered his secretary of the inteWhen I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the “big trees,” the rior to extend the federal forest reSequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite, with John Muir. Of serves of the Sierras north to Mount course of all people in the world he was the one with whom it was best worth Shasta, near the Oregon border. while thus to see the Yosemite. He told me that when Emerson came to CaliforUnlike Muir, Roosevelt was not a nia he tried to get him to come out and camp with him, for that was the only way pure preservationist. For Muir, the in which to see at their best the majesty and charm of the Sierras. But at the time wilderness was a way of life, the best Emerson was getting old and could not go. John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, way for humankind to achieve tranbedding, and food for a three days’ trip. The first night was clear, and we lay scendent happiness. Ralph Waldo down in the darkening aisles of the great Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, Emerson, one of the leaders of the beautiful in color and in symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier Transcendentalist movement, had cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages. Hercome to Yosemite in 1871 and met mit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening, and again, with a burst of wonderMuir, but Muir’s spiritual feelings ful music, at dawn. about nature predated his acquainI was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs, tance with Emerson. For Muir, the John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew little about them. The unspoiled wilderness was more spirhermit thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and the cliffs itual than a tamer landscape; Yosemeverything. The only birds he noticed or cared for were some that were very ite and the Sierras, Muir believed, reconspicuous, such as the water-ouzels always particular favorites of mine too. The second night we camped in a snow-storm, on the edge of the cañon walls, flected God’s truth more clearly than under the spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir; and next day we went Henry David Thoreau’s near-suburdown into the wonderland of the valley itself. I shall always be glad that I was ban Walden Pond. Roosevelt, too, in the Yosemite with John Muir and in the Yellowstone with John Burroughs. was attracted to what he called “the Source: Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, hidden spirit of the wilderness . . . its 1913). mystery, its melancholy, and its charm.” Yet Roosevelt, a historian who wrote the six-volume The Winning of the West (1889-1896), Roosevelt was equally impressed, both with Muir and also believed physical confrontation with the wilderness with Yosemite, supposedly exclaiming at one point, could help humanity to resist the corrupting and debili“This is bully! Hurrah for Yosemite!” To Burroughs he tating influences of civilization. later wrote, “Both the Yosemite and the big trees were all The United States began to establish national parks that any human could desire. John Muir is a delightful and forest preserves in the late nineteenth century; Yelman . . . the pleasantest possible companion on a trip of lowstone Park, where Roosevelt had camped with Burthis kind.” Roosevelt noted Muir’s love of the trees and roughs before meeting Muir at Yosemite, was the first in the mountains as well as his personal commitment to 1872. As president, Roosevelt became noted for his the preservation of the wilderness. It was a rewarding conservation accomplishments in establishing numerous weekend, with good company in the most dramatic surnational parks and monuments, forest reserves, and wildroundings. life sanctuaries. Immediately after leaving Muir, Roosevelt commented that lying under the sequoia trees was like lying in “a temple grander than any human architect Significance could by any possibility build.” He added, however, that Although little is known of the specifics of the conversaother forests should be preserved not for reasons of tions Muir and Roosevelt had over those several days, beauty but for the economic use of future generations. conservation in general and the future of Yosemite and That was never Muir’s concern. the High Sierra in particular were undoubtedly major Muir, along with Robert Underwood Johnson of Centopics. According to one source, Roosevelt realized that tury Magazine, had been largely responsible for Yosemaction to preserve the region must be taken as soon as
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In February, 1905, the California legislature agreed to restore Yosemite Valley to federal control; Governor Pardee signed the law on March 3, 1905. The federal government did not take possession for another year and a half, however. The delay was partially the result of competing railroad proposals to access the park for visitors; before the competition was resolved, the park boundaries had been reduced by several thousand acres. Roosevelt signed the necessary federal legislation on June 11, 1906, and Yosemite Valley became the new heart of the national park. The story of Yosemite did not end there. In part because of the disastrous earthquake of 1906, the city of San Francisco requested that a reservoir be constructed in Hetch Hetchy Valley, which was within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park, in order to provide water for the city’s future needs. Muir adamantly opposed the proposal. Roosevelt was torn between Muir’s opinion and that of his leading conservation adviser, Gifford Pinchot, who believed that “conservation” means efficient use, not simply preservation. Pinchot urged the president to allow Hetch Hetchy Valley to be dammed. The final decision was not made until December, 1913, long after Roosevelt had left the White House in 1909. The preservationists lost. It was a bitter defeat for the aged Muir, who died the following year. Throughout the controversy, however, Muir and Roosevelt remained friends. After Muir’s death in December, 1914, Roosevelt praised him as “a dauntless soul . . . one brimming over with friendliness and kindness.” Together, the Scottish immigrant and the New York patrician had preserved for future generations the beauty of Yosemite Valley. — Eugene Larson Further Reading Bade, William Frederic. The Life and Letters of John Muir. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924. A comprehensive and sympathetic study by Muir’s authorized biographer. Bade personally talked to Roosevelt about his and Muir’s Yosemite weekend. Cutright, Paul Russell. Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985. The author is the leading authority on Roosevelt as naturalist and conservationist. This work emphasizes the latter and includes a discussion of Muir’s relationship with Roosevelt. Fox, Stephen. John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. An excellent and wide-ranging analysis of Muir 233
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ite’s becoming a national park in 1890. The story of Yosemite is a complicated saga. Yosemite Valley had been turned over to the state of California in 1864, during the administration of Abraham Lincoln. The valley was subsequently administered by state commissioners who were not always conservationists—at least not in the opinion of Muir and others like him. Yosemite National Park was created in 1890, establishing a federal reservation surrounding the state-controlled Yosemite Valley. To protect the region, Muir and others founded the Sierra Club in 1892, electing Muir its first president. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland proclaimed a larger Sierra Forest Reserve enveloping both the state-owned valley and the national park ring above the valley floor. Muir was concerned about two crucial issues. First, many private parties were less interested in preserving the wilderness than in making use of it. Second, Muir believed that California’s state commissioners were not sufficiently protective of Yosemite Valley. For Muir and others, the solution was to have California return Yosemite Valley to the federal government and incorporate it into Yosemite National Park. Muir had been actively urging Yosemite Valley’s recession—that is, its return to the federal government by the state—ever since the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1890. While camping with Roosevelt in May, 1903, Muir pressed the president to agree to recession. Roosevelt had urged federal control of Yosemite long before becoming president, and he reaffirmed his commitment to Muir when they camped together. Yosemite Valley was in California’s possession, however, and the state thus had to initiate the return of the valley to the federal government. Many Californians refused to admit that the state could not administer Yosemite Valley as well as the federal government could. Moreover, federal supervision would mean that the park’s commissioners would lose their positions, and certain commercial interests would find their hopes thwarted. Others argued, however, that the financial burden of the state’s administration of the valley was too great. Some hoped to benefit from the tourism that would result from federal control, and still others, including Muir and his associates, believed that efficient administration and preservation of the valley would best be secured under the federal government. The recession campaign was spearheaded by the Sierra Club, with the support of such disparate interests as the State Board of Trade, the Native Sons of the Golden West, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. The support of the railroad company was crucial, as it had long dominated California politics.
Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite
Platt Amendment and the American conservation movement. A chapter about Muir and Roosevelt appeared originally in the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal. Harbaugh, William H. Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. 1961. Reprint. Newtown, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 1997. One of the best single-volume biographies of Roosevelt, covering all aspects of his career, including his interest in nature and conservation. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Seminal study of the early history of conservation in the United States. The author argues that most early conservationists were dedicated to efficient use of natural resources rather than to preservation as an end in itself. Jones, Holway R. John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1965. This exhaustive work covers the history of Yosemite
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 from the days of Abraham Lincoln to the conclusion of the Hetch Hetchy controversy. Includes many illustrations. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Brilliant intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness begins with the earliest days of European contact. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon.
May 22, 1903
Platt Amendment The Platt Amendment underscored Cuba’s independence from Spain and secured U.S. influence in Cuba for the next three decades. Also known as: Treaty of Relations Locale: Cuba Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; laws, acts, and legal history; independence movements Key Figures José Martí (1853-1895), father of the Cuban independence movement Gerardo Machado y Morales (1871-1939), president of Cuba, 1925-1933 William McKinley (1843-1901), president of the United States, 1897-1901 Orville Platt (1827-1905), Republican senator from Connecticut, 1879-1905 Elihu Root (1845-1937), U.S. secretary of war, 18991904 Summary of Event In 1895, Cuban revolutionaries initiated what was ultimately to become a successful revolt against Spanish colonial domination. The break from Spain was brought 234
about by a variety of factors, the two most critical being the repressive nature of Spain’s colonial rule and a change in U.S. tariff policy as a result of recessions and depressions in the United States during the 1890’s. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 imposed a duty on Cuban sugar arriving in the United States, which previously had entered duty-free. With the economy of Cuba reeling from dwindling Cuba-U.S. trade because of the new tariff, Cuban dissidents, who had been waiting for an opportunity to act, launched a revolution. Led by José Martí, who had strong ties to the United States, the rebels who called for Cuban independence began a guerrilla war against the Spanish. Even after the death of Martí during the first year of fighting, the ranks of the Cuban rebel forces continued to increase. Spanish authorities responded to the groundswell of domestic support for the rebels by attempting to separate the rebels from their supporters in rural areas. Under a new policy known as reconcentration, more than a quarter of a million Cubans were interned in concentration camps guarded by Spanish soldiers. Thousands of Cubans died in the unfit camps, which served as breeding grounds for disease. U.S. sympathy for the Cuban rebels was stimulated by reports of atrocities occurring as a result of the new Spanish policy, and people in the United States be-
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The Platt Amendment, as the provisions came to be known, severely restricted Cuba’s ability to make treaties and its right to contract public debt. The United States also declared its right to intervene in Cuban affairs in order to preserve Cuban independence and maintain order. In addition, Cuba was expected to give the United States the right to maintain naval bases and coaling stations on the island. The Cuban government reluctantly appended the provisions of the Platt Amendment to the Cuban constitution. The last U.S. forces finally withdrew from Havana in 1902, and the Platt Amendment became a formal part of a U.S.-Cuba treaty on May 22, 1903. Significance The Platt Amendment formed the basis for relations between the United States and Cuba for sixty years, until Fidel Castro emerged as the leader of Cuba. Forced to submit to the will of the United States, Cuba was soon inundated with U.S. investment. Foreign investors controlled and manipulated Cuban politics as well as the nation’s economy. U.S. troops reoccupied Cuba from 1906 to 1909, under the authority of the Platt Amendment, following an uprising that protested, among other things,
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gan to call for an end to the conflict through reconciliation. The mysterious sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, ended all hope of a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The sinking of the Maine, which had been ordered to Cuba in an effort to display U.S. concern for events unfolding on the island and to protect U.S. citizens, drew the United States further into the conflict. Naval investigators concluded that a Spanish mine had caused the explosion. U.S. president William McKinley responded to events by demanding that Spain grant Cuba independence. Finding the Spanish response to this demand unsatisfactory, on April 11, 1898, McKinley requested authorization from the U.S. Congress to stop the war in Cuba by force, if necessary. Following some debate, on April 19 Congress declared that Cuba was and should be independent, demanded an immediate withdrawal of Spain from Cuba, authorized the use of force by the United States to accomplish that withdrawal, and vowed not to annex the island. The vow not to annex Cuba, which was known as the Teller Amendment, was perhaps the most controversial of the issues debated. Despite the Teller Amendment, the entrance of the United States into the conflict initiated the beginning of an exploitative relationship between the United States and Cuba that was dictated by the former. As the war drew to an end and Spanish withdrawal began to be realized, the United States downplayed the role of the Cuban rebels in the success of the military campaign. The Treaty of Paris, which halted the conflict, required Spain to surrender all claims to Cuba, but the McKinley administration refused to recognize the former Cuban rebels as a legitimate government or the Cuban people as being capable of self-rule. For two years, the U.S. military performed the functions of government in Cuba. Although the U.S. military made substantial improvements in Cuba’s infrastructure and generally improved the quality of life on the island, Cubans resented the U.S. occupation. Many Cubans felt that they had traded one colonial master for another. In 1900, the United States allowed Cuba to draft a constitution and hold elections. The United States refused to withdraw its troops, however, until provisions were made for the continuation of U.S.-Cuba relations. Elihu Root, the U.S. secretary of war, proposed such provisions, which ultimately were included in a bill sponsored by Senator Orville Platt. Platt, a Republican from Connecticut, attached a rider to the Army Appropriations Bill of 1901 that essentially made Cuba a U.S. protectorate.
Platt Amendment
Platt Amendment U.S. involvement in Cuban affairs. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as U.S. president in 1933 initially brought little change in U.S.-Cuba relations, despite his Good Neighbor Policy, which was based on the belief that no state had the right to intervene in Latin America. Roosevelt was forced to deal with a Cuba in turmoil. President Gerardo “the Butcher” Machado y Morales, who had dominated Cuban politics for a decade, was forced to resign in 1933 because of popular opposition and U.S. pressure. His successor, Ramón Grau San Martín, was no more acceptable to the Roosevelt administration. Viewed as too radical by Roosevelt, Grau’s government was never recognized as legitimate by the U.S. administration. It was not until Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar led a coup and installed a government acceptable to the United States that the Roosevelt administration agreed to discuss revoking the Platt Amendment. The second Treaty of Relations, as it came to be known, eliminated the limitations on Cuban sovereignty imposed by the Platt Amendment. The new treaty did allow the United States to retain its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, a provision that could be revoked only by mutual consent of the two states. Despite the formal end of U.S. involvement in Cuba, the new Cuba, which was controlled by Batista, was no less tied to the United States financially or politically. Many international observers viewed Batista as a puppet for the U.S. government. Cuba attracted more U.S. investment under Batista than ever before. Many Cubans argued that despite the end of the Platt Amendment, Cuba was still a U.S. dependency. It was Cubans’ sense of frustration over their inability to achieve a true sense of sovereignty that served as a catalyst for Fidel Castro’s successful coup in 1959. —Donald C. Simmons, Jr.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Abel, Christopher, and Nissa Torrents, eds. José Martí: Revolutionary Democrat. London: Athlone Press, 1986. A brief but comprehensive account of the life of the father of Cuban independence. Langley, Lester D. The Cuban Policy of the United States. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1968. An exceptionally detailed account of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Pérez, Louis A., Jr. Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy. 2d ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. Addresses the history and direction of relations between Cuba and the United States, examining political, economic, and cultural ties between the two nations. _______. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. An indepth look at Cuba’s history of economic and political relationships. _______. Cuba Under the Platt Amendment: 1902-1934. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986. A well-written account of Cuba during its early years of independence. _______. Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba, 1913-1921. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978. A brief account of Cuban domestic and international politics during the period. Suchlicki, Jaime. Cuba: From Columbus to Castro. 3d rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s (U.S.), 1990. An excellent history of Cuba. Thomas, Hugh. Cuba: Or, The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. One of the most extensive works written about Cuba. See also: 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy”; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law
May 23, 1903
Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law The innovation of the primary election, beginning with Wisconsin in 1903, gave voters a more direct say in the selection of party candidates to stand for general election. Locale: Madison, Wisconsin Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), governor of Wisconsin, 1901-1906 Charles McCarthy (1873-1921), American political scientist and director of the first official legislative library in the United States Emanuel Philipp (1861-1925), Wisconsin politician
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Summary of Event In the United States, political parties’ nominees for public offices are selected through primary elections. Prior to Wisconsin’s adoption of the primary system in 1903, however, voters had no direct say in the parties’ nomination of candidates. Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century, candidates for state and national offices in the United States were nominated at policy-making meetings, or caucuses, attended by members of their political parties. Eventually, due to abuses of the caucus system, the parties adopted nominating conventions as a means of choosing candidates, but this too came to be seen as an unsavory way to nominate candidates. Prompted by the perceived corruption and undemocratic nature of previous nomination systems, Wisconsin adopted the first statewide primary election law on May 23, 1903. The Wisconsin Progressives who supported the direct primary based their advocacy on the belief that nominating conventions invariably were ruled by political machines and party bosses. The primary was a direct assault on the power of the party bosses. The Wisconsin primary election law required a statewide direct election to nominate party candidates for all elective offices, with the exception of judges, the state superintendent of public instruction, and some minor local offices. The measure also required that the voting be done by secret ballot. It included no provision to allow the political parties to opt out of the primary. An important feature of the 1903 legislation that created the Wisconsin primary was its requirement of open balloting. There was no test of party affiliation in the
Wisconsin primary, meaning that voters could choose which party’s primary they would vote in on election day; this later came to be called an open primary. At the booth, the voter was to be handed the tickets of all parties and allowed to choose one on which to vote. This was originally one of the most criticized aspects of the primary law. Proponents argued that the advantage of the open primary was that it gave independent voters the right to cast their votes for the best candidate regardless of partisan affiliation. Opponents insisted that the open primary made it possible for one party’s members to sabotage a rival party by voting in its primary in sufficient numbers to nominate a weak candidate. Critics of the Wisconsin primary argued that the system would unduly undermine the strength of the political parties and lead to the election of incompetent candidates. The nonpartisan spirit prevalent in Wisconsin in the early 1900’s, however, encouraged adoption of the open primary, and this nomination system soon became very popular there. Wisconsin’s adoption of the direct primary was a major political victory for Republican governor Robert M. La Follette. Follette had become a pariah in his party after he refused to take a bribe from another prominent Wisconsin Republican to influence a judge. La Follette campaigned for governor as a strong advocate of the direct primary, and after two losing attempts he finally won the office in the election of 1900. Once he took office in 1901, La Follette advocated an ambitious number of progressive reforms, including tax reform, corporate regulation, and steeper railroad taxes, as well as the institution of a direct primary. As governor, La Follette developed what became know as the “Wisconsin Idea,” in which the state involved professors from the University of Wisconsin in the drafting of bills and the administration of the state regulatory apparatus created by the new laws. The Progressives who favored the direct primary linked themselves with the University of Wisconsin. One of the persons who was hired as part of the Wisconsin Idea was a political scientist named Charles McCarthy, who ended up playing a key role in the implementation of the Wisconsin primary. In his capacity as director of the nation’s first official legislative reference library in Madison, Wisconsin, McCarthy operated behind the political scenes to help devise the Wisconsin primary system, and he was one of the system’s strongest supporters once it was in place. McCarthy has been
Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law called the most important Wisconsin Progressive after La Follette. The Wisconsin primary was adopted despite strong political opposition. The leader of the anti-Progressive forces against the direct primary was Emanuel Philipp, who later became governor of Wisconsin (1915-1921). Philipp, like La Follette, was a Republican, but he represented the anti-Progressive Old Guard wing of the party, which was very hostile to La Follette’s reforms, including the direct primary. La Follette singled Philipp out as a corrupt businessman who opposed the direct primary because he was too close to the railroad and brewing industries. It is important to note, however, that despite his strong opposition to the direct primary when it took effect in 1903, Philipp did not attempt to abolish the primary when he became governor a decade later. He would have found such a move difficult, as by then the primary had become very popular with Wisconsin voters. Significance After Wisconsin adopted the direct primary in 1903, the primary election movement spread rapidly, and by the end of World War I in 1918, all but four U.S. states had instituted the use of primary elections for some or all statewide nominations. Today, Americans take primary elections for granted. Except for in a few southern states, where primaries are optional, primaries are now the required method of choosing the nominees for all state and local offices in the United States. It is worth noting, however, that the primary system has not caught on outside American borders; the legally regulated primary system remains peculiar to the United States. The biggest impact of the primary system has been that it has weakened the power of party bosses and thus the political parties in general. In the nineteenth century, in order to get a party’s nomination an individual had to have the support of the party establishment. Since the advent of the primary, however, a candidate can win a party’s nomination by appealing directly to the voters even if the candidate has no support from the party establishment. A person can place his or her name on a primary ballot by making a simple declaration of candidacy, by obtaining a nomination at a preprimary convention, or by gathering a particular number of voters’ signatures on a petition. Some experts have argued that this has had the unintended consequence of increasing the role of special interests as party strength and discipline have declined. The primary system has also played an important role in national politics through its influence on presidential
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nominations. Today, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party hold series of presidential primaries and caucuses in all fifty states. As a result, the nomination process for the office of president is very open, and nonestablishment candidates can potentially win a party’s nomination. —Patrick Fisher Further Reading Buenker, John D., and William Fletcher Thompson. History of Wisconsin: The Progressive Era, 1893-1914. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1998. An account of Progressive Era reforms, including the direct primary, that made Wisconsin known nationally as a “laboratory of democracy.” McCarthy, Charles. The Wisconsin Idea. New York: Macmillan, 1912. A glowing account of the Progressive movement in Wisconsin from the perspective of the head of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library. McGerr, Michael E. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 18701920. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Argues that the ambitious battles fought by Progressive reformers such as La Follette changed the face of American politics and culture. Margulies, Herbert F. The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890-1920. Madison: Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1968. Analyzes the rise and fall of the Wisconsin Progressive movement. Asserts that La Follette’s abilities as a director were responsible for Wisconsin’s reputation as the pioneer Progressive state and a showcase for the Progressive movement. Philipp, Emanuel. Political Reform in Wisconsin. Milwaukee: E. L. Philipp, 1910. Account of the politics behind the adoption of the primary as well as the adoption of taxation reform and railway regulation in Wisconsin from the perspective of an anti-Progressive leader. See also: June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913: Expansion of Direct Democracy; Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912: Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States; Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency; Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion
June 6, 1903
Founding of the Weekly INDIAN OPINION Mohandas Gandhi’s work at the newspaper Indian Opinion is part of the contribution of a generation of anticolonial journalists committed to improving the position of people of color in South Africa. Gandhi’s apprenticeship as a journalist marked the emergence of his early activism, and the newspaper itself played a significant role in postcolonial India by fostering senses of national identity and of an Indian community united across national boundaries. Locale: Durban, Natal, South Africa Categories: Publishing and journalism; colonialism and occupation; government and politics; social issues and reform
Summary of Event Many Indians migrated to Africa while the British Empire was expanding, but those who settled in South Africa endured economic and social uncertainty. Most were very poor and had come to the country as indentured laborers under a brutal system similar to slavery. When their terms of indenture expired, many stayed as laborers or small farmers. A smaller but more prominent group of Indians came, however, to engage in trade. They opened shops and warehouses, several of which became quite successful. One of these traders engaged Mohandas Gandhi as his attorney and asked him to come to South Africa on a temporary assignment in 1893. In his first thirteen years in South Africa, Gandhi represented Indian business interests and worked to reform Indians’ living conditions. In addition to his work on Indian Opinion, he helped form community organizations, including a hospital, and participated in other efforts to improve relations with the British, whose prejudicial policies limited Indians’ economic potential and general status in society. Gandhi was evicted from train carriages, barred from hotels, and beaten up as a result of racial intolerance, but he became increasingly vocal and began educating other Indians in South Africa about their
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Key Figures Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian lawyer and future leader of India’s anticolonial movement Mansukhlal Hiralal Nazar (1862-1906), secretary of the Natal Indian Congress and first editor of Indian Opinion Madanjit Viyavaharik (fl. early twentieth century), owner of the International Printing Press
rights. In 1894, he opposed a bill designed to deprive Indians of their right to vote and rapidly became a skilled political activist. Although he did not defeat the bill, he succeeded in attracting widespread attention to the Indian cause. Indians’ first political mobilization came as a response to this attack on voting rights. In the South African province of Natal, nearly four hundred landowning Indians had the right to vote, but as soon as self-government was granted to the settlers in 1893, the British sought to disenfranchise these voters. The Franchise Amendment Bill of 1896 prohibited any future registration by Indians, although it did allow those already on the rolls to remain. The effect, however, was that the Indian vote was entirely eliminated within a few years. In response to this plan, a group of merchants asked Gandhi, their attorney, to stay. He did, and the Natal Indian Congress—the first Indian political organization—was established to counter this threat to voting. This conflict fueled the founding of Indian Opinion, and on June 6, 1903, after two months of planning, the first issue of the weekly newspaper appeared in the central business district of Durban, Natal. Founded by a small group of Indians living in South Africa, including Gandhi, the paper began by advocating Indian rights, although it also focused on the economic and social situation of other people of color in South Africa. Undeterred by a lack of equipment, Indian Opinion’s staff was determined to voice opposition to colonial discrimination. The first editor of Indian Opinion, Mansukhlal Hiralal Nazar, established the notion of voluntary service to the paper, an idea that proved to be vital. Another individual key to the paper’s production was Madanjit Viyavaharik, the owner of the International Printing Press. However, it was thirty-four-year-old Gandhi, then working as a lawyer in Johannesburg, who proved the main figure in the paper’s genesis. Gandhi directed the policy of Indian Opinion from his Rissik Street office, writing articles, providing leadership, and diverting earnings from his prospering law practice to support the paper. Initially, the task of producing the newspaper in four languages (English, Hindi, Gujerati, and Tamil) was one of the many challenges faced by Nazar and Viyavaharik, and Nazar had difficulty obtaining reliable, capable translators. Furthermore, materials were scarce, and at a time when newspaper type was still being set by hand, the paper had a shortage of type. At one point, Virji
Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion Damodar Mehta (who would one day found Universal Printing Press) asked Nazar to limit his use of the Gujerati letter a. In addition, although he was the editor, Nazar did not know Tamil, so he had to trust the judgment of translators who spoke little English. Viyavaharik, the paper’s owner, handled the paper’s business
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
concerns, which included obtaining a license to operate and handling relations with advertisers and subscribers. Indian Opinion began by adopting a moderate tone that asserted faith in British justice. The editors were fully aware that the paper could be closed (as others had been) for speaking against British rule. To avoid that fate, Nazar and Gandhi vowed that Indians would seek redress via a temperate, constitution-based effort. Gandhi Protests the Asiatic Law Amendment Act In the beginning, Gandhi was anxIn a letter published on August 6, 1907, in Indian Opinion, Mohandas Gandhi ious to avoid offending white offiprotested the harassment Indians were experiencing at the hands of South Africials and hoped to secure their supcan police forces. The law mentioned in this excerpt, the Asiatic Law Amendport, but the content of Indian ment Act (1907), sponsored by Jan Christian Smuts, required that all males of Opinion still accurately reflected the Asian descent be registered, fingerprinted, and in possession of a special pass hardships that Indians suffered unat all times. der colonial rule. The paper provided an alternative to newspapers such as At present, an Asiatic child is free after reaching the age of eight. Under the the Natal Mercury, which were often new Act, even after having the required particulars endorsed as above, the hostile to Indian interests. Gradguardian is bound again to approach the Registrar and take out registration for such child, furnishing further particulars as to identification, etc. In case he ually, as Gandhi moved from politifails to do so, he will be liable to punishment. cal petitioning to active resistance, Asiatic children who are at present in the Transvaal are entitled to remain Indian Opinion became a valuable without a permit, and are not liable to leave the country on attaining majority. mobilization tool. After the paper’s Under the new Act, all such boys are liable to be deported unless they obtain inception, a campaign to end disfrom the Registrar registration certificates, the granting of which is at his discrimination was launched, and Gancretion. dhi later sent his friend Henry Polak At present, an Asiatic is free to bring with him a child under the age of six(editor of the paper from 1906 to teen without a permit for him. Under the new Act, any Asiatic doing so is liable 1916) to India to mobilize support. to imprisonment with hard labour, and to have his own registration cancelled. The paper became a means of bringAt present, any Asiatic can obtain a trading licence without production of a ing news about Indians in the colopermit. Under the new Act, he will have to produce his new register and furnish particulars of name, etc., and means of identification. Which means that if nies to the public in India while sithere are partners in an Indian firm, the Licensing Officer may insist upon the multaneously unifying Indians at presence of all the parties. In case they do not remain present, he can refuse to home and abroad. issue the licence. In 1904, Gandhi moved producAnyone submitting to such an oppressive law and obtaining registers, or tion of Indian Opinion to a one-huncausing others to obtain them, will be shedding the blood of Indians by robbing dred-acre farm named Phoenix just them as above. Is there any Indian who is not roused to fury by such a law? We outside Durban. In his design for this should very much like to know the Indian whose blood does not boil. And it is experimental community, Gandhi incredible to us that any Indian may want to submit to such legislation. This drew on Leo Tolstoy’s distaste for new Act is the extreme limit of slavery. And it is our earnest hope that no Indian city life, praise of agricultural labor, will accept it, whatever the benefit he may get thereby, but that everyone will and renunciation of wealth, and on resist it at all cost. What Mr. Kallenbach [Hermann Kallenbach, one of Gandhi’s followers] writes is quite true: that is, if we submit to such a law, we deJohn Ruskin’s ideas on the equality serve it. Everyone will believe so. It is to be borne in mind that this Act not only of all labor, whether that of the proinsults Indians but casts a slur on the religion of both Hindus and Muslims. For, fessional or that of the manual laHindus and Muslims who come from India are, as a matter of course, covered borer. At Phoenix, the press workers by it. But even the Muslims of Turkey (which is considered a part of Europe) were governed by a new work ethic: are brought within the mischief of the Act, as if the Transvaal Government will They would all have a share in the be in danger if Muslims not belonging to India are excluded. Christians from land and any profits, they would that country are not touched. grow crops to sustain themselves, and they would work jointly to pro-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 duce Indian Opinion. As a result, the history of Indian Opinion became intertwined with that of Phoenix.
satyagraha, which Gandhi said would never have developed without Indian Opinion. —Kathleen M. Bartlett Further Reading Brown, Judith. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991. Brown, an Oxford historian, investigates Gandhi’s education in law and Hindu theology, his immersion in religion and politics, his manipulation of the media, and his policy of nonviolence. Dalton, Dennis. Mahatma Gandhi. 2d ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Presents an analysis of the Gandhian concepts of satyagraha (passive resistance) and swaraj (Indian self-government), the connection between the two, and their use as tools for achieving Indian independence. Dhuphelia-Mesthrie, Uma. Gandhi’s Prisoner? The Life of Gandhi’s Son, Manilal. Cape Town, South Africa: Kwela Books, 2005. Gandhi’s great-granddaughter, an associate professor of history in South Africa, draws on family memories and letters between father and son to explore their relationship. See also: 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion; 19251935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact; Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables.
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Significance By its second year, Indian Opinion had 887 subscribers. Over its entire fifty-eight-year existence, it averaged about 2,000 subscribers annually; the highest number in any one year was 3,500. The significance of Indian Opinion, however, lay not in its size (which may be explained only partly in terms of the size of the Indian population) but in its content and its timing. In their quest for Indian rights, Gandhi and his colleagues established a longlasting forum for civil discourse on social injustice, publicized the discrimination practiced against people of color in South Africa, and began laying the groundwork for an independent India. Indian Opinion and its editors’ political activism became an established tradition, one that distinguished Indian Opinion from other newspapers that would arrive on the scene during the twentieth century. All but one of its editors spent some time in jail, a tradition that began during the satyagraha (active, nonviolent resistance) campaign from 1906 to 1913. In 1904 the newspaper’s aims had been to educate whites in South Africa about Indian needs and wants, but from1906 onward it became a vehicle for challenging state laws and urging defiance of these laws when they were clearly unjust. Its history of social activism elevates Indian Opinion from a small newspaper produced on a farm to one of world significance. The paper’s prestige only grew as it became irrevocably linked with Gandhi’s transformation from attorney to leader of a mass movement and his philosophy of
Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion
First Tour de France
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 1, 1903
First Tour de France The first Tour de France bicycle race was contested in six stages covering 2,428 kilometers (more than 1,508 miles) over a twenty-day period. Since its founding, apart from breaks during the two world wars, the Tour de France has been an annual event. Also known as: La Grande Boucle; Big Loop Locale: France Category: Sports Key Figures Henri Desgrange (1865-1940), competitive cyclist, editor of L’Auto, and cofounder of the Tour de France Geó Lefèvre (1877-1961), cycling reporter for L’Auto and cofounder of the Tour de France Albert de Dion (1856-1946), industrialist and founder of De Dion-Bouton, an automobile manufacturer Pierre Giffard (1853-1922), editor of Le Vélo and organizer of the first Paris-Brest-Paris cycling race in 1891 Maurice Garin (1871-1957), winner of the first Tour de France Summary of Event The Tour de France is an annual cycling race run over a series of stages throughout France. Founded in 1903, the race is very much a product of the French belle époque (1890-1914), a period in which the French demanded and marveled at all types of spectacle; cabarets and circuses were very popular. At the same time, the bicycle became both affordable and practical, and nationalist sentiment was at a high point following defeat in the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871). The first Tour de France drew on all these elements. The Tour de France’s founding sprang directly from the Dreyfus affair. In 1894, a Jewish officer in the French army, Alfred Dreyfus, had been found guilty of passing military secrets to a German attaché in Paris and had been sentenced to life in prison. In 1906, Dreyfus was declared innocent; his name was cleared and the antiSemitism and corruption of the powerful people who had accused him were exposed. During the time between Dreyfus’s sentencing and his exoneration, however, France became polarized: Socialist, pro-Republic “Dreyfusards” opposed the imperialist, anti-Semitic, proestablishment “anti-Dreyfusards.” One anti-Dreyfusard was the French industrialist Albert de Dion, an automobile 242
manufacturer who used the sporting journal Le Vélo as the chief medium for his advertising. The editor of Le Vélo was Pierre Giffard, a passionate and vocal Dreyfus supporter. Their political differences caused de Dion to withdraw his backing from Le Vélo, and he and a group of other industrialists, including Èdouard Michelin (who cofounded the Michelin Tire Company with his brother André) and Adolphe Clément (a bicycle manufacturer), founded a rival sporting journal that was to be politically neutral. This daily was initially known as L’Auto-Vélo, and Henri Desgrange, who had been Clément’s publicist, became its first editor. Desgrange had been a legal clerk in the 1890’s, but he left this profession in order to devote himself entirely to his main passion: racing bicycles. In addition to his work for Clément, he had been a cycling reporter for ParisVélo, a sports paper that competed with Giffard’s Le Vélo, and managed a velodrome. The other members of L’Auto-Vélo were Victor Goddet, the magazine’s treasurer, and Geó Lefèvre, the journal’s lead cycling reporter. Although L’Auto-Vélo had been established to promote all sports (automobile racing, aeronautics, cycling, athletics, alpinism, boxing, fencing, gymnastics, horse racing, weight lifting, and yachting were all mentioned in its subtitle) it was first and foremost a cycling magazine. Giffard, who was now running Le Vélo with minimal financial backing, sued L’Auto-Vélo for trademark infringement. Giffard won the case in January, 1903, and L’Auto-Vélo was forced to become simply L’Auto. Desgrange’s circulation had dropped to alarming levels, and he feared that a title change would cause his cycling clientele to disappear altogether. He needed to take a drastic step to revive the paper, and a spectacular race seemed the perfect solution. Credit for devising the idea of a Tour de France belongs to Desgrange’s employee, Lefèvre. Over lunch with his boss, the twenty-three-year-old Lefèvre suggested a multiday road race, far longer than anything previously attempted, that would go through all the major cities of France. Key to the success of this idea was the race’s name: “Tour de France” was a phrase with several important connotations. The first of these referred to Le Tour de France de deux enfants (1877), written by G. Bruno (pseudonym of Madame Fouillée), a best-selling and very nationalistic book commonly used to teach French geography and history to children. The second reference was to the Tour de France des Compagnons: A
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Tour de France
Tour de France, 1903
to Giffard, Desgrange announced the race on the pages of the newly christened L’Auto. The race was touted as Bonn Brussels Liege the greatest cycling trial in the world. Plymouth Wiesbaden It would consist of six stages ranging Le Havre in distance from 268 kilometers Luxembourg Paris K (about 166.5 miles) to the monstrous Strasbourg 476-kilometer (295.8-mile) first St stage from Paris to Lyon. Given that these distances would require riders c e n to ride for as long as twenty hours at Zurich a Nantes Ber a stretch, multiday rest periods were planned between stages. After reGeneva ceiving only lukewarm interest from Clermont-Ferrand Atlantic riders, Desgrange dropped his initial Lyon Milan Ocean demand of a twenty-franc entry fee Bordeaux and promised a minimum of five Turi francs per day to each rider. In the end, he attracted a group of sixty proracers, tradesmen, and unBayonne Toulouse Mon fessional employed laborers. The race began Marseille Bilbao at the Café Reveil Matin outside Paris B Mediterranean Sea on July 1, 1903. Overall victory in the race went to d lid Maurice Garin, a five-foot, three-inch Italian-born chimney sweep who compagnonnage was a society for the training and mulived in Lens, in northeastern France. Lefèvre, however, tual support of workers, particularly men in the building might be the tour’s true hero. As the one-man race comtrades. These societies began in the seventeenth century missioner, organizer, and field reporter, he followed the but became popular in the early years of the nineteenth race closely, riding his bicycle or catching a train to officentury. As part of his training, a young worker would ciate at the finish line or at the next checkpoint. Garin’s tour France, traveling around the country and perfecting victory in Paris took place before a crowd of twenty thouhis trade at the stops along the way. Every trade followed sand paying spectators. In honor of the race, Desgrange its own particular circuit, although most left Paris and produced a special edition of L’Auto that sold 120,000 headed down the Rhône to the Mediterranean, and then copies, proving that the race’s first running had been a rethrough Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Tours, Orléans, sounding success. and back to Paris. Each tour always headed forward, never retracing its steps. A tradesperson would travel Significance alone on foot and was expected to be self-sufficient, exThe Tour de France owes some of its success to its initial changing labor for training, food, and lodging en route. appeal: Early on, cycling fans had passionate reactions to The concept of such a circuit and the self-sufficiency rethe difficult race, and riders were egged on by regional riquirement were both borrowed for the first cycling Tour valries and provoked by sensationalist journalists. Scande France. dals, such as the 1904 disqualification of the first four Desgrange presented the idea of a cycling tour to finishers for offenses ranging from accepting food from Goddet, who agreed to finance the twenty thousand spectators to taking the train for part of the course, have francs in prize money. Three thousand francs—about also helped generate interest. The race continues to be three years’ pay for an industrial worker at the time— one of the world’s premier sporting events, although a would go to the winner. Lefèvre surveyed the route and few key changes have cemented its success. In 1905, for made preliminary logistical arrangements, and on Januexample, mountains were included on the race route for ary 19, 1903, just four days after losing the trademark suit the first time. Cooperation between racers, first allowed Dover
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Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia in 1912 against Desgrange’s wishes, changed the race’s tactics. The publicity caravan, a gaudy parade of commercial floats that dispenses trinkets to the crowd in advance of the riders’ arrival, was first included in 1930 and roused the interest of spectators, and the race’s redesign into many more and much shorter stages meant that a larger number of cities were able to share the honor of hosting the tour. Since 1903, the Tour de France has found a place in French and European culture as the subject of songs, films, and literature. Its nationalist, sporting, cultural, and commercial elements have successfully captured the imaginations of its many supporters in France and around the world. —Margot Irvine and John P. Koch Further Reading Dauncey, Hugh, and Geoff Hare, eds. The Tour de France, 1903-2003: A Century of Sporting Structures, Meanings, and Values. London: Frank Cass, 2003. A collection of academic essays on the tour’s cultural significance.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Fife, Graeme. Tour de France: The History, the Legend, the Riders. Edinburgh, Scotland: Mainstream, 2005. A popular history of the tour with extensive descriptions of the events surrounding the race’s founding. Seray, Jacques. 1904: The Tour de France Which Was to Be the Last. Translated by Richard Yates. Denver, Colo.: Buonpane, 1994. A meticulous account of the 1904 tour based on contemporary newspaper accounts. Woodland, Les. The Unknown Tour de France: The Many Faces of the World’s Biggest Bicycle Race. San Francisco: Van der Plas, 2000. A popular history relating some of the lesser-known events in the history of the tour. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; Oct. 113, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race; Aug. 20Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association; June, 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
August 2-September, 1903
Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia An unsuccessful revolt in 1903 in the contested European region of Macedonia set the stage for massive foreign intervention in the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Also known as: St. Elijah’s Day Uprising Locale: Macedonia; Ottoman Empire Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Ferdinand I (1861-1948), prince of Bulgaria, r. 18871908, and king of Bulgaria, r. 1908-1918 Abdülhamid II (1842-1918), powerful sultan of the late Ottoman Empire, r. 1876-1909 Summary of Event The Ilinden Uprising of 1903 took place in Macedonia, an important European province of the Ottoman Empire. This strategic region was divided among four Ottoman vilayets, or provinces, and it was home to a large number of different national and ethnic groups. Residents included Macedonian Slavs, Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Roma, Turks, and Jews. As national244
ism spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, outside powers advanced various claims to Macedonia, and many local groups agitated for autonomy. The 1903 uprising was led by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), and although the revolt was a costly failure, it sped the evolution of the Macedonian identity as a group that was Slavic in language and ethnicity. After many nearby provinces had split off or been taken from the Ottoman Empire over the course of the nineteenth century—including Serbia, Greece, Bosnia, Romania, and half of Bulgaria—Macedonia and Albania were two of the last European holdings in the sultan’s realm. Macedonia had fertile soil and was strategically very important; it sat astride notable road, river, and railway routes and was home to the great port of Thessaloníki. Unsurprisingly, then, Macedonia was coveted by all of its neighbors. Its ethnically diverse population had caused competition for educational and ecclesiastical control, especially among the Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians, and this meant that cohesive domestic political movements based on national identity were relatively slow to develop.
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time, they would have certainly lost to the Turks. An intervention would have also endangered the process of territorial acquisition of Eastern Rumelia, about half of present-day Bulgaria, which was still in Ottoman hands. After annexing Eastern Rumelia in 1908, when Istanbul was in the throes of the Young Turk movement, and after securing Russian support for the Balkan Pact in 1912, Ferdinand would eventually recalculate the odds and send Bulgaria to war over Macedonia. In 1903, however, the time was simply not right. The major world powers were not eager for the revolt to succeed, because it would upset the carefully regulated status quo in the Balkans and possibly create a scramble for Ottoman lands that could easily get out of control. Instead, countries such as Great Britain and Russia hoped to methodically and proportionately help themselves and their minor allies to territories that they would liberate from the Turks. The events of 1903 were well covered by the Western press, but public opinion in Europe and the United States was actually split between sympathy for Christians under Ottoman rule and outrage at the terror tactics IMRO had taken to using—which included assassination, kidnapping, and bombings—especially in the prominent port city of Thessaloníki. Significance The Ilinden Uprising took on almost mythical significance in the twentieth century, but its power as a symbol was dependent on a series of misunderstandings and contested interpretations. Extensive research demonstrated, for instance, that the uprising was not rooted in the general population. Although it did eventually include some peasants, leadership was largely limited to the powerful IMRO organization, which was split over whether to foment a mass uprising or terrorism carried out by secret cells. Furthermore, although some believed that the insurrection included all anti-Ottoman elements of the population, including Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, and other groups, in reality it was centered on Slavic-speaking Christian groups. These Christian groups coexisted in the largely rural, illiterate provinces and were still in the process of creating distinct identities, and they represented a broad enough spectrum of political ideas to ensure the IMRO’s fragmentation after 1903. From that point on, the lion’s share of revolutionary activity in Macedonia was carried out by the pro-Bulgarian IMRO factions that came to be known as the Supremists or the External Committee and were actually based in Bulgaria. They became a rightradical or protofascist force and helped destabilize Bul245
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By 1903, the Ottoman Empire had gone through several decades of reforms aimed at both strengthening and improving the governance of its provinces. Some aspects of economic, social, and political life had truly improved in the Empire, but the police and military were also stronger, and Turkish nationalism was beginning to take shape. The celebrated Bulgarian novelist Dimiter Talev described 1903 as the year when the Ottoman Empire, a “frightened beast,” began to show its “bloody claws” again and lash out with great ferocity at the minority groups within its borders. The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was formed in 1893 by Slavs who wanted to promote administrative autonomy in the region. The group changed names several times and split into various fractions that disagreed over tactics and goals, but by 1903 it was powerful and committed to an uprising that would focus Western attention on Macedonia. The rebels hoped to mobilize the mass of peasantry before the growing strength of Ottoman security forces or the ameliorative effects of Ottoman reforms deprived them of popular support. IMRO agents, called komitas, were formed into armed bands known as chetas. The fighting began on August 2, 1903, which is St. Elijah’s Day (Ilinden) in the Orthodox Christian calendar. It spread rapidly but collapsed just as quickly; many peasants passively supported it, but Turkish reprisals hit hard. There were more than two hundred armed engagements during the revolt, but the rebels charted few concrete successes. The most significant of these wins resulted in the creation of a short-lived republic at Krushevo, the population of which was largely Vlach (a group descended from Roman colonists) and anti-Turkish. Tens of thousands of people became refugees, and horrific acts were committed against civilians on both sides. Exact casualty figures are impossible to tabulate, but estimates of the dead run in the thousands for both civilians and fighters on both sides. Although more than twenty-six thousand rebels took part in this uprising, and the IMRO had grown considerably in numbers and resources over the past decade, the insurrection failed. Of key significance in the outcome was the fact that Bulgaria did not intervene to support the rebels. Bulgarian prince Ferdinand I chose not to do so, despite the great pressure on him from pro-Macedonian elements both in the population and in his army. For Bulgaria, intervention would have meant inviting the Ottomans to wage full-scale warfare on their new country, and since they had no firm allies in Western Europe at the
Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia
Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia garia through the 1930’s. Autonomist ideas that stressed the distinct identity of the region’s dominant Slavic group were eventually utilized by the Yugoslav communists to justify Macedonia’s inclusion in Yugoslavia. The uprising was important because it revealed the degree to which the Ottoman Empire, which by 1903 was heavily in debt and maintained very tense relations with both Russia and the Habsburgs (the German royal dynasty), was vulnerable to manipulation by the major world powers. On September 30, 1903, Emperor Francis Joseph and Czar Nicholas II imposed the Mürzsteg Reform Plan on Sultan Abdülhamid II, but this did little to pacify Macedonia. In its call for indemnities against the Ottoman government and in internationalizing the local gendarmerie, however, the plan represented another dizzying violation of Ottoman sovereignty. The plan also made it clear that Macedonia, however it was geographically and ethnically defined, would not push itself out of the Ottoman Empire but would have to be pulled out by its Balkan neighbors and the major world powers. This occurred during the Second Balkan War of 1913. The Ilinden Uprising was an important milestone in the history of modern Macedonia because it refined the question of self-definition. The majority of the region’s inhabitants were clearly Slavic, but the question of whether the region would become independent or part of Bulgaria remained in dispute. Questions about the Macedonians’ relationship to the many minority groups of their country, especially the Albanians, and of their approach to the fragile historical egos of their neighbors, especially the Greeks, continued well into the twentyfirst century. —John K. Cox
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading MacDermott, Mercia. Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev. London: Journeyman Press, 1978. A renowned Balkanist’s biography of one of the leading organizers of IMRO. Perry, Duncan. The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Based on extensive documentation, this is among the most detailed studies available of the Ilinden Uprising and the growth of IMRO. Poulton, Hugh. Who Are the Macedonians? 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Presents a lucid analysis of the various lands and peoples that have constituted Macedonia right up to today. Stavrianos, Leften. The Balkans Since 1453. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Magisterial work on Balkan history puts the Ilinden Uprising in regional and historical perspective. Well spiced with important data and insightful anecdotes. Talev, Dimiter. Ilinden: A Novel of the Macedonian Rebellion of 1903. Translated by Nadya Kolin. Sofia, Bulgaria: Foreign Languages Press, 1966. A readable tale of village life, told from a decidedly prorevolutionary point of view but containing much valuable information on ethnography and the ideas and tactics of the revolutionaries. See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Pius X Becomes Pope
August 9, 1903
Pius X Becomes Pope In 1903, Pius X succeeded the world-oriented Pope Leo XIII, who was concerned with issues relating to social justice and the Roman Church’s place in international affairs. Pius X focused his pontificate on the Church’s internal workings and adopted a conservative approach to doctrine. Also known as: Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto Locale: The Vatican, Rome, Italy Category: Religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 1835-1914), Roman Catholic pope, 1903-1914 Leo XIII (Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci; 1810-1903), Roman Catholic pope, 1878-1903
Pope Pius X. (Library of Congress)
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Summary of Event Since the Enlightenment, the Roman Church—and organized religion in general—had been weakened by rationalism and the growth of science and democracy. Pius IX’s flirtation with liberalism in the 1840’s was transformed into staunch conservatism after he was forced to flee Rome in 1848 and was restored with the help of a French army in 1849. For the remainder of his pontificate, Pius IX worked to condemn Modernism, especially in the Syllbus Errorum (1864; Syllabus of Errors), and assert papal authority. In 1870 and 1871, Pius IX dominated the First Vatican Council, which promulgated the doctrine of papal infallibility. Pius IX was succeeded by Pope Leo XIII, who was more sympathetic to the trends of his time; he launched an aggressive campaign for social reforms described in Rerum Novarum (1891; The Condition of Labor). Although he was named a cardinal and patriarch of Venice by the progressive Leo XIII, Pius X did not share much enthusiasm for the agenda advanced by his predecessor. Rather, he feared that the Roman Catholic Church was in jeopardy because of its internal weakness, which he believed stemmed from its increasing worldliness. He launched a program of internal reforms and enacted a general defense of Roman Catholicism designed to protect it against the multitudinous threats inherent in Modernism. Pius X’s internal reforms included spiritual and structural changes, such as the new rule on access to Holy Communion by young children and the appointment of trusted allies to positions of authority in the Vatican and
throughout the Catholic world. These changes did not result in much controversy, but Pius X also targeted internal sympathizers who used Modernist approaches to Catholicism. Some Catholic leaders and clerics were attracted to the new Modernist philosophy and science, and these Modernists tended to view revelation subjectively and within the context of a complex view of humanity and nature. Such an approach endangered the traditional and orthodox view of revelation, which had come to form the centerpiece of Catholic teaching after the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. Pius X did not hesitate to silence those who opposed his traditionalist views, and he freely used the power of excommunication. Several liberal Catholic periodicals in the United States were denounced and lost all formal Church support. Pius X also added new Modernist books to an updated version of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1907; Index of Prohibited Books). Pius X defined his concerns about Modernism in a series of papal encyclicals and pronouncements. In Pieni l’Animo (July 28, 1906), he denounced Modernism as a
Pius X Becomes Pope danger to the faith; in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907; On a Deplorable Outcome), Pius X listed sixty-five errors that resulted from Modernism; and in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907; Feeding the Lord’s Flocks), he stated that Modernism was heresy. On November 18, 1907, in the pronouncement Praestantia scripturae (1907; Against
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Modernists), Pius X directed that all Catholics who failed to comply with his statements in Lamentabili and Pascendi would be in a serious state of sin and would be subject to censure. Pius X’s anxieties about Modernism reached a climax on September 1, 1910, when he decreed that all teachers and seminarians take an oath supporting Lamentabili and Pascendi and repudiating Modernism. In the broader context of the PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS Catholic Church and society, Pius X Pope Pius X’s encyclical on Modernism, issued on September 8, 1907, inopposed the Christian Democracy cluded this explanation of the Church’s new rules on censored material: movement, which argued that the rich had a responsibility to look out for But it is not enough to hinder the reading and the sale of bad books—it is also the interests of the poor, because of necessary to prevent them from being printed. Hence let the Bishops use the utits absence of hierarchical (papal) most severity in granting permission to print. Under the rules of the Constitucontrol. Also, he was concerned tion Officiorum, many publications require the authorisation of the Ordinary, about independent anti-Modernist and in some dioceses it has been made the custom to have a suitable number of movements, such as the Murri moveofficial censors for the examination of writings. We have the highest praise for ment in Italy and the Sillon movethis institution, and We not only exhort, but We order that it be extended to all dioceses. In all episcopal Curias, therefore, let censors be appointed for the rement in France. Both of these esvision of works intended for publication, and let the censors be chosen from poused positions on Modernism both ranks of the clergy—secular and regular—men of age, knowledge and similar to those taken by Pius X, but prudence who will know how to follow the golden mean in their judgments. It they acted outside the framework of shall be their office to examine everything which requires permission for pubthe hierarchy and were thus unaclication according to Articles XLI and XLII of the above-mentioned Constituceptable. Pius X focused much ention. The Censor shall give his verdict in writing. If it be favourable, the Bishop ergy on the condition of the Church will give the permission for publication by the word Imprimatur, which must in France, where the anticlericalism always be preceded by the Nihil obstat and the name of the Censor. In the Curia of the Third Republic had been eviof Rome official censors shall be appointed just as elsewhere, and the appointdent for years. French political leadment of them shall appertain to the Master of the Sacred Palaces, after they ers were determined to restrict the have been proposed to the Cardinal Vicar and accepted by the Sovereign Pontiff. It will also be the office of the Master of the Sacred Palaces to select the power of the Church in their country; censor for each writing. Permission for publication will be granted by him as they argued that the separation of well as by the Cardinal Vicar or his Vicegerent, and this permission, as above church and state was needed for the prescribed, must always be preceded by the Nihil obstat and the name of the state to be free from the influence— Censor. Only on very rare and exceptional occasions, and on the prudent decireal or imagined—of Roman Catholsion of the bishop, shall it be possible to omit mention of the Censor. The name icism. On December 9, 1905, the of the Censor shall never be made known to the authors until he shall have French government separated the given a favourable decision, so that he may not have to suffer annoyance either church and the state in a unilateral acwhile he is engaged in the examination of a writing or in case he should deny tion that dissolved the long-standing his approval. Censors shall never be chosen from the religious orders until the Concordat of 1801; some Church opinion of the Provincial, or in Rome of the General, has been privately obproperties were taken and given to tained, and the Provincial or the General must give a conscientious account of the character, knowledge and orthodoxy of the candidate. We admonish relilay associations that served social gious superiors of their solemn duty never to allow anything to be published by and benevolent purposes. any of their subjects without permission from themselves and from the OrdiWhile most French bishops and nary. Finally We affirm and declare that the title of Censor has no value and can clergy accepted the new reality withnever be adduced to give credit to the private opinions of the person who out much opposition, Pius X conholds it. demned the decision in the encycliSource: Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici gregis, Encyclical of Pope Pius X on the cals Vehementer Nos (On the French Doctrines of the Modernists. Given at St. Peter’s, Rome, on September 8, 1907. Law of Separation) on February 11, 1906, and Gravissimo Officii Munere
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 (On French Associations of Worship) on August 10, 1906. Pius X was opposing the historical force of Modernism and in so doing was viewed as a reactionary. Nonetheless, his eleven-year pontificate set the tone for much of the twentieth century history of the Church. Pius X believed that the laity needed to be involved in pastoral work under the direction of the clergy, and his reforms in the apostolic and spiritual life of the Church were dutifully enacted: Prayer books were improved, the Gregorian chant was reestablished within the Roman lexicon and rule, and the prayer life of priests and the religious was more carefully directed. Pius X was canonized a saint of the Roman Church on May 29, 1954. During the turbulent 1960’s, a separatist movement—displeased with the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council—took his name when it formed the Society of St. Pius X, but by the early twenty-first century, efforts to bridge the gap between this group and the Vatican had begun.
Council. His more moderate successor, Pope Benedict XV, found himself leading the church during a period of world war and economic distress; the papacy during that time was characterized by attempts at neutrality and loss of prestige. —William T. Walker Further Reading Chiron, Yves. Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church. Translated by Graham Harrison. Kansas City, Mo.: Angelus Press, 2002. Thorough and sympathetic biography focuses on Pius X’s challenges to Modernism and the range of his spiritual and doctrinal reforms within the Church. Coppa, Frank J. The Modern Papacy Since 1789. New York: Longman, 1998. An excellent study of the papacy since the outbreak of the French Revolution. Presents Pius X as a traditionalist and anti-Modernist. Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. 2d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002. One of the best single-volume histories of the papacy available. Pius X emerges as a counterModernist who expanded papal power and enforced doctrinal allegiance. Excellent resource for general readers as well as students of the papacy. Forbes, F. A. Pope St. Pius X. Rockford, Ill.: Tan, 1987. A sympathetic yet critical life of Pius X that considers his policies and goals in light of the condition of the Roman Church at the beginning of the twentieth century. McBrien, Richard. Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. A important and critical study of the papacy by a priest-scholar whose interpretation of Pius X is representative of academia’s general perspective. Schimmelpfennig, Bernhard. The Papacy. Translated by James Sievert. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Important scholarly history of the papacy provides a critical analysis of Pius X and other modern popes. Includes useful bibliography. See also: June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery; May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope.
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Significance During the nineteenth century, the papacy shifted in its support for new reforms and active involvement of the Roman Church in the world. In the 1840’s, the pontificate of Pius IX focused on liberal reforms, but after Italy’s 1848 revolution, Pius IX abandoned such a direction and became an archconservative. Pope Leo XIII (whose papacy lasted from 1878 to 1903) restored a papal worldview and advanced an agenda centered on social justice and reformist Catholic teachings. Pius X was a critic of Modernism and its many ramifications; he viewed the Church and the truth of his faith as the victims of a Modernist attack. In particular, Pius X denounced all expressions of anticlericalism, especially state seizure of Church property, restrictions on priests and religious, and restrictions on Catholic education. In response, Pius X focused on the elimination of any internal expressions of Modernism within the Church, a revival of traditional Church practices (although he introduced the practice of having young children receive Communion), the reassertion of traditional doctrines, and, reminiscent of Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, the issuance of a series of encyclicals that identified and denounced the elements of Modernism. Pius X argued that it was impossible to be a socialist and a Catholic at the same time, and many of his policies were sustained until the Second Vatican
Pius X Becomes Pope
Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Fall, 1903
Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade The success of the first shaving razor with a disposable blade allowed the Gillette Safety Razor Company to become an important firm in the United States. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts Categories: Inventions; trade and commerce; manufacturing and industry Key Figures King Camp Gillette (1855-1932), American inventor and businessman William Painter (1838-1906), American inventor Steven Porter (fl. early twentieth century), American machinist William Emery Nickerson (1853-1930), American inventor of machines for mass production John Joyce (fl. early twentieth century), American businessman Summary of Event In 1895, King Camp Gillette first formulated the idea of a shaving razor with a disposable blade. Gillette spent years drawing different models, and finally Steven Porter, a machinist and associate of Gillette, created from those drawings the first three such razors that worked. Gillette soon founded the Gillette Safety Razor Company, which became the leading seller of disposable razor blades in the United States. George Gillette, King Camp Gillette’s father, had been a newspaper editor, a patent agent, and an inventor. He never invented a very successful product, but he loved to experiment. He encouraged all of his sons to figure out how things work and how to improve on them. King was always inventing new things and had many patents, but for a long time he was unsuccessful in turning any of them into profitable businesses. While Gillette was working as a traveling salesperson for Crown Cork and Seal Company, William Painter, the inventor of the crown cork, presented him with a formula for making a fortune: Invent something that would constantly need to be replaced. Painter’s crown cork, used to cap beer and soda bottles, was a tin cap covered with cork that formed a tight seal over a bottle. Each crown cork could be used only once, so soda and beer companies needed a steady supply. Gillette took Painter’s advice and began thinking about everyday items that needed to be replaced often. 250
King Camp Gillette. (Library of Congress)
After owning a Star safety razor for some time, King realized that the razor blade had not been improved for a long time. He studied all the razors on the market and found that both the common straight razor and the safety razor featured a heavy V-shaped piece of steel, sharpened on one side. King reasoned that a thin piece of steel sharpened on both sides would give a better shave and could be thrown away once it became dull. The idea of the disposable razor blade had been born. After making several drawings of the kind of razor he envisioned, Gillette made a wooden model to explain his idea more clearly. His first attempt to construct a working model was unsuccessful, as the steel used for the blade was too flimsy. Steven Porter, a Boston machinist, decided to try to make Gillette’s razor from his drawings. He produced three razors, and in the summer of 1899 King Camp Gillette was the first man to shave with a disposable razor blade.
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had the option of backing out. This deal enabled the company to start manufacturing and advertising in 1903, after spending $18,000 to perfect the machinery to produce the disposable razor blades and razors. Significance Originally, the company’s directors wanted to charge three dollars for a razor with twenty blades, but Joyce insisted on a price of five dollars. In 1903, five dollars was about one-third the average American’s weekly salary, and a high-quality straight razor could be purchased for about half that amount. The other directors were skeptical, but Joyce threatened to buy up all the razors if they charged three dollars and sell them himself for five dollars. He had the financial backing to make this promise good, so the directors agreed to the higher price. The Gillette Safety Razor Company contracted with Townsend & Hunt for exclusive sales. The contract stated that Townsend & Hunt would buy 50,000 razors with twenty blades each during a period of slightly more than a year and would purchase 100,000 sets per year for the following four years. The first advertisement for the product appeared in System Magazine in early fall of 1903, offering the razors by mail order. By the end of that year, only fifty-one razors had been sold. Because Gillette and most of the directors of the company were not salaried, Gillette had needed to keep his job as salesman with Crown Cork and Seal. At the end of 1903, he received a promotion that meant relocation from Boston to London. Gillette did not want to go and pleaded with the other directors, but they insisted that the company could not afford to put him on salary. The company decided to reduce the number of blades in a set from twenty to twelve in an effort to increase profits without noticeably raising the cost of a set. Gillette resigned the title of company president and left for England. Shortly thereafter, Townsend & Hunt changed its name to the Gillette Sales Company, and three years later the sales company sold out to the parent company for $300,000. Sales of the new type of razor were increasing rapidly in the United States, and Joyce wanted to sell patent rights to European companies for a small percentage of sales. Gillette thought that would be a horrible mistake and quickly traveled back to Boston. He had two goals: to stop the sale of patent rights, based on his conviction that the foreign market would eventually be very lucrative, and to become salaried by the company. He accomplished both goals and soon moved back to Boston. Despite the fact that Joyce and Gillette had been good friends for a long time, their business views often dif251
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In the early 1900’s, most people considered a razor to be a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Many fathers handed down their razors to their sons. Straight razors needed constant and careful attention to keep them sharp. The thought of throwing a razor in the garbage after several uses was contrary to how people thought about razors. If Gillette’s razor had not provided a much less painful and faster shave than previous razors, it is unlikely the disposable blade would have been a success. Even with the new razor’s advantages, public opinion against the product was still difficult to overcome. Financing a company to produce the razor also proved to be a major obstacle. Gillette did not have the money himself, and potential investors were skeptical, both because of public perceptions of the product and because of the manufacturing process that was expected to be required. Mass production appeared to be impossible, and the disposable razor would never be profitable if it had to be produced using the methods required to manufacture its predecessor. William Emery Nickerson, an expert machine inventor, had looked at Gillette’s razor and said it was impossible to create a machine to produce it. He was convinced to reexamine the idea, however, and he finally invented a machine that could create a workable blade. In the process, Nickerson changed Gillette’s original model, improving the handle and frame so that it would better support the thin steel blade. In the meantime, Gillette was busy getting his patent assigned to the newly formed American Safety Razor Company, owned by Gillette and his partners Jacob Heilborn, Edward J. Stewart, and Nickerson. Gillette owned considerably more shares than anyone else. Henry Sachs provided additional capital, buying shares from Gillette. The stockholders decided to rename the company the Gillette Safety Razor Company. It soon spent most of its money on machinery and lacked the capital needed to produce and advertise its product. The only offer the company had received was from a group of New York investors who were willing to give $125,000 in exchange for 51 percent of the company. None of the directors wanted to lose control of the company, so they rejected the offer. John Joyce, a friend of Gillette, rescued the financially insecure new company. He agreed to buy $100,000 worth of bonds from the company for 60 cents on the dollar, purchasing the bonds gradually as the company needed money. He also received an equivalent amount of company stock. After an investment of $30,000, Joyce
Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade
Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade fered. Gillette set up a holding company in an effort to take back controlling interest in the Gillette Safety Razor Company. He borrowed money and convinced his allies in the company to invest in the holding company, and he eventually regained control and was reinstated as president of the company. One clear disagreement was that Gillette wanted to relocate the company to Newark, New Jersey, and Joyce thought such a move would be a waste of money. Gillette authorized company funds to be invested in a Newark site, but the idea was later dropped, costing the company a large amount of capital. Gillette was not a very wise businessman, and he made many such costly mistakes. Joyce even accused Gillette of deliberately trying to keep the stock price low so that Gillette could purchase more stock. Joyce eventually bought out Gillette, who retained his title as president but had little say over company business. With Gillette out of a management position, the company became more stable and more profitable. The biggest problem the company faced was that it would soon lose its patent rights and thus be vulnerable to competition. The company’s leaders realized they could compete with the lower-priced disposables that would inevitably enter the market either by cutting prices (and therefore profits) or by creating a new line of even better razors. They opted for the latter strategy; weeks before the patent expired, the Gillette Safety Razor Company introduced a new line of razors. During World War I and World War II, the company garnered big boosts in sales by contracting with the government to supply razors to almost all the troops. These transactions also served to introduce thousands of young men to the Gillette razor, many of whom continued to use Gillettes after they returned from war. Aside from its shaky start, the company experienced its worst financial difficulties during the Great Depression. Most Americans simply could not afford Gillette blades, and many used blades for extended periods and then resharpened them rather than throwing them away and buying new ones. If it had not been for foreign markets, the company would not have shown a profit during the Great Depression. Gillette’s obstinance about not selling patent rights to foreign investors proved to be an excellent decision. Gillette featured many celebrity endorsements in its advertising, especially from well-known baseball players. The company also sponsored sporting events. With the advent of television, before it became too expensive for one company to sponsor an entire event, Gillette was 252
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the exclusive advertiser during World Series games, various boxing matches, the Kentucky Derby, and football bowl games. Sponsoring these events was costly, but sports spectators were the typical Gillette customers. The Gillette Company eventually created many products that complemented its lines of razors and blades, including shaving cream, women’s razors, and electric razors. The company also expanded into products such as women’s cosmetics, writing utensils, deodorant, and wigs. The company had learned during the Depression that a one-product company is less stable than one with a more diverse product line, especially in a volatile market. Gillette continued to thrive by following the principles the company had used from the start. The majority of Gillette’s profits came from foreign markets, and its employees looked to improve products and find opportunities in other departments as well as their own. —Dan Kennedy Further Reading Adams, Russell B., Jr. King C. Gillette: The Man and His Wonderful Shaving Device. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978. Biography of King Camp Gillette provides complete details about the Gillette Company, including the company’s major investments and profits. Dowling, Tim. Inventor of the Disposable Culture: King Camp Gillette, 1855-1932. London: Faber & Faber, 2001. Brief biography describes the development of the disposable razor blade as well as Gillette’s social utopian philosophical leanings. “Gillette: Blade-Runner.” Economist 327 (April 10, 1993): 68. Discusses the Gillette Company’s response to competition in the razor and pen markets. Describes acquisitions, improved products, and investments in better manufacturing. Maremont, Mark. “A New Equal Right: The Close Shave.” BusinessWeek, March 29, 1993, 58-59. Discusses the Gillette Company’s introduction of a new and very successful product, the Sensor razor for women. See also: Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner; 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite; 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced; May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex; 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods; Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques
Fall, 1903 THE GREAT
TRAIN ROBBERY Introduces New Editing Techniques
Audiences and filmmakers were thrilled with Edwin S. Porter’s film The Great Train Robbery, which introduced new cinematic techniques while establishing the narrative pattern of Western films. Locale: United States Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Edwin S. Porter (1870?-1941), American film writer, director, photographer, and editor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor Georges Méliès (1861-1938), French magician and filmmaker
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Summary of Event In the fall of 1903, Edwin S. Porter, working for Thomas Alva Edison’s Edison Company in New Jersey, made a moving picture the likes of which had never before been seen in the United States. It bore similarities in technique to some films from England and some from France, particularly those made by Georges Méliès, a Paris magician who had begun making motion pictures of his magic acts in 1896 and whose experiments in special effects and artificially arranged scenes had caught Porter’s attention. Porter, however, went beyond all of his predecessors in the film medium when he recognized the narrative potential for cutting and splicing different shots—that is, editing. He had first employed this technique in making The Life of an American Fireman in 1903, after many years as a maker of motion pictures for Edison. He had combined stock film of a fire company in action with specially shot scenes that were artificially arranged. The result was the merging of discontinuous action into coherent narration. In his next significant film project, Porter calculated that he could invent his whole collection of material, not relying on stock footage at all, and thereby control his narrative even more. His plan, which included shooting interiors as well as exteriors of the New Jersey countryside, was to produce a smoothly flowing narrative of “cops and robbers,” with cowboys as his characters. In this early, if not the first, Western film, the standard plot form of the chase was embodied in the journalistic event of the train robbery. Porter’s genius was to recognize the potential of the Western genre for films. His social awareness led him to emphasize the powerful attraction of law-and-order themes.
Most important, however, was the technique he used for combining his discontinuously filmed shots. The Great Train Robbery would, by its artistic and commercial success, establish Porter as the leading director of his time and influence all later directors in their approach to the making of motion pictures. In fourteen shots (incomplete scenes), Porter presented a story with three lines of action that, through editing by intercutting the shots and using no dissolves or fades, he wove together to create an illusion of continuous narrative. In the first scene, a fixed long-shot interior of a railroad telegraph office, two masked men force the clerk to stop the next train, which is seen through the window of the office. This is one of the earliest innovative features of the film. Porter may have created it by building the set of the office near an actual railroad, or he may have used the technique of double exposing the film, superimposing the moving train on a blank in the first exposure. It is probably an example of Porter’s using back-projection, shooting the interior from one side while projecting the moving train from the other side onto the space for the window. While the train is departing, the robbers tie up the clerk and leave to catch up with the train. The next scene is an exterior shot of the railroad water tower, where the robbers hide before jumping onto the train, which is forced to stop beneath them. This cut from interior to exterior is Porter’s most creative act as director/editor. Because previous films had sought to keep narrative simple and continuous, most shots were complete scenes, with little intercutting between scenes and no intercutting between incomplete scenes (or shots). The action then shifts to a shot inside the mail car, where a clerk is accosted by the robbers, who shoot him and blow open the railroad safe, take its contents, and leave. The fourth scene is shot from atop the moving train, in effect a “moving” camera, looking across the tender and into the locomotive cab. Intentionally or not, the scene is cinematically exciting because the camera helps to create the action, moving rather than simply showing movement. One virtue of editing through crosscutting shots is the creation of the illusion that widely separated actions are occurring at the same time. Simultaneously with the robbery of the mail car, the action of this scene shows two more robbers seizing control of the locomotive, toss-
The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ing the body of the fireman from the train as they do so. In the final sequence of the narrative, three shots are The substitution of a dummy for the body of the fireman spliced together. In the first of these, the twelfth scene, is only natural (and humane), but the illusion that a man the robbers ride their horses in flight from the posse; one has been thrown from the train is important for the pace of the robbers is shot and falls from his horse. The action of this sequence. Porter demonstrates that he will improrequired a stuntman, but Porter had no such trained acvise in whatever way he must to sustain the vigor of the tors on whom to draw. In the next scene, the three refilm’s fast-paced action. maining bandits believe they have escaped, so they disThe next scene is shot from beside the halting train, mount and begin examining their loot. Suddenly they are with the engineer uncoupling the locomotive and sepasurrounded and attacked by the posse; all the robbers and rating it from the rest of the train. Another exterior shot a few members of the posse fall in the gun battle. The fifollows, in which the passengers are forced from the nal shot has no narrative function in the film. It is a closecoaches and lined up along the tracks, where the bandits range shot of the leader of the outlaw band, who points rob them. There are many passengers, and Porter may his pistol at the audience and shoots. This shot has not have recruited local citizens as extras. Use of extras been woven into the cause-effect narrative illusions crewould become increasingly necessary as films lengthated by the intercutting of the rest of the film, but it forceened their narratives and expanded the scope of their acfully testifies to the self-conscious artistry of Porter as he tion. One of the passengers runs toward the camera in an learned to master this medium. attempt to escape, is shot by the robbers, and falls to the Although he went on to make other interesting films ground. At the time, most film action involved actors for twelve more years, Porter did not make cumulative moving from left to right or right to left in front of a static advances on the achievement of The Great Train Robcamera. This movement directly into the camera is anbery. He used contrast editing in The Ex-Convict (1904) other mark of the film’s novelty. In the seventh scene, the and parallel editing in The Kleptomaniac (1905), and he robbers board the locomotive and force the engineer to used many photographic tricks, such as double exposure, drive it off, away from the camera. stop-motion, and dissolves, to make The Dream of a The next shot establishes some distance from the preRarebit Fiend (1906) in the tradition of Méliès’s trick ceding one as the robbers halt the engine and run off into films. Porter was burdened by the pressure to produce the wooded hills. To capture the movement of the robfilms on schedule for a demanding market, one enlarged bers, Porter’s camera pans to follow their action. Again the film exploits a technique, panning, that would become standard cinematic practice, although it was far from standard in 1903. The outlaws are shown in the ninth scene running across a stream to mount their horses and ride into the woods. The action then shifts abruptly to a distant location in the next shot, inside the telegraph office again. Here the clerk is seen struggling to his feet so that he can use his chin to operate the telegraph. A little girl comes in with a pail and cuts the clerk free. He runs out of the office. The next scene takes place in a dance hall, to which the clerk has rushed to sound the alarm. He enters while a tenderfoot is dancing a jig to the tune of gunshots at his feet. When the clerk arrives, all the men grab their One of the most famous images in The Great Train Robbery. (Library of Congress) guns and rush out of the dance hall. 254
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 by the multiplication of nickelodeons for mass public viewing. He made hundreds of films, but none was as influential as The Great Train Robbery.
illustrated the importance of style and arrangement, thus establishing moving pictures as an art form. He realized that one could shape vision by arranging the elements within it, and he used this principle in the intercutting of shots for scenes. It would take director D. W. Griffith to extend this by recognizing that a single scene can be made up of any number of shots. It is ironically appropriate that Griffith should have had his start in motion pictures as an actor in a film directed by Edwin S. Porter, Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest, in 1907. —Richard D. McGhee Further Reading Cook, David A. “The Discovery of the Shot: Edwin S. Porter.” In A History of Narrative Film. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. Emphasizing the difference between Méliès’s method of arranging scenes and Porter’s arrangement of shots, Cook examines the narrative artistry of both The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery. Uses illustrative stills from the films. Ellis, Jack C. “Birth and Childhood of a New Art: 18951914.” In A History of Film. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Emphasizing Porter’s lack of experience with traditional art, Ellis explains the success of Porter’s work in films as commercial expediency. Praises The Great Train Robbery for unlikely achievements in form still valuable many years later. Fairservice, Don. Film Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2001. Traces the development of film editing from the primitive forms of early cinema through the upheaval caused by the advent of sound. Fenin, George N., and William K. Everson. “The Primitives: Edwin S. Porter and Bronco Billy Anderson.” In The Western: From Silents to the Seventies. Rev. ed. New York: Grossman, 1973. Focusing on features of The Great Train Robbery that mark it as an early, although not the first, Western, Fenin and Everson examine Porter’s strengths and weaknesses as a director. Fulton, A. R. “Arranged Shots.” In Motion Pictures: The Development of an Art from Silent Films to the Age of Television. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960. Discusses significant differences between Porter’s arranged shots and Méliès’s arranged scenes, with focus on The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery. Jacobs, Lewis. “Edwin S. Porter and the Editing Principle.” In The Emergence of Film Art, compiled by 255
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Significance Most American films before 1903, including those made at Edison’s studios and by Porter, had been very brief, one-shot moving pictures of such news events as the inauguration and funeral of President William McKinley. Interesting tricks of vision such as those made by Méliès in France were not yet made for the American market, although vaudeville skits and magicians’ tricks could be captured in such single-shot cinema. The first, although not the most important, influence of The Great Train Robbery was to show that there was a large commercial market for film narratives of all kinds, but especially for realistic Westerns. Although Edison had made some motion pictures of Western subjects, such as Cripple Creek Barroom (1898), no genuine continuing narrative of this kind existed before Porter’s film, which was 740 feet of visual action with no title cards, requiring a little more than twelve minutes to run. The commercial and popular success of The Great Train Robbery was so great that many other filmmakers sought to rival it. Sequels, imitations, and even outright copies of the film were produced, among which were films titled The Great Bank Robbery and The Little Train Robbery. Investors saw that there was money to be made in films. Beginning with the proliferation of nickelodeons, permanent movie houses were built to provide mass entertainment for a potentially huge profit. The Great Train Robbery was long a standard film in these establishments. Indeed, the very first nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh in 1905 with Porter’s motion picture as its attraction. The more significant effects of Porter’s film were in the techniques that others borrowed to make their films, so that aesthetic form rather than the subject matter of films was influenced. Porter may have seen films made by the British directors G. A. Smith and James Williamson, who were experimenting with editing in their own ways, but it was Porter’s film, with its editing for continuity, that caused Smith, Williamson, and their followers to make full and artistic use of this technique, as in Cecil Hepworth’s critically acclaimed film of 1905, Rescued by Rover. The Great Train Robbery conveyed aesthetic energy and integrity through attention to techniques that were derived from the structure and mechanics of the medium itself. By manipulating the film and to some degree the camera, as well as the subjects of the filmic shots, Porter
The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques
Baseball Holds Its First World Series Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1969. Porter’s career, from handyman for Edison in 1896 to independent producer in 1911, concluded with his directing a spectacular story of Rome in 1915. Jacobs notes that the keys to Porter’s success were innovative techniques, especially in editing, and sensitivity to social issues in narrative. Mast, Gerald. “Film Narrative, Commercial Expansion.” In A Short History of the Movies. 3d ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1981. Analyzes Porter’s work during the commercial expansion of film production, when melodrama and farce dominated theater. In The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, Porter’s editing practices were superior to those of his predecessors and prepared the way for more significant
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 contributions by Cecil Hepworth and D. W. Griffith. Robinson, David. From Peepshow to Palace: Birth of American Film. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Provides an overview of the history of American film between 1893 and 1913. Includes 175 black-and-white and 16 color illustrations. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking.
October 1-13, 1903
Baseball Holds Its First World Series After two years of hostile feuding and raiding one another’s rosters, the established National League and the upstart American League began to mend fences with a nine-game championship series between the powerful Pittsburgh Pirates, champions of the National League, and the Boston Pilgrims, winners of the American League pennant. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category: Sports Key Figures Barney Dreyfuss (1865-1932), owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates Henry Killilea (1866-1929), owner of the Boston Pilgrims Bill Dinneen (1876-1955), pitcher for the Boston Pilgrims Cy Young (1867-1955), future Hall of Fame pitcher for the Boston Pilgrims Deacon Phillippe (1872-1952), pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates Honus Wagner (1874-1955), future Hall of Fame shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates Summary of Event For twenty-five years, the National League was the only professional baseball league in the United States. The 1901 birth of the American League ushered in a period of 256
bitter hostilities between the two leagues: Competing teams were placed in the same cities, and players were lured from one another’s rosters. As the 1903 season drew to a close, Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Henry Killilea, owner of the Boston Pilgrims, joined forces in an attempt to reconcile the enmity between the leagues. They agreed to stage a ninegame postseason series between their teams, both of which were headed toward winning their respective league championships. For the Pirates, winners of three straight National League pennants, the series offered the opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of the National League, while the Pilgrims, winners of the American League by fourteen and a half games, hoped to prove the competitive worth of their upstart organization. The series seemed to be a mismatch. The Pirates possessed a powerful offensive lineup, led by future Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner, playing manager Fred Clarke, and outfielder Ginger Beaumont, all of whom hit over .340. The Pilgrims, who would later be known as the Puritans, the Americans, and finally the Red Sox, had a solid lineup of their own, including American League home-run champion Buck Freeman, but they had presumably won their laurels against weaker competition. The series would eventually be decided by Boston’s pitching stars, including future Hall of Famer Cy Young and Bill Dinneen. Together they pitched sixty-nine of the seventy-one innings during the series, bettering Pirate workhorse Deacon Phillippe, who was forced to pitch
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Baseball Holds Its First World Series
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1903 Aerial view of the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds in Boston during the first World Series game between the Boston Pilgrims and the Pittsburgh Pirates, October 1, 1903. (AP/Wide World Photos)
five complete games because of injuries and illnesses on the Pirates’ staff. The series opened in Boston and proved to be a wild affair, with more than sixteen thousand fans in bowler hats and three-piece suits crowding into the stadium and uncounted others perching on telegraph poles, sitting on rooftops, or swarming the outfield, confined only by fire hoses strung across the playing field just beyond the outfielders. One particularly rowdy group of supporters, the Royal Rooters, rallied before each game at a neighborhood bar before marching to the stadium playing rattles and drums and singing boisterous songs with lyrics written to insult the visiting players. Once the series moved to Pittsburgh, fans there responded in kind, throwing confetti at the Boston players and carrying the Pittsburgh players off the field on their shoulders. The series began as expected. The Pirates pounded Young for seven runs, and Phillippe threw a six-hitter to earn a 7-3 victory in Game 1. The next day, however, Dinneen demonstrated the pitching prowess that would
eventually secure Boston’s 3-0 win. The Pilgrims’ batting leader Patsy Dougherty slugged both of Boston’s home runs in the series to provide the offensive punch. Phillippe came back to pitch Game 3 and won again, 4-2, on a four-hitter, and when rain delayed Game 4, he returned to the mound and earned a 5-4 victory, giving the Pirates an advantage of three games to one. It would be Pittsburgh’s last win in the series. At that point, the Pilgrims’ bats came alive and, with the help of Young’s pitching, won Game 5 with a score of 11-2. Dinneen came back to win Game 6, 6-3, tying the series. Pittsburgh sent Phillippe out for Game 7 to recapture the momentum, but Boston pounded the tiring ace 7-3 to gain its first lead in the series, four games to three. Desperate for survival, the Pirates sent Phillippe out one more time for Game 8. The Pilgrims countered with Dinneen, who shut down the Pirates on four hits to give Boston a 3-0 victory. The Pilgrims won the world championship, five games to three. The Pilgrims had played an outstanding series. 257
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Pitching heroes Young and Dinneen won all five games for Boston and never allowed the powerful Pirates to get their offense moving. Pittsburgh’s frustration took its toll defensively as well. Wagner, the Pirates’ popular superstar shortstop, batted just .222 and made six errors in the
field. Luck seemed to be against the Pirates as well. Phillippe’s heroic pitching performance became necessary after Sam Leever, who had won twenty-five games for the Pirates, hurt his arm trapshooting, and Ed Doheny, who won sixteen games during the regular season, suffered a mental breakdown, was sent home, and was eventually committed to an asylum. The three-time NaWorld Series Results, 1903-1940 tional League champions would go The World Series has been held every year since 1903, except for 1904, when six more years before they would rethe president of the New York Giants, John T. Brush, refused to allow his team turn to the World Series. to play the “inferior” Boston Pilgrims. Listed below are the results for all World Series played from 1903 through 1940. Year
Winning Team
Losing Team
1903 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940
Boston Pilgrims, 5 games New York Giants, 4 games Chicago White Sox, 4 games Chicago Cubs, 4 games Chicago Cubs, 4 games Pittsburgh Pirates, 4 games Philadelphia A’s, 4 games Philadelphia A’s, 4 games Boston Red Sox, 4 games Philadelphia A’s, 4 games Boston Braves, 4 games Boston Red Sox, 4 games Boston Red Sox, 4 games Chicago White Sox, 4 games Boston Red Sox, 4 games Cincinnati Reds, 5 games Cleveland Indians, 5 games New York Giants, 5 games New York Giants, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games Washington Senators, 4 games Pittsburgh Pirates, 4 games St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games Philadelphia A’s, 4 games Philadelphia A’s, 4 games St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games New York Giants, 4 games St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games Detroit Tigers, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games New York Yankees, 4 games Cincinnati Reds, 4 games
Pittsburgh Pirates, 3 games Philadelphia A’s, 1 game Chicago Cubs, 2 games Detroit Tigers, 0 games (one tie) Detroit Tigers, 1 game Detroit Tigers, 3 games Chicago Cubs, 1 game New York Giants, 2 games New York Giants, 3 games (one tie) New York Giants, 1 game Philadelphia A’s, 0 games Philadelphia Phillies, 1 game Brooklyn Robins, 1 game New York Giants, 2 games Chicago Cubs, 2 games Chicago White Sox, 3 games Brooklyn Dodgers, 2 games New York Yankees, 3 games New York Yankees, 0 games (one tie) New York Giants, 2 games New York Giants, 3 games Washington Senators, 3 games New York Yankees, 3 games Pittsburgh Pirates, 0 games St. Louis Cardinals, 0 games Chicago Cubs, 1 game St. Louis Cardinals, 2 games Philadelphia A’s, 3 games Chicago Cubs, 0 games Washington Senators, 1 game Detroit Tigers, 3 games Chicago Cubs, 2 games New York Giants, 2 games New York Giants, 1 game Chicago Cubs, 0 games Cincinnati Reds, 0 games Detroit Tigers, 3 games
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Significance The public loved the idea of a championship between the two leagues. Attendance at the eight games reached 100,429, pushing ticket revenues to $55,500. Dreyfuss and Killilea divided the money equally, and Dreyfuss created additional goodwill by allowing his players to split Pittsburgh’s entire share; Killilea, in contrast, kept half of Boston’s share himself. As a result, Pittsburgh’s players earned nearly $125 more per player than the victorious Pilgrims. The rash of errors and poor offensive performances early in the series led some to suggest that players on both sides were colluding to extend the series and raise gate receipts, but no one doubted that Boston’s dominant pitching determined the outcome. The series did not immediately resolve tensions between the two leagues. Some National League owners continued to consider the American League an upstart minor league or a renegade competitor for playing talent. The following year, 1904, John T. Brush, owner of the National League champion New York Giants and one of the league’s most influential executives, refused to play a World Series with the Pilgrims, who had again won the American League championship. He was angry that the new league had placed a team of its own in New York and refused to compete with what he considered a
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 representative of the inferior American League. By January of 1905, however, Brush had changed his mind and proposed to reinstate the series under a set of guidelines governing future competition and finances, including shortening the series to seven games and paying players only for the first four games. Within a decade, the World Series had become one of America’s premier sporting events. — Devon Boan
Masur, Louis P. Autumn Glory: Baseball’s First World Series. New York: Hill & Wang, 2003. A poetically written and sharply detailed account of the series, emphasizing not only the ebb and flow of the games themselves, but the personalities of the men who participated in them and the social context in which they occurred. Ryan, Bob. When Boston Won the World Series: A Chronicle of Boston’s Remarkable Victory in the First Modern World Series of 1903. New York: Running Press, 2004. An engaging look at the first World Series from the perspective of the Boston Pilgrims, with a focus on the players and their roles in the community and on the team. Written by a Boston sports reporter who used the firsthand accounts of the Boston Globe sportswriter who covered the series and knew its participants. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth; Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
October 10, 1903
Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union Through the use of civil disobedience and militant obstructionism, the Women’s Social and Political Union introduced the issue of women’s political rights into the mainstream of pre-World War I British politics. Locale: Manchester, England Categories: Women’s issues; social issues and reform; government and politics Key Figures Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), English suffragist Christabel Pankhurst (1880-1958), English suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929), English suffragist Summary of Event Apart from the Middle Ages in parts of Western Europe, where egalitarian principles permitted the ownership of
property by women, the inclusion of women in voting (both in towns and in rural parishes), the ability of women of means to attain an education, and the important right to free choice in marriage, a norm increasingly demanded by the Church, there are few examples of women being treated as equal to men in the history of humankind prior to the mid-nineteenth century. Throughout much of the world, inequalities were the result of custom, religious teachings, prejudice, and law. Women lacked or systematically were denied, solely on the basis of their gender, educational opportunity, meaningful employment, the right to vote, basic human rights, and legal identity. In Europe from the fourteenth century onward, women’s abilities to serve as sovereigns (as in France, where Philip the Fair removed the right of monarchal succession to women) and to participate in scholarly ac259
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Further Reading Abrams, Roger I. The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003. A short but engaging account of Boston’s ethnic and economic character during the early part of the twentieth century, examined as a backdrop for the first World Series. Dabilis, Andy, and Nick Tsiotos. The 1903 World Series: The Boston Americans, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the “First Championship of the United States.” Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. A gritty look at the social and financial stakes of the first World Series. The authors examine the lives of the players, some of whom, such as Honus Wagner or Cy Young, were household names, although others came from the working class.
Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union
Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union tivity (as had been previously the case in many convents) were substantially abridged. Parisian tax rolls show that in the thirteenth century women owned businesses and shops and pursued occupations; they were schoolmistresses, doctors, pharmacists, dyers, copyists, binders, and more. In France, this gradually changed in subsequent years, with the Napoleonic Code ultimately denying women rights they previously enjoyed in regard to property ownership. Thus, under the influence of classical Roman law, rights enjoyed by women were gradually eroded in the later Middle Ages. In 1593, women were for the first time in France excluded from government positions and functions. This process of reduced rights for women was further emphasized in the works of Enlightenment writers. This trend slowly began to change in Western societies as the result of the democratic and liberal ideas of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 later Enlightenment and as the result of the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century. Great Britain was the first nation to experience this revolution. Economic development led to demands for political change from the emerging middle class. The Reform Bill of 1832 extended suffrage to most middleclass males, and within one generation the Liberal Party emerged, representing the middle class and heir to the Enlightenment ideas of the rights of man. Reform bills in 1867 and 1884 extended the right to vote to most adult males in Britain. Social legislation provided for basic public education, improvement of factory conditions, and solutions to some of the social ills caused by industrialism. Very little of this legislation dealt with inequality based on gender, however. In the nineteenth century, British women were treated as inferior to men. Stereotypes and prejudices
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Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested outside Buckingham Palace on May 21, 1914, while trying to present a petition concerning woman suffrage to King George V. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). On October 10, 1903, the WSPU held its first meeting at the Manchester home of Emmeline Pankhurst. Little is known of the early meetings of the WSPU, as records of minutes, strategies, finances, and membership no longer exist. Two facts are clear: Men were excluded from membership, and the WSPU had a clear platform. A WSPU pamphlet dated December, 1903, stated that “for all purposes connected with, and having reference to, the right to vote at Parliamentary elections, words in the Representation of the People Act importing the masculine gender shall include women.” Simply translated, universal manhood suffrage should be understood to mean universal personhood suffrage. The statement of purpose by the WSPU was not new, but the group’s method of attracting attention to the issue was. Politics in Great Britain relied on the constitutional method—that is, formal procedures that were to be followed in a prescribed manner. Earlier reform campaigns occasionally had resorted to nontraditional political tactics, such as propaganda campaigns, mass rallies and marches, demonstrations, and civil disobedience. The problem was always one of attracting the attention of the establishment and achieving a goal before the nontraditional tactics alienated that same establishment. Prior to the WSPU, women’s suffrage groups had not only followed the unwritten rules of political activism but had also remained true to the stereotype of women. The Pankhursts observed that following the rules had achieved nothing. Over the next decade, the WSPU utilized every traditional and nontraditional tactic available. In addition to making speeches, holding rallies, and distributing printed materials, WSPU suffragists made press headlines by heckling and taunting politicians wherever possible. In October, 1905, two women were ejected forcibly from a Manchester meeting hall and then arrested. The incident taught the WSPU that militancy attracted far more publicity than did traditional tactics. At first, militancy was subordinate to constitutional methods. Occasionally women suffragists were arrested, and while they were in jail they held hunger strikes to call attention to the movement. When authorities resorted to force-feeding hunger strikers and several women were injured, the WSPU became more militant. In 1909, the first stone-throwing incidents occurred. These escalated by 1912 into even more violent acts, such as the smashing of shopwindows, arson, and vandalism of artworks. Government response to the militancy was predictable. Police raided WSPU headquarters and arrested suffragist leaders. Hunger strikes soon followed, and, in 261
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portrayed women as weak and incapable in most areas. Only after 1887 did married women have the right to own property and to enter into contracts on an equal basis with unmarried women. Most professions and occupations were closed to women by statute. The only professions that were socially acceptable for women were those of teacher, secretary, and homemaker. Industry, particularly the textile industry, employed women in large numbers but usually in nonskilled, low-paying jobs. There were some who believed that the Enlightenment ideas of the “rights of man” should apply to all people. A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft and The Subjection of Women (1869) by John Stuart Mill were early statements on the need for, and the right of, woman suffrage. In the 1860’s, small groups of educated middle-class women began forming to discuss the need for woman suffrage. The National Society for Women’s Suffrage (founded 1867), under the leadership of Lydia Becker, and the Women’s Franchise League (founded 1889), under the leadership of Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst, were the most important organizations advocating woman suffrage. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was formed in 1897 under the leadership of Millicent Garrett Fawcett. This organization continued the policy followed by others in working within the existing political system to achieve the vote for women. The Liberal Party offered only nominal support for woman suffrage and made no serious attempt to introduce legislation granting women the right to vote. The Conservative Party was overtly hostile to the idea, and the House of Lords, with its right of veto, was dominated by Conservatives. With little to show for decades of working within constitutional guidelines, some suffragists proposed a more militant approach to the issue. The death of Richard Pankhurst in 1898 temporarily forced Emmeline Pankhurst to abandon political activity and to devote her efforts to providing a living for her family. Her daughter Christabel Pankhurst, who studied law but could not practice because of her gender, began working with the North of England Society for Women’s Suffrage, an organization primarily for working women. To the great irritation of the Pankhursts, the Manchester branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) refused to admit women to a meeting hall that was named for Richard Pankhurst. The ILP was the logical political home for the proposed group, but Labour politicians were largely disinterested in woman suffrage as an issue. The Pankhursts thus decided to form their own group, the
Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union
Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union
Pankhurst’s Prophetic Words In 1911, Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and sister of Christabel, published a history of the woman suffrage movement in England from 1905 to 1910. The volume included this brief preface by Emmeline Pankhurst: This history of the Women’s Suffrage agitation is written at a time when the question is in the very forefront of British politics. What the immediate future holds for those women who are most actively engaged in fighting for their political freedom no one can foretell, but one thing is certain: complete victory for their cause is not far distant. When the long struggle for the enfranchisement of women is over, those who read the history of the movement will wonder at the blindness that led the Government of the day to obstinately resist so simple and obvious a measure of justice. The men and women of the coming time will, I am persuaded, be filled with admiration for the patient work of the early pioneers and the heroic determination and persistence in spite of coercion, repression, misrepresentation, and insult of those who fought the later militant fight. Perhaps the women born in the happier days that are to come, while rejoicing in the inheritance that we of today are preparing for them, may sometimes wish that they could have lived in the heroic days of stress and struggle and have shared with us the joy of battle, the exaltation that comes of sacrifice of self for great objects and the prophetic vision that assures us of the certain triumph of this twentieth-century fight for human emancipation. Source: Emmeline Pankhurst, “Preface by Mrs. Pankhurst,” in E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910 (New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1911).
1913, the government passed the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act. The “Cat and Mouse Act,” as it was quickly dubbed, allowed the government to release prisoners who were on hunger strike and rearrest them later. Also during this period, Emily Davison achieved martyrdom when she died after running into the path of the king’s horse at the 1913 Derby. The WSPU held a huge funeral procession through London to publicize her dedication. Despite the members’ efforts, the WSPU’s actions did far more to alienate potential supporters than they did to 262
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gain support for woman suffrage. The government considered suffragists to be primarily an irritant and not a major problem. The outbreak of war in August, 1914, changed everything. Emmeline Pankhurst called an immediate halt to militancy, and the government released women suffragists from prison. Throughout World War I the WSPU, the NUWSS, and other women’s suffrage organizations worked for the war effort. Women filled traditional men’s occupations, thereby freeing men for the trenches. Largely because of women’s contributions to the war effort, limited suffrage was granted to women in Great Britain in February, 1918. Voting equality was finally achieved with the Representation of the People Act of 1928. Significance It is difficult to assess or quantify the exact impact of the WSPU, but the organization’s influence can be seen in three particular areas. First, limited suffrage was granted to women in 1918, and suffrage equality was achieved in 1928. Second, the civil disobedience and militant tactics practiced by the WSPU became a permanent feature of British politics. Third, the organization’s activities challenged the stereotype of the submissive female. The culmination of the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain can be seen in the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. It cannot be proven that the activities of the Pankhursts and the WSPU were either crucial or essential to women’s winning the vote. Indeed, it can be argued that their efforts actually were counterproductive. The WSPU overstepped the boundary of what was considered in that era to be acceptable political activist behavior. The group’s militant campaign alienated many potential supporters of woman suffrage in Great Britain. Moreover, it is probably accurate to state that women received the vote because of their war record between 1914 and 1918. The social changes brought about by the war resulted in political changes. It also can be argued that the efforts of the WSPU placed the issue squarely in the center of British politics, a place where it had never been before. Without such awareness, it is possible that woman suffrage would not have been granted in 1918. Politics itself was changing, and the relatively placid constitutional system would never be the same. At the same time that suffragists were resorting to arson and window smashing, Ulster Protestants, with the assent of Conservative Party leadership, were arming and preparing for civil war. Radical labor unions in Great Britain, throughout Europe, and elsewhere advocated violence
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Further Reading Barker, Dudley. “Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst.” Prominent Edwardians. New York: Atheneum, 1969. One of four biographical sketches presented to illustrate the age, which was one of glitter and unrest. Abrief introduction to the topic. Bartley, Paula. Emmeline Pankhurst. New York: Routledge, 2003. Biography of Pankhurst uses newly available archival material to examine her evolution into a militant leader of the women’s suffrage movement. Includes bibliography and index. Dangerfield, George. The Strange Death of Liberal England, 1910-1914. 1935. Reprint. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. A significant, albeit dated, book. Examines various political crises in Great Britain in the five years preceding World War I. Unsympathetic to women’s issues and harsh in judgment of the Pankhursts. Holton, Sandra Stanley. Feminism and Democracy:
Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918. 1986. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Provides an overview of the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain. Focuses primarily on the differences among the political groups within the suffragist movement. Hume, Leslie Parker. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1897-1914. New York: Garland, 1982. Studies the impact of the NUWSS, which coordinated the activities of a coalition of nonmilitant women’s suffrage organizations. Concludes that the conciliatory attitude of the NUWSS countered the negative effects of the WSPU’s militancy. Includes an excellent bibliography. Pankhurst, Emmeline. My Own Story. 1914. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Written at the beginning of World War I. Praises the militant wing of the women’s suffrage movement. Requires careful reading because of omissions and rationalizations. Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst: The Suffragette Struggle for Women’s Citizenship. 1935. Reprint. New York: Kraus, 1969. This work reflects not only the devotion of a daughter to her mother but also the dedication of a suffragist to the cause of women’s rights. Pernoud, Régine. Those Terrible Middle Ages! Debunking the Myths. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000. An insightful critique of a number of fallacious modern ideas about the Middle Ages, including the inaccurate modern understanding that women had no rights during that period. Rosen, Andrew. Rise Up, Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union, 1903-1914. 1974. Reprint. London: Ashgate, 1993. Scholarly overview of the WSPU utilizes numerous primary sources. Well documented. Rover, Constance. Women’s Suffrage and Party Politics in Britain, 1866-1914. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967. Excellent overview of the lengthy struggle for suffrage by women in Great Britain. Primarily a political analysis, and certainly not a paean to the personalities involved. Includes an excellent bibliography and numerous useful appendixes. Wright, Almroth E. The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage. 1913. Reprint. McLean, Va.: IndyPublish, 2003. A virulent attack on the women’s suffrage movement that conveys the resentment and antipathy faced by suffragists. Useful for understanding the fear and prejudice of the era. 263
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in strikes. Compared with other, later movements, the WSPU was quite tame in its militancy. Indeed, comparisons could be drawn between the WSPU and the civil disobedience of both Mahatma Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the American South. Marches, demonstrations, debates, sit-ins, and protests were characteristic of all these movements, and all were concerned with basic human rights and human dignity. Perhaps the greatest impact of the WSPU can be seen in the change in the image of women in Great Britain. WSPU suffragists, unlike their predecessors, were certainly not meek, submissive women. The hunger strikes, the demonstrations and scuffles, the rational speeches, and the intelligence of the leadership demonstrated that the suffragists could not be dismissed as a group of hysterical females. The WSPU was well organized, determined, and efficient. That the members were willing to suffer imprisonment and even, in the case of Emily Davison, death, served to demonstrate that women were human beings who deserved equality. It cannot be said that the WSPU, or the Representation of the People Act, or any other individual event or act brought about equality for women in Great Britain. Margaret Thatcher, however, served as prime minister of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990, a period of service longer than that of any other prime minister since the eighteenth century. That she could even vote can be traced to the determination of the woman suffragists of the WSPU. —William S. Brockington, Jr.
Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union
Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published See also: Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote;
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
November, 1903
Henry James’s THE AMBASSADORS Is Published The Ambassadors, the first and greatest of Henry James’s three late novels that deal with international themes, represented the climax of James’s efforts at the subtle dissection of thought processes. Locale: New York, New York Category: Literature Key Figures Henry James (1843-1916), expatriate American writer William Dean Howells (1837-1920), American writer and friend of James Summary of Event By the time of the publication of The Ambassadors in 1903, Henry James had long been recognized as one of the premier American writers. However, over the years his readership had been dwindling to a select coterie, with the general public growing less inclined to support his work. Part of the reason for this disfavor was that his writing had grown increasingly intellectually challenging, but James had also lost popularity because he was unwilling to stay with the tried-and-true themes that had brought him initial success. In early novels such as The American (1876-1877) and The Portrait of a Lady (18801881), which were both popular and critical triumphs, he had described naïve, feeling Americans whose hearts were broken by scheming or class-prejudiced Europeans. When James resolutely turned to new themes, as in The Bostonians (1885-1886), which satirized Boston reformist and spiritualist circles, he began losing his audience. An attempt to write for the British stage, lasting from 1890 to 1895, was equally unsatisfactory. One play, Guy Domville (1895), was actually booed off the stage. After this signal theatrical failure, James moved from London, where he had been living, to the English countryside and returned to composing short stories and novels. He began to pour out a remarkable series of supernatural stories, such as The Turn of the Screw (1898), which experimented with point of view and the rendering of delicate 264
mental nuances. In 1900, incorporating these innovations into a longer work, he wrote a projected plan for The Ambassadors. The reaction of the staff of Harper’s Magazine, to which James submitted his plan in hopes that the book would be accepted for serialization, was a harbinger of the notice the novel would receive from the general public. The Harper’s reader advised against acceptance, stating, “It does not promise a popular novel. The tissues of it are too subtly fine for general appreciation.” James’s friend William Dean Howells, literary consultant to North American Review, helped James’s serial to publication in that journal, which was more high-toned but less widely read than Harper’s, in its twelve issues of 1903. The book was published the same year and, as could have been expected, did not take the world by storm. It did, however, intensely interest discerning reviewers, who noted James’s brilliant joining of the old and the new. An “old” component of the novel was James’s international theme of the contrasting manners of Europeans and Americans, a theme he had handled brilliantly in his earliest novels and to which he returned with increased awareness. Again a naïve American, here Chad Newsome, is made the prey of a worldly European, here Madame de Vionnet, although the moral and social issues are more complex than they had been in James’s earlier treatments. The American turns out to be less naïve and the European less jaded than each at first appears. New to the novel was James’s use of literary techniques he had been working up mainly in shorter fiction. First among these techniques was James’s complex employment of a single, constricted point of view from which to tell the story. The viewpoint is not Chad’s but that of a man, Lambert Strether, who is sent by Chad’s mother to extricate her son from the clutches of a European temptress. Before Strether can accomplish his mission, he must determine how deeply Chad is involved. Situated in Strether’s perspective, the reader undergoes with him the task of trying to unravel highly veiled ap-
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Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published
tions of human thought and motivation. In the opening paragraph of The Ambassadors, Henry James introduces LamWhere these two novels depart bert Strether, the highly sensitive character from whose constricted point of from The Ambassadors is in their view the reader experiences the events of the novel. treatment of point of view; The Ambassadors is told exclusively from Strether’s first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his friend; yet on Strether’s viewpoint, whereas the lathis learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to arrive till evening he was not ter novels are constructed from the wholly disconcerted. A telegram from him bespeaking a room “only if not intersecting viewpoints of a handful noisy,” with the answer paid, was produced for the inquirer at his office, so that of extremely articulate characters. In the understanding that they should meet at Chester rather than at Liverpool reone sense, then, these last two texts mained to that extent sound. The same secret principle, however, that had prompted Strether not absolutely to desire Waymarsh’s presence at the dock, improve on the style of the first, in that had led him thus to postpone for a few hours his enjoyment of it, now operthat the reader is allowed a more ated to make him feel that he could still wait without disappointment. They rounded view of the stories’ situawould dine together at the worst, and, with all respect to dear old Waymarsh— tions as they are surveyed by multiif not even, for that matter, to himself—there was little fear that in the sequel ple eyes. In another sense, however, they should not see enough of each other. The principle I have just mentioned as some critics have noted, the techas operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men, nique makes for a diffuseness not wholly instinctive—the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as it would be to found in the more concentrated prefind himself looking, after so much separation, into his comrade’s face, his sentation of The Ambassadors. Of business would be a trifle bungled should he simply arrange that this countethe three novels, only the first apnance should present itself to the nearing steamer as the first “note,” for him, of peared as a serial; this fact, along Europe. Mixed with everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether’s part, that it would, at best, throughout, prove the note of Europe in quite a suffiwith the book’s use of a single concient degree. sciousness to filter the action, doubtless contributed to its tightness of Source: Henry James, The Ambassadors (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1903). construction. All three books exhibit an interesting interplay of plot and observapearances. Strether is tremendously sensitive, and so the tion, with a sordid and often tragic story forming a powpresentation of his consciousness entails the drawing of erful contrast to the delicate sensibilities of the embroiled superfine distinctions. Such nicety, a Proustian sensitivcharacters. The Ambassadors, although a model for the ity to delicate gradations of thought and human relationother final masterpieces in the James canon, stands out in ships, is a second major new element of James’s late its combination of these elements to create suspense and style. in the economy of means used to achieve its effects. The Ambassadors was to be the first in a trilogy of novels of similar themes and style that represent the Significance crowning glories of James’s career. Each deals with the The mannered, highly personal, almost idiosyncratic clashing lifestyles and philosophical outlooks of Ameriprose style of The Ambassadors was not one that another cans and Europeans, each involves the careful investigaauthor would have been likely to imitate. Yet the focus tion of moral questions, and each is told with a heighton a detailed examination of the subjective states of a ened awareness of the mind’s workings. The next book, small collection of characters and the presentation of the The Wings of the Dove, which was published in 1902 but story from the perspective of a single, limited participant, was written after The Ambassadors, concerns a young as in The Ambassadors, were to become hallmarks of American heiress, suffering from a fatal disease, whom much modern fiction. James’s one novel, of course, was an impoverished Londoner woos in hopes of inheriting not responsible for the sea change that moved the twentiher fortune. The last book in the series, The Golden Bowl eth century novel away from the broader canvas and om(1904), centers on the suspected infidelity of an Ameriniscient narration characteristic of its nineteenth century can heiress’s Italian husband. As in The Ambassadors, predecessor. However, The Ambassadors was one of a the rather uneventful plots of the novels become the basis number of novels of the time that shaped this change. of sometimes excruciating, often compelling exploraFurther, James’s handling of the theme of Americans
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Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published abroad in The Ambassadors foreshadowed and doubtless influenced the work of many post-World War I American writers. When James moved to southern England in 1895, he settled in an area where a number of other writers, including other American expatriates, were or would soon be living. Three of these writers, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford, exerted influence on James and on one another (although Crane died before The Ambassadors was published). More important, each, along with James, was instrumental in moving the craft of fiction in a subjective direction. Crane, for example, sharing James’s interest in the refinements of psychology, composed a war novel, The Red Badge of Courage (1895), that paid more attention to the depiction of the soldier-hero’s mental states than to recording valiant deeds. Sharing James’s use of a restricted point of view, Conrad presented the narrative of Lord Jim (1900) not only by way of the unreliable remembrance of the central character, who is the source of the tale, but also through a second, possibly faulty, narrator who retells the first character’s tale. These and other writers of the group, with James as the greatest virtuoso of them all, helped to shrink (in scope) and deepen (in psychological insight) the purview of the novel. A glance at the work of such great modern authors as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner reveals how the lines set down by James and related writers were followed. Of the three, Woolf is the closest to James in technique. In her To the Lighthouse (1927), she created a work that, although much more concrete and tied to everyday life than The Ambassadors, was remarkably similar in its close scrutiny of the flittings of consciousness over a short period of time among a compact group. Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) had, as one of its many innovations, the representation of the “stream of consciousness,” that is, the moment-to-moment flux of thought in the minds of leading characters. Joyce’s work took the modern novel further into the exploration of psychic minutiae than even James had contemplated. Faulkner, taking much from Joyce, in The Sound and the Fury (1929) moved the stream-of-consciousness technique into new areas of abnormal psychology by examining such things as the minds of a mentally retarded character and of a youth on the verge of suicide. In exploring these minds, too, Faulkner limited the reader’s view to what these flawed consciousnesses perceived. The Ambassadors had been a major precedent for the employment of the limited point of view, but James had used the technique to present the perspective of a sensitive, intelligent char266
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 acter; Faulkner used the method, in one case, to render, literally, the mind of an idiot. James’s novel also pioneered in the presentation of American characters in Europe. By examining Americans in foreign lands, James was able to bring out the contrasting traits of personality developed in the Old and New Worlds. It is true that a number of earlier writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, had studied Americans in Europe, but the theme had always held a decidedly minor place in American letters. Not only did The Ambassadors lift the handling of this material to a new level of excellence, making it a subject to be reckoned with, but the book also problematized conventional literary stereotypes. James did not simply compare honest Americans to dissembling Europeans; rather, he showed that each had characteristics of the other. Later writers from the United States would go even further and reverse the traditional images altogether. In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926), for example, the American expatriate war veterans are the ones who have seen it all and are wearied with life, whereas many European characters still have the zest for living that once would have been attributed to Americans. For Hemingway and other American writers such as Gertrude Stein and Henry Miller, the American experience could be fathomed fully only through the use of European life as a benchmark. In this, such writers were upholding a way of looking at matters that had been most forcefully presented by James. Literary influences proceed in various manners. The most superficial type manifests itself when one author imitates another whose prose and perspective seem congenial; Hemingway, for example, imitated Sherwood Anderson in this way at first. A more profound type of influence appears when one author sets the terms of ongoing literary discourse. This James did with The Ambassadors, so that many of his successors, although not touched by his prose style or his opinions on the world, felt obliged to take up his compositional methods and his major themes. — James Feast Further Reading Blackmur, R. P. Studies in Henry James. Edited by Veronica A. Makowsky. New York: New Directions, 1983. An important collection of essays and prefaces to James’s novels by a “New Critic” who is especially interested in a number of philosophical problems raised by James’s late novels. He questions how, for example, The Ambassadors can be written in such an abstract, formal style and yet at the same time ap-
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_______. The Art of Criticism: Henry James on the Theory and Practice of Fiction. Edited by William Veeder and Susan M. Griffin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Includes James’s appreciations of contemporary authors, his prefaces to the New York editions of his novels, including The Ambassadors, and his essays on fiction. Chief among the latter is “The Art of Fiction,” in which James lays down his premises, involving both realism and experimentation, for judging literature. Includes index and bibliography. _______. The Complete Notebooks of Henry James. Edited by Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Contains James’s notebooks and diaries as well as his notes to publishers. Includes his first elaborate sketching out of the story and themes of The Ambassadors and the précis of the book that he sent to Harper’s in hope of having the novel serialized. Krook, Dorothea. Henry James’s “The Ambassadors”: A Critical Study. New York: AMS Press, 1996. A useful introductory guide to the novel, focusing particularly on the role of consciousness in James’s narrative approach. Matthiessen, F. O. Henry James: The Major Phase. New York: Oxford University Press, 1944. Offers a sensitive assessment of James’s later novels. Discussion of The Ambassadors focuses especially on James’s use of a single character as a center of consciousness. Also explores Strether’s relation to New England Puritanism. Includes appendix and index. See also: 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature; Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career.
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proach so near to capturing the real flavor of life. Index. Edel, Leon. Henry James: The Treacherous Years, 18951901. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1969. _______. Henry James, the Master: 1901-1916. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1972. These books are the last two in Edel’s five-volume biography. The fourth volume covers James’s first work on The Ambassadors, and the fifth discusses the novel’s writing, serialization, and publication as a book. Gives a sense of James’s numerous friendships and devotion to craft. Notes and index. Hocks, Richard A. “The Ambassadors”: Consciousness, Culture, Poetry. Boston: Twayne, 1997. A detailed examination of the novel’s literary, sociocultural, and philosophical elements. Explores the literary theories and working principles of art and consciousness that drove James’s work. Holland, Laurence B. The Expense of Vision: Essays on the Craft of Henry James. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Both an examination of the themes of James’s novels and a presentation of the intellectual climate in which James worked. Looks into the complicated but discreet use of parallelism used to structure The Ambassadors. Includes appendix and index. James, Henry. The Ambassadors. Edited by S. P. Rosenbaum. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Along with the text of the novel, this edition contains extracts from letters James wrote about his work, the novel’s plan, and essays from leading critics, including F. R. Leavis, E. M. Forster, and Ian Watt. Annotated, with bibliography.
Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published
Panama Declares Independence from Colombia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 3, 1903
Panama Declares Independence from Colombia Maneuverings surrounding the construction of the Panama Canal sparked a revolution in Panama. Locale: Panama City, Republic of Panama Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; independence movements Key Figures Manuel Amador Guerrero (1833-1909), leader of the Panamanian independence movement and the first president of Panama, 1904-1908 Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla (1859-1940), French engineer and head of the New French Canal Company Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 John Hay (1838-1905), U.S. secretary of state, 18981905 Summary of Event In the early nineteenth century, when other parts of the Spanish Empire declared independence, Panama, a part of the Spanish viceroyalty of Nueva Granada, remained loyal to the crown. For economic reasons, however, many Panamanians reconsidered their loyalty before the king of Spain, Ferdinand VII (r. 1808, 1813-1833), allowed free trade in 1813. Panama prospered until free trade was repealed. The repeal resulted in a resurgence of patriotic fervor that caused Spain to appoint governors who were determined to retain the Panamanian isthmus at any cost. Violations of civil and political rights occurred with regularity. The patriots’ cause benefited from the dissatisfaction created by the governors’ use of censorship, arbitrary arrests, and persecution of suspects. In October, 1821, Colonel José de Fábrega became the first native-born isthmian to serve as governor. The patriots guessed correctly that Fábrega would be reluctant to shed the blood of his fellow countrymen. On November 27, 1821, shortly after an uprising began in the interior towns, the citizens of Panama City invaded the main plaza and demanded a meeting of the cabildo (council) to decide the future of the isthmus. The next day the cabildo met, declared independence from Spain, and accepted union with Colombia. The union with Colombia led to much civil unrest. Political instability in Colombia, opposition to the dictatorship of Colombian ruler Simón Bolívar, and the breakup 268
of the extensive republic of Gran Colombia in 1830 gave the isthmus opportunities to express its desire for autonomy or independence. Unsuccessful rebellions occurred in 1827, 1830, 1831, and 1832. Both political and economic factors played a part in the uprisings. Panamanians could not accept the arbitrary exercise of power by officials from other areas and wanted free trade, free ports, and free transit. Panamanians responded to civil war in Colombia by proclaiming the Free State of Panama in November, 1840. External threats from England and Colombia, however, forced the Free State to sign a treaty of reincorporation after only thirteen months. Various projects for canals, roads, and railroads across Panama’s narrow isthmus had been proposed since early in the colonial period. Panamanians would have welcomed such projects and partially blamed Colombia’s government for lack of progress in this area. Colombia, however, thought the interest that France and England expressed in such projects was a threat to its control of the isthmus and signed the Bidlack Treaty of 1846 with the United States to guarantee the neutrality of the isthmus and Colombian sovereignty. Panama regarded the treaty as an attempt by the United States to increase its influence and power in the area. Nevertheless, a half century and many North American military interventions later, Panama turned to the United States for assistance in achieving independence and constructing a canal. The French, undeterred by the Bidlack Treaty, pursued their plans for a railroad across the isthmus but were unable to find financing. The settlement of Oregon in 1848 made people in the United States aware of the problem of transit. William H. Aspinwall, a U.S. citizen, organized the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and planned a trans-isthmian railroad. His efforts led to the organization of the Panama Railroad Company, which completed the railway on January 27, 1855. From the time of the completion of the railroad until the country’s independence, Panama experienced international, national, and local problems. Disputes between liberals and conservatives involving civil disturbances in Colombia, the withdrawal of local self-government by Bogotá, and economic and racial problems on the isthmus resulted in forty different administrations, fifty riots, five attempts at secession, and thirteen major interventions by the United States. By the end of the nineteenth
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century, Colombia had pushed Panama into indepenBunau-Varilla supplied Amador Guerrero with dence by refusing to consider the desires of the area’s money, a declaration of independence, military plans, populace, failing to provide security for property and and a national flag. When Amador Guerrero returned to persons, denying Panamanians the vote, conducting illePanama, he found his fellow revolutionaries unhappy gal arrests and detention, and imposing censorship as with Bunau-Varilla, timid, and unwilling to continue. well as arbitrary and excessive taxation. Resolute action by Amador Guerrero and his wife saved Asmall group of Panamanians became convinced that the revolution. Amador Guerrero arranged for the comPanama could never expect any permanent, satisfactory mander of the Colombian forces in Panama to aid the political arrangement or economic progress as long as movement in return for a generous financial arrangement Panama remained under the control of Colombia. The for him and his men. failure of two French canal companies between 1879 and The revolution started on November 3, 1903, after the 1898 convinced them that independence under the proU.S. warship Nashville docked in Colón. The U.S. militection of the United States was the only answer. The tary presence prevented the Colombian troops in Colón United States had a definite interest in a canal and, after from suppressing the revolt. The officials of the Panama the failure of the New French Canal Company, had asRailroad, who were citizens of the United States, also sumed the right to build one in Panama. contributed to the success of the revolt by arranging to In the first months of 1903, a group of influential Pankeep all railcars in Panama City, making it impossible for amanians began meeting secretly to plan an insurrection. Colombian troops to be transported across the isthmus. Captain James R. Beers, the port captain working for the The municipal council of Panama City declared Panrailroad company, was leaving for a vacation in the ama’s independence the same day and called a public United States, and the group asked him to ascertain the feelings of the railroad officials in New York. The group hoped that Beers could obtain promises of support and aid, perhaps even from the U.S. government. The answers Beers brought back were so encouraging that the insurrectionists sent Manuel Amador Guerrero, the railroad’s medical officer, to New York to make further inquiries. To view image, please refer to the After an unsuccessful trip, the print edition of this title. discouraged Amador Guerrero was preparing to leave New York when Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, the head of the New French Canal Company, arrived. Bunau-Varilla, believing that the United States was the only nation that could complete the canal, was determined to vindicate France and salvage his own reputation. He took control. After a series of “accidental” meetings with high U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State John Hay and President Theodore Roosevelt, he was able to assure Amador Guerrero Editorial cartoon from 1903 by Charles Green Bush, captioned “Go Away, Little that the United States would permit a Man, and Don’t Bother Me,” depicts President Theodore Roosevelt intimidating Corevolution to succeed in Panama and lombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone. (The Granger Collection, New York) would recognize the new republic.
Panama Declares Independence from Colombia meeting for the next afternoon. The meeting selected a junta of three men as a provisional government. The junta provided for a constitutional convention and for presidential elections, in which Amador Guerrero was chosen as the first president. Panama was forced to pay a price for the assistance of Bunau-Varilla and the United States. As a condition of his support, Bunau-Varilla demanded appointment as Panamanian minister to the United States. He was replaced one month later by a Panamanian, but in that month he negotiated a canal treaty with the United States that was similar to one Colombia had rejected. The few new provisions in the treaty made it more favorable to the United States. Bunau-Varilla pointed out to the two Panamanian diplomats sent to help negotiate the treaty that any delay in accepting the treaty could lead to withdrawal of U.S. protection and to new negotiations for a canal treaty with Colombia. U.S. protection was essential for the preservation of Panamanian independence, and his arguments were not lost on the diplomats or on the Panamanian junta. The junta accepted the treaty, as did virtually every town council in the new republic. Significance When Panama became independent in 1903, the new government accepted the canal treaty with the United States, giving the United States a physical presence in the new nation and an interest that led to limitations on political action by the government of Panama. The average Panamanian citizen did not gain political power either. A small group of elite families controlled the republic until the end of the 1960’s, when the commander of the national guard seized control of the country. The United States ratified two new treaties in 1978 under which the Panama Canal was made permanently neutral and under which the Panamanian government regained full sovereignty and control on December 31, 1999. Observation of civil rights was not characteristic of the colonial period or of Colombian rule in Panama. Censorship, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, exile, illegal taxation, and physical abuse were commonly used against political opponents of the ruling regimes and against the poor. Independence improved the abusive conditions but did not eliminate them. The political patterns of electoral fraud, political violence, arbitrary decision making, suppression and abuse of opponents, and use of political control for economic benefit characteristic of the previous periods continued to be the norm. The masses, who had only rarely participated in the political process, remained passive. The poor were given no economic con270
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sideration by the elite factions that dominated Panama. The construction of the railroad in the 1850’s and the later construction of the canal (which was completed in 1914) depended heavily on the recruitment of black laborers from the English-speaking Caribbean. Many blacks remained in Panama and congregated in their own sections of Panama City and Colón. They continued to speak English and to attend Protestant churches, and their racial and cultural differences from other Panamanians made them a conspicuous minority. Some economic development came with the construction and operation of the canal, but the more technical and higher-paying jobs were given to U.S. citizens during the first forty years of the canal’s operation. Over time, Panamanians reacted to the political and economic influence of the United States with increasing negativity, and nationalism increased. When U.S. interventions aroused Panamanian anger, the black immigrants became an easy target for protests; the United States itself was not so easily attacked. Blacks also competed with “native” Panamanians for jobs. The administration of the canal used the division between the blacks and other Panamanians to maintain an adequate and docile labor supply. The growth of Panamanian nationalism gained impetus from U.S. cultural influences on everyday life, which were pervasive and readily apparent to the average citizen. The canal remained closely tied to the independence of Panama and to the lives of the Panamanians. —Robert D. Talbott Further Reading Bishop, Joseph Bucklin. Theodore Roosevelt and His Time Shown in His Own Letters. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920. The author, who was secretary of the canal commission, paints a favorable picture of Roosevelt. Includes interesting insights about the canal and Roosevelt’s participation. Bunau-Varilla, Philippe-Jean. Panama: The Creation, Destruction, and Resurrection. London: Constable, 1913. This self-serving account of events vindicates the author and France. Includes some of the author’s letters. Diaz Espino, Ovidio. How Wall Street Created a Nation: J. P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001. Argues that a combination of American imperialist attitudes and the prospect of financial gain led to the building of the Panama Canal. LaRosa, Michael, and Germán R. Mejía, eds. The United States Discovers Panama: The Writings of Soldiers,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Scholars, Scientists, and Scoundrels, 1850-1905. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Collection of articles about Panama published from 1850 to 1905 in two of the most influential American periodicals of the time, Harper’s Monthly Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly. Illustrates the evolution of debates about Panama in the United States and how Americans came to view control of the isthmus as vital to U.S. economic and political well-being. McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977. A detailed account of events surrounding the creation of the canal and a brief summary of the pre-1903 period. Includes an extensive bibliography. Millander, G. A. The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Danville, Ill.:
U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone Interstate Printers, 1971. Provides a good, brief explanation of the 1903 revolution. Includes an extensive annotated bibliography. Niemeier, Jean Gilbreath. The Panama Story. Portland, Oreg.: Metropolitan Press, 1968. Based on newspaper articles that appeared in the Panama Star and Herald. Perez-Venero, Alex. Before the Five Frontiers: Panama from 1821-1903. New York: AMS Press, 1978. Contains a good history of nineteenth century Panama but does not include the 1903 revolution. Extensive bibliography. See also: Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control; Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal; Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens.
1903
November 18, 1903
U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone The U.S. agreement to build a transoceanic canal in Panama revolutionized transportation and shipping. Locale: Panama Categories: Economics; expansion and land acquisition; science and technology; engineering; transportation Key Figures Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla (1859-1940), French engineer who was appointed minister of the Republic of Panama William Nelson Cromwell (1854-1948), American lawyer for the New Panama Canal Company John Hay (1838-1905), U.S. secretary of state, 18981905 José Manuel Marroquín (1827-1908), president of Colombia, 1900-1904 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 John T. Morgan (1824-1907), U.S. senator from Alabama, 1877-1907 John Coit Spooner (1843-1919), U.S. senator from Wisconsin, 1885-1891, 1897-1907 Summary of Event On November 18, 1903, the minister of the new Republic of Panama, Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, and the U.S.
secretary of state, John Hay, signed the Hay-BunauVarilla Treaty. By the terms of the treaty, the United States agreed to pay $10 million cash and an annual rental fee of $250,000 in return for a canal zone ten miles wide and to grant “to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control” of that zone. The United States took possession of the canal site on May 4, 1904, and, at a cost of $375 million, built the canal that had previously defeated such experienced canal builders as Ferdinand de Lesseps’s Suez Canal Company. In the process, Colonel William Crawford Gorgas of the U.S. Army Medical Corps perfected techniques—many of which had originally been developed in Cuba during the Spanish-American War—for the prevention of the dreaded yellow fever. The Panama Canal opened for shipping on August 15, 1914, two weeks after World War I had begun in Europe. The dream of a canal through the Panamanian isthmus can be traced back to the early explorers of the American continent. Even in Christopher Columbus’s time, the attractiveness of a Central American shortcut to the Pacific was apparent. The strategic desirability of a canal through Panama became obvious during the SpanishAmerican War (1898), when the battleship Oregon almost arrived too late to take part in the war. The major obstacle to the popular goal of an American canal was the Anglo-American Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, which 271
U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone forbade either nation to build a canal without the participation of the other. Great Britain, eager to maintain its friendship with the United States, agreed to an allAmerican canal in the first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in 1900. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify this agreement because it called for a neutral canal; the Senate demanded the right to defend and fortify the canal. Great Britain reluctantly agreed to that important amendment, and the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901) was virtually an admission by the British that the United States was the primary power in the Caribbean. However, the canal battle was just beginning. The major debate concerned the route. Most members of the U.S. Congress and other Americans favored a route through Nicaragua, because they believed a canal could be built there as a sea-level channel without locks. The Isthmian Canal Commission appointed by President William McKinley supported this view, as did Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama, who was a member of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Senate Canals Committee. On January 9, 1902, the House of Representatives approved the Nicaraguan route, and it seemed certain the Senate would follow. At this point, two of the most improbable figures in the canal drama appeared on the scene. One was William Nelson Cromwell, the lawyer for the New Panama Canal Company, which had purchased the assets and rights of the defunct Lesseps company, which had failed to build its proposed canal. The other was Philippe-Jean BunauVarilla, an engineer with the Lesseps company, who was hoping to build a canal through Panama in order to vindicate both Lesseps and French engineering ability. Cromwell offered the rights to the Panama route to the United States for $40 million. Because the Panama route offered many engineering advantages and the proposed route through Nicaragua came uncomfortably close to an erupting volcano, and because Cromwell was an assiduous and effective lobbyist, President Theodore Roosevelt, the canal commission, and Congress all reversed themselves.
Observations on the Americans in Panama In his 1912 book The Americans in Panama, William R. Scott gives a history of French and North American involvement in the region and of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt’s role in the canal zone’s creation. The American-Panama Canal has risen phoenixlike out of the ruins of the French enterprise. For four centuries events have been shaping at Panama to make our final attempt successful. When we began, crude as the conditions were, the sting of the Isthmus, except its diseases, had been drawn. There was a beaten road from ocean to ocean, on every hand were landmarks to warn our footsteps from perilous paths, the lives that had been lost, the money that had been spent, all served to make our task achievable. We justly may be proud of our deeds, but we should not forget. It may be asserted that the exigencies of world convenience justified the manner by which we acquired the Canal Zone; but in declining thus far to make reparation to Colombia we are violating the essential ethics of Americanism. Certainly the American people cannot afford to dedicate their crowning achievement in this age with one single nation entertaining a sense of wrong because of it! . . . A perspective view of the whole enterprise shows that Theodore Roosevelt, by his individual actions, on at least three occasions, vitally affected the canal and its successful consummation. When he cut the Gordian knot of diplomacy and took the Canal Zone, he made the first long stride toward interoceanic communication. When he threw his
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weight into the scale for a lock type canal, he decided the most critical question that ever arose in the career of the enterprise. The third time his judgment prevented a great mistake was when the project definitely was taken from the possibility of private construction and placed in the hands exclusively of government supervision. There were lesser decisions of great moment, notably the order for widening the locks and the Culebra cut, and his whole connection with the project was such as to rank as the most brilliant phase of his administrations. . . . Panama now becomes the farthest outpost of Americanism in Latin America. The peoples of that continent have profited immeasurably by the practical demonstrations in sanitation, civil government, and engineering construction. They have learned, and so has the rest of the world, that the tropics are not necessarily deadly, that order can be maintained, not only among a homogeneous population, but among the heterogeneous races that have thronged the Isthmus, and they have seen that no natural obstacle is insuperable before the intelligence of man. The canal should be a means of cementing these lessons, or disabusing mutual prejudices between the Americans to the North and the Americans to the south. The American conquest of Latin America should be more through uplifting ideals than through bald commercialism leading to discord and unbrotherly relations. Source: William R. Scott, The Americans in Panama (New York: Statler, 1912).
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U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone
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The resultant legislation, known as Panama Canal Zone the Spooner Act because it was sponsored by Senator John Coit Spooner Caribbean Sea of Wisconsin, directed the president San Blas Islands COSTA Canal Zone Colón to build a canal through Panama if the RICA consent of Colombia, which owned Panama City the isthmian site, could be obtained. Panama Otherwise, the act specified, the NicPANAMA Canal araguan route would be taken. Darién The U.S. government began exerting extreme diplomatic pressure on the Colombian government to sign COLOMBIA Pa c i f i c O c e a n a canal treaty. Colombia was torn by internal strife that had reached almost revolutionary proportions. Colombia was ruled by José Manuel Department, could be taken to indicate that the United Marroquín, officially vice president, who had been eleStates had the right to guarantee the neutrality of, and vated to the position of chief executive when a coup defree passage through, the Panamanian isthmus. The State posed the president. The diplomatic correspondence beDepartment and President Roosevelt could now point to tween Bogotá and Washington was affected more by the the Colombian rejection as a denial of free passage. Colombian political situation than by Hay’s insistence The Colombian colony of Panama had long had sepaon a treaty. Finally, in a tangle of confused instructions ratist ambitions; indeed, it had been prevented from reand misunderstandings, the Hay-Herrán Treaty was nevolting on several occasions only by U.S. intervention on gotiated on January 22, 1903. It called for one payment behalf of Colombia. The State Department insisted that of $10 million and an annual rent of $250,000, beginning its intervention had been impartial, although perhaps it in nine years, for rights to a canal zone six miles wide. had benefited Colombia previously. It was a relatively Colombia also agreed not to ask for any of the $40 milsimple matter for Bunau-Varilla to encourage a Panamalion being paid to the French canal company. The U.S. nian revolution and to inform Roosevelt that a revolt Senate quickly approved the treaty on March 17, 1903, might be likely. It was equally simple for Roosevelt, unand the U.S. government awaited what it imagined would der the claim that he was guaranteeing the free transit of be automatic approval by the Colombian legislature. the isthmus, to ensure Colombia’s noninterference by Unfortunately, people in the United States, from the dispatching the cruiser Nashville to the scene. Panama president and the State Department on down, failed to City, on the Pacific side of the country, was taken by the comprehend the serious objections the proud Colombirevolutionaries on November 2, 1903. The Nashville ans had to the treaty. The treaty sacrificed Colombian landed U.S. forces at Colón on the Atlantic side to presovereignty at a time when the United States appeared to vent Colombian troops from passing across Panama to be in an expansionist mood, it failed to provide enough crush the rebels. In addition, engines from the Panama compensation for a route that had many engineering adRailroad were parked in the jungle between Colón and vantages and a profitable railroad, and it overlooked the Panama City so that Colombian troops could not use fact that the French canal company’s rights would expire them to go to the Pacific side, where the revolution was to in 1904. A slight delay would obviate the U.S. governoccur. When Colombia’s general allowed Bunau-Varilla ment’s need to pay $40 million for a defunct company’s to bribe him with money into leaving Colón, the revolutemporary rights, which contained nothing of substance. tion was a success. The revolution was primarily peaceThe Colombian Senate, with only three dissenting votes, ful, but, in a feeble attempt to defend Colombian soverrejected the treaty. eignty, the Colombian gunboat Bogotá fired five or six President Roosevelt likened this reasonable exercise shells into Panama City, killing a sleeping Chinese shopof legislative responsibility to a holdup and prepared to keeper and a donkey. proceed in his own way. He invoked an 1846 treaty The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty and the Panama Canal between the United States and Colombia (then New resulted from the revolution, as did a series of so-called Granada), one reading of which, suggested by the State
U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone good neighbor policies aimed at assuaging Latin American pride, which had been wounded by the apparent highhandedness of the United States in the entire transaction. The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., by John Hay, U.S. secretary of state, and Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, the French engineer who had been appointed minister of the Republic of Panama and had been given authority to negotiate until a delegation from Panama could be dispatched to Washington. Ironically, not one citizen of Panama was in attendance at the signing. A group of Panamanians were en route from New York to Washington for the event, but they arrived late—two hours after the treaty was signed. This fact created considerable embarrassment and anger among the Panamanian diplomats in the delegation, but in the end nothing was changed. Significance The bitterness that Panamanians felt toward the United States as a result of the events of 1903 lingered for decades, until the negotiation of the new Panama Canal Treaty in 1977, which was ratified by the United States in the following year. This treaty called for the complete U.S. handover of the canal to Panama that took place on December 31, 1999. The negotiations for the Panama Canal Zone mark one of the most controversial and colorful episodes in American diplomatic history. The real and perceived participation of the United States in the revolution that brought about the separation of Panama from the sovereign nation of Colombia has been debated since it occurred. Critics of the treaty and of U.S. involvement in the revolution have much ammunition for their argument, and much of their criticism is aimed at President Theodore Roosevelt, who in later years boldly stated, “I took the Canal Zone.” In 1921, the U.S. Senate voted compensation to the government of Colombia in the amount of $25 million in return for Colombian recognition of Panama. This was, in effect, a goodwill indemnity to Colombia for the “big stick” diplomacy employed by Roosevelt in 1903. The revolution—which was, at the very best, sanctioned by the United States—not only deprived Colombia of the province of Panama but also denied that nation a $10 million outright payment for the opportunity to build the canal. —Richard H. Collin and Kay Hively
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bunau-Varilla, Philippe-Jean. Panama: The Creation, Destruction, and Resurrection. London: Constable, 1913. Bunau-Varilla’s own memoir and history. Cooper, John Milton, Jr. The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. 1985. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2004. Argues that it is impossible to understand the history of the Panama Canal without understanding Theodore Roosevelt. Kitchel, Denison. The Truth About the Panama Canal. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978. A look at the history of the Panama Canal from a conservative point of view. LaRosa, Michael, and Germán R. Mejía, eds. The United States Discovers Panama: The Writings of Soldiers, Scholars, Scientists, and Scoundrels, 1850-1905. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Collection of articles about Panama published from 1850 to 1905 in two of the most influential American periodicals of the time, Harper’s Monthly Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly. Illustrates the evolution of debates about Panama in the United States and how Americans came to view control of the isthmus as vital to U.S. economic and political well-being. Mack, Gerstle. The Land Divided: A History of the Panama Canal and Other Isthmian Canal Projects. 1944. Reprint. New York: Octagon Books, 1974. A wideranging look at the history of the Isthmus of Panama, including the building of the canal, the establishment of the railroad, and other events. Miner, Dwight C. The Fight for the Panama Route. New York: Octagon Books, 1940. Examines the controversy surrounding the acquisition of the Canal Zone and Roosevelt’s role in it. Roosevelt, Theodore. Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Includes Roosevelt’s defense of his Panama policy. See also: Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control; Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal; Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity
December 10, 1903
Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity Antoine-Henri Becquerel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the phenomenon of natural radioactivity. Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Antoine-Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), French physicist Marie Curie (1867-1934), Polish-French physicist and chemist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist Frederick Soddy (1877-1956), English chemist
Antoine-Henri Becquerel. (Library of Congress)
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Summary of Event The discovery of radioactivity is only part of the larger story of scientific investigations of the electromagnetic spectrum and is intimately connected with the discovery of X rays. During the final two decades of the nineteenth century, building on the theoretical foundations of James Clerk Maxwell, scientists explored the nature of a variety of electromagnetic radiation. If Maxwell’s theories were correct, it would be possible to produce electromagnetic radiation through a moving electrical charge. In 1887, Heinrich Hertz attempted such an experiment and was the first to identify radio waves. This largely completed the electromagnetic spectrum to include visible light, infrared radiation (discovered earlier by William Herschel), and ultraviolet radiation (discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter). By 1890, the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation extended from the long-wavelength radio waves to the extremely short-wavelength ultraviolet rays. The missing member of this family was X rays, which completed the electromagnetic spectrum. In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, while experimenting with a cathode-ray apparatus, discovered a powerful ray that penetrated thick paper as well as thin metals. Called “X ray” because of its unknown composition, this radiation had the ability to penetrate materials, and its power and mystery captured the imagination of both the public and other scientists. Antoine-Henri Becquerel was one of the scientists whose imaginations were triggered by this event. For several generations, the Becquerel family had been involved closely with science in France. Becquerel’s
father and grandfather were both distinguished scientists, and he followed in their footsteps. Becquerel’s early research focused on optics; later, he shifted to infrared radiation and finally to the absorption of light in crystals. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1888, and in 1889 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences. During the following years, Becquerel undertook few research projects but moved actively through the academic ranks. He held an unprecedented three chairs of physics at different institutions at the same time and became chief engineer for the Department of Bridges and Highways. By 1896, Becquerel was one of the most successful and powerful scientists in France, and yet none of his accomplishments could be considered a major contribution to the history of science. His interest in research was revived by Röntgen’s discovery of X rays. Becquerel concluded that, given that X rays were generated through the use of the cathode-ray tube along with visible light and that both X rays and light were found at the place where the beam produced a fluorescent pattern, X rays and light
Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
may be produced by the same mechThe Electromagnetic Spectrum anism. (It turned out that fluorescence Ultrawas purely incidental to the producviolet Infrared tion of X rays.) He began to search ↓ X-ray Gamma-ray Power Radio Microwave Visible ↓ for materials other than glass that could be made to fluoresce through the use of ultraviolet light. His earlier work with crystals brought to 10 6 10 4 10 2 10 0 10 –2 10 –4 10 –6 10 –8 10 –10 10 –12 10 –14 10 –16 mind a uranium-potassium-sulfate Wavelength (meters) compound that possessed such qualities. He exposed to sunlight a photo10 2 10 4 10 6 10 8 10 10 10 12 10 14 10 16 10 18 10 20 10 22 10 24 graphic plate wrapped in light-proof Frequency (hertz) papers with the uranium crystals placed on top. He had hoped that the ultraviolet rays of sunlight would trigger the crystals to produce X rays Becquerel and his student Marie Curie were awarded the and expose the photographic plate. On developing the Nobel Prize in Physics. plate, Becquerel found it blackened by some penetrating rays. One week later, Becquerel decided to set a control for Significance his experiment by repeating the procedure in total darkThe discovery of radioactivity opened up a new world of ness. Much to his surprise, the photographic plates were nuclear physics. At the Cavendish Laboratory in Enexposed again. This result violated his working hypothegland, Sir Joseph John Thomson and his colleague Ersis: that ultraviolet rays triggered the production of X rays nest Rutherford began to study the ionizing powers of the in the uranium crystal. In the weeks that followed, Becnewly identified rays. Rutherford discovered that uraquerel considered a number of alternative explanations nium exhibited two kinds of radioactive rays: alpha rays, for this contradictory result. He thought there was a poswhich had low penetrating powers, and beta rays, which sibility of residual effects from the initial experiment, so possessed greater abilities to penetrate metal foils. In he isolated his crystals in the dark for some time. The ef1898, Marie and Pierre Curie found that thorium had rafect, however, remained the same. Becquerel tested other dioactive properties, and in quick succession they added luminescent crystals, but he could not reproduce the repolonium and radium to the list of radioactive elements. sults. This led him to test nonluminescent uranium comMarie Curie also gave the name to the process whereby pounds, which produced penetrating rays, and finally he uranium gives off rays: radioactivity. As the list of radiotried a disk of pure uranium and found the penetrating active elements grew in confusing profusion, Rutherford radiation several times as intense. On May 18, 1896, and Frederick Soddy produced the theory of radioactive Becquerel announced the discovery of radioactivity. transformation through “decay” of one element to anIn 1897, Becquerel completed a series of studies to other. The concept of isotopes (a term coined by Soddy) separate other possible sources for this radiation and to also simplified the number of elements on the list. Ruthestablish the properties of this form of radiation. He was erford utilized the alpha particles to investigate the strucable to show that the presence of the penetrating rays was ture of the atom, which revolutionized the model of the a particular property of uranium. He also found that the atom. In 1900, Paul Villard observed a third ray more emission of the rays from the uranium was continuous powerful than X rays, called gamma rays, which were and independent of any external source. The discovery of emitted by radioactive substances. radioactivity produced a response equal to that of the By the first decade of the twentieth century, the initial discovery of X rays. Laboratories immediately began exexploration of radioactivity had opened the door to the tensive examination of this new phenomenon. After his study of nuclear physics, which changed the very condiscovery of radioactivity, Becquerel continued his piocept of the nature of the material world. In a series of neering work in nuclear physics with the identification of papers published in 1914, Rutherford described the hypothesis of a new atomic model that included the proton electrons in the radiation of radium and produced the first as the nucleus of the atom. The Rutherford model of evidence of the radioactive transformation. In 1903, 276
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Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity
the atom gained prominence through the work of Niels Bohr. Bohr saved this new model of the atom by proposing a quantum theory, whereby the energy of the spinning electron emits energy only in specific quanta. This means that during stable orbits of the electron, there is no emission of radiation, but when the electron jumps from one orbit to another through increasing or decreasing energy of the atom, radiation is emitted. Furthermore, the quantum numbers for the electrons are whole numbers. Although this model of the atom was later referred to as the “Bohr atom,” credit must be given to Rutherford for providing the basic structure. The stage was set for scientists to investigate further the structure of the atom, a process that involved a multinational effort through the twentieth century. In the history of science, no other single revolution is comparable to the discovery of radioactivity. — Victor W. Chen
See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed.
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Further Reading Badash, Lawrence. “Becquerel’s Blunder.” Social Research 72 (Spring, 2005). This article, part of an issue devoted to “fruitful errors,” describes Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity. Broglie, Louis de. The Revolution in Physics: A Nonmathematical Survey of Quanta. Translated by Ralph W. Niemeyer. New York: Noonday Press, 1953. A highly recommended text for those seeking nontechnical information on quantum mechanics. Attempts to provide a popular explanation of the rapidly changing world of physics and makes the difficult subject of quantum mechanics accessible to the general reader. Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. Covers the history of the laboratory. Various chapters cover Joseph John Thomson’s early years at the laboratory, his initial work as director, his assistants and students, his work on the electron, and the later period of his life, through the end of World War I. In addition, two chapters cover his predecessor, Lord Rayleigh, and eight chapters discuss his successor, Ernest Rutherford. Einstein, Albert, and Leopold Infeld. The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to
Relativity and Quanta. 1938. Reprint. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966. Probably one of the most accessible single volumes of history on the development of modern physics available to the general reader. Employs few technical terms, and no knowledge of mathematics is required. The sections on the decline of the mechanical view and on quanta are highly recommended. Jammer, Max. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics. 2d ed. Los Angeles: Tomash, 1989. Traces both the physics and the conceptual framework of quantum theory. The sections covering the formative development of quantum theory are moderately accessible for the general reader. Rayner-Canham, Marelene F., and Geoffrey W. RaynerCanham. A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005. Acollection of biographical essays on twenty-three women involved in atomic science research in the early part of the twentieth century, including Marie Curie as well as many lesserknown scientists whose stories are rarely told. Romer, Alfred. The Restless Atom: The Awakening of Nuclear Physics. 1960. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1982. This standard text on the early days of nuclear physics is highly recommended. Romer makes the details of this part of history easily accessible. Segrè, Emilio. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. Segrè was one of a handful of physicists who participated directly in nuclear physics, received a Nobel Prize for his work, and wrote a number of popular accounts on the history of physics. The earlier sections of this volume cover the discoveries and theories of those who produced a coherent picture of the atom.
Wright Brothers’ First Flight
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 17, 1903
Wright Brothers’ First Flight Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first successful flight marked the beginning of a new age for air transportation and technology. Locale: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina Categories: Science and technology; inventions; space and aviation; transportation Key Figures Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), American inventor and aviation pioneer Orville Wright (1871-1948), American inventor and aviation pioneer Octave Chanute (1832-1910), American aviation pioneer and friend of the Wrights Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906), American scientist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896), German aeronautical engineer and glider pilot Charles E. Taylor (1868-1956), American mechanic who worked with the Wright brothers Summary of Event On December 15, 1906, Scientific American editorialized, “In all the history of invention, there is probably no parallel to the unostentatious manner in which the Wright brothers of Dayton, Ohio, ushered into the world their epoch-making invention of the first successful aeroplane flying machine.” The periodical did not exaggerate. Wilbur and Orville Wright succeeded in their first powered flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, in front of five witnesses. Yet, for three years following that day, few seemed to realize that humankind’s dream of flying had been accomplished. As two of the seven children of Bishop Milton Wright, originally an itinerant minister from a midwestern Protestant sect, and Susan Koerner Wright, Wilbur and Orville were reared modestly. As the result of their family’s move from Indiana to Dayton, Ohio, neither boy finished high school. In 1892, the Wright brothers opened a bicycle shop in Dayton. They had always been interested in mechanical and scientific matters and were devoted tinkerers. In 1895, they began to build their own bicycles in a workshop above the store. They also experimented with numerous inventions. Their interest in flying was aroused by reports of the initial development of the automobile and of Otto Lilienthal’s experiments with gliders in Germany in the 1890’s. 278
The Wright brothers started their work as self-made aeronautical engineers in 1899 by writing to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for suggestions about reading materials on the subject of human flight. They discovered that little was known about the subject, despite long interest in it. Octave Chanute and Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley, recognized as a foremost scientist, were the leading U.S. experimenters, but the Wrights were especially influenced by aeronautical pioneer Lilienthal. The early experimenters had met a number of setbacks. Lilienthal and Percy Pilcher, a Scottish glider pioneer, were killed in similar accidents. Chanute had given up, and Langley was to see his first manned flying machine crash after takeoff. Unlike their better-educated predecessors, the two bicycle mechanics—with their gift for visualizing abstract principles and then bringing them into operation— discovered three essential elements of flight that proved to be immutable aerodynamic principles. These involved lift, drag, and, especially, control for balance and stability in the face of shifting wind patterns and drift. The brothers’ use of movable wingtips, a three-axis rudder, and other devices addressed the difficulty of control, which had caused the other pioneers grief. After experimenting with kites beginning in 1899, the brothers decided to build a glider and sought a site for test flights. They wrote to the U.S. Weather Bureau, which informed them that Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on a treeless and isolated barrier beach between the Atlantic Ocean and the coastline and dotted with sandy dunes, had suitable wind currents. The Wrights transported their glider from Dayton to Kitty Hawk. In 1900, they glided for a few minutes in this first man-carrying device. Then they refined their theoretical aerodynamic calculations, realizing that they had to reexamine every earlier finding. Chanute helped them with some advice and money. In 1901, the brothers built their first wind tunnel to test wings; this enabled them to draw up accurate tables of air pressures on curved surfaces. Successful glider experiments in 1901 and 1902 inspired the Wrights to create a powered flying machine, but no one could supply an engine to their specifications. Their determination led them to decide to build one themselves, and in this endeavor they were greatly and ably assisted by Charles E. Taylor, a mechanic. Taylor machined every component of the engine, except for the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
day. Wilbur flew 195 feet in thirteen seconds. Orville covered 200 feet in fifteen seconds. Finally, shortly after noon, Wilbur flew 852 feet, lying prone at the controls, as usual, for fifty-nine seconds at thirty-one miles per hour against a twenty-one-mile-per-hour wind. Subsequently, a gust of wind damaged the plane while it was parked, and no more flying was possible that year. Significance Only a few American newspapers reported the Wrights’ flight on the day after their historic achievement. The skepticism that existed toward their success could be traced to several sources. For one thing, Simon Newcomb, a highly respected U.S. scientist, had published “proof” earlier that year that it would be impossible for heavier-than-air planes to fly. In addition, Lilienthal’s fatal crash in 1896 was still fresh in the public’s memory, and Langley’s prestigious machine had failed just nine days earlier. Even the brothers underestimated the value of their achievement, which they reported to have cost them more than a thousand dollars. For many years, the Smithsonian Institution refused to recognize theirs as the first powered flight, preferring to honor Samuel Langley’s attempt. Not until 1942 did the Smithsonian
The Wright Flyer, with Orville Wright at the controls and Wilbur Wright looking on, makes its first flight. (Library of Congress)
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crankcase, in the bicycle shop. This was the only aspect of the Wrights’ invention that someone else had a significant role in creating. The engine was crude even by the standards of the day, but it worked. The water-cooled, four-cylinder, thirteen-horsepower gasoline engine weighed less than 180 pounds and provided more power with less weight than any previous model. Its lightness enabled the brothers to keep the total weight of their 1903 Wright Flyer to 625 pounds of wood, fabric, and metal. Most important, the engine and the two chain-driven propellers enabled the craft to move through the air fast enough to generate lift on the wings to keep the machine airborne. On September 23, 1903, the Wright brothers transported their biplane, unassembled, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk. By December 14, a cold and clear day, they were ready to test the reassembled aircraft. They tossed a coin to decide who should try first, and Wilbur won. On leaving the sixty-foot wooden launching rail, the machine climbed a few feet before the engine stalled, and the craft landed after only three and a half seconds. The brothers worked on repairs until December 17. Orville then made an epochal flight of twelve seconds’ duration, covering a distance of 120 feet. Three more tries were made that
Wright Brothers’ First Flight
Wright Brothers’ First Flight finally publish an unequivocal statement crediting the Wrights with having invented the airplane. In 1904, the Wrights designed a new aircraft capable of sustained flight and of turning and banking maneuvers. The 1905 Wright Flyer could hold the air for thirtynine minutes, covering as many kilometers over Huffman Prairie near Dayton, a more convenient test site than Kitty Hawk and one at which the brothers now continued their experiments. In 1908, the U.S. War Department finally gave the Wrights a contract to build the first military aircraft. By the end of 1909, the brothers had won every flying competition around, and the Wright Company had received enough production orders to make them wealthy and famous men. Parades and medals greeted them everywhere they went. In 1932, a sixty-foot granite commemorative pylon was erected on the dune near Kill Devil Hills village, from whose slopes the initial flights had been launched. The Wright brothers’ story—of two high school dropouts with extensive intellectual curiosity, self-education, and a supportive environment who conquered the air for humankind—epitomizes the American legend of gifted amateurism and the rewards of hard work. Their achievement opened the door to a new era for transportation and technology. —Richard H. Collin and Peter B. Heller Further Reading Bilstein, Roger E. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts. 3d ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. A thorough history of aviation in the United States by a leading historian in the field; the first chapter places the Wrights in the context of the era of early flight. Combs, Harry B., and Martin Caidin. Kill Devil Hill: Discovering the Secret of the Wright Brothers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. A good source of information about aviation technology and the Wrights’ contributions to the field. Includes several helpful drawings and other illustrations. Corn, Joseph J. The Winged Gospel: America’s Romance with Aviation. 1983. Reprint. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. An interesting and lively account of many activities in aviation and the individuals, including the Wright brothers, involved in American flight during the first half of the twentieth century. Crouch, Tom. The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Orville Wright. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Biography showing the effect of the brothers’ personalities on their approach to life and work. Distinguishes clearly between their human and inventive qualities. Hallion, Richard P., ed. The Wright Brothers: Heirs of Prometheus. Washington, D.C.: National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978. The illustrations alone make this volume worthwhile. Harris, Sherwood. The First to Fly: Aviation’s Pioneer Days. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: McGraw-Hill, TABAero Division, 1991. A simple, chronologically arranged account of the early days of aviation. Includes excellent photographs. Jakab, Peter L. Visions of a Flying Machine: The Wright Brothers and the Process of Invention. 1990. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997. Jakab, a historian at the Smithsonian’s Department of Aeronautics, focuses on the Wright brothers’ thought processes along with providing a factual account. Good illustrations and bibliography. Kelly, Fred C., ed. Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright. 1951. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002. A collection of correspondence to and from the Wright brothers, authorized by Orville Wright. McFarland, Marvin W., ed. The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright. 2 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953. One of the most comprehensive collections of the brothers’ correspondence, original sketches, diary entries, and other documentation. Exhaustive bibliography. Pisano, Dominick A., ed. The Airplane in American Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Explores Americans’ relationship with the airplane since the Wright brothers’ first flight. Contributions cover a range of topics, including aviation’s role in forming perceptions of the landscape as well as the airplane’s influence on literature and art and its significance to the culture of war. See also: July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; 19241976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire; Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat
1904
Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat Agricultural scientists’ development of Marquis wheat benefited Canadian farmers and enhanced the nation’s economy by providing early-ripening, high-yielding, high-quality grain compatible with the climate in the western provinces. The Marquis strain soon replaced most spring wheat varieties, extended acreage cultivated, increased exports, and created surpluses. Locale: Ottawa, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, Canada Categories: Agriculture; science and technology; trade and commerce Key Figures Sir Charles Edward Saunders (1867-1937), Dominion cerealist, Central Experimental Farm, 1903-1922 William Saunders (1836-1914), director of Dominion Experimental Farms, 1886-1911 Arthur Percy Saunders (1869-1953), chemist and agricultural scientist Angus MacKay (1841-1931), superintendent of Indian Head Experimental Farm, Saskatchewan, 1887-1914
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Summary of Event During the late nineteenth century, pharmacist William Saunders collected plant samples to propagate new varieties and taught his children horticultural techniques on their family’s farm in London, Ontario. In 1886, a parliamentary commission appointed Saunders director of the five original Dominion Experimental Farms, which were headquartered in Ottawa. He assisted in the development of agricultural investigations throughout Canada, improving crop types to increase agricultural production, quality, and profits. Saunders’s work also provided the foundation for his sons’ work in agriculture. Farmers in western provinces needed wheat that ripened prior to frosts, and so Saunders traveled to evaluate wheat varieties that thrived in cold and high-altitude regions. He tested Ladoga wheat imported from Russia, which matured quickly but lacked characteristics desired for baking. Saunders noted that Red Fife wheat, a variety derived from Ukrainian sources, possessed acceptable milling and baking qualities but was slower to ripen. While brothers Charles Edward Saunders and Arthur Percy Saunders completed chemistry doctorates at The Johns Hopkins University, they assisted their father during vacations to develop spring-wheat hybrids that exhibited the traits farmers demanded. The Saunders family started crossing samples in July, 1888, and they
devoted two decades to improving spring wheat for cultivation in northwestern Canada, where cold temperatures, wind, and drought often damaged existing wheat varieties. They wanted plants that could endure weather extremes and short summers. The Saunderses tested crosses between Red Fife and several wheat varieties that matured early enough to be planted and harvested prior to deadly frosts but were inferior for processing. Their efforts included selecting and crossing samples of Red Fife and an Indian import, Hard Red Calcutta, and they produced several generations in order to create adequate specimens. By 1892, Percy Saunders had developed seed for a cross between Red Fife and Hard Red Calcutta called Markham at the experimental farm at Agassiz in British Columbia, and this cross provided the genetic foundation for Marquis wheat. In the early twentieth century, the need for a better wheat strain intensified as railroads extended throughout western Canada and farmers, who were often immigrants recruited to move to Canada, settled those prairie provinces. The railroad reached the Pacific Ocean, which opened up possibilities for exporting grain beyond local markets, and so farmers wanted to be able to harvest larger yields. Wheat seed imported from Europe, the United States, and eastern Canada proved unsuitable because it required a longer time to germinate and mature. Meanwhile, demand for wheat flour increased as populations grew and milling technology improved. Hired by his father as a cereal expert in 1903, Charles Saunders focused on breeding experiments with Markham wheat at the Central Experimental Station in Ottawa. He examined wheat descended from his brother’s crosses: The best wheat for breeding, he found, had specific qualities, including short stalks and light color. He rejected types, jotting comments in notebooks for each generation he observed. During August, 1903, Charles Saunders picked a Markham sample—which had ripened several days earlier than other wheat and had the desired texture and quality for milling and baking—and he saved its seeds. In 1904, Saunders planted the Markham seeds, and he continued to test the wheat produced from that sample and succeeding generations in his laboratory during the following years. He chewed kernels to evaluate gluten quality and also milled grain into flour to bake bread. Saunders kept isolating particular specimens: those that
Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat ripened early, produced strong elastic dough that absorbed sufficient water, and baked well. By 1906, he had identified two exceptionally promising wheat specimens, which he called Marquis A and B. For a time he kept evaluating samples, but eventually he concentrated all his investigations on Marquis B. During 1907, Saunders ground his chosen variety and baked it, proving that Marquis produced larger and more loaves than were produced from bread baked from equal amounts of other wheat varieties’ flour. Convinced his wheat strain consistently matured early and demonstrated expected quality, Saunders noted that it also outproduced Red Fife crops by as much as 40 percent. Saunders gave some seeds to Angus MacKay, the director of the experimental farm at Indian Head, and MacKay tested them in his fields in Saskatchewan. Saunders also distributed seeds to experimental farms in the eastern provinces. Eastern researchers reported minimal differences between the Marquis and other varieties, but MacKay stated that Marquis had the highest yields in tests and had ripened first. After more trials, MacKay agreed that Saunders’s hybrid-wheat seed was ready for distribution. Saunders named the new variety Marquis and began promoting it to agriculturists. By 1909, Canadian farmers, particularly in western prairie provinces, had gained access to Marquis wheat seed. Their satisfaction with its yields resulted in the spread of that strain to the east and south, and soon most wheat growers were planting Saunders’s hybrid. Marquis wheat soon replaced Red Fife in many fields, especially in Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, because it required five to ten fewer days to grow and could be harvested prior to autumn frosts, which threatened varieties that required longer growing periods. Most millers praised Marquis wheat’s processing qualities. Agricultural guides included advice for farmers growing it, and bread manufacturers and mills promoted it in booklets. The Canadian government supported Marquis wheat, and it became Canada’s standard wheat strain. In 1912, Parliament passed the Canada Grain Act, which regulated wheat trading, established a board of grain commissioners, and graded standards to assess quality and fair market pricing. Marquis wheat consistently represented the greatest percentage of wheat and received the highest grade. Many American agriculturists chose Marquis over other wheat varieties, and international exports of Marquis boosted Canada’s economy. Marquis wheat represented 80 percent of Canadian wheat produced in 1915 and 90 percent in 1920. During 1917, cultivation of Marquis wheat earned a total of $340 282
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 million in five Canadian provinces and $170 million in the United States. In 1918, farmers planted twenty million acres of Marquis wheat in North America. For a time, the number of acres planted with Marquis wheat increased every year. After World War II, however, Marquis’s vulnerability to stem rust led to its replacement by Marquis derivatives, and each year farmers planted several hundred million acres of Marquis descendants. Significance Marquis wheat dominated grain crops cultivated in western Canada during the early twentieth century. It generated billions of dollars during the first half of the twentieth century, because it was specifically bred to be compatible with prairie conditions. Marquis helped Canada become an international agricultural power that produced record-setting yields per acre. Furthermore, Marquis’s yields proved essential to agricultural economic growth and vitality in North America, and its cultivation generated more income than all other crops and livestock sold in Canada. Marquis wheat enabled Canadian wheat farmers to plant two hundred miles farther north, which invigorated western Canada’s economy. Farmers won awards at agricultural fairs in Canada and the United States for Marquis wheat, and judges designated Marquis wheat samples as the most outstanding wheat in the world. Marquis wheat became the source of breeding stock for most modern wheat grown for bread both in Canada and around the world, and scientists used Marquis genes to create hardier strains, such as Marquillo, that could withstand diseases. The use of Marquis wheat had impacts on many communities in Canada and abroad. Increased yields resulted in the building of more storage elevators, mills, train cars, and ships. Marquis wheat’s growing abilities lured immigrants to western Canada, more agriculture-related jobs became available in rural areas, and Canadian governments were able to use taxes from the sale of Marquis wheat to fund education. Marquis’s high yields helped Canada produce a surplus of wheat, which provided relief to Canada’s European allies during food crises in both World War I and World War II. —Elizabeth D. Schafer Further Reading Bonjean, Alain P., and William J. Angus, eds. The World Wheat Book: A History of Wheat Breeding. London: Intercept, 2001. Comprehensive essay collection documenting regional wheats, including a chapter featuring Canadian varieties. Discusses twentieth century
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 agricultural scientists’ genetically based strategies to devise improved strains. Buller, A. H. Reginald. Essays on Wheat, Including the Discovery and Introduction of Marquis Wheat, the Early History of Wheat-Growing in Manitoba, Wheat in Western Canada, the Origin of Red Bobs and Kitchener, and the Wild Wheat of Palestine. New York: Macmillan, 1919. Provides statistics and comprehensive information examining the development of Marquis wheat and varieties developed from that strain. Illustrations show experimental plots and comparisons of Marquis wheat stalks and bread with other varieties. Curtis, Byrd C., Sanjaya Rajaram, and H. Gómez Macpherson, eds. Bread Wheat: Improvement and Production. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2002. Volume in the FAO Plant Production and Protection Series that includes articles by agricultural researchers explaining strategies for breeding stronger wheat, especially for protection against diseases and insects.
First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed Morrison, J. W. “Marquis Wheat: A Triumph of Scientific Endeavour.” Agricultural History 34, no. 4 (October, 1960): 182-188. Emphasizes how Charles Saunders carefully applied scientific plant breeding techniques to develop Marquis wheat instead of randomly discovering that strain (as many accounts depict). Includes reproductions of Saunders’s notebook entries evaluating test subjects and a bread trial record sheet. Pomeroy, Elsie M. William Saunders and His Five Sons: The Story of the Marquis Wheat Family. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1956. Excellent biographical account of how the Saunders family developed their plant breeding methods. Contains excerpts from their writings and personal photographs. See also: 1904-1908: Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air; 1907: Famine Strikes Russia; June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union.
1904
First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed
Locale: Wolfenbüttel, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics; inventions Key Figures Julius Elster (1854-1920), German experimental physicist and teacher of mathematics and physics Hans Friedrich Geitel (1855-1923), German physicist Wilhelm Hallwachs (1859-1922), German physicist Summary of Event The photoelectric effect was known to science in the early nineteenth century when Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel in France wrote of it in connection with his work on glass-enclosed primary batteries. He discovered that the voltage of his batteries increased with intensified illumination and that green light produced the highest voltage. Becquerel researched batteries exclusively, however, and the liquid-type photocell was not discov-
ered until about ninety years later, when, in 1929, the Wein and Arcturus cells were introduced commercially. These cells were miniature voltaic cells arranged so that light falling on one side of the front plate generated a considerable amount of electrical energy. The cells were of short life, unfortunately; when subjected to cold, the electrolyte would freeze, and when subjected to heat, the gas generated would expand and explode the cell. What came to be known as the photoelectric cell, a device connecting light and electricity, had its beginnings in the 1880’s. At that time, scientists noticed that a metal plate charged negatively lost its charge much faster when it was subjected to light (especially to ultraviolet light) as opposed to darkness. Several years later, researchers demonstrated that this phenomenon was not an “ionization” effect because of the air’s increased conductivity, as the phenomenon took place in a vacuum but did not take place if the plate was positively charged. Instead, the phenomenon had to be attributed to the light, which excited the electrons of the metal and caused them to fly off: A neutral plate even acquired a slight positive charge under the influence of strong light. Study of this effect not only contributed evidence to an electronic theory of mat283
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Julius Elster and Hans Friedrich Geitel’s pioneering work on the photoelectric effect and photoelectric cells was of decisive importance in the development of the electron theory of metals.
First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed ter—and, as a result of some brilliant mathematical work by Albert Einstein, later increased knowledge of the nature of radiant energy—but also further linked the studies of light and electricity. It even explained certain chemical phenomena, such as the process of photography. It is important to note that all the experimental work on photoelectricity accomplished prior to the work of Julius Elster and Hans Friedrich Geitel was carried out before the existence of the electron was known. After Sir Joseph John Thomson’s discovery of the electron in 1897, investigators soon realized that the photoelectric effect was caused by the emission of electrons under the influence of radiation. In 1905, Einstein put forward the fundamental theory of photoelectric emission on the basis of Max Planck’s quantum theory (1900). Thus it was not surprising that light was found to have an electronic effect. When the longer radio waves were known to shake electrons into resonant oscillations, and the shorter X rays could detach electrons from the atoms of gases, the intermediate waves of visual light would have been expected to have some effect on electrons—such as detaching them from metal plates and so setting up a difference of potential. The photoelectric cell that Elster and Geitel developed in 1904 was a practical device for making use of this effect. In 1888, Wilhelm Hallwachs observed that an electrically charged zinc electrode loses its charge when exposed to ultraviolet radiation if the charge is negative, but it is able to retain a positive charge under the same conditions. The following year, Elster and Geitel discovered a photoelectric effect caused by visible light; unlike Hallwachs, however, they used the alkali metals potassium and sodium for their experiments instead of zinc. The Elster-Geitel photocell (a vacuum emission cell, as opposed to a gas-filled cell) consisted of an evacuated glass bulb containing two electrodes. The cathode consisted of a thin film of a rare, chemically active metal (such as potassium) that lost its electrons fairly readily; the anode was simply a wire sealed in to complete the circuit. This anode was maintained at a positive potential in order to collect the negative charges released by light from the cathode. The Elster-Geitel photocell resembled two other types of vacuum tubes in existence at the time: the cathode-ray tube, in which the cathode emitted electrons under the influence of a high potential, and the thermionic valve (a valve that permits the passage of current in one direction only), in which it emitted electrons under the influence of heat. Like both of these vacuum tubes, the photoelectric cell could be classified as an “electronic” device. 284
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The new cell, then, emitted electrons when stimulated by light and at a rate proportional to the intensity of the light, hence a current could be obtained from the cell. However, Elster and Geitel found that their photoelectric currents fell off gradually; they therefore spoke of “fatigue” (instability). It was discovered later that most of this change was not a direct effect of a photoelectric current’s passage; it was not even an indirect effect. Rather, the change was caused by oxidation of the cathode by the air. Given that all modern cathodes are enclosed in sealed vessels, that source of change has been completely abolished. Nevertheless, the changes that persist in modern cathodes often are indirect effects of light that can be produced independent of any photoelectric current. The chief sources of instability in the Elster-Geitel cell arose from changes in the cathode caused by change of temperature or bombardment by positive ions and changes in the field as a result of charges on the walls of the cell. These changes are connected with the incidence of light and the passage of a photoelectric current because light is usually accompanied by heat and because a photoelectric current may generate positive ions. As long as the constitution of a cathode is unchanged, its emission is independent of temperature within wide limits, except in the neighborhood of the threshold; however, change of temperature may alter its constitution by causing the evaporation or deposit of surface films. Positive ion bombardment may produce the same effects as rise of temperature as well as other effects. Those cathodes that are least stable are ones whose emission depends most closely on the presence of volatile surface layers. Plain metals are relatively stable. Metals sensitized by the Elster-Geitel process are very unstable. First, these metals are subject to chemical change. The alkali metal absorbs hydrogen on its surface during sensitization; this hydrogen tends to diffuse into the unchanged potassium below. If a cell is badly prepared, the hydrogen may diffuse away entirely, leaving the surface bright once more; although this diffusion does not occur in a well-prepared cell, progressive change in sensitivity—usually a loss—might occur over long periods of time. Second, heating of the cathode causes the alkali metal to distill to the cooler parts of the cell and produces an irreversible change in its sensitivity. Cooling of the cathode (less usual) may cause the reverse change, but not a restoration of the original sensitivity. Such changes of temperature of the cathode relative to the rest of the cell are most likely to occur when the cathode is supported in the center and is therefore highly insulated.
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ing search for alternative energy sources; for example, they have been used to transform solar radiation into other forms of energy. — Genevieve Slomski Further Reading Campbell, Norman Robert, and Dorothy Ritchie. Photoelectric Cells: Their Properties, Use, and Applications. 3d ed. London: Pitman, 1934. Although dated, this informative book discusses the theory of photoelectricity, contemporary technical advances in the field (including Elster and Geitel’s photocell), and applications that introduce or illustrate important principles. Includes illustrations, graphs, and references following each chapter. Lange, Bruno. Photoelements and Their Application. Translated by Ancel St. John. New York: Reinhold, 1938. An early digest of knowledge in the field of photoelectricity. Written for the layperson as well as the engineer or scientist, gives a useful historical introduction to the development of photoelectricity. Includes graphs, charts, illustrations, and bibliography. Morgan, Bryan. Men and Discoveries in Electricity. London: John Murray, 1952. Provides an overview of the history of electricity and magnetism. Focuses on the work of scientists whose work has shaped that history, discussing their work in the larger context of the history of ideas that led up to and followed their breakthrough discoveries. Includes copious illustrations and an appendix listing the most notable scientists in the field of electricity up to the 1950’s. Sommer, A. Photoelectric Cells. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Chemical Publishing, 1947. This very brief work is devoted entirely to photoelectric cells of the emission type, as opposed to cells of the barrier-layer and photoconducting types. A brief survey of the principles of photoelectric emission is followed by a more detailed description of the manufacture of photocathodes. Includes numerous graphs and illustrations as well as a bibliography. Summer, W. Photosensitors. London: Chapman & Hall, 1957. Presents useful information on the wide range of photoelectric devices that were in use at the time of publication. Also of interest is the discussion of the many applications of these devices to industry. Includes many illustrations and a bibliography. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity. 285
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Significance The Elster-Geitel photocell was for some twenty years used in all emission cells adapted for the visible spectrum, and throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the photoelectric cell had a wide variety of applications in numerous fields. For example, if products leaving a factory on a conveyor belt are passed between a light and a cell, they can be counted as they interrupt the beam. Personnel entering a building can be counted also, and if invisible ultraviolet rays are used, they can be detected without their knowledge. Simple relay circuits can be arranged to switch on streetlights automatically when it grows dark. The sensitivity of a cell with an amplifying circuit enables it to “see” objects too faint for the human eye, such as minor stars and certain lines in the spectra of elements excited by a flame or a discharge. The fact that the current depends on the intensity of the light made possible the development of photoelectric meters that can judge the strength of illumination without human error—for example, in order to get the right exposure for a photograph. Throughout the history of science, men and women have searched for devices more reliable than their own faculties for estimating size, weight, temperature, loudness, and so on; with the photoelectric meter, light joined the list. The cell also made talking motion pictures possible. The earlier systems for making films with sound had depended on gramophone records, but it was very difficult to keep the records in sync with the action on the film. With the development of the photocell, it became possible to record the waves of speech and music in a “sound track” by turning the sound into current through a microphone and then into light with a neon tube or magnetic shutter and photographing the variations in the intensity of this light on the side of the film. Through the reverse process of running the film between a light and a photoelectric cell, the visual signals could be converted back to sound. John Logie Baird used the photoelectric cell in developing the television process in the early 1920’s. In his “scanning” system, light from each part of the transmitted picture had to be taken in turn, sent through a single set of instruments, and built up again in the same order. This gave a steady-looking final image, despite the fact that at any one time only a single small area of it was lit, thanks to the persistence of vision of the human eye. If each picture succeeded the one before at the rate of about sixteen pictures per second, the viewer would have no more sense of discontinuity than when watching a film. Photoelectric cells have also played a role in the ongo-
First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed
Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method
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Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method In his 1904 work The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud erected the third and final theoretical pillar of the future psychoanalytic movement by analyzing parapraxes: things we say, write, or do that are contrary to our conscious intentions. Also known as: Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens; The Psychopathology of Everyday Life Locale: Vienna, Austria Categories: Psychology and psychiatry; publishing and journalism Key Figures Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), founder of the international psychoanalytic movement Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), celebrated neurologist with whom Freud studied Josef Breuer (1842-1925), prominent Austrian psychoanalyst and physiologist Ernest Jones (1879-1958), author of a detailed intellectual biography of Freud Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychologist and academic comparative anthropologist and Freud’s chosen successor Summary of Event Sigmund Freud claimed that parapraxes—actions, words, and ideas that emerge contrary to conscious intentions and that seem absurd, embarrassing, or self-defeating—betray the existence of a dynamic, independent unconscious life where infantile, inadmissible impulses from the id (the unconscious) rebel against the stifling censorship of the superego, the internalized conscience inculcated in people as children. The outcome of this lifelong struggle, Freud believed, was the creation of an internal compromise in which shameful, primitive parts of the self are concealed in symbolic forms. These disguises allow us to remain comfortably unaware of our impulses while providing clues that can unveil our hidden desires through conversations with a skilled cointerpreter, the analyst. Freud gradually developed the psychoanalytic movement. He was an intensely inquisitive thinker with wideranging interests, and he frequently revised his ideas. Until his mid-forties, he was profoundly influenced by a series of famous mentors, and he slowly synthesized what he had learned from them. As often happens, it was his disciples, not he, who became dogmatic. His pursuit 286
of his broad interests meant that Freud spent eight years (from 1873 to 1881) rather than five studying to become a doctor. During the last four of those years, he trained as a neurologist with the renowned Ernst Brücke, conducting research that anticipated modern views of neurons (nerve cells). From that time onward, Freud would follow many paths to find cures for the mental illnesses that we today call neuroses and personality disorders. (He never claimed to be able to treat psychotics.) As a resident at the Vienna General Hospital (1881-1886), Freud experimented with psychoactive drugs to alleviate depression. He found that cocaine relieved many symptoms of depression but was horrified when several of his patients became addicted and one died of an overdose. After his studies with Jean-Martin Charcot, who was well known for his interest in hypnosis, Freud opened a private practice in Vienna. At the same time, he researched hysteria with Josef Breuer; their collaboration lasted from 1886 to 1895. Freud published several papers on hysteria, which was first known as a “conversion disorder” and later came to be understood as the manifestation of inner conflicts. These conflicts, it was believed, were too deeply buried or too painful to be expressed in words, and so they took the form of physical symptoms such as rashes, convulsions, temporary blindness, or localized paralysis. Late nineteenth century views on hysteria, it is now known, were distorted, because most of the patients observed were wards of the state in public hospitals, usually indigent women who were often displayed to visitors on tours and secretly rewarded for interesting, spectacular displays of pathology. In recent years, the diagnostic category of hysteria has disappeared from standard psychiatric desk-reference works. Nevertheless, similar problems still occur, especially in victims of post-traumatic stress disorder. Freud hoped he had discovered an effective nonpharmacological treatment for hysteria when he watched the celebrated hypnotist Hippolyte Bernheim at work in Nancy, France, for several weeks during the summer of 1889. He realized that some forms of mental activity are performed unconsciously and began incorporating hypnotism in his own practice. When he discovered that the improvements it produced were not lasting, however, he became disillusioned, and he slowly replaced hypnosis with the “talking cure,” in which patients engaged in free association. Freud learned that such explorations often uncovered repressed sexuality and infantile thinking at
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Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method names, and so forth). He concluded that there were few true accidents and that most parapraxes were unconsciously caused by repressed wishes. Freud was named professor at the University of Vienna in 1902. His psychiatric practice expanded greatly, and he had no more financial worries. That fall, he founded a weekly discussion group with other psychiatrists, including Alfred Adler, who first posited the “inferiority complex.” Other prominent thinkers soon joined, such as Otto Rank (in 1906), Sandor Ferenczi (in 1908), and Hanns Sachs (in 1910). Carl Jung occasionally visited. The body grew into the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society, and its twenty-two members maintained a substantial library until the group was outlawed and the books destroyed by the Nazis in 1938. After paying a heavy ransom, Freud and his family were allowed to emigrate to England.
Sigmund Freud. (Library of Congress)
Further Reading Beizer, Janet. Ventriloquized Bodies: Narratives of Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century France. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. A beautifully written, carefully researched account of gender bias in early 287
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the root of emotional problems. His hesitant development of psychoanalysis can be traced in his letters to a close friend, the Berlin doctor Wilhelm Fliess, from 1887 to 1902. During the period 1897-1900, Freud undertook intensive self-analysis from which many of his examples of dreams and parapraxes emerge; he would spend half an hour each day analyzing himself for the rest of his life. At the same time, he prepared his masterpiece, Die Traumdeutung (1900; The Interpretation of Dreams, 1913), published in November, 1899, but postdated 1900. In it, he concluded that the unconscious mental life revealed in dreams contained rich symbolic clues— inscribed in both personal and collective languages—to childhood experiences and to repressed feelings. In 1900, Freud coined the term “psychoanalyze” to characterize his analysis of the central core of the personality. His final step was to expand the theories concerned with the unintended acts of dream experiences to other areas of life: saying and writing things that are not intended, having accidents, and forgetting things one is supposed to do or objects that could help one do or remember such things (car keys, office keys, appointment books, shopping lists, telephone numbers, people’s
Significance The actual text of Freud’s Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens (1904; The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1914) is diffuse and anecdotal; the work reads more like clinical notes than a reasoned argument. Its homey examples, however, many of which came from Freud’s own lived experience, introduced both analysts and the general public to a widely and readily applicable method. Freud’s previous sources of psychological insight had been more limited: Hysteria was much less common than neurosis, and it was less likely to be found outside institutions. Furthermore, dreams were remembered only infrequently by most clients, and many of their details remained mysterious and required intricate, speculative interpretations that were not always convincing to outsiders. The self-inflicted accidents of everyday life, such as embarrassingly obvious slips of the tongue, were much harder to dismiss as meaningless, and they were relevant to the experiences of both well-adjusted and unhappy people. Therefore, the study of these parapraxes provided a broad, plausible base for psychoanalysis. From the 1920’s on, many British psychotherapists visited Freud in Vienna to be analyzed, and through them the movement spread to the United States during the 1930’s. Only in the late twentieth century, however, did Freud’s wish that lay (non-M.D.) analysts be allowed to practice become fulfilled widely in the United States. —Laurence M. Porter
Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter perceptions of hysteria. This bias resulted in unsound conclusions by Freud and other early analysts. Bettleheim, Bruno. Freud and Man’s Soul. 1982. Reprint. New York: Vintage, 1984. Deliberate English mistranslations transform Freud from a homey, mystical philosopher into a science-oriented technologist. Bucci, Wilma. Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Science: A Multiple Code Theory. New York: Guilford Press, 1997. Discusses Freud’s views of the many-stranded channels of perception that form our awareness of our world and ourselves. Ellenberger, Henri F. The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychology. New York: Basic Books, 1970. Corrects Ernest Jones’s biography on many points; explains Freud’s importance in the history of ideas; treats rival psychoanalytic schools. Freud, Sigmund. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Translated by Alan Tyson, edited by James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966. More convenient to use than the standard edition. Gossy, Mary S. Freudian Slips: Woman, Writing, the Foreign Tongue. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Relates such slips, including Freud’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 own, to issues raised by the female body eluding patriarchal control. Jones, Ernest. The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. 3 vols. New York: Basic Books, 1953-1957. This definitive biography, by Freud’s lifelong associate, contains some errors based on Freud’s own statements. Miller, Laurence. Freud’s Brain: Neuropsychodynamic Foundations of Psychoanalysis. New York: Guilford Press, 1991. Discusses hysteria, dreams, and parapraxes (slips) as the three pillars of psychoanalytic theory. See parts 4 and 5. Neu, Jerome, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Freud. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. See chapters 5, on the unconscious, and 13, on Adolf Grünbaum’s attack on Freud’s theory of parapraxes. Porter, Laurence M. The Interpretation of Dreams: Freud’s Theories Revisited. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Explains the importance of dream research in the development of psychoanalysis, and evaluates later challenges to Freud’s theories. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious; 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology.
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Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter Johannes Franz Hartmann discovered the first indications that matter is present between the stars. Locale: Potsdam, Germany Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Johannes Franz Hartmann (1865-1936), German astronomer Henri-Alexandre Deslandres (1853-1948), French astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard (1857-1923), American astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875-1969), American astronomer Edwin Brant Frost (1866-1935), American astronomer Summary of Event Astronomy changed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than studying only the mo288
tions and positions of heavenly bodies, astronomers utilized new tools that enabled them to learn about the physical composition of the heavens, from stars to Earth’s galaxy itself. Johannes Franz Hartmann found the first evidence that the Milky Way galaxy contains diffuse interstellar matter as well as the stars and planets, which form discrete objects. The discovery that matter exists between the stars had implications for many areas in astronomy, from the debate over the nature of the Milky Way to the question of the beginnings of the solar system. The work of many astronomers contributed to the knowledge of interstellar matter. Spectroscopy was among the new tools that were important to astronomy in this time period. The spectroscope is an instrument that breaks starlight down into its component parts (its spectrum) by passing the light through a prism or reflecting it from a finely ruled grating. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was the first to realize that white light is composed of light of many colors, or
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Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter Some double-star systems, such as Delta Orionis, appear edge-on or partially edge-on in the sky, and thus the stars in these systems, as they orbit one another, are moving alternately toward and away from Earth. This motion results in Doppler shifts alternately toward the redward and the blueward, such as those observed by Hartmann. Antonia Maury at Harvard College Observatory later used this information to identify as double stars those that display the Doppler shifts but visually do not appear double. The motion of the double stars explained the type of shift (redward and then blueward) observed for most of the spectral lines in Delta Orionis. It did not, however, explain the lines that had a different Doppler motion, one that did not move the lines from redward to blueward and back but moved the lines in the same direction and by the same amount in a constant manner. Hartmann called these lines stationary because they must be caused by matter that is stationary relative to the rest of the doublestar system. The obvious explanation was that the lines were caused by a massive component of the double-star system that was so heavy relative to the other components that, for practical purposes, it could be considered the center of mass around which the other stars revolved; at the same time, it remained essentially motionless with respect to the rest of the system. The unchanging Doppler shift would represent, then, the motion of the entire system with respect to Earth. Hartmann carefully ruled out this explanation, however, as well as the possibility that Earth’s atmosphere was responsible for producing the lines. The possibility remained that an immobile cloud of matter was producing the lines. Because the lines were of the appropriate wavelength for the element calcium, Hartmann concluded that a cloud of calcium gas was causing the lines. He was not sure where the calcium was located, however. He believed it could be situated somewhere between Earth and the double-star system and unconnected with the double stars, or it could be part of the double-star system. Other astronomers addressed and resolved these questions years after Hartmann’s original discovery. Hartmann had also observed stationary spectral lines in the spectrum of Nova Persei, a nova that occurred in 1901. He suggested that perhaps these lines were the product of clouds of matter that bore some relation to the dark clouds that Edward Emerson Barnard had observed in photographs of the Milky Way. Barnard experienced many years of doubt and confusion before he came to the conclusion finally that the dark spots he saw in his photographs indicated the presence of cold dark matter that 289
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wavelengths, which blend together and appear white. Astronomers can use the colors and dark bands of an object’s spectrum to determine its chemical composition and many other properties. In particular, the spectrum of a star reveals its velocity along a line of sight to the observer (its radial velocity) and the velocity with which it turns on its axis (its rotational velocity). The dark lines appearing in a star’s spectrum reveal the presence of particular elements, each of which produces its own distinctive pattern of lines at particular wavelengths in the spectrum. The atoms of each element can absorb light at several specific wavelengths only, and as light from a radiating object passes through a gas, the atoms of various elements in the gas absorb light at their own peculiar wavelengths. This absorption of light causes the dark bands, and once the wavelength at which a band occurs is measured, the element responsible for the band can be determined. Thus it is possible to identify the elements in a star’s atmosphere or in any other cloud of gas intervening between the observer and the rest of the star. In 1900, Henri-Alexandre Deslandres discovered that lines in the spectrum of the star Theta Orionis were undergoing rapid changes in their positions in relation to the rest of the spectrum. Hartmann followed up this observation at the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory, where state-of-the-art spectrographs were well suited for studying this phenomenon. Hartmann found changes in position of spectral lines for the star Delta Orionis. He found slow shifts, however, rather than the rapid shifts described by Deslandres. He also discovered that some of the lines did not shift in the same way as the rest of the lines, but instead demonstrated a different type of motion relative to the motion of the other spectral lines. The reason for the motion of all the spectral lines turned out to be the Doppler effect. As an object that is emitting waves (for example, light waves) approaches an observer, the waves appear bunched together, and the wavelength appears shorter than it really is (light appears to have shorter wavelengths and looks bluer; sounds seem to be higher pitched). Conversely, as a waveemitting object recedes from an observer, the waves appear stretched out and the wavelength appears longer than it really is (light appears to have longer wavelengths and looks redder; sounds seem to be lower pitched). The amount by which the light or sound is shifted in wavelength is related to the velocity of the moving object. This effect, which can appear to shift the lines in a star’s spectrum either redward or blueward, is the tool astronomers use to measure the velocity of an individual star along the line of sight to the star (its radial velocity).
Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter blocked out the light of stars behind them, rather than merely gaps in the sky where no stars were to be found. Barnard’s work was a long chapter in the discovery of interstellar matter; Hartmann’s discovery of stationary lines provided the first direct evidence for clouds of gaseous matter independent of any stars or star systems. Today, several areas of astronomy are aided by knowledge of gaseous and particulate interstellar matter and the ramifications of this matter. Unfortunately, the importance of Hartmann’s work essentially went unrecognized for many years. Significance Hartmann’s discovery of the stationary lines was only one step in a long story. Vesto Melvin Slipher at the Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Edwin Brant Frost at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin confirmed Hartmann’s work. Slipher made more observations of Delta Orionis and was the first to suggest that it was truly interstellar matter that was responsible for the lines. (Hartmann’s supposition had been that the matter was associated with the double-star system, although not linked to it.) In 1909, Frost observed other stars with spectra that also displayed stationary lines. Some astronomers disagreed with Hartmann, Slipher, and Frost about the nature of the lines and used several observations to argue that the lines were, in fact, connected with the stars in question rather than interstellar in nature. Reynold Kenneth Young noted in 1920 that stationary lines appeared only in the spectra of relatively young stars and argued from this relationship between stellar type and presence of the lines that there must be some connection between the star and the calcium gas causing the lines. Also, Oliver Justin Lee presented a doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago on the orbit of a double star in which he interpreted some of his data as evidence that the calcium gas was connected with the double-star system and could, in fact, explain some peculiarities in the way the velocities of the stars changed over time. This seemed to indicate that the lines were stellar rather than interstellar in origin. In the late 1920’s, Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington and Otto Struve presented work that finally settled the nature of the stationary lines and resolved the question of the existence of interstellar matter. Several papers that Struve wrote on the calcium lines in stellar spectra stimulated much discussion and led to the acceptance of interstellar matter as the most satisfactory explanation for the stationary lines. Eddington explained why the lines appeared only in relatively young stars by showing that 290
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 older stars have spectra that would not reveal the presence of the stationary lines easily, even when they were present. Eddington ignored Lee’s work, as no one had been able to confirm his findings. More than twenty years after Hartmann’s original discovery, astronomers accepted the existence of clouds of interstellar calcium. The presence of interstellar matter had ramifications for various studies in astronomy. For example, when interstellar matter appears in the form of dust, it absorbs some of the light from stars and makes stars appear dimmer (and more distant) than they really are. This knowledge affected the distance scale astronomers devised for the universe. Also, interstellar matter plays an important role in theories of how stars form because it provides the material for star formation. Because these clouds move around the galactic center, their motion, when measured, can give indications of the speed and direction of galactic rotation. Thus Hartmann’s seminal discovery had far-reaching effects on the science of astronomy. — Mary Hrovat Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. “Stellar Evolution.” In The Universe from Flat Earth to Quasar. Rev. ed. New York: Walker, 1971. Concise summary of interstellar matter’s detection and implications for theories of star formation, presented in Asimov’s enjoyable style. Clearly explains Hartmann’s work in the context of stellar formation from interstellar gas and dust. Includes diagram and list of suggested readings. Berendzen, Richard, Richard Hart, and Daniel Seeley. Man Discovers the Galaxies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Focuses on early twentieth century discoveries about the nature of the Milky Way and other galaxies. Presents some information on Hartmann’s work, set in the context of galactic studies at the time, as well as the work done by astronomers who followed up on Hartmann’s original discovery. Uses original documents to help bring the events described to life. Includes photographs, drawings, and graphs. Mitton, Simon, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopædia of Astronomy. New York: Crown, 1977. Several chapters of this standard handbook on astronomy discuss interstellar matter, both gaseous and dusty, its detection, and its role in star formation. Explains how absorption lines (such as the stationary lines) are formed. Includes many drawings, charts, and photographs, as well as an appendix containing brief explanations of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 some of the physical concepts discussed in the text. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Cowritten by Struve, who participated in some of the events connected with Hartmann’s work. Contains a chapter on interstellar matter and how it was discovered, including Hartmann’s work. One of the best sources for material on the history of twentieth century astronomy. Includes photographs (some of spectrographs in which “stationary lines” appear), graphs, drawings, and bibliography. Verschuur, Gerrit L. Interstellar Matters: Essays on Curiosity and Astronomical Discovery. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989. Excellent, well-written history of the circuitous path astronomers took to arrive
Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy at the present knowledge of interstellar matter, gaseous and dusty. Presents details about Hartmann’s work and how it was interpreted by other astronomers, as well as about many other astronomers’ contributions to the story of interstellar matter. Includes photographs, graphs, and drawings. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. This introductory text provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues. See also: Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution; July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars.
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Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn discovered that the proper motions of stars were not randomly distributed but tended in two opposite directions, implying the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy. Locale: Groningen, the Netherlands Categories: Science and technology; astronomy
Summary of Event Following several years of study of the structure of the Milky Way galaxy, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn concluded, on the basis of exhaustive star counts in sampled portions of the sky, that the proper motions (perpendicular to the line of sight) of the stars were not randomly distributed. To his own satisfaction, Kapteyn confirmed previous perceptions of the Milky Way as a flattened ellipsoid (a lenslike shape). However, because gas and dust toward the center of the galaxy distorted his counting in that direction, he incorrectly placed the solar system relatively near the center of the Milky Way. Having constructed what he believed was a correct view of Earth’s galaxy, Kapteyn then measured the proper motions of many stars for the purpose of verifying
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Key Figures Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922), Dutch astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer Heber Doust Curtis (1872-1942), American astronomer
that these were randomly distributed, as theory indicated. Instead, he discovered systematic departures from randomness, with the stars showing movement in opposite directions in different parts of the sky. The two streams of movement of the stars implied that the Milky Way is not static, with the Sun near the center of random individual stellar motions. Kapteyn’s discovery had major cosmological implications, most obvious among them being that the Milky Way is a rotating galaxy. The originator of this great discovery was well prepared, both in temperament and in education, to contribute to the development of modern astronomy. Kapteyn, one of fifteen children, was the son of a boarding school proprietor who stimulated his interest in physics. He studied at the University of Utrecht and was awarded a doctorate in physics in 1875. Following completion of his studies, he pursued a position at the Leiden Observatory, where he became a successful astronomer. By 1878, he had won a professorship in astronomy at the University of Groningen. When he arrived at Groningen, however, he was unable to raise funding to equip an observatory. Undaunted, he became a world leader in arranging collaboration with other astronomers, notably with Sir David Gill at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. From 1885 to 1899, he analyzed photographic plates taken by Gill and assisted in producing a star catalog with nearly a half million entries. He later continued studies as a visiting astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California.
Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy While still at Leiden, Kapteyn became interested in the structure of the universe, a topic he pursued throughout his career. His primary method of study consisted of counting stars at the different levels of brightness, his underlying assumption being that the measured brightness of stars was a statistically reliable means of assessing their distance. Through this method he made the first major advance since the work of Sir William Herschel a century before. Herschel resolved some “nebulas” into star clusters and consequently believed that all nebulas would eventually be resolved, with some located outside Earth’s galaxy. Kapteyn also accepted the nebulas or unresolved patches of light in the sky as “island universes” outside our own galaxy. The thinning of star counts away from the plane of the Milky Way implied to Kapteyn an ellipsoid-shaped galaxy. In the midst of these studies, he found the two star streams. If the Milky Way were essentially a static collection of stars, then theoretically their motions across the line of sight (proper motions) ought to be randomly distributed.
Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn. (Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Only those stars relatively close to the earth have measurable proper motions, but there were enough of these by the early part of the twentieth century that Kapteyn could analyze them statistically. The result was that he found consistent displacement in two opposite directions for neighboring stars. The motions, toward the constellations Orion and Sagittarius, implied what he called the “streaming” of stars or a pattern of movement that indicated that stars were moving in opposite directions. In 1904, Kapteyn announced his discovery at the International Congress of Science at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. Desiring to follow up these early discoveries, Kapteyn devoted much of his time after 1904 to attempts to organize the worldwide astronomical community in cooperative efforts to photograph and analyze 206 different portions of the night sky. These studies focused on magnitude, color, proper motion, radial velocity (along the line of sight), and spectral type. Before he was able to arrange for the full implementation of his plan, World War I largely ended international cooperation, but he did succeed in generating enough information to convince himself that he was correct about the ellipsoidal shape of the Milky Way. He estimated that the major axis and the minor axis of the ellipsoid were related by the ratio of five to one, the major axis measuring approximately 52,000 light years. His main concern about the accuracy of his model was the central location of the Sun, a point that also caused other astronomers to question the model because of this apparent favored position. Kapteyn was also deeply concerned about the effects on his model of the absorption of light by gas and dust. He realized that appreciable absorption in the direction of the galactic center would have caused his central position for the Sun to be wrong and, more important, would have caused him to underestimate the size of the Milky Way. As a result, he repeatedly sought some means of measuring the amount of absorption. Having failed to measure any sizable amounts by 1918, he convinced himself that it was negligible and his model accurate. Kapteyn’s inability to measure the effects of obscuration of light in the direction of the galactic plane did cause him to underestimate seriously the size of the Milky Way. Harlow Shapley, who was studying many of the same problems as Kapteyn at Mount Wilson in California, proposed a much larger universe on the basis of his study of clusters of stars (Globular clusters) and Cepheid variables (stars of fluctuating brightness). The superior equipment that had resolved the clusters into individual stars led Shapley to conclude that all the nebu-
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Significance Kapteyn’s efforts in the early part of the twentieth century demonstrate clearly that careful observation and experimentation have exceptional value, even if the interpretation is erroneous. On the basis of methodical observation and careful statistical analysis of star counts from sampled regions of the sky, Kapteyn constructed a model of the Milky Way in the shape of a lens. The galaxy was rotating, as demonstrated by his discovery of the two star streams, with the earth in a position near the center. The Kapteyn universe provided a framework for the explanation of astronomical observations that served scientists well at the beginning of the century. Kapteyn’s view of the universe dominated the first
two decades of the twentieth century. His work significantly affected the cosmology of the day, especially his view of the nebulas as “island universes” beyond the bounds of the Milky Way. When this perspective was combined with the high radial velocities of the nebulas, it eventually contributed to Georges Lemaître’s cosmology of the mid-1920’s, which was, in turn, an antecedent of the currently accepted big bang cosmology. His discovery of the two star streams contributed to the establishment of the rotation of the Milky Way, although he incorrectly placed the Sun at the center and believed the streams were the result of passage of stars on either side of Earth. Kapteyn’s model was inaccurate for a variety of reasons, the most important of which was the obscuring effect of gas and dust toward the center of the Milky Way. His failure to measure obscuration successfully caused him to be overly confident in his star counts in that direction, and he searched for alternative explanations for Shapley’s research findings and disputed those findings until his death. Shapley, in turn, erred in his interpretation of the nebulas because he depended on erroneous rotational measurements for the nebulas. In less than a decade, however, further research resolved the conflict of the early 1920’s. By the late 1920’s, as the result of work by Bertil Lindblad, Jan Hendrik Oort, and Edwin Powell Hubble, a more accurate picture emerged of our galaxy as a spiral rotating in the same fashion as the other exterior galaxies. In 1927, Oort, a former student of Kapteyn, demonstrated (once the Sun’s position near the edge of the Milky Way was established) that the apparent motion in one direction was the result of the Sun’s lagging behind stars nearer the center. The motion in the opposite direction was the result of slower outer stars’ falling behind the Sun. Kapteyn’s universe was superseded by research it had stimulated. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Kapteyn’s influence greatly enhanced interest in galactic astronomy, which had been somewhat eclipsed by emphasis on planetary studies at the end of the nineteenth century. Kapteyn also set a fine example of the advantages of cooperative efforts among astronomers. Although he was utterly confident in the value of his star counts and overly committed to his method (soon superseded by better methods and newer, more powerful equipment), he made an essential contribution to later cosmological studies. —Ivan L. Zabilka 293
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losities might eventually be resolved and that they could be a part of the galaxy. By 1914, Shapley had established that all the globular clusters were in one direction; thus he concluded that they surrounded the center of the Milky Way, and he necessarily placed the Sun at the edge. If the universe were the size Kapteyn indicated, the clusters would have been outside the Milky Way, but Shapley was confident in his distance measurements based on the brightest stars and the Cepheid variables. He was also confident in his interpretation of the cause of their asymmetrical location. The implication followed that the streaming of the stars, which was firmly established, would have to be reinterpreted in a new fashion to fit the data. The divergence of Shapley’s views from Kapteyn’s, including Shapley’s much larger estimates of the scale of the universe, led to conflict between Shapley and astronomer Heber Doust Curtis and resulted in a public debate at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on April 26, 1920. Shapley presented his views while Curtis defended the perspectives of Kapteyn’s followers. Both sides, later discoveries would show, were partially right and partially wrong. Kapteyn’s view of the “nebulas” as island universes was eventually established (even by 1914 Curtis had already noted the high radial velocity of some of the spirals, implying their distance and recession from the earth), and Shapley’s views of the dimensions of the Milky Way were found to be more accurate. This debate served to place Kapteyn at the center of the cosmological questions of the day. His interpretation of the physical cause of the streaming effect may have turned out to be only partially correct, but that does not minimize the significance of his achievement in recognizing the reality of the streaming.
Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy
Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy Further Reading Berendzen, Richard, Richard Hart, and Daniel Seeley. Man Discovers the Galaxies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. A major survey of historical cosmology. The first five chapters present a fairly complete picture of Kapteyn’s work as it relates to the work of other astronomers of the period. Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius. “Discovery of the Two Star Streams.” In Source Book in Astronomy, 1900-1950, edited by Harlow Shapley. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. This is an excerpt from a paper presented to the South African meeting of the British Association in 1905. It recounts briefly Kapteyn’s procedures for discovering the two star streams. _______. “First Attempt at a Theory of the Arrangement and Motion of the Sidereal System.” Astrophysical Journal 55 (1922): 302-327. Significant because it is the last and best statement of Kapteyn’s perspective on the significance of his discovery of star streaming. Unfortunately, given that Shapley turned out to be closer to the truth about the size of the Milky Way, it was already out of date when it was published. Somewhat technical, but accessible to the general reader. _______. “On the Absorption of Light in Space.” Astrophysical Journal 29 and 30 (1909): 47-54, 163-196. Kapteyn summarizes his efforts to establish the amount of absorption of light by gas and dust. Presents the evidence that encouraged him to maintain that the Sun was near the center of the Milky Way and that his interpretation of the two streams was correct. Moderately technical, but worth the effort to understand the seriousness with which he regarded the problem. _______. Plan of Selected Areas. Groningen, the Netherlands: Hoitsema Brothers, 1906. An explanation of what Kapteyn wished to accomplish by means of co-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 operative surveys of 206 regions of the sky by observatories in various parts of the world. The project was to form a database for his statistical studies, which have caused some to call Kapteyn the father of statistical astronomy. Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius, and Pieter J. Van Rhijn. “The Proper Motions of the Cepheid Stars and the Distances of the Globular Clusters.” Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of the Netherlands 1 (1922): 37. Kapteyn’s main effort, an attempt to establish two classes of Cepheids, one dimmer than the other, to defend his position against the newer evidence Shapley was marshaling against Kapteyn’s model of the size of the universe and the location of the Sun, which affected the interpretation of the two star streams. Paul, E. Robert. “J. C. Kapteyn and the Early TwentiethCentury Universe.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 17 (August, 1986): 155-182. A major historical study of the significance of Kapteyn’s work. Presents an almost wistful regret that one who contributed so much to the development of statistical astronomy could have been incorrect about the shape and size of the Milky Way. Van Der Kruit, P. C., and Klaas Van Berkel, eds. The Legacy of J. C. Kapteyn: Studies on Kapteyn and the Development of Modern Astronomy. New York: Springer, 2000. Contributors address Kapteyn’s influence on the development of modern astronomy, including his leadership in establishing collaboration among astronomers around the world. Includes an inventory of Kapteyn’s correspondence. See also: Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy; July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars; 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way.
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Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs
1904-1905
Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began collecting Hungarian folk songs and were able to transcribe and analyze them accurately, initiating the scientific study of folk music. Locale: Hungary Category: Music Key Figures Béla Bartók (1881-1945), Hungarian classical composer and pioneer ethnomusicologist Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967), Hungarian classical composer and pioneer ethnomusicologist Béla Vikár (1859-1945), Hungarian ethnographer and expert in folk poetry
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Summary of Event In the summer of 1904, Béla Bartók heard a young girl singing Transylvanian folk songs in a small rural village and quickly wrote them down. A new world of sound opened up to him. Applying for a state grant to collect more songs, in 1905 he began to record on cylinders the authentic Magyar folk songs of the Hungarian people. Having fortuitously met fellow folk song enthusiast Zoltán Kodály in the same year, Bartók went out with Kodály to collect thousands of songs and dances among the peasants of Hungary over the next decade. Both men had been trained in the classical traditions of Western harmony and sonata form. Composers such as Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and Richard Strauss had been their models in composition. The new worlds of melody and rhythm found in the Hungarian folk songs struck them like thunderbolts. Here in their own homeland was a different kind of music. As they amassed, separately and together, thousands of tunes from Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, and Bulgarian singers and instrumentalists, they realized that they had discovered the authentic folk music of Hungary and that it operated along tonal and rhythmic lines different from both the traditional classical music they had played and composed and the so-called Gypsy music that passed in Hungary and elsewhere at the time as folk music. Kodály became interested in folk song a bit earlier than did Bartók. In 1905, he finished a doctoral dissertation on the structure of Hungarian folk songs. He had begun to listen to the folk songs recorded in 1896 on cylinders by ethnographer Béla Vikár. After introducing Bartók to these earlier recordings, Kodály set about tran-
scribing their tunes with Bartók’s help. Kodály and Bartók were determined to carry on where Vikár had left off; they wanted to uncover the total body of living folk song in Hungary. They sensed that what passed for genuine folk song among the general public was basically watered-down fragments. Whether in the music of Gypsy bands playing for middle-class urban audiences in Hungary and abroad or in the appearance of folk-derived melodies in classical music, compromises had been made to fit the folk melodies within conventional harmonic bounds. Nationalistic composers of the nineteenth century had tried to incorporate some folk songs into their works. Popular pieces such as Brahms’s Hungarian Dances (1869) and Antonín Dvoòák’s Slavonic Dances (1878, 1886), as well as the efforts of other musical nationalists, indicated a willingness to explore roots and folk heritages, but for Bartók and Kodály, this movement was not enough. With their growing concern for establishing a distinctive Hungarian art apart from the generally accepted musical models emanating from Austria’s capital, Vienna, and from Germany, they believed that new materials and new manners of composing and listening had to be forged out of fieldwork, recording, and analysis. For a decade, beginning in 1905, Bartók and Kodály traveled the length and breadth of Hungary, sometimes together but often separately, trying to gather as much of the music as they could before it died out among the peasants, who would soon be modernized from creators and performers of music into more passive consumers of it. They discovered a harsh and ancient music that to them was a pure and natural part of the lives of rural people. Pentatonic and modal scales (similar to the old medieval church scales) were dominant in this music; only more recent, nineteenth century pieces featured conventional “Western” major and minor scales. More rigorously than others who were starting to record folk songs on cylinders, including the Englishman Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Australian Percy Grainger, they developed a method that remains the norm in the study of comparative musicology—as Bartók called it—or ethnomusicology. The first step in their method involved collecting widely and deeply in an ethnic enclave, recording everything. The next steps were to transcribe what they had recorded, using a notation system devised to indicate sound features beyond the standard notes on the music staff, and to systematize
Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sand items began to appear in the 1920’s. Kodály’s later work has been appearing since World War II in volumes produced by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Béla Bartók.
the collection of melodies. Finally, they analyzed melodic contours and scales, the minutely articulated rhythms and the frequent changes in them and in tempo characteristic of live folk song, in addition to analyzing the exact relation of words and melody. Bartók further stressed in his numerous essays during this period and later that the field-worker had to know the context before entering the field, including previous collections and the folk customs and rituals of the people to be studied. Field-workers also needed to use photography to record instruments and their detailed features, and, ideally, they would use film to capture folk dance. As pioneers in ethnomusicology, both men advocated a gestalt approach, a complete study of a culture and its music. They were also concerned with publishing their results so that a broad public would become aware of this heritage. In 1906, they issued piano arrangements of twenty Hungarian folk songs. Through the remainder of their lives they published a steady stream of essays and books; the flow continued even after their deaths. A massive corpus of folk song containing more than ten thou296
Significance Almost immediately after Bartók and Kodály began their research, their own work was affected and Hungarian musical life was turned upside down. The new harmonies and scales shocked the concertgoing public, and the two men’s vociferous advocacy of a reform of music making and even educational practice in the schools disturbed conventional ways of hearing music. Bartók, in particular, extended his research beyond Hungary to North Africa in 1913 and to Turkey in 1935. He was determined to trace Eastern European music styles to Asian styles, and he succeeded. In his many essays and in his own classical compositions, he fused Eastern European music with analogous Asian practice and brought to Western classical music a more worldwide sensibility. Like his contemporary Igor Stravinsky, who had delved into authentic Russian folk song, he was a revolutionary in composing tonally—but with new tonalities based on folk practice. Unlike the members of the Austriancentered atonal and twelve-tone schools, who rigorously avoided a tonal base in their practice, Bartók and Kodály always believed that some tonal system was essential if classical music was to be renewed, so that music would remain in a sense “within” cultures. To them, that meant a kind of music making that flowed from a people’s folk culture through to the composing of concert music. Neither man eschewed altogether the standard genres of classical music; rather, they renewed those genres from within. Bartók’s music from 1908 on reflects his research into folk song. With the inspiration of Claude Debussy and later Igor Stravinsky, who were working with wholetone scales and rhythms from folk music, Bartók began in works such as the piano pieces Allegro Barbaro (1911), the Fourteen Bagatelles (1908), and Two Rumanian Dances (1909-1910) to use pentatonic scales, the interval of the fourth, the minor third, and folk dance rhythms (especially Bulgarian ones) to alter his earlier musical practices, which were quite conventional in the line of Liszt, Brahms, and Strauss. Even the most conventional of his six string quartets (usually considered to be the greatest set of string quartets since Ludwig van Beethoven’s) reveals the influence of folk song. Most significant is his creation, in the period 1908-1909, of a piano manual in miniature, For Children, consisting of eighty-five graded pieces for students. Like Kodály,
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the vertical (harmonic) aspect of his composing, and in the horizontal (melodic) he tended to use short-phrased figures that were often in eighth-, sixteenth-, and dottednote configurations. All these features imparted to his major compositions a unique sound and style. In another light, Bartók’s Forty-Four Duos for Two Violins (1931) and the 153 pieces in Mikrokosmos for piano (1926-1939) reveal his concern for music education and his creation of what are in essence musical encyclopedias for a new corpus of music. In these collections, graded for teaching, he not only addressed music students in a practical way but also set forth an aesthetic rooted fundamentally in folk music. Using folk tunes he had collected as well as all the technical features inherent in required mastery of violin and piano playing, Bartók succeeded in bringing together explicit folk practice and more standard classical techniques, which are themselves derived in large part from folk practice of the past. Bartók’s double career represents a unique accomplishment for a composer. His methods are a model for the reinvigoration of twentieth century music. Whereas other methods seem to have petered out, his legacy points a way to a more democratic and truly international idiom of making music. — Frederick E. Danker Further Reading Abrahams, Roger D., and George Foss. Anglo-American Folksong Style. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1968. An introduction to ethnomusicology using familiar materials. Usefully illustrated to make each point with music and lyrics. Bartók, Béla. The Hungarian Folk Song. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. A new edition of the master’s 1924 book with English versions of the lyrics. Contains nearly four hundred pages of detailed analysis and classification of tunes, all reproduced in Bartók’s meticulous and groundbreaking method. The book is difficult but worth study, and it is approachable by nonspecialists. A classic in ethnomusicology. Choksy, Lois. The Kodály Method: Comprehensive Music Education. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998. A lucid and thorough step-by-step explanation of what Kodály wanted in terms of understanding both the fundamentals of music, through graded group singing and rhythmic exercises, and the folk heritage of each nation and its peoples. A manual with musical samples, diagrams, and suggested selections for classroom use. 297
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whose major interest became that of music education as reform method, Bartók committed himself to the spread of his ideas through publications for the general public. It was not until after World War I that Bartók and Kodály emerged as world figures and achieved mature styles and methods. Kodály wrote a number of concert works that have remained popular. His symphonic pieces based on folk tunes became world renowned. His two “folk” operas, Háry János (1926) and Spinning Room (1924-1932), were based on folk customs and used folk songs. His unyielding commitment to music education was stunning in its impact. He arranged folk songs for choruses of various types in order to revive group singing and developed what is now called the Kodály method of music instruction for schools from the elementary through secondary levels. Taught in institutes in Hungary and in other nations, his method of graded instruction in group singing and the fundamentals of music (intervals, rhythms), which incorporated elements of folk music, helped to renew interest in putting music into the educational system on an equal basis with other subjects. Both men continued their scientific analysis of folk song from the 1920’s on, with Bartók balancing his touring as a pianist (one of the most brilliant of the century) and composing of large-scale works with his research, which intensified from 1934 until his death in 1945. He also contributed to Kodály’s educational crusades with settings for chorus of folk songs he collected. From 1920 on, Bartók’s own compositions reflected a synthesis of various kinds of folk music with some features of other avant-garde composers. His study of baroque music and counterpoint in the 1920’s contributed another strain to his own music, one not fundamentally alien to the underlying folk aesthetic he had mastered. Counterpoint and baroque motor rhythms, with the repetition and variation of small phrases and motifs, did not clash with the similar methods of folk musicians, who used repetition and variation as fundamental structural principles. Alternation of slow and fast movements as well as polyrhythmic features within movements of large-scale compositions fit with folk performance practices, especially of folk dance tunes, which Bartók used widely. Vocal styles that included passing tones (or grace notes), melisma, and sudden leaps became part of his instrumental method. The often freely varied, essentially rhapsodic, and increasingly rapid ornamental style of folk fiddlers inspired nearly all of his mature works for orchestra. His percussive use of the piano stemmed from his knowledge of folk drumming in Africa and elsewhere. Combinations of modal scales were frequent in
Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs
Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control Eösze, László. Zoltán Kodály: His Life and Work. London: Collet’s, 1962. A general coverage of Kodály’s life and works, with some musical samples. Good for context and the author’s Hungarian perspective. Griffiths, Paul. Bartók. London: J. M. Dent, 1984. A moderate but thorough volume, current in its understanding of the many facets of Bartók’s accomplishment. Includes music examples, index, and lists of key personages and all works. Kodály, Zoltán. Folk Music of Hungary. Rev. ed. Budapest: Corvina Press, 1971. An enlarged edition of the 1952 original and the English version of 1960. Like Bartók’s book, it is a technical study of the music but is more focused on types classified by function in the culture. Includes descriptions and photos of instruments. Comprehensively illustrated with music examples. _______. The Selected Writings. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1974. Brings together many short essays on folk song and other kinds of music. The vivid pieces provide easy access to the significance of Kodály and Bartók’s work and the contexts of the times.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nettl, Bruno. Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1989. A short but thorough study of folk music and a good example of how ethnomusicology can be accessible. Covers some of the same folk music studied by Bartók and Kodály. Suchoff, Benjamin. Béla Bartók: Life and Work. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 2002. A comprehensive biography of Bartók as man, composer, and folklorist. Includes discussion of the impact of his pioneering multinational investigations of folk song on music in general and on his own composed works. Ujfalussy, József. Béla Bartók. Boston: Crescendo, 1972. Translated from the original 1971 book in Hungarian. Possibly the most thorough book on Bartók’s life and his music as both cultural and social phenomenon. From a native’s perspective, it is always cogent and detailed and never specialist in approach. Delves into all important musical techniques, although musical examples are not included. See also: Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six; 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity.
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Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control Employing recent discoveries on the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria and yellow fever, William Crawford Gorgas applied strict sanitary controls within the Panama region, enabling construction of the Panama Canal. Locale: Panama Canal Zone Category: Health and medicine Key Figures William Crawford Gorgas (1854-1920), American army surgeon and sanitarian Ronald Ross (1857-1932), English physician Walter Reed (1851-1902), American army physician and bacteriologist John Frank Stevens (1853-1943), American engineer Carlos Juan Finlay (1833-1915), Cuban physician Summary of Event With the discovery of gold in California in 1848, considerable interest quickly developed in the United States concerning the construction of a transoceanic canal 298
through Central America that would shorten the distance and thus the time then necessary to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast. Flush with his success in building the Suez Canal during the 1860’s, Ferdinand de Lesseps of France initiated efforts in the 1870’s to construct such a canal by organizing the necessary financial backing and arranging for preliminary surveys. After evaluating a number of potential routes, Lesseps and the leaders of his Panama Canal Company decided on a sealevel canal cutting through the narrow Panamanian isthmus between Colón and Panama City. They initially envisioned that the proposed canal would be 9 meters (29.5 feet) deep and 30 meters (98.4 feet) wide, and that it would cost a total of 658 million francs to build. The highly skilled French engineers faced formidable challenges when they arrived in Panama at the start of the project, in 1881. These challenges included taming the unpredictable Chagres River as well as overcoming obstacles to excavation at Culebra, where geological formations resulted in a continual problem with landslides. The most difficult and, indeed, insurmountable obstacle
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Gorgas employed this theoretical understanding of yellow fever in his practical public health efforts in Havana. He learned that water had typically been left standing inside the sickrooms of French engineers and workers at the Panama Canal Company’s hospital at Ancón, Panama, during the 1880’s, and, tragically, the water had served as a mosquito breeding ground. He ordered such water immediately disposed of or sealed off with wooden lids or screens. Further, following a suggestion made by entomologist Leland O. Howard, Gorgas directed that any water left standing was to be covered with a thin film of kerosene or oil whenever this method was feasible. In addition, adult mosquitoes were killed by the fumigation of every house in Havana where a case of yellow fever had appeared. The doors and windows of the houses were tightly sealed, and sulfur or powdered pyrethrum was burned in pots designed specifically for that purpose. Reed’s discoveries and Gorgas’s sanitation campaign in Cuba were great achievements of the day, and the results were dramatic. Because the insect had only a tenday life cycle, the Stegomyia population diminished rapidly. With this significant accomplishment, the stage was set for Gorgas’s work in Panama beginning in 1904. As a
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confronting French engineers and workers during the 1880’s, however, was the high incidence of various diseases, especially malaria and yellow fever. In 1889, a virtual epidemic on several occasions decimated the workforce and ultimately ended Lesseps’s venture. After eight years in Panama, the French had lost an estimated two thousand workers to yellow fever and more than fiftyfive hundred to other illnesses. A second brief attempt to continue excavation ensued during the 1890’s, but in the end Lesseps and the French failed. The episode was tragic testimony to a misguided, optimistic faith in science and technology that was incommensurate with the realities of the project. Despite the failure of the French, American interest in building a canal intensified after the Spanish-American War. Beginning in 1904, the United States embarked on a canal construction program that succeeded where the French had not. The reason for this achievement can be traced to advances in tropical medicine related to the eradication of malaria and yellow fever. Throughout the nineteenth century, most physicians thought that diseases were spread by odors; Panama, with its abundance of decomposing vegetation and animal carcasses, possessed conditions that supported this idea. This so-called miasma theory of disease was gradually refuted. In the case of malaria, it was disproved by the English physician Sir Ronald Ross, who worked in isolated Secunderabad, India. During the late 1890’s, Ross showed that the Anopheles mosquito spread the disease after it had fed on an infected patient, and he carefully investigated the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, in the mosquito’s stomach and salivary glands. It became obvious to Ross that in order to stamp out malaria, one had to isolate the mosquito from those infected, and he systematically outlined his sanitary ideas in his Mosquito Brigades and How to Organise Them, published in 1901. Concurrent with the publication of Ross’s book, a team of U.S. Army doctors, which included Walter Reed and William Crawford Gorgas, were eliminating yellow fever in Havana, Cuba, using similar public health techniques. Reed, building on the work of Cuban physician Carlos Juan Finlay, who first suggested that the mosquito was the carrier of yellow fever, had concluded that only one type of mosquito, Stegomyia fasciata, was responsible for the dreaded “yellow jack.” Once Reed and his colleagues had determined the particular pattern of incubation, it was clear that to eliminate yellow fever, one had to prevent the propagation of the insect by keeping the female Stegomyia fasciata from laying its eggs.
Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control
William Crawford Gorgas. (U.S. Army)
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Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control deeply religious man, Gorgas had long thought of his life experiences as ordered and ordained by God for the purpose of readying him for this one great task. Somewhat ironically, although Gorgas’s success in Cuba was derived from Reed’s scientific work, Gorgas had been extremely resistant to the idea that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes. Born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1854, he received his undergraduate education at the University of the South, located in Sewanee, Tennessee, and his medical degree at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital Medical College. Interested in medicine more as a means to enter the army than as a profession, Gorgas joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1880. He initially served at a number of outposts in the West, but with the onset of the Spanish-American War, he was sent to Cuba on the Santiago expedition, and later to Havana, where he was first placed in charge of yellow fever patients before his appointment as chief sanitation officer. In 1904, Gorgas was sent to Panama as the Isthmanian Canal Commission’s chief sanitary officer, charged with the elimination of two major obstacles to the completion of the American project there: malaria and yellow fever. However, despite the work of Ross and efforts in Cuba, most of the political leadership in Washington and key members of the commission, including Admiral John G. Walker and Governor George W. Davis, did not believe in the mosquito transmission theory. Gorgas’s arguments fell on deaf ears until a deadly epidemic hit the Canal Zone in the spring and early summer of 1905 and John Frank Stevens was subsequently appointed the commission’s chief engineer. Stevens, an engineer with considerable railroad experience, recognized that if the canal project were to succeed it had to be designed using locks and gates rather than constructed at sea level. Most significant, the excavation of the so-called Culebra Cut hinged on the removal of dirt using an extensive rail network. Above all, Stevens clearly perceived that before construction could begin effectively, diseases such as yellow fever and malaria had to be eliminated; he knew that Gorgas needed to receive unequivocal support in addressing this task. Thus, in 1905, Stevens’s engineering department stood behind Gorgas, who now had first priority in terms of men and materials. By the fall of 1905, Gorgas had more than four thousand men engaged in sanitation work, and his budget was increased dramatically. Supplies necessary for the eradication of mosquitoes were ordered and received in unprecedented quantities, including 120 tons of pyrethrum powder, 300 tons of sulfur, and 50,000 gallons of kero300
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sene per month. Fumigation pots, screens, buckets, garbage cans, and brushes were soon in abundance; this equipment was used in the subsequent house-by-house campaign. As a result of these efforts, cases of yellow fever in the Canal Zone fell from sixty-two in June, 1905, to twenty-seven in August and one in December, with no further outbreaks in 1906. By using similar techniques to combat the Anopheles mosquito, Gorgas’s team was able to reduce malaria, but that disease was not totally eradicated because the Anopheles mosquito had a much broader range of flight and bred in a more widespread area than did the mosquito that transmitted yellow fever. Significance Gorgas’s measures to control the spread of mosquitotransmitted diseases in Panama had both short- and longterm significance. Although malaria proved to be much more difficult to contain than yellow fever, construction on the Panama Canal progressed steadily to its completion and the opening of the waterway to commercial traffic on January 1, 1915. For his pioneering efforts, Gorgas received numerous honors, including honorary degrees from the University of the South, the University of Alabama, Harvard University, and The Johns Hopkins University. In 1907, he was appointed to the Isthmanian Canal Commission by President Theodore Roosevelt, and the following year he was elected president of the American Medical Association. Promoted to the rank of brigadier general and named surgeon general of the U.S. Army in 1914, Gorgas played an influential role in sanitation work during World War I. When he retired from the army in 1918, he became the director of the yellow fever program for the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation and traveled to Central America and Peru during the last two years of his life. He implemented preventive procedures in other areas that were often subject to periodic outbreaks of yellow fever. Gorgas’s methods were quickly implemented throughout South America and Africa. Considering the deadly nature of yellow fever, or vomito negro, an illness that typically claimed the lives of more than 50 percent of those afflicted, it was remarkable that between 1910 and 1925 no major epidemic occurred in temperate regions or in the traditional endemic regions located in Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil. Furthermore, Gorgas’s practical sanitation techniques were subsequently complemented by scientific advances related to yellow fever. In 1918, researchers identified the microbe that caused the disease, Leptospira icteroides, a minute spiral organism that was studied extensively during the 1920’s.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Gorgas’s work is the Panama Canal itself, an undertaking that could not have been completed without his sanitation measures. During the first ten years of the canal’s operation, between 1915 and 1925, commercial transits increased from 1,072 to 4,673, and tolls rose from $4.3 million to $21.6 million. Because of the canal, shippers saved almost 12,900 kilometers (8,016 miles) sailing from New York to San Francisco, and almost 11,300 kilometers (7,021 miles) from New York to Honolulu. Use of the canal increased steadily before 1939, and in the post-World War II era traffic and tolls escalated dramatically, along with global trade and a dynamic international economy. —John A. Heitmann
Krieg, Joann. Epidemics in the Modern World. New York: Twayne, 1992. An overview of the epidemiology of diseases. Discusses the effects of yellow fever epidemics on societies, politics, literature, and cultures. McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1940. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977. One of the best historical works on the construction of the Panama Canal. Brilliantly portrays the main figures involved in the canal’s construction, including Gorgas, and perceptively explores broader historical themes related to the most massive engineering undertaking of the early twentieth century. Ross, Ronald. Memoirs, with a Full Account of the Great Malaria Problem and Its Solution. London: John Murray, 1923. A fascinating autobiography reflective of the role of public health efforts during the Age of Imperialism. Contains many letters and personal insights; a valuable source for anyone desiring to understand both Ross’s scientific achievement and the late Victorian society in which he lived. _______. Mosquito Brigades and How to Organise Them. New York: Longmans, Green, 1901. Written by the physician who won a Nobel Prize for his efforts in determining the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria, this classic in the history of tropical medicine includes discussion of methods used to identify mosquitoes and organizational techniques aimed at waging a public health campaign to eradicate them. Concludes with a history of nineteenth century attempts to combat the disease and case studies of malaria control programs in different parts of the world. Wain, Harry. A History of Preventive Medicine. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1970. Brief history of epidemiology and the spread of disease. One section is devoted to yellow fever in the Americas. Not particularly detailed, but provides a succinct overview. Williams, Greer. The Plague Killers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Excellent popular account of the campaigns against malaria and yellow fever. Focuses on the situation in mid-twentieth century Africa and includes useful description of epidemiological methods. See also: Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever; Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia; Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone; Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal; Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens. 301
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Further Reading Bishop, Joseph Bucklin. The Panama Gateway. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913. Written by the secretary of the U.S. Panama Canal Commission, this authoritative and comprehensive work covers the history of the region and canal construction efforts from the Spanish colonial era to the completion of construction. Chapters describing Gorgas’s sanitation efforts and the technology employed in the canal’s design are extremely detailed. Gorgas, Marie D., and Burton J. Hendrick. William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work. 1924. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004. Although this hagiographic account must be read critically, it is an important source on Gorgas’s life. Sensitively cowritten by Gorgas’s widow, it includes many intimate family details and provides interesting perspectives on Cuba, Panama, and Gorgas’s work. Includes many anecdotes about historical figures as well as excerpts of several revealing letters. Gorgas, William Crawford. Sanitation in Panama. New York: D. Appleton, 1913. A definitive work describing the efforts of Gorgas and his sanitation department in Panama, this book is particularly valuable for its description of the campaign in Havana and the published correspondence between Walter Reed and William Gorgas. Many chapters include details concerning practical methods, hospital facilities, and quarantine procedures. Jasper, William F. “Taming Mankind’s Ancient Foes.” New American 21 (September 5, 2005): 37-40. Relates the story of Gorgas’s work in Panama, including his struggle to overcome bureaucratic opposition when he sought to employ the methods he had used successfully in Cuba to eradicate yellow fever.
Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control
Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1904-1905
Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic” Sociology cofounder Max Weber theorized that certain Protestant beliefs laid the groundwork for the development of modern capitalism. Also known as: Weberian hypothesis; Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus; The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Locale: Germany Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; sociology; publishing and journalism Key Figures Max Weber (1864-1920), German academic and a founder of sociology Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), prominent sociologist, translator, and professor Marianne Weber (1870-1954), wife of Max Weber and German feminist Karl Marx (1818-1883), German-born revolutionary, academic, and a founder of sociology Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), French academic and a founder of sociology John Calvin (1509-1564), leader of Protestant reforms in Geneva and Switzerland whose theology called for a belief in predestination Summary of Event Max Weber was born to a prominent German family; his father belonged to the Reichstag, Germany’s national legislature. Weber studied law and became a professor at Heidelberg, Freiburg, and Vienna; he also traveled widely and was a voracious reader. His writings filled thirteen volumes and ranged widely in subject matter, including discussions of economic policy; philosophy; the ancient religions of India, China, and Palestine; the methodology of social science; social stratification; and the sociology of religion. He also wrote about German farm laborers and the stock exchange, and in these works and others, the rationalization and bureaucratization of modern societies was a central theme. Weber was a politically active nationalist who helped found the German Democratic Party, and his wife, Marianne Weber, was a leader of the German feminist movement. (She also arranged for the posthumous publication of many of Weber’s writings and wrote a biography of her husband.) In addition to all his other activities, Weber ran a military hospital during World War I and accompanied the German delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. 302
His productive life is particularly remarkable given that he was sometimes disabled by emotional illness. Weber’s most famous work, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1930), was first published in 1904 and 1905 in the journal Archives for Social Science and Social Welfare, for which Weber served as a coeditor. Weber sought an explanation for the development of capitalism, and, like most German scholars, he looked to history for an answer. The journal issues sold rapidly, perhaps because the significance of the Protestant Reformation was a frequent source of debate among European academics, and in this work, Weber asserted that capitalism was an unanticipated consequence of certain Protestant beliefs. The essays were republished in 1920 as part of a series, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (1920-1921; collected essays on the sociology of religion), that was not completed before Weber’s death. At the end of his life, Weber made some changes for that edition, and his many added footnotes
Max Weber. (Library of Congress)
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The Spirit of Capitalism Around the World In this excerpt from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber explores the nature of capitalism as it differs among world cultures. Thus the capitalism of to-day, which has come to dominate economic life, educates and selects the economic subjects which it needs through a process of economic survival of the fittest. But here one can easily see the limits of the concept of selection as a means of historical explanation. In order that a manner of life so well adapted to the peculiarities of capitalism could be selected at all, i.e. should come to dominate others, it had to originate somewhere, and not in isolated individuals alone, but as a way of life common to whole groups of men. This origin is what really needs explanation. Concerning the doctrine of the more naive historical materialism, that such ideas originate as a reflection or superstructure of economic situations, we shall speak more in detail below. At this point it will suffice for our purpose to call attention to the fact that without doubt, in the country of Benjamin Franklin’s birth (Massachusetts), the spirit of capitalism (in the sense we have attached to it) was present before the capitalistic order. There were complaints of a peculiarly calculating sort of profit-seeking in New England, as distinguished from other parts of America, as early as 1632. It is further undoubted that capitalism remained far less developed in some of the neighbouring colonies, the later Southern States of the United States of America, in spite of the fact that these latter were founded by large capitalists for business motives, while the New England colonies were founded by preachers and seminary graduates with the help of small bourgeois, craftsmen and yoemen, for religious reasons. In this case the causal relation is certainly the reverse of that suggested by the materialistic standpoint. But the origin and history of such ideas is much more complex than the theorists of the superstructure suppose. The spirit of capitalism, in the sense in which we are using the term, had to fight its way to supremacy against a whole world of hostile forces. A state of mind such as that expressed in the passages we have quoted from Franklin, and which called forth the applause of a whole people, would both in ancient times and in the Middle Ages have been proscribed as the lowest sort of avarice and as an attitude entirely lacking in self-respect. It is, in fact, still regularly thus looked upon by all those social groups which are least involved in or adapted to modern capitalistic conditions. This is not wholly because the instinct of acquisition was in those times unknown or undeveloped, as has often been said. Nor because the auri sacra fames, the greed for gold, was then, or now, less powerful outside of bourgeois capitalism than within its peculiar sphere, as the illusions of modern romanticists are wont to believe. The difference between the capitalistic and precapitalistic spirits is not to be found at this point. The greed of the Chinese Mandarin, the old Roman aristocrat, or the modern peasant, can stand up to any comparison. And the auri sacra fames of a Neapolitan cab-driver or barcaiuolo, and certainly of Asiatic representatives of similar trades, as well as of the craftsmen of southern European or Asiatic countries, is, as anyone can find out for himself, very much more intense, and especially more unscrupulous than that of, say, an Englishman in similar circumstances. Source: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930).
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show his responses to critics who had, he said, misunderstood his concepts and his method of analysis. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism reflects Weber’s belief in the importance of ideas, showing that religious ideas and practices have had tremendous impacts on history. Weber began his essay by describing Western capitalism, commonly misunderstood as a system that mainly involves a desire to make a lot of money. Instead, Weber argued, it is an economic structure that relies on the rational organization of free labor and uses wealth and labor in a calculated way. Using a historical and comparative perspective, Weber showed that, economically speaking, Protestants fared better than Catholics. He attempted to explain this difference, concluding that there was an indirect connection between Protestant teachings and Protestant commercial success. He analyzed the “spirit of capitalism”—habits and ideas that favor the rational pursuit of economic gain— and he quoted Benjamin Franklin’s view that the creation of wealth is an end to which people are ethically bound. In contrast, the traditional Catholic view was that the pursuit of wealth is a sign of sinful avarice and vulgar indulgence. Overcoming this view was a formidable task, but it had been accomplished, Weber said, by the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Luther’s concept of a “calling” asserted that, in addition to religious devotion, worldly behaviors (such as spending habits) are important in God’s eyes. John Calvin taught the doctrine of predestination, the belief that people are inexorably foreordained by God to be saved or damned to hell. As a result of these teachings, seventeenth century Calvinists experienced a consequent “salvation anxiety.” They were tormented by the question of whether they were elected to go to heaven or were damned and tested their fate by assessing their daily activities. The Calvinists interpreted frugality, hard work, and eco-
Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic”
Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic” nomic success as signs that they were saved, and the result was the creation of a climate favorable to modern capitalism. Although not an intended result, a consequence of Protestant views of saving and investing money was that Calvinists became capitalists. Their religion taught them to carefully invest the fruits of their labor, and in doing so they made even more money, and money and piety became allies. Eventually, the spirit of capitalism became more widely accepted, and it no longer needed to be rationalized by religion. Furthermore, as secularization became more common, capitalists longed to make money for the sake of making money and did not worry about being avaricious. There was no turning back, Weber warned, from rationalized modern life. In the first years after its publication, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was known only to German-speaking scholars of religious and economic history. It was not until the 1930’s that the larger sphere of academics read Weber’s translated work. Harvard sociology professor Talcott Parsons, a formidable figure in the field of sociology, translated and published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1930, and his endorsement brought worldwide attention to Weber’s work. Parsons’s translation remained the most widely read version of Weber’s “Protestant ethic” essays, which are considered classics in the field of sociology. Weber’s other major works became available in English translation and many received acclaim (for example, his work on research methodology, bureaucracy, and social class), but The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism remains his best-known work. He came to be regarded as a founder of sociology, along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim. Significance The works of Weber, Durkheim, and Marx have frequently been compared with one another. All three men wrote about religion, but they approached the topic from differing perspectives. Durkheim and Weber agreed that religion is very important in society. According to Durkheim, societies are machines with interdependent parts in which control over conflict is desirable, and religion helps keep society balanced and integrated by instilling common values and giving people something with which to identify. Marx, however saw society as a field of conflict among groups with differing interests in which people are inevitably at odds. The ruling class promotes its interests through ideas, and religion is one set of ideas used to control the masses. Marx saw economic matters as forces dominating all other aspects of society: family, government, education, and religion. 304
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Weber agreed with Marx more than he agreed with Durkheim. Weber and Marx both saw conflict as endemic in society, and they agreed that religious beliefs are related to status and power structure. Societies are inherently unequal, Weber and Marx believed, and powerful groups use ideas as weapons to defend their positions. On other points, however, Weber and Marx had differing views. Weber did not share Marx’s utopian dream of a future without capitalism, and Weber did not agree that economic factors determine everything about a society. Government, religion, and education, Weber asserted, can also be important. Weber’s ideas became so famous that they acquired nicknames such as the “Weberian hypothesis” and the “PE thesis” (in which “PE” is short for “Protestant ethic”). His notions inspired hundreds of academic papers and books. Some of these sought to test the Weberian hypothesis with scientific research that continued Weber’s investigation of the differences between Protestant and Catholic spending and saving habits, while other works explored his ideas from a theoretical or historical perspective. —Nancy Conn Terjesen Further Reading Albrow, Martin. Max Weber’s Construction of Social Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. A challenging book, written by a British sociologist, about the deep meaning of Weber’s work. Giddens, Anthony. Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim, and Max Weber. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Compares the three founding fathers of sociology. Käsler, Dirk. Max Weber: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. German sociologist describes the German society in which Weber wrote and explains the early reaction to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Stark, Rodney. The Victory of Reason. New York: Random House, 2005. Baylor University sociologist argues against Weber, saying that the religion of the Middle Ages (Catholicism) did not stifle innovation or capitalism. Wallace, Ruth A., and Alison Wolf. Contemporary Sociological Theory: Continuing the Classical Tradition. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2005. Very readable presentation of the theories of Weber, Marx, and Durkheim.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. 1904. Reprint. Oxford, England: Routledge, 2001. The most famous English translation, by a prominent Harvard sociologist.
Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics See also: Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought.
1904-1907
Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics L. E. J. Brouwer pioneered the intuitionist reformulation of the logical foundations of mathematics. Locale: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Category: Mathematics Key Figure L. E. J. Brouwer (1881-1966), Dutch mathematician, logician, and epistemologist
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Summary of Event The first decade of the twentieth century was a crisis period in many areas of mathematics, particularly in geometry, arithmetic, set theory, and formal logic as well as their interrelations. These crises arose predominantly from a number of paradoxes in Georg Cantor’s theory of sets, from the attempted formalization of logic and arithmetic by Richard Dedekind and Giuseppe Peano, and from methodological disputes about the validity of different types of mathematical proof. From the mid1880’s, these contradictions indicated to many mathematicians that unforeseen defects were arising from various attempts to reformulate classical geometry, arithmetic, and logic in ways noncontradictory with respect to linguistic uses and ontological commitments about mathematical terms and referents. As a response to these crises, three main schools of mathematical philosophy arose: logicism, formalism, and intuitionism. Philosophical discussion of arithmetic and geometry in Immanuel Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781; Critique of Pure Reason, 1838) has been cited often as the earliest progenitor of mathematical intuitionism. Kant explicated his theory of the innate forms of spatial and temporal perception, respectively, as the intuitional basis of geometry and arithmetic. Kant argues that the way we first learn that 7 + 5 = 12 is precisely by a process like counting progressively from 7 to 12 via successive additions of 1, operating or constructed with a particular
example of objects first given in mental intuition. In an algebraic sense, the set of numbers generated by the above, or related, procedures is united with the natural counting numbers insofar as it has an initial element 0 and a successor relation 1. The algebraist, according to Kant, gets arithmetic results by manipulating representational symbols according to certain rules of construction, which, Kant claims, cannot be obtained without these prior intuitions. Kant posited this construction with intuitions as the chief source of clarity and evidence in the fundamentals of mathematics. In the mid-nineteenth century, German mathematician Leopold Kronecker published what many historians and philosophers of mathematics consider to be preintuitionist queries about the “existential proofs” of antiKantian mathematician-philosopher Bernhard Bolzano in the theory of differential equations. In particular, Kronecker doubted the utility and validity of proofs that assume without demonstrating the existence of solutions to classes of differential equations, insofar as formalists like Bolzano sought to establish the existence of mathematically permissible solutions by indirect deductive arguments, without either explicitly constructing or providing a finite procedure for finding such a solution. Between 1880 and 1906, a more extensive constructivist school of French mathematicians, including Émile Borel, Henri-Léon Lebesgue, and, notably, Henri Poincaré, likewise stressed the need of basic intuitions to define the sequence of integers and the general content on which all mathematics depends. Many of these issues came to a focus with the publication of David Hilbert’s Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899; The Foundations of Geometry, 1902) on one hand and Edmund Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen (1900-1901; Logical Investigations, 1970) on the other, together with the subsequent acrimonious sessions on “logic and philosophy of science” at the Second International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1904. With this
Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics background, Gerrit Mannoury’s views on the relations of ordinary language, psychology, and Kantian philosophy laid the foundations of mathematics. As a graduate student in 1904, L. E. J. Brouwer chose the foundations of mathematics as his dissertation topic. Brouwer closely reexamined the ongoing (1901 to 1906) debates among Poincaré, Louis Couturat, and Bertrand Russell on the relations of priority and independence between (symbolic) logic and (axiomatic) mathematics, and on the criticality of logical deduction versus psychological intuition in mathematical creation and proof. In his first semitechnical publication on the origins of mathematical thinking and its “objects,” Brouwer sought a way to keep the methodological autonomy, purity, and rigor of Hilbert, together with the links to philosophical and everyday thinking of Husserl, while avoiding the logical and linguistic puzzles of Russell. With Kant, Brouwer believed the ultimate foundation of mathematics is the subjective awareness of time, divided into past/before and future/after. This, for Brouwer, gives rise to a basic intuition of “bare twoness,” not itself a number but an absolutely basic and simple mental intuition from which it is possible to construct all finite ordinal numbers. As Brouwer developed in his doctoral dissertation of 1907, he regarded the starting point for mathematics to be neither abstract logical rules nor functional mathematical axioms, but the individual’s originative form of understanding, without language or logical concepts, of the sequence of positive integers vis-à-vis repeated duplication of temporally sequential unit constructions with |, ||, |||, and so on (which might be indexed books on a shelf, sticks in a row, or any other heuristically convenient placeholder concept). Some scholars consider Brouwer’s constructions with mental intuitions similar to the “thought experiments” of his contemporary the English philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley, whereas others see Brouwer’s as an implicit psychological theory of mentation. The paradoxes exist, Brouwer claimed, only because of logic and language and the fact that these symbolic and discursive concepts can never be made commensurate with temporal intuitions. In Brouwer’s intuitionist view, mathematics is apodictically certain and true precisely because it rests on this simple and direct mental awareness of self-evident temporal intuitions and constructs by the individual. Brouwer’s intuitionism sought to restrict mathematical knowledge to only that which can be actually and directly constructed in finite proofs: To know something mathematically is to have a specifically finite implementable proof based on temporal 306
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 intuitions without existence assumptions. Moreover, Brouwer denied Hilbert and Russell’s claim of being able to circumscribe the full extent of any formal systems of mathematics, radically implying that the previously timeless, absolute, and impersonal realm of logic and mathematics in some ways exhibits the character of historical time, factual incompleteness, and personal mental activity. Together with Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege’s, Hugo Dingler’s, and Husserl’s philosophies of mathematics, Brouwer’s intuitionism takes the component statements of a mathematical theory to be really meaningful. Also, Brouwer did not agree with Poincaré’s neointuitionism or Hilbert’s formalism, which denied genuine intrinsic content or meaning to a given mathematical proposition apart from the complete set of axioms of which it is a part. Brouwer concurs with Russell’s logicism, insofar as intuitionism identifies a particular axiom (versus those dependent only on an entire system of axioms). In 1906, Russell’s paper “The Paradoxes of Logic” acknowledged that logicism cannot eliminate but can only regulate the use of mathematical intuition. Thus, for Brouwer, although propositions in and about mathematics can be ordered and ranked in an asymmetrical hierarchy according to their complexity of derivation, on explicitly philosophical grounds, Brouwer denied that the possibilities of mathematical construction, what he called an “open system,” can be confined a priori, within the bounds of any formal closed system of statements, conceptually anticipating some of the implications of Kurt Gödel’s later undecidability-incompleteness theorems. Brouwer likewise demonstrated at least nine preand metalevels with respect to operational mathematics and logic (in contrast to Hilbert’s subsequently published three-level system). In his famous 1908 paper Over de Onbetrouwbaarheid der logische Principes (on the untrustworthiness of logical principles), Brouwer rejected radically the traditional belief (held by Aristotle, Kant, Bolzano, Russell, Frege, Hilbert, Husserl, and many others) that classical logic has unquestionable validity. This rejection included denying the universally accepted laws of double negation (for example, that “the opposite of the opposite of a true statement is a false statement”), which Russell and Hilbert associated with the equation –(–1) = 1. Also rejected was the law of the excluded middle (that no options are possible but true or false statements), which latter concept Alfred North Whitehead and Russell identify with the law of noncontradiction in their Principia Mathematica (1910-1913). To illustrate the not infre-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 quent inapplicability of the law of the excluded middle, Brouwer cited a number of constructionally incompletable sequences, such as algorithms to compute the final digit of pi or the second-to-last valid example of Pierre de Fermat’s conjecture, arguing that unless and until a proof is constructed to deduce their truth or falsity, the law of the excluded middle simply cannot be applied.
and Evert Willem Beth—have sought to reformulate Brouwer’s introspective notion of intuition from a purely subjective psychology of mental experience to a more general genetic, or heuristic, model for the historic or individual development of concrete empirical concepts facilitating understanding and using abstract mathematics. Many mathematicians and logicians do not consider Brouwer’s or subsequent intuitionist mathematics capable of ever being a self-sufficient and fully successful renovation of classical mathematics and logic. Nevertheless, in addition to intuitionism’s continuance as an identifiable school of thought with its own proceedings and journal, most acknowledge its many and lasting influences on mathematics, such as in the work of Gödel’s later recursive function theory and Paul Lorenzen’s efforts to develop Dingler’s notion of constructivist protologic for arithmetic, geometry, and other pure and applied mathematics. — Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Beth, Evert W., and Jean Piaget. Mathematical Epistemology and Psychology. Translated by W. Mays. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: D. Reidel, 1966. A complementary approach that preserves and updates Brouwer’s psychology of mental intuitions. Brouwer, L. E. J. Collected Works. 2 vols. New York: Elsevier, 1975-1976. A critical complete edition of Brouwer’s collected and translated works. Volume 1 includes key sections of Brouwer’s 1907 thesis as well as several book and essay reviews on Kant, Frege, Russell, and others. Dummett, Michael. Elements of Intuitionism. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This intermediate-level monograph is a philosophical reconstruction of basic concepts by Brouwer and Heyting by a longtime student of Russell’s and Frege’s logic. Offers an interpretation of Brouwer’s position. Fischbein, Efraim. Intuition in Science and Mathematics. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: D. Reidel, 1987. Offers a thorough synopsis of the diversified possible meanings of intuition in mathematics. Hesseling, Dennis E. Gnomes in the Fog: The Reception of Brouwer’s Intuitionism in the 1920s. Cambridge, Mass.: Birkhäuser Boston, 2004. Presents the foundational debate in mathematics that took place in the 1920’s, including both its contributions and its shortcomings. Kleene, Stephen C., and Richard E. Vesley. The Foundations of Intuitionistic Mathematics. Amsterdam: 307
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Significance Following Brouwer’s initial publications between 1904 and 1911, both formalist and logicist camps reexamined their criticisms, consistency, and opportunities in the light of intuitionism. Initially, it was objected that intuitionist rejection of the pure axiomatic approach of Hilbert and the classical and symbolic logics of Aristotle and Peano and Russell left unaccounted for a large body of well-established pure and applied mathematics. In 1918, in response to attacks against intuitionism’s alleged impoverishment, Brouwer explicitly set out to reconstruct classical mathematics in accord with his own intuitionist tenets, seeking greater natural clarity in construction without too great an increase in mental labor, proof duration, and complexity. Brouwer’s own positive contributions included a new theory of rational numbers, an intuitionist theory of sets and topology, and a theory of finite and transfinite ordinal numbers. Arend Heyting, Brouwer’s principal student, later contributed to extending intuitionist reconstruction into the theory of functions as well as formal and some classes of symbolic logic. Although working intuitionist analogues are still unavailable for many important areas of mathematics (for example, the implicit function theorem and the fundamental theorem of calculus), certain powerful and perplexing results can be proved in intuitionist theory that cannot be demonstrated in classical mathematics. Perhaps the most notable example of the latter is the intuitionist theorem that any real-valued function that is defined everywhere on a closed interval of the real number continuum is uniformly continuous on that interval. Since the 1950’s, a number of philosophical (metamathematical) objections have been raised to some intuitionist claims—notably, to the status of negative propositions referring to objects (such as a square circle) that do not exist and to occasional intersubjective conflicts between intuitionist mathematicians on whether a given intuitive proof is sufficiently self-evident. Some intuitionist-influenced mathematicians—such as Hermann Weyl, George Polya, Ferdinand Gonseth,
Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics
Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air North Holland, 1965. Requires some background in formal logic and proof theory. Spells out intuitionist efforts as well as the relations of Brouwer’s formal insights to Gödel’s undecidability theorem. Van Heijenoort, Jean, comp. From Frege to Goedel. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Offers a carefully detailed outline of several stages in Brouwer’s early thought.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
1904-1908
Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air Fritz Haber developed the first successful method for converting nitrogen from the atmosphere and combining it with hydrogen to synthesize ammonia, a compound used as a fertilizer in agriculture. Locale: Germany Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; agriculture Key Figures Fritz Haber (1868-1934), German chemist Carl Bosch (1874-1940), German chemist Carl Engler (1842-1925), German chemist Walther Hermann Nernst (1864-1941), German physicist and chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932), German chemist Summary of Event The nitrogen content of the soil, essential to plant growth, is maintained normally by the deposition and decay of old vegetation and by nitrates in rainfall. If, however, the soil is used extensively for agricultural purposes, more intensive methods must be used to maintain soil nutrients such as nitrogen. One such method used by farmers is crop rotation, in which successive divisions of a farm are planted in rotation with clover, corn, or wheat, for example, or allowed to lie fallow for a year or so. Clover is able to absorb nitrogen from the air and deposit it in the soil from its root nodules. As population has increased, however, farming has become more intensive, and the use of artificial fertilizers—some containing nitrogen—has become almost universal. Nitrogen-bearing compounds, such as potassium nitrate and ammonium chloride, have been used for many years as artificial fertilizers. In the early twentieth century, much of the nitrate used, mainly potassium nitrate, 308
came from Chilean saltpeter; each year, approximately half a million tons of this material was imported into Europe and the United States for use in agriculture. Ammonia was produced through the dry distillation of bituminous coal and other low-grade fuel materials. Originally, coke ovens discharged this valuable material into the atmosphere, but more economical methods were found later to collect and condense these ammonia-bearing vapors. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the cyanamide process for using atmospheric nitrogen was developed by Adolf Frank and Heinrich Caro. The Frank-Caro process produced calcium cyanamide through the reaction of nitrogen from the air on calcium carbide, obtained from limestone and coal in an electric arc. Cyanamide can be converted readily into ammonia through reaction with water. Until 1904, however, the direct combination of nitrogen with hydrogen to form ammonia had not been accomplished on a commercial scale. William Ramsay and Sydney Young had conducted experiments in England in 1884 to do this, but with unsatisfactory results. In 1904, Fritz Haber and his coworkers began experiments on the conversion of nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia by passing various mixtures over catalytic agents, such as iron filings at temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius and at various pressures. (Catalytic agents speed up a chemical reaction without affecting it otherwise.) In the process, they studied the equilibrium conditions in the reaction and found that, at pressures of about 200 atmospheres and temperatures not above 500 degrees Celsius, the production of ammonia in practical yields from its elements could be carried out in a continuous process. Other catalysts, such as uranium and osmium, produced even higher yields but were considerably more costly than iron.
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Fritz Haber. (The Nobel Foundation)
the atmosphere (which is 80 percent nitrogen) was an obvious source. The combination of nitrogen and hydrogen to form ammonia could be induced through electrical discharge, but this required enormous amounts of electrical energy, then available only where there was hydroelectric power. When Haber began his experiments on ammonia production in 1904, there was no known method for the spontaneous conversion of nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia. Nitrogen and oxygen will combine in an electric arc to form oxides of nitrogen, as Walther Hermann Nernst had discovered. Because oxides of nitrogen can be converted readily into nitric acid and, in turn, into nitrates, this possibility aroused considerable interest as a process for “nitrogen fixation,” as the process of direct combination of atmospheric nitrogen into soluble compounds became known. The large amounts of electrical energy necessary to maintain the electric arc, and to heat large masses of air to high temperatures, imposed practical limits on this method. Haber spent many years studying the synthesis of nitric oxide by electrical discharge. Haber gave up the idea of fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere by oxidizing it to nitric oxide. He turned, instead, to reducing it with hydrogen to ammonia. First, he looked into combining nitrogen and hydrogen by corona discharge and by sparking, but he came to the conclusion that this method would not be the most advantageous. He decided to repeat the experiments of Ramsay and Young, who in 1884 had studied the decomposition of ammonia at about 800 degrees Celsius. They had found that a certain amount of ammonia always was left undecomposed. In other words, the reaction between ammonia and its constituent elements—nitrogen and hydrogen—had reached a state of equilibrium. Haber decided to determine the position of this equilibrium in the vicinity of 1,000 degrees Celsius. He approached the equilibrium from both sides, by reacting pure hydrogen with pure nitrogen and by starting with pure ammonia gas and using iron filings as a catalyst. Having determined the position of the equilibrium, he next varied the catalyst and found nickel to be as effective as iron, and calcium and manganese even better. At 1,000 degrees Celsius, the rate of reaction was enough to produce practical amounts of ammonia continuously, if it was to be washed out with water from the circulating system. Further work by Haber showed that increasing the pressure also increased the percentage of ammonia at equilibrium. For example, at 300 degrees Celsius, the percentage of ammonia at equilibrium at 1 atmosphere 309
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In 1910, a factory for the production of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen by the Haber process was erected near Frankfurt, Germany; it had an annual production capacity of ten thousand tons of ammonia. Wilhelm Ostwald, the 1909 Nobel laureate in chemistry, had developed a method for converting ammonia into nitric acid, which, in turn, could be converted readily into calcium nitrate through reaction with limestone. A hydroelectric method of conversion was developed in Norway, but it required a cheap source of electric power. In areas where no such cheap source was readily available, including Germany, the Haber process for making ammonia was the preferred one. Germany had practically no source of fertilizer-grade nitrogen at the beginning of the twentieth century. Almost all of its supply came from the deserts of northern Chile. As demands for nitrates increased, it became apparent that they would exceed the calculated possible supply from these vast deposits. Other sources needed to be found, and the almost unlimited supply of nitrogen in
Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air
Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air pressure was only 2 percent, but at 200 atmospheres, the percentage of ammonia at equilibrium was 63 percent. Haber’s compressor would not provide pressures above 200 atmospheres, but with catalysts he was able to obtain rapid combination of nitrogen and hydrogen at about 700 degrees Celsius. He found that he could obtain a yield of several grams of ammonia per hour per cubic centimeter of heated pressure chamber and believed that such a process could be a commercial success. A pilot plant was constructed and was successful enough to impress a chemical manufacturing concern, Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (BASF), which agreed to study Haber’s process and to investigate different catalysts on a large scale. The company, however, substituted cheaper watergas hydrogen for the purer electrolytic hydrogen that Haber had used and so ran into difficulties because of impurities introduced with the impure hydrogen. Once the source of these difficulties was recognized and overcome, the process was a success. Significance Haber’s process for manufacturing ammonia from the nitrogen in the air was in such an advanced state of development when it left his laboratory that its success in industry was virtually assured. Even so, BASF did not see much promise in Haber’s method at first. It was through an old friend of Haber, chemist Carl Engler, who was a member of the BASF advisory council, that Haber’s process was accepted. In July, 1909, a BASF representative, Carl Bosch (later a cowinner of the 1931 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and inventor of methods for synthesis of gasoline) came to Karlsruhe to watch a demonstration of Haber’s process. In his usual thorough manner, Haber had not only carried out the investigations of the ammonia equilibrium but also invented a continuously circulating system whereby the mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen, under pressure, passed through a new gas mixture being added as the ammonia produced was removed from the system. Bosch was greatly impressed; within three years, he had a synthetic ammonia factory in operation. BASF soon built two huge plants. With the beginning of World War I, the need for nitrates for use in explosives became more pressing in Germany than the need in agriculture. After the fall of Antwerp, the Germans seized fifty thousand tons of Chilean saltpeter discovered in the harbor. Because the ammonia from Haber’s process could be converted readily into nitrates, it became an important war resource. Haber’s other contribution to the German war effort was his de310
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 velopment of gas warfare. He was responsible for the chlorine gas used in the attack on Allied troops at Ypres in 1915. He also directed research on gas masks and other protective devices. At the end of the war, Haber received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of the process for making synthetic ammonia. Because the war was still fresh in everyone’s memory, it became one of the most controversial Nobel awards ever made. A headline in The New York Times for January 26, 1920, stated, “French Attack Swedes for Nobel Prize Award: Chemistry Honor Given to Dr. Haber, Inventor of German Asphyxiating Gas.” In a letter to the newspaper’s editor published on January 28, 1920, the Swedish legation in Washington, D.C., defended the award. Haber left Germany in 1933 under duress from the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi authorities. He was invited to accept a position at Cambridge University in England, but he died on a trip to Basel, Switzerland, a few months later, a great man whose spirit had been crushed by the actions of an ungrateful regime. —Joseph A. Schufle Further Reading Berl, Ernst. “Fritz Haber.” Journal of Chemical Education 19 (May, 1937): 203-207. An account of Haber’s work in science by a personal friend. Includes Haber’s tribute to Justus von Liebig. Charles, Daniel. Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare. New York: Ecco Press, 2005. Sympathetic biography of Haber focuses on the conflicts he faced. The author calls Haber a “modern Faust,” “willing to serve any master who could further his passion for knowledge and progress.” Includes photographs, notes, bibliography, and index. Coates, J. E. “The Haber Memorial Lecture.” Journal of the Chemical Society (London) (1937): 1642-1672. A thirty-page biography of Haber published three years after his death. Describes his research in detail and laments the treatment Haber received from the Nazi regime in Germany. Haber, Fritz. Five Lectures. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1924. An account by Haber of his research on ammonia synthesis. Defends his wartime work on gas warfare. _______. Thermodynamics of Technical Gas Reactions. Translated by Arthur B. Lamb. London: Longmans, Green, 1908. A model of critical insight into the history of thermodynamics; discusses the problem of the
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Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory
indeterminate constant in the free-energy equation. Following Max Planck, Haber explains the constant in terms of heat capacity and entropy. Nearly anticipates Nernst in announcing the Nernst heat theorem. Jaenicke, Johannes. “The Gold Episode.” Die Naturwissenschaften 23 (1935): 57. Relates Haber’s unsuccessful attempt to extract gold from seawater, with the end of helping Germany pay the heavy reparations mandated by the Versailles treaty after World War I.
Stoltzenberg, Dietrich. Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005. Biography of Haber abridged and translated by the author from his original work in German. Includes illustrations, notes, and index. See also: Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
1904-1908
Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory Ernst Zermelo undertook the first comprehensive axiomatization of (Cantor’s) set theory, establishing key axioms as the basis of subsequent mathematics. Locale: University of Göttingen, Germany Category: Mathematics
Summary of Event Between 1895 and 1897, Georg Cantor published his chief papers on ordinal and cardinal numbers, the culmination of three decades of research on aggregates, collections, or sets. Because of its novel treatment of topics such as transfinite numbers, Cantor’s set theory also was effectively a new theory of the infinite in mathematics as a legitimate and consistently definable entity. However, many critics from logic, mathematics, and several schools of philosophy refused to accept Cantor’s set theory, not only because of several omissions on Cantor’s part (for example, inadequate discussion of his wellordering principle) but also because of a number of ambiguities and contradictions that apparently could be deduced from set theory.
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Key Figures Ernst Zermelo (1871-1953), German mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918), German mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943), German mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English philosopher and logician Abraham Adolf Fraenkel (1891-1965), German mathematician Thoralf Albert Skolem (1887-1963), Swedish mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), Austrian mathematician and logician
One of the earliest paradoxes arose about 1895 directly from one of Cantor’s theorems. According to the theorem, for every set of ordinal numbers (numbers that designate the order and position of numbers in a series: first, second, and so on), there is one ordinal number larger than all ordinal numbers of the set. An apparent contradiction arises when one applies this theorem to consider the set of all ordinal numbers, as Cantor described to David Hilbert. Greater problems resulted from Bertrand Russell’s antinomy of 1902, involving the set of all sets that do not contain themselves as a subset. Many aspects of these and other paradoxes arose because Cantor’s works gave no clear and consistent definition of the concept of ordinal versus cardinal numbers (integers one, two, and so on). Russell, Hilbert, and Giuseppe Peano, among others, saw the paradoxes as extremely threatening. Further problems with Cantor’s “naïve” set theory arose concurrently, when Cantor lost confidence that the well-ordering principle might be a necessary universal law of thought and concluded, instead, that it was in need of clarification and proof, a conclusion with which Hilbert strongly agreed. The well-ordering principle basically states that it is possible to select simultaneously or choose—in an abstract yet valid sense—sets with infinite elements without having to specify or carry out this selecting through actual operations or calculations. In his international conference review paper of 1900 on the major unsolved problems then facing mathematicians, Hilbert placed Cantor’s set theory at the top of his famous list of twenty-three problems. By 1902, Russell had convinced fellow logician Gottlob Frege that numerous other contradictions were inher-
Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory ent in Cantor’s set theory, some generalized criticisms of which appear in Russell’s 1903 The Principles of Mathematics. In 1903, Hungarian mathematician Jules Konig presented a paper that challenged Cantor’s claims for being able to order and proceed between different orders or levels of infinity and also attacked the more general claim that any set can be well-ordered. Within a day of Konig’s presentation, a student of Cantor and Hilbert, Ernst Zermelo, prepared a counterdemonstration that vindicated Cantor’s system by proving that Konig had improperly used a previous result from the work of Felix Bernstein that Beppo Levi had examined independently and attacked in his paper on Cantor’s axiom of choice. Nevertheless, in the face of questions from mathematicians such as Hilbert, Russell, Émile Borel, Henri-Léon Lebesgue, and W. H. Young, Zermelo (at the urging of Hilbert and Cantor) sought to establish more strongly the overall validity of Cantor’s set theory. Zermelo had already become well acquainted with many aspects and problems of Cantor’s theory. In 1899, Zermelo discovered Russell’s paradox and informed Hilbert. In lectures he delivered at the University of Göttingen in spring, 1901, Zermelo expressed doubts regarding extant validations by Cantor of some of his set theoretic axioms on cardinality. Assisted by Erhard Schmidt, Zermelo developed the background to what in 1904 would be his published proof of Cantor’s wellordering principle, using the controversial axiom of choice. In this much-criticized paper, Zermelo proved that in every set, an ordering principle can be introduced in the form of the relation “a comes before b.” Central to controversies around Zermelo’s proof was his argument that for every subset M, a corresponding element m can be imagined. Many doubted that such formal imaginatory postulation had any real meaning, unless, for example, a concrete procedure or algorithm for carrying out the one-to-one correspondence between members of two sets could be given. For Zermelo, Hilbert, and other “formalists,” however, such principles were irreducible and self-evident. The other key aspect of Hilbert’s formalism that influenced Zermelo’s efforts to clarify and reorder set theory was that of axiomatics. Hilbert’s Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899; The Foundations of Geometry, 1902) first made clear the benefits and economy derived from using a minimum system of primitive assumptions, combined through explicit axioms to redefine naïve/intuitive areas of mathematics such as geometry. Hilbert was interested in seeing a rigorous proof that the real number system is a consistent set, because in showing the com312
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pleteness and consistency of Euclidean geometry, Hilbert had assumed the consistency of the real numbers. In 1900-1901, Hilbert attempted a preliminary axiomatization of set theory. Proposing the basic concept of number as a given, Hilbert sought to determine the relation between this and other primitive concepts by introducing axioms such as the operations of arithmetic (+, !, H, ÷), the commutative and associative laws, several ordering relations, the “Archimedean” axiom of continuity, and a completeness axiom. Hilbert believed (but did not show in detail) that his systematization of set theory was consistent, complete, and noncontradictory with regard to all the then-known theorems about the real numbers. In his efforts at the axiomatization of set theory, Zermelo was motivated not solely by the logical paradoxes but also by his desire to continue Hilbert’s efforts. In mid-1908, Zermelo published two papers in Hilbert’s journal Mathematische Annalen in which he set out his own more comprehensive set theory axiomatics. He began, like Hilbert, with a specific domain of mathematical objects, including sets, with the defined relations of membership between objects of his domain as a key set theory relation. Zermelo then stated seven central axioms, which he asserted were mutually independent and consistent. Zermelo’s seven axioms can be simply described as the axioms of extensionality, elementary sets, separation, power sets, union, choice, and infinity. The axiom of choice validated a major means of proving inductively that a given property holds for all set elements if it holds for one element. Zermelo outlined how many extant axioms of arithmetic could be derived from these axioms, including operations of union, intersection, product, equivalence, and functionality. He devoted much of his discussion to developing a theory of cardinals (transfinite numbers) in terms of specific ordinal numbers, showing that the earlier Frege-Russell definition of cardinal numbers was incompatible with his and Hilbert’s system of arithmetic. Zermelo devoted minimal discussion to the paradoxes of Cantor, Russell, and others, as he believed that his “condition of definiteness of subsets” avoided any contradictory construction. Definiteness, or a definite property, E, of a set S is said to be one for which the seven axioms permit one to determine whether E holds for any element of S. Significance Zermelo’s axiom system for Cantor’s set theory was not acknowledged at first. Most initial attention focused almost exclusively on its weak points, such as Russell’s and Henri Poincaré’s suspicions that Zermelo’s formal
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Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory tem of ten other axioms was developed, taking “classes” as the basic variable, for which sets are those classes adequate for arithmetic with natural/real numbers and proper sets are those nonset classes for which contradictions can arise. Although others, such as Willard van Orman Quine in 1958, offered further alternative axiomatizations for set theory, to date the Zermelo-Fraenkel and von Neumann-Bernays-Gödel theories remain the only working options within mathematics. Despite the avoidance of earlier paradoxes, axiomatic set theory is by no means a closed subject. In 1963, Paul Cohen proved that each of Zermelo’s axioms is logically independent, a result that opened several avenues of continuing inquiries. Although the relative consistency of both set theories can be demonstrated with respect to other mathematical theories, any would-be absolute validation of axiomatic set theory is as yet unavailable. Because Gödel’s inconsistency and indecidability theorems apply to both set theories, such absolute verification may never be forthcoming. Most contemporary efforts are directed toward providing at least a more complete and comprehensive set theoretic description, a direction that was first pioneered by Zermelo. — Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Cohen, Paul J. Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis. New York: W. A. Benjamin, 1966. An advanced and technical account of Cohen’s independence proof of the axiom of choice in the context of the ZermeloFraenkel set theory. Dauben, J. W. Georg Cantor: His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. A rigorous yet nontechnical account of naïve set theory as Zermelo found it. Fraenkel, Abraham Adolf, and Yehoshua Bar-Hillel. Foundations of Set Theory. Amsterdam: NorthHolland, 1958. Fraenkel’s main work on axiomatic set theory. Contains key material and a discussion of his 1921 and 1922 papers. Halmos, Paul R. Naive Set Theory. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1960. A general undergraduate introductory-level text that addresses what is essentially Cantor’s original set theory. Hamilton, A. G. Numbers, Sets, and Axioms: The Apparatus of Mathematics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. An introductory survey of naïve set theory and the basics of axiomatic set theory in the context of prior and subsequent mathematics. Moore, Gregory H. Zermelo’s Axiom of Choice: Its Ori313
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system was inconsistent or employed methods or ideas improper for mathematics. Poincaré, in particular, objected to formal axiomatization as contrary to the constructive intuition and creation of mathematical entities. Russell’s criticism was that set theory, with arithmetic, is a part of logic and can be made consistent only when recast into symbolic logic. Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, in their Principia Mathematica (19101913), presented their theory of “types” to resolve the paradoxes of set theory. This established a hierarchy of types of sets, which includes the real numbers but also contains the unintuitive axiom of irreducibility. This states that for any property of types higher than order !0, there is a property over the same range of order !0 that can be shown as equivalent to the assertion that impredicative definitions are equivalent to predicative definition. (An impredicative definition is one made only in terms of the totality of which it is a part.) Despite Zermelo’s concise and clear exposition, his axiomatic set theory was largely ignored in favor of nonaxiomatic set theory until 1921. In that year, Abraham Adolf Fraenkel, in his efforts to demonstrate the independence of the axiom of choice from other axioms, first pointed out some shortcomings in Zermelo’s system as well as their remedies. Fraenkel objected that Zermelo’s axiom of infinity was too weak, that his property of definiteness was too vague, and that his total system was insufficiently categorical to encompass all of ordinal arithmetic and the transfinite numbers. This led Fraenkel to add what is now known as the axiom of replacement, which states that if each element of a set is associated with one and only one set, then the collection of associated sets is a set. In place of Zermelo’s notion of a definite property, Fraenkel proposed the notion of a new function. In 1923, the Swedish mathematician Thoralf Albert Skolem independently arrived at a similar result regarding “definiteness” as a property expressible in first-order logic. Skolem proposed that within any predicate calculus (first-order logic) it is impossible to establish an ultimate categorical system of axioms for the natural numbers by means of a finite set of axioms, a result suggestive of Kurt Gödel’s later theorems. With these modifications, Zermelo’s theory has become known as the Zermelo-Fraenkel system for set theory. In 1923 and 1925, John von Neumann published papers presenting, respectively, a new definition of ordinal number sets and an alternate axiomatic for set theory. Paul Bernays in 1937 and Gödel in 1940 published alternatives to the Zermelo-Fraenkel theory of sets. A sys-
Brandenberger Invents Cellophane gins, Development, and Influence. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1982. An exhaustive historicalconceptual treatment of some background and developmental aspects of Zermelo’s set theory axiomatics. Potter, Michael. Set Theory and Its Philosophy: A Critical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A comprehensive introduction to modern set theory. Includes extensive coverage of cardinal and ordinal arithmetic, equivalents of the axiom of choice, and other axiom candidates. Stoll, Robert Roth. Set Theory and Logic. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1960. A logical representation of Cantor’s set theory. Points out sources of the paradoxes and their avoidance by axiomatic set theory. Suppes, Patrick. Axiomatic Set Theory. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1960. An intermediate-level account of set theory from a logician’s perspective. Tiles, Mary. The Philosophy of Set Theory: An Historical Introduction to Cantor’s Paradise. Mineola, N.Y.:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Dover, 2004. Begins with perspectives on the finite universe, classes, and Aristotelian logic and then examines, among many other topics, Cantor’s transfinite paradise, axiomatic set theory, and the constructs and reality of mathematical structure. Appropriate for undergraduate- and graduate-level readers. Watson, S., and J. Steprans, eds. Set Theory and Its Applications. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989. An intermediate-advanced text on set theoretic applications in computer and engineering science. See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
1904-1912
Brandenberger Invents Cellophane Jacques Edwin Brandenberger’s successful casting of viscose cellulose from solution into thin, continuous, transparent sheets started the modern packaging era. Locale: Thaon les Vosges, France Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; inventions Key Figures Jacques Edwin Brandenberger (1872-1954), Swiss chemist Charles Frederick Cross (1855-1935), English chemist Edward John Bevan (1856-1921), English chemist Summary of Event The invention of cellophane, although it represented a tremendous amount of perseverance and insight on the part of Jacques Edwin Brandenberger, was not a major theoretical achievement. Instead, it was the result of a mere modification of an existing process, one of several processes for making cellulose plastics. Nor was the amount of cellophane, on a weight basis, particularly significant relative to other materials made from wood; at its peak, the production of cellophane was only 0.5 percent of the production of paper and less than 20 percent of the production of all cellulosic plastic materials. Cellophane 314
did, however, revolutionize the packaging industry as the first clear plastic film. The first successful cellulose plastic—indeed, the first synthetic plastic ever made—was created in 1846 by Christian Friedrich Schönbein of Switzerland when he formed nitrocellulose (also called cellulose nitrate, depending on its use) through the action of sulfuric and nitric acids on cotton. Nitrocellulose soon became very important and had a variety of applications. It was used as a propellant and an explosive by the Austrian army in 1852 (called guncotton or smokeless powder, the first plastic explosive), as the first modern lacquer in the United States in 1882 using amyl acetate as a solvent, in early photographic films (termed celluloid, as is cellulose acetate, which later replaced cellulose nitrate for this use), and in textiles as the first artificial silk by Count de Chardonnet in 1884 in France. Because its chemical composition includes a nitrate group (the same molecule group that supplies the oxygen in gunpowder), cellulose nitrate is highly flammable and is no longer used in textiles. Its unsuitability for use in textiles became apparent when the dress of a woman attending a cocktail party disappeared in a flash of smoke when ashes from her escort’s cigar ignited it. Shortly thereafter, in 1869, cellulose acetate was first made in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 France. The technical difficulties associated with using this material were finally overcome, and by 1908, the Celluloid Company was producing acetate film for use around the world for photography. In 1914, the Lustron Company was set up by the Arthur D. Little Company to start manufacturing cellulose acetate textile fibers, which are called acetate rayon, or rayon for short. Cellulose nitrate was quickly replaced by cellulose acetate and other materials for all uses except explosives and propellants. In 1892, English chemists Charles Frederick Cross and Edward John Bevan developed the viscose rayon process. Except for a modification in the method of casting the solution into usable form, that process is the basis for cellophane manufacture. Cellulose from pulped wood fibers (very similar to cotton fibers, except the cellulose chains are about one-tenth the length) is treated
Brandenberger Invents Cellophane with sodium hydroxide solution (also called caustic soda) to swell the fibers in a process called mercerization. The Englishman John Mercer invented mercerization in 1844 as a method to shrink cotton and make it glossy. The mercerized, shredded pulp is aged for several days and then treated with carbon disulfide, which reacts with cellulose to form the viscous, orange-colored cellulose xanthate solution known as viscose. The viscose is aged for several days, filtered, and then forced through a thin hole into an acid bath containing salts that convert the cellulose xanthate back into cellulose. The regenerated cellulose is no longer soluble and forms a solid filament known as viscose rayon. Cross and Bevan used this process as a means of forming continuous carbon filaments for use in the newly invented lightbulb. In 1904, Brandenberger, reportedly frustrated by the
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Du Pont chemist William Hale Charch reenacts the process of developing moisture-proof cellophane. The large cellophane bag on his left held water for weeks, whereas the other bags showed evaporation in a few days. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Brandenberger Invents Cellophane sloppy tabletops in a local French café, desired to develop a protective material to prevent tablecloths from becoming stained. His employer, the Thaon Textile Company, encouraged him over the eight years it took him to develop cellophane. At first, Brandenberger used cellulose nitrate solutions, but these gave a film that was much too brittle and rigid to be useful for tablecloths. Later, he worked with the new viscose material that had been perfected by Cross and Bevan. He found that he was able to peel a transparent film from a treated tablecloth. Although viscose was not suitable for use in tablecloths, despite numerous attempts, Brandenberger pursued the idea of casting viscose into thin films from solution. Brandenberger filed a patent in 1908 on regenerated cellulose films from viscose using a water bath containing ammonium sulfate to coagulate the viscose and an acidic water bath to regenerate the cellulose. The final bath usually contains glycerol, which acts as a plasticizer; that is, it makes the cellophane much less brittle. The only significant difference from the viscose rayon process is that in the cellophane process, the viscose solution is cast through long, thin slots rather than small holes. It is much more difficult to handle the thin sheet compared with handling the filament; this is where most of the development took place. Casting it into a ringshaped slot results in a continuous tube, which is used in sausage casings. Until 1912, Brandenberger worked to perfect a machine that would produce a continuous film of cellophane. He filed for additional patents to protect his invention and tried to find uses for cellophane. During World War I, cellophane was used to make unbreakable eyepieces in gas masks. After the war, it was used as trimming for hats. With the backing of France’s largest rayon company, Brandenberger started the company La Cellophane, which literally translates as “the clear cellulose.” In 1920, the Du Pont Corporation, recognizing an important material, bought the North American rights to cellophane. On April 4, 1924, the first cellophane was manufactured in the United States at the Du Pont plant in Buffalo, New York. The original cellophane, although waterproof, was not water-vapor-proof. Bread and other moist materials wrapped in cellophane would dry out over time, and dry items would pick up moisture and become soggy. Much research and development went into solving this problem; in 1927, after trying hundreds of compounds, William Hale Charch of Du Pont found that a very thin wax coating could prevent the cellophane from “breathing.” Also, the original cellophane was not heat-sealable, which meant 316
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that packaging had to be done by hand, so cellophane was used to wrap only expensive items, such as bottles of perfume. This problem was overcome with a coating that allowed cellophane to stick to itself with the application of heat and pressure by automated packaging machines. Ironically, this coating contained cellulose nitrate, the same material replaced by these new cellulose materials. Significance At first, cellophane was very expensive, about thirteen dollars per pound. Many vendors were said to store their stocks of the material in safes. As the process of making cellophane improved dramatically within the first year, however, prices dropped to about four and a half dollars per pound. Cellophane became popular very quickly. As the first wrapping material that was truly clear and allowed the contents of a package to be plainly visible, it soon replaced the waxed paper and glassine paper that had served as wrappings. The advantages of cellophane became an extremely important marketing tool that created the modern packaging industry. Soon, cellophane received expansive publicity, and people began wrapping everything in cellophane. Sales of ready-made food items such as baked goods and dried pastas increased by as much as tenfold as people could now easily see the products in their packages. Even through the Great Depression of the 1930’s and World War II, the production of cellophane continued to increase. Another product created with cellophane was clear tape used to mend paper and to attach items to each other. Although other materials are now used to make this kind of adhesive tape (often called Scotch tape, after the name of the most successful brand), it is still sometimes referred to as cellophane tape. Cellophane also was adapted for use in semipermeable membranes (membranes that allow small molecules to pass but block large molecules) for applications such as kidney dialysis. Cellophane is also used as a release agent in the manufacture of fiberglass and certain rubber products. As cellophane became popular, production increased quickly in the United States. By 1940, about 110.2 million pounds (50 million kilograms) were manufactured per year, and by 1960, its peak year of production, 440.9 million pounds (200 million kilograms) were made annually. By the 1960’s, cellophane’s competition from polyethylene, thermoplastic resins such as saran, and other materials derived from petroleum was intense, and this initiated a decline in production. Other materials replaced cellophane for many uses
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 because they had improved properties and were cheaper to manufacture, but these materials only filled the niche that cellophane defined. None of these replacement films created the same excitement in the marketplace that cellophane did when it first appeared. As the original transparent film, cellophane created the modern packaging industry. —Christopher J. Biermann Further Reading Battista, O. A. “Transparent Bonanza.” Science Digest 27 (April, 1950): 84-87. This brief, interesting article chronicles how Brandenberger invented cellophane, the early days of cellophane, and cellophane’s impact on packaging and marketing. “Cellophane: A Substitute for Paper.” Literary Digest 80 (February 2, 1924): 61-62. This article, written early in the first year that cellophane was produced in the United States, describes cellophane’s importance as a packaging material and as the basis for a new industry. “Competition Slows Cellophane’s Growth.” Chemical and Engineering News 39 (March 6, 1961): 32-33. This article, written at the peak of cellophane’s success, discusses the importance of polyethylene as the most inexpensive clear film and also mentions other
Herero and Nama Revolts materials that eventually captured more and more of the packaging film industry. Haynes, William. Cellulose: The Chemical That Grows. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953. This is a fascinating, well-written account of the cellulose industry from the early 1800’s through the early 1950’s. Describes the important discoveries and how they were related. Peck, A. P. “Cellophane Is Born.” Scientific American 158 (May, 1938): 274-275. A two-page spread with nine pictures showing the process of making cellophane with captions describing the process. The best available pictorial on the process. Turbak, Albin. “Rayon.” In Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Engineering, edited by Herman F. Mark. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1985-1986. This is a fairly technical, in-depth discussion of viscose rayon and acetate rayon. Includes production and use figures for U.S. and worldwide production. See also: Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner; 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite; 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced; May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex; Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
1904
January, 1904-1905
Herero and Nama Revolts The attempts of both the Herero and the Nama peoples to extricate themselves from German colonial rule resulted in a protracted struggle between the native groups and the colonial army, although in the end both uprisings were brutally suppressed. In the period 1904-1905, both ethnic groups suffered imprisonment, starvation, and loss of life in concentration camps. Approximately 65 to 80 percent of the Herero people were killed in what many consider to have been a genocide. Locale: German Southwest Africa (now Namibia) Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; colonialism and occupation; indigenous peoples’ rights; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Lothar von Trotha (1848-1920), German general who commanded the German military in Southwest Africa, May, 1904-November, 1905
Samuel Maherero (c. 1854-1923), paramount chief of the Herero, r. 1890-1923 Hendrik Witbooi (c. 1825-1905), chief of the Nama people, r. 1888-1905 Theodor Leutwein (1849-1921), governor of Southwest Africa, 1898-1904 Bernhard von Bülow (1849-1929), German chancellor, 1900-1909 William II (1859-1941), German emperor, r. 18881918 Summary of Event In the years leading up to 1904, the German colonists in Southwest Africa attempted to consolidate and secure their power in the colony by executing “treaties of protection and friendship” with the various indigenous tribes. This divide-and-conquer policy initially served the Germans well. However, discontentment grew among the Herero people as they continued to find themselves dis317
Herero and Nama Revolts possessed of the land and cattle on which their economy was based. In contrast, the situation of the Namaqua, or Nama, people was somewhat different. They had a long history of animosity with the Herero, and when asked, they declined to support the Herero in their uprising. It was not until after the Herero rebellion was effectively quelled that the Nama decided to stage their own revolt. Some believe that this was in large part motivated by their comprehension of the brutality with which the German colonial government dealt with the Herero. There is debate as to whether the revolt of January, 1904, was intentionally initiated by the Herero or whether the conflict resulted from an escalating series of misunderstandings. Historians also speculate on the movement’s goal: Were the Herero intent on overthrowing the German colonial rule, or did they believe their society could not survive and so chose to fight to the death? Early in the war, the Germans were confident that their technological (if not numerical) superiority would lead them to certain victory. From January through July, 1904, however, the Germans were not able to garner a decisive victory over the Herero, and they acutely felt the loss of prestige. The stigma attached to being bested by people whom the colonial government considered mentally, morally, and militarily inferior was not one the Germans were willing to assume. Although Major Theodor Leutwein was willing to negotiate a peace with the Herero, Emperor William II found this policy untenable, and he replaced Leutwein with General Lothar von Trotha, who took command of German troops on June 11, 1904. Von Trotha believed that the conflict in German Southwest Africa had degenerated into a race war and that negotiation was impossible; only annihilation would resolve the Herero question once and for all. On August 12, 1904, the German troops encircled the Herero people, who had gathered against a mountain called Waterberg, and attempted to engage them in a decisive battle. The majority of the Herero men, women, children, and livestock were able to escape this circle through a gap in the east, and they fled in the direction of the Omaheke Desert. The military strength of the Herero was broken in this final battle, but von Trotha insisted that the German soldiers pursue the fleeing Herero farther into the waterless desert. The Herero population was effectively corralled inside the Omaheke. Most did not have the strength to cross it, and German military patrols prevented escape back into German Southwest Africa. Von Trotha followed this harsh action with his infamous Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order) of October 2, 1904: “Within 318
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the German borders, every Herero, whether armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall not accept any more women or children. I shall drive them back to their people—otherwise I shall order shots to be fired at them.” The Nama revolt also began in the early days of October, 1904. Although the most powerful Nama chief, Hendrik Witbooi, had remained on friendly terms with the Germans throughout the Herero rebellion and had even provided the colonial soldiers with a contingent of more than one hundred men, Witbooi realized that his people were headed for the same annihilatory treatment that had been meted out to the Herero. The German struggle with the Nama was even more protracted than that with the Herero had been. After seeing what had happened to his neighbors, Witbooi refused to meet the Germans in open battle. Instead, he utilized the Nama’s intimate knowledge of the terrain to employ guerrilla tactics with great effectiveness. Witbooi was the uniting force of the Nama people, and after he died of wounds sustained during a raid on the Germans, it was increasingly difficult for the Nama to unite around one figure. As a result, they became markedly demoralized. Increasingly bad publicity in Germany, including criticism from Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, led the colonial military to seek an end to the war with the Nama. Von Trotha, reluctant as ever to negotiate with black Africans, was sent back to Germany in November, 1905. Although the subsequent surrender of various Nama leaders and their followers was arranged, the hardships of the native Southwest Africans were not over. As labor became increasingly short in supply, German colonists proposed that the Herero and Nama who had surrendered to von Trotha’s army be used as forced laborers. The surviving Herero were detained in collection camps in their inland home areas beginning after the extermination order was revoked in December, 1904; in 1905, many were deported to the much cooler coastal areas of Swakopmund. After their surrender, the Nama were also deported; some were sent to work in other German colonies such as the Cameroons, but the majority were sent to Southwest Africa’s coastal areas. Of the various camps for laborers, the cold and damp Shark Island was the most notorious. There, as well as in the other concentration camps, already emaciated Nama were starved and kept in shelters that were unable to keep out the cold Atlantic winds. In many cases, the death rate was 50 percent or more, and in time it became obvious that individuals kept under such conditions would not be fit for labor of any kind.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance The brutal suppression of the Herero and Nama revolts, which culminated in gross human rights abuses and genocide, had far-reaching implications. The postwar policies implemented in 1907 and 1908 sentenced the native inhabitants of German Southwest Africa to second-class citizenship; they were required to wear passes around their necks and their freedom of movement was restricted. The German conduct of the war and subsequent mistreatment of the indigenous peoples also provided fodder for British propaganda campaigns; during and immediately following World War I, the British leveraged evidence of German brutality to great effect, stripping Germany of its colonies and securing Southwest Africa for Great Britain. Although it was not until several years after World War II that South Africa became the official colonial proprietor of the territory, the German legacy of treating black Africans as second-class citizens only strengthened the power of apartheid. The connection between concentration camps in German Southwest Africa and those built by the Germans during World War II has been the source of a great deal of scholarship on race subjugation and extermination, although scholars are still studying the relationship between Germany’s brutal colonial policies in Southwest Africa and the Nazi-era atrocities and genocide. —Robin M. Krause
pects and government concerns but also on the policies’ psychological impact on natives and settlers. Bridgman, Jon. The Revolt of the Hereos. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Focuses on the military aspects of both revolts and updates some of the scenarios that Heinrich Drechsler suggested. Succinct and easy to read. Drechsler, Heinrich, and Bernd Zöllner. Let Us Die Fighting: The Struggle of the Herero and the Nama Against German Imperialism. London: Zed Press, 1980. Definitive work draws on sources from German Federal Archive. Suggests that the Herero and Nama revolted against insurmountable odds to preserve their way of life. Gewald, Jan Bart. Herero Heroes: A Socio-political History of the Herero of Namibia, 1890-1923. Oxford, England: James Currey, 1999. Challenges longstanding assumptions about the Herero revolt by providing alternate interpretations of several key events. Draws on broad source materials, including documentation from the National Archive of Namibia and religious institutions. Hull, Isabel V. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. Offers innovative treatment of the Herero genocide as well as long-term warfare policies of the German military. See also: Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the MombasaLake Victoria Railway; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets; Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion; Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded.
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Further Reading Bley, Helmuth. South West Africa Under German Rule, 1894-1914. Translated by Huth Ridley. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1971. Extremely detailed study that focuses not only on military as-
Herero and Nama Revolts
Russo-Japanese War
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 9, 1904-September 5, 1905
Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War resulted from the clashing imperial ambitions of Russia and Japan. Locale: Manchuria; Korea; Yellow Sea Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Evgeny Ivanovich Alexieff (fl. early twentieth century), Russian viceroy of the Far East Tamemoto Kuroki (1844-1923), commander of main Japanese forces in Manchuria Aleksei Kuropatkin (1848-1925), Russian minister of war and commander of Russian forces in the Far East Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Zinovy Petrovich Rozhdestvensky (1848-1909), commander of the Russian Baltic fleet Heihachirf Togf (1848-1934), commander of the Imperial Japanese fleet Summary of Event By the end of the nineteenth century, the imperial ambitions of Russia and Japan focused on the same regions of the Far East: Korea, Manchuria, and the northeastern part of China. Japan was a relative newcomer as an imperialistic power, only emerging from its self-imposed isolation in the middle of the century. Although Japan modernized, its leaders still felt they lacked respect from the Western powers, and they were concerned with their nation’s security. For Japanese leaders, Korea became a key to the national expansion. To expand its influence over that neighbor, Japan engaged Korea’s more powerful neighbor, China, in war from 1894 to 1895. Among the concessions Japan wrested from China with its victory was control over the Chinese area of Manchuria contiguous to Korea. This acquisition alarmed the Western imperialists; France, Russia, and Germany—in what is known as the Triple Intervention—jointly protested this expansion, forcing Japan to relinquish territorial claims outside Korea. China’s defeat in the war led the Western imperialists, including Russia, to seek additional concessions of their own from China. As the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad progressed, Russia wrested from China the right to build a railroad across northern Manchuria and also gained possession of two 320
ports on the Liaotung Peninsula in southern Manchuria— Dairen (Ta-lien) and Port Arthur. Thus Russia gained without conflict much of what the Triple Intervention had denied to the victorious Japanese. One outcome of China’s humiliation was the growth of antiforeign feeling, marked by the appearance of the secret society popularly called the Boxers. Their attacks on foreigners in the Boxer Rebellion resulted in a multinational military intervention in northern China. During the course of this uprising, Russian troops had fanned out over Manchuria. Only strong protests by other nations forced a phased, but often delayed, withdrawal of the Russian troops. In 1902, isolated Japan signed a treaty with Great Britain. Under its terms, each participant would remain a friendly neutral if the other became engaged in a war. If additional nations involved themselves in the conflict, the treaty required armed intervention by the other signatory. With this treaty, Japan would not have to face the threat of a new Triple Intervention alone. In 1898, a Russian company secured from Korea the right to harvest timber along the Yalu River; the Russian royal family became financially involved in its operations, which a small Russian military force protected. These expansionist moves on the part of Russia alarmed Japan. Tensions reached such a peak that a series of negotiations between the two countries began in 1903. The negotiations were hampered by the activities of Admiral Evgeny Ivanovich Alexieff, Russia’s Far Eastern viceroy, who, because of racial prejudice, consistently underestimated the pride and strength of the Japanese. When no progress was made after several months, the Japanese recalled their ambassador on February 6, 1904. Two days later, Admiral Heihachirf Togf attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Manchuria. Suffering some damage, the Russian fleet remained in or close to that port until late in the war. At the same time Togf struck at Port Arthur, Japanese troops landed in Korea and quickly marched to the Yalu River against token Russian opposition. With the neutralization of the Russian Far Eastern fleet, Japan moved troops into Manchuria both to invest Port Arthur and to defeat the main Russian forces near Liaoyang under General Aleksei Kuropatkin. Because of the Japanese willingness to take casualties in attack and the weakness of the Russians in numbers and resolve, Japan won an unbroken series of victories. The major battles included those fought at Liaoyang and Mukden under General Tamemoto Ku-
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roki, and the successful siege of Port Arthur. Sent to change the balance of naval power in Asia, the Russian Baltic fleet, under Admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhdestvensky, was totally destroyed by Admiral Togf in the Battle of Tsushima, May 27-29, 1905. The unbroken series of Russian defeats contributed to growing unrest at home and led Czar Nicholas II to seek an end to the war. Although victorious at sea and on land, Japan was militarily and economically exhausted by the struggle. When President Theodore Roosevelt offered to help bring the war to an end, negotiators of the two belligerents met at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where a peace treaty was signed on September 5, 1905. Under its terms, Japan took possession of the Russian concessions in southern Manchuria and the railroad leading north to Mukden, gained official recognition of their predominance over Korea, and were given the southern
half of Sakhalin Island. The lack of a sizable indemnity led to some rioting in Japan. Significance The Russo-Japanese War has been overshadowed by World War I, which followed closely on its heels. In actuality, the struggle of 1904-1905 may have been one of the most significant conflicts of the twentieth century. With the exception of the defeat of the Italian army in Ethiopia at the battle of Adowa in 1896, the RussoJapanese War marked the first time in modern history that a major European power was decisively and completely defeated by a non-European nation. This event raised the hopes of nationalists in Asia and Africa that the days of European colonialism were numbered. Defeat for Russia also played a major role in bringing on an incomplete reformist revolution in that nation in 321
Russo-Japanese War 1905. That revolution so eroded feelings for the czar that it was a factor leading to the revolutions of 1917 and the emergence of the Bolshevik state. In addition, Japan’s failure to achieve all of its aims in the peace treaty fed a growing militarism among Japanese and the conviction that their legitimate goals were thwarted by the Americans. Japanese military planners became convinced that they could defeat a stronger power by destroying that power’s main naval forces at the very outbreak of war. —Hans Heilbronner and Art Barbeau Further Reading Borton, Hugh. Japan’s Modern Century. New York: Ronald Press, 1955. Includes a brief account of the war from the Japanese perspective. British General Staff. The Russo-Japanese War. 2 vols. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1906-1908. History and analysis of the war by British observers, many of whom were sent to the scene because of Great Britain’s status as an unofficial ally of Japan. Hare, James H., ed. A Photographic Record of the Russo-Japanese War. New York: Collier & Son, 1905. Probably the best of the many contemporary accounts of the war in presenting a photographic account of the conflict. Jukes, Geoffrey. The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. Oxford, England: Osprey, 2002. Concise history of the war includes background regarding its beginnings and discussion of its eventual consequences. Features chronology and index. Malozemoff, Andrew. Russian Far Eastern Policy, 1881-1904: With Special Emphasis on the Causes of the RussoJapanese War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958. Attempts a revision of traditional interpretations of the war and its results, but displays a definite anti-Japanese bias. Martin, Christopher. The Russo-Japanese War. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 322
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The Treaty of Portsmouth The Russo-Japanese War came to an end when Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Portsmouth in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on September 5, 1905. The first four of the treaty’s fifteen articles are listed below. The Emperor of Japan on the one part, and the Emperor of all the Russias, on the other part, animated by a desire to restore the blessings of peace, have resolved to conclude a treaty of peace, and have for this purpose named their plenipotentiaries, that is to say, for his Majesty the Emperor of Japan, Baron Komura Jutaro, Jusami, Grand Cordon of the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his Excellency Takahira Kogoro, Imperial Order of the Sacred Treasure, his Minister to the United States, and his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, his Excellency Sergius Witte, his Secretary of State and President of the Committee of Ministers of the Empire of Russia, and his Excellency Baron Roman Rosen, Master of the Imperial Court of Russia, his Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States, who, after having exchanged their full powers, which were found to be in good and due form, and concluded the following articles: Article I. There shall henceforth be peace and amity between their Majesties the Emperor of Japan and the Emperor of all the Russias, and between their respective States and subjects. Article II. The Imperial Russian Government, acknowledging that Japan possesses in Korea paramount political, military and economical interests engages neither to obstruct nor interfere with measures for guidance, protection and control which the Imperial Government of Japan may find necessary to take in Korea. It is understood that Russian subjects in Korea shall be treated in exactly the same manner as the subjects and citizens of other foreign Powers; that is to say, they shall be placed on the same footing as the subjects and citizens of the most favored nation. It is also agreed that, in order to avoid causes of misunderstanding, the two high contracting parties will abstain on the Russian-Korean frontier from taking any military measure which may menace the security of Russian or Korean territory. Article III. Japan and Russia mutually engage: First: To evacuate completely and simultaneously Manchuria, except the territory affected by the lease of the Liaotung Peninsula, in conformity with the provisions of the additional article I annexed to this treaty, and, Second: To restore entirely and completely to the exclusive administration of China all portions of Manchuria now in occupation, or under the control of the Japanese or Russian troops, with the exception of the territory above mentioned. The Imperial Government of Russia declares that it has not in Manchuria any territorial advantages or preferential or exclusive concessions in the impairment of Chinese sovereignty, or inconsistent with the principle of equal opportunity. Article IV. Japan and Russia reciprocally engage not to obstruct any general measures common to all countries which China may take for the development of the commerce or industry of Manchuria.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1967. Recounts the events of the time in almost reportorial style. Unlike many earlier accounts, places the war in its historical setting, giving proper emphasis to its Asian causes rather than treating it as a minor episode of intrigue in Russian internal politics. A good starting place for interested readers. Steinberg, John W., et al., eds. The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005. Collection of essays explores the military, diplomatic, social, economic, and political contexts in which the war occurred. Draws on previously unavailable Russian sources as well as Japanese records. Includes illustrations, maps, and index.
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities White, John A. The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Careful scholarly account of the war places the blame for the conflict on the Far Eastern aims of the two protagonists, each of which was threatened by the actions and desires of the other. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale; Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; 1907: Famine Strikes Russia; Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan.
March 14, 1904
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities By prosecuting and ordering dissolution of the Northern Securities Company, the U.S. government showed that it would regulate corporations and set the precedent for later antitrust cases.
Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Philander C. Knox (1853-1921), U.S. attorney general, 1901-1904 J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), American investment banker Edward H. Harriman (1848-1909), head of the Union Pacific Railroad James Jerome Hill (1838-1916), head of the Great Northern Railroad Summary of Event On March 14, 1904, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the dissolution of the Northern Securities Company. One of the first large-scale holding companies, Northern Securities had been formed in November, 1901, by James Jerome Hill, Edward H. Harriman, and J. P. Morgan as a way to gain greater control over and increase the efficiency of three railroad companies: the
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Also known as: Northern Securities Company v. United States Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history
Great Northern Railroad, the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad line. Responding to the general antitrust sentiment of the time, in March, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Philander C. Knox to bring suit against the Northern Securities Company for violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court and ultimately ended in 1904 with Northern Securities Company v. United States. The Supreme Court found the Northern Securities Company to be in violation of the Sherman antitrust law and ordered it to be dissolved. The Northern Securities case came at the end of a great consolidation period in U.S. business history; from 1896 to 1900, nearly two thousand business mergers occurred. General suspicion of large corporations had been growing among the American public, as evidenced by support for the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the growth of the reform-minded Populist Party. These concerns, and consequent political movements, had pressured Congress into passing the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which made illegal “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce.” Any hopes that this law would control corporations, however, were undermined by the probusiness laissezfaire policies of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government at the time. The Sherman Act had very little real effect on corporations in the United States for more than a decade after its passage.
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities Between 1893 and 1903, the federal government initiated fewer than two dozen cases under the Sherman Act. Furthermore, the Supreme Court decision in the case of United States v. E. C. Knight Company (1895) undermined the strength and credibility of the Sherman Act. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the American Sugar Company and its subsidiary, the E. C. Knight Company, although perhaps a monopoly in manufacturing, had not monopolized or restrained interstate commerce. This was a very strict and limited interpretation of the Sherman Act. In May, 1901, James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad and Edward H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad engaged in a competition to purchase controlling stock in the Northern Pacific Railroad. That railroad company in turn held a controlling interest in the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad, the tracks of which provided a highly desirable line into Chicago and ran throughout the northern Midwest region. Harriman worked through the Kuhn Loeb investment house, with the backing of the Rockefeller family; Hill enlisted the considerable financial services of J. P. Morgan. As Hill and Harriman fought for control of Northern Pacific, the price of its stock soared to one thousand dollars per share. In their efforts to obtain liquid capital to purchase Northern Pacific shares, Hill and Harriman dumped other holdings at very low prices. These actions caused stock prices to fluctuate wildly, generally disrupting the stock market. Neither Hill nor Harriman was able to gain a controlling interest in Northern Pacific, and the two men decided that cooperation would be preferable to market disorder. In November, 1901, they had Morgan arrange for the incorporation of the Northern Securities Company, a $400 million holding company that would, they hoped, bring order and efficiency to the northwestern railroad market by bringing their combined interests—the Great Northern Railroad, the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad line— under the aegis of one board of directors. Morgan had a history of improving rail systems through his own reorganization and consolidation efforts. In the sixteen years since 1885, Morgan had worked to make thousands of miles of railroads throughout the East more efficient, including saving the New York Central Railroad from financial collapse. In his book Highways of Progress (1910), Hill stated that the formation of the Northern Securities Company was “a device contributing to the welfare of the public by assuring in the management of great properties that security, harmony and relief from various 324
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 forms of waste out of which grow lower rates just as surely as dividends.” He argued that consolidation was in the public interest, as it contributed to efficiency. To the public and much of the rest of the business world, however, the actions of Hill, Harriman, and Morgan appeared to be the very worst of the disruptive, careless, and crude abuses of power attributed to the “robber barons” of that era. Public opinion was further enraged by the fact that the episode had resulted in one of the largest holding companies yet formed in this era of large business trusts. Even The Wall Street Journal criticized Harriman and Hill for their actions. Responding to these pressures, in March, 1902, President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Knox to bring suit against the Northern Securities Company. Working with the governor and attorney general of Minnesota, the home of Hill’s Great Northern Railroad, Knox filed the federal suit in a circuit court in St. Paul on March 10, 1902. The federal circuit court ruled against the Northern Securities Company on April 9, 1903. The company then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on March 14, 1904, the Court found the Northern Securities Company to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In a five-to-four decision, the Court affirmed the decision of the lower court and ordered the dissolution of the Northern Securities Company. Significance The prosecution and dissolution of the Northern Securities Company sent shock waves through the business world. It may have slowed the growth of mergers, but the trend continued through both of Theodore Roosevelt’s administrations. Mergers decreased dramatically from 1902 to 1904 but increased from 1904 to 1906. The fact that by 1909 just 1 percent of the industrial firms in the United States were producing nearly half of the nation’s manufactured goods illustrates how large the largest firms had become. By successfully prosecuting the Northern Securities Company, Roosevelt and Knox gave meaning and legitimacy to the Sherman Antitrust Act that it had not had since its passage in 1890. They also built up the legitimacy and the credibility of the Justice Department, which before the Northern Securities case had been nothing more than a small team of independent lawyers. In his efforts to prosecute the case, Knox built within the Justice Department the legal machinery necessary to bring antitrust suits in the future. Roosevelt stated that Knox had “done more against trusts and for the enforcement of the antitrust law than any other man we have ever had in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
had disrupted the stock market, and the overwhelming pressure of public opinion provided a favorable arena for the reform philosophy of Roosevelt and Knox. Just after he announced the antitrust suit against the Northern Securities Company, Roosevelt said that the prosecution aimed to prevent violent fluctuations and disaster in the market. In April, 1902, Roosevelt stated that “after the combinations have reached a certain stage it is indispensable to the general welfare that the Nation should exercise . . . the power of supervision and regulation.” Roosevelt did not oppose the fact of large corporations. He believed that with their ability to provide economies of scale, vertically integrated operations, and consolidations that prevented ruinous competition, corporations could achieve a degree of organizational efficiency that smaller concerns could not. Roosevelt believed in an increased regulatory role for the federal government, one that involved policing corporate behavior and actions rather than size itself. A few days after he announced the suit against the Northern Securities Company, Roosevelt told J. P. Morgan, who was concerned for his much larger United States Steel Corporation, that U.S. Steel would be prosecuted only if it had “done something that we regard as wrong.” Perhaps because of Roosevelt’s accommodationist regulatory policy, the trend toward large corporations grew at the same time that the number of antitrust cases increased. The economic concentration that had increased dramatically in the late nineteenth century continued to rise in the early twentieth century. In addition, in the cases concerning Standard Oil and American Tobacco, the Supreme Court ruled that not every restraint of trade is illegal in terms of the Sherman Act, thus encouraging merger activity. In the case regarding Standard Oil, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that it would determine through the “rule of reason” whether combinations were restraining trade unreasonably and thus violating the Sherman Act. Congress passed the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 in part to eliminate interlocking directorates but also to create statutory specifics on antitrust prohibitions so that the government need not rely on the shifting opinions of the federal judiciary. The Clayton Act was supplemented by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, which sought to clarify and codify further the types of illegal price discrimination. The Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950 again sought to reinforce the Clayton Act, in much the same manner as had the Robinson-Patman Act. In 1976, Congress passed the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, also known as the Concentrated Industries Act, a mild reform law that attempted to 325
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public life.” Vigorous presidential action also influenced the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, making it more sympathetic to the cause of antitrust in the future. The dissolution of the Northern Securities Company opened the door for many other prosecutions by the Justice Department for antitrust violations. Just after the Justice Department brought suit against the Northern Securities Company in 1902, Roosevelt instructed Knox to bring suit against the “beef trust,” which was made up of a number of Chicago packinghouses, including Swift & Company. Like the Northern Securities case, the suit against the beef trust was supported by widespread public opinion, especially given that meat prices were on the rise. In the 1905 case of Swift & Company v. United States, the Supreme Court enjoined the beef trust from engaging in collusive practices that kept prices stable or rising. This case was significant in that it expanded federal jurisdiction to include manufacturing combinations whose products were later traded in interstate commerce, a line of argument that the Court had rejected in the E. C. Knight case. In 1906 and 1907, Roosevelt had the Justice Department bring suit against the American Tobacco Company, the E. I. du Pont Chemical Corporation, the New Haven Railroad, and the Standard Oil Company. The Supreme Court subsequently ordered the dissolution of American Tobacco (1910) and Standard Oil (1911). In the years between 1890 and 1905, the Department of Justice brought twenty-four antitrust suits. Theodore Roosevelt’s administrations brought fifty-four suits, and the single administration of William Howard Taft prosecuted ninety antitrust cases. In the decade from 1905 to 1915, at least eighteen antitrust cases were prosecuted each year. Perhaps the most important impact of the Northern Securities case was that it answered the question of whether the federal government had the ability and willingness to regulate large corporations aggressively. Roosevelt later wrote that in 1902 the question had not been how large corporations should be controlled. “The absolutely vital question,” said Roosevelt, “was whether the government had power to control them at all.” Before the federal government could compose the rules and create the agencies needed for regulation, it had to show that it had the willingness and ability to do so. The prosecution and dissolution of the Northern Securities Company proved that the federal government had both. In addition to proving that the federal government could regulate and punish large corporations, the Northern Securities case set the precedent for federal intervention in the national economy. The Hill-Harriman battle
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities strengthen provisions of existing antitrust laws. The trend toward business mergers and economic concentration continued. With the war efforts of both World War I and World War II, the federal government accepted the economic and industrial concentration necessary to keep production levels high. This also was true of the federal efforts to deal with the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The laissez-faire policies of the 1920’s were born of political philosophy rather than of necessity. Finally, the economic prosperity that followed World War II also lessened desire for antitrust regulation, as the system seemed to be working for the benefit of most. Several important antitrust cases, however, did reach the courts following the main period of antitrust prosecution. In 1945, the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) was found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1948, the federal government forced a number of major U.S. film studios to divest themselves of studio-owned movie theaters. In 1961, the Supreme Court ordered the Du Pont Corporation to divest itself of its holdings in General Motors Company. In 1967, the Federal Communications Commission ordered the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) to lower its rates. In 1982, under continuing federal pressure, AT&T agreed to be broken up, and a number of rival telephone companies entered the market to challenge AT&T’s control. In the late 1990’s, the federal government pursued legal action against Microsoft Corporation for monopolistic practices in the computer software and Internet browser industries. — Bruce Andre Beaubouef Further Reading Blum, John Morton. “Theodore Roosevelt and the Definition of Office.” In The Progressive Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. Good for an introduction to the Progressive policies and politics, as well as foreign policies, of Roosevelt and Wilson. Clark, John D. The Federal Trust Policy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1931. Analytic, detailed, and still brief enough to be of use both to readers seeking an introduction to antitrust policy at the federal level and to those seeking to expand their knowledge of the subject. Gould, Lewis L. “Immediate and Vigorous Executive Action.” In The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Excellent history of the foreign and domestic policies of 326
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Roosevelt’s administrations. Good on the Northern Securities case. Focuses on the Roosevelt presidency, but also good for students beginning study of the Progressive Era. Hill, James Jerome. Highways of Progress. 1910. Reprint. New York: Books for Business, 2001. Hill’s own account of the process of railroad building in the United States is very useful. Provides an enlightening and different perspective on the Northern Securities case and the railroad industry in general. Meyer, Balthasar Henry. A History of the Northern Securities Case. Madison: Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 1906. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. Meyer, a member of the Railroad Commission of Wisconsin, gives a valuable contemporary treatment of the Northern Securities case and the trust issue itself. Places the case in context by briefly describing the growth of the antitrust movement at the state and federal levels. Includes copies of relevant documents. Peritz, Rudolph J. R. Competition Policy in America: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Explores the influences on U.S. public policy of the concept of free competition. Discusses congressional debates, court opinions, and the work of economic, legal, and political scholars in this area. Thorelli, Hans B. The Federal Antitrust Policy: Origination of an American Tradition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955. Comprehensive, indepth treatment of U.S. antitrust policy. Covers economic, social, and political formation of the antitrust movement in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For those seeking a highly sophisticated and detailed treatment of U.S. antitrust policy. See also: Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System
April-May, 1904
Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System In a series of lectures at Yale University, Charles Scott Sherrington clarified the role of the nervous system in molding adaptive hierarchies of reflexes into purposeful behavior. Locale: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Categories: Science and technology; biology Key Figures Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952), English neurologist Marshall Hall (1790-1857), English physician and neurologist René Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher Camillo Golgi (1843-1926), Italian histologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), Spanish histologist Michael Foster (1836-1907), English physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), Russian physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian (1889-1977), student of Sherrington Henry Hallet Dale (1875-1968), student of Sherrington
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Summary of Event Charles Scott Sherrington’s publication of The Integrative Action of the Nervous System (1906) was the consummation of centuries of speculation and experimentation about reflexes and created a research agenda for another generation of neurophysiologists. Reflexes are stereotypical motor responses to sensory stimuli. Sherrington’s work clarified how purposeful behavior arises out of hierarchies of reflexes. Early ideas about reflexes were speculative, not experimental, and appeared as ancient philosophers and physicians tried to comprehend puzzling observations about humans in health and disease. They believed that injured organs affected other organs even though no connection was seen between them. Aristotle, for example, noted that sometimes there were “motions of the heart and of the penis; for often upon an image arising and without express mandate of the intellect these parts are moved.” Involuntary or sympathetic motions were distinguished from nonvoluntary motions such as falling asleep, waking up, and respiration, in which imagination and desire play no role. Heartbeats, on the other hand, were understood to be both sympathetic and nonvoluntary. One did not have to will one’s heart to beat, but passions affected
the rate of the heartbeat. Galen, a Greek physician, kept Aristotle’s distinctions and added other examples, such as the contraction of pupils when exposed to light, a response independent of the will. The regularity of such responses to stimuli puzzled ancient philosophers. René Descartes inherited these ideas about sympathy when he developed his mechanical model of the animal body in the seventeenth century. In Traité de l’homme (1664; Treatise of Man, 1972), he explained sympathy as well as all nervous activity in terms of a network of hollow nerves filled with a refined subtle matter, the “animal spirit.” A well-known illustration from the Treatise of Man closely approximates the definition of the reflex. A young boy stuck his foot into a fire, particles of fire forced animal spirit up a nerve to the brain, the brain redirected animal spirit down the nerve to the muscles of the foot, and the foot was withdrawn. Descartes concluded from this and several other “explanations” that animals, including humans, are capable of a large repertoire of complicated and purposeful behavior without the intervention of the will or intelligence. Stephen Hales was one of the earliest experimenters, as opposed to speculators, on reflexes. In the early 1730’s, he decapitated frogs and noted that irritating their rear legs still provoked hopping. If the spinal cord was damaged, however, motion ceased. Clearly, the brain was not responsible for all types of involuntary or reflex motions. Hales’s work led to the reevaluation of the functions of the spinal cord. Previously, it had been considered only a trunk line for communications to and from the brain and periphery, but now it was demonstrated to have independent functions. Robert Whytt advanced Hales’s work considerably. In An Essay on the Vital and Involuntary Motions of Animals (1751) and Philosophical Essays (1755), he systematized the previous work on reflexes and first defined modern terminology such as “stimulus” and “response.” Most of the major work leading to the modern understanding of the reflex followed from the Bell-Magendie law, named for Sir Charles Bell and François Magendie, which stated that the anterior root of the spinal cord governs motor functions and the posterior root governs sensory functions. Marshall Hall, who demonstrated conclusively that the spinal cord has a functional unity of its own, widened the scope of reflexes to include such activities as vomiting and parturition and studied the effects of poisons on reflexes.
Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System As important as these physiological discoveries were, the microanatomy of the reflex remained hidden. Progress was impossible until theoretical advances such as cell theory and technological advances such as staining techniques and oil-immersion lens microscopes were applied to neuroanatomy. Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal used these new technologies to uncover the details of nerve cells, but they interpreted their results differently. Golgi claimed that nerves form a patterned network and that nerve impulses spread wherever neural nodes overlap (reticularist model). Ramón y Cajal, on the other hand, saw individual nerves as approaching each other but never touching (neurone model). Both models had strengths and weaknesses that complemented each other: The neurone model offered clear pathways but no communication between nerves; the network offered communication but no clear pathways. By the 1890’s, physiological and anatomical pieces to the reflex puzzle abounded, but no one had crafted a synoptic vision to place them into a coherent whole. Sherrington confronted this confusion when he began his
Charles Scott Sherrington. (The Nobel Foundation)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 work. He was well prepared for this task. He was educated as a physician, trained in physiology under Sir Michael Foster, and exposed to the best European physiologists. Despite his preparation, the enormity of the task astounded him. He eventually delineated the sensorimotor pathways of the macaque monkey. Foster had told his students that the nervous system functions as a unity, not as individual pieces, and Sherrington was determined to discover that unity. Yale University invited Sherrington to present his research in its prestigious Silliman Lecture series in the spring of 1904, and this opportunity allowed him to synthesize his ideas on the unity of nervous action. The lectures were published two years later in The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. Sherrington’s thesis in this work was that “the nervous synthesis of an individual from what without it were a mere aggregation of commensal organs resolves itself into co-ordination by reflex action.” In other words, how are distinct activities such as scratching, blinking, and maintaining posture coordinated with other activities such as breathing and walking to compose ultimately an individual animal? Sherrington stated this issue more clearly in a 1933 lecture at Cambridge University, “The Brain and Its Mechanisms”: “How a limited set of agents of the outside world working through the nerve and brain of the animal can produce from its muscles the thousand and one dexterous acts of normal behaviour is itself a problem.” His answer began with an analysis of the three functions of the nerve cell: to support its own life, to communicate with other cells, and to integrate sensorimotor activity into complex behavior. Only nerve cells carry on the last of these functions, so the nervous system regulates the interplay between any animal and its environment. Reflexes, Sherrington argued, are the most basic units of sensorimotor activity, and it is their coordination into purposeful behavior that defines the integrative action of the nervous system. Sherrington’s simplicity of experimental technique and clarity of argument ordered reflexology’s pieces into a coherent pattern. Sherrington introduced one of the most basic concepts in neurology: the synapse. He accepted Ramón y Cajal’s neurone theory and stipulated that nervous transmission occurs only across the small gap—synapse— between nerves. He did not know yet how impulses “jump” between nerves, but his own work bore out the neurone theory and the function of the synapse. Reflexes, Sherrington asserted, play an evolutionary, or adaptive, role. In terms he coined himself, he claimed that proprioceptive reflexes, which give an animal a
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System
Structure of a Vertebrate Neuron Synaptic knobs Dendrites Myelin sheath Axon
Schwann cell
Terminal branches
sense of place, and nociceptive reflexes, which give a sense of pain, are necessary for the survival of any individual. Despite the progress represented by The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, Sherrington acknowledged that he had hardly begun to understand the complexities of human behavior.
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Significance One reviewer of The Integrative Action of the Nervous System likened Sherrington to Sir Isaac Newton; a former student of Sherrington compared him to William Harvey. Sherrington’s work was praised not only because it cleared up many neuroanatomical and neurophysiological questions but also because it raised those sciences to new levels and suggested new directions for research. Sherrington’s endorsement of Ramón y Cajal’s neurone theory and the postulation of the synapse stimulated his students to discover unsuspected chemical and electrical activities in the transmission of the nerve impulse across synapses. The newer vacuum tube technology allowed Edgar Douglas Adrian, along with others, to amplify minute electrical charge variations in nerves. This tool enabled researchers to explore afferent nerve impulses (impulses conveyed toward the central nervous system) and to discover the electrical coding of nerve signals. Sir Henry Hallet Dale, who later became director of the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratory, pioneered with others the recognition of acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter. Adrian’s work led to Hans Berger’s development of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in 1929; Dale’s work helped stimulate the rapidly expanding field of neurochemistry. The Integrative Action of the Nervous System en-
hanced Sherrington’s already high reputation and helped create the Sherrington School of Physiology. From Cell body all over the world, students flocked to the University of Oxford to work with Sherrington and then returned to their home institutions to continue the research they had begun with him. Several Nobel laureates were nurtured under Sherrington’s tutelage. Sherrington’s interpretation of reflex action raised old questions again about the relationship of philosophy and theology to the scientific understanding of human behavior. Sherrington often said that after twentyfive hundred years of examining the physiological foundation of behavior, researchers were still in basically the same position as Aristotle. Sherrington and several of his contemporaries had been trained in a materialist physiology that viewed advances in reflexology as pushing back the domain of vitalist or idealist doctrines. As he matured, however, Sherrington moved from materialistic monism to a body/mind dualism. He accepted the reality of an independent mind, for although he could not explain it physiologically, neither could he explain the complexity of human behavior—as opposed to animal behavior—only in terms of reflexes. In later essays, Sherrington expressed fear concerning the political and social ramifications of a too-hasty solution to these ancient problems. He deeply influenced John Carew Eccles, one of his students, who continued to reflect on these issues until his death in 1997. Certainly not all physiologists shared Sherrington’s views. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Sherrington’s contemporary, remained staunchly materialistic. Pavlov believed that all behavior, including human behavior, could be reduced to reflexes. He concluded from his experiments on dogs that learning itself is a variety of sensorimotor activity. Surprised by Sherrington’s dualism in “The Brain and Its Mechanisms,” he wondered aloud to colleagues if Sherrington had become ill or senile. When in the 1930’s Sherrington looked back on his work, he admitted candidly that his reflex studies were limited and had served their purpose. Since that time, neuroscience has bloomed luxuriantly in fields with applications Sherrington could never have imagined, yet hardly any of its aspects do not owe something of their roots to The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. — Thomas P. Gariepy
Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System Further Reading Clarke, Edwin, and L. S. Jacyna. Nineteenth-Century Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Modern scholarship places Sherrington’s achievement in the context of nineteenth century neurology. Eccles, John C. The Human Mystery. New York: SpringerVerlag, 1979. Presents Eccles’s Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, 1977-1978. Reflects on themes Sherrington presented in his Gifford Lectures of 1937-1938, later published as Man on His Nature (1941). Eccles, John C., and William C. Gibson. Sherrington: His Life and Thought. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1979. Eccles, a former student, and Gibson, a historian of science, examine Sherrington’s scientific work after 1906 and his philosophical essays written in later life. Memoirs and interviews bring to life what it was like to work with Sherrington. Finger, Stanley. Minds Behind the Brain: A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Relates the history of humankind’s understanding of the brain through the work of important individuals who have influenced progress in this area. Chapter 14 is devoted to discussion of Sherrington’s work on the nervous system. Granit, Ragnar. Charles Scott Sherrington: An Appraisal. London: Thomas Nelson, 1966. Memoir by one of Sherrington’s students takes a relatively personal approach to discussion of The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. Jeannerod, Marc. The Brain Machine: The Development of Neurophysiological Thought. Translated by David Urion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. A frankly materialistic historical interpretation of neurophysiology that contrasts with Sherrington’s view.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Liddell, Edward George Tandy. The Discovery of Reflexes. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1960. One of the earliest scholarly historical accounts of the background of Sherrington’s achievement, written by a member of his laboratory. Covers only the years up to publication of The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. Ramón y Cajal, Santiago. Recollections of My Life. Translated by E. Home Craigie with Juan Cano. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Widely considered to be a particularly fine example of scientific autobiography. Original Spanish edition was reprinted often in Madrid between 1901 and 1917; first English edition appeared in 1937. Sherrington, Sir Charles Scott. The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. 1906. Reprint. New York: Ayer, 1973. Contains the complete text of the Silliman Lectures, expanded with charts, experimental protocols, and an immense bibliography. _______. Man on His Nature. 1941. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Contains the text of the Gifford Lectures presented at the University of Edinburgh, 1937-1938. Depicts a mature Sherrington reflecting on his life’s work and its significance. Swazey, Judith P. Reflexes and Motor Integration: Sherrington’s Concept of Integrative Action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969. Excellent scholarly examination of Sherrington’s work, especially The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. Includes lengthy discussion of the background of his work, clear diagrams (some from Sherrington), and abundant documentation. See also: 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement; Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Entente Cordiale
April 8, 1904
Entente Cordiale The Entente Cordiale settled long-standing disputes between England and France and began an era of improved relations that eventually made the two nations allies in World War I. Also known as: Franco-British Entente Cordiale; Anglo-French Entente Locale: London, England; Paris, France Category: Diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Théophile Delcassé (1852-1923), French minister of foreign affairs, 1898-1905 Sir Thomas Barclay (1853-1941), British official active in international relations Edward VII (1841-1910), king of Great Britain, r. 1901-1910 Émile-François Loubet (1838-1929), president of France, 1899-1906 Lord Lansdowne (1845-1927), foreign secretary of Great Britain, 1900-1905 Pierre Paul Cambon (1843-1924), French ambassador to Great Britain
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Summary of Event Rapprochement between Great Britain and France, culminating in 1904 in the Entente Cordiale, was born of the realization in both countries at the beginning of the twentieth century that each had more to gain by seeking the other’s friendship than by perpetuating hostile and dangerous imperialistic rivalry. Anglo-French conflict was possible at a number of places around the globe. In the Far East, tension was growing between Japan (an ally of Great Britain) and Russia (an ally of France). The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 made it important for London and Paris to repair their damaged relations to avoid becoming involved in war against each other. The two nations had, in fact, already come into conflict in 1898 over the crisis at Fashoda (now Kodok), the climax of the struggle for the Sudan, but France was not in a very strong position at the time. A similar situation arose in North Africa, where Great Britain desired a free hand in Egypt while France wanted the same in Morocco; French financial interests in Egypt had long bothered Great Britain, whose large share of Moroccan trade was a source of major discomfort to France. Other minor problems, including the traditional dispute over the Newfoundland fisheries, also marred Anglo-French relations.
The British and French had been in dangerous competition in Africa for more than two decades. The French had an added burden in that they had been humiliated in the Franco-Prussian War and by the Treaty of Frankfurt of 1871. One aspect of the new imperialism of the late nineteenth century for France was a psychological one. Territorial annexation helped assuage some French sensibilities, but it also focused national ire on Britain, which had become France’s chief competitor in Africa. On both sides of the English Channel political rhetoric often became heated. In the wake of the Fashoda crisis, Théophile Delcassé, who became French foreign minister in the aftermath of the embarrassment on the Nile, wanted to proceed with caution in dealing with any new relationship with Britain. Inside Europe, the relations of both countries with Germany provided better reasons for mutual friendship. Great Britain no longer desired splendid isolation, and the nation made repeated attempts between 1898 and 1901 to enter into an alliance with Germany, but antiBritish feeling in Germany generated by the Boer War of 1899-1902 not only frustrated these attempts but also had the effect of bringing Great Britain closer to France. A number of British politicians distrusted Germany’s intentions on the Continent. Many, including Lord Salisbury, who was the British prime minister at the time of the Fashoda crisis, believed that Germany, if left unchecked under Emperor William II, would emerge as the undisputed power in Europe. William II was seen as aggressive, militant, and often erratic, and his nearparanoid distrust of England and King Edward VII was widely recognized. This was not a solid foundation on which to make a mutually beneficial alliance. On the other side, France, always fearful of Germany, came to realize by 1904 that an entente with England might compensate for its disappointing alliance with Russia, which had turned out to be a financial drain without visible returns on the diplomatic level. Both the British and the French governments appointed new officials to improve relations between their countries. In France, Delcassé, the new minister of foreign affairs, tried to persuade the British to acquiesce in French dominance of Morocco; for this he was willing to back down from a confrontation with British forces at Fashoda in 1898. On March 21, 1899, he reached agreement with Great Britain demarcating the French and English spheres of influence in Africa. A year later, Delcassé
Entente Cordiale gave his blessing to the efforts of Sir Thomas Barclay, a British official, to arrange for British chambers of commerce to visit the great Paris Exposition. Barclay also arranged for French chambers of commerce to visit England in return. On October 14, 1903, both states signed the AngloFrench Treaty of Arbitration, promising to submit most of their disputes to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Barclay was as influential in arranging this treaty as he was in organizing an exchange of visits to the two capitals by King Edward VII and President ÉmileFrançois Loubet in 1903. Edward VII’s visit to Paris was a huge success, attracting large, friendly, and cheering crowds. The British king, who had always been popular in France, did much to warm relations between the two countries. Expressions of warmth and friendship on both visits helped to smother anti-British feeling in France stemming from the Boer War. Also, Delcassé accompanied
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Loubet on his visit to London and used the occasion to begin serious negotiations with the new British foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne, to settle outstanding differences between the two governments. This led to the signing of the Entente Cordiale on April 8, 1904, by Lord Lansdowne and Pierre Paul Cambon, the French ambassador at London. Significance Although not a military pact, the Entente Cordiale reestablished good relations between Great Britain and France so that military cooperation was possible in the dark days of August, 1914. Among the minor disputes settled by the Entente Cordiale were disagreements regarding the Newfoundland fisheries, West African boundaries, Siam, Madagascar, and the New Hebrides Islands. Most important was the provision that France would allow Great Britain a free hand in Egypt in exchange for being allowed a free hand in Morocco. Under
King Edward VII rides in a carriage with French leader Émile-François Loubet in 1903. The two met as a prelude to the signing of the Entente Cordiale. (Library of Congress)
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Further Reading Andrew, Christopher. Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968. One of the best and most detailed accounts available of the events surrounding the signing of the Entente Cordiale. Dunlop, Ian. Edward VII and the Entente Cordiale. London: Constable & Robinson, 2004. Emphasizes the role played by the British monarch in establishing the Entente while describing all of the various individuals involved. Also reviews Britain’s earlier attempts to improve relations with France. Fay, Sidney B. The Origins of the World War. 2 vols. New York: Free Press, 1966. Revisionist study remains a classic. Provides detailed analysis of the background, signing, and results of the Entente Cordiale. Grey, Sir Edward. Twenty-Five Years, 1892-1916. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1925. Memoirs of an individual who was involved in great events from the Entente Cordiale to the outbreak of World War I provide good insight into the period. Hale, Oron J. The Grand Illusion, 1900-1914. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Addresses social as well as diplomatic crosscurrents of the period. Kennedy, Paul. The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914. London: Allen & Unwin, 1980. Provides extensive analysis of the factors leading up to the Entente Cordiale. Mayne, Richard, Douglas Johnson, and Robert Tombs, eds. Cross Channel Currents: One Hundred Years of the Entente Cordiale. New York: Routledge, 2004. Collection of essays on the Entente begins with discussion of how the agreement began and its immediate impacts. Also addresses the meaning and functions of the Entente in the years since World War I. See also: Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis; Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I.
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a secret convention of the Entente Cordiale, Great Britain agreed to an eventual partition of Morocco between Spain and France whereby the Spanish controlled the coastal area opposite Gibraltar while the French occupied the hinterland. Although it is correct to view the Entente Cordiale in the light of a warming of relations between France and Britain and a settling of long-standing colonial conflicts, the agreement’s military effects were important as well. The Entente gave the general staffs of France and Britain the opportunity to visit each other and discuss military matters of mutual interest. Although serious misunderstandings still existed between the two armies, they found certain common ground, and plans were slowly formulated for concerted action if war with Germany ever began. Despite obvious Russian weaknesses, made manifest by the Russo-Japanese War, it was clear that France was in a much better position militarily and diplomatically than it had been since the Franco-Prussian War. In Delcassé’s view, the primary purpose of this agreement with Great Britain, as it was for a similar one made with Italy in 1902, was to gain French ascendancy in Morocco. To an insulted Germany, whose Moroccan interests Delcassé believed he could ignore, the AngloFrench agreement took on far greater significance, especially given that France was already allied with Russia. For Germany, the balance maintained for ten years between the Triple Alliance (Germany, Italy, and AustriaHungary) and the Franco-Russian Dual Alliance of 1894 had now shifted in favor of the newly emerging Triple Entente. The German foreign office was particularly angered by the fact that Great Britain and France had sealed their rapprochement at the expense of German interests in Morocco. German attempts to defend these interests in 1905 and 1911 touched off two serious Moroccan crises, which in turn led to the strengthening of the AngloFrench accord. The combined effect was to divide Europe into two armed camps that were to move against each other in 1914. — Edward P. Keleher and James J. Cooke
Entente Cordiale
L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics
April 18, 1904 L’HUMANITÉ
Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics
The founding of L’Humanité provided a means for the dissemination of socialist politics in France, particularly in Paris. The newspaper’s missions were to inform the working population and to elucidate the importance of socialist ideas in every aspect of life. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Publishing and journalism; government and politics; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Jean Jaurès (1859-1914), French intellectual, socialist, and politician Léon Blum (1872-1950), French socialist, politician, and intellectual Lucien Herr (1864-1926), French socialist and Dreyfus supporter Daniel Halévy (1872-1962), French historian and literary critic Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857-1939), French philosopher and sociologist Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), French army officer whose trial sparked great controversy during the Third Republic Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), French cofounder of sociology and Dreyfus supporter Summary of Event The end of the nineteenth century was a period of political, social, and intellectual unrest in France. Politicians, social activists, and intellectuals all examined the same issues: rights of workers, working conditions, equal rights and just treatment of all citizens, and ideologies of governing. Within this atmosphere, the socialist movement played an important role. It brought about serious attempts at cohesion among the various factions and yet at the same time was often the source of discord among them. The individuals attracted to socialism ranged all the way from moderate republicans to adherents of Marxism. Jean Jaurès, a member of the provincial bourgeoisie, became one of the leaders of the socialist movement and the founder of both the French Socialist Party and the French socialist newspaper L’Humanité. Jaurès was both a man of politics and an intellectual. He was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and then at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure. Upon graduation, he became 334
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a lycée teacher and then a lecturer at the University of Toulouse. His political career began in 1885 with his election as a republican deputy for the department of Tarn. During the following years, he completed a doctoral degree for which he wrote two dissertations and developed a reputation as an intellectual and a supporter of socialism. As he founded L’Humanité, Jaurès’s main supporters were other socialists, many of whom were friends and associates of Émile Durkheim. As a result of Durkheim’s influence, Jaurès became further committed to socialism and to the cause of Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French army whose trial on specious charges was used to create the false impression that French Jews were disloyal to their nation. Dreyfus was eventually acquitted, but the conflict revealed deep schisms within France’s intellectual communities. At the time, Jaurès was the editor of the Petite République, in which he published “Les Preuves: L’Affaire Dreyfus” (1898). Being connected with the Petite République became a problem for Jaurès both politically and morally. The director of the paper apparently had some dubious political alliances and was involved in a business scandal; he owned a company that used prison and convent labor to manufacture driving coats that he sold at an incredibly low price. Jaurès was concerned about being associated with this kind of worker exploitation. He felt there was a need for a socialist newspaper, and he and his socialist friends discussed the possibility of establishing one. The idea of the paper became a frequent topic of conversation for the group at their meetings at the Bellais bookstore. Eventually encouraged by his close friends Léon Blum and Lucien Herr, Jaurès decided to found such a paper, and Blum and Herr immediately undertook a campaign to raise the necessary funds. Daniel Halévy helped to obtain the financial backing, and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl also assisted with the fundraising. They succeeded in raising 850,000 francs. The title L’Humanité was suggested by Herr. Jaurès invited all of the major individuals associated with the political or intellectual left to contribute articles to the paper, and his invitation was well received. Only two of the most notable political activists declined: Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, who were both more militant then Jaurès and his group. Aristide Briand and Jean Alleman were among the politicians and intellectuals who accepted the invitation to write for the paper, and literary writers such as Anatole France and Jules Renard
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L’HUMANITÉ: “Our Goal” Jean Jaurès’s first editorial in L’Humanité included this description of the newspaper’s goals: The very name of this newspaper, in its breadth, spells out exactly what our party proposes. In effect, all socialists work for humanity’s fulfillment. Humanity doesn’t yet exist, or rather barely so: in the interior of each nation it is compromised and shattered by class antagonism, by the inevitable struggle between the capitalist oligarchy and the proletariat. Only socialism, in absorbing all classes in the common ownership of the means of labor, can resolve this antagonism and make of every nation, finally reconciled with each other, a parcel of humanity. Between nations there exists a barbaric regime of defiance, ruse, hatred and violence that still prevails. Even when they seem to exist in a state of peace, they bear the traces of yesterday’s wars, and the fear of tomorrow’s. How can we give the beautiful name of humanity to this chaos of hostile and wounded nations, to this pile of bloody scraps? The sublime effort of the international proletariat is to reconcile all peoples through universal social justice. Then and only then will there be a humanity that considers its superior unity within the living diversity of free and friendly nations. As democracy and reason develop within peoples and individuals, the need to have recourse to violence diminishes. Let universal suffrage affirm itself; let a vigorous secular education open spirits to new ideas and develop the habit of reflection; let the proletariat organize and group itself according to a law ever more fair and generous; let all this happen and the great transformation that will liberate mankind from oligarchic property will be accomplished without the violence that, 110 years ago, bloodied the democratic and bourgeois revolution, and which our great communist Babeuf grieved over in a beautiful letter. This necessary social evolution will be all the simpler because all socialists, all workers will be more firmly united. All of us here, at this newspaper, want to work for this union. I am well aware of the sharpness of all of the polemics against the socialists. I know of the conflicts surrounding methods and tactics, and it would be childish to pretend to cover up these divisions with an artificial and purely external unity. Unity cannot be born of confusion. We will always defend here, clearly and loyally, the means of action that seem to us the most effective and the most certain. But we don’t want to aggravate, by the prolonging of controversies and the venom of polemics, discords that were doubtless inevitable, and which the force of events will certainly resolve. For us, revolutionary socialists and reformist socialists are above all socialists. If there are groups that let themselves be dragged by a sectarian passion to play counter-revolution’s game, we will fight them with firmness. But we know that within both socialist factions strong feelings exist for the republic, free thought, the proletariat, and social revolution. Under various formulas, some of which seem to us to be out of date and, consequently, dangerous, all socialists serve the same cause. And when the time comes we’ll see to it that, without abandoning any of our own conceptions, we’ll try here to second the effort of all. Source: Jean Jaurès, “Our Goal,” L’Humanité, April 18, 1904. Translated by Mitch Abidor for the Marxists Internet Archive.
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became contributors. Both Lucien Herr and Léon Blum wrote for the paper; Blum’s column was titled “La Vie littéraire” and addressed the close relationship between social evolution and contemporary literary movements. He planned to alternate with Jean Ajalbert, Gustave Geoffroy, and Eugène Fournière; each would take a turn writing the column. Halévy was responsible for news coverage. Jaurès was very pleased with the response they received, and he remarked that the most talented of the Parisian writers were contributing to the paper. Only Briand cast a somewhat cautionary shadow on Jaurès’s jubilation, expressing concern over the lack of journalists. The paper was well staffed, Briand acknowledged, but was there not a need for men experienced in newspaper writing? The paper, which was located at 143, rue Montmartre in Paris, printed its first issue on April 18, 1904. It included the short story “La Vieille” by Jules Renard and sold 138,000 copies, a successful start. Jaurès stated that they needed to sell 70,000 copies to remain solvent, and, encouraged by early sales, he planned to publish 140,000 copies of each issue. Unfortunately, L’Humanité did not continue to enjoy the success promised by the first issue’s sales. The reason for its lack of success may have been poor management, or it may have been the overly intellectual tone of the paper, which failed to appeal to the majority of the working class (for whom it was intended). Whatever the reason, within a year of publishing its first issue, the paper experienced major financial problems, and Jaurès decided to stop publication by July 31, 1905. Jaurès contemplated offering the paper to the Socialist Party, but Blum insisted on trying to save it. He believed that a weekly editorial on foreign affairs written by Herr would be just the boost the paper needed. Although the paper was in financial trouble, Blum noted, it did have 40,000 francs that could be used to pay off its debts. Use of this reserve was probably a key factor in the paper being saved. Publication of the paper
L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics
International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade continued, and a further eighteen hundred articles appeared. Curiously enough, however, Blum stopped writing for the paper. Exactly why he stopped has remained a mystery, especially since his friendship with Jaurès continued until Jaurès’s assassination on July 31, 1914. The most widely accepted reason for Blum’s departure from L’Humanité was his ever-growing involvement and concern with unifying the Socialist Party, which took control of L’Humanité until the socialists split into a number of different factions in 1920. At that point, the paper was retained by the French Communist Party, which owns 40 percent of the paper and continues to publish it in the twenty-first century. Significance Jaurès’s founding of L’Humanité made the ideas and goals of socialism available to the public on a regular basis. Jaurès recognized the importance of sharing the socialist ideology with the working class, and although the paper apparently was not completely suited in tone and content to its target audience, its creation is evidence that Jaurès and other intellectual socialists were not simply theoreticians interested only in intellectual speculation. Instead, they were sincerely interested in socialism as a practical political ideology, one that would result in justice for the working class. The paper is also historically significant because it is the only French newspaper ever owned and published by a political party. —Shawncey Webb
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Cahm, Eric. The Dreyfus Affair in French Society and Politics. London: Longman, 1996. Discusses the event that brought together many of the intellectuals involved in the creation of L’Humanité. Provides details on their involvement in the Dreyfus affair and its influence on their political and social thinking. Coddington, George A., Jr., and William B. Safran. Ideology and Politics: The Socialist Party of France. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979. Excellent coverage of the formation, conflicts, splits, and reunifications of the Socialist Party in France. Specific information on Jaurès’s role in the creation of the Socialist Party. Goldberg, Harvey. The Life of Jean Jaurès. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. Goldberg’s biography discusses Jaurès as an intellectual, a politician, and a socialist. Lacouture, Jean. Léon Blum. Translated by George Holoch. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. Follows Blum’s long political career. Includes extensive discussion of his relationship with Jaurès and his involvement in the founding of L’Humanité. See also: Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences; Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement; 19361946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France.
May 18, 1904
International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade Ratification of the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic marked the first coordinated international effort to attack involuntary prostitution. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Women’s issues; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures William Alexander Coote (1842-1919), secretary of the British National Vigilance Association for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), British journalist and newspaper editor 336
Josephine Butler (1828-1906), secretary of the British and Continental Federation for the Abolishment of Government Regulation of Prostitution Summary of Event Involuntary prostitution, which came to be known as white slavery in the late nineteenth century, is an enduring phenomenon in human history. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw an increasing assault on this aspect of human society, and the 1904 Paris Conference on the White Slave Trade was the first internationally coordinated attempt by governments to suppress human trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation. During the early and mid-nineteenth century, many
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early leader of this movement was Josephine Butler, an upper-class British woman who became involved in social work with prostitutes in the mid-1860’s. She played a major part in the fight to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act, which was at the core of Britain’s regulation system. While upholding the goal of marriage, Butler argued that society was wasting the talents of many women who were unable to find husbands. She asserted that they were forced into prostitution to survive because the structure of industrialized society prevented them from gaining employment. She argued further that these women should not be punished while their clients went untouched. Butler’s efforts led to the foundation in 1875 of the British and Continental Federation for the Abolishment of Government Regulation of Prostitution. Soon afterward, she became involved in the battle against child and involuntary prostitution. At the instigation of publisher Alfred Dyer, she wrote a pamphlet, A Letter to the Mothers of England, assailing the white slave traffic between England and Belgium, which she blamed on Belgium’s corrupt regulatory system and the failure of British laws to protect young women. (The age of consent in Britain at the time was thirteen years.) Butler’s activism led to an investigation that resulted in the conviction of many agents of the Belgian morals police but few lasting results. In 1885, the editor of the evening newspaper the Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead, entered the fight against white slavery. The early efforts of Butler and others led him to investigate the problem, and with the help of Butler and the Salvation Army, he formed a secret investigation committee. The committee’s inquiry culminated when Stead, with the aid of a reformed procuress named Rebecca Jarret, staged a procuration to demonstrate that it was quite possible to carry off young girls to the Continent for immoral purposes without being caught or prevented from doing so. Beginning on July 6, 1885, Stead published in the Pall Mall Gazette a six-part series that revealed the results of the committee’s investigations under the title “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” Stead himself was arrested because of legal complications arising from the demonstration procuration he had arranged, and his series produced a massive public outcry that led to the passage of a bill raising the age of consent to sixteen years. Stead also helped found the British National Vigilance Association for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, which, under the leadership of William Alexander Coote, became important in moving the battle against white slavery to the international level. 337
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nations took measures to regulate the practice of prostitution. The two major motives for this were the desire to keep under control a practice regarded as immoral but impossible to suppress and the wish to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Typically, prostitutes were required to dwell in certain districts of their cities, to register with their local governments, and to submit to periodic medical examinations. They commonly lived in licensed brothels. Prostitution was monitored by special police, often plainclothes officers, many of whom were corrupt. The system usually failed to regulate all prostitutes, and, as time passed, resistance to the system grew from several quarters. Although some women entered prostitution because of poverty and a lack of legitimate employment opportunities, others became prostitutes because of the sexual mores of the period. Many middle- and upper-class women who had been seduced into sexual relationships considered themselves ruined afterward and believed that they could not return to their families. This drove them into prostitution to survive. Others were tricked, trapped, or kidnapped into prostitution. The fear of venereal disease led to a high demand for virginal prostitutes. To meet this demand, pimps, procurers, and brothel keepers used a variety of methods to entice or entrap young women into a life of prostitution. Some women were ensnared by offers of marriage or of jobs in seemingly proper households. Another method involved placing job offers at employment agencies that found work abroad for women. Once the woman arrived at their place of work, they discovered that they had been deceived, but then it was usually too late for them to escape. Sometimes these women were forced to purchase various items, such as clothing, at the “workplace” and then were forced to stay in the brothel to work off the resulting debts. Often the procurers’ methods involved transporting women between nations (or between states in the United States), because this made it more difficult for the women to escape. This transportation, which became known as the white slave trade or traffic, was fairly widespread in the nineteenth century. Because of the corruption of its morals police, Belgium was a center for this traffic. The king of Belgium himself reportedly spent more than eighteen hundred pounds a year importing British girls from British procuresses. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the American and European public become more aware of this traffic, and activists began an assault on the regulation of prostitution and on the white slave trade. One
International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade
International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
After several years of effort as the secretary of the British National Vigilance Association, Coote became frustrated with the meagerness of the results the organization had achieved while acting alone. The association’s success increased after 1898, when Coote was inspired to found cooperating vigilance associations in all of the nations plagued by the white slave trade. He realized that, as the trade was international, cooperation between nations would be required to destroy it. His efforts led to the calling of the International Congress on the White Slave Traffic in 1899 in London and to the foundation of vigilance associations in many nations. These organizations and Coote’s continuing work led the French government in turn to invite sixteen nations to send
delegates to Paris on July 25, 1902, to formulate an international agreement to fight the white slave trade. Thirtysix delegates represented the sixteen nations at the conference. After deliberating for five days, they hammered out a nine-article agreement. Thirteen nations (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland) ratified the agreement on May 18, 1904. Austria-Hungary, Brazil, and the United States later ratified the agreement. The International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic called for the signatory nations to take a variety of measures. Five of its articles detailed concrete actions to be carried out. Article 1 provided for the establishment of national authorities that would coordinate information regarding the white slave trade. Article 2 ar“We bid you be of hope!” ranged the keeping of watch over railway Preceding the Pall Mall Gazette’s running of the six-part series “The stations, ports, and similar locations for Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” which presented the findings of a the purpose of intercepting white slave secret committee assembled to investigate the problem of white slavery, traffickers and preventing procuration in editor William Thomas Stead published a note to readers to introduce these sites. Article 3 provided for investithe series. It began as follows: gations to discover the places of origin of foreign prostitutes in the signatory nations The Report of our Secret Commission will be read to-day with a shud(to aid in their eventual repatriation) and dering horror that will thrill throughout the world. After this awful picfor governmental assistance in repatriature of the crimes at present committed as it were under the very aegis of tion. Article 4 dealt with funding repatriathe law has been fully unfolded before the eyes of the public, we need not doubt that the House of Commons will find time to raise the age during tion. Article 6 concerned the supervision which English girls are protected from inexpiable wrong. The evidence of agencies that sought to provide employwhich we shall publish this week leaves no room for doubt—first, as to ment abroad for women. The agreement the reality of the crimes against which the Amendment Bill is directed, thus provided the first international frameand, secondly, as to the efficacy of the protection extended by raising the work for the battle against white slavery. age of consent. When the report is published, the case for the bill will be complete, and we do not believe that members on the eve of a general election will refuse to consider the bill protecting the daughters of the poor, which even the House of Lords has in three consecutive years declared to be imperatively necessary. . . . These revelations, which we begin to publish to-day, cannot fail to touch the heart and rouse the conscience of the English people. Terrible as is the exposure, the very horror of it is an inspiration. It speaks not of leaden despair, but with a joyful promise of better things to come. Wir heissen euch hoffen! “We bid you be of hope!” Carlyle’s last message to his country, the rhythmic with which Goethe closes his modern psalm—that is what we have to repeat to-day, for assuredly these horrors, like others against which the conscience of mankind has revolted, are not eternal. “Am I my sister’s keeper?” that paraphrase of the excuse of Cain, will not dull the fierce smart of pain which will be felt by every decent man who learns the kind of atrocities which are being perpetrated in cool blood in the very shadow of our churches and within a stone’s throw of our courts. Source: William Thomas Stead, “We Bid You Be of Hope,” Pall Mall Gazette, July 6, 1885.
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Significance The International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic led to additional international conventions, congresses, and agreements. A conference held in Spain in 1910 produced an agreement that procurement of women under twenty years old would be considered a criminal act under any conditions, and that for women twenty or older, procuration was illegal if fraud or violence was involved. After its founding, the League of Nations entered the battle, raising the age of consent to twenty-one and in 1921 organizing a system for monitoring international employment agencies. Further agreements were made in the years to fol-
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markedly in occurrence. The International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic was, however, only the beginning of the international assault on the sex trade. These efforts continued into the twentyfirst century, as human rights groups worked to combat the trafficking in women and children that still flourished in many parts of the world. In 2000, the United Nations Crime Commission opened a new Trafficking Protocol, which, together with the 2003 U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, included provisions to combat these invidious practices. —John W. Biles and Robert E. Biles Further Reading Bell, Ernest A., et al. Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls. Chicago: L. H. Walter, 1911. A typical example of the propaganda employed by anti-white slavery reformers in the United States during the early twentieth century. Includes a chapter by William A. Coote discussing the 1904 agreement, one of its most useful features for a contemporary reader. Bullough, Vern L., and Bonnie L. Bullough. The History of Prostitution. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1964. Discusses the history of prostitution from its origins to the early 1960’s. At the time of its writing, few serious histories of prostitution had been undertaken. Includes bibliography, endnotes, and index. _______. Women and Prostitution: A Social History. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987. Discusses the history of prostitution from its origins to the mid1980’s. Notes the importance of the sexual double standard in the persistence of prostitution. Includes an excellent chapter on the history of the movements against government regulation of prostitution and white slavery. Includes bibliography, endnotes, and index. Decker, John F. Prostitution: Regulation and Control. Littleton, Colo.: Fred B. Rothman, 1979. A study of the various methods used through history to regulate or control prostitution. Provides a primarily legal rather than historical perspective. Includes index and bibliography. Donovan, Brian. White Slave Crusades: Race, Gender, and Anti-vice Activism, 1887-1917. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Focuses on how the movement to end white slavery contributed to the creation of a racial hierarchy in the United States. Analyzes reformers’ use of “us versus them” narratives to clarify and enforce racial boundaries. 339
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low, including the amendment of the 1904 agreement by the United Nations in 1949. Such international agreements often proved difficult to enforce, as they depended on the willingness and capability of the signatory nations to carry them out. To some extent, private organizations took up some of the work and duties set forth in the agreements. Groups such as the International Catholic Associations for Railway Station Work, Les Amies de la Jeune Fille, and various national vigilance associations did their part to ensure that the agreements were carried out. During the first fifteen years of the twentieth century, public awareness of the existence of white slavery mounted. In the United States, this led to a veritable white slavery panic. Numerous books were published on the subject and several laws were passed, such as the 1910 Mann Act, which made it a crime to transport a woman across a state line “for immoral purposes.” The United States also proclaimed its adherence to the 1904 agreement. The public hysteria produced a reaction that sought either to deny the existence of the white slave trade or to show its occurrence to be less common than reformers claimed. The traffic in women did decline as the twentieth century progressed. The decrease in licensed prostitution and the end of regulatory systems helped to bring about a change in the methods of recruiting used in prostitution, which in turn contributed to a reduction in the traffic in women. The actual enforcement of the agreements also helped, to a lesser extent, to bring about a decline in the white slave traffic. Another important factor in the decline of the white slave traffic was the increasing liberation of women in the twentieth century. Women became better educated and more liberated in the area of sexual mores. Better education left them less vulnerable to the tricks of white slave traffickers, and freer sexual mores helped to create a decline in the demand for prostitutes and an increase in the proportion of prostitutes who chose their profession voluntarily. Economic necessity and inducements remained important factors in recruitment to prostitution, but deception, coercion, and international transportation declined in importance. Although involuntary prostitution has long been a part of human society, the twentieth century witnessed its significant decline. With the abolition of regulation systems, the international cooperation arising from the agreement of 1904 and the treaties that followed it, and the increasing liberation of women, white slavery ceased to be a matter of great public concern and decreased
International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade
Construction Begins on the Panama Canal Grittner, Frederick K. White Slavery: Myth, Ideology, and American Law. New York: Garland, 1990. Ably discusses the perception of white slavery by the American public from the nineteenth century to 1985. Shows how and why perceptions of the existence of white slavery grew in the early twentieth century and culminated in the white slavery panic of 1909-1914, the focus of this work. Includes index and bibliography. Niemoeller, Adolph Fredrick. Sexual Slavery in America. New York: Panurge Press, 1935. Surveys the many forms of sexual slavery that have existed since ancient times, with primary emphasis on their occurrence in the United States. Devotes an entire chapter to the structure and history of white slavery and the movements against it in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Also includes the texts of several relevant laws and treaties, including the text of the 1904 agreement. Sharp, Ingrid, and Jane Jordan, eds. Josephine Butler and the Prostitution Campaigns: Diseases of the Body Politic. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. A set of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 comprehensive materials covering Butler’s campaigns that places her work in historical context. Includes reset versions of pamphlets, books, media responses to Butler’s activities, letters to newspapers, articles from newspapers and other periodicals, and private letters both to and from Butler. United Nations. International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, Signed at Paris on 18 May 1904 Amended by the Protocol Signed at Lake Success New York, 4 May 1949. Lake Success, N.Y.: Author, 1950. This is the actual text of the agreement signed in 1904 in Paris as modified after the creation of the United Nations. It also lists those who actually signed the treaty in 1904. The changes from the 1904 text are slight. See also: Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention.
Summer, 1904
Construction Begins on the Panama Canal Construction of the Panama Canal was a ten-year engineering project that overcame numerous obstacles before it was completed. Locale: Panama Canal Zone Categories: Science and technology; engineering Key Figures George Washington Goethals (1858-1928), American army engineer William Crawford Gorgas (1854-1920), American army surgeon and sanitary officer John Frank Stevens (1853-1943), American engineer Walter Reed (1851-1902), American army surgeon and bacteriologist Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894), French politician Summary of Event The Isthmus of Panama is a narrow strip of land in Central America between Costa Rica and Colombia. At its narrowest point, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are separated by fewer than 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) of land. During the California gold rush in the early 1850’s, a railroad was built across the isthmus. Travelers from 340
the eastern United States could go by ship to the port of Colón on the Atlantic side, take a short train ride to Panama City on the Pacific side, and then continue by ship to San Francisco. In comparison, going across the United States to California by wagon train was a much more difficult journey, only for the hardiest travelers. The construction of a canal across Panama had long been viewed as very desirable for shipping because it would eliminate the need for ships to make the long and dangerous trip around South America. France made the first serious attempt to build the “big ditch” under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had successfully directed the building of the Suez Canal through the Egyptian desert. The Suez Canal, completed in 1869, made it possible for travelers from Europe to get to India and the Far East without going around the continent of Africa. Lesseps, a popular hero in France, made an inspection trip to Panama in 1879 and announced that a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans should be easier to build than the Suez Canal had been. The company that Lesseps formed to carry out the project raised money from private investors and began construction in 1881. Lesseps had greatly underestimated the magnitude
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of the task, however, and the work came to a halt in 1889. The French effort failed for several reasons. First, the French machinery was too small and lightweight for the job. Suez had sand, whereas Panama had rocks and mud. Second, yellow fever and malaria killed more than twenty thousand people in Panama, including men working on the canal, in eight years. The role of mosquitoes in transmitting these tropical diseases was not yet established, sanitation was inadequate, and working conditions were poor. Finally, Lesseps’s plan for a sea-level canal was not practical in Panama. In the middle of the isthmus, the mountains are more than 295 feet (90 meters) high and almost 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide. In order to make a channel down to sea level, the canal builders would have to blast a large amount of rock away with dynamite. The French did make considerable progress with this endeavor in the highest terrain in what was known as the Culebra Cut, but, unfortunately, frequent mud slides during the rainy season refilled some of the excavated area. In the United States, popular support for building a canal in Central America developed during the Spanish-American War from 1898 to 1900. The battleship Oregon was stationed in San Francisco in March, 1898, when the captain reDrawing on a magazine cover in June, 1904, praises Theodore Roosevelt for his ceived orders to bring his ship to Cuba as role in initiating construction of the Panama Canal. (Library of Congress) quickly as possible to participate in the blockade. At a maximum speed of sixteen knots, the Oregon traveled south land belonged to Colombia, however, and that nation along the coast of Chile, came around the tip of Argenturned down an American offer of ten million dollars for tina, and headed north toward the Caribbean. Along the the strip of land along the canal route. A so-called phony way, there were delays because of illness among the revolution took place on November 3, 1903, when the crew, a four-day storm, and Spanish warships. After ten Republic of Panama seceded from Colombia. Within long weeks, the battleship finally arrived off the coast of three weeks, the United States recognized the new counCuba. This dramatic voyage was publicized widely and try and obtained rights from Panama to a ten-mile-wide later became a rallying point in Congress for those who “canal zone” at the original price that had been offered to advocated federal funding for a canal because of its miliColombia. Twenty years later, the United States paid an tary necessity. indemnity of twenty-five million dollars to Colombia in The U.S. government under President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated an agreement in 1902 with the French compensation for this subterfuge. canal company to take over its unfinished project. The John Findley Wallace was appointed chief engineer
Construction Begins on the Panama Canal and coordinator of the building project in 1904, but he remained on the job only for about a year. Progress in excavation was too slow, and an outbreak of yellow fever in the spring of 1905 took many lives. President Roosevelt replaced Wallace with engineer John Frank Stevens and appointed William Crawford Gorgas, a U.S. Army doctor and sanitarian, to head a project to eradicate mosquitoes in the Canal Zone. In the late 1890’s, English physician Sir Ronald Ross had proved that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, and in 1900-1901, U.S. Army physician Walter Reed had found that yellow fever has the same mode of transmission. Previously, it was believed that these dreaded illnesses were caused by tropical climate and poor sanitation. Gorgas had worked as sanitation officer with Reed in Cuba, where his efforts led to a steep decline in yellow fever cases, and he knew what had to be done. He ordered the spraying of larvicide oil on standing water surfaces, where mosquitoes breed, and the installation of a sewage system where canal workers were living. He also trained exterminators to fumigate buildings and ordered sick patients placed in an isolation cage so mosquitoes could not get to them to feed and then spread the disease further. The campaign against mosquitoes was so effective that yellow fever was completely eliminated in the Canal Zone by 1906, and malaria cases were gradually reduced to the point where less than 10 percent of the workers contracted the disease. Under Chief Engineer Stevens, the design of the canal was changed from a sea-level route to one that would use a series of locks. The idea was to create a large lake well above sea level; ships would be raised up to the lake with three locks on one side and then lowered back down to the ocean with locks on the other side. The design was appropriately called “a bridge of water” going from ocean to ocean. Gatun Dam, which took more than six years to construct, eventually formed Gatun Lake, with an area of approximately 102 square miles (264 square kilometers). The lake, which ships could cross under their own power, provided the waterway for more than half of the canal route. Building the locks to raise and lower the ships was a mammoth project. Each was more than one thousand feet (305 meters) in length, requiring large quantities of cement and the construction of huge steel doors that had to swing open and shut to hold the water. President Roosevelt visited Panama for three days in 1906, the first time in history that an American president made a trip to a foreign country. Although Stevens was popular with the workers in the Canal Zone, he had some 342
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 disagreements with Roosevelt and resigned his position as chief engineer in 1907. Roosevelt immediately replaced him with Colonel George Washington Goethals, whose forceful leadership carried the canal project through to its successful conclusion. Goethals had to deal with the difficult problem of the Culebra Cut through the mountains, which was to be the passageway from Lake Gatun to the locks on the Pacific side. Goethals recognized that the speed of excavation was limited by the rate of rock removal. Up to thirty trains per hour carried rocks from Culebra to be dumped as a breakwater in the ocean. Workers had to shift the tracks daily as the steam shovels advanced. The biggest tragedy of the project was a premature dynamite explosion that killed twenty-three workers in 1908. Occasionally mud slides, especially during the rainy season, spoiled a month’s work in moments. Goethals segregated the labor force into a hierarchy with three distinct categories. First came the “gold employees,” about fifty-six hundred white Americans who were paid in gold, with an average salary of several thousand dollars per year. Next came the “silver employees,” about four thousand European laborers, mostly from Spain and Italy, who were paid about five hundred dollars per year in silver. At the bottom of the pay scale were about thirty thousand blacks from Jamaica and the Caribbean area, who received about three hundred dollars per year. All of the groups received higher income than they could have earned at home. Strict segregation between the groups was maintained in housing, quality of food, medical care, and transportation to the job site. To maintain good morale, Goethals saw to it that entertainment was provided in the form of motion pictures, band concerts, and baseball games. A locally produced weekly newspaper called the Canal Record spurred on competition between work crews. In the fall of 1913, Gatun Dam was finished and the lake behind it began to fill with water, extending into the Culebra Cut. On August 15, 1914, ten years after the start of construction, the first ship made the transit from ocean to ocean in slightly under ten hours. Goethals received a congratulatory telegram from the U.S. secretary of war in Washington, who declared that a “stupendous undertaking has been finally accomplished, and a perpetual memorial to the genius and enterprise of our people has been created.” Significance The Panama Canal Act of 1912 provided for the operation, maintenance, and protection of the canal. The tolls
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the countries of Latin America are important for U.S. national security. —Hans G. Graetzer Further Reading Barrett, John. Panama Canal: What It Is, What It Means. Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1913. Written for the American public shortly before the canal was opened. Resembles an enthusiastic tourist guidebook of that era, telling the reader how to get there, where to stay, and which sights are the most spectacular. Cameron, Ian. The Impossible Dream: The Building of the Panama Canal. New York: William Morrow, 1972. Describes the personalities and contributions of the key figures, from Lesseps to Goethals. Quotes extensively from the Canal Record and gives a sense of an unfolding sequence of successes and setbacks. Goethals, George W. “The Panama Canal.” National Geographic 22 (February, 1911): 148-211. Text of an address presented by Goethals to the National Geographic Society; a progress report on the canal project that includes many interesting photographs. Emphasizes the military necessity of the project. Jasper, William F. “Taming Mankind’s Ancient Foes.” New American 21 (September 5, 2005): 37-40. Relates the story of Gorgas’s work in Panama, including his struggle to overcome bureaucratic opposition when he sought to employ the methods he had used successfully in Cuba to eradicate yellow fever. Keller, Ulrich, ed. The Building of the Panama Canal in Historic Photographs. New York: Dover, 1983. The National Archives in Washington, D.C., has a collection of more than ten thousand photographs showing the Panama Canal construction. About 160 of these historic pictures are reprinted, each with informative and interesting commentary by Keller. An outstanding documentary record. McDowell, Bart. “The Panama Canal Today.” National Geographic 153 (February, 1978): 279-294. Describes a transit through the canal, with historical notes and observations along the way. Ryan, Paul B. The Panama Canal Controversy. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1977. In 1977, President Carter negotiated a new treaty that eventually gave Panama control over the canal. This book describes the U.S. Senate debates concerning ratification of the treaty. Presents questions of U.S. national security versus Panama’s sovereignty from the politically conservative point of view. 343
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to be charged for commercial ships to pass through were set in proportion to their tonnage. American vessels used the canal for free at first because the construction costs had been paid for with tax money. During its first seventy-five years of operation, the canal served an average of ten thousand ships annually. In 1990, the toll charged for one transit of the 62,000-ton Star Princess of the Princess Cruise Line was $120,000. All of the canal’s operation and maintenance costs—including the cost of underwater dredging, which is necessary to maintain the proper depth of water—have to be covered by the tolls. In the early years of canal operation, three major benefits were attributed to the canal project. First was the major saving in distances traveled by commercial ships that previously had to go around South America. Second was the military advantage of moving U.S. Navy ships rapidly to protect either coast, thus reducing the costs of a two-ocean navy. Finally, the improvements in sanitation and the reduction of tropical diseases accomplished in Panama during the building of the canal served as an example of what could be done to improve living conditions in other tropical countries. After World War II, various countries that had been part of colonial empires struggled to win their independence. Among these were India, Indonesia, and Algeria. The Suez Canal, which had been administered by France and England for nearly one hundred years, was taken over by Egypt during the Suez crisis of 1956. In Panama, resentment began to build up against the United States for its “ownership” of the Canal Zone on Panamanian territory. This spirit of nationalism came to a climax in 1964 when Panamanian rioters entered the Canal Zone and clashed with U.S. troops. The fighting caused the loss of lives and destruction of property and led to a break in diplomatic relations between the United States and Panama. Over the next several years, difficult negotiations were conducted to draft a new canal treaty. The treaty of 1904 had promised the United States “perpetual jurisdiction” over the Canal Zone, but that clashed with the idea of national sovereignty and the goals of the American Good Neighbor Policy. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter oversaw U.S. ratification of a new treaty with Panama, which the U.S. Senate barely consented to by a twothirds majority. The new treaty provided for a period of joint administration of the Canal Zone, with a gradually increasing share of the leadership positions given to Panama until December 31, 1999, when all U.S. participation and control of the canal ceased. Some opponents of the treaty described it as a pure “giveaway,” but proponents took the long-range view that good relations with
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Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet Salt, Harriet. Mighty Engineering Feats. Philadelphia: Penn, 1937. Describes ten major American engineering accomplishments, including the Panama Canal. Filled with interesting details. Snapp, Jeremy Sherman. Destiny by Design: The Construction of the Panama Canal. With photographs by Gerald Fitzgerald Sherman and Jeremy Sherman Snapp. Lopez Island, Wash.: Pacific Heritage Press, 2000. Photo essay and narrative combine to pay trib-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ute to one of the greatest engineering feats of the twentieth century. Features more than 160 photographs never published before, most taken by Sherman during the canal’s construction. See also: Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia; Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control; Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens.
September 7, 1904
Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet After the British military expedition under the command of Colonel Francis Edward Younghusband opened Tibet, Britain stipulated the terms of the Lhasa Convention, including the establishment of a British protectorate over Tibet. Locale: Lhasa, Tibet Categories: Colonialism and occupation; military history; government and politics Key Figures Francis Edward Younghusband (1863-1942), British colonial frontier commissioner George Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925), governor general and viceroy of India, 1899-1905 Thubten Gyatso (1876-1933), Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who presided over a period of great cultural and diplomatic change in Tibet Agvan Dorzhiev (1854-1938), emissary of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to Czar Nicholas II of Russia and alleged Russian spy in Tibet James R. L. MacDonald (fl. early twentieth century), brigadier general in the British army Second Baron Ampthill (Arthur Russell; 1869-1935), governor of Madras, India, 1900-1905, and temporary viceroy of India, 1904 Summary of Event The signing of the Lhasa Convention on September 7, 1904, should have been widely viewed as a triumph of British foreign policy in Asia. The convention forced Tibet, a country that up to that point had never entered into negotiations with any foreign power other than China, let alone one from the West, to acquiesce to a series of demands that essentially made the nation a British protectorate. After being routed by a British expeditionary 344
force of about two thousand men carrying the latest in modern weaponry, the Tibetans at last agreed to a trade relationship with the British crown colony of India. More important, however, Tibet promised to maintain its virtual isolation from the outside world. The apparent contradiction inherent in mounting a military expedition to open an isolated country only to reinforce its isolation in the resulting treaty had its roots in the peculiarities of the rivalry between the Russian and British empires in Central Asia, a contest that author Rudyard Kipling (18651936) famously referred to as “the Great Game.” Britain and Russia had become rivals for spheres of influence in Central Asia during the nineteenth century. The Russian Empire was pushing its border southward, toward British India, and it appeared, at least to the hawks in the British colonial administration in Calcutta, that only the impassable and largely unknown mountain passes in the Hindukush and Karakoram mountain ranges prevented the Russian army from reaching the Indian Ocean. For the British viceroy and his government at their summer residence in Simla, India, Tibet seemed very close: It lay just over the majestic Himalayas. Although the area was inaccessible to all foreigners, it had started to figure prominently in the British Empire’s plans, because it appeared that control of this vast and unknown land would allow the British to outflank the Russians. Moreover, after Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone crossed Africa, Tibet was one of increasingly few unexplored areas on the Victorians’ world map. After 1865, a variety of British, Russian, and Japanese adventurers, explorers, missionaries, and spies had tried and failed to reach Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. When he was appointed governor general of India in 1899, George Nathaniel Curzon was already a veteran
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Early on, disagreements arose between Brigadier General James R. L. MacDonald, the commander of the escort, and Younghusband over the use of military force. As a diplomat, Younghusband was in favor of refraining from any hostile action that might make it difficult to secure the Tibetans’ goodwill, while MacDonald was concerned with protecting his troops. The first clash occurred on March 31, 1904, near the village of Guru, where the British forces killed more than six hundred illequipped Tibetans (the British troops suffered almost no casualties). Another battle, near Gyantse in early May, also resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of Tibetans. Historians generally hold MacDonald responsible for these massacres. Yet Younghusband indirectly benefited from these developments, as they provided him with a pretext to exceed his mandate and to push on to Lhasa. This he did with the explicit consent of the British secretary of state for India, John Brodrick, an old friend of Curzon who had been kept informed of the events by telegraph. After several more skirmishes, the British forces finally entered the Tibetan capital on August 3, 1904. The Dalai Lama had fled the city, accompanied by Agvan Dorzhiev, his adviser and the invasion’s unwitting cause. Younghusband negotiated with the Dalai Lama’s regent, and the two reached an agreement in a surprisingly short time. The Lhasa Convention’s official signing ceremony took place on September 7, 1904, in Lhasa’s Potala Palace. Tibet promised to respect the earlier Chinese-British border agreement, agreed to open several markets for trade with British India and to pay an indemnity of 7.5 million rupees, and accepted the British occupation of part of the access route to Lhasa. The last of the nine points of the agreement stipulated that Tibet was to have no contact with any third powers without British consent. This provision was implicitly directed against Russia, the only other foreign power with a possible design on Tibet, and effectively turned Tibet into a British protectorate. The lack of any official Russian reaction to the Lhasa Convention indicated, however, that British fears about massive Russian involvement in Tibet had been grossly exaggerated. Significance Curiously, the British government distanced itself almost immediately from the expedition to Tibet. The Lhasa Convention was ratified in November of 1904, by the then-acting viceroy, Second Baron Ampthill, who single-handedly reduced the indemnity by two thirds and softened some other provisions as well. Younghusband 345
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of the Great Game: He had traveled through Russiancontrolled Central Asia as early as 1888. Francis Edward Younghusband, a senior official in the Indian Political Service, shared Curzon’s hawkish views on Russia. He had been a member of the Royal Geographic Society since 1897, and he had made a name for himself through travels from Manchuria, in northeast China, to Ladakh, India. Both men were extremely concerned about Russian designs on Central Asia, particularly with regard to Tibet. Tibet was ruled by Thubten Gyatso, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and although the region was nominally under Chinese suzerainty, Tibet remained closed to any foreign visitors. However, around the beginning of the twentieth century, the British administration in Calcutta learned that a close adviser to the Dalai Lama, Agvan Dorzhiev, had been traveling through British India on his way from Lhasa to St. Petersburg, where he was received by Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Although little was known about this enigmatic emissary, it soon became clear that he was from the area known as Buryatia. The Buryats lived in the Lake Baikal region of Russia and were subjects of the Russian Empire, but they were also Tibetan Buddhists and were thus not considered foreigners in Tibet. To the hawks in Calcutta it appeared as though the Russians were on the verge of gaining an important foothold in Tibet, and the British were frustrated that they had only learned about Dorzhiev from Russian newspapers and from a Japanese spy, Eisai Kawaguchi, who had managed to reach Lhasa in disguise in 1901. In 1902, Curzon was alarmed to hear that Younghusband had decided to use the issue of the disputed border between the Indian state of Sikkim and Tibet as a pretext for a more aggressive stance toward the Tibetans. Although a convention between China and Britain in 1890 had delineated the Tibetan border, their failure to consult Tibet on the issue meant that the Dalai Lama’s government did not consider itself bound by the agreement’s terms. Two letters by the viceroy to the Dalai Lama had been returned unopened, and an initial mission by the newly established Tibet Frontier Commission had been unsuccessful. Frustrated, Curzon received a carefully worded permission from the British government to “obtain satisfaction” by means of a military expedition in the late summer of 1903. This mission was to be an ostensibly diplomatic one, headed by a recently promoted Colonel Younghusband as commissioner, but it was accompanied by a large military escort. The group crossed into Tibet in December of 1903, with orders to advance to the Tibetan town of Gyantse and to negotiate with the Tibetan side there.
Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet
Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism was accused, not without justification, of exceeding his authority in the stipulation of the terms of the convention. Although he was knighted, he was left without further career prospects. Curzon, who had been on home leave for most of 1904, eventually resigned from his post as viceroy, a move that was at least partially in response to criticism over his handling of Tibet. The Lhasa Convention, then, was of limited practical concern to its contemporaries: Its primary importance was as the tangible result of the first Western diplomatic and military mission to Tibet. The problem it was designed to prevent— Russian interference in Tibet—existed mainly in the heads of politicians and explorers who had been staking their careers on playing the Great Game. —Ronald K. Frank Further Reading Fleming, Peter. Bayonets to Lhasa: The First Full Account of the British Invasion of Tibet. London: Oxford University Press, 1986. Originally published in 1961,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 this remains an authoritative account of the Younghusband mission. Hopkirk, Peter. The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia. New York: Kodansha International, 1994. A very accessible account of the entire history of the Great Game, with good coverage of the British invasion of Tibet. Meyer, Karl E., and Shareen Blair Brysac. Tournament of Shadows. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999. Comparable in scope to Hopkirk’s book, offers a slightly different perspective. Snelling, John. Buddhism in Russia: The Story of Agvan Dorzhiev, Lhasa’s Emissary to the Tsar. Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1993. The only book on the subject available in English offering a detailed account of Dorzhiev’s activities in Lhasa. See also: Dec. 17, 1933: End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule; Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India.
October 31, 1904-1906
Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism In October 1904, Evan Roberts began preaching a message of revival that quickly spread throughout Wales, leading to mass conversions. Its effects soon went beyond Welsh borders and became the context from which Pentecostalism emerged. Locale: Wales Category: Religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Evan Roberts (1878-1951), Welsh preacher Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861-1927), English Christian author and editor Seth Joshua (1858-1925), Welsh preacher Summary of Event On Sunday, February 14, 1904, Florrie Evans, a young Welsh girl from New Quay, Cardigan, publicly declared at a church meeting that she loved Jesus with all her heart. That testimony had an unusually powerful effect that led others immediately to dedicate their lives to Christ, and news of that event spread throughout western Wales. On September 29, 1904, evangelist Seth Joshua— one of several preachers already actively working for revival—held a meeting in Blaenanerch, five miles north of Cardigan, that changed the life of a young man named 346
Evan Roberts. Joshua’s long-standing prayer that God would call a young working-class man to revive the churches in Wales seemed to be answered that Thursday morning when Roberts, a twenty-six-year-old coal miner from Loughor in western Glamorgan, prayed, “Bend me, Lord,” and experienced a deeper commitment to God. Roberts had just arrived at Newcastle Emlyn School on September 13 to prepare for ministry training. His experience at Joshua’s meeting, however, inspired him to leave school and preach a message of revival throughout Wales. The Welsh Revival is generally acknowledged to have begun on October 31, 1904, when Roberts held his first meeting at Moriah Calvinist Methodist Church, his home church in Loughor. Only sixteen young people were in attendance, but they were all deeply moved, and word spread quickly. On November 2, Roberts first preached his famous four-point message, which became the basis of the message for the whole revival: People should confess known sin, avoid doubtful habits, obey the Holy Spirit immediately, and confess Christ publicly. Such an intense response followed that the chapel was soon kept open twenty-fours hours a day for prayer. Within two weeks, the revival became national news and was followed daily by newspapers in Wales and England. Roberts soon began a preaching tour of southern
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the New Testament account of Pentecost in Acts 2, believers held that the Holy Spirit actively guided them and bestowed supernatural gifts on them to accomplish their mission. Roberts and others preached that a second experience after water baptism, known as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” empowered believers with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel with signs and wonders. Roberts identified his experience during Joshua’s meeting at Blaenanerch as being “baptized in the Spirit.” Along with healings, one of the supernatural phenomena that occurred during the Welsh Revival was glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. Although Roberts downplayed instances of glossolalia because he feared they would be misunderstood, scholars documented reports of cases of farmers and uneducated youths singing and praying in ancient classical Welsh. News of the Welsh Revival and the Pentecostal experience of the “baptism of the Spirit” and the gifts of the Spirit soon spread throughout the world. People from all ranks of life and from many nations traveled to Wales to witness and experience the spiritual phenomena for themselves. Visitors from France, Turkey, Korea, India, Africa, Japan, and the Americas returned home with revival fire, and people began to experience revival in these other places as well. After two years, revival fervor began to wane. By the spring of 1906, the intensity of the Welsh Revival had taken its toll on Roberts, who experienced a serious physical collapse for the second time. He lived for the next few years in England under the care of the noted Christian writer Jessie Penn-Lewis and her husband. Together with Mrs. Penn-Lewis, Roberts coauthored a manual for Christians in ministry, War on the Saints (1912), and coedited a magazine titled The Overcomer from 1907 to 1914. He returned to Wales in 1928, but he rarely ever preached in public again. He devoted the remaining years of his life to prayer. Significance Although short-lived, the Welsh Revival had widespread effects. Despite the decline of mass conversions after 1906, the revival’s power and long-range influence remained. In addition to changes in Welsh life, the revival’s legacy included ongoing work by converts such as the formation of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church and the Elim movement. The revival was also a major influence on a number of prominent individuals, including David Lloyd George, a future prime minister of England. Some critics of the revival, both during and after its active years, dismissed it as promoting emotional excess. 347
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Wales and, in the following eighteen months, held more than two hundred meetings throughout the country. Although he became an instant celebrity through newspaper reports and word of mouth, the movement was led primarily by young, unknown, untrained, and unlicensed preachers. His brother, Dan Roberts, joined the movement after being healed of an eye condition; Roberts’s friend and former classmate at Newcastle, Sidney Evans, also conducted meetings throughout the country; Florrie Evans and her pastor, Joseph Jenkins, continued their visits to other churches. People who attended meetings returned home to hold their own meetings, and revival broke out even in places that were not visited by the main preachers. Welsh Revival meetings, like their young leaders, were unconventional, breaking traditional patterns of church services. The loosely structured meetings included spontaneous prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, confessions of sin, and personal testimonies of newfound joy, healing, and transformation. Sermons were unscripted, and preachers delivered whatever messages they felt they had been given by the Holy Spirit—sometimes forgoing preaching entirely, depending on the atmosphere of a meeting. Contrary to the church custom of that time, teenage girls also led worship or preached as they felt inspired. Participants would stand, kneel, or sit, praying, singing, or sharing in meetings that lasted eight or nine hours, into the early hours of the morning. With no official leaders or central coordination, these revival services crossed denominational lines and occurred in Congregational, Baptist, and Methodist churches. In less than two years, more than one hundred thousand people experienced spiritual renewal throughout Wales, leading to immediate changes in Welsh society. The crime rate dropped, leaving judges and police with little work to do. Many reformed alcoholics now spent their money on their families, paying their bills, and contributing to charity rather than in pubs. The incidence of domestic abuse declined. Workers became more ethical and productive, and Bible studies and prayer meetings were held in coal mines and other places of work. Reconciliations took place between estranged spouses and among individuals and groups who had been involved in longstanding feuds. Even the use of foul language decreased dramatically. Life was transformed in Welsh homes, factories, schools, and public places, and more churches needed to be built to accommodate the new converts. The Welsh Revival gave prominence to teachings about the Holy Spirit and thus gave impetus to the movement that became known as Pentecostalism. Pointing to
Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism
Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres
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Some objected to the lack of theological and biblical training of the young people who led the meetings, and some blamed ongoing media coverage for fueling fanaticism. However, the lives of many people who had been affected remained transformed, and all aspects of public and private life in Wales had visibly improved. The Welsh Revival’s most long-lasting legacy, however, is the Pentecostal, or charismatic, movement, which became an established worldwide phenomenon. Through the revival, people became familiar with Pentecostal terminology and experience. Leaders of the Azusa Street Revival in California in 1906 and of revivals in other countries had visited Wales, corresponded with Evan Roberts, or were inspired by revival accounts. Although Roberts never preached outside Britain, he is acknowledged by many as the first charismatic or Pentecostal leader of the twentieth century. From its small beginning in Wales, the spiritual tradition he began took up a permanent place in Pentecostal and traditional denominational churches around the world. —Marsha Daigle-Williamson Further Reading Anderson, Allan. An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Historical account and analysis of the theological development of Pentecostalism from its beginnings to the early twenty-first
November 7, 1904 Cohan’s LITTLE JOHNNY
See also: Apr., 1906-1908: Azusa Street Revival; July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses.
JONES Premieres
George M. Cohan’s musical show Little Johnny Jones, along with its follow-up, Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway, helped to establish musical theater as a distinctive American art form. Locale: Liberty Theatre, New York, New York Categories: Theater; music; entertainment Key Figures George M. Cohan (1878-1942), American performer and writer, director, and producer of Broadway musicals Samuel Harris (1872-1941), American theatrical producer who became Cohan’s producing partner Summary of Event George M. Cohan’s family act, the Four Cohans, was a nationally prominent vaudeville act when, in 1900, 348
century. Covers both Western and non-Western nations. Includes bibliography and index. Duewel, Wesley. Revival Fire. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995. Chronological overview of revivals in various nations from Old Testament times to the late twentieth century. Chapters 24-26 address the Welsh Revival. Includes index. Matthews, David. I Saw the Welsh Revival. 1905. Reprint. Chicago: Moody Press, 1951. The most famous eyewitness account by one of the revival’s participants. Synan, Vinson. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997. Expanded version of the 1971 edition long considered the standard scholarly reference on the history of Pentecostalism, with a primary focus on the United States. Includes extensive bibliography and index. Towns, Elmer, and Douglas Porter. The Ten Greatest Revivals Ever. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 2000. Lists and discusses revivals in order of their intensity and long-range effects; the Welsh Revival leads the list. Includes brief bibliography and index.
Cohan began to focus his ambitions as a playwright, songwriter, and performer on the New York theater. At the time, three strains of musical theater were predominant: the world of musical vaudeville (Cohan’s background), European-style operettas, and musical farce. Cohan drew on expanded vaudeville sketches in writing The Governor’s Son (pr. 1901) and Running for Office (pr. 1903), the latter of which was a musical farce that introduced the heavy use of contemporary slang in lyrics and dialogue and that incorporated colloquialisms adapted from vaudeville. These shows played at small downtown theaters. Cohan desired a starring vehicle for himself on Broadway, however, and the show he next designed—and produced with his new partner, Samuel Harris, who was to remain his partner for many years afterward—signaled a coalescence of the Broadway musical as a twentieth cen-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tury art form. With Little Johnny Jones in 1904 and then again with Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway in 1906, Cohan merged elements of the existing three strains of musical theater while also introducing innovations in structure, style, and focus. In doing so, he infused the work with his ambitious, democratic, self-aggrandizing, energetic, and flippant personality, nicely meeting the needs of an American society appreciatively reflecting on itself at a time when the nation was solidifying its position as a world power. Rather than developing a story around currently popular songs, as was a common practice in the writing of musicals, Cohan sketched out the plot of Little Johnny Jones first. The story combined melodrama with comedy: An American jockey in the British Isles is accused of cheating after losing the English Derby. Cleared of the charges in the second act, he returns to San Francisco’s Chinatown to search for his missing girlfriend, whom he be-
George M. Cohan as he appeared as the title character in Little Johnny Jones in 1904. (The Granger Collection, New York)
lieves has been kidnapped by a notorious gangster. Cohan included complicated subplots—disguises, machinations, intrigues—but the play moved rapidly, with grand musical spectacles providing crescendos in each act. With Cohan starring as Johnny Jones, the first act’s exposition built in anticipation of the jockey’s entrance. When he appeared, Johnny Jones counseled the assembled guests at the Hotel Cecil in London to bet on his horse, Yankee Doodle Dandy, a recommendation celebrated in a song-and-dance number. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” drew on the patriotic impulses of American theatergoers and gave Cohan an opportunity to display both his nasal singing and the dancing style he had perfected in vaudeville. The number was an instant success; during the New York opening at the Liberty Theatre, audience calls of “Encore!” necessitated the song’s repetition several times. The second act included a similarly wonderful production number that became the dramatic climax of the entire show. Johnny stood at a Southampton pier, bidding a ship bound for New York adieu. An undercover policeman had instructed the hero to wait for a flare from the ship as a signal that his nemesis (aboard the ship) had been exposed. Cohan, as Johnny, sang a sad, slow chorus of “Give My Regards to Broadway” as the vessel departed. The lights went down, and a miniature ship crossed at the back of the stage. When a rocket shot up from the ship, Cohan launched into a joyous, lively reprise of the memorable tune before the curtain fell to close the act. The scene, a watershed in American musical theater (the song became a staple in musical tributes to New York), was depicted in a mural in the theater Cohan himself built in 1911. The undercover policeman, a character named “the Unknown,” was played by Tom Lewis, half of a popular comedy team. Sam J. Ryan, the other half of the team, played an amiable Irish pal of Johnny. Using the Unknown for comic relief, Cohan gave him many of the best punch lines but no songs, a first in musical comedy. He rounded out the cast with burlesque singer Truly Shattuck and with members of his own vaudeville family: his parents, Jerry and Nellie Cohan, and his wife, singer and comedienne Ethel Levey. Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway followed in 1906. Although it lacked the trademark flag-waving element that appeared in Cohan’s simultaneously running George Washington, Jr. (the show that introduced the song “You’re a Grand Old Flag”), Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway still demonstrated Cohan’s emerging quintessential formula for the musical: fast, flashy, 349
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Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres
Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres
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mistic spirit many Americans shared as the United States funny language spoken in a slangy vernacular combined entered World War I; it quickly became the unofficial anwith several upbeat, exuberant songs and some sentithem of American involvement. Cohan was unpopular mental ballads. Cohan wrote the musical as a vehicle for with many actors, however, because he took an outspoFay Templeton, a popular light-opera star; the producken stand against unionism and was a leader in the ultition was financed by Abraham Erlanger, the dominant mately unsuccessful fight of the producers against the member of the Theatrical Syndicate, which virtually Actors’ Equity Association’s summer strike in 1919. controlled booking rates at almost all U.S. theaters— All agreed, however, that Cohan’s impact on the style both on Broadway and in the provinces—from 1896 to of the American musical was remarkable. Oscar Ham1910. Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway became the merstein II, himself a powerful voice in the evolution of biggest musical comedy hit in New York in forty years. the musical as an art form, wrote: “Never was a plant Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway starred Victor more indigenous to a particular part of the earth than was Moore as the sentimental, wisecracking hero. Again, George M. Cohan to the United States of his day. The Cohan molded a hero on his own personality traits. An important factor in the musical’s success was its celebration of the rural— or at least suburban—virtues of New One Critic’s Reaction to LITTLE JOHNNY JONES Rochelle, New York (later to be trumAlthough George M. Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones was a hit, it did have its peted in another medium on The Dick detractors. When Cohan took the show on a tour of major cities in the winter Van Dyke Show) in juxtaposition with and spring of 1905, the critic for the Providence Journal in Rhode Island had the glamour and glitter of New York a number of complaints: City. The show had two memorable tunes: “So Long, Mary” and “Mary’s a At the Providence Opera House last evening George M. Cohan, one of “the Grand Old Name.” The production Four,” with a good-sized company, began a week’s engagement in his latest used simple sets and included only six musical offense, “Little Johnny Jones.” The production still has “four songs, which, like those in Little Johnny Cohans,” although Josephine has deserted the fold. Father and mother are Jones, showed the influence of the fin still with the show and so is Ethel Levey, who is Mrs. George M. in private life. The combination shows its familiar styles of varied talents neither better de siècle musical farce playwright Edor worse than when last seen in this city and the entertainment is about of the ward “Ned” Harrigan. Cohan later clarusual Cohan standard, although there are features in this offering that have ified his appreciation of this Irish never been seen on any stage before. The extremely large audience present American in the tributary song “Harrileft no doubt as to its hearty approval of the whole affair. The applause was gan” in Fifty Miles from Boston (pr. frequent and there were curtain calls and a speech by the “author actor.” . . . 1908). Significance Little Johnny Jones and Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway established Cohan as a force to be reckoned with in American musical theater. The title of one of his shows, The Man Who Owns Broadway (pr. 1909), soon came to be a nickname for Cohan himself, who was not only writing, producing, directing, and starring in plays but also building and buying theater buildings. By the second decade of the twentieth century, responses to his forceful personality varied, especially between the general public and those engaged in the acting profession. Cohan’s composition “Over There” caught the opti350
According to the programme, George M. Cohan is responsible for about everything in “Little Johnny Jones.” He wrote the play, he wrote and composed the musical numbers and he enacts the title role and tries to sing some of his own concoctions. He disarmed all suspicion in his brief curtain speech by saying that he did not want anyone to take him seriously, either as actor, author or composer. He delivered his speech, however, from the corner of his mouth, which did not impart a tone of sincerity to his remarks. And, whatever he may say, before the curtain, it is a serious thing—this unloading of a conglomeration like “Little Johnny Jones” upon an innocent and too readily absorbent public. It must be treated seriously. In the first place young Mr. Cohan has done things to the “drama” that would cause even the audacious G. Bernard Shaw to gasp. “Musical comedies” are common, but this is the first known attempt to construct a “musical melodrama.” . . . [T]he result is as weird and “all to the bad” as could be imagined. There is more than a barrelful of plot, and it keeps cropping out in chunks in the middle of alleged music and eccentric dancing in a way to make a sane person hold his throbbing head. Any attempt to describe it would be futile; life is too short. Source: Frederick H. Young, review in the Providence Journal, April 11, 1905.
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Dandy, and more than half a century later that film is still widely viewed through television presentations. The day the motion picture opened in New York City was declared “George M. Cohan Day” by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Eulogizing Cohan, who died in November of 1942, La Guardia noted, “He put the symbols of American life into American music.” All in all, Cohan’s contributions were prodigious. During his career he wrote dozens of plays, of which twenty-eight were musicals. He collaborated on at least forty others and participated in the production of many more. More than five hundred songs are credited to him. More important than his quantity, however, was the quality of his work, as he merged nineteenth century styles, innovating and overseeing the genesis of the modern musical. In recognition of Cohan’s important contributions, the American Guild of Variety Artists decided in 1970 to name its honorary awards Georgies. Perhaps the most appropriate tribute, however, occurred on Broadway itself. George M! (pr. 1968), a flag-waving hit produced by David Black, Konrad Matthaei, and Lorin E. Price, although fairly critical of the old master, employed the very form he helped to create more than sixty years earlier. — Scot M. Guenter Further Reading Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Comedy: From “Adonis” to “Dreamgirls.” 1982. Reprint. Charlotte, N.C.: Replica Books, 2001. Chapter 5, “American Musical Comedy Flexes Its Muscles,” historically contrasts the work of George M. Cohan with imports such as the Gaiety shows from London and operettas such as The Merry Widow from Vienna. Cohan’s success is credited to his dynamic personality and his flag-waving, which coincided with a rise in American nationalism. Cohan, George M. Twenty Years on Broadway. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971. Robust, self-congratulatory, romanticized autobiography. Not the best source for all the details of Cohan’s life, this volume nevertheless nicely conveys the vigor, optimism, ambition, and self-reliance that motivated Cohan and with which he imbued many of his male leads. Heavy use of slang and colloquialisms—as in his plays—establishes him as a true “common man.” Ewen, David. The Story of America’s Musical Theater. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1961. Chapter 4, “Musical Comedy,” credits Cohan with the creation of the American musical. 351
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whole nation was confident of its superiority, its moral virtue, its happy isolation from the intrigues of the old country, from which many of our fathers and grandfathers had migrated.” In 1958, Hammerstein led a successful movement to erect a statue in tribute to Cohan in New York’s Times Square. Critics tend to agree that Cohan’s lasting legacy was the bringing of a distinctly American quality to musical comedy. Important elements of Cohan’s work that helped to capture his cultural moment and to create an “American” style were his use of dialogue, his creation of archetypal heroes based on his own persona, and his unabashed patriotism—which, some argue, crossed the bounds of ethnocentrism in its celebration of perceived American superiority. The true heyday of Cohan’s success in the theater coincided with the expansion of film as recreational entertainment from 1906 through 1910. Early silent films could not adequately convey song-and-dance entertainment; as films began to draw crowds away from live melodrama and comedies, sometimes displacing the very theaters where such works had been performed previously, Cohan solidified the formula of using both strains in his musical productions. Cohan’s heavy use of slang and idiomatic expressions dated his works within twenty years; still, at the time of their origin, these shows conveyed a sense of currency and realism, a spirit of democracy and the common man. The ambitious optimism of his heroes and heroines, their nostalgic appreciation of a home in the countryside, their enjoyment of the entertainment possibilities afforded by urban life, their resolute commitment to Americanism— these were values that theatergoers identified with readily, and they would resurface again and again in American musicals of the twentieth century. The male lead in The Music Man (pr. 1957), for example, displayed many of the qualities of a Cohanesque hero. Oklahoma! (pr. 1943) espoused a love of the land. Guys and Dolls (pr. 1950) affirmed that love triumphs even amid the glitter and temptations of an urban environment and also demonstrated the continuing importance of slang and dialect in American musicals. Candide (pr. 1956) included a pivotal use of scenery—a sheep swimming in the ocean—in the dramatic tradition of the flare in Little Johnny Jones. A popular 1953 song by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, “That’s Entertainment,” paid tribute to Cohan’s penchant for incorporating patriotic pitches into musical production numbers. James Cagney received an Academy Award for his portrayal of Cohan in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle
Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres
Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube Kantor, Michael, and Laurence Maslon. Broadway: The American Musical. New York: Bulfinch, 2004. Comprehensive, lavishly illustrated volume on the history of the Broadway musical. Includes year-by-year list of significant shows, selected bibliography, and maps of the theater district at different periods. Companion book to a six-part PBS series. McCabe, John. George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. Accessible, standard biography on Cohan that conveys his style and substance as an entertainer. Includes well-chosen snippets from a range of his works and useful chronological appendixes of all his New York productions, stage appearances, and plays. Excellent collection of photographs. Index. Morehouse, Ward. George M. Cohan: Prince of the American Theater. 1943. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Early biography originally published soon after Cohan’s death. Morehouse’s personal admiration of the artist comes through; he draws on many personal interviews and has a fine
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 command of both language and details. Eighteen photographs. Appendix with chronology of important dates in Cohan’s life. Riddle, Peter H. The American Musical: History and Development. New York: Mosaic Press, 2004. A detailed exploration of the evolution and development of musical theater in North America. Traces American musical theater from its eighteenth century roots in Europe through its growth in the nineteenth century alongside other popular forms of entertainment. Vallillo, Stephen M. “George M. Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones.” In Musical Theatre in America, edited by Glenn Loney. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. Eloquent and detailed overview of the musical’s innovative debut on Broadway in 1904, with systematic and clear explanation of how the subplots connect to the larger structure of the work. Includes four photographs from the 1904 run. See also: Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot; Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York.
November 16, 1904
Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube John Ambrose Fleming found an application for the Edison effect as a detector for radio waves, starting the electronics industry. Locale: London, England Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945), English physicist and professor of electrical engineering Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American scientist and inventor Summary of Event A number of events occurred in the twenty years before the invention of the vacuum tube by Sir John Ambrose Fleming that are relevant to its development. It is often the case that numerous events that contribute to a discovery are later overlooked or forgotten, and this is especially true with regard to the vacuum tube. Since the mid-1800’s, many scientists had been working with the properties of electricity in glass apparatuses with most of the air removed. Because the concept of the electron had 352
not been formulated, and because the idea that electricity could consist of particles with one two-thousandth the mass of hydrogen was completely foreign, scientists had no obvious way of tying all their observations together and making predictions for systems not yet assembled. At that time, electricity was thought of only as a force and wave phenomenon and not as a particle. Among the earliest notable work leading to the discovery of the vacuum tube was that of AlexandreEdmond Becquerel, who, as early as 1853, had worked out many of the conductivity properties of gases at various temperatures and pressures but could offer no explanation for these properties. Certainly the most important discovery leading to the invention of the vacuum tube was the Edison effect, discovered by Thomas Alva Edison in 1884. While studying why the inner glass surface of a lightbulb (which, during this period, used a carbon thread for the filament) blackened, Edison inserted a metal plate near the filament of one of his lightbulbs. He discovered that electricity would flow from the positive side of the filament to the plate, but not from the negative side to the plate. Like other researchers, he made the observation but offered no explanation.
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effect starting in the early 1880’s, before the days of radio. Many years later, he came up with an application for the Edison effect as a radio detector when he was an electrical consultant for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. Detectors (devices that conduct electricity in one direction but not another, just as diodes do, but at higher frequencies) were required to make the highfrequency radio waves audible by converting them from alternating current to direct current. Several types of detectors were available that relied on chemical reactions, physical actions, and properties of crystals, but they were not overly effective at high frequency. Fleming was able to detect radio waves quite effectively by using the Edison effect. Ironically, he used a device that was essentially identical to the one that Edison patented, but for a different purpose and with a different external circuit: as a radio detector. Indeed, he even had the Edison & Swan Electric Light Company make up twelve units to his specifications for testing. Like Edison, Fleming offered no explanation of how or why his device functioned. Fleming’s device was also essentially identical to, although not as refined as, Wehnelt’s device, except that Wehnelt did not apply his invention to radio waves. Fleming applied for a patent on his device in England on November 16, 1904. He called his device the thermionic valve; thermionic tubes are still called valves in England, whereas the American name is vacuum tube. The latter name reflects the fact that the device requires an internal vacuum in order to operate. In 1906, Lee de Forest refined Fleming’s invention by adding a zigzag piece of wire between the metal plate and the filament of the vacuum tube. The wire was later replaced by a screen called a grid, which allowed a small voltage to control a larger voltage between the filament and plate. It was the first complete vacuum tube and the first device ever constructed that was capable of amplifying a signal—that is, of taking a small voltage signal and making it much larger. De Forest named it the “audion” and was granted a U.S. patent on it in 1907. In 1907-1908, the ships of the U.S. naval fleet carried radios equipped with audions on their goodwill tour around the world. Although de Forest’s audion was useful as an amplifier of weak radio signals, it was not useful at that point for the more powerful signals of telephony. Other developments quickly followed as scientists realized the importance of the emerging fields of radio and telephony. Significance Although it took the world twenty years to understand the significance of the edison effect, it took only a short 353
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Edison had, in fact, invented the first vacuum tube, which was later termed the diode. However, as there was no use for the device at the time, the invention was not recognized for its true significance—it was a discovery much ahead of its time. A diode converts electricity that alternates in direction (alternating current) to electricity that flows in the same direction (direct current). Because Edison was a proponent of producing direct current in generators, he essentially ignored this aspect of his discovery. Like many other inventions and discoveries that are ahead of their time—such as the laser—the Edison effect was for several years “a solution in search of a problem.” The fact that the amount of electricity was proportional to the intensity of the filament, however, made it potentially useful as a control device for electric generators, and Edison was granted a patent on October, 1884, for this use of the Edison effect. He did not patent the use of his device as a diode. The explanation for why this phenomenon occurred would not come until after Sir Joseph John Thomson’s discovery of the electron in 1897. In retrospect, the Edison effect can be identified as one of the first observations of thermionic emission—that is, the “boiling off ” of electrons from hot surfaces. Electrons were attracted to the positive charges and collected on the positively charged plate, thus providing current, but they were repelled from the plate when it was made negative, and no current was produced. Because current flowed in only one direction, the effect was compared to a check valve used to allow a liquid to flow in only one direction. This analogy followed the popular practice of using the behavior of water as an analogy for electricity, and it is the reason the term “valves” became popular for vacuum tubes. Another interesting invention related to the vacuum tube was developed by Arthur Wehnelt, who was working with thermionic emission. On January 15, 1904, Wehnelt applied for a German patent on one of his tubes that converted alternating current into direct current. He did not mention its use at high frequency (that is, for radio waves), but only for low-frequency, powergeneration applications such as charging storage batteries. He was the first to apply for a patent for a vacuum tube that had an application for the rectification of alternating current to direct current. Unfortunately, as Wehnelt did not mention the applicability of his device for detection of radio waves, he was unable to sell it for use in radio sets after Fleming applied for his patent, although it was quite suitable for application in radio sets. Fleming, acting as adviser to the Edison Electric Light Company, had studied the lightbulb and the Edison
Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube
Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube time after that to develop the electronics industry, which was especially pushed by the need for communications during World War I. With many industrial laboratories working on vacuum tubes, improvements came quickly. For example, tantalum and tungsten filaments quickly replaced the early carbon filaments. In 1904, Wehnelt discovered that if metals were coated with certain materials, such as metal oxides, they emitted far more electrons at a given temperature. These materials have a lower “work function”; that is, electrons escape the surfaces of the metal oxides more easily than they escape the surfaces of metals. An analogy is the greater ease of pumping water from a shallow well compared with a very deep well. Later work by Bell Telephone Laboratories showed that oxides of barium or strontium are particularly effective; all vacuum tubes soon used these coatings, which increased thermionic emission and, therefore, tube efficiencies by a factor of one hundred. Another important improvement in the vacuum tube came with the work of Irving Langmuir of the General Electric Research Laboratory starting in 1909 and Harold D. Arnold of Bell Telephone Laboratories. They used new techniques such as the mercury diffusion pump to achieve higher vacuums. Original tubes had about one ten-thousandth the pressure of atmosphere, whereas new techniques introduced after 1910 allowed vacuums below one-millionth atmospheric pressure. Working independently, Langmuir and Arnold discovered that very high vacuum used with higher voltages increased the power these tubes could handle from small fractions of a watt to hundreds of watts. The de Forest tube was now useful for the higher-power audio signals of telephone. This resulted in the first trans-American speech transmission in 1914, followed by the first transatlantic speech transmission in 1915. In 1916, a long-standing conflict between the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, owner of the Fleming patent, and the de Forest Radio Company came to an end when a U.S. district court ruled that the de Forest audion, when used in any aspect of radio, violated the Fleming patent, although the audion could be used for telephony purposes. This gave Marconi a virtual monopoly in radio. In 1919, the domestically owned Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was formed to buy out the foreign-owned Marconi Company because radio was so important to national security in the United States. Over time, vacuum tubes became increasingly complicated, with additions of a second grid to produce the oscillation tube to accomplish the complicated purposes of future inventions. Vacuum tubes made the develop354
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ment of television, radar, radio, and numerous other inventions possible. From 1945 to 1950, vacuum tube sales in the United States exceeded two hundred million dollars each year. The invention of the transistor in 1947 by William Shockley, Walter H. Brattain, and John Bardeen ultimately led to the downfall of the tube. With the exception of cathode-ray tubes, such as those used in television picture tubes, transistors could accomplish the jobs of nearly all vacuum tubes much more efficiently. Also, the development of the integrated circuit allowed the creation of small, efficient, highly complex devices that would be impossible to duplicate with radio tubes. By 1977, the major producers of vacuum tubes had all ceased production. —Christopher J. Biermann Further Reading Bowen, Harold G. The Edison Effect. West Orange, N.J.: Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, 1951. A wellwritten, captivating account of the development of the vacuum tube. Accessible to the layperson. Fleming, John A. A Handbook for the Electrical Laboratory and Testing Room. 2 vols. London: “The Electrician” Printing and Publishing, 1901-1903. This laboratory manual is useful in that it illustrates the state of the art at the time the vacuum tube was invented. Although technical for its time, mostly in terms of equipment, it presents underlying theory that should be accessible for anyone who has had an introductory physics course. _______. The Thermionic Valve and Its Development in Radio-Telegraphy and Telephony. 2d ed. London: Wireless Press, 1924. The inventor of the first vacuum tube presents the history, development, and use of vacuum tubes in the early days. Some parts are very technical, others historical. Includes many figures and photographs. Hong, Sungook. Wireless: From Marconi’s Black-Box to the Audion. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Draws on archival evidence and recent work in the history of technology to provide a new perspective on the early days of wireless communication. Offers new insights into the relationship between Guglielmo Marconi and Fleming, who was his scientific adviser. Concludes with a discussion of de Forest’s audion and the shift from wireless telegraphy to radio. Stokes, John W. Seventy Years of Radio Tubes and Valves. Vestal, N.Y.: Vestal Press, 1982. A practical description of vacuum tubes from the earliest to those
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the 1960’s. Identifies tubes by manufacturer, type, and physical description, and includes hundreds of photographs. Very useful for collectors. Tyne, Gerald F. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube. Indianapolis: Howard W. Sams, 1977. Comprehensive volume on the development of the vacuum tube including relevant observations of the 1700’s, 1800’s, and early 1900’s about the properties of electricity, the development of vacuum technology, and other related stud-
Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut ies. Includes illustrations of the first vacuum tubes and vacuum pumps as well as reproductions of pages from laboratory notebooks. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins.
December 26, 1904
Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut Audiences were startled and inspired by Isadora Duncan’s first performance in Russia, in which she introduced a unique style of movement danced to the music of Frédéric Chopin. Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Categories: Dance; music Key Figures Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), American dancer Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario who created and directed the Ballets Russes
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Summary of Event By 1904, Isadora Duncan was a riveting one-woman revolution in Europe in the art of the dance. Shamelessly rejecting traditional ballet, she shocked many conservative observers. Her style of movement, choice of music, scandalously scanty costume, and theories on dance, which she readily expounded, made her an object of acute interest. Her first performance in Russia in December, 1904, was no different. She startled and inspired those who witnessed her innovative program of dances to the music of Frédéric Chopin, including dancer-choreographer Michel Fokine and impresario Sergei Diaghilev. With these performances, Duncan emerged as a symbol of a new dance form in Russia, just as she was becoming in the West. Since first sailing from New York to London in 1899, Duncan had toured extensively in Europe. In each new place, she shared her theories of expressive dance and “natural” movement (as opposed to the “artificial” posturings of ballet) with initially intrigued and then adoring audiences. Her range of influence across Europe
among the artistic and cultural elite was broad, as is evidenced by the prolific responses of critics and the fact that the concert halls in which she appeared were typically sold out for her performances. Indeed, her Russian debut on December 26 was met with such acclaim by St. Petersburg audiences that a second performance was added three days later. Her arrival in St. Petersburg on the morning of December 25 followed a tearful parting from her new love interest, actor and stage designer Gordon Craig. Duncan and Craig had met earlier that month following one of her performances in Berlin. Instantly they discovered in each other a passionate soul mate, and for Duncan, separation from Craig on this Russian trip was torture. Nevertheless, she managed to rally enough to give an impressive performance. Her concert, which took place in the elegant Salle des Nobles (Hall of Nobles), was a benefit for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Hosted by Grand Duchess Olga, sister of the czar, the event was assured patronage by St. Petersburg’s artistic, intellectual, and social aristocracy. In addition, news of Duncan’s astonishing dance had traveled to Russia through published reviews and word of mouth, prompting attendance by a flood of curious theatergoers. Tickets for Duncan’s debut performance quickly sold out. Her surprising use of movement, music, and stage decor immediately captured the attention of her audience. What she termed “natural impulses” formed the basis of her dance, as she intently explored the gestures and movements that accompany various human emotions. For Duncan, dance was an art of personal expression, free from the formalized technique and stereotypical theatrics that were common in ballet. Like many of her contemporaries, she turned to the literature and art of ancient
Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut Greece for clues to this “natural” movement. She rediscovered such unastonishing activities as running, skipping, and making modest leaps, and her uplifting gestures and expressive face and hands transformed the simple into the heroic. Also startling was her choice of accompaniment, which included the classical music of Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven and the operas of Richard Wagner and Christoph Gluck. For the St. Petersburg performance, she chose the mazurkas, polonaises, nocturnes, and waltzes of Chopin. Her daring use of classical compositions caused outrage among some viewers, who found her appropriation of such music to be improper, but Duncan’s use of and deep respect for this music revealed her artistry as well as her ambition. Interpreting music, instead of employing it as an accessory to the dance, was a concept unique to Duncan and foreign to the Russians (although Fokine was beginning to think along the same lines). Duncan’s dancing provided an additional dimension to the music’s rhythm as she used its phrasing to help structure her movements. For example, a decrescendo in the music might be accompanied by a fall to the floor. Repeated dance movements would correspond with repeated musical phrases. Duncan’s new form of dance and its relationship to music clearly distinguished her from other dancers of the day. Another distinguishing feature was her choice of decor. Her stage decorations consisted of simple blue curtains that traveled with her from stage to stage. Her costume was a flowing, transparent Grecian-style tunic that had a tendency to slip off one shoulder; gone were constricting corsets and stockings. She danced in sandals or barefoot, with bare legs, on a blue carpet. Audiences responded to Duncan’s singular expressiveness, which was all the more apparent because of her exposed arms, legs, and feet. Like her movement, her revealing tunic pointedly contrasted with the tights, toe shoes, and full-length dresses of her ballet counterparts. Duncan’s style of dress reflected her personal philosophy of life, which was as revolutionary as her style of dance. She lived by her own rules, constantly seeking freedom from convention and restricting traditions (as is apparent by her early avoidance of marriage and the birth of her children out of wedlock). Observers were quick to say, however, that her dancing was not offensive or sexual. One Russian critic rationalized Duncan’s physicality in this way: “This is not a nudité that arouses sinful thoughts but rather a kind of incorporeal nudity.” Duncan’s dancing was thus relegated to a spiritual, even ethereal, realm. 356
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Most viewers were enthusiastic about her performances, although some questioned her copying of “Greek” poses or found her dancing monotonous. Even more controversial, Duncan embodied an ongoing argument between tradition and change. She represented a challenge to the sacred and idealized ballet world by presenting an alternative dance form. This challenge had long-lasting repercussions. On the whole, however, Duncan’s first performance in Russia was met with loud applause. So successful was this concert and her encore on December 29 that she was invited to return to St. Petersburg and to appear in Moscow the following February. Diaghilev later summarized the significance of her success: “Isadora gave an irreparable jolt to the classic ballet of Imperial Russia.” This jolt would be felt intensely. Significance A critic who watched Duncan’s interpretations of Chopin’s music at her first St. Petersburg performance declared that she made a “shocking” first impression. With each step, however, he found the shock diminishing: “As Mme. Duncan became alive and began to dance, the first impression faded away. Before us was not a woman creating a sensation. Before us was an artist.” Duncan herself realized the phenomenon she was creating. She later recalled her Russian debut in her 1927 autobiography, My Life: How strange it must have been to those dilettantes of the gorgeous Ballet, with its lavish decorations and scenery, to watch a young girl, clothed in a tunic of cobweb, appear and dance before a simple blue curtain to the music of Chopin; dance her soul as she understood the soul of Chopin!
Certainly, her choices of movement, music, and decor were unusual for the time, as was such an outward display of one’s innermost soul. In fact, Duncan’s dance represented a dramatic departure from traditional dance of the day, dominated in European theaters by the Romantic, if formalized, ballet. It must have been strange for the Russian audience, indeed. Classical ballet was particularly entrenched in Russian society, where the Franco-Italian traditions of the Russian Imperial Ballet were safeguarded by venerated dance master Marius Petipa, and the czars paid dearly for extravagant productions of ballets such as The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. When Duncan arrived, the Imperial Ballet, in its famed Mariinsky Theatre (now the Kirov), boasted such stars as Fokine, Anna Pavlova,
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Isadora Duncan. (Library of Congress)
the twenty-five-year-old Fokine was a rising young dancer in the Imperial Ballet with an agenda for change of his own. Whereas Duncan was a revolutionary in her attempts to abandon the ballet, however, Fokine wanted to reform it. The same year that Duncan jolted Russian society, Fokine wrote his famous manifesto to the Imperial Ballet inveighing against artificiality and unquestioned tradition. He maintained that dancing should be interpretive rather than merely mimetic and that its expressive and rhythmic qualities should be glorified. The similarity between Fokine’s thinking and Duncan’s is evident. Although Fokine had not seen Duncan perform before he wrote his manifesto, it is probable that he had read of her theories or lectures as early as 1902 (the date of Duncan’s first public solo appearance in Europe). The extent to which Fokine’s initial dissatisfaction with the ballet was stimulated by what he read about Duncan prior to seeing her, however, cannot be determined. Even if Fokine arrived at his suggestions without awareness of Duncan’s work, her Russian performances certainly paved the way for the reforms he advocated. Duncan’s new style of dance psychologically prepared audiences and artistic authorities for Fokine’s desired changes. Before Duncan’s December engagement, Imperial Ballet directors had not even bothered to answer Fokine’s letter. Soon afterward, Fokine was allowed to present his first choreographic works, among them several that surely reflected Duncan’s influence: Les Sylphides (1909; originally called Chopiniana), with music by Chopin, and Acis et Galatée (1905), with a Greek theme. His Carnival (1910), without a literary subject, and Cleopâtre (1909), also with a Greek theme, seemed to be directly influenced by Duncan as well. In his choreography, Fokine utilized music that had not been originally composed for dance, and he incorporated free, expressive movement that was clearly reminiscent of Duncan. In 1907, Fokine presented his ballet Eunice, which dancer Tamara Platonovna Karsavina called a tribute to Duncan because of its Greek theme. (Even then, dancers were not permitted to dance barefoot as Fokine wished. Instead, they penciled in ten toes over their pink tights.) A Russian critic wrote in 1912 that “Fokine was the first independent propagator of these [Duncan’s] principles on a wider scene. Fokine’s Eunice not only does not move away from Duncanism, but indeed bears manifest traces of it.” Diaghilev, creator and director of the legendary company the Ballets Russes, whose innovative performances and extensive tours had helped to revive the art of ballet, 357
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Mathilde Kschessinska, and Tamara Platonovna Karsavina. Vaslav Nijinsky would appear shortly thereafter. Closely connected with the ballet were painters Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois, as well as producer Sergei Diaghilev. The courageous Isadora made her debut in Russia against this backdrop of popular talent and established art. Her simple, expressive movements stood in sharp contrast to the acrobatic feats, pirouettes, and toe dancing of the Imperial Ballet’s stars. Undoubtedly, the revelation that such simple movement could be powerful influenced Fokine and Diaghilev. Also influential was Duncan’s choice of music. Russian audiences were accustomed to seeing evening-long spectacles performed to music made to order for the dance—literally measure for measure—by Léo Delibes, Ludwig Minkus, or Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. Duncan presented a new option and a new theory: that dance and orchestral, symphonic, or operatic music could exist side by side. Fokine and Diaghilev’s later productions clearly reflected this new outlook. At the time of Duncan’s first Russian performance,
Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut
Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut agreed that Duncan’s influence was significant in Fokine’s reforms and his own later theatrical experiments. Moreover, observer and writer Prince Peter Lieven credited Duncan with inspiring a new spirit in the Russian ballet: “The beginning of the new outlook must be ascribed to Isadora Duncan. She was the first to dance the music and not to dance to the music. She altered the whole direction of the dance.” Duncan’s new form of movement juxtaposed to classical music, her theory that dance is an art of self-expression, and her refreshing sense of simplicity in design made her a front-runner in the revolution that was soon to be called modern dance. She dramatically set the stage for its next pioneers, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Duncan’s sweeping impact on the art and attitudes of a changing society, along with her direct influence on Fokine and Diaghilev, are significant legacies. Her vital performances, including the one in St. Petersburg’s elegant Salle des Nobles, cast new light on an art form that would never again be the same. —Alecia C. Townsend Further Reading Blair, Fredrika. Isadora: Portrait of the Artist as a Woman. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986. A readable biography that represents thorough scholarship on Duncan. Blair places Duncan’s debut in Russia in 1904, unlike previous accounts that use the date 1905 or later. Chronicles Duncan’s life, work, and loves and also provides a social and historical framework for her dance and range of influence. Contains extensive notes and bibliography. Daly, Ann. Done into Dance: Isadora Duncan in America. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. Daly examines Duncan’s international fame as well as her profound influence on a generation of American women. Includes black-and-white photographs. Duncan, Irma, and Allan Ross MacDougall. Isadora Duncan’s Russian Days. London: Victor Gollancz, 1929. Cowritten by one of Duncan’s adopted daughters, this lengthy book focuses on Duncan’s life in
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Russia in the 1920’s. The dancer had hoped to begin a school in postrevolutionary Russia but instead met with political turmoil and opposition to her ideas. Duncan, Isadora. My Life. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927. Duncan’s autobiography, released after her tragic death by strangulation in 1927, provides revealing and intimate description of her thoughts, theories, and love affairs. Some dates and events are obscured through recollection and may have been edited, but the whole offers valuable insight into the dancer’s personality and purpose. MacDougall, Allan Ross. Isadora: A Revolutionary in Art and Love. Edinburg, N.Y.: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1960. The author, once Duncan’s secretary, writes an inspiring biography. He offers the date 1905 for Duncan’s first visit to Russia, moving it up from previously accepted accounts that set the event in 1907 or 1908. MacDougall places her performance in historical context and aptly describes her legacy. Roseman, Janet Lynn. Dance Was Her Religion: The Spiritual Choreography of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Martha Graham. Prescott, Ariz.: Hohm Press, 2004. This book explores the pioneering approaches to spiritual choreography of the three women named in the title, all of whom believed in the sacred and liberating aspects of dance. Includes quotes about and interviews with the subjects. Seroff, Victor. The Real Isadora. New York: Dial Press, 1971. A lengthy and detailed biography that includes an interesting account of Duncan’s Russian performances (although this author places her Russian debut in 1905, immediately following the tragic “Bloody Sunday”). Includes captivating photos of Duncan, her pupils, and her lovers. See also: Dec. 22, 1907: Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan; May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens; July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres.
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Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival
December 27, 1904
Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival After years of discussion, planning, and performing at other venues, several writers and actors dedicated to both art and Ireland founded the Abbey Theatre. Locale: Dublin, Ireland Category: Theater Key Figures William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and playwright Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932), Irish patron of the arts, author, and collector of folklore John Millington Synge (1871-1909), Irish playwright Annie Horniman (1860-1937), English patron of the Abbey Theatre William George Fay (1872-1947), Irish actor and manager of acting companies Frank J. Fay (1870-1931), Irish accounting clerk and authority on acting
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Summary of Event On December 27, 1904, the Abbey Theatre opened its doors in Dublin, Ireland. The event was the culmination of years of discussions and dreams and was, for many, the capstone of what has come to be called the Celtic Revival. That movement, which included not only artistic but also political, social, economic, and even athletic aspects, saw persons of various faiths and backgrounds attempt to establish an Irish identity separate from the English civilization that seemed to them to be destroying Irish culture and thus Ireland itself. The Celtic Revival was broad based and complex, and the establishment of a theater that would produce Irish drama was one of the movement’s primary goals. The founding of the Abbey Theatre seemed to fulfill that aim. The theater itself was less than ideal. In the past, the location had been the site of various buildings, including one that had served as a morgue. There had been recent renovations, but the result was not imposing. The small theater seated slightly more than five hundred persons, and the stage was so shallow that actors who needed to exit from one side of the stage and enter later from the other side had to pass along an outside lane at the back. The theater was near the River Liffey, but on the north bank, the less fashionable side of the river. Originally the site of a medieval abbey, the area had become Lower Abbey Street; from the abbey and the street, the Abbey Theatre took its name.
The two plays that opened the Abbey Theatre were On Baile’s Strand, a verse play by William Butler Yeats, and Lady Augusta Gregory’s comedy Spreading the News. Dublin newspapers of all political persuasions praised the opening of the theater and the productions, and it was appropriate that the first plays presented were by Yeats and Lady Gregory, since both had played major roles in establishing the theater. Yeats, already a famous poet, had been fascinated with the social and artistic possibilities of the stage for many years, particularly in portraying Irish subject matter. In 1899, his The Countess Cathleen (pb. 1892) inaugurated the Irish Literary Theatre, and in 1902 Maud Gonne, Yeats’s unrequited love who was noted for her anti-English opinions, played the title role in his Cathleen ni Houlihan. Lady Gregory, like Yeats, was from the Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy class and had long been interested in Irish folklore. At Coole Park, her estate in the west of Ireland, she had brought together at various times Yeats, John Millington Synge, George William Russell (known as Æ), Edward Martyn, Douglas Hyde, and others committed to restoring Ireland’s past glories through such means as fostering the Irish language, discovering and saving the folktales of Irish peasants, and rewriting the myths of heroic Ireland. Yeats and Lady Gregory were not alone; George Moore and Edward Martyn were also committed to the idea of an Irish theater. All four had been founders of the Irish Literary Theatre, which had been established with the aim of producing Celtic or Irish drama. Martyn, a wealthy Irish Catholic, was inspired by the plays of Henrik Ibsen, whose Norway stood in the same subordinate relationship to Denmark as Ireland did to England. Moore, a versatile man of letters, was also an Irish Catholic. He had spent much of his literary career in London and on the Continent. Neither man, however, played any direct role in the founding of the Abbey Theatre. Personal and artistic considerations—Yeats argued that Martyn’s dramas were not sufficiently artistic and that Moore’s style lacked poetic quality, whereas Martyn feared that Yeats’s Celtic mythic dramas bordered on being anti-Catholic—led Martyn and Moore to part company with Lady Gregory and Yeats. After three years, the Irish Literary Theatre disbanded. The Abbey Theatre is often considered a writer’s theater. Not only Yeats but also Synge and, later, Sean O’Casey were publicly associated with the fortunes of
Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival the Abbey. Actors, however, were equally influential; stage drama is not only the play but also the performance. In the founding of the Abbey, brothers Frank J. Fay and William George Fay played major roles. Unlike their literary colleagues, the Fays had little formal education. Both, however, had a love of the theater. Frank, the eldest, was an accounting clerk by profession who through self-study became an authority on speech and acting styles. A part-time drama critic, in 1901 he urged the creation of a national theater using Irish actors. For many years, W. G. Fay had toured with small companies throughout the British Isles, and although he had a talent for comedy, he never had much success. Returning to Dublin, he and Frank founded several amateur acting groups. In 1902, the Fays joined with Yeats in producing his Cathleen ni Houlihan and Æ’s Deirdre. The Irish National Theatre Society was established in early 1903. Yeats became president and Russell, Hyde, and Gonne were vice presidents. W. G. Fay was the stage manager, and the Fays and the other actors were given a say in the running of the society, including which plays were to be produced. In May, 1903, the as-yet-obscure company put on several plays in London to the praises of English critics. In October, 1903, Synge’s In the Shadow of the Glen made its debut in controversy. Arthur Griffith, the founder of the Irish nationalist movement Sinn Féin, criticized the play as a slander on the Irish peasants and thus a slander on Ireland itself. During the first performance, Maud Gonne and several others walked out; art and patriotism were not inevitably compatible. One of the difficulties faced by the Irish National Theatre Society was the lack of a suitable playhouse. Between 1899 and 1903, Yeats and his fellow writers and the Fays and their amateur actors had resorted to at least six different Dublin halls. Having their own theater seemed a necessity; ironically, the group attained a playhouse through the financial support of an Englishwoman who loathed politics, particularly Irish politics. A member of a wealthy family, Annie Horniman had known Yeats for many years and was dedicated to furthering his art. In 1902, she told Yeats that she might finance a theater in Dublin if her economic circumstances warranted it. In early 1904, Horniman acted. She acquired a ninetynine-year lease, paid for the remodeling herself, and in April turned over to Yeats, as president of the Irish National Theatre Society, free use of the theater. A license was obtained, and the society was warned against producing anything immoral, antireligious, or highly political. On December 27, 1904, the Abbey Theatre opened. The dream had become a reality. 360
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Dublin critics praised the opening-night productions at the Abbey Theatre. After a performance several nights later, however, an observer noted that there were fewer than fifty persons in the theater. It was several months before the Abbey again saw a capacity audience, and then it was not for a play by Yeats, Lady Gregory, or Synge, but for a less demanding and more accessible drama by William Boyle, The Building Fund. The play lacked the artistic metaphors and complicated language of Yeats and Synge, but the audience came in greater numbers. Attendance continued to be sparse throughout the remainder of 1905. One reason was that Horniman had placed a requirement in her gift that there be no cheap seats in the Abbey—she believed that true art was primarily the province of the upper classes. Horniman was committed to Yeats and to art, but her definition of art did not include Irish cultural concerns. Yeats, while totally dedicated to art—one of his criticisms of Martyn’s plays was that they were not art—disagreed with Horniman about Ireland. In his commitment to the drama as an art form, Yeats saw his Irish theater as emulating, and not only in literary form, the drama of ancient Greece. There—and, Yeats hoped, in modern Ireland—individuals brought together in the common environment of the theater would collectively absorb the mythic history from their common past and experience a spiritual regeneration. In addition, Richard Wagner’s evocation of the Germanic heroic past in his operas served as a kind of paradigm for Yeats. Lady Gregory, whose interest was in the Irish folklore of the peasants of western Ireland, was less knowledgeable about continental drama, past and present. Her plays, unlike the mythic histories of Yeats, were primarily comedies. Still, she and Yeats worked well together. Synge was the other major literary figure of the early Abbey years. He spent much time in the west of Ireland, particularly in the Aran Islands, and the results were a number of dramas, culminating in The Playboy of the Western World, which was first produced at the Abbey Theatre in 1907. Synge’s plays were rooted in present and peasant Ireland, not in the heroic Celtic past of Yeats, and his plays were not always initially well received. When The Playboy of the Western World was first performed, many members of the audience vociferously objected to a play in which an Irishman could claim to murder his father and thus become a hero, and that a character in the play could refer to a woman’s “shift” (an undergarment) was regarded as an unacceptable slur on female chastity. Yeats was not present at the first performance of The
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doubted the importance, for good or perhaps ill, of Irish drama. In one of his later poems, “The Man and the Echo,” written after the Easter Rising of 1916 in reference to his play Cathleen ni Houlihan, he wrote: “I lie awake night after night/ And never get the answers right./ Did that play of mine send out/ Certain men the English shot?” — Eugene Larson Further Reading Ellmann, Richard. Yeats: The Man and the Masks. 1948. Reprint. New York: Macmillan, 1999. One of the most important studies of Yeats’s life and career available, by an author who also produced biographies of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde. Fay, Gerard. The Abbey Theatre. New York: Macmillan, 1958. The author, the son of Frank Fay, tells of the contributions of his father and his uncle to the establishment of the Abbey. Balances the traditional interpretation that the Abbey was solely the creation of the playwrights. Fitz-Simon, Christopher. The Abbey Theatre: Ireland’s National Theatre—The First Hundred Years. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003. Tribute volume from a former Abbey Theatre artistic director and literary manager, published on the occasion of the Abbey’s centennial. Highly illustrated, with production photographs of many of the plays produced at the Abbey as well as reproductions of posters and newspaper articles from the theater’s early years. Flannery, James W. W. B. Yeats and the Idea of a Theatre. Toronto: Macmillan, 1976. This excellent study traces Yeats’s long interest in the drama. Unlike some critics, the author takes seriously Yeats’s commitment to the art of the drama. Hunt, Hugh. The Abbey: Ireland’s National Theatre, 1904-1978. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. Authorized by the directors of the Irish National Theatre Society. An excellent summary of the first seventy-five years of the Abbey Theatre. Includes a list of all the Abbey productions. Kohfeldt, Mary Lou. Lady Gregory: The Woman Behind the Irish Renaissance. New York: Atheneum, 1985. A well-written account of Lady Gregory, her contribution to the Abbey Theatre, and her relationships with the major figures of the Celtic Revival. Mikhail, E. H., ed. The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections. London: Macmillan, 1988. An excellent summary of the remembrances of many important figures in the history of the Abbey Theatre from the earliest days to the 1980’s. 361
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Playboy of the Western World, but he soon returned to Dublin. In a famous incident on the Abbey stage, he defended Synge and his play and condemned the audience for its intolerance. Yeats repeated the act years later, in 1926, after another Abbey audience hissed the first production of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. Yeats’s art was not necessarily that of either Synge or O’Casey, but he defended their works against widespread audience disapproval whether on patriotic, religious, or moral grounds. For Yeats, Lady Gregory, and Synge, the Abbey Theatre combined both art and Irish culture, and outside forces would not be allowed to dictate what would be presented, or not presented, on the Abbey stage. Predictably, however, in 1906 the majority, including the actors, lost the right to decide what plays were produced at the Abbey. The sole criterion was to be that a play be good art, and Yeats and his literary colleagues would make the decisions. The Fays and Horniman soon terminated their relationship with the Abbey. The former were interested in bringing and keeping an audience; they were less concerned about a policy of art for art’s sake. In 1908, the Fays left the Abbey and its literary directors. Horniman’s continued funding kept the Abbey doors open for the first several years, but in 1910 Horniman finally abandoned her commitment to the Abbey and sold her rights to Yeats and Lady Gregory. In both cases, the separation was bitter. The Abbey’s reputation for excellence and controversy continued. Yeats himself remained active in Abbey affairs as new actors and playwrights stepped onto the stage, most notably Sean O’Casey. Synge died in 1909, Lady Gregory in 1932. Yeats survived until 1939. The decline and fall of the Abbey Theatre was predicted numerous times, but, like the legendary phoenix, it always sprang again from the ashes, literally so after the theater burned in 1951. In 1924, the Abbey became the first state-subsidized theater in the English-speaking world. Through the years, many non-Irish works were produced there, including plays by William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Eugene O’Neill, Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Tom Stoppard. The Abbey retained its Irish roots, however, not only in the many revivals of plays by Yeats, Gregory, Synge, and O’Casey, but also in works by George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, and Brian Friel. The Abbey also remained an actors’ theater; the Fays were followed through the years by Barry Fitzgerald, Siobhan McKenna, and Cyril Cusack. If the Abbey did not entirely fulfill Yeats’s intentions, he never
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Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard Welch, Robert. The Abbey Theatre, 1899-1999: Form and Pressure. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. History of the theater places the personalities involved and the plays produced in political and historical context. Presents synopses of the major plays produced at the Abbey as well as information on the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 theater’s artistic directors over the years. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Jan. 26, 1907: The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences; 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole.
1905
Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard George Pierce Baker, a teacher and writer, opened his celebrated 47 Workshop, a forum for aspiring playwrights that became an important creative incubator for modern American drama. Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Theater; literature Key Figures George Pierce Baker (1866-1935), writer, editor, and Harvard University scholar Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), dramatist and Baker’s most important student in the 47 Workshop Edward Sheldon (1886-1946), dramatist and collaborator whose play The Nigger created a furor because of its thematic focus on miscegenation Philip Barry (1896-1949), playwright best known for his comedies dealing with society’s upper crust S. N. Behrman (1893-1973), writer of plays, film scripts, and short fiction known largely for his comedies of ideas John Mason Brown (1900-1969), drama critic, lecturer, essayist, and war correspondent who wrote influential critical essays on theater John Dos Passos (1896-1970), novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright remembered principally for his fiction Sidney Howard (1891-1939), playwright critically praised for his dramas of social realism Robert E. Sherwood (1896-1955), playwright, critic, and biographer Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938), writer of fiction and plays best known for his sprawling novels Summary of Event In 1905, George Pierce Baker, a professor of English and forensics at Harvard University (from which he had graduated in 1887), began offering a course in dramatic composition. The course, English 47, was first offered at 362
Radcliffe College and was added to the curriculum at Harvard College two years later, a change that was considered by many to be a minor miracle. Higher education at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially in private colleges, remained rather rigidly classical, and the idea that the teaching of playwriting had a proper place in the halls of academe was anathema to some of Harvard’s more traditional administrators. Had Baker not already established a reputation as a fine scholar and teacher and as the inspirational force behind Harvard’s formidable debating teams, he most certainly would not have been allowed to try his unusual experiment. As it was, he had to make concessions, including the noncredit, extracurricular status of the 47 Workshop, which he added to the basic drama writing course in 1913. Although Baker advanced his theory of dramatic composition in the course, its success ultimately depended on the practical application of that theory, which became the crux of the 47 Workshop. To some of his befuddled colleagues, Baker’s evolving method seemed to have more in common with laboratory courses in science than with typical courses in literature or drama, which conventionally took a historical approach. Baker insisted that his students prepare plays for the stage, an insistence that stemmed from the strong conviction that a play’s text was not a play until it was transformed into a live production utilizing the skills of various interpretive artists. Baker was a tough-minded and pragmatic man who was conversant with both stagecraft and the realities of commercial theater. He required that his students write for actual audiences, not for a literate elite prone to favor poetic dramas that would never be produced. Among other things, he preached the idea that dramatic characters talk and act like real people. Thus, from its beginnings, English 47 involved both readings and performances of student works, initially in the theater at Agassiz House on the Radcliffe College campus. There,
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Howard, and Robert E. Sherwood. Others who studied under Baker earned their fame in other genres, notably fiction, including novelists Rachel Field, John Dos Passos, and Thomas Wolfe (who would later caricature Baker as Professor Hatcher in his 1935 novel Of Time and the River). Other important students from English 47 or the 47 Workshop would gain renown as critics, journalists, teachers, editors, essayists, or associates of the theater, including Robert Benchley, Van Wyck Brooks, John Mason Brown, Walter Pritchard Eaton, Theresa Helburn, Robert Edmond Jones, Frederick H. Koch, Kenneth Macgowan, Hiram Moderwell, Lee Simonson, John V. A. Weaver, and Maurice Wetheim. Many of Baker’s students, most notably O’Neill, came into prominence in the 1920’s, when the American theater itself finally came of age. Despite Baker’s great success, Harvard never became entirely hospitable toward his program, and he left for a more promising arrangement at Yale University. There, with a fully equipped theater donated by Edward S. Harkness, he taught playwriting, dramatic criticism, and courses in technical theater to, among others, Elia Kazan, the eminent director and cofounder of the famous Actors Studio. Before his death in 1935, he helped to establish the growing reputation of Yale’s highly regarded graduate school of drama. Significance In a letter written to The New York Times shortly after Baker’s death, Eugene O’Neill credited his teacher and mentor with having been one of the prime movers in bringing the American theater out of its “dark age,” claiming that his influence “toward the encouragement and birth of modern American drama” was “profound.” That praise, coming from the first great American dramatist, himself a major force in maturing the national drama, emphatically stated what O’Neill and other students of Baker knew was true: that Baker had been an extremely important catalyst in the process. Before World War I, despite some promising exceptions, theatrical productions in the United States lacked vigor and freshness and, at least in their play texts, revealed few sparks of true creative genius. Although realism in theater had been advocated by various writers, notably William Dean Howells, it had made slow progress in the face of the popularity of melodramas, with their outlandish, contrived plots, artificial language, and simplistic morality. For new writers wishing to experiment, the commercial theater was, as O’Neill noted, a “closed shop.” It was dominated by star actors and actresses who, 363
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Baker’s students were afforded the valuable opportunity of seeing their plays performed by fellow students, providing an important test of the works’ stageability. Baker’s 47 Workshop, the English 47 laboratory, was to become highly selective in its enrollment. It was typically not even open to the younger undergraduate student body, because Baker believed that typical baccalaureate students had too little life experience to write with understanding or conviction. He preferred to enroll students who had either already graduated or had worked for a living, or who, like Eugene O’Neill, his most celebrated student, had roamed for several years. Prospective students were also required to submit plays and to earn their seats by virtue of their writing promise. Baker would then make his selection from among the writers of the best submitted works. The workshop was also limited to twelve students, which enabled Baker to give each of his writers a great deal of individual attention. In addition, a few volunteers from outside the university audited the workshop sessions and attended the stagings, which they critiqued in writing and discussed with Baker and his student playwrights. Thus, in this invaluable practicum, the aspiring playwright could write and revise works under Baker’s guiding hand, then stage them and have them reviewed by qualified critical jurors. Because Baker’s students had to prepare their works for performance and participate in their staging, they also had to learn the essentials of various theater arts, including acting, scene design, lighting, and costuming. In this way, the 47 Workshop was a course in theater arts. Within three years of its inception, admission to English 47, the parent course of the 47 Workshop, became intensely competitive. Edward Sheldon’s Salvation Nell (pr. 1908), which was written while Sheldon was Baker’s student, partly accounted for its growing appeal. Sheldon’s play had a very successful commercial staging starring the popular and progressive actress Minnie Fiske. Sheldon’s next work, The Nigger (pr. 1909), had a daring and controversial plot that brought some helpful notoriety to Baker’s Harvard program; by the time the 47 Workshop was added, Baker’s program had become a principal enticement for several students enrolling at the school. Some of these, notably O’Neill, went to Harvard solely to learn the craft of playwriting or to become better at it. Before leaving Harvard in 1925, Baker nurtured the writing and critical acumen of dozens of important figures in American belles lettres. In addition to Sheldon and O’Neill, Baker’s graduates included playwrights George Abbot, Philip Barry, S. N. Behrman, Sidney
Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard
Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard often with their own traveling troupes, engaged in what O’Neill derided as the “amusement racket.” O’Neill’s own father, James O’Neill, was one of these stars, and the elder O’Neill’s career reflected the system. Like most other stars, he became known for his interpretation of a specific role, that of Edmund, the Count of Monte Cristo. For him and for other headliners of the day, plays were merely vehicles for their acting, and their chief task was to thrill an audience, not to raise people’s consciousness or make them think. The younger O’Neill’s work, some of which James had an opportunity to see staged just prior to his death in 1920, simply dismayed him. He found its brooding intensity and naturalistic bias distressing. For him, theater had no business depicting ugly truths or depressing its audience. Baker’s efforts to make playwrights move away from a romantic escapism toward a more honest depiction of life bore full fruit by the early 1920’s, when Eugene O’Neill’s meteoric career was on the rise. However, although Baker’s 47 Workshop was a major influence, it was not the solitary springboard to the radical change in the American theater. Instead, many important factors made important contributions to the new American theater, including the foreign influence of, among others, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, and Émile Zola; the scenic design of David Belasco; the earlier plays by Americans such as James A. Herne’s Margaret Fleming (1890) and Shore Acres (1892); the impact of World War I; the theories of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud; the conversion of many theaters that formerly hosted traveling stock companies into motion-picture houses; and the development of the little-theater movement and of such groups as the Provincetown Players, the Washington Square Players, and the Theatre Guild. More clearly, Baker’s teaching methods exerted an important influence that can be traced directly to his famous course. He legitimated the workshop approach to playwriting and pioneered other practical courses in theater, providing models that began to be emulated at various schools in the United States. For example, in 1918, Frederick Koch, a graduate of the 47 Workshop, started a playwriting course at the University of North Carolina, and in 1919 he established the renowned Carolina Playmakers. A creative teacher who stressed the use of folk materials in drama while using some of Baker’s workshop techniques, Koch was also important in the growth of the little-theater and regional-theater movements. Others followed in Baker’s pedagogical track, including Walter Eaton at Yale and Kenneth Macgowan at 364
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the University of California. Within a generation, these teachers helped to broaden college and university curricula, putting in place courses that provided practical training not merely in playwriting but in all the theater arts. Central to their philosophy was the belief that plays should be interpreted for performance, not just as fossilized pieces of dramatic literature. In addition to playwriting, at Yale Baker himself taught courses in stage design, costuming, lighting, and theater criticism, all stressing a practical, problem-solving approach. Thus, right up to 1933, when sickness forced his retirement, Baker continued to play a vital role in the creation of departments of theater, as distinct from such traditional disciplines as literature or speech. It was, however, Baker’s great energy and enthusiasm for theater that mattered most. His true gift lay in his ability to infuse that same enthusiasm in others—to inspire them. Looking back from the perspective of the 1950’s, John Mason Brown noted that it was in such intangible contributions that Baker had a truly durable impact. According to Brown, most of the plays written in the 47 Workshop classes were actually very bad, even the ones written by playwrights who would later become very good at their craft, but Baker’s great patience and encouragement helped his charges through a painful artistic infancy and left them with a lasting faith in themselves. In his earlier eulogy on Baker, O’Neill made a similar assessment. In addition to giving O’Neill and his fellow students a belief in their work, Baker gave them hope. As O’Neill wrote, this was a gift for which “we owe him all the finest we have in memory of gratitude and friendship.” —John W. Fiero Further Reading Baker, George Pierce. Dramatic Technique. 1919. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. A handbook for playwrights, stressing techniques learned from studying established works and their compositional design. Still regarded as a classic, it has influenced many succeeding guides to the playwright’s craft. Gelb, Arthur, and Barbara Gelb. O’Neill: Life with Monte Cristo. New York: Applause Theater Books, 2002. The definitive biography on Eugene O’Neill. A good source for readers interested in learning more about Baker’s influence on his most famous student. Kinne, Wisner Payne. George Pierce Baker and the American Theatre. 1954. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968. A rare book-length study of Baker and his significance in the development of the Ameri-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 can theater, written by one of his students. Includes an important introduction by George Mason Brown, the texts of several letters, and a bibliography of Baker’s works. Meserve, Walter J. An Outline History of American Drama. Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1965. A good, expanded checklist of playwrights, works, trends, and influences in the history of American drama, placing Baker’s contributions in the larger context of theater in the United States from its beginnings forward. Excellent for reviewing the history of drama in the United States. Minimal bibliography. Sarlós, Robert Károly. Jig Cook and the Provincetown Players. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982. An account of the founding and history of the theater in which Eugene O’Neill first gained recognition. Serves as an informative parallel study to Kinne’s book. Includes an index to the persons involved and a chronology of works staged from 1915 through 1922.
Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography Wilson, Garff B. Three Hundred Years of American Drama and Theatre, from “Ye Baare and Ye Cubb” to “Hair.” Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. An overview of the development of drama and theater in the United States to the 1960’s, but in greater depth than Meserve’s work. A recommended guide for serious students of American drama, also placing Baker and the 47 Workshop in proper focus. Includes a helpful selective bibliography. See also: 1903: Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman; Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres; Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes; Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama; Aug. 29, 1935June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater; Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway.
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Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography Willem Einthoven led the study of the electrical currents of the heart by inventing the string galvanometer, which evolved into the modern-day electrocardiogram. Locale: Leiden, the Netherlands Categories: Health and medicine; inventions
Summary of Event In the late 1800’s, there was substantial research interest in the electrical events that took place in the human body. Scientists studied many organs and systems in the body, including the nerves, eyes, lungs, muscles, and heart. As a result of the lack of necessary technology, this research was very tedious, and the results were frequently inaccurate. Therefore, the development of appropriate instrumentation was as important as the research itself.
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Key Figures Willem Einthoven (1860-1927), Dutch physiologist Augustus D. Waller (1856-1922), German physician and researcher Clément Ader (1841-1926), French electrical engineer Thomas Lewis (1881-1945), English physiologist
The initial work on the electrical activity of the heart (detected from the surface of the body) was conducted by Augustus D. Waller and published in 1887. Many credit Waller with the development of the first electrocardiogram. He used a Lippmann’s capillary electrometer to determine the electrical changes in the heart, recording the changes by placing a series of small tubes on the surface of the body. The tubes contained mercury and sulfuric acid, and as an electrical current passed through them, the mercury expanded and contracted. The images this process produced were projected onto photographic paper, creating the first cardiograph. Despite the contributions Waller made to science, he failed to use his device for any clinical applications. As a result, he did not pursue this area of study. In the early 1890’s, Willem Einthoven, who became a good friend of Waller, began using the same type of capillary tube to study the electrical currents of the heart. Einthoven also had a difficult time working with the instrument. His laboratory was located in an old wooden building near a cobblestone street, and passing teams of horses pulling heavy wagons would cause his laboratory to vibrate. This vibration affected the capillary tube,
Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography
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An early electrocardiographic device that required the patient to immerse both hands and one foot in a salt solution.
causing the cardiographs to be unclear. In his frustration, Einthoven began to modify his laboratory. He removed the floorboards and dug a hole ten to fifteen feet deep. He then lined the walls of the hole with large rocks to stabilize his instrument. When this failed to solve the problem, Einthoven abandoned the Lippmann’s capillary tube, but he did not abandon the idea. Instead, he began to experiment with other instruments. In order to continue his research on the electrical currents of the heart, Einthoven began to work with a new device, the d’Arsonval galvanometer. This instrument had a heavy coil of wire suspended between the poles of a horseshoe magnet. Changes in electrical activity would cause the coil to move; however, Einthoven found that the coil was too heavy to record the small electrical changes found in the heart. Therefore, he modified the instrument by replacing the coil with a silver-coated quartz thread (string). He found that he could record the movements by transmitting the deflections through a mi366
croscope and projecting them on photographic film. Einthoven called the new instrument the string galvanometer. Einthoven’s development of the string galvanometer was very important for science. Some have questioned whether the invention was Einthoven’s original idea. In 1897, Clément Ader, a French electrical engineer, reported his development of a device similar to the string galvanometer. Ader was working with telegraph recorders, and he also found a need to replace the slow coil in the galvanometer with a lighter component: a wire. Both scientists needed to make their respective instruments more sensitive, and both chose to use a wire in place of the coil. Yet there were some fundamental differences between the two instruments. The major difference lay in the size of the wire. Ader used a wire that was ten times the diameter of Einthoven’s. It is believed that Ader’s instrument would not have been sensitive enough to detect the electrical currents in the heart. Although Ader devel-
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Bosscha published a study that showed the function of the forces involved in measuring small amounts of electricity. He proposed the idea that modifying a galvanometer by hanging a needle from a silk thread could make it more sensitive for determining the minute currents in the heart. Einthoven and Ader both studied Bosscha’s work, and this was responsible, in part, for the development of their instruments. Also, it was Bosscha’s suggestion to link the hospital with Einthoven’s laboratory. Therefore, Bosscha assisted Einthoven by providing both theoretical and practical ideas for his work that led to the development of the electrocardiogram. The electrocardiogram was not created in a short period of time. The work of many people over many years was required to produce a workable instrument, and additional years of study were then needed to determine the clinical significance of the instrument’s output. Although the forerunner to the electrocardiogram was first created in 1901, a reliable instrument was not used clinically for several years after that. Significance As Einthoven published additional studies on the string galvanometer in 1903, 1906, and 1908, greater interest in his instrument was generated around the world. In 1910, one of the instruments, now called the electrocardiograph, was installed in the United States. It was the foundation of a new laboratory for the study of heart disease at The Johns Hopkins University Hospital. The electrocardiograph was used to diagnose various types of heart problem that previously had been very difficult to diagnose. In 1924, Einthoven visited the United States to discuss the electrocardiograph with researchers and clinicians. Among other lectures, he spoke at Harvard University as part of a lecture series founded in memory of Dr. Edward K. Dunham. During his visit to the United States, Einthoven was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Because he was on a lecture tour at the time, he was unable to attend the awards ceremony. He accepted the award one year later, and he took the opportunity to present his Nobel lecture. In this presentation, he discussed the string galvanometer and its use in electrocardiography, helping to promote the instrument for clinical purposes. Through the 1920’s, Einthoven’s instrument included four electrodes, one placed on each limb. One of the electrodes acted as a ground, and the other three could be combined in several ways to make three different leads. These three leads were used to diagnose many heart problems. In the 1930’s, researchers at the University of 367
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oped the concept first, he was not given credit for developing the forerunner to the electrocardiogram because his instrument could not be used for studying the heart. After developing the string galvanometer, Einthoven began work to validate the string galvanometer with the instrument accepted at the time: the capillary tube. Using both instruments on the same subjects, he made comparisons between the two outputs. He was able to identify the similarities in the wave changes between the two instruments. The waves on tracings from the capillary electrometer had been labeled A, B, C, and D. Einthoven labeled the waves on his galvanometer P, Q, R, S, and T. He changed the labels on the waves because, in geometry, points on curved lines begin with P and points on straight lines begin with A. As the output was obviously a curve, he chose to use a new system. Einthoven’s labels became universally known and continue to be used in electrocardiography. By 1905, Einthoven had improved the string galvanometer to the point that he could begin using it for clinical studies. In 1906, he had his laboratory connected to the hospital in Leiden by a telephone wire. With this arrangement, he was able to study in his laboratory electrocardiograms that were derived from patients in the hospital located one mile away. With this source of subjects, Einthoven was able to use his galvanometer to study many heart problems. As a result of these studies, Einthoven identified the following heart problems with his galvanometer: blocks in the electrical conduction system of the heart, enlargements of the various chambers of the heart, and premature beats of the heart, including two premature beats in a row. He was also able to study the heart during the administration of cardiac drugs. These studies and studies conducted by other researchers with the string galvanometer added to the knowledge that has made the electrocardiogram an important diagnostic tool. A major researcher who communicated with Einthoven about the electrocardiogram was Sir Thomas Lewis. Lewis is credited with developing the electrocardiogram into a useful clinical tool. One of his important accomplishments was his identification of atrial fibrillation, the overactive state of the upper chambers of the heart. During World War I, Lewis was involved with studying soldiers’ hearts. He designed a series of graded exercises that he used to test the soldiers’ ability to perform work. Based on the results of this study, he was able to use similar tests to diagnose heart disease and screen recruits who had some heart problems. Throughout his career, Einthoven was influenced by one of his professors, Johannes Bosscha. In the 1850’s,
Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography
Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography Michigan, led by Dr. Frank N. Wilson, developed a system that combined the same four electrodes into three new leads. They also added six new electrodes, which created six new leads to make a total of twelve leads. The addition of the nine leads to Einthoven’s three leads significantly improved the diagnostic capabilities of the instrument. As time passed, the use of the electrocardiogram—or ECG, as it is now known—increased substantially. The major advantage of the ECG is that it can be used to diagnose problems in the heart without incisions or the use of needles. It is relatively painless for the patient. Also, in comparison with other diagnostic techniques, it is relatively inexpensive. Therefore, Einthoven’s invention has resulted in an important diagnostic tool that can be widely used. Recent developments in the use of the ECG include work in the area of stress testing. Many heart problems are not apparent on the ECG while a patient is idle, so the ECG is used on a patient who is exercising, when the heart is working much harder. The clinician gradually increases the intensity of work the patient is doing (usually walking or running on a treadmill) while monitoring the patient’s heart with the ECG. The electrocardiogram is a very important diagnostic tool. It is continually being improved, and researchers are constantly examining new applications. Although the electrocardiogram was initially developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, it is still an integral part of the fight against heart disease and other heart problems. —Bradley R. A. Wilson Further Reading Barold, S. S. “Willem Einthoven and the Birth of Clinical Electrocardiography a Hundred Years Ago.” Cardiac Electrophysiology Review 7 (January, 2003): 99104. This article describes Einthoven’s work on the string galvanometer, from its initial development through its establishment as a useful diagnostic tool. Barron, S. L. “The Development of the Electrocardiogram in Great Britain.” British Medical Journal 1 (1950): 720-725. This article focuses on how the ECG was developed in Great Britain. The work of Sir Thomas Lewis is an important element in this account, which is directed at an audience with an appropriate science background. Burch, George E., and Nicholas P. De Pasquale. A History of Electrocardiography. Chicago: Year Book
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Medical Publishers, 1964. This book traces the history of the development of the electrocardiogram through the 1960’s. Discusses the work of the major contributors, including Einthoven. Includes a wealth of references. Cooper, James K. “Electrocardiography One Hundred Years Ago.” New England Journal of Medicine 315 (August, 1986): 461-464. This article, written in celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the invention of electrocardiography, discusses the history of electrocardiography, beginning with the contributions of Waller and concluding with the works of Einthoven. Concise and understandable. Includes references. Einthoven, Willem. “The String Galvanometer and the Measurement of the Action Currents of the Heart.” Nobel lecture, December 11, 1925. http://nobel prize.org/medicine/laureates/1924/einthoven-lecture .pdf. This is the address that Einthoven gave on the occasion of his receiving the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Nobel Foundation makes this and other Nobel lectures available online. Ershler, Irving. “Willem Einthoven: The Man.” Archives of Internal Medicine 148 (February, 1988): 453-455. This article features the experiences of Dr. George E. Fahr during the years he worked with Einthoven, beginning in 1909. The author obtained much of the information from Fahr while they worked together from 1935 to 1938. Light, easy reading. Mehta, Nirav J., and Ijaz A. Khan. “Cardiology’s Ten Greatest Discoveries of the Twentieth Century.” Texas Heart Institute Journal 29, no. 3 (2002): 164171. This article summarizes the ten cardiologic developments and discoveries of the twentieth century that the authors deem to be most important. Their list includes electrocardiography, preventive cardiology, coronary care units, coronary angioplasty, and openheart surgery. Snellen, H. A. Two Pioneers of Electrocardiography: The Correspondence Between Einthoven and Lewis from 1908-1926. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Donker Academic Publications, 1983. This book highlights the correspondence between two of the major researchers in electrocardiography. May be too technical for some lay readers. See also: 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine.
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Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity Ejnar Hertzsprung discovered that the color of a star is related to its luminosity, and this led to his presentation of the first Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Locale: Denmark Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), Danish astronomer and photographer Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957), American astronomer
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Summary of Event In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the science of astronomy was changing. Up until that time, astronomy had been devoted chiefly to the study of the motions of heavenly bodies and the mechanical laws and forces that govern those motions. With the advent of spectroscopy and photography in the late nineteenth century, astronomers began to study the nature of the stars and other bodies rather than merely their motions. Spectroscopy is the study of the spectra of stars. A star’s spectrum is the band of colored light and dark lines that results when the star’s light is spread out by a prism or grating. The patterns of lines can be used to classify a star and provide clues to the star’s properties, such as what it is made of, how hot it is, and whether it is rotating and at what speed. Scientists used photography to record these spectra in order to study and compare them and to work out the relationships between a star’s spectrum and its properties. As data were gathered for large numbers of stars, scientists could begin to search for order and patterns in the data and for relationships among various properties of stars. Ejnar Hertzsprung’s work was part of this quest to understand the nature of stars as revealed in their light. Hertzsprung was well suited to work in the emerging study of stars as revealed through their spectra, as he had studied chemistry and specialized in photochemistry. He began the study of astronomy in 1902, after several years of working as a chemist. He was drawn to astronomy by his interest in observing how black body radiation relates to the radiation of stars. (Black body radiation is the radiation emitted by a body that absorbs all wavelengths of light and radiates all wavelengths when heated. It shows a relationship between the temperature of the body and
the wavelength at which the most radiation is emitted; the wavelength is related to the color of the body.) He studied stellar spectra photographed in Denmark and star classification work done at Harvard College Observatory, and he wrote two papers, in 1905 and 1907, both titled “Zur Strahlung der Sterne” (on the radiation of stars). Hertzsprung presented several results that would prove important to the growing science of astrophysics. His findings included the discovery that there are two different types of stars: giants and dwarfs. He had studied the colors, brightnesses, motions, and distances of stars to arrive at this discovery, which led to his development of a diagram plotting the intrinsic brightness against the temperature for a group of stars. This type of plot, which was developed independently in the United States by Henry Norris Russell and presented in 1913, is known as a Hertzsprung-Russell, or H-R, diagram and is a basic tool of astrophysics today. Hertzsprung first made such a plot in 1906 and did further work to investigate the relationship between the color of a star and its brightness, or luminosity. Hertzsprung used open star clusters in his determination of the relationship between a star’s brightness and its color. An open star cluster is a group of stars clustered together in one place in the sky; it seems reasonable to assume that the stars in a cluster are in roughly the same spatial location. When observing a star’s brightness, one usually cannot know what the intrinsic brightness of the star is; one only knows how bright the star appears from Earth. To know the intrinsic brightness, one must apply a correction for the distance of the star; stellar distances are not easy to discover. Yet stars in a cluster can be assumed to be at about the same distance, so one does not need to worry about making the distance correction to arrive at the absolute brightness, as the distance correction will be roughly the same for all members of the cluster. Hertzsprung studied the colors of stars in several clusters whose spectra he had photographed at the Urania Observatory in Copenhagen. He was able to measure the wavelength of peak light emission from individual stars, and then he used this wavelength as an index to the stars’ colors. (The wavelength is the distance from crest to crest of each electromagnetic wave making up the light; these wavelengths are very small. Red light has a longer
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A Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
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H-R diagram is still an essential tool of astrophysicists today. Spectral Class Another area in which Hertz0 B F G K M A sprung contributed was that of the 1,000,000 –10 determination of stellar distances, Supergiants –5 100R 10,000 which has traditionally been a difficult problem in astronomy. HertzGiants 0 100 sprung made a discovery that led to 10R the use of a star’s spectrum to deter+5 mine its absolute brightness and, 1 1R from that, its distance. +10 0.01 At Harvard College Observatory in the late nineteenth century, re0.1R White +15 0.0001 searchers studied hundreds of photoDwarfs graphic plates of spectra and classiBrown & +20 fied hundreds of thousands of stars. 0.000001 0.01R Black Protostar In particular, Antonia Maury develDwarfs Nebulas oped a sophisticated system involv10,000 40,000 8000 5000 3500 2500 1000 ing twenty-two categories of stars, Effective Temperature (Kelvin) with three subdivisions for each category designating the width of spec= Main sequence stars = Solar radius R tral lines. Hertzsprung used her classifications in his spectral work. He found that stars that had Maury’s designation c for their narrow specwavelength than green light, which, in turn, has a longer tral lines had high absolute brightnesses. A star’s apparwavelength than blue light. The wavelength is related to ent brightness as seen from the earth depends on its disthe color.) Once he had indexed the stars’ colors, he contance; its absolute brightness is a measure of how bright structed a diagram in which he plotted the color versus it actually is. Once the absolute brightness of a star is the magnitude (brightness) for the stars in two star clusknown, it can be compared to the apparent brightness and ters, the Pleiades and the Hyades. the star’s distance can be calculated. (The process is simIn 1911, these diagrams were the first of their type to ilar to the way in which the distance of a lightbulb would be published, when Hertzsprung was a senior staff asbe estimated based on how bright it appears and the tronomer at the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam, knowledge that it is a 100-watt bulb.) Later studies elabEast Germany. On these two plots, Hertzsprung made the orated on this method, and it became the method of specimportant observation that stars do not appear in all postroscopic parallax, which enables one to determine a sible combinations of color and brightness (that is, the star’s distance from its spectrum. points are not scattered all over the plot), but there is a relationship between how bright a star is and what color it Significance is. Thus the brightnesses and colors of stars in the two Hertzsprung continued his work on the color-luminosity clusters form a narrow diagonal band across the plot. The relationship by comparing the H-R diagrams for the band stretches from bright blue stars in the upper left corPleiades, Hyades, and Praesepe star clusters, and he noner to dim red stars in the lower right corner. This band ticed differences in the types of stars in the three clusters. was called the main sequence, or sometimes the dwarf Astronomers today interpret these differences as indicasequence, to differentiate it from the giant sequence of tions that the stars in the Pleiades are younger than those large stars, which was revealed on other H-R diagrams. in the other two clusters and are able to use H-R diagrams The discovery of this relationship gave astronomers maas a tool for determining the ages of clusters. It is now known that the brighter and bluer a star is, the shorter its jor data about the population of the heavens. The task of lifetime; therefore, a cluster with bright blue stars still determining the relationship between color and brightleft in it must be younger than the maximum age such ness was to keep astronomers occupied for years. The
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Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity
Further Reading Abell, George O. Realm of the Universe. 5th ed. New York: Saunders College Publishing, 1994. Introduc-
tory college textbook. Contains sections on properties of stars and development of the H-R diagram and on the uses of the diagram in the study of stellar evolution, in particular the application of the diagram to the determination of the ages of star clusters. Includes glossary and bibliography as well as numerous diagrams, drawings, and color plates. Chaisson, Eric, and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Chapter 17, titled “Measuring the Stars,” includes discussion of Hertzsprung’s work and explains how H-R diagrams are constructed and used to identify stellar properties. Degani, Meir H. Astronomy Made Simple. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976. Chapter 7 contains useful information on H-R diagrams and on the stellar properties, such as brightness, that are used in constructing the diagrams. Contains drawings and graphs, glossary, and exercises for self-motivated learners. Moore, Patrick. Patrick Moore’s History of Astronomy. 6th rev. ed. London: Macdonald, 1983. The chapter titled “Exploring the Spectrum” gives background on some of Hertzsprung’s spectral work and introduces the reader to the complexities of analyzing a star’s radiation. The chapter titled “The Life of a Star” introduces the H-R diagram and its applications to stellar evolution studies. Written for the average reader. Includes a list of landmarks in the history of astronomy. Pannekoek, A. A History of Astronomy. 1961. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1989. The chapter titled “Common Stars” discusses the development and uses of spectroscopy and the construction of H-R diagrams by Hertzsprung and Russell. Also discusses the uses of H-R diagrams in studies of stellar evolution. Rigutti, Mario. A Hundred Billion Stars. Translated by Mirella Giacconi. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984. Part 2 contains useful information on stellar classification and on the H-R diagram. Part 3, on stellar evolution, discusses the application of the H-R diagram to the problem of stellar evolution in general and to the ages of star clusters in particular. Includes diagrams and some black-and-white photographs. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Cowritten by an astronomer who has direct knowledge of some of the events described, this book offers a good overview of the development of the H-R diagram and the understanding of the relationships between a star’s spectrum and its other properties. Includes drawings 371
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stars would reach. In general, by seeing the brightness and color of the stars highest on the main sequence (closest to the bright blue end) for a given cluster, one can estimate an upper limit to the age of the cluster. In addition, a method was later developed in which the brightnesscolor diagram for a cluster is compared with that of another cluster at a known distance; this comparison can yield an estimate of the distance to the first cluster. In working on the Pleiades cluster, Hertzsprung did related work on the stars’ spectra that involved making many measurements of wavelength and led to estimates of the total mass of the cluster. H-R diagrams thus provide a rich source of information about star clusters. Hertzsprung’s plot of stars on the main sequence, together with his demonstration that a giant sequence exists, provided support to Russell as well as information that Russell used in formulating his theory of stellar evolution based on the H-R diagram. Russell’s evolutionary picture turned out to be mistaken and to require drastic overhauls in the light of later knowledge of nuclear processes. Yet it was an important first step in the use of H-R diagrams to plot the distribution of stars and to determine the significance of this distribution for stellar evolution. Hertzsprung also showed that there is a gap, today called the Hertzsprung gap, separating main-sequence stars from giant-sequence stars on an H-R diagram. The discovery of a connection between spectral type and luminosity was followed up by Walter Sydney Adams and Arnold Kohlschütter at Mount Wilson Observatory in California. They found differences in the ratios of intensities of certain lines in the spectra of giants and dwarfs and used these differences for stars of known difference to calibrate a plot of ratio versus magnitude (brightness). Therefore, if one measured the ratio for a star, one could consult the plot and determine the star’s absolute brightness and then use the apparent brightness to arrive at an estimate of the star’s distance. This distance technique proved to be a powerful one. Hertzsprung’s work with stars’ spectra and their colors yielded results that were vital for the further studies conducted in astrophysics in the twentieth century. The recognition of a color-luminosity relationship was a first step toward understanding the reasons behind the relationship, reasons that have had profound implications for ideas on stellar formation and evolution. —Mary Hrovat
Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet and other illustrations, a time line of twentieth century astronomy, a glossary, and a bibliography. Vaucouleurs, Gerard de. Discovery of the Universe. London: Faber & Faber, 1957. Sections 6 through 9 contain an overview of astronomy from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Gives more information on applications of the H-R diagram and follow-ups to Hertzsprung’s work, including spectroscopic parallax. Contains diagrams, drawings, and an annotated bibliography. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. This introductory text provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues and the use of H-R diagrams. See also: 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution.
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Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet The Palais Stoclet was Josef Hoffmann’s architectural masterpiece, and the building set a precedent for domestic architecture. Locale: Brussels, Belgium Category: Architecture Key Figures Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), Austrian architect Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Austrian artist Adolphe Stoclet (1871-1949), Belgian banker Summary of Event By 1905, Josef Hoffmann had become one of Vienna’s more successful so-called Secessionist architects, who had abandoned the ornate and imitative styles of traditional Austrian architecture. Hoffmann’s chief inspiration was his former professor, Otto Wagner, the head of the Architectural School of the Austrian Academy of Fine Arts. Wagner had developed an austere, rectilinear style that Hoffmann admired and further developed, and the style became known as the Austrian version of Art Nouveau. Hoffmann had obtained commissions to build several villas in a fashionable suburb being developed on the outskirts of Vienna. One such villa was for the designer Koloman Moser, with whom Hoffmann had established the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese workshops), dedicated to creating decorative objects of original designs and the finest workmanship. Adolphe Stoclet, a Belgian banker who was living in Vienna at the time, greatly admired the villa. Introduced to Hoffmann by Moser, Stoclet was prepared to commission the architect to design a villa for him at the same location. 372
In 1904, circumstances changed. Stoclet’s father, a Belgian industrialist, died, leaving his son immensely wealthy. A house by Hoffmann was still to be built, but now it was to be in Brussels, where Stoclet’s business was located. Hoffmann, motivated by the talent available to him through the designers of the Wiener Werkstätte and Gustav Klimt, an artist whom he greatly admired, prevailed on Stoclet to let him design a house that would be perfect in every detail—one of the exquisite creations of the Wiener Werkstätte in macrocosm. Money was to be no object. Stoclet gave Hoffmann a free hand and carried the knowledge of the real cost of his house with him to the grave. The house was designed as a piece of sculpture, so perfect that nothing could be added or taken away without severely altering the creation. The basic design of the house was planar, a series of interconnecting squares and rectangles, with black and white the dominant colors. The house was placed so that it presented a unified, artistic composition from wherever it was viewed. Hoffmann employed optical illusions in the construction of the house, the most obvious being its “atectonic” appearance, which resulted in a seeming denial of the load-support relationships. The walls of the house, or palais (palace), as it was soon called because of its costly construction, were covered with slabs of white Norwegian marble of crystalline purity. Carved moldings of darkly gilded bronze cascaded down from a square tower topped with an open-work design of flowers and surrounded by four Herculean figures of beaten copper. The moldings followed and delineated both the vertical and horizontal edges of the building and gave the illusion that the walls were thin sheets of marble delicately held to-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gether by the gilded moldings, which also served to protect the edges. To mask the basically heavy-masonry construction of the building further, the windows were placed flush with the outside walls. The lightweight effect was almost ethereal. If the exterior was austere black, white, and gold, the interior glowed with rich colors. Entering the Palais Stoclet was an experience. The entrance began with a narrow covered walkway and revealed in successive stages the splendors within. The street door opened into an austere, windowless anteroom clad in white marble. This opened into a somewhat larger vestibule clad in dark-green marble and dimly lit through soft lights directed at a series of small golden urns placed on top of the marble walls. Turning left, the visitor entered the great hall—a stupendous room stretching the entire width of the house and, supported on slender honey-colored marble columns, soaring two stories to the roof level. At one end, a bay window enclosing a fountain added to the length of the hall; on the other end, glass doors extended
Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet the hall into a landscaped garden. The muted colors of the great hall provided an unobtrusive background for parts of Stoclet’s famed art collection, which was placed or hung throughout the area. The salon, or drawing room, usually the principal room in a great house, was insignificant. The two dominant rooms—both entered from the great hall, one entrance opposite the other—were the music theater and the dining room, which celebrated what the architect Peter Behrens called “life’s greatest festivities.” The walls of the music theater were of polished, strongly veined black marble, the floor was made of dark teak squares surrounded by coralwood, and the coverings and draperies were crimson-purple. A gallery on one side permitted viewers to look down on the luxurious patterns formed below. The dining room was the most celebrated room. It was forty-five feet in length, and its wall combined the honey-colored marble of the great hall with the black of the music theater. The glory of the room—the most
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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The Palais Stoclet as seen from the garden. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet costly feature of an incredibly costly house—was a set of great mosaics by Gustav Klimt, which almost entirely covered the two long walls; a smaller mosaic covered a third wall opposite the bay window overlooking the garden. The mildly erotic themes of the great mosaics centered on the gardens of art and of love. The small mosaic on the wall opposite the garden windows was a stylized version of a garden that never fades. This room, too, employed visual deceptions. The walls receded in stages, thereby achieving a threedimensional effect and permitting the lower parts to be used as sideboards, on which were displayed silver pieces created by the Wiener Werkstätte. The mosaics, constructed of rare marbles, enamels, semiprecious stones, and precious metals, were two-dimensional in the Byzantine manner, made the more interesting by rich, raised ornamentation. The garden, as carefully planned as the rest of the house, was an extension of the interior. The two great bays extending into the garden seemed like open arms inviting the viewer into the house through an elegant loggia opening into the great hall. On a moonlit night, the effect could be overwhelming, causing a famous museum director to exclaim that such a work of maturity and artistic grandeur as the Palais Stoclet had not been seen since the days of the Baroque. Significance The completion of the Palais Stoclet established Josef Hoffmann as one of Europe’s leading architects. Hoffmann probably would have become still better known had he written about his art, but he believed, as did the noted Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí, that art is not to be intellectualized; it is to be felt. Hoffmann was to become better known as an “architect’s architect,” one of the founders of modern architecture and design. Walter Gropius, Peter Behrens, Hendrik Petrus Berlage, and Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, among others, all admired him. Hoffmann directly influenced Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Frank Lloyd Wright had long conversations with Hoffmann, and the similarity of their essentially planar designs is obvious. Although he was a prolific architect, working to the year of his death, Hoffmann never again achieved a triumph such as the Palais Stoclet. Had he built it and nothing else, however, he still would have been regarded as one of the great architects of the twentieth century. Another effect of the building of the Palais Stoclet was that, perhaps more than any other artistic creation of its time, it became the outstanding example of Gesam374
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tkunstwerk, or complete work of art. Such a creation was the idealistic goal of artists ranging from the composer Richard Wagner to the architect Gaudí. Both Adolphe Stoclet and his wife were aware of the concept and purposely worked to achieve it. The house, an artistic triumph in itself, could be compared to an elegant vitrine housing a great art collection. The collection, mostly in the form of primitive art from all over the world, blended happily with the polished polychrome modernity of the house. Combining theatrical and musical production with the brilliant conversation of their guests and fine food in the fabled dining room, Adolphe and Suzanne Stoclet created artistic experiences equal to that of viewing the house and its art collection. Seldom accepting outside invitations, the Stoclets created their own world by having as guests or performers some of the greatest artists of the time, including the pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the choreographer Sergei Diaghilev, the musician Igor Stravinsky, the actor and playwright Sacha Guitry, and the writer Anatole France. The greatest impact of the Palais Stoclet was in the context of architectural, social, and intellectual history. The Palais Stoclet was the right building at the right time in the right place. Intellectual historians sometimes refer to the nineteenth century as the Bourgeois Century, “bourgeois” meaning capitalist in the Marxist-Leninist sense. Dominating the nineteenth century both politically and economically, the bourgeoisie had yet to develop its own cultural identity in architecture, resorting instead to borrowing from earlier styles. Although Hoffmann lived in a Vienna that was an imperial capital, he made no effort to cultivate the patronage of the nobility. His architectural designs, as well as those of the Wiener Werkstätte, were for the wealthy bourgeoisie. The Palais Stoclet was evidence of the bourgeoisie’s architectural coming-of-age. Their style generally was known as Art Nouveau, although the style varied greatly depending on the locale, with Hoffmann’s version verging on austere classicism. Pre-World War I Brussels, flush with wealth from banking, industrial expansion, and colonial exploitation, became the site of some of the most spectacular creations in the bourgeois Art Nouveau style, and the Palais Stoclet set the ultimate example. Some cultural historians maintain that this search for a new style by the bourgeoisie was a form of escapism, as if they knew their world would end—as indeed it did in 1914, with the coming of World War I. Although he survived the war by nearly four decades, Hoffmann never designed another Palais Stoclet. Even if he had found another patron, it is doubtful that the egalitarian postwar
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 world would have tolerated such an ostentatious display of affluence. The luxurious creations of the American designer Louis Comfort Tiffany, intended for the same upper-middle-class clientele, were to meet a similar fate. Just as Europe’s great medieval cathedrals stand as expressions of the piety of their time, so the Palais Stoclet is palpable evidence of a now-vanished era of rampant capitalism. As such, the building, although it has influenced subsequent architectural designs, remains unique— a source of pleasure, even wonder, for those interested in architecture, but also a primary document for architectural, social, and intellectual historians alike. —Nis Petersen
Kokoschka, and architects such as Josef Hoffmann, Adolph Loos, and Otto Wagner, the city at the time equaled, if not surpassed, Paris, London, and Berlin as a center of Western culture. The creation of the Palais Stoclet, which Schorske calls a “Viennese house,” must be seen against this richly varied cultural and artistic background. Of particular interest is a comparison of a frieze Klimt created for a Beethoven Exhibition in 1902 and the later frieze for the Palais Stoclet. Schweiger, Werner J. Wiener Werkstaette: Design in Vienna, 1903-1932. Translated by Alexander Lieven. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984. No study of the Palais Stoclet could be complete without a concurrent study of the Wiener Werkstätte, the design group cofounded by Hoffmann. Indeed, the Palais Stoclet has been described as a permanent Wiener Werkstätte exhibition. Includes excellent illustrations of the Palais Stoclet and its Wiener Werkstätte creations. Sekler, Eduard Franz. Josef Hoffmann, the Architectural Work: Monograph and Catalog of Works. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. This extensively illustrated book permits the evaluation of Hoffmann as an architect and decorator. It notes the influence of classicism, cubism, and expressionism on his work. A two-hundred-page catalog lists all of Hoffmann’s known works both as an architect and as a designer. Includes an index and comprehensive bibliography, mostly in German. _______. “The Stoclet House by Josef Hoffmann.” In Essays on the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, edited by Douglas Fraser, Howard Hibbard, and Milton J. Lewine. Vol. 2. London: Phaidon Press, 1967. Considering the fame of the Palais Stoclet, comparatively little literature is available on it, possibly because it was completed shortly before the outbreak of World War I. Sekler is an authority on Hoffmann, and this is undoubtedly one of the best monographs available on the Palais Stoclet. The coverage is thorough and lovingly detailed; includes a precise description of the materials used in and the names of artists who contributed to the construction of the house. Excellent color photographs give an idea of the polychrome richness of the interior. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea. 375
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Further Reading Brändstatter, Christian. Wiener Werkstätte: Design in Vienna 1903-1932. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. Heavily illustrated book offers as complete a record as possible of the Wiener Werkstätte’s creative work, from complex, integrated environments such as Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet in Brussels to individual objects such as enameled-glass stemware by Otto Prutscher and vibrantly colored postcards by Oskar Kokoschka. Delano Greenridge Editions. Josef Hoffmann: Furniture, Design, and Objects. New York: Author, 2003. This volume provides a comprehensive look at Hoffmann’s designs for furniture, decorative objects, and printed material for the interiors of his visionary buildings. Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. 3d ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992. Just as Carl Schorske’s volume (cited below) sets Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet masterpiece against Vienna at the close of the nineteenth century, Frampton sets both the architect and his works within the broader framework of Western architecture. The chapter relating to Hoffmann is titled “The Sacred Spring,” referring to the pool of artistic talent to be found in Vienna at the time. It is interesting to compare the Palais Stoclet with the Secession Building, the first structure in the austere new style that was the Viennese version of Art Nouveau. Schorske, Carl E. Fin de Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1981. Increasingly, Vienna at the close of the nineteenth century is being recognized for its amazing cultural and artistic achievements. With musicians such as Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler, artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar
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Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic Novocaine—the trade name for procaine—was synthesized by the German chemist Alfred Einhorn and introduced by the German surgeon Heinrich Braun. It was the first injectable synthetic anesthetic to be used safely in surgery and became the most frequently used local anesthetic in dentistry and minor surgical procedures. Locale: Germany Categories: Chemistry; health and medicine; science and technology Key Figures Alfred Einhorn (1857-1917), German medicinal chemist Heinrich Braun (1862-1934), German surgeon Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), German physician and biochemist Karl Koller (1857-1944), Austrian ophthalmologist William Stewart Halsted (1852-1922), American surgeon Robert Heinz (1865-1924), German pharmacologist and pathologist Richard Willstätter (1872-1942), German organic chemist Guido Fischer (1877-1959), German dental professor August Karl Gustav Bier (1861-1949), German professor of surgery Summary of Event The applied science of local anesthesia dates from its discovery by Alfred Einhorn, a chemist at the University of Munich who found that esters of 4-aminobenzoic acid exhibit anesthetic properties. (An ester is a functional group in organic chemistry that results from the combination of an alcohol with a carboxylic acid.) Einhorn synthesized numerous variations of this chemical structure, and by 1905 he had submitted a compound for clinical trials that was to become the standard against which other local anesthetics were compared for nearly fifty years. This compound, Novocaine, has had a legacy so great that many still use its name as a generic term for all local anesthetics. During the first half of the nineteenth century, scientists developed procedures to induce unconsciousness through use of general anesthesia, in which patients inhaled volatile or gaseous anesthetics such as diethyl ether, nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas), and the highly 376
toxic chloroform. Not all surgical procedures required an unconscious patient, however, so scientists sometimes employed local (or regional) anesthetics to numb specific areas of the body. These types of compounds have much more complex chemical structures, and they can be injected with a hypodermic syringe or applied topically as creams, lotions, or aerosol sprays. Cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic during eye surgery in 1884 by Karl Koller, a house surgeon at the Wiener Allgemeines Krankenhaus (Vienna’s general hospital), at the suggestion of his young colleague Sigmund Freud. Later that year, William Stewart Halsted employed cocaine to produce the first nerve block by local injection. However, cocaine’s toxicity, cost, and addictive properties, in addition to the fact that the anesthesia it induced was of short duration, encouraged the search for a substitute. Paul Ehrlich is credited as the first to relate the chemical structure of a molecule to its effectiveness as a medicine. To draw this connection, Ehrlich employed a multistep methodology common in medicinal chemistry: Isolate the active ingredient of a known herbal remedy or other medicinal of natural origin; determine its chemical structure, including stereochemistry (the threedimensional arrangement of atoms); deduce the simplest portion of this chemical structure that retains the physiological effect; and use sequential chemical reactions to prepare derivative compounds for pharmacological testing. In 1860, pure cocaine was isolated as the active principle in leaves of the Erythroxylon coca bush by Albert Niemann, a graduate student working in the chemistry laboratory of Friedrich Wöhler at Göttingen University. Alfred Einhorn proposed in 1890 that the portion of the cocaine molecule promoting anesthetic activity was a benzoate ester moiety, and he proceeded to prepare a series of analogs containing this anesthesiophoric unit. In 1896, Robert Heinz found one of these compounds, methyl 4-amino-3-hydroxybenzoate, to be an effective local anesthetic during clinical trials; it was subsequently marketed by the German chemical company Farbwerke Höchst under the trade name Orthoform. Unfortunately, Orthoform possessed very limited solubility in water, so it was administered as a powder into open wounds. In 1900, E. Ritsert at Farbwerke Höchst submitted another topical anesthetic for clinical trials called benzocaine (ethyl 4-aminobenzoate); this compound remains a popular ingredient of throat lozenges.
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Heinrich Braun published his influential Local Anesthesia: Its Scientific Basis and Practical Use in 1905 (the book went through seven editions in Braun’s lifetime), and, in 1909, Einhorn finally published the details of his synthetic procedures as a series of papers in volume 371 of Justus Liebig’s Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie. August Karl Gustav Bier, a professor of surgery at the University of Berlin and pioneer of spinal anesthesia, employed Novocaine in 1908 to cause a loss of feeling in an entire limb using the new technique of intravenousregional anesthesia (now referred to as Bier’s block). Einhorn promoted surgical applications of Novocaine until his death in 1917, and he especially encouraged its use for amputations and other procedures necessitated by the wounds suffered by soldiers during World War I. He was dismayed, however, that military field surgeons were reluctant to employ Novocaine. Dentists embraced it with enthusiasm, but Einhorn felt that dental drilling and tooth extraction were mundane applications of his noble innovation. Eventually, Novocaine was displaced by Xylocaine (the trade name for lidocaine) and other anesthetics. Significance Prior to the introduction of anesthesia, patients had been tied down or otherwise immobilized on operating tables while surgeons rushed to perform nightmarish procedures. Only crude techniques were possible under these conditions, and barbers’ razors were as likely to be used as medical doctors’ knives. The availability of effective and reliable anesthetic agents gave relief to patients and also allowed for the development and expansion of techniques and procedures in surgery and dentistry. The development of Novocaine also played an important role in fostering the emergence of the modern pharmaceutical industry, which originated in the syntheticdye factories established in Germany during the 1860’s. Companies such as Farbwerke Höchst developed working relationships with research scientists at universities, and this led to several important medical advancements. Much of the credit for achievements in the field of pharmaceuticals prior to World War I is owed to collaborations with recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine such as Emil von Behring (1901), Robert Koch (1905), and Paul Ehrlich (1908). — Martin V. Stewart Further Reading Burger, Alfred, ed. Medicinal Chemistry. 3d ed. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1970. Chapter 63 extensively covers the primary literature of Einhorn’s con377
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The complete chemical structure of cocaine was finally established in 1898 at the University of Munich by Richard Willstätter, a former student of Einhorn and Nobel laureate in 1915. Einhorn modified the structures of his target benzoate esters so that they more closely resembled cocaine and received a patent titled “Verfahren zur Darstellung von p-Aminobenzoësäurealkaminestern” on November 27, 1904. His patent described the synthesis of eighteen alkylamino esters of 4-aminobenzoic acid prepared for Farbwerke Höchst. These compounds were tested at the Pharmacological Institute in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), and the most promising one, procaine, was sent to Heinrich Braun at Leipzig for clinical trials in 1905. Procaine (2-diethylaminoethyl 4-aminobenzoate) becomes water-soluble when converted to a hydrochloride salt. Braun observed that procaine hydrochloride caused much less tissue irritation than existing agents, but he noted that the resulting anesthesia was brief unless very strong solutions were employed. He also discovered that procaine’s effect was greatly increased when it was mixed with the hormone epinephrine (also called adrenaline) as a vasoconstrictor, narrowing the blood vessels. Another injectable synthetic anesthetic of similar molecular structure was Stovaine, which was prepared concurrently by the French chemist Ernest Fourneau in 1904, but it was found to be less potent and considerably more irritating. Alfred Einhorn was associated with Farbwerke Höchst (formally called Meister, Lucius, and Brüning), a chemical factory at Höchst in Hesse, central Germany, which later became the industrial district of Frankfurt. Founded in 1863, the company began producing pharmaceuticals in 1883, and it was the first to manufacture procaine hydrochloride, which it marketed under the trade name Novocaine (meaning “new cocaine” and derived from the Latin novus plus caine). The overall safety, low toxicity, lack of irritancy, and efficacy when combined with epinephrine ensured that Novocaine would dominate the field of local anesthesia for nearly half a century. It was introduced in the United States in 1907 and popularized by Guido Fischer from the Königlich Zahnärztlichen Universitäts-Instituts (now the School of Dental Medicine at the Philipps University of Marburg), in Marburg, Germany. Fischer, with support from Farbwerke Höchst, made an instructional film in 1914 for use during lectures that demonstrated injection techniques for dental surgery to large professional audiences. With Richard H. Riethmueller, Fischer published the book Local Anesthesia in Dentistry (1912) in English.
Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic
Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity temporaries, unlike subsequent fourth (1981), fifth (1997), or sixth (2003) editions. Burnham, Bruce S., Iris H. Hall, and Alex Gringauz. Introduction to Medicinal Chemistry: How Drugs Act and Why. 2d ed. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 2006. The chemistry, pharmacology, and history of anesthetics are included in this update to the 1997 edition by Alex Gringauz. Dunsky, Joel L. “Alfred Einhorn: The Discoverer of Procaine.” Journal of the Massachusetts Dental Society 46, no. 3 (Fall, 1997): 25-26. Arare article focusing on Einhorn’s contribution to anesthesiology. Lasslo, Andrew. Molecules, Miracles, and Medicine. St. Louis, Mo.: Warren H. Green, 2000. Procaine is one of eight common drugs whose histories are summarized. Ruetsch, Yvan A., Thomas Böni, and Alain Borgeat. “From Cocaine to Ropivacaine: The History of Local Anesthetic Drugs.” Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry 1, no. 3 (August, 2001): 175-182. A review
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 article with ninety-seven references on both classic and modern anesthetics. Sneader, Walter. Drug Prototypes and Their Exploitation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Structureactivity relationships of local anesthetics are included in chapters 18 and 19. Vertosick, Frank T. Why We Hurt: The Natural History of Pain. New York: Harcourt, 2000. A physician presents a broad review of the subjects of pain and pain management. See also: 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups; 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels; Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion; Spring, 1907: Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed; 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney; Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin; July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator.
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Punnett’s MENDELISM Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity In his book Mendelism, Reginald Crundall Punnett introduced diagrams to explain how traits are inherited and thus helped to popularize Mendel’s work. Also known as: Punnett squares Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; genetics; biology Key Figures Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875-1967), English geneticist Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Austrian teaching monk and botanist William Bateson (1861-1926), British geneticist Hugo de Vries (1848-1935), Dutch plant physiologist Carl Erich Correns (1864-1933), German botanist Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg (1871-1962), Austrian botanist Summary of Event In 1905, Reginald Crundall Punnett’s landmark book Mendelism was published. It was the first textbook on the subject and was so popular that the Westminster Gazette listed it along with a novel by Marie Corelli as the best 378
seller of the week. The small book stated clearly the principles of heredity espoused by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel in his classic paper of 1866. As understanding of the application of Mendel’s ideas increased, the book’s subsequent editions expanded in size. In the first edition, Punnett included simple graphic devices to demonstrate the results expected when a single set of characteristics (monohybrid) or two sets of characteristics (dihybrid) are considered in a cross. The diagrams were explicit, simple, and visually convincing. Such representations, which came to be called “Punnett squares,” soon became valuable tools for beginning genetics students. When Mendelism first appeared, the subject was unknown to most investigators. Mendel’s original paper of 1866, long ignored because it had been published in an obscure journal, had been rediscovered independently in 1900 by three botanists: Hugo de Vries, Carl Erich Correns, and Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg. Although Mendel’s ideas were intriguing, early twentieth century biologists did not agree on the universality of his “laws” of heredity. They searched for an understanding of the significance of the Mendelian patterns. Punnett’s book became an excellent learning tool for the rediscovered Mendelism.
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Punnett formed a fruitful partnership with A Punnett Square Showing William Bateson, whose rejection of tradiFlower Pigmentation tional Darwinism caused him to be out of favor with the academic establishment. In White × White 1910, Bateson resigned from the inadeCCpp ccPP ↓ quately funded, temporary chair of biology at Purple the University of Cambridge. The chair beF1 CcPp came adequately endowed in 1912 and was given to Punnett, who became the first Arthur ↓ CP Cp cP cp Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. CCPP CCPp CcPP CcPp Undoubtedly, Punnett’s work on the MenCP purple purple purple purple delian explanation of sex determination, sex linkage, complementary factors and factor CCPp CCpp CcPp Ccpp Cp interaction, autosomal linkage, and mimicry purple white purple white resulted in important scientific accomplishF2 CcPP CcPp ccPP ccPp ments. His practical achievement during cP purple purple white white World War I, when he devised a scheme to distinguish sex in very young chickens, was CcPp Ccpp ccPp ccpp ingenious. (By looking for sex-linked plumcp purple white white white age-color factors that would appear only in male chicks, researchers could distinguish and destroy unwanted males so that food When white-flowered sweet pea plants were crossed, the first-generation would not be wasted on them.) Also imporprogeny (F1 ) all had purple flowers. When these plants were self-fertilized, the tant, but in a different way, was Bateson and second-generation progeny (F2 ) revealed a ratio of nine purple to seven Punnett’s joint founding of the Journal of Gewhite. This result can be explained by the presence of two genes for flower pigmentation, P (dominant) and p (recessive) and C or c. Both dominant netics in 1911; the journal contributed signifforms, P and C, must be present in order to produce purple flowers. icantly to the advancement of genetics. Punnett’s simple diagrammatic scheme, now called the Punnett square, helped ensure the plants produced only dwarfs, the tall plants produced two success of Mendelism during the first decade of the different kinds of seed, some giving rise to tall plants twentieth century and has continued to contribute to the only and others producing both talls and dwarfs in a 3:1 understanding of classical genetics. proportion. By breeding subsequent generations, MenMendel used the pea plant, Pisum, to investigate the del demonstrated that pure dominants and recessives inheritance of individual characteristics such as seed pod breed true, but that impure dominants always produce color, height, flower color, and pod shape. In one set of dominants and recessives in a constant proportion of 3:1. experiments, he investigated only the heights of the Because pure dominants are only half as numerous as implants. When he crossed pure tall plants (one to two mepure dominants, when impure dominants are crossed ters high) and pure dwarf plants (half a meter to one mewith each other they produce pure dominants, impure ter high), all of the offspring (Fl generation) were tall. dominants, and recessives in the ratio of 1:2:1. Mendel applied the term “dominant” to the tall plants and The case considered above involves only a single set “recessive” to the dwarf plants. Next, he collected the of characteristics (in this example, height) and is known seeds from the Fl plants. When he sowed them the folas a monohybrid cross. Mendel ascertained that when the lowing year, both tall and dwarf plants appeared in the original parents differ in two pairs of characters, such as offspring (F2 generation), but each individual was either tall or dwarf, with no intermediates. In one set of experiseed color and height (a dihybrid cross), the two traits are ments, out of a total of 1,064 of these F2 plants, 787 were assorted independent of each other. When a tall yellowtall and 277 were dwarf, approximately a ratio of 3:1. seeded pea is crossed with a dwarf green-seeded plant, The next year, Mendel planted the seeds of the F2 generthe Fl plants all exhibit the dominant character of each ation. He found that although the seeds from the dwarf pair and are tall yellows. In the F2 generation, talls and
Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity dwarfs appear in the ratio of 3:1, and yellows and greens also appear in a 3:1 ratio. Consequently, out of the total sixteen plants, twelve will be tall and the other four dwarf. Out of every four talls, three will be yellows and the remaining one green. Out of the twelve talls, therefore, nine will be yellow and three will be green. Out of the four dwarfs, three will be yellow and one will be green. Consequently, the F2 generation arising from the cross will result in nine yellow talls, three green talls, three yellow dwarfs, and one green dwarf. For every sixteen plants, nine will show both dominants, two classes of three each will show the dominant character of one pair and the recessive of the other, and one plant will show both recessive characters. This principle holds true for three sets of characters and can be extended indefinitely for any number of pairs of characteristics. After describing the crossing procedure and results, Punnett showed his simple graphic way of viewing the probabilities from these crosses. In Punnett’s square, he used Aa and Bb to represent two sets of unit characteristics (in the above example, height and seed color). The capital letters represent dominant characteristics, and the lowercase represent recessive characteristics. A = dominant a = recessive
B = dominant b = recessive
If a parent pure (homozygous) for the dominant A characteristic is crossed with a parent pure (homozygous) for the recessive a character (AA H aa), all of the offspring (Fl generation) resemble the dominant A parent but carry the recessive a (Aa). If two of these Fl individuals are crossed (Aa H Aa), the ratio of their offspring (F2 generation) will be 1 (AA), 2 (Aa), and 1 (aa). To demonstrate this 1:2:1 ratio, Punnett drew a large square divided into four cells. One A and one a is assumed to appear across the horizontal axis, and one A and one a down the vertical axis (Punnett did not explicitly complete this step). When the A and the a from the horizontal axis are multiplied by the A and the a from the vertical axis, the four cells of the large square indicate one individual with AA, two with Aa, and one with aa, as Mendel predicted. If a second set of characteristics Bb H Bb is considered, the result will be the predicted 1:2:1. To demonstrate the disposition of the B and b factors, Punnett divided each of the four original cells into four again. In each of the new cells, one individual is BB, two are Bb, and one bb—again, the predicted 1:2:1 ratio for a monohybrid cross. A Punnett square can also be used to illustrate a dihybrid cross, in which two sets of characters are considered 380
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 simultaneously. If in the first parental cross (P1) one parent is pure (homozygous) for both dominants (AABB) and the other parent is pure (homozygous) for both recessives (aabb), the Fl generation will be heterozygous, having both A and a and B and b. P1 cross
AABB H aabb
F1 generation
AaBb
F1 cross
AaBb H AaBb
Of the sixteen squares necessary to illustrate this cross, nine contain both A and B, three contain A but not B, three contain B but not A, and one contains neither A nor B. The ratio illustrated by the diagram is the 9:3:3:1 expected from a dihybrid cross. Although this method can be used to consider three or more characteristics, the numbers of squares required in such cases makes it cumbersome. Illustrating a trihybrid cross would require 64 squares, and considering four different characteristics would require 256 squares. Significance Punnett’s book Mendelism, in which he created a simple way to illustrate Mendel’s ratios visually, played a vital role in popularizing Mendel’s work. Through this book, Punnett launched an aggressive propaganda campaign for Mendel’s ideas. Even after 1900, when Mendelism was rediscovered, it was by no means universally known or, where known, universally accepted. Rules that worked for the inheritance of color in pea plants did not seem to apply to the inheritance of comb types in chickens or to apparent cases of blending inheritance in certain traits. Using his clear diagrams, Punnett engaged in a crusade for Mendelism, showing how apparent exceptions could be explained within the framework of Mendel’s conclusions. Punnett’s emphasis on the importance of Mendelism inspired a biological revolution, but one that he never joined. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, cytologists (those who study cells) observed the peculiar way in which chromosomes are distributed during ordinary body cell division (mitosis) and in the special divisions that produce egg and sperm. They proceeded in their microscopic studies, totally unaware of the significance of Mendel’s work for their own observations. In the meantime, botanists such as Correns and de Vries, cast in the Mendelian mold of plant hybridizers, continued with their breeding experiments equally unaware of the studies on chromosomes that were being undertaken at the same time.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Although some late nineteenth century cytologists suspected that chromosomes might play a part in heredity, they had no evidence as to how traits were distributed among offspring. Mendel, of course, had already determined some of these relationships, but his ideas were unavailable to cytologists until after 1900. In the period before Mendel’s laws were rediscovered, many competing theories of heredity were developed. No one theory could be taken as the paradigm, or the accepted “establishment” point of view. Mendel’s theory on its own was not sufficient to represent a complete paradigm until it was fused with the cytological ideas that placed Mendel’s “factors” on the chromosomes. Between 1900 and 1910, evidence mounted to indicate that chromosomes represented the physical basis for Mendel’s observed ratios. Punnett worked only on one side of this problem, the Mendelian. Throughout his career, he remained a Mendelian and was not affected by the development of the theory of the gene and of cytogenetics. Nevertheless, his brilliant work on the Mendelian aspects of heredity, including his clear ways of presenting his data (through his diagrammatic approach), made possible the fusion between Mendelian genetics and cytology and the establishment of the new paradigm that occurred around 1910. —Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie
work in context. Includes a glossary and a bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. Henig, Robin Marantz. The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Discusses Mendel’s life, including his work, in the context of his time and also relates the rediscovery of his work to developments in the constantly changing field of genetics. Olby, Robert C. The Origins of Mendelism. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Evaluates Mendel’s work and considers the consequences of its rediscovery for early twentieth century biology. Punnett, Reginald Crundall. “Early Days of Genetics.” Heredity 4 (April, 1950): 1-10. In this paper—an address delivered at the one hundredth meeting of the Genetical Society in Cambridge, England, on June 30, 1949—Punnett provides an entertaining look at the early development of Mendelian genetics in England. _______. “Reginald Crundall Punnett.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 13 (1967): 323-326. This memoir contains the most complete biographical treatment of Punnett as well as a complete bibliography of his writings. Sturtevant, A. H. A History of Genetics. 1965. Reprint. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2001. Summarizes general theories of heredity and helps put Punnett’s work into context. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map.
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Further Reading Carlson, Elof Axel. Mendel’s Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004. Based heavily on early twentieth century sources, this book traces the roots of genetics in breeding analysis and studies of cytology, evolution, and reproductive biology. Highly illustrated. Dunn, L. C. A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 18641939. 1965. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. Summarizes the general history of theories of heredity and places Bateson’s and Punnett’s
Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity
Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1905
Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia The Singer Manufacturing Company developed a major factory to make sewing machines in Podolsk, Russia, in response to consistently growing Russian sales. Locale: Podolsk, Russia Categories: Manufacturing and industry; trade and commerce Key Figures Walter F. Dixon (fl. early twentieth century), Englishborn civil engineer Albert Flohr (fl. early twentieth century), German who served as managing director of Kompaniya Singer, 1902-1915 George Neidlinger (b. 1843?), Singer’s general agent in Hamburg, Germany, 1865-1902 Summary of Event In 1905, the Podolsk factory of Kompaniya Singer, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Singer Manufacturing Company in the United States, began making sewing machines (called machine heads, to distinguish them from the cast-iron stands) for the Russian market. The development of this factory, which within a few years would be Singer’s third-largest manufacturing plant, was the natural outgrowth of the growing size and importance of the Russian market for Singer machines. The Singer Company had its roots in the 1850’s, when Isaac Singer brought together the elements that were central to any successful design of a sewing machine and his partner Andrew Clark developed an effective marketing approach using a form of installment credit. Singer quickly sought foreign markets, establishing general agents first in London, in 1862, and then in Hamburg, in 1865. The Hamburg agent, George Neidlinger, quickly established links to Russia, selling through an independent agent. During the 1870’s, Singer perfected its marketing approach, using myriad small shops with door-todoor canvassers, and decided to take direct control of all its sales, whether in the United States or abroad. In 1877, Neidlinger was put in charge of Russian sales and began building an organization nearly identical to that already in place in the United States, Great Britain, and parts of Western Europe. Sales of Singer sewing machines in Russia grew steadily through the 1880’s and early 1890’s. With the quickening tempo of Russian economic development in 382
the 1890’s, it was increasingly likely that Russia would develop into a major market, perhaps second only to that of the United States. To position the company to take advantage of this opportunity, Singer’s management in New York City decided to create a wholly owned subsidiary in Russia and to develop a factory there to help supply the rapidly increasing needs of the Russian sales organization. Neidlinger incorporated Kompaniya Singer in 1897, soon acquired what was perhaps the finest commercial location on St. Petersburg’s premier business street, Nevskii Prospekt, and began an intensive search for a site suitable for a major factory. In the spring of 1900, Kompaniya Singer acquired its preferred site in the town of Podolsk, twenty-six miles south of Moscow. To supervise construction of the new factory and then to manage its operation, Neidlinger hired Walter F. Dixon, an English-born civil engineer with extensive industrial experience, first in the United States and then for seven years in Russia. Dixon proceeded cautiously, following the pattern that Singer had used in developing factories in Scotland and Germany. At first, the Podolsk factory made only the easily fabricated cast-iron stands for sewing machines, which were then assembled with imported machine heads. This permitted slow and careful development of a skilled workforce. Neidlinger and Dixon knew that Russia did not have the kind of skilled industrial workers available in the West. They brought experienced workers from Singer’s plant near Glasgow to begin operations. Each of these worked in tandem with a single Russian worker until the Russian knew how to do the work precisely, then each would take on another Russian. To guard against bringing in bad practices from other Russian factories, Dixon hired only peasants with no previous industrial experience. His approach was remarkably successful: The Podolsk plant achieved quality and productivity levels near those of its sister factories in New Jersey and Scotland and was, according to one official American survey, the only factory in Russia to approach Western standards. In 1905, the Podolsk factory employed only 398 people. It was able to produce nearly 150,000 stands, coming close to satisfying the needs for the Russian market. The well-trained workforce then began making machine heads. The first 450 were ready by April. During 1907, the factory made 190,000 stands and shipped nearly 100,000 machine heads. In 1908, the Podolsk plant em-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ployed more than 1,300 workers and was by far the largest machinery producer in the Moscow region; in 1912, with nearly 3,000 employees, output reached 245,000 stands and 425,000 machine heads. This extraordinary growth required almost continuous additions to the factory, leading to the acquisition of nearly forty adjacent acres to accommodate expansion. The scale of output created pressure in another quarter— the need for lumber for machine covers. In 1912, Dixon sought and eventually won approval to buy 186 square miles of forest in the Vetluga district, four hundred miles northeast of Podolsk. The prodigious expansion of output at Podolsk did not, however, keep up with growth in sales of sewing machines in Russia. Russia was Singer’s largest growth market between 1902 and 1914. Sales grew threefold, jumping from 15 percent of Singer’s total sales to 30 percent, and Russia became the most important market after the United States. The man who directed this remarkable
Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia achievement was Albert Flohr, a German who had begun working for Neidlinger in the 1890’s and had taken control of Kompaniya Singer and the Russian marketing organization in 1902. Flohr was an uncommonly skillful leader, energetic, creative, and tough. By 1914, he headed a sales organization that was the largest nongovernmental organization in Russia. It had 27,000 employees supervised through fifty district offices and working out of nearly five thousand retail shops.
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Significance The growth and evolution of Singer’s Russian sales and manufacturing organization followed a pattern typical of many major American industrial firms. As firms grew, they often found that sales in their existing markets were growing slowly or were even stagnant; in order to sustain growth, they needed to develop new markets. Singer was unusual only in that it began this process so early, driven in significant measure by the disruptions the American Civil War brought to the company’s domestic market. Singer quickly discovered how profitable foreign sales could be, and by the 1870’s it was committed to selling machines everywhere in the world that it could find markets. In some countries, such as Austria and Canada, it found that it had to do some local production, either to escape heavy tariffs or to protect patent rights, and thus established small foundries that made only stands. In larger markets such as Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, Singer recognized that it had to have local manufacturing caTo view image, please refer to the pacity to retain its competitive position and susprint edition of this title. tain growth. Its American facilities simply could not meet the demand. Indeed, Singer’s first overseas production began on the initiative of the company’s London agent, who could not get enough machines from the United States following the Civil War. This evolution from developing a market to supporting that development with local manufacturing is a pattern that many other firms followed, including Ford and Eastman Kodak. Singer’s Russian experience is interesting because of the virtual absence of government involvement. Historians have often characterized late Imperial Russia, especially under Finance Minister Sergey Yulyevich Witte in the A woman uses a Singer sewing machine, model 66, which was manufac1890’s, as vigorously courting foreign investured in 1902. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) tors and promoting industrialization. That pic-
Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia ture finds absolutely no confirmation in the Singer experience, however, nor do Singer records suggest any significant problem with official venality, another common theme in histories of the period. The internal logic of Singer’s marketing strategy and its remarkable success in expanding Russian sales, rather than governmental encouragement, drove the decision to manufacture at Podolsk. The second great multinational company active in Russia at the time was International Harvester. Its principal predecessor, McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, had developed strong overseas sales but had not developed any overseas manufacturing capacity at the time of the 1902 merger that created International Harvester. Believing the American market to be largely saturated, the new company paid particular attention to developing foreign markets. By 1906, in response to the strength of some European competitors and the difficulty in competing effectively from a North American base, International Harvester had bought an old factory in Norrköping, Sweden. It soon followed up with factory acquisitions in France, Germany, and Russia. As with Singer, concerns about tariffs, licensing, and other issues sometimes helped focus attention on the question of the appropriateness of local manufacturing, but the fundamental driving force behind the development of local factories in Russia and elsewhere was the necessity of providing adequate quantities of goods to meet rapidly growing sales. Unlike Singer, International Harvester did get deeply involved with the Russian government when it decided that it ought to develop manufacturing capacity in Russia. The prospect of government bounties for the manufacture of complex modern harvesting equipment and the possibility of facing stiff duties on imported machines led senior managers at International Harvester to open negotiations with top Russian officials. The company ultimately reaped no benefits from these negotiations; in fact, they distracted management from the critically important supervision needed to make the Russian factory a success. Ultimately, International Harvester’s experience in Russia confirmed the lessons of Singer’s history there: There was very little the Russian government would or even could do for a market-oriented investor. The challenge was to manage the marketing organization and its supporting manufacturing plant with skill and insight. —Fred V. Carstensen
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bissell, Don. The First Conglomerate: 145 Years of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Brunswick, Maine: Audenreed Press, 1999. Business history of the Singer Company from the perspective of company presidents since the organization’s founding. Chapter 7 discusses the establishment of the Russian factory. Includes select bibliography and index. Carstensen, Fred V. American Enterprise in Foreign Markets: Studies of Singer and International Harvester in Imperial Russia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Detailed case studies of Singer and International Harvester (and its principal predecessor, McCormick Harvesting Machine Company) in Russia. Based on rich archival sources. Provides analysis of how these two transnational corporations developed. Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1977. Authoritative history of the rise of hierarchical corporate management in American firms between 1850 and 1920. Provides excellent context for understanding the processes at both Singer and International Harvester. Davies, Robert B. Peacefully Working to Conquer the World: Singer Sewing Machines in Foreign Markets, 1854-1920. New York: Arno Press, 1976. A good general description of Singer’s overseas development, including materials on Singer in Japan, China, India, South America, and Europe. Weak on the critical marketing developments of the 1870’s. McKay, John. Pioneers for Profit: Foreign Entrepreneurship and Russian Industrialization, 1885-1913. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. One of the best summaries available of foreign enterprises active in Russia. Wilkins, Mira. The Emergence of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from the Colonial Era to 1914. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. Authoritative and comprehensive survey of American transnational companies operating prior to World War I. See also: Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company; 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Baekeland Invents Bakelite
1905-1907
Baekeland Invents Bakelite Leo Hendrik Baekeland developed the first totally synthetic thermosetting plastic, which paved the way for modern material science. Locale: Yonkers, New York Categories: Science and technology; inventions; chemistry Key Figures Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944), Belgian-born American chemist, consultant, and inventor Christian Friedrich Schönbein (1799-1868), German chemist Adolf von Baeyer (1835-1917), German chemist George Eastman (1854-1932), American industrialist and inventor
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Summary of Event In the 1860’s, the firm of Phelan and Collender offered a prize of ten thousand dollars to anyone who could produce a substance that could serve as an inexpensive substitute for ivory, which was somewhat difficult to obtain in large quantities at reasonable prices. At the time, the amount of the prize represented a sizable sum of money, and many tinkerers and inventors sought to win it. Christian Friedrich Schönbein laid the groundwork for a breakthrough in the quest for a new material in 1846 with his serendipitous discovery of nitrocellulose, more commonly known as guncotton, which was produced by the reaction of nitric acid with cotton. A number of scientists explored the properties of this material, among them Alexander Parkes, who had hopes of developing rubberlike materials that would be more colorful and thus more appealing than rubber. The first public display of his new material, dubbed Parkesine, took place at an 1862 exposition in London. Although Parkesine was colorful and had potential for a wide variety of uses, it was not a commercial success, as Parkes could not overcome various shortcomings of the material. While Parkes struggled with Parkesine, an American inventor named John Wesley Hyatt was tinkering with a similar substance. Hyatt was already in the synthetic materials business, owning a factory that produced dominoes from a material made of shellac and wood pulp. In his investigations of nitrocellulose, Hyatt found the key that had eluded Parkes. His discovery was that the addition of camphor to nitrocellulose under certain conditions led to formation of a white material that could be
molded and machined. He dubbed this substance celluloid, and this product is now acknowledged as the first synthetic plastic. Celluloid won the Phelan and Collender prize for Hyatt, and he promptly set out to exploit his product. Celluloid was used to make baby rattles, shirt collars, dentures, and other manufactured goods. Ultimately, the properties of celluloid led to the realization that it was more suited for other things. As a billiard ball substitute, for instance, it was not really adequate for various reasons. First of all, it is a thermoplastic—in other words, it softens when heated and so can be easily deformed or molded at high temperatures. Also, it is highly flammable, hardly a desirable characteristic. A widely circulated, perhaps apocryphal, story claimed that celluloid billiard balls detonated when they collided. One of the more interesting uses of celluloid was in the making of motion-picture film, as it could be produced in a thin layer. It was used almost exclusively for this purpose, despite its flammability, until it was displaced by a less flammable substitute. A class of materials related to celluloids are thermosetting compounds. As the name implies, thermosetting materials are initially fluid and harden when heated, assuming the shapes of their containers. These thermosetting reactions are generally nonreversible, meaning the products tend to be stable. The first product of this class was developed in 1897 from the reaction of formaldehyde with milk protein. This was the first example of what are known as casein plastics, and the resulting material was widely used in the production of small items. It is significant in that it was the first human-made thermosetting plastic. Although celluloid and casein plastics were significant achievements, both were derivatives of natural products and thus were not completely synthetic substances. Therefore, the stage was set for a breakthrough into a totally new area of manufactured goods: synthetic plastics. Leo Hendrik Baekeland is recognized as the first person to produce a completely artificial plastic. Born in Ghent, Belgium, Baekeland emigrated to the United States in 1889 to undertake applied research, a pursuit not encouraged in Europe at the time. Baekeland worked in the photographic industry until his good reputation allowed him to start his own consulting firm in 1891. He also pursued his research interests and achieved commercial success by developing Velox, a photographic paper. Industrialist George Eastman purchased the rights to
Baekeland Invents Bakelite
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Leo Hendrik Baekeland. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Velox from Baekeland for one million dollars, and with this wealth, Baekeland purchased a home in Yonkers, New York, constructed a laboratory there, and continued his research efforts. One area in which Baekeland hoped to make inroads was in the development of an artificial shellac, as he knew there would be a wide market for any reasonably priced substitute for shellac, an expensive natural product. Baekeland’s research scheme, begun in 1905, focused on finding a solvent that could dissolve the resinous products from a certain class of organic chemical reaction. The particular resins he used had been reported in the mid-1800’s by the German chemist Adolf von Baeyer. These resins were produced by the condensation reaction of formaldehyde with a class of chemicals called phenols. Baeyer found that frequently the major product of such a reaction was a gummy residue that was virtually impossible to remove from glassware. Baekeland focused on finding a material that could dissolve these resinous products, believing that such a substance would prove to be the shellac substitute he sought. His efforts proved frustrating, however, as he failed to find an adequate solvent for these resins. After repeated attempts, Baekeland shifted the orientation of his work. Aban386
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 doning the quest to dissolve the resins, he set about trying to develop a resin that would be impervious to any solvent, reasoning that such a material would have useful applications. Baekeland’s experiments involved the manipulation of phenol-formaldehyde reactions through precise control of the chemical proportions, addition of catalysts, and manipulation of the temperature and pressure at which the reactions were performed. Many of these experiments were performed in a reactor vessel that was 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) tall, which he called a Bakelizer. In 1907, his meticulous experiments paid off when he opened the reactor to find that he had created a clear solid that was heat resistant, nonconducting, and machinable. Experimentation proved that the material could be dyed practically any color during the manufacturing process, with no effect on its physical properties. Baekeland filed a patent for this new material in 1907. (Ironically, his patent was filed one day before that of James Swinburne, a British electrical engineer who had developed a similar product in his quest to create an insulating material.) Baekeland dubbed his new creation Bakelite and announced its existence to the scientific community on February 15, 1909, at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The following year, the General Bakelite Corporation was formed, and the Bakelite it produced was used in many different industries. Among the first uses was in the manufacture of ignition parts for the rapidly growing automobile industry. At the time of Baekeland’s death in 1944, annual production of Bakelite was more than 125,000 tons, and the material was being used to produce an incredible variety of manufactured goods. Significance Baekeland’s synthesis of Bakelite paved the way for the development of a great variety of novel human-made products, some of which are similar to natural materials and some of which have no parallel in nature. Bakelite was introduced at the very time the automobile industry was in need of parts fabricated from such a material. This provided a firm industrial base for the material that is still retained. In synthesizing Bakelite, Baekeland drew on both his theoretical knowledge of chemistry and, to a large extent, his practical knowledge based on years of experience. He did not fully understand the structure of his product on a molecular level. Bakelite proved to be the first of a class of compounds called synthetic polymers. Polymers are long chains of molecules that are linked together chemi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 2d rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. A user-friendly text that contains biographical information on more than fifteen hundred scientists and inventors. Extensive cross-
referencing enables interested readers to learn much about both scientific discoveries and the personalities and accomplishments of the scientists involved. Canby, Thomas Y. “Reshaping Our Lives: Advanced Materials.” National Geographic 176 (December, 1989): 746-781. Presents a comprehensive overview of modern material science, including detailed discussions of polymers, ceramics, composites, and other materials. Also contains information on yearly production figures, theoretical background, and manufacturing techniques. Color photographs. Chiles, James R. “On Land, Sea, and in the Air, Those Polymer Invaders Are Here.” Smithsonian 16 (November, 1985): 76-86. Informative article gives a brief summary of the history of plastic and an excellent overview of modern plastic materials. Includes several good photographs of plastics manufacturing processes. Fenichell, Stephen. Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century. New York: Collins, 1996. Traces the history of plastics and discusses their sociological importance as they revolutionized many fields, from fashion to medicine. Friedel, Robert. “AWorld of New Materials.” In Inventors and Discoverers: Changing Our World, edited by Elizabeth L. Newhouse. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1988. Presents a historical survey of materials science, including detailed history of such materials as rubber, celluloid, and plastics. Includes interesting photographs illustrating the broad potential of plastics touted to a receptive public. Also includes an excellent biographical profile of Baekeland. Mossman, Susan, ed. Early Plastics: Perspectives 18501950. New York: Continuum, 2000. A collection of essays by historians of art and technology on all aspects of the social history of the first century of plastic. Includes twenty color plates. Williams, Trevor I. A Short History of TwentiethCentury Technology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. An excellent overview of technology from 1900 to 1950, this work compresses an incredible amount of material into a small text. Includes a chapter on chemicals with a section devoted to plastics that places twentieth century achievements in synthetic plastic research in perspective. See also: 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye; 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones; Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon. 387
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cally. There are many natural polymers, such as cotton. The discovery of synthetic polymers led to vigorous research into the field and attempts to produce other useful artificial materials. These efforts met with a fair amount of success; by 1940, a multitude of new products unlike anything found in nature had been developed. These included such materials as polystyrene and low-density polyethylene. In addition, polymer chemists sought to create artificial substitutes for natural polymers, such as rubber. One of the results of this research was the development of neoprene. Industries also were interested in developing synthetic polymers to produce materials that could be used in place of natural fibers such as cotton. The most dramatic success in this area was achieved by Du Pont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers, who also developed neoprene. Carothers focused his energies on forming a synthetic fiber similar to silk, resulting in the synthesis of nylon. Plastics were widely used in World War II because of their properties, as in the case of Bakelite, and as substitutes for natural products in short supply, as with nylon. Postwar development in the plastics industry yielded many useful new products, such as high-density polyethylene, for which Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Research and development of novel synthetic materials in more recent years produced such innovations as Kevlar, and the area remains one of intense competition. Synthetic polymers constitute one branch of a broad area known as material science. Novel, useful materials produced synthetically have allowed for tremendous progress in many areas. Examples of these new materials include high-temperature superconductors, composites, and ceramics as well as plastics. These materials have wide-ranging uses as structural components of aircraft, artificial limbs and implants, tennis rackets, garbage bags, and more. Unlike most natural products, plastics are extremely persistent in the environment. Growing awareness of this characteristic has led to the implementation of recycling technology as well as research aimed at developing agents that facilitate the biodegradation of these materials. —Craig B. Lagrone
Baekeland Invents Bakelite
Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1905-1907
Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks Bertram Borden Boltwood pioneered the radiometric dating of rocks, giving impetus to the use of nuclear methods in geology and establishing a new chronology of the earth. Locale: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geology; physics Key Figures Bertram Borden Boltwood (1870-1927), American scientist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist who won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Baron Kelvin (William Thomson; 1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist who formulated the second law of thermodynamics Summary of Event Bertram Borden Boltwood, educated at Yale University and in Germany, began his career as an instructor of analytic chemistry at Yale University. He remained at Yale until 1890, when he left to establish a private laboratory (Pratt and Boltwood, Consulting Mining Engineers and Chemists) in New Haven, Connecticut. He was interested in radium and was fascinated by the theory of radioactive disintegrations proposed in 1903 by two McGill University scientists, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy. According to that theory, radioactivity is always accompanied by the production of new chemical elements on an atom-by-atom basis. In 1904, Boltwood impressed Rutherford by demonstrating that all uranium minerals contain the same number of radium atoms per gram of uranium. This confirmation of the theory of radioactivity marked the beginning of a close collaboration between the two scientists. Actually, Boltwood’s involvement with research in radioactivity can be traced to 1899, when he was supervising a student project on the extraction of radium from uranium ores by Marie Curie’s method. The significance of Boltwood’s work is best appreciated in the light of a chronological controversy raging at that time between geologists and physicists. It had been accepted generally that the earth, at some time in its history, had been a liquid ball, and that its solid crust was formed when the temperature was reduced by cooling. The geological age of the earth was defined, thus, as the 388
period of time necessary to allow it to cool down from the melting point to the present temperature. Several estimates of that time were made in the second half of the nineteenth century by the famous physicist Baron Kelvin, Sir William Thomson (known as Lord Kelvin), who claimed that the age of the earth did not exceed 100 million years. In 1897, Lord Kelvin specified that the actual figure was probably close to 20 million and certainly not as large as 40 million. His calculations were mathematically correct, but they did not take into account radioactivity, which had been discovered the year before. Geologists believed that 40 million years simply was not enough time to create continents, erode mountains, and supply oceans with minerals and salts. Studies of sequences of layers (stratigraphy) and of fossils (paleontology) led them to believe that the earth was older than 100 million years, but they were not able to prove it. Boltwood and Rutherford proved that geologists were right.
Bertram Borden Boltwood. (Yale University Library)
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Decay of Uranium 238 This came as a by-product of their research on the nature of radioactivity. The gaseous element helium played Uranium Thorium an important role in that line of re234 92 238 Radium search. Rutherford knew that helium 234 92 91 230 is always present in natural deposits 234 90 Radon 90 of uranium, and this led him to beBismuth Uranium 226 lieve that in radioactive minerals, al88 Polonium Polonium Protactinium pha particles somehow are turned 222 Lead Thorium 86 210 into ordinary atoms of helium. Ac214 84 218 84 210 cordingly, each rock of a radioactive 206 84 214 83 82 83 mineral is a generator of helium. The 210 214 82 accumulation of the gas proceeds 82 Key Lead Polonium more or less uniformly, so that the = Total number of protons and neutrons 238 Bismuth age of a rock can be determined from 92 = Number of protons Lead the amount of trapped helium. In that = Electron emission (beta decay) sense, radioactive rocks serve as natural clocks. = Alpha emission = Stable In line with this model, and knowing how much helium is produced Uranium 238 decays naturally, over a predictable period of time, to form lead. from each gram of uranium per bilBoltwood realized that the accumulation of lead in rocks could be used to determine lion years, Rutherford and his coltheir age. laborators were able to see that naturally radioactive rocks are often older than 100 million years. The accumuonce trapped, it becomes part of a solid structure. lated amounts of helium in the rocks they studied were Motivated by these ideas, Boltwood proceeded with simply too large to allow other interpretations. The ages the development of the uranium-lead method of dating. of some of the samples exceeded 500 million years. To accomplish this, he had to determine the rate at which Moreover, Rutherford was aware that the ages they aslead is produced from uranium. That rate is about 0.15 signed would have to be revised upward in order to acgrams of lead per gram of uranium, per billion years. count for helium that was escaping from the rocks. Suppose, for example, that a chemical analysis of a rock Impressed by these results, and trying to eliminate the yields 0.03 grams of lead for each gram of uranium. The uncertainties associated with leakage of helium, Boltage of the rock can be found by setting 0.03 = 0.15 H t, wood decided to work on another method of dating the where t is the age of the rock, in billions of years. The sorocks. This resulted from his earlier attempts to demonlution of this simple equation is t = 0.2, or 200 million strate that, as in the case of radium, all uranium minerals years. A slightly smaller t, 192 million, would be decontain the same number of atoms of lead per gram of duced if the exponential nature of radioactive decay were uranium. Chemical data, however, did not confirm this taken under consideration. expectation; the measured lead-to-uranium ratios were Boltwood was aware that even the most carefully perfound to be different in minerals from different locations formed experiments can lead to highly unrealistic conon the earth. Yet this still needed to be interpreted. Acclusions. In his case, two sources of interpretational ercording to Rutherford and Soddy’s theory, a spontaneous rors were possible, one having to do with the preexisting transformation of uranium into a final product proceeds (nonradiogenic) lead and another having to do with the through a set of steps in which alpha particles and elecfact that chemicals can migrate through rock boundaries. trons are emitted, one after another. Boltwood realized Suppose, Boltwood argued, that 50 percent of the lead that lead must be the final product and that its accumulafound in a sample was already there at the time of solidition could be used to date minerals. By focusing on lead fication, but a researcher was not aware of that fact. In rather than on helium, he hoped to reduce the uncertainsuch a case, the derived age of the sample would be exagties associated with the leakage. He reasoned that lead is gerated by a factor of two. In other words, preexisting less likely than helium to escape from rocks because,
Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks lead would make rocks appear older than they actually were. On the other hand, the opposite would be true if one-half of the lead generated from uranium were able to escape through the rock boundaries. Recognizing the dangers of interpretational errors, Boltwood was very careful in selecting samples. He analyzed only deep portions of samples to minimize uncertainties associated with the possibility of lead leakage. Boltwood started his investigations in 1905, and before the end of the year he had analyzed twenty-six samples. One of them was identified as 570 million years old. In a formal publication that appeared in 1907, he described forty-six minerals collected in different locations; their reported ages were between 410 and 2,200 million years old. Similar results had been reported earlier by Rutherford, from his laboratory in Montreal, and by Robert John Strutt (also known as Fourth Baron Rayleigh), from the Imperial College in London. It is true that similarities were mostly qualitative, rather than quantitative; however, all data showed that the absolute time scale was undeniably longer than anticipated, even by some geologists. In other words, the large margins of error that characterized early results did not interfere with the basic overall conclusion that many rocks were at least ten times older than Lord Kelvin had calculated. It was significant that helium and lead methods, based on different chemical procedures and applied to a large number of very different minerals, yielded similar results at three institutions. Significance The main result of Boltwood’s pioneering work and that of his successors was the realization that geological time must be expressed in hundreds and thousands of millions of years rather than in tens of millions, as advocated by Lord Kelvin. This was particularly significant for the acceptance of the theory of evolution and, in general, for better understanding of many long-term processes on the earth. Geochronology (the study of geological time) has been used, for example, in investigations of reversals of the terrestrial magnetic field. Such reversals occurred many times during the earth’s geological history. Scientists discovered and studied them by dating pieces of lava that were naturally magnetized during solidification. The most recent reversal took place approximately 700,000 years ago. It is clear, in retrospect, that the discovery of radioactivity affected geochronology in two ways: by providing tools for radiometric dating and by invalidating Lord Kelvin’s thermodynamic calculations. These calcula390
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tions were based on the assumption that the geothermal energy lost by the earth is not replenished. The existence of radioactive heating, discovered in 1903 in France, contradicted that assumption and prepared scientists for the acceptance of Boltwood’s findings. Lord Kelvin died in the same year in which these findings were published, but he knew about Rutherford’s findings as early as spring, 1904. He was very interested in radioactive heating but never came forward with any public retraction of his earlier pronouncements. In its modern form, the uranium-lead method of dating is very different from what it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, primarily because radioactive transformations are better understood and because instruments have been developed that were not available in Boltwood’s day. The most important tool of modern geochronologists is the mass spectrometer. Its widespread use after World War II is responsible for the development of new methods of dating. The availability of several methods is important when redundancy can be used to minimize, and sometimes eliminate, the kinds of interpretational errors recognized by Rutherford, Strutt, and Boltwood. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, a large number of samples from different geological strata, all over the world, plus lunar samples and meteorites, had been dated by modern methods. The data showed that the oldest known terrestrial rocks solidified 3.7 billion years ago; this is 0.9 billion years less than the ages of lunar samples. The ages of most meteorites, between 4.5 and 4.7 billion years, are essentially the same as the ages of lunar samples. This is consistent with the overall picture, also backed by astronomical data, that the earth’s solar system was formed 4.7 billion years ago, and that the earth remained liquid in the first 0.9 billion years of its existence. Boltwood would be proud to be counted among the contributors to that knowledge. — Ludwik Kowalski Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Exploring the Earth and the Cosmos. New York: Crown, 1982. Provides excellent description of the ways researchers learn about the world. Twenty-three chapters cover the entire panorama of findings in astronomy, biology, chemistry, geography, and physics. Chapters 13 and 14 are devoted to chronology and to the age of the earth. Badash, Lawrence. “Bertram Borden Boltwood.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York: Charles Scribner’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sons, 1970. Biography of Boltwood includes a detailed description of his family background, professional activities, and private life. _______. Radioactivity in America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. A good account of the history of the early (pre-1920) research in radioactivity and of practical applications of that research, primarily in the United States. Boltwood’s life and professional activities, including his work on radiometric dating, are described in chapters 4, 5, and 6. Chapters 9 and 10 are devoted to medical applications of radium and to the marketing of that material. _______, ed. Rutherford and Boltwood: Letters on Radioactivity. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969. Good reading for those who wish to experience the scientific excitement of these two friends and collaborators. Of particular interest is a letter, dated November 18, 1905, in which Boltwood recognizes Rutherford as the initiator of the uranium-lead method of dating minerals. Burchfield, Joe D. Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth. New York: Science History Publications, 1975. An excellent book for all who are interested in the evolution of geochronologies, both before and after Lord Kelvin. The last chapter describes the dramatic effects of the discovery of radioactivity on geoscience. Highly readable; excellent bibliography. Eicher, Don L. Geologic Time. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976. The author of this short but very informative book, an earth scientist from the University of Colorado, places the concept of geological time in historical perspective. Focuses on significant discoveries that contributed to the growth of scientific geology and describes various methods of dating geological formations. Includes photographs, sketches, and maps.
Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks Faul, Henry. Ages of Rocks, Planets, and Stars. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Written by a geophysicist with extensive experience using modern methods of nuclear geochronology, this book provides the general scientific background that readers need to understand these methods, together with clear explanations of different techniques and descriptions of interesting findings. Friedlander, Gerhart, et al. “Nuclear Processes in Geology and Astrophysics.” In Nuclear and Radiochemistry. 3d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981. Useful introduction to the quantitative aspects of various methods of geochronology for those with some background in general physics and chemistry. Includes numerous references. Gorst, Martin. Measuring Eternity: The Search for the Beginning of Time. New York: Broadway Books, 2001. Discusses how human understanding of time, and specifically the age of the universe, has changed over the centuries as scientific knowledge has increased. Includes index. Hellman, Hal. “Lord Kelvin Versus Geologists and Biologists: The Age of the Earth.” In Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Focuses on the human side of the debate about the age of the earth between proponents of Lord Kelvin’s calculations and scientists such as Boltwood and Rutherford. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; 19331934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed. 1905
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Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 3, 1905
Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service As the nation’s chief forester, Gifford Pinchot combined crusading zeal with scientific analysis and administration to encourage the conservation of American resources. Locale: United States Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions; natural resources Key Figures Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), American conservationist Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Richard Achilles Ballinger (1858-1922), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1909-1911 Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), president of the United States, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 George W. Vanderbilt II (1862-1914), American millionaire who was interested in conservation James Rudolph Garfield (1865-1950), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1907-1909 Summary of Event Calls for the planned management of U.S. national resources in order to safeguard land, water, forests, and mineral deposits from exploitation, waste, and neglect are as old as the country. During the nineteenth century, President Thomas Jefferson, author Henry David Thoreau, naturalist John Muir, explorer John Wesley Powell, and ecologist George Perkins Marsh were among the prominent personalities who, although differing in their approaches, advocated informed private action and vigorous governmental policies to protect the nation’s resource heritage. However, on a continent seemingly blessed with unbounded resources, and within a society dedicated to individual liberty as well as to the generally free pursuit of economic interests, these cries for husbanding national resources were raised outside the mainstream of American life. Nevertheless, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the extent and uniqueness of the nation’s resources were carefully documented, the influence of naturalists and conservationists began affecting federal policy. So, too, did the views of scientists inside the federal scientific community informed by findings of the Coast (and Geodetic) Survey and the reports of the early Geological Survey. As the federal government was 392
charged with responsibility for the ownership, lease, or sale of by far the greatest share of the nation’s lands, forests, and remaining metal and mineral resources, the importance of these influences was immense. By 1891, for example, the U.S. Congress empowered the president to withdraw forest lands from sale and to establish “public” forests. Accordingly, between 1891 and 1901, presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley set aside 46 million acres denominated as national forest, a figure that rose to 148 million acres during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. Many U.S. states already had begun taking similar actions. After 1890, Gifford Pinchot, who would make “conservation” a household word and who won renown both as the father of scientific resource management and as one of the chief philosophers of conservationism, was deeply involved in many of these events. Born into a wealthy family in Simbury, Connecticut, in 1865, Pinchot came from a cosmopolitan and patrician background. Trained at the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, he subsequently attended Yale University, graduating in 1889. He would later return to Yale as a professor. In the absence of American schools of forestry, Pinchot spent three years after his college graduation studying forestry under experts in France, Germany, and Switzerland. When he returned to the United States, he established a private consultancy in New York and began doing business as the nation’s first professional forester. In 1892, millionaire George W. Vanderbilt II engaged Pinchot’s services to initiate forest management on Vanderbilt’s estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Gaining repute as an expert, Pinchot became a member of the National Forest Commission, a body designated to assess the nation’s forest resources, in 1896. Two years later, he won appointment as chief forester to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry, a position in which he succeeded German-born forester Bernhard E. Fernow. Pinchot’s career and cause vaulted to prominence under the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt between 1901 and 1909. Both background and temperament inclined Roosevelt toward conservation; historians would ultimately identify his conservation measures as among the most enduring contributions of his presidency. Like Pinchot, Roosevelt recognized that the nation’s resources were not inexhaustible. He had long dissented from the prevalent public view that national
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service
Pinchot’s Fight for Conservation In his 1910 book The Fight for Conservation, Gifford Pinchot makes a passionate case for his vision of conservation, which focuses on “the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield for the service of man.”
Gifford Pinchot. (Library of Congress)
Source: Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1910).
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resources should continue to be open to exploitation mainly for the profit of large private interests. Rather, he believed, the public domain should be organized and managed in accord with what he regarded as the general welfare. Amid rising tides of reformist Progressivism, which emphasized an expanding role for government, the application of scientific principles to cope with public problems, and administrative efficiency, Roosevelt recognized the potential popularity—and hence political importance—of conservation issues. Disillusioned by the McKinley administration, Pinchot, whose interests had expanded from trees to encompass a wide range of natural resources, sought support from Roosevelt while Roosevelt was governor of New York. The two men became friends, and after his inauguration as president, Roosevelt inducted Pinchot into his “tennis cabinet,” an informal but influential body within which Pinchot expressed his views on policy making far more effectively than his official rank would have allowed. In 1905, Roosevelt appointed Pinchot to lead the newly created U.S. Forest Service. For a
We, the American people, have come into the possession of nearly four million square miles of the richest portion of the earth. It is ours to use and conserve for ourselves and our descendants, or to destroy. The fundamental question which confronts us is, What shall we do with it? That question cannot be answered without first considering the condition of our natural resources and what is being done with them to-day. As a people, we have been in the habit of declaring certain of our resources to be inexhaustible. To no other resource more frequently than coal has this stupidly false adjective been applied. Yet our coal supplies are so far from being inexhaustible that if the increasing rate of consumption shown by the figures of the last seventy-five years continues to prevail, our supplies of anthracite coal will last but fifty years and of bituminous coal less than two hundred years. From the point of view of national life, this means the exhaustion of one of the most important factors in our civilization within the immediate future. Not a few coal fields have already been exhausted, as in portions of Iowa and Missouri. Yet, in the face of these known facts, we continue to treat our coal as though there could never be an end of it. The established coal-mining practice at the present date does not take out more than one-half the coal, leaving the less easily mined or lower grade material to be made permanently inaccessible by the caving in of the abandoned workings. The loss to the Nation from this form of waste is prodigious and inexcusable. The waste in use is not less appalling. But five per cent of the potential power residing in the coal actually mined is saved and used. For example, only about five per cent of the power of the one hundred and fifty million tons annually burned on the railways of the United States is actually used in traction; ninetyfive per cent is expended unproductively or is lost. In the best incandescent electric lighting plants but one-fifth of one per cent of the potential value of the coal is converted into light. Many oil and gas fields, as in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the Mississippi Valley, have already failed, yet vast amounts of gas continue to be poured into the air and great quantities of oil into the streams. Cases are known in which great volumes of oil were systematically burned in order to get rid of it. The prodigal squandering of our mineral fuels proceeds unchecked in the face of the fact that such resources as these, once used or wasted, can never be replaced. If waste like this were not chiefly thoughtless, it might well be characterized as the deliberate destruction of the Nation’s future.
Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service time, Pinchot’s views also received sympathetic support from Secretary of the Interior James Rudolph Garfield. By 1907, Pinchot’s newly constituted Forest Service had launched a number of ambitious conservation programs and was budgeting more than five million dollars annually. A zealous reformer whose thinking and tactics were years ahead of those of most bureaucrats, Pinchot understood the importance not only of managing resources but also of managing public opinion. His office became a fount of educational publicity and propaganda, engaging in political lobbying and exerting pressure on lawmakers. Pinchot’s objective was to shift decisions about the utilization of the country’s natural resources from private decision makers to public policy makers. With federal supervision, Pinchot believed, the uses of natural resources could be and should be determined according to scientific principles, thereby eliminating waste and neglect. He had no desire to see national resources “locked up”; indeed, both he and Roosevelt thought the use of resources to be essential to the nation’s economic growth. Like most Progressives, however, he had a strong animus against the corporate trusts and monopolies of the day. What he sought was a more equitable distribution of resources that favored individuals and more competitive enterprises. Significance The National Conservation Commission’s report of 1909 lent urgency to what Pinchot described as the virile evolution of his conservation campaign. With Pinchot as its chairman, the commission tried to produce a scientific inventory of the nation’s principal resources. Its conclusions were sobering: Much of the country’s stock of gold, silver, copper, lead, nickel, and other metals and minerals was in private hands and was rapidly being depleted. In addition, the commission foresaw early exhaustion of the nation’s coal, oil, and high-grade iron ores—the vital material of an industrial society—at thencurrent rates of exploitation and production. Because many state governments, particularly in the West, had earlier voiced alarm over resource depletion, the federal commission’s report almost immediately encouraged the tightening and enforcement of existing land and mineral laws, with the result that more efficient mining practices were swiftly introduced. Pinchot’s leadership of the commission, therefore, has been judged the high point of his career in federal government; however, it by no means ended his public presence. A change in the political climate soon occurred: The 394
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 moderate Progressive presidency of Roosevelt yielded to the conservatism of President William Howard Taft, and Pinchot’s insider role and presidential support were swept away. As a consequence, Pinchot and other conservationists were soon at odds with their administrative superiors. In 1910, Pinchot and other officials brought accusations against Taft’s secretary of the interior, Richard Achilles Ballinger, a former Seattle businessman and politician. Pinchot publicly accused Ballinger of granting powerful private interests water and power rights on lands in Montana and Wyoming that the Roosevelt administration had withdrawn from public sale. Almost simultaneously, Pinchot defended a federal land office investigator who had been fired because he had charged Ballinger with favoring a corporate syndicate’s claim to Alaskan coal lands. Not surprisingly, Pinchot was also dismissed. The effects of the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy over conservation issues and Pinchot’s dismissal proved important. Aroused public opinion led to joint congressional investigation, and although the committee’s findings exonerated Ballinger, his position was made untenable, and he too resigned. Subsequently, a federal court substantiated the significant portion of Pinchot’s charges when it ruled that the private syndicate’s claim to Alaskan coal lands was indeed fraudulent. These controversies further weakened a Republican Party already divided by personal clashes between Taft and Roosevelt, fueling the open rupture that produced Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party in 1912. While these events were unfolding, Pinchot in 1910 published The Fight for Conservation, a manifesto that effectively summarized the goals of many Progressives who believed in conservation and that enunciated the basic strategies embraced by many conservationists ever since. An optimistic work aimed at augmenting the public’s growing awareness of conservation, the book bristled with Pinchot’s righteous fervor. To Pinchot, conservation above all presented U.S. citizens with moral choices, a theme he stressed repeatedly. In simple, straightforward prose, Pinchot’s book discussed such topics as the basis of national prosperity through home building, better times on the farms (where most Americans then lived), waterways, business, public spirit, children and the future, the prospects of advancing equality through conservation, and the identification of conservation with patriotism. It also summarized conservationists’ ongoing struggles. Several major arguments emerged from his treatment of these subjects. In reply to critics, Pinchot emphasized that national resources were
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cates of “deep ecology” developed philosophies that rejected Pinchot’s rational, technocratic, and utilitarian approach to the handling of national resources. Others, however, including Roderick Nash, Barry Commoner, and Murray Bookchin, continued to draw on and amend Pinchot’s philosophy. In 1949, three years after Pinchot’s death, the Columbia National Forest in southwest Washington was renamed the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in honor of his leadership in the Forest Service. The forest includes the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, established by Congress in 1982, which is living testimony to the tremendous destructive powers of nature as well as the rapid recuperative power of forest life. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Fausold, Martin L. Gifford Pinchot: Bull Moose Progressive. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1961. A scholarly study that concentrates on Pinchot’s political values and activities. Places Pinchot’s conservationism within the broader context of Progressivism. Clearly written and insightful. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. A seminal work on the early history of conservation. Argues that the movement began as a search for greater efficiency in resource management, not as a democratic crusade against supposed business rapacity. McGeary, M. Nelson. Gifford Pinchot, Forester-Politician. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960. Fine biography illuminates Pinchot’s chief goal of bringing economic equality and greater justice into American life through conservation. Despite a sympathetic treatment, it also notes Pinchot’s rashness and frequent instabilities. Includes photographs, notes, bibliography, and index. Mann, Alpheus Thomas. Bureaucracy Convicts Itself. New York: Viking Press, 1941. Clearly written study concentrates on the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy and is enriched by interviews with the principals. Includes illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Miller, Char. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. Washington, D.C.: Shearwater Books, 2004. First full-length biography of Pinchot in forty years draws on previously unavailable materials to illuminate his life and times. Includes notes and index. 395
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for use and should not be withheld. They were integral, he believed, to the nation’s growth and prosperity. He insisted, however, on the intelligent, rational, and efficient—that is, scientific—utilization of resources. Furthermore, he condemned unnecessary exploitation and waste, arguing that conservationists could develop and apply scientific methods to the use of all resources. Finally, voicing his fears about glaring economic inequalities in the United States, he argued for far more widely dispersed ownership of the nation’s natural resources. The Fight for Conservation marked neither the end of Pinchot’s writings in behalf of Progressive causes nor his political swan song. In 1928, he published The Power Monopoly, which attacked the vast and intricate holding companies that dominated the production of water and electric power. He recounted a lifetime of reformist experiences in Breaking New Ground (1947), which was published posthumously. Having failed to bring Roosevelt back into the White House as the Progressive candidate in 1912, Pinchot pursued political office for himself; he served two divided terms (1923-1926 and 1931-1934) as governor of Pennsylvania. Having known Pinchot well, Theodore Roosevelt praised him as the most valuable of all the public officials who had served in his administration. A generation later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, remarked that there was no one in public life for whom he had greater admiration than the still-active Pinchot. Critics, however, often characterized Gifford Pinchot as cranky, overzealous, self-righteous, technocratic, and moralistic. A number of others thought he claimed too much, recognizing that Pinchot was not the first significant personality to question traditional attitudes toward the nation’s natural resources or American perceptions of nature. Nor was he the first to urge a reformulation of these attitudes or to seek change in the practices that flowed from them. Even during his lifetime, there were many approaches to conservation and many divergent philosophies and opinions about how to proceed. Nevertheless, during the first half of the twentieth century no one did a better job than Pinchot of making conservation a household term and a popular cause, the liberal goal of which was to bring greater equality and justice into American life. Few other ecologists, environmentalists, or conservationists, moreover, have been credited by historians with equal displays of political vision. During the remainder of the century, many environmentalists, naturalists, pastoralists, Greens, and advo-
Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service
National Audubon Society Is Established Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness, beginning with the earliest days of European contact. Includes bibliography and index. Penick, James L., Jr. Progressive Politics and Conservation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. A study of the Ballinger-Pinchot affair that examines the relationships between the conservation movement and the trust issue. Pinchot viewed conservation as an instrument of control, whereas Ballinger believed that the movement favored the trusts. Includes extensive notes and excellent index. Pinchot, Gifford. The Fight for Conservation. 1910. Reprint. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967. Pinchot uses simple, forceful prose and many telling examples to make his case. Reprint includes a useful introduction and a biographical sketch of Pinchot.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Taylor, Bob Pepperman. Our Limits Transgressed: Environmental Political Thought in America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. An outstanding, clearly written scholarly analysis of environmental thinking in the United States. Invaluable for its extensive treatment of Pinchot’s values, views, and objectives in their proper historical context. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. See also: Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams.
January 5, 1905
National Audubon Society Is Established The uniting of state Audubon Societies into a national organization gave vitality and permanence to the infant bird-protection movement in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures John James Audubon (1785-1851), American hunter and painter of birdlife George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938), American naturalist William Dutcher (1846-1920), American businessman and first president of the National Audubon Society Frank Chapman (1864-1945), founder of Bird-Lore magazine and first treasurer of the National Audubon Society T. Gilbert Pearson (1873-1943), first secretary of the National Audubon Society Guy Bradley (1870-1905), Florida game warden Summary of Event The National Audubon Society was established in 1905 to provide protection for the U.S. bird population. The society was named for John James Audubon, a nine396
teenth century hunter and painter of American birdlife. Audubon’s major contribution to the work of the National Audubon Society is his artistic and scientific record of the American wildlife of his time. The concept of bird protection, however, which is at the heart of the National Audubon Society, was completely unknown to him, as the sheer number of birds on the American continent during the nineteenth century prevented any realization of the need for their protection. Audubon’s home on the Hudson River had significant influence on the development of Audubon Societies across the United States. It was there that Audubon collected the trophies of his bird-hunting expeditions. The home became the center of Audubon Park, later a major residential area of New York City. The most important name in the founding of the birdprotection movement in the United States is that of George Bird Grinnell. Like Audubon, Grinnell was a hunter. He was also a naturalist, an explorer, and the publisher of a hunting and fishing magazine called Forest and Stream. Unlike Audubon, Grinnell became greatly alarmed by the wanton slaughter of birds in the United States, which was undertaken primarily to collect skins and plumage. He feared the total destruction of many valuable species.
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society was not going to be effective, he gave up. The December, 1887, issue of the Audubon Magazine marked the end of both the magazine and the society. In spite of this failure, Grinnell had laid the foundation for a strong bird-protection movement in the United States. The movement experienced rapid growth in the succeeding years, and in 1896 states began establishing their own Audubon Societies. Massachusetts led the way, followed by nine other states and the District of Columbia. Each of these societies, and the others that came later, has its own unique history. The next significant leader of the Audubon movement was William Dutcher, a wealthy New York City businessman. New York was the center of the millinery industry, the strongest opponent of bird-protection laws. Dutcher began a national campaign to outlaw the slaughter of the birds that supplied feathers for the millinery industry. One result of his efforts was the Lacey Act, passed by Congress in 1900, which sought to limit interstate trade in bird plumage. By 1901, thirty-six autonomous Audubon Societies were operating in the United States. That year saw the first attempt to give a unified direction to the movement. At Dutcher’s urging, a loose federation was formed and named the National Committee of the Audubon Societies of America. Additional direction was provided by the Auk, the journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and by Bird-Lore, a publication founded by Frank Chapman in 1899. In 1940, Bird-Lore was renamed Audubon. The Florida Everglades became one of the most bitter battlegrounds between bird hunters and bird protectionists. It was there that, on July 8, 1905, the murder of Guy Bradley, a game warden working closely with Dutcher and Chapman, created the first martyr for the Audubon movement. Two similar murders occurred in 1908. The work of Grinnell, Dutcher, Chapman, and many others came to a climax on January 5, 1905, when the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals was incorporated in New York City. Grinnell was a member of the board of directors, Dutcher was the president, and Chapman was the treasurer. Later, the organization was renamed the National Audubon Society. Significance During its early years, much of the success of the National Audubon Society can be credited to the efforts and energy of T. Gilbert Pearson. Pearson was the first secretary of the national organization, and he became its 397
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A connection between Audubon and Grinnell was established in 1857, when Grinnell’s family moved to Audubon Park. Lucy Audubon, widow of the painter, still lived in the house filled with the mementos of her husband’s work. She operated a school in her home for the children of the area, which was several miles north of New York City; Grinnell attended the school as a boy. The time he spent in the home of John James Audubon stimulated Grinnell’s fascination with wildlife, but his interest was oriented toward hunting rather than preservation. He saw many of the artifacts of Audubon’s expeditions, including boxes full of bird skins. Boys at the school often spent their free time trying to kill birds, especially passenger pigeons, in the woods and along the banks of the Hudson River. The passenger pigeon was once the most numerous bird in North America, possibly in the world, with numbers estimated in the billions. In 1813, Audubon recorded seeing a flock that took three days to pass. A century later, in 1914, the last passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo. After receiving a degree from Yale in 1870, Grinnell took part in several expeditions to the West before becoming editor and publisher of the weekly Forest and Stream. Although he continued the magazine’s format devoted to hunting and fishing, Grinnell began inserting strong editorials about the abuse of wildlife, especially the wholesale killing of game for restaurants and hotels. In 1883, the American Ornithologists’ Union was formed and became a part of the bird-protection movement. Grinnell joined the organization, which added a professional aspect to the movement, addressing such questions as the economic importance of birds and the role of birds in ecology. In February, 1886, Grinnell launched a campaign for a private organization that would work for the preservation of American birds. In an editorial in Forest and Stream, he proposed calling the organization the Audubon Society, for John James Audubon, whom he still greatly admired. Membership in the society was to be free to all who would work for the following goals: to prevent the killing of wild birds except for food, to protect the nests and eggs of wild birds, and to prohibit the use of feathers on clothing and hats. Grinnell’s infant society existed entirely on paper, first in Forest and Stream, and then in 1887 in the Audubon Magazine, a new publication produced by Grinnell. Initial enthusiasm for the society was widespread, but the members were neither willing nor able to take concrete action. Grinnell did not have adequate resources to support the society, and, after two years, realizing that the
National Audubon Society Is Established
National Audubon Society Is Established primary troubleshooter. As local issues developed involving the state societies, Pearson offered advice and support from the national association. A New Jersey assemblyman, for example, introduced a bill in his state’s legislature to declare the mourning dove a game bird, with an open season between August 15 and October 1. Many of the assemblyman’s constituents were glassblowers, and the sole reason for the bill was that glassblowers were on vacation between August 15 and October 1, and they wanted something to shoot during that time. With Pearson aiding the opposition, the bill was defeated. To combat the killing of plume birds, the National Audubon Society advocated the use of ostrich feathers, which could be gathered without causing the deaths of the ostriches. In the late nineteenth century, William Dutcher had encouraged ostrich farming to provide the needed quantity of feathers, and ostriches were imported from South Africa in 1882. By 1900, there were about three thousand ostriches on farms in California, Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Meetings of local Audubon societies displayed “Audubon millinery,” with hats adorned with ribbons and ostrich feathers. The ostrich farms did not produce enough feathers to meet the demands of the millinery industry, however, and Dutcher had to turn to other means of accomplishing Audubon goals. By 1908, the national association’s hopes of achieving its aims seemed more distant than ever. The opponents of bird-protection laws were launching attacks on every front. Dutcher, Pearson, and other national Audubon leaders found themselves rushing from state to state to help the individual Audubon Societies combat a succession of bills to legalize the killing of birds for sport, for feathers, or simply to eliminate undesirable species, such as English sparrows. When Dutcher’s ability to work was ended by a stroke in 1910, Pearson became the driving force of the Audubon movement. With a small and poorly paid New York City staff, he was able to keep the national society active until broader support brought the separate state societies closer together. Gradually, the goals of the Audubon Society gained the support of such political leaders as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, but it was an educational program that eventually brought Audubon goals closer to fruition. George Bird Grinnell had recognized the value of enlisting children into the movement. Later Audubon presidents, such as John Baker (1944-1959) and Carl Buchheister (1959-1967), en398
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 hanced the educational program to reach the general population of the United States. Baker’s most valuable asset was Roger Tory Peterson, who is often given credit for making birdwatching a national pastime. Peterson was reared in Jamestown, New York, where a seventh-grade teacher aroused his interest in birds and brought him into a Junior Audubon Club. This teacher also discovered Peterson’s talent for drawing. Baker, who tried to lure professionals into the national association, secured Peterson’s artistic services. Baker’s years as president of the organization also marked its transition from an association to a true National Audubon Society. Buchheister, who replaced Baker as president in 1959, greatly enhanced that national image through education and membership, which stood in excess of thirty thousand at that time. The growth of the environmental movement accelerated during the 1970’s, and the Audubon Society was particularly pleased about the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. In the 1980’s, under the leadership of its eighth president, Russell W. Peterson, the Audubon Society began international environmental advocacy. In 1987, Audubon boasted five hundred chapters. In 1990, the society participated in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the International Biodiversity Treaty was drafted. Despite its uncertain beginning in 1905, the National Audubon Society had profound impacts on conservation in general and on bird protection in particular. Beginning with the Lacey Act in 1900, the U.S. Congress and individual state legislatures passed many bird-preservation laws. Bird plumage ceased to be a major element of the clothing and millinery industries. Many Americans came to admire birds more for their grace and beauty than for their flesh and feathers. In the twenty-first century, the National Audubon Society remains a vocal supporter of national and international environmental causes. —Glenn L. Swygart Further Reading Audubon, John James. Audubon, by Himself. Edited by Alice Ford. New York: Natural History Press, 1969. Audubon’s own writings, selected to give a broad view of his life and experience. Emphasizes Audubon’s expeditions to various parts of North America. Buchheister, Carl, and Frank Graham. “From the Swamps and Back: A Concise History of the Audubon Movement.” Audubon 74 (January, 1973): 4-45. Provides excellent historical information on the early years of the society. Includes photographs.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Doughty, Robin. Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Discusses the widespread use of bird plumage in fashions, the early debate over the plumage trade, and the opposition to that trade. A helpful appendix lists milestones in British and American bird protection from 1868 to 1922. Also includes lists of protected and unprotected birds during that era. Graham, Frank. The Audubon Ark: A History of the National Audubon Society. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Comprehensive history of the Audubon movement, with good coverage of the work of the individuals who have served as presidents of the National Audubon Society. _______. Man’s Dominion: The History of Conservation in America. New York: M. Evans, 1971. Presents a view of conservation and bird protection far beyond the scope of the National Audubon Society. Includes an interesting chapter on the work and murder of Guy Bradley and surveys the work of other game wardens, especially those seeking to enforce bird-protection laws. Grinnell, George Bird. The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell. Edited by John Reiger. New York: Winchester Press, 1972. Details Grinnell’s life in New York City and his travels in the West, including his exploration of the Black
Bloody Sunday Hills with General George Custer in 1874. Chapter 1 explores the influence of Grinnell’s early years in Audubon Park. Includes photographs. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species. Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Mitchell, John. “A Man Called Bird.” Audubon 89 (March, 1987): 81-104. Presents a comprehensive view of the Audubon movement in general and George Bird Grinnell in particular. Describes Grinnell’s interests as a sportsman, scientist, publisher, pioneer conservationist, and advocate of bird preservation. Schorger, W. A. The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction. 1973. Reprint. Caldwell, N.J.: Blackburn Press, 2004. Well-researched and welldocumented account explains clearly how a species can be brought to the brink of extinction. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act; Sept. 1, 1914: Last Passenger Pigeon Dies; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
January 22, 1905
Bloody Sunday
Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; atrocities and war crimes Key Figures George Gapon (1870-1906), Russian Orthodox priest Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), Russian finance minister Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov (1864-1917), head of the Moscow security police
Summary of Event The popular demonstration of Sunday, January 22, 1905 (January 9 by the Julian calendar used at the time in Russia), which ended in its bloody suppression, was a reaction not only against the deplorable conditions prevailing in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century but also against the government’s studied inability and reluctance to do anything about them. Foremost among those who opposed change and whose conservative policies created widespread discontent were Czar Nicholas II and a number of his close advisers, including Sergey Yulyevich Witte, the minister of finance. Nicholas II was determined to preserve his autocratic power against demands for representative government. Witte had implemented a program of rapid industrial growth, which he believed was imperative if Russia was to remain a great power. After the severe depression of 1900-1902, the op399
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Bloody Sunday marked the violent suppression of a demonstration of unarmed workers in St. Petersburg, precipitating revolutionary unrest throughout Russia that forced Czar Nicholas II to grant limited constitutional reforms.
Bloody Sunday position of these leaders to badly needed political and social reform encouraged acts of desperation. Between 1900 and 1905, unemployment increased in large centers of industry such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, and workers went on strike over low wages and long hours. Peasant unrest also increased dramatically during these years. Burdened by high taxes and a rapidly growing population, the peasants saw the seizure of the estates of the landed nobility as the answer to their problems. This growing discontent received encouragement from illegal political parties that were seeking radical political and social change. The underground Union of Liberation organized demonstrations in the fall of 1904 to protest government incompetence in waging the RussoJapanese War and to demand constitutional reforms and representative government. The Socialist Revolutionary Party supported the peasants’ desire for land; it was also responsible for the assassination of numerous government officials. A Marxist party, the Social Democrats, hoped to transform the strike movement into a revolutionary upheaval that would overthrow the autocracy and capitalism. Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov, a former revolutionary who had become head of Moscow’s security police, believed that the workers were more interested in tangible
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 improvements in their living and working conditions than in Marxist ideology or a political reform program. They would, he argued, support the czar rather than the Social Democrats if the government would support their economic demands against their employers. To further this goal, Zubatov founded the Council of Workers of Mechanical Factories of the City of Moscow in 1901. Similar “police unions” were set up in other industrial cities, including Odessa and St. Petersburg. Witte, however, opposed government support for striking workers as harmful to his vision of rapid industrial growth, and this “police socialism” collapsed. It soon reappeared in St. Petersburg, however, under the leadership of a Russian Orthodox priest, Father George Gapon. Father Gapon’s organization, the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg, also received government recognition as being nonpolitical in nature, which it was at first, but by 1904, when its membership had grown to eight thousand, many workers inclined to the more militant, revolutionary tactics of the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries. Many laborers became more and more disgusted with their working conditions. The dismissal of workers in January, 1905, by a large factory in the capital led to a strike that became general within a few days.
Drawing created in 1905 depicts the clash between protesters and czarist troops on Bloody Sunday. (Library of Congress)
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Significance This episode, which came to be known as Bloody Sunday, was a debacle for the czarist regime. Liberal agitation for constitutional reforms, the rising wave of workers’ strikes and peasant uprisings, and public disgust with the lack of success in the war with Japan had already raised tensions in Russia to a high level. News of the massacre
in St. Petersburg unleashed the first Russian revolution in the twentieth century and presaged the still more radical revolution that the Bolsheviks would unleash in October, 1917. Father Gapon managed to escape from the capital and flee into exile, where he issued an open letter to the czar that denounced him for having refused to accept the petition: “Let all blood which has to be shed fall upon thee, hangman, and thy kindred.” In this statement, Gapon expressed the real historical significance of Bloody Sunday, namely, that the Russian people had now completely lost faith in the czar. Indeed, the Bloody Sunday massacre exposed to all Russians the intransigence and incompetence of the Romanov autocracy. The government was able to contain the revolutionary outbreaks only when Nicholas II reluctantly agreed to conclude an unfavorable peace with Japan and to grant constitutional reforms, including the establishment of a representative assembly, the Duma. The czar’s concessions, although made grudgingly, satisfied some of the revolutionary opposition and enabled the government to begin the work of reestablishing order in Russia. However, the czar’s manifest reluctance to relinquish even a portion of his enormous power did not bode well for the success of Russia’s new constitutional government. —Edward P. Keleher and Richard D. King Further Reading Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905. 2 vols. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988-1992. A fine history of the first Russian revolution of the twentieth century. _______. The Revolution of 1905: A Short History. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004. A concise history of the Russian Revolution of 1905 by a highly respected scholar. Lincoln, W. Bruce. In War’s Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War. 1984. Reprint. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003. A noted scholar offers a highly readable portrait of Russia during the years 1891 to 1914. Sablinsky, Walter. The Road to Bloody Sunday: Father Gapon and the St. Petersburg Massacre of 1905. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976. A detailed history of the workers’ organization founded by Father Gapon and of the tragic demonstration of January 22, 1905. Schneiderman, Jeremiah. Sergei Zubatov and Revolutionary Marxism: The Struggle for the Working Class in Tsarist Russia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University 401
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In a series of meetings held in January, 1905, members of Gapon’s organization agreed that he should lead a march of workers to the czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and present Nicholas II with a petition that reaffirmed the loyalty of the petitioners to the czar but called on him to lift from their shoulders the yoke of oppression placed on them by his corrupt officials. The workers and the radical intellectuals who helped to draft the petition demanded an end to the war as well as better treatment from officials and factory owners. The petitioners, moreover, called on the czar to institute sweeping civil and political reforms, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association; a broadened franchise for local elections; equality before the law; and, above all, the creation of a representative assembly. These reform demands, given the nature of the country in which they were made, were truly revolutionary. Although Father Gapon was personally opposed to making political demands at that time, he agreed to include the demands in the petition rather than lose the trust of the workers. Consequently, the bitter cold Sunday morning of January 22, 1905, found him leading his followers to the Winter Palace. Clad in his priestly robes, Father Gapon personally led one of the several long columns of workers from the outskirts of St. Petersburg toward the center of the city and the Winter Palace. The march was intended as a peaceful demonstration, and some marchers were accompanied by their families; some bore icons and portraits of the czar. Nicholas, however, decided to stay away from the city and left the handling of the crisis to his police and military officials. Having failed in an attempt to arrest Gapon, these officials stationed military forces on the large square in front of the Winter Palace and at key points along the anticipated routes of the march. Despite this show of force, which included some instances of shooting, the military patrols failed to prevent the crowds from pressing on toward Palace Square, and when the workers surged toward the Winter Palace and refused to disperse, the troops fired on them. At least 130 of the demonstrators were killed, and hundreds more were injured.
Bloody Sunday
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust Press, 1976. Traces the rise and fall of the “police union” movement, which served as the inspiration for Father Gapon’s organization in St. Petersburg. Verner, Andrew M. The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. A fine analysis of Nicholas II’s personality as well as his role in Bloody Sunday and its aftermath. Von Laue, Theodore H. Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev? The Rise and Fall of the Soviet System. 3d ed. New York: Longman, 1997. A classic interpre-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tive essay that situates the events of 1905 in the larger context of modern Russian and Soviet history. See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma; Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution.
January 30, 1905
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust The U.S. government’s successful prosecution of the beef trust represented an early and notable antitrust victory from which sprang an important new legal concept concerning interstate commerce. Also known as: Swift & Company v. United States Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Gustavus F. Swift (1839-1903), American meatpacking company owner Philip Danforth Armour (1832-1901), American meatpacking company owner Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), associate justice of the United States, 1902-1932 Philander C. Knox (1853-1921), U.S. attorney general, 1901-1904 Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American novelist Summary of Event Still new in his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a U.S. senator in 1902 that he was fully aware that the American people were “very bitter” about operations of the “beef trust.” Roosevelt was accurate. Independent butchers, businesspeople, farmers, and consumers had complained since the 1880’s that the large packinghouses, led by Gustavus F. Swift, Nelson Morris, Philip Danforth Armour, Jonathan Ogden Armour, and the Cudahy family, were preserving their meats with poisons. In the decade following passage of the Sherman 402
Antitrust Act of 1890, two federal indictments had been brought against the “pooling” arrangements of meat exchanges, commission dealers, and stockyard operators. Each indictment was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds that pooling—a practice in which businesses strike agreements not to compete—comported with current business philosophy and that stockyard transactions, which were local, formed no part of interstate commerce. Although the Supreme Court had ruled against legal arguments of federal attorneys, those rulings had neither resulted in a slackening of press campaigns against the beef trust nor allayed the public’s disquiet about prospects of a monopoly or exercise of monopoly power. From his service in the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt had firsthand knowledge of the scandal about the “embalmed beef” supplied to American forces. Complaints from businesses and consumers continued to pour into the office of Philander C. Knox, the U.S. attorney general, about the rising prices of beef trust products and about the big packers’ collusion with railroads. More directly, Knox was bombarded by demands from influential members of the House of Representatives to reveal the government’s intentions in regard to actions against this trust. By 1902, therefore, at Roosevelt’s initiative, Knox launched antitrust inquiries concerning activities in the meatpacking industry. The evidence subsequently amassed showed the six leading meatpackers (the “big six”) to be engaged in price fixing, conspiracies to divide markets in regard to purchases of livestock and meat sales, blacklisting of competitors or of businesses failing to conform to trust practices, false bidding in dealings
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with public institutions, and acceptance of rebates from railroads. The six companies brought under federal scrutiny were Swift, Armour, Morris, Cudahy, Wilson, and Schwartzchild, all of which consorted in pooling agreements. Together, the big six controlled about half of the American beefpacking industry, a proportion that rose in the eastern United States to as much as 60 percent in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, 75 percent in New York City, and 85 percent in Boston. The overall industrial reach was far more extensive, and the industrial importance of these meatpackers was much greater than their substantial trade in beef, because they also handled calves, hogs, and sheep. They drew significant parts of their $700 million yearly business from the purchase, storage, and sales of dairy and poultry products. Furthermore, in most major cities they owned packing plants, stockyards, and grain elevators. They all had subsidiaries that dealt in or manufactured by-products such as hides, fats, animal foods, fertilizers, glue, soap, and canned fruits, and they owned Editorial cartoon shows President Theodore Roosevelt hunting down the beef trust. refrigeration plants as well as rail(Library of Congress) road refrigerator cars for transporting their wares. Capitalized in the aggregate at meatpacking and meat-processing center. The meat$93 million in 1903, these industry leaders could boast packers’ outraged response to government action, typiimpressive achievements for their firms as well as for fied by Jonathan Ogden Armour’s Saturday Evening consumers. Philip Armour, originally based in MilwauPost articles defending his industry, was predictable if kee, Wisconsin, and Nelson Morris, nearby in Chicago, not commendably accurate. Illinois, had profited from government Civil War conSaddled with Sherman Act injunctions in May, 1902, tracts. With the postwar projection of railways into the for pooling agreements and for taking railroad rebates, prairies, they had stimulated the great cattle drives from Swift, Armour, and Morris dissolved their pool, deTexas to the transcontinental railroads. In so doing, they stroyed its records, and contracted to merge their firms contributed to the existence and prosperity of many praiinto one. Cudahy and Schwartzchild quickly consented rie communities. Gustavus Swift, arriving in Chicago to join, and many other meatpacking companies were from Massachusetts in 1875, revolutionized the industry through the regular employment of refrigerator cars and rapidly purchased by these three companies. Failing to through efforts, soon followed by other packers, to attain secure adequate financing from Wall Street to expand the efficiencies of vertical integration. He played a large their merger, they formed the National Packing Compart in making Chicago famous as the world’s greatest pany in 1903. National’s leaders were the same figures
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust who had dominated the previous pool, and they continued meeting to regulate their trade. In response, the federal injunctions were made permanent. The government’s equity proceeding was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1905, shortly after the Roosevelt administration’s much-heralded victory in the Northern Securities case of 1904. The Court’s decision in that case had broadened the meaning of interstate commerce and provided a favorable context for a decision against the beef trust. In Swift & Company v. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., spoke for the Court. Holmes took his cues from the narrow interpretation of interstate commerce propounded in United States v. E. C. Knight Company (1895) as modified by the Northern Securities decision and broadened the concept of interstate commerce. Granting that many sales and transactions by the enjoined meatpackers occurred as local ones, Holmes emphasized the steady movement of animals and meat products in and out of stockyards and localities to and from all parts of the nation. The reality was that they were actually a part of the “stream of commerce.” Having concluded that this was true, Holmes asserted that activities of the beef trust fell under federal jurisdiction, as did all matters pertaining to interstate commerce, and were therefore in violation of the Sherman Act. The Supreme Court’s decision was unanimous. Significance The Swift decision had several ramifications. The Roosevelt administration clearly had won a political victory against an unpopular trust, even though the trust’s leaders were heavy Republican contributors. Roosevelt, who was basically a moderate conservative, earned respectful enmity in corporate circles while gaining a reputation as an ardent reformer in many other quarters. His action in the beef trust prosecution, strengthened by forty more antitrust suits during his tenure in office, also contributed to the public’s impression that the federal government was becoming an effective umpire of the nation’s economic affairs. Roosevelt’s position on trusts, which constituted a significant step toward a stronger, more interventionist federal government, helped establish precedents for later presidencies. The Supreme Court also contributed to foundations of the modern state in advancing Holmes’s “stream of commerce” doctrine. In the short run, this doctrine encouraged the federal government to pursue other antitrust cases, many of which were prosecuted successfully. Over the long term, the “stream of commerce” doctrine 404
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 became a working concept basic to expanded understandings of the federal government’s control of commerce. During the late 1930’s, judicial applications of the doctrine served to break down earlier Supreme Court decisions that had isolated manufacturing from commerce. In so doing, they allowed federal authorities to initiate a vast array of economic legislation and a broad spectrum of social programs. Government prosecution of the beef trust focused on the trust’s business practices, their effects on competition, and restraints of trade. Health and working conditions within the industry lay beyond the scope of these government inquiries. Such limitations, however, did not inhibit journalists (“muckrakers”) and writers whose attention was directed to the beef trust by government injunctions or by judicial decisions. A series of articles written by Charles Edward Russell, appearing in Everybody’s Magazine during 1904 and 1905, condemned the trust as greedy while impugning a number of public officials as its dupes. More impressive and influential was novelist Upton Sinclair’s dramatic exposé of specific sanitary and working conditions in Chicago packing plants in his 1906 book The Jungle. Forced to address the public alarm generated by Sinclair’s novel, government officials characterized its depictions as misleading and false. These and similar exposures of practices of the meatpacking industry led to the passage of both the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906. These acts greatly augmented federal inspection powers, and both came to be ranked, less for immediate effectiveness than for precedents set, among the most memorable legislation of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. Because its products were items of daily consumption in the nation’s households, the meatpacking industry remained under government investigation and attack long after the Swift decision was rendered and reform legislation had been passed. Federal criminal and civil charges, for example, were filed against officials of the National Packing Company and additional companies in 1910. The companies were charged with infractions ranging from rigged agreements on livestock purchases to use of uniform accounting practices and the establishment of market quotas by trust members. National’s officers won acquittal, but they were defeated by the firm’s own inefficiencies and dissolved it in 1912. A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation into the meatpacking industry initiated by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 gathered a mass of evidence on unfair competition, and the FTC subsequently recommended government ownership. By 1920, after their pur-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 chase of thirty-one smaller companies, the industry’s leaders were confronted once more by FTC and Justice Department charges that they had violated antitrust provisions of the Sherman Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Responding to what became a famous antitrust consent decree, the companies disposed of substantial holdings in stockyard companies, stockyard railroads, and trade newspapers. They also agreed to abandon dealing in 114 nonmeat and dairy products as well as to give up their retail outlets. Authorities on the industry, in concert with its spokespersons, later acknowledged that these federal antitrust measures had redounded to the ultimate benefit of the industry. The principal result of the FTC’s investigation and the consent decree was the passage of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, which brought the meatpacking and related industries under federal regulation. The act placed stockyard markets and those operating with them under federal rules and supervision by the U.S. secretary of agriculture. In effect, the industry could thereafter be perceived as a kind of public utility. The act also comprehensively forbade anyone manufacturing or preparing meats to engage in price fixing, price discrimination, or the apportionment of markets. On balance, the federal investigations and antitrust suits, and the judicial decisions arising from them, left the meatpacking industry with an oligopolistic concentration of leading firms but with access to the industry much more open to smaller competing firms. Antitrust proceedings beginning in 1902 destroyed the industry leaders’ pool and helped prevent the evolution of such agreements into something approximating a genuine monopoly. —Clifton K. Yearley
Purdy, Harry L., Martin L. Lindahl, and William A. Carter. Corporate Concentration and Public Policy. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1942. Good survey filled with specifics. Chapter 23 deals with the meat industry and provides good background material in a balanced account that takes note of the industry’s problems. No bibliography, but ample page notes. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: New American Library, 1906. A classic of literary realism. Sinclair had firsthand experience in Chicago packing plants. This graphic and engaging novel is stronger on conditions in the meatpacking industry than on character development. Thorelli, Hans B. The Federal Antitrust Policy: Origination of an American Tradition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955. Scholarly and dense but very valuable. Chapter 7 is excellent on the development of Theodore Roosevelt as a trust buster and his decision to pursue the beef trust. Many page notes, bibliography, table of cases, and good index. Good for context on the antitrust movement in general. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Clear and authoritative treatment written by a scholar and FTC official. Concentrates on meatpacking in chapter 1. Superb on post-1920 developments. Includes page notes and a table of cases. Wiebe, Robert H. The Search for Order, 1877-1920. New York: Hill & Wang, 1967. A fine interpretive history, well written and informative. Offers perspectives on the antitrust and antimonopoly movement throughout. Excellent for explanations of concepts and context on trusts. Bibliographical essay for each chapter. Index. See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure.
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Further Reading Crunden, Robert M. Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, 18891920. New York: Basic Books, 1982. Clear, informative reading. Chapter 6 is excellent on muckraking journalists and especially on Upton Sinclair and his influence on the Pure Food and Drug Act. Includes a useful index. Hovenkamp, Herbert. Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice. 2d ed. Eagan, Minn.: West, 1999. Covers nearly all aspects of U.S. antitrust policy in a manner understandable to people with no background in economics. Chapter 2 discusses “history and ideology in antitrust policy.”
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust
First American Service Organization Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 23, 1905
First American Service Organization Is Founded In 1905, Paul Harris shared his idea for the first American service organization, the Rotary Club, with Silvester Schiele, Gus Loehr, and Hiram Shorey. Rotary’s genesis occurred within the context of the Progressive Era, which was a period of massive social, economic, and political reforms. Also known as: Rotary Club Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Organizations and institutions; social issues and reform; humanitarianism and philanthropy Key Figures Paul Harris (1868-1947), Chicago attorney who founded the first Rotary Club Silvester Schiele (1870-1945), coal dealer and cofounder of the Chicago Rotary Club Gus Loehr (1864-1918), mining engineer, promoter, jeweler, and cofounder of the Chicago Rotary Club Hiram Shorey (1862-1944), tailor and cofounder of the Chicago Rotary Club Summary of Event The Rotary Club, the first American service organization, began as a progressive reform campaign aimed at civic improvement. In the early 1900’s, massive political, economic, and social reforms were taking place, and for this reason historians often classified this phase in American history as the Progressive Era. Like other reformers of the period, the founding Rotarians—Paul Harris, Silvester Schiele, Gus Loehr, and Hiram Shorey— wanted to address social problems and hoped to revitalize American civic life. The Progressive Era was associated with numerous reform efforts that drew popular figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, who were interested in redressing social or economic problems, as well as those interested in bettering conditions for the disenfranchised and underprivileged. They were responding to developments in corporate and consumer culture in an attempt to provide a moral foundation for community members, embrace service projects, advocate character development, and promote the benefits of a traditional Christian value system. The Progressive Era was also associated with efforts to revitalize democracy. In the early twentieth century, Chicago seemed to be a hub of such social reform efforts. Famous activists Jane 406
Addams and John Dewey both lived in the city during this period, and it was within this context that Paul Harris, an attorney, and three other Chicago businessmen— Gus Loehr, a mining engineer, Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor, and Silvester Schiele, a coal dealer—started a new kind of service organization. Rotary’s philosophy emphasized equality among Rotary members and the need to participate in the civic arena. Through the Rotary Club, members from diverse professions could come together for fellowship and to collaborate on communityoriented projects. The group was dedicated to the ideal of “service above self,” and it met for the first time on February 23, 1905, in Loehr’s office in room 711 in the Unity Building on Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago. Harris envisioned a group that would promote the congenial, small-town atmosphere he had enjoyed as a youth in the small New England town of Wallingford, Vermont, where neighbors had close relationships and there was a rich heritage of civic participation. He suggested that the club include professionals from diverse sectors of the business community and that meetings take place at members’ offices on a rotating basis. This practice inspired the name “Rotary.” The club fostered a kind of internal support network that effectively became a professional mentoring program. Interest in the welfare of fellow Rotarians was the foundation of Rotary’s service-oriented mission, and concern for other club members easily extended to those in the local community, nation, and world. This global perspective ultimately came to be represented in the Rotary Club’s emblem, the wheel. Although the significance of the wheel is not officially defined by the Rotary Club, the Rotary’s Handbook, Adventure in Service, suggests that the wheel represents the modern industrial world, given that the wheel formed the backbone of the mechanized work of the twentieth century. Furthermore, the wheel represents a circle of friendship and the interconnectedness, equality, and unity among club members around the globe. In Rotary’s early days, members realized that a club focused solely on members’ mutual interests would not hold busy professionals’ attention for long. Consequently, the organization’s focus expanded to community-service projects: Helping those in need provided a compelling incentive for club participation. In 1907, the Rotary completed its first service project: The group gave a horse to a poor preacher. The second service project also occurred
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 in 1907, when the Chicago Rotary constructed the first public restrooms in Chicago’s City Hall. Other Rotary Clubs quickly developed: By 1908, the second Rotary Club had formed in San Francisco, and in 1909, another club began in Oakland, California. By the summer of 1910, sixteen clubs had formed, and the first Rotary Convention met in Chicago, in August of 1910. Nearly fifteen hundred members attended. Rotary Clubs also began developing outside the United States. In 1910, Rotary had reached Canada, and by 1911 the Rotary had organizations in Great Britain and Ireland. As a result, in 1912 the organization changed its name to the International Association of Rotary Clubs. By 1921, Rotary had one thousand clubs on six continents, and that same year Rotary held its first international convention in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the organization’s name was simplified to Rotary International. Gradually, Rotary’s objectives were distilled to the Four Avenues of Service: club, vocational, community, and international. Rotary’s motto originated from a phrase a Rotarian coined at the 1910 Rotary convention: “Service above self—he profits most who serves best.” In 1911, at the second Rotary convention, Rank Collins, president of the Minneapolis Rotary, used the phrase “Service, not self,” which also became a popular motto. In addition to the Four Avenues of Service, Rotary International embraced a code of ethics called the Four-Way Test, which was developed by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor in 1923. The test was designed to help members make ethical decisions about club policies and business practices. The Rotary Club officially adopted the Four-Way Test in 1943. When Rotary founder Paul Harris died in 1947, Rotarians contributed approximately $2 million in his memory to the Rotary Foundation. This fund helped
Rotarian (and later Rotary International president) Herbert J. Taylor developed the Four-Way Test in 1932; the test become an official part of Rotary International’s philosophy in 1943. Of the things we think, say or do: • Is it the truth? • Is it fair to all concerned? • Will it build goodwill and better friendships? • Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
launch the Rotary Foundation’s graduate fellowship program, now the Ambassadorial Scholarship fund. Harris was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, next to his fellow Rotarian and friend, Silvester Schiele. Significance Rotary International continued to thrive. In the early twenty-first century it had more than thirty-two thousand clubs in 168 countries, and its membership included approximately 1.2 million men and women. Rotary International has collaborated with other humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization. Rotary’s service projects have included humanitarian programs addressing problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and disease, particularly the eradication of polio. By the time Rotary celebrated its centennial in 2005, the club’s Polio Plus program had contributed approximately $500 million to eradicating the disease. — Renée Love Further Reading Charles, Jeffrey A. Service Clubs in American Society: Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Describes the rise of the Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions clubs from 1900 to 1940. Emphasizes social and cultural contexts and the complex relationship between the business and service organizations. Harris, Paul. The Founder of Rotary. Chicago: Rotary International, 1928. Records Harris’s reflections on Rotary’s development. McCleary, Elliot, ed. The World of Rotary. Chicago: Rotary International, 1975. Highlights international service activities and includes pictorial history of Rotary projects and events. Rotary International. Adventure in Service. 14th ed. Chicago: Author, 1965. Provides information on Rotarian history as well as on the club’s organization and mission. See also: May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society; Aug., 1907: Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts; Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace; May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded; Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee; Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion; Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established.
Source: Rotary International. http://www.rotary.org.
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Rotary’s Four-Way Test
First American Service Organization Is Founded
Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March, 1905
Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect Albert Einstein postulated that the process by which electrons are liberated from a metal surface by incident light can be understood if the light is considered to be composed of particles called light quanta, which later became known as photons. Locale: Bern, Switzerland Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Max Planck (1858-1947), German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist Summary of Event The photoelectric effect is the process by which electrons are ejected from a metal surface when light of the appropriate frequency is shined on that surface. Because it requires energy to remove an electron from a metal, it is clear that this energy is coming from the incident light. In 1905, a number of mysteries were associated with this process, all of which were solved by Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect in terms of light quanta. By 1905, scientists had discovered a variety of physical phenomena associated with the photoelectric effect. In 1887, Heinrich Hertz had discovered that light incident on a metal surface can produce visible sparks if that surface is in the presence of an electric field. The sparking action demonstrated that something was being removed from the metal surface, although nobody knew what it was. In 1888, Wilhelm Hallwachs showed that shining light on a surface can cause an uncharged body to become positively charged. In 1899, Sir Joseph John Thomson, who had discovered the electron two years earlier, stated that the photoelectric effect involved the emission of electrons from the metal. This explained Hertz’s observation: The emitted electrons were accelerated by the electric field until they gathered enough energy to create a spark. It also explained Hallwachs’s results: The emitted electrons were carrying negative charge away from the metal body, thus leaving it with a net positive charge. In 1902, Philipp Lenard showed that the energy of the ejected electrons—or, equivalently, their speed—did not depend on the intensity of the incident light. It was shown in 1904, however, that the energy of the ejected electrons depended on the frequency, or color, of the light: The higher the frequency of the inci408
dent light, the greater the speed of the escaping electrons. The photoelectric effect posed serious problems for classical physics. According to the classical theory, light was an electromagnetic wave that carried energy based on its intensity. When this energy was transmitted to the irradiated body, the electrons in the body would gain energy gradually, or “heat up,” until eventually they became energetic enough to escape from the body. If the incident light was very intense, the electrons should be escaping with a large supply of energy. The experimental observations were inconsistent with this explanation, however; they showed that the energy of the ejected electrons depended on the frequency of the incident light but not on its intensity. Yet the question of why a dim source of high-frequency light resulted in the ejection of electrons with a higher energy than a bright source of lowfrequency light still remained. In 1905, Albert Einstein published three revolutionary papers. The most famous was on relativity, another was on Brownian motion as evidence for the existence of atoms, and the third was on the photoelectric effect. Einstein postulated that one could understand the photoelectric effect by discarding certain key concepts from classical physics and replacing them with radical new ideas, which were to become known as modern physics. One of these radical ideas was the concept of light quanta, which Max Planck had tentatively proposed in 1900 to explain the distribution of radiation from hot bodies. Planck had suggested that light is emitted from a glowing body in discrete bundles, which he called light quanta. As an aid to understanding, Einstein postulated that the incident light of the photoelectric effect should be viewed not as a classical wave but rather as a collection of particles, which he called light quanta and which were later renamed photons. Each of these photons carried a discrete amount of energy that was proportional to its frequency: E = hf, where E is the energy of the photon, f is the frequency, and h is a proportionality constant that had been discovered by Planck. In Einstein’s conception, a beam of light is more closely analogous to a flock of birds than to a stream of water. By viewing the incident light as a collection of photons, Einstein was able to explain the photoelectric effect as follows: When a photon is incident on a metal surface, there is a strong chance that it will penetrate through the surface and encounter the free electrons that are known to lie within the metal. When a photon encoun-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect
Young Einstein When Albert Einstein described the photoelectric effect in 1905, he was a young man in his mid-twenties. In 1902, he had been hired as a technical expert in the Swiss patent office in Berne, where he was to remain for seven years; in 1903, he had married Mileva Maric, a friend from his student days in Zurich, and in 1904 the first of their two sons was born. In 1905, Einstein published three major papers, any one of which would have established his place in the history of science. The first, which was to bring him the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1921, explained the photoelectric effect and formed the basis for much of quantum mechanics. It also led to the development of television. The second concerned statistical mechanics and explained the phenomenon known as Brownian motion, the erratic movement of pollen grains when immersed in water. Einstein’s calculations gave convincing evidence for the existence of atoms. It was the third paper, however, containing the special theory of relativity, that was to revolutionize our understanding of the nature of the physical world. The theory stated that the speed of light is the same for all observers and is not dependent on the speed of the source of the light, or of the observer, and that the laws of nature (both the Newto-
First, the intensity is irrelevant if an electron absorbs only a single photon. Higher intensity means more photons that might eject more electrons but will not increase the energy of any specific electron because, at most, one photon is absorbed. Second, the energy of the ejected electrons increases with the frequency of the incident light, because higher-frequency photons impart more energy to the electrons. The photoelectric effect was no longer a mystery. Einstein was also able to make two predictions: The energy of a photoejected electron can never exceed hf, the energy of the photon, and, if hf is less than the work function of the metal P, no electrons will be ejected no matter how intense the incident light. Einstein’s predictions were experimentally verified. Einstein’s explanation for the photoelectric effect came at a time when classical ideas were still strong and the notion of light quanta seemed radical and mysterious. Even Planck had never fully accepted the reality of the quantum that he had discovered in 1900. Einstein, by calling his ideas “heuristic,” indicated that he had reservations about the physical reality of the light quanta. In fact, it was almost two decades before these important ideas were universally accepted. 409
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ters an electron, it will typically transfer all of its energy to the electron. In the language of modern physics, it is said that the photon is “absorbed” by the electron. In general, an electron can absorb only one photon, but it will always absorb this photon in its entirety. The electron, which had very little energy before it absorbed the photon, now has an amount of energy hf. If this energy is high enough, the electron will be able to escape out of the metal. An electron will typically expend a certain amount of energy as it escapes. This energy is characteristic of the specific metal and is known as its work function, P. The work function is the “energy cost” of the escape. If the electron is going to escape, then the energy provided by the photon, hf, must be greater than P. Einstein proposed the formula E = hf – P, which states that the energy possessed by a photoejected electron is equal to the energy of the incident photon minus the energy of the work function. By analogy, one could say that the money possessed by an escaping convict is equal to the money that was smuggled in to arrange his escape less the amount he spent bribing relevant prison officials to arrange his escape. Einstein postulated the curious relationship between the energy of the ejected electrons and the incident light:
nian laws of mechanics and Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic field) remain the same for all uniformly moving systems. This theory meant that the concept of absolute space and time had to be abandoned because it did not remain valid for speeds approaching those of light. Events that happen at the same time for one observer do not do so for another observer moving at high speed in respect to the first. Einstein also demonstrated that a moving clock would appear to run slow compared with an identical clock at rest with respect to the observer, and a measuring rod would vary in length according to the velocity of the frame of reference in which it was measured. In another paper published in 1905, Einstein stated, by the famous equation E = mc2, that mass and energy are equivalent. Each can be transferred into the other because mass is a form of concentrated energy. This equation suggested to others the possibility of the development of immensely powerful explosives. Such was Einstein’s achievement at the age of twenty-six. There had not been a year like it since Sir Isaac Newton published his Principia in 1687. The scientific world quickly recognized Einstein as a creative genius—yet his most important work, on general relativity, still lay before him.
Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect Significance The first three decades of the twentieth century witnessed the overthrow of classical physics and the birth of quantum mechanics, which has been the foundation for most of the physics developed since that time. Like many revolutions in science, the quantum revolution was accomplished through a series of small steps that eventually led to an entirely new way of looking at the universe. Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 was one of the small steps along the road to the radically new world into which physics was about to enter. The light quanta hypothesis became an important part of several larger theories. In 1911, Niels Bohr began to use the idea of light quanta to account for the emission spectra of atoms. It was known that atoms, when excited, give off light with certain characteristic frequencies that differ from one atom to the next. The famous “Bohr model of the atom” stated that this frequency could be understood as the frequency of the light quantum, or photon, given off by an atom when an electron jumps from a large orbit to a smaller one. The energy of the emitted photon would be equal to the energy difference between the two orbits. In 1923, Arthur Holly Compton performed some very significant experiments in which he studied the collision of photons with electrons. By treating the photon as if it was a particle rather than a wave, he was able to demonstrate the transfer of energy and momentum from a particle of energy to a particle of matter. These experiments helped to confirm the existence of photons, which still was not universally accepted. At the same time that Compton was colliding photons with electrons, Louis de Broglie was pondering the apparent wave-particle duality of light. De Broglie recognized that light, which certainly had been demonstrated to behave like a wave, also behaved like a particle at times. If this “dual character” were true, then should not electrons, which had always been understood as particles, also behave like waves? De Broglie proposed his famous concept of wave-particle duality, which stated that light and matter have both a wave character and a particle character. The idea of light quanta was slow to catch on, however. In 1911, Einstein still was calling attention to the tentative nature of his hypothesis. Even as the explanation was verified experimentally and became widely accepted, there was still hesitation about the physical reality of light quanta. As late as 1924, Bohr coauthored a paper that still argued that the photon was not real and that the concept would eventually be replaced by an improved understanding of matter and radiation. Nevertheless, it was rapidly becoming clear to the physics 410
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 community that the quantum revolution had arrived. Eventually, all the opposition ceased, and the photon became one of the most important concepts in physics, universally accepted, and a model for later developments in other areas of physics. —Karl Giberson Further Reading Gamow, George. Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. This classic book by one of the principal physicists of the twentieth century is a charming and insightful survey of the revolution that produced the modern theory of quantum physics. Halliday, David, and Robert Resnick. Fundamentals of Physics: Extended Version. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988. This popular general physics text is typical of the many excellent books that discuss the photoelectric effect in their treatment of elementary modern physics. Pais, Abraham. Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. This highly acclaimed book, first published in 1982, is written by a physicist who knew Einstein very well. Somewhat technical in parts, it nevertheless presents an absolutely authoritative discussion of Einstein and his ideas. Rigden, John S. Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. An account of the new insights and turmoil engendered among physicists by the five groundbreaking research papers that Albert Einstein published in 1905. Accessible to lay readers. Includes simple diagrams and reproductions of the front pages of the five papers. Rosenthal-Schneider, Ilse. Reality and Scientific Truth: Discussions with Einstein, von Laue, and Planck. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980. Consists of correspondence and discussions with three eminent scientists: Albert Einstein, Max von Laue, and Max Planck. Topics covered include “the universal constants of nature,” “concepts of substance and conservation,” and “the smallest length.” Wolfson, Richard, and Jay M. Pasachoff. Physics: Extended with Modern Physics. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1989. Chapter 36, “Light and Matter: Waves or Particles,” does a very complete job of explaining the photoelectric effect and its significance for physics. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Developed; Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity; Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity; Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed
Tangier Crisis over Newton’s Theory; 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light; Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle.
March 31, 1905
Tangier Crisis The German emperor’s visit to Tangier, where he gave a speech challenging French control of Morocco, set off an international crisis. The controversy was only partially resolved at the 1906 Algeciras Conference, and Germany initiated a second international crisis over Morocco in July, 1911. Locale: Tangier, Morocco; Algeciras, Spain Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; colonialism and occupation; government and politics Key Figures William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Théophile Delcassé (1852-1923), foreign minister of France, 1898-1905, 1914-1915 Bernhard von Bülow (1849-1929), German chancellor, 1900-1909 4Abd al-4Aztz (1878/1881-1943), sultan of Morocco, r. 1894-1908 Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), foreign secretary for Great Britain, 1905-1916 Maurice Rouvier (1842-1911), premier of France, January, 1905-March, 1906
1905
Summary of Event When German emperor William II decided to interrupt a restful Mediterranean cruise on his imperial yacht and head toward Tangier, his decision signified much more than a change in vacation plans. Germany’s chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, had decided that the time was right to block French colonial and diplomatic ambitions, which Germany found disturbing. France’s nationalistic and longtime foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, had recently crafted an agreement of friendly accommodations with Great Britain (the Entente Cordiale of 1904) and was preparing to detach Italy from the German sphere. The Franco-Russian Alliance was in its tenth year, and Russia was distracted by upheaval caused by the disastrous Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). In the mean-
time, Germany was already finalizing the Schlieffen Plan of 1905, which called for a six-week campaign against France. The Germans considered the plan infallible, because if a short preventive war were to be fought against France, Russia would be helpless to intervene. Consequently, Bülow believed that Germany had everything to gain by having the emperor dock at Tangier on March 31, 1905, to deliver a speech declaring German support of Moroccan territorial integrity and an open door policy for German commercial interests in Morocco. Delcassé had been careful to get many of his diplomatic ducks in order before moving to bring Morocco into the French sphere. In June, 1904, he created a financial crisis in Morocco by lending large sums to Sultan
Emperor William II of Germany. (Library of Congress)
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Tangier Crisis 4Abd al-4Aztz, a compulsive gambler and lavish spender, and then committing him to place a large munitions order from Cruezot, the major French munitions manufacturer. The sultan soon defaulted on the loan payments, which were backed by 60 percent of Moroccan customs revenues. By the imperial standards of the time, France had an overriding interest in restructuring Moroccan finances. In April, 1904, France had agreed to support British interests in Egypt in return for English support of French interests in Morocco, and in October a secret agreement was made with Spain over Morocco. Delcassé remained calm during the brewing crisis. He firmly believed that Germany was being obstructionist to produce discord in the Anglo-French entente and to project its own image as a leading world power. Above all else, he believed that Germany was bluffing. Throughout 1904, the French minister to Morocco, Saint-René Taillandier, had sent him information pointing to the fact that Germany had no real political designs on Morocco. However, many of France’s more influential ambassadors, and most of Premier Maurice Rouvier’s other cabinet ministers, did not share in this certainty. Rouvier was suspicious of Delcassé’s judgment, since the foreign minister had not foreseen the disastrous defeats that Russia would suffer at the hands of both the Japanese army and naval forces and the resulting losses that would be suffered by French banks. Rouvier preferred to take the safer path and come to an accommodation with Germany. Throughout April and May of 1904, the crisis in Morocco became a major issue in French, German, and (to a lesser extent) English newspapers. In an age of mass literacy, the nationalist “yellow presses” increased their circulation with sensationalist reporting. In late April, Germany called for an international conference to settle the Moroccan crisis, and the French refused to attend. Tensions reached a height as France canceled all military leaves (on June 18) and Germany threatened to conclude a defensive alliance with Morocco (on June 22). At the height of the crisis, Delcassé was called to explain his policy before the French legislature. He continued to advocate a strong stand, assuring the legislature that Germany was merely testing the diplomatic waters. Fearful of a war for which they were ill prepared, cabinet members voted against Delcassé’s position and forced him to resign. Rouvier soon agreed to an international conference, which was to be held at Algeciras, Spain, at the start of the new year. The dismissal of Delcassé and the French acquiescence made it appear that Germany had won a major diplomatic victory and that France had accepted a bitter humiliation. French 412
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 public opinion was enraged at the sacrifice of Delcassé to appease Germany, and French concessions seemed even more misguided when the threat of war did not disappear. Preceding the opening of the Algeciras Conference, Germany summoned its reserves, and France responded by moving a significant number of its troops to the German border. The Algeciras Conference was attended by seven European powers and the United States. While Russian support of France was expected, Germany was surprised to see strong support of the French position by the new Liberal government in Britain and by Italy, Spain, and the United States. In the three months of negotiations that followed, support of Germany was given only by Austria-Hungary. France’s special rights in Morocco, including the right to reorganize the Moroccan financial system, were given international recognition. France and Spain were given the right to organize the Moroccan police, but their power was subject to supervision by a Swiss inspector general. Recognition of Morocco as a politically independent country and protection of general German economic rights in North Africa did little to detract from the evident reality that an internationally isolated Germany had been handed a serious policy defeat. Significance Instead of weakening the recent Anglo-French entente, the German policy gamble over Morocco served only to strengthen it. Staff talks about military cooperation between the English and the French began during the crisis and continued thereafter. The crisis also provided France with the opportunity to work out its differences with Great Britain and Russia, and it accelerated resolution between competing spheres of influence in Tibet, Afghanistan, and Persia (now Iran), leading to the formation of the Triple Entente in August, 1907. Supported only by Austria-Hungary, Germany appeared isolated. As a consequence, the German government realized that it could no longer trust international conferences to settle disputes in the country’s interests. The period of peace established by the 1815 Congress of Vienna, in which European national borders were reestablished, was dealt a serious blow by the Algeciras Conference of 1906. Another major conference would not occur until after World War I. While the dismissal of Delcassé was a source of shortterm humiliation for France, the leader’s departure served only to harden the country’s resolve to invest in Russia’s industrial-military recovery and to strengthen its own military. Germany’s response was to heighten its
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 military response by affirming its commitment to the Schlieffen Plan and producing super-battleships to rival England’s dreadnoughts. The Germans’ use of a military solution is evident in their precipitation of a second Moroccan crisis in July, 1911, when the German gunboat Panther docked in Agadir, Morocco, on the pretext of protecting German business interests during a native uprising. Conflict was avoided only by France’s willingness to give Germany parts of the French Congo and to internationalize Tangier. After the Tangier crisis of 1905, Europe became increasingly divided into two heavily armed camps. International conferences lost their popularity as methods for settling disputes, and international anarchy reigned supreme. —Irwin Halfond Further Reading Hayne, M. B. The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 1898-1914. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993. A brilliant study of French foreign policy based on extensive archival research. Extensive footnotes, bibliography, and index. Lafore, Laurence. The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1997. A readable short analysis of the major issues and crises that led to the outbreak of
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law World War I. Footnotes, index, and annotated bibliography. Lerman, Katharine A. The Chancellor as Courtier: Bernhard von Bülow and the Governance of Germany, 1900-1909. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. A study of German policy under Chancellor von Bülow, including unpublished archival sources. Chapter 4 is on the Tangier crisis of 1905-1906. Illustrations, index, and select bibliography. Mombauer, Annika. The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus. New York: Longman, 2002. An interpretive study of the policies and crises preceding and leading to World War I. Footnotes, index, and annotated bibliography. Williamson, Samuel R. The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904-1914. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969. The standard study of British and French diplomacy in the decade preceding the Great War. Footnotes, index, and bibliography. See also: July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I.
April 17, 1905
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law By ruling that maximum hours laws were unconstitutional in Lochner v. New York, the Supreme Court upheld the freedom of contract and severely limited the ability of states to enact workplace reform legislation.
Key Figures Rufus W. Peckham (1838-1909), associate justice of the United States, 1895-1909 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), associate justice of the United States, 1902-1932 John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), associate justice of the United States, 1877-1911 Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), American scientist and philosopher
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Also known as: Lochner v. New York Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event On April 17, 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five to four in the case of Lochner v. New York that maximum hours laws were an unreasonable interference with the liberty of contract. The Court ruled that the power of the state to regulate did not outweigh the freedom of contract. The ruling struck down an 1895 New York statute that had limited the number of work hours for any employee in any bakery or confectionery establishment to no more than ten hours in a day or sixty hours in a week. New York’s labor law was an example of the aggressive interventionist and experimental policies that several states had begun pursuing around the beginning of the twentieth century. The Court held that New York’s experiment had been a “meddlesome interference” and an undue infringement on the right of free contract and thus of the private rights of the employer. In a powerful and eloquent dissent, Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that the states had the authority to pur-
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
sue their own social experiments and The LOCHNER V. NEW YORK Decision enact reform legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Lochner v. New York struck New York’s Bakeshop Act had down a law setting a maximum number of work hours. The decision, written by been enacted in an effort to regulate Justice Rufus W. Peckham, concluded as follows: and improve the often dreadful working and health conditions in the state’s It is manifest to us that the limitation of the hours of labor as provided for in this cramped bakeshops, establishments section of the statute under which the indictment was found, and the plaintiff in that often employed only a handful error convicted, has no such direct relation to, and no such substantial effect of workers and frequently were loupon, the health of the employee, as to justify us in regarding the section as recated in the basements of tenement ally a health law. It seems to us that the real object and purpose were simply to buildings. Passed as an act to regulate regulate the hours of labor between the master and his employees (all being men, Sui juris), in a private business, not dangerous in any degree to morals, or the manufacture of flour and meal in any real and substantial degree to the health of the employees. Under such food products, the Bakeshop Act escircumstances the freedom of master and employee to contract with each other tablished maximum hours and rein relation to their employment, and in defining the same, cannot be prohibited quired that bakeries be drained and or interfered with, without violating the Federal Constitution. plumbed; that products be stored in The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York, as well as that of the dry and airy rooms; that walls and Supreme Court and of the County Court of Oneida County, must be reversed floors be plastered, tiled, or otherand the case remanded to the County Court for further proceedings not inconwise finished; and that inspections sistent with this opinion. be carried out by officials. Source: U.S. Supreme Court, Lochner v. People of State of New York, 198 U.S. 45 The law was not the first attempt (1905). to set limits on hours worked. Among the earliest efforts to regulate hours of work was an executive order signed stituted an unjustified and inefficient disruption of the by President Martin Van Buren in 1840 that limited the free market. daily hours of labor in government navy yards to ten. Joseph Lochner owned and operated a small bread Most early efforts to set limits on hours of labor conbakery in Utica, New York. After being twice found cerned the employment of women and children. Massaguilty of violating New York’s Bakeshop Act, he was chusetts and Connecticut both passed laws limiting the fined $50. He appealed his conviction to the New York number of hours for children employed in manufacturing Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals, losestablishments as early as 1842. By the late nineteenth ing each time. His case ultimately made its way to the century, laws limiting hours for women, children, or both U.S. Supreme Court. Why this case emerged as the test had been passed in New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvacase for a host of reform legislation is unclear; Lochner’s nia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, bakery was a small and relatively obscure establishment. and Wisconsin. An ongoing clash between Lochner and the Utica branch Those who supported limiting the hours of work arof the journeyman bakers’ union may have led to his fine gued that doing so would enhance the efficiency or proand kept this case alive on appeal. ductivity of labor and improve public health. Proponents The majority opinion in Lochner was written by Assoof maximum hours legislation asserted that limits on the ciate Justice Rufus W. Peckham. Peckham was known length of daily labor would lead to qualitative as well as for his staunch support of laissez-faire policies and his quantitative improvements. Clearly, any bakeshop lacontempt for government regulation, stances that would borer who toiled long hours in cramped sweatshop conlead others to link Peckham with the writings of Herbert ditions stood to gain some benefit, but proponents argued Spencer, an influential scientist and philosopher who that there were also potential benefits for the consumers was one of the most outspoken champions of social Darof baked goods. The principal arguments against such winism. In the Court’s ruling in the 1897 case of Allgeyer legislation were simply that it was an overextension of v. Louisiana, Peckham had written the opinion that held a the police powers of the state and that it infringed on the law unconstitutional for depriving a person of liberty of right of freedom of contract. Moreover, proponents of contract. Any contract suitable to the operation of a lawthe theories of social Darwinism and laissez-faire ecoful business was thus afforded protection under the Fournomics insisted that such government intervention con414
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Significance The immediate impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lochner was to restrict, or at least postpone, the ability of states to regulate such economic issues as maximum hours and minimum wages. Exactly how the Court
would define the regulatory role of the states was an issue of great interest to reform-minded legislatures as well as to employers and their employees. The use of legislative reform was becoming more common, but such legislation often faced hostile review by the generally conservative courts. Within a matter of a few years, the movement for shorter hours appeared to have won, lost, and then won again in significant cases before the Supreme Court. In 1898, the Court upheld a limitation on hours for Utah miners and smelters in Holden v. Hardy. In 1905, it reversed Joseph Lochner’s conviction as an illegal and unwarranted interference with the liberty of contract, but in 1908 it upheld an Oregon law limiting hours for women in factories and laundries in Muller v. Oregon. The Court’s majority apparently viewed Lochner differently from the other two cases because its members saw no good reason bakers should be singled out; if bakers’ hours were regulated, then regulations on others would follow. Exceptions could be made for inherently dangerous occupations or in the case of women and children, but a general limitation on hours was not yet to be accepted. A 1917 ruling, in Bunting v. Oregon, accepted a ten-hour day for men and women on the grounds of preserving the health and safety of workers, but only because the legislation did not apply to all workers; it applied only to workers in certain inherently dangerous industries. The implications of the Court’s ruling in Lochner obviously extended far beyond Joseph Lochner and the treatment of bakers in Utica bakeshops. The Court’s decision signified an ardent acceptance by the Court majority of the doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism and a belief that reform legislation and the regulatory movement could be suspended by the courts. By ruling against the state of New York, the Court sent a clear message of hostility to any reform-minded legislative body. Liberty of contract, in this case the right of Joseph Lochner to make his own contracts and control his property, took precedence over the right of the state to exercise its police powers. Up until the economic crisis of the Great Depression, the mostly conservative justices of the Supreme Court used the doctrine of liberty of contract to limit the ability of states to enact workplace reform legislation. Specific contracts could always be struck down, but only in those cases with narrowly defined public purposes. A notable example of prevailing judicial temperament can be seen in the 1908 case that outlawed “yellow-dog contracts,” Adair v. United States. A law protecting union members 415
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teenth Amendment. The doctrine of liberty of contract, established in Allgeyer, was advanced in Lochner. In Lochner, Peckham held that there was no reasonable ground for interfering with the liberty of a person or the right of free contract by determining the hours of labor in this particular case. Although he acknowledged the power of states to protect the health and morals of citizens in specific situations, he questioned the need for protection of bakers. Laboring long hours in a bakery, although perhaps unpleasant and posing some health risks, was neither as arduous nor as unsafe as working at many other occupations. By restricting the freedom of contract, New York’s Bakeshop Act had violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and as such was unconstitutional. Because the connection between bakeries and health remained shadowy, the states were not free to exercise police or regulatory powers under the guise of conserving morals, health, or safety. In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan held that New York’s Bakeshop Act was not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment and that the states had the “power to guard the health and safety of their citizens by such regulations as they in their wisdom deem best.” Justice Harlan held that it was clearly within the discretionary power of the states to enact laws regarding health conditions and that such statutes should be enforced unless they could be demonstrated to have plainly violated the “fundamental law of the Constitution.” In Harlan’s opinion, the use of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate New York’s statute would in effect cripple the states in their ability to ensure the well-being of their citizens. In a forceful and eloquent dissent, Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that the majority decision in Lochner was based on an economic theory rather than on law and that a “constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory.” In this well-known dissent, Justice Holmes criticized the majority for extending the doctrine of liberty of contract and for defining too narrowly the states’ police power. Holmes went on to write that a constitution is written for people of fundamentally differing views and that the “Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statistics.”
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law by prohibiting yellow-dog contracts, under which employees promised not to join a union, was judged by the Court to be an unreasonable invasion of personal liberty and property rights. This reliance on liberty of contract and devotion to laissez-faire economic doctrines remained a marked feature of the Court for some years. However, not all scholars agree that the Court was as hostile to regulatory legislation and as antilabor as a few of these decisions might imply. The decision in Lochner ranks among the most famous of all Supreme Court rulings, but for dubious reasons. Many consider it now, as Justice Holmes considered it then, an insensible ruling that ignored the hardships of sweatshop labor and launched a misguided assault on reform legislation. The premise of the decision later came into question. Rather than removing labor relations from the domain of politics, the decision resulted in eventual general acceptance of the notion that public debate and legislative action on economic issues are appropriate uses of police powers. Social change is often a difficult and lengthy process. The necessary adjustments of an emerging industrial and increasingly urban society, with their resulting conflicts in labor relations, raised perplexing issues. Progressive reformers, and later New Dealers, who sought change through legislative enactments found, as in Lochner, that the courts were often unsympathetic. The realities and the pressures of the Great Depression led to a pervasive revision of judicial, political, and economic philosophies. New and inventive attempts were made to revitalize the economy, and legislatures were generally given more freedom to exercise regulatory powers. —Timothy E. Sullivan Further Reading Commons, John R., ed. History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932. Vol. 3 in History of Labor in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Includes Don D. Lescohier’s “Working Conditions” and Elizabeth Brandeis’s “Labor Legislation,” which are particularly helpful for placing Lochner v. New York in context. Thoroughly documented, with extensive bibliography and index. The set of which this volume is a part is a pioneering work of American labor history. Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Provides a detailed and useful outline of the history of the Court, major decisions 416
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and doctrines that have guided and influenced Court rulings dating back to 1789, and brief biographies of every justice who has served on the Court as well as other historically significant characters. Concise but detailed entries help to make landmark cases and legal terms accessible to a variety of users. _______. The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Multiauthored collection of essays on more than four hundred significant Court decisions, with supporting glossary and other aids. Kens, Paul. Judicial Power and Reform Politics: The Anatomy of “Lochner v. New York.” Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990. Presents a well-written and well-documented analysis of the issues surrounding the Lochner case, bakeries at the beginning of the twentieth century, the politics of reform legislation, and the ramifications of the Court’s decision. Lerner, Max, and Robert G. McCloskey. “The Supreme Court and American Capitalism.” In Essays in Constitutional Law. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957. Originally published in 1933, this is an interpretation of the Supreme Court as the institution that links the nation’s supreme law and its economic system of capitalism. Not quite a theory of economic determinism, it fit the Lochner era well and explained the views of justices Holmes and Harlan, as well as Peckham, but would not accommodate an activist, rights-oriented Court such as existed in the 1960’s. Nichols, Egbert Ray, and Joseph H. Baccus, eds. Selected Articles on Minimum Wages and Maximum Hours. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1936. Outlines and defines the debate over whether Congress has the power to fix minimum wages and maximum hours for workers. Reprints of editorials and comments offer a variety of legal, political, and economic interpretations. Siegan, Bernard H. Economic Liberties and the Constitution. 2d ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2005. An examination of changing judicial policy and the Court’s review of economic legislation. Offers an explanation of alternative views of substantive due process and the protection of economic liberties. Skocpol, Theda, and Gretchen Ritter. “Gender and the Origins of Modern Social Policies in Britain and the United States.” Studies in American Political Development (Spring, 1991): 36-93. This long, welldocumented article explains how differing governmental and class structures led to paternalistic social policies in Great Britain and maternalistic social poli-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cies in the United States in the early twentieth century. In relation to the United States, it offers an interesting discussion of the role of women’s clubs. U.S. Supreme Court. “Lochner v. New York.” United States Reports 198 (1905): 45. The case itself is the best source of information on the views of the justices. It is relatively brief and within the grasp of readers without a legal background.
First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens U.S. Supreme Court. “Muller v. Oregon.” United States Reports 208 (1908): 412. This case regarding maximum hours for women is also worth reading. See also: Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts; Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon; Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws.
June, 1905
First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens The proliferation of storefront theaters created a revolution in film exhibition and provided the foundation for an entertainment industry based on motion pictures. Locale: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Categories: Entertainment; trade and commerce; motion pictures Key Figures Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor and businessman Carl Laemmle (1867-1939), American nickelodeon operator Adolph Zukor (1873-1976), American entrepreneur William Fox (1879-1952), American independent exhibitor and distributor of films
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Summary of Event The American public was introduced to the wonders of moving pictures through peep-show machines installed in penny arcades. The kinetoscope, developed by inventor Thomas Alva Edison, was introduced around 1893 and soon became commonplace in large cities. The invention of the film projector at the end of the 1890’s sent technology in a different direction and disrupted Edison’s plans to keep motion-picture exhibition within the framework of individual machines for public places or the home. The projector enabled businesses to entertain larger groups of people at the same time. Operators of penny arcades and music halls adopted film projectors, as did traveling shows. In June, 1905, businessmen Harry Davis and John P. Harris opened a storefront theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to show projected motion pictures. Their “store show” had about two hundred seats. The admission price was five cents, leading to the name “nickelodeon.” This
was not the first time that motion pictures had been shown to groups of people in one place, but the theater concentrated on film exclusively, rather than mixing it with other forms of entertainment. Davis and Harris offered continuous exhibition of films and frequent changes of programs, directing their services to the working classes. Under the management of Harry Cohen, the Davis and Harris nickelodeon achieved astounding success. The shows started at 8:00 a.m. and ran to full houses until midnight. The operation was estimated to be making a profit of nearly one thousand dollars per week. Soon there were hundreds of nickelodeons in the Pittsburgh area, as storefronts and penny arcades were converted into film theaters. Nickelodeons first became established in cities of the Midwest, where there were plenty of well-paid blue-collar workers, and spread to other cities in the Northeast and West. After two years of “nickel madness,” most American cities had at least one film theater, and big cities typically had twenty or thirty. By 1910, more than nine thousand film theaters were operating in the United States. This number grew to almost thirteen thousand in 1912, with about thirty million tickets sold each week. The nickelodeon had created a large business in film exhibition. The nickelodeon also created the moviegoer, a customer for motion pictures who did not view them in other venues such as vaudeville shows or amusement parks. Moviegoers were devoted to the motion picture and expected a constant flow of new films at the nickelodeon. They soon became more experienced and consequently more critical in their viewing of films. Expectations for narrative plots, professional acting, and convincing settings increased. Film producers had to make longer films with strong story lines to keep the customers of the nickelodeons happy. With motion pictures now a form of mass entertain-
First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens ment, filmmakers had to increase production to meet the new levels of demand created by the success of the nickelodeon. They began to build larger studios and organize production facilities to maintain a constant output of films. Studios were custom-built so that filmmakers could film more than one scene at a time and to bring all the elements of film production under one roof. The system of production in which the cameraman did all the nonacting work was replaced by a division of labor that established the director in overall charge of making the film, with camera work, lighting, and other tasks carried out by specialized workers. Edison’s invention of the motion-picture camera gave him a strong patent position, which his company exploited to drive competition from the field. This policy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was part of a common strategy in American business, that of achieving a monopoly based on control of patents. During the 1890’s, Edison’s lawyers had attempted to eliminate smaller film producers, but they met with limited success. Companies such as Biograph and American Vitagraph obtained their own patents and fought back. Extensive litigation in the 1890’s brought constant disruptions to film production and discouraged entrepreneurs from entering the field or investing in it. Film production was dominated by a few large companies with strong patent positions, such as the Edison and Biograph organizations, and numerous small companies that operated outside the law. Their inability to meet the demand for films encouraged foreign film producers to enter the American market.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Barkers and ticket takers pose outside the entrance of a nickelodeon theater where three films are advertised. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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With motion pictures now a large and The Success of the Nickelodeons profitable business, Edison set out to orJust two years after the first nickelodeon opened, the Saturday Evening ganize manufacturers around his patents. Post published an article by Joseph Medill Patterson that described the An agreement was reached in 1907 to ofpopularity of this new kind of theater: fer manufacturing licenses to the largest film producers: Biograph, Vitagraph, Three years ago there was not a nickelodeon, or five-cent theatre devoted Lubin, Selig, Pathé, Méliès, and Kalem. to moving-picture shows, in America. To-day there are between four and Biograph refused the offer and did not befive thousand running and solvent, and the number is still increasing rapcome part of the Association of Edison idly. This is the boom time in the moving-picture business. Everybody Licensees. The continuing warfare beis making money—manufacturers, renters, jobbers, exhibitors. Overtween Edison and Biograph maintained production looms up as a certainty of the near future; but now, as one press-agent said enthusiastically, “this line is a Klondike.” an atmosphere of uncertainty in film proThe nickelodeon is tapping an entirely new stratum of people, is develduction, because an adverse court decioping into theatregoers a section of population that formerly knew and sion might invalidate patents. It was clear cared little about the drama as a fact in life. That is why “this line is a that peace was the key to stability and Klondike” just at present. prosperity. George Kleine of Kalem took Incredible as it may seem, over two million people on the average atcharge of the negotiations that finally tend the nickelodeons every day of the year, and a third of these are chilbrought the warring companies together dren. and led to the creation of the Motion PicLet us prove up this estimate. The agent for the biggest firm of film ture Patents Company (MPPC) in 1908. renters in the country told me that the average expense of running a nickThe MPPC organized film producers elodeon was from $175 to $200 a week, divided as follows: under the pooled patents of Edison, BioWage of manager 25 graph, and Vitagraph. It gave licenses to Wage of operator 20 nine producers: the original members of Wage of doorman 15 the Association of Edison Licensees (miWage of porter or musician 12 nus Méliès), Biograph, the Kleine OptiRent of films (two reels changed twice a week) 50 cal Company, and the Edison concern. Rent of projecting machine 10 Interlocking agreements were made with Rent of building 40 Music, printing, “campaign contributions,” etc. 18 Eastman Kodak (the main supplier of Total $190 film stock), projector manufacturers, film importers, and film exchanges and exhibMerely to meet expenses, then, the average nickelodeon must have a itors. The film trust, as it was called, creweekly attendance of 4000. This gives all the nickelodeons 16,000,000 a ated a monopoly of film production and week, or over 2,000,000 a day. Two million people a day are needed beestablished minimum prices that ensured fore profits can begin, and the two million are forthcoming. It is a big thing, this new enterprise. healthy profits. As in numerous other trusts formed at this time, power over a Source: Joseph Medill Patterson, “The Nickelodeons,” Saturday Evening Post, whole industry fell into the hands of a few November 23, 1907. large concerns. The MPPC also took the lead in selfregulation of the industry to ensure that Significance motion pictures would provide respectable entertainLike the phonograph before it, the motion-picture proment. This was intended to head off growing criticism of jector created a large entertainment industry within the low moral tone of films. The MPPC also took the retwenty years of its invention. The explosive growth of sponsibility of policing the nickelodeons to reduce fire nickelodeon theaters signaled to the business community and safety hazards in the buildings. that there was a great opportunity in film exhibition. The The formation of the MPPC opened a period of rapid success of the nickelodeon idea brought many entrepregrowth and high profits in the film industry. Film producneurs into the business. Until 1905, most attention in the ers established a schedule of regular releases to ensure fledgling film industry had been focused on the process that exhibitors would be able to change programs regularly. of filmmaking. Many of the people who would later fig-
First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens ure prominently in the history of motion pictures got their start in film exhibition. Adolph Zukor, a successful Chicago furrier, invested three thousand dollars in a penny arcade in New York in 1903 and took advantage of the “nickel madness” to turn it into a nickelodeon in 1906. In that same year, Carl Laemmle opened his store theater in Chicago and William Fox acquired a storefront arcade in Brooklyn with a nickelodeon over it for about one thousand dollars. All of these three men went on to create powerful film studios: Universal (Laemmle), Paramount (Zukor), and Twentieth Century-Fox. The nickelodeon brought immediate profits to film exhibitors and many changes to the business. The increased demand for films supported film exchanges, which rented reels of film to exhibitors. This replaced the expensive practice of buying films and made it possible for nickelodeon operators to offer greater selections of films. In many cases, the exchanges were established by entrepreneurs who already owned nickelodeons, such as Carl Laemmle and William Fox, who started exchanges to serve their strings of theaters. At the same time film producers were banding together, exhibitors and film exchanges were also organizing themselves into trade groups to protect their interests. They wanted to eliminate price cutting and stop the practice of “duping,” or unauthorized copying, of films. The renters of films organized themselves into the Film Service Association (FSA) in 1907 and agreed to acquire film from Edison licensees only. They committed to buying a certain amount of film per week at a fixed price, providing the producers with a secure and predictable market. Both sides agreed to do business only with one another; thus independent filmmakers could not sell their products to members of the FSA, and the Edison licensees promised to sell their output exclusively to FSA exhibitors. This made it very difficult for independent concerns to operate in the motionpicture industry, but many did. The process of consolidation among both producers and exhibitors had the immediate effect of eliminating smaller, unaligned concerns from the business. The number of companies making or renting films decreased, and those that remained in business grew larger. Although the nickelodeons received better prints under the new system, their costs were higher, and many increased the admission charge to ten cents. The formation of the MPPC accelerated consolidation and gave film producers more power over exhibitors. Each group obtained a license from the MPPC to use film cameras or projectors. The MPPC held all the im420
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 portant patents for film projectors, and under the new system the exhibitors had to pay a royalty fee of two dollars each week. This caused dissension and led to the first defections from the MPPC. Carl Laemmle announced his withdrawal from the organization in 1909. He was followed by several other film exchanges, which began buying films from independent producers. The MPPC issued injunctions against patent infringers but was powerless to prevent all of them from operating, especially those that left the New York City area—the center of the film industry—and moved to Southern California. The independent film exchanges provided more business to the independent film producers, but uncertain supply and low quality of films pushed exhibitors and renters into making their own films. Carl Laemmle was again a pioneer in 1909, this time in the backward integration of film exhibitors into film production. He was followed by Zukor, who launched the Famous Players Film Company in 1911. It was clear to exhibitors and renters that the film producers had both the means and the ambition to move into their business. The MPPC-licensed film producers in 1910 created their own film exchange, the General Film Company, which quickly took over other renters, including George Kleine. By 1912, the company had acquired fifty-seven of the largest licensed exchanges in the country. Film renters that refused to sell out to the General Film Company found that their licenses were revoked by the MPPC. William Fox was one renter who refused to sell. He successfully fought the General Film Company in the courts. The monopolistic practices of the General Film Company and its parent, the MPPC, were well documented and resulted in the U.S. government bringing an antitrust suit against them in 1912. In 1915, the courts found the General Film Company guilty of violations of antitrust laws. This was followed by an even more damaging defeat in 1917, when the U.S. Supreme Court held that the MPPC could not enforce the use of licensed film on patented projectors in theaters. This was clearly the end of the film trust, but it did not end the conflict between producers and exhibitors. One important consequence of the failed attempt to create a monopoly in the film industry was the policy of integration, in which one organization was set up to manufacture, distribute, and exhibit films. Many of the powerful film studios that dominated Hollywood in the first half of the twentieth century traced their origins to the nickelodeon. — Andre Millard
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Balio, Tino, ed. The American Film Industry. Rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Collection of scholarly articles about the film industry written by experts in the field. Contains sections on nickelodeons and the Motion Picture Patents Company. Bowser, Eileen. The Transformation of Cinema: 19071915. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Covers the history of the film business from the nickelodeon era to the construction of the first “picture palaces,” large and ornate film theaters. Describes the emergence of the studio and star systems. Melnick, Ross, and Andreas Fuchs. Cinema Treasures: A New Look at Classic Movie Theaters. Osceola, Wis.: Motorbooks International, 2004. Lavishly illustrated history of the American movie theater, from the nickelodeon through the megaplex. Musser, Charles. Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Exhaustively researched, definitive account of the early years of the film industry. Covers filmmaking and exhibition up to 1915. Provides a wealth of information and excellent analysis of the content of films and the responses of audiences. Profusely illustrated.
Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke _______. The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. A detailed and thoroughly researched account of the formation of the film industry by a leading authority on early American film. Ramsaye, Terry. A Million and One Nights. 1926. Reprint. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. An entertaining account of the film industry. The author worked from firsthand accounts and primary sources, and the book was approved by Thomas Edison. Captures the essence of the early days of film production and exhibition, although somewhat biased in Edison’s favor. Sklar, Robert. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. Rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. A concise and perceptive general history of the motion-picture business that places it within the context of culture and entertainment. An excellent short overview of the American film industry by one of its most respected scholars. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”; Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures; Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie.”
Summer, 1905
Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke The artists’ group Die Brücke created a shocking new style, using deliberately distorted images and antinaturalistic, dissonant colors, which became known as expressionism.
Key Figures Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), German multimedia artist who was a cofounder of the Brücke and the group’s self-proclaimed leader Erich Heckel (1883-1970), German painter, printmaker, and sculptor who was a cofounder of the Brücke and the group’s business manager Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976), German printmaker, painter, and sculptor who was a cofounder of the Brücke and named the group
Summary of Event One of Germany’s first avant-garde artists’ groups, Die Brücke (the bridge) was founded in Dresden by a group of young architectural students in the summer of 1905. The group was made up of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl, all of whom shared an interest in art. Inspired by the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who 421
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Also known as: German expressionism Locale: Dresden, Germany Category: Arts
Fritz Bleyl (1880-1966), German architect and graphic artist who was a cofounder of the Brücke Emil Nolde (1867-1956), German painter and graphic artist who was briefly a member of the Brücke Max Pechstein (1881-1955), German painter who joined the Brücke in 1906 and was the catalyst for the group’s dissolution Otto Müller (1874-1930), German painter and graphic artist who joined the Brücke in 1910
Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke stressed the importance of artistic creativity, SchmidtRottluff chose the group’s name as an allusion to a passage from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen (1883-1885; Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1896): “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and no end.” The Brücke’s members set out to express their creative visions and convictions by using irrational, unrealistic symbolic images in defiance of the principles of idealized, academic German art and Impressionism. Believing that the art of their day lacked a sense of passion and commitment, they rejected rigid and narrow artistic standards. They emphasized spontaneous self-expression in their work and aspired to move German art in a radical new direction. Rather than imposing any restrictions on style, the Brücke embraced a diversity of international sources and influences. The group’s members assimilated the flatness of late medieval German woodcuts, the deliberate coarseness of Paul Gauguin’s woodcuts, the simplified forms of Edvard Munch’s graphics, the subjectively colored and thickly painted canvases of Vincent van Gogh, and the antinaturalistic, brilliantly colored paintings of the French Fauves. They also admired African sculpture and Oceanic art, which they studied at Dresden’s Ethnographic Museum, and incorporated such influences into their own work. Rejecting middle-class values, the Brücke’s members consciously detached themselves from their own middle-class backgrounds. They settled into a renovated butcher shop in a working-class section of Dresden that became their communal studio. Protesting materialism and mass-produced objects, the group’s members believed that art was too alienated from contemporary life. Wanting to incorporate art with life, they furnished their studio with hand-carved items. In their studio, they employed diverse media—painting, sculpture, lithography, woodcuts, etchings, and furniture—to express their creativity. Initially, they seldom dated their works, freely painted on one another’s canvases, and often shared the same models. The Brücke’s early works included portraits, cityscapes, mood-evoking landscapes, and nudes. During the summer months, the members painted numerous images of nudes by the lakes surrounding Moritzburg, near Dresden. Their depictions of nudes frolicking in the landscape reflected their generation’s interest in a more simplified life and a return to nature. The Brücke’s pictorial style eliminated all extraneous details and emphasized flatness, the angular use of lines, distortion of form, and clashing, dissonant colors. 422
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Printmaking also played an important role in the Brücke’s stylistic development. Jagged patterns, diagonals, and an emphasis on two-dimensional flatness were characteristics of the group’s early graphic works. Each of the Brücke’s artists contributed his knowledge of a particular printmaking technique: Kirchner of wood engraving and etching, Heckel of wood carving, and SchmidtRottluff of lithography. Heckel stated that it was “difficult to determine what each of us brought to the others in stimulation, because it was reciprocal and often in common.” The simplified forms of their graphic works were technically innovative and helped to affirm their position at the forefront of the contemporary German avantgarde. The members also used their graphics as a vehicle to reach out to a wider audience. For the nominal fee of twelve marks per year, passive members were allowed to join the Brücke; in return, these paying, nonactive members received a yearly progress report on the group’s activities and a folder of their graphics, which later became quite valuable and highly sought after. The Brücke also extended membership to other artists who wished to participate in the group’s exhibitions. In 1906, Kirchner executed a woodcut that expressed the group’s desire to attract young, revolutionary artists who shared the members’ beliefs and wished to participate in exhibitions. That year, the Brücke’s members were joined by the established artist Emil Nolde, who remained a member for only eighteen months. The Brücke admired Nolde’s use of brilliant colors and spontaneous brushwork. Although Nolde quickly spurned the Brücke’s communal working method and lifestyle, he learned the printmaking process of etching from the group, a process that remained a staple in his oeuvre. The painter Max Pechstein also became a member in 1906. Trained as a decorator and a painter, Pechstein created work that was more naturalistic and decorative than that of the other Brücke artists. He used large, bold planes of color and did numerous paintings of nudes in the landscape. The Brücke also tried to include foreign artists, and in 1908 the members asked Kees van Dongen to exhibit with them. In 1911, the Prague artist Bohumil Kubista joined the Brücke, but he had little contact with the other members. Cuno Amiet, a Swiss painter, became a corresponding member and contributed works to the Brücke’s early exhibitions. Remaining in Switzerland, Amiet had no direct contact with the Brücke artists until 1912. In 1910, Otto Müller became the last artist to join the group. His paintings of bathers in nature were more tranquil and less vibrantly colored than the works of the other Brücke artists.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 When Pechstein moved to Berlin in 1908, he remained an active member of the Brücke. During summers, he continued to paint with the Brücke artists in the Dresden countryside. In 1910, the works of Pechstein, Nolde, Müller, and many other artists were rejected by the jury of the Berlin Secession, Germany’s most prestigious art association. The jury members rejected the works of the Brücke because they deemed the works too shocking and modern. Angered by the Secession’s rejection, Pechstein founded the New Secession and became its president. Consequently, the Brücke members agreed never again to exhibit their work individually, because the welfare of the group was always to be put above that of its individual members. The following year, Pechstein ignored the Brücke’s pact and showed his work independently at the Berlin Secession. By shifting his allegiance back to the more prestigious Berlin Secession, Pechstein attempted to advance his career without regard for the other Brücke artists, and Kirchner immediately expelled Pechstein from the group. Shortly after Pechstein’s expulsion, the group began to drift apart. In 1913, the Brücke disbanded and the members went their separate ways.
tortion was a characteristic of all German art, both past and present. He proposed that northern European art was a distinctly unique phenomenon that was conditioned by its particular culture. Worringer suggested that Germanic art had always been antirealistic and anticlassical, unlike the art of Italy and Greece. He argued that alienation from the harsh conditions of the real world was a major characteristic of northern artists, who turned to their inner fantasies and expressive feelings in the creative process. Worringer’s influential writings helped to define and shape the new style called expressionism. The term “expressionism” aptly described the work of the Brücke’s members and of several other German artists, including the members of the Blaue Reiter group as well as the work of Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele in Austria. The term became widely used to define northern European art that altered the world of visual appearances. After World War I, expressionism changed dramatically. Much of postwar German art was concerned with social problems. The November Group was a radical association of intellectuals and artists who joined forces in the utopian belief that art could change society. Pechstein was a member of the November Group, and he designed posters and pamphlet covers urging workers to unite with artists in a joint endeavor to reconstruct Germany after the war. The long-range effects of the Brücke’s work can be seen in the works of such second-generation German expressionists as George Grosz, Max Beckmann, and Otto Dix. Grosz initially used the same garish colors and emotional intensity in his paintings as the Brücke artists had. He was more interested in social concerns than the Brücke artists had been, however, and he depicted the decadence and corruption of postwar German society. Grosz’s 1916 painting The Big City shows a chaotic German city street filled with wounded beggars, prostitutes, and wealthy capitalists. Beckmann’s grim reaction to war was manifested in his painting The Night (19181919). A brutalized depiction of human suffering and torture, it shows the violence inflicted on a family by three cutthroats who have forced their way into the family’s home. Beckmann’s angular use of line, distortion, and exaggeration of detail in the painting anticipated the style known as New Objectivity, which was in theory a reaction against abstraction and expressionism. Dix’s work The Match Seller (1920) shows a blinded and maimed war casualty slumped on a sidewalk. Stripped of his ability to earn a living, the match seller symbolizes the indecencies of postwar life. Dix was a major figure in 423
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Significance When the Brücke moved to Berlin in 1911, its members firmly established their reputations as the German avantgarde. Berlin had a wider and more sophisticated audience than Dresden, and the city became a showcase for the group’s work. In Berlin, the Brücke’s thematic interest shifted from the nude in nature to images of emotionally isolated people in a radically changing world. The group’s artists depicted circus and cabaret performers, prostitutes, and tension-charged street scenes teeming with humanity. They participated in numerous Berlin exhibitions, and their woodcuts were used as illustrations for the pages of Herwarth Walden’s influential literary journal Der Sturm, which helped to disseminate the Brücke’s style. The most obvious confirmation of the group’s achievement came in the summer of 1912, when the Brücke was invited to participate in the large Sonderbund Exhibition in Cologne. The Sonderbund was a huge gathering of Europe’s vanguard artists and presented a broad survey of modern art. The critics took notice and began to write positive reviews about the Brücke’s works, dubbing the group’s members “expressionists.” Expressionism became a major cultural phenomenon, in part as the result of the writings of the art historian Wilhelm Worringer. Worringer argued that the expressionists’ tendency toward abstraction, subjectivity, and dis-
Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke
Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke the New Objectivity, which retained the expressionist characteristic of distortion to emphasize a subjective view of the world. When Adolf Hitler came to power in the 1930’s, he virtually eradicated expressionism. Despising modern art, especially the works of the Brücke artists, Hitler censored all German expressionist artists, and their works were removed from art galleries and museums. After World War II, however, expressionism gained international acceptance. In the 1980’s, a new wave of German expressionism, the third generation, was launched. The neoexpressionist artists Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, and Anselm Kiefer were indebted to the Brücke’s expressive, subjective style and determination to change the status quo in art. Although the concerns of the neoexpressionists were different from those of the Brücke’s artists, the influence of the earlier group was visible in the neoexpressionists’ return to figurative painting and shift away from the dominant styles of abstract and minimalist art. —Carmen Stonge Further Reading Carey, Frances, and Antony Griffiths. The Print in Germany, 1880-1933. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Although limited to the prints in the British Museum, this is a good general study of German expressionist prints. One essay is devoted to the Brücke’s printmaking innovations and techniques. Discusses the Brücke’s graphics in relation to cultural and historical influences. Includes numerous black-and-white reproductions of Brücke graphics. Dube, Wolf-Dieter. The Expressionists. Translated by Mary Whithall. 1972. Reprint. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985. The first half is devoted to the Brücke, both as a group and as individual artists. Provides a general history of the Brücke and the group’s style. An excellent short introductory book on expressionism. Recommended for students of expressionism and for the general reader. Gordon, Donald E. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. Pioneering major study on Kirchner. Examines Kirchner’s art in the context of the Brücke and of expressionism in general. Filled with biographical information. Includes numerous interesting photographs of the Brücke’s Dresden studio. Good bibliography. _______. “German Expressionism.” In “Primitivism” in Twentieth Century Art. Vol. 2, edited by William Rubin. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1984. 424
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gordon’s excellent essay examines some of the nonWestern sources that the Brücke’s members incorporated in their work. Includes interesting photographs and good color reproductions of the Brücke’s work. Recommended for students as well as the novice. Herbert, Barry. German Expressionism: Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1983. The first half of this book is devoted to the Brücke. Provides a basic introduction to the Brücke artists and their work and gives a brief overview of the group’s history. Primary emphasis is on the Brücke’s work and stylistic characteristics. Includes many illustrations. Lloyd, Jill. German Expressionism: Primitivism and Modernity. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991. Examines the impact of non-Western art on the Brücke’s artists. Not only discusses the Brücke’s assimilation of these images but also examines what prompted the group’s interest in nonWestern art. Contains interesting photographs and numerous reproductions of the Brücke’s artwork. Good bibliography. Lloyd, Jill, and Magdalena Moeller. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: 1880-1938. London: Royal Academy Books, 2003. One of very few publications in English devoted to the life and work of Kirchner. Presents almost 150 of Kirchner’s paintings, prints, and sculptures, together with essays by leading art scholars. Selz, Peter Howard. German Expressionist Painting. 1957. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. The first study of German expressionism in English that focused on the Brücke, its impact, and its critical reception. Traces the evolution of the Brücke to its demise in 1913. Important source for students of expressionist art and the Brücke. Excellent bibliography. West, Shearer. The Visual Arts in Germany, 1890-1937: Utopia and Despair. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Discusses movements in the visual arts in Germany from the early years of German unification until the beginning of World War I, including Secessionism and expressionism. Relates the movements in art to the wider cultural and social issues specific to German modernism. See also: Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Founding of Industrial Workers of the World
June 27, 1905
Founding of Industrial Workers of the World With the founding of the radical workers’ organization Industrial Workers of the World, labor joined socialism. Also known as: Wobblies Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), founder of the Socialist Party in the United States and a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964), a founder of the IWW Bill Haywood (1869-1928), secretary of the Western Federation of Miners and a founder of the IWW Joe Hill (1879-1915), Swedish-born American labor agitator Mother Jones (1830-1930), United Mine Workers organizer and a founder of the IWW
425
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Summary of Event The years preceding the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were filled with turmoil for workers who attempted to earn a fair wage in good working conditions. Influenced by the Populist movement and the Knights of Labor, the Western Federation of Mines (WFM) organized in 1893, with a membership of U.S.-born white men only. Demanding safety legislation and money instead of scrip, the WFM was associated briefly with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) but split with the AFL when that organization did not assist in the WFM’s 1894 strike at Cripple Creek, Colorado. The Cripple Creek strike erupted when miners’ wages were cut. Mine owners hired gunmen, and the governor brought in the state militia. After the strike, the WFM began to establish its own mines. Strikes in 1903 and 1904 brought miners in the West to the realization that they must combine with workers in the East. The eastern wing began with Eugene V. Debs, who had combined railway workers into the American Railway Union (ARU). The ARU was not craft-exclusive; it was open to almost all who worked for railway companies. The ARU believed in a brotherhood that included all workers, with the exception of African Americans. As head of the eastern IWW, Debs tried but failed to combine the eastern and western organizations in 1902.
On June 27, 1905, in Chicago, the WFM, ARU, and anti-AFL unionists, socialists, and anarchists joined forces to combine into the IWW. “Big Bill” Haywood chaired the meeting and called for a working-class movement that could control economic powers. Considered to represent revolutionary industrial unionism, the IWW combined an ideology of Marxist, Darwinian, and Socialist elements in one large union that encompassed men and women of all races. It was an alternative union to the AFL, the capitalism and selective membership of which were in direct opposition to IWW directives. The IWW was considered to be a radical movement, one of daring imagination. Members did not want to be a working-class political party; rather, they wanted the IWW to be a force that could make economic and political change through revolutionary tactics. Charging low dues, the union committed itself to impoverished workers and operated as thirteen big groups that held sit-ins and performed street theater to gain members and support. The IWW became noted for large numbers of strikes and was not trusted by the general public, who thought the group’s members to be “syndicalists,” or people who were capable of overthrowing the government. One of the IWW’s most powerful tactics was the use of direct action, even to the point of violating the law. IWW members believed that such action offered the only way for them to gain publicity and support for the organization. In the West, they held “free speech” fights, which were banned. Members seeking arrest protested and were jailed. Because they had an antireligious approach, they were unable to get permits to hold meetings. Instead, the IWW intruded into meetings of the permitholding Salvation Army. Noted for its egalitarian system, the IWW welcomed women, who were incorporated into male industrial unions except for certain strike meetings. Mary “Mother” Jones, an immigrant dressmaker and organizer of the United Mine Workers, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn both helped to organize the IWW. Although never top officeholders in the union, women were very active strikers. No other labor union could boast the number of women who were actively speaking or raising funds as could the IWW. Membership included the skilled and unskilled, men and women, African Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, and Japanese. The racially and ethnically diverse membership became known as the Wobblies.
Founding of Industrial Workers of the World
Haywood on Industrial Unionism “Big Bill” Haywood defined the aims of the labor movement, as he saw it, in a speech during the IWW founding convention in 1905: Now, are there any of you who feel that your interests and the capitalist’s interests are identical? Don’t you know that there is not an employing capitalist or corporation manufactory in this country that if it were possible would not operate his or its entire plant or factory by machines and dispose of every human being employed? The corporation does not hire you. The employer never looks at your face; he never looks you in the eye. He cares nothing about your feelings. He does not care anything about your surroundings. He cares nothing about your twinges of anguish or your heartaches. He wants your hands and as much of your brain as is necessary to attach yourself to a machine. . . . The machine is rapidly taking your place, and it will have you entirely displaced pretty soon, and it is a question as between you and the capitalist as to who is going to own and control and manipulate and supervise that machine. That is the purpose of this industrial union. . . . We propose to say to the employing class what the hours of labor shall be and what the remuneration shall be. We are the people who do the work, and we have got tired of those who do nothing but shirk, reaping all of the benefits. That is the definition of industrial unionism; the absolute control and supervision of industry. And when the working class are sufficiently well organized to control the means of life, why then . . . the ownership of legislatures and senates and militias and police will be of little avail to them. . . . We are going to say to the employer: You must take your place in the productive system of this country or you will starve. . . . So I have come back to Chicago, and am still on the frontier; that is, on the frontier of this industrial union movement, which I hope to see grow throughout this country until it takes in a great majority of the working people, and that those working people will rise in revolt against the capitalist system as the working class in Russia are doing to-day.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 later, an additional twenty thousand workers of forty different nationalities joined them. IWW leaders, including Flynn, hurried to Massachusetts to help the strikers. Workers were instructed to conduct mass pickets, a method to avoid arrest by forming an unbroken human chain. In Lawrence, the chain consisted of between five thousand and twenty thousand workers walking continuously for twenty-four hours in nonviolent action. The workers were organized according to nationality, and translated literature aided in the continued strike. When a woman picketer was shot and killed, some IWW officials were arrested, although they had been miles away at the time. Martial law was declared, meetings were banned, and police were called into action. When a fifteen-year-old Syrian boy was killed by the state militia, strikers sent their children out of Lawrence, which generated much publicity. When companies tried to block the move, the country was outraged and the mill owners were forced to settle the strike, granting the workers raises, overtime pay, and other benefits.
Significance The Lawrence strikes, although they successfully joined immigrant workers, did not have the impact of a widespread moveSource: “Big Bill, IWW Leader,” in The 1905 Proceedings of the Founding ment. The wage gains were offset by inConvention of the Industrial Workers of the World (New York: New York creased use of mill machinery. Public outLabor Company, 1905). cry erupted in Lawrence as the Roman Catholic Church campaigned against the Wobblies, and the Citizens Association atThe economic depression of 1907-1908, factionaltacked the IWW as atheistic anarchists. A spy network ism, harassment from the government, and the WFM’s brought harassment to the victorious workers. A subseleaving the union created problems for the fledgling quent strike in New Jersey did not meet with success, as IWW. Then, in 1909, skilled workers joined unskilled laborers fought against one another. The depression of immigrant strikers at a Pennsylvania steel car company 1913-1914 further hurt the IWW movement. over an incentive pay system. The plant shut down, and, A revitalization occurred with the initiation of the Agwhen a split occurred between the groups, IWW leaders ricultural Workers Organization (AWO), a branch of mitook charge. The show of force resulted in the owners’ grant farm laborers who fought for immediate demands. breaking down and settling. The results were an increase in pay and better working In 1912, one hundred women workers already on a conditions for harvest workers. In 1916, northwestern plant speed-up conducted a massive textile strike in Lawlumber workers greatly benefited the Wobblies’ organirence, Massachusetts, when their wages were cut. The zation when the strikers tenaciously held out against powomen were mostly immigrants less than eighteen years lice brutality and shootings. of age and suffering from malnutrition. Only two days In 1914, IWW labor agitator Joe Hill was charged 426
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 with the murders of two Salt Lake City men. His subsequent conviction and execution made him a symbolic martyr. Martyrdom could not save the Wobblies, however, as lawmen pursued the IWW’s members. Although the IWW had gained worker support, it had lost any endorsements to the AFL. Despite an effort to downplay antiwar criticism after World War I began, the IWW’s refusal to endorse the fighting brought fierce government attacks, especially when the IWW began to encourage young men not to serve their country. To American nativists, the mainly immigrant members of the IWW made the union appear dangerous. These antiIWW feelings helped the growth of the AFL. Finally, during the Red Scare of 1919-1920, many Wobblies were put on trial for having communist leanings. Although the union virtually died, interest in the IWW has waxed and waned over the years. IWW membership fluctuated as the organization concentrated on doing educational work, then renewed its radicalism in the 1960’s when singer Joan Baez popularized “The Ballad of Joe Hill.” The organization printed a newsletter for three thousand in the 1980’s; more recently, the newsletter has been published for a paying membership reduced to mere hundreds. —Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
as Peter Kuper, Harvey Pekar, and Seth Tobocman. Conlin, Joseph Robert. Bread and Roses Too: Studies of the Wobblies. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1969. Six essays analyze the problems encountered by IWW members during their struggles for better working conditions. Dubofsky, Melvyn. We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969. A large volume about the IWW, with excellent profiles of union leaders and an absorbing history of the movement. Foner, Philip S., ed. Fellow Workers and Friends: I.W.W. Free Speech Fights as Told by Participants. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981. A collection of personal histories of IWW workers as they relate to their fight for free speech. Kornbluh, Joyce L., ed. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology. 1964. Reprint. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1998. A chronologically ordered anthology combining narratives, cartoons, songs, and other memorabilia to form a picture of IWW solidarity. Renshaw, Patrick. The Wobblies: The Story of the IWW and Syndicalism in the United States. Rev. ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999. Describes the formation of the IWW and discusses the union’s goal of bringing together workers from around the world. Winters, Donald E., Jr. The Soul of the Wobblies: The I.W.W., Religion, and American Culture in the Progressive Era, 1905-1917. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. This look at the IWW takes the perspective that its solidarity was comparable to a religious belief. See also: Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded.
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Further Reading Bird, Stewart, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer, comps. Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1985. A collection of essays and oral histories revealing the dedication of IWW members to the union’s cause. Buhle, Paul, and Nicole Schulman, eds. Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World. London: Verso, 2005. This collaboration between historians and graphic novelists presents the history of the IWW through comic-book-style art (along with connective essays) by such contributors
Founding of Industrial Workers of the World
Founding of the Niagara Movement
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 11, 1905
Founding of the Niagara Movement The Niagara Movement, which was founded by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, attempted to elevate the position of African Americans in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Also known as: Niagara Falls Conference Locale: Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada Categories: Civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform; organizations and institutions Key Figures W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963), African American historian, sociologist, and newspaper editor Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), influential African American leader and founder of the Tuskegee Institute Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), American steel manufacturer and philanthropist William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), American newspaper editor Summary of Event The Niagara Movement was formed largely as a response to the indifference of local, state, and federal authorities to the plight of blacks in the United States. Despite the promises of the Civil War and Reconstruction, lynching and mob violence went unchecked throughout the South during the Jim Crow period (1881-1914). Outbreaks of rioting were also common in the North at this time. By the end of the nineteenth century, interracial violence had become a national problem. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the three most important spokesmen for the rights of blacks in the United States were Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and William Monroe Trotter. Washington, who was an adviser to Theodore Roosevelt and a friend to white millionaires, counseled blacks to practice accommodation. He drew sharp attacks from Du Bois, editor of the newspaper The Crisis, and Trotter, editor of the Boston newspaper The Guardian, for his insistence that blacks should settle for vocational education instead of striving for higher education. The philosophical division between Washington’s 428
supporters, known as the Bookerites, and his detractors, the anti-Bookerites, became even more apparent after a riot that took place in Boston. Trotter had arranged to confront Washington at a public meeting to be held in the Columbus Avenue African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. When Washington was introduced to the two thousand people in attendance, a riot ensued in which one person was stabbed and Trotter himself was arrested. As a result of the exaggerated coverage given to the event in the newspapers, the anti-Bookerites received considerable support. Trotter had become, in effect, a martyr for the radical left. In 1903, Washington began to perceive the need for a militant and unified organization of black Americans. In February, he informed Du Bois of his plan to unite all black spokesmen. With the financial assistance of his
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friend Andrew Carnegie, Washington Principles of the Niagara Movement arranged for a conference to be held at At the Niagara Movement’s founding meeting in July, 1905, the members Carnegie Hall in New York during the signed a “Declaration of Principles” that stated beliefs and set forth certain first week of January, 1904. Invitademands in nineteen different areas, including suffrage, public opinion, tions were sent to twenty-eight influhealth, protest, oppression, and agitation. The declaration began with the ential blacks, only eight of whom were following five principles. anti-Bookerites. Trotter was not invited. The planned meeting was kept Progress: The members of the conference, known as the Niagara Movesecret from the public. ment . . . congratulate the Negro-Americans on certain undoubted evidences Essentially, the conference of 1904 of progress in the last decade, particularly the increase of intelligence, the set the groundwork for a more perbuying of property, the checking of crime, the uplift in home life, the advance in literature and art, and the demonstration of constructive and executive abilmanent organization. The Bookerites ity in the conduct of great religious, economic, and educational institutions. and anti-Bookerites who attended the Suffrage: At the same time, we believe that this class of American citizens meeting arrived at a compromise poshould protest emphatically and continually against the curtailment of their sition. They also agreed to appoint a political rights. We believe in manhood suffrage; we believe that no man is so permanent committee, known as the good, intelligent or wealthy as to be entrusted wholly with the welfare of his Committee of Twelve, at a later date. neighbor. Although the conference gave the apCivil Liberty: We believe also in protest against the curtailment of our pearance of harmony, this facade was civil rights. All American citizens have the right to equal treatment in places shattered later by comments made in of public entertainment according to their behavior and deserts. the press by Washington and Du Bois. Economic Opportunity: We especially complain against the denial of Du Bois became disillusioned with equal opportunities to us in economic life; in the rural districts of the South this amounts to peonage and virtual slavery; all over the South it tends to the Committee of Twelve when, in crush labor and small business enterprises; and everywhere American prejuJuly, 1904, it adopted a more conserdice, helped often by iniquitous laws, is making it more difficult for Negrovative platform than had been agreed Americans to earn a decent living. on in January and appointed WashEducation: Common school education should be free to all American ington as its chairman. After resignchildren and compulsory. High school training should be adequately proing from the Committee of Twelve vided for all, and college training should be the monopoly of no class or race in March, 1905, Du Bois, with the in any section of our common country. We believe that, in defense of our own support of Trotter, set about forming institutions, the United States should aid common school education, particua more radical organization. Trotter larly in the South, and we especially recommend concerted agitation to this suggested forming a “strategy board” end. We urge an increase in public high school facilities in the South, where that would become a national antithe Negro-Americans are almost wholly without such provisions. We favor well-equipped trade and technical schools for the training of artisans, and the Washington organization. After reneed of adequate and liberal endowment for a few institutions of higher edusolving that no expenses were to be cation must be patent to sincere well-wishers of the race. paid by any white benefactors, Du Bois and Trotter met with F. L. McGhee of St. Paul and C. E. Bentley of Chicago to plan a meeting to be held that sumgeneral treasurer. Both men worked in conjunction with mer in western New York. Invitations were mailed to an executive committee made up of the chairmen of black leaders in seventeen states. the individual states’ local chapters. Work was divided On July 11, 1905, twenty-nine black men from all among special committees, the most important of which, over the United States gathered at Fort Erie, Ontario, on the Press and Public Opinion Committee, was headed by the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and christened their Trotter. The state committees were assigned the roles of organization the Niagara Movement. Having learned securing just legislation for blacks and of carrying out their lesson from the Committee of Twelve, the men creeducational and propaganda functions. ated an executive system of overlapping jurisdictions for The Niagara Movement’s “Declaration of Princitheir organization to prevent domination by any one ples,” drafted by Du Bois and Trotter, was a radical documember. Du Bois was elected general secretary, and ment that was the foundation for a radical organization. George Jackson, a lawyer from Cincinnati, was elected
Founding of the Niagara Movement In blunt language, the document accused the white race of “ravishing and degrading” the black race and pleaded for the cooperation of all men of all races. It also demanded that whites grant blacks suffrage as well as equal civil rights, equal economic opportunities, and equal educational opportunities. Du Bois and Trotter hoped that their fledgling organization would confront Booker T. Washington and his white supporters. The Tuskegee Machine, led by Washington, opposed the Niagara Movement from the outset. Washington’s supporters infiltrated the Niagara Movement and tried to isolate it. Although Washington agreed almost entirely with the Declaration of Principles, he did not agree with the founders’ plans for achieving their goals, which included a political emphasis, agitation, and demands for an immediate end to all racial discrimination and lacked attention to economic development. In spite of the harassment from Tuskegee, the Niagara Movement made considerable progress during its first year. In December, 1906, Du Bois reported to the group’s 170 members in thirty-four states that the organization had distributed more than one thousand pamphlets. State chapters across the country had worked in conjunction with local protest groups in such major cities as New York and Philadelphia and in the District of Columbia. Members had also demonstrated against a segregated exposition in Jamestown, Virginia, and had protested an amendment to the Hepburn railroad rate bill that legalized segregated passenger seating in trains. When the Niagara Movement convened in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in August, 1906, for its second annual conference, the organization’s only serious problem seemed to be a lack of funds. Problems, however, had already begun to surface in the months preceding the meeting, and they continued throughout the year. Early in 1906, Du Bois had angered Trotter by forming a women’s auxiliary of the movement. In the fall, a serious breach developed between Trotter and Clement Morgan, the secretary of the Massachusetts state branch. Trotter objected vehemently when Morgan accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for a seat in the legislature, thereby violating the movement’s rule forbidding members to hold office. In a show of protest, Trotter resigned from the Committee on Arrangements. Trotter’s final break from the Niagara Movement came in the fall of 1906, as plans for another meeting took shape. Trotter proposed that Du Bois be replaced as general secretary and that the head of the Massachusetts branch should be elected, not appointed. After Du Bois and Morgan rejected Trotter’s proposals, Trotter for430
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mally withdrew his membership in the Niagara Movement in 1908. Trotter’s departure was the beginning of the end for the Niagara Movement. Du Bois admitted that his inexperience as a political leader was an obvious factor in the organization’s decline. Encouraged by the rift between the founders of the movement, the Tuskegee Machine escalated its attacks against Du Bois in black newspapers. The lack of any formal national headquarters and a regular paid staff also contributed to the movement’s decline. After Trotter’s resignation, the group held two more meetings, neither of which had a large attendance. In 1910, the Niagara Movement ceased operations altogether when Du Bois encouraged its members to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Significance Before the Niagara Movement disbanded, this relatively small organization had a significant impact on American politics. Ever since its founding in 1905, it had denounced President Theodore Roosevelt for his wellpublicized view that blacks were racially inferior. The Niagara Movement’s opposition to Roosevelt reached its peak when soldiers from the all-black Twenty-fifth Infantry regiment had been accused of running rampant through the streets of Brownsville, Texas, killing one man and wounding two others. Roosevelt himself had denounced the soldiers and encouraged his chosen successor, William Howard Taft, to do the same during the presidential campaign of 1908. In the summer of 1907, at its meeting in Boston, the Niagara Movement set the theme for the coming presidential election by calling on the five hundred thousand black voters of the North to use their votes to defeat Taft. The organization supported Senator Joseph Benson Foraker’s bid for the Republican nomination as a gesture of gratitude for his dissent from the majority report by the Committee on Military Affairs on the Brownsville incident. Even though Foraker did not win the nomination, the movement’s supporters built up enough political momentum both during and after the election of 1908 to help Woodrow Wilson win the election of 1912. Although the Niagara Movement ceased to exist after the formation of the NAACP in 1910, it had a definite effect on the formation of the latter organization. The majority of the black founders, including Du Bois and Trotter, came to the NAACP from the Niagara Movement and became the dominant black constituency within the organization. The memory of the financial problems that
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 had plagued the Niagara Movement convinced many of these former members of the need to secure support from liberal whites. The Niagara Movement also served as a catalyst in the shift of the consensus of black thought from the Bookerite doctrine to the protest tradition that was first endorsed by the movement and later adopted by the NAACP. Finally, many of the goals of the Niagara Movement, particularly the emphasis on higher education, material advancement, and voting rights, were adopted by the NAACP. Although it can be said that the Niagara Movement was too radical for its time, the NAACP was undoubtedly an organization whose time had come. The Niagara Movement’s most important legacy, however, was the awareness it fostered among whites of the seriousness of the plight of blacks in the United States. For the first time in the twentieth century, whites were told, in strong language, by blacks themselves that blacks were not inferior beings and that they were entitled to all the rights enjoyed by other Americans. By employing such effective methods as editorializing in black newspapers and organizing local demonstrations, the Niagara Movement prepared the way for the national protest movements of the 1960’s. —Alan Brown
roles played by Washington and Du Bois. Also provides a lengthy explanation for the demise of the movement. Hoemann, George H. What God Hath Wrought: The Embodiment of Freedom in the Thirteenth Amendment. New York: Garland Press, 1987. A social history of the time in which the amendment that gave African Americans their freedom was written. Also dissects the meanings of words within that amendment. Logan, Rayford W., ed. W. E. B. Du Bois: A Profile. New York: Hill & Wang, 1971. The Niagara Movement is discussed at length in an article by William H. Ferris titled “The Emerging Leader: A Contemporary View.” Written before the demise of the movement, the article paints a deceptively harmonious and optimistic picture of its inner workings. McKissick, Floyd B. Three-Fifths of a Man. New York: Macmillan, 1969. An examination of how the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation have influenced race relations in the United States. Marable, Manning. W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Manning places the Niagara Movement within the context of the American political scene of its time and demonstrates how it evolved into the NAACP. Moore, Jacqueline M. Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift. Lanham, Md.: SR Books, 2003. Provides a detailed overview of the debate between Washington and Du Bois concerning their different approaches to the problems of segregation and discrimination against blacks. Morris, Aldon D. Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Free Press, 1984. Stressing the militant side of the Niagara Movement, Morris illustrates the similarity between the goals of the movement and the goals of the NAACP. Nieman, Donald G. Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. A constitutional history of the United States with special focus on the impact of the Constitution on U.S. social history. Rampersad, Arnold. The Art and Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976. In chapter 5, titled “The Mantle and the Prophet,” Rampersad gives a philosophical overview of the similarities between the tenets of the Niagara Movement and Du Bois’s own personal position as he stated in his writings. 431
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Further Reading Blaustein, Albert P., and Robert Zangrando, eds. Civil Rights and the American Negro. New York: Trident Press, 1968. This episodic account of the Civil Rights movement asserts that the Niagara Movement was a natural response to the injustices of the Jim Crow period. Burns, W. Haywood. The Voices of Negro Protest in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. Discusses twentieth century protest movements, highlighting the NAACP. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk: One Hundred Years Later. Edited by Dolan Hubbard. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003. Reprint of Du Bois’s powerful 1903 statement about the problem of the twentieth century, which he defined as the problem of the color line. In a direct challenge to Booker T. Washington’s program of gradualism, Du Bois argues that black U.S. citizens will progress only through challenge, struggle, and political protest. Fox, Stephen R. The Guardian of Boston: William Monroe Trotter. New York: Atheneum, 1970. Chapter 3 provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of the Niagara Movement available. Although the emphasis is on Trotter, the author gives attention to the
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Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto Tuttle, William M., ed. W. E. B. Du Bois. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. In the chapter titled “Radicals and Conservatives,” Kelly Miller offers an interesting explanation of the significance of the cities chosen by the Niagara Movement’s founders as the sites for their meetings. Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. 1901. Reprint. New York: Gramercy Books, 1993. Washington’s seminal work, in which he describes his idea of the “talented tenth” and how black citizens of the United States will achieve full equality gradually, through hard work and demonstrating their worthiness. A direct contrast to the more aggressive platform of Du Bois.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Zuckerman, Phil, ed. The Social Theory of W. E. B. Du Bois. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press, 2004. A collection of Du Bois’s writings from a wide variety of sources, including newspaper articles, speeches, and selections from his books, both well known and lesser known. Emphasizes Du Bois’s theoretical contributions to sociological thought. See also: Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded; 19101930: Great Northern Migration; May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter; Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded.
August, 1905
Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto Percival Lowell instituted an observational search for the ninth planet he believed to exist in Earth’s solar system. Locale: Flagstaff, Arizona Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Percival Lowell (1855-1916), American astronomer, mathematician, and businessman Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835-1910), Italian astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875-1969), American astronomer Earl Carl Slipher (1883-1964), American astronomer Carl O. Lampland (1873-1951), American astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh (1906-1997), American amateur astronomer Summary of Event Percival Lowell, a member of a prominent New England family, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 13, 1855. Although his family was associated with textile mills, Percival pursued his formal education (at Harvard University) in mathematics with a personal interest in astronomy. In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli began an observational study of Mars that led to his announcement that he had discerned complex and detailed surface patterns on the planet. He called these features canali, a word incorrectly translated into 432
the English word “canals,” which proved to be a source of subsequent confusion. Lowell followed Schiaparelli’s discoveries with keen interest and imagined many great Martian civilizations. In the early 1890’s, Schiaparelli’s eyesight had deteriorated and he could no longer make telescopic observations. Determined to continue Schiaparelli’s research, Percival founded the Lowell Observatory (opened on June 1, 1894) in Flagstaff, Arizona, and devoted it to the study of Mars and the other planets. Lowell made personal observations of the so-called Martian canals and imagined them as irrigation channels built by an intelligent and desperate civilization striving to retain its water supply from the polar caps of Mars. In 1898, Lowell founded a journal in which he published his thoughts about Mars to the scientific community, where they were met with varied receptions. His theories on Martian life were generally well received by science-fiction writers and the broad public but ridiculed by professional astronomers. Lowell became frustrated and sought ways to improve his credibility among his colleagues. The mathematical prediction of the planet Neptune and its subsequent discovery in 1846 gave rise to the possibility that additional remote planets remained undiscovered in the solar system. Lowell thought that if he could predict the location of a ninth planet, beyond Neptune, this accomplishment would improve his reputation as an astronomer. In August, 1905, he inspired his colleagues at the Lowell Observatory to begin the first systematic photographic and visual search for “Planet X.”
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could not accurately calculate aberrations in its motion. Also, any deviations in the motion of Uranus were expected to be further minimized because of its great distance from Planet X; these additional errors were introduced into his calculations. In addition, Lowell studied the perturbations of comets and suggested that a distant planet could gravitationally affect a cometary orbit. Lowell’s rigorous mathematics led him to assume that Planet X would have a mass seven times that of Earth, an inclination (with respect to the ecliptic) of 10 degrees, and an average distance of forty-three times the distance between Earth and the Sun. He also believed that the undiscovered planet would have a low density and a high albedo (the ratio of sunlight received versus sunlight reflected), as in the case of the four largest planets. In addition, Lowell expected the planet to appear faint because of its great distance from Earth and could only generally predict its location to be in or near the constellation of Gemini. Originally, he had predicted the location to be within the constellation of Libra. In his attempt to locate the ninth planet, Lowell pushed himself very hard, and this overwork may have
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He expected this distant planet to be very similar to Neptune in density, size, and magnitude (brightness) and therefore easy to spot. Lowell began his first search, from 1905 to 1907, by photographing star fields with a camera 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) in aperture (a 5-inch Brashear lens of 35inch, or 89-centimeter, focal length). Lowell’s assistants took more than two hundred photographic plates, photographing each sky area twice to record faint stars. All of the three-hour-exposure plates were centered on the ecliptic (the plane of the solar system) and varied at intervals of 5 degrees longitude. Lowell personally examined each plate with a handheld magnifying glass. His technique was based on the assumption that a comparison of two photographs taken of the same star field would show movements of nonstellar objects such as comets, asteroids, and planets. In 1911 and 1912, Lowell oversaw the making of a sequence of photographic plates using the observatory’s 42-inch (107-centimeter) reflecting telescope. Lowell used a Zeiss blink-microscope comparator (a device that superimposes two photographic plates of the same region for direct comparison), which greatly expedited studies of multiple photographic plates. Unfortunately, this intensive search for Planet X also proved unsuccessful. Assisted by Carl O. Lampland, Lowell continued his search from 1914 to 1916 with a 9-inch (23-centimeter) Brashear lens. The researchers examined almost one thousand photographic plates under the blink comparator, but with negative results. By this time, Lowell realized that it would be difficult to discover the ninth planet observationally and attempted to compute its orbital and physical characteristics through mathematical calculations and statistical methods. He admitted that his theory would be limited and would contain some positional uncertainty, as his calculations were based on errors embedded within observations of the distant planets Uranus and Neptune. On January 13, 1915, Lowell presented his theory on Planet X to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His book on the subject, Memoir on a Trans-Neptunian Planet, was published in the spring of that year. Using methods of celestial mechanics and mathematics, Lowell studied minute perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. He attributed the irregularities in their motions to a trans-Neptunian planet—that is, a planet with an orbit intersecting that of Neptune. Unfortunately, Neptune’s orbit was not well known at the time (its revolution had been observed for only fifty years), so Lowell
Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto
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Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto contributed to his death from a stroke on November 12, 1916, at the age of sixty-one. He left an endowment of more than one million dollars for the Lowell Observatory to continue his search. His wife challenged the will, however, and a legal battle ensued for almost a decade. Court fees depleted much of the endowment, and the observatory could not afford to maintain Lowell’s work. The search for Planet X was thus interrupted for thirteen years, but Lowell’s staff retained their enthusiasm for the search and continued it when they were able. In 1925, A. Lawrence Lowell, Percival’s brother, provided the observatory with funds for the purchase of a 13-inch (33-centimeter) telescope with a focal length of 66 inches (168 centimeters). The new telescope began operation in 1929, at which time self-taught astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh was hired to work as an assistant at the observatory. On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh used the Zeiss blink comparator and discovered Lowell’s Planet X on photographic plates taken on January 21, 23, and 29, 1930. Astronomers Carl Lampland, Vesto Melvin Slipher, and Earl Carl Slipher took additional photographic plates on February 18, 1930, to confirm the sighting. Soon thereafter, they announced the discovery of the trans-Neptunian planet, as originally predicted by Lowell. Significance The press and general public were intrigued by Lowell’s search for and the eventual discovery of a ninth planet. When the discovery was announced, Lowell Observatory staff received hundreds of congratulatory telegrams and letters. Before his death, Lowell was more recognized by astronomers in Europe than by those in the United States. Many of his American colleagues never acknowledged him as a professional astronomer; they considered him to be an anxious amateur. Unfortunately, the controversy that Lowell had begun earlier with his observations of Martian canals made him and the Lowell Observatory outcasts among much of the scientific community. This changed with the discovery of the ninth planet, however. With the exception of magnitude, the planet’s location and basic characteristics were so similar to Lowell’s prediction that astronomers did not assume its discovery came about by mere chance. In fact, Vesto Slipher stated that the discovery was simply the conclusion of a search program set forth in 1905 by Lowell and his theoretical work on the dynamical evidence of a ninth planet. Professional astronomers contacted Lowell Observatory and requested specific coordinates of the new planet 434
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 in order to compute its orbital path around the Sun. Early calculations suggested that the planet took several thousand years to orbit the Sun, but this value decreased as more observations were recorded, and today the orbit’s duration is known to be about 248 years. The discovery of the ninth planet prompted astronomers at other institutions to begin their own searches for more distant planets. Tombaugh personally assisted in a continued search program at Lowell Observatory until the start of World War II. Since Pluto’s discovery, however, no other distant planets have been detected. Lowell’s work in astronomy contributed to the advancement of science, not least through his establishment of the Lowell Observatory. The observatory’s equipment made possible not only the search for Pluto but also observations of Mars, Saturn and its rings, and the atmospheres of Jupiter and Uranus. Similar studies continue among astronomers worldwide. Since its discovery, Pluto has been the subject of additional research. In the 1970’s, spectral observations suggested that Pluto had frozen methane on its surface, but it is now known that Pluto’s frozen surface consists of 98 percent nitrogen, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide. In 1978, an astronomer from the U.S. Naval Observatory examined some photographic plates taken from Flagstaff, Arizona, and found that in some images Pluto appeared slightly elongated; this observation led to the discovery of Pluto’s moon, Charon. Given a moon and a planet, astronomers are able to calculate the masses of these bodies using Newton’s laws. When Pluto was first discovered, astronomers believed its mass to be roughly equal to that of Earth; however, later measurements suggested that Pluto is actually smaller than Earth's moon. From the mid-1990's onward, new discoveries made possible by improvements in technology led to debates among astronomers concerning whether particular bodies in our solar system should be classified as planets. In 2006, the members of the International Astronomical Union voted to reclassify Pluto as a “dwarf planet,” reducing to eight the official number of bodies in the solar system defined as true planets. The decision was itself the source of controversy, and the debate continued. Outside the scientific community, Lowell’s early ideas of intelligent life on Mars and his search for a transNeptunian planet spawned excitement. Many newspaper reports were published on the new planet, and educators gave presentations at local observatories on observing the night sky. The Adler Planetarium in Chicago first opened its doors to the public in the midst of an atmo-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sphere of wonder about what other planets might be hidden against the starry background sky. The discovery of Pluto undoubtedly inspired many people to look up toward the stars and to learn about astronomy. —Noreen A. Grice
equations and a list of his predictions on the planet’s mass and distance from the Sun. Parker, Barry. Alien Life: The Search for Extraterrestrials and Beyond. New York: Plenum, 1998. Takes a scientific approach to the subject of the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, avoiding personal speculation. Chapter 5 includes discussion of Schiaparelli’s observations of Mars and Lowell’s subsequent theorizing about life on that planet. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Shapley, Harlow, ed. Source Book in Astronomy, 19001950. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. Excellent source for information on many great historical moments in astronomy during the first half of the twentieth century. Chapter 14, “The Discovery of Pluto,” describes the search for the ninth planet. Tombaugh, Clyde William. “Reminiscences of the Discovery of Pluto.” Sky and Telescope 19 (March, 1960): 264-270. Tombaugh’s own thoughts about Lowell’s search for Planet X and his own years of investigation, including the final discovery of Pluto. Includes photographs of Lowell Observatory, Percival Lowell, the Slipher brothers, Carl Lampland, Tombaugh, and the Zeiss blink comparator. Tombaugh, Clyde William, and Patrick Moore. Out of Darkness: The Planet Pluto. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1980. Very readable work for the general reader provides a good review of all aspects of the search for planets in general and the personalities surrounding the discovery of Pluto. Whyte, A. J. The Planet Pluto. New York: Pergamon Press, 1980. A relatively technical work for readers who wish to dig into the details of the discovery of Pluto. Provides an objective view of the process. Includes a historical review. See also: 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra; Feb. 18, 1930: Tombaugh Discovers Pluto.
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Further Reading Binzel, Richard. “Pluto.” Scientific American 262 (June, 1990): 50-58. Provides information on the physical characteristics of Pluto. Illustrations of Pluto and its moon, Charon, are helpful in explaining why this system is often considered to be a double planet. Includes the photograph that led to the discovery of Charon in 1978. Croswell, Ken. “Pluto: Enigma on the Edge of the Solar System.” Astronomy 14 (July, 1986): 7-22. Discusses Lowell’s strategy for the search of Planet X and Tombaugh’s actual discovery of the planet. Provides a summary of physical data for Pluto as well as information on the discovery of Pluto’s moon. Also features a concise biography of Lowell. Freedman, David H. “When Is a Planet Not a Planet? Arguments for and Against Demoting Pluto.” Atlantic Monthly, February, 1998. Reviews the debate that arose in the mid-1990’s regarding the status of Pluto as a major planet, given new discoveries. Hoyt, William G. Planet X and Pluto. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980. Comprehensive work documents the transition between Lowell’s work and Tombaugh’s. Agood source for the interested reader. Lowell, A. Lawrence. Biography of Percival Lowell. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Biography by Percival Lowell’s brother contains minute details of both the professional and the personal sides of the astronomer’s life. Provides an excellent chronology of Lowell’s career. Lowell, Percival. Memoir on a Trans-Neptunian Planet. Lynn, Mass.: Press of T. P. Nichols and Son, 1915. The definitive source for information on Lowell’s search for Planet X. Includes Lowell’s mathematical
Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto
Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August-December, 1905
Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry Evidence of chicanery on the part of the insurance industry sparked a New York State investigation that prompted the passage of reform legislation. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history; crime and scandal Key Figures Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), American attorney J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), American investment banker William A. Read (1858-1916), American investment banker James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959), vice president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society William W. Armstrong (1864-1944), New York State senator Summary of Event Late in 1904, Thomas W. Lawson, a former Wall Street speculator turned muckraking journalist, charged that powerful investment banks were using the assets of several major insurance companies to manipulate the stock market. This caused an uproar in New York’s state capital of Albany, followed by demands for an investigation. A brief inquiry was mounted that came up with no evidence to substantiate the charges, but something was stirring. New York Life Insurance president John McCall resigned suddenly and without explanation, causing brief but intense speculation in the newspapers. Interest in the subject mounted. These developments were followed by rumors of a shakeup at the Equitable Life Assurance Society that gave some credence to Lawson’s allegations. What attracted the press’s attention were the activities of the flamboyant James Hazen Hyde, who five years after graduating from college was earning $100,000 a year as vice president of the Equitable, which had been founded by his father. Hyde became majority shareholder of the Equitable upon his father’s death in 1899. It was a sizable, wealthy company, with 600,000 policyholders and assets of $400 million. Hyde lived ostentatiously. He was famous for his many elaborate parties, all of which were paid for by the Equitable. One of these, held on January 31, 1905, caused a sensation. Hyde had a restaurant redecorated to 436
resemble Versailles at the time of the reign of King Louis XIV, hired a French actress to recite lines from the plays of French dramatist Racine for the guests, and served a lavish and expensive meal. The entire cost, as estimated by reporters, came to $200,000. The event had political repercussions. Alarmed at the impact of Hyde’s spendthrift ways on the insurance company’s image, company president James W. Alexander and thirty-five other officers and agents brought charges of malfeasance against him, engaging the services of Charles Evans Hughes, who would soon become one of the country’s leading attorneys but then was about to initiate an investigation of the state’s natural gas business. The directors demanded that the Equitable be converted to a mutual company, one therefore owned and controlled by policyholders. This would have resulted in Hyde’s departure. In the war for control of the company that followed, E. H. Harriman and J. P. Morgan clashed, albeit indirectly. Both men hoped to use the Equitable’s cash reserves to finance some of their deals. The battle ended when Hyde sold his Equitable shares to Thomas Fortune Ryan, a Morgan ally, for $2.5 million. This maneuver resulted in increasing demands for an official investigation. On August 1, 1905, the state of New York established an investigatory committee to be chaired by state senator William W. Armstrong, who promptly offered Hughes the position of chief counsel to the committee. Although he had just completed his investigation of the gas industry and was at the time in Europe on a vacation, Hughes accepted the offer and returned home. In September, the Armstrong Committee opened an investigation that lasted until December 30. It began with the Equitable situation, but its inquiries soon spilled over to other insurance companies as well. During the course of the investigation, Hughes uncovered many episodes of mismanagement, fraud, falsified statements, and bribery of public officials. Among other things, he reported that since 1896 Mutual Life had maintained a “house of mirth” in Albany for the entertainment of state legislators. Over the next few months, insurance industry scandals, as they were called, dominated the news. Each week another lurid illustration of corporate chicanery turned up. Prominent politicians were found to be involved with Hyde. Senator Thomas Platt confessed that most of the city’s large insurance companies had each paid him $10,000, which he turned
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
James Hazen Hyde. (Library of Congress)
banks to report inflated figures for outstanding loans and holdings. When the fiscal year ended, the insurance companies would repay the loans and make payments for the sales, and the banks would receive fees for their services. Jacob Schiff, both a Kuhn Loeb partner and an Equitable director, admitted having sold almost $50 million in securities to the insurance company for this purpose during a period of five and a half years. These actions on the part of a company officer were in clear violation of state law. Before Hughes was finished, he had demonstrated flagrant infractions of law and ethics involving scores of prominent politicians and businesspeople. In November, the name of Vermilye and Company, a relatively small but respected investment bank that recently had gone out of business, was dragged into the investigation. Building on what had been revealed about Kuhn Loeb, Hughes attempted to show that the Metropolitan Life Assurance Company had made large loans to Vermilye at interest rates lower than those prevailing in the market and that these were used to mask irregularities. He introduced evidence that two loans, one for $200,000 and the other for $1 million, had been made the previous year. In addition, Hughes claimed that Metropolitan had sold stock either to or through Vermilye below market prices, after which Metropolitan’s president, John R. Hegeman, received a substantial rebate. Hughes thus suggested that some of the principals at Vermilye had engaged in duplicitous practices for personal gain. They stood in infraction of state law and, in the matter of rebates, in violation of New York Stock Exchange regulations. If proven, these allegations could have resulted in the lodging of criminal charges against those involved. William A. Read, a former head of Vermilye, denied all implications of wrongdoing and demanded specifics and proof of the claims. These appeared to come the following month, when a Metropolitan vice president, Haley Fiske, testified that Vermilye had sold Metropolitan 3,333 shares of Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, then quoted at $400 per share, for $350 per share, and that Vermilye did not receive a commission from the buyer on the transaction, but rather obtained one from the seller. This last matter would have been a violation of law and New York Stock Exchange rules, because Vermilye would have been serving both buyer and seller as agent, without the former knowing of the relationship with the latter. In other words, the Metropolitan would not have known that Vermilye had that incentive from the seller. Following these developments, nothing further was heard for a while about the commissions. Apparently Hughes lacked evidence to corroborate allega437
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over to the Republican State Committee for use in the election campaigns of individuals supportive of the industry. Senator Chauncey Depew, who had ties with the Morgan bank, spoke of having received an annual retainer of $20,000 from the Equitable, of which he was a director. Other politicians also came forward and, under Hughes’s skillful interrogation, all but conceded that they were on the payrolls of one or more insurance companies. It was not long before investment bankers were drawn into the investigation. Hughes uncovered the fact that, in order to conceal bribes and losses, several investment banks, Kuhn Loeb being the most prominent, had made year-end loans to and sales for several insurance companies. These actions increased reported cash balances for the insurance companies and enabled the investment
Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry
Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry tions of wrongdoing on that score. He turned instead to the matter of price movements in the Lake Shore stock and the spread between the bid and offer prices. Read answered the assertions. In a letter to the editor of the New York Daily Tribune, he pointed out that Fiske had not complained about the price. Rather, the Metropolitan officer had informed the Armstrong Committee, “I do not want to do any injustice to Mr. Read. He is quite certain that his transaction was entirely justified by the rules of the Street and by right dealing.” Alluding to the half-forgotten matter of the commission, Read added, “Whether or not the commission was reasonable is comparatively immaterial, but it is vital to my reputation in the community that the refutation of the charge that I took a commission without the knowledge of my client be given equal publicity with the charge itself.” He might also have added that Lake Shore was a thinly traded issue and that large changes in price were fairly common when substantial blocks of stock changed hands. With this, the matter was dropped. Clearly Hughes thought that he lacked sufficient evidence to continue. Still, doubts and suspicions remained. Even if Read were not guilty of having acted improperly in the matter of the Lake Shore stock, the issue of rebates given to Metropolitan by Vermilye required further investigation. Were there rebates, and, if so, who gave them? Hughes said that he had proof of Vermilye’s involvement and indicated that the evidence would be introduced at the proper time. It was not until the following year that the public learned just who was culpable. It was not Read but rather Donald and George Mackay. The father and son received a hearing before the New York Stock Exchange Governing Committee, were charged with violation of exchange rules forbidding rebates, and, on January 5, 1906, were found guilty. By inference, Read was found blameless. This was not the end of the matter. The Mackays sued Read, charging that he had improperly retained commissions earned in the Metropolitan transactions. A month later, Read issued a statement in which he attempted to clarify the situation. He charged the Mackays with attempting to appropriate for themselves commissions of slightly less than $50,000 that he had earned through dealings with Metropolitan during the last few months of Vermilye’s existence. He stated: Acute differences then existed between the partners, and Messrs. Mackay, Fish, and Hollister were engaged in an effort to appropriate to themselves the name and good-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 will of the firm of Vermilye & Co., excluding me from any interest therein. Under these circumstances I undertook and carried out on my individual account the three transactions which are the subject of this lawsuit. The acts of my partners prevented me from doing the business in any way but individually. As to all of these matters, I acted under the advice of counsel, and am content to abide by the decision of the court.
With this the matter ended. The Mackays did not initiate a lawsuit against Read, which may be taken as evidence that their claims were without foundation. Read came out of the situation with his honor and reputation intact, and the Mackays might have considered themselves fortunate for having received little more than a rap on the knuckles, perhaps because of Donald Mackay’s age and former eminence—he had served as president of the New York Stock Exchange. Significance The Armstrong Committee’s investigations affected the ways in which Wall Street and the insurance industry conducted business. The revelations prompted demands for reform and regulation that intensified after the committee’s report was made public on February 22, 1906. The committee stunned the financial community by announcing its intention to “revolutionize” the way new securities issues were awarded to underwriters. Up until that time, all new issues were placed on a negotiated basis, which is to say that the company issuing a security would approach a banker or vice versa. The bank and the company would then work out the terms of the financing, including price, amount, and maturity and interest rates. The committee proposed that all future underwritings for companies over which it had authority be placed on a competitive basis, with any investment bank able to bid for the business, which would presumably go to the bank making the best offer. The concept was rejected, but it remained a source of contention. As it was, the old ways prevailed, with banks wooing customers on the basis of personal relationships, service, placement power, and reputation. However, New York and other states did prohibit insurance companies from participating in investment banking. In addition, Hughes helped draft new legislation that prohibited insurance companies from making contributions to political campaigns and also required registration of lobbyists and curbed their activities. Congress followed his lead, passing the Corrupt Practices Act of 1907 and giving credit to Hughes for inspiration. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Hughes managed
Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry
to transform the insurance business from “a public swindle to a public trust.” The Armstrong Committee investigations also led to changes in the way insurance companies were run. The investigations revealed that some of the larger companies were run as autocracies, with trustees having little control over management. High corporate officers often received salary increases without the knowledge of trustees. In addition, the committee uncovered problems in the incentives offered to general sales agents. The agents earned commissions on all policies sold and often had large territories; this led them to sell as many policies as possible with little follow-up and little concern for the long-term welfare of the buyers. Following the committee’s report, general agents were made salaried workers, and policy salespeople were required to take training courses in how best to serve customers. The Armstrong Committee did much to inform the public of how and why Wall Street bankers conducted their affairs. The shock of learning how much money was involved and the fees earned for various services helped accelerate the movement toward reform, which previously had been lagging. As for the Equitable itself, its joint ownership of National Bank of Commerce, New York’s second-largest financial institution, was challenged. Equitable and Mutual Life Insurance were obliged to sell their control shares, which were purchased by J. P. Morgan, First National Bank, and National City Bank. Ironically, by enabling this move, the Armstrong investigation, which was aimed at limiting financial concentration, further consolidated the power of the Morgan group. Hughes went on to run for the New York State governorship in 1906, defeating Democrat William Randolph Hearst. One of his programs as governor involved the establishment of the Public Service Commission, which was granted investigative and regulatory powers, including the authority to review all new utilities issues. On the basis of his record, Hughes received the Republican nomination for president in 1916; he narrowly lost the election to Woodrow Wilson. He later served as U.S. secretary of state (1921-1925) and as chief justice of the United States (1930-1941).
Hyde left the country and wound up in Paris two days before the conclusion of the Armstrong Committee investigation. He denied any intentions of relinquishing his citizenship, saying, “I am too good an American for that. That report was circulated by enemies to injure me, but they have failed.” He remained in Paris for the next thirty-five years, devoting much of his time to FrancoAmerican relations. He returned to the United States for visits after World War II, and he died in Saratoga, New York, in 1959. —Robert Sobel Further Reading Beebe, Lucius. The Big Spenders. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Contains a colorful sketch of James Hazen Hyde and the backdrop for the Armstrong investigation. Carosso, Vincent. Investment Banking in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. The classic history of American investment banking, with a section on the Armstrong investigation. James, Marquis. The Metropolitan Life. New York: Viking Press, 1947. Contains an account of the Armstrong investigation from the vantage point of the Metropolitan. Logan, Sheridan. George F. Baker and His Bank, 18401955. New York: Author, 1981. A view of the Armstrong investigation from the point of view of an ally of J. P. Morgan. Pusey, Merlo. Charles Evans Hughes. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1951. Volume 1 has a chapter on the Armstrong investigation, explored from Hughes’s point of view. Roe, Mark J. Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. Argues that politics has always played a key role in the ownership structure of large U.S. firms. Chapter 6, on insurers, includes discussion of the Armstrong Committee investigations. Bibliography and index. See also: Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation; Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Fall, 1905
Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity challenged Newtonian physics, replacing the theory of threedimensional space and one-dimensional time with the theory of space-time. Locale: Bern, Switzerland Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English mathematician and physicist Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist Summary of Event Albert Einstein first articulated his special theory of relativity in an article in 1905 in the German journal Annalen der Physik under the title “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper” (on the electrodynamics of moving bodies), in which he did not mention the formula now so closely associated with his name: E = mc2 (energy = mass times the speed of light squared). In this article, Einstein points out that time cannot be viewed as an absolute. He asserts, rather, that time is relative and broaches the question of simultaneity, which one must consider when one contemplates events occurring in time and space. Because it takes an infinitesimal amount of time for the light that illuminates an event that occurs near a person to travel to the perceptor, the event necessarily is perceived after it happens rather than when it happens. It was not until later in 1905 that Einstein published in the same journal the three-page article containing his famed formula: “Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?” (Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy content?) In the normal course of earthly events, the slight discrepancy between when an event occurs and when it is perceived matters little. The discrepancy usually can be measured in milliseconds. Considering this matter in cosmic terms, however, Einstein clearly demonstrated that the discrepancy may become significant. Related to this observation is what was then a new way of viewing the correlations between time and space. According to Einstein, the speed of light is a constant; no matter how fast one may pursue it, it always travels at the same speed, now measured to within one hundredthousandth of 1 percent (0.00001 percent) at 299,792.456 kilometers, or about 186,330 miles, per second. In 1882, 440
Albert A. Michelson’s experiments led him to measure the speed of light more accurately than anyone had up to that time, and it has been measured even more accurately since then. Michelson’s finding that light travels at 299,853 kilometers, or 186,320 miles, per second proved indispensable to Einstein as he moved toward devising his special theory of relativity. Einstein postulated that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. He further conjectured that as objects accelerate toward the speed of light, they will become shorter in the direction they are traveling, their mass will become greater, and time will pass more slowly for them. This hypothesis has been demonstrated in various ways, notably by physicists who carried finely tuned atomic clocks with them on around-the-world commercial jet flights and then checked the clocks against other comparable clocks in their laboratories on their return. They found that the clocks they had carried with them had, indeed, lost time, totally in accordance with their predictions based on Einstein’s theory.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Albert Einstein. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
as measuring the distance from one’s front door to one’s garage. If, however, one wants exact measurements of an area whose boundaries are Montreal, Tierra del Fuego, Auckland, and Seoul, the curvature of space-time must be taken into account for the calculations to be wholly accurate. The inaccuracy of the measurement increases as the size of what is being measured increases if a flat space-time methodology is used. The special theory of relativity is comparable to Euclidean geometry, whereas the general theory of relativity is comparable to the geometry of curved surfaces. Fundamental to Einstein’s concept of relativity is the notion that energy (the E in his equation) and mass (the m) are really the same: All energy has mass; all mass, if conditions are right, can be converted to energy. Indeed, it can be converted into energy sufficient to cause the fission that, with the splitting of the atom, has resulted in the creation and harnessing of nuclear energy. Einstein’s study of Brownian motion led him to the basic conclusion that such moving particles as protons and electrons travel in waves and are intimately connected with photons. This conclusion led to the development of the field of wave mechanics in physics and was a fundamental element in Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Although the prize did not come as recognition for his work in relativity, certainly his best-known contribution, it was his work with Brownian motion that contributed substantially to his special theory of relativity and that resulted in his later research on the photoelectric effect. Certainly, the special theory of relativity established Einstein as the most compelling and influential physicist of his day. It led to a total rethinking of the entire field of physics. Significance When Einstein entered the Eidenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Switzerland, after completing his secondary school education, he followed the advice of his elders and concentrated on mathematics rather than physics because, according to his advisers, little remained to be done in physics. Many believed that all that was significant in the field of physics had already been discovered; it was regarded as a scientific specialty in which no new worlds remained to be conquered. It is ironic, therefore, that Einstein was the person who, more than any other, brought insights to the field that were so compelling as to cause a complete restructuring of the discipline. Because all activity in the various subspecialties of physics—optics, electromagnetism, mechanics— 441
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If it were possible physically for an object to travel in excess of the speed of light, that object would predictably move backward in time. Because objects do not move at anything approaching the speed of light, the loss of length and time and the gaining of mass that rapidly moving objects incur is barely perceptible. An object moving at the incredible speed of one-seventh the speed of light—26,614 miles, or slightly more than one circumnavigation of the globe at the equator every second— would change in mass, length, and time measurement by only 1 percent. Drastic alterations take place, however, as the object approaches the speed of light more closely. When the velocity is six-sevenths the speed of light, the mass is twice what it is when the object is at rest, and the length and time measurements are cut in half. Were the velocity of the object to equal the speed of light, its mass would become infinite. In terms of Einstein’s theory of relativity, if a person were in a vehicle capable of coming within 99.995 percent of the speed of light, the mass of the person and the vehicle would be increased one thousand times and time would pass for them at one onethousandth of the normal rate, so that each year of such travel would be equivalent to one thousand years of time, as scientists normally measure it. Einstein’s findings generally have been verified by various means, ranging from carrying clocks on commercial jet flights, as mentioned above, to experiments with high-speed electrons that, under laboratory conditions, frequently achieve ten thousand times their normal mass as their speed increases. Central to Einstein’s special theory of relativity is his shattering of the Newtonian theory that space is threedimensional and that time is one-dimensional. Rather than thinking of time and space separately, Einstein viewed space-time as a coordinated, four-dimensional system. Time cannot be conceived of outside the spatial context; space cannot be conceived of outside the temporal context. The two exist simultaneously and interdependently as a coordinated system. The only major physical phenomenon that Einstein could not explain using his special theory of relativity was gravity; this led him, in 1915, to the articulation of his general theory of relativity. The reason that gravity requires a special explanation is that space-time is curved, so that when scientists consider its vastness, their calculations are necessarily affected by this curvature. The flat space-time concept of the special theory of relativity, despite the curvature of space-time, is still serviceable when one is making local measurements, such
Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity
Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity takes place in a space-time continuum, Einstein’s postulation of a four-dimensional space-time context affected every aspect of the discipline and moved it into areas that had not only important scientific implications but also highly significant philosophical implications. The special theory of relativity left unanswered many of Einstein’s salient questions. In moving beyond his early work in relativity in 1905, Einstein formulated his general theory of relativity, which, in 1915, responded to many questions regarding gravity that his earlier hypothesis had not answered to his satisfaction. The two theories corrected some of Sir Isaac Newton’s crucial scientific hypotheses that had, to that time, been sacrosanct among many physicists. It freed physicists to pursue studies that led to the splitting of the atom, to the development of nuclear energy, to space exploration, to the development of a theory of superconductivity, and to countless other accomplishments that have helped humankind explore the universe and understand it in greater depth than had previously been possible. One can point to no area of modern science that has not been affected by Einstein’s work in relativity, the heart of which is found in his initial work on the special theory of relativity. Einstein redefined space and time, and his definition of space-time as a coordinated system has withstood the thousands of tests to which it has been put. His hypothesis has not been diminished by the extensive tests to which researchers have subjected it. Einstein, as a scientist who continually searched and constantly questioned, certainly never foreclosed the possibility that his hypotheses might one day be disproved. Were he alive today, he would be at the forefront of testing them scrupulously and unfailingly as he did in his work, with Johann Jakob Laub, on black body radiation and in his subsequent work in the direction of evolving a unified field theory of physics. The astrophysical research into black holes, which now teeters on the brink of explaining much about the origins of the solar system and of the entire universe, is one of the direct offshoots of Einstein’s early work in relativity. The implications of such research are, perhaps, as important as those of any exploration being conducted in the field of physics. —R. Baird Shuman Further Reading Bernstein, Jeremy. Einstein. New York: Viking Press, 1973. One of the most popular studies of Albert Ein2 stein for laypersons. Chapter titled “E = mc ” is particularly lucid in its presentation of Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Includes annotated bibliography. 442
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Clark, Ronald W. Einstein: The Life and Times. 1971. Reprint. New York: Avon Books, 1984. Detailed biography provides substantial information on Einstein’s role in world affairs. Accessible to lay readers. Includes many historical photographs. Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in TwentiethCentury Physics. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Readable volume follows the development of physics from its nineteenth century roots to the mysteries of the late twentieth century. Examines characters and personalities as well as issues of physics. Includes discussion of Einstein’s work. Eddington, A. S. Space, Time, and Gravitation. 1920. Reprint. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Of Eddington’s several books about Einstein and relativity, this one deals most valuably with the theory of special relativity and is especially clear in its presentation of how Einstein departed from Newtonian physics and the implications of that departure for the discipline of physics. Recommended for well-informed readers. Frank, Philipp. Einstein: His Life and Times. Translated by George Rosen. 1947. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002. Biography has not been supplanted by any of the subsequent studies of Einstein that have appeared, although it was first published before Einstein’s death. Well written, with scientific explanations that are as lucid as possible, given the inherent complexity of Einstein’s work. Highfield, Roger, and Paul C. Carter. The Private Lives of Albert Einstein. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Presents carefully researched information on Einstein’s everyday life and the personal relationships that may have influenced his work. Hoffmann, Banesh, and Helen Dukas. Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel. New York: Viking Press, 1972. Presents “the essential flavor of the man and his science.” Dukas was Einstein’s personal secretary for many years, and she offers some interesting insights. Includes many historical photographs. Katz, Robert. An Introduction to the Special Theory of Relativity. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1964. Excellent, exhaustive work focuses specifically on Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Intended for readers with background in physics. Pais, Abraham. Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. 1982. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Meticulously referenced
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 biography places Einstein’s scientific achievements within the context of the other aspects of his life. Features detailed chronology of Einstein’s life, good subject index, and exhaustive name index. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Comprehensive, highly detailed volume describes the physical discoveries leading up to the first nuclear weapons and Einstein’s role in the decision to develop the atomic bomb. Rigden, John S. Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons 2005. An account of the new insights and turmoil engendered among physicists by the five groundbreaking research papers that Albert Einstein published in 1905. Accessible to lay readers. Includes simple diagrams and reproductions of the front pages of the five papers. See also: Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity; Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory; Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom; 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect.
Fall, 1905
Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons Expatriate American writer Gertrude Stein and her brothers established Paris salons at which innovative artists, writers, and musicians gathered and exchanged ideas. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Arts; literature Key Figures Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), American writer Leo Stein (1872-1947), American writer and art collector Michael Stein (1865-1938), American art collector and railroad manager Sarah Samuels Stein (1870-1953), Michael Stein’s wife Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967), companion and lover to Gertrude Stein
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Summary of Event Gertrude Stein is known less for her own work as an author than for her association with the writers and artists of whom she said, according to Ernest Hemingway’s epigraph to The Sun Also Rises (1926), “You are all a lost generation.” Although her innovative style of writing has prompted numerous critical studies, her manner of living remains more intriguing, and her influence on many major figures of her era is inarguable. The salons that Stein, her brothers, and her sister-in-law established were the center of artistic fusion and fission. The assemblage of the era’s most avant-garde writers, artists, and musicians, and their sharing of theory and practice, was an important force in the formation of modernism.
It was Leo Stein, Gertrude’s closest brother in age, who leased the apartment-studio at 27, rue de Fleurus in Paris that would become the center of so much activity. Gertrude joined him there in 1903 after failing four courses at The Johns Hopkins University and being denied her degree in medicine. Their eldest brother, Michael Stein, and his wife, Sarah, also moved to Paris in 1903, renting an apartment at 58, rue Madame, near Gertrude and Leo. Later, the group was completed by Alice B. Toklas, who came to Paris in 1907 but did not move in with Gertrude and Leo until 1910. Upon settling in at 27, rue de Fleurus, Gertrude Stein at once began the two activities that would determine the rest of her life: art collecting and writing. Over the many years of the Stein tenancy, the walls of the apartment displayed the works of Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Georges Braque, and other contemporary artists, as well as paintings by Pierre Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and most of the other recognized Impressionists. At the same time, Gertrude began writing, at first in a relatively conventional although naturalistic style (perhaps she was still looking through the would-be doctor’s eye) and then working toward the controversial, fragmented, repetitious narrative style she eventually developed. Collecting paintings of current artists naturally brought the Steins into contact with the many artists based in Paris. Paris, of course, was already a center for artistic license. The Paris Salon d’Automne in October, 1905, displayed a controversial Matisse painting, Woman with the Hat, that was criticized by the conservative art establishment for its brashness. Gertrude and
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estranged, partly because her artistic judgments were wildly divergent from In 1933, Gertrude Stein published The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. his and partly because he was never In the first chapter, she introduces herself, purportedly as seen through very enthusiastic about Gertrude’s own Toklas’s eyes: writings. Leo moved permanently to Italy in 1912, at which time Gertrude I was at this time living with my father and brother. My father was a quiet virtually cut off her relationship with man who took things quietly, although he felt them deeply. The first terrible him. Gertrude remained at the rue de morning of the San Francisco fire I woke him and told him, the city has been Fleurus with her lover, secretary, and rocked by an earthquake and is now on fire. That will give us a black eye in friend Alice B. Toklas until 1938, when the East, he replied turning and going to sleep again. . . . the apartment’s owner wanted the space As I was saying we were all living comfortably together and there had been in my mind no active desire or thought of change. The disturbance of for his son; the two women then moved the routine of our lives by the fire followed by the coming of Gertrude to 5, rue Christine. All during the years Stein’s older brother and his wife made the difference. Gertrude lived there, the rue de Fleurus Mrs. Stein brought with her three little Matisse paintings, the first modapartment was a center for artists and ern things to cross the Atlantic. I made her acquaintance at this time of genwriters, and many of those who passed eral upset and she showed them to me, she also told me many stories of her through became household names. life in Paris. . . . Within a year I also had gone and I had come to Paris. There I During the Steins’ tenancy, the walls went to see Mrs. Stein who had in the meantime returned to Paris, and there of 27, rue de Fleurus were covered from at her house I met Gertrude Stein. I was impressed by the coral brooch she floor to ceiling with paintings, many of wore and by her voice. I may say that only three times in my life have I met a them unframed. Friendships waxed and genius and each time a bell within me rang and I was not mistaken, and I may waned. Picasso supplanted Cézanne as say in each case it was before there was any general recognition of the quality of genius in them. The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gerfavorite son when Cézanne’s prices skytrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead. I have met many imporrocketed and the Steins could no longer tant people, I have met several great people but I have only known three first afford his paintings. (Gertrude felt that class geniuses and in each case on sight within me something rang. In no one Cézanne owed it to an old friend to ofof the three cases have I been mistaken. In this way my new life began. fer old-customer prices.) All the major Source: Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (New York: movements of a volatile era were exHarcourt, Brace, 1933). hibited and expounded at the Stein salons. Musicians and photographers were part of the circle. In fact, everyone remotely connected with the art world Leo’s purchase of this canvas both made their reputalonged, usually in vain, to be invited. The details of Gertion as art collectors and gained them the friendship of trude’s salons were taken care of smoothly by Toklas, Matisse, who began visiting them at their home. Other spouse, secretary, and even “bouncer,” who told people artists came with him. The Steins followed the French whose speech or behavior gave offense (Ernest Hemingcustom of receiving guests on a specified day, and their way was one) that they were not welcome to come back. Saturday get-togethers of artistic luminaries rapidly beThe salons were discussed, praised, and caricatured came famous throughout the community. Sarah and Mithroughout Europe and the United States; Gertrude Stein chael held similar salons and also entertained Matisse was truly a legend in her time. and collected his work. Popular opinion held that Sarah and Michael had better food, but the more discerning Significance conversation and more avant-garde art were to be found The salons of the Steins had a major influence on Gerat 27, rue de Fleurus. Certainly, the artists of the Paris trude Stein’s own work and on that of the artists who scene frequented both homes. participated in them. Stein’s first novel, Quod Erat Initially, Leo Stein was the major force in the rue de Demonstrandum (or Q.E.D., written in 1903 but not pubFleurus salons, giving lectures on art while Gertrude relished until 1950 under the title Things as They Are), mained in the background. As Gertrude’s expertise grew mostly written before she became acquainted with Paris and her opinions became pronounced, however, she artists, was new in content but traditional in form. It told came out of the shadows. Gertrude and Leo became the story—her own story—of a lesbian triangle in which
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the main character is the loser; the book fictionalized events that took place before Stein’s move to Paris. The novel utilized a relatively straightforward, linear narrative. After meeting Cézanne, however, Stein translated his practice into her own work. Three Lives (1909) puts into words a decentered reality in which no single theme, person, or idea predominates. The book is made up of three sections, each of which subtly characterizes a servant girl and shows her powerlessness in the face of her controlling environment and determining character. According to Stein, she used Cézanne’s advice to painters as well as the example of his practice to create a new writing style that focused on nuances of voice and that created a flat, seamless surface. She referred to her approach as “the continuous present.” After Cézanne, Picasso became a major influence on Stein’s work. At the time when he became Stein’s friend, Picasso was moving toward cubism. She did not try to capture Picasso’s angular style in words but rather dwelled on his method of manipulating objects to represent his vision. “I was very much struck . . . with the way Picasso could put objects together and make a photograph of them,” she once wrote, adding that “by the force of his vision it was not necessary that he paint the picture.
To have brought the objects together already changed them to other things, not to another picture but to something else, to things as Picasso saw them.” She tried to achieve similar manipulations with words, through fracturing syntax and violating expectations in her bold word portraits (one of which was called “Picasso”). Her goal was “to kill the nineteenth century,” and she believed the methods of the avant-garde artists would allow her to do it. The effects of Stein’s salons and her personality on the artists she entertained are less easy to pin down than the artists’ effects on her, which she eagerly and voluminously documented. (It is, of course, true that she selected from their words and works what agreed with her own theories.) First, she was a very colorful figure, with an eccentric way of dressing and a lifestyle shocking to most of her contemporaries. Her image appealed greatly to artists, who produced numerous paintings and photographs of her. Probably the most famous of these is Picasso’s portrait of her; he also painted her brother Leo. Gertrude Stein was also painted by Francis Picabia, Pierre Tal Coat, Marie Laurencin, and others. Generally, these paintings emphasize her stockiness and at the same time suggest her uncompromising intelligence. Stein seems to have achieved the status of a mythic figure among these artists. The lively interchange among the artists and writers at the salons allowed them to share each other’s techniques and attempt to apply them to different media, as Stein herself attempted to translate Matisse’s and Picasso’s art techniques into writing. Moreover, the concept of art itself became more plastic and flowing, as artists of various disciplines saw parallels that eliminated barriers between them. Stein encouraged this notion of a plastic art through the various pronouncements she made on artistic subjects. Her views were generally taken very seriously, although often they were merely disguised versions of others’ theories. Of course, the artistic movements of the beginning of the twentieth century—Fauvism, cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and others—were involved with fragmenting experience and demolishing traditional art forms; the desire for experiment and revolution was in the air. How much of this was actually connected with Stein’s salons is open to conjecture. It can only be said with certainty that a large percentage of the early twentieth century’s avant-garde artists passed through the doors of 27, rue de Fleurus. The Stein salons were a part of the image of the art community for a number of years and were the subject of scandal, jokes, complaints, envy, and admiration. Their 445
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Gertrude Stein. (Library of Congress)
Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons
Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons presence contributed to the public’s growing belief that a vast gulf exists between elitist and popular art. — Janet McCann Further Reading Bloom, Harold, ed. Gertrude Stein. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. This selection of critical essays includes writers from Stein’s time as well as later ones. An essay by Judith Saunders about Paris and another by Jayne Walker about Stein’s first decade as a writer are particularly useful for those interested in Stein’s salons. Helpful chronology concludes the collection. Dubnick, Randa. The Structure of Obscurity: Gertrude Stein, Language, and Cubism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. This difficult but rewarding book shows the interplay between Stein’s work and avantgarde literary and art movements. Helps connect Stein with current literary theory. For advanced students of Stein and modernism. Includes bibliography and index. Hobhouse, Janet. Everybody Who Was Anybody: A Biography of Gertrude Stein. 1975. Reprint. New York: Anchor, 1989. Gossipy biography filled with colorful anecdotes of Stein’s life and times. Good for an overall impression. Voluminous, excellent illustrations, including photographs of Stein, her literary friends, and her apartment. Good color reproductions of Steininfluenced paintings. Includes index. Hoffman, Michael J. Gertrude Stein. Boston: Twayne, 1976. Clear, concise critical study, one of the better books in Twayne’s United States Authors series. Most of the study analyzes Stein’s writing, but the opening chapter gives an account of the Paris salons. Notes, bibliography, index. Kellner, Bruce, ed. A Gertrude Stein Companion: Con-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tent with the Example. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988. A highly informative, strangely constructed book containing, among other things, brief analyses of Stein’s writings, critical essays, thumbnail biographies of famous Stein associates, important Stein quotations, and poems about Stein. Good photographs. Annotated bibliography and index. Knapp, Bettina. Gertrude Stein. New York: Continuum, 1990. Straightforward, well-written introduction to Stein. Divided into two parts, “The Life” and “The Work”; first part gives details of Stein’s relationships with Paris artists. Notes, bibliography, and index. Mellow, James R. Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company. 1974. Reprint. New York: Henry Holt, 2003. Describes Stein’s life in Paris from 1903 to the end of World War II, with emphasis on the salons for which she was famous. Includes index. Toklas, Alice B. What Is Remembered. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. A memoir of Toklas’s life with Gertrude Stein. Impressionistic and somewhat inaccurate, as memoirs often are, this book is nevertheless worth reading for its wit and for the often astonishing vignettes of Paris life. Wineapple, Brenda. Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Adual biography that tells the story of the relationship and rivalry between Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo. Includes bibliography and index. See also: 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby; Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation.
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Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne
October, 1905
Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne Young artists exhibiting at the 1905 Salon d’Automne in Paris shocked the art community with their use of bright colors and aggressive painting styles, earning the nickname of “les Fauves” (wild beasts). Locale: Paris, France Category: Arts Key Figures Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French artist Henri-Charles Manguin (1874-1949), French artist Albert Marquet (1875-1947), French artist Georges Rouault (1871-1958), French artist Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958), French artist André Derain (1880-1954), French artist
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Summary of Event Fauvism as a movement in painting first captured the attention of the Parisian art world in October, 1905. At the annual Salon d’Automne held in the Grand Palais, an architectural feature built for the 1900 Universal Exposition, a number of young artists, most notably Charles Camoin, André Derain, Henri-Charles Manguin, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Kees van Dongen, had their works placed around those of Henri Matisse. With the exception of Vlaminck, none of the artists intended to shock the art world with his entries. Matisse’s painting Woman with the Hat (1905) was a regally posed portrait of his wife wearing a large hat, a type of stylish headwear worn by many women who strolled in the Bois de Boulogne. Critics considered the work to be a provocative public insult. Matisse also was accused of demeaning his wife by using her as his model. Georges Rouault’s submission, Monsieur and Madame Poulot, was classified by some viewers as a spitefully devised affront. This watercolor and gouache work depicted two stylized figures, a man and a woman, bourgeois characters of satiated smugness. The images that Rouault placed on his canvas were invoked by literary figures in Léon Bloy’s fiction. Rather than praising Rouault for his attempt to give visual life to two of his characters, Bloy was horrified when he saw Monsieur and Madame Poulot. He agreed with critics that the painting was an attempt to vilify French citizens by depicting them graphically as physically ugly and spiritually devoid human beings. Vlaminck, assigned membership in the group of young painters who were judged to be conspirators in a
plot to scandalize the Parisian art world, was motivated by a desire to shock the public. A self-taught artist who was scornful of academy-trained painters and often did not have enough money to buy paints and canvases, Vlaminck presented his work Picnic in the Country (1905) as a personal protest against the weightiness of tradition-bound guidelines for acceptance. The painting radiated with energetic slashes of shimmering vermilion, orange, ultramarine, and cobalt; rather than infusing viewers with dispassionate serenity, the landscape inflamed and unleashed negative passions in those who paused to study it. Its emotional eloquence was lost in critics’ rush to label it as a violently crude piece of work undertaken by a cultural nonconformist. André Derain, Albert Marquet, and Henri-Charles Manguin were three other artists whose paintings were singled out and vigorously condemned. Derain, later to be recognized as one of the first and most artistically competent of the Fauves, whose canvases radiated with pure color, was accused of producing a tasteless piece of work, his entry Sun Reflected on Water. The beauty created by the harmony he achieved between subject matter and color was not appreciated. Marquet’s sensitively haunting cityscape, Le Quai des Grands Augustins, was classified as stridently unrealistic. Manguin’s The Fourteenth of July at Saint-Tropez was rejected as artistically primitive and garish. Overlooked was his ability to blend blues with reds, oranges, and greens, as Paul Cézanne was able to do. The public and art critics found little of artistic value in the paintings that Matisse and his cohorts exhibited at the 1905 Salon d’Automne. Collectively labeled barbaric, the various works were subjected to detailed criticism. What was particularly noticeable in them was brilliance of color, vigorous brushwork, similarity in subject matter, and outlining of objects. In a review of the exhibit in the November 4, 1905, issue of L’Illustration, a Paris newspaper, art critic Louis Vauxcelles referred to the painters as les Fauves, or the wild beasts, a name that was adopted to identify the artists and the movement they invoked. Shortly thereafter, Vauxcelles identified Matisse as “Fauve-in-chief” and his cohorts as Donatellos among the Fauves. The young Fauve painters did not consider themselves to be members of a group. Their association, in fact, was short-lived, unlike that of the Impressionists, and they did not publish a manifesto as did their contemporaries in Germany who were in the process of establishing Die
Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne Brücke. Many had met at the École des Beaux-Arts, where director Gustave Moreau, a Symbolist, had attempted to alter the staid and tradition-laden policy of the school and encouraged their artistic innovativeness. He introduced his students to sound techniques, such as draftsmanship, but he also encouraged their individuality and exposed them to the creative talents of contemporary artists. One of the significant painters they met and listened to was Matisse. Older than the other students, Matisse rejected many of the norms of Mediterranean classicism and experimented with expressionism and the use of color to record reality. He saw in the work of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin artistic elements that could lead to a new direction in painting. What he constructed was an abstraction and synthesis of Gauguin’s bold color usage and van Gogh’s emotional rhythmic linear concepts. Cézanne’s skillful use of color also did not escape his attention. Matisse’s paintings, especially Open Window, Collioure (1905) and Woman with the Hat, served as models from the pre-Fauve to Fauve stages of the movement. Perhaps of all Matisse’s works, it was his canvas Joy of Life (1905-1906), one of the 5,552 paintings exhibited at the 1906 Salon des Indépendants, that established his position as Fauve-in-chief. Significance The many and confusing forces of the age in which Matisse and the other Fauves lived produced in them similar patterns of thought that led to an amazing commonality of responses. Each, largely independent of the others, sought to express a view of the world through the utilization of intense color and certain types of brushstrokes. Sometimes referred to as the masters of tomorrow, Matisse, Derain, and the other Fauves, who now included Othon Friesz, Raoul Dufy, and Georges Braque, rebelled against the artistic parameters established by the more conservative academic art centers, but they did not attempt to disassociate themselves from the era in which they lived. None of them escaped (or desired to escape) the impact of the components of thought that infused their world with a heady energy and optimism. Like many of their cohorts in other fields, most notably literature, the Fauves wanted to express the richness of the belle époque, with its emphasis on pleasure, nature, brotherhood, and analysis of traditional ideas and concepts. Cardinal to their thought and thus to their work was their unswerving belief that humankind could grasp reality and the intricacies of its nature. They believed that they could play a role in determining the reality of the next moment in time. Although the initial reactions to 448
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 their efforts were shock and outrage, they quickly won favor with the public and even critics, who perceived the meaning of Fauvism to be more than glaring colors violently brushed onto canvases. Fauve artists spoke in visual form of the aspirations of modern humankind. The Fauve artistic expression was shaped by two other forces that had entered the world of European thought and culture by the end of the nineteenth century. The influence of African masks, as well as other objects of art often referred to as primitive works, captured the attention of Vlaminck and, shortly thereafter, Derain and Matisse. The three European painters saw in the African carvings elements that differed greatly from the form and content of traditional European art. Their investigation of African artifacts sparked in them a desire to go beyond the boundaries of European artistic legacies. The subtle and dramatic naturalism constructed in the masks through the distortion of the human body and the creation of color and structural harmonies could not be ignored. African masks, projecting a sense of mass and presence, intrigued them. The other force that served to fuel the minds and actions of the Fauves stemmed from the discipline of psychology, especially the psychology of perception. Academicians had demonstrated by the end of the nineteenth century that humans are emotionally affected by color and structure, including color contrasts and spacing between colors. Many artists were familiar with studies of the psychology of perception; those who did not read the academic writings acquired the information, in whole or in part, from their colleagues. Such information influenced the work of the expressionists as well as that of many of the Fauves. The Fauves charged themselves with the artistic task of recording on canvas the immediate emotional response to a setting, an object, or a person. The techniques they employed included use of color contrast, linear elements, and drawn elliptical and color-produced lines. What particularly distinguished the Fauve painters was their rejection of such techniques as chiaroscuro, modeling, and classical perspective. Cardinal to their work and central to their need to express reality was their use of pure color, the central feature of all their efforts. They utilized pure colors in ways very rarely used by prior painters. They brushed pure color onto canvas energetically and boldly to create brilliant broad expanses or what appeared to be color-infused flattened areas. Hot, blazing colors—reds, oranges, and yellows—were accented by cool colors such as greens, violets, and blues. They used purple or red for shadows. Their washes also radiated with the purity of the colors they selected. Their
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 palettes exploded into a harmony of sensations produced by the placement of color pigments. By 1906, the Fauves, especially Matisse and Derain, undertook a change in style. They returned to a more precise draftsmanship, as illustrated in the use of marked contours, decorative symbols, subjective distortions, and subtle but masterfully and intriguingly executed arabesques. Matisse and Derain also began to experiment once again with color usage. They did not negate the purity of color, but they also made use of shades of gray and ocher. Just as quickly as Fauvism surfaced in France, it began to wane. By 1907, the Fauves began to display their individuality within the movement. The artists who were instrumental in beginning the movement moved on, but many others, some less talented, attempted to capture Fauvism forever in artistic law. Matisse and his cohorts made no attempt to devise a permanent system of expression, nor did they desire to establish artistic dogmas that would live on. They believed that painting, as a visual representation of reality, is constantly evolving. Painters should distill from a style only those elements that they can use in the search for ways to express a continually changing reality. Many European artists experimented with Fauvism on their way to other forms of expression, such as cubism. Fauvism thus gained attention and continued as a style. German and Eastern European artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Alexey von Jawlensky, August Macke, Franz Marc, Gabriele Munter, and František Kupka entered the movement. In 1913, duplicating the artistic effort of the French, the Germans created their own exhibition of Fauve and expressionist paintings. What had begun in France in 1905 as an artistic revolt against traditional norms and values led to the establishment of a movement out of which the varied expressions of modern art evolved. —Loretta E. Zimmerman
dle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. Sets the Fauvism movement within the context of late nineteenth and early twentieth century art. Includes numerous plates, some in color, with discussion of individual works. Diehl, Gaston. The Fauves. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975. An insightful and stylistic history of Fauvism. Discusses the varied forces that gave rise to Fauvism. Includes short biographical sketches of major Fauve artists as well as color plates of their drawings, watercolors, and prints. Lynton, Norbert. The Story of Modern Art. 1980. Reprint. London: Phaidon Press, 1994. Exceedingly stylistic study by an art historian who describes the many forces that gave rise to Fauvism and its place in the context of the development of modern art. Includes more than three hundred illustrations, many in color. Muller, Joseph-Emile, and Ramon Tio Bellido. A Century of Modern Painting. New York: Universe Books, 1986. Assesses Fauvism in the context of the art heritage of Europe. Offers a technically clear description of the components of the Fauve style. Illustrated. Zelanski, Paul, and Mary Pat Fisher. The Art of Seeing. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Presents a concise but insightful account of Fauvism. Includes illustrations and glossary. _______. Color. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002. Underscores various intellectual approaches, such as scientific, aesthetic, and psychological, to understanding the uses and effects of color. Includes informative and interesting comments by various artists on use of color. Employs a few of the paintings of the Fauves as illustrations. See also: 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States; Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke; 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; Feb. 17Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show.
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Further Reading Arnason, H. H. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. 5th ed. Upper Sad-
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Norway Becomes Independent
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October 26, 1905
Norway Becomes Independent Norway dissolved its union with Sweden after an almost century-long effort that involved heated debate, ongoing compromise, and persistent political maneuvering. Locale: Norway; Sweden Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; independence movements Key Figures Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910), leader of the Norwegian nationalistic literary revival Johan Sverdrup (1816-1892), president of the Storting, 1871-1881, and prime minister of Sweden, 18841889 Oscar II (1829-1907), king of Sweden, r. 1872-1907, and king of Norway, r. 1872-1905 Erik Gustaf Boström (1842-1907), prime minister of Sweden, 1891-1900 and 1902-1905 Christian Michelsen (1857-1925), first premier of independent Norway, 1905-1907 Haakon VII (1872-1957), king of Norway, r. 1905-1957 Summary of Event Norway successfully dissolved its union with Sweden in 1905, becoming completely independent for the first time since 1380. Norway had entered into dynastic union with Denmark in 1380, a union that lasted until 1814. After the Vienna Settlement ending the Napoleonic Wars, Finland was taken from Sweden and given to Russia. In return, Czar Alexander I promised to support Swedish annexation of Norway, which was accomplished by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 between Sweden and Denmark. Norway, however, refused to become a pawn in the game of international politics. On May 17, 1814, a Norwegian constituent assembly adopted a liberal constitution providing for a unicameral parliament, the Storting. It also denied to the king both the right of absolute veto and the right to dissolve the Storting. The constituent assembly then proceeded to elect unanimously Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark as king of Norway. This independent course of action prompted Sweden to invade Norway, which then had no choice but to submit to Swedish rule. The Norwegians refused to abandon their independence altogether, however. On November 4, 1814, the Storting declared Norway to be “a free, independent, and indivisible kingdom, united with Sweden under one king.” In 1815, Sweden accepted this declara450
tion and, by implication, Norway’s constitution by a special act of union called the Riksakt. It remained, in the wake of later unsuccessful attempts to revise it, an illdefined agreement, something more than a merely personal bond but less than a complete union. Its vague character was particularly evident in the administration of foreign affairs for the two countries. The Swedish government conducted foreign affairs for both, but the consular service was a joint arrangement. It became increasingly evident that Norway and Sweden were incompatible. Norway’s population consisted primarily of fishermen and a free peasantry; in Sweden, by contrast, a landed aristocracy prevailed over a dependent peasantry. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Sweden was becoming highly industrialized, but Norway remained predominantly an agricultural and commercial state. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Norway increased its maritime commerce tenfold, leaving Sweden far behind in this area. Politically, the liberal structure of Norway’s government was altogether different from the conservative and aristocratic bent of Sweden’s government, over whose parliament the king exercised an absolute veto. The steady growth of Norwegian nationalism after 1815 underscored these differences and contributed to the eventual dissolution of the union. The publication of national histories and collections of folk songs, together
The Storting Votes for Dissolution After Christian Michelsen’s government resigned, the Norwegian Storting unanimously passed the following resolution in favor of Norway’s union with Sweden on June 7, 1905. In response, Sweden agreed to hold a plebiscite to settle the issue. Since all the members of the cabinet have resigned their positions; since His Majesty the King has declared his inability to obtain for the country a new government; and since the constitutional monarchy has ceased to exist, the Storting hereby authorizes the cabinet that resigned today to exercise the powers held by the king in accordance with the Constitution of Norway and relevant laws—with the amendments necessitated by the dissolution of the union with Sweden under one king, resulting from the fact that the king no longer functions as a Norwegian king.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Norway Becomes Independent
Scandinavia, 1905
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1902, Sweden decided to accept the Radical Party’s demand for separated consular services. Chances for setArctic tlement of the question seemed to Ocean improve with the fall of the Radical government in 1903, but the advent Reykjavik of the uncompromising Erik Gustaf ICELAND Boström as prime minister of Sweden more than offset any advantage gained by the momentary decline of ` Torshavn FINLAND the Norwegian Radicals. During SWEDEN 1904, Boström insisted on certain Helsinki Atlantic NORWAY “dependency clauses” in any agreeOslo Stockholm Ocean ment with Norway, which would North have effectively nullified the real inGoteborg Sea dependence of a separate Norwegian DENMARK Copenhagen l t i c consular service relative to the forBa eign ministry of Sweden. On February 7, 1905, both governments finally announced that negotiations had formally closed. Boström had succeeded in uniting the people of Norwith Norwegian dictionaries and grammars, created the way as never before against Sweden. In March, the prologue for the great Norwegian literary revival of the Radicals returned to power under the leadership of last third of the nineteenth century, led by playwright Christian Michelsen. Henrik Ibsen, among others, and especially by BjørnPrime Minister Michelsen and the Radical-dominated stjerne Bjørnson, who aroused considerable antiunionist Storting now moved to destroy the union. Rejecting new sentiment among the youth of Norway. Politically, the Swedish offers for negotiations on the consular issue, the young nationalists were drawn to the Liberal Party, led Storting passed a bill in May, 1905, that called for the esby Johan Sverdrup, which emerged after 1870 as the tablishment of a separated Norwegian consular service. champion of Norwegian democracy and greater freedom When the king vetoed the bill, the entire Norwegian minfor Norway within the union. By 1890, however, the istry resigned. King Oscar II refused to accept the resigmost militant Norwegian nationalists had gone over to nation and was reluctant or unable to form a new governthe Radical Party, which came to advocate dissolution of ment in Norway. As a result, the Storting declared on the union with Sweden. June 7 that royal power had ceased to function. The Norway’s growing disaffection with the union was reStorting requested the ministry to remain in office and to flected in a number of serious disputes after 1859 beexercise the authority of the Swedish king. In a plebiscite held on August 13, the voters approved the dissolution of tween the Storting and the Swedish crown. In each case, the union by the overwhelming majority of 368,208 to Norway successfully challenged key prerogatives of the 184. The Swedish parliament reluctantly accepted the monarch, King Oscar II, and thereby undermined the separation on September 24. A month later, on October foundations of the union. 26, 1905, the two states signed a formal treaty dissolving The Radicals, upon assuming control of the ministry the union. After the union was dissolved, Norway beand the Storting in 1891, proceeded to raise the issue that stowed the Norwegian crown on Prince Charles of Denultimately ended the union, the demand for a separate mark, grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark. Norwegian consular service. As had been the case with Charles ruled Norway until 1957 as King Haakon VII. previous issues debated with the Swedish crown, the Radicals believed that the question of a separate consular service was purely a Norwegian affair. In this view, the Significance Radicals encountered the opposition of both the Swedish At least in part as a result of their national experience, government and the Norwegian Conservative Party. In Norwegians as a group place a very high value on liberty,
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October Manifesto independence, and democracy. This was reflected in the resistance movements that were active in Norway against the German occupying forces during World War II and has remained a part of the Norwegian character. Evidence of Norwegians’ distaste for being dictated to by other nations is found in the fact that as of the end of the twentieth century, Norway’s citizens had twice rejected the proposal that their country join the European Union. — Edward P. Keleher and John Quinn Imholte Further Reading Barton, H. Arnold. Sweden and Visions of Norway: Politics and Culture, 1814-1905. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. Examines the period of the union between Norway and Sweden, with an emphasis on Norway’s political and cultural influences on Sweden. Derry, Thomas K. A History of Modern Norway, 18141972. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Objective, well-written history addresses social, economic, literary, and artistic developments as well as political events. Depicts Norway as aspiring to political democracy, social reform, economic growth, and cultural accomplishment. Greve, Tim. Haakon VII of Norway: The Man and the Monarch. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1983. Biography of the first modern Norwegian monarch in-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cludes discussion of the dissolution of Norway’s union with Sweden. Hayes, Carlton J. H. Contemporary Europe Since 1870. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1958. Provides a brief, reliable account of Norway’s move toward independence. Heidar, Knut. Norway: Elites on Trial. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2001. Discussion of Norway’s political system includes historical background on the nation’s former union with Sweden. Larsen, Karen. A History of Norway. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948. Survey of Norwegian history to World War II provides a straightforward recitation of the facts. Chapters 18 and 19 are especially informative regarding the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. Lindgren, Raymond E. Norway-Sweden: Union, Disunion, and Scandinavian Integration. 1959. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Fine presentation of reasons for the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian union includes discussion of nonpolitical events and ideas. Focuses primarily on the final phase of the union’s history. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded; Aug. 14, 1925: Norway Annexes Svalbard; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway.
October 30, 1905
October Manifesto The October Manifesto outlined Czar Nicholas II’s grudging concessions to political reform in the wake of massive civil discontent and revolutionary activity in Russia. Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Aleksandr Dubrovin (1855-1918), leader of the Union of the Russian People Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Bolshevik Party Pavel Miliukov (1859-1943), Russian historian and leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), leader of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies 452
Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), prime minister of Russia, 1905-1906 Summary of Event In January, 1905, the czar of Russia’s troops ruthlessly fired on a peaceful procession of petitioners in the capital city of St. Petersburg in what came to be known as Bloody Sunday. This tragedy, combined with the disasters that befell Russia during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, sparked the Revolution of 1905. The revolution proved to be largely abortive, but out of it came one famous document: the October Manifesto promulgated by Czar Nicholas II. This document marked, at least at face value, Russia’s first departure from czarist autocracy in favor of a constitutional government with substantial limits on the monarch’s authority. The October Manifesto also revealed Nicholas II’s begrudging and belated concessions to the growing demands of the peo-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The October Manifesto Czar Nicholas II’s issuance of the manifesto of October 30, 1905 (October 17 by the Julian calendar, which was in use in Russia at that time), marked the end of unlimited royal power in Russia. The manifesto guaranteed basic civil liberties and ensured the creation of the Duma, czarist Russia’s legislative body. We, Nicholas II, By the Grace of God Emperor and Autocrat of all Russia, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., proclaim to all Our loyal subjects: Rioting and disturbances in the capitals [i.e., St. Petersburg and the old capital, Moscow] and in many localities of Our Empire fill Our heart with great and heavy grief. The well-being of the Russian Sovereign is inseparable from the well-being of the nation, and the nation’s sorrow is his sorrow. The disturbances that have taken place may cause grave tension in the nation and may threaten the integrity and unity of Our state. By the great vow of service as tsar We are obliged to use every resource of wisdom and of Our authority to bring a speedy end to unrest that is dangerous to Our state. We have ordered the responsible authorities to take measures to terminate direct manifestations of disorder, lawlessness, and violence and to protect peaceful people who quietly seek to fulfill their duties. To carry out successfully the general measures that we have conceived to restore peace to the life of the state, We believe that it is essential to coordinate activities at the highest level of government. We require the government dutifully to execute our unshakeable will: 1. To grant to the population the essential foundations of civil freedom, based on the principles of genuine inviolability of the person, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association. 2. Without postponing the scheduled elections to the State Duma, to admit to participation in the duma (insofar as possible in the short time that remains before it is scheduled to convene) of all those classes of the population that now are completely deprived of voting rights; and to leave the further development of a general statute on elections to the future legislative order. 3. To establish as an unbreakable rule that no law shall take effect without confirmation by the State Duma and that the elected representatives of the people shall be guaranteed the opportunity to participate in the supervision of the legality of the actions of Our appointed officials. We summon all loyal sons of Russia to remember their duties toward their country, to assist in terminating the unprecedented unrest now prevailing, and together with Us to make every effort to restore peace and tranquility to Our native land. Given at Peterhof the 17th of October in the 1905th year of Our Lord and of Our reign the eleventh. Nicholas Source: Nicholas II, “Manifesto of October 17, 1905,” translated by Daniel Field, in Documents in Russian History: An On-Line Sourcebook (South Orange, N.J.: Seton Hall University, Russian and East European Studies Program).
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ple for sweeping reforms. From January through October, 1905, Russia experienced strikes in the industrial centers, peasant revolts in the countryside, periods of national and ethnic unrest in the western border areas, and mutinies in the army and navy. In order to conciliate his people, Czar Nicholas proclaimed in August the establishment of the Duma, or Russian parliament, to advise the monarch concerning legislation. Although it was an elective body, the Duma was chosen by a limited and indirect franchise, and its function was solely consultative. Announcement of its creation proved to be completely ineffective in quieting the general unrest and the antagonism of political organizations. In October, a widespread general strike paralyzed the entire country for about ten days, forcing Nicholas to decide on his options in the crisis. As he noted in a letter to his mother dated November, 1905, he had two choices: one was to use military force to impose ruthless control within the major cities and across the nation; the other was to make concessions to the opposition. On October 30 (October 17 by the Julian calendar still in effect in Russia at that time), the czar made his decision. He reluctantly agreed to issue an imperial manifesto promising a constitution that would include a stronger Duma and also place limits on the royal authority. This document was largely the work of Count Sergey Yulyevich Witte, the czar’s former finance minister and now prime minister. The October Manifesto promised the institutions and procedures of a constitutional limited monarchy in Russia. The government promised to make significant concessions: to guarantee fundamental civil liberties (including freedom of speech, assembly, and conscience; freedom of the press; freedom from arbitrary arrest; and the right to form trade unions), to extend the franchise for elections to the Duma to those excluded under the previous decree made in August, to guarantee that no law would be enacted without the
October Manifesto
October Manifesto
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A Moscow crowd celebrates the freedoms promised by Czar Nicholas II in the October Manifesto. (Library of Congress)
consent of the Duma, and to provide that the Duma should have the right to decide on the legality of decisions of the czar’s administrators. A second body, the State Council, was created later to serve as the upper house of the promised parliament. The government hoped that publication of the October Manifesto would quell unrest, but in fact it ushered in fresh waves of disorder throughout the country. The enthusiasm of those supporting the manifesto was matched by elements of the population who demonstrated against the government for what they saw as high-sounding but meaningless promises. Many viewed the document as no more than a clever trick intended to divide the opposition. Indeed, the October Manifesto did accentuate the divisions that already existed in the ranks of the revolutionary movement, and it helped the government to restore much of its autocratic authority by late 1905 and early 1906. Significance Broadly speaking, the responses to the October Manifesto differed according to whether individuals and groups fell on the right, the center, or the left of the political spectrum. On the extreme right, conservative advo454
cates of the czar’s absolute power urged Nicholas to make no concessions to the reformers and revolutionaries. Reactionaries in the service of the government and the Russian Orthodox Church organized the Union of the Russian People under the presidency of Dr. Aleksandr Dubrovin. Elements from this group, to which Czar Nicholas himself belonged, led gangs of toughs known as the Black Hundreds in demonstrations on behalf of the czar and against supporters of the manifesto. During the week after the manifesto’s publication, the Black Hundreds launched a wave of violent riots known as pogroms against the traditional scapegoats, the Jews, many of whom suffered loss of life or property. Meanwhile, moderate rightists fully in accord with the principles of the October Manifesto created a new political party known as the Octobrists and hailed the concessions as the climax of a successful revolution. They now gave their support to the government. Those in the center established another new party in the fall: the Constitutional Democratic Party, led by the historian Pavel Miliukov. This party wanted to move forward rapidly on such matters as land reform and also wanted more certain guarantees of parliamentary authority and meaningful civil rights. The leftist parties rejected the manifesto outright as
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mediocre leadership had cut itself off from reality and the growing discontent of the Russian people. — Edward P. Keleher and Taylor Stults Further Reading Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905: A Short History. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004. Concise history by a highly respected scholar explores the factionalism among the regime’s opponents as well as that within the Russian government itself. Ferro, Marc. Nicholas II: The Last of the Tsars. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Provides informative background on Nicholas in the 1905-1906 period, drawing on his diary and family correspondence. Harcave, Sidney. First Blood: The Russian Revolution of 1905. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Readable account of the revolution provides solid coverage of a complex period. Mehlinger, Howard D., and John M. Thompson. Count Witte and the Tsarist Government in the 1905 Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972. Focuses on Witte’s role during this critical period in Russian history. Miliukov, P. N. Political Memoirs, 1905-1917. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967. Revealing recollections by the founder of the Constitutional Democratic Party, who was at the center of events during the Revolution of 1905. Verner, Andrew M. The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. Traces the responses of the czar’s government in the face of growing opposition to autocracy. Von Laue, Theodore H. Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev? The Rise and Fall of the Soviet System. 3d ed. New York: Longman, 1997. Classic interpretive essay situates the events of 1905 in the larger context of modern Russian and Soviet history. Witte, Sergey. The Memoirs of Count Witte. Translated and edited by Sidney Harcave. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1990. Translation of the self-serving but informative memoirs of one of the central decisionmaking leaders of the Russian government in the early years of the twentieth century. See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma; Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution. 455
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unsatisfactory, if not an outright deception, and they attempted to continue the revolution. In St. Petersburg, the Soviet, or Council, of Workers’ Deputies included members of the Social Revolutionary, Bolshevik, and Menshevik Parties. It had been established several days before the manifesto’s publication. Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, was not in Russia at the time but sent frequent messages to his group demanding continued militancy and violence against the authorities. After the manifesto’s appearance, the leaders of the Soviet, among them Leon Trotsky, made plans for new strikes they hoped would expand into an armed uprising. Although encouraged by continuing peasant revolts and sporadic troop mutinies, by November the radicals had clearly begun to lose their hold over the workers. The program of strikes failed, and by mid-December the government made many arrests. In Moscow, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies attempted an armed uprising in December, but by the end of that month the government was able to muster sufficient loyal troops to put it down. Severe measures, including prison and several executions, were taken against the most militant of the government’s opponents. The Revolution of 1905 was over. The czarist monarchy had survived the crisis. The authority of Nicholas II was shaken, but he now began to restore his traditional autocratic rule at the expense of the promises he had made in the October Manifesto. Witte, reluctantly willing to consider some limits on the monarchy, resigned as prime minister in the spring of 1906. The new constitution, known as the Fundamental Laws, went into effect at the same time. The Revolution of 1905 was a prologue to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In a sense the Revolution of 1905 was not a revolution at all: The czar remained on his throne, the throne remained autocratic despite promises made in the October Manifesto, and most of the army remained loyal. In 1917, however, the czar fell, partly because massive numbers of troops went over to swell the ranks of the revolutionaries. In 1905, concessions to the contrary notwithstanding, the czarist autocracy prevailed over the demands of the moderates and the radicals; in 1917, czarism gave way to a moderate regime that was in turn overthrown by Bolshevik radicals. The two revolutions are nevertheless similar in some respects. Both began when Russia was severely weakened by military disasters in unsuccessful wars. Both the Russo-Japanese War and World War I underscored long-standing political, social, and economic grievances that could not be redressed within the framework of government then in existence. Both revolutions took place partly because
October Manifesto
Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 24, 1905
Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater By taking over Berlin’s major theater from Adolph L’Arronge, the young director Max Reinhardt was poised to become Germany’s foremost theater artist and entrepreneur. Locale: Berlin, Germany Category: Theater Key Figures Max Reinhardt (Max Goldmann; 1873-1943), Austrian-born actor and director Adolph L’Arronge (1838-1908), German theatrical author and producer Otto Brahm (1856-1912), German theater critic, director, and proponent of naturalism Summary of Event The Deutsches Theater was long the most prestigious commercial theater in Berlin. Owned by impresario Adolph L’Arronge, it had from 1894 on, under the direction of Otto Brahm, become Germany’s aesthetically and socially most progressive theatrical venue, championing the work of Henrik Ibsen and naturalist playwrights such as Gerhart Hauptmann. In 1904, L’Arronge refused to extend Brahm’s contract, as L’Arronge believed that naturalism was giving way to a new, lusher Impressionist style associated closely with the then thirty-one-year-old director Max Reinhardt. Reinhardt had studied acting in his native Vienna before he joined Brahm’s theater in 1894. There he became steeped in Brahm’s ensemble style and gained an understanding of the literary qualities of the drama. He found Brahm’s vision too confining, however, and in 1901 Reinhardt first branched out with a satirical cabaret named Schall und Rauch (sound and smoke), which in 1902 mutated into the Kleines Theater. In 1903, he found backers to buy the Neues Theater, where he began a string of successful productions as a director with Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande (pb. 1892; Pelléas and Mélisande, 1894). In 1905, L’Arronge, out of commercial as much as artistic considerations, offered Reinhardt the direction of the Deutsches Theater with a long-term lease. When it became clear to L’Arronge that Reinhardt planned major renovations to update the aging theater (which was constructed in 1883) and to incorporate state-of-the-art scene technology such as a revolving stage and a cyclorama, the producer agreed to sell the property to Rein456
hardt. L’Arronge’s condition was that Reinhardt give up his two other venues, so as to prevent the accumulation of a theater monopoly. In fact, the acquisition of the Deutsches Theater was the first step for Reinhardt in the creation of a commercial theater empire that dominated Berlin until 1932. Although Reinhardt signed the purchase contracts on November 24, 1905, his first production at his new theater premiered on October 19 of that year. The inaugural production, a play by the Romantic dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, was not well received. Reinhardt’s first great commercial success at the Deutsches Theater came later that year with a production of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (pr. c. 1596-1597) that enjoyed more than two hundred performances. Although he had been a director for only four years, by the time he took over the Deutsches Theater Reinhardt was hailed as the next great German visionary of the theater. His reputation was such that audiences flocked to his productions
Max Reinhardt. (Library of Congress)
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soon unhappy with its limitations. In 1906, he opened an adjacent three-hundred-seat chamber theater, the Kammerspiele, a concept that proved trendsetting in Europe (inspiring, for example, the creation of August Strindberg’s Intimate Theater in Stockholm). In 1919, Reinhardt finally realized his dream of building a “theater of five thousand” with his gigantic Grosses Schauspielhaus. After fifteen years at the helm, in 1920 Reinhardt turned over the direction of his Berlin theaters to his longtime dramaturge Felix Hollaender so that he could concentrate on his activities in Salzburg, Austria. Even though he regained control of the theaters nine years later (only to surrender them again to the Nazis in 1933), the formative Reinhardt era in Berlin had come to a close. Significance Reinhardt’s acquisition of the Deutsches Theater laid the foundation for his considerable influence on the modern theater. Reinhardt demonstrated that even during extremely difficult economic times, challenging literary theater could exist and thrive within a commercial framework. Reinhardt took pride in never having accepted subsidies, and even throughout wartime and periods of inflation, he never compromised his artistic standards. Reinhardt’s literary taste was eclectic, and he brought to the stage of the Deutsches Theater plays of every era and every nation, creating a veritable world theater. From the first, he provided an outlet for young and at times risqué work such as Frank Wedekind’s tragicomedies of sex and Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (pb. 1893), and he developed an audience for Maeterlinck and Strindberg in Germany. His work with the neo-Romantic Austrian dramatist Hugo von Hofmannsthal constituted perhaps his most symbiotic and enduring collaboration. He attended equally to the classical repertoire and to the writers of the avant-garde. In the 1913-1914 season, he directed a highly acclaimed cycle of ten Shakespearean plays (the cycle idea has since been imitated many times, including in the 1980’s by Joseph Papp in New York and Ariane Mnouchkine in France). No achievement at the Deutsches Theater was more influential, however, than Reinhardt’s productions of a number of new expressionist plays under the heading “Das junge Deutschland” (young Germany) from 1917 to 1920. These plays, many mixing angry and feverish condemnations of war with ecstatic cries for human brotherhood, gave rise to a new, stark visual style to which Reinhardt’s scenographer Ernst Stern and his actors proved more than equal. The Deutsches Theater was instrumental in 457
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(the auditorium had been duly enlarged as well), and he could afford to stage only five new plays during his first season. His overwhelming success as an artist was complemented by his acute business sense and by his good fortune in having a younger brother, Edmund, to take care of the day-to-day running of his affairs. The remodeling of the Deutsches Theater, with the addition of a revolving stage more than fifty feet across and a sophisticated lighting system, bore witness to Reinhardt’s innovative aesthetic concepts, in particular his insistence on plasticity instead of scene painting. Reinhardt’s idea at the time was to use the revolving stage both as an efficient means of changing scenery and as a dramaturgical tool. His aversion to painted scenery had been kindled by his exposure to the new theorists of scene design; in particular, he was influenced by the writings of Adolphe Appia and the bold scenic experiments of Edward Gordon Craig and Georg Fuchs. Earlier in 1905, still at his Neues Theater, Reinhardt had directed a celebrated production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (pr. c. 1595-1596) set entirely on a revolving stage. (The play became a signature piece for Reinhardt; he directed it twelve times on the stage and finally on film for Warner Bros. in 1935.) This production, which played more than three hundred times and was revived in 1913, featured a fully articulated forest set that virtually defined the early, neo-Romantic Reinhardt style: lavishly poetic and illusionistic, with a kind of magical playfulness that fused realistic and symbolistic elements. In early October, 1905, Reinhardt opened an acting school that was physically and administratively connected to the Deutsches Theater. Himself an actor, Reinhardt always emphasized the centrality of the actor to his theater (“It is to the actor and to no one else that the theater belongs”) and was acknowledged as a great teacher. At the Deutsches Theater, he succeeded in assembling Germany’s best performers, including Max Pallenberg and Albert Bassermann, and in training a new generation that dominated the German stage for years: Tilla Durieux, Gertrud Eysoldt, Friedrich Kayssler, Alexander Moissi, Paul Wegener, and many others studied with him. It became an honor to be known as a “Reinhardt actor.” In spite of the alterations, the Deutsches Theater was a conventional proscenium-stage theater that seated an audience of approximately one thousand. Although it remained the center of his growing empire (which some referred to as the “Reinhardt Machine” because of its technical sophistication and sheer size), Reinhardt was
Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater
Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater the breakthrough of expressionism as a theatrical form. In addition, according to film historian Lotte Eisner (The Haunted Screen, 1952), the German silent films of the 1920’s, from Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) to Metropolis (1927), would have been unthinkable without these Reinhardt productions. Although Reinhardt largely followed his own instincts in matters of programming, his theaters employed an army of dramaturges (literary managers), the most important of whom were Felix Hollaender and Arthur Kahane at the Deutsches Theater. That the institution of the dramaturge has become virtually standard in the European theater today is a consequence of Reinhardt’s respect for the literary text. Ironically, some of Reinhardt’s most severe later critics and directorial opponents, such as Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, briefly worked as dramaturges for him in the 1920’s. In his restless search for new venues, Reinhardt might justifiably be called a pioneer of environmental theater. In effect, he attempted to find a suitable spatial arrangement for each play he directed. Because the Deutsches Theater was conventionally configured, he staged intimate and poetic plays in the Kammerspiele, where every small gesture or whisper was perceptible. Productions calling for grand tableaux, great pathos, and surging masses, such as Greek tragedies and historical spectacles, occupied the Grosses Schauspielhaus. Reinhardt also transcended the theater space altogether, first by letting his actors spill into the auditorium in a 1911 production of Oedipus Rex, then by transposing his plays into congenial settings. For example, he turned London’s Olympia exhibition hall into a giant Gothic cathedral for a 1911 presentation of the pantomime The Miracle by Karl Vollmoeller, staged Hofmannsthal’s Everyman adaptation in front of the Salzburg cathedral in 1920, had Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (pb. 1808) take place on a life-sized city set (the “Fauststadt”) built into an open-air riding arena in 1933, and realized Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice on a Venetian square in 1934. Although such experiments were then not widely imitated, this amplification of theatrical possibilities set precedents that found their fulfillment especially in the avant-garde theater movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Undoubtedly, Reinhardt’s greatest influence was on the idea of directing in the twentieth century. He is perceived by many as the avatar of the age of the director. Together with the Russian Konstantin Stanislavsky— whose disposition was quite different—Reinhardt set the 458
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 guidelines for the profession. Although he was not the first director of international stature, Reinhardt became a truly European director (his productions, particularly the famed Miracle, traveled abroad frequently). He finally even exerted considerable influence on the theater scene in the United States, both before and after his emigration to that nation in 1938. Among the theater artists directly inspired by Reinhardt were Harley Granville-Barker in England and Robert Edmond Jones and Lee Simonson in the United States. It is noteworthy that prior to Reinhardt’s time, the name of a play’s director was rarely even mentioned in theater reviews. The complete professionalization of the directorial office is largely Reinhardt’s achievement. His career marks the transition from the nineteenth century stage manager, who was concerned with little more than the technical problems of the production, to the modern-day regisseur, who exercises total artistic control. In that sense, a direct line can be construed between Reinhardt and more recent directors such as Peter Brook, Peter Stein, and Peter Sellars. Reinhardt’s productions were meticulously prepared and planned out. Before rehearsals began on a play, Reinhardt created a prompt book in which he set down every music and light cue, indicated every tone of voice and gesture for speeches, and sketched ground plans marking entrances and exits. He often worked over a prompt book several times. Some of these books are still in existence today, and each represents an inventory of Reinhardt’s ideas about the play as well as a kind of “score” of atmospheric, psychological, and technical details for its staging. Few directors have modeled themselves explicitly on Reinhardt, who proclaimed no methodology of his own. His strength and authority as a director seemed to flow from his personality, not from theories. In rehearsal, the shy Reinhardt was often silent, but actors attested to his catalytic ability to summon from them depths of feeling of which they were themselves unaware. What emerges from Reinhardt’s scattered writings is a high regard for the theater as a place of almost religious importance in which humans are given the necessary freedom to play. During his years at the Deutsches Theater, Reinhardt was not without his critics. The sumptuousness and unashamed theatricality of his often baroque spectacles and his distaste for politics did not sit well with those who saw the theater as a medium for ideological agitation and activism. Bertolt Brecht’s famous condemnation of the “culinary” bourgeois theater and his development of an alternative, “epic” form were clearly provoked by his exposure to Reinhardt fare. Yet even Reinhardt’s critics
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 maintained a core of respect for the man who was dubbed “the great magician” of the theater. —Ralf Erik Remshardt Further Reading Braun, Edward. “Max Reinhardt in Germany and Austria.” In The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. 1982. Reprint. London: Methuen, 2003. Braun gives Reinhardt shorter shrift than he deserves in this chapter, but taken in the context of the whole book, the essay manages to position Reinhardt within the history of the profession. Recommended strictly as introductory reading. Garten, Hugh F. Modern German Drama. London: Methuen, 1959. Discusses Reinhardt’s work in the context of German neo-Romanticism. Gives information about the playwrights with whom Reinhardt worked. Reinhardt, Gottfried. The Genius: A Memoir of Max Reinhardt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Rather chatty but very readable narrative of Reinhardt’s life by his son Gottfried, himself a theater and film director. Gives personal insight into Reinhardt’s later career and life (Gottfried was not born until 1913), simultaneously humanizing the director and contributing to his myth. Sayler, Oliver M., ed. Max Reinhardt and His Theater.
Sinn Féin Is Founded New York: Brentano’s, 1924. Although dated by virtue of having been published almost twenty years before Reinhardt’s death, this book compiles translations of important early essays and materials on Reinhardt, mostly written by collaborators of the director and sympathetic critics. Coinciding with Reinhardt’s sensational 1924 American tour of the pantomime The Miracle, the book was later (1926) put out in an edition that included the entire prompt book and color plates of scene and costume designs. Styan, J. L. Max Reinhardt. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982. The first book-length study of Reinhardt in English. Provides a wellresearched and useful overview of Reinhardt’s many theatrical activities but is too brief to do Reinhardt’s work full justice. The structure is thematic rather than chronological and touches on the major productions. Well illustrated. Includes a complete list of Reinhardt productions. See also: Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals.
November 28, 1905
Sinn Féin Is Founded
Locale: Dublin, Ireland Categories: Colonialism and occupation; organizations and institutions; social issues and reform Key Figure Arthur Griffith (1872-1922), Irish journalist and nationalist political organizer Summary of Event Arthur Griffith was born in Dublin and was educated by the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers. He began his career as a journalist by working as a printer, his father’s
trade, as a very young man. Barely in his teens, while working for the Irish Independent newspaper, Griffith was introduced to the Young Ireland Society, a popular organization dedicated to reviving the political and cultural national separatist spirit of the original Young Irelanders of the 1840’s. At about the same time, he joined the underground and largely moribund Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood (IRB; later renamed the Irish Republican Brotherhood), sometimes known as the Fenians, which was dedicated to the use of violence to sever Ireland’s political ties to England. Griffith joined a third nationalist group, the Gaelic League, shortly after its founding in 1893. This group devoted itself to establishing a Celtic or Gaelic cultural identity—including the use of the Gaelic language—around which a new Irish state might develop. All of these organizations sought an independent political existence for Ireland, but none of them had a politi459
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Dismayed by the failure of both the formal politics of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party and the violence of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, Arthur Griffith created first Cumann na nGaedheal and then Sinn Féin to gather and galvanize the varied Irish nationalist cultural and political movements.
Sinn Féin Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sinn Féin’s Leaders In 1923, several members left Sinn Féin and formed the Cumann na nGaedheal, and Eamon de Valera left the party in 1926 to form Fianna Fáil. The party remained intact until 1970, when it divided into two factions: Official Sinn Féin (now known as the Workers Party) and Provisional Sinn Féin (commonly known as Sinn Féin). The leaders of Sinn Féin and their years of leadership are listed below. Arthur Griffith Eamon de Valera John Joseph O’Kelly Brian O’Higgins Michael O’Flanagan Cathal Ó Murchadha Margaret Buckley Pádraig Mac Lógáin Tomás Ó Dubhghaill Pádraig Mac Lógáin Tomás Mac Giolla Ruairí Ó Brádaigh Gerry Adams
1908-1917 1917-1926 1926-1931 1931-1933 1933-1935 1935-1937 1937-1950 1950-1953 1953-1954 1954-1962 1962-1970 1970-1983 Beginning 1983
cal presence at the London-based seat of the United Kingdom in Westminster. Parliamentary politics in Ireland was virtually monopolized by the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which was headed by John Redmond. The party had an aging and increasingly ineffective political voice that was increasingly dependent on English reassurances that home rule—the establishment of a separate Irish government subordinate to Britain—was imminent. The nationalist groups of the 1880’s and 1890’s rejected these halfway measures and despised the IPP’s impotence, but they produced no viable alternative. More moderate than not, Griffith had been drawn to the IPP before the political humiliation, fall, and death of its great leader Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891. He sank even deeper roots in the Irish cultural movements, whose members formed his circle of friends. When the South African Boers, whites of Dutch extraction, began their war with the English colonial government in the later 1890’s, Griffith sailed to join the fray. After his brave conduct on behalf of the Boer cause, Griffith returned to Dublin in 1898. This was the centenary of the storied Irish Rebellion of 1798, and in the spirit of the movement, he and William Rooney, a writer and member of the Celtic Literary Society, founded a newspaper named for the 1798 rebels called the United Irishman. Its pages 460
were filled with militant nationalist sentiment that harked back to earlier periods of rebellious activity and voiced contemporary dissatisfaction with feckless politicians and the impotent cultural movement. Griffith demanded nothing less than an Irish republic and called for a gathering of all the nationalist organizations into one party centered on this goal. Although he did not reject parliamentary politics altogether, he condemned the dangling carrot of home rule. The United Irishman supported the Boers, the proBoer Irish Transvaal Committee, and the Irish Brigade of John MacBride, with whom Griffith had fought. It also preached resistance to English efforts to recruit Irish soldiers. Among many Irish, however, this last stance was unacceptable, since many families had sons and brothers fighting for Great Britain in South Africa. Despite a lack of wide popular support, Griffith used the Irish Transvaal Committee as a nucleus around which he created a new organization, Cumann na nGaedheal (League of the Gaels). Griffith gave the league a broad charge. He sought to promote Irish history, culture, and language study, using the Gaelic League and Irish sports organizations such as the Gaelic Athletic League as models, and he also aimed at promoting Ireland’s economic development and independence in a manner similar to that of the IRB and Ulster’s later nationalist Dungannon Clubs. Cumann was to be an amalgamation of as many of the existing cultural nationalist groups as possible. These included the Celtic Literary Society and the early feminist Daughters of Ireland, which had been recently founded by John MacBride’s fiery wife Maud Gonne. The Gaelic League and IRB were supportive, but they remained aloof. Symbolically, the league’s first president, elected at its first public convention in November, 1900, was the old Fenian John O’Leary, and John MacBride was chosen as vice president. The organization adopted the Gaelic motto first coined by economic nationalists in the 1880’s and later adopted by the Gaelic League: Sinn Féin, which translates as “we ourselves” or “ourselves alone.” Griffith insisted on having no exclusionary principles for membership, although some wanted to set requirements for ethnicity (Gaelic or Anglo-Irish), command of Gaelic, or dedication to violence. Despite the wide net, Cumann had few members, although its main voice, the United Irishman, had thirty thousand subscribers and many more readers. At Cumann’s Third Convention, Griffith announced its first positive political plank: the establishment of a dual monarchy for Britain and Ireland that would mirror that established by the Hungarians in the 1860’s in the
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Significance From these rather inauspicious beginnings, Sinn Féin grew into a powerful force that supported the drive for independence from 1916 to 1922. In the 1910’s, its identification with violent republicanism earned the rebels of the 1916 Easter Rising the pejorative nickname
“shinners.” In 1918, when the newly declared Irish Republic held general elections led by Eamon de Valera, Sinn Féin garnered nearly half a million votes and 73 of the 105 seats. Sinn Féin’s connection with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) helped it survive the Irish war for independence in the early 1920’s, which ended with the Treaty of Westminster. The civil war that followed, which pitted party members against each other, left deep and splintering ruptures. Once the fighting had stopped, the majority (protreaty Sinn Féin members) formed the core of the new Cumann na nGaedheal party, which was headed by William T. Cosgrave after 1923, while the opposition, led by de Valera, emerged as Fianna Fáil in 1926. In the six counties of Northern Ireland, the party coalesced with the IRA, which remained relatively active there and agitated for union with the southern Republic. In the wake of the demonstrations for civil rights and resultant violence in the late 1960’s, Sinn Féin reemerged as a radical political party associated with the IRA, Catholic nationalism, and Marxist critiques of society and politics. In 1970, it split once again, into an Official Party of constitutional Marxists and a Provisional Party (sometimes known as the IRA’s “political wing”) directly associated with the IRA and its republican ideology. —Joseph P. Byrne Further Reading Feeny, Brian. Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. A popular and complete history that discusses the early Sinn Féin as an example of a popular-front nationalist movement. Kee, Robert. The Green Flag. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. Vigorous narrative history of the roots and flowering of the party in the context of the failures of contemporary Irish political and cultural movements. Younger, Calton. Arthur Griffith. Dublin: Gill, 1981. The standard and most readily available biography of Sinn Féin’s founder. See also: Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill; 19201921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; Mar. 9, 1932: De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil.
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Austrian Empire. The monarch would essentially wear two crowns: one in Westminster and another as monarch in Dublin. Although this fell short of true independence, it went well beyond home rule and provided a distinctive and potentially popular position for Griffith’s organization. In 1904 he published the successful Resurrection of Hungary, in which he outlined a plan for a new Irish parliament, one that would consist of the 103 members then sitting at Westminster and of new representatives drawn from across Ireland. At about the same time, he created a political party, the National Council, which was to challenge not only British authority but IPP candidates as well. The impetus for the new party’s introduction was provided by a visit to Dublin by King Edward VII, an event that Cumann and the new party vociferously protested. As a way of presenting the party, Griffith publicized the dual-monarchist model in the pages of United Irishman and in his book The Sinn Féin Policy (1904). The National Council grew, and by January, 1905, it could hold a General Council of County Councils, at which the delegates called for the implementation of Griffith’s plan, still generally called the “Hungarian Policy.” Beginning in May, this rather un-Irish moniker was replaced by the title “Sinn Féin.” At the National Council’s First Convention, which opened in Dublin on November 28, 1905, delegates adopted the slogan, and the Sinn Féin party was born. To reinforce the fledgling party and its connections with Cumann, Griffith changed the name of the United Irishman to Sinn Féin in 1906, after Liberal Party victories in England all but ensured the tabling of home rule for the foreseeable future. This neutralized the IPP and weakened its appeal, creating what should have been a power vacuum. Indeed, an increasingly wide circle of disaffected cultural nationalists and even republicans were drawn to Sinn Féin, and this in turn led to a revitalization of the IRB in 1907. By 1908, however, Sinn Féin candidates had won only one election, and in 1909 the party agreed not to challenge the IPP in the 1910 elections.
Sinn Féin Is Founded
Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December, 1905
Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion George Washington Crile performed the first artery-tovein blood transfusion and developed a device that established the technique as a practical surgical procedure. Locale: Cleveland, Ohio Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology Key Figures George Washington Crile (1864-1943), American surgeon, author, and brigadier general in the U.S. Army Medical Officers’ Reserve Corps Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), French surgeon Samuel Jason Mixter (1855-1926), American surgeon Summary of Event It is impossible to say when and where the idea of blood transfusion first originated, although descriptions of this procedure are found in ancient Egyptian and Greek writings. The earliest documented case of a blood transfusion is that of Pope Innocent VII in April, 1492. The pope, who was gravely ill, received transfusions of the blood of three young boys. As a result, all three boys died, and the procedure did not bring any relief to the pope. Evidence from the centuries that followed includes occasional descriptions of blood transfusions, but it was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that the idea of transfusion gained popularity following William Harvey’s publication of his discovery of the circulation of the blood in 1628. In the medical thought of those times, blood transfusion was considered to have a nourishing effect on the recipient. In many early experiments, the human recipient received animal blood, usually from a lamb or a calf. Blood transfusion was tried as a cure for many different diseases, mainly those that caused hemorrhages, but also other medical problems and even marital problems. Blood transfusions were dangerous procedures, causing many deaths of both donor and recipient as a result of excessive blood loss, infection, passage of blood clots into the circulation of the recipients, passage of air into the blood vessels (air embolism), and transfusion reaction as a result of incompatible blood types. In the midnineteenth century, blood transfusions from animals to humans stopped after scientists discovered that the serum of one species agglutinates and dissolves the blood cells of other species. A sharp drop in the use of blood transfusion came with the introduction of physiologic 462
salt solution in 1875. Salt solution was simple to use and safer than blood. In 1898, when George Washington Crile began his work on blood transfusions, the major obstacle he faced was the problem of blood clotting during transfusions. He realized that salt solutions were not helpful in severe cases of blood loss, when there is a need to restore the patient to consciousness, steady the heart action, and raise the blood pressure. At that time, he was experimenting with indirect blood transfusions by drawing the blood of the donor into a vessel and then transferring it into the recipient’s vein by tube, funnel, and cannula, the same technique used in infusion of saline solution. The solution to the problem of blood clotting came in 1902 when French surgeon Alexis Carrel developed the technique of surgically joining severed blood vessels (anastomosis). Crile learned this technique from Carrel and used it to anastomose the peripheral artery in the donor to a peripheral vein of the recipient. Because the transfused blood remained in contact with the inner lining of the vessels, blood clotting did not occur. Crile thought that blood transfusion would be an effective method of treating hemorrhage and shock, unlike the infusion of saline solution. He started experimenting with blood transfusions on dogs in the Laboratory of Surgical Research of Western Reserve University in 1904, and he performed the first direct human blood transfusion in December, 1905. The patient, a thirty-five-yearold woman, was transfused by her husband but died a few hours after the procedure. In his autobiography, Crile wrote, “This was the first case in which . . . a transfusion of blood by direct anastomosis of the vascular system of one human being to another was ever attempted.” The second transfusion, and the first successful one, was performed on August 8, 1906. The patient, a twentythree-year-old male, suffered from severe hemorrhage following surgery to remove kidney stones. After all attempts to stop the bleeding were exhausted with no results and the patient was dangerously weak, transfusion was considered as a last resort. One of the patient’s brothers was the donor. Following the transfusion, the patient showed remarkable recovery and was strong enough to withstand surgery to excise the kidney and stop the bleeding. When his condition deteriorated a few days later, another transfusion was done. This time, too, he showed remarkable improvement, which continued until his complete recovery.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
both recipient and donor were at risk; and second, it necessitated the sacrifice of the donor’s artery. Significance Crile’s method was the preferred method of blood transfusion for a number of years. Following the publication of his book on transfusion, several modifications to the original method were published in the medical journals of the time. In 1913, Edward Lindeman developed a method of transfusing blood by simple needle puncture, making transfusion for the first time a nonoperative procedure. This method allowed medical personnel to measure the exact quantity of blood transfused. It also allowed a donor to serve in multiple transfusions. This development opened the field of transfusions to all physicians, and the elimination of the need to sacrifice an artery in the process of transfusion rapidly increased the number of willing donors. Lindeman’s needle-andsyringe method also eliminated another major drawback of direct blood transfusion: the need for donor and recipient to be in close proximity. In April, 1915, American surgeon Richard Lewisohn developed the citrate transfusion, later known as Lewisohn’s method. Lewisohn showed that mixing low doses of citrate solution with blood could prevent the blood from clotting without making it toxic for the recipient. This development made indirect blood transfusions a practical method. During World War I, the citrate method became the standardized practice in the treatment of military personnel. Blood transfusions were applied for the first time by a large, specially trained transfusion team, with the result that the lives of many wounded soldiers were saved. In the 1940’s, the method of preserving blood with citrate was refined and modified. Acid citrate dextrose was developed, which made possible the preservation of red cells in whole blood for up to twenty-one days. This development made practical the collection, storage, and distribution of blood. It enabled transfusion medicine to fulfill its lifesaving potential. Because the importance of blood group compatibility had been scientifically established, and given that quick and reliable tests for blood type had been developed, transfusion was considered for a long period to be almost free of risk to the patient. As a result, transfusion practice grew rapidly. For the health care system to be able to realize fully the benefits of transfusion, it was necessary to arrange for a supply of donor blood that would be available at all times. This need gave the push to the establishment of blood banks, in which large quantities of blood are stored in refrigerators. 463
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For his first transfusions, Crile used the Carrel suture method, which required using very fine needles and thread. It was a delicate and time-consuming procedure. At the suggestion of surgeon Samuel Jason Mixter, Crile developed a new method using a short tubal device with an attached handle to connect the blood vessels. He called this the “cannula method of blood-vessel anastomosis.” In this method, 3 to 4 centimeters (a little more than an inch) of the vessels to be connected are surgically exposed, clamped, and cut, just as was done under the previous method. Instead of the blood vessels’ being sutured, however, the recipient’s vein is passed through the tube and then cuffed back over the tube and tied to it. The donor’s artery is then slipped over the cuff. The clamps are opened, and blood is allowed to flow from the donor to the recipient. In order to accommodate different-sized blood vessels, Crile had tubes of four different sizes made, ranging in diameter from 1.5 to 3 millimeters (0.06 to 0.12 inch). Still, even after Crile’s method was accepted, blood transfusion continued to be a procedure performed only by a surgeon in an operating room. It required a full operating room staff, with two assistants, three nurses, and an orderly. Both donor and recipient were sedated with morphine, and local anesthesia was applied to the surgery site. Although some of the risks of earlier transfusions were greatly reduced as a result of surgical and sterile technique, blood transfusion was neither a safe nor a simple procedure. In 1900, Karl Landsteiner first reported the discovery of three different blood groups—A, B, and C (later renamed O)—and the agglutinating effect that occurs when incompatible blood groups are mixed. It took eleven years before cross-agglutination was first used as a test before blood transfusion. Crile did not apply this test to his transfusion subjects; therefore, transfusion reaction, sometimes fatal, continued to be a serious risk. Although Crile made some use of laboratory tests before transfusion, he did not consider them reliable. He wrote, “In the interpretation of results and their clinical application, experience has shown that the occurrence of hemolysis in vitro before transfusion does not necessarily indicate that it will occur in the vascular system of the recipient after transfusion.” This conclusion, published in Crile’s most authoritative book on transfusion, led many physicians to overlook the importance of compatibility tests before transfusion. Direct blood transfusion had two additional disadvantages: First, Crile’s method did not allow for an accurate measurement of the amount of blood transfused, thus
Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion
Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion Among the major developments that occurred in transfusion medicine following World War II were methods for separating and preserving the formed elements of blood—methods for freezing, thawing, and washing blood cells. These developments enabled the use of transfusions to support patients undergoing more aggressive therapy. In the 1980’s, transfusion medicine faced its most serious challenge since the days of Crile with the discovery that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be transmitted by blood. Major efforts were undertaken to make blood transfusion a safe mode of therapy once again. —Gershon B. Grunfeld Further Reading Bernheim, Bertram M. Adventure in Blood Transfusion. New York: Smith & Durrell, 1942. A fascinating book about the personal experience of Bernheim, a professor of surgery at The Johns Hopkins Medical School, with blood transfusion. Bernheim was the first to apply and modify the Crile method at his hospital in 1909. Illustrated. Crile, George Washington. “Direct Transfusion of Blood in the Treatment of Hemorrhage.” Journal of the American Medical Association 47 (November, 1906): 1482-1484. A short but very influential article in the modern history of blood transfusion. This and “The Technique of Direct Transfusion of Blood” are the first published reports of Crile’s experiments with animals and his clinical cases. They contain the first detailed descriptions of the Crile method of direct blood transfusion and the patients Crile treated. _______. George Crile, an Autobiography. Edited by Grace Crile. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1947. This book, edited by Crile’s daughter, is recommended for those interested in the life of George Crile, one of the most prominent American surgeons at the beginning of the twentieth century. Among Crile’s many other achievements, it discusses the first direct blood transfusion. Illustrated and indexed.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. Hemorrhage and Transfusion: An Experimental and Clinical Research. New York: D. Appleton, 1909. This book is divided into two major parts: The first is an examination of the problem of hemorrhages, and the second is dedicated to a detailed study of blood transfusions. Provides a thorough examination of the different aspects of blood transfusion, stressing the pioneering stage at which this technique stood in 1909. Includes many descriptions of experiments with dogs in addition to exact explanations of the two major techniques of direct blood transfusion. Illustrated. _______. “The Technique of Direct Transfusion of Blood.” Annals of Surgery 46 (September, 1907): 329-332. This and “Direct Transfusion of Blood in the Treatment of Hemorrhage” contain the first detailed descriptions of the Crile method of direct blood transfusion and the patients Crile treated. Maluf, N. S. R. “History of Blood Transfusion.” Journal of the History of Medicine 9 (January, 1954): 59-107. This is one of the best articles on the history of blood transfusion from ancient history up to the early decades of the twentieth century. Provides detailed description of the different and changing applications of blood transfusions as well as the techniques and tools used. Includes many excellent illustrations and an extensive bibliography. Starr, Douglas P. Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. A study of the role blood has played throughout human history. The chapter titled “A Strange Agglutination” includes discussion of the discovery of blood types and the effect of that discovery on blood transfusions. See also: 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups; 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels; Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 9, 1905 Strauss’s SALOME
Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences
Shocks Audiences
When Richard Strauss’s one-act musical drama Salome premiered in Dresden, it shocked many with its eroticism and took music beyond conventional tonality. Locale: Dresden, Germany Categories: Music; theater Key Figures Richard Strauss (1864-1949), German composer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish playwright Ernst von Schuch (1846-1914), German conductor Marie Wittich (1868-1931), German soprano
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Summary of Event Richard Strauss firmly planted opera in the new century with Salome (pr. 1905), the third of his fifteen operas. Strauss opened the door to the explicit depiction of morbid psychological states, probing the dark recesses of the human mind through music. Determined to conquer the operatic stage with his first opera of the twentieth century, Strauss boldly chose Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé (pb. 1893) as the text with which to make his mark; in the process, he created a wholly new type of opera, drawing on the programmatic elements of his tone poems such as Don Juan (1889) and Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1894-1895; Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks) and on the Wagnerian system of leading motives, in which characters announce themselves through distinctive musical themes. To these, he added a quite un-Wagnerian urgency and speed. Although previously successful operas had been based on biblical subjects, none had involved so provocative a setting or so audacious a topic as Salome’s dance for King Herod and the subsequent beheading of John the Baptist. Strauss chose Oscar Wilde’s controversial drama, which conspicuously links female sexuality and death. Wilde’s play was perceived as immoral because of its rendering of a tale of shocking depravity in symbolist poetry, in which the cool surface of events only hints at appalling emotions and behavior. Strauss ignored the artificial beauty of the poetry in favor of a full-blooded musical depiction of the shocking behavior at the court of King Herod. Wilde’s play came to Strauss’s attention some time after its German premiere in Breslau in 1901; the Breslau performance was followed by successful performances in Berlin. Strauss adapted Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the play (minus roughly 40 percent of Wilde’s original text).
At its most basic level, the opera concerns the gruesome results of the thwarted will of a spoiled adolescent female who is denied the object of her sexual desire. In the corrupt court of her stepfather, King Herod, where spiritual values are seen as incomprehensible, Salome is accustomed to the instant gratification of her materialistic desires. Overwhelmed with desire for the visionary prophet Jokanaan (the biblical John the Baptist), the spoiled Salome demands his head on a silver platter as her reward for performing a salacious dance for her lustful stepfather. Although Jokanaan rejected her in life, after his death she is determined to kiss his mouth. Horrified by her behavior, Herod calls for her death at the opera’s conclusion. Herod is in some ways the most provocative character in the opera; he is simultaneously voyeur, aesthete, overattentive stepfather, indecisive leader, and stern man of action. In his famous cry, “Salome, tanz für mich” (“Salome, dance for me”), he speaks for the audience as well as himself in demanding instant erotic visual gratification; his mistake is in promising Salome anything she wants in exchange for the dance. Salome, who in the biblical accounts is said merely to have danced to please her mother, is rendered with deep psychological complexity. She is by turns bored, sulking, fascinated to the point of obsession, and appallingly vindictive. Strauss later told one soprano that, to play the part correctly, she should impersonate a sixteen-year-old with the voice of Richard Wagner’s character Isolde from the opera Tristan und Isolde (1859, pr. 1865). None of Herod’s vulgarly materialistic rewards for her dancing (such as jewels and peacocks) can dissuade her from her goal, and she eventually makes seven separate demands for the head of the prophet, based on two musical themes. The twin climaxes of the opera are Salome’s notorious dance of the seven veils, in which exhibitionistic actions take the place of words, and her long concluding aria, known as the “Schlussgesang” (final song), which reflects Strauss’s lifelong emphasis, as an opera composer, on the power of the female voice. The dance consists of a variety of the opera’s musical motives and constitutes the work’s only attempt at “orientalism,” thus satisfying the period’s fondness for exotic operatic ballets, and it also serves as the opera’s prurient climax. The “Schlussgesang” allows Salome to explain in words her fascination with the body, and now the head, of Jokanaan. Salome assumes wrongly of Jokanaan that “if
Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences you had seen me, you would have loved me,” and she asserts the primacy of the erotic and materialistic over the spiritual. Her key words are actually the one statement on which she and the Christian prophet might agree: “The glorious secret of love is mightier than is the secret of death.”
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the clarinet in C-sharp minor but within two measures switches to the major mode; Salome sings her long concluding monologue largely in C-sharp, but Herod’s frightened condemnation of Salome and his call for her violent death are barked out in C minor. Jokanaan, with a simpler musical language that is strikingly different from that of the corrupt Herodians, stays close to his chosen key of C major. Strauss uses short, urgent motives to deSignificance The score of Salome is one of the most dazzling and dispict the seething psychological disturbances about to boil over in such characters as Salome and Herod. When tinctive achievements of twentieth century music, a fact Strauss played through the score of the opera for his ageven Strauss’s harshest detractors admit. Critic Joseph ing father, the latter reportedly complained, “Oh God, Kerman has noted that “the whole is bound together with the greatest skill in a form comparable to that of the symwhat nervous music. It is exactly as if one had one’s trousers full of May bugs.” phonic poem.” Strauss’s score demonstrated the ability The true climax of the opera coincides with Salome’s of the operatic theater to achieve the psychological depth of the late nineteenth century novel and the case histories successful kiss on the mouth of the severed head—a moment rendered by what has often been called the most of Sigmund Freud. appalling chord in all opera, a gruesomely dissonant The score nervously shuttles between the keys of Cexplosion. The sound superbly renders the audience’s sharp and C. The opera opens with a chromatic scale for sense of horror at Salome’s misguided obsession, and it also hints at the main impression that audiences carry away from the opera: that there is a coldness, a clinical detachment, and a lack of empathy at the heart of this fascinating but oddly soulless work. This is not to deny the admiring words of one of Strauss’s best critics, William Mann, who has commented that “Salome is the most brilliant and far-reaching of all Strauss’s works.” Strauss began drafting the score for the opera in September, 1904, and finished the full orchestral score in June, 1905. Ernst von Schuch conducted the world premiere of the opera in Dresden on December 9, 1905. Marie Wittich, who created the role of Salome, allowed a ballet dancer to perform the dance of the seven veils, although at later performances she undertook the dance herself. Salome reached Berlin on December 5, 1906, and had its first performance outside Germany in Turin (in Italian) on December 22, 1906. Capitalizing on the already scandalous reputation of the opera, Heinrich Conreid, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, staged the first American performance of Salome as part of the Metropolitan’s own annual benefit, at doubled prices, on January 22, 1907. The outcry of the New York press, typified by the complaint of a critic from the New York Sun that “the whole story American soprano Marcella Craft in costume as the title character in wallows in lust, lewdness, bestial appetites, and Richard Strauss’s opera Salome, in which she appeared in Munich in abnormal carnality,” limited the first American 1910. (Library of Congress) production to a single performance. No further 466
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Strauss operas were heard in New York for seven years, and Salome itself was not readmitted to the Metropolitan Opera until 1934. Strauss’s worldwide success with Salome and Elektra (1909) revitalized German opera and put him in the vanguard of Western music. With his decision to consolidate his style into a voluptuous but markedly more conservative form in his subsequent operas Der Rosenkavalier (pr. 1911; the knight of the rose) and Ariadne auf Naxos (pr. 1912; Ariadne on Naxos), Strauss quickly surrendered his claim to musical progressivism to such younger composers as Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, and Igor Stravinsky. The far greater scandal attending Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps (pr. 1913; The Rite of Spring) allowed audiences to forget how richly Strauss had developed the vocabulary of the late Romantic style. If Strauss slammed the door shut on the leisurely operatic structures of the nineteenth century, such as French grand opera and Wagnerian music drama, he invited further explorations of the psychopathology of the human mind, such as Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (pr. 1925) and Lulu (pr. 1937). Twentieth century operatic composers owe an enormous debt to Strauss, and particularly to Salome, for encouraging opera to explore through music the darker corners of the human experience. —Byron Nelson Further Reading Conrad, Peter. Romantic Opera and Literary Form. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Provocatively uses Salome to support the general thesis that, rather than consolidating and merging words and music, opera demonstrates the antagonism between them. Gilliam, Bryan. The Life of Richard Strauss. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Biography covers
Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences Strauss’s musical development, including his emergence as a tone poet in the late nineteenth century and his work in opera at the beginning of the twentieth century. Kennedy, Michael. Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Large-scale, in-depth biography draws on much previously unpublished material to place Strauss in the context of his times. Kerman, Joseph. Opera as Drama. 50th anniversary rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Kerman’s zestful dismissals of any number of operatic favorites make for enjoyable reading, even when his judgments are amusingly wrongheaded. An example: “No less insensitive than Puccini, Strauss adds an intellectual pretentiousness to Puccini’s more innocent kinds.” Mann, William. Richard Strauss: A Critical Study of the Operas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. One of the best single-volume sources of analysis of each of Strauss’s fifteen operas, written with genuine respect and affection for Strauss. Puffett, Derrick, ed. Richard Strauss: Salome. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Detailed technical analysis of the opera from a musicologist’s viewpoint. Schmidgall, Gary. Literature as Opera. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Includes a fine essay on the transformation of Wilde’s decadent symbolist drama into Strauss’s expressionistic shocker. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences. 1905
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Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass
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Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe designed and manufactured the first practical gyroscopic compass, a device capable of detecting changes in the orientation of a moving vehicle, which greatly enhanced navigation at sea. Locale: Kiel, Germany Categories: Science and technology; inventions; transportation Key Figures Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe (1872-1931), German inventor and manufacturer Léon Foucault (1819-1868), French experimental physicist Elmer Ambrose Sperry (1860-1930), American engineer and inventor Summary of Event The invention of the gyroscopic compass, or gyrocompass, a major step in the development of modern navigational instrumentation, followed naturally from the revolutionary progress in transportation technology that took place during the nineteenth century. Although complex in mathematical detail, the principle of gyroscopic motion is intuitively easy to grasp and to demonstrate. A spinning body such as a wheel tends to retain its orientation with respect to the two axes perpendicular to the plane of rotation, the force required to change its orientation being proportional to the angular momentum of the spinning body. Furthermore, when a disturbing torque is applied, the spinning body reacts by slowly rotating (precessing) in a direction at right angles to the direction of the torque. Gyroscopic effects were employed in the design of various objects long before the theory behind them was formally known. A classic example is a child’s top, which balances, seemingly in defiance of gravity, as long as it continues to spin. Boomerangs and Frisbees derive stability and accuracy from the spin imparted by the thrower. Likewise, the accuracy of rifles improved when barrels were manufactured with internal spiral grooves that caused the emerging bullet to spin. One can get a qualitative impression of the characteristics and strength of gyroscopic force by causing a detached bicycle wheel to rotate rapidly in the vertical plane, then, while holding it, attempting to tip it sideways and to turn in place. Both 468
motions are surprisingly difficult, although there is no impediment to walking in a direction parallel to the spinning wheel. In 1852, the French inventor Léon Foucault built the first gyroscope, a measuring device consisting of a rapidly spinning wheel within concentric rings that allowed the wheel to move freely about two axes. This device, like the Foucault pendulum, was used to demonstrate the rotation of the earth around its axis, as the spinning wheel, which was not fixed, retained its orientation in space while the earth turned under it. The gyroscope had a related interesting property: As it continued to spin, the force of the earth’s rotation caused its axis to precess gradually until it was oriented parallel to the earth’s axis, that is, in a north-south direction. It is this property that enables the gyroscope to be used as a compass. It differs from a magnetic compass in two important ways: It operates independent of the earth’s magnetic field and any magnetic disturbances in the immediate surroundings, and it designates true north (the earth’s axis) rather than magnetic north. Foucault also developed a mathematical analysis of gyroscopic forces. The gyroscope attracted immediate attention as the demonstration of an interesting physical principle and as a popular children’s toy. Gyroscopic forces act to some extent in any moving object with spinning parts; with the development of motorized transportation systems, the magnitude of these forces increased dramatically and became important in vehicle engineering. In bicycles and paddle-wheel steamers, the wheels are oriented so as to act as stabilizers. In early automobiles, the flywheel had to be reoriented when it was discovered that the original orientation inhibited steering. (Unlike a train or steamship, an automobile is constantly changing direction, and gyroscopic forces that tend to keep the vehicle moving in a straight line are undesirable.) It became evident that the gyroscopic properties of spinning wheels could be used to advantage in designing vehicles that would resist tilting. In 1906, Otto Schlick patented a design for a gyroscopic stabilizer for steamships in which the stabilizing properties of a rapidly spinning horizontal wheel were used to reduce the pitch and roll of a ship. From 1908 to 1910, Louis Brennan attracted attention with a prototype monorail balanced by an internal gyroscopic stabilizer. The ability of a gyroscope to resist deflection is also
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shaft and also served as one electrical contact for the motor. Reorientation around this shaft enabled the axis of the spinning gyroscope to orient itself along the earth’s axis. The shaft was connected to a compass card visible to the ship’s navigator. Motor, gyroscope, and suspension system were enclosed in a set of gimbals that permitted the apparatus to retain its vertical orientation with respect to the earth despite the pitch and roll of the ship. Later versions introduced an electromagnet to correct for the latitude and direction of motion of the ship. In 1912, Anschütz-Kaempfe and Max Schuler introduced a model with three rotors mounted in an equilateral triangle; this model was less subject to error on a rolling ship and was the principal type used on German submarines during World War I. In 1906, the German navy installed a prototype of the Anschütz-Kaempfe gyrocompass on the battleship Undine and subjected it to exhaustive tests under simulated battle conditions: sailing the ship under forced draft and suddenly reversing the engines, changing the position of heavy turrets and other mechanisms, and firing heavy guns. In conditions under which a magnetic compass would have been worthless, the gyrocompass proved a satisfactory navigational tool, and the results were impressive enough to convince the German navy to undertake installation of gyrocompasses in submarines and heavy battleships, including the battleship Deutschland. Although these developments took place against a background of increasing international tension that culminated in World War I, the Anschütz Gyrocompass Company was a private commercial venture that obtained international patents. No shroud of military secrecy obscured the development of the first gyrocompass, although subsequent refinements, both in Germany and in the United States, were subject to wartime restrictions on strategic information. Elmer Ambrose Sperry, a New York inventor who was intimately associated with pioneering electrical development, was independently working on a design for a gyroscopic compass at about the same time. In 1907, he patented a gyrocompass consisting of a single rotor mounted within two concentric shells, suspended by fine piano wire from a frame mounted on gimbals. The rotor of the Sperry compass operated in a vacuum, which enabled it to rotate more rapidly, and the suspension system eliminated some problems associated with drag and turbulence in the mercury trough used in the suspension system of the Anschütz-Kaempfe compass. The Sperry gyrocompass was in use on larger American battleships and submarines on the eve of World War I. 469
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useful in sensors that detect when a moving object changes course. This property formed the basis for a simple German device (patented in 1898) for keeping a torpedo on course. When the torpedo was set in motion, a rotor was activated simultaneously; if the course of the torpedo changed sufficiently, the rotor exerted pressure on the valve controlling the compressed-air propellant on that side, creating an asymmetrical propulsion force sufficient to turn the torpedo back toward its original course. More sophisticated gyroscopic deflection sensors were installed in the World War II era in V-l and V-2 rockets and in early guided missiles. These sensors communicated with ground bases by radio, enabling navigators on the ground to plot and correct missile courses. From 1904 to 1905, Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe, a German manufacturer working in the Kiel shipyards, became interested in navigation problems of submarines used in exploration under the polar ice cap. By 1905, efficient working submarines were a reality, and it was evident to all major naval powers that submarines would play an increasingly important role in naval strategy. Submarine navigation posed problems, however, that could not be solved by instrumentation designed for surface vessels. A submarine needs to orient itself under water in three dimensions; it has no automatic horizon with respect to which it can level itself. Navigation by means of stars or landmarks is impossible when the submarine is submerged. Furthermore, in an enclosed metal hull containing machinery run by electricity, a magnetic compass is worthless. To a lesser extent, increasing use of metal, massive moving parts, and electrical equipment had also rendered the magnetic compass unreliable in conventional surface battleships. It was logical for Anschütz-Kaempfe to turn to the gyroscopic effect to produce an instrument that would both designate true north and sense changes in the submarine’s orientation. Although simple in principle, production of a gyroscopic compass that would function accurately on a moving ship posed significant engineering problems; namely, the device needed to be suspended in such a way that it was free to turn in any direction with as little mechanical resistance as possible (at the same time being strong enough to withstand the inevitable pitching and rolling of a ship at sea), and it needed a continuous power supply to keep the gyro rotating at high speed. The original Anschütz-Kaempfe gyrocompass consisted of a pair of spinning wheels connected by an electric motor. This apparatus was suspended via a shaft from a float consisting of a hollow ring immersed in mercury, which allowed free rotation around the axis of the
Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass
Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass Significance Both the German and the American naval authorities recognized that the gyrocompass was a valuable navigational tool and were quick to undertake a program of installing the compasses on major submarines and surface vessels. The ability to navigate submerged submarines was of critical strategic importance in World War I, when submarine warfare first played a major role in war at sea. Initially, the German navy had an advantage both in the number of submarines at its disposal and in their design and maneuverability. The German U-boat fleet declared all-out war on shipping by the Allied Powers, and, although German efforts to blockade England and France were ultimately unsuccessful, the tremendous toll inflicted by the U-boats helped maintain the German position and prolong the war. To a submarine fleet operating throughout the Atlantic and in the Caribbean, as well as in near-shore European waters, effective longdistance navigation was critical. Related gyroscopic devices sensing pitch (vertical movement of nose relative to tail), roll, and yaw (horizontal deviations of nose relative to tail) became important in aircraft instrumentation. A World War I-era aircraft pilot had less need of the compass function of a gyroscope than did a submarine captain because the pilot could depend on landmarks for orientation, but a device giving rapid feedback on changes in orientation by the aircraft was a distinct advantage in a battle. Gyrocompasses were standard equipment on submarines and battleships, and, increasingly, on larger commercial vessels during World Wars I and II and the period between the wars. Although refinements were incorporated that made the compasses more accurate and easier to use, the fundamental design differed little from that invented by Anschütz-Kaempfe. Gyroscopic sensors detecting deviations from course were part of the equipment of the German V-1 and V-2 rockets and guided missiles. Two additional devices employing gyroscopic principles are the laser gyroscope and the nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscope. The former employs two laser beams traveling in opposite directions within a rapidly spinning mirrored cavity; differences in the apparent velocity of light in the beam traveling in the direction of spin relative to the beam traveling in the opposite direction produce a change in wavelength, which in turn is used to measure changes in rotational angle. A nuclear magnetic resonance gyro functions because individual atomic nuclei spin; this spin produces the magnetic moment of the nucleus, and externally applied magnetic fields act on 470
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 spinning nuclei in a manner analogous to the effects of gravity and mechanical deflection on a conventional gyroscope. Conventional gyrocompasses continue to be used extensively in marine navigation, and gyroscopic deflection sensors are part of the standard instrumentation of modern aircraft, which are typically equipped with three spring-mounted gyroscopic rotors to detect the amount and speed of deflection in three dimensions. One gyroscopic rotor design suspends the spinning element electrostatically, eliminating drag from mechanical suspension elements. The technology pioneered by Anschütz-Kaempfe and Sperry has enjoyed enduring practical application. — Martha A. Sherwood Further Reading Collins, A. Frederick. “The Gyroscope as a Compass.” Scientific American 96 (April 6, 1907): 294-295. Reports the development of the Anschütz-Kaempfe gyrocompass, with detailed descriptions of the design of the device, illustrations of a preliminary and improved model, and an account of field testing performed by the German navy in 1906 and 1907. Crabtree, Harold. An Elementary Treatment of the Theory of Spinning Tops and Gyroscopic Motion. London: Longmans, Green, 1914. A general reference; gives a good perspective on the increasing importance of gyroscopic motion and devices employing it during the early years of the twentieth century. Includes a simple introduction to the theory of the gyroscope and detailed descriptions of the Anschütz-Kaempfe and Sperry gyrocompasses, the Schick gyroscopic stabilizer, the Brennan monorail, and gyroscopic forces in motor vehicles. Demel, Richard F. Mechanics of the Gyroscope. New York: Macmillan, 1929. An engineering text that explains the theory of the gyroscope and the theory and construction of gyroscopic devices in some detail. Covers both the Anschütz-Kaempfe and Sperry gyrocompasses and the differences between them, with more attention given to the Sperry model. Extensive mathematical treatment of precession errors. “The New Navy Gyroscopic Compass.” Scientific American 106 (June 29, 1912): 588-589. A clear account, with diagrams, of the Sperry gyroscopic compass. Includes a nonmathematical description of the operation of the device and a discussion of the difficulties of using conventional compasses in early twentieth century submarines and battleships. Useful for visualiz-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing the contemporary impact of the discovery of a practical gyroscope. Parson, N. A. Guided Missiles. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958. A nontechnical introduction to guided missiles; includes a section on how a gyroscope functions as a steering device in a radiocontrolled flying object. Rawlings, A. L. The Theory of the Gyroscopic Compass and Its Deviations. New York: Macmillan, 1944. A textbook designed for the engineers of firms manufacturing gyrocompasses and for shipboard personnel responsible for using and maintaining them. Contains
Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements diagrams and descriptions of the Anschütz-Kaempfe gyrocompass and its modifications. Tall, Jeffrey. Submarines and Deep-Sea Vehicles. San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Press, 2002. Highly illustrated history of submarines. The first chapter discusses the pioneers who built and sailed in undersea vehicles, including those who contributed to the technology of navigation. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched; Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar; 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed.
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Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements By studying the interaction between X rays and matter, Charles Glover Barkla succeeded in determining important physical characteristics of X rays and the atomic structure of matter. Locale: University College, Liverpool, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Charles Glover Barkla (1877-1944), English physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), German physicist George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903), British mathematician and physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist and teacher
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Summary of Event For several decades in the nineteenth century, physicists studied cathode rays. For an even longer time, scientists had known of the existence of atoms. Nevertheless, during the last decade of the nineteenth century, scientists still had great difficulty in comprehending the physical nature of either cathode rays or atoms. Apparently, atoms of some chemical elements were heavier and others were lighter. It was not known why. The reason could have been that atoms consisted of different materials or that the heavier ones had more of the same materials. Chemical facts gave clues about the existence of atoms. Cathode rays appeared to be “tentacles” originating from the atom. In December, 1895, a sequence of clues, and tentacles, began to emerge. First, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
reported from the University of Würzburg that he had discovered X rays. In 1896, Antoine-Henri Becquerel announced to the French Academy of Sciences his finding that uranium spontaneously emitted invisible radiation that would blacken a photographic plate yet seemed different from X rays. In 1898, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie detected two new elements that apparently also emitted the same types of radiation. At the same time, in England, Sir Joseph John Thomson made remarkable progress in the study of cathode rays. He startled scientists by announcing his experimental confirmation that these rays consisted of charged particles more than one thousand times lighter than the smallest atom. He declared that these particles were “matter in a new state” and that the chemical elements were made up of matter. By the beginning of the twentieth century, therefore, scientists were confronted with a number of intriguing questions about the nature of X rays, how one could account for radioactivity, and how one could reconcile the apparent endlessness of radioactive emanations with the conservation of energy. It was in this atmosphere of challenging scientific inquiry that Charles Glover Barkla began his scientific career. From 1899 to 1902, he conducted research with Thomson. In 1902, he attended University College in Liverpool and began his lifelong study of X rays. The veteran mathematician and physicist George Gabriel Stokes proposed the “ether pulse” theory about the nature of X rays. He hypothesized that X rays are irregular electromagnetic pulses created by the irregular accelerations of cathode rays when they are stopped by the at-
Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements
Charles Glover Barkla. (Library of Congress)
oms in the target of the X-ray tube. Using this theory, Thomson derived a mathematical formula expressing the scattering of X rays by electrons. Barkla’s first research project was to test Stokes’s and Thomson’s theories experimentally. Five years previously, Georges Sagnac had experimented in France on the absorption of X rays by solids— a phenomenon that is directly related to scattering. Sagnac found that the secondary scattered radiation was of distinctly greater absorbability. Barkla showed that the secondary radiation from light gaseous elements was of the same absorbability as that of the primary beam. He worked on air first, then extended the investigation to hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. He used an electroscope to test for the presence of the secondary radiation, based on the assumption that the amount of ionization should be proportional to the intensity of the radiation passing through the instrument. To check the absorbability of the rays—primary and secondary—Barkla used a thin aluminum plate. He pub472
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lished the results in 1903. At the time, the fact that scattering did not modify the absorbability of the radiation appeared to be strong support for the ether pulse theory. From the same set of experiments, Barkla demonstrated that “this scattering is proportional to the mass of the atom.” This was a highly satisfying result because it supported the theory that the atoms of different substances are different systems of similar corpuscles, where, in the atom, the number is proportional to its atomic weight. These similar corpuscles, according to most physicists of the time, constituted Thomson’s “matter in a new state.” In 1904, Barkla began a new series of experiments that would disclose additional physical characteristics of X rays. Because ordinary light, as the propagation of electromagnetic oscillations, is a transversal wave, it can be polarized relatively easily: When it is scattered in the direction at right angles to the incident (primary) beam, the transverse vibrations constituting the light are confined to a plane perpendicular to the primary beam. Barkla was researching the question of whether X rays could be polarized in the same way so that they could be confirmed as electromagnetic waves. This proved to be a serious challenge. It took Barkla two years to perform the difficult experiment and arrive at a clear conclusion that the scattered beam was highly polarized; thus X rays were most probably transversal waves, like ordinary light. While investigating the intensity in different directions of the secondary radiation, Barkla found that light elements, such as carbon, aluminum, and sulfur, showed marked variation in intensity with direction; calcium showed much less. With iron and even heavier elements, there was practically no difference in intensity in different directions. This salient phenomenon led Barkla to investigate more closely the relation between atomic weight and absorbability. His experiments showed that for light elements, the scattered radiation closely resembled the primary radiation, but for elements heavier than calcium, the scattered radiation was quite different from the primary. When Barkla examined the scattered (secondary) radiation more closely, he found that the secondary radiation from metals contained not only scattered radiation of the same character as the primary but also homogeneous radiation that was characteristic of the metallic element itself. Meanwhile, Barkla also discovered an X-ray phenomenon that was analogous to a discovery made by Stokes: Fluorescent substances fluoresced only when exposed to light of shorter wavelength than that of the fluorescent light emitted by the substances. This is known as
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Stokes’s law. Barkla found that the emission of the homogeneous (secondary) radiation occurred only when the incident X-ray beam was harder than the characteristic radiation itself. Moreover, he found some revealing facts about the homogeneous characteristic radiations. Beginning with calcium and moving toward the heavier elements, the characteristic X-ray radiations form one of two series. From calcium (atomic weight 40) to rhodium (atomic weight 103), there appeared a K series; from silver (atomic weight 108) to cerium (atomic weight 140), there appeared a K series and an L series; from tungsten (atomic weight 184) to bismuth (atomic weight 208), there appeared an L series only. K radiations were softer; L radiations, harder. The heavier the atom, the harder its characteristic radiations. Such phenomena, closely correlating atomic weight to characteristic X rays, showed that the latter must have originated from the atom. In fact, Barkla’s discoveries anticipated the assignment to each chemical element an atomic number, which, in general, was recognized as about one-half the element’s atomic weight.
Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements Bragg created the ionization spectrometer for measuring the exact wavelengths of X rays; Lawrence Bragg derived the influential equation now named after him. The Bragg equation tells at what angles X rays will be most efficiently diffracted by a crystal layer. The second stage of Barkla’s achievements was the discovery that X rays interact with atoms, especially heavy atoms. Henry Moseley used the Bragg spectrometer soon after its introduction to study the characteristic X rays from the atom. With the new, powerful instrument, Moseley turned to Barkla’s line of investigation. Moseley could now measure Barkla’s K series and L series with exactness. Significantly extending such measurements, he made wonderful discoveries that led to what has since been called Moseley’s law: the mathematical formula that relates the X-ray spectrum of an element to its atomic number. Moseley also made a series of verifiable predictions about the periodic table of elements. Tragically, Moseley was killed in World War I. Later, Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn took up the study of X-ray spectroscopy and its interpretation, work for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924. The third stage in Barkla’s achievements was the finding that X rays interact with light atoms—that is, free electrons. Barkla was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1917, and when he delivered his Nobel lecture in 1920, he declared that in the phenomena of scattering, there is strong positive evidence against any quantum theory. Three years later, in 1923, Arthur Holly Compton
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Significance Following these discoveries in 1906, Barkla and other physicists researched interactions between X rays and matter and achieved historic results. These achievements, accomplished from 1909 to 1923, may be categorized in three stages: First, X rays were found to interact with crystal lattices. In 1909, Max von Laue attended the University of Munich and was influenced by Röntgen and mineralogists who informed him of theories on the structure of crystal solids. Von Laue proceeded to comBarkla and the Nobel Prize bine the study of X rays with the In 1917, Charles Glover Barkla received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his disstudy of solid structures. He develcovery of Röntgen radiation of the elements. Before Barkla’s speech at the Nooped a mathematical theory based on bel Banquet, Professor A. Gullstrand, a member of the Nobel Committee for the assumption that crystal lattices Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, explained to the audience could serve as “diffraction gratings” why Barkla’s discovery was so important: (instruments used in optical experiments that demonstrate the wave Professor Barkla! Before it was known that the nature of X-rays is the same as character of light) for X rays. This that of light, with a difference only in wave-length, you had found a form of poidea was experimentally confirmed, larization of those rays, and by your investigation of their absorption you had and that confirmation has been highly developed a form of spectroscopy, before it was known that there is a spectrum in the real sense of the word. You discovered a kind of secondary X-radiation praised, as it opened vast potentials that is independent of the chemical constitution, but characteristic of the elefor studying the nature of X rays and ment, and this characteristic X-radiation, now known as a line spectrum, has the structure of crystal solids. Shortly proved a phenomenon of fundamental importance. after von Laue’s publication of his Source: “Charles Glover Barkla: The Nobel Prize in Physics, 1917—Banquet work in 1912, William Henry Bragg Speech,” in Les Prix Nobel en 1914-1918, edited by Carl Gustaf Santesson and his eldest son, Lawrence Bragg, (Stockholm: Nobel Foundation, 1920). founded the science of crystallography. In particular, William Henry
Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage was to prove the folly of Barkla’s statement. He followed Barkla in experimenting on the comparison of secondary X rays with primary X rays, especially when the former were scattered from light atoms. Compton experimented with the spectrometer and theoretically with the concept of photons; he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1927 for his discovery of the change in wavelength of scattered X rays. —Wen-yuan Qian Further Reading Allen, H. S. “Charles Glover Barkla, 1877-1944.” Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 5 (1947): 341-366. A substantial biography written by a colleague Barkla. Includes a complete list of Barkla’s publications. Suitable for nonspecialists. Beam Line: A Periodical of Particle Physics 25 (Summer, 1995). http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/ pdf/95ii.pdf. Special issue titled “One Hundred Years of X Rays” is devoted to discussion of the history and uses of X rays. Articles include “Early History of X Rays,” “Medical Applications of X Rays,” and “The X-Ray Universe.” Features photographs, diagrams, and reproduced newspaper articles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Beam Line is published by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Forman, Paul. “Charles Glover Barkla.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. This brief biography is forthright in making critical comments on Barkla’s scientific outlook and attitude. Valuable for nonspecialists because of its sharp and accurate comments. Heathcote, Niels Hugh de Vaudrey. Nobel Prize Winners in Physics, 1901-1950. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. Although the “physics” included in this book covers fifty years, the subject matter bears close relevance to Barkla’s discoveries. Michette, Alan, and Sawka Pfauntsch, eds. X-Rays: The First Hundred Years. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Collection of essays published in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of Röntgen’s discovery of X rays. Reviews the history of scientific work related to X rays as well as modern applications. Includes an extensive glossary. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect.
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Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage William Bateson and Reginald Crundall Punnett discovered that certain hereditary characters behave as if they are physically linked, adding one of the important pieces to the puzzle of heredity and the gene theory. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; biology; genetics Key Figures William Bateson (1861-1926), English biologist Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875-1967), English biologist Summary of Event In December, 1903, a six-year partnership began that would lead to the discovery of genetic linkage. William Bateson, a scientist studying heredity, wrote to Reginald Crundall Punnett, a fellow of Gonville and Caius Col474
lege, to invite him to join his research team at Grantchester, Cambridge. The team consisted of a small group of volunteers, and their “laboratory” was the gardens and paddocks surrounding the Bateson house, along with a plot of land on the Cambridge University farm. Bateson offered Punnett the small sum of eighty pounds to join the team, all that Bateson could afford from the few small grants that he received. The letter illustrated the two extremes of the scientific endeavor: the excitement and significance of the experimental work and the severe financial restrictions that plagued Bateson for most of his career. Punnett eagerly accepted, but he refused the eighty pounds, having an income of his own. He was twenty-eight years old at the time, tolerant and friendly. Bateson was forty-two, forceful, and stern. It was a combination that engendered mutual respect. Bateson and Punnett concentrated their efforts on breeding experiments using sweet peas and poultry. They were searching for answers about laws of inheri-
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Mendel’s Law of Segregation Round – pea parent
Wrinkled – pea parent
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Generation 2 Mendel’s law of segregation is demonstrated by an initial cross between true-breeding plants with round peas and plants with wrinkled peas. The round trait is dominant, and the wrinkled trait is recessive. The second generation consists of round-pea plants and wrinkled-pea plants produced in a ratio of 3:1.
Bateson’s first major victory was bringing Mendel’s work to the attention of the English-speaking world. Although Mendel had published his findings in 1866, the work had been buried in the obscure literature until 1900, when it was rediscovered independently by several scientists. As Bateson’s wife recorded the occasion in her memoirs, Bateson became aware of it as he was riding the train to London to deliver a lecture. He had taken along a copy of Mendel’s paper and read it for the first time on the train. Bateson always meticulously planned his lectures, but in this case he was so taken by Mendel’s work that he completely rewrote his presentation in order to incorporate Mendel’s studies. Upon his return home, he had Mendel’s paper translated into English and republished with footnotes, and in the following year he published a book titled Mendel’s Principles of Heredity: A Defence (1902). The book was, in large part, Bateson’s reaction to a fierce attack on Mendelism launched by a 475
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tance, such as how characters of inheritance are distributed among offspring and whether there are predictable patterns. Before they could discover linkage, they had to establish a framework of theory concerning inheritance. Bateson had formulated a number of ideas already. He was convinced that characters are inherited as discrete units and are not “blended” in the offspring, as others were proposing. He called these unit characters “allelomorphs,” a term that survives in shortened form as “alleles,” referring to individual forms of a gene. Bateson also gave the name “genetics” to the field of hereditary science. When Bateson and Punnett started their work, the field of genetics was in its infancy. Built on two great discoveries—Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel’s law of segregation—the field was still awaiting the discovery of the material of inheritance. The work that would lead to linkage was based primarily on Bateson’s fight to get Mendelism recognized. Mendel was an Austrian monk who had pursued scientific studies of peas in the gardens of the monastery in the midnineteenth century. With insight and patience, he discovered that characters of inheritance, such as tall or dwarf, are carried as individual packets of hereditary information. Moreover, information for traits such as tall and dwarf could be carried simultaneously in a single plant and passed on to future generations, even though the plant itself expresses only one of these traits. The expressed trait is said to be “dominant” over the unexpressed, or “recessive,” trait. In the light of modern molecular genetics, these packets of information can be explained as being “genes.” Each trait, such as tall and dwarf, represents a different allelic form of a gene. Genes are carried on chromosomes, which are housed in the nucleus of each cell. Most organisms are “diploid,” carrying two complete sets of chromosomes, one set contributed by the father and the other by the mother. Alleles, therefore, exist in maternally and paternally inherited pairs. In passing the hereditary material to offspring, the organism contributes only one allele from each pair. This is the great law of segregation. When gametes (eggs and sperm) are formed, traits (alleles) for a particular character segregate from each other. A gamete thereby receives only half of the hereditary (genetic) material of the parent. At fertilization, two gametes join, combining their genetic material to make a full complement. In this way, organisms avoid doubling their hereditary material during sexual reproduction. Mendel’s work revealed this law in the absence of any knowledge of chromosomes.
Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage
Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage colleague and formerly close friend, Walter Weldon. Ironically, after the victory with Mendelism, Bateson and Punnett, along with E. R. Saunders, a longtime colleague of Bateson, began to accumulate data that were not in strict accordance with Mendelian principles. Mendel had demonstrated independent sorting of characters during gamete formation. If, for example, a tall plant with round seeds was also a carrier of the recessive traits of dwarf size and wrinkled seeds, the plant made gametes that carried any combination of the two traits—tall with wrinkled, dwarf with round, and so on. This independent sorting occurred only because the characters Mendel had chosen happened to be carried on separate chromosomes. It is chromosomes that sort independently during gamete formation. Characters occurring on the same chromosome, being physically linked, move together. It was this linkage behavior that Bateson, Punnett, and Saunders reported in 1906, although their interpretation did not associate heritable characters with chromosomes. In their breeding experiments with sweet peas, for example, they showed that if plants with purple flowers and long pollen grains were crossed with plants having red flowers and round pollen grains, the two characters were always passed together to the offspring. The characteristic of purple flowers was always passed with long pollen grains and red flowers with round pollen grains. Bateson and Punnett called this linkage “gametic coupling.” They were unaware that it represented physical linkage of alleles by virtue of their being carried on the same chromosome. In fact, although the chromosomal theory of inheritance was being formulated by others at the time, Bateson remained skeptical of it throughout his career. Bateson was the dominant figure in the BatesonPunnett collaboration. His genius in experimentation was not in the novelty of his ideas but in his dogged attention to details. “Treasure your exceptions!” he once said in a lecture at Cambridge. “Exceptions are like the rough brickwork of a growing building which tells that there is more to come and shows where the next construction is to be.” It was this attention to exceptions that led to the discovery of linkage. Linkage would become part of the “rough brickwork” in the chromosomal theory of inheritance. It is ironic, however, that Bateson was blind to the growing building of which his own “brickwork” was a part. Significance It is the nature of science that data can outlive the theories to which they have been applied. In this case, Bateson and Punnett’s discovery of linkage was used by other sci476
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 entists as part of the fabric of incorrect theories. Its connection with the chromosomal theory of inheritance was not immediately understood, although it can be seen now that it lent strong support to the theory. Linkage, in fact, is the manifestation of the physical connection between genes carried on the same chromosome. It helps to verify that the chromosomes are indeed the repository of the hereditary material. At the time, however, few scientists were ready to accept this theory. Even Bateson stated that the idea of particles of chromatin conferring all properties of life surpassed the rational. It was this inability to imagine hereditary material solely as particulate material that prevented the full appreciation of the implications of linkage. The international community of scientists, in general, was divided on theories of inheritance. In France, for example, a strong preference was shown for the Lamarckian view that acquired characteristics could be passed on to offspring. In Germany, scientific sentiment resisted acceptance of the chromosome theory of heredity, preferring the claim that the cytoplasm, which lies outside the nucleus, played the vital role in inheritance. In Denmark, the famous botanist Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen, who rejected Lamarckian views and coined the term “gene,” was unwilling to consider that the gene might correspond to particulate matter in the chromosome. An American scientist, Thomas Hunt Morgan, was the major proponent of the chromosomal theory of inheritance, showing in 1910 that the behavior of chromosomes obeyed the law of segregation and could explain linkage. Yet Morgan was slow to accept Mendelism. Bateson did not accept Morgan’s chromosome theory until 1921, when, after visiting Morgan’s laboratory, Bateson gave it tentative acceptance, only to return to his criticism in his last paper in 1926. The certainty of the connections among Mendel’s principles, linkage, and the chromosomes would not come until 1953, when James D. Watson and Francis Crick finally broke the genetic code. Bateson was fully cognizant of the advantages his work could have for agriculture. If characters within a population could be manipulated through planned breeding, then superior hybrids of cash crops could be produced. Bateson worked hard to convince the English government that this type of research should be supported with government funds. He even developed a strain of sugar beet that would not bolt early and a strain of flax that contained especially long fibers. Government policies did shift, and this marked the beginning of the government’s taking an active role in support of scientific research.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The unraveling of genetic theory also helped to establish the study of eugenics, the manipulation of genes in human populations. Even Bateson, although he never advocated applying eugenics, wondered what biologists would do with the knowledge. He wondered if it could help to produce “healthier, wiser, or more worthy” people. It took the application of eugenics in the horrific experiments of Nazi Germany to still enthusiasm for the idea. That was ample warning that the field of genetics— the science named by Bateson—must never be used to manipulate the genes within a human population through selective breeding. — Mary S. Tyler
etry.” Journal of the History of Biology 6 (1973): 1-36. The main body of this article is fairly technical, but an appended section describes the experimental notebooks of Bateson and Punnett, with photographs of selected pages, including several on which Bateson and Punnett scribbled in the margins wagers they had made on the outcome of certain experiments. Crowther, J. G. British Scientists of the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952. Includes a very readable chapter on Bateson’s life. Discusses Bateson’s scientific work in nontechnical terms, including the discovery with Punnett of linkage. Dunn, L. C. A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 18641939. 1965. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. Summarizes the general history of theories of heredity and places Bateson and Punnett’s work in context. Includes a glossary and a bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. Kevles, Daniel. “Genetics in the United States and Great Britain, 1890-1930.” Isis 71 (1980): 441-455. Provides an excellent summary of Bateson’s professional career and his influence on scientific thought in England and the United States. Mayr, Ernst. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. A monumental work on the history of genetics and evolution. Mayr is a world-famous expert in the field, and his thoughtprovoking prose is as stimulating to the professional in the field as it is accessible to the average reader. Includes a full set of references and an excellent index. Considered a classic in biology. Punnett, Reginald Crundall. “Early Days of Genetics.” Heredity 4 (April, 1950): 1-10. This was an address delivered at the one hundredth meeting of the Genetical Society in Cambridge, England, on June 30, 1949. It is a delightful account of Punnett’s collaborative work with Bateson, with details that reveal the personalities of the two men and the daily routines of their work. Rothwell, Norman V. Understanding Genetics. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. A wellwritten college text that discusses genetics in general, allowing the reader to put linkage into context. Includes an extensive glossary, problem sets with answers, numerous diagrams and photographs, and chapter bibliographies. Sturtevant, A. H. A History of Genetics. 1965. Reprint. 477
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Further Reading Bateson, Beatrice. William Bateson, F.R.S. Naturalist. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1928. A memoir by William Bateson’s wife, written after his death. Includes a number of Bateson’s letters and lectures, with commentary by the author. Bateson, William, E. R. Saunders, and Reginald Crundall Punnett. “Experimental Studies in the Physiology of Heredity.” Reports to the Evolution Committee of the Royal Society, Report III (1906): 1-53. This is the original paper announcing the discovery of linkage. Its long columns of data are testimony to the changes that have occurred in science publishing. Today, journal articles normally include only summarizing graphs and charts of original data. Also, a “Miss” or “Mrs.” was required to identify any woman author; therefore, the second author is identified as “Miss” E. R. Saunders in this paper. Interesting reading for those who seek information on the history of genetics. Bowler, Peter J. The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Documents the importance of Mendelian genetics after 1900 as well as the social and scientific impacts of the rediscovery of Mendel’s work. Provides good background information for an appreciation of Mendelian genetics. Includes an extensive bibliography. Carlson, Elof Axel. Mendel’s Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004. Based heavily on early twentieth century sources, this book traces the roots of genetics in breeding analysis and studies of cytology, evolution, and reproductive biology. Highly illustrated. Cock, A. G. “William Bateson, Mendelism, and Biom-
Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage
Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2001. Summarizes general theories of heredity and helps put Bateson and Punnett’s work into context. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Pun-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map.
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Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process Frederick Gardner Cottrell’s development of the electrostatic precipitator led to the use of this technology to remove particulates and fumes from atmospheric emissions for pollution control. Locale: University of California, Berkeley Categories: Science and technology; inventions; chemistry; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Frederick Gardner Cottrell (1877-1948), American educator and scientist E. S. Heller (fl. early twentieth century), American attorney and businessman Edmond O’Neill (1859-1933), American professor of chemistry Henry East Miller (fl. early twentieth century), American chemist Walter A. Schmidt (1883-1962), American chemical engineer Summary of Event The advent of the Industrial Revolution led to the development of severe air-pollution problems in industrializing nations. Prior to that time, there were periods when coal burning was forbidden in some urban areas, but these restrictions came about mainly for aesthetic reasons. Large-scale industrialization resulted in much more serious environmental problems. By the early 1900’s, various methods of pollution control were available, including the use of “tall stacks” to dissipate pollutants and the use of baghouses to contain particulates through the use of filtering mechanisms very similar to those in vacuum cleaners. Although some success was achieved using these techniques, many pollutant streams could not be treated successfully through these methods. It was evident that new techniques were needed. 478
In 1824, M. Hohlfeld, a German mathematics teacher, first suggested the precipitation of smoke particles by electricity. In the 1880’s, Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge attempted to commercialize this phenomenon. In tests along the Mersey River in England, where the fogs periodically disrupted Liverpool shipping, Lodge employed a single-electrode process to dissipate the fogs. The resulting electrical discharge was sufficient to clear the air within a radius of 15 meters (49.2 feet) around the electrode, the moisture coalescing into small flakes of snow. In 1884, however, when Lodge attempted to apply his ideas at the Dee Bank Lead Works in Willington Quayon-Tyne, Wales, the process failed. As a youth, Frederick Gardner Cottrell exhibited a wide range of interests. During the early 1890’s, when he was in his young teens, he advertised himself as a landscape photographer, printer, electrician, chemist, and telegraph operator. These early enthusiasms, particularly his interest in electricity and electrical apparatus, provided Cottrell with the seed of an idea for one of his most important contributions to science and technology, electrostatic precipitation. The Christmas, 1890, issue of the Boys’ Workshop (a weekly publication that Cottrell edited) contained an article titled “The Progress of Science” that referred to “two very important applications of electricity.” The first application was welding, and the second, alluded to only briefly, was “the deposition of smoke and dust by electrical aid.” Cottrell’s later interest in air-pollution control was sparked in 1905 by the difficulties experienced by the Du Pont plant near Pinole, California, which produced explosives and acids. Sulfuric acid was produced by the newly developed “Mannheim process,” a contact method in which gaseous sulfur dioxide and oxygen are passed through an iron oxide catalyst to produce sulfur trioxide, which is converted to concentrated sulfuric acid. An undesired by-product was arsenic, which poi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 soned the catalyst. Cottrell’s first solution was to develop a centrifuge, a tube 76 centimeters (about 30 inches) long and 3.8 centimeters (about 1.5 inches) in diameter that was rotated at high speed to separate the arsenic from an acid mist. In spite of the success attained in the laboratory, the pilot plant using the centrifuge at Pinole was a dismal failure. Working in his laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, Cottrell pursued another idea. In early 1906, he applied electricity to the problem of sulfuric acid mists. Cottrell’s efforts differed from Lodge’s previous attempts in three major ways: the use of rectified alternating current (AC), the introduction of a “pubescent” discharge electrode, and the application of a negative polarity to the discharge electrode. Cottrell’s first tests required that one of his students learn to smoke a pipe. The pipe smoke was blown into a glass jar containing a pubescent discharge electrode, a cylindrical wire screen around which were wrapped several turns of asbestos sewing twine. The walls of the jar served as the collecting electrode. Subsequently, Cottrell made a miniature sulfuric acid plant from odds and ends around his laboratory and tested the process on acid mist.
When a high voltage was applied across the electrode and the jar sides, electrons were emitted from the highly charged discharge electrode. These electrons then collided with the surrounding gas molecules, ionizing them. The negative gas molecules migrated to the relatively positive collection electrode and, in doing so, collided with and transferred their negative charge to the entrained smoke or sulfuric acid mist particles. The negative smoke, or mist particles, then migrated to the collection electrode, where they were neutralized and collected at the sides and bottom of the jar. Cottrell soon discovered that to handle large volumes of moving gases, it was necessary to use a direct current (DC) rather than alternating current. To attain the high voltages necessary for these tests, he transformed the 120-volt lighting system in the chemistry building to 10,000 volts, then commutated the AC to intermittent DC through a homemade rotating contact maker. To develop and commercialize the process, Cottrell, along with Henry East Miller, E. S. Heller, and Edmond O’Neill, formed two companies, International Precipitation Company and Western Precipitation Company. The former obtained and held all the patents, and the latter was the operating unit. Cottrell then returned to the Du Pont powder works at Pinole for pilot tests, to redeem his failure with the centrifuge. The new precipitator was able to treat successfully 30-60 cubic meters (about 1,0592,119 cubic feet) per minute of gas. Before negotiations regarding licensing of the process could be concluded with the Du Pont plant, Selby Smelting and Lead Company contacted Cottrell. The smelter was in deep environmental trouble. Gases from smelter operations can contain substances such as sulfur dioxide, sulfur trioxide, and arsenic, zinc, lead, copper, and antimony salts. Since 1905, there had been complaints about odor, decreased grain production, and increased corrosion of window screens and wire fences in the vicinity. The company was taken to court. The Selby management heard of the work at nearby Pinole and were anxious to obtain the process. The Selby smelter had three separate stacks with three separate problems. Each had to be handled individually. The first stack emitted lead fumes from the lead blast furnace. These emissions were collected successfully by a known process, a baghouse. The second stack emitted sulfuric acid mists from the refinery, where the acid was used to dissolve silver from the gold/silver alloy extracted from the lead. Cottrell developed a lead flue, 1 meter by 1 meter (3.28 feet by 3.28 feet) in size, in which several rows of vertical lead plates were suspended. Each 479
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Frederick Gardner Cottrell. (Library of Congress)
Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process
Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process was 10 centimeters (about 3.94 inches) wide and 1 meter long, and the plates were placed 10 centimeters apart. Between every two plates was a lead-covered iron bar with pointed projections of mica, which served as the negative discharge electrode. By October, 1907, the precipitator was declared a success. A heavy white plume was converted into an occasional, almost imperceptible, thin white puff. The third stack discharged 15,240 cubic meters (about 538,196 cubic feet) per minute of a dense white mixture of sulfur dioxide gas, sulfuric acid fumes, and arsenic and lead salts from the roasters. Cottrell and his colleagues spent more than two years attempting to solve this problem, with no real success. Eventually, the smelter had to install new roasters. By 1910, Cottrell discarded the pubescent electrode idea. The Riverside Portland Cement Company, emitting 100 metric tons per day of high-temperature, partially processed cement dust, was under an injunction for destroying the nearby orange groves. In an attempt to handle these dusts, the pubescent electrode was replaced by a bare wire of moderate diameter developed by Walter A. Schmidt, one of Cottrell’s former pupils. In 1912, Cottrell founded the Research Corporation, a nonprofit organization that supported basic research at colleges and universities. He assigned his precipitator patents to the corporation as an endowment. Significance The electrostatic precipitator had an immediate impact on many industries, not only regarding their emissions but also in a completely unexpected way. Prior to World War I, the United States imported from Germany about 1 million tons of potash annually for fertilizer. In 1915, three years after the Riverside installation was completed, Germany embargoed these exports. Until the U.S. potash industry could be developed, the potash in cement dust proved to be an exceedingly valuable byproduct. The dust, collected by precipitator, was processed to extract the potash, which, in turn, was sold to area farmers at a cost that, at that time, exceeded the value of the cement being produced. Over the years, the value of the by-products in the materials collected proved to be a major incentive for the use of precipitators. Although other collection devices, such as wet scrubbers, can collect more than 99 percent of the particulates or fumes emitted from a stack, for many applications, a dry process is preferred. In the cement industry, for example, on the average one-third of the raw materials are converted to dust. Without recycling, this would result in losses of approximately 150 480
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 metric tons per day per kiln of partially processed materials. Even at the Riverside plant, it is estimated that Cottrell’s original precipitator, during its thirty-eight-year lifetime, collected more than 1 million tons of dust. A dry process, such as a precipitator, produces a dust product that is eminently suitable for recycling directly back to the kiln. The same situation exists for many other industries. Many times, the emissions contain substances that have significant economic value and can be recovered. For example, many years after an older smelting plant in Montana closed, the soil surrounding it was stripped off and processed at a nearby newer plant of the Anaconda Smelting and Refining Company. The topsoil was sent through the concentrator and smelted at the new plant with a reported recovery of more than $1 million in copper and other metals. Today, many of the metals and sulfur oxides in smelter emissions can be collected on-site and reprocessed immediately. The impacts of the use of precipitators are not restricted to the value of the collected particulates. Reducing the quantity of air emissions not only improves the environment aesthetically but also has major economic impacts. It has been estimated that for every $90 spent on air-pollution control in the United States, $240 is saved in damages to health and property. Further, if air pollution could be reduced to safe levels in all U.S. factories and power plants, the result would be a 75 percent decline in illness and, consequently, a savings of $16 billion in health costs annually. Precipitators are the pollution control method of choice in many industries. They are versatile and efficient, often approaching 99.9 percent efficiency. They permit collection of very fine, hot, and/or corrosive particles. In addition, the costs of operating and maintaining precipitators are low in comparison with the costs associated with other high-efficiency collectors. The 1970 Clean Air Act forced many U.S. industries to reduce their air emissions. Nevertheless, even with the increased emphasis on new, efficient, and economical techniques of pollution control, no significant innovations in air-pollution control have been developed in the years since Cottrell’s work. Iron and steel companies, nonferrous smelters, foundries, power plants, cement and lime kilns, and pulp and paper mills are merely a few of the industries that often employ electrostatic precipitators for collection of their dusts, fumes, and/or mists. — Nancy J. Sell
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Cameron, Frank. Cottrell: Samaritan of Science. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1952. Well-researched biography provides insights into Cottrell’s life, work, and personality. Includes index. Colls, Jeremy. Air Pollution. 2d ed. New York: Spon Press, 2002. Comprehensive textbook covers all aspects of the causes, effects, and control of air pollution. Provides a brief description of electrostatic precipitation. Includes index. Cottrell, Frederick. “Electrical Precipitation: Historical Sketch.” Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 34 (January, 1915): 387-396. Focuses on the early history and development of the precipitation process, including the work of Hohlfeld and Lodge, and on Cottrell’s smoke abatement work at the Mellon Institute. Discusses Cottrell’s preliminary ideas of using precipitation for fog abatement. Sell, Nancy J. Industrial Pollution Control: Issues and Techniques. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992. Explains in relatively nontechnical language not only the advantages, limitations, and operating principles of precipitators but also their uses in a vari-
Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space ety of industries. Suitable for readers with some minimal background in physical science. Includes index. Weiner, Ruth F., and Robin Matthews. Environmental Engineering. 4th ed. Burlington, Mass.: Elsevier Science, 2003. Textbook intended for use by students with some physical science or engineering background provides a brief but informative section on electrostatic precipitator design. Includes illustrations, useful appendixes, bibliography, and index. Yost, Edna. Modern Americans in Science and Technology. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1962. Collection of nontechnical essays on thirteen American scientists devotes a chapter to Cottrell. Provides a good summary of the early applications of the precipitation process, the savings attained through dust recovery, and the establishment of Cottrell’s Research Corporation. Includes index. See also: June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution.
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Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space Maurice Fréchet allowed points in abstract sets to be lines or curves, rather than geometric points, and defined a notion of distance between such objects, thereby generalizing the notion of distance in Euclidean three-dimensional space. Locale: Paris, France Category: Mathematics Key Figures Maurice Fréchet (1878-1973), French mathematician Frigyes Riesz (1880-1956), Hungarian mathematician Jacques-Salomon Hadamard (1865-1963), French mathematician Vito Volterra (1860-1940), Italian mathematician
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Summary of Event By the late nineteenth century, abstraction and generalization had become significant trends in mathematics research. In his 1906 doctoral thesis, Maurice Fréchet considered abstract sets containing elements of a “general
nature.” Prior to this, sets were regarded as collections of specific objects, such as numbers or points in the plane or collections of curves. In addition, Fréchet introduced a generalized notion of distance on his sets, which allowed him to use ideas from geometry in new ways. The combination of an abstract set and a distance on it (that is, an abstract metric space) was the starting point for two major areas of twentieth century mathematics: functional analysis and topology. The term “space” as used in mathematics usually refers to a set’s having some geometric structure. (Fréchet continued to use the term “abstract set,” ensemble abstraite, rather than “abstract space,” espace abstraite, until the mid-1920’s.) One can understand abstract space most easily by considering a sequence of problems. A single algebraic equation in one unknown usually has a solution consisting of a single number. When solving two equations in two unknowns, a solution may consist of a pair of numbers, which is considered as a point in the plane. Similarly, with three equations in three unknowns,
Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space a solution will often be three numbers and can be considered as a point in Euclidean three-dimensional space. If there are n equations in n unknowns, it is reasonable to look for n numbers as a solution and call the result a point in n-dimensional space. By the time of Fréchet, a generalization of this problem known as an integral equation was receiving attention. A solution to an integral equation is a function. (A function is a rule that takes input from one set and produces output in a possibly different set. A common example is the function that takes a number and produces the square of the number.) The set of functions that are solutions to integral equations can be thought of as an infinite dimensional space. Fréchet’s ultimate goal was to study functionals— that is, functions defined on spaces of functions. (An example is the functional that takes a curve and produces its length.) His novel approach was to ignore initially the individual aspects of the classes of functions and work instead on abstract sets. His first task was to impose some geometric structure on an abstract set. Geometry is involved because functions can be represented often by lines or curves in the plane or as surfaces in three dimensions. Although the idea of giving a class of functions a “geometrical” structure can be traced back to George Bernhard Riemann’s doctoral thesis in 1851, Fréchet’s contribution was to use ideas from ordinary three-dimensional geometry as motivation to ask questions about spaces of larger (and even infinite) dimension. As with most new ideas in mathematics, Fréchet’s ideas were motivated by the problems of the day. One such source was the work of Vito Volterra in the calculus of variations. An early problem in this area was to find the curve in the plane having a fixed length that encloses the largest area. The answer was a circle, but the rigorous verification of this (and the solution of related problems) was far from obvious. It was necessary to take an arbitrary closed curve (with a fixed perimeter) and compute the enclosed area. This process described a function: For each curve, produce its area. This is an example of what Volterra called a “function of lines” (now called a functional) and is a typical example of a functional acting on an abstract set. Fréchet wrote his thesis, “Sur Quelques Points du calcul fonctionnel” (1906; on some points of functional calculation), in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure under the direction of Jacques-Salomon Hadamard, who was known for his work in partial differential equations. The first of two parts consisted of the preliminary steps toward what is now called point set topology. The goal was to be able to define the limit of a sequence of ele482
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ments in an abstract set. Fréchet did this in three ways of varying generality. His third approach—and the only one that has flourished—was through what Fréchet called an écart. This construction is now called a metric, so named by Felix Hausdorff in his famous book on set theory and topology, Grundzüge der Mengenlehre (1914; fundamentals of set theory). For each pair of points x and y in a set, a metric assigns a nonnegative number to represent the distance between the points. This number (that is, distance) is denoted by d(x, y). Fréchet’s notation is simply (x, y). It satisfies the following simple properties: The distance from x to y is the same as that from y to x; d(x, y) is equal to zero if and only if x equals y; and the triangle inequality—the distance from x to y is less than (or equal to) the sum of the distances from x and y to another point z. Using this idea of distance, Fréchet was able to define continuity in abstract sets, which enabled him to apply his new ideas to some classical spaces of functions. (A function is continuous if input points that are “close together” produce output that is “close.” Geometrical properties of the input are transferred to the output by continuous functions.) The topological concepts of compactness, completeness, and separability were important elements of Fréchet’s thesis. The first of these is especially important for solutions of equations in infinitely many unknowns. If a sequence of elements in a set is converging, the limiting element is guaranteed to exist in the set if the set is known to be compact. This allows one to solve equations by producing a sequence of approximate solutions; the actual solution is then the limit of the approximations. This idea was used long before Fréchet, and several conditions were known to guarantee the existence of the limit solution. The works of Cesare Arzelà and Giulio Ascoli on equicontinuity had great influence on Fréchet’s thesis in this regard, but it was Fréchet who was able to isolate the essential ideas and unite them in an abstract framework. Fréchet also applied the abstract concepts of compactness, completeness, and separability to concrete examples of spaces of functions. Another important mathematician who was influential in creating the notion of abstract space was Frigyes Riesz. His 1907 paper on the origins of the concepts of space was in large measure a quasi-philosophical paper on a mathematical model for the geometry of space as needed in physics. Riesz, however, introduced the concepts of derived set, neighborhood, and connectedness, which came to be standard ideas in Hausdorff’s topology. Fréchet’s work was an important stimulus for future work of Riesz in his development of the notion of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 function space consisting of square integrable functions and a metric on this space of functions. Both Fréchet and Riesz published theorems providing concrete representations of certain kinds of abstract linear functionals. This early work of Riesz and Fréchet, motivated by Hadamard, was the beginning of a fruitful area of modern mathematics known as functional analysis.
ics. It is important for the development of functional analysis to have an abstract view of the problems so as to extract their essential and common elements. It is precisely this point of view that Fréchet helped popularize. —Michael McAsey Further Reading Dieudonné, Jean. History of Functional Analysis. New York: North-Holland, 1981. The author is one of the important mathematicians of the twentieth century. Several of the later chapters in this book contain technical material, but the other chapters are for the most part accessible to nontechnical readers. Fréchet, Maurice. “From Three-Dimensional Space to the Abstract Spaces.” In Great Currents of Mathematical Thought, edited by François le Lionnais. New York: Dover, 1971. One of the few papers written by Fréchet available in English. Provides basic background and motivation for considering abstract space. Also includes a discussion of metric spaces, topological vector spaces, and applications to functional analysis. Kline, Morris. Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 3. 1972. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. This third volume of a monumental, well-written work contains two chapters relevant to Fréchet’s work. Chapter 46 gives background and an outline of functional analysis, and chapter 50 treats the beginnings of topology. Suitable for both the general reader and the professional mathematician. Taylor, Angus E. “A Study of Maurice Fréchet: I. His Early Work on Point Set Theory and the Theory of Functionals.” Archive for the History of Exact Sciences 27 (1982): 233-295. Contains a wealth of information about Fréchet’s life and work as well as about other mathematicians of his time. Temple, George. One Hundred Years of Mathematics: A Personal Viewpoint. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1981. The first few sections of chapter 9 discuss the origins of topology, and some later sections of the chapter treat the foundations of functional analysis. More technical than biographical, but still accessible to the interested nonspecialist. See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique. 483
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Significance The immediate effect of Fréchet’s thesis was to initiate the study of point set topology and provide tools for early work in functional analysis. Fréchet’s definition of metric space is the one used today, and the study of metric spaces is still ongoing. Not all of the concepts that Fréchet defined were sufficiently powerful to solve the relevant problems of the day; they needed further refinement by others. For example, his notion of compactness was not powerful enough to treat convergence problems outside of metric spaces, and other mathematicians (for example, Hausdorff) needed to generalize the concept. It was also found that basing the concept of convergence on sequences was too restrictive, and the idea of neighborhood proved more fruitful. (Fréchet, Riesz, Hausdorff, and others made advances in this direction between 1906 and 1920.) Rather than being remembered for his theorems and their applications, Fréchet is instead best known for the objects he defined and his approach to abstract space. Although he continued to work in the field of topology and analysis until about 1930 (at which time he moved into the study of probability), Fréchet never produced another work that was more influential than his thesis. The abstract, axiomatic approach to mathematics that is evident in Fréchet’s thesis continued and reinforced a growing tendency in mathematics. “Axiomatics” refers to the development of mathematics through precise statements of axioms and definitions followed by the logical consequences of the axioms—careful statements and proofs of theorems. Classical Euclidean geometry has been presented axiomatically for centuries, but the rest of mathematics did not begin to develop this way until the late nineteenth century. Beginning in earnest with the work of David Hilbert at the beginning of the twentieth century, mathematics developed axiomatically. The axiomatic aspect of Fréchet’s work was especially important for the future of functional analysis. This area of mathematics, originating in the early 1900’s, is characterized by the application of the abstract approaches of algebra and topology to problems in classical mathematics, such as differential and integral equations, as well as to parts of physics, such as quantum mechan-
Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space
Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1906
Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins Frederick Hopkins suggested that trace ingredients in food other than carbohydrates, proteins, and fat are essential to the diet of humans, leading to the concept of vitamins. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; biology Key Figures Frederick Hopkins (1861-1947), English biochemist Christiaan Eijkman (1858-1930), Dutch physician Casimir Funk (1884-1967), Polish biochemist Summary of Event Sir Frederick Hopkins’s pioneering work in the field of diet and nutrition led to the discovery of vitamins. Vitamins are organic molecules that the body needs in minute quantities; they are thus called micronutrients. Vitamins play a vital role in the biochemical reactions that take place in the cells of the body by aiding enzymes, which catalyze (speed up) biochemical reactions. They are essential to the diet of humans. The existence of the substances we now call vitamins has been known since the time of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle knew that raw liver contained an ingredient that could cure night blindness, which is caused by a deficiency of vitamin A. An early account of the cure of scurvy, which stems from a vitamin C deficiency, was recorded in 1535 during the voyages of Jacques Cartier to Newfoundland. Captain Cook was also aware of the antiscurvy properties of lime juice in the 1700’s. Thirteen vitamins are now known to be required in the diet of human beings for normal growth and development. Vitamins are divided into two classes: watersoluble and fat-soluble. The water-soluble vitamins include the vitamin B complex (thiamine, riboflavin, pantothenic acid) and vitamin C (ascorbic acid). The fatsoluble vitamins are vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are not soluble in water. Hopkins was an English biochemist working at the forefront of biochemical thought and the combining of chemistry with the metabolism of the body. His research brought together these two diverse areas. Hopkins was trained early as an analytic chemist; he entered biochemistry relatively late in his career but in the infancy of the biochemistry field. Using his analytic chemistry skills, he had an enormous impact on the field of experimental biochemistry. Hopkins was invited to Cambridge Uni484
versity in September, 1898. By 1914, he was appointed the first professor of biochemistry at Cambridge. In his early research concerning uric acid, his ability as an analytic chemist allowed him to develop and improve the method for uric acid determination in the urine. His interest in diet and uric acid excretion led to his interest in proteins. In the early 1900’s, Hopkins and Sydney W. Cole, a student, described in a series of articles the isolation of the first essential amino acid, tryptophan. After Hopkins had published several more papers on proteins, he began studying diet and metabolic function. In his 1906 address to the Society of Public Analysts titled “The Analyst and the Medical Man,” Hopkins alluded to some trace substance that might be required in the diet in addition to proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
Frederick Hopkins. (The Nobel Foundation)
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Significance After Hopkins’s address in 1906 about the existence of vitamins, many researchers worked to isolate these trace substances. In 1912, Casimir Funk, a Polish biochemist, purified a substance that he thought cured beriberi. He coined the term “vitamine” (from “vital amine”) for the substance. It turned out that he had actually isolated nicotinic acid (niacin), a cure for pellagra, that was contaminated with thiamine. Hopkins’s pioneering research laid the groundwork for other researchers to study the vitamin hypothesis. Research in the United States during World War I by Thomas Osborne and Lafayette Benedict Mendel, as well as that by E. V. McCollum and his colleagues, led to the distinction of water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins. In 1920 skepticism still existed about the vitamin hypothesis, but by 1923 even the staunchest disbelievers had finally come around to accept it. Eventually, in 1929, Hopkins and Eijkman were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on vitamins and the vitamin hypothesis. A large amount of Hopkins’s work on diet and metabolic function was initiated because of the outbreak of World War I. During the war years, Hopkins served on the Royal Society Food Committee. Food rationing’s effects on nutrition were his primary concern. Butter was a scarce and expensive food commodity, whereas margarine was cheap and readily available. Considerable discussion arose about the nutritional quality of margarine in comparison with butter. This discussion evolved because of Hopkins’s work on accessory food factors (or vitamins). In 1917, Hopkins initiated research on behalf of the margarine industry to determine the nutritional quality of margarine. His results showed clearly that margarine was nutritionally inferior to butter because it lacked vitamin A (later, it became clear that margarine also lacked vitamin D). After the war, Hopkins acted as a consultant to the margarine industry. His research continued with investigation of the possibility of introducing vitamins into margarine. J. C. Drummond surveyed natural sources for vitamins A and D, and by 1926-1927, vitamins A and D were introduced into margarine as a commercial product. In 1928, vitamin-enriched margarine received certified approval from the Pharmaceutical Society. Now standard in supermarkets, such margarine is most likely not at all inferior to butter in caloric value or vitamin quality. Hopkins then turned to other areas of research. By the 1920’s, biochemistry had begun to be taught at the entry level in colleges throughout the English university 485
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He stated: “No animal can live upon a mixture of pure protein, fat, and carbohydrate, and even when the necessary inorganic material is carefully supplied, the animal still cannot flourish.” Hopkins believed that rickets and scurvy may be caused by this missing dietary factor. Christiaan Eijkman had done pioneering work on beriberi (which is caused by a deficiency of thiamine, a B vitamin), and Hopkins interpreted Eijkman’s findings in the same manner. Eijkman entered the field of vitamin research in 1886, working in the Dutch East Indies. When a disease broke out among chickens being used for research, Eijkman, trained in microbiology, tried to find the germ responsible for the outbreak but was unsuccessful. He traced the symptoms finally to a diet of highly polished rice that the chickens had been eating. He switched their diet to whole rice or to highly polished rice mixed with husks, and the symptoms cleared up. Eijkman was thus the first scientist to notice that dietary deficiency was the cause of a disease. He did not understand the significance of his findings, however; it was not until Hopkins undertook his work that the existence of vitamins became established. In 1912, Hopkins published a paper in the Journal of Physiology titled “Feeding Experiments Illustrating the Importance of Accessory Factors in Normal Dietaries.” These experiments showed that animals cannot grow when fed a synthetic diet of pure proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and salts. When Hopkins added milk in minute quantities to the diet of the animals in his sample, they were able to utilize the synthetic food mixture for growth. Hopkins concluded that some substance is present in normal foodstuffs in trace quantities, and only small quantities are required for growth. Looking back at his research in a 1922 Chandler Medal Address at Columbia University, Hopkins talked about his pioneering work on what are now called vitamins. He at first expressed disbelief that in a synthetic diet of pure proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and salts, there was some other substance required for growth of the animal. “So much careful scientific work upon nutrition had been carried on for half a century and more—how could fundamentals have been missed?” Hopkins realized that the pure foodstuffs might not be as pure as scientists had thought. Even after Hopkins published his results, the significance of vitamins was not universally accepted. Other researchers experimented with feeding rats purified substances and found that the rats could grow quite well on this diet. The synthetic diets they employed, however, may not have been quite as pure as that used by Hopkins.
Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins
Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins system. In 1925, Hopkins was knighted, and he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1926. His most impressive distinction, however, came in 1929 when he shared the Nobel Prize with Eijkman. In addition to his work on vitamins, Hopkins actively conducted research in many other fields of biochemistry and physiology. His research with Walter Fletcher showed that muscle activity and lactic acid production are correlated. In his later studies Hopkins examined sulfur-containing vitamins. He discovered a tripeptide (three amino acids linked together) and published a series of papers on the structure and function of the molecule. Hopkins’s work has had a far-reaching impact on the field of biochemistry. After years of dietary research, scientists are now quite certain that they have identified all of the vitamins required by the human body. Much of the research after Hopkins was concerned with identifying the structures of various vitamins and their functions within the cell. In the twenty-first century, research continues regarding the amounts of different vitamins that humans require, and official recommendations for daily dosages of vitamins for adequate growth and maintenance of health are the subjects of ongoing debate. —Lonnie J. Guralnick Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. “Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins.” In Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 2d ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. Useful contribution to a volume containing brief, easy-to-read biographies of more than fifteen hundred scientists from ancient times to the early 1980’s. Some of the biographies are cross-referenced to major advances in the subjects’ fields. Baldwin, Ernest. “Frederick Gowland Hopkins.” In Dic-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 6. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. Well-written, detailed biography of Hopkins for nontechnical readers. Includes references. Carpenter, Kenneth J. “A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 2 (1885-1912).” Journal of Nutrition 133 (April, 2003): 975-984. This second part of a four-part series examines the period in the history of nutritional science when Hopkins was conducting his groundbreaking research. Places Hopkins’s work in the context of nutritional science in general. Lehninger, Albert L. “Human Nutrition.” In Principles of Biochemistry. New York: Worth, 1982. Well-written chapter in an elementary biochemistry college textbook. Written for the beginner who has little understanding of biochemistry. Includes references. Needham, Joseph, and Ernest Baldwin, eds. Hopkins and Biochemistry. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons, 1949. Presents Hopkins’s uncompleted autobiography and other works by Hopkins, including excerpts from a paper with commentaries and selected addresses. An interesting collection for the nontechnical reader. Williams, Trevor I., ed. “Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins.” In A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists. 3d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1982. Brief, easyto-read biography for the nontechnical reader. Includes references. See also: 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi; 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan; 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets; 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food; 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities
1906
Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities Andrey Andreyevich Markov’s formal development of linked probabilities (Markov chains) provided new computational models for a wide variety of random processes. Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Category: Mathematics Key Figure Andrey Andreyevich Markov (1856-1922), Russian mathematician
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Summary of Event Before Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev, Andrey Andreyevich Markov, and Andrey Nikolayevich Kolmogorov, a number of individuals, mainly natural scientists applying statistical methods, had offered oblique working definitions of key statistical properties. These definitions, however, frequently did not coincide with one another, and in some cases they were even contradictory. This was also true of basic statistical methods such as the use of histograms in count data analysis. A histogram is constructed through the division of the horizontal axis into segments or classes of a certain data value (such as size or temperature) that cover the entire range of data values. Over each segment, a rectangle is constructed whose height is proportional to the number of data points in each class segment. Such a histogram shows the relative class frequencies, which in the limits of smaller subdivisions and larger numbers of samples approaches the underlying probability density distribution for the population. A key example of functional, yet vague, statistical concepts awaiting further development was Jakob Bernoulli’s so-called law of large numbers. Formally stated, Bernoulli’s theorem asserts that frequencies of occurrence for independent chance events must converge eventually in the limit of large numbers of observation to the underlying probability law. In other words, this theorem states basically that the experimental histogram of samples from a statistical population will match the theoretical probability distribution function more closely, defining a given population as the number of selected samples increases without bound. Even by the late 1880’s, satisfactory proofs under general assumptions had not been found for the large number law, nor had its limits of applicability been well determined. This was particularly true for the case of
events whose statistical independence or relation was not known or determinable beforehand. Thus, for example, the German statistician Wilhelm Lexis, although arguing for the conceptual modeling of statistical interpretation of natural events on the results of a notional urn drawing, did not believe that evolutionary or otherwise linked or connected series were susceptible to formulation in terms of quantitative probability theory. As numerous investigators pointed out near the beginning of the twentieth century, in its original (chiefly heuristic) form, the large number law provided nothing useful about the precise manner or function form in which statistical averages approach their limit. Many statisticians believed the law of large numbers to be true only for statistically independent events or trials. Nevertheless, without a more rigorous law of large numbers, probability theory would lose its common intuitive foundations, and so the issue could not simply be dismissed. In contrast to the German and French schools of statistics, Russian statisticians (almost exclusively at the University of St. Petersburg) were strongly theoretical in focus, more interested in formal existence and consistency conditions than in applications of statistical laws. It was precisely the members of this group who, from their own perspective, addressed the problems of consistently defining the interpretation and applications scope of the law of large numbers. In 1867, Chebyshev found the first elementary proof of the law of large numbers as well as the “central limit theorem.” As an advanced graduate student of Chebyshev, Markov in 1884 published a shorter and more perspicuous reformulation of Chebyshev’s proofs, which began a series of exchanges and further clarifications of the basic concepts underlying, and scope of application of, the large number and central limit theorems to linked events as well as to totally independent events. From a purely theoretical perspective, Markov approached these questions indirectly by considering whether the law of large numbers applied equally to dependent and independent random variables. Then, using the Markov model of (weak/linked/conditional) dependence to verify the law of large numbers, he examined whether sums of dependent variables satisfy the central limit theorem. Specifically, in subsequent work Markov focused closely on the theoretical laws governing what is in effect the convergence of empirical histograms to theoretical
Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities “probability distribution functions” for a variety of conditions of weak statistical dependence, or sample interlinking, as well as independence. The general classes of weakly linked statistical events that Markov considered originally can be viewed as a generic mathematical model of a random process with only specifically delimited aftereffects or with a very short-term memory. This model describes any physical or other system in which the probability of change or transition from one state to another depends only on the state of the system at the present or immediately preceding time and not on the longer prior history of the process. A perennial problem by the end of the nineteenth century, related to the issue of independent versus dependent statistical data, was that of estimating the statistical variance of time or space averages of ocean, weather, geological, or other statistically measured data that could not, strictly speaking, be assumed as totally independent, random, or unconnected by virtue of their (causal) adjacency. One of many practical examples of events that both common sense and science describe as linked are meteorologic observations. In 1852, French mathematician Adolphe Quetelet proposed what is probably the first probabilistic model to fit weather observations of consecutive rainy (or cold) and dry (or warm) days. To account for the frequent persistence, or temporal linkedness, of rainy (or dry) weather, Quetelet devised a simple mathematical formula that explicitly captures an apparently random element but also exhibits the influence or effect of one or more previous elements on subsequent events. Neither Quetelet nor other largely empirical science-oriented statisticians of the era pursued further the more general possibilities of accounting for linked events or processes. Markov stumbled onto the formal properties, and applications potential, of a general method for describing events with linked probabilities at the beginning of the twentieth century. In his 1906 paper “Extension of the Law of Large Numbers,” Markov proved for the first time that both the number of occurrences of a studied event and the sequence of its associated random variables obey the law of large numbers. Assuming a simple one-link only (first-order) chaining of events and an unconditional normalized total probability for the event of p, Markov first derived the mth-order transition probabilities, or probability of a change of binary-determined states between temporally adjacent events, to be given by the relation Rm = p + (l – p)( p1 – p2 )m. This relation can be interpreted as linking the general conditions under which a system of equations has a unique solution with the spe488
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cific parameters defining the chaining of events. As Markov stated in his 1907 paper “Extension of the Limit Theorems of Probability Theory to a Sum of Variables Connected in a Chain,” these weakly dependent, or linked, sequences are definable as “numbers connected into a chain in such a manner that, when the value of one of them becomes known, subsequent numbers become independent of the preceding ones.” Likewise, in publications in 1908 and from 1910 to 1912, Markov considered more complex (higher-order) linkings or chainings of events whose probabilities of occurrence depend on the outcomes of two or more prior trials. In modern probability theory, a sequence is considered to be a Markov chain if the probability distribution function governing its underlying process can be said to have connection, link, or memory extending to one or more prior events. In other words, in the Markov model, given the present, the future is independent of the past. More generally, random processes having dependence between successive terms as an intrinsic property of the underlying process are defined as Markov processes. The classical example of a (multiple) Markov chain, as a semiserious test of the efficiency of information transfer originally given by Markov himself, is that of the written (Russian) language in Alexander Pushkin’s novel Evgeny Onegin (1825-1833; Eugene Onegin, 1881). Here, letters of the alphabet are subdivided into type states, denoted by 0 if a vowel and 1 if a consonant, so that a page of written text appears as a sequence of the occurrence of 0’s and 1’s. The vowels and consonants form a first-order Markov chain if, given any string of letters, the probability for the next letter to be a vowel or consonant (0 or 1) is the same as the probability that the next letter will be a vowel or consonant if one knows only the last letter of the entire story. Although there is no direct evidence that the St. Petersburg school’s original work to theoretically validate probability theorems to the case of dependent variables was motivated by prior publications by Lexis or his contemporaries between 1907 and 1911, Markov and a colleague repeatedly referred to several examples and applied problems from their publications. In addition, Markov and his colleagues generally indicated several other examples of physical phenomena exhibiting linked probabilistic behavior. These included the theories of molecular random (“Brownian”) motion of Albert Einstein and Paul Langevin, biological theories of the extinction of genetic families, and the so-called random walk problem. (The random walk, paradigmatic for
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 many probability applications, is defined generically by the motion along a straight line that, at each unit time, can move one unit left or right or not at all, whose probabilities depend only on position.) Significance Almost since their discovery, Markov chains have proven to be a powerful method for modeling a wide variety of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena involving time-dependent/transient and long-run/steady-state behaviors. As early as 1908, A. K. Erlang carried out studies of the steady-state behavior of commercial telephone exchange traffic (theory of queues), deriving what is now known as the Kolmogorov equations for a finite Markov process. In addition to stock exchange speculation, and particularly telephone, mail, and road traffic, similar Markov queue models have been applied widely to the landing of aircraft and ships, assembly-line component breakdown, scheduling and checkout for clinics and supermarkets, and inventory maintenance. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, researchers considered problems of quantitative epidemic spreading and population growth using a second-order Markov model. In addition to the theory of elementary particle collisions and cascades, the theory of statistical mechanics describing the physics of molecules—an important Markov chain application—is the so-called nearest neighbor system used, for example, as models for crystal lattices; likewise in chemistry, for treating chemical kinetics and diffusion-controlled reactions. During the past decades, following the work of Ludwig von Mises, a number of researchers in operations research have combined the methodologies of Markov models and Bayesian decision analysis to facilitate quantitative solution of complex problems in economic and military equipment procurement and deployment. As exhaustively detailed in Albert T. BharuchaReid’s advanced monograph, thousands of papers have been published on specialized applications of temporal and spatial Markov series. Theoretically, the mathematical methods initiated by Markov were extended later and formalized by Aleksandr Khinchin, Norbert Wiener, and
Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities notably Kolmogorov, establishing probability theory as an identifiable and rigorously founded subdiscipline. —Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Bartos, Otomar J. Simple Models of Group Behavior. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. Examines several applications of Markov process models to the prediction of the persistence of specific behaviors in small-group settings studied by sociology. Bhanscha-Reid, Albert T. Elements of the Theory of Markov Processes and Their Applications. 1960. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1997. An encyclopedic presentation of basic and advanced Markov theory and applications to physical, chemical, astronomical, biological, engineering, and other sciences. Damerau, Frederick J. Markov Models and Linguistic Theory. The Hague: Mouton, 1971. An important theoretical study concerning the degrees of approximation to the English language by Markov models of progressively higher order. Gani, Joseph M., ed. The Craft of Probabilistic Modeling. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986. Includes sufficient theory and applications. Remains within the scope of general undergraduate readers. Gigerenzer, Gerd, et al. The Empire of Chance: How Probability Theory Changed Science and Everyday Life. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Extensive discussions of empirical probability rules and applications in the natural sciences throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gray, Robert M., and Lee D. Davisson. Random Processes: A Mathematical Approach for Engineers. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Provides a clear and concise introduction to discrete random processes. See also: 1909: Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra; 1919: Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability; 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
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Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1906
Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth Studying economic data at the beginning of the twentieth century, Vilfredo Pareto discovered that 80 percent of the wealth was owned by 20 percent of the people, a finding that later became the basis of Joseph M. Juran’s theory of quality management. Also known as: Pareto principle Locale: Geneva, Italy Categories: Economics; sociology Key Figures Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Italian economist and sociologist Joseph M. Juran (b. 1904), Romanian American engineer Summary of Event Vilfredo Pareto was a pioneer in applying mathematical principles to economics, contributing to the development of a general equilibrium theory—that is, a theory of how the balance between people’s desires and the obstacles to satisfying them result in economic equilibrium regardless of the social organization of the society. An aspect of this equilibrium theory is the assumption that there is a relative stability in wealth distribution such that about 80 percent of a society’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of 20 percent of its population. This observation, which Pareto noted in his pioneering work Cours d’économie politique (1896-1897; course in political economy), implied that far from being random, wealth distribution follows a universal pattern throughout the history of any society. Pareto based his theory on data obtained from several European countries and cities, including Britain, Prussia, Saxony, Paris, and several Italian cities. He concluded that the gap between the elites and the masses may be slightly wider or narrower at any given time in any given society, but the structure of inequality is relatively stable, indicating a universal pattern in which a minority of the people own the majority of the wealth. Even if a redistribution of the wealth were to occur through political or economic changes, the equilibrium would inevitably reestablish itself, resulting in the formation of new elites. Pareto followed up with his most influential work, Manuale d’economia politica (handbook of political economy), in 1906. Grounding their work in Pareto’s theory of wealth distribution, economists constructed the notion of the Pareto index, which is a measure of the in490
equality in income and wealth distribution in a given society. The larger the Pareto index, the smaller the proportion of the wealthy to the poor, and as wealth increases in size through economic development in a given society, the index is expected to become larger. His discovery of the “80-20” law led Pareto to examine the social dynamics between the elites and the masses. This resulted in another influential work, Trattato di sociologia generale (1916), a sociological classic, which was published in English under the title of Mind and Society (1935). Pareto claimed that economics fails to make predictions because people make choices largely on nonrational grounds. His attention to nonrational factors in his study of society increasingly moved his focus, toward the end of his career, from economics to sociology. In the 1930’s, the fascists bestowed honor and praise on Pareto, and they co-opted his ideas on the role of elites in a society to support their ideology. Joseph M. Juran, a Romanian-born American engineer who began his career in 1924 in the Inspection Department of the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois, was inspired by Pareto’s 80-20 law of wealth distribution. As an officer responsible for the statistical control of the quality of manufactured products, Juran had an interest in Pareto’s law that did not reside in economics or sociology, but rather in the law’s usefulness for improving product quality. He displayed an uncommon ability for generalization when he made the intellectual leap from Pareto’s law of wealth distribution to the practical issues of improving product quality. In the process, he laid the foundations for the principles and practices of modern quality-improvement programs. Juran is credited with coining the term “Pareto principle” for the 80-20 law. In its universal form, the Pareto principle states that a minority of factors are responsible for the majority of the total effects in any given situation. As early as 1937, Juran viewed the Pareto principle as the basis for distinguishing the vital few from the trivial or useful many. The principle underpinned his approach to quality and he referred to it in numerous publications, including Quality Control Handbook (1951), Managerial Breakthroughs (1964), and Juran on Planning for Quality (1988). Juran advised managers to create “Pareto charts” to distinguish the vital few from the trivial or useful many. In such a chart, groups of data are arranged in a table or a diagram so that they are ranked according to the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 magnitude of each factor’s contribution, expressed as a percentage, to the total, cumulative effect. The Pareto principle can be applied to the quality process in a variety of ways. For instance, it helps managers to classify a company’s customers into the vital few and the trivial (or useful) many so that they can respond according to the customers’ importance to the company. It serves as a tool for manufacturers, who can use it to tabulate and identify their major competitors as well as key product features in order to improve quality and increase market share. Organizations interested in reducing the costs of goods and services may use the Pareto principle to focus on the few vital factors that account for the majority of the costs, and institutions seeking to reduce human errors may apply the principle to isolate the major error types in order to target them for action. In the interest of improving operational efficiency, organizations may also use the principle to distinguish steps that are vital from those that are trivial.
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Vilfredo Pareto. (The Granger Collection, New York)
troubling questions concerning priorities other than those involving business or financial success. For instance, is it socially responsible for a corporation to neglect its smaller customers only to enhance its bottom line? Can a hospital choose to reduce the services it provides to the 20 percent of patients who cannot pay and yet consume the majority of its resources? What should a school do with the 20 percent of students who have learning problems and take up to 80 percent of the teachers’ time in the classroom? Should a pastor neglect 80 percent of the parishioners who generate only 20 percent of the church’s income? If the Pareto principle were the only criterion for decision making, many people might never receive the services necessary to maintain a minimum quality of life; such application of the principle would have the unintended consequence of espousing a form of elitism in the name of quality. It has also been noted that if an organization were to push the Pareto principle to its logical limits, it could not ultimately survive, because the 80-20 rule would still ap491
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Significance Vilfredo Pareto’s mathematical approach to economics contributed much to the development of econometrics, and his theory of wealth distribution is the basis for the Pareto index, a vital tool for comparing the economic development of societies. Juran’s rediscovery and expansion of the 80-20 rule, which he called the Pareto principle, spawned a vast amount of literature on management and leadership. The principle helps decision makers to prioritize and focus on what is vital in order to achieve more with less. Juran is often cited as the father of quality management programs. Going beyond other innovators, he shifted the focus of quality from statistical control to the entire production process, including its human dimensions, and thus founded the total quality movement. It is interesting to note, however, that Juran tested his ideas in Japan by training Japanese engineers and managers in the practice of quality management, thus contributing to Japan’s industrial competitiveness after World War II. The quality movement took root in the United States only belatedly, in part as a response to Japan’s competitiveness. The Pareto principle is not without its problems. Critics have pointed out, for instance, that the principle may help describe the present, but it cannot be used to predict the future. It is nearly impossible to tell in advance which 20 percent are the vital few because today’s vital few may turn out to be tomorrow’s trivial many, and vice versa. Blind use of the Pareto principle can also raise
Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth
Publication of The English Hymnal ply to the remaining vital few, and so on, ad infinitum, until very few, if any, customers are left. An organization can avoid such a dilemma only by recognizing that what it selects as the vital few must depend also on the core values of the organization—a point that Juran would readily acknowledge. — Mathew Kanjirathinkal Further Reading Juran, Joseph M. Architect of Quality: The Autobiography of Dr. Joseph M. Juran. New York: McGrawHill, 2004. Describes Juran’s life as a journey that began in Romania in poverty and continued through the hardships of growing up in Minnesota and establishing his career as an engineer, finally achieving fame and corporate success. Moving and enlightening. _______. Juran on Planning for Quality. New York: Free Press, 1988. Systematic introduction to quality management summarizes Juran’s “quality trilogy”: quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Juran, Joseph M., and A. Blanton Godfrey. Juran’s Quality Handbook. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. Describes in great detail the quality control process, benchmarking, total quality management, training for quality, and other quality concepts as they apply to a variety of industries in the United States and elsewhere. Pareto, Vilfredo. The Rise and Fall of the Elites: An Application of Theoretical Sociology. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1991. Classic work describes the rise and fall of the elites and serves as an introduction to Pareto’s sociological ideas. Sanders, Robert. “The Pareto Principle: Its Use and Abuse.” Journal of Services Marketing 1, no. 2 (Fall, 1987): 37-40. Brief and accessible explanation of the absurdities that can result when the 80-20 rule is pushed to its ultimate logical limits. See also: Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive.
1906
Publication of THE ENGLISH HYMNAL The English Hymnal, a collaborative project undertaken by a team of clerics, scholars, and musicians led by the liturgical scholar Percy Dearmer and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, reintroduced some of England’s most ancient sacred music. The hymnal was widely adopted throughout the Church of England and became a key element in the Anglo-Catholic revival. Locale: England Categories: Music; religion, theology, and ethics; publishing and journalism Key Figures Percy Dearmer (1867-1936), English clergyman, scholar, and general editor of The English Hymnal Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), English composer and music editor of The English Hymnal Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), English musician and collector of folk songs and dances William John Birkbeck (1859-1916), English liturgical scholar, theologian, and Slavophile, who both edited and compiled the chant melodies for The English Hymnal 492
Summary of Event At the beginning of the 1900’s, there was a fundamental difference of opinion among members of the Church of England concerning the relative importance of ritual and the value of England’s musical heritage. The Anglo-Catholic movement advocated the preservation and reestablishment of formal ritual, while adherents to the evangelical trend were willing to adapt to the popular tastes of the Victorian era and were less interested in ritual. Within the Anglo-Catholic community, there was a further division between those who favored the Roman style of liturgy and a few who still practiced the ancient Sarum rite that had been utilized in England before the Reformation. In 1901, Percy Dearmer, an influential clergyman, prolific writer, and political activist whose views combined a passion for traditional English liturgy with liberal social ideals, became vicar for the Church of St. Marythe-Virgin in Primrose Hill, London. Two years before that, he had published The Parson’s Handbook (1899), a detailed guide to liturgical practice. Dearmer’s interests encompassed all of the arts, including fabrics, vestments, painting, architecture, and music. He felt that liturgy should be beautiful and that consistent guidelines should be followed.
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Dearmer and his carefully selected group made sure that their hymnal would be a significant scholarly work as well as a functional one. Often a melody that had changed over time was restored to its originally published form, and there were profuse notes that identified musical sources and composers, with one important exception: Vaughan Williams set some of the hymn lyrics to his own melodies and listed the composer as anonymous. Many other musicians and scholars also contributed to The English Hymnal and were mentioned in its prefaces. The texts of the hymns were equally well documented and had notes and information about authors and sources. The range of material in The English Hymnal represented an exceptionally diverse group of time periods and geographic areas. Along with melodies from Germany, France, and other European nations, the British Isles were well represented in the collection, which included tunes from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. Most of the chant-based melodies were derived from the pre-Reformation Sarum rite, and rather than copying them onto a modern staff, Birkbeck presented them in medieval plainsong notation. In doing so, he made a very direct statement on the value of Great Britain’s musical heritage. After the hymnal was published, there was some disagreement from those who challenged Dearmer’s authority to dictate aesthetic taste. He did not hesitate to use his office to defend that authority and wrote a great deal about the theological basis for his views. Some of the popular hymns from the Victorian era were also included in the 1906 hymnal, and there was enough of this material so that congregations that favored nineteenth century musical styles could still utilize the book. Dearmer eventually prevailed over most of his critics, and the hymnal was widely adopted. Significance The preparation and publication of The English Hymnal was an important chapter in the evolution of relations among the fine arts, religious faith, and cultural awareness. Aside from a few minor changes, the hymnal remained in use for more than three-quarters of a century, and it helped to affirm the value of tradition in both a religious and national sense. Beyond England, the hymnal found use in many English-speaking countries. In the broader context of the collaborators’ works, the hymnal affirmed Vaughan Williams’s assertion of an English musical identity and Dearmer’s belief in the value of ritual and historical consciousness to faith. Vaughan Williams’s setting of “For All the Saints” and other melodies 493
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At this time, the most popular hymnal of the time was Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861). Some of the hymns in this book had been set to sentimental melodies in a popular Victorian style, in keeping with trends that appealed to simpler tastes. Although he shared a desire to communicate with people of all classes and sympathized with victims of economic inequities, Dearmer was greatly dissatisfied with the old hymnal, and he felt that believers should have access to great music from a much wider range of time periods and traditions, including the rich heritage of the British Isles. He set about assembling a team of scholars, theologians, and musicians to compile and create a new hymnal. One of Percy Dearmer’s associates was Cecil Sharp, a musician who shared Dearmer’s love of tradition. Sharp collected folk songs and dances, and he had already published A Book of British Songs for Home and School in 1902. Among Sharp’s friends was Ralph Vaughan Williams, a composer who was also interested in folk songs from the British Isles. As part of his lifelong search for a distinctly English musical voice, Vaughan Williams had collected several folk songs on his own, and he had some experience as a church organist and choir director, although he was an agnostic. Sharp recommended Vaughan Williams as the new hymnal’s music editor, and Dearmer engaged him in the project. Although Vaughan Williams did not consider himself a believer, he and Dearmer held common social and aesthetic views. Both were interested in historical accuracy and in the roots of English religious music, held liberal political views, and sought to influence the nation’s culture. Vaughan Williams was as conscious of England’s elite musical traditions as he was of its folk songs, and he had studied the music of William Byrd and other great English Renaissance composers. Although he worked on the project for two years, Vaughan Williams did not regret the time away from his classical compositions and regarded the study and composition of hymns as a highly rewarding activity. Another important member of the team was William John Birkbeck, who collected and edited the hymnal’s many plainsong melodies and helped with both the translation of texts and the interpretation of medieval music notation. A scholar as well as a musician, Birkbeck spoke and read many languages. He admired the ritual practices and historical continuity of the Eastern churches and even wanted to unite the Church of England with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Like Dearmer, Birkbeck was interested in the restoration of High Church features such as the use of incense.
Publication of The English Hymnal
Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art first introduced in the 1906 hymnal eventually found their way into hymnals around the world. Dearmer encouraged the rigorous application of historical musicology, and the work of Cecil Sharp and other early twentieth century folk music collectors in Dearmer’s circle contributed to developments in the field of ethnomusicology. — John Myers Further Reading Bradley, Ian. Abide with Me: The World of Victorian Hymns. London: Trinity Press, 1997. Includes many anecdotes and considers the hymnal’s social and political significance. Emphasizes lyrics rather than music. Dearmer, Percy, ed. The English Hymnal. London: Oxford University Press, 1906. Includes many alternate settings, extensive documentation of musical adaptations and texts (other than Vaughan Williams’s own melodies), and indexes of first lines. Heffer, Simon. Vaughan Williams. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001. A comprehensive biography that includes details of the composer’s relationships
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 with Dearmer and other members of the Church of England. Williams, Ralph Vaughan. National Music, and Other Essays. 1934. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Essays by the composer, including mention of his work on The English Hymnal. Yates, Nigel. Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830-1910. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. A comparative, highly detailed study of ritualism that includes the Church of England as well as other Christian denominations during the period just before and during the publication of The English Hymnal. Appendixes. Zon, Bennett. The English Plainchant Revival. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Describes an important movement in Anglican Church music that preceded and influenced the content of The English Hymnal. See also: 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies; Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception.
1906-1907
Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art European artists in search of new means of expression discovered them in African tribal art, altering the course of twentieth century painting and sculpture. Locale: Paris, France Category: Arts Key Figures Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French artist André Derain (1880-1954), French artist Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958), French artist Summary of Event Several collections of tribal art had been established in Paris during the latter half of the nineteenth century. France owned extensive colonies in Africa and Oceania, and expeditions to these colonies had returned with statuettes, masks, headdresses, musical instruments, and other artifacts. These pieces were seen as “primitive”— that is, crude in conception and execution. In turn, their apparent primitiveness illustrated, at least to the satisfaction of most European viewers, the savagery of the groups producing them. 494
By the early twentieth century, examples of tribal art had thus been accessible to the French public for several decades. Three factors contributed to their “discovery” in about 1906 by avant-garde painters in Paris. First, dealers in antiquities and curiosities had begun featuring tribal art in their display cases and windows—in other words, at the street level, where their aesthetic qualities were more striking than in poorly arranged documentary displays in museums. A second factor was the change in public attitudes toward colonization. By 1905, evidence of incredible brutality on the part of the French and the Belgians in central Africa had become public. Newspapers condemned the atrocities, and politically radical artists such as Pablo Picasso, Kees van Dongen, and František Kupka—some of whom drew political cartoons—joined in the attack. As a result, collecting and studying African art became a means of establishing solidarity with the oppressed. The third and perhaps most important factor was the situation of art itself at the beginning of the century. It was felt that the movement known as Impressionism, which attempted to reproduce the actual experience of seeing, had exhausted the possibilities of realistic paint-
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the viewer to make a direct emotional appeal. They felt that African sculpture operated in the same fashion. Matisse’s work shows a more direct influence. In its apparent crudeness and emphasis on breasts and buttocks, his small sculpture La Vie (1906) clearly recalls African models. The same influence is apparent in a larger sculpture created in 1907, Reclining Nude I, and a major painting of the same year, The Blue Nude. All these works show a rejection of conventional nineteenth century European standards of beauty and proportion, and they mark a clear advance over his Still Life with African Sculpture. It was only when he came face-to-face with tribal art, said Picasso, that he realized “what painting was all about.” At the time, he was a successful if relatively unknown painter, and his study of ancient Spanish and Egyptian sculpture and the work of Gauguin had allowed him to move beyond the somewhat sentimentalized paintings of his blue and rose periods. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), however, marked not only a break with his own past but also a total rejection of the European tradition. This large (almost eight-square-foot) painting of five prostitutes seemed intentionally ugly to those who first saw it. The figures’ limbs are distorted and broken into planes. Their faces are as blank as masks, their lozenge-shaped eyes staring past the viewer. The faces of the figure on the left and of the two on the right are literally masklike (although experts disagree over their specific tribal prototypes) and savagely crosshatched. Long after its recognition as a key work of the twentieth century, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon continues to shock. Significance So-called primitive art had a major influence on Western culture during the twentieth century. As used broadly, the term “primitive” has been used to refer not only to tribal art but also to the work of children and the insane and to the output of self-taught “naïve” painters. Sometimes even a tendency to extreme simplification has been called primitive. Within this complex of factors, African and Oceanic tribal art made its influence felt widely and early. In addition to the Fauves, Matisse (who exhibited for a time with the Fauves), and Picasso, a number of other artists were affected. The Romanian Constantin Brancusi began to produce African-inspired sculpture about 1913, as did the Italian Amedeo Modigliani, better known today as a painter. Both lived in Paris and so were affected by the same conditions as other Parisbased artists. 495
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ing. In this context, a retrospective exhibition of works by French painter Paul Gauguin in 1906 came at just the right moment. Gauguin had visited Tahiti in 1891 and had eventually settled and died in the nearby Marquesas Islands. The exhibition featured canvases that seemed barbaric in their bright colors and subject matter: idealized native scenes, “pagan” idols, and other exotic themes. Gauguin had rejected purely realistic art, and artists in search of new means of expression found inspiration in his work. Gauguin’s insight into non-European cultures has been questioned, but he paved the way for the appreciation of African and Oceanic art by his younger colleagues. Accounts of how European artists discovered and began acquiring African sculpture differ. French painter Henri Matisse recounted that he bought a piece from Emile Heymann’s shop in Paris and that he subsequently showed it to his new acquaintance from Spain, Pablo Picasso, in 1906. The piece has since been identified with some certainty as a Vili statuette from a region of Africa that would later become the Republic of the Congo. The figure, of a seated man impudently sticking out his tongue, appears in an unfinished oil painting by Matisse, Still Life with African Sculpture, dating from 1906 or 1907. Another French painter, Maurice de Vlaminck, told a different story. He said that he noticed pieces of African tribal sculpture in a bar, and he bought them for the price of a round or two of drinks. The exact date is hard to establish—it may have been anywhere from 1903 to 1906. Later, a friend gave him several more pieces, one of which, a wooden Fang mask from what would later become Gabon, he sold to fellow artist André Derain. According to this story, it was this mask, which was on display in Derain’s Paris studio, that constituted the introduction to African tribal art for both Matisse and Picasso. Picasso himself was guarded in explaining his art and its inspiration. He once claimed complete ignorance of African art at that stage of his life, but he later stated that he had studied examples at the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro (rechristened the Musée de l’Homme) in Paris in 1907. In any case, he began buying pieces on visits to the flea market, eventually assembling a large collection that he maintained throughout his life. The influence of tribal art was far greater in some cases than in others. Vlaminck and Derain seem to have found little more than confirmation of their own attitudes. As members of the Fauve movement, they painted in bright, even harsh, colors, bypassing the intellect of
Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art
Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art Collections of African and Oceanic tribal art were not unique to France. Larger collections had been established in Germany, although that country had been acquiring colonies for a much shorter period of time. These collections were accessible to a major group of Germanbased artists, Die Brücke (the bridge), which had been formed in 1905. That group’s most important member was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. For a while, Fauve painter Kees van Dongen and Swiss artist Cuno Amiet, who had been a friend of Gauguin, were also associated with the group. The Fauves were a major influence, as was tribal art. Kirchner was already painting from live black models when he began studying African and Micronesian (North Pacific islander) art at the Dresden Ethnographic Museum in 1910. His work is more harshly colored and far more angular than that of the Fauves, as if he were straining to express the emotional, “primitive,” nonEuropean side of his character. It was through the work of Matisse and particularly Picasso, however, that the tribal art of Africans and other non-European peoples had its most significant impact on the mainstream of Western painting. Matisse integrated the elements so subtly that they became difficult to identify, especially after his initial burst of interest in 1906 and 1907. Only toward the end of his life did the influence again become obvious, in a series of “cutouts,” highly decorative collages of brightly painted paper. The portfolio of these works that he completed in 1947, appropriately called Jazz (after the popular black American music form), is the culmination of his career. Several of Picasso’s works from the period of 1907 take the experiment of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon a step further, especially two paintings sharing the title Nude with Raised Arms. Here the degree of stylization and near abstraction is marked. Whatever minimal perspective remained in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon has vanished. Picasso was on the verge of forging the most revolutionary style of the century, cubism. This new style was actually the mutual creation of Picasso and his colleagues Georges Braque and Juan Gris; Derain and Matisse took part, but less enthusiastically. In its simplest sense, cubism was a solution to the problem faced by all painters: representing three dimensions (height, width, and depth) on a surface that has only two. As Gauguin had been an influence a few years before, now French painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) became an important example. Cézanne had reduced objects and landscapes to their essential geometric components. To perceptive artists such as Picasso, the angularity of African tribal art, with its seemingly violent juxtaposition of 496
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 stylized features, must have seemed the result of a similar process. To reduce these elements still further to the flat surface of a canvas was to carry the process to its logical conclusion. Directly or indirectly (through the medium of cubism), tribal art influenced almost every important European artist of the twentieth century. After Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, its most important manifestation may have been the 1923 Paris premiere of the ballet La Création du monde (the creation of the world). This production combined numerous aspects of black culture, some more authentic than others, and capitalized on intense French interest in everything African. The score by Darius Milhaud is generally credited with being the first orchestral use of jazz (although the relationship between jazz and genuine African music has been debated). The scenario by writer and impresario Blaise Cendrars was based on African creation myths. Choreographer and principal dancer Jean Börlin adapted his movements from African models. The costumes and backdrop were designed by Fernand Léger, a painter who had taken part in the cubist movement and who now combined cubist and more obviously tribal elements into one harmonious and awe-inspiring whole. Léger based many of his designs on illustrations from Marius de Zayas’s African Art: Its Influence on Modern Art (1916), a pioneering work on the subject. The set featured three tall, freestanding figures representing presiding deities and illustrated the emergence of various stages of life. The costumes were highly stylized and managed to be both expressive and lighthearted. Around them all wound Milhaud’s ingratiating, sinuous music. When European artists discovered African tribal art in 1906 or 1907, they were impressed as much by its psychological aspects (its “magic”) as by its aesthetic dimensions. Picasso’s shocking Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the lyrical collaborative effort of La Création du monde define the far-reaching impacts of that discovery. — Grove Koger Further Reading Bois, Yve-Alain. “Kahnweiler’s Lesson.” Representations 18 (Spring, 1987): 33-68. Discussion of critic and art dealer C. H. Kahnweiler’s theory of the relationship between African tribal art and cubism. Kahnweiler had maintained that while African art was important to the development of Picasso and of cubism, its impact on Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles
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Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure
d’Avignon was negligible. For the serious student of art history. Illustrations, substantial notes. Flam, Jack, ed. Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art: A Documentary History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. A collection of essays by artists, literary figures, museum curators, art collectors, and others focusing on the encounter between Western artists and what has historically been called primitive art. Includes illustrations, an extensive bibliography, and a chronology of events, exhibitions, and publications. Goldwater, Robert. Primitivism in Modern Art. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2002. The classic study, discussing “primitivism” in all its manifestations. First published in 1938 and revised in 1966; this “enlarged” edition adds two supplementary chapters. Still the best introduction for the general reader. Black-and-white illustrations, detailed notes, chronology of “ethnographical museums and exhibitions,” index. Le Coat, Gerard G. “Art Nègre and Esprit Moderne in France (1907-1911).” In Double Impact: France and Africa in the Age of Imperialism, edited by G. Wesley Johnson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Examines the “discovery” of African tribal art by artists in Paris and compares the accounts of the various participants. The collection as a whole provides a broad context for the interested student. Maps, some
black-and-white illustrations, notes, select bibliography, index. Leighten, Patricia. “The White Peril and L’Art nègre: Picasso, Primitivism, and Anticolonialism.” Art Bulletin 72 (December, 1990): 609-630. Detailed analysis of the reaction of artists to accounts of atrocities in French and Belgian colonies in Africa. Black-andwhite illustrations, including reproductions of newspaper cartoons. Notes, list of frequently cited sources. Rubin, William, ed. “Primitivism” in Twentieth Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. 1984. Reprint. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2002. A lavish, two-volume treatment for browsers and experts alike. Particularly pertinent chapters include “From Africa,” by Jean-Louis Paudrat (on the arrival of African tribal objects in the West); “Matisse and the Fauves,” by Jack D. Flam; “Picasso,” by William Rubin; “German Expressionism,” by Donald E. Gordon; and “Léger: ‘The Creation of the World’” by Laura Rosenstock. Heavily illustrated, with many of the illustrations in color. Each chapter carries detailed notes, but there is no overall bibliography or index. See also: Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke; Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica.
1906-1910
Oldham and Mohorovi%i^ Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure Richard Dixon Oldham, Andrija Mohorovi5i6, and other seismologists, using data from earthquakes, revealed the layered internal structure of the earth. Also known as: Mohorovi5i6 Discontinuity Locale: England; Croatia Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geology
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Key Figures Richard Dixon Oldham (1858-1936), Irish seismologist Beno Gutenberg (1889-1960), German American seismologist Andrija Mohorovi5i6 (1857-1936), Croatian meteorologist Inge Lehmann (1888-1993), Danish seismologist
Summary of Event Scientists must rely on indirect evidence to create a picture of the deep interior of the earth. This picture has thus changed over time as new evidence has become available. Only in the twentieth century, with the development of new measurement techniques, did a clear picture of the earth’s interior structure begin to emerge. The preeminent geological text of the later half of the seventeenth century, German Jesuit and scholar Athanasius Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus (1664), described the earth with a fiery central core from which emerged a web of channels that carried molten material into fire chambers or “glory holes” throughout the “bowels” of the earth. The “contraction” theory, popular through the first half of the nineteenth century, held that the earth had
Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure
Earth’s Discontinuities Mohorovicic Discontinuity Crust Mantle
Outer Core
Inner Core Gutenberg Discontinuity
formed from material from the Sun and had since been slowly cooling, creating a solid crust. As the fluid cooled, it would contract, and the crust would collapse around the now smaller core, causing earthquakes and producing wrinkles that formed the surface features of mountains and valleys. Physicists in the 1860’s, however, pointed out several physical consequences of the contraction model that appeared to be violated. For example, the gravitational force of the Moon, which creates tides in the ocean, would produce tides also in a fluid interior. The resulting effect should either cause the postulated thin crust to crack and produce earthquakes whenever the Moon was
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overhead or, if the crust were sufficiently elastic, cause tides in the crust as well. Instruments were developed to detect crustal tides, but no such tides were discovered. By the beginning of the twentieth century, geologists were forced to abandon the contraction theory and conclude that the earth probably was completely solid and “as rigid as steel.” Thus when the German geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener suggested the idea of continental drift in 1912, it was dismissed on this basis as being physically impossible. Ironically, the very measuring instruments that overturned the simple liquid interior contraction theory would, in turn, disprove the solidearth view that had challenged and replaced it. Seismographs—such as the inverted pendulum seismograph invented in 1900 by German seismologist Emil Wiechert—would provide a completely new source of information about the internal structure of the earth. In 1900, Richard Dixon Oldham published a paper that established that earthquakes give rise to three separate forms of wave motion that travel through the earth at different rates and along different paths. When an earthquake occurs, it causes waves throughout the earth that fan out from the earthquake’s point of origin or “focus.” Primary (P) waves emanate like sound waves from the focus, successively compressing and expanding the surrounding material. Whereas P waves can travel through gases, liquids, and solids, secondary (S) waves can travel only through solids. S waves travel at about two-thirds the speed of P waves. Surface waves, the third type of seismic wave, travel only near the earth’s surface.
The Mohorovicic Discontinuity
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Oceanic Crust Continental crust
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Lithosphere (70-100 kilometers deep)
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Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure
Seismologists now speak of seismic data as being able to provide an X-ray picture of the earth. In his groundbreaking 1906 article “The Earth’s Interior as Revealed by Earthquakes,” Oldham analyzed worldwide data on fourteen earthquakes. He also observed that within certain interior earth zones, P waves behaved differently from what he expected. In 1912, Beno Gutenberg was able to establish that at a certain depth the velocity at which the seismic waves traveled changed sharply. He estimated this depth to be about 2,900 kilometers (roughly 1,802 miles—almost half of the earth’s radius). Oldham had also recognized in his own data the suggestion of a thin outer crust, but his data were insufficient to determine its depth. This estimation was to be made by Andrija Mohorovi5i6, a professor at the University of Zagreb, from an analysis (published in 1910) of an earthquake that had hit Croatia’s Kulpa Valley in late 1909. Mohorovi5i6 had noticed that at any one seismic station, both P and S waves from the earthquake appeared in two sets, but the time between the sets varied according to how far away the station was from the earthquake’s focus. Based on these different arrival times, Mohorovi5i6 reasoned that waves from a single shock were taking two paths, one of which traveled for a time through a “faster” type of rock. He calculated the depth of this change in material. His estimate fell within the now-accepted figure of 20 to 70 kilometers (12.4 to 43.5 miles)—the crustal thickness varies under the continents and shrinks to 6 to 8 kilometers (about 3.7 to 5 miles) under the ocean. This boundary between crust and mantle is now called the Mohorovi5i6 Discontinuity, or the Moho.
Further Reading Brush, Stephen G. “Inside the Earth.” Natural History (February, 1984): 26-34. Historical overview provides a good introduction to the topic for the lay reader. Explains clearly the various theories about the nature of the interior of the earth that have been proposed since the seventeenth century. Includes photographs of some of the scientists who made important contributions to this area in the twentieth century. Bullen, K. E. “The Interior of the Earth.” In Adventures in Earth History, edited by Preston Cloud. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1970. Reprint of a 1955 Scientific American article is a good source for details regarding the layered structure of the earth as revealed by seismic data. Presents information chronologically and notes persons who were most important in the development of the field, from those involved in the development of seismographs to the seismologists who interpreted the data. Features photographs of early seismometers, graphs, and diagrams. Davison, Charles. “Richard Dixon Oldham: 18581936.” Obituary Notices of the Fellows of the Royal Society 2, no. 5 (1936): 110-113. One of very few published sources of biographical data on Oldham. Covers the major events of Oldham’s life, briefly describes his most important research, and includes a photograph. Jeanloz, Raymond. “The Earth’s Core.” Scientific American 249 (September, 1983): 56-65. Discusses theoretical and experimental work on the nature of the earth’s core up to the early 1980’s. Does an excellent job of highlighting the lines of evidence for and against alternative hypotheses regarding the composition and development of the core. Explains views on how the core generates the earth’s magnetic field and how data on the field can provide information about the core. Clear diagrams highlight important concepts. Mather, Kirtley F., ed. Source Book in Geology, 19001950. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Collection of historically important original articles on geological subjects from the first half of the twentieth century includes major portions of Oldham’s “The Constitution of the Interior of the Earth as 499
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Significance The use of seismic data to plumb the earth’s interior produced an outpouring of research, both theoretical and experimental. By the mid-1920’s, seismologists had learned to make subtler interpretations of their data and realized that no S waves had been observed to penetrate through the core. Given that S waves cannot pass through liquid, there was reason to think that the core was liquid. Independent support for this hypothesis came from rigidity studies. Seismic waves could be used to determine the rigidity of the mantle; it was revealed to be much greater than the average rigidity of the earth as a whole (the existence of a low-density fluid region would account for this discrepancy). In 1936, however, Inge Lehmann was able to show that P waves passing close to the earth’s center changed velocity slightly, and she cor-
rectly inferred the existence of an inner core to account for this phenomenon. The current picture of the earth now includes a liquid outer core surrounding a solid inner core about 1,200 kilometers (745.6 miles) in radius. —Robert T. Pennock
Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll Revealed by Earthquakes” (omitting only the data sections) and a very brief biographical sketch of Oldham. Also includes Gutenberg’s article “Mobility of the Earth’s Interior” (1941). Stein, Seth, and Michael Wysession. An Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes, and Earth Structure. New York: Blackwell Science, 2002. Introductory textbook intended for advanced undergraduate and firstyear graduate courses in seismology. Heavily illustrated. Includes suggestions for further reading and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Tarbuck, Edward J., and Frederick K. Lutgens. The Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Introductory-level text offers a very good overview of the earth’s interior. Well written and illustrated with color graphics. See also: 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s MantleOuter Core Boundary; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength; 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core.
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Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll Richard Willstätter unified thought concerning the material responsible for photosynthesis in plants and showed that this activity is the result of two basic chlorophyll molecules. Locale: Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland Categories: Science and technology; chemistry Key Figures Richard Willstätter (1872-1942), German professor of organic chemistry Arthur Stoll (1887-1971), Swiss chemist Summary of Event When Richard Willstätter fled from the Gestapo in Nazi Germany to Switzerland in 1939, one of the few items he took with him was his highly cherished 1915 Nobel Prize certificate honoring him for chemical research. This work had resulted in the establishment of the composition and partial structure of chlorophyll, and the certificate was, very appropriately, decorated around its border with green leaves, blue cornflowers, scarlet geranium blossoms, and cherry-red berries. It was the presence of these and other colors in the plant kingdom that had stimulated the initial observations that led to this very productive phase of Willstätter’s research. In hindsight, it is clear that Willstätter’s life as a chemist prior to this work was very direct preparation for the success he enjoyed. As a doctoral student under Adolf von Baeyer and Alfred Einhorn, Willstätter learned and practiced the techniques then available for structural characterization by working on cocaine, tropine, and other molecules extracted from plants. The 500
general method available at the time involved a series of chemical reactions in which compounds of known composition were reacted with the original material (or a material derived previously from the original), with the goal of degrading the original into smaller fragments. These reactions were followed by tedious purification of the products, often formed in very low yields, until a simple molecule of known structure resulted. Once these derivatives were identified, the researcher had to follow the series of reactions backward to determine the structure of the starting material that could be responsible for the observed results. For the most part, the reconstructed trail was neither direct nor clear, and the researcher had to rule out many sideline possibilities by performing further reactions before a definitive answer could be found. The answers were also very open to challenge and, unless the researcher exercised utmost care at each step of the way, could be easily refuted. The heart of Willstätter’s research for the remainder of his active career consisted of modifying, adapting, and refining these basic tools so as to establish a clearer trail leading to the structure of molecules. After completing research for his doctoral degree, Willstätter continued in the area of organic structure research but shifted to applying the degradation and derivatization techniques to synthetic quinones, which formed the chemical basis of the German dye industry. Upon accepting a position as full professor at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1905, Willstätter inaugurated a new research effort directed at understanding how photosynthesis (the conversion of light energy and inorganic material into plant tissue) occurs. The first step in this major research effort was the study of chloro-
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solutions as a means of following the course of the separations and also as a means of assessing the purity of the fractions. At this point in the purification, the chlorophyll was not a single substance, but rather a mixture of the two chlorophyll forms. One investigation began with 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of dried leaves and, following nearly a dozen extractive steps using a variety of solvents, produced slightly less than 1 gram (less than 0.03 ounce) of a mixture of the two chlorophylls. Further extraction using methanol and a low-molecular-weight hydrocarbon produced the separation of the two, with the alpha form being more soluble in the hydrocarbon and the beta in the alcohol. The culmination of Willstätter’s work was the establishment of the chemical composition of these two forms of chlorophyll. Magnesium, previously postulated by others to be an impurity, was shown to be an integral part of the molecule. Phosphorus, thought by others to be a part of the molecule, was shown to be an impurity. The two chlorophylls were shown to be magnesium com-
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phyll. Willstätter produced twenty-four journal articles in conjunction with his students as well as a book (now a classic), Investigations on Chlorophyll: Methods and Results, written with the collaboration of Arthur Stoll, another student. At the time Willstätter began studying photosynthesis, very little was known about the source of color in plants; however, the generally accepted view was that each variation of green observed was the expression of a unique chemical molecule. Therefore, it was thought that a vast multitude of molecules must be responsible. These were, as a group, referred to as chlorophylls and were postulated to be the sites at which photosynthesis occurs. Willstätter worked in an area where there was scant guidance from earlier research. Building on the meager knowledge available, he created techniques to extract plant material and to recover, unchanged, the constituent chemical substances. The raw material for developing these processes was the dried leaves of plants. With the raw extract in hand, he worked to invent, improve, and characterize methods that enabled him to separate and to purify the chemical substances resulting from the extractions. Some of these methods involved the use of enzymes, a then poorly understood class of biological catalysts; others used the technique of adsorption chromatography, which was just being developed. Of particular interest is Willstätter’s finding that, rather than the myriad forms previously projected, there are but two chlorophylls: a blue-green, or alpha, form and a yellow-green, or beta, form. All the hues of green observed result from only these two molecules. Willstätter demonstrated this simplicity in the presence of diversity by extracting and analyzing the green parts of more than two hundred species of plants. He found only the two types of chlorophyll. Further, he was able to show that the two forms always existed in a near constant ratio to each other, regardless of the plant source. The extractive fractionation methods that Willstätter used can be described as depending on the selective solubility of the various plant components in different solvents at different acidities. For illustration, consider the final step in the separation of chlorophyll. This separation resulted when an alcohol solution containing the refined plant extract was treated with petroleum ether. Pure chlorophyll is not soluble in the petroleum ether, and it crystallized from the solution in good yield. Other components remained in either the alcohol solution or the petroleum ether solution. Willstätter used the intensity of color in the various
Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll
Richard Willstätter. (The Nobel Foundation)
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Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll plexes of dicarboxylic acids esterified with methanol and a new unsaturated alcohol, named phytol. Each chlorophyll form is a very large molecule. The alpha form contains fifty-five carbon atoms, seventy-two hydrogen atoms, four nitrogen atoms, five oxygen atoms, and a magnesium atom. The beta form differs by having one fewer oxygen atom and two fewer hydrogen atoms. Willstätter also established the similarity of these molecules to hemoglobin, with the magnesium of chlorophyll and the iron of hemoglobin playing similar structural roles. This similarity had been intuitively conceived as early as 1851, but Willstätter’s work was the earliest to establish the idea as fact.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 delve into the composition of many biologically important molecules. Recognition of the uniqueness of the chlorophyll molecule, its composition, and the role it plays in the photosynthetic process has had significant impact on the human condition. Willstätter’s work, and the extensions made from it by others, has allowed an understanding of plant growth that has guided agriculturists in their search for greater plant productivity. Of most direct impact has been the understanding of the important role of magnesium as a plant nutrient. As an integral part of the chlorophyll molecule, magnesium must be readily available to any growing plant. This means that this essential element, along with others, must be supplied by fertilization in soils that show a magnesium deficiency. Understanding this connection has allowed successful crop production on land previously thought to be too poor for farming and, in consequence, has led to an increase in food available for the world’s increasing population. Although Willstätter is most recognized for research on chlorophyll, his contributions to the definition of the role of teacher and investigator should not go unmen-
Significance Willstätter’s research may be seen as the beginning of the understanding of the process by which simple sugars aresynthesized from carbon dioxide and water through utilization of the energy of sunlight. This is the process known as photosynthesis. Willstätter’s contribution also marks the point from which knowledge of the structure of large, biologically important molecules stems. The importance of this series of experiments is illustrated by the fact that several Nobel Prizes in Chemistry The Photosynthetic Cycle have been awarded for contributions depending directly on Willstätter’s earlier work. The 1930 award was given to Hans Fischer for work toward a further understanding of the composition of chlorophyll and hemin, the oxygen-carrying component of blood. In 1961, the prize was Carbon dioxide Sunlight awarded to Melvin Calvin for research leading to an understanding, Oxygen at the molecular level, of the process of photosynthesis. Robert Burns Woodward received the Nobel in 1965 for his work on the complete synthesis of chlorophyll. Less directly, the award to Sir Robert Robinson in 1947 for investigation of materials of biological importance Food derived from plants is also related to Willstätter’s work. This sequence Water and minerals makes clear the idea, often expressed The processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration are complementary: Oxyin science, that researchers “stand on gen released into the atmosphere, a by-product of photosynthesis, is breathed in by the shoulders of giants” who preanimals, which in turn breathe out carbon dioxide, the gas that is essential for photoceded them. Others have used methsynthesis. (Kimberly L. Dawson Kurnizki) ods contributed by Willstätter to 502
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tioned. Each of his writings on chlorophyll was accomplished with a student as a collaborator. Willstätter was a member of a small group of chemists who pioneered the field of organic chemistry by breaking new ground and by devising new methods of experimentation. Because of this effort, Willstätter is often referred to as one of the fathers of organic chemistry. —Kenneth H. Brown Further Reading Armstrong, Henry E. “Scientific Worthies: XLV. Richard Willstätter.” Nature 120 (July 2, 1927): 1-5. One of a series of articles on the contributions and lives of scientists written by one who knew Willstätter personally and who conducted research in the same field. Summarizes Willstätter’s work on chlorophyll and other pigments as well as his life and scientific background. Provides a philosophical look at the impact of Willstätter and his work on the chemistry of the day. Hall, D. O., and K. K. Rao, Photosynthesis. 6th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Concise presentation of the process of photosynthesis aimed at undergraduate students in all fields of the biological sciences. Discusses the details of photosynthetic processes and also addresses the role of photosynthesis in food production and the global environment. Includes numerous line illustrations and color plates. Huisgen, Rolf. “Richard Willstätter.” Journal of Chemical Education 38 (January, 1961): 10-15. Abiography emphasizing Willstätter’s chemical career. Sections deal with his graduate school research on alkaloids, his early work on quinones, his work with a variety of plant pigments and with photosynthesis, and his late
Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll work on enzymes. The chemistry presented is written at a level accessible to an interested layperson. Rabinowitch, Eugene, and Govindjee. Photosynthesis. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969. Provides a broad introduction to the physicochemical mechanism of the primary process in photosynthesis and the enzymatic mechanisms closely related to it. Also discussed is the role of photosynthesis in nature. Shows the place that Willstätter’s work holds in modern understanding of the subject. Suitable for interested readers with a high school background in science. Robinson, Robert. “Willstätter Memorial Lecture.” Journal of the Chemical Society (1953): 999-1026. Address presented to the Chemical Society in London on the tenth anniversary of Willstätter’s death. The chemistry included may be too complex for most laypersons, but the address also deals with Willstätter’s connections to others in the scientific community and presents several reminiscences that allow an understanding of the style of the man as a citizen and as a scientist. Willstätter, Richard. From My Life: The Memoirs of Richard Willstätter. Translated by Lilli S. Hornig. New York: W. A. Benjamin, 1965. Arthur Stoll collected partially completed notes that Willstätter had prepared for a biography and published them after Willstätter’s death. Presents a clear look at Willstätter’s scientific life and his life as a Jew in Germany during the early part of the twentieth century. See also: 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic; 1938: Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25.
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Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement
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January 11, 1906
Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement Monism, a pantheistic philosophy that considered all things, animate and inanimate, as connected in some mystical way, was central to the philosophy of the biologist Ernst Haeckel. Members of the Monist League believed that the universe operated entirely by natural law and that human societies should strictly apply these laws. Although the Monist League was dissolved in 1933, the Nazis used the tenets of monist philosophy to justify racist and eugenic principles. Locale: Germany Categories: Philosophy; organizations and institutions Key Figures Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), biologist, physiologist, and writer who popularized Darwinism and was the major force behind the formation of the Monist League Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Alfred Ploetz (1860-1940), physician, biologist, and eugenicist known for introducing the concept of Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene) Summary of Event Ernst Haeckel, a prominent biologist and proponent of Darwinism, believed that science was superior to religion as a source of understanding of nature and the human condition. He saw the study of nature as the highest form of intellectual endeavor and considered that all matter, both organic and inorganic, was infused with a unifying life force. His philosophy was based on monism, a pantheistic-like belief, and he considered Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to be scientific proof of monism’s truth. Because humans are a part of nature, Haeckel believed that human society should operate by the laws of nature as he saw them. Haeckel viewed religion and nature as antithetical, and he suggested that religion be replaced with a more “primitive” religion of nature. Haeckelian monism stressed the struggle for existence based in nature and advocated applying Darwinian principles to society. Haeckel was convinced that the various human races were different species, some of which were superior to others. The Aryan race—especially the German race—was, he thought, the most advanced. Unfortu504
Ernst Haeckel. (Library of Congress)
nately, Haeckel said, intermarriage with other races and poor breeding practices had forced the Aryan race into decline. To remedy this issue, Haeckel determined that racial purity should be a German goal. The egalitarian nature of democratic political systems was considered contrary to natural law. An autocratic and fascist-style government was seen as more natural, in that it theoretically allowed wise leaders to oversee society, which was viewed as a single body composed of individual citizens, much in the way that the human body is composed of individual cells. Just as different types of cells perform different functions in the body, each citizen’s inborn talents could be used to determine his or her assigned role in society. Women were seen as nurturers, and their primary role was to bear children and raise them
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Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement
to become productive members of society. As in nature, those individuals with more skilled or more important roles were given greater advantages. Eugenics, a form of science focused on improving a given race, was a direct outgrowth of monism. In theory, application of eugenics to humans involves strengthening the population by selective breeding. Those with superior genetic traits would be encouraged to reproduce, and those with less desirable genetic traits could be discouraged, or even prevented, from reproducing. Awarding greater resources to those with more important roles in society, then, would encourage reproduction by genetically superior members of society. Haeckel even advocated such extreme approaches as sterilization of inferior individuals (such as the mentally ill or physically handicapped) and the euthanizing of infants born with serious defects. He even suggested that treating seriously ill individuals would be a waste of resources. At the time the Monist League was founded, Haeckel was seventy-two years old. Although not active in the organization’s administration, he continued to give popular lectures on Darwinism and monism. After Haeckel’s death in 1919, the Monist League persisted until 1933, when it was disbanded. Its dissolution was not the result of philosophical differences between the organization and the Nazis or Nazi leader Adolf Hitler; clearly, Hitler
incorporated many monist principles into Nazi philosophy. The heir to the Monist League was the Ernst Haeckel Association, or Ernst Haeckel Gesellschaft. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene (German Society for Racial Hygiene) was established by Alfred Ploetz in Berlin in 1905. Like the Monist League, its philosophy centered on Aryan racial superiority and eugenics, and it was also a potent force in the development of Nazism and the National Socialist movement. As a physician, Ploetz actively advocated his so-called principles of racial hygiene and defended traditional notions of the German family. He was especially concerned about the “parasitic burden” of the degenerate and mentally ill and believed that such “impurities” needed to be cleansed from German society. Although Haeckel was only able to propose eugenics as a way to improve the Aryan race, the Nazis and individuals like Ploetz were actually able to apply eugenics to the German population. The government gave certain physicians and geneticists permission to apply eugenic principles, and biometric data were gathered from the population to improve racial planning and to help support the contention that the Aryan race was superior to others. Interestingly, Hitler considered Jews to be relatively “fit” in a Darwinian sense: They had, after all, been able to survive centuries of harsh conditions. Their
Monism Explained One of Ernst Haeckel’s goals in Monism as Connecting Religion and Science was to explain the differences among the different types of thinking and sentient beings.
Source: Ernst Haeckel, Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, translated by J. Gilchrist (London: A. & C. Black, 1894).
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That we may rightly appreciate what this Monism is, let us now, from a philosophico-historical point of view cast a comprehensive glance over the development in time of man’s knowledge of nature. A long series of varied conceptions and stages of human culture here passes before our mental vision. At the lowest stage, the rude—we may say animal—phase of prehistoric primitive man, is the “apeman,” who, in the course of the tertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his immediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive stages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the rudest of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to conceive. These “savages” are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation, and from these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise little by little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone— of the twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean
and Mongolian—are we indebted for what is usually called “universal history.” This last, extending over somewhat less than six thousand years, represents a period of infinitesimal duration in the long millions of years of the organic world’s development. Neither of the primitive men we have spoken of, nor of those who immediately succeeded them, can we rightly predicate any knowledge of nature. The rude primitive child of nature at this lowest stage of development is as yet far from being the restless Ursachenthier (cause-seeking animal) of Lichtenberg; his demand for causes has not yet risen above that of apes and dogs; his curiosity has not yet mounted to pure desire of knowledge. If we must speak of “reason” in connection with pithecoid primitive man, it can only be in the same sense as that in which we use the expression with reference to those other most highly developed Mammals, and the same remark holds true of the first beginnings of religion.
Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement strength, however, only made their eradication more essential. According to Hitler’s Darwinian model, Aryans were in competition with Jews, and the superior race needed to apply the laws of nature to win. Although eugenics was firmly rooted in monism and Darwinism, the form it took after the Nazis gained political power only partly incorporated these philosophies. The idea of the Aryan race’s superiority was difficult to reconcile with the monist contention that humans evolved from lower primates. Consequently, the purely naturalistic components of monism were largely minimized, except for eugenics, which was seen to have practical benefits for society. The Nazis believed that proper application of eugenics would propel the Aryan race toward complete domination over other races. Significance Haeckel’s Monist League was intended as the platform for dissemination of monist philosophy. Central to monist dogma was the belief that nature obeyed a single, unified law, the law of struggle for existence, as proposed by Darwin. Because humans were considered a part of nature, it was assumed that human society should operate by the laws of nature. Although Haeckel did not see the fruition of his ideas, later individuals—most notably Hitler—applied monist principles to Nazism. An integral part of the Nazi system was a belief in Aryan supremacy over other races and in eugenics as a way to purify the German race and improve it, and these ideas were lifted almost directly from Haeckelian monism. —Bryan Ness Further Reading Gasman, Daniel. The Scientific Origins of National Socialism. Somerset, N.J.: Transaction, 2004. A thor-
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ough analysis of monism and its roots in nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany that shows its connection with Nazi eugenics programs. Haeckel, Ernst. The Evolution of Man. 2 vols. 1879. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004. Haeckel’s own theories about the origin of humankind and its relation to monism. _______. Monism as Connecting Religion and Science. 1894. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004. Based on a talk given by Haeckel at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes (Natural Research Society of the Eastern Region) in which he outlined the basic ideas of his monist philosophy. Hau, Michael. The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Deals with the German obsession with physical culture, which was at the root of German acceptance of the principles of eugenics. Weindling, Paul. Health, Race, and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993. A broad overview of the gradual changes in medicine and social programs in Germany that led to a comprehensive eugenics program as the Nazis consolidated their control of German politics. See also: 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; May 16, 19401944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps.
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American College Football Allows the Forward Pass
January 12, 1906
American College Football Allows the Forward Pass The creation of a 1906 rule allowing the forward pass in American college football significantly reduced the number of serious injuries and contributed to the game’s increasing popularity. It helped sports administrators overcome the dangerous and injuryplagued rugby style of play that had resulted in several players’ deaths. The changes to the rules also encouraged the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Sports; organizations and institutions Key Figures Henry Mitchell MacCracken (1840-1918), chancellor of New York University, 1891-1910 Jesse Harper (1884-1961), football coach at the University of Notre Dame, 1913-1918 John Heisman (1869-1936), football coach at Georgia Institute of Technology, 1904-1919 Palmer E. Pierce (fl. early twentieth century), officer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and first president of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909
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Summary of Event American football evolved largely as a result of collegelevel games played in the 1800’s, and its rules were heavily influenced by the European games of soccer and rugby. The first official college-level game played in the United States took place on November 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers Universities. At that time, however, the game’s rules were evolving toward the dangerous and injury-plagued rugby style, in which eleven to fifteen players from each side would mass together in a V shape and try to push the ball through the defense. This tactic sometimes resulted in head-on collisions between defensive players trying to slow the offense’s forward momentum. The rugby style of play resulted in many serious injuries and a few player deaths from head injuries, and many of the college administrators considered discontinuing the sport. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of forty-three thousand spectators at the 1905 game between Yale and Harvard in which six players were seriously injured. The game’s violent results led to a meeting
at the White House between the president and representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities on October 9, 1905, and from that point on, it became clear that changes would have to be made by the colleges or by the nation’s lawmakers. At the end of the 1905 college football season, the Chicago Tribune reported in large print that, over the course of the season, 18 players had died and 159 had been seriously injured. On December 28 and 29, 1905, Henry Mitchell MacCracken, the chancellor of New York University, hosted a meeting of representatives from sixty-two colleges and universities. At that meeting, Captain Palmer E. Pierce from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point recommended the creation of a new, formal organization for college athletics, and the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) was formed. Seven years later, the organization was renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Captain Pierce served as the organization’s president from 1905 to 1912 and again from 1916 to 1930. At Pierce’s urging, the new IAAUS committee on football’s rules met with Walter Camp, head of the Intercollegiate Football Association, on January 12, 1906. William T. Reid, Harvard University’s head football coach, was elected secretary of the IAAUS, an action that turned the Intercollegiate Football Association into a seven-member IAAUS committee. At the same meeting, several rule changes were approved, including the legalization of the forward pass. This approval, however, required that certain conditions be met. Hash marks were drawn at five-foot intervals down the length of the field in order to create a gridiron, because a pass could be thrown only when the thrower had moved five or more yards from the center of the line of scrimmage. Furthermore, a new rule made an uncaught, or incomplete, pass subject to the same treatment as a fumble: Either team could recover it and have offensive possession. If an incomplete pass traveled out of bounds, possession would be given to the defense at the field’s center. In addition, the yardage necessary to receive a first down was increased from five to ten yards. The institution of the forward pass was due largely to the efforts of John Heisman, head football coach at Georgia Institute of Technology (also called Georgia Tech). Also important, however, was Harvard University’s 1903 construction of the first concrete stadium, a move that gave permanent dimensions to the Harvard
American College Football Allows the Forward Pass football field and in so doing rejected the main alternative to the forward pass, which was a proposed widening of the field by forty feet. Halfback Bradbury Robinson of Saint Louis University made the first attempt to throw a forward pass on September 5, 1906, at the start of a game against Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It would take several years before coaches and players at all colleges would develop the passing skills and strategies that characterize the modern game. The football-watching public and all the coaches took special note in 1913 when the undefeated University of Notre Dame team, coached by Jesse Harper, defeated a bigger, stronger Army team 35-13 before a large crowd on the military academy’s home field. Notre Dame was a small, relatively unknown school, and the headline in The New York Times the next day was “Notre Dame Open Play Amazes Army.” Using his small, 145-pound body, Notre Dame senior quarterback Gus Dorais sidestepped and avoided huge Army tacklers and lofted thirteen out of seventeen attempted pass completions to several receivers for 243 passing yards. One of his favorite targets that day was senior Knute Rockne, his dormitory roommate and frequent practicing partner during the previous summer. Rockne scored a key fourth-quarter touchdown by faking a leg injury—after limping around, he suddenly sprinted beyond his defender, caught the pass, and scored. Before 1906, the football was round, like the rugby and soccer balls from which it was descended. It would take many years for the rules committee to adopt a lighter, narrower ball with seams that allowed the aerodynamic, spiral-spinning flight of the modern throw. The earliest passes were thrown end over end, or the ball was thrown with an upward pushing motion high and soft into the air, and offensive players would run downfield and defend and block for the receiver while he tried to catch the ball. Significance The founding of the organization that became the NCAA changed American college football from the dangerous and injury-plagued game it had been before 1906. Through the efforts of this organization, rules were created that both made the game safer and increased spectator interest. The innovation of the forward pass was one of these rules.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Most college football teams began implementing the forward pass soon after it was made legal, but it was not until the relatively small Notre Dame team of 1913 decisively triumphed over the Army team that the potential of the pass play gained significant media attention. From that time on, coaches’ strategies, offensive players’ throwing and catching skills, and rules began to evolve into the modern game, in which passing and catching have equal prestige. —Alan Prescott Peterson Further Reading Falla, Jack. NCAA: The Voice of College Sports. Mission, Kans.: National Collegiate Athletic Association, 1981. A historical biography of the NCAA that explains how the 1906 changes in football rules, including those related to the forward pass, significantly contributed to the formation of the NCAA. Lazenby, Roland. The Pictorial History of Football. San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Press, 2000. Primarily a historical account of football’s development. Includes many photographs as well as a factual written account of the forward pass’s legalization. Walsh, Christy, ed. Intercollegiate Football: A Complete Pictorial and Statistical Review, from 1869 to 1934. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1934. Historical biography includes analysis and photographs of the players and coaches who had impacts on football’s evolution. Walters, John. Notre Dame: Golden Moments. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 2004. A pictorial and written summary recounting the author’s opinions on the twenty most important games in the history of Notre Dame football, including the 1913 game against the Army, when the much smaller Notre Dame team conquered the powerhouse Army using the forward pass. Whittingham, Richard. Rites of Autumn: The Story of College Football. New York: Free Press, 2001. Companion book to the video series of the same name. Details the historical development of college football. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; Oct. 113, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sinclair Publishes The Jungle
February, 1906
Sinclair Publishes THE JUNGLE Upton Sinclair’s novel about labor exploitation and unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry shocked the American public and expedited governmental reforms. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Literature; business and labor; social issues and reform Key Figure Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American author
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Summary of Event In the early years of the twentieth century, the combination of laissez-faire capitalism and the Industrial Revolution was creating monopolistic industries in the United States and generating huge fortunes for those who controlled them. The captains of industry sincerely believed that mass production would benefit humanity by making consumer goods cheap and abundant. They believed that business competition was a good thing because it stimulated innovation and efficiency. Their aim was to get the maximum production from the minimum investment in labor and raw material. The theory of social Darwinism appealed to their needs precisely. This is a theory that the struggle for existence improves the human species because the stronger thrive while the weaker perish. The extrapolation from Charles Darwin’s theories regarding the evolution of plant and animal life seemed to justify driving workers to the limits of human endurance, encouraging unrestricted immigration to swell the labor pool, and using corporate profits to control federal, state, and local governments and make it virtually impossible for workers to put up any organized resistance. Big business interests also controlled public opinion through their control of newspapers and magazines. Many of these publications were owned outright by powerful capitalists; most others were dependent on advertising revenue derived from business interests and did not dare to offend them. The attitude of the money barons of the period is succinctly expressed by a character in the motion picture Citizen Kane (1941). The film’s fictional protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, owner of vast financial interests, including a chain of newspapers, declares, “The public will think what I tell them to think.” Mechanization and mass-production methods tended to replace skilled labor and resulted in a tremendous demand for unskilled workers who could be taught to do re-
petitive tasks. Employers hired efficiency experts to study their operations and break down the entire production process into the simplest possible components. The essence of the system was that the worker was not free to move around the factory but had the product conveyed to him or her by mechanical apparatus. The great comedian and movie producer Charles Chaplin satirized this dehumanizing procedure in his classic film Modern Times (1936), a work modeled on Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The general public tended to believe in the system because it seemed to represent progress: It was producing an abundance of cheap goods that seemed to be raising everyone’s standard of living. An example was Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model T, which was making it possible for the average American to own an automobile, a wonderful machine that opened up the world for recreation and exploration, a machine that formerly had been a symbol of upper-class status. The newly developing art form of advertising presented only the positive aspects of modern industrial production and ignored what went on behind the scenes. The demand for labor attracted illiterate, impoverished immigrants from all over Europe. They came to the United States with the dream of attaining a quality of life that was unthinkable in their native countries. Most of them were absorbed by the factory system, where they found themselves working even harder than they had in their homelands. They tried to organize unions, but there were many problems: religious differences, a variety of languages, competition from the influx of immigrant workers, and political corruption. Employers often had politicians and police on their side. Strikes were broken up by “goons” (hired thugs) and “scabs” (strikebreakers), aided and abetted by the police. Labor organizers were jailed on trumped-up charges. Worst of all, the flood of immigration created such relentless competition for jobs that workers were deprived of bargaining power. This naturally created a considerable amount of hostility among the various ethnic groups, making it difficult for workers to organize effectively. Inspired by his discovery of socialism, the idealistic young author Upton Sinclair selected the meatpacking industry as an example of capitalistic exploitation of human labor. He spent two months investigating working and living conditions in and around the Chicago packinghouses and presented his findings in the form of a novel, focusing on the career of a single immigrant laborer
Sinclair Publishes The Jungle named Jurgis Rudkus. What happens to Jurgis is intended to symbolize what happens to working people generally under laissez-faire capitalism. Jurgis begins his working career as a powerful young man full of optimism and ambition. He and his young wife believe in the American Dream—the dream of acquiring their own home and living a comfortable life through hard work, honesty, and thrift. Jurgis is gradually broken down by the excruciating work in the slaughterhouse. He also becomes disgusted by the greed and corruption that destroy human lives and result in incredibly filthy methods of handling of meat. Diseased animals and putrefying meat are regularly sold to the American public and exported all over the world. The packinghouses are infested with rats, which often get mixed in with the sausage meat. Sinclair piles one horrible detail on top of another. His most memorable example combines the exploitation of labor by big business and its disregard for the consumer in the pursuit of profit: Some
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Upton Sinclair. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 workers, exhausted by the long hours and speeded-up tempo dictated by the merciless machinery of mass production, actually fall into cooking vats and become part of the product that is sold to the public as “pure leaf lard.” Jurgis works hard and continues to cling to the American Dream until he injures himself on the job. After recuperating for two months, he finds that he has been replaced by younger, stronger men and can only get a job in a fertilizer plant, where he works under the most appalling conditions. His career continues on a downhill course. He becomes addicted to alcohol, is thrown in jail, is blacklisted, drifts from one temporary job to another, and becomes a strong-arm robber and a strikebreaker. His wife, son, and father all die tragically. Finally, all alone and in despair, Jurgis happens to attend a meeting where he hears a brilliant socialist speak on the evils of capitalism. Jurgis’s whole life is turned around by the realization that he is not really alone—rather, he shares the same problems as millions of other workers. Socialism becomes a substitute for religious faith. Sinclair hoped that his prescription would be accepted by the masses. Sinclair had started his literary career as a hack writer of fiction for young people. This experience taught him how to write in simple language. The Jungle became famous because it was easy to read and easy to understand. Almost immediately, other writers began to publish novels exposing other branches of American business. The exposé novel became and remained a popular genre of fiction. Significance The most immediate effect of The Jungle was that it expedited the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which prohibited the shipment of adulterated foods and drugs in interstate commerce and required honest labeling. The Meat Inspection Act was passed in the same year. Enforcement of these acts led to the creation in 1930 of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an agency that gradually acquired more and more supervisory control over production and sale of consumer goods. This legislation helped to establish a precedent for further government control of business operations. Government control of business had a strong, usually positive, effect on consumer rights. The nation’s health was better, and consumers felt less anxious about what they were eating and feeding their children. It would be hard to imagine living in a civilized society without such safeguards. This, however, was not the effect Sinclair had tried to achieve. In his autobiography, he wrote, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Making of Sausage This description of packinghouse practices from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle illustrates why many readers of the novel became vocal in their support of passage of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act: There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was mouldy and white—it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them, they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one—there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. Source: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1906).
plied to big business, this might be translated into the modern term “corporate responsibility.” In the long run, The Jungle was most important in the influence it had on other artists. The book was a best seller in the United States and Great Britain and made Sinclair famous. He went on to write influential propagandistic fiction and nonfiction for sixty years. His works were translated into at least forty-seven languages in thirty-nine countries. He showed how complex economic and political ideas can be presented effectively in dramatic form to appeal directly to the masses. In Sinclair’s model, a viewpoint character is broken by an oppressive system and finally comes to realize the need for political action. The reader identifies with the viewpoint character and thereby shares in that character’s conversion to an ideology. Variations of The Jungle have appeared throughout the world because the novel proved to be such a valuable propaganda tool. Because Sinclair’s model can be used just as effectively to arouse public anger against socialistic bureaucracy as against capitalistic megalopoly, novelists in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe have attacked the evils of socialism with the same tool that Sinclair forged to promote it. In Mammonart (1925), a nonfiction work, Sinclair’s thesis is that all art is propaganda, that it cannot help but be propaganda, and that modern artists should not feel squeamish about using their work as propaganda to agitate for the betterment of humankind. The most important effect of The Jungle and its many imitations was that they undermined the popular belief that the ambitious individual can find happiness and financial success through hard work and thrift—the socalled American Dream. Instead, these works helped to promote a mass consciousness of the need for joint action to effect improvement in human affairs. —Bill Delaney Further Reading Agee, James. “A Mother’s Tale.” In James Agee: “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” “A Death in the Family,” Shorter Fiction, edited by Michael Sragow. New York: Library of America, 2005. Intriguing and highly unusual short story describes the whole process of raising and butchering cattle from the point of view of an animal who managed to escape from a slaughterhouse. Arthur, Anthony. Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair. New York: Random House, 2006. Biography emphasizes Sinclair’s interest in social reform, including his political ambitions. Provides interesting coverage of 511
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stomach.” The public was much more concerned about the food it ate than about the plight of the workers who produced it. What people remembered about the book was “rats in the sausage.” The history of The Jungle symbolizes the main problem of socialism as a solution to the world’s problems. Human nature is arguably more selfish than cooperative. It is impossible to get an entire population to work hard for an ideal: People want tangible personal rewards, and these are the things that capitalism has provided more effectively than has socialism. The unrest in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe in the early 1990’s demonstrated that socialistic dictatorships may start off with idealistic principles but are forced to resort to guns and concentration camps to motivate their constituents to produce. Sinclair himself lost his zest for socialism in his old age and changed his credo to “social justice.” As ap-
Sinclair Publishes The Jungle
Sinclair Publishes The Jungle the author’s life after publication of The Jungle. Includes photographs. Asch, Peter. Consumer Safety Regulation: Putting a Price on Life and Limb. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Analysis of the major arguments advanced for consumer protection laws by an economist concerned with regulation. Argues that consumer protection laws often have perverse consequences, although the right to safety must also be considered. Includes discussion of the effect of publication of The Jungle in promoting disclosure laws. Bloodworth, William A., Jr. Upton Sinclair. Boston: Twayne, 1977. Brief volume addresses Sinclair’s career as an idealistic writer and reformer. Focuses on Sinclair’s place in American social and literary history, with special emphasis on his significance as a voice in pre-World War I reform. Dell, Floyd. Upton Sinclair: A Study in Social Protest. 1927. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. Brief but balanced survey of Sinclair’s life from his youth to his late forties. Includes a brief discussion of The Jungle. Goodwin, Lorine Swainston. The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879-1914. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999. Survey of the history of lobbyists and elected officials who fought for legislation to protect the public from dangerous food and drug products. Harris, Leon. Upton Sinclair: American Rebel. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975. Biography relies heavily on Sinclair’s extensive correspondence as well as on numerous interviews with individuals who knew him. Devotes two chapters to discussion of The Jungle.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hilts, Philip J. Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Documents the history of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from its establishment during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Emphasizes the FDA’s regulatory role and its battles against entrenched business interests. Mookerjee, R. N. Art for Social Justice: The Major Novels of Upton Sinclair. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988. Intelligent overview of Sinclair’s career devotes a chapter to The Jungle. Includes extensive footnotes and bibliography. Sinclair, Upton. The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962. Provides the best introduction to Sinclair’s philosophy and his unique personality. Includes a great deal of information about the writing of The Jungle and describes many of the famous people the author came to know during his lifetime. _______. The Jungle. 1906. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2002. The novel that brought corrupt food industry practices to international attention is one of the first major media exposés in U.S. history. See also: Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act; 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established; 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Establishment of the British Labour Party
February 12, 1906
Establishment of the British Labour Party The formation of the Labour Party, with its trade unionist and socialist principles, created a voice for the lower classes in a leading industrial and capitalist society. Locale: London, England Categories: Business and labor; government and politics Key Figures Keir Hardie (1856-1915), first leader of the Labour Party Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), first secretary of the Labour Representation Committee, later first Labour prime minister of Great Britain John Burns (1858-1943), first working-class person to become a cabinet minister in Great Britain Ben Tillett (1860-1943), founder of the London dockworkers’ union Henry Mayers Hyndman (1842-1921), leader of the Socialist Democratic Federation
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Summary of Event The lower classes of any society rarely, if ever, have the opportunity for direct access to the primary decisionmaking bodies, let alone the chance to obtain control of the reins of government in a collective manner. The creation of the British Labour Party in 1906 was one of the first significant steps toward direct, purposeful links to working-class objectives for political action and leadership in any industrial country to that time. That this event occurred in Great Britain, the country of origin of both capitalism and modern industrialism, makes it all the more significant. The Labour Party evolved out of a series of attempts by workers, socialists, and trade unionists to play a direct role in the British parliamentary system. Class privilege was at the heart of the British political tradition. Attempts to change the electoral system dated to the Reform Act of 1832. Efforts such as Chartism during the 1830’s and 1840’s failed to gain the vote for workers or to make Parliament more accessible to persons of the lower classes. Although the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 extended the ballot to males, first in the industrial and then in the agricultural sector, a supporting role was still the only means by which the newly enfranchised, but still largely powerless, workers could attempt to affect political outcomes. By the end of the nineteenth century,
such a strong informal coalition had been formed between labor groups and the Liberal Party that candidates with dual support were referred to as Lib-Labs. The rapid industrialization of Great Britain had created serious problems that society either ignored or only slowly addressed. Various groups claimed to possess the needed solutions and used these plans as a means of attracting followers. Trade unionists and socialists were two of the more significant camps out of which a variety of organizations emanated in the nineteenth century. The Labour Party would finally emerge from the efforts of these groups. At times these bodies worked independently, and at other times they formed coalitions. All played varying roles in heightening awareness of particular issues and attempting to draw members into supporting class-based political stances and organizations. Principal among these were the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), the Fabian Socialists, and the Independent Labour Party (ILP). One of the primary groups from which the Labour Party emerged was the TUC, formed in 1868 partially as an outgrowth of the extension of the vote to male workers the previous year. The TUC was particularly concerned with working conditions and workers’ compensation for work-related illness, disability, and unemployment. As a federation of unions, the TUC concentrated on union issues more than on political candidates. Some of its members were politically active, however. Keir Hardie, one of the first trade unionist representatives elected to Parliament, was a leader within the TUC. Hardie, with roots in Scottish trade unions and socialist ideology, would more than any other individual influence the progression of events that led to the formation of the Labour Party. The ability of the lower classes to address grievances and to seek gains was limited and worsening. A number of conflicts had widened the gulf between labor and management. These confrontations heightened trade unionist and socialist leaders’ awareness of their lack of political power. One major success by labor, the London Dock Strike of 1889, heightened expectations of what might be achieved. Broad-based support, widespread publicity, and effective leadership from such figures as John Burns and Ben Tillett demonstrated what was possible. Both Burns and Tillett emerged as leaders in the TUC as a consequence. The drive toward political independence began a few years later, with the creation of the Independent Labour
Establishment of the British Labour Party
Keir Hardie. (Library of Congress)
Party (ILP) in January, 1893. Spearheaded by Hardie, representatives of the SDF, Fabians, various trade unions, and other organizations convened to establish a mechanism for more direct support of candidates who would be independent of other parties and directly committed to trade unionism and socialism. This new organization—yet another coalition—was a major step toward the eventual creation of the Labour Party. The formation of the new group, while intensifying collective efforts and heightening public awareness of a common agenda, was on a relatively small scale and without major public fanfare. The group lacked a cause that would ignite the public’s imagination and create sufficient support for the autonomous political faction. That event occurred in 1900, when railroad workers struck the Taff Vale Railway Company. The company sued and won damages for lost revenue. The court decision, which was upheld by the House of Lords in 1901, represented a fundamental threat to workers’ ability to act collectively in labor-management disputes. The drive to reverse this decision was the essential galvanizing force that forged 514
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the coalition of various labor and socialist elements that previously had worked in splintered fashion on separate trade-specific or ideologically divergent programs. Coalition building was difficult, given the idiosyncrasies of some of the leaders of the various organizations. Debate over the best strategy and the question of whether to include socialists in the aims of labor had long kept the major players in the trade unionist and socialist camps from coalescing for action. The socialists were split among various groups, with the likes of the SDF, led by Henry Mayers Hyndman, on the more radical end of the spectrum contrasted with the middle-classsupported Fabian Socialists. The Fabians, with Beatrice and Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw among their leaders, called for gradual, evolutionary political introduction of socialist policies and programs. A more direct step, with concrete measures for supporting independent candidates, had been taken on February 27, 1900, when Hardie organized the creation of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), supported by the TUC, the ILP, Fabians, and the SDF (the SDF would drop out shortly thereafter). Many historians view the establishment of the LRC as the pivotal step in the creation of the Labour Party. The events of 1906 were but a culmination of the decisions to act made in 1900. The LRC went beyond the efforts of any of the separate organizations that established it and extended previous efforts at political action. The sole purpose of the LRC was to achieve political victories in parliamentary elections for candidates tied to labor. The composition of this new body guaranteed that both trade unionism and socialist principles would be fused in the solutions offered to the nation by candidates identified with the LRC. Trade unions were initially slow to respond to the new organization, which initially provided endorsements and encouragement only to those candidates directly identified as labor candidates. However, the uproar that arose over the Taff Vale case contributed to a rapid increase in the LRC’s popularity, and membership in the organization reached 847,000 by 1903. Ramsay MacDonald, who later would become Great Britain’s first Labour prime minister, served as the first secretary of this new political coalition. In 1903, the LRC established a political fund. In a firm stand for independence, it demanded that LRC candidates not be affiliated with other political parties.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The final step toward political autonomy came with the election of January, 1906. In the midst of an overwhelming victory by the Liberals, twenty-nine out of fifty candidates sponsored by the LRC were elected to Parliament. Of these, only three were opposed by Liberals. A sufficient number of Labour candidates were elected to form a new parliamentary Labour Party caucus. On February 12, the newly elected representatives met and selected officers, including Keir Hardie as the first chair. Three days later, the slate and the decision to name the organization the Labour Party were carried by the conference of the LRC. This name change was the end of one era and the beginning of a new phase of a Labour opposition party, voicing lower-class, trade unionist, and socialist aspirations in Parliament. The Labour Party would gain control of the government several times during the twentieth century.
Among the immediate consequences of the establishment of the Labour Party was the reversal of the implications of the Taff Vale case by passage of the Trade Disputes Act of 1906. Unions gained some rights, although the challenges, both legislative and otherwise, to actions taken during collective bargaining were not fully removed. The coalition backing Labour began to broaden significantly when the miners voted in 1908 to affiliate with the Labour Party. The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1906 nearly doubled the number of those covered, from seven to thirteen million, by expanding the list of diseases included under the legislation. In 1908, Parliament established an eight-hour workday for miners and provided for statesupported pensions for some workers. Female workers benefited in 1909 from the establishment of a minimum wage for certain sweatshop-type employment. In addition to pension and workers’ compensation provisions, some elements of a broadening state responsibility for society, but especially the lower classes, began to be enacted. These measures demonstrated socialist concerns that extended beyond union or work activities. Primary among these early acts were those that required medical inspection of schoolchildren (1907) and enabled, although did not mandate, school food programs. The Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909 targeted urban slums. These legislative actions, although important, still required the support of the Liberal Party, which was in control of the government. Labour’s electoral achievements of 1906 spurred others to be more attentive to a large segment of society that had gone too long without a platform in the national government. Other pieces of the Labour demands would begin to emerge in subsequent years. The successes of 1906 were encouraging to Labour’s supporters; however, these gains did not resolve the ideological and class conflict inherent in a modern industrial society. —Daniel J. Doyle Further Reading Cole, G. D. H., and Raymond Postgate. The British People, 1746-1946. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1961. A pioneering classic in working-class history. Provides extensive information on social, labor, and political history from 1746 to 1946. Hinton, James. Labour and Socialism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983. Examines the relationship between trade unionism and the range of working-class interests and distinguishes the nature of London politics and unionism from that in other re515
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Significance The decision to form the LRC in 1900, the election victory in January, 1906, and the final, formal establishment of what is now known as the Labour Party demonstrated the growing social divisions in British society and the commitment of an increasing segment of the electorate from the lower and middle classes to support an agenda tied to implementing some of the demands of Labour’s constituency. The electoral successes in 1906 are significant as demonstration that social and labor issues could not be ignored easily. Legislation was passed during the next few years that rectified some of labor’s pressing concerns and began to implement what would later be called the British welfare state. Efforts at political activism that dated from the 1830’s were finally realized. One significant difference from the Chartist agenda was the inclusion of socialist representatives and principles in the Labour Party. The supporters of candidates identified with Labour rose from more than 300,000 in 1906 to 500,000 in 1910 and 4.5 million in 1922. Labour achieved control of Parliament for the first time in 1924, with Ramsay MacDonald as prime minister. The Labour Party became a major force in British politics after World War II and continued to hold significant power until the 1970’s. Then, after eighteen years of Tory government, Labour regained power with a landslide victory in 1997 under the leadership of Tony Blair. Labour won three successive elections under Blair, although in the third-term elections of 2005, Labour support declined to a slim majority compared with its more robust domination of parliamentary seats in the previous two election cycles.
Establishment of the British Labour Party
Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations gions. Covers the period from 1867 to 1974 in a tone critical of failures of Labour. Howell, David. British Workers and the Independent Labour Party: 1888-1906. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1983. One of the most comprehensive studies available on one of the key forerunners of the Labour Party. Analysis of the significance of the ILP forms the concluding chapters of this major work. McBriar, A. M. Fabian Socialism and English Politics, 1884-1918. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Extensive study of the Fabian Socialists, with concluding chapters on Fabian influence on the origins of the Labour Party. Presents a reasonably complete picture of the issues and forces from which Labour emerged. McKibbin, Ross. The Evolution of the Labour Party, 1910-1924. 1974. Reprint. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1984. Examines early successes of the party in the context of local and parliamentary politics and traces the rise of Labour along with the decline of the Liberals. Claims that socialism was not vital to Labour’s popularity. Martin, Ross. TUC: The Growth of a Pressure Group, 1868-1976. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1980. A broad overview of the Trades Union Congress, which was one of the key players in setting the agenda that Labour adopted.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Pelling, Henry. The Origins of the Labour Party, 18801900. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1965. The classic study on the topic. Focuses primarily on the Independent Labour Party, establishing a general evolution of Labour rather than raising critical questions or providing class analysis. Pugh, Martin. The Making of Modern British Politics, 1867-1945. 3d ed. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 2002. Sophisticated account of British political history from the 1860’s to the outbreak of World War II. Includes discussion of the evolution of the Labour Party in the late twentieth century. Reid, Alastair J., and Henry Pelling. A Short History of the Labour Party. 12th ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Covers the period from 1906 forward. Includes an annotated bibliography. Reid, Fred. Keir Hardie. London: Croom Helm, 1978. A brief analysis of the first labor and socialist representative elected to Parliament. Raises critical questions as to Hardie’s real attitude toward the working class. See also: 1903: Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman; Sept. 4-15, 1911: Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools; 19201925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits; May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike; July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women.
Spring, 1906
Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations By cooperating with the press during a labor dispute involving the Anthracite Coal Roads and Mines Company, Ivy Ledbetter Lee established open disclosure as a public relations philosophy. Locale: Pennsylvania Categories: Business and labor; publishing and journalism Key Figures Ivy Ledbetter Lee (1877-1934), American public relations consultant George Frederick Baer (1842-1914), leader of the anthracite coal mine operators and the Philadelphia and Reading Railway John Mitchell (1870-1919), leader of the United Mine Workers 516
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 George F. Parker (1847-1928), American public relations consultant Alexander J. Cassatt (1839-1906), president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Summary of Event In 1906, as a second major strike in four years threatened to paralyze mining operations and further encourage federal regulation, George Frederick Baer and his coal mining associates (all affiliated with J. P. Morgan’s financial empire) retained an up-and-coming young publicist named Ivy Ledbetter Lee to help manage the potentially explosive situation. Instead of following standard corporate procedures and suppressing information flows
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to the public, Lee adopted what was then a radical approach. He candidly announced that he was a publicity consultant who had been hired by the anthracite coal mine management to handle publicity, then invited the press to ask questions. Lee actively distributed information through press releases that were written according to the standard style guidelines followed by journalists of the time, another departure from the normal procedure for corporations. His open disclosure and dissemination of information in an easily used form effectively promoted his client as cooperative, open, and honest. Grasping the moment, Lee sent his now-legendary “Declaration of Principles” to appropriate newspaper editors. These principles set the tone for the practice of modern public relations and still serve as the standard for ethics in the industry. Lee stated: This is not a secret press bureau. All our work is done in the open. We aim to supply news. This is not an advertising agency; if you think any of our matter ought properly to go to your business office, do not use it. Our matter is accurate. Further details on any subject treated will be supplied promptly, and any editor will be assisted most cheerfully in verifying directly any statement of fact. Upon inquiry, full information will be given to any editor concerning those on whose behalf an article is sent out. In brief, our plan is, frankly and openly, on behalf of the business concerns and public institutions, to supply to the press and public of the United States prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about.
vestigative journalists made a living exposing corruption in business and government. Articles and books published during this period by authors such as Lincoln Steffens, Frank Norris, Ida Tarbell, and Upton Sinclair resulted in legislation that continues to influence American society, such as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. President Theodore Roosevelt strongly believed that the federal government had a responsibility to protect the public’s welfare when conflicts arose among management, labor, and consumers. A master of publicity himself, Roosevelt maintained a high profile in the popular press and used it to pursue his policies effectively. Although a Republican, Roosevelt had progressive views. He successfully challenged huge corporations such as the Northern Securities Company, Pennsylvania Railroad, Standard Oil, and United States Steel through use of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and impeded their attempts to concentrate economic power. His well-publicized conservation policies saved many American resources from excessive exploitation. Business leaders reacted by trying to use the same weapons to their own advantage. They turned in increasing numbers to publicity to help defeat what they considered to be harsh and unfair regulatory attempts. Baer’s hiring of Ivy Lee in 1906 was one such attempt to use publicity, although one arrived at with difficulty. As coal mining operations had consolidated into a few huge organizations during the 1890’s, the United Mine Workers (UMW) union had expanded as well. In 1902, the UMW’s 150,000 members went out on strike in the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania. This spectacular strike lasted from May until October and threatened the nation’s major source of heating fuel as winter approached. President Roosevelt was determined to halt the dispute and threatened to operate the mines under the supervision of federal troops. Management did a poor job of handling the situation, remaining aloof and seemingly unconcerned about Roosevelt, worker demands, and the public’s fear of freezing to death with winter coming on. Baer made only one statement to the press during the entire ordeal, and when it was published, it angered the American people. He essentially told the press that labor rights were the responsibility of the men to whom God had seen fit to give control of the nation’s property interests, and not the responsibility of labor agitators. On the other hand, John Mitchell, the head of the UMW, demonstrated model press relations during the turmoil. He treated reporters with respect, providing them with trustworthy information concerning the 517
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A Princeton graduate, Lee had been a newspaper journalist from 1899 to 1903, when he began taking on clients as a publicist. In 1904, Lee and George F. Parker formed Parker and Lee, one of the nation’s first publicity agencies. In contrast to Lee, Parker was somewhat of a traditionalist in the field. He was much older and more experienced, however, and had a number of important connections in the business and political arenas, with such men as George Westinghouse and Thomas Fortune Ryan. Parker’s contacts enabled Lee to take on work that established his reputation. Although Parker and Lee held together for less than four years, the firm was a major springboard from which Lee launched his illustrious and often controversial career. The late 1800’s and early 1900’s constituted an era of social consciousness, and big business and government were ill equipped to deal with that fact. The Populist political party grew from distrust of capitalist power brokers and corrupt government officials. Muckraking in-
Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations
Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations UMW’s point of view. Some accused the press of showing a pro-union bias in coverage of the strike. Mitchell made complete statements to reporters, whereas the mine operators maintained silence; thus it was primarily the UMW’s perspective that appeared in print. As a result of this one-sided communication flow and the disastrous statement made by Baer, the public was influenced to sympathize with labor rather than with management. With public opinion turned against the coal mine operators and President Roosevelt threatening to send in federal troops, management was forced to compromise. Labor won a shorter workday, a 10 percent pay increase, and other union rights. By 1906, another major UMW strike was imminent, but this time the anthracite coal operators seemed to understand that their response must be different from that of four years before under similar circumstances. They retained Lee, who immediately announced to all newspapers that the coal mine operators realized the public’s interest in the situation and would supply the press with all information possible. The statements released by Lee during the period that followed were sent as signed notes from the men he represented, the Coal Operators’ Committee of Seven, which included Baer, W. H. Truesdale, J. B. Kerr, E. B. Thomas, J. L. Cake, David Willcox, and Morris Williams. Lee’s activities on behalf of the Coal Operators’ Committee of Seven represented a radical departure from the behavior exhibited by these men in the past. Instead of attempting to prevent journalists from gathering information, Lee saw to it that their work on the coal strike story was simplified. Reporters were given advance notice when a press conference was being held, including its place, time, and topic. A complete summary of the proceedings was distributed to the press within a short time after each meeting had adjourned. Lee knew what was newsworthy as well as the proper format in which to write his releases, so he was able to get many news articles published concerning positive aspects of the coal trust. Press officials were relieved to have such cooperation and welcomed input from the coal operators. As a result, the public received a more balanced treatment of the issues involved than they did during the 1902 strike. The situation was worked out more equitably and rationally than in 1902. Significance Lee’s success in getting favorable press coverage for the anthracite coal operators led to the retention of Parker and Lee by Alexander J. Cassatt, president of the Penn518
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sylvania Railroad, in the summer of 1906. Lee immediately reinforced the direction he had established for the practice of public relations by boldly transforming the railroad’s policy of secrecy. When accidents coincidentally occurred at about the same time on a Pennsylvania Railroad line and a New York Central route, Lee arranged for reporters to travel to the scene of the Pennsylvania mishap at railroad expense, then helped them to take photographs and write their stories. Meanwhile, proceeding as usual, the New York Central line attempted to minimize reportage on its accident. As a result, the Pennsylvania Railroad management received enthusiastic praise for its handling of the situation, whereas the competition foundered in a wave of public criticism. The Pennsylvania Railroad was the acknowledged management leader in its industry at that time, much the same as General Motors would become in the 1950’s, and Lee’s position with such a prestigious and respected firm was highly visible. His unquestioned success in dealing with the accident was an important stride not only for his own career but also for the future of the public relations profession. Lee came to view his job not only as interpreting the organization to the public but also as interpreting the public to the organization. He wrote that the Pennsylvania Railroad management was pursuing a broad policy of common sense, which entailed doing as much for the public as possible because if it did so, the public would reward the firm with its loyalty. Lee attempted to humanize the company by relating many human-interest stories about company officials to the public through the use of pamphlets, press releases, and speeches. These stories told of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s contributions to agricultural education, college scholarships, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and pension plans. He portrayed the company as one big happy family. Other firms realized the efficacy of Lee’s methods. International Harvester gave him the opportunity to prove his philosophy in the face of a Senate resolution to investigate the company for its alleged monopolistic practices. Lee wrote that International Harvester’s management welcomed such an investigation because it had done no wrong and that company officials would facilitate the proceedings in every manner possible. By expressing confidence in itself, the firm gained the goodwill of the public and government personnel. Lee soon had many imitators. Newspaper reporters looking to change careers realized that they had the skills necessary to recognize newsworthy events and report them clearly and objectively, and these individuals real-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations
ized that business and governmental organizations needed such skills to promote themselves effectively. As a result, the modern practice of public relations was born and grew. It is interesting to note that Lee did not use the term “public relations” during this period to refer to his work; he used the term “publicity” instead. It was not until the mid-1910’s at the earliest that Lee began to refer to the tasks he performed as “public relations.” According to Ray E. Hiebert, a Lee biographer, Lee depended heavily on the works of others such as Andrew Carnegie, Woodrow Wilson, and Walter Lippmann and was not a great original thinker. He did possess, however, a unique ability to put the ideas of many others together and use the collection in original ways. Although Lee was not alone in establishing the field of public relations, he was the first to practice in it as an independent agent. Most important, Lee was the first to attempt to explain his occupation to the public. The 1906 anthracite coal mine strike was the first in a series of highly publicized events that gave Lee the opportunity to set good examples for a fledgling profession to follow. His success not only defined sound public relations practice but also illustrated the worth of such practice to management. Lee knew that a favorable public opinion toward a firm must be rooted in that firm’s ethical behavior. His ability to communicate this fact successfully to corporate management resulted in a more socially responsible business environment. —William T. Neese
widely used textbooks in public relations education. Provides accurate and comprehensive coverage of the profession. Henry, Kenneth. “Social History and Significance of Public Relations.” In Defenders and Shapers of the Corporate Image. New Haven, Conn.: College & University Press, 1972. Discusses the historical development of public relations in the United States. Hiebert, Ray E. Courtier to the Crowd: The Story of Ivy Lee and the Development of Public Relations. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1966. Major biographical work focuses primarily on Lee’s career rather than his private life. _______. “Myths About Ivy Lee.” In Perspectives in Public Relations, edited by Raymond Simon. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. Dispels myths about Lee and analyzes the important contributions he made to the practice of public relations. Seitel, Fraser P. The Practice of Public Relations. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. Comprehensive textbook written from the practitioner’s perspective. Includes discussion of the evolution of the business of public relations. Tedlow, Richard S. Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900-1950. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1979. One of the most complete histories available of corporate public relations for the period covered. Recommended as a starting point for interested readers.
Further Reading Cutlip, Scott M., Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom. Effective Public Relations. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. One of the most
See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company.
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Azusa Street Revival
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April, 1906-1908
Azusa Street Revival From a follower’s porch and later from an abandoned church in Los Angeles, African American pastor William Joseph Seymour launched what would become one of the best-known series of revival meetings held in the United States in the twentieth century. Also known as: Apostolic Faith Mission Locale: Los Angeles, California Category: Religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures William Joseph Seymour (1870-1922), American pastor who was the early leader of the Azusa Street congregation Jenny Evans Moore Seymour (1883-1945), leader of the Azusa Street congregation along with William Seymour, whom she married in 1908 Frank Bartleman (1871-1935), evangelist and writer who chronicled the Azusa Street Revival Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929), Seymour’s teacher, sometimes called “the grandfather of Pentecostalism” Summary of Event In February, 1906, a church in Los Angeles was looking for a new pastor. Two members, Neely Terry and Julia Hutchins, suggested William Joseph Seymour, who had attended Charles Fox Parham’s Bible school in Houston, Texas. Under Parham’s tutelage, Seymour had accepted the idea of sanctification, or second baptism, as a spiritual step beyond salvation. One of the signs of sanctification was speaking in tongues, also known as glossalia, which was described in the biblical book of Acts, in a scene in which the Holy Spirit comes to Jesus’ apostles after the Crucifixion. Seymour considered the ability to speak in tongues to be a great gift, and he preached about it at his first and only sermon at Terry’s and Hutchins’s church. Most members of the congregation disliked the message so intensely they locked Seymour out of their church, but the idea resonated deeply with some of Seymour’s listeners. One couple, Richard and Ruth Asberry, opened their home to Seymour and his meetings, and people from area Baptist and Holiness churches came to hear the message. Ultimately, crowds grew so large that the front porch of the Asberrys’ home collapsed. In April, Seymour’s associate Jennie Evans Moore— who would later become his wife—and Edward Lee, 520
who was providing Seymour with lodging, started speaking in tongues. Within a week, Seymour had followed suit. Curious, various spiritual seekers quickly flocked to the emerging group, prompting the need for a larger meeting space. The Apostolic Faith Mission, as Seymour’s group called itself, moved from the Asberrys’ home on Bonnie Brae Street to an old building on Azusa Street. This structure had previously been used as a warehouse, a livery stable, and an African Methodist Episcopal church. Services were held nearly continuously seven days a week, and many people, including Seymour, claimed the gift of tongues. Other signs of religious ecstasy included laughter, shaking, and jerking, physical manifestations that have been seen in other revivals and have parallels with spirit possession in other cultures and religious traditions. Revival witnesses reported hearing various songs and different stanzas being sung simultaneously. Sometimes Seymour would preach, but this was somewhat rare. For the most part he remained in silent prayer as others spoke and sang, and he reportedly kept his face in a box to limit distraction. In the beginning, there was no order of service. Anyone who wanted to preach at Azusa could stand up and do so. This openness would later cause conflict with some other Christians, who were concerned that not all the people speaking at Azusa were presenting sound Christian doctrine. As with many nascent religious groups, the powerful experience of divine presence was privileged over issues of authority and doctrine. In fact, the Azusa doctrine can be summed up in five basic points: It stressed salvation, sanctification or holiness, the ability to speak in tongues (as evidence that a believer had been baptized in the spirit), divine healing, and the return of Christ at some time in the very near future. This last element brought a sense of urgency as well as a validation of the group’s activities. The Azusa congregants viewed themselves as twentieth century parallels to the first Christians, whose dramatic experiences they studied in the Book of Acts. In both, speaking in tongues and participating in spontaneous worship while feeling filled with the spirit of God were common experiences. Preachers from around the world came to witness and bring some of the Pentecostal excitement back to their own congregations. Missionaries were also sent out from Azusa to spread the word and start new congregations. Among these missionaries was Frank Bartleman, an
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 evangelist and author, who wrote extensively about the movement in religious newspapers. Bartleman had been inspired and encouraged by the Welsh Revival taking place in Europe at about the same time, and he wrote that he had prayed for revival in California before the Azusa Street phenomenon began. Seymour and Clara Lum also used the printed word to diffuse the movement. Their newspaper Apostolic Faith was distributed free to thousands of pastors during the revival’s three years. The secular press also reported the story, focusing on the physical oddities of spiritual ecstasy and the growing crowds. The group’s leadership and makeup were unconventional for the time: African Americans and whites kneeled, danced, and spoke together. Rich and poor, educated and working-class joined together on makeshift pews. Women held positions of authority at Azusa, including Jennie Moore, who was the group’s copastor. Seymour had attended a female-pastored church before he moved to Los Angeles, and so the notion of women in positions of spiritual power did not bother him. Some later Pentecostal groups, however, would draw back from this egalitarianism, reserving priestly authority for men. The mixing of races did not sit well with some, including Seymour’s old mentor Parham, who spoke out against both the racial inclusion and physical manifestations at the Azusa Street Revival. After being invited to speak at Seymour’s revival—and then disinvited once his views became known—Parham unsuccessfully tried to start a rival church nearby. The church on Azusa Street lasted years after the intense revival period ended. Numbers did decline, however, especially after Seymour’s death in 1922. Moore pastored the group alone after her husband’s death, but the congregation lost its building in 1931, and the group folded shortly thereafter. The Azusa Street Revival, however, lives on as a vital part of Pentecostalism’s history.
Charles Fox Parham. Still, the Azusa Street Revival is an important focal point in the history of Pentecostalism, which has had a tremendous impact on American cultural and religious history and on Christianity around the world. — Elizabeth Jarnagin Further Reading Bartleman, Frank. Azusa Street. 1925. Reprint. New Kensington, Pa.: Whitaker House, 1982. A firsthand account of an evangelist and author active in the Azusa Street Revival. Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the work reads like a sermon on the urgency of spreading the Pentecostal message. Despite the book’s title, not all the work focuses on that revival; it centers more on Bartleman’s life and work outside of it. Cox, Harvey. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1995. Cox sees Azusa Street as the real beginning of Pentecostalism. After giving a history of the revival, he describes a number of contemporary Pentecostal services and discusses the forms this movement has taken in Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the United States. Martin, Larry Edward. Doctrines and Disciplines of the Azusa Street Apostles. Colorado Springs: Christian Life Books, 2000. Martin takes material from William Seymour’s only book, published in 1915, and organizes the material for modern readers. Seymour’s focus is on providing policies, doctrines, and rituals for churches inspired by the Azusa movement. Martin has also written extensively on Seymour’s life and Azusa’s history. Wacker, Grant. Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. Explores the history, lives, and beliefs of everyday Pentecostals from 1900 to 1925 and questions the stereotypes often attributed to this group. See also: Oct. 31, 1904-1906: Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism; 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association; July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses.
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Significance The Azusa Street Revival is an important historical event for two main reasons. First, the movement cut across lines of gender, race, and social standing, at least in its early stages. Second, many American Pentecostals point to the Azusa Street Revival as the founding of their faith. Some scholars of religion, however, question this claim by pointing to earlier events, such as the Topeka outpouring of 1901, which was led by Seymour’s teacher
Azusa Street Revival
San Francisco Earthquake
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 18, 1906
San Francisco Earthquake One of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history spawned a new era in urban planning and building regulation. Locale: San Francisco, California, and vicinity Categories: Disasters; urban planning Key Figures Eugene E. Schmitz (1864-1928), mayor of San Francisco Harry Fielding Reid (1859-1944), American geologist Dennis Sullivan (d. 1906), fire chief of San Francisco Frederick Funston (1865-1917), acting commander of the U.S. Army’s Pacific Division Summary of Event In 1906, San Francisco’s population was an estimated 410,000. The city developed rapidly after the California gold rush of 1849; it prided itself both on its museums and other cultural institutions and on the flamboyant, openly criminal Barbary Coast and Tenderloin districts. Eager for economic growth, developers ignored the San Andreas fault eight miles from the center of San Francisco, although significant earthquakes had been recorded along that fault in 1836, 1857, 1865, and 1868. The city also had suffered major fire damage six times between 1849 and 1851. Despite this history, developers extended the city into the bay, using as filler garbage, junk, rotting wood, and even abandoned ships. By 1906, approximately a quarter of the city’s population lived on the filled or “made” land. As early as 1868, experts had warned of the danger of earthquake damage to this land. In 1905, the National Board of Fire Underwriters had warned of major fire hazards, and Fire Chief Dennis Sullivan urged repairs of cisterns, development of a saltwater system for fire protection, and training of personnel in the use of explosives to provide firebreaks. These reports were ignored by city officials in a government noted for its corruption. At 5:12:05 a.m., Wednesday, April 18, 1906, a fortyfive-second shock wave was felt in the city and recorded as far away as Tokyo; ten to twelve seconds later, the heaviest jolt was felt. A third severe quake occurred at 8:14, and twenty-four aftershocks had been recorded by 7:00 p.m. The heaviest quake was recorded as a 9 on the de Rossi-Forel scale of intensity (a 10-point scale then in use); it has been estimated that the quake would have registered at 8.25 or 8.3 on the modern Richter scale. Every 522
brick building collapsed in Santa Rosa, about twenty miles away; to the south, near San Jose, some hundred residents and employees of Agnew’s Asylum for the mentally disturbed were killed. Palo Alto was severely damaged, as were other nearby towns. In San Francisco, eyewitnesses later reported, the streets heaved and rocked. Collapsing buildings raised clouds of dust. The largest concentration of dead and injured was in a twelve-by-six-block area south of Market Street near City Hall, an area of cheap frame rooming houses and hotels, stores, and restaurants. According to the 1900 census report, this area was second in population density only to Chinatown. City Hall, then the largest building west of Chicago, had been built on filled land. Portions of the building collapsed. Elsewhere in the area, the collapse of buildings into each other created widespread structural damage. Water conduits and telephone, telegraph, and fire alarm systems were destroyed, although the Signal Corps reestablished communication lines for the coordination of military efforts. Gas mains were shut off, but gas explosions still occurred. Everywhere, aftershocks, fires, and explosions sent crowds massing in the streets, some working with rescuers and some impeding rescue efforts. As fires broke out, many of the injured had to be left to die in the wrecked buildings as rescuers fled the flames. Fire Chief Sullivan was fatally injured in the first quake, thus firefighters were deprived of a centralized authority. In addition, the damage to fire stations had trapped equipment and allowed terrified horses to run away. Although the city’s firefighters lacked basic communication systems, they attempted to rescue victims from collapsed buildings and to respond to some fifty fires reported within seventeen minutes of the quake. Fires continued to break out. The worst of these, which came to be known as the “ham and eggs fire,” was supposedly started by a woman cooking breakfast in a house with a damaged chimney; the actual cause of the fire was never determined. This Hayes Valley fire spread rapidly toward City Hall and Mechanics Pavilion, to which patients from the earthquake-damaged Central Emergency Hospital had been evacuated. The 354 patients at the pavilion again were evacuated. Eyewitnesses reported that stacked bodies were left to the flames. Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz and Brigadier General Frederick Funston independently attempted to take charge of the city. Both apparently issued unconstitu-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
San Francisco Earthquake
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
View of a section of San Francisco, looking east across Grant Avenue toward Yerba Buena Island, shows the level of devastation caused by the 1906 earthquake and the fires that followed. (AP/Wide World Photos)
fective firebreaks. The most effective help came from U.S. Navy vessels. Navy personnel, working with California state fireboats, provided hospital assistance and pumps that could draw salt water from the bay for firefighters on shore and could condense the fresh water needed to keep boilers heated on fire department engines. The Navy also removed some 30,000 persons to safety. Together with the 225,000 evacuated by the Southern Pacific Railroad, this constituted the largest peacetime evacuation of any U.S. city up to that time. The last fire was extinguished at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 21. Thirty schools, eighty churches and convents, a business section, and a quarter million homes had been lost. Fire had burned 2,831 acres, more than six times the area burned in the legendary 1666 fire of London. The best estimate of financial loss was between $350 million and $500 million, about twice the amount spent by the entire federal government that year. Financial matters dominated the postdisaster period. Official estimates of damages and deaths were kept low; 523
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tional orders for the shooting of looters. Many people other than criminals were gunned down, and police and military personnel sometimes joined the looters. After the disaster, residents and businesspersons complained that they had been allowed no chance to protect property or rescue goods; patrols ordered them to evacuate or be killed. In some areas where residents and workers were able to remain, damage from fire was minimal. Six men saved the Long Syrup Warehouse. The U.S. Mint, the courthouse, and the post office similarly were saved; ten postal employees successfully used dampened mail sacks to beat down the flames in their building. The Ferry Building, vital as an evacuation point, was preserved. Dynamite blasts set off by untrained personnel caused many of the fires. Funston authorized extensive dynamiting; Schmitz authorized the use of dynamite only when buildings already were about to burn. No coordinated effort was possible. Few of those setting off the blasts were trained in the use of explosives, and buildings were dynamited too soon or too late or too randomly to provide ef-
San Francisco Earthquake
“I thought the end of the world had come” G. A. Raymond was a guest at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco when the earthquake struck. He later gave this account: Outside I witnessed a sight I never want to see again. It was dawn and light. I looked up. The air was filled with falling stones. People around me were crushed to death on all sides. All around the huge buildings were shaking and waving. Every moment there were reports like 100 cannons going off at one time. Then streams of fire would shoot out, and other reports followed. I asked a man standing next to me what happened. Before he could answer a thousand bricks fell on him and he was killed. A woman threw her arms around my neck. I pushed her away and fled. All around me buildings were rocking and flames shooting. As I ran people on all sides were crying, praying and calling for help. I thought the end of the world had come. I met a Catholic priest, and he said: “We must get to the ferry.” He knew the way, and we rushed down Market Street. Men, women and children were crawling from the debris. Hundreds were rushing down the street and every minute people were felled by debris. At places the streets had cracked and opened. Chasms extended in all directions. I saw a drove of cattle, wild with fright, rushing up Market Street. I crouched beside a swaying building. As they came nearer they disappeared, seeming to drop out into the earth. When the last had gone I went nearer and found they had indeed been precipitated into the earth, a wide fissure having swallowed them. I was crazy with fear and the horrible sights. How I reached the ferry I cannot say. It was bedlam, pandemonium and hell rolled into one. There must have been 10,000 people trying to get on that boat. Men and women fought like wildcats to push their way aboard. Clothes were torn from the backs of men and women and children indiscriminately. Women fainted, and there was no water at hand with which to revive them. Men lost their reason at those awful moments. One big, strong man beat his head against one of the iron pillars on the dock, and cried out in a loud voice: “This fire must be put out! The city must be saved!” It was awful.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ham Ruef, were under investigation for bribery and extortion at the time of the earthquake. When President Theodore Roosevelt denounced the proposed segregation, the matter was allowed to die. More lasting controversies were caused by the refusal of many insurance companies to meet claims and by accusations that much of the six million dollars in aid sent to the city had found its way into the hands of corrupt city leaders. No exact figure can be given for the loss of life caused by the earthquake and fires. Official accounts estimated up to 550 known dead, but many others may have been buried by the quake, burned in the fires, or sickened by the outbreaks of typhoid, smallpox, plague, and meningitis that occurred in the refugee camps. Fatality figures did not include those who died as a result of lengthy illness and mental trauma. Counting the residents, sometimes illegal, of immigrant sections such as Chinatown, the transient residents of areas of cheap hotels and rooming houses, and the anonymous criminal and prostitute populations of the Tenderloin and Barbary Coast, actual loss of life may have been in the thousands.
Significance One of the greatest impacts of the 1906 earthquake was its contribution to modern seismic thinking, as expounded in detail in the State Earthquake Investigation Commission Report: the development of the elastic rebound theory. Geologist Harry Fielding Reid reevalSource: Quoted in The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire, uated previous data in the light of the 1906 edited by Charles Morris (Philadelphia: J. C. Winston, 1906). data and demonstrated how earthquakes function. He showed that stresses build up slowly, putting rocks under increasing strain. Evengovernment and business interests wanted to encourage tually, the stresses obtain a critical level with respect to new investment and development. Fires, authorities reathe rock strength. When the rock strength is exceeded, soned, could be prevented. Earthquakes could not, and the rock fails, releasing energy, and the rock “snaps” fear of earthquakes might inhibit economic growth. The back to an unstrained position. This effect, known as disaster also was used unsuccessfully as an excuse to reelastic rebound, is the principle behind earthquake melocate Chinatown at Hunter Point and thus remove Chichanics. Sixty years later, the theory of plate tectonics nese from possession of some of the city’s most valuable was developed, giving new support to Reid’s theory. land, while the San Francisco Board of Education San Francisco dealt with its water-supply problem afplanned to rebuild with schools in which Asian students ter the earthquake. Fire Chief Sullivan had tried for years would be segregated. Both plans caused international to get an auxiliary system functioning, but the city’s incidents. Mayor Schmitz and his political patron, Abramoney had always gone to other projects. After the 524
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 quake, two saltwater pumping stations were established near the San Francisco Bay to tap that resource, more than one hundred cisterns under the city were refitted for use, and several reinforced concrete reservoirs were created in the hills around the city. Unfortunately, Sullivan did not live to see his ideas come to fruition. The earthquake also brought various potential problems to light. It demonstrated that building on soft, unconsolidated sediments and fill constitutes a great seismic hazard. The destruction of Santa Rosa, a town built on alluvium, and the direct correlation between collapsed buildings and fill and soft-sediment building sites were significant pieces of evidence. The quake also helped to show that building design is important in quake-prone areas; poorly constructed buildings sustained the greatest damage. After the 1906 quake, some communities in the state of California revised their building codes, but it was not until after the 1925 Santa Barbara and 1933 Long Beach quakes that serious attention was directed to creating building codes aimed at reducing earthquake-related damage. Even with the advances in construction and readiness that were made following the 1906 quake, when San Francisco was struck by a magnitude 7.1 quake on October 17, 1989—its second-worst quake since 1906—fires once again broke out throughout the city, especially in the heavily damaged Marina District, which was built on unstable soil. As in 1906, with water mains cut, citizens formed bucket brigades. An aftershock destroyed portions of Interstate 280 and the Embarcadero Freeway. Although a great deal of property damage occurred, the loss of life was substantially less in 1989 than that seen in 1906, with sixty-two fatalities in all of the affected areas of central California, including San Francisco. —Betty Richardson
Gilbert, Grove K., Richard L. Humphrey, John S. Sewell, and Frank Soulé. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 324. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907. Account of the San Francisco quake produced for the U.S. Geological Survey. Discusses the quake and fire phenomena and their effects on individual buildings in San Francisco and the surrounding area. Includes many photographs. Hansen, Gladys, and Emmet Condon. Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. San Francisco: Cameron, 1989. Detailed, profusely illustrated study corrects earlier histories and emphasizes the structural weaknesses and political scandals in San Francisco that led to avoidable damage. Includes extensive bibliography and index. Iacopi, Robert L. Earthquake Country: How, Why, and Where Earthquakes Strike in California. 4th ed. Tucson, Ariz.: Fisher Books, 1996. Details earthquake activity in California, providing excellent descriptions of quake phenomena for lay readers. Includes many photographs, diagrams, and maps. Lawson, Andrew C. The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1908. First part of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission’s report provides details on every facet of the quake and its effects. Includes hundreds of firsthand accounts as well as many diagrams and photographs. Morris, Charles, ed. The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire: A Complete and Accurate Account of the Fearful Disaster Which Visited the Great City and the Pacific Coast, the Reign of Panic and Lawlessness, the Plight of 300,000 Homeless People, and the Worldwide Rush to the Rescue Told by Eye Witnesses. 1906. Reprint. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1986. A valuable collection, reissued without additions or corrections. Paananen, Eloise. Tremor! Earthquake Technology in the Space Age. New York: Julian Messner, 1982. Discusses earthquakes and volcanoes: their causes, their locations, how they are studied, and how people react to them. Includes photographs and brief bibliography. Reid, Harry F. The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906. Vol. 2. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1908. Second part of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission’s report discusses quake mechanics and introduces the elastic rebound 525
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Further Reading Bronson, William. The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned: A Photographic Record of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. 1959. Reprint. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006. Vivid illustrated account of the events focuses on the chronology and on individuals caught in the catastrophe. Ditzel, Paul C. “San Francisco: Leather-Lungs Dougherty.” In Fire Engines, Firefighters: The Men, Equipment, and Machines from Colonial Days to the Present. New York: Crown, 1977. Brief account of the San Francisco disaster is valuable for its illustrations of the machines and other equipment available for firefighting and rescues at the time.
San Francisco Earthquake
First Meeting of the Duma theory. Covers many specifics about the quake and includes seismic data collected from around the world. Saul, Eric, and Don Denevi. The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, 1906. Millbrae, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1981. Mostly a photographic account of prequake San Francisco, the quake, the fires, and the rebuilding of the city. Plenty of text and many firsthand accounts. Good bibliography. Smith, Dennis. San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires. New York:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Viking Penguin, 2005. Exhaustive, detailed account of the San Francisco disaster by a former firefighter. Includes index. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily; Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength.
May 10-July 21, 1906
First Meeting of the Duma The first meeting of the Duma increased the political clout of Russian radical liberals, who lobbied for full parliamentary government and unsuccessfully pressured Czar Nicholas II to abandon attempts to preserve his personal autocratic rule. Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Categories: Government and politics; organizations and institutions Key Figures Ivan Logginovich Goremykin (1839-1917), premier of Russia, May-July, 1906 Aleksandr Ivanovich Guchkov (1862-1936), leader of the Octobrists Pavel Miliukov (1859-1943), leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862-1911), premier of Russia, July, 1906-1911 Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), first constitutional premier of Russia, November, 1905May, 1906 Summary of Event The first Duma, or Russian parliament, met in May of 1906 to consolidate the constitutional government that had ostensibly been created by Czar Nicholas II by means of the October Manifesto of 1905. The czar granted the manifesto in the hope of avoiding further violence such as that witnessed during the Revolution of 1905. Events, however, disappointed him. Less than two months after promulgating the October Manifesto, the czar was forced to suppress uprisings in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and elsewhere in Russia. The relative ease with 526
which Nicholas handled the rebellions indicated that he still held supreme power in Russia and made him cautious about granting further concessions to the constitutionalists. Thus, as 1906 dawned, two ideologies competed for political supremacy in Russia. These ideologies pitted a revised constitutional monarchy against the continuation and invigoration of an absolute monarchy. While enthusiastic but inexperienced and uncompromising politicians prepared for the elections to the first Duma, the czar and his supporters were moving to undermine and circumvent the power of the soon-to-be elected parliament. Drawn up by the czar’s appointee, Count Sergey Yulyevich Witte, on the basis of guidelines announced in an imperial decree in August of 1905, the election laws provided for indirect elections of representatives, a large proportion of whom were assigned to the rural elements of the population. The government believed that these landowners and peasants would adhere to more conservative views than would townspeople and industrial workers. In another attempt to ensure that conservative ideas were upheld, the czar elevated the State Council to an upper legislative chamber with powers equal to those of the Duma. Half the members of the State Council were appointed directly by the czar, and the other half were elected by traditionally conservative groups such as the clergy, provincial zemstvos or assemblies, the nobility, and managers of businesses, the universities, and the Academy of Sciences. Finally, in the week before the first meeting of the Duma, the government issued the “Fundamental Laws,” which specified the powers—or, more accurately, the lack of powers—of the legislative body. Although Russia would now have an elected legislature, Nicholas II insisted on keeping the title of autocrat. The Fundamental
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erally more conservative and was critical of the land Laws consequently proclaimed: “The All-Russian Emexpropriation scheme of the Cadets. The Octobrists were peror possesses Supreme and Autocratic power. To obey willing to work within the constitutional framework esHis authority not only from fear but also from conscience tablished by the Fundamental Laws and Witte’s election is ordered by God Himself.” These laws stipulated that laws. With some exceptions, the radical Socialist Revono bills could become law until they were passed by both lutionaries and the Social Democrats boycotted the elechouses and were signed by the czar. There was provision tions. When the votes were counted, the Cadets had won for the Duma to override the czar’s veto of legislation. 180 of the 520 seats, whereas the Octobrists secured only The czar’s ministers were responsible to him alone and 12. In all, the first Duma comprised some forty political not to the Duma. Control of the budget was not to rest groups. with the Duma alone; if the two houses approved differWith a speech from the throne, Nicholas II formally ent budget figures, the czar could accept either. If no budconvened the first meeting of the Duma on May 10, get passed the legislature, the government could con1906, in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. From the tinue to use the one adopted the previous year. The czar outset, it was clear that the government had no intention retained absolute control over foreign policy, appointof permitting the Duma to exercise any real authority. ments, censorship, the armed forces, the police, and the The government was especially disturbed by the fact that summoning and dismissal of the Duma. When the Duma the conservative elements failed to elect a single deputy was not in session, the czar could rule by decree, theoretito the Duma, which the czar naïvely believed would be cally subject to review by the Duma when it reconvened. largely conservative in tone. Hence he was surprised Altogether, Witte’s election laws, the expansion of when the Duma, shortly after its convocation, presented the State Council into a conservatively oriented upper an “address to the throne” in which it demanded unihouse, and the Fundamental Laws had the collective reversal suffrage, direct elections, abolition of the upper sult of seriously compromising the October Manifesto chamber, parliamentary government, and extensive land and the constitutional government it had promised to reform based on the expropriation of large estates. establish. The czar’s attitude did not bode well for the Witte resigned as premier and was succeeded by Ivan success of even limited representative government in Logginovich Goremykin. On May 26, Goremykin delivRussia. ered an address to the Duma in which he categorically reMeanwhile, the various political parties and factions jected all these demands. Undaunted, the Duma persisted that had emerged in the wake of the Revolution of 1905 in its demands for extensive reforms during the two were making preparations for elections to the first Duma, months it was allowed to remain in session. During this planned for March of 1906. The two leading political parties, both of which could be described as moderate, were the Constitutional Democratic Party, or the Cadets, and the Union of October 17, or the Octobrists. Founded late in 1905, these two parties competed vigorously with each other in the election campaigns. The Cadets, led by the distinguished Russian historian Pavel Miliukov, championed the establishment of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy, full participation of the Duma in framing a new constitution, and the expropriation of large estates, whose owners were to be compensated, in order to make more land available to the peasants. The program of the Octobrists, led by AlekArtist’s representation of the first meeting of the Duma in 1906. (Library of Congress) sandr Ivanovich Guchkov, was gen-
First Meeting of the Duma period, a vacillating Nicholas considered a proposal to bring Cadets into the government as a means of quelling opposition in the Duma. However, the reluctance of Miliukov to accept such a compromise, combined with the reservations of the minister of the interior, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, led Nicholas to dissolve the Duma on July 21. Stolypin, appointed on the same day to succeed Goremykin, pursued a reactionary course in the wake of the Duma’s fall.
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Significance Some two hundred deputies refused to accept the dissolution of the Duma. Crossing the border into the grand duchy of Finland, they gathered in the town of Viborg and there signed the so-called Viborg Manifesto, an appeal drawn up by Miliukov. In this document, the deputies rejected the government’s dissolution of the Duma as illegal. They further insisted, without any legal foundation for their claims, that the government could not collect taxes or draft conscripts for military service without the consent of the Duma. What is truly significant about this appeal is that it earned its supporters a three-month term in prison. Their imprisonment then marked them as criminals and made them ineligible to stand for reelection to any further Dumas, the second of which was to meet early in 1907. Deprived of some of its most competent political leaders, the cause of constitutionalism declined considerably in the years preceding the outbreak of the great Revolution of 1917. When the second Duma turned out to be even more radical than the first, Stolypin quickly dissolved it and, in June of 1907, carried out a virtual coup d’etat against the Fundamental Laws. He had the czar use his emergency power to enact legislation when the Duma was not in session to issue a decree that redesigned the election system. Stolypin’s alteration of the election laws in this fashion was a violation of the Fundamental Laws. By increasing the representation of the nobility, Stolypin succeeded in producing a conservative majority in subsequent Duma elections, but the unconstitutional method he used to effect this change further undermined the viability of constitutional government in czarist Russia. — Edward P. Keleher and Richard D. King
explores the factionalism among the czar’s opponents as well as that within the Russian government itself. Also discusses the restoration of order in 1906 and 1907. Emmons, Terence. The Formation of Political Parties and the First National Elections in Russia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Scholarly monograph analyzes the workings of the liberal political parties and their election to the first Duma in 1906. Healy, Ann Erickson. The Russian Autocracy in Crisis, 1905-1907. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1976. Study of the 1905 revolution includes a detailed account of the meetings of the first Duma. Mehlinger, Howard D., and John M. Thompson. Count Witte and the Tsarist Government in the 1905 Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972. Focuses on the months between the October Manifesto and Witte’s resignation in April, 1906. Includes an informative discussion of the writing of the Fundamental Laws. Rawson, Don C. Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Focuses on the emergence of Russian right-wing groups that opposed liberal constitutionalism and radical social reform. Includes illustrations, tables, bibliography, and index. Riha, Thomas. A Russian European: Paul Milliukov in Russian Politics. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. Political biography of the most prominent leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party focuses on the period from 1905 through 1917. Rogger, Hans. Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881-1917. London: Longman, 1983. Focuses on the period of Russian history during the reigns of the last two czars, Alexander III and Nicholas II. Includes maps, selected bibliography, and index. Verner, Andrew M. The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. Traces the responses of the czar’s government in the face of growing opposition to autocracy.
Further Reading Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905: A Short History. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004. Concise history by a highly respected scholar
See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin.
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First Grand Prix Auto Race
June 26-27, 1906
First Grand Prix Auto Race The inaugural Grand Prix automobile race, hosted by the Automobile Club of France, laid the foundation for the successful future of international Grand Prix auto racing. Locale: Le Mans, Sarthe, France Categories: Sports; organizations and institutions; transportation Key Figures Ferenc Szisz (1873-1944), Hungarian race car driver Felice Nazzaro (1881-1940), Italian race car driver Vincenzo Lancia (1881-1937), Italian race car driver Vincenzo Florio (1883-1959), Italian race car driver and founder of the Targa Florio race
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Summary of Event The first Grand Prix auto race was the result of an earlier international competition known as the Gordon Bennett Cup. The decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the formation of a number of international automobile racing events that quickly gained both notoriety and popularity. Among these were the Gordon Bennett Cup races, which were sponsored by wealthy New York newspaper owner James Gordon Bennett, Jr. The races took place at different venues throughout Europe, and each participating country was limited to only three entries in a single race. The French did not like this restriction; given that France had more automobile manufacturers than any other nation (ten separate companies producing twenty-nine competitive models), they believed they should have the right to more entries. When it was time for France to host the Gordon Bennett race in 1905, the Automobile Club of France (ACF) proposed that another race, to be known as the Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France, be held simultaneously. The Grand Prix would allow for proportionate representation of manufacturers. This idea raised considerable controversy, and eventually it was decided that the two events would be held separately. (It should be noted that the name of this race can be a cause of some confusion, because the French often referred to eight earlier city-to-city races sponsored by the ACF as “grand prix” races and included the words grand prix—that is, “large prize”—in the titles of those races. However, the 1906 Grand Prix is considered the true first international auto racing competition to have the term “Grand Prix” figuring prominently in its title. Nevertheless, occasion-
ally the 1906 race is labeled the IX Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France.) By 1906, the Gordon Bennett races were no more, as the newspaperman had turned his attention to aviation and no challenge was put forth to the French winners of the 1905 trophy. With the absence of the Gordon Bennett Cup, the stage was set for the ACF to promote its Grand Prix race as a replacement. The publisher of L’Auto magazine put up a purse of 100,000 francs for the winner, and a location was chosen in northwestern France in the department of Sarthe near the town of Le Mans. The racing circuit was designed as a triangle about 64 miles (103 kilometers) long, connecting the towns of Le Mans, SaintCalais, and La Ferté-Bernard. The racers were to run the circuit counterclockwise twelve times over two daily sessions for a total of approximately 768 miles (1,236 kilometers). Natural roadway provided the majority of the racing surface, but the shortest leg of the course consisted of a plank boarding surface through a forest. This area contained a very narrow stretch that many observers considered to be a death trap. The ACF spent a great deal of money on laying out the circuit, but the expenditure was offset by entry fees and grants from the city of Le Mans and local hoteliers. Every detail of the race was carefully organized and rehearsed, from the general marshaling guidelines, which utilized flag signals (blue for caution and yellow for stop), to the horses that would bring the cars to the starting line, which were repeatedly exposed to engine noise so they would not be startled on the day of the race. The guidelines for entry specified that each factory could be represented by three cars, a rule that was viewed with a bit of cynicism by countries other than France. The entries included three cars from each of the French manufacturers Darracq, Panhard, Renault, Brasier, LorraineDietrich, Clément-Bayard, and Hotchkiss. Two cars representing Vulpès and one Gobron-Brillié rounded out the French entries. Italy sent three-car teams from both Itala and Fiat, and the German manufacturer Mercedes fielded three cars. All of these cars were basically similar in design, with four-cylinder engines in the front (to allow for larger size); the exception was the Gobron-Brillié, which had eight opposed cylinders. The most significant technical novelty debuting in the race was the detachable rim to facilitate quick tire changes. The rules stated that only the driver and his riding mechanic were permitted to work on their car, so
First Grand Prix Auto Race some teams made use of detachable rims, which allowed them to make a tire change in two to five minutes rather than the nearly fifteen minutes it took to change a tire without such a rim. Not all teams utilized this new technology, as a complete set increased the weight of a car by about 80 pounds (about 36 kilograms), and some cars, such as the Itala, were already dangerously near the weight limit of 2,205 pounds (1,000 kilograms). Among the well-known drivers in the race were local French driver Victor Hémery; Paul Baras, a onetime tricycle champion; Italian Vincenzo Lancia, who later founded the Lancia motorcar company; Italian Vincenzo Florio, the founder of the Sicilian auto race the Targa Florio, which had been held earlier that month; and popular Italian racer Felice Nazzaro. The race began at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 26, in front of a full crowd. The cars were numbered according to teams in the fashion of 1A, 1B, 1C, and most were painted in national colors. The cars were started individually in ninety-second intervals. The first driver to start the Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France was Fernand Gabriel in car 1A for the Lorraine-Dietrich team. Lancia led the first lap with a time of 53 minutes, 42.4 seconds, with Ferenc Szisz second and Baras third. On the third lap of the race, Szisz took the lead, which he held for the remainder of the day’s racing. Just before noon, he completed his sixth lap and acknowledged the yellow flag. Sixteen additional cars completed the sixth lap to join Szisz’s Renault in the enclosed locked area where the cars were guarded overnight to prevent anyone from attempting any sabotage or repair work. The race was grueling, with the drivers and mechanics suffering from the stinging of dust and tar in their eyes. All the drivers had their eyes treated by a doctor during the night. One of the Mercedes drivers decided he could not face another day and opted for a replacement. Lorraine-Dietrich driver Henri Rougier, who had finished last, barely recovered from his fourteen tire changes in time to meet his starting time on Wednesday. The starting times on the second day were determined by the racing times on the first. Seventeen cars were left to start the second day’s racing circuit. Szisz started first, and Rougier, in last place, set out 2 hours and 47 minutes later. Szisz held his lead and completed his final lap at 4:30 p.m. As his Renault crossed the finish line, the Hungarian and his riding mechanic, M. Marteau, were cheered on by a significant crowd, although fewer were in attendance than had been on the first day. Nazzaro, at the wheel of his Fiat, finished second and Albert Clément was third in a Clément-Bayard. Eleven of the thirty-four 530
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cars slated at the beginning of the race finished, with the Brasiers being the only complete team. The fastest lap of the race was set by Baras, who completed the lap in 52 minutes, 25.4 seconds, at 117.94 kilometers per hour (about 73.28 miles per hour). Significance The Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France was considered to be a success, despite opinions that the racecourse itself had been too long. The race both established the tradition of the Grand Prix and secured the sustainability and future of international motor racing. The direct descendant of the Grand Prix is the modernday international Formula One series, which is the pinnacle of motor racing, both in status and in technology. The two-day format of the Grand Prix also inspired the future endurance race known as the Twenty-Four Hours of Le Mans. Technological innovations that debuted at the 1906 Grand Prix, such as the detachable-rim wheels created by Michelin, hydraulic dampers invented by Louis Renault, and high-tension magneto ignition, became staples of later model race cars. These innovations also served to promote the advancement of automobile technology in general. —Amanda J. Bahr-Evola Further Reading Dick, Robert. Mercedes and Auto Racing in the Belle Epoque, 1895-1915. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005. Presents a window into automobile racing during the early twentieth century through the development of one car manufacturer. Scholarly work provides extensive coverage of technical and engineering developments. Includes photographs. Garrett, Richard. The Motor Racing Story. London: Stanley Paul, 1969. One of the best books available for information on the development of the idea of the French Grand Prix. Includes an excellent section on the Gordon Bennett trophy races. Hilton, Christopher. Grand Prix Century: The First One Hundred Years of the World’s Most Glamorous and Dangerous Sport. Yesvie, England: Haynes, 2006. Uses extensive archival materials to re-create the hundred-year history of the Grand Prix. Includes an excellent compilation of statistics and driver biographies. Hodges, David. Classic Racing Cars: Grand Prix and Indy. London: Regency House, 1995. Covers the rules and technical innovations of each race in detail and provides an overall history of the development of the sport.
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International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded
_______. The French Grand Prix. London: Temple Press Books, 1967. The definitive book on the French Grand Prix. Contains charts of all circuits, participating drivers, and statistics for all the courses and entries. An excellent quick reference source on any as-
pect of the Grand Prix through 1966. Includes a good selection of photographs. See also: July 1, 1903: First Tour de France; Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
June 27-29, 1906
International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded The founding of the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke, the world’s first major organization dedicated to combating air pollution, marked a new awareness of the problem. Locale: Detroit, Michigan Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures John M. Fairgrieve (fl. early twentieth century), chief smoke inspector for Detroit, Michigan, and first president of the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke J. M. Hartman (fl. early twentieth century), founding member of the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke John Krause (fl. early twentieth century), smoke inspector for Cleveland, Ohio Paul P. Bird (fl. early twentieth century), chief smoke inspector for Chicago, Illinois, 1907-1911 Frank A. Chambers (fl. early twentieth century), executive secretary of the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke, 1915-1950 R. C. Harris (fl. early twentieth century), founding member of the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke
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Summary of Event From June 27 through June 29, 1906, fifty-five smoke inspectors and other municipal officials from thirteen American and Canadian cities met in Detroit, Michigan, to discuss ways to abate the smoke that was plaguing many North American urban areas. The meeting was organized by John M. Fairgrieve, Detroit’s chief smoke inspector, and chaired by J. M. Hartman, a civic-minded Philadelphia millionaire; participants included John Krause, Paul P. Bird, Frank A. Chambers, and R. C. Harris. The meeting resulted in the creation of the Interna-
tional Association for the Prevention of Smoke, an organization that would play a leading role in curbing the emission of smoke in urban areas during the twentieth century. The roots of the association lay in the efforts of residents of Chicago to fight the nuisance of smoke in their city. A citizens’ association organized in 1874 helped to convince the city to adopt a smoke ordinance in 1881 that fined industries for emitting dense smoke. Inspired by Chicago’s example, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, and St. Paul adopted similar ordinances. In 1891, Chicagoans created the Society for the Prevention of Smoke to help clean the city’s air for the multitudes who would visit the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. The Chicago society’s efforts centered primarily on teaching engineers and those who fed the furnaces of various industries the best methods of burning bituminous coal. In 1907, the history of air-pollution control in the United States reached a turning point. Several important developments occurred in Chicago. The city’s mayor appointed the Smoke Abatement Commission, consisting of eight businessmen, to help him determine city policy. The commission’s efforts led Chicago to create the Department of Smoke Inspection, to mandate that the city’s chief smoke inspector hold a college degree in mechanical engineering, and to adopt an ordinance that required all those desiring to install fuel-burning equipment to submit plans and obtain permits. Meanwhile, the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke held its first annual meeting in Milwaukee. Fearing that railroads, stoker companies, and other potential adversaries might attempt to control their organization, delegates decided to limit active membership to municipal smoke inspectors. They adopted a resolution calling on state governments to pass legislation to regulate smoke within their jurisdictions and asked each participating municipality to help pay the association’s expenses.
International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded At subsequent annual meetings, experts on smoke control and representatives of the companies that manufactured equipment relating to smoke abatement presented papers about different aspects of air pollution and proposals for purifying the air. At the 1909 meeting, for example, the chief engineer of the technological branch of the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that smoke caused $600 million damage each year in the United States, and New York City’s health commissioner delivered a paper titled “Smoke as a Public Nuisance.” A major early concern of the organization was the curbing of smoke emitted by railroad locomotives. In 1912, the association held a “Railroad Day,” a custom it followed for many years, to discuss issues relating to the problem. At the 1913 meeting—held in Pittsburgh, a center for the manufacture of smoke-prevention appliances—the association modified its bylaws to extend membership to all those who had engineering or professional experience in smoke abatement. Conferees toured the Pressed Steel Wheel Company of McKees Rocks, the Homestead plant of the Carnegie Steel Company, and several Westinghouse plants in East Pittsburgh to examine smoke emissions and new appliances for smoke abatement. By 1913, the association membership included smoke inspectors from more than two hundred North American and European cities. A typical paper at an early association meeting was the one presented in 1914 by John O’Conner, senior fellow of smoke investigation at the Mellon Institute of the University of Pittsburgh. O’Conner’s presentation included slides that illustrated his contentions. In regions such as Pittsburgh where soft coal was burned, he lamented, a pall of soot cut off sunlight, retarded the growth of vegetation, caused the deterioration of buildings and home furnishings, ruined clothing and increased laundry bills, produced widespread discomfort, lowered human vitality, and contributed to premature deaths. The association encouraged cities to hold a Smoke Abatement Week, as Pittsburgh did beginning in 1915. That year, the organization changed its name to the Smoke Prevention Association (SPA) and invited all those interested in its objectives to join. At the 1917 meeting, members adopted a resolution urging fuel conservation on a national level. They called on the federal government to appoint a fuel conservator in each state and offered their own services as combustion experts. Each of these early annual meetings was attended by a few hundred people, primarily municipal smoke inspectors and employees of power plants but including a few college professors and a handful of representatives of 532
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chemical, metal, mining, and refinery establishments. The association focused on reducing the smoke and fly ash emitted by chimneys, locomotives, power plants, incinerators, and heating plants. Its members sought to convince industries to shift from the common practice of randomly shoveling bituminous coal onto updraft stationary grates (a practice that produced dense smoke) to carefully planned, downdraft shoveling of anthracite and low-volatile content bituminous coal or coke. They also encouraged businesses to use automatic stokers, pulverized coal firing, gas- and oil-burning furnaces, and more electricity. During its first decade, the association paid little attention to particulate and gaseous effluents from the chemical, metal, and coke industries. Significance From the time of its establishment in 1906, the International Association for the Prevention of Smoke (which eventually underwent several name changes) played a leading role in improving the quality of air in North America, especially in urban areas. The association established a clearinghouse in 1921 to provide information on air pollution, undertaking the collection, tabulation, and dissemination of information to city councils, industries, and interested individuals. In 1923, the directors of the Boiler Association invited the association’s leaders to work with them to set standards for furnace heights, furnace geometry, and boiler settings. During the 1920’s, the Smoke Prevention Association (as the organization was called from 1915 to 1940) distributed thousands of copies of articles on issues relating to air pollution. In addition, an association committee evaluated the effectiveness of new locomotives in reducing exhaust, and members spoke to hundreds of community organizations about air-quality matters. In the 1930’s, the association called attention to the pollution caused by airplanes. During that decade, the annual meetings began to include evening sessions designed for different groups, including power engineers, superintendents, plant managers, coal dealers, merchants, mine operators, railroad officials, real estate agents, industrial officials, and home owners. In 1940, the organization changed its name to the Smoke Prevention Association of America. When the United States became involved in World War II, the association strongly supported efforts to conserve the nation’s coal. During the mid-1940’s, the association worked to standardize the installation and operation of incinerators and combustion equipment and to formalize methods of measuring air pollution. At the 1948 meeting, members
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International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded tion Prevention Associations (IUAPPA), which was created in 1964 to help coordinate worldwide efforts to stem air pollution; the IUAPPA has sponsored several International Clean Air Conferences to further its aims. The APCA also engaged in both confrontation and cooperative programs with the federal government. One of the organization’s meetings with federal officials led directly to the 1958 formation of a national air-pollution advisory committee that included government officials, industry representatives, and control professionals. In 1989, the APCA once again changed its name. Reflecting the increasing concern of its members for rational control of the growing problem of solid-waste materials, especially hazardous waste, the organization became the Air and Waste Management Association. As of 2005, this nonprofit technical and educational organization served more than nine thousand environmental professionals in sixty-five countries. Its stated goal was to provide a forum where technical, scientific, economic, social, political, and public health viewpoints on environmental management would all receive equal consideration. The association provided a context in which government officials, industrial leaders, and academicians could discuss technical information and practical concerns about air pollution and waste management. Through its structure, program, and activities, the association sought to influence public policy on air-pollution control, environmental management, waste processing and control, and pollution prevention. Governed by a fifteen-member board consisting of five members each from industry, government, and academia, the association conducted an annual environmental conference featuring a five-day technical program and a three-day exhibition. It also held hundreds of specialty conferences, workshops, seminars, section and chapter meetings, and continuing education courses each year and published periodicals, books, technical papers, and training manuals. Before 1950, the association primarily labored to combat the pollution produced by smoke and fly ash. In the years from 1950 to 1970, it broadened its focus to address problems caused by smog, sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbons, and oxidants. After 1970, the association was required to interact with large federal regulatory agencies (most notably the Environmental Protection Agency) and dealt increasingly with the technical and scientific aspects of air pollution. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the organization founded in 1906 still concerned itself with pollution prevention, but its agenda had also come to include such contemporary is533
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urged the association to broaden its interest beyond smoke and combustion problems and to focus on all forms of air pollution. This concern was intensified by an air temperature inversion that killed eighteen people that year in Donora, Pennsylvania, focusing national attention on air pollution. In 1950, the organization moved its headquarters from Chicago, where it had been located since 1907, to Pittsburgh, where for many years it enjoyed a cooperative relationship with the Mellon Institute. In July, 1951, the association founded a quarterly journal titled Air Repair to publish the proceedings of its annual meetings. In 1952, the organization was renamed the Air Pollution Control Association (APCA). In 1954, Air Repair began to include discussions of the papers presented at the annual meetings, and in 1955 the publication’s title was changed to Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association. In the 1950’s, the APCA made a concerted effort to attract companies as members, and board meetings frequently erupted into shouting matches between control officials and industry representatives over the best way to deal with the air-pollution issues faced by both industry and government. The APCA thus served as a forum where differing points of view were presented and debated; until the 1970’s, however, the organization was reluctant to adopt position statements on behalf of its members. The events of 1969 and 1970 marked a second turning point in efforts to control air pollution in the United States. The Earth Day activities held in April, 1970, and the widespread media discussion of a growing “ecological crisis” greatly increased public concern and profoundly affected the nation’s efforts to abate air pollution. Another major event was the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, which focused on automobile emission standards, testing, and certification. Some APCA members protested that this national program exalted administrative expediency over rational control of air pollution. During the second half of the twentieth century, the APCA promoted its objectives through a variety of other channels. Beginning in the early 1950’s, the APCA sought to stimulate local communities to combat air pollution by holding a “Cleaner Air Week.” APCA members used posters, balloons, meetings, educational activities, and media coverage to publicize their goals and to motivate people to fight pollution. By the early 1970’s, more than 125 American communities were holding Cleaner Air Week programs. The APCA played the leading role in the formation of the International Union of Air Pollu-
Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act sues as ozone depletion and the health of the global environment. —Gary Scott Smith Further Reading Christy, William G. “History of the Air Pollution Control Association.” Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 10 (April, 1960): 126-138. Account of the development of the association from its inception until 1960. Focuses on the organization’s annual meetings, key leaders, major concerns, and significant contributions. Goudie, Andrew. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present, and Future. 6th ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. Excellent general reference accessible to lay readers. Chapter 7 discusses air pollution. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Gruber, Charles W. “The Pioneers: Frank A. Chambers, 1885-1951.” Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 30 (April, 1980): 402-403. Assesses the role played by the man who served as the organization’s executive secretary from 1915 to 1950 and chaired its Standards Committee for more than thirty-five years.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lagarias, John S. “The Story of the Air Pollution Control Association: Seventy-Five Years of Growth.” Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 32 (January, 1982): 31-43. Reviews the successes and failures of the association during its first seventy-five years. Written by an engineer who held many of the organization’s offices, including its presidency. Focuses on the changing emphases of the organization and its executive secretaries. Stern, Arthur C. “History of Air Pollution Legislation in the United States.” Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 32 (January, 1982): 44-61. Succinct examination of air-pollution legislation written by a professor of environmental and engineering sciences who was actively involved in the association. See also: 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process; 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution.
June 30, 1906
Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act With the support of President Theodore Roosevelt and a diverse consumer movement, the U.S. Congress passed two watershed laws that provided Americans with some protection in the purchase of food and drugs. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Health and medicine; business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history; trade and commerce Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930), chief chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and author of the Pure Food and Drug Act Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American reformer and writer James Wilson (1835-1920), U.S. secretary of agriculture Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871-1958), American journalist 534
Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927), U.S. senator from Indiana, 1899-1911 Summary of Event In the United States during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, food processing was becoming highly industrialized, with dubious chemicals used to preserve food and to improve its taste. At the same time, urbanization and the modernization of transportation were resulting in impersonal national markets that lacked the direct contact between consumer and producer that was common in an earlier age. In response to these new conditions, an emerging consumer movement called for the federal government to regulate the purity and quality of food and drugs sold in interstate commerce. In 1879, Senator Algernon Paddock of Nebraska introduced the first comprehensive bill to regulate food and drugs on a national scale. The Paddock bill passed the Senate but failed in a House committee, blocked by a powerful coalition of states’ rights Democrats and “Old Guard” Republicans who were committed to protecting
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the Ladies’ Home Journal, and especially influential among these was Samuel Hopkins Adams’s series titled “The Great American Fraud,” published in Collier’s Weekly from October, 1905, to February, 1906. Adams’s well-researched articles concentrated on the unscrupulous sale of nostrums that were either ineffective or dangerous, such as cure-all medicines that contained cocaine and other addictive substances. When the series was published in book form by the American Medical Association, it created a sensation among the reading public. By that time, Roosevelt was convinced of the “righteousness” and popular appeal of food and drug legislation, and he recommended such a law to Congress in his state of the union address of December 5, 1905. The day after the president’s speech, Senator Weldon Heyburn of Idaho and Representative James Robert Mann of Illinois introduced versions of the Hepburn-Hansbrough bill into Congress. Recognizing a change in public opinion, Senator Aldrich decided to allow a vote on the Senate floor, and the bill was passed on February 21, 1906, by a vote of sixty-three to four. In the House, however, there were long hearings about the bill, with organized opposition from whiskey distillers and food processors. Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, a leader of the Old Guard, kept the bill from being placed on the House calendar, and by early March it appeared to be dead. By coincidence, however, Upton Sinclair’s muckraking book The Jungle appeared for sale on February 16, 1906. Having investigated the Chicago packinghouses, Sinclair hoped to arouse sympathy for the conditions of the workers in those establishments and to promote the cause of socialism, but in the process he also included graphic descriptions of the filth and poisons that were introduced into canned meats. Sinclair was disappointed that the public read The Jungle as an appeal for food legislation. In his autobiography, he lamented, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” The Progressive senator from Indiana, Albert J. Beveridge, read Sinclair’s book and, recognizing its value for promoting food legislation, sent a copy to the president. Although Roosevelt reacted negatively to Sinclair’s “ridiculous socialistic cant,” he was horrified at the book’s descriptions of the packinghouses, and he instructed the secretary of agriculture to investigate the matter. He also appointed Charles Neill, a commissioner of the Department of Labor, and James Reynolds, a lawyer and settlement house leader, to visit Chicago to determine whether Sinclair had described the packinghouses accurately. In May, the two-man commission reported that the deplor535
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vested interests and the status quo. By 1906, some 160 food and drug bills had been introduced into Congress, and eight limited laws had been passed, mostly dealing with imports and exports. Consumer advocates were somewhat more successful with state legislatures, with about half the states adopting some regulations. Standards of enforcement, however, varied greatly from state to state. The most energetic and influential crusader for federal regulation was Harvey W. Wiley, the chief chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1883 to 1912. Wiley emphasized the need for accurate labeling of all dangerous chemicals. His most famous project, the so-called poison-squad experiments, lasted from 1902 to 1907. A dozen young men volunteered to act as test subjects for experiments on the effects on food of borax and other preservatives. The results provided quantitative evidence of the negative effects of many preservatives. After this project, journalists often referred to Wiley as “Old Borax.” Early in the twentieth century, reformers known as Progressives placed a high value on the issue of consumer rights, and they looked to the expansion of the federal government as a means of improving the general welfare. By that time, moreover, medical and chemical scientists had achieved impressive accomplishments, resulting in a widespread appreciation for the role of modern science. Conditions were thus increasingly favorable for a resurrection of the Paddock bill. The public was shocked in 1901 when twenty children died from the effects of inoculation against diphtheria. The following year, Congress passed and President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Biologics Control Act, which required makers of vaccines and antitoxins to be licensed by the federal government. Manufacturers lobbied in favor of the law in an effort to restore public confidence and eliminate unfair competition. With public opinion sympathetic to more general legislation, Senator William Hepburn of Iowa and Congressman Henry Hansbrough of North Dakota introduced a bill to regulate all food and drugs sold in interstate commerce. The Hepburn-Hansbrough bill passed in the House, but in the Senate the Old Guard, led by Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich of Rhode Island, was able to prevent the measure from being reported out of committee. Reforming journalists, called “muckrakers” by Roosevelt, were determined that the issue not be allowed to die. Numerous articles describing food- and drug-related horrors appeared in such magazines as McClure’s and
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The Influence of a Journalist
able conditions depicted in The Jungle did not misrepresent the industry. Informed of the Neill-Reynolds report, Senator Beveridge met with Department of Agriculture officials and formulated a bill that would require federal inspectors to enforce sanitary standards in packing establishments and approve of the quality of meat and its additives before the meat could be sold in interstate commerce. On May 25, Beveridge presented the bill as an amendment to the agricultural appropriations bill, and it passed the Senate without a dissenting vote. In the House, however, the Beveridge bill faced strong opposition; it had to get through the Agriculture Committee, which was chaired by Representative James Wadsworth of New York, a stock raiser himself. When Wadsworth introduced amendments that weakened the bill, Roosevelt released the Neill-Reynolds report to the press. After a public outcry, members of the House worked out a compromise that charged the government rather than the industry for the costs of inspection and put limits on the judicial review of federal inspectors. With the approval of Speaker Cannon, the compromise bill passed the House on June 19. After Beveridge and other Progressives reluctantly accepted the compromises, the conference version of the bill was approved quickly by both chambers. On June 30, 1906, President Roosevelt signed the measure into law. Meanwhile, the public support in favor of the Beveridge bill had put irresistible pressure on the House to vote on the pure food and drug bill, and on June 20, Speaker Cannon finally allowed the bill to be reported out of the Rules Committee. Three days later, it was approved by a vote of 241 to 17 and then went to a conference committee, where it was strengthened. The resulting “Wiley law” forbade the sale or transportation of adulterated or fraudulently labeled foods or drugs within interstate commerce. Along with the meat inspection law, it was ready for Roosevelt’s signature on June 30, 1906.
In October, 1905, Collier’s Weekly magazine began publishing a series of articles sharply critical of the advertising claims made by the makers of patent medicines. The articles, written by Samuel Hopkins Adams and collectively titled “The Great American Fraud,” were preceded by an introductory note that made it clear that “the object of the series is to make the situation so familiar and thoroughly understood that there will be a speedy end to the worst aspects of the evil.” Adams opened the series, which helped to influence Congress toward passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, with these blunt statements: Gullible America will spend this year some seventyfive millions of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by the skilfulest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of the trade. Should the newspapers, the magazines and the medical journals refuse their pages to this class of advertisement, the patent medicine business in five years would be as scandalously historic as the South Sea Bubble, and the nation would be the richer not only in lives and money, but in drunkards and drug-fiends saved. “Don’t make the mistake of lumping all propriety medicines in one indiscriminate denunciation,” came the warning from all sides when this series was announced. But the honest attempt to separate the sheep from the goats develops a lamentable lack of qualified candidates for the sheepfold. External remedies there may be which are at once honest in their claims and effective for their purposes; they are not to be found among the much advertised ointments or applications which fill the public-prints. Cuticura may be a useful preparation, but in extravagance of advertising it rivals the most clamorous cure-all. Pond’s Extract, one would naturally suppose, could afford to restrict itself to decent methods, but in the recent epidemic scare in New York it traded upon public alarm by putting forth “display” advertisements headed, in heavy black type, “Meningitis,” a disease in which witch-hazel is about as effective as molasses. This is fairly comparable to Peruna’s ghoulish exploitation, for profit, of the yellow fever scourge in New Orleans, aided by various Southern papers of standing, which published as news an “interview” with Dr. Hartman, president of the Peruna Company.
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Significance Historians emphasize that the issue of food and drug regulation became increasingly relevant as modernization progressed. When U.S. society had been predominantly rural, with local markets, consumers tended to have faceto-face acquaintance with their sources of food. In contrast, the large-scale preservation of foodstuffs to be sold on a national market made it impossible for individuals to have personal knowledge of consumer products. The combination of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act greatly extended the power of the federal government to regulate goods in interstate
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lated environment. In general, the two laws of 1906 serve as examples of the constructive effects of moderate governmental intervention. —Thomas Tandy Lewis Further Reading Anderson, Oscar E. The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Emphasizes Wiley’s role, the importance of scientific investigations, and the publication of the findings of those investigations in technical journals, especially in the 1880’s and 1890’s, in bringing about medical and expert calls for national food and drug regulation. Bloodworth, William A., Jr. Upton Sinclair. Boston: Twayne, 1977. Biography analyzes Sinclair’s work as a muckraker and political figure, including his role in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Braeman, John. Albert J. Beveridge: American Nationalist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971. Excellent study of the life and career of the Progressive senator who wrote and sponsored the meat inspection bill. Brands, H. W. T.R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Iconoclastic biography of Theodore Roosevelt. Burrow, James G. Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Stresses the medical community’s efforts at professionalization, its success with public relations strategies, its alliances with state authorities, and its links with Progressive reformers who wished to apply scientific findings to address social problems. Crunden, Robert. Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, 1889-1920. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1982. One of the best treatments of the Progressive movement, concentrating on the civic religion and the moral indignation within the movement’s culture. Chapter 6 is devoted to the muckrakers and passage of the 1906 legislation, with anecdotes about the people involved. Goodwin, Lorine Swainston. The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879-1914. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999. Survey of the history of lobbyists and elected officials who fought for legislation to protect consumers. Gould, Louis. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. A scholarly and balanced treatment of Roosevelt’s policies and ideas while he was president. Presents a useful account of Roosevelt’s role in both the passage and the early 537
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commerce, and, concomitantly, the two laws represented a decline in the idea that state governments alone could exercise police powers in the public interest. At the time, a number of states’ rights proponents, using a strict interpretation of the Tenth Amendment, questioned the constitutionality of the laws, but in Hipolite Egg Company v. United States (1911), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the laws were permissible under the authority of Congress to tax and regulate commerce. In the short term, Progressives were often disappointed that enforcement of the laws was not more rigorous. Because the Pure Food and Drug Act was cast in broad language, federal regulators had to conduct lengthy and complex proceedings to establish standards for chemical preservatives, whiskey, and other items. Harvey Wiley was among those who wanted more energetic enforcement. Within a year after passage of the law, he and President Roosevelt strongly disagreed about whether saccharin is injurious to health. Wiley was even more dissatisfied with the policies of President William Howard Taft, and during the election of 1912, Wiley, although long a Republican, publicly resigned from the Department of Agriculture in protest, supporting the candidacy of Woodrow Wilson. Since 1906, many debates have taken place regarding the specifics of food and drug regulation, but there has never been any serious suggestion that the two laws should be repealed. It was probably inevitable that the early enforcement of the laws would be rather weak, but over the course of the twentieth century the trend moved toward greater control. In 1938, Congress made a number of significant changes in the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, with additional requirements passed in 1958, 1962, and 1965. The 1906 legislation was an important landmark in the movement toward consumers’ rights in the United States. Framers of the two laws rejected the extreme ideologies of socialism and laissez-faire, and they believed that government could provide adequate protection from harmful merchandise without destroying the benefits of the competitive marketplace. The Meat Inspection Act was based on the premise that the government has the responsibility to protect consumers from harmful products unfit for human consumption, and the Pure Food and Drug Act emphasized that consumers have the right to make informed judgments based on the accurate labeling of products’ contents. Contrary to some fears at the time, the laws did not lead to a government takeover of the food and drug industries, and businesspeople in those industries quickly learned how to prosper within a regu-
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Finland Grants Women Suffrage administration of the 1906 laws, with analysis of the various interpretations of the Progressive movement. Harris, Leon. Upton Sinclair: American Rebel. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975. Highly personal biography of Sinclair details his relationship with President Theodore Roosevelt and the congressional machinations surrounding the Meat Inspection Act. Includes a helpful account of Sinclair’s ideology and his correspondence with Roosevelt. Hilts, Philip J. Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Documents the history of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from its establishment during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Emphasizes the FDA’s regulatory role and its battles against entrenched business interests. Root, Waverly, and Richard de Rochemont. Eating in America: A History. New York: Ecco Press, 1995. Food historian Root chronicles U.S. eating customs through history, including the advent of the foodprocessing industry and the public outrage that led to the Pure Food and Drug Act. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2002. The novel that brought corrupt food industry practices to international attention is one of the first major media exposés in U.S. history. Sullivan, Mark. “The Crusade for Pure Food.” In America Finding Herself. Vol. 2 in Our Times. New York:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927. A lively and interesting account of the personalities and controversies that led to the 1906 laws. As a journalist and major editor of the period, Sullivan was able to consult with individuals such as Sinclair, Wiley, and Adams. Wiebe, Robert H. Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement. 1962. Reprint. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1989. Provides an influential explanation of various reasons business interests supported or opposed Progressive reforms, with emphasis on entrepreneurs’ desire to promote efficiency and predictability through governmental action. Utilizes in great detail the records of national business groups as well as publications of local chambers of commerce. Young, James Harvey. Pure Food: Securing the Federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. Examines passage of the act in detail. Illustrates the process of publicizing the findings of governmental and scientific investigators. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code; 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established.
July 20, 1906
Finland Grants Women Suffrage Finland’s franchise law of 1906, which made the small country the first European state to grant suffrage to women, was part of a reform effort by leaders of the Swede-Finn movement. Locale: Helsinki, Finland Categories: Women’s issues; social issues and reform Key Figures Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806-1881), Finnish philosopher and politician Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), Russian minister of finance, 1892-1903, and premier during the 1905 revolution 538
Alexandra Gripenberg (1857-1913), leader of the Finnish Women’s Association in the 1880’s Summary of Event It was against the background of increased Russification that Finnish nationalism developed dramatically after 1890 and led to the 1906 reforms that brought voting rights to women as well as several other liberating changes. Russia had acquired control of Finland in 1809 after a century of rivalry with Sweden over control of the country. From 1809 until the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland remained under Russian control. Russification of Finnish culture characterized the entire period, but it intensified in the late nineteenth century under Czar Alexander III (r. 1881-1894) and his successor Nicho-
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lishment was a significant innovation. As these events unfolded in Russia, the crisis spread into Finland in the form of a new wave of labor unrest and popular resistance known as the Great Strike. All social classes were involved, heightening the sense of unified resistance. This united front depended ultimately on the maintenance of a solid coalition of various groups. A belief common to most of the resisting parties was that the Finnish Diet should be transformed into a highly democratic legislature based on broad popular support. Before the end of 1905, the four estates that constituted the Diet drew up a constitutional model that would extend the vote to all citizens, both male and female, over the age of twenty-four. By early 1906, Nicholas II was ready to reverse the Russification policy, at least temporarily, and to urge the Finns to replace their outmoded legislative system with a more democratic unicameral parliament elected by universal suffrage. The fact that the czar was not so much interested in establishing democracy as in mitigating unrest did not detract from the importance of the constitutional reforms, which included not only a broader franchise but also a genuine legislative role for the new parliament, the Eduskunta. That women were included in the larger electorate was a result both of the reformers’ need for mass support and of women’s own efforts to improve their condition. With increased industrialization of the economy after 1860, women had entered the workforce in greater numbers and were developing means to express their needs related to family life, property, and education. In 1884, the Finnish Women’s Association was founded; this organization provided a labor exchange, educational programs, and lobbying in behalf of women’s interests. One of its principal goals was greater access for women, including those in the poorer segments of the working class, to university education. Women had been admitted on a restricted basis as early as 1871, but by the 1890’s women held some instructorships not only in the university but also in certain normal schools. The Women’s Association also established international visibility when its principal leader, the Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, attended the 1888 Women’s Congress in Washington, D.C., which founded the International Council of Women. Several other women’s advocacy organizations developed in Finland as well, especially during the decade preceding World War I. Although Finnish women had become significant to the workforce and broader social life of Finland by 1906, enfranchisement was crucial to their further develop539
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las II. Russia’s efforts to impose its own language and culture stimulated Finland’s citizens’ interest in the Finnish and Swedish languages as a focus of resistance to Russification and otherwise stimulated national solidarity to preserve Finnish cultural identity and autonomy. With this came heightened interest in constitutional reforms aimed at broadening the rights of citizens, including women, in order to achieve the necessary unity to withstand pressures from Russia. Throughout the century of Russian hegemony, Finland remained largely autonomous politically and managed to enter the industrial age with vigor. The rise of factories and enlargement of trade brought into the Finnish workforce increasing numbers of women who, in turn, sought better educational opportunities and certain social reforms that would protect their property and personal rights. They found sympathy among some national reform leaders who saw democracy as an essential prerequisite of national independence, because it would link divergent groups in a common front. Language played a key role in the development of Finnish nationalism. One branch of the national movement promoted the Swedish language as the quintessential feature of Finland’s identity. Swedish was, and is, spoken by about 7.5 percent of Finland’s population. Known as the Swede-Finn or Svecoman movement, this element of Finnish nationalism was fostered notably by Axel Olof Freudenthal, a professor of language and literature at the University of Helsinki. The son of a Swede who had migrated to Finland in 1798, Freudenthal promoted language-related nationalism until his retirement in 1904, arguing that Swedish culture was superior to Finnish. An even more influential cultural nationalism known as the Fennoman movement saw Finnish language and literature as the mark of Finland’s identity. The roots of this movement lay in the eighteenth century work of Professor Henrik Gabriel Porthan of the University of Turku (later moved to Helsinki). In the nineteenth century, its leading proponent was Johan Vilhelm Snellman. Both of these language-related national movements were important to the development of Finnish nationalism in the period of militant Russification and thus contributed to the setting of the 1906 constitutional reforms. The 1905 revolution in Russia interrupted Russification, as Nicholas II’s government was forced to make major concessions. After months of strikes, Russian premier Sergey Yulyevich Witte urged the czar to issue the October Manifesto, which promised civil liberties and an elected legislative body, the Duma. Although the Duma would be increasingly restricted in later years, its estab-
Finland Grants Women Suffrage
Finland Grants Women Suffrage ment. The fact that there was little resistance to enfranchising women in 1906 was a reflection of both women’s importance in the economy and the consensus supporting democratization. The greatest degree of sympathy for women’s rights came from the Finnish Social Democratic Party, known before 1903 as the Finnish Labour Party. Its reform program of 1906 included the vote for women as well as equal pay for equal work. Two generations of steady advocacy by women’s rights groups had prepared the way for political equality. Without the right to vote, women’s gains since 1860 had remained limited. Women’s admission to university education and professorships, their right to divorce and parental rights, and their access to assistance with economic and other needs had depended on educating the public and lobbying legislatures. Finnish women’s inclusion in the 1906 franchise opened the door to their direct involvement in the political process on which further reforms depended. Significance The most immediate effect of the 1906 reforms was the increased presence of women in the political process. Nineteen women, mostly supporters of the Social Democrats’ program calling for extensive social reform, were elected in 1907 to the Eduskunta. The Social Democrats won approximately 40 percent of the legislative seats in 1907 and proceeded to advocate a wide range of reforms, many of them pertinent to the needs of women. Renewed Russification after 1908 limited the actual results, but Russian rule was entering its last decade. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland won its independence. Thereafter, women continued to be a significant part of Finnish political life, eventually accounting for about onethird of the lawmakers. Women served in the Finnish military during World War I and beyond in a special women’s auxiliary organization known as the Lotta Svard. They were ready to do their share in both politics and defense. The 1906 enfranchisement was inspirational to both Finnish women and women of other countries. In a sense, Finnish women were in a privileged position as the first European women to gain the vote. At the same time, they faced new challenges. They entered into reform efforts vigorously, especially after Finland declared independence in 1917 and established itself as a republic. The reforms most desired by Finnish women after enfranchisement included enhancement of their role in coeducational schools and universities, greater access to civil service jobs and the judicial bench, and rights of legal guardianship in divorce cases and for unmarried 540
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mothers, as well as several reforms related to economic security. Eventually, progress was made on all these fronts. A law enacted in 1924 required that either the principal or the assistant principal in every coeducational school be a woman, and in the period from 1922 to 1936 a series of laws provided for equal status for children born out of wedlock. By 1927, full professorships were opened to women, and in the same year women were permitted to become judges and to enter diplomatic and consular service on an equal basis with men. Finnish women also became as well educated as the country’s men and eventually slightly outnumbered men in higher education. Their legislative role contributed to the establishment of an extensive welfare program, including provisions for women’s and children’s rights and equal rights with men in determining children’s citizenship. By the 1980’s, Finland was widely recognized as one of the best places in the world for women to live and work. A Population Crisis Committee report of 1988 cited Finland as second only to Sweden and slightly ahead of the United States. The major criteria were economic and legal conditions, health conditions, and educational opportunities. This exemplary status resulted from a number of factors, among them the fact that early in the twentieth century constitutional reforms that accompanied heightening nationalism in Finland brought women into the voting public several years, and in some cases decades, before women in most other countries. — Thomas P. Peake Further Reading Jackson, Hampden J. Finland. New York: Macmillan, 1940. This older study of Finland is still valuable for its demonstration of the balance among social classes and the sexes in Finland. Finnish resistance to Russification by the regime of Nicholas II is given clear treatment, providing the reader with perspective on the sweeping reforms of 1906 that included the enfranchisement of women. Includes selected notes and index. Jutikkala, Eino. A History of Finland. New York: Praeger, 1962. A highly analytic history that provides strong coverage of continuity and discontinuity in Finnish society. One of the most essential studies available on Finland’s modern development. Several chapters focus on the modernization of Finland, particularly its quest for freedom and identity in the period of Russian domination. Women’s acquisition of the franchise is set in the context of that struggle. Includes an index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lundin, C. Leonard. “Finland.” In Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914, edited by Edward C. Thaden. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. A compact summary of Russia’s policy, especially during the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II, of imposing Russian culture in the Baltic region. Offen, Karen. European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political History. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. A comprehensive account of the development of feminism in European societies, including Portugal, Poland, Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Finland, and the growth of international and transnational feminist organizations. Aims to change readers’ perceptions by placing gender at the center of European history. Includes chronology, bibliography, and index. Senkkonen, Sirkka, and Elina Haavio-Mannila. “The Impact of the Women’s Movement and Legislative Activity of Women MPs on Social Development.” In
First German U-Boat Is Launched Women, Power, and Political Systems, edited by Margherita Rendel. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. Shows the long-range results of women’s political and social liberation in Finland, demonstrating that progress was accompanied by continuing problems. Wuorinen, John Henry. A History of Finland. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. A general history with an unusual grasp of the underlying social and economic driving forces of Finland’s modernization. Shows that the emancipation of women rested on more than two generations of concerted efforts. Includes selected notes and documents, select bibliography, and index. See also: June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women.
August 4, 1906
First German U-Boat Is Launched Germany’s launching of its first U-boat led to the development of a submarine fleet that proved to be the catalyst that brought the United States into World War I, ensuring Germany’s ultimate defeat. Locale: Danzig, Germany Categories: Science and technology; engineering; transportation Key Figures Raymondo Lorenzo d’Equevilley-Montjustin (18601931), Spanish engineer Maxime Laubeuf (1864-1939), French engineer Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), German admiral William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Gustav Krupp (1870-1950), German industrialist
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Summary of Event The launching of Unterseeboot-eins (underwater boat number 1), or U-1, at Danzig, Germany, on August 4, 1906, hardly appeared to any observer as an epochal event. The German navy was a relative latecomer in the new era of submarine warfare. The English, the French, the Russians, and the Americans already possessed oper-
ational submarine fleets before the architect of the German high-seas fleet, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, finally consented to divert some of the resources of the German navy to the building of submarines. Despite its unprepossessing beginnings, however, the U-boat had enormous influence on the course of world events. Submarines were not new in 1906. Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, conducted the first recorded successful test of a submarine vessel in the River Thames in England in 1620. Over the next four years, he successfully navigated his craft approximately thirteen to sixteen feet (four to five meters) below the surface of the river, once (according to tradition) with King James I as a passenger. During the eighteenth century, inventors patented fourteen designs for submersible vessels in England alone. The first recorded attempt to use a submarine as a weapon of war occurred during the opening phases of the American Revolution. David Bushnell, a student at Yale University, built an oval-shaped submersible vessel named the Turtle, in which he proposed to approach an English ship in Boston Harbor, attach an explosive charge to its hull, and sink it. The Turtle succeeded in approaching the English ship unobserved, but its one-man crew was unable to attach the charge to the copper bot-
First German U-Boat Is Launched
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
In this 1917 photograph, a midget submarine pulls up beside a German U-boat. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
tom of the English warship. The first successful submarine attack on a surface ship also occurred in the United States, during the Civil War. On February 17, 1864, a Confederate submarine named Hunley (after its inventor, H. L. Hunley) attacked and sank the Union vessel Housatonic. The Hunley’s crew used a device called a spar torpedo (a powerful explosive charge attached to a long pole) to dispatch the Union craft. In order to sink the Housatonic, the Hunley had to approach so near to the enemy vessel that it, too, sank in the ensuing explosion. Interest in submersible vessels grew in Germany during the mid-nineteenth century, spurred by the heroics of Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin Bauer. In 1850, Bauer built for the government of Schleswig-Holstein a submarine vessel incorporating all the essential elements of later military submarines. Bauer’s vessel, named Brandtaucher (sea diver), sank during its first test in the Baltic Sea in February, 1851. It remained on the sea bottom until 1887, when the Imperial German government had it raised. After a restoration program that took nineteen years, it was placed on display in the Berlin Naval Museum. Bauer later emigrated to England, where he was 542
instrumental in initiating the English submarine development program. He then went to Russia, where he built and successfully tested an enlarged version of his original Brandtaucher for the Russian navy. The Russians, however, never deployed the vessel in a combat role. In the 1870’s, the locus of research into development of submersible vessels adaptable to military uses shifted once again to the United States. John P. Holland, generally recognized as the father of modern military submarines, made several important innovations in submarine design from 1875 to 1900. These innovations included a workable electric engine for driving a submarine while under water, water ballast to facilitate diving, and horizontal rudders to enable the boat to dive. In 1900, Holland delivered to the U.S. Navy the Plunger, a vessel incorporating all of his innovations. The English navy ordered several submarines of the same class as the Plunger, some of which saw action in World War I. After the unification of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 under the leadership of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, German military planners assigned a secondary role to the nation’s naval forces. Pri-
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government first, but the French navy bought and developed an almost identical design offered by a Frenchman named Maxime Laubeuf, who had worked closely with d’Equevilley-Montjustin in Paris. Which of the two men actually designed the submarine is uncertain. The Krupp firm approached Tirpitz for financial support to develop the submarine, but Tirpitz declined, voicing the opinion that submarines could never compete in offensive operations against surface vessels. Consequently, the Krupp firm began development of d’Equevilley-Montjustin’s design using its own resources in February, 1902. Krupp completed the prototype of d’EquevilleyMontjustin’s vessel on June 8, 1903, but financial constraints had forced abandonment of many of the original features of the submarine. Krupp’s boat measured 42.65 feet (13 meters) and was capable of a surface speed of 4 knots. Driven by a 65-horsepower electric motor, the boat could make 5.5 knots submerged. Krupp invited the emperor to observe tests of the vessel in 1904. Both William II and his sons displayed considerable interest in the boat, but Tirpitz remained opposed to spending scarce naval funds for further development of a vessel unproven in combat. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Krupp managed to convince the Russian government to buy not only his prototype but also three more boats of the same design (which came to be called the Karp class). During the building of the submarines for the Russian navy, Krupp’s engineers greatly improved on the original model. Tirpitz was finally won over by the improved submersibles, and in 1905 he agreed to appropriate 1.5 million marks for submarine development and agreed to purchase several of the vessels for the German navy. Tirpitz’s decision resulted in the launching of the U-1 on August 4, 1906. The U-1 measured 137.8 feet (42 meters) and displaced 234 tons; it carried a crew of twenty men and officers. Armed with an 18-inch (46-centimeter) bow torpedo tube with three self-propelled torpedoes and a 3.5-inch (88-millimeter) deck gun, the boat could make 10.8 knots on the surface and 8.7 knots submerged. With a cruising range of 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers), the U-1 had definite offensive capabilities. The German navy had acquired an important new weapon. Significance The launching of the U-1 made no particular impression in 1906, even on the other naval powers of the world. The Germans entered the race to develop submarine technology late, for military purposes, and progressed slowly. 543
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marily responsible for coastal defense, the German navy had only limited offensive capability. That situation began to change in the 1880’s with Germany’s acquisition of overseas colonies. German industrialists, in need of raw materials and new markets for their manufactured products, began to pressure the German government to build a high-seas fleet capable of protecting German commerce. Industrialists organized groups such as the Naval League and the Colonial League to propagandize in favor of a massive naval building program. Bismarck opposed these groups with some success as long as he was chancellor of the empire. In 1888, William II ascended the German throne as emperor (kaiser). Whereas his grandfather, William I (r. 1871-1888), had been content to delegate the responsibility for governing the German Empire to Bismarck, William II was determined to rule as well as reign. Naïvely enthusiastic about colonial expansion, William clashed with Bismarck on that and other issues; their disagreements ultimately resulted in Bismarck’s dismissal in 1890. After the old chancellor’s departure, William immediately abandoned Bismarck’s diplomatic strategy, which had virtually assured that there could be no general European war. The new emperor enthusiastically began to cooperate with industrialists who advocated the creation of a German high-seas fleet and the expansion of German colonial holdings into a worldwide empire rivaling that of England. The naval rivalry with England and William’s new “world policy” were important links in the chain of events that led to World War I. By 1905, the German naval building program reached a level sufficient to represent a legitimate threat to English naval hegemony. The British Admiralty’s position at the time was that the English fleet must be at least as large as the fleets of the three next-largest naval powers in Europe combined in order to ensure the security of the home islands and English commerce. Because of the expanding German navy, English government officials were compelled to increase their own naval building program in order to comply with the Admiralty’s position. Faced with the massive expansion of the English navy, Tirpitz agreed finally in 1905 to support the development of submarines capable of offensive operations. Because of Gustav Krupp’s efforts, very little time expired before Germany had an operational submarine fleet. Raymondo Lorenzo d’Equevilley-Montjustin, a Spanish engineer, had approached the Krupp firm in 1901 with plans for a double-hulled submarine capable of long-range offensive operations. D’EquevilleyMontjustin actually had offered his designs to the French
First German U-Boat Is Launched
First German U-Boat Is Launched When World War I began, Germany was well behind the other Great Powers, both in numbers of submarines and in submarine technology (France had 123 submarines, England had 72, Russia had 41, the United States had 34, and Germany had only 26). Nevertheless, the German submarine fleet quickly became controversial. On September 22, 1914, the U-9, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Otto Weddigen, sank three English armored cruisers in a naval engagement lasting less than one hour. Weddigen’s demonstration of the offensive capabilities of submarines and their effectiveness against surface vessels revolutionized naval strategy. The engagement forced the British Admiralty not only to acknowledge the vulnerability of its surface warships and change the way they were deployed but also to face the inevitability of submarine attacks on English commercial vessels. Because England had been importing most of its food for more than a century, the specter of certain defeat loomed if the German submarines could sufficiently curtail the number of merchant ships that were able to reach the British Isles. On October 14, 1914, the U-17 sank an English steamer. Despite the agreement reached between the Great Powers at Geneva in 1907 regulating submarine warfare and prohibiting surprise attacks on civilian ships, the German high command declared a submarine blockade of the British Isles and proceeded to sink everincreasing numbers of commercial vessels into 1915. Desperate to combat the submarine campaign that threatened to take England out of the war, the British Admiralty launched a propaganda campaign in the United States against the German actions. The German government, anxious to avoid American entry into the war on the side of its enemies, tried to avoid doing anything that might antagonize the United States. On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat sank the English passenger liner Lusitania, and 1,198 civilian lives were lost. Among the casualties were 124 Americans, despite the fact that the German embassy in the United States had taken out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times prior to the Lusitania’s departure warning potential passengers that the Lusitania was carrying matériel of war into a zone of war and was liable to be attacked by German submarines. English propagandists in the United States made much of the incident, even insisting that the U-boat had deliberately launched a second torpedo into an already sinking vessel while the civilians were trying desperately to abandon ship. In actuality, the second explosion resulted from the ignition of the ammunition being carried illegally by the Lusitania. The vehe544
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ment American protest about the Lusitania incident and several similar occurrences during 1915 ultimately resulted in the German abandonment of unrestricted submarine warfare out of fear of antagonizing the United States. By 1917, Germany’s military situation became desperate. General Erich Ludendorff and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, the virtual military dictators of Germany by that time, decided to chance American entry into the war in a risky gamble designed to force England to capitulate. They hoped that a resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare could knock out England before the United States could be mobilized sufficiently to affect the outcome of the war. Accordingly, the German navy resumed unrestricted attacks on all vessels sailing in proximity to the British Isles in February, 1917. After the sinking of three American merchant vessels, the U.S. government broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. A month later, when President Woodrow Wilson asked the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, he cited the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare as the primary cause. The entry of the United States into the war ensured Germany’s ultimate defeat. The lasting antagonism between the two nations engendered by wartime propaganda was a major factor influencing U.S. entry into World War II, again ensuring defeat for Germany. Thus the seemingly innocuous launching of the first U-boat in 1906 was an integral factor in the outcomes of two of the greatest conflicts that shaped the political and social organization of the contemporary world. —Paul Madden Further Reading Botting, Douglas. The U-Boats. Alexandria, Va.: TimeLife Books, 1979. An entertaining account of U-boat development from its beginning to the end of World War II. Includes numerous photographs and tables showing the dimensions and specifications for most U-boats. Friedman, Norman. Submarine: Design and Development. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1984. Places German submarine development into context with that of other nations of the world. The section on pre-World War I U-boat evolution is short but informative. Gibson, R. H., and Maurice Prendergast. The German Submarine War, 1914-1918. 1931. Reprint. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003. A surprisingly objective account of the U-boats in World War I, in-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cluding an estimate of their effectiveness in the conflict. Alengthy section discusses the development and evolution of the U-boat before World War I and speculates about the effectiveness of submarines in future conflicts. Keatts, Henry, and George Farr. U-Boats. Kings Point, N.Y.: American Merchant Marine Museum Press, 1986. Enjoyable reading for anyone interested in the development of submarine warfare. Pays particular attention to German submarines sunk in U.S. waters, including accounts of amateur and U.S. Navy efforts to explore their wreckage. Replete with rare photographs and specifications for most German submarines launched between 1906 and 1945. Manchester, William. The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968. 1968. Reprint. Boston: Back Bay Books, 2003. A scholarly chronicle of the evolution of the Krupp firm into the world’s largest producer of arms. Contains a short but illuminating section on Krupp’s role in the development of the U-boat and places it in the context of the firm’s other activities. Möller, Eberhard, and Werner Brack. The Encyclopedia of U-Boats: From 1904 to the Present. London: Greenhill Books, 2005. Comprehensive reference volume covering the full history of the German U-boat. In-
Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women cludes detailed information on individual boats’ service records, crew strengths, locations, and more. Rössler, Eberhard. The U-Boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines. Translated by Harold Erenberg. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1981. Intended for readers with an interest in very specific technical details of German U-boats. Laden with figures concerning cruising speed, thickness of armor, engine specifications, number and explosive power of torpedoes, and the like. Many rare photographs. Tall, Jeffrey. Submarines and Deep-Sea Vehicles. San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Press, 2002. Highly illustrated history of submarines includes discussion of Germany’s U-boat fleet. Features bibliography and index. See also: 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I; May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania; Oct., 1915Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar; May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland.
September 19, 1906
Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women For the first time in European history, nations agreed collectively to advance an international standard for labor forbidding the employment of women at night. Locale: Bern, Switzerland Categories: Business and labor; women’s issues; diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event The gathering of representatives of fourteen European nations in Bern, Switzerland, in September of 1906 and
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Key Figures Emile Frey (1845-1917), Swiss political leader William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Sidney Webb (1859-1947), British Fabian Socialist Beatrice Webb (1858-1943), British Fabian Socialist Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929), British suffragist
their agreement to act in concert to ban night work for women marked not only the culmination of labor reformers’ efforts to protect female workers and advance their welfare but also the establishment as operative the principle of international agreement and action in the field of industrial reform and workers’ rights. Although this international convention was the first of its kind, and partly for that reason was limited in its scope, it set the standard for increasingly rigorous international labor legislation in the twentieth century. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles took up where the Bern Convention left off. The League of Nations, through its International Labor Organization, committed itself to the advancement of international standards for economic and social democracy and continued to reaffirm that night work for women and children had no legitimate place in modern industrial society. Ironically, even until 1930, the leading industrial nation in the world, the United States, continued to defy this principle.
Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women The Bern Conference of 1906 and the night-work treaty it forged was the culmination of a movement that had been active in Europe for more than a generation. This international agreement was the product of the prolonged public-spirited efforts of feminists, labor reformers, Social Democrats, and Marxian socialists. These groups were the first to respond to the physical and economic abuses of the factory system, especially as these assaulted the welfare of women and children. In the nineteenth century, women who worked at night were unusually burdened and threatened—by the generally unhealthy conditions in the factory, by the night-work hours that rarely provided for breaks or rest periods, and by the accumulated fatigue that came from their responsibilities as mothers and wives during the day in addition to the “unnatural” hours of night employment. The result was, too often, neglect of family, ill health, high accident rates at home and on the job, and high morbidity. The English were the first to legislate on behalf of female and child workers, directing themselves particularly to the grueling and unhealthy conditions in mining and addressing both the length of and specific hours worked. The increasingly popular sentiment was to “protect” women and children from “hard” labor, as found in the mines, from excessively long hours, and from “unnatural” and potentially immoral employment outside the home at night. In the English Factory Act of 1844, children under the age of thirteen were limited to six and one-half hours of work per day, and women were limited to twelve, with a provision prohibiting work between 8:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. The 1847 Ten Hours Act reduced the workday for women in textile mills to ten hours and continued to stipulate the specific hours of the workday, which were to be between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. The pioneering efforts to prohibit night work for women in England were taken up by the Swiss at midcentury. The Swiss Confederation was advanced in social legislation compared to most European nations. The confederation in 1877 adopted a law, first enacted in 1864 by the single canton of Glarus, that prohibited night work for all workers. Although employers made repeated efforts to repeal or amend this act, the political consensus upheld the prohibition of night work. By the end of the nineteenth century, several other European nations had legislated some form of night-work prohibition for women: Austria and Russia in 1885, the Netherlands in 1889, Germany in 1891, and France in 1892. At the same time, support for this reform began to affect communities outside Europe. New Zealand prohibited night 546
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 work for women in 1881, and Massachusetts was the first in the United States to endorse the principle, in 1890. The growing political consensus opposed to night work for women in the nineteenth century was generated by diverse individuals and groups. Although European feminists such as Millicent Garrett Fawcett, leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, supported and advanced protective labor legislation for women and children, they were primarily concerned with political, and not economic or social, rights for women. Middle-class political feminists tended to oppose night work on moral grounds, seeing it as a major threat to healthy family life and often equating it, at least rhetorically, with prostitution. The strongest proponents for night-work reform were labor unionists and those on the political left, particularly the broad range of European socialists, including Fabians and Labour Party members in England such as Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Social Democrats in England, France, and Germany, and Marxian socialists. Female socialists in particular were often divided on the issue of protectionism, with some feminist socialists arguing that true equality for women should eschew protective legislation. Despite the divisions within the socialist ranks, these reformers generally agreed on the need to protect all citizens from the destructive effects of industrial capitalism and consequently advanced night-work reforms as but one part of the new economic and social order to be wrought by socialism. The increasing political pressure from the left resulted in the movement from unilateral, national legislation to the consideration of a multinational or international agreement on labor standards. In 1890, the emperor of Germany, William II, became an unexpected advocate of this kind of social and economic reform, calling for international cooperation and a conference on labor in Berlin. The emperor’s sudden leadership in the arena of labor reform at this time was a defensive response to the growing strength of the socialist movement in Germany and across Europe, as well as to the threat of strikes in the Ruhr. His purpose was to moderate if not undermine the political influence of the working-class movement. The calling of the Berlin Conference successfully marshaled official and diplomatic support for cooperative labor reform that European nations had previously been reluctant to give. The Swiss, in particular, and their Federal Council president, Emile Frey, had repeatedly issued calls for international treaties for the uniform regulation of labor during the previous two decades but had consistently met with official indifference. In the process of organizing
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Although the terms of the convention required ratification by the participating parties no later than December 31, 1908, the date was later extended to January 14, 1910. By January of 1912, all parties had ratified the agreement, and it came duly into force. For female industrial workers, it marked the beginning of a European economic community that recognized and protected their rights to earn a living without the major risks of ill health and neglect of family responsibilities. Significance The Bern Convention acted as a stimulus to ever-increasing rigor among the European nations in protecting women from employment at night. States that traditionally had been reluctant to embrace such reforms—for example, Belgium and Spain—passed appropriate legislation, and those nations that had already passed nightwork laws made it a point of pride to advance beyond the requirements of the convention. The treaty also extended night-work reforms beyond the continent, as it came to be applied to European colonies, possessions, and protectorates. The standard set by the signatories influenced nonparticipating nations as well. Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, and Greece had legislated against night work for women by 1912, and the beginnings of protective legislation in industry were advanced in Japan, India, and Argentina. By 1914, the success of the Bern Conference had encouraged the scheduling of a second meeting, but this meeting was canceled as a result of the outbreak of World War I. The war constituted a serious setback to the accomplishments of Bern. As a force majeure, it abrogated previous reforms, and under emergency war powers most labor legislation throughout Europe was disregarded. Work hours were lengthened, and overtime and night shifts became common. Even England, after almost a century of prohibition, revived the practice of night work for women. Moved by patriotic ardor, labor, at least at the beginning of the conflict, acquiesced in its loss of protective standards. By the last years of the war, however, it became apparent to both workers and policy makers that increasing work hours was ultimately counterproductive, as it resulted in diminished returns. By 1916, several European nations had moved to restore the protective provisions of labor legislation operative before the war. The principles and agreements of the Bern Convention were reaffirmed at war’s end. The Treaty of Versailles devoted a special chapter to labor, committed the signatories to the principles of social justice, and created an agency within the League of Nations, the Interna547
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their own conference in 1889, the Swiss acknowledged the superior ability of German leadership to effect commonly held objectives and quickly supported the emperor. The Berlin Conference brought representatives of the major European powers together to consider the needs of workers, the first time that such a meeting had occurred. The agenda for the Berlin Conference was too broad, diverse, and ambitious to be effective. The conference proved disappointing to many reformers because it did not result in any binding agreement among the fourteen participating nations. It did, however, establish the goal of setting international labor standards and set Europe on the road to international action and treaty making. The conference’s recommendation against night work for women resulted in France, Germany, and Italy legislating against the practice. More important, the conference made clear the need for an international instrument to effect both research and action on the front of labor reform. By 1900, the International Association for Labor Legislation had been established, and its creation, the International Labor Office, directed its efforts toward the specific problem of night work. In 1903, it requested the Swiss Federal Council to initiate an international conference. Organizers had learned the lessons of Berlin, and the proposed conference was to focus on only two of the most grievous abuses in industry: night work and the use of white phosphorus in the match industry. Memoranda on the two issues were sent to the fourteen European governments in the spring of 1904, and in September of 1906, in Bern, the first international labor treaty and the first article of the International Labor Code were endorsed by Germany, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Bern Convention of 1906 forbade two things: the use of white phosphorus in the match industry and the employment of women for night work. With regard to the latter, the treaty made clear that the major European nations would no longer tolerate the pernicious and debilitating effects of night work on women. It forbade the practice without distinction of age and required that the night’s rest should have a minimum duration of eleven consecutive hours, to include the hours from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. The prohibition was to apply to all industrial undertakings employing more than ten workers, except those that employed only members of the proprietor’s family. Exceptions were allowed, in particular those resulting from “force majeure” (events beyond control) or those in which night work was necessary to prevent losses, as when certain materials deteriorated quickly.
Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women
Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women tional Labor Organization, to direct and enforce labor standards protecting workers in industry. At a conference held in Washington, D.C., in 1919, delegates took up the issues of protective legislation at the point where Bern had left off and went beyond the earlier provisions in prohibiting night work for women in all public and private industrial undertakings. In addition, the process of ratification and enforcement was quickened. The new convention was implemented on June 21, 1921. The experience of the war and the almost universal commitment to international cooperation in the quest for peace and social justice made the acceptance and implementation of this second night-work convention more rapid than that of the first. By 1928, thirty-six countries had abolished night work for women in industry or had taken steps toward its prohibition. These included all the European nations with the exception of three (Monaco, Albania, and Turkey), India, Japan, several European dependencies in Africa, the British dominions, and nine countries in Central and South America. Because the United States did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles and embrace the League of Nations, it became the most significant exception to the collective and universal condemnation of night work for women. On the eve of the Great Depression, only onethird of U.S. states had any legislation prohibiting the employment of women for night work, and where such laws had been passed, they proved to be limited and ineffective. Ultimately, the Depression itself forced state and federal lawmakers to address the rights and needs of all workers, including women, and to prohibit night work for women under the auspices of New Deal labor legislation. —Nancy A. White Further Reading Anderson, Bonnie S., and Judith P. Zinsser. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present. Rev. ed. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Comprehensive history of women in Europe offers excellent treatment of the social and political circumstances bearing on working women and the forces that propelled labor reform during the early twentieth century. Sections titled “Women of the Cities” and “Traditions Rejected” are particularly informative on these topics. Boxer, Marilyn, and Jean H. Quataert, eds. Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. New York: Elsevier North-Holland, 1978. Collection of essays addresses various aspects of socialist feminism dur548
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing the period when socialism was gaining strength throughout Europe. Particularly informative concerning the conflicts among women, who were often torn between their commitment to socialism and their commitment to feminism, and the diverse approaches to protective legislation for working women. Kelley, Florence. Modern Industry in Relation to the Family, Health, Education, and Morality. 1914. Reprint. New York: Hyperion, 1975. Excellent example of the works produced by social and labor reformers at the time of the Bern Conference. Kelley, an American socialist with ties to European reformers, presents a polemic typical of those who condemned industrial capitalism as antiwoman and antifamily. Lewenhak, Sheila. Women and Trade Unions: An Outline History of Women in the British Trade Union Movement. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977. Offers an excellent overview of women’s organizations and objectives in the trade union movement in Great Britain, the nation that advanced the first protective legislation for working women. Offen, Karen. European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political History. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. Comprehensive account of the development of feminism in European societies and the growth of international and transnational feminist organizations. Aims to change readers’ perceptions by placing gender at the center of European history. Thönnessen, Werner. The Emancipation of Women: The Rise and Decline of the Woman’s Movement in German Social Democracy, 1863-1933. Glasgow: Pluto Press, 1976. Interesting and informative national study of the women’s movement in Germany, especially the various programs for labor reform. Provides insight into the role of William II as a social reformer. Tilly, Louise A., and Joan W. Scott. Women, Work, and Family. 1978. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 1987. Excellent factual and analytic presentation of the impact of the rise of industrialism in Europe on women and the family. Provides a fine overview of both the causes and the effects of the increasing employment among women. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; May 18, 1904: International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade; Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon; Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Persia Adopts a Constitution
October, 1906-October, 1907
Persia Adopts a Constitution Persia’s Fundamental Law and Supplementary Fundamental Law instituted a very short-lived constitutional monarchy. Based on the Belgian constitution, the Persian documents attempted to give the people a voice in government. They also guaranteed individual religious freedom and allocated parliamentary seats to religious minorities, but they forbade non-Muslims from holding cabinet posts. Also known as: Fundamental Law; Supplementary Fundamental Law Locale: Persia (now Iran) Categories: Government and politics; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Mo,affar od-Dtn Sh3h (1852-1907), shah of Persia, r. 1896-1907 Mowammad 4Alt Sh3h (1872-1925), shah of Persia, r. 1907-1909 Mirza Malkam Khan (1831-1908), Persian royal minister Fazlullah Nnrt (1841-1909), Persian religious scholar Jam3l ad-Dtn al-Afgh3nt (1838-1897), leading PanIslamicist
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Summary of Event In the second half of the nineteenth century, Persia became increasingly enmeshed in international politics. The Russian Empire was expanding to the southeast, while the British in India were moving toward the northwest. Persia was the unwilling buffer between those two imperial giants. Persia’s population at that period was approaching ten million people. More than one-third of that number, however, were nomadic or seminomadic tribal peoples. The rest of the country’s inhabitants were scattered over the countryside in villages and hamlets. Under the :afavid Dynasty (ca. 1500-1727), Persia had been a major force in the Middle East, but the fall of the :afavids was followed by seventy years of civil war and political chaos. The Q3j3r Dynasty, which claimed the throne in 1796, never enjoyed the prestige of the :afavids. The Q3j3rs exerted real authority only in their capital, Tehran, and in a few other cities. To govern the rest of the country, the Q3j3rs depended on an intricate series of alliances with tribal chiefs and local landlords. The weakness of the Q3j3r government meant that the dynasty was comparatively poor. Their extortionate pol-
icies were much resented, but the Q3j3rs were never able to gain sufficient wealth to sustain their imperial pretensions. Their poverty made them an easy mark for European entrepreneurs eager to gain a commercial advantage in exchange for a comparatively small contribution to the royal purse. In this way, Europeans began to exert more control over Persia’s economy. Persia’s merchant class (the b3z3ris) was especially hurt by the influx of relatively cheap European goods. Traditional patterns of production and distribution were disrupted. Europe’s influence was further emphasized in March, 1890, when the Q3j3r shah granted the British a monopoly over the production, processing, and sale of tobacco in Persia. Persians were avid smokers, and the crop was widely grown. Farmers, petty manufacturers, and shopkeepers all faced the prospect of losing control over this valuable cash crop. All classes of Persian society therefore protested the granting of the tobacco concession. A few individuals who had been educated in Europe or in Persia’s few European-style schools led the way by complaining that the Q3j3rs were selling out to British imperialists. They carried on their protest through pamphlets and newspapers printed in England or Russia and smuggled into Persia. At the same time, the community of religious scholars, or ulema, also began to involve itself in the controversy. The ulema, educated in the Islamic religious sciences, far outnumbered those trained in modern schools. Also, the ulema of the Imami branch of Shiism, which the :afavid emperors had made the majority sect in Persia, enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the masses, especially the merchants. Many scholars came from mercantile families and found their most devoted followers in that group. Although they were contemptuous of the Q3j3rs, they did not trust those educated in European schools. To the ulema, the liberals seemed to be as bad as the imperialists. As the tobacco controversy heated up, some of the liberals approached Jam3l ad-Dtn al-Afgh3nt, a PanIslamist who was on an extended visit to Persia. AlAfgh3nt convinced the liberals that they had to express their opposition to the Q3j3rs in Islamic terms. Only then would the ulema and the b3z3ris join them. The liberals followed his advice, and al-Afgh3nt began writing to the scholars, arguing that they and the liberals both wanted the same Islamic reforms. Religious scholars had greater access to the masses than did the liberals. Many of them
Persia Adopts a Constitution were preachers in mosques, and soon their sermons were filled with attacks on the Q3j3rs. The protest grew so strong that Shah Mo,affar od-Dtn Sh3h was forced to withdraw the tobacco concession. He expelled al-Afgh3nt for his participation in the controversy. Al-Afgh3nt’s work in bringing the liberals and religious scholars together, however, set the stage for more serious political change. Throughout his reign as shah, Mo,affar dragged Persia further into foreign debt. Mo,affar was a sickly man, and he made several trips to famous European spas. In order to finance those expeditions, Mo,affar floated a number of large loans from the Russians. Scattered protests continued. The Persian Revolution began in December of 1905. The governor of Tehran had several prominent merchants publicly beaten for refusing to cooperate with his economic policies. In protest, a crowd of b3z3ris and ulemas (the community is the collective plural “ulema,” but several individuals are “ulemas”) went to the Royal Mosque. In turn, a government minister hired a mob to drive them out. Several merchants and scholars were roughed up. The throng then proceeded to a shrine outside the city, where they claimed religious sanctuary. They issued a number of demands to the shah, but these were not specifically formulated. Mo,affar fired the governor of Tehran, and revolutionary fervor abated temporarily. By the end of the summer of 1906, the protests had reached dramatic proportions. Several thousand prominent citizens left Tehran for the city of Qom, a famous religious center. Another fourteen or fifteen thousand people took refuge on the grounds of the British embassy. Life in Tehran came to a standstill. This time the protesters demanded an elected parliament (majlis). The shah was forced to concede. The first majlis met in October of 1906, and one of its committees set about drafting a constitution, known as the Fundamental Law. In the throes of his final illness, Mo,affar signed the document in December of 1906. The Fundamental Law was a fairly brief document, much of it patterned on the constitution of Belgium. Unlike Great Britain, Belgium was not a threat to Persia, so the framers of the law thought a constitution based on the Belgian one would not inspire much opposition. In October, 1907, a much larger document, the Supplementary Fundamental Law, was reluctantly approved by the new shah, Mowammad 4Alt Sh3h. This second portion of the constitution reflected some of the tensions that had emerged between the liberals and the religious scholars. After the initial success of the constitutional revolution, some members of the ulema began to suspect that they and the modernizers did not mean quite the same 550
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 thing when speaking of Islam. One of the prominent scholars, Sheikh Fazlullah Nnrt, said, “What is the use of a constitution cooked in a British stew pot?” The question of the rights of religious minorities was a case in point. Although the :afavids had made Imami Shiism the dominant religion of Persia, large numbers of Sunnis (who formed the majority in the Islamic world outside Persia) remained in the country. Sunnism was particularly strong among the tribal groups. No one considered banning Sunni participation in government, because Sunnis’ minority status made it unlikely that any Sunnis would find their way to high office. Christians of several sects, Jews, and Zoroastrians also lived in Persia, mostly in the cities. During the nineteenth century, European missionary and benevolent organizations began working with the Jewish and Christian groups. They built schools and hospitals that generally improved the social and economic position of the minorities. That development, however, raised the suspicion that Jews and Christians were agents of European imperialists. In the majlis, religious minorities had reserved seats. Their representatives were supposed to take care of the needs of their communities. The liberal constitutionalists wanted to ensure absolute equality among all Persians, but the ulema opposed that measure on several grounds. Having non-Muslims ruling over Muslims was to them a doctrinal and practical impossibility; moreover, they suspected Jews and Christians of having imperialist sympathies. As a compromise, the liberals conceded the principle that only Muslims could hold high government office and agreed to ban any missionary attempts to convert Muslims. As the missionaries had never been successful in attracting converts from Islam, this did not amount to a serious denial of rights. The constitution did, however, guarantee personal religious freedom. Jews and Christians continued to practice their faiths without government interference. The constitution’s ban on nonMuslims in the cabinet did not rouse any significant opposition among the religious minorities, perhaps because these groups had never had much influence in any of Persia’s previous governments. Indeed, the prevalence of monarchy meant that even Shiites had not had much say in the way they were governed. The revolution of 1905 and the constitution were attempts to give ordinary Persians some influence on the policies of the state. Significance Persia’s constitutional experiment ultimately failed. Mowammad 4Alt Sh3h was driven into exile in 1909. He
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They believed that both Great Britain and the United States would attempt to crush them. Once again, Jews and Christians in Iran were suspected of harboring antirevolutionary sentiments. In the years after 1980, however, that suspicion diminished. Many Jews and Christians fought in the war with Iraq. Those who died were given martyr status alongside that accorded Iranian Muslims killed in the war. In many ways, the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 was a continuation of the one that began in 1905. It resolved some of the tensions between liberals and ulema in favor of the latter. The ulema still appeared to command the loyalty of the Iranian masses as well as that of the b3z3ris. — Gregory C. Kozlowski Further Reading Afary, Janet. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. A detailed, scholarly account of the formation of the first Persian constitution and of the Persian constitutional revolution. Includes a chronology, glossary, and bibliography. Arjomand, Saïd Amir, ed. Authority and Political Culture in Sht4ism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. A collection of articles covering every aspect of Shiism’s relationship to politics. Some concern the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which were crucial in the formation of Persian Shiism. Also contains translations of texts, including two tracts on the 1906-1907 constitution. Keddie, Nikki. Iran: Religion, Politics, and Society. Totowa, N.J.: Frank Cass, 1980. Keddie is one of the most prominent among a comparatively small number of Euro-American scholars who really seem to understand Iranian history. In part, this is a result of Keddie’s extensive use of Persian sources. This collection of some of her shorter articles covers a number of aspects of the 1905 revolution and its aftermath. _______. Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981. This work is a genuine tour de force. Keddie manages to make sense of Iran’s history from the nineteenth century through the revolution of 1978-1979. Covers the period between the tobacco protest and the revolution very well. Nashat, Guity. The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran, 1870-1880. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982. Although the works of Keddie and Arjomand cited in this bibliography cover the backgrounds of 551
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had tried twice to overthrow the parliament and on the second attempt succeeded, but after his ouster a coalition of landlords even more reactionary than the shah took control in Tehran. A few constitutionalists, including the prominent religious scholar Sheikh Fazlullah Nnrt, held out in Tabriz, but eventually the Russians took the city and turned them over to the government. Many, like Nnrt, were given the briefest of trials and hanged. During World War I, Persia was occupied by British and Russian troops. Although the latter withdrew following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Great Britain retained a considerable amount of influence after the war. The British were not interested in reinstating the constitution. Their policy focused on keeping Persia stable so that the British could control Persia’s expanding oil industry. Persia had never had a strong military tradition. Before the late nineteenth century, kings had relied on tribal levies when they needed an armed force. In 1879, a Cossack brigade was established. The troopers were Persians, and the officers were Russians. Their primary duty was to protect the shah. In 1917, the Russian officers withdrew, and their Persian subordinates succeeded them as the unit’s commanders. One of these, Reza Khan, staged a military coup in 1921. Although Reza was anti-British, he accepted British help in taking over the government. In 1928, Reza declared himself sh3han sh3h (shah of shahs, or king of kings) and founded the Pahlavi Dynasty as Reza Shah Pahlavi. It was during Reza’s rule, in 1935, that the name of Persia was officially changed to Iran. He and his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, were to be its only monarchs. Throughout the rule of the Pahlavis, the constitution of 1906-1907 was, in theory, the law of the land, but the Pahlavis observed it only when it served their political purposes. When the revolution of 1978-1979 began, an alliance of Western-educated liberals and religious scholars emerged, similar to that formed in 1890. Both sides looked back to the tobacco protest and the constitutional movement for heroic models. The names of Jam3l adDtn al-Afgh3nt and Fazlullah Nnrt were invoked constantly. Although the new constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was built more thoroughly on Islamic principles than that of 1906-1907, it still guaranteed religious toleration for Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. Like the earlier document, the new constitution did not allow religious minorities to hold high government office. The revolutionaries of 1978-1979 were also fearful of foreign interference. They looked on Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as a puppet of the British and Americans.
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Launching of the Dreadnought the ulema, Nashat’s book pays attention to the liberal constitutionalists, giving them due credit for their contribution to modern Iran. Schirazi, Asghar. The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic. Translated by John O’Kane. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1997. Detailed examination of the formation and evolution of the Persian constitution. Includes useful bibliography. Wilber, Donald N. Iran Past and Present. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Although
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 some of Wilber’s views now appear dated, this book remains a handy single-volume introduction to the long and complex history of Iran. Places the first constitution of Iran in the context of the many events that led to it and that have flowed from it. See also: Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code; Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente; May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran.
October 6, 1906
Launching of the DREADNOUGHT The launching of the Dreadnought ushered in a new era in naval technology and improved Britain’s edge in the contest for naval superiority among the European powers. Locale: Portsmouth, England Categories: Science and technology; transportation Key Figures Vittorio Cuniberti (1854-1913), Italian naval designer John Fisher (1841-1920), admiral in the Royal Navy Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), U.S. naval theorist William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Summary of Event By the twentieth century, the battleship was firmly established as the dominant weapon of the world’s navies. The battleship had evolved from the clumsy U.S. Civil War ironclads of the 1860’s into a relatively large and heavily armed vessel. The development of naval technology had been generally consistent in those nations building warships, so the battleships of different navies shared many characteristics. A typical battleship was armed with four main battery guns (generally of 12-inch, or 30.48-centimeter, caliber) backed by a multitude of secondary guns in the caliber range of 6 to 8 inches (15.24 to 20.32 centimeters) that were protected by armor belts 9 to 12 inches (22.86 to 30.48 centimeters) thick and propelled by piston engines. Naval technology was about to take a huge leap forward, however, as circumstances around the world influenced naval architecture. By 1900, three elements combined to create an atmosphere in which naval innovation could thrive. The most important of these was the growing international tension 552
between Germany and its European neighbors. Having unified only in 1870, Germany was a late participant in the imperialism of the late nineteenth century. Germany could only watch as France and Great Britain carved up Africa and Asia between them. Having emerged as a European industrial power, Germany believed it was being denied a leading role in world affairs because it lacked an overseas empire. Without foreign possessions, the German emperor, William II, opted in 1897 to use naval power as a means to wield influence, with plans to double the size of the imperial navy in seven years. England, whose economy relied on sea communications, could not allow a threat to its century-old naval domination, and so it prepared to answer Germany’s challenge to a naval arms race. The second element was navalism, a philosophy that equated naval power with national status. The prophet of navalism was a U.S. officer, Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose book The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890) provided naval officers and politicians around the world with justification to build large fleets. Mahan claimed that the most successful societies have been naval powers, with their ability to control sea communications and commerce. To ensure control, navies needed battleships and colonies around the world as supply bases. Because Mahan justified the acquisition of empires and large navies, Europe, the United States, and Japan seized on his theories to ensure large naval budgets. Naval technology was the final element, as several innovations were perfected at the beginning of the twentieth century, primarily fire control and propulsion. The largest problem facing naval gunnery in 1900 was range finding. Gunners had difficulty hitting targets that were obscured by smoke and constantly moving on a feature-
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Launching of the Dreadnought
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range. Second, Cuniberti’s swift battleship could decide less ocean. Anticipated battle range was approximately when and under what conditions battle would occur. The 4,000 yards (3,657.6 meters), the effective range of a Italians, with their limited naval budget, rejected Cunitelescopic sight. Battleships thus carried many secondberti’s design, but the project caught the attention of the ary guns, as battles would take place well within their driving force behind Great Britain’s Royal Navy, Admilimited range, much less the longer range of the four ral Sir John Fisher. main battery guns. New inventions, such as optical range Fisher was a man receptive to new ideas. Having risen finders and mechanical plotting boards (essentially methrough the ranks from cabin boy to commander of the chanical computers), allowed accurate fire to beyond Royal Navy, Fisher was not constrained by traditional 10,000 yards (9,144 meters), the range of the main batmethods of doing things. Cuniberti’s design intrigued teries, by 1905. Propulsion also benefited from new inhim, for it seemed to fulfill two objectives: The new batnovation. Turbine engines, which had fewer moving tleship would ensure Great Britain’s technological domiparts and were thus more reliable than piston machinery, nance over the encroaching Germans, and it would inwere first experimented with in 1897, and smaller warcrease the Royal Navy’s firepower. To refine Cuniberti’s ships began to be fitted with turbines by 1905. design, Fisher created the Committee on Designs in DeWith these three elements together, an atmosphere cember, 1904, to produce a final blueprint for a ship to be existed in which a technological leap was not only possinamed Untakeable. In addition to Fisher, the committee ble but probable. The only thing missing was an event consisted of naval designers, civilian scientists, gunnery that would shape how the next battleships would appear. officers, and representatives from naval intelligence who That event took place on May 27, 1905, in the Tsushima reported on the latest German naval efforts. Strait, between Korea and Japan. Russian and Japanese Untakeable’s design emerged from committee in competition for influence in Manchuria and Korea had May, 1905, and it reflected not only Cuniberti’s theories led to war in February, 1904, and, following the destrucbut also particular British requirements. The ship had ten tion of Russia’s Asiatic Fleet, its Baltic Fleet was ordered 12-inch guns, which were sited to allow heavy fire in any to the Pacific. In May, 1905, the outmaneuvered Russian direction. Fisher had insisted on maximum firepower fleet was decisively defeated by the faster Japanese navy. Naval observers hurried to determine the lessons of the Battle of Tsushima and emerged with two conclusions: Accurate firepower at long range was absolutely vital, and the faster fleet had many tactical advantages. Coupled with international tension, navalism, and emerging technologies, the lessons of Tsushima formed the theoretical basis of the dreadnoughttype battleship. The first person to attempt to put theory into practice was Vittorio Cuniberti, a naval architect in the Italian navy. In 1903, Cuniberti published plans for a swift battleship armed with no less than twelve 12inch guns and no secondary armament. Influenced by the Battle of Tsushima, Cuniberti designed the ship on two premises. First, the large number of heavy guns, aimed by the new range-finding devices, could destroy The powerful battleship Dreadnought featured turbine engines. (Naval Historical any current battleship before its secCenter) ondary batteries could come into
Launching of the Dreadnought ahead, presuming that in battle the Royal Navy would have to chase fleeing German ships. Untakeable thus had three twin turrets pivoting on the centerline, with two twin turrets on either side of the bridge, allowing six guns to fire ahead or astern and eight guns to fire on the broadside. Prominent in Untakeable’s blueprint was a fire control tower, where officers could employ the new range-finding systems. The only other armament would be several small, rapid-fire guns to counter enemy torpedo boats; all other armament was dispensed with, causing some controversy among naval traditionalists. Controversy also arose over the choice of propulsion systems. In order to give Untakeable a speed advantage over contemporaneous battleships (which traveled at about sixteen knots), the Committee on Designs wanted a top speed of twenty-one knots. Piston engines could not achieve this speed; the only way to attain the desired speed on a hull weighing eighteen thousand tons was to use the new turbine engines. Using such a new technology on a project as important as this one caused the committee great concern, but the advantages outnumbered the risks, and Untakeable received turbine engines. As the ship was laid down at the Royal Navy Dockyard in Portsmouth, Fisher declared that it would be built in one year. A battleship typically required three years for construction, but Fisher had several reasons for wanting to hurry. First, a rapid construction time would generate good public relations for the new ship. Second, completion would forestall opposition to the new design. Finally, the sudden arrival of the new ship might deter the Germans. The keel of the ship was laid on October 2, 1905, and the hull was ready for launching on February 10, 1906. Rather than using the name Untakeable, King Edward VII christened the ship Dreadnought, the eighth Royal Navy ship to bear the name. (The first had fought the Spanish Armada in 1688, and a later Dreadnought had served with Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar.) The ship then received its guns, engines, and other internal systems before leaving Portsmouth for sea trials on October 6, 1906, missing Fisher’s deadline by only one day. Significance The successful completion of this new type of battleship had important effects on naval construction among all the world’s Great Powers. The initial announcement of the Dreadnought’s successful trials was the equivalent of saying that all the other battleships of the world were now obsolete. As a result, most countries stopped constructing battleships while they designed more modern ships. 554
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The building of the Dreadnought has remained a turning point in naval architecture. The ship’s name was appropriated for the battleship types that followed: Any subsequent battleship armed with a single-caliber battery became known as a dreadnought, and those battleships that came before 1905 were pre-dreadnoughts. Dreadnoughts remained the focus of naval doctrine until the emergence of the aircraft carrier during World War II. —Steven J. Ramold Further Reading Hodges, Peter. The Big Gun: Battleship Main Armament, 1860-1945. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1981. Discusses battleship armament from the first ironclads to the last dreadnought, with an emphasis on the adoption of single-caliber armament in 1906. Massie, Robert K. Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War. 1991. Reprint. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. A voluminous study of the political and military impact of the Anglo-German naval arms race. Padfield, Peter. Battleship. Rev. ed. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001. A complete history of the battleship by a wellrespected naval historian. _______. The Great Naval Race: The Anglo-German Naval Rivalry, 1900-1914. New York: David McKay, 1974. The standard reference on this topic of naval history. Roberts, John. The Battleship Dreadnought: Anatomy of the Ship. Rev. ed. London: Conway Maritime Press, 2003. A highly technical study of the Dreadnought’s design, with many illustrations of internal systems. Sandler, Stanley. Battleships: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Denver, Colo.: ABC-Clio, 2004. Covers wooden battleships circa 2000 b.c.e. through steamships, dreadnoughts, and later ships, focusing on the impact of the ships on warfare style and effectiveness. Simkins, Peter J. Battleship: The Development and Decline of the Dreadnought. London: Imperial War Museum, 1979. A study of the dreadnought era, from its inception to its replacement by the aircraft carrier. See also: 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania; May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland; Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference; June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools
October 25, 1906
Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools The San Francisco Board of Education’s decision to segregate Japanese from other students in city schools exacerbated tensions between the United States and Japan. Locale: San Francisco, California Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; education; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures Aoki Shuzo (1844-1914), Japanese ambassador to the United States Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Elihu Root (1845-1937), U.S. secretary of state Saionji Kimmochi (1849-1940), prime minister of Japan, 1906-1908 Eugene E. Schmitz (1864-1928), mayor of San Francisco
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Summary of Event On October 11, 1906, scarcely six months after Japan had magnanimously donated more than $246,000 in aid (exceeding the combined donations of the rest of the world) to help alleviate the suffering caused by the San Francisco earthquake, the San Francisco Board of Education repaid Japan’s kindness by voting to segregate Japanese children from “white” children in its schools. The Japanese government was at first stunned by this blatant expression of racial bigotry. The Japanese hoped that cooler and wiser heads would prevail in California and that the order would quickly be rescinded. After waiting for two weeks, Japanese prime minister Saionji Kimmochi instructed his ambassador to the United States, Aoki Shuzo, to deliver a note of protest into the hands of American secretary of state Elihu Root on October 25, 1906. The note reminded the government of the United States that Japanese citizens were guaranteed equal rights by treaty and that the “equal right of education is one of the highest and most valuable rights.” Saionji went on to say that even if the “oriental schools” provided for Asian children were to be equal to other schools, the segregation of Japanese children “constitutes an act of discrimination carrying with it a stigma and odium which it is impossible to overlook.” The Japanese government cautioned its citizens against any anti-American retribution in Japan and coun-
seled the Japanese in San Francisco to bear the insults and discrimination “with equanimity and dignity.” Japanese newspapers, although outraged at the school board’s blatant racial insult, generally suggested that the wisest course for Japan to take would be to appeal to the American sense of honor and fair play. President Theodore Roosevelt was both embarrassed and outraged at the San Francisco action and promised Aoki and the Japanese government that the matter soon would be resolved. Roosevelt began a propaganda campaign in the press to try to marshal national pressure against San Francisco and to give the Japanese the impression that he was actively engaged in resolving the issue. Much to his horror, however, several southern congressmen sprang to the defense of their fellow racists in California. They interpreted the issue as being one of states’ rights and reminded Roosevelt that the recent Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court ruling allowed the individual states to maintain “separate but equal” public education facilities. For their part, the members of the San Francisco Board of Education were somewhat at a loss to understand the extent and importance of the international crisis they had caused. At that time, Chinese had been excluded as immigrants to the United States for nearly thirty years, and those Chinese who happened to be residents of California had been denied virtually all political and civil rights as a matter of course. Native American, African American, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, “Hindoo,” and other children routinely had been segregated from white children. The school board members did not understand why their action should cause such an uproar. The anti-Japanese bigotry was the result of a series of unfortunate coincidences. First, Japanese immigration to California previously had been but a minor irritant compared with the problems posed by the influx of Chinese laborers in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Fewer than ten thousand Japanese had come to California before 1900, and perhaps only half of them remained as residents. California labor contractors, however, discovered the industrious Japanese laboring in Hawaiian sugar cane fields after the Hawaiian Revolution of 1894. The contractors lured thousands of these workers to California, where they found ready employment in the developing agricultural sector. As their numbers increased, so did their economic
Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools influence at nearly every level. By 1905, organized labor in California had mounted a campaign against Japanese immigration based on the fact that Japanese workers undercut American workers by working longer hours for less money. Second, the 1906 earthquake had contributed to the general malaise and sense of anomie in San Francisco in much the same irrational way that citizens of Tokyo would later turn against helpless, innocent Koreans in the aftermath of the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. White San Franciscans who lost their homes in the earthquake were outraged, quite irrationally, that a handful of Japanese had survived with their homes and businesses intact. Even worse, a few enterprising Japanese set up thriving cheap restaurants that catered to the workers involved in the urban recovery. In the eyes of the bigots, the Japanese seemed to be prospering at the expense of the suffering whites. Third, the San Francisco Chronicle, perhaps in an attempt to outdo the sensationalism of William Randolph Hearst’s Herald, chose that time to mount an irresponsibly provocative campaign against Japanese immigration. It published unsubstantiated and patently absurd charges that Japanese were spying on American coastal defenses for Japan and that they were acquiring huge tracts of land in the Central Valley, not only for its rich farmland but also for strategic military purposes. Without question, the worst fear they dredged up was the horror of racial miscegenation. They claimed that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of adult Japanese men were routinely placed side by side with young, innocent “white maidens” in the city’s schools. Actually, some twenty-three Japanese males, none older than sixteen years of age, were dispersed throughout the city schools, placed temporarily in lower grades until their English-language skills improved. In response to the increasing anti-Japanese sentiment, the Japanese Exclusion League was formed during the late summer of 1906; the organization was led, ironically, by four recent European immigrants to the city. Pickets in front of Japanese restaurants handed out matchboxes printed with the message “White people, patronize your own race.” Gangs of thugs assaulted lone Japanese in the streets and threw stones at the windows of Japanese residents. Petitions were circulated urging the exclusion of Japanese immigrants. A final factor in the bigotry directed against the Japanese was the rabidly racist campaign of San Francisco’s mayor, Eugene E. Schmitz. Schmitz was facing an imminent indictment for bribery and corruption by a reformist 556
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movement and hoped to use the growing anti-Japanese hysteria to gain political support. He joined the Japanese Exclusion League at a series of outdoor public meetings. Before long, this unprincipled political opportunist had further inflamed the already irrational bigots. The result was that the school board yielded to the demands of the rabble and voted to establish a separate school for all “orientals,” including the Japanese. After a few months, the more responsible citizens of the city managed to bolster enough support to force another vote in the school board, but not before many Japanese children were denied the right to an education in their neighborhood schools and not before many Japanese adults were assaulted, threatened, and coerced to pay “protection money” by the local police. President Roosevelt met several times with city and state leaders and reached a tacit agreement that the school segregation crisis could be resolved if some agreement could be reached to restrict the immigration of Japanese laborers. Ambassador Aoki was receptive to Roosevelt’s invitation to discuss the issue but reminded him that Japan already restricted the number of passports granted to persons wishing to emigrate to the United States. He suggested that it would be better if the United States would restrict immigration from Hawaii and Mexico, because apparently most Japanese who came to California arrived from those countries. After months of discussion, Roosevelt and the Japanese arrived at what came to be known as the Gentlemen’s Agreement, which severely limited the number of Japanese immigrants. For the time being, ninety-three Japanese children returned to their neighborhood schools, and San Francisco and California settled down to await nervously the next wave of xenophobic hysteria. Unfortunately, they did not have long to wait. Significance The effect of the San Francisco school segregation incident was most directly felt by the ninety-three children who had their education interrupted for a year. Their required travel to the “oriental school”—in some cases, from one side of the city to the other—was at least inconvenient and at times dangerous. The greatest impact came from the denial of these children’s human and civil rights. To be singled out for discrimination on the basis of race was a demeaning insult. The only thing that ameliorated and stopped the discrimination was the fact that Japan, by 1906, had become a powerful military world power. Japan could not be insulted with impunity.
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Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools
Regrettably, the Japanese Exclusion League did not simply evaporate with the hysteria. Like the irrational xenophobia that fed the crisis, the league continued, nurtured by fear and resentment. It surfaced again in 1913, when the California legislature passed the Alien Land Act, which denied landowning to people (such as the Japanese) who could not become citizens. It flourished again in 1921 and 1924, when the U.S. Congress passed immigration acts favoring immigrants from northern and western Europe and restricting the number of Japanese immigrants to fewer than one hundred per year. Some historians have argued that the discriminatory tendencies evident in the San Francisco school segregation crisis of 1906 were precursory to the xenophobia that would sanction the incarceration of loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry in 1942 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the two countries into a battle for control of the Pacific during World War II. Curiously, within the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement that resolved the school segregation crisis was the basis for a somewhat different but perhaps more dangerous problem. That agreement allowed for those Japanese already resident in the United States to bring their families to join them. The citizens of California were startled to discover that male Japanese residents used this rule to bring their parents and sometimes women whom they had married “by proxy” to live with them. The children born to Japanese immigrants in the United States were natural-born citizens. The state of California could deny political and civil rights to aliens, but it could not deny such rights to their citizen children. —Louis G. Perez
See also: Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement; May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law; Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States.
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Further Reading Bailey, Thomas A. Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crisis: An Account of the International Complications Arising from the Race Problem on the Pacific Coast. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1934. Solid account places the crisis within the context of the greater history of U.S.-Japan foreign relations. Includes bibliography and index. Boddy, E. Manchester. Japanese in America. 1921. Reprint. San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1970. Brief monograph written to counter the arguments of the Japanese Exclusion League. Examines and refutes each argument with California and federal census and immigration statistics. Dated, but valuable for its glimpse of the visceral quality of the debate. Daniels, Roger. The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-
Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. 1974. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Masterful treatment of the politics of racial bigotry depicts the leaders of the “nativist” movement in California with chilling clarity. Includes valuable bibliography of primary sources. Iriye, Akira. Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897-1911. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Brilliantly written examination of the mutual animosities between two imperialist states. Of particular interest are chapters 5 and 6, “Confrontation: The Japanese View” and “Confrontation: The American View.” Lauren, Paul Gordon. Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Examines the impacts of racial prejudice on international relations, immigration policies, and military conflict. Includes discussion of immigration exclusion laws. Neu, Charles E. An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906-1909. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Solid revisionist interpretation uses Roosevelt’s extensive personal correspondence to portray him as a shrewd politician whose own racial prejudices made him more sympathetic to the Japanese Exclusion League than to the Japanese. Good use of primary documents. Solid bibliography. Nimmo, William F. Stars and Stripes Across the Pacific: The United States, Japan, and the Asia/Pacific Region, 1895-1945. New York: Praeger, 2001. Examines economic, diplomatic, and military relations between the United States and Japan, as well as other Asian nations, from late in the nineteenth century to World War II. Penrose, Eldon R. California Nativism: Organized Opposition to the Japanese, 1890-1913. San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1973. Sophisticated examination of the exclusionist movement uses newspapers and correspondence of the principal participants to examine the politics of the movement and the background of its leaders. Includes appendixes containing the text of various anti-Asian exclusion acts.
Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 10, 1906
Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron Joseph John Thomson’s discovery of the electron enabled scientists to explain the nature of cathode rays, provided other explanations for problems with currents in gases, and paved the way for advances in understanding atomic structure. Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist, professor, and director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959), Scottish physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), German physicist Philipp Lenard (1862-1947), Hungarian-born German physicist and professor Summary of Event In his celebrated work Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), James Clerk Maxwell stressed the need to study the complex processes involved in electric discharge in gases in order to understand the nature of the charge and the medium. In 1879, an English chemist, Sir William Crookes—who had invented the “Crookes tube” and was the first to observe radiations emitted from a cathode in an evacuated glass tube through which electric discharges occurred—published an extensive list of attributes of these rays. Crookes noted that, among other properties, cathode rays cast shadows and were bent by a magnetic field: He concluded that they were made up of particles. At the suggestion of Hermann von Helmholtz, Eugen Goldstein of Berlin studied cathode rays exhaustively and published an impressive paper in the English Philosophical Magazine in 1880, firmly convinced that these rays were a form of waves. Thus, in 1880, the divergence of opinion regarding the nature of cathode rays became a central problem. Crookes and the leading English physicists believed that cathode rays consisted of electrified particles, whereas the German physicists, led by Heinrich Hertz, were certain that the rays were waves. In 1883, Hertz found that one could bend cathode rays by applying a magnetic field outside a discharge tube. His attempt to measure the magnetic field caused by the 558
discharge inside the tube (between two parallel glass plates, which enabled him to determine the current distribution therein) gave no significant correlation to the direction of the cathode rays. Further, Hertz applied static electric fields both inside and outside the tube through parallel conducting plates connected to batteries up to 240 volts. This would presumably produce a force perpendicular to the direction of the rays, deflecting them if they were composed of charged particles. In both situations, he obtained a null result. His long series of experiments seemed to confirm the basic premise with which he had started—namely, that cathode rays were waves. His pupil, Philipp Lenard, continued the study of cathode rays, concentrating on their properties outside the tube, which made them easier to handle. He showed that once out of the tube, the rays rendered the air a conducting medium and blackened the photographic plates; moreover, the distance they traveled depended on the weight-perunit area of matter, not on its chemical properties, and the magnetic deflection was independent of the gas inside the tube. Like Hertz, Lenard believed that he was dealing with a wave phenomenon. In 1895, Jean-Baptiste Perrin, repeating Crookes’s experiment with improved equipment, succeeded in collecting from cathode rays negatively charged particles in an insulated metal cup. This appeared to cast doubt about their wave aspects and consequently, by late 1895, two divergent views prevailed among the leading physicists as to the nature of electric charges. One group thought of them as portions of fluids consisting of large numbers of “molecules of electricity,” or electrons. The other group regarded the “charge” as a result of an unknown form of stress in ether, attached to matter being rendered visible. Therefore, the nature of the cathode rays still remained to be resolved. In 1895, at the University of Würzburg, while studying discharges produced by an induction coil in an evacuated Crookes tube, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen accidentally discovered X rays produced by cathode rays as they impacted a platinum target. Among other properties, such as penetrability through matter, X rays were found to ionize gaseous media, making it conduct, which accelerated the study of conductivity in gases. Sir Joseph John Thomson’s use of the property of X rays proved to be the pivotal point in guiding him toward the discovery of the electron.
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Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron
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In the hope of resolving the controversy “Carriers of Negative Electricity” on the nature of cathode rays, Thomson reIn his Nobel lecture, Joseph John Thomson explained the method by peated Perrin’s experiment with minor which he discovered the electron. This excerpt is from the introduction modifications in the collection and meato his lecture: surement of the charges. Using a magnetic field to bend the rays, he collected them in a The first place in which corpuscles were detected was a highly exmetal cup placed away from the direct line. hausted tube through which an electric discharge was passing. When He found that the charge in the cup reached an electric discharge is sent through a highly exhausted tube, the sides a steady state after attaining a maximum of the tube glow with a vivid green phosphorescence. That this is due to value, which he correctly explained as something proceeding in straight lines from the cathode—the electrode caused by leakage into surrounding space. where the negative electricity enters the tube—can be shown in the following way (the experiment is one made many years ago by Sir WilHertz had failed to observe electric deflecliam Crookes): A Maltese cross made of thin mica is placed between tion of the cathode rays. Thomson, using the cathode and the walls of the tube. When the discharge is past, the two conducting plates between the cathode green phosphorescence no longer extends all over the end of the tube, rays within the tube, applying an electroas it did when the cross was absent. There is now a well-defined cross in static field between the plates, and utilizing the phosphorescence at the end of the tube; the mica cross has thrown a a better vacuum technique compared to that shadow and the shape of the shadow proves that the phosphorescence is available to Hertz, was able to observe dedue to something travelling from the cathode in straight lines, which is flection of the rays, showing that they were stopped by a thin plate of mica. The green phosphorescence is caused composed of negatively charged particles. by cathode rays and at one time there was a keen controversy as to the He correctly explained that Hertz’s failure nature of these rays. Two views were prevalent: one, which was chiefly to observe electric deflection of the cathode supported by English physicists, was that the rays are negatively electrified bodies shot off from the cathode with great velocity; the other rays was caused by their ionizing property view, which was held by the great majority of German physicists, was in excess amount of gas in the tube, thus that the rays are some kind of ethereal vibration or waves. shielding them from the very field meant to The arguments in favour of the rays being negatively charged partideflect them. By the simultaneous applicacles are primarily that they are deflected by a magnet in just the same tion of the electric and magnetic fields to the way as moving, negatively electrified particles. We know that such cathode rays, Thomson obtained the velocparticles, when a magnet is placed near them, are acted upon by a force ity v of the cathode-ray particles. On the aswhose direction is at right angles to the magnetic force, and also at right sumption that the particles carried a charge angles to the direction in which the particles are moving. e and had mass m, Thomson succeeded in Thus, if the particles are moving horizontally from east to west, and obtaining the crucial ratio of charge to mass, the magnetic force is horizontal from north to south, the force acting on that is, e/m, showing that it was seventeen the negatively electrified particles will be vertical and downwards. hundred times the corresponding value for Source: Joseph John Thomson, “Carriers of Negative Electricity,” in Nobel hydrogen atoms. He further showed that the Lectures, Physics 1901-1921 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967). constant e/m was independent of velocity v, the kind of electrodes used, and the type of gas inside the cathode-ray tube. bombarded by ultraviolet light, and in a variety of gasUsing Charles Thomson Rees Wilson’s newly develeous discharge phenomena. Thomson’s discovery that oped “cloud chamber,” Thomson was able to obtain the the cathode-ray particle is universal and fundamental to value of the charge e; from the ratio e/m, it was simple to the understanding of the structure of all matter unraveled compute the numerical value of m. Hence the smallness of the puzzling aspect of conductivity of gases, the nature of the mass, combined with the relatively large velocity of electricity, and the wave-particle controversy. the cathode-ray particles, also explained Hertz’s observation, namely, that the rays penetrated thin sheets of metals. Obviously, massive particles could not do so. From Significance Lenard’s result of constancy of magnetic deflection of the Thomson’s discovery of the electron—as well as the recrays and independence of chemical properties, Thomson ognition of the fact that it carried a natural unit of charge soon realized that he had discovered a universal module and was a universal component of all atoms—marked the of atoms found in radioactive substances, alkali metals beginning of a new and exciting period in atomic research.
Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron Further confirmation concerning the particle nature of cathode rays came from other quarters. For example, Pieter Zeeman’s observation of the widening D lines in the spectrum of sodium, explained by Hendrik Antoon Lorentz’s theory, caused by changed electron configurations of the atoms in the presence of a magnetic field, gave a value of e/m, comparable to those obtained by Thomson. Based on his discovery and a study of mechanical stability of the electrons under the influence of the electrostatic force, Thomson showed that the electron must circulate about the atom’s center, constrained to move in concentric circles. Calling the cathode-ray particles “corpuscles” and speculating that their number increased proportionally to the atomic weights, Thomson attempted to explain the structure of the chemical elements and their properties. From this early model, he drew several important conclusions. First, because the electrons must accelerate as they move in circles around the atomic center, they will radiate. Therefore, such an arrangement of electrons cannot be stable, because n, the number of electrons, was assumed to be of the order of one thousand times the atomic weight A. Because experimental work on alpha, beta, and gamma scattering, performed under the supervision of Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory to verify his theory and obtain n of chemical elements, had led to negative conclusions, this served as a basis for Ernest Rutherford’s model of the nuclear atom. Additionally, Thomson’s discovery of the order of n fostered the development of the scattering theory, which was to play an important role in the evolving research work in atomic and nuclear physics. The instability of his model atom was instrumental in the formulation of the quantum hypothesis and the discovery of the atomic quantum levels. Finally, Thomson’s electron distribution in atoms provided analogies to the behavior of the chemical elements and in particular the population of electrons in the atoms of contiguous elements in the periodic table that differed by unity. —V. L. Madhyastha Further Reading Buchwald, Jed Z., and Andrew Warwick, eds. Histories of the Electron: The Birth of Microphysics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Collection of essays on Thomson and on the early physics of the electron, produced by the Dibner Institute. Bibliographic references and index. Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History, 1974. Leads readers from the origin of the Cavendish Laboratory through 560
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 its period of rapid growth to its present-day organization, discussing the crucial role of the personnel of this unique research laboratory. This volume, in addition to providing a complete account of the researchers at Cavendish and their achievements, contains an exhaustive list of references. Kim, Dong-Won. Leadership and Creativity: A History of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1871-1919. Boston: Kluwer, 2002. A condensed version of the author’s dissertation, this volume details Thomson’s research at the Cavendish Laboratory, as well as his role as a leader and inspiration of other physicists. Nobelstiftelsen, ed. Physics, 1901-1921. New York: Elsevier, 1967. Includes Sir Joseph John Thomson’s Nobel lecture of 1906, detailing his discovery of the electron, which is relatively short, easy to follow, and by far the best source of information on the subject. His biographical sketch, although brief, contains a complete list of honors bestowed on him. Strutt, Robert John, Fourth Baron Rayleigh. The Life of Sir J. J. Thomson. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1942. At Cavendish in 1899, Strutt began his research work on ionization produced by radiations from various radioactive substances and was close to Thomson’s own research activities. This biography of Thomson is the authoritative text that is often quoted, for good reason. One begins to appreciate the contribution of Thomson and the people he inspired in the field of science after reading this work. Thomson, George Paget. J. J. Thomson and the Cavendish Laboratory in His Day. London: Thomas Nelson, 1964. George Paget Thomson, the son of Sir Joseph John Thomson, an eminent physicist, who received the Nobel Prize for his work on the diffraction of electrons in crystals in 1937, narrates the life and achievements of his famous father and those who worked with him at the University of Cambridge. This volume contains not only the story of Thomson’s life and work but also a lucid account of the history of the development of physics at the beginning of the twentieth century in England and Europe. Thomson, J. J. Cathode Rays. Stanford, Calif.: Academic Reprints, 1954. This classic scientific paper, originally published in the Philosophical Magazine (1897), in which Thomson methodically details his findings concerning the cathode rays and his discovery of the electron, provides a proper historical perspective and an understanding of the working of a powerful mind. Although the subject matter is technical, the reader should find it highly rewarding.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. Recollections and Reflections. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1936. An autobiography is necessarily “recollections and reflections” in the true sense of the words. Thomson was an accomplished writer, scholar, and teacher accustomed to scrupulously accurate recording of his thoughts and observations. In this last work, Thomson gives a candid account of his many achievements, preserving a balanced historical perspective. This volume spans the history of physics at its most exciting period and is a pleasure to read.
Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting See also: 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed; Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes; 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect; Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom; 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect; Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons; Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom.
December 24, 1906
Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting Reginald Aubrey Fessenden revolutionized radio broadcasting by transmitting music and voice for the first time. Locale: Brant Rock, Massachusetts Categories: Science and technology; communications and media; radio and television; inventions Key Figures Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932), American radio engineer Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian physicist and inventor
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Summary of Event The first person in the United States to conduct major experiments with wireless radio was Reginald Aubrey Fessenden. This transplanted Canadian was a skilled, self-made scientist, but unlike Thomas Alva Edison, he lacked the business acumen to gain wealth and full credit for his pathbreaking work. Guglielmo Marconi is most often remembered as the person who invented wireless (as opposed to telegraphic) radio, but there is a fallacy in the Marconi claim. The contributions of Marconi and Fessenden differ significantly. Marconi limited himself to experiments with radio telegraphy; that is, he sought to send messages through the air in the form in which they had been sent by wire up to that point—as dots and dashes. Fessenden sought to perfect radiotelephony: voice communication by wireless. Fessenden pioneered the essential precursor to modern radio broadcasting. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he spent much time and energy publicizing his experiments, thus promoting interest in the new science of radio broadcasting.
Fessenden had a varied background. He worked with Edison as well as at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the U.S. Weather Bureau of the Department of Agriculture. The three years he spent working with Edison shaped his values about the process of invention. He sought to make a name for himself, aspiring to become as famous for the miracle of radio as Edison had become for the phonograph, the electric lightbulb, and the motion picture. Fessenden began his career as an inventor while working for the Weather Bureau. He set out to invent and innovate a system by which to disseminate weather forecasts to users on land and on the sea—by radio. Fessenden believed that his technique of continuous waves in the radio frequency range would provide the power necessary to carry Morse telegraph code yet be effective enough to handle voice communication. He turned out to be correct. He conducted experiments as early as 1900 at Rock Point, Maryland, about fifty miles (eighty kilometers) south of Washington, D.C., and registered his first patent in the area of radio research in 1902. In 1900, Fessenden asked the General Electric Corporation to produce a high-speed generator of alternating currents—or alternator—to serve as the basis of his radio transmitter. This proved to be the first major request for wireless radio apparatus useful for projecting voices and music. It took the engineers three years to design and deliver the alternator. Meanwhile, Fessenden worked on an improved radio receiver. To fund his experiments, Fessenden piqued the interest of financial backers, who put up one million dollars to create the National Electric Signaling Company in 1902. He and a small group of handpicked scientists worked at Brant Rock on the Massachusetts coast south of Bos-
Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting ton. Fessenden followed the methods he had learned under Edison, creating a small, crude shop and learning by trial and error. His intent was to work outside the corporate system and then seek fame and glory based on his own work, not something owned by a corporate patron. Fessenden’s moment of glory came on December 24, 1906, with the first announced broadcast of his radiotelephone (this occasion followed a private demonstration a month earlier). Using an ordinary telephone microphone and his special alternator to generate the necessary radio energy, Fessenden alerted ships up and down the Atlantic coast with his wireless telegraph and arranged for newspaper reporters to listen in from New York City. In his “broadcast” from Brant Rock, Fessenden made himself the center of the show. He played the violin, sang, and read from the Bible. Anticipating what would become standard practice fifty years later, Fessenden also transmitted the sounds of a phonograph recording. He ended this first broadcast by wishing those listening a merry Christmas. A similar, equally well publicized demonstration was presented on December 31. If one considers the audience of telegraph operators on the ships of the day and newspapers as a means of mass dissemination, then this public display in late 1906 represented the first radio broadcast. It was a scheduled event, and listening required no special knowledge of code because the sounds consisted of voice and music. Newspaper reporters wrote about shipboard radio operators “hearing” the voices of angels rather than the usual static and Morse code. Although Fessenden was skilled at drawing attention to his inventions and must be credited, among others, as one of the engineering founders of modern principles of radio, he was far less skilled than others at making money with his experiments, and thus his long-term impact was limited. The National Electric Signaling Company had a fine beginning, and for a time it was a supplier to the boats of United Fruit Company. The financial setback of the Panic of 1907, however, wiped out an opportunity to sell the Fessenden patents—at a vast profit—to a corporate giant, the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. Fessenden found himself deserted by his original backers. As had been the case with Edison, backers loved the promise of his experiments but avoided being associated with failure. Fessenden was not a rich man; once his financial support dried up, he was isolated. Thereafter, his career went downhill. Much like Edison, in the twentieth century Fessenden spent more and more of his time in court trying to protect his inventions. His laboratory career was 562
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 over. Eventually, this led to a series of extended lawsuits and, in the end, the sale of patents to Westinghouse Electric Corporation following World War I. Fessenden’s experience again proved that simple invention (and skilled promotion) was not enough. One also had to be an innovator, able to develop a product that could sell in the economic marketplace and then display the skills to market it. Fessenden’s invention, spectacular in its day, required massive apparatus that was too cumbersome to use permanently. Thus, along with a handful of others, Fessenden had to be satisfied with knowing he had helped to spawn the modern age of radio and television communications. Significance In many countries, several scientists and inventors claimed to be the first radio broadcaster. How can one know which was the first radio broadcast? As an industry, radio broadcasting as it is currently known did not commence until late in 1920, when the Westinghouse Electric Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, established its station, KDKA. Many experiments and demonstrations preceded KDKA. Of these experiments, Fessenden’s broadcast of December 24, 1906, to ships along the Atlantic seaboard ranks as a pioneering effort. Fessenden’s transmission was intended for the audience of the day. Had more receiving equipment been available and in place, a massive audience could have heard Fessenden’s voice and music. Fessenden had the correct idea, even to the point of playing a crude phonograph record. Yet neither Fessenden nor Marconi, nor any of their many other rivals, was able to establish a regular series of broadcasts on a permanent basis. Their “stations” were experimental and promotional. At best, they performed a series of demonstrations. Fessenden, however, became better known than most through his skills in generating favorable publicity, and his equipment was more powerful. Fessenden was what one might consider today an amateur radio operator. Indeed, in the years immediately preceding World War I, the creation of a growing community of amateur radio hobbyists across the nation must be judged the principal effect of the Fessenden experiments. These early radio enthusiasts rarely ventured into voice or musical broadcasting; rather, they continued to use point-topoint communication through Morse code. Nevertheless, this development marked the beginning of modern mass communication. It took the needs of World War I to encourage broader use of wireless radio based on Fessenden’s experiments.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Suddenly, the ability to communicate from ship to ship or from ship to shore became a matter of life or death. Generating publicity was no longer necessary. Governments fought over crucial patent rights. The Radio Corporation of America pooled vital knowledge. Ultimately, RCA came to acquire the Fessenden patents. Radio broadcasting commenced, and the radio industry, with its multiple uses for mass communication, was off and running. Pioneers such as Fessenden were left for the history books. Fessenden’s is another case of an independent inventor who tried to go against the modern science trend toward confining invention within corporate laboratories. One could not work outside the given institutional relations and hope to succeed. Fessenden proved that Edison ended an era, the age of the inventor as lone wolf. —Douglas Gomery Further Reading Aitken, Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. The author, a longtime student of radio history, analyzes the technical shifts that led to the configuration of modern radio. A highly specialized and difficult work, but the standard for technological history. Barnouw, Erik. A Tower in Babel. Vol. 1 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. Barnouw’s work stands as the standard multivolume history of broadcasting in the United States. He covers the coming of radio in this first volume. Douglas, Susan J. Inventing American Broadcasting: 1899-1922. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. A richly illustrated account of an important era in media history. Identifies the use of
Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting newspaper and magazine publicity as crucial for the cultural evolution of radio, as the press legitimated the new technology. Fessenden, Helen M. Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrow. 1940. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974. The inventor/promoter’s wife argues after his death for his proper role in the creation of modern radio. Includes index. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Begins with an analysis of the invention of wireless radio broadcasting. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. Contains articles and documents concerning the history of radio and television. Treats the invention of radio transmission in some detail. Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. The standard one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. A good beginning point. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded.
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Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India
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December 30, 1906
Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India The All-India Muslim League was established in 1906 to promote the political, educational, social, and economic interests of colonial India’s minority Muslim community. Locale: Dacca, India Categories: Organizations and institutions; indigenous peoples’ rights; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Aga Khan III (Sultan Sir Mohammed Shah; 18771957), first president of the All-India Muslim League Lord Minto (Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound; 1845-1914), viceroy of India Mohsin-ul-Mulk (Sayyid Mahdi Ali; 1837-1907), a founding member of the All-India Muslim League Khwaja Salimullah (1871-1915), a founding member of the All-India Muslim League Summary of Event On December 30, 1906, a meeting of delegates to the Muhammadan Educational Conference gathered to establish the Muslim All-India Confederacy. The site of the formation of what would be known thereafter as the All-India Muslim League was Dacca, the capital of the newly formed, predominantly Muslim province established by the 1905 partition of Bengal. Delegates to the conference, more than three thousand from all of India, answered a call by Khwaja Salimullah to discuss establishing a political organization that would safeguard Muslim social, economic, and political interests from unfair competition and influence by majority Hindus in British India. Muslim leaders perceived encroaching disenfranchisement from European-ruled India. Thus was born an association conceived because of the perception of a duality of interests and goals between British India’s two main communities, Hindus and Muslims. The league would later facilitate not only Indian independence but also the partition of the subcontinent into two sovereign countries, India and Pakistan. That partition would have its origins in the communal and political diversity of Indian Hindus and Indian Muslims during the period from 1857 to 1947, which came to be known as the nationalist era. Muslim separatism and the “two-nations principle” derived from the idea that Indian Muslims were cultur564
ally and politically distinct from India’s Hindus. Indian Muslims, however, comprised many ethnic groups, reflecting the nations of the subcontinent’s invaders. They were Arabs, Turks, Afghans, and Persians as well as indigenous South Asians who were converts from Hinduism. These ethnic groups constituted a syncretic Indian Islam influenced by varying cultural traditions; India’s Muslims did not, therefore, constitute a monolithic group except in terms of their communal differences with the Hindu majority. After 1857, cultural and religious nationalism became especially important to Indians, especially Muslims. Hindus had tended to adapt better to their invaders, stressing their distinctiveness as a community less than Muslims did and assimilating more easily. With the political advent of the East India Company, Muslims and several martial ethnic groups such as the Rajputs, Sikhs, and Marathas found themselves jockeying for position to fill the political void left by faltering Moghul imperial rule. Several of these groups vied with one another and with the British and the French in an attempt to fill that void. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British made tangible what had been true since the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and formally established the British raj (rule). The events of 1857 reflected badly, justifiably or not, on the Muslims, as they were perceived as having the most to gain by disrupting British rule in northern India. For a brief time after the conflict, however, because both Hindus and Muslims had been involved, there was a sense of Indian nationalism; for some it meant simply “antiBritish.” Indian nationalism was cemented when Queen Victoria of England became empress of India and India was proclaimed the “jewel in the British crown.” When the British officially announced their political hegemony, Indian nationalism became interlocked with culture, religion, and politics, most noticeably between Hindus and Muslims. With the government in the hands of foreigners who needed indigenous bureaucrats and administrators to operate it, there was keen competition for economic and political representation and influence. Muslims, shouldering a greater part of the burden in 1857 and having been defeated by the British in governance of India, fell behind more progressive Hindus who eagerly sought positions within the British raj. Hindus also adapted more readily to the British educational system,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India between Muslim subjects and British officialdom. He saw the Congress as antigovernment and as a vehicle only for protest and “agitational” politics. To this end, he established the Joint Committee of the Friends of India, opposing the Congress’s goals and objectives. All these political machinations, as well as the 1905 partition of Bengal, which created a new province in which Muslims increased their representations on legislative bodies, led to the deputation to Simla of thirty-six influential Muslims to see Lord Minto, the viceroy of India, on October 1, 1906. The delegation, led by Aga Khan III, included Muslim landowners, lawyers, nobles, and merchants addressing the viceroy on “communal interests of diverse Indian communities.” The delegation advised the government that the relative numerical strength of a community should not be an issue for the government but instead the “political importance and value” of each community should be considered. In detailing the distinctiveness of Indian Islam, the delegation built on the recent partition of Bengal, which would have worked in Muslims’ political favor had Hindu protests not nullified it in 1911. Two months after the delegation, Mohsin-ul-Mulk explained the difference between the newly formed Muslim League and the Congress. The league did not seek to emulate the agitational politics of the Congress but to submit any demands to the government with due respect. The league stressed a (Muslim) national duty to be loyal to the British rule, to defend the British Empire, and to give the enemy (Hindus) a fight in doing so. Significance The establishment of the All-India Muslim League provided Indian Muslims with a national political and communal voice different from the usual regional cultural and educational organizations, which were not as effective in political lobbying. The league, however, largely represented the interests of prosperous and influential Muslims wanting equal input into the governance of India along with influential Indian Hindus. With the Indian National Congress, it was a major negotiating factor in the bid for svaraj (self-government), a Congress goal announced in 1906, and later in the bid for independence and, finally, in the establishment of Pakistan. The league was in place to protest the nullification of the partition of Bengal in 1911, which depleted Bengali Muslim representation on legislative and advisory boards and councils. The league’s purpose was also to harness and focus the political and economic interests of subcontinent Muslims. It was not, however, a grassroots 565
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and educated Hindus were the first chosen when opportunities for Western education and government and military employment were opened to Indians. If this were not enough, the influence of the British extended even to social matters, affecting the lives of the indigenous governed in terms of religious and cultural practices and even language usage. This trampling on social traditions had led directly to the conflict of 1857. Accompanying Hindu participation in the British raj was a Hindu renaissance reviving the symbols, myths, heroes, and history of ancient Hindu rule in India. Such organizations as the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj suggested to non-Hindus that Indian nationalism reflected only the interests of the majority. Muslim revival and reassessment was one response to this. The nineteenth century Muslim community was reflected by two main schools of thought, the Aligarh and Deoband movements. Both looked toward Islamic revitalization, but the Aligarh movement, founded by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, was progressive, looking toward Western traditions and science to uplift the Muslim community rather than the orthodox revival desired by the Deoband movement. In 1875, Ahmad Khan founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh. Unlike some other Muslims, he saw British India not as a Dar al-harb, a country of the enemy, but as Dar al-Islam, a country of peace. Within the latter, Ahmad Khan believed Muslims and Islam could flourish and prove loyal to the government. In 1867, Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanawtawi founded the Deoband movement. Members of this group had been very active during 1857. Both Ahmad Khan and Nanawtawi saw education as paramount to cultural revival and survival under British rule. Whereas Ahmad Khan more than accommodated Western learning, Nanawtawi did not. His curricula reflected more orthodox Muslim learning and focused on Islamic distinctiveness. It did not reflect an interest in equipping its students for participation in a government believed to be hostile to Muslims. Further straining communal harmony was the birth in 1885 of an institution instrumental in bringing about Indian independence from British rule in 1947—the Indian National Congress. With it came the beginnings of a political separation that would evolve into partition of the subcontinent. Although Muslims were members and officials of the Congress, many were concerned that it did not adequately reflect their interests and would work only to the advantage of its predominantly Hindu membership. Ahmad Khan was very much against the Congress, in part because he wanted to foster better relations
Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India movement, as the Congress became under the guidance of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Its impact on the lives of average Muslims was thus negligible until 1947, when the partition of India led to mass migrations of Hindus and Muslims and to a painful and often deadly refugee problem. The league, however, provided a regional voice on world problems affecting the status of Muslims, particularly the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the resultant Indian Khilafat movement. The league and its leaders became symbols of pan-Islamism. As a political voice of Muslim leadership, the AllIndia Muslim League was necessary to the passage of the Minto-Morley Reforms under the Indian Councils Acts of 1909, which provided the foundation for a set of constitutional safeguards for Muslims and other groups. These safeguards included separate electorates and proportional representation, instruments to strengthen the political influence of Muslims on government. The league also addressed nationalist inclinations, especially as it became clear that gradual self-government would eventually lead to political independence from Great Britain. It would be the Muslim League and its leader, former congress member Mohammed Ali Jinnah, that would usher in the Islamic state of Pakistan, with Jinnah as qaid-i-azam (supreme leader) of the new country. It is safe to say that without the political machinations of both, there would be no Pakistan. It was Jinnah, as president of the league, who articulated most effectively the two-nation policy that finally convinced the British that there would have to be a division of the subcontinent upon their leave-taking. In August, 1947, Pakistan became a reality—the embodiment of minority rights politics in India. —Nancy Elizabeth Fitch Further Reading Aga Khan III. Aga Khan III: Selected Speeches and Writings of Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah. Edited by K. K. Aziz. New York: Kegan Paul International, 1998. Collection of the speeches and writings of Aga Khan from 1902-1955. Provides comprehensive exposure to the ideas of this first president of the All-India Muslim League. Ahmad, Aziz. Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian
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Environment. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1964. Excellent study looks at Indian Islam in a regional way, highlighting its evolution and development in a non-Muslim environment. Discusses the “long story of divided coexistence of Hindus and Muslims in India, leading to divided existence as India and Pakistan in the twentieth century.” Faruqi, Ziya-ul-Hasan. The Deoband School and the Demand for Pakistan. New York: Asia Publishing, 1963. Rare monograph on the Deoband school, which—like the better-known Aligarh movement—contributed to the sense of separatism among prosperous Muslims during the Indian nationalist era. Includes a helpful glossary. Gopal, Ram. Indian Muslims: A Political History, 18581947. New York: Asia Publishing, 1959. History begins with the military conflict of 1857 at Meerut and the events that transpired as a result of it. Concludes that the separatism between Hindus and Muslims was not communally based but rather the result of divideand-conquer strategies by the British colonial powers. Metcalf, Barbara, and Thomas Metcalf. Concise History of India. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of the people and events that shaped India’s history. Includes a chapter on colonial India, a glossary, and a bibliographic essay. Mujeeb, M. The Indian Muslims. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967. Encyclopedic cultural, social, and religious study of Indian Muslims provides a comprehensive look at this community up to 1960. Good resource for the specialist. Rajput, A. B. Muslim League: Yesterday and Today. Lahore, Pakistan: Muhammad Ashraf, 1948. Important and rare monograph on the history of the All-India Muslim League. Very light on the history of the league’s inception but includes strong coverage of personalities and the last twenty years of British India. A definite polemic, but very useful. See also: Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact; Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables.
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Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers
1907
Henri Bergson addressed the fact that at the beginning of the twentieth century, people were already speaking of evolution as something of the past, as though they considered modern humans exempt from evolution’s workings. Also known as: L’Évolution créatrice; Creative Evolution Locale: Paris, France Categories: Publishing and journalism; philosophy Key Figures Henri Bergson (1859-1941), French professor of philosophy Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English naturalist who was the leading proponent of the theory of biological evolution Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English philosopher Édouard Le Roy (1870-1954), French philosopher and mathematician Summary of Event Henri Bergson was born in Paris on October 18, 1859— the year Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published. Bergson was of Jewish ancestry; his father was a talented Polish musician, and his mother was a cultured Anglo-Irish woman. His education was typically Parisian French, beginning at the Lycée Fontane (subsequently renamed the Lycée Condorcet). His early education was divided between the sciences and the humanities, and he received a prize for his mathematics studies in 1876. He chose to focus his studies on philosophy, however, and he trained to become a university teacher at the École Normale Supérieure. Bergson’s serious reading of the works of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer gave a mechanistic bent to his developing thought, although he also became acquainted with the sociology of Émile Durkheim. At the École Normale Supérieure from 1878 to 1881, Bergson successively received at the end of each of three years the licentiate, the definitif (diploma), and second place in the agrégation (oral examinations). These enabled him to lecture, first outside Paris at Angers (18811883) and at Clermont-Ferrand (1883-1888), before returning to Paris and the Collège Rollin. During that time, he prepared his Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889; Time and Free Will: An Essay on the
Immediate Data of Consciousness, 1910) and a dissertation, in Latin, on Aristotle, for which he received a doctorate from the University of Paris. With the publication of his theses, Bergson became professor for advanced students at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris, and in 1891 he married Louise Neuberger, a cousin to the novelist Marcel Proust. He had also met the poet and literary journalist Charles Péguy, who established the journal Cahiers de la quinzaine in 1900 and who became Bergson’s pupil. Research into the interrelationships of body and mind followed, and Bergson published his findings in 1896 as Matière et mémoire: Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit (Matter and Memory, 1911). It was customary in French academia at the beginning of the twentieth century for a professor to name and pay half salary to a substitute for a given year, during which the professor took research leave from lecturing duties. Bergson substituted at the Collège de France from 1897 to 1898 as a professor of Greek and Latin philosophy. In 1899, he was appointed as a permanent professor of Greek and Latin philosophy, and in 1904 he was able to transfer to the more appropriate post of professor of modern philosophy. In the interim, Bergson published several books, including Le Rire: Essai sur la signification du comique (1900; Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, 1911) and Introduction à la métaphysique (1903; An Introduction to Metaphysics, 1912). The former illustrated Bergson’s contention that laughter is a release of tension, and the latter defended the use of intuition. Because An Introduction to Metaphysics pointed to the forthcoming work for which Bergson is best known, it remains the best place to begin a reading of his work. These publications provided the setting for L’Évolution créatrice (1907; Creative Evolution, 1911). What is now that book’s final part developed out of a course of lectures on the history of the idea of time in which Bergson compared the mechanism of conceptual thought to cinematography. In 1905, he named his own substitute so that he might prepare Creative Evolution for publication. Part 1 of the book drew on the discussion of evolution as it had developed up to the work of Charles Darwin and its subjection to criticism by Darwin’s successors in biology. Recalling the conclusions of Matter and Memory, Bergson summarized the result of the inquiry, which 567
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Bergson’s CREATIVE EVOLUTION Inspires Artists and Thinkers
Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers sought to discover both the mechanism and the purpose of evolution. He referred to this key concept as élan vital, or the “vital impetus.” Part 2 considered the divergent directions of evolution, with special reference to torpor, intelligence, and instinct. Bergson developed these within his concept of intuition and drew his discussion toward the apparent place of the human within the natural world through references to both life and consciousness. In part 3, Bergson attempted to relate life and matter through common origins. Here, the culmination of the book was stated, in terms of the life of the body and the life of the spirit. Bergson developed his ideas about the inseparability of the theories of knowledge and of life in this section. The final, fourth part sketched Bergson’s and academic philosophy’s interest in precedent systems, including those of Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and especially Spencer. Antiquity’s philosophical issues of immutability, “no-thing,” form, and “becoming” were placed against the seventeenth century’s metaphysical foundations of modern science, thereby concluding the volume at the point from which Bergson initiated part 1. What Bergson described in his original thought and within his eloquent and precise language were the certainty of evolution and the necessity of creativity in propelling the evolutionary process. In no meaningful sense does Bergson’s Creative Evolution present a single systematic philosophy; rather, his work is descriptive. Significance Biographers recall Bergson as being at odds with the philosophical establishment, especially as represented by those at the Sorbonne, across the Rue Saint Jacques from the Collège de France. Coming as he did through the École Normale Supérieure, Bergson exerted an influence on those students who had studied with him and who themselves went forth to teach. Thus his works were being read as they appeared, and on his appointment to the Collège de France in 1900 his lectures became an even greater draw—so much so that by 1911, students already referred to the Collège de France as the “house of Bergson.” From 1900 to 1914, Bergson lectured to packed halls. His lectures were attended not merely by academics and students but also by the general public, including members of the elite who sent their servants early to keep places for them and tourists taking in the attractions of Paris. Many who wished to hear Bergson speak were turned away; others would arrive at lecture locations so 568
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Henri Bergson. (The Nobel Foundation)
early that they would sit through someone else’s prior lecture merely to secure a seat to hear Bergson. From 1914 until 1921, Édouard Le Roy functioned as Bergson’s “permanent substitute” while Bergson served on French diplomatic missions to Spain and to the United States. Thereafter, Bergson took early retirement, partially in exasperation at his own success; his strenuous lecturing duties, he said, “demanded a great deal of meditation and a serious attempt at perfection.” In 1922, he published his attempt to relate his own theory of time as inner duration to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. He acted as president of the committee on international cooperation of the League of Nations from 1921 to 1926. He also continued his philosophical work while acting as a diplomat, and in 1932 he published his last book, Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion (The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 1935). Another measure of Bergson’s impact is visible in the response of the Roman Catholic Church to his work. In 1914, the Church placed all of Bergson’s writings, but most especially Creative Evolution, on the list of books devout Catholics were forbidden to read or possess. The Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin discussed physical
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Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers
Bergson’s work also provided a rationale for the Surrealist movement in art, and his ideas influenced the novelist Marcel Proust, the essayist Albert Thibaudet, the poet Paul Valéry, and the existentialists Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Bergson’s own literary genius was recognized with the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1927. Two philosophical traditions of the twentieth century received their impetus from Bergson. Although Bergson was not the innovator of the existentialist movement, the fourth part of Creative Evolution, with its stress on the role of the philosophical concepts of “not-being” and Instinct and Human Evolution “becoming” as well as on Bergson’s In the following passage from Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson explores the pervasive concern for time as “durarole of instinct as it applies to the history of human evolution: tion,” had implications that can be followed in the works of Martin BuIf instinct is, above all, the faculty of using an organized natural instrument, it ber, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, must involve innate knowledge (potential or unconscious, it is true), both of and Martin Heidegger. In addition, this instrument and of the object to which it is applied. Instinct is therefore inBergson’s concern to reclaim the vanate knowledge of a thing. But intelligence is the faculty of constructing unorlidity of metaphysics within modern ganized—that is to say artificial—instruments. If, on its account, nature gives philosophy made him one of the stimup endowing the living being with the instruments that may serve him, it is in uli for the development of “process order that the living being may be able to vary his construction according to circumstances. The essential function of intelligence is therefore to see the way philosophy.” Specifically, Alfred out of a difficulty in any circumstances whatever, to find what is most suitable, North Whitehead, who came to phiwhat answers best the question asked. Hence it bears essentially on the relalosophy from mathematics and phystions between a given situation and the means of utilizing it. What is innate in ical science, expanded Bergson’s nointellect, therefore, is the tendency to establish relations, and this tendency imtions of duration and evolution from plies the natural knowledge of certain very general relations, a kind of stuff that their original, restricted applications the activity of each particular intellect will cut up into more special relations. to organic life into the broader physiWhere activity is directed toward manufacture, therefore, knowledge necescal realm. sarily bears on relations. But this entirely formal knowledge of intelligence has Bergson also made an impact an immense advantage over the material knowledge of instinct. A form, just through his own courageous perbecause it is empty, may be filled at will with any number of things in turn, sonal stand. Although intellectually even with those that are of no use. So that a formal knowledge is not limited to what is practically useful, although it is in view of practical utility that it has long attracted to Catholicism, Bergmade its appearance in the world. An intelligent being bears within himself the son had remained a Jew, and after the means to transcend his own nature. surrender of France to the Nazis in He transcends himself, however, less than he wishes, less also than he imag1940, he was required by the Vichy ines himself to do. The purely formal character of intelligence deprives it of the government to register as a Jewish ballast necessary to enable it to settle itself on the objects that are of the most citizen of Paris. Given his old age, powerful interest to speculation. Instinct, on the contrary, has the desired mateinfirmity, and fame, Bergson could riality, but it is incapable of going so far in quest of its object; it does not specucertainly have obtained an exemplate. Here we reach the point that most concerns our present inquiry. The differtion, but he insisted on registering to ence that we shall now proceed to denote between instinct and intelligence is show his support for other Jews. Alwhat the whole of this analysis was meant to bring out. We formulate it thus: though ill, he stood in line to regisThere are things that intelligence alone is able to seek, but which, by itself, it will never find. These things instinct alone could find; but it will never seek ter on a cold, damp day, and as a rethem. sult contracted a lung inflammation. He died shortly thereafter, on JanuSource: Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, translated by Arthur Mitchell (New ary 4, 1941. York: Henry Holt, 1911). —Clyde Curry Smith 569
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anthropology and paleontology in terms derived from Bergson’s Creative Evolution and was himself subjected to discipline from Rome. Yet, peculiarly, Bergson helped to provide the impetus for a Catholic revival by inspiring such Catholic intellectuals as the art critic Henri Focillon; the literary critic Charles de Bos; the poets Anna de Noailles, Paul Claudel, and Charles Péguy; and Jacques Maritain, a Protestant convert who led many intellectuals back to the Catholic tradition and who was mentor to Pope Paul VI.
Famine Strikes Russia Further Reading Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. Translated by Arthur Mitchell. 1911. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1998. The treatise that helped set the tone for twentieth century thought. The translation was revised by Bergson. Detailed index. _______. The Creative Mind. Translated by Mabell L. Andison. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Incorporates ten of Bergson’s essays. Also includes an introduction, which serves as a brief intellectual biography. Bowler, Peter J. Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. A survey of the idea of evolution by one of its leading scholars. Places Bergson’s thought within its largest context. Extensive bibliography and index. Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane, eds. Modernism: A Guide to European Literature, 1890-1930. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1976. Collection of essays useful for tracing the wider influence of Bergson on literature and art. Includes chronology of events, brief biographies, extended bibliography, and detailed index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Chevalier, Jacques. Henri Bergson. Translated by Lilian A. du Long Clare. New York: Macmillan, 1928. An extensive study that places Bergson within the intellectual developments in France during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Index. Hanna, Thomas, ed. The Bergsonian Heritage. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962. Collection of essays by French and American scholars reflecting on Bergson’s life and evaluating the meaning of his work. Includes bibliography. Pilkington, Anthony Edward. Bergson and His Influence: A Reassessment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976. A reevaluation of Bergson from the perspective of the 1970’s. Index. Russell, Bertrand. The Philosophy of Bergson. Chicago: Open Court, 1912. An early, highly critical view of Bergson from an alternate philosophical perspective of logical analysis. See also: 1913-1927: Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time.
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Famine Strikes Russia Czarist Russia’s failure to modernize its agricultural system and meet the basic survival needs of its population was obvious when the disruption produced by the Russo-Japanese War, coupled with adverse growing conditions, produced a devastating famine that killed approximately one million people. Locale: Russia Categories: Agriculture; disasters Key Figures Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862-1911), Russian minister of the interior and prime minister, 19061911 Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), Russian minister of finance, 1892-1903, and the first constitutional prime minister of Russia, 1905-1906 Nicholas II (1868-1918), last czar of Russia, r. 18941917 Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Bolshevik leader and revolutionary leader of Russia, 1917-1924 570
Summary of Event Even under normal conditions, the threat of starvation was ever present in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. By 1900, only one in ten peasant households had enough surplus grain to make it through the winter. In those areas outside the Ukrainian breadbasket, hunger was a constant companion during winter months and early spring. Other factors also made life difficult for peasants. Taxes, often paid in grain, were due at fall harvest time, when grain prices were the lowest. (An avalanche of wheat on the world market from the United States and Canada tended to keep prices low.) Yet the world’s highest tariff kept grain imports out of Russia. Western nations were using fertilizers and modern agricultural machinery to boost productivity, but Russian agricultural techniques had remained the same for centuries. There was little surplus capital for agriculture and even less incentive. Most peasants owned land in common and were organized into mirs, village groups that shared large plots of divided land. Private landownership was not introduced as part of the 1861 emancipation of
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of the October Manifesto of 1905, which promised a parliament (Duma), and the Fundamental Laws in 1906 (which limited the representative nature of the Duma) was some degree of normality reestablished. Unfortunately, weather conditions similar to those in 1891 prevented a complete return to normality. By the time the second Duma met in February, 1907, Russia was in the midst of another horrible famine. Sixteen million peasants faced the threat of starvation, and another fortyfive million suffered from hunger bordering on starvation. In desperation, peasants took part in numerous scattered uprisings in the countryside, but the Duma’s debates on agrarian policy issues failed to reach agreement on any single policy. On June 3, 1907, during the time of ideal springtime planting conditions, the second Duma was dissolved. Nearly one million Russians had already died of malnutrition or disease, although relief grain shipments from Europe and the United States helped prevent even more deaths. As the famine of 1907 approached, there was a concerted effort among peasant representatives to the Duma to nationalize the large landed estates of Russian nobles, which were often used for nonagricultural purposes, and to divide them among the land-hungry peasant communes. In fact, peasant demands were militant enough for the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, to revise Marxist doctrine, asserting that peasants as well as the proletariat could act as a revolutionary force. The opposite conclusion was reached by the czar’s conservative minister Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, who as minister of the interior instituted a ruthless policy of repression to rid Russia of radicalism. (The hangman’s noose was commonly referred to as “Stolypin’s necktie.”) Yet in his other role as prime minister, Stolypin advocated the transformation of peasant communes into privately owned farms. He hoped that the desire for individual capitalist profit would turn the inefficient peasant into a kulak, a productive and possibly wealthy farmer. Stolypin believed that Russian agricultural production would dramatically increase after privatization. Perhaps more significant, however, was his conviction that private landownership would turn peasants into a bulwark of conservative support for the institution of czarism. Stolypin’s plan was initiated by emergency decree in November, 1906. The slow changeover to private ownership, a plan that had little support either in czarist inner circles or in the Duma, did little to lessen the impact of the famine of 1907. However, by 1916, 2.5 million households owned their own farms. The years 1909 to 1913 produced bumper crops, thanks to more favorable 571
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serfs, and so profit taking among the peasants was not the norm. Furthermore, poor soil and difficult growing conditions in many regions conspired to make poverty and hunger a constant threat. By 1900, 84 percent of the Russian population still depended on farming to make a living. Since the mid-1880’s, an industrializing Russia had exported an increasing proportion of its wheat crop to produce a favorable balance-of-trade deficit that would attract foreign investments. By 1891, Russia had actually achieved a budget surplus, but hard frosts, a bitter winter, and a drought-ridden, stifling summer produced the worst crop failure since 1848. Owing in large part to the lack of a well-developed railroad system and a road system capable of handling traffic during muddy spring thaws, approximately four hundred thousand peasants starved to death in spite of concerted (although belated) government efforts to distribute rye to famine-stricken regions. The region south of Moscow stretching southeast to the Volga basin was particularly hard hit. During the famine, Russia continued to export wheat. The policy of increasing wheat export continued under Sergey Yulyevich Witte, the czar’s finance minister from 1892 to 1903. Under Witte’s leadership, Russian industry increased its output during the 1890’s by an average of more than 7 percent each year. Russia’s urbanization and industrial growth were among Europe’s highest. In 1897, Witte committed Russia to the gold standard, making its currency stable but limited in supply, which took a particularly hard toll on the lower classes. Still, the pace of agricultural development did not change, and the onset of another famine was inevitable. Climatic conditions, coupled with sociopolitical turmoil, would result in the famine of 1907 and the loss of an estimated one million lives. The depression of 1900 slowed Russian economic development and caused a great deal of suffering, especially for the lower classes. Recovery was under way when, in December, 1904, Russia became involved in what it thought would be a short war against Japan. Instead, Russian forces were decimated on both land and sea. A month after the outbreak of war, the shooting of a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators in the capital (an event still remembered as Bloody Sunday) catalyzed an empirewide revolution against the corrupt and incompetent regime of Czar Nicholas II. Strikes in the major cities were coupled with the seizure of land and the burning of about 15 percent of Russia’s manor houses. Both Russia’s industrial and agricultural output were seriously affected by the continued upheaval. Only after the issuance
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Famine Strikes Russia weather conditions, and the price of wheat rose on the world market. Also, industrial production advanced with impressive rapidity. When famine and anarchy next struck, brought on by World War I and a major civil war, it would be on a scale far more cataclysmic than that of the famine of 1907. Significance The famine of 1907 brought Russia’s lingering agricultural problem to the forefront and made it painfully obvious that Russia needed to modernize its agricultural sector to meet its food needs. The country’s evident inability to compensate for the frequently poor growing conditions, or to avoid systemic breakdown when faced with major war, should have led the czarist regime to enact major changes to ensure its own political survival. It did lead one official, Pyotr Stolypin, to put forth a comprehensive plan to turn Russian peasants, who were prone to uprisings, into entrepreneurial farmers with a vested interest in the stability of czarist rule. Stolypin’s reforms, however, received little support from the czar’s inner circle or from reformist elements in the Duma, and he was assassinated in 1911. The only other official with any sort of grasp of the need for economic modernization, Witte, had been sent into forced retirement five years earlier. When war came to Russia in 1914, the inefficient and largely unreformed czarist regime became subject to food shortages and uprisings that dwarfed the negative effects of the Russo-Japanese War. Food shortages along with the inability to control peasant uprisings and huge urban strikes caused the czar’s fall in March of 1917. Continuation of the war effort by the new provisional government, which sought reform after the war, caused Lenin to put forth the simple slogan of “Peace, Land, and Bread.” The continuation of anarchy provided the opportunity for Lenin’s Bolsheviks to seize power in October, 1917. — Irwin Halfond
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. A massive, narrative-style analysis of the individuals, events, and movements of the late czarist and early revolutionary period. Contains maps, illustrations, glossary, footnotes, bibliography, and index. Harcave, Sidney. Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. A study of Witte’s life, works, and time by the author who translated Witte’s memoirs into English. Footnotes, bibliography, and index. Lieven, Dominic. Nicholas II: Emperor of All the Russias. London: John Murray, 1993. A sympathetic and detailed biography of Nicholas II. Index, footnotes, and bibliography. Lincoln, W. Bruce. In War’s Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War. New York: Dial Press, 1983. A very readable history of the period from 1891 to 1918, filled with fascinating details. Copious footnotes, bibliography, and index. Waldron, Peter. Between Two Revolutions: Stolypin and the Politics of Renewal in Russia. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1998. A scholarly analysis of Stolypin’s attempts to save czarism by making the peasants a bulwark of conservative support for the state. Index, footnotes, and bibliography. See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin; 1916: Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives; Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers
1907
John Scott Haldane developed a method that allowed deep-sea divers to ascend to the surface without suffering decompression sickness. Locale: Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, London, England Category: Health and medicine Key Figures John Scott Haldane (1860-1936), English physiologist and science philosopher Arthur Edwin Boycott (1877-1938), English pathologist Guybon C. C. Damant (fl. early twentieth century), lieutenant in the Royal Navy Summary of Event It has long been known that individuals who have been subjected to high atmospheric pressure cannot be returned rapidly to normal pressure without risking painful symptoms. During the mid-1840’s, miners who worked in coal mines pressurized to keep out water frequently suffered muscle pains on ascending to the surface. These symptoms were first studied in 1854, when it was noted further that a return to compressed air alleviated the pain. In 1878, the French physiologist Paul Bert wrote a landmark book titled La Pression barométrique (Barometric Pressure, 1943) in which he presented evidence that the so-called decompression sickness results from the formation of nitrogen gas bubbles, which block the circulation. Deep-sea diving had been plagued by decompression sickness (also known as compressed air disease or “the bends,” because of the slightly bent, limping posture of its sufferers) since diving attire for individuals was developed in the early 1800’s. By the beginning of the twentieth century, no safe method for retrieving a person from deep dives had yet been achieved. England’s Royal Navy used divers in its routine operations. Intent on finding a way to spare these men the risks of pain, paralysis, and even death as a result of decompression sickness, the navy commissioned John Scott Haldane—a physician and man of letters who was famous for his studies of respiratory physiology—to develop a decompression schedule that could be written down in tabular form and distributed to its fleet divers. Haldane was a scientist with a strongly philosophical na-
ture. He disapproved of the generally accepted line between “pure” science, or science carried out for its own sake, and applied science, or science in the service of useful technology. He was a laboratory scientist who envisioned the results of his labors as being linked intimately to the general welfare. As such, he was eager to apply his theories and insights to the human working environment. Already famous for his studies of the composition of the air in schools and dwellings and for his identification of carbon monoxide as the cause of death in coal mining disasters, he accepted the Royal Navy’s commission with alacrity and began his studies of what came to be known as stage decompression. It was standard knowledge that as a diver descends through a body of water, every 33-foot (10-meter) increment of depth exerts an additional pressure of one atmosphere. A diver at a depth of 33 feet thus experiences two atmospheres of pressure (the pressure of the air plus the extra atmosphere of the 33 feet of water), a diver at 66 feet (20 meters) is subjected to three atmospheres, and so on. Haldane was aware that cases of decompression sickness never occurred, even with rapid decompression, when a diver suddenly ascended from two atmospheres to one. He reasoned that it must, therefore, be equally safe to decompress suddenly from four atmospheres to two, or from six to three, as long as the two-to-one ratio is maintained. Thereafter, in order to avoid the bends, a diver would have to proceed more slowly through the ascent to give nitrogen that had been dissolved in the tissues under pressure the necessary time to emerge from the blood and be vented by the lungs. Haldane’s method therefore consisted in an initial reduction of pressure to one-half as rapidly as possible, followed by continued, slower decompression in a series of stages designed to prevent the rapid bubbling of nitrogen out of the blood. Haldane carried out his first live experiments on goats in a steel compression chamber at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London. He was assisted in this work by pathologist Arthur Edwin Boycott and by Lieutenant Guybon C. C. Damant of the Royal Navy. They exposed several of the animals for long periods to 6 atmospheres of pressure (equivalent to a dive of 165 feet, or just over 50 meters) and then decompressed them suddenly to 2.6 atmospheres with no ill effects. When the animals were dropped from 4.4 atmospheres to 1 atmo573
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Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers sphere (far in excess of the two-to-one proportion), 20 percent of them died and 30 percent experienced the bends. Immediately after the animal experiments, Lieutenant Damant volunteered to be the first human experimental subject. He crawled into the chamber, experienced rapid pressure differentials, and emerged with no symptoms. Haldane had proved conclusively that it was quite safe to halve the absolute pressure rapidly, regardless of the depth of the dive. Haldane realized, however, that he had only part of the solution. The danger of decompression sickness lay in what remained of the ascent after the pressure on the diver’s body had been rapidly halved. This required the painstaking working out of decompression tables that took into account not only the depths to which a diver had descended but also the amount of time the diver had remained underwater. These factors taken together actually determine the degree of saturation of body tissues with nitrogen. To appreciate the complexity of the task of formulating accurate decompression tables, consider that the various tissues of the body absorb nitrogen at different rates. The rapidity with which a given tissue becomes saturated with nitrogen is dependent on two factors: the solubility of nitrogen in that tissue and the rate at which nitrogen is transported to the tissue by the blood. Nitrogen is very soluble in fatty tissues, for example, but much less so in nonfatty, or aqueous, tissues. Conversely, fat is served poorly by the circulation, so the rate of nitrogen saturation of that tissue is slow, whereas aqueous tissues quickly reach their nitrogen saturation points because they are well supplied with blood vessels. Haldane therefore divided human tissues into two types: slow (those, such as fat, that are poorly vascularized but have a high capacity for storing nitrogen) and fast (those parts of the body, such as the brain, that are well vascularized and quickly become saturated with nitrogen). In drawing up his decompression tables, Haldane realized that saturation rates for the various tissues vary from seconds to hours. Because the rate of saturation also changes as the individual tissues take up nitrogen, it was impossible to determine on paper when exactly a given tissue would be fully saturated. Haldane struck upon the idea of “half-time tissues.” A tissue half-time is the time required for nitrogen to reach half its saturation value. Because it was not possible to assign precise half-times to real tissues, he arbitrarily chose to designate five-, ten-, twenty-, forty-, and seventy-five-minute half-time tissues for mathematical convenience in predicting the up574
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take and elimination of nitrogen. Although he realized that the longest half-time tissue in the body is sixty minutes, it is typical of Haldane’s conservatism and his emphasis on safety that seventy-five minutes represented the longest half-time tissue in his decompression schedules. It was these carefully worked-out calculations of the rates at which fast and slow tissues eliminate their nitrogen that made Haldane’s tables so valuable. With them, divers were able to regulate the rate of decompression so that no parts of their bodies were at any point so supersaturated with nitrogen that bubbles would begin to form in the circulation. Haldane’s method of ascent by stages replaced the previous method of continuous decompression, which took much longer and seldom left divers fully decompressed by the time they reached the surface. Haldane, Boycott, and Damant coauthored a report on these findings, and the Royal Navy immediately adopted the Haldanian decompression tables. Significance After Haldane’s experiments at the Lister Institute, Lieutenant Damant made numerous deep dives at sea with the use of the Haldanian decompression tables. He achieved a maximum depth of 35 fathoms (210 feet, or about 64 meters). Following stage decompression, he showed no symptoms of the bends. Haldane’s method of stage decompression immediately altered diving practice, and his schedules were universally adopted. After the Royal Navy published his tables, decompression sickness virtually disappeared among the navy’s divers. One of the most notable tests to which the tables were put involved the recovery of an American submarine off Honolulu in 1915. The diving crew descended to a depth of 50 fathoms (15 fathoms more than Lieutenant Damant’s deepest test dive) and completed the salvage operation without any cases of decompression sickness. Stage decompression can be a lengthy process, a slow ascent in stages after an initial rapid decompression being its underlying principle. Bodily nitrogen that has been subjected to high pressure must be given adequate time to leave the blood and be exhaled from the lungs as a diver ascends to the surface. Even after it is gone from most areas of the body, nitrogen tends to linger in the fatty tissues, where it is especially soluble. A diver who has been at a depth of 190 feet (about 58 meters) for sixty minutes, for example, must be decompressed for about three hours before being brought to the surface. Although primitive decompression chambers existed in
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Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers
Further Reading Douglas, C. G. “John Scott Haldane.” Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 2 (December, 1936): 115-139. Given Haldane’s accomplishments and his stature as one of the foremost scientific movers of his time, it is surprising that this is one of very few sources of detailed biographical information on him. A fitting and comprehensive tribute to Haldane, the scientist and the thinker. Guyton, Arthur C. Textbook of Medical Physiology. 6th
ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1980. The classic text for students of animal physiology. Contains a detailed chapter on aviation, space, and deep-sea diving physiology. Clearly written and detailed, and with abundant references, it is an invaluable source of information for the reader desiring a grounding in the principles of diving physiology. Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson. Adventures of a Biologist. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940. Son of John Scott Haldane, J. B. S. Haldane was an accomplished man who made major contributions in widely disparate areas of knowledge. Provides the most personal portrait in existence of his father, including his routine participation as a human subject in his own experiments. Haldane, John Scott. Respiration. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1922. Haldane’s monumental work on the physiology of respiration, a compilation of lectures he gave at Yale in 1916. Provides a detailed account not only of what was known about respiration in Haldane’s time but also of the author’s pioneering experiments. Still considered a classic of respiratory physiology. Norton, Trevor. Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000. Norton, a marine biologist, presents brief portraits of thirteen scientists, inventors, archaeologists, and others who pioneered in the field of deep-sea diving, including both John Scott Haldane and J. B. S. Haldane. Strauss, Michael B., and Igor V. Aksenov. Diving Science: Essential Physiology and Medicine for Divers. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2004. Written by two experts in diving medicine and physiology and designed for use by sport divers. Presents information on the physical, physiological, and psychological stresses that divers encounter. Includes detailed equipment recommendations. Strauss, Richard H. Diving Medicine. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1976. A highly readable textbook, valuable for its clear presentation of both the history and the physics of diving, including Haldane’s contributions. Although intended as an introduction to the medical aspects of diving for physicians, this work assumes little prior knowledge of human biology and is accessible to the interested reader. See also: July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator; June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934: First Manned Bathysphere Dives.
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Haldane’s time, they were often difficult to control, so Haldane favored resubmergence to appropriate depth in those cases where divers were experiencing symptoms of the bends. Because decompression was such a lengthy process, questions were raised about ways to cut down on the time involved. “It appears that the times cannot be cut down without risk of trouble,” wrote Haldane in his monumental book Respiration (1922), “unless the divers are placed in the [decompression] chamber as a matter of routine after each dive.” Although Haldane never actively promoted this technique as a method for shortening in-water decompression times, it is in common use today in cases when a diver needs to be removed as quickly as possible from badly polluted waters or when the weather threatens a normal decompression. This method involves bringing the diver to the surface immediately and placing him or her in a decompression chamber within five minutes. The pressure is then reapplied and the diver is decompressed. The actual period of time required for decompression remains about the same. Haldane’s original schedules were found to be highly accurate over their middle range, but divers soon learned that they could cut corners on short, shallow dives without risking the bends. Conversely, they found that Haldane’s schedules were not conservative enough on longer, deeper dives. The schedules have therefore been modified through experience over the years to resolve these difficulties. Haldane’s spirited commitment to the constructive application of scientific principles for society’s wellbeing characterized his investigations not only in deepsea diving but also in mining and tunneling. The fact that his method of stage decompression has allowed humans to persist in these environments has earned for Haldane a reputation as the prime mover of modern times in respiratory physiology. —Robert T. Klose
Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1907
Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions Ejnar Hertzsprung devised a classification system in which stellar objects are categorized by size versus stellar spectral type. Locale: Denmark Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), Danish astronomer Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916), German astronomer Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957), American astronomer Summary of Event By the beginning of the twentieth century, astronomers had turned their telescopes on the stars and had begun the exceptionally arduous task of cataloging them. This work was an extension of the work of Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer who cataloged the stars (one thousand entries) in 130 b.c.e. His catalog contained the brightest of the few thousand stars he could make out on any clear night with his unaided eye. When astronomers of the early 1900’s began their task, they used powerful telescopes and recorded their observations on sensitive photographic films. Through the combination of these methods, suddenly millions of stars became visible, making the task of cataloging one of the most challenging and demanding undertakings in science. The first detailed stellar catalogs of the nineteenth century included star identifications (names or numbers), positions, and motions. By 1875, new scientific techniques had been developed and added even more information about stars. The technique of spectral photography and analysis enabled astronomers to tell much about the composition of stars through the analysis of spectral shifts; they could even determine the motion and velocity of stars in the line of sight. Astronomers Angelo Secchi and William Huggins determined that there were only a handful of basic stellar spectral types in a broad series that appeared to flow from one type to another, so Secchi proposed a spectral classification scheme that included four main types. In 1901, Antonia Maury and Annie Jump Cannon of the Harvard College Observatory proposed that the classification system of stars include seven spectral types, indexed and classified by letters. Maury proposed a classification system different from Cannon’s. In Cannon’s scheme, 576
which is still used today, stars are classified by letters: O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. The Harvard College catalog became known as the Henry Draper Catalog, in honor of Henry Draper, a pioneer in stellar spectrophotometry. The Draper Catalog contained information on more than 225,000 stars. Unable to make a good living in astronomy, Severin Hertzsprung encouraged his son, Ejnar, to pursue a degree in chemical engineering. Ejnar Hertzsprung graduated from the Polytechnical Institute in Copenhagen in 1898 without any formal education in astronomy. His father died four years later, and, upon his death, all of his astronomy books were sold. Ejnar Hertzsprung would later state with some irony, “Nobody imagined that I should become an astronomer.” He became a chemist in St. Petersburg, then in 1901 seized the opportunity to follow an interest he held in photochemistry. He traveled to Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald’s laboratories in Leipzig, Germany, and during his stay there, he decided he wanted to pursue a career in astronomy. Because of his engineering and photochemistry background, Hertzsprung brought to his astronomy career an interesting variety of useful talents and knowledge, but he had no idea what the duties of an astronomer were. Hertzsprung began his apprenticeship at the Copenhagen University’s observatory under the tutelage of H. E. Lau, who taught him the fundamentals of observational astronomy; he also did some work at the Urania Observatory in Frederiksberg, Denmark. With his training in photographic techniques and use of specific emulsions, which was likely better than that of most other astronomers, Hertzsprung brought a unique variety of talents to bear on photographing stellar fields at the observatories where he worked. He began to collect and study the distribution of stellar images from these plates. At this time, Hertzsprung was considered an amateur astronomer, an apprentice at best, but it was during this period that he would make the pivotal contribution of his life. Based on a collection of observations, Hertzsprung published two papers in Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Photographie, a photophysics and photochemical journal, in 1905 and 1907. The papers, both of which were titled “Zur Strahlung der Sterne” (on the radiation of stars), used Maury’s star catalog and her spectral classification techniques. Hertz-
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distance to the Small Magellanic Cloud, an accomplishment for which he was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal in 1929. Significance Hertzsprung established an important link between observational and theoretical astronomy. Through his careful analysis of the data he was collecting (largely in a cataloging effort), Hertzsprung forged a link between the color of a given star and many other key properties, including its intrinsic (natural) brightness, its temperature, and even its size. As Hertzsprung discovered through the cataloging efforts of the staff at the Harvard College Observatory, in the relative handful of star spectral classes, there were other key features of stars that could be linked and plotted on a relatively simple graph. At first glance it seemed probable that the kinds of stars in the universe were as infinitely diverse as were their profuse numbers, yet, by establishing links between stars’ characteristics, Hertzsprung organized and constrained the very boundaries of the science of stellar astronomy. Hertzsprung discovered that a significant population of stars existed outside the “main sequence” of stars (of which the Sun is one). He called these giant and dwarf stars because they were significantly different in characteristics from the main-sequence stars. With the establishment of the main sequence, the unique nature of the giant and dwarf stars became strikingly clear. Such a sequencing method would point later to important evolutionary aspects of stellar development and also to the amount of time each star could exist. Such an incredible diversity of science has emanated from the use of the H-R diagram that there are few areas of modern astronomy that do not rely on the diagram as a fundamental cornerstone. One of the vital aspects of theoretical astronomy that emerged as a corollary to the H-R diagram is the idea that, given that the kinds of stars depicted on and classified by the diagram are apparently universal, a ubiquitous process of stellar development and evolution must be occurring everywhere. This has, in turn, led to speculations of how the Sun will behave and what the duration of the Sun’s lifetime will be. Looking at other stars on the H-R diagram, one can follow the Sun’s evolutionary position from birth to death as a red giant star. Another important aspect of the diagram is that it allows astronomers and other scientists to understand much about the environment of any star and near space, so that the conditions on any theoretical planet in orbit 577
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sprung demonstrated that stars in a certain class (which Maury called the c class) were more luminous than the remainder. Later, this idea would be developed to form the concept of “spectroscopic parallax,” which has become one of the primary means by which the distances to stars and galaxies are determined. Most significant, however, these papers also contained Hertzsprung’s profound discovery of giant and dwarf stars among the dense masses of star points on his photographic plates. Hertzsprung made the fundamental discovery that all stars could be categorized into two series of stars, one series that has become known as the main sequence and the other containing the high-luminosity stars, or giant stars. Later, a diagram would be made of Hertzsprung’s discovery and would bear his name. This diagram has become one of the fundamental tools of modern astronomy. Hertzsprung began a correspondence with Germany’s most famous astronomer, Karl Schwarzschild, and sent him copies of his papers. Schwarzschild immediately recognized the importance of Hertzsprung’s findings and invited Hertzsprung to visit him at the University of Göttingen in 1909. Later that year, Hertzsprung was appointed lecturer at Göttingen. He resigned after only a few months, however, to join Schwarzschild, who had become director of the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam. Hertzsprung was hired as senior staff astronomer at the observatory. Largely because of Schwarzschild’s mentorship, Hertzsprung’s professional career in astronomy was established. In 1913, American astronomer Henry Norris Russell presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in London in which he presented his ideas—based on his own independent findings—on giant and dwarf stars. The work done earlier by Hertzsprung was unknown to him. Later, the detailed findings of both astronomers were graphically depicted in what has become known as the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. The modern Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (also known as the H-R diagram) plots star types on a graph showing spectral classes (such as those defined by Cannon), absolute magnitude, luminosity, and temperature. Hertzsprung’s 1907 work on the relationship between the radiation of a star and its color based on stars located within a cluster is often overlooked. This information would later establish the age of the stars of the Pleiades and stars in the neighborhood of the Sun. With his method, Hertzsprung later published the first colormagnitude diagram ever released. Using the information on spectroscopic parallax, Hertzsprung determined the
Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions
Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions around any star can be theorized. From this speculation and knowledge of the population distribution of each type of star on the diagram, complex theories have been developed, such as how many of each class of star could support conditions for the development of life in the universe. —Dennis Chamberland Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Extraterrestrial Civilizations. New York: Crown, 1979. Makes use of stellar types and classes to detail how life could evolve and survive around different types of stars (including giant and dwarf). A good example of how deeply the H-R diagram had woven its way into all aspects of astronomy. Bok, Bart I., and Priscilla F. Bok. The Milky Way. 5th ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. The definitive book on the Milky Way galaxy, written by two of the world’s experts on the subject. Well written and easy to understand. Includes a detailed deliberation of the H-R diagram and its relevance to the discussion of the nearer stars in the vicinity of the Sun. Illustrated. Chaisson, Eric, and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Chapter 17, titled “Measuring the Stars,” includes discussion of Hertzsprung’s work and explains how H-R diagrams are constructed and used to identify stellar properties. Cornell, James, and Alan P. Lightman, eds. Revealing the Universe. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982. Discusses in some detail specific areas of observational and theoretical astronomy. The H-R diagram is included in some of the discussions, specifically on how the shape of stellar interiors predicts the shape of
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the H-R diagram. Somewhat technical; aimed primarily at readers with a scientific background. Illustrated. Hartman, William K. Astronomy: The Cosmic Journey. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth, 1978. Addresses all the basic features of astronomy. Offers detailed discussion of not only the H-R diagram but also giant and dwarf stars. For general readers, especially those with a minimal grounding in science. Heavily illustrated. Harwit, Martin. Cosmic Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1981. Presents a fascinating expedition through the history and foundation of astronomy. Discusses some of the history of Hertzsprung’s development of the H-R diagram and his use of the classification data from the Harvard College Observatory. For a wide audience. Illustrated. Kaler, James B. “Journeys on the H-R Diagram.” Sky and Telescope (May, 1988): 483-485. Offers a concise view of the H-R diagram and its many uses. Presents a complete discussion of the giant and supergiant classes and why they lie outside the main sequence. Illustrated. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. Introductory text provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues and the use of H-R diagrams. See also: 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution.
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Lumières Develop Color Photography
1907
Lumières Develop Color Photography
Locale: Lyons, France Categories: Science and technology; inventions; chemistry; photography Key Figures Louis Lumière (1864-1948), French inventor and scientist Auguste Lumière (1862-1954), French inventor, physician, physicist, chemist, and botanist Alphonse Seyewetz (fl. early twentieth century), French scientist Summary of Event In 1882, Antoine Lumière, painter, pioneer photographer, and father of Auguste and Louis, founded a factory to manufacture photographic gelatin dry plates. After the Lumière brothers took over the factory’s management, they expanded production to include roll film and printing papers in 1887 and also carried out joint research that led to fundamental discoveries and improvements in development and other aspects of photographic chemistry. Although recording and reproducing the actual colors of a subject was not possible at the time of photography’s inception (about 1822), the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype (silver halide process invented by Jacques Daguerre in 1837), was able to render both striking detail and good tonal quality. The desire to produce full-color images, or some approximation of realistic color, occupied the minds of many photographers and inventors—including Louis and Auguste Lumière— throughout the nineteenth century. In the course of their research in the area of color photography, the Lumière brothers attempted to make the Lippmann interference process (a method of recording full-color images directly by means of interference between wavelengths, without the use of dyes or colorants, which was invented by Gabriel Lippmann in 1891) commercially possible as early as 1892. Although they became the most successful investigators and developers of the process, it never became a practical technique, because the emulsion was at least 100,000 times slower than that of ordinary films. Reproducing the colors of nature by indirect means,
however, was found to be possible; this was done either through the addition of colored lights or through the mixture of various pigments. Although both were proposed at the same time, the first process that met with any practical success was based on the theory, expounded by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861, that any color can be created through the adding together of red, green, and blue light in definite proportions. This theory of additive color holds true only for colored light; the subtractive color process, on the other hand, is based on the mechanical mixture of pigments. Whereas white light is produced by the reflection or adding of all the light rays that fall on it (namely, the additive primary colors: red, green, and blue), black absorbs or subtracts all the rays falling on it (namely, the subtractive primary colors: cyan, magenta, and yellow). Maxwell, taking three negatives through screens or filters of these additive primary colors and projecting slides made from them through the same filters onto a screen so that their images were superimposed, found that it was possible to reproduce the exact colors as well as the form of nature. Unfortunately, because colors could not be recorded in their tonal relationships before the end of the nineteenth century, Maxwell’s experiment was unsuccessful. Although in 1892 Frederick E. Ives of Philadelphia optically united three transparencies so that they could be viewed in proper register (exact matching in position of the filter and the plate) through a peephole, viewing the transparencies was still not as simple as looking at a black-and-white photograph. The first practical method of making a single color photograph that could be viewed without any apparatus was devised by John Joly of Dublin in 1893. Instead of taking three separate pictures through three colored filters, he took one negative through one filter minutely checkered with microscopic areas colored red, green, and blue. The filter and the plate were exactly the same size and were placed in contact with each other in the camera. After the plate was developed, a transparency was made, and the filter was permanently attached to it. The white and black areas of the picture allowed more or less light to shine through the filters; if the picture was viewed from a proper distance, the colored lights blended to form the various colors of nature. Thus, although the principles of additive and subtractive color and their potential applications in photography had been discovered and even experimentally 579
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Louis and Auguste Lumière introduced the autochrome plate, the first commercially successful process in which a single exposure in a regular camera produced a color image.
Lumières Develop Color Photography demonstrated by 1880, a practical process of color photography utilizing these principles could not be produced until a truly panchromatic emulsion was available, because all methods depended on making a record of the primary color content of light from the subject. This necessary improvement in emulsion response was achieved from 1903 to 1906 and was immediately applied to color photography by the Lumière brothers. Louis and Auguste Lumière, along with their research associate Alphonse Seyewetz, succeeded in creating a single-plate color process in 1903. It was introduced commercially as the autochrome plate in 1907 and was soon in use throughout the world. Autochrome was a random-dot screen process that created its effect through the additive color synthesis. A glass plate was coated with a double layer of starch grains dyed to act as primary additive color filters; spaces between grains were filled with carbon dust so that no unfiltered light would degrade the image. After the filter layer was coated with a panchromatic emulsion, the plate was exposed through the base (glass) side so that the subject colors were analyzed by the filter layer before the emulsion was ex-
Auguste (left) and Louis Lumière.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 posed. Reversal processing developed the emulsion to a black-and-white negative image and then converted it to a positive transparency. When viewed from the emulsion side (to correct for the left-right reversal caused by the camera lens), the filter layer colored the transmitted light, and the positive image modulated the intensities; the eye blended the additive color sensations thus received to produce a full-color image. Later versions of the plate used resin globules instead of the starch and carbon particles. In order for details of the image to be analyzed in red, green, and blue, the filter elements of the screen needed to be extremely small. They were, in fact, dyed particles that averaged 0.015 millimeter (approximately 0.0006 inch) in size. Various particle materials were used at different times, including yeasts, dried ferments, bacilli, and powdered enamels; however, potato starch grains were the most successful in early versions of the process. Separate batches of particles were dyed red, green, and blue and were blended to produce a mixture with a uniformly neutral (gray) appearance. A glass plate was covered with a thin layer of transparent varnish, and the particle mixture was dusted on. When dry, this layer was coated with varnish and a second layer was dusted on. Finally, carbon black (powdered charcoal) was dusted on to fill any remaining spaces between the colored particles of the second layer. The carbon particles blocked any light from passing completely through the screen in areas where spaces in both layers coincided, or through only the grains of the lower layer below spaces in the upper layer; either case would permit unwanted light to degrade the final image. When the screen was completed, it was coated with a panchromatic emulsion. Exposure was through the base side of the plate so that the screen could analyze the light before it affected the emulsion. The processed image was viewed from the emulsion side to counteract the leftright reversal produced by the camera lens. Although this method entails color separation through the three filters, each separation “negative” is the size of one tiny starch grain. Through special chemical treatment after development, the image is transformed from negative to positive, thus becoming a transparency of full photographic values, plus the colors supplied by the starch grains. This process is one of the many that takes advantage of the limited resolving power of the human eye. Grains or dots too small to be recognized as separate units are accepted in their entirety and, to the sense of vision, appear as tones and continuous color. Every grain of filter color in
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Significance The Lumières’ autochrome plate paved the way for the commercial success of color photography. Prior to their work, color photography involved the difficult process of producing three negatives to form one color image. By obtaining the three necessary color exposures on one plate, the Lumière brothers made color photography accessible to everyone with an ordinary camera. The autochrome plate was rivaled eventually by other processes, especially Agfa, which has a granular screen quite similar to the autochrome; Dufaycolor, which is a flexible film, but one in which the color screen is a very fine mosaic instead of an unsymmetrical arrangement of grains; and the Finlaycolor process, in which the color screen is not integral with the color plate but is located on a separate glass. In this last process, the color screen is placed in contact with the sensitive plate in the plate holder, and the exposure made through it results in the usual minute color separations; however, the plate is developed and fixed as a negative after the color screen has been removed. The Finlay screen is also a symmetrical mosaic of color elements; when transparent positives are made from the negative, the mosaic image on the negative becomes symmetrically duplicated on the positive. Color is supplied through the use of a viewing screen, which has identical color arrangement and can be registered with the transparency. Because these viewing screens can be purchased in quantities and matched up with additional positives, duplicate color transparencies can be obtained from one negative. Aligning a Finlay screen over a transparency requires great care; misalignment causes either a moiré (wavy) pattern or inaccurate colors. Although the autochrome plate remained one of the
most popular color processes until the 1930’s, soon this process (as well as other additive color processes, including Agfa, Dufay, and Finlay) was superseded by subtractive color processes. Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, both musicians and amateur photographic researchers who eventually joined forces with Eastman Kodak research scientists, did the most to perfect the Lumière brothers’ advances in making color photography practical. Their collaboration led to the introduction in 1935 of Kodachrome, a subtractive process in which a single sheet of film is coated with three layers of emulsion, each sensitive to one primary color. A single exposure produces a color image. Color photography is now commonplace. The amateur market is enormous, and snapshots are nearly always taken in color. Commercial and publishing markets use color extensively. Even photography as an art form, which has been dominated by black-and-white images for most of its history, has turned increasingly to color. With the advent of digital cameras in the 1990’s, color photography was once again revolutionized as computer-generated images obviated the need for chemical processing to produce color photographs. —Genevieve Slomski Further Reading Eder, Josef Maria. History of Photography. Translated by Edward Epstean. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1972. In this lengthy and excellent work, the author discusses the Lumières’ autochrome process in the context of the historical development of color photography. Includes a brief biography of the author, extensive notes, and numerous reproductions. Mees, C. E. Kenneth. From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film: A Story of Photographic Research. New York: Ziff-Davis, 1961. Mees, a scientist at Kodak, discusses the Lumière brothers’ contribution to photographic science in a chapter devoted to color photography. Includes numerous illustrations and photographs. Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present. 5th rev. ed. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1982. This standard work on the historical development of photography offers a brief discussion of the development of the autochrome process. Presents the history of a medium rather than a technique. Contains many black-and-white illustrations. Ostroff, Eugene, ed. Pioneers of Photography. Springfield, Va.: SPSE, 1987. The Lumière brothers’ work is described in several essays in this excellent collection. The autochrome process is discussed in its 581
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the autochrome screen serves two purposes: First, it separates the colors of the subject for photographic purposes, and then it permits itself to be seen in its allotted space. One drawback to the autochrome plate was that it required forty to sixty times more exposure than did the best black-and-white plates. In addition, although it was possible theoretically to contact print one plate onto another, or to copy it with a camera, in practice, the results generally were unacceptable. Sharpness suffered because the plates could not be placed emulsion-to-emulsion (if they were, light exposing the second plate would not be screened), the grain factors of the two screens multiplied to produce a grainier image, and colors changed because the transmission characteristics of the screens were not perfect and tended to differ from batch to batch. Therefore, each autochrome plate was unique.
Lumières Develop Color Photography
Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History historical context rather than in extensive technical detail. Bibliographic entries after each essay and numerous illustrations and photographs. Sandler, Martin W. Photography: An Illustrated History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Presents a chronological overview of the major figures in the history of photography and their artistic and technical contributions. Chapter 8, devoted to the innovation of color photography, discusses the work of the Lumière brothers. Includes many photographs as well as a chronology, a bibliography, and a list of photography museums around the world and Web sites devoted to photography. Sipley, Louis Walton. Photography’s Great Inventors. Philadelphia: American Museum of Photography,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1965. This slim but informative volume devotes one section to the work of the Lumière brothers. Presents biographical information as well as a brief discussion of the autochrome process in the context of the brothers’ contribution to phototechnology. Short bibliography follows each entry. Wood, John. The Art of the Autochrome: The Birth of Color Photography. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993. Presents some of the work of early twentieth century photographers who used the autochrome process developed by the Lumières. Includes seventy-five color plates. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph.
1907
Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History Friedrich Meinecke became a prominent historian when he published Cosmopolitanism and the National State, an important and timely history of the unification of Germany under Otto von Bismarck. Along with Ernst Troeltsch and Wilhelm Dilthey, Meinecke advanced the analytic school of political intellectual history. Also known as: Weltburgertum und Nationalstaat; Cosmopolitanism and the National State Locale: Germany Categories: Historiography; government and politics; publishing and journalism Key Figures Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), German historian Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), prime minister of Prussia, 1862-1890, and chancellor of the German Empire, 1871-1890 Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), German historian and sociologist Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), German philosopher and historian Summary of Event When he published Weltburgertum und Nationalstaat: Studien zur Genesis des deutschen Nationalstaates (1907; Cosmopolitanism and the National State, 1970), Friedrich Meinecke made it clear that he was an important 582
academic historian. He had already published a very wellreceived biography of a Prussian military reformer before he turned his attention to the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the popular revolutions of 1848 in an attempt to compose a history of the formation of the German nation-state. His guiding principles were, for the most part, an extension of Rankean positivism, a school founded by German historian Leopold von Ranke that promoted rigorous examination of source materials and a focus on interactions among nation-states, the relationship between nation-states and cultural character, and the uniqueness and spontaneity of historical phenomena. Meinecke’s modifications to the historicist program marked the beginning of a new approach to historiography: the analytic school of political history. Essentially, this school sought to analyze the causes of social change and their consequences for nations around the world. In his book, Meinecke attempted to construct an explanation of the timing and structure of the process of national unification as it occurred within the German Confederation (1815-1866). In a manner that would become the defining characteristic of his analytic style, Meinecke framed the period in terms of two opposing intellectual currents and then built his narrative around the force generated by their contradictions. In this case, the two conflicting concepts were cosmopolitanism and nationalism. Meinecke’s cosmopolitanism is a set of beliefs centered on the notion of the fundamental unity of all humankind. This unity, however, has different implications
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man cultural makeup, Meinecke argued, was a fundamental reason for the failure of the 1848 revolution and thus arrested the development of a unified Germany for another generation. It was only the emergence of Otto von Bismarck and the predominance of Prussia in military affairs that tipped the balance in favor of national unity and territorial consolidation. Bismarck’s nationalist leadership liberated the culture from the cosmopolitan spirit that had inhibited the natural emergence of a strong German state. Meinecke acknowledged that coercive power was sometimes necessary for states to achieve their goals. He was convinced that Germany was a highly developed state that could utilize its power to best serve its cultural values and to promote individualism. The use of violence was not criminal, he said, if it was the only way the unification process could be accomplished, and this idea effectively displaced the rational ideals of the Enlightenment in favor of Romantic nationalism. Meinecke altered his views on state violence in the wake of the horrors of World War I, however, and his later works reversed his earlier stance on the moral basis for the use of force by the nation-state. He went from adherence to monarchism to a belief in the necessity (if not the sufficiency) of a popular republican system, and in the process he became disenchanted with the potential for improving human welfare by the use of force. Significance The enduring impacts of Meinecke’s contributions are evident in the important relationship between the history of ideas and diplomatic history. Meinecke laid the foundations for the development of the modern field of international political economy, and he showed the dialectic method’s power as a tool for dealing with historical outcomes. While he did not succeed in solving or dissolving these many antinomies, he did more than any thinker of his time to expose the contradictory forces at work in the international arena and to devise intellectual tools that were adequate to the analytic tasks at hand. Meinecke’s version of the historicist methodology came to define the frontier of sophisticated discourse on the nature of historical knowledge and on the determination of the appropriate units of analysis for historical inquiry. His combination of the subjects and techniques of intellectual and social history opened a novel and highly productive field of investigation, and the questions and problems Meinecke raised continued to be highly relevant to later scholars. — Ivan Weinel 583
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depending on whether it is considered from a cultural, moral, political, or economic point of view. Unity of cultural practices worldwide is not conceivable in a world where uniformity would necessarily entail the extinction of some cultural practices in favor of others. This problem is real and present; many in the poorest nations already believe that the powerful Western nations are crowding out the cultural space formerly allotted to them. This is sometimes called cultural imperialism. These issues and others are part of the complex of events, trends, and peoples referred to under the heading of “globalization.” If everyone and every group are considered to be equal from the moral perspective, then everyone is equally able to lay claim to sympathy and substance, irrespective of ethnicity, creed, or place of residence. This is the Enlightenment spirit of kinship and tolerance for all of humanity. Thus the moral principle that underpins cosmopolitan beliefs also forms the basis for the concept of “human rights.” Further consideration of the political and economic spheres leads in the direction of global systems of governance and wealth creation that undertake to reduce present levels of global inequality and increase the access of the poorest nations to resources, goods, and services. Nationalism, on the other hand, connotes identity with and loyalty to one’s nation; this becomes the paramount virtue. Nations are believed to be the natural units for social and cultural organization and are seen as having a superior claim to the right of self-governance relative to any other principled grouping. Although members of a particular nation may not share the same geographic location, they frequently share an ideology that creates a sense of common identity even as members migrate. Modern nations frequently exclude potential members on the basis of religion or ethnicity, and it is possible for two groups of people to occupy a common geography and still retain radically different nationalist beliefs. Meinecke began his account by tracing the history of the two concepts, showing how contradictory elements from each were embedded in the works of such German intellectuals as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Leopold von Ranke. The fact that these contradictions lay at the very foundations of German political thought helps to explain the tardiness of the development of a unified German nation. It was also a major factor in early difficulties encountered in dealing with the implications of the distribution of power among the members of the European political economy. The presence of a cosmopolitan current of thought in the Ger-
Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History
Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India Further Reading Boyd, Kelly, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writings. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999. Great source for further background on the characters and their interconnections. Conversi, Daniel. “Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism.” In Encyclopaedia of Nationalism, edited by Athena S. Leouessi and Anthony D. Smith. Oxford, England: Transaction Books, 2000. Excellent, concise introduction to the relevant concepts and historical background of this controversy. Iggers, Georg G. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge. Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1997. Masterful overview of the various approaches to historical investigation from the beginning of modern historical studies to the postmodernist critique.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kelley, Donald R. Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. Engagingly written and accessible to beginners. Narrative places the spotlight on the major personalities and schools and gives a flavor of the interactions among ideas and events that have driven the evolution of historical theory and practice. See also: 1910: Angell Advances Pacifism; Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography; 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle; 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought; 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate.
1907
Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India The most recent widespread attack of the bubonic plague peaked in 1907 in India, where it killed 1.2 million persons. During this outbreak, designated the Third Pandemic, researchers learned much about the biology of plague—its cause, reservoirs, vectors, and mechanisms of attack—as well as some human defensive strategies against the disease. Despite these advances in understanding, the plague continued to expand its geographic range and remained a dangerous disease. Locale: Worldwide Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), Swiss bacteriologist Paul-Louis Simond (1858-1947), French bacteriologist Shibasaburo Kitasato (1852-1931), Japanese bacteriologist Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine (1860-1930), Russian bacteriologist Summary of Event In 1907, more than 1.2 million people died of plague in India. Plague deaths were lower in preceding years and declined again in subsequent years, although they were substantial in both time periods; more than 12 million In584
dians died of plague during the entire period known as the Third Pandemic. Peak years for plague deaths fell around 1900 in many countries involved in the Third Pandemic, and, as the term “pandemic” connotes, most countries in the world were involved. A pandemic is the spread of a disease throughout the known world. The first plague pandemic occurred in the sixth century; this pandemic is known as the Justinian Plague because Justinian was the Roman emperor at the time. The second plague pandemic included the catastrophic Black Death of the fourteenth century and continued, by some definitions, through the London Plague of 1665. Between the pandemics, plague occurred much less frequently, with occasional epidemics springing up. (An epidemic is a local outbreak of a disease, not nearly as widespread as a pandemic, but locally often as deadly.) The Third Pandemic started in the 1850’s in China; it subsequently spread to Hong Kong and India and then throughout the world. It peaked in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and ended in the 1950’s. Both the pandemic’s starting and ending dates are necessarily imprecise, and some authorities argue that the Third Pandemic continued into the twenty-first century. During the Third Pandemic, researchers made great advances in understanding and dealing with the plague. In addition to its tragic effects, the Third Pandemic should be remembered for this dramatic increase in understanding. How-
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Twentieth Century Plague Outbreaks The plague outbreak of 1907 fell in the middle of a worldwide episode known as the Third Pandemic. Many countries, including the United States, were significantly affected by the plague during this period, which lasted from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century and significantly affected the following locales: 1882 1894 1894 1896 1896-1898 1898 1898 1899 1899 1899 1899 1899 1899-1902 1900-1905 1900-1927 1901 1904 1905 1907 1908 1908 1912
Pakhoi, China Canton, China Hong Kong, China Formosa (Taiwan), China Bombay (now Mumbai), India Calcutta, India Madagascar Egypt Hawaii, United States Manchuria, China Paraguay San Francisco, United States South Africa Australia Russia/Soviet Union Fukien Province, China Thailand Burma Tunisia Bolivia and Brazil Trinidad, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador Cuba and Puerto Rico
passive antiserum, although it had serious side effects and was not as effective as immunization has been against other diseases, smallpox for example. Late in the Third Pandemic, researchers found that sulfa drugs could destroy the plague bacterium. Several antibiotics—streptomycin, tetracycline, and chloramphenicol—were also discovered that were even more effective against Yersinia. These drugs had to be administered early in the progress of the disease for maximum effectiveness. During the Third Pandemic it was also discovered that many mammals other than rats were attacked by the plague bacterium. Many rodents—marmots, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, rats, mice, and voles—were found to be susceptible to plague parasitism, as were many other mammals (including cats and dogs). Most species were decimated by the parasite, as rats and hu585
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ever, in addition to the mortality it caused in its old haunts, during the Third Pandemic the plague spread to continents that had not previously experienced its decimation. During the Third Pandemic, scientists Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato, working independently, discovered the bacterium that causes the plague, now known as Yersinia pestis. Yersin called it Bacterium pestis, and it was renamed twice (Bacillus pestis and Pasteurella pestis) before it was changed again in 1970 to honor Yersin’s role in its discovery. Identification of this causative organism gave scientists a target for the development of defensive strategies against the plague as well as something precise to identify in diagnosing the disease. Rats (Rattus rattus) associated with human populations had long been linked with the plague. Large numbers of rats died in most plague epidemics, but they were thought to be fellow victims of the outbreak, not part of the problem. During the Third Pandemic, Yersin and others suggested that rats might play a more direct role in plague epidemics and pandemics, acting as the source of the bacterium during these times. Researcher Paul-Louis Simond, working in Bombay (Mumbai), India, demonstrated that rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis) transferred the plague bacterium from rat to rat and from rats, especially dead rats, to humans. His work was rejected, however, because entrenched wisdom held that plague was spread through contaminated food or entered the body through cuts in the skin, and that rat fleas did not bite humans. Eventually, studies in Australia and Bombay confirmed his conclusions in all important details. This discovery gave health workers two targets to exploit in blocking the spread of plague: rat and flea populations. Bacteriologist Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine, also working in Bombay during the Third Pandemic, developed immunological tools for treatment of and protection from the plague. He developed a plague antiserum, a passive immunity technique, in which antibodies that fight the plague bacterium were produced in other animals and then injected into humans as a defense against a plague infection in progress. The antiserum had a number of undesirable side effects and was ineffective, so Haffkine turned to active immunization, in which killed Yersinia pestis cells were injected into humans as protection against an anticipated future attack by the bacterium. In response to the dead plague cells, vaccinated humans make their own antibodies against the bacterium. This approach proved to be more effective than the
Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India
Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India mans were, but a few were relatively resistant to the plague bacterium. The reservoir for plague, the place it “hid” between pandemics, was found in the relatively resistant ground squirrels and marmots of the central Asian plains. Similar reservoirs were established on all continents except Australia and Antarctica during the Third Pandemic. Fleas other than the rat flea were also found to harbor and transmit the plague bacterium, although transmission by these other fleas was not generally as efficient as that by the rat flea. The versatility of the plague bacterium in the number of mammalian hosts and flea vectors it used, and in other regards, made it apparent that plague would not be an easy opponent to vanquish. Before the Third Pandemic, plague had been restricted to Eurasia and northern Africa. During the Third Pandemic, however, it was dispersed to North and South America, southern Africa, Madagascar, and Australia— essentially worldwide—and it became established in all those places except Australia. The Third Pandemic stands as the most widespread of the plague pandemics. Significance Scientists came to understand the plague during the Third Pandemic, which was epidemiologically centered in India and China, and temporally centered on the 1907 peak of deaths in India. The causative organism, the reservoirs in which plague lurked between pandemics, and the disease’s alternate hosts, vectors, and mechanisms of transmission were all discovered during the Third Pandemic. This knowledge suggested several targets for control of plague outbreaks. Control of rat and flea populations proved helpful, but so many species of rodents and fleas were involved that it was difficult to eliminate plague using this tactic alone. Immunological attempts, although helpful, were not as effective as they have been in combating some other diseases. Sulfa drugs and certain antibiotics proved to be very effective when administered early in the progression of the disease, but plague is often misdiagnosed, and it progresses so rapidly that even these powerful tools proved to be less useful than initially hoped. In addition, Yersinia pestis, like many other troublesome bacteria, readily develops resistance to drugs. Perhaps the most important (and discouraging) thing learned from the Third Pandemic concerns the versatility of Yersinia pestis, which makes it very unlikely that plague can be eliminated as smallpox has been. It is such a dangerous disease organism that several countries have
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 attempted to develop plague into a biological weapon. Yersinia pestis engineered to be resistant to antiplague drugs would be a fearsome weapon. Despite the pessimism caused by the plague bacterium’s versatility and its potential as a weapon, the knowledge derived from the Third Pandemic may allow scientists to prevent a fourth plague pandemic. —Carl W. Hoagstrom Further Reading Catanach, I. J. “The ‘Globalization’ of Disease? India and the Plague.” Journal of World History 12, no. 1 (2001): 131-153. Explores the dispersal of diseases using the spread of plague in the Third Pandemic, especially in India, as a central example. Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan. “Plague Panic and Epidemic Politics in India, 1896-1914.” In Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence, edited by Terence Ranger and Paul Slack. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Considers the cultural and political conflicts during the most intense years of the Third Pandemic in India. Echenberg, Myron. “Pestis Redux: The Initial Years of the Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic, 1894-1901.” Journal of World History 13, no. 2 (2002): 429-449. Explores the early stages of the Third Pandemic, which led to 1907’s peak in the death count. Gregg, Charles T. Plague: An Ancient Disease in the Twentieth Century. Rev. ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985. Considers all three plague pandemics and emphasizes the continued danger of plague as a natural disease and as a biological weapon. Orent, Wendy. Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease. New York: Free Press, 2004. Describes the three pandemics and emphasizes the plague’s potential as a biological weapon. See also: Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control; Nov.Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes; 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus; June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever.
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Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music
1907
Publication of Busoni’s SKETCH FOR A NEW AESTHETIC OF MUSIC
Also known as: Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Music; publishing and journalism Key Figures Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Italian-German pianist, composer, and musical intellectual Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949), German composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Austrian composer and music theorist Summary of Event At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ferruccio Busoni was recognized as one of the world’s leading pianists, a composer of substance, and a prolific writer whose ideas reflected the dissatisfaction with prevailing musical styles shared by most of his contemporaries among the musical intelligentsia. His Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst (1907; Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, 1911) was not so much a treatise on aesthetics as a presentation of a melange of musical principles reflecting Busoni’s own concerns for the present state of music and offering carefully considered ways of freeing music from lasting traditions that he regarded as redundant. Busoni maintained that the spirit of a musical artwork is ageless, its essence remaining the same throughout many years. Thus, he wrote, there is nothing properly old or new, only expressions of an enduring idea that have come into being earlier or later. The performance of music cast in the mold of another age is inherently inconsistent, for if the musical idea is indeed the enduring factor, the imposition of stereotypical forms or procedures brings forth nothing new, only a refurbishment of statements already achieved. The function of the creative artist lies in the formation of new laws rather than in following laws already made; the true creator seeks after the perfection of a musical expression that achieves a rapprochement between the natural qualities of the basic musical idea and the composer’s own individuality. A musical work is to be shaped by the natural qualities of
the underlying idea (however that may be defined) and its most natural expression as perceived by the creative artist. Busoni regarded established musical forms as strictures that impede natural expression. In the history of music, form has served as an element of consistency, establishing an element of balance and order and allowing the imagination free rein. Over time, however, form came to be an end in itself; Busoni argued that fidelity to traditional forms should be set aside in favor of the expression that is the most natural to any given musical material. He pointed out the inconsistency of expecting overall originality of a composer and yet expecting conventionality in matters of form. Program music, he wrote, was equally faulty in that a story or series of events replaced form and imposed on music a framework extraneous to the seeds of expansion inherent in each motive. According to Busoni, musical notation, too, needed to be reconsidered. Notation had developed as an expedient means of preserving a fleeting inspiration for the purpose of later exploration and reinterpretation. Musical lawgivers, however, had required the interpreters of written music to reproduce the fixed connotations of the written symbols, confusing notation with music itself. The limitation of notation is closely allied with the instruments for which it is intended; for Busoni, the implied tonal color, range, and pitch system around which modern instruments were built imposed additional limitations on natural musical expression. Anything written for a specific instrument necessarily remains committed to a certain timbre or color. A possible solution to such difficulties might be offered by electronic tone production, and Busoni was quite interested in reports of Thaddeus Cahill’s invention of the dynamophone, one of the earliest electronic musical instruments. Busoni’s concern for expanding what he considered a narrow tonal range led to a series of scales intended to replace the traditional major-minor system. The new scales were derived from a process wherein subsequent tones within the octave were systematically lowered within each permutation; Busoni’s manuscript copy illustrated the 113 scales to which he referred in his text, but a logical extension of his procedure would produce at least 148 scales. These concerns led him to a refined gradation of the acoustic octave in which he described a tripartite tone (third of a tone) in place of the usual semitone, leading to 587
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In Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, Ferruccio Busoni was among the first to articulate a rational foundation for the dramatic changes in musical style that took place in the early years of the twentieth century.
Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music
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Ferruccio Busoni. (Library of Congress)
a scale of eighteen pitches. Transposing this same plan to the next set of traditional tones produced another tripartite set of eighteen, or an acoustic octave encompassing a total of thirty-six pitches. For all these, he proposed an appropriate system of new musical notation. The new scales and more minutely defined pitch materials were among the most widely discussed of Busoni’s theses. He was drawn into an extended dialogue with contemporaries, during the course of which he came to be recognized as one of the leading musical intellectuals of the time. An attempt to clarify his ideas in a second, expanded edition of Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music drew more commentary than the initial publication. Arnold Schoenberg, a prominent composer and music theorist, declared much sympathy with the substance of Busoni’s writing if not with all of its applications. In contrast, German composer Hans Pfitzner attacked Busoni’s work in Futuristengefahr (1917; the danger of futurism). Pfitzner defended the nineteenth century value system of feeling and inspiration against what he perceived to be calculating intellectual processes, expressive paralysis, and a threat to the values of German music. The last 588
charge caught the attention of German nationalists immersed in the heat of World War I. Busoni, the son of an Italian farmer and a German mother, had spent all of his adult life in Germany, but his Italian surname cast suspicion on him as a foreigner and, for those inclined to such beliefs, lent some credence to Pfitzner’s charges. Busoni’s works before 1907 followed in the tradition of late nineteenth century Romanticism and, to a lesser degree, Impressionism. Starting with the Six Elegies (1908), however, his own style of composing turned toward a more sparse and pervasively contrapuntal texture, colored by progressive harmonies. There is no clear evidence of either the scales or the tripartite tones described in Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music. Among pianists, Busoni’s name will always be linked with his transcriptions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach and others. Although some purists have derided these as musical transgressions, the process is very much in keeping with Busoni’s premise that basic musical ideas endure and can be expressed in many ways without substantive loss, and that any notation represents but one of many ways of defining any given material.
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term around 1919 and that he wished to distinguish between classicality and classicism as it is conventionally understood. In later attempts to clarify “young classicality,” he described it as an assimilation of all earlier experiments and their inclusion in new musical forms of greater strength. Busoni’s idea has often been confused with neoclassicism as it was represented in the works of Igor Stravinsky during the decades following World War I and has been largely forgotten in the prevailing currency of the latter term. Young classicality is best viewed as a comprehensive aesthetic of music that may include a variety of styles and techniques; neoclassicism stands as one of those many styles. Busoni’s concept, represented by the term “young classicality,” thus anticipated, or at least described, the multistylistic quality of most twentieth century music. — Douglas A. Lee Further Reading Beaumont, Antony. Busoni the Composer. London: Faber & Faber, 1985. A thorough and comprehensive study of Busoni’s work. Supplemented with abundant photographic plates, musical illustrations, biographical and creative chronologies, a catalog of transcriptions and cadenzas, and a select bibliography. Valuable for its attention to detail and comprehensive treatment of the subject. Busoni, Ferruccio. The Essence of Music and Other Papers. Translated by Rosamond Ley. London: Rockliff, 1957. A panoply of Busoni’s writings. Some address his concepts of music of the future and young classicality; others discuss the composers who were central to his pianistic repertory, his piano playing, and a miscellany of his musical interests. A valuable collection reflecting Busoni’s intellectual fecundity. _______. Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music. Translated by Th. Baker. New York: G. Schirmer, 1911. The original American version of Busoni’s work. (Also available in Contemplating Music: Source Readings in the Aesthetics of Music, edited by Ruth Katz and Carl Dahlhaus. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1988.) Couling, Della. Ferruccio Busoni: A Musical Ishmael. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. Full-length biography contains material not available to earlier biographers. Draws extensively on Busoni’s correspondence with family members and friends. Includes a selected list of compositions, bibliography, and index. Dent, Edward J. Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1933. Early study of 589
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Significance At a time of great ferment in the musical world, Busoni’s essay Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music was among the first attempts to present a rational defense for many of the extraordinary changes taking place in music during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The exchanges generated by Busoni’s ideas marked the beginning of literary explanations and justifications for new music that continued until well past midcentury. Those who saw music in a state of decadence could, with an open mind, find in Busoni reasons for and order behind what some described as cacophony. The emancipation of dissonance, a premise generally attributed to Schoenberg, found its first widely circulated expression in Busoni’s work; Busoni, with some success, defined the difference between atonality and cacophony as a matter of the listener’s comprehension. The systematic approach to the creation of the 113 scales provided a point of departure for similar efforts later in the century. The scale structures of Josef Hauer and Olivier Messiaen, although not direct extensions of Busoni’s plan, reflect his influence in their rational, instead of acoustical, approach to the arrangement of pitch materials; many other names could be added to such a list. The new notation Busoni proposed to accommodate his tripartite pitch series saw no direct imitators, but it did introduce the concept of new signs for new sounds. The manifestations of this approach led to many different procedures, particularly after the middle of the century. The fundamental concept is Busoni’s premise that a musical idea exists on its own and can be expressed through any pattern of notation appropriate to the material, an approach reflected in the scores of Messiaen and Krzysztof Penderecki, among others. The search for a source of more plastic and more finely graduated pitch material has been mirrored in the efforts of many composers to expand their tonal resources, not only in matters of pitch but in timbre and color as well. Edgard Varèse, who achieved much in both percussion ensembles and electronic music, stressed his allegiance to Busoni in several lectures as well as in the very substance of his works such as Amériques (pr. 1926) and Poème électronique (pr. 1958). Several years after the appearance of Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, Busoni referred to his ideas, in the most comprehensive vein, as junge Klassizität, a term that has been widely mistranslated as “young classicism” and, in that context, frequently misunderstood. In a letter to his son, Busoni made it clear that he had coined the
Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music
Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music Busoni and his works by a personal acquaintance. Valuable for personal insights and minutiae of biography, but dated in its treatment of Busoni’s creative work. Mason, Robert M. “Enumeration of Synthetic Musical Scales by Matrix Algebra and a Catalogue of Busoni Scales.” Journal of Music Theory 14 (Spring, 1970): 92-126. A technical, systematic exploration of the scale system proposed by Busoni. Copiously illustrated with charts and diagrams exploring possible applications of Busoni’s fundamental concept in matters of pitch organization. Morgan, Robert P. Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991. Presents one of the most succinct summaries available of Busoni’s ideas on music in the modern age and offers examples of important composers who may have come under his influence. Raessler, Daniel M. “The ‘113’ Scales of Ferruccio Busoni.” Music Review 43 (February, 1982): 51-56. Devoted to a study of Busoni’s proposed scale system and its musical applications, this publication is most valuable for its musical illustrations of the scales as they appear in Busoni’s manuscript copy. The author expands the system to its logical conclusion of 147 scales. _______. “Schoenberg and Busoni: Aspects of Their Relationship.” Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 7 (June, 1983): 6-27. Based on letters exchanged between Busoni and Schoenberg between 1903 and 1919. The correspondence makes clear that these innovators shared a mutual respect and a con-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 viction that the course of music had to change, but neither completely understood the other’s view of what the new direction should be. Rimm, Robert. The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and the Eight. Pompton Plains, N.J.: Amadeus Press, 2003. Discusses the work of eight legendary composer-pianists, including Busoni, and the interpretation of their work by pianist Marc-André Hamelin. Explores the relationships among the composers in their music, their ideas, and their lives. Roberge, Marc-André. Ferruccio Busoni: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. A bibliographic reference tool more than a substantive exploration of Busoni’s ideas or compositions. The annotated bibliography, one of the most extensive available, is valuable for its listing of published works by and about Busoni. Stuckenschmidt, Hans H. Ferruccio Busoni. Translated by Sandra Morris. London: Calder and Boyars, 1970. An overview of Busoni’s ideas and influences by one of the principal commentators on modern music. Generally deals with description more than with analysis or evaluation; most useful for its perspective of Busoni within the context of twentieth century musical styles. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System; Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin; July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel; 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Publication of James’s Pragmatism
1907
Publication of James’s PRAGMATISM
Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; philosophy Key Figures William James (1842-1910), American philosopher Summary of Event In November and December, 1906, William James delivered a series of lectures at the Lowell Institute in Boston that he repeated in January, 1907, at Columbia University in New York City. The lectures were later published without notes or any further explanation as Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. This volume marked the end of James’s development as a philosopher and the beginning of a significant departure in the history of philosophy in twentieth century America. Understanding the evolution of James’s thought is made complex by the fact that James developed his theory of radical empiricism in a series of essays written in 1904 and 1905; those essays were collected and published posthumously in 1912 as Essays in Radical Empiricism. As James observed in the preface to Pragmatism, however, no logical connection existed between the two concepts; the two ideas were independent of each other. The subtitle of Pragmatism indicated that James believed that the pragmatic method was of long duration and that, in fact, many people used the method without recognizing it as an expression of philosophy. Truth, pragmatic style, grew out of all finite experience. It was what people had done in their daily lives for centuries. Pragmatism was first presented to a nonprofessional audience as lectures and then as relaxed essays to popular or general readers. The book included eight lectures. Given and written in an informal style, the work was very much that of a singular individual, William James. In the first lecture, “The Present Dilemma in Philosophy,” James made his now-famous distinction between the “tender-minded” and the “tough-minded,” a distinction he traced to arguments between the rationalists and the empiricists. This distinction was vital to James’s presentations, as he believed that every individual is a philosopher whose creed often reflects the whims of individual temperament.
“What Pragmatism Means” was the next lecture. With his usual gracious manner, James, with strong figures of speech and commonplace examples, described pragmatism as a method that can satisfy the rationalists and empiricists by its modest claim that a test of reality is possible using the pragmatic method. Belief and acting on a particular belief were key elements in defining pragmatism. Because this belief had a religious element in James’s world, the following lecture, “Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered,” dealt with that element; in the lecture, James rejected the argument that the existence of God can be perceived in the design of the universe. The evidence for God’s existence, James argued, is in inner and personal experiences. James’s fourth lecture, “The One and the Many,” discussed how philosophy has historically expressed a desire for both unity and totality. The varied answers were unsatisfactory to James. Pragmatism is not a gnostic enterprise, James maintained in his fifth lecture, “Pragmatism and Common Sense.” James’s point was a historical one. From their earliest history, he maintained, humans had developed the pragmatic method; the survival of the earliest humans depended on their using knowledge of the past in conjunction with their own immediate experience. When the two elements were joined, common sense (or wisdom) was achieved. As he explained in his next lecture, “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth,” truth is expedient thinking that grows over time and with increased experience. Ideas that can be assimilated, validated, corroborated, and verified are true; false ideas cannot be used in such a manner. James made quite clear in his next-to-last lecture, “Pragmatism and Humanism,” that an absolutely independent reality is difficult to find. People create reality. Ideas arrived at through individual and collective experience create reality against the backdrop of a morally indifferent nature. Once again, pragmatism offered a middle way between rationalism and empiricism. In his eighth and last lecture, “Pragmatism and Religion,” James returned to a concern, religious belief, that had provoked him throughout his career. His final evaluation was that pragmatism offers a solution to religious dilemmas, because people may create reality. He ended his presentation where he began it, with concluding remarks about tender-minded and tough-minded approaches to religion. Yet pragmatism came from a cul591
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The publication of Pragmatism was a significant event for both the personal development of William James as a philosopher and the course of philosophy in the twentieth century.
Publication of James’s Pragmatism
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“The Present Dilemma in Philosophy” In his first lecture in Pragmatism, James outlined the distinction between the “tender-minded” and the “tough-minded,” which he traced to arguments between the rationalists and the empiricists—and hence the need for “pragmatism,” which reconciles the two: The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. . . . a more sentimental or a more hard-hearted view of the universe. . . . Now the particular difference of temperament that I have in mind in making these remarks is . . . expressed in the pair of terms “rationalist” and “empiricist,” “empiricist” meaning your lover of facts in all their crude variety, “rationalist” meaning your devotee to abstract and eternal principles. . . . Historically we find the terms “intellectualism” and “sensationalism” used as synonyms of, “rationalism” and “empiricism.” Well, nature seems to combine most frequently with intellectualism an idealistic and optimistic tendency. Empiricists on the other hand are not uncommonly materialistic, and their optimism is apt to be decidedly conditional and tremulous. Rationalism is always monistic. It starts from wholes and universals, and makes much of the unity of things. Empiricism starts from the parts, and makes of the whole a collection—is not averse therefore to calling itself pluralistic. Rationalism usually considers itself more religious than empiricism, but there is much to say about this claim, so I merely mention it. It is a true claim when the individual rationalist is what is called a man of feeling, and when the individual empiricist prides himself on being hard-headed. . . . I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles “tender-minded” and “tough-minded” respectively. The Tender-Minded Rationalistic (going by “principles”) Intellectualistic Idealistic Optimistic Religious Free-willist Monistic Dogmatical
The Tough-Minded Empiricist (going by “facts”) Sensationalistic Materialistic Pessimistic Irreligious Fatalistic Pluralistic Sceptical
. . . You want a system that will combine both things, the scientific loyalty to facts and willingness to take account of them, the spirit of adaptation and accommodation, in short, but also the old confidence in human values and the resultant spontaneity, whether of the religious or of the romantic type. And this is then your dilemma: you find the two parts of your quaesitum hopelessly separated. You find empiricism with inhumanism and irreligion; or else you find a rationalistic philosophy that indeed may call itself religious, but that keeps out of all definite touch with concrete facts and joys and sorrows. . . . I offer the oddly-named thing pragmatism as a philosophy that can satisfy both kinds of demand. It can remain religious like the rationalisms, but at the same time, like the empiricisms, it can preserve the richest intimacy with facts. I hope I may be able to leave many of you with as favorable an opinion of it as I preserve myself.
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ture of science that offered the ideal of freedom as combined with the notion of American achievement. Despite the emergence of other philosophical positions, pragmatism endured because it was modern in its appeal to science and old in that it was the method that led to material success in the United States. Significance The publication of Pragmatism was a major event for James as an individual philosopher and for the course of philosophy in the twentieth century. In an important sense, James had prepared all of his life for the book to appear. James was born in New York City in 1842 to Mary and Henry James, Sr., wellto-do and somewhat eccentric parents. The family fortune was a gift of William’s grandfather, who had made wise investments in the Erie Canal. In time, the family included three brothers, one of whom was the famous novelist Henry James. The final child was Alice James, whose health problems, real and imagined, limited her life experiences; she did, however, keep a first-rate journal. William’s formal education was irregular, but through his father he visited with many of the outstanding writers and artists of the day. Henry James, Sr., encouraged William to find himself; therefore, any interest that the young boy expressed was encouraged by his father, who at the same time warned William not to close out any other possibilities. The results were mixed. After attending many private schools in both the United States and Europe, William studied painting, but, determining that he had only mediocre talents, he quit and turned to science. By 1861, he was a member of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University. After studying chemistry, comparative anatomy, and physiology, he transferred to the medical school, from which he graduated in 1869. He never practiced medicine, however. He
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fort to place philosophy on the same secure basis as mathematics. It is not unusual for more recent philosophers to be antifoundationalist and anti-Cartesian, largely because James and his early associates Chauncey Wright and Charles Sanders Peirce successfully challenged claims for philosophical certitude. The acceptance of this position meant that James’s thought led to the boundaries of existentialism, but without the atmosphere of individual and cultural despair associated with that philosophical position. During the 1930’s and the 1940’s, pragmatism was thought of as a protopositivism, anticipatory of the logical positivism that flourished in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Although this interpretation was in fact an incorrect historical analysis, it did indicate the degree to which some scholars believed that pragmatism had affected later philosophical developments. Finally, James’s Pragmatism continued a de facto tradition of idealism in American thought, accepting the truths of science and harmonizing them with religious sentiment in an effort to create a better life and creed. Supported by science and religion, James’s creed solved issues of long metaphysical concern and helped countless people to handle the immediate task of living day to day. —Donald K. Pickens Further Reading Allen, Gay Wilson. William James: A Biography. New York: Viking Press, 1967. A first-rate biography with an emphasis on James’s travels. Offers little in interpretation, but the factual content is valuable. Barzun, Jacques. A Stroll with William James. 1983. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. An interesting account of how James influenced the life of a leading historian. Barzun stresses James’s humanity and how James’s pragmatism was the product of a fully realized human being. Feinstein, Howard M. Becoming William James. 1983. Reprint. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000. An analysis of how James overcame his many psychological problems and concerns to become a mature and engaging human being. Rich in detail, this psychobiography connects James’s life experiences to the creation of his books and philosophy. Where the Allen book explores the “outer” James, this volume maps the “inner” James. James, William. Writings, 1902-1910. Edited by Bruce Kuklick. New York: Viking Press, 1987. This fine edited volume of James’s writings for the last eight years of his life includes the complete text of Pragmatism 593
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then toured the Amazon basin with a scientific expedition; his eyes were weakened by the experience. He subsequently lived for a time in Germany, studying experimental physiology. After bouts of illness and retirement, William began teaching physiology and anatomy at Harvard in 1873. His teaching included psychology and, by 1879, philosophy. His twin interests in science and religious matters guided James toward a career as professor of philosophy. His religious interest, however, was much more vital and bore directly on James’s philosophy and life experience. The issues of free will and religious monism shaped his thoughts; after contemplating suicide, James decided, as an act of the will, to believe in free will. In a real sense, James’s pragmatism was thus born. His marriage in 1878 to Alice Howe Gibbens was very successful. He was a happy man—a productive scholar and a first-rate teacher. He published his masterpiece The Principles of Psychology in 1890. In 1902, he published The Varieties of Religious Experience. His last book was A Pluralistic Universe (1909), published a year before his death and based on a series of lectures given at the University of Oxford. Whereas James’s philosophy fulfilled a personal need, over the course of the twentieth century Pragmatism played a key role in several areas. In the area of reform politics, the midcentury American educator John Dewey directly used James’s ideas in the construction of his creed of instrumentalism. It is not an exaggeration to state that the ideas of pragmatism expressed the essence of progressivism and other twentieth century democratic creeds. Dewey’s instrumentalism was a secular, social, and reform adaptation of James’s pragmatism. It is interesting to note that James came to construct his philosophy through the study of Immanuel Kant, whereas Dewey began his philosophical journeys with the study of Georg Hegel. Politicians of the twentieth century often misrepresented their own opportunism as expressions of toughminded pragmatism. Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, for example, invoked James’s philosophy in seeking out intellectual support for his policies. During U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a camp for the government-sponsored self-help organization the Civilian Conservation Corps was named after James; this second example of the political use of James’s prestige, however, was much closer to the spirit of the philosopher’s thought. Pragmatism’s relationship to formal philosophical developments was more complex. James was an “antifoundational” thinker; he rejected René Descartes’s ef-
Publication of James’s Pragmatism
Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States along with A Pluralistic Universe and other occasional pieces. A good starting point for understanding James’s ideas. Kloppenberg, James T. Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. The best general history of the ideas of the period. Provides a meaningful context for pragmatism and an explanation of how and why the philosophy came into being. Provides good historical reasons pragmatism was destined to be the creed underlying much American reform. Kuklick, Bruce. The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989. This history of the Harvard University Department of Philosophy reveals how James came to be a professional philosopher and what his legacies were to the school. A rich account of James and his contemporaries; basic to any understanding of James and his world. Lewis, R. W. B. The Jameses. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991. A massive achievement, this book is a full treatment of the James family. Reveals how the individual members related to one another and how they turned their family experiences into the literary, artistic, and philosophical products of their adult years. A balanced treatment of this remarkable group of people.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Marcell, David W. Progress and Pragmatism. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. Traces the impact and consequences of pragmatism on the thought of various reformers and reforms. The creed was often an American expression of the idea of progress. This book clearly illustrates how pragmatism was in the American grain. A clear statement about the importance of pragmatism in the history of ideas. Myers, Gerald E. William James: His Life and Thought. 1986. Reprint. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. With a fine balance between biographical description and textual analysis, this work presents the whole man in all of his achievements. Some readers might quarrel with some of Myers’s observations, but this book is one of the best single-volume biographies of James written in the past fifty years. An invaluable source for understanding James as man and philosopher. Simon, Linda. Genuine Reality: A Life of William James. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 1998. One of few full-scale biographies of James. Covers the principal events and relationships in James’s life, including his travels, the influences of his family, and his contributions to philosophy. Includes bibliography and index. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education.
January 16, 1907-February 14, 1912
Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States When Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona achieved statehood, they completed the expansion of the contiguous United States and brought regions that had been territories and frontiers to a status equal to that of the other forty-five states. Locale: Oklahoma; New Mexico; Arizona Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; government and politics Key Figures William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 George W. P. Hunt (1859-1934), first governor of the state of Arizona, 1912-1917 594
Charles Nathaniel Haskell (1860-1933), first governor of the state of Oklahoma, 1907-1911 William C. McDonald (1858-1918), first governor of the state of New Mexico, 1912-1917 Summary of Event The United States of America expanded to include fortyeight contiguous states when first Oklahoma (in 1907) and then both New Mexico and Arizona (in 1912) became states. All three states had at one time been designated as territories, and, as such, they were controlled by principles established by the Continental Congress’s Northwest Ordinance of 1787. This ordinance was originally drawn up to apply to the region known as the Old Northwest (lands north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River). It stated that a district with a free
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The area that is now Arizona was also part of this new territory. In 1853, the land south of the Gila River was acquired through the Gadsden Purchase and became part of the New Mexico Territory. New Mexico had tried to achieve statehood as early as 1876. Because of concerns about civil rights legislation, however, New Mexico’s periodic bids for statehood were denied for more than three decades. In June, 1910, President William Howard Taft signed a bill authorizing the New Mexico Territory to call a constitutional convention, and that October, delegates from every county in the territory met in Santa Fe to draw up a constitution approved by voters on January 21, 1911. New Mexico became a state on January 6, 1912, with William C. McDonald as its first governor. Arizona’s journey to statehood was just as bumpy as New Mexico’s. In 1856, six years after its region became part of the New Mexico Territory, its citizens petitioned the federal government to become a separate territory. After some postponements, the Civil War, and preoccupation with establishing viable railroad routes to bountiful California, territorial status was given to Arizona in 1863. For nearly fifty years, the citizens of Arizona tried to gain statehood. Finally, in 1910 they were authorized by Congress to draft a constitution. When the constitution, approved by the citizens, was sent to Congress and the president for approval, President Taft refused to grant his consent because the constitution included a clause that permitted the recall of any officials, including judges. Taft, perhaps because of his own background as lawyer and judge, was opposed to the recall of judges, and he would not approve Arizona’s application for statehood as long as the recall clause was included in the constitution. The Arizonans, eager for statehood, removed the clause, and Taft approved the revised constitution. Arizona became the forty-eighth state on February 14, 1912; its first governor was George W. P. Hunt. One of the first acts of the newly elected Arizona legislature was to put the removed clause about recalling judges to the state’s voters. The voters approved the measure, and the clause was returned to the constitution. The voters also gave women the right to vote in all elections on the local, state, and national levels. Significance Even before 1907, the United States had expanded its domain from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. However, there were still areas classified as territories that, as such, created continual dilemmas for the federal government. The govern595
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male population of five thousand would be considered sufficiently settled for the federal government to appoint a governor to administer its business and provide for a locally elected legislature. Once the district or territory reached a population of sixty thousand, it could write its own constitution and apply to Congress for statehood. As long as the constitution guaranteed certain civil liberties, provided for some kind of public education for the state’s citizens, and made certain concessions about slavery, there was little likelihood that the application for statehood would be denied. Oklahoma became a territory in 1890 after some sixty thousand settlers participated in a land run into what was then Indian Territory set aside for the Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole. Another land run in 1893 saw one hundred thousand homesteaders move onto approximately six million acres of Cherokee land. The 1887 Dawes Act, or Indian General Allotment Act, gave the federal government the right to parcel out 160-acre plots of Indian Territory land to individual Native Americans. This allowed the government to open up the rest of the unassigned land for settlement by non-Indians. In 1896, Greer County, Texas, was added to the Oklahoma Territory. As the territory became settled, so many accusations of fraud, cheating, and instances of preferential treatment (mostly involving land developers) occurred that the land had to be distributed by lottery. Oklahoma’s cattle business had begun to burgeon, and there was promise of a lucrative oil industry. The population grew with the influx of non-Indian settlers to the territory looking for the proverbial pot of gold—or at least a better life than they had experienced elsewhere. The population increased beyond the size needed to apply for statehood, and the Native American tribes decided to throw in their lot with the non-Indian citizens and press for statehood. In 1907, the combined population of the Oklahoma and Indian Territories was about fifteen million. They applied for and were granted statehood, and Charles Nathaniel Haskell became the first governor of the forty-sixth state. They chose the name Oklahoma, which derives from two Choctaw words: okla, meaning “people,” and humma, meaning “red.” New Mexico and Arizona became the forty-seventh and forty-eighth states, respectively, in 1912. The New Mexico lands had been annexed from Mexico in 1846, and a temporary government was set up under U.S. Army colonel Stephen Kearney. In 1850, the lands were organized into the New Mexico Territory after it was ceded to the United States by Mexico following the Mexican War.
Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States
Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States
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ment could use its territorial lands to raise revenues by selling land and encouraging settlement in the areas. However, it also had to deal with the get-rich-quick schemes of unscrupulous land speculators and greedy land companies that snapped up huge parcels of land for their own self-serving purposes. Moreover, the government had the responsibility of appointing governors and judges for the territories and for approving any legislation passed by the territorial assemblies. Thus it was very much to the federal government’s advantage to have the territories settled by populations large enough to allow them to achieve statehood. Once the last continental territories became the states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, the burden of administration was shifted to the new states, while the flow of state revenues was readily regulated and collected. Diverse groups of settlers—whites, African Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, and European immigrants—all flocked to the new states, and these hardworking, ambitious, innovative, and creative Americans helped rebuild the country, which was still recovering from the Civil War. The growth of railroad lines, widespread commercial infrastructure, farming productivity, and increased industry helped make the new states appealing places to live and strengthened national pride. —Jane L. Ball
as Indian Territory and the cultural, political, social, and industrial concerns of both the territory and the state. Farrand, Max. Legislation of Congress for the Government of the Organized Territories of the United States, 1789-1895. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2000. Discusses how the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 applied to the territorial governments and how the administration of the territories varied over time. Gonzales-Berry, Erlinda, and David Maciel, eds. The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. An anthology of twelve historical essays that examine New Mexico’s nineteenth and twentieth century history from a Chicano perspective. Sheridan, Thomas E. Arizona: A History. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995. Covers the history of Arizona from its earliest Native American inhabitants to modern times, with particular attention to its commercial and industrial enterprises. Willoughby, William F. Territories and Dependencies of the United States: Their Government and Administration. New York: Century Press, 1905. Discusses the administration of U.S. territories as well as the history and structure of territorial governments.
Further Reading Dale, Edward Everett. History of Oklahoma. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948. Covers the early history of Oklahoma from the time of Spanish and French claimants through the period of its designation as a territory, its formation as a state, and into the mid-twentieth century. Chapters are devoted to the state’s earlier status
See also: June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913: Expansion of Direct Democracy; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition; June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence; June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated.
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January 26, 1907 THE PLAYBOY OF THE
The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences
WESTERN WORLD Offends Irish Audiences
Locale: Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland Category: Theater Key Figures John Millington Synge (1871-1909), Irish playwright William George Fay (1872-1947), Irish actor and director William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and dramatist and Abbey Theatre founder Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932), Irish patron of the arts who was instrumental in the creation of the Abbey Theatre Summary of Event By the time The Playboy of the Western World opened at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre on January 26, 1907, the young Irish National Theatre Society already had staged three of John Millington Synge’s plays, two of which provoked hostile reactions that foreshadowed the troubles that would beset his fourth work. In 1903, his first play, the one-act In the Shadow of the Glen, was denounced as being libelous of women and for having been derived from pagan, anti-Christian works, although it was essentially a dramatization of a story Synge had heard in the Aran Islands. The following year, Riders to the Sea (pb. 1903), also a one-act work, was the only Synge play not subjected to audience attacks during his lifetime; its 1904 opening was uneventful, probably because the play does not deal with the conflicting demands of individuals and society. Irish nationalists were offended, however, by his third play, The Well of the Saints (pr. 1905), which was damned as un-Irish. Annoyed by the attacks on his work, Synge decided to retaliate; he reportedly remarked to a friend, “Very well, then, the next play I write I will make sure will annoy them.” Actually, he had been trying for seven years to fashion a drama out of another Aran story, writing at least ten drafts and revising each many times; he went through thirteen rewrites of the third act alone before finally completing The Playboy of the Western World. When William George Fay, an Abbey Theatre director and actor, read the finished manuscript, he thought audiences
would be offended, particularly because of the depiction of women, but the play was staged as written. The action spans twenty-four hours at Michael James Flaherty’s pub (or “shebeen”) in western Ireland’s rural Country Mayo. Pegeen Mike, Flaherty’s daughter and publican in his absence, is attractive, quick-witted, and independent. Betrothed to her cousin Shawn Keogh, a boorish farmer, she is planning her trousseau, but she treats Shawn scornfully while they await a church dispensation to marry. Just before Flaherty and others leave for an all-night wake, a stranger arrives, “a slight young man . . . very tired and frightened and dirty.” The man, named Christy Mahon, claims to be a fugitive fleeing the authorities after having murdered his father, “a dirty man . . . old and crusty,” by hitting him over the head with a club. Instead of turning on Christy, the men praise his bravery and fearlessness; they leave him with Pegeen and go to the wake, confident that she is safe “with a man killed his father holding danger from the door.” Flaherty decides that Christy’s success in eluding the police is evidence that the authorities must fear him, so he hires Christy, ostensibly as “pot-boy” but really in hopes that his presence may deter the police from snooping into the publican’s illegal operations. Left alone, Christy and Pegeen are attracted to each other, but the Widow Quin unexpectedly appears; she is a nosy harridan of about thirty who is believed to have murdered her husband. The widow wants to take Christy home, ostensibly because of the impropriety of the young people being alone, but really because she has designs on him. Christy decides to remain at the pub, so Pegeen forces the widow out and then tells him she “wouldn’t wed [Shawn] if a bishop came walking for to join us here.” Settling in for the night, an increasingly confident Christy marvels about “two fine women fighting for the likes of me” and tells himself “wasn’t I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by.” In the morning, girls bearing gifts come to the pub to meet the “man killed his father,” and they are joined by the Widow Quin, who asks Christy how he came to murder his father. Savoring the attention, he tells how his father wanted him to marry “a woman of noted misbehavior,” a “walking terror” of “two score and five years.” When he refused, the older man threatened him with a scythe, and Christy raised a club and “hit a blow on the ridge of his skull, laid him stretched out, and he split to the knob of his gullet.” The credulous women bless him, 597
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The first audiences to see John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World were offended by the play’s language and depiction of Irish peasants, especially women, and they hissed and rioted throughout its weeklong run.
The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences call him a marvel, and drink to him, one of “the wonders of the western world.” Obviously smitten with the newcomer, Pegeen warns Christy against bragging about the murder and reveals that the authorities have no report of it. Shawn attempts to get rid of his rival by bribing Christy with a ticket to America and sundry articles of clothing. Making no commitment, Christy borrows the clothes for the sporting events of the day and is delighted with himself, preening and strutting, and convinced he has found an ideal new home. He is then staggered by what appears to be “the walking spirit of my murdered da.” Old Mahon, his head swathed in bandages and plaster and very much alive, tells the Widow Quin about his son, the very antithesis of the swaggering ladies’ man Christy has become. She does not betray Christy but sends Old Mahon on a wildgoose chase. Although scandalized by Christy’s unforgiving attitude toward his father, she again woos the youth, but he is determined to win Pegeen, so Quin promises her silence for a small payoff. Later, when some of the men return from Kate Cassidy’s wake, Old Mahon also comes back to the shebeen and tells his tale, but cheers for “the champion Playboy of the Western World” interrupt him. His son, it seems, is victor in the beach mule race; the others convince Christy’s father that he is mad and send him away. Christy comes in, and, when the crowd leaves, he proposes to Pegeen. A drunk Flaherty, supported by Shawn, finally comes home from the wake, with news that the dispensation has come from Rome. When Pegeen says she intends to wed Christy, Shawn—prodded by Flaherty— pleads his case, which provokes Christy to threaten: “Take yourself from this, young fellow, or I’ll maybe add a murder to my deeds to-day.” Shawn flees, and Flaherty decides that perhaps Christy would be a better son-inlaw; after all, he says, a “daring fellow is the jewel of the world.” This celebration ends with Old Mahon’s return, followed by a crowd of supporters; in the ensuing turmoil, Christy chases his father outside, club in hand. He returns alone, in a daze, and the men confirm that Old Mahon has been killed. Pegeen, her father, and a newly emboldened Shawn tie up Christy and secure him to a table; when he protests and threatens, Pegeen tortures him with burning sod. Into this melee crawls Old Mahon, again back from the dead. He unties his wayward son, and the reconciled pair leave together, Christy pausing for a valediction: “Ten thousand blessings upon all that’s here, for you’ve turned me a likely gaffer in the end of all, the way I’ll go romancing through a romping lifetime from this hour to 598
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the dawning of the judgment day.” The last words of the play, however, are Pegeen’s; after dismissing Shawn (who assumes they now will marry), she breaks into wild lamentations: “Oh my grief, I’ve lost him surely. I’ve lost the only Playboy of the Western World.” Among the play’s characters, only Christy and Pegeen are dynamic, fundamentally changed by their experiences; the others are static. When he first arrives, Christy is shy, a frightened young man in a strange place; pressed into telling his story of patricide, he becomes a hero to the country folk, who admire, indeed envy, his daring. This first heroic pose, to be sure, is a sham, convincing though it is to the crowd; but his successive triumphs—athletic and amorous—unify appearance and reality, and when he leaves with his father at the end, Christy is a different person. He is the “gallant captain,” Old Mahon “his heathen slave”; the son is “master of all fights from now.” Pegeen, materialistic and realistic, is the only one of the shebeen group who appreciates the dimensions of their experiences. She sees that just as Christy’s arrival brought a measure of needed romance to a depressed community, so his departure causes the debilitating despair to return. In other words, her enlightenment presages gloom, whereas Christy’s circular journey from home and back is one of self-discovery and concomitant growth. As for the others, they first embrace Christy as a wayward adventurer whose story of far-off heroism is enticing, but they turn on him when he tries to kill his father again on their turf, for such a deadly reality in their midst is more than they can accept. Once he is gone, his story will be part of the local myth, a twenty-four-hour interlude to sustain their imagination but the significance of which they do not understand. Significance “Play great success” read the telegram sent to William Butler Yeats (an Abbey director and defender of Synge’s works) after the first act of The Playboy of the Western World on its opening night, for the audience had applauded at the first curtain. The judgment was premature, however, because during the third act there was hissing, and a wire to Yeats later that night reported: “Audience broke up in disorder at the word shift.” The play was scheduled for a week, and the Abbey was determined to meet its commitment; according to Lady Augusta Gregory, another director, “It was a definite fight for freedom from mob censorship.” Indeed, there were mobs the rest of the week. At the second performance, an organized group of forty men with tin trumpets drowned out the actors be-
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The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences
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lenge this credo in The Playboy of the Western World, ginning with the second act (the cast continued, unand fiercely nationalistic theatergoers were so offended heard). Police had been called, but they merely stood by that they failed to see beneath the surface to the substanand watched. On subsequent evenings, however, suptive dramatic greatness of his work. porters of the play (mainly from Trinity College) tangled Synge was not discouraged by his masterpiece’s hoswith the trumpet-bearing protesters, so the police intertile reception, however. In a letter to his fiancé after the vened, and newspapers reported each day of trials before play’s tumultuous opening night, he wrote, “It is better magistrates who invariably were unfamiliar with Synge’s any day to have the row we had last night, than to have provocative play. The Dublin press clearly fanned the your play fizzling out in half-hearted applause.” flames of the controversy, with one newspaper review —Gerald H. Strauss calling the play an “unmitigated, protracted libel upon Irish peasant men and, worse still upon Irish peasant girlFurther Reading hood. . . . No adequate idea can be given of the barbarous Bloom, Harold, ed. John Millington Synge’s “The Playjargon, the elaborate and incessant cursing of these reboy of the Western World.” New York: Chelsea pulsive creatures.” House, 1988. Eight studies of the play follow the ediThe audience had many problems with the play. They tor’s introductory essay on the relationship between did not like the Widow Quin, a murderer of a different sort from Christy, although his seemingly coldhearted second attempt to kill Old Mahon was difficult for Synge’s Earthy Poetry them to accept. They also objected to In his brief preface to the published version of The Playboy of the Western Christy’s biting of Shawn’s leg in World, John Millington Synge asserts that the play realistically depicts the the third act. Pegeen’s burning of poetic language and imagination of the common people of Ireland. The prefChristy also bothered spectators, who ace is dated January 21, 1907—prior to the play’s negative reception at its considered the act a meanness unbeDublin opening. coming a woman (and inconsistent with her character). What most proIn writing The Playboy of the Western World . . . I have used one or two words voked the audience, however, was only that I have not heard among the country people of Ireland, or spoken in Christy’s comment that he would not my own nursery before I could read the newspapers. A certain number of the “care if you brought me a drift of chophrases I employ I have heard also from herds and fishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, or from beggar-women and ballad-singers nearer Dublin; sen females, standing in their shifts and I am glad to acknowledge how much I owe to the folk imagination of these itself.” The offensive word here is fine people. Anyone who has lived in real intimacy with the Irish peasantry will “shifts”; this reference to women’s know that the wildest sayings and ideas in this play are tame indeed, compared undergarments was viewed as dewith the fancies one may hear in any little hillside cabin in Geesala, or meaning the traditional, idealized Carraroe, or Dingle Bay. All art is a collaboration; and there is little doubt that view of Irish womanhood. It also rein the happy ages of literature, striking and beautiful phrases were as ready to called the use of a shift as a symbol the story-teller’s or the playwright’s hand, as the rich cloaks and dresses of his years earlier to mock Charles Stewtime. It is probable that when the Elizabethan dramatist took his ink-horn and art Parnell, the Irish nationalist leader sat down to his work he used many phrases that he had just heard, as he sat at whose political career was destroyed dinner, from his mother or his children. In Ireland, those of us who know the because of his adultery. people have the same privilege. . . . This matter, I think, is of importance, for in countries where the imagination of the people, and the language they use, is Such objections to characterizarich and living, it is possible for a writer to be rich and copious in his words, and tions, language, and actions are perat the same time to give the reality, which is the root of all poetry, in a comprehaps more clearly understood in the hensive and natural form. . . . On the stage one must have reality, and one must light of this statement from the manihave joy. . . . In a good play every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or festo of the Irish National Theatre apple, and such speeches cannot be written by anyone who works among peoSociety: “We will show that Ireland ple who have shut their lips on poetry. is not the home of buffoonery and of Source: John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World: A Comedy in easy sentiment, as it has been repreThree Acts (Boston: J. W. Luce, 1911). sented, but the home of an ancient idealism.” Synge seemed to chal-
Romanian Peasant Revolt Christy’s self-transformation and his language. The varied pieces are far-ranging in their approaches to character, meaning, and genre. Gerstenberger, Donna. John Millington Synge. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1990. A thorough evaluation and analysis of the full range of Synge’s work, including his poetry and prose as well as his drama. Also functions as a sound biography. The chapter on The Playboy of the Western World discusses the play’s genesis, the first performances, later productions, and its U.S. reception. Gonzalez, Alexander G., ed. Assessing the Achievement of J. M. Synge. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996. Collection of fourteen essays on Synge’s plays reaffirms their relevance for contemporary audiences and readers. Gregory, Lady Augusta. Our Irish Theatre. New York: Capricorn, 1965. First published in 1913, these reminiscences by a leader of the Irish national theater movement are useful for chapters on Synge and The Playboy of the Western World, including one on the 1911-1912 American performances. Of special interest is an appendix that reprints U.S. newspaper accounts of the controversial American tour. Grene, Nicholas. Synge: A Critical Study of the Plays. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1975. Introductory chapters on Ireland in general and the Aran Islands in particular provide useful background and place Synge’s plays in their proper context. The chap-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ter on The Playboy of the Western World is unusually frank about ambiguities of meaning that confront a critic while at the same time being thorough and balanced. McCormack, W. J. Fool of the Family: A Life of J. M. Synge. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Biography of Synge draws in large part on previously unpublished material. Places Synge and his work in the context of the complex religious and social environment in which he wrote. Skelton, Robin. J. M. Synge. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1972. By the general editor of Synge’s collected works. This brief book, which begins with a short biographical sketch, has a helpful chapter in which The Playboy of the Western World is compared with other Synge plays. Whitaker, Thomas R., comp. Twentieth Century Interpretations of “The Playboy of the Western World.” Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Beginning with classic studies of Synge and his plays by William Butler Yeats and Una Ellis-Fermor as background, this collection reprints essays that present varied views of Christy, Synge’s idiom, and his themes. Of special interest is the piece by Cyril Cusack, the Abbey Theatre director and actor. See also: Dec. 27, 1904: Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival; 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole.
March, 1907
Romanian Peasant Revolt Peasants in Romania revolted against high rents and lack of personal property. Many of their attacks were against Jewish landlords of gentry-owned land. The army crushed the revolt. Locale: Romania Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics Key Figures Dimitrie Alexandru Sturdza (1833-1914), Liberal prime minister of Romania at time of the revolt Alexandru Averescu (1859-1938), commander of the Romanian army who put down the revolt Vasile Kogalniceanu (1863-1941), Walachian reformer and author of the Peasant’s Gazette 600
Carol I (1839-1914), prince of Romania, 1866-1881, and king, r. 1881-1914 Iuliu Maniu (1873-1953), leader of the National Peasant Party and prime minister of Romania, 19281930, 1930, and 1932-1933 Summary of Event Romania was formed from the provinces of Walachia and Moldavia in 1858 and gained its independence from Turkey in 1878. At the time of its creation, it was divided among the peasant masses (who constituted 80 percent of the population), the landed gentry (who owned half the farmland), and the urban bourgeoisie. Almost two-thirds of the peasants had no land or inadequate holdings. There were also large numbers of non-Romanians, many of
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Romanian Peasant Revolt
Romania, 1907
March 15, 1907, near Botsai. A huge peasant army arose and marched on Iasi, the Moldavian capital. Romanian troops met the peasants but reRussian e r treated as the masses advanced. Agikolc i p Empire Em including Orthodox priests, K tators, Botosani n egged the peasants on, claiming that a i Isli the rebellion was a holy war between M Christians and Jews. (Many of the Cluj Odess leaseholders were Jewish.) In one Bacau Tr a n s y l v a n i a notorious case in several of eastern Arad Romania’s Moldavian counties, three-quarters of the land called Timisoara Fischerland was leased by the AusBraila trian Jewish Fischer family. In Târgovilte R o m a n i a Wa l ac March of 1907, Mochi Fischer reTurnu Severin hi a fused to sign contracts with his tenBlack Bucharest ade ants, whose fears that they would be Craiova Serbia Constanca Sea pushed off their farms led them to revolt. In fact, only one-quarter of the haylovgrad Pleven B u l g a r i a leaseholders were Jews, and the Ot tom peasants attacked all the estates rean Empire Varna gardless of the ethnicity or religion Burgas of the lessee. Shops were vandalized throughout the region, and the revolt whom were Jews or Roma (also known as Romany, an rapidly spread through Moldavia and into Walachia. itinerant group from northern India sometimes referred The uprising was not the first manifestation of peasant to as Gypsies). Power was divided between the gentry, discontent. In fact, professors and statesmen had prewho controlled the Conservative Party, and the urban dicted the jacquerie of 1888, and Spiru Haret, the Liberal merchants and industrialists, who ran the Liberal Party. Party’s minister of education, warned of the political Before 1914, the peasants had no voice and little land of danger of a seething, uneducated peasantry in 1905. The their own, and they were forced to work as hired labor or liberal author Constantine Stere from Bessarabia, which tenants on the great estates that belonged to the gentry was part of Russia at the time, defended the peasant cause and absentee landlords. The gentry leased the land to in the pages of the journal Viata romanescu. The peasindividuals and corporations that recouped profits by ants, he argued, enabled Romania to increase its grain excharging high rents. High taxes and the drought of 1906 ports by 600 percent, but they were forced to live in bleak poverty and to pay unreasonably high rents and taxes. made conditions worse for the peasants. Initially, the rioting in Walachia was not as furious as On February 21, 1907, the peasants began a series of in the east, but teachers and priests urged protesters to delarge meetings in northern Moldavia, where they drew mand land reform. Vasile Kogalniceanu, son of the faup petitions of grievances. Peasant movements were mous statesman Michael Kogalniceanu and an advocate growing throughout Eastern Europe, especially in neighof peasant education and the cooperative movement, beboring Bulgaria, where Alexander Stamboliski turned came the ideological spokesman for the revolt. He wrote the Peasant Union into the country’s most popular politia pamphlet called the Peasant’s Gazette, which outlined cal party. Alongside the peasant parties and associations, a land-reform program and summarized the struggles a growing cooperative movement appeared in Eastern that had taken place in Moldavia. The publication of the European economies that sought to eliminate the need Peasant’s Gazette catalyzed mobilization among the for middlemen in business. Romania, which remained in peasants in Walachia, and it inspired revolutionary acthe grip of the gentry and bourgeoisie, lagged behind on tion and military reprisals that were even greater than both accounts. those in Moldavia. Anarchist manifestos circulated, and The first signs of Romanian rebellion occurred on
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Romanian Peasant Revolt the situation became increasingly complicated for the Conservative government of Gheorghe Cantacuzino when his foreign minister, General Alexander Lahovary, died on the fifteenth day of rioting. The prime minister and the party’s parliamentary leader, Take Ionescu, argued over the best way to deal with the situation until Cantacuzino resigned on March 25, 1907. King Carol I turned the reins of power over to the Liberal Party, appointing Dimitrie Alexandru Sturdza prime minister. Sturdza declared a state of emergency and ordered the army, which was commanded by General Alexandru Averescu, to regain control. Four thousand peasants marched toward the capital, while others burned the estates of some of the greatest landowners in the provinces. Averescu declared that the country was under a state of siege and placed 140,000 troops around Bucharest. He also had guards stationed at the banks. In the parliament, Peter Carp, a renowned author from the gentry and leader of the Young Conservatives, called for the government to take draconian measures against the peasants, and the representatives passed legislation calling for an end to the violence. Averescu divided the country into military regions and prepared to attack the peasants with rapidly moving flying battalions and mounted artillery. One hundred thousand peasants, armed with guns, axes, scythes, and hammers, engaged the troops in pitched battles. Although the peasant soldiers were reluctant to fire on their own, the officers were quick to take disciplinary measures, and the army was unforgiving in its reprisals. In only three days, whole villages were destroyed and ten thousand peasants were killed. Meanwhile, Austrian and Russian troops assembled on the borders. The revolt was quelled by the middle of April, but by that time more than eleven thousand peasants had been killed and another ten thousand arrested. In fact, because the king ordered the records destroyed to protect the political leaders, the exact numbers of those killed are unknown. The government arrested peasant advocates such as Vasile Kogalniceanu and the noted historian Professor Nicolae Iorga, and other activists were deported. The government recognized that the peasants required some measure of recompense, and so the Romanian parliament passed a land-reform bill that distributed four million hectares in lots ranging from one to more than sixty hectares. The gentry and landlords, however, still held three million hectares. The government also introduced laws regulating child labor and minimum wage laws, established a bank that specialized in lending money to peasants, and created district councils with peasant rep602
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 resentatives. Still, many considered the reforms to be insufficient, and several of them were made less effective by later legislation. Significance The revolt and the inadequacy of the reforms it inspired encouraged the growth of the peasant movement in Romania, especially after World War I, when Transylvania became part of the country, and the charismatic Iuliu Maniu made the National Peasant Party a powerful force in Romanian politics. General Averescu served as prime minister of Romania for two brief periods after World War I. After the war, the government introduced more radical land-reform efforts that took a great deal of land from the Hungarian gentry in Transylvania. This exacerbated the tense relationship between the Romanian and Hungarian governments, and most farmers still had inadequate holdings. The world depression made the peasants’ situation even more desperate. The anti-Semitism displayed during the 1907 revolt grew during the period between world wars. While Maniu himself was not an anti-Semite, other anti-Semitic peasant parties appeared, as did the fascist Iron Guard. From 1930 to 1941, this political group operated killing centers in Romania, making it the only country other than Germany that allowed state-sponsored murder. In addition, the government passed various anti-Semitic laws, but since Romania was allied with Germany in World War II, a large number of Jews from Moldavia and Walachia were able to survive and emigrate to Israel. After 1967’s Six-Day War in Israel, Romania broke ranks with the Soviet Union by maintaining diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. —Frederick B. Chary Further Reading Eidelberg, Philip Gabriel. The Great Romanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern Jacquerie. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1974. The best English monograph on the revolt. Concentrates on the causes and circumstances surrounding the revolt rather than the events. Ilincioiu, Ion, ed. The Great Romanian Peasant Revolt of 1907. Bucharest, Hungary: Editura Academiei Romane, 1991. Acollection of documents and articles on the events. Klepper, Nicolae. Romania: An Illustrated History. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2002. An excellent study of the country with more than eighty illustrations, maps, and charts. Ideal for students and others interested in learning about Romania. Chapter 8 covers
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den, Conn.: Archon Books, 1963. Classic work provides detailed descriptions of events. See also: Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government; Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities; Nov. 16, 1919: Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary; Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine.
March 14, 1907
Gentlemen’s Agreement The Gentlemen’s Agreement limited immigration from Japan to the mainland United States to nonlaborers, laborers already settled in the United States, and their families. Locale: United States; Japan Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; business and labor; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures Hayashi Tadasu (1850-1913), Japan’s foreign minister Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Elihu Root (1845-1937), U.S. secretary of state Aoki Shuzo (1844-1914), Japanese ambassador to the United States Luke E. Wright (1846-1922), American ambassador to Japan Summary of Event From 1638 to 1854, Japan maintained a policy of isolation from the rest of the world, both to preserve peace, which it had not enjoyed for several hundred years, and to protect Japanese cultural values and feudal institutions from foreign influence. This long period of seclusion changed in 1852, when Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Yedo, Japan, to deliver a letter from U.S. president Millard Fillmore to the emperor. Diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States began on March 31, 1854, when a treaty was signed opening two Japanese ports to U.S. ships and permitting the United States to receive any future concessions that might be granted to other powers. For the next thirty years, trade flourished between the two countries. A treaty of commerce and navigation in 1884 retained the most-favorednation clause in all commercial matters.
Until 1868, Japan prohibited all emigration. Without obtaining their government’s permission to leave Japan, a group of Japanese laborers, the gannenmono (first-year people), arrived in Hawaii on May 17, 1868. Japan was in transition during the 1870’s and 1880’s. During the Meiji Restoration period following the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867), Japan’s economy and government had been modernized extensively. However, rapid industrialization in urban areas was not accompanied by similar developments in agricultural areas. By 1884, overpopulation, compounded with high unemployment, conditions of drought, crop failure, and famine, had engendered political upheaval and rioting. These changed circumstances led to the legalization of emigration in 1885. The first Japanese immigrants who arrived in California in 1871 were mostly middle-class young men seeking opportunities to study or improve their economic status. By 1880, there were 148 resident Japanese in the United States. Their numbers increased to 1,360 in 1891, including 281 laborers and 172 farmers. A treaty between the United States and Japan in 1894 ensured mutual free entry, although it allowed limitations on immigration based on domestic interests. By 1900, the number of Japanese recorded in the U.S. Census had increased to 24,326. They arrived at ports on the Pacific coast and settled primarily in the Pacific states and British Columbia. An increase in the demand for Hawaiian sugar in turn increased the demand for plantation labor, especially Japanese labor. An era of government-contract labor began in 1884, ending only with the U.S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898. Sixty thousand Japanese in the islands then became eligible to enter the United States without passports. Between 1899 and 1906, it is estimated that between forty thousand and fifty-seven thousand Japanese moved to the United States via Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico. 603
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the peasant revolt. The author was born in Romania. Pop, Ioan Aurel. Romanians and Romania: A Brief History. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1999. Brief but comprehensive history of Romania from ancient to modern times. Written from a conceptual point of view. Seton-Watson, Robert W. History of the Roumanians from Roman Times to the Completion of Unity. Ham-
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Gentlemen’s Agreement On the Pacific coast, tensions developed between Asians and other Californians. Although the Japanese immigrant workforce was initially welcomed, antagonism increased as the immigrants began to compete with U.S. labor. The emerging trade union movement advocated a restriction of immigration. An earlier campaign against the Chinese had culminated in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for ten years. This act constituted the first U.S. law barring immigration based on race or nationality. A similar campaign was instigated against the Japanese. On March 1, 1905, both houses of the California state legislature voted to urge California’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., to pursue the limitation of Japanese immigrants. At a meeting in San Francisco on May 7, 1905, delegates from sixtyseven organizations launched the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, known also as the Asian Exclusion League and as the Japanese Exclusion League. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was involved in the peace negotiations between Japan and Russia, observed the developing situation in California. George Kennan, who was covering the Russo-Japanese War, wrote to the president: It isn’t the exclusion of a few emigrants that hurts here. . . it’s the putting of Japanese below Hungarians, Italians, Syrians, Polish Jews, and degraded nondescripts from all parts of Europe and Western Asia. No proud, high spirited and victorious people will submit to such a classification as that, especially when it is made with insulting reference to personal character and habits.
Roosevelt agreed, saying he was mortified that people in the United States should insult the Japanese. He continued to play a pivotal role in resolving the JapaneseRussian differences at the Portsmouth Peace Conference. Anti-Japanese feeling waned somewhat until April, 1906, when, following the San Francisco earthquake, an outbreak of crime occurred that included many cases of assault against Japanese. A boycott of Japanese restaurants was also organized. The Japanese viewed these acts as especially reprehensible. Their government and Red Cross had contributed more relief for San Francisco after the earthquake than all other foreign nations combined. Tensions escalated. The Asian Exclusion League, membership in which was estimated to be 78,500 in California, together with San Francisco’s mayor, pressured the San Francisco school board to segregate Japanese schoolchildren. On October 11, 1906, the board passed 604
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 its resolution. A protest filed by the Japanese consul was denied. Japan protested that the act violated mostfavored-nation treatment. In Tokyo, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Luke E. Wright, reported Japan’s extremely negative feelings about the matter to U.S. secretary of state Elihu Root. This crisis in Japanese-American relations brought the countries to the brink of war. On October 25, Japan’s ambassador, Aoki Shuzo, met with Root to seek a solution. President Roosevelt, who recognized the justification of the Japanese protest based on the 1894 treaty, sent his secretary of commerce and labor to San Francisco on October 26 to investigate the matter. In his message to Congress on December 4, President Roosevelt paid tribute to Japan and strongly rebuked San Francisco for its anti-Japanese acts. He encouraged Congress to pass an act that would allow naturalization of the Japanese in the United States. Roosevelt’s statements and request pleased Japan but aroused further resentment on the Pacific coast. During the previous twelve months, more than seventeen thousand Japanese had entered the mainland United States, two-thirds coming by way of Hawaii. Roosevelt recognized that the basic cause of the unrest in California—the increasing inflow of Japanese laborers—could be resolved only through the limitation of immigration. Negotiations with Japan to limit the entry of Japanese laborers began in late December, 1906. Three issues were involved: the rescinding of the segregation order by the San Francisco school board, the withholding of passports to the mainland United States by the Japanese government, and the closing of immigration channels through Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico by federal legislation. The Hawaiian issue, which related to an earlier Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1900, was the first resolved through the diplomacy of Japan’s foreign minister, Hayashi Tadasu, the American and Japanese ambassadors, and Secretary of State Root. Before Japan would agree to discuss immigration to the mainland, it was necessary for the segregation order to be withdrawn. In February, 1907, President Roosevelt invited San Francisco’s entire board of education, the mayor, and a city superintendent of schools to Washington, D.C., to confer on the segregation issue and other problems related to Japan. On February 18, a pending immigration bill was amended to prevent Japanese laborers from entering the United States via Hawaii, Mexico, or Canada. Assured that immigration of Japanese laborers would be stopped, the school board rescinded its segregation order on March 13. An executive order issued by the president on March
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Significance As reported by the commissioner general of immigration in 1908, in accordance with the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, the Japanese government issued passports for travel to the continental United States only to nonlaborers; laborers who were former residents of the United States; parents, wives, or children of residents; and “settled agriculturalists.” A final provision prevented secondary immigration into the United States by way of Hawaii, Mexico, or Canada. Because of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, new supplies of Japanese labor were cut off, and many employers in Hawaii and California recruited Filipinos to take their place. Filipinos were also recruited to work in the Alaskan fishing industry. As U.S. nationals, Filipinos could not be prevented from migrating to the United States. Aside from the issue of labor supplies, the events that led up to the signing of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, in particular the San Francisco school board’s actions, contributed to long-term tensions between Japan and the United States. —Susan E. Hamilton Further Reading Boddy, E. Manchester. Japanese in America. 1921. Reprint. San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1970. An account of Japan’s emergence from a feudal state. Discusses Japanese immigration and U.S. prejudice toward the Japanese.
Esthus, Raymond A. Theodore Roosevelt and Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967. Extensive, detailed examination of Roosevelt’s relationship with Japan. Herman, Masako, ed. The Japanese in America, 18431973. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1974. An extended chronology and collection of documents. Kikumura, Akemi. Issei Pioneers: Hawaii and the Mainland, 1885 to 1924. Los Angeles: Japanese American National Museum, 1992. A brief but well-researched text, with photographs that accompanied the first exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum. Lauren, Paul Gordon. Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Examines the impacts of racial prejudice on international relations, immigration policies, and military conflict. Includes discussion of immigration exclusion laws. Nimmo, William F. Stars and Stripes Across the Pacific: The United States, Japan, and the Asia/Pacific Region, 1895-1945. New York: Praeger, 2001. Examines economic, diplomatic, and military relations between the United States and Japan, as well as other Asian nations, from late in the nineteenth century to World War II. U.S. Department of State. Report of the Hon. Roland S. Morris on Japanese Immigration and Alleged Discriminatory Legislation Against Japanese Residents in the United States. 1921. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1978. Correspondence regarding the Gentlemen’s Agreement. See also: Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools; May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law; Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States.
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14, 1907, put into effect the restrictions on passports. Subsequently, the Japanese government agreed to conclude the Gentlemen’s Agreement. In January, 1908, the Japanese foreign minister agreed to the terms of immigration discussed in December, 1907. On March 9, Secretary of State Root instructed Ambassador Wright to thank Japan, thus concluding the negotiations begun in December, 1906.
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Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia
March 19, 1907-April, 1914 Publication of THE
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church was a milestone in history: For the first time, members of the Catholic hierarchy produced an officially sanctioned English-language reference source that added the Roman Catholic perspective to a substantial number of topics. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Charles George Herbermann (1840-1916), editor in chief of the encyclopedia, Latin professor, and librarian at the City College of New York John J. Wynne (1859-1948), associate editor of the encyclopedia, editor of the Messenger, and professor at Boston College Edward Aloysius Pace (1861-1938), associate editor of the encyclopedia, professor, and dean of philosophy at the Catholic University Condé Benoist Pallen (1858-1929), managing editor of the encyclopedia, author, lecturer, and educator Thomas Joseph Shahan (1857-1932), editor of the encyclopedia and professor of Church history and petrology at the Catholic University Summary of Event In June of 1902, Father John J. Wynne published a lengthy review titled “Poisoning the Wells” in the Catholic newspaper the Messenger. In the article, Wynne condemned portions of the revised edition of Appleton’s Universal Cyclopaedia and Atlas (1903) and called for changing its inaccurate, deficient, and derogatory information on the Catholic Church. Over the next two years, this criticism prompted editors of several general encyclopedias to make additional adjustments to works that were under revision, but the modifications failed to meet Catholic needs. In 1903 and 1904, Father Wynne and several of his contemporaries realized that there was a great lack of writings on Catholicism available in English. The best way to fill this void, they decided, was to create a Catholic encyclopedia. On December 8, 1904, Dr. Charles George Herbermann, the Very Reverend Edward Aloysius Pace, Dr. Condé Benoist Pallen, the Right Reverend Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan, and the 606
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Reverend John J. Wynne agreed to organize the Robert Appleton Company, the exclusive purpose of which would be to publish a Catholic encyclopedia, and to meet early the next year as editors of The Catholic Encyclopedia. On January 11, 1905, Herbermann, Pace, Pallen, and Shahan joined Wynne at his office at the Messenger on New York City’s West Sixteenth Street for their first formal editorial meeting. Sixteen days later, the editors presented an official proposal to New York archbishop John Murphy Farley, who blessed and endorsed the contract on February 25, 1905. On that same day, public announcements in publications such as The New York Times began promoting the encyclopedia. Advancenotice display ads notified the public of the encyclopedia’s production, announced its endorsement by the archbishop, and promoted the archbishop’s enthusiastic support for the work and its editors. The encyclopedia was to be an original, up-to-date work written with authority and scholarship on all matters pertaining to the Catholic Church and its membership. Contributions were requested from around the world, and writers were chosen based on their expertise. Because the writers were to be authorities on particular subjects, not necessarily experts on writing encyclopedia articles, the editors created standards and guidelines for the contributors to ensure consistency among various subject categories. Submissions written in languages other than English would be translated, doctrinal writings would be scrutinized by approved authorities, and all articles would be assessed by the editors. The editors divided the work into thirty-two departments, and each editor was assigned to specific areas of management. All decisions regarding content, however, were returned to the entire board. During 1905 and 1906, the editors met bimonthly (after 1906, meetings were held monthly) to discuss the encyclopedia’s design, content, organization, and development. In addition to its text, the encyclopedia would include bibliographies, illustrations, and maps; both the text and maps would be original and include ecclesiastical, geographic, and political regions. Determining the structure and content of the work was important, but the editors also knew that soliciting contributions from the best scholars, publishing the volumes, and carefully promoting sales were essential. In February, 1906, the editors published a promotional pamphlet that included sample articles outlining
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dia, but the editors did not stop their work. They successfully published a sixteen-volume encyclopedia that included more than thirty thousand subjects, nearly twelve thousand articles, and almost six thousand crossreferences. Contributions came from 1,452 authors from forty-three countries, and 151 editorial assistants, 51 translators, and more than 400 business-administration employees were involved in producing the finished work. Although its broad span made some criticism inevitable, for the most part The Catholic Encyclopedia was internationally welcomed as a successful work of scholarship. By 1920, nearly sixty thousand copies had been sold. A single supplemental volume updated the set in 1922. Significance The Catholic Encyclopedia was primarily an American endeavor created by Catholic scholars whose initiative and perseverance in crafting and editing the massive work filled a major gap in authoritative Englishlanguage literature on Catholicism. The editors created a generally fair and just encyclopedia at a time when Catholics had been persecuted and misrepresented for their beliefs and when the Church was tightening its stance on its intellectual philosophy. For more than fifty years, the encyclopedia was considered to be the most outstanding work on Catholicism in English, but changes and time led to publication of The New Catholic Encyclopedia in 1967. Although the print edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia was superseded by The New Catholic Encyclopedia and its second edition (2002), the original text provides vital historical information that its successors lack. Because many of The Catholic Encyclopedia’s philosophical, theological, biographical, and medieval history articles are still germane today, and because the work’s copyright has passed into the public domain, the text of the original volumes is widely available on the Internet. From 1993 to 1997, Kevin Knight and volunteers from several different countries worked to produce the online version of the encyclopedia, titled New Advent. —Cynthia J. W. Svoboda Further Reading Brann, Henry A. “Catholic Encyclopedia.” New York Times Saturday Review of Books, April 13, 1907, BR233. This article, written by a priest, reviews and evaluates the encyclopedia in historical context. “The Catholic Encyclopedia.” College and Research Library News 58 (December, 1997): 811. Reviews the online encyclopedia and highlights its current value. 607
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the work’s purpose and distinctive qualities. They demonstrated the encyclopedia’s value as a work of serious scholarship and proved its relevance in the international spectrum. Newspaper ads pledged that the encyclopedia would fill a gap in scholarly libraries and offered early subscribers a onetime opportunity to receive a low-cost, deluxe edition with their names included as original sponsors. Later ads announced that the special offer would end on February 4, 1907, but there was still time to join the “cultivated” group who would be listed as “original promoters.” The pamphlet, display ads, and other promotional literature created demand that led to the printing of seven thousand copies of the first volume. On March 19, 1907, the day the first volume was published, public notices announced the encyclopedia’s release and emphasized its uniqueness, originality, and authenticity. These notices stressed the importance of Catholics in history and underscored the value of the encyclopedia to the general public and professionals. Two volumes were published each year for the next two years, and one volume was published each year from 1910 to 1913. In 1912, the publishers changed the name of their publishing house to the Encyclopedia Press. The encyclopedia’s index volume was added in 1914. Throughout the encyclopedia’s production, the editors worked to assure excellence. They conducted 134 formal meetings, held several additional informal meetings, and exchanged written correspondence. As each volume was published, display ads and reviews continued to depict the reference work’s high standards and distinctive niche. Quotes from Pope Pius X, Archbishop Farley, judges, and reviewers promoted the work’s value, and the publishers continued to offer opportunities for special purchases. Review articles heralded the encyclopedia as a scholarly, well-written, and well-crafted work that exceeded all expectations. Promotion of The Catholic Encyclopedia was an essential element of its success, both because it raised sales figures and because it assured the project’s publication. The volumes were produced at a time when few Englishlanguage writings were released under the auspices of the Catholic Church and when progressivism and conservatism were in competition in the Church. Pope Pius X strongly opposed Americanism and Modernism and called for stricter adherence to Catholic doctrine. The editors of the encyclopedia needed to balance these guiding principles with more temperate views to create a resource that would be used by a wide audience. Anti-Catholic attitudes, ecclesiastic beliefs, and the strains of World War I all had impacts on the encyclope-
Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia
Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers. New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1917. This volume summarizes the encyclopedia’s creation from 1905 to 1914 and provides biographical sketches of all contributors. Some black-and-white pictures are included. Fox, James J. “The Catholic Encyclopedia.” Catholic World 85 (July, 1907): 522-528. A lengthy review of the encyclopedia. Johnson, Rossiter. “Completion of The Catholic Encyclopedia.” Literary Digest 46 (February 15, 1913): 349. Examination of the encyclopedia by a noted reviewer of encyclopedias. Linehan, Paul H. “The Catholic Encyclopedia.” In Catholic Builders of the Nation, edited by Constantine E. McGuire. New York: Catholic Book Company, 1935. Excellent overview of the history and making of the encyclopedia.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Reher, Margaret Mary. Catholic Intellectual Life in America: A Historical Study of Persons and Movements. New York: Macmillan, 1989. An examination of Catholic intellectual life and leadership from 1780 through the mid-1980’s. Rubenstein, Ernest H. “The ‘New’ New Catholic Encyclopedia.” Commonweal 131 (October 22, 2004): 22-25. Overview of the second edition of The New Catholic Encyclopedia briefly discusses the previous editions. See also: Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope; June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery; May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism; Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope.
Spring, 1907
Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed Using the new technique of tissue culture, Ross Granville Harrison observed the development of nerve fibers from neural tissue removed from a frog embryo. Locale: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures Ross Granville Harrison (1870-1959), American zoologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), Spanish histologist Wilhelm His (1831-1904), Swiss anatomist Victor Hensen (1835-1924), German neurophysiologist Theodor Schwann (1810-1882), German biologist Summary of Event With the formulation of the cell theory by Theodor Schwann in 1839, the cellular nature of differentiated tissues such as those found in the nervous system became apparent. During the ensuing decades, the nature of the nervous system underwent extensive investigation, and an overview of its embryonic development was firmly established as the nineteenth century drew to a close. It was clear that during early stages of embryonic development, the neural cleft, or tube, consists of histologically identical cells. As differentiation proceeds, peripheral 608
nerve fibers begin to extend from the neural tube in the form of elongated structures called axons, the ends of which are characterized by an extensive network of fine processes. The nature of the formation of these nerve fibers, the development of which results in the formation of cell connections within the nervous system, was the source of considerable controversy among scientists who studied neural biology. Three major theories had been advanced that attempted to account for their formation. Two of these hypotheses were based primarily on observations during the embryonic stage of development and were limited by the extent of nineteenth century experimental technology. During the latter part of the 1830’s, Schwann discovered the presence of a membranous sheath surrounding certain forms of nerve fibers, the source of which came to be called the Schwann cell. It was suggested that the nerve fiber was, in fact, derived from the Schwann cell. Further observations eventually demonstrated the separate nature of the fiber and its surrounding sheath, but the theory did hold sway among a number of investigators. A second, more credible theory suggested that nerve fibers result from the differentiation of a preformed set of protoplasmic connections, or bridges, the nature of which was somewhat nebulous. The major proponent of this theory, Victor Hensen, was himself a prominent
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foreign medium. By 1907, Harrison had solved this problem by developing a method for growing animal cells or tissues in culture outside the organism. Initially, Harrison placed sections of tissue, extracted from frog embryos at a stage prior to nerve fiber development, in drops of nutrient fluid at physiological concentrations on the underside of a microscope slide. When the material was sealed with paraffin, the preparation could be observed over a period of several days. Under these conditions, no differentiation of nerve tissue could be observed. Harrison achieved better results when he introduced a solid gelatinous substrate suitable for attachment and cell movement. The rationale was that clotted serum would best resemble chemically the natural embryonic environment. Harrison was aware also of earlier experiments carried out by Leo Loeb, who in 1902 transplanted within the bodies of animals small fragments of epidermal tissue that had been embedded in agar or clots of blood. Initially, Harrison tried clotted chicken serum as a substrate, but he then found frog lymph to be more useful. Using careful, aseptic techniques, he found he was able to maintain his specimens as long as four weeks in culture. After considerable manipulation of experimental techniques, Harrison was finally able to devise a procedure that allowed him to carry out the necessary observations, ultimately involving more than two hundred preparations. Within isolated pieces of undifferentiated nerve tissue, Harrison observed protoplasmic (amoeboid) movement that resolved itself into numerous fibers extending into the surrounding clot of frog lymph. He noted the enlarged, swollen ends of the fibers, which closely resembled those found in sections from normal embryos at an analogous stage of development. The rate of growth of the axons was particularly striking. In his original paper of 1907, Harrison observed the formation of one fiber, 20 microns (0.00079 inch) in length, in less than thirty minutes. The largest fibers measured at that time were 0.2 millimeter (0.0079 inch) in length. Repeated observations refined these calculations further. He found the rate of lengthening of the nerve fiber to vary considerably, ranging anywhere from 16 microns (0.00063 inch) per hour to a maximum rate of 56 microns (0.0022 inch) per hour. The largest fiber measured reached a length of 1.15 millimeters (0.0453 inch); Harrison noted that development was followed over its entire period of growth, a total of fifty-three hours. Harrison was concerned that it be firmly established that what he observed in culture was a true analogy of the situation within the embryo. Consequently, he followed the activities in culture of several types of embryonic tis609
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neurophysiologist. Although Hensen acknowledged a role for protoplasmic movement in the formation of the nervous system, he argued that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that such movement results in the outgrowth of nerve processes. In 1906, Hans Held published a modification of Hensen’s theory in which he suggested that the protoplasmic bridges observed by Hensen serve as a type of scaffold, or “substratum,” into which the protoplasmic material from the neural cells extends. As Ross Granville Harrison pointed out in 1910 in his classic paper on the subject, Held’s treatment of Hensen’s theory was in reality a refutation. The third theory of fiber development, initially the work of Wilhelm His but more extensively developed by histologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, suggested that the formation of the fibers results from protoplasmic outgrowths of preexisting cells within the nerve ganglia. Although the latter two schools of thought on fiber development were, to some extent, mutually exclusive, they represented differences of opinions based on observations of minute histological detail, often using material prepared in an identical manner. It was clear that a correct understanding of the process was dependent on a new experimental approach. In 1901, while at The Johns Hopkins University, Harrison began a series of experiments in which he observed the formation of peripheral nerves during the early stages of frog embryo development. First, he was able to establish that only nerve cells were involved in axon formation and that the Schwann cell was clearly extraneous. In a series of experiments that he continued after joining the faculty at Yale University in 1907, Harrison also demonstrated that nerve ganglia constitute the “one essential element in the formation of the nerve fiber.” Axons never developed following removal of the nervous system from embryos; when nerves in the tadpole fin were severed, additional fibers extending from the severed nerves could be observed. Further, when ganglia were transplanted into other areas of the embryo, the development of nerve fibers could be observed in those areas. These experiments persuaded Harrison that the theories promoted by His and by Ramón y Cajal were probably correct. The primary difficulty in establishing the validity of these theories was the lack of a way to study fiber development in the absence of extraneous tissue. It was necessary to test the ability of the undifferentiated nerve cell, the neuroblast, to develop nerve fibers outside local influences, particularly other types of tissue. If the neuroblast was the source of the axon, it should still be capable of forming a nerve fiber even when in the presence of a
Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed
Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed sue. In all cases, he found that each type of isolated tissue underwent development in a manner similar to what was known to occur in the animal. Also, it was readily apparent that similar procedures could be applied to the study of the influences of various experimental conditions on the development of the tissue. Harrison reported his results in 1907, and the work immediately received considerable public acclaim. Significance The 1907 publication of Harrison’s research into cultivation of animal tissues in culture quickly made an impact on the work of other cell biologists. The popular media proclaimed Harrison’s findings to be a notable scientific discovery. Originally, Harrison had chosen the frog, a cold-blooded animal, because of the relatively low incubation temperature necessary to maintain the cells. Interest began to develop into research on tissues from warmblooded animals, however. Montrose Burrows, a student of Harrison, attempted to grow explants from chick embryos in blood plasma, with limited success. By 1912, Burrows had joined the laboratory of Alexis Carrel, where it was found that explants could be made to grow indefinitely through periodic passage into fresh media. Carrel also developed a glass vessel, the Carrel flask, in which the cells could be maintained. For some years, Harrison continued his research in tissue culture. Generally, his experiments involved modification of various factors, such as the forms of solid support or type of fluid medium. Harrison’s publication of this work in 1914 marked an end to his studies on the subject. In 1917, the Nobel Committee recommended that Harrison be presented the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discovery of the development of the nerve fibers by independent growth from cells outside the organism.” Unfortunately, because of World War I, the committee ultimately decided not to award a prize that year. Harrison was nominated for a Nobel Prize again in 1933, but at that time the committee refused to recommend an award for his work, ironically citing the justification that his experimental methods were by then of “limited value.” Adaptation of Harrison’s methods continued. In 1943, Wilton Earle developed a mouse cell line that had the ability to grow indefinitely in the laboratory. Katherine Sanford, Gwendolyn Likely, and Earle demonstrated the possibility of growing single cells in laboratory vessels when they cloned Earle’s mouse cells in 1948. Even human cells were shown to grow in culture; in 610
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1952, George Gey established a cell line developed from an explant of cervical carcinoma. Normal human cells could be maintained in culture also; in 1961, Leonard Hayflick described the characteristics of human cells derived from fetal tissue and provided an extensive comparison of these cells with their counterparts in “immortal,” often cancerous, cell lines. The impact of this technology on research in the biological sciences cannot be overestimated. The effects of chemical and environmental changes on cells can be monitored easily. Genetic defects can be determined through the growth of cells extracted by amniocentesis, and even research at the molecular level can be carried out. Perhaps the greatest impact has been in the field of virology. Because viruses are intracellular parasites, in the past they could be grown only in living animals. With the development of cell and tissue culture, however, growth of viruses could be carried out in laboratory vessels. In 1949, John Enders and his coworkers were able to propagate poliovirus in culture, an event that culminated in the development of the polio vaccine within a decade. By the end of the twentieth century, vaccines against most major viral illnesses had been developed in a similar manner. —Richard Adler Further Reading Harrison, Ross Granville. “The Cultivation of Tissues in Extraneous Media as a Method of Morphogenetic Study.” Anatomical Record 6 (1912): 181-193. By 1912, Harrison had completed most of his work on growth and differentiation of tissue in culture. This work, originally presented as a lecture for a symposium on tissue culture held in 1911, describes the theoretical basis for his earlier experiments and their relationship to morphogenesis. _______. Organization and Development of the Embryo. Edited by Sally Wilens. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969. Includes a thorough description of Harrison’s work on embryonic development, especially the importance of biological symmetry. A chapter on the role of tissue culture provides background to his early work. _______. “The Outgrowth of the Nerve Fiber as a Mode of Protoplasmic Movement.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 9 (1910): 787-846. Harrison’s classic work on the subject. Provides a complete description of his work, including the procedures he followed as he became the first person to grow animal tissues outside the body. Nicholas, J. S. “Ross Granville Harrison.” Biographical
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the Living Cell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Presentation of advances in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology aimed at the general reader. Chapter 1 briefly discusses Harrison’s work. Includes glossary and index. Sapp, Jan. Genesis: The Evolution of Biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. History of the science of biology over the past two hundred years provides an introduction to many aspects of the field and places developments within their social contexts. Includes index. See also: Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System; 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells.
May 14, 1907
Formation of the Plunket Society As part of a push throughout much of the Western world to improve infant mortality rates, Dr. Frederick Truby King formed the Plunket Society, which was based on his doctrines on nutrition and child care. Primarily organized and maintained by women volunteers, the society provided support and education for mothers in New Zealand. Also known as: Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children Locale: Dunedin, New Zealand Categories: Health and medicine; education; social issues and reform; women’s issues Key Figures Frederick Truby King (1858-1938), supervisor at a mental hospital who organized the Plunket Society Lady Victoria Plunket (fl. early twentieth century), wife of the governor-general, mother of eight children, and patron of the society Isabella King (d. 1927), cofounder of the Plunket Society and wife of Frederick Truby King Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, new mothers in New Zealand had few places to turn for useful advice. As a result, infant mortality was high. Because hygiene was poor and few mothers breast-fed, seventy-three babies in every thousand died from infant diarrhea. Mothers gave newborns diluted cream, buttermilk, barley water, and bread
and milk. At that time, cow’s milk was not pasteurized or tested for tuberculosis, and the means of delivery encouraged contamination, since milk was dipped from cans into any available container. Babies were also denied fresh air, which was believed to be harmful. In response to these wretched conditions, the Plunket Society began in Dunedin, New Zealand, on May 14, 1907. Dr. Frederick Truby King, the organization’s founder, believed that his newly developed doctrines on nutrition and infant care would reduce the escalating death rate among babies and children, and he felt that addressing this challenge was essential to the nation’s health. King called a public meeting during which he gained the backing of influential local women who pledged to form a society to sponsor a health program based on the support and education of mothers. Shortly afterward, two babies discovered in a stable were whisked off to King’s house in Karitane for care, and a new hospital began there. When a dozen more babies arrived, King’s strict regime of weighing, measuring, and recording became Plunket practice. Early in 1908, the Karitane Home for Babies opened in Dunedin. The home accepted babies and toddlers who were not being treated in the general hospital system, and by the end of its first year, four branches of the Plunket Society had been formed. Lady Victoria Plunket, the wife of the governor-general and a mother of eight children, offered to be the society’s patron, and in 1912 a lecture tour by Dr. King and his wife, Isabella King, led to 611
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Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 35 (1961). Outstanding biography offers a concise yet thorough synopsis of Harrison’s career. Includes a discussion of the controversy that arose over the failure of the Nobel Committee to award a prize to Harrison for his work. Pollack, Robert, ed. Readings in Mammalian Cell Culture. 2d ed. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1981. A compilation of articles covering the history of mammalian cell culture. Includes Harrison’s 1907 article “Observations on the Living Developing Nerve Fiber,” the work that established firmly that nerve fibers develop from central nerve cells. Rensberger, Boyce. Life Itself: Exploring the Realm of
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Formation of the Plunket Society the formation of sixty additional branches, each of which employed a Plunket nurse. In addition, six Karitane hospitals provided several vital functions: They served as support centers for home and clinic visits, training facilities for Karitane nurses, and care units for babies that needed special attention. Dunedin’s Karitane Harris Hospital also operated as the training center for Plunket nurses. During home and clinic visits, mothers were educated in subjects such as domestic hygiene and parenting skills, which included lessons on infants’ feeding, sleeping, and digestive habits. Dr. King’s successful organization of the Plunket Society in New Zealand and its volunteers rested on his professional and personal ideals and personal experience. As a child, King had nearly died from diarrhea and primitive medical practices and was often sick as a result. At the age of twenty-eight, he graduated from Edinburgh University with a medical degree, and soon afterward he married Isabella King. His relationship with his wife would sustain him as he poured his energies into numerous causes. By the age of thirty, King was superintendent of Wellington Hospital, an underfunded and understaffed mental institution. King designed and oversaw the implementation of better meal service, a new sewage system, and a nurses’ training school. From Wellington, King went to Seacliff Asylum, where as medical superintendent he also instituted changes to alleviate deplorable conditions. At Seacliff, he was in charge of fifty staff members and five hundred patients, and he remained there for the next thirty years. In addition to his hospital work, King established a successful timber mill, ran rail service with steampowered lines, grew highly productive gardens, and ran technically advanced dairy farms. King and his wife remained childless until, in 1905, they adopted a baby they called Mary. While waiting for the adoption to clear, the Kings traveled to Japan, and it was there that they became interested in baby-feeding practices. King was impressed with the success Japanese mothers seemed to have as a result of breast-feeding their babies much longer than European mothers did, and he became a proponent of breast-feeding. At the same time, Mary King was not thriving, and Isabella King set her husband to the task of finding a more nourishing food for their child. In response to this challenge, King created his own infant formula. Although King believed in the benefits of breast milk, he considered his concoction—a blend of cow’s milk, lactose sugar, water, and fat— equally good. King wrote new rules for raising infants: strict four612
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 hour feeding schedules, no night feedings, potty training at an early age, and fresh air. Mothers were urged to breast-feed, but if they were unable to do so they were to use his formula in proportions based on the infant’s age and weight. His ideas were not welcomed by all mothers: It was common practice to feed babies on demand. Many mothers ignored his advice and went back to feeding their newborns crushed biscuits mashed with water. Against this resistance, King continued his crusade to lower infant death rates and built a factory to make his humanized milk. By forming the Plunket Society, King fulfilled his dream: He created a group of specially trained women to take his parenting advice into every home in New Zealand. Gradually, the Plunket philosophy became parenting practice. King’s first popular book on parenting, Feeding and Care of Baby (1913), was translated into Polish, Russian, and Spanish. A syndicated column, “Our Babies,” written by Isabella King under the pseudonym Hygeia, was published in fifty newspapers by 1914. King’s The Expectant Mother and Baby’s First Months, both published in 1916, were given to every couple who applied for a marriage license. The Kings made many public appearances, during which they emphasized the power of the Plunket Society’s childrearing methods in reducing infant mortality rates. King was knighted in 1925, and when he died on February 10, 1938, he left behind a society run by and for women that continues to provide services for mothers and children in the twenty-first century. Significance Thanks to the work of the Plunket Society, by 1931 the infant death rate in New Zealand had become the lowest in the world. By 1946, an incredible 85 percent of all babies were seen by one of nearly two hundred Plunket nurses who made 220,000 home visits. A further 500,000 visits by new mothers were made to specially designed Plunket rooms. The Plunket Society’s success in lowering New Zealand’s infant death rates during the first half of the twentieth century was a source of great national pride. The society’s creation of access to advice on breast-feeding and hygiene in the home contributed to New Zealand’s ability to maintain the world’s lowest infant mortality rate at a time when digestive problems were a major cause of infant death. From its inception, the Plunket Society, consistently one of New Zealand’s largest voluntary organizations, was concerned with more than preventing deaths. The organization’s leaders viewed it as a health-maintenance
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Further Reading Bryder, Linda. A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare, 1907-2000. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 2003. Examines the public role of women as welfare providers. Also looks at maternal and child health provision and parenting roles and practices. Chapman, Lloyd. In a Strange Garden: The Life and
Times of Truby King. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books, 2003. Biography discusses King’s work in mental hospitals (particularly in the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum) and Victorian-era attitudes toward the mentally ill. Powell, Joyce. Plunket Pioneers: Recollections of Plunket Nurses, from 1940 to 2000. Auckland, New Zealand: Heritage Press, 2003. Collection of personal stories of women who served in various positions in the Plunket Society. See also: June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded; July 10, 1912: Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand; 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament; Nov. 27, 1935: New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration.
August, 1907
Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts Following the success of his manual on scouting, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell decided to rewrite the book for the members of England’s youth organizations. He held a camp to test his ideas in 1907 and published Scouting for Boys in 1908. Scout troops were soon formed by independent boys around the world, and Scouting was organized in England in 1909. Locale: Brownsea Island, Dorsetshire, England Categories: Education; organizations and institutions Key Figures Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857-1941), decorated military hero of Great Britain who founded the international Scouting movement Agnes Baden-Powell (1858-1945), sister of Robert Baden-Powell and first leader of the Girl Guides William Dickson Boyce (1858-1929), Chicago publisher and founder of the Boy Scouts of America Summary of Event Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was born in Paddington, London, on February 22, 1857, the son of a professor of geometry at Oxford University. After completing his education, he joined the Thirteenth Hussars in India before serving in Africa in 1895 and again in India in 1897, where he commanded the Fifth Dragoon Guards. Baden-Powell became a seasoned scout while working
among Zulu tribesmen in the 1880’s in Natal, South Africa. Some years later, he wrote the popular manual called Aids to Scouting (1899). The book was partly a training manual for newly recruited scouts and partly a summary of everything Baden-Powell had learned about military scouting through experience and training. Baden-Powell witnessed the famous siege of Mafeking in South Africa, during the Boer War, and it was there that he saw a cadet corps for young men below fighting age. The corps carried messages, aided in hospitals, and performed other tasks in order to free the infantry to perform more soldierly tasks. Impressed, BadenPowell used these boys as an example in the beginning of his Scouting for Boys (1908). Upon his return to England from Africa, BadenPowell visited William Alexander Smith (who was later knighted) and his Boys’ Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland. Baden-Powell, a general in the army, was there to inspect seven thousand boys on the occasion of the brigade’s twentieth anniversary. Smith proudly declared that his movement’s total membership was fifty-four thousand strong, and Baden-Powell remarked that it could be ten times that if the training were more appealing to the interests of young boys. Smith asked Baden-Powell to rewrite his Aids to Scouting for a youth readership, and BadenPowell agreed. In order to rework Aids to Scouting to suit young men’s and boys’ abilities and potential, Baden-Powell 613
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society and aimed to provide support for ordinary mothers and fathers who had no previous child-rearing experience. The society also provided an organizational framework through which women could build alliances and become involved in public issues while simultaneously establishing social networks and creating a sense of empowerment. — Kathleen M. Bartlett
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Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts decided to hold an experimental camp for twenty-two boys from assorted social backgrounds. His chief aim in assembling this group was to test the viability of some of his ideas. The group of boys were from Eton, Harrow, and London’s East End, although there were also some boys from shops and the country; Baden-Powell wanted to see how his ideas on scouting would interest young men from different backgrounds and areas. A friend allowed Baden-Powell to use a piece of her property in Dorsetshire, on Brownsea Island, since Baden-Powell wanted a place away from the British press and other
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell. (Library of Congress)
The Scout Law In the United States, the Boy Scouts of America have consistently cleaved to the ideals set forth by William Dickson Boyce in 1910. This includes adhering to the tenets of the Scout Law: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. • Trustworthy: A Scout tells the truth. He keeps his promises. Honesty is part of his code of conduct. People can depend on him. • Loyal: A Scout is true to his family, Scout leaders, friends, school, and nation. • Helpful: A Scout is concerned about other people. He does things willingly for others without pay or reward. • Friendly: A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He seeks to understand others. He respects those with ideas and customs other than his own. • Courteous: A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows good manners make it easier for people to get along together. • Kind: A Scout understands there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. He does not hurt or kill harmless things without reason. • Obedient: A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobey them. • Cheerful: A Scout looks for the bright side of things. He cheerfully does tasks that come his way. He tries to make others happy. • Thrifty: A Scout works to pay his way and to help others. He saves for unforeseen needs. He protects and conserves natural resources. He carefully uses time and property. • Brave: A Scout can face danger even if he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is right even if others laugh at or threaten him. • Clean: A Scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean. He goes around with those who believe in living by these same ideals. He helps keep his home and community clean. • Reverent: A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others. Source: Boy Scouts of America National Council. http://www.scouting.org.
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nosy people. Here Baden-Powell and the boys camped for a fortnight, together with Major Clan MacLaren and Percy Everett. Together, the three men taught the boys camping, hiking, boating, cooking, patriotism, and all manner of scouting skills. This experience taught Baden-Powell about the possibilities for training in scouting, and he incorporated what he learned in his Scouting for Boys, which was first published in installments in early 1908. Baden-Powell hoped his book would be a useful aid in training boys’ groups such as the Boys’ Brigade, the Church Lads’ Brigade, and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).
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where he learned much about this infant movement. Although Scout troops in the United States had already sprung up spontaneously, William Dickson Boyce filed incorporation papers in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1910, and this date is celebrated as the date of the Boy Scouts of America’s official founding. No one ever knew the name or whereabouts of the boy in the story, but the American Scouts erected a statue of a buffalo at the British Scout Training Center at Gilwell Park, England, to honor the unknown Scout who inspired the official movement in the United States. Significance From its beginnings at a small camp in England in 1907, the Boy Scouts grew into one of the world’s largest international youth groups. Many distinguished leaders have passed through Scouting’s ranks, including several members of the U.S. Congress and at least one president, Gerald R. Ford. In wartime, Great Britain’s Boy Scouts were known for performing a number of services in support of war efforts, such as mounting metal drives and running errands. Although historians continue to debate whether Baden-Powell intended to form a paramilitary organization—and whether those intentions changed over time—the Boy Scouts and its sibling organization the Girl Scouts have been an important character-building influence on millions of young people. —John F. Gamber, Jr. Further Reading Baden-Powell, Robert. Scouting for Boys: The Original 1908 Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Areprint of the famous book that started it all. Boy Scouts of America. Boy Scout Handbook. 11th ed. Irving, Tex.: Author, 1998. Modern-day handbook for members of the Boy Scouts of America. Jeal, Tim. Baden-Powell: Founder of the Boy Scouts. 1989. Rev. ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Biography describes Baden-Powell’s founding of the Scouting movement. Rosenthal, Michael. “Knights and Retainers: The Earliest Version of Baden-Powell’s Boy Scout Scheme.” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 4 (October, 1980): 603-617. Claims that Baden-Powell’s original ideas for the Scouting movement were published in 1904 and that his intentions at that time were for an overtly militaristic organization. Springhall, John. “Baden-Powell and the Scout Movement Before 1920: Citizen Training or Soldiers of the Future?” English Historical Review 102, no. 405 (1987): 934-942. Account of the debate over whether 615
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He did not intend the book to be the first step in the creation of a Scouting movement, but that is exactly what happened. Baden-Powell began receiving letters from boys who had read his book and found it not only useful but also inspiring. Young men all over England, most of whom did not have any connection with existing organizations for young people, started their own Scout patrols and troops and convinced grown men to act as their Scoutmasters, and the Scouting movement was born. Baden-Powell called a meeting for all Scouts at the Crystal Palace in London in 1909. When he arrived, he was astonished to find that eleven thousand youths were in attendance. Later, he was careful to mention that the boys who made up this tremendous group had become Scouts of their own accord. Truly, Scouting essentially started itself out of the initiative and spirit of the young people who began their own troops and patrols without any direct adult involvement. At the Crystal Palace rally, Baden-Powell first encountered Girl Scouts. The creation of the Girl Scouts was an unexpected consequence of the publication of Scouting for Boys. He later wrote a book for girls, calling them the Girl Guides to distinguish them from the guides for his male Scouts. Baden-Powell was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of female Scouts, so he and his sister Agnes founded the Girl Guides in 1910. Instead of promoting the type of manly character the Scouts sought to instill in boys, the Girl Guides aimed to train girls to be good mothers and wives. During its beginning stages, the Girl Guides did not share the rapid growth enjoyed by the Scouts. However, membership numbers boomed during World War I, when the girls’ training began to resemble more closely that of their male counterparts. In 1912, Robert Baden-Powell toured the United States (where he visited twenty-four states), Canada, Australia, and South Africa. During his travels, he talked about Scouting, and in his wake troops and similar movements sprouted up all over the world. There was some disagreement, however, about Scouting’s origins in the United States. According to one famous story, the wealthy Chicago publisher William Dickson Boyce was visiting England in August, 1909, when he lost his way in London’s fog. Just as he was losing hope, Boyce was approached by an adolescent boy carrying a lantern; the boy offered his assistance and helped Boyce reach his destination. Boyce offered the boy a shilling, but the boy refused, saying that he was a Scout and that Scouts did not accept rewards for their good turns. Boyce became henceforth fiercely interested in the Scouting movement. The Scout took Boyce to the headquarters of the British Scouts,
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Formation of the Triple Entente Scouting is a paramilitary organization aimed at producing soldiers or a group devoted to producing good citizens. Voeltz, Richard. “The Antidote to ‘Khaki Fever’? The Expansion of the British Girl Guides During World War I.” Journal of Contemporary History 27, no. 4 (October, 1992): 627-638. Article on the explosion of the Girl Guides in Britain in World War I.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established; Feb. 23, 1905: First American Service Organization Is Founded; Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee; Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established.
August 31, 1907
Formation of the Triple Entente The Triple Entente encouraged Great Britain and Russia to set aside their differences and come together as allies with France to counter Germany and the Triple Alliance. Locale: London, England; St. Petersburg, Russia Category: Diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Edward VII (1841-1910), king of Great Britain, r. 1901-1910 Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky (1856-1919), Russian foreign affairs minister, 1906-1910 Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), British foreign secretary, 1905-1916 Sir Charles Hardinge (1858-1944), permanent undersecretary at the British foreign office, 19061910 Sir Arthur Nicolson (1849-1928), British ambassador to Russia, 1906-1910 Summary of Event The mutual desire of Great Britain and Russia to settle their imperialistic rivalry in southern Asia can be traced to developments in international affairs of interest to both parties during 1904 and 1905: the rapprochement between Great Britain and France, the latter an ally of Russia; the deterioration of Anglo-German relations, underscored by the first Moroccan crisis and the growth of the German navy; and Germany’s efforts to establish an alliance with Russia. Great Britain’s pursuit of an entente with Russia dated from April, 1904, when conversations took place between King Edward VII and Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky, then Russia’s envoy to Denmark. The British government had been an ally of Japan since 1902 and was concluding the Entente Cordiale with France. Although 616
Russia had been at war with Japan since February, 1904, their agreement called for mutual aid only if one of the signatories was at war with two other powers. Consequently, Great Britain did not enter the conflict and was free to pursue its aim of rapprochement with Russia. Among leading British officials who sought accord with Russia were Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary since 1905, and Sir Charles Hardinge, the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office who had been ambassador to Russia from 1904 to 1906. Both these statesmen earnestly desired to settle Great Britain’s outstanding differences with Russia in Persia and regarding India. They feared that continuing disagreement over these problems might cause Russia to accept the serious bids being made by Germany for a general alliance, especially since the signing of the Björkö Treaty in July, 1905, by William II, emperor of Germany, and Nicholas II, czar of Russia, on each other’s yachts had provided for mutual aid in case of attack by another European power. Germany had been prevented from extending the terms of the pact only by opposition from the Russian Foreign Office and the refusal of the French government to go along with such an agreement after the German emperor had precipitated the first Moroccan crisis. Grey and Hardinge were also aware of the expansion of the German navy, and in 1907 their attempts to reach agreement with Russia were aided by Sir Arthur Nicolson, who had succeeded Hardinge as British ambassador to the Russian court at St. Petersburg. Nicolson worked tirelessly to draft an agreement acceptable to the Russian government, which had been represented since May, 1906, by Izvolsky as minister of foreign affairs. Izvolsky had for some years been a leading proponent in Russia of rapprochement with Great Britain. He believed that an Anglo-Russian entente would accomplish at least four things for Russia, some of which comple-
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Significance The entente dealt exclusively with conflicting AngloRussian interests in the Middle East, specifically Af-
ghanistan, Tibet, and Persia. By securing the Russian promise that each should respect the territorial integrity of Tibet (under Chinese sovereignty) and Afghanistan, Great Britain gained the assurance that these two viable buffer states would safeguard India from any future Russian advance. Even more important was the agreement of both parties to recognize the “independence” and “integrity” of Persia while proceeding to divide it into three spheres of influence. Russia received the northern zone, which was the largest but did not include the Persian Gulf, declared to be a neutral zone. The British received a desert wasteland in the south that contained roads leading to India. Nothing in the agreement bound the parties to mutual military obligations of the type that existed between France and Russia in the event of attack by an aggressor. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Russian agreement completed a network of treaties that bound together Great Britain, France, and Russia in what the press in these countries began to call the Triple Entente. An entente in the sense of close cooperation and understanding on a wide range of issues it was certainly not. Great Britain’s commitments to France and Russia were limited, and the agreement was confined geographically to Asia. Although of somewhat questionable value to Great Britain, the agreement did eliminate some of the causes of friction between the two countries. What happened between 1908 and 1914, against the background of recurring crises in Morocco and the Balkans, was gradual solidification of cooperation among Great Britain, France, and Russia in opposition to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. The members of the Triple Entente began to coordinate their military and naval preparedness in anticipation of a clash with the Central Powers, preparations that served them well when they entered World War I as allies in 1914. —Edward P. Keleher and John Quinn Imholte Further Reading Gilbert, Felix, and David Clay Large. The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present. 5th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. A both broad and detailed account of the destruction of European centrality and its impact on the twentieth century. Joll, James. The Origins of the First World War. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 2000. Ageneral examination of the causes of World War I, emphasizing the international system, strategic planning and the arms race, domestic politics, international economics, and imperial rivalries. 617
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mented the thinking in London. First, Russia could effect a genuine reconciliation with Japan, which in August, 1905, had renewed its alliance with Great Britain, thereby underscoring the Russian defeat in the Far East. Second, Izvolsky believed, an Anglo-Russian entente would strengthen the Russian alliance with France and complement the Entente Cordiale of 1904. Third, it was as much in Russia’s interest as in Great Britain’s to bring about settlement of major differences over Persia (now Iran), India, and other sensitive areas in Asia. Finally, elimination of these sources of friction with Great Britain would in turn eliminate the need for an alliance with Germany, which would in any case be incompatible with the Franco-Russian alliance. Altogether, once its eastern and southern flanks were protected, Russia could once again assert itself in the Near East, where, with the assistance of Great Britain and France, it could thwart Austrian ambitions in the Balkans, oppose those of Germany in Turkey, and eventually open the Dardanelles to Russian warships. Indeed, the question of these straits was uppermost in Izvolsky’s mind when he agreed to negotiate an entente with Great Britain. Negotiations began in June, 1906, but dragged on until August, 1907, slowed by the air of mutual suspicion that prevailed between the two countries. Nicholas II, an autocratic czar, could not accept British Liberalism or the outcry raised by the British Liberal press against Russian pogroms and the suspension of the Duma. The talks moved forward slowly. Izvolsky pressed for the Dardanelles to be opened to Russian warships; from Grey he won the dubious and negative concession that in the future Great Britain would not oppose Russia on this issue. Grey, Hardinge, and Nicolson managed in turn to win more realistic concessions from Izvolsky. First, he accepted London’s demand for the partition of Persia into British and Russian spheres of influence, despite Russia’s earlier insistence on retaining domination over the whole of Persia in order to obtain access to the Persian Gulf. Second, the British government insisted that Russia should simultaneously negotiate a reconciliation with Japan, and on July 30, 1907, Russia signed a treaty with Japan under which both powers agreed to respect the status quo and the rights of each other in the Far East. A month later, on August 31, Izvolsky and Nicolson signed the convention that established the Anglo-Russian entente.
Formation of the Triple Entente
Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded Kennedy, Paul M. “The Coming of a Bipolar World and the Crisis of the ‘Middle Powers’: Part One, 18851918.” In The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Random House, 1987. Places the Triple Entente in its historical context. Focuses on the impact on the Great Powers of the interaction between economics and strategy. Lee, Dwight E. Europe’s Crucial Years: The Diplomatic Background of World War I, 1902-1914. Hanover, N.H.: Clark University Press, 1974. Suggests that each state acted in desperation to defend its own presumed interests. Lieven, D. C. B. Russia and the Origins of the First World War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983. Argues that the failure of Russian deterrence policy was the result of the czarist government’s structure and the pressure of internal political factions. Massie, Robert K. “The Anglo-Russian Entente and the Bosnian Crisis.” In Dreadnought: Britain, Germany,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and the Coming of the Great War. 1991. Reprint. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. Describes the shift in British diplomacy from splendid isolation to the Triple Entente. Emphasizes prominent personalities and the importance of growing German naval power. Schmitt, Bernadotte E. Triple Alliance and Triple Entente. New York: Howard Fertig, 1971. A detailed description of the background, substance, and results of the Triple Entente. An informative basic summary. Steiner, Zara S., and Keith Neilson. Britain and the Origins of the First World War. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. A thorough analysis and investigation of the influences of external and diplomatic factors as well as domestic politics in largely determining British foreign policy leading to war. See also: Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale; Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I.
October, 1907
Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded The Deutscher Werkbund envisioned an ideal of a revitalized industrial Germany expressed through a total approach to architecture and the applied arts. Locale: Munich, Germany Categories: Architecture; fashion and design; arts Key Figures Hermann Muthesius (1861-1927), Prussian architect Henry van de Velde (1863-1957), Belgian-German architect and lecturer Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919), German artistic and political activist Peter Behrens (1868-1940), German architect and designer Walter Gropius (1883-1969), German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), German architect Summary of Event During the first week of October, 1907, the inaugural meeting of the Deutscher Werkbund (the name means “German alliance of craftsmen”) took place in Munich. Munich was chosen as the meeting place because it was the home of the Werkbund’s first president, Theodor Fischer; later, the Werkbund would be moved to Berlin. 618
Only one of the Werkbund’s founding fathers, Friedrich Naumann, was present at that first meeting. The Werkbund was a society of architects, craftsmen, and manufacturers that formed a new ideal of German industrial design. The organization was originally supposed to last eight years, and its founders intended it to raise the quality of life of the German public. The aim of the Werkbund was to promote functionalism in German life by producing designs for the newly evolving mechanized Germany. Prior to the founding of the Werkbund, the Jugendstil movement (the German version of Art Nouveau) was influential in Germany, but Jugendstil promoted an aversion to the machine. It became the mission of the Werkbund to compete with England in the production and export of industrially produced goods. The founding of the Werkbund marked a move to combat conservative trends in architecture; moreover, the architects who were involved in the Werkbund viewed architecture in terms of total concepts, not only as the design of buildings. That is, they saw architecture as including a building’s interior space and the objects that would be utilized within the space. In terms of the applied arts, one only has to look at the lighting fixtures designed by Peter Behrens to discover their architectonic structure.
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Werkbund and made no mention of Muthesius or Naumann. Friedrich Naumann, who had been present at the first meeting of the Werkbund, was a former pastor who was politically active in the German parliament and as a founder of the National-Social Party. It was Naumann who wrote the Werkbund’s first pamphlet, which laid out the organization’s principles. Naumann also was a proponent of the idea that economic and political growth increase together. It should be noted that he had artistic aspirations before the formation of the Werkbund, as he was associated with the Dresdener Werkstätte (Dresden workshops). During his time with the Dresdener Werkstätte, he was in close contact with one of the members, Karl Schmidt-Hellerau. Schmidt-Hellerau had spent time in England and had been exposed to the Arts and Crafts movement; he had witnessed the progress being made in design and educational techniques. Naumann developed ideas for the Werkbund based on his dealings with Schmidt-Hellerau. Muthesius, Velde, and Naumann, the primary founders of the Werkbund, were all strong personalities, and each had a different point of view concerning what the Werkbund could be. Before the founding of the Werkbund, German architecture was highly conservative, except for the emergence of Jugendstil. The Werkbund broke with conservative ideas of architecture even more radically than Jugendstil had. Significance After the Werkbund was founded, the organization’s members held many exhibitions, and slowly the targeted public began to get more and more involved. In 1909, Behrens, the architect and designer who had been associated with the Künstler Kolonie in Darmstadt and was then a member of the Werkbund, became the artistic director for the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), one of the world’s largest manufacturing concerns. Behrens designed both applied arts and architecture for the AEG, including a large turbine factory in Berlin. The turbine factory design was initially considered a reworking of the neoclassic form, as strong, externally visible beams and concrete piers were used to support large panels of glass, yet Behrens’s design utilized glass and iron as expressive materials. The factory’s interior was equally revolutionary, exemplifying a new concept of space in its use of a large, uninterrupted central hall and an overhead gantry. This engineering aesthetic meant freedom from the old tradition and was highly praised by the Werkbund. 619
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Other design movements in Germany preceded the Werkbund, such as the Künstler Kolonie (artists’ colony) in Darmstadt, which was founded by Ernst Ludwig, grand duke of Hesse. The group of artists involved with the Künstler Kolonie included Joseph Maria Olbrich, from the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese workshops), and Peter Behrens, who would later play a great role in the Werkbund. The Künstler Kolonie mainly utilized elements of Jugendstil, yet it was still a center for emerging industrial design. The Wiener Werkstätte were important to the founding of the Werkbund as well, because the Werkstätte had direct contact with the English Arts and Crafts movement and with British Art Nouveau through the visits to Vienna of Charles Rennie Macintosh, a highly influential architect and designer from Scotland. The Werkstätte promoted experimentation and collaboration among artists and craftsmen. Hermann Muthesius, a Prussian civil servant and architect, was the foremost spiritual father of the Werkbund. He spent a great deal of time in England, practically as an industrial spy, taking notes on design, architecture, and even art education. His activities brought about social and educational reforms in Germany, and his experiences in England were eventually published in three volumes. Muthesius foresaw the totality of design that would be a visual elevation of the German culture, an elevation in everything from architecture to table service. He wanted to form a link between German artists and industry in emulation of the English Arts and Crafts movement. Muthesius’s vision influenced artists to work together as a whole to reflect German culture. His views were well defined, and they exerted a strong presence over the fledgling Werkbund; Muthesius, however, chose to stay away from the organization’s first meeting in Munich for fear of unduly influencing its character. Henry van de Velde, an architect, designer, and lecturer, was another founding member of the Werkbund. He was Belgian by birth and had come to Germany in the 1890’s; he quickly became one of Germany’s leading designers. Velde helped give birth to the Jugendstil movement, and he saw himself as cast from the same mold as William Morris, the founder of the English Arts and Crafts movement. He initiated reforms in Germany that dealt with art education and helped incorporate applied and decorative arts into art curricula. Velde was appointed head of the Weimar Art Academy in 1902, and while in that position he promoted a dialogue between artisans and manufacturers. In his autobiography, however, he claimed to be the true spiritual father of the
Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded
Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded Walter Gropius, an architect associated with the Werkbund, lauded Behrens’s aesthetic vision. Gropius finished his apprenticeship in Behrens’s offices and claimed that the designs made by the members of the Werkbund helped him to grasp the nature of what a building could be. In 1911, Gropius designed the Fagus shoe-last factory. An internal steel-and-reinforced-concrete skeleton was visible in Behrens’s turbine factory, which represented a decidedly nontraditional approach to form and construction. Gropius’s Fagus factory, in contrast, had no support visible from the exterior walls. The panels of glass appeared as though they were hanging, and so they were called collectively a “glass curtain.” In keeping with his vision of design, Gropius used no corner piers of concrete but only the simple, clean enframements of the glass panels. The interior of the Fagus factory, like that of the turbine factory, served the building’s function well. The Fagus factory housed large, well-lit work areas, and the whole building was efficiently ventilated. Another important Gropius design for the Werkbund was the pavilion for the 1914 exhibition of the Werkbund in Cologne. The pavilion was to house examples of the new German ideals in industrial art. The entrance portion of the building reflected a neoclassic scheme, except that it was flanked by two glass-curtained staircases. Nothing like it had been designed before. The pavilion was dignified, yet it expressed the engineering aesthetic favored by the Werkbund. The central hall again was designed with an eye to emphasizing space. Attached to it, and thus breaking up the external horizontal planes, was the Deutzer Gasmotorin pavilion, which held (as though it were a sacred object) a gas-driven turbine engine. The shape of this pavilion was a cross between a tempietto and a stepped pyramid. Once again, Gropius utilized the glass curtain. During the Cologne exhibition, the Werkbund almost disintegrated over a debate sparked by then-president Muthesius and Velde that quickly developed into a standoff. The essence of the debate was the division of the Werkbund between members who were advocates of freedom of creation and experimentation, represented by Velde, and those who, like Muthesius, held that all artists and craftsmen should work together to attain greater quality of existing designs, making experimentation unnecessary. Muthesius’s desire was to perfect and refine forms already in existence, whereas Velde saw Muthesius’s stance as stagnation and believed that new forms and solutions were needed. Young, vital artists such as Gropius disagreed with Muthesius’s view and found themselves in alignment 620
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 with the “old guard” from the Jugendstil period such as Velde. There were calls for Muthesius’s resignation and, finally, a bid for secession strongly backed by Gropius. Even Velde, however, did not want to break up the Werkbund; he merely wanted to steer it to his views. Behrens helped bring about some calm within the Werkbund, but as it turned out, what perhaps ultimately saved the Werkbund as an idea was the outbreak of World War I, which cut short the Cologne exhibition of 1914. The formation of the Bauhaus was a direct result of the Werkbund. In 1919, Gropius established the Bauhaus at Weimar as a blending of two existing institutions: the Kunstgewerbeschule (industrial arts school), of which Velde was a founder, and the old Academy of Fine Arts. The Bauhaus held to the ideas of the Werkbund concerning a visual experience of the German culture; however, the Bauhaus was more realistic about pursuing its intentions, especially after World War I. Gropius promoted the ideal of collective thought, using as an example the Gothic cathedral as a symbol for collective thought in the Middle Ages. In fact, the word “Bauhaus” originally meant a stonemasons’ workshop set up at the base of a cathedral construction site. Another major aim of the Bauhaus was to unite everyday life with the industrial ideal. One building that expresses the aims of Bauhaus architecture and functionalism is the Bauhaus building at Dessau, which opened in 1926. Gropius designed the Dessau building to encompass the variety of activities held within it, from photography to cabinetmaking. The interior space was designed with movable walls and dormitory rooms that served as studio space as well. The support structure was of reinforced concrete, and the external walls were composed of glass curtains. In 1927, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was appointed first vice president of the Werkbund. Under his guidance, the group participated in the Weissenhof Siedlung (Weissenhof homestead) exhibit in Stuttgart. The Werkbund section of the exhibition was called “Wohnung und Werkraum” (living and working areas). Originally, all the areas were to flow together. Major young architects participated, including Gropius, Behrens, and Le Corbusier. Mies van der Rohe’s apartment house, for which he adapted the steel skeleton to the housing arena, dominated the whole area. Some of the steel supports could be seen in the interiors of the apartments. Elements such as this freed the architecture of Weissenhof from the traditional. All the works at Weissenhof, moreover, were designed to be quintessentially functional and economical, as the amount of living space in these dwellings was not great.
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Further Reading Benton, Tim, and Charlotte Benton, eds. Architecture and Design, 1890-1939. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1975. Anthology of original articles, including the writings of Muthesius, Velde, and Gropius. Of particular interest are the writings of Muthesius and Velde concerning the 1914 argument in Cologne. Includes many articles by Gropius, among them “The Development of the Modern Industrial Architecture” and “Programme of the Staatliche Bauhaus in Weimar, April, 1919.” Burckhardt, Lucius, ed. The Werkbund: History and Ideology. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron’s, 1980. A collection of thirteen essays on different aspects of the Werkbund, such as social reform, architecture, and the organization’s aspirations. Essays of particular note are “Between Art and Industry: The Deutsche Werkbund” by Julius Posener, which offers an overview of the Werkbund, and “The Thirties and the Seventies: Today We See Things Differently,” by Burckhardt. Supplemented with black-and-white photographs and architectural drawings. Campbell, Joan. The German Werkbund: The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. Ascholarly work detailing the history of the Werkbund from its founding in 1907 to 1934. Highly informative in terms of the political and personal struggles that took place within the Werkbund. Includes appendixes concerning leadership of the Werkbund, statistics on annual meetings and membership, and principal Werkbund publishers.
Giedion, Sigfried. Space, Time, and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition. 5th ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. Contains a chapter that covers Gropius in the Werkbund and the Bauhaus. Also discusses the influence on Gropius of other artists, such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso. The chapter on Mies van der Rohe contains solid information on the Weissenhof Siedlung. Gropius, Walter. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Boston: Charles T. Branford, 1955. To read this informative book is to have a conversation with Gropius himself. The slant is toward the Bauhaus, but Gropius discusses the Werkbund as well. He explains his rationalization of architecture, his use of nontraditional materials, his Bauhaus curriculum, and even his views on town planning. This personal philosophy is supplemented by excellent black-and-white photographs of the Fagus factory and the Bauhaus that aid in the understanding of the impact of the glass curtain. Jaeggi, Annemarie. Fagus: Industrial Culture from Werkbund to Bauhaus. Translated by Elizabeth M. Schwaiger. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000. Focuses on Gropius’s design for the Fagus shoe-last factory, a seminal building in the history of modern architecture. Presents materials from the factory’s archives, including original correspondence and blueprints. Numerous photographs. Sembach, Klaus-Jurgen. Henry Van de Velde. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Offers insight into Velde’s work from the applied arts to architecture. The chapter titled “Permanence in Changing Times” provides thorough information on Velde’s Werkbund theater for the Cologne exhibition of 1914. Excellent photographs and architectural plans. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus.
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The Werkbund lasted until World War II, although it took a hiatus from late 1915 through 1918, during World War I. The Werkbund brought together artists and craftsmen with different personalities who shared similar ideals, and together they laid the groundwork for modern architecture and design. —Tom Dewey II
Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded
Panic of 1907
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October-November, 1907
Panic of 1907 A run on the Knickerbocker Trust Company caused a general financial panic in the United States, precipitating intervention by a team of powerful New York bankers led by J. P. Morgan. Locale: United States Categories: Banking and finance; economics Key Figures J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), American financier James Stillman (1850-1918), American financier George F. Baker (1840-1931), American financier Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 F. Augustus Heinze (1869-1914), American copper speculator Charles W. Morse (1856-1933), American financial speculator and banker Benjamin Strong (1872-1928), secretary of Bankers Trust and a chief Morgan investigator during the 1907 panic Summary of Event Coming on the heels of an international liquidity crisis, a run on some of the most prominent trust companies in New York City in October, 1907, sent shock waves through the American economy. J. P. Morgan, senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Company, a private international investment bank, responded by setting up a syndicate of the most powerful banks in New York. For three weeks, his syndicate acted as a central bank by providing liquidity (ready cash) to affected trust companies. When the crisis cooled in mid-November, the financial community credited Morgan with saving the nation, even as many people criticized the power he wielded. Almost all Americans had been shaken by the panic, and the public demanded reforms of the financial system. The seeds of the 1907 panic can be found in the world’s growing credit crunch after 1900. Sharp increases in the rate of economic growth, the number of government security issues, and the amount of stock market speculation strained the existing supply of capital, bidding up interest rates in most countries. By 1907, major bank failures occurred in Tokyo, Hamburg, Alexandria, Genoa, and Santiago. Most countries also witnessed declines in their stocks of gold, average stock prices, and money supplies as the year wore on. In some countries, including Great Britain and France, rapid cen622
tral bank intervention counteracted the impending crisis by increasing liquidity, boosting the sagging confidence of the investment communities. In other countries, such as Germany, financial regulation dampened speculative activity and thus eased pressures on the money supply. The United States, in contrast, had no central bank. More important, financial regulation was irregular or nonexistent. This was especially true in terms of the trust companies that had increasingly moved into general banking business since 1900. Banks generally faced high reserve requirements—that is, stipulations on the amount of cash they had to keep available to meet demands for withdrawals. Trust companies did not face these requirements. Because they did not need to keep so much cash on hand, cash that did not pay a return, they could offer higher rates of interest to depositors, attracting them away from banks. The trust companies then loaned these deposits out. Many borrowers used securities (stocks and bonds) as collateral for loans, which they in turn used to buy even more securities. In this way, the trust companies increased the supply of money, but on the unstable basis of financial speculation. When stock prices began to fall in early 1907 in response to international conditions, credit automatically contracted, and trust companies were forced to call in their more speculative loans, leading to further falls in the money supply. This instability made it possible for one incident to break investor confidence and cause a major run on deposits in banks and, more significant, in the trust companies involved in speculative ventures. The incident was F. Augustus Heinze’s failed attempt to corner the copper market. Before 1906, Heinze was the owner of a copper smelter in Montana. He sold out as a millionaire, moved to New York City, and teamed up with Charles W. Morse, a bank proprietor with a notorious reputation for speculative dealing. By using their funds to buy a controlling interest in commercial banks such as the Mercantile National, Heinze and Morse gained access to large amounts of deposit funds. They used these, in turn, to gain control of trust companies unfettered by reserve and loan restrictions. This pyramidal financial structure gave Heinze and Morse control over a vast sum of funds, which they used for speculative investments, the most important of which was their scheme to corner the copper market. When their scheme backfired in mid-October, the resulting decline in copper share prices prompted depositors to with-
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$18.95 million available for call loans at interest rates as low as 10 percent. The next day, the loans were renewed, and the syndicate issued a further $9.7 million of liquidity to Wall Street. Morgan, Baker, and Stillman, along with their newly created banking and trust committees, then worked through the weekend trying to shore up all possible defenses. Morgan even called in the city’s religious leaders and asked them to reassure churchgoers on Sunday. On Monday, October 28, however, the unexpected struck. New York City was not able to find buyers for its warrants abroad because Europeans were withdrawing their money from American investments. The city needed an immediate loan of $30 million to avoid default by the end of the week. Morgan came up with an ingenious solution: As issuing bonds through normal channels was impossible, he arranged for Baker and Stillman each to take a portion of the bonds and turn them over to the New York Clearing House, which paid for them with certificates credited to the city’s accounts at the First National and National City Banks, controlled by Baker and Stillman. The next week saw more trust companies and brokerage firms in trouble, including Moore and Schley, a prominent Wall Street investment house that owed $25 million. Morgan agreed to help Moore and Schley if he received something in return. The firm owned a majority of the stock of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI&R), and Morgan wanted United States Steel, the company he had set up in 1901, to gain control by exchanging its gold bonds for the majority stock of TCI&R held by Moore and Schley. Arguing that Moore and Schley’s failure would result in further brokerage house and trust company bankruptcies, Morgan agreed to have U.S. Steel buy TCI&R’s shares if the trust companies set up their own trust rescue fund. He then sent his U.S. Steel emissaries to Washington to tell President Theodore Roosevelt that the Moore and Schley bailout and the trust company rescue fund were contingent on a promise by the U.S. government not to launch an antitrust suit against U.S. Steel. Roosevelt agreed not to interfere, and the deal went through. The trust company rescue fund helped restore confidence, and Wall Street began a gradual recovery. Significance Although the financial distress of 1907 was a worldwide phenomenon, it led to a financial panic of immense proportions only in the United States. In terms of the degree of decline in credit, share prices, and output growth, as well as the number of bank and trust company failures, 623
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draw their funds. These “runs” occurred not only on banks and trust companies associated with Heinze and Morse but also on other institutions. Their main bank, Mercantile National, was saved through the intervention of the New York Clearing House. Trust companies, however, were not eligible for clearinghouse assistance, and their customers were more easily frightened into demanding the return of their deposits. By Friday, October 18, a run had begun at New York’s third largest trust, the Knickerbocker Trust Company. All of Wall Street was aware of the fact that the trust was connected to Heinze and Morse through its president, Charles Barney. J. P. Morgan was in Richmond, Virginia, attending the Triennial Episcopal Convention when he received word about Knickerbocker Trust’s difficulties. Concerned about the possibility of runs spreading to other banks and trust companies, Morgan returned to New York a day ahead of schedule. His arrival ushered in a series of meetings, during which he put together a rescue team that included two of the nation’s most powerful bankers: George F. Baker, Morgan’s longtime financial ally and president of the First National Bank of New York, and James Stillman, Morgan’s sometime rival and president of the National City Bank (later Citibank). The purpose of the rescue team was to lend money to otherwise solvent institutions suffering runs on deposits. To determine solvency, Morgan, Baker, and Stillman put together an investigative staff led by Benjamin Strong, then secretary of Bankers Trust. On Monday, October 21, the run continued at Knickerbocker Trust, and the institution asked Morgan’s rescue team for help. Strong was sent in to assess whether Knickerbocker was worth saving, but it was bled dry of deposits before he could complete his investigation. Knickerbocker’s failure set off runs at other trust companies, which were forced to call in their loans, many of which had been issued to brokers for speculative purposes. One indication of the extent of the problems is that when Charles Barney asked for Morgan’s help two weeks later and Morgan refused to see him, Barney shot himself. Morgan’s rescue team stepped in to assist the Trust Company of America after Strong had judged it worthy, but others were not so lucky. As a consequence, money became so difficult to come by on Wall Street that the call (very short-term) interest rate escalated to 150 percent by Thursday, October 24. Many brokers were on the edge of bankruptcy, and trading had virtually ceased on the New York Stock Exchange. Morgan brought together a large syndicate of commercial banks that immediately made
Panic of 1907
Panic of 1907 the United States fared far worse than did other countries. This resulted from a number of factors, including the lack of trust company and securities regulation, the lack of deposit insurance, and the absence of a central bank that could take timely preventive measures. Reactions to the Morgan-led rescue efforts were widely divergent. On Wall Street, Morgan, Baker, and Stillman were seen as heroes who had saved the country from imminent financial collapse. Morgan, the financial community believed, had acted like a one-man central bank. Nevertheless, Wall Street and the wider financial community realized that some reforms would be needed to prevent similar panics in the future. Congress responded almost immediately by passing the AldrichVreeland Act, a temporary compromise intended to make more credit available in future emergencies, and by setting up the National Monetary Commission, which had a mandate to study the defects of the existing system of finance and propose permanent solutions. Many Americans outside the financial community, however, were concerned about both the amount of power held by Morgan, Baker, and Stillman and the manner in which they used that power. Beginning in March, 1908, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin began a series of speeches against what he called the “money trust.” He and other Progressive politicians began to call for an investigation of the money trust and the ways in which it had abused its tremendous power. In particular, they were upset about U.S. Steel’s acquisition of TCI&R and how Morgan had personally profited from what they now called the “Bankers’ Panic.” The government, already pursuing John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil trust, came under increasing pressure to attack the Morgan trusts. It would take another four years, but eventually the government reacted by launching an antitrust suit against U.S. Steel. The speculative side of the 1907 financial panic caused Americans to reassess Wall Street and spurred Populists and Progressives across the United States to turn to political action. In 1911, Kansas was the first state to pass a “blue-sky law” creating a state commission that determined which securities could be sold or traded within the state. Twenty-five states soon followed Kansas’s lead in an attempt to prevent speculative activity in securities, the root cause of the 1907 financial panic, according to many observers at the time. In February, 1912, the Banking and Currency Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives began an investigation into the money trust that would become known as the Pujo Inquiry. Hearings began later in the 624
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 year. The alleged members of the inner core of the money trust—Morgan, Baker, Stillman, and their respective financial institutions—were identified in large part because of their actions during the preceding panic. The highlight of the hearings was Morgan’s testimony, in which he explained the rescue team’s actions during the panic. The most permanent legacy of the Panic of 1907 was the establishment of a decentralized central banking system, as proposed by the National Monetary Commission. The commission’s proposal was eventually adopted, although with many amendments, in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. As the governor of the powerful Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Benjamin Strong, who investigated banks during the 1907 panic, became the dominant voice in the direction of the new system and remained so until his death in 1928. —Gregory P. Marchildon Further Reading Carosso, Vincent P. The Morgans: Private International Bankers, 1854-1913. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. One of the most scholarly works available on J. P. Morgan’s investment banking activities. Contains a detailed and reliable account of Morgan’s activities during the 1907 financial panic. Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990. A broad and accessible account of the Morgan dynasty, from the creation of the investment bank until 1990. Devotes one short chapter to the 1907 panic. Cowing, Cedric. Populists, Plungers, and Progressives. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965. A general intellectual history of the opposition to Morgan, Wall Street, and the increasing concentration of economic power. Provides an insightful guide to the Populist and Progressive critiques of American finance capitalism. Kindleberger, Charles P. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. A general survey of financial speculation and monetary crises from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. Also provides a general theory of the boom-and-bust nature of economic development. Sobel, Robert. Panic on Wall Street: A History of America’s Financial Disasters. 1988. Reprint. New York: Beard Books, 1999. An accessible history of financial disasters in the United States, written in an entertain-
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versies of Morgan’s time. Includes photographs. White, Eugene Nelson. The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900-1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Deals with the 1907 financial panic as a backdrop to the issue of banking reform in the United States. Contains a wealth of information on the American banking system before passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. See also: Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation; Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized; Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails.
October 18, 1907
Second Hague Peace Conference The Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907 revised and expanded the rules developed during an 1899 conference to mitigate suffering and protect the rights of persons involved in international war. Locale: The Hague, the Netherlands Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; atrocities and war crimes Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Wilhelmina (1880-1962), queen of the Netherlands, r. 1890-1948 Summary of Event In the second half of the nineteenth century, advances in weapons technology were rapidly making nations’ use of force more destructive. As a result, there was a growing need to limit what states were allowed to do in the course of armed conflict. The laws and customs of war needed to be revised and expanded, and a number of international agreements began to do that. For example, the 1864 Geneva Convention sought to improve the condition of wounded soldiers in the field, and the 1874 Brussels Declaration attempted to codify the norms of land warfare. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the expansionist drive of the Great Powers made the outbreak of war increasingly likely, and codifying the standards of
civilized warfare became more urgent. The initiative came from Czar Nicholas II, who invited all nations maintaining diplomatic relations with the Russian government to meet for the purpose of seeking the most effective means of preserving peace, limiting armaments, and regulating the conduct of war. The Hague was selected as the site for this conference, and, at Russia’s request, the Dutch monarch issued the invitations. Twentysix governments participated in the First Hague Peace Conference from May 18 to July 29, 1899. That first conference failed to provide new approaches to peace, and it failed to limit armaments. It did produce, however, among other things, new rules of international law to protect both combatants and noncombatants from the effects of war; it also provided the foundation for the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. The second conference, in fact, had been expected to meet sooner. The participants in the 1899 negotiations saw the effort as useful, and the diplomats involved supported reconvening within a relatively short span of time. More urgent problems intervened, however, as Russia found itself at war with Japan, and plans for the next conference were set aside. The Interparliamentary Union (an organization of representatives of parliaments of sovereign states working for international cooperation) decided in 1904 to urge U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt to convene the Second Hague Peace Conference. He accepted and immediately sounded out the governments represented at the first conference. All responded positively. The termination of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, 625
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ing style. Devotes one complete chapter to the 1907 financial panic. Sprague, O. M. W. History of Crises Under the National Banking System. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910. This is the report of the National Monetary Commission, which was created as a direct result of the 1907 panic. Remains the most detailed account and analysis of the panic. Available in many university libraries. Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House, 1999. Comprehensive biography of Morgan offers insights into the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of the Gilded Age. Explains in easy-to-understand language the financial contro-
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however, led the czar to resume the iniConvention Respecting the Laws and tiative. It was on his invitation that Queen Customs of War on Land Wilhelmina of the Netherlands convoked The Second Hague Peace Conference produced a series of agreements the Second Hague Peace Conference. that took effect on January 26, 1910. The fourth section of the conference’s This time, forty-four nations particiConvention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land included pated in the proceedings, from June 15 to the following explanation: October 18, 1907. Once again, the participants failed to devise effective ways of Seeing that, while seeking means to preserve peace and prevent armed preserving peace or controlling armaconflicts between nations, it is likewise necessary to bear in mind the case ments. They did, however, draft an unwhere the appeal to arms has been brought about by events which their precedented number of agreements aimed care was unable to avert; at setting limits to the conduct of hostiliAnimated by the desire to serve, even in this extreme case, the interests of humanity and the ever progressive needs of civilization; ties, safeguarding human rights, and reThinking it important, with this object, to revise the general laws and ducing the brutality and destructiveness customs of war, either with a view to defining them with greater precision of war. The most important of these was or to confining them within such limits as would mitigate their severity as Convention IV, a revision and expansion far as possible; of one of the conventions written in 1899. Have deemed it necessary to complete and explain in certain particuIt provided the most comprehensive set lars the work of the First Peace Conference, which, following on the of rules to that date for military operaBrussels Conference of 1874, and inspired by the ideas dictated by a wise tions on land. The regulations, as they and generous forethought, adopted provisions intended to define and govwere called in the convention, were of ern the usages of war on land. considerable significance for the protecAccording to the views of the High Contracting Parties, these provition of human rights. sions, the wording of which has been inspired by the desire to diminish the evils of war, as far as military requirements permit, are intended to serve as On a personal level, many of the rules a general rule of conduct for the belligerents in their mutual relations and promised to protect individuals in a variin their relations with the inhabitants. ety of ways. The regulations stated that It has not, however, been found possible at present to concert regulaprisoners of war must be humanely tions covering all the circumstances which arise in practice; treated. Specific rules established, often On the other hand, the High Contracting Parties clearly do not intend in very detailed manner, the extent of their that unforeseen cases should, in the absence of a written undertaking, be protection, such as the kind of work they left to the arbitrary judgment of military commanders. could be ordered to do and their compenUntil a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High sation for it. The sick and wounded must Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included be treated according to the Geneva Conin the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and the belligerents vention, revised in 1906. Some of the remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, means and methods of combat were also from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience. regulated. For example, the use of poisoned weapons was forbidden, as was the killing of soldiers who had laid down their weapons. A belligerent occupying the debtor state refused or failed to reply to an offer of arenemy territory was allowed to exercise its authority, but bitration or failed to comply with the result of the arbitral with a number of restrictions. For example, the occupant proceedings. This was a small step in the attempt to remust respect the rights of the people living there, their pristrict the sovereign right of states to use armed force, a vate property, and their religious practices. Pillage was goal that eventually was achieved on a much larger scale forbidden. The states that were party to this convention by the League of Nations, the 1928 Pact of Paris (the agreed that they would issue instructions to their armed Kellogg-Briand Pact), and the United Nations. forces ensuring compliance with these regulations. Another 1907 Hague convention specified the rights Other conventions specified that hostilities between and duties of neutral states, essentially protecting them states must not begin without prior and explicit warning. from the destruction of war in return for their concerted They prohibited the use of armed force for the purpose of efforts not to be of assistance to any of the belligerents. recovering contract debts owed by a government unless 626
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fore, that a third peace conference should be held in about eight years. The lack of urgency they showed is astounding in the light of the growing international tensions and increasing risk of war during the period. By 1915, the scheduled date of the third conference, World War I was under way. The third conference never took place. Significance The 1907 conference substantially clarified and expanded the law of war. The participants showed a concern for curbing the brutality of armed conflict and reducing the suffering of both combatants and noncombatants. Although rapid technological developments soon thereafter made war infinitely more devastating, and human suffering reached unprecedented heights, the humanitarian rules of behavior formulated at The Hague nevertheless saved millions of human beings from inhumane treatment. The conventions concerning legal norms of behavior, although far from evenly or generally applied, were sufficiently respected that large numbers of prisoners were taken and cared for. The wounded were attended to, medical facilities were, more often than not, given some protection, and some restraint was shown in the conduct of military operations. Undeniably, what was needed was a better way of preserving international peace, but human rights would have been infinitely more imperiled without the rules developed at The Hague. It must be remembered that the conference took a small step toward limiting the sovereign right of states to go to war, prohibiting states from doing so for the collection of international debts under some conditions. The League of Nations, the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the United Nations would later go much further. A new philosophy on the lawful use of force was emerging. Humanitarian agencies, particularly the International Red Cross, have played an important role in encouraging the application of legal norms of behavior in war. By conducting relentless visits and inspections (on battlefields, in military hospitals, and in prisoner-of-war camps), their representatives have been able to document violations and to apply pressure for better observance of the laws. Such agencies’ exposure of violations has occasionally led to public outcries and sanctions (for example, the war crimes trials following World War II). Contrary to what some people believe, most armies and most governments are not eager to violate the international law of war. Every war involves leaders, commanders in the field, and lesser combatants who refuse to surrender to inhumanity. The norms of behavior during war defined by interna627
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Some of the rules protected specific human rights. If, for example, some of the armed forces of a belligerent entered the territory of a neutral power, the latter was obligated to intern them for the duration of the war and provide the food, clothing, and relief required by humanity. After the war, the neutral power would be entitled to compensation for the internment expenses incurred. The last eight conventions written at The Hague in 1907 regulated naval warfare. They included provisions ensuring the security of maritime trade against the sudden outbreak of war and, to this end, protected against seizure of merchant vessels belonging to one of the belligerents found in an enemy port at the beginning of a war. Other provisions distinguished merchant ships converted into warships, protected the freedom of sea-lanes in times of war, and ensured the safety of vessels not involved in a conflict by forbidding the laying of unanchored contact mines, which are indiscriminate. The Hague regulations developed for land warfare were made applicable to naval bombardment. This was meant to protect the populations of undefended ports, towns, or villages and to preserve buildings used for artistic, scientific, or charitable purposes and otherwise reduce the destructiveness and harshness of war. Some of the provisions developed in 1899 were meant to adapt to maritime warfare the principles of the Geneva Convention for the protection of sick and wounded personnel. These were revised and expanded in 1907, specifying the conditions under which hospital ships and medical personnel could carry out their humanitarian mission. The conventions further elaborated the rules of capture in naval warfare, exempting from capture postal cargoes and vessels used exclusively for fishing along the coast as well as those employed in local trade or engaged in religious, scientific, or philanthropic activities. The conventions set up the International Prize Court to ensure greater justice in the capture of merchant ships and their cargo. Finally, rules were made to protect the rights of neutral powers in naval war. For example, the kinds of activities belligerent ships could engage in while in neutral ports were specified, as was the length of time belligerent ships could stay in neutral ports. The rules and regulations written in 1907 were significant, but the nations represented at The Hague were aware that further development was needed. The Second Hague Peace Conference failed to create institutions to preserve international peace and reduce armaments. The delegates were convinced, however, that their efforts had been useful and that this work should continue. They agreed, there-
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Second Hague Peace Conference tional conferences such as the Second Hague Peace Conference give them instruments to justify their restraint. The rules that came out of the 1907 conference were tied to a particular period of history and its values and priorities. War rapidly changed after that period, and technology created drastically new problems in the conduct of warfare. International society changed just as much, requiring the law to be revised periodically, particularly under the sponsorship of the International Red Cross and the United Nations. Anumber of the rules written in 1907, however, remain a part of today’s law of war. Even though the texts that emerged from the 1899 and 1907 conferences never formally entered into force as treaties, they strengthened and helped develop the growing emergence of customary norms of law. The 1907 conference showed that large-scale codification is feasible. It demonstrated a widely shared conviction that, difficult as the task may be, nations can develop legal restraints on their behavior during war. It was important that the conference participants affirm or reaffirm standards of humane conduct. This did not solve the problem of war, but it demonstrated the value placed on protecting basic human rights, even (or perhaps especially) in wartime. —Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux Further Reading Best, Geoffrey. Humanity in Warfare. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Reviews the history of the principles and rules of war and the influence of specific periods on their evolution. Serious and thoughtful; attempts to approach this difficult subject with objectivity. Very helpful in clarifying the role of restraints in war. Provides a useful chronological guide to the formulation of the law of war and a substantial bibliography. Detter, Ingrid. The Law of War. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Succinct presentation of the law of war, including its special characteristics and the place of the Hague rules in the modern system. Provides a clear overview of the norms of this body of law and explains their evolution and application. Includes an extensive bibliography.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 McKercher, B. J. C., ed. Arms Limitation and Disarmament: Restraints on War, 1899-1939. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992. Examines the history of efforts to limit warfare. Includes a chapter on the Second Hague Peace Conference. Oppenheim, L. International Law. 7th ed. Vol. 2 in Disputes, War, and Neutrality, edited by H. Lauterpacht. London: Longmans, Green, 1948-1952. Presents the Hague law in the context of the evolution of the law of war. Discusses the application of specific rules developed at The Hague and their subsequent revision and expansion. Provides a useful and sufficiently compact review of the war crimes trials. Rosenblad, Esbjörn. International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict. Geneva: Henry Dunant Institute, 1979. An excellent statement of the practical need for a continuing development of humanitarian law applicable in wartime. Reviews the contemporary problems involved and the various efforts to overcome them. Provides a useful context for the study of the Hague rules. Includes an extensive bibliography. Scott, James Brown. The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1909. The most basic work on the Hague conferences. Volume 1 gives an excellent account of the two conferences and an extensive discussion of the conventions negotiated there. Volume 2 provides the full text of all documents as well as diplomatic materials concerning the two conferences. Extremely useful. Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical illustrations. 3d ed. New York: Basic Books, 2000. A remarkably interesting and insightful study of restraints in war, both moral and legal, demonstrating their relevance and applications even in the bitter armed conflicts of recent history. Also discusses the limitations of restraints. Includes many historical examples and case studies. See also: Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established; June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed.
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Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus
October 22, 1907
Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus
Locale: New York, New York Categories: Organizations and institutions; entertainment Key Figures James A. Bailey (1847-1906), cofounder of the Cooper and Bailey Circus in the 1860’s P. T. Barnum (1810-1891), American showman and founder of P. T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus John Ringling (1866-1936), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus Charles Ringling (1864-1926), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus Albert C. Ringling (1852-1916), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus Alfred T. Ringling (1862-1919), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus Henry Ringling (1869-1918), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus August G. Ringling (1854-1907), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus Otto Ringling (1858-1911), cofounder of the Ringling Bros. Circus Summary of Event In 1907, the Ringling Bros. Circus purchased its largest competitor, Barnum and Bailey Circus, creating the world’s largest circus. The seven Ringling brothers were divided as to whether or not they should make the purchase, but John and Charles Ringling persisted, and finally the circus was purchased for $410,000, after a year of discussion and negotiation. The event signified the merger of the three largest circuses in operation in the United States. The first circuses in the United States had appeared in the late eighteenth century and were primarily traveling menageries. By the nineteenth century, the circus had become a firm tradition. Barnum had founded his Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus in 1870 at the persuasion of Dan Castello and William C. Coup, who wanted Barnum’s name and financial backing for their circus. Barnum’s show combined animal and human exhibits and featured the first human side-
shows. Coup had been noted for his innovative business practices, and he was the first circus proprietor to use circus trains to move his circus from town to town. Barnum’s show eventually evolved into the most wellknown circus of the nineteenth century. The Barnum and Bailey Circus was created by Barnum and James A. Bailey, who had merged their individual circuses in 1881. The endeavor was so successful that it grossed $400,000 in its first year of operation, and by 1882 it was billing itself as “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Bailey and James E. Cooper had formed the Cooper and Bailey Circus in the 1860’s and secured such exhibits as the first electric light, Little Columbia, in 1879; the first baby elephant born in an American circus; and the Great Wallaces, the first bicycle troupe to appear in the United States. The combined Barnum and Bailey show was enormously successful and featured such acts as Jumbo, the world’s largest elephant (and the source of the adjective “jumbo”) in 1882. Despite Bailey’s retirement from the partnership in 1885, the combined circus continued to be highly profitable and successful. After Barnum’s death on April 7, 1891, Bailey bought the circus from Barnum’s widow, Nancy, and continued to run it, taking it on a European tour from 1897 to 1902 and expanding it to five rings and additional stages. When Bailey died in 1906, his widow had a British syndicate manage the show, but she was unsatisfied with the management and was prepared to sell when her arrangement with the syndicate expired. She approached the Ringling brothers, the only showmen who had both the money and the inclination to acquire such an enterprise. The Ringling Bros. Circus had begun in 1884 as a tent show under the name Yankee Robinson and Ringling Brothers. It was started by five of the brothers, Albert, August, Alfred, Charles, and John. The brothers had witnessed John Stowe & Company’s Great Western Circus in 1869 after receiving a free ticket from one of its performers, and the boys had been fascinated by the phenomenon. After the creation of their circus, the five brothers toured the American Midwest and Northeast, moving from town to town in small, animal-drawn caravans. They acquired their first elephant in 1888, and as the show grew, they changed the mode of transport to train. In 1889, they purchased railroad cars and parade equipment from Adam Forepaugh, a fellow circus owner. By 1890, their circus was the largest travel629
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The two largest circuses in the United States merged when the Ringling Bros. Circus bought its largest competitor, the Barnum and Bailey Circus, in 1907.
Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus ing show of its time, and the other brothers, Henry and Otto, eventually joined the circus as well. When Barnum and Bailey launched their European tour in 1897, the Ringling brothers were quick to seize the opportunity to expand, and they captured the audiences that Barnum and Bailey had left behind in the United States. The Ringlings named their circus the Ringling Brothers United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Congress of Trained Animals. One of the distinguishing marks of the circus was its attitude toward the public. The Ringlings insisted that their enterprise’s public dealings be fair and honest; they would not allow ticket sellers to shortchange customers and prohibited games such as three-card monte. The Ringlings were of divided opinions when Bailey’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 widow first approached them regarding a possible sale of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. John Ringling, the sixth of the Ringlings’ seven sons, was the most well known and successful of the brothers, and he and his brother Charles pushed for the merger of the circuses, arguing that beyond the advantage of expanding their own show, they would be assimilating their largest and most prominent competitor. Other members of the family feared that they would be overstretching the company’s finances and taking on too much work. When the other brothers gave in and allowed the sale, John and Charles were proved correct, and the endeavor was enormously profitable. Significance Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus became the largest and most successful of the American circuses.
A poster advertising the Barnum and Bailey Circus a few years before it was purchased by Ringling Bros. (Library of Congress)
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Further Reading Cook, James W. The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. Analysis of mass entertainment in nineteenth century America. Focuses on P. T. Barnum as one of the most skillful manipulators of the public imagination. Davis, Janet M. The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top. Raleigh: University of
North Carolina Press, 2002. Well-illustrated and well-written history of the circus as it appeared in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Discusses how the circus reflected changes in the overall culture and how similar contemporary entertainments are played out in locations such as Disneyland and Las Vegas. Durant, John. Pictorial History of the American Circus. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1957. Well-researched historical account of the American circus that focuses on individual details rather than attempting to provide a broad overview. Ringling, Alf. Life Story of the Ringling Brothers. Boston: R. R. Donnelley, 1900. Biography of the Ringling brothers. Sloan, Mark. Wild, Weird, and Wonderful: The American Circus Circa 1920 as Seen by F. W. Glasier. Boston: Quantuck Lane Press, 2002. Contains promotional photographs taken by Glasier, a Boston-based commercial photographer who shot promotional photos of circuses that came through that city. Sutton, Felix. The Big Show: A History of the Circus. New York: Doubleday, 1971. Comprehensive overview of circus history from ancient times to the present day. Taylor, James. James Taylor’s “Shocked and Amazed”: On and Off the Midway. Boston: Lyons Press, 2002. Essays taken from the Shocked and Amazed journal, which documented carnival and midway lore and legends through interviews and essays. The essay on P. T. Barnum is comprehensive and useful. See also: June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens; 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”; Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; Sept. 8, 1921: First Miss America Is Crowned; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment.
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The Ringling brothers shaped and help define the circus tradition. The two circuses were at first run separately; they were not combined until 1919, when John and Charles Ringling, who were largely responsible for the circuses’ management, decided they were no longer able to run the shows separately. On March 29, 1919, they debuted the merged show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The circus was the largest and most spectacular in the United States: The main tent had a capacity of ten thousand people, and the show employed more than twelve hundred employees and required one hundred double-length railroad cars to transport it. The resounding success of the combined circuses made John Ringling one of the richest men in the world. In 1926, Charles Ringling died, and John Ringling moved the circus’s winter quarters to Sarasota, Florida, where he built a thirty-room Italian villa. In 1929, John Ringling, by then the only survivor of his family, bought the American Circus Corporation for $1.7 million. In doing so he absorbed five major shows: Sells-Floto, Al G. Barnes, Sparks, Hagenbeck-Wallace, and John Robinson, making him the owner of nearly every major circus in the United States. After Ringling’s death in 1936, the circus was operated by his nephew, John Ringling North. In 1967, North sold the circus to Irvin Feld, a former manager of the company. The Feld family sold the circus to the Mattel company in 1971, retaining production control, but bought it back in 1982. —Cat Rambo
Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus
Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan
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December 22, 1907
Pavlova Performs THE DYING SWAN Anna Pavlova’s memorable solo performance in Michel Fokine’s The Dying Swan symbolized a new era in ballet to appreciative audiences around the world. Also known as: Le Cygne; The Death of the Swan Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Category: Dance Key Figures Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), Russian ballet dancer Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario who created and directed the Ballets Russes Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), American modern dancer Solomon Hurok (1888-1974), Russian American impresario Summary of Event On December 22, 1907, Anna Pavlova premiered The Dying Swan, a miniature ballet that was to influence multitudes. The two-minute solo quickly became her favorite and most successful piece. Its expressive and lyrical choreography, by Pavlova’s colleague Michel Fokine, was a telling synthesis of the classical ballet tradition and “modern” reforms. Pavlova’s emotional interpretation of this synthesis, embodied in the Swan, is nothing short of legendary. Through her independent tours to cities across six continents between 1909 and 1931, Pavlova came to symbolize the new Russian ballet for a vast, appreciative audience. The Dying Swan was created in response to an invitation by the Imperial Opera. A benefit concert was being given in St. Petersburg’s magnificent Mariinsky Theatre (now the Kirov), and Pavlova was asked to participate. Fokine recommended the music—“Swan” from the 1886 work Carnaval des Animaux by Camille SaintSaëns—realizing that this composition for mandolin would be an ideal vehicle for the thin and graceful Pavlova. Excited by the suggestion, she asked him to create the dance. The Dying Swan was born. The ballet’s conception was simple. Wearing a traditional white tutu embellished with down feathers (designed by artist Léon Bakst) and a feathered headpiece, Pavlova portrayed the noble bird’s struggle between life and death in an uncomplicated series of actions. Crossing 632
the stage sur les pointes (on the tips of her toes), as if it were a shimmering pool of water, the Swan fluttered her arms in preparation for flight. Reaching the edge of an invisible precipice, she stopped short in the classic position of attitude (balancing on one pointe, the other leg extended back and bent at the knee). Suddenly, the Swan experienced sharp jolts of pain. She clasped her arms to her chest, moving haltingly to the footlights. There, she made a curving descent to the ground and, after protracted quivers, found everlasting rest. Fokine later recalled that the dance was choreographed in minutes, as he demonstrated the movements while Pavlova imitated him from behind. She then attempted it alone as he corrected her gestures and poses. The simple movements brilliantly combined classical ballet technique with a new emotional expressiveness. Rather than trying to amaze the audience with technical or acrobatic feats, the choreography consisted of a sequence of traditional pas de bourrées, or patterned steps, and sustained balletic positions. If the movements of the feet were traditional, however, the movements of the arms were decidedly untraditional. Gone were the static and controlled arm gestures of nineteenth century ballet, devoid of meaning and corresponding only with specific positions of the feet. In their place were animate appendages that contributed to, rather than supported, the choreography. True to the character of the Swan, Pavlova’s arms were transformed into airy wings. Almost improvisatory, the dance allowed Pavlova the freedom to impose her own mood on its movements, so that each performance was different and uniquely powerful. Pavlova revealed possibilities of expression through her movements that were previously unknown. Fokine remembered it this way: “It was like a proof that the dance could and should satisfy not only the eye, but through the medium of the eye should penetrate into the soul.” Unlike other ballets of the day, Pavlova’s Swan did not depend for its effect on a sophisticated plot or lavish decor. Answering detractors who called the dance trivial, English dance critic Cyril Beaumont wrote: “Those who never saw her dance may ask what she did that made it so wonderful. It is not so much what she did as how she did it. The emotion transferred was so overpowering that it seemed a mockery to applaud when the dance came to an end.” Similar descriptions of The Dying Swan have been
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recorded by countless critics, observers, and fans. Pavlova had long been known for her emotional portrayals, often being compared to the lyric Romantic ballet dancers of the nineteenth century. She had been a principal dancer with the Russian Imperial Ballet since 1905, graduating from the Imperial Ballet Academy in 1899 and working her way up through the ranks of the company. (She was allowed to bypass the corps de ballet, however, achieving the status of soloist from the start.) Although her technical ability was limited by a frail body and weak ankles (often documented by critics as “her extreme femininity”), her reputation as a character dancer was established immediately. Clearly, she compensated for any technical deficiencies by developing and maximizing her expressive powers. Michel Fokine was one of her childhood classmates, frequently partnering her in the traditional nineteenth century classical ballets. Typically, the choreography was designed to show off Pavlova’s pirouettes (turns) and Fokine’s grand jumps. This rigid formula, which emphasized fixed poses and stereotypical plots, generally lacked dramatic unity. As in most ballets of the time, the music merely signaled the starting and stopping of the
dance. Rarely did it provide impetus or support for the movement itself. Pavlova loved the applause that their duets invariably received, but Fokine was less than satisfied with the content of their performances. Gradually he began to choreograph for the Imperial Ballet on a regular basis, and his new ideas about the dance unfolded. In particular, he contemplated expressive over simply impressive movement and a more purposeful relationship of the dance to music. Whereas Fokine’s reforms were the products of careful deliberation, Pavlova instinctively unified movement and music when she danced. Because of this intuitive understanding, she was the perfect instrument to communicate Fokine’s emerging ideas. The premiere performance of The Dying Swan was the first of many. Pavlova continued to dance until her death from pneumonia at the age of forty-nine, presenting The Dying Swan to audiences throughout Europe, Australia, South Africa, Asia, and North and South America. Her signature piece became one of the most famous solos of the century and symbolized a new era in ballet. Although this new era began in Russia, Pavlova’s inexhaustible tours introduced possibilities for expression through dance to people well beyond her homeland. For this, Pavlova is included among the pioneers of twentieth century dance. Significance In Russia, The Dying Swan was instantly recognized as a departure from traditional ballets. Its unadorned movement, its expressive use of the arms, and its use of classical, rather than made-for-ballet, music set the dance apart from well-known favorites such as La Bayadere or Giselle (two ballets with which, incidentally, Pavlova also had tremendous success in Russia). The Dying Swan represented a new direction for the Russian ballet, one that sought to elevate the dance to the level of symphonic music. It is probable that these changes were inspired, or at least helped, by modern dancer Isadora Duncan’s performances in Russia during the same period. Pavlova and Duncan had met and observed each other at work as early as 1904, the time of Duncan’s first visit to Russia. It is likely that Pavlova and Fokine both were influenced by the American dancer’s unrestricted, emotion-filled movement. In fact, writer Gennady Smakov has described the improvisatory and expressive nature of The Dying Swan as “Duncanism on pointe.” The Dying Swan unified all aspects of its production, from music to movement, from Pavlova’s costume to her 633
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Anna Pavlova. (Library of Congress)
Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan
Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan hairstyle. As Fokine intended, it managed this while staying within the confines of classical technique (a difference between Pavlova’s work and Duncan’s). Pavlova supported Fokine’s stance against the classical formula of nineteenth century ballet; more than anyone else, she was responsible for presenting his ideas of reform to early twentieth century audiences through her countless performances of The Dying Swan. She was less enthusiastic about the innovations of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, however, and spent only one season with that company in Paris, although Fokine was then its principal choreographer. She returned briefly at that time to the Imperial Ballet, only to resign in 1913. Her real ambition was to travel alone. Pavlova’s influence ultimately extended across an estimated 350,000 miles and into the imaginations of millions of observers through some four thousand performances. In 1914, she organized and trained a small company of dancers who became her personal corps de ballet. The group toured regularly from then on; Pavlova’s mission was to reach as many as possible with her art. “I want to dance for everybody in the world,” she declared. Historian Arthur H. Franks has calculated that during one American tour in 1925, Pavlova’s company appeared in seventy-seven towns during twenty-six weeks, performing a total of 238 times. Between 1913 and 1925, Pavlova’s group was the only dance company regularly touring the United States. This constant visibility greatly contributed to the popularization of ballet in America. During the early years of Pavlova’s travels, the United States was only beginning to accept dance as a legitimate pursuit, let alone an art form. Acceptance came only following tremendous resistance. Partly because of the country’s conservative Puritan origins and partly because of the relatively recent rise of cities and towns (with their reputation for roughness and corruption), Americans were likely to associate dancers with saloons, gambling, and even prostitution. Pavlova herself wrote that she had never realized how protected dancers were in Russia. She was astonished to discover that in the United States when people spoke of a woman becoming a dancer, “they used the same tone they would have whispered of her entrance into the oldest profession in the world.” Without doubt, Pavlova stirred an appreciation and interest in ballet that contributed to a gradual change in its professional and artistic image. This paved the way for further developments in the dance of the twentieth century. American impresario Solomon Hurok promoted Pavlova in the United States, where she eventually com634
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 manded large fees for her performances. At first, however, she danced for meager crowds. Her American debut took place at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House with partner Mikhail Mordkin in 1910. Fearing little interest or even scorn, promoters advertised her performances as bringing “an art new to America” rather than stating outright that it was a ballet presentation. In other cities, Pavlova often performed in vaudeville houses on the same programs with trained animal acts, jugglers, and comedians. Despite this indignity, she persevered, certain that Americans would eventually respond to the ballet’s enchantment. In many cases, Pavlova provided the first glimpse of ballet that her audiences had ever experienced. She was the first significant female ballet dancer to tour the United States since Fanny Elssler in 1841, and Pavlova’s travels encompassed more ground. Whereas Russian observers recognized a radical departure from nineteenth century ballet in The Dying Swan, audiences in the United States and other parts of the world saw first and foremost the magic of ballet dance performed by a fairylike creature. Pavlova can be credited with sharing this magic with countless people who previously had little, if any, experience with theatrical dance. Certainly, she inspired the next generation of American ballet stars. Pavlova changed the concept of the dance and the image of the dancer. Her ability to express the pathos of creatures such as The Dying Swan, her dynamic stage presence, and her compelling desire to share her dance even to her death made her one of the most famous dancers of the twentieth century. In her depiction of The Dying Swan, she demonstrated the expressive powers of an art form that was just beginning to be recognized in the United States, and she heralded a new era of Russian ballet to those who had long loved the old. — Alecia C. Townsend Further Reading Fonteyn, Margot. Pavlova: Portrait of a Dancer. New York: Viking Press, 1984. A beautiful book featuring passages of Pavlova’s own writing interspersed with historical commentary by dancer Fonteyn. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, performance programs, and drawings from throughout Pavlova’s career. Also includes a selective chronology of the dancer’s life. Franks, Arthur H., ed., in collaboration with the Pavlova Commemoration Committee. Pavlova: A Biography. London: Burke, 1956. This small volume contains ten selections about Pavlova written by, among others, her promoter Sol Hurok, critic Arnold Haskell, dancer
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Written by the founders of the Pavlova Society, this book describes each dance in Pavlova’s repertoire and briefly explains its historical significance. Includes a biographical sketch, an essay discussing the use of photographs as historical evidence, and an extensive bibliography. Smakov, Gennady. “Anna Pavlova.” In The Great Russian Dancers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. Offers a valuable historical perspective on Pavlova’s life and art. The author, a Russian émigré critic, places Pavlova in the context of other Russian dancers and achievements. See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Dec. 6, 1934: Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet.
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Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins Water treatment plants in the United States began to use chlorination to kill bacteria that had been causing epidemics. Locale: United States Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures John Snow (1813-1858), British anesthesiologist Robert Koch (1843-1910), German doctor and bacteriologist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), French chemist James Simpson (1799-1869), British waterworks engineer Hamilton Young Castner (1858-1899), American chemist Summary of Event Before the introduction of chlorine into drinking-water supplies, epidemics of infectious diseases caused by waterborne microorganisms were common. Such epidemics occurred regularly in the United States and the rest of the world, particularly in urban areas. Mortality rates in the United States rose through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, peaking in the 1860’s and 1870’s. This rise in mortality was primarily a
result of increasing urbanization. As population density increased in the cities, two interrelated problems developed: increasing demand for (along with decreasing supply of) clean water and a lack of means for disposing of human waste. As human waste entered drinkingwater supplies, several types of disease-causing bacteria spread throughout the population. This spread caused a number of epidemics, including repeated occurrences of cholera and typhus. The United States experienced epidemics throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; yellow fever epidemics occurred in 1853, 1878, and 1905, and repeated cholera epidemics included a major outbreak in the Mississippi River Valley in 1873. The initial medical and governmental responses to such outbreaks consisted of the quarantine of carriers. In particular, ships arriving in port from epidemic areas were quarantined. This response probably reduced the transmission of disease, but it did not address the role of sanitation in preventing the spread of disease. It had long been understood that water-supply problems contribute to disease; such concerns, however, had to do with the quantity of water rather than the quality. It was generally believed that communities could minimize diseases by watering down dusty streets and alleys. Any concerns with water quality tended to emphasize 635
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and choreographer Michel Fokine, and one of her partners, Laurent Novikov. Includes a useful introductory biographical sketch of Pavlova’s life (although some dates are inaccurate). Garafola, Lynn. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. A selection of essays and reviews by one of the most influential scholars of the history of dance. Covers the transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early twentieth century. Includes many photographs. Ivchenko, Valerian. Anna Pavlova. Translated by A. Grey. Paris: Brunhoff, 1922. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1974. This elegant book describes Pavlova’s life and repertoire in detail and provides lengthy quotations about Pavlova by various observers. Includes seventy-five photographs and drawings, some in color. Lazzarini, John, and Roberta Lazzarini. Pavlova: Repertoire of a Legend. New York: Schirmer Books, 1980.
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Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins clarity and smell of drinking water, rather than its biological cleanliness. During a 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, more than seventeen thousand people—more than 10 percent of the city’s population—contracted the disease. This event led to the establishment in Philadelphia in the late 1790’s of the first municipal waterworks in the United States. The creation of the waterworks not only led to a decrease in epidemic diseases in Philadelphia but also signaled a shift to the notion that water supply should be a public utility function. The quality of water supplies was first addressed in England in 1829, when James Simpson, the engineer of the Chelsea waterworks, invented and constructed the first water-filtering system. Simpson’s sand filters were designed to remove visible dirt from the water supply, which they did, but as an invisible and unrecognized side benefit, the filters also removed some disease-causing bacteria. The concept of filtration slowly caught hold, and by 1852 all water companies supplying water for domestic use in London and drawing their water from the River Thames were required to use filters. The first person to recognize that the incidence of disease was directly related to drinking-water supplies was the English anesthesiologist John Snow, who proved that cholera outbreaks in 1849 and 1854 were related to water sources. He showed definitively that the cholera outbreak in London in 1854 resulted from the drinking of water from the Broad Street pump, the waters of which were polluted with human excrement. He surmised that a poison was responsible for the cholera, but he could not identify the poison. The French chemist Louis Pasteur developed the science of bacteriology in the 1860’s and expounded the germ theory of disease. He proved that diseases do not spread when the bacteria that cause them are killed. Robert Koch, a German country doctor and bacteriologist, first identified the bacterium that causes cholera in 1883. In the 1870’s, standard testing of water began, but the tests were aimed at finding only chemical, not biological, impurities. In the mid-1880’s, biological testing began, and it became apparent that filtration removed about 98 percent of the bacteria in water. Filtration, which had been developed for the biologically contaminated waters of Europe, was a more difficult process for the silt-laden waters in the United States. By 1900, the common water treatment method in the United States was chemical coagulation, usually achieved by the application of aluminum sulphate, followed by filtration. This removed most, but not all, of the disease-causing bacteria. 636
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The American chemist Hamilton Young Castner developed a process for manufacturing sodium hydroxide from seawater in 1894; Castner’s process created chlorine as a by-product. The chlorine thus produced was initially used primarily as a bleaching agent in the paper and fabric industries, but this ready supply of chlorine would ultimately play a crucial role in destroying bacteria in drinking water. Chlorine and chlorine compounds had been used since the beginning of the nineteenth century as deodorants and as preservatives of organic matter. These compounds had been used on raw sewage but had not been used as disinfectants for drinking water. In 1896, chlorine was used for the first time to destroy bacteria in a drinking-water supply, successfully stopping a typhoid epidemic. As a result of the increased knowledge about bacteria, their role in causing disease, and their vulnerability to chlorine, the modern method of water treatment evolved over the following ten years. By 1908, standard methods of water treatment had been developed and were coming into use in major U.S. metropolitan areas. The water treatment methods included the application of a chemical coagulating agent to aid filtration; the filtration itself, which removed suspended particles and most bacteria; and a final treatment with chlorine or a chlorine compound to kill remaining bacteria. Significance The introduction of chlorine to the water treatment process to destroy waterborne bacteria nearly eliminated disease caused by bacteria from drinking water in the United States and the rest of the developed world, with a consequent reduction in mortality rates. This was a combined effect of the technology available to destroy the bacteria and the establishment of laws and regulations to ensure the technology is used. Today, isolated instances of bacterial infection caused by polluted water still occur in the developed world, but they are rare. Epidemics attributable to waterborne bacteria no longer occur in the developed world, although they still occur in less developed countries where water supplies are polluted. As a part of the bureaucracy that developed to regulate the quality of U.S. water supplies, the U.S. Public Health Service was established in 1912. Among its activities were the development of standards for drinking water and the education of the public about the dangers of drinking polluted water. Early successes in destroying disease-causing bacteria in the water supply fostered a false belief in the clean-
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health effects of such pollutants differ from those of bacteria; the health dangers of bacteria are severe and acute, whereas the dangers of chemical pollution build up over long periods. The dangers and effects of longterm chemical pollution are much more difficult to isolate than the dangers of exposure to bacteria. The human population is exposed to numerous chemical compounds over time, and it is difficult to assign a degree of danger to each individual chemical. Chemical pollutants in water can be partially removed through chemical filtering, but the risks posed by residual amounts of chemicals are still undetermined. In the second half of the twentieth century, the bulk of the work on water treatment centered on the elimination of sources of chemical pollution rather than on the removal of chemicals from the water supply. In the 1970’s, a new source of chemical pollution of the water supply was discovered. The chlorine that was being used to destroy bacteria combined with organic matter in the water to form trihalomethanes (THMs), which in high concentrations can cause cancer. Thus chlorine, which had been used to make water safe, was shown to introduce a new risk. This discovery raised a new set of questions. If water is not disinfected, waterborne diseases that could be deadly may result, and the effects would be rapid. If chlorine is used to disinfect water, the short-term results are favorable, but the longterm effects are unclear. Large concentrations of THMs are known to cause cancer, but the effects of small concentrations are unknown, and there is no clear threshold concentration below which humans are safe. The THM findings left in their wake a debate as to the best method for disinfecting water. As of the early twenty-first century, major options for water treatment include chlorination, with its proven effectiveness in eliminating disease caused by bacteria but its unknown long-term effects; other chemical treatments, including the application of ozone, that have varying effects on bacteria and that may have unknown side effects; and nonchemical treatments, such as disinfection with light, heat, or nuclear particles. —Robert E. Haag Further Reading Baker, M. N. The Quest for Pure Water. New York: American Water Works Association, 1949. A historical look at water treatment, especially in the United States. Includes descriptions of various techniques and equipment. Degremont, G. Water Treatment Handbook. 6th ed. New 637
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liness of water in the United States. Officials believed that as long as water could be disinfected to destroy harmful bacteria, there were no problems with the water supply. This assumption led to increasing pollution of rivers, streams, and groundwater, because people believed that filtration and disinfection would make water safe. The pollution took two forms: biological pollution, caused by sewage emitted into rivers and streams, and chemical pollution, caused by industrial and agricultural emissions. Filtration and disinfection methods can, in most cases, counteract the effects of biological pollutants in water supplies, but these methods do not reduce chemical pollution—in fact, they contribute to it. In the first half of the twentieth century, two technologies related to the chlorination of water were constantly and incrementally improved: the technology for controlling the amount of chlorine added to water and the technology for testing water for bacterial contamination. Combined, these allowed a reduction in the amount of chlorine added to water supplies, lowering costs for water-supply companies, minimizing the chlorine smell and taste of treated water, and ensuring the biological cleanliness of the water. Depending on its source, water may contain a number of dissolved minerals as impurities. Two of these minerals, calcium and magnesium, are the main minerals that cause water hardness, which can leave mineral deposits on plumbing fixtures and increases the amount of soap needed to mix with water to achieve cleanliness. These minerals may be a nuisance, but, unlike disease-causing bacteria, they are not harmful to humans. In the 1870’s, standard tests for minerals in water were established, and by the end of the nineteenth century, chemical means had been developed to remove some dissolved minerals. These included the addition of small amounts of lime to remove calcium and the addition of sodium and potassium salts to remove other minerals. In 1906, the principle of ion exchange was developed, whereby dissolved nuisance minerals were replaced by other chemical ions that were considered less troublesome. These methods, however, were used only to remove natural impurities that did not pose a danger to humans. Successful water treatment to counteract the effects of biological pollution and natural minerals gave officials and the public a false sense of security about the safety of water supplies. In the second half of the twentieth century, concerns were raised about chemical pollution of the water supply. A large number of different chemical pollutants can enter the water supply from two main sources: agricultural runoff and industrial waste. The
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Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics York: Springer-Verlag, 1991. A complete technical discussion of the biological, chemical, and physical aspects of water and water treatment. Includes photographs and diagrams. Gottlieb, Robert. A Life of Its Own: The Politics and Power of Water. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988. A good history of the politics of water supply in the western United States. Includes good descriptions of changes in attitudes and concerns. Mughat, F. H. “Chlorination of Drinking Water and Cancer: A Review.” Journal of Environmental Pathology 7 (September 1, 1992): 287-294. A review of research regarding chlorination of drinking water and the incidence of cancer in humans. Powledge, Fred. Water: The Nature, Uses, and Future of Our Most Precious and Abused Resource. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982. A detailed treatment of water and the supply of water from the standpoints of both quality and quantity.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Smith, Norman Alfred Fisher. Man and Water: A History of Hydro-technology. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. A good history of water-supply technology. Bibliography. White, George Clifford. Handbook of Chlorination and Alternative Disinfectants. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Reference work on all aspects of water purification with chlorine and other disinfectants. Aimed at professionals in industries such as water treatment, toxicology, environmental engineering, and food packaging. See also: 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution.
1908
Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics G. H. Hardy and Wilhelm Weinberg formalized the first model for evaluating changes in gene frequency within a population, thus giving birth to the field of population genetics. Locale: Stuttgart, Germany; Trinity College, Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; genetics; biology Key Figures G. H. Hardy (1877-1947), English mathematician Wilhelm Weinberg (1862-1937), German physician, geneticist, and medical statistician Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Austrian monk and botanist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English naturalist Summary of Event Within a few decades following the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) by Charles Darwin, the theory of natural selection had gained considerable approval in the scientific community and had revolutionized the way biologists 638
viewed the natural world. Darwin’s work provided a comprehensive explanation for both the origin and maintenance of the seemingly endless variation in nature. Stated simply, natural selection is the differential reproduction of heritable characteristics within a population, which ultimately leads to evolutionary change. Despite almost immediate acceptance, the theory was incomplete in that it failed to account for a mechanism of heritability and an explanation for how such a mechanism could translate into the kinds of changes in populations and species that Darwin’s theory of evolution originally predicted. The first of these problems was overcome in 1900, when the earlier work of Gregor Mendel was rediscovered independently by several researchers. In his quantitative assessment of breeding experiments on garden peas, Mendel demonstrated that many inherited traits in diploid organisms (those containing two sets of chromosomes) are determined by two factors, which are known now as genes (segments of chromosomes). From the frequency of traits in his populations of pea plants, Mendel reasoned that an organism receives one gene from each parent for all such heritable traits. In addition, he argued that alleles (alternate forms of the same gene) separate independently and randomly from
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Third, there must be no spontaneous changes in alleles (mutations). Finally, there must be no differential success (selection) of certain alleles. Alleles must share equal probability of transmission to the next generation. For example, if some individuals possess alleles or combinations of alleles that, under certain environmental conditions, enhance their chances of survival and subsequent reproduction, then their genes will be represented more than those of others in the next generation, gene and allelic frequencies will change, and the population will adapt to environmental conditions. Such differential success of alleles is the essence of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and the primary mechanism by which evolutionary changes proceed. Given these conditions, the Hardy-Weinberg law asserts, changes in gene frequency in a population (evolution) will not occur. When any one or more of these conditions are violated, however, gene frequencies will be altered, and evolution will take place. Thus, by demonstrating the conditions necessary for evolution not to occur, Hardy and Weinberg were able to illustrate those factors that actually contribute to evolutionary change.
G. H. Hardy.
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one another when gametes (egg and sperm) form but combine again during fertilization. Almost immediately following the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws of inheritance, several scientists began to realize the implications of these laws for the study of population genetics and evolutionary change. The first observations were noted by William E. Castle in 1903, and more complete analyses were presented in 1908 by the English mathematician G. H. Hardy and the German physician Wilhelm Weinberg. These later works, which came to be known collectively as the Hardy-Weinberg law (or equilibrium), eventually became the foundation for the study of population genetics. The law of population genetics, credited to Hardy and Weinberg, was discovered and published independently, but almost simultaneously, by the two scientists. Weinberg was a physician with research interests in multiple births, medical statistics, and population genetics. Between 1908 and 1910, he published four critical papers relating Mendel’s laws of inheritance to genetic changes in populations. Because of this work, some consider him to be the father of population genetics. Hardy was a prominent mathematician who invested most of his time in the study of pure mathematics, on which he published nearly 350 papers. In late 1908, however, he deviated slightly from his main research interests when he published a short note to the editor of the journal Science, in which he made several observations concerning the relevance of Mendel’s laws to populations that were very similar to those pointed out by Weinberg. The Hardy-Weinberg law states that, given simple patterns of Mendelian inheritance, the frequency of alleles in a population will remain constant from generation to generation, assuming that certain ideal conditions are met. In other words, if these conditions hold true, allelic frequencies will not change, the genetic structure of the population will remain constant over time, and evolutionary change will not occur. These ideal conditions are as follows. First, the population must be a large, randomly breeding, or panmictic, population. In other words, all individuals in the population must have equal reproductive success. If this condition is not met, and certain individuals experience greater reproductive success than others, or if nonrandom breeding occurs as a result of small population size, then certain genes will be overrepresented in the next generation and the population’s gene frequencies will change. A second necessary condition is that the population must be closed; that is, there must be no immigration or emigration of individuals into or out of the population.
Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics
Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics In addition to the qualitative discussion of their argument, Hardy and Weinberg also presented their model in a purely mathematical form. To illustrate this quantitative expression of their model, it is easiest to consider a hypothetical population with a single gene and two alleles, represented by A and a. Recall also that each individual in the population possesses two alleles for this gene. Furthermore, let the frequency (numerical proportion) of the A and a in the population equal p and q, respectively, and assume that p + q = 1. As an example, assume that p and q equal 0.8 and 0.2; that is, the proportion of the A allele in the population is 80 percent and that of the a allele is 20 percent. Hardy and Weinberg reasoned that if Mendel was correct and these two alleles separate randomly and independently as discrete units during formation of the egg and sperm, the frequency of allelic combinations in the next generation could be predicted mathematically. They stated that if p and q are known, and if all conditions of the model hold true, then the frequency of allelic combinations in the next generation could be calculated easily from p2 + 2pq + q2, where p2 is the frequency of individuals with two A alleles, 2pq is the frequency of individuals with one A and one a allele, and q2 the frequency of individuals with two a alleles. This mathematical expression of allele combinations, or genotypic frequencies, follows from a simple rule of mathematical probabilities, which states that the joint probability of two independent events is equal to the product of their individual probabilities. Thus, in the example above, the probability of acquiring two A alleles (or the proportion of individuals acquiring two A alleles) is equal to 0.8 × 0.8, or 0.64. Similarly, the probability of acquiring one A allele and an a allele in any order is p × q × 2, or 0.32. In the absence of nonrandom mating, mutation, immigration, emigration, and selection, these frequencies will remain fixed at these values in all subsequent generations. This mathematical treatment allowed biologists to predict the frequencies of allelic combinations in a population from the individual allelic frequencies. In a similar way, they could calculate frequencies of each allele by working backward from the allelic combinations. The value of this model, however, is not in its applicability to the real world. In fact, biologists believe that natural populations rarely, if ever, meet all the ideal conditions required by the model. Instead, the Hardy-Weinberg equation is a conceptual model that clearly illustrates how evolutionary change occurs at the population-genetic level. Although this model is limited in that the behavior of some alleles is not governed by Mendelian laws of in640
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 heritance, it is an important starting point for the study of population genetics. Significance The Hardy-Weinberg law was a critical breakthrough in evolutionary biology that effectively linked Mendel’s laws of inheritance with Darwin’s theory of natural selection. It demonstrated clearly how cellular mechanisms of inheritance can translate into the microevolutionary changes that Darwin predicted. This synthesis was accomplished in two ways. First, by defining the conditions necessary for a population to remain genetically unchanged indefinitely, Hardy and Weinberg were able to specify those conditions that contribute directly to evolutionary change. In the absence of mutation, gene flow in and out of the population, and natural selection, a large, randomly breeding population will remain at equilibrium with respect to its allele or gene frequencies. When any one of these conditions is violated, gene frequencies will change in subsequent generations. Hardy and Weinberg’s model thus helped biologists to understand how changes in gene frequencies can occur and that such changes are, in fact, smallscale evolutionary events. In addition, the equilibrium model helped identify mechanisms of evolutionary change that were not obvious from Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Although most biologists agree that differential reproduction of alleles, or natural selection, is the primary force driving evolution, it became clear from Hardy and Weinberg’s work, and is still widely accepted, that other factors—such as random events and differing degrees of gene flow between populations— contribute also to evolutionary change. The second important observation to emerge from the Hardy-Weinberg law was that sexual reproduction alone does not result in a reduction in genetic variability or in genetic change. One of the problems that Darwin faced was how to explain the maintenance of genetic variability. Darwin correctly assumed that genetic variability is the essential raw material on which natural selection acts. In the absence of an accurate mechanism of inheritance, however, he had incorrectly assumed that the inheritance process must result in a constant blending of genetic material and a loss in genetic variability as well. His insistence that variability is necessary for natural selection posed a serious problem. From Mendel’s work, it soon became clear that genetic material is transmitted in discrete units and therefore is not mixed during reproduction. A short time later, Hardy and Weinberg demonstrated that, under ideal conditions, gene frequencies and
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Further Reading Arms, Karen, et al. Biology: A Journey into Life. 4th ed. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995. A general biology text for the layperson that provides a clear and concise description of the HardyWeinberg law and its implications. Well illustrated; includes a glossary of general biology terms. Hanson, Earl D. Understanding Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. A basic text on evolutionary biology that devotes considerable attention to population genetics and its relevance to evolutionary processes. Gives thorough coverage to Mendel’s laws of inheritance and the Hardy-Weinberg law. Includes modest historical accounts of other relevant events. Well illustrated, with limited references. Merrell, David J. Ecological Genetics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981. A college-level
text, best used as a reference. One of the first attempts to synthesize ecological processes with those of population genetics. Gives the Hardy-Weinberg law moderate coverage. Includes extensive references and a few diagrams and figures. Mettler, Lawrence E., Thomas G. Gregg, and Henry E. Schaffer. Population Genetics and Evolution. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988. A modern text on population genetics that assumes a certain basic level of understanding. Provides a complete overview of current research efforts in the field. Well referenced, with short chapter summaries. Provine, William B., comp. The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Provides a comprehensive overview of the history of population genetics, including the Hardy-Weinberg law. Raven, Peter H., et al. Biology. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Comprehensive introductory college text on the science of biology. Covers the basic concepts of genetics and heredity and includes a detailed account of Mendel’s laws of inheritance. Discusses the Hardy-Weinberg law and provides a summary of the kinds of natural events that violate this law and thereby alter population genetics. Illustrations and detailed glossary. Wilson, Edward O., and William H. Bossert. A Primer of Population Biology. Stamford, Conn.: Sinauer Associates, 1971. Intended for the beginning biologist. A small, concise handbook, perhaps one of the best introductory texts on classic population genetics. More than half the book concerns the basis of genetic change in populations. A strong mathematical orientation, but problems are explained clearly. Well illustrated, with suggested readings and a short glossary of technical terms. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map.
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genetic variability will remain fixed indefinitely. Their work finally resolved a major problem in the theory of natural selection. The synthesis of Mendel’s and Darwin’s work resulted in renewed interest in evolutionary biology and soon gave birth to the new field of population genetics. This field was advanced greatly during the 1920’s with the work of Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, Sewall Wright, and John Burdon Sanderson Haldane; it continues to be one of the major fields of biological research. In addition to its impact on basic research, the HardyWeinberg law has had several practical applications. Perhaps the most important of these is its use as a conceptual teaching model. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is employed in nearly every college-level biology text as a starting point for discussions on evolution, adaptation, and population genetics. In essence, it is a teaching tool that is as useful for beginning students in the twenty-first century as it was for evolutionary biologists at the beginning of the twentieth century. A second important application derived from the model concerns the manner and degree to which deleterious alleles manifest themselves within a population. The Hardy-Weinberg model shows how lethal alleles, such as those that code for fatal genetic diseases, can be maintained in a population at low frequencies. This simple conceptual model had a tremendous impact on the study of evolutionary biology. —Michael A. Steele
Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics
Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling
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Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling When oil well drillers and inventors Howard Hughes, Sr., and Walter B. Sharp developed the rotary cone rock bit to accelerate drilling through hard rock formations, they revolutionized oil well drilling. Locale: Houston, Texas Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures Howard Hughes, Sr. (1869-1924), American lawyer, drilling engineer, and inventor Walter B. Sharp (1860-1912), American drilling engineer and inventor Summary of Event The earliest oil well drilling was accomplished through the use of various adaptations of the cable tool or the rodand-drop percussion tool. As the oil-bearing formations investigated became progressively deeper, the limits of these two techniques became increasingly apparent. Although the hydraulic rotary drilling system was conceived of and in limited use as early as the 1880’s, the growth and spread of this system was almost concurrent with the Texas Spindletop well of 1901, one of the first deep wells penetrating harder rock formations as well as softer clay and sand. Arotary drill rig of the early twenty-first century is basically unchanged in its essential components from earlier versions of the 1900’s. A drill bit is screwed to a line of hollow drill pipe. The latter passes through a square hole on a rotary table, which acts essentially as a horizontal gear wheel driven by an engine. The drill bit itself at the hole bottom is rotated by the connected sections of the above-lying pipe in contact with the rotating table. While being rotated, the drill bit and stem are free for feeding wash water, usually an oil and mud mixture stabilized with flocculating montmorillonite clay that increases its specific gravity, to prevent side caving and to seal off water and oil-bearing subsurface strata. The mud-laden water is pumped under high pressure down the sides of the rotary drill pipe and jets out with great force through small holes in the rotary drill bit against the bottom of the borehole. This fluid then returns outside the drill pipe to the surface, carrying with it rock material cuttings from the subsurface. Circulated rock cuttings and fluids (“shale shaker”/“mud logger”) are regularly examined at the surface for evidence of the precise type and age of rock formation and for signs of oil and gas. 642
This continual washing of drill cuttings notably reduces rig downtime compared with cable and impact tools. Rotary drilling rates usually increase as additional drillcollar weights are applied to the drill bit through the careful adjustment of drill pipe tension at the surface. A key part of the total rotary drilling system is the drill bit, encompassing sharp cutting edges of some design that make direct contact with the geologic formations to be drilled. The first bits used in rotary drilling were paddlelike “fishtail” bits, fairly successful for softer formations, and tubular coring bits for harder geologies. In 1893, M. C. Baker and C. E. Baker brought a rotary drill rig for water wells to Corsicana, Texas, for modification to deeper oil drilling. This rig led to the discovery of the large Corsicana-Powell oil field in Navarro County, Texas. This success also motivated the rig’s operators, the American Well and Prospecting Company, to begin the first large-scale manufacture of rotary drilling rigs for commercial sale. In the earliest rotary drilling for oil, short fishtail bits were the tool of choice, insofar as they were at that time the best configured to “make hole” over a wide range of geologic strata without needing frequent replacement. Even so, in the course of drilling any given oil well in the Gulf coast region, many bits were typically required. Especially when they encountered locally harder rock units, such as limestone, dolomite, and gravel beds, fishtail bits would typically either curl backward or break off in the hole, requiring workers to undertake the timeconsuming tasks of pulling out all drill pipe and “fishing” to retrieve fragments and clear the hole. Because of the frequent bit wear and damage, numerous small blacksmith shops were established near drill rigs, where bits were dressed or sharpened by hand forge and hammer. Each bit-forging shop had its own particular ways of shaping bits, producing a wide variety of three- and fourwinged bits of numerous long and short bit designs. Nonstandard bit designs were frequently modified further as experiments to meet the specific requests of local drillers encountering specific drilling difficulties in given rock layers. In the early 1900’s, no consensus existed as to which drill bit shape was best for a given type of subsurface rock. For example, although short, one-wing fishtails drilled holes faster and cleaner in soft shales, they offered less cutting edge and less reliability than did multiwinged bits in the same material. Within a few years,
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heat. A less noticeable but equally essential innovation, not included in other cone bit patents, was an ingeniously designed gauge surface that provided strong uniform support for all the drill teeth. Force-fed oil lubrication, another new feature also included in Hughes’s patent and prototypes, reduced the power necessary to rotate the bit by 50 percent over that of prior mud or water lubricant designs. Significance Within six years of their patents and first manufacturing, the Hughes Tool Company’s cone drill bits were being widely used with great success in the drilling of both oil and water wells in numerous U.S. states as well as in other countries. The period 1908-1925 was one of intensive innovation in rotary drilling and bit designs. In 1913, a patent was filed on the first cross-roller rock bit. During his sixteen remaining years as chief of manufacturing and research of rotary rock bits, Hughes developed and tested many more ideas and obtained an additional seventy-three patents, which assured his company of a secure leadership role for many years. As oil wells were drilled progressively deeper and through harder formations, a new variety of the rolling cone bit, the so-called reaming roller, was required to ensure a stable and uniformly sized drill hole. Although roll-cutter rock bits did not come into wide and regular use before the development of high-powered circulating pumps specifically for oil field service in 1915, cone bits and rotary rigs gradually replaced other drilling technologies. This trend was notably furthered when, in 1925, the first superhard facings were used on cone drill bits. In addition, the first so-called self-cleaning rock bits appeared from Hughes, with significant advances in roller bearings and bit tooth shape translating into increased drilling efficiency. The much larger teeth made the bits more adaptable to drilling in a wider variety of geological formations than were earlier models. In 1928, Hughes metallurgists introduced tungsten carbide as an additional bit facing hardener. This, together with other improvements, resulted in the Hughes “ACME” tooth form, which has been in almost continuous use since 1926. To further efforts in reducing drill bit wear, the Hughes company established an active and continually funded research team of mechanical engineers and metallurgists to develop methods of preparing and testing new alloys and treatments for improving the all-critical bit contact-face cutting edges. These required extensive 643
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several prototypes for new bits were patented; these bits variously sought to combine short cutting bases with numerous smaller cutting teeth. In 1907 and 1908, patents were obtained in New Jersey and Beaumont, Texas, for steel, cone-shaped drill bits incorporating a roller-type coring device with many serrated teeth. Later in 1908, both of these patents were bought by lawyer-drillerinventor Howard Hughes, Sr. In 1906, with his business partner Walter B. Sharp, Hughes successfully drilled the first oil well in overpressured shales using controlled drilling mud weights. Directly motivated by his petroleum-prospecting interests, Hughes sought by trial and error to combine the best features of older and newer drill bits into one overall design that would provide greater reliability and flexibility. The general subsurface geologies encountered at the Corsicana and Spindletop fields often included complex sequences of argillaceous, arenaceous, and calcareous layers, in addition to thin stringer layers of hard anhydrites, gravels, and salt from diapiric intrusions. Between 1885 and 1937, the American geologist R. T. Hall (of the U.S. Geological Survey) worked tirelessly to establish the primary exploration stratigraphic nomenclatures for the highly variable lithofacies of the East Texas/Gulf Coastal Plain areas. The type of rock and total rock layer thickness were the primary controls on drilling rate and efficiency. For example, although comparatively weak rocks like sands, clays, and soft shales could be drilled rapidly (at rates exceeding 30 meters, or approximately 98 feet, per hour), in harder shales, lime-dolostones, and gravels, drill rates of 1 meter (3.28 feet) per hour or less were not uncommon. Conventional drill bits of the time had average operating lives of three to twelve hours. Economic drilling mandated increases in both bit life and drilling rate. Hughes undertook what were probably the first recorded systematic studies of drill bit performance as a function of specific rock physical properties. Although many improvements have been made to the Hughes cone bit, in both detail and materials, since its inception in 1908, its basic design has remained in use in rotary drilling. One of Hughes’s major innovations was the much larger size of the cutters, symmetrically distributed as a large number of small individual teeth on the outer face of two or more cantilevered bearing pins. In addition, hard facing was employed to increase the usable life of the drill bit teeth. Hard facing is a metallurgical process that basically consists of welding a thin layer of a hard metal or alloy of special composition onto a metal surface to increase its resistance to abrasion and
Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling
Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality ongoing tests over many years, a process that was comparatively uncommon in the boom-and-bust oil industry, where research and development had traditionally been the first department to be cut. In 1932, the American Petroleum Institute recommended mandatory practices for hard-facing rotary drill bits largely derived from the Hughes company’s test results. Even after Hughes’s death in 1924, part of the reason for the continued success of his rotary drill bits was his company’s ongoing effort to improve both engineering design and metallurgical composition through research. Eventually, rotary cone rock bits increased footage drilled per hour by more than 80 percent over original figures. Many improvements in other drilling support technologies, such as drilling mud, mud circulation pumps, blowout detectors and preventers, and pipe properties and connectors, have enhanced rotary drilling capabilities to new depths (exceeding 5 kilometers, or 3.1 miles, in 1990), even permitting horizontal drilling since the mid-1980’s with the advent of down-hole motors and rotary drilling capabilities. Hughes’s successful experiments in 1908 were critical precursors to these later developments. —Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Brantly, John Edward. History of Oil Well Drilling. Houston, Tex.: Gulf, 1971. The primary source for the history of the developments in rotary and other drilling methods. Very well referenced and illustrated.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Cernica, John N. Principles of Rock Fragmentation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982. An advanced undergraduate reference. Gives the theory as well as comparative laboratory field results for rock fracture under various conditions of loading and drill rotation. Isler, C. Well-Boring for Water, Brine, and Oil. London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1902. Notes independent and concurrent developments in rotary drilling. Jackson, Elaine. Lufkin: From Sawdust to Oil. Houston, Tex.: Gulf, 1982. Accurately recounts much of the economic and personal history of the early growth of the Texas oil industry. Jeffrey, Walter H. Deep Well Drilling. 2d rev. ed. Houston, Tex.: Gulf, 1925. Chapter 5 indicates the sequences of technical improvements associated with the wider adoption of the steel-toothed cone rotary bit. Paxson, Jeanette. Basic Tools and Equipment for the Oil Field. Austin, Tex.: Petroleum Extension Service, 1982. Part of a specially designed self-tutoring course on the principles and practices of rotary drilling. Sidorov, N. A. Drilling Oil and Gas Wells. Chicago: Imported Publications, 1986. A technical treatment of rotary drilling. Includes discussions of some of the deepest wells drilled on land. See also: Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop; 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire.
1908-1909
Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality By composing Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Arnold Schoenberg demonstrated that melody and harmony could be liberated from traditional tonal controls. Locale: Vienna, Austria Category: Music Key Figures Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Austrian composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (1872-1942), Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Bohemian-Austrian composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949), German composer Anton von Webern (1883-1945), Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), Austrian composer 644
Summary of Event The world of classical music was ripe for revolution in the early twentieth century. Insurrections of various grades of severity broke out nearly everywhere and continued in the years preceding and immediately following World War I. Vienna was no exception. As capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna was in the vanguard of the German-speaking cultural world, the inheritor of the tradition of such great composers as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms. It represented the cultural dignity of Old World Europe. Even that tradition was split, however. Since the 1870’s, patrons of music had been bitterly divided over the choice between the structurally conservative Johannes Brahms and the shock-
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Schoenberg to devote himself to music alone, and one day in 1895 he came home to announce, “My boss has gone bankrupt; I will never work in a bank again.” Supporting himself by conducting various workers’ choruses and by scoring operettas and arranging others’ compositions, Schoenberg concentrated on composing. His first major success came with his String Quartet in D of 1897-1898, which he never published, although it won widespread praise. After struggling spiritually and emotionally, he followed this with a breakthrough, Verklärte Nacht (1899; transfigured night), for string sextet. Both works transferred the symphonic poem to the chamber music level and expanded Wagnerian tonal ambiguity. For the next ten years, Schoenberg published a series of works that led directly to the revolutionary Das Buch der hängenden Gärten and the theoretical book Harmonielehre (1911; The Theory of Harmony, 1947). First came the Gurrelieder (1900-1911; songs of Gurre) for solo voices, speakers, choirs, and a vast orchestra. This monumental two-hour work, part song cycle, part oratorio, part melodrama, part symphonic opera, was remarkable even in its original form; however, Schoenberg revised its orchestration in 1911 to emphasize its transition from Wagner to the new, free-tonal world of the twentieth century. This work brought him to the attention of Strauss, who both secured him his first teaching appointments and recommended that he set Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1892 drama Pelléas et Mélisande to music. The resulting massive symphonic poem of 1903, Pelleas and Melisande, expanded Schoenberg’s use of counterpoint (the interweaving of separate melodic lines), opening new harmonic possibilities. At that time, Schoenberg and Zemlinsky founded the Society of Creative Musicians, which included Strauss and Mahler as well as Schoenberg’s new students Anton von Webern and Alban Berg. The organization pioneered radical new works, especially Schoenberg’s own. His String Quartets in D Minor and F-sharp Minor of 1906 and 1907 provoked hostile reactions, to the point of being hissed off the stage. The final break came with the 1909 composition and 1910 performance of Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, a setting of fifteen poems from Stefan George’s collection of the same title. In this work, Schoenberg attempted to discover a musical equivalent to George’s poetic expressionism, which distorted normal language to force new, otherwise unrealizable perceptions and to express extreme states of feeling. Schoenberg accomplished this by abandoning the conventional concepts of keys and tonal relationships and exploiting the potentialities for dissonance in the previ645
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ingly innovative and grandiose Richard Wagner. Disputes between the factions had led to actual brawls in the streets. The conflict was probably more emotional than substantive, having more to do with generation gaps and changing fashions than anything else, but part of it was technical. The conservatives preferred the old-fashioned harmonic progressions supposedly practiced by Brahms; many apparently did not hear his decidedly nonstandard enhanced chords. Brahms’s music seemed somehow stable, like the bedrock of the old standard hymnals. Wagner’s music, in contrast, could not be related to this context at all. It seemed to wander from key to key, and Wagner’s resolutions did not provide the sense of finality found in Brahms. Furthermore, since Wagner’s death in 1883, things had gotten worse. New composers such as Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler— to say nothing of the Frenchman Claude Debussy— aggressively sided with Wagner in expanding the standard harmonic range. Into this rift the young Arnold Schoenberg wedged; early in his career, he lifted the conflict to a new orbit with the composition of Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (1908-1909; the book of the hanging gardens). The son of a Jewish shoe seller of the Czech tradesman class, Schoenberg began violin lessons at age nine and started composing duets spontaneously, without formal instruction. At first, he was aided in this by his teacher, who used duets in lessons and encouraged the boy to bring his own. Shortly afterward, having learned from a biography of Mozart that his hero composed in his head, Schoenberg began imitating this. Upon entering Realschule (nonclassical high school for nonprofessionals) at eleven, he found a cultural climate that was even more encouraging. There he met Oskar Adler, who provided lessons in elementary theory and ear training and invited him to compose and arrange for a string trio. This trio eventually became a quartet, with Schoenberg trying all the parts and writing the group’s music from encyclopedias. Forced to leave school before graduation by the death of his father, Schoenberg began clerking at a bank (a job he hated), but he continued composing and playing. In 1893, a new director, the young Alexander von Zemlinsky, took over the amateur orchestra Polyhymnia, for which Schoenberg was the cellist; the two became lifelong friends. Zemlinsky was able to apply his formal conservatory training to help Schoenberg fill in the gaps in his theoretical education, but the pupil soon left the instructor behind. Before long, a few commissions enticed
Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality
Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality ously unused “accidental” tones within keys. He thus invented a musical parallel to George’s dislocations of language. The result revolutionized music. Schoenberg followed this up in 1911 by publishing Harmonielehre, which provided a theoretical justification for his innovations and created an unrestricted tonal basis for postnineteenth century music. Significance By making it possible for musicians to use the entire tonal spectrum in their compositions rather than having to restrict themselves to conventional, predetermined patterns, Schoenberg revolutionized classical music. He accomplished a break with musical traditions as radical as the parallel movements in art and literature from Impressionism to expressionism and from representation to nonrepresentation. It was a stunning feat. Like many revolutions, it transcended and repudiated what had seemed to be standards of conventional propriety. To the established, it looked like the replacement of order by chaos, and the reaction was furious. Schoenberg seemed to have destroyed the foundations of classical music and to have subverted the reassurances of traditional harmony. Dissonance (an ambiguous term) would reign; the specter of lawless atonality grinned ominously, although Schoenberg explicitly rejected the term, preferring “polytonality” to suggest the opening up of new possibilities rather than the rejection of the past. Of all the great modernist innovators of the World War I period—T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Franz Kafka in literature; Marcel Duchamp and Wassily Kandinsky in painting; Frank Lloyd Wright in architecture; Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky in music—Schoenberg provoked the greatest and most lasting hostility, and he gained less eventual acceptance, even among professionals. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1913), for example, which caused a riot at its first performance, became a modern classic; during the late twentieth century, at least forty recordings of the piece were in print simultaneously. In contrast, throughout the twentieth century there were never been more than two recordings of Das Buch der hängenden Gärten available at any one time, and at times there were none. Schoenberg’s big sellers have been the late Romantic works with which he began. Similarly, although Harmonielehre has regularly been in print, it remains a great unread testament. Schoenberg resembles a prophet without much of a following. Part of the reason for this neglect is the lack of appeal of much of the music produced by those following Schoenberg’s methods. Although in retrospect this does 646
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 not hold true for his own music and that of his leading adherents, such as Alban Berg and Anton von Webern, the idea of generating music from an arbitrary sequence of tones treated as a fixed melodic and harmonic unit struck most listeners as mechanical and sterile. It looked as if it would create music that was formulaic, routine, abstract, and dead, if not officiously offensive. Furthermore, the immediate public response to the actual music was to reject it outright. Complex historical and social reasons lay behind this reception; those on the Brahms side of the musical rift, for example, had become so entrenched that they reacted adversely to any innovation. They had already been howling about Debussy’s deviations, most of which are quite inoffensive to later ears. At the outset of World War I, much of Europe already seemed to be searching for enemies. For all this, Schoenberg ended up affecting twentieth century music more profoundly than any other person. Even Stravinsky, who prided himself on leading in musical innovations, eventually came under the sway of Schoenberg’s theories; he recognized ultimately that removing tonal limitations modified music more deeply than any other new technique. Schoenberg had proposed the most radical change possible—the abolition of tonality-centered music. That is, he argued that the conventional theory of diatonic harmony, developed since the time of Johann Sebastian Bach and ensconced in every music conservatory in the Western world, should no longer be practiced. To Schoenberg, diatonic harmony had reached a dead end; within that system, little new could be done. Composers were doomed to repeat endlessly the same lifeless chordal patterns. In fact, his theory in part merely acknowledged what composers in practice had long been doing. Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, and Modest Mussorgsky, as well as the composers of the Schoenberg circle, had long exploited the so-called accidental tones of the keys, abandoning definite tonal centers and building chords on forbidden intervals. Schoenberg did more than merely legitimate experimentation, however; he laid a basis for a totally new kind of music, and he did this, in part, by returning to the roots of Western music. So profound was this change that it dominated the teaching and conception of classical music from 1925 to 1950. No composer working during that generation could operate without at least acknowledging Schoenberg’s influence. Furthermore, no one working after that time could ignore the implications of the revolution he accomplished, for he had changed the way music was understood. By that time, it could finally be seen that he was not simply a theoretical crank promoting a
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Further Reading Auner, Joseph. A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of a Life. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Collection of Schoenberg’s essays, letters, and other writings, as well as paintings and drawings, many previously unpublished or untranslated. Extensive commentary places these materials in context and addresses important themes throughout Schoenberg’s career. Berg, Alban. “Why Is Schönberg’s Music So Hard to Understand?” Music Review 13 (August, 1952): 187196. Provides one of the simplest and clearest nontechnical explanations available of Schoenberg’s ideas as reflected in his music. Pitched primarily at the lay listener; fresh and direct. Written by a friend, student, and colleague of Schoenberg. Grout, Donald J., and Claude V. Palisca. “Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in TwentiethCentury Europe.” In A History of Western Music. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Accessible to the nonspecialist, although found within a textbook for college music majors. Covers the full range of Schoenberg’s innovations and offers explanations that are models of clarity. Provides a balanced overview with examples, illustrations, and bibliography. MacDonald, Malcolm. Schoenberg. London: Dent, 1976. One of the best sources on Schoenberg, covering all aspects of his life and work. Focuses directly on the pivotal period of Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, showing how his work led up to and then
away from that moment. Includes photographs and copious musical examples. Morgan, Robert P. “The Atonal Revolution.” In Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991. Covers the musical and aesthetic aspects of Schoenberg’s work and relates them to the course of the entire century. Includes examples, bibliography, and complete index. Rosen, Charles. Arnold Schoenberg. 1975. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Standard musicological biography of Schoenberg successfully translates technical material into understandable terms. Includes photographs, illustrations, musical examples, bibliography, and index. Schoenberg, Arnold. Style and Idea. Translated by Leo Black, edited by Leonard Stein. London: Faber, 1975. Schoenberg’s attempt to explain himself to the general reader. Rich material reveals why he had a reputation as a brilliant and encouraging teacher. Shawn, Allen. Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. A brief introduction to Schoenberg and his music intended for the lay reader. Covers the highlights of Schoenberg’s life and their relation to his major works. The final chapter analyzes Schoenberg’s influence on twentieth century music. Smith, Joan A. Schoenberg and His Circle: A Viennese Portrait. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986. One of the most complete accounts available of Schoenberg’s social and intellectual relationships. Smith is particularly acute in drawing connections between musical theory and Schoenberg’s cultural milieu. Includes photographs, musical examples, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Webern, Anton von. The Path to the New Music. Translated by Leo Black, edited by Willi Reich. Bryn Mawr, Pa.: T. Presser, 1963. Webern’s version of the evolution of Schoenberg’s theories, along with discussion of the contributions of Berg and himself. Good anecdotal and theoretical material, but some aspects of the book are not complete, as the manuscript was not finished before Webern’s death (and not recovered until a while after). See also: Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System; Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin; June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich. 647
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freak, a lunatic scientist reborn as a monster musician. He had recognized that counterpoint, abandoned since Bach in favor of diatonic harmony, was saturated with unexplored potential, whereas standard harmony was rapidly running out of possibilities. Schoenberg was undoubtedly a pivotal figure in twentieth century music. The extent of his influence can be seen in the fact that he remained controversial and provocative several generations after he made his first proposals. The most profound musical theoretician of the century, he also created an enduring body of masterworks, including the much-undervalued Das Buch der hängenden Gärten. Ultimately, the theoretical foundation established by Schoenberg in Harmonielehre would be developed by him and others into the system of twelve-tone, or serial, music, an important aspect of modern music but one tangential to the main thrust of Schoenberg’s revolution. —James Livingston
Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality
Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1908-1915
Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory Thomas Hunt Morgan’s experiments on Drosophila led to the discovery of the principles of the genechromosome theory of hereditary transmission. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Science and technology; genetics; biology Key Figures Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945), American geneticist and professor of experimental zoology Calvin Blackman Bridges (1889-1938), American geneticist Alfred H. Sturtevant (1891-1970), American geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller (1890-1967), American geneticist Summary of Event In 1904, Thomas Hunt Morgan, a young professor of biology, was invited by E. B. Wilson to join him at Columbia University as professor of experimental zoology. The new position would allow Morgan more time for laboratory research. That same year, through a friend, Jacques Loeb, Morgan met Hugo de Vries, the Dutch biologist who had been one of the trio of scientists who in 1900 had rediscovered the work of Gregor Mendel. (Mendel’s work had been largely ignored when he first propounded it in 1866, and it was soon thereafter forgotten.) De Vries had a theory that new species originate through mutation. The rediscovery of Mendel and the contact with de Vries influenced Morgan to initiate experiments to try to discover mutations and to test the Mendelian laws. He began to experiment with Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, an enormously propitious choice for a laboratory animal. It bred rapidly and ate little, and Morgan and his students found that thousands of these minuscule experimental animals could be contained in a small collection of milk bottles that they “borrowed” from the Columbia cafeteria. In 1908, Morgan had one of his graduate students, Fernandus Payne, perform an experiment in which he bred generations of Drosophila in the dark, in an attempt to produce flies whose eyes would atrophy and become dysfunctional. On Morgan’s advice, Payne secured his experimental animals by capturing some of the flies that were attracted to bananas he had left on the ledge of a window of the laboratory. Nothing came of the experiment, however; after sixty-nine generations of fruit flies, the last could see as well as the first. 648
Morgan’s second experiment on Drosophila was an attempt to induce mutations by subjecting flies to X rays and other environmental stimuli, such as wide ranges of temperature, salt, sugars, acids, and alkalies. Again, the results were negative. (Why these results were negative is unexplained, as Hermann Joseph Muller later demonstrated that X rays do produce mutations.) Morgan’s experiments did not reveal mutations, nor did they bear out the Mendelian laws; rather, they turned up enough exceptions that Morgan began to doubt the validity of the laws. One day in 1910, however, he found a single male fly with white eyes instead of the standard red. Morgan bred the white-eyed male with a red-eyed female, and the first-generation offspring were all redeyed, suggesting that being white-eyed was a Mendelian recessive factor. He then bred the first-generation flies among themselves, and those in the second generation were red-eyed and white-eyed in a three-to-one ratio,
Thomas Hunt Morgan. (The Nobel Foundation)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory
Thomas Hunt Morgan’s Experimental Work with Fruit Flies A.
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Morgan’s experiments revealed such results as the following: A. A red-eyed female is crossed with a white-eyed male. The red-eyed progeny interbreed to produce offspring in a ratio of ¾ to ¼. All the white-eyed flies are male. B. A white-eyed male is crossed with its red-eyed daughter, giving red-eyed and white-eyed males and females in equal proportions. (Electronic Illustrators Group)
appearing to confirm that white eyes were Mendelian recessive. Morgan noted that all the white-eyed flies were males. He had discovered sex-limited heredity. The Mendelian factor, or gene, that determined white eyes was located on the same chromosome as the gene that determined male sex, or, as it turned out, on the male chromosome. Chromosomes—which appear as stringlike structures within cells—had been discovered by cell researchers in the 1850’s. Scientists had theorized, without much hard evidence, that they were involved in heredity. Mendelian theory originally had nothing to do with chromosomes (Mendel did not know about chromosomes). By the first decade of the twentieth century, when Mendelian chromosome theories had been suggested, again without much hard evidence, Morgan had considered such theories and rejected them. Meanwhile, researchers had discovered an odd-shaped chromosome (all other chromosomes occurred in similarly shaped pairs) that seemed to be related to male sex (now called the Y chromosome). The discovery of sex-limited heredity revealed the association of Mendelian genes with chromosomes and the function of chromosomes in heredity.
Following the discovery of sex-limited heredity, Morgan saw that a concerted effort would be required to expound fully the Mendelian chromosome theory, and he therefore enlisted a group of exceptional students to share the work in his so-called fly room. Calvin Blackman Bridges, Alfred H. Sturtevant, and Hermann Joseph Muller formed the nucleus of the group. From 1910 to 1915, Morgan and his team developed and perfected the concepts of linkage, in which various genes are found to be located on the same chromosome and the appearance of their associated characteristics in the offspring occur together, and crossing-over, in which paired chromosomes break and rejoin during meiosis. Crossing-over produces an effect contrary to that of linkage. That is, characteristics that would be expected to appear in the offspring because they are associated with genes on the same chromosome will not appear because during meiosis (when the paired chromosomes split apart, whereupon only half of the pair is conveyed to the new cell) part of the chromosome and the genes on that part are replaced by a portion of the paired chromosome. Using their understanding of linkage and crossingover, the team members were also able to create chromo649
Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory some maps, plotting the relative locations and distances of the genes on the chromosomes. That is, the occurrence of combinations and recombinations (the latter produced by crossing-over) of linked characteristics indicates the relative locations of the genes for those characteristics on the chromosome. The frequency of recombinations should be proportional to the distance between the genes for the recombined characteristics. The culmination of the work of Morgan’s team was the publication in 1915 of The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity, coauthored by Morgan, Sturtevant, Muller, and Bridges. For the next twelve years, the strictly genetics studies were performed mainly by Sturtevant and Bridges and other team members, while Morgan returned to his previous areas of interest of embryology and evolution, pursuing connections between those areas and the new discoveries in genetics. Morgan also was occupied in publicizing the new views of heredity and their ramifications through publications and lectures. By the late 1920’s, Morgan was acknowledged as the world’s leading geneticist. In 1927, Robert Andrews Millikan was reorganizing the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena to make it one of the premier scientific schools in the country, and he asked Morgan to organize the Division of Biology. Morgan accepted and joined a staff that included physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and chemist Linus Pauling. In 1933, Morgan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (the first Nobel Prize in the field of genetics) for his work on hereditary research. Significance The discovery and demonstration that genes reside on chromosomes was the key to all further work in the area of genetics. Mendel, who in 1866 discovered genes, was extremely fortunate in the design of his experiments in that each of the characteristics he investigated in his pea plants happened to reside on a separate chromosome. This facilitated discovery of the Mendelian hereditary principles but made for experimental results that were rather tidy. When a larger number of characteristics is investigated, because of linkage of genes located on the same chromosome and crossing-over of chromosomes, the results are much more complicated and do not reveal the Mendelian pattern so clearly. This is what happened in Morgan’s early experiments. It was only through careful examination—using tweezers and magnifying glass— of generation after generation of the tiny Drosophila that Morgan began to discern the mechanism of inheritance. Although Morgan did not pursue medical studies, his 650
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 research laid the groundwork for all genetically based medical research. As the presenter of the Nobel Prize to Morgan stated, without Morgan’s work, “modern human genetics and also human eugenics would be impractical.” It is generally accepted that Mendel’s and Morgan’s discoveries are responsible for all subsequent advancement in the investigation and understanding of hereditary diseases. The darker side of genetics research is that it also laid the groundwork for Adolf Hitler’s iniquitous eugenics experiments and associated fantasies of racial purity. Morgan was always extremely distrustful of any such experiments on the human species, however. In his Nobel acceptance speech, he noted that through suitable breeding, geneticists were now able to produce populations of species of animals and plants that were free from hereditary defects. He went on to say, however, that it would not be advantageous to perform genetic experiments on humans, except to attempt to correct hereditary defects to improve human health. Morgan believed that any attempt to “purify” the human race would be improper. — John M. Foran Further Reading Allen, Garland E. Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. Scholarly yet readable biography of Morgan and exposition of his work. One of the most thorough works on Morgan available. Includes an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary works. Carlson, Elof Alex. The Gene: A Critical History. 1966. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989. Rather than a standard, comprehensive review of the subject, this book is thematic in outline. The chapter titled “The Drosophila Group: An Enigmatic Appraisal” provides Muller’s perspective on Morgan, which gives less credit to Morgan and more to his assistants for the ideas of the group after Morgan’s initial discoveries. Cummings, Michael. Human Heredity: Principles and Issues. 6th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2002. This highly illustrated text aimed at nonscience students presents the complex topic of heredity clearly, without oversimplifying the concepts discussed. Also addresses the social, cultural, and ethical implications of the use of genetic technology. Dunn, L. C. A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 18641939. 1965. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University
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Laboratory Press, 2001. Afirsthand view of the development of classical genetics by a major participant. Rather technical in approach. An interesting feature for a book in the area of heredity is an appendix on the intellectual pedigrees (presenting “genealogical” charts) of the scientists and philosophers involved in the development. Sturtevant, Alfred H., and G. W. Beadle. An Introduction to Genetics. 1939. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1962. This textbook on genetics from 1939 is useful as a historical document. Beadle was a Nobel Prize winner in 1958. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map.
January 11, 1908
Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims President Theodore Roosevelt used his executive authority to withdraw the Grand Canyon from mining claims, thus protecting it until Congress created the Grand Canyon National Park in 1919. Locale: Arizona Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics; natural resources Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), chief of the U.S. Forest Service John Muir (1838-1914), American naturalist and wilderness preservationist Summary of Event President Theodore Roosevelt had long considered the “Canyon of the Colorado” to be the site of the most impressive scenery he had ever seen. In a personal letter in
1903, he described it as “beautiful and terrible and unearthly.” The Grand Canyon, he wrote, made him feel as if he were gazing at “a sunset of strange and awful splendor.” Roosevelt realized the need for greater conservation in the United States, and as soon as he became president, he began working toward that end. As early as his annual message to Congress in 1901, he emphasized the need for greater stewardship in the use of the expanses of the West. Roosevelt’s friendships with Gifford Pinchot, a man dedicated to the cause of conservation, and with John Muir, the famous Sierra Nevada naturalist, encouraged him to stress the preservation of the wilderness for posterity. Despite congressional opposition, Roosevelt worked continually to further the cause of conservation. In February, 1907, the Agricultural Appropriations Bill prohibited additional forest reserves in the six states of the Pacific Northwest. Before signing the bill, Roosevelt, by executive decree, established twenty-one new forest re651
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Press, 1991. Summarizes the general history of theories of heredity and gives a sense of the multifaceted nature of the search for the principles of genetics. Intended more for the specialist than for the general reader. Includes a glossary and a bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. Morgan, Thomas Hunt, Alfred H. Sturtevant, Hermann Joseph Muller, and Calvin Blackman Bridges. The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. Rev. ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1922. The classic text in which Morgan and his students describe their Drosophila research. Shine, Ian, and Sylvia Wrobel. Thomas Hunt Morgan: Pioneer of Genetics. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1976. This very readable biography and popular treatment of Morgan’s work focuses on his likable personality and contains many personal anecdotes. Covers Morgan’s interesting family history: His uncle was a Confederate Civil War hero, and his father, as U.S. consul to Italy, discarded protocol and fought at the side of Garibaldi. Sturtevant, Alfred H. A History of Genetics. 1965. Reprint. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor
Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims
Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and many of the men stayed on as guides or hotel keepers. Tents, a post In a famous speech delivered at the Grand Canyon on May 6, 1903, President office, stores, orchards, and a school Theodore Roosevelt exhorted Americans to preserve the Grand Canyon as a all appeared; civilization was comnatural wonder: ing to the canyon. The Santa Fe Railroad reached the canyon in 1901 and In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I know, is automobiles in 1902. in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask In 1893, President Benjamin Haryou to do one thing in connection with it in your own interest and in the interest rison created the Grand Canyon Forof the country—to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. est Reserve by proclamation, and in I was delighted to learn of the wisdom of the Santa Fe railroad people in de1906 Roosevelt proclaimed the area a ciding not to build their hotel on the brink of the canyon. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to game reserve. Soon thereafter, plans mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of were being made to build a railroad the canyon. through the Grand Canyon along the Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, Colorado River. The Grand Canyon and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your Scenic Railway Company proposed a children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights twenty-five-mile train route only one which every American if he can travel at all should see. hundred feet from the canyon’s rim. We have gotten past the stage, my fellow-citizens, when we are to be parA tunnel was planned as well, along doned if we treat any part of our country as something to be skinned for two or with a proposed fifteen-hundred-foot three years for the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the elevator down to the river. It was water, the scenery. Whatever it is, handle it so that your children’s children will during the period when these things get the benefit of it. were being discussed, proposed, and planned that Roosevelt established Grand Canyon National Monument, serves, amounting to more than sixteen million acres, in effectively preventing that scale of development from the Pacific Northwest. Some complained that the federal marring of the natural beauty of the canyon. government had thus become an “alien landlord.” Later in 1908, President Roosevelt invited all of the A year earlier, Congress had passed the Antiquities state governors, his cabinet members, the U.S. Supreme Act, which authorized the president to declare federally Court justices, and leaders in science, education, and polowned historic landmarks, structures, and other objects itics to a conservation conference at the White House. of historic or scientific interest to be national monuThis conference focused the attention of the people of the ments. The law was designed to preserve artifacts and arUnited States on the need for serious conservation of chaeologically important sites, especially in the desert their natural resources. Gifford Pinchot was appointed Southwest. Roosevelt saw the absolute uniqueness of the head of a national commission to inventory the natural Grand Canyon, and, knowing how slowly Congress usuresources of the United States. ally moved to pass laws creating national parks, in 1908 he used the Antiquities Act as the means of preserving it. Significance He stated his hope that nothing would ever “mar the wonThe struggle for conservation in the United States at the derful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beginning of the twentieth century took place in the beauty of the canyon,” and he counseled Americans to midst of a period of dynamic development. Conserva“keep it for your children, your children’s children, and tionists were quick to point out that they were not against for all who come after you.” development and constructive use of natural resources; Roosevelt established Grand Canyon National Monurather, they were against the reckless exploitation of ment on January 11, 1908. As early as 1882, bills had those resources. Pinchot wrote in 1910 that the first great been introduced in Congress to establish a Grand Canyon principle of conservation is development. He believed national park, but they did not become law. Tourists were that people should preserve resources for future generabeginning to visit the area by horse, buggy, and stagetions, but they should also make use of the resources coach. Prospectors arrived with their burros and built available to them. Roosevelt agreed with that concept. trails, bridges, and trams. The mines were not profitable, John Muir’s emphasis was on preservation of the pris-
“Leave it as it is . . .”
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Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. 1961. Reprint. Newtown, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 1997. One of the best single-volume biographies of Roosevelt, covering all aspects of his career, including his interest in nature and conservation. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Seminal study of the early history of conservation in the United States. The author argues that most early conservationists were dedicated to efficient use of natural resources rather than to preservation as an end in itself. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness. Begins with the earliest days of European contact. Sutton, Ann, and Myron Sutton. The Wilderness World of the Grand Canyon: “Leave It as It Is.” Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1971. Descriptions of the beauty and physical characteristics of the Grand Canyon, with an overview of its history and climate. Relates tales of adventure in the canyon. Wallace, Robert. The Grand Canyon. New York: TimeLife Books, 1985. Remarkable photography enhances this description of the canyon. Discusses the geology, history, and flora and fauna of the canyon. Wiley, Farida A., ed. Theodore Roosevelt’s America: Selections from the Writings of the Oyster Bay Naturalist. New York: Devin-Adair, 1955. Insights into Roosevelt’s thinking from his own writings and from essays by people who knew him. Emphasizes conservation themes. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon; 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed.
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tine wonder of the untouched wilderness. He envisioned people “sauntering in rosiny pinewoods or in gentian meadows, brushing through chaparral, bending down and parting sweet, flowery sprays; tracing rivers to their sources . . . and rejoicing in deep, long-drawn breaths of pure wildness.” Protecting the Grand Canyon was part of that vision of preservation. The 43 million acres designated as forest reserves by U.S. presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and Roosevelt represented the beginning of the national forest system. At first, the forest reserves were managed by the General Land Office of the Department of the Interior. In 1905, the Forest Service was formed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that agency took over the job of managing the forest reserves. Pinchot was appointed to head the Forest Service, which he did until 1910. The responsibility for administration of the Grand Canyon was in the hands of the Forest Service because the 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon National Monument fell within the Coconino National Forest. The National Park Service was established on August 25, 1916, and President Woodrow Wilson signed the law that established Grand Canyon National Park on February 26, 1919. The Grand Canyon would have been immeasurably changed had it not been for the efforts of Harrison, Roosevelt, Pinchot, Muir, and other conservationists who expended vast amounts of energy to save the area from commercialization. Roosevelt’s actions also established historical precedents that made it easier for later conservationist-minded presidents to preserve part of the nation’s natural heritage for those yet to be born. — William H. Burnside Further Reading Dolan, Edward F. The American Wilderness and Its Future: Conservation Versus Use. New York: Franklin Watts, 1992. Tries to balance the need for conservation with the need to use natural resources. Topics include replanting of forests, soil conservation, and the wise use of minerals. Discusses the roles of the National Park Service, the Forest Service, and other government agencies. Harbaugh, William H. Power and Responsibility: The
Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims
The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama
January 21, 1908 THE GHOST SONATA
Influences Modern Theater and Drama
August Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata was a critical and commercial failure when first produced, but the play was later recognized as a masterpiece and had a strong effect on the development of modern drama. Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Category: Theater Key Figures August Strindberg (1849-1912), Swedish novelist and playwright August Falck (1882-1938), Swedish actor and director Summary of Event In 1907, the year in which he wrote and published his play Spöksonaten (The Ghost Sonata, 1916), fifty-eightyear-old August Strindberg was the preeminent Scandinavian dramatist alive; Henrik Ibsen had died the previous year. Strindberg’s plays, like Ibsen’s, had been recognized (although not unequivocally) as masterpieces by critics, but they were far from receiving equitable treatment in the theater. His early, fairly realistic plays had been produced with some success mostly in other countries—including Denmark, France, and Germany—but the plays he composed in the highly productive phase following his “Inferno” period (a period of mental breakdown between 1894 and 1897) were both more personal and theatrically more challenging. Till Damaskus, forsta delen (pb. 1898; To Damascus I, 1913) had only one (unsatisfactory) staging in 1900, and the seminal Ett drömspel (pb. 1902; A Dream Play, 1912), which was considered unstageable, was not produced until 1907. Inspired by a European movement toward smaller, more intimate playing spaces that had begun with André Antoine’s Théâtre Libre in Paris in 1887 and culminated in the opening of Max Reinhardt’s Kammerspiele (chamber theater) in Berlin in 1906, Strindberg was searching for a way to produce his plays independently. He began to develop a form of drama suited to such a confined environment: the chamber play. At the same time, the young actor August Falck had formed a touring company and given Strindberg’s controversial Fröken Julie (pb. 1888; Miss Julie, 1912) its first successful Swedish production. When he brought the production to Stockholm, Falck discussed with Strindberg the possibility of creating a small theater dedicated to the playwright’s work. 654
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In late 1907, the plans for the Intimate Theater began to take shape. Falck rented a tiny space that had to be altered extensively. The theater was outfitted with 161 seats in fifteen rows and had a stage that measured approximately thirteen by twenty feet. The interior was appealingly decorated (with a large bust of Strindberg in the foyer), and the stage was framed by reproductions of Arnold Böcklin’s pictures The Island of the Living and The Island of the Dead, the latter of which would become the final image of The Ghost Sonata. Strindberg stipulated (against the conventions of the time) that the theater would have no bar and allow no smoking, that performances were to last less than two hours, and that the texts of plays performed were to be on sale at the theater. The theater’s original company was made up of about twenty actors, among them Anna Flygare, Manda Björling, and Helge Wahlgren (who played the lead role of the student in the production of The Ghost Sonata). The actors, although excited about their association with Sweden’s most famous author, were young and relatively inexperienced, as was Falck. The Intimate Theater, the first small theater to concentrate exclusively on the works of one playwright, opened on November 26, 1907, with a production of Strindberg’s chamber play Pelikanen (pb. 1907; The Pelican, 1962). The immediate response was less than enthusiastic, and Falck had to substitute a revival of Miss Julie when two other chamber plays were also ill received. On January 21, 1908, the Intimate Theater first presented The Ghost Sonata. Again, critics were baffled by the play, which they found highly eccentric and even suspected of being a practical joke on Strindberg’s part. A critical and commercial failure, it lasted a mere fourteen performances and was not staged again until 1916, when Max Reinhardt proved, with a boldly expressionistic production in Berlin, that the play was not only highly theatrical but also one of the key plays of the modern canon. In The Ghost Sonata, a young student, Arkenholz, who is gifted with “second sight” and is able to see apparitions hidden to others, falls in love from afar with a young lady named Adèle, who is the daughter of a respected colonel and who lives in a house in Stockholm. (The play is set in front of and inside two rooms of this house.) An old man, Hummel, wins the young man’s confidence and arranges his invitation to a supper at the colonel’s house, but it soon becomes clear that the inhabitants of the house—the colonel, an old spinster, a
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August Strindberg. (Courtesy, D.C. Public Library)
student into the pain and mystery of human existence and emphasizes Strindberg’s belief in the necessary reconciliation between life and death through the shedding of all illusions and guilty secrets. Strindberg wrote The Ghost Sonata rapidly, in about two weeks in March of 1907. It is designated as “opus three” of the chamber plays, which he consciously modeled on Ludwig van Beethoven’s sonatas; The Ghost Sonata, accordingly, follows Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 17 in D Minor. Indeed, the play’s three movements can be shown to possess a definite likeness, in mood, tempo, and thematic treatment, to the sonata scheme of exposition, execution, repetition, and coda. Following a musical logic and a kind of dreamlike associative technique liberated Strindberg from the customary considerations of intrigue, psychology, and plot, and he created a very complex and idiosyncratic texture of experience. Significance The failure of The Ghost Sonata in its first outing convinced directors that the play was unstageable. In spite of Reinhardt’s demonstrative rehabilitation of the work on that score, few professional productions have been undertaken since, and very few successful ones. Despite its less-than-illustrious production history, The Ghost Sonata is one of the first truly modern dramas, and perhaps the quintessential modern play. It is not by chance coincident with other developments that shaped modernity: Sigmund Freud’s analysis of dreams and the unconscious, Pablo Picasso’s experiments with cubism, and Albert Einstein’s postulates for the general theory of relativity. In The Ghost Sonata, a host of unconscious motivations are brought to light and a kind of causal and temporal relativity that could be called “cubist” is at work. Strindberg had put it thus in his Öppna brev till Intima Teatern (1911-1912; Open Letters to the Intimate Theater, 1959): “No predetermined form is to limit the author, because the theme determines the form.” This statement nonchalantly refuted a century of well-made plays and opened the path for a drama of great formal freedom, a drama of images, moods, and symbols that follows a spiritual rather than an external pattern of truth. What is more, the chamber plays seemed to anticipate the development of film long before it was recognized as a separate form or as an art. The Ghost Sonata is genuinely cinematic in its structure; acts 2 and 3 are set up like reverse-angle shots of each other, and the short, pointed scenes seem to anticipate film narrative. Accordingly, the Swedish film and theater director Ingmar Bergman has characterized The Ghost Sonata as the greatest 655
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mummy who sits in a closet and babbles like a parrot, a recently dead consul, a manservant, and others—are mutually tied together by a web of hypocrisy and lies: They are “ghosts” of their own pasts. As Hummel imposes himself on their “ghost supper” and proceeds to “strip” them of their self-deceptions, he himself is suddenly revealed to be not the benevolent crusader for truth he has pretended to be but instead a kind of monster, bloodsucking and murderous. Faced with his guilt, he is forced to commit suicide. In the final scene, Adèle and the student share a few moments of happiness, but they are interrupted by a vampiristic cook, who torments the family by depriving them of nourishment. Adèle finally succumbs to an illness, which is a reflection of the corruption surrounding her; as the student prays for her, she dies. The final image is of Böcklin’s Island of the Dead. The Ghost Sonata rests on a syncretistic philosophy informed by the mystical theology of Emanuel Swedenborg (who saw humans as passing through a series of unmaskings or “vastations” after death) but also by the concepts of Buddhism, particularly maya (the veil of illusion that masks life) and samsara (the wheel of eternal rebirth). This “spiritual” action of the play initiates the
The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama
The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama Swedish play and one of the ten most important plays in dramatic literature; he himself has directed it three times. Together with other Strindberg plays, such as To Damascus I and A Dream Play, The Ghost Sonata became a decisive precedent for the German expressionist theater movement between 1910 and 1925. The play’s subjective viewpoint, episodic structure, and concern with spiritual redemption closely align it with plays by Oskar Kokoschka, Georg Kaiser, and Ernst Toller. In its unmediated mixture of the trivial and the supernatural, the realistic and the fantastic, however, The Ghost Sonata also points toward the Surrealist theater (for example, the work of Guillaume Apollinaire). The great theater theorist and visionary Antonin Artaud considered The Ghost Sonata one of the few plays worthy of being produced at his short-lived Théâtre Alfred Jarry. In the United States, Strindberg’s influence was unexpectedly profound. Eugene O’Neill was so impressed with Strindberg that many of his early plays are virtual paraphrases of Strindberg’s work; some of his later famous plays, such as The Emperor Jones (pr. 1920) and Desire Under the Elms (pr. 1924), are Strindbergian in tone or topic. O’Neill initiated the first American production of The Ghost Sonata in New York at the Provincetown Playhouse in 1924. He declared Strindberg “among the most modern of moderns,” and in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1936, he credited Strindberg with inspiring his dramatic career. Even the plays of Tennessee Williams reflect Strindberg’s heritage more than Ibsen’s; Edward Albee’s work, too, is deeply indebted to Strindberg. Although it may be said (as Martin Esslin has argued) that The Ghost Sonata represents a “direct source” for the plays of the Theater of the Absurd, its metaphysical conclusion is altogether different. Read carefully, the play is not a manifesto of existential hopelessness and despair but rather an affirmation of a moral order and of spiritual transcendence. The two playwrights associated most closely with the Theater of the Absurd, Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, denied any influence from Strindberg. Strindberg, however, was highly esteemed by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, two French authors who were the originators of the existentialist philosophy that nurtured the Theater of the Absurd; Camus and Sartre, in fact, were founders of a Strindberg society. Yet it is in Harold Pinter’s drama, where the irrational and inexplicable lurk under the guise of the realistic, that one can locate the same insecurities of language and truth, the same dread notion that reality itself is inaccessible to casual perception, as one finds in Strindberg. In spite of all overt and implied influence, The Ghost 656
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sonata as such stands alone. Strindberg’s vision was too personal, his style and voice too distinctive, to find many direct imitators, yet modern drama is unthinkable without The Ghost Sonata. —Ralf Erik Remshardt Further Reading Bryant-Bertail, Sarah. “The Tower of Babel: Space and Movement in The Ghost Sonata.” In Strindberg’s Dramaturgy, edited by Göran Stockenström. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. BryantBertail’s is the standout article among several in this scholarly collection that address the play. Not intended for the casual reader, but the article repays the effort needed to read it. Offers clear and persuasive insight into the sign systems and hidden meanings at work in The Ghost Sonata. Marker, Frederick J., and Lise-Lone Marker. Strindberg and Modernist Theatre: Post-Inferno Drama on the Stage. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Detailed critical analysis of the stagings of Strindberg’s major works written after his “Inferno” period. Meyer, Michael. Strindberg. New York: Random House, 1985. By far the most carefully researched and exhaustive of all Strindberg biographies; considered the authoritative narrative of his life. Based largely on Strindberg’s voluminous output of letters, which are quoted at length. Sticks to facts and avoids speculation. Illustrations are sparse but sufficient; includes a brief bibliography. Morgan, Margery. August Strindberg. New York: Grove Press, 1985. A brief but competent overview of Strindberg’s life and work, best suited as introductory reading for those unfamiliar with him. Contains a solid ten-page discussion of The Ghost Sonata, its motifs, and its meanings. A good place to start before going on to the Meyer biography. Rothwell, Brian. “The Chamber Plays.” In Strindberg: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Otto Reinert. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. One of the quintessential essays on all four of Strindberg’s chamber plays; puts The Ghost Sonata into the context of its less successful (but equally interesting) “sister” plays. Analyzes the themes of guilt and redemption and the mystic thinking that pervades Strindberg’s late plays. Stockenström, Göran. “’Journey from the Isle of Life to the Isle of Death’: The Idea of Reconciliation in The Ghost Sonata.” Scandinavian Studies 50 (Spring, 1978): 133-149. Made somewhat less than accessible
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Törnqvist, Egil. Strindbergian Drama: Themes and Structure. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982. Meticulous, scholarly analysis of themes and references in Strindberg’s work; succeeds in decoding the complex structure of The Ghost Sonata and making sense of some of its darker passages. A very interesting chapter compares and evaluates the nine existing translations of The Ghost Sonata, an important consideration for English-language readers. _______. Strindberg’s “Ghost Sonata.” Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000. Examines various English translations of the play and then focuses on particularly memorable stagings by Reinhardt, Bergman, and others as well as radio and television productions. Includes a rehearsal diary from Bergman’s 1973 staging of the play and an annotated list of productions. See also: 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard; Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater.
January 27, 1908
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts In Adair v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a provision of the 1898 Erdman Act that prohibited “yellow-dog” labor contracts. Also known as: Adair v. United States Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Constantine Jacob Erdman (1846-1911), U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania, 1893-1897 John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), associate justice of the United States, 1877-1911 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), associate justice of the United States, 1902-1932 Joseph McKenna (1843-1926), associate justice of the United States, 1898-1925 Summary of Event To understand the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Adair v. United States for the evolution
of labor relations, one must understand the nature of the employment relationship examined in that case. “Yellowdog contracts” were agreements between employers and prospective employees that the employees did not belong to and would not join any labor union. Through such agreements, employers were able to make the promise not to join a union a condition of employment, effectively barring unions from the workplace. These contracts might be arrived at individually between a worker and an employer, or they might take the form of collective agreements between employers and groups of workers. The earliest collective agreements, in the printing trades in 1795 and in the iron industry in 1866, were little more than wage scales, but over time the subject matter of agreements extended to cover other aspects of the employer-employee relationship, including provisions precluding union membership and union organizing activity. Yellow-dog contracts increased in frequency in response to the growing use of the strike by unions in the railroad industry, use that culminated in the Pullman Strike of 1894, one of the most violent strikes of the period. The Erdman Act of 1898 (named for its principal 657
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only by the fact that the text is quoted in the Swedish original, this excellent essay provides a very convincing explanation of the religious and metaphysical motifs in The Ghost Sonata and gives an interpretation of the “spiritual” action of the play. Requires familiarity with the text. Strindberg, August. The Ghost Sonata. In Selected Plays. Translated by Evert Sprinchorn. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. One of several translations of The Ghost Sonata, Sprinchorn’s is both readily available and quite reliable—although the tone is perhaps too often colloquial, or Americanized, to satisfy philologists. _______. Open Letters to the Intimate Theater. Translated by Walter Johnson. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966. These letters, memoranda that Strindberg sent to August Falck and the actors at the Intimate Theater because he disliked attending rehearsals, represent the author’s thinking on matters of acting, theater, and drama (his own and others) during the period of the chamber plays. Essential clues to Strindberg’s mind, art, and method.
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts sponsor, Congressman Constantine Jacob Erdman of Pennsylvania) attempted to strengthen the ability of employers and employees to resolve conflicts between themselves, but it also provided for federal mediation and conciliation. It outlawed discrimination against employees based on union membership, in effect rendering yellow-dog contracts illegal. In addition, many states passed legislation making it illegal for an employer to force workers to agree not to join a union as a condition of employment. These issues came to the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court in October, 1907, when Adair v. United States was argued. William Adair was a supervisor for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad when O. B. Coppage, a member of the Order of Locomotive Firemen, was discharged. The only apparent reason for the discharge was Coppage’s union membership. In a ruling issued on January 27, 1908, the Supreme Court affirmed the discharge of Coppage. The Court, in the majority opinion written by John Marshall Harlan, concluded that the prohibition of yellow-dog contracts was a violation of the property right of the employer to hire and fire, a right protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. Adair had a responsibility to prescribe conditions of employment that were in the best interests of his business. As long as those conditions were not injurious to the public interest, the Court ruled, legislation should not interfere with individual freedom. The Court also made two additional points. First, there had been no stated or implied length of employment agreed to between the employer and the employee, so that the dismissal was not a breach of contract. In addition, although Congress had the right to regulate interstate commerce, that right extended only to those aspects of the employer-employee relation that affected interstate commerce. Membership in a labor organization had nothing substantive to do with how commerce was conducted or with the ability of workers to perform their function. Congress did not have the right to prescribe conditions of union membership, as such a prescription did not fall within its constitutional powers to regulate commerce among the states. In the same way that a worker may choose whether to accept a job, an employer has a reciprocal right to specify the terms and conditions of employment. The Court’s decision was a significant blow against unions on two fronts. First, it made organizing workers more difficult, because the very fact of union membership might lead to dismissal. Second, it greatly diminished the bargaining power of the unions by lessening the 658
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 effectiveness of strikes. Striking workers could be replaced with workers who would agree not to join the union. In workplaces that were unionized, the employer could, by precipitating a strike, effectively eliminate the union by replacing the striking union workers with nonunion workers. Two justices wrote dissenting opinions in Adair v. United States. Joseph McKenna expressed the view that the intent of the Erdman Act was to resolve industrial conflict in the workplace. This end could be served better if the employer dealt with members of a labor organization rather than with separate individuals. The potential gains to society from the law thus overrode any losses of individual freedom to the employer. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., presented the second dissenting opinion. He saw the outlawing of yellow-dog contracts as a means of protecting the worker, usually the weaker party in an employment contract, from the potentially discriminatory exercise of power by the employer. The rights of the employer are not without bound, and the interest of the public welfare takes precedence over that of the employer. Foreshadowing future events, Holmes concluded that even if the only outcome of the Erdman Act was to promote the growth of organized labor in railroads, that would be sufficient justification for passage. A strong union was in the best interests of the individual workers, the railroad industry, and society as a whole. In 1915, the Court found illegal a state statute prohibiting yellow-dog contracts, in Coppage v. Kansas. In this case, the Court held that the state statute violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the individual had the right to join or not join a union, the employer was not obligated to hire or to continue to employ a union member. In the same way that the individual does not have the right to join the union without the consent of the union organization, the individual does not have the right to be employed without the consent of the employer. Significance In the early 1900’s, the United States faced a question that would shape the nation’s political and social structure. The issue was whether workers should have the right to bargain collectively. In the laissez-faire world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, employers bargained individually with workers. The rights of the employer were relatively unbounded, although workers did have access to the court system when they believed they had been wronged. The technological advances that accompanied the Industrial Revolution brought workers
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U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts
together in factories, where the same terms and conditions of employment affected many people. These common concerns inevitably led to collective mechanisms to resolve conflicts with employers. Previously, if conditions in the workplace were unacceptable, an employee’s main recourse was to quit; now there was the possibility of groups of employees having a voice. Unions offered the possibility of affecting the terms and conditions of employment, and the threat of the strike gave unions bargaining power. Social acceptance of the right of unions to bargain collectively implied a jurisprudence in the workplace separate from that in the courts. Although the right of the employer to bargain with individual employees over the preconditions of employment may be acceptable in the abstract, it may not hold universally. In other words, private contracting may not be in the public’s best interest because it denies workers the right to a voice; it denies them democracy in the workplace. The yellow-dog contract might be in the interests of the employer and possibly even of the worker directly involved, but it is not in the best interests of society. Adair v. United States set the stage for a dramatic change in legislation concerning unions. The yellow-dog contract served as an effective tool for employers to keep out unions and, in the event of a strike, to replace union workers with workers who promised not to join a union. The idea of “employment at the will of the employer,” however, was being slowly circumscribed. The majority and dissenting opinions in this case, especially that of Holmes, highlight the complexity of the issue. The right to bargain over the terms and conditions of employment was assured by the Fifth Amendment. In that context, yellow-dog contracts can be viewed in two quite different ways. On one hand, their prohibition by Congress ensured that employers, assumed to have the greater power in the bargaining context, would not be allowed to use that power to exploit an individual worker and indirectly all workers or
The ADAIR V. UNITED STATES Ruling In the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Adair v. United States, Justice John Marshall Harlan explained why “yellow-dog” labor contracts had to be permitted:
Source: U.S. Supreme Court, Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908).
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While, as already suggested, the right of liberty and property guaranteed by the Constitution against deprivation without due process of law is subject to such reasonable restraints as the common good or the general welfare may require, it is not within the functions of government— at least, in the absence of contract between the parties—to compel any person, in the course of his business and against his will, to accept or retain the personal services of another, or to compel any person, against his will, to perform personal services for another. The right of a person to sell his labor upon such terms as he deems proper is, in its essence, the same as the right of the purchaser of labor to prescribe the conditions upon which he will accept such labor from the person offering to sell it. So the right of the employee to quit the service of the employer, for whatever reason, is the same as the right of the employer, for whatever reason, to dispense with the services of such employee. It was the legal right of the defendant, Adair—however unwise such a course might have been—to discharge Coppage because of his being a member of a labor organization, as it was the legal right of Coppage, if he saw fit to do so—however unwise such a course on his part might have been—to quit the service in which he was engaged, because the defendant employed some persons who were not members of a labor organization. In all such particulars the employer and the employee have equality of right, and any legislation that disturbs that equality is an arbitrary interference with the liberty of contract which no government can legally justify in a free land. These views find support in adjudged cases, some of which are cited in the margin. Of course, if the parties by contract fixed the period of service, and prescribed the conditions upon which the contract may be terminated, such contract would control the rights of the parties as between themselves, and for any violation of those provisions the party wronged would have his appropriate civil action. And it may be—but upon that point we express no opinion—that, in the case of a labor contract between an employer engaged in interstate commerce and his employee, Congress could make it a crime for either party, without sufficient or just excuse or notice, to disregard the terms of such contract or to refuse to perform it. In the absence, however, of a valid contract between the parties controlling their conduct towards each other and fixing a period of service, it cannot be, we repeat, that an employer is under any legal obligation, against his will, to retain an employee in his personal service any more than an employee . . . can be compelled, against his will, to remain in the personal service of another. So far as this record discloses the facts the defendant, who seemed to have authority in the premises, did not agree to keep Coppage in service for any particular time, nor did Coppage agree to remain in such service a moment longer than he chose. The latter was at liberty to quit the service without assigning any reason for his leaving. And the defendant was at liberty, in his discretion, to discharge Coppage from service without giving any reason for so doing.
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts the labor movement. Given that the prohibition of union membership was not essential to the performance of the job and did not alter the worker’s productivity, it should not be permitted and in fact was discriminatory because it was unrelated to job performance. Yellow-dog contracts would be illegal because they were coercive on the part of the employer or because such subject matter was beyond the scope of legitimate contracts. The alternative view was that Congress was interfering with the rights of individuals to engage in potentially mutually advantageous trades. The private property rights of the employer made union membership a legitimate matter for contracting, and the right of the prospective employee to refuse the job offer precluded coercion. This right of the employer was affirmed in the 1917 U.S. Supreme Court case of Hitchman Coal and Coke Company v. Mitchell. A yellow-dog contract was in effect when union agents attempted to organize the employees and become their exclusive bargaining agent. The Court determined that the employer could seek injunctive relief against the union. Justice Mahlon Pitney asserted that the right of the employer to make union membership a condition of employment is as sacrosanct as the right of the employee to join the union and that these rights derive from the constitutional rights of private property and individual freedom. In another 1917 case, Eagle Glass & Manufacturing Company v. Rowe, the Court ruled that the employer could enjoin the officers and members of the union from conspiring to induce employees to violate such a preemployment contract. At the federal level, the change in public attitude toward unions is symbolized by the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which forbade the use of yellow-dog contracts by employers and rendered invalid any such existing contracts. The constitutionality of the act was affirmed in the 1930 Supreme Court case of Texas & N.O.R. Company v. Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks. The Court sustained a decision of a lower court that workers discharged because of union membership must be reinstated. The Court reconciled its decision in this case with those in Adair v. United States and related cases by making a subtle distinction. The employer’s right to hire whom it wanted was not being interfered with. The employees, however, had a right to be represented by individuals of their own choosing. The law was not limiting the right of the employer; rather, it was ensuring the right of employees to choose their own representatives. The employer does not have a constitutional right to limit the right of workers to choose their representatives. The Court’s opinion in Adair v. United States stated 660
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that the worker and the employer were equal parties in the contracting process, that unions inhibited individual rights, and that unions were in some cases conspiracies in restraint of trade that could be enjoined. These legal ramifications were changed by the Norris-La Guardia Act (the Anti-Injunction Act) of 1932. The main focus of the act was to prevent employers from seeking injunctive relief against striking unions, but it also acknowledged the helplessness of individual workers in bargaining with employers. Section 3 of the Norris-La Guardia Act made yellow-dog contracts nonenforceable and not subject to injunctive relief. The prohibition of the use of the injunction was extended to railroads the next year. In 1933, Congress amended the Bankruptcy Act to prevent railroad carriers in bankruptcy from using yellow-dog contracts to circumvent unions. This prohibition was extended and reinforced in the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act of 1933 and in the 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act. The change in the public’s attitude toward unions from one of tolerance to one of encouragement culminated in the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) in 1935. The opinions articulated in Adair v. United States defined the terms in the debate concerning the role of organized labor in the American economy. The Court’s decision represents one of the last times the Court has ruled that the rights of the employer to freedom and to private property dominate the rights of the worker. In Adair v. United States, the Court saw the role of the union as negatively affecting private rights without consideration of the public good. Implicit was the eighteenth century view that the private good is compatible with the social good. Holmes challenged this attitude of individual rights in his minority opinion, in which he stated that in the interest of the public good and the collective social well-being, the unilateral right of the employer must be limited. The unrestricted right of the employer limits the right of the employee and is not in the best interests of society. Once this view was accepted, the institution of unionism could no longer be seen as an obstructionist conspiracy contrary to the Constitution. Unions instead became recognized as vehicles to safeguard individual rights. — John F. O’Connell Further Reading Commerce Clearing House. Labor Law Course. 24th ed. New York: Author, 1976. A complete summary of the law governing labor relations. Both topic and legal case indexes are provided. Major legislation and court opinions are presented and cross-referenced.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Herman, E. Edward, and Gordon S. Skinner. Labor Law: Cases, Text, and Legislation. New York: Random House, 1972. An introduction to labor law. Each major topic is summarized. The principal legislation is presented, and the most important legal cases are excerpted. Myers, A. Howard, and David P. Twomey. Labor Law and Legislation. 5th ed. Cincinnati: South-Western, 1975. Uses both essays and legal cases to trace the evolution of societal views on labor relations, beginning with British common law.
Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts Taft, Phillip. Organized Labor in American History. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. One of the best descriptions of the role of unions in the United States prior to 1960. Analyzes the influence of yellow-dog contracts and labor legislation on union growth. See also: Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations. 1908
February 3, 1908
Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision subjecting a trade union’s secondary boycott to prosecution under the Sherman Antitrust Act imperiled the existence of all labor unions. Also known as: Loewe v. Lawlor Locale: Danbury, Connecticut; Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Melville W. Fuller (1833-1910), chief justice of the United States, 1888-1910 Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), president of the American Federation of Labor William Howard Taft (1857-1930), chief justice of the United States, 1921-1930 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Summary of Event On February 3, 1908, Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, a lifelong Democrat and President Grover Cleveland’s appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, delivered the Court’s unanimous opinion in the case of Loewe v. Lawlor, soon dubbed the Danbury Hatters case. Along with all other American labor leaders, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the nation’s largest trade union, awaited the Court’s ruling with apprehension. Organized labor was under widespread assault from the business community and had already suffered reversals in several lower federal court rulings. Union leaders consequently anticipated that any Supreme Court decision would be significant. The Danbury
Hatters ruling was epochal, but it also realized all of their fears. The Court declared illegal a secondary boycott mounted by the Danbury, Connecticut, United Hatters of North America against nonunion hat manufacturers. The Court did so by bringing trade unions under provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Sherman Act was a response to public reactions against the proliferation of trusts and monopolies spawned by the unprecedented expansion of industrial and finance capitalism in the United States after 1880. In effect federalizing legislation previously enacted in many states, the Sherman Act sought to maintain competition in the marketplace by prosecuting conspiracies that were judged to be in restraint of trade or commerce. Until the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, the act, appearing toothless, was seldom employed. Roosevelt sensationalized the act by launching and winning several major trust prosecutions, but during the act’s first eighteen years the Supreme Court limited its jurisdiction to cases involving business or industrial combinations. Never, until 1908, had the Court indicated that the act also applied to the country’s trade unions, although lower courts had invoked it to justify injunctions issued in the celebrated case involving labor leader Eugene V. Debs in 1895. Unions feared that if they were subjected to the Sherman Act and exposed to charges that they conspired to restrain trade, then the full gamut of trade union weaponry—propaganda, organizing campaigns, picketing, walkouts, strikes, and boycotts—could be cast aside as illegal. It was a reasonable presumption in these circumstances that the American organized labor movement faced extinction. The Danbury Hatters’ Union was interested in one 661
Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts kind of restraint of trade. The union asserted jurisdiction over the country’s eighty-two major manufacturers of felt hats. By 1908, in some instances through collusion with manufacturers themselves, the Danbury Hatters had unionized seventy of these firms. In the course of trying to bring the closed shop—a workplace that hires only union members—to the holdout companies, the Hatters had initiated a series of strikes, one of them in 1901 against Dietrich E. Loewe’s Danbury hat factory. When the Loewe strike eventually failed, the union tried another tack. With additional assistance from the AFL, its affiliates, and a number of local unions, the Hatters called on members and the general public to boycott Loewe’s products, the bulk of which were shipped out of Connecticut to twenty-eight other states. The union branded Loewe’s firm as “unfair,” urging merchants and the public to cease purchasing Loewe hats. To lend substance to their campaign, the Hatters likewise threatened similar boycotts—called secondary boycotts—against dealers who refused to aid them in their fight against Loewe. The union’s nationwide boycott succeeded in reducing Loewe’s sales significantly. In 1903, having meanwhile secured the covert aid of the business-funded American Anti-Boycott Association, Loewe filed two suits against individual members of the Danbury Hatters’ Union, including Martin Lawlor. Filing suit against individuals rather than against the union was a legal innovation. Both suits sought redress for Loewe under the Sherman Antitrust Act. One claimed the triple damages the act allowed, amounting to $240,000. The other charged union members with engaging in a criminal common-law conspiracy to interfere, by means of their secondary boycott, with interstate commerce. Loewe claimed losses as a consequence of interference with his shipments of goods from as well as into Connecticut. This involvement of interstate commerce allowed the Court to find jurisdiction under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution and authority to apply the Sherman Act. Whether the Sherman Act applied to organized labor had been debated since its enactment. Seven cases invoking the Sherman Act against labor, all prosecuted by railroad companies, had been heard by lower federal courts by 1895. It was in one of these cases that the Supreme Court found its precedent for doing likewise. It therefore accepted Loewe’s contention that the stoppage of his orders outside Connecticut, in addition to union interference with his ability to fill orders within the state, constituted a restraint of trade or commerce under the meaning 662
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of section 1 of the Sherman Act. On this basis, the Court declared the Danbury Hatters’ boycott illegal while simultaneously awarding Loewe his damages. Secondary boycotts would remain illegal for the next six decades. Significance Controversial even in 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to subject the Danbury Hatters’ Union to the Sherman Act has remained so among legal scholars. Few would deny the Court’s power to employ the act, but most would agree that in so doing the justices engaged in their own brand of legal artistry. The intent of Congress, as made clear in congressional discussions and debates, was that the Sherman Act be aimed at the practices of the then much-feared industrial combinations rather than at labor unions. Industrial combinations continued to be targeted by antitrust prosecutions throughout the twentieth century. It appears to most legal scholars that common-law prohibitions against restraint of trade and commerce were applied erroneously by the Court in the Danbury Hatters case. The language of the Sherman Act is broad, but legal authorities generally agree that the act’s phraseology was not intended by Congress to apply to interference with interstate commerce. In effect, the Court assumed virtual powers of legislation and in so doing exercised judicial interference with the development of the nation’s economic policy. Gompers and other labor leaders, shocked and dismayed by the decision, broke with their traditions of political nonpartisanship. After a series of national conferences, they decided to organize politically to reward politicians who favored them and punish those who did not. American labor leaders in this respect were borrowing from the actions of their British counterparts. Following the discriminatory Taff Vale Railway decision (like the Danbury ruling, it had subjected unions to charges of conspiracy and combination), British workers formed the Labour Representation Committee, which soon elected fifty members of Parliament. American labor found ample incentive to follow suit, as the Danbury Hatters decision came almost simultaneously with other foreboding judicial news. In 1905 alone, for example, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rendered an opinion that could have doomed the union shop; a Cincinnati, Ohio, court decision appeared to declare that employers had rights regarding workers similar to rights regarding property; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the famous Lochner v. New York case that New York State’s legislative limits on hours of labor were illegal; and a judge in
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Congress confirmed the swing in attitude in favor of labor with the reforms embodied in the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Continuing in heated legal and political debate, however, was the issue of whether the nation’s antitrust laws ought to apply to organized labor and, if so, in what ways. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Foner, Philip S. The Policies and Practices of the American Federation of Labor 1900-1909. Vol. 3 in History of the Labor Movement in the United States. New York: International Press, 1964. Scholarly and substantive, with a strong prolabor bias. Provides excellent discussion of organized labor’s views of the Sherman Act as used by employers and the federal government. Extremely interesting and informative on the Danbury Hatters decision and its context. Extensive endnotes and splendid index. Gregory, Charles O. Labor and the Law. New York: W. W. Norton, 1946. Intelligently interpretive synthesis by a noted law professor. Good pithy reading with appropriate insertions of the author’s views on the Danbury Hatters case and related decisions involving applications of the Sherman Act to labor. Includes two appendixes, reference notes, a table of authorities (list of cases cited), and an index. A fine read not yet out of date on basic issues. Millis, Harry A., and Royal E. Montgomery. Organized Labor. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1945. Continues to stand the test of time. The authors were outstanding economists and public servants. Rich in overviews and detail. Excellent on the Danbury Hatters case and others under the Sherman Act. Abundant informative notes and fine index. Minda, Gary. Boycott in America: How Imagination and Ideology Shape the Legal Mind. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Examines the history, legal interpretation, and understanding of boycotts in the United States, approaching the subject from the viewpoints of labor, antitrust, and constitutional law. Peritz, Rudolph J. R. Competition Policy in America: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Explores the influences on U.S. public policy of the concept of free competition. Discusses congressional debates, court opinions, and the work of economic, legal, and political scholars in this area. 663
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Chicago, Illinois, prevented peaceful picketing or any moral suasion on the part of Typographical Union strikers to bring nonunion workers into their fold. A little more than a week before ruling on Loewe v. Lawlor, the Supreme Court negated the Erdman Act of 1898 in its decision in Adair v. United States. The Adair decision allowed railroad companies to discriminate against their workers because of their union membership. Meanwhile, the nation’s courts continued employing blanket injunctions against labor’s use of its principal weapons: picketing, striking, propagandizing, and boycotting. President Roosevelt publicly proclaimed it unwise to inhibit the judiciary’s authority in this regard. Organized labor’s subsequent efforts and, just as important, the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson’s sweeping reform administration contributed to passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, hailed as labor’s Magna Carta. The Clayton Act was designed in part to amend the Sherman Act by acknowledging the right of unions to exist, with federal recognition of their additional right to picket or strike peacefully. Secondary boycotts remained illegal. Although union leadership hailed the Clayton Act as exempting unions from the force of the Sherman Act, the amending act changed little. The Supreme Court demonstrated this in 1921 in Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering by confirming a lower court’s restraining order against Duplex strikers as well as by limiting the strike to Duplex’s Michigan plant, thereby condemning sympathetic strikes or threats of strikes or boycotts by unionists in New York State. Disappointing as the Danbury Hatters decision was to labor leaders, by the early 1920’s trade unions were established as one of the tenacious realities of industrial life. It is therefore of interest that a lifelong Republican and conservative former U.S. president, William Howard Taft, delivered an opinion as chief justice of the United States in the United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Company case of 1922. The decision offered labor distant hope by skirting allegations that a mine workers’ strike had so interfered with interstate commerce as to subject the union to the Sherman Act. Taft implicitly acknowledged that by the 1920’s nearly all union actions affected interstate commerce, and that to decide against unions on this basis would strip them entirely of their weaponry. This was not a viable course, either socially or politically. The Court’s determination that there had been only an indirect restraint of interstate commerce, restraint insufficient for the Court to apply the Sherman Act, strengthened the cause of labor, although the Court condemned use of the boycott.
Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts
Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter Seager, Henry R., and Charles A. Gulick, Jr. Big Business: Economic Power in a Free Society. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1929. Authoritative and detailed account, excellent on applications of the Sherman Act. Notes, bibliography, and index are all extensive. Thorelli, Hans B. The Federal Antitrust Policy: Origination of an American Tradition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955. One of the most detailed works on the subject. Best used selectively. Essential but dense reading that reflects confusions of antitrust policies themselves. Extensive notes, seven appendixes, exhaustive bibliography, lengthy table of cases, and detailed index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wilcox, Clair. Public Policies Toward Business. 3d ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1966. One of the finest syntheses of its kind. Wonderful context for the Sherman Act’s applications to business and labor. Indexes of cases, names, and subjects are all excellent. See also: Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law; Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts; Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations.
February 11, 1908
Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter Hans Geiger and Ernest Rutherford developed the first electronic radiation counter able to detect atomic particles. Locale: Manchester University, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Hans Geiger (1882-1945), German physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist Sir John Sealy Edward Townsend (1868-1957), Irish physicist Sir William Crookes (1832-1919), English physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), German physicist Antoine-Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), French physicist Summary of Event When radioactivity was discovered and first studied, researchers used rather simple devices. In the 1870’s, Sir William Crookes learned how to create a very good vacuum in a glass tube. He placed electrodes in each end of the tube and studied the passage of electricity through it. This simple device became known as the Crookes tube. In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was experimenting with a Crookes tube. It was known that when electricity went through such a tube, one end of the tube might glow. Certain mineral salts placed near the tube would also glow. In order to observe such glowing salts carefully, Röntgen darkened the room and covered most of the Crookes tube with dark paper. Suddenly, a flash of 664
light caught his eye. It came from a mineral sample placed some distance from the tube and in a direction shielded by the dark paper, yet when the tube was switched off, the mineral sample went dark. Experimenting further, Röntgen became convinced that some ray from the Crookes tube caused the mineral to glow. Because light rays were blocked by the black paper, he called it an X ray, the X standing for “unknown.” Antoine-Henri Becquerel heard of the discovery of X rays, and in February, 1886, he set out to discover whether nature might also reverse the process—that is, whether glowing minerals might emit X rays. Some minerals begin to glow when activated by sunlight. If they are then placed in the dark, the glow fades; the swiftness of the fading depends on the mineral involved. Such minerals are called phosphorescent. Becquerel’s testing procedure was to wrap photographic film in enough black paper that setting it in the sun all day would not expose it. He then placed various phosphorescent minerals on top of the film package and left them in the sun. Becquerel soon learned that those phosphorescent minerals containing uranium would expose the film. To make certain that the film was not being exposed by chemicals from the uranium minerals, he covered the film with glass and also placed various pieces of metal on the film. He discovered that metal seemed to protect the film from exposure. The greatest surprise, however, came during a series of cloudy days. Eager to continue his experiments, he decided to develop film from a test that had not been exposed to sunlight. He was astonished to discover that the film was deeply exposed. Some ema-
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nation had to be coming from the uranium, and it had nothing to do with sunlight. Natural radioactivity was thus discovered with a simple piece of photographic film. Ernest Rutherford joined the world of international physics at about the same time radioactivity was discovered. He came from New Zealand for advanced study in physics at Cambridge in 1895. His previous work had been with radio waves, but now he plunged into a study of radioactivity. A remarkably talented man, he became a dominant figure in the field in only a few years. Studying the “Becquerel rays” emitted by uranium, Rutherford eventually distinguished three different types of radiation, which he named alpha, beta, and gamma (from the first three letters of the Greek alphabet). He showed that alpha particles were easily stopped by a few thin metal foils. Later, he proved that an alpha particle is the nucleus of a helium atom (a group of two neutrons and two protons tightly bound together). More thicknesses of metal foil were necessary to stop beta particles. It was later shown that beta particles are electrons. Gamma rays proved to be far more penetrating than either alpha or beta particles. Eventually, it was shown that gamma rays
are similar to X rays, but they have higher energies. Rutherford became director of the associated research laboratory at Manchester University in 1907, and Hans Geiger became an assistant there. Up to that time, Rutherford had been unable to prove his conjecture that the alpha particle carries a double positive charge, but he would soon prove it with Geiger’s assistance. The obvious way to proceed would be to allow a stream of alpha particles to fall on a target and to measure the electric charge the particles brought to the target. By dividing that charge by the total number of alpha particles, one would have the charge of an alpha particle. The problem lay in counting the particles and in proving that every particle had been counted. Basing their design on work done by Sir John Sealy Edward Townsend, a former colleague of Rutherford, Geiger and Rutherford constructed an electronic counter. It consisted of a long brass tube, sealed at both ends, from which most of the air had been pumped. A thin wire, insulated from the brass, was suspended down the middle of the tube. This wire was connected to batteries producing about thirteen hundred volts and to an electrometer, a device that could measure the voltage of the wire. This voltage could be increased until a spark jumped between the wire and the tube. When the voltage was turned down a little from this “sparkover” value, the tube was ready to operate. An alpha particle entering the tube would ionize (knock some electrons away from) at least a few atoms. These electrons would be accelerated by the high voltage and, in turn, would ionize more atoms, which freed new electrons. These would ionize still more atoms and so on, until a veritable avalanche of electrons would strike the central wire and the electrometer would register the voltage change. Two key points became evident: First, because the tube was nearly ready to arc because of the high voltage, every alpha particle, even if it had very little energy, would initiate a discharge. Second, because of the electron avalanche, each electric discharge would be several thousand times larger than the alpha particle alone could have caused and would be easily measured with the electrometer. Geiger and Rutherford completed their apparatus by connecting their alpha-detector tube to a “firing tube” that was 4.5 meters (approximately 14.8 feet) long. The air had been evacuated from the firing tube, and a small film of radium was fixed at the far end. Only a few alpha particles per minute were headed in the right direction to travel the length of the firing tube, pass through a small hole in a stopper, and pass through a thin mica window 665
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Hans Geiger. (Courtesy, AIP Niels Bohr Library)
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Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter into the detector tube. There they traveled parallel with the central wire while they lost energy to ionization, which in its turn caused an electron avalanche. It was necessary to restrict the number of alpha particles to a few per minute because the electrometer was somewhat slow to respond and to recover. On February 11, 1908, Geiger and Rutherford reported on their electrical method of counting alpha particles to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. The most complex of the early radiation detection devices—the forerunner of the Geiger counter—had just been developed. Significance Geiger and Rutherford’s first measurements showed that one gram of radium emitted 34 thousand million alpha particles per second. Soon, they refined the number to 32.8 thousand million per second. Next, they measured the amount of charge emitted by radium each second. Dividing this number by the previous number gave them the charge on a single alpha particle. Just as Rutherford had anticipated, the charge was double that of a hydrogen ion (a proton). This proved to be the most accurate determination of the fundamental charge until Robert Andrews Millikan’s classic oil-drop experiment in 1909. Another fundamental result came from a careful measurement of the volume of helium emitted by radium each second. Using that value, other properties of gases, and the number of helium nuclei emitted each second, Geiger and Rutherford were able to calculate the Avogadro number (which enables the calculation of the number of atoms in a given amount of material) more directly and accurately than had previously been possible. One of the most important applications of the “proto” Geiger counter was in proving that a different way to count alpha particles worked. In 1903, Crookes invented a device he called a spinthariscope, or “spark viewer.” It consisted of a tiny spot of radium mounted several millimeters in front of a small glass screen coated with a fluorescent mineral—zinc sulfide with a trace of copper. When the screen was observed in a darkened room through a magnifying glass, tiny flashes of light, called scintillations, could be seen as the alpha particles struck the screen. Using both photographic film and an advanced model of the spinthariscope, Geiger and Rutherford noted that a beam of alpha particles tended to spread out after penetrating a thin mica window or a metal foil. Rutherford came to see this as a key to the structure of the atom. His approach could be compared to that of a traveler in unfa666
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 miliar territory. Suppose the traveler suddenly comes to a fog bank so thick that he cannot see anything that lies ahead, whether trees, a cliff, or a haystack. The traveler could throw pebbles into the fog to learn what lies ahead. That is, by throwing pebbles in various directions and listening to hear whether they strike something, the traveler could gain some notion of what is there. In just this fashion, Rutherford threw alpha particles at atoms. Using a zinc sulfide screen, he could observe where the alpha particles came out after interacting with the atoms of a target foil. The “proto” Geiger counter was used to prove that when appropriate precautions were taken, observers could accurately count the alpha particles that struck the zinc sulfide screen. In 1911, Rutherford announced that the atom must consist of a tiny but relatively massive nucleus surrounded by a vast space through which the electrons move. The true Geiger counter evolved when Geiger replaced the central wire of the early counter’s tube with a needle whose point lay just inside a thin entrance window. This counter was much more sensitive to alpha and beta particles and also to gamma rays. By 1928, with the assistance of Walther Müller, Geiger made his counter much more efficient, responsive, durable, and portable. Today, few radiation facilities in the world do not have at least one Geiger-Müller counter or one of the compact modern relatives of this device. As for the other early instruments, X-ray-sensitive film is still used today. Both the television tube and the X-ray tube are direct descendants of the Crookes tube. The zinc sulfide screen is closely related to the phosphorcoated television screen, which glows under a beam of beta particles. — Charles W. Rogers Further Reading Andrade, Edward Neville da Costa. Rutherford and the Nature of the Atom. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964. This delightful book is easy to read but does not stint on science. Andrade, a physicist, joined Rutherford’s group from 1913 to 1914, about the time Geiger changed the “proto” Geiger counter into the Geiger counter. Includes some interesting photographs. Highly recommended. Berks, I. B., ed. Rutherford at Manchester. London: Heywood, 1962. This volume resulted from a commemorative conference held at Manchester University in 1961 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Rutherford’s discovery of the nucleus. Presents several speeches by colleagues of Rutherford who reminisce about him
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complete descriptions of some of the early experiments in the discovery of radioactivity, including the work of Geiger and Rutherford. Readers with some background in physics, chemistry, and algebra will be most likely to appreciate this work. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Presents brief descriptions of the key experiments by Geiger and Rutherford, placing them in historical context and including interesting personal details. Written for a wide audience. Rowland, John. Ernest Rutherford. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957. An easily read biography of Rutherford. Describes his work with Geiger and the advent of the Geiger tube. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed.
February 24, 1908 MULLER V. OREGON In Muller v. Oregon, the U.S. Supreme Court established the validity of “sociological jurisprudence,” the principle that economic and social considerations are as significant as legal precedents in deciding the constitutionality of social legislation. Also known as: Brandeis brief Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history; women’s issues Key Figures Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), American attorney David J. Brewer (1837-1910), associate justice of the United States, 1889-1910 Josephine Goldmark (1877-1950), American social reformer Florence Kelley (1859-1932), American social reformer Summary of Event In his famous brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Muller v. Oregon in 1908, Louis D. Brandeis of
Boston established the validity of “sociological jurisprudence” in the determination of constitutional questions. According to sociological jurisprudence, economic and social considerations are as significant as legal precedents in judicial decision making concerning the constitutionality of social legislation. In Muller v. Oregon, Brandeis (who later served on the Supreme Court himself) presented a brief that became a legal model for lawyers, judges, and social welfare proponents who were determined to humanize industrial working conditions. Under attack was an Oregon law that limited a workday for women workers in an industry to ten hours. The law’s critics claimed that it was unconstitutional because it contradicted legal precedent as established by the case of Lochner v. New York (1905). Because many members of the bar and the judiciary were hostile toward social welfare legislation, it was expected that the courts would uphold the claim of unconstitutionality. Many, if not most, lawyers and judges at the beginning of the twentieth century believed in natural economic laws and the primacy of property rights over human rights. For the government to attempt to control the use of property, 667
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and his work as well as several key scientific papers by Rutherford and Geiger. Includes historical photographs, a complete bibliography of Rutherford’s publications, and a bibliography of papers published by other members of his group. Chown, Marcus. The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. A history of humankind’s attempts to understand the atom. Discusses all of the major theories and experiments that have furthered knowledge in this area. Includes glossary, select bibliography, and index. Keller, Alex. The Infancy of Atomic Physics: Hercules in His Cradle. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1983. Describes the works of Rutherford, Geiger, and many others. The major portion of the book deals with the time period from about 1880 to 1920. Places the scientists’ works within the individuals’ cultural and historical backgrounds. Includes a useful bibliography. Mann, Wilfrid B., R. L. Ayres, and S. B. Garfinkel. Radioactivity and Its Measurement. 2d ed. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1980. Presents exceptionally
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Muller v. Oregon they maintained, was not only unconstitutional but also contrary to the natural order. Judges in the United States are entitled to review legislation to determine whether it violates state or federal constitutions; as a result, advocates of social welfare legislation viewed the decisions of judges who opposed such legislation as the greatest threat to progress. Federal courts had frequently nullified social welfare legislation enacted by the states. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court had embraced the concept that corporations had the status of persons under the Fourteenth Amendment. No state, the Court held, could deprive a corporation—in this case, a particular industry—of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In social welfare legislation, “liberty” generally meant the freedom to contract. In 1905, the Supreme Court set specific limitations on how far a state could go in legislating hours and other working conditions for its industrial laborers. In Lochner v. New York, the Court ruled that New York laws that limited bakers to working ten hours per day and sixty hours per week were “mere meddlesome interferences with the rights of the individual.” A state could not interfere with the freedom of the employer and employee to make a labor contract unless obvious and overriding reasons existed, such as matters of health. The Court asserted that if the state had been able to prove that longer hours had negative health effects on the workers, the Court would have upheld the statute. The stage was thus set for litigation of the Oregon tenhour law for women. Two social justice reformers, Florence Kelley, who was chief factory inspector of Illinois and general secretary of the National Consumers League, and Josephine Goldmark, a leader of the National Consumers League and Brandeis’s sister-in-law, hired Brandeis to defend the law. Known as “the people’s attorney,” Brandeis had tried for years to minimize what Thorstein Veblen had called the “discrepancy between law and fact.” The law, Brandeis argued, often did not correspond to the new economic and social facts of life in the United States. Lawyers and judges who blindly adhered to legal precedents and arguments about natural law actually knew little about twentieth century industrial conditions. Lawyers who did not understand economic and social realities were apt to become “public enemies.” In his brief in Muller v. Oregon, which was researched in large part by Kelley and Goldmark, Brandeis sought to make clear the economic and social realities of the women workers’ lives. Brandeis’s legal argument took up merely two pages of his brief. He devoted more than one hundred pages to 668
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 demonstrating that Oregon had adopted its ten-hour law in order to safeguard the public health, safety, and welfare of women. “Long hours of labor are dangerous for women,” Brandeis contended, because of the physiological differences between men and women. “Overwork . . . is more dangerous to the health of women than of men, and entails upon them more lasting injury.” Fatigue in working women, Brandeis asserted, often resulted in general deterioration of health, anemia, the destruction of nervous energy, difficulties in childbearing, and industrial accidents. He further argued that the effect of overwork on morals was closely related to poor health. A breakdown in the health and morals of women, moreover, would inevitably lower the entire community physically, mentally, and morally. The rise of infant mortality was an obvious example. In contrast, the good of the entire community was actually promoted by women’s working hours that did not cause the deterioration of health and morals. Brandeis marshaled his economic and social data so impressively that the Court was convinced to uphold the Oregon ten-hour law for women. In his majority opinion, delivered on February 24, 1908, Justice David J. Brewer made reference to the uniqueness and efficacy of the Brandeis brief.
Florence Kelley. (Library of Congress)
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The Impact of the Brandeis Brief In Muller v. Oregon, the U.S. Supreme Court responded to arguments made by attorney Louis D. Brandeis and established the validity of the principle that Court decisions concerning the constitutionality of social legislation may take into account economic and social factors as well as legal precedents. In the Court’s opinion, Justice David J. Brewer wrote: In patent cases counsel are apt to open the argument with a discussion of the state of the art. It may not be amiss, in the present case, before examining the constitutional question, to notice the course of legislation, as well as expressions of opinion from other than judicial sources. In the brief filed by Mr. Louis D. Brandeis for the defendant in error is a very copious collection of all these matters. . . . The legislation and opinions referred to . . . may not be, technically speaking, authorities, and in them is little or no discussion of the constitutional question presented to us for determination, yet they are significant of a widespread belief that woman’s physical structure, and the functions she performs in consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting or qualifying the conditions under which she should be permitted to toil. Constitutional questions, it is true, are not settled by even a consensus of present public opinion, for it is the peculiar value of a written constitution that it places in unchanging form limitations upon legislative action, and thus gives a permanence and stability to popular government which otherwise would be lacking. At the same time, when a question of fact is debated and debatable, and the extent to which a special constitutional limitation goes is affected by the truth in respect to that fact, a widespread and long-continued belief concerning it is worthy of consideration. . . . That woman’s physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical fraternity continuance for a long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon the body, and, as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race.
Further Reading Source: U.S. Supreme Court, Muller v. State of Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908). Blumberg, Dorothy R. Florence Kelley: The Making of a Social Pioneer. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, Hughes, and Donald R. Richberg; introduction by 1966. Biography provides little information about Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Muller v. Oregon but traces the influences that caused Goldmark, Josephine. Impatient Crusader: Florence Kelley to become a social reformer. Kelley’s Life Story. Urbana: University of Illinois Carrington, Paul D. Stewards of Democracy: Law as a Press, 1953. A sympathetic study of the militant and Public Profession. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, socially conscious women reformers who pioneered 1999. Discusses the role of lawyers in U.S. social and efforts for the abolition of child labor and shorter political history. Focuses on a number of individual hours and higher pay for women. attorneys who have practiced law with an awareness Mason, Alpheus Thomas. Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life. of a responsibility to the public. Chapter 15 is devoted New York: Viking Press, 1946. An intimate portrait to Brandeis. Includes references and index. of Brandeis and the four stages of his career. Concise Frankfurter, Felix, ed. Mr. Justice Brandeis. New Hadescription of his participation in Muller v. Oregon. ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1932. Articles Paper, Lewis J. Brandeis. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: by Felix Frankfurter, Max Lerner, Charles Evans 669
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Significance Brandeis’s brief opened the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to examine factors other than legal precedents in reaching decisions. These other factors—social and economic data—which Brandeis called “what any fool knows,” became part of subsequent briefs propounding equitable labor conditions. In the long term, it was not only in labor cases that sociological jurisprudence became an accepted principle in the law. In 1954, in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Court relied on sociological data in determining that segregation of the races in education is unconstitutional. Several years after Muller v. Oregon, Felix Frankfurter called the case “epoch-making” because of Brandeis’s approach. This approach, based on “the logic of facts,” has been an intrinsic part of legal and constitutional practice ever since, paving the way for socalled judicial activism and the entry of the courts into the “political thicket.” Opponents of this trend see judicial activism as the judicial system’s usurpation of the powers of the legislative and executive branches of government. —William M. Tuttle and Jennifer Eastman
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Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts Prentice-Hall, 1983. A detailed biography with an accurate account of Brandeis’s involvement with Muller v. Oregon. Sklar, Kathryn Kish. Florence Kelley and the Nation’s Work: The Rise of Women’s Political Culture, 18301900. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995. Biography covers the first forty years of Kelley’s life and also serves as a political history of the United States during a time when women were becoming increasingly active in opposition to workplace abuses.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Strum, Philippa. Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People. New York: Schocken Books, 1984. Discusses Brandeis and his importance in the legal world. Includes an in-depth account of Muller v. Oregon and the Brandeis brief. See also: Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law; June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice; Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
February 29, 1908
Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts Henry M. Leland, a master of precision techniques, introduced automobile manufacturers to the use of interchangeable parts, providing a key element necessary to the implementation of mass production. Locale: Brooklands, England Categories: Science and technology; manufacturing and industry; transportation Key Figures Henry M. Leland (1843-1932), American engineer and automobile manufacturer Frederick Bennett (fl. early twentieth century), British agent for Cadillac Motor Car Company Henry Ford (1863-1947), American engineer and automobile manufacturer Summary of Event The methodology of mass production became widespread in the twentieth century, but it is based, for the most part, on nineteenth century ideas. It is a phenomenon that, although its origins were mostly American, changed the entire world. The innovation of the use of interchangeable parts, the feasibility of which was demonstrated by the Cadillac Motor Car Company in 1908, was instrumental in making mass production possible. The British phase of the Industrial Revolution saw the application of division of labor, the first principle of industrialization, to capitalist-directed manufacturing processes. Centralized power sources were connected through shafts, pulleys, and belts to machines housed in factories. Even after these dramatic changes, the British preferred to produce unique, handcrafted products formed one step at a time using general-purpose machine tools. 670
Seldom did they make separate components to be assembled into standardized products. Stories about American products that were assembled from fully interchangeable parts began to reach Great Britain. In 1851, members of the British public saw a few of these products on display at an exhibition in London’s Crystal Palace. In 1854, they were informed by one of their own investigative commissions that American manufacturers were building military weapons and a number of consumer products with separately made parts that could be easily assembled, with little filing and fitting, by semiskilled workers. English industrialists had probably heard as much as they ever wanted to about this so-called American system of manufacturing by the first decade of the twentieth century, when word came that American companies were building automobiles with parts manufactured so precisely that they were interchangeable. During the fall of 1907, Frederick Bennett, an Englishman who served as the British agent for the Cadillac Motor Car Company in Detroit, Michigan, paid a visit to the company’s factory and was amazed by what he saw. He later described the assembling of the relatively inexpensive Cadillac vehicles as a demonstration of the beauty and practicality of precision. He was convinced that if his countrymen could see what he had seen, they would also be impressed. Most automobile manufacturers at the time claimed that their vehicles were built with handcrafted quality, yet at the same time they advertised that they could supply repair parts that would fit perfectly. In actuality, machining and filing were almost always required when parts were replaced, and only shops with proper equipment could do the job.
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looking trio, with fenders, doors, hoods, and wheels of mixed colors. All three were then driven five hundred miles around the Brooklands track. The British were amazed. Cadillac was awarded the club’s prestigious Dewar Trophy, considered in the young automobile industry to be almost the equivalent of a Nobel Prize. A number of European and American automobile manufacturers began to consider the promise of interchangeable parts and the assembly-line system. Cadillac’s precision-built automobiles were the result of a lifetime of experience on the part of Henry M. Leland, an American engineer. Known in Detroit as a master of precision, Leland became the primary connection between a series of nineteenth century attempts to make interchangeable parts and the large-scale use of precision parts in mass-production manufacturing during the twentieth century. The first American use of truly interchangeable parts had occurred in the military, more than seventy-five years before the test at Brooklands. Thomas Jefferson had written from France about a demonstration of uniform parts for musket locks in 1785. A few years later,
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Henry M. Leland in 1930, standing beside a 1905 Cadillac Osceola. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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When Bennett returned to London from Detroit, he convinced the Royal Automobile Club to sponsor a test of the precision of automobile parts. A standardization test was set to begin on February 29, 1908, and all of the companies then selling automobiles were invited to participate. Only the company that Bennett represented, Cadillac, was willing to enter the contest. Three one-cylinder Cadillacs, all painted different colors, were taken from stock at the company’s warehouse in London to a garage near the Brooklands race track. The cars were first driven around the track ten times to prove that they were operable. British mechanics then dismantled the vehicles, placing their parts in piles in the center of the garage, making sure that there was no way of identifying from which car each internal piece came. Then, as a further test, eighty-nine randomly selected parts were removed from the piles and replaced with new ones straight from Cadillac’s storeroom in London. The mechanics then proceeded to reassemble the automobiles, using only screwdrivers and wrenches. After the reconstruction, which took two weeks, the cars were driven from the garage. They were a motley-
Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts
Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts Eli Whitney attempted to make muskets for the American military by producing separate parts for assembly using specialized machines. He was never able to produce the precision necessary for truly interchangeable parts, but he promoted the idea intensely. It was in 1822 at the Harpers Ferry Armory in Virginia, and then a few years later at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts, that the necessary accuracy in machining was finally achieved on a relatively large scale. Leland began his career at the Springfield Armory in 1863, at the age of nineteen. He worked as a tool builder during the Civil War years and soon became an advocate of precision manufacturing. In 1890, he moved to Detroit, where he began a firm, Leland & Faulconer, that would become internationally known for precision machining. His company did well supplying parts to the bicycle industry and internal combustion engines and transmissions to early automobile makers. In 1899, Leland & Faulconer became the primary supplier of engines to the first of the major automobile producers, the Olds Motor Works. In 1902, the directors of another Detroit firm, the Henry Ford Company, found themselves in a desperate situation. Henry Ford, the company founder and chief engineer, had resigned after a disagreement with the firm’s key owner, William Murphy. Leland was asked to take over the reorganization of the company. Because it could no longer use Ford’s name, the business was renamed in memory of the French explorer who had founded Detroit two hundred years earlier, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. Leland was appointed president of the Cadillac Motor Car Company, which, under his influence, soon became known for its precision manufacturing. He disciplined the company’s suppliers, rejecting anything that did not meet his specifications, and insisted on precision machining for all parts. By 1906, Cadillac was outselling all of its competitors, including Oldsmobile and Ford’s new venture, the Ford Motor Company. After the Brooklands demonstration in 1908, Cadillac became recognized worldwide for high quality at a reasonable price. Significance The Brooklands demonstration went a long way toward proving that mass-produced goods could be durable and of relatively high quality. It showed that standardized products, although often less costly to make, were not necessarily cheap substitutes for handcrafted and painstakingly fitted products. It also convinced many people that, through the use of interchangeable parts, the job of 672
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 repairing such complex machines as automobiles could be made comparatively simple, moving maintenance and repair work from the well-equipped machine shop to the neighborhood garage or even to the home. Because of the international publicity Cadillac received from the demonstration, others in the automobile industry began to emulate Leland’s methods. His precision manufacturing, as his daughter-in-law would later write in his biography, “laid the foundation for the future American [automobile] industry.” The successes of automobile manufacturers quickly led to the introduction of mass-production methods in many other American businesses, along with strategies designed to promote the necessary corollary mass consumption. In 1909, Cadillac was acquired by William Crapo Durant as the flagship firm of his new holding company, which he labeled General Motors. Leland continued to improve his production methods while also influencing his colleagues in the other General Motors companies to implement many of his techniques. By the mid-1920’s, General Motors had become the world’s largest manufacturer of automobiles. Much of its success resulted from extensions of Leland’s ideas. The company began offering a number of brand-name vehicles in a variety of price ranges for marketing purposes while still keeping the costs of production down by including in each design a large number of commonly used, highly standardized components. Henry Leland resigned from Cadillac during World War I after trying to convince Durant that General Motors should play an important part in the war effort by contracting to build Liberty aircraft engines for the military. He formed his own firm, named after his favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, and went on to build about four thousand aircraft engines in 1917 and 1918. In 1919, ready to make automobiles again, Leland converted the Lincoln Motor Company into a car manufacturer. Again he influenced the industry by setting high standards for precision, but in 1921 an economic recession forced his new venture into receivership. Ironically, Lincoln was purchased at auction by Henry Ford. Leland retired, his name overshadowed by the names of individuals to whom he had taught the importance of precision and interchangeable parts. Ford, who went on to become one of America’s industrial legends by applying the standardized parts concept, is just one example. In 1913, Henry Ford, relying on the ease of fit made possible through the use of machined and stamped interchangeable parts, introduced the moving assembly line to the automobile industry. He had begun production of
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machines designed for high-speed use in performing particular specialized steps in the production process. Many more machines were now required, one for each step in the production process. Each machine had to be simpler to operate, with more automatic features, because of an increased dependence on unskilled workers. The machine tool industry became the foundation of modern production. The miracle of mass production that followed, in products as diverse as airplanes, communication systems, and hamburgers, would not have been possible without the precision on which Henry Leland insisted in the first decade of the twentieth century. It would not have come about without the lessons learned by Henry Ford in the use of specialized machines and assembly methods, and it would not have occurred without the growth of the machine tool industry. Cadillac’s demonstration at Brooklands in 1908 proved the practicality of precision manufacturing and interchangeable parts to the world. It inspired American manufacturers to continue to develop these ideas, and it convinced Europeans that such production was possible. For better or for worse, it played a major part in changing the world. — Robert G. Lynch Further Reading Hill, Frank Ernest. The Automobile: How It Came, Grew, and Has Changed Our Lives. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1967. Tells the story of the automobile industry and its growth. Includes a number of discussions of Leland’s work. Provides details on the Brooklands demonstration and discusses its consequences. Hounshell, David A. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Discusses Leland’s early life, his work at the Springfield Armory, and his management of Brown and Sharpe’s sewing machine department. Provides an excellent picture of how Leland became enamored of the idea of precision manufacturing. Leland, Ottilie M., and Minnie Dubbs Millbrook. Master of Precision: Henry M. Leland. 1966. Reprint. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. The primary biography of Henry Leland, coauthored by his son’s widow. Tells the story of one of the most important industrial entrepreneurs in U.S. history, an individual who played a pivotal role in the development of mass production by teaching the automobile industry the importance of interchangeable parts. Marcus, Alan I., and Howard P. Segal. Technology in 673
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the Model T in 1908 using stationary assembly methods, bringing parts to assemblers. After having learned how to increase component production significantly through experiments with interchangeable parts and moving assembly methods in the magneto department, he began to apply this same concept to final assembly. In the spring of 1913, Ford workers began dragging car frames past stockpiles of parts for assembly. Soon a power source was attached to the cars through a chain drive, and the vehicles were pulled past the stockpiles at a constant rate. From that time on, the pace of tasks performed by assemblers would be controlled by the rhythm of the moving line. As demand for the Model T increased, the number of employees along the line was increased and the jobs were broken into smaller and simpler tasks. With stationary assembly methods, the time required to assemble a Model T had averaged twelve and one-half person-hours. Dragging the chassis to the parts cut the time to six person-hours per vehicle, and the powerdriven, constant-rate line produced a Model T in only ninety-three minutes of labor time. Because of these amazing increases in productivity, Ford was able to lower the selling price of the basic model from $900 in 1910 to $260 in 1925. He had revolutionized automobile manufacturing: The average family could now afford an automobile. Soon the average family would also be able to afford many of the other new products being advertised in magazines and newspapers. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many new household appliances, farm machines, ready-made fashions, and prepackaged food products were on the market, but only members of the wealthier class could afford most of these items. Major consumer goods retailers such as Sears, Roebuck and Company, Montgomery Ward, and the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company were eager to find lowerpriced versions of these products to sell to a growing middle-class constituency. The methods of mass production that Henry Ford had popularized seemed to carry promise for these products as well. During the 1920’s, by working with such key manufacturers as Whirlpool, Hoover, General Electric, and Westinghouse, these large distributors helped introduce mass-production methods into a large number of consumer-product industries. They changed class markets into mass markets. The movement toward precision also led to the birth of a separate industry based on the manufacture of machine tools. A general-purpose lathe, milling machine, or grinder could be used for a number of operations, but mass-production industries called for narrow-purpose
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Harvard University Founds a Business School America: A Brief History. 2d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1998. Discusses the importance of interchangeable parts in the evolution of mass-production processes in the automobile, home appliance, and agricultural implement industries. Nevins, Allan, and Frank Ernest Hill. The Times, the Man, the Company. Vol. 1 in Ford. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954. Discusses Leland’s various relationships with Henry Ford, the Henry Ford Company, and Ford Motor Company. Briefly discusses the Brooklands demonstration. Vance, Bill. Reflections on Automotive History. Vol. 1. Rockwood, Ont.: Eramosa Valley Publishing, 2000.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Covers a wide range of subjects in the history of the automobile and features more than sixty black-andwhite photographs. Contains a brief chapter devoted to Cadillac’s early engineering achievements, including the development of interchangeable parts. See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday; Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
April 8, 1908
Harvard University Founds a Business School The Harvard Business School’s innovative instructional methods helped professionalize management and the way managers are educated. Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Business and labor; education; organizations and institutions Key Figures Edwin F. Gay (1867-1946), founding dean of the Harvard Business School Arch W. Shaw (1876-1962), American publisher and lecturer at the Harvard Business School Melvin T. Copeland (1884-1975), professor and historian of the Harvard Business School Charles William Eliot (1834-1926), president of Harvard University Summary of Event The emergence of the multiunit form, a vision that institutions of higher education could serve a utilitarian purpose, and a popular desire to professionalize most occupations encouraged the development of collegiate business education in the late nineteenth century. An early participant in this exciting experiment in higher learning was the Harvard Business School, founded in 1908. Although preceded by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth, the Harvard Business School inaugurated a change in the education of professional managers through its innovative instructional methods and the high priority it placed on business research. 674
An emphasis on framing business problems, class discussion, written case analysis, and a climate that encouraged confident decision making were seen from the outset as vital to the development of top managers. It soon became apparent, however, that a rather large breach existed between the school’s educational aspirations and its ability to achieve them. Few teachers were trained in business administration, and scholarship in the form of published works was almost nonexistent. In fact, course offerings, materials, and textbooks were sparse until the 1920’s. Early professors of business administration both at Harvard and elsewhere were drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines. Economists such as Simon N. Patten were influential teachers and scholars at the Wharton School. The economics department also dominated academic life at the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth. Business educators in this nascent stage of development were also drawn from less closely allied fields. Of the two accounting courses offered at Wharton, for example, one was taught by a professor of journalism who also instructed in business practices and banking. The other course was taught by a political scientist. The recruitment of faculty proved to be the most challenging aspect of running the fledgling Harvard Business School for its first dean, Edwin F. Gay. Convinced that the education of professional managers required a unique approach, he eschewed teachers from undergraduate business programs and scholars from the traditional social science disciplines. This represented a departure from accepted practice. The business school, in fact, had been envisioned as a school of diplomacy and government by
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keting discipline, perhaps more than any other in the business curriculum, was constrained as a result of meager real-life data. Even the trade journals of the day gave scarce attention to selling or marketing problems. The collection of business information and data for course materials, cases, and textbooks proceeded in an ad hoc fashion through individual professors and in a more organized manner through bureaus of business research. J. E. Hagerty, an early marketing professor at Ohio State University, for example, was frustrated by the paucity of textual material in his discipline and attempted to fill this breach by interviewing local businesspeople. He discovered that these individuals gave freely of their time and information because of their curiosity about his research effort. They wondered why anyone would want to learn about their organizations, methods, procedures, and business problems. The Harvard Bureau of Business Research was begun at the urging of Arch W. Shaw shortly after the business school was founded. Although its principal mission was to gather data to aid instruction in the school, especially in marketing, it was hoped that research results would prove beneficial to students and teachers in other schools and to individuals in the wider business community. The findings of the bureau’s first study, which examined the shoe industry, received wide distribution in trade papers and other business publications and aroused interest in the activities of the school. Soon, studies of the operating expenses of grocers, department stores, and variety chains were produced. Later, scholarly investigations of labor unions, the distribution of textiles, cotton mill hedging practices, and interstate power transmission not only provided a wealth of teaching material but also encouraged further exploratory work in other business schools throughout the United States. Significance The founding and the early success of the Harvard Business School had a significant effect on the professionalization of management, which in turn had consequences for the education of managers. With its bold and innovative instructional methodologies and scholarly climate, Harvard became a model for all other business schools to follow in the early twentieth century. It soon became common for business careers to begin after formal education in business administration. General education preceded professional course work. Students took a core of business subjects that gave coherence and content to their professional studies. These subjects included business law, statistics, marketing, ac675
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Harvard University president Charles William Eliot. Gay quickly set out to establish a core faculty and to recruit practicing managers from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. William Morse Cole and Oliver Mitchell Sprague joined the regular faculty to teach accounting and banking, respectively. Paul Terry Cherington, who would make seminal contributions in the field of marketing education through his work Advertising as a Business Force: A Compilation of Experience Records (1913), joined the faculty from the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. Lincoln Frederick Schaub became the school’s first full-time instructor of commercial law. These individuals, along with two part-time instructors, eight parttime lecturers, and fifty-five outside (guest) lecturers, composed the school’s first teaching staff. Over the next decade, the permanent faculty grew, and as the case method became more widely used, the need for outside lecturers waned. Initial courses at Harvard were analogous to those provided at the older business schools. The required firstyear courses in accounting, commercial contracts, and economic resources of the United States (later marketing) were augmented by electives in industrial organization, corporate insurance, and banking. These traditional courses were seen as essential prerequisites of a career with a multiunit firm. Second-year courses examined the intricacies of management in specialized industries such as railroading, foreign trade, banking, and insurance. The school made a marked advance toward achieving its unique mission of educating professional managers through a “problems” or “case method” approach with the addition of Arch W. Shaw to its faculty. Shaw was the energetic publisher of System, a journal that crusaded for more efficient business practices. Upon his appointment to the faculty at Harvard, he turned his energies to developing a course in business policy using the case approach. His use of “real-life” cases animated his classes, and in time his course became the capstone for the school. His book An Approach to Business Problems (1916) and colleague Melvin T. Copeland’s Problems in Marketing (1920) did much to advance their respective specialties as well as business education in general in the United States. These textbooks, along with other seminal contributions to the business literature by Cherington, Charles Edward Russel, Bruce Wyman, and Walter Dill Scott, became required reading in every business school and program soon after publication. Despite these works, however, there was a dearth of business information and research material needed for the development of cases and advanced course work. The development of the mar-
Harvard University Founds a Business School
Harvard University Founds a Business School counting, money and banking, and corporate finance. The problem approach superseded rote memorization of formulas and data. Written and oral communication were stressed for future business leaders, and the discovery of new business knowledge through research and investigation of active organizations was encouraged. Classroom instruction and theoretical knowledge were augmented by internship experiences in business. The formal education of managers did not necessarily terminate in the nascence of their careers, as professional education for practicing managers was introduced. Each of these innovations was a bold step. Each served to convince prospective students as well as academic and business leaders that the business site and academe could be connected through a business school or program. Within two decades of the opening of the Harvard Business School, numerous major public and private universities established similar ventures, including Ohio State (1916); Alabama, Minnesota, and North Carolina (1919); Virginia (1920); Indiana (1921); and Kansas and Michigan (1924). Private institutions that established business schools during this period included Columbia University (1916) and Stanford University (1925). In addition, it was not long before an even larger number of public and private institutions established business programs “in town” to educate future business leaders living and working in large metropolitan areas. The revolutionary changes in the education of future managers were the result of a courageous decision to foster the development of an educational experience free of the intellectual control of other long-established academic disciplines. Gay believed that the aims of a graduate school of business should be instillation of a rational method of attacking business problems and development of intellectual respect for the management profession. This also entailed appreciation for the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of the field. Harvard’s early commitment to developing a business administration paradigm that could stand on its own energized stakeholders to find new ways and means of educating a new profession, that of management. The case method, with its attendant vigorous analysis and discussion of companywide problems together with scholarly investigation of living organizations, was an important part of this philosophy of education. Case studies adopting the companywide problems approach benefited students, teachers, and practitioners alike. Students benefited by seeing that rational decisionmaking processes could be applied to problems encountered in a wide variety of business settings. Professors 676
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gained because cases gave flexibility as well as content and depth to their courses. Well-researched and wellwritten cases provided a wealth of information about industry practices and technical matters in the process of teaching problem-solving skills. Perhaps most important, practicing managers benefited from their training in the case method. As business school graduates, they enjoyed a common basis for communication and a better understanding of mutual problems. In short, managers trained in this analytic method could relate better to their peers. Business research, like the case method, can trace its origins to the first years of the Harvard Business School. It reached its full instructional potential some years later. Harvard’s pioneering Bureau of Business Research had substantial pedagogical value to the academic community in the school and elsewhere while also providing strategic information to managers in industry. The work of the bureau helped make class discussions and teaching materials more interesting and relevant for the first students in the school and, in time, became the foundation for instruction conducted there. The style and method of research carried out in the early days of the Harvard Business School also had important consequences for the conduct of business research in general. The bureau, with its strategy of focusing its efforts on a small area of business and studying it thoroughly to achieve notable results in a brief period, its refusal to be commercialized, and its aspiration to be at a level equal to Harvard’s other schools, became a model for other researchers and institutions to imitate. — S. A. Marino Further Reading Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1977. Seminal work by a distinguished historian of business examines the rise of modern business enterprise and its managers during the formative years of modern capitalism, from the 1850’s to the 1920’s. A superb book for anyone interested in the profession of management. Copeland, Melvin T. And Mark an Era: The Story of the Harvard Business School. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958. An important study of the founding and development of the Harvard Business School through its first half century. Written by a distinguished member of the school’s faculty during the period addressed. An essential work for understanding the development of collegiate business education in the United States. Heaton, Herbert. A Scholar in Action: Edwin F. Gay. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968. A biography of
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Veysey, Lawrence R. The Emergence of the American University. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Authoritative study of the social and cultural forces that helped transform the American university into a modern institution at the beginning of the twentieth century. Places business education in its larger cultural and intellectual context. Suitable for both serious scholars and generalists. See also: Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive.
May 13-15, 1908
Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources President Theodore Roosevelt invited the nation’s governors and other dignitaries to Washington, D.C., for the first major conference on conservation issues in the United States, raising public awareness of those issues. Also known as: White House Conservation Conference; Governors’ Conference Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics; economics; natural resources Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), chief forester of the United States Frederick Haynes Newell (1862-1932), head of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation William J. McGee (fl. early twentieth century), American scientist and mathematician Summary of Event On May 13, 1908, the first U.S. conference devoted to conservation issues convened in Washington, D.C. The Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, often called the Governors’ Conference, was convened by President Theodore Roosevelt and organized by his conservation advisers. The governors of all the U.S. states and numerous other dignitaries were invited to the conference, which lasted three days and led to a broad
agreement on conservation principles as well as a proposed course of action. Roosevelt had become president in 1901, coinciding with the broad reform movement called Progressivism. Roosevelt, a Republican, was the nation’s first Progressive president. Conservation of the nation’s natural resources soon became a cornerstone of the new administration. By Roosevelt’s second term, however, considerable opposition to his conservation program had developed in Congress, which imposed limitations on portions of the president’s proposed policies. Some congressmen demanded that the country’s resources be left in the hands of the individual states. Others objected to the direction and domination of conservation policies by the executive branch, an approach that bypassed Congress and stretched federal laws beyond what narrow constitutional constructionists believed proper. Many objected to the administration’s reliance on experts rather than elected representatives in conservation matters. A few believed that conservation was unnecessary and even un-American. The conference’s immediate origins resulted from Roosevelt’s creation of the Inland Waterways Commission in February, 1907. The commission, which reflected the administration’s reliance on presidential commissions, also embodied a commitment to a multiple-use approach to water use (irrigation, waterpower, navigation, flood control, and soil conservation). The commission was staffed by experts long connected with Roosevelt’s own approach to resource management. The politically astute Roosevelt also appointed several congressmen to 677
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the bold, imaginative, and scholarly first dean of the Harvard Business School. Provides interesting background information about this educational administrator whose early advocacy for the problem approach and business research aided the development of the profession of management. Pierson, Frank C., et al. The Education of American Businessmen. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959. Chapter 3 provides excellent historical information about American business schools from their origins through the early 1950’s. Valuable as an overview while also providing interesting insights into the origin and growth— and often decline—of early American collegiate business schools.
Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources
Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources the Inland Waterways Commission, including the commission chairman, Theodore E. Burton of Ohio. William J. McGee, one of the major theorists of the conservation movement and a proponent of the conservation-for-use ideology, was the commission’s secretary. In May, 1907, commission member Frederick Haynes Newell, director of the Bureau of Reclamation in the U.S. Department of the Interior and the architect of the federal water development program, suggested that a conference on the conservation of all national resources should be held in the near future in Washington, D.C. The other commission members concurred, and Congressman Burton and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt’s principal adviser on conservation, brought the commission’s request to Roosevelt, who gave it his enthusiastic backing. Conservation of resources was important in its own right, but a national conference might also generate public support for the administration’s conservation policies. To maximize the effect and to garner as much publicity and political support as possible, Roosevelt invited all the nation’s governors. In October, Roosevelt, the commission, and several governors traveled down the Mississippi River from Iowa to Memphis, Tennessee, where, on October 4, 1907, Roosevelt announced that a conservation conference would meet in Washington from May 13 to 15, 1908, noting that “the conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all others.” Formal invitations to the conference were issued in November. Pinchot, Newell, and McGee were members of the conference organizing committee; Pinchot, who was independently wealthy, paid most of the conference’s costs. In order that the conference should attain the results desired by the administration, McGee and the other committee members made themselves available to assist participants in the writing of speeches, and many of the speeches later delivered were composed by McGee. The Governors’ Conference began on May 13, 1908, in the East Room of the White House. The overwhelming majority of governors attended in person; others sent representatives. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the president’s cabinet were represented, as were more than seventy organizations connected with issues related to natural resources. Also in attendance were such national figures as industrialists Andrew Carnegie and James Jerome Hill, labor leader John Mitchell, and William Jennings Bryan, Democratic presidential candidate in 1896 and 1900. Former president Grover Cleveland was invited but was too ill to attend. 678
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Roosevelt delivered the keynote address, which, although it was drafted by McGee, was typically Rooseveltian, reflecting both the modernist and the moralistic attitudes of the Progressive Era. After welcoming remarks, the president for fifty minutes discussed the importance of conservation, claiming that “it is the chief material question that confronts us, second only—and second always—to the great fundamental questions of morality.” Roosevelt stated that although modern civilization consumes increasing amounts of natural resources, the populace had lost awareness of its dependence on nature. In their use and consumption of natural resources, Roosevelt noted, Americans at the time of the Revolution of 1776 had more in common with the earliest civilizations than with Americans of the early twentieth century. The current world was more dependent on resources than ever before, and many resources were in imminent danger of exhaustion. Many historians consider this speech to be among Roosevelt’s most influential. Neither Roosevelt nor Pinchot was a preservationist; both believed that natural resources should be used, but used with efficiency and with planning. “Efficiency” was a key term in the vocabulary of many reformers, and in his speech Roosevelt referred to the “problem of national efficiency.” Roosevelt was an advocate of national parks, and he established many parks and wildlife sanctuaries, but wilderness preservationists such as John Muir were not invited to the Governors’ Conference, where the efficient utilitarian use of resources, rather than their absolute preservation, was the stated goal. In justifying conservation, Roosevelt claimed that “we should exercise foresight now, as the ordinary prudent man exercises foresight in conserving and wisely using the property which contains the assurance of well-being for himself and his children.” The day of unrestricted individualism was over, but there could be no turning back to a simpler past. Over the following three days, the conference participants attended sessions on iron and coal resources, land and forest conservation, and irrigation and livestock grazing on public lands. Roosevelt also hosted a dinner for the governors at the White House and a garden party for the delegates on the White House lawn, and Pinchot held a large reception at his home. A few conference participants defended the rights of the states over the powers of the federal government, but most supported the administration’s approach. The concluding declaration of the governors, influenced by McGee, who was the recording secretary, recognized the importance of conser-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vation and firmly stated that the nation’s resources exist for the benefit of the people and not for that of private monopolists. Each state was urged to appoint a commission on the conservation of natural resources and to cooperate with other states and with the federal government. The report concluded with the plea, “Let us conserve the foundations of our prosperity.” As Roosevelt had hoped, the conference received wide press coverage, even abroad, and commentary was overwhelmingly supportive. Pinchot later noted in his autobiography that “conservation became the commonplace of the time.”
presented its report in three volumes. A second conference of governors accepted the report, and for the first time there was an accurate estimate of the country’s existing natural resources. The work of the National Conservation Commission led to Roosevelt’s calling the North American Conservation Conference. A much smaller gathering than the Governors’ Conference, it convened on February 18, 1909, and included representatives from Canada, the colony of Newfoundland, and Mexico. Representing the United States were Pinchot and Secretary of the Interior James Garfield. In his opening statement, Roosevelt noted the interrelationships among all the world’s peoples and stated that conservation issues “may become of the utmost importance to the world at large.” Even before the North American Conservation Conference assembled, the Roosevelt administration had begun exploring the possibilities for a world conservation conference. Invitations were sent to fifty-eight nations to meet in The Hague, the Netherlands, in September, 1909. By that time, however, Roosevelt was out of office, and his successor, William Howard Taft, did not pursue the idea. The National Conservation Commission further polarized relations between Congress and the Roosevelt administration. Roosevelt, Pinchot, and others had long doubted the ability of elected legislative representatives to make proper decisions on complex matters. They believed that elected politicians lacked the necessary expertise and were subject to conflicting political pressures. A legislative body could establish broad parameters, but, in the view of Roosevelt and his allies, the executive must retain the power to implement and initiate. Roosevelt also believed that it was not Congress but the president, elected by all the people, who was best able to serve as the representative of the public’s interests. For its part, Congress had long resented Roosevelt’s creation of numerous commissions to report on various national problems. When the National Conservation Commission was established, this resentment culminated, in February, 1909, in congressional approval of an amendment— aimed at officials such as Pinchot—stating that no federal official could assist or serve on any executive commission that had not been authorized by Congress. In a larger sense, however, Roosevelt and Pinchot had triumphed over their enemies in Congress. A new public interest in conservation resulted from activities such as the Governors’ Conference of 1908, involving persons who had not previously been directly affected by resource policy. Many of the new enthusiasts for conservation were members of the increasingly influential urban 679
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Significance One of Roosevelt’s chief aims in convening the Governors’ Conference was to create public awareness and support for conservation issues. Until then, conservation policies had been primarily the province of politicians, the users of the nation’s resources, and—more recently— the professional experts generally connected with the presidency. Pinchot and Roosevelt hoped that the conference would generate popular support against their congressional opponents and thus bring a new element into conservation debates. The publicity given to the conference fulfilled that aim, and within a few months more than forty states had appointed conservation commissions. The public was aroused, but not merely in support of the qualities of efficiency and planning that the administration had previously advocated. Roosevelt’s keynote speech had presented the issues of conservation partially in moralistic terms, and the declaration of the governors posed the issue as one of the people against monopolies. The issue of conservation had been put in the context of a democratic crusade against selfish interests, not as merely a choice of alternative policies. Roosevelt followed the Governors’ Conference and its recommendations by appointing the National Conservation Commission, which comprised fifty members from government, industry, and science. This body, chaired by Pinchot and with McGee as a major influence, was to work with state commissions to inventory the natural resources of the United States. The undertaking was another example of the quest for efficient planning; Roosevelt stressed the need for the government to know accurately what resources were available, not for the abstract purpose of preservation but for the purpose of planning future use. Fifty thousand dollars was requested for the commission’s work, but Congress refused the request because of its continuing antagonism toward the administration’s conservation policies. Nevertheless, the commission went forward and, in December, 1908,
Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources
Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources middle class. Many had been active in other Progressive reform movements and organizations. For them, possibly in reaction to industrial and urban trends in the United States, conservation was often more a matter of morality or aesthetics than of efficiency, a means and a method of restoring and maintaining spiritual values under threat from an increasingly materialistic society. Roosevelt backed the efficient use of resources during his presidency, but he also fostered the concept of the ameliorative elements of nature, as his friendship with preservationists such as John Muir and his creation of parks and wildlife sanctuaries suggest. Given the nature of American society in the early twentieth century, it was foreseeable that conservation would become of great importance to the public at large, as much for its moral and social implications as for its economic realities. The Governors’ Conference was a watershed event that carried conservation into the realm of the public’s awareness; no longer would debates and decisions concerning conservation policy be left only to the users of natural resources, scientific experts, and politicians. Public interest in conservation matters has fluctuated in the ensuing decades, but since Roosevelt’s presidency, conservation debates have invariably included discussion of the moral and aesthetic dimensions of the people’s rights as opposed to those of so-called special interests. —Eugene Larson Further Reading Cutright, Paul Russell. Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985. Concentrates on the years before Roosevelt was president but nevertheless contains a full discussion of Roosevelt’s lifelong interest in nature and conservation. _______. Theodore Roosevelt, the Naturalist. New York: Harper & Row, 1956. Discusses Roosevelt’s interest in and study of natural history. Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1991. One of the most satisfactory descriptions available of Roosevelt as president, including his conservation policies. Harbaugh, William H. Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. 1961. Reprint. Newtown, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 1997. Excellent one-volume biography of Roosevelt. Covers all aspects of his career, including his contributions to conservation.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. A seminal work on the early history of conservation. Argues that the movement began as a search for greater efficiency in resource management, not as a democratic crusade against supposed business rapacity. McGeary, Martin N. Gifford Pinchot, Forester-Politician. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960. Sympathetically covers both Pinchot’s political career and his interest in forestry and conservation. Includes discussion of Pinchot’s contribution to the Governors’ Conference. Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1947. In this posthumously published autobiography, Pinchot discusses his life’s work through 1910 and his controversies with the Taft administration. Includes commentary on the Governors’ Conference of 1908. Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Press, 1993. A look at how government manipulates natural resources (especially water) in contrast to the philosophies of early conservationists. Roosevelt, Theodore. Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Roosevelt’s own story, which documents his deeply held beliefs about conservation. Thayer, William Roscoe. Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography. 1919. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. The story of Roosevelt’s personal and public life, told by a friend of forty years. Turner, Frederick W. John Muir: Rediscovering America. 1985. Reprint. New York: Perseus Books, 2000. This book, first published under the title Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours, provides an in-depth look at the most important conservationist in the West. Muir greatly influenced Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to protect the natural resources of the United States. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Oil Is Discovered in Persia
May 26, 1908
Oil Is Discovered in Persia
Locale: Masjed Soleym3n, Persia (now Iran) Categories: Trade and commerce; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; energy; natural resources Key Figures William Knox D’Arcy (1849-1917), British entrepreneur Mo,affar od-Dtn Sh3h (1853-1907), Q3j3r shah, r. 1896-1907 Reza Khan (1878-1944), nationalist and secular reformist shah of Iran, 1925-1941 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919-1980), shah of Iran, 1941-1979 Mohammad Mosaddeq (1880-1967), nationalistic prime minister of Iran, 1951-1953 Sir Percy Sykes (1867-1945), British general in charge of protecting Persian oil fields during World War I George B. Reynolds (fl. early twentieth century), leader of D’Arcy’s oil drilling team Summary of Event During the last half of the nineteenth century, Persia (modern-day Iran) was of interest to Europeans mainly for its fine carpets and for whatever monopolies could be gained from monetary gifts to the corrupt shahs (emperors) of the Q3j3r Dynasty. By 1900, Russian interests controlled the five northern Persian provinces, while the British sphere was in the south and controlled monopolies for commodities such as tobacco. It was business as usual when Mo,affar od-Dtn Sh3h sold a concession to a wealthy Englishman, William Knox D’Arcy, who had made his fortune mining gold in Queensland, Australia. For ten thousand pounds, D’Arcy purchased the rights to explore, develop, and sell natural gas, petroleum, and asphalt in all of Persia, except for the five northern provinces controlled by Russia, for the next sixty years. After
two years, D’Arcy was required to form a company and give the shah twenty thousand additional pounds and twenty thousand pounds in shares of the company’s stock. The shah was also to receive 16 percent of any profits from annual oil revenues. The natural seepage of oil from the ground in Persia, which had been used for centuries to caulk boats and bind bricks, attracted European interest in the 1870’s as technology for oil drilling developed. Baron Julius de Reuter (founder of Reuters News Agency) made two unsuccessful efforts to locate oil, and in the early 1890’s a French geologist surveyed western Persia and published a scientific paper on the region’s oil-producing potential. These efforts sparked D’Arcy’s interests and resulted in his 1901 purchase of the shah’s concession. That year, D’Arcy hired George B. Reynolds, one of the few Englishmen with experience in oil exploration, and sent him to find oil fields in western Persia. From 1901 to 1905, Reynolds drilled for oil without success. Harsh weather conditions, difficult terrain, and the shortage of skilled labor slowed progress. Running low on capital, D’Arcy signed an agreement with the Burmah Oil Company, a British corporation, to gain the funding necessary to continue exploration. Reynolds began drilling in southern Iraq, but through 1906 and 1907 he continued to lose money. The venture was close to collapse when, at 4:00 p.m. on May 26, 1908, oil began to gush over the top of oil rig number one at Masjed Soleym3n, rising to a height of fifty feet above the rig. Two more wells were sunk, with equally productive results. The first major oil strike in the Middle East had been made. Today, a small outdoor museum preserves what is known as Well Number One, which still retains its original rig, boiler, and pump. In 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was founded. D’Arcy led the company, and by the time of his death in 1917 he had made a massive fortune, despite the fact that he never set foot in Persia and operated only through his agents. The company began construction in October, 1909, and by 1911 the number of employees had risen to twenty-five hundred. The export of oil began in 1912, and by 1914, thirty oil wells had been drilled at Masjed Soleym3n. The British government took an active interest in D’Arcy’s venture: The internal combustion engine was becoming increasingly important, and the British navy had discovered that diesel oil was far cheaper than coal 681
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The discovery of oil in Persia by an Englishman who had purchased oil concession rights gave Great Britain control of Persian oil, making Persia of tremendous strategic importance during two world wars. The discovery also initiated the opening of the Middle East to oil exploration and development, making the region of vital importance to the world economy. Initial Western control of oil production produced an anti-imperialist reaction that remained for many decades.
Oil Is Discovered in Persia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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but Britain placed a high priority on protection of its oil fields. In 1917, Sir Percy Sykes led the South Persian Rifles to defend British interests in Persia. After World War I, Reza Khan, a Persian Cossack formerly under Russian command, founded the Pahlavi Dynasty. A secular reformer and ardent nationalist, Reza attempted to obtain an equal division in oil profits from the British Petroleum Company. He was able to secure a more favorable settlement as Depression-ridden Britain left the gold standard in April of 1933, but the reallocation was still far from an even split. For Reza, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany seemed to offer Persia (officially renamed Iran in 1935) the possibility of total control of its oil fields. A large number of Gulf of German officials were present in Oman Iran at the outbreak of World War II, and this was a major source of concern for the British. After Reza ignored a demand for the expulsion of all German officials, Great Britain occupied Iran on August 25, 1941. Reza was forced to abdicate, but the dynasty remained. His cooperative young son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, continued the Pahlavi Dynasty as the British maintained control of Iranian oil, the lifeblood of the British war effort. Although the British had uncovered what they believed were vast oil fields in Saudi Arabia, these could not be developed during World War II. After World War II ended, the British needed cheap oil to rebuild their infrastructure, but Iran’s political situation became increasingly complicated after 1951, when a nationalist named Mohammad Mosaddeq became premier of Iran. After failing to obtain the long-requested fifty-fifty split, he threatened to nationalize Iranian oil. The shah left Iran as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and British Intelligence organized a coup, called Operation Ajax, to overthrow Mosaddeq. When the shah returned, it was to a new arrangement: A conglomerate of U.S. companies would control 40 percent of oil production, and the British Petroleum Company would control another 40 percent. The shah would receive 20 percent. The Iranian crisis convinced the British Petroleum Company to invest its resources in areas outside Iran, and
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and that ships powered by diesel oil could go longer distances between fuelings. In 1910, the British government bought one square mile of land on an island in the Shatt al-Arab region of the Persian Gulf, where it planned to build an oil refinery and shipping point. The British also negotiated a concession to run a 130-mile-long pipeline from the oil fields to the refinery. As a result, oil extraction, refining, and shipping could be handled in one efficient operation. By June of 1914, the British government had purchased D’Arcy’s shares in the company, although he retained his position as company director. The AngloPersian Oil Company was renamed the British Petroleum Company, and Great Britain owned 51 percent of its shares. This was a timely development: Britain became involved in World War I in August, 1914, and as George Nathaniel Curzon, viceroy of India, aptly stated, “the war was won on the waves of oil.” Significance During World War I, both Russia and Great Britain sent troops to Persia to protect their interests. Since 1911, Persian nationalists had looked to Germany for help in freeing Persia from Russian and British economic control, 682
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the company started explorations in Kuwait, Libya, and Iraq. Outside the Middle East, British Petroleum found huge oil reserves at home in the North Sea, and it helped develop the biggest oil field in the United States at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. The overthrow of the shah in 1979 by a nationalist and fundamentalist Shiite movement was, in part, a strong reaction against the Western control of Iranian oil that began at Masjed Soleym3n in 1908. —Irwin Halfond
maps, appendixes, biographical details, index, and bibliography. Ghani, Cyrus. Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlevi Power. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998. A detailed analysis based on primarysource documents of the events in twentieth century Iran that led to the coming to power and the policies of Reza Khan. Bibliography, footnotes, and index. Keddie, Nikki R. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. An excellent and readable history of modern Iran by a noted scholar in the field. Illustrations, footnotes, select bibliography, and index. See also: Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop; 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East; Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia; Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties.
Summer, 1908
Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works The Salon d’Automne’s rejection of six paintings by Georges Braque led to the launch of cubism, the most revolutionary art movement of the twentieth century. Locale: Paris, France Category: Arts Key Figures Georges Braque (1882-1963), French painter Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884-1976), German art dealer Louis Vauxcelles (1870-1943), French art critic Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist Summary of Event In February of 1907, Georges Braque’s work was a success when it was presented at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. Braque caused a stir with his Fauve-like creations such as The Port of Antwerp (1906), The Port of Ciotat (1907), and Little Bay at La Ciotat (1907). The Fauves, or “wild beasts,” a group of prominent artists including Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vla-
minck, Albert Marquet, and Othon Friesz, used pure, wild colors for expressive purposes; Braque, an admirer of the Fauves’ work, emulated their style. Less than two years after Braque’s success at the Salon des Indépendants, however, his newer canvases would be rejected by these same men, who objected to Braque’s evolving Cézanne-influenced style. After the death of Paul Cézanne in 1906 and the exhibition of a huge number of Cézanne’s works at the Salon d’Automne in 1907, Braque became a fervent disciple of the great post-Impressionist. In fact, at L’Estaque, a coastal village near Marseilles where Cézanne had completed many of his post-Impressionistic, architectonic landscapes, Braque began emphasizing, in the manner of Cézanne, geometric construction and color not as emotive or decorative forces but as means of creating an intellectual aura through strong, simplified planes. Braque’s Terrace of Hotel Mistral (1907), for example, demonstrates his fondness for Cézanne’s conception of nature as a series of planes, cones, and spheres and for the artist’s use of heavily outlined forms with a great deal of height or with an upward, thrusting placement. A further influence on Braque’s earlier, accepted 683
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Further Reading Farmanfarmaian, Manucher. Blood and Oil: Inside the Shah’s Iran. New York: Modern Library, 1999. A detailed account of the development of twentieth century Iran by a princely insider, with particular attention given to oil politics. Maps, footnotes, and index. Ferrier, Ronald W. The Developing Years, 1901-1932. Vol. 1 in The History of the British Petroleum Company. London: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Massive scholarly analysis of the history of the British Petroleum Company draws on company archives and other unpublished primary sources. Illustrations,
Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works
Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works Fauve-like style was his introduction in the spring of 1907 to Pablo Picasso at Picasso’s studio in rue Ravignan, where Picasso was coincidentally completing his revolutionary Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. According to Jean Leymarie, Braque was overwhelmed by Picasso’s similar Cézannesque style, his decimation of a traditional, naturalistic approach to subject matter, and his stylistic influences, which included Hellenistic painting, Iberian sculpture, African masks, and works from Oceania. By the time Braque painted his Standing Nude in December, 1907, heavier volumes and thick outlines, foreshortened space, a toned-down palette of grays and browns, distinct anatomical distortions, and the rhythms of African art were visible in his work. In the early summer of 1908, when Braque returned for the third time to L’Estaque to paint landscapes, his style was radically different from the one he had demonstrated at the Salon des Indépendants in February, 1907. His Houses at L’Estaque, for example, reflected a structural approach to landscape, a dissociation of form and color, multiple volumes with numerous vanishing points, planes of darks truncating light areas, and a palette of muted purple-grays, greens, and warm ochres— features resembling Picasso’s earlier style. Therefore, Braque was angry and disappointed when, after he had enthusiastically decided to show his six unorthodox canvases at the Salon d’Automne in late summer of 1908 instead of at the Salon des Indépendants (where almost anyone could exhibit new work), his work was promptly rejected. Although two paintings were “reclaimed”—the prerogative of each voting juror if he chose—Braque withdrew entirely from the Salon d’Automne. Shortly thereafter, Braque accepted the invitation of a friend, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a leading German art dealer, to exhibit his works. Thus, from November 9 to November 28, 1908, Braque displayed twenty-seven works in a one-man show at Kahnweiler’s gallery. The exhibition gave the French public its first glimpse of the movement that would soon be labeled cubism. Matisse criticized Braque’s strange paintings with “cubes,” and Louis Vauxcelles, a famous Parisian art critic of the period, derided the paintings, calling Braque’s human subjects deformed and metallic-looking. In a review published November 14, 1908, Vauxcelles remarked that Braque “despises form and reduces everything, landscapes and figures and houses, to geometric patterns, to cubes.” In reviewing an exhibit of Braque’s works at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1909, Vauxcelles again described Braque’s work in terms of “cubic oddities” and as a style of “Peru684
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vian Cubism”—the first use of the word “cubism” itself. Braque’s Harbor in Normandy (produced in the early spring of 1909), one of the two Braque paintings exhibited at the show, illustrates clearly his new style of cubist fragmentation. Not until later was this style associated with Picasso, although the public grew to associate cubism primarily with Picasso (probably because of the Spaniard’s more dominant, aggressive nature, which tended to eclipse the more retiring, less socially forceful personality of Braque). Significance Thanks to Braque, still life as a genre of painting regained the prominence it had enjoyed during the period of Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. Suddenly, the human world and humankind’s needs were elevated to the status of fit subjects for art. Receptacles of food and drink, newspapers, playing cards, musical instruments, and books became prime subject matter, as they had been during the seventeenth century’s golden age of the still life and in later works by the famous genre painter Jean Siméon Chardin. Works such as Still Life with Musical Instruments (1908) and Guitar and Fruit Dish (1909) are examples of Braque’s revitalization of the still life. Braque’s rejection by the Salon d’Automne in 1908 indirectly gave birth to cubism, especially the earlier Cézanne phase, or so-called analytical phase, which began in 1909. The analytical style is characterized by the depiction of pictorial planes that are opened, with a concomitant buildup of space and volume, by fragmentation of form (or subject matter), often with a series of crisscrossing, moving verticals and diagonals, and by an avoidance of color, with a strong emphasis on multiple perspectives of an object from diverse angles and on refracted light from multiple sources. Examples of Braque’s works of this phase include Glass on a Table (1910), Violin and Palette (1909-1910), and Piano and Mandola (1909-1910). Budding cubism also intensified the Braque-Picasso bond, which was an unusual happening in the art world. This meeting of two great artistic minds gave birth to the painting ideology that shook the early twentieth century. Between 1909 and 1914, Braque and Picasso frequently lived near each other; in fact, the two artists, upon returning to Paris in the late summer of 1909, had studios together in Montmartre. During the summer of 1910 they worked apart (Braque at L’Estaque again and Picasso at Cadaquès on the Costa Brava), but their collaboration throughout the rest of the year produced works that were very similar.
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include Paul Klee of the Blaue Reiter group of German expressionists; Kazimir Malevich, a Russian cubist who formulated Suprematism; Piet Mondrian, a Dutch artist whose theories introduced “neoplasticism”; Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi; and Russian sculptor Aleksandr Archipenko. Frenchman Marcel Duchamp created a scandal at the 1913 New York Armory Show with the “dynamic cubism” of his Nude Descending a Staircase. Cubism seeped into other artistic media in the early twentieth century as well. Cubistic theatrical sets and costumes designed by Picasso became stylish, and cubism influenced much early twentieth century architecture and interior design, including the design of furniture and textiles. Cubism’s influence was also seen in fashions, graphics, typography, cartoons, and even cuisine. David Smith’s huge, environmental sculptural-cubism works and Andy Warhol’s pop art carried Braque’s ideology into postmodern times. In 1922, Braque was finally invited to exhibit at the Salon d’Automne, fourteen years after the salon had first rejected his radical creations. In the course of those years, Braque had helped revolutionize not only the international art scene and much of modern culture but also the way in which people saw their world. His pictorial masterpieces captured the new dynamism and psychological complexity of a highly technological, multifaceted modern age and people. By the time Braque was asked to exhibit at the Salon d’Automne, the viewing audience and society were ready. Not only were all of the fourteen recent works he submitted sold, but he also became, finally, a huge success with the ordinary French public—as well as with the citizens of the world. — Constance A. Pedoto Further Reading Antliff, Mark, and Patricia Leighten. Cubism and Culture. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001. Scholarly work discusses the innovations of cubism and their relation to cultural, political, philosophical, and scientific changes taking place in French society at the time. Includes many illustrations (more than fifty in color), bibliography, and index. Danchev, Alex. Georges Braque: A Life. New York: Arcade, 2005. First full-length biography of Braque explores in detail his life and work, including his marriage, his military service, and his friendship with Picasso. Flanner, Janet. “Master.” In Men and Monuments: Profiles of Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and Malraux. 1957. 685
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In the summer of 1911, Braque and Picasso painted together at Ceret in the French Pyrenees. The heavily abstracted works of Braque—for example, The Portuguese (1911) and Woman Reading (1911)—appear almost indistinguishable from Picasso’s works of the period, such as his famous painting dedicated to their mutual art dealer, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910). The only significant stylistic differences between the artists at the time are found in Picasso’s emphasis on form and on the human body (unlike Braque’s spatial concerns) and his love of browns and earth tones (in contrast to Braque’s use of greens). Later, Braque even experimented with new materials worthy of artistic expression, creating a whole new art form, papier collé. Scraps of wallpaper, matchbooks, pieces of cardboard, and string intermingled with the drawing medium; real scraps coexisted with illusory sketched objects in works by Braque such as Fruit Dish and Glass (1912) and Still Life with Playing Cards (1913). Picasso, sharing Braque’s art ideology, created the first collage in 1912 by adding a piece of oilcloth to a painting, a technique he later extended to include the use of cards and stamps. As important as cubism was in the art world, the movement led by Braque and Picasso was only one aspect of a broad cultural revolution that saw similar experimentation occur in almost every intellectual discipline. Cubism found parallels in the novel spatiotemporal explorations of the writer James Joyce, the composers Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, and even the physicist Albert Einstein. Schoenberg’s adoption of the twelve-tone chromatic scale and Stravinsky’s elevation of atonality and polytonality were analogous to the breaking of a traditional-historical presentation of reality in the works of Braque and Picasso. Joyce’s and Einstein’s very different experiments with multiple time and movement were both in many ways similar to the cubists’ use of simultaneity of vision (in which many facets of an object are presented simultaneously from diverse angles). Sigmund Freud’s perception of divided consciousness also relates well to the principles of fragmentation implicit in cubism. Cubism (and the works of Braque) also influenced other famous art groups and artists of the modern period. The English cubist movement led to the formulation of vorticism, Italian artist Umberto Boccioni incorporated cubistic philosophy into his school of Futurism, and Fernand Léger experimented with pipe-shaped cubism, which he labeled “tubism.” Other leading international painters and sculptors who were influenced by cubism
Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works
Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1990. Excellent chapter gives an in-depth look at Braque, including information about his artist friends, his major relationships, and his war service. Somewhat dated; leaves the last decade of Braque’s life uncovered. Includes black-and-white photographs. Leymarie, Jean. Braque. Translated by James Emmons. Paris: Éditions d’Art Albert Skira, 1961. A thorough, precise commentary on the diverse styles of Braque. Very fine color plates of the major works of the artist’s major phases. Includes a useful chronological survey. _______. Georges Braque. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1988. Published in conjunction with the exhibition Georges Braque held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, June-September, 1988. Features three outstanding introductory essays and excellent
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 color plates (with accompanying critical commentary) of eighty-five paintings, twenty-five drawings, and three works of sculpture. Richardson, John. Georges Braque. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1961. An inspiring introduction to Braque and his major pictorial phases. Great interjections of Braque’s own comments to the author during various interviews throughout the years. Fine color plates (thirty-four) and black-andwhite plates (forty-three) along with pertinent critical commentaries. Includes a useful index of plates. See also: Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public.
June 26, 1908
Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots George Ellery Hale discovered that magnetic fields are associated with sunspots, giving astronomers valuable information about the formation of sunspots. Locale: Mount Wilson, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures George Ellery Hale (1868-1938), American astronomer Pieter Zeeman (1865-1943), Dutch physicist Henry Augustus Rowland (1848-1901), American physicist Summary of Event In the seventeenth century, Galileo first observed dark spots on the surface of the Sun with a small telescope. Since that time, astronomers have invented new ways to observe the Sun and have used these new methods to learn more about what causes the spots and other features of the Sun. In the early twentieth century, George Ellery Hale developed several solar-observing instruments and used them to determine that the dark spots on the Sun exist in an intense magnetic field. This discovery fueled further research and theorizing about the nature and causes of the spots and about the magnetic fields of the Sun in general. In 1908, Hale observed the solar disk with a special 686
instrument he had developed called the spectroheliograph. This instrument worked essentially by filtering the light of the Sun so that the Sun’s various surface features, such as sunspots, could be viewed in the light of one particular wavelength. This was useful for studying the processes going on in the Sun, because each wavelength represents a particular atomic process in a particular type of atom. When Hale observed the Sun in a wavelength coming from hydrogen atoms, he noted the very interesting fact that there appeared to be huge swirls of hydrogen gas resembling a terrestrial storm or tornado. These “vortices” seemed to be associated with the formation of sunspots. Hale considered what the consequences of this rotating motion might be. Research by the English physicist Joseph John Thomson had shown that hot bodies emit electrons, and, as the Sun is very hot, Hale thought that perhaps the Sun was emitting electrons, which, if caught up in this whirling motion, might create a magnetic field in the sunspots. (Henry Augustus Rowland had proven earlier that a moving electric charge acts magnetically in the same way as an electric current. Hans Christian Ørsted had discovered earlier that electric currents affect magnets, and electromagnetic theory explains that electric currents produce a magnetic field.) Hale had a way to check this hypothesis. Astar’s spectrum (the pattern of bright light and dark lines that results
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ground. The underground room where the final image was obtained had a nearly constant temperature, thus avoiding possible air currents caused by changes and differences in air temperature. Moving air and warped mirrors distort and muddy the images obtained from telescopes, so the net result of all these precautions was to produce an image that was unusually steady and sharp compared with previous images from solar telescopes. Hale used this tower telescope to observe the Sun’s spectrum and its surface and, in particular, to search for the Zeeman effect of splitting of lines in the Sun’s spectrum. A doubling of certain lines in the spectrum had been observed previously, but this result had been misinterpreted at the time and no one, until Hale, had been able to observe the lines with sufficient precision to arrive at other ideas about why they appeared split. Hale, an energetic and active man, spent much of the summer of 1908 running up and down the ladder of the telescope tower in the course of his work. He was fortunate in having a period of clear skies during the second half of June, 1908, which enabled him to spend much of his time observing. On June 26, 1908, Hale observed a doubling of spectral lines that he thought was caused by the Zeeman effect. He was greatly excited and immediately compared his observations of the Sun with his laboratory observations of the effect. He found a correlation between the two sets of observations. For the first time, an extraterrestrial magnetic field had been detected and related to laboratory observations. Hale wanted to be absolutely certain of his discovery, so he continued to make observations for two more weeks. By July 6, he was confident that what he had found was indeed the Zeeman effect, indicative of magnetic fields in sunspots. Zeeman considered Hale’s results and agreed that Hale’s hypothesis was the best explanation for the observed phenomena. Astronomers in general were impressed by Hale’s results and excited about the possibilities they raised for further study of the Sun’s magnetic properties. Significance One important effect that Hale’s discovery had on astronomers was that it enabled them to extend their application of the relatively new field of electromagnetic theory to the cosmos at large. Astronomers work by understanding processes that can be observed on earth and applying them in the heavens. With Hale’s discovery, astronomers realized that they could apply their knowledge of terrestrial magnetic and electric phenomena to the distant stars; this gave them a new tool to use. Zeeman had found—in addition to the fact that spec687
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when the star’s light is passed through a prism or reflected from a grating) can reveal much about the temperature of the star’s constituent gases, the velocity of its rotation, and other information. In 1896, Pieter Zeeman discovered that if a source of light is placed in a magnetic field, the lines in the spectrum of the light source will be split into two or more components. Zeeman discovered this phenomenon (known as the Zeeman effect) in the laboratory, but it proved valuable in deducing even more information from a star’s light. When Hale learned of the Zeeman effect, he conducted laboratory work of his own to observe what the effect looked like in certain test cases. He carried out observations of light from an iron arc (or spark) from other sources and recorded much diversity in the splitting of the spectral lines from the different materials. Some lines split into two parts, some into three, and one even into twenty-one components. Once he had this information, he was ready to compare any observed splitting behavior in solar spectral lines to the laboratory results; if there was a magnetic field associated with sunspots, he could expect a close match between the solar line splitting and the laboratory line splitting. Each dark line in the spectrum represents a particular element undergoing a particular process; therefore, Hale could recognize and identify solar elements by the distinctive wavelengths of light at which their characteristic dark lines appeared in the spectrum. Because the Sun is much closer and thus much brighter to the earth than other stars, its spectrum can be photographed and examined in greater detail than can be done for other stars. The Sun emits light at many wavelengths, each associated with a different color of light. White light is seen from the Sun because the colors of these many wavelengths are all blended and viewed together; to spread the light back into its separate colored components, one must use a prism or finely spaced grating. With enough care and effort, it is possible to spread the light and observe detail in the dark lines. Hale expended much care and effort in building a 60foot (18-meter) tower telescope on Mount Wilson. This tower had mirrors on the top to catch the Sun’s light and reflect it through a telescope lens down to a spectrograph about 30 feet (9 meters) underground. At the spectrograph, the light was spread out into a spectrum. Because the mirrors that collected the sunlight were high above the ground and were fairly thick, they were not subjected to as much distortion from the Sun’s heat as previous solar telescopes had been, and the height of the mirrors also helped to avoid some of the warm air currents near the
Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots
Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots tral lines split in the presence of a magnetic field—that the distance between the components of the split line is directly proportional to the strength of the magnetic field causing the split. Hale measured the separations in lines split in the laboratory by a magnetic field of known strength, measured the separations in split lines in the spectrum of a sunspot, and derived the strength of the sunspot’s magnetic field. He found impressively large magnetic fields. Also, Hale was able to study how the strength of the field varied at different places in a sunspot; he discovered that the magnetic field is strongest at the center and weakest toward the edges. This finding has implications for what the structure of a sunspot might be like. Hale then turned his attention to the question of whether the Sun has an overall magnetic field in addition to the fields associated with sunspots. Although Hale worked at this question periodically for the rest of his life, he was never able to answer it. Later astronomers not only determined that the Sun has a magnetic field overall but also learned how this field changes over the Sun’s twenty-two-year sunspot cycle, how the field is affected by the Sun’s rotation, and the role that the field has in sunspot formation and other types of solar activity. Magnetic fields have poles (like the north and south poles of magnets), and astronomers have worked on discovering the polarity of the Sun’s magnetic field. Understanding the Sun’s magnetic properties has been crucial in understanding the Sun’s activity. Another question Hale considered was whether the magnetic fields associated with sunspots could be strong enough to cause magnetic storms on Earth. Hale was not in a position to answer this question, given that he would have needed records on both solar and terrestrial magnetic events over a period of time. The question, however, indicates why the study of the Sun is important to astronomers. Sunspots are associated often with energetic events on the Sun’s surface, which can send charged particles and energetic radiation out into space to interact with the earth’s atmosphere. This interaction can cause benign phenomena such as the aurora borealis, or northern lights, and it can also interfere with terrestrial communications systems. In the future, the radiation from solar flares could prove hazardous to inhabitants of long-term space colonies. Astronomers are interested in studying the magnetic processes that drive sunspot and flare formation because of the effects of these phenomena on humans. —Mary Hrovat 688
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bhatnagar, Arvind, and William Livingston. Fundamentals of Solar Astronomy. Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific Publishing, 2005. Presents a history of solar astronomy and then discusses basic methods and techniques used in the field. Provides information that amateur astronomers can use to build simple solar telescopes. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Kaufmann, William J. Discovering the Universe. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1987. Intended as a textbook for an introductory descriptive course on astronomy, this volume discusses Hale’s discovery and considers other solar features as well as sunspots and the role that magnetic fields play in these features. Includes photographs and drawings as well as various study aids, such as chapter summaries, review questions, and a glossary. Mitton, Simon, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy. New York: Crown, 1977. Includes a section on sunspots that discusses Hale’s participation in discovering the role that magnetic fields play in sunspots and other solar disturbances. Discusses current ideas on solar magnetism. Includes many photographs and drawings, as well as a brief physics primer at the end of the book that gives a concise overview of the magnetic and hydrodynamic facts used to explain solar activity. Noyes, Robert W. The Sun, Our Star. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Describes Hale’s discovery of the magnetic field in sunspots as well as his work with the spectroheliograph and discusses the Sun and its magnetic properties. Intended for both scientists and nonscientists. Includes photographs, drawings, and graphs. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Coauthor Struve witnessed some of the astronomical events this book covers. Contains a chapter on the Sun that discusses Hale’s work and its implications for theories of solar magnetic fields and their effects. Discusses the growth of the solar observing facilities at Mount Wilson. Wentzel, Donat G. The Restless Sun. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Discusses the Zeeman effect and gives a thorough presentation of current views on the Sun’s magnetic field. Includes diagrams, drawings, and black-and-white photographs. Presents a good discussion of solar physics, written for the nonscientist.
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Relying heavily on photographs and original documents, this collection of material on Hale’s astronomical work includes the text of an address Hale gave in 1909, “Solar Vortices and Magnetic Fields.” Also valuable for the letters, photographs, and newspaper clippings about Hale and his work. See also: Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere; 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory; Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson; 1930: Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere.
July 24, 1908
Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire After more than five hundred years of rule under despotic sultans, a group called the Young Turks declared the Ottoman Empire to be a constitutionally limited multinational monarchy. Also known as: Young Turk movement; Committee of Union and Progress Locale: Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) Category: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Ahmed Rtza (1859-1930), propagandist for the Committee of Union and Progress Enver Pala (1881-1922), head of the military branch of the Committee of Union and Progress and virtual dictator of the Ottoman government, 1913-1918 Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924), best-known interpreter of Turkish nationalism during and after World War I Abdülhamid II (1842-1918), sultan of the Ottoman Empire, r. 1876-1909 Midhat Pala (1822-1883), head of the Young Ottoman movement of the late 1860’s Summary of Event Although autocratic rule had for centuries been a mark of sultanic government in the Ottoman Empire, the last quarter of the nineteenth century probably stood out as the most despotic period of modern times. Experiences earlier in the century—first Napoleon I’s occupation of Sultan Selim III’s Egyptian province (1798-1802), then loss of Greece following local insurrection and European
intervention (in the 1820’s), and nearly complete separation of several Eastern Mediterranean provinces (Egypt and Greater Syria) in the 1830’s—had forced a number of important changes during the period known as the Tanzimat (Reorganization), from 1839 to 1876. Many imperial reforms involving new legal codes, tax laws, and some moves toward local administration by councils were announced as aiming at better government for Ottoman subjects of all nationalities. The fact that the Ottoman sultanate ruled peoples of different nationalities and religious backgrounds complicated Tanzimat aims considerably. The main ethnic nationalities were Turks and Arabs, but there were also Kurds, Balkan Slavs, and Armenians. The first two of these minority groupings were Muslim, and the last two were Christian. In addition, the so-called Arab provinces contained populations that, while ethnically more or less homogeneous, were divided into distinct religious communities, or millets. This was the case in Egypt, with a significant Coptic Christian minority, and especially Syria, with different Christian religious minorities (Maronites, Greek Orthodox, and Catholics). In addition, Jews existed as a separate millet in almost every province. Internal multinationalism and multisectarianism definitely complicated Ottoman reform efforts during the Tanzimat, but foreign interventionism was also a factor. A number of foreign-imposed treaties or conventions, not only political and military but also commercial in nature, caused defenders of the legitimate sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire to despair. Among these “agreements” were the London Convention of 1841, which re689
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Wright, Helen. Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale. 1966. Reprint. Melville, N.Y.: American Institute of Physics Press, 1994. Drawing heavily on letters and diaries written by the participants in the events described, this engaging book is an excellent source for the story of Hale’s discovery of the magnetic field associated with sunspots. Includes drawings and photographs of sunspots and solar spectra as well as bibliographies. Wright, Helen, Joan N. Warnow, and Charles Weiner, eds. The Legacy of George Ellery Hale: Evolution of Astronomy and Scientific Institutions, in Pictures and Documents. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972.
Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire
Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire gained Ottoman rule in Egypt and Syria but laid down limiting restrictions in a number of areas; the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Crimean War in 1856 but initiated a new series of indirect control factors (especially in the form of foreign loans); and the international Congress of Berlin in 1878, which would become very important for the group that would become the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The Congress of Berlin came at a very critical time, just after the closing of the Tanzimat period in 1876. Ostensibly the reason for ending the Tanzimat had been the adoption of a formal Ottoman constitution. This was done at the bidding of a group of liberal reform thinkers called the Young Ottomans, led by a former provincial governor, Midhat Pala. At that time, the newly installed sultan, Abdülhamid II, rose to the Ottoman throne only after promising to respect the Young Ottoman constitution. Empirewide elections were to be held for the first all-Ottoman parliament, which would have the responsibility of representing all subgroups, whether ethnic or sectarian, on the basis of a single “national” electoral law. One could argue that the very short-lived experiment barely scratched the surface in terms of representational democracy. What seems to have occurred was an elitist-oriented process of selection of representatives to serve in the Istanbul parliament; individual prestige and influence, more than actual dedication to representing the political aspirations of a wider constituency, characterized the parliamentary qualifications of various provincial leaders at this time. It was the reaction of the empire’s age-old enemy, czarist Russia, that caused the first Ottoman parliament, and with it the nascent principles of representative government in the Ottoman Empire, to founder. In 1877, Russia launched a military campaign against Abdülhamid, claiming that, whatever the value of the new representative basis for government in Istanbul, the Turks were mistreating their Bulgarian subjects (Slavic “cousins” to the Russians). Ostensibly to stop the Russians from benefiting from their aggression, the all-European Congress at Berlin intervened in 1878 to “correct” the terms reached by war. Soon after the Congress of Berlin’s benevolent “corrections,” which provided for an international administrative responsibility for a symbolically restored Bulgaria, Cyprus fell under British control and Bosnia and Herzegovina (later part of Yugoslavia) under Austrian. Several years later, Tunisia was occupied by France (1881) and Egypt by Britain (1882). Such blatant foreign interventionism gave the sultan an excuse to suspend both the 1876 constitution and the 690
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 parliament. In Abdülhamid’s mind, such conditions of menace against the Ottoman throne would never end. In fact, even when the Young Turk successors to the Young Ottomans succeeded in restoring the 1876 constitution, their presumed devotion to maintaining the integrity of the empire would be seriously hampered, between 1908 and 1914, by interventionist and exploitative pressures that were not at all dissimilar to those Abdülhamid used to rid himself of the first Ottoman constitution. When the Committee of Union and Progress, or Young Turks, emerged in the early 1890’s, no one could predict the future impact of bitter realities originating either inside the empire or among its foreign neighbors. Originally formed by students of mixed national origins studying in Istanbul, the CUP gradually attracted a wide variety of supporters among groups disgruntled about the effects of the sultan’s absolutist rule. Ottoman writers in exile, notably Ahmed Rtza, published articles devoted to analysis of parliamentary government in Europe, the principle of a free press, respect for individual rights and property, and other potential reforms. Political causes taken up by the CUP, however, came from other sources. One such source was the eminent essayist devoted to a reflourishing of “true” Islamic values in Ottoman society, Ziya Gökalp. Although Gökalp inspired CUP members with lofty idealism in the period before the 1908 coup, the strained circumstances that followed reestablishment of the 1876 constitution would eventually cause him to alter the universalist orientation of his writings in favor of a clearer Turkish ethnic (or pan-Turkish) bias. This latter feature in Gökalp’s profile was also reflected in the contribution of perhaps the most important wing of the Young Turk movement, composed of revolutionary cells in the Ottoman military. In fact, it was this link with the military that made it possible for the Young Turks to realize their theoretical aims through definitive action. On July 24, 1908, disgruntled elements of the Ottoman army supporting the Young Turk movement carried out the coup that compelled Abdülhamid II to restore the constitution of 1876 and to prepare for empirewide elections to an Ottoman parliament. The moment this happened, various individuals and groups within the empire braced for the effects constitutional government might have on their respective interests. Unlike the brief constitutional experience of 1876-1877, the Young Turk constitution enjoyed several specific foci of support within the wider ranks of Ottoman society. At the same time, however, it faced some equally specific internal sources of opposition.
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Significance The Young Turk coup of 1908 was generally greeted as a blow for freedom of expression and democratic representation. Side effects, however, indicated troubles yet to come. Almost immediately after the coup, politically interested “foreign” groups took advantage of transitional confusion to declare obvious advantages for themselves at the expense of the new Istanbul regime. AustriaHungary annexed the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (under their protection since 1878), and Bulgaria (under international administrative supervision since 1878) declared itself independent from any further Ottoman control. Armenian separatists also hoped for an opportunity to declare their independence and boycott any Armenian participation in the all-Ottoman parliament. Despite these events, the Young Turk regime moved quickly to restore parliamentary government in the Ottoman Empire. By the time parliamentary representatives were elected, however, signs of conservative resistance to the new government had emerged. A countercoup was attempted in 1909. Although this anti-Young Turk movement did not go very far, one might suppose that its supporters would have preferred to maintain the separate communal spheres, or millets, for Jews, Christians, and other non-Islamic religious groupings. Such convictions ran counter to the spirit of civic universalism that Young Turk supporters hoped to establish in Ottoman representative government. Successful reversal of the coup attempt of 1909 depended on loyal military support, something that foreshadowed the movement toward stricter central control. By 1910, a number of prominent political leaders both from the capital and from the provinces had gained a forum for expressing views on the future of constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire. Paramount among the former were the so-called centralists, under the leadership of Ahmed Rtza, and their political opponents, the decentralists, who had been inspired by the contributions of Ottoman prince Sabaheddin to the Young Turk movement as early as 1900. CUP leaders soon realized that diverse options for charting the future of the empire were causing splits within their own ranks. Emergence of the so-called Liberal Union within the movement threatened to prepare the way for a second party that could and did contest votes in the parliament. Pressures to control divergent political views mounted. These were given convenient justification when, in 1911, Italian forces invaded Tripoli, necessitating rapid moves toward a wartime budget
Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire
Enver Pala. (Library of Congress)
and conscription. In the rush of events connected with the conflict, excuses could be made, especially by the centralist wing of the CUP, for the restriction of political activity. Soon, the Liberal Union found its members being silenced and the results of important elections altered at their expense. The CUP was finally forced out of office in July, 1912, when the army showed hostility to the government. The Liberal Union took over briefly. In the interim between the 1912-1913 Balkan War and a second round later in 1913, the Young Turk leader and military chief Enver Pala carried out what amounted to an executive coup in January, 1913. Many political opponents were removed, extraordinary powers were granted to the executive branch to prepare to defeat the Balkan enemies, and a campaign of pan-Turkism was adopted to bolster Turkish (but not necessarily other imperial subject nationalities’) morale. It was this policy of pan-Turkism, combined with the strong-arm internal po691
Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation litical and police tactics adopted by the 1913-1918 “triumvirate” leaders (Enver Pala, Mehmed Talât Pala, and Ahmed Cemal Pala), that turned the last stage of the Young Turk regime into a veritable military dictatorship. Seen in this light, the Ottoman pact with the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary and Germany) in World War I—a fateful alliance that led to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in 1918—can be called a reflection of the eventual alignment of the military wing of the Young Turk movement with antidemocratic forces for whom constitutions were just so much paper. —Byron D. Cannon Further Reading Ahmad, Feroz. The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908-1914. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1969. Brief but detailed study of the period of actual Young Turk government, not planned revolution. Scholarly and authoritative. Haniolu, M. Lükrü. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Study of the formative years of the Young Turk movement makes extensive use of archival materials. Includes select bibliography and index. Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. 3d
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Broad textbook covering the traditional government of the Ottoman Empire. Provides discussion of the Tanzimat period, the 1876 and 1908 constitutions, and the aftermath of the Young Turk period. Mardin, Serif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. 1962. Reprint. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Primarily a study of intellectual trends and figures associated with the making of the 1876 constitution. Provides necessary background on the factors influencing the Young Turks by the 1890’s. Ramsaur, Ernest E. The Young Turks: Prelude to the Revolution of 1908. 1957. Reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1970. The earliest detailed study of the Young Turks. Emphasizes the events and influences that occurred between the 1876 constitution and its restoration by the Young Turk coup in 1908. See also: Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians.
July 26, 1908
Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation
Also known as: Federal Bureau of Investigation Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Civil rights and liberties; crime and scandal; organizations and institutions
William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Stanley W. Finch (1872-1951), first director of the Bureau of Investigation, 1908-1912 A. Bruce Bielaski (1884-1964), second director of the Bureau of Investigation, 1912-1919 Harlan Fiske Stone (1872-1946), attorney general who appointed J. Edgar Hoover director of the bureau J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1924-1972
Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851-1921), U.S. attorney general, 1905-1909, and founder of the Bureau of Investigation George Woodward Wickersham (1858-1936), U.S. attorney general, 1909-1913
Summary of Event During the nineteenth century, investigations involving violations of law that affected the U.S. government were largely more political than professional. These investigations were typically adjudicated by the Department of Justice, which was headed by the U.S. attorney general. The Justice Department employed well-trained Secret Service personnel to conduct investigations, but this pro-
The Bureau of Investigation was formed within the U.S. Department of Justice in response to President Theodore Roosevelt’s call for a special agency to investigate land grabs in the western United States and the growth of trusts in the East.
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Directors of the Bureau of Investigation, 1908-1972 The Bureau of Investigation was created on July 26, 1908, and was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. During the 1908-1940 period, the agency had six directors: 1908-1912 1912-1919 1919 1919-1921 1921-1924 1924-1972
Stanley W. Finch A. Bruce Bielaski William E. Allen (acting director) William J. Flynn William J. Burns J. Edgar Hoover
violations, generally came under the jurisdictions of state or local enforcement agencies, although in some cases federal agents assisted them. Roosevelt, who strove to provide equal service to his full constituency—laborers, blue-collar and white-collar workers, and businesspeople alike—was disturbed by the incursions big business was making into American society. He called for stricter government regulation of business and set out to abolish trusts, or at least to restrict their activities substantially. To the dismay of the business world, he initiated legal action against the powerful Northern Securities Company. At the same time, Roosevelt was strenuously working for more governmental control of public lands, which were being shamelessly exploited by oil and mining interests. He urged Congress to put the good of the public ahead of private and highly profitable business interests. During his term in office, Roosevelt doubled the number of national parks in the United States, adding five parks to those already in existence, and designated fiftyone areas as wildlife refuges. Roosevelt’s solution to the problem of corporate greed despoiling much of the West was to declare large wilderness areas in public lands. His interests in conservation and in controlling trusts led him to establish the Bureau of Investigation. To do so, Roosevelt called upon his attorney general, Bonaparte, to create an organization that would focus on thwarting the illegal land grabbing occurring in the West and on controlling the development of trusts within the business communities in the East. Bonaparte responded to Roosevelt’s mandate by forming an agency staffed by thirty-four specialized agents who were authorized to deal with the problems the president had identified. This small group, which grew into the Bureau of Investigation, began operations on July 26, 1908. The initial staff of thirty-four was made up mostly of men who were chosen based on the experience they had gained working in the Department of Justice. They were exceptional investigators who had not been required to present any specific academic credentials but who had proven themselves in the field. Later, when Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed J. Edgar Hoover director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924, strict rules were established regarding an agent’s qualifications. These rules, however, were not in effect during the bureau’s first decades. Initially, many members of the U.S. Congress had serious concerns about establishing this new agency, identified as the “special-agent force,” within the Department of Justice. They feared that the executive branch of the 693
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cess had obvious drawbacks. Employing such operatives was very expensive, so economic considerations sometimes thwarted investigations that needed to be conducted more fully. Furthermore, members of the Secret Service reported directly to the director of the Secret Service rather than to the Department of Justice and the attorney general. In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States after the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt, at that time the youngest person ever to serve as president, believed in a strong and active executive branch of government. Throughout his term of office, he focused on environmental conservation, an issue that meant a great deal to him. In 1905, Roosevelt appointed Charles Joseph Bonaparte to the position of attorney general; Bonaparte shared the administration’s progressive, reformist spirit. Bonaparte wanted complete control of the investigations carried out on his watch, so he supported Congress’s passage, on May 27, 1908, of a law that prohibited the Department of Justice from hiring Secret Service personnel to carry out the kinds of investigations previously conducted by the Secret Service. This paved the way for the founding of an agency within the Department of Justice specifically designed to investigate federal crimes. After the establishment of the Bureau of Investigation (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI), some federal violations continued to be investigated by the agencies most directly affected by them. Infringement of postal regulations, for example, fell under the purview of postal authorities. Customs violations and counterfeiting, although federal infractions, were investigated by the Department of the Treasury. Local violations, which occurred much more frequently than federal
Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation
Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation federal government was establishing a secret police force that might eventually infringe on citizens’ individual freedoms and constitutional guarantees. Nevertheless, by passing the 1910 White-Slave Traffic Act (also called the Mann Act), Congress gave this cadre of special investigative personnel (which by 1909 had grown to sixty-four agents and nine support staff) much more power than it had at its inception. The Mann Act prohibited the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes, making such activities infractions of federal rather than state or local laws. Prostitution was usually viewed as a local matter, but the transportation of women from state to state for immoral purposes became a federal offense. The agency operated without an official name until 1909, when Bonaparte’s successor, George Woodward Wickersham, who was appointed by President William Howard Taft, named the agency the Bureau of Investigation. Its first chief was Stanley W. Finch, who served for four years and was succeeded by A. Bruce Bielaski, who served for seven years. During the second and third decades of the twentieth century, when mob activity and the illegalities associated with Prohibition swept the nation, the FBI increased in size and gained considerable power. During World War I, the FBI was charged with the enforcement of the Selective Service Act and with investigating and prosecuting violations of the Espionage Act. Its scope was again broadened in 1919, when enforcement of the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Motor Vehicles Act fell to the bureau. Significance The establishment of a special bureau to investigate and prosecute specific legal violations became essential as American society grew increasingly complex. Significant advances in communication and transportation facilitated the growth of criminal activities that were less localized than they had been during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Other circumstances, including the involvement of the United States in World War I and the enactment of Prohibition in 1919, led to sit-
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First Issue of Pravda Appears
October 3, 1908
First Issue of PRAVDA Appears Leon Trotsky published his newspaper Pravda in Vienna, Austria, from 1908 to 1912. Vladimir Ilich Lenin then took the name for his paper later in that year. Locale: Vienna, Austria Categories: Publishing and journalism; government and politics
Summary of Event After a great deal of planning, the Russian Social Democratic Party was finally organized in 1903. It immediately fractured into several factions. The most important was the majority Bolshevik faction, led by Vladimir Ilich Lenin, and the minority Menshevik faction, led by Julius Osipovich Martov. Leon Trotsky was another important figure who led a small group of intellectuals. All three leaders worked together on the editorial board of the Social Democratic newspaper Iskra (the spark), which took the lead in organizing the party. While the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks fought each other for the loyalty of the Russian workers, Trotsky gained international fame as the president of the Soviet (council) of Workers’ Deputies, which had been established by the party during the 1905 revolution. After the revolution, the Social Democratic leaders went into exile. Trotsky was sent to Siberia but escaped (for the second time) in 1907. Trotsky was an orthodox Marxist who believed that socialism could come about only through the armed revolution of the urban proletariat. He argued that the revolution of 1905 in Russia was the first bourgeois revolution in the stages of history predicted by Karl Marx. Both
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Key Figures Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), Russian Social Democratic leader who founded Pravda Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Bolshevik leader who appropriated the name Pravda for his own newspaper Lev Borisovich Kamenev (Lev Borisovich Rosenfeld; 1883-1936), onetime editor of Pravda who fought with Trotsky over editorial policy Julius Osipovich Martov (Yuly Osipovich Tsederbaum; 1873-1923), leader of the Mensheviks, the non-Leninist wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party
Lenin and Martov agreed with this theory. However, while the Mensheviks argued that the revolution was a success and the proletarian revolution would not take place for generations as capitalism in Russia grew, Lenin and Trotsky, who at that time still opposed each other within the movement, thought the bourgeoisie were too weak and that the 1905 revolution had been a failure. Lenin believed that the urban proletariat and the Russian peasants (who made up the bulk of the population) should unite and complete the revolution. Trotsky worked out his interpretation and ideology, called “permanent revolution,” with Alexander Galfand, a German economist. According to Trotsky and Galfand, the downtrodden Russian masses would provide a spark that would ignite a socialist revolution among the bourgeoisie in Europe and around the world. Russia and the international proletariat would then pass through the bourgeois stage right into the socialist stage. The small Ukrainian Menshevik organization Spilka began publication of the newspaper Pravda (the truth) in 1905, but it had little success. On the group’s suggestion, Trotsky took over in October, 1908, and made Pravda into a major Russian socialist paper. The group soon dissolved, but Trotsky continued publication. He moved the newspaper, which reported on events related to struggle for socialism in Russia and Europe, to Vienna in order to avoid Russian censorship. (Copies were smuggled into Russia from Vienna.) The paper’s other editors included some of the most brilliant socialists from Trotsky’s group, including Adolf Joffe, Moisei Uritsky, Matei Skobelev (the paper’s secretary), Victor Kopp, David Ryazanov, and Semyon Semkovsky. Joffe and Skobelev came from wealthy families, and they helped to bankroll the paper. Even with their assistance, however, Pravda was often in desperate straits, and finding money for printing was always difficult; once, an issue was held up for lack of fifty rubles. Trotsky poured his earnings from his books and journal articles into the paper’s production. Trotsky’s fiery writing style became very popular, and he used the paper to advocate union among socialist factions, especially the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. In 1910, a brief conciliation between these two groups took place, and the Central Committee of the party voted to accept Pravda as an official organ and to support it with 150 rubles a month. Lev Borisovich Kamenev, Trotsky’s brother-in-law and a high-ranking member of the Bolshevik faction, joined the editorial board as part
First Issue of Pravda Appears of the agreement. That same year, an edition began printing in St. Petersburg. Kamenev, however, began to take the Bolshevik hard line against the Mensheviks after Lenin’s group managed to gain control of the Central Committee. Trotsky opposed this position, so Kamenev left the editorial board. Trotsky appealed to the Second International to keep control of the funds. A committee made up of Franz Mehring, Karl Kautsky, and Clara Zeitlin—all wellknown socialists in the international movement—formed a commission to judge the issue, but Lenin, who established the separate Bolshevik Party in 1912, would not release the funds that he now controlled. The editors continued the publication on an intermittent basis until April, 1912, when their group dissolved. In May, Lenin began his own party paper with the name Pravda. Lenin’s Pravda began publication in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for distribution in Russia. Lenin’s Pravda proved to be very popular among the Russian workers, and it soon gained a circulation greater than that of the Menshevik papers and became a powerful organizing tool for Lenin’s party. Trotsky attacked Lenin for his use of the name Pravda in stinging articles and letters that he would later regret writing. Ironically, he did not know that the first editor of the Bolshevik Pravda was none other than a minor Georgian Bolshevik named Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, more commonly known as Joseph Stalin, who fifteen years later would battle Trotsky for leadership of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) after Lenin’s death. In 1922, at the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Bolshevik Pravda, Trotsky wrote a congratulatory article in which he did not mention that his paper previously had the name. Significance The Russian government banned Pravda at the beginning of World War I. After the February Revolution in 1917, the democratic provisional government in Russia permitted it to reopen. Lenin and Trotsky returned to Russia and joined forces that summer, when Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks (renamed the Communist Party). In November, the provisional government tried to close down Pravda, but it was too late. The Communists carried out a swift and almost bloodless revolution in the succeeding days and put Lenin and Trotsky into power. The new government in Russia was based on the workers’ and soldiers’ soviets, which were reestablished during the revolutions, and these councils established the newspaper Izvestia (news) in 1917. In 1922, after a civil 696
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 war, Lenin’s government combined with other political groups. Pravda, which remained the Communist Party paper, and Izvestia continued as the two most important dailies in the country, and they retained their status as long as the Soviet Union existed. Many other local and organization-oriented papers also bore the word Pravda in their titles. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by the Republic of Russia, Pravda’s readership declined. Foreign investors took control, and it continued until 1996 with a nationalistic conservative editorial policy. Izvestia continued as a liberal, independent daily paper. —Frederick B. Chary Further Reading Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 19211929. 1954. Reprint. New York: Verso, 2003. One of the best biographies of Leon Trotsky. This first volume of a three-volume biography contains the details of his founding of Pravda and his struggle with Lenin. Schapiro, Leonard. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. New York: Vintage Books, 1964. The best history of the Russian Communist Party in English. Gives details of the founding of Pravda. Tariq, Ali. Trotsky for Beginners. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Part of a series on political, economic, and sociological subjects by Trotsky ‘s academic admirers. It presents his life and ideas in a simplified (but academically rigorous) comic-book fashion. Thatcher, Ian D. Trotsky. New York: Routledge, 2003. A clear study of Trotsky using new documents. Reexamines his role in both the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. Stresses his importance as a political thinker. Trotsky, Leon. My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970. Trotsky’s autobiography. He writes about Pravda’s early days and defends his position in his struggle with Lenin. Volkogonov, Dmitri. Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. Translated by Harold Shukman. New York: Free Press, 1996. Unfavorable biography of Trotsky by a former Soviet general and military historian. Uses documents released in the 1990’s and contains important information, although it also has some factual errors. See also: Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences; Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy; Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile.
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Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina
October 7, 1908
Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina created an international crisis that laid the groundwork for the start of World War I. Locale: Balkans Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; government and politics
Summary of Event Since the sixteenth century, the Balkan peninsula had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks had pushed their holdings westward into Europe until 1683, when their advance was stopped at the gates of Vienna by an army composed largely of Poles under their king, Jan Sobieski. Since that time, the Turkish hold had been gradually reduced, chiefly by the Habsburg rulers, who had successfully reclaimed Hungary in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the Turkish hold on the Slavic inhabitants of the Balkans continued to weaken. Serbia had achieved de facto independence in 1829 and de jure independence in 1878. Increasingly, Russia had become a sponsor of the Slavic ethnic groups in the Balkans, particularly in Serbia. Under the stimulus of the pan-Slavic movement in Russia, the Serbs in Serbia began to dream of a great Slavic country in the Balkans with Serbia as its center. In 1876 Russia had gone to war with Turkey, largely to assist the Slavic ethnic groups in the Balkans to free themselves from Turkish control. The Russian victories in the war with Turkey, and the revelation of Russian plans for the reorganization of the Balkan peninsula under Russia’s aegis, alarmed the other powers. Under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of the German Empire, an international congress met in Berlin in 1878 to revise the terms of the settlement the victorious Russians had planned to impose on the defeated Turks. While that settlement recognized the end of Turkish rule over large parts of the Balkans, it was concerned with preventing the extension of Russian control, particularly over the western Balkans. To pre-
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Key Figures Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854-1912), foreign minister of Austria-Hungary Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky (1856-1919), foreign affairs minister of Russia Alexander (1876-1903), king of Serbia, r. 1889-1903 Peter I (1844-1921), king of Serbia, r. 1903-1921
vent the expansion of Serbia, the Congress of Berlin assigned the two principalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria to administer, although Turkish sovereignty was theoretically preserved. The occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austrians was generally beneficial to the inhabitants of the principalities. The Austrians developed Bosnia’s infrastructure and provided administrators who replaced the rampant corruption of the older Turkish administration with relative honesty. In addition, the incorporation of the occupied principalities into the Austro-Hungarian economy provided increased economic opportunities for the Slavic inhabitants. Nevertheless, the Slavic inhabitants of the Balkans, particularly the neighboring Serbs, resented Austria’s occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia’s army was no match for the Austro-Hungarian forces, and as long as the empire retained effective control of the two principalities, the radical Serbs would have difficulty realizing their dream of a greater Serbia. Tensions were muted during the early years of the occupation, as the rulers of Serbia followed a policy of cooperating with the Austrians in return for economic advantages, notably an export market in Austria for Serbia’s agricultural produce. In 1903, however, the pro-Austrian king of Serbia, Alexander, was assassinated by radical elements and his place taken by Peter I, a member of the hostile, antiAustrian Karageorgevic Dynasty. Under Peter I, Serbia veered away from the cooperative policy of his predecessor and actively promoted anti-Austrian propaganda directed at arousing the Slavic sensibilities of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this new departure, the Serbs were encouraged by the pan-Slavic movement in Russia. Austria felt threatened by this propaganda effort, fearing the loss not only of the occupied territories but also of other Slavic lands within the empire, such as Croatia and Slovenia, which the Serbs hoped to incorporate into a greater Serbia or Yugoslavia. Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, who had been appointed foreign minister of Austria-Hungary in 1906, believed that annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Dual Monarchy would frustrate Serbian machinations. In Russia, Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky, the newly appointed minister of foreign affairs, sought to recoup Russian international standing following Russia’s defeat by Japan in 1905 through a dramatic stroke in the European
Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina theater. Acting secretly, with the knowledge of Czar Nicholas II but not that of the ministers of the government, he informed Aehrenthal that Russia would be willing to support the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary if in return the Dual Monarchy would sanction the opening of the Dardanelles to Russian warships. The straits had been closed to foreign warships since the Straits Convention of 1841. Aehrenthal reacted favorably to Izvolsky’s proposition, and the two statesmen awaited the right moment to seal their bargain. That moment came in the summer of 1908 with the outbreak of the Young Turk movement, which sought to modernize the corrupt and ineffective government of the Ottoman Empire. While the Turks were preoccupied with civil war, Aehrenthal and Izvolsky met in Buchlau in Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic) on September 15 and orally reiterated their earlier agreement to support Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the opening of the Dardanelles to Russian warships. Unfortunately, they drew up no written account of their decisions, nor did they set a date for the annexation. The result was that within three weeks a serious misunderstanding and a grave international crisis arose. Izvolsky left the conference with the impression that nothing would be done immediately (or so he later claimed). He set out to visit the European capitals in order to obtain the consent of the other Great Powers to the change in the status quo affecting the Dardanelles. Meanwhile, Aehrenthal was preparing for the annexation. He informed Bulgaria that the time was ripe for it to proclaim its independence from the Ottoman Empire, which it did on October 5. Two days later, Aehrenthal announced to Europe that Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Significance The storm of protest aroused by the annexation brought Austria to the brink of war with the other European nations. Serbia and Montenegro (then still an independent principality but closely allied with Serbia) were outraged over the move, viewing it as a deliberate effort to frustrate their dream of establishing a great South Slav state, a Yugoslavia. The Young Turks resented Austria’s violation of Ottoman sovereignty. In Russia, where pan-Slav sentiment was strong, Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Izvolsky’s role in helping to make it possible were vociferously condemned. Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, the Russian premier, ordered Izvolsky to oppose the annex698
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ation. He did so by denying any involvement and by calling on Great Britain and France to aid the Turks, but neither would do so. They were opposed in principle to the annexation as a violation of international agreements reached at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, but they recognized the fact that Austria had been in control of Bosnia and Herzegovina for some thirty years, so that consequently the status quo in the western Balkans would not really be changed much by the formal incorporation of these districts into the Dual Monarchy. Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, did reject Izvolsky’s plea for the opening of the Dardanelles to Russian warships. The crisis lasted for almost six months. Serbia, with the reluctant support of Russia, drew near to war with Austria. The crisis was protracted by Izvolsky’s insistence that the dispute be submitted to an international conference. Aehrenthal refused, and Great Britain and France, anxious to avoid war, declined any firm support to Russia. Finally, Germany backed Austria and Izvolsky was forced to accept the annexation, and on March 31, 1909, an isolated Serbia did likewise. Austria had previously compensated the Turks with a financial indemnity on February 26, 1909. Peace was thus restored to the Balkans, but it was a precarious one. Relations between Austria and Serbia steadily deteriorated until they culminated in the assassination of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, in July of 1914. The uneasy truce that Austria and Russia had maintained in the Balkans from 1878 to 1908 was now shattered beyond repair. In the long run, the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina raised more problems than it solved, complicating an already delicate situation in a region where ethnic divisions would continue to simmer and ignite into wider conflicts throughout the twentieth century. —Edward P. Keleher and Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Bartlett, C. J. The Global Conflict: The International Rivalry of the Great Powers, 1880-1990. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 1994. Chapter 3 discusses the events leading up to World War I, including the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Includes maps, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Bridge, F. R. From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866-1914. 1972. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 2001. Covers the Bosnian annexation within the context of Austro-Hungarian foreign policy. Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. 2 vols. New
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Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research Sugar, Peter F. The Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1918. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963. Discusses the social and economic background to the Austrian administration of the two principalities. See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians.
November-December, 1908
Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research Development of the concepts of phagocytosis as a defense mechanism of the body and the mechanism of action of antitoxins and cell receptors provided a springboard for future advances in knowledge concerning immunity. Locale: Pasteur Institute, Paris, France; Royal Prussian Institute for Experimental Therapy, Frankfurt, Germany Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), German research physician and chemist Élie Metchnikoff (1845-1916), Russian biologist, microbiologist, and pathologist Carl Claus (1835-1899), Austrian zoologist Summary of Event In 1796, Edward Jenner introduced the first vaccination against smallpox—so named to distinguish it from syphilis, the “Great Pox”—by employing exuded matter from cowpox pustules as the inoculant. In so doing, he used a principle of animal biology with which he and others were not familiar. Jenner’s success rested on the principle of immunity to prevent disease. Immunity can be defined simply as the state of protection against disease, particularly infectious disease. It is the response of the animal body and its tissues to an assault by a variety of antigens. In the context of present-
day knowledge, understanding, and research in the field of immunity, this definition is as uninformative as a definition of life. The weakness of the definition is not in what it covers, but rather in what it leaves out for the sake of brevity. In the context of late nineteenth century science, the field of immunity, aside from being young, was fraught with seemingly incongruous results. Élie Metchnikoff and Paul Ehrlich, who shared the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in immunity, provided two significant insights that opened the door to the understanding and direction of research in immunity. Their work paved the way for the effective development and use of vaccination, chemotherapeutic treatment of infectious disease, and even organ transplants. Metchnikoff correctly interpreted and advanced the concept of phagocytosis as a major mechanism by which the animal organism combats foreign particles and disease organisms invading the body. He first used the term “phagocyte,” derived from the Greek, in Carl Claus’s Arbeiten (1893; work); Claus, a zoologist, was keenly interested in the phagocytosis theory. Metchnikoff was educated as a zoologist, but his studies led him increasingly into the field of pathology. In 1865, he made the first observation that would lead to his concept of phagocytosis as a disease-fighting mechanism. He examined the intracellular digestion in the roundworm Fabricia, which compared with that of protozoans. Although this phagocytic-type process was originally discovered and 699
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York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Volume 2 includes a brief but useful discussion of the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria. _______. Russia’s Balkan Entanglements, 1806-1914. 1991. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Contains a detailed account of the negotiations between Aehrenthal and Izvolsky. Includes maps, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Schmitt, Bernadotte E. Annexation of Bosnia, 1908-09. 1937. Reprint. New York: Howard Fertig, 1970. Provides an account of the diplomatic maneuvers associated with the annexation based on diplomatic documents published after World War I.
Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research noted in 1862 by Ernst Haeckel, it was Metchnikoff who correctly interpreted the relationship between phagocytic digestion and phagocytic defense mechanisms. In 1882, while studying transparent starfish larvae, Metchnikoff observed mobile cells engulfing foreign bodies introduced into the larvae. He noted that these cells arose from the mesoderm layer (middle layer) of the embryo rather than the endoderm layer, which is associated with the digestive system. Metchnikoff examined the degeneration of the tadpole tail and observed that it occurred by the phagocytic process also. These observations led him to spend the next twenty-five years in developing and advancing his theory of phagocytosis. The need for phagocytosis in an actively diseased animal led him to study a fungus infection of the water flea, daphnia. Metchnikoff demonstrated that human white blood cells also develop from the mesodermal layer and serve the role of attacking foreign bodies, particularly bacteria. These ideas were revolutionary because, at the time, one school of thought held that the leukocytes were responsible for nurturing and spreading bacterial infection throughout the body. Indeed, the observation of many white blood cells in the blood of patients who died of infection added resistance to Metchnikoff’s phagocytosis theory. As advanced by Julius Cohnheim, the theory concerning inflammatory response was that such response was operative only in higher animal life-forms that possessed cardiovascular systems. Metchnikoff had demonstrated the principle of inflammatory response in lower life-forms that had no such systems. It was in the study of the higher animal systems that Metchnikoff faced his most significant challenge in understanding phagocytosis and disease. His choice of infection was the anthrax bacillus. His observations appeared to conflict because phagocytosis seemed to be limited depending on virulence—very virulent bacilli were not attacked, whereas weaker bacilli were. Complicating Metchnikoff’s study was the observation that resistant animals exhibited active phagocytosis and susceptible stock displayed no phagocytosis. Metchnikoff was up against the multifaceted complexity of immunity—the humoral versus cellular dichotomy—and the basis of his day’s confusion and controversy in immunity studies. Beginning in 1883, Metchnikoff’s ideas were published in Rudolf Virchow’s Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie, und für klinische Medizin (archives for pathological anatomy and physiology and clinical medicine). By 1892, phagocytosis in combating disease was established, and the knowledge was published in The Comparative Pathology of Inflammation. 700
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Metchnikoff wrote a comprehensive book in French in 1901, L’Immunité dans les maladies infectieuses, that reviewed both comparative and human immunology and proved a defense of his phagocytosis theory. The book was translated into English in 1905 under the title Immunity in Infective Diseases. While Metchnikoff wrestled with establishing phagocytosis as a mechanism of defense in disease, Ehrlich studiously examined antitoxins. His first major accomplishment was the improvement of the effectiveness of the diphtheria antitoxin discovered and developed by Emil von Behring. He also performed fundamental experiments that led him to his views on active and passive immunity. His research on antitoxins and immunity led to the development of his side-chain theory, a concept of specific cellular responses toward toxins and antitoxins. This theory led Ehrlich to the concept of cell receptors— the basis of the cell’s chemical specificity for certain chemical substances. Whereas Metchnikoff studied the factors associated with phagocytosis and thus the cellular aspect of immunity, Ehrlich studied the factors associated with the humoral aspects of immunity—immunity embodied in the bodily fluids. Ehrlich’s research on toxins and antitoxins aided later studies and the development of an understanding of antigens and antibodies (immunoglobulins). Ehrlich’s accomplishments included the introduction of quantification and graphical representations of the relationships existing between toxins and antitoxins. Additionally, he introduced practical and appropriate in vitro systems within which to study these complex associations, selecting erythrocytes as the simplest case in testtube experiments. Ehrlich reproduced essentially the same effects in these test-tube experiments as observed in the animal body, particularly in the case of the plant toxin ricin. Most important, a complex series of experiments established that the lethality of a toxin and its ability to bind to antitoxin are two separate and independent properties of the toxin. Ehrlich’s work with ricin established that animals can build an immunity to such toxic substances when they are administered initially minute doses of the substances, with the size of the doses gradually increasing over time. Furthermore, he demonstrated in mice the transference of this immunity to the offspring through maternal milk. From his work on diphtheria toxin, he developed a quantitative standardization method for antitoxin dosage characterization. Ehrlich’s work in immunity arose from his study of blood, particularly staining with various dyes. His find-
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Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research
ings convinced him that the cell does bind certain dyes by distinct chemical affinities. The variously discovered blood components and the differential staining methods Ehrlich developed not only prepared him for his immunity researches but also marked him as the founder of modern hematology. Additionally, the Wassermann test for syphilis, developed by August von Wassermann in 1906, was a direct outgrowth of Ehrlich’s immunological research and views.
The Response of the Immune System to Bacterial Infection Bacteria enter through break in skin
Nonspecific defense response
Antibody-mediated immune response
Macrophages destroy bacteria through phagocytosis
B cell Helper T cell
Virgin B cells are sensitized
Plasma cell
B cell
Differentiation
B memory cell
Information is provided to helper T cells
Helper T cells stimulate the production of sensitized B cells
Antibodies are released into the bloodstream
(Hans & Cassidy, Inc.)
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Significance Prior to the phagocytosis doctrine advanced by Metchnikoff, the commonly held view was that resistance to bacterial infection resided in chemical properties of the blood. This view enjoyed reinforcement because antibodies in blood had been demonstrated. In 1903, the English scientists Sir Almroth Edward Wright and Stewart Douglas demonstrated the presence of substances
(opsonins) in blood that seem to prepare bacteria for phagocytosis by white blood cells by binding to the bacterial surface. The phagocytosis doctrine thus appeared to require a precondition, a precoated bacterium that was engulfed. In the ensuing years, the role of phagocytosis and antibody formation became better defined. Phagocytosis is but one mechanism of defense offered by the host against infection. Its activation depends on whether the infective organism is within the cell (intracellular) or outside the cell (extracellular). Phagocytosis is most pronounced in acute (extracellular) infection, although bacteria protected by a capsular coat are not readily attacked. Phagocytosis is of limited importance in the case of intracellular infections, such as viruses. In the early stages of infection antibody production has not yet begun, thus phagocytosis is the first defensive action initiated against foreign microorganisms. The administration of antibiotics slows bacte-
Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research rial growth and multiplication, permitting phagocytic blood cells to kill these small populations. Today it is understood that several types of cells are involved in defense against infection. A division of labor exists in which some cells detect by-products of infectious organisms and release immunoglobulins to inactivate the toxic properties of these antigens. Cells of this type, B cells, are usually short-lived. Cells that kill foreign cells are known as T cells. Cytotoxic T cells (or killer T cells) eliminate foreign cells directly. TH cells help B cells to differentiate and proliferate. TA cells amplify differentiation and proliferation of the T cells. TS cells suppress the immune response and are important in policing the body’s own attack on itself. Ehrlich’s work in immunity had far-reaching consequences for general medicine. His studies provided the earliest methods of standardization of bacterial toxins and antitoxins, which are still employed, essentially unaltered from his original methods. Ehrlich demonstrated further that the lethal action of toxin and its antitoxin-binding potential are actually two separate and distinct properties of the toxin. Additionally, with ricin, he showed that a lag time exists between exposure to a toxin and the manufacture of antibodies against it. Furthermore, Ehrlich distinguished clearly between the concepts of active immunity and passive immunity during his studies of immunity transmission through milk and placenta. Through these studies—all of which rested on his fundamental belief in chemical affinities between a cell and chemical substances—Ehrlich went on to study ways of curing disease by chemical means. His early work and successes with trypanosome infection utilizing trypan red and atoxyl derivatives led to his most celebrated application of Salvarsan, an arsenical, as a cure for syphilis. Armed with the knowledge and insight into the mechanics of immunity and chemotherapy to which Ehrlich’s and Metchnikoff’s work contributed, along with ongoing advances in biotechnology, modern medicine can fight microorganisms on their own ground—the molecular level—and win. —Eric R. Taylor Further Reading Glasser, Ronald J. The Body Is the Hero. New York: Random House, 1976. Several chapters provide in simple language the historical and scientific basis of knowledge concerning the major cellular components of the human immune system. Marks, Marguerite. “Paul Ehrlich: The Man and His Work.” McClure’s, December, 1910, 186-200. Avoids 702
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scientific jargon and relates in simple terms the work done by Ehrlich and its historical importance. An excellent source to review before examining more scientifically based commentaries on Ehrlich. Marquardt, Martha. Paul Ehrlich. London: William Heinemann Medical Books, 1949. Marquardt, Ehrlich’s secretary, provides glimpses into the man and his work. Presents a picture of his thinking, his mannerisms, and his temperament. Uses a minimum of technical jargon. Metchnikoff, Élie. Immunity in Infective Diseases. Translated by Francis G. Binni. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1905. Written by Metchnikoff himself in French and translated to English. A treatise of Metchnikoff’s views and findings in his research on immunity. The seventeen chapters contain few illustrations. For readers who are relatively well versed in science and seek insight into the thinking of the researcher himself. Metchnikoff, Olga. Life of Élie Metchnikoff. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1921. The second wife of Élie Metchnikoff provides a record of his life from childhood to his death at the Pasteur Institute. Discusses his family and his own development; depicts Metchnikoff’s loves, dislikes, and weaknesses. An excellent book for those more interested in the man than in his studies. Silverstein, Arthur M. A History of Immunology. New York: Academic Press, 1989. Covers the study of immunology from its beginnings in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Discusses the work of Ehrlich and Metchnikoff as well as other early immunologists and examines the controversies over competing theories as the field developed. Includes appendixes, glossary, and indexes. _______. Paul Ehrlich’s Receptor Immunology: The Magnificent Obsession. New York: Academic Press, 2001. Focuses on Ehrlich’s many contributions to the field of immunology, placing them in the context of their times. Includes appendixes and indexes. Tauber, Alfred I., and Leon Chernyak. Metchnikoff and the Origins of Immunology: From Metaphor to Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Biography of Metchnikoff explores his influences, including how his development as an embryologist prepared him to study immunity and the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution on his research progress. Places Metchnikoff’s work within the context of late nineteenth and early twentieth century debates on vitalism, teleology, and mechanism.
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Wood, Barry W., Jr. “White Blood Cells v. Bacteria.” Scientific American 184 (February, 1951): 48-52. Written for readers with some general background in biological science. Examines the role of white blood cells in acute infection. Places particular emphasis on Metchnikoff’s theory of phagocytosis in disease states. See also: 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic; Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis; 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed; 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus; 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives.
November 1, 1908
Belgium Annexes the Congo As a consequence of the international outcry over the treatment of Africans under the rule of King Leopold II, the Belgian government assumed control of the Congo and initiated reforms. Locale: Brussels, Belgium Categories: Indigenous peoples’ rights; social issues and reform; colonialism and occupation; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Leopold II (1835-1909), king of Belgium, r. 1865-1909 Edmond Dene Morel (1873-1924), British journalist Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, 1905-1916 Jules Renkin (1862-1934), first minister of colonies of Belgium, 1908-1918 Summary of Event The Congo Independent State (also called the Congo Free State; now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) was unique among European imperial ventures in Africa. Although it resembled a European colony, technically the Congo State was a sovereign country, recognized as such since 1885 by most of the major powers. Its ruler was King Leopold II of Belgium, but there was no constitutional connection between Belgium and the Congo State until 1908. The state was run largely as Leopold’s private business concern. From the start of his African venture in the 1870’s, Leopold had portrayed his motives in acquiring the Congo watershed as humanitarian. He stated his inten-
tions to suppress the slave trade and to bring commerce, prosperity, and “civilization” to the Africans. He adhered to the 1885 Berlin General Act, which included a pledge to “watch over the preservation of the native tribes and to care for the improvement of their moral and material well-being.” Although the Congo State did take measures to end the slave trade, Leopold in fact exhibited little concern for the rights of Africans in the Congo. The rule of the Congo Independent State was imposed and maintained, where necessary, by military force. All land that was deemed unoccupied was confiscated by the state. Taxation, especially in the early years, was left to the discretion of local officials and assumed various forms. A considerable amount was collected in the form of export commodities (ivory, groundnuts, and especially wild rubber). Women were required to provide cassava bread for the state’s workers and soldiers. Residents also had to provide government stations with meat and fish. Taxes were also payable in labor for the government: cutting wood for the river steamers, transporting officials in canoes, providing porter labor on expeditions, and working on various public projects. These impositions were spread unevenly, with villages located near government stations bearing the heaviest burdens. Payment of taxes in currency was prohibited in most cases, a policy often criticized as retarding the development of a money economy in the territory. Taxation was enforced with collective penalties, detentions, and corporal punishment. Such policies were not atypical of the early years of European rule in Africa, but the Congo State came under criticism for being much harsher and 703
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Vernon-Roberts, B. “Phagocytosis, Pinocytosis, and Vital Staining.” In The Macrophage. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Provides a fine overview of phagocytosis, covering chemotaxis, mechanical factors, recognition of foreign substances, ingestion, the cytochemical changes of significance to ingestion, and the fate of ingested or engulfed materials. Woglom, William H. “Phagocytosis.” In Discoverers for Medicine. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1949. Describes the theory of phagocytosis and how Metchnikoff strove to establish it. Begins with a brief description of Metchnikoff’s life and education.
Belgium Annexes the Congo
Belgium Annexes the Congo more exploitative than other colonies in Africa. It was the state’s financial weakness that led to the increasingly brutal treatment of the Africans. As an independent state, Leopold’s Congo had no metropolitan power to support it financially, and those who had invested money, including Leopold, sought to profit quickly. Leopold, beginning in the early 1890’s, made concessions of vast territories to various private firms in order to exploit the Congo’s resources. The most notorious of these firms were the Société Anversoise du Commerce du Congo (known as Anversoise), the AngloBelgian India Rubber and Exploring Company (Abir), and the Compagnie du Kasai (created in 1901). The state held a large proportion, usually half, of the stock in these companies, and state officials sat on the firms’ governing
King Leopold II of Belgium. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 boards. Company agents were often hired by the state and had few restrictions on their powers. Most of the territory not parceled out in concessions was assigned to the so-called private domain, which was to be exploited directly by the state. In the 1890’s, wild rubber replaced ivory as the main focus of economic activity in the Congo, and it was in the rubber industry that the worst abuses of the Africans occurred. Neither the state nor the concession firms were strongly capitalized, and they relied on crude extraction in order to turn a profit. Local officials were given goals to meet; they in turn set the quota of wild rubber each village was required to produce and received a commission on the amount gathered. In addition, private competition was excluded to keep the purchase price of rubber low. European officials often used African assistants, commonly known as capitas, to enforce the quotas. Missionaries reported that the taking of hostages (especially women), whipping, and mutilation (especially the amputation of hands) were not uncommon methods of enforcing the quotas. The practice of mutilation was said to derive from the requirement that (African) soldiers had to account for each bullet used by bringing back the hand of the victim. Over time, reports of such atrocities, mostly provided by Protestant missionaries, led to criticism of the Congo State in the outside world. The publication in 1904 of the findings of an investigation by the British consul Roger Casement, which Leopold tried to block, created an uproar in Britain and led journalist Edmond Dene Morel to found the Congo Reform Association (CRA). Morel’s campaign soon spread to other countries and became particularly strong in the United States. In the face of increasing international condemnation, and prodded by the British Foreign Office, Leopold convened an independent commission of inquiry to look into Casement’s charges. The commission failed to find any evidence of mutilation or murder by European officials and attributed the cases of mutilation to an “inveterate native custom” of taking a trophy from the dead or those believed dead. On several issues, such as the use of labor taxes, the commission approved of the government’s policies while criticizing aspects of their implementation. Nevertheless, the resulting report, released in 1905, substantiated most of Casement’s findings. It found abuses in the tax system, unauthorized military expeditions by the concession companies, and improper supervision over the companies. Leopold set up a second commission to recommend proper reforms. Soon after the commission of inquiry had made its
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Belgium Annexes the Congo
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pold in that year, including the termination of the Abir and Anversoise concessions, were deemed inadequate by Morel and the CRA, who Chad argued that no true reforms could be expected so long as Leopold conAnglotrolled the Congo. In November, Egyptian Grey told a delegation of reformers Sudan that he favored a Belgian annexation Abyssinia of the Congo. In December, the Bel(Ethiopia) gian parliament debated the Congo Came roo issue and voted to examine the quesns Mbini tion of annexation. Stanleyville After many months of difficult Ug Bel gia East Africa negotiations with Leopold, the treaty Middle n Protectorate that transferred the Congo to BelCongo C Léopoldville German East Zanzibar gium and the acts establishing a new Africa Protectorate colonial charter were passed by the South K ata n g a Belgian Chamber in August and SepNyasaland Atlantic tember, 1908. The annexation came Angola into force on November 1, 1908, alOcean though it was not announced in the Rhodesia ue iq Congo until November 16. The annexation did not satisfy Morel. The king retained limited powers in the newly renamed Belgian Congo. Existing concessions remained, although the administrative powers of Indian Ocean the companies were curtailed. Forced labor was not outlawed under the new colonial law, and most of Leopold’s officials continued in their report, Sir Edward Grey, a known critic of Leopold’s jobs. Morel and the CRA convinced the British and Congo, became foreign secretary of Great Britain. By American governments to withhold recognition of the 1906, the Hearst newspapers in the United States had annexation until the system had been completely retaken up the campaign against Leopold. A reform moveformed and the rights of Africans were protected. ment also appeared in Belgium itself, drawing on the growing strength of the Socialist Party in the Belgian Significance parliament. Even the Catholic Party, previously LeoOn paper, the Belgian annexation did little to change the pold’s main supporter in Belgium, began to distance itsituation in the Congo. The Leopoldian system was gradself from his policies. ually dismantled, however, because of continued presBelgian public opinion had always been somewhat sure by Morel and the efforts of Jules Renkin, the new ambivalent toward Leopold’s imperial ambitions, and minister of colonies. Renkin introduced his reform promany Belgians saw little reason for the government to gram in October, 1909. Free trade was to be introduced become involved in them. The idea of annexing the area by area over three years, and the importation of conCongo had been raised twice previously, in 1895 and sumer goods for Africans would be encouraged. At the 1901, but the Parliament had voted against it, primarily same time, payment of taxes in currency was to be introbecause the king was opposed. By 1906, the strength duced, and taxation in the form of provisions was abolof international opinion left little alternative to Belgian ished. Morel was still unimpressed and held the most dramatic rally for reform organized up to that time, with annexation. The reform measures introduced by Leo-
Belgium Annexes the Congo the archbishop of Canterbury on the dais, in November. Although Morel held out for strong guarantees for African property rights, world interest in the Congo soon flagged. Leopold’s death in December, 1909, left the reformers without a convenient target for their outrage. Leopold’s successor, Albert I, favored a humane policy in Africa and had even visited the colony himself, something Leopold never did. In 1912, Renkin was 1`granted the authority to remove officials who were known to be corrupt or who had misbehaved under the old regime. That same year, the old governor, Baron Théophile Wahis, a staunch supporter of Leopold, was also replaced. Renkin also established a training academy for colonial officials that included courses emphasizing ethics and toleration for local customs. In June, 1913, the Congo Reform Association dissolved itself, having determined that its job was done. The United States and Great Britain granted recognition to the Belgian Congo. Underlying many of the improvements in the Congo after 1908 was a shift in the focus of commercial exploitation from forest products to mining and plantations. The wild rubber industry was on the decline after 1907, largely as the result of the use of destructive methods to tap the trees. Elephant herds were being exterminated. Copper, cobalt, and diamonds began to replace rubber and ivory at the top of the list of exports. The big mining concerns, notably the Union Miniére du Haut Katanga, came to realize that they needed a steady, experienced workforce and could not rely on forced labor or seasonal levies. In the 1920’s, they adopted a more benevolent policy toward their workers, providing housing, health care, food, and education for them and their families. The crude exploitation of the red rubber era became a thing of the past, to be replaced by a more subtle, and more profitable, approach. Gradually, the Belgian Congo came to resemble other European colonies in Africa, which is to say that it was paternalistic. Africans still had few legal rights, faced open discrimination, and had no voice in government, but outright brutalization was curbed. Forced labor remained but was more closely regulated. In later decades, the government required Africans to grow specific crops. Although the government encouraged mission schools through subsidies, producing in the long run a relatively high literacy rate, it discouraged advanced education for Africans. When independence came suddenly in 1960, the tensions implicit in this more humane, paternalistic colonial system found their outlet in a bloody civil war. —T. K. Welliver 706
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Anstey, Roger. King Leopold’s Legacy: The Congo Under Belgian Rule, 1908-1960. London: Oxford University Press, 1966. An excellent companion volume to the Slade book listed below. Particularly useful for its emphasis on social trends in addition to economic and political developments. Index and bibliography. Brausch, Georges. Belgian Administration in the Congo. 1961. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. A concise work, written by a former Belgian administrator. Although his concern is mainly to defend Belgium’s record in the Congo, the author provides useful information about changes in policy, particularly after World War II. Brief bibliography, no index. Cookey, S. J. S. Britain and the Congo Question, 18851913. New York: Humanities Press, 1968. A detailed account of British diplomacy regarding the Congo. Well documented, using both Belgian and British archival materials. Includes a solid account of the reform campaign and the political debates on the issue. Not concerned with events in the Congo except as they affected relations between Britain and Belgium. Bibliography and index. Edgerton, Robert B. The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Documents the history of the Congo from the fifteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Chapter 5 is devoted to the Belgian Congo. Includes map, bibliography, and index. Gann, Lewis H., and Peter Duignan. The Rules of Belgian Africa, 1884-1914. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979. Concerned mainly with the backgrounds, motivations, and experiences of colonial officials. Also strong in discussions of economics and of changing colonial policies, but not on the whole concerned with the African perspective. Includes a critical examination of some of the accusations against the Congo Independent State. Index and good bibliography. Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. New York: Mariner Books, 1999. Focuses on the exploitation of the Congo’s resources and the abuses of Africans by Leopold’s regime as well as on the reform efforts of Edmond Morel and others. Draws on many eyewitness accounts. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Martelli, George. Leopold to Lumumba: A History of the Belgian Congo, 1877-1960. London: Chapman & Hall, 1962. A well-written book, at times dramatic and at times polemical in defense of the European rec-
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November 28, 1908 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Slade, Ruth. King Leopold’s Congo: Aspects of the Development of Race Relations in the Congo Independent State. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. The standard political and diplomatic history in English of the Congo Independent State. The subtitle is somewhat misleading, as race relations are not the main focus of the work. Index, bibliography, and map. See also: 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism; Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germainen-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery.
MONITOR Is Founded
The appearance of the Christian Science Monitor marked a major effort by a religiously sponsored publishing group to report news events in a style marked by scrupulously nonsectarian objectivity. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts Category: Publishing and journalism Key Figures Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), American founder of the Christian Science religion Erwin D. Canham (1904-1982), American newspaper correspondent and editor Summary of Event The Christian Science Monitor published its first edition on November 28, 1908. Foremost among the newspaper’s creators was Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science religion. The philosophy on which Eddy’s religious movement was based exercised a significant influence on the newspaper’s nature and evolution. Among the key elements underlying Christian Science is the belief that humankind is created in the image of God and that this inherently spiritual human nature, being a reflection of an infinitely good Creator, is endowed with the intelligence to overcome evil and material limitation. Prayer and spiritual healing are also essential components of the church’s teachings. Eddy envisioned the Christian Science Monitor as an important tool for fulfilling the healing mission she had established for her church, in that it would confront and address the social and moral problems that face the world.
By bringing national and international events into clearer focus for its readers through spiritually enlightened, problem-solving journalism, the newspaper would combat the apathy, indifference, and despair that are common responses to world affairs. Although religious teachings per se were never considered to be among the essential goals of the Christian Science Monitor, the newspaper’s founders did, from the outset, reserve a special section of each issue, called the “Home Forum,” for editorials on a wide variety of religious subjects. The first of these was written and signed by Eddy herself, but policy underwent a change almost immediately. Soon after the November, 1908, issues were published, this key section of the paper began to appear with no author’s name. In this respect, the Monitor was quite different from its earliest forerunner, the Christian Science Journal, which Eddy had founded in 1883 as a monthly publication with the specific mission of airing and developing denominational questions. Eddy established a second, somewhat different, periodical, the Christian Science Sentinel, in 1898. Although devoted to religious articles, this weekly publication included a substantial number of news stories. The emphasis placed on the major issue of the day, the Spanish-American War, was an early indication of what the public at large would see when the Monitor appeared a decade later: a notable sensitivity to issues that had worldwide importance, especially questions concerning peace between nations. One of the main problems in the expansion of journalism during the first decade of the twentieth century was publishers’ increasing use of sensationalism to attract the 707
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ord in Africa. Strongest on the Congo Independent State, particularly its founding, but offers only superficial discussion of the Belgian period. Index, map. Morel, Edmond Dene. E. D. Morel’s History of the Congo Reform Movement. Edited by W. Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1968. Morel’s own history of his campaign up to 1904 provides an interesting insight into the personality of Leopold’s nemesis. The editors have added chapters carrying the story to 1913, as well as a series of critical discussions of several of Morel’s more controversial claims.
Christian Science Monitor Is Founded
Christian Science Monitor Is Founded
Mary Baker Eddy. (Library of Congress)
attention of readers and to guarantee large circulation numbers. The trend was associated with two major figures in American journalism, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. This phenomenon was unattractive to many people who, without necessarily wishing to retreat to religiously sponsored publications, might be interested in a newspaper dedicated to higher standards in the choice of subjects discussed and in methods of presenting the news. When the idea of the Christian Science Monitor was first broached, therefore, the paper’s primary emphasis was drawn from principles suggested to Eddy by fellow churchman and Boston newspaperman John L. Wright in a March, 1908, letter: “Many would like a paper that takes less notice of crime, etc., and gives attention . . . to the positive side of life, to the activities that work for the good of man and to the things really worth knowing.” Wright emphasized the need for “daily newspapers that will place principle before dividends.” Given such considerations, the unique features of the first issues of the Christian Science Monitor are 708
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 more easily understood. The paper gave a considerable amount of attention, for example, to the issue of the U.S. arms budget and its discussion in Congress. The Monitor was careful to try to view this subject with attention to all of its ramifications (for employment in economic sectors that were not specifically military, for example) rather than to offer a simple journalistic summary. Similarly, the Monitor’s coverage of a locally vital issue, the Charles River dam project in Boston Bay, was accompanied by consideration of the wider implications of such environmental control systems. The paper also discussed the dam’s effect on the river’s banks, as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was one of the first institutions to be founded on the reclaimed areas of Boston’s Back Bay. Such emphasis on major news events and their wider repercussions did not prevent the Christian Science Monitor from also providing more popular forms of information, most notably sports news. From its earliest issues and for a number of years, page three of the paper was reserved for news of sporting events. As soon as a publication structure existed in Boston, the Monitor was in a position to internationalize its sources for news information through the organization of the Christian Science Church. A notable example of this was the contribution of Frederick Dixon, the head of the church’s Committees on Publication for Great Britain and Ireland. Until the Monitor grew large enough to send salaried correspondents to foreign capitals, it relied on church committee heads such as Dixon to send regular clippings from the foreign press that could be integrated (with acknowledgment of the sources) into the news columns of the Boston paper. Significance The death of Mary Baker Eddy in December, 1910, posed no immediate transitional problems for the recently established newspaper. In 1914, however, it fell to Archibald McLellan, a former editor of the Monitor and director of the Christian Science Church following Eddy’s death, to confront the future by confirming his support for the editorial leadership of Dixon, a man who had earlier served as an associate editor at Eddy’s suggestion. Although the paper maintained steady progress in providing quality news from different points around the world over the next few years, its second decade witnessed some tensions, particularly where questions of possible censorship were concerned. Because the Monitor would not limit itself to hiring only Christian Scien-
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years, there is no doubt that the Christian Science Monitor succeeded in maintaining and expanding its image as a highly professional and objective newspaper. This success was marked by the pattern of the paper’s street circulation figures and, increasingly, the growth in the number of regular subscribers paying for mail delivery of the Monitor to their homes in many countries around the world. The paper’s first circulation records from April, 1909, showed a total of 43,000 subscribers. This figure nearly doubled by 1917 (to 81,558) and then rose to 123,080 in 1919. The immediate postwar figures were considerably lower, but growth in circulation became marked after the mid-1920’s, largely because of the effective efforts of Colonel Herbert Johnson, who applied his prior experience as a business executive to the task of circulation management at the Monitor from 1927 to 1942. By the mid-1950’s, circulation exceeded 170,000. However, in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the paper experienced financial difficulties that necessitated cuts in staff and changes in format. By the end of the twentieth century, with the advent of the Internet, the situation of the Christian Science Monitor began to improve again. It was among the first U.S. newspapers to establish an online presence, a move that enabled it to expand readership even as print circulation declined to about 71,000 in 2005. With 1.7 million unique visitors to its Web site per month as of 2005, the Monitor became one of the top ten U.S. papers in terms of online readership. —Byron D. Cannon Further Reading Canham, Erwin D. Commitment to Freedom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. A comprehensive history of the Christian Science Monitor, from several decades before its actual founding in 1908 to its fiftieth anniversary in 1958, by a longtime Monitor editor. Includes many vignettes concerning the personal characteristics of individuals associated with the paper’s first fifty years of operation. Childs, M. W. “The Christian Science Monitor.” Saturday Evening Post, September 15, 1945, 14-15. Published soon after the end of World War II, this article commended the Monitor for its ability to adhere to high standards of journalism in a very difficult environment for international news. “Downsized.” The Nation, December 5, 1988, 588. Discusses the resignation of Kay Fanning, editor of the Monitor and first woman president of the American 709
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tists to carry out the business of gathering and editing the news, some reporters objected when the paper’s authorities suggested wording changes in articles in order to avoid the appearance of acceptance of “morally questionable” practices that were being reported. Specific efforts were made to ensure that staff and higher editorial personnel maintained journalistic standards without imposing moral judgments. Nevertheless, as late as the mid-1950’s, certain terms were consciously avoided in the Monitor’s pages. “Passing on” was used instead of “death,” for example, because the former reflected more closely the Christian Science religious belief concerning the end of life. Another area that reflected the Christian Science Monitor’s concern for maintaining different standards from those of more typical daily newspapers was its treatment of “society news.” Only organizational activities of recognized social groups were considered worthy of news coverage; practically nothing appeared in the newspaper’s columns about the social activities or honors of prominent individuals or families. The one area in which the Monitor’s particular philosophy can be seen most visibly overlapping with editorial policy toward the news is that of the discussion of medical questions. Because Christian Science places strong emphasis on freedom of individual decision in confronting the effects of disease, the paper tended on several occasions to devote major attention to issues that might affect such individual rights. This was the case, for example, in the early 1940’s, when policy makers in the United States were considering the adoption of national medical health programs. The paper’s keen interest in such subjects, and particularly in questions of medical ethics, mounted steadily as issues such as genetic engineering, euthanasia, and abortion increasingly became topics of international debate toward the end of the twentieth century. Although it would be inaccurate to suggest that Christian Science religious policies ever dominated the content of Monitor articles or editorials, tension sometimes occurred between church directors and those placed in the highest positions of responsibility for the paper’s management. One such case occurred less than a decade after Eddy’s death and hastened the retirement of editor Frederick Dixon; another case occurred nearly seventy years later, when budgetary cuts and shifts in emphasis toward different media audiences precipitated the resignation of another highly respected editor, Kay Fanning. Whatever effects internal debates may have had on key personnel appointments and retirements over the
Christian Science Monitor Is Founded
Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton Society of Newspaper Editors, over drastic cuts in the Monitor’s staff and the number of pages it could contain. Gill, Gillian. Mary Baker Eddy. New York: Perseus Books, 1998. Comprehensive biography of the founder of the Christian Science Church. Briefly discusses the establishment of the Christian Science Monitor. Includes index. Helm, Leslie. “The Church That Would Be a Media Mogul.” BusinessWeek, September 26, 1988, 53-54. Discusses a major and controversial shift in publications emphasis on the part of the Christian Science Church:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 introduction of a Christian Science documentary information program for television and the launching of World Monitor as a subscription magazine. Quint, W. D. “Telling the Good Men Do.” New England, September, 1909, 98-104. An early article about the Christian Science Monitor in a regional magazine specializing in issues of interest to New Englanders. Covers both the founding philosophy and responsible personnel of the Monitor, which was less than a year old at the time. See also: 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded.
December, 1908
Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton Marcellin Boule’s reconstitution of a near-complete Neanderthal skeleton sparked controversy over the possibility of identifying the presumed “missing link” between higher apes and humans. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Archaeology; anthropology; prehistory and ancient cultures Key Figures Marcellin Boule (1861-1942), French paleontologist Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), German professor of anatomy Amédée Bouyssonie (fl. early twentieth century), French priest Jean Bouyssonie (fl. early twentieth century), French priest L. Bardon (fl. early twentieth century), French priest Summary of Event Late in the fall of 1908, the French paleontologist Marcellin Boule carried out a project that would contribute to a series of reactions against a “school” of hominid (human) evolutionary thought with which he came to be identified. The project was Boule’s reconstitution of a nearly complete skeleton of Homo neanderthalensis, drawn from fossil remains found in a cave at La Chapelleaux-Saints in the Corrèze in France. Three priests who were already recognized for their research into prehistoric archaeology—Amédée Bouyssonie, Jean Bouyssonie, and L. Bardon—had discovered the remains and transferred them to Boule’s laboratory in Paris. The fossil bones consisted of a skull (cranium and 710
quite massive lower jaw), twenty-one vertebrae (some fragmented), twenty ribs, a collarbone, two upper arm bones, two fragmented lower arm bones, two incomplete upper leg bones, two kneecaps, portions of two lower leg bones, an ankle bone, a heel bone, five right metatarsals (instep bones), fragments of two left metatarsals, and one toe bone. The layers in which the bones were found contained artifacts (dressed flint tools) that could be identified in archaeological terms as Mousterian, a time period (extending roughly from 100,000 to 40,000 b.c.e.) that fit well with certain paleontologists’ views of how Homo neanderthalensis should be placed in human evolutionary terms. The archaeologists who delivered the skeletal remains to Boule reported that the fossil body was found in a narrow trench approximately one foot deep. It appeared, therefore, that a grave had been prepared for a burial ceremony, a fact that might have explained the nearby concentration of chipped flint implements associated with another assumed Neanderthal ceremonial ritual: the hunt. Indeed, animal remains in the same archaeological layer included bones of the woolly rhinoceros as well as reindeer, cave hyena, and marmot bones. When Boule set out to assemble as complete a skeleton as possible from the fossils, he had very few firm points of reference to guide him. Earlier Neanderthal discoveries were much less extensive, and he had no comparative models to help him reconstruct the skeleton. Subsequent to the work Boule carried out in 1908, a number of other discoveries would be made, notably at Le Moustier and La Ferrassie, both in Dordogne, in 1909; at La Quina in French Charente district in 1911; and others
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Skull Comparison
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens sapiens
to accentuate basic simian (apelike) features that have disappeared in Homo sapiens. Boule knew that considerable support existed for views expressed on Homo neanderthalensis in the midnineteenth century by the German anatomist Rudolf Virchow. Briefly stated, proponents of the Virchow school argued that Neanderthal remains should be assigned a place along with fossils of Homo sapiens, essentially as a contemporaneous “cousin” of what has come to be known as the modern human. If Homo neanderthalensis became an extinct species of human, this could be explainable in terms of Neanderthal’s relative disadvantages for survival in comparison with Homo sapiens. It was wrong, the Virchow school maintained, to push the prime period of Homo neanderthalensis back, limiting it to the Mousterian age, mainly to facilitate an argument in support of the prevailing Darwinist interpretations of evolution. Had Virchow lived to confront Boule over the Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton, he most likely would have objected to Boule’s implication that Homo neanderthalensis was too “primitive” to be placed on a comparable evolutionary level with Homo sapiens. Evolutionists, including Boule, were eager to find a pre-sapiens link between apes and Homo sapiens. To a significant degree, Boule’s reconstruction of the Chapelleaux-Saints skeleton seemed to respond to this need, as did his eventual separation of Homo neanderthalensis from the three fossil human predecessors of modern Homo sapiens. Regardless of whether it was Boule’s intention initially to lend support to a particular school of thought concerning the place of Homo neanderthalensis in evolutionary theory, his work sparked a debate that— although mainly a popular one—involved a number of paleontologists of different camps, at least into the late 1950’s. Significance The role that Boule would play in the seemingly unending controversy over presumed “links” in the evolutionary chain leading to Homo sapiens was in some ways prepared well before the specific contribution he made in 1908. In fact, soon after discovery of the first remains of Homo neanderthalensis near Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1856, several schools of thought concerning the evolution of modern humans tried to either adopt or reject assumptions that would make Boule’s reputation (or notoriety) as a human paleontologist. A debate arose in the generation after the first fossils were unearthed. Several features of the first Neanderthals (and others discovered later, at Spy, Belgium, in 1886, 711
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in Palestine and on the Italian peninsula in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The book Boule published with fellow paleontologist Henri Vallois (L’Homme fossile; fossil man) makes it clear that, over the years, Boule believed he would have no trouble assimilating observable characteristics of Neanderthal fossils found later to the image and theory he originally set forward in 1908. When Boule finished piecing together the Chapelleaux-Saints fossil, characteristics emerged that he and others considered to be evolutionary gaps between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. These included a bentover skeletal posture supporting an inordinately largejawed skull. The latter had a prominent brow ridge and a sloping forehead, with a large nasal construct and little or no chin structure. Finally, the curvature of the leg bones, as well as a certain “pigeon toe” effect in the feet, tended
Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton
Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton
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More important as a source of future controversy over the Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal reconstruction was the mid-nineteenth century contribution of the German anatomist Virchow. Unlike Huxley, Virchow refused to see Homo neanderthalensis as belonging to a species separate from Homo sapiens, thus perturbing evolutionists who needed proof of a separate, lower link from which Homo sapiens might have sprung. Virchow came to the conclusion that certain of Neanderthal’s apelike characteristics could be explained by “ailments”— specifically the effects of rickets from malnutrition— suffered by the (basically human) individuals. Ironically, Virchow’s student Ernst Haeckel would soon take a theoretical position that seemed to be reflected in Boule’s 1908 Neanderthal reconstruction and in his defensive writing some years later. Haeckel tended to seek in hominid fossils such as Homo neanderthalensis an evolutionary link between humans and apes. The most notable prototype associated with Haeckel’s name was the so-called Pithecanthropus alalus, or “speechless apeman,” but he was also part of the debate in the 1890’s over the “humanlike transitional form” of the Java man, Pithecanthropus erectus, discovered by the Dutch paleontologist Eugène Dubois. With the passage of time and discovery of additional Neanderthal specimens, however, the scientific community grew skeptical of Boule’s insistence on placing Homo neA Little Neanderthal in Some of Us? anderthalensis next to Homo sapiens. A Paleoanthropologists continue to debate the degree to which Neanderculmination was reached in 1957, when thals contributed to modern humans, with some arguing for strict reW. L. Strauss and A. J. E. Cave reexamplacement and others citing evidence for the mixing of Neanderthals with ined the skeleton Boule had reconstructed. other early human species. In 2004, paleoanthropologist Milford Wolpoff Combining alternative views that had preand his colleagues cited evidence against strict replacement: existed Boule’s 1908 contribution with studies of more recently discovered NeSpecifically, the evidence of skeletal anatomy, mitochondrial DNA, anderthal remains, they essentially put morphology and genetics of speech, and archaeological evidence of beBoule’s theory to rest. Not only did they havior all suggest that Neandertals are indeed among the ancestors of reopen the question of bone structure dissome modern human populations. This does not mean that the modern humans are Neandertals, or that the Neandertals are the only ancestors of torted by natural causes (namely, disease), any group of modern humans. The existence of differences between but they also questioned the accuracy of Neandertals and modern humans is repeatedly advanced as evidence for Boule’s work of skeletal reconstruction, the impossibility of Neandertal ancestry in modern populations. . . . This particularly in the foot area, where Boule is a straw man. While we certainly recognize a number of such differmay have exaggerated angles to accentuences, they are fully consistent with an evolving lineage: ancestors are ate simian features. never identical to their descendants. Do modern Europeans have a single Strauss and Cave’s refutation of Boule unique African ancestry, or are European Neandertals among their ancesgenerally held throughout the second half tors? . . . [T]he hypothesis that Neandertals are a significant part of the anof the twentieth century, with the effect of cestry of Europeans is well supported, and . . . it has not been disproved. elevating Homo sapiens neanderthalensis Source: Milford Wolpoff et al., “Why Not the Neandertals?” World to the status of a branch of Homo sapiens. Archaeology 36, no. 4 (2004). If Neanderthal communities tended to dis-
and then in fairly substantial numbers in southwestern France at the beginning of the twentieth century) suggested that they were closer to the presumed simian ancestors of humans than any previously studied paleontological prototype. At some point in the mid-nineteenth century, for example, a sufficient number of Neanderthal sites had been identified to place them in the Mousterian period, well before the time of Homo sapiens cultures. This posed a problem of linkage: whether it was possible that Homo sapiens could be the biological descendant of Homo neanderthalensis. Boule implied that Homo sapiens had replaced Homo neanderthalensis. The other theory was that the two species existed side by side until the superior adaptive qualities of Homo sapiens guaranteed their continuation while Homo neanderthalensis declined in numbers and eventually disappeared. Well before Boule’s time, unwillingness to accept Homo neanderthalensis as an evolutionary “cousin” of Homo sapiens had divided opinions among prominent representatives of the nineteenth century scientific world, including the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who insisted on the Charles Darwin-dominated 1860’s view of the essentially “bestial” characteristics of Homo neanderthalensis, which he associated with later apes, not early humans.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 appear, it was because of a loss of security in a limited competitive ecological arena in which Homo sapiens had the upper hand, not because they occupied a distinctly lower level on the biological evolutionary ladder. Today, paleoanthropologists continue the debate, with some arguing that Neanderthals were simply replaced by modern Homo sapiens and others citing genetic and anatomical evidence for a mixing of the gene pools. —Byron D. Cannon
Jordan, Paul. Neanderthal: Neanderthal Man and the Story of Human Origins. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2001. Explores the evidence to present a picture of the world in which Neanderthals lived and their relationship to Homo sapiens. Includes illustrations and index. Keith, Arthur. “The Relationship of Neanderthal Man and Pithecanthropus to Modern Man.” Nature 89 (April, 1912): 155-156. Shows that, despite criticisms leveled at Boule’s presumed bias by later critics, the scientific community first reacted to his theory of Homo neanderthalensis in terms that were very balanced. Shackley, Myra. Neanderthal Man. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1980. Comprehensive overall view of evidence on Neanderthals. Includes chapters on tools and technology as well as rituals and habitations that have been tied to Neanderthal communities in various areas of the globe. Tattersall, Ian. The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives. Rev. ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Focuses on the relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans. Provides information on fossil dating and other background for lay readers. Illustrated. See also: Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil; Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
December 3, 1908
Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim When Edward Elgar’s First Symphony premiered in Manchester, England, it provided a new foundation for English symphonic music. Locale: Manchester, England Category: Music Key Figures Edward Elgar (1857-1934), English composer Hans Richter (1843-1916), German conductor Charles George Gordon (1833-1885), Victorian military hero whose death inspired Elgar Summary of Event Edward Elgar’s determination to write a symphony helped to revitalize the nearly moribund tradition of seri-
ous English music as well as to inspire the next generation of English composers, which included such figures as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Havergal Brian. Still widely perceived as the composer of imperialistic England, Elgar was himself a contradictory mixture of bluff self-assurance, naïve patriotism, and Victorian heartiness on one hand and incisive introspection, remorseful nostalgia, and painful regret on the other. Born to a middle-class Roman Catholic family, he struggled hard to rise above neglect, class and religious prejudice, and his own quixotic personality to earn a position as the foremost English composer since Henry Purcell at the end of the seventeenth century. Having first achieved international attention for his Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) in 1899, 713
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Further Reading Boule, Marcellin. “L’Homme fossile de la Chapelleaux-Saints.” Comptes rendues de l’Académie des sciences, December 14, 1908, 1012-1017. Boule’s first publication describing the Neanderthal skeleton he had reconstituted. Bowden, M. Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? Bromley, England: Sovereign, 1977. Asemischolarly work that reviews the controversies that have surrounded a number of famous fossil finds, ranging from the clearly “invented” Piltdown man to Java man. Includes discussion of the complex issues involved in Neanderthal paleontology. Finlayson, Clive. Neanderthals and Modern Humans: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Argues that Neanderthals went extinct because of their inability to adapt to changing environmental conditions rather than as the result of direct competition with Homo sapiens. Includes references and index.
Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim
Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim Elgar consolidated his position as a great orchestral writer with his First Symphony (1908), which confirmed his status as the greatest English composer of his time and England’s first great symphonic writer. Elgar grew up in a culture that was not conducive to the writing of opera, and he poured much of his youthful creative impulse into the creation of religious and patriotic oratorios. Elgar’s characteristic mood, however, was introspective and lyrical rather than extroverted and dramatic. Elgar had long dreamed of writing a symphony in commemoration of the heroic death of General Charles George “Chinese” Gordon at Khartoum in the Sudan in 1885. Although no explicit reference to Gordon survives in the final form of the First Symphony, it is easy to hear in the music the aspects of Gordon’s character that appealed to Elgar: heroism, dignity, massive reserve, and Christian suffering. The most striking features of the symphony, such as the mercurial changes of disposition and the nostalgia bordering on melancholy, seem to owe more to Elgar’s own temperament than to the general’s. As a friend of Richard Strauss, Elgar could be said to have written his own version of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (1897-1898; a hero’s life) in the First Symphony, although without Strauss’s swaggering and overt humor. One British critic, noting the symphony’s similarity to Strauss’s work, has remarked that “in both we see a personality struggling against opposing elements.” Unlike Strauss, however, Elgar never was confident enough to seize the opportunity to shock and outrage, nor did he adapt on a regular basis to shifts in taste, as Igor Stravinsky did. Like Gustav Mahler, his great contemporary fellow symphonist, he was drawn almost neurotically to nostalgia for a lost childhood and the expression of melancholy emotions. Elgar completed the composition of the symphony on September 25, 1908, and dedicated the score to German conductor Hans Richter. The Halle Orchestra of Manchester gave the premiere on December 3, 1908. The symphony appeared with no specific “program,” or explanatory ideas, Elgar having given up any specific association with General Gordon. As he explained to a friend, “There is no programme beyond a wide experience of human life with a great charity (love) and a massive hope in the future.” Elgar chose not to verbalize emotions that were clearly and artfully woven into his music. The symphony’s first movement begins quietly, with a drumroll that introduces a dignified melody in A-flat major, presented first quietly, with the simplicity of a hymn tune, and then with the volume and dignity to jus714
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tify Elgar’s expressive marking “nobilmente e semplice” (nobly and simply). Over an A-flat held by the basses, a new, vigorous tune in the contrasting key of D is introduced, and the remainder of the long first movement is, in a sense, a competition between the A-flat and D tunes, in which the initial A-flat tune prevails in the subdued conclusion. The second movement, in F-sharp minor, has the effect of the traditional symphonic scherzo. The first violins play a sixteenth-note figure that will reappear in the third movement with a new rhythmic configuration; this is superseded by a brisk, marchlike figure that has an ominous quality. This, too, yields to a new passage in B-flat major in which the woodwinds chirp out a more hopeful tune. The movement ends with a sustained F-sharp that leads, without interruption, into the third movement, which is one of the finest, most reflective pieces in all of Elgar’s music and which constitutes a wistful, philosophical reflection. A drooping, nostalgic theme for the clarinets offers the most poignant moment in the entire symphony, as it efficiently distills the prevailing sense of nostalgia and regret. It is fair to say that the final movement does not fully unify all the rich strands of the symphony. The first movement is unusually full of ideas, and the third movement achieves a level of spiritual resignation that makes the final movement seem slightly redundant, if not actually anticlimactic. The final movement begins in D minor and quickly switches to a brisk, rhythmically aggressive section, thus forming an obvious contrast to the philosophical mood of the third section. The symphony ends with an elaborate summing up of earlier thematic materials and a strong restatement of the original motto theme, in the symphony’s opening key of A-flat major. Significance Throughout his career, Elgar was torn between the demand for boisterous musical exercises and the nostalgic, introspective pieces he preferred. Both aspects of Elgar’s stance as a professional composer are evident in the First Symphony. Elgar learned how to pour his subjective feelings into relatively strict musical genres. As one of his most sympathetic critics, Diana McVeagh, has noted, “The symphonies are his dramas.” Although deeply attracted to the music dramas of Richard Wagner, with their long melodic lines and capacity for the leisurely exposition of philosophical ideas, Elgar retained the formal discipline of the great composers in the German symphonic tradition, such as Johannes Brahms and Antonín DvoÍák.
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The symphony’s finale is complicated, containing references to earlier themes in the symphony and perhaps overly ambitious in attempting to work out the formal design according to the German symphonic tradition. Another friendly critic, Basil Maine, has noted that “Elgar often begins with a profusion of ideas and works towards their reconciliation.” Elgar had good reasons for presenting an elaborate finale: The work was his first and perhaps overdue contribution to the symphonic tradition, and Elgar, who was largely self-taught rather than formally trained, was eager to show his mastery of the form. Also, Elgar was a late Romantic composer, enjoying his most creative period at the very moment when contemporary composers were accustomed to working with massive forces. For example, Gustav Mahler, with his Symphony of a Thousand (1906-1907), and Arnold Schoenberg, with his Gurrelieder (1900-1911), were simultaneously creating works that required unusually large orchestral and choral forces. Within a few years, deliberately modernist composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, and Edgard Varèse would make a point of replying to the lush, overlong late Romantic masterpieces with short, sardonic sketches.
Achieving two hundred performances in the year following its premiere, Elgar’s First Symphony obviously found a sympathetic audience in its composer’s homeland. One of Elgar’s biographers observed that “no English work had ever before received such rapturous and immediate acclaim.” Remarkably, the symphony enjoyed one hundred performances in England in the first year of its existence, with eighty-two performances around the world in 1909 alone. It was acclaimed by Hans Richter, Elgar’s sympathetic interpreter, as “the greatest symphony of modern times, written by the greatest modern composer.” Given that such great symphonic writers as Mahler, Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, and Sergei Rachmaninoff were all alive and active at the time, it is easy to dismiss Richter’s compliment as partisan zeal. Yet Elgar’s First Symphony, like his other masterworks, has a distinctive voice that has kept it near the front rank of the symphonic repertory. Through his success, Elgar inspired the next generation of English composers to write symphonies and find sympathetic audiences for them. Ralph Vaughan Williams found a way to incorporate folk tunes in his nine symphonies, and Havergal Brian proved even more industrious in his symphonic output. Two other English composers who shared Elgar’s birth year of 1857, Gustav Holst and Frederick Delius, were not drawn to writing symphonies, but they certainly profited from the way in which Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) brought new prestige to the English orchestral tradition. English composers born in the twentieth century, such as Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett, likewise profited from the audience for serious orchestral and choral music that Elgar helped to create. Elgar quickly began work on his Second Symphony (1910-1911). The Second Symphony does not enjoy the high critical esteem of the First Symphony, although it is possible that its finale is superior, as Elgar allowed his personal voice to take precedence over formal considerations. In the tone poem Falstaff (1913), Elgar discovered that William Shakespeare’s fat knight was probably a more liberating role model than General Gordon had been. Elgar collected sketches for yet another symphony, but he never got around to assembling them into a coherent work following the creative decline he experienced after the shocks of World War I and his wife’s death in 1918. Playwright George Bernard Shaw and others urged Elgar to proceed with the Third Symphony, but Elgar preferred to indulge in a new phase of his career. He concentrated on preserving performances of his great 715
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Edward Elgar. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim
Cairo University Is Inaugurated works on recordings, and he was one of the earliest of the great composers to comprehend the potential impact of the phonograph. He left deathbed instructions that no one should try to assemble the fragments of the Third Symphony into a performing version, and his wishes were long respected. In the 1990’s, however, with the permission of Elgar’s heirs, British composer Anthony Payne undertook an “elaboration” of the sketches that Elgar had collected for the symphony. The result was a successful work that received fifteen performances in the two years following its premiere. —Byron Nelson Further Reading Kennedy, Michael. The Life of Elgar. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Biography of Elgar draws on documents, including personal correspondence, that did not become available until the late 1970’s. Analyzes the effects of the composer’s complicated personality on his musical work. _______. Portrait of Elgar. 2d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1997. A substantial and sympathetic study, although largely superseded by the work of Jerrold Moore. McVeagh, Diana. “Edward Elgar.” In The New Grove Twentieth-Century English Masters. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Provides a solid, quick survey of the composer’s life and work.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Maine, Basil. Elgar: His Life and Works. 1933. Reprint. Bath, England: Cedric Chivers, 1973. The earliest long critical analysis of Elgar’s music, written in the twilight of Elgar’s life and overly defensive about its subject. Moore, Jerrold Northrop. Edward Elgar: A Creative Life. 1984. Reprint. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1999. The authoritative life of England’s greatest composer after Purcell, sensitive to his artistic achievement and contradictory personality. Simpson, Robert, ed. Elgar to the Present Day. Vol. 2 in The Symphony. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1967. Provides a good overview of the historical development of the tradition of the symphony. Includes a good short study of Elgar by David Cox. Stasny, John, and Byron Nelson. “From Dream to Drama: The Dream of Gerontius by Newman and Elgar.” Renascence 43 (Fall, 1990/Winter, 1991): 121-135. A psychological study of Elgar’s breakthrough work, in which Elgar confronted the implications of his introversion, his Catholicism, and his admiration for General Gordon. See also: 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies; Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony; 1916: Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony.
December 21, 1908
Cairo University Is Inaugurated After years of discussion, Cairo University was funded through government and private donations and inaugurated in 1908. Created under the protection of Prince Awmed Fu$3d, the university’s first decades were marked by instability resulting from its relations with nascent Egyptian nationalism and forces for government control of higher education. Also known as: Egyptian University (1925); Fu$3d University (1936); University of Cairo (1953) Locale: Giza, Egypt Categories: Education; organizations and institutions Key Figures Awmed Fu$3d (1868-1936), chair of the university committee and later sultan and king of Egypt, r. 1917-1922, 1922-1936 716
Sa4d Zaghlnl (1857-1927), moderate Egyptian nationalist First Earl of Cromer (Evelyn Baring; 1841-1917), consul general in Egypt, 1883-1907 4Abb3s II (4Abb3s Wilmt Pasha; 1874-1944), last khedive of Egypt, r. 1892-1914 J. E. Marshall (b. 1864), British judge and early supporter of the university Muwammad 4Alt Pasha (c. 1769-1849), Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, 1805-1848 Summary of Event Education had been seen as an essential component of Egypt’s modernization as early as the seventeenth century governorship of Muwammad 4Alt Pasha. It was not, however, until the later years of the British occupation of Egypt (which technically ended with Egypt’s formal in-
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hance his power and reputation in Egyptian and international politics. He reshaped the committee, eliminating most of its nationalist supporters, and he positioned himself as both a government benefactor who encouraged large donations and as a defender of university autonomy. Whatever his personal ambitions, he actively promoted the project: He toured Europe in search of donations, and on December 21, 1908, he held a lavish inauguration ceremony. Fu$3d served as university president until 1913. In 1917, he assumed the sultan’s powers, and in 1922 he was named king of Egypt. At the time of the inauguration, however, the university occupied rented quarters in the Palazzo Giancalis (later to become the administration building of the American University in Cairo). It employed five faculty and offered fewer than ten courses. It did not bring earlier schools of practical higher education under its aegis; instead, it was limited to the humanities. Many early nationalists had regarded the humanities, particularly history and literature, as critical studies for the development of a national Egyptian identity. Unlike the earlier technical schools, it established a curriculum that was designed to be nonutilitarian—that is, not leading directly to government employment. The university did, however, employ a number of significant European scholars of Islam, and it therefore became a center of early twentieth century orientalist thought. After years of neglect and decline, King Fu$3d I reorganized the university and renamed it the Egyptian University in 1925. Upon Fu$3d’s death in 1936, the university was named for him, but this name was changed to the University of Cairo after Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in 1952. Cairo University was the product of Egyptian nationalism, and its inauguration encouraged further nationalist sentiment. However, under Fu$3d’s control, the university did not immediately become a powerful institution. Its humanities faculty and student body were politically quiescent until after World War I, when political rivalry between Sa4d Zaghlnl (now the minister of education and leader of a parliamentary nationalist party) and Fu$3d energized both students and faculty. In the interwar period, the faculty and students were politically active, and debates about issues such as who should hold the position of dean became fraught with larger political meaning. As in other countries, in Egypt education became a critical ingredient in the expansion of women’s rights. Opportunities for primary and secondary education had been nonexistent, but slowly Egyptian women were admitted to foreign schools and then, in 1873, to state 717
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dependence in 1922) that various factions within Egyptian society began to discuss the need for founding an Egyptian university. Under the leadership of the first earl of Cromer, the consul general, the British had largely ignored the country’s educational needs, either out of benign neglect or because of Lord Cromer’s belief that an educated populace would be more difficult to control. Still, Egyptian nationalists of differing political stripes and various agendas were united by their belief in the need for such an institution. Dominance in the region’s politics constantly shifted within a triangle of forces: British colonials, Egyptian nationalists, and the remnants of the descendants of Muwammad 4Alt Pasha, who had been the Ottoman ruler in the area. The complexity of the situation and British disinterest in educating Egyptians brought the efforts to nil. By 1900 Egypt had several higher-level technical schools, and it also had a premier institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar. Al-Azhar was, however, a religious school whose aims and methods in 1900 were largely the same as they had been in 1300. It trained religious and Qur$3nic scholars to tend to Muslims’ spiritual needs. What Egypt lacked was a university built on the Western model: an institution of free inquiry into a range of secular, religious, technical, and cultural subjects. In 1906, a university committee was created to remedy this problem. It was led by Sa4d Zaghlnl, a moderate and proWestern nationalist who went on to become minister of education and a major voice for educational reform throughout the first quarter of the century. While this group supported the creation of a university, neither the colonial powers nor the palace was supportive, and these political realities slowed fund-raising efforts. Before long, however, J. E. Marshall, a British judge in Egypt, had added his voice to those calling for improved higher education in the nation, and his ideas eventually found some support. The colonial power recognized the university committee and added three government representatives, including Marshall. At this point, the palace’s Ottoman governor also took up the cause, although this probably had more to do with an interest in blocking efforts by Ottoman rivals than an interest in advancing education. In October of 1907, the khedive (the Egyptian ruler who acted on behalf of the sultan of Turkey), 4Abb3s II, offered five thousand Egyptian pounds as a charitable bequest to support the founding of a university. He appointed his cousin, Awmed Fu$3d, as chair of the university committee. Fu$3d was an ambitious and astute politician. He used the early and intermittent support for the university to en-
Cairo University Is Inaugurated
Cairo University Is Inaugurated schools. A vocational school for women was opened in 1910, and the Cairo University broke new ground when it opened a Women’s Section in 1911 and admitted women to lectures. Some of the lecturers, however, advocated increases in women’s rights that clashed with prevailing social values, and demonstrations closed the section in 1913. However, women were again admitted in small numbers in the 1920’s, and the first degrees were awarded to women of Fu$3d University in 1933.
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Significance Education in the Middle East became a central component of most of the debates that shaped the region and Muslim-Western relations. Discussions of education immediately evoked questions of traditionalism versus modernizatiom, religion versus secularism, and nationalism versus Westernization. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, investments in higher education in Egypt were always associated with a desire to modernize the country and to make it competitive with American and European nations. In a period in which foreign schools dominated in Islamic lands, the University at Cairo became a model of the national university, and it gradually developed one of the largest student enrollments of any university. Many important world leaders—including former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and former secretary-general of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali—were students at Cairo University. —Jean Owens Schaefer
ern education at the primary, secondary, and college levels with recommendations for foreign investment. Erlich, Haggai. Students and University in Twentieth Century Egyptian Politics. London: Frank Cass, 1989. A detailed study of the personalities and parties involved in Egyptian politics. Complex investigation of motivations and rivalries and of students’ role in promoting government stability and instability. Goldschmidt, Arthur, Jr. Biographical Dictionary of Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: American University of Cairo Press, 2000. Profiles the major actors involved in early twentieth century Egyptian politics. Gorman, Anthony. Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. A good discussion of Egyptian politics and of the relationship between Egypt and Great Britain. Reid, Donald M. Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. A thorough if laudatory history of the university that uses many archival documents. An assessment of its contributions to Egyptian culture and politics. Szyliowicz, Joseph S. Education and Modernization in the Middle East. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973. An assessment of education in three Middle Eastern countries—Egypt, Turkey, and Iran—and its role in economic and social development. Informative, but somewhat dated.
Further Reading Cochran, Judith. Education in Egypt. London: CroomHelm, 1986. A study of the history and state of mod-
See also: Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt; May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations.
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First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion
December 26, 1908
First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion Heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson’s victory over Tommy Burns alarmed whites, who had dominated boxing, and immediately triggered a quest for a “Great White Hope” to defeat Johnson. This championship boxing match ushered in a new era in American sport history as well as a new period in American race relations.
Key Figures Jack Johnson (John Arthur Johnson; 1878-1946), American boxer and heavyweight champion Tommy Burns (Noah Brusso; 1881-1955), Canadian boxer and heavyweight champion James Jackson Jeffries (1875-1953), American boxer and heavyweight champion Jack London (1876-1916), American journalist and author Summary of Event The fight between Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson was the biggest news in boxing since the sport’s transformation from savage, bare-knuckle prizefighting in the early nineteenth century into the more respectable art of combat. While colorful personalities such as John L. Sullivan, Theodore Roosevelt, and Mike Donovan represented the more gentlemanly aspects of boxing among high society, racial diversity in the squared arena was virtually nonexistent. Jack Johnson represented the destruction of this color barrier. Born in Galveston, Texas, Johnson remained a relatively obscure figure in American sporting culture until the first decade of the twentieth century. After realizing that his large size limited his abilities as a horse jockey, Johnson turned to boxing, even though post-Civil War segregation laws forbade African American participation in sporting events with whites. He relied on work as a janitor and a sparring partner for most of his income, and in the process he gained a formidable reputation in the Texas boxing community. By 1901 he had decided to leave Galveston for a professional career as a boxer. For the next several years, Johnson won fights against fellow African American boxers and lesser-known white pugilists, although the widespread racial prejudices of the time meant that most white heavyweight champions and contenders avoided Johnson and other African American fighters.
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Locale: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Categories: Sports; social issues and reform
Born in Ontario, Canada, Noah Brusso also came from a poverty-stricken background and held several jobs before deciding on a boxing career. He changed his name to Tommy Burns in order to keep his mother from reexperiencing the embarrassment she felt after her son had brutally pummeled an opponent. In 1906, Burns was crowned the heavyweight champion of the world after the retirement of James Jackson Jeffries in 1905. Jeffries had quit the sport because of declining revenues and the growing movement bent on outlawing prizefighting. Burns tried to avoid fighting Johnson: He fought matches with white opponents and went abroad to defend his title in England, Ireland, France, and Australia. Johnson followed, fighting several matches in England and pressuring boxing officials to schedule a championship match with Burns. Burns’s demand of thirty thousand dollars to fight Johnson was one of the major stumbling blocks, but eventually a fight promoter in Australia agreed to the price. In contrast, Johnson was to be paid five thousand dollars, a sum he grudgingly accepted. As in the United States, racial divisions and discriminatory practices were common in Australia, and the prefight news coverage was replete with racial slurs against Johnson. Controversy surrounded the match from both sides; one of the biggest arguments was over who would serve as referee, especially given that the fight was to be filmed (an attempt to garner additional revenue). Although the fight was scheduled for 11:00 a.m., huge crowds amassed as early as 6:00 a.m. to witness the spectacle at Rushcutter’s Bay in Sydney. Sports enthusiasts and gamblers placed odds in Burns’s favor. Entering the ring first to a round of racial insults, Johnson appeared in his familiar faded gray robe and boxing attire; he remained cool and only smiled in response to the venomous verbal abuse. The champion, by contrast, came to the ring in a blue suit, which he removed and placed delicately in a suitcase. Johnson extended his hand to Burns, but the latter refused to shake it. As the men stood face-to-face in the ring, issues regarding bandaged elbows and other potential illegalities immediately arose. However, after consultation with the officials, the match began at 11:07 a.m. Despite the prefight controversies and troubles, the contest was clearly a mismatch. Johnson, who towered over his opponent, dominated the fight, and Burns was
First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion knocked down several times. Johnson clearly wanted to punish and humiliate Burns, who was confident in his abilities to defeat his African American opponent. Each player taunted the other throughout the rounds; Burns levied some especially vulgar slurs. Burns, a white supremacist, believed that black fighters had weaker stomachs, less endurance, and smaller brains than white fighters. At the time, “scientific” theories of race and physicality reinforced Burns’s beliefs, and many people thought that Burns’s racial heritage would help guarantee his victory. In the first round, Burns immediately charged toward Johnson, who delivered a right uppercut, his best punch,
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Jack Johnson. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and put Burns on the mat for an eight count. Throughout the match, Johnson toyed with Burns, landed punches at will, and refrained from scoring an early knockout. As a result, Johnson proved himself to be the more adept and skilled fighter. By the end of the second round, Burns’s right eye was visibly swollen and his mouth was bleeding profusely. During the middle rounds, Johnson continued to punish Burns, whose blood began to cover his shoulders and the ring’s canvas. Spectators began calling for the contest to end in the thirteenth round, and police entered the ring to stop the fight. However, protests from Burns convinced the referee to let the fight continue. In the fourteenth round, Johnson continued his vicious onslaught, and the police once again entered the ring. This time, the referee stopped the fight—over Burns’s desperate cries of protest—because the bloody, battered Burns could no longer defend himself against Johnson’s brutal assault. With approximately twenty thousand people in attendance and tens of thousands outside the arena, spectators could not believe what had happened—an African American had won the world heavyweight championship. Reporting for the New York Herald, noted author Jack London expressed his disdain for Johnson’s victory and called for the return of James Jeffries, who London said could return the crown to the white race. Like most of his contemporaries, London accepted pseudoscientific notions of white supremacy and believed that Johnson’s victory was a great stain on the history of the white race. London’s disgust and his cry for Jeffries to return to the ring began the quest for the “Great White Hope”: a boxer who would defeat Johnson and restore boxing’s title and prestige to white men. Significance The heavyweight championship fight between Johnson and Burns challenged theories about racial superiority and helped break the color line in boxing, especially in championship bouts. African Americans heralded Johnson’s victory, which increased black pride, threatened theories of white supremacy, and forever altered the racial makeup of the sporting world. The Johnson victory also led to a renewed interest in prizefighting as some boxing fans hoped for a white heavyweight champion. After numerous challenges from white contenders, including a devastating victory over Jeffries in 1910, Johnson lost the heavyweight title in 1915 to Jess Willard—who was younger, bigger, and white—in round twenty-six of a contest in Havana, Cuba. —Nathan Wilson and Raymond Wilson
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Ward, Geoffrey C. Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Popular biography published to accompany a PBS documentary on Johnson’s life. Provides analysis of the fight and its significance. See also: July 1, 1903: First Tour de France; Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; May 5July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth; Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf; Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics.
December 28, 1908
Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily More than one hundred thousand lives were lost and the cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria, along with many villages, were destroyed by one of Europe’s deadliest earthquakes and the tsunami that followed. The rescue effort and aftermath of the disaster attracted worldwide attention. Locale: Messina, Sicily, and Reggio Calabria, Italy Categories: Disasters; science and technology; earth science Key Figures Francesco Mazza (fl. early twentieth century), military governor of the disaster area Giuseppe Micheli (fl. early twentieth century), parliamentary deputy who administered the relief effort Luigi Barzini, Sr. (1874-1947), one of Italy’s most distinguished journalists Arthur S. Cheney (d. 1908), American consul at Messina who was killed in the earthquake Summary of Event On December 28, 1908, at 5:20 a.m., an earthquake that would have measured a magnitude 7.5 on the modern Richter scale struck both coasts of the Strait of Messina, wreaking havoc on the Sicilian city of Messina and on the southern Italian town of Reggio Calabria. At that hour, most of the city’s inhabitants were indoors in their beds, and many were immediately killed by falling walls and buildings. Those who survived the initial tremor ran out into freezing rain in their nightclothes. Ten minutes
after the earthquake, a tsunami, or tidal wave, engulfed the lower part of both cities and destroyed many coastal villages. In Messina, the quake and tsunami were followed by fires. The losses from the disaster were enormous. Figures are varied and imprecise, mainly because most of the local records were destroyed, but estimates of deaths range from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand. Messina, Reggio Calabria, and the surrounding villages and towns were almost totally destroyed. Half the towns’ inhabitants were killed, and 95 percent of the buildings were destroyed or unusable. Infrastructure and communications systems were destroyed, and government and law enforcement were nonexistent, since most of the officials had been killed. The American consul, Arthur S. Cheney, and his wife died in their bed, buried under thirty-five feet of rubble. Their bodies were recovered eighteen days after the disaster. Relief was slow to come to the destroyed cities and their survivors. Many died of suffocation while trapped inside collapsed buildings and under rubble. Others lacked food, water, and clothing and died of injuries, starvation, or disease. Ships anchored in Messina’s harbor provided the first relief, evacuating the first of those rescued to Catania, Palermo, and Naples. When news reached the rest of the world, ships from England, the United States, and Russia sailed for Messina with medical supplies, food, and clothing. King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena of Italy arrived within days from Rome and worked among the ruins, digging for trapped survivors and distributing food. 721
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Further Reading Hietala, Thomas R. The Fight of the Century: Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. Places the fight between Johnson and Burns in the larger historical context of American race relations in the twentieth century and the emerging Civil Rights movement. Roberts, Randy. Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes. New York: Free Press, 1983. The standard historical biography of Jack Johnson. Contains excellent coverage of the 1908 championship fight and the continuing search for the “Great White Hope.”
Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily
Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily The Italian government declared martial law under the command of Lieutenant General Francesco Mazza. In an effort to stop looting and the spread of disease, Mazza ordered evacuation of survivors who were still searching for trapped loved ones or digging out their homes. Both looters and frightened, grief-crazed survivors were ordered shot or arrested. The government and military were criticized for the long delay in sending ships and were charged with heartlessness and incompetence. At the same time, however, many acts of selflessness and heroism were recognized. As supply and hospital ships began to arrive, media reports galvanized public response to the apparent collapse of civilization and social order caused by the devastation. Urgent short-term needs included help in burying the dead and medical supplies and food for the survivors. The International Red Cross, the U.S. and British navies, private charities, and private individuals (including diplomats and doctors) rushed to Messina and Reggio to help evacuate the survivors, bury the tens of thousands of dead who lay in the streets, and clear the rubble. Journalists sent back detailed reports to newspapers in Italy and around the world. Luigi Barzini, Sr., of the Milan daily Corriere della sera was one of the most famous roving correspondents in Italy at the time. Stationed on a ship anchored in Messina harbor, he wrote daily columns describing the aftermath of the disaster, the responses of individuals and the military officials, and the stench of the unburied dead. Images of the disaster—particularly those of the ruined streets of Messina—were reprinted for several weeks in newspapers, rapidly produced books, and documentary films. The world was horrified by the sight of the crazed survivors and of the rotting dead. Grief and mourning were widespread in the United States as well as in Italy; many members of the Italian immigrant population in the United States came from Sicily and southern Italy. Shelter for the survivors and those who came to their aid was needed urgently needed, but order and organization came at a slow pace. Giuseppe Micheli, a parliamentary deputy from Parma, set up a tent city with funds from a bank in Parma. Eventually, the tent city included a church, a post office, an infirmary, a records office, and a printing press, and it acted as a distribution center for food and supplies. Micheli worked with General Mazza to administer permits to survivors so that they could search for belongings and the dead, and Micheli was able to use his influence with the general to improve conditions and distribution of rations. Mazza was criticized for his inhumanity, but Micheli was admired by the population. 722
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The cities of Messina and Reggio were plagued by fears of contagion and infection from the thousands of unburied dead. Few inhabitants remained: Many survivors were sent by ship to other Italian cities and to the United States. The region’s economy was destroyed, and there was talk of razing and abandoning the cities. The Italian bureaucracy was slow to respond to the crisis, and major efforts to clear the rubble did not begin until May, 1909. As the international relief effort got under way, tents were replaced with wooden shelters. Help came from groups such as the American Village, which was funded and staffed by Americans living in Italy, by the U.S. Navy, and by the diplomatic corps. In April, 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt visited Messina to give moral support and to view the progress of the relief effort. Queen Elena supported another such model village, Villaggio Regina Elena. Massive long-term efforts were needed to rebuild the region. Gradually, new regulations for earthquake-proof building were formulated, and rebuilding became the driving force behind the area’s economy. For decades, politicians fought over control of reconstruction funds while Messina and Reggio remained full of destroyed buildings and temporary wooden huts. Some important government buildings were not rebuilt until the 1920’s. Significance By the early twentieth century, the importance of the newspaper correspondent as a personality had become firmly established in the Italian popular press. Barzini and others were striking examples of correspondents who provided personal reactions that were avidly read by the public. In Messina, these journalists found a rich mine of material and images that gave the impression that the social order had collapsed in the disaster area. The media shaped public reaction, and the disaster’s aftermath became a national and international drama. As a result, the relief effort was vast and significant on an individual as well as an international level. In addition, the devastation in Sicily and southern Italy and the collapse of the regional economy increased emigration to other European cities, South America, and the United States. — Susan Butterworth Further Reading Dickie, John, John Foot, and Frank M. Snowden, eds. Disastro! Disasters in Italy Since 1860: Culture, Politics, Society. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Sociological and political study of the impact of disasters on Italy’s modern history. Includes a comprehensive and informative chapter on the 1908 earthquake.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Elliott, Maud Howe. Sicily in Shadow and in Sun: The Earthquake and the American Relief Work. Boston: Little, Brown, 1910. Firsthand account of an American living in Rome at the time of the disaster who traveled to Sicily to help in the relief effort. Includes photographs and drawings. Miller, J. Martin. The Complete Story of the Italian Earthquake Horror. Chicago: J. T. Moss, 1909. Illus-
First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine trated contemporary narrative of the disaster and its aftermath. Journalistic style, descriptions, and interviews with survivors reflect the interest this event held for the reading public of the time. See also: Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake; Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength.
1909
First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine Partly inspired by the writings of Theodor Herzl, Jewish pioneers established the first permanent settlement, known as a kvutza or kibbutz, at Deganya, near Hadera, in what was then Palestine. Most of the settlers came from Russia, and early settlements represented collectives modeled on a socialist system.
Key Figures Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), Jewish writer who proposed the formation of a Jewish state Arthur Ruppin (1876-1943), director of the Palestine Land Development Corporation Aaron David Gordon (1856-1922), mentor of the Zionist labor movement Joseph Bussel (1891-1919), Zionist pioneer who developed the idea of the kibbutz Summary of Event Modern immigration of Eastern European Jews to Palestine was spurred by pogroms and Russian anti-Semitism in the 1880’s and 1890’s. During this period, around fifty thousand people—most of whom knew very little about farming—established a dozen communities in Palestine. These people were part of the Zionist movement, which was based on the concept of the Jewish people’s return to their ancestral home. The movement originated in the work of several early nineteenth century writers, but it was the Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl who brought these ideas to fruition. As a young man, Herzl believed that religious and racial prejudice would gradually disappear, but several later events convinced him otherwise. The late nine-
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Locale: Deganya, Galilee, Palestine (now Israel) Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; colonialism and occupation; government and politics
teenth century rise of nationalism was accompanied by waves of anti-Semitism, and one of Herzl’s friends committed suicide as a result of this discrimination. Herzl gradually came to the conclusion that assimilation was impossible and that only the establishment of a Jewish homeland could solve the problem. In 1896, Herzl penned Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896), a pamphlet in which he argued for a return to the ancestral homeland of Zion. That year he convened the First Zionist Congress, which gave rise to the formation of the World Zionist Organization. Herzl died eight years later at age forty-four, but his dream continued among a majority of his followers, who called themselves Zionists. Herzl favored the outright purchase of land in Palestine, which was then ruled by the Turks as part of the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) was founded in December, 1901, during the Fifth National Congress at Basle, Switzerland. Fund members quickly planned to purchase land in both Palestine and Syria. From 1902 to 1907, the JNF was administered in Vienna, and it was during this period that the most recognizable fund-raising mechanisms were established: JNF labels were issued, the blue collection box was created (this symbol continued to be used into the twenty-first century), and the organization began to record large donations in a “Golden Book.” In 1904, the JNF purchased its first tract of land, at Kefar Hittim in the Lower Galilee, and in 1908 and 1909 the organization bought land for the settlements of Ben Shemen, Hildah, and Deganya. The wave of immigration into Palestine took place primarily in the period 1904-1914 and became known as the Second Aliyah. The movement was inspired by several writers and pioneers, including Aaron David Gordon and Joseph Bussel. Gordon, a writer and a leader of the Zionist labor movement, emphasized that selfrealization could come from land settlement. In 1904, he
First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine
The Jewish Question The publication of Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (1896; The Jewish State, 1896), in which he proposed the creation of a Jewish state, made the author the leading spokesperson for the Zionist movement. In this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Jewish State, Herzl lays out his plan: The whole plan is in its essence perfectly simple, as it must necessarily be if it is to come within the comprehension of all. Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves. The creation of a new State is neither ridiculous nor impossible. We have in our day witnessed the process in connection with nations which were not largely members of the middle class, but poorer, less educated, and consequently weaker than ourselves. The Governments of all countries scourged by Anti-Semitism will be keenly interested in assisting us to obtain the sovereignty we want. The plan, simple in design, but complicated in execution, will be carried out by two agencies: The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company. The Society of Jews will do the preparatory work in the domains of science and politics, which the Jewish Company will afterwards apply practically. The Jewish Company will be the liquidating agent of the business interests of departing Jews, and will organize commerce and trade in the new country. We must not imagine the departure of the Jews to be a sudden one. It will be gradual, continuous, and will cover many decades. The poorest will go first to cultivate the soil. In accordance with a preconceived plan, they will construct roads, bridges, railways and telegraph installations; regulate rivers; and build their own dwellings; their labor will create trade, trade will create markets and markets will attract new settlers, for every man will go voluntarily, at his own expense and his own risk. The labor expended on the land will enhance its value, and the Jews will soon perceive that a new and permanent sphere of operation is opening here for that spirit of enterprise which has heretofore met only with hatred and obloquy. If we wish to found a State today, we shall not do it in the way which would have been the only possible one a thousand years ago. It is foolish to revert to old stages of civilization, as many Zionists would like to do. Supposing, for example, we were obliged to clear a country of wild beasts, we should not set about the task in the fashion of Europeans of the fifth century. We should not take spear and lance and go out singly in pursuit of bears; we would organize a large and active hunting party, drive the animals together, and throw a melinite bomb into their midst. If we wish to conduct building operations, we shall not plant a mass of stakes and piles on the shore of a lake, but we shall build as men build now. Indeed, we shall build in a bolder and more stately style than was ever adopted before, for we now possess means which men never yet possessed. Source: Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, translated by Sylvie D’Avigdor (New York: American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 came to Palestine to till the land, even though he had never farmed before. Bussel came to Palestine in 1908 from Russia, where he had been one of the cocreators of the idea of the kvutza (kibbutz). He also helped establish the settlement at Kinneret, where the concept of the independent agricultural collective began. Kinneret had been among the first holdings acquired by the JNF. In 1908, Arthur Ruppin, the JNF’s director of land acquisition, established a training farm there for Jewish laborers. Administrators, however, regarded the workers simply as wage earners and argued that it would be cheaper to hire Arab laborers. In response, the Jewish workers began a strike. Eager to test whether a collectivist settlement was practical—or even possible—Ruppin purchased some 1,200 dunam (approximately 13,000 square feet) of land near the shores of Lake Galilee. The initial attempt was less than successful, as workers developed malaria and suffered under the intense heat. In 1909, Ruppin sent seven additional workers east of the nearby Jordan River, where they established a 75acre settlement in the area known as UmJuni. Bussel named this settlement Deganya, which means “God’s corn.” The first workers were paid a monthly salary of forty-five francs each, and they shared half of any profit earned by the settlement. In 1909, Deganya had a profit of four thousand francs. The next year, a second small group replaced the previous group of workers, and each worker was paid fifty francs a month. Initially, Deganya was governed by a principle of cooperative labor, but the founders’ socialist backgrounds led to the evolution of a communal system—the first kibbutz—in which everything was shared equally. While men cultivated the land, women shared duties such as taking care of the animals, cooking, and child care. The population of the kibbutz doubled over the next two years, and permanent housing replaced the original huts. By 1911, the harvest proved successful, and kibbutz members were able to purchase additional livestock as well as land. After the community at
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Deganya proved its viability, other settlers purchased land using JNF funds. By 1914, fourteen similar collectives had been established, and they all operated on the principle that members shared ownership of the land.
Further Reading Ben-Gurion, David. The Jews in Their Land. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. History of Israel from biblical to modern times, written by one of the founders of the state. Includes numerous photographs and maps. Gavron, Daniel. The Kibbutz. Boston: Brown & Littlefield, 2000. Describes both the theory and the difficulties associated with establishment and maintenance of kibbutzim, particularly the challenges associated with attempts to keep youth on the farms. Gilbert, Martin. Israel: A History. New York: William Morrow, 1998. Sir Martin Gilbert is considered among the outstanding historians of our times, and in this book he gives an excellent description of the events that created the state of Israel. Near, Henry. Origins and Growth, 1909-1939 . Vol. 1 in The Kibbutz Movement: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Covers the origins of the kibbutz and the roles played by Russian socialists that resulted in the collective farms. Sachar, Howard. A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. Considered one of the authoritative twentieth century works on the subject. Significant emphasis is placed upon the work of Theodor Herzl and the evolution of Zionism. See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews.
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Significance The kibbutz was clearly based on a socialist model, which was not surprising given the founders’ European origins. For decades prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, most Jewish immigrants to Palestine came to live at kibbutzim. In addition to the sense of camaraderie that life on the settlement fostered, farm life inspired a connection between residents and the land on which they worked. This affinity would prove crucial during later years, as regional boundaries were drawn and redrawn, and kibbutzim became a central element of the labor movement in the growing region. In the beginning of the twentieth century, Palestine was an undeveloped, primarily arid land with few population centers. Survival necessitated the ability to grow one’s own food, and it was not a coincidence that the first settlers at Deganya were farmers. The survival of Deganya demonstrated that Zionism was practical and that the kibbutz was a viable concept. Fleeing from persecution in Russia and other Eastern European countries, immigrants came by the thousands, and many of them wanted to establish socialist communities. Some flocked to the kibbutzim, but most settled in the first towns established in the region in two thousand years. Gradually, the romance of the kibbutz faded; after the establishment of Israel in 1948, immigration moved toward the cities, and fewer young people chose to remain on the farms. — Richard Adler
First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine
Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1909
Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype” Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen helped found the science of genetics with his creation and experimental support for the concepts of the gene, genotype, and phenotype. Locale: Copenhagen, Denmark Categories: Science and technology; biology; genetics Key Figures Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen (1857-1927), Danish plant physiologist and chemist Herbert Spencer Jennings (1868-1947), American zoologist Raymond Pearl (1879-1940), American geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945), American embryologist and geneticist Summary of Event Natural selection, one of the mechanisms for evolutionary change, was first formulated by Charles Darwin in 1859 in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin described a process in which certain individual organisms are better able to survive and reproduce offspring relative to other individual organisms because of inherited differences. Over time, the inherited properties of a population change gradually and continuously, and sometimes the changes lead to a new population of organisms (speciation). Darwin also tried to account for the origins of inherited differences with his concept of “provisional hypothesis of pangenesis,” featured in a chapter in The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868). He integrated a variety of ideas into his theory and believed that environment sometimes could directly influence the inherited characteristics passed to offspring (soft inheritance). Not even some of Darwin’s strongest supporters, such as the biologists Thomas Henry Huxley and August Weismann or the biostatistician Francis Galton, accepted all the parts of his theory. Weismann was a strong supporter of natural selection but rejected soft inheritance. He believed in the continuity of the “germ plasm,” which was separated from the body (soma). Galton also argued that the inherited properties, or “stirps,” were passed from generation to generation with little change. Both Galton and Huxley questioned Darwin’s emphasis on small, heritable differences and continuous change. 726
They argued instead for selection of “sports,” or mutations, and believed that evolution proceeds through rapid, discontinuous jumps. Galton also developed the “law of filial regression,” in which offspring tend to exhibit the average of the race or type to which they belong rather than the average of their parents for quantitative characteristics such as height. Thus two very short parents would tend to have taller children. The rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s theory of heredity in 1900 only exacerbated the disputes. Karl Pearson and Walter Weldon, founders of the biometrical school, considered themselves to be followers of Galton but rejected Galton’s belief in discontinuous evolution. They sided with Darwin in favor of natural selection of small, heritable variations and rejected Mendel’s theory. Early Mendel supporters opposed the biometricians and argued that evolution proceeds by discontinuous leaps. The Mendelians believed that differences in continuous traits are too small to generate sufficient selection pressure to cause evolutionary change. Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen played a significant role in helping to bridge the gap between the opposing camps. Johannsen was trained as a pharmacist and attended lectures in botany at the University of Copenhagen but never obtained a degree. In 1881, he joined the chemistry department of the newly established Carlsberg laboratory. He resigned his post in 1887 but continued his research there and discovered a method of reviving dormant winter buds. The success of this discovery helped him gain a position as lecturer in botany and plant physiology at the Copenhagen Agricultural College in 1892. Johannsen was affected profoundly by Galton’s work on heredity and was influenced also by Darwin’s writings on natural selection. He decided to try to distinguish between Galton’s ideas on selection, which had been experimentally supported by the plant physiologist Hugo de Vries, and Darwin’s theory of natural selection, as defended by Pearson and Weldon. De Vries considered selection to be ineffective, whereas Pearson and Weldon believed selection to be a continuous force for population change. Unlike his predecessors, Johannsen chose for his experiments a species that reproduces by self-fertilization, so that “pure lines” consisted of all individuals descended from a single self-fertilized individual. In the
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Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype”
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tion. Although individuals might vary for a particular autumn of 1900, Johannsen randomly selected 5,000 continuous trait within a pure line, the inherited characprincess bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) seeds. The following teristics do not vary. He coined the term “phenotype,” spring, he planted 100 of the seeds that were of average defining it as the statistical average of the environmenweight relative to the total of 5,000. He also planted 25 tally influenced variable appearances of individuals. each of the smallest and the largest seeds by weight. AfJohannsen also recognized a need to characterize the ter the fall harvest, he discovered that, whether described inherited properties of an organism. The nature of the inin terms of the original groups (25 small, 100 average, 25 herited material was controversial. Physicalists such as large) or as a combined total of 150, he got normal distriJohannsen wanted to interpret biological processes in butions. When he then reclassified the groups of large terms of forces. They rejected any efforts to tie Mendeland small beans according to the average weight of their ian segregation patterns to cytologists’ discoveries about own offspring, however, he discovered that selection had chromosomes and cellular division. Embryologists faresulted in larger and smaller average weights, respecvored a corpuscular inherited factor. De Vries called the tively, when compared with the average for the original inherited units either factors or pangens, after Darwin. total population. Later, in 1902, he applied selection to Johannsen borrowed from de Vries and coined the term the offspring of a single plant and found no change in av“gene” as a unit of calculation or accounting. He wanted erage values. This indicated that selection on pure lines had no effect. Johannsen presented the findings from his three years of experiments at the meeting of the Royal Danish Scientific Society on February 6, 1903, and published an article in both Danish and German in the same year. Johannsen described his views on the evolutionary process in his book titled Om arvelighed og variabilitet (on heredity and variation). An extended version of that book, retitled Arvelighedslaerens elementer (the elements of heredity), was published in 1905. In 1906, Johannsen presented a paper at the Third International Conference on Genetics in which he extended his conclusions to hybridized lines on the basis of one incomplete experiment. In 1908, Herbert Spencer Jennings at Harvard and Raymond Pearl at the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station conducted pure-line studies on the microorganism Paramecium and in fowls, respectively. Although the researchers’ conclusions were partly erroneous, both sets of experiments were considered to provide support for Johannsen’s pure-line theory. Johannsen then wrote an even larger version of his textbook in German and published it in 1909 under the title Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre (elements of an exact theory of heredity). He provided many statistical analyses of quantitative traits and discussed his experimental work. He noted how general Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen (left) with English geneticist William Bateson in populations represent mixtures of many pure 1924. (Courtesy, California Institute of Technology) lines, each with a different inherited constitu-
Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype” a term unconnected to any of the contemporary theories about its nature, and, as Frederick B. Churchill has noted, he used the term “gene” as if it referred to a chemical or physiological process rather than a thing. Johannsen then discussed the relationship of phenotypic and genotypic differences in terms of populations. The term “genotype” in this context refers to the inherited differences among pure lines. Johannsen did not distinguish between transmission of traits and their development, nor did he apply his genotype-phenotype distinction to individuals. Significance Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre was the first and most influential textbook of genetics on the European continent. In it, Johannsen introduced the new science and defined its key concepts. Although there were a few critics of his pure-line work, most geneticists in 1910 accepted his theory and rejected any significant role for natural selection in the evolutionary process. From 1908 to 1911, however, while Johannsen, Jennings, and Pearl were criticizing Darwinian selection, three sets of experiments were performed that helped to bring the work of Darwin and that of Mendel into harmony. First, the geneticist William E. Castle experimentally demonstrated the action of selection. Second, Edward Murray East and Herman Nilsson-Ehle showed how Mendelism accounted for continuous variation and apparent blending in the offspring of parental traits. (East also noted that Johannsen’s genotype-phenotype distinction was essentially a later version of Weismann’s somatoplasm-germplasm dichotomy.) Finally, experimentation by Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students with the fruit fly Drosophila showed how the Mendelian factors or genes might be tiny variations. Morgan’s group also showed how genes are carried on the chromosomes (color-staining bodies in the nucleus of cells). Morgan’s chromosome theory may have hastened the acceptance of the contemporary definitions of genotype and phenotype—that is, the distinction between the expressed and outward appearance of an individual (phenotype) and the genetic information stored in the germ plasm (genotype). In the third edition of Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre, published in 1926, Johannsen used the modern definitions of genotype and phenotype and incorporated cytological discoveries and the work of Morgan’s group. He still rejected a corpuscular gene, however. He was not alone in this; disputes about the composition of the genetic material continued until Oswald Avery, Cohn 728
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MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty showed in 1944 that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic material for almost all organisms, and James D. Watson and Francis Crick demonstrated in the 1950’s how hereditary information is encoded in the DNA. The science Johannsen helped found, genetics, has thrived. Since his discoveries, an ever-increasing number of behavioral, anatomical, and physiological traits have been shown to have inherited components. Knowing how specific traits (including genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis) are transmitted permits genetic counselors to advise couples about the risk of passing particular conditions on to any children they conceive together. By the early years of the twenty-first century, research on the molecular biology of the gene and chromosome (the genotype) had proliferated. Such research included the manipulation of the genetic material of food plants and animals in order to increase production or resistance to disease; identification of potent mutagens, particularly those affecting DNA, in the sperm or egg; and mapping of specific genes’ locations on particular chromosomes. In addition, studies concerning how traits are phenotypically expressed by organisms may eventually provide avenues through which scientists can mediate that expression—for example, by curing genetic diseases or by preventing viruses (such as the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV) from exploiting individuals’ genetic machinery to reproduce themselves. —Joan C. Stevenson Further Reading Bowler, Peter J. The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Provides details about the work and life of Johannsen and his intellectual milieu. Good bibliography. Carlson, Elof Axel. Mendel’s Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004. Based heavily on early twentieth century sources, this book traces the roots of genetics in breeding analysis and studies of cytology, evolution, and reproductive biology. Highly illustrated. Churchill, Frederick B. “William Johannsen and the Genotype Concept.” Journal of the History of Biology 7 (Spring, 1974): 5-30. An interesting analysis of Johannsen’s central ideas and the consistency in his work during two time periods: from the pure-line studies until publication of Elemente der exakten
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Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education
Erblichkeitslehre and after publication of the text’s third edition. Dunn, L. C. A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 18641939. 1965. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. A clear, very readable description of the important personalities (including Johannsen) and discoveries that contributed to the origins of the field of genetics. Bibliography includes most of Johannsen’s major works. Mayr, Ernst. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. A superb history of conceptual developments (including gene, genotype, and phenotype) and the people responsible for them by one of the great evolutionary biologists of the twentieth century. Good bibliography. Provine, William B., comp. The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics. 2d ed. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001. Excellent coverage of the “war” between the biometricians and the Mendelians. Details Johannsen’s role in that dispute. Roll-Hansen, Nils. “Drosophila Genetics: A Reductionist Research Program.” Journal of the History of Biology 11 (Spring, 1978): 159-210. Describes the philosophical and scientific biases of Morgan, his students, and his colleagues, including Johannsen. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map. 1909
1909
Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education The duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was the last German state to deny university admission to women. When it relented, the decision brought to an end a debate over higher education for women in Germany that had begun in the 1860’s. The debate and its eventual conclusion highlighted the highly gendered nature of German society and the ongoing conflict between conservative and progressive German states. Locale: Rostock, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Empire (now Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Germany) Categories: Civil rights and liberties; education; social issues and reform; women’s issues Key Figures Helene Lange (1848-1930), German writer and advocate of higher education for women Hedwig Kettler (1851-1937), German journalist, writer, and founder of the Association for the Reform of Women’s Education Louise Otto (1819-1895), German journalist, writer, and founder of the General German Women’s Association
Summary of Event After the founding of the German Empire in 1871, rapid economic development pushed single, middle-class women out of the home and into a number of kinds of jobs, with many becoming governesses or teachers in girls’ schools. To have access to higher-level occupations, they were required to have university educations. However, the nine-year secondary school, called a “gymnasium,” that prepared students for a university education was for boys only, and students had to pass the Abitur, the final exam of the gymnasium, in order to be admitted to a German university. A women’s movement for higher education arose in reaction to this situation, and, combined with a number of contributing factors, it resulted in the German educational system being opened to women on a state-by-state basis. This process was completed in 1909, when the German duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the final holdout, allowed female students to matriculate at the University of Rostock, the oldest university in northern Europe. The forerunners of the women’s campaign for higher education can be traced back to writings in the eighteenth century. On the Civil Improvement of Women, written by Theodor von Hippel in 1792, was a landmark book, and 729
Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education the General German Women’s Association, founded by Louise Otto in 1864, was the first German women’s organization to raise the issue of female students. From 1888 to the beginning of the twentieth century, the association petitioned repeatedly for female higher education. The Association for the Reform of Women’s Education, founded by Hedwig Kettler in 1888, argued for women’s admission to university study on the ground of economic opportunities for single, middle-class women. Like the other association, it regularly sent petitions to the state ministries of education and state governments on behalf of girls’ education. Helene Lange, the most famous advocate of female higher education in Germany, put the issue in a wider political context. Her pamphlet Die höhere Mädchenschule und ihre Bestimmung: Begleitschrift zu einer Petition an das preussische Unterrichtsministerium und das preussische Abgeordnetenhaus (1887; the higher girls’ school and its mission, known later as the “Yellow Brochure”) sparked public interest in female education and was often used to accompany campaign petitions. In addition to calling for general education for women, Lange proposed university-track education for those women who wished to be trained in medicine and teaching. Women’s university study met strong opposition from academics and state officials. An influential argument was based on differences between males and females. Professor of anatomy Theodor von Bischoff claimed women had smaller brains and consequently inferior intellectual ability. The presence of women at the university was also considered dangerous to the moral wellbeing of the male students. Professor of political economy Lorenz von Stein considered female emancipation as disruptive to the social order and argued that when women left the domestic sphere to enter the workplace, they would drive down male workers’ earnings. Although the validity of these arguments was challenged by professors sympathetic to the women’s movement, other arguments were difficult to dispute because German universities, as professor of law Otto Gierke declared, were institutions for men only. First, because a girls’ school did not prepare students for university study, it could not provide them with an Abitur. Universities found it impossible to accept students without an Abitur, because no equivalent standards existed. Second, since university education was tied to the job demands at all governmental levels, female graduates from universities would pose a threat to the male monopoly on government employment and the vote. Finally, the purpose of university study—to form an educated middle class— 730
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was geared toward male students only. The mission of university education, as one professor described it, was to find out if there was a man inside the student. Another professor declared universities were established for the male youth and adapted to the male mind. A number of universities allowed women to audit courses in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s. At Heidelberg, for example, women could audit with the professor’s permission after 1869. Some women audited without even official permission at Berlin in the early 1870’s. However, in 1878 the Prussian Ministry of Education allowed women to audit only after they had permission from the ministry, the university senate, the faculty, and the individual professor. As a result of this decree, most women were unable to audit courses. By the 1890’s, most universities allowed women to audit again, and only the university’s or professor’s permission was required. Heidelberg, which had banned women after 1873, allowed them to audit courses in the faculty of mathematics and natural sciences in 1891 and in the faculty of philosophy in 1895. Berlin opened its door to women in 1892; seventy women audited in the 18951896 semester. At Prussian universities, 223 women were allowed to audit in the 1896-1897 semester. The first state-controlled girls’ equivalent to the boys’ gymnasium was opened in Baden in 1894. This German state was also the first to admit female university students, in 1900. Other states followed suit: Bavaria in 1903, Wurttemberg in 1904, Saxony in 1906, Thuringia in 1907, and Prussia in 1908. The last university to admit female students, in 1909, was the University of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The duchy’s intransigence to their admission could be traced back to 1897, when a professor at Rostock defended his position on the women’s campaign for university study. Felix Lindner, professor of Romance and English philology, believed that women, due to their nature, were not fit for university study. He argued that women could not maintain a broad perspective because they paid more attention to petty things, and women could not absorb themselves as deeply in their studies as men. Since university study was established for men, women could not benefit from it. Mecklenburg-Schwerin also defended its uncompromising position in 1906, when it declared that universities not only taught facts but also trained students in masculine excellence. A couple of contributing factors aside from the pressure from women’s organizations could explain why such a state as Mecklenburg-Schwerin finally decided to admit female students. First, the long-established tradi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion of liberalism in southern German states (Baden and Wurttemberg, for example) gradually prevailed over the weakening influence of Prussian militarism in northern Germany. Second, Germans finally realized that their educational system was no longer one of the most advanced in the world, at least in terms of advancement of women’s education. In America, women had been admitted to universities since 1853; in France, since 1861; and in England, since 1878.
Further Reading Frevert, Ute. Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation. New York: Berg, 1989. Provides a synoptic account of two hundred years of women’s history in Germany and investigates the legacy of inequality between the sexes. Herminghouse, Patricia A., and Magda Mueller, eds. German Feminist Writings. New York: Continuum, 2001. Provides a selection from the spectrum of German feminist thought over the last 250 years. The writings are grouped into five clusters: art and literature, education, work, politics, and gender. Mazon, Patricia M. Gender and the Modern Research University: The Admission of Women to German Higher Education, 1865-1914. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003. Focuses on women’s long fight to be admitted to German universities, pointing out the fundamental characteristics that shaped the universities and imperial politics. See also: July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage; Sept. 11, 1915: Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament.
1909
Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra Ernst Steinitz’s studies of the algebraic theory of mathematics provided the basic solution methods for polynomial roots, initiating the methodology and domain of abstract algebra. Locale: Technical College, Breslau, Germany Category: Mathematics Key Figures Ernst Steinitz (1871-1928), German mathematician Leopold Kronecker (1823-1891), German mathematician Heinrich Weber (1842-1913), German mathematician Kurt Hensel (1861-1941), German mathematician Joseph Wedderburn (1882-1948), Scottish American mathematician Emil Artin (1898-1962), French mathematician
Summary of Event Before 1900, algebra and most other mathematical disciplines focused almost exclusively on solving specific algebraic equations, employing only real, and less frequently complex, numbers in theoretical as well as practical endeavors. One result of the several movements contributing to the so-called abstract turn in twentieth century algebra was much-increased technical economy through introduction of symbolic operations, which was accompanied by a notable increase in generality and scope. Although the axiomatic foundationalism of David Hilbert is rightly recognized as contributing the motivation and methods to this generalization by outlining how many specific algebraic operations could be reconstructed for greater applicability using new abstract 731
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Significance With its decision to admit women to its university, Mecklenburg-Schwerin brought a final success to German women’s campaign for access to higher education. German women were legally able to study at the same places and for the same degrees as men. Their presence revolutionized the old German concept of what it meant to be educated. German universities, like universities the world over, fashioned students into citizens based on a particular, culturally specific model of citizenship. Moreover, as with other universities in other nations and eras, the physical presence of people who differed from the dominant image of the citizen—then assumed to be male—represented an inherent, visible challenge to that model. Thus the admission of women to German universities questioned German assumptions about gender roles as well as the role of class in citizenship and the proper functioning of the state. — Anh Tran
Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra
Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra definitions of elementary concepts, the other “constructivist” approaches—of Henri-Léon Lebesgue, Leopold Kronecker, Heinrich Weber, and especially Ernst Steinitz—had an equally concrete impact on the redevelopment and extensions of modern algebra. Kronecker had unique convictions about how questions on the foundations of mathematics should be treated in practice. In contrast to Richard Dedekind, Georg Cantor, and especially Karl Weierstrass, Kronecker believed that every mathematical definition must be framed so as to be tested by mathematical constructional proofs involving a finite number of steps, whether or not the definitions or constructions could be seen to apply to any given quantity. In the older view, solving an algebraic equation more or less amounted only to determining its roots tangibly via some formula or numerical approximation. In Kronecker’s view, the problem of finding an algebraic solution in general was much more problematic in principle since Évariste Galois’s discoveries about (in)solvability of quartic and higher-order polynomials. For Kronecker, it required constructions of “algorithms,” which would allow computation of the roots of an algebraic equation or show why this would not be possible in any given case. The question of finding algebraic roots in general had been of fundamental import since the prior work of Galois, Niels Henrick Abel, and Carl Friedrich Gauss. In particular, these efforts led Abel and Sophus Lie to formulate the first ideas of what is now known as the “theory of groups.” Later, Dedekind introduced the concept of “field” in the context of determining the conditions under which algebraic roots can be found. Kronecker was the first to employ the idea of fields to prove one of the basic theorems of modern algebra, which guarantees the existence of solution roots for a wider class of polynomials than previously considered. The novelty of the field approach is seen from the introduction to Weber’s contemporaneous paper “Die allgemeinen Grundlagen der Galois’chen Gleichungstheorie” (the general foundations of Galois theory). Weber first proved an important theorem stated by Kronecker, which relates the field of rational numbers to socalled cyclotomic, or Abelian, groups, a subsequently important area of the development of field theory. Weber also established the notion of a “form field,” being the field of all rational functions over a given base field F, as well as the crucial notion of the extension of an algebraic field. Although the main part of Weber’s paper interprets the group of an algebraic equation as a group of permutations of the field of its algebraic coefficients, 732
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Weber’s exposition is complicated by many elaborate and incomplete definitions, as well as a premature attempt to encompass all of algebra, instead of only polynomials. In his noted 1893 textbook on algebra, Weber calls F(a) an algebraic field when a is the root of an equation with coefficients in F, equivalent to the definition given by Kronecker in terms of the “basis” set for F(a) over a. A central concern of Weber and other algebraists was that of extending the idea of absolute value, or valuation, beyond its traditional usage. For example, if F is the field of rational numbers, the ordinary absolute value |a| is the valuation. The theory of general algebraic valuations was originated by Kronecker’s student Kurt Hensel when he introduced the concept of p-adic numbers. In his paper “Über eine neue Begründung der algebraischen Zählen” (1899; on a new foundation of the algebraic numbers), Weierstrass’s method of power-series representations for normal algebraic functions led Hensel to seek an analogous concept for the newer theory of algebraic numbers. If p is a fixed rational prime number and a is a rational number not zero, then a can be expressed uniquely in the form a = (r/s) pn, where r and s are prime -n to p. If φ (a) = p , for a =/ 0, φ (a) is a valuation for the field of rational numbers. For every prime number p, there corresponds a number field, which Hensel called the padic field, where every p-adic number can be represented by a sequence. At this time, the American mathematician Joseph Wedderburn was independently considering similar problems. In 1905, he published “A Theorem on Finite Algebra,” which proved effectively that every algebra with finite division is a field and that every field with a finite number of elements is commutative under multiplication, thus further explicating the close interrelations between groups and fields. Two years after Hensel’s paper appeared, Steinitz published his major report, “Algebraische Theorie der Körper” (1909; theory of algebraic fields), which took the field concepts of Kronecker, Weber, and Hensel much further. Steinitz’s paper explicitly notes that it was principally Hensel’s discovery of p-adic numbers that motivated his research on algebraic fields. In the early twentieth century, Hensel’s p-adic numbers were considered (by the few mathematicians aware of them) to be totally new and atypical mathematical entities, whose place and status with respect to then-existing mathematics was not known. Largely as a response to the desire for a general, axiomatic, and abstract field theory into which p-adic number fields would also fit, Steinitz developed
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Significance Although Steinitz announced further investigations— including applications of algebraic field theory to geometry and the theory of functions—they were never published. Nevertheless, the import and implications of Steinitz’s paper were grasped quickly. It was soon realized that generalized algebraic concepts such as ring, group, and field are not merely formally analogous to their better-known specific counterparts in traditional algebra. In particular, it can be shown that many specific problems of multiplication and division involving polynomials can be simplified greatly by what is essentially the polynomial equivalent of the unique factorization theorem of algebra, developed directly from field theory in subsequent studies. In 1913, the concept of valuation was extended to include the field of complex numbers. An American algebraist, Leonard Dickson (1874-1957), further generalized these results to groups over arbitrary finite fields. Perhaps most notably, the French and German mathematicians Emil Artin and Otto Schreier in 1926 published a review paper that, in pointing out pathways in the future development of abstract algebra, proposed a program to include all of extant algebra in the abstract framework of Steinitz. In 1927, Artin introduced the notion of an ordered field, with the important if difficult conceptual result that mathematical order can be reduced operationally to mathematical computation. This paper also extended Steinitz’s field theory into the area of mathemati-
cal analysis, which included the first proof for one of Hilbert’s twenty-three famous problems, using the theory of real number fields. As noted by historians of mathematics, further recognition and adoption of the growing body of work around Steinitz’s original publication continued. Major texts on modern algebra, such as that published by Bartel Leendert van der Waerden in 1932, already contained substantial treatment of Steinitz’s key ideas. As later pointed out by the “structuralist” mathematicians of the French Nicolas Bourbaki group, the natural boundaries between algebra and other mathematical disciplines are not so much ones of substance or content, as of approach and method, resulting largely from the revolutionary efforts of Steinitz and others such as Emmy Noether. Thus the theory of algebraic fields after the 1960’s is most frequently presented together with the theory of rings and ideals in most textbooks. The theory of algebraic fields is not only an abstract endeavor but also, since the late 1940’s, has proven its utility in providing practical computational tools for many specific problems in geometry, number theory, the theory of codes, and data encryption and cryptology. In particular, the usefulness of algebraic field theory in the areas of polynomial factorization and combinatorics on digital computers led directly to code-solving hardware and software such as maximal-length shift registers and signature sequences, as well as error-correcting codes. Together with Noether’s theory of rings and ideals, Steinitz’s field theory is at once a major demarcation between traditional and modern theory of algebra and a strong link connecting diverse areas of contemporary pure and applied mathematics. —Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Artin, Emil. Algebraic Numbers and Algebraic Functions. 1951. Reprint. Basel, Switzerland: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1994. Discusses Artin’s work on furthering Steinitz’s field theory. Budden, F. J. The Fascination of Groups. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Represents modern efforts at elementary and intermediatelevel treatments. A unique introductory treatment of groups using numerous examples for art, geometry, and music. Dickson, Leonard E. Algebras and Their Arithmetics. 1938. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1972. Contains some of the first simplified discussions of Steinitz’s work. 733
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the first steps in laying the foundations for a general theory of algebraic fields. Steinitz constructed the roots of algebraic equations with coefficients from an arbitrary field, in much the same fashion as the rational numbers are constructable from the integers (aX = b), or the complex numbers from 2 real numbers (x = –1). In particular, Steinitz focused on the specific question of the structure of what are called inseparable extension fields, which Weber had proposed but not clarified. Many other innovative but highly technical concepts, such as perfect and imperfect fields, were also given. Perhaps most important, Steinitz’s paper sought to give a constructive definition to all prior definitions of fields, therein including the first systematic study of algebraic fields solely as “models” of field axioms. Steinitz showed that an algebraically closed field can be characterized completely by two invariant quantities: its so-called characteristic number and its transcendence degree. One of the prior field concepts was also clarified.
Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra
United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy” Kline, Morris. Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 3. 1972. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Part of a multivolume survey of developments in mathematics since its beginnings. Chapter 49 describes the emergence of abstract algebra, including Steinitz’s work. McEliece, Robert. Finite Fields for Computer Scientists
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and Engineers. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1987. Advanced text details the practical applications of the algebraic field theory. See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; 1910-1913: Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement; 1921: Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings.
1909-1913
United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy” During William Howard Taft’s presidential administration, financial intervention began to characterize U.S. foreign policy in China and the Caribbean. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; economics Key Figures Philander C. Knox (1853-1921), U.S. secretary of state, 1909-1913 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Summary of Event “Dollar diplomacy,” a term first used to characterize the foreign policy of President William Howard Taft, has since become a favorite expression of those who criticize U.S. foreign policy as being the tool of Wall Street capitalists. Such financiers, critics argue, have manipulated U.S. foreign affairs to assist them in initiating, expanding, and above all protecting their investments abroad, regardless of the impact of such intervention on the foreign governments and people involved. Although this characterization is partially correct, it does not do justice to the original concept and implementation of dollar diplomacy as conceived by the founders of the policy. Taft was unusually well prepared to manage the foreign policy of the United States in the Caribbean and Asian areas when he assumed the presidency in 1909. He had served in key diplomatic positions in these areas from 1901 to 1908. First as chairman of the Philippines Commission and then, by 1901, as civil governor of the Philippines, he had acquired valuable knowledge of the interests of the United States in Asia. When he was appointed secretary of war in 1904, he took on the duties of a roving ambassador. He had primary responsibility for 734
the Isthmian Canal Commission, which dealt with the complex and, for U.S. policy interests, critical implications for the building of the Panama Canal. He had returned to Asia in 1905 and laid the diplomatic foundation for the settlement of the Korean issue with Japan. In 1906 he was again in the Caribbean, this time in Cuba. Following the fall of the regime of Cuba’s first elected president, Tomás Estrada Palma, Taft acted as provisional governor of Cuba. The chief architects of dollar diplomacy were President Taft and his secretary of state, Philander C. Knox. Knox was a Pennsylvania lawyer sympathetic to big business but equally concerned with U.S. political and economic interests abroad. Knox and Taft believed that U.S. commerce would best be served in areas where political and economic stability reigned and that the best way to secure both was to employ U.S. capital and financial expertise where instability was the rule. U.S. intervention would be peaceful—dollars instead of bullets— and would bring benefits not only to U.S. business but also to the local populations. In 1910, Taft articulated his position and that of his administration: There is nothing inconsistent in the promotion of peaceful relations, and the promotion of trade relations, and if the protection which the United States shall assure to her citizens in the assertion of just rights under investments made in foreign countries, shall promote the amount of such trade, it is a result to be commended. To call such diplomacy “dollar diplomacy” . . . is to ignore entirely a most useful office to be performed by a government in its dealings with foreign governments.
Knox echoed the president’s views. He declared, “The problem of good government is inextricably interwoven with that of economic prosperity and sound finance; financial stability contributes perhaps more than any other one factor to political stability.”
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1909
The Taft administration employed dollar diplomacy in two areas: the Caribbean and China. In the Caribbean, Taft and Knox adopted as their model the program instituted by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration in the Dominican Republic. Because of the political disorder of that state and the fear of foreign intervention in its affairs, in 1905 Roosevelt had negotiated an arrangement by which the Dominican government secured a loan from U.S. banks to pay off its outstanding debts. In exchange for the loan, the U.S. president was allowed to appoint the head of the customs service, which, as in all Caribbean states, was the chief source of government revenue. This arrangement seemed to work perfectly. After the United States took over the collection of customs revenue, the Dominican Republic enjoyed a period of internal peace and financial solvency that lasted through most of the Taft administration. Taking their cue from the success of the Dominican experiment, Taft and Knox applied the same principles to Nicaragua in what is regarded as the best example of dollar diplomacy at work. After supporting the overthrow of the powerful dictator José Santos Zelaya in 1909, the administration sent its veteran troubleshooter Thomas C. Dawson to Nicaragua to assist the new government in restoring order. Dawson secured the adoption of a plan to install a U.S. collector of customs and float a loan by New York bankers with the tacit guarantee of the U.S. government. Although the U.S. Senate repeatedly refused to consent to the ratification of this accord, Taft appointed a collector of customs by executive order, and the New York bankers made several loans, taking as additional security a controlling interest in the Nicaraguan National Bank and the state railways. Despite these efforts to establish financial stability, however, in 1912 the majority political party of Nicaragua staged a revolt against the U.S.-supported president, Adolfo Díaz, and the Taft administration reacted by sending warships and Marines to keep Díaz in power. Dollars and bullets, rather than dollars only, were needed to ensure order in Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan experience showed that, although Taft and Knox had sincerely believed that financial stability would ensure political stability in the Caribbean, they had held overly simple expectations of Latin American political behavior; they had assumed that ending unrest would be merely a matter of retiring debts and balancing budgets. Political rivalries, struggles for prestige
United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy”
William Howard Taft. (Library of Congress)
and power, social inequalities, and resentment of U.S. intervention undermined the administration’s policy from the beginning. Even the model case of dollar diplomacy, in the Dominican Republic, had achieved stability not because of U.S. policy but because of an able president, Ramón Cáceras, whose murder unleashed a new wave of unrest that ended only in 1916 with the occupation of the capital city and other centers by U.S. Marines. The other area that felt the effects of dollar diplomacy was China, but the Chinese situation was quite different from that of the Caribbean. Not only was active competition with other Great Powers more evident, but also the other foreign powers had far more influence in China 735
United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy” than did the United States. In addition, Far Eastern policy in the United States under Roosevelt had depended on good relations with Japan, whose friendship was regarded as necessary to protect the newly acquired Philippines as a U.S. possession. Dollar diplomacy in China constituted reversing this policy by seeking advantages in competition rather than through cooperation with Japan. Significance The Taft-Knox method of increasing U.S. influence in China focused on pumping U.S. capital into that country. The tactics never changed. The administration demanded the admission of U.S. banking groups, on terms of equal participation with other powers, into every foreign loan floated by China; where the demand for funds was lacking, the administration sought to inspire it artificially. In the case of China, however, the New York financiers on whom the administration relied for the actual investments lacked both the interest and the accumulation of capital to provide loans of the size demanded. To raise the money, U.S. banks had to rely on loans they had floated in the money markets of England and France. This practice in many ways defeated the whole purpose of the U.S. investment in China. In fact, dollar diplomacy in China did not mean pressure of capitalists on the government to protect their investments abroad, but pressure of the government on the capitalists to invest in an area where the administration believed future U.S. political and economic interests would be at stake. Because of the difficulty in securing U.S. funds and the opposition posed by the other major foreign powers, the Taft administration abandoned its aggressive financial policies in China in 1912 and reverted to the more moderate “open door” approach of earlier administrations. Dollar diplomacy was by no means as successful as some of its promoters claimed or as sinister as some of its critics have portrayed it. However, in addition to promoting stability in some parts of the world, this form of foreign policy did much to cast the United States in the role of an imperialistic power in the era prior to World War I. —Karl A. Roider and Ann Thompson Further Reading Anderson, Donald F. William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973. Avaluable addition to earlier works because the author had access to the Taft
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 papers, which were opened to scholars and the public in 1960. Burton, David H. William Howard Taft: Confident Peacemaker. Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press, 2005. Focuses on Taft’s foreign policy ideas and initiatives throughout his entire career as a statesman, including his experiments with dollar diplomacy. Coletta, Paolo E. The Presidency of William Howard Taft. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1973. Includes an informative chapter on dollar diplomacy. Haley, P. Edward. Revolution and Intervention: The Diplomacy of Taft and Wilson with Mexico, 1910-1917. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970. This book’s introduction gives a clear, direct description of the motivation for and scope of dollar diplomacy. Minger, Ralph Eldine. William Howard Taft and United States Foreign Policy: The Apprenticeship Years, 1900-1908. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975. Discusses Taft’s public service record, especially his diplomatic appointments in Latin America and Asia immediately before he became president. Munro, Dana G. Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900-1921. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. One of the most complete and comprehensive treatments of dollar diplomacy available. Pringle, Henry F. The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography. 2 vols. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939. The definitive biography of Taft. Chapter 35, in volume 2, discusses dollar diplomacy. Rosenberg, Emily S. Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy, 1900-1930. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004. Examines the scope and significance of dollar diplomacy in early twentieth century U.S. foreign policy. Addresses the controversies surrounding the policy, including arguments that it fostered exploitation of other nations. Scholes, Walter V., and Marie V. Scholes. The Foreign Policies of the Taft Administration. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1970. Provides detail on the policy of dollar diplomacy in Asia and the Caribbean. See also: Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency; Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy; Aug. 4-Nov., 1912: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”
1909-1929
Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford rose from anonymity to become “America’s Sweetheart,” Hollywood’s most famous and influential female star of the silent-film era. Locale: United States Category: Motion pictures
Summary of Event Mary Pickford’s meteoric rise to the position of “America’s Sweetheart” is one of the great sagas of the freewheeling boom years of the silent-film era. Although a relatively brief period, spanning the years 1896 to 1927, this tumultuous time witnessed the rapid rise of the motion picture from the lowly status of a flickering, vaudeville novelty to a position at the center of a major American industry. The baby girl the world would soon know as Mary Pickford was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 8, 1892, as Gladys Louise Smith. Young Gladys became her family’s principal breadwinner at the age of five, when an acquaintance of Charlotte Smith, the girl’s widowed twenty-four-year-old mother, suggested putting Gladys, her younger sister, Lottie, and her younger brother, Jack, on stage as a means of staving off poverty. In spite of the young mother’s initial concerns about the theater’s unsavory reputation, desperation drove her to take Gladys to an audition. On September 19, 1898, the diminutive Gladys made her theatrical debut with the Cummings Stock Company at Toronto’s Princess Theatre. Her compensation, eight dollars a week for six evening performances and two matinees, was sufficient to turn Charlotte into one of the era’s most calculating stage mothers and young Gladys into an ambitious, stagestruck child actor. During the next decade, the Smiths barnstormed through North America in a variety of traveling theatrical troupes. For
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Key Figures Mary Pickford (1892-1979), American film actor and producer David Belasco (1853-1931), American playwright and entrepreneur Charles Chaplin (1889-1977), English film actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (1883-1939), American film actor D. W. Griffith (1875-1948), American film director Adolph Zukor (1873-1976), American film company executive
Gladys, the Smiths’ main source of support, Broadway loomed as the big prize, the goal that, once achieved, would bring unqualified professional and economic success. After the Smiths spent the summer of 1906 trying to arrange an interview with David Belasco, then Broadway’s most flamboyant and prestigious entrepreneur, Belasco finally consented to hear Gladys read. The fourteen-year-old’s straightforward yet winsome manner won over the impresario, who hired her. Belasco found the name Gladys Louise Smith unappealing, however; so, too, did Gladys. Belasco, after hearing the youngster run through a list of family names, selected Pickford; when they got to first names, Gladys offered Marie, which she had wanted to use in place of Louise. The master showman quickly changed Marie to Mary, and Mary Pickford was born. After her rechristening, the excited girl sent a telegram to her mother in Toronto: “Gladys smith now mary pickford engaged by david belasco to appear on broadway this fall.” In 1909, at the age of sixteen, Pickford sought to supplement her stage earnings with a bit of film work. Although motion pictures were regarded as an artistically inferior medium, they nevertheless offered a bit of easy money for an actor. Therefore, when Pickford auditioned for D. W. Griffith, the principal director at Biograph Studios, it was essentially a matter of financial necessity rather than artistic compulsion. Indeed, at the time, Griffith still harbored dreams of becoming a successful playwright. That these two cinematic pioneers linked up at the beginnings of their respective film careers, just as the motion picture was about to catapult into the front ranks of the entertainment industry, remains one of the great strokes of happy coincidence in show business history. Pickford, with her petite frame, blond curls, and youthful vigor, as well as her aura of virginal purity and natural Irish spunk, was a perfect fit for Griffith’s Victorian paradigm of idealized feminine beauty. It is not surprising, then, that Pickford’s earliest work for Griffith, such as her portrayal of the oldest of three sisters in The Lonely Villa (1909) and her starring role in The New York Hat (1912), still resonates with freshness and dramatic power. Although Biograph, like the other pioneering film companies, did not identify actors by name, fearing that such publicity would fuel actors’ demands for higher wages, Pickford’s golden curls made her readily identifi-
Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
able to film fans. Indeed, theater managers, sensing a new strategy for attracting audiences, began promoting her Biograph films by advertising the “Girl with the Golden Hair.” Pickford was also known to nickelodeon audiences as “Little Mary,” an appellation derived from the name of a character she played in one of her earliest Biograph films. By 1916, Pickford, now a bona fide star and international celebrity, was making more than a million dollars a year for Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Company. Riding the waves of the rapidly evolving star system and applying her negotiating skills as well as those of her mother, Pickford was well positioned to continue her reign as Hollywood’s most influential female star and producer throughout the duration of the silent-film era. Significance Mary Pickford’s career provides a salutary example of an extremely bright and talented woman who fought assiduously to maintain economic and artistic control of her various enterprises. Quite simply, she was a woman well ahead of her time. Indeed, Pickford’s fierce quest for independence, while most obvious in her business dealings, also manifested itself in quite palpable form in the roles she undertook in her some two hundred films. Pickford was ambitious, and as the industry’s moguls came to rely more and more heavily on the star system’s capacity to guarantee box-office returns, the “Little Girl with the Curls” instinctively knew her worth. Her ambition was further fueled by a strong sense of competitiveness; in her negotiations with Zukor, she made it a point to underscore the latest contract coup of actor Charles Chaplin as a wedge to boost her own income and control. In 1916, Pickford was earning a handsome guaranteed salary. Zukor had also been compelled to set Pickford up as her own producer, a move formalized with the establishment of Pickford’s own company, Artcraft Pictures. Pickford commanded both a salary of ten thousand dollars per week and a 50 percent take of her films’ profits. As historian Richard Koszarski has pointed out, Pickford was, in effect, Zukor’s partner, but, given that everyone involved was making money, and lots of it, no one really complained. A majority of critics now agree that Pickford’s most enduring work was created during her several years at Artcraft, a productive period that yielded twelve fulllength releases. In the 1920’s, when Pickford and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., presided over Hollywood’s social life from Pickfair, their Beverly Hills estate, Pickford’s output had slowed to only one release 738
Mary Pickford. (Library of Congress)
per year. Although more time and higher budgets were lavished on production values in Pickford’s films of the 1920’s, these films tend to betray a sense of selfimportance that is entirely missing from the more hastily produced and streamlined Artcraft features. The Artcraft films benefited from the substantive contributions of directors such as Maurice Tourneur (The Poor Little Rich Girl, 1917), Cecil B. DeMille (The Little American, 1917), and Marshall Neilan (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1917). Walter Stradling and Charles Rosher were among Pickford’s favorite cameramen, and scripts tailored to the Pickford persona were carefully crafted by Frances Marion and Jeanie Macpherson. Pickford’s films also enjoyed the production values derived from the services of Ben Carré and Wilfred Buckland, two of Hollywood’s best art directors. By late 1918, the success of Pickford’s Artcraft releases led to an even bigger contract and greater creative
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”
control, but at First National rather than with Zukor. In 1919, Pickford helped to mastermind the organization of United Artists with her erstwhile rival Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith (her former boss at Biograph), and her soon-to-be husband and fellow screen idol, Douglas Fairbanks. United Artists would be the corporate shelter under which Pickford would operate for the duration of an eminent acting career that concluded with the desultory sound film Secrets (1933). In assessing Pickford’s impact as a businesswoman, it is fair to state, as Scott Eyman does in his masterful Pickford biography, that “Mary Pickford, in fact, was the first female movie mogul.” The most important consequence of her keen yet always straightforward dealings
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was the solidification of her capacity to maintain the kind of creative control she felt necessary to her artistic as well as her commercial success. Her greatest challenge, however, involved coping with the perception that the public would be satisfied only with seeing her play variations of her seminal role as “America’s Sweetheart.” Indeed, Pickford’s love-hate relationship with the composite character of “Little Mary” gives retrospective examinations of her career a mordantly bittersweet, if not tragic, touch. Pickford did make attempts to alter her persona by taking on more mature roles, such as those of the title characters in Rosita (1923) and Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924); these were, however, less than successful. Pickford had become an icon of American popular culture, an idealized embodiment of the cute, lovable, Pickford’s Press feisty girl-woman. This was what This introduction from a 1914 magazine interview with Mary Pickford illusPickford’s public had come to extrates the tone of the press coverage that supported the public’s adoration of pect, even in the jangling Jazz Age. the star: Indeed, the charming, even naïve innocence of her roles in such films A flash of sunlight across a dark room, a white moth glimmering in the dusk, a as My Best Girl (1927), by invoklily swaying at the edge of a pool—these were the first phrases that flashed ing the values of a rapidly fading yet across one’s mind as Mary Pickford crossed the big stock room of the Famous still significant Victorian sensibility, Players’ studio in West Twenty-sixth street, New York. helped to provide a reassuring emoThe day was one of those periods of gray fog that the ocean flings upon New tional and psychological refuge for York in the summer. Outer Twenty-sixth street sagged under the burden of its gloom. The studio, denied of activity by the darkness of the skies, sank into apthose seeking at least momentary reathy. Around the stock room actors and actresses, in groups of twos and threes lief from the moral ambiguities of and fours, talked listlessly, mostly of the intruding weather that forced upon the Roaring Twenties. them the undesired idleness. Then the door opened to reveal a girl standing on Pickford’s “America’s Sweetthe threshold, a girl whose rioting golden curls seemed to have caught all the heart” was much more than a mere sunlight that should have been gladdening Manhattan, and whose eyes held the two-dimensional caricature. Indeed, deep blues of the hidden skies. An ultra-fashionable little straw hat topped the Pickford’s films almost always incurls, and a costume that matched the smartness of the headgear emphasized cluded working-class issues and perthe slender beauty of one of the best known and best loved of all the motion picspectives, Dickensian qualities that ture actresses. For the girl of the golden curls was Mary Pickford, and there is were still prominent in such later only one Mary Pickford in the universe. works as My Best Girl. Although Reams have already been written about Mary Pickford, whose sensational success in motion pictures has made her more conspicuous on Broadway than Pollyannaish elements were present any of the newer actresses of the legitimate drama. Cornell University graduin her roles, these were countered ates voted her the most popular actress of the year. She is getting a salary of by an aggressive, spunky determina$26,000 a year, and Daniel Frohman, who has the authority, says that her new tion to right wrongs and get ahead. contract will give her $50,000 next year. She has been called repeatedly the Indeed, as film critic Molly Haskell most beautiful woman in the world. When she appears at a public place, crowds has noted, Pickford was “no Amerthrong for a glimpse of her. Her pictures on the films draw the same enthusiasican Cinderella or Snow White”; tic crowds that used to go to Maude Adams’ performances of “The Little Minrather, she was a rebel who “champiister” and “Peter Pan.” And—Mary Pickford is only twenty years old. Think oned the poor against the rich, the of it! scruffy orphans against the prissy Source: Katherine Synon, “The Unspoiled Mary Pickford,” Photoplay, September, rich kids.” 1914. —Charles Merrell Berg
Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart” Further Reading Brownlow, Kevin. “Mary Pickford.” In The Parade’s Gone By . . . . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. Argues that Pickford’s appeal was based essentially on her talents as a comic actor. An interview includes discussion of Pickford’s professional relationships with D. W. Griffith, David Belasco, Adolph Zukor, Edwin S. Porter, Cecil B. DeMille, and Ernst Lubitsch. _______. Mary Pickford Rediscovered: Rare Pictures of a Hollywood Legend. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999. Comprehensive volume brings together more than two hundred black-and-white photos and motion-picture stills of Pickford with text that reviews her career in chronological order. Includes synopses of her films and material from interviews with Pickford and other actors of the period. Eyman, Scott. Mary Pickford: America’s Sweetheart. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1990. Definitive and superbly written biography successfully plumbs the psychological as well as the artistic and business dimensions of Pickford’s tough yet vulnerable persona, revealing an individual driven by insecurities born of childhood tragedy. Includes bibliography, filmography, and poignant photos culled from the Pickford archives. Haskell, Molly. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Provides a refreshingly lucid and readable account of the roles of women in film. Herdon, Booton. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks: The Most Popular Couple the World Has Ever Known. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. Lively and carefully researched work includes a useful bibliography and a variety of revealing photographs and production stills. Jacobs, Lewis. The Rise of the American Film: A Critical History. 1939. Reprint. New York: Teachers College Press, 1968. Masterful chronicle includes repeated references to Pickford, including a compelling argument for appreciating Pickford as the primary personification of the era’s “Pollyanna philosophy.” Koszarski, Richard. “Mary Pickford.” In An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990. Argues that Pickford’s composite character,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 while radiating sweetness and light, also provided a role model for ambitious young women. Also includes discussion of Pickford’s business attainments. Niver, Kemp R. Mary Pickford, Comedienne. Edited by Bebe Bergsten. Los Angeles: Locare Research Group, 1969. A revealing chronicle of Pickford’s apprenticeship under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith, with an emphasis on her comedic roles. Includes a careful selection of frame enlargements, a synopsis for each film, and reprints of promotional handbills sent to theater owners. Pickford, Mary. Sunshine and Shadow. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955. A surprisingly limited account of Pickford’s motion-picture experiences. Reflecting her growing postretirement conservatism and self-imposed exile at Pickfair, Pickford complains about such troublesome aspects of post-World War II society as unions, communism, and immorality. Whitfield, Eileen. Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997. Detailed biography traces Pickford’s life from her childhood in poverty to her reign as “America’s Sweetheart” and beyond. Discusses the importance of her position as the first major female film studio executive. Includes bibliography, filmography, and index. Windeler, Robert. Sweetheart: The Story of Mary Pickford. New York: Praeger, 1974. Candid and carefully researched biography remains an invaluable and indispensable resource. Includes a number of illuminating photographs and a complete filmography. Zukor, Adolph. The Public Is Never Wrong: The Autobiography of Adolph Zukor. Edited by Dale Kramer. London: Cassell, 1954. Zukor’s warm recollections of Pickford’s contributions to the motion-picture industry reveal a deep respect for her business achievements as well as her artistic ones. See also: June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens; Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush; Dec., 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment
January-August, 1909
Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment By measuring electrical charges on tiny oil drops, Robert Andrews Millikan determined that the electron is the fundamental unit of electricity. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953), American physicist and professor Harvey Fletcher (1884-1981), American physicist
Summary of Event The first measurement of the electric charge carried by small water droplets was made in 1897 at Cambridge, England. The method timed the rate of fall of an ionized cloud of water vapor inside a closed chamber. The experiment was improved in 1903 through the use of a beam of X rays to produce the cloud between horizontal plates charged by a battery. The rate of descent of the top surface of the cloud between the plates was measured with an electric field switched on and off. The procedure, although an improvement, suffered from instabilities and irregularities on the top of the cloud. The cloud surface was difficult to delineate, with the result being measurements that fluctuated as much as 100 percent. In 1909, Harvey Fletcher, a young graduate student at the College of Chicago (later the University of Chicago) went to Professor Robert Andrews Millikan to receive suggestions for work on a doctoral thesis in physics. Millikan suggested improving on the measurement of Millikan’s Oil-Drop Experiment electronic charge previously performed at Cambridge. Millikan’s initial plan was to use an electric field Air not only strong enough to increase the speed of fall of the upper surface Oil Drops of the ionized cloud but also powerAtomizer ful enough to keep the cloud surface top stationary when the electric Light Source field was reversed. This would allow the researcher to observe the rate of evaporation easily and compenBattery Conducting plates sate for it in the computations. This technical improvement would perObservational mit the researcher, for the first time, Apparatus (microscope) to make measurements on isolated droplets and eliminate the experi-
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mental uncertainties and assumptions involved in using the cloud method. Millikan’s improvement included the construction of a 10,000-volt small cell storage battery with enough strength to hold the top surface of the cloud suspended long enough to allow the measurement of the rate of evaporation of the droplets. When the electric field was turned on, however, the result was a complete surprise to Millikan. The top of the cloud surface instantaneously dissipated, and, because the experimental result assumed a rate of fall for the ionized cloud, Millikan saw this result as a complete failure. Repeated tests showed that whenever the cloud was dispersed, a few droplets remained. By nature, however, these droplets had the proper charge-to-mass ratio to allow the downward force of gravity or weight of the droplet to be balanced by the upward pull of the electric field on the droplet’s charge. This procedure became known as the “balanced drop method.” With practice, Millikan found that he could reduce evaporation by turning off the field just prior to the point when certain droplets in the field of view changed motion from slow downward to upward. This allowed timing of the motion for a longer period. From Stokes’s law, he found the weight of the droplet. Also, by knowing the strength of the electric field, he was able to calculate the electric charge necessary to balance the droplet’s weight. He noticed that the calculated electric charges came out to within the limits
Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment of error on his stopwatch and in multiples of whole integers (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on). The experimenters soon realized that the droplets always carried multiples of wholenumber charges and never fractional amounts. The actual experimental arrangement that Millikan and Fletcher used consisted of a small box with a volume of 2-3 cubic centimeters (0.12-0.18 cubic inches) fastened to the end of a microscope. A tube extended from the box to an expansion chamber secured by an adjustable petcock valve that allowed a rapid expansion of air to form a water-vapor cloud in the box. On the ends of the box were two brass conducting plates about 20 centimeters (7.87 inches) in diameter and 4 millimeters (0.16 inch) thick. A small hole was bored into the top plate to allow the oil mist from an atomizer to enter the region between the two plates, which were separated by approximately 2 centimeters (0.79 inch). A small arc light with two condensing lenses created a bright narrow beam that was in turn permitted to pass between the plates. An instrument called a cathetometer was placed on the microscope so that the microscope could be raised or lowered to the proper angle with the light beam for best illumination (which from practice turned out to be about 120 degrees). The plate separation allowed the researchers to apply a potential difference and produce an electric field. They operated the apparatus by turning on the light, focusing the microscope (which was placed about 1 meter, or 3.28 feet, from the plates), and then spraying oil over the top plate while switching on the battery. When viewed through the microscope, the oil droplets appeared like “little starlets” that had the colors of the rainbow. Millikan and Fletcher noticed that when the electric field was first switched on, the droplets would move at different speeds; some moved slowly upward whereas others moved downward more quickly. Superimposed on the droplets’ downward fall was a small random backand-forth motion (known as Brownian movement) caused by the collisions of the tiny droplets with thermally agitated air molecules within the chamber. When the researchers reversed the electric field by changing the polarity of the battery, the same droplets that had been moving downward moved upward, and vice versa. They deduced that the nature of this motion indicated that some of the droplets were negatively charged, whereas the others carried a positive charge. Through the timely application of a polarity to the electric field, they were able to keep selected droplets in the field of view for longer periods of time to obtain values for the calculation of electronic charges. For this condition, the electric field interacting with the charge on the 742
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 droplet created an upward force that compensated only for the weight of the droplet or the downward force. The electronic charge calculation depended on a suitable balance between the intensity of the electric field and the amount of electrical charge on the droplet that overcame its weight. One major experimental problem remained, however; the water composing the droplet evaporated so quickly that visibility was initially limited to only about two seconds. After some discussion about this problem, Millikan and Fletcher substituted several other substances, including mercury and oil. Oil had an advantage, as it was easy to obtain and to handle, and its rate of evaporation was much slower than that of water. In time, the researchers refined the experiment to obtain greater precision. The metal plates were machined more accurately, and the air between the plates was enclosed to prevent air drafts. Also, X-ray and radium sources were aimed into the chamber, producing greater ionization and more charged droplets than an atomizer could produce. Significance From their examination of the smallest experimental values obtained, it became apparent to Millikan and Fletcher that the charges on tiny oil droplets occur only in multiples of the smallest possible charge; no fractional amount of this basic charge was ever observed—only whole-number increments. This implied that the unit charge obtained could not be subdivided into smaller charges and was independent of the droplet size. These exact values showed that the electronic charge was not merely a statistical mean, as previous experimenters believed. The experiment, in fact, provided direct evidence for the existence of the electron as a finite-sized particle carrying a fundamental charge. It also enabled researchers to examine the attractive or repulsive properties of isolated electrons and to determine that electrical phenomena in solutions and gases are caused by electrical units that have fundamentally the same charge. The oil-drop experiment was an improvement over previous measurements in that Millikan was able to control the strength of the electric field with accuracy while varying the droplet size. He also demonstrated that the oil droplet when completely discharged fell at the same rate as an uncharged droplet with the electric field on. This indicated that something fundamental, which Millikan chose to call electricity, could be placed on or removed from the droplet only in exact amounts. Reversing the electric field to allow it to pull the droplets upward rather than downward permitted the researcher
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Fletcher, Harvey. “My Work with Millikan on the OilDrop Experiment.” Physics Today 44 (June, 1982): 43-47. In this reminiscence, Fletcher relates his experiences while working with Millikan. Photographs, a diagram, and a detailed description of how the experiment was performed will interest the lay reader. Fraser, Charles G. Half-Hours with Great Scientists: The Story of Physics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948. Informative descriptions for a general audience of the great discoveries in physics. The chapter titled “Story of Electricity and Magnetism” provides not only a short summary of experimental results but also discussion of how Millikan’s work related to previous efforts.
Heathcote, Niels Hugh de Vaudrey. “Robert Andrews Millikan.” In Nobel Prize Winners in Physics, 19011950. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. This chapter on Millikan is organized into three sections: a biographical sketch, a description of the prizewinning work, and a summary of Millikan’s contribution to science. Provides an informative description of the experiment along with diagrams of the oil-drop apparatus. Millikan, Robert A. Autobiography. 1950. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1980. Millikan describes his life from early childhood and education through his later work on projects at the California Institute of Technology. An entire chapter is devoted to the oil-drop experiment, with tables, procedures used, and a detailed illustration. This book is a must for the lay reader who desires more than a cursory summary of Millikan’s work. Niaz, Mansoor, and María A. Rodríguez. “The Oil Drop Experiment: Do Physical Chemistry Textbooks Refer to Its Controversial Nature?” Science & Education 14 (January, 2005): 43-57. The authors of this article argue that Millikan’s oil-drop experiment was (and still is) difficult to perform and generated considerable controversy in the early twentieth century, yet this information is rarely mentioned in modern-day physical chemistry textbooks. The article reports on their findings from an evaluation of the discussions of the experiment in twenty-eight such texts. Oldenberg, Otto. Introduction to Atomic and Nuclear Physics. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961. Many physics texts provide brief descriptions of Millikan’s experiment, but few explain the technique and results as well as this one does. Readers with a basic background in mathematics should be able to understand this book. Romer, Alfred. “Robert A. Millikan, Physics Teacher.” Physics Teacher 78 (February, 1978): 78-85. A unique view into the character of Millikan from the perspective of a graduate student who knew him. Provides a brief description of the oil-drop experiment and an example of Millikan’s insight and originality. See also: Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays; Sept., 1932: Anderson Discovers the Positron.
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to freeze the motion of single droplets, giving more precise charge calculations than the method of trying to follow whole cloud motion, which was based only on statistical methods and could not give exact numbers. As a result of Millikan’s determination of the absolute charge on the electron and the previously known ratio of charge to mass, combined with the knowledge of the exact charges on ionized atoms from previous positive-ray analysis or electrolysis, the absolute masses of both the electron and the atom could be determined with great precision. With knowledge of the charge on the electron, a new unit of energy—the electronvolt—could be defined. The kinetic energy of particles of unit charge that had moved through a potential difference now could be computed with the known mass of the particle entering the equation. Another outcome of the oil-drop experiment was the calibration of a correction factor used for Stokes’s law. Millikan realized that Stokes’s law, tested only for the larger spheres, would require a correction factor when used with droplets so small that their size became comparable to the mean free path of the air molecules executing Brownian movement in a gaseous state. These smallest droplets, viewing through a microscope confirms, are affected by this Brownian movement, which interferes with the droplets’ rate of rise or fall and would otherwise introduce significant error into the charge computation. The measurements obtained from the oil-drop experiment thus served a dual purpose: as a means to determine the electronic charge and as a correction for Stokes’s law. — Michael L. Broyles
Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 12, 1909
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded With the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, African Americans gained a major advocacy organization. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform; organizations and institutions Key Figures W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963), African American historian, sociologist, and newspaper editor Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), African American educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), African American journalist and newspaper editor Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949), American journalist and newspaper editor William English Walling (1877-1936), American journalist and labor organizer Mary White Ovington (1865-1951), American civil rights activist Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), African American attorney Summary of Event By the beginning of the twentieth century, many of the civil rights achieved by African Americans during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period were under severe attack. Supported by rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court—such as in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which affirmed the constitutionality of racial segregation— southern states enacted laws that effectively disfranchised most African American voters and barred their access to public institutions on an equal basis with whites. In the North, racial discrimination was not sanctioned as openly, but it remained an underlying assumption of society. Tensions between the two races sometimes flared into violence, taking the forms of lynchings and urban riots. In these confrontations, African Americans were accorded little sympathy by the mainstream press, the courts, or law-enforcement agencies. Reactions to the deterioration of individual rights varied within the African American community. The most prominent spokesperson for African Americans, educator Booker T. Washington, had adopted a policy of accommodation in the 1890’s, urging African Americans to abandon temporarily their drive for civil and political 744
rights and to concentrate instead on acquiring the economic skills that would enable them to find a place in an industrialized United States. Washington believed that if African Americans demonstrated their competence through hard work, American society eventually would grant them the same rights that whites enjoyed. Washington’s policies were supported widely by wealthy white philanthropists. Washington’s position, which historians call “gradualism,” was countered, although ineffectively at first, by W. E. B. Du Bois, a professor at Atlanta University and founder in 1905 of the Niagara Movement, an organization composed of educated African Americans. Du Bois agonized over the steady erosion of African Americans’ rights and viewed protest rather than acquiescence as the most appropriate avenue to equality. Support for this second point of view, called “immediatism,” crystallized among both African Americans and whites in 1909 and led to the launch of an organization dedicated to combating racial discrimination in all areas of American life. The immediate catalyst for the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was a bloody race riot that took place in Springfield, Illinois, in August, 1908, during which white mobs destroyed much of the black section of Springfield and lynched two African Americans. The riot left more than fifty African Americans dead or injured, and two thousand African American residents fled the city. The fact that Abraham Lincoln’s hometown could be the site of such violence made it clear that racial discrimination and its accompanying violence were not just southern problems. A group of white liberals began to consider how to rekindle the spirit of moral indignation that had animated the pre-Civil War abolitionists and then channel that indignation into constructive action. William English Walling, a Kentucky journalist and labor organizer, wrote several articles in the Independent condemning the Springfield riot and called for a powerful body of citizens to come to African Americans’ aid. Early in 1909, Walling met with Mary White Ovington, the socialist descendant of an abolitionist family, and Henry Moskovitz, a New York social worker, to discuss ways of attracting support for his idea. They invited the grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, Oswald Garrison Villard, to join
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded
The Lincoln’s Birthday Call In 1914, in How the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began, Mary White Ovington told the story of how Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, was chosen as the founding date and how Oswald Garrison Villard, president of the N.Y. Evening Post Company, drafted the “Lincoln’s birthday call,” reprinted here:
them, and the group soon expanded to more than fifteen, including two prominent African American clergymen, Bishop Alexander Waters and the Reverend William Henry Brooks. After initial discussions, the members of this planning committee decided to draw attention to their cause by holding a conference in New York City. On February 12, 1909, sixty prominent African Americans and EuroAmericans signed a “call” to the gathering, which was titled the Conference on the Status of the Negro and was scheduled to be held May 31-June 1, 1909; the call pointed to the discrimination and violence that afflicted
African Americans and urged northerners to cast off the “silence that means tacit approval.” Three hundred men and women, including many white liberals, attended the two-day meeting, where they set up a permanent organization and listened to scientific refutations of arguments that persons of African descent were genetically inferior. The most notable African American in attendance was Du Bois, who suggested in a speech that African Americans’ problems were as much political as economic. Villard had invited Booker T. Washington to the conference but had told him that the new organization was to be an aggressive one. Under the 745
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The celebration of the Centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, widespread and grateful as it may be, will fail to justify itself if it takes no note of and makes no recognition of the colored men and women for whom the great Emancipator labored to assure freedom. Besides a day of rejoicing, Lincoln’s birthday in 1909 should be one of taking stock of the nation’s progress since 1865. How far has it lived up to the obligations imposed upon it by the Emancipation Proclamation? How far has it gone in assuring to each and every citizen, irrespective of color, the equality of opportunity and equality before the law, which underlie our American institutions and are guaranteed by the Constitution? If Mr. Lincoln could revisit this country in the flesh, he would be disheartened and discouraged. He would learn that on January 1, 1909, Georgia had rounded out a new confederacy by disfranchising the Negro, after the manner of all the other Southern States. He would learn that the Supreme Court of the United States, supposedly a bulwark of American liberties, had refused every opportunity to pass squarely upon this disfranchisement of millions, by laws avowedly discriminatory and openly enforced in such manner that the white men may vote and that black men be without a vote in their government; he would discover, therefore, that taxation without representation is the lot of millions of wealthproducing American citizens, in whose hands rests the economic progress and welfare of an entire section of the country. He would learn that the Supreme Court, according to the official statement of one of its own judges in the Berea Col-
lege case, has laid down the principle that if an individual State chooses, it may “make it a crime for white and colored persons to frequent the same market place at the same time, or appear in an assemblage of citizens convened to consider questions of a public or political nature in which all citizens, without regard to race, are equally interested.” In many states Lincoln would find justice enforced, if at all, by judges elected by one element in a community to pass upon the liberties and lives of another. He would see the black men and women, for whose freedom a hundred thousand of soldiers gave their lives, set apart in trains, in which they pay first-class fares for third-class service, and segregated in railway stations and in places of entertainment; he would observe that State after State declines to do its elementary duty in preparing the Negro through education for the best exercise of citizenship. Added to this, the spread of lawless attacks upon the Negro, North, South and West—even in the Springfield made famous by Lincoln—often accompanied by revolting brutalities, sparing neither sex nor age nor youth, could but shock the author of the sentiment that “government of the people, by the people, for the people; should not perish from the earth.” Silence under these conditions means tacit approval. The indifference of the North is already responsible for more than one assault upon democracy, and every such attack reacts as unfavorably upon whites as upon blacks. Discrimination once permitted cannot be bridled; recent history in the South shows that in forging chains for the Negroes the white voters are forging chains for themselves. “A house divided against itself cannot stand”; this government cannot exist half-slave and half-free any better today than it could in 1861. Hence we call upon all the believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded circumstances, Washington declined to attend. Washington’s absence did not mean the participants were in complete agreement on the course to be taken, however. Heated arguments preceded the selection of the Committee of Forty on Permanent Organization and the passage of resolutions demanding equal rights and protection against violence for African Americans. Leading the opposition to Villard’s proposals were William Monroe Trotter, editor of the Boston newspaper The Guardian, and J. Milton Waldron, president of the National Negro Political League. Both advocated more radical positions than those favored by the majority. In the end, they were not included in the Committee of Forty. Throughout the year that followed, Villard and a handful of other committee members struggled to raise funds and plan for a second conference. Despite general indifference from the white press and open disputes with Booker T. Washington, the committee succeeded in formulating an organizational framework for presentation to the conference. The National Committee, which comprised one hundred members, was charged with raising funds and giving prestige to the organization; the smaller Executive Committee, composed primarily of members of the former Committee of Forty, would direct the organization’s activities. In an executive session held on May 14, 1910, the group, now bearing the name National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, approved this arrangement. Significance At the NAACP’s second conference, Du Bois was appointed director of publicity and research, a move that underscored the aggressive direction the delegates sought to follow. For Du Bois, the post represented an opportunity to redeem his years of frustration with the Niagara Movement. He resigned his faculty position at Atlanta University and moved to New York City. Within six months, he had launched the NAACP magazine, The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, which soon became a major organ for molding opinion on race issues. The inaugural press run of one thousand copies sold out, and within five years the publication’s circulation exceeded fifty thousand. The NAACP continued to grow throughout the twentieth century. NAACP attorneys, including the future U.S. Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, mounted numerous legal challenges to the institutional segregation that plagued the United States. Marshall argued thirty-two civil rights cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the NAACP, of which he won twenty746
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nine. In cases such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), Marshall and other attorneys with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund worked to demolish inequality in education, employment, and access to facilities such as restaurants and hotels. The NAACP’s efforts to help African American plaintiffs fight racial discrimination on the job and elsewhere continue in the twenty-first century. The NAACP’s successes in fighting racial discrimination have occasionally been accompanied by problems within the organization. In the 1930’s, a major rift developed between founder Du Bois and newer members such as Walter White. Internal dissension almost tore the organization apart. Du Bois left, but the organization survived. Similar problems developed in the 1990’s. Following the 1993 retirement of Benjamin L. Hooks as executive director of the NAACP, the organization endured two stormy years of controversy and dissension. The new executive director, Benjamin F. Chavis, found himself under attack following the disclosure that he used organization funds to settle a lawsuit brought by a former employee. Chavis was fired in 1994, and under the guidance of board chair Myrlie Evers-Williams, the NAACP managed to weather the controversy, although both financial contributions and overall membership declined. In January, 1996, the NAACP announced that Kweisi Mfume, a forty-seven-year-old African American congressman from Baltimore, Maryland, had accepted the position of chief executive officer. With Mfume assuming a leadership role, the NAACP appeared confident that it would continue to fight for racial equality for many years to come. Mfume suffered some personal controversy, however, and during the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, the NAACP’s open support for the Democratic Party brought into question its official nonpartisan status. Mfume was succeeded by Bruce S. Gordon in June, 2005. The founding of the NAACP marked the first major attempt since Reconstruction to make African American rights the focus of national reform efforts. The manner of the organization’s birth displayed many of the same strengths and weaknesses that characterized it in its early years: a substantial proportion of white leadership and dependence on white financial support, a program emphasizing political and civil rights and seeking change through legislation and judicial decisions, and criticism from within the black community concerning both of these points. In the early years, the protests were loudest from those, such as Washington, who found the new or-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ganization too militant, but even at the outset other critics, such as Trotter, felt it did not go far enough. Despite numerous victories, such as those in the court cases of Brown v. Board of Education and Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1 (1973), those same criticisms continued. Despite the competing demands for aggressive action and for moderation, however, the NAACP managed to move race relations steadily forward for most of the twentieth century. — John C. Gardner and Nancy Farm Mannikko
cinating, detailed biography of Du Bois’s early life includes discussion of his interactions with Booker T. Washington and his evolution into an activist. Meier, August. Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington. 1963. Reprint. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988. Provides a general context for the debate among African Americans in the early twentieth century concerning accommodation versus aggressive activism. Moore, Jacqueline M. Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift. Lanham, Md.: SR Books, 2003. Provides a detailed overview of the debate between Washington and Du Bois concerning their different approaches to the problems of segregation and discrimination against blacks. Zangrando, Robert. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980. Describes the NAACP’s efforts to eliminate the horrors of lynching from the U.S. South. See also: July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement; 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air; Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937: Scottsboro Trials.
February 20, 1909
Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto Futurism established itself as the most aggressive artistic movement of its age, and its initial manifesto provoked international attention. Also known as: “Manifeste de Futurisme” Locale: Paris, France Categories: Arts; literature Key Figures Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), Italian poet Giacomo Balla (1871-1958), Italian artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), Italian artist Carlo Carrà (1881-1966), Italian artist Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880-1955), Italian composer Luigi Russolo (1885-1947), Italian artist Gino Severini (1883-1966), Italian artist Summary of Event Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was a well-known literary figure in France and Italy among avant-garde poets and
artists when his “Manifeste de Futurisme” (futurist manifesto) was published on February 20, 1909, on the front page of Le Figaro, the newspaper that served as the battleground of artistic theories and allegiances in Paris. “Manifeste de Futurisme” is a prose poem describing an intellectual journey that is separated into three parts, each symbolic of a different stage of artistic development in modern Italy. The first part is designated as the pseudoscientific, from which the artist escapes at dawn in an automobile; the second represents the immediate future and announces the Futurist program; and the third looks forward to the more distant future, when a new generation of artists will repeat the ruthless emancipatory process of the present Futurists. Marinetti’s manifesto established the general terms for the theory and practice of the entire Futurist movement and became a rallying cry for artistic revolutions among artists of the younger generations. Although “Manifeste de Futurisme” had a bombshell effect, it was based on traditional aspects of artistic rebellions as well. 747
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Further Reading Jonas, Gilbert. Freedom’s Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle Against Racism in America, 1909-1969. New York: Routledge, 2004. History of the NAACP’s first sixty years provides comprehensive coverage of the organization’s accomplishments. Includes photographs. Kellogg, Charles Flint. NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1909-1920. 1964. Reprint. Bodmin, England: Bodmin Books, 1997. History of the early years of the NAACP. Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919. New York: Henry Holt, 1993. Fas-
Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto
Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto
The Futurists’ Intentions Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s “Manifeste de Futurisme” declared these eleven “high intentions”: 1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness. 2. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry. 3. Up to now literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggressive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap. 4. We say that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty; the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot—is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. 5. We want to hymn the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the Earth, along the circle of its orbit. 6. The poet must spend himself with ardor, splendor, and generosity, to swell the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements. 7. Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man. 8. We stand on the last promontory of the centuries! . . . Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed. 9. We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman. 10. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice. 11. We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd. Source: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” (1909), in Marinetti: Selected Writings, translated by R. W. Flint and Arthur A. Coppotelli, edited by R. W. Flint (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In its appeal to the young artists of the day, Futurism followed many of the precepts of Romanticism, particularly in its challenge to the artist to seek inspiration in contemporary life. The manifesto demanded emancipation from the crushing weight of tradition, the socalled graveyard of culture, and exhorted the artist to reject existing academies, museums, libraries, and all similar institutions devoted to maintaining traditional values in art. Marinetti’s disdain for the status quo was apparent not only in his rejection of tradition but also in his incitement of the artist to show contempt for prevailing middle-class values and standards of taste. Although the manifesto’s call for young artists to shake the foundations of traditionbased cultural institutions was itself revolutionary, the most significant contribution on the part of the Futurist agenda lay in its articulation of the concept of dynamism, which, according to Futurist dogma, was to be the basis for the arts. In fact, initially Marinetti wavered between “Dynamism” and “Futurism” as potential names for the new movement. As a concept, dynamism represented a rejection of static, changeless reality. Futurism urged artists to abandon the life of passive contemplation and to take a place in the center of the universe’s ceaseless activity. Movement, activity, and change were to supplant the static representation of realism and Impressionism in order to project the dynamic movement and rapid locomotion of the new age of the automobile and the airplane. Not only did Futurism address itself to the physical realm, but it also glorified intellectual exertion and agitation. Conflict, violence, misogyny, anarchism, and, ultimately, even war were viewed as positive examples of universal dynamism. At the same time, the strong language, harangues, changes of images, exaggerations, and insults of Marinetti’s manifesto gave it a vitality related to the spirit of dynamism. In Marinetti’s vision, the artist was to become an agitator who would not only overthrow the cultural institutions of society but also participate in agitation for political change. Thus in choosing a manifesto as the form in which he called for
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ists’ all-encompassing program for dynamic change in the arts had an incalculable impact on international artistic movements. Significance Once the Futurists issued their manifestos, they attempted to put the new aesthetics into practice, and their experiments culminated in the 1912 Exhibition of Futurist Painters in Paris. Widespread publicity accompanied the exhibition, and many of the paintings were reproduced in newspapers and art journals as examples of Futurist notions of movement and simultaneity. The exhibition was supplemented by a range of other events, including discussions, press conferences, concerts, and encounters with rival art movements. In addition, the publicity events were accompanied by “Futurist Evenings” during which Marinetti incited audiences by hurling insults at them. These evenings usually ended in riots as spectators attempted to attack the Futurists, and the rioting and brawling frequently spread out into the surrounding streets and bars. Because of the notoriety the Futurists attained in Paris, they were met with even more provocations when the exhibition toured Brussels, London, and Berlin. The media coverage these events generated gave a sense of urgency to the concepts of the Futurists, and the speed of the publicity surrounding the Futurists’ escapades brought their ideas to the attention of people all around the world almost simultaneously. The concepts of universal dynamism and simultaneity emphasized in the 1912 Futurist exhibition were also explored in the early works of the cubist painters Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, whose work would in time modify some of the wildly exaggerated claims of the Futurists. At the same time, the Futurists’ focus on movement affected the work of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Delaunay, who went on to synthesize Futurist aesthetics in their work. The Futurists thus influenced a variety of approaches in art by calling attention to the disjointed feelings and chaotic sensations inherent in rapidly changing twentieth century society. Although Marinetti did not visit Russia until 1914, the ideas of the Futurists stimulated such Russian artists as David Burliuk and Kazimir Malevich and the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who responded by generating their own Futurist-inspired programs. Malevich ultimately passed beyond Futurism to the absolute abstraction of Suprematism, but his awareness of Futurist images of movement and flight contributed to his explorations of nonobjective space. Burliuk and Mayakovsky presented 749
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an artistic revolution, Marinetti used the methodology of propaganda to politicize the arts. Although “Manifeste de Futurisme” addressed itself to all aspects of creative endeavor, it concentrated primarily on the effect of Futurism in literature. Consequently, Marinetti extended the range of the Futurist program by publishing more specific statements, such as a 1910 manifesto of Futurist painters signed by the Italian artists Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, and Gino Severini. The painters’ manifesto appealed to artists to adopt a more honest and aggressive approach to art and focused on the rejection of representation. It encouraged artists to provide fresh angles of perception in their work to break down the traditional psychological distance between the aesthetic object and the spectator. The Futurists drew much of their inspiration from psychophysics and the psychophysiology of visual perception, which provided analogues that were to represent the dynamism of movement and change. Marinetti and the other Futurists extended their efforts to revitalize the other arts as well by issuing additional manifestos. In a 1913 manifesto, Marinetti urged dramatists to abandon traditional aspects of theatrical representation, such as logical plot development and believable characters, and instead foreground the illogical and absurd. The plays written by the Futurists were concerned with speed and motion, and the proper work of the playwright was seen as the synthesizing of facts and ideas in the least number of words. Brevity, distillation, and condensation were encouraged; Marinetti approved the staging of Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal (1882) in forty minutes. He also suggested the presentation of all the Greek, French, and Italian tragedies in a single evening as fragments and the reduction of the whole of William Shakespeare’s work to a single act. Similarly, the Futurists attempted to alter structure in music. A 1911 manifesto issued by Francesco Balilla Pratella promoted music that exploited small changes in pitch and complicated, changing, and subtle rhythms in order to crush the domination of dance rhythm. In a 1913 manifesto discussing the “art of noise,” Russolo took Pratella’s demands for nonharmonic music as a point of departure and extended the limits of traditional music to include all of the sounds of everyday life. In order to realize the new music, Russolo invented new instruments and a new kind of musical notation. Ultimately, the Futurists also extended their demands for dynamism, condensation, and simultaneity into experiments in the cinema and radio. As a result, the Futur-
Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto
Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto Futurist-inspired recitals intended to provoke spectators. In particular, the Russian constructivists decorated public squares, trains, and theaters with agitprop decorations using dynamic forms similar to those in the paintings of Boccioni, Balla, and Russolo. Ultimately, the spectacle of the Russian Revolution seemed to the Futurists to be the culmination of their agitation for the total destruction of tradition and order, a realization of their dreams. On the surface, Futurism appeared to prosper in terms of the influence it had on other movements, but after three years of feverish activity the Italian Futurists showed signs of exhaustion from the demands of collective activity. At the same time, jealousies and conflicting interests split the group into new alignments with redefined goals. The outbreak of World War I further jeopardized the cohesiveness of the Futurist cause, particularly given that Marinetti’s manifestos became increasingly nationalistic and thereby subverted the very nature of Futurist universality. In 1920, Marinetti, despite the defection of many of the most talented Futurists, generated the Second Futurism, which lasted until the outbreak of World War II. This movement, despite its explorations of tactile art and radio theater, never gained the notoriety whipped up by the original Futurists. Instead, it was left to other movements to engender new ideologies in art. Although Futurism itself expired as an international movement, Dadaism, the disruptive antiart phenomenon born in Zurich in 1916, appropriated a number of Futurist techniques. The first issue of the Dada review Cabaret Voltaire contained a free-word poem by Marinetti, but Dada did not merely reject the past, it was also uninterested in the future, and Marinetti’s violent optimism was totally negated. The influence of Futurism can be seen, however, not only in the irreverence of the Dadaists but also in their approach toward the disruption of perception by means of nonsense poetry, collage, chaotic performances, and subversive satire. Ultimately, almost every twentieth century attempt to subvert representation in art and language from traditional conventions and restrictions can be traced back to the original manifestos of the Futurists. In particular, the attention the Futurists paid to speed, absurdity, and disruption in order to dislocate the spectator and break down traditional modes of perception had in it the germs of contemporary street theater, pop art, “happenings,” and antitheater. —Christine Kiebuzinska Further Reading Apollonio, Umbro, ed. Futurist Manifestos. Boston: MFA Publications, 2001. Translations of the manifes750
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tos, many of which have not been available widely in English for many years. Includes black-and-white illustrations. Berghaus, Gunter, ed. International Futurism in Arts and Literature. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. Collection of essays discusses the influence of Futurism on art and literature throughout the world. Includes a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Clough, Rosa Trillo. Futurism: The Story of a Modern Art Movement. New York: Greenwood Press, 1961. Two-part analysis of the history of Futurism aimed at readers with some background in the subject. Traces the aims, methods, and theories of the Futurists in literature, painting, architecture, and music, and then analyzes the influence of Futurism on the arts from 1942 to 1960. Features black-and-white illustrations and an extensive bibliography. Humphreys, Richard. Futurism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Brief introduction to Futurism explains the movement’s origins and addresses its influence on twentieth century art in general. Includes bibliography and index. Kirby, Michael, and Victoria Nes Kirby. Futurist Performance. New York: PAJ, 1986. Analyzes the origins of Futurist performance, with discussions on theoretical foundations as well as more practical information on scenography, acting, costumes, and Futurist cinema and radio theater. Includes an appendix with translations of manifestos and play scripts, a chronology of Futurist performances, and an extensive bibliography. Kozloff, Max. Cubism/Futurism. New York: Charterhouse, 1973. Discusses cubism and Futurism as parallel movements. Provides a lengthy, well-illustrated exploration of cubism and its heritage, its relevance as an avant-garde movement, and its characteristics. The discussion of Futurism develops theory and practice, and the conclusion provides an overview of similarities and differences. Includes a brief bibliography and illustrations. Markov, Vladimir. Russian Futurism: A History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Extensive exploration of Russian Futurism and its variants addresses the influence of the Futurist manifestos on Russian art and poetry and describes Marinetti’s visit to Russia in 1914. Traces Russian Futurism from its beginnings through its flowering and decline, noting parallels to the history of Italian Futurism. Includes extensive notes and a bibliography of sources in English and Russian.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Martin, Marianne W. Futurist Art and Theory: 19091915. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1968. Provides a historical perspective on Italian Futurism, tracing its roots from the painting and sculpture in Italy during the late nineteenth century to the decline of Futurism at the outbreak of World War I. Explores the relationship between Marinetti’s life and his launching of Futurism. Includes individual overviews of Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Severini, and Balla. Features excellent bibliography, index, and black-andwhite reproductions.
Republican Congressional Insurgency Tisdall, Caroline, and Angelo Bozzolla. Futurism. 1978. Reprint. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985. Comprehensive historical discussion of Futurism explores provocative aspects of the theory and practice of Futurism and addresses the relationship of Futurism to both women and fascism. Includes a brief bibliography and 169 plates. See also: Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art; Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism.
March, 1909-1912
Republican Congressional Insurgency Dissent from midwestern Republicans in Congress contributed to tensions that split the party in 1912.
Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915), U.S. senator from Rhode Island Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), U.S. senator from Wisconsin James Rudolph Garfield (1865-1950), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1907-1909 Richard Achilles Ballinger (1858-1922), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1909-1911 Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), chief forester of the United States Joseph Gurney Cannon (1836-1926), U.S. congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event Early in the twentieth century, two U.S. presidents successfully identified themselves with the cause of reform. Both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson established reputations as representatives of Progressive political tendencies at the national level. Still, Progressivism was not entirely dependent on presidential leader-
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Locale: Washington, D.C. Category: Government and politics
ship. During the crucial period from 1909 to 1911, congressional proponents of reform, primarily Republican congressmen and senators from the Midwest, battled President William Howard Taft to determine how the Republican Party would respond to the issues of the tariff, conservation, and corporate regulation. In March, 1909, Theodore Roosevelt handed over the reins of government to incoming president Taft. The new chief executive believed that his duty was to work with the Republican majority and administer Roosevelt’s reform programs with more effectiveness. Although he entered office as Roosevelt’s designated successor, Taft had none of Roosevelt’s boundless energy or ability to communicate his ideas to the public. He preferred the company of lawyers to that of reformers, and conservative attorneys soon came to dominate his administration. From the start, Taft moved in a direction that foretold trouble with reform-minded members of Congress. The new president’s first difficulties centered on the tariff question. Early in 1909, the House of Representatives approved a downward revision of the existing tariff rates, in compliance with the Republican platform of 1908. Republican senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich of Rhode Island found that such a strategy did not command the support of a majority of Republican senators. To achieve a viable coalition, he added approximately eight hundred amendments to the bill, most of which took tariff rates back toward those of the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897. For eleven weeks, Senate Progressives such as Robert M. La Follette argued against the Aldrich amendments. Taft stood closer to the Progressives than he did to Aldrich on the issue, and he used his influence to reduce rates on some products. When Congress finally approved
Republican Congressional Insurgency the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, which reenacted much of the Dingley law, Taft called the resulting measure the best tariff bill the Republican Party had ever passed. The midwestern Republican Progressives in Congress were outraged. Problems involving the conservation of natural resources added to Taft’s political burdens. When the new president assumed office, he failed to reappoint James Rudolph Garfield, Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior. Instead, he named Richard Achilles Ballinger, a Seattle lawyer and former commissioner of the General Land Office, to the post. Ballinger soon clashed with Gifford Pinchot, the chief forester of the United States and another Roosevelt intimate. The conflict between the two men reached crisis proportions when Pinchot accused Ballinger of involvement in a plot to defraud the government of coal lands in Alaska. The public accusation led to a congressional investigation that revealed no serious wrongdoing but damaged the prestige of the Taft ad-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ministration and further weakened its ties with reformoriented elements. A fight over the rules that governed the House of Representatives widened the rift between Taft and Insurgent Republicans in Congress. Many reformers saw Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois as the main legislative obstacle to enactment of their program. The Insurgents wanted House rules changed to reduce Cannon’s power as House Speaker. Taft disliked Cannon, but he knew that the Speaker had the support of the House Republicans on whom the president depended to pass his program. Accordingly, Taft refused to challenge the Speaker’s authority. When the Insurgents overthrew the Illinois legislator, Taft again appeared to be at odds with the prevailing spirit of reform. Despite these setbacks, Taft did achieve legislative successes during the 1910 session of Congress, including the Mann-Elkins Act to regulate the railroads. The congressional elections in 1910 exacerbated the tensions between Taft and the Insurgents. The president worked for the election of conservative Republicans in several states in which the reformers dominated. Roosevelt entered the campaign in an effort to bridge the gap between the chief executive and the Republican Party. Neither Taft nor Roosevelt proved to be a successful strategist, and for the first time in sixteen years, the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives. They also gained seats in the Senate, where a small group of Progressives held the balance of power. Significance The battles fought by the Republican Insurgents in Congress sustained the momentum of the reform movement. Despite its conservative leanings, the Taft administration failed to slow the rate of change. After the 1910 elections, presidential hopefuls such as Senator La Follette, Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, and Theodore Roosevelt sought the allegiance of reform-oriented voters. In 1912, the Republican “Old Guard” denied Roosevelt a presidential nomination. At the same time, the split in the Republican Party that the Insurgents had initiated ensured Wilson’s election, and the Progressive movement began a new, more dynamic phase. —Rex O. Mooney and Lewis L. Gould
Joseph Gurney Cannon. (Library of Congress)
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Further Reading Allen, Howard W. Poindexter of Washington: A Study in Progressive Politics. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981. A thorough, informative study of one of the key figures of the Insurgent movement.
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cal treatment of a member of the Insurgent bloc from Wisconsin. Miller, Karen A. J. Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Focuses on the eventual effects of the Republican Insurgency on U.S. foreign policy, with an emphasis on the political maneuvering of politicians William E. Borah and Hiram Warren Johnson. Includes select bibliography and index. Sarasohn, David. The Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989. Argues that the Democrats were more important in the development of progressive ideas than were the Republican Insurgents. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act; Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy; Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized; Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act.
March 4, 1909
U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law The Copyright Act of 1909 was the end product of hundreds of years of common and statutory copyright law. Also known as: Copyright Act of 1909 Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history Summary of Event Under copyright law in general, authors or creators of original works have the exclusive right to reproduce (or authorize others to reproduce) those works and are protected against unlawful copying, which is known as plagiarism or piracy. “Original” does not mean “unique.” An original work is one created through the author’s own intellectual or creative effort, as opposed to having been copied. Copying all or part of a work without permission of the author (or any agency the author has authorized for copying) constitutes copyright infringement. Willful unauthorized copying for the purpose of making a profit is a criminal offense punishable by fine or imprisonment. When authors suspect infringement but have no grounds
for charging criminal intent, they can bring civil action against alleged offenders. Under certain circumstances, parts of authors’ works can be copied without permission according to what is known as the doctrine of fair use. Works are protected by copyright for a specific length of time. At the end of that time, a work is said to be in the public domain and can be copied without permission. Ever since the concept of the right to copy was established and codified, copyright has existed under both common and statutory law. Common law is unwritten law, based on tradition and precedent. Statutory law is written law passed by a legislative body, such as Great Britain’s Parliament or the U.S. Congress. In general, common law protects a work before it is published and statutory law protects it after it is published. In both common and statutory law, it is assumed that what is written or created is property. The creator of a work has sole ownership of the work and the right to dispose of it as he or she would any other type of property; that is, the owner may sell it, lease it, transfer it, or leave it in a will. Upon publication of a work, the author gives up some of the ownership rights granted by com753
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Gould, Lewis L. Reform and Regulation: American Politics from Roosevelt to Wilson. 2d ed. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1986. An analytic survey of U.S. politics between 1900 and 1921 that considers the impact of the Republican Insurgents on party politics. Harrison, Robert. Congress, Progressive Reform, and the New American State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Presents a series of case studies of congressional reform legislation in the early twentieth century. Chapters 6 and 7 in particular discuss the Republican Insurgency. Includes tables, an appendix containing analysis of roll calls, and index. Holt, James L. Congressional Insurgents and the Party System, 1909-1916. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. A New Zealand scholar offers one of the best modern treatments of the Republican rebels’ fight against the existing congressional leadership. Margulies, Herbert F. Senator Lenroot of Wisconsin: A Political Biography, 1900-1929. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977. An excellent biographi-
U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law
U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law mon law but is given monetary rewards for doing so. The law is based on two sometimes conflicting principles: Authors should be rewarded for their labors, and knowledge should be made readily available to the public for the good of society as a whole. Much of the history of copyright law is concerned with attempts to reconcile these two principles. The concept and fundamental issues of copyright date back at least as far as the fifteenth century. With the invention of printing, copies of both ancient and contemporary works began to proliferate and become readily available to the public. Early English copyright law began to address the questions of what should be printed, who ultimately owned the works and for how long, how the owners should be compensated for them, and who should be authorized to copy them. By the sixteenth century, printing had developed throughout Europe from an unregulated cottage industry of craftsmen to a full-fledged profession and a thriving large-scale industry. Usually, the printers of books were also the vendors of them. In England, the printing and selling of books was done by a monopoly called the Stationers’ Company. Copyright at that time was a license given to the Stationers’ Company by royal decree. The decree gave the company exclusive rights to print all works the government deemed proper to print. The law was for the benefit of publishers and booksellers more than for authors. Furthermore, as the license to publish was granted on the basis of what the government decided could or could not be published, it was actually a form of censorship. It bore little resemblance to the laws that followed, but it did recognize that what was written in a book was as much property as the book itself. Authors, who had previously been supported by wealthy, interested patrons rather than by sales of their work, could now earn money (although hardly a living wage) apart from patronage by selling their manuscripts to printers, who paid a lump sum for each. It was generally accepted that once a manuscript was sold, the work was no longer the property of the author. Copyright infringement, which frequently consisted of the printing of unauthorized works outside the Stationers’ monopoly, was more an offense against the publisher, or those who licensed the publisher, than against the author. By the late seventeenth century, the English press was generally liberated from the dictates of the authorities. Censorship had decreased, and licenses to the Stationers’ Company were no longer renewed. Freedom of the press destroyed the Stationers’ monopoly, for now anyone could print virtually anything. An unfettered press also 754
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 meant a lack of protection for authors from piracy and plagiarism. Literary piracy long had been considered an outrage, if not actually a criminal offense, and was supposed to be prevented by common law, but few means of enforcing common law existed. Both authors and booksellers pressured Parliament for legislation that would protect authors from piracy and provide booksellers with enough security to allow them to stay in business. In 1710, Parliament responded with the Statute of Anne, named for the reigning queen. The Statute of Anne established time limits, with renewals, on how long a published work would be protected before it went into the public domain and outlined penalties for copyright infringement. The law was not clear, however, on how long an unpublished work was protected by common law or whether common law was superseded by statutory law after a work was published. It also did not answer the question of whether an author gave up all rights to a work after it was published. Many cases arose in which publishers freely copied works for which the statutory term of protection had expired. When the authors of the works complained that this free copying was a violation of their common-law rights, the English courts decided that once a work had been published and the term of protection had expired, common-law rights no longer applied. This conflict sparked long and heated debates over ownership and the balance between authors’ rights and the public good. Such debates continued through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Limited and controversial as it was, the Statute of Anne became the pattern for all subsequent copyright legislation in both England and the United States. Twelve of the thirteen original U.S. states adopted copyright statutes before the federal Constitution was drawn up. These statutes were summarized in article 1, section 8 of the Constitution, which says: “Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The first U.S. copyright law, enacted in 1790, was revised in 1831 and 1879. On March 4, 1909, Congress passed a new copyright law that remained in effect until revisions were made in 1976. The 1909 law stated that the purpose of copyright is “not primarily for the benefit of the author, but primarily for the benefit of the public.” Although unpublished works were still held to be covered by common law, publication was necessary in order for a work to be covered by statutory law, and an author’s rights under statutory
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 law were substantially different from what they were under common law. Under the 1909 law, there was no general protection of unpublished works. Omission of or serious error in a copyright notice or failure to deposit a copy in the Copyright Office resulted in loss or forfeit of copyright. The Copyright Office, located in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., was established by the 1909 law to keep records and register works. The law outlined procedures for registration of copyright, detailed circumstances of and penalties for infringement, and listed fourteen categories of works that could be copyrighted. It codified the standard of copyrightability of a work as being original by the author and not copied from other work. It also lengthened the duration of copyright to twenty-eight years, renewable for twenty-eight more.
The doctrine of fair use, which was applied even in early copyright law, is based on the constitutional principle of public benefit from authors’ works. In 1961, while the 1909 law was still in effect, the Copyright Office listed what could be copied without permission and for what purpose under the doctrine of fair use. Research, instruction, and literary review, for example, were purposes that received relatively broad rights to copy. Fair use was not codified in the United States until the copyright law revision of 1976. As technology improved and became more varied, the 1909 law’s provisions became increasingly inadequate. For example, the law’s description of the classes of works that were copyrightable showed that the lawmakers had been concerned largely with works produced using the technology of the printing press. The law protected the “writings” of an author, whereas later law protects “original works of authorship,” thus broadening the definition of “author” and lengthening the list of what can be considered to be authors’ works. Although the 1909 law listed motion pictures and sound recordings among the classes of copyrightable works, it made inadequate provision for the protection of what was disseminated through these new technologies and no provision at all for infringement issues arising from the use of photocopy machines, television, videotape, computers, or cable and satellite communications. Beginning in 1955, several attempts were made to revise U.S. copyright law, but it was not extensively revised until 1976 (effective in 1978). The most significant impact of the Copyright Act of 1909 on the writing and publishing world and on society in general, as beneficiary of authors’ work, came from the fact that it was specific, whereas prior legislation had been general. By establishing a Copyright Office, listing the kinds of works that could be copyrighted, and outlining how they could be protected, the law sought to resolve the ongoing conflict between rewarding creators and benefiting their audiences. This issue persisted, however, becoming only more complicated with the globalization of information and information technology in the early twenty-first century. The perceived need to elevate copyright law to the international level was evidenced by the establishment in 1961 of the World Intellectual Property Organization, a specialized United Nations agency and the successor to the Berne Convention International Bureau, which, in turn, had its roots in the 1886 Berne Conference for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. —Christina Ashton 755
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Significance Just as the Statute of Anne had responded to the implications of the new technology of the printing press, so the Copyright Act of 1909 tried to respond to the new technology of the early twentieth century. The law grew out of centuries of political upheaval, factional controversy, technological development, and legislative compromise. As English government swung from monarchy to republic and back to monarchy again up to the early eighteenth century, written work was first strictly censored and then liberated to the point of anarchy. Printing had made works of all kinds widely available, and once the press was liberated in England, the rights of publishers, authors, and the public came into sharp conflict. Some of the conflicts were resolved by the Statute of Anne, which served as a pattern for American copyright law. In the spirit of the original state laws and the federal copyright law of 1790, the 1909 law stated its purpose as being “primarily for the public,” thus favoring the rights of the public over the rights of authors but allowing for reward to authors in order to encourage them to continue producing. In this way, the law seemed to reconcile the conflicting principles of rewards to creators and the “promotion of progress in science and useful arts” for the common good. By extending the term of copyright coverage, it gave more protection to authors than previous legislation had. It provided no protection, however, for unpublished work, and it tended to supersede common law, given that publication was a necessary condition for copyright. Further, the law did not address the special issues of copyright involved for writers as employees or contractors, such as newspaper reporters and freelance writers, who do what is known as “work for hire.”
U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law
Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy Further Reading Bettig, Ronald V. “Critical Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of Copyright.” In Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Presents the history of copyright in the United States as an introduction to an analysis of copyright from a political and cultural point of view. Bunnin, Brad, and Peter Beren. “What Is Copyright?” In The Writer’s Legal Companion: The Complete Handbook for the Working Writer. 3d ed. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1998. Practical legal advice for writers concerning copyright. Compares the constitutional foundation of copyright with current law and compares the 1909 and 1978 laws in outline form. Dible, Donald M., ed. What Everybody Should Know About Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights. Fairfield, Calif.: Entrepreneur Press, 1978. Provides historical background on copyright law and practical guidelines regarding what copyright is and how it is obtained. Includes the full text of the 1978 law. Goldfarb, Ronald L., and Gail E. Ross. “What Every Writer Should Know About Copyright.” In The
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Writer’s Lawyer. New York: Times Books, 1989. Contains only brief historical background to copyright but provides important information on later developments in copyright law. Johnston, Donald F. Copyright Handbook. 2d ed. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1982. Describes and interprets every element of copyright law in detail. Includes the full text of both the 1909 and the 1978 laws. Kaplan, Benjamin. An Unhurried View of Copyright. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. Three lectures analyzing judicial decisions regarding copyright issues from the fifteenth century through the 1960’s. Wincor, Richard, and Irving Mandell. “Historical Background: Copyright Law.” In Copyright, Patents, and Trademarks. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1980. A concise, thorough, and extremely readable history of copyright from its origins to the status of the law in the 1970’s. See also: Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music; Oct. 22, 1938: Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy.
April, 1909-August, 1911
Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy The Parliament Act of 1911 helped make Britain a democracy by regulating the relations between Lords and Commons by statute, allowing the House of Lords to delay legislation only for a short time. Locale: London, England Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), member of Parliament, 1906-1911 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1908-1915 Lord Lansdowne (1845-1927), member of the House of Lords Winston Churchill (1874-1965), member of Parliament and British home secretary, 1910-1911 H. H. Asquith (1852-1928), prime minister of Great Britain, 1908-1916 George V (1865-1936), king of England, r. 1910-1936 756
Summary of Event The Parliament Act of 1911 was a major constitutional statute that limited the power of the House of Lords (the upper house of the Parliament) so that it could never again challenge the supremacy of the House of Commons (the lower house). The act eliminated the theoretical equality of the upper and lower houses and allowed the democratic process to guide Great Britain from the House of Commons almost entirely unimpeded. Up until 1911, both houses of Parliament had to pass a bill before it became law. The only exceptions were money bills, which had to originate in the House of Commons and were not supposed to be rejected by the Lords. After the Parliament Act of 1911, the Lords had to accept all bills passed in three successive sessions of the House of Commons. This meant that the Lords’ veto over bills passed in the Commons had been canceled, and henceforth the longest the upper house could delay legislation would be for approximately two years. Since 1911, therefore, Britain’s legislature has been functionally unicameral, or one-chambered, and much more effective
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
budget had been brought forward in the Commons to help pay for old-age pensions and battleships. It imposed taxes on land and high incomes, a move loathed by numerous members of the House of Lords. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was David Lloyd George, a brilliant Welsh politician who bitterly resented the hereditary privilege embodied in the House of Lords. It has been suggested that Lloyd George designed the budget for the express purpose of bringing on a constitutional crisis with the House of Lords; however, no evidence has come to light that supports that assertion. The justification for the Lords’ rejection of the budget was included in an amendment fostered by Conservative leader Lord Lansdowne, which declared that the Lords could not vote for such a controversial measure until it had been “submitted to the judgement of the country.” In other words, the Lords called for another election to be fought over the issue of the budget. Beyond this issue was the greater question of the relationship between Lords and Commons. The atmosphere of this period was charged by a steady barrage of criticism against the House of Lords in the House of Commons by numerous Liberals, particularly Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who was himself the grandson and nephew of a duke. Ridicule from the lower house had the effect of goading many members of the upper house into outraged resistance. The election of 1910 left the Liberals only two seats ahead of the Conservatives and made them dependent on the Irish Nationalists and Labour members for a clear majority over the Conservatives. Nevertheless, the House of Lords passed the budget on the grounds that the election had confirmed the will of the electorate to have them do so. What they feared was legislation to alter the constitution, and this came along promptly in the form of resolutions for a bill to limit the powers of the House of Lords permanently. The resolutions were introduced by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, and they passed resoundingly because the Irish Nationalists knew that legislation for Irish home rule would go through once the obstacle of the Lords was removed. In essence, the resolutions that became the Parliament Act of 1911 only allowed the Lords to delay legislation. Money bills, certified as such by the Speaker of the House, could be held up for only one month, and other bills could be delayed only for two years. If three successive sessions of the House of Commons passed a bill, it would become law automatically, without the approval of the upper house. Another provision of this Parliament Bill was that general elections had to be held at least ev757
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than it had been previously in responding to the will of the electorate. The drive for democracy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had made the House of Commons increasingly representative of the will of the majority of the British people at the same time that the House of Lords appeared increasingly anachronistic—that is, belonging to another era long past. Most of the Lords inherited their seats as leaders of wealthy landholding families. Some were leaders of families who had gained considerable riches recently and who had distributed some of their fortunes to help the campaigns of leading politicians. Whether they were the heads of newer or ancient noble families, members of the House of Lords tended to be strongly Conservative regardless of the inclination of the majority in the House of Commons. As long as the Conservative Party held a majority in the House of Commons, cooperation between the houses could be maintained, but when the Liberal Party took over, either by itself or in alliance with the smaller Labour Party and Irish Nationalist Party, the two houses could easily become deadlocked. Trouble that had been simmering between the Lords and Commons came to a head after the Liberals came to power in the House of Commons in 1906 with a large elected majority. The House of Lords rejected several bills passed by the House of Commons on such important matters as education and voting qualifications. Although both the Liberal and Conservative Parties were supposed to be fairly represented in the House of Lords, the Conservatives in that house far outnumbered the Liberals by the early twentieth century. This meant that the majority in the House of Lords followed the leadership of Arthur Balfour, the leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, even when he was in charge of a minority in opposition. Therefore, when Balfour unsuccessfully opposed a measure in the Commons it was likely to be tossed out by the House of Lords. The situation gave rise to one of the most celebrated quips of the era: The House of Lords as the “watchdog of the constitution” had become “Mr. Balfour’s poodle.” Resentment of the Lords focused dramatically after the House of Lords rejected the so-called People’s Budget of 1909 and thus violated the British constitution as it was then interpreted. Money bills were regarded as the special responsibility of the House of Commons, and the Lords were supposed to accept all such bills. The People’s Budget passed in the House of Commons by a vote of 379 to 149 and was then rejected by the Conservative majority in the Lords by an overwhelming 350 to 75. The
Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy
Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy ery five years instead of the seven years that had prevailed for centuries. The death of King Edward VII intervened before the issue could be fought out. In Great Britain, whenever a monarch dies new elections must be held, so Edward’s death necessitated the second general election of 1910. The results were much the same as in the first: Liberals and Conservatives both had 272 seats, and a majority for the Parliament Bill was guaranteed by Irish Nationalist and Labour votes in the Commons. Given the inflamed passions among the legislators over the constitutional issue, it is curious that outside Parliament the issue generated little interest. The new king, George V, was persuaded to give assurances that he would support the Liberals’ plan to swamp the Conservative majority in the Lords by creating new members. This prerogative right was the famous “safety valve of the constitution,” which was once applied in the early eighteenth century and used as a threat during the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. Faced with the prospect of inundation by newly minted lords, many in the upper house were willing to accept defeat, but a number of diehards, called “Ditchers” because they would resist to the last ditch, would not vote for the Parliament Bill when it came up to the House of Lords. Nevertheless, the act passed by a vote of 131 to 114. In 1949, another Parliament Act revised downward the capacity of the Lords to delay acts of the Commons, from three sessions and two years to two sessions and one year. This amendment was supplemented by the Salisbury Convention, in which the Lords agreed not to oppose legislation mentioned in the election manifesto of the ruling party upon its second reading. The Lords could still propose reasonable amendments not intended to wreck legislation. This compromise came at a time when the Lords were dominated by Conservatives generally opposed to the new Labour government’s efforts to enact provisions for nationalization and welfare state policies. Significance In the period since the 1911 Parliament Bill became law, the House of Lords has almost always cooperated with the House of Commons. Delay has been invoked on only a few occasions, and the House of Lords has sometimes
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 succeeded in convincing the House of Commons to amend legislation distasteful to the Lords. In addition, the House of Commons has made legislation on a few occasions despite sustained opposition from the House of Lords, including the War Crimes Act of 1991 and the European Parliamentary Elections Act of 1999. —Henry G. Weisser Further Reading Allyn, Emily. Lords Versus Commons: A Century of Conflict and Compromise, 1830-1930. New York: Century, 1931. A University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. thesis that provides rich detail on all aspects of the topic. Arnstein, Walter L. Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830 to the Present. 8th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Popular text treats the subject of the Parliament Bill with great clarity, particularly for American readers. Handcock, W. D., ed. English Historical Documents, 1874-1914. Vol. 12, part 2. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1977. Includes key speeches by Asquith and Balfour regarding the Parliament Act of 1911 as well as the complete statute itself. Jenkins, Roy. Mr. Balfour’s Poodle: People v. Peers. 1954. Reprint. London: Pan Macmillan. Very readable, detailed account is entirely devoted to describing the subject rather than arguing a thesis. Laybourn, Keith. Fifty Key Figures in TwentiethCentury British Politics. New York: Routledge, 2002. Collection of biographical sketches includes entries on all the individuals who played important roles in the events surrounding passage of the Parliament Act of 1911. Essays are cross-referenced, and suggestions for further reading are provided. Lloyd, T. O. Empire, Welfare State, Europe: History of the United Kingdom, 1906-2001. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Presents a detailed and solid account of the events surrounding the Parliament Bill aimed at British readers. See also: Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill; 19201921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole
April 6, 1909
Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole Six North American explorers became the first people to reach the geographic North Pole. Locale: Geographic North Pole Category: Exploration and discovery Key Figures Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920), American civil engineer and explorer Matthew Alexander Henson (1866-1955), American explorer Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940), American physician and explorer
Robert Edwin Peary. (Library of Congress)
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Summary of Event European exploration of the North American Arctic region began in the late fifteenth century, with the search for a northwest passage to Asia as the primary goal. By the nineteenth century, it was clear that an easily navigable northern route to Asia did not exist, and attention gradually shifted toward efforts to reach the North Pole. Early American Arctic explorers, including Elisha Kent Kane and Charles Francis Hall, became involved in polar explorations as part of the search for information on the fate of the 1845 British expedition led by Sir John Franklin. The Franklin party, consisting of two ships and 133 men, was the last major effort by the British to find a northern passage through the Canadian Arctic. The last contact with Franklin occurred shortly after he entered Baffin Bay, and it was later discovered that, after terrible hardships, Franklin and all members of his party had perished. The main contribution that Kane and Hall made to Arctic exploration was the realization that the use of Eskimo clothing as well as Eskimo hunting and travel techniques greatly improved explorers’ ability to survive in the harsh Arctic environment. In 1881, as part of a scientific research program connected with the First International Polar Year, a U.S. Army expedition led by Lieutenant Adolphus Greeley established a camp on Ellesmere Island. The next year, two members of the Greeley party, Lieutenant James Lockwood and Sergeant David Brainard, along with their Eskimo sled driver, reached 83º24N north latitude. This set a new record for the closest approach to the North Pole, the
first time in three centuries that the record for traveling the farthest north was held by a non-British exploration party. However, the Greeley expedition ended in disaster in 1884, with eighteen of the twenty-four members of the party dying before the rest were rescued. By this time, several other Americans had become interested in Arctic exploration. Chief among them was Robert Edwin Peary, who at the time of his first visit to Greenland in 1886 was an engineer in the U.S. Navy. In 1891, Peary returned to Greenland as head of an expedition that included Frederick Albert Cook, a doctor from Brooklyn, and Matthew Alexander Henson, an African American who acted as Peary’s servant. Both Cook and Henson would become noted explorers over the next several years. During the second year of his stay, Peary, accompanied by the Norwegian explorer Eivind Astrup, made an eleven-hundred-mile journey across northern
Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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Greenland. The journey established Peary as a leader in polar exploration. After a brief fund-raising visit to the United States, Peary returned to Greenland in 1893 to search for routes to the North Pole. During his three-year stay, Peary, along with Henson and Hugh Lee, another member of his party, retraced Peary’s previous path across Greenland. Peary also recovered two of three large meteorites that had served as sources of iron for the Eskimos in the region. A new Peary expedition returned to the Arctic in 1898 and remained until 1902. Peary’s previous exploration of the Greenland ice cap had convinced him that an alternative route to the North Pole was needed, and he therefore spent most of his time on Ellesmere Island. On one early journey, Peary suffered severe frostbite and lost most of 760
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the toes on both of his feet. Undaunted, he made a four-hundredmile trip across northern Greenland in 1900, proving that Greenland is an island. In 1902, the last year of the expedition, Peary attempted to reach the North Pole, but he was able to travel only to 84º17N north latitude. This represented Peary’s closest approach to the pole up to that time, an attempt that fell short of the latitude R achieved by Umberto Cagni, an Italian explorer, in 1899. After three years of preparation, Peary launched a new Arctic expedition in 1906. Winter quarters for the party were established at Cape Sheridan, on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island. Peary was again accompanied by Henson. On March 6, 1906, Peary set out on what he believed would be his last attempt to reach the North Pole. Once again, he failed to reach his objective, although he did set a new record for farthest north, at 87º06N north latitude. Peary returned to the United States, determined to make one final attempt to reach the pole. Financial difficulties delayed him, and it was not until July 6, 1908, that he again departed for the Arctic. He again chose Cape Sheridan as the base from which he would launch his journey. During the winter of 1908-1909, Peary and his party moved provisions from Cape Sheridan to Cape Columbia, a more northerly part of Ellesmere Island, from which the trip to the pole would begin. On February 28, 1909, the first supply party set off from Cape Columbia toward the pole. Remaining supply parties, then Peary himself, soon followed. Open water on the polar ice cap delayed their progress, but by April 1, Peary had moved to within 150 miles of the pole. At this point, the last supply party moved south, and Peary began the final part of his journey accompanied by Henson and four Eskimos whose names were Egingwah, Ookeah, Oatah, and Seegloo. Five days later, on April 6, 1909, Peary and his companions reached the North Pole. They set up camp and stayed for thirty hours. After a three-week journey, the party returned to Cape Columbia on April 23.
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Further Reading Abramson, Howard S. Hero in Disgrace: The Life of Arctic Explorer Frederick A. Cook. New York: Paragon House, 1991. A thorough account of Cook’s life and explorations, although biased in favor of Cook’s claim to have been the first person to reach the North Pole. Berton, Pierre. The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the
Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909. 1988. Reprint. New York: Lyons Press, 2000. An impartial and informative history of nineteenth and early twentieth century Arctic explorations. Chapter 13 examines Peary’s and Cook’s claims to have reached the North Pole. Cook, Frederick Albert. My Attainment of the Pole. 1913. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. A reprint edition of Cook’s own account of his Arctic expedition and his claim to have been the first to reach the North Pole. Features illustrations and a new introduction by Robert M. Bryce. Fleming, Fergus. Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole. New York: Grove Press, 2001. Describes the major Arctic expeditions undertaken from 1845 to 1969 in exhaustive detail, using excerpts from journals and other documents to flesh out the characters involved. Includes photographs, chronology of major expeditions, maps, bibliography, and index. Goetzmann, William H. New Lands, New Men: America and the Second Great Age of Discovery. 1986. Reprint. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1995. A general history of exploration from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century. Chapter 11 discusses the Cook and Peary polar expeditions. Henderson, Bruce. True North: Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Uses the accounts of Arctic exploration recorded by Peary, Cook, and others to examine the rivalry between Peary and Cook. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Henson, Matthew A. A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. 1912. Reprint. Montpelier, Vt.: Invisible Cities Press, 2001. A reprint edition of Henson’s first-person account of the North Pole expedition. Includes photographs and a new introduction by S. Allen Counter. Herbert, Wally. The Noose of Laurels: Robert E. Peary and the Race to the North Pole. New York: Atheneum, 1989. A detailed and critical history of the explorations of Peary and Cook by an author with extensive personal experience in the Arctic. Weems, John Edward. Peary: The Explorer and the Man. 1967. Reprint. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1988. A well-written but uncritical biography. Makes extensive use of Peary’s personal papers and writings. See also: July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands; Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences; Dec. 14, 1911: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole. 761
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Significance The race to become the first person to reach the North Pole was driven more by the challenge involved than by any practical benefits from the accomplishment itself, although many Arctic expeditions carried out specific scientific and geographic measurements. The prestige attached to being the first to reach the pole accounted for the controversy in which Peary found himself when he returned to civilization. Frederick Cook, who had been a member of one of Peary’s early expeditions to Greenland, claimed that he and two Eskimo traveling companions had reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908, almost a full year before Peary’s visit. Cook’s claim already had been recognized by the University of Copenhagen, and Cook had received congratulations from a number of other polar explorers as well as a massive amount of popular support. For the next several months, the competing claims of Peary and Cook sparked controversy. However, Cook’s story gradually fell apart. The Eskimos who accompanied Cook testified that during their journey, their party had never left sight of land. More damaging, it was found that a previous claim by Cook to have been the first person to climb Mount McKinley was fraudulent. Cook also failed to present convincing proof to support his story of reaching the pole. Cook’s claim was gradually disbelieved, and Cook fell into disfavor and died a pauper in 1940. Doubts remain, however, concerning Peary’s trip to the North Pole. A committee of the National Geographic Society unanimously confirmed Peary’s account of his journey, but the British Royal Geographical Society, which also examined Peary’s records, supported his story by a vote of eight to seven, indicating some skepticism. Peary’s case was not helped by the fact that several of his previous geographic discoveries, including “Jesup Land” and “Crocker Land,” turned out to be in error. Further doubts were raised by discrepancies in Peary’s written records of his polar journey. Although Peary is generally recognized as having led the first expedition to the North Pole, it is unlikely that it will ever be known for certain whether he was in fact successful in his trip. —Jeffrey A. Joens
Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 19, 1909
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris From its inception, Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes revitalized the art of ballet through revolutionary innovations in choreography, set design, and musical scores. Locale: Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, France Categories: Dance; music Key Figures Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Léon Bakst (1866-1924), Russian French artist Alexandre Benois (1870-1960), Russian painter Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Nikolay Konstantinovich Roerich (1874-1947), Russian painter Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (1885-1978), Russian ballet dancer Summary of Event On May 19, 1909, in the newly refurbished Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the curtain rose on the premiere performance of the Ballets Russes. The audience, made up of the city’s dignitaries, artists, and social elite, was astounded by the spectacular decor and costumes, the passionate bravura dancing, and the atmosphere of exoticism that enveloped the performance. The “wild Asiatic horde” electrified Parisian audiences and began a twenty-year assault on every artistic convention associated with theatrical dance presentation. The guiding force and creative center of this artistic phenomenon was Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev’s early education provided him with an appreciation of the arts, and, although he enrolled in the law school of St. Petersburg University, his ambition was to become a singer or composer. Through his association with his cousin Dmitry Filosov, Diaghilev was accepted into a group of young men who shared similar viewpoints about art and the world. First called the Nevsky Pickwickians, the group formed the nucleus of what would become the artistic society Mir Iskusstva (world of art). A strong voice in Russian art criticism, Mir Iskusstva produced a journal of the same name, which Diaghilev edited. In an essay titled “Complicated Questions,” Diaghilev stated the group’s views: Art should be expres762
sive, synthetic, and individual. It should communicate “higher truths” and express the elusive ideal of beauty. Mir Iskusstva was critical of the narrow, canon-based art of the academies and of the prevalent “social realism” style of painting. Through the collaborative efforts of Diaghilev, Michel Fokine, Léon Bakst, and Alexandre Benois, the aesthetics championed by Mir Iskusstva were soon applied to the presentation of ballet. The 1909 premiere season of the Ballets Russes marked the fourth time Diaghilev had presented Russian art to Parisian audiences. In 1906, he had organized an exhibition of Russian art that toured Paris, Berlin, and Venice. In 1907, he had brought Russian music to Paris in the form of five historical concerts that included the music of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Aleksandr Scriabin. His next venture was a 1908 production of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov (1874) at the Paris Opera, featuring the famous Fyodor Chaliapin. Each presentation was a triumphant success, whetting the European taste for Russian spectacle. Diaghilev cultivated his audiences, creating an obsession for things “à la Russe.” Ever a perfectionist, Diaghilev insisted that the Théâtre du Châtelet be completely overhauled prior to the Ballets Russes opening night. His concern for perfection in even the smallest production details was at once a measure of his genius and a major contributing factor to the economic peril that constantly threatened the company. New crimson carpet was laid, the foyers and auditorium were cleaned and repainted—all without regard to cost. Even the audience on opening night was not left to chance; fifty-two of the most beautiful actresses in Paris were invited to sit in the dress circle in the first balcony. Blonds were alternated with brunettes. Theater manager Gabriel Astruc later claimed that on seeing these women, “the whole house burst into applause.” The ballets performed that first season were Le Pavillon d’Armide, the “Polovtsian Dances” (from the opera Prince Igor), Le Festin, Les Sylphides, and Cléopâtre. Choreographed by Fokine, the ballets featured music by Russian composers: Nikolay Tcherepnin, Aleksandr Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Mussorgsky. Costume designs and set decor were created by Diaghilev’s Mir Iskusstva companions Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst, Konstantin Korovin, and Nikolay Konstantinovich Roerich. Accustomed to the banal and effete lethargy of Euro-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris
The Paris Seasons of the Ballets Russes Sergei Diaghilev’s tremendous eye for spotting talent and Michel Fokine’s gift for choreography led to several seasons in Paris that would have a huge impact on the development of modern ballet. Year Ballet (choreographer/composer)
Year Ballet (choreographer/composer)
1909 Les Sylphides (Fokine/Chopin) Le Pavillon d’Armide (Fokine/Tcherepnine) Le Festin, suite de danses (Fokine/various Russian composers) “Polovtsian Dances” from Prince Igor (Fokine/ Borodine) Cléopâtre (Fokine/Arensky and various Russian composers)
1917 Parade (Massine/Satie) Les Femmes de bonne humeur (Massine/Scarlatti) Contes russes (Massine/Liadov)
1910 Les Orientales (Fokine/various Russian composers) Carnaval (Fokine/Schumann) Schéhérazade (Fokine/Rimsky-Korsakov) Giselle (revised by Fokine/Adam) L’Oiseau de feu (Fokine/Stravinsky)
1912 Le Dieu bleu (Fokine/Hahn) L’Après-midi d’un faune (Nijinski/Debussy) Daphnis et Chloé (Fokine/Ravel) Thamar (Fokine/Balakirev) 1913 Jeux (Nijinski/Debussy) Le Sacre du printemps (Nijinski/Stravinsky) 1914 La Légende de Joseph (Fokine/Strauss) Le Coq d’or (Fokine/Rimsky-Korsakov) 1915 Soleil de nuit (Massine/Rimsky-Korsakov)
pean ballet, Parisian audiences went wild over the virtuosic, athletic vigor of dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, the delicate beauty of dancers Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, Anna Pavlova, and Ida Rubinstein, and the innovative choreography of Fokine. They were equally stunned by the vibrantly passionate, hauntingly pagan, and radically new set decor and costume designs for the ballets. Two ballets in particular captivated audiences: the “Polovtsian Dances” and Cléopâtre. The “Polovtsian Dances” represented a true novelty for the jaded Parisian audiences. Fokine’s innovative use of the corps de ballets as a living ensemble of individuals replaced the conventional static posing, and Roerich’s lyric, brooding decor and costumes evoked an aura of pa-
1920 Pulcinella (Massine/Stravinsky) Astuzie femminili (Massine/Cimarosa) Le Chant du rossignol (Massine/Stravinsky) 1923 Les Noces (Nijinska/Stravinsky) Les Tentations de la bergère (Nijinska/Montéclair) 1924 Les Biches (Nijinska/Poulenc) Le Train bleu (Nijinska/Milhaud) Les Fâcheux (Nijinska/Auric) 1925 Zéphyr et Flore (Massine/Dukelsky) Les Matelots (Massine/Auric)
1909
1911 Petrushka (Fokine/Stravinsky) Le Spectre de la rose (Fokine/Weber) Narcisse (Fokine/Tcherepnine) Sadko (Fokine/Rimsky-Korsakov)
1919 La Boutique fantasque (Massine/Rossini-Respighi) Le Tricorne (Massine/De Falla)
1926 Jack in the Box (Balanchine/Satie) Pastorale (Balanchine/Auric) Barabau (Balanchine/Rieti) Romeo et Juliette (Nijinska/Lambert) 1927 La Chatte (Balanchine/Sauguet) Le Triomphe de Neptune (Balanchine/Berners) Pas d’acier (Massine/Prokofiev) 1928 Ode (Massine/Nabokov) Apollon musagète (Balanchine/Stravinsky) 1929 Le Fils prodigue (Balanchine/Prokofiev) Le Bal (Balanchine/Rieti)
gan mystery. Audiences were swept up in the frenzied finale; one historian has written that “at the end, when Sophia Fedorova led the dance like one possessed, her companions, too, [were] utterly in the grip of the music’s frenetic rhythm . . . while the audience jumped and shouted for joy.” Cléopâtre introduced the exotic Ida Rubinstein and the artfully authentic decor and costumes of Bakst and created a passion in Paris for everything Egyptian. With Cléopâtre, Fokine created a concise choreographic drama in one act, integrating pantomime with the dancing. In combination with Bakst’s carefully researched design, Fokine achieved a “scenic realism” that stunned the audience. 763
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris The total effect of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes presentations on Parisian audiences was overwhelming. The combination of innovations in choreography, set decor and costume design, brilliant dancing, and exotic music took Paris by storm and began two decades of artistic innovation that revolutionized theatrical dance presentations worldwide. Significance When Diaghilev presented his “saison Russes” in Paris in 1909, he not only created an appetite for Russian ballet, but he also began a revolution in choreography, scene design, musical composition, and ballet technique. More important, that first season changed forever the way audiences perceived dance and dancers, established a completely new process of and standard for artistic collaboration, and thrust dance into a vanguard position among the arts. That first season had both immediate and longlasting effects on a variety of artistic, social, and cultural spheres. In much the same way that Diaghilev and Mir Iskusstva condemned Russian art for being overly academic and parochial, Fokine’s choreographic reforms were aimed at liberating ballet from its academic straitjacket. Fokine jettisoned the formulaic conventions of his predecessor, Marius Petipa, and created ballets that were concise, with costuming, design, and movement appropriate to their setting, and forged a new ensemble to replace the static and merely decorative corps de ballet of Petipa. Fokine’s interest in individual expression can be seen in his transformation of the corps de ballet into a moving, liberated group of individuals with their own personalities, gestures, and emotions. While not abandoning classical technique as did his contemporary Isadora Duncan, Fokine revitalized and expanded the classical vocabulary, freeing the dancers’ arms from static conventional poses and their spines from rigid adherence to the vertical. Many of his innovations, although present in the season of 1909, were not fully realized until such ballets as Schéhérazade (1910), The Firebird (L’ Oiseau de feu; 1910), Petrushka (1911), and Le Dieu bleu (1912). Fokine’s choreographic reforms substantially influenced Nijinsky, Diaghilev’s next choreographic protégé. In the realm of art, Diaghilev’s influence spread from his immediate circle of Mir Iskusstva friends to the major painters of the twentieth century. Natalya Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Robert Edmond Jones, Giacomo Balla, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Juan Gris, Maurice Utrillo, and Joan Miró all created set 764
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and costume designs for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Picasso’s designs for The Three-Cornered Hat (Le Tricorne; 1919), Pulcinella (1920), and especially Parade (1917) are considered masterpieces. In the program notes for Parade, Guillaume Apollinaire wrote, “Until now, scenery and costumes on the one hand, and choreography, on the other, have had only an artificial connection, but their fresh alliance in Parade has produced a kind of Surrealism [that] promises utterly to transform arts and customs alike.” Before Diaghilev, scene painting and costume design were left primarily in the hands of professional craftsmen who worked according to conventional formulas. With the artistic collaboration of easel painters, the productions of the Ballets Russes catapulted reforms in stage decor into the public eye, making design an integral and unified part of any production and transforming into reality the aesthetics of Mir Iskusstva and Richard Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Diaghilev’s dedication to novelty guaranteed that the Ballets Russes would be in the forefront of artistic expression. Nowhere was that more visible than in the roster of composers Diaghilev invited to create scores for his new ballets. Diaghilev had a genius for recognizing fresh currents in artistic expression and an instinct for selecting artistic pioneers. From its inception, the Ballets Russes embodied the modern spirit and bold confidence of its founder. The popularity of the Ballets Russes transformed public opinion about Russian music and rescued ballet scores from the antipathy of composers. Diaghilev’s commitment to a unified and balanced production, with each component of equal artistic caliber, led him to commission music that could match the spectacular dancing, choreography, and decor of his ballets. Occurring simultaneously with a rising neonationalist sentiment among Russian composers, Diaghilev’s desire for novelty, unity, and artistic collaboration connected him irrevocably and providentially to the young Igor Stravinsky. In collaboration with Diaghilev, under the auspices of the Ballets Russes, Stravinsky went on to create masterpieces of musical composition. The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps; 1913) attest to the brilliant outcome of this partnership. As radical and uncompromisingly original as Stravinsky’s scores were, the nature of Diaghilev’s collaboration with Stravinsky led to an even more important transformation: the upgrading of the role of the ballet composer. This influenced the genre to such a degree that, as one historian has noted, it led to a “miraculous
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Further Reading Fokine, Michel. Fokine: Memoirs of a Ballet Master. Translated by Vitale Fokine, edited by Anatole Chujoy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. Fokine’s account of his early life, ballet training, and rise to stardom as a choreographer. Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. 1989. Re-
print. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Examines the entire enterprise of the Ballets Russes from a broad and fresh perspective. Analyzes the concurrent artistic, economic, social, and cultural trends and conditions that influenced and were influenced by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Scholarly, well written, and thorough. _______. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. A selection of essays and reviews by one of the most influential scholars of the history of dance. Covers the transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early twentieth century. Includes many photographs. _______, ed. The Ballets Russes and Its World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Collection of fourteen essays on the history and importance of the Ballets Russes by dance and music scholars and critics. Includes illustrations and bibliography. Haskell, Arnold Lionel. Diaghileff: His Artistic and Private Life. 1935. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. Written in conjunction with Diaghilev’s contemporary Walter Nouvel. Dated, romantic, and gossipy; interesting (if suspect) details of Diaghilev’s private life and behind-the-scenes drama at the theater. Appendixes include catalog of productions and company roster through the years. Kochno, Boris. Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Translated by Adrienne Foulke. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Contains excerpts from letters, program notes, and unpublished essays by Diaghilev and his contemporaries, including Benois, Jean Cocteau, Picasso, and Stravinsky. Excellent resource for information about specific ballets, dancers, designers, and musicians from 1909 to 1929. Amazing photographs, sketches, and anecdotes about every ballet produced under the auspices of the Ballets Russes. Pozharskaia, Militsa, and Tatiana Volodina. The Art of the Ballets Russes. Translated by V. S. Friedman. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990. Emphasizes costume, set, and stage design rather than choreography or dancing. Minimal but informative text accompanies beautiful photographs, many in color. Arranged chronologically to display the productions of the Ballets Russes in its Paris seasons from 1908 to 1929. Includes a foreword by Clement Crisp and an annotated list of artists. Van Norman Baer, Nancy, comp. Art of Enchantment: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909-1929. New York: Universe Books, 1988. Catalog of an exhibition of Ballets Russes artifacts at the Fine Arts Museum of 765
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and altogether unexpected resurgence” and the genre’s “dramatic upgrading in the twentieth-century scale of values.” In addition to Stravinsky, Diaghilev commissioned scores from a multitude of history’s most celebrated composers, including Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Manuel de Falla, Sergei Prokofiev, and Darius Milhaud. The 1909 season of the Ballets Russes fundamentally changed the way audiences perceived ballet and ballet dancers. Instead of an endless display of stilted positions and static groupings, the ballet ensemble of Diaghilev’s company pulsed, swirled, and leapt. Gone were the symmetrical groupings of identically clad women who did nothing more than frame the stage. Absent, too, were the listless young men who appeared as occasional supports for their balancing partners. Nijinsky, Adolph Blom, Léonide Massine, and Mikhail Mordkin reestablished the primacy and splendor of the male dancer at a time when men were all but extinct on the ballet stage. The overall effect produced a completely different kind of dance drama, one that left the audience demanding more. As influential as the Ballets Russes was on the individual careers of the artists, dancers, choreographers, and composers who were directly associated with it, its legacy can be seen in other areas as well. Diaghilev’s insistence on the highest standards for all the artistic components of production elevated ballet and theatrical dance presentation to the equal of theater, visual arts, and music. No longer the inferior stepchild of opera, dance became recognized as legitimate artistic expression. Additionally, Diaghilev’s process of collaboration (carried forth from the early Mir Iskusstva days), which illustrated that superb artistic work could be created outside the academy, opened doors for many independent artists. Without Diaghilev’s model of a touring company with new repertory each season, it is doubtful that many of the fine ballet companies of today would have come into existence. Indeed, American ballet owes a tremendous debt to the Ballets Russes, from which it received not only dancers, teachers, and choreographers but also the vision of what twentieth century ballet could be. —Cynthia J. Williams
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris
Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet San Francisco. Excellent articles by ten different authors accompany photographs of the exhibit material. Elena Bridgman’s essay on the Mir Iskusstva origins of the Ballets Russes and Joan Aceola’s essay on Nijinsky are exceptional. Includes a chronological table of Ballets Russes productions.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1912: L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet.
June 2, 1909
Fokine’s LES SYLPHIDES Introduces Abstract Ballet Michel Fokine took ballet into new dimensions when he elevated the male role and showed that ballet could be beautifully abstract. Locale: Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, France Categories: Dance; music Key Figures Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), Russian ballet dancer Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (1885-1978), Russian ballet dancer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario who created and directed the Ballets Russes Olga Preobrajenska (1871-1962), Russian ballet dancer Alexandre Benois (1870-1960), Russian painter and theatrical set designer Summary of Event While browsing through some pieces at a music shop, choreographer Michel Fokine found a suite titled “Chopiniana,” orchestrated by Aleksandr Glazunov. Fokine considered arranging a ballet to the suite, but he first decided to add a waltz to the piece, and he asked Glazunov to orchestrate this as well. The resulting ballet, Réverie romantique, which was performed by the Russian Imperial Ballet in 1907, represented Fokine’s attempt to return ballet to the conditions of its highest development. The ballet’s first piece, a polonaise, was performed in a ballroom setting by dancers in rich Polish costumes. The second piece, a nocturne, was turned into a scene from the life of Frédéric Chopin in which the composer (portrayed by Alexei Bulgakov) was shown working at a piano in a deserted monastery. Ill and assailed by vague fears, Chopin was suddenly tormented by the ghosts of dead monks. Recoiling in terror and then collapsing in a half faint, he was rescued by his muse, a dancer in white 766
who appeared out of the darkness to drive away the haunting visions and ease him back to his piano, where he resumed his composition. The third piece, a mazurka, portrayed the interruption of a young peasant girl’s wedding to an old man and her flight from the scene with her former lover. The waltz, a classical pas de deux, followed. The final piece, a tarantella, was an ensemble dance set in a square somewhere in Naples, with Mount Vesuvius looming in the distance. On April 6, 1908, Fokine presented a new version of the ballet, titled Second Chopiniana, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Glazunov’s waltz was retained in the new production, but the rest was now orchestrated by Maurice Keller. Part of a double bill with a ballet that showcased the dancers’ use of profile positions, angular lines, and flat palms throughout, Second Chopiniana was deliberately different in style. Dissatisfied with irrelevant acrobatic feats and toe dance in ballet, Fokine sought to create a romantic mood piece that was plotless but at the same time infused with emotion. He also wanted to show that he was not destroying the old ballet styles but was, rather, interpreting them differently from his contemporaries—one of whom, Marius Petipa, had succeeded in creating a dominant fashion. Sergei Diaghilev, creator and manager of the Ballets Russes, rechristened the work Les Sylphides in homage to La Sylphide (1832), the first of the great Romantic ballets, and he chose it to be part of the repertory for his first Ballets Russes season in Paris. In its final form—which took Fokine only three days to choreograph—Les Sylphides premiered in Paris on June 2, 1909. A plotless, abstract piece with a delicate suite of music, the ballet looked deceptively simple, although this was primarily because of the exceptionally talented leads—Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, and Olga Preobrajenska—whose innate musicality, lightness of foot, and soft arm movements created an elegiac, wistful poetry. Scenarist Alex-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Les Sylphides crowned the 1909 season of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. It was close enough to the tradition of
French ballet so as not to surprise the Parisians, and its exceptional execution delighted critics and audiences alike. The production also offered a series of revelations. For instance, audiences discovered that a ballet did not have to be more than one act in length. Moreover, the work demonstrated that ballet’s subject matter could be abstract so long as a dancer’s whole body (rather than merely legs or torso) moved to convey emotion or sensation. The corps de ballet was part of the plastic sequence of movements, and their varied groupings were more than simply decorative. Audiences also discovered that music could have a more intimate relationship to dance than had ever before been demonstrated. The participation of Nijinsky as a soloist was another novelty and a revelation all its own, for he created a new image for the male ballet dancer: No longer merely a partner for a woman, he could display his own acrobatic and athletic virtuosity without feeling apart from the thrilling whole. Les Sylphides quickly lent justification to Fokine’s new tenets of ballet. A dancer in his own right who had partnered Pavlova, Karsavina, and other noted dancers, Fokine sought to have dance keep up with the changing tenor of the times. Classical dance was far too static for his liking; he believed that dance tradition subjugated all periods, styles, and characters to its own imperious decrees. As he complained in his memoirs, “Everything was sacrificed for one form, one style, so that the artists might display the dance, the technique, in the manner in which it had been prepared—once and for all.” In such old-style performances, everything was focused on the dancer’s personal appearance and technique instead of on the dancer’s ability to express emotion. In short, Fokine viewed many traditional ballets of the time as marked by stale self-exhibitionism instead of by creative energy. He also decried the fact that such ballets had no real unity of action, for performances could be interrupted by applause and a dancer’s grateful bows. Moreover, Fokine complained about prevailing techniques of dance expression (some dancers would interpret stories with their hands, others with their feet) and about lapses in costume style; some ballets used historically correct costumes, whereas others employed special ballet attire. Taking advantage of his position as a teacher at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, Fokine was gradually able to introduce his views of ballet to those who would create the Russian ballet’s future. It was really as a choreographer, however, that he was most successful in promulgating his views. Fokine’s ideas met 767
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andre Benois had designed a mournful, romantic setting, a deserted, ruined place. The nocturnal darkness was relieved by a glowing dark green hue and quivering patches of simulated moonlight. The ballet’s dominant mood was set by the overture, which evoked a haunting tenderness. The ballet proper began with a nocturne danced by the whole company, their hair adorned with white flowers and their chests decorated with small bunches of forget-me-nots. This female corps de ballet looked like soft white anemones or like snowflakes gathering into cool masses of deliquescent beauty. Next came a valse executed by Karsavina with a rare romanticism and beautiful extensions. Pavlova flew across the stage in the first mazurka, and although her leaps were not particularly high, her slim body and midair positions created the impression of light, lyrical flight. Nijinsky, the sole male dancer, shone next in his mazurka. Clothed in black and white and wearing a blond wig that hung down to his shoulders, he seemed to be almost weightless, and he demonstrated his extraordinary ability to seem to pause in midflight. With exceptional speed, yet enviable lightness, he moved from the front of the stage to the back at a single bound, and he fused pauses and successive movements into a vibrant whole. His dancing had a continuous, weaving rhythm, and although his technique was meticulously worked out, his dance instinct and imagination made the choreography seem beautifully natural. The prelude was danced by the diminutive Preobrajenska, who demonstrated an exceptional sense of balance. Her dancing on point was virtually ethereal— especially her ability to freeze on the toes of one foot— and although she was a champion of the style of dancing extolled by Petipa, she put her sense of traditionalism at Fokine’s revolutionary service. The waltz’s pas de deux, performed by Nijinsky and Pavlova, ended with Pavlova performing a pas de bourrée, a running step on her toes. The ballet concluded with a final waltz danced by the entire company in an expressive play of configurations. The huge ovation that greeted the conclusion of Les Sylphides was a tribute to Fokine’s pure vision and to his dancers’ creation of a fantastic atmosphere. The dancers were not simply exhibiting themselves; they were, instead, expressing a spiritual mood that grew out of Chopin’s pieces.
Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet
Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet with contempt from the conservative Mariinsky Theatre authorities; his views received their proper due only after he joined forces with Diaghilev in 1909. Through a series of classic productions with the Ballets Russes, Fokine demonstrated his principles in action. Dance steps and movements corresponded to the periods and characters presented. Dancing and mimetic gesture expressed the dramatic action and were directly connected to theme. The whole body was used as an instrument of expression, and this expression extended from the individual to the ensemble. Every element on the stage—decor, costuming, lighting, choreography, mime, music—harmonized into an integral whole. Les Sylphides quickly became part of every major ballet company’s repertoire, yet it did not always have successful presentations. The ballet displays dance for its own sake, and it requires delicate, precise dance; it cannot be successful if the performing ensemble is not tremendously skilled. Only the very greatest ballet companies with the greatest stars (such as Margot Fonteyn, Lynn Seymour, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov) are able to evoke the beauty of the work. Fokine was not the first to use Chopin’s music for ballet; Isadora Duncan had danced to Chopin in 1904 during her Russian tour. Ever since Fokine, however, other choreographers and dancers have exploited Chopin. Pavlova used Chopin’s music in 1918 for her Autumn Leaves. Nineteen years later, Bronislawa Nijinska created a performance to a Chopin concerto. Fokine continued to inspire American and English choreographers well into the second half of the twentieth century. Jerome Robbins used Chopin for several ballets, particularly for Dances at a Gathering (1969), a suite of plotless dances growing out of eighteen piano pieces that is directly linked to Les Sylphides. Frederick Ashton’s A Month in the Country (1976), a supremely bittersweet drama about the foibles of the human heart, used John Lanchbery’s arrangements of Chopin. John Neumeier’s full-length Lady of the Camellias (1978) also used Chopin’s music. Les Sylphides was not the last word on the subject of abstract dance. Future choreographers carried forward the innovations of Fokine’s work and added their own, and by the late twentieth century, many of the elements that had seemed revolutionary in Fokine’s time had begun to seem almost quaint. There is no denying the powerful effect of Les Sylphides on modern ballet, however, and the work has assumed an honored place in the classical repertory alongside the other masterworks of twentieth century choreography. — Keith Garebian 768
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Balanchine, George, and Francis Mason. Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. Standard, classic reference contains the stories of more than four hundred ballets. Also presents Balanchine’s personal thoughts on dancing, careers in ballet, and ballet for children. Includes a brief history of ballet, a chronology of outstanding events from 1469 to 1976, an illustrated glossary, and more than seventy-five photographs. Beaumont, Cyril W. Complete Book of Ballets: A Guide to the Principal Ballets of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1938. Contains a very brief biographical sketch of Fokine’s career, a list of his productions all over the world, and synopses of his major ballets, along with cast lists and brief commentaries. Fokine, Michel. Fokine: Memoirs of a Ballet Master. Translated by Vitale Fokine, edited by Anatole Chujoy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. An account of Fokine’s early years, his training at the Imperial Ballet School, and his own sense of his awakening genius. Translated from his journals. Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. 1989. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Examines the entire enterprise of the Ballets Russes, including Fokine’s work, and analyzes the concurrent artistic, social, and cultural trends and conditions that influenced and were influenced by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Scholarly, well written, and thorough. _______. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. A selection of essays and reviews by one of the most influential scholars of the history of dance. Covers the transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early twentieth century. Includes many photographs. Robertson, Allen, and Donald Hutera. The Dance Handbook. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Practical guide consists of entries on influential works, choreographers, dancers, and companies along with essential facts and critiques. Includes illustrations, references, glossary, and index. Sokolova, Lydia. Dancing for Diaghilev: The Memoirs of Lydia Sokolova. Edited by Richard Buckle. New York: Macmillan, 1961. A fascinating record of the Ballets Russes written by the company’s principal character dancer. Offers vignettes of Nijinsky, Karsavina, Léonide Massine, Fokine, and many other famous ballet figures.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut; May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1912: L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; Summer,
First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet; July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres.
July 25, 1909
First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel Louis Blériot accomplished the first international airplane flight when he flew from France to England across the English Channel. Locale: Calais, France; Dover, England Categories: Space and aviation; transportation; science and technology
Summary of Event In 1908, Wilbur Wright presented demonstrations of powered flight in France that caused an uproar throughout Europe. Wright’s ability to control his airplane astonished European pilots and other observers. One of these was the aeronautical correspondent for the Daily Mail, an English newspaper owned by Alfred Harmsworth, a man with a deep interest in aviation. To spur the interest of others in his country, Harmsworth offered a prize of five hundred pounds for the first flight across the English Channel, in either direction, in a heavier-than-air device unsupported by any lifting agent; the flight was to be completed between sunrise and sunset. This was not the first time Harmsworth had attempted to interest the people and government of England in aviation. In 1906, he had offered a prize for the first flight from London to Manchester; ironically, it was won, in 1910, by a Frenchman, Louis Paulham. No one stepped forward in response to the prize offered by the Daily Mail, so late in 1908 Harmsworth increased the sum to one thousand pounds, an amount that succeeded in bringing out contestants. The first to announce his intentions was Hubert Latham, a debonair young flyer of French and English descent who immedi-
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Key Figures Louis Blériot (1872-1936), French inventor, businessman, and aviator Alfred Harmsworth (Viscount Northcliffe; 1865-1922), English newspaper publisher Hubert Latham (1883-1912), French English big-game hunter, boat racer, race car driver, and aviator
ately won the hearts of the public. Even after other contestants had declared themselves, Latham remained the favorite. Like many early aviators, he was wealthy; his money allowed him to pursue a variety of interests, from big-game hunting to racing boats and automobiles to aviation. He had, in fact, already flown the Channel, from England to France, by balloon; he had decided to become an airplane pilot after witnessing some of Wright’s demonstrations. Latham chose to fly an Antoinette, a beautiful but rather unstable monoplane designed and built by Leon Levavasseur. Latham and the designer set up an airfield in France at Sangatte, not far from Calais, in the summer of 1909. The weather over the English Channel, known for its unpredictability, was worse than normal: High winds, rain, fog, and mist conditions precluded any attempt until mid-July. On July 19, at 6:42 a.m., Latham finally took off for his first attempt to cross the Channel, escorted by the destroyer Harpoon. Seven minutes into the flight, his engine failed, and he landed in the Channel, unhurt. The crew of the Harpoon rescued him and attempted to bring his airplane on board, but unfortunately in the process the machine was damaged beyond repair. Once on shore, Latham ordered another plane to be sent right away. It arrived in a short time and was quickly assembled, and he was ready for another try. In the meantime, however, word of Latham’s attempt had reached the ears of his most serious competitor, Louis Blériot, who traveled to Calais immediately to challenge Latham. Blériot, a Frenchman, was heavyset and dour-looking, with a large, red mustache. His less-than-dashing appearance, together with his no-nonsense attitude, made him less popular with the public than Latham. He had amassed a fortune through the business of designing, manufacturing, and selling acetylene headlights for automobiles, and, having become infatuated with flying, he spent most of his fortune on aviation. From 1901 to 1909, Blériot had designed and built a number of airplanes, evolving from devices with flapping wings to biplanes
First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel and, eventually, monoplanes, culminating in his Blériot No. XI. It has been estimated that Blériot had invested approximately $150,000 in building airplanes by the time he came up with his No. XI, the plane that would bring him fame and more fortune. Arriving in Calais, Blériot chose as his airfield site a farm near Les Baraques, a small village not far from Sangatte. His plane—driven by a 25-horsepower Anazini engine, crude in design, and not known for its reliability—was carted to the farm. Both aircraft were now standing ready for the flight, but the two pilots could only fret while the weather over the English Channel kept them grounded. On July 24, it appeared that there might be a change in the unfriendly weather; accordingly, that night M. Charles Fontaine, a reporter for the Paris newspaper Le Matin, took the night ship to Dover, England. His job was to find a safe landing place for Blériot and to signal him by waving the French flag. At 2:30 a.m. on July 25, Blériot was awakened and given the news that the weather seemed to be improving. He dressed and ate a quick breakfast, then went to the field to prepare for departure while his wife went to Calais to alert the escort ship Escopette to Blériot’s forth-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 coming departure. At 4:10 a.m. he made a short test flight, and by 4:35 he was ready to leave, waiting only to make sure that his takeoff would be after sunrise. According to witnesses, just before he took off he asked, “Au fait, ou est-ce exactement, Douvres?” (By the way, where is it exactly, Dover?) After a short time airborne, Blériot passed over his escort ship; now he was alone, flying through patches of mist. Suddenly, fog engulfed him, obscuring everything. With no instruments on board his airplane to guide him, not even sure he was heading in the right direction, Blériot released the controls, letting the airplane fly itself. He flew this way for ten minutes, during which his engine began to overheat, intermittently losing and then recovering power, causing him to lose altitude. The aircraft’s descent took it through a small rain shower, which seemed to resolve his problem: The engine cooled down and regained full power. A few minutes later, the mist and fog began to thin, and Blériot could see the coast of England. He realized that the winds had blown him off course: He was near St. Margaret’s Bay, east of Dover. He turned and headed for the Dover lighthouse, visible through the haze, noting
Louis Blériot (standing on plane) and helpers start the engine of Blériot’s airplane for the first flight across the English Channel. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that the winds had increased in velocity and turbulence. Flying over the English fleet, which was anchored in Dover Harbor, he proceeded along the cliffs looking for Fontaine. Spying the reporter standing in a depression above the cliffs, Blériot made a half circle and headed toward him. Once over the cliffs, the airplane experienced severe turbulence, which spun it around. Blériot responded by cutting the engine, and the plane descended rapidly from approximately eighteen meters, making a “pancake” landing that smashed the landing gear and broke the propeller. Thirty-seven minutes after taking off from Calais, Blériot had survived his fifty-first crash, won the coveted Daily Mail prize, and secured his place in aviation history.
became obvious that national borders, as drawn on maps, had lost much of their effectiveness as obstacles to the movement of people and goods between countries. No longer was it necessary to stop at the border and gain permission to enter or pass through a country. While the general public was still caught up in the excitement and joy of Blériot’s successful flight across the English Channel, many leaders in England and continental Europe were quick to realize the political and military significance of the accomplishment. For hundreds of years, England’s security had been guaranteed by two things: the English Channel and the Royal Navy. Blériot’s flight had negated both of these as the country’s protectors. Harmsworth was the first to predict that in the future, the airplane would play a dominant role in England’s survival. Although his efforts to spur the development of aviation in England were supported by other farsighted leaders and reporters, as well as the general public, they were for a number of years thwarted by the Royal Navy’s domination of the English military establishment. Observers on the Continent, meanwhile, pointed out that airplanes could fly in both directions, hence it was not England alone that had lost a measure of security. As a result, while England vacillated, France took the lead in nurturing the development of aviation, followed closely by Germany. By the time World War I broke out, the military establishments of both countries had fledgling aviation branches, and the outstanding fighter planes produced by Blériot’s company, the Société Pour l’Aviation et ses Dérivés (better known by its acronym, SPAD), played an important part in the Allies’ eventual victory. It was not until World War II, however, that Harmsworth’s prediction concerning the crucial role of the airplane in England’s defense against attack would come true—in 1940, when the Royal Air Force defeated the German Luftwaffe in what later became known as the Battle of Britain. As the first international airplane flight and the first flight over a large expanse of water, Blériot’s 1909 English Channel crossing demonstrated the potential of the airplane for transporting people and goods. It may, therefore, be considered the forerunner of both military and peaceful commercial flight between countries. —P. John Carter Further Reading Dick, Ron, and Dan Patterson. The Early Years. Vol. 1 in Aviation Century. Erin, Ont.: Boston Mills Press, 2003. Highly illustrated history details the progress of 771
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Significance Although the Wright brothers had proved that sustained, controlled flight was possible, most people in the early 1900’s viewed the airplane as a frail, unreliable, dangerous device, a rich person’s toy with no practical use. Blériot’s flight across the English Channel was not particularly noteworthy for its length in either time or distance, but as the first airplane flight to traverse national boundaries and to cross a large body of water, it awakened awareness in both governments and the general public that this new invention could be something more than a passing fad—it could, in fact, have practical uses. The worldwide fame that Blériot achieved through his successful flight, together with his investment of the prize money in his recently acquired aviation company, established him as the leading European airplane designer and manufacturer of the time and for many years thereafter. Although debates over the relative superiority of biplane versus monoplane would continue for a number of years, Blériot’s monoplane was the most widely accepted design of that era and would become the prototype for most twentieth century airplanes. France was quick to capitalize on the excitement and fervor surrounding Blériot’s achievement. Within a month after his English Channel crossing, the champagne industry, in cooperation with the municipality of Reims, had organized the world’s first international air meet, bringing together most of the leading aviators of the day to compete for prize money. The Reims air meet was soon followed by other tournaments and crosscountry air races, events that fed the technological development of the airplane much as early automobile races fed the development of the automobile. Within two years, air races had become international in scope. With contestants flying from one country to another, it soon
First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel
Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy aviation from 1900 to 1939, analyzing why developments in flight took the directions they did and presenting information on the individuals who created the world’s aviation industry, including Blériot. Features bibliography and index. Gwynn-Jones, Terry. “1909—Lord Northcliffe’s Channel Challenge: The Dawn of Air Racing.” In The Air Racers: Aviation’s Golden Era, 1909-1936. London: Pelham Books, 1984. Detailed account of the rivalry between Latham and Blériot. Illustrated with colorized reproductions of black-and-white photographs. Prendergast, Curtis. “The Great Show at Reims.” In The First Aviators. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1980. Presents a brief but excellent account of Blériot’s flight. Includes a series of illustrative photographs. Taylor, Michael J. H. Aviators: A Photographic History of Flight. New York: Collins, 2005. Photographs document the development of aviation from Kitty Hawk in 1903 to the early twenty-first century. Includes coverage of Blériot’s Channel crossing. Thomas, Lowell, and Lowell Thomas, Jr. “A TwentyTwo-Mile Flight That Startled the World.” In Famous First Flights That Changed History: Sixteen Dramatic Adventures. 1968. Reprint. New York: Lyons Press, 2004. Focuses on Blériot’s accomplishment in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 being the first to fly the English Channel while giving credit to Latham for his failed attempt. Villard, Henry Serrano. Contact! The Story of the Early Aviators. 1968. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2002. Traces the first decade of powered flight, from Kitty Hawk to World War I. Offers a detailed description of the first crossing of the English Channel by airplane and of the people involved; also provides insight into events that followed. An excellent source for anyone interested in the early development of aviation. Wallace, Graham. Flying Witness: Harry Harper and the Golden Age of Aviation. London: Putnam, 1958. An outstanding history of early aviation, as seen by Harry Harper, who was employed by Harmsworth as the world’s first aeronautical correspondent. Two chapters, “Gallant Failure” and “Across the Channel,” treat the contest between Latham and Blériot to be the first to cross the English Channel by airplane. See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel.
August 5, 1909
Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy The Tariff Act of 1909 forced corporations, for the first time, to open their books to the U.S. government for inspection and audit. Also known as: Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915), U.S. senator from Rhode Island Sereno Elisha Payne (1843-1914), U.S. senator from New York 772
Summary of Event The Tariff Act of 1909, also known as the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, can be characterized as one part of a growing progressive reaction against rapid concentrations of wealth in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social forces were driven by sentiment against business tycoons who were perceived as reaping exorbitant profits at the expense of the masses of laborers. In the meantime, political figures, determined to address the concerns of their constituents, were also challenged by growing federal deficits. The need to finance and eradicate the national debt while circumventing the appearance of imposing an income tax, declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, was imperative. The direct result was an excise tax on corporate forms of businesses. An indirect result was the authorization for the Internal Revenue Service to
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Morgan family bought the Morse shipping interests, a competitor to the Morgan New Haven Railroad. Morgan’s United States Steel Corporation bought the troubled Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Monopolies and highly concentrated markets were formed as a result of this financial concentration. For example, by 1900, 95 percent of the railroad track in the United States was owned by six investment groups. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was designed to defuse monopoly power by breaking large monopolies into smaller, diversely owned entities. The government enforced the Sherman Act only loosely, however, and corporations often appeared to have more wealth and political power than did the government. Industrialists circumvented antitrust law by breaking up their consolidated corporations and creating holding companies, which evaded antitrust legislation but in substance were essentially the same form of entities. On the labor side, the experiences of the 1880’s and 1890’s brought a maturity to organized labor, which became strong enough to begin challenging corporate sovereignty. The oppression of labor through low wages, poor working conditions, and long hours encouraged the formation of labor unions. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) grew to a membership of approximately half a million by 1898 and more than 1.6 million by 1906, accounting for more than three-fifths of all trade union workers. The unity of labor, demonstrated by strikes, caused industrialists to become conciliatory toward labor, and corporate concessions were made. For example, the United Mine Workers won an unprecedented victory in 1897 when mine owners met the conditions of 100,000 striking mine workers, including a 20 percent pay increase, an eight-hour workday, abolition of company stores, recognition of the union, and a provision for annual joint conferences with the mine operators. This newfound success encouraged labor to move toward a socialist philosophy; labor’s aim was not to abolish capitalism but to share in corporate profits. U.S. states also began exercising power over corporations by passing prolabor legislation in the early 1900’s. All states passed child protection laws, and many also passed laws to protect laborers, particularly women, from unsafe working conditions. Workers’ compensation laws were passed in Maryland (1902), Montana (1909), Massachusetts (1909), and New York (1910). These laws were declared unconstitutional shortly thereafter but were constitutionally reinstated before 1920. Finally, the federal government saw that the mood in the 773
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audit corporate records with respect to enforcing compliance with the excise tax. The invasion into corporate records and accounting practices, which were until that time considered highly guarded secrets, was as traumatic to business as was the tax itself. Section 38 of the Tariff Act of 1909 authorized a special excise tax on net incomes of domestic corporations, joint stock companies, associations organized for profit and having capital stock represented by shares, insurance companies, and foreign corporations operating in the United States or U.S. territories. The tax was 1 percent of net incomes in excess of five thousand dollars after deductions were allowed for ordinary and necessary operating expenses, losses, depreciation charges, interest and taxes paid, and dividends received from organizations subject to this new tax. All taxable incomes were assessed on a calendar-year basis, with tax returns due on March 1 of the following year. Penalties were determined for fraud, failure to file, and late returns. Fraud carried a corporate penalty of 100 percent of the tax due and a fine that ranged from a minimum of one thousand dollars to a maximum of ten thousand dollars. Individuals responsible for fraud were subject to fines of up to one thousand dollars, imprisonment of up to one year, or both. Failure to file a return carried a corporate penalty of 150 percent of the tax due and a fine that ranged from a minimum of one thousand dollars to a maximum of ten thousand dollars. Responsible individuals were subject to the same fines and imprisonment terms as set forth for fraud. Corporations were assessed a penalty of 5 percent of the tax due plus 1 percent interest, per month, of the tax due for late returns. The period from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s was one in which the United States experienced a transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. This transition caused a population shift from rural areas to the cities. Wealth became concentrated among the few who were fortunate enough to own businesses. The business climate was ripe for increases in wealth for going concerns, as business was favored by cheap immigrant labor and raw materials, an expanding market, and high protective tariffs against imports, such as those imposed by the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897. Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller reached their financial zeniths during this period in the steel, banking, and railroad industries, among others. The recessions of 1893 and 1907 also contributed to wealth concentration, as they allowed or encouraged large corporations to buy out smaller firms that were unable to weather the financial storms. For example, the
Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy
Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy country was right for a challenge to the power of corporate America. The convergence of social, political, and legal sentiment against large corporations led to the Tariff Act of 1909, which was sponsored by Senator Sereno Elisha Payne and Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich. Aldrich was a particularly powerful member of the Senate who wished to mitigate or repeal certain tariffs contained in the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897 pertaining to favored special-interest groups. To offset the revenue reductions, however, new taxes had to be imposed to meet the federal deficit, which stood at $100 million. Opposed to an income tax, Aldrich included an inheritance tax in the act. A coalition of Republican Party dissidents demanded that an income tax be included. To prevent a split within the Republican Party, President William Howard Taft stepped in and worked out a compromise. The result was the Tariff Act of 1909, which authorized an excise tax on the privilege of operating corporate forms of business, with the excise based on corporate net income. Significance The immediate, and most significant, impact of the Tariff Act of 1909 was the intrusion of government into corporate financial affairs. Through the act, government established implicit control of corporations, at least in principle. The Internal Revenue Service was authorized to audit corporate records if it had reason to believe returns were incorrect or not filed as required. The government was also authorized to use the courts to force compliance. The special tax, which looked more like an income tax than an excise tax, was challenged in Flint v. Stone Tracy Company in 1911 and was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court as constitutional. The Court ruled that it was an indirect tax, not a direct tax, on individuals through stock ownership and therefore was not subject to apportionment according to the population. The Court expounded that there were distinct advantages to operating in the corporate form of entity and that Congress had the right to attach an excise tax to that privilege. The tax could be based on any component of a corporation that Congress saw fit, including income. The 1911 Supreme Court decision made it apparent that corporations had no further recourse. For the first time in history, records of U.S. corporations were open to outside inspection. Laissez-faire no longer applied. Furthermore, the requirement to report corporate income on standardized government forms set in motion a standardization of accounting principles and an accountability to 774
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 shareholders that had been virtually nonexistent before. Prior to 1909, corporate records were guarded closely by the few principal corporate owners. Most investment bankers and stockholders were uninformed regarding the financial positions and operations of corporations. They relied on the reports of the principals, sometimes to their detriment. Moreover, investors were generally unsophisticated in financial matters and were therefore willing to accept the reports in blind faith. When investment bankers asked for audited financial statements, some corporations refused to sell securities through those individuals. Reporting behavior changed as a result of the excise tax. It was not uncommon for corporations to keep two sets of records, one for tax reporting and one for reporting to stockholders and other users of financial statements. Lower, and probably more accurate, earnings were reported to the government. Despite this new accountability to the government, shareholders had no protection from securities fraud until the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Depreciation policy received greater attention as a result of the Tariff Act of 1909 because this was the only expense deductible against income that could be based on estimates rather than determined on a cash basis. Before the act’s passage, no method of depreciation allocation was prescribed, and, accordingly, firms used a multitude of methods. For example, Standard Oil Company applied depreciation rates of 6 to 35 percent around 1905, depending on the equipment, but the rates were not necessarily applied in proportion to the normal lives of the assets. John D. Rockefeller, the company’s principal owner, thought that the company assets were undervalued around the time of the Tariff Act. Consequently, the public records of Standard Oil show “depreciation restored.” It is uncertain whether this short-lived practice was used to recapitalize asset values for later tax deductions. Although the Tariff Act of 1909 required no standard method of depreciation, later tariff acts narrowed the methods acceptable for reporting purposes. The corporate excise tax became a corporate income tax in 1913 with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed for direct taxation not apportioned according to population. The difference between the income tax of 1913 and the excise tax before 1913 was one of name only. The reporting requirements were the same. As later tariff acts refined income and expense reporting requirements, tax planning became an important corporate management function. When the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 created the Securities and Exchange
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Commission to regulate the accounting of corporations that publicly traded securities, the commission adopted many of the accounting methods established by the tariff acts, such as depreciation methods and inventory costing methods. The Tariff Act of 1909 thus formed a basis for generally accepted accounting principles to be used by publicly owned corporations. —Paul A. Shoemaker
Modern America. 3d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Presents a descriptive account of the beliefs, assumptions, and values that shaped the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. Provides indirect evidence of social forces influencing and leading to the Tariff Act, with accounts of attitudes and events during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Faulkner, Harold U. The Decline of Laissez Faire, 18971917. 1951. Reprint. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1977. Comprehensive history of economic, business, and technological progress during this period. Entire chapters are devoted to manufacturing, railroads, and agriculture. Includes illustrations. _______. The Quest for Social Justice, 1898-1914. 1931. Reprint. New York: Franklin Watts, 1971. Presents a history of social thought and attitudes during this period. Explains the dynamics of attitudes and practices of business and labor, providing many examples. Ratner, Sidney. Taxation and Democracy in America. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967. Excellent source for information on the social, political, and economic history of taxation in the United States up to World War II. Chapters 12 and 13 provide excellent coverage of the Tariff Act of 1909. Seligman, Edwin. The Income Tax: A Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Income Taxation at Home and Abroad. 2d ed. 1914. Reprint. Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2004. Relatively general in nature. Provides a theoretical perspective on the history of taxation. See also: Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency; Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized; Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission; June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established.
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Further Reading Anderson, Donald F. William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973. Examines all aspects of Taft’s presidency. Chapter 4 discusses the political bargaining Taft used to secure passage of the Tariff Act of 1909, particularly the instrumental support gained from Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon and from Senator Aldrich, who opposed corporate income taxation. Beth, Loren P. The Development of the American Constitution: 1877-1917. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Provides insight into the political, economic, and social events surrounding constitutional reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapter 5 sheds light on the attitude of the U.S. Supreme Court toward business in the areas of labor relations and taxation. Carson, Gerald. The Golden Egg: The Personal Income Tax—Where It Came from, How It Grew. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Chronicles the political events surrounding and perpetuating income taxation. Primarily concerned with the income taxation of individuals, but chapters 4 through 7 provide insight into the politics leading to the corporate excise tax. Entertaining reading for those interested in political behavior. Degler, Carl N. Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped
Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy
First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 19, 1909
First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Carl G. Fisher and three colleagues built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and sponsored the first auto racing in the United States. This modest investment and dangerous venture led to the building of a brick track, the venue of the first Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day, 1911. As a result of this event, auto racing quickly gained popularity in the United States. Also known as: Indianapolis 500 Locale: Indianapolis, Indiana Categories: Sports; organizations and institutions; transportation Key Figures Carl G. Fisher (1874-1939), principal investor in the building and development of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway James Allison (fl. early twentieth century), engineer and one of four investors involved in building and developing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Frank Wheeler (fl. early twentieth century), one of four investors involved in building and developing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Arthur Newby (fl. early twentieth century), one of four investors involved in building and developing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Summary of Event When auto racing began in France in the late nineteenth century, it was considered a sport for rich young men because they were the only ones who could afford to buy automobiles. The first officially recorded auto race was held in France in 1894: It stretched approximately 70 miles, from Paris to Rouen, and the competing cars traveled at less than 12 miles per hour. The following year, a much longer race was held, beginning in Paris and ending in Bordeaux. The year 1906 saw the establishment of the French Grand Prix, which included drivers from several European countries. Auto racing’s reach also extended to Great Britain in that year, when an English aristocrat built the Broadlands Race Track on his property. Inspired by the races at Broadlands, Carl Fisher and three other investors, James Allison, Frank Wheeler, and Arthur Newby, made plans to build the first American track for automobile racing. The men bought 328 acres of land on the outskirts of Indianapolis, Indiana, where they intended to make a test facility for racing cars. The men also planned to hold periodic races on the track in 776
order to introduce the public to the new and fast-growing automotive industry and to lead the way in advancements that would ultimately lead to both modern motor racing and modern automobile design. The new 2.5-mile-long rectangular speedway consisted of four turns that were highly banked and joined by long, straight stretches of track. The speedway’s original surface combined crushed rock and tar, but this substance tended to break apart during races and posed significant dangers to drivers, and it was quickly replaced with more than three million paving bricks. The bricks were placed in sand and secured with mortar to make a more stable and safer racing surface. This change was completed in December of 1909 and led to the track’s nickname: the Brickyard. The first race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place on August 19, 1909. It was a short, two-lap, 5-mile race that drew a crowd of more than twelve thousand spectators and opened three days of auto and motorcycle races. Although the races were relatively short, there were numerous accidents and six deaths involving drivers, mechanics, and spectators. The number of accidents, injuries, and deaths in both the automobile and motorcycle races at this inaugural event led the track’s owners and managers to make significant changes to the track’s surface. Afterward, Fisher and his partners continued to refine and improve the events at their racetrack. In December of 1909, shortly after the track was repaved with bricks, extremely cold weather forced the cancellation of a planned series of races scheduled for that month and forced the owners to wait until May to begin racing on the new surface. As a result of low attendance at the newly resurfaced track, Fisher and his colleagues decided to present a much larger and more ambitious plan. The first 500-mile race took place on May 30, 1911, and it immediately became a major fixture in auto racing. Less than two years after the first motor racing took place at Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway held its first 500-mile race in front of an audience of eighty thousand. Forty drivers competed, and the winner, Ray Harroun, averaged just under 75 miles per hour to win the race in a little less than seven hours. Significance In spite of its early difficulties, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway became the home of what is now known
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
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1909
as “the greatest spectacle in racing.” The sport went through a series of changes and improvements in the years after the speedway’s first winner completed the 200-lap race. As a testament to the sport’s appeal, racTo view image, please refer to the ing at Indianapolis survived a series print edition of this title. of difficulties, including track disasters and deaths, the Great Depression, organizational feuds, and many advances in technology. With a seating capacity of more than four hundred thousand, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway became one of the best-attended venues in sports. By the end of the twentieth cenRay Harroun wheels his Marmon Wasp racer to the finish line in the inaugural Indy tury, the speedway began to make 500-mile race on May 30, 1911. (AP/Wide World Photos) some significant changes to its schedule and policies. In 1994, Tony George, the speedway’s president, the development of Western cultures. One chapter welcomed the National Association for Stock Car Auto deals specifically with the history of auto racing. Racing (NASCAR) to Indianapolis by adding the Fisher, Jerry M. The Pacesetter: The Untold Story of Brickyard 400 to the speedway’s schedule. Four years Carl G. Fisher. Fort Bragg, Calif.: Lost Coast Press, later, George again made history by adding Formula One 1998. Biography of the primary creator of the Indy racing to the list of races held at the Indianapolis Motor 500. Details his relationships with such men as Henry Speedway, and the first U.S. Grand Prix was held at the Ford, Harvey Firestone, and Eddie Rickenbacker. historic track in 2000. Women began to make a signifiMartin, James A., and Thomas F. Saal. American Auto cant impact on the sport when drivers such as Lyn St. Racing: The Milestones and Personalities of a CenJames, Sarah Fisher, and Danica Patrick were accepted tury of Speed. New York: McFarland, 2004. An exas race competitors. In 2005, Danica Patrick made hiscellent resource that covers the history of auto racing tory in her rookie season by leading the Indy 500, a first from its beginning in France. Discusses the different for a woman driver at the speedway. kinds of automobile racing and the people and events Since the first successful 500-mile race at the Indiathat make the sport one of the most popular in the napolis Motor Speedway, both the race speeds and popuUnited States. larity have experienced significant increases. The Indy Taylor, Rich. Indy: Seventy-Five Years of Racing’s 500 came to be considered the most prestigious race in Greatest Spectacle. New York: St. Martin’s Press, the sport, and the speedway was widely recognized as the 1991. A thorough history of the Indianapolis Motor most famous track in the world. With race speeds reguSpeedway that traces its existence from 1909 to 1991. larly topping 200 miles per hour in races at the beginning Includes numerous pictures, race results from each of the twenty-first century and with the increased status year, and a wealth of technical information about the and popularity of Indy 500 winners, this event has earned sport. its reputation and fame. —Kimberley M. Holloway See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; July 1, 1903: First Tour de Further Reading France; June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Baker, William J. Sports in the Western World. Urbana: Race; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to University of Illinois Press, 1988. Discusses the influForty-Four. ence of a variety of sports, including auto racing, on
Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
October, 1909
Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform The formation of the Canada Cement Company began the first great Canadian merger wave and precipitated a financial and political scandal that reached its peak during the 1911 election. Locale: Canada Categories: Trade and commerce; government and politics Key Figures William Maxwell Aitken (1879-1964), president of the Royal Securities Corporation Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915), director of the Canadian Pacific Railway and president of the Western Canada Cement and Coal Company Sir Edward Seaborne Clouston (1849-1912), general manager and vice president of the Bank of Montreal Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919), prime minister of Canada, 1896-1911 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), labor minister of Canada, 1909-1911 Robert Laird Borden (1854-1937), prime minister of Canada, 1911-1920 Summary of Event Consolidated in October, 1909, the Canada Cement Company was formed through one of the first of about forty major industrial mergers that swept Canadian business during a four-year period. The company’s size and the alleged monopoly power it created made the merger the most publicized of the era. Canada Cement’s promoter, William Maxwell Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook), would be lionized in the establishment press as a financial wizard and pilloried in the populist press as a maker of trusts. Sentiment against Canada Cement and other mergers ran so high that Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s government was pressured into passing an antitrust law targeting mergers. When the general public became aware of a business dispute between Aitken and Sir Sandford Fleming, a prominent and respected member of Canadian society, their struggle became part of the intense political campaign then being waged over a prospective free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. As in the case of Great Britain’s Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers merger in 1900, the origins of Canada Cement lay in the technological revolution sweeping the portland cement industry at the end of the 778
nineteenth century. Large rotary kilns fired by pulverized coal produced better and cheaper cement (and thus better and cheaper concrete), which was rapidly becoming the building material of choice throughout the advanced industrial world. This technological change, coupled with the unparalleled economic growth that Canada experienced during the first decade of the twentieth century, resulted in the establishment of dozens of new portland cement plants throughout the country to supply the booming construction industry. This new mass-production technology, however, created a glut of cement during the industrial downturn that followed the financial panic of 1907. Operations that were just coming onstream in 1908 were hardest hit. One of these companies, the Western Canada Cement and Coal Company, with its plant at Exshaw, Alberta, found that the only way to prevent bankruptcy was to dilute its debt in a merger with a number of other, more solvent, cement companies. After consulting with Sir Edward Seaborne Clouston, the general manager and vice president of the Bank of Montreal, Canada’s largest and most powerful financial institution, Western Canada Cement’s board members called on Aitken, then a young Montreal investment banker, to lead the merger syndicate. Clouston, whose own bank was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars by Western Canada Cement, believed that Aitken was the man to execute the merger properly and thereby protect the Bank of Montreal’s interest. He thought so highly of Aitken that he had been a regular member of Aitken’s underwriting syndicates and had become a shareholder in Aitken’s investment bank, the Royal Securities Corporation. Aitken started work on the merger negotiations in April, 1909, and by the summer he had convinced the owners of every modern plant in the country, as well as some older but larger cement producers, to join his consolidation. He hoped that the resulting company would be able to eliminate overproduction and prevent the price of cement from falling any further. Although the chief shareholders of the companies joining the merger were enthusiastic supporters of Aitken’s strategy, some were forced to accept less than they thought their companies were worth. Aitken was particularly hard on Fleming, the president of two companies entering the merger, who not only had to accept less for his International Portland Cement Company shares but also had to reduce the debt load carried by his Western Canada Cement Company
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Bank of Montreal had also lost money on the Western Canada Cement sale. Determined to recoup at least a portion of the bank’s debt, Clouston sued Fleming and members of Fleming’s family on the basis of personal guarantees they had given the bank for loans to Western Canada Cement. Clouston’s position in the lawsuit was complicated, however, by his involvement as an underwriter and part owner of the investment bank promoting Canada Cement as well as by his role in bringing two other Bank of Montreal officers into the promotional syndicate. If this conflict of interest were revealed, the Bank of Montreal’s reputation as a pillar of financial respectability would be destroyed in a scandal sure to rock the normally sedate and conservative business establishment. Significance Fleming’s allegations set off a storm of popular protest against mergers and monopolies in general and against Canada Cement and Aitken in particular. Populists and other opponents of big business and finance came out in favor of Laurier’s proposed reciprocal free trade agreement between the United States and Canada. They had pressured his Liberal government into acting against trusts the previous year, when Laurier had called on his labor minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to design a piece of legislation that could be used against mergers. King’s response was the Combines Investigation Act, a complex antitrust law that used publicity as its main sanction against monopoly behavior. King’s legislation did not satisfy the populists who wanted to see Canada Cement prosecuted in the same way that the U.S. government had prosecuted the Standard Oil trust. In the summer of 1910, Laurier visited western Canada, where he was met by a wave of populist and antimonopoly sentiment. King’s antitrust legislation had not satisfied Laurier’s western constituents. Because the populists viewed tariffs as the chief cause of trusts, Laurier began secret negotiations with the United States to lower some of the Canadian tariffs preventing American exports to Canada. Ironically, at the same time, farm activists organized a protest in which hundreds of their representatives traveled east by train and then swarmed into the House of Commons in what they would call the “Siege of Ottawa.” For one day, Laurier was forced to listen to petition after petition about the evils of the “eastern trusts.” He did not reveal that the tariff negotiations were going better than expected. To his surprise, Laurier found the United States eager to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement with 779
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before it would be allowed to join the merger. This reorganization proved difficult, and by the time of Aitken’s deadline of February, 1910, Western Canada Cement found that the majority of its bondholders in Great Britain were unwilling to reduce the value of their securities. At this point, Fleming began to pressure Canada Cement into accepting his plant on easier terms. As honorary president and one of the original incorporators of the newly merged company, Fleming should have been in a strong position to extract some concession from Canada Cement, but Aitken, working behind the scenes with other Canada Cement directors and his own lawyers, argued against this course of action. Facing an unexpected wall of opposition, Fleming tried to pressure his fellow directors into settling with Western Canada Cement by alleging that Canada Cement had overissued $12 million worth of securities to Aitken as remuneration for his promoting services. Fleming threatened to go public with his allegations. In an effort to prevent the damage that such bad publicity would inflict on Canada Cement, the company’s board gave Fleming more time to reorganize Western Canada Cement’s debts and agreed to order an investigation into Aitken’s promotion of the company, allowing Fleming’s lawyer to act as one of the two investigators. Their report, submitted in July, 1910, revealed that Canada Cement had not been “robbed” by Aitken, as Fleming had alleged. Fleming did not accept the report, however, nor did he attempt to write down Western Canada Cement’s debt in order to meet his new deadline. Instead, he presented a proposal to Western Canada Cement’s English bondholders to allow him to reorganize the company and run it as a rival to the new merger. Meanwhile, Aitken, who had just moved to London, met directly with the bondholders and convinced them that they would be better off selling their interest in Fleming’s company at a discount to Canada Cement. The sale took place in January, 1911, forcing the liquidation of Western Canada Cement and its transfer to Canada Cement for the bargain price of less than $1.5 million. Fleming vowed revenge, as the sale had left him out in the cold. He distributed a circular criticizing the actions of both Aitken and Canada Cement and publicly resigned from his position as honorary president of the company. He then petitioned the prime minister of Canada, demanding a government inquiry into the affair. Prime Minister Laurier met with Fleming but stalled on ordering an inquiry because of the presence of influential members of his own party on the Canada Cement board.
Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform
Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform Canada. To protect Canadian manufacturers and his political support in central Canada, however, Laurier restricted the agreement predominantly to natural goods. When this proposal, known as the reciprocity agreement, was presented in Parliament in January, 1911, Laurier thought he had a perfect deal. The removal of dozens of tariffs would dampen the antimonopoly sentiment of the western populists, while the exemption of manufactured goods would satisfy the manufacturers of central and eastern Canada. Laurier soon found, however, that most Canadian businesspeople opposed the proposed trade deal. The Canadian Manufacturers Association in particular feared that an agreement on natural goods would eventually lead to a steady northward stream of manufactured goods as a result of a comprehensive free trade agreement between the two countries. These sentiments were heartily supported by Conservative Party leader Robert Laird Borden, who led a crusade against the reciprocity agreement, and by Aitken, who had opposed the dismantling of the Canadian tariff since 1909 by publishing antireciprocity and anti-American propaganda in his weekly magazine, Canadian Century. Aitken threatened to enter the political fray by becoming one of Borden’s chief election managers, much to Laurier’s chagrin. In December, 1910, Aitken had been elected a Unionist (pro-imperialist) member of Great Britain’s Parliament, but he continued to keep in touch with Borden. In April, 1911, Borden wrote to Aitken to tell him that an election on reciprocity was imminent and that he expected Aitken to return to Canada and help him defeat Laurier by organizing the Conservative campaign in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. To prevent Aitken from returning, Laurier gave the impression that he might order the public inquiry into Canada Cement that Fleming demanded. Aitken himself wanted to explain his side of the story in public to defend his own reputation, but many of his business associates, some closely connected to Clouston and the Bank of Montreal, urged him not to do so. They reached a compromise in which Aitken would remain in Great Britain on the condition that Laurier would agree to prevent a government inquiry into the Canada Cement affair. Aitken’s associates urged him to accept the deal, arguing that the press campaign being waged against him would last only a few days and never do permanent harm to his reputation. Aitken reluctantly agreed, mainly to protect Clouston, to whom he felt great loyalty for past support. As a consequence, the nature of Canadian finance capitalism in general and Aitken’s activities in particu780
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lar were never subjected to government investigation. Nevertheless, newspaper coverage of the affair permanently scarred Aitken’s reputation. Aitken would never be able to dispel the prevalent image of himself as a crook, despite the fact that he had not taken even onefifth of what Fleming alleged as his profit for promoting Canada Cement. Clouston, along with the two Bank of Montreal officers involved in the Canada Cement promotion, resigned and devoted more of his time and energy to his investments in the Royal Securities Corporation. Clouston died of a heart attack in the offices of the Royal Securities Corporation the following year while talking to Arthur Doble, his old executive secretary at the bank and now general manager of Royal Securities in Canada. Despite Laurier’s best efforts, he lost the election of September, 1911, to the Conservative Party under Borden. As a result of reciprocity’s defeat, free trade between Canada and the United States remained a political impossibility until 1988. During the interwar years, the polarization and western alienation evident during the merger wave of 1909-1913 resulted in new forces of opposition to the “eastern” monopolies and financiers. These forces included western political parties, such as the Progressive Party, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and the Social Credit Party, that would challenge the hegemony of the established parties. Throughout it all, the Canada Cement affair remained the central focus of popular criticism against the Canadian business and financial establishment. —Gregory P. Marchildon Further Reading Bliss, Michael. Northern Enterprise: Five Centuries of Canadian Business. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1987. Survey of the history of Canadian enterprise puts the first Canadian merger movement into historical perspective and briefly addresses the role of Aitken and the Royal Securities Corporation. Chisholm, Anne, and Michael Davie. Beaverbrook: A Life. London: Hutchinson, 1992. One of the most objective and well-written biographies of Aitken available. Provides a brief summary of his Canadian financial career and includes an appendix on the Canada Cement affair. Creighton, Donald Grant. Dominion of the North: A History of Canada. Rev. ed. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1972. Focuses on significant events in Canadian history. Provides useful context and background for an understanding of the Canada Cement affair.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lamoreaux, Naomi R. The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895-1904. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Provides a good explanation of how capital-intensive production processes and rapid growth around the end of the nineteenth century resulted in overproduction and declining prices, helping to create a merger wave. Focuses on the United States, but the principles discussed are applicable to the Canadian case. McMenemy, John. The Language of Canadian Politics: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts. 3d ed. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Collection of more than five hundred brief essays on a wide range of topics related to the Canadian
Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory system of government, Canadian political history, Canadian laws and legal history, and more. Naylor, R. T. The History of Canadian Business, 18671914. 1975. Reprint. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997. Presents a largely negative view of Aitken, Canada Cement, and the impact of the merger movement on Canadian business and society. See also: Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation; 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing; Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I.
October, 1909
Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory
Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Architecture; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Peter Behrens (1868-1940), German artist, designer, and architect Paul Jordan (1854-1937), German engineer and corporate executive Karl Bernhard (b. 1854), German engineer Oskar Lasche (1868-1923), German engineer and factory manager Summary of Event The relation between industry and creative design was a troubling issue in European culture at the start of the twentieth century. The huge scale and utilitarian motives of the age’s new structures—steel bridges, railroad sheds, factories—mocked the idea that applying traditional ornamentation to them would humanize them. Beyond that, the mysterious processes of industry itself met no standard model for humanistic culture. Traditional designs were out of sync with the new machine world, but that world seemed too given over to utility and exploitation to be worth celebrating with new forms. The Deutscher Werkbund, an organization of craftsmen founded in 1907, declared that the problem had to be
fought at its source: Workers, managers, and consumers should have their spirits elevated through factories and products designed by great artists. Peter Behrens’s designs for the AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, or German General Electric Company) gave stylistic expression to the Werkbund’s ambition. At first, Behrens thought that industrial standardization had to be fought through the bizarre, individualistic forms of Art Nouveau (called Jugendstil in Germany). He soon decided, however, that Art Nouveau’s extremism betrayed the nature of architecture, which is based on utility, geometry, solidity, and rhythm. He also decided (based on his reading of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche) that it was his responsibility as an artist to seek out, embrace, and transform the most powerful force of the age. For Behrens, as for the Werkbund, that force was technology; he believed, therefore, that the great modern architect must design in accordance with industry’s characteristics—matter-of-factness, forcefulness, monumental scale, standardization, and repetition—without losing his identity to the machine. The directors of the electrical conglomerate AEG accepted the Werkbund’s ideas about art and industry. The corporation was so successful and powerful that its leaders felt a responsibility to make it a cultural force for good commensurate with its economic might. Paul Jordan, AEG’s director of factories, thought the corporation should do this by making AEG’s products and factories works of art, spreading aesthetic awareness to their users. In 1907, AEG hired Behrens as its artistic adviser. 781
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Peter Behrens’s design for a modern factory building proved that functionalism and creativity could coexist in the architecture of the industrial age.
Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory Behrens first brought his new simple, geometric style to AEG’s brochures and casings for its small appliances. Their simplicity and unity of style, he said, were analogies for the functionalism and mass-produced repetition of the products themselves. In 1908, AEG factory director Oskar Lasche invited Behrens to take part in the design of a new turbine factory on Huttenstrasse in Berlin. This marked the first time that Behrens had the opportunity to shape an AEG product from its inception. His ambition was to create a factory that would be an artistic statement without hiding its functionalism behind ornament. The heart of the building was a pair of fifty-ton cranes, designed by civil engineer Karl Bernhard, that carried turbine components down the center of the factory. The 660-foot-long double line of supports for the cranes determined the shape of the building. Behrens incorporated the supporting frame into the exterior surface of the building, a row of load-bearing columns designed on the principle of the Greek temple. Where the row stopped at Huttenstrasse, the box shape suggested by the frame required symmetrical, monumental expression. Behrens shaped this end to suggest both the force and the smoothness of machine operations, giving it a plain, six-sided gable over a huge central window. The barrel-vaulted roof required for the gable was Behrens’s only interference in Bernhard’s functional plans. The steel frame, its concrete footing, and the glass window infill determined all visible materials for the building. There would be no decorative brick or stone disguise on this factory. Behrens’s design—built in six months and completed in October, 1909—was a huge, stark-looking, but perfectly balanced expression of industrial forces. On the side elevation, exposed steel columns set thirty feet apart, resting on austerely crafted hinges on concrete bases, marched inexorably down the building’s length. Their finely tuned proportions turned Behrens’s image of industry—endless repetition creating a standardized world—into a dignified colonnade. The inner faces of the steel frame sloped inward to meet the crane’s stresses, which Behrens expressed by setting the great windows between the columns at a slant as well. This threw the colonnade into even greater prominence, making clear that it was the building’s essential structure, and brought out the horizontal sweep of the overhanging roof. Behrens’s imagery changed on the Huttenstrasse front, which was eighty-two feet square. He accentuated the templelike appearance of the gable end by making the building’s corners into massive, rounded concrete py782
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lons, which were grooved with horizontal steel bands to carry the side elevation’s impression of endless length around the corner. The concrete was only a curtain wall between the steel beams, and Behrens revealed this by sloping the pylons inward at the top, as he did with the side windows. Nevertheless, the pillars and the concrete gable gave a weighty dignity to the building’s most visible side. The gable end was Behrens’s metaphor for modern industry, transforming brutal utility into a simple, dignified shrine to humanity’s powers. Significance The AEG turbine factory created a sensation among architects, business leaders, and the public. For the first time, a famous architect had combined forces with the machine age instead of trying to hide from it. For architects and critics, the lesson was of enormous importance. Behrens had applied personal creativity to the impersonal demands of functionalism; he had created a building that was a servant of modern industry but was shaped by the values of the artist. The success of the AEG turbine factory fulfilled the company directors’ hopes for bringing art into industry. Behrens became director of all the corporation’s design projects, and his work for AEG, which lasted through World War I and continued intermittently afterward until his death in 1940, extended beyond factories and consumer products to housing for company employees. Other German companies hired avant-garde architects, notably Werkbund member Hans Poelzig and Behrens’s former assistant Walter Gropius, to design objects, shops, and factories. For the first time, radical architecture was solidly identified with the machine age. Behrens’s prestige meant that his work for AEG added sales value to the company’s products. AEG benefited from the increased attractiveness of the items he designed, and the reputation for cultural sensitivity that his factory designs brought to AEG made for excellent public relations. The turbine factory’s fame only reinforced the idea that hiring an advanced artist or architect to apply “industrial design” to products paid off. Behrens’s faithful, inspired application of Werkbund goals for the AEG brought the concept of product styling, and the notion that avant-gardism could be a lifestyle accessory, into the marketplace. The other part of Behrens’s success made the architect a major participant in social and cultural policy. Behrens designed employee housing because Jordan’s goal in hiring him was to improve the quality of life for all who came in contact with AEG. Putting workers’ living space
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
defying and free, a reflection of human potential in the new age. The deepest lessons of Behrens’s architecture came out after World War I, when the old world had been swept away. Gropius brought his vision of a new world of basic industrial shapes, directed by Behrens’s vision of the architect redesigning the entire world, into the founding of the Bauhaus school in 1919. In 1926, Gropius transformed the vision of a dematerialized, abstract, steel-and-glass architecture into one of the masterpieces of the 1920’s, the Bauhaus building in Dessau. Two other former Behrens employees, Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, pushed Behrens’s discoveries even further to create a new style. Mies van der Rohe refined industrial building down to the classically simple steel frame; Le Corbusier applied an artist’s eye to functionalist “types” to create pure forms. The idealism behind Behrens’s decision to serve industry created the sense of purpose with which the modern movement of the 1920’s transformed architecture. Although modern architecture’s shapes and immediate ends became different from Behrens’s, the goal—to comprehend, control, and ennoble the forces of modernity—continued the lesson of the AEG factory. — M. David Samson Further Reading Anderson, Stanford. Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000. Places Behrens and his work in architecture within the cultural context of the times. Includes illustrations, a list of Behrens’s architectural works, bibliography, and index. Buddensieg, Tilmann. Industriekultur: Peter Behrens and the AEG. Translated by Iain Boyd Whyte. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984. The essential source on the subject and an invaluable guide to debate on art and industry after 1900 in Germany. Excellent photos of Behrens’s buildings, products, and illustrations. Includes catalog of designs, appendixes, bibliography, and index. Campbell, Joan. The German Werkbund: The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. History of the Werkbund’s ideas, organization, and influence. Gives little attention to specific works of architecture or to architects except as they participated in Werkbund leadership. Clarifies the different influences on architectural avant-gardism in Germany. Includes chronological summary and index. 783
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under the direction of a sensitive artist would, in theory, make employees more spiritually healthy, in the same way that turning the factory into a work of art would make them more in harmony with their labor. The idealistic notion of architecture behind this hope had implications beyond the simple fostering of good employee relations. It implied that the avant-garde architect should be the master coordinator of the new industrial world, rebuilding both its public and private sides, physically and spiritually. Behrens himself constantly referred to the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Georg Hegel, with their claims that the artist gives form to the deepest impulses of the age, as his sources. Such theories combined with German architectural critics’ obsession with the deeper purpose of art to encourage a messianic vision of architecture. Behrens’s example pushed Werkbund-inspired architects to test his ideas still further. The major question raised by the turbine factory was whether its success owed more to obedience to function and standardization or to personal artistic vision. Debate on the topic split the Werkbund in 1914 between the antistandardization, Jugendstil individualists and the profunctionalist backers of the anonymous “type” in architecture. The very success of Behrens’s design forced the issue of how completely the architect could surrender to industry’s needs and remain an artist. The question was revived at the end of World War I in the battles between “expressionists” and “functionalists” in modern architecture. In the end, the hope of being useful to society in a chaotic time led most radical architects to embrace functionalism; however, Behrens’s initial goal of transforming function into a symbolic representation of the machine age never fully disappeared. In addition, in the 1920’s, few avantgardists wanted to serve big business as Behrens had; it was necessary to find some more democratic purpose for utilitarianism, such as public housing. Some architects viewed the AEG turbine factory as old-fashioned and dishonest in the way it placed art before function. The gabled roof was unnecessary, the concrete corners created a false image of a massive stone building, and the building sides not visible to the public had been left ugly and inharmonious. Behrens’s former employee Walter Gropius applied the idea of a simple, cubic architecture based on industrial materials even more ruthlessly. Gropius’s 1911 Fagus shoe-last factory was an asymmetrical complex with a flat roof and, instead of concrete pillars, sheets of glass wrapping around the corners of a light steel-frame box. The rigid, heavy industrial aesthetic discovered by Behrens became gravity-
Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory
Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms Curtis, William. Modern Architecture Since 1900. 3d ed. London: Phaidon Press, 1996. Textbook history includes a chapter on the Werkbund and follows its and Behrens’s later influence on Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe. A good balance of art history and the history of architectural theory. Index. Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. 3d ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992. The author’s sensitivity to the impact of industrial capitalism on architecture makes the chapter on the Werkbund outstanding. Includes select bibliography and index. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius. Rev. ed. New Ha-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. Revision and enlargement of a work first published in 1936 as Pioneers of the Modern Movement. Treats architectural and design history after 1850 as the background to Gropius’s Bauhaus concepts. Dated and biased on that account, but unity of argument and attention to the applied arts help clarify Behrens’s context. Includes index. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication.
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Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms Responding to pressure from public health officials, municipal authorities reduced urban waste problems by implementing systems of centralized collection and disposal along with industrial recycling. Locale: United States Categories: Environmental issues; health and medicine; government and politics Key Figure William F. Morse (fl. early twentieth century), American engineer Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, a major shift occurred in the way American cities dealt with their solid waste. The time-honored tradition of dumping in the vicinity of dwellings (and thus providing materials for future archaeologists) was replaced by municipal efforts at centralizing collection and disposal. These municipal efforts included the expansion of methods of burning garbage to reduce it and sorting garbage to find reusable or recyclable resources. The new approach stemmed from the fact that expanding populations were concentrating in urban areas. An important public health movement had already begun working for the establishment of housing standards and other efforts to clean up the growing and increasingly polluted and unhealthy industrial cities. Untended trash was only one of several indications of the need for new ways to protect human health in urban settings. Passage 784
of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 was the federal government’s first step toward controlling indiscriminate dumping into the nation’s navigable waters. Although the municipal solid waste of the time did not include disposable diapers, single-service packaging, or fast-food residues, it did contain roughly the same percentages of paper, organic waste (such as food), and miscellaneous other materials as does modern solid waste. As a result of heating with coal, each household unit accumulated approximately one ton of ash every year. In addition to ash, urban solid waste contained street sweepings, including by-products of animal transportation such as horse manure and dead animals, and household garbage. At that time, the main distinction drawn concerning solid waste was between materials that putrefied, or “garbage,” and those that remained dry, or “trash.” Disposal of garbage was the greatest concern; dry materials were often dumped close to homes. “Refuse” was the term used for a combination of garbage and trash; the most comprehensive term, covering both refuse and construction materials, was “rubbish.” Population growth in U.S. cities in the early twentieth century came from mass immigration from eastern and southern Europe. Rural populations were also beginning to move to urban areas in ever-increasing numbers, changing the United States from a predominantly rural society to an urban one. The high rate of national population growth notwithstanding, cities grew at a rate seven or eight times faster than rural areas.
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innovation that boiled animal carcasses and discarded materials to yield by-products of fat and a residuum used as fertilizer. This type of facility was adapted in various ways in the United States; the typical U.S. adaptation was a press that extracted fats for resale. These facilities were most effective in areas where a large portion of the waste was organic; consequently, most were found near cities such as Milwaukee, St. Paul, Chicago, Denver, and Cleveland. Cities were often the losers when they paid reduction facilities to take solid waste, for reduction operations were often profitable for those who ran them; in addition, the process often had a negative impact on surrounding municipal areas. Nearly two hundred incinerators were built in cities throughout the United States in the second decade of the twentieth century. Most were simply burn facilities, and all were funded by local governments or by user fees. According to a survey of the 1880 U.S. census, at that time about 50 percent of rubbish was dumped or buried in land or water, 25 percent was disposed of through farm use, and the remaining 25 percent was disposed of by a variety of methods, of which burning represented only 1 percent. By 1913, land disposal continued to dominate, but the use of incineration had increased significantly. By the time World War I began, however, incineration had begun to decline again. Incineration remained an important disposal method, but fewer than one hundred incinerator facilities were in operation. Another small boom in incineration came from the implementation of the “destructor” concept, an effort to secure by-products such as heat from the burn. Before incinerators began to be used, less than half of all major U.S. cities had municipal collection of garbage, but by 1913 nearly all had some system in place. Significance Public concerns about the dangers of improperly handled garbage motivated the search for solutions. That search gradually extended beyond the efforts of individuals to municipal authorities, a development common in environmental improvement efforts generally. Health officials had only an imperfect understanding of pathology, and disagreements existed concerning exactly how diseases are spread and the contribution of insects to the problem. Germ theory was developing, but even before exact causal relationships had been identified, common sense dictated that authorities take certain actions. To some extent, the municipal response to the garbage problem was eclipsed by the contributions of sanitary engineers, practitioners of a profession that emerged in re785
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The problems created by the accumulation of garbage were similar to others encountered by the sanitary reform movement. This epoch of U.S. history, the so-called Progressive Era, was also labeled the period of “sewer-pipe socialism.” Social reformers sought to improve housing quality, reduce crowding, and improve municipal services to reduce the unhealthy conditions of urban neighborhoods. One strategy that began to be implemented was the removal of the workplace—along with its congestion and effluents—from residential areas. In response to the dumping of garbage and other solid waste in densely settled areas, which caused noxious byproducts such as disease-carrying vermin and flies, central authorities began to assume responsibility for this environmental problem. Invoking the need to protect public health and safety, government authorities used their police power and municipal funds to solve the problems that were adversely affecting public health. The methods of rubbish reduction used at the time included dumping and systematic combustion. Dumping was usually done in relatively remote locations, where it encouraged scavenging and reclamation of materials, especially rags, paper, and metals. Away from urban areas, rubbish was also reduced through open burning in dumps, a practice that was standard until the late twentieth century. The idea of industrial facilities devoted to rubbish reduction came from Europe. One such facility, using an incinerator, or “cremator,” was built by the U.S. Army, and others were later built in several cities, including Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Wheeling, West Virginia; and Des Moines, Iowa. One effort was undertaken by the Engle Sanitary and Cremation Company, whose agent, William F. Morse, became a major innovator in incineration disposal. Companies began to promote a standard burning-reduction facility in which a combustible material was added to the wet garbage so that it would burn. The main intent was to reduce or dispose of waste; producing heat was secondary. The operation of such facilities required a level of technical knowledge and skill not available until the late nineteenth century. Often, these early incinerators were abandoned because fuel costs and the facilities’ overall inefficiency made running them too expensive. Later, an incinerator known as the “destructor,” an improved version of the early cremator modified from an English model, became a success. More than one hundred of these incinerators were built, and they stayed in operation longer than the cremators had. Another method of rubbish reduction was a European
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Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era sponse to the problems defined by sewer-pipe socialism. As a result of the growth of municipal presence and the work of sanitary engineers, large numbers of people could live in close proximity without fear of disease and contamination. Whatever form their rubbish disposal took, most cities had initiated municipal waste collection programs by 1913. With such programs in place, solid waste was separated into categories, with the principal emphasis on garbage (that part of the waste that would putrefy and reduce). Individuals still separated rubbish into categories for reuse and recycling, and collectors contributed their share to the reuse of certain types of items. This system remained in place until the last quarter of the twentieth century, when sanitary landfilling procedures and new laws required that rubbish material be totally disposed of and covered every day. —Nancy R. Bain Further Reading Blumberg, Louis, and Robert Gottlieb. War on Waste: Can America Win Its Battle with Garbage? Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1989. A history and sociology of the management of solid waste in the United States from the beginning of the twentieth century through the 1980’s. Well documented; includes index. Kharbanda, O. P., and E. A. Stallworthy. Waste Management: Towards a Sustainable Society. New York: Auburn House, 1990. An overview of waste management efforts around the world. Includes notes, tables, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Melosi, Martin V. Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment. Rev. ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. Emphasizes developments in garbage management during the Progressive Era and provides information critical to understanding the sanitation movement. Murarka, Ishwar P., ed. Solid Waste Disposal and Reuse in the United States. 2 vols. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 1987. A useful reference on the production, disposal, and reuse of solid waste. Includes photographs, tables, and index. Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage. 1992. Reprint. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001. Summarizes the history of garbage and includes a discussion of the authors’ long-term garbage project. Royte, Elizabeth. Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash. Boston: Little, Brown, 2005. Blends science, anthropology, and journalism to examine Americans’ relationship with their garbage. Follows the separate journeys of the author’s household trash, compostable matter, recyclables, and sewage to illustrate the realities of waste management. See also: June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems.
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Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era W. C. Handy transformed the native music of the backwoods, work camps, and cotton fields of the American South into a commercial craze. Locale: United States Categories: Music; entertainment Key Figures W. C. Handy (1873-1958), American composer and an originator of popular blues Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897-1929), American bluesman and authority on the blues Bessie Smith (1894-1937), American blues singer Ma Rainey (1886-1939), American blues singer 786
Summary of Event Along the lower Mississippi River, from Memphis down to New Orleans, the blues evolved during the post-Civil War years. At a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, a black musician named W. C. Handy “rediscovered” the blues in 1903 while listening to a guitarist use a knife to strum a song that Handy subsequently wrote down as his own “Yellow Dog Blues.” The occasion reminded him that, eight years before, he had heard another lone singer “hollering” his blues. Handy’s full enlightenment about this aspect of the Delta cultures surrounding him came as his band, the Knights of Pythias, was playing for a Cleveland, Mississippi, dance later in the year. As bandleader, he was asked to perform “native” music—that is, to play
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 blues. Unable to comply, he allowed three ragged local musicians to do so; when they brought the house down, he realized the music’s commercial value. The event changed his career. Handy later laid legitimate claim to the title “father of the blues,” and the rest of the nation, within a few decades, would embrace the music. Although blues music has been identified accurately as part of jazz, its provenance historically, although murky, was separate. Jazz represented a southern confluence of multiracial and multiethnic urban influences that initially were geographically specific to cities of the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The spread of jazz and its fusion with other musical forms was another continuing story. Blues music, in contrast, has African origins. The music underwent transformation in the rural areas and small towns of the lower Mississippi, and by the late 1890’s it was specific to people who performed harsh physical labor in the cotton fields of the large Delta plantations, in mining and logging camps, in levee and railroad construction, in freight loading, and in the perpetually debt-
W. C. Handy. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
ridden, segregated, unlettered, and depressed worlds of crop-lien and sharecrop farming. The blues were powerfully emotive, and the sole instrument capable of rendering “blue notes” (sung usually between the third and seventh degrees of the scale) was the human voice. Accompaniment, when there was any, was generally by guitar, which merely filled in as a second voice. In their archaic form, the blues’ twelve-bar stanzas of three lines each did not even lend themselves to musical notation; the rhythm, rhyme, and subtle poetry were the singer’s to provide. Raw, rural, and steeped in subsistence-level living— although their range of subjects was vast—the blues dealt mainly with inevitabilities: hard labor, death, bad crops, sex, loss of a lover, sickness, low wages, scarce money, drink, jail, and a world awash in other troubles. Nevertheless, there sometimes was also an implicit and wry shared humor in the music, as the purpose of the blues was to alleviate distress by means of the traditional open and candid vocal expression especially common to isolated, segregated, and—in formal terms—unschooled people. Handy himself did not come from such a background. Born in Florence, Alabama, the son of a Methodist minister, he was reared in a household that discouraged music and condemned the life of musicians. Nevertheless, thanks to his teachers, he had by the age of ten shown some musical precocity. Following high school, he spent a year as a cornet player with several bands and with Chicago’s Mahara Minstrels; he also spent two years as an instructor at Teacher’s Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes in Huntsville, Alabama. After that came the revelations in Tutwiler and Cleveland and several more years as a bandleader in Mississippi and Tennessee. As late as 1907, when Handy and the lyricist-singer Harry Pace started a music publishing business near Memphis’s thriving black music center on Beale Street, Handy was still refraining from publishing his own compositions, although he had behind him a quarter century of acquaintance with all types of music and was enamored of the blues. His “Memphis Blues,” written on request expressly for the Memphis mayoral campaign of flamboyant Ed Crump in 1909, however, rocked the city and established Handy’s songwriting reputation. It was while he was reminiscing about an earlier visit to the notorious Targee Street in St. Louis that he composed what proved to be his world-famous “St. Louis Blues” in 1914. As a sophisticated and urbane musician, Handy effectively added the fruits of his own experience to the ar787
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era
Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era chaic rural blues that had captured his imagination in the Mississippi Delta. When he and Pace moved their business to New York in 1918, Handy became the first man to compose the blues formally as well as the first to popularize them commercially. Significance The excitement that attended Handy’s “Memphis Blues,” the influence of which was initially local, swept New York by 1912. His spectacularly successful “St. Louis Blues,” which enjoyed an even more fervent reception in Harlem and soon became nationally popular, introduced the American public to a secondhand and sophisticated blues music that was removed from its rural origins. Blues such as Handy’s, which represented the compositions of rather worldly musicians and vaudevillians, became popular throughout the United States. Such music was sung by urbanized cabaret and torch singers, including Ohio’s Mamie Smith, whose origins were neither rural nor southern. What mattered most in catapulting the blues into general recognition and popularity was their recording, and Handy’s successes unquestionably encouraged his imitators to move in that direction. Perry Bradford, who had moved from Alabama to Harlem, was foremost in persuading the General Phonograph Company to record Mamie Smith singing his “Crazy Blues” in 1920. This first vocal blues recording, which sold more than a million copies in six months, is regarded as a milestone by music historians. Reaching an immense audience, it constituted a cultural event. Instantly, it brought forth from black communities across the country, where superb music had flourished locally for years, a host of blues composers, singers, and bands who performed for the enjoyment of eager audiences. The success of Smith’s record further encouraged recording companies to tap the hunger of American blacks for reproductions of their authentic music. The subsequent spate of “race records”—a designation that carried proud, rather than pejorative, connotations for the increasingly self-conscious blacks of the 1920’s—not only whetted racial pride but also stimulated a search for more genuine blues songs and singers. No one filled the bill better than Chattanooga’s magnificent, if tragic, Bessie Smith, soon to reign as “Empress of the Blues.” Before her death in an auto accident, Smith sang with her uniquely poignant voice among a constellation of singers and performers who made the blues a national treasure. Among these personalities were Ma Rainey and several of her protégés, including 788
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bertha “Chippie” Hill and Ida Cox, and a number of young jazz musicians who would use blues as a base for their idiom, including Fletcher “Smack” Henderson, James P. Johnson, and Louis Armstrong. In addition, Bessie Smith and her blues interpretations were direct inspirations to later great blues, jazz, and gospel singers such as Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, and Mahalia Jackson. Bessie Smith’s “down-home” genius also helped to focus attention on the need to record original and authentic forms of rural, or archaic, blues and their variations, including the field “hollers,” before those who sang them were gone. A major catalyst in this quest was the remarkably knowledgeable Blind Lemon Jefferson, a Texas blues singer who moved from regional to national fame by way of his recordings. The efforts of Jefferson and others brought recognition to musicians such as Daddy Stovepipe and Pappa Charlie Jackson—both of whom recorded in 1924—as well as to Delta bluesman Charley Patton, the unaccompanied field hollerer Texas Alexander, Ragtime Henry Thomas, gospel blues performer Blind Willie Johnson, and not least to Jefferson’s proclaimed protégés Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter), Josh White, and Sam “Lightning” Hopkins. Others who recorded their way to prominence during the 1920’s were Mississippi’s Lonnie Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy, hillbilly bluesman Coley Jones, and Jelly Roll Morton, who composed his “New Orleans Blues” in 1902 and subsequently gained fame for melding blues, ragtime, and brass band music. Such performers composed, played, and sang more than two thousand variously styled blues recordings during the blues boom that followed Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” in 1914 and soared to a peak during the 1920’s. By the 1930’s, the blues in their variety had launched the careers of numerous outstanding singers, composers, and musicians and had been intensively recorded. The blues had likewise served as a vehicle for bringing black music into the American mainstream, simply because the music conveyed emotions that members of all races could feel and appreciate. Equally important, the blues lived on in their original forms at the same time they were also woven into the fabric of jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and country music. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Charters, Samuel Barclay. The Blues Makers. New York: Da Capo Press, 1991. Volume reprints two works: The Bluesmen: The Story of the Music and the
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story. Includes a chronological list of his compositions, arrangements, and books along with a brief index. Malone, Bill C., and David Stricklin. Southern Music/ American Music. Rev. ed. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. A fine study, engagingly written, broad in range and rich in detail. Integrates information about the blues into a discussion of the evolution of all southern music, including hillbilly, Cajun, gospel, country, rock, and soul. Chapters proceed chronologically, so there is a sense of the historical relationships among these various musical forms. Includes photographs, bibliographical notes, and index. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Excellent scholarly account of the subject provides both background and important detail. Includes a splendid critical bibliography and discography as well as numerous selections from scores and an extensive index. Wardlow, Gayle Dean. Chasin’ That Devil Music: Searching for the Blues. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998. Describes the author’s search for early recordings and documentation of the stories and songs of blues artists (many of which appear on an accompanying CD). Focuses on Delta blues singers of the early twentieth century. See also: 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States; 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career.
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Men Who Made Blues and Sweet as the Showers of Rain. Discusses the origins of the blues as well as individual musicians and songs from Alabama, Mississippi, and East Texas. Includes many fine illustrations and photographs, brief notes, and index. _______. The Roots of the Blues: An African Search. 1981. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1991. Describes the author’s search for sources of blues: men, instruments, and songs from portions of West Africa from which slaves were taken to the United States. Augmented by two volumes of recordings. Includes many photographs. Dale, Rodney. The World of Jazz. Oxford, England: Phaidon, 1980. Chapter 3 deals specifically in survey fashion with the evolution of the blues and provides thumbnail biographies of some of the great blues singers and players, with accompanying photographs. Good introduction to the subject. Deals well with the blues’ integration into jazz. Includes appendixes, notes on musicians’ specialties, and brief index. Ferris, William R. Blues from the Delta. New York: Da Capo Press, 1984. Places Delta blues in social and historical perspective, from the early days to B. B. King, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf. Includes many blues lyrics and reproduces conversations, letters, and marvelous photos to provide a feel for the region’s blues folk. Includes notes, bibliography, extensive discography, filmography, and index. Handy, William Christopher. Father of the Blues: An Autobiography. 1941. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1985. Interesting and useful, if only because it is one of the lengthiest and most detailed autobiographies of its kind. A better composer by far than a writer, Handy nevertheless presents a fascinating life
Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era
Angell Advances Pacifism
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1910
Angell Advances Pacifism By articulating a liberal basis for antiwar views, the publication of The Great Illusion brought to broad publics the thesis that war among European powers was a futile exercise that would advance neither the economic interests nor the moral needs of modern peoples. Also known as: The Great Illusion Locale: Paris, France; London, England Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; publishing and journalism Key Figures Norman Angell (1872-1967), British journalist and author Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe; 1865-1922), influential British publisher and anti-German propaganda minister Lord Robert Cecil (1864-1958), British statesman Summary of Event In the first decades of the twentieth century, European intellectuals and much of the public hungered for alternatives to war. Journalist Norman Angell engaged these appetites in editorial columns, in essays (such as his 1909 essay “Europe’s Optical Illusion”), and in the best-selling book ever published in the field of international relations, his masterpiece The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage (1910). The book brought liberal, pacifist arguments against war to more than two million readers, energized efforts by British pacifists to promote alternatives to war, and contributed to the construction of an intellectual foundation that ultimately led to the creation of an international organization, the League of Nations, to prevent wars. Norman Angell was a self-taught Englishman of middle-class background. He had not studied at a university, and he received no military training. Instead, Angell’s perspective was informed by a seven-year stint as a manual laborer and newspaper reporter in California. When he returned to Europe in 1905, Lord Northcliffe (Alfred Harmsworth) appointed him editor of a new, Paris-based edition of Northcliffe’s British newspaper the Daily Mail. Angell had become a naturalized American citizen, and his second experience as an expatriate pushed him further from appeals to patriotism and other forms of nationalistic fervor. Seven years in France, a country still strongly divided by anti-Semitism 790
Norman Angell. (The Nobel Foundation)
associated with the trial against French army officer Alfred Dreyfus, convinced Angell that the nationalistic consciousness behind state rivalries had become a dangerous anachronism. Angell delivered a broad challenge to the two key assumptions about international relations: that state rivalries were inevitable and that national prosperity depended ultimately on preponderant military force. Without using substantial economic data or equations to sustain his views, he argued that military power served no social or economic purpose and that war was pointless, even when it seemed to guarantee desired material or ideological outcomes. Angell based his analysis on the absence of clear gain for most German people after that state regained Alsace from France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), and he supplemented his arguments with insights gleaned from other conflicts, including the Boer War (1899-1902), which Britain had fought in South Africa. Angell’s generalizations resonated with a broad readership. An early version of his argument appeared in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the self-published essay “Europe’s Optical Illusion,” and it appealed to confidants of the British king Edward VII. With this encouragement, Angell greatly expanded and polished his argument into The Great Illusion, a work of more than four hundred pages and the third—and most famous—of Angell’s forty-one books. The central fallacy that Angell identified was that of conquest: No ruler, Angell insisted, had ever successfully transferred wealth through fighting, and for this reason war is irrational. This argument directly countered the Marxists’ economic views, which postulated that war is a feature necessary to the growth of international capitalism. Angell also faulted those who saw war primarily as a product of nonrational forces governing human behavior: War is not, he argued, ingrained in human nature. He also dismissed explanations that locate war’s causes in the desire for prestige and the need for power, saying that these types of justifications are unworthy of the changed, modern world at hand. His position placed him firmly against the views of realists, a leading school of thought in international relations that saw the potential for war as a permanent condition of all
Angell Advances Pacifism states in a lawless world. Angell explicitly rejected the realists’ central metaphor, which drew parallels between international relations and the relationships among humans under the “law of the jungle.” Angell’s thinking closely reflected the reigning assumptions of many educated persons in the late nineteenth century. He believed that all problems among humans could be resolved and that reason would ultimately triumph over prejudice. In the light of the atrocities that occurred during the twentieth century, Angell’s ideals were sometimes perceived as naïve, and some of his predictions proved to be completely inaccurate (including, for example, his theory that most Germans would never experience war). Still, Angell’s ideas remained tremendously appealing well into the twenty-first century: Readers continued to be attracted to an author who could assure them that war’s limitations will only increase as communications among states improve.
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Significance The publication of The Great Illusion launched Angell into the sphere of public influence. The Garton Foundation was established to promote the book’s guiding ideas, and Angell’s lectures were extremely popular in paciAngell’s Psychological Case for Peace fist circles, notably with the Peace In The Great Illusion, Norman Angell argued not only that peace was a viaSociety. Within six years, Angell’s inble alternative to war but also that it seemed inevitable—at least at the turn fluence had become so significant that of the twentieth century. Both the general public and Great Britain’s leadat the height of World War I the British ing politicians were fascinated by Angell’s arguments. This excerpt is from government denied him a passport bea chapter titled “The Psychological Case for Peace.” cause it feared the impact that his pacifistic ideals might have on Britain’s alNational entities, in their birth, activities, and death, are controlled by the lies, especially the still-neutral United same laws that govern all life—plant, animal, or national—the law of strugStates. Ironically, Lord Robert Cecil, gle, the law of work; to show, among other things, that in the changing charthe minister who blocked Angell’s travacter of men’s ideals there is a distinct narrowing of the gulf which is supposed to separate ideal and material aims. Early ideals, whether in the field els to the United States in 1916, later of politics or religion, are generally dissociated from any aim of general feted him after he was knighted in 1931. well-being. In early politics, ideals are concerned simply with personal alleIn the 1920’s and 1930’s, Angell giance to some dynastic chief, a feudal lord, or a monarch; the well-being of was widely and correctly credited with a community does not enter into the matter at all. Later the chief must emhaving predicted that any general Eurobody in his person that well-being, or he does not obtain the allegiance of a pean war would have ruinous consecommunity of any enlightenment; later, the well-being of the community quences for both the victor and the vanbecomes the end in itself, without being embodied in the person of an heredquished. Briefly, during the early years itary chief, so that the people realize their efforts, instead of being directed to of the Great Depression, Angell served the protection of the personal interests of some chief, are as a matter of fact as a Labour Party member in the House directed to the protection of their own interests, and their altruism has beof Commons. The pacifist theses Ancome communal self-interest, since the self-sacrifice of the community for the sake of the community is a contradiction in terms. gell advanced only continued to gain influence from 1918 to 1939: His idea Source: Norman Angell, The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military that the human community has a comPower to National Advantage (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910). mon interest in preventing war rein-
Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced forced the purposes of the League of Nations, which he supported, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. International pacifism’s heyday was in some substantial measure built on the popularization of the sentiment Angell did most to advance, the belief that humankind is “showing less and less disposition to fight” because of a “changing conception of collective responsibility.” —Gordon L. Bowen Further Reading Ceadel, Martin. Semi-detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 18541945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Explains the political context in which The Great Illusion generated its wide appeal. Concludes that the book had a surprisingly small direct impact on British government policy in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Treats Angell and the idealist organizations associated with his arguments as ideological protagonists who helped construct durable, new ways of thinking about international relations. Laity, Paul. The British Peace Movement,1870-1914.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Draws on newly available materials from Peace Society archives to place Angell and his activism within the diverse traditions of British opponents of war that assembled in the Peace Society. Includes discussion of the crucial years in which Angell guided new thinking about how to avert the coming of World War I. Miller, John D. B. Norman Angell and the Futility of War: Peace and the Public Mind. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1986. Definitive biography examines Angell’s life and thought. Provides a comprehensive and analytic overview of his writings, arguments, and influence on pacifist organizations and public. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded; Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established; Dec., 1936: InterAmerican Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.
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Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced When American manufacturers married electric power with the old technology of hand-operated washtubs and wringers, both the labor and the time involved in washing clothes were significantly reduced. Locale: United States Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures O. B. Woodrow (fl. early twentieth century), American bank clerk and inventor Alva J. Fisher (1862-1947), American washing machine designer and founder of the Hurley Machine Company Howard Snyder (fl. early twentieth century), American washing machine designer Summary of Event Until the development of the electric washing machine in the twentieth century, washing clothes was a tiring and time-consuming process. With the development of the washboard, patented in the United States in 1833, dirt was loosened by rubbing. Clothes and washtubs had to be car792
ried to a water source, or the water from a stream or well had to be carried to the tubs and clothes. After washing and rinsing, clothes were hand-wrung, hung up to dry, and then ironed with heavy irons that were heated on stoves. In the nineteenth century, laundering clothing became more arduous with the greater use of cotton fabrics that resulted from the expansion of the textile industry. In addition, the invention and industrial application of the sewing machine resulted in the mass production of inexpensive ready-to-wear cotton clothing. With more clothing, more washing was necessary. One advancement in dealing with laundry was the hand-operated washing machine. The first American patent for such a machine was issued in 1805. By 1857, more than 140 patents had been issued, and by 1880, between 4,000 and 5,000 patents had been granted. Although most of the devices patented were never produced, they are evidence of the desire to find a mechanical means to relieve the burden of washing clothes. Nearly all of the early types prior to the Civil War were based on the principle of rubbing the clothes against a washboard. One of these, patented in 1846, employed a
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Alva J. Fisher’s “Thor” electric washing machine, patented in 1910. (NARA)
soap. The inner-ribbed design of the rotating cylinder raised the clothes as the cylinder turned. Once the clothes reached the top of the cylinder, they dropped down into the soapy water. The rotary motion and dropping action created the agitation by which the clothing was washed. An important advance took place in 1863, when Hamilton Smith patented a belt-driven reciprocating revolving drum, thereby demonstrating the importance of reversible action in washing machines. The first underwater agitator-type machine was patented in 1869. In this machine, four blades at the bottom of the tub were attached to a central vertical shaft, which was turned by a hand crank on the outside. The agitation created by the blades washed the clothes by driving the water through the fabric. Of the five types of handoperated washing machines that were modified for electric power, the underwater agitator type was the last to be successfully marketed as an electric machine. It was not until 1922, when Howard Snyder of the Maytag Com793
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swinging curved, inverted T-shaped piece that passed over clothes placed on a curved bed of rollers. It must have worked fairly well—this basic model resembles machines advertised in an early twentieth century Sears, Roebuck catalog as the “Quick and Easy Washer” and in a 1927 Montgomery Ward catalog as “Our Famous Old Faithful.” Washing machines based on the rubbing principle had two limitations: They could wash only one item at a time, and the constant rubbing was hard on clothes. A major conceptual breakthrough took place when designers moved away from the rubbing principle and began to design machines that cleaned by forcing water through a number of pieces of clothing at the same time. Electric washing machines eventually used five different designs to create the washing action needed to force water through fabric: suction, oscillating tub, dolly, horizontal rotary cylinder, and underwater agitator. All of these designs were developed in the nineteenth century for handoperated machines. An early suction machine utilized a plunger fastened to a fulcrum that was attached to a washing tub. When a person raised one end of the handle, a plunger at the other end dropped into the tub, forcing water through the clothes. Later, electric machines were made with two to four suction cups, similar to plungers, attached to arms that went up and down and rotated on a vertical shaft. The cups pushed the water through the clothes on the downstroke and then sucked the water through the clothes on the upstroke. Another hand-operated washing machine used oscillating action by rocking a tub on a frame. The rocking action threw water through the clothes and then the clothes through the water. An electric motor was later substituted for the hand lever that rocked the tub. A third hand-operated washing machine was the dolly type. The dolly, which looked like an inverted three-legged milking stool, was attached to the inside of the tub cover and turned by a two-handled lever on the top of the enclosed tub. Clothes were washed by being pulled through the hot, soapy water in a tub with corrugated sides that increased agitation. The dolly type was the most popular of the manually operated machines and the first to be adapted for electric power. The hand-operated machines that would later dominate the market as electric machines were the horizontal rotary cylinder and the underwater agitator types. In 1851, James King patented a machine that utilized two concentric half-full cylinders. Water in the outer cylinder was heated by a fire beneath it, and a hand crank turned the perforated inner cylinder that contained clothing and
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Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced pany developed an underwater agitator with reversible motion, that this type of machine was able to compete with the other electric machines. Reversible action was central to the machine’s function. If the blades in this machine had turned in only one direction, clothes would soon be wrapped around the blades and cleansing agitation would be significantly reduced. Until the nineteenth century, getting water out of clothing required hand wringing. As was true of handoperated washing machines, the development of handoperated wringing machines provided the basic designs later used in electric machines. The term “wringer” was first used to refer to an 1847 device that used a hand crank to twist wet clothes that were placed in a sack suspended between two posts. Later, the term was used in reference to the two-roller innovation marketed in 1861 that became the basic model for motor-powered machines. This innovation featured two adjustable parallel rollers, one above the other. Water was extracted as the clothing was pressed between the rollers, one of which was turned by hand crank while the other turned freely. In the twentieth century, motors underneath washing tubs were connected by belts to the wringer apparatus. The basic wringer design was completed in 1910, when a patent was issued for a reversible, swinging wringer. Reversible rollers allowed the operator to correct improper loading and to withdraw clothes that had wrapped around one of the rollers. The swinging wringer allowed the operator to move the wringer so that it could be over the wash tub, over the rinse tub, or out of the way when either was being loaded. In the twentieth century, motor-powered machines would also extract water by the centrifugal force of rapid spinning. Like other developments in washing machines, this one preceded the application of electricity. A machine patented in 1873 featured an inner clothing basket that was made to spin very rapidly by the use of a hand crank. Unfortunately, turning the crank fast enough to get sufficiently rapid spinning action required a great deal of manual labor. It was not until about 1900 that hand-operated washing machines began to replace washboards in American homes. By 1905, washing machines were being advertised that were operated by other than hand power. Small gasoline engines—used at that time for a variety of purposes—were being used to power washing machines. They were popular in homes that did not have electricity. Washing machines powered by water motors were advertised for homes with sufficient water pressure. For those homes wired for electricity, an electric washing machine was soon available. 794
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Claims concerning the development of the first electric washing machine were made by O. B. Woodrow, who founded the Automatic Electric Washer Company, and by Alva J. Fisher, who developed the Thor electric washing machine for the Hurley Machine Company. Both Woodrow and Fisher made their innovations in 1907 by adapting electric power to modified handoperated, dolly-type washing machines. As only 8 percent of American homes were wired for electricity in 1907, the early machines were advertised as adaptable to electric or gasoline power and could be operated manually if the power source failed. Soon, electric power was being applied to machines of rotary cylinder, oscillating, and suction designs. Separate belts were attached to wringers so that they could be operated by electric power. In 1910, a number of companies, including Woodrow’s Automatic Electric Washer Company, introduced washing machines with attached wringers that could be operated by electricity. Maytag’s 1911 electric washing machine, developed by Snyder, featured the Maytag swinging wringer. Significance By 1907, the year electricity was first adapted to washing machines, some American homes were already using electric power to operate fans, ranges, coffee percolators, and sewing machines. As more and more homes were wired for electricity, more and more families bought electric appliances, including washing machines. By 1920, nearly 35 percent of American residences were wired for electricity; by 1941, nearly 80 percent were wired. By 1941, a majority of American homes had electric washing machines; by 1958, the proportion had risen to an estimated 90 percent. The growth of electric household appliances, especially washing machines, is directly related to the decline in the numbers of domestic servants in the United States. In 1910, some 1.83 million domestic servants were employed in American homes, of whom 520,000 were laundresses. With immigration down as a result of World War I and new employment opportunities opening for women, by 1920 the number of domestic servants had declined to 1.4 million, of whom 385,000 were laundresses. This indicates that the development of the electric washing machine in this decade was, in part, a response to a decline in servants, especially laundresses. Although conditions changed in the 1920’s, and by 1930 the number of domestic servants increased to 2 million, the number of laundresses actually declined. Rather than easing the work of laundresses with technology, Ameri-
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Further Reading Allen, Edith. Mechanical Devices in the Home. Peoria, Ill.: Manual Arts Press, 1922. Although dated, provides an interesting look at the kinds of electric washing machines that were expected to be industry leaders at the time. Includes chapters on laundry equipment, wringers, and water motors that describe how these technologies actually worked. Cowan, Ruth S. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Books, 1983. Impor-
tant study of the relationship between household technologies and housework shows how “labor-saving” devices may actually reorganize the work process and increase the amount of labor involved in housework. Examines why alternative approaches to housework, such as commercial laundries and cooperative kitchens, have failed in the United States. Davidson, Caroline. A Woman’s Work Is Never Done: A History of Housework in the British Isles, 1650-1950. London: Chatto & Windus, 1983. Includes a chapter on laundry that presents an excellent survey of the history of clothes washing in England since 1650. Particularly useful for an understanding of why England lagged behind the United States in adopting electric washing machines. Du Vall, Nell. Domestic Technology: A Chronology of Developments. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. Survey of developments in domestic technologies is helpful for placing most of the major innovations in washing machines, irons, and laundry aids in context. Unfortunately, provides only very brief descriptions. Giedion, Sigfried. Mechanization Takes Command. 1948. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. Fascinating volume places the development of the washing machine within the overall development of mechanization in the nineteenth century. Brief discussion of the washing machine includes some of the most insightful comments written on the topic. Clearly shows how agitator and cylinder washers of the twentieth century were based on concepts developed in the nineteenth century. Horsfield, Margaret. Biting the Dust: The Joys of Housework. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Entertaining look at housework examines the topic from social, historical, and literary perspectives. Chapter 9, titled “Improvement and Irony,” briefly discusses the introduction of the washing machine in the context of supposedly labor-saving innovations. Includes index. Katzman, David M. Seven Days a Week: Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Impressive survey of domestic service in the United States between 1880 and 1930 describes changing patterns of service in various parts of the United States during this period, when the electric washing machine was being introduced. Robertson, Una A. The Illustrated History of the Housewife, 1650-1950. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999. Uses illustrations and many primary materials to address how the role of housewife changed during 795
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can families replaced their laundresses with washing machines. Commercial laundries were also affected by the growth of electric washing machines. Commercial laundries used steam and pioneered the development of rotary washing and spin drying. At the end of the nineteenth century, laundries were operating in every major city and were utilized by people of all incomes. Observers have noted that just as spinning, weaving, and baking had once been done in the home but were eventually taken over by commercial establishments, laundry work had begun its move out of the home. Commercial laundry business grew impressively, doubling total receipts each decade, until the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Many Americans, responding to intense advertising by manufacturers, purchased electric washing machines in the belief that the overall cost of owning a machine would be lower than using a commercial laundry service. Although the commercial laundry industry grew after World War II, its business centered more and more on institutional laundry rather than residential laundry, which they had lost to the home washing machine. The return of residential laundry to the home is the only example of a household task that began to move out of the home and then returned. This occurred in part because of technological developments. Each advance— electric machines over hand-powered machines, spin drying and rotary driers over wringers—meant that the operator no longer had to give constant attention to each segment of the laundering process. Bendix’s introduction of automatic washers in 1937 meant that washing machines could change phases without any action on the part of the operator. Some scholars have argued that the return of laundry to the home was also the product of marketing strategies that developed the image of the American woman as someone who is in the home, operating her appliances. —Thomas W. Judd
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Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control the three hundred years up to the mid-twentieth century. Discusses the labor of laundry in chapter 7. Includes index. Strasser, Susan. “Blue Monday.” In Never Done: A History of American Housework. 1982. Reprint. New York: Owl Books, 2000. Describes the arduous nature of laundry work in the nineteenth century and how American women sought relief through the use of laundresses, commercial and cooperative laundries, and electric washing machines. Includes excellent illustrations that capture the demanding nature of laundry work. Swisher, Jacob. “The Evolution of Wash Day.” Iowa
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Journal of History and Politics 38 (January, 1940): 349. Historical survey of innovations in washing machines, wringers, irons, and commercial laundries focuses primarily on developments in Iowa, where many early washing machine companies were located. See also: Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner; 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex; 1917: Birdseye Invents QuickFrozen Foods; Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
Calls for Pollution Control
In her book Euthenics, Ellen Swallow Richards called on women to control urban pollution to protect health and home. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts Categories: Publishing and journalism; environmental issues; women’s issues Key Figures Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911), American sanitary chemist, university professor, and author Jane Addams (1860-1935), American social reformer Carry Nation (1846-1911), American temperance crusader Summary of Event In 1910, Ellen Swallow Richards published Euthenics: The Science of Controllable Environment, which, even in the neologism in its title, suggested that national progress is not to be expected from an improvement in the population stock (that is, through eugenics) but from an upgrading of the humanly constructed environment. In making this argument, Richards moved to the forefront of those who were warning of the dangers of urban congestion and air and water pollution. She joined other Progressive writers in arguing that the enhancement of social arrangements required a greater emphasis on science and efficiency and a greater role for women and the state. The word “euthenics” was meant to recall and stand in contrast to “eugenics.” Eugenics, the study of ways to improve humankind by managing reproduction, was the centerpiece of late nineteenth century “racial science.” 796
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The European deans of this discipline concentrated on showing, through such contributing fields as anthropology, criminology, and phrenology, how the peoples of northern Europe were allegedly slightly better than those of southern Europe and were worlds apart, in intellectual capacity and other capabilities, from the races of the undeveloped world. Eugenicists believed that humanity could be improved through a governance of marriage that would produce an increasingly better quality of human; they hoped to prevent northern peoples from having their blood “polluted” through mixed marriages with members of the lower groups. In contrast, euthenics—a term derived from the Greek words eu (wellness) and the (to cause)—preaches that better human beings can be created through the adjustment and improvement of the environment, especially through the elimination of pollution. According to Richards, any benefits of eugenics policy would come in the long term. Euthenics, which would concentrate on such projects as cleaning up air and water, would bear immediate fruit and could be gotten to work on right away. Richards expected that the fact that the benefits of euthenics would emerge quickly would motivate average persons to take an interest in the idea. In relation to the point that work to eradicate pollution could begin at once, Richards averred that women and government should take the lead in getting the movement off the ground. The state’s coercive power would be needed, because adults who had been schooled to follow bad practices would need to be forced to learn good habits. Richards advocated the imposition of large fines for
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by arguing that the new organizations would be costefficient. Similarly, Richards applied business standards to ecological matters. Eschewing humanist and religious arguments, she based her call for pollution control on its dollar value. She noted, for example, that many hours of production were lost to sickness caused by unhealthy environments. She emphasized how sickening conditions can deplete an individual’s lifelong earning capacity. The task, as Richards saw it, was to draw citizens into an authentic movement to clean up the environment; the guide was to be science. Richards, who was the head of the Social Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had written such scientific works as Industrial Water Analysis (1909), believed that everyday life would be optimized if its practices were scientifically elucidated. From this perspective, she looked closely at the home, arguing that everything in it—from the light and air in the bedrooms to the nutritional components of meals—should be subjected to expert scrutiny. She assumed that what went on in the fam-
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bad behaviors, citing the case of Boston, which had instituted a fine of one hundred dollars for spitting in street cars. Within two days of the announcement of the fine, she asserted, “the car floors became practically free without a single fine being collected.” The role of women in Richards’s plan was to provide the younger generation with healthy homes and to use the home as a touchstone in ecological pedagogy. Richards saw value in children’s doing chores, such as washing dishes and preparing meals, both because these actions lightened a mother’s work and because the euthenic mother could use such chores to instruct her children in hygiene and nutrition. Richards’s handling of the question of who would be responsible for society’s renovation linked her to major themes of the Progressive movement, a broad-based middle-class reform movement prominent in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Progressivism emphasized such issues as control of big business, the Americanization of immigrants, relief of poverty, reform of machine politics, and pollution abatement. Many Progressive campaigns were spearheaded by women; the settlement house movement is one example. Settlement houses were reformers’ outposts in the hearts of big-city slums; the houses provided multiple services for their poor neighborhoods. Settlement houses such as Hull House, cofounded by the social activist Jane Addams in Chicago, helped residents to negotiate bureaucracies, fought for better local services, counseled individuals and families, and gave classes in English and other subjects. Insofar as the female social workers in the settlement houses advised their clients on how to fight pollution—Addams, for example, fought city hall over poor garbage collection—they can be seen as models of the women Richards summoned to the euthenics struggle. Another group of Progressives looked to the state to solve social ills. Reformers who were worried about the tyrannical power of large corporations called on the federal government to regulate railroad rates, evaluate the purity of food and drugs, and control irresponsible firms in other ways. Although reformers believed that business needed to be carefully watched, they did not find its basic principles to be objectionable. On the contrary, Progressives, including Richards, believed that commercial values such as efficiency and probity should supplant older, less rational values. The Progressives, for example, made their case for civil service reform—which they hoped would replace graft-choked government bureaucracies with streamlined, reasonably managed systems—
Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control
Ellen Swallow Richards. (Library of Congress)
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Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control ily domicile would be immeasurably improved through scientific analysis. Richards was not aiming for a technological utopia in the home (she wrote little about new appliances, for instance); rather, she advocated a home under the sway of a technocracy—that is, under experts, including housewives who would hold college degrees and who would turn daily life into a scientific enterprise.
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couraging a general climate of opinion that would be more accepting of changes in life practices guided by a pragmatic science. In contrast to immediate effects, such as those produced by The Jungle, the revelations of which contributed to the passage of laws regulating food processing, the effects of Euthenics were more diffuse and atmospheric. Moreover, Sinclair’s and Steffens’s attacks were addressed to the average middle-class reader, and both writers used dramatic presentations to give their Significance Euthenics did not cause the stir produced by other Prowritings an emotional charge; in contrast, Richards’s gressive classics such as Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of work was aimed at a more select audience of reformers, the Cities (1904), which portrayed rampant political corso she did not use such heightened language. ruption in a dozen American cities, or Upton Sinclair’s It is nevertheless possible to trace the influences of The Jungle (1906), which exposed unsanitary condiRichards and others on the questions she raised. First, Richards’s brand of environmentalism must be isolated tions in Chicago’s meatpacking industry. Whereas these from two other major ecological currents of her time: books alerted the public to abuses, Richards’s purpose was more philosophical. She was concerned with enconservationism, which was concerned with the preservation and wise use of parklands and natural resources; and scientific ecology, which explored the relaA Plea for Better Living Conditions tions among plants, animals, and The title page of Ellen Swallow Richards’s Euthenics describes the book as “a geography in different ecosystems. plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human effiRichards’s type of environmentalism ciency.” Richards begins chapter 3 with these observations: differed from these in that it concentrated on the city rather than the The real significance of biological evolution has not been grasped by the peocountryside, it was more immediple in general. It is that man is a part of organic nature, subject to laws of deately practical, and it was strongly velopment and growth, laws which he cannot break with impunity. It is his feminist. Its province was the fight business to study the forces of Nature and to conquer his environment by subagainst urban pollution and the promitting to the inevitable. Only then will man gain control of the conditions vision of a sterile, ecologically atwhich affect his own well-being. Sickness, we know, is the result of breaking some law of universal nature. tractive home. This struggle was What that law may be, investigators in scores of laboratories are endeavoring connected to two other mainstays of to determine. In most diseases they have been successful. Those remaining are Progressivism, however: the battle being attacked on all sides, and it may be confidently predicted that a few years against political corruption, because will see success assured. corruption allowed contractors to Why, then, does sickness continue to be the greatest drain upon individual build substandard housing; and the and national resources? Because man, through ignorance or unbelief, will not Americanization of immigrants, beavail himself of this knowledge, or is behind the times in his method. Where cause it was the female newcomers wisdom means effort and discomfort, many feel it folly to be wise. who most needed reformers’ advice The individual may be wise as to his own needs, but powerless by himself to on how to cope with city life. secure the satisfaction of them. Certain concessions to others’ needs are alAs a result of the efforts of Richways made in family life. The community is only a larger family group, and social consciousness must in time take into account social welfare. Moreover, a ards and others, social work was esneighbor may pollute the water supply, foul the air, and adulterate the food. tablished as a profession, and welfare This is the penalty paid for living in groups. Men band together, therefore, to departments, staffed with these proprotect a common water supply, to suppress smoke, dust, and foul gases which fessionals, became accepted parts of render the common air unfit to breathe. The State helps the group to protect itgovernment. The settlement houses, self from bad food as it does from the destruction of property. which were originally funded by Source: Ellen H. Richards, Euthenics: The Science of Controllable Environment charities or philanthropists and run (Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows, 1910). by reformers who learned their jobs by doing them, provided important 798
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Further Reading Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan, 1910. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Contains both testimony and analysis. The opening section explains why settlement house work is a rewarding option for middle-class women. The longer second section deals with Addams’s adventures at Hull House, which was located in an ethnically heterogeneous slum. She reports enthusiastically on the outreach programs offered by the settlement house, including some concerned with environmental improvement. Davis, Allen F. Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890-1914. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Considers the overlap of settlement house work with key Progressive concerns in other areas, such as city planning and educational experimentation. Diner, Steven J. A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. New York: Hill & Wang, 1998. Examines how the many changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution affected the lives and experiences of Americans, particularly workers, African Americans, immigrants, and women, leading to Progressive Era activism. Includes bibliographical essay and index. Gould, Lewis L., ed. The Progressive Era. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1974. Includes articles that take up different aspects of Progressive thought and politics. Particularly interesting are chapters on the conservation movement and on the battle for housing standards. Kraus, Harry P. The Settlement House Movement in New York City, 1886-1914. New York: Arno Press, 1980. Closely documents the growth of the settlement house movement in New York City and examines the gender, nationalities, and educational backgrounds of settlement house workers. Of special interest is the discussion of how settlement houses dealt with health and pollution issues. McGerr, Michael. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 18701920. New York: Free Press, 2003. Discusses the wide-ranging social, cultural, and political impacts of the reforms undertaken by the Progressives as well as the backlash that followed, and addresses the connection of the Progressive Era with the United States of the early twenty-first century. Includes index. Pickens, Donald K. Eugenics and the Progressives. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968. The eugenicists’ viewpoint was opposed to that of Rich799
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examples for later, more formal state agencies. Richards’s belief that women should be primarily responsible for solving social problems highlighted another theme that would become increasingly prominent through the second decade of the twentieth century. The campaign to prohibit alcohol in the United States, led by such firebrands as Carry Nation, was largely a movement of women. Prohibitionists’ arguments against spirits were similar to those that Richards advanced against pollution; they pointed to the destruction of a home’s potential and of individuals’ economic capabilities. Prohibitionists also complemented Richards’s claims in contending that women had a natural desire to instill a fuller ethical vision in their men—a desire, they argued, that should propel women into political action. The arguments of this movement and the individuals involved often crossed over into the coexistent suffragist context. The suffragists were as successful as the prohibitionists, and American women gained the right to vote in 1920. Although Prohibition, which became law in 1917, was repealed in 1933 and so was limited in impact, the female vote became a key factor in twentieth century U.S. politics, as did the feminine social activism early espoused by Richards. The motifs of efficiency and state intervention in the economy that cropped up in Euthenics also became leading themes in the further development of the United States. Through the creation of such agencies as the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, the intrusive hand of the state increasingly replaced the invisible hand that was said to direct free market capitalism as the governor of the economic system. Efficiency took on a larger role in government, as can be seen in phenomena such as civil service reform and the rise of admired administrators such as Herbert Hoover, who was secretary of commerce for seven years before becoming president. At the same time, the efficiency ideal gained more prominence in business, where it had originated, and the early decades of the 1900’s saw the growth of a new profession embodied in the efficiency expert, employed to find the quickest, cheapest ways of doing varied industrial tasks. In Euthenics, Richards followed the trend of her times in basing her calls for pollution control on arguments in favor of government regulation and efficiency improvements. In locating a central environment in daily city life and in calling on women as soldiers who must lead the charge against pollution, however, she created one of the pathbreaking works of the period. —James Feast
Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control
Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House ards and others who were concerned primarily with environmental improvement, but as this study uncovers, the two camps shared many traits, such as an obsession with pollution and a desire to put women in the center of the struggle. Trolander, Judith Ann. Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Explains how the women who at first staffed the settlement houses were crowded out by men with more creden-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tials as the movement gained in legitimacy and influence. Also addresses the conflicts that arose between social workers and the people they were trying to help with pollution issues. See also: Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems.
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Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House With a design for the Casa Milá apartment house that was totally modern yet free of eclecticism, Antonio Gaudí established a controversial prototype for regional architecture. Locale: Barcelona, Spain Category: Architecture Key Figures Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926), Spanish architect Eusebio Güell (1846-1918), Spanish textile magnate Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), French architect John Ruskin (1819-1900), English art critic Summary of Event For Antonio Gaudí, the completion of his work on the Casa Milá apartment house in Barcelona, Spain, in 1910 was the logical culmination of a career that had started when Gaudí was a boy in the provincial town of Reus, south of Barcelona. Gaudí knew even then that he wanted to be an architect and viewed his chosen profession almost as a religious calling. He would be the consummate architect: theoretician, artist, engineer, designer, and master builder. He would develop a style that would be completely his: a style that would benefit his fellow citizens, for Gaudí had a deep-seated social consciousness; a style that would add to the cultural heritage of Catalonia, for Gaudí was an ardent nationalist. Catalonia, located in northeastern Spain, is generally considered to be Spain’s most progressive and prosperous region. Despite Madrid’s repeated attempts to assimilate Catalonia into a greater Spain, the Catalans have fought stubbornly to retain their identity. 800
With a delicate constitution that would plague him his whole life and with limited resources, Gaudí had to focus on his objectives. At the Architectural School of the University of Barcelona, he studied only what was of interest to him and what he thought would be of benefit to his work. An architect whose theories he found fascinating was Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who was at the time restoring some of France’s ancient monuments, including the City of Carcassone, which Gaudí visited. Viollet-le-Duc advised would-be architects to look to the past for inspiration rather than for designs. A freethinker, he saw medieval cathedrals not primarily as places of worship but as marvels of engineering. Gaudí shared this admiration but saw the Gothic arch as too weak, needing support. He developed in its stead the parabolic arch, which has virtually no lateral thrust and is therefore more versatile. To supplement his income while he was a student, Gaudí worked as a draftsman for local builders. The experience was invaluable. He developed a thorough knowledge of materials, tools, and construction devices such as the tiled laminated arch traditionally used in Catalonia. It was lightweight and inexpensive yet amazingly strong. More important, Gaudí developed a deep compassion for the humble artisans among whom he worked. One of Gaudí’s first commissions following graduation was a plan for a workers’ cooperative. He exhibited the plan at the Paris Exposition of 1878, and it attracted the attention of Eusebio Güell, a local textile magnate who was cultured, had a social conscience, and was, like Gaudí, an ardent nationalist. Güell subsequently gave Gaudí a number of important commissions, including one for an elaborate town house for himself.
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Surrealist sculptures in the world in the form of its numerous chimneys. Casa Milá was Gaudí’s last secular assignment. Had he built nothing else, it would have earned him a ranking among the leading architects of the twentieth century. Significance Gaudí never completely finished Casa Milá, as he had become increasingly engrossed in his greatest project, the Expiatory Church of the Holy Family (Sagrada Familia), to which he devoted all of his energies until his death in 1926. Casa Milá, however, remained one of Barcelona’s most controversial buildings, and its impact ranged far beyond the Catalan capital. A true assessment of that impact is difficult to make because so little is known of the architect and his relation to what many consider to be his most significant building. Gaudí sought no recognition. He seldom gave interviews and left no writings. Such plans and other architectural drawings as existed were largely destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. Because attitudes toward architecture have changed since Gaudí’s time, an assessment of the impact of Casa Milá must be made in terms of both immediate and long-term effects. Among its immediate effects, the Casa Milá apartment house, with its undulating lines, its asymmetry, and its emphasis on light and shade, came to be regarded as an extreme example of the Art Nouveau style popular between 1900 and 1914. That categorization is simplistic, however. Although related to Art Nouveau, Casa Milá is part of the Catalan interpretation of Art Nouveau known as modernismo, or modernism. Gaudí’s modernismo, however, is more than surface decoration. Organic in nature, for the body and facade of Casa Milá can be equated to a body and its skin, Gaudí’s outward forms are a manifestation of forces at work below the surface. The second immediate effect involved the relationship of Casa Milá to an emergent art form called Surrealism. Surrealism attempts to transpose absolute reality into superreality by resolving the contradictory conditions of dream and reality. Many of the Surrealists, including Salvador Dalí (also a Catalan), considered Casa Milá, with its amazing roof sculptures, to be the result of such a resolution. The Surrealists fought most strongly to keep Gaudí’s memory alive. By the time of Gaudí’s death and even before, the intensely personal, regional style that he pursued was being replaced by what became known as the International Style. Originating in Germany with the Bauhaus group, the International Style was rectilinear, impersonal, and 801
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More important, in the Güell home Gaudí was introduced to a number of new ideas, including those of John Ruskin, an influential English art critic, as well as to the music of the German composer Richard Wagner, whom Güell greatly admired. From Ruskin, Gaudí gained the idea of seeing architecture as essentially organic, related to nature through its play of light and color. Ruskin also stressed the national content of good architecture. Wagner, as a librettist, composer, conductor, and producer, was a model for Gaudí of a well-rounded artist. Reflecting the influence of Viollet-le-Duc, Gaudí’s designs for buildings were inspired by those of the past but adapted, such as Moorish designs with brilliantly colored tile work or Gothic ones with parabolic arches substituted for the traditional pointed arches. A significant commission from Güell was for a garden complex of twenty houses to be located on a barren hillside. To support the numerous necessary terraces, Gaudí used the tilted column, another of his architectural innovations. The vast central terrace was supported by columns in the Greek Doric manner. The columns also served as conduits for water that was collected on the terrace and was filtered by the sand that was used instead of paving. Surrounding the terrace was a sinuous border of multicolored tile fragments set in mortar. As a housing complex the project was a failure, but it became a brilliant success as a public park. By the time Gaudí received the commission for the Casa Milá apartment complex in 1906, he believed that he had developed fully as an architect. There would be no traces of the Moorish, the Gothic, or the Greek in his design. Casa Milá would be pure Gaudí, but it would also be Catalan in spirit, in harmony with the undulating shoreline on one side and the rugged serrated mountains that served as a background to Barcelona. The facade of Casa Milá was of massive undulating stone cut through by windows and balconies; the whole was in a constant play of light and shadow. The stone also served as insulation against the blazing Mediterranean sun. The facade was apart from the freestanding building, attached to it by rods. The building in turn was supported by pillars from which was suspended a framework of trusses and girders. The arrangement permitted a fluidity in arrangement, with each apartment different from the next. Two generous interior patios served as sources of light and air. Gaudí paid meticulous attention to both the cellar and the roof. Ramps led down to the cellar, giving Casa Milá one of the first underground garages. The roof, supported by Gaudí’s lightweight tiled arches, boasted probably the largest collection of freestanding
Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House
Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House devoid of ornamentation. Preferring steel, lightweight metals, and glass over masonry, its practitioners placed primary emphasis on function. Divorced from tradition, the style sought to be universal. Although the communist and fascist dictatorships of Spain tended to favor a ponderous neoclassicism, elsewhere the spread of the new style was phenomenal. Whole sections of cities were leveled to be replaced by glassy, boxlike structures. The rebuilding of the devastated cities of Europe after World War II hastened the utilization of the International Style, for among its advantages were ease of construction and economy. Gradually, a reaction began to set in from persons unhappy living and working in these buildings and from architects who had begun to see themselves as little more than designers of containers. The centennial of Gaudí’s birth in 1952 witnessed a growing desire for more personal styles such as that represented by Casa Milá. Ornamentation began to reappear. A group of architects calling themselves the postmodernists promoted ornamentation as a means of enriching architecture. Interest in Gaudí’s works was renewed, and the list of publications on the Catalan master grew. Rediscovering Gaudí also meant becoming aware of his regionalism, the relation of his buildings to their environment, and his commitment to versatile urban design. Casa Milá embodied all of these characteristics. Architects began to become uncomfortably aware that architectural design suitable to northern Europe was not suitable to a tropical climate. In addition, the phenomenon of universalization that the International Style represented meant the subtle destruction of traditional cultures and a loss of human values. Increasingly, attention focused on what became known as critical regionalism in architectural design, with awareness of and attention to traditional regional models, building materials, and construction methods. Concomitant with the growing disillusionment with a standardized design in urban architecture was unhappiness with the destruction of the urban fabric that often resulted from use of this design. What resulted, with depressing regularity, were whole sections of cities consisting of impersonal high-rise buildings at odds with the surrounding environment and often even hostile to it, separated by highways and parking lots. These replaced traditional close-knit neighborhoods, fostering a sense of isolation rather than of community. With all of his urban buildings, and especially with Casa Milá, Gaudí was careful to relate to the environment. Although unconventional in design, Casa Milá harmonizes with the adjoin802
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing buildings and follows the contours of the streets. Probably the most outstanding feature of Casa Milá as it relates to urban design is its versatility. The numerous balconies, one concealed from the other, foster the solitude humans often crave, while the roof and the patios foster the social interaction that is equally necessary. The design itself permits the rearrangement of space to suit changing demands. In 1923, Le Corbusier (CharlesÉdouard Jeanneret), one of the best-known modern architects, called for nonmonumental buildings that would be “machines for living.” Casa Milá may be considered to be such a machine. By using the traditional monumentality as a facade, Gaudí provided the best of both the traditional and the new. —Nis Petersen Further Reading Bassegoda Nonell, Juan. Antonio Gaudí: Master Architect. Photographs by Melba Levick. New York: Abbeville Press, 2000. Concise text by the director of the Càtedra Gaudí at the University of Barcelona is illustrated with some two hundred images of Gaudí’s work. Traces Gaudí’s influences and presents examples of the full range of his work. Collins, George R. Antonio Gaudí. New York: George Braziller, 1960. Many consider Collins to be the leading American authority on Gaudí. The book is divided into three parts: Gaudí’s life, his works, and an evaluation. The last part is particularly valuable. Includes many photographs, some architectural drawings, and copious notes. Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. Gaudí. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1957. Hitchcock, a prolific writer on architectural history, was one of the early promoters of the International Style; the Museum of Modern Art, more than any other institution, fostered growth of the style. Hitchcock stresses Gaudí’s uniqueness and seemingly cannot relate him to the growing disillusionment with the International Style. Black-andwhite photographs. Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kostof, a noted professor of architectural history, spent his life making architectural theory comprehensible. This second edition of his masterpiece has been revised and expanded to include a new concluding chapter based on Kostof’s last lecture notes. Martinell, Cesar. Gaudí: His Life, His Theories, His Work. Translated by Judith Rohrer, edited by George R. Collins. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1975. One
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the most detailed and complete studies of Gaudí available. The author, who knew Gaudí in the last decades of his life, is both an architect and a historian. The work is divided into three sections: Gaudí’s life, his theories, and his work. Appendixes contain a number of valuable primary documents, including an early essay by Gaudí on ornamentation, Gaudí’s earliest architectural plans, and his school transcript. Mower, David. Gaudí. London: Oresko Books, 1977. An excellent, comprehensible survey of Gaudí’s career. Two valuable features are a series of quotations from prominent figures such as Walter Gropius, Salvador Dalí, Louis Sullivan, and Albert Schweitzer on Gaudí and chronologies dealing with the career of Gaudí and the history of Catalonia. Photographs are interspersed with text. Solá-Morales Rubió, Ignasi. Gaudí. Translated by Kenneth Lyons. New York: Rizzoli, 1983. Divides Gaudí’s professional life into three phases: early eclecticism, the period of equilibrium (which includes Casa Milá), and the architecture of destruction (which includes the monumental Church of the Holy Family). Van Hensbergen, Gijs. Gaudí: A Biography. New York:
Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses Harper Perennial, 2003. One of few biographies of Gaudí available in English. Examines Gaudí’s life and work, including his influences (such as his Catholicism and his patriotism) and the innovation and complexity of his designs. Zerbst, Rainer. Gaudí, 1852-1926. Translated by Doris Jones and Jeremy Gaines. Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1988. An excellent book for readers wishing an easy introduction to Gaudí and his works. The author, an art critic, is a Gaudí devotee. Gaudí’s works are treated separately. The photographs, all in color, are outstanding and include examples of Gaudí’s furniture and interior decorations. See also: 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States; 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship; 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication.
1910 Peyton Rous’s discovery that a liver sarcoma (connective tissue cancer) in chickens is caused by a virus revolutionized the understanding of cancer genetics. Locale: Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York, New York Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures Peyton Rous (1879-1970), American pathologist Dmitri Ivanowski (1864-1920), Russian microbiologist Friedrich August Johannes Löffler (1852-1915), German microbiologist David Baltimore (b. 1938), American virologist Howard M. Temin (1934-1994), American virologist Summary of Event During the last half of the nineteenth century, tremendous progress was made in a new area of biology called microbiology, the study of extremely small organisms.
The field’s primary focus was on microbial pathogens, those microorganisms that cause infectious diseases in humans, animals, and plants. Two giants of nineteenth century microbiology, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, firmly established the germ theory of disease, which maintains that some microorganisms are responsible for human, animal, and plant infectious diseases. Koch was the first microbiologist to identify the bacterial pathogen (disease-producer) Bacillus anthracis as the causative agent of anthrax in humans and cattle. The microbial world consists of many species, ranging from protozoa to fungi to bacteria. The nineteenth century work of Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann produced the cell theory, which maintains that all living organisms are composed of cells. A cell, the basic unit of life, is a membrane-bound compartment containing all of the necessary chemical ingredients for life. The human body contains approximately one hundred trillion cells. Bacteria, however, exist as single cells approximately 0.01 millimeter in diameter. Experiments aimed at disproving the theory of spontaneous genera803
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Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses
Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses tion of life (abiogenesis) and at discovering methods for sterilizing liquid food used special filters to remove bacteria. Liquid food containing bacterial cells was forced through a series of filter papers with microscopic pores small enough to block cells but not liquid. In 1892, the Russian microbiologist Dmitri Ivanowski was attempting to discover the cause of tobacco mosaic disease, an infection that was decimating Russian tobacco crops. Filtering infected tobacco juice failed to remove the agent responsible for the disease, thus something smaller than a bacterium had to be the culprit. Using filters with smaller and smaller pores, Ivanowski demonstrated that the causative agent was approximately one hundred to one thousand times smaller than bacteria. This new organism, called a virus, was approximately 0.001 to 0.01 micrometer long and had a unique pattern of infection. The Dutch botanist Martinus W. Beijerinck discovered viruses independently at about the same time. In 1898, Friedrich August Johannes Löffler showed that a virus causes foot-and-mouth disease.
Peyton Rous. (The Nobel Foundation)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In the early twentieth century, viruses were shown to be noncellular in structure, consisting only of nucleic acid—that is, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA)—wrapped within a protective protein covering. Viruses are immobile and inactive outside cells. They can function only within host cells, and then only to reproduce and destroy the host cells. They are obligate intracellular parasites, always invading cells, raping cellular resources, reproducing, and destroying. Because of the noncellular structure and unusual nature of viruses, considerable debate exists regarding their classification as a life-form. Once a virus is carried by air or fluid to the cells of a given host species, it may be only by chance that it physically contacts a cell. After such contact is made, a rapid series of chemical reactions between the virus protein covering and the cell membrane triggers the injection of the viral DNA or RNA into the cell. Once it is inside the host cell, the viral nucleic acid can follow two possible infection routes, depending on cellular conditions and certain enzymes encoded by the viral nucleic acid: the lysogenic cycle and the lytic cycle. In the lysogenic cycle, the viral nucleic acid encodes a repressor enzyme that prevents viral reproduction, followed by the viral DNA’s inserting itself into the host cell DNA and lying dormant indefinitely. During cellular stress, the dormant virus can enter the lytic cycle. In the lytic cycle, the viral nucleic acid commandeers the cell’s resources, which are directed to synthesize up to several thousand new viruses. The end of the lytic cycle is cell rupture with the release of thousands of new viruses, each of which can infect new cells. In 1909, Peyton Rous began research in pathology at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) in New York City. Rous was interested in the physiology of cancer within mammals and birds. He discovered a type of connective tissue cancer in chickens, subsequently named Rous sarcoma, that causes gross hypertrophy (enlargement) of certain organs, particularly the liver and gallbladder, and is eventually fatal. In his experiments, Rous grafted sarcoma tumor cells from diseased hens to healthy hens, and the healthy hens contracted the disease. He then cultivated hen tumor cells, extracted a fluid not containing cells, and injected this fluid into healthy hens. Again, the healthy hens contracted the disease. By 1910, Rous concluded that his results pointed toward one possible explanation: Some noncellular component of the tumor extract was capable of producing cancer in healthy hens. The active agent was not bacte-
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Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses
Oncogenic Viruses DNA virus
Invasion of cell
Incorporation in cell nucleus
RNA virus
Invasion of cell
Production of reverse transcriptase and formation of new DNA
Incorporation in cell nucleus Mutant cells
Malignancy
(Electronic Illustrators Group)
Rous sarcoma virus also was later shown to be an RNA retrovirus whose nucleic acid is RNA. DNA oncogenic viruses include hepatitis B (serum hepatitis and liver cancer), papilloma virus (warts), the Epstein-Barr virus (mononucleosis and Burkitt’s lymphoma), and herpes simplex virus II (genital herpes and cervical cancer). Oncogenic viruses are capable of cellular transformation, converting normal cells to abnormal growth patterns. The abnormal cell growth may proceed with rapid cellular divisions, gain or loss of chromosomes, and unusual production of certain proteins. If the tumor begins to invade neighboring healthy tissues and to enter the bloodstream for transport to other body regions (metastasis), then the tumor has become a cancer with lifethreatening potential. Oncogenic viruses are transmitted in the same ways other viruses are, principally by air, through liquid, or by direct contact, or especially through the transfer of bodily fluids. Once an oncogenic virus contacts a target cell, it proceeds either into the lytic or the lysogenic cycle. If the virus follows a lytic pathway, it releases proteins capable of cellular transformation, thus causing the host cell to become cancerous and to multiply out of control. As the tumor cell multiplies, it produces more viruses that bud off from the tumor cell membrane to infect 805
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rial, protozoan, or fungal, because the tumor extract contained no cells. The most plausible explanation was a virus. Further filtration and infection experiments yielded identical results. Rous hypothesized that a Rous sarcoma virus caused this chicken sarcoma. Nevertheless, his work was derided by his peers, who unsuccessfully repeated his experiments with other species. The failure of many to accept Rous’s conclusion reflected a considerable lack of understanding of both viruses and cancer by the medical and scientific community of that time. Despite the negative reactions, Rous continued his studies of liver and gallbladder physiology. With greater understanding of viruses during subsequent decades of the twentieth century, Rous’s viral theory of cancer began to be recognized. From his studies of Rous sarcoma virus, his theory maintained that some cancers could be caused by viruses. The discovery of more tumor-causing, or oncogenic, viruses during the 1950’s resulted in Rous’s receiving the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Charles Brenton Huggins. Among the oncogenic viruses identified since Rous’s initial discovery are the RNA tumor viruses feline leukemia virus (cat leukemia), T-cell lymphotropic virus (human leukemia), and mouse mammary tumor virus. The
Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses neighboring cells. If the virus follows a lysogenic pathway, it may be dormant within the host cell DNA for years before emerging, entering the lytic cycle, and transforming the cell into a tumor. Interest in the Rous sarcoma virus resurfaced in the 1960’s with Rous’s Nobel Prize and with the work of two molecular virologists, Howard M. Temin and David Baltimore. Temin discovered that the Rous sarcoma virus can copy a DNA polynucleotide chain from the viral RNA originally injected into the host cell. Soon thereafter, Temin and Baltimore independently discovered the enzyme reverse transcriptase, which RNA retroviruses use to encode DNA from RNA. This discovery overturned the molecular biological view that DNA encodes RNA exclusively. Although Temin’s and Baltimore’s results initially were seriously questioned, mounting evidence led to these two scientists’ receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975. Significance The discovery that Rous sarcoma is caused by a virus not only helped to reaffirm Ivanowski’s discovery of viruses as pathogens but also revealed that some cancers are infectious, being spread from individual to individual through viruses. Rous’s viral theory of cancer cast a totally new perspective on the disease. The Rous sarcoma virus was the first of many oncogenic viruses discovered during the twentieth century. Most of these, including the Rous sarcoma, are classified as low-risk oncogenic viruses, whereas others are considered to be of moderate risk. Several of these viruses cause other diseases in addition to cancer. For example, the Epstein-Barr virus causes infectious mononucleosis and may be responsible for certain cases of chronic fatigue. This same virus, however, can cause a rare type of lymph node cancer called Burkitt’s lymphoma. Similarly, the liver disease hepatitis, which afflicts approximately two hundred million people worldwide each year, is caused by the hepatitis A, B, and C viruses. The hepatitis B virus, which can lie dormant within host liver cell DNA for long periods, also can cause liver cancer. A person may contract hepatitis B, recover, and then contract liver cancer many years later. In addition to changing how some forms of cancer are viewed, Rous’s discovery paved the way for a better understanding of the origin of viruses. Viruses most likely evolved from cells, given that viruses are noncellular, they must reproduce inside cells, and they have the same genetic code as living cells. It is possible that more than one billion years ago a small group of genes capable only 806
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of reproduction and of manufacturing a protective protein covering escaped from a cell and temporarily existed outside cells in an inactive, dormant state. Viruses could be intercellular messengers whose functions went awry. In the 1960’s, Temin and Baltimore demonstrated that RNA retroviruses, such as Rous sarcoma virus, could encode DNA from RNA using a special viral enzyme called reverse transcriptase. This phenomenon went against established scientific dogma, which maintained that DNA encodes RNA. The list of such RNA retroviruses includes the notorious human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in humans. HIV causes AIDS, but it does not cause cancer; instead, it destroys immune system cells such that an individual’s body is unable to defend itself from secondary infections, such as pneumonia, and spontaneous cancers. The knowledge that viruses can induce tumors in normal cells has informed research aimed at manipulating viruses as cloning vectors. A molecular biologist can clone a particular gene of interest, package the gene within a virus’s DNA, and then infect a desired target cell with the virus. If the virus DNA enters the lysogenic cycle once it is inside the target cell, then the scientist effectively will have cloned a specific gene into a host cell’s DNA using the virus as a transport mechanism. In addition, the study of viruses as disease- and cancer-causing agents led to the discovery of even smaller life-forms that also cause disease. The prion, a little-understood mass of protein containing no nucleic acid, has been implicated in a number of mammalian diseases of the central nervous system, including scrapie, kuru, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. —David Wason Hollar, Jr. Further Reading Bishop, J. Michael. “Oncogenes.” Scientific American 246 (March, 1982): 80-92. Review article by a major oncogenic virus researcher discusses how oncogenic viruses infect cells and initiate cancer. Describes the Rous sarcoma virus, along with the work of Rous, Temin, and Baltimore. Includes superb diagrams and illustrations. Cooper, Geoffrey M. Oncogenes. 2d ed. Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 1995. Comprehensive text provides an overview of oncogene research and details advances in the field. Includes glossary and index. Lechevalier, Hubert A., and Morris Solotorovsky. Three Centuries of Microbiology. 1965. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1974. Outstanding detailed history of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 microbiological research from the 1600’s to the mid1960’s, including the many famous experiments of Pasteur, Koch, Ivanowski, and Rous. Chapter 8 describes Rous’s famous experiment and includes quotations from his 1911 paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Lewin, Benjamin. Genes VI. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Textbook of molecular biology for advanced undergraduate and graduate students provides a thorough, detailed survey of the science behind biotechnology. Includes excellent illustrations. Raven, Peter H., et al. Biology. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Outstanding introductory biology textbook for undergraduate biology majors. Clearly written and features beautiful photographs and other illustrations. Provides very good description of the lytic and lysogenic cycles, classification of viruses, and tumor-causing viruses.
Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity” Snustad, D. Peter, and Michael J. Simmons. Principles of Genetics. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. Outstanding introductory genetics textbook for undergraduate biology majors provides a comprehensive survey of the field. Clearly written, with numerous diagrams and illustrations. Includes a good discussion of oncogenes. Wistreich, George A., and Max D. Lechtman. Microbiology. 5th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1988. Excellent introductory textbook for undergraduate biology students covers every aspect of microbiology in extensive detail, supported by a plethora of charts, diagrams, tables, and photographs. Great book for the serious microbiologist. See also: 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography; Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes; Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer.
1910
Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”
Locale: New York, New York Categories: Science and technology; earth science; environmental issues; energy Key Figures Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923), American electrical engineer William Thompson Sedgwick (1855-1921), American professor of biology and lecturer on public health and sanitary science Allen Hazen (1869-1930), American chemist and sanitary engineer Summary of Event In a lecture titled “The Future of Electricity,” delivered at the New York Electrical Trade School in 1910, Charles Proteus Steinmetz presented a prophetic message on future impacts of the development of electricity. Steinmetz challenged students to reduce the cost of electricity by finding more efficient methods of distributing electrical
demand evenly over twenty-four hours and 365 days. Electrical consumption would continue to grow, he noted, and it was up to electrical engineers to make electricity economical, whether it was created by steam power from coal or by waterpower. This need for greater efficiency of electrical use, he warned, would soon shift from a purpose of economy to one of necessity in the United States as the nation faced declining supplies of coal and imposed greater impacts on free-running streams for hydroelectric power. Steinmetz cautioned that when coal reserves ran out, pressure to develop the nation’s water courses for electrical generation would increase. “There will be no more rapid creeks and rivers,” he said, “streams which furnish electric power will be slow-moving pools, connected with one another by power stations.” Reserves of hard, anthracite (low-sulfur) coal already were in short supply, and energy produced by the burning of soft, bituminous (high-sulfur) coal created serious air-pollution problems. “Probably even before the soft coal is used up,” Steinmetz predicted, “we will have awakened to the viciousness of poisoning nature and ourselves with smoke and coal gas.” Smoke pollution from the burning of high-sulfur coal had become a nuisance for most industrial cities by the 807
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Charles Proteus Steinmetz warned of air pollution from the burning of coal and water pollution from sewage disposal into rivers, summarizing early recognition of the environmental impacts of population growth and urbanization.
Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity” beginning of the twentieth century. A major problem for the smoke abatement campaign that ensued as part of Progressive Era reforms was the prevailing ethos that equated smoke with economic growth and prosperity. The Department of Public Utilities in Boston, for example, reported that prior to 1910, industries depicting factories on their letterheads “invariably represented the stack with a black plume of smoke trailing away from it to typify activity and prosperity. . . . if a stack was not belching out great volumes of dense smoke it signified that the plant was shut down.” Cities such as Milwaukee, Chicago, and Pittsburgh were commonly plagued by the “smoke evil,” which blocked the sun, blackened the lungs, covered buildings with soot, and dirtied laundry that had been hung out to dry. Three principal groups were responsible for the smoke abatement campaigns: women’s groups, civic groups, and stationary engineers. The most ardent supporters of such campaigns were the women’s groups; they helped install smoke ordinances in many cities. Representing a wider range of interests were the civic groups, whose members were keenly aware of the economic interests of their communities and thus often tempered their activities in support of cleaner air. Those in the third group, the stationary engineers, were technical experts who served as smoke inspectors; they argued for technological improvements and sometimes helped draft local smoke ordinances. World War I ended the progress made earlier by proponents of clean air because smoke was seen as a sign of industrial output in support of the war effort. In Milwaukee, the weather bureau reported a fourfold increase in the number of smoky days from 1916 to 1918. The smoke abatement crusades that reappeared in the 1920’s lacked the intensity of those of the Progressive Era. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, greater use of natural gas, electricity, and diesel fuel combined with technological advances to help reduce the smoke pall in many cities. In his lecture, Steinmetz warned of another abuse of resources. He was concerned about the steady depletion of nutrients from the nation’s prime farmland. Instead of returning their wastes to agricultural land to be recycled, cities were dumping into rivers the nitrogen and phosphorus that had been taken from the soil in the form of crops, thus not only polluting the streams but also wasting valuable fertilizer. Moreover, additional electricity would be consumed in the making of the fertilizer necessary to replenish those soils. Rapid growth in population and industrialization, and the consequent urbanization created by this growth, had 808
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placed heavy demands on the nation’s streams for both water consumption and waste disposal. As a result, residents of many cities soon found themselves drinking the sewage of their upstream neighbors. In the late nineteenth century, the growing trend of exporting pollution to downstream communities was greatly accelerated by the introduction of municipal sewage systems. Prior to the development of the modern method of municipal wastewater collection, human waste products were either deposited in nearby cesspools (stone-lined holes) or privy vaults. As the privy vaults reached their holding capacity, either new holes were dug or the contents were emptied by private scavengers. The wastes were deposited on farmland as fertilizer, sold to companies to be processed into fertilizer, or dumped on unused land or into streams. This system of waste collection had several problems: It created health hazards, it was laborintensive, and it typically became an aesthetic nuisance. As population density increased, there simply was not enough space for adequate cesspools and privy vaults.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
posal of sewage into rivers, arguing that drinking water drawn from these sources could be purified by the employment of new filtration technology, which had proven effective in disease control. Sanitary engineers such as Allen Hazen, for example, a chemist working for the Massachusetts Board of Health, said it was much cheaper to purify the water taken from rivers than to purify the sewage prior to disposal in those rivers. This argument convinced public officials; by 1920, the practice of discharging raw sewage into waterways and purification of water supplies had become well established. Significance The Progressive Era antipollution crusades for clean air and clean water had little lasting effect. These campaigns were on the fringe of, and to some degree ran counter to, the more prominent conservation movement normally associated with President Theodore Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Whereas the smoke abatement advocates and proponents of sewage treatment were concerned with environmental quality and protection of air and water resources, the interests of the conservation movement were directed toward the development and use of resources. Steinmetz saw the continued development of waterpower as an inevitable outcome of a growing public demand for electricity, and he believed that this demand posed a serious threat to the quality of life for future generations. He argued that electrical engineers should be prepared to develop methods to minimize that impact. Partial relief from smoke in the cities came primarily through technological advances and alternative sources of energy rather than through enforcement of air-quality standards. In general, dirty air was viewed as one of the costs of industrial prosperity. This perspective prevailed with respect to stream quality as well. Rivers became the common receptors of raw sewage, which received treatment prior to disposal only when deemed a nuisance. Population growth combined with increased urbanization and industrialization to place heavy loads of contamination into the nation’s waterways. Sanitary engineers and public officials opted for deriving the maximum utility from the capacity of large volumes of river or lake water to assimilate and dilute wastes. It was more costeffective to purify drinking water drawn from polluted sources than to treat sewage prior to disposal. This approach to water-quality policy sometimes resulted in severe pollution of rivers, which, in turn, affected larger systems such as the Great Lakes. For example, Lake Erie—receiving wastes from Detroit, Toledo, 809
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Both types of collection frequently overflowed and sometimes contaminated nearby wells. The final breakdown of this system occurred with the introduction of water-supply technology. The development of running water-supply systems created a demand for the new water closet, which not only effectively removed human wastes from the home but also increased water consumption. Initially, water closets were connected to privy vaults and cesspools that were unable to handle the increased loads placed on them. Citizens began to demand that their communities construct sewer systems capable of removing these wastes. Efficiency dictated that such systems be large public works, which could be constructed only at great expense to the communities. The idea of a water-carriage system of waste removal had been around for centuries, but the first practical system was constructed in the 1840’s in England. In many large American cities, the debate over whether to build sewage systems occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. Advocates stressed the sanitary and health aspects, arguing that mortality rates from typhoid fever would decline and, therefore, would justify the high cost of construction. Other proponents argued that modern sewage systems would improve the community image, attracting industries and thus contributing to the local economy. Opponents countered that water-carriage systems would waste the valuable fertilizing potential of human excreta. Largely unforeseen by advocates arguing from the perspective of health and sanitation was that typhoid death rates actually increased for cities drawing their drinking water downstream from towns that had constructed sewers that discharged raw sewage into rivers. Sanitary engineers and city authorities had traditionally assumed that contaminants were diluted in rivers to the extent that any hazards would be eliminated by the selfpurification capacity of running water. Unfortunately, it took the dramatic increase in typhoid deaths for cities such as Trenton, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta during the period of sewer construction to indicate otherwise. In 1902, William Thompson Sedgwick, a professor of biology and sanitary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, declared that “self-purification is only partial and absolutely unreliable.” By 1908, leading public health officials were convinced that untreated sewage should not be discharged into rivers used for drinking water. Not only was there a risk of waterborne disease, but also sewage disposal in waterways limited their use for recreation and industry. Sanitary engineers, on the other hand, supported the dis-
Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”
Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity” and Cleveland as well as fertilizer and insecticide runoff from farmland—is often cited as the classic symbol of environmental degradation. Between 1930 and 1965, Lake Erie’s average content of nitrogen and phosphorus increased threefold, causing overfertilization of the lake’s waters and a subsequent increase in production of phytoplankton. By the late 1950’s, dense mats of algae commonly formed on the surface, drifting ashore and rotting on the beaches. The increase in phytoplankton indirectly produced dangerously low concentrations of oxygen for some species of fish. Scientists believed that conditions created by excessive nutrient enrichment caused a change in the character of fish species in Lake Erie, reducing the value of the commercial fishery. The precedent of waste dilution established in the early part of the twentieth century allowed the routine disposal of toxic compounds such as mercury and petroleum into waterways. By the 1960’s, Detroit’s industrial area was dumping hundreds of barrels of oil per day into the Detroit River, which then flowed into Lake Erie. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland carried so much oil and other flammable wastes that it would sometimes catch fire. On June 22, 1969, two railroad bridges over the Cuyahoga were destroyed by river fires. Eventually, public pressure to do something about this issue became intense enough to provoke legislative action. Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River became national environmental icons, nagging at a renewed public consciousness that had been aroused in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. In 1972, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada and President Richard Nixon signed a water-quality agreement that pledged to protect and restore the Great Lakes. This agreement led to the allocation of billions of dollars of federal moneys to municipalities for construction of sewage treatment plants and to farmers for agricultural improvements designed to curb runoff of nutrients and insecticides. The Clean Air Acts of 1965 and 1970 provided citizens with some relief from air pollution. As a result of these legal interventions and wider public awareness, the quality of air and water improved substantially throughout the United States in subsequent decades. However, debates concerning how clean the air and water should be have continued into the twenty-first century, both in the United States and in the international arena. —Robert Lovely Further Reading American Chemical Society. Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society. 5th ed. New York: 810
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 McGraw-Hill, 2005. Nontechnical college-level text provides the basic scientific background needed to understand air pollution and the issues associated with it. Provides a good summary of historical and political developments in the field of pollution control following World War II. Goudie, Andrew. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present, and Future. 6th ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. Excellent general reference on environmental issues, accessible to lay readers. Chapter 7 discusses air pollution. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Grinder, Dale R. “The Battle for Clean Air: The Smoke Problem in Post-Civil War America.” In Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930, edited by Martin V. Melosi. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. Brief, useful introduction to the topic of smoke abatement includes many quotations from diverse primary sources of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hammond, John Winthrop. Charles Proteus Steinmetz: A Biography. New York: Century, 1924. Examination of Steinmetz’s life and career published soon after his death. Chapter titled “Steinmetz the Prophet” quotes several key paragraphs from his lecture “The Future of Electricity.” Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Classic work provides good background on the conservation movement from the perspective of public policy decision making. Explains the role of the scientist as expert and the importance of “efficiency” in the Progressive Era. Includes detailed discussion of the politics of waterpower development. Leonard, Jonathan N. Loki: The Life of Charles Proteus Steinmetz. New York: Doubleday, 1932. Nontechnical biography provides valuable insight into Steinmetz’s political views and activities. Tinged with uncritical admiration. McMahon, A. Michal. The Making of a Profession: A Century of Electrical Engineering in America. New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1984. Detailed history of the electrical engineering profession, from the invention of the telegraph to modern times. Highlights the formative role played by Steinmetz as teacher, organizer, inventor, and theorist. Miller, John A. Modern Jupiter: The Story of Charles Proteus Steinmetz. New York: American Society of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mechanical Engineers, 1958. Highly admiring biography emphasizes Steinmetz’s role in the development of the field of electrical engineering. Pursell, Carroll W., Jr., ed. Technology in America: A History of Individuals and Ideas. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. Collection of articles on key events in technological history and the people involved in those events. Includes coverage of the conservation movement and Progressive Era politics. Steinmetz, Charles Proteus. The Future of Electricity.
Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes New York: New York Electrical Trade School, [1910]. Text of Steinmetz’s prophetic lecture. Limited publication, available in few libraries. See also: 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process; June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution.
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Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes Joseph John Thomson was the first to isolate isotopes of stable elements. Locale: Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), British physicist Francis William Aston (1877-1945), British physicist William Prout (1785-1850), British biochemist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist
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Summary of Event In the history of science, isotopes remain one of the unpredicted facets of nature. Isotopes are one or more forms of a chemical element and act similarly in chemical or physical reactions. Isotopes differ in their radioactive transformations, and they possess different atomic weights. In 1803, John Dalton proposed a new atomic theory of chemistry that stated that chemical elements in a compound combine by weight in whole-number proportions to one another. By 1815, William Prout took Dalton’s hypothesis one step further and stated that the atomic weights of elements are integral multiples of the hydrogen atom. For example, if the weight of hydrogen is 1, then the weight of carbon is 12 and that of oxygen is 16. Over the next decade, a large number of carefully controlled experiments were conducted to determine the atomic weights of several elements. These results did not support Prout’s hypothesis. For example, the atomic weight of chlorine was found to be 35.5. It took the discovery of isotopes in the early part of the twentieth century to justify Prout’s original theory.
Sir Joseph John Thomson was appointed professor of physics at the University of Cambridge in 1884, but his career is generally associated with the Cavendish Laboratory, where he was one of the leading scientists in addition to serving as director. Thomson’s initial area of research concerned electrical discharges through gases; he used the cathode-ray discharge tube as an instrument for the exploration of matter. One area of controversy and competition between English and German scientists at that time was whether the cathode-ray discharge was composed of waves or particles. The first scientist to prove the case conclusively would gain both prestige and national honor. Thomson did not fit the public’s idea of a gifted scientist. His mathematical abilities were not highly refined, he possessed poor hand-eye coordination, and he was regarded as a clumsy experimenter. His genius lay in his ability to visualize mentally the experimental parameters necessary to produce intricate experiments. He also possessed the ability to create models that explained experimental results. Thomson accepted the challenge of creating an experiment that would prove that discharges from the cathode-ray tube were composed of particles. Beginning in 1884, when he became director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Thomson pursued a series of experiments on electrical discharges. By the early 1890’s, he realized that the research of Heinrich Hertz and his student Philipp Lenard, which showed the penetration of discharges through metal foil, was, in fact, a partial validation of his own theory of particles. In addition, Thomson’s research provided evidence that cathode-ray discharges traveled at half the speed of light, again supporting a particle theory rather than a wave theory (in which waves traveled at the speed of light). Other physi-
Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes
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cists in England also demonstrated that cathode-ray dismaking minute adjustments on the instruments. He had become interested in atomic research when he read Thomcharges, acting as particles, traveled in a curved pattern son’s book Conduction of Electricity Through Gases in the presence of a magnetic field. None of these experi(1903) and wanted to pursue research in cathode rays ments offered definitive proof of the particle theory, and X rays. however. Aston came to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1910, and The stalemate between the two competing theories his collaboration with Thomson began at the moment changed with the arrival at the Cavendish Laboratory of when Thomson turned his attention to the positive rays Ernest Rutherford. Thomson and Rutherford began a segenerated by the cathode of the discharge tube. When the ries of X-ray experiments, and the results substantiated electrons are stripped from an atom, the atom becomes their theory because the radiated gases retained their conpositively charged. By using magnetic and electrical ductivity after the radiation had been shut off. This confields, it is possible to channel these positive rays in paradition could be explained only if either positive or negabolic tracks. Thomson was able to identify the atoms of tive charges were produced by radiation. different elements by examining photographic plates of In 1899, Thomson compiled the evidence of his resuch tracks. Aston’s first contribution at Cavendish was search and created a model of the atom with negatively to improve this instrument by blowing a spherical discharged particles on the outside. By 1904, Thomson was charge tube with a finer cathode and by making a better further able to refine the model of the atom with electrons pump to create the vacuum. He also devised a camera accelerating in concentric rings surrounding the atom. that could take sharper photographs of the parabolic This later model proposed an inner ring containing the tracks. smallest number of electrons and outer rings containing In 1910, as a result of these refinements, Thomson progressively more electrons. The beginning of particle saw the first indication of isotopes, although he was not and nuclear physics can be dated from this moment, and aware of their importance. Two years later, further imall future work must credit Thomson for his contribuprovements to the apparatus provided proof that the inditions. vidual molecules of a substance have the same mass. After the discovery of the electron, Thomson directed While working on the element neon, Thomson obtained his research efforts toward discovering the nature of two parabolas, one with a mass of 20 and the other with a “positive electricity.” As a result, without specifically looking for isotopes, Thomson became one of the first to isolate isotopes of elements. This chance event occurred as a result of the phenomenon of positive electricity, which was first identified by Wilhelm Wien. Thomson undertook the next stage by developing an instrument sensitive enough to analyze the positive To view image, please refer to the electron. One person who was pivotal to print edition of this title. the discovery of isotopes was Francis William Aston, a gifted experimenter who possessed the capacity for infinitely refining an instrument until it produced the desired results. In addition to his mechanical skills, he was an expert glassblower, and he created the discharge tubes that Thomson needed for atomic research. Aston was known for his patience while working through a series of exJoseph John Thomson. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) perimental procedures many times, 812
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mass of 22. At first, he thought the heavier of the two isotopes was a new element, but he eventually came to the conclusion that he had separated the isotopes of an element.
accuracy. Aston then began a series of experiments to discover the packing fractions of a large number of elements. Some time later, the mass spectrograph was found to be sensitive enough to measure Einstein’s law of mass-energy conversion during a nuclear reaction. Between 1927 and 1935, Aston published the updated results. In 1935, he attempted to refine his instrument for even greater accuracy, and the resulting instrument proved to be of critical importance to the new science of nuclear chemistry, as the accurate measurement of chemical masses was essential to the success of the discipline. The discovery of isotopes opened the way to extensive research in nuclear physics and completed the speculations begun by Prout a century earlier. Also, in the field of radioactivity—which was discovered through a separate sequence of historical events—isotopes played a central role in the development of nuclear reaction. — Victor W. Chen Further Reading Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. Describes the history of the Cavendish Laboratory. Covers Thomson’s early years at the laboratory, his work as the director, his assistants and students, and his work on the electron. Also discusses the work of Thomson’s predecessor, Lord Rayleigh, and his successor, Ernest Rutherford. Laidler, Keith J. To Light Such a Candle: Chapters in the History of Science and Technology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Discusses the progress of both pure science and applied science over the past two centuries through the specific contributions of individual scientists and technologists. Chapter 6 is devoted to the work of Thomson. Includes bibliography and index. Segrè, Emilio. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. Segrè was one of a handful of physicists who participated directly in nuclear physics and wrote on the history of physics. Early sections of this volume cover the discoveries and theories of those who produced a coherent picture of the atom. Strutt, Robert John, Fourth Baron Rayleigh. The Life of Sir J. J. Thomson, O.M., Sometime Master of Trinity College. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1942. Firsthand account of Thomson’s activities by a friend who was there at the time. Includes information on Thomson’s presidency of the Royal So813
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Significance The task of identifying the large families of isotopes was left for Aston to accomplish. In 1919, Aston created a new instrument called the mass spectrograph. The idea was to treat ionized or positive atoms much in the same manner as light rays. Aston reasoned that just as light can be dispersed into a spectrum and analyzed in terms of its constituent colors, similar results might be achieved with atoms. By using magnetic fields to focus the stream of particles, he was able to create a spectrum of the atomic mass and record the result on a photographic plate. He used the gas neon for his initial test of the mass spectrograph, and the apparatus was able to separate the spectrum of both the heavier and lighter masses of the gas. The mass spectrograph had a distinct advantage over Thomson’s parabola method, as it was independent of the velocity of the particles. Aston found that neon had two isotopes: one with a mass of 20 and the other with a mass of 22 in a ratio of 10:1. This result reflected exactly the accepted atomic weight of neon (20.20), which was a combination of the two isotopes. The search for isotopes became a major area of concentration in physics in the decade after 1919. A new isotope was found almost every other month. Chlorine had 2; bromine had isotopes of 79 and 81, which gave an atomic weight of exactly 80; krypton had 6; and other elements possessed even more. These results produced not only an entire family of nonradioactive isotopes but also finally verified the “whole-number rule” of Prout’s hypothesis. Nevertheless, a discrepancy remained. It appeared that the atomic weight of hydrogen was slightly greater than 1. When Aston attempted to resolve this problem in 1920, he postulated that although hydrogen had a mass of 1 percent greater than a whole number, this mass was lost when atoms were “packed” to produce other elements. For example, when four atoms of hydrogen are brought together to produce one atom of helium, about 1 percent of the mass is lost. Although a more sophisticated model of the atom was required to explain the “packing fractions,” the accuracy of Aston’s instrument remained untarnished. In 1927, Aston began to refine his mass spectrograph. The original instrument had an accuracy of one in one thousand, whereas the new instrument had ten times that
Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes
Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement ciety and mastership of Trinity College, his views on education, and his personal life. Thomson, George Paget. J. J. Thomson and the Cavendish Laboratory in His Day. London: Thomas Nelson, 1964. Describes in detail experiments conducted by Thomson and his colleagues, providing excellent drawings of the experimental equipment and photographs of the results. Thomson, J. J. Recollections and Reflections. 1936. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Memoir includes a chapter on “psychical research” as well as several lengthy chapters on Thomson’s visits to the United
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States. Contains extensive sections on individuals who influenced his life and work. See also: Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect.
MATHEMATICA Defines the Logistic Movement
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell’s attempt to deduce mathematics from logic in Principia Mathematica gave the logistic movement in mathematics its definitive expression. Locale: Trinity College, Cambridge, England Categories: Mathematics; publishing and journalism Key Figures Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), English philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), German mathematician and philosopher Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932), Italian mathematician and logician Summary of Event At the end of the nineteenth century, several new approaches to the foundations of mathematics were developing in response to a growing number of issues that challenged the stability of the previously accepted foundations of mathematics. By the first decade of the twentieth century, these new approaches divided many mathematicians into opposing schools of thought and provided grounds for disagreement as to the proper foundations of mathematics. These new approaches were the bases of the three principal contemporary philosophies of mathematics: the logistic school, of which Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead are the chief expositors; the intuitionist school, led by the Dutch mathematician 814
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L. E. J. Brouwer; and the formalist school, developed principally by the German mathematician and logician David Hilbert. Although there are contemporary philosophies of mathematics other than these three, none has been as widely followed or has developed as large a body of associated literature as these. The basic thesis of the logistic school is that mathematics is derivable from logic. The logistic school maintains that mathematics is a branch of logic rather than logic being merely a tool of mathematics. With the development of the logistic school, logic became the forefather of mathematics in that all mathematical concepts were to be developed as theorems of logic, and the distinction between mathematics and logic became merely one of practical convenience. The logicists argue that because the laws of logic are accepted as a body of truths (at least in the early 1900’s), mathematics must be accepted also as a body of truths. Furthermore, they contend that because truth is consistent, so is logic and mathematics. The logicist thesis that mathematics is derivable from logic can be traced back to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz made a distinction between necessary truths and contingent truths; a truth is called “necessary” when its opposite implies a contradiction (for example, all right angles are equal) and “contingent” when it is not necessary (for example, there are bodies in nature that possess angles of exactly 90 degrees). Hence Leibniz considered all mathematical truths to be necessary and, as such, derivable from logic whose principles are also necessary and hold true in all possible worlds. Nevertheless, Leibniz did not go on to derive mathematics from logic, nor did anyone
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Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement
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else with similar beliefs for almost two Whitehead and Russell’s Task hundred years. In their preface to Principia Mathematica, Whitehead and Russell exIt was not until the late nineteenth cenplain how they approached the monumental undertaking of establishing tury that the German mathematician a common foundation for all mathematical truths: Gottlob Frege undertook to develop the logistic thesis. Frege thought that laws of In constructing a deductive system such as that contained in the present mathematics say no more than what is imwork, there are two opposite tasks which have to be concurrently perplicit in the principles of logic, which are a formed. On the one hand, we have to analyse existing mathematics, with priori truths. In his Die Grundlagen der a view to discovering what premisses are employed, whether these Arithmetik (1884; The Foundations of premisses are mutually consistent, and whether they are capable of reArithmetic, 1950) and in his two-volume duction to more fundamental premisses. On the other hand, when we have decided upon our premisses, we have to build up again as much as Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893, 1903; may seem necessary of the data previously analysed, and as many other the basic laws of arithmetic), Frege proconsequences of our premisses as are of sufficient general interest to deceeded to derive the concepts of arithmeserve statement. The preliminary labour of analysis does not appear in tic and the definitions and laws of number the final presentation, which merely sets forth the outcome of the analyfrom logical premises. From the laws of sis in certain undefined ideas and undemonstrated propositions. It is not number, it is possible to deduce algebra, claimed that the analysis could not have been carried farther: we have no analysis, and even geometry because anareason to suppose that it is impossible to find simpler ideas and axioms lytic geometry expresses the concepts and by means of which those with which we start could be defined and demproperties of geometry in algebraic terms. onstrated. All that is affirmed is that the ideas and axoims with which we Unfortunately, Frege’s symbolism was start are sufficient, not that they are necessary. complex and strange to mathematicians, Source: Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica, and he therefore had little influence on his vol. 1 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1910). contemporaries. Another important forerunner of the logicist school was the Italian mathemati(1910-1913), written by Russell in collaboration with his cian and logician Giuseppe Peano, who, between 1889 former teacher, the English philosopher Alfred North and 1908, had undertaken to state the theorems of matheWhitehead. Whitehead and Russell spent the period from matics by means of logical symbolization. Russell was 1900 to 1911 developing what ultimately became greatly influenced by Peano’s work and met Peano at the Principia Mathematica—the definitive version of the loSecond International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in gistic school’s position. This complex work purports to 1900. Russell carefully studied Peano’s work and be a detailed reduction of the whole of mathematics to adopted his notation as an instrument of analysis. logic. Although Russell conceived of the same program as Even though the contents of Principia Mathematica Frege, he did so without any knowledge of Frege’s proelude summary—to do so would be as difficult as sumgram. It was only while he was developing his own promarizing a dictionary—a brief sketch of the contents is in gram that he ran across Frege’s work. In the early 1900’s, order. The work begins with the development of logic itRussell believed with Frege that because logic is a body self. Axioms of logic (for example, if q is true, then p or q of truths, if the fundamental laws of mathematics could is true) are carefully stated from which theorems are be derived from logic, then these laws would also be deduced to be used in subsequent reasoning. The develtruths and consistent. In The Principles of Mathematics opment starts with primitive (or undefined) ideas and (1903), Russell writes, “The fact that all Mathematics is propositions. These primitive ideas and propositions are Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our taken as descriptions and hypotheses concerning the real age; and when this fact has been established, the remainworld, and although they are explained, the explanations der of the principles of mathematics consists in the analyare not part of the logical development. The aim of sis of Symbolic Logic itself.” The successful completion Principia Mathematica is to develop mathematical conof the logistic school’s program would leave the foundacepts and theorems from these primitive ideas and propotions of mathematics beyond doubt. sitions, starting with a calculus of propositions, proceedThe logistic school received its definitive expression ing up through the theory of sets and relations to the in the monumental three-volume Principia Mathematica
Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement establishment of the natural number system, and then to all mathematics derivable from the natural system. In this development, the natural numbers emerge with the unique meanings ordinarily assigned to them. After having built up the logic of propositions, Whitehead and Russell proceed to propositional functions. These, in effect, represent sets (or classes), for instead of naming the members of a set, a propositional function describes them by a property. For example, the propositional function “x is red” denotes the set of all red objects. This method of defining a set enables one to define infinite sets as readily as one can define finite sets of objects. Whitehead and Russell wanted to avoid the paradoxes that arise when a collection of objects is defined that contains itself as a member. Although most sets are not members of themselves, some are. For example, whereas the set of all frogs is not a frog, the set of all comprehensible things is itself a comprehensible thing. To avoid such paradoxes, Whitehead and Russell require that no set is a member of itself and introduce the theory of types to carry out this restriction. The basic idea of their theory of types is that a set is on a higher level than its members; the set of which this set is a member is on a still higher level; and so on. Hence individuals, such as a particular frog, are type 0. An assertion about a property of individuals is of type 1, and so on. Whitehead and Russell then go on to address the theory of relations, stating that relations are expressed by means of propositional functions of two or more variables (“x loves y” expresses a relation). Next is an explicit theory of sets defined in terms of propositional functions. On this basis, Whitehead and Russell introduce the notion of natural numbers. Given the natural numbers, it is possible to build up the real and complex number systems, functions, and all of analysis. To accomplish their objective, however, Whitehead and Russell had to introduce two more axioms: the axiom that infinite sets exist and the axiom of choice. These axioms were to become the focus of much criticism. Significance In 1959, Russell wrote that he “used to know of only six people who had read the later parts” of Principia Mathematica. Despite Russell’s reservations, however, this work has attracted much careful study and has received extensive critical attention. In fact, Whitehead and Russell’s logical investigations into the foundations of mathematics opened up a world of possibilities not only among mathematicians but also among logicians and philosophers, and the study of the philosophy of 816
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 logic became a central concern for philosophy itself. Nevertheless, the great achievement of Principia Mathematica was not enough to shield the logistic approach to mathematics from a barrage of criticism. One point of attack has been directed toward the axioms of reducibility, choice, and infinity used by Whitehead and Russell. Controversy and discussion regarding these axioms has focused on the purity of the logic used in the work. For example, the axiom of reducibility has been said to be arbitrary and lacking evidence. Critics have gone so far as to question whether it is an axiom of logic. Even Whitehead and Russell were uneasy about this axiom in the first edition of Principia Mathematica; in the second edition, they attempted to rephrase the axiom, but in doing so they only created new difficulties. Although they thought that the axiom was justified on the pragmatic basis of leading to the desired conclusion, it was not a justification with which they could rest content. They had to determine how essential this axiom was to the logistic program. So far, all efforts to reduce mathematics to logic without the axiom have failed. The use of the axioms of reducibility, infinity, and choice has challenged the entire logistic program and has raised questions as to where the line between logic and mathematics is to be drawn. On one hand, if logic actually contains these three controversial axioms—as proponents of the logistic program maintain—then the logic of Principia Mathematica is pure. On the other hand, if the logic of Principia Mathematica is not pure, opponents of the logistic program deny that mathematics, or even any important branch of mathematics, has yet been reduced to logic. Others, while arguing for the impurity of the logic of Principia Mathematica, are willing to extend the meaning of the term “logic” so that it includes these axioms. Other critics have charged that Principia Mathematica reduced only arithmetic, algebra, and analysis to logic; it did not reduce the nonarithmetical parts of mathematics (such as geometry, topology, and abstract algebra) to logic. Those who hold that all mathematics can be reduced to logic claim that it is possible to reduce geometry, topology, and abstract algebra to logic. Although both Principia Mathematica in particular and the logistic program in general have had a long, complicated development and have been criticized on various grounds, many of which have not been mentioned here, whether or not the logistic thesis has been established seems to be a matter of opinion. Although some accept the program as satisfactory, even though they might be critical of its present state, others have found its
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 shortcomings insurmountable, charging that it produces conclusions formed in advance from unwarranted assumptions. —Jeffrey R. DiLeo
have mastered logical symbolism, in a form offering the minimum of difficulty to the beginner.” An excellent nontechnical introduction to Russell’s work on mathematics and logic, and a highly recommended source for this subject. _______. My Philosophical Development. 1959. Rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 1995. This is the place to read Russell’s thoughts on the mathematical and philosophical aspects of Principia Mathematica. The discussion is addressed to a general audience and is informative and enjoyable reading. Cites influences on Russell’s work and provides a good general account of Principia Mathematica. Schoenman, Ralph, ed. Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the Century. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967. An excellent selection of essays. Section 4, “Mathematician and Logician,” is especially useful. Hilary Putnam’s essay titled “The Thesis That Mathematics Is Logic” is particularly relevant. Whitehead, Alfred North, and Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica. 3 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1910-1913. A monumental work, the culmination of ten years of development, and the founding work of the logistic school. Virtually incomprehensible to those without a knowledge of formal logic, but the introduction is somewhat accessible to the diligent general reader. See also: June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; July, 1929July, 1931: Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
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Further Reading Bell, E. T. The Development of Mathematics. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1945. A broad account of the general development of mathematics, with particular emphasis on main concepts and methods. Highly accessible to the general reader. Chapter 23, “Uncertainties and Probabilities,” is particularly informative about the state of mathematics around the time Principia Mathematica was published. Jager, Ronald. The Development of Bertrand Russell’s Philosophy. 1972. Reprint. London: Routledge, 2004. A fine survey of the development of Russell’s philosophy. Two sections of the part devoted to Russell’s philosophy of mathematics are particularly relevant: “The Poetry and Essence of Mathematics” and “Logicism.” Accessible to the diligent general reader. Kneebone, G. T. Mathematical Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics: An Introductory Survey. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1963. Even though this book is based on a series of lectures given at the University of London to advanced undergraduates and graduate students, it has much material for the general reader interested in an introduction to mathematical logic and the philosophy of logic. Generous amounts of space are given to nontechnical discussions of Principia Mathematica. Russell, Bertrand. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. 1919. Reprint. New York: Longman, 2005. Presents results “hitherto only available to those who
Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement
Great Northern Migration
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1910-1930
Great Northern Migration More than one million African Americans moved from the rural South to industrial cities of the Midwest and the North, leading to the establishment of vibrant African American communities within those cities. Locale: Northern United States Categories: Business and labor; economics; social issues and reform; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963), African American historian, sociologist, and newspaper editor Robert Sengstacke Abbott (1870-1940), African American newspaper publisher Langston Hughes (1902-1967), African American poet, novelist, and playwright Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), Jamaican blacknationalist leader Summary of Event The demographic shift known as the Great Northern Migration, during which many African Americans moved from southern states to both midwestern and northeastern states, occurred roughly between 1910 and 1930. Because the demographic figures available are based on the U.S. Census, which is conducted every tenth year, the dating of migration events is imprecise. The data indicate only that this migration took place between 1910 and 1930, but other historical evidence suggests that it began during World War I (between 1914 and 1918) and ended around the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. Migration is often measured as net migration, or the difference between the number of people moving into a region and the number moving from it during a specific time period. Between 1910 and 1920, approximately 454,400 more African Americans migrated from the South than migrated to it. During the same period, net migration of African Americans to the North was approximately 426,200. Between 1920 and 1930, net migration of African Americans from the South increased to approximately 749,000, while net migration to the North increased to 712,900. In all, net migration of African Americans from the South exceeded 1.1 million during the period of the Great Northern Migration. The total number moving out of the South cannot be determined with complete accuracy, because an unknown number of African Americans moved to the South during the pe818
riod, offsetting some of the out-migration, but it has been estimated that some 2 million blacks left the South in that time. During the Great Northern Migration, the industrial northern and midwestern states of New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan experienced the greatest positive net migration of African Americans. The greatest net loss of African American population took place in the southern agricultural states of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and Mississippi. As they moved from one region to another, most of the migrants also moved from rural areas to urban areas. Between 1910 and 1920, the African American population of Detroit grew from 5,000 to 40,800, that of Cleveland grew from 8,400 to 34,400, that of Chicago grew from 44,000 to 109,400, and that of New York increased from 91,700 to 152,400. The transition from rural to urban locales was accompanied by a transition from employment in agriculture to employment in industrial or service occupations for increasing numbers of African Americans. The reasons that African Americans did not leave the South in large numbers until fifty years after the end of the Civil War have long been the subject of debate among social scientists and historians. It is apparent that both social and economic factors were involved. After the Civil War, owners of plantations and farms in the South imposed new ways of controlling labor that were almost as restrictive as slavery had been. As sharecroppers, former slaves and their descendants were allowed to farm land owned by others in return for part of their harvests. These arrangements usually left the sharecroppers perpetually indebted to the landowners, so that they were financially obligated to stay on the land although legally they were free to leave. In addition, many African Americans who were born during the period of slavery were accustomed or resigned to their inferior social and economic position and were reluctant to seek change. According to W. E. B. Du Bois, a leading African American intellectual of the period, African Americans who came of age around 1910 were the first generation for whom slavery was a distant memory. Jim Crow laws, which formalized segregation, discrimination, and racial violence, including lynchings, motivated many in this new generation of African Americans to seek better conditions in the North. Because the vast majority of African Americans in the South worked in agriculture, particularly in the produc-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance African Americans who migrated to northern cities established their own communities within those cities in which African American culture flourished. An example is the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem. Although the area was occupied primarily by wealthy European Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, Af-
rican Americans had been in Harlem since Dutch colonial times. Philip A. Payton, Jr., was among several African American businesspeople who saw an opportunity when a housing glut in Harlem coincided with an influx of African Americans. He leased apartment buildings and rented the apartments to African American tenants, a move that antagonized some of the wealthy EuroAmerican Harlem residents. Harlem was soon an almost exclusively African American enclave. Harlem became not only a home for African American workers, but also a center of intellectual, cultural, and political development. The Harlem Renaissance, fostered by such African American intellectuals as Du Bois and the poet Langston Hughes, was embraced by white liberals as an alternative to bourgeois American culture. Harlem also became known for African American performing arts, which attracted many white visitors seeking entertainment. Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey arrived in 1916 to establish a branch of his newly formed Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was intended to unite all the “Negro peoples of the world.” The UNIA flourished in New York and other northern cities during the 1920’s. Garvey encouraged African Americans to take pride in their heritage and to establish their own businesses. Although the Great Northern Migration ended around 1930, it set the stage for subsequent migrations of African Americans that would be even greater in absolute numbers. By the 1940’s, the trend had reversed again, with net migration from the South growing to more than 1.2 million, a level that would be sustained or exceeded during subsequent decades. —James Hayes-Bohanan Further Reading Hornsby, Alton, Jr. “1918-1932: Between War and Depression.” In Milestones in Twentieth Century African-American History. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1993. Chronicles significant events involving African Americans during a period roughly corresponding to the Great Northern Migration. Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Describes the second Great Migration, beginning in the 1940’s. Includes biographical sketches of individual migrant families and a comprehensive discussion of political implications. Long, Richard A. African Americans: A Portrait. New York: Crescent Books, 1993. Nineteenth and twenti819
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tion of cotton, several bad crop years and a boll weevil infestation in the mid-1910’s contributed to the decisions of some to migrate when they did. The increase in outmigration was greatest in the areas that experienced the greatest crop failures. Changing conditions in the North also played an important role in the timing of the Great Northern Migration. Prior to World War I, immigration from Europe had supplied the labor needs of northern industry, and African Americans in northern cities usually could find work only as servants, porters, janitors, or waiters. Most industries hired African Americans only during strikes, as a way to exert pressure on Euro-American workers. Restrictions imposed during World War I reduced the number of European immigrants entering the United States by more than 90 percent, from 1.2 million in 1914 to 110,000 in 1918. This reduction in the available labor force took place just as the war increased demand for industrial production. Northern factories, mills, and workshops that previously had disdained African American workers were forced to recruit them actively, offering wages that were often twice what African Americans could earn in the South, plus inducements such as free rooms and train fare. In some industries, managers attempted to foster racial division among their workers by encouraging segregated labor unions. The strategy was effective, and workplace competition sometimes contributed to race-based antagonism and violence. Despite such problems, northward migration was further encouraged by news of opportunities, spread not only by personal letters home from new arrivals in the North but also by advertisements and articles in newspapers aimed at African Americans, such as the Chicago Defender, published by Robert Sengstacke Abbott. The Great Northern Migration ended with the onset of the Great Depression. With an increase in poverty and fierce competition with Euro-Americans for scarce jobs, African Americans from the South found the North to be a less desirable destination. During the 1930’s, net migration of African Americans from the South diminished by about one-half.
Great Northern Migration
Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage eth century migrations are included in a broad history of African American culture, which also discusses the contributions of prominent African Americans. Sernett, Milton C. Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997. Examines the impact of the Great Northern Migration on religion in the United States. Draws on interviews, government documents, church publications, and more to describe how the migration affected both southern and northern churches and African American religious leaders. Smythe, Mabel M., ed. The Black American Reference Book. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976. Provides demographic details of the Great Northern
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Migration. Explains demographic concepts such as “net migration” and “natural increase.” Takaki, Ronald. “To the Promised Land: Blacks in the Urban North.” In A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Uses primary sources, including music, advertisements, and letters, to detail the impacts of the migration on northern urban culture and labor relations. See also: July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement; Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded; May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter; Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded.
Spring, 1910
Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage Fashion designer Paul Poiret altered the way women dressed when he eliminated the corset, but he also restricted their freedom of movement with his hobble skirt. Locale: Paris, France Category: Fashion and design Key Figures Paul Poiret (1879-1944), French fashion designer Léon Bakst (1866-1924), Russian French artist and theatrical set designer Erté (1892-1990), Russian French artist Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), French artist Summary of Event Paul Poiret was employed as a designer at the House of Worth, a highly respected French fashion house, during the last decade of the nineteenth century. As a result of a dispute, Poiret resigned his position there and established his own house of design on September 1, 1903. His creativity and business acumen soon combined to make him one of France’s most successful couturiers. From 1904 to 1914, Poiret’s fashion and design innovations had pronounced effects on the way women dressed. He was the most significant of early twentieth century French designers, and his success demonstrated that astute business practices and fashion are not incompatible. Poiret first gained attention for his determination to dress women in a natural manner, according to the way they were constructed by nature. He rejected the use of 820
the restrictive corset worn by most women, which produced a form that emphasized the hips and bosom and prevented women from assuming a natural posture. He replaced the corset with a girdle and a brassiere, an item of apparel that was first advertised in 1907. The brassiere designed by Poiret was a modification of the bust bodice, or “improver,” of the late nineteenth century. Poiret also set aside the stiff crinoline petticoat, which often called for the use of fifteen or more yards of fabric and featured a circumference of six or even seven yards. He introduced a plainer undergarment made of crepe de chine or linen that became known as a “slip.” The interest group that most vigorously protested the substitution of the slip for the petticoat was the silk industry, the members of which blamed Poiret for the loss of business and profits. In his search for newness, Poiret set aside the pale, diluted colors of the Edwardian period and, like the Fauve painters, employed vibrant and pure color; he referred to his fabrics as “cloths of fire and joy.” He generously utilized orange, yellow, and red in his designs, and other vivid colors, such as emerald green, cerise, vermillion, royal blue, and purple, also became identified with his work. Often, too, he imposed his Fauvist colors on a black background. He drew on the creative skills of artists such as Raoul Dufy and Erté to provide him with color designs, which he then had imprinted on fabric. For evening wear, Poiret used exquisite fabrics such as silver and gold lamés interwoven with silk, damask, brocade, and brocatelle. Gold and silver threads and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Poiret’s status in high couture. If Poiret had introduced the hobble skirt seven years earlier, when he was just beginning to establish himself professionally, it might well have been rejected. Women in search of the new wore the skirt, regardless of their discomfort, in large measure because Poiret told them it was the apex of style. When women wearing the hobble skirt first appeared on the streets of Paris in late spring and early summer of 1910, journalists vigorously attempted to persuade others to reject it. City officials also entered the fray, because women in hobble skirts created traffic delays when they slowly crossed streets or attempted to step into carriages or other vehicles. Women hobbling down the street were jeered or verbally chided by many males for wearing such fashion foolishness. At a performance of a play at the Théâtre Michel attended by Poiret, colored slides of the hobble skirt were projected onto a screen during the intermission; when the eighth slide was shown, many of the theater patrons began loudly to complain about the presentation. The outcry reached such an intense pitch that a number of patrons attempted to assault Poiret as he sat in his theater box. Strident public rejection of one facet of his design efforts did not deter Poiret. In a new collection displayed six months after the original showing of the hobble skirt, he introduced the design again. This time, some citizens managed to persuade the pope to denounce the skirt, and priests were ordered to refuse absolution to any woman wearing one. As Poiret expected, however, the outcry against the style did not adversely affect sales. The number of his clients increased, and other designers began to copy the style. Soon, copies were being sold in department stores around the world. During the late fall of 1910, one of Poiret’s German customers, the owner of a department store in Berlin, requested that the couturier personally show his collection, including the hobble skirt, in the German capital. Poiret did so with enormous success. The next year, Poiret and his wife drove throughout Europe presenting shows of his designs. His models and his trunks of clothing followed by train. Although Poiret’s work was well received in various European cities, it was jubilantly welcomed in Moscow and St. Petersburg. While in Moscow, Poiret met Romain de Tirtoff, later to be called Erté, a young artist who sketched some of the couturier’s creations and was hired to be Poiret’s assistant designer. Poiret’s fashion and business instincts proved correct. The hobble skirt was universally accepted by women interested in a new look. 821
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beads were added as decorative features. His search for the right fabrics to execute his creations was in part responsible for the renewal of the French textile industry and the revitalization of the art of applied design. Other Poiret fashion statements were coils of flashing pearls worn under stoles of white fox, cockades of multicolored feathers, and stylish turbans. Furthermore, he was the first couturier to develop and market a line of perfumes, which he called Rosine, after his oldest daughter. Success led him to add other items to the Rosine line, including colognes, toilet waters, soaps, powders, lotions, creams, and cosmetics. Historians have noted that Poiret drew on the ideas of designers Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois of the Ballets Russes for inspiration. Poiret, however, always contended that he employed Asian influences in design and that he had used pure and vibrant color before the Russian ballet was accepted in Paris by 1909 and even before the Fauve artists made their mark on the world of painting in 1905. It seems somewhat contradictory that Poiret, the creator of the natural-form silhouette of the modern woman, was also responsible for the hobble skirt, which arrested the freedom of movement he had pioneered. The hobble skirt, however, is chiefly responsible for keeping Poiret’s name alive across the pages of modern fashion history. This skirt was a garment with a high waistline, sometimes belted under the breast, and narrow from the knees to the ankles. The circumference of the hemline was less than thirty-six inches. Some hobble skirts were decorated with wide bands of fabric or sashes at the hemline, which created a strong restriction that further reduced the wearers’ ability to walk. The skirt gave the appearance that the wearer had only one leg. The hobble skirt first appeared as an item of fashion in Paris in the spring of 1910. It is frequently contended that the skirt first appeared as a costume for an actress who wanted a dress that would provide a pleasing contrast to a pillar that she had to lean against in a play. In fact, Poiret initially designed the skirt in order to achieve the new look that he envisioned for women, a look that would be dramatically different from that of the ample-skirted woman who had dominated fashion for decades. The hobble skirt blended the designer’s straight-line look with his interest in classical style. He once noted, “I freed the bosom, shackled the legs, but gave liberty to the body.” Although the skirt inhibited women’s freedom of movement (as they were forced to hobble rather than walk), it was accepted and even sought after because of
Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage
Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage Significance Poiret quickly introduced various modifications to the hobble skirt, some subtle and others dramatic. Using models he selected personally, Poiret promoted a T-shaped silhouette, with slim skirts and large hats with wide brims that were decorated with large ribbons or feathers. Because the skirts were so slim, Poiret eliminated pockets and reintroduced the handbag. Like the hats, Poiret’s handbags were quite large. He also offered the muff, made of swansdown or fur, as an alternative accessory to the handbag. When swans became a protected species and the cost of fur increased, he designed muffs in lamb, sealskin, and mink. Other accessories Poiret used to underscore his T-shaped silhouette included gloves— usually long and white—and umbrellas and parasols that were long and tightly furled. Shortly after the first hobble skirt appeared, Poiret presented a similar skirt with a slit added at the hemline on the side or the front of the garment to allow more mobility. Because this made a small portion of the wearer’s legs visible, Poiret, quickly followed by other designers, set aside the extensively decorative stockings of the nineteenth century and encouraged his clients to wear plain stockings made of either lisle or, for the very wealthy, silk, with a small decorative design on the sides. In 1912, Poiret once again modified the hobble skirt, this time more for visual effect than for practicality: He added a tunic over the skirt. The tunics were made of various materials, including lace; gold lace was a favorite for wearing over hobbles in the evening. By the end of 1912, the couturier modified the tunic twice. It was first shortened and made fuller, especially at the hips; this design was referred to as a “pannier.” The silhouette thus achieved was that of a peg top, and the style bore that name. Within a year, the tunic was allowed to drop down the length of the skirt in a sloping fashion to the ankles. Another change evolved from the costumes that Poiret designed for a theatrical show. He retained the hobble design, but the tunic became a knee-length, belted affair that was wired at the hemline to produce a flare. The wired tunic found favor among his clients, and it became as popular as the pegtop version. By 1914, this style was referred to as the “lampshade tunic.” Poiret’s modifications of the hemlines of his fashions also led him to alter the necklines of his blouses and dresses. He introduced the V-neck to replace the high Edwardian collars that had dominated nineteenth century styles. Once women began to appear in V-necked garments, many clergy declared their disapproval and condemned the style as immoral. Numerous physicians 822
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 joined the protest, arguing that exposing the throat could adversely affect a woman’s health. Rejecting these remonstrances, women accepted, wore, and, by demand, perpetuated the style. By 1914, the popular vertical-line garment that created the T-shaped silhouette was no longer deemed suitable for the work that women were called on to perform during World War I. Although Poiret adamantly refused to accept the changes that a world at war unleashed on Europe, he had unknowingly established a baseline from which new and often more practical fashion evolved. All that other designers had to do was discard the hobble and add length to the tunic for a seemingly new and more utilitarian style to emerge. By 1915, the hobble skirt was past fashion. The tunic became a dress or was dissected to become a blouse and a skirt with a hemline that ended six or more inches from the ankle; by 1916, hemlines were ten inches from the ground. After World War I, Poiret continued to create new designs, but he was unable to recapture the imagination and thus the support of modern women, who reflected the legacies of the couturier not only in the image of physical form but in their manner of dress as well. During the later years of his life, he devoted his time to painting and to making plans for an institute of design. He died April 28, 1944, an innovator who had established the direction for modern women’s fashion but who had rejected the nature of its progression. — Loretta E. Zimmerman Further Reading Byrde, Penelope. A Visual History of Costume: The Twentieth Century. New York: Drama Book, 1986. Primarily a presentation of sketches, paintings, and photographs of men’s, women’s, and children’s fashions from 1900 to 1984, with captions describing styles across the twentieth century. A short introduction offers an informative overview. Includes a reproduction of a lithograph showing a model in a hobble skirt that appeared in Chic Parisien in 1911. Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Rev. ed. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992. Contains useful information on the hobble skirt and Poiret. Text is tastefully supported with drawings and reproductions of illustrations from fashion magazines. Includes a section on the experiences of workers in the fashion industry and statistics on their earnings. Langner, Lawrence. The Importance of Wearing Clothes. Rev. ed. Los Angeles: Elysium Growth
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Press, 1991. Offers insightful observations about the cultural forces that have given rise to various fashions, including the hobble skirt. Includes illustrations. Laver, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. 4th ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Comprehensive guide to all of the major events in costume and fashion design practically since human beings began wearing clothes. Includes discussion of the motivations of fashion design as well as information on individual designers. Features more than three hundred illustrations. Nunn, Joan. Fashion in Costume, 1200-2000. 2d ed. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 2000. Provides descriptions of the hobble skirt and the tunic that are worthy of note. Also offers interesting information on fabrics and furs used by early twentieth century fashion designers. Illustrated with black-and-white sketches. Includes bibliography and index. Poiret, Paul. King of Fashion: The Autobiography of Paul Poiret. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1931. Places Poiret’s work in the context of his times. Inter-
Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis esting and informative, despite Poiret’s expression of racist sentiments. Tortora, Phyllis, and Keith Eubank. A Survey of Historic Costume. 4th ed. New York: Fairchild Books, 2005. Detailed account of all aspects of fashion from ancient times to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Many illustrations. Waugh, Norah. Corsets and Crinolines. 1954. Reprint. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 2000. Presents a detailed history of the corset and the petticoat. Illustrations include reproductions of different patterns used to make corsets and petticoats. White, Palmer. Poiret. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1973. Interesting, informative, readable, and graphically pleasing biography of Paul Poiret. The text is enhanced by photographs of Poiret and his family and friends, in addition to many other illustrations. See also: 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion; 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit; Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion.
April, 1910
Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis
Locale: Royal Prussian Institute for Experimental Therapy, Frankfurt, Germany Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; chemistry Key Figures Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), German research physician and chemist Wilhelm Waldeyer (1836-1921), German anatomist Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (1819-1885), German physician and professor Sahachiro Hata (1873-1938), Japanese physician and bacteriologist Summary of Event For centuries, syphilis was both feared and reviled. Transmitted by direct and usually sexual contact, the disease struck infamous and famous, lowborn and highborn alike with indifferent finality. Perhaps no other disease except leprosy evoked as much horror in the afflicted or as much
revulsion in society. Across national boundaries, many people held the firm belief that syphilis was a divine punishment of the wicked. This view held in part because it was not until 1903 that Élie Metchnikoff and Pierre-PaulÉmile Roux demonstrated the transmittal of syphilis to apes, ending the long-held belief that syphilis is exclusively a human disease. In any case, the disease destroyed families, careers, and lives. It killed slowly, attacking the cardiovascular system and driving its infected victims mad by destroying the brain, but it was always fatal. There was no hope of a safe and effective cure prior to Salvarsan. Before 1910, conventional treatment of syphilis consisted principally of the administration of mercury or, later, potassium iodide. In large doses, however, mercury caused severe ulcerations of the tongue, jaws, and palate, resulting in swelling of the gums, loosening of the teeth, drooling, and a fetid odor. These side effects were so severe that many preferred to suffer the disease to the end rather than undergo the mercury cure. About 1906, Metchnikoff and Roux demonstrated that if applied very early, at the first appearance of the primary lesion, mercurial ointments could be efficacious in the treatment of syphilis. 823
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Paul Ehrlich’s development of Salvarsan, the first successful chemotherapeutic for the treatment of syphilis, ushered in a new age in medicine.
Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis Once the disease had invaded the bloodstream and tissues, the infected person experienced symptoms of varying nature and degree—high fever, intense headaches, and excruciating pain. The patient’s skin often erupted in pustular lesions similar in appearance to smallpox. It was the distinguishing feature of these lesions that gave syphilis its other name—the Great Pox. Death brought the only relief then available. No one knew the cause of syphilis until 1905, when German researchers Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffmann determined that a spirochete, Treponema pallidum, is the causative microorganism of the disease. This discovery made it possible for scientists to fight syphilis at last. The importance of Schaudinn and Hoffmann’s work is reflected in an inscription in dedication to Schaudinn by the German Medical Fraternity: “Dem Forscher, der den Keim entdeckte, der Liebeslust und Menschensaat verdarb und tief die Menschheit schreckte, zum Dank für seine grosse Tat” (To the scientist who discovered the germ that marred love and progeny and frightened mankind deeply, in grateful recognition of his greatest deed). The “magic bullet” that was first found to cure syphilis is compound 606, later named Salvarsan. An arsenical arsphenamine, this compound was developed from another named atoxyl, which had been used in the treatment of trypanosomal infections such as sleeping sickness. The development of Salvarsan was the culmination of research that Paul Ehrlich began in 1874 while he was studying the chemical affinity of biological tissues for certain dyes such as aniline. It was also a departure from Ehrlich’s interest in tropical diseases, notably those of Africa, which were of concern because of the spread of imperialism by Western European governments, including Germany. While a student at the University of Strasbourg under Wilhelm Waldeyer, Ehrlich became fascinated by the reactions of dyes with biological cells and tissues. Waldeyer sparked Ehrlich’s interest in the chemical viewpoint of medicine, and as a student Ehrlich spent hours at his laboratory experimenting with different dyes on various tissues. In 1878, he published Beiträge für Theorie und Praxis der histologischen Färbung (contributions to the theory and practice of histological staining), which detailed the discriminate staining of cells and cellular components by various dyes. This study led him to his discovery of mast cells. Ehrlich joined Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, where Frerichs gave Ehrlich complete autonomy in his research and freedom 824
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Paul Ehrlich. (The Nobel Foundation)
from clinical duties. During this time, Ehrlich described and named important white-cell family members— eosinophils, neutrophils, basophils, and acidophils. In 1886, Ehrlich developed methylene blue as an important selective stain for ganglia cells and nerve endings. From 1889 to 1892, Ehrlich developed a diagnostic stain for the tubercle bacillus, the causative agent of tuberculosis, a microorganism discovered by Robert Koch in 1882. In 1904, Ehrlich developed trypan red, an effective antitrypanosomal agent of particular importance to equatorial African exploration and Western colonization. Ehrlich began studying atoxyl in 1908, the year he and Metchnikoff jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in immunity. Atoxyl was effective against trypanosome infection but also imposed serious side effects on the patient, not the least of which was a propensity to cause blindness because of its toxicity to the optic nerve. Ehrlich correctly determined the structure of atoxyl and further established that the pentavalent arsenic atom is therapeutically poor, whereas the trivalent arsenic atom is thera-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Given societal attitudes toward syphilis, some people saw the advent of Salvarsan as a challenge to divine justice against the wicked. Between 1910 and the outbreak
of World War I in 1914, Ehrlich waged an endless battle against verbal and unfounded attacks on himself and Salvarsan. He handled the scientific and medical attacks with expert authority, but he was less able and less prepared to fend off the personal attacks launched against him. Two events vindicated Salvarsan and Ehrlich. In March, 1914, the Reichstag, the German legislature, investigated the charges leveled against Salvarsan by the medical community and found the compound as effective as Ehrlich maintained. Then, in May of the same year, in a libel suit brought by the Frankfurt Hospital, the principal detractor of Salvarsan was found guilty of libel and of bribing prostitutes to falsify statements concerning the hospital’s treatment of patients with Salvarsan. The significance of the development of Salvarsan as an antisyphilitic chemotherapeutic agent cannot be overstated. The compound saved countless persons from horrible suffering and certain death. Because of his work on Salvarsan and on chemotherapy in general, Ehrlich was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 and 1913. Ehrlich’s belief that specific chemical interactions take place between cells and certain substances was pivotal to the advancement of chemotherapy research. With Ehrlich’s death in August, 1915, chemotherapy research came to a virtual standstill. The field appeared to have lost its direction, and it was several decades before any further significant advances in “wonder drugs” occurred. Then came the production of the first sulfa drug, Prontosil (sulfamidochrysoidine), in 1932 and its first clinical use in 1935. On the heels of this development came other sulfa drugs, which remained supreme in the fight against bacterial infection until they were displaced by antibiotics. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered in 1928, but it was not clinically recognized until World War II. With the introduction of streptomycin in 1943 and Aureomycin, a tetracycline, in 1944, the assault against bacteria was finally on a sound basis. Medicine possessed an arsenal with which to combat the microbes that for centuries had visited misery and death on humankind. — Eric R. Taylor Further Reading Allen, Peter Lewis. The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Discusses societal attitudes toward the victims of disease, especially sexually transmitted diseases, from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Chapter 3 looks specifically 825
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peutically superior in potency. It was Ehrlich’s study of atoxyl, and several hundred derivatives sought as alternatives to atoxyl in trypanosome treatment, that led to the development of Salvarsan. Although it was the first chemotherapeutic found to be effective against syphilis, compound 606 was discounted as an atoxyl alternative and shelved as useless for five years. The development of compound 606 was enhanced by two critical chains of events. First, Schaudinn and Hoffmann discovered that syphilis is a bacterially caused disease. The causative microorganism is a spirochete so delicate in substance that it is nearly impossible to detect through casual microscopic examination, but Schaudinn chanced on it one day in March, 1905, and this discovery led to August von Wassermann’s development of a test for syphilis—the now-famous Wassermann test. Second, Sahachiro Hata, a Japanese bacteriologist who had studied syphilis in rabbits, came to Frankfurt in 1909 to conduct research on syphilis with Ehrlich. Hata’s assignment was to test every atoxyl derivative ever developed under Ehrlich for its efficacy in syphilis treatment. After hundreds of tests and clinical trials, Ehrlich and Hata announced Salvarsan as an antisyphilitic chemotherapeutic at the April, 1910, Congress of Internal Medicine in Wiesbaden, Germany. The announcement of a cure for syphilis was electrifying, and immediately the demand for Salvarsan was overwhelming. The Höchst Chemical Company geared up for production of the drug after the Georg Speyer Haus, of which Ehrlich was director, produced about sixty-five thousand doses for distribution free of charge in 1911. The use of the new compound was not without its problems, however. Medically, administration of Salvarsan was difficult, in part because its solubility was problematic. In addition, physicians sometimes did not comply strictly with the recommended administration regimens. A few deaths resulted from the use of Salvarsan, and it was not safe for treatment of the gravely ill. Some of these problems were overcome by further research, which resulted in Neo-Salvarsan in 1912 and Sodium Salvarsan in 1913. Although Ehrlich fell short of his own assigned goal of a chemotherapeutic that would cure syphilis with one injection, he was responsible for a very great achievement in the fight against this disease.
Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis
Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis at responses to syphilis sufferers in early modern Europe. Includes bibliography and index. Bender, George A. “Ehrlich: Chemotherapy Is Launched.” In Great Moments in Medicine: A History of Medicine in Pictures. Detroit: Northwood Institute Press, 1965. Succinctly describes Ehrlich’s studies leading to his work in chemotherapy in nontechnical, clear prose. Provides brief biographical data on Ehrlich and notes the contributions of other researchers who assisted or influenced Ehrlich. Galdston, Iago. Behind the Sulfa Drugs: A Short History of Chemotherapy. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943. Chapters titled “Microbes and Dyes,” “Paul Ehrlich,” and “The Saga of Salvarsan” address Ehrlich’s work, including his interest in dyes and their reaction with cells, which formed the basis of his later work on immunity and chemotherapy. Provides a view of the field as it then existed. Klainer, Albert S., and Irving Geis. Agents of Bacterial Disease. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Discusses bacterial structure, morphology, and pathogenesis as well as various types of bacteria and their pathogenic properties and distinctions. The final chapter discusses chemotherapeutic agents. Intended for readers with some background in the biological sciences. Numerous illustrations. Marquardt, Martha. Paul Ehrlich. London: William Heinemann Medical Books, 1949. Marquardt, Ehrlich’s secretary, provides a view of the man as both scientist and human being, including his interactions with other notable researchers of his day. Gives background on the historical scientific era in which Ehrlich’s work rested.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Reinfeld, Fred. Miracle Drugs and the New Age of Medicine. New York: Sterling, 1957. Excellent introduction to the subject presented in simple terms and with many illustrations. Discusses the history of drug treatment for disease and the development of drugs such as antibiotics. Rodman, Morton J. Understanding Medications: The Hows and Whys of Drug Therapy. Oradell, N.J.: Medical Economics, 1981. Provides a discussion of the range of afflictions to which chemotherapy is applied. Describes drug interactions and contraindications. Aimed at readers with some background in biological and popular medical science. Silverstein, Arthur M. Paul Ehrlich’s Receptor Immunology: The Magnificent Obsession. New York: Academic Press, 2001. Focuses on Ehrlich’s many contributions to the field of immunology, placing them in the context of their times. Includes appendixes and indexes. Taylor, F. Sherwood. “The Rise of Chemotherapy.” In The Conquest of Bacteria: From Salvarsan to Sulphapyridine. New York: Philosophical Library, 1942. Describes Ehrlich’s development of chemotherapy, beginning with his studies on trypanosomes. Also addresses Ehrlich’s interest in hookworm, malaria, amoebic dysentery, and leprosy. See also: Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research; 1923: Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test; Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds; 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Morris Plan Bank Opens
April 5, 1910
First Morris Plan Bank Opens By fulfilling wage earners’ needs for small loans at a reasonable rate of interest, Morris Plan banks democratized the banking industry. Locale: Norfolk, Virginia Category: Banking and finance Key Figures Arthur J. Morris (1881-1973), American attorney Fergus Reid (1862-1941), American cotton merchant and financier Elgin R. L. Gould (1860-1915), president of City and Suburban Homes Company of New York
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Summary of Event On April 5, 1910, the first Morris Plan bank, the Fidelity Savings and Trust Company, opened in Norfolk, Virginia, with $20,000 in capital. The bank’s modest quarters on the sixth floor of an office building were also the law offices of its founder, Arthur J. Morris, an enterprising attorney in his late twenties. As a member of the law firm of Morris, Garnett, and Cotten of Norfolk, Morris specialized in banking and corporate law and was well acquainted with the bankers in the area. A few years earlier, Morris had been surprised to learn, when a railroad employee asked for his help in securing a personal loan to pay for surgery that the man’s wife needed, that no bank was interested in making such a loan, despite the fact that the man was steadily employed and earning a good salary. Morris got the loan for the railroad employee by agreeing to be a surety on the loan. Other requests for assistance followed, and within two years, Morris personally had guaranteed forty-two loans for a total of $26,000. These experiences inspired him to investigate the lending sources available to wage earners who lacked the collateral necessary to secure loans from banks. Through extensive investigation, Morris learned that 80 percent of the American people had no access to bank credit. Other than a few charitable organizations that made small loans to “worthy” individuals, the sources of small loans for wage earners were almost exclusively limited to family and friends, pawnbrokers, and loan sharks. Commercial banks covered the borrowing needs only of businesspeople and some affluent depositors. Having determined that there was a demand for unsecured small loans from banks or other mainstream lending institutions, Morris began to study how the demands
for such loans could be met. He found that several European countries already had a solution. In Germany, several hundred banks known as Schulze-Delitzsch served industrial and agricultural workers by making small loans and accepting small deposits. Similar banks were thriving in Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, and especially Italy, where the equivalent of millions of dollars was loaned annually by the “People’s Bank.” After spending some time in Europe investigating the operation of these small-loan banks, Morris returned to the United States and attempted to interest his banker friends in the personal loan plan he had formulated, which later came to be known as the Morris Plan. Unable to convince bankers of the feasibility of his plan, he turned to the general business community. He secured the support of several prominent Norfolk citizens who lent their financial and moral support to the incorporation of the Fidelity Savings and Trust Company, the first Morris Plan bank. A typical Morris Plan loan required two cosigners. It was discounted at the rate of 6 percent, and an additional 2 percent loan fee was charged. Thus on a loan of $100 the borrower would sign a note for $100 but receive only $92. The sum of $100 would be repaid in weekly installments of $2 each over a period of fifty weeks. Instead of repaying the loan directly, however, the borrower would make installment payments on an investment certificate. When the payments on the investment certificate equaled the amount of the loan, the loan could be canceled or a new loan made, at the option of the borrower. Another method of lending was to sell an investment certificate in a given amount on the installment plan. The investment certificate, when issued, paid interest at a higher rate than passbook savings in a conventional bank. The proceeds from the sale of these certificates helped to finance the lending activity. Holders of these certificates could obtain loans without cosigners by pledging the certificates as collateral. In both kinds of loans, a penalty of 5 percent per week was charged for delinquent payments. These cumbersome loan arrangements were necessary to circumvent the usury laws in most states, which limited the amount of interest that could be charged, typically at 6 or 8 percent per annum. Although the nominal (stated) rate on a Morris Plan loan was 6 percent, the effective rate (the rate actually charged) on outstanding balances was about 19 percent. The reason is that the
First Morris Plan Bank Opens debtor did not receive the full face amount of the loan, given that it was discounted. Furthermore, the debtor did not have the use of the money for the full term of the loan, as it had to be paid back in weekly installments. Although the Morris Plan violated the spirit of the usury laws, it made small loans available to average persons at charges that were reasonable considering the administrative costs involved in handling small installment payments. Morris and the Morris Plan banks also pioneered credit insurance. In 1917, the Morris Plan Insurance Society was established, and over the following two decades credit insurance developed into its present form, promising repayment of a loan should the borrower become unable to make payments. Credit insurance appealed to borrowers because it protected the cosigners in the event of the borrower’s death. The insurance also gave the lender additional protection. The Morris Plan soon became part of a chain operation through the establishment of Morris Plan companies in Baltimore, Maryland, and Atlanta, Georgia. By 1912, additional offices opened in Memphis, Tennessee; Richmond, Virginia; and Washington, D.C. The average loan amount was $123.50, and credit losses amounted to less than 0.1 percent. In less than 2 percent of the loans did cosigners have to make payments. Morris interested Wall Street in his idea through a friend, Fergus Reid, a prominent Norfolk financier. In February, 1914, the Industrial Finance Corporation was formed. This corporation acquired all the assets of Fidelity Savings and Trust Company together with controlling interest in fourteen Morris Plan offices located throughout the United States. Elgin R. L. Gould became the first president of the Industrial Finance Corporation, which included among the members of its first board of directors such notables as Andrew Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald, Vincent Astor, and Nicholas Murray Butler. In furnishing the capital and moral support for the corporation, their motive was primarily philanthropic: to provide people of limited finances the means to obtain small loans without pledging collateral or resorting to loan sharks. Fearing that their philanthropic motives would be questioned if the corporation was run purely as a business venture, they allowed control of the corporation to pass to the Morris group of investors. Gould and the other philanthropists quietly withdrew from the board of directors. The Morris Plan Corporation of America was incorporated in 1925 as a holding company for Morris Plan institutions. By 1937, the number of Morris Plan companies had increased to 121, and more than $4.5 billion in loans had been made to more than twenty million Ameri828
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cans. The number of bad loans was still less than 0.1 percent. In 1956, the Morris Plan Corporation of America changed its name to Finance General Corporation. The Morris Plan was operational until the 1960’s, when rising interest rates together with changes in banking and small-loan laws made it obsolete. Significance Through his Morris Plan concept, Arthur J. Morris made it possible for the average wage earner to borrow money on the basis of steady income and good character, without having to pledge collateral or pay an exorbitant rate of interest. The availability of small loans through the Morris Plan deprived many loan sharks of their prey. It was reported that in the city of St. Louis the establishment of a Morris Plan bank drove fifteen loan sharks out of business within a period of less than a year. This effect was foretold in a study of small-loan conditions and practices conducted by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1907 and 1908. The researchers concluded that the most effective way of combating abuses in the small-loan business would be to attract reputable lenders by making the small-loan business profitable. Abuses could be avoided through the implementation of strict state licensing requirements and regulation. Complicating the spread of Morris Plan companies was the lack of uniformity in state laws. In 1916, the Russell Sage Foundation, in cooperation with a moneylending group, drafted what has become known as the Uniform Small Loan Law. Under this law, as enacted in many states, a Morris Plan company had the option of incorporating as a small-loan company. Thus in some states, Morris Plan companies were incorporated voluntarily as loan companies rather than as banks. In some other states, they were required to incorporate as loan companies rather than as banks in order to make loans under the Morris Plan. Paralleling the spread of Morris Plan banks—or industrial banks, as they were generically termed—was the spread of credit unions. The first credit union in the United States was formed in 1909 in New Hampshire. Within a few years, more than one hundred credit unions were operating in six states. Morris Plan banks and credit unions performed the same functions of making small loans to those of limited means and accepting savings deposits. Credit unions, however, are cooperative associations, and their services are restricted to members of the affiliated groups. During the 1920’s, strong competition to industrial banks developed from the growth of finance companies,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Calder, Lendol. Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. Focuses on the period 1890-1940, when the legal and institutional bases of modern-day consumer credit were established. Draws on a variety of sources from the period, including personal diaries and correspondence, government and business records, newspapers, and advertisements. Cole, Robert H. Consumer and Commercial Credit Management. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1980. A
comprehensive textbook on consumer and business credit. Explains the development of consumer credit and changing attitudes of consumers, retailers, and lenders. Germain, Richard N. Dollars Through the Doors: A Pre1930 History of Bank Marketing in America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Examines trends in the marketing of U.S. banks up to the 1930’s, including developments in the services offered and in customer relations. Grant, James. Money of the Mind: Borrowing and Lending in America from the Civil War to Michael Milken. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992. A Wall Street analyst with street sense traces the long cycle of relaxation of credit practices that brought about the democratization of credit and the socialization of credit risk. Must reading for anyone who wants to probe the inner mysteries of money, credit, and banking. Harold, Gilbert. “Industrial Banks.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 196 (March, 1938): 142-148. A concise treatise on Morris Plan institutions. Although quite short, this article is one of the most particular and definitive treatments of the subject matter of industrial banking available. Klebaner, Benjamin J. American Commercial Banking. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Traces the evolution of commercial banking in the United States. The historical perspective greatly assists an understanding of the contemporary scene. Mayer, Martin. The Bankers. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1974. Interesting journey into the world of banking by a best-selling author of similar books about law, Wall Street, and Madison Avenue. The dynamic writing makes this book read like an adventure story. See also: Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; June 26, 1934: Federal Credit Union Act; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
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which made small loans and financed consumer purchases of automobiles, home appliances, and other household goods. Morris Plan companies pioneered in the field in automobile financing in 1919 with an arrangement with the Studebaker Corporation. During the 1930’s, the Morris Plan companies charged ahead in the consumer finance field. The percentage of unsecured personal loans dropped from 87 percent of the companies’ loan portfolios in 1932 to 60 percent in 1936. Most commercial banks had looked askance at the small-loan business, but the hardships of the Great Depression years of the 1930’s, coupled with low returns on government securities, caused commercial banks to open commercial loan departments. In 1935, the Bank of America, which had pioneered in offering low-cost loans since its founding in 1904, announced its willingness to finance automobiles. By 1940, commercial banks held fifteen times more consumer credit than they had in 1930. When Morris Plan banks were initiated in 1910, few wage earners could obtain loans from commercial banks; by the end of the twentieth century, few wage earners were refused a loan. Arthur J. Morris always stressed that the industrial supremacy of the United States depended on mass production, and for mass production to succeed, there must be mass consumption. Mass consumption could come about only through mass credit. Morris made consumer credit his life’s work, because he saw credit as the lever for realization of human hope. His efforts brought on the forces that democratized credit and the banking industry. —Gilbert T. Cave
First Morris Plan Bank Opens
Formation of the Union of South Africa
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 31, 1910
Formation of the Union of South Africa On May 31, 1910, four South African colonies established the Union of South Africa, a dominion within the British Empire. Locale: South Africa; London, England Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Louis Botha (1862-1919), first prime minister of South Africa, 1910-1919 Jan Christian Smuts (1870-1950), prime minister of South Africa, 1919-1924, 1939-1948 John X. Merriman (1841-1926), prime minister of Cape Colony, 1908-1910 Summary of Event On May 31, 1910, the Union of South Africa officially came into being, the result of several years of negotiations among South African politicians and between South Africa and the British government. It was an unlikely result, given the events of recent history, notably the Second Boer War (1899-1902), fought between the British and the two Boer republics—the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. The Boers, or Afrikaners, were descendants of Dutch farmers who had colonized the regions. In addition to the Boer republics, there were two British-majority colonies, Cape Colony and Natal. By the end of the war in 1902, which resulted in a hard-won British victory, some seventy-five thousand had died, including British and Boer soldiers, Afrikaner civilians incarcerated in concentration camps, and black Africans. In May, 1902, the Treaty of Vereeniging ended the conflict, with the two Boer republics agreeing to come under British sovereignty, with the promise of eventual self-government. The political future of black Africans was left in abeyance. Lord Alfred Milner had been British high commissioner and governor of Cape Colony since 1897, and in the aftermath of the war, he became high commissioner for all four colonies. He hoped to reduce the Afrikaner majority in the Transvaal through British immigration, but the campaign failed, in part because of the postwar economic depression throughout much of South Africa, but also because the Boers passionately opposed the subordination of their culture—including the use of the Afrikaans language, an evolved Dutch dialect—to English culture. Before he resigned in 1905, Milner had begun 830
the process to achieve Transvaal self-government. In the 1906 British parliamentary elections, the Liberal Party defeated the Conservative government. The new prime minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, was a critic of Britain’s Boer War concentration camp policy. Jan Christian Smuts, a former Boer general, journeyed to London and found the new Liberal government supportive of a policy of immediate self-government for the two former Boer republics, which was accomplished in the Transvaal in 1906 and in the Orange River Colony (the former Orange Free State) in 1907. The first elections in the Transvaal in 1907 resulted in the victory of the Het Volk (the People’s Party), led by Louis Botha, also a Boer general, and Smuts, with the former becoming prime minister. The pro-Boer Orangia Unie party was also victorious in the Orange River Colony. Africans (persons indigenous to South Africa) as well as Coloreds (persons of mixed “black” and other ethnic background, where the term “black” was used by those of European heritage to refer to all nonwhites) and Indians (persons of South Asian heritage) were excluded from both elec-
Louis Botha. (Library of Congress)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Formation of the Union of South Africa
Union of South Africa, 1910 Southern Rhodesia
Walvis Bay
Windhoek
Mozambique
Bechuanaland Pietersburg Gaborone
Atlantic
German Southwest Africa
Transvaal Pretoria
Johannesburg Mbabane
Swaziland
Orange Free State
Ocean
Maputo
Natal Bloemfontein
Union of South Africa
Maseru
Basutoland
Durban
Umtata
Cape Cape Town
East London Port Elizabeth
Indian Ocean 1910
tions, in spite of objections by some local English officials. Reconciliation of the English and the Afrikaners was considered a paramount goal, a policy that the British government supported in order to preserve British influence in South Africa. John X. Merriman, an Englishman who was opposed to Britain’s imperial policies, became prime minister of Cape Colony in February 1908 in an alliance between his South African Party and the Boer/Afrikaner Bund. With three of the four colonies controlled by parties opposed to long-term British rule, the movement toward political union and dominion status similar to that of Canada and Australia intensified. Even in Natal, where the British were in the majority over the Afrikaners, most whites saw greater security in union because the white population was only 10 percent of the total. Milner, while governor-general, had created an eco-
nomic customs union among the four colonies and had encouraged railroad construction, which he believed would also bring the colonies into closer collaboration. However, in the Transvaal, after self-government was achieved, Botha, under pressure to protect the colony’s farming interests from agricultural imports from Cape Colony, threatened to pull the Transvaal out of the customs union. The several railroad projects also came under attack as favoring one colony at the expense of another. It was apparent to some that without greater political union of all four colonies, deeper divisions rather than cooperation would occur. Representatives of the four colonies met at Pretoria, in the Transvaal, in May, 1908, to discuss the economic issues dividing them. There they adopted Smuts’s proposal for a national convention to draft a constitution for a united South Africa. Political union had been discussed 831
Formation of the Union of South Africa for several years, but most envisioned a federation rather than a unitary state. Smuts and Merriman came to believe that it would be best to form a single state. Merriman argued that such a state would be economically more efficient, and Smuts stated that he was afraid a federal South Africa would eventually disintegrate, noting the American Civil War as seemingly an example of failed federalism. The convention assembled at Durban, in Natal, in October, 1908. Thirty voting delegates were in attendance representing the four colonies, sixteen of British origin and fourteen Afrikaners. No Africans, Coloreds, or Indians participated. Smuts had spent the previous several months drafting a constitutional scheme, and before the convention he had secured the support of most of the leaders from his own colony, the Transvaal, as well as those of Cape Colony and the Orange River Colony. On October 13, Merriman introduced a motion to establish the Union of South Africa based on Smuts’s unitary plan, which the two had been discussing and modifying since August. Advocates of federalism were disorganized and unprepared to oppose the plan. The convention moved to Cape Town in December, where deliberations continued until February, 1909, when the delegates approved the constitution draft. After the four colonial parliaments made recommendations, the document was amended in May, and in June, 1909, the final draft was unanimously accepted by the parliaments in the two former Boer republics and was accepted with only two negative votes in the Cape Colony parliament. Natal signaled its approval by a three-to-one majority in a whites-only referendum. The constitution created a unitary rather than a federal state, with the central government having supreme power; it thus established a system similar to the British constitutional system, except with a written rather than an unwritten constitution. The new constitution could be amended by a majority vote in both houses of Parliament, except for changing the voting requirements, which required a two-thirds vote. As in Britain, the lower house, the House of Assembly, had greater authority than the upper house, the Senate. Membership in the Parliament was restricted to white men only, with each province maintaining its previous voting franchise, which meant whites only except in Cape Colony, where some propertied Africans had voting rights. The electoral districts slightly favored rural areas and thus benefited the Afrikaner farmers, and Dutch and English were made the official languages. To satisfy competing claims, it was agreed that the executive branch of the government and 832
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the civil service would be located in Pretoria, the Parliament in Cape Town, and the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein. The final draft was sent to Britain for the approval of the imperial parliament. Representatives of South Africa’s black elite, along with a few South African whites, objected to the whites-only system and sent delegations to London, where they received the editorial support of the liberal Manchester Guardian newspaper. However, opposition in the House of Commons was minimal and the British parliament approved the South African Act overwhelmingly in September. British prime minister H. H. Asquith, probably reflecting the majority sentiment, commented that he hoped that a more enlightened policy regarding native political participation might be adopted in the future. On May 31, 1910, the Union of South Africa became a legal entity with dominion status within the British Empire. Although John Merriman, Cape Colony prime minister, hoped to become the first South African prime minister, the British governor-general, Lord Gladstone, chose Louis Botha for that office. Ironically, eight years earlier Botha had been fighting the British army on the battlefield. Significance The Afrikaners Botha and Smuts became the leading figures in the new government, and they were generally supported by South Africa’s British community, particularly its business elements. The leadership of the Afrikaner diehards passed to James Barry Munnik Hertzog, who established the National Party in 1914. In 1910, the population of South Africa consisted of 1.27 million whites, 500,000 Coloreds, 150,000 Indians, and 4 million Africans. Asquith’s hopes that political and legal rights would be extended to the nonwhite majority failed to come to pass. After World War II, the whitesonly segregated rule was further institutionalized in the practice of racial apartheid, which did not end until the 1990’s with the release of black nationalist Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990 and his election in 1994 as president of a multiethnic South Africa. — Eugene Larson Further Reading Beck, Roger B. The History of South Africa. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Presents an excellent discussion of the establishment of the Union of South Africa. Includes time line, glossary, and index. Davenport, Rodney, and Christopher Saunders. South Africa: A Modern History. 5th ed. New York: St. Mar-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tin’s Press, 2000. Widely used text on South African history discusses the Union in chapter 10. Includes bibliographic notes and index. Hancock, W. Keith. Smuts: The Sanguine Years, 18701919. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Standard biography includes a detailed description of Smuts’s role in founding the Union of South Africa. Thompson, L. M. The Unification of South Africa, 19021910. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1960. The
June 25, 1910 THE FIREBIRD
The Firebird Premieres in Paris classic study of the formation of the Union of South Africa. See also: May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War; Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets; 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation; Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
Premieres in Paris
When Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes returned to Paris for a second triumphal season, the company performed original ballets by Michel Fokine, among the most important of which was The Firebird. Locale: Théâtre Nationale de l’Opéra, Paris, France Categories: Dance; music
Summary of Event In 1909, the Ballets Russes, a touring ensemble of Russian dancers under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev, astonished Parisian audiences with exquisite dancing, innovative choreography, and vibrant set decor and costumes, which were surrounded by an aura of pagan exoticism. That first season introduced the choreography of Michel Fokine and the dancing of Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, Anna Pavlova, and others, as well as the colorful set and costume designs of Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, and Nikolay Konstantinovich Roerich. Music for the ballets was equally nationalistic, featuring Russian composers Aleksandr Borodin,
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Key Figures Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario who created and directed the Ballets Russes Léon Bakst (1866-1924), Russian French painter and theatrical set designer Alexander Golovin (1863-1930), Russian painter and theatrical set designer Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (1885-1978), Russian ballet dancer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Russian American composer
Mikhail Glinka, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, and Nicholas Tcherepnin. A brilliant artistic and cultural success, the Ballets Russes’ 1909 premiere season set the stage for subsequent triumphs. The company’s second Parisian season had even more emphasis on the exotic East and mysterious Russia. Of five ballets presented in 1910, three featured Russian or Oriental themes, music, and decor: Schéhérazade, L’Oiseau de feu (known in English as The Firebird), and Les Orientales. Only Giselle and Carnaval were in the Romantic tradition. Although all five ballets displayed the celebrated technique of the company’s Mariinsky-trained dancers, ballet technique, no matter how exquisite, was not the appeal of the Ballets Russes. Rather, it was the transformation of the stage into an exotic world awash with color, motion, and brilliance, where music enveloped the senses and dancers exuded an aura of sensuous liberation, that captivated the Parisian public. The Firebird featured the choreography of Fokine, set decor and costumes by Alexander Golovin and Léon Bakst, and the music of Igor Stravinsky. The cast included Karsavina as the Bird of Fire, Fokine as Ivan Tsarevitch, Enrico Cecchetti as the evil Kostchei the Immortal, and Fokine’s wife, Vera Fokina, as the beautiful Tsarevna. The libretto, created by Fokine, is an amalgam of several Russian fairy tales. A ballet in one act and two scenes, The Firebird presents a fairy tale for adults. The story concerns the young Prince Ivan, his encounter with the glorious, magical Bird of Fire, and his battle with Kostchei, an evil magician. The plot is an allegory of heroism overcoming political tyranny, and the Tsarevitch is rewarded with marriage to the Tsarevna and the obeisance of adoring subjects.
The Firebird Premieres in Paris The Firebird opens with a musical overture. As one critic has described the work’s beginning, “There are low mutterings, mysterious long-drawn wails as of one unknown creature calling to another, the tramp of gnomes underground, strange rustlings, moans . . . and above all can be heard, at first faintly . . . the tremulous whirr of the wings of a bird soaring in circular flight.” Stravinsky’s music and Golovin’s set combined to create an atmosphere of mystery; Karsavina’s shadowy entrance completed the illusion. Fokine’s choreography explores the precariousness of individual freedom and the conflict of freedom and authority, which is represented both by Ivan, who will one day be a king, and by Kostchei, an evil tyrant who is forced from his throne. Critic Lynn Garafola has observed that when alone, “the Firebird gleams with the power of a fully realized being; captive, she reflects the tenuousness of individualism itself.” Fokine was an innovative choreographer who liberated classical ballet from its academic straitjacket. The Firebird is especially noteworthy for the use of both classical ballet technique and nontraditional movement styles. Fokine’s interest in the individual, expressivity, and naturalism were clearly evident in The Firebird. His unconventional aesthetic was matched and supported by Bakst’s designs, which bared the torsos and midriffs of the dancers. As one critic has noted, by allowing dancers to move freely, Bakst’s costumes “brought a greater psychological naturalism to the ballet stage.” A musical masterpiece, Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird marked his first composition for Diaghilev. The music incorporates traditional Russian folk songs, modified and orchestrated in a manner that presages Stravinsky’s later compositions of Petrushka (1911) and Le Sacre du printemps (1913; The Rite of Spring). Stravinsky worked in close collaboration with Diaghilev and Fokine, who, Stravinsky later wrote, created the ballet’s choreography “section by section, as the music was handed to him.” Stravinsky was later critical of Fokine’s choreography, which he asserted was complicated and overly detailed, thus making it difficult for the dancers to coordinate their movements and gestures with his music. Nevertheless, in his 1962 biography, Stravinsky credited the success of the ballet as “equally due to the spectacle on the stage in the painter Golovin’s magnificent setting, the brilliant interpretation by Diaghileff’s artists, and the talent of the choreographer.” After the ballet’s premiere, the French critic Henri Léon lavished praise on the production. Noting the unusually close collaboration of Fokine, Stravinsky, and 834
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Golovin, Léon applauded their attainment of an equilibrium of motion, sound, and form. He commented: The backdrop, shot with darker tints of gold, seems to be woven of the same yarn as the fabric of the orchestra. In the sounds of the instruments you hear the living voices of the sorcerer, raving witches and gnomes. When the bird is flying by, it makes an impression of being carried by music. In all of them—Stravinsky, Fokine and Golovin—I see one author.
It was precisely this synthesis that was the strength of the Ballets Russes and the source of the exceptional appeal of The Firebird. Significance With the success of The Firebird and the entire 1910 season, the Ballets Russes established itself as the dominant force in the realm of the ballet and its allied arts. The name Ballets Russes became synonymous with innovations in choreography, musical composition, and stage design. All things “à la Russe” were in vogue; the influence of Bakst, Benois, and Golovin was visible in the designs of everything from ottomans to evening gowns. The Firebird and subsequent “Oriental” ballets such as Petrushka, Le Dieu bleu (1912), Thamar (1912), and Sadko (1911) came to represent the Ballets Russes. The effects of the Ballets Russes on developments in the arts, society, and culture were far-reaching and long lasting. To understand the significance of The Firebird, one must understand the unique characteristics of the artists of the Ballets Russes and the philosophical antecedents of the ensemble. In the prewar seasons of the Ballets Russes (1909-1914), Diaghilev engaged Russian artists exclusively as his designers. All had been members of Mir Iskusstva (world of art), a group of Russian artists who shared a similar, progressive aesthetic. These artists believed that Russian folk arts and crafts should be supported and used to revitalize the visual arts and to create a modern, truly Russian style. They also believed in the necessity of an artistic synthesis of elements within a production, a concept that composer Richard Wagner had earlier popularized with the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Influenced by the Symbolist movement, the group saw in ballet productions the possibility for a true unity of design. The early Ballets Russes productions, in fact, were Symbolist experiments in which, as Elena Bridgman has noted, “the constituent parts—movement, costumes, decor, and music—worked en ensemble to induce specific
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preferred to choreograph for women. Fokine left the company in 1912, returning only briefly in 1914. In contrast, Stravinsky’s association with Diaghilev propelled him to the vanguard of modern art. Following The Firebird he composed Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and Les Noces (1923) for Diaghilev productions. His ballets, operas, and many compositions brought him international renown. Diaghilev’s (then uncommon) insistence that musical scores be of the highest quality for ballets elevated both arts to new heights. The success of The Firebird and other ballets of the early Ballets Russes seasons provided visual artists wide exposure and freedom to experiment. Bakst, for example, brought to his stage designs for the Ballets Russes the influence of numerous movements in contemporary European painting, including Symbolism, Art Nouveau, expressionism, and Fauvism. Some historians have speculated that the presentation of such designs in Ballets Russes performances may have encouraged the general acceptance of these artistic currents. The powerful effect of the Ballets Russes designs on the evolution of the visual arts is evident in the list of artists who chose to work with Diaghilev; after the tremendous success of Bakst, Benois, Golovin, Roerich, and Natalya Goncharova, such distinguished artists as Giacomo Balla, Juan Gris, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso made history with their designs for the company. The impacts of The Firebird on choreography, music, scenic design, and the visual arts were immediate and profound. These were, however, only a harbinger of the artistic revolution that would take place during the next few seasons of the Ballets Russes: Beginning with L’Après-midi d’un faune (1912), quickly followed by Jeux (1913) and The Rite of Spring, the Ballets Russes would catapult ballet into the modern age. — Cynthia J. Williams Further Reading Fokine, Michel. Fokine: Memoirs of a Ballet Master. Translated by Vitale Fokine, edited by Anatole Chujoy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. Fokine’s account of his early life, dance training, and rise to stardom as a choreographer. Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. 1989. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Exceptionally well-written and thorough analysis of the Ballets Russes examines the company from artistic, social, economic, and aesthetic perspectives. Provides rich and thought-provoking information on Fokine. 835
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emotional states.” Many of the principles adhered to in the early Ballets Russes productions had their origins in the art colonies established at Abramtsevo and Talashkino by Russian neonationalists Savva Mamontov and Princess Maria Tenisheva. Diaghilev borrowed the collaborative method of scenic design first established at Abramtsevo and also employed easel painters, rather than professional decorators, as stage designers. Diaghilev’s presentation of Russian culture as exotic and alien to the Western world—an approach that was enormously successful with audiences and critics, who raved about the “wild Asiatic horde”—was one of Mamontov’s important legacies. From this aesthetic perspective, Diaghilev’s productions can be viewed as visible symbols of the ideals that Mir Iskusstva championed. The Firebird, praised for its artistic harmony and collaborative unity, was the prototype for future collaborations and provided validation for the aesthetic philosophies of its artists. According to Garafola, The Firebird was the Ballets Russes’ only true example of collaborative process; Garafola suggests that “far more than collaboration, what held together the pieces of Diaghilev’s best works was the community of values to which their contributing artists subscribed.” Both the Mir Iskusstva ideals and method of process were validated through the success of the company’s 1910 season. In The Firebird, Fokine’s revolutionary choreographic aesthetic continued to develop. He attacked the stale, academic conventions of the Russian Imperial Ballet and created new forms of movement that were expressive and reflective of the time, place, and ethos of each ballet. He brought new life and enhanced expressiveness to the use of the arms and torso in dance, discarded the artificial geometry of a regimented corps de ballet, and democratized and humanized his dancers by insisting that they move as a collective of individuals. His reforms paralleled those of Konstantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theater; both believed in the principles of scenic realism and worked to promote reform from within their disciplines. It is ironic that the very success of The Firebird presaged the beginning of Fokine’s choreographic decline. Locked into the creation of exotic pagan extravaganzas because of their popularity, Fokine increasingly (with the exception of his masterpiece Petrushka) produced formulaic work. Diaghilev’s enthusiasm for sensationalism and for his young protégé Vaslav Nijinsky made further difficulties for Fokine. Fokine was expected to create ballets that would feature Nijinsky, even though he
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U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established _______. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. A selection of essays and reviews by one of the most influential scholars of the history of dance. Covers the transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early twentieth century. Includes many photographs. _______, ed. The Ballets Russes and Its World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Collection of fourteen essays on the history and importance of the Ballets Russes by dance and music scholars and critics. Includes illustrations and bibliography. Kochno, Boris. Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Translated by Adrienne Foulke. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Contains photographs, excerpts from letters, program notes, and unpublished essays by Diaghilev and his contemporaries. Provides less documentation of the early seasons of the Ballets Russes than for later ones, but covers every ballet produced by the company from 1909 to 1929. Pozharskaia, Militsa, and Tatiana Volodina. The Art of the Ballets Russes. Translated by V. S. Friedman. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990. Emphasizes costume, set, and stage design rather than choreography or dancing. Minimal but informative text accompa-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nies beautiful photographs, many in color. Arranged chronologically to display the productions of the Ballets Russes in its Paris seasons from 1908 to 1929. Includes a foreword by Clement Crisp and an annotated list of artists. Van Norman Baer, Nancy, comp. Art of Enchantment: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909-1929. New York: Universe Books, 1988. Catalog of an exhibition of Ballets Russes artifacts at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Excellent articles by various authors accompany photographs of the exhibition material. Nancy Van Norman Baer’s article on design and choreography and Dale Harris’s essay titled “Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the Vogue for Orientalism” provide useful information on the exotic ballets of the prewar seasons. Includes a chronological table of Ballets Russes productions. See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; May 29, 1912: L’Aprèsmidi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet.
July 1, 1910
U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established The U.S. government established the Bureau of Mines as part of the Department of the Interior in order to promote mine safety and improve mining practices. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; organizations and institutions; business and labor; natural resources Key Figures Joseph A. Holmes (1859-1915), American geologist Frederick Gardner Cottrell (1877-1948), American chemistry professor Summary of Event The U.S. government’s motivation for creating the Bureau of Mines was to prevent disastrous mining accidents such as those that had been occurring with regularity at the beginning of the twentieth century. The statistics were horrible. Between 1890 and 1906, a total of 22,840 coal miners were killed in fatal accidents in U.S. mines. 836
In December, 1907, a series of explosions in coal mines shocked the entire nation. Some 500 miners were killed in two mines in West Virginia, and 75 miners were buried alive in Alabama. A total of 3,200 miners were killed in that year, half of them in Pennsylvania. Such accidents were attributed to ignorance of the dangers of flammable dusts in the mines and of the safety precautions that should be observed in the use of explosives. Regulations were scarce, and no mechanism was in place to enforce proper safety procedures. The U.S. Congress created the Technological Branch of the Geological Survey expressly to conduct investigations of mine explosions in order to increase safety in mining. In 1908 and 1909, three programs within that branch were implemented—testing of fuels, testing of structural materials, and safety investigations—with a total appropriation of $500,000. The Bureau of Standards took on the function of testing structural materials; little was done to test fuels, because the public was preoccupied with safety considerations. The focus of the Bu-
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Significance World War I, the Great Depression of the 1930’s, and World War II all acted to enlarge the role of government in American life. The Bureau of Mines partook of the cultural environment of the times, assuming an increasingly activist role of its own. At the beginning of World War II, mine safety inspections became a regular responsibility of the bureau. The New Deal Congress authorized federal agents to enter coal mines to look for health and safety problems. Negative findings in these early inspections carried no sanctions, but the publicity that accompanied the resulting reports gradually affected public opinion. Miners’ unions followed the government’s lead and formed unionselected mine safety committees to inspect mines. The unions recommended safety reforms to management and
ordered miners out of areas considered hazardous. The authority of the Bureau of Mines was increased in 1952, when Congress created the Federal Coal Mine Safety Board of Review. Federal inspectors began making annual inspections of mines except in areas where state-run safety programs had been approved. The federal mine inspectors could order the immediate evacuation of any mine they judged to be unsafe. A disastrous mine explosion provided the catalyst for the most comprehensive and sweeping occupational health and safety legislation in American mining history. In November, 1968, seventy-eight men were killed in a coal mining accident in West Virginia. The chairman of the coal company involved conceded publicly that, given the industry’s poor safety record, much stricter health and safety regulations were needed. Profit was not a factor, he maintained, because the most profitable companies had the best safety records. The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, which Congress passed by nearly unanimous vote, provided for civil and criminal penalties for violations of the law and tightened requirements concerning methane gas and electrical equipment and wiring used in mines. The act prohibited underground smoking and the use of open flames and also mandated significant improvements in mine ventilation systems and underground shelters for refuge in case of explosions. The new regulations required shelters to contain stores of food and water as well as supplies of air. Efforts were also made to control black lung, a potentially disabling mining-related illness. In 1973, the Bureau of Mines lost its responsibility for health and safety enforcement in mines when those functions were transferred to the newly created Mine Safety and Health Administration of the Department of Labor. The Bureau of Mines retained its traditional responsibility for energy, metallurgical, and mining research. Four years later, all matters related to the safety of mine workers were brought together in the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. In September, 1995, Congress voted to close the Bureau of Mines and transfer many of its functions to other federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Energy took over specific health, safety, and materials programs formerly run by the bureau, and the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management became responsible for minerals information activities. The 1910 law that established the Bureau of Mines laid the foundation for ensuing developments in mine safety. The bureau encouraged the production of needed minerals, and its research and development work helped 837
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reau of Mines, which was established as part of the Department of the Interior effective July 1, 1910, was thus on safety matters. The bureau’s emphasis was on research and analysis, not on proscription and enforcement. This emphasis was reflected in the personnel chosen to lead the bureau in its early days. Joseph A. Holmes, the first director of the Bureau of Mines, had a background in research and academics. University of California chemistry professor Frederick Gardner Cottrell, who attempted to bring government and industry together in his work for the Bureau of Mines and for the Anaconda Copper Company, also had a research background. It was assumed that, given the proper information and techniques, mining companies would voluntarily improve safety standards without government coercion or regulation. State authorities, not federal authorities, had responsibility for whatever regulations were in place. The initial emphasis of the Bureau of Mines, moreover, was on coal mining, not on the mining of metals. By 1915, the bureau was certifying explosives as safe for use in coal mines and was testing electrical equipment to determine whether it was safe to use in gas-filled environments. Within only a few years, the bureau established stations devoted to mine safety and mining experiments throughout the United States. It worked with universities to conduct investigations into mining accidents, the results of which were publicized. During World War I, the Bureau of Mines played an important role in research and development for the war effort because of the advanced knowledge of chemicals and explosives it had developed. The bureau contributed significantly to research on poison gas and on the production of helium, an inert gas used to inflate airships and balloons.
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Japanese Annexation of Korea to make that production more efficient and profitable, but it was the bureau’s preoccupation with mine safety that received the most publicity. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, 305 coal mining accidents and 51 other (metal and nonmetal) mine disasters were recorded. In the Monongah coal mine explosion of 1907 alone, 362 persons died. In contrast, in the last quarter of the twentieth century only 14 coal mine disasters and a single other mining disaster occurred, taking a total 158 lives. The bureau’s mine safety research and advances in technology, safety regulations, and preventive measures contributed to substantial reduction of both the incidence and severity of mining disasters. —William H. Burnside Further Reading Dupree, A. Hunter. Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1957. A classic, welldocumented study of the relationship between politics and the development of science in the United States beginning with President Thomas Jefferson and continuing to 1940.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Powell, Fred W. The Bureau of Mines: Its History, Activities, and Organization. 1922. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1974. The standard history of the early years of the Bureau of Mines. Walker, David A. “Bureau of Mines.” In Government Agencies, edited by Donald R. Whitnah. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. A good basic summary of the history of the Bureau of Mines. Shows the relationship between mine safety and the increased authority of the Bureau of Mines. Includes bibliography. Wilson, James Q., ed. The Politics of Regulation. New York: Basic Books, 1980. Deals in general terms with government regulation, not specifically with the Bureau of Mines. The most significant portions of the book address the relationship between politics and regulation. See also: May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands; Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal; Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster.
August 22, 1910
Japanese Annexation of Korea Japan forced Korean officials to acknowledge a series of questionable if not illegal treaties, culminating in the Annexation Treaty of 1910, which formally ceded Korean sovereignty to the empire of Japan. Also known as: Annexation Treaty Locale: Korea Categories: Colonialism and occupation; diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Kojong (1852-1919), emperor of Korea, r. 1864-1907 Sunjong (1874-1926), emperor of Korea, r. 1907-1910 Itf Hirobumi (1841-1909), Japanese resident general in Korea and former prime minister, 1885-1888, 18921896, 1898, and 1900-1901 Terauchi Masatake (1852-1919), Japanese resident general in Korea Yi Wan-yong (1858-1926), prime minister of Korea, 1907-1910 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 838
Summary of Event In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out, a war in which Korea and its territory were part of the stakes. Russia southward advances and Japan’s incursion onto the continent brought the two countries to a collision course on the Korean peninsula. Surprisingly, the war turned in Japan’s favor. In May, 1905, near Tsushima Island, the Japanese navy defeated a Russian armada that had come all the way from the Baltic Sea, halfway around the world. During the Russo-Japanese War and thereafter, Japan imposed numerous treaties on Russia and Korea, each time infringing further on Korean territories. Concerned with Japanese aggressions, the head of the American legation in Seoul, Horace N. Allen, asked his government to intercede on Korea’s behalf. It was President Theodore Roosevelt’s opinion, however, that Japanese domination over Korea was an appropriate safeguard against Russian expansion. Great Britain, too, was eager to block Russia’s advance and allied with Japan. Britain and the United States saw Russia’s defeat to be more advantageous to their respective countries. The
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creasing public awareness of the treaty. In mortification and despair, Prince Min Yo ng-hwan and other high officials took their lives. The emperor announced in a letter of February 1, 1906, in the English-language newspaper Korea Daily News, that he had not consented to the treaty and that it was sealed illegally. In June, 1907, the Second Hague Peace Conference was held in the Netherlands. The emperor gave credentials to three envoys, Yi Sang-so l, Yi Jun, and Yi Wijong, and dispatched them to appeal to the international community for assistance. However, Korea was not allowed to participate in the conference, because under the terms of the Protectorate Treaty it no longer had sovereign power or authority over its own diplomatic affairs. The envoys protested that without the seal of the emperor, the treaty was not valid, but to no avail. One of the envoys, Yi Jun, overcome by grief, died at the Hague. However, the event succeeded in exposing the illegal nature of Japanese conduct, which generated worldwide condemnation. The furious Japanese used the Hague incident as an excuse further to tighten their grip on Korea. Japan blamed the emperor for the incident and demanded that he accept responsibility by yielding his throne to his son, the crown prince. When the emperor refused, Japan forced Kojong to designate the prince to rule as regent, ruling in his place, an unprecedented event in the annals of Korean history. There had never been a case of a prince acting as regent for his reigning father. Nevertheless, under great pressure, the emperor finally agreed to allow his son to be named regent, only to find that his acquiescence was manipulated by the Japanese into a full abdication of his throne to the prince. By the time he realized what was happening, however, it was too late to prevent it. Thus, one month after the Hague incident, Prince Sunjong became the twenty-seventh and final monarch of the Choso n Dynasty. When the news was made public, there was again public uproar and demonstrations. Two years later, in 1909, the main orchestrator of the Protectorate Treaty, Itf Hirobumi, was assassinated by An Jung-gu n at Halbin Railroad Station in Manchuria. The next Japanese resident general in Korea, Terauchi Masatake, was sent to the country for the express purpose of securing another forced treaty—this time one agreeing to the complete annexation of Korea by Japan. Upon his arrival, Terauchi suspended the publication of all newspapers to prevent the public from discovering Japan’s plans. He drafted the Annexation Treaty together with Prime Minister Yi Wan-yong. In addition to coauthoring the treaty, Yi Wan-yong—rather than the em839
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United States had its own ambitions for Southeast Asia and thought it necessary tacitly to permit Japan’s domination of Korea in return for Japan’s recognition of U.S. hegemony over the Philippines. Therefore, in the secret Taft-Katsura Agreement of July, 1905, the U.S. secretary of war, William Howard Taft, and Japanese prime minister Katsura Taro stipulated that Japan would have a free hand in Korea and that the U.S. would have equal freedom from outside interference in the Philippines. Next, in September, 1905, with President Roosevelt as a mediator, Russia and Japan concluded the Portsmouth Treaty, thereby ending the Russo-Japanese War. Roosevelt won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation of the treaty. Japan’s victory over Russia was another milestone not just for Japan but also for Korea; it brought Japan’s scheme to annex Korea one step closer to fruition. By the Taft-Katsura Agreement, Japan was guaranteed special favor in Korea’s politics, economy, and military affairs and received the right to guide, protect, and supervise the Korean people. After Japan attained this control over Korea, it formed a pro-Japanese group in Korea, called Il-jin-hoe, in preparation for the next treaty, the so-called Protectorate Treaty of November 17, 1905. To obtain the Protectorate Treaty for his government, Japan’s resident military commander in Korea, Itf Hirobumi, appeared at the Korean emperor’s palace with his troops in tow. He threatened Emperor Kojong and his ministers and demanded that they sign the treaty. When they refused, Itf had his troops drag the prime minister, Han Kyu-so l, out of the room, sent his soldiers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fetch the official seal, and personally affixed the seal to the treaty. The Protectorate Treaty was “signed” in this manner at about 1:00 a.m. on November 18, 1905. Japan then announced to the world that the agreement had been accepted “voluntarily” by the Koreans. The treaty stipulated that Japan would take complete control of Korea’s foreign affairs: Korea thus lost the ability to enter into any treaty with any other country without the Japanese government’s approval. A Japanese governor-general was placed at the Korean Imperial court to enforce this provision: The governorgeneral handled Korea’s foreign affairs. The reaction to the Protectorate Treaty was tremendous. The treaty caused wrath from the entire Korean population. There came endless memorials to the emperor, protests and demonstrations against the Japanese “protectorate” were held, and guerrilla movements arose throughout the country to fight the Japanese. In spite of strict censorship, Korea’s newspapers took the lead in in-
Japanese Annexation of Korea
Japanese Annexation of Korea peror—signed the document on August 22, 1910, making himself infamous in the annals of Korea. The treaty officially ended Korea’s status as an independent country. Yi Wan-yong, the national traitor who had sold his country, continued to serve under the new Japanese rule. He was attacked by a compatriot and his house was burned down. The Annexation Treaty consisted of eight articles, but its central stipulations were that “Korea makes complete and permanent cession to Japan of all rights of sovereignty over the whole of Korea” and “Japan assumes the entire government and administration of Korea.” Fearful of an outburst by the populace following the Annexation Treaty’s signing, it was not announced immediately to the nation. A week later, on August 29, Emperor Sunjong was forced to announce the annexation and relinquish both his throne and his country. Thus ended the Choso n Dynasty, which had been founded by General Yi So nggae in 1392, had lasted 518 years, and was served by twenty-seven sovereigns. Significance Japan’s desire to annex Korea went back at least as far as 1572, when Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi had invaded the country. The 1910 annexation was thus the culmination of more than three hundred years of overt and covert maneuvering by Japan. After it was completed, Japan tried to assimilate Koreans under the slogan Nai-Senittai (“Japan and Korea are one entity”). To carry out this assimilationist policy, throughout the thirty-five years of its imperial rule over Korea, Japan banned all forms of Korean cultural expression that might be considered nationalistic, and Koreans were forced to change their names to resemble those of their Japanese rulers. Japan aimed at the total eradication of a Korean national consciousness. Instead, the annexation awoke otherwise-complaisant Koreans and spurred a major independence movement in 1919 called the March 1 Independence Movement. This spontaneous national movement surprised the whole world and shocked Japan. Japan’s response, however,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was severe, as the Korean independence movement was suppressed with an unprecedented level of brutality and atrocity. — Hwa Soon Choi Meyer Further Reading Dudden, Alexis. Japan’s Colonization of Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Boldly calls Korea after the 1905 Protectorate Treaty “Illegal Korea,” yet fails to emphasize the illegal status of the treaty itself. Lacks scholarly objectivity. Hatada, Takashi. A History of Korea. Translated and edited by Warren W. Smith, Jr., and Benjamin H. Hazard. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio Press, 1969. Presents Korean history from the Japanese perspective, a perspective counter to that of the Dudden work cited above. Hulbert, Homer B. Hulbert’s History of Korea. 2 vols. Edited by Clarence N. Weems. New York: Hillary House, 1962. History after the year 1904 appears in the “Editor’s Profile of Hulbert” section, which deals with Hulbert’s involvement as Emperor Kojong’s adviser and confidant until 1909. Lee, Ki-baik. A New History of Korea. Translated by Edward W. Wagner. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. General history of Korea with good coverage of the Japanese advance on Korea during the nineteenth century. McKenzie, F. A. Korea’s Fight for Freedom. 1920. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1970. Chronicles the personal observations of what the Japanese were actually doing in Korea during the occupation. Written from the perspective of a supporter of Japan. See also: Jan. 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets; Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War; Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine; Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed
October 5, 1910
Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed The proclamation of the establishment of the Republic of Portugal began that nation’s ill-fated first experiment with democratic rule. Locale: Lisbon, Portugal Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Teófilo Braga (1843-1924), provisional president of the Republic of Portugal, 1910-1911 Carlos I (1863-1908), king of Portugal, r. 1889-1908 Manuel II (1889-1932), king of Portugal, r. 1908-1910 António Machado Santos (1875-1921), leader of a secret Portuguese society of radical Republicans Afonso Augusto da Costa (1871-1937), leader of the Portuguese radical Democratic Party Manuel José de Arriaga (1842-1917), first constitutional president of the Republic of Portugal, 1911-1915 Sidónio Pais (1872-1918), Portuguese Republican who led a coup in 1917
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Summary of Event In the late nineteenth century, successive governments in Portugal were beset with difficulties that were primarily economic in nature. Portugal had been unable to balance its budget since it lost Brazil to independence in 1822, and the legacy of civil war added to the national debt. Attempts to develop Portuguese African territories into an economic asset had contributed to loss of government prestige because British achievements in South Africa had forestalled Portuguese success. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the rise of a small socialist party pointed up the need for extensive reform within Portuguese society. Government tenure was based on corruption, and all elections were decided in advance at Lisbon in imitation of the Spanish “cacique” system. The members of a small Republican movement protested against this corruption, but most of their anger was reserved for the Roman Catholic clergy. The distinguishing characteristic of the movement, which was founded by Teófilo Braga, a scholarly, intellectual liberal, was a virulent anticlericalism. Carlos I, who had become king of Portugal in 1889, could not cope with these problems, and his ministers could not solve them. By 1905, the clamor for reform led many observers to believe that the monarchy would soon
be overthrown. In 1908, Carlos and his heir were assassinated. Carlos’s second son, a young man with neither the training nor the inclination to rule Portugal, ascended the throne as Manuel II. The Republicans increased their agitation, and, together with the Carbonaria, a secret society of radicals led by António Machado Santos, they were mainly responsible for the overthrow of the government. These groups forced Manuel into exile and proclaimed the Republic of Portugal on October 5, 1910. Braga was named provisional president, and a constituent assembly was called to draft a republican constitution. From the beginning, the Republic of Portugal was plagued by problems. The Portuguese Republican Party split into factions: a moderate group led by Machado and a radical group that separated and became the Democratic Party, led by Afonso Augusto da Costa, the minister of justice in the new regime. Political fighting between the Democrats and moderate Republicans occupied time and energy that might otherwise have been devoted to constructive reform. With the support of his colleagues, Costa undertook a massive anticlerical campaign even before the Cortes Gerais (the Portuguese parliament) drafted a constitution. The state was separated from the Roman Catholic Church, clerical property was nationalized, the Jesuits were expelled, all monastic orders were dissolved, and complete state control of all education was decreed. After this first onrush of anticlerical activity, the moderate Republicans decided to defend the church and thereby increased the tensions between the two parties. In 1911, a constitution was drafted and promulgated. Primarily a moderate document, it established a republican parliamentary system of government. Strikes by labor were permitted, and industrial turmoil increased as the proletariat demonstrated against the government’s inaction regarding labor and social reform. The monarchists also began to agitate, and royalist plots caused great concern to the Republicans during the early years of the republic. Manuel José de Arriaga was named president of the republic after the constitution was in place, but he could do little to provide political peace. Costa’s Democrats alternated in power with the moderate Republicans, but the main issue between the two parties concerned anticlericalism. Scant attention was given to fiscal problems or social reform.
Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed In 1916, the Portuguese government joined the Allies in declaring war on Germany and sent troops to the western front. Historians have speculated as to the motivations for Portugal’s sudden entry into World War I. The most likely explanations include fear of potential German annexation of the African colonies of Portuguese West Africa (now Angola) and Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique), the traditional Portuguese alliance with Great Britain, and Portugal’s desire to differentiate itself from its Iberian rival, Spain, which was neutral in the war. Portugal was ill prepared for war, and tensions within the nation increased. In December, 1917, the Portuguese army decided to intervene in politics. In a coup led by Major Sidónio Pais, the military overthrew the government and established a dictatorship, installing Pais as president. This desperate act still did not solve Portugal’s problems. Significance As admirable as the first Portuguese experiment in democracy was (and it should be remembered that in 1910 Portugal became only the third republic in Europe, following France and Switzerland), it possessed a fundamental flaw: The Portuguese people as a whole did not accept the republican constitution. The new constitution represented only one part of Portuguese society, the liberal, anticlerical current; it tended to exclude others, particularly those with more conservative viewpoints, such as many who resided in Portugal’s rural northern provinces. Rather than being seen as a neutral vehicle through which parties of both left and right could vie for elective power, the republican constitution was perceived as a vehicle only for the promotion of a moderately liberal, anticlerical viewpoint. Thus the coups of Pais and later strongmen were seen less as violations of a democratic order than as partisan interventions against an already partisan system. The Republic of Portugal was not a total failure, however. First of all, it permanently overthrew the longestablished Bragança Dynasty and a tradition of Portuguese monarchy dating back eight centuries. Unlike in Spain, where the Bourbon Dynasty was restored in name and later in fact, Portuguese monarchists never returned to power. Most important, the first republic served as a
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 crucial precedent for the time, after the overthrow of the military government in 1974, when Portugal was finally ready to become a stable multiparty democracy. — José M. Sánchez and Nicholas Birns Further Reading Anderson, James M. The History of Portugal. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Concise history includes a time line, biographical sketches of important persons, glossary, bibliographic essay, and index. Chapter 8 is devoted to the period of Portugal’s first republic. Bragança-Cunha, Vicente de. Revolutionary Portugal: 1910-1936. London: James Clarke, 1937. Useful source for facts and opinions, although outdated in analytic terms and prejudiced by a monarchist viewpoint. Gallagher, Tom. Portugal: A Twentieth-Century Interpretation. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1983. A spirited, razor-sharp account of twentieth century Portuguese politics. Livermore, H. W. A New History of Portugal. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1976. The standard history of Portugal available in English. Provides a reliable, if unexciting, account. Opello, Walter. Portugal: From Monarchy to Pluralist Democracy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991. Situates Portugal’s first republic in the context of the political developments of the twentieth century. Schwartzman, Kathleen. The Social Origins of Democratic Collapse: The First Portuguese Republic in the Global Economy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989. Takes a sociological look at unstable democracies, using republican Portugal as an example. Wheeler, Douglas L. Republican Portugal: A Political History, 1910-1926. 1978. Reprint. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. A thorough history of the years of Portugal’s first republic. See also: May 13-Oct. 17, 1917: Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-enLaye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Mexican Revolution
Mid-October, 1910-December 1, 1920
Mexican Revolution Conflict in Mexico resulted in a new collectivist constitution and elected governments. Also known as: Revolution of 1910 Locale: Mexico Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics
Summary of Event In 1876, Mexico came under the governance of Porfirio Díaz, whose stated aim was the restoration of constitutional government. Historians generally agree that the Mexican government during Díaz was autocratic, arbitrary, and repressive. His program might be described as one of “scientific” development of Mexico, and in an effort to meet those goals, he allowed the suppression of the political rights and the denial of the economic rights of large sections of Mexican society. To bring about the development of Mexico, Díaz invited the investment of foreign capital under conditions that were extremely favorable to the investors. The economic penetration of foreign investors, especially from the United States, occurred in the areas of railroads, mining, and—most significant from the perspective of the Mexican Revolution—petroleum and land. Despite the economic development achieved in this
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1910
Key Figures Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915), president of Mexico, 18761880 and 1884-1911 Francisco Madero (1873-1913), Mexican revolutionary and president of Mexico, 1911-1913 Victoriano Huerta (1854-1916), provisional president of Mexico, 1913-1914 Pancho Villa (Doroteo Arango; 1878-1923), Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), Mexican revolutionary leader Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), president of Mexico, 1915-1920 Adolfo de la Huerta (1881-1955), provisional president of Mexico, June-November, 1920 Álvaro Obregón (1880-1928), president of Mexico, 1920-1924 Plutarco Elías Calles (1877-1945), president of Mexico, 1924-1928 Lázaro Cárdenas (1895-1970), president of Mexico, 1934-1940
way, and its social ramifications, the suppression of political rights led to the Mexican Revolution. As such, one could describe the revolution in its initial stage as liberal in character. As the Díaz regime aged, it became subject to much criticism, particularly for its authoritarian political nature, its exclusion from political office of all except a few favored men, and its suppression of labor in favor of foreign investors. As the 1910 elections approached, for public relations purposes Díaz gave an interview to Joel Creelman, an American newspaper reporter, in which he declared that Mexico was ready for a system that included political opposition. Francisco Madero took the president at his word and declared his candidacy for the presidency of Mexico in 1910. Madero came from a wealthy landowning family in the Mexican state of Coahuila that had benefited from and cooperated with the Díaz regime in its early years. Like other prominent families, however, the Madero family and especially Francisco had become disfranchised, dissatisfied, and embittered. Madero was a peculiar man, very intense, almost a mystic, and he obviously took himself seriously. He wanted to be president in order to achieve the reforms that he believed were essential for the progress of Mexico. In 1909, he criticized the Díaz regime and made particular reference to the repeated reelection of the president. Arrested on June 14 for this insubordination, Madero was placed in jail at San Luis Potosí and Díaz was declared reelected. Madero managed to escape from confinement in mid-October, when he issued his Plan of San Luis Potosí, in which he declared the election fraudulent and called for “effective suffrage, no reelection,” a political tenet honored thereafter in Mexico: Presidents cannot succeed themselves, and since 1929 they have been limited to a single term in office. Madero’s challenge to Díaz can be called the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Madero asserted that the people were seeking political freedom and not bread, and he called for armed revolt, which he promoted with the aid of guerrilla fighters in late 1909 and early 1910. These actions opened the gates to full-scale opposition to Díaz. In 1911, the regime collapsed, and Díaz went into exile. Madero was elected the new president, but his presidency was ineffectual. Rather than peace and stability, the result was continued rebellion. Both reformers and conservatives fought against the Madero administration.
Mexican Revolution
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
mixed blood and uncertain of his origins; although he is often described The Mexican Revolution’s numerous and complex causes and its long duration as a bandit, his personal magnetism meant that a number of groups competed for power, and alliances often shifted. and ambition caused him to join The revolution’s major participants included the following groups: forces with other revolutionists in an attempt to seize political power. • Carrancistas: Revolutionary followers of Venustiano Carranza during the Carranza, a man of Spanish extracperiod 1913-1914 and President Carranza’s government army until his tion from the upper class, was above death in 1920 all else an ardent Mexican national• Constitutionalists: All anti-Huerta forces until Villa and Zapata broke ist. His followers possessed the most away to form their own movements, then followers of Carranza talent and organizational skill of any • Conventionalists: Supporters of the Convention of Aguas Calientes (OctoberNovember 1914), which called for the overthrow of Carranza; included of the revolutionary groups. Villistas and Zapatistas These revolutionary forces worked • Federales: President Huerta’s Federal Army (although all government to overthrow Huerta, and with the troops were known as Federales in the period 1910-1920) aid of the United States they were • Felicistas: Followers of Felix Díaz, nephew of former president Porfirio successful and collectively took conDíaz trol of the government, with Huerta • Maderistas: Revolutionary armies loyal to Francisco Madero in 1910-1911 as provisional president. The United • Magonistas: Followers of Ricardo Flores Magón, leader of the military States, under the leadership of Presiwing of the Partido Liberal Mexicano dent Woodrow Wilson, gave assis• Orozquistas: Followers of Pascual Orozco, also known as the Colorados tance to the revolutionary forces in (Red Flaggers) two ways: First, Wilson opened the • Villistas: Followers of Pancho Villa • Zapatistas: Followers of Emiliano Zapata borders and permitted aid to flow to the revolutionaries in the north of Mexico; and second, in April of 1914, U.S. forces intervened at Veracruz. Finally, reactionary elements, working with General The U.S. Marines took the city and in so doing inflicted Victoriano Huerta, plotted a successful coup d’état in casualties numbering in the hundreds, including many February, 1913, in which Madero and his vice president civilians of both sexes. A public outcry was raised against were murdered. General Huerta’s attempt to reestablish the United States, but Huerta was not able to garner addithe old regime caused immediate reaction in several sectional support. tions of the country. The most significant of these were a An important effect of the American occupation of revolt in the south led by Emiliano Zapata, an uprising in Veracruz was loss of funds for the Huerta government, bethe north led by Pancho Villa, and a constitutionalist recause the customhouse at Veracruz was the government’s volt in the north, which ultimately assumed legitimate chief source of revenue. In addition, military supplies for power in Mexico. the Huerta government came in through the port, so those The armed uprisings against Huerta can only loosely supplies were cut off. In July, 1914, Huerta resigned and be called coordinated. Zapata, who remains a mythic figfled the country, but the leaders of the three forces opposure in Mexico, issued his Plan of Ayala, which called for ing Huerta began to fight among themselves. major agrarian reform. This revolt was centered in the Carranza and the constitutionalists prevailed for two southern state of Morelos and was essentially an Indianreasons. One was the extraordinary talent of Carranza’s and peasant-based action. Villa led his personal revolt ally Álvaro Obregón, and the other was the decision of from the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Venusthe Wilson administration to extend de facto recognition tiano Carranza, who led the third important group, issued to Carranza’s regime in October, 1915 (an action that has the Plan of Guadalupe, which called for the restoration of been cited as the cause of the Villa raid on Columbus, constitutional government in keeping with Madero’s New Mexico, which led to the Pershing expedition of Plan of San Luis Potosí. 1916-1917). It is safe to say that the defeat of Villa at Together, these three men reflect the roots of the enorCelaya and the recognition of Carranza by the United mous struggle that today is called the Mexican RevoStates mark the ascendancy of the constitutionalists and, lution. Zapata was of Indian extraction. Villa was of therefore, the turning point in the Mexican Revolution.
Major Participants in the Mexican Revolution
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In 1916, Carranza authorized the calling of a constitutional convention that went well beyond the Plan of San Luis Potosí to incorporate more revolutionary ideas, including land reform, labor reform, reform of the extractive industries, anticlerical reform, and nationalistic restrictions on foreigners and foreign capital. The new constitution, which took effect in May of 1917, established the first major modern socioeconomic instrument for the transformation of Mexican society. Among the more significant provisions of the Constitution of 1917 were Article XXVII, which dealt with many of the basic socioeconomic demands of the revolution, such as again nationalizing subsoil mineral rights and restoration of the ejidos, or communal lands of Indian villages, and Article CXXIII, which dealt with the rights of labor. Carranza was not committed to many of the radical goals incorporated into the constitution. He was criticized for not fulfilling many of the promises he had made since 1913, and he was also blamed for the lack of stability and order in the country, as civil war, banditry, and corruption continued. Carranza had other difficulties as well. Villa and
Mexican Revolution Zapata remained armed challengers of his authority, and the president did not continue to have the assistance of Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles, who had retired to Sonora. In 1919, Carranza “solved” the Zapata problem by permitting the assassination of Zapata. The next administration solved the Villa problem first by buying Villa off and then by assassinating him. In addition, Carranza faced strong opposition from reactionary elements who worked to overthrow his presidency and reestablish order as known in the period preceding 1910. Carranza selected a surrogate, Ignacio Bonillas, to succeed him on December 1, 1920. The logical candidate for the presidency was Obregón, a national hero known in Mexico as a “genius in war and peace.” Indeed, Obregón had announced his own candidacy in June, 1919. In an attempt to frustrate that candidacy, Carranza ordered federal troops to move into Sonora, the base of Obregón’s power. Within two days, a new revolutionary movement emerged, led by the so-called Sonora Clique of Obregón, Calles, and Governor Adolfo de la Huerta of Sonora, who wrote the Plan of Agua Prieta, which attacked Carranza and achieved wide sup-
1910
General Venustiano Carranza (bearded) sits and relaxes in a field with some of his followers. (Library of Congress)
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Mexican Revolution port. Carranza fled the capital and was killed by pursuing forces on May 21, 1920. Adolfo de la Huerta assumed the provisional presidency until November 30, 1920. While in office, he made an accommodation with Villa that brought an end to the latter’s antigovernment activities. Obregón was elected president of Mexico and assumed office on December 1, 1920. His election marked the end of the violent stage of the Mexican Revolution. His government brought calm to the country and, although he was a compromiser, compliance with the purposes of the revolution. Significance The tasks faced by the Obregón administration were not simple or easy: pacification of the countryside, reform of the society, consolidation of power, and attainment of recognition for the government by the United States. When he left office in 1924, Obregón could claim considerable success. Although he had not fully accomplished all fundamental reforms, he had established a base from which future administrations could and did take major actions. Plutarco Calles, who succeeded Obregón in 1924, was considered a radical by landowners, industrialists, and clergy. Calles continued or initiated programs of land reform, labor reforms, and anticlerical reform. Between 1926 and 1929, the Cristero War was fought unsuccessfully by the Roman Catholic Church and its supporters to preserve the wealth and power of the church. Calles had become a repressive dictator by the end of his term in 1928 and continued to exercise political power after he left office. Lázaro Cárdenas was elected president in 1934 and carried the revolution further to the left. He was more deeply committed to social reform than any previous president. Cárdenas redistributed twice as much land as all of his predecessors combined, increased expenditures for education, especially in rural areas, reformed labor unions, and nationalized the foreign oil companies. After 1940, the revolution moderated under the leadership of President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Although the political aspects of the Mexican Revolution can be said to have come to an end in 1920, the socioeconomic aspects took much longer to be realized. Indeed, some in Mexico and elsewhere have asserted that the Revolution of 1910 had not yet ended even by the start of the twenty-first century. — Daniel D. DiPiazza and Robert D. Talbott
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Brenner, Anita. The Wind That Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1942. 1971. Reprint. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Presents an extensive collection of photographs with commentary to tell the story of the Mexican Revolution. Emphasizes the economic issues involved in the revolution and their social effects. Cumberland, Charles C. Mexican Revolution: The Constitutionalist Years. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. Describes the real revolution that occurred during the constitutionalist years, Mexico’s relations with the United States, and the contributions of Obregón. Hall, Linda B., and Don M. Coerver. Revolution on the Border: The United States and Mexico, 1910-1920. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988. Describes the impacts of the Mexican Revolution on the areas around the border between the United States and Mexico, the effects of the border areas on the revolution, and the relations between Mexico and the United States in the early twentieth century. McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001. Dual biography and history focuses on events involving Villa and Zapata in explaining the Mexican Revolution. Includes black-and-white photographs, bibliographical essay, and index. Meyer, Michael C., William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds. The Course of Mexican History. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Interesting and readable history devotes several chapters to the revolution. Provides good coverage of the topics of Mexican society and culture at the time. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. Quirk, Robert E. An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1962. Gives a complete account of U.S. intervention in Veracruz and the longterm ill will this action created for the United States. See also: Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition; Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace
November 25, 1910
Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace On his seventy-fifth birthday, wealthy industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie announced the establishment of an endowment of ten million dollars. His letter of gift of December 14, 1910, was presented in Washington, D.C., to the newly established board of trustees, which was charged with the abolition of war and the attainment of the rule of law in international relations. Locale: New York, New York; Washington, D.C. Categories: Humanitarianism and philanthropy; organizations and institutions; diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event Andrew Carnegie’s establishment of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was foreshadowed by his earlier donations, which totaled several million dollars, geared toward the abolition of war as an instrument of national policy. In 1903 he had provided more than one million dollars toward the construction of a Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, to house a Permanent Court of Arbitration for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. In the same year, he set up a Simplified Spelling Board in the belief that its work toward the simplification of English spelling would facilitate communication and thus aid peace efforts. In 1904, Carnegie began the creation of Hero Funds in the United States and other countries. These funds were designed to provide awards to nonmilitary citizens who had performed heroic deeds.
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1910
Key Figures Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), American industrialist and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Elihu Root (1845-1937), American lawyer and statesman Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947), American educator and university president Joseph H. Choate (1832-1917), American lawyer and diplomat Paul-Henri-Benjamin d’Estournelles de Constant (1852-1924), French politician and diplomat
At the same time he was funding such organizations, Carnegie was being urged to do more in the cause for the abolition of war and maintenance of peace. Requests came from foreign leaders, including Paul-HenriBenjamin d’Estournelles de Constant of France, Baroness Bertha von Suttner of Austria, and Sir Norman Angell of England. Several Americans also urged Carnegie to increase his levels of support, including Elihu Root, statesman and longtime adviser to Carnegie; Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University; and Joseph H. Choate, prominent lawyer and diplomat. Carnegie had frequent contacts with President Theodore Roosevelt both before and during his presidency, but the two never reached a really cordial working relationship in Carnegie’s drive for the abolition of war. Roosevelt, of course, had played a leading role in the Spanish-American War of 1898 and was a strong advocate for a buildup of the American military, particularly the U.S. Navy. Although the group encouraging Carnegie also included William Howard Taft, who was then vice president and later president, there was some jockeying between Carnegie and Taft in the march of events leading up to Carnegie’s eventual decision to establish and fund the endowment. There was also some question regarding the name for the proposed organization. Butler wanted it to be called the Carnegie International Institute, a reflection of his view of the endowment as a body that would concentrate on the education of the public through lectures, publications, and scholarly exchange. Carnegie, however, would not agree to such nomenclature and insisted that it be named the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The group eventually convinced Carnegie that war could be eliminated through educational efforts that would lead to the acceptance and use of arbitration in disputes among nations. These efforts, the group said, would be particularly successful if they were led by political and business leaders, especially those in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. Secretary of State Elihu Root was largely responsible for convincing Carnegie to establish the endowment. It was fitting, therefore, that when the initial board of trustees was named for the endowment, Root was elected as its first president; President William Howard Taft served as hon-
Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace orary president. In addition to Root and Taft, Butler, Choate, twenty-three other American luminaries—such as Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, and businessmen Robert S. Brookings and Howard Heinz— were named to the board. By the time the endowment had been funded by ten million dollars’ worth of bonds from the United States Steel Corporation, Carnegie had become optimistic that universal peace could be achieved through the efforts of the endowment and similar organizations. He specified in his letter of gift to the trustees that when war had been abolished among nations, they should turn their attention to banishing the other evils that plague humankind. In keeping with this belief, trustees were given wide latitude in spending the endowment’s income to advance the cause of peace through the abolition of war. To meet its goal, the endowment promoted the use of arbitration to settle international disputes. The board initially decided that the work of the endowment would be carried out through three divisions: Intercourse and Education, In-
Andrew Carnegie. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ternational Law, and Economics and History. Butler was named to head the first division, and the largest portion of endowment income and expenditures was allotted to it. Carnegie was showered with worldwide praise for establishing the endowment. In particular, he was complimented for naming active educational, business, and political leaders to the board of trustees, which also included some idealistic pacifists. On the other hand, there was some reverse criticism on this score. Some feared that these leaders would gain too much control of the endowment and that this would result in the creation of overly conservative policies and procedures. Significance The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw advances in science and technology that created social optimism and a fundamental belief, at least among many powerful figures of the time, that humanity was progressing along an inevitable path toward a world of peace and plenty. In this context, a belief in the possibility that war could be abolished did not seem to be unrealistic. However, the revolutions in Russia (1905, 1917) and the outbreak of World War I (1914) soon revealed a different picture. In particular, the coming of World War I signaled the failure of the Carnegie Endowment’s efforts to prevent war. Following the end of hostilities in 1918, however, several members of the endowment’s staff were enlisted in President Woodrow Wilson’s delegation to Europe to write the resultant peace treaty. Also, some of the endowment’s income was used to aid some of Europe’s damaged cultural centers. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, under Butler’s leadership, the endowment concentrated its work in education. An outstanding example of this emphasis was the publication of the 150-volume Economic and Social History of the World War (1919-1929). Despite such efforts, however, 1939 brought the eruption of World War II. At the end of that conflict in 1945, the endowment transferred much of its attention to the newly established United Nations and its subsidiary organizations. In 1978, the endowment took over publication of the prestigious journal Foreign Policy. In addition to maintaining its headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1993 the endowment also began funding the operation of a Carnegie Moscow Center in Russia. Although initially it was one of few organizations operating in this area, it gradually moved to the forefront of a growing number of groups interested in and devoted to the study of international relations and globalization. — Joseph C. Kiger
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Summary of Organization and Work, 1911-1941. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1941. Contains documentary and statistical material pertaining to the founding and early history of the endowment. Hendrick, Burton J. The Life of Andrew Carnegie. 2 vols. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1932. Official biography; somewhat dated but still valuable for insights into the establishment of Carnegie’s endowment. Krass, Peter. Carnegie. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Full-length biography is judiciously critical of Carnegie’s philanthropic efforts, including creation of the endowment.
Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Biography includes an entire chapter devoted to Carnegie’s “pursuit of peace,” including the formation of the endowment. _______. “Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.” In Research Institutions and Learned Societies, edited by Joseph C. Kiger. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Discusses the origins, establishment, and operations of the endowment. See also: Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee; Dec., 1936: InterAmerican Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.
1911
Boas Publishes THE MIND OF PRIMITIVE MAN In The Mind of Primitive Man, Franz Boas expressed his views on human variation, laying the conceptual foundations of modern cultural anthropology. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Anthropology; publishing and journalism Key Figure Franz Boas (1858-1942), German American anthropologist, museum curator, and professor
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1911
Summary of Event In the contemporary world, the use of the word “culture” to indicate customs, beliefs, and material factors that characterize the lives of particular social groups is so widespread that it is difficult to imagine that it has a short history. This use, however, was first developed by Franz Boas at the beginning of the twentieth century. Boas presented it in his book The Mind of Primitive Man (1911), and it was popularized through the influence of the anthropological tradition that he and his students built. When Sir Edward B. Tylor—a wealthy Englishman and amateur scholar—published the book Primitive Culture in 1871, he was the first to define anthropology as the study of human culture and culture as the knowledge and traditions acquired by humans as members of society. He used the culture concept as a synonym for “civilization,” understood as the common human heritage that becomes increasingly complex and refined as human be-
ings advance on the ladder of progress from “primitive” to more advanced stages. Tylor, in line with the prevalent ideology of his time, was a confirmed evolutionist, a believer in the existence of great qualitative differences between primitive and civilized societies. The approach of the classic social evolutionists, as Tylor and some of his contemporaries came to be known, gave valuable results insofar as it led to the collection, classification, and comparison of much information on societies that had not been studied. The problem with their theory was that it provided an ideal scientific framework for the racial taxonomies that had been developing since the eighteenth century and had become particularly influential. In restrospect, the definition of particular racial groups as “inferior” seems a self-serving, even naïve, attempt to justify not only European colonialism but also the more specifically exploitative institution of slavery. Yet, by perfectly dovetailing with evolutionist theory, it led to the constitution of a very convincing historical model at the time of its formulation. Fighting such a model, with all of its undemocratic implications, became Boas’s life mission; the 1911 publication of The Mind of Primitive Man marked the first step in a process of popular dissemination of Boas’s ideas that was to have long-range impacts on Western intellectual life. The title of the book is not very representative of its content; the title of the German edition, Kultur und Rasse (culture and race), published in 1914, is more apt but fails to give a complete picture of the range of sub-
Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man jects treated in this classic. Boas does not discuss only preliterate mentality or the concepts of race and culture; he also discusses the concept of heredity, the importance of adopting a historicist and holistic method in anthropological studies, the correlation between psychology and culture, and the relationships among race, culture, and language. Boas’s ideas, developed over several decades of research and reflection, laid the conceptual foundations of modern cultural anthropology. These ideas evolved from an experience Boas had in 1883. Born and educated in Germany, he developed an interest in the natural sciences and, after obtaining a doctorate in physics, set out to do some geographic research on Baffin Island, in the Arctic. There he had his first encounter with the “primitive” Eskimo, and this experience led him toward a career in anthropology. What struck him about the Eskimo was the complexity and beauty of their customs; one finds many expressions of genuine empathy for Eskimo culture in his diary, with frequent questions about the supposed superiority of Western “civilized” people. Boas’s belief in the need to understand any culture on its own terms was further confirmed through field research he conducted with the Kwakiutl and other Native American groups inhabiting the Pacific Northwest coast. By 1887, when he decided to leave his native Germany to live in the United States, many of his distinctive views of culture had matured, and he was prepared to disseminate them. In 1899, he accepted a professorship in anthropology at Columbia University and began to attract a large number of gifted students who became instrumental in imbuing American anthropology with his ideas. The most controversial views that Boas expressed in his book concerned race. Boas’s arguments ran completely against the grain of the racial determinism implicit in social evolutionary theory (this later became the specific cause of the violent Nazi ostracism of Boas’s work), but they were not easy to dismiss. After reviewing the evidence derived from his analysis of hereditary processes, from general studies of physical anthropology, and particularly from his statistical approach to the description of bodily types, Boas presented clear conclusions. Racial purity simply does not exist, and, because of human plasticity, it is impossible to prove a strict connection between race and the genotypical or phenotypical characteristics of individuals; in particular, there is no provable correlation between race and intelligence or personality. One of the immediate consequences of Boas’s racial indeterminism was the conviction that, as genetic en850
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Franz Boas. (Library of Congress)
dowment cannot explain cultural differentiations, these can be understood only as results of the historical development of cultural traits within a particular culture. By so arguing, Boas introduced a fundamental shift in the meaning given to the word “culture” by evolutionist anthropologists. Rather than labeling civilization in a general way, “culture” for Boas came to mean the specific heritage of a particular social group, which must be understood only within its own historical context. As a consequence, he emphasized holism and historicism in the study of cultures; also, he propounded the concept of “cultural relativism,” a concept still central in contemporary anthropology. Boas argued that researchers studying languages should adopt a holistic approach, exploring the characteristics of a language for their intrinsic relevance rather than through an artificial comparison with Western linguistic categories. Furthermore, Boas pointed out that language is an expression of culture, and thus its study
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 can provide insights into culture. At the same time, culture is itself a system of symbolic significance, and cultural understanding can shed light on the cognitive processes that become expressed in a particular linguistic system. Finally, in presenting his views on the correlation between culture and personality, Boas insisted that humankind shares psychic unity. That is, whereas the evolutionists proclaimed the existence of a qualitative difference between the way of thinking of primitive man and that of civilized Western society, Boas believed that differences are produced only by the specific needs and objectives of cultures. He asserted that there are no mental notions that primitive people cannot possibly attain as primitives; if members of a certain culture do not seem to pursue some mental operations, then those operations are not necessary or desirable within that culture. If the necessity should arise, the mental operations will also appear.
Boas did not devote much discussion to theory building, but his books, including The Mind of Primitive Man, do offer clear theoretical statements. Boas believed that to make anthropology into a science, it was more important to insist on stringent adherence to a particular research method than to establish a particular theory. He also believed that good theory could be built only after adequate amounts of empirical data were collected; therefore, he constantly gave priority to research over analysis. Finally, and most important, many of the conceptual innovations Boas presented in The Mind of Primitive Man are now so taken for granted that their originality is not fully appreciated. It is now generally accepted that culture is learned, adaptive behavior, quite independent from all other variables such as physical traits, heredity, and geography. Because there is no predetermined process whereby cultural similarities or differences may be interpreted, the enfolding of developmental stages is rarely contested. Furthermore, by pointing to the plural reality of cultures and to the necessity of documenting cultural diversity from the inside, through direct participation, and with an eye to the internal organization and historical development of cultural patterns, Boas established the fundamental research procedures of a discipline that has acquired increasing relevance in the contemporary world. Whenever the cultural characteristics of particular national or ethnic groups are discussed, whenever race as a determinant of cultural traits is discounted, and whenever the importance of relativism in cross-cultural understanding is mentioned, quintessential Boasian concepts are being utilized. These concepts have transformed society’s view of human diversity in a fundamental way. — E. L. Cerroni-Long Further Reading Boas, Franz. Race, Language, and Culture. 1940. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. A selection of scientific papers that Boas collected for publication two years before his death. Provides an excellent overview of the great range of his interests and of the way his anthropological ideas developed over time. Bohannan, Paul, and Mark Glazer, eds. High Points in Anthropology. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. An excellent collection of anthropological readings. Offers a sample of the ideas of most of the recognized masters in the discipline, including Tylor and Boas. The chronological arrangement of the articles and in851
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Significance The Mind of Primitive Man is a slight book (even the revised edition, published in 1938, is not very long), yet its general impact has been remarkable. The book became a popular target of people committed to theses of racial superiority; its German edition was one of the titles selected for the Nazi book burning of May 10, 1933. Also, over the years the book has intermittently attracted the scorn of anthropologists who use it as an example of Boas’s theoretical vagueness, of the inadequacy of his methodological arguments, or of the inherent contradiction of some of his approaches to the study of culture. Many of Boas’s disciples built on his ideas in ways that took them away from his original positions. For example, one of Boas’s early students, Edward Sapir, proposed that certain basic aspects of culture—such as language—fundamentally affect the way individuals perceive the world, so that in the long run culture itself is determined by those aspects. Other students, including Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, combined Boas’s ideas on the correlations between culture and personality with the basic Freudian tenets on personality development and defined specific cultures on the basis of the types of “temperaments” characterizing them. Although it is generally accepted that Boas was the founder of American anthropology, it is also evident that his influence did not lead to a theoretically homogeneous tradition of research. This was not the result of the incompleteness of his theory; rather, it stemmed from the desire of many of Boas’s students to find answers for questions he had specifically chosen to leave unanswered.
Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man
Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company formative introductions produce a history of anthropology through its classic works. Cole, Douglas. Franz Boas: The Early Years, 18581906. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. A personal and intellectual biography covering Boas’s early life and career. Draws on his correspondence with family members in examining his childhood, schooling, and marriage as well as his early studies of the native cultures of the Pacific Northwest. Includes bibliography and index. Goldschmidt, Walter, ed. The Anthropology of Franz Boas. Menasha, Wis.: American Anthropological Association, 1959. An excellent collection of papers assessing Boas’s legacy on the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Of particular interest are the articles by Leslie Spier, Margaret Mead, and Marian Smith. Herskovits, Melville J. Franz Boas: The Science of Man in the Making. 1953. Reprint. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973. The standard intellectual biography of Boas by one of his students who maintained a close affiliation with Boas’s original conceptual approach. Kroeber, A. L., et al. Franz Boas, 1858-1942. Menasha, Wis.: American Anthropological Association, 1943. A collection of articles written on the occasion of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Boas’s death by his students and associates. Contains the definitive bibliography of Boas’s published writings. Lesser, Alexander. “Franz Boas.” In Totems and Teachers: Key Figures in the History of Anthropology, edited by Sydel Silverman. 2d ed. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2003. A passionate account, written by one of Boas’s students, of the role Boas played in the establishment of anthropology as an academic discipline in the United States. Gives special attention to Boas’s activities as a “citizen scientist,” fighting for peace, democracy, and racial equality. Stocking, George W., Jr. Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology. 1968. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. A very influential series of essays by the foremost historian of American anthropology. Presents the controversial view that most of Boas’s students—even those who apparently moved farthest from his original ideas— expanded only on themes that were implicit in Boas’s writings. See also: Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa; 1934: Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture.
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Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company Masujiro Hashimoto formed a company in 1911 that would lead to the establishment of Nissan, one of the most successful Japanese automobile companies of the twentieth century. Locale: Japan Categories: Trade and commerce; organizations and institutions; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Masujiro Hashimoto (fl. early twentieth century), Japanese machinist Yoshisuke Aikawa (1880-1967), founder of the Tobata Casting Company Katsuji Kawamata (1905-1986), chief executive officer of Nissan in the 1950’s Summary of Event Before World War II, the Japanese automobile industry was quite small. Most of the country’s few cars had been 852
produced from kits sent from the United States and the United Kingdom. A handful of Japanese companies in the early twentieth century had attempted to produce low-priced vehicles, but these were far outnumbered by the rickshaws and carts that were the main means of transportation in Japan. In 1924, for example, when American companies produced 3.1 million cars and U.S. automobile registrations totaled almost 18 million, Japanese passenger car registrations came to 17,939, while there were 105,000 registered rickshaws, 3.7 million bicycles, and 374,200 ox- and horse-drawn wagons. In those years, military contracts for trucks accounted for most motorized vehicle sales. Masujiro Hashimoto was one of a handful of mechanics who attempted to enter the automotive manufacturing field in Japan in the early years of the twentieth century. He traveled to the United States in 1902 to study the manufacture of internal combustion engines and returned home in 1911 to found the Kwaishinsha Motor Car
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but as the above discussion makes clear, its complex origins go back as far as 1911. Significance Nissan and Toyota dominated the small Japanese automobile industry before and during World War II. Nissan’s growth resulted in large part from an arrangement with Graham-Paige, an American firm that provided it with technical assistance and machinery as well as helped it to create a modern automobile factory. In 1941, total Japanese automobile production came to 46,648 vehicles, of which 19,688 came from Nissan and 14,611 from Toyota. Nissan made other overtures to companies based in the United States. In 1939, Aikawa proposed a joint venture with General Motors Japan that was rejected. He then approached Ford Motors Japan and suggested a merger of Nissan into Ford. This offer also was declined. That same year, Nissan’s automobile production was shifted to Manchuria and the firm was renamed Manchurian Motor Company. The parent company, which became Nissan Heavy Industries, turned out aircraft engines and other military products. When the war ended, Manchurian Motor Company was seized by the Soviet Union and the Japanese parent was taken over by American occupiers. After the war, Nissan and Toyota petitioned General Douglas MacArthur for permission to resume production, which was granted with some restrictions. In 1946, Nissan turned out a few trucks, with passenger cars following in 1948. In 1949, the company once again took the name Nissan Motor Company. In the late 1940’s, most of Japan’s cars still were imported from the United States. In 1948, Japanese companies produced 28,700 four-wheeled vehicles, of which 381 were passenger cars. All restrictions on the industry were removed the following year, when Japan manufactured 1,070 passenger cars. During the Korean War, Japanese industry received massive stimulation from American orders for trucks. During the first nine months of 1951, Nissan sold 4,325 cars and trucks to the American military. A wealthier Japanese population also started buying cars and trucks. In 1952, Nissan formed a partnership with Great Britain’s Austin Motors under which it would manufacture Austins in Japan. By the mid-1950’s, Nissan had become Japan’s leading automobile manufacturer, and the company’s leader, Katsuji Kawamata, embarked on a major expansion effort. In 1958, 50,600 Japanese cars were produced, most by Nissan and Toyota, and in the follow853
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Works. His new company manufactured small passenger cars driven by twelve-horsepower engines. To form the car’s name, he used the first letters of the surnames of three of his associates, Den, Aoyama, and Takeuchi, and then added the word “son,” but because the sound “son” in Japanese is similar to the sound for the word meaning “bankruptcy,” he changed the word to “sun” and arrived at the name Datsun. The handcrafted Datsuns were well received, which in this period meant that Hashimoto was able to sell between ten and twenty of them each year. In 1923, however, the company’s factory was destroyed in an earthquake, and in 1926 Kwaishinsha was forced to merge with Jidosha Seizo Company Ltd. in order to survive. In 1932, the company, which had been renamed DAT Jidosha Seizo, came out with a car with a 500-cubiccentimeter engine. Although the company was still small by American standards, it was one of the larger Japanese auto firms of the period. In 1932, the entire Japanese auto industry turned out 880 units, all for domestic use. At this time, most of the Japanese companies manufactured cars by imitating American and European models. Tokyo Gas and Electric, a manufacturer of home appliances, and Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, part of the Mitsubishi zaibatsu (industrial group), produced some trucks for the army. For the most part, however, the zaibatsus showed little interest in motor vehicles. The military distrusted the zaibatsus and preferred to buy supplies elsewhere. The Mitsui Bank, part of the Mitsui zaibatsu, financed the Ishikawajima Shipbuilding Company’s foray into automobiles in 1919. Yoshisuke Aikawa, who had graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University in 1904 and then spent time in the United States studying manufacturing, formed the Tobata Casting Company in 1910. This company became a major supplier of parts for several automobile manufacturers. Although Aikawa agreed with the prevailing opinion that military requirements would shape the industry in the short run, he believed that in time the Japanese people would take to passenger cars. He thus organized a corporate shell that he called Motor Vehicle Industries, which then approached DAT with a takeover bid. DAT, which in 1931 produced ten vehicles, was receptive. Tobata and another of Aikawa’s companies, Nippon Industries, purchased DAT in 1932, then acquired the automobile operations of Ishikawajima. In 1933, Tobata and Nippon spun off the motor vehicle unit into a new company, which Aikawa named the Nissan Motor Company. Most histories of the automobile industry list that year as the one in which Nissan was founded,
Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company
Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company ing year, 78,598 were turned out. Even then, sales of small, inexpensive, three-wheeled vehicles approximately doubled those of cars in Japan. Nissan and Toyota decided to test the American market, believing that the domestic market for passenger cars was saturated. They received no encouragement from the Japanese government, which saw the United States as a reliable source for inexpensive, well-made cars. With this source available, the government saw no need to develop a large domestic industry. Nissan sponsored two studies of the American market and came to several conclusions based on the results: Americans would not buy cars backed by weak service organizations; no Japanese car could compete with the popular Volkswagen Beetle, which by then was solidly entrenched; there was a sizable potential market for small, well-constructed, inexpensive imported cars; and in order to convince American drivers that Japanese cars were of high quality, the company would have to offer extended warranties. The key figure in the Japanese incursion into the American market was Yutaka Katayama, who had started his career at Nissan in advertising. Katayama had visited the United States several times and had a keen knowledge of promotion. His plan was to select franchisees with great care and to wait to start operations until sufficient parts and trained personnel were in place to guarantee superior service. Sales outlets would be selected on the East and West Coasts, where Volkswagen had blazed the way and foreign cars were already popular. For the time being, Katayama would bypass the South and the Midwest. Woolverton Motors of North Hollywood was the West Coast dealer chosen, and Luby Chevrolet of New York had the East Coast. In 1957, Nissan sent one of its small sedans, the Cedric, to the Los Angeles Automobile Show, where it met with indifference. The Cedric was the company’s top-of-the-line model, but it was unsuited to American roads and stodgy in design. The following year, Americans purchased 83 Cedrics. Sales of Cedrics for 1959 came to 1,131. Encouraged, Nissan organized Nissan Motor Corporation U.S.A. and planned for many more franchisees. Sales rose for a while but then declined. Nissan, along with Toyota, which had the same experience with its Toyopet, withdrew to study the situation. Late in 1959, Nissan exported the Datsun 200 series to the United States, again to an indifferent reception. The following year the company sent the 310 series, led by the Bluebird, which might be considered the first Japanese car with meaningful appeal to Americans. Even so, 854
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sales were hardly spectacular. In 1962, Nissan and Toyota sold fewer than 3,000 cars between them in the American market. In contrast, that year Volkswagen sold 240,143 cars in the United States, and even Jaguar sold 4,442 cars. Soon thereafter, however, Nissan accomplished its goal of creating and marketing what was, to all intents and purposes, a small American car. Datsun dealerships sprouted throughout the country, numbering 640 by the end of the 1970’s. From consumers’ perspective, the Datsun seemed to combine aspects of the Beetle and the Chevrolet, and in so doing it obtained an increasing share of the market. Nissan displayed a sensitivity to the American market that European companies, Volkswagen included, lacked. The company produced a wide range of cars for Japanese customers, from minis to luxurious limousines, but in the 1970’s it sent to the United States only a handful of lowpriced and intermediate models, finding a niche and not moving out of it until its position was solid. In the mid1960’s, the midrange Bluebird, priced between comparable models made by Chevrolet and Volkswagen, was a major seller. As American tastes shifted to compact cars, Nissan sent the lower-priced PL600 series, which proved even more popular. Flexibility in planning, integrity in manufacturing, excellence in service, and shrewdness in marketing were hallmarks at Nissan. Almost 19,000 Datsuns were sold in 1965, placing the company sixth in terms of American imports, ahead of Simca and Renault but behind Volkswagen and Volvo. A veritable Japanese car mania then developed among American buyers. In 1970, 703,672 Japanese cars were sold in the United States. Toyota provided 184,898 of them, second in import sales behind Volkswagen. Nissan was in third place, selling 100,541 Datsuns. At this point, it appeared that Datsun sales had reached a plateau. This was a result of several factors, one of the more important being the growing strength of the yen, which caused prices of Japanese imports to rise. By 1972, the Datsun 1200 sold for $1,976, against $1,960 for the Ford Pinto. Then, in 1973, the world was struck by the soaring price of oil. Gasoline rose sharply in price and for a while was hard to come by. Large American “gas guzzlers” lost popularity, whereas fuel-efficient Japanese cars were in demand. This situation ended with the easing of the gasoline supply. Datsun sold 319,000 cars in the United States in 1973; the 1974 figure was 245,000. As Americans became accustomed to paying more for Japanese cars than for American cars, Datsun’s sales rose again, hitting 488,217 in 1977. American customers
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Further Reading Chang, C. S. The Japanese Auto Industry and the U.S. Market. New York: Praeger, 1981. Brief work offers interesting information on the early history of Nissan. Cole, Robert E., ed. The Japanese Automotive Industry: Model and Challenge for the Future? Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 1981. Collection of essays includes several that deal with Nissan’s history. Duncan, William. U.S.-Japan Automobile Diplomacy: A Study in Economic Confrontation. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1973. Describes attempts on the part of American manufacturers to limit Japanese access to the U.S. domestic market. Odagiri, Hiroyuki, and Akira Goto. Technology and Industrial Development in Japan: Building Capabilities by Learning, Innovation, and Public Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. History of the development of industry in Japan examines the adaptation of Western technologies as well as Japanese innovation. Chapter 9 is devoted to discussion of the Japanese automobile industry. Includes bibliography and index. Rae, John. Nissan/Datsun: A History of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A., 1960-1980. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. Written with company cooperation, this work contains a short history of the parent company but concentrates on Nissan in the American market. Sobel, Robert. Car Wars: The Untold Story. New York: Dutton, 1984. Focuses on Japanese success in the American market but includes several chapters on Japanese automotive history. U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. Military Supplies Division. Japanese Motor Vehicle Industry. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946. An excellent study of the Japanese automobile industry before World War II. See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday; Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
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gave Japanese cars high marks for reliability, justifying the higher prices. By then, Nissan was the world’s thirdlargest car manufacturer, behind General Motors and Toyota but ahead of Ford and Chrysler. Toyota was ahead of Volkswagen in the American market, while Nissan was neck and neck with the fading German company. In the late 1970’s, Nissan successfully entered the higher end of the American automobile market. In 1978, it exported the 810, soon to be renamed the Maxima. The Maxima and Toyota’s similarly targeted Cressida did poorly at first, as Americans accustomed to seeing Japanese cars compete with Chevrolets and Fords had to be convinced that these models were the equals of Buicks and Chryslers. In the 1980’s, however, the cars proved to be successful, and more luxury models appeared. In 1982, Nissan made two significant announcements. First, to harmonize its world strategies, it would phase out the Datsun nameplate and market its cars in the United States as Nissans. Second, it intended to build a new manufacturing plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. This $490 million facility was opened in 1991, along with an $80 million Research and Development Technical Center in Farmington Hills Michigan. The first Nissan midsized sedan, the Altima, was manufactured in 1992 at the Smyrna facility and became the best-selling new nameplate in the United States in the following year. In addition to the Altima, the Smyrna plant began producing the new 200SX line and the fourth-generation Sentra. In 1998, Nissan Motor Corporation in the U.S.A. and Nissan North America, Inc., merged into a single company called Nissan North America, Inc., and in the following year Nissan entered into a global partnership with Renault of France, a move following earlier efforts by Nissan to obtain a European foothold through the purchase of an equity interest in Motor Iberica, a Spanish manufacturer of trucks, vans, and buses. Nissan also formed an alliance with Alfa Romeo, an Italian specialty car manufacturer, to build small cars at an Alfa Romeo plant and conducted negotiations for a similar arrangement with Volkswagen. Pursuant to these global strategies, Nissan announced in 1999 a joint project with Renault in the unveiling of a new line of sport-utility vehicles. In nearly a century of doing business, Nissan clearly established itself as a major and highly adaptable competitor in the world automotive marketplace. —Robert Sobel
Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company
Italy Annexes Libya
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Italy Annexes Libya Italy annexed Libya in a belated assertion of colonial power status, but its seizure of the old Ottoman dependencies resulted in a failed imperialist experiment. Also known as: Libyan War; Tripolitan War Locale: Libya Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Giovanni Giolitti (1842-1928), prime minister of Italy, 1892-1893, 1903-1905, 1906-1909, 1911-1914, 1920-1921 Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947), king of Italy, r. 1900-1946 Carlo Caneva (1845-1922), commander in chief of the Italian expeditionary force in Libya Alberto Pollio (1852-1914), Italian chief of staff Atatürk (Mustafa Kemal; 1881-1938), Turkish officer and later founder of republican Turkey Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854-1912), foreign minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852-1925), chief of staff of the Austro-Hungarian army, 1906-1911, 1912-1917 Summary of Event Italy’s annexation of the Ottoman dependency of Libya, comprising Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in North Africa, in 1911-1912 represented the fulfillment of some thirty years of Italian imperial aspirations in Africa. In keeping with the traditions of those imperialist years, by 1902 Italy had secured the concurrence of Germany and AustriaHungary, its partners in the Triple Alliance, as well as that of France and Great Britain for an eventual move into the southern Mediterranean. Approval from Russia, the most enthusiastic of all given its incentive to hasten the demise of the Ottoman Empire, was secured by 1909. Italy had put forward its fairly tenuous claims for living space for its impoverished and overcrowded peasants in its southern region and its economic interests in North Africa, which it had started to develop in the early twentieth century. More important, Italy’s national ethos needed some balm to erase the memory of its embarrassing defeat in 1896 in its vain attempt to conquer Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in East Africa. 856
For the expansionist-minded leader of Italy’s Liberal Party, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti, there were additional reasons for annexing Libya. First, there was always the possibility that France, having absorbed Morocco and Algeria to the west of Tripolitania, might decide to move farther east. At the same time, having suffered diplomatic humiliation in a second major international crisis in Morocco, Germany could also conceivably opt for its own compensation in Libya. Giolitti also considered that it would be easier to take the land from a decadent Ottoman Empire than to press Italian claims to parity with the Austrians in Albania, whose location on the Adriatic Sea Rome viewed as strategically crucial to its “four-shores” policy. This policy anticipated the mare nostrum (our sea) drive of Benito Mussolini in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Giolitti’s other reasons had to do with internal Italian politics, especially winning the votes of the masses whom he was planning to enfranchise. Following an abrupt Italian ultimatum to the Turks on September 28, 1911, and with the concurrence of King Victor Emmanuel III while the Italian parliament was in recess, the government in Rome declared war the following day. The Libyan War (also known as the Tripolitan War) was an ill-managed affair. Giolitti’s transparent excuses that the small number of Italian settlers were being ill treated or that Italian economic interests were being squeezed by the new government of Young Turks in Constantinople were not sustainable. In short order, Giolitti had Victor Emmanuel III issue a royal decree on November 5, 1911, placing Tripolitania and Cyrenaica “under the full and complete sovereignty of the kingdom of Italy.” The Italian parliament passed the corresponding enacting law on February 25, 1912. Although the Italian forces had little difficulty overwhelming the coastal Ottoman garrisons after their initial bombardment from the sea, the Turks and Arabs offered spirited resistance in the interior. The Italian commander, General Carlo Caneva, and his chief of staff, General Alberto Pollio, made three serious miscalculations. First, they believed that the outnumbered Turks would quit after putting up a token fight. Second, the Italians had not anticipated that many native Arabs would side with their Turkish overlords, who had dispatched talented officers such as Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk) to lead the insurrection by Sanusi warriors. Third, the Italians had expected to fight a conventional war. After the initial engagements, however,
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the conflict degenerated into guerrilla action. General Caneva and General Pollio were forced to increase the size of the Italian force from some twenty thousand to nearly one hundred thousand soldiers. Despite this change, the hostilities seemed to drag on, with neither side establishing conclusive victory. Accordingly, the Italians decided to launch a second front, capturing Rhodes and other Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea that were also Ottoman dependencies. The peace talks that opened between the two belligerents in July, 1912, concluded with the signing of a peace treaty in Ouchy, a suburb of Lausanne, on October 18, 1912. The catalyst, however, was not the Italian feat of arms but rather the outbreak of the First Balkan War, in which the Greeks, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bulgarians decided to settle their own scores with the Ottomans. The Treaty of Ouchy (also known as the Treaty of
Lausanne) was an ambiguous document that left Italy in nominal control of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica but recognized some residual rights of the Ottomans, such as the supervision of Muslim religious affairs and the continuing acknowledgment of the Ottoman sultan as the Libyans’ spiritual leader. Significance For the most part, the other Great Powers, which had generally shown indifference or political guile in tacitly or actively acquiescing to Italy’s conquest of Libya, exhibited similar ambiguity in accepting the fait accompli, even though some had gone through the motions of trying to mediate the conflict. Only Russia, which had the most to gain from a final solution of the “Eastern question” and the further weakening of the Ottoman Empire, gave Italy unqualified endorsement. France had also sup-
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Italy Annexes Libya
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ported Italy’s action as part of its political maneuvering to annex Morocco, but its backing cooled in the wake of an incident in January, 1912, when the Italians boarded two French vessels suspected of aiding the Turkish war effort. Britain expressed concern over the further weakening and possible collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the consequent ascendancy of Russia in the Turkish Straits, which controlled the passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The strongest objection to Italy’s conquest, however, came from its nominal partners in the Triple Alliance: Germany and Austria-Hungary. Many senior German officials mistrusted Italy as an ally, a policy that had been traditional since the days of Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Austria-Hungary was the power most concerned with the consequences of Italy’s aggressive stance. Austria’s foreign minister, Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, announced that his government would not permit the extension of Italian military operations against the Ottomans into the Balkans, where the AustroHungarian Empire was perceived to have vital interests.
Because the chief of staff of the Imperial Army, Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, wished to press Austrian opposition even further, Emperor Francis Joseph I was forced to relieve him of his command temporarily. Any relaxation of tensions that the European powers might have expected from the termination of hostilities between Italy and the Ottoman Empire in October, 1912, was entirely dissipated by the outbreak of the First Balkan War later that month. In the meantime, Italy could glory in the feeling that it had finally acquired Great Power status through its conquest of Libya. This conquest proved to be a Pyrrhic victory, however, for Libya was costly to maintain, impossible to subdue for some two decades, and unattractive to Italian migrants, who preferred opportunities in the Americas over the prospect of living in a desert wasteland peopled by mostly hostile natives. The conquest of Libya altered the pattern of domestic Italian politics. The moderate parties that had controlled the centers of power were giving way to even more vocal nationalist groups. These groups pressed for Italy to pur-
An Italian desert outpost in Libya in December, 1911. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sue a more forceful imperialist course, and such demands colored much of Italian policy leading up to its second invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. —Edward P. Keleher and Peter B. Heller Further Reading Albertini, Luigi. The Origins of the War of 1914. Updated ed. Vol. 1. Translated by Isabella M. Massey. New York: Enigma Books, 2005. Explains how the Tripolitan War disrupted the unstable European balance of power and the shaky peace. Askew, William C. Europe and Italy’s Acquisition of Libya, 1911-1912. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1941. Stresses not only the diplomatic history leading to the Tripolitan War but also the contributing factors of internal Italian politics and public opinion. Barclay, Glen St. J. The Rise and Fall of the New Roman Empire: Italy’s Bid for World Power, 1890-1943. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973. Diplomatic history ridicules Italy’s stated excuses for invading Libya in 1911. Bosworth, R. J. B. Italy and the Wider World, 18601960. New York: Routledge, 1996. Presents an overview of Italian foreign relations from the mid-nineteenth century to 1960. Includes discussion of the
Borden Leads Canada Through World War I Libyan annexation. Features tables and index. Giolitti, Giovanni. Memoirs of My Life. Translated by Edward Storer. New York: Howard Fertig, 1973. First published in 1923, this volume presents the recollections of the Italian statesman who was most instrumental in Italy’s decision to conquer Libya. Harris, Lillian C. Libya: Qadhafi’s Revolution and the Modern State. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986. Well-written account stresses Italy’s difficulties in absorbing its Libyan conquest. Lowe, Cedric J., and F. Marzari. Italian Foreign Policy, 1870-1940. 1975. Reprint. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2002. Relates Italian policy regarding Ottoman Libya in 1911 to France’s policy in North Africa and Austria’s policy in the Balkans. May, Arthur J. The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. Includes discussion of the Austrian perspective on the Tripolitan War and the squabble between Aehrenthal and Conrad von Hötzendorf regarding Vienna’s policy during the conflict. See also: July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis; Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania; Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt.
1911-1920
Borden Leads Canada Through World War I Fifteen years of Liberal government in Canada under Sir Wilfrid Laurier were followed by the Conservative government of Robert Laird Borden during the difficult years of World War I.
Key Figures H. H. Asquith (1852-1928), prime minister of Great Britain, 1908-1916 Robert Laird Borden (1854-1937), prime minister of Canada, 1911-1920 Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919), prime minister of Canada, 1896-1911, and leader of the Liberal Party, 1911-1919 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Arthur Meighen (1874-1960), solicitor general of Canada, 1913
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Locale: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Categories: Government and politics; diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event Under the skillful direction of Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier from Quebec, the Liberal Party enjoyed a majority in the Canadian House of Commons from 1896 until 1911. Under the bilingual Laurier, the Liberals consistently won almost all the seats from Quebec, and with reasonable support in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces, they easily maintained their majority in the House of Commons in the general elections of 1900, 1904, and 1908. During the last ten years of Laurier’s service as prime minister, the leader of the Conservative opposition in the House of Commons was Robert Laird Borden, a bilingual lawyer from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Although Borden and Laurier had strong political disagreements, they never spoke of each other with bitterness or animosity. In 1911, Laurier proposed a politically unpopular reciprocity agreement between the United States and Canada that would have eliminated many import duties between the two countries. Borden argued that this
Borden Leads Canada Through World War I
Robert Laird Borden. (Library of Congress)
agreement would permit U.S. companies to expand into Canada and to control too much business there. This argument proved persuasive with Canadian voters, and in the 1911 general election, the Conservatives won 134 seats and the Liberals only 87 seats. In the 1917 parliamentary election, the Conservatives even increased their position in the House of Commons, winning 153 seats to 82 for the Liberals. Domestic concerns had dominated the 1911 general election, and the Conservative Party did extremely well even in the Liberal stronghold of Quebec, winning 27 of the 65 seats in that French-speaking province. Upon assuming power in Ottawa, Borden expected that he would succeed in unifying the French- and English-speaking regions of Canada, and that he would spend almost all his time improving the Canadian economy by increasing trade with both the United States and Great Britain, Canada’s major trading partners. Borden had close contacts in both English-speaking and French-speaking business communities, and his excellent command of French made him more acceptable to Quebecers than most other English-speaking politicians of his era. In 1914, World War I broke out and Canada, as a loyal member of the British Empire, became involved. Bor860
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 den’s major concern during these years was ensuring the full participation of Canadian soldiers and sailors in World War I, and he did not consider the political consequences of the many decisions he had to make during these years. He firmly believed that Canada’s foreign policy should be subservient to the needs of the British Empire, as interpreted by the British prime minister. When British prime minister H. H. Asquith asked Borden in 1914 to send Canadian soldiers and sailors to fight against Germany, Borden considered it his moral obligation to agree to this request, believing that because Great Britain had declared war against Germany, Canada therefore was also at war with Germany. From 1914 to 1918, Borden made numerous trips to England to confer first with Asquith and then with David Lloyd George, who succeeded Asquith as prime minister of Britain in 1916. More than 56,000 Canadian soldiers died in World War I and almost 150,000 soldiers were badly wounded—large numbers for a country such as Canada, which had slightly more than seven million citizens, according to the 1911 census. Borden did not find it necessary to argue that Canadian and not simply British interests required Canadian participation in this long war. In hindsight, that was a mistake, because many Quebecers, who felt no sympathy whatsoever for the German cause, nevertheless could not understand why it was necessary for so many Canadians to die for Britain. Unlike many fellow Conservatives, Borden never questioned the loyalty or integrity of Canadians who did not share his devotion to the British Empire. Laurier and his fellow Liberal members of Parliament were willing to support Canadian participation in World War I, as long as there was no military conscription. In 1917, however, Borden became convinced that too few Canadians were volunteering for military service, and in May, 1917, he proposed a Military Service Act to the House of Commons. His actions during the stormy debate in Parliament revealed his willingness to sacrifice his own political career and the future of his Conservative Party to the need for political unity during a period of grave crisis. Although his party held a large majority in Parliament, he offered to share power and all cabinet positions with the Liberals and even to resign, if the Liberals would accept military conscription and join with him in creating a government of national unity. Laurier appreciated the sincerity of this offer, but he understood that his fellow Quebecers would never forgive the Liberals if they agreed to military conscription, which the vast majority of French-speaking Quebecers loathed. The situation became almost intolerable during
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the parliamentary debate on the Military Service Act, when Solicitor General Arthur Meighen questioned the patriotism of French-speaking Canadians, whom he referred to as “a backward people.” The passage of the Military Service Act provoked rioting in Quebec City, which was suppressed by English-speaking police after Borden’s government had suspended habeas corpus. Calm returned to Quebec only after Laurier and Catholic bishops in Quebec asked their fellow Quebecers to return to their homes. The Conservatives then alienated Canadians of Austrian and German descent by revoking their right to vote if they had become Canadian citizens after 1902. After the end of World War I, French-speaking Canadians and other non-British Canadians would not forgive the Conservatives for questioning their patriotism and for limiting the civil rights of Canadians opposed to conscription. Significance Although Borden was a decent man who thought more of the needs of Canadian soldiers than of his own political career, his insensitivity to the desires and feelings of Canadians of non-British origin created a great deal of resentment in Canada against the Conservatives, and from 1917 to 1953, the Conservative Party won only a single general election. Although the Canadian public turned against the Conservative Party after World War I, Borden continued to be admired for his devotion to Canada. After he retired as prime minister in 1920, he lived seventeen more years, and his thoughtful memoirs were published posthumously in 1938. —Edmund J. Campion
Canada, 1900-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Includes a clear, well-researched history of Borden’s domestic and foreign policies during his nine years as prime minister. Creighton, Donald. Canada’s First Century: 1867-1967. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970. Describes objectively the profound distrust that French-speaking Canadians felt toward Borden and other Conservative politicians during and after World War I. Hutchison, Bruce. Macdonald to Pearson: The Prime Ministers of Canada. Don Mills, Ont.: Longmans Canada, 1967. The chapter on Borden explains both his skill in managing the war effort and his inability to understand the feelings of French-speaking Canadians. McMenemy, John. The Language of Canadian Politics: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts. 3d ed. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Collection of more than five hundred brief essays on a wide range of topics related to the Canadian system of government, Canadian political history, Canadian laws and legal history, and more. Owram, Doug, ed. Confederation to the Present. Vol. 2 in Canadian History: A Reader’s Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Describes the profound political and social changes in Canada during World War I. Riendeau, Roger. A Brief History of Canada. 2d rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Concise history includes discussion of Borden’s government and the World War I years in Canada. Wilson, Harold A. The Imperial Policy of Sir Robert Borden. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966. An objective historical analysis of the reasons for Borden’s decision to accept British control over Canadian foreign policy during World War I. See also: Oct., 1909: Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion; May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike; July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada.
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Further Reading Borden, Robert Laird. His Memoirs. 2 vols. Edited by Henry Borden. New York: Macmillan, 1938. Presents Borden’s thoughtful insights into his career and family life. Reveals his basic decency in dealing with adversaries such as Laurier, with whom he sharply disagreed in politics. Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond, and John English.
Borden Leads Canada Through World War I
Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1911-1923
Rilke’s DUINO ELEGIES Redefines Poetics During a critical twelve-year period of his life, Rainer Maria Rilke composed ten highly influential elegies that revolutionized the poetic process. Locale: Trieste, Italy; Muzot, Switzerland Category: Literature Key Figure Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet and essayist Summary of Event In 1910, Rainer Maria Rilke, already a well-known writer and familiar figure on the European art scene, visited his friend Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis at Duino, her remote and strangely beautiful castle on the coast of the Adriatic, near Trieste. He returned again to Duino in the winter of 1911 and, in one of those rare moments in the history of artistic composition, fell under a kind of aesthetic trance or spell, during which time he conceived the work that would become Duineser Elegien (1923; Duinese Elegies, 1930; better known as Duino Elegies). He would brood over the project for the next twelve years, experiencing several false starts before finishing the entire work during a brilliant explosion of creativity that took place during the month of February, 1922, while he was living in a chateau in Muzot, Switzerland. During that same month, Rilke also managed to complete the masterful Die Sonette an Orpheus (1923; Sonnets to Orpheus, 1936). In the following months, he was to see both of these masterpieces come off the press at almost the same time. In many ways, Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus represent the capstone of Rilke’s artistic career. Duino Elegies, in particular, stands as one of the magisterial works of twentieth century art, a unique synthesis of poetic vision and linguistic creativity. In Duino Elegies, Rilke expanded the possibilities of the German language for the writing of poetry while offering a new idiom and a revolutionary attitude toward the making of art. Rilke created his own idiom, one that differed markedly from the prevailing style of leading German poet Stefan George and his followers. Rilke was certainly well prepared for these undertakings. He came to this formidable task not as a neophyte but as an accomplished author of such major works as Das Buch der Bilder (1902; The Book of Images, 1994) and Auguste Rodin (1903; English translation, 1919), as 862
well as a number of other books of lesser importance. Indeed, Rilke belonged to the last magnificent generation of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, a generation that produced a virtual renaissance of the arts in the Germanspeaking central European countries. This German arts movement, which had its focal points in Prague, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, and Berlin, gave the world many lasting treasures in the decades preceding and following World War I. The symphonies of Gustav Mahler, the radical physics of Albert Einstein, the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, the nightmarish fiction of Franz Kafka, the new philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the mythological studies of Carl Jung, and the geometric furniture designs of the Bauhaus movement are only some of the more notable high points of this period of cultural enlightenment. Even World War I, with its prolonged and bloody trench warfare, could not completely extinguish the gleam. Rilke was able to assimilate this culture and, in the process, find his own poetic voice largely because of his many close contacts in the arts world. He married the artist Clara Westhoff, and during the first months of their rather casual marriage, they lived near the arts colony of Worpswede, near Berlin. Before and after his marriage to Westhoff, Rilke had profound contacts with Lou Andreas-Salomé, a brilliantly creative woman who took Rilke to all the important arts centers of Europe and also introduced him to the Russian landscape, culture, and language. Rilke was also on close personal terms with the greatest sculptor of the period, Auguste Rodin, whom he served briefly in the capacity of private secretary. It is no exaggeration to state that Rilke could enter any capital city in Europe and call on a good friend who was well connected in the artistic or literary life of the country. Clearly, many other artists had similar opportunities. What made Rilke a genius was the unique vision he brought to his writing. Duino Elegies belongs to the great body of visionary poetry that includes the work of Dante, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, and Hart Crane. Like those poets, Rilke saw poetry as an outgrowth of his own spiritual life. Rilke was an intensely meditative poet who believed in the coexistence of the material and spiritual realms. For this basic reason, he must be considered a mystical writer; he populated Duino Elegies with “angels,” the perfect beings of this spiritual realm. His elegies can be read, then, as the records of his most important imaginary contacts with these transcendent creatures.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In the ten elegies, Rilke meditates on a few profound themes: time and eternity, life and death, art versus ordinary things, the mortal poet versus the immortal angel, and the need to lament but also to celebrate or praise existence in primal sound. There is no recognizable locale or time for these poems; conceivably, they could have been written almost anywhere or at any time. As such, they possess genuine universality. A tone of melancholy, at times bordering on unbearable pain and sadness, dominates Duino Elegies. In the tenth elegy, for example, Rilke imagines day-to-day life as a kind of grotesque circus in which happiness is an elusive target in a sideshow and everyone becomes a juggler and acrobat. Money is featured as a monster whose organs are put on display. Yet an even deeper sadness permeates these works, as in the eighth elegy, where human beings are shown to be mere spectators in life, grasping its beauties momentarily only to lose them again and again. The angels exist both to mock the insufficiency of human efforts and to inspire greater achievements. Liberation from this cycle of human limitation occurs through the process of transformation—looking into the ordinary pleasures of the world so profoundly as to transcend them and approach the angelic state. Transformation occurs as human beings begin to love both one another and the things of the world. Through language, the poet is redeemed; the world itself exists through the simple act of naming.
wrote an important essay on the effect of Rilke’s verse on poets writing in English. Titled “Rilke in English,” this essay appeared in 1939 in the widely read magazine The New Republic. Another British poet of the same period who also exhibited Rilkean flourishes in his verse and who actually echoed some of the opening lines of Duino Elegies was Sidney Keyes. Unfortunately, Keyes was killed during military action in North Africa during World War II, but the very fact that he was imitating a German poet while fighting German soldiers speaks eloquently about the power of Rilke’s poetry to transcend the narrow confines of national boundaries. During this same period, in the year 1939, a team of British translators, J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender, completed their translation of Duino Elegies. Spender was a famous poet in his own right, and the Leishman-Spender translation established a standard of literary accuracy and fluency that few succeeding translators have been able to match. Rilke’s international influence is also evident in the enthusiastic response of French writers and critics to his work. This approbation is especially noteworthy in view of the violent hatred often displayed by the French toward the Germans, and vice versa. It is a testimony to the spiritual power of Rilke’s poetry that it somehow overcame the rancorous feelings caused by the Franco-Prussian War as well as the enormous bitterness generated by both world wars. During the midst of World War I, the eminent French writer André Gide tried to recover some of Rilke’s manuscripts, which had been left behind in Rilke’s Paris apartment after the outbreak of the war. Although the landlord had apparently auctioned off most of Rilke’s personal effects, Gide personally recovered a few precious remains and returned them to the German poet at the end of the war. In 1926, the French magazine Les Cahiers du mois devoted an entire issue to the work of Rilke; during some of the worst fighting of World War II, Gide again paid homage to Rilke in an essay published in 1942. American writers may not have come as close to Rilke initially, simply because they were not members of the close-knit European literary community. However, word of Rilke’s accomplishments, especially Duino Elegies, spread quickly to the United States. During the 1940’s, a great deal of criticism of Rilke’s poetry as well as translations of his most important German texts appeared in American literary magazines. Famous literary figures such as M. D. Herter Norton, C. F. MacIntyre, and Babette Deutsch were actively involved with Rilke’s work. MacIntyre, in particular, went on to establish him863
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Significance One way to define a literary classic is as a work that has never gone out of print. By that measure, Duino Elegies is certainly a classic, a book that continually attracts new generations of readers, both in the original German text and in many translations into other languages. Clearly, then, Duino Elegies has had a broad international influence. There are also many concrete and specific instances of the powerful influence of the book’s ten poems. In England, France, and the United States—as well as in Germany—Rilke’s work has been absorbed by a variety of poets, critics, and translators. In some instances, one person has functioned brilliantly in all three of those roles. The English poet W. H. Auden, for example, not only wrote passionately and insightfully about Rilke but also patterned significant images and attitudes in his own poems after those he found in Duino Elegies. These tendencies are most apparent in Auden’s sonnet sequence titled In Time of War (1939), in which Rilkean angels appear, along with a reference to Rilke himself. Auden also
Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics
Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics self as one of the premier translators of Rilke’s poetry, as shown by his volumes titled Rilke: Selected Poems (1940) and Rilke: Sonnets to Orpheus (1960). Other noteworthy translators have included Stephen Garney and Jay Wilson, who produced a very colloquial translation of Duino Elegies in 1972, and Elaine Boney, whose translation of the same poems was titled Duinesian Elegies (1975). Translations aside, the most important influence of Duino Elegies was on the kinds of poems writers began to undertake. It is impossible to imagine a poet such as Robert Bly, for example, writing without Rilke’s influence. Bly placed high value on translating and assimilating non-English poets, an approach he explained in numerous essays. Even more telling, however, is the Rilkean voice, the voice of meditation on the things of this world and the deeper realities of the “other” world, a voice that readers can clearly detect in such poets as W. S. Merwin (another translator-poet) and John Ashbery. In this connection, Merwin’s volume Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment (1973), with its series of poems on irreducible things (such as a tool, bread, a door, horses, rain, and flies), is a beautifully successful example of Rilkean technique expressed in contemporary American English. In like manner, Ashbery’s poetry, especially his early volumes Some Trees (1956) and Rivers and Mountains (1966), reveals a similar preoccupation with transforming everyday things into transcendent objects, a Rilkean use of the ordinary world as a springboard to the extraordinary. It is only fair to note that Rilke himself would probably have been horrified that his poetry exerted such influence after his untimely death from leukemia in 1926. Before his death, in fact, he scolded the young German poets who were trying to copy his verse. His final words on the subject can be found in Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (1929; Letters to a Young Poet, 1934), in which he stresses the necessity of individuality as the starting point of all genuine poetry. —Daniel L. Guillory Further Reading Bernstein, Michael André. Five Portraits: Modernity and Imagination in Twentieth-Century German Writ-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2000. Places Rilke in the context of his times. Essays examine the work of Rilke as well as that of four other German writers of the same period: Paul Celan, Robert Musil, Martin Heidegger, and Walter Benjamin. Includes index. Brodsky, Patricia Pollock. Rainer Maria Rilke. Boston: Twayne, 1988. Written in clear, journalistic style; presents the life and work of Rilke in a straightforward chronological manner. An excellent introduction to Rilke’s life and work. A chronology of his life and a brief selected bibliography will also prove invaluable to the beginner. Mandel, Siegfried. Rainer Maria Rilke: The Poetic Instinct. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965. The first chapter of this superbly insightful study, “Between Day and Dream,” is mandatory reading for any student of Rilke’s work because it delineates the numerous tragedies of his early life. Mandel is particularly effective in showing Rilke’s growth and evolution as a poet. The index to this book provides an invaluable checklist of names and titles. Peters, H. F. Rainer Maria Rilke: Masks and the Man. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960. Anyone interested in Rilke’s influence on other poets of the twentieth century should read at least the chapter titled “Tonight in China,” which covers the topic in great detail. Written more for the professional critic than for the general reader, but a careful reading will yield rich insights. The chronology of Rilke’s life included here is one of the best available. Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duinesian Elegies. Translated by Elaine E. Boney. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975. A literal, academic translation of the elegies that offers an excellent starting point for those who do not read German. _______. Duino Elegies. Translated by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender. New York: W. W. Norton, 1939. The definitive and most widely used translation, with excellent commentary. See also: Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow
March 15, 1911
Scriabin’s PROMETHEUS Premieres in Moscow Aleksandr Scriabin’s Prometheus: The Poem of Fire represented an attempt to expand traditional tonal relationships and to blend music with other arts through the use of a keyboard that projected colored light. Locale: Moscow, Russia Category: Music Key Figures Aleksandr Scriabin (1872-1915), Russian pianist and composer Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian American mystic
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Summary of Event Aleksandr Scriabin’s Prométhée: Le Poème du feu (Prometheus: The Poem of Fire) received its premiere in Moscow on March 15, 1911, in a performance conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. The work was scored for immense resources, including not only a large orchestra but also an extensive obbligato piano solo (played by the composer), parts for organ and chorus, and especially the use of a “light keyboard” to project colored lights onto a screen. Unfortunately, this last instrument was not yet ready, and the premiere had to take place with only standard illumination. The “mystic chord” that underlies the work (consisting of the pitches C, F-sharp, B-flat, E, A, and D on the piano) is seemingly an attempt to replace the tonal organization that had governed music from the time of Johann Sebastian Bach with a new system; in reality, however, the mystic chord is a supercharged version of colorful chords that Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner (the three composers who most strongly influenced Scriabin) had frequently used in their music. A program was loosely discernible: The sole piano represented Prometheus, who was punished by the gods for giving fire to man (Scriabin had been especially influenced by the ancient Greek Aeschylus’s depiction of this event), and the arrival of fire was heralded by the choral epilogue, in which the chorus sang only vowel sounds and not words. The work soon received performances abroad, especially in London under Sir Henry Wood and in Amsterdam under Willem Mengelberg. Some conductors even presented the work twice on the same program so that the audience could absorb its full impact. It was not, however, performed with a color organ as Scriabin intended until 1915, when the Russian Symphony Orchestra under Mod-
est Altshuler performed it at Carnegie Hall in New York. At that performance, streaks or spots of light illuminated a sheet placed above the heads of the performers. Scriabin devoted himself to two musical media: the piano and the orchestra. His earlier piano works are in direct line of descent from the études, preludes, and stylized dances of Chopin, but with highly enriched harmonies. At the same time, he was writing opulent symphonies with highly musical content, culminating in a third symphony, Le Divin Poème (The Divine Poem), performed in 1905. This period saw his resignation from the piano faculty of the Moscow Conservatory; his move to western Europe (primarily Switzerland); his abandonment of his wife for Tatiana Schloezer, a piano student at the conservatory who was his companion for the rest of his life; and his discovery of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who enunciated the doctrines of the eternal return and the superman who could transcend ordinary limitations of morality with the power of his will. Two works mark Scriabin’s full maturity as a composer: Le Poème de l’extase (The Poem of Ecstasy), a large-scale orchestral work completed in 1908, and his Fifth Piano Sonata of that same year. Both were based on a poem that Scriabin had written around 1905, after he had abandoned Nietzsche’s philosophy for the writings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. He regarded Blavatsky’s book The Secret Doctrine (1888), a mixture of occultism and Indian religious thought, as important to his thinking; he later came to use Blavatsky’s “Theosophical” ideas as formulas to describe his own experiences and thoughts. Both Poem of Ecstasy and the Fifth Piano Sonata are extensive one-movement works based on musical motives that are constantly transformed. Poem of Ecstasy requires a large orchestra, including eight horns, five trumpets, and an organ for the grand apotheosis at the end. It is a very erotic musical composition; Scriabin perceived ecstasy as a state in which the consciousness of self disappears into a superpersonal, nearly divine oneness. Among the most original elements of Scriabin’s style are his extravagant expression markings. In contrast to the detailed performing instructions that his contemporary Gustav Mahler inserted into his symphonic scores, Scriabin sought to influence the mood of the performers. His instructions, in French, were often quite unusual. Those in Prometheus are representative: “delicate, crystalline,” “with an intense desire,” “suddenly very sweet and joyful,” “with emotion and rapture, and then myste-
Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow riously veiled,” “ecstatic,” “increasingly luminous and flamboyant.” What these directions have in common is an intense subjectivity, akin to Scriabin’s custom of playing only his own music in his piano recitals and, according to many witnesses, never playing a given piece the same way twice. Extramusical influences on Prometheus had been building for several decades. Several writers of the nineteenth century, including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Charles Baudelaire, and Joris-Karl Huysmans, had been affected by the idea of synesthesia (the mixing of perceptions of musical sounds with colors or words), and the French Symbolists of the late nineteenth century had given musical titles to poems and paintings. Similarly, composers such as Emmanuel Chabrier gave pictorial titles to piano pieces, and Claude Debussy chose a woodcut of a wave for the title page of his symphonic poem La Mer (1905). Scriabin esteemed Wagner for seeking a synthesis of all the arts in his music dramas, but he felt that Wagner had developed the arts along parallel lines rather than merging them into an integrated whole. Significance Prometheus was regarded as the most extended, ambitious, and imaginative of Scriabin’s completed compositions. Combining characteristics of both symphony and concerto with an orchestration that reinforced motivic development and counterpoint, it also promised to be that synthesis of all the arts toward which the French and Russian Symbolists had aspired. Scriabin associated at this time not primarily with fellow musicians (he disdained nearly all other composers) but with a small group of poets and painters who experimented with language and colors. The period immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was one of intense and even violent experimentation in artistic Russia as well as in other European cultural centers, such as Paris and Vienna. From a later perspective, Prometheus thus came to be viewed in two ways: as a harbinger of the atonality of the later twentieth century and as a work that stretched the tonal system to its limits. Both interpretations are plausible and have been supported with musical evidence, although Scriabin never discussed his technical principles of musical composition. Scriabin’s interests returned to the piano with his last five piano sonatas. Mystical connotations have been given to two of them: The Seventh Sonata has been called the “White Mass,” and the Ninth, the “Black Mass.” The Tenth Sonata of 1913 represents Scriabin’s closest approach to atonality. 866
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The project that occupied most of Scriabin’s interest during his last years was even more grandiose than Wagner’s ambitious cycle about the ring of the Nibelungs. The Mysterium, as Scriabin’s project has been called in Western countries, was to be enacted in India (originally in the Himalayas) and was to include not only music but also art, dance, recitations of Theosophical poetry, the burning of incense, and even the giving of caresses, thus involving the senses of sight, smell, and touch as well as hearing. Mysterium was to accomplish no less a goal than the unification of humankind in a single instant of ecstatic revelation; its finale was to culminate in a vision of apocalyptic ecstasy and the end of the world. Scriabin even welcomed the outbreak of World War I as a means of hastening this end. Realizing that preparation was needed for him to reach his grandiose goal, he sketched the “Preliminary Act” (or “Preparatory Act”), a musical tragedy concerning a hero who would bring joy and ecstasy into the world before his death. Some of Scriabin’s last piano pieces may have been destined either for this work or for Mysterium. Financial support for this undertaking was not forthcoming, and Scriabin’s death from blood poisoning in 1915, at the age of forty-two, ended whatever hopes existed for the completion of his grandiose work. As with Prometheus, Scriabin’s visions outran the technology then in existence. For several decades, Scriabin’s Prometheus had to wait for a performance as the composer had intended. To begin with, the musical aesthetic that prevailed for several years after the end of World War I was hostile to Scriabin’s opulent and intensely personal musical style; a work such as Igor Stravinsky’s Wind Octet of 1923—with its adherence to classical and musical forms, its stripped-down instrumentation, its astringent sonorities, and its allusions to everyday music—was the exact musical antithesis of Scriabin’s Prometheus. The music of Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples (especially Anton von Webern) made a much sharper break with tonality, and Paul Hindemith’s “New Objectivity” repudiated the hyper-Romanticism associated with Scriabin. Even before the outbreak of World War I, Jean Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony (which also premiered in 1911) represented in its uncompromising austerity a reproach to Scriabin’s self-indulgently opulent musical style. At least some of Scriabin’s visionary ideas, however, were continued by such mystical composers as Cyril Scott (who was, like Scriabin, a Theosophist) and the Catholic Olivier Messiaen, who developed a similar but much more intricate system of musical composition. For general music lovers, Prometheus was for many years a work that was discussed in textbooks on musical
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Further Reading Baker, James. The Music of Alexander Scriabin. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986. Although his musical analyses are highly technical, Baker provides an extraordinarily clear assessment of Scriabin’s most important twentieth century works. Bowers, Faubion. Scriabin: A Biography. 2d rev. ed. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1996. Extensive biography details Scriabin’s personal and professional lives. In-
cludes many photographs and a catalog of Scriabin’s works. Brown, Malcolm. “Skriabin and Russian ‘Mystic’ Symbolism.” Nineteenth-Century Music 3 (July, 1979): 42-51. Presents the case that Russian Symbolist philosophers and writers had a strong influence on Scriabin’s musical mysticism. De Schloezer, Boris. Scriabin: Artist and Mystic. Translated by Nicolas Slonimsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Originally published in Russian in 1923, this book by one of the composer’s intimate friends (the brother of his mistress Tatiana Schloezer) gives many accounts of the development of Scriabin’s mysticism, his concepts of ecstasy, and the development of Mysterium. Macdonald, Hugh. “Lighting the Fire: Skryabin and Colour.” Musical Times (October, 1983): 600-602. Describes the various attempts to perform Prometheus with colored lighting and how Scriabin changed his color equivalences. Meade, Marion. Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth. 1980. Reprint. Lincoln, Nebr.: iUniverse, 2001. A detailed and personal biography of the woman whose books had a strong influence on Scriabin’s Theosophical thought. Mentions Theosophy’s effects on some writers, but does not address its influence on musicians. Morrison, Simon. Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. A study of four scores by Russian composers, including Scriabin’s unfinished Mysterium. Appendix offers an English-language translation of Scriabin’s libretto for the “Preparatory Act.” Peacock, Kenneth. “Synesthetic Perception: Alexander Scriabin’s Color Hearing.” Music Perception 2 (1985): 483-506. Traces the history of synesthesia among several writers and in the medical literature before discussing Scriabin’s Prometheus and his projects for Mysterium. Rudakova, Yevgeniya, and A. I. Kandinsky. Scriabin. Translated by Tatyana Chistyakova. Neptune City, N.J.: Paganiniana, 1984. Mostly a documentary and pictorial biography, with reproductions of Scriabin’s manuscripts and concert programs. An interesting sidelight is the constantly favorable attitude displayed toward Scriabin by Soviet critics from 1918 onward. See also: 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet. 867
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history rather than one that was performed. Some conductors in the 1970’s, however, approached it as a challenge, because it was a multimedia work that could incorporate color as well as music. Scriabin had wanted colors provided by concealed lamps that would flood the concert hall with light, not colors projected onto a screen as in the first performance using light (in New York in 1915), and in his manuscript score for the color keyboard he included two “voices,” one slower than the other. Scriabin did not describe any apparatus for projecting the colors (technology was not his forte), but in his sketches he worked out equivalents of colors and pitches (F-sharp was violet, for example). He changed some of these ideas in his later annotations to the score. Beginning in the early 1970’s, interest in multimedia works, improvements in technology (especially lasers), and the revival of many post-Romantic works led to renewed attempts to perform Prometheus with colored lights. In Scheveningen, the Netherlands, in 1973, the auditorium was filled with an inflatable balloon, and lights were projected from its surface to the inside. At Oxford, England, in 1979, the chorus was draped in white, and the colored lights were projected onto the singers. In Louisville, Kentucky, in 1990, the effect of two lines of color was achieved through the projection of one set of colors onto the backdrop of the stage while the orchestra was suffused with lights of another hue. Prometheus would seem to be an ideal work for film or video recording, with music, colors, dance, and even some kind of action. At any rate, performances of this work, with or without lights, are rare because of the resources that Scriabin specified. Among audience members, reactions to the use of multiple media in simultaneous effects vary. Some are entranced by the interplay of sound and light, whereas others feel that the light show detracts from the musical performance. Scriabin’s feeling that the integration of colored light within a symphonic work would be “a powerful psychological resonator for the listener” was realized in Prometheus, but not fully until several decades after his death. —R. M. Longyear
Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 25, 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire The deaths of workers trapped in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sweatshop led to the investigation of hazardous working conditions and demands for regulation concerning workers’ safety. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Disasters; business and labor; women’s issues; social issues and reform; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Frances Perkins (1880-1965), witness to the fire who became an investigator for the New York State Factory Investigating Commission Robert F. Wagner (1877-1953), New York state senator and chairman of the New York State Factory Investigating Commission Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944), New York assemblyman and vice chairman of the New York State Factory Investigating Commission Mary Dreier (1875-1963), New York social reformer Rose Schneiderman (1882-1972), Polish immigrant who became an inspector for the New York State Factory Investigating Commission Joseph J. Asch (fl. early twentieth century), owner of the Asch Building Max Blanck (fl. early twentieth century), co-owner of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Isaac Harris (fl. early twentieth century), co-owner of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Summary of Event The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory occupied the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building in New York City, which was located at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street near Washington Square. The factory was very busy in 1911 manufacturing shirtwaists, the tailored blouses that, worn with plain skirts, had become part of a virtual uniform for the increasing numbers of white-collar women workers. Other occupants of the Asch Building worked five and one-half days each week, but Triangle demanded six-day workweeks of its six hundred mostly female workers. The building was thus otherwise unoccupied when Triangle workers prepared to leave work at about 4:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 25, 1911. On the way to two narrow exits on the eighth floor where they were routinely checked for theft before they 868
left the factory, workers smelled fire and saw flames in rag bins under worktables. The fire quickly spread to clotheslines holding sewing patterns above the tables. Someone located a fire hose, but it was rotten, and valves controlling the water supply had rusted. The freight elevator was barred, and two other small elevators could hold no more than a dozen passengers at a time. As burning and terrified women jumped down elevator shafts onto the tops of the cars, these two elevators were forced to quit running. Women jammed the two narrow staircases, each of which allowed the passage of no more than one person at a time. The crowds made it difficult to open the doors to the stairs, which were probably locked; the doors, in any case, opened inward. Someone telephoned the tenth floor, where all but one worker in the executive offices and the pressing, packing, and shipping rooms survived, but no one was able to reach the ninth floor. Below on the street, a crowd estimated at twenty thousand gathered and watched as what spectators first thought were flaming rags hurtled from the building. These were burning women and girls, some perhaps as young as ten, who threw themselves from the windows. Sometimes several leaped together, embracing one another as they fell. In the rear courtyard of the building, masses jammed a fire escape that ended at the second floor with a drop onto a glass skylight. The heat and crowds caused the fire escape to detach from the building, dumping victims through the glass skylight or onto the spikes of an iron fence below. The most modern available fire technology was used to fight the blaze, including the New York Fire Department’s first motorized units, but the water towers could reach only to the seventh floor. Ladders could not reach higher than the sixth floor. The horses used to draw most of the equipment became unmanageable because of the burning bodies falling around and on them and the blood running in the streets. Falling bodies sometimes covered the fire hoses, impeding the firemen’s work. Victims, jumping more than one at a time, broke through the safety nets spread for them and died on the streets. The fire, however, was quickly controlled. The walls and floors of the structure sustained little damage, but deaths in the disaster, probably numbering 146, have been estimated as high as 154. Most victims were young women immigrants, many supporting families in New York or Italy. Reaction to the fire was vigorous, because both fire
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 officials and union leaders had predicted that such a disaster was likely to occur. As New York land values had increased, buildings had been erected to heights beyond those accessible to firefighting equipment. The New York Woman’s Trade Union League (WTUL) had reported that about half of New York’s garment workers were employed above the seventh floor, although fire officials had warned that equipment could not fight fires above that level. Fire officials had also warned against the omission of a sprinkler system when the Asch Building was completed in 1901; the owner, Joseph J. Asch, defended the building as meeting the existing fire code and successfully resisted adding such a system, which would have increased the building’s $400,000 cost by $5,000. He also defended the fire escape as the mandatory third exit, although the escape did not extend to the ground. In 1909, when the building’s insurance coverage
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was increased, a consultant had urged that New York fire-protection expert H. F. J. Porter be called in to organize fire drills. Porter’s letter offering his services was never answered. Three weeks before the fire, in fact, the Protective League of Property Owners met to protest the extra costs of implementing fire officials’ recommendations, although a November, 1910, fire in Newark, New Jersey, had cost the lives of twenty-five factory workers. Moreover, firemen had been called to the Triangle factory twice in 1902 and once each in 1905, 1908, and 1909. Working conditions had been part of the reason for a 1909-1910 strike by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU). At the time of the strike, more than thirty thousand workers were employed in some five hundred shirtwaist factories; by February 15, 1910, when the strike was officially called off, workers in
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
1911 New York labor union members gather to protest and mourn the loss of life in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire some three hundred factories had been guaranteed better working conditions. Triangle employees, however, returned to work without a union agreement, largely because of the company’s successful use of strikebreakers and also because of its policy of dismissing women who joined the ILGWU. Demands by Triangle workers that doors to exits be kept unlocked and that a functional fire escape be installed were never discussed with the company. A newspaper reporter who entered the factory the day after the 1911 fire found no hoses attached to the standpipe system, no couplings that would have allowed the use of hoses, and doors that blocked access to this system.
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Significance The public’s immediate reactions to the disaster were emotional. Crowds massed around a temporary morgue that had been set up at the East 26th Street pier. Protest meetings were held throughout the city; at one, held at Grand Central Palace, the crowd heard demands to blow up City Hall. Show business figures, including Al Jolson and George M. Cohan, scheduled charity performances to help fire victims and their families; some who were themselves products of the tenements, such as comedian Jimmy Durante, had lost relatives in the blaze. To reduce public displays, officials planned a private funeral for the seven or eight victims who remained unidentified, but despite their efforts, a citywide mourning procession occurred that involved an estimated 120,000 marchers and 400,000 specA Voice for the Workers tators. Reactions were further inflamed After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a memorial meeting held at when, after a long-delayed trial, Triangle New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House attracted uneducated factory owners Isaac Harris and Max Blanck workers, middle-class reformers, and social leaders. Discord among were acquitted of manslaughter charges. the various factions was evident until Polish immigrant Rose SchneiThe matter might have ended in disrederman touched the crowd with these words: garded resolutions passed by protest groups had not the WTUL, led by Mary Dreier, held I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies, if I were to come here to a memorial meeting at the Metropolitan talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public— Opera House, rented for the league by soand we have found you wanting. cialite Anne Morgan. This meeting, which The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today: brought together uneducated immigrant the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered workers, reformers, and social and charitaand swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here ble leaders, threatened to end in disorder, as in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch fire. working-class women jeered at the resoluThis is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city. Evtions urged by leaders. Polish immigrant ery week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Rose Schneiderman united the discordant Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is factions when she tearfully spoke to the so cheap and property is so sacred! There are so many of us for one job, crowd of her own sweatshop experience it matters little if 140-odd are burned to death. and the loss of life and health she had seen. We have tried you, citizens! We are trying you now and you have a In response to this united public prescouple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and brothers and sisters by sure, the New York state legislature apway of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the pointed a factory investigating commission. strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us. State Senator Robert F. Wagner chaired the Public officials have only words of warning for us—warning that we commission, with Assemblyman Alfred E. must be intensely orderly and must be intensely peaceable, and they Smith as vice chairman. New York WTUL have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of president Dreier, a wealthy woman who the law beats us back when we rise—back into the conditions that make had walked the 1909 picket lines and been life unbearable. arrested, was appointed to the commission. I can’t talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood Schneiderman was made an inspector, and has been spilled. I know from experience it is up to the working people Frances Perkins, then secretary of the New to save themselves. And the only way is through a strong working-class York Consumers’ League, was made an inmovement. vestigator. Samuel Gompers, president of Source: Quoted in Leon Stein, The Triangle Fire (New York: Carroll & Graf, the American Federation of Labor, was also 1962). appointed as a commission member. Con-
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strikes, and was in charge of the Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration. She returned to this post in 1922, having in the interim served as executive secretary of the Council on Immigrant Education. On the Industrial Commission, she administered the Workmen’s Compensation Act. In 1926, Smith appointed Perkins industrial commissioner of the state, an office she also held under Franklin D. Roosevelt during his two terms as governor. Despite powerful opposition to the appointment of a woman, she held the cabinet post of secretary of labor under President Roosevelt, and she helped to draft much social legislation. Mary Dreier and Rose Schneiderman were the most important leaders of the WTUL for thirty-five years. Schneiderman was instrumental in the successful organizing drives of the ILGWU from 1909 to 1914, a success spurred by the deaths in the Triangle fire. She became a national organizer until she questioned the union’s commitment to women workers. She later became a suffrage leader and a New York Labor Party candidate for U.S. senator. She helped to organize the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers, which opened in 1921. Under Roosevelt, she was appointed to the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. Dreier became chair of New York City’s Woman Suffrage Party and remained active in the WTUL until 1950. In 1961, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, an observance was held to commemorate the victims. Speaking at the ceremony, Perkins noted that the fire had awakened the national conscience, leading to the unprecedented labor legislation of the next several decades. —Betty Richardson Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Backes, Nancy. “The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy.” In Great Fires of America. Waukesha, Wis.: Home Library, 1973. An illustrated history of major U.S. fires. Not a comprehensive discussion of the fire, but places the Triangle disaster in the context of the great fires that were a constant hazard of American life, especially urban life, until their number and intensity were reduced by modern fire technology. Butler, Hal. “New York’s Triangle Tragedy.” In Inferno! 871
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sultants included Dr. George M. Price and fire expert H. F. J. Porter; Price had reported to the Joint Board of Sanitary Control on dangers in the garment factories a few days before the Triangle fire. The commission held its first session on October 14, 1911. Within a year, it had heard testimony from 222 witnesses and had inspected 1,836 New York State industries. The commission’s work led to what has been called a golden age of industrial reform. In four years, the commission was responsible for thirty-six new laws in the state labor code, including the most rigorous fire-protection legislation in the United States. In her autobiographical The Roosevelt I Knew (1946), Perkins recorded that commission members who were committed to reform forced less-committed legislators to crawl through holes that had been identified as exits and to witness children as young as five at work in the factories. After legislation was passed, Schneiderman and other WTUL leaders organized twice-daily open-air meetings to inform factory and store workers about the new laws and to encourage them to report violations. Their work on the commission brought attention to both Robert F. Wagner and Al Smith. Wagner was responsible for New York’s first workers’ compensation law, and the exposure he received as head of the commission helped him win election in 1927 to the U.S. Senate, where he consistently supported legislation to protect workers and the unemployed. After the 1932 election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wagner was instrumental in obtaining passage of the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act. He was also the force behind the Wagner Act of 1937, which created the U.S. Housing Authority, and he helped draft several other New Deal measures, including the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration bill. Smith remained in the New York State Assembly until 1915, later becoming sheriff of New York County, president of the New York City Board of Aldermen, a four-time governor of New York, and the first working-class Irish Catholic candidate for the U.S. presidency, achieving popularity especially among the immigrant working poor. Aroused by her memory of Triangle women praying on window ledges before jumping to their deaths, Perkins worked for passage of a fifty-four-hour workweek bill in 1912, which she achieved with Smith’s cooperation. She became the first woman member of New York State Industrial Commission following Smith’s election as governor in 1918. She reorganized the Factory Inspection Division, going out personally to settle
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Fourteen Fiery Tragedies of Our Time. 1975. Reprint. New York: Dorset Press, 1990. Describes the Triangle fire in vivid detail, citing eyewitness reports. Crute, Sheree. “The Insurance Scandal Behind the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.” Ms. 11 (April, 1983): 81-83. Discusses the profits made from the fire by the factory owners. Includes an interview with Pauline Newman, a labor union activist who began working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company when she was ten years of age. Illustrated. Ditzel, Paul C. Fire Engines, Firefighters: The Men, Equipment, and Machines from Colonial Days to the Present. New York: Crown, 1977. Focuses on firefighting equipment, much of which is illustrated. Chapter titled “The Triangle Firetrap” describes the fire’s consequences in terms of prevention and inspection measures. Includes an excellent bibliography on disasters as viewed from this perspective. Mitelman, Bonnie. “Rose Schneiderman and the Triangle Fire.” American History Illustrated 16 (July, 1981): 38-47. Profusely illustrated account of the fire includes the text of a speech given days after the disaster by labor union activist Schneiderman, whose impassioned call for action stirred many to demand reform legislation. Orleck, Annelise. Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Focuses on the lives of Rose Schneiderman and three other female Jewish immigrant labor organizers to describe the history of women’s involvement in American working-class movements. Includes selected bibliography and index. Schneiderman, Rose. All for One. Edited by Lucy Goldthwaite. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1967. Schneiderman’s own story of her fifty years in the labor
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 movement. Chapter 10 details the Triangle fire and its aftermath. Stein, Leon. The Triangle Fire. 1962. Reprint. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001. Comprehensive, well-written, and moving account makes excellent use of trial records, newspaper stories, and interviews with survivors, among other sources. Stein, a union member and editor of a union publication, tends to be sympathetic toward the factory workers rather than objective. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Von Drehle, David. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. Draws on newspaper articles, interviews, and trial transcripts to place the fire within the context of labor conditions of the time. Includes photographs, selected bibliography, and index. Wertheimer, Barbara Mayer. We Were There: The Story of Working Women in America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. Narrative history of American working women from precolonial times to the mid-twentieth century. Presents valuable material on the significant developments in the labor movement and the influential women connected with it. Of particular relevance to the Triangle tragedy are chapters titled “Working Women in the National Women’s Trade Union League: 1903-1914” and “The Rise of the Woman Garment Worker: 1909-1910.” Includes many illustrations, extensive notes, and annotated bibliography. See also: Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion; 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States; Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster; Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor; July 5, 1935: Wagner Act; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria
March 28, 1911
Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria The Baro-Kano railroad provided access to Nigeria’s hinterland and expanded colonial trade in commodities and raw materials. Locale: Kano, Northern Nigeria (now in Nigeria) Categories: Transportation; trade and commerce; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Sir Frederick Lugard (1858-1945), British high commissioner of Northern Nigeria, 1900-1907 Sir Percy Girouard (1867-1932), British railroad expert Michael Imoudu (1906-2005), Nigerian labor leader
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Summary of Event Baro is a railway terminus on the northern bank of the Niger River. The city of Kano, farther north, is landlocked. Prior to the completion of the Baro-Kano railroad in 1911, access to the interior of what later became Nigeria was limited. The Baro-Kano line promptly opened up a vast hinterland to colonial trade. The need for a railroad to Kano was cardinal in the colonial scheme. For centuries, in the old trans-Saharan trade network, Kano had exported woven textile and leather goods to distant markets in North and West Africa by animal caravan. The merchants of Kano also traded southward to the banks of the Niger and Benue Rivers. By 1854, owing to the advent of steamers, European merchants had joined in the river trade. The trade with the hinterland, however, still depended on animals and human porters. As the colonial impulse quickened in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the rivalry among European traders heightened in the Niger area. The merger of four United Kingdom firms in 1879 secured for them an advantage over their German and French rivals. Owing to the manual transport system, however, and to the fact that private initiatives in 1878 to build a railroad had failed, trade expansion to the interior had to wait. Railroad construction finally began in Lagos in 1898, after years of hesitation, with funds from the Imperial Treasury. The hasty inception of the project coincided with the consolidation of colonial rule in Nigeria. On January 1, 1900, the British Colonial Office proclaimed protectorates in northern and southern Nigeria. Shortly afterward, the Lagos-Ibadan railroad, consisting of 120 miles of track across western farmlands, was completed and opened to traffic.
The success of the colonial enterprise depended on cheap and reliable access to raw materials. Unlike the coastal southern region, the landlocked northern portion of the Nigerian protectorate depended on imperial grants-in-aid for support. The system of direct tax in the north allowed for payments in kind rather than in cash. Kano, as the principal collection point of the northern protectorate, needed a cheaper and reliable outlet to the sea so that these crops could be sold. Sir Frederick Lugard, Northern Nigeria’s influential high commissioner, stressed to the Colonial Office the importance of railroads to the viability of his administration and the entire colonial enterprise. Lugard wanted the shortest link to the Atlantic seaport of Lagos as well as a share of the customs revenue. The coast, he argued, must support the interior and must be connected with it for military and logistical reasons. Before leaving for Hong Kong to assume duties as governor, Lugard had established a basis for the railroad. Sir Percy Girouard succeeded Lugard in 1907. Girouard, former railroad executive in South Africa, Egypt, and the Sudan, recommended that the northern railroad exploit the commercial advantages offered by the Niger River. In Girouard’s opinion, the inland waterways were potential resources for the north’s development. Approval for construction of the Baro-Kano railroad was granted by the secretary of state for the colonies in August, 1907. A team of royal engineers, whose salaries were charged to the railway budget, arrived shortly afterward. The capital appropriation came from the southern area, and interest payments were met from the north’s share of southern contributions to customs revenue. The south also secured permission from the secretary for a northward extension of the Lagos-Ibadan rail line, the intention being for the latter to link up with the Baro-Kano line at Minna. Two rival railroad systems thus had emerged, separated only by the Niger River. The two railroads promoted the different goals of the north and the south. In 1909, the Lagos-Ibadan line reached Jebba, on the bank of the Niger River. The north-south rivalry would eventually lead to the amalgamation of the two dependencies. The immediate controversy, however, concerned the territorial control and operational policy of the Lagos-Kano line. Would policy and control issue from the north or from the south? The answer seemed to lie in the unification of the two sections, which finally occurred on Octo-
Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria ber 3, 1912, when the systems were merged as the Nigerian Railway. The Baro-Kano project set an example for future construction, particularly because of its low cost and timely completion. The railroad was opened to traffic on March 28, 1911, after forty-four months of work. The line, constructed at an estimated cost of almost fifteen hundred pounds per mile, had 356 miles of track. Unlike the earlier Lagos-Ibadan line, the Baro-Kano project was locally supervised by public works officials such as Girouard and John Eaglesome. The latter later became the director of railways and works. Under the system used for the Lagos-Ibadan line, procurement and supervisory details were preset abroad by agents of the British crown and consulting engineers, then passed down to a resident engineer who was not accountable to local officials. The Nigerian railroad was profitable, like most colonial systems. The system was built with loans and appropriations from the colonial revenue and reserves. The total cost of railroad construction amounted to more than 8.6 million pounds by 1918. Despite the interest on capital and payments to the sinking fund, the railroad profitably paid its way. As Lugard observed, Nigeria was colonized at no cost to the British taxpayer. Critics of the colonial enterprise, however, speak in terms of the exploitation of Africa. Significance The Baro-Kano railroad expanded the existing channels of transportation and became a profitable link in the network of colonial trade. The improvement in transportation facilitated the large-scale procurement, marketing, and distribution of goods from the hinterland. The railroad increased the volume and value of transactions, particularly in the commodities trade. The tonnage export of groundnuts, which were second to palm produce in overseas shipment, increased by a factor of eighty-seven between 1911 and 1928. In 1900, the year Kano came under a protectorate government, Nigeria exported only 599 long tons of groundnuts. The volume of trade increased from 1,179 tons in 1911 to 103,161 tons in 1928. By 1946, groundnut exports exceeded a quarter of a million tons. Railroad transportation also increased the scope and frequency of trade and communication. Prior to completion of the Niger bridge, cargo trains from the northern hinterland were ferried across the Niger River. By 1929, more than fourteen thousand miles of telegraph wire ran in connection with the railroads. The domestic economy, however, increasingly became subject to the vicissitudes of war, worldwide insta874
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 bility, and price fluctuations abroad. Between 1914 and 1915, partly as a result of diversion of steamships to the war effort, groundnut exports dropped by nearly 50 percent. In 1915, Nigeria exported 8,910 tons of the produce, in dramatic contrast to the 50,368 tons exported in 1916. Crises in the European oils and fats industries in the interwar years also affected domestic Nigerian trade. In 1926, for example, Nigeria exported 126,799 tons of groundnuts, 427 tons less than it exported in 1925 and 36,026 tons more than it exported in 1927. During World War II, as during World War I, pricing controls of the colonial government fixed the terms of trade in commodities as well as fixing farmers’ incomes. The impact of the railroad on industry was significant. The railroad allowed greater production and sales in agriculture and mining, but the incomes of producers in these sectors went toward purchase of imported consumer goods and the payment of colonial taxes. Little was left for saving or reinvestment, so industry grew slowly. The Women’s Riots of 1929 were a revolt against the taxing policy of the government and the monopolistic terms of trade in produce. Some business historians have argued that the colonial cash-crop policy, which depended on the railroads, turned skilled craft workers into farmers and miners who fed raw materials to factories overseas. The railroad project, they maintain, stultified the manufacturing base and suffocated infant industries. Hundreds of miles of track passed through farmlands acquired by the government on the basis of eminent domain (the right of the government to claim land). Rural populations eventually drifted to the railway towns, which had become trading centers. The population of Kano, for example, grew from one million in 1903 to three million in 1959, even though the town did not offer such amenities as an adequate supply of pipe-borne water. Generally, colonial railroads in Africa were uncoordinated, except to the extent that they linked the sources of raw materials with the sea. Because trade, banking, and finance were controlled and dominated by British firms, whose directors resided overseas, business policies and practices did not coincide with local business aspirations and growth. In a report submitted to Parliament in December, 1919, Lugard condemned a system in which British merchants who depended on the colony for their wealth perceived little responsibility to the colony and its inhabitants. The railroad projects affected the economy in other ways. In the absence of a comprehensive banking system, railroad construction workers became unofficial agents for the circulation of money in remote areas. The
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Further Reading Burns, A. C. History of Nigeria. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1929. An account by a former deputy secretary to the colonial government of Nigeria. Well written despite the author’s narrow understanding of the Nigerian society. Ekundare, R. O. An Economic History of Nigeria, 18601960. London: Methuen, 1973. Business and economic analysis of Nigeria’s experience from the colonial era to independence provides useful statistical and comparative data.
Falola, Toyin. The History of Nigeria. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Comprehensive history includes discussion of the colonial period in Nigeria. Features maps, time line, selected bibliography, and index. _______, ed. Britain and Nigeria: Exploitation or Development? London: Zed Books, 1987. Informative collection of essays discusses a pattern of managed exploitation in Nigeria. Chapter by S. A. Olanrewaju, “The Infrastructure of Exploitation: Transport, Monetary Changes, Banking,” is especially interesting. Lugard, Frederick J. D. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. London: Frank Cass, 1965. Chapter 5 discusses principles of colonial administration, particularly in relation to the amalgamation of the Nigerian dependencies. _______. Lugard and the Amalgamation of Nigeria: A Documentary Record. London: Frank Cass, 1968. Contains a reprint of the report by Lugard on the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria presented to Parliament in December, 1919. Also includes previously unpublished materials on the amalgamation and administration of Nigeria. Excellent compilation. Martin, Susan M. Palm Oil and Protest: An Economic History of the Ngwa Region, South-Eastern Nigeria, 1800-1980. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Examines the effects of the growth of palm oil exportation on Nigeria and Nigerians. Includes maps, statistical appendix, bibliography, and index. Orr, Charles. The Making of Northern Nigeria. 1965. Reprint. New York: Hyperion, 1986. Chapter 10 discusses the politics surrounding the railroad’s construction. Osaghae, Eghosa E. Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Focuses on Nigerian politics since 1960, but provides background on the country’s colonial history in an opening chapter. Includes maps and index. Wogu, Ananaba. The Trade Union Movement in Nigeria. New York: Africana, 1970. Provides interesting insights into the origin and nature of labor unionism in Nigeria. Chapter 3 examines the emergence of Imoudu as a railway labor leader. See also: Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the MombasaLake Victoria Railway; Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention. 875
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workers thus aided government authorities in retiring the existing money, which in some areas included seashells, and replacing it with new money. The colonialists in Nigeria have been criticized for employing “political labor” in railroad projects, as was also the case in German, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Belgian colonies. The system involved conscription of workers, with the aid of local chieftains. Conscripts walked hundreds of miles in several months, and, as in the Kano project, were typically paid an average daily wage of six pence after tax. A junior clerk in the southern civil service received an average monthly wage of two pounds (twelve hundred pence) in 1912 and belonged to the Civil Service Union. The “political laborer” was far removed from the seeming luxury of clerical service and regular employment. Several thousand forced laborers died all over Africa in the colonial era from accidents, starvation, and other perils. Forced labor was much loathed because of its brutal and enslaving form and the separation it caused for family units. Railway workers, including clerks and mechanics, sowed the seeds of activist unionism in Nigeria. Under the leadership of Michael Imoudu, the workers’ union, after a decade of conflict with management, successfully resisted an hourly wage system introduced in 1931. A miners’ strike over conditions of work resulted in the death of twenty-one miners in Iva Valley on November 18, 1949. In Northern Rhodesia, colonial troops killed six miners and wounded twenty-two others in 1935. In 1940, in the same colony, seventeen Africans died and sixty-four others were wounded in a miners’ riot. European appropriation of land, labor, and raw materials in the colonial era is often blamed for the continuing underdevelopment in Africa. Business historians have described the colonial enterprise, including railroads, as exploitative and as the originating cause of economic nationalism in contemporary Africa. —Satch Ejike
Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria
Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 3, 1911
Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony Jean Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony is considered his most modern and one of his finest, yet it was the essentially conservative composer’s reaction against many modern trends. Locale: Helsinki, Finland Category: Music Key Figures Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), Finnish composer Martin Wegelius (1846-1906), Finnish composer, pianist, and conductor Rosa Newmarch (1857-1940), English writer Richard Strauss (1864-1949), German composer and conductor Summary of Event The Fourth Symphony of Jean Sibelius was not a success at its first performance in Helsinki on April 3, 1911. The work’s unrelieved austerity and uncompromising nature aroused puzzlement and even hostility there and at subsequent performances. Sibelius’s publisher, the German firm of Breitkopf and Härtel, commissioned English writer Rosa Newmarch, a friend of Sibelius, to write an explanation of the work for German audiences. Later, the work received slow and grudging recognition as one of the seminal musical compositions that—like Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912) and Claude Debussy’s Jeux (1913)—proclaimed that the nineteenth century was irretrievably over and a new century in music had definitely begun. Sibelius studied music with the composer, pianist, and conductor Martin Wegelius and made a study trip to Vienna, where he met Johannes Brahms and was particularly influenced by the music of Anton Bruckner. His musical development was slow, and he often revised his compositions after their first performances. He showed a flair for dramatic orchestral composition with soaring themes in his First Symphony (1899), a flair he retained, although with new ideas of formal structure, in his Second Symphony (1901). These two works, along with Finlandia (1899; revised 1900; his most popular composition), his Violin Concerto (1903; revised 1905; Richard Strauss conducted the premiere of the revised version), and the symphonic poems based on the Finnish folk epic Kalevala achieved for Sibelius an international reputation, especially in England and Germany. Sibelius had shown himself to be an inspired melodist whose orches876
tral works contained a cool scoring in which many saw a reflection of Finland’s subarctic scenery and climate. Others saw Sibelius as a representative of Finland’s struggle for liberation from Russian domination (Finland had been awarded to Russia at the Congress of Vienna in 1815). Sibelius himself was of Swedish descent, but he had attended a Finnish-language high school and was fluent in both languages. Sibelius began to change his musical style with his Third Symphony (1907), which remains one of his least appreciated works. Although he retained his reliance on melody in the work, which is almost neoclassical, he made more use of an austere scoring and a striving for organic unity than he did in his previous works. The austere tone of the Fourth Symphony, which took Sibelius nearly two years to write, may have been caused by his reflections over a potentially life-threatening illness. A tumor in his throat was at first thought to be cancerous. Several operations, and abstaining from tobacco and alcohol for a decade, led to its cure, but the future of his health and even his survival were uncertain for a few years, and he was concerned for the welfare of his wife and children. The form of the Fourth Symphony is the conventional four-movement structure of the Ludwig van Beethoven symphony (Sibelius esteemed Beethoven above all other composers), yet there are several critical deviations from the conventional symphony within the individual movements. The first movement, in A minor, is in sonata form, but an extremely condensed and compressed variety; some of the themes are fragmentary gestures rather than soaring melodies such as Sibelius had written previously. The second movement, in F major, occupies the place of a scherzo, but its pastoral quality is overridden by a menacing coda. The slow movement, in C-sharp minor, contains near its end a soaring melody that is soon defeated. The finale, in A major, is the negation of the optimistic finale of most nineteenth century works from Beethoven onward; it is in a condensed sonata form, like the first movement, but with a particularly bleak and quiet coda in A minor in place of the triumphant conclusion that most audiences expected. There had been pessimistic finales in nineteenth century music, such as to Frédéric Chopin’s B-flat minor sonata and to Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony (the Pathétique), but none of comparable austerity until the lunar landscapes of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet of 1960. A remarkable feature of Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony Sibelius wrote to Rosa Newmarch that the Fourth Symphony was “a protest against the compositions of today,” with “absolutely nothing of the circus about it.” He was reacting chiefly to the opulent and lengthy symphonies of Gustav Mahler and the later symphonic poems of Richard Strauss. The conservative symphonies of Aleksandr Glazunov and the melodious concertos of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russia’s leading symphonists at the time, and the impressionistic works of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel may have been other works that Sibelius rejected. Certainly, his Fourth Symphony is the antithesis of the two large-scale symphonies to receive their premieres in 1911: Mahler’s Ninth and Edward Elgar’s Second.
Jean Sibelius. (Library of Congress)
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is its reliance on a basic interval and motive. The symphony is held together by the interval of the tritone (A to D-sharp) and by a motive that often consists of the notes C, D, F-sharp, and E. This motive is often transposed, altered, or permutated or serves as the skeleton of a given theme. For the orchestral player, many rhythmic intricacies in all parts require much rehearsal; it is probably the most difficult Sibelius symphony to put together and demands a conductor of consummate musicianship. Not only the austerity and bleakness of the symphony but also its difficulty have contributed to its lack of popularity and its relative infrequency of performance. The planned premiere in Vienna in 1912 had to be canceled because the members of the Vienna Philharmonic refused to perform the piece.
Significance Two immediately following major works of Sibelius retained his technique, shown in the Fourth Symphony, of composing works built up from small germ motives and a somber atmosphere: the symphonic poem The Bard (1913; revised 1914) and a symphonic poem for voice and orchestra, Luonnotar (begun 1910 but not published until 1914), a setting of the creation legend in the Kalevala. Neither work became popular, although both are highly esteemed by lovers of Sibelius’s music. Despite these apparent setbacks, honors flowed toward Sibelius. In 1912, he was offered a position as professor of composition at the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna, which he declined. In 1914, he was invited to the United States, where he received the honorary degree of doctor of music from Yale University. His symphonic poem The Oceanides, in which he combined a composition technique of using motivic gestures rather than themes with a very lavish orchestration, received its premiere and immense acclaim at a festival in Norfolk, Connecticut. The Fifth Symphony, Sibelius’s largest work since the Fourth Symphony, was hastily composed for a concert honoring the composer’s fiftieth birthday in 1915 and then extensively revised in 1919. Although it retains an experimental character and continues many of the rhythmic difficulties of the Fourth Symphony, it belongs to a world quite different from the earlier work. If the
Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony Fourth Symphony represents ice, granite, and leaden winter clouds, the Fifth Symphony depicts forests, lakes, and summer sunlight. The bleak conclusion of the Fourth Symphony is replaced in the Fifth by an optimistic, heroic ending. The Fifth Symphony remains one of Sibelius’s most popular works. Sibelius was somewhat isolated by World War I; he was unable to obtain royalties from his German publisher because Russia, which still occupied Finland, was an enemy country. During this period he submitted his compositions to the Wilhelm Hansen company in Copenhagen. After the end of the war, Finland became independent, and Sibelius was esteemed as a national treasure, a prominent figure of international renown, the recipient of government grants and of subsidies to enable the recording of his symphonies. With the Sixth Symphony of 1923, Sibelius set out along a new path, retaining his concept of themes growing from organic cells but adhering to the concept of key centers, which had been abandoned by Arnold Schoenberg and his school. Sibelius’s key centers, however, are treated with ambiguity: In the first movement, for example, there is constant ambiguity between the keys of D minor and F major, both with B-naturals (in the style of the old church modes) instead of B-flats. His orchestration became more sparse, returning to the austerity of the Fourth Symphony. Sibelius himself commented that instead of offering the world highly spiced cocktails (probably an allusion to the works of Strauss and Ravel), he was providing “pure cold water.” His final symphony, the Seventh, originally premiered in Stockholm in 1924 as a “symphonic fantasia”; only in the following year was it numbered as a symphony. In one movement, the entire work grows out of the germ motives stated in the introduction, but the piece does not follow traditional symphonic form except in the recurrence of themes and contrasts of tempos. The symphonic poem Tapiola of 1926, a pantheistic evocation of the Finnish forests and their spirit denizens, was to all practical purposes Sibelius’s valedictory work, except for a few minor ephemeral compositions. Many of Sibelius’s biographers have tried to explain his thirty-year silence after Tapiola. An eighth symphony was reported to be in various stages of composition; by all accounts, Sibelius worked on it but destroyed it, and, after his death, his widow and eldest daughter insisted that it did not exist. Publishers, performers, and orchestras sought additional works from him, but they were acknowledged with tactful refusals. Explanations for his silence include a slight stroke that he suffered 878
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 shortly after finishing Tapiola and alcoholism; the most likely reason is that he had said all that he had to say in his chosen musical style. He did not approve of the new musical trends in composition that arose after World War I, especially the later styles of Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, both of whom he esteemed at first but later deprecated. Béla Bartók and Ernest Bloch were the only postwar composers whom he seems to have respected. Sibelius did attempt to write popular works in the style of his early Valse triste (1904) and thus assure himself a steady stream of royalty checks, but without success. His last datable composition was created in 1938. He was happiest living quietly in his villa at Järvenpää, north of Helsinki, where he had resided since 1904 amid his beloved forests. There death claimed him in 1957, in his ninety-second year. Sibelius founded no school of composers, accepted few pupils, and left no legacy other than his music. The phonograph and radio, even more than concert performances, contributed to the growth of the audience for his music. After 1920, his staunchest admirers were found in England and the United States, and as late as the 1950’s foreign musicians visiting the United States were surprised at the esteem in which Sibelius was held there. With the eclipse of neoclassicism and serial composition in the 1970’s, however, new respect began to be accorded to the school of conservative symphonists of the first half of the twentieth century, including not only Sibelius but also Carl Nielsen, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Howard Hanson, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Among their works, Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony represents a unique contrast of modernism within a traditional symphonic framework, but a modernism that does not seem outdated to listeners of the early twenty-first century. —R. M. Longyear Further Reading Abraham, Gerald. “The Symphonies.” In The Music of Sibelius, edited by Gerald Abraham. 1947. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1975. The starting point for all subsequent analyses of the symphonies of Sibelius, even though several later students of these works have disagreed with some of Abraham’s conclusions. Goss, Glenda Dawn, ed. The Sibelius Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Collection of essays by Sibelius scholars covers a wide range of research on the composer’s work and provides biographical background information. Includes chronology, selected bibliography, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo
Hannikainen, Ilmari. Sibelius and the Development of Finnish Music. Translated by Aulis Nopsanen. London: Hinrichsen Edition, 1948. Brief volume is chiefly useful for the background it provides on Sibelius, discussing his Finnish precursors and introducing the younger Finnish composers in Sibelius’s shadow. James, Burnett. The Music of Jean Sibelius. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983. Excellent short study of Sibelius’s music for nonspecialists. Makes extensive use of Erik Tawaststjerna’s researches before their publication in English. Johnson, Harold E. Jean Sibelius. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959. Unauthorized biography intended to provide a contrast to the glowingly eulogistic studies that had previously appeared. Presents rather simplistic analyses of Sibelius’s works. Layton, Robert. Sibelius. 1965. Reprint. New York: Schirmer Books, 1993. Biography organized according to genres, with the symphonies discussed in chapters 5 through 7. Concluding chapter provides a fine summary of the composer’s achievement. Levas, Santeri. Jean Sibelius: A Personal Portrait. Translated by Percy M. Young. 2d ed. Provoo, Finland: Werner Söderstrom Osakeyhtiö, 1986. Memoir
by Sibelius’s private secretary of more than twenty of his last years presents an intimate portrait of the composer as a person. Quotes Sibelius’s often sharp observations about his musical contemporaries. Features many illustrations, including paintings by the composer’s Finnish contemporaries and neighbors. Smith, Frederick Key. Nordic Art Music: From the Middle Ages to the Third Millennium. New York: Praeger, 2002. Overview of the history of northern European music since the Middle Ages includes Sibelius among the composers discussed. Features selected bibliography and index. Tawaststjerna, Erik. Sibelius. Translated by Robert Layton. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976-1986. Two volumes of Tawaststjerna’s monumental and definitive study have appeared in English, covering the composer’s life to 1914. Makes extensive use of the composer’s diaries and correspondence, which were not available to previous writers, and presents thorough analyses and discussions of all his major works. See also: 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies; Dec. 3, 1908: Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim; Mar. 15, 1911: Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow.
April 14, 1911
Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo William Hesketh Lever’s concession in the Belgian Congo set an example of multinational corporate responsibility in a developing economy.
Key Figures William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), English entrepreneur in international business Jules Renkin (1862-1934), minister of colonies of Belgium, 1908-1919 Summary of Event An agreement signed on April 14, 1911, by William Hesketh Lever and the Belgian colonial government in Brussels invested in Lever Brothers, Ltd., extensive proprietary rights and responsibilities for the development
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Locale: Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) Categories: Trade and commerce; business and labor
of business and society in what is now the Bas-Zaïre region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known then as the Belgian Congo. Lever’s interest in Africa began early in the 1900’s, following the poor performance of his Pacific islands ventures. Lever looked to the British colonies as sources of raw materials, but policy concerning lands in the tropical dependencies did not foster extensive concessions to business or the development of a plantation enterprise. The British government, only a few years earlier, had revoked the charter concessions of the Royal Niger Company in northern and southern Nigeria and was not about to grant another concession. Out of necessity, Lever shifted his search for raw materials to other areas, and a combination of events gave him the opportunity he wanted. Mounting African resistance to the murderous and brutal regime of Belgium’s King Leopold II in the Congo Free State was firm and unmistakable. Beginning in 1902, world opinion, especially in England, condemned the murderous system of
Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
forced native labor in the corporate plantations of the Congo. The idea of corporate respect and responsibility toward colonized peoples had been a valued part of British policy since the eighteenth century, even though its enforcement by resident officials did not always reflect the seriousness with which the Home Office in London viewed the policy. Every attempt was made by British colonialists, however, to respect local customs and laws, except in cases in which local traditions conflicted with British notions of equity and good conscience. The physical abuses meted to the people of the Congo by the concessionary firms in the Free State offended the minimum standards of equity. By 1908, it was clear that Leopold’s Congo government was on the brink of a collapse. The Congo Reform Association, vocally led by journalist Edmond Dene Morel, and the Aborigines Protection Society publicized the abuses in England. This publicity finally led to an international inquiry. A depression in the world rubber market soon eroded whatever clout and protective support Leopold enjoyed from rubber-importing nations. The pressure was such that in November, 1908, Leopold turned over his Congo Free State to the Belgian government. Questions arose, however, as to the legal validity of the annexation, and international recognition of the transfer ultimately depended on Belgium’s promise to reform the defunct system in the Congo. Thus on Leopold’s death in December, 1909, neither King Albert, Leopold’s uncle and successor, nor the government could afford to continue the old system in the Congo. Responding to hints of opportunity and encouragement from other industrialists, and after preliminary investigations, Lever took up the challenge to secure a foothold in the Congo. On April 14, 1911, Lever, on behalf of himself and Lever Brothers, Ltd., entered into an agreement with the colonial administration of the Congo, represented by Jules Renkin. As a newcomer to the colonial enterprise and eager to secure corporate participation in the process, the Belgian parliament hastily approved the concession. By the terms of the agreement, Lever Brothers, through a newly formed subsidiary, accepted far-reaching responsibilities that went beyond the ordinary scope of a firm’s business obligations. These obligations were designed to satisfy the international insistence on reform in the Congo. The mere fact of a concession being granted that included social and political responsibilities was not a novelty. The British East Africa Company, the Royal Niger Company, the British South Africa Com-
pany, the Portuguese Mozambique Company, and many others before Lever Brothers had been chartered with mandated political and social responsibilities in the colonized areas. The uniqueness of the Lever concession rested on the specificity of the mandates. In addition to provisions requiring the company to develop agricultural and oil-processing facilities within a given period, Lever Brothers was required to comply with minimum standards of community responsibility set by the agreement, including the construction and staffing of a school and a hospital in each of the localities in the concession. The concession required the company to pay minimum and fair wages for local labor and to respect local traditions. The injunction was significant given the fact that in the neighboring Moyen Congo, the French were increasingly subjecting the local population to forced labor and were pursuing a system of cultural orientation designed to “evolve” or reform the Congolese into French persons. The concession also imposed certain commercial conditions for the benefit of the Belgian economy. The company was required to buy about one-third of its industrial input from Belgian sources. This condition could be waived if such items were locally produced by the company. The agreement, however, anticipated that the company would maintain a minimum volume of purchases from Belgium. A clause in the concession enjoined the company to ship specified quantities of palm oil to Belgium directly from the colony, and another prescribed the Belgian flag and registry for the company’s ships. Belgian workers secured the right to reside and work in the concession areas. The agreement required that at least half of the company’s workforce be Belgian citizens. The five concession districts in Lusanga, Basongo, Ingende, Bumba, and Barumbu were intended by the grant to become pivotal points of development in the colony. The grant thus carefully qualified the present and future interests of the company. It was required to establish an oil-processing plant in each of the districts within six years of the grant, after which it would be in a position to exercise leasehold options. The company would not take freehold interest in the lands before 1945. With the influx of European firms and speculators in the post-World War I era, the concessional limitations were watered down.
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Significance The concession of 1911, as contracted, placed on Lever Brothers a fundamental responsibility to introduce a moral quality to the conduct of colonial commerce and trade. The concession thus represented the prospect of a
Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo
new beginning for the Congo’s people in their relationships and contacts with foreign firms and held out the promise of equity and fair play in business. The gulf between promise and practice, however, would limit the full impact of the concessional stipulation. The concession, apart from enabling Belgium to find and consolidate its colonial foothold in Africa, reinforced the erstwhile system of large long-term grants to foreigners under Leopold. Nevertheless the Belgian government, by granting the concession to Lever Brothers, showed a seeming disposition to reform and in effect softened England’s opposition to the 1908 annexation of the Congo. By the terms of the grant, the Lever Brothers subsidiary had to ensure that forced labor was replaced with a system of voluntary labor. Outside the palm oil concession areas, however, the production and processing of rubber, ivory, copper, uranium, diamonds, and gold continued to rely on veiled forced labor. In the Katanga copper mines, forced labor took subtle forms, including the imposition of various taxes and resort to migrant and temporary workers from Northern Rhodesia. Following the expansion of mining activity in Northern Rhodesia in the 1920’s and the resulting shortage of migrant laborers, Union Minière mildly upgraded its employment practices. In 1925, the colony exported 85,323 tons of copper produced essentially by migrant and underpaid native laborers. By 1959, mining accounted for 60 percent of the domestic exports. Critics have argued that Lever Brothers merely upgraded the status of native labor to indentured servitude. By 1925, the company had more than twenty-four thousand African employees in the region. The company’s need for local labor expanded shortly after production began. By the end of the first quarter of 1912, the company had shipped produce to Belgium. In that year, the company produced 384 tons of palm oil and 118 tons of palm kernels. Despite the interruptions of World War I, expansion continued. By 1918, the output of palm oil and kernels reached 4,491 tons and 2,206 tons, respectively. In the context of the colonial economy, African labor remained concentrated in the primary industries of agriculture, mining, and processing. The shortage of African labor, which increased significantly during and after World War I, caused the colonial government to introduce a “full employment” policy, under which ablebodied Congolese were required to seek employment. As in Kenya and other European plantation colonies, the Congolese were effectively edged out of cash-crop production and marketing by foreign operators.
Congolese farmers, having lost their lands to mining and plantation interests, accepted positions as wage earners. The situation in the Belgian Congo did not show any significant departure from the situations in the neighboring colonies of Angola, Kenya, and Rhodesia, where European plantations and mining monopolies dominated. By 1959, shortly before independence, more than a million native employees and laborers were working in the various industrial sectors of the Belgian Congo. In the period following World War II, native labor increasingly moved into manufacturing, construction, transportation, commerce, and clerical services. The contractual commitment of Lever Brothers to the concession hamstrung the firm’s competitiveness in the Congo. Lever Brothers, through its subsidiary, was saddled with undertaking the social transformation of the Congo. Some historians have argued that Lever Brothers did not necessarily seek to be ahead of its time and was merely the victim of a cosmetic colonial policy symbolized by the concession of 1911. Whatever the case, social services improved in the concession districts as well as in the outlying territory. Within its concessionary domain, the company contributed to the infrastructural development of the colony. By the mid-1950’s, the colony had 3,214 miles of railroads, 90,253 miles of motor roads, and improved seaports at Matadi and Boma. In 1911, the Matadi railroad had hardly been able to bear the weight of equipment for the Lever Brothers subsidiary. Lever Brothers took advantage of the concession to integrate the company’s oils and fats operations along vertical lines, controlling the entire process of production from the palm fields and oil mills of the Congo to the soap shops of Brussels. The concession of 1911, short of enabling Lever Brothers to achieve a perfect integration of the oils and fats enterprise, prepared the way for the firm to undertake the challenges of British corporate multinationalism in tropical Africa. Although Lever’s palm oil and kernel production in the Congo was not immediately profitable, partly because of competition from trading companies and capital investments in the erection of the mandatory mills, he was able to retain a sizable share of the market by diversifying investments. The latter effort led to the acquisition of trading companies and shipping lines. Lever’s most fulfilling venture was his expansion into Africa. The concession afforded his company a unique opportunity to show exemplary conduct of multinational business in a dependent and developing environment, but pressures for cheap labor and profit suffocated an otherwise noble purpose. — Satch Ejike 881
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U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason” Further Reading Ake, Claude. A Political Economy of Africa. Harlow, England: Longman, 1981. Provocative volume discusses the disarticulation of African economies by colonial and postcolonial interests. Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. “The Colonial Economy of the Former French, Belgian, and Portuguese Zones, 19141935.” In Africa Under Colonial Domination, 18801935. Vol. 3 in General History of Africa, edited by A. Adu Boahen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Provides excellent summaries and data. Edgerton, Robert B. The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Documents the history of the Congo from the fifteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Includes map, bibliography, and index. Fieldhouse, D. K. Unilever Overseas: The Anatomy of a Multinational, 1895-1965. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1978. Offers insights into the strategy and structure of the multinational firm. _______. The West and the Third World: Trade, Colonialism, Dependence, and Development. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. Examines relations between Western and Third World nations, focusing on eco-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nomics and the effects of colonialism. Includes tables, select bibliography, and index. Gran, Guy, ed. Zaire: The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. New York: Praeger, 1979. Collection of essays analyzes the internal and external variables that conditioned the history and development of modern Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Includes an interesting discussion of a concession in 1976 by President Mobutu Sese Seko to a German firm for a satellite pad. Stopford, John M. “The Origins of British-Based Multinational Enterprise.” Business History Review 48 (Autumn, 1974): 319-335. Offers interesting analysis of the growth, maturation, and expansion of family enterprises into overseas markets. Wilson, Charles. History of Unilever: A Study in Economic Growth and Social Change. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1968. Comprehensive and well-documented institutional history describes the quality of enterprise that shaped the institution. See also: Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery.
May 15, 1911
U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason” In its decision to break up the Standard Oil Company, the U.S. Supreme Court established the principle of the “rule of reason” in relation to the violation of antitrust laws. Also known as: Standard Oil v. United States Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), president of Standard Oil Company, 1870-1911 Edward D. White (1845-1921), chief justice of the United States, 1910-1921 Summary of Event Founded in 1870, Standard Oil Company became one of the largest companies in the United States by the end of the nineteenth century. In Standard Oil v. United States, decided on May 15, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court found 882
the company guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 based on alleged “unreasonable” restraints of trade, including buying out small independent oil companies and cutting prices in selected areas to force out rivals. The Court’s decision resulted in the separation of the parent Standard Oil from its thirty-three affiliates. Eleven years after the historic oil discovery in Titusville, Pennsylvania, that marked the beginning of the modern oil refining industry, the Standard Oil Company was incorporated by John D. Rockefeller in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 10, 1870. At the time of the company’s formation, the oil refining industry was decentralized. Standard Oil’s share of refined oil production in the United States was less than 4 percent, and Rockefeller had to compete with more than 250 other independent refineries. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, deflation and oversupply of oil brought down oil prices, causing fierce competition among oil refineries. The price for refined oil fell from more than thirty cents a gal-
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dard Oil for illegal monopolization of the oil industry. lon in 1870 to ten cents a gallon in 1874 and to eight cents On March 2, 1892, the Ohio Supreme Court found that in 1885. Compared with other oil refineries, Standard Oil Standard Oil had violated the Sherman Act by forming a was managed efficiently under Rockefeller and his assoholding company and forbade the company to operate ciates; this enabled it to survive while many competitors Standard Oil of Ohio in that state. failed. The Ohio court decision led to dissolution of the StanDuring the post-Civil War deflationary period, the dard Oil Trust back into its independent parts. The New railroad industry became very competitive. Rockefeller Jersey unit took advantage of favorable state laws to betook advantage of Standard Oil’s increasing size to secome the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, later cure secret rebates from shipping companies, thus reknown as Jersey Standard, as the trust’s parent holding ducing transportation costs and overall operating costs. company. Rockefeller remained president, and manageRockefeller further reduced Standard Oil’s operating ment of the trust was consolidated through interlocking costs by vertically integrating the company, acquiring oil directorates of the more than thirty subsidiary compawells, railroads, pipelines, tank cars, and retail outlets. nies. The supposedly separate companies thus were able Vertical integration gave the company more control at all to act as a single entity. stages of production. In 1901, the discovery of the Spindletop oil field creMeanwhile, because of declining market conditions, ated a boom in oil production on the Gulf coast of Texas. many small and nonintegrated oil companies that were The formation of new oil companies, such as Texaco and unable to reduce their operating costs became unprofitGulf, increased the competition faced by Standard Oil. able to operate. In addition, the method of destructive Standard Oil responded by continuing to buy out indedistillation introduced in 1875 increased the minimum pendent oil refineries. The Standard Oil Trust’s market efficient size of a refinery to more than one thousand barshare in the oil industry continued to expand. rels per day, making smaller companies even less comMeanwhile, the commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of petitive. Rockefeller began to take advantage of the situCorporations, James Rudolph Garfield, investigated ation, buying out many of the independent refineries in Standard Oil for violations of antitrust law. As a result of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey at his studies, the federal government, led by Attorney Genlow prices, often below their original cost. Standard Oil eral George Woodward Wickersham, brought charges in soon refined about 25 percent of the U.S. industry output. November, 1906, in the Federal Circuit Court of the In 1882, Rockefeller and his associates formed the StanEastern District of Missouri against Standard Oil for modard Oil Trust in New York, the first major “trust” form nopoly and restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman of business combination in U.S. history. The company Antitrust Act. held “in trust” all assets of the many regional Standard In 1909, the Missouri court found Jersey Standard Oil subsidiary companies, one of which was Standard guilty of violating section 1 of the Sherman Act by formOil of New Jersey, the third-largest U.S. refinery in the ing a holding company and of violating section 2 by re1880’s. Despite the substantial drop in oil prices, Standard Oil was able to increase its profits by reducing costs from about three cents per gallon in 1870 to less than The Seven Sisters one-half cent per gallon in 1885. By These oil companies created by the dissolution of Standard Oil in 1911 are of1900, the oil trust controlled more ten referred to as the Seven Sisters: than 90 percent of the petroleum refining capacity in the United States. 1. Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso), now known as ExxonMobil The size and power of Standard 2. Royal Dutch Shell Anglo-Dutch Oil led to public hostility against the 3. British Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), later British Petroleum, now company and against monopolies in known as BP general, prompting the U.S. Congress 4. Standard Oil of New York (Socony), later Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act in 5. Texaco, later ChevronTexaco, now part of Chevron 1890. During the same year, imme6. Standard Oil of California (Socal), now known as Chevron 7. Gulf Oil, now part of Chevron (although smaller sections became part of BP diately after New York State’s action and Cumberland Farms) against the “sugar trust,” the state of Ohio brought a lawsuit against Stan-
U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason” straining competition among merged firms by fixing transportation rates, supply costs, and output prices. Standard Oil appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on May 15, 1911, the Court upheld the Missouri decision. The Court later entered a dissolution decree to dismember the Standard Oil trust and divest the parent holding company, Jersey Standard, of its thirtythree major subsidiaries. Many of its offspring still bore the name Standard Oil. These new companies included the Standard Oil Company of Indiana (later American), the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), Standard Oil Company of California (later Chevron), Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon), and Standard Oil of New York (later Mobil). Significance The Standard Oil case marked the beginning of a new direction in U.S. antitrust legislation and prosecution. Along with the Supreme Court’s decision in the American Tobacco case in 1911, the Court’s ruling, led by Chief Justice Edward D. White, departed from rulings in earlier cases. The new interpretation of section 2 of the Sherman Act was that only “unreasonable,” instead of all, restraints of trade were illegal. The Standard Oil decision, followed closely by the American Tobacco case, gave birth to a new doctrine in U.S. antitrust policy known as the rule of reason. The allegedly “unreasonable” practices by Standard Oil that were ruled illegal under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act included forcing smaller independent companies to be bought on unfavorable terms and selectively cutting prices in market areas where rivals operated, with the intent of bankrupting those rivals, while maintaining higher prices in other markets. Chief Justice White maintained that it was mainly Standard Oil’s merger practices in an attempt to monopolize the oil refining industry that constituted illegal restraint of trade. The Standard Oil case of 1911 significantly altered the course of American business history as well as the development of U.S. antitrust laws. The victory of the government against a powerful trust provided an important lesson in the early history of antitrust. The dissolution of Standard Oil into many independent companies effectively increased competition in the oil industry. In addition, the case provides a classic study of the development of American big business at the beginning of the twentieth century. The first major antitrust law was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which emerged largely from public dissatisfaction with the monopoly power gained by Stan884
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dard Oil in the oil refining market. The Sherman Act prohibits conspiracies or combinations in restraint of trade (section 1) and any attempts to create them, known as monopolization (section 2). The limits of the law regarding what constitutes unlawful practices were not precisely defined in the act, leading to different judicial interpretations of the act. In the first decade following passage of the Sherman Act, only sixteen antitrust cases were brought to court. Even though the courts began to establish that actions such as formal agreements to fix prices or limit output were definitely illegal, judges were equivocal in their treatments of the existing large trusts in industries such as oil (Standard Oil), tobacco (American Tobacco), and steel (United States Steel). The Supreme Court’s decision against Standard Oil marked the beginning of a new era in antitrust legislation and prosecution. It established the “rule of reason” approach, by which Chief Justice White maintained that it was not the history or the relative size of a monopoly such as Standard Oil in its market that was an offense against the law, but rather its “unreasonable” business practices. This new doctrine set a precedent for cases involving antitrust laws that was not broken until the Alcoa case in 1945.
A 1911 editorial cartoon suggests that the tobacco trust might be next after the Supreme Court’s censure of the oil industry. (Library of Congress)
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In the 1920’s, Standard Oil’s successor companies began to expand their oil exploration overseas, particularly in the Middle East and Europe. That exploration continued as American resources were exhausted. Increased imports of oil, notably from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after its formation in 1960, intensified competition in the U.S. oil market and reduced American companies’ market shares. The oil refining industry developed into one with companies operating worldwide, many of them large relative to the industry as a whole but none with the power formerly held by Standard Oil. — Jim Lee Further Reading Adams, Walter, and James Brock, eds. The Structure of American Industry. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000. Chapter 2 provides good coverage of the background and historical development of the petroleum industry as well as discussions of the industry’s structure, price behavior, and performance. Valuable for undergraduate and graduate students in industrial organization. Armentano, Dominick T. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. 2d ed. Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 1990. Covers major antitrust lawsuits since the Sherman Act and the development of antitrust legislation. Chapter 4 covers the Standard Oil case. Includes an appendix of relevant sections of antitrust laws. Written for undergraduate business and economics students. Bradley, Robert L. Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1996. The second section of this book presents a comprehensive account of the U.S. oil industry’s history, including interventions in the industry by state and federal governments and the courts. Destler, Chester McArthur. Roger Sherman and the Independent Oil Men. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967. A biographical study of the author of the Sherman Antitrust Act, who fought for small independent oil refineries against the monopolization of the industry by Standard Oil in the northeastern region. Gibb, George Sweet, and Evelyn H. Knowlton. The Resurgent Years, 1911-1927. Vol. 2 in History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), edited by Henrietta M. Larson. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. Discusses the evolutionary development of the New Jersey unit following the Standard Oil case in 1911, in885
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The Supreme Court decision in the Standard Oil case highlighted the need for additional legislation to define specific business practices that constitute “unreasonable,” and thus illegal, conduct. That need led to passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914. The Clayton Act declared illegal specific “unfair” business practices, including price discrimination, exclusive dealing and tying contracts, acquisitions of competing firms, and interlocking directorates. The Federal Trade Commission Act gave birth to a new government authority, the Federal Trade Commission, to enforce compliance of the modified antitrust law. The government’s victory in its prosecution of Standard Oil, together with passage of the Clayton Act, led to more vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws. The U.S. Justice Department filed suit in the 1910’s and early 1920’s against many trusts in other industries, including American Can Company (tin cans), United Shoe Machinery Company (shoe machinery), International Harvester Company (farm machinery), and United States Steel Corporation (steel). The Supreme Court decision against Standard Oil also signified the government’s attitude toward mergers. Mergers and acquisitions subsided briefly, until the government’s failure in prosecuting the merger practices of the United States Steel Corporation in 1920. The dissolution of the oil monopoly, Standard Oil, effectively changed the structure of the oil industry. On one hand, its successor companies, particularly the New Jersey unit, maintained considerable market power in their regional territories. The retail price of gasoline increased sharply in 1915, leading to government investigation of the extent of competition in the oil industry. On the other hand, the government apparently succeeded in enforcing competition among the separated units. As a result of the dissolution, Standard Oil’s successor companies were allowed to operate only in the oil refining business. They began to confront competition from other companies, such as Shell, Gulf, and Sun, which operated with the advantage of vertical integration. In an attempt to battle the rising competition, two of Standard Oil’s successor companies, Standard Oil of New York and the Vacuum Oil Company, proposed a merger in 1930. The government filed suit in federal district court against the merger, asserting that it would violate the 1911 decree. The court’s decision in favor of the merger began a new era of merger movement in the oil industry. Through mergers, the original thirty-four successor companies combined into nineteen companies during the 1930’s.
U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”
U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company cluding operations overseas, increased competition with other Standard Oil successors, and labor relations. Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Multiauthored collection of essays on more than four hundred significant Court decisions, with supporting glossary and other aids. Hidy, Ralph W., and Muriel E. Hidy. Pioneering in Big Business, 1882-1911. Vol. 1 in History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), edited by Henrietta M. Larson. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955. Comprehensive documentation of the company’s early history, particularly its administration and vertically integrated operations in the oil business. Good discussion of the dynamic development of a big corporation from the perspectives of business administration and business history. Valuable for business students. McGee, John. “Predatory Price Cutting: The Standard Oil (N.J.) Case.” Journal of Law and Economics 1 (October, 1958): 137-169. Controversial article pro-
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vides arguments and evidence against accusations of predatory pricing practices by Standard Oil. This critique led to debates about the profitability of predatory price cutting and its violation of antitrust law. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Chapter 3 of volume 2 provides a case study of the petroleum industry until 1950. Good economic analysis of the impacts of the antitrust suit on development of the industry. Other chapters are case studies of other major industries. Appendix contains critiques of the studies of economists and government officials. See also: Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation.
May 29, 1911
U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the American Tobacco Company engaged in unreasonable anticompetitive business practices led to the company’s dissolution. Also known as: United States v. American Tobacco Company Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925), founder and president of the American Tobacco Company John Sherman (1823-1900), U.S. senator from Ohio, 1885-1897 Edward D. White (1845-1921), chief justice of the United States, 1910-1921 Summary of Event Founded in 1890, the American Tobacco Company became one of the largest holding companies in the United States before its forced dissolution in 1911. In United 886
States v. American Tobacco Co., the company was found guilty under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 of monopolizing the cigarette industry through “unreasonable” business practices, including buying out rivals, excluding rivals from access to wholesalers, and predatory pricing. The market for tobacco products includes smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco, cigars, snuff, and cigarettes. Developments in the cigarette market have had significant effects on other branches of trade. Early in the 1880’s, the cigarette industry experienced increasing competition in prices. Innovations in production technology, including Bonsack cigarette-making machines, which replaced hand labor, caused oversupply in the market. James Buchanan Duke, who first adopted the Bonsack machine for full-scale production, began to revolutionize the tobacco industry. Duke entered the cigarette business in 1881 with his father, Washington Duke, in W. Duke Sons and Company, a smoking tobacco manufacturer near Durham, North Carolina. When the government reduced the tax on cigarettes by two-thirds, he cut the price of his ciga-
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U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company can and Continental companies were consolidated into the Consolidated Tobacco Company, a holding company that was soon dissolved and reorganized under the original name of the American Tobacco Company. In 1901, it stretched its market power overseas to England by buying Ogden’s Limited of Liverpool, a leading British cigarette manufacturer. One year later, Duke negotiated with the Imperial Tobacco Company to form the BritishAmerican Tobacco Company to operate in overseas markets. The success of American Tobacco in the cigarette market did not prevent Duke from diversifying into other tobacco-related products. He waged the so-called Plug Wars by acquiring plug and smoking tobacco manufacturers including Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In conjunction with its massive advertising campaign, it deliberately sold various “fighting brands” at prices below cost in order to bankrupt competitors. As American Tobacco became the monopoly in the market, advertising intensity subsided to less than 10 percent of sales. Before American Tobacco was dissolved by order of the Supreme Court, the company had acquired approximately 95 percent of sales of snuff, 85 percent of chewing tobacco and cigarettes, and 75 percent of smoking tobacco. By the end of the nineteenth century, the growth and practices of large trusts, especially those in the oil, sugar, and tobacco industries, had brought the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, which sought to restore competition in the marketplace. In 1890, the first major U.S. antitrust legislation, the Sherman Antitrust Act, written by Senator John Sherman, was passed. It outlawed any restraints of trade (section 1) and attempts or conspiracy among competitors to monopolize a market (section 2). The antitrust campaign was intensified by President Theodore Roosevelt. On July 19, 1907, after one of American Tobacco’s subsidiaries was indicted for price fixing in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Justice Department filed a petition against the entire tobacco trust for violating sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. In November, 1908, American Tobacco was ruled guilty in a three-to-one vote. That decision was not finalized until May 29, 1911, when the Supreme Court sustained the lower court’s verdict. In the Court’s opinion, Chief Justice Edward D. White, following logic developed in the Court’s ruling against Standard Oil two weeks earlier, used the “rule of reason” principle in regard to American Tobacco’s monopolization of the cigarette industry. The rule of reason stated that monopolies 887
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rettes by half. In addition to price cutting, he launched an extensive advertising and promotion campaign for his Duke of Durham and Cameo brands, using huge newspaper ads and billboard displays. By 1889, advertising and promotion outlays amounted to about 20 percent of sales, an unusually high level within the tobacco industry. In 1884, Duke began to operate a new factory in New York and to control the northern and western parts of the U.S. market. Price cuts and competitive advertising intensified among his and four other major cigarette manufacturers: Allen & Ginter, Kinney Tobacco Company, William S. Kimball & Company, and Goodwin & Company. In 1890, Duke took advantage of the New Jersey incorporation law of 1889 to organize a merger with those other four major cigarette manufacturers to form the American Tobacco Company. With $25 million in capital, the new company immediately became one of the biggest “trusts” or holding companies in the United States. It controlled nearly 90 percent of all domestic cigarette sales. American Tobacco continued to expand its spending on cigarette advertising, with expenditures exceeding $4 million in 1910. Its competitive prices were the result of Duke’s efficient management, which kept operating costs substantially below those of most competitors. Duke’s cost-cutting practices included hiring nonunion labor at a wage rate lower than its union counterpart; an exclusive contract with the Bonsack Company for its cigarette-making machines, which cut production costs by fifteen to twenty-five cents per thousand cigarettes; vertical integration through forming extensive networks to perform all functions from purchasing leaf tobacco to warehouse storage to marketing cigarettes through its tobacco product retail chain, the United Cigar Store (which replaced the old industry method of using traveling salespersons); and discontinuing less profitable brands and closing less efficient factories. By 1900, American Tobacco’s profits had risen to be more than half of sales. As public tastes switched to Turkish tobacco, however, American Tobacco’s cigarettes declined in popularity. Duke fought back with his own Turkish brands, regaining a market share of 85 percent of cigarette sales by 1910. Market shares for the company’s smoking and chewing tobacco also increased, to more than 75 percent of the U.S. market. American Tobacco bought out about 250 of its competitors before its dissolution in 1911. In 1898, Duke had organized a combination of tobacco plug manufacturers, the Continental Tobacco Company. In 1901, the Ameri-
U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company were not necessarily unlawful; they violated the law only by acting “unreasonably.” White noted that the “undisputed” evidence of “unreasonable” business practices was overwhelming. This evidence included the original formation of the tobacco trust through the buying out of competitors, the use of the trust’s power to monopolize the trade in tobacco and the plug and snuff business further by using below-cost pricing, attempts to conceal the trust’s practices through secret agreements and creation of brands falsely promoted as independent, the practice of vertical integration with wholesalers and leaf tobacco suppliers to blockade the entry of others into the tobacco trade, and price fixing with some formerly independent tobacco companies. The case resulted in a dissolution decree, which was issued in November, 1911. The circuit court was directed to form a plan to dissolve the trust and form a new decentralized market structure. As a result, American Tobacco was split into sixteen successor companies, including a new American Tobacco Company, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, P. Lorillard Company, R. J. Reynolds Company, and the American Snuff Company. It was dissolved from its purchasing subsidiaries and separated from Imperial Tobacco, its overseas subsidiary. Significance Along with the Standard Oil case in the same year, the American Tobacco case significantly altered the course of both the U.S. history of big business and the development of antitrust law. The victory of the U.S. government in these two cases highlighted federal efforts to promote competition in U.S. markets. As for the tobacco industry, however, American Tobacco’s successor companies continued to have considerable market power. The dissolution decree gave the new American Tobacco, Liggett & Myers, Lorillard, and Reynolds a combined 80 percent of the smoking and chewing tobacco facilities of that time. Despite declining profits, the successor companies continued to increase advertising spending, which exceeded $10 million in 1912. Their total sales increased from the old American Tobacco’s $6.9 billion in 1910 to $11.8 billion in 1912. In October, 1912, in response to declining market shares, four of the independent companies formed Tobacco Products Corporation. The new trust soon was joined by six more independents. Because the government concentrated its attention on American Tobacco’s successor companies after the dissolution decree, the case actually gave birth to other industrial combinations. The next few decades witnessed the rise of Brown & 888
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Williamson Tobacco Company and Philip Morris Company, the latter of which grew to become the biggest U.S. tobacco manufacturer by 1990. In the 1911 Supreme Court decision against American Tobacco, Chief Justice White explained the Court’s interpretation and application of the Sherman Act, arguing that not all restraints of trade were violations of the antitrust law, only the “unreasonable” ones. White emphasized that it was not the mere size of American Tobacco in relation to its market that the Court condemned but the evidence of its “unreasonable” restraints of trade. The new doctrine, known as the rule of reason, set a precedent for a new era of Supreme Court antitrust decisions. The rule of reason stayed in force until the Alcoa case in 1945. The Supreme Court ruling illustrated the need for additional legislation that would define specific business practices that were “unreasonable” and thus illegal. That need led to passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914, which respectively declared specific business practices, including attempts to monopolize through mergers and acquisitions, to be “unfair” and gave birth to the Federal Trade Commission as an agency to enforce compliance with the modified antitrust law. In 1938, the Wheeler-Lea Amendment to the Federal Trade Commission Act was passed to give the Federal Trade Commission authority over consumer protection matters. The dissolution of American Tobacco transformed the structure of the U.S. tobacco industry from a near monopoly to an oligopolistic structure with a few large companies. That character prevailed until the end of the century. The dissolution of American Tobacco immediately resulted in increased competition among its successor companies. Product variety and advertising and promotional efforts increased in attempts to increase brand loyalty. The average advertising expenses in the tobacco industry doubled in the two years following the dissolution. In 1913, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company introduced a new brand of cigarettes, Camel. Lorillard responded with its Tiger brand in 1915 and Old Gold in 1926, American Tobacco with Lucky Strike in 1916, and Liggett & Myers with Chesterfield in 1920. The American Tobacco case, along with the Standard Oil case, signified the government’s negative attitude toward merger and acquisition activities. Mergers appeared to level off until the government’s failure in prosecuting the merger practices of U.S. Steel in 1920. As for the tobacco industry, even though competition increased with the rise of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company
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and Philip Morris Tobacco Company, the biggest three successor companies to American Tobacco—the new American Tobacco, Reynolds, and Liggett & Myers— still maintained considerable market power, as a group controlling between 65 percent and 90 percent of the U.S. tobacco product sales during the next two decades. Such a market without major entry became the main evidence used by the Supreme Court to convict the largest three successor companies of conspiracy in monopolization and restraint of trade in 1946. The practices of the American Tobacco Company contributed important lessons not only in the development of antitrust law but also in the role of marketing and advertising in business practices. Tactics innovated by James Duke and later by American Tobacco’s successor companies, including heavy use of advertising, became common in other markets for nearly identical products, such as the market for gasoline. Consequently, in 1938, the government stepped in with passage of the Wheeler-Lea Act, which gave the Federal Trade Commission jurisdiction to regulate advertising and promotional activities. —Jim Lee
See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure.
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Further Reading Adams, Walter, and James Brock, eds. The Structure of American Industry. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000. Provides good coverage of the development of the tobacco industry as well as discussions of the industry’s structure, price behavior, and performance. Valuable for undergraduate and graduate students in industrial organization. Armentano, Dominick T. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. 2d ed. Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 1990. Covers major antitrust lawsuits since the Sherman Act and the development of antitrust legislation. Includes discussion of the American Tobacco case. Features an appendix of relevant sections of antitrust laws. Cox, Reavis. Competition in the American Tobacco Industry, 1911-1932. New York: Columbia University Press, 1933. A good study of the performance and competition among the major tobacco companies. Hovenkamp, Herbert. Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice. 2d ed. Eagan, Minn.:
West, 1999. Covers nearly all aspects of U.S. antitrust policy in a manner understandable to readers with no background in economics. Chapter 2 discusses “history and ideology in antitrust policy.” Porter, Patrick G. “Origins of the American Tobacco Company.” Business History Review 43 (Spring, 1969): 59-76. Concise historical study of the tobacco company until its dissolution in 1911 draws comparisons between big tobacco and the oil industry. Tennant, Richard B. The American Cigarette Industry. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950. Detailed history of the cigarette industry through the 1940’s. Includes analysis of market behavior using economic models and statistical regression analysis. Excellent business or economics case study for undergraduate-level readers. U.S. Bureau of Corporations. Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Tobacco Industry. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1908-1909. Presents the findings of a government investigation of the tobacco industry, particularly the American Tobacco Company. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Chapter 11 of volume 2 provides in-depth discussion of the tobacco industry from different perspectives, including its price and product competition and its performance that resulted in the second antitrust lawsuit. Other chapters offer case studies of other major industries. Appendix contains critiques of the studies by economists and government officials.
Agadir Crisis
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July 1, 1911
Agadir Crisis The Agadir crisis resulted from the German challenge to the French assignment of troops to Morocco in 1911. The crisis resulted in the escalation of tension between Germany and France and in Germany’s increased diplomatic isolation. Also known as: Second Moroccan crisis Locale: Morocco; France; Germany; Great Britain Category: Diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921), German chancellor, 1909-1917 Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), British foreign minister, 1905-1916 William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Raymond Poincaré (1860-1934), French prime minister, 1912 David Lloyd George (1963-1945), British Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1908-1915 Summary of Event Morocco emerged as a diplomatic focal point on March 31, 1905, when the German emperor William II visited Tangier and declared Morocco to be independent. His statement was directed at French and Spanish plans to partition Morocco and expand their colonial empires. The result was the first Moroccan crisis, which was settled at the Algeciras Conference in 1906. There, the European powers recognized Morocco’s independence as well as the special interests of the French and Spanish; German economic interests were also supported. In 1908, Germany and France signed an agreement in which Morocco’s independence was reasserted, the special interests of the French were clarified, and German economic interest in the region was reaffirmed. In 1911, an insurrection broke out among native Moroccans, and all Europeans feared that their economic interests were at risk. Within the context of its recognized interests in Morocco, France dispatched troops to the city of Fez to suppress the rebellion. After asserting that it desired to protect Moroccan independence and its citizens residing in Morocco, the German government sent the warship Panther to the port of Agadir. The Germans’ real interest, however, was in creating a situation in Morocco that would result in gains in other regions of Africa; in particular, they sought to acquire the French Congo. 890
From the very outset of the crisis in July, 1911, the Germans were at a disadvantage, because their diplomats lacked the experience of the seasoned British and French experts. With the arrival of the Panther on July 1, 1911, a diplomatic crisis rapidly developed between Germany and the allied French, British, and Spanish governments. The Agadir crisis, also called the second Moroccan crisis, was an imperial issue that eroded the relationships among European powers and contributed to the polarization of Europe into two armed camps. Germany’s real goals were not known, and Britain feared that the Germans intended to build a naval base in Morocco, which would pose a threat to Gibraltar. While British reaction was coordinated by Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary, David Lloyd George, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, denounced the German action as a provocation. In a speech delivered on July 21, 1911, at the London lord mayor’s residence, Mansion House, Lloyd George, who had been frustrated by the amount of money that was expended on naval weapons—he had hoped to allocate more funds to address a series of domestic needs—asserted that the British would meet any German challenge. Even though no direct British interest was actually being threatened, the British government had adopted an anti-German position, and in this crisis it did not hesitate to support the French, who were led by Raymond Poincaré. German emperor WilIiam II and his chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, demonstrated that they had little understanding of European diplomacy. They did not know the details of the two secret agreements France had entered into in 1904, which were designed to secure France’s interests in northwest Africa, particularly in Morocco. The first treaty was an agreement with Spain in which the latter country agreed to a partitioning of Morocco in which France would receive the largest interest and Spain would receive a smaller section. The second secret—and more important—arrangement was the Anglo-French Entente, in which Britain recognized French dominance in northwest Africa in exchange for French acceptance of British hegemony in northeast Africa, especially Egypt. Even though the Germans were outmaneuvered in the first Moroccan crisis and received nothing of consequence at the Algeciras Conference, they were blind to their own failures. In addition, they did not recognize the contradiction between their action in
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sending the Panther to Agadir on Lloyd George’s Mansion House Speech of 1911 July 1, 1911, and their agreement of On July 21, 1911, David Lloyd George, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, February 8, 1908, in which they recresponded to the Agadir crisis in a speech delivered at Mansion House, the ognized Morocco as a French sphere London lord mayor’s residence: of influence (although one open to all nations for trade). Personally I am a sincere advocate of all means which would lead to the settleThe crisis continued through Aument of international disputes by methods such as those which civilization has gust and September, but with diminso successfully set up for the adjustment of differences between individuals, ished intensity. All sides wished to and I rejoice in my heart at the prospect of a happy issue to Sir Edward Grey’s defuse the urgency of the crisis, but negotiations with the United States of America for the settlement of disputes the British foreign secretary, Sir Edwhich may occur in future between ourselves and our kinsmen across the Atlantic by some more merciful, more rational, and by a more just arbitrament ward Grey, was primarily responthan that of the sword. sible for the lessening of tensions. But I am also bound to say this—that I believe it is essential in the highest Negotiations opened, and by Noveminterests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all ber of 1911, an agreement had been hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the reached. On November 4, 1911, the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in representatives of Germany, France, the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the and Britain signed an agreement in past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that which all parties recognized that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction. I France had a “protectorate” over Mowould make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive that nothing would rocco, meaning that Morocco would justify a disturbance of international good will except questions of the greatest be considered part of the French emnational moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position pire. In return for agreeing to this forBritain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain mal recognition of French control to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no acof Morocco, France ceded sections count in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price of the French Congo to Germany, would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure. which withdrew the Panther and other ships from Agadir in November. The sections of the Congo given to Germany were deemed to be of litother in their fear of German aggression (both in Europe tle value in 1911, but their transfer did result in some doand overseas); Germany, while allied with Austriamestic opposition in France and opposition by Spain. Hungary and its erstwhile friend Italy, found itself inGrey intervened to resolve the difficulty between France creasingly isolated and diplomatically outwitted by the and Spain, and a treaty was signed on November 27, French and the British. The Agadir crisis resulted in a 1912, that transferred sections of French Morocco to victory for France and a face-saving defeat for Germany; Spain and established Tangier as an international city. In German action was intended to remove the French from 1912, the Italian government, inspired by the Agadir criMorocco, but the end result was a continued French pressis, moved to annex Tripoli (the capital of Libya) and creence in Morocco and North Africa, a state of affairs enated another colonial dispute that perpetuated distrust dorsed by the British. Agadir was a defining moment, for among the European powers. after 1911 the likelihood of war skyrocketed and individual nations prepared for hostilities. The Balkan Wars of Significance 1912 and 1913 sustained a momentum that culminated in The Agadir crisis of 1911, one in a series of events that the August, 1914, outbreak of World War I. eroded and polarized the relationships among the Euro—William T. Walker pean powers, contributed to the mounting sense that a general war was inevitable. It followed the AngloFurther Reading French Entente of 1904, the first Moroccan crisis and the Barlow, Ima Christina. The Agadir Crisis. Chapel Hill: subsequent Algeciras Conference of 1906, and the BosUniversity of North Carolina Press, 1940. Standard nian crisis of 1909. During this period of enhanced crisis, scholarly history of the Agadir crisis published France, Britain, and Russia were drawn closer to one an-
Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Somewhat dated, but still informative. Barraclough, Geoffrey. From Agadir to Armageddon: Anatomy of a Crisis. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1962. Examination of the Agadir crisis as a defining moment in the origins of World War I. Scholarly and critical study concludes that the crisis was fabricated by the Germans and resulted in Germany’s increased isolation. Hayne, M. B. The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 1898-1914. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Important and worthwhile study of the French role and goals in the crisis and in the diplomacy leading to the outbreak of war in 1914. Hewitson, Mark. Germany and the Causes of the First World War. New York: Berg, 2005. Excellent study of the salient factors and events that shaped the policies and response of Germany under the leadership of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 William II and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. Joll, James. Origins of the First World War. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 2004. Perhaps the best single-volume work on the background and outbreak of World War I, including the mounting diplomatic crisis. Steiner, Zara S., and Keith Nelson. Britain and the Origins of the First World War. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Informative work includes material on Britain’s diplomatic posture and strategy during the prewar years under the leadership of Sir Edward Grey. See also: Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis; Oct. 18, 1912Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty.
July 24, 1911
Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu, a previously unknown Inca city in the Andean jungle, extended the known range of Inca settlement and fired the public’s imagination. Locale: Machu Picchu, Peru Categories: Archaeology; prehistory and ancient cultures Key Figures Hiram Bingham (1875-1956), American archaeologist Melchor Arteaga (fl. early twentieth century), Quechua Indian farmer Sergeant Carrasco (fl. early twentieth century), Peruvian military policeman Toribio Richarte (fl. early twentieth century), Quechua Indian farmer Anacleto Alvarez (fl. early twentieth century), Quechua Indian farmer Summary of Event The great Inca Empire conquered by Francisco Pizarro and the Spaniards was centered in the Andean highlands of Peru, but the edges of the empire extended as far north as southern Colombia and as far south as central Chile, from the Pacific Ocean to the edges of the Brazilian jun892
gle. Although the jungle was largely peripheral to the empire, it held an intriguing role in the history of the Inca. First, legend held that Manco Capac, the first Inca ruler, had been born at Tampu Tocco (also known as Tambo-Toqo) in the jungles of the eastern slope of the Andes. Further, history told of Vitcos and Vilcabamba, the jungle towns where the postconquest Inca who rebelled against the Spaniards fled in 1539 and where they held out until 1572. These fabled places fired archaeologist Hiram Bingham’s imagination early in his career; his greatest triumph was accomplished during his attempts to locate these places. Bingham was born in Hawaii, the son of a missionary and the third generation of his family there. He received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, but he had virtually no archaeological training when he began his series of South American explorations. Initially, he was lured to South America in 1907 by a historical interest in retracing the route of Simón Bolívar, the nineteenth century revolutionary hero of South America; it was during this trip that he became interested in further explorations. He returned the following year and visited his first archaeological ruins. From the beginning, Bingham was more of an explorer in the nineteenth century mold than a scientist of
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the twentieth century type. He spent most of his efforts organizing teams and leading expeditions, leaving others to perform the detailed collection, analysis, and interpretation. In fact, his published works on Peru are almost all popular, rather than technical. By 1911, Bingham had become interested in finding Vilcabamba, the last capital of the Incas, the jungle capital. His expedition consisted initially of Professor Harry Foote (a naturalist) and Dr. William Erving (a surgeon); they were joined later by Sergeant Carrasco, a military policeman assigned to them as an escort by the Peruvian president. In early July, this group set off, heading down the lush valley of the Urubamba River as it rushed from
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the high Andes into the jungle below, a drop of more than 3,000 meters (about 9,843 feet) in a distance of somewhat less than 100 kilometers (about 62 miles). The deep, winding gorge flanked by dense, tropical vegetation made direct observation and search for ruins difficult; Bingham relied primarily on informants for information on where there were ruins worthy of his attention. By the evening of July 23, the party had reached an open plain called Mandor Pampa, where, while pitching camp, they encountered a local Indian named Melchor Arteaga. Arteaga told of ruins on the tops of twin mountains nearby, Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu. He praised those on Huayna Picchu highly but noted that those on Machu Picchu also were at least worth visiting. Bingham decided to visit these sites the followMachu Picchu ing day. Colombia The next morning broke with a N apo Quito R dreary, cold drizzle that was to last all day, and only Bingham retained Ecuador his interest in pressing on to the ruins Arteaga mentioned. In fact, Foote r o and Erving decided to stay in camp, d n A Peru Co River and Arteaga had to be bribed with triIquitos m a z o n ple wages to guide Bingham to the Marañón Talara ruins. Finally, Bingham, Arteaga, and Sullana or Carrasco set out on a several-hour C Piura Brazil journey that forced them to scale Orellana cliffs, cross primitive bridges over Chiclayo the cascading Urubamba, and carve their way through dense jungle vegeTrujillo tation. Ultimately, they found their way to the farm of Toribio Richarte Huaraz and Anacleto Alvarez, two Quechuan Huanuco Pa c i f i c Indians who were using ancient Incan Cocama terraced slopes for their plantings. Cerro de Pasco Ocean After a rest, the party forged on a Huancayo Callao Machu short distance to the site of Machu Lima Picchu Picchu. There they were greeted by abunAyacucho Cuzco dant evidence of human activity. Ica Nearly one hundred ancient agricultural terraces crawled up the slope La toward the top of the lower of the two Puno Paz peaks, Machu Picchu, but such terArequipa races were fairly common and not Bolivia sufficient in themselves to impress Tacna Bingham. Above the terraces, however, near the top of the mountain, Chile were dozens of stone buildings, some di
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Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu large and others more modest. The true impact of the discovery would be clear a year later, after a return expedition cleared the vegetation to reveal the buildings’ magnitude; however, Bingham immediately recognized their tremendous importance, even as overgrown as they were. Investigations the following year at the larger peak (Huayna Picchu) revealed a small but significant group of ruins at its top, but Bingham was far more impressed with Machu Picchu. As he roamed over the ruins of Machu Picchu that first
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day, and even more so as the subsequent expedition cleared the vegetation and minutely recorded the findings, Bingham was convinced that he had located an ancient city of great importance. At the top of a steep stone stairway was a cluster of buildings of various styles. Some were temples, many of which had strangely carved rocks within, presumably shrines or representations of deities. One was a tower built of huge, carefully dressed stones (now usually interpreted as an observatory), the circular shape of which was most atypical of Incan architecture. Palaces, also made of these large, dressed stones, were in areas adjacent to the temples and obserThe Moment of Discovery vatory. In another area apart from In his book Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru, Hiram Bingham these elite buildings were modest recalls the moment he and his colleagues began to realize they had stumbled gabled houses with distinctive Incan onto an important part of Inca history: trapezoidal doorways, minus their thatched roofs but otherwise largely Without the slightest expectation of finding anything more interesting than the intact. These buildings were substone-faced terraces of which I already had a glimpse, and the ruins of two or stantial habitations to protect their three stone houses such as we had encountered at various places on the road beoccupants against the cool night air. tween Ollantaytambo and Torontoy, I finally left the cool shade of the pleasant There also were other gabled buildlittle hut and climbed farther up the ridge and around a slight promontory. . . . ings, much like the houses but with Hardly had we rounded the promontory when the character of the stonework began to improve. A flight of beautifully constructed terraces, each two walls on only three sides, resembling hundred yards long and ten feet high, had then recently rescued from the jungle historic buildings where the Inca by the Indians. A forest of large trees had been chopped down and burned over made chicha, a local corn beer. Comto make a clearing for agricultural purposes. Crossing these terraces, I entered plex water systems channeled artifithe untouched forest beyond, and suddenly found myself in a maze of beautiful cial streams through the settlement granite houses! They were covered with trees and moss and the growth of cenand produced ornamental streams turies, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, and fountains. Plazas were marked could be seen, here and there, walls of white granite ashlars most carefully cut by open spaces between clusters of and exquisitely fitted together. Buildings with windows were frequent. Here at buildings. Interspersed through the least was a “place far from town and conspicuous for its windows.” site were various types of architecUnder a carved rock the little boy showed me a cave beautifully lined with ture, some familiar and some exotic, the finest cut stone. It was evidently intended to be a Royal Mausoleum. On top of this particular boulder a semicircular building had been constructed. The some impressive and some ordinary, wall followed the natural curvature of the rock and was keyed to it by one of the but all documenting the complexity finest examples of masonry I have ever seen. This beautiful wall, made of careand importance of the site. fully matched ashlars of pure white granite, especially selected for its fine Many of the larger, more impresgrain, was the work of a master artist. . . . sive structures were built of stones To my astonishment I saw that this wall and its adjoining semicircular temmore than 2 meters (about 6.6 feet) ple over the cave were as fine as the finest stonework in the far-famed Temple in each dimension, fitted together of the Sun in Cuzco. Surprise followed surprise in bewildering succession. I with angled and irregular joints, but climbed a marvelous great stairway of large granite blocks, walked along a cut so accurately that the blade of a pampa where the Indians had a small vegetable garden, and came into a little pocket knife could not be inserted clearing. Here were the ruins of two of the finest structures I have ever seen in between the stones. This trait, so disPeru. Not only were they made of selected blocks of beautifully grained white granite; their walls contained ashlars of Cyclopean size, ten feet in length, and tinctive of the Inca, as well as the higher than a man. The sight held me spellbound. trapezoidal doorways, proved that the site was indeed part of the Inca Source: Hiram Bingham, Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1922). Empire, a fact confirmed by the artifacts later found there.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The following year, Bingham and a somewhat larger, better-funded team returned to Machu Picchu and carried out full-scale fieldwork. They cleared the area of vegetation, mapped everything carefully, and conducted excavations to collect artifacts. They also bribed local Indians to disclose the locations of burial caves below the main site, and they investigated the surrounding area to locate Inca roads and bridges that linked the region to the rest of the empire. It had become obvious to Bingham—as it soon would to the archaeological world in general—that Machu Picchu was a site of major importance. Its significance lay not so much in its size as in its location and its wellpreserved religion and elite architecture. Although many of Bingham’s specific interpretations of the site were disputed by others and have not stood the test of time, his basic insight that Machu Picchu was an extraordinary discovery has proven correct.
Bingham consistently called Machu Picchu a “lost city,” and it is often termed a city in modern descriptions. Nevertheless, it is small in comparison with most conceptions of cities, probably never housing more than a thousand people. It is widely believed that a small force of workers and maintenance population lived there yearround, and that nobles or other elites visited the site seasonally for recreation. Another likely function of the settlement was to consolidate the Inca’s tenuous hold in the jungle, giving the empire easier access to the feathers and other resources found in that zone. Bingham’s discovery, although he apparently misinterpreted its significance, pointed out to archaeologists the importance of the eastern side of the Andes to the Inca, a point not previously recognized. Studies since Bingham’s discovery have examined the role of trade between the highlands and the jungle, the political system that permitted the integration of such far-flung and diverse parts of the Inca Empire, and the possible impact of jungle cultures on the culture of the Incas and their highland predecessors. It is fair to say that none of these ideas would have been scrutinized so thoroughly if Machu Picchu had never been found. Probably the greatest impact of Bingham’s work went beyond archaeology. His discovery of Machu Picchu was destined to have a profound effect on the public. Bingham’s expedition was like something out of a Jules Verne novel, with archaeological treasures and primitive splendor being discovered in the jungle. Bingham was willing to write for the public, and his engaging style and his association with the National Geographic Society assured that his story would appear in the premier popular outlet of its day. In an era of literacy, readily available books, and photography, he brought his story before the public with a vividness that sparked the imagination in a way that would not be equaled until the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt some ten years later. Machu Picchu became a popular cultural site for tour groups and ecotourists. By the early twenty-first century, it was attracting as many as twenty-five hundred visitors a day during the peak season, leading preservationists to worry about the impact of unregulated tourism on a site vulnerable to degradation. —Russell J. Barber Further Reading Bingham, Alfred M. Portrait of an Explorer: Hiram Bingham, Discoverer of Machu Picchu. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989. Fond and thorough documentation of Bingham’s life by his son features the 895
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Significance Bingham was convinced that he had discovered the last capital of the Incas, the site that he had set out to find. In some of his writings, he toyed with the possibility that it was the same place where the first Inca had been born; he became quite convinced of this by the time of some of his later writings. At the time when he was writing, there had been few other Inca sites found in the jungle; Machu Picchu remains to this day the largest and most opulent of the sites on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Further, Bingham interpreted some of the architecture at the site as part of major defensive works, something to be expected at the last Inca capital. Other archaeologists, however, have not agreed with this interpretation. Although it is clear that the site’s topography would have aided defenders in the event of attack, there is no clear evidence of defensive works on the scale that Bingham believed. Bingham’s conclusion received a fatal blow from the dating of the site. Refinements in the dating of Inca artifacts and architecture on the basis of style or form and the introduction of the radiocarbon dating technique have conclusively documented that Machu Picchu existed neither early enough to have been the birthplace of the first Inca nor late enough to have been the final refuge. The Inca Empire was in existence only a brief time, from 1430 to shortly after the coming of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century; Machu Picchu was occupied in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Clearly, it was an important site, but it was neither the first nor the last.
Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu
Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu discovery of Machu Picchu prominently. Illustrated with photographs from the expedition and the family archives. Bingham, Hiram. Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru. Boston: Houghton Muffin, 1922. Primarily chronicles the Machu Picchu expedition for the nontechnical reader. Much of Bingham’s account of the discovery of Machu Picchu in this book appears verbatim in his later works. Includes a few illustrations. _______. Lost City of the Incas: The Story of Machu Picchu and Its Builders. 1948. Reprint. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002. Book for the popular reader attempts to put Bingham’s work into perspective in the light of research by other scholars. Maintains much of the firsthand quality of Bingham’s other works and provides a description of the events surrounding the discovery and examination of Machu Picchu. Includes illustrations and a bibliography. _______. Machu Picchu: A Citadel of the Incas. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1930. Focuses on the 1912 expedition that examined Machu Picchu in detail. Includes several illustrations. Brundage, Burr Cartwright. Empire of the Inca. 1963. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. Readable account of the history of the Inca, written for specialists but accessible to lay readers. Examines both legendary and documentary history. Burger, Richard L., and Lucy C. Salazar, eds. Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Illustrated
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 volume published in connection with a museum exhibition of Inca artifacts. Essays on various topics include Bingham’s “The Discovery of Machu Picchu.” Davies, Nigel. The Ancient Kingdoms of Peru. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Examines the civilization of the Inca as well as the civilizations that preceded it in Peru. Includes maps, illustrations, select bibliography, and index. Hemming, John. Machu Picchu. New York: Newsweek, 1981. Traces the history and prehistory of Peru with an emphasis on Machu Picchu. Includes many excellent color illustrations. Kendall, Ann. Everyday Life of the Incas. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973. Brief, well-illustrated account of the lifestyle of the ancient Inca. Lumbreras, Luis G. The Peoples and Cultures of Ancient Peru. Translated by Betty J. Meggers. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974. Provides a basic summary of ancient cultures in Peru and adjacent areas. Focuses on the overall pattern of Peruvian prehistory, not on Machu Picchu itself. Authoritative work is intended for readers with some knowledge of the subject matter. See also: Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code; Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen; 1923: Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs; Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
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Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art
September, 1911
Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art A group of artists in Germany, disenchanted with traditional art and contemporary European culture, formulated an abstract approach that celebrated the inner, spiritual dimension of humanity. Locale: Munich, Germany Category: Arts Key Figures Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian artist Franz Marc (1880-1916), German painter August Macke (1887-1914), German painter Gabriele Münter (1877-1962), German painter Alfred Kubin (1877-1959), Austrian writer and artist
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Summary of Event Der Blaue Reiter (the blue rider) was among the first major artists’ associations dedicated to abandoning representational art in favor of an abstract style. Founded by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, who functioned as the group’s “editorial board,” Der Blaue Reiter was not an actual organization but a diffuse community of artists with common interests. Artists in the group staged several exhibits, published two editions of an almanac (another was prepared but never published), and individually advocated a new abstract and expressionistic art. Although Der Blaue Reiter was inspired and nourished by numerous sources, Kandinsky was its prime mover, and the group’s history is truly the story of a crucial period in Kandinsky’s development as a painter and theorist. In 1909, Kandinsky founded and became president of the Neue Künstlervereinigung (NKV), a Munich artists’ union. The NKV staged two exhibits, the first in 1909, at which Kandinsky showed paintings and woodcuts. During 1909, he also began work on a series of musical “color-poems” to be performed on stage and started work on a series of paintings he called “Improvisations.” While not abstract paintings per se, Kandinsky’s Improvisations, with their progressive abandoning of objective referents, were a move toward abstractionism. In 1910, Kandinsky began another series he called “Compositions,” which also moved toward abstraction. He showed Composition II (1910) and Improvisation X (1910) at the second NKV exhibit in 1910, and both works, along with the progressive works of other NKV artists, were ridiculed, scorned, and even spat upon. Such protests by the public and critics were not uncommon, given that the NKV represented the same avant-garde
spirit of change as did the earlier Die Brücke and Berlin Secession movements, with which Kandinsky also exhibited. Franz Marc, an artist whom Kandinsky had not met, wrote a very favorable commentary on the exhibit, however, and this led to the pair’s first meeting. Their friendship quickly deepened. Kandinsky also produced First Abstract Watercolor in 1910, a work that many consider to be the first abstract painting (some have argued, however, that it was actually a study for 1913’s Composition VII and has been incorrectly dated). First Abstract Watercolor was momentous for Kandinsky; it expressed his realizations not only that objects are not necessary for painting (an insight he first had when viewing Claude Monet’s Haystack in the Sun in 1896) but also that hidden secrets within objects are their essence and true contents. It is in this essence, Kandinsky reasoned, that the “spiritual” resides, and he believed that modern art should pursue such spiritual truth. Kandinsky maintained that through abstraction one could encounter a realm where the human soul would be transfigured as colors, these colors being the language or music by which the artist would summon forms immanent in the cosmos. These forms, as “art,” would also operate to elevate human beings to a new spiritual way of living in which ethics and aesthetics would redeem them from the materialistic alienation of modern progress. In his manifesto Über das Geistige in der Kunst, insbesondere in der Malerei (1912; Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular, 1912), Kandinsky explained his thoughts on such issues. In 1911, the friendship between Kandinsky and Marc continued to blossom, and Marc joined the NKV. At the time, Kandinsky was writing reviews for the Russian journal Apollon and other periodicals in which he critiqued traditional European art, especially that of conservative Munich. In place of such art, he advocated the creation of a freer, more expressive and abstract art that would display the “inner sound” of the spiritual as experienced by the artist. Marc shared these views, and Kandinsky and Marc joined with other artists and dealers to protest the publication of an ethnocentric diatribe against foreign artists written by conservative members of the German art establishment. In the meantime, preparations were being made for the third NKV exhibition, and it was clear by then to Marc and Kandinsky that the NKV would not remain intact. Kandinsky resigned as president and told Marc of his desire to create a new al-
Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art manac that would promote both modern, abstract art and art from other cultures and times, all of which would manifest the inner life of the artist. In August, Kandinsky met Marc’s friend August Macke, who became active in planning the almanac and whose uncle became a financial supporter of Der Blaue Reiter. In September, Marc and Kandinsky whimsically decided on the name Der Blaue Reiter. Kandinsky had made a painting with a similar name in 1903, both he and Marc loved the color blue, Marc loved horses, and Kandinsky loved riders. When Kandinsky’s Composition V (1911) was rejected in early December for the third NKV exhibit, ostensibly because it was too large but more likely because Kandinsky was a foreign artist, Marc, Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, and Alfred Kubin promptly left the NKV and formally dedicated themselves to Der Blaue Reiter. Marc immediately led the effort to stage the first Blaue Reiter exhibit simultaneously with the NKV show. In addition to the founding group’s works, Robert Delaunay, Henri Rousseau, and the composer Arnold Schoenberg also showed paintings. Although Alexey von Jawlensky and Paul Klee did not exhibit with the group at the time, their membership and participation were imminent. In his brief introduction to the first exhibit, Kandinsky wrote of a desire to promote not one pictorial style but rather a diversity of forms by which an artist could individually express his or her inner desire. Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular was published simultaneously with the exhibit by Piper, a small publishing house sympathetic to the new art. Significance A recurring image in Kandinsky’s work is the rider on a horse. More than merely a lyric icon, this image symbolized his personal stance, and that of Der Blaue Reiter, in respect to the art and society of the time. The rider is a messenger bringing forth transformative ideas and images. In esoteric theories, as interpreted by Kandinsky, blue is a heavenly color, one that touches the soul in such a way as to induce the divine music of spiritual rebirth. Moreover, the rider is a heroic or messianic figure. In the spirit of Kandinsky’s many renderings of Saint George slaying the dragon and overcoming its terrors and evils, Der Blaue Reiter railed against the materialism and positivism that produced blindness and complacency in bourgeois culture. The many commentaries and critiques written by Blaue Reiter artists in journals, pamphlets, letters, and elsewhere articulated the struggle of the new art to create a wholly different aesthetic and ethical environment for 898
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 modern humanity. In developing this stance, Der Blaue Reiter drew on a broad base of resources. Symbolists, Theosophists, mystics, anthroposophists, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Gospels, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, and the insights of modern physics, among others, influenced the writings and art of Der Blaue Reiter. The group’s goal was nothing less than the destruction of forms of thinking that were tied so closely to material reality and objects that they considered “inner necessity,” which made such things possible and was their true content, nonexistent or irrelevant. In addition to promoting the significance of esoteric knowledge, Der Blaue Reiter took a strong stance against another growing ideology of modern society: individualism. Although members of the group were very supportive of individualistic expression in art and life, they emphasized that, although it is the artist/individual who does things, such actions and works can always be traced back to the mysterious, transcendent, life-giving spirit of inner necessity. The spirit animates and inspires the individual and steers the artist away from the illusions of objective reality toward a synthesis with the immutable laws and truths of the cosmos. In this sense, certain constraints were placed on purely personal expression, for such expression, Blaue Reiter adherents believed, could easily be contaminated by worldly concerns and was constantly in need of a rigorous path to truth. Only such a path could guide humanity. Der Blaue Reiter thus advanced not only an approach to art but also an esoteric humanism that was a guide for living. With such a vision of a grand synthesis of new aesthetic and ethical sensibilities within existing culture, Der Blaue Reiter promoted a rebirth of society. The members pushed art into abstraction, and although there were differences among them, Kandinsky and Marc, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, and kindred artists formed a powerful avant-garde that celebrated the spiritual and abstraction in art. In doing so, they also helped promote the writings of art critic Wilhelm Worringer, which proved crucial to an understanding not only of abstraction but also of the ways in which expressionism, surrealism, existentialism, and other subsequent avant-garde movements struggled with spiritual alienation and metaphysical anxiety. Abstraction in art, for Der Blaue Reiter, was a response to the fragmentation, isolation, and mechanization of modern life. The spiritual quest of Der Blaue Reiter was not confined, however, to matters of liberating the soul. In addition to creating new understandings of how color and form, like music, resonate with the soul, and how art
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Cheetham, Mark A. The Rhetoric of Purity: Essentialist Theory and the Advent of Abstract Painting. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. A serious
discussion of the theory and philosophy of abstraction in painting. Includes an insightful treatment of Kandinsky. Everdell, William R. The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Presents brief portraits of individuals who were important to the development of modernist thought. Chapter 20 is devoted to the work of Kandinsky. Includes select bibliography and index. Friedel, Helmut, and Annegret Hoberg. The Blue Rider in the Lenbachhaus, Munich. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 2001. A beautiful book with historically relevant text, factual data, photographs, and numerous plates focusing exclusively on Blaue Reiter works in the Stadtische Galerie in Munich. Kandinsky, Wassily. Kandinsky in Munich: 1896-1914. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1982. A highly informative text with numerous reproductions and photographs chronicling Kandinsky’s years in Munich, where his abstract style blossomed. Roethel, Hans K. The Blue Rider. New York: Praeger, 1977. Informative text includes anecdotal and biographical data, letters, photographs, and plates. Roethel visited Gabriele Münter frequently and was the director of the Stadtische Galerie in Munich, to which Münter donated a massive collection of Blaue Reiter works and writings. Vogt, Paul. The Blue Rider. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron’s, 1980. Brief but instructive text includes a highly useful documentary appendix of letters, exhibition catalog introductions, and prefaces to and excerpts from the Blaue Reiter almanac. Weisberger, Edward, ed. The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890-1985. Rev. ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 1999. Originally a catalog for an exhibition presented at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art in 1986. Lavishly filled with striking plates and superb essays on expressionism, abstract painting, mysticism, and esoteric and occult wisdom and their bearings on the spiritual in modern European and American art, as well as a glossary of spiritual terms. A joy to experience. See also: Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting. 899
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could be directed away from a reliance on external necessity (objects, representation) toward inner necessity, Der Blaue Reiter was also very much an ecumenical movement. This ecumenical nature was manifested on two fronts, one embracing ethnic and national diversity and the other encompassing multiple forms of art. The almanac of Der Blaue Reiter, compiled entirely by artists, contained highly varied subject matter. In addition to criticism, commentaries, and artwork by Blaue Reiter and other European avant-garde artists, the almanac included reproductions of cave drawings, Chinese paintings, Japanese drawings, Egyptian shadow figures, medieval gravestones, Etruscan reliefs, sixteenth century German woodcuts, children’s drawings, musical scores, and works from Mexico and Malaysia. The aims in presenting such variety were to counter the ethnocentric protectionism of the German art establishment (which later manifested itself in Adolf Hitler’s nationalism) and to stimulate the observer to experience the multiple forms by which the inner calling of the artist expresses itself. Also reflected in the almanac was Kandinsky’s notion of a grand synthesis of the arts. Perhaps inspired by the theories of musicians such as Richard Wagner and Aleksandr Scriabin, Der Blaue Reiter made an effort to draw all forms of artistic expression—music, theater, folk art, sculpture, architecture, and more—into play. The influential Bauhaus school that began in 1919 was inspired by Der Blaue Reiter’s synthetic approach. Der Blaue Reiter stimulated modern art to look to other cultures for inspiration. The movement also advocated that the ideas of modern art, which had typically been associated with the visual arts, especially painting, should be extended to all areas of art. In promoting modern art, Der Blaue Reiter reflected a widespread exploration of inner experience that was already taking place in literature, philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. In the long term, the spirit that inspired Der Blaue Reiter also inspired Walt Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia, Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for the Guggenheim Museum, and American abstract expressionist painting. It can even be argued that modern interests in occult wisdom and the spiritual, as well as romantic critiques of materialistic, technological culture, owe much to Der Blaue Reiter’s celebration of art and life. — Marc J. LaFountain
Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art
Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 4-15, 1911
Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools British schoolchildren demanded an end to corporal punishment in a wave of school strikes in 1911, but Parliament did not abolish the practice until 1986. Locale: Great Britain Categories: Education; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Sir Robert Laurie Morant (1863-1920), private secretary to Sir John Eldon Gorst and permanent secretary to the British Education Department, 1899-1911 Sir Robert Blair (1859-1935), education officer of the London County Council Stewart Headlam (1847-1924), Anglican priest and member of the London County Council, 1907-1924 Sir John Eldon Gorst (1835-1916), minister in charge of the British Education Department, 1895-1902 Summary of Event School discipline through corporal punishment is as old as organized schools in the Western world. Egyptian papyri and Mesopotamian clay tablets tell of masters beating their students to get them to learn. In the Middle Ages, the education of children in monasteries, cathedral schools, and parish schools was not uncommon for children above the age of seven. Younger children were educated in the family according to the abilities and status of the parents. Whether at home or at school, corporal punishment of children was probably fairly common, but the evidence suggests that severe beatings were considered unacceptable, and there is no substantial evidence that medieval parents lacked affection for their children. Corporal punishment was considered a normal means of disciplining refractory children and young scholars. In the mid-seventeenth century, the ideas of the Czech pastor and educator Jan Komenský (also known as Jan Comenius) began to spread in England. Komenský questioned the utility of corporal punishment, argued that teaching should appeal to the senses and the intellect rather than require rote memorization aided by the birch (that is, a birch rod used to strike unruly or inattentive students), and contended that education should be humane. English educational reformers took up Komenský’s ideas. At the end of the century, the educator and diarist John Aubrey proposed the creation of acade900
mies in which students would be trained to learn for the sake of learning. In his schools, there would be “no such thing as the turning up of bare buttocks for pedants to exercise their cruel lusts” with whips and canes. Such ideas, however, were minority ones throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Corporal punishment remained the norm in English schools. Most English children, however, did not attend statesupported schools until after 1870. Before then, if children went to school at all, they went either to elementary schools sponsored by religious groups (most commonly operated by the Church of England, but schools were also operated by the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Roman Catholic Church) or to private schools operated as profit-making ventures. The role of the state’s Education Department was limited to inspecting those religious schools that received state matching funds and to supporting the training of teachers. Discipline in the religious schools was enforced with the birch. In the privateventure schools, in contrast, masters were less ready to use the rod, largely because the parents of working-class children often resented such discipline. This was not true in all cases, of course—sometimes children who were beaten at school got a second beating at home, and sometimes parents welcomed the schoolmasters’ public punishment of their children. English elementary education was transformed by the Education Act of 1870, which permitted the creation of elected boards of education with the power to fund elementary schools by levying local property taxes. Board schools, as they were called, grew in number between 1870 and 1914, and increasing numbers of children received their education in them. Because the board schools relied on corporal punishment, more and more children experienced the birch. Not all parents approved of corporal punishment, however, and from time to time they brought charges of assault against schoolmasters or even assaulted the masters. The courts usually backed up the schoolmasters in such cases unless a beating was especially brutal or the magistrate had especially vivid memories of his own beatings. In one such case, the magistrate decided that the cane used to administer the beating was not strong enough and presented the master with a stronger weapon. Occasionally, priests of the Church of England caned
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tions, however, left the implementation of the principles to the judgment of each school’s headmaster and board of managers. In practice, then, caning continued to be a common method of punishment. What the children thought about corporal punishment is unclear. Written reminiscences of school life come mostly from the middle and upper classes, and some writers have looked back at the birch with nostalgia. It is much more likely that children hated the birch, as evidenced in October, 1889, when a number of short-lived schoolboys’ strikes closed schools in London, Leeds, Liverpool, and Northampton. Inspired by the successful strikes of London gas workers and dockworkers that summer, the boys demanded a shorter school day, free meals, and the abolition of school fees, corporal punishment, and homework. The strike was put down easily enough, but it was the forerunner of the London school strike of 1911. The years 1910 and 1911 in Britain were tense with respect to labor relations. The economy was prospering, and corporations were earning large profits. Workers, however, were dissatisfied with their lot. Despite the high level of corporate profits, workers’ weekly wages did not increase. Slow but steady inflation during the preceding fifteen years had eroded the purchasing power of the pound, so workers actually had seen their economic position worsen. Finally, workers’ political aspirations, expressed in the Labour Party, were frustrated because Parliament was dominated by the Liberal and Conservative Parties. Labour thus was unable to achieve its main political goal, the legislative reversal of two court decisions, that in the Taff Vale Railway case and the Osbourne judgment, which limited the legal activities of trade unions. These factors led to numerous strikes, walkouts, demonstrations, and even riots in 1910 and 1911. Complicating matters was the general upswing in violence, both in words and in deeds, that characterized the period. Tensions over the constitutional role of the House of Lords, the relationship of Ireland to Britain, and the rise of the militant woman suffrage movement created an atmosphere that fostered violence as a means of solving problems. The school strike of 1911 occurred within this context of violence. It started in Llanelly, South Wales, on Monday, September 4, when pupils walked out of the Bigyn Council Boys’ School to protest caning. Newspapers treated this as a schoolboy lark or dismissed it as a prank, but on Friday, September 8, several schools in Liverpool were struck. The Liverpool boys demanded the abolition 901
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children who attended the services of rival churches. Public attitudes toward corporal punishment, not only in the schools but also in other areas of British life, changed in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Public executions, long a staple of the British scene, were abolished in 1868. After a long debate, flogging in the British army was ended in 1881. Corporal punishment in the schools remained a hot topic for argument. Humanitarians basically followed the line laid down by Komenský two hundred years earlier. They maintained that the practice was indecent, brutalizing, and counterproductive to the learning process. Supporters of corporal punishment thought that the practice was normal. They argued that God had ordained the rod as the appropriate way to train children. They also believed that corporal punishment instilled discipline and character. By the 1880’s, however, the arguments in favor of corporal punishment had begun to seem old-fashioned. Working-class radical and labor organizations were in the forefront of opposition to corporal punishment in the schools. As labor-related candidates began to be elected to school boards, they campaigned for the abolition, or at least the limitation, of corporal punishment. Many of the school board members sponsored by the Independent Labour Party after its organization in 1893 took a vocal role in opposition to corporal punishment. At the turn of the century, opponents of corporal punishment organized the Society for the Reform of School Discipline, a national pressure group that collected statistics, produced literature in an effort to mold public opinion, and lobbied members of Parliament and educational administrators to end corporal punishment. The Education Department’s policy on corporal punishment reflected the attitudinal change. Education inspectors had long complained about instances of excessively harsh discipline. In the 1880’s, the department began formalizing specific recommendations for the inspectors. These were that only the headmaster should cane, not student teachers or members of the school’s board of managers; that caning should be used only as a last resort; and that written records of all canings should be kept. These regulations were dropped in the 1890’s, but in 1901 a new set of regulations was introduced by Sir John Eldon Gorst, who oversaw the Education Department. Gorst’s regulations, which probably were drafted by Sir Robert Laurie Morant, the department’s chief civil servant, established the principles that corporal punishment was to be forbidden in kindergartens and in girls’ schools, and that in boys’ schools it was not to be used as an ordinary method of punishment. The regula-
Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools
Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools of both the cane and school fees, an extra half day of holiday per week, and pay of a penny a week for monitors. Over the weekend, word of the strikes spread through what can only be called a children’s grapevine, and Monday, September 11, saw the strike spread across the nation. Children at six schools in the East London workingclass districts of Shoreditch and Islington went out. The next day, the movement spread in London and to schools in Hull, Sheffield, Bradford, and Grimsby, all industrial towns in the north of England. On Wednesday, schools in the Battersea neighborhood of South London went out, as did schools in Leeds and Birkenhead in the north, Coventry and Nottingham in the Midlands, Colchester in the southeast, Greenock in Scotland, and Dublin. Thursday saw strikes at Newcastle, Middlesborough, and Blackburn in the north, the seaport of Southampton, and Stoke-on-Trent, Burton-on-Trent, and Birmingham in the Midlands. The week ended with walkouts in Sunderland, Lancaster, and Cardiff in Wales. The response of the authorities was to use both the police and the cane to break the strikes. Sir Robert Blair, the education officer of the London County Council, in charge of state-supported elementary and secondary schools in greater London, denied that any strikes were happening, secure in the knowledge that police constables had been sent to each school where a strike was in progress. Stewart Headlam, an Anglican priest who had become a Labour Party socialist and who was the member of the London County Council most active in promoting education, was furious about the strike. “They should be whipped,” he angrily declared. Headlam’s progressive educational ideas did not include abandoning the cane. The London County Council’s Education Committee under Blair’s leadership reasserted its right to beat students. The schoolchildren’s revolt against the cane had been put down. Significance The individual schools’ strikes had much in common. First, they were ephemeral, rarely lasting for longer than a day. Second, the student strikers’ goals were similar, as they all wanted abolition of the cane and of school fees. Third, most of the strikes took place in industrial areas that were the scenes of strikes by adult workers. Fourth, the children, some of whom undoubtedly came from union families, clearly were adapting the methods of industrial action that they saw being used around them. They formed strike committees, exhorted their fellow students with violent rhetoric, and organized marches with banners like those of the labor unions. Some strik902
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing children threw stones at the children who chose to go to school, thereby emulating their parents even in intimidating strikebreakers. Historians cannot identify the children involved in the strike, or even who their leaders were. Newspapers and other observers were so dismissive that they did not bother even to record the names of the strike leaders, thus it is impossible to know who participated or how that participation may have affected these individuals’ later lives. The school strike probably was bound to fail. Much larger strikes, put on by powerful unions and involving the suspension of economically important labor such as transport and mining, failed. How could a strike by schoolchildren hope to succeed? After World War II, progressive educators began to reexamine methods of discipline and came to reject corporal punishment as an appropriate, or even an effective, method. Two important studies of the British educational system commissioned by the government, the Newsom Report of 1963 and the Plowden Report of 1967, recommended the abolition of corporal punishment. Responding to these reports, some local education authorities ended corporal punishment in their districts. The government, however, declined to make any general rules, and the teachers’ unions opposed abolition despite their socialist ideology, fearing that they could not keep discipline in their classrooms without the rod. Some teachers rejected the birch, however, and formed the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment (STOPP) in the early 1970’s. This organization campaigned for abolition throughout the decade. Partly as a result of STOPP’s efforts, about 20 percent of schools in Britain had abandoned the cane by 1980. STOPP’s biggest victory came in 1981, when the Lancashire Education Authority became the largest school district to abandon the cane. Matters came to a head in the following year, when the European Court of Human Rights, an agency of the European Common Market, to which Britain belonged, ruled that pupils could not be punished physically if their parents objected. This decision sparked a political row. On one hand, the National Union of Teachers voted to work for abolition, and Labour-controlled local education authorities began to abolish. On the other hand, many members of the Conservative Party argued that caning was a grand British tradition and that it was wrong for a Common Market institution, the European Court of Human Rights, to interfere with an internal British matter. This, they said, was an example of how Britain had
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lost its sovereignty by joining the Common Market. After three years of debate, the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher proposed a compromise. Its measure, the Education (Corporal Punishment) Bill, would have required schools to compile a register of pupils whose parents did not mind their being caned. The idea of dividing schoolchildren into “beatables” and “unbeatables” was called silly, and the House of Lords killed the bill. In the following year, 1986, another Education Bill had an amendment abolishing corporal punishment attached to it in the House of Lords. The House of Commons accepted the amendment by the narrow margin of a single vote (231 in favor, 230 against) on July 22, 1986. The law, which took effect in September, 1987, applied to children in state schools and to those whose fees in private schools were paid by the state, so children in the private sector who paid their own fees remained canable. However, in March, 1998, Parliament passed legislation banning corporal punishment in all British schools, public and private. —D. G. Paz
Ensor, R. C. K. England, 1870-1914. Vol. 14 in The Oxford History of England, edited by Sir George Clark. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1960. A standard reference source for the political, social, economic, and diplomatic history of the period. Includes bibliography and index. Gardner, Phil. The Lost Elementary Schools of Victorian England: The People’s Education. Dover, N.H.: Croom Helm, 1984. Focusing on private-venture schools, draws a comprehensive picture of what the education of most English working-class children was like in the nineteenth century. Carries the story up through the end of the 1920’s. Hurt, J. S. Elementary Schooling and the Working Classes, 1860-1918. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. Excellent account of what English elementary schools were like between the introduction of state-funded board schools and compulsory education in the 1870’s and the end of World War I. Lawson, John, and Harold Silver. A Social History of Education in England. London: Methuen, 1973. Wellillustrated and fascinating survey of the history of English education in its social context from AngloSaxon times to the 1970’s. Connects the extent of educational provision with changes in population, the development of the class structure, the growth of literacy, and changes in the social roles of women and children. Lowndes, G. A. N. The Silent Social Revolution: An Account of the Expansion of Public Education in England and Wales, 1895-1965. 2d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. A useful survey of teachers, what they taught, and the schools they taught in. Simon, Brian. Education and the Labour Movement, 1870-1920. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1965. Discusses the policies concerning education held by trade unions, radical political groupings, and the Labour Party. Written from a socialist perspective. See also: Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party; May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike.
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Further Reading Armytage, W. H. G. Four Hundred Years of English Education. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Clearly written survey of the development of elementary and secondary education in England since the 1560’s. Focuses on the effects of the Industrial Revolution, the movement toward universal education, and the growth of the state educational system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from the political point of view. Dangerfield, George. The Strange Death of Liberal England. 1935. Reprint. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. Entertaining, well-written, and brilliantly conceived work remains indispensable for understanding the period from 1906 to 1914 in England. Weaves together the stories of how the power of the House of Lords was reduced, how the Tory Party supported rebellion in Northern Ireland, and how the labor and suffragist movements became increasingly militant. Full of vivid character sketches.
Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools
Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 14, 1911
Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin The assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin ended the possibility of a reconciliation between the czarist government and the elected Duma on the eve of World War I. Locale: Kiev, Russia Categories: Government and politics; terrorism Key Figures Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862-1911), chairman of the Russian Council of Ministers, 1906-1911 Dmitry Bogrov (1887-1911), Russian police agent and revolutionary Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Alexandra (1872-1918), empress of Russia, r. 18941918 Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (c. 1870-1916), Russian monk and courtier Vladimir Nikolayevich Kokovtsov (1853-1943), Russian aristocrat Summary of Event The full story of the murder of Russia’s premier in September, 1911, has long been a mystery. Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin had numerous enemies on both the Right and the Left. The assassin was well known to the police as a social revolutionary and as a police informer. Agents provocateurs were linked to numerous assassinations of political leaders, including a grand duke of the Romanov family. The mystery lies in the motive for this particular killing: Did the killer commit the act out of revolutionary zeal, or did reactionary circles use him to eliminate a moderate voice in the government? How did Czar Nicholas II figure in this story? In the midst of revolution in Russia in 1905, the czar in his October Manifesto promised a nationally elected legislature, or Duma, which first met in April, 1906. In July, Stolypin was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers. Concluding that absolutism was impossible to restore, he instituted a program that called for further reforms but repression of revolutionaries—hence the source of his disfavor among reactionaries and radicals alike. Stolypin was called on to deal with a Duma united in opposition to the government. In 1907, he suggested the electoral law that resulted in the Third Duma, with the conservative party (Octobrists) in a majority. Stolypin then introduced a land reform that freed peasants from the confinement of the village communes and opened up 904
variations in peasant ownership. The immediate effects were harsh, but Stolypin reasoned that benefits would result in twenty years. Then, when terrorists bombed his own home, killing several people, he was criticized for too quickly restoring the death penalty. Opponents labeled the nooses used at the resulting police hangings “Stolypin’s neckties.” Yet he also infuriated the ultrarightists by proposing an expansion of civil liberties and by dealing with the Duma as a legitimate instrument of state. Early in 1911, Stolypin sponsored a measure to extend elected local assemblies to the western provinces. His measure was designed to strengthen the Russian peasants’ participation in government, one that pleased not only some liberal groups but also nationalists, as Jewish merchants and Polish landowners would be underrepresented. Conservatives strongly resisted the proposal, but Stolypin staked his career on this measure and threatened to resign if the czar did not support it. Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna wrote that if Stolypin held his ground, the czar would give in, but that Nicholas’s pride would hide his inner agitation. She was correct; the czar invoked the emergency provision of the Fundamental Laws to override the vote of the Council of State, but he felt humiliated by pressure from his premier. Meanwhile, reactionary elements at court undermined the chief minister, whispering that he was a traitor, willing to use the Duma to steal prerogatives assigned the czar by God. Stolypin confided to associates that he was losing confidence in himself and even predicted that he would be killed by the ultrarightist factions. In addition to his house bombing, nine other attempts were made on his life. Early in 1911, responding to appeals from numerous quarters, Stolypin forced the monk Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin to leave the capital. This move earned Stolypin the deep scorn of Empress Alexandra, who was certain that her son’s life depended on Rasputin’s ability to cure his hemophilia. The consensus in government circles was that Stolypin soon would be replaced as head of state. This would not be necessary. In September, Czar Nicholas II journeyed to Kiev to celebrate a new memorial to Alexander II, the czar who had freed the serfs fifty years earlier. He was accompanied by several ministers of state, including Stolypin and Count Vladimir Nikolayevich Kokovtsov. The usual security precautions were taken wherever the czar traveled, but none were ex-
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Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin Stolypin was sent to a local hospital and lay in great pain for four days before he died. Kokovtsov was at his bedside throughout, but Stolypin’s wife refused to allow the czar to enter his room. Meanwhile, Bogrov, a lawyer and the son of a Jewish merchant in Kiev, was kept incommunicado, and his trial and later execution, on October 10, 1911, were handled with unusual dispatch.
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. (Library of Congress)
Further Reading Ascher, Abraham. P. A. Stolypin: The Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. Biography discusses Stolypin’s 905
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tended to the premier, although he did have a bodyguard. At the parade through the streets of Kiev, one of the individuals in the crowd was Rasputin, who was heard saying that Stolypin soon would be dead. On September 14, 1911, the party attended a performance of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the Kiev Municipal Theater. During the second intermission, a well-dressed man walked down the aisle to the first row of orchestra seats below the imperial box. Just a few feet away, Stolypin was standing and speaking to Kokovtsov, who was about to leave. The assassin, Dmitry Bogrov, shot the premier in the chest two times with a Browning revolver. The czar thought that something had dropped on the floor and stepped into the box to see Stolypin facing him. He saw blood staining Stolypin’s white tunic; Stolypin crossed himself before falling into the chair. Bogrov, who was given a ticket to the theater by the police, allegedly to protect Stolypin, was captured as he headed in the direction of the only lightly guarded door. The police seized him and tried to protect him from the mob that was beating him mercilessly.
Significance Although the Duma called for an investigation of the police in Kiev, Czar Nicholas dismissed the resulting report, which was highly critical of General P. G. Kurlov for negligence. The czar was rejoicing at the recovery of his son from a grave illness, and, he said, he was not in a mood to punish anyone. According to Duma member Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky, the prosecutor had told Stolypin’s son-in-law that the deed was carried out at Kurlov’s instigation. The suspension of the inquiry and failure to interrogate the prisoner left the public to speculate on the nature of the crime, its motive, and its backers. Had Bogrov acted on his own, using his police connections to commit a revolutionary crime? It has been argued that Bogrov’s deed was a desperate attempt to save his own life from terrorist comrades who had discovered his police connections and delivered an ultimatum to him in August. Or was Bogrov hired by reactionary forces who thought Stolypin too moderate? After Stolypin’s assassination, the Duma was convened as scheduled on October 28, on the fortieth day after the government leader’s tragic death, but members were told not of Stolypin’s death but of the death of another Duma member from Minsk Province. Nevertheless, one deputy, the social democrat I. P. Pokrovskii, delivered a scathing attack on the police and claimed that the Kiev secret police arranged the murder of the premier, just as other prominent persons were killed at the behest of the double agent Yevno Azef a few years before. In particular, he singled out General A. I. Spiridovich, commander of the palace secret police, and Kurlov as head of the secret police. Stolypin was succeeded as premier by Kokovtsov, who soon lost favor at court and was replaced by the aging and weak Ivan L. Goremykin. Neither could command the respect of the court and the Duma as the nation plunged into world war. —John D. Windhausen
Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map ideas regarding socioeconomic and political reform. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Ferro, Marc. Nicholas II: The Last of the Tsars. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Discusses Stolypin’s assassination and accepts the conspiracy theory involving the security forces. Kerensky, Alexander. Russia and History’s Turning Point. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1965. Memoir by the head of the provisional government in 1917. Traces the public antagonism toward Stolypin to his restoration of capital punishment. Lincoln, W. Bruce. In War’s Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War. 1983. Reprint. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003. Discussion of Stolypin’s assassination focuses on the conservative reactionaries in the State Council and their hatred of the premier. Pares, Sir Bernard. The Fall of the Russian Monarchy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1939. Reprint. London: Phoenix Press, 2001. History by an Englishman who conducted numerous interviews with many of the participants in the political drama of those years. Pipes, Richard. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Discussion of Stolypin’s assassination defends the police from the charge of instigating the murder. Shulgin, V. V. Memoirs of a Member of the Russian Duma, 1906-1917. New York: Hippocrene, 1984. Includes the lengthy letter Czar Nicholas wrote to his mother about Stolypin’s assassination as well as Pokrovskii’s address that accused the secret police of responsibility. See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma.
Fall, 1911
Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map Alfred H. Sturtevant statistically analyzed crossingover of six sex-linked traits of the fruit fly, Drosophila, to produce the first map of relative gene locations on chromosomes. Locale: Columbia University, New York, New York Categories: Science and technology; genetics; biology Key Figures Alfred H. Sturtevant (1891-1970), American geneticist Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Austrian monk and science teacher Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945), American geneticist Summary of Event The beginning of the twentieth century was a period of considerable research in genetics. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace had not been able to account for the variation between members of a species in their joint paper on evolution in 1859 and in their later work. Also, in 1900, Gregor Mendel’s work on transmission of traits was rediscovered. It was not known if Mendel’s research could be used to help explain the variation that allowed evolution to occur. Mendel had little idea of the physical location of the genes. By pure luck, he picked seven traits of garden peas 906
whose genes were on separate pairs of chromosomes. This led to his law of independent assortment, which stated that genes for different traits will assort randomly in sperm or egg formation. Carl Correns reported an apparent exception to this law in 1900 in the plant Matthiola. He found that the trait of petal color tended to be linked to the trait for seed, leaf, and stem texture. Plants with colored flowers had a hoary texture, and plants with white flowers had smooth seeds. Although this exception seemed to disprove Mendel’s rule of independent assortment, the linked traits were actually caused by the genes for the two traits being on the same pair of chromosomes. Linked traits did not invalidate Mendel; they were merely an exception to his rule. In 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan reported the phenomenon of crossing-over of linked traits using Drosophila, the fruit fly. He realized that linked traits became unlinked. He had found that eye color and wing size were linked so that red-eyed flies had rudimentary wings and white-eyed flies had long wings. On occasion, however, he would get a fly with white eyes and rudimentary wings. Somehow, the linked traits had become unlinked. Morgan did his initial work with sex-linked traits. These traits are carried on the X chromosome. In Drosophila (and humans, for that matter), all eggs and maleproducing sperm contain an X chromosome. This is a
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normal red eyes, the recessive condition gave vermillion eyes. The fifth and sixth traits were E and F for wing shape and size, respectively. If a dominant gene for both E and F was present, then the fly had normal wings. A fly with a dominant gene for E but no dominant gene for F had rudimentary wings; a fly with no dominant for E but a dominant for F had miniature wings. Finally, a fly having no dominants for either trait had both rudimentary and miniature wings. If capital letters are used to represent the dominant genes for the six sex-linked traits and lowercase letters for the recessive genes, it follows that an X chromosome should contain either genes A, B, C, D, E, F or a, b, c, d, e, f. Crossing-over of chromosome fragments resulted in flies with other combinations on the X chromosome, such as A, B, C, d, e, f. Using data collected from crosses in Morgan’s “fly room,” Sturtevant determined percentages of crossingover between the various traits. For example, he found that crossing-over occurred between traits A and B 193 times out of 16,287 trials, or 1.2 percent. Crossing-over between traits A and F occurred 260 times out of 693 trials, or 37.6 percent. Sturtevant thus proved that the genes for traits A and B are much closer than the ones for A and F. Likewise, he established crossing-over frequencies between all the six traits. In order to describe his “map” of a chromosome, Sturtevant needed a unit of relative distance. He let one unit represent the distance between genes that cross over
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typical chromosome containing many genes. Females, thus, carry two X chromosomes in their body cells. Maleproducing sperm carry a Y chromosome, which carries few, if any, genes. Therefore, all male flies have an X and a Y chromosome in their body cells. Alfred H. Sturtevant first became interested in inheritance while breeding horses at his father’s ranch. While attending Columbia University, he had the opportunity to work in Morgan’s “fly room.” He then became interested in the process of crossing-over of sex-linked traits. He realized that the exchange between the X chromosomes most likely occurred during the synapsis (period in egg formation when two paired chromosomes lie next to each other) of meiosis (the process of sex cell formation). With sex-linked traits, crossing-over is significant only in egg formation. In sperm formation, the Y chromosome has few genes to cross over with its X partner. This somewhat simplifies the study of crossing-over, as one does not have to account for crossing-over in sex cell formation of the male parent. Morgan reasoned that the relative distance between the genes could be determined by the frequency of crossing-over between them. Sturtevant proceeded to develop this concept and apply it to a real situation. An analogy using a rope to represent a chromosome and beads on the rope to represent genes explains this process. Imagine bringing two such ropes together and letting them intertwine. This is similar to what happens to the two X chromosomes in synapsis of meiosis. Assume bead Ais at one end, bead B is 1 meter away, and bead C is at the other end, 5 meters away. Imagine that a child cuts equal portions of the ropes and ties each to the opposite rope. Assume that the child does not care where the cuts occur and cuts at purely random lengths. It is more likely that beads A and C will be separated by these cuts than it is that beads A and B will be separated, because of the larger distance between A and C. Using this reasoning, Sturtevant determined the distances between six sex-linked genes in Drosophila. Sturtevant chose six sex-linked traits to study: First, trait A was body color. The dominant gene produced black bodies; the recessive condition gave yellow bodies. Second, trait B was eye color. The recessive condition gave white-eyed flies. The third trait, C, was closely related to trait B. If the dominant gene for trait B was present, then the dominant gene for trait C gave red eyes and the recessive gene gave eosin (pink) eyes. Flies having only recessive genes for trait B had white eyes, regardless of the gene for trait C. Trait D, the fourth trait, was also related to eye color. The dominant gene gave
Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map
In the crossing-over process, chromosomes meet (left) and recombine (right). (Electronic Illustrators Group)
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Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map once in every one hundred times. Trait A was placed at one end of the chromosome map. Traits B and C were so close to each other that they never separated. He placed them ten units from trait A. Traits D and E were quite close to each other but could be separated. Trait D was 30.7 units from trait A. Trait E was 33.7 units from trait A. Trait F was at the other end of the chromosome and was 57.6 units from trait A. Therefore, a map showing relative distances between genes on chromosomes had been statistically derived. Sturtevant also described double crossing-over in a 1914 publication. Sometimes chromosomes that have already crossed over with one another break at some other point and cross over again. If the genes A, B, and C are linked on a chromosome and a, b, and c on its partner chromosome, crossing-over might produce a chromosome with genes A, b, and c. Double crossing-over might then result in a chromosome with genes A, b, and C. This complicated the interpretation of the data, but was eventually clarified by Sturtevant. Significance Thomas Hunt Morgan was initially skeptical of the existence of genes because his experimental results often seemed to be contrary to Mendel’s laws. Sturtevant’s work helped convince Morgan that genes exist on chromosomes and that Mendel’s laws were valid. The apparent exceptions were now explainable by linkage and crossing-over and Mendel’s laws became firmly established among geneticists. Sturtevant’s work spurred Morgan and his colleagues to pursue chromosome mapping of Drosophila. In 1915, Morgan’s group published a map showing the relative locations of fifty genes, including genes on the non-sexrelated chromosomes (autosomes). In the 1930’s, interest in mapping led to maps derived by indirect physical observation of the genes of the giant chromosomes in the salivary glands of Drosophila. When properly stained and fixed on a slide, they showed cross patterns that could be correlated to specific genes. The physical maps did not correlate precisely to Sturtevant’s statistically derived ones, although the linear order of the genes was identical. It became apparent that some portions of chromosomes are easier to break than others. Extensive maps of the four pairs of chromosomes of Drosophila have been made since Sturtevant’s first map, and similar interest developed in mapping human chromosomes. Because humans have a relatively large number of chromosomes compared with Drosophila and studies on human inheritance are strictly limited by ethi908
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cal and legal considerations, traditional crossing-over studies were difficult, but new technology made this mapping feasible. Human cells can be grown in tissue cultures with mouse cells, and hybrid mouse-human cells will form with as few as one human chromosome. This allows researchers to examine and map the genes on this isolated chromosome. Another method of mapping genes makes use of a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) probe. DNA, the building material of genes, is composed of chemical building blocks known as nucleotides. The nucleotide sequence of certain genes is known and can be detected on special photographs of a chromosome, so one can place a particular gene at a certain place on a chromosome by studying nucleotide patterns. In 2003, the Human Genome Project (HGP) concluded after thirteen years of research coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, along with other private-sector partners and contributions from numerous countries. The purposes of the HGP included identifying the more than twenty thousand genes in human DNA and the millions of chemical base pairs constituting DNA, storing and sharing these data, identifying means for improving the study of the data, and transferring biotechnology to the private sector, all the while taking into account the ethical, legal, and social impacts of such unprecedented research, including those surrounding the controversial issue of human cloning. Although concerns about such impacts persist, there is little doubt that the knowledge acquired during the HGP, along with the licensing of technologies to private-sector entities, has stimulated a multibilliondollar biotechnology industry in the United States as well as the development of important new medical applications and therapies for genetic conditions and diseases. In 1911, when Sturtevant mapped six sex-linked genes on the Drosophila, he could not have guessed how far his first steps would take genetic science within the space of a century. — James H. Anderson Further Reading Cummings, Michael. Human Heredity: Principles and Issues. 6th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2002. This highly illustrated text aimed at nonscience students presents the complex topic of heredity clearly, without oversimplifying the concepts discussed. Also addresses the social, cultural, and ethical implications of the use of genetic technology. Edey, Maitland, and Donald C. Johanson. Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution. Boston: Little,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Brown, 1989. Presents an interesting and understandable account of the advances in evolutionary theory from Linnaeus to the present, using analogies to explain complex concepts. Offers particularly good sections on genetics. Mader, Sylvia S. Biology. 8th ed. New York: McGrawHill, 2004. Biology text for beginning college students is clearly written and well illustrated. Devotes several chapters to genetics, ranging from classic Mendelian heredity to the latest molecular genetics. Good preview for anyone considering taking a genetics course. Morgan, Thomas Hunt. Evolution and Genetics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1925. Dated, but provides useful information on advances in genetics up to the 1920’s in a manner accessible to high school biology students. Includes an interesting chapter on Mendel and his laws. Sturtevant, Alfred H. A History of Genetics. 1965. Reprint. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2001. Afirsthand view of the development of classical genetics by a major participant.
Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty Rather technical in approach; might be of most value to the professional biologist. Mentions Sturtevant’s work with Morgan. _______. “The Linear Arrangement of Six Sex-Linked Factors in Drosophila, as Shown by Their Mode of Association.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 14 (1913): 43-59. The classic paper describing Sturtevant’s first mapping of genes on chromosomes. Written in a precise and scholarly manner, but surprisingly easy to understand. The sections on the mapping procedures and double crossing-over are fascinating. See also: 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity; 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome; Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits; 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity; 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage; 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics; 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory; 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype.”
October 10, 1911
Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty The Revolution of 1911, led by Sun Yixian, ended the two-thousand-year-old monarchy in China and introduced the ideas of democracy, independence, and social and economic justice to the Chinese people. Locale: Wuchang, China Category: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event In the nineteenth century, China was faced with a series of unprecedented problems—bureaucratic incompe-
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Key Figures Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen; 1866-1925), Chinese revolutionary leader Kang Youwei (K’ang Yu-wei; 1858-1927), Chinese scholar and advocate of constitutional monarchy Liang Qichao (Liang Chi-chao; 1873-1929), Chinese writer and editor Huang Xing (Huang Hsing; 1874-1916), Chinese revolutionary leader Yuan Shikai (Yüan Shih-k’ai; 1859-1916), first president of the Republic of China
tence, widespread corruption, rebellions, and natural calamities that contributed to the precipitous decline of the once-robust ruling Manchu, or Qing (Ch’ing), Dynasty. At the same time, China was threatened from the outside as never before. Beginning with the Opium War (18391842), China suffered a string of military defeats at the hands of the Western powers. The Treaty of Nanjing, which ended the Opium War, and similar subsequent treaties imposed on China numerous debilitating conditions that in effect relegated it to near-colonial status by the end of the century. The combination of these circumstances helped revive the dormant anti-Manchu sentiment among the Chinese (the Chinese regarded the Manchus as alien conquerors), as manifest in the Taiping Rebellion (18511864), which came close to toppling the dynasty. The eventual suppression of the Taipings, aided by the Western powers, who saw the rebels as a threat to their own interests, afforded the dynasty a respite in which feeble attempts were made to resuscitate dynastic fortunes in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Without the will and resolve on the part of its leaders to make fundamental institutional
Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty changes, the reform movement was short-lived and ineffectual. By 1895, when Japan handily defeated China in a struggle over Korea, it was clear that China’s decline could be arrested only by revolution to overthrow the monarchical system and replace it with a republican government attuned to the interests of Chinese citizens. One of the first advocates of revolution was Sun Yixian. Born to a well-to-do peasant family in a village near Canton on November 12, 1866, Sun was sent at the age of thirteen to Honolulu, Hawaii, where his older brother had a small business. He was enrolled in the Iolani School, operated by Anglican missionaries, and then at Oahu College, from which he graduated in 1883. Concerned that Sun might be too susceptible to Christian influence, his brother sent him back to his native village. Soon, however, he was “banished” to nearby Hong Kong following an incident in which he was found desecrating village deities. After enrolling for a brief period at Queen’s College, a government high school, he was admitted to the newly founded medical college in Hong Kong. He graduated in 1894 and began his medical practice in Macao, a Portuguese colony west of Hong Kong, but was soon drawn to revolutionary activities. During this time, like many of his contemporaries, Sun was a reformist. In the summer of 1894, for example, he journeyed north in order to petition Li Hongzhang (Li Hung-chang), the preeminent leader of the reform movement, to plead for educational and economic reforms. Only after he failed to elicit a positive response did he become convinced that revolution was the only recourse. Consequently, in the fall of that year, he returned to Honolulu, where, with the help of his brother, he founded his first revolutionary organization, the Hsing-chung Hui (Revive China Society), with about one hundred members. A branch was set up in Hong Kong the following year. Sun and his supporters launched an uprising in Canton in March, 1895, with arms smuggled from Hong Kong. It was a disaster, with several dozen rebels killed and Sun himself fleeing to Japan. Sun cut off his queue (the braid of hair symbolic of submission to Manchu rule), donned Western clothes, and sailed for the United States to seek financial support from the Chinese communities there. The Chinese business community was generally sympathetic to Kang Youwei and his disciple, Liang Qichao, who had formed the “Protect the Emperor” Society to promote constitutional monarchism. Kang, a former imperial adviser who was instrumental in the ill-fated reforms of 1898, was a traditional scholar of national reputation, and Liang was a prolific and effective writer widely respected for his 910
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 progressive political views. Together, they vigorously advocated the institution of a constitutional monarchy along the lines of Meiji Japan. Until 1905, they enjoyed the support of the majority of Chinese businesspeople in the United States and the thousands of Chinese students in Japan. By contrast, Sun’s support came mainly from the poorer Chinese overseas, missionaries, Chinese Christians, and members of the secret societies, all on the fringes of Chinese society. In the fall of 1896, Sun was in London. On October 11, he was kidnapped by the Chinese legation and held captive for almost two weeks. He would have been shipped back to China and been executed for his revolutionary activities had not the British government intervened and secured his release. This event, publicized by the British newspapers, propelled Sun into the international limelight. Returning to Japan almost two years later, he gradually won the support of the Chinese students and of some well-known Japanese politicians. It was through these Japanese politicians that he finally
Sun Yixian. (Library of Congress)
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ter weeks of secret negotiations, Sun agreed to resign as provisional president in favor of Yuan if the latter could arrange the abdication of Puyi (P’u-i), the last emperor, and pledge his support to the Republic of China. Yuan, using threats and tactful persuasion, wrenched an abdication decree from the court on February 12, 1912. He was elected provisional president two days later. The 268year-old Qing Dynasty came to an end barely four months after the uprising in Wuchang. Significance The Revolution of 1911 was an epochal event in Chinese history. Not only did it overthrow a two-thousand-yearold monarchy, but it also destroyed the ideological system that had perpetuated the monarchy. The inauguration of the Republic of China was an irrevocable break with the past. Sun Yixian has been revered by many Chinese as the “father of the republic,” and his ideas have been enshrined as an infallible guide for national reconstruction by his followers in the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). Outside China, the revolution was a source of inspiration for nationalist movements in Korea, Indochina, and Indonesia. The objectives of the Revolution of 1911, as originally conceived by Sun, remained unfulfilled. Sun’s ideas on democracy were largely borrowed from the West and introduced to a society with a different ethos and tradition. Very few of Sun’s compatriots understood them, and they were not shared even by most of his colleagues in the Revolutionary Alliance, who, after all, hailed from different backgrounds and whose interest in the revolution did not go beyond the overthrow of the monarchy. The traditional political order was destroyed, but the traditional social elite remained ensconced throughout the country, presaging the rise of regional militarism in the following decades. Sun had envisaged a period of political tutelage following the overthrow of the dynasty, a period in which all social ills—such as opium smoking, foot binding, and bureaucratic abuses—would be eradicated and local self-government by popular elections under a provisional constitution would be instituted. Then, in no more than six years, a permanent constitution would be adopted, creating a truly democratic government based on the separation of powers. The political turmoil of the decades following the revolution prevented this part of Sun’s program from being put into practice. Perhaps Sun’s most important idea was his third Principle of the People—“people’s livelihood,” or socialism, which 911
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came to an agreement with Huang Xing to form a broad revolutionary coalition by bringing together all revolutionary groups under an umbrella organization, the T’ung-meng Hui (Revolutionary Alliance) on August 20, 1905. Huang, a native of Hunan Province, had led an abortive uprising in 1900 and had sought refuge in Japan. He was influential among the large contingent of students from that province. The new alliance made Sun its chair and adopted his ideas as the program for the revolution. Branches of the alliance sprouted in China, claiming many well-known literary figures as members and many revolutionary organizations as allies. The pace of the revolution accelerated. Between 1905 and the fall of 1911, Sun had launched at least half a dozen uprisings in the south. After these failures, the Revolutionary Alliance leaders shifted their focus to the central provinces. Their opportunity came early in 1911, when the government announced the nationalization of railway construction that had been financed through private investment. As the projected railways were in Sichuan, Hunan, and Hubei Provinces, the opposition of bondholders there was most vehement. In Sichuan, it became an insurrection. The government was compelled to transfer some of the troops from Wuchang, an important political center in Hubei, to quell the mounting riots there. Sensing the vulnerable government position at Wuchang, the revolutionary leaders, many of whom were officers in the New Army units, decided to act by late October. In the evening of October 9, however, a bomb exploded accidentally at revolutionary headquarters in the neighboring city of Hankou. Police raids led to the arrest of some thirty conspirators and seizure of documents containing the names of others. On the morning of October 10, units of the New Army, heavily infiltrated by the revolutionaries, attacked government offices and quickly seized control of Wuchang. In rapid succession, fifteen provinces seceded from the central government. The Revolutionary Government was established in Nanjing in early December and elected Sun provisional president on December 29, on his return from the United States. Meanwhile, in desperation the Qing government turned to the only man who had the power to deal with the revolutionaries, Yuan Shikai, the creator of the New Army, who had betrayed the reformers of 1898. Yuan had been retired in 1908. In early November, 1911, he was invested with full powers to control the imperial administration and command the army and navy. With his superior forces, he scored some quick victories and convinced the revolutionaries that he had to be appeased. Af-
Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty
Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty aimed at the regulation of capital and equalization of landownership. The decade preceding the fall of the monarchy was marked by widespread and spontaneous popular movements against imperialism, arbitrary taxation, and bureaucratic corruption. Although the Revolutionary Alliance and its successors failed to provide any direct organizational and intellectual leadership to harness these forces to serve the wider revolution, the Revolution of 1911 nevertheless gave these movements new impetus. The process of disintegration set in motion by the fall of the monarchy enabled revolutionary ideas to penetrate all strata of Chinese society. The May Fourth Movement (the cultural revolution that developed out of a protest on May 4, 1919, against the unfair treatment of China at the Versailles peace conference) was in large measure the convergence of these forces, which paved the way for the rise not only of radical political ideologies but also of new patterns of social behavior and cultural values. These earlier developments in no small way contributed to the even more radical revolution undertaken by the Communist Party of China after its successful seizure of control of the Chinese mainland in 1949. — S. M. Chiu Further Reading Bergère, Marie-Claire. Sun Yat-sen. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998. Comprehensive, balanced biography places Sun Yixian in the context of his times. Includes photographs, maps, bibliography, and index. Fairbank, John King. The Great Chinese Revolution,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1800-1985. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. An interpretive analysis of modern Chinese history by an acknowledged authority. Franke, Wolfgang. A Century of Chinese Revolution, 1851-1949. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970. Excellent account by a German sinologist. Includes a useful introduction and a bibliography. Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. The Rise of Modern China. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Comprehensive history of modern China provides a detailed account of the Revolution of 1911. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. Schiffrin, Harold Z. Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. Describes Sun Yixian as a revolutionary leader before 1905. Sharman, Lyon. Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning. 1934. Reprint. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1968. Biographical work by an American writer, daughter of a missionary in China. Criticizes the Sun Yixian cult that emerged after his death. Wright, Mary C., ed. China in Revolution: The First Phase. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. Collection of essays by leading historians on different facets of the revolutionary movement in modern China. Includes an excellent introduction by the editor. See also: 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms; May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement; 19261949: Chinese Civil War.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres
November 20, 1911
Mahler’s Masterpiece DAS LIED VON DER ERDE Premieres Six months after Gustav Mahler’s death, Bruno Walter conducted Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, a symphony of songs that embodied the composer’s farewell to life. Locale: Munich, Germany Category: Music Key Figures Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Austrian composer and conductor Alma Mahler (1879-1964), Austrian composer and wife of Gustav Mahler Bruno Walter (1876-1962), German conductor
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Summary of Event Gustav Mahler saw his songs and symphonies as spiritual adventures, milestones in the history of his soul, and in Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) he sought to communicate to others his highly charged emotional experiences as he wrestled with the abiding verities of life and death. In an irony the grim import of which he would readily have grasped, Mahler did not live to conduct the premiere of Das Lied von der Erde. Throughout his life, Mahler had endured many heartwrenching ordeals, including the premature deaths of several of his brothers and sisters, and these traumas had taught him both of life’s transience and of the evil that dwells beneath life’s surface, always threatening to destroy human happiness. In 1907, he received further confirmation of these convictions when his five-year-old daughter died of scarlet fever and when, two days after her death, he learned of his own fatal heart disease. From 1901 to 1904, he had composed Kindertotenlieder (songs on the deaths of children), the chamber orchestration of which anticipated that of Das Lied von der Erde, and after his daughter’s death he could not escape the feeling that he had taunted fate into taking his child away from him. These shocks transformed Mahler’s physical and emotional life, and they also transformed his spiritual and musical life, thus preparing the ground from which Das Lied von der Erde would grow. As he wrote to his friend Bruno Walter, his daughter’s death and his heart disease had made him “thirstier than ever for life,” and he wanted to express these feelings in music. A friend of Mahler’s wife’s father had given Mahler a collection of Chinese poems that Hans Bethge had translated into German. Several of the poems expressed bitter
and melancholic feelings that echoed Mahler’s own, and in 1907 he started sketching melodies for those texts that he found most meaningful. He worked assiduously on ways to unify the songs, at first glance so dissimilar in meaning and mood, into a symphonic world in which the earth’s ephemeral beauty would be interrelated with the transitoriness of human life. In Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler created an eclectic blend of Eastern and Western music. He deftly wove such “Orientalisms” as the pentatonic scale into orchestrations evocative of the disembodied beauty of a Chinese watercolor. Unlike the deeply Christian vision of his Eighth Symphony (pr. 1910), the world of Das Lied von der Erde exhibits a feeling for nature. Indeed, Mahler depicts a world in which God seems absent, and the composer agonizes between affirming and negating the poles of several basic conflicts: life and death, joy and sadness, love and separation. These struggles sharpen his taste for nature’s beauty and heighten his passionate joy at being alive. Before he died, Mahler allowed Bruno Walter to study the manuscript of Das Lied von der Erde. Walter was so moved by the piece that he could scarcely utter a word when he handed it back to Mahler, who turned to the last movement and expressed his concern that experiencing its anguish might drive members of the premiere audience to “make an end of themselves.” After Mahler’s death, his widow, Alma, chose Walter to conduct the premieres of her husband’s posthumous works; Walter, in turn, selected Munich for the premiere of Das Lied von der Erde because it had been the site of Mahler’s final triumph, the premiere of his Eighth Symphony. The timing for Das Lied von der Erde’s premiere was also propitious: during a two-day festival in Mahler’s honor. Even though Walter had earlier conducted a stirring rendition of Mahler’s Second Symphony, the premiere of Das Lied von der Erde was clearly the highlight of the festival. The orchestra for Das Lied von der Erde was large, including, in addition to the usual strings, winds, and brasses, such unusual instruments as the celesta, glockenspiel, tam-tam (gong), and mandolin. Mahler made use of the full power of the orchestra only sparingly; for most of the work, the singers are supported by a solo instrument or a small group of instruments. For Walter, Das Lied von der Erde was the most Mahlerian of all the composer’s works, and its psychic key was Mahler’s
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proximity to death. Walter therefore saw that the work’s basic tension was between existence and extinction, both of which Mahler, through his music, had been able to reconcile. This song symphony, which listeners in Munich heard for the first time on November 20, 1911, has six movements. As in several of Mahler’s earlier symphonies, he used long first and last movements to frame the inner movements. In Das Lied von der Erde, the outer movements give extended expressions of the theme of acceptance of life’s paradoxes, whereas the inner movements depict the fleetingness of life’s joys. At the end of Walter’s first performance of Das Lied von der Erde, a silence of several seconds followed, as the audience was too moved to react immediately. One eyewitness reported seeing some people, the blood drained from their faces, trembling with emotion; many others were in tears. After these moments of silence, the audience erupted in ecstatic cheers, as Walter, his face radiating profound appreciation for the creation of his absent friend, returned to the stage again and again to bow. Although some critics in the audience agitatedly discussed faults in the score, others shared the audience’s overall mood of elation and gratitude for what they said was Mahler’s most moving composition. For once, Mahler had created a symphony in which form and emotion were ideally matched. The genuine melancholy and otherworldliness of the music did not sound artificial or forced. Unique among the arts, music is able to express several conflicting emotions simultaneously, and in Das Lied von der Erde Mahler had been able to blend sadness and joy into an affirmation of life as well as death.
particular the great disparity in the lengths of the movements. These criticisms did not bother Bruno Walter, who believed that Mahler had written about his own destiny and needed for this new experience a symphony new in structure, instrumentation, and invention. After the premiere, the story of Das Lied von der Erde’s influence was not smooth and untroubled. The division of opinion—either ardently enthusiastic or angrily antagonistic—that was present at the start continued through the early decades of the twentieth century. Walter was certainly convinced of the greatness of the piece and championed it by playing it whenever he could. When he conducted it in Munich again in 1915, one critic noted that the astonishing amount of negative criticism that had been directed against the work had deprived the public of its beauty for more than four years. Mahler’s late compositions, especially Das Lied von der Erde, probably had their most detailed musical influence on the members of the so-called Second Viennese School—that is, Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples Alban Berg and Anton von Webern. For them, Mahler was a musical Moses, leading them from the desert of a barren Romanticism into the promised land of a fertile modernism. Das Lied von der Erde influenced several of Schoenberg’s compositions, especially his Gurrelieder (1912; songs of Gurre). Just as Mahler had combined the song cycle with the symphony in Das Lied von der Erde, so Schoenberg fused the song cycle and the cantata. During World War I, Webern composed some songs for voice and small orchestra based on the Chinese poems that had inspired Mahler. In the period before World War I, Das Lied von der Erde had premieres in various European countries and each time created the same division of opinion that had characterized the premiere in Germany. Mahler had his defenders who found his song symphony deeply moving, but others found it pretentious and drawn out, with its gloomy message and disproportionately long final movement. World War I hindered performances in many European concert halls, but in the United States, Leopold Stokowski was able, in December, 1916, to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra in the piece’s American premiere. Walter continued to promote Mahler’s symphonies after World War I. He then witnessed music passing through a crisis: It was either intellectualized into arid atonality or popularized into shallow entertainment, both of which alienated large segments of the traditional audience. For Walter, Mahler’s music was the solution to this crisis, because it had both modern harmonic and poly-
Significance Gustav Mahler passionately believed that God had chosen him to enrich humanity by creating new worlds of music, and he suffered deeply when his works met with incomprehension and vilification. Like the premieres of Mahler’s previous symphonies, the first hearing of Das Lied von der Erde generated much critical comment. Mahler, in the course of his career, had made many enemies—for example, anti-Semitic critics who found his compositions bombastic, even decadent. As he would have expected, the reviews of the premiere of Das Lied von der Erde were not as enthusiastic as the initial reaction of the audience. One reviewer wrote that the orchestra had been emphasized to the disparagement of the singers, who had to overcome great difficulties merely to make themselves heard. Other critics worried about the weaknesses in structure of this symphony of songs, in 914
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phonic ideas and a profound depth of feeling. In Das Lied von der Erde, Walter believed, Mahler had extended music’s power so that it was now able to express the full longings and aspirations of humanity. He hoped to increase Das Lied von der Erde’s influence by allowing an actual concert of the work to be recorded in Vienna on May 24, 1936. With Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in Germany and with the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s, performances of Mahler’s works, including Das Lied von der Erde, were put to an end in those countries, and the Nazis began a policy of defaming the composer and his music. Walter continued to play Mahler’s symphonies in countries not controlled by the Nazis, and, after 1939, when he settled in the United States, he often conducted Mahler’s works. Despite Walter’s successes, it was really not until after World War II, particularly with the advent of the longplaying record, that Mahler’s music became widely popular. Indeed, the belated recognition of Mahler as one of music’s great composers is one of the most remarkable features in the history of twentieth century music. Walter played an important part in this phenomenon as well. From 1947 on, he made return visits to Europe, where he was able to conduct Mahler’s works in various concerts. His recordings, too, contributed to the acceptance of Mahler’s symphonies. As Das Lied von der Erde became more widely known, its influence spread to other arts. For example, Antony Tudor choreographed a ballet based on its music that the Ballet Theatre first presented in 1948 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The choreographer Kenneth MacMillan also used Das Lied von der Erde as the basis of a ballet; MacMillan interpreted the piece as being about Death, whom he personified by a figure with a half mask, which set him off from the other dancers. In MacMillan’s ballet, Death takes a man away from a woman, but both Death and the man return to her, and at the ballet’s end the audience finds that in Death there is the promise of renewal. Ballets and increased record sales were indications of Mahler’s increasing popularity in the 1950’s and 1960’s. During his life, Mahler had conducted premieres of his works, but they always provoked the fierce hostility of critics. Nevertheless, during the postwar decades, his symphonies began to be played regularly by most conductors, and the best of his works gradually became important parts of the standard repertoire. In the United States, Leonard Bernstein’s advocacy of Mahler’s symphonies through his concerts, records, and lectures did
much to make them an integral part of modern musical life. The eventual transformation of Mahler’s reputation raises a question: Why did so many people find Mahler’s compositions essential to their musical lives? In Das Lied von der Erde, he was able to create a new kind of symphony by wedding the lyric and the dramatic; in general, he took the traditional symphony and enlarged it until it was able to encompass the marvelous musical worlds he envisioned. These new worlds entranced people, as did Mahler’s ability to embody in his creations some of the basic contradictions of the twentieth century. In an age made increasingly anxious by fiercely contending ideologies and horrific wars, many people turned to art to find meaning in their lives, and Mahler’s music, which plumbed emotional depths and soared to spiritual heights, helped to satisfy their emotional and spiritual yearnings. At the end of his own troubled life, Mahler composed Das Lied von der Erde to find peace in the midst of his tragedies. This work certainly had immense significance for him, as it has had for countless listeners. When Jascha Horenstein, a great conductor of Mahler’s music, was near to his own death in 1973, he said that for him one of the saddest things about leaving this world was that he would never again hear Das Lied von der Erde. —Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Cooke, Deryck. Gustav Mahler: An Introduction to His Music. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Discusses systematically the songs and symphonies (Das Lied von der Erde is part of Cooke’s treatment of Mahler’s last period). Provides texts of the songs, along with translations. Index. Feder, Stuart. Gustav Mahler: A Life in Crisis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Psychoanalytic biography addresses emotional themes in Mahler’s life and compositions, connecting particular crises with musical themes and works. Gartenberg, Egon. Mahler: The Man and His Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1978. Intended for the general listener of Mahler’s music as well as for the student and scholar. Instead of interweaving biographical and musical material, the volume is divided into a biography and musical analyses of Mahler’s compositions. Includes biographical sketches of the principal personages mentioned in the text, a bibliography, and an index. Illustrated. La Grange, Henri-Louis de. Mahler. Vol. 1. Garden City, 915
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Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. This first volume in a definitive three-volume life of the composer covers the years 1860 to 1901. Illustrated with forty-eight pages of photographs. Includes four appendixes, one of which provides extensive and detailed analysis of all of Mahler’s works composed up to 1901. Comprehensive notes, bibliography, and index. Mahler, Alma. Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters. Translated by Basil Creighton, edited by Donald Mitchell. New York: Viking Press, 1969. Alma Mahler’s reminiscences of her husband, first published in 1946. Divided into a memoir of Alma and Gustav’s marriage and a collection of letters. Includes a biographical list and an index. Mitchell, Donald. Songs and Symphonies of Life and Death: Interpretations and Annotations. Vol. 3 in Gustav Mahler. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. This third volume of Mitchell’s trilogy on Mahler centers on Das Lied von der Erde. Heavily illustrated with musical examples, and some sophistication in musical matters is necessary to follow some of the analyses. Bibliography, index of Mah-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ler’s work, and general index. Ryding, Erik, and Rebecca Pechefsky. Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. This first full-length biography of Walter in English describes his life and work from the time of his early successes as a conductor in Germany. Draws on Walter’s collected papers and letters, numerous interviews, and reviews of his concerts. Includes discussion of his relationship with Mahler and his devotion to Mahler’s music. Walter, Bruno. Gustav Mahler. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. This brief book, translated into English from the German, is an affectionate portrait of the composer by a conductor who was his good friend. Not a systematic biography but a memoir of their first meeting and other encounters and a series of reflections on Mahler as an opera director, conductor, composer, and personality. Index. See also: Early 20th cent.: Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera; 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres.
December 2, 1911
Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences In 1911, Douglas Mawson led a scientific expedition into previously uncharted territory in Antarctica. His expedition was the first to employ a radio transmitter from Antarctica, and the group even attempted to use an airplane to survey the land. Using the ship Aurora, the expedition charted more than 2,000 miles of coastland directly south of Australia. Also known as: Mawson’s Antarctic expedition Locale: Antarctica Category: Exploration and discovery Key Figures Douglas Mawson (1882-1958), Australian geologist who led the expedition Xavier Mertz (1883-1913), Swiss ski champion who died on the expedition Belgrave Ninnis (1889-1912), British lieutenant killed during the expedition Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), British explorer who led the 1914-1916 British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), British explorer who 916
died during the famous 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole Summary of Event The discovery of an entire southern continent had been on the minds of European explorers ever since Captain James Cook first sighted pack ice during his 1772-1775 voyage. His trip was followed by sketchy reports from people who believed they saw giant icebergs, islands, and land from whaling and sealing ships. The height of exploration in the Antarctic began at the close of the nineteenth century, as world powers vied for territory, with the emergence of explorers Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Henry Shackleton, and Douglas Mawson. Mawson was an intelligent, adventuresome geologist from Australia who was well suited for the rigors of exploration. Like many others of his time, Mawson was fascinated with the reports from Scott’s 1901-1904 expedition to Antarctica on the Discovery. During this period, in 1903, Mawson led his own scientific expedition to the New Hebrides Islands, a voyage that demonstrated
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Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences
India
his leadership skills. In the following Antarctica years, Mawson thought about the poT A R C T I C Atlantic A N tential natural resources that could C I Ocean R be found in Antarctica, and he beC L E lieved Australia should be in the forefront of any future exploration. We d d e l l When Scott’s Discovery expediSea tion failed to reach the South Pole, Shackleton began to form his own A n t a r c t i c a expedition to claim the region. At the urging of the geologist T. W. EdgeSouth wood David, Shackleton invited Pole Mawson to join his expedition on the Nimrod. Mawson accepted the inviAmundsen tation, and it was as a member of the Ross Ice Sea party that he became one of the first Shelf people to ascend the active volcano Bay of Cape Mount Erebus. During the following Whales Ro Denison ss Sea season, the same party came as close Pa c i f i c South Magnetic as possible to the location of the south Ocean Pole magnetic pole, but it was their geoCommonwealth Bay logic findings that made Shackleton’s expedition a scientific success. Following Shackleton’s triumphant served with both Scott and Shackleton. Also joining the return from Antarctica in 1909, Scott declared that he expedition as Greenland dog handlers were Dr. Xavier would return to Antarctica to claim the South Pole. The Mertz, an expert Swiss skier, and British army officer Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen also turned his Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis. The expedition’s goals eyes south, and a race began to see who would reach the were to find the exact location of the south magnetic pole pole first. and to chart as much of the coastline directly south of Amid all this excitement, few noticed that Mawson Australia as possible. In addition, a radio station would was planning his own expedition. Before leaving, Mawbe established on Macquerie Island, some 850 miles son went to England to learn about Antarctica from Scott south-southeast of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. and Shackleton. Scott was more interested in having Mawson thought that this station could relay news of the Mawson join his expedition than in sharing his experiexpedition by radio transmissions from Antarctica, and ences, however, and was very offended when Mawson he was right: The first two-way radio transmission from declined his offer. Shackleton, on the other hand, was Antarctica was successfully made on February 13, 1912. very enthusiastic about Mawson’s plans, but he spoke Mawson established his main base at Cape Denison, only about his upcoming voyage and offered no real adgiving it the name “Home of the Blizzards” because of vice. In spite of this, Mawson remained determined to the incredibly high wind speeds there. On November 10, lead his own expedition. 1912, Mawson’s two parties departed; one headed east, By 1911, explorers were crowding Antarctica. the other west. Both parties had specific instructions to Amundsen was positioned at the Bay of Whales, and return no later than January 15, 1913. Both faced diffiScott was making preparations from his base at the Ross culties, but it was Mawson’s eastbound party, which also Sea. Quietly, Mawson assembled his scientific expediincluded Ninnis and Mertz, that met with tragedy. From tion, which consisted mostly of researchers from Austrathe start, the group encountered extremely difficult ice lia and New Zealand. His ship, the Aurora, was refitted in conditions and high winds. Then, on December 14, 1912, London and sailed for Australia on June 22, 1911, comBelgrave Ninnis fell into a crevice and was lost along manded by John King Davis, the captain of Shackleton’s with six dogs and most of the group’s food. With food ship the Nimrod. The expedition included several other running low, Mawson and Mertz were forced to eat their veterans, including Frank Wild, who had previously n
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Mawson’s Love of Adventure In his memoir The Home of the Blizzard, Douglas Mawson recounts his Antarctic journey. He begins his introduction by explaining the lure of exploration: One of the oft-repeated questions for which I usually had a ready answer, at the conclusion of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Expedition (1907-09) was, “Would you like to go to the Antarctic again?’’ In the first flush of the welcome home and for many months, during which the keen edge of pleasure under civilized conditions had not entirely worn away, I was inclined to reply with a somewhat emphatic negative. But, once more a man in the world of men, lulled in the easy repose of routine, and performing the ordinary duties of a workaday world, old emotions awakened. The grand sweet days returned in irresistible glamour, faraway ”voices’’ called:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 drama and courage of Mawson’s tale of survival were overshadowed by Scott’s dramatic death and later by the incredible tale of survival from Shackleton’s Endurance expedition in 1916.
Significance The 1911 Australasian Antarctic Expedition was very important for a variety of reasons. Prior to that time, the major Antarctic expeditions came either from European countries or from the United States. Several countries in the Southern Hemisphere had . . . from the wilderness, the vast and Godlike spaces, a significant interest in exploring The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole. Antarctica, but they did not have the financial or technical resources to There always seemed to be something at the back of my mind, stored away mount major expeditions. Even Ausfor future contemplation, and it was an idea which largely matured during my tralia and New Zealand were confirst sojourn in the far South. At times, during the long hours of steady tramping tent to support British expeditions. across the trackless snow-fields, one’s thoughts flow in a clear and limpid Douglas Mawson, however, wanted stream, the mind is unruffled and composed and the passion of a great venture springing suddenly before the imagination is sobered by the calmness of pure to give Australia its own claim to reason. Perchance this is true of certain moments, but they are rare and fleeting. Antarctica. It may have been in one such phase that I suddenly found myself eager for more Mawson was a scientist by trainthan a glimpse of the great span of Antarctic coast lying nearest to Australia. ing, and he was intent on making the Source: Douglas Mawson, The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the best possible scientific survey of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, Antarctic coast directly south of Aus1915). tralia. Such a survey, he believed, would give Australia a political claim to the territory and would determine the economic value of its natural redogs in order to save their own lives. They did not realize sources. Mawson was also interested in Antarctic geolthat the dogs’ livers held concentrated amounts of vitaogy, however, and his team conducted meteorological min A, which acted as a poison and made the two men studies and searched for the exact location of the south very sick and weak. Mertz died on January 7, 1913, and magnetic pole. The team members were also the first to Mawson was left alone. find a meteorite in Antarctica. The Mawson expedition Mawson struggled over a hundred miles of dangerous was the first to employ radio communications, and the ice to reach his base camp. Several times he fell into crevgroup’s attempt to use the airplane for surveying large ices but was able to extricate himself. Finally, on January tracts of land was truly revolutionary. 29, Mawson spotted a cairn left behind by a search team. —Paul P. Sipiera At the marker, he found food, fuel, and a note giving him his precise location. Days later, Mawson reached his Further Reading base just as his ship was leaving to retrieve Frank Wild’s Bickel, Lennard. Mawson’s Will. New York: Dorset westbound party. Fortunately for Mawson, he was spotPress, 1988. One of the best accounts available of ted by six men left behind. They sent an urgent radio Mawson’s incredible tale of survival. Draws on permessage in an attempt to recall the ship, but ice prevented sonal interviews and the diaries of the three ill-fated explorers to create a picture of the incredible condiits return. The seven men remained in Antarctica for antions faced by Mawson and his two companions. other winter season. On February 5, 1914, the Aurora reHall, Lincoln. Douglas Mawson: The Life of an Exturned to take them back to Australia. Unfortunately, the 918
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 plorer. Sydney: New Holland Press, 2000. Pictorial biography includes more than 170 black-and-white photographs. Discusses the fact that Mawson did not receive the acclaim that others did and details Mawson’s accomplishments in comparison to those of Scott and Shackleton. McGregor, Alasdair. Mawson’s Huts: An Antarctic Expedition Journal. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1998. Illustrated volume is the result of the author’s participation in a restoration project on Mawson’s Cape Denison huts, which took place in 1997 and 1998. Gives the reader a wonderful feel for the living condi-
Amundsen Reaches the South Pole tions experienced by the early Antarctic explorers. Mountevans, Admiral Lord. The Antarctic Challenged. New York: John De Graff, 1956. Firsthand account by a member of Scott’s Discovery expedition. Chapter titled “Mawson in the Home of the Blizzards” provides an excellent depiction of Mawson’s heroic expedition that could have come only from someone who had actually been there. See also: July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands; Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole; Dec. 14, 1911: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole.
December 14, 1911
Amundsen Reaches the South Pole Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer who abandoned plans to go to the North Pole when Robert Edwin Alexander Peary reached it first, led the first team to reach the South Pole. Amundsen’s expedition beat a British team, led by Robert Falcon Scott, by only a month. Locale: South Pole, Antarctica Category: Exploration and discovery
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Key Figures Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), Norwegian explorer who led the first expedition to reach the South Pole Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), British naval officer and Antarctic explorer who died returning from the South Pole Kristian Prestrud (d. 1919), Norwegian explorer on Amundsen’s expedition Olav Bjaaland (1873-1961), Norwegian explorer on Amundsen’s expedition Hjalmar Johansen (1867-1913), Norwegian explorer on Amundsen’s expedition Oscar Wisting (1871-1936), Norwegian explorer on Amundsen’s expedition Helmer Hanssen (1870-1956), Norwegian explorer on Amundsen’s expedition Sverre Hassel (1876-1928), Norwegian explorer on Amundsen’s expedition Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), British explorer who led the Nimrod expedition to Antarctica and came within 95 miles of the South Pole in 1909 Adrien de Gerlache (1866-1934), Belgian explorer in the Antarctic
Summary of Event Roald Amundsen was born in Borge, Norway, and went to school to study medicine but dropped out to go to sea. Most of the world had been explored by the end of the nineteenth century, and Antarctica was one of the few remaining frontiers. Amundsen made his first voyage to Antarctica on a Belgian expedition led by Adrien de Gerlache. Although whaling and sealing ships had visited Antarctica, de Gerlache commanded a three-masted vessel, the Belgica, on the first scientific expedition. In early 1898, the Belgica reached the Antarctic Peninsula, which extends 1,200 miles north toward South America. Although the peninsula had been mapped in 1820 by James Bransfield, de Gerlache discovered a long strait between the peninsula and a chain of small islands. On February 28, a storm opened the pack ice, and de Gerlache sailed ninety miles south before the pack ice closed, trapping the ship for thirteen months. The Belgica expedition was the first to spend the winter in Antarctica, a valuable experience for Amundsen, who went on to lead the first expedition to travel the Northwest Passage, a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada, from 1903 to 1906. He considered following this with an attempt to reach the North Pole. In 1893 Fridtjof Nansen had the Fram, a ship constructed to withstand polar ice, frozen into drift ice north of Siberia, hoping ice movement would carry it over the North Pole, but the expedition drifted too far south. Amundsen arranged to use the Fram and assembled a group to finance his expedition to the North Pole. However, in September of 1909, Robert Edwin Alexander Peary reached the North Pole, and so Amundsen
Amundsen Reaches the South Pole changed his plans: He would try to reach the South Pole. Amundsen kept his plans secret, telling only his brother, Leon. By not announcing his intentions, Amundsen hoped to beat other explorers to the pole. He was heavily in debt, but he believed that a spectacular accomplishment could help him gain financial freedom. The Fram left Christiania, Norway, on August 9, 1910, eight weeks after Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition left Cardiff, Wales. Scott had publicly announced plans to explore the South Pole. The Fram’s commander, Lieutenant Thorvald Nilsen, was told in advance of Amundsen’s plans. Two other crewmen, Lieutenants Kristian Prestrud and Fredrick Gjertsen, were told on the eve of the departure. The rest of the crew believed the Fram would stop in Portugal’s Madeira Islands, in the north Atlantic, then sail to Argentina, performing oceanographic research, before heading north to the Arctic. Drawing on his experience from the Belgica expedition, Amundsen planned carefully. He brought ninety-seven dogs from Greenland, and these animals turned out to be crucial to the expedition’s success. When the Fram arrived in Maderia on September 6, the crew loaded enough fresh water and provisions to spend two years in the Antarctic. On September 9, just three hours before sailing, Amundsen announced the destination to the rest of the crew. Amundsen’s brother, the last person to go ashore, carried letters from the crew to their families and a cable from Amundsen to Scott. Amundsen’s brother was instructed not to send the cable until October. When Scott arrived in Australia on October 12, 1910, Amundsen’s message was waiting for him. It read: “Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic, Amundsen.” After he read the telegram, Scott sailed south, anchoring in Antarctica at McMurdo Sound on January 4, 1911. Amundsen reached the Ross Ice Shelf on January 14, 1911, sailing into base camp at the Bay of Whales, which put Amundsen 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott could get at McMurdo. Wildlife was abundant, and the crew restocked their supplies with seal and penguin meat. Amundsen established his base camp, named Framheim, two miles inland. For three weeks the crew transferred supplies, assembled the hut, and erected storage tents. Then they moved some supplies inland, establishing three supply depots, spaced about 60 miles apart, along the first part of their path to the pole. On April 21, 1911, the sun set and the crew returned to camp for the long winter. Amundsen provided nutritious food; he had witnessed the effects of scurvy during the Belgica expedition. He knew nine men housed in a small 920
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 hut might develop social problems, so he assigned each crewman specific chores and maintained a regimented work schedule. Finally, the sun reappeared on August 24. Two months passed before it was warm enough to start toward the pole. On September 8, eight men and their “sledges”—sleds used to haul the supplies—pulled by eighty-six dogs set off, leaving one man at Framheim. They covered 31 miles in three days, then awoke to extreme cold, nearly –70 degrees Fahrenheit. By September 12, several men had frostbite and the fluid in their compass had frozen. Amundsen continued only to the first supply depot, unloaded the sledges, and returned to Framheim. Amundsen changed the plan. He would lead one group to the pole while Prestrud would lead another to explore King Edward VII Land (now called Edward VII Peninsula), a peninsula projecting into the Ross Sea. Amundsen reasoned that if his team were unsuccessful, they could still be the first to explore King Edward VII Land. On October 20, 1911, Amundsen and fellow ex-
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Roald Amundsen during his South Pole expedition. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
secret. Amundsen continued his explorations, however, and in 1926, Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth flew the Norge over the North Pole. At the time, the journey was the northernmost voyage ever taken by an airplane. Significance The conquest of the South Pole opened the Antarctic continent to intense exploration. Many studies examined the reasons why Amundsen’s team found success while Scott’s team perished. Amundsen benefited from his experience on the earlier Belgica expedition, on which he learned several important lessons about surviving in the harsh environment. The group’s journey was also made easier by Bjaaland’s work on reducing the sledges’ weight; he was able to keep each sledge at 48 pounds, while Scott’s sledges weighed 165 pounds. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959 by nations with interests in the Antarctic, prohibited territorial claims and exploitation of the continent’s resources. The region has proven to be a valuable site for scientific research, and the United States established a permanent base at the South Pole in 1957 as part of the International Geophysical Year. British scientists began measurements of Antarctic ozone in 1957 and discovered a hole in the layer, which indicated that damaging ultraviolet light was reaching the surface of the earth. —George J. Flynn Further Reading Amundsen, Roald. The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, 1910-1912. New York: New York University Press, 2001. English translation of Amundsen’s 392-page account of the journey, complete with photos, maps, and scientific data. Huntford, Roland. Scott and Amundsen: The Race to the South Pole. New York: Atheneum, 1984. A 665-page history of polar exploration that documents the race to the pole. Thomson, David. Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen: Ambition and Tragedy in the Antarctic. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002. Discusses why Scott’s team failed while Amundsen’s team succeeded, analyzes key decisions, and considers the experience and character of both leaders. See also: July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands; Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole; Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences.
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plorers Olav Bjaaland, Oscar Wisting, Helmer Hanssen, and Sverre Hassel, left Framheim using four sledges, each of which was pulled by thirteen dogs. It was warm and they made good progress, arriving at the first depot on October 24. The next morning they left on skis, and spotted a cairn (a pile of stones used to mark the way) that had been built in April. Since the cairn had survived, they built a new one during their lunch stop each day, leaving a note indicating the distance and heading to the previous cairn to mark their return route. On November 11, they saw a mountain range that Amundsen named the Queen Maud Mountains. After camping at the base of the mountains, on November 17 they set out to climb the Axel Heiberg Glacier. They took thirty days’ worth of supplies for the 340-mile trek to the pole. On November 21, they reached the summit; they had carried a ton of supplies to 10,000 feet. At the top, they shot twenty-four dogs that were no longer needed. The five men and remaining dogs struggled against snow, high winds, and fog. By December 8, fewer than 95 miles remained between them and the pole; they were closer than Ernest Henry Shackleton had come in 1909. The closer they got, the more Amundsen worried that Scott had beaten them. On December 14, 1911, at about 3:00 p.m., Amundsen shouted, “Halt!” when meters on the sledge indicated they had reached the South Pole. Their was no sign that Scott had been there, so the men planted the Norwegian flag and Amundsen named the plain King Haakon VII’s Plateau. They celebrated, but observations that evening showed they were at 89º56N S, just short of their goal. They made plans to circle around the campsite, to ensure they reached the exact location of the pole. On December 17, observations indicated they were within feet of the pole. They erected a tent, naming it Polheim, and Amundsen left two messages, one for Scott and another addressed to King Haakon of Norway. Thirty-nine days later, Amundsen’s group returned safely to Framheim. It took a month for them to sail to Tasmania, where, on March 7, 1912, Amundsen cabled his brother that he had reached the pole. Scott’s team reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912. While returning to McMurdo, they faced extreme cold and heavy snow as they tried to carry heavy rock samples for geological research. All of the explorers in Scott’s group perished on the trek. Upon the Fram expedition’s return, expedition member Hjalmar Johansen publicly questioned the ethics of Amundsen’s decision to keep his journey a
Amundsen Reaches the South Pole
Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 31, 1911
Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System After many decades of rancorous discussion, Parliament nationalized the telephone service in the United Kingdom, putting its administration under the authority of the General Post Office. Locale: London, England Categories: Government and politics; trade and commerce; communications and media Summary of Event At the end of 1911, after years of debate, discussion, and argument, Parliament gave the General Post Office the responsibility for operating the United Kingdom’s national telephone system. Beginning in 1912, with minor exceptions, a single government institution provided all telephone service for the nation. Some hoped that this change from private to government ownership and control would result in more efficient and extensive service and increased technical modernization. Some predicted that the cost to consumers would decrease. Others hoped that business would benefit. Even many of those who favored nationalization, however, were not convinced that any significant improvement would suddenly take place. Instead, they saw no alternative, given the past failures of the existing system of telephone service in the United Kingdom in comparison with other countries. The nationalization of telephone service in 1911 was not a sudden or radical departure. The telephone was introduced into the United Kingdom in the 1870’s, shortly after the first successful transmission by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Much publicity resulted, and even Queen Victoria wished to make use of the new technology. Government takeover of telephone service had antecedents in the nationalization of the several privately owned telegraph companies, which had been placed under the auspices of the General Post Office. In spite of the prevailing laissez-faire liberalism of the time, by the 1860’s many politicians in both major parties supported government ownership of the telegraph. The reasons were varied. A government-operated monopoly could benefit from economies of scale. Some Post Office officials were inspired by their success with mail delivery and wished to venture into new areas such as the telegraph. Others claimed that lower and uniform rates for business and consumer users would come with government ownership. Still others noted the success of state-owned systems, such as those in Belgium and Switzerland. To many, it 922
seemed obvious that the kingdom should have a unified telegraph system. The importance of such a system was made apparent by the American Civil War and the AustroPrussian War. The spark that led to nationalization was an increase in rates by the private companies, which resulted in considerable public outrage. Parliament enthusiastically supported nationalization in 1869, not because the members approved of state ownership and control in principle but because it was the solution to the particular issues associated with the telegraph. By the end of the 1870’s, the Post Office was concerned about the implications of the new telephone technology and its potential impact on revenues, particularly if it began to replace the telegraph. Private firms soon entered the field, some cooperating with the Post Office and some not. By 1879, it was decided to allow private development of the telephone under Post Office license. When several private companies objected to obtaining licenses, the government filed suit, winning a judgment in 1880 confirming that the telephone fell within the scope of the 1869 law establishing government ownership and operation of the telegraph. This would later be the basis for public ownership of the wireless (radio) and television. Post Office officials saw the advantages of telephone development but differed in opinion regarding whether the initiative should remain solely in private hands, the Post Office should compete with business, or the new technology should be nationalized, as the telegraph system had been only a few years earlier. These three alternatives were discussed for decades. In 1880, the licensing system was adopted, with licenses to run for thirty-one years, with a clause allowing the government to cancel the licenses before that date. The issue of whether the Post Office should compete with the private companies was another matter. The decision was something of a muddle, with a small Post Office telephone operation and various private telephone companies all providing service. One of the justifications for allowing business to take the lead was the belief that government operations were costly and not as efficient as private enterprise. Competition among numerous private firms was expected to advance the progress of the telephone, both in use and technology. The hoped-for developments through government licensing did not occur. The companies resented paying royalties to the government. In addition, private competition soon gave way to a private monopoly when a number of companies were brought together in the Na-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Government ownership and control of telephone facilities, beginning in 1912, led to little change. Some critics of the NTC had hoped that quick progress would result, benefiting both business users and those using the telephone for personal matters. Most people who favored and who had urged the nationalization of telephone service had not envisioned a radical departure from the past. They saw nationalization as a necessity brought about because the existing system was inadequate, not because of any utopian transformation expected to occur. Many politicians still saw the telephone as a novelty rather than as a necessity. There was little of the enthusiasm that had existed when the telegraph was nationalized, concerning the benefits that would accrue to all social classes, how economic prosperity would result, or how the telephone could further unify the country. Some business organizations hoped for an expansion of telephone service and a reduction in rates, but most Post Office officials and their political colleagues in Parliament lacked the vision to see the crucial significance of the telephone, and were more concerned about the costs to the government than about the benefits to business. Members of Parliament often represented rural interests and were themselves members of old landed families; business and trade were still suspect in the British ruling class. Critics frequently complained about the slow progress made after nationalization, pointing out that the system was failing to assist commerce and contrasting the British system, which had changed little after 1911, with the telephone facilities available in the United States. The American telephone systems were largely private, but the issues for most critics involved not public versus private ownership and operation but service, efficiency, and development. The problems facing the Post Office after nationalization were formidable. The prevailing attitude among politicians and Post Office administrators was caution, not boldness. The most notable change was financial. The costs involved in the takeover of the National Telephone Company were significant, not so much for payment for the resources of the NTC but for wages. When former NTC workers transferred to the Post Office, their salaries increased, fulfilling a prediction by some opponents of nationalization. In addition, most of the facilities bought from the NTC were outmoded or in need of replacement. World War I delayed telephone development in the United Kingdom. The war emergency did not allow planning of telephone facilities, and thirteen thousand telephone workers joined the military. There was little 923
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tional Telephone Company (NTC). Some critics predicted that with no competition there would be no improvement. The options were competition from the Post Office in order to spur the NTC into greater progress and the creation of a government-owned monopoly. A parliamentary proposal to nationalize the telephone was defeated in 1892 by a vote of 205 to 147, but much of the opposition to nationalization was based less on philosophy and principle than on the financial cost, particularly if nationalization occurred before the licenses expired in 1911. In the 1890’s, a new factor complicated the situation. Certain municipalities wanted to establish their own telephone systems, relying neither on the private NTC system nor on the possibility of a government monopoly run by the Post Office. Critics of these plans argued that local development would never result in an efficient national system, which could come about only through a monopoly, either public or private. Inasmuch as many critics claimed that the NTC was failing to provide adequate service, nationalization seemed to be the inevitable alternative to either private monopoly or municipal control. There was no great enthusiasm for government ownership and operation. In the 1860’s, British optimism saw the nationalization of the telegraph as a great step forward in progress. By the beginning of the twentieth century, many feared that Great Britain was falling behind in technology as Germany and the United States advanced. This widespread pessimism led some critics to argue that there was no rational choice except nationalization, because the existing private monopoly was not working and something had to be done. In 1902, in a compromise measure, the government agreed to take over the NTC’s London operations when the license expired in 1911. In the interim, the Post Office and the NTC would cooperate in meeting London’s telephone needs. The final step was taken in 1905, when it was decided that the government would nationalize the National Telephone Company when its license expired at the end of 1911. That decision was made not in any hope or expectation that there would be great improvement and rapid development of the telephone in Great Britain. There simply seemed to be no satisfactory alternative. The NTC was failing to provide the minimum service necessary, even in the eyes of the numerous critics who saw little future in the telephone except as a novelty for the upper classes. The agreement was ratified by the House of Commons in August, 1905, by a vote of 187 to 110. On the last day of 1911, the Post Office was given control of telephones throughout the United Kingdom.
Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System
Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
concerted progress even after the war ended. Secretary to the Post Office George Evelyn Murray, the director of the system from 1914 to 1934, saw the responsibility of the Post Office as merely meeting existing needs, not pursuing developmental opportunities. The result was that by 1921 there was only one telephone for every forty-seven persons in the United Kingdom, in contrast to one for every eight persons in the United States. The policy of drift continued throughout the 1920’s. Politicians and other critics frequently discussed the continuing inadequacies in telephone service and development, but to little avail. In 1932, twenty years after nationalization, Viscount R. C. P. Wolmer, a member of Parliament, noted that the history of the telephone system under government ownership “has been one of sedate development,” with increasingly slower rates of growth. He blamed inefficient management by the Post Office, a complaint similar to many made about the National Telephone Company in the era before telephone service was nationalized. Little changed in Great Britain as the result of the 1911 nationalization. The British example had little impact elsewhere, particularly in the United States, where the use of the telephone was more widespread and the service more extensive, both for business and for private individuals. There was little support for nationalization in the United States. The Progressive movement was at its apogee when the British Post Office took over telephone service in the United Kingdom, but neither of the liberal reform presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, was enticed by public ownership. Roosevelt’s New Nationalism favored strict government regulation of business, and Wilson’s New Freedom looked to antitrust laws to make business responsive to the needs of the public. In 1913, the Wilson administration forced the gigantic American Telephone and Telegraph Company to agree not to acquire any existing telephone companies or facilities, thus placing some limits on its monopoly status. In retrospect, the nationalization of the telephone system in Great Britain offered some promise but had few consequences. It stands as an example and case study of nationalization, showing neither great harms nor great benefits, calming debates about other nationalization worldwide. —Eugene Larson
comprehensive information on the development of the telephone in Great Britain from the perspective of an insider. Useful although dated. Crutchley, E. T. G.P.O. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1938. Relates the story of the General Post Office from even before its inception in the nineteenth century. Includes a discussion of the development of the telephone within the wider context of the Post Office. Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917. New York: Harper, 1954. Tells the story of an important era of reform in the United States. Unlike in the United Kingdom, this reform movement did not use nationalization as a tool of government policy. Mowry, George E. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900-1912. New York: Harper, 1958. Covers Roosevelt’s presidency and includes a discussion of Roosevelt’s attitudes and practices regarding business monopoly. Murray, Sir George Evelyn Pemberton. The Post Office. London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927. Murray, secretary to the Post Office from 1914 to 1934, was the chief administrator under the postmaster general. Discussion of the telephone focuses on the years after nationalization, defending the accomplishments made during a difficult era. Perry, C. R. The Victorian Post Office: The Growth of a Bureaucracy. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 1992. Illuminating work indicates how most decisions concerning the nationalization of the telegraph and telephone were internal matters relatively unaffected by outside pressures. Robertson, J. H. The Story of the Telephone. London: Scientific Book Club, 1948. Brief and readable history of the telecommunications industry in Great Britain carries the story of the telephone and its significance through World War II. Wolmer, R. C. P. Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability. London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1932. Extremely critical of Post Office operations, including the telephone system. Primarily blames the bureaucracy for the failure of the British telephone system to meet the standards and accomplishments of foreign systems, including those in the United States.
Further Reading Baldwin, F. G. C. The History of the Telephone in the United Kingdom. London: Chapman & Hall, 1925. Exhaustive work by a Post Office engineer provides
See also: Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed; Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered.
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Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre
1912
Grey’s RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE Launches the Western Genre Zane Grey combined the excitement of the frontier and a stirring human-interest story to capture an ongoing fascination with life in the nineteenth century American West. Locale: United States Category: Literature Key Figures Zane Grey (1872-1939), American author Frederic Remington (1861-1909), American author and artist Louis L’Amour (1908-1988), American author Frederick Faust (1892-1944), American author
Zane Grey.
Lewis and Clark’s experiences were extremely valuable to the later settlements that would be portrayed so vividly in the novels of Zane Grey. Throughout the nineteenth century, many attempts were made to give Americans a clear perception of life on the western frontier. One of the most successful such attempts was made by Frederic Remington. Beginning in 1880, Remington made many journeys into the western territories, witnessing Indian battles and the slaughtering of buffalo herds. His stories and drawings soon began appearing in Harper’s Monthly, Century, and other magazines and newspapers. Into this historical setting came Zane Grey, whose novels depicted the adventure, hardships, and rewards of life on the frontier. Born Pearl Zane Grey in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1872, Grey graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and became a dentist in New York City in 1898. He soon began writing stories about the frontier. 925
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Summary of Event The exploration, taming, and settlement of the American West is one of the most exciting phases of U.S. history. The saga began with the Louisiana Purchase—the U.S. acquisition of French territory in North America for fifteen million dollars in 1803. The purchase doubled the size of the United States; however, the northern and western boundaries of the territory acquired were vague, and the purchase actually paved the way for settlement of North America west to the Pacific Ocean. This vast region offered numerous challenges to the bold and adventurous. Many indigenous tribes roamed the Great Plains, following enormous buffalo herds. Both the tribes and the buffalo had to be reduced and controlled before the American settlement could succeed. In his novels, Zane Grey vividly described these and other challenges. President Thomas Jefferson was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, and he soon authorized an expedition to explore the territory and to cultivate friendly relationships with the indigenous tribes. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were approved by Congress to lead the expedition, which began its ascent of the Missouri River on May 14, 1804. Lewis and Clark made successful contact with several indigenous tribes, including the Mandan Sioux, Blackfoot, and Shoshone; the aid of these tribes was vital to the success of the expedition. After arriving within sight of the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis. Their work had proved the value of the Louisiana Purchase and also proved the feasibility of an overland route to the Pacific. Although the expedition had touched only the northern edge of the vast frontier,
Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre
From RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE Zane Grey’s vivid descriptions of life in the West and the rugged terrain of southern Utah added to the authenticity of his story in Riders of the Purple Sage. Jane prayed that the tranquillity and sweetness of her life would not be permanently disrupted. . . . She wished only to go on doing good and being happy. And she thought of what that great ranch meant to her. She loved it all—the grove of cottonwoods, the old stone house, the amber-tinted water, and the droves of shaggy, dusty horses and mustangs, the sleek, clean-limbed, blooded racers, and the browsing herds of cattle and the lean, sun-browned riders of the sage. While she waited there she forgot the prospect of untoward change. The bray of a lazy burro broke the afternoon quiet, and it was comfortingly suggestive of the drowsy farmyard, and the open corrals, and the green alfalfa fields. Her clear sight intensified the purple sage-slope as it rolled before her. Low swells of prairie-like ground sloped up to the west. Dark, lonely cedartrees, few and far between, stood out strikingly, and at long distances ruins of red rocks. Farther on, up the gradual slope, rose a broken wall, a huge monument, looming dark purple and stretching its solitary, mystic way, a wavering line that faded in the north. Here to the westward was the light and color and beauty. Northward the slope descended to a dim line of cañons from which rose an up-flinging of earth, not mountainous, but a vast heave of purple uplands, with ribbed and fan-shaped walls, castle-crowned cliffs, and gray escarpments. Over it all crept the lengthening, waning afternoon shadows. Source: Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1912).
Grey’s first novel was Betty Zane, based on the journal of one of his ancestors on the Ohio frontier. After this book was published in 1904, Grey ended his dental career and became a full-time writer. Grey’s second novel was The Spirit of the Border, also based on the journal of Betty Zane. Published in 1905, this adventure story was a best-seller. The most popular of Grey’s novels, and one of the earliest about the Far West, was Riders of the Purple Sage, published in 1912. This publication completed the process that Grey began eight years earlier. He almost single-handedly had created a new style in American literature: the Western novel. It came at a time when firsthand accounts of the West were abundant, when the stories of Frederic Remington were still being published and the frontier theory of historian Frederick Jackson Turner was still being debated. 926
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Riders of the Purple Sage is based on the conflict in Utah between the Mormons and the region’s other settlers during the 1870’s. One of the leading characters is Jane Withersteen, a young Mormon woman who has inherited her father’s vast wealth. The book’s basic conflict revolves around her struggle to remain loyal to her Mormon beliefs while at the same time trying to change the attitudes of Mormon men toward their women and toward non-Mormons. Like most of Grey’s Western novels, Riders of the Purple Sage is a result of the author’s many trips through the area involved. His vivid description of the rugged terrain and miles of sagebrush in southern Utah creates an extremely realistic geographic setting. Grey also appreciated the value of horses to the successful conquering of the West. The two horses immortalized in Riders of the Purple Sage, Black Star and Night, were based on real horses that Grey found and bought in Arizona. Grey’s abundant traveling and contact with people from many backgrounds gave him the ability to portray human nature and human emotions in a realistic way. In Riders of the Purple Sage and his other Western novels, he used that ability to depict the conflicts involved in carving a way of life from a rugged frontier setting.
Significance Beginning with Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey’s output of successful Western novels was amazing. From 1915 to 1924, one of his books was in the top ten of the best-seller list nine times. This streak began with The Lone Star Ranger in 1915. In 1918, his The U.P. Trail was number one on the list. At a time when at least 100,000 copies of a book had to be sold for the book to be on the best-seller list, Grey’s The Man of the Forest (1920) topped the list with more than 700,000 copies sold. The best-selling of Grey’s novels, however, is Riders of the Purple Sage, which has sold more than one million copies in hardback editions alone. Grey was writing as prolifically at the time of his death in 1939 as he had at any time in his career. Of his total of eighty-nine books, fifty-six were Western novels. Four were other sorts of novels; the remainder were books of short stories, books on hunting and fishing, juvenile books, and books of baseball stories. The impact of Grey’s novels was multiplied many times when they began to be serialized in magazines and newspapers. A total of fifty of his novels were serialized
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Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre knowledge of his subject than a writer on almost any other topic. He also takes issue with the notion that a good Western can be written in a few days. These ideas placed L’Amour much more in the company of Grey than in the company of Faust, who never explored the West and who wrote The Untamed in ten days. Even more than Grey, L’Amour became famous for historical accuracy and detailed descriptions of geography and wildlife. Like Grey, he supported strong family ties and his novels featured sensitive portrayals of Indians and Mexicans. L’Amour’s first Western novel was Westward the Tide, published in 1950. In 1960, he began the celebrated saga of the Sackett family in The Daybreakers. Among L’Amour’s other well-known Westerns are Hondo (1953) and The First Fast Draw (1959). L’Amour, like the earlier Western authors, saw several of his novels made into films. Zane Grey established a tradition for accuracy and excellence as he created the Western novel. In launching a genre that would prove a staple of popular fiction and film throughout the twentieth century, he left a lasting mark on American culture. — Glenn L. Swygart Further Reading Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Detailed and moving account of the effects of American westward expansion on indigenous tribes. Features many direct quotes from witnesses and from participants in the events. An interesting view of the historical West from a perspective different from that offered by most popular fiction. Easton, Robert. Max Brand: The Big Westerner. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970. Biography of Frederick Faust emphasizes the influences that led him into a career as a writer. Presents a good evaluation of Faust’s most famous Western, Destry Rides Again (1930). Also describes Faust’s Dr. Kildare stories. Includes a complete Faust bibliography. Gruber, Frank. Zane Grey. New York: World Publishing, 1970. Excellent biography includes photographs, a complete bibliography of Grey’s books and major articles, and a list of Grey’s books that were made into films. Karr, Jean. Zane Grey: Man of the West. New York: Greenberg, 1949. Biography presents interesting accounts of Grey’s childhood and later travels. Includes photographs and a complete annotated bibliography of Grey’s writings. 927
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in national magazines; the New York Daily News, with a circulation of more than two million, serialized the last three Zane Grey novels. By 1970, Grey’s books had sold more than 100 million copies. They had also been the basis for more than one hundred films, including several in which Grey himself appeared. The tremendous popularity of Grey’s Western novels, in all sections of the country and with all age groups, inspired other writers to enter the field. Most sought to follow Grey’s example of historical and geographic accuracy. One of the earliest to enter the field, but one who did not have the same zeal for accuracy, was Frederick Faust. Faust, a prolific writer, became a successful author in 1917, and he was soon writing Western novels under the pen name of Max Brand. His first major work was The Untamed, which was serialized in All-Story Weekly, a pulp magazine, beginning in December, 1918. Faust wrote The Untamed in the phenomenal time of ten days. He did so after reading Riders of the Purple Sage at the request of pulp editor Robert Davis. Davis was a westerner who had lived on the frontier. He regretted an earlier decision not to serialize Zane Grey’s most famous novel, and he was looking for a new writer comparable to Grey. It was Davis who gave Faust the more suitable name for a writer of Westerns, Max Brand. Although Faust was influenced by Grey’s style, there is a vast difference between Zane Grey Westerns and Max Brand Westerns. Faust never explored the West as Grey did. Grey’s West was real, and his stories about it were realistic. The West of Brand was imaginary and lacked that realistic touch. Like many of Grey’s novels, however, many of Brand’s were made into Western films, the most famous of which was the 1939 classic Destry Rides Again. Another early Western novelist was Ernest Haycox. Although he never gained the popularity of Grey or Brand, he is sometimes linked with them under the label of the “Big Three” of early Western writers. A later and very colorful author about the West was Louis L’Amour. Born about the time that Grey began his writing career, L’Amour refined the methods and principles of his famous predecessor. L’Amour received his education by traveling around the world and by reading hundreds of books, including many about the West. In his autobiography, Education of a Wandering Man (1989), L’Amour specifically mentions reading two of Grey’s books. Although he did not copy Grey’s style of writing, L’Amour did emulate Grey’s zeal for knowledge of his subject. In his autobiography, L’Amour states that a writer about the West must have a more accurate
Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious L’Amour, Louis. Education of a Wandering Man. New York: Bantam Books, 1989. Autobiography emphasizes the importance of books to L’Amour’s education and describes his own writing as a natural result of his traveling, working, and reading. Introduction by Daniel J. Boorstin provides an interesting description of L’Amour’s reading habits. Includes photographs. May, Stephen J. Zane Grey: Romancing the West. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997. Presents an overview of Grey’s life and analyzes some of his major works, including Riders of the Purple Sage. Pauly, Thomas H. Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Comprehensive biography draws on previously unavailable personal correspondence and journals in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 exploring Grey’s life. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Remington, Frederic. Selected Writings. Secaucus, N.J.: Castle Books, 1981. Collection of real-life stories about the West, vividly illustrated with drawings of the author. Provides excellent insight into the real West and its indigenous tribes. See also: 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature; 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot; Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930: The Maltese Falcon Introduces the HardBoiled Detective Novel; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books; Sept., 1937: Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature; 1938-1950: Golden Age of American Science Fiction.
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Jung Publishes THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS Publication of Carl Jung’s first major work marked his break with Sigmund Freud and introduced new notions of the basis of the imagination and creative activity. Also known as: Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido Locale: Zurich, Switzerland Categories: Publishing and journalism; psychology and psychiatry Key Figures Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian founder of psychoanalysis William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet Summary of Event Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were about to part company when Jung’s Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (1912; The Psychology of the Unconscious, 1915) was published in two parts in Freud’s newly established journal, the Jahrbuch, in 1911 and 1912. The break was perhaps inevitable, given the natures of the two men. Freud looked to Jung to be his successor, the man who would carry his own brilliant insights into sexuality and the unconscious into the wider world; he had even nicknamed Jung his “crown prince.” Jung regarded Freud as his teacher and quoted Friedrich Nietzsche to him: “One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil.” Freud’s doctrine centered on his use of the term “li928
bido,” the Latin word for “wish” or “desire.” In Freud’s technical vocabulary, libido is always sexual. At the start of his Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905; Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1910), Freud wrote: The fact of the existence of sexual needs in human beings and animals is expressed in biology by the assumption of a “sexual instinct,” on the analogy of the instinct of nutrition, that is of hunger. Everyday language possesses no counterpart to the word “hunger,” but science makes use of the word “libido” for that purpose.
The concept of libido was central to Freud’s understanding of unconscious processes. “My dear Jung,” he admonished his pupil, “promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark.” It was precisely on this point that Jung was to differ strongly from his teacher. Addressing the members of the New York Psychoanalytic Society in September, 1912, Jung declared: “I do not think I am going astray if I see the real value of the concept of libido not in its sexual definition but in its energetic view.” He added that, in his view, “libido” was simply “a name for the energy which manifests itself in the life-process.” In the second part of The Psychology of the Unconscious, Jung began to explore that difference in print.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Freud was torn; it is difficult to support intellectual freedom while maintaining a dogma. In the end, Freud held to his position and Jung continued to explore his own. In January, 1913, Freud and Jung agreed to part company, and Jung began to refer to his own method of analysis as “analytical psychology,” in contrast to Freud’s “psychoanalysis.” In 1915, Jung’s book appeared in English in a translation by Beatrice Moses Hinkle under the somewhat misleading title The Psychology of the Unconscious (the book’s German title literally translates as “transformations and symbolisms of the libido”). The book had a mixed reception, one reviewer describing it as “fivehundred-odd pages of incoherence and obscenity.” Virtually unaltered German editions followed in 1925 and 1938; in 1952, Jung issued a comprehensive revision titled Symbole der Wandlung, which was translated by R. F. C. Hull as Symbols of Transformation: An Analysis of the Prelude to a Case of Schizophrenia and issued as volume 5 of Jung’s Collected Works in 1956. Jung’s thought had come a long way between the original 1912 edition and the revision of 1952, and the shift in his thought is perhaps best reflected in one of the subtitles given to the book. The 1912 edition was subtitled A Contribution to the History of Evolution of
Thought; in Jung’s personally annotated copy used in preparing the 1952 revision, this subtitle was corrected to read A Contribution to the History of Evolution of Spirit. It was psyche, soul, spirituality that Jung had been bringing back into the discourse of science over the intervening years—and that his work allowed to reemerge as a strand in the great conversation between men and women of genius that informs and forms the thoughts of entire cultures down the centuries. If Freud had opened the doors to the unconscious in 1900 with the publication of Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1913), Jung ushered the gods back into human experience and discourse. Most notably, Jung identified a series of psychic motifs, which he called “archetypes,” that organize the stuff of the unconscious and find expression in “archetypal images” in dreams and elsewhere. It was Jung’s great insight that there are many archetypal motifs, that they belong to humanity as a whole rather than to the individual, and that there must therefore exist a “collective unconscious” containing these motifs common to all humankind. Jung came by these insights through his early studies in mythology—the first fruits of which were published in The Psychology of the Unconscious—and his later immersion in the study of alchemy. It was, however, the correspondence between the images he found in his wide reading and those found in his own and his patients’ dreams that was significant for him. For example, Freud’s formulation of the Oedipus complex would seem, from a Jungian viewpoint, an expression (in psychoanalytic terms) of one such archetype, which had earlier expressed itself in the Greek myth of Oedipus killing his father and sleeping with his mother and in the tragedies of Sophocles—but also in Freud’s own dreams. Further, the Buddhist scripture known as Bar-do Thödol (the Tibetan Book of the Dead) contains a passage describing a soul, approaching the moment of conception, seeing visions of males and females in union. The passage says that if the soul is about to be born as a male, “the feeling of itself being a male dawneth upon the Knower, and a feeling of intense hatred toward the father and of jealousy and attraction toward the mother is begotten.” From the Freudian perspective, this passage would support the idea of the universality of the Oedipus complex. To Jung, who wrote an introduction to a 1938 edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it must have seemed a strangely ironic confirmation of the existence of the collective unconscious. Even old father Freud could not escape the Jungian archetypes. 929
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Carl Jung. (Library of Congress)
Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious
Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious Significance “Before the mind’s eye whether in sleep or waking, came images that one was to discover presently in some book one had never read, and after looking in vain for explanation to the current theory of forgotten personal memory, I came to believe in a Great Memory passing on from generation to generation.” The writer of these lines was not Carl Jung but the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Jung’s contemporary. They appear in an essay titled “Anima Mundi,” published in 1918—and yet, word for word, they could have been penned by Jung himself, and indeed contain the essence of everything that Jung said about psychology. Yeats’s “images” seen “in sleep or waking” are Jung’s “archetypal images”; Yeats’s “Great Memory” is Jung’s “collective unconscious” under another name. The parallels go even further. Yeats continues: If no mind was there, why should I suddenly come upon salt and antimony, upon the liquefaction of the gold, as they were understood by the alchemists, or upon some detail of cabalistic symbolism verified at last by a learned scholar from his never-published manuscripts, and who can have put together so ingeniously, working by some law of association and yet with clear intention and personal application, certain mythological images?
Yeats’s sense of the purposiveness of certain seemingly random events of daily life—happening to pick up a book one has never read only to find references to images one has seen in sleep or reverie only a few days before—corresponds exactly to Jung’s notion of synchronicity. Moreover, the particulars that Yeats cites, alchemical and cabalistic symbolism, are also the particulars of Jung’s own archetypal explorations, and Yeats’s “law of association” cannot be far removed from Jung’s own studies in word association. It is true that alchemy and cabala were territories explored by others at the time, notably the mystical philosopher Arthur Edward Waite, and it could be argued that Yeats and Jung shared many common authors in their readings and many premises in their respective philosophies. The detailed analogies between their thoughts, in other words, could be the result of external factors. From a Jungian perspective, however, they point to something deeper: the truth and reality of the imaginal world Yeats calls the “Great Memory” and Jung the “collective unconscious.” Either way, the two men now stand among the premier exponents in modern times of that philosophy (Aldous Huxley termed it “the Perennial Philoso930
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 phy”), the lineage of which can be traced in the West through Plato and the alchemists and can be found alike among the shamanistic traditions of tribal peoples and in the great religions of the East. Jung took pains to make it clear that he did not espouse a particular religious belief—and because of this, he was commonly regarded as an atheist. When his patients appeared to be imprisoned by their opinions, he helped them free themselves from those shackles, steering some patients away from the churches toward an agnostic position and others away from a rigid atheism and toward religion. What Jung did espouse was the possibility of numinous experience, an experience of the power of the archetypes as mysteries in the full religious sense of the word. While this strand in his thinking carried him ever further from Freud, it brought him closer to those poets, artists, mythographers, and theologians who were themselves in search of a new language for spirituality, one that would avoid the pitfalls of local usage and the dead hand of dogma. Over the years, Jung gained a coterie of ardent admirers. One of them, Mary Mellon, the wife of American financier Paul Mellon, formed the Bollingen Foundation to print Jung’s collected works and any other works deemed likely to interest students of archetypal thinking. Jung’s early friendships with the sinologist Richard Wilhelm, for whose translation of the I Ching (Book of Changes) he wrote an introduction, and the India scholar Heinrich Zimmer, from whom he learned about mandalas, were followed by many more friendships with scholars of non-Western thought, many of whom joined him for the yearly Eranos Conferences held in his honor. Within Christianity, the Protestant cleric Hans Schaer rightly termed Jung’s therapy a “cure of souls,” and the Dominican Victor White’s book God and the Unconscious (1952) explored Jung’s contribution to theological thinking in positive terms. Scholars in other fields began to apply his insights to their own disciplines. Maud Bodkin’s Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934) and Erich Neumann’s essay on Henry Moore were among the notable applications of Jung’s analytical psychology to artistic fields, and many artists themselves, from Hermann Hesse (briefly) to Jackson Pollock and Sam Francis, found in Jung’s writings a key to their own experiences of the creative process. Jung’s work had impacts beyond academic and intellectual circles. The 1960’s witnessed a widening interest in Jung’s work, as thousands of hippies “tuned in” to synchronistic coincidences. Jung’s thought became a part of the general atmosphere, and many of his coinages,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 such as “introvert,” became a part of everyday speech. Meanwhile, Jung’s younger colleague Joseph Campbell was making world mythology accessible to a wide readership in a series of encyclopedic works, from the four volumes of The Masks of God (1959-1968) to the two volumes of The Historical Atlas of World Mythology (1983-1988). The mythic and imaginal world was once again open territory. —Charles Cameron Further Reading Bair, Deirdre. Jung: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. Comprehensive, in-depth biography explores every aspect of Jung’s life. Includes photographs and index. Donn, Linda. Freud and Jung: Years of Friendship, Years of Loss. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988. Warmly human account of the relationship between Freud and Jung documents Jung’s early admiration for Freud, Freud’s enthusiastic acceptance of Jung as his “crown prince,” their abrupt parting of the ways, and the feelings they retained for each other to the end of their lives. Includes index. Jaffé, Aniela. The Myth of Meaning in the Work of C. G. Jung. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. 1971. Reprint. Zurich: Daimon, 1986. One of the simplest and best of the popular introductions to Jung’s thought and work, written by a close associate of Jung. Geared to the general reader’s wish to make sense out of life rather than to the specialized needs of those who seek Jungian analysis. Includes bibliography. Jung, Carl Gustav. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. 1961. Reprint. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Au-
Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious tobiography provides fascinating access to Jung’s inner life. Includes list of Jung’s works, glossary, and index. _______. Psychology of the Unconscious. 1916. Reprint. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Reprint of the first English translation of the first work in which Jung broke from Freudian orthodoxy features a historical introduction. Compare with Jung’s muchrevised 1952 version of the work, translated by R. F. C. Hull as Symbols of Transformation (1956). Difficult but fascinating reading. Includes index. Olney, James. The Rhizome and the Flower. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Masterful treatment of the extraordinary similarities between the works and worldviews of Jung and Yeats. Tends to corroborate the belief of both men in the existence of a “world imagination.” Shamdasani, Sonu. Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Focuses on Jung’s contributions to psychology and places his work in the context of his times and of modern psychology. Includes references and index. Wehr, Gerhard. Jung: A Biography. Translated by David M. Weeks. 1987. Reprint. Boston: Shambhala, 2001. Definitive modern biography complements with detailed historical research Jung’s own autobiographical work (cited above). Includes bibliography, chronology, and index of names. See also: 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method; 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology.
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Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art
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Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art Wassily Kandinsky explained his theory of abstraction in art as a need to reject natural images to impress industrial, secular society with the coming of a new spiritual age. Also known as: Über das Geistige in der Kunst, insbesondere in der Malerei; Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular Locale: Munich, Germany Categories: Arts; publishing and journalism Key Figures Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian painter Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian American mystic Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935), Russian artist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), German mystic Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French painter Franz Marc (1880-1916), German painter Summary of Event In various ways, the publication of Über das Geistige in der Kunst, insbesondere in der Malerei (1912; Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular, 1912) was the culmination of Wassily Kandinsky’s personal and professional development. Trained as a lawyer in Moscow, where he was born, Kandinsky left that profession and his native land when he was thirty-one years of age. In 1897 he went to Munich, Germany, to take up studies in painting. Art Nouveau and the Jugendstil movement of craft artists attracted him with their stress on nonrepresentational art, but he found unsatisfying the decorative purpose of the art of those movements. He began to paint in the Fauvist style for exhibitions and to write about the theory of art. For several years, he wrote articles for Mir Iskusstva (world of art), a journal published by the Russian artistic society of the same name, in St. Petersburg, Russia, from his home in Germany. The most important influence on his development was that of the German mystic, Rudolf Steiner, founder of a variant of Theosophy, which itself had been founded in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott in the United States. This new religious movement as a whole suggested a hidden meaning within all material culture. Blavatsky’s Anglo-American sector stressed the unity of the world’s religions, whereas Steiner believed in the centrality of Christ. As early as 1909, Kandinsky was editing some of the writings of 932
Steiner. All Theosophists adhered to the notions that the spiritual world was in reach of the average person and that artists were charged with aiding people to contact the “vibrations” of that other world. The materialistic culture was certain to give way soon to a higher, spiritual stage of human development. Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular explained Kandinsky’s rationale for abandoning representational painting. He described his commitment to the values of Theosophy and his rejection of materialistic principles. He also provided a unique conception of the use of colors and a new method of space and form in art. Kandinsky completed this work in December, 1911, and it was published the following year, at about the same time that his artistic work began reflecting his new abstraction. Making analogies to the writing of Maurice Maeterlinck, the music of Claude Debussy, the dance of Isadora Duncan, the colors of Henri Matisse, and the forms of Pablo Picasso, Kandinsky explained his notion of abstract value by looking for hidden meaning in art, meaning not found simply in the external expression. Viewers of art, he argued, should allow the work to speak for itself in order to understand its abstract effect. Kandinsky noted Maeterlinck’s opinion that elaborate scenery was unnecessary for his plays because audiences could image the settings, in much the same way that a child can imagine a horse while pretending to ride a stick. Even more important, Maeterlinck knew that words, when repeated, lose their symbolic, material representation and take on meanings and emotional content of their own, divorced from the original representation. Turning to music, Kandinsky indicated that the impressionistic music of Debussy (like the painting of Matisse) is never very explicit, that sudden leaps into dissonance show that conventional beauty is not the same as internal beauty. In painting, Picasso departed from conventional beauty by annihilating materiality, fragmenting objects into separate parts. Duncan’s dance was in part an attempt to explore commonality with the primitives, a transitional stage to new kinds of movements that could be divorced from conventional storytelling and that would spring solely from the inner spirit. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular, Kandinsky referred to the spiritual triangle. At the bottom of this figure stand the broad masses, for whom realistic representation is a comfort, but comfort
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without a soul. Barely above this broad The Freedom of the Artist stratum are those artists who appear to be In the section of Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particuavant-garde because they adopt some pelar titled “Art and Artists,” Wassily Kandinsky argues for the artist’s abculiar style without real meaning; they presolute freedom: tend to have captured some hidden significance but in reality only court the devotees The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From of the newly fashionable. Higher on the trihim it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, angle (and therefore lesser in number) are but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spirthose who recognize uncertainties, who itual life. It exists and has power to create spiritual atmosphere; and from question the assertions of positivism and this inner standpoint one judges whether it is a good work of art or a bad science but are at a loss to provide new anone. If its “form” is bad it means that the form is too feeble in meaning to call forth corresponding vibrations of the soul. Therefore a picture is not swers. Those at the top of the triangle, the necessarily “well painted” if it possesses the “values” of which the least numerous and least popular, are the French so constantly speak. It is only well painted if its spiritual value is spiritual leaders who recognize that an era complete and satisfying. “Good drawing” is drawing that cannot be alof spiritual darkness has descended. It is tered without the destruction of this inner value, quite irrespective of its this group, often artists, who provide a correctness as anatomy, botany, or any other science. There is no quesglimmer of light from which the new age tion of a violation of natural form, but only of the need of the artist for can ripen. Kandinsky saw the prophetic such form. Similarly colours are used not because they are true to nature, role of the artist, whether literary, visual, but because they are necessary to the particular picture. In fact, the artist or musical, as helping to save civilization is not only justified in using, but it is his duty to use only those forms from material degradation. He perceived which fulfil his own need. Absolute freedom, whether from anatomy or merit in the thoughts of Blavatsky, Steiner, anything of the kind, must be given the artist in his choice of material. Such spiritual freedom is as necessary in art as it is in life. and other Theosophists, as well as in others who examined “nonmatter.” Source: Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, translated by This spiritual dimension of art is exM. T. H. Sadler (New York: Dover, 1977). tended to Kandinsky’s detailed discussion of color and form. Certain colors are apt to cause a defined impression in limited use but he was probably close to the syndicalists or anarbut then grow stale. The task of the artist is to render colorful impressions with deep and lasting meaning. Soft chists. blue was a color accented by the Symbolist movement. Kandinsky stayed until 1922, until it was clear that Kandinsky founded the artists’ association Der Blaue there was no future for his ideas in his homeland. He was Reiter (the blue rider) with Franz Marc and certain personally and professionally close to the two Burliuk émigré Russian artists in Germany. Kandinsky develbrothers, David and Vladimir. David, who asked Kanoped the same argument with respect to forms. All forms dinsky to become godfather to his second son, arranged say something, even if it is not immediately understood for the members of Der Blaue Reiter to exhibit their by the artist. In any case, the union of color and form works in Moscow with the exhibits of the Jack of Diamust never be merely decorative, an empty response to monds artists’ group in 1911 and 1912. After his return to the need for nonrepresentational art. The future of art lay Moscow, Kandinsky actively pursued his new style of precisely in the harmony between form and color, dipainting and aggressively exhibited his works in Russia vorced from material objects. during the war years. Mysticism flourished in Petrograd and Moscow during the war. Composer Aleksandr Scriabin, an early conSignificance vert to Theosophy and an exemplar of the new faith in Attracted by the new schools of painting in Russia as Kandinsky’s book, was planning his magnum opus, an well as in Germany, Kandinsky returned to Russia in opera to be performed in the Himalaya Mountains in 1914, shortly after he committed himself to this new ab1915. It was to be an open-air performance to demonstract style of art. Like painter Marc Chagall, who restrate the divine experience of ecstasy. Theosophist Peter turned to Russia at about the same time, Kandinsky involved himself in the political life of the nation. He was D. Uspensky wrote an influential book on the fourth dimension, time, which would enable humankind to free itno Marxist, because he rejected materialist philosophy,
Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art self from death. This work was known to Kandinsky and greatly influenced fellow painter Kazimir Malevich. During the revolutionary year of 1917, Kandinsky married Nina Andreevskaya and painted several of his most famous works. Several of his abstract paintings were exhibited at the Fifth State Exhibition in 1919 in a show titled The Trade Union of Artist-Painters of the New Art: From Impressionism to Abstract Painting. The exhibit was held in the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum) in Moscow. Kandinsky was appointed professor at the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts in 1918 and was made director of the Museum for Pictorial Culture the following year. In 1920, he was made professor at the University of Moscow and was appointed to the new Institute of Artistic Culture. The latter was organized around a theoretical program drawn up by Kandinsky and was based on an explication of many of his ideas in his publication of 1912. This program was published in two parts: the theory of separate branches of art and combinations of separate arts to create monumental art. The first part, in particular, included an examination of color in its absolute and relative values and in relationship to forms. The synthesis and interrelationship among the arts was a theme of the Symbolists and was shared by Kandinsky for many years, as is evident in his Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular. The spiritual union of poetry, drama, music, dance, and painting would also form the core of Kandinsky’s Bauhaus course in Weimar after 1922. The revolutionary era in Russia generated debates in the arts as well as in politics. Members of the Institute of Artistic Culture debated the central proposition of Kandinsky and Malevich that art is a spiritual activity. Kandinsky refused to accede to the supporters of what was called the New Objectivity movement that art could be organized practically by an engineer. In 1921, Kandinsky founded the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences with the encouragement of Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Bolshevik head of culture and education. Lunacharsky approved of Kandinsky’s ideas of art as psychic and intuitive, but other Bolshevik colleagues thought the ideas were un-Marxian. When Kandinsky feared that his ideas were not going to be implemented, he decided to take a promising offer to return to Germany. After seven years in Russia, he left for his adopted homeland in 1922 to work at the Bauhaus school in Weimar, then in Dessau, and then finally in Berlin. In his writings at that time, he as well as other art writers reaffirmed the position taken in Concerning the Spiritual in 934
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Art, and Painting in Particular, that the birth of a new spiritual era was at hand. In 1928, Kandinsky painted the settings for a production of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. In 1933, the new political leaders of Germany found his works unsuitable, and he was forced to leave his adopted country for Paris, France. He worked in Paris until his death on December 13, 1944. If Kandinsky was not the first artist to adopt nonrepresentational art, he was nevertheless the first to do so without qualifications and the first major artist to popularize the concept. Among those influenced by Kandinsky’s writing was painter Kazimir Malevich, also a disciple of Theosophy. Although the two painters never had direct contact, their ideas had much in common. Theosophic ideas were most certainly the basis for the nonrepresentational school of Suprematist painting that Malevich launched. By 1920, Suprematist geometrical forms were evident in Kandinsky’s work. Perhaps most important was Kandinsky’s influence on a younger generation of painters worldwide, such as the Czechoslovak František Kupka, the French painter Francis Picabia, and the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. All of these artists, and countless others, were drawn to abstraction by Kandinsky; some, as in the case of Mondrian, were even drawn to Theosophy. — John D. Windhausen Further Reading Barasch, Moshe. From Impressionism to Kandinsky. Vol. 3 in Theories of Art. New York: Routledge, 2000. Scholarly work examines the evolution of art and art theory, focusing on the transition from Impressionism to abstract art. Includes bibliographic essay and indexes. Barron, Stephanie, and Maurice Tuchman, eds. The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1933: New Perspectives. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980. Beautifully illustrated volume devoted to the first major exhibition of the Russian avant-garde at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1980. Bowlt, John E., ed. Painting Revolution: Kandinsky, Malevich, and the Russian Avant-Garde. Bethesda, Md.: Foundation for International Arts and Education, 2000. Published in conjunction with the world premiere of an exhibition of Russian avant-garde paintings at the Phoenix art museum. Features three scholarly essays, color plates, glossary, and bibliography. _______. The Silver Age: Russian Art of the Early Twentieth Century and the “World of Art” Group. 2d ed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Newtonville, Mass.: Oriental Research Partners, 1982. Excellent general work puts into perspective the many disparate schools of artistic expression that arose in Russia in response to Western stimuli. Includes many black-and-white photographs. Gray, Camilla. The Russian Experiment in Art, 18631922. Rev. ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1986. First book in English (original edition published 1962) to survey the era of revolutionary art in Russia and to place previously little-known artists in perspective. Demonstrates that Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular was linked directly to the “world of art” spiritual mode of thinking and to the Symbolists before 1912, as well as to his involvement with the proletarian and then the Bauhaus periods later. Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Translated by Michael Sadlier and Francis Golffing. New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1947. This edition of the work includes notes on Kandinsky’s painting by his widow, an essay on Kandinsky’s personality by Julia Feininger and Lyonel Feininger, and an essay on Kandinsky’s language by Stanley William Hayter. Long, Rose-Carol Washton. Kandinsky: The Development of an Abstract Style. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1980. Focuses on Kandinsky’s attempts to resolve the philosophical dilemma of his desire to renounce material values through abstract art and the
Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy conflict of that desire with a fear that he would not communicate to the masses if recognizable content disappeared from his canvases. Overy, Paul. Kandinsky: The Language of the Eye. New York: Praeger, 1969. Acknowledges the influence of Theosophy on Kandinsky’s thought, but asserts that overemphasis on influences leads to ignoring the paintings themselves. Addresses the painter’s discussions of color and forms in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular, areas that continued to evolve in Kandinsky’s compositions, especially after 1915. Williams, Robert C. Artists in Revolution: Portraits of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1905-1925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977. Discusses the recognition among scholars since 1960 of the religious influence on Kandinsky’s conversion to abstraction. Shows that Theosophy influenced not only Kandinsky but also Malevich. See also: Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; 1918-1919: Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art; July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition.
1912
Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy Vesto Melvin Slipher obtained the spectra of the Andromeda nebula and showed that it has a large radial velocity, suggesting that it, and other spiral nebulas, belong to different galaxies. Locale: Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona Categories: Science and technology; astronomy
Summary of Event Stars were not very satisfactory study subjects for early astronomers. In contrast to the planets, they did not appear to show motion relative to one another and appeared as mere points of light when viewed through a telescope. The snowy band known as the Milky Way was an exception. Ancient peoples had seen it as a reflection of their own worlds, but in the mid-eighteenth century, investigators assumed that its nebulous glow was produced by faint, distant stars. A different kind of “nebulous glow” was noted by Immanuel Kant, who suggested that these so-called nebulous stars were actually other universes outside the Milky Way. 935
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Key Figures Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875-1969), American astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916), American astronomer Heber Doust Curtis (1872-1942), American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer Adriaan van Maanen (1884-1946), Dutch American astronomer
Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer
Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that some kind of nebulous material might have been the formative material for Earth’s solar system, but it was William Herschel, one of the first astronomers to concentrate on stellar astronomy, who found that many of the nebulous clouds could actually be resolved into individual stars. Herschel concluded that if sufficiently powerful telescopes were available, scientists could see that all the nebulous clouds are star systems. Later, however, he recognized that this hypothesis would not explain all the phenomena, reversed himself, and suggested what became known as the “nebular hypothesis.” He proposed that the unresolvable nebulas were the “parents” of the stars; first came nebulous matter, then nebulas, and finally stars. After enjoying a brief period of acceptance, the hypothesis fell into disrepute after William Parsons, third Earl of Rosse, reported to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1844 that he had constructed a reflecting telescope that could resolve the apparently formless nebular material into discrete stars. He discovered that certain nebulas had spiral structures and was able to distinguish individual stars in several of these “spirals” that Herschel’s less powerful instrument could not. Even with Parson’s telescope, however, all the nebulas could not be resolved into stars. Advances in photographic techniques and the development of spectroscopy (analysis of light spectra) at the end of the nineteenth century made possible a more detailed examination of Parsons’ spiral nebulas. Some astronomers were convinced that they were a part of our galaxy (relatively small, nearby objects) and others thought they represented different universes (large and very distant). Although the idea of “island universes”—other worlds similar to our galaxy—had been proposed earlier on philosophical, not observational, grounds, and Kant in the eighteenth century had suggested that the spiral nebulas might represent such island universes, the question was not completely resolved until 1935. Vesto Melvin Slipher’s observations in 1912 with improved spectrographic tools (instruments used to disperse and photograph light) provided data vital to determining whether the spirals were part of the Milky Way galaxy or part of distant, hitherto unknown worlds. Slipher responded to a request by Percival Lowell to join the staff of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. His skill at perfecting spectroscopic equipment, his meticulous care in obtaining observations, and his cautious interpretations made it possible for him to make many important fundamental discoveries. Using spec936
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 trographic techniques, Slipher measured the rotational periods of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, identified bands in the spectra of Jupiter and Saturn as caused by ammonia and methanem, and found evidence that interstellar space contained both dust and gas. He made his most profound contribution, however, when he turned his attention to the elusive spiral nebulas. Slipher’s part in early twentieth century astronomical controversy over the location of the spirals was indirect. Using an improved camera, he investigated not only the spectra of the spirals but also their velocities. Beginning with his work on the Andromeda nebula, he determined that the spirals had exceptionally large radial velocities. He found that “the great Andromeda spiral had the . . . exceptional velocity of –300 kilometers” per second, the greatest radial velocity ever observed. Radial velocities, those measured only along the line of sight, can be either approaching or receding. For an object moving toward a wave source, the wave frequency appears to increase and to become shorter, but moving away from the source, the waves appear less frequent and the wavelength longer. This phenomenon, called the Doppler shift (shift in wavelength of light or sound caused by the relative motion of the source and receiver), can be illustrated by sound waves. When a truck approaches with its horn blasting, its pitch is higher than when the truck is at rest. Just as the truck passes, its pitch is unshifted. Then as it moves away, its horn produces a lower pitch. The same phenomenon occurs with the light waves Slipher measured with his spectrograph. The Doppler shift (produced by the radial velocity) was measured by the change in the wavelength of lines in a spectrum. The emission, or absorption, lines are shifted to the blue end (short wavelengths) of the spectrum for an approaching object, and to the red (long wavelengths) for one that is receding. After his initial work on the Andromeda nebula, Slipher observed other spirals. When he published his results in 1914, he had obtained Doppler shifts for fourteen, all showing large radial velocities. Although he was given a standing ovation when he announced his discovery at the 1914 meeting of the American Astronomical Society and won gold medals of the Paris Academy, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the interpretation of his findings became part of the island universe controversy. Some astronomers, such as Ejnar Hertzsprung, were convinced that as the spirals had such remarkably large radial velocities, they could not be a part of the Milky Way. Slipher, in a lecture to the American Philosophical Society in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 April, 1917, recognized that his observations supported the hypothesis that spiral nebulas are very distant stellar systems. Other astronomers would not be convinced until the actual distances of the spirals could be computed. Heber Doust Curtis, one of the first to suggest a much greater distance for the spirals, immediately accepted the implications of Slipher’s data. He had already reached the conclusion that the Andromeda nebula was 500,000 light-years away, and Slipher’s data provided support. Curtis publicly debated the point with Harlow Shapley, who (relying on measurements by Adriaan van Maanen) insisted that the spiral nebulas were nearby nebulous objects. After 1925, van Maanen’s measurements were less influential, for Slipher’s work on the direction of rotation of the spirals directly contradicted van Maanen’s conclusions. Edwin Powell Hubble’s demonstration from the behavior of Cepheids (pulsating variable stars) in spirals indicated that they must be remote. Nevertheless, given that van Maanen’s measurements seemed to represent observational facts, they were difficult to abandon even with contradictory data. Van Maanen’s results eventually were ignored, not so much because they were proved wrong, but because new evidence seemed to prove incontrovertibly that the spirals were galaxies. Hubble’s 1935 paper in the Astrophysical Journal finally brought the controversy over the distance of the spirals to closure.
tated. This discovery meant that through determining proper motions (apparent angular rates of motion of a star) within the spirals, the distance to them might be obtained and the dispute settled conclusively. Agreeing on the procedure in principle, van Maanen’s systematic error led to a mistaken interpretation, indicating that the spirals (showing considerable proper motion) could not be at any great distance, seemingly disproving the island universe idea. In 1924, Hubble discovered Cepheid variables and derived a distance of 490,000 light-years for this galaxy. This distance is far beyond the farthest globular clusters of the outer limits of the Milky Way. (This estimate has now been revised to 2.2 million light-years.) Although his distance determinations might have settled the problem in 1925, doubts still lingered, because Hubble’s conclusions were based on the controversial period-luminosity law and because van Maanen’s contradictory results were exceptionally consistent. The problem was not resolved until 1935, when a new set of measurements indicated that van Maanen was incorrect. The most all-encompassing result from Slipher’s work on the spirals was the preparation that he made for investigations of the motions of galaxies and for cosmological theories based on an expanding universe. By 1928, Slipher’s measurement of the radial velocities of more than forty galaxies indicated that most galaxies apparently were moving away from the Milky Way. At about the same time, Hubble had noted that more distant galaxies had greater radial velocities. In fact, there seemed to be a direct relationship between radial velocity and distance. This relationship, known as Hubble’s law (with a number connecting distance and velocity called Hubble’s constant), indicates that the universe is expanding. This conclusion is based on Slipher’s measurements, which showed that almost all spiral nebulas are moving away from the Milky Way (as well as from one another) with large velocities. These observations suggested not only that the spirals were galaxies like the Milky Way but also that the entire universe was expanding. — Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie Further Reading Berendzen, Richard, Richard Hart, and Daniel Seeley. Man Discovers the Galaxies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Excellent volume focuses on pivotal events in the history of galactic astronomy, provides biographical information on the key players, and includes archival source materials. Both readable and scholarly. Includes a useful bibliography. 937
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Significance Slipher’s meticulous spectroscopic measurements demonstrating the immense radial velocities of the spiral nebulas proved to be one of the most significant discoveries in modern astronomy. By finally succeeding at the very difficult task of obtaining the faint Andromeda nebula’s spectrum, he provided evidence that this nebula was much farther away than scientists had previously assumed. After perfecting his technique, he confirmed his results on Andromeda by measuring Doppler shifts in other spirals. Although the implications of extremely large radial velocities for the spirals were that they could not be contained within the Milky Way, the island universe dispute between major protagonists Curtis and Shapley retarded the acceptance of the significance of his discovery. Although Slipher’s work on radial velocity was consistent with an extragalactic position for Andromeda and the other spirals, his findings did not prove the island universe theory, because they did not provide the distance to the spirals. Slipher also confirmed that the spirals ro-
Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy
Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure Clark, David H., and Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Relates the stories of the scientists who have contributed to current knowledge about the size, mass, and age of the universe. Chapters 4 and 5 include discussion of the work of Hubble and Slipher. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Macpherson, Hector. Modern Cosmologies: A Historical Sketch of Researches and Theories Concerning the Structure of the Universe. London: Oxford University Press, 1929. Useful collection of eight lectures delivered at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, during the winter of 1928-1929 includes one lecture on the island universe idea. North, J. D. The Measure of the Universe: A History of Modern Cosmology. 1965. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1991. Focuses on the development of cosmology in the first half of the twentieth century and includes a section on the expanding universe. First part consists of a straightforward historical and theoretical
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 narrative; second part includes a discussion of the conceptual problems introduced in the first part. Includes selected bibliography. Slipher, Vesto M. “The Radial Velocity of the Andromeda Nebula.” Lowell Observatory Bulletin 2 (1913): 56-57. Slipher’s original paper presents his figures. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. This introductory text provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues. See also: 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions; 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson; Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe.
1912-1913
Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure Niels Bohr applied the quantum theory to Ernest Rutherford’s nuclear model of the atom, providing a theoretical explanation for a variety of atomic phenomena and a program for further research. Also known as: Bohr model of the atom Locale: Copenhagen, Denmark Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist Charles Galton Darwin (1887-1962), English physicist Summary of Event In the first decade of the twentieth century, physics was not dominated by the quantum, introduced by Max Planck in 1900, or by relativity, introduced in 1905 by Albert Einstein. Rather, it was dominated by the electron, discovered in 1897 by Sir Joseph John Thomson. Theoreticians and experimentalists were busy developing an electromagnetic view of the world in which a wide variety of physical phenomena were explained in terms 938
of electrons, their motions, and their interactions with the “ether.” The successes of the electromagnetic view of the world were such that its proponents believed that eventually it could explain everything. A number of atomic models were developed during this period, but there was little concern for working out the details. The atomic model developed by Thomson was widely accepted. It consisted of a set of coplanar rings of electrons moving within a uniformly positively charged sphere. The electrons in Thomson’s model made up much of the mass of the atom. Unlike other atomic models, Thomson’s model had the advantage of mechanical stability: Electrons slightly displaced in the plane of their orbit would not tear the atom apart. It was in this intellectual atmosphere that Niels Bohr completed his doctoral dissertation in 1911 on the electron theory of metals. Bohr spent the first part of the academic year 1911-1912 in Cambridge, England, with Thomson. He then went to Manchester in the spring of 1912 to work with Ernest Rutherford, who had recently proposed a model of the atom in which a positively charged nucleus much smaller than the size of the atom is surrounded by electrons. (Contrary to Thomson’s model,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
nineteenth century, astronomers noticed lines, or gaps, in the spectrum of light from the sun. Further investigation showed that each element had its own unique set of lines. Johann Jakob Balmer developed a formula that accounted for known frequencies, but this equation had no physical significance. Nicholson’s theory accounted for experimental results quite well. Bohr was briefly troubled by the inconsistencies between his theory and Nicholson’s, but by early 1913, he had resolved the inconsistencies. Up to this time, Bohr had considered atoms only in their lowest energy state. In Nicholson’s theory, electrons in the atom could have energies greater than the lowest energy possible. Bohr saw a use for Nicholson’s idea of using the higher energy levels and incorporated them into his theory. Adapting Nicholson’s theories gave Bohr his most distinct break with classical physics. It was widely believed that the mechanical frequency of the electron as it orbited the nucleus was equal to the frequency of the spectral line that atoms would emit. Instead, Bohr equated the differences in the frequencies of two stationary states of the atom with the frequency of the emitted spectral line. Electrons jumping from one
Bohr’s Model of the Atom Photon (energy)
Electron
Higher en ergy e
lec tr o on t rbi
Lower ener gy c ele orbit
Nucleus
tron
In Bohr’s model of the atom, electrons orbit the nucleus in discrete energy states. When an electron moves from a higherenergy orbit to a lower-energy orbit, the extra energy is released as a photon of light.
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in Rutherford’s model, much of the mass of the atom is located in the nucleus.) Bohr began a normal course of laboratory exercises, and by the end of May, 1912, he was still working primarily on the electron theory of metals and not on the central problems of radioactivity and Rutherford’s nuclear model. Bohr read a paper by Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist Charles Darwin), who was also working with Rutherford at Manchester, concerning the absorption by matter of “alpha particles” (helium atoms with both electrons removed). Bohr noticed an error in Darwin’s study and began compiling his own ideas. He developed an analogy between the passage of alpha particles through matter and his own work on the electron theory of metals. The problem of the mechanical stability of Rutherford’s model appeared when Bohr tried to calculate the effect of a passing charged particle on the electron’s orbit. The question of stability was important because of the way Bohr solved it: by fiat. As classical mechanics could not provide a condition of stability for Rutherford’s model, Bohr turned to Planck’s quantum theory. Bohr assumed that for stable orbits of electrons, there exists a definite ratio between the kinetic energy of the electrons in an orbit and their frequency of rotation. The value of this ratio is Planck’s constant. Bohr called these stable orbits “stationary states.” Bohr submitted these ideas to Rutherford in a memorandum, but that document was not discovered until after Bohr’s death in 1962. This was only a beginning: Many aspects essential to Bohr’s completed theory had yet to appear. The material in this memorandum reappeared in the second and third parts of Bohr’s trilogy of papers. Bohr knew he was on the right track when he was able to fit the large number of “radioelements” (elements chemically similar to known elements but with vastly different radioactive properties) into the periodic table. He suggested that radioactive properties could be relegated to the nucleus, whereas chemical properties were the result of the number of electrons in an atom. The radioelements could then be explained as elements that had heavier nuclei than usual. This would give the radioelements different radioactive properties but would keep their same chemical properties. Bohr also demonstrated that atomic number—and not atomic weight—governs the chemical properties of the elements. Bohr’s theory also gave a straightforward explanation of the wellknown periodicity of chemical elements. Bohr grappled in late 1912 with John W. Nicholson’s earlier atomic theory, which included Planck’s quantum, and an explanation of the spectra of atoms. In the late
Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure
Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure stationary state to another emitted radiation with a frequency independent of the electron’s mechanical frequency. In a letter to a colleague written in February, 1913, Bohr indicated that he had completed work on the topics that were eventually to compose the second and third published parts of the trilogy: the periodicity of the elements, the volume of the atoms, the conditions of atomic combination, energies of X rays, dispersion, and radioactivity. During February and March, Bohr included a discussion of the spectra of atoms. He had, in fact, ruled out consideration of the optical spectrum. What led him to include spectra was his realization that his theory could explain Balmer’s formula, which was expressed as a difference of two quantities. Bohr associated that difference with the difference in frequency of two stationary states. Bohr managed to solve the problem of spectra in a manner that was convincing to him, but he had yet to provide a mathematical derivation of his results. In the early part of the first paper of the trilogy, Bohr provided three such derivations; however, they were incompatible because Bohr compiled his results on spectra with great speed. The draft of the first part of the trilogy that Bohr
Niels Bohr. (The Nobel Foundation)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sent to Rutherford in early March was modified only slightly and was published in July, 1913. The second and third parts of the trilogy, published in September and November of 1913, presented solutions to the problems contained in the Rutherford memorandum. Significance Immediate reactions to Bohr’s trilogy were mixed. Many physicists still did not consider Planck’s quantum to have any physical significance. Those who, like Nicholson, were willing to consider the quantum questioned portions of Bohr’s approach. In particular, in the second and third parts of his trilogy, Bohr extended his theory to atoms with more than one electron. Although Bohr tried to present quantitative support for the result, he often had to rely on qualitative arguments to achieve the correct results. Even the first part did not escape criticism for its incompatible derivations of Balmer’s formula and its tradition-breaking assumptions about atoms. Acceptance increased, however, as Bohr’s theory accounted for details of spectra that had eluded explanation by other models. An early victory was Bohr’s attribution of a set of spectral lines called the “Pickering series” to ionized helium instead of to hydrogen. Spectroscopists examined helium and found the lines. The agreement between Bohr’s prediction and the experimental results was numerically very close. What became known as the “correspondence principle” appeared in the first part of the trilogy. It became an important tool in the early development of quantum theory. The correspondence principle asserted that the results of quantum mechanics do not conflict with those of classical mechanics in the realm where classical mechanics is valid. In practice, the correspondence principle was used as a tool in order to justify using the results of classical mechanics in the calculation of quantum mechanical properties. Through the use of this principle, Bohr’s original theory was extended to other areas. The long-term impact of Bohr’s trilogy on physics and physicists can be gauged from the comment of one of Bohr’s fellow physicists: “There is hardly any other paper in the literature of physics from which grew so many new theories and discoveries.” Bohr’s groundbreaking trilogy of 1913, although flawed, made way for quantum mechanics. Bohr’s trilogy was generally considered to be conceptually confusing in places but able to make remarkably accurate predictions for single-electron atoms. Bohr’s predictions began to break down when applied to atoms with more than one electron, and some problems associated with
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 spectral lines resisted solution. Also, although Bohr’s ideas on atomic structure in the second and third papers were highly suggestive, many of the details were incorrect. He returned to atomic structure around 1920 and presented a consistent theory. Bohr not only continued to contribute to many aspects of physics but also played a major role in educating the new generation of physicists who went on to develop quantum mechanics. Although well known among physicists, Bohr never became as well known to the public as Einstein. His trilogy represents only the first stage of a scientific career that spanned more than fifty years. —Roger Sensenbaugh Further Reading Bohr, Niels. On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules. New York: W. A. Benjamin, 1963. Reprints Bohr’s trilogy of papers. Includes an introduction by the physicist Leon Rosenfeld. Moderately technical, but an essential source for information about Bohr and the science of his day. _______. “Reminiscences of the Founder of Nuclear Science and Some Developments Based on His Work.” In Rutherford at Manchester, edited by J. B. Birks. London: Heywood, 1962. Paper originally presented at a meeting of the Physical Society of London. Gives Bohr’s nontechnical version of how he developed his theory. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Chapter 16 is devoted to Niels Bohr. Includes glossary and index. French, A. P., and P. J. Kennedy, eds. Niels Bohr: A Centenary Volume. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure sity Press, 1985. Discusses Bohr’s early years in a manner accessible to the general public, professional physicists, and teachers of science. Heilbron, John L., and Thomas Kuhn. “The Genesis of the Bohr Atom.” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 1 (1969): 211-290. Attempts a plausible and comprehensive treatment of Bohr’s route to the quantized atom. Critically synthesizes suggestions in the existing literature and elaborates some previously neglected strands in Bohr’s scientific development. Moderately technical. Moore, Ruth. Niels Bohr: The Man, His Science, and the World They Changed. 1966. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985. Although historians have questioned some of the interpretations of events in this book, it remains one of the most popular works on Bohr and his science. Polkinghorne, John. Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Aims to make quantum theory accessible to the general reader. Among the concepts discussed are uncertainty, probabilistic physics, and decoherence. Includes mathematical appendix and index. Rozental, Stefan, ed. Niels Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by His Friends and Colleagues. 1967. Reprint. New York: Elsevier, 1986. Succeeds in its attempt to describe the scientific work of Niels Bohr so that it is understandable to members of the general public. Conveys the depth of respect Bohr received from his fellow physicists. See also: Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light; Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle; Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle.
1912
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Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1912-1914
Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney John Jacob Abel’s pursuit of a technique that would remove metabolic end products and poisons from the blood enabled the development of the artificial kidney. Locale: The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland Categories: Health and medicine; inventions Key Figures John Jacob Abel (1857-1938), American pharmacologist and biochemist Willem Johan Kolff (b. 1911), Dutch American clinician Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), French surgeon and biologist Summary of Event The origins of the artificial kidney are found in the biochemical research of John Jacob Abel, the first professor of pharmacology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the clinical investigations of Willem Johan Kolff, a Dutch physician. Abel, often praised as the “father of American pharmacology,” is the prototype of the first generation of professional American scientists. To pursue a career in physiological chemistry, Abel went to Europe, where he worked in the laboratories of several notable biochemists. Under their tutelage, he learned both the theory and the laboratory technique necessary to conduct independent biochemical research. He received his medical degree in Strasbourg in 1888. Soon after Abel returned to the United States in 1891, Victor Vaughan, his former chemistry professor at the University of Michigan, offered him a full-time instructorship in materia medica at that university. When Abel moved to Johns Hopkins in 1893, he not only had begun to earn a reputation for excellent research but also had incorporated German pedagogical models into Michigan’s medical education. His courses in pharmacology at Michigan and Johns Hopkins were the first such courses offered in the United States. Around 1912, Abel began to investigate the metabolic by-products carried in the blood. He noted that this work was difficult, for it was nearly impossible to detect, let alone study, the trace amounts of the many substances found. The theoretical foundation in physical chemistry needed to solve this problem was readily available, but no suitable technique or apparatus had been devised that could remove these substances from blood. Abel recognized that a semipermeable membrane and a slightly sa942
line solution removed these substances from the blood by dialysis. Constructing a dialysis machine occupied Abel and two of his colleagues, Leonard Rowntree and Benjamin Turner, for almost two years. Finally, their efforts were successful. Venous blood to which hirudin, obtained from leeches, had been added to prevent clotting flowed through a celloidin tube that had been wound loosely around a drum. The drum, immersed in a saline and dextrose solution, rotated slowly. As blood flowed through the immersed tubing, osmotic pressure removed urea and other substances, but not the plasma or cells, from the blood. The membranes allowed oxygen to pass from the solution into the blood; therefore, purified, oxygenated blood flowed back into the arteries. The first tests were performed on rabbits and dogs. Abel studied the isolated substances and discovered that in addition to urea, free amino acids were passed out. Abel termed this process “vividiffusion.” Although he experimented on rabbits and dogs only, Abel quickly realized the clinical implications of his discovery. He wrote that “in the hope of providing a substitute in such emergencies, which might tide over a dangerous crisis, as well as for the important information which it might be expected to provide, concerning the substances normally present in the blood, . . . a method has been devised by which the blood of a living animal may be submitted to dialysis outside the body, and again returned to the natural circulation.” The removal of large quantities of urea and other poisonous substances occurred in a relatively short time, therefore indicating that vividiffusion could serve as an artificial kidney during cases of renal failure. Abel’s physiological research necessitated removing, studying, and replacing without hemolysis (breaking of red blood cells) large amounts of blood from living animals. He noted that this process, which he termed “plasmaphaeresis,” could create blood banks for the storage of blood. In 1914, Abel published reports of these two discoveries in a series of three articles in the Journal of Pharmacology and Applied Therapeutics and demonstrated the techniques in London and in Groningen, the Netherlands. Although he suggested clinical applications for the techniques, his interest remained primarily biochemical. Abel turned to other pharmacological pursuits, such as the crystallization of insulin, and never returned to the research possibilities that inhered in vividiffusion. Georg Haas, a German biochemist working at Gies-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
John Jacob Abel. (Library of Congress)
the first artificial kidney remains unchallenged. Kolff later emigrated to the United States, where he became an expert not only in artificial kidneys but also in artificial hearts. He contributed to the development of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, which was first implanted in 1982. Significance Abel’s work not only divulged the existence of previously unknown substances in the blood and inspired the development of the artificial kidney, but it also spurred interest in the possibility of organ transplantation, created new questions in immunology, and raised ethical issues about the allocation of scarce resources. The development of kidney transplantation depended on Kolff’s artificial kidney. In 1902, Alexis Carrel, a French surgeon, developed the microsurgical techniques that made transplant surgery possible. Five years later, at the Rockefeller Institute, Carrel and Charles Claude Guthrie transplanted a dog’s kidney from its normal position to the neck. The kidney functioned normally, which demonstrated that renal function depends on circulation only and not on the nervous connections to the organ. Along 943
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sen, independently became interested in dialysis and in 1915 began to experiment with “blood washing.” After reviewing Abel’s 1914 paper, Haas substituted collodium for Abel’s celloidin and commercially prepared heparin for Abel’s homemade hirudin. He used this machine on a patient and found his results promising, but he noted that many technical details had to be resolved before the procedure could be applied generally in cases of renal failure. In 1937, Kolff was a young physician at Groningen. In his account of the manufacture of the artificial kidney, he recounted his pain at seeing patients die from renal failure and added that the emotion stimulated him to search for some cure or relief. After hearing physicians discuss the possibility of dialysis on human patients, he decided to build such a machine. Kolff knew that cellophane was an excellent dialyzing membrane and that heparin was a good anticoagulant, but he recognized that Abel’s and Haas’s machines had insufficient capacity to be clinically useful. There was no theoretical barrier to constructing such a machine, which he did, but he never used it clinically. During World War II, aided by the director of the local enamel factory, Kolff constructed an artificial kidney that received its first clinical trial on March 17, 1943. Between March, 1943, and July 21, 1944, Kolff used his secretly constructed dialysis machines on fifteen patients—of whom only one survived—and then published his results in the journal Acta Medica Scandinavica. By the time the war ended, he had collected enough data and had sufficiently refined the technique that he was confident that renal dialysis was a viable therapeutic measure. He brought machines to Amsterdam and The Hague and encouraged other physicians to employ them. He continued to study hemodialysis and improve his machines. This work was successful, and in 1947 he brought improved machines to London and the United States. By the time he reached Boston, however, he had given away all of his machines. Empty-handed, therefore, he explained the technique to John P. Merrill, a physician at the Harvard Medical School, who soon became the leading American developer of renal dialysis and transplantation surgery. Nils Alwall of the Medical Clinic of Lund, Sweden, also developed an artificial kidney during World War II. He had no knowledge of Kolff’s machine. His design differed in that it was smaller and had fewer moving parts. Also, Gordon Murray of Canada independently developed a dialyzer, but as Alwall’s and Murray’s machines were not used until after 1945, Kolff’s claim to making
Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney
Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney with American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, Carrel in the 1930’s developed perfusion techniques for whole organs, not merely cells or tissues. This information is used now in cardiovascular surgery. In 1936, Lindbergh and Carrel developed a version of an artificial heart. After World War II, surgeons attempted to transplant kidneys from one animal to another, but after a few days the recipients’ bodies began to reject the new kidneys, and the animals died. Despite several discouraging failures, researchers in Europe and America transplanted kidneys in several patients to devise methods to combat the physiological and clinical difficulties encountered in such operations. These surgeons used artificial kidneys to sustain patients who were waiting for transplants or to maintain them until their transplanted kidneys began to function. In 1954, John P. Merrill of Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital—to whom Kolff had demonstrated an artificial kidney—successfully transplanted kidneys in identical twins. The development in 1962 of immunosuppressant drugs made transplantation surgery more feasible and widened the range of possible donors. After kidney transplantation gained widespread acceptance, the artificial kidney came to be considered a stopgap measure, ideally used only until a permanent solution—that is, a donated kidney—could be obtained. The machinery is cumbersome, and the need to use it can significantly alter the patient’s quality of life. The problem, however, is that the demand for organs for transplant is greater than its supply. Hospital administrators, physicians, and medical ethicists grapple with the difficult moral dilemma of how to allocate the scarce resources among individuals who need them so desperately. The work of immunologists and transplant surgeons is marked by mutual stimulation and exchange. Modern transplantation became possible only after Peter Medawar’s discovery in the 1940’s of the mechanics of immune rejection. Thomas Starzl, who worked at the University of Colorado in the 1960’s, could not have begun his extensive series of transplantations without the presence of several immunosuppressant drugs. Surgeons’ clinical application of these drugs, in turn, provides information that immunologists apply to a wide variety of problems, including the struggle against acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). —Thomas P. Gariepy Further Reading Abel, John J., L. G. Rowntree, and B. B. Turner. “On the Removal of Diffusable Substances from the Circu944
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lating Blood of Living Animals by Dialysis.” Journal of Pharmacology and Applied Therapeutics 5 (1914): 275-316. This article, in which Abel announced his discovery, is an excellent example of clear scientific writing. The researcher’s elegance of experimental technique is mirrored in his prose. Cameron, J. S. History of the Treatment of Renal Failure by Dialysis. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002. Covers the history of the development of the artificial kidney, including Abel’s role in that work, as well as the medical and ethical dilemmas attached to the use of dialysis. Features illustrations and index. Harvey, A. McGehee, Gert Brieger, Susan L. Abrams, and Victor McKusick. A Centennial History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins. 2 vols. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. A general history of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that places Abel in his institutional context. Volume 2, a pictorial companion to volume 1, contains illustrations of Abel’s vividiffusion apparatus. Kolff, Willem J. Artificial Organs. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976. An account of the medical and technical issues in the development and use of artificial kidneys and hearts. _______. “First Clinical Experience with the Artificial Kidney.” Annals of Internal Medicine 62 (1965): 608619. Kolff’s account of how he overcame various difficulties to develop the artificial kidney. Parascandola, John. “John J. Abel and the Early Development of Pharmacology at The Johns Hopkins University.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 56 (1982): 512-527. An examination of Abel’s role in the separation of pharmacology from pharmacy and the establishment of professional pharmacology in the United States in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Tilney, Nicholas L. Transplant: From Myth to Reality. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. This book, suitable for both professionals and laypersons, traces the evolution of organ transplantation from its beginnings in the imaginations of human beings to its current status as accepted treatment. Describes early transplantation attempts, the evolution of surgical technique, the first successful kidney transplant (in 1954 between identical twins), the introduction of the concept of host tolerance, and scientific advances for suppressing the immune system. Wilson, Leonard. “The Development of Organ Transplantation at Minnesota.” In Medical Revolution in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Minnesota: A History of the University of Minnesota Medical School. St. Paul, Minn.: Midewiwin Press, 1989. Surgeons at the University of Minnesota Medical School pioneered heart transplantation surgery. Wilson provides the background to such surgery, notably the development of kidney transplantations.
X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs See also: 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels; Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion; Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research; May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic.
1912-1915
X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs Lawrence Bragg and William Henry Bragg founded the science of X-ray crystallography, verified the very short wavelength nature of X radiation, developed spectrometers for measuring X-ray wavelengths, and deduced crystal structures of many substances. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; physics; earth science; chemistry Key Figures William Henry Bragg (1862-1942), English mathematician and physicist Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971), son of William Henry Bragg and credited originator of the Bragg equation Max von Laue (1879-1960), German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), German physicist René-Just Haüy (1743-1822), French mathematician and mineralogist Auguste Bravais (1811-1863), French physicist
1912
Summary of Event The development of X-ray crystallography helped to answer two major questions of science: What are X rays? and What are crystals? It gave birth to a new technology for the identification and classification of crystalline substances. Shortly after the discovery of X rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, X rays were put to a variety of uses, particularly in medicine, but the true nature of X rays eluded researchers. Some proclaimed X rays as a form of energy that traveled in waves. The wave theory that portrayed radiation as a series of sinusoidal waves already had proved very useful in deducing the nature of light. It recognized that any radiation in wave form could persist as a ray only as long as the waves moved “in phase.” That meant that the peaks and troughs of each wave had to oscillate together in harmony with those of adjacent waves as they moved through space. If adjacent
waves did not oscillate in harmony, peaks and troughs collided, interfered with one another, immediately canceled one another’s existence, and destroyed any ray. Diffraction occurred when a light ray encountered a well-polished surface that had been etched precisely with a series of closely, evenly spaced lines, usually several thousand lines per centimeter. A surface so prepared was called a grating. After the light struck the grating, some waves left the surface “in phase” and continued onward as reflected light. Because of the fine etches, some
William Henry Bragg. (Library of Congress)
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X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs adjacent waves had to follow slightly different path distances and thus, on reflection, emerged “out of phase” and were terminated immediately. The selective reflection of only those waves that emerged in phase was termed “diffraction.” If one knew the spacing between the etch lines and the angle of reflection of the light, then it was possible to calculate the wavelength of the diffracted light. The phenomenon of diffraction was used to measure the wavelengths that corresponded to the various colors within visible light. Nevertheless, attempts to diffract X rays from gratings failed. This led others to proclaim that X rays were not wave forms but instead were composed of tiny “corpuscles” of high-energy matter that were able to penetrate opaque materials. From studies of large, natural crystals, chemists and geologists had established the elements of symmetry through which one could classify, describe, and distinguish various crystal shapes. A century earlier, René-Just Haüy had demonstrated that diverse shapes of crystals could be produced by repetitive stacking of tiny solid cubes. Auguste Bravais later showed, through mathematics, that all crystal forms could be built from a repetitive stacking of merely a few (fourteen) three-dimensional arrangements of points (lattice points) into “space lattices,” but no one had ever proved that actual matter was arranged in space lattices. Indeed, at the times of Haüy and Bravais, the model of the atom had not been derived and, hence, even the nature of the substance contended to be present at the points that defined a space lattice was conjectural. They did not know if the tiny building blocks modeled by space lattices actually were solid matter throughout, like Haüy’s cubes, or if they were the basic building blocks of crystals (mostly empty space with the only solid matter located at the lattice points described by Bravais). With the disclosure of the atomic model of Danish physicist Niels Bohr in 1913, the deduction of the nature of the building blocks of crystals had special implications. If crystal structure could be shown to consist of atoms at lattice points, then the Bohr model was supported and science then could abandon the theory of totally solid matter. In 1912, Max von Laue first used X rays to study crystalline matter. German physicist Wilhelm Wien had estimated, based on the new quantum theory, that X rays could have wavelengths between 10–10 and 10–9 centimeters. Laue recognized that failed attempts to achieve diffraction of X rays might have resulted because no synthetic grating had lines spaced finely enough to cause diffraction of such short wavelengths. Based on his knowledge of the contemporary theory about atoms and 946
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 crystals, Laue recognized that the interatomic distances in crystals should be small enough to allow the crystal to function like a diffraction grating for a spectrum of appropriately short wavelengths. When Laue and coworkers Walter Friedrich and Paul Knipping passed a beam of X rays through a crystal of copper sulfate to a film, the film revealed darkening at selected spots that could be caused only by diffraction and in a pattern exemplary of the symmetry expected from space lattices. The experiment confirmed in one stroke that crystals were not solid and that their matter consisted of atoms occupying lattice sites with substantial space between them. Further, the atomic arrangements of crystals could serve as diffraction gratings. Laue received the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovery of the diffraction of X rays in crystals, but the conclusion that X rays actually were being diffracted was accepted as a near certainty rather than proved. Sir William Henry Bragg contributed the final proof by passing one of the diffracted beams through a gas and achieved ionization of the gas in accordance with that expected from true X rays. He also used the spectrometer he built for this purpose to detect and measure specific wavelengths of X rays and to note which orientations of crystals produced the strongest reflections. Although he noted that X rays, like visible light, occupy a definite part of the electromagnetic spectrum and demonstrated that different elements give off characteristic spectra of specific wavelengths, the deduction of specific spectra for each element in the periodic table was developed in detail by Henry Moseley in 1913 and 1914 and by Charles Glover Barkla from 1906 through 1916. Bragg’s work led to the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics, which recognized Bragg’s work on actually using X rays to deduce crystal structures. Bragg shared the prize with his son, Lawrence. Laue documented the general nature of crystal structures, but he was unable to deduce specific details. This resulted from the fact that he transmitted his X-ray beam through the crystal, and his resulting photographic spot images could be interpreted in detail for only the simplest of crystals and then only through very cumbersome mathematics. Sir Lawrence Bragg circumvented the complexities of the interpretation by “reflecting” beams from crystals. He postulated that if the lattice models of Bravais applied to actual crystals, then a crystal structure could be thought of simply as constructed of atoms arranged in a pattern consisting of a few sets of regularly spaced parallel, flat planes. Lawrence Bragg knew from Laue’s work that X rays, like visible light, behave in ac-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cordance with wave theory. He reasoned, then, that when X rays enter a crystal, some adjacent waves must be reflected from the regularly spaced atoms lying along the surface plane and some will travel farther to be reflected from atoms in underlying parallel planes. In order to achieve diffraction, the adjacent waves—even though they traversed two different but parallel paths—would have to leave the surface plane in phase. The distance between the planes and the angle of incidence of the X-ray beam determined the extra distance (path difference) that a beam reflected from a lower plane would have to traverse in comparison to a beam reflected from an upper plane. In order for both reflected X-ray beams to emerge from the crystal in phase, this path difference had to equal exactly one incident X-ray wavelength or a wholenumber (integral) multiple of that wavelength. If it did not, then waves and troughs of adjacent beams would interfere when they rejoined above the upper plane, and no reflected beam composed of out-of-phase waves could persist. The “Bragg equation,” developed by Lawrence Bragg in 1912, is the mathematical expression that states that diffraction occurs only where the path difference equals an integral number of the X-ray wavelength. The theory proved valid in experiment, and diffraction from planes became the basis through which Lawrence Bragg and his father deduced the detailed structures of many crystals. Based on these results, they built three-dimensional scale models out of wire and spheres that allowed the nature of crystal structures to be visualized clearly even by nonscientists. Their compiled results were published in a book, X-Rays and Crystal Structure (1915), which brought them the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics. Because of World War I, they were unable to travel to receive the prize, and the 1915 Nobel lecture, delivered by Lawrence Bragg, was not given until 1922.
did the pioneering work in deducing the structures of all major mineral groups. Huge reference indexes of X-ray “powder patterns” were compiled by organizations such as the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM), and X-ray diffraction became the primary definitive method for identification of crystalline materials, including about two thousand naturally occurring minerals and many times that number of synthetic inorganic and organic compounds. Mineralogists who relied primarily on optical methods prior to the Braggs’ work were able to go beyond physical properties and laborious reflected-light microscopy to identify and characterize opaque minerals. Clay mineral species, because of their occurrence in small particles, defied discovery and identification under the polarizing microscope. The contribution by the Braggs permitted development of the discipline of clay mineralogy through which many properties of soils and sedimentary rocks could be explained on the basis of the clay minerals contained within them. Metallurgy progressed from a technology to a science as metallurgists became able, for the first time, to deduce the structural order of various alloys at the atomic level. Diffracted X rays were applied in the field of biology, particularly under the direction of Lawrence Bragg at the Cavendish Laboratory. The tool proved essential for deducing the structures of hemoglobin, proteins, viruses, and eventually the double-helix structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). — Edward B. Nuhfer Further Reading Beam Line: A Periodical of Particle Physics 25 (Summer, 1995). http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/ beamline/pdf/95ii.pdf. Special issue titled “One Hundred Years of X Rays” is devoted to discussion of the history and uses of X rays. Articles include “Early History of X Rays” and “Medical Applications of X Rays.” Features photographs, diagrams, and reproduced newspaper articles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Beam Line is published by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.) Bragg, William H. X-Rays and Crystal Structure. Vol. 7 in Physical Sciences, edited by W. L. Bragg and G. Porter. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1970. This volume is a compilation of papers given from 1909 through 1915. The one cited here by William Henry Bragg was given in 1914. It is a very readable, nontechnical report that shows clearly the progress at the time the Braggs were doing the work that would lead to their Nobel Prize. 947
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Significance The Braggs founded an entirely new discipline, X-ray crystallography, that continues to grow in scope and application. Of particular importance was the early discovery that atoms, rather than molecules, determine the nature of crystals. X-ray spectrometers of the type developed by the Braggs were used by other scientists to gain insights into the nature of the atom, particularly the innermost electron shells. The tool allowed timely validation of some of Bohr’s major concepts about the atom. X-ray diffraction became a cornerstone of the science of mineralogy. The Braggs, chemists such as Linus Pauling, and a number of mineralogists used the tool and
X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs
Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia Bragg, William L. Atomic Structure of Minerals. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1937. This book was written when Lawrence Bragg was a visiting professor at Cornell University in 1934. It is a reference book on minerals arranged according to chemical groups. It is well illustrated and has many citations that show the extensive contributions to mineralogy from the Braggs and scientists such as Linus Pauling, W. H. Taylor, and R. W. Wyckoff. Crowther, I. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. Lawrence Bragg accepted the directorship of the National Physical Laboratory in 1937 when it was vacated because of the unexpected death of Ernest Rutherford; he remained at Cavendish until 1953. Provides a wealth of information about Bragg’s use of X-ray diffraction and its subsequent use by other researchers. Michette, Alan, and Sawka Pfauntsch, eds. X-Rays: The First Hundred Years. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Collection of essays published in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of Röntgen’s discovery of X rays. Reviews the history of scientific work related to X rays as well as modern applications. Includes an extensive glossary. Nobel Foundation. Physics. Vol. 1. New York: Elsevier,
1912-1929 Wahh#btism
1964. The compilations in this volume are all in English, and these lectures delivered by Nobel laureates are more readable than their works in technical journals. The presentation speech to Röntgen and the lectures by von Laue, Lawrence Bragg, and Barkla in this volume are particularly pertinent to the topic of X-ray diffraction. Although the Braggs shared the Nobel Prize in 1915, only Lawrence Bragg provided a Nobel lecture. Zoltai, Tibor, and James H. Stout. Mineralogy: Concepts and Principles. Minneapolis: Burgess, 1984. This textbook, intended for undergraduate students of mineralogy, provides a resource for the reader wishing rigorous technical explanations of the X-ray study of crystals. It contains all necessary background in crystallography and crystal chemistry in chapters 2 through 8. Chapter 10 shows derivation of the Bragg equation and provides a very solid and very thorough introduction to X-ray crystallography. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays; 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements; 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect.
Strengthens in Saudi Arabia
In 1912, a militant Wahh3bt group of young Islamic fanatics known as the Ikhwan emerged as a security threat in Saudi Arabia, where they conducted raids against the Hashemite monarchy. Appointing himself as their leader, Ibn Sa4nd eventually emerged as king of the Sa4ndis, but in 1926, the Wahh3bt rejected some of Ibn Sa4nd’s modernist policies, and he put down the rebellion in 1929. Locale: Saudi Arabia Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Ibn Sa4nd (1880-1953), founder and longtime ruler of Saudi Arabia Muwammad ibn 4Abd al-Wahh3b (1703-1792), founder of Wahh3btism Ibn Bij3d (fl. early twentieth century), important Akhwan leader 948
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Khalid ibn Luwai (fl. early twentieth century), important Akhwan leader Faisal al-Duwish (fl. early twentieth century), another Ikhwan leader Abdullah Suleiman (fl. early twentieth century), Ibn Sa4nd’s personal treasurer H. St. John B. Philby (1885-1960), adviser to Ibn Sa4nd on oil contracts Summary of Event Ibn Sa4nd’s remarkable career began in January of 1902, when as Prince 4Abd al-4Aztz he led a surprise attack on Riyadh that retook the city for the house of Sa4nd. This daring exploit earned him two titles: the Imam of the Wahh3bts and the emir of Nejd (the central province of Saudi Arabia). The house of Sa4nd’s alliance with Wahh3btism began in the eighteenth century with the emergence of a puritanical preacher from Nejd named Sheikh Muwammad ibn 4Abd al-Wahh3b who was taken up by
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and by seeking approval from the Jidda elite by prohibiting the Ikhwan from entering the city. But when Ibn Sa4nd appointed a former Egyptian schoolteacher named Hafez Wahba as the new governor of Mecca, he embittered his Ikhwan leaders, Sultan Ibn Bij3d and Khalid ibn Luwai. In June of 1926, the Ikhwan created a crisis for Ibn Sa4nd by attacking a procession of Egyptian pilgrims, an act of banditry that strained Ibn Sa4nd’s diplomatic relations with Egypt for ten years. By this time, the Ikhwan’s power had grown to intimidating levels: The group occupied more than one hundred villages and boasted an army of more than fifty thousand men. Ibn Sa4nd’s ploy of removing them to the Nejd region in the east failed because the restless Ikhwan began probing north into the Hashemite lands of Transjordan and Iraq in 1927. Hostilities around the borders continued for two years, despite Britain’s attempts to contain the raiders. But Ibn Bij3d’s ill-advised march on Iraq in February of 1929 collapsed in the face of British arms, and his three thousand troops retreated into the Nejd, where they stirred up bad feeling by plundering some of their Wahh3bt brethren. By this time, Ibn Sa4nd realized he had to suppress his undisciplined followers, and he mustered an army to meet the rebels at the village of Sibilla, north of Riyadh. Long consultations with the Ikhwan leader Faisal alDuwish proved futile, and on the morning of March 30, 1929, Ibn Sa4nd’s troops decisively routed the Ikhwan in a dawn battle. Ibn Sa4nd generously allowed Faisal to go home, and although the aging upstart continued to plot against his enemy, his feeble schemes came to nothing. Significance With the Ikhwan troubles behind him, Ibn Sa4nd felt emboldened to expand his power by abandoning his twin titles as king of the Hijaz and king of Nejd and its dependencies, combining them into his title as king of Saudi Arabia. In doing so, he became the ruler of more than one million people in a country that permanently carried the Sa4nd name. Only friction with Yemen disturbed Ibn Sa4nd’s rule, but that annoyance was solved in 1934 when he sent his son Faisal to quell the Yemeni upstarts. Ibn Sa4nd was a profligate spender, and only the efforts of his financial adviser, Abdullah Suleiman, kept his economy afloat. A chain of events starting in the late 1920 would change the house of Sa4nd’s finances forever. In 1911, the British government signed the first of a succession of treaties protecting their interests in oil exploration in the Middle East. However, Ibn Sa4nd’s pros949
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Sheikh Muwammad ibn Sa4nd. The two families were a powerful combination: Wahh3b’s spiritual zeal was promoted by ibn Sa4nd’s power, and the Wahh3bts continued to serve as spiritual advisers to the house of Sa4nd in modern times. A group of evangelical Wahh3bts sprang up in 1912 who called themselves the Ikhwan (brotherhood); they established Wahh3bt religious settlements focused on farming and prayer. Ibn Sa4nd realized that he could put the Ikhwan’s fervor to good use, and he made himself their leader. The Ikhwan’s usefulness, however, was mitigated somewhat by their extremism: They whipped backsliders and forbade simple worldly pleasures such as smoking and playing music. (One Ikhwan tribal chieftain even took a pair of scissors to Ibn Sa4nd’s long robe.) The Ikhwan gradually came to be perceived as a group that posed as many risks as benefits to the Sa4ndi ruler, and eventually they became a liability. The Ikhwan soon became impatient with Ibn Sa4nd’s passive response to the British and to the Hashemite sharif Hussein bin Ali from Jordan, but in May of 1919, when the Ikhwan and Hussein’s army marched to the village of Turaba (near Mecca) for a major engagement, Ibn Sa4nd’s Ikhwan annihilated the Hashemites during a night ambush. Ibn Sa4nd’s troubles with his Turkishsupported enemy, the Rashid family, led to a vicious battle in 1915 in which Ibn Sa4nd’s army was humiliated, but in November of 1921, Sa4ndi forces at the northern village of W34il triumphed for good over the Rashids. In 1922, the British high commissioner in Baghdad, Sir Percy Zachariah Cox, met with Ibn Sa4nd and Faisal I, king of Iraq, at the city of Oqair on the Gulf coast. Together, they devised modern Iraq’s system of borders. But Ibn Sa4nd coveted the Hijaz, the strip of the Arabian Peninsula running alongside the east bank of the Red Sea and containing both Mecca and Medina, and when Hussein banned the Ikhwan from making the hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca), in June of 1924, three thousand Ikhwan warriors under Sultan Ibn Bij3d and Khalid ibn Luwai overran Taif, the summer capital of the Hijaz. Ibn Sa4nd kept the Ikhwan from assaulting Mecca, and in December of 1925 he completed his rule over the Hijaz by assuming control of Jidda, the vital Red Sea port. The Ikhwan realized that Ibn Sa4nd’s addition of the worldly city of Jidda to his kingdom meant a change from their old desert ways, and they soon instituted strict Wahh3bt prohibitions on the city’s citizens. Ibn Sa4nd met this problem by lifting restrictions on the Society for the Encouragement of Good and the Prevention of Evil
Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia
Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift pects did not improve until June 1, 1932, when Standard Oil of California (Socal) drilled a productive well in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia achieved statehood in the same year, but by this time Ibn Sa4nd was already relying on the advice of the British-born opportunist H. St. John B. Philby (father of the spy Kim Philby), and in May of 1933, Ibn Sa4nd and Socal signed their first agreement. A permanent camp was soon built, and Saudi Arabia’s importance continued to grow: When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order enabling lend-lease money to Saudi Arabia on February 18, 1943, he said, “I hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States.” —Frank Day Further Reading Aburish, Said K. The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall of the House of Saud. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Describes aspects of Wahh3bt fanaticism. Algar, Hamid. Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. Oneonta, N.Y.: Islamic Publications International, 2002. Identifies Wahh3btism as intellectually “marginal” and “non-Sunni.” DeLong-Bas, Natana J. Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A close reading of Muwammad
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ibn 4Abd al-Wahh3b’s writings that concludes he is not the ideological father of the modern terrorist movement. Habib, John S. Ibn Sa4ud’s Warriors of Islam: The Ikhwan of Najd and Their Role in the Creation of the Sa4udi Kingdom, 1910-1930. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1978. Classic account of the Sa4ndi kingdom’s development. Holden, David, and Richard Johns. The House of Saud. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1981. An excellent history of its subject. Chapter 7, “Reaping the Whirlwind, 1922-30,” is especially informative. Schwartz, Stephen. The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa4ud, from Tradition to Terror. New York: Doubleday, 2002. Chapter 4, “Global Gamblers: The Wahhabi-Saudi Conquest of Arabia,” tells the story of Ibn Sa4nd and the Ikhwan. Schwartz’s relentless criticism of Wahh3btism is sharply rejected in Natana J. DeLong-Bas’s book. See also: May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East; Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia.
January, 1912
Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift Alfred Wegener proposed that all landmasses on the earth were once part of the supercontinent of Pangaea, which then fragmented, with the pieces drifting apart to form the present-day continents. Locale: Frankfurt, Germany Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geology Key Figures Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), German meteorologist and earth scientist Frank Bursley Taylor (1860-1938), American student of geology and astronomy Alexander Logie Du Toit (1878-1948), South African geologist Arthur Holmes (1890-1965), British geologist Harry Hammond Hess (1906-1969), American geologist 950
Summary of Event The concept of continental drift was developed, at least in part, to explain the striking parallelism between the Atlantic coasts, which seem as though they could fit together like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. In particular, the fit between the eastern coast of South America and the western coast of Africa is very striking. The idea that the continents were once joined together as part of a single landmass predates Wegener’s treatise. As early as 1620, Sir Francis Bacon had discussed the possibility that the Western Hemisphere had once been joined to Africa and Europe. In 1668, P. Placet expressed similar ideas. Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, in his book La Création et ses mystères dévoilés (1859; creation and its mysteries revealed), recognized the similarities between American and European fossil plants of the Carboniferous period (about 300 million years ago) and proposed that all continents were once part of a single landmass. By the end of the nineteenth century, Austrian geologist
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Eduard Suess had noticed the close correspondence between geological formations in the lands of the Southern Hemisphere and had fitted them together into a single landmass he termed “Gondwanaland.” In 1908, Frank Bursley Taylor of the United States, and in 1910, Alfred Wegener of Germany independently suggested mechanisms that could account for large, lateral displacements of the earth’s crust and therefore explained how continents could be driven apart. Wegener’s work became the center of the debate that has lasted until the present. The concept of continental drift was best expressed by Wegener in his book Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (1912; The Origin of Continents and Oceans, 1924). He based the theory not only on the shape of the continents but also on geological evidence found around the world. Wegener specifically cited similarities in fos-
Continental Drift
sil fauna and flora (extinct animals and plants) found in Brazil and Africa. He developed a series of maps to show three stages in the drift process and named the original supercontinent Pangaea (a word meaning “all lands”). Wegener believed that the continents, composed of lightdensity granitic rocks, were independently propelled and plowed through the denser basalts of the ocean floor driven by forces related to the rotation of the earth. He provided evidence based on detailed correlations of geological features and fossils indicating a common historical record on both sides of the Atlantic. He also proposed that the supercontinent of Pangaea existed before the beginning of the Mesozoic era (about 200 million years ago). Wegener visualized the split of Pangaea as beginning during the Jurassic period (about 190 million years ago) with the southern continents moving westward and toward the equator. South America and Africa began to drift apart during the Cretaceous period (70 million years ago). The opening of the northern Atlantic was accomplished during the Pleistocene epoch (approximately 2.5 million years ago). Greenland and Norway started to separate as recently as 1.5 million years ago. The Indian peninsula drifted northward, colliding with the Asian continent and giving rise to the folded mountains of the Himalayas. Similarly, the European Alps and the Atlas Mountains of North Africa were explained as a westward extension of the Himalayan Chain. Wegener also suggested that as the drifting continents met the resistance of the ocean floor, their leading edges were compressed and folded into mountains. In this way, he also explained the Western Cordillera of the Americas and the mountains of New Zealand and New Guinea. He visualized the tapering ends of Greenland and South America and the island arcs of the Antilles and East Asia as stragglers trailing behind the moving continents. Periods of glaciation found in the southern part of South America, Africa, Australia, peninsular India, and Madagascar provided further evidence of drift. Detailed studies by the South African geologist Alexander Logie Du Toit provided strong support for Wegener’s concepts. Du Toit postulated two continental masses rather than the single entity of Pangaea: the northern supercontinent of Laurasia and its southern counterpart Gondwanaland, separated by a seaway called Tethys. Du Toit was also the first to propose that the continental masses of the Southern Hemisphere had moved relative to the position of the South Pole. His ideas were published in Our Wandering Continents (1937), a book he dedicated to Wegener. Both Wegener and Du Toit utilized four main lines of evidence to sup951
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Wegener theorized that the continents began as one great landmass more than 200 million years ago (top) which drifted apart beginning about 190 million years ago (middle), eventually resembling the world as we know it today (bottom).
Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift
Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift port continental drift: the geometric shape of the continents, matching rock types and geological structures, fossil evidence, and paleoclimatological evidence (evidence based on ancient patterns of climate). It was the last of these that led to the early conclusion that the geographic poles had shifted relative to the position of the continents through time. This “polar wandering” could best be explained by continental masses drifting over the fixed poles. Continental drift was debated among earth scientists of the Southern Hemisphere and the leaders of geophysical thought of the Northern and Western Hemispheres. The eminent geophysicist Sir Harold Jeffreys of the University of Cambridge voiced opposition to the drift concept based on the concept that the earth’s crust and underlying mantle were too rigid to permit such large motions. Although Wegener and Du Toit had provided compelling evidence in favor of the drift theory, one monumental problem remained: What forces could be strong enough to rupture, fragment, and cause the continents to drift? It was precisely this question that resulted in the decrease in popularity of the continental drift theory until its rebirth in the 1960’s as the new seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. Wegener had visualized the continents as being raised above the seafloor on a spinning, spheroidal earth and argued that the continents had been propelled toward the equator. Drift was explained as the result of gravitational attraction between the continents and the equatorial bulge, resulting in the movement away from the poles toward the equator. A westward drift was explained as resulting from the differential attraction of the Moon and the Sun on the continents, causing them to lag behind the rotation of the earth. Although appealing, Wegener’s theory of continental drift remained controversial and was not widely accepted until Harry Hammond Hess and Robert Sinclair Dietz introduced the theory of seafloor spreading in the early 1960’s. In fact, although the forces proposed by Wegener (and also by Taylor) are known to exist, they are minuscule and no one has considered them seriously as the mechanism capable of rupturing and moving continents. It was Du Toit who first proposed the idea that continents could slide over the mantle under the action of gravity (an idea that came to be used by some scientists in defense of plate tectonics), but Arthur Holmes of the University of Edinburgh was the originator of the nowpopular concept of thermal convection in the earth’s mantle as the main cause of drift. Holmes’s model, published in 1931, is very similar to models that came to be used in the widely accepted theory of plate tectonics. 952
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Holmes was also the first to introduce the idea that the continents themselves do not play an active role in the drift, but act as passive members being carried along by a moving mantle in sort of a conveyor-belt motion. Significance Wegener’s theory of continental drift, first introduced during the second decade of the twentieth century, remains one of the most fascinating, inspiring, and controversial topics in the field of earth science. The drift theory polarized the scientific community and became the center of a heated debate until its rebirth during the second half of the century, when the concepts of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics were developed. Most earth scientists in the United States and around the globe subscribe to the theory of plate tectonics, a modern version of Wegener’s continental drift. Although the theory of continental drift was supported by a variety of geological evidence, a poor understanding of the nature of the oceanic crust prevented the development of a complete theory of earth dynamics until the 1960’s. It was then that the topography of the ocean floor was mapped and magnetic and seismic characteristics established. In plate tectonics, the crust and uppermost upper mantle constitute what is now known as the lithosphere. The lithosphere lies above a soft, plastic (or ductile) zone in the mantle known as the asthenosphere. Thermal convection within the asthenosphere provides the mechanism for splitting the rigid lithosphere into distinct plates and propelling them into motion. The lithospheric plates are bounded by ocean ridges, ocean trenches, and major faults. At the ocean ridges, plates move apart where the convecting mantle rises and spreads laterally. It is at these divergent boundaries that a new ocean floor is generated. The moving plates converge at the site of oceanic trenches, where the basaltic (oceanic) lithosphere descends into the mantle under the lighter-density, granitic (continental) lithosphere. In those regions where two lithospheric plates move past each other, large transform fault boundaries are generated. Plate tectonics provides an appealing explanation for zones of earthquakes, active volcanism, and mountain building. These events take place along plate boundaries, where they either diverge, collide, or move relative to each other. The theory has gained wide acceptance among earth scientists worldwide. Its concepts are deeply rooted on Wegener’s original ideas of continental drift. The new theory provides answers to many of the critical questions of global tectonics, but, as commonly
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 occurs in science, new questions and problems continue to arise. Just as in Wegener’s time, notable and respected workers voiced opposition to the new theory. V. V. Belousov of the Soviet Union and Arthur Augustus Meyerhoff of the United States both provided wellfounded and thought-provoking arguments against the new theory, but they failed to provide a theory of global tectonics as well integrated as plate tectonics. Partly as a result of this, continental drift and its modification into the concepts of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics remained one of the most significant theories in earth science. Although it is not without its problems, the theory is one of the most complete explanations of global tectonics in existence. — Robert G. Font Further Reading Du Toit, Alexander Logie. Our Wandering Continents. New York: Hafner, 1937. Du Toit provides strong support to Wegener’s ideas on continental drift and advances important concepts that have gained acceptance in the theory of plate tectonics. Stein, Seth, and Michael Wysession. An Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes, and Earth Structure. New York: Blackwell Science, 2002. Introductory textbook intended for advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate courses in seismology. Heavily illustrated. Includes suggestions for further reading and index. Tarbuck, Edward J., and Frederick K. Lutgens. The Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Introductory-level text offers a very good overview of the earth’s interior. Well written and illustrated with color graphics.
Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift Taylor, Frank Bursley. “Bearing of the Tertiary Mountain Belt on the Origin of the Earth’s Plan.” Geological Society of America 21 (1910): 179-226. Classic reference outlines the concept of continental drift developed by Taylor independently but concurrent with the timing of Wegener’s treatise. Wegener, Alfred Lothar. The Origin of Continents and Oceans. Translated by J. G. A. Skerl. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1924. This is the original treatise on continental drift, a monumental and revolutionary contribution to the field of earth science, and a key reference that enhances the understanding of global tectonics. Wilson, J. Tuzo. “A Revolution in Earth Science.” Geotimes 13 (December, 1968): 10-16. In this excellent article, Wilson summarizes the importance of continental drift, seafloor spreading, and plate tectonics. The theory’s impact on Charles Darwin’s contribution to biology and major and revolutionary advances in other sciences are compared also. Wyllie, Peter J. The Dynamic Earth: Textbook in Geosciences. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971. This outstanding reference contains separate chapters on continental drift, seafloor spreading, and plate tectonics. It also provides a comprehensive discussion of the evolution of geologic thought and an understanding of the earth’s tectonic framework. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary; Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength; 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core.
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South African Native National Congress Meets
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 8, 1912
South African Native National Congress Meets The South African Native National Congress emerged in 1912 in opposition to discriminatory legislation passed by the recently created Parliament of the Union of South Africa. Locale: Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now in South Africa) Categories: Organizations and institutions; indigenous peoples’ rights Key Figures John Langalibalele Dube (1871-1946), cofounder of the South African Native National Congress Pixley ka Isaka Seme (1882-1951), cofounder of the South African Native National Congress Solomon Tshekiso Plaatje (1876-1932), cofounder of the South African Native National Congress S. M. Makgatho (1861-1951), president of the South African Native National Congress, 1917-1924 Nehemiah Tile (d. 1891), founder of the Thembu Church Summary of Event It was perhaps inevitable that expanding gold and diamond mining late in the nineteenth century would magnify the unequal status of the black African majority as compared with the minority white population. Never had this dilemma been so clearly demonstrated as during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), when both sides (the British and the Dutch Boers, also known as Afrikaners) pressed Africans into performing menial—but often lifethreatening—service in a war in which their interests were largely not at stake. After the British prevailed, both the Orange Free State and the South African (or Transvaal) Republic became part of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The union’s new parliament introduced a series of legislative acts that were openly discriminatory, including the Land Act of 1912, which helped spark the formation of the South African Native National Congress, later renamed the African National Congress. Until 1912 black Africans had tended to rely on traditional leaders to voice grievances against unfair practices, especially labor conditions in the mines. In 1905 alone, more than thirty-five hundred complaints were registered against labor contractors in the gold fields; many of these grievances were lodged by tribal chieftains. Other attempts to speak out for native African rights came from African church leaders, most notably 954
Nehemiah Tile, who had founded the Thembu Church in the 1880’s. The fact that Tile’s activities focused on a geographically limited region and were dependent on the patronage of the prominent Ngangelizwe family, however, underscored a basic reality: The voices of African dissent lacked both political and economic unity. The fact that blacks could not present themselves for election to the South African parliament meant that they could not hope to have their views expressed when that body drafted new legislative acts. In 1911, the Parliament passed acts related to black African labor, especially in the mining industry, and the Defense Act of 1912 ruled that any and all military groupings in the union would be composed of only white recruits. By this time, however, black African personalities such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme, editor of the Johannesburg newspaper Abantu-Batho, had begun to spark reactions from the general populace. This paper already emphasized the need to recognize and appreciate multilingual diversity among native South Africans by publishing not only in the main languages of Zulu-Xhosa and Sotho-Tswana but also in less widespread dialects. Seme called for ending hostile rivalries between Zulus and other groups, which he said added to the backwardness of black African communities. Seme joined forces with several other black African leaders in January of 1912, when the South African Native National Congress was founded. The SANNC provided for a two-house body: The Upper House consisted of seven traditional chiefs appointed as “honorary presidents,” but it was the Executive Committee of the Lower House that held real power in the organization. Reverend John Langalibalele Dube became president, and he was supported by Solomon Tshekiso Plaatje as secretarygeneral and Pixley ka Isaka Seme as treasurer. In addition, the organization included four vice presidents, four clergymen, a newspaper editor, lawyers, a building contractor, and at least one teacher. The SANNC declared its dedication to several main causes, ranging from African domestic social problems (such as divorce and alcoholism), education, religious issues, and African labor and land rights. These two latter issues became especially important. In fact, passage of the 1913 Native Land Act, which guaranteed white minority landownership rights over about 90 percent of the total useful land in South Africa, sparked serious but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to pressure the Parliament to
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Pixley ka Isaka Seme on the SANNC In an article titled “Native Union,” which appeared in the newspaper Imvo Zabantsundu on October 24, 1911, Pixley ka Isaka Seme justified the upcoming South African congress, as this excerpt illustrates. He also included within the article a schedule for the congress. The South African Native Congress is the voice in the wilderness bidding all the dark races of this sub-continent to come together once or twice a year in order to review the past and reject therein all those things which have retarded our progress, the things which poison the springs of our national life and virtue; to label and distinguish the sins of civilisation, and as members of one house-hold to talk and think loudly on our home problems and the solution of them. Such national Conferences of the people are bound to give a wide publication of the Natives’ own views on the questions which primarily concern him to-morrow and today. Through this Congress the Native Senators in the Union House of Parliament will be able to live in close touch with the Natives of the whole country whose interest each Senator is supposed to represent. The Government also will find a direct and independent channel of informing itself as to the things uppermost in Natives’ mind from time to time, and this will make it easier for the Union Government to deal with the Natives of the whole of South Africa.
women’s movements and protested the conditions in women’s prisons. By far the most important radicalizing trend, however, was in the area of labor protests. Following the largely symbolic attendance by some SANNC members at the founding meetings of the Industrial Workers of Africa in 1917, the SANNC rallied with the International Socialist League to support miners’ strikes in 1918. Five SANNC leaders were arrested and tried alongside white Socialist militants. As egalitarian ideology began to emerge as an alternative to true racial equality, the SANNC found itself interacting more and more with the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), which had been founded in 1919. Some original SANNC founders, such as Henry Selby Msimang, ICU president from 1919 to 1921, made certain that the labor movement’s agenda was always presented to the SANNC annual conferences. ICU founder Clements Kadalie’s increasingly obvious association with the newly founded Communist Party in South Africa, however, combined with growing involvement of the congress with movements that had very broad international political agendas, began to cause 955
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reverse its actions. In May,1914, just months before war broke out in Europe, a select SANNC delegation went to London to seek official, high-level British intervention against the Land Act. Although this form of opposition was suspended under wartime conditions (a period in which the SANNC pledged loyalty to Great Britain), Secretary-General Plaatje insisted in his 1910 book Native Life in South Africa that Britain’s sense of justice should condemn what he referred to as the “crushing” racial prejudices that black Africans experienced. In 1917, a new turn of events pointed to possible radicalization of the SANNC. John Dube was asked to resign as president after disagreements over his apparent willingness to compromise on segregation-related issues. He was succeeded by S. M. Makgatho, coeditor of the Native Advocate in Pretoria. Whether because of Makgatho’s leadership or a confluence of circumstances, the movement soon became involved in activist strategies that brought new members into its ranks. For one thing, creation of the Bantu Women’s League in 1918 under Charlotte Maxeke created a sister organization that campaigned against passing laws that limited
If we wish to convince the Government that it is possible to have a uniform Native policy for the whole of South Africa than let us form this Congress. Again, it is conclusively urgent that this Congress should meet this year, because a matter which is so vitally important to our progress and welfare should not be unnecessarily postponed by reason of personal differences and selfishness of our leaders. The demon of racialism, the aberrations of the Xosa-Fingo feud, the animosity that exists between the Zulus and the Tongaas, between the Basutos and every other Native must be buried and forgotten; it has shed among us sufficient blood! We are one people. These divisions, these jealousies, are the cause of all our woes and of all our backwardness and ignorance to-day. A great Paramount Chief accepting that his name be included in the honourable list of Native princes who endorse and support this movement, writes that “He however wishes to point out that whilst the objects and the aims of a Congress appear to be good and reasonable, much of the success depends upon the attitude of the members. There should he among other things a firm resolve on the part of every member to eliminate factors which have in the past proved fatal to the continued existence of such Societies. They should set their faces strongly against the jargon of racial feeling, the ebullition of the Xosa-Fingo element, and the excessive display of political partisanship.”
International Opium Convention Is Signed divisions within SANNC leadership. Beyond contacts with the Communists, there were also overtures from the European-based League Against Imperialism. Such splits became one of several factors behind the 1925 adoption of the SANNC’s new name: the African National Congress. Significance The founding of the South African Native National Congress marked an initial step toward unifying political consciousness among black South Africans. In its early years, SANNC leaders gradually realized that opposition to particular legislative issues and formation of high level delegations were not sufficient for uniting native Africans. Instead, leaders had to find a single cause around which Africans could rally. Several paths toward mass mobilization in this early period were tried; organizers were especially interested in associating the SANNC with radical labor organizations that were driven mainly by ideology and therefore wanted whites and blacks to find common cause in a single movement. Although differences in leadership opinion over this dilemma contributed to splits both before and after adoption of the ANC’s new name in the mid-1920’s, a more fundamental issue was at stake: The rather simplistic, unity-oriented slogans that led to the SANNC’s founding in 1912 no longer applied to the changed world in which South Africa’s black population lived, especially after World War I. —Byron D. Cannon
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Barber, James. South Africa in the Twentieth Century. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. Author tends to emphasize the importance of inter-African ethnic relations as they relate to the intense political history of South Africa after the Boer War. Davenport, T. R. H. South Africa: A Modern History New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. This long-recognized comprehensive history has been reedited to establish links between early twentieth century events and the ANC’s eventual success in gaining South African rights following apartheid. Meli, Francis. A History of the ANC: South Africa Belongs to Us. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1988. This detailed account of the ANC takes developments from the early period of the SANNC through the transformations that made it more and more effective as an organization (still striving at the time of this book’s publication) for recognition of native African rights in South Africa. See also: May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation; Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia; Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
February 23, 1912
International Opium Convention Is Signed The International Opium Convention was the first official international effort to control the global drug trade and the forerunner of numerous international drug control treaties. Locale: The Hague, the Netherlands Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; social issues and reform; trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Charles Henry Brent (1862-1929), Episcopal bishop and chairman of the American delegation to the convention Hamilton Kemp Wright (1867-1917), American missionary and antidrug activist 956
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Summary of Event On February 23, 1912, representatives of thirteen nations met at The Hague, in the Netherlands, to sign the International Opium Convention. The signing marked the creation of the first international treaty specifically concerned with the control and interdiction of illicit narcotics. The treaty originated in the International Opium Commission, which met in Shanghai, China, in 1909, under the leadership of the American delegation at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt. The treaty compelled its members to take active measures to reduce international traffic in narcotics and the legal use of narcotics within their borders.
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tee led by Charles Henry Brent, the Episcopal bishop of During the nineteenth century, substance abuse Manila, recommended a gradual prohibition of opium in emerged as an issue of global concern. Opium, which the territory, which prompted the U.S. Congress to pass originated in Central Asia, was imported into Europe belegislation criminalizing the sale of opium in the Philipginning in the sixteenth century. As the first effective pines. treatment for pain available to Europeans and a valuable Following the success of his campaign against opium means of controlling diarrhea, opium was a beneficial in the Philippines, Brent petitioned Roosevelt to call an commodity, but the euphoric effect of the drug and its international conference on the opium trade in China. high potential for dependency led to widespread abuse. Europeans imported opium primarily from the Ottoman Empire and India, and they had begun shipping Opium in the Modern World large amounts of the drug to China Opium was first cultivated around 3400 b.c.e. in lower Mesopotamia and bewhen trade routes to the Far East came increasingly common in Europe after 1500, when the Portuguese began opened. This practice continued afto purchase the substance from traders on the East China Sea. By 1903, addicter the Chinese imperial government tion to heroin (an opiate) had become a significant problem in the United banned imported opium in 1800, and States and other countries. Chinese attempts to enforce this ban led to a trade dispute that escalated • 1925: A black market for opium begins in New York City’s Chinatown after into armed conflict during the the U.S. government bans its sale. Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth • Early 1940’s: The French encourage the rural Hmong (in Vietnam) to incentury. The United States was a macrease their opium production after World War II hampers the shipment of opium from India and Iran. jor supplier of opium to China prior • 1948-1972: Mafia members from Corsica, Italy, control the heroin market in to the Opium Wars, but at the end of the United States. The heroin is produced by refining raw Turkish opium in the nineteenth century, as imperialisMarseilles, France. tic competition among major world • 1965-1970: Heroin addicts in the United States number near 750,000. The powers deepened American involvegrowth in heroin use is attributed to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which ment in the affairs of East Asia, the provides increased opportunity for drug smuggling. U.S. government seized control of • July 1, 1973: President Richard Nixon creates the Drug Enforcement Adopium trafficking in an attempt to asministration, which assumes control of nearly all matters related to drug sert the status of the United States as control. an emerging world power. • Mid-1970’s: The heroin epidemic gradually slows after the fall of Saigon, At the beginning of the twentieth but another type of raw opium emerges from Mexico: Sierra Madre. “Mexican Mud” temporarily replaces “China White” heroin until 1978. century, amid increasing rates of • 1978: The U.S. and Mexican governments try to eliminate opium producopium addiction and calls from protion by spraying poppy fields with deadly Agent Orange. However, heroin gressive reformers for government production increases after other sources are found in Iran, Afghanistan, and action, Roosevelt assigned a promiPakistan. nent role to narcotics interdiction in • November, 1996: International drug-trafficking organizations based in his activist foreign policy toward China, Nigeria, Colombia, and Mexico are accused of “aggressively marSouth America and East Asia. Durketing heroin in the United States and Europe.” ing his presidency and that of his suc• 1999: The U.N. Drug Control Program estimates that Afghanistan produces cessor, William Howard Taft (1909approximately 75 percent of the world’s heroin. The next year, the Taliban 1913), the U.S. government sought outlaws opium production. to tighten control on the Asian opium • October, 2003: Growing use of the Internet as a medium for purchasing narcotics leads the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Drug Entrade by conducting naval drug raids forcement Administration (DEA) to create a task force to prevent online on the high seas. The United States sales. also attempted to abolish the legal • September, 2004: A Tasmanian company announces that it has designed a opium trade in the Philippines, then a method for genetically engineering opium poppies. U.S. territory, in response to presSource: Martin Booth, Opium: A History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). sure from Protestant missionaries there. In the early 1900’s, a commit-
International Opium Convention Is Signed Roosevelt, seeking to solidify American relations with the Chinese government, agreed to schedule a conference in Shanghai in February, 1909. The American delegation, which included Brent, missionary doctor Charles Tenney, and noted antinarcotics crusader Dr. Hamilton Kemp Wright, took the lead during the conference, which also included China, Great Britain, and several other nations with interests in East Asia. The Shanghai Conference, as it is often called, fell short of American goals to organize a multinational convention with the authority to draft an antiopium treaty, but it succeeded in uniting participating nations behind efforts to combat the international trade in illicit narcotics. Following the example of the United States, which passed the Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 prohibiting the importation of nonmedicinal opium, many nations participating in the conference adopted their own domestic antidrug legislation. Meanwhile, the push for an international narcoticscontrol treaty escalated. The campaign was led by the U.S. State Department and ongoing pressure from Brent and Wright, who had gained recognition as the nation’s foremost antidrug crusaders. Another conference was scheduled for late 1911 at The Hague, which by the early twentieth century had become a favored locale for the conduct of international affairs. All nations participating in the Shanghai Conference of 1909 sent delegations to the convention. Brent and Wright, who once again headed the American delegation, presented the antiopium measures recently enacted in the Philippines to the convention as evidence of the success of narcotics criminalization, ignoring the fact that opium use there had increased since the measures were implemented. The delegates, under Brent’s leadership, drafted a treaty requiring that signatories use “their best endeavors” to control the manufacture and distribution of opium, cocaine, and their derivatives. The American delegation had pressed to include cannabis among the substances subject to the treaty, but the majority of the participants did not consider its use sufficiently problematic to warrant prohibition. In addition to the United States, thirteen other nations signed the International Opium Convention on February 23, 1912. They included several European colonial powers—France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Russia—Japan, and China. Five nations—the United States, China, the Netherlands, Honduras, and Norway—began implementing the terms of the convention in 1915. World War I (1914-1918) prevented most European nations from following suit, but 958
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended the war, incorporated the terms of the convention and began their worldwide enforcement. Initial convention results were mixed; signatories to the treaty enacted policy and legislation geared toward controlling the foreign and domestic narcotics trade, but many of these measures were ineffective or poorly enforced. The treaty contained numerous legal loopholes that permitted participating nations to ignore or selectively interdict traffic in narcotics. Significance The International Opium Convention set several important precedents. It implemented an international drugcontrol treaty, established the regulation of global narcotics traffic as a significant component of international relations, and set the groundwork for a U.S.-led campaign against the global drug trade that escalated into an international “war on drugs” by century’s end. The political maneuvering behind the convention’s planning and the dominant role of Western colonial powers in its formation suggest that the push toward international drug control was based primarily on economic and political factors rather than on concern for public health and welfare. Efforts by the signatories to curry favor with the Chinese government and increase their involvement in the affairs of East Asia took precedence over the control of the global illicit drug trade. In addition, the narrow focus of the treaty upon the interdiction of opium, primarily in its smokable form, encouraged increased traffic in opium derivatives such as morphine and heroin for which little or no regulation existed. Following the lead of the United States, which passed the Harrison Act in 1914 to regulate opiates and cocaine, participating nations enacted policies to close these loopholes. Still, these measures had little effect on international narcotics trafficking. Subsequent international treaties attempted, with limited success, to enhance the effectiveness of narcotics control. A revised International Opium Convention signed in 1925 added a provision requiring individual nations to regulate the import and export of cannabis products and assigned enforcement responsibility to the League of Nations, which proved ineffective in securing the cooperation of member nations and folded as World War II broke out in Europe. Its successor, the United Nations, assumed responsibility for control of the global drug trade during the postwar era. In 1961, U.N. member nations signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which superseded the International Opium Convention and broadened the scope of international drug interdic-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion to include various controlled substances and drugrelated crimes such as money laundering. —Michael H. Burchett Further Reading “The Beginnings of International Drug Control.” U.N. Chronicle 35, no. 2 (Summer, 1998): 8. Outlines the diplomatic concerns that shaped the drafting of the International Opium Conference of 1912 and other efforts to control the global narcotics trade. Erlen, Jonathon, and Joseph F. Spillane, eds. Federal Drug Control: The Evolution of Policy and Practice. Binghamton, N.Y.: Pharmaceutical Products Press, 2004. Examines the role of the International Opium Convention as a precedent for global drug
Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances control measures of the twentieth century. McAllister, William B. Drug Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: An International History. New York: Routledge, 1999. Discusses the diplomatic aspects of the International Opium Conference of 1912 and subsequent international drug control treaties. Walker, William O. Opium and Foreign Policy: The Anglo-American Search for Order in Asia, 19121954. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Focuses on the role of narcotics control in American foreign policy toward Asian nations. See also: 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
March 3, 1912
Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s report of her discovery that the pulsating period of a Cepheid variable star is directly proportional to the star’s brightness marked an important step forward in astronomy. Locale: Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), Danish astronomer Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957), American astronomer
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Summary of Event According to the modern cosmological view, the universe is an expanding sphere of approximately one trillion galaxies. Each galaxy consists of one hundred billion to one trillion stars. Each star, including the Sun, is an immense thermonuclear furnace composed mostly of the elements hydrogen and helium. The remaining one hundred-plus elements (for example, carbon, oxygen, iron) are synthesized by fusion reactions in stars and by massive star explosions (supernovas). The Sun is one of approximately four hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
By 1900, astronomers had firmly established that Earth, other planets, asteroids, and comets revolve around the Sun and that the Sun is only one of billions of stars in the Milky Way. Nevertheless, there were many unresolved problems. Some astronomers believed that the Sun was located at the center of the Milky Way, a throwback to pre-Copernican views of Earth being the center of the universe. Other astronomers correctly theorized that the Sun is an average star not located at the galactic center, but evidence to that effect was lacking. The existence of other galaxies had not been clearly demonstrated, and no completely reliable methods existed for measuring the enormous distances between stars. In 1902, Henrietta Swan Leavitt became a permanent observatory staff member at Harvard College Observatory. She studied variable stars, stars that change their luminosity (brightness) in fairly predictable patterns over time. During her tenure at Harvard, Leavitt observed and photographed nearly twenty-five hundred variable stars. Variable stars can be of three principal types: eclipsing binaries, novas, and Cepheid variables. Eclipsing binaries are double-star systems where two stars orbit a common center of gravity. Periodically, one star will eclipse, or pass before, its companion star relative to the line of sight. The combined light emission from the double-star system will be reduced. Many double-star systems exist, including Sirius (also known as the Dog Star) in the constellation Canis Major and Mizar-Alcor in the handle of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). Novas are unstable stars that occasionally erupt and release envelopes
Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances of matter into space, temporarily increasing in brightness during the process. Cepheid variables and their similar RR Lyrae stars are older main-sequence stars that have exhausted their hydrogen fuel and have switched to helium fusion for energy generation. Cepheids are unstable, periodically increasing, then decreasing, their energy and light output. They become brighter, then dim, repeating the cycle every few days or weeks depending on the star. Each Cepheid variable star has a predictable, repeatable cycle of brightening and dimming. These stars are named after Delta Cephei, the first such variable star discovered in the constellation Cepheus in 1768. Polaris, the North Star, is also a Cepheid. At the time, the principal means of determining stellar distances was a trigonometric method known as parallax. A star’s parallax is the line-by-sight angle subtended by the star as Earth orbits the Sun. Using a right triangle formed by the observed star, the Sun, and Earth as the triangle’s vertices, the star’s distance is calculated based on simple trigonometric equations involving the Earth-Sun distance (about 150 million kilometers, or 93.2 million miles) and the subtended angle traced by the star in our sky. If the subtended angle is large, then the star is close. If the angle is small, the star is far. Related trigonometric methods rely on the Sun’s motion relative to background stars and the motion of star clusters in the Milky Way. Trigonometric parallax methods are limited to relatively close stars. Using parallax, the very close stars Alpha Centauri and Barnard’s star are 4.27 and 5.97 light-years distant, respectively. Sirius is 8.64 light-years distant. Because a light-year is the distance light travels in one year, approximately 9.46 trillion kilometers (5.88 trillion miles), parallax is an extremely accurate means of measuring stellar distances. During the twentieth century, scientists obtained more than ten thousand stellar distances using this method. If one considers the immensity of the universe, however, with its radius of perhaps twenty billion light-years, parallax fails at relatively short astronomical distances (for example, fifty thousand light-years). While studying variable stars, Leavitt measured their luminosities over time. She was equipped with photographs of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds collected from Harvard’s Peruvian observatory. Magellanic Clouds are very small galaxies visible in the Southern Hemisphere. The Small Magellanic Cloud contained seventeen Cepheid variables having very predictable periods ranging from 1.25 days to 127 days. She carefully measured the brightening and dimming of the seventeen Cepheids during their respective periods. She collected 960
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 photographs of other Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds and made additional period-luminosity studies. While Leavitt was studying Cepheids, Ejnar Hertzsprung of the Leiden University in the Netherlands and Henry Norris Russell of the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California, independently discovered a relationship between a star’s luminosity and its spectral class (that is, color and temperature). Together, their experimental results produced the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (or H-R diagram) of stellar luminosities, the astronomical equivalent of chemistry’s periodic table. According to their classification scheme, most stars lie along the “main sequence,” which ranges from extremely bright blue stars ten thousand times brighter than the Sun to very dim red stars one hundred times dimmer than the Sun. Additional star classes outside the main sequence include red giants, supergiants, and white dwarfs. Cepheid variables are placed toward the cooler, red-star end of the main sequence. Thinking along the same lines as Hertzsprung and Russell, Leavitt carefully measured the luminosities and cyclic periods of changing luminosity for each of many Cepheid variables from the Magellanic Clouds. From her careful measurements, she graphically plotted Cepheid luminosity against Cepheid period. She discovered that a Cepheid’s apparent luminosity is directly proportional to the length of its period, or the time it takes to complete one cycle of brightening and dimming. A faint Cepheid variable has a very short cyclic period during which it fluctuates in brightness, usually ranging from one to four days. A more luminous Cepheid has a longer cyclic period, usually twenty to thirty days or more. Harlow Shapley, an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory, combined Leavitt’s Cepheid period-apparent luminosity relationship to parallax data for Cepheid distances. He measured the distances of moving star clusters containing Cepheids, then related the Cepheid distances to Cepheid period-luminosity data. From these experiments, Shapley constructed a Cepheid periodabsolute luminosity curve. With this curve, one can plot a Cepheid variable having a specific measured period and obtain its absolute luminosity. Knowing the Cepheid’s apparent and absolute luminosities, one can instantly calculate its distance and, therefore, the distances of all the stars in the star cluster containing that particular Cepheid variable. Consequently, the distances to Cepheid variables in the Milky Way and other galaxies were determined quickly. Shapley used Cepheid distances to demonstrate that the center of the Milky Way is directed toward the constella-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion Sagittarius and that the Sun is located approximately thirty thousand light-years from the galactic center. Edwin Powell Hubble, also of Mount Wilson Observatory, applied the technique to measure the distances to Cepheids located in distant galaxies, thereby obtaining estimates of the distances between our galaxy and others.
entire Milky Way. He demonstrated that the Milky Way is a flattened spiral disk with a thickened center. He also measured the approximate diameter of the Milky Way and estimated that the Sun is about fifty thousand lightyears (later corrected to thirty thousand light-years) from the galactic center. Hubble used the work of Leavitt and Shapley to measure the distances to other galaxies, most notably Messier 31, the great nebula in the constellation Andromeda, the largest galaxy near Earth. Hubble measured the distances to RR Lyrae stars located within the Andromeda galactic disk and obtained an approximate intergalactic distance of 750,000 light-years, later recalibrated to one million light-years. This is one of the closest galaxies to Earth out of possibly one trillion. Hubble applied this technique to the measurement of distances to other galaxies. This work contributed to his later studies of galactic redshift velocities, which led to his monumental astronomical discovery that the universe is expanding. —David Wason Hollar, Jr. Further Reading Bartusiak, Marcia. Thursday’s Universe. New York: Times Books, 1986. Excellent history of the major astronomical achievements of the twentieth century. Thorough in scope, but intended for a general audience. Chapter 4, “Wrapped in an Enigma,” discusses the work of Leavitt and Shapley. Clark, David H., and Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Relates the stories of the scientists who have contributed to current knowledge about the size, mass, and age of the universe. Chapters 4 and 5 include discussion of the work of Hubble and Leavitt. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Ferris, Timothy. Galaxies. 1982. Reprint. New York: Harrison House, 1987. Excellent introduction to the subject presents a clearly written, beautifully illustrated discussion of astronomy and cosmology. Easily accessible to lay readers. Includes many photographs of galaxies and star clusters. Hoyle, Fred. Astronomy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962. Introduction to the field by one of the giants of twentieth century astronomy. Presents a detailed history of the subject and clearly describes practical methods in astronomy. Includes extensive illustrations and references. Kippenhahn, Rudolf. Light From the Depths of Time. 961
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Significance Leavitt’s discovery of the Cepheid variable periodluminosity relationship, reported in the March 3, 1912, issue of the Harvard College Observatory Circular, was an important achievement in twentieth century astronomy. The period-luminosity relationship established Cepheid variables as standard reference points for measuring distances between stars and galaxies. Immediate applications of Leavitt’s work appeared in the studies of Shapley and Hubble. Shapley derived a period-absolute luminosity curve for Cepheids from Leavitt’s results and from distance measurements for star clusters containing Cepheids. Each Cepheid’s period gives away its absolute luminosity, which gives away its distance. With this approach, any star cluster containing Cepheid variables can be measured to obtain its approximate distance from Earth. The rationale is quite simple: If a distant group of stars contains a Cepheid variable, determination of the Cepheid’s distance will give astronomers an estimate of the distance to all the stars in the cluster, relatively speaking. The stars of the cluster may be very far apart from one another, but relative to Earth, they all are approximately the same distance, the distance measured for their Cepheid variable. Shapley used the approach to measure the distances to RR Lyrae stars, Cepheid-like pulsating stars first discovered in the constellation Lyra. RR Lyrae stars are distributed throughout the Milky Way and within globular clusters, masses of perhaps a million stars each that surround the Milky Way in a halo. Shapley noted that there are far more globular clusters in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius than there are surrounding Earth’s area of space. If the Sun were the center of the Milky Way, then globular clusters would be spaced roughly equally in all directions, but that is not the case. From this observation, Shapley concluded that the Sun is located out in one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms, in fact, the arm seen as the starry haze called the Milky Way. The center of the Milky Way lies hidden and distant, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. From RR Lyrae stars located within each globular cluster surrounding our galaxy, Shapley mapped the distance to each globular cluster and thereby produced an approximate distance map for the
Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances
Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus Translated by Storm Dunlop. New York: SpringerVerlag, 1987. Presents an outstanding introduction to astronomy and cosmology for the average reader. Simplifies many complex astronomical concepts in a very entertaining fashion. Chapter 4, “Plumbing the Depths of the Milky Way,” discusses the contributions of Leavitt and Shapley. Rolfs, Claus E., and William S. Rodney. Cauldrons in the Cosmos: Nuclear Astrophysics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Detailed, graduate-level astrophysics textbook provides a comprehensive summary of stars and the processes that occur inside stars for readers with some background in astronomy. Chapter 1, “Astronomy: Observing the Universe,” is a very informative and simple introduction to the subject. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Excellent thorough survey of twentieth century astronomy covers both astronomical history and techniques in a very clear format for the general reader. Uses outstanding photographs, illustrations, and examples to present astronomical concepts.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. Information-packed textbook is aimed at serious undergraduate-level astronomy and astrophysics students. Presents excellent discussions of concepts and includes outstanding tables, diagrams, and illustrations. Zim, Herbert S., and Robert H. Baker. Stars. Illustrated by James Gordon Irving. 1951. Reprint. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001. Classic astronomy handbook is an outstanding introduction and guide for astronomers of all ages, even elementary students. Includes excellent illustrations and invaluable information on constellations for night-sky observing. See also: 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe.
March 7, 1912
Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of the atom during experiments with radioactive elements, and in the process he deduced the true, divisible nature of the atom. Locale: Manchester, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), English physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist Hans Geiger (1882-1945), German physicist Ernest Marsden (1889-1970), student of Rutherford Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist Summary of Event Until the beginning of the twentieth century, nearly all atomic theory had come straight from philosophers. The early Greeks assumed that one could divide matter no farther than into tiny particles they called atomos, meaning indivisible. In English, atomos became “atom.” Atomic theory was made more or less respectable by the British physicist and chemist Robert Boyle in the seven962
teenth century, but from a modern perspective it was still philosophy without hard scientific evidence. On April 29, 1897, atomic science was transformed from philosophy to hard science. That evening, Sir Joseph John Thomson announced that he had discovered tiny subatomic particles, which he called “corpuscles,” that were much smaller than the atom. They were later renamed “electrons.” Thomson’s discovery confirmed not only that atoms existed but also that they were probably made up of even smaller particles. According to Thomson’s theory, the atom comprised a positively charged, fluidized interior of great volume and tiny, negatively charged electrons enclosed in the fluid. Thomson described the aggregate as similar to “plum pudding.” In 1907, Ernest Rutherford accepted a position at Manchester, England. He had been experimenting with the particles that appeared to emanate from the radioactive atom. These efforts had been narrowed to a series of experiments that he hoped would finally identify these particles and their nature. Assisting him were Hans Geiger and an undergraduate student named Ernest Marsden. Enough data from Thomson’s work had filtered in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Atomic Nuclei Hydrogen: Nucleus is a single proton Electron
Proton
Lithium: Nucleus is 3 protons, 4 neutrons Electrons
Nucleus
time, itself contained nearly all the atom’s mass. The electrons, he supposed, orbited like tiny, flyweight particles at huge distances from the densely packed core. On March 7, 1912, Rutherford presented his theory at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. Rutherford had the correct idea of the nucleus. Electrons do not “orbit” in the classical sense, however; they “exist” in a quantum state, as Niels Bohr would later prove. In the process, Bohr would change the face of physics. Rutherford’s discovery would be the last major finding of classical physics. By 1913, Rutherford’s vision would be replaced by Bohr’s quantum view. Significance From the time of classical Greece, people had viewed matter as made up of tiny, indivisible particles. The notion was nothing more than an educated guess. It held through thousands of years not because of its inherent accuracy but because it was a useful paradigm and because of the lack of technology to prove otherwise. This idea 963
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that Rutherford and his assistants knew that the electron was a piece of the atom and that it was both lighter and smaller than the whole atom. They also knew its charge was negative; whatever was left of the atom had to be much heavier and have a net positive charge. Yet the particles that were emitted by the radioactive material Rutherford was examining—called alpha particles— were much heavier than electrons but still smaller than a whole atom. The question that perplexed Rutherford was whether, like the electron, these were also a part of the atom. The experimental apparatus that Rutherford set up was quite simple compared with the multimillion-dollar devices used by physicists a century later. It consisted of a glass tube that held an alpha particle emitter at one end. At the other end was a target of gold foil and beyond that a fluorescent screen that acted as the detector. The theory behind Rutherford’s experiments was that the alpha particle from the radioactive element would race down the tube from its source and strike the atoms in the gold foil. If the atoms were made up of Thomson’s “plum pudding,” then as the massive alpha particle struck the electrons, they would be deflected only slightly or not at all. By measuring where the tiny blips of light struck the gold foil, Rutherford could calculate the angle of deflection and indirectly determine the mass of whatever the alpha particle had struck on its way down the tube. He reasoned that the deflections of the more massive alpha particles striking tiny electrons would be minimal, but that if, by the most bizarre of circumstances, one of these particles should encounter a series of electrons on its way through an atom, the deflection might register as much as 45 degrees. The experiments began in 1910 with Geiger assisting Marsden, counting the almost invisible flashes of light on the fluorescent screen through a magnifying lens in a completely blackened laboratory. They immediately found an astonishing effect. One out of about eight thousand alpha particles was deflected at an angle, varying from greater than 45 degrees to 180 degrees. It was obvious to Rutherford that plum pudding could never account for such wild deflections. He considered that perhaps the nucleus held a charge vastly greater than any hypothesized and that the alpha particle was being whipped around the interior of the atom like a comet tossed back into the deep solar system by the Sun. The only other plausible explanation, which Rutherford eventually accepted, was that the atom contained a tiny, pinpoint nucleus that occupied only a minuscule portion of the total volume of the atom but, at the same
Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus
Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus became so firmly implanted that it became a kind of theology of reason without implicit cause. When Rutherford proved the notion of the indivisible atom wrong, he was met with immediate disbelief. At least Thomson’s atom had substance; according to Rutherford, atoms were made up mostly of space. Bohr would soon redefine the atom in new and innovative terms. Bohr described everything equal in size or smaller than the atom in terms of quantum mechanics, which deals with the interaction of matter and radiation, atomic structure, and so forth. Rutherford explored as deeply inside the atom as one could go within the framework of knowledge current at that time. A new science had to be developed to go even deeper. Quantum mechanics would join with Albert Einstein’s work on relativity to reorder physics and redefine the nature of all matter and energy. —Dennis Chamberland Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Understanding Physics. Vol. 3. New York: Walker, 1966. Written for the general public, this book succeeds brilliantly in not only describing physics so that it is easy to understand but also including history so that it is vital and interesting. Discusses principally the electron, proton, and neutron. Cline, Barbara Lovett. The Questioners. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1965. Biographical collection about the lives of the quantum physicists. Begins with Rutherford and a delightful, detailed discussion of what went on behind the scenes in the Rutherford team. Describes the work of the other physicists of the day, from Bohr to Einstein, and how their efforts blended into quantum physics. An exciting book for a wide audience. Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in TwentiethCentury Physics. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Highly readable volume follows the development of physics from its nine-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 teenth century roots to the enigmatic mysteries of the late twentieth century. Examines characters and personalities as well as the issues of physics. Discusses Rutherford’s work in detail, from his fundamental discoveries to the full implications of his collaboration with Bohr after 1912. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Chapter 21 is devoted to Ernest Rutherford. Includes glossary and index. Hawking, Stephen W. A Brief History of Time. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1996. One of the most prominent physicists of our time examines the universe, from his view of creation to the late 1980’s. Discusses the whole cosmos, from the atom and its innermost parts to the far-flung reaches of space. Includes illustrations, diagrams, glossary, and index. Pagels, Heinz R. The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. Embarks on a literary quest to explain some of the most profoundly difficult topics in quantum physics in a nontechnical manner for the lay reader. Offers a concise view of the evolution of atomic theory, from the work of Rutherford to the most complex grand unified theories. Illustrated. See also: Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron; Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement
Spring, 1912
Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement The Imagist movement attempted to simplify the language and structure of poetry by ridding it of excess verbiage and by calling for “direct treatment of the thing.” Locale: United States; Great Britain Category: Literature Key Figures Ezra Pound (1885-1972), American poet who was the guiding force behind Imagism Richard Aldington (1892-1962), British poet and Imagist theorist H. D. (1886-1961), American poet whose poems most clearly define Imagism Amy Lowell (1874-1925), American poet and sometime leader of the Imagist movement T. E. Hulme (1883-1917), leading theorist of modernism and of the Imagist movement
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Summary of Event The Imagist movement was not created by the consensus of a group of poets during a specific period or out of a variation in style or form. It was, instead, created by fiat one day in the spring of 1912 by Ezra Pound. On that day, after reading the poems of two of his protégés, Richard Aldington and Hilda Doolittle (better known as H. D.), Pound announced that they were “Imagistes.” The birth of Imagism was followed a few months later by a more formal presentation to the public. Pound sent five poems by H. D. and a few of Aldington’s poems to Harriet Monroe, the editor of Poetry magazine, with instructions to publish them as quickly as possible. The poems were published in Poetry in January of 1913 with a note by Pound on the new “school” of poetry. Later, in March of that year, he published “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste” in Poetry. Among Pound’s pronouncements were a few important ones for the development of the Imagist movement, including “Use no superfluous word, no adjective, that does not reveal something” and “Either use no ornament or good ornament.” F. S. Flint added a more precise list of rules in an accompanying article, which called on Imagist poets to undertake direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective; to use absolutely no word that did not contribute to a poem’s presentation; and “to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.” The Imagist movement had been officially born, al-
though the definitions of an Imagist poem remained incomplete. For example, neither Pound nor Flint mentioned the use or presence of images in Imagist poetry; their prescriptions were stylistic and not structural. Although the movement seems to have sprung from the brain of Ezra Pound, it had some important predecessors, especially the theories of T. E. Hulme. From 1910 to 1912, Hulme gathered a group of writers and poets to discuss some of his theories and to examine some poems. Hulme’s theories stressed the necessity for the artist both to provide a true perception of the nature of things and to do it in a fresh language that would break through conventional expressions. Hulme also set up a dichotomy between the romantic and the classical. The romantic was sentimental and vague, whereas the classical was precise and recognized the poet’s limited ability to perceive the universe. Hulme’s stress on the perception and presentation of an object or event and his insistence on clarity of style did contain the seeds of Imagism, but it was Pound who attached such precepts to a specific group of poets and turned theory into practice. Hulme published only five poems in his lifetime; in contrast, Pound was a genius who created new movements and helped poets get support and a publishing outlet for their work while he continued to create new poems. The Imagist movement developed in 1913 and 1914 by finding further outlets for its poems and doctrine. Poetry continued to be an outlet for Imagist works, and The New Freewoman (later The Egoist) began publishing Imagist productions. A 1914 anthology of Imagist poetry included poems by Aldington, H. D., Pound, Flint, William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, and Amy Lowell. Lowell had been taught the doctrine of Imagism by H. D. and Aldington, and she changed her earlier, more formal style and began to be both a practitioner of and advocate for the new school and the new poetry. However, she soon became a disruptive force. In 1914, Pound began to become interested in vorticism, and he soon lost his interest in and commitment to the Imagist movement, although he did see the image as central to vorticism. Amy Lowell appeared once more in London and began to gather together some of the early Imagists, including H. D. and Aldington. She resisted Pound’s demands that she contribute five thousand dollars to the publication of a new anthology that he would edit. Matters finally came to a showdown in which H. D., Aldington, Flint, and Ford Madox Ford sided with
Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement Lowell against Pound; there was to be a new anthology of Imagist poems backed by Lowell and an editorial board to edit and select the poems. Imagism became, in Pound’s phrase, “Amygism.” After Lowell became the patron of the Imagist movement, a few anthologies of Imagist poetry were published, and the movement seemed to be flourishing. Lowell, however, seemed to have trouble in defining Imagism and in limiting her own poetry to any set of Imagist doctrines. She relied on Aldington to provide a theoretical basis for the movement, but he could not improve on the earlier statements by Pound and Flint. Lowell’s own attempts to define Imagism became so general and inclusive that it became difficult to differentiate between Imagist poems and Symbolist or Impressionist poems. In addition, Lowell tended to see the images as static elements within poems, whereas Pound always insisted on the presentation of active and moving images. Finally, as the practitioners of Imagism became aware of its restrictions, the absence of Pound’s guidance or example caused the movement to dissolve into other, more forceful movements such as Symbolism and Futurism. The poets involved in Imagism would continue to use the image in their later poems, but they could not or would not rely exclusively on it. Significance Imagism was a short-lived movement that produced a few excellent modern poems, but it could not provide many poets with guiding principles for a body of poetry. The reduction of the poem to an image placed serious limitations on poets; no one could write a long poem using the principles of Imagism. The most prominent Imagist poems were short, striking lyrics that conveyed an impression and an emotion. These poems were impressive, but nearly all the poets involved in the movement felt a need to go beyond its boundaries. Imagism was by its nature unable to deal with ideas or do much more than present fleeting impressions. William Carlos Williams, for example, later modified and expanded the Imagist doctrine by demanding that there be “no ideas but in things.” Some examples of the best Imagist poems will help point out the strengths and weaknesses of Imagism. Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is perhaps the bestknown and most celebrated Imagist poem: The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
The first line sets the scene for the observer, who perceives the fleeting impression, or ghostlike “apparition,” 966
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and the second line provides the defining image. The faces within the urban and mechanical subway car are transformed suddenly by the natural image of petals on a bough. Furthermore, beauty and value is found in the least likely place, the urban landscape. It is a brilliant poem, but it is not one that can be expanded or repeated very often; it is a tour de force rather than a sustainable form. Another example of Imagism is H. D.’s “Oread”: Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us, cover us with your pools of fir.
The poem connects two images, as the waves of the sea are metaphorically connected to the pines of the shore. The pictured impact of the sea is quite interesting; the sea is ordered to “cover us,” to overcome the land and its inhabitants with the green of the “firs.” The poem is similar to the one by Pound in that one image overcomes another. The mechanical subway is displaced by the beautiful natural image in Pound, and H. D.’s pinelike sea overcomes the land. The Imagist movement was a part of the modernist attempt to supplant the outworn language of late Romantic and Victorian poetry. The demand that poetic language be more concrete and use more precise words in Imagism was repeated by other movements and became part of the poetics of modernism. For example, T. S. Eliot demanded that modern poetry “recover the accents of direct speech.” The “direct speech” and concentration on an object that so many modern poets urged was an essential part of Imagism. In addition, the Imagist movement was strongly associated with free verse, another important technique of modernist poetry. Nearly all the important Imagist poems used free verse and rejected rhyme. As Flint demanded and Pound suggested, the Imagist poet should not use the traditional meters but should compose in the style of the musical phrase. Imagism thus contributed to the modernist assault on sentimental and sloppy language in poetry. The stress on seeing an object distinctly is very similar to Pound’s famous dictum “make it new” and may even have led Eliot to formulate the principle of the objective correlative. The image of the poem was to be, as Eliot said, the equivalent of the emotion it evoked. Some critics have seen the Imagist movement as the beginning of modernism and the source of a number of
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Further Reading Aldington, Richard, et al. Imagist Anthology, 1930: New Poetry. Edited by Glenn Hughes. Reprint. New York:
Kraus, 1970. Originally published in 1930. A fascinating attempt to redo the earlier Imagist movement. The poems are longer and more sustained, but they do use the image as a central device. Includes an essay by Ford Madox Ford on some of the controversies within the Imagist movement and a brief foreword by Glenn Hughes. Beach, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Briefly discusses movements in American poetry during the twentieth century. Introduces readers to the work of many of the same poets whose work first appeared in Poetry magazine. Includes glossary and index. Coffman, Stanley K. Imagism: A Chapter for the History of Modern Poetry. New York: Octagon Books, 1972. An indispensable source for Imagist theory and practice. Coffman is especially good on the many theories underlying Imagism. In contrast to most critics, Coffman is sympathetic to Amy Lowell in her controversy with Ezra Pound. Coffman, however, includes no examples of Imagist poetry to illustrate the principles he establishes; there is also no bibliography. Hough, Graham G. Reflections on a Literary Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1960. Contains two long essays on the Imagist movement and its consequences. Hough sees Imagism as a necessary but destructive movement that purified the language of poetry but destroyed the tradition and “rational order” that any true work of literature needs. Kenner, Hugh. The Poetry of Ezra Pound. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. Includes two excellent chapters on Pound’s theories and practice of Imagist poetry. Kenner is especially good at linking the theories of Imagism to Pound’s overall criticism. He blames the failure of Imagism on the “diluters” of Pound’s guidelines. Kenner sees Pound as always demanding praxis rather than decoration. Pratt, William, ed. The Imagist Poem. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1963. Contains a brief and useful introduction to the Imagist movement and an anthology of Imagist poems. The poems are excellent examples of the various aspects of the movement; H. D.’s Greek Imagist poems, John Fletcher’s urban poems, and a fine selection of the early poems of Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams are included. There is an excellent bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. The best available introduction to the Imagist movement. 967
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movements that followed. Graham G. Hough, for example, blamed the Imagist movement for departing from the old tradition and failing to provide a new one. In the movement’s wake, poets were left without the guidelines that only tradition could provide; they were faced with the necessity of making it new every time they created a work. There was then, according to Hough, no continuity, and there were no examples that could be followed. Others saw the Imagist movement as having helped to destroy outdated forms and styles that could no longer touch a reader. Imagism died of its limitations, but it survived as parts of larger structures within a number of major modernist poems. Some of the most important modernist poems show traces of Imagism’s influence. For example, Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” contains a number of startling images, such as the simile comparing the evening sky to “a patient etherised upon a table.” The poem is, in effect, a stitching together of associated images. Examples of Imagism also abound in Pound’s later poems and in William Carlos Williams’s Paterson (1946-1958). The Imagist movement is, in many ways, hard to define. There was never any agreement on exactly what an Imagist poem was or what the rules of its production were. In the midst of such confusion, it became harder for those involved in the movement to limit their poems to any doctrine of Imagism, and so the brief but significant Imagist movement had died by 1917 for lack of practitioners. Remnants of Imagism, however, can be found in Pound’s group of Chinese poems called Cathay (1915). The setting is different, and the type of image may be different, but there is an obvious connection between these poems and Imagism. For example, “Fan-Piece, for Her Imperial Lord” is a perfect Imagist poem written in a different idiom. The poem’s beginning, “O fan of white silk,/ clear as frost on the grass-blade,” relates two very unlike elements, a silk fan and frost; the connections are expanded and resolved in the last line, “You also are laid aside.” A brief revival of Imagism took place in 1930 in an anthology edited by Glenn Hughes that contained recent work by some of the important Imagist poets, including Aldington, Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and William Carlos Williams. The anthology gave evidence that their work of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s was still indebted to Imagism. — James Sullivan
Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement
Children’s Bureau Is Founded Quinn, Vincent G. Hilda Doolittle (H. D.). New York: Twayne, 1967. Study of the life and works of one of the most important Imagist poets. Emphasizes biographical information on H. D. rather than critical aspects of her work. Tytell, John. Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. Critical biography stresses Pound’s life more than his work. Contains an excellent section on Pound’s involvement with the Imagist
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 movement; suggests that what Pound was aiming for in Imagism was a revival of the presentation he found in such poets as Catullus and François Villon. Extensive sources cited, but no bibliography. See also: Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge; Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation.
April 9, 1912
Children’s Bureau Is Founded The establishment of the Children’s Bureau marked the first time the U.S. government accepted responsibility for the basic rights and welfare of the nation’s youngest citizens. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Organizations and institutions; social issues and reform Key Figures Jane Addams (1860-1935), American social reformer who founded Hull House in Chicago Florence Kelley (1859-1932), American social worker Julia C. Lathrop (1858-1932), American social reformer and first head of the Children’s Bureau Ben B. Lindsey (1869-1943), American jurist and authority on juvenile delinquency Edgar Gardner Murphy (1869-1913), American clergyman John Spargo (1876-1966), British American author and activist Lillian D. Wald (1867-1940), American social worker and nurse Summary of Event At the beginning of the twentieth century, the sentimental portrait of carefree, rosy-cheeked children protected within the bosom of the loving family was a myth of the popular imagination. The reality of the lives of many American children was much harsher. One in twenty children died before the age of five; probably half of these deaths were preventable. At least two million children were working long hours in mines and factories, often under appalling conditions. Arrangements for the care of orphaned, neglected, and delinquent children were inadequate or nonexistent. The death or desertion 968
of the family wage earner, usually the male head of household, spelled tragedy for mothers without insurance, widows’ benefits, or government support. They often had to work outside the home, leaving children as young as eight or nine to care for their even younger siblings. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the political movement called Progressivism was gaining followers among middle-class Americans. This optimistic movement, with its faith in the power of democracy, demanded reforms of the abuses of unrestrained industrialism and urban political corruption. The traditional American belief in rugged individualism tended to lead to the related belief that the plight of the poor was the result of their own shiftlessness. Social activists working in settlement houses in Boston, New York, and Chicago, however, recognized poverty as a widespread social problem that could not be solved through private charity. These reformers began to work for legislation for better housing, fair labor policies, and the rights of women. These issues were closely tied to the problem of child labor. Some states had laws protecting the rights of children, but they were seldom enforced. Americans had strong feelings about the sacredness of family life and a fear of government interference in private matters. The reformers appealed to the rising spirit of Progressivism, arguing that social problems could be better solved through legislation than through charity. Focusing on the inhumane conditions in which poor children lived, the reformers argued that strong, healthy children are the hope of a democratic society and that improving children’s lives is an investment in the future. American children had always worked on family farms and as apprentices learning trades, and these kinds of work were considered beneficial as training for re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sponsible adulthood. Clearly, however, children who worked under dangerous conditions without adequate food or rest were exhausted and debilitated—not benefited—by their labor. While industrialists continued to argue for the benefits of work for children, reformers accused them of exploiting children as a cheap source of labor and an alternative to investing in machinery. In 1906, muckraking author John Spargo published The Bitter Cry of the Children, which aroused national indignation with its graphic descriptions of the horrors of the lives of poor children. Boys as young as nine or ten worked in coal mines, crouched for ten-hour shifts picking slate from coal chutes, breathing clouds of coal dust. Accidents resulting in crushed hands and cut fingers were common. All too often, boys were pulled into machinery and mangled to death. Others worked underground in mud on fourteen-hour shifts as mule drivers. Conditions in other industries were equally terrible. Working children were often exposed to toxic sub-
stances. Some were poisoned when their bodies absorbed dyes in textile mills or the phosphorus used in making matches. Others inhaled varnish used in furniture manufacturing or naphtha fumes from rubber making. Some children were shipped from state to state to follow seasonal work in agriculture or canning and so were denied the opportunity for education. Even before Spargo’s book raised public consciousness about the lives of poor children, some communities had begun to institute health measures to save young lives from the ravages of rickets, pneumonia, measles, tuberculosis, and malnutrition. Boston began a program of preventive medicine in 1894, providing prenatal care for mothers and medical exams for schoolchildren. In 1897, the city of Rochester, New York, cut the death rate of infants and children in half by pasteurizing the milk supply. In 1908, New York City recognized the need for special attention to the health of children and created the Division of Child Hygiene. Public attitudes toward the treatment of delinquent children were changing, too, largely because of the work of Judge Ben B. Lindsey, one of the first American jurists to treat young offenders as victims of their environment. Lindsey was horrified by the abuse that children involved in crimes received at the hands of police. He believed that such children could not be saved by a criminal law based on fear and vengeance; rather, they needed kindness and patient understanding. Lindsey’s work in the early years of the twentieth century revolutionized the field of juvenile law. This growing public attention to the needs of children, combined with the efforts of social workers to regulate child labor, led to the federal government’s establishment of the Children’s Bureau. The earliest organized attempt to pass a child labor law was initiated by Edgar Gardner Murphy, an Episcopalian minister who was appalled by the treatment of children in southern textile mills. Murphy founded the Alabama Child Labor Committee in 1901. Although the group successfully pressured the state legislature to pass a law for a minimum working age, the mill owners were powerful enough to keep the law from being enforced. In 1904, Murphy founded the National Child Labor Committee to work for local and state legislation. Other social activists, however, such as Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, and Lillian D. Wald, were convinced that only a federal government agency devoted to the protection of children could overcome industry’s organized opposition to anti-child labor legislation. In 1893, Kelley and Addams, both associated with Hull House in 969
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Julia C. Lathrop. (Library of Congress)
Children’s Bureau Is Founded
Children’s Bureau Is Founded
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Chicago, had been instrumental in the passage of the Illinois Factory Act, which established minimum age rules and regulated working hours for children. The Illinois Supreme Court, however, declared the law unconstitutional, and Illinois did not pass an effective child labor law until 1903. In 1906, the National Child Labor Committee introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress that would establish a children’s agency in the federal government. This action, and the continued efforts of social activists, resulted in President Theodore Roosevelt’s calling the White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children in 1909.
This conference, attended by representatives from charitable organizations in all the states and from the juvenile courts, passed a resolution for the establishment of the Children’s Bureau. Congress finally passed the law establishing the Children’s Bureau as an agency in the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1912. President William Howard Taft signed the bill into law on April 9, 1912. The bureau had no power to enact or enforce legislation; its duties were to “investigate and report . . . upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and . . . especially [to] investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth rate, orphanages, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of chilA Muckraker’s Testimony dren, employment, and legislation afJohn Spargo’s 1906 book The Bitter Cry of the Children helped raise fecting children.” Named as the first awareness of the evils of child labor with descriptions such as the following: head of the bureau was Julia C. Lathrop of the Illinois State Board of Charities, Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and dangerous. Crouched an associate of Jane Addams with a over the chutes, the boys sit hour after hour, picking out the pieces of slate long record of activism in the field of and other refuse from the coal as it rushes past to the washers. From the mental health and the juvenile courts. cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less Lathrop was the first woman appointed deformed and bent-backed like old men. . . . as chief of a federal agency and the The coal is hard, and accidents to the hands, such as cut, broken, or highest-paid woman in government sercrushed fingers, are common among the boys. Sometimes there is a worse accident: a terrified shriek is heard, and a boy is mangled and torn in the mavice at that time. chinery, or disappears in the chute to be picked out later smothered and dead. Clouds of dust fill the breakers and are inhaled by the boys, laying the foundations for asthma and miners’ consumption. I once stood in a breaker for half an hour and tried to do the work a twelve-year-old boy was doing day after day, for ten hours at a stretch, for sixty cents a day. The gloom of the breaker appalled me. Outside the sun shone brightly, the air was pellucid, and the birds sang in chorus with the trees and the rivers. Within the breaker there was blackness, clouds of deadly dust enfolded everything, the harsh, grinding roar of the machinery and the ceaseless rushing of coal through the chutes filled the ears. I tried to pick out the pieces of slate from the hurrying stream of coal, often missing them; my hands were bruised and cut in a few minutes; I was covered from head to foot with coal dust, and for many hours afterwards I was expectorating some of the small particles of anthracite I had swallowed. I could not do that work and live, but there were boys of ten and twelve years of age doing it for fifty and sixty cents a day. Some of them had never been inside of a school; few of them could read a child’s primer. . . . As I stood in that breaker I thought of the reply of the small boy to Robert Owen. Visiting an English coal mine one day, Owen asked a twelve-yearold lad if he knew God. The boy stared vacantly at his questioner: “God?” he said, “God? No, I don’t. He must work in some other mine.” It was hard to realize amid the danger and din and blackness of that Pennsylvania breaker that such a thing as belief in a great All-good God existed. Source: John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children (New York: Macmillan, 1906).
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Significance Even with responsibility for the interests of children consolidated in one federal agency, legislative progress in this area was slow and painstaking. The states feared federal intrusion into their traditional rights, and families and churches felt threatened by the idea that the government would try to take over their duties. From 1912 to 1921, the Children’s Bureau investigated and reported on infant and child mortality rates, community care for neglected and delinquent children, aid to families, and child labor. Lathrop sent a plan for public health services for mothers and children to Congress in 1917. The plan included maternity care, preventive medical care, and health services for rural children. As a result of Lathrop’s efforts, in 1921 Congress passed the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first federal grant to states fund-
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Further Reading Bradbury, Dorothy E. The Children’s Bureau and Juvenile Delinquency. Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1960. An overview of specific actions of the bureau in the field of juvenile delinquency throughout its history, as well as a list of government publications on this subject. Bremner, Robert H. From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States. New York: New York University Press, 1956. Traces the development of American social reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and shows how social reform movements led to legislation regarding housing, child labor, women’s issues, and workplace safety. Davis, Allen F. Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890-1914. 1967. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984. Detailed history of the contributions to social reform made by activists in the settlement house movement in Chicago, Boston, and New York. Provides biographical information about major figures such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley, documented by private correspondence and contemporary newspaper articles. Faulkner, Harold U. The Quest for Social Justice, 18981914. New York: Macmillan, 1931. Reprint. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971. Useful historical overview of the Progressive Era describes the development of new public awareness of the injustices resulting from the Industrial Revolution. Details the growth of social consciousness and the rise of organized labor, economic and political demands by women, and advocacy for the rights of children. Green, Frederick C. “Six Decades of Action for Children.” Children Today 6 (March/April, 1972): 2-6. Brief history of the evolution of the original Children’s Bureau from its beginnings as a service of the Department of Labor and Commerce. Describes the bureau’s changing concerns and influence on legislation to improve the lives of children. Lindenmeyer, Kriste. “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912-46. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Discusses the work of the Children’s Bureau from its establishment through World War II and analyzes where the bureau succeeded in its aims and where it failed. Includes notes, select bibliography, and index. Reece, Carolyn. “The Children’s Bureau 75th Anniversary: The Commitment Continues.” Children Today 16 (September/October, 1987): 4-9. Notable for poignant quotations from letters written by mothers to Julia Lathrop asking for medical help in childbirth and advice on the care of infants. Includes a chart of 971
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ing maternal and infant care. Lathrop also asked American women to write to her about their families and to ask for advice, and in return she sent them free booklets, often with personal notes of encouragement. Two Children’s Bureau pamphlets, Prenatal Care and Infant Care, became the most frequently requested government documents of all time. Attempts to regulate child labor were less successful at first. In 1916, Congress adopted the recommendation of the National Child Labor Committee and prohibited interstate shipment of products made in factories by children under the age of fourteen (sixteen in mines) and limitation of the workday to eight hours. In 1918, however, the U.S. Supreme Court, citing states’ rights, declared the law unconstitutional. The next attempt to regulate child labor was a proposed constitutional amendment giving Congress the right to regulate workers under the age of eighteen. Organized interests of agriculture and industry succeeded in defeating this amendment with a scare campaign, threatening that this legislation would allow government to take control of family life. Not until 1938 did Congress pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set a minimum wage for all workers, allowed a maximum workweek of forty-four hours, and prohibited interstate shipment of goods produced by children under the age of sixteen. One of the most important results of the Children’s Bureau’s advocacy for children was passage of the Social Security Act in 1935. Families benefited from the act’s provisions for old-age insurance, employment compensation, and public health. More directly, this legislation gave the bureau administrative responsibility for three programs: maternal and child health services, medical care for disabled children, and child welfare services. In the years after the passage of the federal legislation against child labor, the bureau turned its attention to urgent problems as they arose. Among the issues it addressed were child abuse, racism, foster care and adoption, and mental retardation. In the 1980’s, the Children’s Bureau became an agency within the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services. In keeping with its original purpose, the bureau successfully convinced the American public that the basic rights and welfare of children are indeed the business of government. — Marjorie J. Podolsky
Children’s Bureau Is Founded
Sinking of the Titanic organizational changes and legislation passed as a result of action by the Children’s Bureau. Spargo, John. The Bitter Cry of the Children. 1906. Reprint. New York: Irvington, 1972. One of the most influential books of its time, widely read by the general public. Apassionate and factual account of the lives of neglected, starved, exhausted, and abused children. Tanenhaus, David S. Juvenile Justice in the Making. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. History of the first juvenile court in the United States examines the social and political context in which advocates fought to protect children in the early twentieth century. Includes bibliographic essay and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Tobey, James A. The Children’s Bureau: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1925. One of a series of government monographs detailing the history, functions, activities, and organization of the Children’s Bureau. Presents facts and statistics regarding the activities of the agency in its early years. See also: 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: SheppardTowner Act; Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act.
April 14-15, 1912
Sinking of the TITANIC In the late hours of April 14, 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. By the early morning hours of April 15, the ship had sunk into the ocean, and more than half the passengers and crew drowned. The disaster shocked the world; the reputedly unsinkable Titanic carried many wealthy, prominent public figures on board and had been considered one of the marvels of the modern era. Locale: North Atlantic Categories: Disasters; transportation Key Figures Edward John Smith (1850-1912), commander of the RMS Titanic on its final voyage Arthur Henry Rostron (1869-1940), captain of the Carpathia, which rescued Titanic survivors William James Pirrie (1847-1924), managing director of the Belfast shipbuilding firm of Harlan and Wolff Joseph Bruce Ismay (1862-1937), head of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, which owned and operated the White Star Line Thomas Andrews (1873-1912), ship designer instrumental in the Titanic’s design and construction, on board for the maiden voyage Molly Brown (Margaret Tobin Brown; 1867-1932), Titanic’s most celebrated survivor, an early feminist who was instrumental in saving those in her lifeboat Summary of Event In 1907, William James Pirrie, managing director of Harlan and Wolff shipbuilders in Belfast, Ireland, and 972
Joseph Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line, devised a plan to compete with the more successful Cunard Line and its fleet of luxury liners—including the Lusitania and Mauritania—on the lucrative North Atlantic route. They planned to build three sister ships, the Olympia, Titanic, and Gigantic, that would exceed the Cunard fleet in both size and luxury. The ships would be longer and heavier than those in the Cunard fleet and would emphasize elegance and safety. The Olympic was launched in 1911, and its successor, the Titanic, was to be even larger and more luxurious. No expense was spared to make the Titanic the most extravagant ship ever built. There was room for 2,603 passengers, including 905 in first class, 564 in second class, 1,134 in third class, and 944 crew. The three classes were strictly segregated, but even second-class accommodations exceeded those in many liners’ first-class cabins, and the third-class rooms were superior to those in other ships’ second-class quarters. The first class had its own dining rooms, lounges, promenades, barber shop, gymnasium, squash court, swimming pools, Turkish baths, a darkroom for photography, library, clothes-pressing room, and a special dining room for maids and valets. The firstclass staterooms were decorated in period styles such as Louis XVI and Italian Renaissance. The ship’s signature feature was a grand staircase topped by a glass dome. The passenger list on the Titanic’s maiden voyage was as impressive as the ship itself. It included such luminaries as millionaire John Jacob Astor and his young pregnant wife Madeline Astor; Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s department store, and his wife Ida; and Phila-
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Spanish Sahara = Position of iceberg
At 11:40 p.m., one of the lookouts spotted an iceberg immediately ahead and sounded the ship’s alarm. With the iceberg less than 500 yards away, there was neither room nor time to stop or change course. Although the ship avoided a head-on collision, the iceberg scraped the first 300 feet of the hull, well below the waterline. Many passengers were unaware of the occurrence, and those who heard the collision did not make much of it. They felt it as a slight jarring, or scraping sound, and only noticed something amiss when the ship stopped and the comforting sound of the engines suddenly ceased. Ten minutes after the crash, the water level was fourteen feet above the keel in the first of five supposedly watertight compartments. The ship could float with any two of its compartments flooded, but the breaching of five compartments was too much. At 12:05 a.m., the captain gave orders to lower the lifeboats and sent an SOS, which was received by the Carpathia’s Captain Arthur Henry Rostron, who immediately changed course, headed toward the sinking ship, and readied his vessel to take on survivors. Because the Titanic had no public-address system, news of the disaster traveled slowly throughout the ship. 973
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delphia’s George and Eleanor Widener, whose banking and railroad fortune was worth thirty million dollars. The 190 families in first class were attended by twenty-three maids, eight valets, and assorted nurses and governesses. Joseph Bruce Ismay and the ship’s designer, Thomas Andrews, were also along. The Titanic left from Southampton, England, at noon on April 10, 1912, under the leadership of the experienced and well-respected Captain Edward John Smith. It docked in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, before setting out across the Atlantic. The weather was perfect for a sea voyage: The ocean was calm and the skies were blue. Unfortunately, this mild weather had caused the ice fields farther north to break up and drift south, and the Titanic received its first iceberg warning on Sunday, April 14, at 9:00 a.m. The warnings continued throughout the day; the last one arrived at 11:00 p.m. By 10:00 p.m. on Sunday night, the temperature had dropped to 31 degrees Fahrenheit, and as there was no dancing allowed on Sunday evenings, most of the passengers had retired to their rooms or were reading or socializing in the various lounges.
Sinking of the Titanic
A TITANIC Survivor’s Story Anna Sofia Sjöblom, an eighteen-year-old Titanic survivor who had been sailing from Finland to join her brother and father in Mason County, Washington, recounted to a newspaper reporter a particularly horrifying incident she witnessed during the disaster: The sounds as the ship sank were the most awful sounds I ever heard. I never expect to hear worse. When the boat first began to sink, the people on board began to shriek and wail and moan. As it went down farther and farther the shrieks arose louder and louder and more awful. Then, as the boat began to tip up on end, the sound of cries was like something terrible. I still hear it. . . . A terrible thing occurred right in our own lifeboat. A young couple, well dressed and refined, were in the boat when it was lowered. The young woman fell overboard. She struggled about and finally the men in the boat pulled her aboard. Her husband, a fine looking young man with black hair and beautiful features, sat in a seat in the middle of the boat, and helped to make her comfortable. Then, a few minutes after she had been pulled aboard, she collapsed, fell forward and died. She lay on the bottom of the boat, her face upward. We were all of us powerless to move, so crowded was the boat. The young man just sat there and stared at her. He sat there without moving for an entire hour. At the end of that hour his hair, which had been very black before, had turned to all white. He was about 30 years old. At the end of an hour he looked like he was 70. He never spoke or moved after his wife died. The woman’s dead body remained in the boat with us until we were rescued. After we had been taken on board the Carpathia, and the young man had been taken aboard, he collapsed on the deck of the rescue ship, fell over, and died. I never learned who he was. His hair had become white just like snow, and I doubt if any of his relatives or friends would know his body.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 instead to die with her husband of many years. Molly Brown, a wealthy socialite from Denver, helped row her lifeboat to safety, gave her fur coat to a freezing man, and was instrumental in the survival of her lifeboat’s inhabitants. Thirty-four of the engineering officers stayed at their posts, maintaining the ship’s lighting until two minutes before the ship finally sank. The Carpathia reached the first lifeboat at 4:10 a.m., and over the next four hours all of the survivors were taken on board, and the ship proceeded to New York City. Although numbers vary slightly by source, close to 2,228 passengers were aboard the Titanic on April 14, and of those, 1,523 perished.
Significance More than three thousand books have been written about the Titanic, and so many legends have grown up around the event that it is hard to separate fact from fiction. Several films have been made about the disaster, includSource: “Olympian Said to Be Titanic Victim—Girl Survivor Arrives Here.” ing the silent film Saved from the TiOlympia Daily Recorder, April 30, 1912. tanic (1912), which starred Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson. Most notable are Titanic (1953), with Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb; A Night The band began to play in an attempt to maintain normalto Remember (1958), based on the 1955 nonfiction book ity and to keep the passengers from panicking. Many of the same name by Walter Lord; and Titanic (1997), diwere convinced that the ship was indeed unsinkable, and rected by James Cameron and starring Kate Winslet and until they were faced with incontrovertible evidence to Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1985, American oceanographer the contrary, they preferred staying on the warm ship to Robert Ballard located the wreckage of the Titanic, and boarding the lifeboats. As passengers observed the rule interest in the event was reignited. Although Ballard preof allowing women and children to go first, many of the ferred to leave the site undisturbed, several later expedialready insufficient number of lifeboats were sent off tions retrieved thousands of artifacts from the wreckwith more than half their seats empty. At 2:10 a.m., the age, and these have been displayed in various museums band played one last song. No one knows exactly which throughout the world. song it was, but it was probably “Nearer My God to Before the Titanic disaster, regulations for lifeboat Thee,” the hymn “Autumn,” or the popular waltz of the capacities had been dreadfully out of date, and the loss of day, “Songe d’Automne.” By 2:20 a.m., the Titanic was the Titanic inspired regulations that required enough under water. lifeboat space for every person on board a ship. Never Many tales of heroism and grace under pressure reagain would a ship carrying more than two thousand main as part of the Titanic’s legacy. For example, Ida people be outfitted with lifeboats for only half that number. In addition, regulations concerning required lifeboat Straus made sure that her maid was safely placed in a drills began to be enforced, and several new rules were lifeboat and then refused to go into one herself, choosing 974
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 implemented as well: Wireless instruments had to be used and manned twenty-four hours a day, lookouts had to have regular eye tests, and ships were required to reduce their speed in ice fields. —Mary Virginia Davis Further Reading Eaton, John P., and Charles A. Haas. Titanic: A Journey Through Time. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. A complete chronology of the disaster, from the births of the major players to the recovery expeditions. A very thorough examination of the event itself and its background. Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1957. A gripping account of the disaster, beginning with the collision with the iceberg and ending on the Carpathia. A nonfiction book that reads like fiction. O’Donnell, E. E. The Last Days of the Titanic. Niwot, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart, 1997. A photographic record
Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics of the Titanic. The photos were taken by a passenger who disembarked at Queenstown; they were discovered in 1985. Tiballs, Jeff. The Titanic. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest, 1997. History of the Titanic from its inception to recovery efforts. Good photographs and illustrations. Wels, Susan. Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner. San Diego, Calif.: Tehabi Books/Time Life Books, 1997. Full of wonderful pictures. Covers the history of the Titanic and the disaster and provides full coverage of the recovery efforts. See also: May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania; Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion; Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster; May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames; Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses.
May 5-July 27, 1912
Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics During the Games of the Fifth Olympiad, competitors from five continents took part in more than one hundred events in fourteen sports. These Olympic Games introduced important technological innovations and produced several of the most memorable athletic performances in the history of the Summer Olympics. Also known as: Fifth Olympiad Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Categories: Sports; diplomacy and international relations
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Key Figures Viktor Balck (1844-1928), Swedish sports executive and organizer Jim Thorpe (1888-1953), American decathlete and pentathlete Hannes Kolehmainen (1889-1966), Finnish distance runner Matthew J. McGrath (1878-1941), American hammer thrower Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968), American swimmer and surfer Ralph Craig (1889-1972), American sprinter Gustav V (1858-1950), king of Sweden, r. 1907-1950
Summary of Event The Games of the Fifth Olympiad moved the quadrennial competition to Scandinavia for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games. Up to that point, the Games had attracted little attention, and their future was uncertain. The previous Olympics, held in London in 1908, had created almost as much controversy as goodwill. An interim competition, called the Intercalated Games, held in Greece on the two-year cycle between each Olympics, had helped the Games survive between 1904 and 1908, but this system was canceled in 1910. Under the leadership of Viktor Balck, the 1912 Games were expertly organized, and they inspired some of the Olympics’ most memorable athletic performances. The 1912 Olympic Games introduced several technological innovations to the competitions’ judging. A semiautomatic electrical timing device permitted more accurate scoring of timed events, and a photo-finish camera allowed judges to take a closer and more authoritative look at extremely tight finishes. In addition, the introduction of a public-address system allowed spectators to identify the athletes they were watching and to keep up with the events themselves. The Stockholm Games also introduced new sports to
Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics the Olympic lineup. One of these was the decathlon, a competition consisting of the best total performance in ten diverse track-and-field events. Another was the modern pentathlon, a grouping of five events that mirrored the skills required of a soldier: shooting, horseback riding, fencing, running, and swimming. Sweden would not permit boxing contests to be held in the country, and after the 1912 Games the International Olympic Committee decided to limit the discretion that host nations enjoyed in deciding which sports to include on the Olympic program. The Games of the Fifth Olympiad produced several extraordinary athletic performances. The dominance of Jim Thorpe, a Native American who won both the decathlon and the pentathlon by huge margins and set world records in both, was so awe-inspiring that King Gustav V of Sweden called Thorpe to his box and proclaimed him the greatest athlete in the world. The decathlon’s ten events included sprints, distance running, pole vaulting, high jump, shot put, long jump, and javelin, and the ancient pentathlon included five of these events, so Thorpe’s ability to outperform the world’s best athletes in such a wide spectrum of events was truly remarkable. His celebration was short-lived, however. The following year, Thorpe was discovered to have been paid modest amounts for playing semiprofessional baseball prior to the Olympics, and under the strict rules that existed at the time, he was stripped of his medals and his name was erased from the list of Olympic champions. Thorpe’s dominance in a particular competition was echoed by several other athletes at Stockholm. An American policeman named Matthew J. McGrath outdistanced the entire field of competitors in the hammer throw with all six of his attempts, the longest of which stood as a world record for twenty-four years. Duke Kahanamoku, a Hawaiian swimmer whose name would later become synonymous with surfing, was so far ahead of the field in the 100-meter freestyle at the halfway point that he looked back to survey the field and still won by two meters. Another American, Ralph Craig, won the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, and also the 100meter final. The last of these races began only after seven false starts, including one in which Craig ran the entire distance before being recalled. A twenty-two-year-old Finnish runner named Hannes Kolehmainen dominated three long-distance events being run for the first time at Stockholm: the 5,000-meter run, in which he set a new world record, the 10,000-meter run, and the 12,000meter cross-country run. By contrast, the Greco-Roman wrestling semifinal 976
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 brought together two competitors so equally matched— Russia’s Martin Klein and Finland’s Alfred Asikainen— that their bout lasted eleven hours. Great endurance was also evident in the cycling competition: The course for the road race ran almost two hundred miles, making it the longest race of any kind in Olympic history. Although the Games featured relatively few team competitions, the tug-of-war made one of its few appearances during the 1912 Summer Games. The Stockholm Games were characterized by a few other strange occurrences, some of which blurred the line between competition and administration. Otto Herschmann, a member of the Austrian saber-fencing team that won the silver medal, was also president of the Austrian Olympic Committee, making him the only sitting national Olympic committee president to win an Olympic medal. Pierre de Coubertin, the man credited with reviving the Olympic movement in 1896, won a literary prize in the sports literature competition under an assumed name—Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach—for his “Ode to Sport,” a nine-part encomium that attempted to merge sport and literature. Significance Prior to the Olympic Games held in Stockholm in 1912, the Olympics had been marred by problems: Relatively few national teams participated, political fighting among nations over issues such as national flags and ceremonial honors was common, and accusations of cheating were made by both judges and athletes. After political unrest led to the cancellation of the Intercalated Games in 1910, the future of the Olympic movement seemed dim, and without the success of the 1912 Summer Games, the Olympics might not have survived the interruption in 1916 caused by World War I. Instead, the extraordinary success of the Stockholm Games left the participants buoyed by excitement over the Olympics’ future. Although the number of sports in which athletes could compete dropped from twenty-two to fourteen from 1908 to 1912—most of the those dropped were team sports popular in England, which hosted the 1908 Games—the number of nations sending athletes grew from twenty-two to twenty-eight, and the number of athletes participating grew by almost 400, from 2,008 to 2,407. In addition, Japan’s participation made the Stockholm Games the first to include nations from five continents. On the field of competition, extraordinary performances by Jim Thorpe, Hannes Kolehmainen, Matthew J. McGrath, Ralph Craig, Duke Kahanamoku, and others amazed spectators and left
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L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences
participants certain that the Games were attracting the best athletes in the world. The result of this confluence of enthusiasm and excellence allowed the Games to return in 1920 with even more nations, more athletes, and more events, even after the interruption in 1916 and the lingering ill will created by World War I. — Devon Boan Further Reading Crawford, Bill. All American: The Rise and Fall of Jim Thorpe. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. A highly accurate and sympathetic examination of Thorpe’s difficulties at the Stockholm Games, emphasizing the inequities by which rules of amateurism were enforced. Hall, Sandra Kimberly. Duke: A Great Hawaiian. Honolulu: Bess Press, 2004. Well-written brief but detailed biography of the Olympic swimmer and father of surfing, with an exhaustive account of Kahanamoku’s Olympic experiences and the obstacles created by his Hawaiian heritage.
May 29, 1912 L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE
Schaffer, Kay, and Sidonie Smith, eds. The Olympics at the Millennium: Power Politics and the Games. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000. An examination of the influence of Olympic politics on specific events in Olympic history, including an exploration of Jim Thorpe’s experience of losing his medals after the Stockholm Games. Wallechinsky, David. The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics: Athens 2004 Edition. Toronto: SportClassic Books, 2004. Exhaustive reference work provides descriptions and histories of each of the events in the Summer Olympic Games along with complete lists of winners for each event throughout Olympic history. See also: Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games; Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics; Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis.
Scandalizes Parisian Audiences
Vaslav Nijinsky’s first work of choreography, with its use of impressionistic music, decor, and movement, altered forever the course of ballet. Locale: Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, France Categories: Dance; music Key Figures Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian ballet impresario Léon Bakst (1866-1924), Russian French artist Claude Debussy (1862-1918), French composer Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer
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Summary of Event Vaslav Nijinsky, who almost from the outset of his ballet career had surpassed standards and expectations for dancers, had long rebelled against academic classicism and romanticism. Trained at the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia, he drew attention for his spectacular jumps, in which he appeared to pause at the apex before landing with exquisite grace and power. He
partnered Anna Pavlova briefly in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, but his chief partner was Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, with whom he danced in such outstanding works as Le Pavillon d’Armide (1909), L’Oiseau de feu (1910; The Firebird ), Les Sylphides (1909), Schéhérazade (1910), Le Spectre de la rose (1911), and Petrushka (1911), all innovatively choreographed by Michel Fokine. Controversy followed Nijinsky throughout his career. Dismissed from the Mariinsky Theatre in 1911 for appearing in Giselle in trunk hose and short jerkin (without regulation trunks), he lived and worked in an atmosphere of hysteria, glamor, and intrigue. Dissatisfied with old conventions and even with Fokine’s revolutionary unification of music, painting, and dance, Nijinsky accepted the invitation of his mentor and lover, Diaghilev, to invent his own choreography after the triumphant 1911 Ballets Russes season. Nijinsky devised a style of walking on stage in which his torso was turned full on to the audience and his head, arms, and legs were in profile. This deliberate dehumanization (following upon Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s system of eurythmics) made for a new mode of composition in which dance could be performed in opposition to music.
L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences In Paris, with the help of a pianist and dancer Alexandre Gavrilov (his occasional stand-in), Nijinsky tried out his first choreography. All available evidence indicates that Nijinsky invented his choreography before he had even found the musical background for it. Diaghilev, who was seeking an alternative to Fokine’s choreography, was delighted and suggested the use of Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), which was inspired by (but not a synthesis of) Stéphane Mallarmé’s symbolic eclogue L’Après-midi d’un faune (1876; The Afternoon of a Faun, 1956). Although it is true that Debussy’s impressionistic music, with its ravishing suggestions of revitalized sensations, virtuosic instrumental character, subtle motives, and supple compositional structure, stirred Nijinsky’s imagination, the fact remains that it was Nijinsky who capitalized on the musical atmosphere to express his own—not Mallarmé’s or Debussy’s—fantasy of sexual discovery and gratification. Mallarmé’s poem was originally a recitation for the great actor Benoît Coquelin; the poem expresses the reveries and frustration of a faun rejected by beauty (symbolized by nymphs). Debussy borrowed Mallarmé’s poetic method, evoking its themes through allusion rather than through direct statement. Nijinsky interpreted the music and narrative sexually (he never read the poem), and the entire ballet became a daring depiction of something previously unmentionable in the theater, let alone portrayed sensually in dance. Nijinsky’s version of L’Après-midi d’un faune was a choreographic tableau in one act influenced by Nijinsky’s knowledge of Greek and Egyptian vases and stone reliefs. It required more than one hundred rehearsals, although it was barely ten minutes long, and Nijinsky spent ninety of those sessions teaching his dancers (including his sister, Bronia) a new system of walking backward or forward in profile, on the heel, with slightly bended knees. The rehearsals cut into Fokine’s own rehearsals for three different ballets, and the difficult choreography upset dancer Ida Rubinstein, who turned down Nijinsky’s invitation to perform the part of the ballet’s principal nymph (although one of her motives was surely her desire not to ruin her friendship with Fokine, her teacher and an archenemy of Nijinsky). In telling the simple story of a boy-faun disturbed from his lazy reveries on a hot afternoon, Nijinsky choreographed explicit sexual images. After frightening away the seven nymphs, including the boldest one, who had engaged in some teasing byplay with him, the faun picked up the principal nymph’s fallen scarf, caressed it tenderly, and then thrust his body into it as if taking 978
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 possession of the nymph and orgasmically relieving his sexual frustration. Every element of the production worked—from Léon Bakst’s extraordinary speckled, striped decor, lush with russets, greens, and grays, to the nymphs’ costumes and Nijinsky’s own dancing as the half-animal, half-human creature. Nijinsky made his ballet represent the initial stirrings of sexual and emotional instinct and, consequently, made the work a metaphor for the first impulses of creation. He himself at the time was feeling the first awakenings of his own creativity, for now he was not merely an obedient servant of Fokine but a choreographer in his own right, wholly responsive to the possibilities of his art. The audience sat motionless throughout the work— even through Nijinsky’s suggestion of masturbation at the end—but as the curtain fell, a storm of both applause and disapproval broke out. Bravos rang out amid catcalls and whistles. Fights erupted in the audience. Diaghilev was visibly upset and so was Nijinsky, but as supporters shouted for an encore, Diaghilev ordered a reprise of the complete ballet, as if to appease Nijinsky and convince him that his work had earned more applause than rejection. Significance The immediate impact of the ballet was a scandal. Instead of running his regular dance critic’s review, Gaston Calmette, the powerful editor of Le Figaro, printed his own attack in a front-page editorial on May 30, 1912, condemning Nijinsky for his depiction of an “incontinent” faun of “eroticbestiality and gestures of heavy shamelessness.” Nijinsky’s choreography, it was claimed, was an affront to public morality. There was a political motive for Calmette’s action; in attacking the Ballets Russes, he was really targeting the FrancoRussian alliance, to which he was vehemently opposed. A rumor spread that the prefect of police would stop the next performance of the ballet, and it seemed the whole city of Paris was in an uproar. Diaghilev prevailed on Nijinsky to change the ballet’s last movement for at least the next few performances. The renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin, a septuagenarian, wrote an article that appeared on the editorial page of the newspaper Le Matin the day after Calmette’s furious denunciation; Rodin praised Nijinsky’s ability to use his body as an expression of his mind. Rodin was particularly impressed by Nijinsky’s attitudes—his bendings, stoopings, and crouchings, all done with nervous angularity and yet possessing the beauty of antique frescoes and statues. This sort of dancing—developing the free-
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Jerome Robbins, Roland Petit, and Maurice Béjart. Since its debut, L’Après-midi d’un faune has been danced by numerous virtuoso performers, including Léonide Massine, Serge Lifar, David Lichine, Igor Youskevitch, Leon Danielian, and Jean Babilée. It even inspired a Jerome Robbins version, first presented by the New York City Ballet on May 14, 1953, as a stripped down but fascinatingly suggestive pas de deux, set in a dance studio, depicting nascent love competing with narcissism. — Keith Garebian Further Reading Balanchine, George, and Francis Mason. Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. Presents the stories of more than four hundred ballets along with Balanchine’s personal thoughts on choreography, careers in ballet, ballet for children, and a brief history of ballet. Includes a chronology of outstanding dance events from 1469 to 1976. Descriptions include commentary by critics, choreographers, and composers. Features photographs, illustrated glossary, and notes. Buckle, Richard. Nijinsky. 1970. Reprint. London: Orion, 1998. Authoritative biography resulting from many years of painstaking research (including access to Nijinsky’s diary and conversations with people who knew and worked with him). Provides detailed and vivid descriptions of the significant ballets. Includes twenty-two line drawings and forty-eight pages of half-tone illustrations. Garafola, Lynn. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. A selection of essays and reviews by one of the most influential scholars of the history of dance. Covers the transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early twentieth century. Includes many photographs. _______, ed. The Ballets Russes and Its World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Collection of fourteen essays on the history and importance of the Ballets Russes by dance and music scholars and critics. Includes illustrations and bibliography. Kirstein, Lincoln. Movement and Metaphor: Four Centuries of Ballet. New York: Praeger, 1970. Surveys choreography, gesture, mime, music, costume, and decor as they developed in the West. Interprets fifty seminal ballets and looks at social, historical, and philosophical influences on dance. Includes more than four hundred illustrations. Nijinska, Bronislava. Nijinska: Early Memoirs. Edited and translated by Irina Nijinska and Jean Rawlinson. 979
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dom of instinct expressed earlier by Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan—was a “perfect personification of the ideals of the beauty of the old Greeks,” Rodin stated. Calmette immediately attacked Rodin as a scandalous exploiter of public funds, prompting eminent figures from the French artistic, literary, and political worlds to begin a campaign of support for Rodin. Many Parisians tried to attend a performance of Nijinsky’s ballet to judge for themselves who was right, the Faunists or the antiFaunists. The controversy thus created both a box-office bonanza and international notoriety for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The time and attention spent on Nijinsky infuriated Fokine, whose ballet Daphnis et Chloë (1912) was the last of the season and suffered in comparison with Nijinsky’s. Fokine first accused Nijinsky of stealing his choreography and then choreographed a mocking travesty of Nijinsky in Daphnis et Chloë. He also resigned from the Ballets Russes and joined the rival Mariinsky Theatre as first ballet master. Nijinsky’s choreography, however, transcended the politics of the dance world. To be sure, the Greek and Egyptian background influences were not unprecedented; Fokine, for example, had used Greek and Egyptian angularity since Eunice (1907). Nijinsky’s choreography, however, was radically different for several reasons. It made heavy walking a form of dance, with the walking not done strictly to the music and sometimes opposed to it. Nijinsky’s new technique meant that the dancer’s feet no longer turned out, as in the classical positions. Now the positions were reversed, and deliberately crude movements (once thought to be ugly and primitive) were made perfectly justifiable. The motion of dancers in straight lines and angles, in opposition to spirals and serpentine undulations, showed that any line or angle could be good in its proper place. Ballets had long had irrelevant decorations for a repertoire of steps, and Nijinsky, rebelling against beauty and grace for their own sake, treated dance as an absolute medium. Unlike Marius Petipa’s ballets, in which settings explained the dancing, Nijinsky’s ballet made setting, costuming, lighting, music, and choreography one complete whole—a total art form in which all the arts combined inseparably. The choreography of L’Après-midi d’un faune led to the composite sport movement of Nijinsky’s next work, Jeux (1913), a modern-dress ballet about flirting tennis players, and then, climactically, to Le Sacre du printemps (1913; The Rite of Spring), in which powerful, grotesque movements conveyed a startling interpretation of a Russian folk myth about renewal and sacrifice. Nijinsky was a precursor of such choreographers as
L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences
Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States 1981. Reprint. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992. Nijinsky’s sister provides interesting reminiscences of the Imperial Russian Ballet and Diaghilev’s seasons in Western Europe before 1914. Offers a picture of Nijinsky’s parents and reveals Nijinsky’s early life. Includes sixty-four pages of photographs.
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See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet.
June 4, 1912
Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States For the first time in the United States, employers’ obligation to provide a minimum “living wage” was established in law. Locale: Massachusetts Categories: Business and labor; social issues and reform; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Eugene N. Foss (1858-1939), governor of Massachusetts, 1911-1914 Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), president of the American Federation of Labor Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Summary of Event The idea of a minimum wage was gaining increasing support throughout the industrialized world by the late nineteenth century. Among English-speaking nations, New Zealand and Australia led the way; both passed minimum wage legislation in the 1890’s. In 1910, Great Britain followed the example of its offshoots and adopted a law patterned after the Australian legislation. The United States lagged far behind these nations in promoting a minimum wage. In fact, both the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) opposed minimum wage laws, albeit for completely different reasons. The NAM argued that all such legislation was a violation of the free market and would hurt the economy, whereas the AFL, led by Samuel Gompers, expressed fear that government intervention to set wages would lead working people into a situation of growing state control. Not all businesses or AFL unions opposed minimum wages. Some progressively minded businesspeople realized that their employees needed wages that would sup980
port a minimum standard of living if the workers were to be productive. They supported minimum wage proposals in the hope that the laws would force their more brutal competitors to raise wage levels. The union movement was likewise split. In California and New York, AFL-organized labor opposed minimum wage legislation as unwarranted government paternalism that would only weaken unions and hurt working people. In Washington State, on the other hand, the leaders of organized labor worked with advocates of minimum wage laws to get the reform passed. Splits took place even within single states, as in New York, where the Brooklyn Central Labor Union pushed for the minimum wage in spite of AFL opposition. Despite the lack of unified labor support and the opposition of much of the business world, the Women’s Trade Union League began to make minimum wage legislation a key demand, along with the eight-hour workday, beginning in 1909. In Massachusetts, a campaign for a minimum wage for female workers was organized in 1910 by the local branches of labor and social reform organizations as well as the Women’s Trade Union League. Violet Pike expressed the lot of the working women of that time tersely in her New World Lessons for Old World Peoples (1912): I go to work at eight o’clock. I work until six o’clock. I have only one-half hour for lunch. I work overtime in the busy season. I do not get extra pay for overtime work. I earn eight dollars a week in the busy season. I earn three or four dollars a week in the slow season. I have no work at all for three months. I pay for my needles and thread. I pay for my electric power. My trade is a bad trade.
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Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States that the human rights of male workers were completely ignored by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, whereas the Australian and New Zealand laws and the English Trade Boards Act of 1909 applied to workers of both sexes. In spite of the moderate nature of the proposed reform, representatives of the Massachusetts manufacturers, particularly those in the textile industry, opposed the bill vigorously. Their argument was that the increased labor costs the law would impose would make Massachusetts uncompetitive with other regions and nations. The labor rights gained would thus be an illusion, given that they would soon be replaced by unemployment. The employers’ logic was quickly rejected by most workers, who easily contrasted their poverty with the profits of those for whom they labored. It appeared a bitter struggle was going to take place, but that was avoided when the lone dissenting member of the original investigating commission came forth with a compromise proposal. He suggested changing the proposed minimum wage law from one that established legal wage rates based solely on human needs to one that considered the financial situations of industries. In the words of the compromise legislation, “the financial condition of the occupation and the probable effect thereon of any increase in the minimum wages paid” had to be taken into account. Of even greater immediate significance, the proposed compromise changed the original mandatory enforcement to a scheme whereby a commission would investigate employers for failing to pay minimum wages but could “punish” offending firms only by publishing their names in the newspapers. As the miserable living conditions of workers were largely already known, critics charged that this was of little value. In addition, critics noted that much of Massachusetts’s production was shipped outside the state, and thus consumers were unaware of the specific wage levels of particular manufacturers. Because labor candidates had made an excellent showing in the most recent state elections in Massachusetts, members of the legislature were eager to take some action to show the voters that they were “prolabor.” Still, they did not wish to offend the business community. The new nonmandatory minimum wage law suggestion was thus immediately supported by large numbers of state legislators. This blunted reform legislation was acceptable to, or at least tolerated by, the manufacturers, as it was expected to have little practical effect on their businesses. 981
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Numerous government studies, including those conducted by the New York State Factory Investigating Commission, proved that the vast majority of women were not working for “pin money.” Women worked for the same reason that men worked: to support their households. Of course, many young women married in hopes of escaping the factory. The evidence suggests that a large number of these women soon returned to industrial labor, as their husbands’ wages alone were insufficient to support their families. Not only were female workers subjected to wretched working conditions and even lower pay than their male counterparts, they also were less often able to fight successfully against management. Unionization levels for the eight million female workers in the United States remained fairly constant and low from 1900 to 1910, with gains being made only in certain textile factories, where less than 5 percent of female workers were unionized. Although the lot of the male worker was not significantly better, many labor activists and reformers believed that more public sympathy could be gained if a campaign began with a focus on the “fairer sex.” In addition, the opposition of the AFL, which was the major labor affiliation of male union members, made a campaign for a universal minimum wage law more difficult. Although the enactment of a minimum wage law was not seen as a cure-all, many thought it would be a good way to establish the principle that workers had the right to a living wage. In order to rally public support for their position, proponents of a minimum wage pressured the Massachusetts state legislature to establish a commission to investigate women’s wages in relation to the cost of living. In the spring of 1911, a newly created commission studied wages in laundries, candy factories, and retail stores. After collecting extensive evidence, the commission concluded that many workers in these industries could not meet even their most basic human needs on the low wages paid by their employers. As a result, four out of five commission members recommended that the Massachusetts legislature pass a minimum wage law. The fifth commission member agreed with the others in broad outline; he simply differed with them concerning specific provisions in the report. The legislation drafted was based largely on existing minimum wage laws in the industrial world, particularly in New Zealand and Australia. The proposed Massachusetts statute varied from the law passed in 1896 in the Australian state of Victoria in that the Massachusetts law applied only to women and minors. Critics thus noted
Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States On the other side, the reformers who had campaigned for minimum wage legislation believed that it was better to accept this compromise and at least establish the principle of a minimum wage in law than to have no law at all. As a result, the first minimum wage statute in the United States was signed into law by Governor Eugene N. Foss of Massachusetts on June 4, 1912. Significance Although the Massachusetts law remained largely unchanged, and ineffective, until 1933, it set a new principle that was to have a great impact on American society. In the year it was passed, the Massachusetts minimum wage law was influential in persuading Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party to add minimum wages for women and children as a plank in their 1912 presidential campaign platform. In 1913, the year following the enactment of the Massachusetts law, eight other states throughout the country passed minimum wage laws. Did these new laws actually help the workers they were designed to benefit? The answer to this question is not an easy one. The evidence suggests that the effectiveness of the laws varied widely from state to state. In many states, the minimum wage was set so low that the laws had no practical impact. Only in those states where the minimum was set high and strictly enforced, such as California, did there appear to be any clear benefit for the workers. Ironically, in Massachusetts, with its nonmandatory legislation, more than half the women in some industries still received less than the officially established minimum wage. One reason many labor organizations, including the American Federation of Labor, opposed the minimum wage laws was the fear that they might become maximum wage laws. Further, these organizations believed that the principle of promoting the notion of a “living wage” was not valuable enough to offset the danger that the government increasingly would step in and regulate industrial relations to the benefit of employers and to the detriment of labor. All the same, many advocates for labor saw the passage of the first minimum wage law in Massachusetts as the beginning of a new attitude in the United States. No longer were people content to allow wages to be determined completely by market forces. The concept of a minimum standard of living to which workers were entitled started to gain acceptance. The nineteenth century notion of property rights as sacred and above all other considerations in society was challenged by the idea of a living wage as a human right. In addition, the concept of government legislation to pro982
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tect the rights of workers was further enhanced when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld the minimum wage law in 1918. Several later labor reforms that recognized the human rights of employees were influenced by the principles put forth in Massachusetts in 1912, including the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established a federal minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor standards. — William A. Pelz Further Reading Brandeis, Elizabeth. “Labor Legislation.” In History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932, edited by John R. Commons et al. Vol. 3. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Although obviously dated, provides a wealth of detail, clearly presented. Features complete documentation, based mainly on primary sources. Includes bibliography and index. Douglas, Dorothy W. “American Minimum Wage Laws at Work.” American Economic Review 9 (Spring, 1919): 701-738. A useful survey of different state laws that places the Massachusetts statute in the context of its time. Allows the reader to see the relative effectiveness of minimum wage laws on the books in the United States by the end of World War I. Foner, Philip S. The AFL in the Progressive Era, 19001913. Vol. 5 in History of the Labor Movement in the United States. New York: International Publishers, 1979. Focuses on the role of the largest U.S. trade union federation and provides a heavily documented account of the American labor movement in the years before World War I. Includes bibliographic notes and index. _______. On the Eve of America’s Entrance into World War I, 1915-1916. Vol. 6 in History of the Labor Movement in the United States. New York: International Publishers, 1982. Challenges key parts of earlier interpretations of labor history in a very interesting and readable manner. Addresses various topics, such as the Women’s Trade Union League and the struggle for the eight-hour workday. Includes detailed references and index. Levin-Waldman, Oren M. The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Discusses the evolution of minimum wage policy and law in the United States, focusing on how the nature of arguments concerning a minimum wage has changed over time as the strength of organized labor has declined. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nordlund, Willis J. The Quest for a Living Wage: The History of the Federal Minimum Wage Program. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Traces the process through which the U.S. government attempted to develop a fair method of ensuring that workers receive a living wage. Discusses the theories behind minimum wage programs and gives an over-
Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery view of the first fifty years of the operation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index. See also: Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
June 7, 1912
Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery Responding to increasing international outcries and an apostolic visitor’s report on atrocities being committed against indigenous peoples in the isolated South American region known as Putumayo, Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Lacrimabili Statu to the bishops of several Latin American countries decrying the maltreatment and enslavement of the natives. Also known as: Lacrimabili Statu Locale: The Vatican, Rome, Italy; South America Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; human rights; social issues and reform; indigenous peoples’ rights; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 1835-1914), Roman Catholic pope, 1903-1914 Giovanni Genocchi (1860-1926), Italian missionary and papal agent Raphael Merry del Val (1865-1930), Vatican secretary of state, 1903-1914 Sir Roger Casement (1864-1916), British consul general
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Summary of Event In the 1820’s, every South American state except Brazil outlawed slavery and the slave trade; Brazil banned these in 1888. Such bans were repeated over the years in revisions to the countries’ various national constitutions and penal codes. By the early twentieth century, however, it had become clear that although these bans applied to slaves of African ancestry and trade with Africa, in some areas the enslavement and other forms of mistreatment of native peoples continued unabated. Also in the early twentieth century, the modern world’s demand for natural rubber, a resource of the vast Amazon River basin, was increasing at a tremendous rate, spurred in part by the rapid development and spread
of the automobile. Companies from Europe and elsewhere exploited the resource and the local native labor as well while local governments turned a blind eye. One region that was especially ill served was the ten thousand square miles of Putumayo, today a province of Colombia. Once the Jesuit reduction of Loreto (1610-c. 1767), in the early twentieth century it was a semiautonomous and undeveloped region bordered by Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The few Catholics in the area were under the jurisdiction of a Peruvian bishop, although there was little missionary or other Christian presence outside the ostensible capital, Iquitos. With neither a governmental nor an ecclesiastical presence in the region, the violence against natives went unchecked and largely unreported before 1909. The world was first informed of the atrocities being committed through an unofficial report from the region that was published in a London newspaper. Because British companies and citizens were implicated in the vile acts, the British foreign minister, Lord Grey, sent Sir Roger Casement with the portfolio of a consul general to investigate the claims. At about the same time, the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val, made inquiries of and eventually lodged protests with the government of Peru, a constitutionally Roman Catholic country. He noted the illegal existence of slavery and the practice of slave raiding (correria) and the severe, even mortal punishments meted out to escapees. The cardinal also complained of the rape and torture of women and children in the Putumayo region and the utter disinterest of local authorities in providing any religious missionary activity. In March, 1911, Casement and his commission reported to the British government, recommending that a Roman Catholic mission in the area would go far toward reducing the arbitrary violence. In May and June, the apostolic delegates from the countries of Peru, Bolivia, Co-
Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery
LACRIMABILI STATU In Lacrimabili Statu, Pius X acknowledged the horrors of slavery, but he also argued that Latin America’s climate helped foster corruption: Being greatly moved by the deplorable condition of the Indians in Lower America, our illustrious predecessor Benedict XIV pleaded their cause, as you are aware, in most weighty words, in his letter Immensa Pastorum, given on December 22, 1741; and since we also have to deplore in many places almost the same things that he then lamented, we most earnestly recall those letters of his to your memory. For therein, among other things, Pope Benedict complained that although the Apostolic See had done much, and for a long time, to relieve their afflicted fortunes, there were even the “men of the orthodox faith who, as if they had utterly forgotten all sense of the charity poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, presumed to reduce the wretched Indians, without the light of faith, and even those who had been washed in the laver of regeneration, to servitude, or to sell them as slaves to others, or to deprive them of their property, and to treat them with such inhumanity that they were thus greatly hindered from embracing the Christian faith, and most strongly moved to regard it with abhorrence.” It is true that soon afterwards the worst of these indignities—that is to say, slavery, properly so called—was, by the goodness of the merciful God, abolished; and to this public abolition of slavery in Brazil and in other regions the excellent men who governed those Republics were greatly moved and encouraged by the maternal care and insistence of the Church. And we gladly acknowledge that if it had not been for many and great obstacles that stood in the way, their plans would have had far greater success. Nevertheless, though much has thus been done for the Indians, there is much more that still remains to be done. And, indeed, when we consider the crimes and outrages still committed against them, our heart is filled with horror, and we are moved to great compassion for its most unhappy race. For what can be so cruel and so barbarous as to scourge men and brand them with hot iron, often for most trivial causes, often for a mere lust of cruelty; or, having suddenly overthrown them, to slay hundreds or thousands in one unceasing massacre; or to waste villages and districts and slaughter the inhabitants, so that some tribes, as we understand, have become extinct in these last few years? The lust of lucre has done much to make the minds of men so barbarous. But something also is due to the nature of the climate and the situation of these regions. For, as these places are subjected to burning southern sun, which casts a languor into the veins and as it were, destroys the vigor of virtue, and as they are far removed from the habits of religion and the vigilance of the State, and in a measure even from civil society, it easily comes to pass that those who have not already come there with evil morals soon begin to be corrupted, and then, when all bonds of right and duty are broken, they fall away into all hateful vices. Nor in this do they take any pity on the weakness of sex or age, so that we are ashamed to mention the crimes and outrages they commit in seeking out and selling women and children, wherein it may be truly said that they have surpassed the worst examples of pagan iniquity. Source: Pope Pius X, Lacrimabili Statu, Encyclical of Pope Pius X on the Indians of South America to the Archbishops and Bishops of Latin America. Given at St. Peter’s, Rome, on June 7, 1912.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico received a circular letter, or encyclical, from Pope Pius X demanding full reports from their countries on the mistreatment and enslavement of natives and on the accomplishments of local missions in curbing atrocities. On July 6, Merry del Val formally charged an apostolic visitor with carrying out a full inspection tour of the problematic areas and reporting back to the pope. The man chosen was Father Giovanni Genocchi, an Italian scholar and missionary with experience in Syria, Turkey, and New Guinea. Genocchi was charged with preparing a full firsthand report on the nature and extent of violence against indigenous peoples in northern South America and with laying the groundwork for formal ecclesiastical organization of Putumayo and provision for missions to the region. From the pope’s point of view, the lack of evangelization was as bad as—or perhaps worse than—the physical maltreatment of the natives. Even so, Pius was acting in accordance with a long history of papal pronouncements against slavery and the slave trade. His doctrines, and those of his predecessor Leo XIII, had emphasized the rights of laborers to enter freely and equitably into contractual arrangements with employers, which of course delegitimated slavery. During his first year in office, Pius had stated that employers owed fair wages and decent working conditions to their employees. Leo had sternly condemned slavery in his In plurimus encyclical of 1888, but he also warned against rash emancipation programs that might disrupt or even destroy the civil state. Neither pope believed in the kind of strict egalitarianism being promoted by socialists and communists, and both saw economic, social, and political inequalities among peoples as natural and part of the divine order. Nonetheless, as Pius expressed in his E supremi apostolatus of October 4, 1903, this natural state was to be meliorated by Christian charity, and no person had a
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Significance Shortly after the encyclical’s publication, Roger Casement’s two reports were published as official “blue books” of the British government. In an article headlined “The Putumayo Atrocities,” which ran on July 15, 1912, The Times of London echoed Casement’s recommendation that a Roman Catholic mission be established and supported by public subscription. The initial mission consisted of four Irish Franciscans. The papal initiative received support in England until Protestant leaders began asking publicly why they should be shut out. (In fact, Peruvian law forbade non-Catholic proselytizing.) For their part, the Peruvians were very defensive about the harsh light that was being shone on their defects. They complained about having British subjects serve the area, suggesting that the missionaries should at least be Spanish. As the Vatican secretary of state pointed out in a letter of November 24, 1912, the encyclical was only the first step in regularizing the Church’s presence in Putumayo and in utilizing the Church’s resources to protect the Indians from maltreatment. Merry del Val, on the advice of Genocchi, decided to locate the center of the new mission at La Chorrera and drew up plans to establish the town as the center of a new diocese. —Joseph P. Byrne Further Reading Camp, Richard L. Papal Ideology of Social Reform. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1969. Does not address the Lacrimabili Statu encyclical directly, but discusses the broader context of papal social teaching from Leo XIII to Paul VI. Chiron, Yves. Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church. Kansas City, Mo.: Angelus Press, 2002. One of the fullest modern accounts in English of the life and encyclicals of Pius X. Turvasi, Francesco. Giovanni Genocchi and the Indians of South America, 1911-1913. Rome: Editore Pontificia Gregoriana Universitá, 1988. Provides an excellent overview of the origins and aftermath of the Lacrimabili Statu encyclical. See also: Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism.
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right to oppress, let alone own, another. Genocchi arrived in Buenos Aires and proceeded to Lima, Peru, sending his first reports back to Merry del Val on October 6. He arrived in Iquitos on December 23, in the midst of an outbreak of yellow fever, and left a month later. He proceeded through parts of the Amazon basin and then sailed for Europe in March, arriving in Rome on April 4, 1912. During his travels he read extensively on the history of Latin America and on slavery, interviewed both civil and ecclesiastical authorities, talked informally with locals, and took reports of violence, enslavement, and other forms of maltreatment. He forwarded reports to Merry del Val at various points and prepared a summary for the pope, who received him on April 26. Genocchi’s immediate tasks were to prepare for the reorganization and evangelization of the Putumayo region, with an eye toward creating a new diocese under a Peruvian bishop. Meanwhile, Pius was having an encyclical letter prepared for the bishops of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, to be circulated throughout South America. Genocchi’s report informed this new pronouncement, but it is not clear whether the priest had a direct role in its drafting. Although the new encyclical was finished by the end of May, it was dated June 7, 1912, at which time it was sent to the apostolic delegates in the respective countries to distribute to the bishops. It was formally published on June 26, after the bishops had received their copies. Known by its opening words, Lacrimabili Statu began by recalling the formal condemnation by Pope Benedict XIV (in 1741) of the mistreatment of Native Americans and the history of the abolition of slavery in the South American republics. It went on to remind the bishops that much remained to be done on the native peoples’ behalf, citing some of the atrocities that had been reported. The civil governments, the encyclical noted, were trying to address the problems, but they needed the assistance of the Church. The bishops were urged to do all in their power to educate and otherwise provide resources for the evangelization of the isolated regions and to condemn and decry the “base deeds” of the oppressors. Before concluding, the encyclical also announced the new missionary initiative from Rome and stated the pope’s wish that all of the bishops would cooperate.
Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery
Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 10, 1912
Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand During and after World War I, Ireland native William Ferguson Massey was able to mobilize New Zealanders across the political spectrum by espousing Reform Party ideas and attitudes that avoided alienating both the British government and Massey’s most liberal opponents. Locale: New Zealand Category: Government and politics Key Figures William Ferguson Massey (1856-1925), prime minister of New Zealand, 1912-1925 Joseph Gordon Coates (1878-1943), Massey’s lieutenant and occasional rival within the Reform Party and his eventual successor as prime minister Francis Bell (1851-1936), attorney general in the Massey cabinet and Massey’s interim successor Harry Holland (1868-1933), Labour Party leader and principal left-wing opponent of Massey Bob Semple (1873-1955), union activist who supported the 1913 general strike Summary of Event William Ferguson Massey was born in Northern Ireland to Presbyterian parents. His family emigrated to New Zealand in his early adolescence, settling in the North Island, near Auckland. In the 1890’s, Massey became active in rural farmers’ associations that opposed the urbancentered Liberal Party, which dominated New Zealand politics under the leadership of Richard John Seddon. There was little organized political opposition to the Liberals at that time; Conservative forces had fissured after the retirement of the charismatic Julius Vogel. The Conservative Party that Massey helped organize was the heir to Vogel’s politics, although it adhered to a less strict version of Vogel’s free market doctrine and took a more prudent approach to fiscal matters, eschewing Vogel’s emphasis on heavy borrowing. Massey’s efforts were beginning to gain momentum when the Boer War led to a patriotic rallying around existing authorities, increasing the popularity of the Liberal government. Massey reorganized the Conservative forces during the latter part of the decade of the 1900’s, rebaptizing the party as the Reform Party in order to take advantage of public concern about allegations of Liberal corruption. By 1912, the Liberals had been in office for two decades, and the electorate was ready for an alterna986
tive. A Reform government, led by Massey, was elected in 1912. Despite Massey’s rural background and his image as an advocate for less sophisticated, rural New Zealanders, many members of his cabinet were welleducated urbanites. Massey immediately faced a huge labor crisis. The Waihi strike, already in progress when Massey assumed office, had erupted when owners of a gold mining complex endorsed the formation of a union that rivaled the existing one, an action that the miners saw as evidence of the owners’ wish to dilute miners’ power. By the end of 1912, the mine owners, frustrated by the ongoing strike, decided to reopen the mines using replacement workers. In November, some of the replacement workers attacked one of the striking miners’ strongholds, killing Fred Evans, one of the strikers’ prominent leaders. Another charismatic leader, Bob Semple, angry that the Massey government seemed to regard itself more as an ally of the employers than as a mediator, rallied New Zealand workers around the Waihi cause. Semple did not wish for widespread social unrest, however, and he adopted a conciliatory tone toward the government. Many of the future leaders of New Zealand’s Labour Party, such as Harry Holland and Michael Joseph Savage, first emerged on the public scene with this strike. The following year, waterfront strikes erupted in Auckland and exploded onto the national scene. New Zealand might have begun a streak of social crises in the 1910’s were it not for the outbreak of World War I. New Zealand emerged as a key supplier of personnel to Britain in the European front, although an oftenforgotten front existed much closer to home. Germany’s colonial holdings in Nauru, half of Samoa, parts of New Guinea, and the Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana Islands meant that World War I also had a Pacific dimension. War was declared between Britain and Germany on August 4, 1914, and on August 25 an expeditionary force from New Zealand occupied the German holdings in Samoa and was met with no resistance. The next year, New Zealand troops had a far more traumatic experience in the Gallipoli Campaign. British commanders had hoped to capture Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, but the campaign failed and thousands of New Zealanders died. The Gallipoli Campaign created a national icon: the New Zealand soldier as a Kiwi fighting man. On the home front, Massey proved a less divisive fig-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ure than might have been predicted. Although he was Northern Irish Protestant, and although he strongly disagreed with the groups (most of which were Irish Catholic) who resisted conscription of troops for the war effort, Massey did not come across as a sectarian extremist. He broadened his government to include figures in the Liberal opposition, such as Joseph Ward. Massey was popular with New Zealand’s troops, although this created more controversy than might have been expected: Often, any solidarity with the troops was seen as criticism of the official patriotic establishment, which saw any criticism of the war as an affront to British patriotism. Massey did not use the war to increase his country’s international profile, however. Instead, he preferred to stress the identity of New Zealanders as loyal, if geographically remote, Britons. As important as Massey’s coalition with the Liberals was in promoting wartime unity, in a sense it succeeded all too well. The public’s sense of the Liberals as an opposition party was eroded, and the main organ of opposition on the political left became the Labour Party, now headed by Harry Holland and many of Massey’s old antagonists from the time of the Waihi strike. Massey’s government continued to win electoral mandates, but its margin was reduced. In addition, some of Massey’s lieutenants, such as Joseph Gordon Coates, became restive and yearned for a chance to hold executive power. Massey’s attorney general, Francis Bell, was also frustrated: He thought that Massey’s economic policies were overly moderate and not geared enough toward the business community. In 1919, Massey followed the example set by his British counterpart, David Lloyd George, by calling a “khaki election,” trying to take advantage of the momentum lent by the successful completion of World War I. His efforts were successful, and the election gave Massey’s administration renewed life, especially as the power he acquired allowed him to govern without the Liberals for the final six years of his tenure. Massey’s popularity remained intact—his great political gift was that he did not deeply alienate even his fiercest opponents—but few new initiatives came from the government until Massey’s death in 1925.
Zealand under Massey did not treat the war as a rite of passage into an emergent sovereign status. Canada, for instance, was far more enthusiastic about joining the postwar League of Nations than was New Zealand, even though New Zealand had been asked to hold a League of Nations mandate over conquered German Samoa. Massey’s devotion to Britain was so intense that he saw any separate role for New Zealand in foreign policy as inappropriate. This meant that the Reform Party was ultimately unable to tap into New Zealand’s growing nationalism. Indeed, the Reform Party did not long outlast Massey’s career. Although its outlook was fundamentally conservative, Reform could never be a Tory party in the British or even Canadian sense because it lacked not only a landed aristocracy but also a traditionalist philosophy to buttress its policies. Furthermore, Massey’s base— which consisted of agricultural landholders—did not grow in the ensuing decades. Both Reform and Liberal Parties were opposed to Labour’s socialist policies, but the Great Depression’s economic pressures made La-
1912
Significance Like Robert Laird Borden in Canada and William Morris Hughes in Australia, Massey was a wartime leader and saw his country emerge on the horizons of world awareness through the sacrifices made by its troops in World War I. Unlike Australia and Canada, however, New
Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand
William Ferguson Massey. (Library of Congress)
987
Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy bour very popular. As a result, despite Massey’s status as New Zealand political colossus, he left no long-term institutional heritage. Still, the Massey era did establish the tradition of an alternation of power between the political right and the left in New Zealand. —Nicholas Birns Further Reading Bassett, Michael. The State in New Zealand: Socialism Without Doctrines. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1998. Argues that Massey’s free market rhetoric and practical economic policies became more interventionist during the course of his tenure in office. Belich, James. Paradise Reforged. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Argues that Massey was a “British Israelite” who believed that the British were the chosen people and that New Zealand’s future was indelibly entwined with Britain’s. King, Michael. The Penguin History of New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books, 2003. Pro-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vides ample discussion of Massey’s British orientation toward issues of foreign policy and cultural identity. Mein-Smith, Phillippa. A Concise History of New Zealand. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Points out that Massey, a Protestant, was not bigoted against Catholics; also provides good general background on New Zealand’s role in World War I. Oliver, W. H., ed. The Oxford History of New Zealand. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. One of the most detailed accounts of the politics of the Massey era available in book form. See also: Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed; June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society; 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; Nov. 27, 1935: New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration.
August, 1912
Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy Mack Sennett founded Keystone Studios in a rural Southern California community soon to be known as Hollywood, where he assembled and trained a group of comedians in a frenetic style of comedy known as slapstick. Locale: Hollywood, California Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Mack Sennett (1880-1960), Canadian vaudeville performer and film studio chief Mabel Normand (1892-1930), American film actor Ford Sterling (1883-1939), American film actor Charles Chaplin (1889-1977), English music-hall performer and film actor Roscoe Arbuckle (1887-1933), American vaudeville performer and film actor Harry Langdon (1884-1944), American film actor Summary of Event After serving a four-year apprenticeship at New York’s Biograph Studios, where he acted in, wrote, and directed short films under the guidance of D. W. Griffith, Canadian-born Mack Sennett broke with Biograph and 988
founded Keystone Studios in August, 1912. Sennett had followed Griffith to Southern California when Griffith moved his faithful troupe of actors and technicians west from Biograph’s New York studios in January of that year. When he left Biograph, Sennett took with him three of his own faithful followers: his girlfriend, Mabel Normand, who became the first great female comic actor of the silent screen; comedian Ford Sterling, who became Keystone’s first comic screen villain; and technician Henry “Pathe” Lehrman, who became one of Sennett’s early comedy directors. While at Biograph, Sennett had learned valuable lessons in cinematic technique from Griffith, especially in the pacing of one- and two-reel films. Sennett had learned to build suspense and excitement by increasing the frenetic intensity of a film’s action with the use of quick-cut editing, leading to a spectacular, emotionally intense finale. He realized that by burlesquing Griffith’s morally simplistic, melodramatic story lines with exaggerated, melodramatic plots of his own and by peppering his stories with wildly kinetic, roughhouse brawling and spectacular stunts, he could produce a type of film that used Griffith’s commercially successful and cinematically innovative dramatic style for comedic effect. At
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Arbuckle’s nephew and Arbuckle’s dog on the payroll. Over the next several years, Sennett also gave other struggling newcomers their first big breaks in films, including such talented individuals as Chester Conklin, Ben Turpin, Slim Summerville, Charley Chase, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Beery, and Carole Lombard. Significance While insisting that each Keystone film adhere to his formulaic, slapstick approach to comedy, Sennett also encouraged the cast members and crews on his films to invent and improvise the most outrageously creative variations to his basic approach. It was because of his tolerance for the bizarre and the spontaneous that Sennett and his troupe were able to develop such pioneering slapstick ingredients as the pie-throwing melee, the bumbling Keystone Kops, the Kewpie doll-like bathing beauties, the use of wildly surreal, cartoonish action sequences, and the use of nonstudio locales and actual events (including fires, parades, and amusement parks) as settings for his comedies. Sennett was also the first to produce feature-length comedies, the first of which, the hugely successful melodramatic burlesque Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), featured nearly every comic he had working for him at the time. Later, after Sennett had joined with D. W. Griffith and producer Thomas Ince to form Triangle Studios, Sennett produced features starring Mabel Normand that included Mickey (1918), Molly O’ (1922), The Extra Girl (1923), and Suzanna (1923)—all of them box-office successes. When Griffith eventually left Triangle, Sennett founded Mack Sennett Studios and continued producing two-reelers and features films into the late 1920’s. Sennett was a savvy, extremely cost-conscious businessman. At the peak of his popularity, his studio churned out, on the average, one two-reel comedy per week. When the public demand for his comedies exceeded his output, Sennett met the demand by reediting his films—taking, for example, the first reel of one film, combining it with the climax from another film, and releasing the hybrid version under a new title as a new tworeeler. As a result of Sennett’s phenomenal success as a pioneer of screen comedy, his style was heavily imitated. Some of his fiercest comedy competitors were his own former employees: Lehrman and Sterling left Keystone to form their own company, which produced copycat comedies that proved to be nearly as popular as Sennett’s. Hal Roach, along with another former Keystone employee, Harold Lloyd, founded Hal Roach Studios 989
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that time, no film studio was specializing in comedies. Sennett was aware of the major film studios’ reluctance to indulge in comedy; by forming Keystone, he hoped to cash in by filling this void. Sennett’s estimation that a wide untapped audience existed that would support his venture into screen comedy proved to be accurate. Although his first one-reel comedies were quite primitive—filled with hackneyed plots borrowed from melodramas, lowbrow comedy routines borrowed from burlesque, and horribly exaggerated, hammy acting by all cast members—they were amazingly successful. In his later films the production values improved and the acting became slightly less exaggerated, but the content remained basically the same: wild, chaotic comedy exploits with surreal, out-ofcontrol action sequences delivered at a frenetic pace that increased in intensity as the films careened to their spectacularly frenetic finales. The typical plot of a Keystone comedy revolved around a simple boy-girl relationship, with a rivalry for the girl’s affections leading to all sorts of madcap confrontations, with the mayhem escalating in intensity as the film progressed. The climax of each film usually involved a wild chase, with legions of figures racing across the screen until the rival was defeated or a penultimate stunt was executed. Sennett himself directed many of the comedies and even appeared in several of them, usually in minor roles playing dim-witted rubes. He was not personally involved in every film’s production, but he screened, critiqued, and edited nearly every film produced at Keystone in order to ensure that his comedic formula was well maintained. In addition to developing a strongly personal approach to screen comedy, Sennett had a knack for spotting new talent. Mabel Normand, his sweetheart from Biograph, with her fearless approach to staging deathdefying stunts, her expressive range of emotions, and her creative exuberance, developed into one of the most gifted female comic screen actors of all time. When Sennett saw Charles Chaplin playing a drunk on a vaudeville stage, he signed the actor to an exclusive film contract, even though Chaplin had no training in film comedy. When Sennett spotted Harry Langdon in a vaudeville troupe, he believed so strongly in Langdon’s potential that he assigned two of his best writers—Frank Capra and Harry Edwards—to work exclusively with Langdon. At first reluctant to sign Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Sennett eventually gave Arbuckle near-total creative control over his films, letting him direct as well as star in his own two-reelers and eventually putting both
Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy
Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy and applied many of the Sennett techniques to his comedies, encouraging Lloyd to develop a Chaplin-inspired character called Lonesome Luke. Ironically, the amazing stunts and frenetic pacing found in Sennett’s comedies were eventually adapted for many dramatic films produced during Sennett’s heyday. At the same time Sennett was encouraging his employees to develop unique variations on his proven approach to screen comedy, however, he was also discouraging individuals who veered away from this approach. Sennett had some of the greatest film talents of all time working for him, and all eventually left because of his stifling insistence on adherence to his comedic philosophy (and his insistence on paying his talented employees as little as possible). Although he became known as the “King of Comedy,” a more accurate title for Sennett would perhaps have been the “Carpenter of Comedy,” a phrase used by film historian Walter Kerr to describe Sennett’s contributions. Still, it is impossible to dismiss Sennett’s influence, not only on early silent comedy but on sound comedy as well. The classic screwball comedies of the 1930’s, the slapstick routines of such roughhouse comedians as Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers, comedy extravaganzas such as Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) and Blake Edwards’s The Great Race (1965), and the films of such disparate talents as Preston Sturges, Jerry Lewis, and Mel Brooks all owe a debt to Sennett. Sennett himself continued to produce successful comedies and to develop—and then alienate—talented film newcomers well into the early days of sound films, encouraging such performers as W. C. Fields and Bing Crosby to apply their talents to film. After merging his studio with Paramount in the 1920’s, Sennett was wiped out financially by the stock market crash of 1929. He subsequently became a producer and director at Educational Pictures, a studio known for hiring Hollywood has-beens. In 1939, he appeared as himself and acted as technical adviser (along with Buster Keaton, the only major silent-film comedian Sennett did not discover) for the film Hollywood Cavalcade (directed by Irving Cummings), which was based loosely on Sennett’s experiences as a pioneer comedy producer and on his relationship with Normand. Sennett’s style has been called primitive, vulgar, lowbrow, crude, and chaotic. He has been called a pennypinching tyrant and criticized for refusing to recognize the individual talents of the many creative people who worked for him, forcing them to adapt to his own formu990
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 laic style or face expulsion. Sennett, however, can never be faulted for his bold decision to leave the most prestigious film studio of the early twentieth century, Biograph, headed by the most innovative American filmmaker of the period, D. W. Griffith, to found a film studio dedicated to producing comedies. It was a venture that his contemporaries viewed as insane and doomed to fail, but it provided the birthplace of a new type of screen comedy and the training ground for some of the greatest film talents of all time. —Jim Kline Further Reading Fowler, Gene. Father Goose. New York: Covici, Friede, 1934. Largely anecdotal biography of Sennett discusses his life and career in a very informal, humorous style. Fun to read, but should not be taken as a factual account of Sennett’s life. Fussell, Betty Harper. Mabel. 1982. Reprint. Pompton Plains, N.J.: Limelight, 1992. Biography of Normand—Sennett’s on-again, off-again girlfriend— contains many details of her stormy relationship with Sennett as well as in-depth descriptions of the founding of Keystone Studios. Kerr, Walter. The Silent Clowns. 1975. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1990. An excellent examination of silent-film comedy, with an emphasis on the comedic contributions of Chaplin, Keaton, Langdon, and Lloyd, all of whom—with the exception of Keaton—worked for Sennett at some point during their early screen careers. Also presents a somewhat unflattering critique of Sennett’s slapstick approach to screen comedy. Lahue, Kalton C. Mack Sennett’s Keystone: The Man, the Myth, and the Comedies. South Brunswick, N.J.: A. S. Barnes, 1971. Provides a detailed overview of Sennett’s life: how he founded Keystone, his contributions to film comedy, and the many talented individuals who worked for him. Louvish, Simon. Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett. Winchester, Mass.: Faber & Faber, 2003. Discusses both Sennett’s life and the lives and careers of many of the performers who worked for Keystone Studios. Uses scripts and other documents to place Sennett’s career in the context of its time at the beginnings of the motion-picture industry. Includes illustrations, chronology, bibliography, and indexes. Pratt, George C., ed. Spellbound in Darkness: A History of the Silent Film. Rev. ed. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973. A compilation of articles, re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 views, and profiles written during the silent-film period. Gives a detailed history of silent film from its inception to the advent of sound. Contains several reviews of Sennett-produced films plus a lengthy interview with Sennett conducted by novelist Theodore Dreiser, who was a big fan of Sennett’s work. Robinson, David. From Peepshow to Palace: Birth of American Film. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Provides an overview of the history of American film between 1893 and 1913. Includes 175 black-and-white and 16 color illustrations. Sennett, Mack, with Cameron Shipp. King of Comedy. 1954. Reprint. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1990. Shipp, a journalist, interviewed Sennett over a twoyear period and also interviewed many of Sennett’s former employees. The result is a wonderful, al-
U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua though not strictly factual, account from Sennett’s point of view of his struggles to found his own film studio, his dealings with some of the famous talents he helped to discover, and his relationship with Mabel Normand. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush; Dec., 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released.
August 4-November, 1912
U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua After three years of domestic turmoil and civil war in Nicaragua, U.S. Marines entered the country to protect a government sympathetic to U.S. interests. Locale: Nicaragua Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event In October, 1909, revolution erupted in the Republic of Nicaragua. The rebels, led by Juan José Estrada and based in the Atlantic port city of Bluefields, sought to overthrow President José Santos Zelaya, who had ruled Nicaragua since 1893. These anti-Zelayist rebels sought and received aid from the U.S. government. The revolt, in its various phases, would continue until U.S. troops intervened in 1912. The United States had long hoped for Zelaya’s downfall. For years, Zelaya had sought to unite all of Central America under one government—his—and to free Central America from control by foreign powers, particularly the United States. Such ambitions were increasingly unacceptable to U.S. policy makers. The Venezuelan boundary dispute, the defeat of Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American War, the taking of the Panama Canal 991
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Key Figures Adolfo Díaz (1874-1964), vice president and later president of Nicaragua, 1913-1917 Luis Mena (fl. early twentieth century), Nicaraguan secretary of war George T. Weitzel (1873-1936), U.S. minister to Nicaragua Benjamín F. Zeledón (1879-1912), Nicaraguan general who led the Liberal forces in the 1912 rebellion Philander C. Knox (1853-1921), U.S. secretary of state Smedley Butler (1881-1940), U.S. Marine Corps major José Santos Zelaya (1853-1919), nationalist dictator of Nicaragua, 1893-1909, who troubled the United States Juan José Estrada (1871-1947), Nicaraguan general and figurehead leader of the 1909 revolt that overthrew Zelaya Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934), legendary Nicaraguan guerrilla leader whom the U.S. Marines were never able to catch
Anastasio Somoza García (1896-1956), dictator of Nicaragua, 1937-1956, who ordered Sandino’s assassination Luis Somoza Debayle (1922-1967), son of Somoza García who became president, 1956-1963, upon his father’s assassination Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925-1980), son of Somoza García who, as head of the national guard and as dictator, 1967-1979, was probably the most brutal of the Somoza rulers
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as a Zelayista puppet and was refused U.S. recognition. The civil war continued, and President Madriz’s forces dominated. In May and June, 1910, to forestall Estrada’s complete collapse, the U.S. government landed troops at Bluefields and saved the revolt. By early August, with his forces now on the offensive and backed by U.S. Marines, Estrada turned the tide. In August, Madriz resigned, realizing that the U.S. government had, with its Marines, given de facto recognition to Estrada’s government. Knox’s and the U.S. government’s vision of regional hegemony now came into focus. Guided by a special envoy, Thomas C. Dawson, agreements were signed in 1910 stating that the new Nicaraguan government would name Estrada as president and Adolfo Díaz, a Conservative leader, as vice president; that a mixed claims commission would be created to sort out all unsettled foreign claims against Nicaragua; and that a customs-guaranteed loan from the United States would be arranged. This loan would show Knox’s “dollar diplomacy” in action—U.S. dollars would replace bullets to ensure stability, simultaneously undermining European financial influence in the region. Although supported by the U.S. government, Estrada’s grip on power proved tenuous. He was thought to be too dependent on the United States, and his Liberal Party connections antagonized his Conservative cohorts, especially Secretary of War Luis Mena. Amid rumors of revolt, Estrada resigned in May, 1911, replaced by Conservative vice president Díaz. Díaz proved a more enduring U.S. client than Estrada. By mid-1911, Díaz’s government had completed negotiations on the U.S. loan discussed the previous year. The loan treaty was passed by the Nicaraguan Assembly but stalled in the U.S. Senate. Knox, undeterred, arranged for private banking firms in New York City—Speyer and Company, Brown Brothers, and J. and W. Seligman—to go ahead with a new loan. They arranged to lend Nicaragua one million dollars, with repayment guaranteed through customhouse receipts. This and other loans helped secure, for the U.S. bankers, a 51 percent controlling interest in Nicaragua’s new state bank and 51 percent of the state railway. These arrangements, Nicaraguans line up on a dock, waiting for U.S. Marines to arrive. (Library of in conjunction with the naming of U.S. colCongress) onel Clifford D. Ham as collector of cuszone, and recent economic investments in the Caribbean region indicated the growing commitment of the United States to regional hegemony. By 1909, Zelaya’s attempt to interest Great Britain and Japan in a new Nicaraguan canal (which would rival the one being built in Panama), his attempt at a loan of several hundred million pounds from a British syndicate, and his country’s invasion of Honduras in 1907 had so challenged the emerging U.S. hegemony that American policy makers welcomed any anti-Zelayist initiative. Initially, Estrada’s revolt seemed promising. To the confusion of State Department officials, however, the Nicaraguan revolt became a quagmire. From 1909 to 1912, the U.S. government vacillated among promises of financial aid, diplomatic pressure, and the use of U.S. troops in a search for a stable non-Zelaya government. Estrada’s revolt had the backing of the North American business community in the area and the support of the U.S. consul in Bluefields, Thomas Moffat. When the rebels set up a rival government and asked for diplomatic recognition, however, American secretary of state Philander C. Knox demurred. Within two months, the United States had severed diplomatic relations with Zelaya’s government, prompting his resignation. José Madriz, who succeeded Zelaya, was seen merely
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attacked them. Mena’s forces were driven back, and the U.S. minister, President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said of Anastasio Somoza García, George T. Weitzel, met Mena and in“Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” The United duced him to resign as secretary of States’ blind-eye policy allowed Somoza to make a fiefdom out of Nicaragua. war. Mena then fled Managua, set He once bragged, “It will cost 40,000 lives to drive us from power.” In addition up a rival government, and entered to military force, he accumulated the following property and businesses: into open rebellion. Zelaya’s former minister of war, Benjamín Zeledón, • Private sale of cattle to Panama as well as other Liberals, joined in. • Clandestine sale of cattle to Costa Rica Within days, the Díaz government • Monopoly on the distribution of tallow tottered. • Ownership of the San Albino gold mine • A $175,000 annual income from an “additional contribution” of 2.25 perFollowing requests for protection cent of the production of North American mining companies from U.S. and other foreign nation• Ownership of fifty-one cattle ranches als, and upset by Mena’s capturing • Ownership of forty-six coffee plantations of lake steamers (technically owned • Ownership of the Montelimar ranch by U.S. bankers), Minister Weitzel • Ownership of 50 percent of the shares of the Nicaraguan cement factory demanded that Díaz protect U.S. lives • Ownership of 41 percent of the shares of the cotton mill of the Salvadoran and property. He could not. Instead, magnate Gadala María Díaz requested U.S. intervention. On • Ownership of 50 percent of the shares of the Momotombo National Match the afternoon of August 4, 1912, one Company hundred bluejackets from the USS • Ownership of the newspaper Novedades Annapolis landed at Corinto and pro• Ownership of most of the nation’s saw mills • Ownership of the buildings that housed the Nicaraguan legations in Mexico ceeded to Managua, temporarily seand Costa Rica curing control of the city. This land• Ownership of various apartment houses in Miami ing constituted the first U.S. military • Ownership of the electrical plants in Chinandega, Tipitapa, Jinotega, Estelí, intervention in the region to prevent and La Libertad a revolution from succeeding. Weit• Ownership of the Las Mercedes property adjoining the Managua airport zel, understanding that one hundred Source: Data from Claribel Alegría and Darwin Flakoll, Death of Somoza sailors represented only a stop-gap (Willimatic, Conn.: Curbstone, 1996). measure, requested additional support. On August 5, the USS Tacoma landed its Marines in Bluefields “to protect the Atlantic coast.” On Automs in Nicaragua in 1912, committed the United States gust 14, Major Smedley Butler’s battalion of 361 Marines to Nicaraguan political stability. from Panama reached Managua, finding a city reeling However, dollar diplomacy did not reap much stabilfrom three days of rebel bombardment. By early Septemity. By the spring of 1912, Managua had become ember, more than 1,000 U.S. Marines were committed to broiled in political intrigue, as Liberal Zelayists, ambiNicaragua. The number would peak at some 2,700. tious Conservative leaders, and nationalist politicians Nicaragua’s neighbors, El Salvador and Costa Rica, plotted insurrection, accusing Díaz of submitting to U.S. protested U.S. military intervention, sensing that their interests. General Mena, secretary of war, proved the own independence was jeopardized. The newly created most determined. In early 1912, Mena, in control of the Central American Court, established with Theodore army and with widespread political support, had himself Roosevelt’s support in 1907-1908 in an effort to bring elected president for the term beginning in January, law and order to the region, also condemned U.S. mili1913. Knox declared such action to be in violation of the tary intervention. The United States ignored the court’s 1910 Dawson agreements. Mena decided that revolution ruling, and in the process it helped to destroy the legal orwas his only avenue to the presidency. gan it had created. In late July, 1912, Mena attempted to replace MaBy early September, 1912, U.S. troops had regained nagua’s garrison, loyal to President Díaz, with 150 of his control of the vital railroad link between Corinto on the Pacific Coast and Managua and had crushed most rebel own troops. When the garrison resisted, Mena’s forces
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U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua strongholds. Major Butler remained determined to open the railroad from Managua inland to Granada on Lake Nicaragua and subdue all rebel forces. On September 18, Weitzel announced categorically that the United States would not allow the Díaz government to fall. For many rebels, this meant that their fight was hopeless. General Mena, ailing and beaten, surrendered in late September at his Conservative rebel stronghold in Granada. The rebels now held only the major cities of Masaya and León. On October 4, Colonel Joseph Pendleton attacked General Zeledón’s troops encamped in the hills overlooking Masaya. In the fiercest fighting of the entire campaign, Zeledón’s forces were routed and the general was killed. The city of León fell within days, the civil war ended, and Díaz remained in power. By November, all but one hundred U.S. Marines had left Nicaragua; more than one thousand Nicaraguans and more than fifty U.S. citizens died in the 1912 intervention. Significance The precedent of sending in troops to determine who ruled in the region was set. Once in Nicaragua, U.S. Marines would stay there—except for the period from August, 1925, until January, 1927—until 1933. Knox and several successors learned that bullets as well as dollars were required to maintain U.S. hegemony in the region. Although U.S. policy makers proclaimed a strong desire to bring U.S.-style democracy to the region, military intervention suggested that order and stability were the primary goals. When U.S. troops did leave in 1933, they did not depart from a democratic nation, but from the emerging dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, whose dynasty would fall to yet another future rebel organization, the Sandinistas, in 1979. That regime change fueled another decade of American intervention, which ended with the establishment of a legitimately elected government in 1990. —Ken Millen-Penn Further Reading Berman, Karl. Under the Big Stick: Nicaragua and the United States Since 1848. Boston: South End Press, 1986. A general survey of U.S. involvement in Nicaraguan affairs. Booth, John A. The End and the Beginning: The Nicaraguan Revolution. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985. First-rate survey of twentieth century Nicaraguan politics. Covers the Zelaya period, U.S. intervention, and Sandino well but concentrates on the Somoza era and the Sandinista revolution. Extensive references and index. 994
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Denny, Harold Norman. Dollars for Bullets: The Story of American Rule in Nicaragua. New York: Dial Press, 1929. Highly critical of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. Castigates U.S. bankers for their excessive greed. A good read but dated and strident in tone. References and index. Dunkerley, James. Power in the Isthmus. A Political History of Modern Central America. London: Verso, 1988. A formidable and massive survey of Central American politics. The scope, analytic framework, empirical detail, and cerebral reflection make this a necessary reference work, although some will find the analysis too highbrow and esoteric for their tastes. Excessively long sentences will be a burden to others. Much consideration given to class conflict and the mechanisms of elite control. The latter three-fourths of the book is given over to the period after 1950. Earlier chapters achieve a better synthesis and higher standard of excellence. Abundant references and index. Hill, Roscoe R. Fiscal Intervention in Nicaragua. New York: Paul Maisel, 1933. A standard work on the unsavory details of U.S. financial involvement in Nicaragua. Told from the U.S. bankers’ point of view. Somewhat dated. Readers will be in need of a fresh approach to understand the larger ramifications of the intriguing relationship between U.S. politicians and their bankers. LaFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Chapter 1 presents a revisionist account that views U.S. economic imperialism as the major cause behind U.S. intervention. Langley, Lester D. The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1983. Chapter 6 is a straightforward political and military account of U.S. intervention during the 1909-1912 crisis. Macaulay, Neill. The Sandino Affair. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967. Fascinating account of one of the pivotal figures in Nicaraguan history. Captures Sandino’s charisma, the dynamics of the guerrilla movement, and the reasons it succeeded against the U.S. Marines. Excellent sources, bibliography, and index. Millett, Richard. Guardians of the Dynasty. New York: Orbis Books, 1977. History of the Nicaraguan National Guard and its symbiotic relationship with the Somozas. Looks forward to the day when both would disappear. References and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Munro, Dana G. Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900-1921. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Chapter 5 presents a largely traditional, geopolitical, and sympathetic explanation of the 1912 intervention, which should be read in conjunction with LaFeber. Musicant, Ivan. The Banana Wars: A History of United States Military Intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama. New York: Macmillan, 1990. Written by a former marine, chapter 4 presents an account of the major military campaigns during the 1912 intervention. Stansifer, Charles. “José Santos Zelaya: A New Look at Nicaragua’s Liberal Dictatorship.” Revista Interamericana 7 (Fall, 1977): 468-485. A revisionist account convincingly presented that maintains that Zelaya has been wrongly depicted as a bloodthirsty tyrant when in fact he was a nationalist who did much for the national development of Nicaragua. Limited coverage. References but no index. Stimson, Henry L. American Policy in Nicaragua. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927. A carefully crafted defense of U.S. policy in Nicaragua by one of the chief American participants, who was later to
Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays be secretary of state. Stimson orchestrated the 1927 Espino Negro Pact that got all the liberal generals except Sandino to agree to a U.S.-sponsored election putting the liberals back in power. No index or sources. Walker, Thomas W. Nicaragua. 4th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2003. Widely regarded as the best singlevolume treatment of Nicaraguan history. Suffers somewhat from its author’s leftist bias but is still an excellent source, particularly for the country’s more recent history. Woodward, Ralph Lee, Jr. Central America: A Nation Divided. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Excellent history of Central America, with Nicaragua covered in detail and put in the larger context of Central American and hemispheric politics. Judicious and fair. Exceptional balance among political, economic, and social forces. Good index and a penetrating bibliographic essay of fifty-three pages. See also: Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia; Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone; Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy.
August 7 and 12, 1912
Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays Victor Franz Hess pioneered dangerous balloon experiments that revealed that air ionization increases with altitude, indicating the existence of cosmic rays originating outside Earth and its solar system. Locale: Aussig, Austria Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Victor Franz Hess (1883-1964), Austrian experimental physicist Franz Exner (1849-1926), Austrian physicist Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953), American physicist Carl David Anderson (1905-1991), American physicist
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Summary of Event As the twentieth century began, a series of discoveries of surprising radiations marked a new direction in physics. In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen had created X rays within an evacuated tube in his laboratory, and then
Antoine-Henri Becquerel discovered radioactive rays emitted from elements in the earth; this discovery led Marie and Pierre Curie to discover radium. Victor Franz Hess undertook a search for the sources of radioactivity, and this led him, instead, to discover a new and more puzzling set of radiations—cosmic rays—that had their origins outside Earth and beyond the Sun. In 1910, Hess received his Ph.D. from the University of Graz. He committed himself to understanding a set of strange atmospheric charging effects. As an assistant at the Institute of Radium Research of the Vienna Academy of Science, he joined a group working on atmospheric electricity under the leadership of Franz Exner and Ergon von Schweidler. Hess performed his experiments during ten dangerous balloon flights that ultimately proved the extraterrestrial origin of cosmic rays. At the beginning of the twentieth century, scientists were presented with a puzzling fact: A tightly sealed electroscope slowly developed an electric charge even when all sources of electrical leakage were carefully
Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays eliminated. Scientists wondered if the strange charging was merely a nuisance or if it pointed to some new science awaiting discovery. The charging diminished slightly when the electroscope was covered with thick shielding. If the charging was real, a very penetrating radiation might produce it by colliding with the trapped air inside the sealed electroscope and releasing electrons. The charging was as strong over the oceans as over the land; therefore, radioactivity from rocks could not be the source of the penetrating rays. As the land and oceans had been eliminated as the source, scientists reasoned that perhaps the rays came from the skies. They made measurements high up on the Eiffel Tower and in primitive balloon flights and found little change in the charging. If the sky was the source, then the source was to be found at quite a high altitude. In 1910, Hess undertook study of this problem and decided on a strategy to attain greater heights. The electroscope was the basic instrument used to study the strange charging. Electrons were removed carefully from the air before a small amount was sealed in the electroscope. Initially, the sealed air was an excellent insulator, but in time conduction appeared, pointing to the presence of free electron charges in the electroscope and the charging effect. Hess designed special electroscopes with the aid of the Vienna Academy of Science and enlisted the help of the Austrian Aeroclub. Hess had calculated that a height greater than one and one-half times that of the Eiffel Tower would be needed to begin to show a real dependence of charging on altitude and that much greater altitudes would be necessary to distinguish a different sky source from ground radiation. He requested that the Aeroclub provide him with high-altitude balloon flights. The electroscopes were designed for very low temperatures and high pressures. The Aeroclub agreed. Hess gathered daring companions and, in 1911, undertook his series of dangerous balloon experiments. Hess began his next-to-last flight with two companions on August 7, 1912, from the vicinity of Aussig, Austria. He monitored his three electroscopes, one companion navigated, and the other checked altitude and temperature. After rising for two and one-half hours, the balloon drifted between 4,000 and 5,000 meters (approximately 13,100-16,400 feet) for one hour more, covering 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) to Pieskew, Germany, near Berlin. At the highest altitude, Hess’s electroscopes were charging four times faster than at ground level. He believed the radiations responsible for the charging effects were coming from outside Earth. Hess made his next ascent to determine whether the 996
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Victor Franz Hess. (The Nobel Foundation)
extraterrestrial rays originated in the Sun. He scheduled the balloon flight for August 12 to coincide with a solar eclipse. He took the balloon to 3,000 meters (about 9,800 feet) and found no reduction in the intensity of the rays as the Sun disappeared from view. This eliminated the Sun as a major source of the cosmic rays. The August 12 flight marked the end of the historic set of the ten flights, half of which were carried out at night. Hess summarized his conclusions in a paper published that November: “The results of my observations are best explained by the assumption that a radiation of very great penetrating power enters our atmosphere from above.” The radiation that Hess found decreased with distance near Earth’s surface but began to increase at about 150 meters (492 feet) above Earth. At an altitude of about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles), the radiation causing the electroscope discharge was several times stronger than at Earth’s surface. The radiation was the same both day and night and was unaffected by the solar eclipse. There was less air at higher altitudes to block the rays. The rays were cosmic. Confirmation by other scientists came slowly. Werner Kolhörster found that the unknown rays were twelve times as intense at an altitude of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in a balloon as on Earth’s surface. Nevertheless, general acceptance was still slow. Many scientists could not envi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sion rays coming from outer space. In 1913, Hess founded the meteorological station at Hoch Obir to continue his radiation studies, where he worked until World War I intervened. After the war, Hess traveled to the United States and set up the research laboratory of the U.S. Radium Corporation in New York. Also, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Bureau of Mines and established contacts with American scientists. Two years after his 1923 return to Austria, Hess acquired his own laboratory at Graz University. In 1925, Robert Andrews Millikan acknowledged full acceptance of Hess’s pioneering efforts by labeling the unknown radiation “cosmic rays.” Hess enlisted international aid from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Vienna Academy of Science, and the Prussian Academy of Science, as well as the Emergency Society for German Sciences, to begin the now-famous Hafelekar Spitze Observatory for cosmic-ray research near Innsbruck, Austria. He found a small daily variation in the intensity of cosmic rays, which pointed to a small fractional contribution to the overall cosmic-ray intensity of the Sun. His accumulated data indicated the origin of cosmic rays to be beyond our galaxy.
The vital connection between Hess’s work and the discovery of the positron was made clear to the public by Anderson. He praised Hess’s work on cosmic rays and stated, “All of our knowledge of interstellar space must for some time continue to proceed from further exploration of the cosmic ray.” A wide range of new experimental techniques point to supernovas, which occur about every hundred years in Earth’s galaxy. A supernova, the explosion of a massive star at the end of its life, throws off energetic particles, mainly protons, which are the core or nucleus of hydrogen, the lightest atom, and alpha particles, which are the nucleus of the next lightest atom, helium. There is also a small component of many heavier atomic nuclei. All these particles are born with very high energies and can acquire more energy in their long journey within galaxies. Gamma rays, which are very energetic X rays, are formed also by the cosmic rays when they encounter magnetic fields in space, near or far from a supernova. The cosmic rays generated by supernovas have almost unimaginable energies and pervade the galaxy throughout its life, raining down on any planets within. Other cosmic rays may originate in the neutron star that is often born in the remains of a supernova explosion if the neutron star has a companion star from which it can draw matter. Whatever the exact source, the cosmic rays, particles and gammas, are space relics that can tell scientists much about the unknowns astronomers encounter in their journeys if they can be deciphered with everimproving equipment. Thus the discoveries and puzzles prompted by the identification of cosmic rays continued into the twenty-first century. — Peter J. Walsh Further Reading Auger, Pierre. What Are Cosmic Rays? Translated by Maurice M. Shapiro. Rev. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945. Popular book by a well-known authority presents fascinating investigations of cosmic rays. The physics is clearly and simply described. Discusses Hess’s contributions in chapter 1. Grieder, Peter K. F. Cosmic Rays at Earth: Researcher’s Reference Manual and Data Book. New York: Elsevier Science, 2001. Reference manual intended for use by scientists involved in cosmic-ray research includes background material that may be useful to lay readers with some science background. Hess, Victor F. The Electrical Conductivity of the Atmosphere and Its Causes. Translated by L. W. Codd. 997
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Significance With the recognition that cosmic rays were real, physicists became aware that they had an extraordinary tool for investigating not only outer space but also the innermost parts of matter. Evidence accumulated that cosmic rays possess extraordinary energy, and small particles require large energies for their production. Carl David Anderson was one of the first to put these extreme energies to use to produce a new particle that had existed only in the dreams of theorists. Physicists often measure radiation energy in units of volts. This unit measures the energy of an electron or a proton, which has the same value of charge as the electron. For example, visible light requires a particle energy of several volts to generate the light, while at 50,000 volts, the particle could generate penetrating X rays. Anderson knew that cosmic rays possess extraordinary energies, although he did not know the full extent of these energies. He enlisted the rays in tracking down the positron, the positively charged twin of the tiny electron. He photographed a vapor-filled vessel located in a large magnetic field while exposing the contents to Hess’s ever-present cosmic rays. His discovery of the positron came in a cloud-chamber picture of the collision debris left when the antiparticle was hit by a 500-million-volt cosmic ray. No other instrument available at that time could generate such energies.
Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays
U.S. Public Health Service Is Established New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1928. Hess’s own work may interest readers with science background. Hillas, A. M. Cosmic Rays. New York: Pergamon Press, 1972. Presents Hess’s pioneering efforts and, most interesting, an excerpt of his 1912 paper that reviews his balloon research results. Aimed at readers with physics background, but chapter 1 presents a review without mathematics. Includes original papers by colleagues of Hess. Motz, Lloyd, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Story of Astronomy. New York: Plenum, 1995. Presents the history of astronomy from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 18 includes discussion of Hess’s work and the discovery of cosmic rays. Features bibliography and index. Pasachoff, J. M. Contemporary Astronomy. Philadel-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 phia: W. B. Saunders, 1977. Undergraduate text in astronomy requires basic knowledge of mathematics and physics. Provides a general review of the universe, the stars, and the solar system. Chapter 8 includes a section on cosmic rays, their nature, and their probable origins in supernovas. Rossi, Bruno. Cosmic Rays. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Readable and authoritative book by a wellknown physicist who worked with cosmic rays. Chapter 1 gives fascinating details on Hess’s measurements and ballooning experiments. Although dated, a good introduction to the study of cosmic rays. See also: 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays; 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory; May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon; 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect.
August 14, 1912
U.S. Public Health Service Is Established When Congress created the U.S. Public Health Service, it recognized the success achieved by the increasingly organized Marine Hospital Service in taking responsibility for protecting the health of U.S. citizens. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Health and medicine; organizations and institutions Key Figures Edward Livingston (1764-1836), U.S. congressman from New York Leonidas Felix Livingston (1832-1912), U.S. congressman from Georgia William Richardson (1839-1914), U.S. congressman from Alabama Duncan U. Fletcher (1859-1936), U.S. senator from Florida William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), U.S. secretary of the treasury John Maynard Woodworth (1837-1879), American surgeon Joseph J. Kinyoun (1860-1919), American physician Summary of Event When, in 1912, the U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing the U.S. Public Health Service to investigate 998
the causes of communicable diseases, lawmakers recognized the official transition from the Public Health Service’s origins as an agency of government established with a narrow focus—that is, to provide health care for one small segment of the population—into a government agency responsible for overseeing the general health of the entire citizenry of the United States. The origins of the U.S. Public Health Service can be traced to sixteenth century England, although hospitals have existed in Europe and Asia since Christians began performing charitable acts around the time of Constantine; they continued throughout the Middle Ages, especially in monasteries. Some monastic orders, such as the Knights Hospitaller, specialized in the care of the sick and injured. Later, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the English established a seaman’s hospital in gratitude for the services of their naval personnel. Throughout much of the American colonial period, the British government collected a nominal sum from its sailors, including those from the colonies, to care for the sick and disabled. In the early days of the United States, Alexander Hamilton urged a similar program on the grounds that an effective merchant marine was essential to U.S. commerce. In 1798, Congressman Edward Livingston of New York pushed through Congress a measure creating the Marine Hospital Service. The law provided that the Treasury Department would collect twenty cents per
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Maynard Woodworth, a Civil War veteran and an exceedingly able individual. The same law also increased the hospital tax to forty cents per month. The monthly charge remained the same until 1884, when it was supplanted by a tonnage tax. In 1906, Congress recognized the expanded sphere of duties for the Hospital Service and replaced the tonnage tax with direct congressional appropriations. Remarkable gains were made under Woodworth. In 1873, he introduced a personnel system that was, in effect, a civil service system for all employees. By this and other measures, he gradually raised the caliber of the staff and fostered the development of a strong esprit de corps. The next major advance came in 1889, with the creation of a commissioned officer corps, which gave the service a mobile force of highly qualified health experts. Woodworth also provided strong support for the developing public health movement, actively worked for a national quarantine system, and helped draft the first federal quarantine law in 1878. Following the passage of this latter act, the Marine Hospital Service collaborated with state and municipal governments in improving their quarantine agencies. When Congress strengthened the National Quarantine Law in 1893, the Marine Hospital Service began taking over state and local quarantine stations. The takeover was completed in 1921, when the Marine Hospital Service began to run the quarantine facilities of the Port of New York. The Immigration Act of 1891 further broadened the responsibilities of the Marine Hospital Service by requiring its medical officers to examine all immigrants. Another significant step had been taken in 1887, when Joseph Kinyoun, a physician who had trained in Europe, established a one-room bacteriological laboratory in the Marine Hospital on Staten Island. Four years later, the bacteriological research moved to Washington, D.C., when the Hygienic Laboratory for Bacteriological Research was established there. In 1902, Congress acknowledged the Marine Hospital Service’s changing status by changing the organization’s name to the U.S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. In 1912, the name was shortened to the U.S. Public Health Service. Significance The Public Health Service steadily widened its functions in the twentieth century. Its research laboratories did outstanding work in epidemiology, and the service played an important role in developing state and local health boards. Under the Social Security Act of 1935, the Public Health Service was given responsibility for distributing 999
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month from each merchant seaman to support the establishment of hospitals. The following year, Congress amended the act to include personnel in the navy and Marines. The first temporary U.S. Marine Hospital was established in Boston in 1799, and the first governmentowned hospital was built in Norfolk County, Virginia, shortly thereafter. In 1802, Congress broadened the law to cover crews on boats and rafts sailing down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. As the United States expanded westward, Congress in 1837 provided for additional hospitals in the Mississippi River Valley and the Great Lakes region. During these years, the Treasury Department loosely administered the Marine Hospital Service, but financial responsibility for the hospital rested on local customs collectors. Much of the medical care was provided on a contract basis rather than in hospitals owned or staffed by the government. For example, at times both Bellevue Hospital in New York and Charity Hospital in New Orleans treated individual patients for seventy-five cents per day. Patients in these institutions may have fared better than those treated in private institutions because the contracts were awarded as a form of political patronage. Still, the caliber of service rendered for the first seventy years varied widely from hospital to hospital. As the century advanced, the Marine Hospital Service began to build more hospitals, but political factors often determined their location. In New Orleans, for example, work was started on a Marine hospital in 1837. After lagging for many years, the project was completed in 1851, at a total cost of $123,000, an enormous sum for those days. Despite the obvious mismanagement of this building contract, funds were appropriated for an even larger hospital in 1885. This one was built in a swamp, and one of the walls sank two feet before the structure was completed. The building, which eventually cost half a million dollars, was never used by the Marine Hospital Service. Complaints about the marine hospitals led Congress to appoint an investigatory commission in 1849. Seven years later, the commission’s recommendations for standardizing hospital procedures were put into effect. Although some improvement ensued, political interference and a high degree of decentralization still characterized operations. Critics noted that each hospital operated independently. In 1870, Congress remedied this situation by completely reorganizing the Marine Hospital Service, centralizing control in a bureau of the Treasury Department and placing a supervising surgeon at the head. The first officer to hold this position was Dr. John
U.S. Public Health Service Is Established
U.S. Public Health Service Is Established eight million dollars annually in grants-in-aid for public health purposes. In succeeding years, both the budget of the Public Health Service and the agency’s responsibilities increased dramatically. By the end of the twentieth century, the Public Health Service had evolved into an agency active in medical research, health education, and disease prevention. As a division of the Department of Health and Human Services headed by the surgeon general, the Public Health Service included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Indian Health Service, the National Library of Medicine, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. The bacteriological research begun by Kinyoun in the nineteenth century had grown into a medical resource used not only by the United States but also by countries around the world. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health were active in finding the retrovirus associated with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), for example, and researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered the causes of infections such as Legionnaires’ disease. The Public Health Service also remained active in disease prevention and education efforts, including the creation of educational materials warning young people of the dangers of smoking tobacco and engaging in other risky behaviors. —John Duffy and Nancy Farm Mannikko Further Reading Aday, Lu Ann, ed. Reinventing Public Health: Policies and Practices for a Healthy Nation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Excellent summary of contemporary public health beliefs. Comprehensive analysis includes examination of environmental, economic, and human rights issues related to public health and the Public Health Service. Dupree, A. Hunter. Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Lucid, comprehensive history of the relationship between science and government in the United States from 1787 to 1940. The chapter on medicine and public health details the evolution of the Marine Hospital Service, its interactions with other government health agencies, and its emergence as a leader in bacteriological research. Gallo, Robert. Virus Hunting. New York: Basic Books, 1991. An informative history of AIDS and the isola1000
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion of the virus that proved to be the etiological agent. Gallo, who is probably the most important figure in that endeavor, includes a history of the National Institutes of Health and its evolution within the Public Health Service. Mullan, Fitzhugh. Plagues and Politics: The Story of the United States Public Health Service. New York: Basic Books, 1993. A history that focuses specifically on the Public Health Service. Pickett, George, and John Hanlon. Public Health: Administration and Practice. 10th ed. St. Louis: Mosby College Publishing, 1998. A useful description of the organization of public health services and programs, with emphasis on implementation, management and patterns of programs, and the role of the environment. Ravenel, Mazyck, ed. A Half Century of Public Health. Lynn, Mass.: Nichols Press, 1921. Commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the American Public Health Association. Provides an excellent description of the nature of public health in the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Outstanding historical review, describing the evolution of American medicine from the eighteenth century “doctor on horseback” to the twentieth century industry funded by the government. Also discusses the establishment and evolution of government agencies such as the Public Health Service. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Public Health Service. For a Healthy Nation: Returns on Investment in Public Health. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994. Describes the public benefits possible through increased funding for the Public Health Service. Williams, Ralph Chester. The United States Public Health Service, 1798-1950. Washington, D.C.: Commissioned Officers Association of the U.S. Public Health Service, 1951. An outstanding documentary on the history of public health programs and services in the United States. Discusses the Public Health Service from its early inception as the Marine Hospital Service to its later role in disease prevention. Wilson, Florence, and Duncan Neuhauser. Health Services in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1985. Originally developed for students in public health, the book provides a concise summary of the health care system in the United States. Describes various agencies, their roles in public health programs, and summaries of the laws they oversee and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 enforce. Includes charts and “maps” through the bureaucracies. See also: 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins; 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Re-
Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine forms; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Mar. 31, 19301931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster.
October, 1912
Harriet Monroe Founds POETRY Magazine Harriet Monroe’s founding of the magazine Poetry played a critical role in the renaissance and development of modern American poetry. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Literature; publishing and journalism Key Figures Harriet Monroe (1860-1936), American poet, drama and art critic, and editor Hobart C. Chatfield-Taylor (1865-1945), American novelist and philanthropist Ezra Pound (1885-1972), American poet
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Summary of Event When she established Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in 1912, Harriet Monroe chose as the journal’s motto a line from Walt Whitman: “To have great poets we must have great audiences too.” She was dismayed that of all the arts in the United States, poetry received the least attention, and she maintained that American poets suffered from having no outlet for their work. The main outlets of the day were The Atlantic, Harper’s, and Scribner’s magazines; these, however, were publishing only the most conventional verse. Monroe called the poems in the current American press “piles of rubbish” and warned that American poetry was losing vitality. It was not that great poets did not exist: “A Milton might be living in Chicago today and be unable to find an outlet for his verse,” she announced in the Chicago Tribune on the eve of publishing the first issue of Poetry. Monroe, herself a modestly successful poet, stated that the aim for her magazine would be to develop a public “interested in poetry as art.” Charming and strong willed, she believed deeply in the importance of poetry. She intended to provide her fellow poets with a forum and a place to share their work. Most important, she aimed to correct an imbalance she perceived in the arts that cast poetry as unfashionable. Poetry would be the poets’ magazine. The daughter of a prominent, erudite lawyer, Monroe
was a native Chicagoan who worked as an art and drama critic for the Chicago Tribune and who had had a volume of her own poetry published in 1891. When Chicago was chosen as the site for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1892, she offered to write a dedication poem for Chicago’s new auditorium, an endeavor that suited her intention of creating a place for poetry alongside the arts of music, painting, and architecture. After working for nearly three years on “The Columbian Ode,” a verse celebration of her love for her native city, she was rewarded by seeing her ode recited by a chorus of five thousand voices during the auditorium’s dedication. Monroe became a local celebrity. Writers and journalists, including Margaret Sullivan and Eugene Field, became her friends and sponsors. In relation to getting her magazine launched, her most important friend was Hobart C. Chatfield-Taylor, a wealthy and socially prominent philanthropist and novelist. Her choice of sponsor was crucial and well made; Poetry’s longevity can be in part attributed to his simple idea for laying a financial foundation that would last—an unusual success in the history of little magazines (those literary periodicals that exist outside the field of the commercial or “established” press). Chatfield-Taylor proposed to get one hundred of his Chicago friends and contacts to donate fifty dollars each per year for five years. He predicted that five thousand dollars would cover printing and office expenses, allowing the editors to use money from subscriptions to pay contributors for their work. Chatfield-Taylor made the calls himself and raised the cash in less than a year. By June, 1912, Monroe had an office and was preparing a circular to announce Poetry as “this first effort to encourage the production and appreciation of poetry, as the other arts are encouraged, by endowment.” She had spent hours in the Chicago Public Library poring over English and American poetry magazines to compile a list of poets to solicit. She rejected poets who wrote “in the same old academic way” in favor of those who dealt with
Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine
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modern subjects and experimented with form. The eager point of Pound’s influence on the magazine, contained responses of her selected poets began pouring in within F. S. Flint’s historic note on the history of Imagism and weeks. In September, the most zealous reply of all arits three golden rules, as well as Pound’s famous “A Few rived from Ezra Pound, who had established himself in Don’ts by an Imagiste.” London as a talented young poet and as a scout and supMonroe, meanwhile, was steadily coming into her porter of poets whom he considered talented. own as a creative and outspoken editor whose vision Monroe was impressed with Pound and agreed with guided Poetry through the next few years, even though his suggestion that he keep her in touch with “whatever is her magazine came to be known by some as Pound’s most dynamic in artistic thought, either here or in Paris.” mouthpiece. She continued to print more accessible She offered him the post of foreign correspondent, and he American poetry and traditional pieces despite his reaccepted just in time for his name to appear on the mastbuke. She adopted two homegrown American heroes of head of the first issue, dated October, 1912. Monroe conpoetry, Carl Sandburg and Vachel Lindsay, neither to tributed an expected editorial on the status of poetry and Pound’s taste. A final division between Pound and Mona complaint against its neglect. As editor, she also ofroe occurred in 1915 over her slowness to accept T. S. fered some mainly stiff and archaic poems from Grace Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which Howard Conklin and Emilia Stuart Lorimer, among others. The immediate response to Poetry’s first Pound Offers His Help issue was amused condescension in the East. In a letter to Harriet Monroe dated August 18, 1912, poet Ezra A Philadelphia headline smirked “Poetry in Pound responded with enthusiasm and opinions to Monroe’s anPorkopolis,” explaining that Chicago’s pronounced intention to publish Poetry magazine and her inquiry receeds from pork were promoting Chicago’s garding his interest in being a contributor: poetry; the New York World snickered that the “slender wooers of the muse” would now I am interested, and your scheme as far as I understand it seems not “wend their way Chicagoward.” Some angry only sound, but the only possible method. There is no other magacorrespondents wrote in to express patriotic zine in America which is not an insult to the serious artist and to the indignation over Pound’s “To Whistler, Amerdignity of his art. ican” (one of two poems he provided for the But? Can you teach the American poet that poetry is an art, an art with a technique, with media, an art that must be in constant flux, a first issue), which contained the lines “You and constant change of manner, if it is to live? Can you teach him that it is Abe Lincoln from that mass of dolts/ Show us not a pentametric echo of the sociological dogma printed in last there’s chance at least of winning through.” year’s magazines? Maybe. Anyhow you have work before you. Monroe defended her contributor rather unI may be myopic, but during my last tortured visit to America I easily, given that, although she agreed with found no writer and but one reviewer who had any worthy concepPound that poets had been doltishly ignored in tion of poetry, The Art. However I need not bore you with jeremiads. her country, she intended to make Poetry first At least you are not the usual “esthetic magazine,” which is if of all an American magazine. anything worse than the popular; for the esthetic magazine expects The first few issues made it apparent that the artist to do all the work, pays nothing and then undermines his Monroe was still figuring out just what kind of credit by making his convictions appear ridiculous. . . . poetry she really was seeking. Her choices Are you for American poetry or for poetry? The latter is more important, but it is important that America should boost the forwere traditional in taste, and three free-verse mer, provided it don’t mean a blindness to the art. The glory of any pieces by Richard Aldington in the second nation is to produce art that can be exported without disgrace to its issue were also far from modern or experiorigin. . . . mental in subject. By Poetry’s third issue, If I can be of any use in keeping you or the magazine in touch with however, Pound had moved toward center whatever is most dynamic in artistic thought, either here [in Lonstage, supplying contributions by the great don] or in Paris—as much of it comes to me, and I do see nearly Irish poet William Butler Yeats and poems everyone that matters—I shall be glad to do so. by the Imagist H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) for isSource: Ezra Pound, The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941, edited by sue four. The assistant editor, Alice Corbin D. D. Paige (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950). Henderson, claimed the new vers libre as an American phenomenon. Issue six, the high 1002
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Significance Many literary historians consider the October, 1912, publication of Poetry’s first issue the beginning of a poetic renaissance in the United States. It was the start of a
new era in modern American poetry, fueled by the existence of a magazine that Monroe vowed would encourage, support, and inspire poetry for its own sake. She was determined to avoid a condescending attitude bent on “delivering great poetry on high to a skeptical and unwilling audience.” Her willingness to accept submissions from anyone as long as the poetry was good allowed her magazine to deliver to the widest possible audience a monthly sampling of what poets far and wide were writing. The poets’ concerns, talents, and approaches varied greatly, but Monroe believed that “diversity of presentation” would be the life of the magazine. She intended to judge each work by its own specific merit. Although she never hid her prejudice against poems that were “cryptic” in thought, she was willing to print an experiment if she believed the poem had integrity. Her liberal editorial policy led to much criticism. Poetry’s conventional rival, The Dial, considered her policy bizarre and even shocking. As critic Horace Gregory pointed out, however, her open-mindedness was sometimes mistaken for haphazardness by those unable to see that she chose as her task to incite and encourage poetic revolution. Often her theoretical support of the new was betrayed by a fondness for tradition, but Monroe did much to defend the controversial and previously unacceptable in poetry. An editorial innovation begun by Monroe and still followed by many contemporary little magazines was the special issue. Special issues focused on the poetry of geographic regions or on certain schools of poetry. Monroe edited an issue on the American Southwest, for example, and another on India. This innovation was extremely successful, because it allowed work of a certain style or cultural background to be displayed to its best advantage. Another editorial innovation credited to Monroe was the inclusion of book reviews and editorials that made worthy but obscure works and writers better known. Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robinson Jeffers were introduced to the American public in Poetry by sympathetic fellow poets who reviewed their work. At Pound’s urging, Poetry began early to publish translations of poetry from other languages. During Karl Shapiro’s tenure as editor in the 1950’s, the emphasis on translations reached a peak with special issues on Greek and postwar French poetry. Shapiro introduced Max Jacob, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Stephan George to Poetry’s audience. Monroe believed that an extremely important but rarely recognized element of Poetry’s leadership was that it paid—promptly—for contributions even in times 1003
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Pound had sent to her with his most emphatic praise. Although she recognized the poem’s great power—if not its greatness—the work repelled her. Pound continued in his post as foreign correspondent until 1919, although his involvement with the magazine was never again exclusive. He supplied The Little Review, Poetry’s main rival, with the best of Yeats and Eliot and reserved his own work for Monroe. During the World War I years, Monroe’s taste became increasingly provincial, although she campaigned against patriotic verse and “war songs.” Instead, she published Rupert Brooke’s War Sonnets, some trench poems by Isaac Rosenberg, and Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.” Nevertheless, she seemed more comfortable printing cozy, sentimental verse than she was publishing antiwar poems. D. H. Lawrence (whose antiwar poem “Resurrection” appeared in June, 1917) wrote to say that he found the “glib irreverence” of some of her contributors offensive. In the postwar years, Monroe’s patriotism became more pronounced. She announced that the new mission of Poetry would be to articulate the imaginative life of the American nation, not the cosmopolitan and “superintellectualized” concerns of expatriate groups in London and Paris. She became fond of poems celebrating the land and of American Indian dialogues and chants. Although she still included the work of intellectual poets such as Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams and published good poems by Robert Frost and Marianne Moore in the 1920’s, her patriotic course led her to champion many mediocre and forgotten poets—including her favorite, Lew Sarett. In her later years, she devoted less and less time to the magazine and threw her energies into foreign travel. She died in Peru in 1936 while crossing the Andes en route to an international writers’ congress in Buenos Aires. The December, 1936, issue of Poetry carried tributes from friends and colleagues. An accurate and heartfelt tribute from Ezra Pound credited Monroe with the achievement of having made Poetry the most “durable” of the little magazines as a result of her staunchly inclusive editorial policy. As he pointed out, the other little magazines of the twenty-four-year period of her editorship, however brilliant they might have been, “were all under sod in the autumn of 1936.”
Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine
Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine of financial difficulty. The awarding of yearly prizes was a tradition begun by Poetry’s first editor that is still followed; the first annual award of $250 went to Yeats for his poem “The Grey Rock.” The most remarkable feat of Poetry’s long career is its history of having consistently published the work of the most prominent poets alongside the work of those who would become prominent in the future. The magazine can be credited with discovering many leading modernist and contemporary poets. Monroe introduced Eliot, Yeats, Sandburg, Frost, Amy Lowell, and Marianne Moore to the American public; subsequent editors published works by Stephen Spender, Robert Penn Warren, Paul Engle, Conrad Aiken, Dylan Thomas, James Merrill, John Ciardi, Robert Lowell, Muriel Rukeyser, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, W. H. Auden, John Berryman, Robert Graves, W. S. Merwin, Theodore Roethke, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov, among others. The balance of newness and tradition that Monroe established as Poetry’s hallmark continued to be reflected in succeeding decades. Monroe’s life’s work endures in Poetry. In the twenty-first century, Poetry remains a respected forum for talented poets and a source of energy and innovation in the field of contemporary poetry. —JoAnn Balingit Further Reading Beach, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Briefly discusses movements in American poetry during the twentieth century. Introduces readers to the work of many of the same poets whose work first appeared in Poetry magazine. Includes glossary and index. Cahill, Daniel J. Harriet Monroe. New York: Twayne, 1973. Assesses the value of Monroe’s contribution to the modern poetry movement by presenting examples of her own work and examining the significance of her editorship of Poetry. Includes annotated bibliography and index. Hamilton, Ian. The Little Magazines: A Study of Six Editors. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976. Dis-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cusses six little magazines chosen as the most memorable of the twentieth century: three published in the United States and three published in England. Lively chapter on Poetry discusses in depth Pound’s involvement with and influence on the early issues as well as Monroe’s initial conservatism. Monroe, Harriet. A Poet’s Life: Seventy Years in a Changing World. New York: Macmillan, 1938. Autobiography, unfinished at the time of Monroe’s death, is one of the most complete documents available concerning the history of Poetry magazine. Schulze, Robin G. “Harriet Monroe’s Pioneer Modernism: Nature, National Identity, and Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.” Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 21, no. 1 (2004): 50-67. Scholarly analysis places Monroe’s approach to poetry within the context of the Progressive Era in the United States and the early modernist period in literature. Williams, Ellen. Harriet Monroe and the Poetry Renaissance: The First Ten Years of “Poetry,” 1912-22. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1977. Detailed account of the first ten years of Poetry describes the literary scene that spawned it and Monroe’s friendships, correspondences, and literary battles. Appendix provides details on Poetry’s income, expenditures, and circulation during that decade. _______. “Poetry.” In American Literary Magazines: The Twentieth Century, edited by Edward Chielens. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992. Presents a history of Poetry from its founding through 1989, describing how changes in editorship shaped the magazine and how it managed to survive financially. Includes notes and bibliography. See also: 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics; Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement; 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole; 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge; Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation; 1940: García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Conference of the Society of American Indians
October 12, 1912
First Conference of the Society of American Indians The Society of American Indians, although short-lived, served notice that the future of the indigenous population of the United States was no longer solely in the hands of white Americans. Locale: Columbus, Ohio Categories: Indigenous peoples’ rights; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Charles Eastman (1858-1939), American biographer and founding member of the Society of American Indians Arthur Caswell Parker (1881-1955), Seneca Indian anthropologist and founding member of the Society of American Indians Carlos Montezuma (1867-1923), Apache physician and leader of the radical wing of the Society of American Indians
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Summary of Event Historically, American Indians have reacted to the European penetration of North America with traditional tribal responses and by attempting to establish a larger Indian cultural identity. Initially, American Indians employed traditional tribal responses in confronting and negotiating with the conquering Europeans. Over the years, many Native American societies were decimated by disease, alcohol abuse, and war. Survivors were relegated to culturally alien reservations. During the Progressive Era of the early 1900’s, a number of nationally organized indigenous movements appeared in North America. Led by an emerging educated Indian middle class, these organizations stressed the need for a common Indian identity and the inclusion of Indian culture in the larger society. By participating in these new associations, group members hoped not only to forge a sharper sense of identity for themselves but also to address basic problems facing Native Americans. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these new organizations was the Society of American Indians, which grew out of the American Indian Association, founded in 1911. That organization’s ideological mission was to call to the attention of white Americans the viewpoint that the Indian race is a vital part of a progressive and democratic society. The American Indian Association was organized in large part by Arthur Caswell Parker, a Seneca Indian who was an anthropologist, author, and lecturer; Dr.
Charles Eastman, a respected biographer of Indian life; and Dr. Carlos Montezuma, an Apache physician and radical leader for Indian recognition. Founded as a forum for intellectuals to pursue an exploration of varying viewpoints within a pan-Indian framework, the organization quickly outgrew its original intent. In order to create a more distinct Indian character, the group reorganized in 1912 as a more pronounced Indian movement. Renamed the Society of American Indians (SAI), it quickly went about setting itself apart from other “progressive” whiterun reform organizations. To secure access to political recognition, the leaders chose Washington, D.C., as the location of SAI headquarters. The nation’s capital became the center of activity for the society’s executive committee, which was charged with the responsibility of writing a provisional constitution. The document produced included the following organizational objectives: promoting the advancement of Indian freedom through enlightenment, providing an open forum for discussion of the welfare of the Indian race, promoting citizenship and obtaining the rights thereof, opposing any movement opposed to the Indian race, and respecting the honor of the Indian race for the good of the United States. The organizational structure of the SAI included three categories of membership: active, Indian associate, and associate. The first two categories were open to members of indigenous cultures only. Actives were members of Indian populations within the geographic boundaries of the United States, and Indian associates included all indigenous natives living in Canada and Latin America. Both active and Indian associate members could hold office and vote in the organization, but the latter could vote only on tribal matters pertaining to their own tribes. The third category, associate member, consisted of all nonIndian-blood individuals who had an interest in Indian affairs. With Washington, D.C., as its base and with an organizational structure that allowed for Indian as well as non-Indian support, the SAI appeared ready to engage in activities benefiting the much-maligned and previously intellectually ignored indigenous population. Parker, editor of the society’s Quarterly Journal (1913-1915; later the American Indian Magazine, 1915-1920), took on the task of forging a national Indian identity. Using panIndianism as the central theme in all issues, the journal soon found an audience in both white and Indian intellectual and political circles. In addition to publishing con-
First Conference of the Society of American Indians ference proceedings and the society’s political views, the journal addressed key issues currently affecting reservation politics. In this way, the journal helped to secure entrance for these issues into intellectual circles that were previously unreachable. The journal also served to set the stage for future conference agendas, addressing immediate as well as traditional concerns of the indigenous culture. It became an important source for conference debates and added a degree of intellectual integrity to the cause of the Indian. The choice of Columbus Day, October 12, 1912, for the opening of the first SAI conference (in Columbus, Ohio) was purposeful. It was as if the experiences of Native Americans during the previous centuries of European rule were to be vindicated. From that point forward, according to the conference’s stated goals, red and white people would interact on a plane appropriate to ensuring the growth of all society from the vantage point of each group’s best qualities. Attempting to present American Indians as intelligent and possessing “civilized” political, economic, and social capacities on a par with white Americans, the conference agenda encouraged discussion aimed at eliciting support for current indigenous industrial, educational, legal, and political undertakings. Identifying these concerns from a viewpoint that Indians were as capable as agriculturalists, mechanics, homemakers, and educators as were white people, the conference not only attempted to serve the needs of the indigenous population but also attempted to articulate an Indian self-consciousness in the process. Calling attention to low standards of education found on the reservations and the denial to Indians of political and legal access and redress in the entire cultural process helped to rally support for the SAI. Conference memoranda continued to incorporate an identification of a lack of specific governmental programs as a central cause for the low standard of living for many indigenous Americans living on reservations. To this extent, much of the conference was directed toward confronting current Indian social problems that were the result, at least in part, of the creation and perpetuation of pejorative stereotyping of Indians by whites. To correct any misrepresentation of the Indian race, the conference adopted a two-point program calling for the integration of American Indians into mainstream society but without the removal of Indian individuality. At the first conference’s conclusion, a certain degree of unity prevailed among the society’s members, but the same cannot be said for the conferences that followed. Political factionalism emerged as the organization 1006
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 evolved. This was largely a result of the inability of leaders to find common ground from which the SAI could spread the idea that Indian culture and tradition are integral to the white historical experience in North America and that the Indian contribution to American development was more than a sideshow hawking wares, war dances, and ancient ceremonies. Fueled by internal disagreements over goals and aspirations and confronted by outside political antagonists who saw government policy as a way of continuing the differences between Indians and whites in civil authority, the organization declined into a factionalism that blurred its original unity of purpose. By the time of the 1923 conference, held in Chicago, the organizational leadership was badly divided over a variety of issues. Tourism and the desire to cash in on curiosity about American Indians had replaced previous goals. By the end of that conference, most of the basis for unity among members had crumbled. The organization could not withstand the encroaching power of anti-Indian white political groups. In retrospect, it appears that from the very beginning the SAI had within itself the seeds of its own destruction. As time went on, an ever-increasing emphasis on addressing age-old tribal grievances encouraged a separatism that subverted the group’s original inclusive pan-Indian vision. The SAI leaders were themselves a reflection of this pattern. Within the national leadership, factionalism mirrored traditional tribal animosities, defeating in the end the quest for a pan-Indian ideal. The organization’s dissolution into a spectacle signaled the reality of its formal demise. Significance The SAI disbanded soon after the 1923 conference without fully achieving any of its goals for improving the immediate condition of Native Americans. The stated goals of the Indian progressives, although noble, were unwisely planned and rarely realized. Nevertheless, certain noteworthy consequences did result from the efforts of the short-lived organization. The elevation of reservation problems to the national political arena is a case in point. The organization made progress toward providing services to a constituency that had been prevented from gaining any access to the national political agenda. Initially, at least, low-cost legal assistance, education, and medical services were provided to many of the tribes represented in the organizational leadership structure. In some areas, then, the SAI showed a commitment to the progressive social reform ideals of the period. These accomplishments paled in comparison to the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 factionalism that helped to defeat the original purpose of the organization. In many instances, petty infighting among tribal bureaucrats impaired the effectiveness of the SAI, leading to the society’s downfall. The leadership was divided over such mainstream political issues as the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the condemnation by whites of the continuance of ceremonial practices such as the use of peyote in religious rituals. The role of non-Indians in the reform efforts of the group also contributed to the SAI’s demise. Bothered by internal divisiveness and frustrated by external realities such as the denial of citizenship to indigenous Americans (which, ironically, was granted in 1924), many associate members lost the willingness to act in consort with other members as a united political pressure group. Individual interests soon challenged the group’s weakly constructed political unity. The idea of community easily collapsed in the process. Even so, the rise of the Society of American Indians helped to signal an end to an era when white reformers discussed Indians’ future in isolation. To be sure, there would continue to be those who thought they knew what was best for Native American groups, but the efforts of the SAI led to future generations of indigenous Americans who supported the ideals of pan-Indianism and worked to ensure that Native Americans had a greater voice in their own future. —Thomas J. Edward Walker and Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes
1982. Explores the relationship of Native Americans to the rest of U.S. society by identifying, analyzing, and comparing the basic varieties of pan-Indianism and tracing their historical development. Focuses on the period between 1900 and 1930 (the formative years of the pan-Indian movement in the United States), outlining the forces that produced this movement and its responses to the encroachment of white society. Includes bibliography and index. Hoxie, Frederick, ed. Indians in American History: An Introduction. 2d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1998. Collection of chronologically arranged essays by authors who speak from a variety of disciplines and perspectives provides an introduction to the Indian side of U.S. history. Draws attention to the depth and complexity of the American Indian experience. Includes list of suggestions for further reading following each chapter, illustrations, and index. Iverson, Peter, ed. The Plains Indians of the Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. Collection of essays addresses issues as diverse as water rights and religious heritage and emphasizes Indians’ ability to adapt to penetration from the outside while maintaining their identity. An initial capsule history by the editor provides historical context for these discussions. Includes index. Kelly, Lawrence C. The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983. Biography of one of the major reformers of Indian policy in twentieth century America. Collier fought the white power establishment that believed it knew what was best for the indigenous population and supported the maintenance of traditional Indian culture through a somewhat complex program of economic development and legal protection. Includes bibliography and index. Wilson, Raymond. Ohiyesa: Charles Eastman, Santee Sioux. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982. Biography presents essential details of the life of a key individual involved in the Society of American Indians. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock; June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act; June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act.
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Further Reading Deloria, Philip J., and Neal Salisbury, eds. A Companion to American Indian History. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2002. Collection of essays by both Native American and non-Native scholars on a variety of topics concerning the history of American Indians. Includes bibliography and index. Hagan, William T. American Indians. 3d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. General history provides an excellent overview of the relationship between whites and American Indians from colonial times to the New Deal and beyond. Includes chronology, bibliography, and index. Hertzberg, Hazel W. The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements. 1971. Reprint. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
First Conference of the Society of American Indians
Balkan Wars
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
October 18, 1912-August 10, 1913
Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars revealed the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s weakening state, the growth of Serbian power, and the infirmity of Russian policy—all of which contributed to the unsettled conditions leading to World War I. Locale: The Balkans Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Leopold von Berchtold (1863-1942), foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, 1912-1915 Ferdinand I (1861-1948), prince after 1887 and king of Bulgaria, r. 1908-1918 Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), British foreign secretary, 1905-1916 Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov (1861-1927), Russian foreign affairs minister, 1910-1916 Summary of Event The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 accelerated the already rapid disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, a process that had been going on since Austria had annexed the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Russia desired to forestall any further Austrian advance in the Balkans, especially against Serbia, and to shore up the faltering Turks until Russia itself could become strong enough to move against them. From 1909 to 1913, Russia worked for the establishment of a Balkan League, which was based on separate agreements: one with Bulgaria and the other with Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro (which was supplemented by a Montenegrin-Serbian accord). The league finally came into existence in 1912, but the powers that composed it were in no mood to act as mere caretakers on Russia’s behalf. On the contrary, Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy’s annexation of Tripoli in 1912 encouraged the members of the Balkan League to drive the Turks out of Europe altogether and to divide the territorial spoils among league members. The Ottoman Empire had demonstrated its inability to rule its subject nations adequately and to institute reforms. Quarrels among the Great Powers and their failure to ensure that the Turks carried out the needed reforms led the Balkan states to conclude that it was time to proceed with their own solution to the Balkan problems. In the meantime, Russia’s policy toward the Balkans was 1008
weakened by the czarist government’s continued inability to control its own agents. Some Russian diplomats in the Balkans openly encouraged the Slavic states to drive the Turks out of Europe. None of the Great Powers, particularly Austria and Russia, desired war. Major world leaders realized that dividing the Continent into two armed camps might precipitate a conflict that would spread beyond the Balkans. Accordingly, on October 8, 1912, Leopold von Berchtold, the foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, and Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, issued a joint declaration on behalf of the European powers to the Balkan states, warning them not to make war on the Turks and stipulating that if they did so and won (which von Berchtold and Sazonov considered highly unlikely), they would not be permitted to annex any territory. Unfortunately, the warning came too late; on the same day that the declaration was issued, Montenegro, confident of support from other members of the Balkan League, boldly declared war on the Ottoman Empire. War began in earnest on October 18, when Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece entered the conflict. Six weeks later, on December 3, the shattered Turkish forces sued for an armistice. Meanwhile, Serbia’s occupation of a stretch of the Adriatic Coast of northern Albania had precipitated a grave international crisis. Austria and Italy were unalterably opposed to the entrenchment of Serbia on the Adriatic coastline, where Serbia and Russia could challenge Habsburg and Italian naval supremacy. With some reluctance, Germany agreed to support Austria if Austria were attacked while defending its interests. Fearful that Austria might once again move against Serbian interests, as had happened in 1908, and desirous of maintaining the friendship of the surprisingly potent Balkan League (a relationship that could prevent an Austro-Serbian conflict), Sazonov made a pretense of supporting Serbian claims. He realized, however, that Russia was not yet prepared for a major war, and staged a diplomatic retreat and worked for localizing the conflict at the London Peace Conference, which opened on December 16, 1912, under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary. The work of this conference was retarded by the complex Albanian question and the reopening of hostilities between members of the Balkan League and the Turks on January 30, 1913. Early in 1913, Austria and Italy were
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Balkan Wars
Montenegrin fighters rest at Malissori during the Balkan Wars of 1910-1912. (Library of Congress)
garia attacked on June 29, 1913, and Serbia and Greece declared war on Bulgaria in response. They were soon joined by Montenegro and Romania, and eventually by the Ottoman Empire, their former enemy. Bulgaria was badly mauled. The country concluded peace talks in Bucharest on August 10 with the Balkan states and gave to those who demanded them the territories to which it had aspired. In a separate peace with Turkey signed at Constantinople on September 29, Bulgaria ceded to Turkey the greater part of Thrace, which it had gained in the First Balkan War, including the important city of Adrianople. The Balkan Wars were over, but the peace of southeastern Europe was in ruins and that of the remainder of the Continent was in serious jeopardy. All the Balkan states increased their territories, but none was completely satisfied. The Treaty of Bucharest of August 10, 1913, which terminated the Second Balkan War, served to whet Romania’s appetite for more territory, and specifically for Austrian Transylvania, with its large Romanian population. So it was that Romania joined Serbia in 1009
1912
able to gain tentative international acceptance for the creation of an enlarged Albania, which would safely exclude Serbia from having an outlet into the Adriatic. Meanwhile, the Turks were again defeated, and the Treaty of London of May 30, 1913, brought the First Balkan War to a close. However, the peace settlement imposed on disgruntled Serbs, their allies, and the Turks was widely considered unsatisfactory, and none of the Balkan states was satisfied with the terms dictated to them in London. Because Serbia had been denied an outlet to the Adriatic, it now demanded compensation by insisting that Bulgaria cede a larger slice of Macedonian territory than had been assigned by the Treaty of London. Bulgaria indignantly refused and also rejected Greek claims to the Thessaloníki area of Macedonia and Romania’s claims to the Dobruja, an area adjacent to the mouth of the Danube River. Surrounded by hostile powers, Ferdinand I, who had been independent king of Bulgaria since 1908, decided to oust the Serbs and the Greeks from Macedonia. Bul-
Balkan Wars
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Balkans After the Treaty of Bucharest, 1913
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coveting the crownlands of Austria-Hungary. Romanian sympathy for the Serbs, together with closer ties with the West, constituted a serious blow to the Triple Alliance during and after 1913. Significance The Second Balkan War proved to be a defeat for Austria. Serbia, Austria’s archenemy in the Balkans, emerged from the second contest considerably strengthened at the expense of Bulgaria. Romania, however, mistrusted AustriaHungary because it had given diplomatic support to Bulgaria during the recent war and because the Hungarians had oppressed the Romanian population of Transylvania. Apart from the immediate contributions the Balkan Wars made to the outbreak of World War I only a year 1010
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after the Treaty of Bucharest, they also indicated the intransigence of the nationalist impulses at work in the region and the ethnic volatility of minority politics throughout the region. After establishing Yugoslavia as a country after World War I, the European powers imposed minority treaties on the country, and though dictator Tito was able to impose a period of relative calm after World War II, underlying ethnic fissures erupted in the years following Tito’s death. In the 1990’s, a series of civil wars produced the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the midst of massive human rights violations and ethnic cleansing. The local people and international supervisory bodies continued to cope with the results of these wars into the early years of the twenty-first century. —Edward P. Keleher and Carl Rollyson
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bridge, F. R. From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866-1914. 1972. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 2001. Covers the Balkan Wars within the context of Austro-Hungarian foreign policy. Jelavich, Barbara. Russia’s Balkan Entanglements, 1806-1914. 1991. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Contains a detailed account of Russia’s designs on the Balkans and the czarist government’s botched efforts in the region. Includes maps, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Kaplan, Robert D. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Chapter 3 gives brief but deft descriptions of the Balkan Wars, especially from the perspective of the Turks, the Bulgarians, and other central European states. May, Arthur J. The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914.
Wilson Is Elected U.S. President Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. May’s work provides a useful historical context for understanding Austria’s role in the Balkan conflict. Sked, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918. New York: Dorset Press, 1991. See chapter 6, “The Road to Disaster,” for a treatment of the Balkan Wars in the context of relationships among the Great Powers. See also: Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia; July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis; June 28, 1914Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty; Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria.
November 5, 1912
Wilson Is Elected U.S. President As president, Woodrow Wilson, a reform-minded Democrat, propelled the United States in progressive directions both domestically and internationally. Locale: United States Categories: Government and politics; social issues and reform Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Champ Clark (James Beauchamp Clark; 1850-1921), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Oscar Underwood (1862-1929), U.S. congressman from Alabama Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), American attorney
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Summary of Event The presidential election of 1912 was one of the most exciting elections in U.S. history. Woodrow Wilson was the victor in the three-way race with Theodore Roosevelt, who had already served almost two full terms as president, and the incumbent, William Howard Taft.
Wilson became the first Democrat elected to the presidency since Grover Cleveland and only the second since James Buchanan. The campaign broke the normal pattern for American presidential races, in which issues were usually subordinate to personalities. At stake in 1912 were three competing philosophies: Wilson’s New Freedom, Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, and Taft’s conservative Republicanism. Debates during the campaign were deep and incisive. The challenge had been building up within a badly divided nation since Theodore Roosevelt left the presidency in 1909. His handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, was expected to continue Roosevelt’s progressive reforms. Roosevelt went off to Africa on a hunting expedition, expecting that Taft’s presidency would follow closely his own reforms. Taft, an amiable behemoth of 340 pounds, was physically lazy, temperamentally unsuited to the presidency, and an inept politician. Roosevelt had been able to hold together a tenuous Republican coalition of Old Guard eastern conservatives and midwestern and urban Progressives through shrewd political maneuvering and philosophical wavering between liberal and conservative policies. Taft, a conservative at heart, had no taste for political infighting and allowed the party to disintegrate into squabbling and disunity. When Roosevelt returned home in 1910, the party
Wilson Is Elected U.S. President
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
was in a state of great disorder, and the Democrats had scored large gains in the elections that year. It was in 1910 that Woodrow Wilson campaigned for and won his first political office, the governorship of New Jersey. As governor, Wilson set in motion basic reforms that transformed New Jersey’s government from a corrupt regime dominated by political bosses into the model of a reform state. By 1912, the Republican schism had become irreparable; when Theodore Roosevelt marched out of the Republican convention in Chicago on June 22, 1912, to form the new Progressive Party, the election of a Democrat to the presidency was virtually assured. When the Democrats assembled in Baltimore on June 24, 1912, their party was at a historic crossroads. Wilson had enjoyed a distinguished career as a scholar before his entrance into politics. After graduating from Princeton University in 1879 and attempting a brief, unsuccessful law career, he completed his doctorate in political science and history at The Johns Hopkins University in 1886. His academic career culminated in
his election to the presidency of Princeton University in 1902. By that time, Wilson had written three books on the American system of government and was a budding theoretician on U.S. politics. A dispute at Princeton, resulting from long-standing opposition to some of Wilson’s educational reforms, coincided with the opportunity for Wilson to enter politics as the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey. Wilson accepted the nomination, and his winning campaign, as well as his subsequent reform administration, made him the brightest Democratic political force in the nation and an immediate contender for the presidential nomination in 1912. Wilson was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination until the Republican split made the Democratic nomination much more viable. At that point, the new leader for the nomination was Champ Clark, the Speaker of the House, who, like Taft, was temperamentally and intellectually unsuited for the presidency. Clark was an old-line politician who had broadened his political base beyond his native Missouri to attract most of William Jennings Bryan’s old western following. Repre-
U.S. Electoral Vote, 1912 WA 7 OR 5
MT 4 ID 4
NV 3
WY 3 UT 4
CA 11
2
AZ 3
= Taft (Republican) = Roosevelt (Progressive)
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MN 12 WI 13
SD 5
CO 6
OK 10
NM 3
PA 38 IL 29
KS 10
NY 45
MI 15
IA 13
NE 6
TX 20 = Wilson (Democrat)
VT 4
ND 5
OH 24
IN 15
MO 18
KY 13
NC 12
TN 12
AR 9 MS 10
AL 12
WV VA 8 12
GA 14
SC 9
LA 10 FL 6
ME 6 NH 4 MA 18 RI 5 CT 7 NJ 14 DE 3 MD 8
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sentative Oscar Underwood of Alabama, another leading candidate, had strong southern backing. After a bitter convention fight, Wilson finally won the nomination of the Democratic Party on the forty-sixth ballot. The election turned into a confrontation between two philosophies of progressivism. Roosevelt’s New Nationalism asserted the necessity of a strong Hamiltonian federal government, the retention and regulation of large corporations, and a program of government-supported social welfare. Wilson answered with the New Freedom, which a prominent Massachusetts lawyer, Louis D. Brandeis, had helped to formulate. The New Freedom asserted the need for Jeffersonian localism, the breaking up of large corporations, and a return to the small entrepreneurial unit. For the first time, the philosophical alternatives of a new industrial age were being debated in a political campaign. With the Republican vote split between Taft and Roosevelt, the Democratic challenger, Woodrow Wilson, was elected with 6,293,454 votes to 4,119,538 for Roosevelt, 3,484,980 for Taft, and 900,672 for Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs. Although he received only 42 percent of the popular vote, Wilson won an overwhelming victory in the electoral college, with 435 votes to Roosevelt’s 88 and Taft’s 8. As a newcomer to politics, Wilson was not burdened by political debts such as Roosevelt’s obligations to eastern Republican business interests, and he had a sympathetic Congress ready to cooperate in implementing his Progressive reform program.
Wilson Articulates the New Freedom In the final pages of his 1913 book The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, President Woodrow Wilson made these impassioned arguments: The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who do the daily work in our mines and factories, on our railroads, in our offices and ports of trade, on our farms and on the sea, is the underlying necessity of all prosperity. There can be nothing wholesome unless their life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless they are contented. Their physical welfare affects the soundness of the whole nation. . . . So we must put heart into the people by taking the heartlessness out of politics, business, and industry. We have got to make politics a thing in which an honest man can take his part with satisfaction because he knows that his opinion will count as much as the next man’s, and that the boss and the interests have been dethroned. Business we have got to untrammel, abolishing tariff favors, and railroad discrimination, and credit denials, and all forms of unjust handicaps against the little man. Industry we have got to humanize . . . through the direct action of law guaranteeing protection against dangers and compensation for injuries, guaranteeing sanitary conditions, proper hours, the right to organize, and all the other things which the conscience of the country demands as the workingman’s right. We have got to cheer and inspirit our people with the sure prospects of social justice and due reward, with the vision of the open gates of opportunity for all. . . . . . . We have carried in our minds . . . the ideals of those men who first set their foot upon America, those little bands who came to make a foothold in the wilderness, because the great teeming nations that they had left behind them had forgotten what human liberty was, liberty of thought, liberty of religion, liberty of residence, liberty of action. Since their day the meaning of liberty has deepened. But it has not ceased to be a fundamental demand of the human spirit, a fundamental necessity for the life of the soul. And the day is at hand when it shall be realized on this consecrated soil,—a New Freedom,—a Liberty widened and deepened to match the broadened life of man in modern America, restoring to him in very truth the control of his government, throwing wide all gates of lawful enterprise, unfettering his energies, and warming the generous impulses of his heart,—a process of release, emancipation, and inspiration, full of a breath of life as sweet and wholesome as the airs that filled the sails of the caravels of Columbus and gave the promise and boast of magnificent Opportunity in which America dare not fail. Source: Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1913).
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Significance Wilson strengthened the presidency even further than had Roosevelt. He became the leader of the people as well as of the Congress, and he dominated the government during both his terms in office. He achieved landmark legislative reforms in his first term with vital tariff, banking, and antitrust measures. Later he adopted, in addition to his own ambitious program, almost all the proposals championed by Roosevelt in the great debate of 1912. When World War I engulfed the United States, Wilson became the first of the powerful twentieth century war presidents. The effects of the 1912 campaign and Wilson’s election to the presidency dominated U.S. liberal politics throughout the twentieth century. The New Deal of Franklin D.
Wilson Is Elected U.S. President
Wilson Is Elected U.S. President Roosevelt owed many of its philosophical premises to Wilson’s progressivism and much of its implementation to Wilson’s expansion of executive power. In international affairs, the spirit of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which promised a “peace without victory,” still well expresses one of the idealistic themes in U.S. foreign policy. However, Wilson’s failure to develop consensus or involve opposition voices during the negotiation of the League of Nations led to a major foreign policy setback and to nonratification by the United States of the Covenant of the League of Nations, despite Wilson’s vigorous but belated attempt to win popular and legislative support for this first-ever modern international collective security body. Many scholars believe that the nonparticipation of the United States was an important factor in the ultimate failure of the League of Nations. —Richard H. Collin and Michael Witkoski Further Reading Burton, David H. The Learned Presidency: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988. Comprehensive review of the presidencies of three men who were strikingly different yet similar in significant ways, and who brought a new aura of intellectualism to the nation’s highest office. Cooper, John Milton, Jr. The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. 1985. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2004. Examines the two highly divergent but equally important political personalities who helped shape modern U.S. political thought. Provides valuable insights into Roosevelt’s compulsion to enter the 1912 electoral race, thereby splitting the Republican vote and assuring Wilson’s victory. Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991. Full-scale biography by a former president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation places Wilson’s political career, especially the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 crucial 1912 election, in long-range perspective. Offers new and penetrating insights into the public and private career of one of the most important U.S. presidents. Link, Arthur S. Wilson. 5 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947-1965. Definitive study of Wilson’s life and career is an indispensable resource for any serious student of the 1912 election. Milkis, Sidney M., and Jerome M. Mileur, eds. Progressivism and the New Democracy. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Collection of essays by political scientists and historians examines the longterm effects of the Progressive Era on U.S. politics and government. Includes index. Schantz, Harvey L., ed. American Presidential Elections: Process, Policy, and Political Change. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Collection of essays analyzing presidential elections throughout U.S. history. Contributors compare specific elections and discuss their impacts on political parties, American society, and public policy. Introductory essay provides a thorough explanation of the presidential election process. Includes tables, figures, and index. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. 1912-1924. Vol. 6 in History of American Presidential Elections. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. Contains the official platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties as well as transcripts of speeches and remarks by Wilson, which help give the particular flavor of the times in which the election was held. See also: Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition; June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice; Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Apollinaire Defines Cubism
1913
Apollinaire Defines Cubism
Also known as: Les Peintres cubistes; The Cubist Painters Locale: Paris, France Categories: Arts; publishing and journalism Key Figures Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), French art critic, poet, playwright, novelist, journalist, and cultural activist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist Georges Braque (1882-1963), French artist Jean Metzinger (1883-1956), French painter and art critic Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), French painter and art critic Juan Gris (1887-1927), Spanish painter André Salmon (1881-1969), French poet, novelist, and art critic Robert Delaunay (1885-1941), French painter Max Jacob (1876-1944), French poet, novelist, and art critic Fernand Léger (1881-1955), French painter Summary of Event In 1913, Guillaume Apollinaire published several articles in a booklet titled Les Peintres cubistes: Méditations esthétiques (The Cubist Painters: Aesthetic Meditations, 1944). This collection’s subtitle is an apt description of the manner in which Apollinaire treats his two principal subjects: the theory behind cubist practice during the period 1907-1912 and the psychological analysis of the chief cubists and their works. Apollinaire does not approach his subject through logical analysis and plain expository prose. Instead, as a poet as well as a critic, he seeks to penetrate into the essence of things, and he renders his sharp impressions with sensitivity and feeling. His treatment is thus meditative, imaginative, freely associative, and poetic; it shows serious, concentrated, and continual reflection concerning his goals. The Cubist Painters is truly the product of Apollinaire’s aesthetic meditations. Apollinaire begins his booklet by citing what he considers the three “plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth.” He holds that these virtues, from an artistic standpoint, “keep nature in subjection.” By “nature,” he means the
ordinary reality perceived by means of the senses. For him, however, this reality is not true; it consists of mere appearances, which are continually undergoing change. Therefore, in Apollinaire’s view, nature is not a worthy subject for art. Although cubist artists “look at nature,” Apollinaire notes, they do not imitate it. As art is not a mirror held up to nature, so cubism is basically conceptual rather than perceptual. It is a matter of intellect, and hence of the “categories”—the universal modes of development and determination. Among such categories are content and form, time and space, quality and measurement, and essence and appearance. By means of mind, then, according to Apollinaire, one can know the essential or transcendental reality that subsists “beyond the scope of nature.” Having rejected the spirit of the fin de siècle, the cubists pursued the new spirit of the machine age and its dynamic concept of reality. They were fascinated by the new structures and the new machines: the Eiffel Tower, the motorcar, the wireless, the airplane, the telephone, the phonograph, the cinema. They paid spectator attention to the new mathematics and the new physics: non-Euclidean geometry and topology, radiation, atomic structure, optics, light, color, quantum mechanics, relativity, the fourth dimension. Above all, they searched for new lines and forms, both concepts not found in nature. They became interested in the ancient sculptures of Egypt, Africa, and Oceania. They were attacked for their geometry; they no longer limited themselves to the “dimensions of Euclid” but indulged in a “fourth dimension” and presented perspectives “in the round” from a series of station points. Above all, they sought to achieve “purity, unity, and truth.” According to Apollinaire, “purity” is practically a synonym for “originality.” It is the state of an artist who, after studying tradition thoroughly, rejects it to start out on his or her own path of creativity. The term “unity” refers to the successful full completion of the artist’s vision, when the picture “will exist ineluctably.” Apollinaire says, however, that “neither purity nor unity count with truth.” Truth cannot be found in appearance, or ordinary reality; it is to be found in essence, or ultimate reality. The truth of ultimate reality, however, “can never be definite, for truth is always new.” The social role and end of art is always “to keep it new.” Such an aim, Apollinaire asserts, gives art “the illusion of the typical,” and “all the art works of an epoch end by resembling the most 1015
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Guillaume Apollinaire presented a rationale for cubist practice by laying down the three main tenets of cubist aesthetics.
Apollinaire Defines Cubism energetic, the most expressive and the most typical work of the period.” According to Apollinaire, the idea of cubism was first suggested in derision by the Fauve painter Henri Matisse. The “new aesthetics,” Apollinaire claims, was first thought out by André Derain, another Fauve painter. Derain himself was never a cubist, however, and the first cubist paintings were the work of the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, a resident of France, and Picasso’s masterful French contemporary Georges Braque. Another important early contributor to the cubist movement was Jean Metzinger. In addition to his brilliant discussion of these pioneers and their works, Apollinaire also comments on the following artists and their works: Albert Gleizes, Marie Laurencin (Apollinaire’s mistress from 1907 to 1912, whose work was peripheral to that of the genuine cubists), Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond DuchampVillon, a sculptor. Significance By the autumn of 1912, Apollinaire recognized that although cubism had become a powerful force in the art world, it had also provoked divergent aims among its practitioners. In The Cubist Painters, he notes four trends developing concurrently in cubism. He calls them “scientific-geometric,” “physical,” “instinctive,” and “orphic” cubism. Of these trends, he says, two are “pure”—the scientific-geometric and the orphic. They are pure because they take nothing from visual reality and present “essential reality” in a pure manner. In addition, Apollinaire points out, Orphism depicts a “subject” conveying some “sublime meaning” despite its nonrepresentational character. Indeed, ten days after The Cubist Painters was published, Apollinaire deserted cubism for Orphism, although he considered Orphism within the scope of the cubist movement. He had first used the term “Orphism” to distinguish the paintings of Robert Delaunay being shown at the Section d’Or exhibition in 1912. Delaunay had recognized that color, if identified as light, keeps moving and changing to form abstract shapes and patterns. Delaunay also noted that certain colors, when combined in harmonic contrast with other colors, produce light movements. Léger and Picabia also went over to Orphism. Another prominent Orphicist was the Czech occult painter František Kupka, who had certain ideas about color of his own. The Section d’Or group was founded in 1912 by the cubists Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. This group was inspired, however, not by the expressive color theo1016
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ries of Delaunay and Kupka but by the interest the 1890’s group called the Nabis (Symbolist disciples of Paul Gauguin) had taken in forms or compositions based on mathematical proportions. Some art historians have considered the Section d’Or exhibition, held in Paris in October, 1912, to constitute the climax of the first, or analytical, phase of the cubist movement. During the analytical phase (1907-1912), it became cubist practice to fragment three-dimensional objects and view them simultaneously from a variety of points, everything being presented on a flat two-dimensional surface. During the synethic phase (1913-1921), forms were simplified, brighter colors came into use, and illusion, collage, and papier collé (patterned collage) were employed. From 1910, the cubist movement began to have international effects on such foreign movements as Italian Futurism, the German Der Blaue Reiter group, Russian CuboFuturism and Rayonism, Franco-Spanish Creacionismo, English vorticism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Italian Futurism began as a revolutionary program in literature and art. Futurism soon developed far broader aims, however, and became an extensive social plan that supported Italian nationalism, gloried in action and warfare, and thrilled at the power and speed of technology and the machine. In effect, the Futurist program was preparing the way for the fascist state. In expressing itself in literature and art, Futurism was at first tongue-tied; when it discovered the cubist idiom, it found its own voice. Although never a Futurist, Marcel Duchamp rendered the idea of motion in a more complex style in Nude Descending a Staircase No. 1 in 1911 than the Futurist Giacomo Balla did in his 1912 work Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (Leash in Motion). Cubo-Futurism and Rayonism were both Russian styles of painting that lasted only a few years. CuboFuturism was originated in Moscow in 1909 by Natalya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov and lasted to 1914. This style combined cubist mannerisms with cultivated primitivism based on Russian peasant art. The name Cubo-Futurism was conferred on this style by Kazimir Malevich in 1913 in reference to his own works, in which he had combined cultivated primitivism with treatment in the manner of the early “tubular” works of Léger. His painting Knife Grinder (1912) displays both cubist and Futurist features. Rayonism was another style practiced by Goncharova and Larionov during the same period. A synthesis of cubism, Futurism, and Orphism, Rayonism was based on the theory that all objects emit rays and that artists could manipulate the radiance of objects for their own aesthetic purposes.
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second major volume of poems, Calligrammes (1918; English translation, 1980), sounds an aesthetic note quite different from that of his first major volume, Alcools: Poèmes, 1898-1913 (1913; Alcools: Poems, 1898-1913, 1964). In the latter the influence of Symbolism is clear, whereas in the former the poetic structure is dislocated and fragmented in cubist style. Critics have noted technical correspondences between Jacob’s poetry and cubist paintings, in particular the prose poems of his Cornet à dés (1917; Cup of Dice, 1979). Apollinaire’s Swiss friend Blaise Cendrars (who wrote in French) was even more vigorous than Apollinaire in modernist poetics, liking the kinetic speed and rhythm of the modern world, which he projected in telegraphic syntax. Critics also consider Reverdy’s poetry undeniably cubist. Like his Chilean acquaintance Huidobro, Reverdy held a poem to be an independent object; in his poetry, he searched for essential reality. He managed to combine a number of perspectives on his own situations while excluding his own presence. Cubist influ-
Apollinaire on Art In The Cubist Painters, Guillaume Apollinaire describes the nature of the new form of art: Verisimilitude is no longer of any importance, since the artist sacrifices everything to truths inherent in a higher form of Nature, which he divines although he has not yet discovered it. The subject is hardly, or not at all, taken into account. Generally speaking, modern art rejects most of the ways in which the great artists of the past have sought to please. Though the aim of painting is now, as ever, to please the eye, the art-lover is invited to take in it a pleasure different from that which he takes in the sight of natural objects. Thus we are progressing in the direction of an entirely new form of art, which will have the same relationship to painting as the term has been understood till now, that music has to literature. It will be pure painting, just as music is pure literature. The pleasure a music lover takes in a concert is quite different from that which he feels when listening to natural sounds such as the murmuring of a stream, the crashing of a torrent, the whistling of the wind in a forest or the harmonies, founded on reason rather than aesthetics, of human language. . . . The social function of great poets and great artists is constantly to renew the manner in which nature appears to the eyes of Mankind. Source: Guillaume Apollinaire, Les Peintres cubistes: Méditations esthétiques (1913), translated by Cecily Mackworth in Guillaume Apollinaire and the Cubist Life (New York: Horizon Press, 1963).
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Creacionismo (creationism), essentially an aesthetic of poetry, arose for a short time in France, apparently sponsored by Pierre Reverdy in conjunction with the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro. After quarreling with Reverdy, Huidobro went off in a huff to Spain, where he introduced Creacionismo, and it flourished there for a short time. A “cubist notion” and antimimetic, Creacionismo maintained that a poem was a creation in its own right—that it was not an imitation of nature but a supplement to nature. This view harks back to Apollinaire, who states, “Poetry and creation are one and the same thing; he alone must be called poet who invents and creates.” Vorticism was an art movement started in England in 1913 by the painter and writer Wyndham Lewis and the sculptor Jacob Epstein. It was associated with Futurism and cubism, and its founders hoped to awaken England to the twentieth century. In practice, vorticism tried to operate somewhere between the Futurist obsession with speedy motion and the cubist preoccupation with fragmented geometrical objects. Other prominent vorticists were the American poet Ezra Pound, the English writer T. E. Hulme, and the French sculptor Henri Gautier-Brzeska. Cubism was introduced to the United States with the New York Armory Show of 1913. The most prominent American cubists were the Russian American painter Max Weber, who had been influenced by cubism at least a year earlier, and Stuart Davis, who was not affected by the idiom until the 1920’s. Although Picasso and Duchamp-Villon made one or two experiments in sculpture earlier, no significant cubist sculpture was created before 1914, when Duchamp-Villon’s The Horse and Aleksandr Archipenko’s Woman with a Fan appeared. When the sculptors got going, they tended to take their cues from the cubist painters, and some sculptures show their derivation plainly. On the other hand, some sculptors who utilized cubist elements were able to create exciting new forms. During the period 1914-1920, two major sculptors emerged in Paris who worked in the cubist idiom: the Lithuanian Jacques Lipshitz and the native Frenchman Henri Laurens. Literature, especially poetry, showed the effect of cubist philosophy and technique. Of course, Apollinaire himself and several other writers, including Max Jacob, André Salmon, Pierre Reverdy, and Gertrude Stein, were intimately connected with the cubist painters. Apollinaire’s
Apollinaire Defines Cubism
Apollinaire Defines Cubism ence is also discernible in the work of the American poets Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Hart Crane. In prose, critics have seen cubist aesthetics in André Gide’s novel Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925; The Counterfeiters, 1927) and in some of the work of Gertrude Stein. The publication of Apollinaire’s The Cubist Painters was a major event in the cultural history of the modern world. Through his poetry, his activist leadership, and his art criticism, Apollinaire helped to give the twentieth century a new conception of representation in poetry and the plastic arts. —Richard P. Benton Further Reading Adéma, Marcel. Apollinaire. Translated by Denise Folliot. New York: Grove Press, 1954. Scholarly biography succeeds in recovering the real Apollinaire, a man whose character was often misunderstood and maligned. Presents Apollinaire’s life in a clear and orderly way while remaining largely uncritical. Antliff, Mark, and Patricia Leighten. Cubism and Culture. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001. Scholarly work discusses the innovations of cubism and their relation to cultural, political, philosophical, and scientific changes taking place in French society at the time. Includes many illustrations (more than fifty in color), bibliography, and index. Apollinaire, Guillaume. The Cubist Painters. Translated by Peter Read. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. The first new English translation of Apollinaire’s groundbreaking work since 1944. Volume also presents information on the original’s publication and analysis of its impact. Barr, Alfred H., Jr. Cubism and Abstract Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1974. A general scholarly survey of the cubist and abstract art movements. Thoroughly documented. A valuable reference source. Bates, Scott. Guillaume Apollinaire. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1989. General introduction to Apollinaire as
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 poet, novelist, and art critic provides a great deal of valuable information. Cooper, Douglas. The Cubist Epoch. 1971. Reprint. London: Phaidon Press, 1995. Presents a highly intelligent analysis and description of cubism, its aesthetic principles, its genesis and development, and its widespread influence. Emphasizes that cubism cannot be defined as one thing and that it was a reaction against outworn conventions in favor of a “new realism.” Davies, Margaret. Apollinaire. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1964. Combined biographical and critical study is an authoritative work of scholarship. An unusual feature is the author’s use of Apollinaire’s creative writing to throw light on biographical facts. Deals especially well with Apollinaire’s modernist period and his relationship to the various painters and movements of the time. The literary criticism, although perceptive in spots, is sparse in development. Gray, Christopher. Cubist Aesthetic Theories. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967. Sketches the genesis and development of cubism. Also describes both the philosophical and aesthetic ideas cubism reacted against and those it adopted for its own use. Divides the development of cubism into two phases, the first concerning the issue of the true nature of reality and of humankind’s ability to know it and the second displaying a rising consciousness among painters and poets of the new developments in the sciences, especially physics and mathematics, and the wonders of the machine. See also: Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons; Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto; 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art
1913
Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art
Locale: Paris, France Category: Arts Key Figures Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), French painter and sculptor Francis Picabia (1879-1953), French painter Max Ernst (1891-1976), German painter and sculptor Man Ray (1890-1976), American painter, photographer, and writer Summary of Event “As early as 1913, I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn.” In that one act, Marcel Duchamp originated two of the most significant approaches to modern sculpture: the mobile (sculpture involving actual movement) and the “readymade” (sculpture made from ordinary, existing objects). Of even more importance was Duchamp’s challenge to traditional concepts and definitions of art. Duchamp was one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century and also one of the most fascinating and problematic, because there is so much in his art that resists explanation. He began his career as a conservatively trained artist in 1902 and, within a period of less than ten years, worked his way through the most advanced movements in pre-World War I art, including cubism, Fauvism, and Futurism. In 1913, he created an international sensation when his cubist Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 was exhibited at the Armory Show in New York. By 1923, however, he had abandoned his painting career altogether. Although he had phased himself out of the making of art in the traditional sense, he continued to be an important figure in the international art world until his death in 1968. Duchamp’s career raised a series of intriguing questions: Why did he quit making art? Why did he remain an inspiration to so many artists, from the Dadaists and Surrealists of the 1920’s and 1930’s to young artists in the 1950’s and 1960’s? Was he, as some hostile critics have suggested, simply pretending to take an antiart stance to cover up his own failures as an artist, or had he really found a new expressive activity that took him beyond art in its historical sense? From 1910 to 1913, Duchamp made some drastic
changes in his work. In a series of nudes done in 1909 and 1910, he progressed from an Impressionist approach to pose, gesture, and brushstroke to a representation in which the gestures of the figures and their relationships to one another were not explicit; each figure was painted in a dry, precise style, with even some indication of internal organs beneath the surface of the skin. He had put formal precision of statement at the service of ambiguity or mystery of content. Then, in 1911, he did a number of cubist-inspired works, which led to two versions of Nude Descending a Staircase, works that illustrated successive stages of movement of a single figure. At the same time, he did his first work involving the machine as subject. Choosing a commonplace household item, a coffee grinder, he created the illusion of motion by using graphic devices (arrows and dotted lines) to indicate the turning of the grinder’s wheel. This painting marked the beginning of his fascination with objects. In 1913, having painted two versions of Nude Descending a Staircase, Duchamp next painted Bride and Passage of the Virgin to the Bride. In these two works, the directions he had taken in such earlier works as Bush, Nude Descending a Staircase, and Coffee Grinder seemed to come together. He combined his interest in both the human figure and machines to produce two works in which a “machine” became a metaphor for the human. In other words, he stripped the bride of all her historical, sentimental associations—wedding gown, veil, bridal bouquet, something old and new, borrowed and blue. He even removed her face and all external aspects of her body, imaging her as a complex combination of tubes, valves, slots, cones, and gears—in other words, as a machine. He painted the various parts in a careful and precise way, with all evidence of brushstroke removed. As he stripped down the bride on the physical level, he also stripped her of certain psychological or mental associations—the ideas of beauty and femininity, for example. The disenchantment that Duchamp evidenced for the subject was also his feeling about art itself. He was now taking a serious antiart position; with the precision of his drawing and painting, he was moving away from the traditional concept that tangible evidence of the artist’s hand in a work is an integral part of the aesthetic experience. Duchamp was determined to break away from “retinal” art—art for the eye alone—which, as he observed, had led to the glorification of the craft aspect of painting, 1019
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Marcel Duchamp’s elevation of everyday objects to the status of art sparked controversy but proved enormously influential.
Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art an enormous regard for the virtuosity of the artist’s hand. He dismissed such work as the “olfactory” art of painters who, being in love with the smell of paint, had no interest in re-creating ideas on canvas. Duchamp’s next paintings, done in late 1913 and early 1914, were of a chocolate grinder—a machine he saw in a shopwindow. Again, his approach was to be as dry and as precise as possible in order to emphasize the object itself and its mystery, not the facility of his own hand. In the second version, he took the machine out of the illusionistic setting of the first painting in order to emphasize further the object character of his motif, and he also fastened pieces of thread to the canvas to represent the teeth of the three drums that revolved in the machine as the chocolate beans were ground. In his thinking and in his art, Duchamp had moved away from the avant-garde (cubism and abstraction) and had achieved identifiability of the object and elimination of virtuosity in the making. Having gone as far as he could in terms of creating the illusion of an object in his work, his next logical step was to involve himself directly with objects. In so doing, he was declaring that creation resides not in making but in seeing. Duchamp stated that one important aspect of his “seeing” or selection of objects to be used as readymades was the absence of aesthetic delectation. His choices, he said, were based on a reaction of visual indifference, with a corresponding total absence of good or bad taste. The truth of that claim was evidenced by his work Fountain in 1917—a porcelain urinal that he signed with the pseudonym “R. Mutt” and submitted to an exhibition sponsored by the Society of Independent Artists. The exhibition committee, finding the piece obscene and morally offensive, refused to display it. Duchamp sometimes inscribed a short sentence on a readymade that, rather than being a title, he wrote, was meant to “carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions, more verbal.” When he added graphic details to satisfy his craving for alliteration, the object became “readymade aided”; to expose the basic antinomy between art and readymades, he imagined a “reciprocal readymade: use a Rembrandt as an ironing board.” Realizing that the readymade could be repeated indiscriminately, he decided to limit the number he made each year. For viewer even more than for artist, he noted, “art is a habit-forming drug,” and he wanted to protect the readymades against such contamination. Significance In his creation of the readymades, Duchamp raised—and answered—the question, Who determines whether or 1020
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 not something is art? This question has provoked much heated debate through the centuries, with scholars arguing about the extent to which a work of art must be aesthetic, must be shaped by human hands, must be original (to distinguish it from craft), or must have a meaningful subject. Needless to say, little agreement has been reached on any of these points. With the readymades, however, Duchamp presented his own answer: It is the artist who determines whether or not something is art. The readymades expressed Duchamp’s penchant for paradox, for the play of visual against verbal, for alliteration, and for both visual and linguistic puns. The readymades also illustrated another major aspect of Duchamp’s thinking about art, his courting of chance or accident. He created Three Standard Stoppages, for example, which consists of three mystical, personal units of measure, by allowing three pieces of thread to fall onto three pieces of black paper, to which he then affixed the threads; he then carefully preserved the results in a wooden croquet box. The irony is that measure is usually identified with precision, but Duchamp’s measure was achieved by chance. All these characteristics of Duchamp’s work—along with his antiart stance—had a great influence on the Dadaists. The Surrealists, too, were significantly influenced by Duchamp’s love of paradox and wordplay as well as, in particular, his involvement of the artist with chance and accident. The works of Francis Picabia and Max Ernst, for example, display the same kind of use of both visual and verbal language to create witty, satirical, punning references to the foibles of society as well as the same use of the machine as a metaphor for the human. Man Ray, the American painter and photographer, was another who was fascinated by what Duchamp and Picabia were doing to minimize the role of the hand in art. When Duchamp incorporated movement into Bicycle Wheel, he pioneered kinetic sculpture. In the 1920’s, he experimented further with motion in Rotative Glass, which was based on the phenomenon that when two spirals revolve on a common axis but slightly off center, one appears to come forward and the other to go back. To demonstrate this, he built an apparatus consisting of five rectangular glass plates of graduated lengths, each with black lines painted at both ends and attached to a metal rod that was turned by a motor. In the 1930’s, he created the Rotoreliefs—six round cardboard disks, each stamped with what appeared to be an abstract design; when “played” on a phonograph turntable, the disks gave the illusion of three-dimensional objects. When Alexander Calder’s first kinetic sculptures were exhibited in 1932, it was Duchamp who christened them “mobiles.”
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Further Reading D’Harnoncourt, Anne, and Kynaston McShine, eds. Marcel Duchamp. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1973. The catalog for a comprehensive exhibition of Duchamp’s work. Contains essays on various aspects of his work by leading Duchampian scholars. Features a chronology, an excellent bibliography, and illustrations throughout. Duchamp, Marcel. Salt Seller: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp. Edited by Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. An attempt to collect and publish all of Duchamp’s written work. Includes an English translation of Duchamp’s notes for his painting The Large Glass as well as the text of a lecture Duchamp gave in 1961 in which he discussed his creation of the readymades. Duve, Thierry de, ed. The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. Collection of eleven essays that were first presented at a colloquium at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1987. Each essay is followed by a transcript of the discussion that took place at the colloquium following the essay’s presentation. Three of the essays are specifically concerned with the readymades. Judovitz, Dalia. Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Analysis of Duchamp’s work focuses on the significance of his readymades. Includes select bibliography and index. Marquis, Alice Goldfarb. Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare—A Biography. Boston: MFA Publications, 2002. Biography draws on a wide variety of sources, including many unpublished materials held by various libraries and universities, interviews with people who knew Duchamp, and countless articles, journals, lectures, and books. Fully documented and illustrated with black-and-white plates. Richter, Hans. Dada: Art and Anti-Art. 1965. Reprint. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Uses original manifestos and other documents to re-create the times and events of Dada. Emphasizes Duchamp’s influence on the development of Dada and discusses some of the movement’s leading artists. See also: Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; 1916: Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire; 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph. 1021
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Calder’s wind mobiles, especially, relied on chance (moving air currents) for their effects. Most of the kinetic sculptors of the late twentieth century were ardent admirers of Duchamp—in 1960, for example, when the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely went to New York City to build his self-destructing sculpture Homage to New York at the Museum of Modern Art, he consulted with Duchamp. Twentieth century sculpture, from the beginning, contained a strain of fantasy, resulting from the fact that most sculptors continued to use the human head and figure as subjects—and no matter how much they transformed the head and figure by every sort of reformation, deformation, stylization, and manipulation imaginable, some sense of human presence remained. The first twentieth century work in which fantasy appeared explicitly was Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913). This was followed by Duchamp’s even more significant invention of the readymade. The Duchamp-inspired “object sculptures” created by the Dadaists reached a culmination in such pop art productions as Jasper Johns’s cast-bronze beer cans and coffee cans filled with paintbrushes. Duchamp was the guiding light and a great influence on both pop art and the New Realism. Many terms that have special significance in relation to later twentieth century art were his—readymade, assemblage, mobile. As several scholars have pointed out, his last painting, Tum’ (1918), is almost a dictionary of postwar directions in art—from pop and op to color field to conceptualism. Duchamp’s work has been one of the most important influences on the development of conceptual art. When Duchamp invented the readymade, he reduced the creative act to the elementary level of selecting or designating an object as art. By implication, then, art was more concerned with the artist’s intentions than with craftsmanship or style. Furthermore, he challenged the entire art establishment; art critics and professional arbiters of taste who dictated to the galleries, museums, and art-buying public were no longer needed as the artist, who decides what is or is not art, became both creator and critic. Also, if art inheres not in form but in the artist’s conception, then it is no longer an object for commercial, profitable speculation in the art market. The conceptualists—believing that formalism was dead and that art could survive only as idea— looked to Duchamp’s readymades as the beginning of modern art and of conceptualism itself. In the final analysis, however, the art establishment won out. As Duchamp himself later declared, “I threw the urinal in their faces and now they come and admire it for its beauty.” —LouAnn Faris Culley
Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art
Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures
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Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures Thomas Alva Edison developed a system for adding sound to motion pictures by using a phonograph linked to a film projector. Locale: West Orange, New Jersey Categories: Science and technology; inventions; motion pictures Key Figures Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor William Dickson (1860-1935), American mechanic and inventor Miller Reese Hutchison (1876-1944), American inventor Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American inventor George Eastman (1854-1932), American inventor and industrialist Summary of Event Thomas Alva Edison began experimenting on a device that would show moving pictures because he wanted visual images to accompany the music reproduced by another of his inventions, the phonograph. He said that moving pictures would do for the eye what the phonograph had done for the ear. He thought that both sound and visual images could be stored on a phonograph cylinder and then reproduced at any time by the user. Edison selected William Dickson from his staff to work on the project at his new laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. Dickson, an accomplished experimenter with a strong interest in photography, started the work in 1887. He fixed small photographs onto a phonograph cylinder and viewed them through a microscope as they rotated. He found that sequential images of a moving object gave the impression of movement when passed rapidly through the viewer’s line of sight. Edison and Dickson had examined several devices that exploited the phenomenon of persistence of vision—the eye’s retention of images for a short time. It was well known that a sequence of images could be manipulated to give the visual illusion of movement. Edison and Dickson were confident that a series of small photographs could achieve this effect. This was the conceptual beginning of motion pictures. By 1888, Dickson had built a device that could reproduce both sight and sound. This “moving view” apparatus contained a phonograph cylinder and a drum covered with a series of small photographs. Both were centered 1022
on a common axle. When the axle was turned, the viewer watched the moving pictures through a microscope and listened to the accompanying sound track through earphones connected to a reproducing diaphragm on the cylinder. This device was the first attempt to show talking pictures. Further experiments proved that this approach was not feasible because the sound and the vision elements could not be synchronized. The phonograph cylinder had to revolve with a continuous motion to ensure good reproduction of the sound track, while the photograph drum needed an intermittent motion: The image had to be moved into the line of sight, fixed there for a fraction of a second so that the eye could record it, and then rapidly moved out of the line of sight. Despite months of experiments, the problem proved insurmountable, forcing Edison to drop the idea of combining sight and sound in one device. Once released from the demands of talking pictures, Dickson experimented with the best method of manipulating sequential photographs to give the impression of movement. His research produced the important innovation of the perforated strip of film, which replaced the photographs on a revolving drum. Dickson was aware of the use of thin celluloid strips as photographic film. He ordered a strip of film from George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had used such strips in his cameras. Dickson exposed the images one after another on the continuous tape of film. The edges of the strip were cut with holes to fit the teeth of the ratchet that moved the strip rapidly past the lens. The film camera, patented by Edison in 1891, was a light-proof box containing a lens, a shutter, an electric motor, and a length of celluloid film with perforated sides. Edison also patented a device for viewing such strips of film—the kinetoscope. This was a large box that held a strip of positive images as it was moved past an illuminated eyepiece at the top of the machine. An electric motor moved the strip of film to the eyepiece, where a slotted disc exposed the images to the viewer at a rate of about forty frames per second. The kinetoscope was designed as an arcade machine. It closely resembled the coin-slot phonograph, which had become popular in penny arcades and other public places. By 1893, the first kinetoscopes were placed next to phonographs in arcades. Two years later, Edison took the next step of putting a phonograph in the bottom part of the kinetoscope housing. Named the kinetophone, this machine was a
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second attempt to show talking pictures. The viewer looked through the eyepiece to see the images while listening to the sound track on ear tubes connected to the phonograph. The problems of synchronizing sight and sound again proved too difficult to overcome, however. The kinetophone was a commercial failure and very few were manufactured, but this machine set an important precedent as a self-contained sight and sound system. Edison was confident that he could perfect this technology and capture a mass audience. After introducing a commercial film projector, he resumed experiments on the kinetophone in 1899. The machine now consisted of a film projector linked to a special long-playing phonograph. The strips of film used in the kinetoscope had run for less than a minute, enough to keep the customer’s attention in an arcade but insufficient to satisfy an audience in a film theater. As audiences became more accustomed to the novelty of moving pictures, they wanted to see films that told stories. The average playing time of an Edison phonograph cylinder at this time was about two minutes; it was not enough to accommodate the longer films being made at the turn of the century. The best format for a long-playing phonograph was the disc rather than the cylinder. Invented by Emile Berliner, the disc-playing talking machine had become a serious competitor to Edison’s phonograph. The playing
time of a disc record could easily be extended to around seven minutes, and oversized discs offered much longer playing times. Edison found it difficult to desert the format he had invented and concentrated instead on increasing the size of the cylinder. The kinetophone was developed around oversized cylinders of about 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) in diameter and 19 centimeters (7.5 inches) in length. Playing time was about six minutes. Once the playing time had been increased, there still remained the task of amplifying the volume of the playback to ensure that the sound track could be heard from every seat in the theater. Increased volume could be achieved by putting more pressure on the reproducing needle as it made its way along the groove, but this caused wear on the wax cylinder that ultimately eradicated the sound. Edison hired Daniel Higham, an inventor from Massachusetts, to work on the kinetophone in 1908. Higham designed an oversized reproducer assembly that contained a special valve that enhanced the movement of the diaphragm as it picked up the sound vibrations made by the reproducing needle. The result was a much louder playback. Edison appointed his close associate, Miller Reese Hutchison, to be director of the kinetophone program. Hutchison had invented the automobile horn before he joined Edison’s lab; in the process, he developed methods of sound recording with numerous horns in order to achieve a more balanced sound track. By 1910, Hutchison had a working kinetophone to show to the press. The entertainment consisted of an announcer making a variety of sounds and a dancer performing with musical accompaniment. Although this demonstration was a success, thousands of additional experiments were undertaken to perfect the synchronization of sight and sound. Hutchison tried a variety of controlling devices to coordinate the film projector at the rear of the auditorium with the phonograph behind the screen. After rejecting a system of electrical controls, Hutchison finally decided on a simple mechanical system. A clutch mechanism was used to adjust the speed of the revolving cylinder of the phonograph to keep it in time with the film. The film projectionist worked the clutch with a cord that ran on pulleys. In 1913, the kinetophone was formally introduced with Edison’s claim that he had perfected talking pictures. Significance The kinetophone had a profound effect on motion picture audiences. When it was first publicly demonstrated in New York City, the newspapers reported that gasps of astonishment could be heard when sound came from the 1023
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Thomas Alva Edison. (Library of Congress)
Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures
Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures screen. The kinetophone was so popular that it was soon on the road, thrilling audiences all over the United States. It became the leading profit maker for the Edison enterprise in 1913, exceeding income from silent pictures, phonographs, and records. The first talking pictures garnered national publicity, bringing more fame to Edison and more profits to his film exhibitors. It also gave encouragement to other inventors who were working on talking pictures, including Lee de Forest, the inventor of an early vacuum tube called the audion. Where Edison’s approach had stayed within the realm of existing knowledge of acoustics and mechanics, de Forest’s experiments were directed at the completely new area of electronics. The audion could amplify electrical signals and also had potential as a controlling device—the two key problems in devising a system of talking pictures. The fame of the kinetophone was short-lived, for after the novelty wore off, movie audiences became impatient with its shortcomings. The playing time of the kinetophone could not accommodate the longer, epic films that were popular in 1913. Audiences wanted their entertainment to last hours, not minutes. Problems with synchronization continued to plague the kinetophone. After another year of unsuccessful experiments and theatrical failures, Edison gave up on the kinetophone and made no further attempt to perfect talking pictures. His attempts, however, had shown the way and demonstrated the appeal of the talkies to film audiences. Another ten years were to pass before electronic recording and amplification made talking pictures a commercial reality. The sound was picked up by microphones that changed the vibrations of sound into electrical signals. The sound was recorded onto discs by a recording stylus that was activated by the changes in a magnetic field. The discs were oversized and revolved at low speed, thus creating a long playing time. The electrical signals were reproduced from the record and amplified by vacuum tubes. Audiences heard the sound track through loudspeakers placed throughout the theater. Fourteen years after Edison announced the coming of talking pictures, The Jazz Singer opened up a new era in film entertainment in 1927. —Andre Millard Further Reading Balio, Tino, ed. The American Film Industry. Rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Col-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lection of scholarly articles on the early years of the film industry includes several contributions that deal with the technology of motion pictures. Conot, Robert. A Streak of Luck. New York: Seaview Press, 1979. A popular biography of Edison that seeks to debunk the Edison myth. Section on motion pictures describes the kinetophone as well as attempts to create talking pictures by inventors other than Edison. Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Comprehensive history of film includes discussion of Edison’s contributions to film technology in chapters 1 and 7. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Hendricks, Gordon. The Edison Motion Picture Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961. Detailed study of the invention of the motion picture argues that Edison took the credit for the work of others, especially William Dickson. _______. Origins of the American Film. New York: Arno Press, 1972. Concise account of the inventions that created the film industry by one of the leading scholars on the subject. Musser, Charles S. Before the Nickelodeon: Charles S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Authoritative history describes the part played by Edison and his employees in the early years of film. Ramsaye, Terry. A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture Through 1925. 1926. Reprint. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Popular history of motion pictures by an author who was closely connected to the film industry and a personal friend of Edison. Discussion is somewhat biased in Edison’s favor. Robinson, David. From Peepshow to Palace: Birth of American Film. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Provides an overview of the history of American film between 1893 and 1913. Chapter 2 discusses Edison’s work on adding sound to motion pictures. Includes many illustrations. See also: Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures; Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the MotionPicture Industry; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age.
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First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation
1913
First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation
Locale: Larderello, Italy Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geology; inventions; energy Key Figures Piero Ginori Conti (1865-1939), Italian nobleman and industrialist Charles Parsons (1854-1931), English engineer Summary of Event It has been known since ancient times that the interior of the earth is hot. Hot springs have been prized for centuries for their supposed curative powers and have been used occasionally for cooking and heating, but attempts to utilize the earth’s internal heat on a large scale did not become practical until the twentieth century. Drilling into a reservoir of high-pressure steam requires techniques that will protect the drillers. Also, because most geothermal steam sources are not near large population centers, tapping geothermal energy did not become practical until electric power networks were available to transport the energy harnessed. The first successful use of geothermal energy took place at Larderello in northern Italy. The Larderello geothermal field, located near the city of Pisa about 149 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Rome, contains many hot springs and fumaroles (steam vents). In 1777, these springs were found to be rich in boron, and in 1818 Francesco de Larderel began extracting borax from them. Previously, the principal source of borax for Europe had been remote Tibet. In the beginning, wood fires were used to evaporate water from the geothermal brine, but in 1827 Larderel began using steam from the fumaroles as a source of heat as well. Soon afterward, wells were drilled to increase the flow of mineralized water and to obtain more steam. Attempts were made also to use geothermal steam to power steam engines, but these failed because the water was too corrosive. Borax extraction at Larderello continued until 1969. Shortly after 1900, Prince Piero Ginori Conti, director of the Larderello borax works, conceived the idea of using the steam for power production. An experimental power plant was constructed at Larderello in 1904 to provide electric power to the borax plant. After this initial
experiment proved successful, a 250-kilowatt generating station was installed in 1913, and commercial power production began. As the Larderello field grew, additional geothermal sites throughout the region were prospected and tapped for power. Power production grew steadily until the 1940’s, when production reached 130 megawatts; however, the Larderello power plants were destroyed late in World War II. After the war, the generating plants were rebuilt, and by 1980 they were producing more than 400 megawatts. The Larderello power plants encountered many of the technical problems that were later to plague other geothermal facilities. For example, hydrogen sulfide in the steam was highly corrosive to copper, so the Larderello plants used aluminum for electrical connections much more than did conventional power plants of the time. Also, the low pressure of the steam in early wells at Larderello presented problems. The first plants simply used steam to drive generators and vented the spent steam to the atmosphere. A system of this sort, called a noncondensing system, is useful for small generators but not efficient to produce large amounts of power. Most steam engines derive power not only from the pressure of the steam but also from the vacuum created when the steam is condensed back to water. Geothermal systems that generate power from condensation as well as direct steam pressure are called condensing systems. Most large geothermal generators are of this type. Condensation of geothermal steam presents special problems not present in ordinary steam engines. One problem is the presence of other gases that do not condense. Instead of a vacuum, condensation of steam contaminated with other gases results in only a limited drop in pressure and, consequently, very low efficiency. Initially, the operators of Larderello tried to use the steam to heat boilers that would, in turn, generate pure steam. Eventually, they developed a device that removed most of the contaminating gases from the steam. Although later wells at Larderello and other geothermal fields produced steam at greater pressure, the engineering innovations developed at Larderello improve the efficiency of any geothermal power plant. In 1913, the English engineer Sir Charles Parsons proposed drilling an extremely deep (7.5-mile or 12kilometer) hole to tap the earth’s deep heat. Power from such a deep hole would not come from natural steam as at Larderello, but would be generated through the pumping 1025
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The first geothermal power installation was inaugurated when hot springs in northern Italy were used to provide steam to power an electric generator.
First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation
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cent of Iceland’s population receives home and business heating from geoGeothermal power plants use three different technologies to convert hydrothermal sources. Iceland is uniquely thermal fluids to electricity: dry steam, flash steam, and binary cycle. The suited to exploit geothermal energy first geothermal power generation plants were of the dry steam type. As of the because of its small population (about early twenty-first century, flash steam plants were the most common type in 240,000) and abundant geothermal operation. Most geothermal plants in the future will be binary-cycle plants. heat. Somewhat surprisingly, Iceland has been slow in developing geother• Dry steam power plants: Steam goes directly to a turbine that drives a mal electricity because hydroelectric generator to produce electricity. Steam technology is used at the Geysers power has been sufficient for the popfield in Northern California, the world’s largest single source of geotherulation’s needs. mal power. • Flash steam power plants: Hydrothermal fluids above 182 degrees CelThe first use of geothermal energy sius are used to make electricity. Fluid is sprayed into a tank that is held at a in the United States was for direct pressure much lower than the fluid, so that the fluid vaporizes (or flashes) heating. In 1890, the municipal water rapidly. The vapor drives a turbine that in turn drives a generator to procompany of Boise, Idaho, began supduce electricity. Liquid that remains in the tank is flashed again in another plying hot water from a geothermal tank to produce more energy. well. Water was piped from the well to • Binary-cycle power plants: Energy is extracted from the moderatehomes and businesses along appropritemperature water (204 degrees Celsius) that exists in most geothermal arately named Warm Springs Avenue. eas through a process in which hot geothermal fluid and a second fluid At its peak, the system served more with a boiling point much lower than that of water are passed through a than four hundred customers, but as heat exchanger. The secondary fluid flashes to vapor from the heat of the cheap natural gas became available, geothermal fluid, and the vapor drives a turbine, which drives a generator. the number declined. By 1972, only Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable two hundred customers remained, and Energy, Geothermal Technologies Program, “Geothermal Power Plants” (2004). the water company was planning to discontinue operations when a citizens’ group purchased the water rights to the well and launched a program to exof fluid into the hole to generate steam (as hot as 500 depand operations. Around the beginning of the twentieth grees Celsius) at the bottom. In modern terms, Parsons century, some individual residents of Klamath Falls, Orproposed tapping “hot-dry-rock” geothermal energy. By egon, began drilling geothermal wells to heat their own the end of the twentieth century, no such plant had yet buildings. been commercially operated, but research was being acAlthough Larderello was the site of the first successtively pursued in several countries. ful geothermal electric power plant, the modern era of The second geothermal field to produce electric geothermal electric power began with the opening of the power was Beppu, on the island of Kyushu in southern Geysers geothermal field in California, which marked Japan. Initial studies began in 1919, and a small onethe start of commercial geothermal power generation in kilowatt power plant began producing power in 1924. A the United States and the beginning of commercial geolarge number of geothermal power plants have been conthermal power generation on a worldwide basis. The structed in Japan, but despite its pioneering role in develfield of geysers located about 68 miles (110 kilometers) oping Japanese geothermal power, the Beppu field has north of San Francisco was discovered by explorer Wilnot developed into a major energy producer. liam Bell Elliott in 1847, and by the end of the nineteenth In the 1930’s and 1940’s, geothermal facilities were century, the area had become a tourist resort, with visideveloped in Iceland and New Zealand. Although geotors including Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain. In thermal electrical generating plants were built in both the 1920’s, John D. Grant, John Debo Galloway, and countries, much of the geothermal energy was used diFred Stone made test borings to explore the possibility of power production; although they were successful, the rectly for heating. As of 2005, two of the most extengeothermal source could not compete with inexpensive sive systems were in place in Reykjavik, Iceland, and power from hydroelectric and fossil-fuel power plants. Rotorua, New Zealand, where water is piped from geoAlso, the field of geysers was too isolated to be a comthermal wells to homes and businesses. More than 60 per-
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Significance Geothermal power has many attractive features. Because the steam is naturally heated and under pressure, generating equipment can be simple, inexpensive, and quickly installed. Equipment and installation costs are offset by savings in fuel. The installation of small generators is economically practical, a fact that makes the establishment of geothermal plants attractive in remote or underdeveloped areas. Most important to a world faced with a variety of technical and environmental problems connected with the use of fossil fuels, geothermal power does not deplete fossil-fuel reserves, produces little pollution, and contributes little to the greenhouse effect. Although it has been significant to local power production, geothermal power has not had a very great global impact, accounting for only a small percentage of the world’s total electric power production. Despite its attractive features, geothermal power has some limitations. Geologic settings suitable for easy geothermal power production—where hot rock or magma bodies are close to the surface—are rare. Although it is technically possible to pump water from an external source into a geothermal well to generate steam, most geothermal sites require a copious supply of natural underground water that can be tapped as a source of steam. In contrast, a fossil-fuel generating plant can be built at any convenient location. The technical difficulties associated with exploiting geothermal power are considerable. Drilling into hot rock is much more difficult than ordinary drilling, as the high temperatures wear out drilling equipment rapidly, and safety precautions are necessary to protect workers
during drilling. Fortunately, unlike oil wells, geothermal wells generally do not need to be very deep, usually only a few hundred meters. Geothermal power is not unlimited; a geothermal reservoir can be depleted by excessive consumption just as any other natural resource can be depleted. In addition, the hot underground water is often highly mineralized, capable of corroding or clogging pipes and even of sealing the underground fractures that make the water accessible. If the water is highly laden with minerals, disposing of it can create a pollution problem, although it is possible to deal with much of this problem by injecting the fluid back into the ground through disposal wells. A fundamental limit on geothermal power is set by the second law of thermodynamics, which defines how much useful work can be obtained from any physical process. Any physical process powered by heat converts heat into some other form of energy. In the process, the temperature of the heat source is lowered. The thermodynamic efficiency of any process powered by heat is equal to the temperature drop divided by the original temperature. Fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants are used to create very hot steam so that a large temperature drop is possible, resulting in high efficiency. Most geothermal sources produce steam that is not far above the boiling point of water; geothermal generators cannot achieve a very large drop in temperature and thus have low efficiency. The unavoidable energy losses caused by friction and heat dissipation further reduce the actual efficiency of most geothermal power plants. — Steven I. Dutch Further Reading Armstead, H. Christopher H. Geothermal Energy: Its Past, Present, and Future Contributions to the Energy Needs of Man. 2d ed. London: E. and F. N. Spon, 1983. A general overview of geothermal power and methods of utilizing it. Begins with a history of geothermal power and describes techniques for drilling and power production. Several chapters describe case histories of developed geothermal fields up to the 1980’s. Barnea, Joseph. “Geothermal Power.” Scientific American 226 (January, 1972): 70-77. An overview of the technology of geothermal power production. Describes techniques for locating geothermal heat sources and methods of extracting power from different types of geothermal fields. DiPippo, Ronald. Geothermal Energy as a Source of Electricity: A Worldwide Survey of the Design and 1027
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mercially viable source of electric power. In 1955, B. C. McCabe, a Los Angeles businessman, leased 5.6 square miles (14.6 square kilometers) in the geysers area and founded the Magma Power Company. Dan A. McMillan of the Thermal Power Company joined with McCabe in exploration, and, in 1958, McCabe and McMillan contracted with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company to produce steam for power generation. The first 12.5-megawatt generator was installed at the Geysers field in 1960, and production increased steadily from then on. The California field surpassed Larderello as the highest-producing geothermal field in the 1970’s, and by 1980 it was generating more than 1,000 megawatts. By the end of the twentieth century, geothermal plants installed in twenty-one countries were producing more than 8,200 megawatts to supply energy to about sixty million people.
First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation
Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated Operation of Geothermal Power Plants. U.S. Department of Energy Report RA 28320-1. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980. A countryby-country survey of geothermal power projects. The descriptions of the facilities are often quite technical, but there are also historical summaries, maps, and tables of power production. _______. Geothermal Power Plants: Principles, Applications, and Case Studies. New York: Elsevier Science, 2005. A technical discussion of all aspects of the geothermal energy industry. Garrett, Wilbur E., ed. “Energy: A Special Report in the Public Interest.” National Geographic, February, 1981. A general survey of energy resources, usage, and technology. The principal emphasis is on conventional energy resources, but the report discusses possible future energy sources as well, including geothermal power. An atlas on North American energy resources includes a map of known and potential geothermal fields. Hodgson, Susan F. A Geysers Album: Five Eras of Geothermal History. Sacramento: California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, 1997. Brief report describes five periods in the geothermal history of California as expe-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 rienced at the Geysers field: the wilderness era, the era of use by Native Americans, the age of tourism, a 1920’s electrical generation project, and the era of modern electrical generation. U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Geothermal Today: 2005 Geothermal Technologies Program Highlights. U.S. Department of Energy Report DOE/GO-1020052189. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2005. Describes the accomplishments and activities in geothermal energy production in the United States in the early twenty-first century. Weaver, Kenneth F. “Geothermal Energy: The Power of Letting Off Steam.” National Geographic 152 (October, 1977): 566-579. A brief survey of geothermal energy resources, their utilization, and possible future impact on energy production. Includes diagrams of the geologic structure of principal types of geothermal heat sources and their geographic distribution. See also: 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking; Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam.
1913
Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated Guided by the moral principles of its founder, the Fuller Brush Company transformed the image of doorto-door salespeople and introduced new selling techniques to the business world. Locale: Hartford, Connecticut Categories: Marketing and advertising; trade and commerce; organizations and institutions Key Figures Alfred Carl Fuller (1885-1973), founder and first president of the Fuller Brush Company Howard Fuller (1913-1959), son of Alfred Carl Fuller and second president of the Fuller Brush Company Avard E. Fuller (1918-1992), son of Alfred Carl Fuller and third president of the Fuller Brush Company Summary of Event Alfred Carl Fuller’s life story would have made a satisfactory plot for one of Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches 1028
novels. Fuller was a shy, awkward, uneducated young man reared on a subsistence farm in Nova Scotia. He failed at several jobs before discovering that he had a talent for making and selling brushes. Fuller estimated that the typical household in the early part of the twentieth century used as many as eighty brushes, including toothbrushes, nailbrushes, hairbrushes, clothes brushes, shoe brushes, brushes for scrubbing pots and pans, brushes for currying horses and grooming other animals, brushes for basting, brushes for scrubbing potatoes and other vegetables, and brushes for cleaning up the kitchen and the rest of the house. He conceived of the idea of a business concentrating solely on brushes, an early example of the principle of specialization refined to a considerable extent by American entrepreneurs. Fuller was reared by strict parents who taught their children the importance of integrity, self-discipline, industry, and religious faith. At an early age, he became
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they had at any other job. The typical Fuller Brush man was an ambitious individualist who liked being his own boss and being compensated in proportion to his efforts. In order to keep control of his rapidly growing business, Fuller had to employ people to supervise the twin aspects of his enterprise, production and sales. In addition to supervising and motivating the far-flung army of sales representatives, his executives worked hard to improve manufacturing methods. They strived to provide better products at lower prices as well as to create new kinds of brushes to fit every conceivable need. The fact that the Fuller Brush man was always able to show new items when he called on his regular rounds made for more enthusiastic reception. Fuller was one of the earliest American entrepreneurs to understand the importance of giving “new value” to familiar products. The company eventually added such products as waxes and polishes, and in 1948 it began employing women, called “Fullerettes,” who offered a line of cosmetics. Alfred Fuller also conceived the brilliant idea of overcoming sales resistance and circumventing the many local antipeddler laws by having his representatives give housewives free gifts every time they called. This “giveaway” idea has been imitated widely and is still effective in generating sales and goodwill. Although the Fuller Brush Company remained in business into the twenty-first century, it was taken over by the Sara Lee Corporation in 1968, and no member of the Fuller family was involved in its operation after that time. In 1994, Fuller Brush Company was acquired by the Computerized Pollution Abatement Corporation, or CPAC, of New York. Significance The Fuller Brush Company, under the leadership of Alfred Fuller and his two sons, Howard Fuller and Avard E. Fuller, who succeeded him as presidents of the company, contributed many important ideas to American business. Perhaps the most important was the idea of specialization. Not only did the company specialize in selling brushes, but it also devoted intense effort to developing new kinds of brushes for every conceivable purpose. Modern consumers are offered a nearly infinite variety of highly specialized tools, appliances, and other gadgets, and more are being invented and marketed every year. The Fuller Brush Company set an early example of achieving success through understanding customers’ needs and using ingenuity to satisfy them. The Fuller Brush Company was one of the first business firms to utilize the concept of franchising. Its repre1029
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acquainted with the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, and he remained a devout Christian Scientist throughout his life. He applied strict moral standards to every aspect of his business, demanding the same qualities from his subordinates. At the time, door-to-door salespeople, historically called peddlers and drummers, had a bad reputation in the United States because so many had victimized customers by selling shoddy merchandise ever since the days of the original English colonies. Many peddlers were outright scoundrels looking for opportunities to commit burglaries, rapes, and other crimes. Fuller’s high moral standards, more than any managerial feature, were responsible for the success of the Fuller Brush Company, as he imposed the same standards on his sales force. Many American women who would have nothing to do with other house-to-house salespeople would welcome the “Fuller Brush man” (Fuller’s original salespeople were all male) into their homes because they regarded him as a trustworthy neighbor who sold the most reliable products of their kind. When the business was still in its infancy and Fuller was still making his own brushes in his little shop in Hartford, Connecticut, he had the idea of advertising in a national magazine to recruit sales personnel. This proved to be the best merchandising idea he ever had. He was astonished by the response. “That little ad changed the whole thing from a one-man effort to a company operating nation-wide,” he later noted. Practically overnight, and with virtually no capital, he built up a network of dealers. The dealers were not employees but instead independent operators assigned exclusive rights to specific territories, so Fuller did not have to worry about payroll expenses for them. It was not until Fuller received the huge response to his recruiting ads that he decided to incorporate as the Fuller Brush Company in 1913. The Fuller Brush men bought their merchandise from the company and sold it at company-authorized prices to people within their own territories, averaging a 30 percent profit. The representatives had an agreement with the company to sell nothing but Fuller products, and in turn the company guaranteed the quality of each item and gave dealers the benefits of national advertising. This was one of the earliest examples of the idea of franchising, which has since been applied to countless other types of enterprises. Fuller’s success nearly overwhelmed him. He suddenly had more orders for his brushes than he was able to fill. Many of his representatives earned more money than
Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated
Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated sentatives were not employees but independent dealers who were assigned specific territories in which they had the exclusive right to sell Fuller products. Franchising revolutionized American business and changed the American business landscape. The McDonald’s fastfood chain provides an excellent example of the power of franchising, with its familiar “Golden Arches” logo in every corner of the land. People patronize these establishments because they can depend on getting the same quality of food and service wherever they go. Many kinds of businesses operate through franchises, including real estate dealers, barbershops, and hardware stores; individual outlets are independently owned but operate under the same name and follow operating guidelines laid down by the parent company. The Fuller management realized that strict control of far-flung franchises was essential to maintaining the company’s reputation for quality and integrity. The company pioneered in the art of maintaining communication with its representatives, teaching them improved selling techniques and offering frequent motivational talks to ensure continued high performance. This was done through literature and directly through regional sales representatives. Programs to teach similar motivational techniques and promotion of ongoing sales education are now common in large U.S. corporations. Motivational speakers still refer to the Fuller Brush man as an outstanding example of the professional salesperson who knew how to be aggressive without becoming obnoxious, who believed in what he was selling, who took pride in his profession, who believed in the principles of the American free enterprise system, and who was willing to work hard for legitimately earned rewards. The Fuller Brush Company pioneered in studying and teaching sales psychology. Fuller Brush men are still legendary in the business world for their ability to achieve success in selling from house to house, an occupation that historically has a huge turnover rate because only rare individuals are strong enough to put up with barking dogs and doors being slammed in their faces. The company developed a sophisticated recruitment and training program because management discovered that only two out of seven new dealers had the necessary qualities to prosper in the field. The company also pioneered in establishing rigid ethical and performance standards for its representatives through a system of field managers and district supervisors. Alfred Fuller himself remains an inspiration to American business because he was able to rise to wealth and 1030
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 social prominence with little education, almost no capital, and few social connections. Fuller had worked as a door-to-door salesman himself and understood what his representatives were up against. He never forgot what he owed to the men on the “firing line.” He and his managerial staff developed dozens of new techniques for gaining entrance to people’s homes, for winning confidence, for coping with sales resistance, and for maintaining courage and confidence in the face of rudeness and rejection. The idea of giving a gift on every visit was a stroke of genius on the part of the company’s founder. Although the door-to-door method of selling merchandise declined in importance over the course of the twentieth century, the concept of presenting potential customers with free items was imitated by many types of businesses. Promotional calendars and key chains, trading stamps, and various kinds of coupons are common examples. Fuller taught American businesspeople the importance of building a friendly company image in order to generate repeat sales. The company gradually declined in importance in the decades following World War II. A number of factors contributed to its demise, including the proliferation of supermarkets, the appearance of more efficient competitors (such as the Avon Company), the increased availability of inexpensive automobiles, which gave housewives more mobility, and the development of other forms of marketing, such as direct-mail selling, home shopping services, and discount stores. Another important reason for the company’s decline was the entrance of millions of women into the labor market, leaving no one to answer the door during the daytime at many homes. —Bill Delaney Further Reading Bainbridge, John. “May I Just Step Inside?” The New Yorker 24 (November 13, 1948): 36-48. In-depth profile of Alfred Fuller presents shrewd insights into his personality and those of other company executives. Offers an overview of the Fuller Brush Company from its inception to its peak period in the late 1940’s. Carnegie, Dale. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. The most famous book ever written on the subject of using an understanding of human psychology in order to achieve success. Incorporates many of the ideas originally developed by the Fuller Brush Company. Carson, Gerald. “The Fuller Brush Man.” American Heritage 37 (August/September, 1986): 26-31. A retrospective article about the days when the Fuller Brush
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Michman, Ronald D., and Alan J. Greco. Retailing Triumphs and Blunders. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1995. Describes how retailers of various kinds have responded to changes in American society and the marketplace. Final chapter includes brief mention of the Fuller Brush Company. “Never Say Quit to Charlie Tucker or He’s Likely to Give You the Brush.” People Weekly 32 (July 10, 1989): 106-107. Brief, nostalgic profile of the oldest living Fuller Brush salesman, who at ninety years of age was still selling brushes from door to door. Tucker exemplifies the aggressive, optimistic spirit that characterized Fuller Brush men in the company’s heyday. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-inAdvertising Code; Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens; 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines; Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising.
1913
Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary Beno Gutenberg expanded the use of seismographs to the global scale when he discovered the boundary between the earth’s outer core and the lower mantle. Locale: University of Göttingen, Germany Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geology Key Figures Beno Gutenberg (1889-1960), German-born American geologist John Milne (1850-1913), English seismologist Andrija Mohorovi5i6 (1857-1936), Yugoslavian meteorologist Summary of Event Very little is known about the interior of the earth because of its inaccessibility, even to modern technology. Based on evidence gained through indirect and second-
ary research and experiments, scientists have been able to determine that the earth consists of layers. The uppermost layer, on or in which most life exists, is the crust. Scientists have determined the structure of the remainder of the earth’s interior and the size and composition of the deeper layers through various methods. The original source of information that founded modern understanding of the earth’s structure was seismology, the study of earthquakes and vibrations of the earth. The pioneers in the field of seismology used needleand-paper seismographs—instruments that measure and record vibrations—to study wave patterns. In 1893, one of these pioneers, John Milne, perfected a clockworkpowered seismograph that produced a record of vibrations on light-sensitive film. The Milne seismograph was a self-recording instrument capable of preserving a record of ground movement. Milne discovered that the vibrations from a distant earthquake arrived in a series of 1031
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Company was a nationally famous institution and its dealers were the subject of many cartoons satirizing their notorious persistence and the incredible variety of oddly shaped brushes they had to offer. Contains much valuable information about the company and its golden era. Fuller, Alfred Carl, as told to Hartzell Spence. A Foot in the Door: The Life Appraisal of the Original Fuller Brush Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960. Fuller’s life story, told in an interesting conversational manner. Full of anecdotes about Fuller’s own experiences as well as information on general business conditions during the first half of the twentieth century. Offers much valuable practical advice to young people entering the business world. Lifskey, Earl. Door-to-Door Selling: The Factual Story of a Little Known but Rapidly Growing $7 Billion Industry. New York: Fairchild, 1948. Collection of feature articles that originally appeared in Retailing Daily in the 1940’s. Recognizes the growing importance of door-to-door selling in the rapidly expanding American economy during that era. Discusses the techniques used by Fuller Brush dealers to overcome sales resistance and enhance the image of the company’s line of products.
Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary
Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary separate vibrations traveling at different speeds. The greater the separation between the waves of different types, the farther away the earthquake. The method was identical to that used to calculate the distance of a storm from the time between the arrival of the lightning and the sound of the thunder. The Milne seismograph allowed for the identification of three different kinds of waves. The fastest waves are those of compression, or P waves, which move through the air in a manner similar to sound waves. Another type are shear waves, or S waves, which move by the sideways motion of the particle. The third type, surface waves, move along boundaries, such as the boundary between the rock and the air or the water. Surface waves are a varied group that behave in ways similar to waves in the sea. Milne’s early seismograph allowed for the base recording of earthquake waves. Later improvements on his model were computerized, with the waves recorded in binary code rather than on paper. Although the later models were more precise, recording new waves that aroused new investigations, Milne’s early seismograph allowed researchers to make great discoveries. Later research in the field of seismology used the records from the seismograph—called seismograms—to learn the composition of the earth by comparing density curves to wave curves. Their research revealed that the innermost section of the earth is composed possibly of pure iron. Surrounding the inner core is the molten outer core, with a radius of approximately 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) and composed of an iron alloy with a metal lighter than nickel. The mantle of the earth is the area between the outer core and the crust. Probably the most active area in the layers of the earth, the mantle contains large amounts of the mineral olivine. The mantle is approximately 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) thick and consists of two parts, with the lower mantle forming the boundary between the upper mantle and the core. This boundary between the mantle and the outer core was discovered by Beno Gutenberg. Gutenberg’s method of research was first used by Andrija Mohorovi5i6, a Yugoslavian meteorologist who was one of the pioneers in the science of seismology. The key event that spurred Mohorovi5i6’s inspiration was a minor earthquake in 1909 in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now in Croatia). When Mohorovi5i6 examined the seismogram of the earthquake, he found two primary (P) and two secondary (S) waves recorded for each tremor. The separate groups of P and S waves appeared to be traveling at different velocities. Because the type of material as well as 1032
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 its density changes the rate, and sometimes the direction, of the wave’s speed, the seismogram indicated the presence of a layer of material under the earth’s outer crust that was dense enough to alter the velocity of the second group of P and S waves. Because the second wave group reached the recording stations before the first wave group, Mohorovi5i6 deduced that the boundary—now called the Mohorovi5i6 Discontinuity—was denser than the crust. Along with the discovery of the boundary between the earth’s outer crust and the upper mantle, Mohorovi5i6 contributed a new application of seismology in exploring the interior structure of the earth. Gutenberg, a graduate student in Germany, was encouraged to begin his own studies in seismology two years after the discovery of the Mohorovi5i6 Discontinuity. Gutenberg’s area of concentration was the mysterious “shadow zone” of seismology. For some unknown reason, P waves disappeared when passing through an area 2,734 miles (4,400 kilometers) wide on the side of the earth opposite to the focus, or epicenter, of the earthquake. Gutenberg began a mathematical investigation to explain the temporary disappearance of P waves. The most likely answer was suggested by the work of Richard Dixon Oldham, a geologist, and Emil Wiechert, a geophysicist. Their independently formed theories proposed that the center of the earth is composed of a large, dense, and perhaps partially molten core. Assuming that Oldham and Wiechert were correct, Gutenberg made mathematical models of the effects a dense core would have on P waves. He positioned his hypothetical core at various depths in the earth and then calculated the course and behavior of P waves in each. After comparing his models to actual seismograph readings, he discovered one that confirmed his work. The model that eventually matched the real graphs was based on a core 1,802 miles (2,900 kilometers) below the surface of the earth. The shadow zone was the boundary between the lower mantle and the outer core. Later research that continued with Gutenberg’s original outline altered the accuracy of his placement only slightly and revealed that the outer edge of the core must be molten. Gutenberg’s discovery of the boundary between the mantle and the outer core is called the Gutenberg Discontinuity. Significance Gutenberg’s confirmation of the presence of the earth’s core and his discovery of the boundary between the outer core and the lower mantle in 1913 solved the old mystery of the shadow zone and raised new questions regarding the composition of these areas. In addition to the signifi-
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the distance of seismograph recording stations from the epicenter, or heart, of the earthquake. Richter used the logarithms of the amplitudes of the earthquakes as they could be determined to the nearest tenth magnitude. Along with Gutenberg, he developed three scales by which to judge earthquakes: one for near earthquakes, one for distant shallow earthquakes, and one for deepfocus earthquakes. —Earl G. Hoover Further Reading Bolt, Bruce A. Inside the Earth: Evidence from Earthquakes. 1982. Reprint. Fairfax, Va.: Techbooks, 1991. Intended as an introductory textbook for students in the fields of earth sciences, physics, and engineering. Nonmathematical discussion can be understood by students in other fields. Gives the reader a clear and basic knowledge of seismology and its uses and discoveries. Clark, Sydney P., Jr. Structure of the Earth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Introductory volume discusses the structure of the earth and its composition as well as the methods of seismology used to determine these. A good source of information for anyone interested in learning more about the dynamics of the earth. Hodgson, John H. Earthquakes and Earth Structure. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. An excellent study of the relationship of earthquakes to revelations of earth structure. Presented in language understandable to the general reader interested in the science and applications of seismology. Jacobs, J. A. The Earth’s Core. New York: Academic Press, 1975. Intended for graduate students and researchers. Discusses the geophysics of the layers of the earth, with a concentration on the core and its special properties. Phillips, O. M. The Heart of the Earth. San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper, 1968. A technical volume on the science of geophysics, recommended for readers with a serious interest in earth science. Describes the workings of the earth as a complex machine. Stein, Seth, and Michael Wysession. An Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes, and Earth Structure. New York: Blackwell Science, 2002. Introductory textbook intended for advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate courses in seismology. Heavily illustrated. Includes suggestions for further reading and index. Weiner, Jonathan. The Planet Earth. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. Companion volume to a PBS television 1033
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cance of the discovery of the boundary between the earth’s lower mantle and outer core, the research techniques that Gutenberg applied opened new avenues for tackling old problems and also provided a built-in continuation of the original research. As a sideline to Gutenberg’s major discovery, later research found that the Gutenberg Discontinuity also marks the lowest edges of the continental plates. Through the use of seismographs, scientists can apply the speed of earthquake waves to learn the composition of a material through which a random wave will pass. Because he found that the waves traveled more slowly in the lower part of the mantle, Gutenberg postulated that the lower mantle is softer than the upper mantle. This theory shed new light on the study of plate tectonics, for if the lower mantle is the layer in which the plates extend the deepest and it is partially molten, the movement of plates is more easily explained. With the use of seismic waves, Gutenberg and Mohorovi5i6 revealed the interior structure of the earth. The improved sensitivity of later technology revealed a previously unrecorded set of P waves in the shadow zone of the earth. Based on Gutenberg’s findings, the understanding that seismologists had of the core did not coincide with this energy rebound. Using the later, more sensitive records for her research, Inge Lehmann solved the mystery by proposing the existence of an inner core that could reflect the waves. Through the use of seismic velocities, K. E. Bullen proved that the earth’s inner core is solid. Despite Bullen’s ingenious argument, however, one important wave pattern is missing from the records. If the inner core is solid, there should be an extra wave recorded, but it has not appeared in seismographs. Although the interior of the earth is solid, the outer core is molten. The use of densities, as indicated by wave patterns, is essential in determining the composition of the earth’s layers. The easier method of comparing infrared densities in the earth with known densities is inapplicable in this case because of the temperatures and pressures found in the earth that cannot be duplicated in laboratories. Thus scientists must compare observed seismic wave speeds and estimated densities. Gutenberg later used the seismograph again while working with his colleague Charles Francis Richter at the California Institute of Technology. A universal way of judging the absolute size of earthquakes was needed, as well as a scale on which to measure earthquakes. Richter developed a way to define the amplitudes of magnitudes of earthquakes. One forms magnitudes by plotting a curve based on the amplitudes of ground motion against
Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary
Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars series provides an introductory-level discussion of earth science in general and also addresses many topics in greater depth. Wood, Robert Muir. Earthquakes and Volcanoes: Causes, Effects, and Predictions. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. Provides excellent explanations of the science behind earthquakes, the cause
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of earthquakes, and the history of earthquakes for the average reader. Fully illustrated and includes a glossary and a list of major earthquakes. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength; 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core.
1913
Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars Ejnar Hertzsprung’s use of Cepheid variables as a means of measuring stellar distances led to discoveries regarding the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. Locale: Potsdam, Germany Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), Danish astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer Edward Charles Pickering (1846-1919), American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer Summary of Event Discovering the distances to heavenly objects traditionally has been a difficult undertaking for astronomers. It is possible to use parallax to determine the distance to relatively nearby stars, and this technique produced the first stellar distance measurement made by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel in 1838. Parallax is a measurement of how far a star appears to move as Earth follows its orbit around the Sun. It relies on an effect similar to what one sees when one holds a finger up at arm’s length and views it first with the left eye only and then with the right eye only; the finger appears to shift position relative to background objects because of differing lines of sight. Stars are perceived to make a similar shift in position when viewed first from one end of Earth’s orbit and then again six months later, when Earth is at the opposite point in its orbit. If one can measure this shift in position, one can use trigonometry to calculate the distance of the star. This technique is of limited use, however, because for stars more distant than about 65 light-years (a light-year is approximately 5.88 trillion miles, or 9.46 trillion kilometers), the shift is so small as to be unmeasurable. 1034
Another technique for calculating distance involves comparing a star’s apparent magnitude (its brightness as seen from Earth) and its absolute magnitude (its intrinsic or true brightness). The apparent magnitude, the absolute magnitude, and the distance of a star are all related: An apparently dim star can be either intrinsically dim and relatively close or intrinsically very bright and at a great distance. One can make an analogy between lightbulbs and stars: Given the appearance of a lightbulb of known wattage, an estimate can be made of its distance; given its distance and its apparent brightness, its wattage can be estimated, which represents its intrinsic or absolute brightness. Similarly, for any star, if any two of the three properties (absolute magnitude, apparent magnitude, distance) are known, the third property can be calculated. A star’s apparent magnitude is always known; it is the distance and the absolute magnitude that are difficult to discover. Without a way to deduce a star’s absolute magnitude, one cannot begin to use this distance-calculating technique. Henrietta Swan Leavitt was able to find a key to deducing the absolute magnitudes of some stars. In 1912, Leavitt was working with Edward Charles Pickering at the Harvard College Observatory, studying a particular type of star called a Cepheid variable. Such stars vary in brightness over time in a regular periodic cycle; they are named for the first such star known, which appears in the constellation Cepheus. A Cepheid’s light output varies as the star as a whole pulsates, periodically contracting inward and expanding outward. Leavitt discovered that there is a relationship between a Cepheid’s period (how long it takes to go from brightest to dimmest and back again) and its apparent magnitude. Leavitt produced a plot of period versus apparent magnitude; if the period for one of the stars Leavitt studied is known, then its apparent magnitude can be inferred from this relationship. Also, one can measure simply the
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Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars
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apparent magnitude of a star; the real importance of parallax for a star, he could calculate its distance and its Leavitt’s discovery came when it was found that one absolute magnitude. He then constructed a plot of absocould use this relationship to infer the absolute magnilute magnitude versus period for these Cepheids, which tude of a star and, from that, its distance. Leavitt studied showed the relationship between the two quantities. stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (a small galaxy visiThis was the tool astronomers needed: For any Ceble from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere). One can assume pheid, given the period, one could read from the plot that all the stars in this cloud are at approximately the the absolute brightness, and then one could calculate same distance. The absolute magnitude of a star varies the distance. A relatively simple measurement of the according to both its distance and its apparent magnitime it took a star to vary in its brightness thus enabled tude; as the distance is approximately constant for these an astronomer to deduce its distance. Hertzsprung first stars, the absolute magnitude relates directly to the apused this tool on the Cepheids studied by Leavitt and parent magnitude and thus to the period. Leavitt and calculated the distance to the Small Magellanic Cloud, Ejnar Hertzsprung both realized this fact. Hertzsprung where these Cepheid variables were located. He arrived saw that Leavitt’s period-luminosity plot needed to be calibrated; that is, the relationship between absolute How Far Are the Stars? magnitude and period needed to be Variable stars can be of three principal types: novas, eclipsing binaries, found. One could then use the plot to and Cepheid variables. Novas are unstable stars that occasionally erupt and find the absolute magnitude for any release envelopes of matter into space, temporarily increasing in brightness Cepheid, given its period, and then, during the process. Eclipsing binaries are double-star systems in which two using the apparent and absolute magstars orbit a common center of gravity; periodically, one star will pass benitudes, to calculate its distance. fore its companion star, eclipsing it relative to the line of sight. Hertzsprung’s task was to find a Cepheid variables and their similar RR Lyrae stars are older mainCepheid variable for which he could sequence stars that have exhausted their hydrogen fuel and have switched measure the distance in some way. to helium fusion for energy generation. Cepheids are unstable, periodically He could then calculate its absolute increasing and then decreasing their energy output. They become brighter, magnitude and establish the relationthen dim, repeating the cycle every few days or weeks. Each Cepheid has a ship between its magnitude and its predictable, repeatable cycle of brightening and dimming. Cepheids are named for Delta Cephei, the first such variable star discovered (1768). Poperiod. The simplest thing would be laris, the North Star, is a Cepheid. to find a Cepheid close enough to Prior to around 1912, the principal means of determining stellar disshow a measurable parallax. Unfortances was a trigonometric method known as parallax. A star’s parallax is tunately, no Cepheid variables were the line-by-sight angle subtended by the star as Earth orbits the Sun. Using a close enough for this to work, so right triangle—formed by the observed star, the Sun, and Earth as the trianHertzsprung instead used statistical gle’s vertices—astronomers could calculate the star’s distance by means of techniques to discover the distances simple trigonometric equations involving the Earth-Sun distance and the for a group of Cepheids. First, he subtended angle traced by the star in our sky. A large subtended angle indifound Cepheids for which the proper cated that the star was close; a small angle, that the star was far. During the motions were known; that is, the aptwentieth century, more than ten thousand stellar distances were obtained parent movements of the stars across using this method, but the method was not applicable to very distant stars. In 1912, Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Harlow Shapley developed the the sky had been measured. (Alperiod-luminosity scale after studying Cepheids. With the understanding though the stars appear fixed to the of Cepheids’ apparent and absolute luminosities, it became possible to calcasual eye, all are moving, and careculate their distances and, therefore, the distances of all the stars in the star ful observation and measurement can cluster or galaxy containing a particular Cepheid variable. Shapley used reveal the motion of some of the Cepheid distances to demonstrate that the center of the Milky Way is diones that are closer, faster moving, rected toward the constellation Sagittarius and that the Sun is located apor both.) From the stars’ proper moproximately thirty thousand light-years from the galactic center. When tions, Hertzsprung was able to deEdwin Powell Hubble applied the technique to measure the distances to duce the component of the proper Cepheids located in distant galaxies, he obtained estimates of the distances motion that, on the average, was between our galaxy and others. caused by parallax. Once he had the
Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars at the figure of about 33,000 light-years. This was greater than any previously determined distance, and this surprising and vital result had implications for the later debate on the size of the Milky Way and of the universe as a whole. Later distance-measuring techniques have given a higher distance measurement for the Small Magellanic Cloud, about five times what Hertzsprung found. There are varying reasons for the discrepancy, chief among them the fact that starlight is absorbed and dimmed as it passes through the Milky Way. This dimming must be taken into account in the equation involving apparent magnitude, absolute magnitude, and distance; however, in 1913 no one was aware of this fact. Harlow Shapley, in his early work with the period-luminosity scale, recalibrated the period-luminosity plot using techniques similar to those used by Hertzsprung. He arrived at similar results. Later discoveries regarding interstellar absorption of light led to a more accurate calibration, as did the discovery that there are actually two different types of Cepheids, with two different period-luminosity relationships. The work of Leavitt and Hertzsprung opened a host of new possibilities to astronomers by giving them a powerful new tool for answering one of astronomy’s most difficult questions: How far away are the stars? This led to other answers regarding the nature of the Milky Way and of the universe. Significance The Cepheid variable technique of measuring stellar distances proved to be extremely powerful and yielded some vital results that changed astronomers’ basic beliefs about the structure of the universe. It enabled Shapley to determine the shape and size of the Milky Way galaxy, and it enabled Edwin Powell Hubble to determine that the Milky Way is not the whole universe, but that there are other galaxies that are huge, independent stellar systems. Shapley studied the Cepheid variables he observed in globular clusters of stars, so named for their appearance as tightly packed balls of stars. These clusters are not distributed at random in the sky; rather, they appear to be concentrated around a certain section of the sky in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Shapley found this pattern important and guessed that perhaps the clusters were gathered around the center of the galaxy. He made measurements of their distances, used these measurements to make a map of the locations of the clusters, and arrived at a distance scale for the Milky Way galaxy. His results, presented in 1918, gave a first 1036
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estimate of the size of the Milky Way and also revealed some of the structure of the galaxy. Hubble was the first to realize that there are Cepheid variables in spiral nebulas, which are now recognized to be spiral galaxies similar to the Milky Way. At the time, no one knew for certain the nature of these spiral nebulas; it was not known if they were parts of our galaxy that were relatively close and small. Astronomers also were not certain if they were huge, separate, independent systems, appearing small only because of their great distance. At the beginning of the twentieth century, this was a subject of intense astronomical debate. Shapley’s results for the size of the Milky Way indicated that if these objects were indeed similar to our galaxy, they must be very distant to appear as small as they do. This great distance would extend vastly the scale of the known universe and also would shift our galaxy’s place in it: If there are other galaxies similar to Earth’s, then the Milky Way is not in any special or privileged location in the universe. Hubble was able to settle the debate on this important cosmological question by studying photographic plates taken with the new 100-inch (254-centimeter) telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California. He studied plates of the Andromeda nebula and discovered Cepheid variables in the nebula. By using the period-luminosity scale to deduce the distance of these stars, and assuming the stars were indeed physically part of the nebula, Hubble arrived at a great distance for the nebula, which indicated that it was a separate galaxy. This result settled the debate and gave astronomers important information about the size of the universe and Earth’s place in it. Corrections and modifications have been made to the period-luminosity relationship over the years, notably the correction for the fact that there are really two types of Cepheid variables. In addition, astronomers have discovered other stars with similar period-luminosity relationships and have been able to use that knowledge to advance their understanding of the structure of the universe. — Mary Hrovat Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. The Universe: From Flat Earth to Quasar. Rev. ed. New York: Walker, 1971. A chapter on the Milky Way tells, in Asimov’s usual lucid and engaging style, the story of the development of the Cepheid period-luminosity scale and its use in the discovery of the size and structure of the Milky Way and the nature and distance of external galaxies. Includes some drawings and photographs; brief bibliography.
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of Hertzsprung and explains Shapley’s method of recalibrating the period-luminosity scale. Includes discussion of Hubble’s and Shapley’s work concerning the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Drawings, photographs, glossary, and bibliography. Vaucouleurs, Gérard Henri de. Discovery of the Universe: An Outline of the History of Astronomy from the Origins to 1956. New York: Macmillan, 1957. Includes discussion of Hertzsprung’s and Leavitt’s work on the discovery of the period-luminosity relationship and its use in distance determination. Discusses the work done by Shapley and Hubble in using Cepheid variables as a tool to study the Milky Way and other galaxies. Some drawings and photographs; short bibliography. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. This introductory text provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues. See also: 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity; 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution.
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Husserl Advances Phenomenology Edmund Husserl, the principal initiator of the phenomenological movement, published Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, in which he explained its basic method and insights. The work became a crucial text in twentieth century continental philosophy. Also known as: Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie; Ideas Locale: Halle, Brandenberg, German Empire (now in Germany) Categories: Philosophy; publishing and journalism Key Figures Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), German philosopher Edith Stein (1891-1942), German philosopher
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), French philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French philosopher, novelist, and playwright Summary of Event Phenomenology has meant so many things to so many people that it has become difficult to define precisely. In the eighteenth century, some thinkers interpreted its etymological meaning, “the study of phenomena,” as the analysis of objects and events as they appear in human experience. Some philosophers of the nineteenth century saw phenomenology as the descriptive study of a particular subject, but when Husserl began using the term in the twentieth century, he thought of it as a method of investi1037
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Chaisson, Eric, and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Chapter 17, titled “Measuring the Stars,” includes discussion of Hertzsprung’s work. Kaufmann, William J. Discovering the Universe. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1987. Chapters such as “Our Galaxy” and “Galaxies” include the story of the discovery of the size and structure of our galaxy and the nature and distance of external galaxies. An earlier chapter explains also the physical properties of Cepheids that result in their variability. Intended as a text for an introductory astronomy class. Includes study aids such as chapter summaries, review questions, and glossary, as well as photographs and drawings. Mitton, Simon, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopædia of Astronomy. New York: Crown, 1977. The chapter titled “Cosmology, the Nature of the Universe” includes the story of the first realization of the size of our galaxy and the distance to other galaxies. “Variable Stars” discusses the period-luminosity relationship. Contains many lovely photographs as well as helpful diagrams and drawings. Also includes a brief outline of principles of physics relevant to astronomy. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Cowritten by an astronomer who observed firsthand some of the events the book covers, this account emphasizes the contributions of Shapley more than those
Husserl Advances Phenomenology
Husserl Advances Phenomenology gating and describing phenomena as experienced within human consciousness. He had come to this notion gradually, having begun his academic life as a student of mathematics and science. When, through the influence of the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, Husserl became interested in philosophy, he wanted to make it into a soundly grounded science. During the late nineteenth century, Husserl wrote on the philosophical foundations of mathematics, converted from Judaism to Lutheran Christianity, and became critical of those who believed that philosophy could be understood in terms of psychology or biology. He also came to see that mathematicians and scientists were uncritical about the foundations of their own disciplines and unaware that their basic methods and ideas were rooted in the structures of human consciousness. Husserl’s own intellectual odyssey from mathematics to philosophy was animated by his profound passion for certitude. During the period from 1901 to the publication of Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie (1913, revised editon 1976; Ideas: General Introdcution to Pure Phenomenology,
Edmund Husserl. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1931), Husserl was a professor at Göttingen University, where he devoted himself to the development of ideas that would form the core of his new approach to philosophy. For example, he saw the genesis of all mathematical, scientific, and philosophical systems in the structures and functioning of human consciousness. Early Husserlians epitomized their method with the maxim “to the things themselves,” by which they meant not materialism (which they wanted to refute) but a reinvigorating technique of dealing with empirical experience. Phenomenology was neither scientific psychology nor cognitive science but an exploration of the foundations that undergirded the rational nature of all science. Phenomenologists did not isolate themselves from the sciences, but they tried to understand what really goes on in them, particularly by analyzing their unquestioned presuppositions. During the decade before Ideas, Husserl discovered and developed the ideas that would form the basis of this first detailed and systematic presentation of phenomenology. For example, around 1906 he conceived and deepened his understanding of “bracketing,” which he would further elaborate in part 2 of Ideas. Bracketing is a method of suspending belief in the objects and events of the natural world so that, unhindered by the insoluble dispute over the world’s existence, analysts can pay attention to their experiencing of these objects and events. In Ideas, Husserl used bracketing not only to describe and analyze the forms of consciousness but also to explore how people know and what they know. Intentionality is another idea Husserl developed that played an important part in Ideas and became a central theme of the phenomenological movement. Simply stated, intentionality is the property of consciousness being directed at something; Husserl asserted that all acts of consciousness are intentional, that is, that they all have an object. Every mental act must have a content, according to Husserl, because one cannot be aware without being aware of something. Husserl’s study of intentionality led him to the crucial belief that reality was neither material nor mental but experiential. This meant that phenomenology was more a method of philosophizing than an actual philosophy. Husserl had been investigating these ideas with the help of his students and colleagues at Göttingen, and he wanted to provide them and other interested readers with a methodical summary of his new style of doing philosophy. Ideas first appeared as the leading article in the first issue of the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung (yearbook of philosophy and phe-
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Significance Ideas, the principal foundational document of Husserlian phenomenology, helped foster a movement that had a profound influence not only on philosophers but also on scientists, theologians, humanists, and many others. Husserl’s phenomenology shifted the focus of many phi-
losophers from vague generalizations to the precise analysis of definite phenomena. For some scholars Husserl significantly changed “the tone and direction of Western thought.” The eminent philosopher Martin Heidegger used the phenomenological method in composing his greatest work, Sein und Zeit (1927; Being and Time, 1962), which he dedicated to Husserl. Other important twentieth-century philosophers owe much to Husserl. For example, in France, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s major work was titled Phénoménologie de la perception (1945; Phenomenology of Perception, 1962), and Jean-Paul Sartre’s magnum opus, L’Être et le néant (1943; Being and Nothingness, 1956), has the subtitle An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Disciples of Husserl used his phenomenological method in studying anthropology, aesthetics, comparative religion, sociology, and ethics. Edith Stein applied the phenomenological method to intersubjectivity and empathy, and, after her conversion to Catholicism, her theological writings continued to manifest the influence of Husserlian phenomenology. Even Karol Józef Wojtyua (the future Pope John Paul II) acknowledged phenomenology’s influence on his philosophical and theological ideas. Phenomenology has certainly not lacked critics, but even Leszek Kolakowski, who concluded that the phenomenological project was doomed to failure because absolute certainty is unattainable by humans, admired Husserl’s quixotic quest for certitude and his immense passion for the truth. — Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Farber, Marvin. The Foundation of Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl and the Quest for a Rigorous Science of Philosophy. 3d ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1968. A lucid exposition of Husserl’s contributions to phenomenology. Bibliography and index. Kohák, Erazim. Idea and Experience: Edmund Husserl’s Project of Phenomenology in “Ideas I.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. An explication of the first nine chapters of Ideas. Notes, bibliography, and index. Kolakowski, Leszek. Husserl and the Search for Certitude. 1975. Reprint. South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001. Kolakowski was the recipient of the first million-dollar John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences, and this reprint makes available an important critical analysis of Husserl’s thought by an insightful scholar. Natanson, Maurice. Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of In1039
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nomenological research) in 1913. Husserl intended it to be the first volume of a three-volume work, but it turned out to be the only one published in his lifetime. After a general introduction to phenomenology and an analysis of its basic methodology in part 1, Husserl moved in part 2, “The Fundamental Phenomenological Outlook,” to a discussion of the relationship between consciousness and the material world. This part contains Husserl’s famous analysis of bracketing as well as “eidetic reduction,” which describes the essences underlying the phenomena of consciousness after bracketing. Another reduction, which Husserl considered the most important, concerned the correlation between the phenomena of cognition and its object. This “transcendental reduction” reveals the presuppositions of knowledge by shedding light on the essential structures underpinning experiences and their interrelationships. In part 3, “Procedure of Pure Phenomenology in Respect of Methods and Problems,” Husserl distinguished between the object that is intended (noema) and the act of intending (noesis). Noema, that which is perceived, is dependent on noesis, the act of perceiving, but Husserl recognized the great variety of experiences that have to be analyzed, for example, the aesthetic experience of works of art and the scientific experiences of experiments and the theories developed to explain them. In part 4, “Reason and Reality,” Husserl explored the question of precisely what will remain after the entire world, including humans, is bracketed. He responded that transcendental consciousness remains, and he called this the “Archimedean point” for the foundation of human knowledge, because the natural world is dubitable, but the existence of the transcendental ego is indubitable. Thus the proper subject matter of philosophy, as well as of the social and natural sciences, is the human as subject and reality as experienced by this subject who stands above (or transcends) the components of his or her experienced world. Because of Husserl’s emphasis on the absolute reality of the transcendental ego, his phenomenological philosophy has also been called transcendental Idealism. According to his student Edith Stein, Husserl’s Idealism surprised some of his disciples and disconcerted others.
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Salomon Develops Mammography finite Tasks. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1973. According to some scholars, this is the first book that anyone interested in Husserl should read. Smith, Barry, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Husserl. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Various scholars explore a range of topics in their attempt to relate Hussel’s ideas to modern concerns. Bibliography and index. Stein, Edith. On the Problem of Empathy. 3d ed. Washington, D.C.: ICS, 1989. An English translation of the dissertation that Stein wrote for Husserl. Zahavi, Dan. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford, Calif.:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Stanford University Press, 2003. This book has been called “one of the most accessible and engaging introductions” to Husserl’s ideas and their influence. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism; 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher; 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle; 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time.
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Salomon Develops Mammography Using a technique derived from X-ray photography, Albert Salomon developed the first procedure that used X rays to detect and diagnose breast cancer. Locale: Germany Categories: Science and technology; health and medicine Key Figures Albert Salomon (fl. early twentieth century), first researcher to use X-ray technology to locate and identify breast cancer lesions without surgical biopsy W. Vogel (fl. early twentieth century), author of a classic document that described differences in breast tumors using mammography Stafford L. Warren (fl. early twentieth century), surgeon who discovered that breast tumors could be detected using a fluoroscope Jacob Gershon-Cohen (1899-1971), first breast cancer researcher to call for widespread screening to detect breast cancer in women over the age of fifty Robert Egan (c. 1921-2001), surgeon who conducted research concurrent with Gershon-Cohen to test the accuracy of mammography as a diagnostic tool Summary of Event Breast cancer has been the focus of medical research for more than a century, but at the end of the nineteenth century, techniques for detection were almost nonexistent. By the time breast cancer was detected, it was often too late for the radical surgical procedures prevalent at the time, and patients who underwent such surgery had a 1040
high mortality rate. As a result, cancer researchers were eager to experiment with X-ray technology after it appeared in 1896. The first scientist to use X-ray techniques in breast cancer experiments was Albert Salomon, a German surgeon. Salomon X-rayed more than three thousand breasts that had been excised in breast cancer operations in an effort to develop a biopsy technique that would reflect the cancerous and noncancerous nature of tumors without radical exploratory surgery. In 1913, he published the results of his experiments, demonstrating conclusively that X rays could detect breast cancer. His research predicted the presence of a number of different types of breast cancers based on the character of the Xray image. Although he is the acknowledged inventor of breast radiology, Salomon never actually used the technique to diagnose breast cancer. Breast cancer radiology, which came to be known as mammography, was not immediately embraced by the medical community. During the 1920’s, further research was conducted in Leipzig, Germany, and in South America. Eventually, the Leipzig group began to use mammography for diagnosis under the direction of Erwin Payr. One of the classic documents in breast cancer research emerged from the Leipzig experiments. Published in the 1930’s by W. Vogel, it accurately described differences between cancerous and benign tumors as they appeared on X-ray photographs. Included was information about the procedure that was useful to diagnosticians. The detailed descriptions included in the paper remain useful.
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extremely high, controversy erupted over radiation’s potentially harmful effects on patients. In 1976, consumer advocate Ralph Nader issued a call for special consent forms that detailed the risks of breast cancer screening, citing the use of radiological techniques. During the ensuing years, the amount of radiation required to diagnose breast cancer has been reduced through refinement of mammography techniques. Significance The progress made in mammography during the twentieth century was a major improvement in the effort to decrease the mortality rate associated with breast cancer. The disease had long been one of the primary contributors to the number of female cancer deaths in the United States and around the world. This high figure stemmed from the fact that women had no way of detecting the disease until tumors were in an advanced state. Once Salomon’s procedure was utilized, physicians had a means by which they could look inside breast tissue without engaging in exploratory surgery, thus giving women a screening technique that was simple, painless, and inexpensive. Unfortunately, most clinicians working with breast cancer during the first half of the twentieth century were not quick to adopt mammography. The complexity of radiology and the lack of standards for interpreting the images contained in an X-ray photograph of breast tissue led to confusion and skepticism by much of the medical community. In fact, despite efforts by Salomon and Vogel to publish useful information intended to be helpful to the practitioner, efforts by other researchers to duplicate the experiments on which their articles were based proved difficult, and the results were often inconclusive. Some clinicians cited the fact that Salomon never used the procedure in his own practice and was therefore unable to prove its success. It would be decades before work would begin in earnest to make mammography a practical, safe procedure. Interestingly, the development that brought mammography back into the spotlight occurred by accident. While attempting to use the device to examine heart muscle in a patient, Warren discovered that breast tissue could be viewed through a fluoroscope placed 1.8 meters away from the patient. He became interested in mammography and published an article that detailed the results of experimentation conducted by him and his colleagues. Unfortunately, the technique he used was complex and required equipment unavailable to most clinicians at the time. Eventually, he lost interest in mam1041
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Mammography received little attention in the United States until 1926, when a Rochester, New York, physician discovered that a fluoroscope could be used to capture breast tissue images that were similar to Salomon’s. Stafford L. Warren developed a stereoscopic technique that he employed in preoperative examinations. Warren published his findings in 1930 in what was the first acknowledgment by the United States of the diagnostic potential of Salomon’s procedure. The article also described changes in the character of breast tissue caused by pregnancy, lactation, menstruation, and the onset of breast disease. In the late 1930’s, Jacob Gershon-Cohen became the first clinician to advocate regular screening of all women to detect breast cancer before it became a major problem. He cited the high degree of accuracy achieved by using the technique for diagnosis and the relatively low cost. One of the milestones in breast cancer research came in 1956, when Gershon-Cohen and a number of colleagues began a five-year panel study of more than thirteen hundred women to test the accuracy of mammography in the detection of breast cancer. Each subject was screened once every six months. Of the 1,055 subjects who completed the study, 92 were diagnosed with benign tumors and 23 with malignant tumors. Only one malignant tumor was misdiagnosed as benign—an impressive record. At the same time, Robert Egan of Houston began tracking breast cancer X rays; during a three-year period, he used one thousand X-ray photographs to make diagnoses. When these diagnoses were compared to the results of surgical biopsies in the same period, accurate diagnoses were confirmed in 238 of 240 procedures using mammography. Egan joined the crusade for regular breast cancer screening, noting that most women sought help only after tumors had reached advanced states, which led to a poor recovery rate. Once mammography was accepted by the medical community as a useful diagnostic tool in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, attention turned to the need for a technique to teach mammography quickly and effectively to those who might employ it. Following the 1965 publication of the results of a major study, scholars determined that any radiologist could conduct the procedure with five days of training. In the early 1970’s, the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute joined forces to coordinate a nationwide breast cancer screening program called the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project. In 1971, its goal was to screen more than a quarter million women over the age of thirty-five. Although the accuracy of the detection method remained
Salomon Develops Mammography
Salomon Develops Mammography mography and went on to other research, and the medical community missed its second chance to make significant advances in the field of radiology. Gershon-Cohen refined mammography in the late 1930’s and began the first effort to get women to engage in preemptive screening for breast tumors. GershonCohen was a controversial figure, however, and his experiments were the subject of much debate in the medical community. Some colleagues considered his methodology and reporting techniques inadequate at best and unacceptable at worst. Many refused to acknowledge his work. Gershon-Cohen was independently wealthy, and so he was able to purchase the latest equipment for his research without concern for whether the laboratory in which he was working could afford it. This irritated some colleagues, who questioned the practicality of mammography in the real world. Nevertheless, Gershon-Cohen was able to demonstrate that breast cancer screening represented a dependable technique for detecting breast cancer in its earliest stages, a development that would provide a significant challenge to the high rate of breast cancer mortality. It is important to note that early experiments with mammography involved significant doses of radiation applied to the skin of the patient. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, concern began to mount over whether mammography was safe, and interest in the procedure slowed again as a result. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, public interest groups began to lobby against mammography, citing the purported negative effects of radiation exposure during screenings conducted over the long run. Efforts by some groups to require patients to sign consent forms detailing the risks associated with the procedure led to media attention that further diminished the number of women willing to submit to regular screenings. Still, even that problem was resolved relatively quickly, as the technique was further refined and less radiation was required. By 1971, 750,000 women over the age of thirty-five had been screened; thirty years later, about 20 million women a year underwent the procedure. —Michael S. Ameigh Further Reading Gyllenskold, Karin. Breast Cancer: The Psychological Effects of the Disease and Its Treatment. Translated by Patricia Crampton. London: Tavistock, 1982. A good summary of some of the psychological factors that appear in many women who suffer from breast cancer. The approach is to separate the disease from its treatment in order to differentiate the effects 1042
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 caused by each. The intention is to offer information that might help breast cancer patients make decisions about treatment techniques. History of Cancer Control Project. A History of Cancer Control in the United States, 1946-1971. Book I in A History of Scientific and Technical Advances in Cancer Control. Washington, D.C.: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1979. An excellent history of mammography that includes a lengthy and thorough discussion of the work of Salomon, Gershon-Cohen, Egan, and Warren. Contains sections on the history of detection techniques for other types of cancer. Kelly, Pat, and Mark Levine. Breast Cancer: The Facts You Need to Know About Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond. Richmond Hill, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2003. Examines what is known about the causes and treatments for various kinds of breast cancers. Included is a discussion of some of the genetic factors that have been encountered in breast cancer research. Kushner, Rose. Alternatives: New Developments in the War on Breast Cancer. New York: Warner Books, 1985. Over the past two decades, the emphasis in the treatment of breast cancer has been on prevention and improved surgical techniques that can replace the radical mastectomy in some patients. This book looks at significant developments in the evolution of mammography and outlines methods in which the disease is being viewed and treated. Lerner, Barron H. Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. The author, a physician and historian at Columbia University, studies the social history and biology of breast cancer, technology related to it (including mammography and mastectomy), and the disease’s psychological effects. Watson, Rita Esposito, and Robert Wallach. New Choices, New Chances. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. Unlike other books that describe the causes and treatments for breast cancer, this book gives advice on how to deal with the disease from a personal level. The upbeat treatment offers hope and encouragement to sufferers. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays; 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses; Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer.
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Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria
1913
Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria
Locale: University of Vienna, Austria Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Béla Schick (1877-1967), Hungarian microbiologist and pediatrician Edwin Klebs (1834-1913), German microbiologist Friedrich August Johannes Löffler (1852-1915), German microbiologist Pierre-Paul-Émile Roux (1853-1933), French microbiologist Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), Swiss microbiologist Emil von Behring (1854-1917), German microbiologist Summary of Event Diphtheria is a serious disease of the upper respiratory tract—the mouth, nose, and pharynx. The person with this disease may have a fever, a sore throat, and pain all over the body. If the disease is not treated with antibiotics, the infection spreads and causes tissue damage in the heart or kidneys and the victim will eventually die. Diphtheria is caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a rod-shaped species of bacteria. The bacterium can be spread from one person to another by touching or by droplets (for example, from sneezes). Once it enters a person’s body, the bacterium releases protein toxins that destroy the membranes and inner structures of cells. In the 1800’s, this disease was not yet understood, but the first steps toward that task were taken. Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and other microbiologists (scientists who study organisms too small to be seen by the naked eye) established the germ theory of disease, showing that infectious diseases are carried by microorganisms, usually bacteria or viruses. Diphtheria, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and several other diseases were major killers in the nineteenth century, especially among patients in hospitals. Microbiologists were determined to discover the microorganisms that caused these diseases. In 1883, the German microbiologists Edwin Klebs and Friedrich August Johannes Löffler raised guinea pigs infected with diphtheria. Under microscopes, they observed rod-shaped bacteria growing in blood samples from the infected animals. When this bacterium was injected into healthy guinea pigs, they became ill with diphtheria, too. In this way, the scientists proved that this
rod-shaped bacterium was the cause of diphtheria. Löffler believed that these bacteria hurt their victims by releasing a toxin (a chemical that damages cells). In 1888, microbiologists Pierre-Paul-Émile Roux and Alexandre Yersin, working together at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, separated the diphtheria bacteria from the serum in which they were being grown. Roux and Yersin then injected the bacteria-free serum into healthy animals. The animals soon came down with diphtheria, even though they had not been exposed to the bacteria. The scientists realized that a toxin was being released by the Corynebacterium diphtheriae into the growth serum, and that it was this toxin that made people and animals ill. Now microbiologists could go to work finding a vaccine and designing methods of diagnosing and treating diphtheria victims. In 1890, German microbiologist Emil von Behring discovered that the blood of animals infected with diphtheria produced an antitoxin, a chemical that binds to a toxin and makes it harmless. Behring realized that the antitoxin might be helpful in producing a vaccine to protect people against diphtheria. He injected animals with weakened diphtheria toxin—just enough so that their immune systems would create antitoxin but not enough to hurt the animals. Unfortunately, this diphtheria toxin was too dangerous to use on humans. Behring’s work, however, led to the later use of diphtheria antitoxin produced in horses as a treatment for human victims of the disease. In 1923, a formalin-treated toxin was used to vaccinate people against diphtheria and was found to be safe. In 1908, Béla Schick, a pediatrician and microbiologist from Boglár, Hungary, became an assistant to Theodor Escherich at the University of Vienna, Austria. These two scientists began studying diseases caused by bacteria, including diphtheria and scarlet fever. In 1913, Schick used Behring’s work with antitoxins to develop a test that would show how susceptible a person was to catching diphtheria. The result was the Schick test, which proved to be simple and reliable. About 0.1 milliliter of a weakened toxin solution is injected just under the skin inside a patient’s arm. The toxin is treated so that it will lead to a bit of swelling in susceptible persons without hurting them. If the patient is susceptible to diphtheria, a reddened, swollen rash (caused by damaged skin cells) will appear around the injection site within a few days. A person who is not susceptible will have no reaction, because the toxin is not causing damage. 1043
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Béla Schick developed a skin test for determining an individual’s susceptibility to diphtheria.
Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria Those with positive results on the Schick test should be immunized. People who are already suffering from diphtheria can be treated with a combination of antibiotics and horse serum antitoxin. Antibiotics destroy the Corynebacterium diphtheriae bacteria, while the horse serum antitoxin destroys the diphtheria toxin until the victim’s body is strong enough to make enough of its own antitoxin. Significance Schick’s test for diphtheria became a valuable tool for identifying the disease and which people most needed immunization. As a result of his work, Schick was named Extraordinary Professor of Children’s Diseases at the University of Vienna in 1918. His test saved thousands of lives, especially among children, who tend to be susceptible to diphtheria. In the mid- to late 1920’s, when the first successful toxoid vaccine was available, the number of cases of diphtheria around the world dropped dramatically. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, before the test and vaccine were available, the United States alone saw between 150,000 and 200,000 diphtheria cases every year. By the 1970’s, the number of diphtheria cases in the United States had dropped to roughly 10 per year. The work of Schick and others also helped show how microorganisms are present everywhere in the environment and can cause disease once they are inside the human body. This led to a better understanding of the importance of antisepsis and sterilization. Before the 1900’s, surgical instruments were kept clean, but they were never sterile (clear of all microorganisms); as a result, many patients died after surgery. Microbiological research in Schick’s day led to the sterilization of surgical equipment, antiseptic treatment to keep all hospital rooms and equipment clean, and sanitation efforts aimed at keeping water supplies pure. —David Wason Hollar, Jr. Further Reading Audesirk, Teresa, Gerald J. Audesirk, and Bruce E. Byers. Biology: Life on Earth. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Introductory biology textbook for undergraduates, both biology majors and others, provides a strong overview of the subject. Clearly written and well illustrated, with excellent discussion of bacteria and description of how the human body fights infection.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Eisen, Herman N. Immunology: An Introduction to Molecular and Cellular Principles of the Immune Responses. 2d ed. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1980. Introductory immunology textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students offers a comprehensive, detailed presentation of the cellular biochemistry behind the immune system. Describes antibody production, skin responses to certain infections, and how vaccines stimulate the immune system. Gebhardt, Louis P. Microbiology. 5th ed. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1975. Concise introductory microbiology textbook for undergraduates provides an excellent survey of the science and its history and stresses microbiological applications in everyday life. Presents comprehensive coverage of every branch of microbiology in a manner accessible to the layperson. Holt, John G., et al., eds. Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology. 9th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1994. Information-packed manual for microbiologists offers a comprehensive guide for classifying bacteria based on various characteristics. Describes in detail every major group of bacteria, including microscopic shape and appearance, growth patterns, and responses to chemical treatments. Mader, Sylvia S. Biology. 8th ed. New York: McGrawHill, 2004. Introductory textbook for undergraduates, both biology majors and others, presents clearly written extensive discussion of viruses, bacteria, and the human immune system. Beautifully illustrated. Raven, Peter H., et al. Biology. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Outstanding introductory biology textbook for undergraduate biology majors. Clearly written and features beautiful photographs and other illustrations. Provides excellent presentations of microbiology and immunology for lay readers. Wallace, Robert A., Jack L. King, and Gerald P. Sanders. Biosphere: The Realm of Life. 2d ed. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1988. Excellent introductory biology textbook for undergraduates. Features clear writing, diagrams, and photographs. Chapter 40, “Immunity,” provides a useful introduction to the human body’s defense mechanisms against disease. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research; 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed; May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past
1913-1927
Proust Publishes REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
Locale: Paris, France Category: Literature Key Figure Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French novelist Summary of Event In March, 1913, Marcel Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann (Swann’s Way, 1922), the first volume of À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927; Remembrance of Things Past, 1922-1931, 1981), was published by Bernard Grasset at the author’s expense after being rejected by several publishers. This work, with its fluid, overwrought style, mystified many readers who perhaps expected another effort from Proust in the manner of Les Plaisirs et les jours (1896; Pleasures and Regrets, 1948), a whimsical collection of poems and sketches. Since 1907, Proust had been organizing material for a work envisioned as a lyrical synthesis of belle époque manners and mores, with a title referring to the collective reconstruction of reality through a process of involuntary recollection of experiences. Proust originally delineated a triad formation to include Age of Names, Swann’s Way; Age of Words, Le Côté de Guermantes (19201921; The Guermantes Way, 1925); and Age of Things, Le Temps retrouvé (1927; Time Regained, 1931). Although these last two parts were complete in 1913, they were published in expanded form later, along with four additional volumes that Proust created during the years of World War I. In 1919, Proust’s À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (1919; Within a Budding Grove, 1924) received Le Prix Goncourt after it was published by Gallimard, the publishing house of the Nouvelle Revue Française. The critical reaction to this work was highly charged and quickly transformed Proust from a curiosity into a literary giant. Despite the increasing popularity of his work, Proust lived a reclusive life, enlarging and revising his novel until it had seven major divisions, some of which first appeared in two or three volumes, amounting to a text with a million and a half words and involving more than two hundred characters. The period between 1896 and 1906 consisted of years of intellectual wandering for Proust. He wrote an unfinished novel of one thousand pages titled Jean Santeuil
that anticipated, in narrative structure and thematic development, parts of Remembrance of Things Past. He completed two translations of aesthetic essays by John Ruskin: Le Bible d’Amiens (1904; The Bible of Amiens, 1880-1885) and Sésame et les lys (1906; Sesame and Lilies, 1865). He began an unfinished critical study, published posthumously as Contre Sainte-Beuve (1954; By Way of Sainte-Beuve, 1958), in which he explored the psychological laws governing personality and behavior. Proust’s work suggests that humans respond instinctively to social forces; this challenges Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve’s reliance on a rational interpretation of reality. Remembrance of Things Past also reflects the systems of philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Henri Bergson. Proust’s approach is based on Schopenhauer’s concept that social reality is determined by the idea that each individual forms of that reality. Memory fuses elements of a dormant past, giving time the qualities of a Bergsonian continuum. Proust also read the memoirs of the duc de Saint-Simon, covering the last part of the reign of Louis XIV. Saint-Simon’s interest in etiquette and in the exact pedigrees of aristocrats contributed to Proust’s nostalgia for a deeply layered hierarchical society around which his narrator spins as a bourgeois satellite. Finally, Proust’s concern for homosexual relationships within the contexts of love, friendship, and jealousy reflects the anxiety of social reformers during France’s embattled Third Republic who vividly remembered Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial for homosexual offenses in England and who were aware that the French police maintained files on anyone suspected of deviant behavior. Proust was galvanized by the Dreyfus affair. The climate of anti-Semitism in France led him to reflect on his own Jewishness (on his mother’s side) as a form of exclusion and exclusiveness. One of his main characters, Charles Swann, is Jewish. Proust thus imagined a world of emotions and experiences that he attempted to understand through an exquisite examination of consciousness. This sets him squarely in the tradition of nineteenth century naturalists but also places him among modern advocates of psychological realism. Remembrance of Things Past, a long, complex novel, reveals Proust’s dual approach to narration. The central character, Marcel, relives his life from childhood. At the same time, his actions are interpreted by other characters. In this role, he absorbs experiences with little idea of 1045
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The seven volumes of Proust’s masterwork lent a new direction to psychological realism in fiction.
Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past their ultimate significance. As the middle-aged actor in his own drama, he attempts to clarify his own sensations as he recovers time through memory. At the end of the novel, as Marcel reflects on the unique identity of past as present, he realizes that the creative writer alone can express this transcendental nature of reality. Writing, then, is the vocation for which his entire life has been a preparation. Because he is chronically ill, however, his urgent task is to describe time’s disintegrating and transforming function before he dies. The illumination of art is conveyed hauntingly through references to the fictional trio of Elstir, a painter; Vinteuil, a musician; and Bergotte, a writer. Early in the morning on the day he died, Proust dictated to his housekeeper several passages later included in the narrator’s portrait of Bergotte on his deathbed. In this scene, the writer’s books are displayed in groups of three, like angels’ wings, the symbol of the artist’s resurrection. Significance Remembrance of Things Past was conceived at a transitional moment in European history, when nineteenth century middle-class values were confronted by the ramifications of socialism, Darwinism, and modern science. In literature, the realistic novel was trying to recover its balance as it came out from under the spell of Symbolism, which tended to transform hard-edged prose into hazy, ethereal poetics. Proust enlarged the scope of the roman-fleuve (cyclic novel) tradition by emphasizing the importance of the imaginative chronicler drawing on his own experience and background to convey the spirit of an age more faithfully than a strictly accurate record could achieve. In doing so, Proust glorified the near past, and, for this reason, there is a valedictory element in the novels of his successors, among them Jules Romains, Roger Martin du Gard, and Georges Duhamel. In their attempts to express the collective spirit of pre-World War I communities, along with the psychology of individuals, these writers owed a considerable debt to Proust. Since the 1930’s, each successive generation has added to the Proust bibliography. From Paul Valéry to Michel Foucault, the representatives of new waves of literary criticism have found in Proust’s work a rich mine of metaphoric language and crystallized moments. Most critics have praised Proust’s architectural finesse. Indeed, Remembrance of Things Past resembles a Gothic cathedral with a host of stained-glass windows like illuminated manuscripts in a Bible of stone. This evokes a comparison with Dante’s La divina commedia (c. 1320; 1046
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The Divine Comedy, 1802); some critics have articulated the similarities between Marcel and Dante (narrators) and Swann and Virgil (guides through the underworld). Remembrance of Things Past transmits the world of the Middle Ages brilliantly in the numerous references to the legendary Geneviève de Brabant and other figures from medieval Europe who appear in the lantern slides that Marcel watched as a child in his room at Combray or in the stories that his mother read to him before bedtime. Proust’s attempt to remount the stream of time imparts a curious dreamlike quality to parts of the text. This effect is heightened by the exoticism produced by a kaleidoscopic series of perfumes and colors attached to objects, people, and events. Many of Proust’s admirers assiduously follow the two “ways,” Méséglise and Guermantes, offered to the protagonist from doors opening on opposite sides of his Aunt Léonie’s house at Combray, which was the crucible of Marcel’s consciousness. The Méséglise path leading to Swann’s house at Tansonville is an open plain covered with lilac and hawthorn. The Guermantes path is a river valley with water lilies and violets. The Guermantes family represents a lineage dating from the Middle Ages, and Marcel associates this name with societal aspirations. Through family conversations and isolated details, Marcel learns of Swann’s courtship and marriage to Odette de Crécy, a former prostitute with whom Swann became obsessed. Their marriage elevates her status, but Swann is eventually spurned by his peers until he becomes a forlorn and pathetic aesthete. Odette and Gilberte, her daughter by Swann, become objects of Marcel’s fascination and, through the end of the novel, their lives continue to be linked by a series of gratuitous coincidences. Marcel is introduced to another realm when, escorted by his grandmother, he visits the seaside town of Balbec, in Normandy, the Grand Hotel of which is later referred to as a Pandora’s box. There he makes the acquaintance of Albertine Simonet, Robert de Saint-Loup, and the Baron de Charlus, each of whom teaches him about the intermittences of the heart that undermine genuine human love. The Guermantes way leads to a number of revealing and often grotesque incidents in which Marcel witnesses erotic activities and liaisons that perturb him as he slowly acknowledges his own homosexual inclinations. In classic Freudian terms, Marcel seeks maternal affection in most of his relationships, and this virtually unattainable desire ends in various forms of compensation, jealousy, and narcissism.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past
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Swann’s pursuit of Odette repreProust’s Madeleine Moment sents a central feature that is extrapoPerhaps one of the most famous incidents in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of lated in subsequent phases of MarThings Past is the moment when the narrator takes a bite of madeleine and is at cel’s development. His frustrations once transported into memory. reach a climax in his affair with Albertine, with whom he briefly shares Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was a hotel room in Venice, where he obcomprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any exisserves her in a trancelike sleep in this tence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I subterranean city. Soon after, he atwas cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at tempts to hold her prisoner in his first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one Paris apartment. She escapes to her of those short, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines,” which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And home in Balbec and dies as a result of soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing a riding accident. This leads Marcel morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel to conclude that love is an illusion of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my that exists only in the mind of the palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon lover. He lapses into habit, a form of the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had ininaction and neurotic passivity. vaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. Marcel’s redemption is distilled And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters through art. Proust’s characters apinnocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect pear as figures on tableaux, frescoes, which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was and tapestries in an endless succesnot in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. sion of mirrored rooms. Albertine Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended resembles women in paintings by those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it Giotto and by Pierre-Auguste Recome? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it? noir. Odette possesses a Botticelli beauty, and Gilberte is compared to Source: Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, vol. 1 in Remembrance of Things Past, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (New York: Holt, 1922). Daphne from classical mythology. At the end of the novel, Marcel finally is able to enter the salon of the elusive Duchesse de Guermantes; he Further Reading observes the vicissitudes of time, mutable in society but Brée, Germaine. Marcel Proust and Deliverance from immortalized in art. He breaks out of habit and enters the Time. Translated by C. J. Richards and A. D. Truitt. plenitude of memory, located in privileged moments New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, such as the enjoyment of a madeleine dipped in tea, the 1969. Insightful work by a distinguished critic prechurch steeples of Martinville, and a reading of George sents nine chapters that focus primarily on feminine Sand’s François le champi (1850; Francis the Waif, influences on the protagonist. Connects Proust to aes1889). thetic theories proposed by other writers. Proust’s technical innovations are similar to those Girard, René. Proust: A Collection of Critical Essays. found in modern art: Near and far are pushed together, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962. Fourperspective is flattened out so that movement seems horiteen essays cover a wide range of themes, among zontal across zones of turbulence, and there is no specific them Proust’s notion of time as a plurality of isolated beginning, middle, or end with respect to time, which is moments, the three-dimensional novel, memory as a often considered to be a fourth dimension in surface reality. Furthermore, despite the length of the novel, there is form of spiritual grace, and Proust’s belief in intuitive an extraordinary process of psychic compression at work criticism. Includes a chronology of important dates. in the introspective landscape that Proust creates. As JoLandy, Joshua. Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, seph Conrad suggested, it might prove difficult to find and Knowledge in Proust. New York: Oxford Univeranother novel in which artistic vigor, emotional amplisity Press, 2004. Addresses the issue of the hybrid tude, and linguistic splendor are so fully integrated. philosophical and literary nature of Remembrance of —Robert J. Frail Things Past. Includes bibliography and index.
Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past Maurois, André. Proust: A Biography. Translated by Gerard Hopkins. New York: Meridian Books, 1958. Considered by many critics to be the definitive biography of Proust, this carefully documented work relies on factual data to present the evolution of Proust’s career. Excellent use of correspondence provides keys to many of the characters. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Moss, Howard. The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust. New York: Macmillan, 1962. This short but illuminating study is a reliable introduction to Proust’s main themes, represented by the metaphoric concepts of windows, gardens, parties, and steeples. Painter, George. Marcel Proust: A Biography. 2d ed. New York: Random House, 1989. Addresses the early years and later years of Proust’s life with an almost Freudian reverence for the effects of childhood phenomena. Carefully reviews the Dreyfus affair and painstakingly forms composite sketches of Proust’s main characters. Contains a multitude of photographs and prints, copious notes, bibliography, and index. Quennell, Peter, ed. Marcel Proust, 1871-1922. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971. Presents ten essays depicting the cultural atmosphere of Proust’s novel, with an emphasis on fashions, food, and flowers. Includes many unique and original photographs and sketches in addition to a serviceable index. Rivers, J. E. Proust and the Art of Love: The Aesthetics of Sexuality in the Life, Times, and Art of Marcel Proust. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Uses behaviorist and physiological research into human
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sexuality to contend that Proust was misled by the sexual theories and homophobia of his generation. An unorthodox but challenging treatment of Proust. Extensive notes, bibliography, and index. Shattuck, Roger. Proust’s Binoculars: A Study of Memory, Time, and Recognition in “A la recherche du temps perdu.” New York: Random House, 1963. The author, an esteemed critic, discusses the narrative structure and comic spirit of Proust’s novel. An entertaining presentation of Proust’s contribution to literary history. Includes notes, chronology, bibliography, and index. White, Edmund. Marcel Proust. New York: Viking Penguin, 1999. A biography of Proust by an accomplished novelist. Places Proust’s work in the context of his life and times. Blends anecdotes with literary criticism. Wilson, Edmund. “Marcel Proust.” In Axel’s Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930. 1931. Reprint. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. A refreshing and effervescent analysis of the symphonic structure and architectural unity of Proust’s work. Wilson’s usual command of the subject is evident as he emphasizes Symbolist influences and other literary, artistic, and historical connections. See also: Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published; 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers; 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes; Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking
January, 1913
Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking
Locale: Whiting, Indiana Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; energy Key Figures William Merriam Burton (1865-1954), American chemist Robert E. Humphreys (fl. early twentieth century), American chemist William F. Rodgers (fl. early twentieth century), American chemist Eugene Houdry (1892-1962), French industrial scientist Summary of Event In January, 1913, William Merriam Burton saw the first battery of twelve stills used in the thermal cracking of petroleum products go into operation at Standard Oil of Indiana’s Whiting refinery. Although the process would quickly be modified and more efficient techniques and apparatus would be employed by the early 1920’s, the Burton process started a multifaceted revolution within the American petroleum industry not only in terms of products made but also in the sense that universitytrained scientists were now recognized as possessing expertise that could lead to enhanced corporate profits. Although several individuals played important roles in the development of the Burton process, Burton was instrumental to its success. The scale-up and commercialization of the process were the result of his vision, his ability to sense future changes in the market, his persistence in the laboratory, his technical skills, and his forceful determination in convincing skeptical Standard Oil of Indiana executives of the method’s merit. Burton earned a B.A. degree from Western Reserve University in 1886 and then attended The Johns Hopkins University, where he studied organic chemistry under Ira Remsen. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1889, Burton was hired by Standard Oil in Cleveland, and a year later he transferred to the Whiting, Indiana, refinery, where he set up a two-room laboratory in an old farmhouse overlooking Lake Michigan. Initially, Burton developed methods and fabricated apparatus that physically and chemically tested the refinery’s kerosenes, greases,
waxes, and lubricating oils; later, he used his knowledge of chemistry to eliminate unwanted sulfur compounds. In 1896, Burton was promoted to refinery superintendent and other Hopkins-trained chemists took his place in the laboratory. One such scientist was Robert E. Humphreys, who subsequently proved to be a valuable collaborator with Burton in the development of the Burton process. At first, however, Burton and Humphreys would team up to tackle a number of small-scale, yet significant, practical problems that involved research on various kinds of greases and on the conversion of hydroxysteric acid from oleic acid, a product that was used to stiffen candles. Burton began thinking about a feasible way to obtain more lighter petroleum materials from existing stocks. Clearly, Burton perceived the vicissitudes of a dynamic marketplace, one that was undergoing a dramatic transformation in the wake of the introduction of the automobile. The market needed less kerosene and more gasoline, and, as Burton recognized, Standard Oil of Indiana’s position at the beginning of the twentieth century was particularly vulnerable, because the production of Midwest oil fields was declining. His process would not only change the refinery product mix, increasing lighter organics and decreasing heavier oils, but also conserve existing stocks by greatly increasing the yield of petroleum’s most highly sought-after fraction, gasoline. Burton’s idea of converting heavier fractions of petroleum to lighter ones was not new; indeed, by 1910 a number of petroleum refiners were using the so-called coking process, in which heavy oils were placed in an open still and heated at atmospheric pressure, thereby causing the decomposition of some of these materials into a mixture of products that included kerosene and gasoline. Unfortunately, this process was highly inefficient, as little gasoline was made and considerable quantities of heavy coke lined the bottoms of the vessels, insulating them. Beginning in 1909, Burton—along with chemists Humphreys and William F. Rodgers—began investigations using a heated tube and lead bath that were aimed at examining the influence of temperature and reaction time on the cracking of various stocks or petroleum cuts into gasoline. While the yields of gasoline reached 20 percent and more, the scientists realized that the key to success was in keeping the heavy, higher-molecularweight gas oil fraction from escaping the still before it could be properly cracked. Furthermore, the gasoline 1049
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Employing high temperatures and pressures, William Merriam Burton developed a large-scale chemical cracking process, thus pioneering a method that helped meet growing needs for fuel.
Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
CRUDE OIL IN
PETROLEUM SEPARATING
Asphalt
Industrial Fuel Oil
Roofing
R E F I N E RY
Diesel Oils
De-waxing
Lubricants and Greases
Paints
CONVERSION
PURIFICATION
Fuel Oil
Cracking
Bottled Gas
Gasoline
Candles Polish Waxed Paper Ointments and Creams
Plastics Photographic Film Synthetic Rubber Weed-killers and Fertilizers
Medicines
Jet Fuel
Detergents
Solvents
Enamel Synthetic Fibers
Insecticides
Burton’s process contributed to the development of petroleum refining for different uses, as shown in this diagram.
that was produced by this method was of poor quality and plugged fuel lines. To prevent this premature escape during distillation, Burton and his associates evaluated several process techniques, including the use of catalysts and the application of high pressures. Although they tried a few catalysts haphazardly in the laboratory, the science of using inert materials to alter the course of a chemical reaction was in its infancy. Thus the scientists began to think of using high pressures to alter the reaction, although this method posed technical challenges equal to those of catalysis at that time. Unknown to Burton, English chemists James Dewar and Boverton Redwood had demonstrated in 1899 that yields of gasoline increased markedly when heavy petroleum oils were heated under pressure, although Burton and his colleagues intuitively sensed that this would be the result. Burton and Humphreys gradually raised the pressure in their small-scale reaction vessels (pint-sized “bombs” made of hollowed-out metal) at intervals of 2.3 kilograms per square centimeter to 34 kilograms; it was at this pressure—one that was dangerously approaching the limits of safety—that gas oil remained in the still and thus could be cracked into useful compounds of lower molecular weight, such as gasoline. 1050
Major improvements in reactor design quickly followed this discovery. Humphreys added a long inclined tube to the original arrangement of the apparatus, connecting this so-called run-back between the still and the condensing apparatus and thus separating vaporized kerosene from gasoline. With this innovation, yields and product quality were enhanced, and Burton was now in a position to sell his new process to Standard Oil’s management. After more than a year of delays—in part the consequence of managerial resistance and in part the result of Standard Oil’s legal difficulties related to antitrust law—a pilot plant was erected. In 1912, construction began on the fabrication of the first set of sixty Burton stills, each of which was 29.5 feet (9 meters) in length and 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter. The size of the equipment was determined by the size of the largest sheets of steel then available. Although there were some initial operational difficulties, refinery workers soon learned proper reaction parameters and equipment limitations. By the end of 1913, 240 stills were in place, and profits soared. For each barrel of gas oil distilled and cracked, the company earned twentyfive cents, and further expansion followed. In 1915, Standard Oil (Indiana) sold more than 2.5 million 189-liter barrels of gasoline made in Burton stills, and five years later output rose to more than 5.8 million barrels.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The Burton process transformed the fortunes of Standard Oil (Indiana) and indeed the entire petroleum industry. Although it was licensed for use in many areas of the world—including Indonesia and Romania—its greatest significance in the long term was that it initiated a wave of technical change in a rather conservative industry, causing the replacement of tradition-bound methods with science-based techniques. Indeed, an entirely new petroleum industry emerged within two decades of Burton’s innovation. The Burton process influenced the course of the petroleum industry both directly and indirectly. As a result of Burton’s innovation, the amount of gasoline marketed not only by Standard Oil (Indiana) but also by its competitors increased sharply in the decades immediately after its introduction. In 1925, more than 23 million barrels of gasoline were produced in Burton stills alone. In addition, the severe demands placed on the apparatus by the high temperatures and pressure employed in the process resulted in the development of new reaction vessels, valves, and fittings that were designed to withstand these extreme conditions, and these improvements were utilized in industrial settings outside the petroleum industry. Furthermore, the work of Burton, Humphreys, and Rodgers demonstrated convincingly the value of scientific and technical expertise within the corporate environment. Within a decade of adoption of the Burton process, most chemical plants and refineries were under the control of scientists rather than foremen; science-based industry was now a reality. Engineers continued to improve the Burton process during the decade following its introduction, pioneering the technological foundations of the rapidly emerging
field of petroleum cracking technology. The Burton process was a batch process, but by the 1920’s continuous thermal cracking processes were developed. Jesse A. Dubbs and his son Carbon P. Dubbs made the most significant early contributions in this field, and their inventions formed the basis of the Universal Oil Products Company. In 1915, Jesse Dubbs patented a process for an apparatus that broke up stubborn water-oil emulsions, and his son incorporated these ideas on continuous flow with the concept of “clean circulation,” in which cracked materials from medium-weight fractions were separated from heavy portions through subdivision of the steams flowing from the cracking coils. The Dubbs process had inherent inefficiencies, however, and these shortcomings could be overcome only through the use of catalysts. It remained for a French industrial scientist, Eugene Houdry, working with American chemists and chemical engineers, to develop an alternative. Houdry’s interest in race car driving led him to search for a catalyst that would promote the cracking process and result in an increased yield of high-octane gasoline. In 1931, Houdry came to the United States and formed the Houdry Process Company. Collaborating with chemists and engineers at the Sun Oil Company, he developed a catalytic cracking process using cylindrical horizontally arranged reaction chambers and fast-acting valves to increase yields and quality. Houdry-process gasoline was 88 octane, whereas Burton-process gasoline was 72 octane. The Houdry process proved vital to the manufacture of high-octane aviation gasoline during the early years of World War II. Houdry’s design had several shortcomings, however, including its expensive apparatus and an inability to process heavy fractions and high-sulfur stocks. As early as the mid-1930’s, chemists and engineers sought to overcome these difficulties by designing a moving-bed method in which cracking of crude oil and regeneration of the catalyst took place simultaneously but in separate vessels. In 1938, Warren K. Lewis and E. R. Gilliland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Chemical Engineering Department combined the moving-bed design concept with the idea of a finely divided “fluid” catalyst, and the fluid cracking process was first put onstream in 1942. It consisted of a regenerator and a reactor contained within a steel skeleton. Oil vapors were cracked in the reactor, where the reaction was accelerated by the fluidized catalyst and the product was separated in fractionating towers. The spent catalyst first flowed to a hopper and was then sent to the regenerator, where carbon was burned off the catalyst particles. This new manufac1051
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At first, the company had difficulty marketing the new product, as it had a yellow hue and an offensive odor because of the presence of by-product sulfur compounds. The physical properties of this so-called Motor Spirit were dramatically improved, however, through treatment with sulfuric acid, and it was later blended with “straight-run” gasoline. As the product’s quality was enhanced, the Burton process was modified between 1913 and 1920 in several minor yet important respects. In 1914, false bottom plates were installed in the stills; this minor design alteration increased each vessel’s capacity as well as its efficiency. The introduction of an air-cooled radiator in 1915 and bubble towers in 1918 led to better fractionation and more and better grades of gasoline.
Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking
Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking turing method was integral to the petrochemical industry that emerged after World War II and created the synthetics-reliant world of the late twentieth century. In a very real way, the modern world of synthetics has its technological legacy in the work of Burton, whose process was perhaps the first in which petroleum was chemically transformed into more useful substances. He applied his scientific understanding to a problem in large-scale chemical manufacturing by harnessing knowledge about the fundamental structural properties of organic molecules and initiated a revolution in synthetic materials that continues to this day. —John A. Heitmann Further Reading Enos, John. Petroleum Progress and Profits: A History of Process Innovation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962. One of the best sources available for information on the history of petroleum cracking processes. Includes a comprehensive chapter on the Burton process, but also contains exhaustive studies of other competing commercial methods, including the Dubbs, Houdry, and fluid catalytic cracking processes. _______. Technical Progress and Profits: Process Improvements in Petroleum Refining. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Examines advances in petroleum refining in the second half of the twentieth century, with a focus on fluid catalytic cracking. Includes tables, figures, references, and index. Giddens, Paul H. Standard Oil Company (Indiana): Oil Pioneer of the Middle West. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1955. Definitive history of Standard Oil of Indiana describes the origins of the Burton process and its economic impact on the firm. Also traces the complex litigation that followed Burton’s 1912 patent as infringement claims were filed by Jesse Dubbs and Texaco Company. Places Burton’s innovation within a broad institutional and economic context. Haynes, Williams. This Chemical Age: The Miracle of Man-Made Materials. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1942. First publication to offer a systematic exploration of the history of the American chemical industry. A fascinating chapter titled “Chemists in Spite of Themselves” deals with scientific efforts to increase the yield of gasoline from petroleum crudes. Readable and easy to understand, the section on the Burton process serves as an excellent introduction to the topic. Heitmann, John A., and David J. Rhees. Scaling Up! Science, Engineering, and the American Chemical Industry. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1984. Informative and well-illustrated work centers on the theme of scaling up chemical processes from test tubes to large-scale manufacturing facilities. Several case studies demonstrate the complexities associated with scaling up. Includes a discussion of petroleum cracking. Wendt, Gerald L. “The Petroleum Industry.” In Chemistry in Industry, edited by H. E. Howe. New York: Chemical Foundation, 1924. Nontechnical treatise is particularly valuable for its clear description of the technology commonly employed in the American petroleum industry at the time of Burton’s innovation. Provides excellent sketches of refining and cracking processes and equipment, and discusses the various petroleum products commonly marketed during the 1920’s. Wilson, Robert E. “Fifteen years of the Burton Process.” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 20 (October, 1928): 1099-1101. Written by a Standard Oil (Indiana) employee, this short article is extremely valuable because it not only traces early attempts to “crack” petroleum products but also outlines both the economic significance of Burton’s innovation and its long-term technological impact. See also: Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop; 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
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Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere
January 17, 1913
Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere
Locale: Marseilles, France Categories: Science and technology; earth science Key Figures Charles Fabry (1867-1945), French physicist Frederick Alexander Lindemann (1886-1957), British scientist and head of the Clarendon Laboratory G. M. B. Dobson (1889-1976), English upperatmosphere meteorologist F. W. P. Götz (1891-1954), Swiss meteorologist Summary of Event Experiments performed in the eighteenth century showed that air is a mixture composed of different substances rather than a single element as had long been supposed. Early study of the major reactive gases of the atmosphere—oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide—was followed by investigations of other components. Ozone is a notable gas because of its sharp odor. Impure ozone is produced easily by a spark in oxygen and can collect in the atmosphere near large electric motors. Curious about the possible concentration of ozone at the earth’s surface, Walter Noel Hartley devised chemical procedures for collecting and testing for ozone in the laboratory in 1881. Because the concentration of ozone is extremely low, the volume of air required for such tests is large, so Hartley needed to apply spectroscopy to detect ozone in the higher atmosphere. The science of spectroscopy was at an early stage of development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. No good light detectors were available other than photographic film. Although film images were all black-and-white, scientists recognized that the dispersion of light into different colors caused by a prism made the different colors fall onto different places on a film. The relative attenuation of light at each wavelength— each position on a film—is characteristic of a particular substance. It can be used to identify the presence and quantity of a substance in a mixture such as air. By studying films, researchers learned that ozone absorbs both visible and ultraviolet light. Virtually complete atmospheric absorption of sunlight at wavelengths below 300 nanometers in the ultraviolet was noticed first by Alfred Cornu. Hartley identified this with ozone, thus
absorptions in this range are termed the Hartley bands. Other examples of absorptions include Chappuis bands, in the region of visible light, and Huggins bands, in the ultraviolet above 300 nanometers. The Chappuis bands are responsible for the blue color of ozone. Because surface measurements at high and low altitudes showed little difference in the wavelength of cutoff of sunlight, Hartley suggested that much ozone existed high in the atmosphere. Charles Fabry determined how much ozone existed at that level. Fabry was a physicist whose life’s work involved studies of optics. With Alfred Pérot, he invented an interferometer, which produces a succession of light and dark rings on a screen caused by the interference of different colors of light. The instrument is used to measure short distances with unmatched precision. Fabry developed an interest in astronomy while he was working with his two brothers: Eugène, a mathematician, and Louis, an astronomer. Fabry applied his interferometer to the study of the different wavelengths of light received from the Sun and stars. The use of different wavelengths was the key to quantitative determination of ozone in the atmosphere. The intensity of the radiation reaching the earth’s surface is a function of the intensity of the sunlight reaching the top of the atmosphere, the path length of the light through the atmosphere and thus the angle from the zenith (vertical), the amount of dust and molecular scattering of the light on its way through the atmosphere, and the absorption of light by gas molecules such as ozone. All of these except dust scattering and path length vary with wavelength. Working with Henri Buisson, Fabry carefully measured the absorption coefficients of ozone bands at different wavelengths in the laboratory. The researchers used this information to pick two wavelengths, with a known difference in absorption, at which to view sunlight. By measuring at several angles from the zenith, they could make adjustments for the other variations and determine the total amount of ozone in a vertical column of the atmosphere. The unit in which the result has commonly been reported is the thickness of the ozone if it were held in a pure layer at normal, sea-level atmospheric pressure and temperature. Athickness of 0.01 millimeter is known as the Dobson unit. Fabry suggested that about 5 millimeters of ozone exist in an atmospheric column. In 1920, Fabry and Buisson modified their instrument to reduce the amount of stray sunlight reaching the pho1053
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Charles Fabry’s quantification of the amount of ozone in an atmospheric column led to the discovery of the ozone layer.
Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere tographic film. They made repeated measurements of ozone and checked several pairs of absorptions to ensure that it was indeed ozone they were measuring. They found its concentration steady at 3 millimeters. In discussing their results, Fabry and Buisson showed remarkable insight. They noted that ozone probably forms in the upper atmosphere because of absorption of solar radiation and that the maximum concentration of ozone might be at a height of 40 kilometers (about 24.9 miles). From his own study of meteor tracks in 1921, Frederick Alexander Lindemann (who later became Viscount Cherwell) suggested that the atmosphere above 30 kilometers (about 18.6 miles) is much warmer than had been supposed. He believed that absorption of solar radiation by ozone is responsible for the warmth. As it was already known that the temperature of the stratosphere changes with weather patterns, there was some speculation that changes in ozone concentrations might be responsible for these patterns. Soon thereafter, G. M. B. Dobson established a program at Oxford University for the monitoring of atmospheric ozone. Using a spectrograph he built based on the design of Fabry and Buisson, Dobson collected a series of measurements from a hill outside Oxford, England, in 1925. From these the annual variation in atmospheric ozone was first seen: a maximum in the spring and a minimum in the fall. In the next year and a half, Dobson distributed a set of six spectrographs throughout Europe to investigate the relation between ozone and weather patterns. His finding of higher concentrations of ozone behind cyclones (large wind systems rotating around regions of low pressure) and ahead of anticyclones (systems around regions of high pressure) further reinforced interest in ozone measurement. In 1928 and 1929, the same instruments were sent to sites throughout the world to examine gross variations in ozone with latitude and location. Concentrations were found to be higher and far more variable at higher latitudes. Later measurements suggest a maximum at roughly 60 degrees latitude, but with considerable variation. In Dobson’s early work, all exposed photographic plates were returned to Oxford University for development and analysis. This practice removed a potential source of inconsistency. After 1930, the measurement program continued until World War II, with specially designed spectrophotometers using photomultipliers as detectors in place of film. These were particularly advantageous for measurements at low light levels, such as on cloudy days and early or late in a day. These took on great 1054
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 importance after it was found that information about the altitude distribution of the ozone could be gleaned from such measurements. One of the people who produced exposures for Dobson was F. W. P. Götz, who was working with Dobson to establish the vertical distribution of ozone. Based on variation of their measurements with zenith angle, they tentatively concluded that ozone might be concentrated in a layer near 50 kilometers (about 31.1 miles) above the earth’s surface, in rough agreement with the suggestion of Fabry and Buisson. Because Götz’s measurements were made in summer at the far northern island of Spitsbergen, Norway, the Sun remained close to the horizon for relatively long periods. Light intensity drops steadily at all wavelengths as the angle of the Sun from the zenith increases, because beams must pass through a greater thickness of atmosphere. Götz noted, however, that the ratio of intensity at a short versus a long wavelength went through a minimum near 85 degrees, then, contrary to expectation, increased for observations made overhead while the Sun was approaching the horizon. Light measured in this way has all been scattered. The higher the altitude of scattering, the smaller the opportunity to be absorbed. The longer-wavelength light is effectively scattered from lower altitudes, so its intensity keeps decreasing rapidly as the Sun sets. Shorter-wavelength light is scattered above the ozone layer, and so its intensity decreases only slowly. One can determine the altitude range of the ozone layer by measuring this Umkehr, or reversal effect. A concentration maximum occurs at roughly 25 kilometers (15.5 miles), decreasing rather sharply at higher altitudes and more slowly toward the earth’s surface. The simplicity of the measurement, and the ability to use the instruments already in service for determining total ozone in a column, made this the most common approach to locating the ozone layer until much later in the twentieth century, when satellite data became widely available. A scattering of balloon and rocket measurements confirmed Götz’s conclusion and suggested some variations of ozone concentration that ground-based measurements could not detect. One instructive improvement on Dobson’s work was based on measurement of the changes in absorption of light by ozone with change in temperature. At the low temperatures of the upper atmosphere, background absorption is reduced, thus one can use wavelengths at absorption bands of ozone to determine ozone concentration; measurement of background absorption gives
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Significance Fabry and Buisson’s publication of their findings on January 17, 1913, stimulated little other work regarding ozone, and such research was curtailed sharply during World War I. The experiment was clever, but the result was initially merely a curiosity. The first quantitative determination of ozone in the atmosphere was not Fabry’s most notable achievement as a physicist. The paper that Fabry and Buisson published in 1921 had a greater effect. The results were more reliable because of improvements on the instrument and more repetitions of measurements. More important, Lindemann and Dobson could apply the conclusion and discussion immediately to explain their own meteor data. Fabry and Buisson’s paper gave Dobson a basis for believing that an extended series of measurements of atmospheric ozone was not only possible but also potentially useful. Once started on a program of global monitoring for ozone, Dobson found that he could use his early results to convince granting bodies that money invested in such measurements was well spent. The monitoring results that Dobson reported in 1930 served as a framework on
which all later measurements were based. Dobson’s conclusions proved to be erroneous only in a few points, demonstrating his careful attention to equipment and experimental design. The studies on ozone helped form or correct meteorologists’ views of the atmosphere and thus helped keep the fields of atmospheric physics and meteorology on a sound footing. For example, the study of ozone offered a means to measure gas temperatures above the altitudes reached by most balloons. The most impressive feature of ground-based ozone study is the long-term and global nature of the information. It was not until rocket observations were made in the late 1950’s and 1960’s that detailed investigation of the stratosphere was possible. Without a comprehensive database already in place, sensible choices and interpretations of experiments would not have been possible. Because investigation of matter in the upper atmosphere is so difficult, scientists have applied a great deal of effort to the development of mathematical models of atmospheric chemistry and physics. These models consider all the different kinds of molecules and their reactions in attempting to understand what is happening. This work requires actual measurements with which to check the models. Although data gathered by satellites and high-altitude airplane flights have improved researchers’ understanding of ozone distribution, the scale provided is not fine enough to allow the examination of ozone movements near the tropopause. Further improvement of atmospheric models requires even more ozone monitoring, so that scientists can understand local variations as well as differences between widely scattered points. — James A. Carroll Further Reading Christie, Maureen. The Ozone Layer: A Philosophy of Science Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Presents the history of human knowledge about stratospheric ozone in a manner accessible to lay readers. Addresses basic issues of both realworld science and the philosophy of science. Includes figures, references, and index. Craig, Richard A. The Edge of Space: Exploring the Upper Atmosphere. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. Discusses the various methods of measuring atmospheric ozone. Written at a time when understanding of ozone chemistry was far less developed than it is in the twenty-first century, but still useful. Based on an important book in aeronomy, The Upper Atmosphere: Meteorology and Physics, which Craig pub1055
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ozone temperatures. Such data confirm a region of high temperatures above 35 kilometers (21.7 miles), which is caused by ozone absorption. Sidney Chapman proposed the first theoretical model of upper-atmospheric chemistry after attending an informal conference during which Fabry, Dobson, and others presented results of their studies. Oliver R. Wulf and Lola S. Deming demonstrated in 1936 that ozone is produced through photochemical dissociation of oxygen. They also contended that, although ozone is unstable, once formed in the region near its concentration maximum, it can exist long enough to drift lower in the atmosphere, where its concentration is affected by cyclonic wind patterns. Research concerning ozone in the late twentieth century focused more on its consumption than on its formation. In 1950, Marcel Nicolet examined the role of radical hydroxyl in the reaction chemistry of ozone. In 1970, Paul J. Crutzen further modified the picture to include the catalytic and stoichiometric reactions with nitrogen oxides. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, researchers raised concerns about the catalytic destruction of ozone by chlorine radicals, especially at high latitudes. Such destruction has the potential to increase the intensity of ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth, changing the temperature patterns of the stratosphere and thus changing weather patterns around the world.
Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere
Armory Show lished in 1965, this volume is aimed at a general audience. Dobson, G. M. B. “Forty Years’ Research on Atmospheric Ozone at Oxford: A History.” Applied Optics 7 (March, 1968): 387-405. Dobson’s personal recollection of the development of the global network for ozone monitoring presents a fascinating account of the scientific work. Notes the unexpected observation in 1956 of low concentrations of ozone until late in the Antarctic spring—the phenomenon, intensified in subsequent years by the presence of radical chlorine from chlorofluorocarbons, now known as the ozone hole. Gribbin, John. The Hole in the Sky: Man’s Threat to the Ozone Layer. Rev ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1988. Details concerns about the destruction of the ozone layer. Probably the most balanced of the books published on this topic in the late 1980’s. _______, ed. The Breathing Planet. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Collection of short articles originally published in the English journal New Scientist includes a section on ozone. Chapter titled “Monitoring Halocarbons in the Atmosphere” suggests the difficulties and uncertainties of monitoring substances in the atmosphere.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kerr, J. B., I. A. Asbridge, and W. F J. Evans. “Intercomparison of Total Ozone Measured by the Brewer and Dobson Spectrophotometers at Toronto.” Journal of Geophysical Research 93 (September, 1988): 11129-11140. Plots of careful ozone measurements and discussion of factors recognized as affecting such measurements over long periods at one site demonstrate, to the seriously suspicious, the variability that makes spotting trends in stratospheric ozone concentration so difficult. Parson, Edward A. Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Comprehensive technical discussion of efforts to protect the ozone layer undertaken through international cooperation. Chapter 2 is devoted to a review of early stratospheric science. Includes notes, references, and index. See also: Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas; Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon; May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution; 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
February 17-March 15, 1913
Armory Show Exposure of the U.S. public to revolutionary European art movements encouraged the expansion of museums and inspired a generation of American artists. The show came to be hailed as one of the most important events in the world of twentieth century American art. Locale: New York, New York Category: Arts Key Figures Walt Kuhn (1877-1949), American painter who was one of the original group who conceived the idea of the Armory Show Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors who, along with Kuhn, selected the European art for the show Walter Pach (1883-1958), American painter who guided Kuhn and Davies through the Parisian world of the avant-garde 1056
Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1859-1924), American painter who helped to select the American works and hang the exhibition Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), French painter whose work provoked the greatest amount of outrage and ridicule from viewers and critics alike Mabel Dodge (1879-1962), writer, hostess, and major promoter of the Armory Show Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), American photographer who pioneered the display of contemporary art Summary of Event On a cold February day in New York in 1913, U.S. art ended its infancy and began its meteoric rise to world recognition in an old, large, drafty armory. The International Exhibition of Modern Art, as the Armory Show was officially called, opened in the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory at 25th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City on February 17, 1913. The exhibition’s cata-
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in 1911. Walt Kuhn, one of the leading organizers, and several other artists were depressed at the hopelessness of selling original art in the United States. The only way an American artist could show was through museums or artists’ associations that were controlled by conservative juries. At the time, the only gallery that consistently exhibited modern art was Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue. Stieglitz had great faith in American artists, but he preferred to concentrate on a few artists. The promotion of many artists to a broad audience was, however, the chief objective of the Madison Gallery group, and they were resolved to do something about it. By January, 1912, the group had twenty-five members, called the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, who, for the most part, could not be regarded as modernists. What they most sought was independence; freedom from established and conservative museums, patrons, and exhibits; and a chance to show their art without juries or prizes. It was Arthur B. Davies who transformed the idea of an independent show into an aesthetic revolution and determined to combine the showing of American art with the best art that could be obtained from Europe. Davies’s efforts were aided by the work and support of writer and hostess Mabel Dodge, who had an instinct for recognizing talented artists and good art and promoted both. Dodge became an enthusiastic backer and vice president of the Armory Show. The show opened to great publicity. On hand was the entire panoply of the new French art, including a fair representation of works by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Odilon Redon, and the surprise hit and symbol of the show, Marcel Duchamp. The Fauves and the cubists were the most shocking, but they also drew the most comments; Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase occasioned some wit, including Theodore Roosevelt’s observation that the picture looked like his Navajo bathroom rug and another description that likened it to “an explosion in a shingle factory.” Significance Most American artists were shaken by the new forces in art that they saw for the first time in the Armory Show. Younger artists who were still relatively uncommitted to a particular movement were profoundly affected because they did not have to act defensively. Stuart Davies, who was to become a leader in American art in the 1920’s, called the show “the greatest single experience . . . in all my work.” After showing the new art in New York, the sponsors sent it on a national tour. When it arrived in Chi1057
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log listed 1,090 works by 306 artists, but as befits a revolutionary event, latecomers were admitted even after the show began, and several hundred more works of art were exhibited before the show ended. It was estimated that seventy-five thousand persons attended the show and saw, for the first time, revolutionary new art from Europe. Even the artists who participated had little inkling of the show’s enormous influence on U.S. art and culture. Probably no single event, either before or after, has ever had such a decisive effect on the art of the nation. At the beginning of the twentieth century, American art was provincial and academic. It reflected a prosperous and secure society, a sureness of technique, and a preference for strict representation. Impressionism, which had burst upon Europe in 1870, had been the most recent artistic movement to reach the United States. In the first decade of the twentieth century, revolutionary new techniques in art were introduced in Paris, and the followers of Henri Matisse created the movement called Fauvism. The artists known as the Fauves, or the “wild beasts,” reduced nature to a mere starting point in a picture. In 1905, Paul Cézanne began to show his paintings in Paris; his preoccupation with sculptured form was to mark another great development, which, in turn, would outweigh the new primitivism of Paul Gauguin and the new expressionism of Vincent van Gogh. In 1907, when Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was shown in Paris, another important modern movement, cubism, was introduced. All of these movements can best be understood as making up what is still regarded as modernism in art. They all used nonrepresentational subjects or unrecognizable objects instead of what had previously been thought the only possible subject of art: the imitation and representation of recognizable objects from nature. Modernism in art actually eliminated the old concept of beauty and substituted aesthetics that were more complex, gave greater range to the imagination, and were completely different from any earlier art form. It would be a mistake, however, to think that the Parisians took this artistic revolution with equanimity. Conservative critics and the public in general were shocked and repelled. The public came to accept this new art as it became familiar, but new and revolutionary artistic styles continued to be introduced. It is little wonder, then, that the American public reacted with shock, surprise, and puzzlement when the new movements of European art, along with what was new in American art, had to be absorbed in one cataclysmic art exhibit. The idea of the Armory Show came to a group of young American artists at New York’s Madison Gallery
Armory Show
Armory Show cago, students burned effigies of Henri Matisse and Constantin Brancusi. In Boston, it was snubbed by conservative members of society. Nevertheless, by the end of the tour, the show had been seen by nearly three hundred thousand persons; in a country possessing only a handful of art galleries, such success was little short of spectacular. The Armory Show also led to a revolution in American art, and so it is fitting that its emblem was the pine tree—a symbol used by Massachusetts during the American Revolution. Galleries in New York began to multiply, serious collectors began to amass many of the modernistic paintings that hung in American museums in the late twentieth century, a whole new generation of artists received encouragement and inspiration when they most needed it, and art became a familiar topic in the newspapers and periodicals for many who had never before thought of the possibility of looking at pictures. The Armory Show was a great cultural innovation, but it was more than that. So profound was its effect that the Armory Show can be considered to be the dividing line in the development of American art—to be judged as being either before or after the show. The long-range effects of the Armory Show are primarily twofold: First, the Armory Show gave impetus to the establishment of new museums and the expansion of those that existed. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, for example, can trace its origins to the Armory Show. Second, by making the public aware of modern art, the Armory Show became a powerful force in transforming modern art into big business. In time, works by established artists were viewed as investments that were as safe and profitable as blue-chip securities, if not more so. Art moved from the studio to the marketplace, even if sometimes this move was not necessarily to its advantage. —Richard H. Collin and Nis Petersen Further Reading Association of American Painters and Sculptors. The Armory Show. 3 vols. New York: Arno Press, 1972. Volume 3 is of particular value because it documents, through original sources such as cartoons and articles, the violent opposition to the Armory Show. Volume 3 also contains Walt Kuhn’s pamphlet on the show. Baur, John I. Revolution and Tradition in Modern American Art. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951. An interpretation of the main movements and trends in American art that concentrates less on schools of painting and sculpture than on underlying traditions and currents. 1058
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Brown, Milton W. The Story of the Armory Show. 2d ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988. Probably the best all-round account of the Armory Show. Includes diagrams showing how the works were presented and a complete listing of artworks shown and purchased. Brown covers the founding of the AAPS, the history of the organization of the exhibit, the critical reactions, and the influences that the show had. Also contains a catalog, the constitution of the AAPS, and a list of backers, lenders, and buyers. Doss, Erika. Twentieth-Century American Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Examines art movements in the United States in the twentieth century, with emphasis on the relations among artists, museums, and art audiences. Includes illustrations, time line, list of museums, and index. Green, Martin. New York, 1913: The Armory Show and the Paterson Strike Pageant. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988. Discusses the Armory Show and the strike of the textile workers in Paterson, New Jersey, which occurred at the same time. The author attempts to relate these two events in spirit, as well as in time, but admits that it is difficult to find a point of view and set of terms that apply equally to both. Henry Street Settlement, New York. The Armory Show: Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, 1913-1963. New York: Author, 1963. Contains the complete catalog of the 1913 show, with full documentation of works. Also includes letters, essays, articles, photographs, and cartoons from 1913, statements by artists, and an analysis of the 1913 show written by Milton Brown. Mancini, JoAnne Marie. Pre-Modernism: Art-World Change and American Culture from the Civil War to the Armory Show. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005. A broad-ranging but still thorough account of visual modernism’s development through the early twentieth century. Treats the Armory Show as a seminal event in art history. Rose, Barbara. American Art Since 1900. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1975. The author has revised her original 1967 work after consultation with authorities such as Meyer Shapiro and artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe. Chapters 6 and 7 are especially relevant. Schwartz, Constance H. The Shock of Modernism in America. Roslyn Harbor, N.Y.: Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, 1984. The catalog of an exhibition featuring works by “The Eight” and some of the artists represented in the Armory Show. Accompanying essays characterize American art in the early twenti-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
See also: 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States; Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession; Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York.
February 25, 1913
U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized Ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution authorized the collection of a federal income tax, preparing the way for the federal government’s eventual collection of per-capita taxes to supplement spending programs. Also known as: Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history; banking and finance Key Figures Cordell Hull (1871-1955), Democratic congressman from Tennessee, 1907-1921 and 1923-1931, and U.S. senator, 1931-1933 William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), Democratic congressman from Nebraska and presidential nominee in the 1896, 1900, and 1908 elections Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915), Republican senator from Rhode Island, 1881-1911, and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, 1899-1909 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), Republican president of the United States, 1901-1909, and Bull Moose Party presidential candidate in 1912 Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), Republican governor of Wisconsin, 1901-1906, and U.S. senator, 1906-1925 Edward Baldwin Whitney (1857-1911), assistant U.S. attorney general, 1893-1897 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), Republican president of the United States, 1909-1913 Joseph Fels (1854-1914), single-tax advocate and manufacturer of Fels-Naptha Soap
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), Democratic president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event On August 10, 1909, Alabama became the first state to ratify the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1911, twenty-two additional states approved ratification, and the requirement that a three-fourths majority of states ratify the amendment was met on February 3, 1913, when Delaware, New Mexico, and Wyoming threw their support behind the amendment. On February 25, 1913, Secretary of State Philander C. Knox certified that the amendment was officially a part of the Constitution. By March 4, most of the remaining states had voted to ratify; Rhode Island, Utah, Connecticut, and Florida voted against ratification, and Pennsylvania and Virginia took no action. New York, the last state to ratify in 1911, did so on July 12. Only a year earlier, New York governor Charles Evans Hughes had argued that the amendment empowered the federal government to tax income from state and municipal bonds, eroding part of the state’s income base. In addition, New York’s past income tax payments, then current per-capita and total income, and its business interests also made its passage of the amendment unlikely. The Sixteenth Amendment followed three previous enactments of direct income tax legislation passed by Congress during the nineteenth century. The first two were enacted in 1861 and 1864, during the Civil War, but they were repealed in 1872. Congress passed the third piece of income tax legislation as an amendment to the Wilson Tariff Act of 1894, but the next year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this law unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company. By 1895, sixteen 1059
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eth century and discuss the influence of several independent exhibitions and developments leading to the Armory Show. Also contains a brief history of the Armory Show and an epilogue. Young, Mahonri Sharp. American Realists, Homer to Hopper. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1977. Discusses the works of many of the American artists represented in the Armory Show. Gives the reader an excellent understanding of the tradition of realism in American art. Well illustrated throughout.
U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized
U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized
Whitney on the Income Tax Edward Baldwin Whitney’s “The Income Tax and the Constitution,” published in the Harvard Law Review in 1907, was one of the earliest and most influential articles to argue in favor of the imposition of a federal income tax. Whitney began his argument as follows: The committee of style of the constitutional convention of 1787 recognized in its famous report three kinds of taxation; namely, “direct taxes,” “duties, imposts and excises,” and the “capitation tax.” The first and third of these were to be apportioned among the various states in proportion to their population as shown by the census. By a clause which had been already adopted and apparently dropped out in this report by some accident, and which was thereafter restored by unanimous vote, it was provided that the second class should be uniform throughout the United States. By a subsequent verbal amendment, moved on the floor for another purpose and passed without debate, the capitation tax came to be classed among the direct taxes, although it had been treated separately since an early stage of the proceedings of that body, including the report of the committee of detail. In the course of debate one prominent member asked what direct taxation was, and no one answered him. This constitutional question has been debated from time to time ever since, apparently settled once, unsettled again, and still remains in doubt. . . . Apportioned taxes have turned out to be a failure. They are difficult enough to assess within the limits of a state, and under control of a state board of equalization. They have been tried by the nation, and each trial was a failure. The last direct tax levied was paid back again. There will probably never be another. Whatever taxes are levied in the future will be levied under the rule of uniformity. If we are to amend the Constitution, a matter now so often discussed, we should not try to tinker it by introducing a specific exception to a broken down general rule. Amendments to the Constitution should conform to its main plan. They should be drawn on broad lines, and not introduce a multitude of special cases. If the apportionment clause is to be touched at all, it is as easy to repeal it altogether. If there are any taxes that ought to be left to the states (and a general tax upon all property at a valuation, a tax which necessarily involves an apportionment in order to avoid variations in the rate of assessment, is one of these), the constitutional amendment should distinctly specify them and simply state that the nation is not to levy them. All taxation not forbidden should be permitted, and should all be uniform throughout the land. Source: Edward B. Whitney, “The Income Tax and the Constitution,” Harvard Law Review 20, no. 4 (1907).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 states had addressed income taxation through legislation, constitutional amendment, or tax-commission report, and most had approved it. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and William Howard Taft in 1908 also indicated some support for a graduated income tax. A 1907 Harvard Law Review article by Edward Baldwin Whitney supported a constitutional amendment and provided a point-by-point attack of the Supreme Court’s decision in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust. Many of Whitney’s arguments subsequently found their way into the congressional debates. Support for a federal income tax grew in rural states, especially in the Midwest and West, where Republican leaders such as Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin discovered that income taxation resonated well with voters. New support came from an alliance of urban and rural middle-class citizens that favored state and local tax reform. Many believed that this reform would facilitate the taxation of personal property and in doing so would add to the taxation of property in general, creating more of the funds on which local and state governments primarily relied. Such groups viewed adoption of new taxes—such as the income, inheritance, and corporate taxes—as replacements for state property taxes. The growth of the Progressive movement after 1906 led to the election of the Republican Insurgents, who were instrumental in the passage of the 1909 income tax provisions, and to the growth in the number of radical Democrats under the leadership of William Jennings Bryan. In 1908, the Democratic presidential platform endorsed a constitutional amendment creating a federal income tax. In the midst of the Panic of 1907 and the subsequent depression and election of 1908, Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich introduced a constitutional amendment to establish an income tax. On March 4, 1909, President Taft called a special session of Congress, which passed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909 with a provision that included the creation of a constitutional amendment. In addition, the act increased tariff tax rates and authorized a special excise tax of 1 percent on incomes above five thousand dollars for all for-profit corporations. Cordell Hull, author of the income tax provision of the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913, was one of Congress’s most consistent advocates of the Payne-Aldrich Act. The ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment came about in large part because of two other campaigns that took place in the period 1909-1913. Beginning in 1909, soap magnate Joseph Fels began to finance campaigns for constitutional reforms that would allow property to
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized
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be taxed. The Fels campaign, whose only electoral victory occurred in Oregon in 1910, convinced many wealthier property owners, especially in the Northeast, that they could benefit from more moderate reforms. Popular enthusiasm for federal policies designed to address monopoly power reached new heights with the 1912 presidential campaigns of Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Eugene V. Debs. In his inaugural address in March, 1913, President Wilson called for tariff reform and reduction and for an income tax to make up lost revenues. With ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment assured, President Wilson asked that an emergency session of Congress enact the legislation. Congress proceeded to enact the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913 on October 13, and in doing so it made the income tax law. The extent and rate of initial tax were modest and noticeably nonredistributive by subsequent standards: The law estabA 1913 editorial cartoon captioned “The New Man on the Job” emphasizes the benelished a “normal” rate of 1 percent on fits to the working class of the new income tax. (Library of Congress) nearly all personal and corporate income, and in setting the exemption at three thousand dollars, it excused federal burdens using tariffs and excise taxes. Since the nearly all income earners (95-96 percent of them). The birth of the nation, the use of tariffs and excise taxes had 1913 act also established a graduated surtax of up to 6 favored the most affluent citizens, and the Sixteenth percent, but this tax was applicable only to those with anAmendment did not change this. The act was reaffirmed nual incomes of twenty thousand dollars or more (an exwhen the Supreme Court declared it constitutional on tremely high income at that time). In addition, the act exJanuary 14, 1916, in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railempted dividends up to twenty thousand dollars from the road Co. Despite its modest beginnings, the 1913 act crepersonal income tax, and it also exempted interest inated a mechanism that was increasingly used to redistribcome earned by owners of state and local bonds. As a reute wealth and to generate revenues to meet emergency sult, the wealthiest families paid marginal rates ranging and expanding social needs. from 1 percent to 7 percent. In the first several years of —Richard K. Caputo the income tax, roughly 2-4 percent of American households paid taxes in any given year. Further Reading Anderson, Donald F. William Howard Taft: A ConservaSignificance tive’s Conception of the Presidency. Ithaca, N.Y.: Ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment gave the fedCornell University Press, 1973. Provides background eral government power to tax income directly rather than and biographical information about the principal isthrough tariff or consumption taxes. At the time, ratificasues and individuals involved in the passage of the tion was more symbolic than substantive; the act was Sixteenth Amendment. essentially a legal apology for the system of financing
U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized Brownlee, W. Elliot. Federal Taxation in America: A Short History. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004. Comprehensive overview of the U.S. tax system extends from the creation of tax legislation through ratification of the amendment and ends with the state of taxation under George W. Bush’s administration. Buenker, John D. The Income Tax and the Progressive Era. New York: Garland, 1985. This case study of the multifaceted nature of Progressive Era reform shows how the legislative enactment of the tax resulted from the politics of coalition, compromise, and consensus at every stage of its evolution. Joseph, Richard J. The Origins of the American Income Tax: The Revenue Act of 1894 and Its Aftermath. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004. Looks into the social origins of the federal income tax and contends that the central issue was not a shift to a new tax base but rather the degree of the rates’ progressiveness. Ketcham, Earle Hoyt. The Sixteenth Amendment. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1926. Describes how the states came to ratify the amendment and the impact of income tax-related Supreme Court decisions before and after ratification. Kinsman, Delos O. “The Present Period of Income Tax Activity in the American States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 23, no. 2 (1909): 296-306. Documents state-related income tax activity from 1895 to 1909. Makin, John H., and Norman J. Ornstein. Debt and Taxes. New York: Random House, 1994. Provides historical context for the introduction of the income tax and describes the tax’s evolution up to the 1990’s.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Stanley, Robert. Dimensions of Law in the Service of Order: Origins of the Federal Income Tax, 1861-1913. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. This book serves as a corrective to progressive and pluralist understandings of the origins of federal income tax. Waltman, Jerold L. Political Origins of the U.S. Income Tax. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985. Chapter 1 provides background and examination of the Sixteenth Amendment. Includes information on follow-up legislation in 1916, 1917, 1918, and 1921. Weisman, Steven R. The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson—The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. Relates the debates and legal struggles over taxation that took place in the United States from the time of the Civil War to the aftermath of passage of the Sixteenth Amendment. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Whitney, Edward B. “The Income Tax and the Constitution.” Harvard Law Review 20, no. 4 (1907): 280296. This article provides a point-by-point criticism of Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. Witte, John F. The Politics and Development of the Federal Income Tax. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Analysis of federal income tax policy from the Civil War through the Reagan administration of the 1980’s, based on incremental and pluralist policy-making theory. See also: Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy; 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts; Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission; Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime ExcessProfits Tax.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation
March 1, 1913
Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation
Locale: Highland Park, Michigan Categories: Science and technology; business and labor Key Figures Henry Ford (1863-1947), American automobile manufacturer who founded the Ford Motor Company Eli Whitney (1765-1825), inventor who introduced the principle of interchangeable parts to American industry Elisha King Root (1808-1865), manufacturing innovator responsible for making division of labor an essential part of modern mass production Oliver Evans (1755-1819), inventor who developed power conveyors used to achieve continuous flow in the workplace Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), efficiency engineer who strived to eliminate wasted motion from the production process James Couzens (1872-1936), vice president, general manager, and treasurer of Ford Motor Company Carl Emde (fl. early twentieth century), German technician who helped build new equipment for the Ford assembly line William C. Klann (fl. early twentieth century), technician who contributed to assembly-line production Charles E. Sorensen (1881-1968), technician who introduced the concept of the continuous conveyor belt William Signius Knudsen (1879-1948), factory manager for Ford Motor Company and General Motors Clarence W. Avery (1893-1943), time study expert for Ford Motor Company Summary of Event Henry Ford produced the first “horseless carriage” in 1896 in his home workshop using traditional handcraft techniques. Three years later, Ford and eleven other investors formed the Detroit Automobile Company to
manufacture gasoline-powered motorcars for sale to the general public. This company was not successful, and the business failed. In 1903, a new automobile manufacturing company—the Ford Motor Company—was born. At a time when other cars were priced at $5,000 to $10,000 each, Ford’s first product, the Model A, sold for less than $1,000 and was well received. However, when Ford and his partners tried to introduce a more expensive motorcar in 1905, sales dropped. Then, in 1907, Ford announced a revised company policy. The Ford Motor Company would build “a motorcar for the great multitude.” It would be called the Model T. The Model T was introduced to the general public in 1908, and it was everything that Henry Ford said it would be. It was a low-priced (about $850) utility car that came in one color only: black. There were no yearly model changes. Instead, the basic design of the Model T remained unchanged throughout its entire twenty-year production life. The price of the Model T—or “Tin Lizzie,” as it was affectionately called—did not remain constant, however. Instead, it dropped over the years to less than half that of the original Model T. As the price dropped, sales increased, and Ford Motor Company quickly became the world’s largest automobile manufacturer. The last of more than fifteen million Model T’s was made in 1927. The 1927 Tin Lizzie was remarkably similar to its 1907 predecessor in both its appearance and operation. There, however, the similarity ended: These two automobiles represented the end products of completely different manufacturing systems: custom production and mass production. At first, Ford built his cars as every other manufacturer did, one at a time using traditional custom manufacturing techniques. Skilled mechanics would work on a car from start to finish, and helpers and runners brought parts to these highly paid craftsmen as they were needed. After completing one car, the mechanics and their helpers would begin work on the next. Custom manufacturing works well when demand for a product is low and buyers are willing to pay the high labor costs. This was not the case with the automobile. Ford soon realized that his plan to manufacture quality cars in quantity and at a low price depended on finding a more efficient production method. In this regard, he looked to the past and the work of others. He found four principles of production that could be applied to the 1063
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By applying the principles of mass production, Henry Ford put automobile ownership within the reach of millions and changed a nation, its people, and their habits. His use of interchangeable parts, assembly lines, and ergonomics revolutionized modern industry.
Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation large-scale manufacture or mass production of his automobiles: interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and elimination of wasted motion. Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, is credited with introducing the principle of interchangeable parts to American industry. Prior to the eighteenth century, muskets, like most products, were produced one at a time by highly skilled craftsmen (gunsmiths) who meticulously made and hand-fitted each of the parts. Although these muskets were high-quality pieces, the methods employed in their manufacture left much to be desired. This was especially true with regard to quantity production. Whitney recognized the inherent disadvantages associated with the custom-production method and was determined to overcome them. In 1798, he contracted with the U.S. government to produce several thousand muskets within a period of two years. Instead of finding and hiring gunsmiths to fabricate the muskets by hand, Whitney devoted the bulk of his resources to the design and construction of specialized machines that were capable of accurately duplicating large quantities of each of the musket parts required. He also developed a number of specialized tools: jigs for positioning materials and/or controlling and guiding cutting tools, dies for cutting and forming materials, gauges for measuring or checking the size of parts, and fixtures for holding work in position while machining. Such tools made it possible for semiskilled and even unskilled workers to function successfully at jobs that had been carried out by highly skilled craftsmen. Through the use of duplicate (interchangeable) parts, Whitney was able to improve the difficult and timeconsuming method of fitting parts together that was common at that time. In doing so, he dramatically simplified the process of assembling parts into finished products. The principle of “continuous flow” is the planned and orderly progression of a product as it undergoes manufacture and is changed and/or assembled into its final form. As the product is fabricated, it passes through a series of production stages, including operation, a stage in which useful work is performed on the product; transfer, when the product is moved from one stage to another; storage, an extended period of time when production is idle; and delay, a temporary form of storage. Efficient production is accomplished by carefully arranging a product’s manufacturing stages to result in continuous flow. Ford borrowed from at least two sources in order to achieve efficient production flow in the manufacture of his Model T: the meatpacking houses of Chicago and an automatic grain mill operated by Oli1064
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ver Evans. Ford’s idea for a moving assembly line originated in the disassembly lines used by Chicago’s great meatpacking houses in the late 1860’s. There, animal carcasses were transported by overhead rail past a series of workers, each performing a specific cutting or packing operation. The introduction of the moving disassembly line in the meatpacking industry resulted in a marked increase in the number of animals that could be butchered and packaged in a single day. A key ingredient in achieving continuous flow is automatic conveyance of the work to and from the worker. In this regard, Ford looked to Evans, who is credited with developing three types of conveyor systems—belt, screw, and bucket. In 1783, Evans designed and operated an automatic grain mill. Only two workers were required to run the Evans mill. As one worker poured grain into a hopper at one end of the mill, a second worker filled sacks with flour at its other end. In-between processing was automatic, as Evans’s conveyors passed the grain through the various steps of the milling process without human intervention. Ford’s success also depended on the principle of division of labor: By dividing a complex job into several basic operations, certain products can be produced faster, with less chance of error, by workers possessing fewer skills. This method divided the input, and in so doing it multiplied the output. Elisha King Root is generally credited with developing the principle behind division of labor while he was working on his famous Colt sixshooter. In 1849, Root went to work for Samuel Colt at his Connecticut factory, where Root proved to be a manufacturing genius. By dividing production operations into very simple steps, each performed by individual workers, gun production increased substantially. Henry Ford applied Root’s principle when he set out to increase engine assembly from the recognized standard of one engine per worker per day. To accomplish his goal, Ford broke down the complex process of assembling an automobile engine into 84 separate and distinct operations. He then assigned 84 men the task of assembling the engines, with each man performing one of the 84 operations. The job of assembling an engine, which once was performed by a single worker, now required the labor of 84 different men. Ford proved that this method was efficient: Instead of the 84 engines that might have been expected under the old system, 352 engines were assembled. In other words, the production rate was increased by a factor greater than four. Ford also sought to eliminate as much wasted motion from production as possible, and he relied on Frederick
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Henry Ford was the first to apply the four basic principles of mass production to the large-scale manufacture of a
complex product. He did so slowly and with care, testing each new procedure before it was adopted. The changeover from custom to mass production was more an evolution than a revolution. It culminated, in 1913, with the introduction of the first moving assembly line ever used in the manufacture of automobiles. As a result, Ford was able to produce his Tin Lizzies faster than ever before. His competitors soon followed suit. Ford achieved his goal of placing automobile ownership within the reach of millions, and in reaching it he changed a nation, its people, and their habits. Ford’s work gave a new push to the Industrial Revolution. It showed the nation that mass production could be used to improve the quality and cut the cost of manufacturing an automobile. In so doing, manufacturers could make large amounts of money. In fact, the Model T was so profitable that in 1914 Ford was able to double the minimum daily wage of his workers. Now, with their pay
The Ford Motor Company’s Model T assembly line in its Highland Park factory. (Library of Congress)
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Winslow Taylor’s help in achieving this goal. Taylor has been called the “original efficiency expert.” In his work, he used studies of both time and motion to improve the production process. His time studies established optimum speeds at which workers could efficiently perform various operations, and he proved that, in the long run, doing a job too quickly was as bad as doing it too slowly. According to Taylor, “Correct speed is the speed at which men can work hour after hour, day after day, year in and year out, and remain continuously in good health.” He also conducted motion studies, which were designed to streamline worker movements as they performed their assigned tasks. In this way, he was able to keep wasted motion to a minimum.
Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation
Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation at five dollars per day, even they could afford to buy Tin Lizzies. Ford’s profits grew, and because his ideas and manufacturing techniques were successful, Ford quickly moved from the Highland Park plant to a role in all phases of American industry, setting the pattern of abundance that was to follow. —Robert M. Swerdlow Further Reading Brinkley, Douglas G. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Brinkley has written a lively biography of Henry Ford. Draws on a wealth of unpublished materials and sources that were unavailable to previous biographers. Contains end notes, references, and a complete index. Illustrated, with some photographs. Bryan, Ford R. The Fords of Dearborn. Rev. ed. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. While focusing on the genealogy of the Ford family and the role of each in creating the automobile industry, the book adds some useful insights into Henry Ford’s persona and motivations. Crabb, Richard. Birth of a Giant. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1969. A history of the American automobile as it was affected by the talents and personalities of the men who created it. There are anecdotes, some possibly apocryphal, about the principals as well as illuminating vignettes showing their flaws and foibles. Of interest are many clear photos of early auto manufacturing and testing. Fales, James F., et al. Manufacturing: A Basic Text. 2d ed. Peoria, Ill.: Bennett & McKnight, 1986. This book on manufacturing discusses introduction to manufacturing, research and development, production, product plans, and tools, materials, and processes. Heavily illustrated, with a glossary. Flink, James. The Car Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1975. Flink presents a complete history of the manufacture of the American automobile, including design, management, financing, and marketing. Of particular interest is a thorough treatment of the effects of large-scale auto manufacture and widespread ownership on the American culture. Ford, Henry, with Samuel Crowther. 1923. Reprint. My Life and Work. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004. Ghostwritten by Crowther in a conversational style, Ford’s autobiography contains thoughts on the state of the nation and advice on how admiring readers might duplicate their hero’s success. 1066
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine. Boston: Little, Brown, 1986. The epic story of Henry Ford, the automobile manufacturing company he created, and the dynasty he founded. Spanning more than a hundred years, the book describes the public achievements, the private tragedies, the feuds, and the personalities of the powerful individuals whose ambitions helped to shape modern American society. Supplementing the text are black-and-white photographs (some never before published). A helpful index is also provided. Marcus, Alan I., and Howard P. Segal. Technology in America: A Brief History. 2d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1998. Discusses the importance of interchangeable parts in the evolution of mass-production processes in the automobile, home appliance, and agricultural implement industries. Meyer, Stephen, III. The Five-Dollar Day: Labor, Management, and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. Details the crucial events and circumstances that created assembly-line production at Ford as well as the reactions of automobile workers to the new work processes and higher wages. Includes an excellent bibliography. Nevins, Allan. Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954. An objective view of the controversial persona of Henry Ford based on sources from the Ford archives and, at times, oral history. The narrative connects the introduction of assembly-line production to the five-dollar-perday minimum wage. Impressive bibliography. Rae, John. The American Automobile. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. A brief, popularized history of the American automobile from its origins until the 1950’s. It focuses strongly on the pioneers in the industry and their interactions. Rupert, Mark. Producing Hegemony: The Politics of Mass Production and American Global Power. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Among others, the author, a political scientist, considers the political and ideological struggle in his chapter titled “Fordism vs. Unionism” flowing from the introduction of assembly-line production at the Ford Highland Park plant in Detroit. Vance, Bill. Reflections on Automotive History. Vol. 1. Rockwood, Ont.: Eramosa Valley Publishing, 2000. Covers a wide range of subjects in the history of the automobile and features more than sixty black-andwhite photographs. Contains a brief chapter devoted
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday; Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four; Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established.
March 4, 1913
Migratory Bird Act The Migratory Bird Act gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture authority to regulate the hunting seasons of migratory game and insect-eating birds. Also known as: Weeks-McLean Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures John Wingate Weeks (1860-1926), U.S. congressman from Massachusetts George Payne McLean (1857-1932), U.S. senator from Connecticut John F. Lacey (1841-1913), U.S. congressman from Iowa George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938), American magazine editor and supporter of wildlife conservation Summary of Event On March 4, 1913, the U.S. Congress passed and President William Howard Taft signed the Migratory Bird Act, which gave the Department of Agriculture authority to regulate the hunting seasons of a wide range of bird species. The law, also known as the Weeks-McLean Act, placed under U.S. protection all migratory game and insectivorous birds with northern or southern migration paths that passed through any U.S. state or territory. The passage of the Migratory Bird Act was an important step in bird protection in the United States. Although individual states had laws preventing the excessive hunting of resident bird species, these laws did not protect birds that migrated from the Canadian Arctic to the American Gulf coast. The Weeks-McLean Act extended federal protection to these species. Events in the late
1800’s led to a changing public view of the need for bird protection. The slaughter of birds in their nesting grounds had severely depleted the populations of several species. When the birds’ plight was brought to the public’s attention through the cooperation of many organizations, widespread support grew for a proposed law that would protect migratory birds. The expansion of the United States from the middle of the nineteenth century onward had adverse impacts on the nation’s wildlife. Two groups with sometimes diverging interests, outdoor sporting enthusiasts and nature lovers, became aware of these impacts and came together to help enact laws to protect birds and other American wildlife. Sportsmen realized that uncontrolled hunting was depleting many species, and as a result many joined organizations that worked to promote the passage of legislation to protect game birds and animals. Nature lovers worked to protect and preserve nature and wildlife for their own sakes. George Bird Grinnell, a sportsman and editor of Forest and Stream magazine, supported efforts to protect wildlife from excessive hunting. Initially concerned only with game species, he advocated the enforcement of existing hunting laws as a solution to wildlife depletion. In 1886, Grinnell expanded his concerns, founding the Audubon Society for the protection of nongame species, a category of wildlife previously ignored. Although the organization was extremely popular, Grinnell discontinued it three years later because of the increasing demands placed on him by his work on Forest and Stream. The effort to protect nongame species prompted the formation of other groups, however, many of which eventually joined together to form the National Association of Audubon Societies in 1905. Grinnell continued to be influential in efforts to increase bird protection. 1067
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to Cadillac’s early engineering achievements, including the development of interchangeable parts. Wik, Reynold M. Henry Ford and Grass-Roots America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972. Based in large part on letters and other materials contained in the Ford archives. The author re-creates the era of the Tin Lizzie. Traces and evaluates Ford’s activities and ideas in many fields and discusses the impact of the Model T. Contains illustrations.
Migratory Bird Act
Migratory Bird Act In the first years of the twentieth century, responsibility for bird protection in the United States rested mainly with a scientific group, the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU). The main purposes of the AOU, which was founded in 1883, were to identify and to classify bird species. The AOU supported state laws that prohibited the killing of certain endangered birds, but it had no enforcement power. Public awareness of the need to protect wildlife increased with the dramatic declines of the passenger pigeon and the bison caused by large-scale commercial hunting. A fashion craze of the late nineteenth century helped to galvanize support for bird protection when hundreds of thousands of nongame birds were destroyed to satisfy the demand for feathered hats. Hardest hit was the egret, the breeding plumage of which was highly valued. Many nesting colonies were destroyed when hunters invaded them and killed adult birds, leaving the young to die. Sportsmen’s groups and state-level Audubon Societies helped to gain support for the passage of the first federal legislation for bird protection, the Lacey Act of 1900. Sponsored by Representative John F. Lacey of Iowa, the law forbade the interstate shipment of any birds killed in violation of state laws. Although the Lacey Act’s application was limited to species already protected by individual states, it placed the authority and enforcement power of the federal government behind the bird-protection movement for the first time. Many protected songbirds were being killed and sold across state lines as game birds; other species were being hunted as sources of hat feathers. The Lacey Act, when enforced, stopped these practices. Under the Lacey Act, the Bureau of Biological Survey in the U.S. Department of Agriculture was responsible for enforcing the law, but Congress did not provide funding for a federal police force. The bureau had to rely on the cooperation of states, conservation groups, and commercial interests to protect bird species. Sportsmen and nature lovers thus continued to fight for federal protection of migratory birds. In 1912, Representative John Wingate Weeks of Massachusetts and Senator George Payne McLean of Connecticut proposed a bill in Congress to regulate migratory birds on the grounds that migration of waterfowl across state boundaries constitutes interstate commerce. Because the bill extended federal powers, it was strongly opposed by members of Congress from the South and West as a violation of states’ rights. Although widespread public support existed for bird protection, Con1068
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gress would not act on the bill. Toward the end of the congressional session in March, 1913, however, the migratory bird legislation was attached as a rider to an agricultural appropriations bill. Concealed in this manner, it passed both houses of Congress, and President Taft signed it into law on March 4, 1913, during the last hours of his administration. With the passage of the Weeks-McLean Act, the secretary of agriculture authorized the Biological Survey to draft suitable regulations prescribing and fixing hunting seasons. The regulations clearly defined the species considered to be migratory game and insectivorous birds. The regulations also provided a detailed schedule of closed hunting seasons on these birds for various zones throughout the United States. Grinnell and Lacey were among those appointed to an advisory board to assist the secretary of agriculture in making the law effective. The regulations went into effect on October 1, 1913. The Weeks-McLean Act was the most sweeping action the U.S. government had taken up to that time for the protection of wildlife, but the law’s usefulness was hampered by the failure of Congress to provide sufficient enforcement funding. In 1914, the act was dealt a greater blow by the decision in a federal court case in Arkansas. An individual had killed birds in violation of the WeeksMcLean Act and was indicted for the offense, but the federal judge in the case rendered an opinion adverse to the law. He stated that no provision of the U.S. Constitution allowed Congress to claim that migratory birds were the property of the U.S. government. In the judge’s opinion, attempts to regulate the shooting of these birds were unconstitutional. This legal decision effectively negated the Migratory Bird Act. In the meantime, a bird-protection treaty was being negotiated between the United States and Canada. Supporters of the Weeks-McLean Act actively urged passage of the treaty, and the U.S. Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918. In 1920, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Missouri v. Holland case, upheld the constitutionality of the new congressional statute under the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which stipulates that treaties are the law of the land, and thus congressional acts giving effect to treaties take precedence over any state laws to the contrary. The treaty also gave the Biological Survey international responsibilities in protecting and regulating the hunting of migratory birds. Even though the Weeks-McLean Act itself was unsuccessful in protecting bird species, the massive public support for the law was an important factor in the passage of the treaty. In addition, the regulations of the bird law
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 formed the basis for the protection of migratory and insectivorous birds under the international treaty.
bird protection. Many Americans came to realize that they did not have the right to exploit natural resources without regard for future needs. Widespread public support was an important factor in the passage of the WeeksMcLean Act of 1913 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The Weeks-McLean Act formed the basis for future wildlife protection policy in the United States. The law’s regulations recognized the importance of species other than game birds. The protection of insectivorous birds— songbirds and other perching birds that feed either entirely or chiefly on insects—would indirectly protect farmers, as many of the insects eaten by these birds are destructive to crops and fruit trees. The act also established the Bureau of Biological Survey as a federal agency empowered to enforce its regulations. With the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, this agency became part of early international efforts to protect bird and other wildlife species. The Biological Survey would eventually become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with a wider range of responsibilities. The regulations written for the Weeks-McLean Act recognized the importance of protecting birds in their nesting grounds: Species could not reproduce adequately if breeding colonies were destroyed by hunters. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 later expanded this concept to include the protection of wildlife habitats. The controversy over the constitutionality of the Weeks-McLean Act nullified its enforcement, but the law was nevertheless an important step toward the protection of birds across the United States. The widespread support for this law and the subsequent bird-protection treaty with Canada formed the beginnings of U.S. wildlife protection and conservation policy. —Pamela R. Justice Further Reading Cooke, Wells W. “Saving the Ducks and Geese.” National Geographic, March, 1913, 360-380. Discusses migration routes and breeding areas of several North American waterfowl species. Also examines the reasons for bird-protection laws and the ways in which the Weeks-McLean Act was expected to help protect birds. Dunlap, Thomas R. Saving America’s Wildlife. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Historical treatment of wildlife conservation in the United States addresses changing concepts regarding endangered species and wildlife conservation. Chapters 1 through 3 deal with the people, ideas, and events lead1069
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Significance The Migratory Bird Act came at a time of increasing public concern in the United States regarding the near extermination of various bird species through overhunting. Since the mid-nineteenth century, state governments had enacted various laws to protect and preserve game species, but these laws were not uniform. A bird species protected in one state was not necessarily protected in another. The Lacey Act of 1900 was the U.S. government’s first attempt to provide federal protection to game species. The act ended market hunting and interstate shipment of wildlife or wildlife products taken in violation of state laws. The Lacey Act protected only species that were already protected by state laws, however. By the late 1800’s, both sportsmen and ornithologists had come to realize that the greatest threat to game species was posed by commercial hunters, who were rapidly depleting some species and exhausting the surpluses of others. The Lacey Act had helped to lay the foundations for a wildlife protection policy, but the Biological Survey, charged with enforcing protection laws, was hampered by lack of funding. An effective policy could come about only with a change in public attitudes toward wildlife protection. Public concern for game and nongame bird species increased in the early twentieth century. Many state groups based on the model of George Grinnell’s Audubon Society came into existence. In 1905, many state groups joined together to form the National Association of Audubon Societies, later called the National Audubon Society. The association worked diligently to support legislation for the protection of wild birds and animals. The mass destruction of the passenger pigeon population by commercial hunting did much to help change public attitudes. These birds were killed by the millions. Commercial hunters descended on breeding grounds covering up to forty-five square miles and slaughtered so many birds that the birds’ bodies filled railroad freight cars. Once numbering in the hundreds of millions, the passenger pigeon was scarce by the 1880’s. The species became extinct in 1914, when the last bird died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Less publicized was the destruction of nongame birds, such as warblers, terns, and egrets. The feathered-hat craze of the late 1800’s resulted in the mass slaughter of these birds for their feathers. These events and the actions of sportsmen’s groups and the Audubon Society helped change attitudes toward
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Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres ing to the Lacey Act and the Weeks-McLean Act. Fox, Stephen. John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. A general history of the people and events of the American conservation movement. Chapter 5 deals with wildlife protection in the early 1900’s. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness. Begins with the earliest days of European contact. Pearson, T. G. “Weeks-McLean Law.” Bird Lore, March, 1913, 137-138. Outlines how widespread popular support led to the passage of the WeeksMcLean Act. Includes the full text of the federal law. Reiger, John F. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. 3d ed. Corvallis: Oregon State Univer-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sity Press, 2000. History of the nineteenth century pioneers of wildlife conservation focuses on the attempts of numerous sportsmen to organize support for the protection of wildlife. Covers people and events up to the Lacey Act of 1900. Includes an extensive bibliography. Schorger, W. A. The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction. 1973. Reprint. Caldwell, N.J.: Blackburn Press, 2004. Well-researched and welldocumented account explains clearly how a species can be brought to the brink of extinction. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters; Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
March 31, 1913
Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres The 1913 premiere of Anton von Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra, Op. 6, on a program with pieces by Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, caused a riot in the concert hall. Locale: Vienna, Austria Category: Music Key Figures Anton von Webern (1883-1945), Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Austrian conductor and composer Summary of Event Perhaps they should have known better. Certainly, Arnold Schoenberg should have; he had witnessed milder versions of the riot that broke out at the March 31, 1913, concert in Vienna’s major music hall. The noise of hisses, boos, laughter, and whistles mingled with the applause for the “new” music of Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton von Webern featured at the concert. Eventually, complete chaos broke out, and the hall was filled with fistfights, shouting, and challenges to duels. Even the police could not restore order; it took half an hour to clear the hall. Later, several of the combatants were fined in the court case that ensued. 1070
Schoenberg, the leader and teacher of a new school of composers who were turning their backs on the overripe harmonies of late Romantic music such as that of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, organized and conducted the concert as a showcase for Berg and Webern, his best pupils. Having studied with him since 1904, they were eager to have the public hear what were really their first orchestral compositions in the new atonal idiom, with which Schoenberg had been experimenting for several years. Eschewing the conventional major/minor key system that had dominated Western music for several hundred years, Schoenberg experimented with ambiguous harmonies and dissonance, with music that had no tonal center and hence was called “atonal.” Since 1906, Schoenberg had written and had performed—often to derisive hisses and laughter—a series of compositions, for orchestras smaller than the conventional symphony orchestra, that used the voice in angular and expressive ways, valuing words and meaning over sweetness and flowing melody. Between 1906 and 1913, he had set forth onto new paths in music, overturning accepted conceptions of harmony and composition. With his followers—particularly Berg and Webern—he aggressively pursued his goals and fought for respect and recognition. It would never be easy. Most important, perhaps, for Webern’s own development was Schoenberg’s 1909 work Five Pieces for Or-
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Kindertotenlieder was planned as the final piece for the March 31, 1913, concert, but because of the riot that broke out after the orchestral songs by Berg, it never was played. The concert opened with Webern’s new orchestral work, Six Pieces for Large Orchestra, Op. 6. Although he employed a large orchestra, Webern used his forces sparingly. Each piece was short, and the whole composition took about ten minutes. Textures were spare; short phrases and motifs shifted from instrument to instrument, and the sound level rarely went above some sort of pianissimo. After the second piece—which lasted slightly longer than a minute—laughter erupted in the hall, countered by partisan applause. Such conciseness of form and coloristic use of instruments—as well as a lack of clear tonality—disturbed many in the audience. Some songs by a more conservative contemporary, Alexander von Zemlinsky, calmed things down. The playing of Schoenberg’s own Chamber Symphony, however, occasioned hissing and fistfights, even though this work from 1906 was less radical than Webern’s work. After an intermission, two of Berg’s new orchestral songs were performed to growing restiveness. In fact, their performance set off the complete chaos that terminated the concert. Berg had set to music poems by Viennese poet Peter Altenberg, who specialized in aphoristic, Symbolist verse that confused many. The combination of Altenberg’s verse, Berg’s pared-down, chamberlike orchestral forces, and an angular, atonal, and expressionistic vocal line was too much for established tastes. The first song elicited laughter. Schoenberg had to stop midway through the second song to demand silence. Webern chimed in, yelling that the disrupters should be ejected, and the disorder began in earnest. Fistfights, applause, whistling, and the suggestion that admirers of the music should be committed to the local insane asylum brought the concert to an end. Significance Both Berg and Webern were devastated by the concert and fled Vienna. The event was in many ways a turning point. Obviously, many of the concert disrupters came prepared to deride the new music. For Schoenberg, it was a common kind of response to his experiments, but for his younger pupils it was a shock. For the rest of their lives, they were to receive varieties of such abuse and misunderstanding. Webern, in particular, withdrew into himself and became for the rest of his life a semirecluse who earned his living from the 1920’s on by conducting orchestras and 1071
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chestra, Op. 16, which first clearly demonstrated the concept of tone-color melody. In the third piece of this set, “Colors” (later titled “Morning by a Lake”), Schoenberg experimented with tone colors between instruments as a means of creating melody. Schoenberg soon articulated this idea in a 1911 book on harmony; Webern, with his interest in medieval and Renaissance polyphony and contrapuntal practice, was intrigued. After all, in finishing his doctorate in musicology at the University of Vienna in 1906, he had edited and studied the complex vocal music of the fifteenth and sixteenth century Flemish composer Heinrich Isaac. Webern wanted to try to combine Schoenberg’s own interest in reviving the art of canon and counterpoint (neglected in nineteenth century classical music, with its emphasis on the sonata form and increasingly rich triadic harmonies) with tone-color melody, so that linear (melodic) and vertical (harmonic) aspects of composition could be viewed as a single dimension. This young group of experimental musicians became known as the Second Viennese School, in contradistinction to the line of great Viennese masters of the nineteenth century. The new composers, however, had strong links to the past and tradition and did not really think of themselves as revolutionaries. Rather, they viewed themselves as extending tradition or reviving older modes. In this effort, they had the support of some of their older contemporaries—most notably Gustav Mahler. Mahler went to their concerts and encouraged their experiments until his sudden death in 1911. Indeed, his later compositions heralded the methods of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern in many respects. In spite of his employment of large orchestral forces, Mahler often broke these forces down into chamber groups and experimented with unusual timbral effects. In the song cycle Kindertotenlieder (1901-1904; songs on the deaths of children) and in the large symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde (1909; The Song of the Earth), Mahler used chamber groupings and solo instrumental timbres as well as vocal lines of intense expressiveness, which greatly impressed the members of the Second Viennese School. The three inner movements of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony (1905) became models for tone-color experiments. These movements featured “coloristic” sounds from such instruments as guitar, mandolin, and cowbells within the compass of a large orchestra. Impressionistic and finally expressionistic, these experiments excited the young composers. Mahler became a hero to them, a forward-looking figure in the staid and conservative musical life of Vienna. Indeed,
Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres
Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres choruses. Because in many ways his music was the most radical compared with that of his contemporaries and offered the most stunning break with convention, it was the least accepted. Even today, Webern is thought to be the most “difficult” of the three major figures of the Second Viennese School for concertgoers. Webern, however, had no intention of changing his unconventional approach to composition; he had, in fact, already extended his experiments in composition beyond the manner of the Op. 6 pieces by the time they had their premiere. His Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5, of 1909 lasted about twelve minutes and was even more concentrated and elliptical than the orchestra pieces. Marked by rapidly shifting tempos and dynamics, an avoidance of repetition except in brief ostinati (musical figures repeated at the same pitch throughout a composition), and tremendous technical difficulty, this work presaged Webern’s later work. Other compositions of the period from 1909 to 1914 showed Webern’s interest in small motives that were constantly varied and passed from instrument to instrument in the manner of tonecolor melody. The Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9 (19111913), and the Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 (19111913), represented the summation of this first truly original phase of Webern’s career. In both compositions, he stressed transparency of texture: The instrumental forces designed for specifically chamber music compositions and for “orchestral” pieces became closer in size, as Webern as well as Schoenberg and Berg continued to turn away from the huge orchestras of late nineteenth century music making. Webern also started to use rests and silences as part of the fabric of his music; activity and its suspension became normative. Instruments of the woodwind family were given new prominence, and all instruments had solo roles, one instrument to a part. The frequent use of the celesta, harp, mandolin, guitar, and various percussion instruments for tone-color melody effects began to dominate Webern’s compositional practice. His use of the glockenspiel, xylophone, and harmonium recalled some aspects of Mahler’s instrumentation, and he began to strive more and more for clarity and openness of texture, so that every line could be heard. After World War I, Schoenberg devised what he called the twelve-tone method of composition. Using all twelve of the notes in the regular chromatic scale in a predetermined sequence gave the composer his model, or tone row, for a whole piece. Acomposition would thus be ordered not by major or minor key progressions and harmonies but by the tone row and various technical trans1072
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 positions and reversals of it. Berg and Webern adopted this new method from Schoenberg, although they had both been working along similar lines even before 1920. Webern’s later works extended the methods he had developed before World War I, but within the more controlled twelve-tone format. Pieces such as the String Trio, Op. 20 (1926-1927), the Symphony, Op. 21 (19271928), the String Quartet, Op. 28 (1937-1938), and the Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30 (1940), extended his methods so that he scarcely seemed to be concerned with melodic ideas that had any definable rhythmic characteristics. Medieval canonic procedures still were a feature at times in these later compositions, but they showed an even greater concern for creating a sort of mosaic of sounds or tone colors through experiments with instrumental combinations from piece to piece. Timbral matters dominated, and the transformation of instrumental colors, a true tone-color melody approach, became central. Isolated units of rhythm were contrasted carefully for textural and timbral reasons. Extreme condensation and abbreviation of motives allied with silences, and a sense of an acoustic space between notes and across the score brought an atomistic feel to these compositions. Webern’s soundscape came to have a sense almost of stasis, a frozen and abstract quality. After his death in 1945, Webern became the preferred model among the three major figures of the Second Viennese School for the young composers emerging in the early 1950’s. Webern to them was the most radical and future-oriented. He most decisively rejected Romanticism in music, with its sweet and aching melodies, heavy orchestrations, and rich triadic harmonies. His spareness of texture and interest in extremes of instrumental tone color and playing practice (noted so carefully in his scores) meant, for the young “serialists” who took the twelve-tone method and applied it rigorously, that they had a mentor who had applied a keen logic to his music making. His use of a minimum of notes and unusual groupings of instruments and sounds appealed to them, because they wanted to redirect Western music even farther away from its past. Whether their estimate of Webern was entirely accurate remains open to question. In one sense, he was the futurist in music; in another, he was a renovator of tradition. In either case, he was a seminal figure in twentieth century music. —Frederick E. Danker Further Reading Grout, Donald J., and Claude V. Palisca. “Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-
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tionary of Music and Musicians (1980) and revised, these short essays are excellent introductions to Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, with detailed lists of works, illustrations, musical examples, and index. Rosen, Charles. Arnold Schoenberg. 1975. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Relatively brief monograph helps the reader understand the significance of the composer’s work. Includes photographs, illustrations, musical examples, bibliography, and index. Simms, Bryan R., ed. Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Examines the works of these composers in the context of earlier Viennese musical developments and compares the modernism in their music with that in the nonmusical arts in Vienna during the same period. Includes bibliography and index. Slonimsky, Nicolas. Music Since 1900. 4th ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971. Covers all key events in (mostly) classical music and offers descriptive comments on the pieces and often witty appraisals of the concert scene. Included are documents and letters focusing on the new directions (including the Second Viennese School) of music in the twentieth century. A detailed “Dictionary of Terms” is also helpful. Index. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His TwelveTone System; Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin; June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich.
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Century Europe.” In A History of Western Music. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Although found within a textbook for college music majors, this chapter is accessible to the general reader. Covers the full range of Schoenberg’s innovations and provides a balanced overview of his work. Includes examples, illustrations, and bibliography. Kolneder, Walter. Anton Webern: An Introduction to His Works. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Discusses all of Webern’s works, including some technical matters, and provides musicological illustrations. Understandable for the generally informed reader. Bibliography and index. Moldenhauer, Hans, and Demar Irvine, eds. Anton von Webern: Perspectives. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966. Papers from a conference offer interesting personal and musical insights into lesserknown aspects of Webern’s life and work. Comments by Igor Stravinsky, Ernst Krenek, and Egon Wllesz are useful, as is the exploration of Webern’s early late Romantic compositions. Moldenhauer, Hans, and Rosaleen Moldenhauer. Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of His Life and Work. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. A massive book that is richly rewarding in its coverage of the contexts for Webern’s work. All works are covered, but not a close musical or technical study. Good use of manuscript and unpublished music. Illustrated. Includes bibliography, index, and detailed list of works. Neighbour, Oliver W., Paul Griffiths, and George Perle. The New Grove Second Viennese School. New York: W. W. Norton, 1983. Taken from the New Grove Dic-
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Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded
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May 14, 1913
Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded Endowed by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and chartered by the state of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation was officially established “to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” Through its grants, it succeeded in fostering improved health as well as many scientific and humanistic advances. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Organizations and institutions; humanitarianism and philanthropy Key Figures John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1839-1937), oil magnate and philanthropist who established the Rockefeller Foundation John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960), industrialist, philanthropist, and first president of the Rockefeller Foundation Frederick T. Gates (1853-1929), Baptist clergyman, business executive, and leader of the General Education Board, the first of the Rockefeller foundations Abraham Flexner (1866-1959), educational reformer Simon Flexner (1863-1946), pathologist and director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research Wickliffe Rose (1862-1931), director of the International Health Board who helped eradicate hookworm and other diseases Warren Weaver (1894-1978), American mathematician who headed the Rockefeller Foundation’s natural sciences division William Sulzer (1863-1941), governor of New York, 1913 Summary of Event After amassing an immense fortune through his Standard Oil Company, a seventy-year-old John D. Rockefeller, Sr., contemplated distributing a sizable proportion of his accumulated wealth to a foundation focused on stimulating human progress. He had already made large gifts to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (founded in 1901), the purpose of which was to assist scientists in investigating, preventing, and treating deadly diseases, and to the General Education Board (founded in 1902), which sought to improve American education, particularly in the South. John D. Rockefeller, Sr., had created these organizations with the assistance of Frederick T. Gates, who was 1074
head of the American Baptist Education Society when Rockefeller first met him in 1894. Within three years of this meeting, Gates had joined Rockefeller’s staff. According to scholars, Gates conceived the idea of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1905, when he wrote to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., about setting up a large philanthropy that would efficiently distribute his overseer’s money in ways that would truly benefit others. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who had joined his father’s office after graduating from Brown University, studied Gates’s ideas. Under his father’s influence, the younger Rockefeller strove to find innovators with the right combination of “caution and zeal.” In some senses, the Rockefeller Foundation was created on June 29, 1909, when John D. Rockefeller, Sr., assigned more than seventytwo thousand shares of Standard Oil of New Jersey to his son, to his son-in-law Harold McCormick, and to Gates. In his deed of trust, he stipulated that this new institution was to be called the Rockefeller Foundation and that it would promote the well-being and advancement of civilization in the United States and other countries by encouraging the spread of knowledge and the assuagement of suffering. Rockefeller’s mandate was so broad that Gates wisely chose to restrict it to Gates’s own passionate interests in medicine and public health. Rockefeller’s original intent was to obtain a congressional charter for this foundation, and in 1910 such a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate. However, because antitrust actions were under way against Rockefeller’s oil empire, this bill provoked controversy over the “tainted money” that would be used to set up the proposed foundation. After three years of contentious debate, Rockefeller abandoned his efforts for federal incorporation, and on May 14, 1913, his son and advisers secured passage of an act that incorporated the Rockefeller Foundation in New York with the approval of the legislature and William Sulzer, the governor. This state bill, which provoked little public reaction, summarized the institution’s purpose: “to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” Once the bill was passed, Rockefeller gave thirty-five million dollars to the new foundation. Although the gift was in the form of securities, he made it clear that the officers of the Rockefeller Foundation were free to dispose of this wealth in any way that seemed wise. During the foundation’s early history, the board of trustees was composed of representatives from the Rockefeller family, academics, industrialists, and finan-
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Significance The Rockefeller Foundation was the largest of the philanthropies created by the largess of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Because his gifts were mainly in the form of securities, and because market conditions varied widely after the organization’s founding, it is difficult to give a precise and complete figure of the foundation’s holdings, but one estimate, based on market value at the time that the gifts were made, gives a figure of close to $450 million. In the foundation’s early decades, its officials used public health campaigns to reduce the suffering and deaths caused by infectious diseases around the world. The foundation’s role in the physical and natural sciences proved to be more controversial. Some scholars, for example, have claimed that Weaver and the Rockefeller Foundation helped create new fields such as molecular biology, whereas others have asserted that the nature of scientific progress would have led to these fields’ establishment without the foundation’s funding (although Rockefeller money almost certainly helped accelerate developments). The Rockefeller Foundation’s encouragement of work in history, philosophy, and the creative arts did not create the spiritual renaissance for which early officials had hoped, but the foundation’s publication of series of scholarly volumes did serve a useful purpose. When scholars surveyed the foundation’s work after its first fifty years, they found that the health of people around the world had improved but that humankind’s future was threatened by war and growing environmental crises. — Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Farley, John. To Cast out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1913-1951. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Historical study emphasizes how the Rockefeller Foundation influenced international cooperation between the United States and other countries on such issues as medical research and public health. Bibliography and index. Fosdick, Raymond Blaine. The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York: Harper, 1952. Fosdick, who was president of the Rockefeller Foundation for twelve years, used his access to its files to write this definitive history of its founding and early development. Jonas, Gerald. The Circuit Riders: Rockefeller Money and the Rise of Modern Science. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Focuses in large part on how difficult it 1075
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ciers. According to one of these trustees, the best foundation policy was to have no policy, and the organization’s early activities were broad and flexible in scope. Abraham Flexner, whose work on the General Education Board had helped to improve American medical instruction and the practical training of doctors, expanded his efforts into public health while serving the Rockefeller Foundation. After his medical education and practical experience in the Philippines, Simon Flexner, Abraham’s brother, became a board member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. He studied hookworm, a parasite that fastens itself to the intestinal wall and causes a disease marked by progressive anemia. He convinced Wickliffe Rose, an influential foundation trustee, that practical steps needed to be taken to eradicate this disease. Consequently, foundation officials established the International Health Commission, which Rose headed. Through the enlightened use of foundation funding in public health, Rose was able to reduce not only hookworm but also yellow fever and malaria in the United States and many foreign countries. Although its major successes were in the medical sciences, the Rockefeller Foundation also fostered important advances in the physical and natural sciences. For example, it supported Niels Bohr’s important work in atomic and nuclear physics and Ernest Orlando Lawrence’s giant “atom-smashing” cyclotron, and it financed the two-hundred-inch reflecting telescope installed at Palomar Observatory in California. Through the able leadership of Warren Weaver, who headed the natural sciences division, the foundation played an important role in encouraging new fields such as molecular biology. Weaver believed that significant new discoveries would be made in the borderlands between the physical and life sciences, and the foundation’s funding for physical chemist Linus Pauling’s work supported his pivotal work on the structure of proteins. The Rockefeller Foundation’s officials also sought to encourage human progress by funding projects in the social sciences and humanities. For example, Rockefeller Foundation funds helped finance the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1935), described as “a modest success.” That work was preceded by the more successful Dictionary of American Biography (1928), a multivolume set funded by the foundation’s grants and completed by the American Council of Learned Societies, a group of thousands of scholars in various disciplines who were interested in furthering the humanities.
Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded
Passage of the First Alien Land Law is for officials of philanthropic organizations to predict the effects that their funding will have on the evolution of science. Kay, Lily E. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. By focusing on a single institution, attempts to show how Rockefeller Foundation officials and the scientists whose work they funded sought to “control” the new field of molecular biology. Extensive notes, bibliography, and index. Kohler, Robert E. Partners in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900-1945. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Draws on the archives of the Rockefeller Foundation and other foundations to show how funding by government, industry, and these foundations helped to create different forms of science. Extensive notes and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Schneider, William E., ed. Rockefeller Philanthropy and Modern Biomedicine: International Initiatives from World War I to the Cold War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Collection of essays addresses how the Rockefeller Foundation has influenced medical research through various endowments. Bibliographical references and index. Shaplen, Robert. Toward the Well-Being of Mankind: Fifty Years of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Illustrated account updates the foundation’s work since the publication of Fosdick’s book (cited above). Includes lists of foundation trustees, officers, and directors of programs. Index. See also: Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace; Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed.
May 20, 1913
Passage of the First Alien Land Law California became the first U.S. state to pass a measure depriving resident Japanese Americans of property rights. Also known as: Alien Land Act; Webb-Henley bill Locale: California Categories: Civil rights and liberties; economics; laws, acts, and legal history; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), U.S. secretary of state, 1913-1915 Chinda Sutemi (1856-1929), Japanese ambassador to the United States, 1911-1914 Hiram Warren Johnson (1866-1945), governor of California, 1911-1917 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event Immigration from Japan to the United States increased significantly during the final decade of the nineteenth century, with most of the immigrants settling in the Pacific states. In California, the agricultural skills of the Japanese enabled them to transform land that was previously thought to be unusable for farming into fertile 1076
soil that supported crops of vegetables and fruits. As the number of Japanese laborers arriving in California increased substantially, however, strong anti-Japanese sentiment developed. The success of the newcomers threatened and antagonized the emerging labor unions. The Asian Exclusion League was formed in 1905, and a campaign to bar Japanese immigration was launched. Negotiations begun in 1906 between the United States and Japan resulted in the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, which limited immigration from Japan to nonlaborers and to families who were joining previously settled laborers. In 1907, a federal immigration bill was amended to prevent Japanese laborers from entering the United States through Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada. The California state legislature’s attempts to pass alien land bills began in 1907. Although President Theodore Roosevelt’s personal intervention, in the form of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, prevented the enactment of such bills, the legislature appropriated funds to investigate Japanese agricultural involvement. When the California State Labor Commission submitted a report to the legislature that was favorable to the Japanese, the labor commissioner was publicly reprimanded and the report remained unpublished. By 1910, about 70 percent of California’s strawberries were produced by Japanese immigrants, and in 1910, twenty-seven anti-Japanese propos-
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The development of the proposed California legislation was largely the result of the influence of labor unions and farmers from districts in which the Japanese had acquired land. The labor unions reportedly hated the Japanese because their presence reduced the value of adjacent land and because Japanese laborers worked for low wages. It was fear of the labor unions that impelled members of the legislature to vote for the bill; Californians as a whole did not support the legislation. In Japan, the Tokyo press vehemently opposed the legislation. An editorial in the Asahi, a leading independent newspaper, referred to the “hollowness of American advocacy of equality” and stated, “This anti-Japanese agitation will impress us with a keen sense of humiliation, which will require many years to efface.” The National Liberal Party urged the governments of Japan and the United States to prevent passage of the bill. The Japanese government filed a formal protest on April 7, but President Woodrow Wilson’s position was to remain outside the conflict. He believed that the proposed legislation lay within California’s rights as a state. On April 10, it was reported that if California made no attempt to violate treaty obligations, the administration would not oppose the bill. President Wilson had concluded that the precise limitations of federal and state jurisdictions in the matter should be determined by the courts. The final draft of the new law was adopted by the California Senate on April 12. Ambassador Chinda presented his government’s formal protest against the bill to the U.S. Department of State. Secretary of State Bryan delivered a complete copy of the Alien Land Act to the Japanese ambassador on April 14, after it passed its second reading in the California legislature and so became properly eligible for diplomatic consideration. Because of agitation in Tokyo, where the bill was denounced by the press and where demonstrators were calling for war, the California legislature, despite overwhelming margins in favor of passage in both houses, delayed further action until May 20, 1913. On that date, the Alien Land Act, known also as the Webb-Henley bill, was signed into law by Governor Hiram Warren Johnson. The statute barred all aliens who were ineligible for citizenship, as well as all corporations with more than 50 percent ineligible alien ownership, from the legal right to own agricultural land in California. It also limited the duration of land-leasing contracts in the state to three years. Significance After passage of the California law, antialien agitation began in Michigan following announcements that Japa1077
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als were introduced in the state legislature. Enactment of the proposed anti-Japanese legislation was prevented that year by influence from the White House and, in 1911, by the direct intervention of President William Howard Taft. On April 4, 1913, in reaction to a proposed California bill that would prohibit Japanese and other foreigners who were ineligible for citizenship from holding or leasing land in California, the Japanese ambassador to the United States, Chinda Sutemi, made an informal protest to the U.S. Department of State, where he spent two hours with Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. Regarding the incident, The New York Times warned that it could “prove to be the beginning of a serious international difficulty.” The proposed California bill was modeled on an 1897 federal law barring ownership of land by aliens ineligible for citizenship. The federal law, however, contained a proviso that it would not be applicable where treaty obligations conferred the right to own and hold land. The California bill included a clause prohibiting the leasing of land to Japanese, but the Japanese contended that this right had been conferred previously by the treaty of 1894 and reenacted in the treaty of 1911, which provided that citizens of the United States and citizens of Japan would have the right to “own or hire houses . . . and lease land for residential or commercial purposes” in the country of the other. In Washington, D.C., the introduction of the 1913 California alien land bill was viewed seriously. The prevailing opinion was that its effects could be sweeping and that it could lead to talk of war. When Secretary Bryan and Ambassador Chinda exchanged mutual assurances of continuing friendship between the United States and Japan on April 4, the Department of State expressed confidence that the matter would be resolved amicably. The following day, Bryan met with the members of the California congressional delegation, who emphasized the necessity of the proposed legislation. They noted that in many parts of California more than half the farms were operated by Japanese, and neither U.S. nor Chinese workers could compete with Japanese labor. They asserted that despite the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, which included the withholding of passports from “coolie laborers,” such laborers were arriving continuously from Japan. The antiJapanese feeling in California was so strong, they reported, that individuals who leased land to any Japanese person were ostracized by their neighbors. The members of the delegation intimated that violent protests against the increase in Japanese competition were imminent.
Passage of the First Alien Land Law
Passage of the First Alien Land Law nese laborers from California were going to settle in Michigan’s Alger County. During 1917, alien land laws were introduced in the state legislatures of Oregon and Idaho, but, because of the crisis in Europe at the time, they were subsequently withdrawn. An alien land law was enacted in Arizona, however. California’s 1913 statute was not entirely effective. To prevent Japanese residents from circumventing the law, the California legislature introduced a more restrictive alien land bill in 1920 to forbid the Issei (first-generation Japanese—that is, immigrants to the United States from Japan) from buying land in the names of their U.S.born children, the Nisei. It also prohibited the transfer of land to noncitizens by sale or lease and established criminal penalties for aliens caught attempting to bypass the 1913 law. In a statewide ballot, California voters passed the 1920 Alien Land Act by a three-to-one margin. Japanese residents of California instigated a number of cases to test the constitutionality of the new law, and in 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Issei in four of these cases. Further restrictions also were passed in a 1923 amendment, which, together with the federal 1924 Immigration Act, effectively denied further immigration and determined the status of Japanese immigrants in the United States. California’s alien land laws were not repealed until 1956. In 1921, Washington, Texas, and Louisiana enacted alien land laws based on the California act, as did New Mexico in 1922 and Oregon, Idaho, and Montana in 1923. These laws differed from the California statute only in small details. Other states followed: Kansas in 1925; Missouri in 1939; Utah, Arkansas, and Nebraska in 1943; and Minnesota in 1945. Although alien land laws were eventually declared federally unconstitutional, not all states had officially rescinded these laws by the end of the twentieth century. —Susan E. Hamilton
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Chuman, Frank F. The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese-Americans. Del Mar, Calif.: Publisher’s Inc., 1976. Includes good coverage of the alien land laws. Curry, Charles F. Alien Land Laws and Alien Rights. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921. Acontemporary account of the alien land laws. Ichioka, Yuji. The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924. New York: Free Press, 1988. Includes discussion of the laborcontracting system and the exclusion movement. Comprehensive bibliography. Kim, Hyung-chan, ed. Asian Americans and Congress: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Covers all major immigration laws passed by the U.S. Congress since 1790. Discusses the legislation and its impacts; includes the texts of the laws. McGovney, Dudley. “The Anti-Japanese Land Laws of California and Ten Other States.” California Law Review 35 (1947): 7-54. Detailed discussion of alien land laws in relation to state, federal, and English common law up to the time of publication. Nomura, Gail M. “Washington’s Asian/Pacific American Communities.” In Peoples of Washington: Perspectives on Cultural Diversity, edited by Sid White and S. E. Solberg. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1989. Provides specifics of Washington and Texas land laws. Takaki, Ronald. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Provides insight into the origin of anti-Asian sentiment and its connection to legislation such as the alien land laws. See also: Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools; Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement; Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States.
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May 29, 1913 THE RITE OF
The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences
SPRING Stuns Audiences
Locale: Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris, France Categories: Music; dance Key Figures Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Russian American composer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian art critic and impresario Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Pierre Monteux (1875-1964), French American conductor Nikolay Konstantinovich Roerich (1874-1947), Russian painter and ballet set designer Summary of Event In 1897, Sergei Diaghilev, a former law student, brought his organizational talents to the Russian artistic society Mir Iskusstva (world of art). He sponsored the society’s painting exhibitions and edited its controversial journal. When the journal ceased publication in 1904, he continued to sponsor the exhibitions. In the period 1906-1908, Diaghilev presented a series of Russian cultural exhibitions—concerts, paintings, and operas—in Paris. When interest in these exhibitions exceeded his expectations, he invited stars from the Russian Imperial Ballet— including Anna Pavlova, Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, Michel Fokine, and the soon-to-be-legendary Vaslav Nijinsky—to dance in Paris. In 1909, Diaghilev organized the Ballets Russes, a company that presented Russian dance styles to Paris audiences and, in the process, revolutionized ballet. The repertoire of the Ballets Russes included L’Oiseau de feu (pr. 1910; The Firebird) and Petrushka (pr. 1911), with music by Igor Stravinsky, and Schéhérazade (pr. 1910), performed to the music of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The company’s chief set designer was Léon Bakst, whose sense of color influenced not only stage designs but also women’s fashions. Diaghilev’s other artists from Russia, Alexandre Benois and Nikolay Konstantinovich Roerich, like Bakst, were members of Mir Iskusstva. Diaghilev also employed illustrious Western painters such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Henri
Matisse and the composer Claude Debussy. The most dramatic moment in the history of the Ballets Russes was the premiere of Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) in Paris on May 29, 1913. The idea for the ballet came to Stravinsky when he was finishing The Firebird in 1910. Both Roerich and Diaghilev were excited by the concept and encouraged Stravinsky to write it, but shortly after beginning work on the project, he hit upon the idea for another ballet that became Petrushka. He did not finish the score for The Rite of Spring until 1912; the ballet’s production was then delayed by Diaghilev, who wanted Nijinsky to complete the choreography for Debussy’s music inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem L’Après-midi d’un faune (1876; The Afternoon of the Faun, 1956). This permitted Stravinsky time to alter the orchestration while he was also working on other projects. Following the Ballets Russes Paris season of 1912, Stravinsky went to London in June for the English premiere of The Firebird and then returned to Russia to do more work on The Rite of Spring. In the autumn, he went to Berlin with the Ballets Russes to attend a performance of Petrushka. In Berlin, Stravinsky met Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, and Alban Berg, the famous trio of modern German composers. The Paris season of the Ballets Russes opened in May, 1913, in a new venue, the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, and the first week was devoted to the premiere performance of the ballet Jeux (games), with music by Claude Debussy; the second week was the opera Boris Godunov, by Modest Mussorgsky. The third week introduced The Rite of Spring. It is difficult to say whether the music or the dance was responsible for most of the controversy that arose from the ballet’s opening night. Nijinsky’s choreography of Stravinsky’s work, in which Marie Piltz danced the leading role, demonstrated spasmodic and frenzied motions that were little understood even by Nijinsky’s followers. The cacophonous music caused some derisive laughter during the introduction. Audience indignation increased when the dancers appeared and increased again when supporters retaliated against the protesters. The uproar was such that hardly a note could be heard, and the noise continued unabated throughout the entire presentation. The event nearly caused a riot in the newly built theater. Many in the audience, in fact, were fighting to keep order and to restrain the protesters; others were literally engaged in fisticuffs. 1079
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The first performance of The Rite of Spring startled the music and dance worlds with aggressive rhythms, cacophonous sounds, primitive, sexually oriented dance, and stark sets.
The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences The company was able to stage two more performances of The Rite of Spring before going to London. Based on a pagan story from ancient Russia, The Rite of Spring consisted of thirteen episodes in two parts, the “Adoration of the Earth” and the “Sacrifice.” The bassoon solo that opened the piece was the only folk theme employed by the composer. Although the remainder of the music evoked faint images of Russian folk ideas, it was all purely original. In the ballet’s closing scene, a group of elders sat in a circle while a chosen maiden (Piltz) danced to total exhaustion and death to ensure that the god of spring would allow the season to emerge once more from the bowels of the earth. Stravinsky’s music was designed to convey turmoil and dissonance rather than the idyllic image of spring so often depicted by artists. The composer was immensely aided in his libretto by Roerich, who was also an archaeologist who studied the ancient Slavs. Fittingly, the thirty-four-minute work was dedicated to Roerich. Unfortunately, Stravinsky was unhappy with Nijinsky’s choreography for the work. Whereas Stravinsky had conceived his music for simple, mass movements, Nijinsky forced the dancers to experiment with complicated styles that seemed unnatural. Stravinsky recognized that Nijinsky was the most exciting dancer he had ever seen, but he also recognized that Nijinsky knew almost nothing about music and had been forced into the role of choreographer by his patron, Diaghilev. Consequently, Nijinsky’s difficult steps in The Rite of Spring could not be completed without a slowing of the music, a development that naturally displeased the composer. Finally, for a passage that Stravinsky had imagined as a scene of nearly motionless young dancers (the “Danses des adolescents”), Nijinsky employed what the composer characterized as a jumping competition. Stravinsky’s cataclysmic score, with its complex rhythms and changing meters (not one bar was followed or preceded by a similar meter), led Nijinsky to choreograph dances that audience members saw as mere frenzy. When Stravinsky went backstage during the performance, he saw Nijinsky yelling out the beat by numbers so that the dancers could continue. Nijinsky was so furious at the crowd’s behavior that Stravinsky had to hold him back to keep him from darting out onto the stage. In short, the event may have been the most thunderous outburst in musical history. Diaghilev, who may have been pleased with the reaction, had a premonition that there would be a strong response to Stravinsky’s music. Despite a successful dress rehearsal that went smoothly before invited guests, Dia1080
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Stravinsky’s Recollection In his 1936 autobiography, Igor Stravinsky wrote about the events that took place at the premiere of The Rite of Spring: The complexity of my score had demanded a great number of rehearsals, which Monteux had conducted with his usual skill and attention. As for the actual performance, I am not in a position to judge, as I left the auditorium at the first bars of the prelude, which had at once evoked derisive laughter. I was disgusted. These demonstrations, at first isolated, soon became general, provoking counter-demonstrations and very quickly developing into a terrific uproar. During the whole performance I was at Nijinsky’s side in the wings. He was standing on a chair, screaming “sixteen, seventeen, eighteen”—they had their own method of counting to keep time. Naturally the poor dancers could hear nothing by reason of the row in the auditorium and the sound of their own dance steps. I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothes, for he was furious, and ready to dash on to the stage at any moment and create a scandal. Diaghileff kept ordering the electricians to turn the lights on or off, hoping in that way to put a stop to the noise. That is all I can remember about that first performance. Oddly enough, at the dress rehearsal, to which we had, as usual, invited a number of actors, painters, musicians, writers, and the most cultured representatives of society, everything had gone off peacefully, and I was very far from expecting such an outburst. Source: Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1936).
ghilev warned the dancers before the first performance to concentrate on their movements and not on the reactions of the audience, and he gave orders to conductor Pierre Monteux and the orchestra to complete the music without interruptions at all costs. When the commotion broke out, Diaghilev ordered the theater’s electricians to turn the lights off and on, in a desperate attempt to calm the storm. Significance When the company opened The Rite of Spring in London, news of the Paris event was well known. To forestall another riot, Edward Evans, a critic for the Pall Mall Gazette, delivered a short introduction to the audience. The reception in London was much better; the reaction was mixed, but at least half the audience applauded through six or seven curtain calls. Shortly after the Paris opening,
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Critics disagree on how much Stravinsky revolutionized music in the twentieth century. Certainly, he raised rhythm to a degree previously unknown. Commentators note that whereas melody dominated the era of classicism, harmony overshadowed rhythm and melody in the Romantic period. What Stravinsky did in The Rite of Spring was to raise rhythm to the point where it subordinated both harmony and melody, confining the latter to small, constantly repeated motifs. In fact, in The Rite of Spring, the whole orchestra became for long stretches a kind of sustained percussion instrument. The rhythmic fury of the piece, devoid of symmetry, was intended to reflect the savage, even brutal eruption of the new season, like the joy experienced from the pains of labor in childbirth. The controversy surrounding The Rite of Spring certainly did not harm the Ballets Russes. Bolstered by émigré dancers from the Russian Imperial Ballet, the company continued its spectacularly successful Paris run until Diaghilev’s death in 1929. —John D. Windhausen Further Reading Buckle, Richard. Diaghilev. New York: Atheneum, 1979. A thorough and readable account. The section titled “The Fokine-Nijinsky Period” is especially useful, as it explores the reasons for Diaghilev’s separation from Nijinsky and also from his sister, Nijinska. _______. Nijinsky. 1970. Reprint. London: Orion, 1998. One of the most complete presentations available about Nijinsky and his contemporaries. A standard, reliable work, revealing especially the shocking sources of the dancer’s inspiration and his difficult relationship with his patron. Includes voluminous explanatory endnotes. Petrov, Vsevolod N., and Aleksandr Kamenskii. The World of Art Movement in Twentieth Century Russia. Leningrad: Aurora, 1991. A truly magnificent work consisting of separate historical essays by the two authors. Presents biographical articles on Benois, Bakst, Diaghilev, and Roerich, and includes a color photograph of one of Roerich’s sets for The Rite of Spring. One chapter covers Diaghilev’s musical productions from 1907 to 1924. Includes numerous photographs and reproductions of paintings. Stravinsky, Igor. An Autobiography. 1936. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. According to Stravinsky, because so many of his thoughts and statements had been misrepresented, it was necessary for him to tell the story of his life clearly and accurately, even if he 1081
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Stravinsky became ill with typhoid fever and was confined to a nursing home for six weeks; Monteux wrote to the ill composer that he was ashamed of his own countrymen and pleased at the reaction in England. The Rite of Spring was performed as a concert piece in Moscow and St. Petersburg in February, 1914. Stravinsky’s friend and fellow artist Alexandre Benois told the composer that he longed to hear it again, but Benois confessed that he was “completely bewildered” by the music and wondered whether it had been conducted correctly. About half the audience in St. Petersburg walked out near the beginning, but most of those who remained applauded with enthusiasm. Sergei Prokofiev wrote that he was so moved by the music that he was unable to recover from its effects. Stravinsky’s own mother did not hear the music until a twenty-fifth anniversary performance in 1938; when she did, she admitted that it was not her type of music. Monteux returned to Paris to conduct a concert version of The Rite of Spring and Petrushka in the Casino de Paris on April 5, 1914. This concert was so enthusiastically received that audience members carried Stravinsky from the hall on their shoulders; the composer later wrote to Monteux to praise his expert rendering of the two pieces. On June 7, 1914, Eugene Goossens conducted the two works in Queen’s Hall in London to an appreciative audience. In 1924, Monteux introduced The Rite of Spring to audiences in Boston and New York, with great success in both cities. Stravinsky was somewhat displeased with Monteux’s recording of The Rite of Spring in the 1930’s, but their relationship was not damaged. On the occasion of Stravinsky’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1957, Monteux sent him a letter expressing his appreciation for the composer’s confidence in him when he was young and noting that his own performances of those early ballets had enabled him to rise from the ranks. In 1963, a year before his death, the elderly Monteux again conducted The Rite of Spring in a fiftieth anniversary concert. Stravinsky made a few revisions in the piece. In March, 1913, before the premiere, Monteux suggested a number of changes in orchestration when it was clear to him that several times the flutes or the horns could not be heard clearly. In 1921, Stravinsky made a few more changes and was pleased when Léonide Massine designed new choreography. Ernest Ansermet conducted the new version in Paris in December of that year, with Lydia Sokolova dancing the part of the sacrificial maiden. In 1943, Stravinsky made further revisions to the last part of the composition.
The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences
Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code was rather young to write such a work. He notes that he did not consider himself a revolutionary and that the inspiration for The Rite of Spring was a special case of the music flowing from the conception of the story. _______. Stravinsky: Selected Correspondence. Translated and edited by Robert Craft. Vol. 2. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. Edited by a conductor, music historian, and close friend of Stravinsky. Particularly relevant are sections covering Stravinsky’s extensive correspondence with Diaghilev and Monteux and letters from Nijinsky. Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. Memories and Commentaries. Compiled and edited by Robert Craft. London: Faber & Faber, 2002. This is a one-volume edition that pulls together material from five earlier volumes. Consists of Stravinsky’s responses to Craft’s questions about Stravinsky’s childhood experiences in Russia, the concerts and dancers in St. Petersburg, and the Diaghilev years. The composer’s comments on his contemporaries are fresh, warm, and amazingly candid. Strobel, Heinrich. Stravinsky: Classical Humanist. Translated by Hans Rosenwald. 1955. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1973. A short, readable text for
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the nonspecialist who wishes to understand the musicality of the early Stravinsky pieces. Argues that Stravinsky was less of a revolutionary than is generally imagined. Vlad, Roman. Stravinsky. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. A short but useful analysis of the composer. Reviews the arguments about whether Stravinsky was a reactionary, a classicist, or a revolutionary. White, Eric Walter. Stravinsky: A Critical Survey, 18821946. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1997. Analyzes and comments on the evolution of Stravinsky’s works. Includes lists of works and recordings, bibliography, and index. _______. Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Provides one of the most detailed accounts available of the events leading up to the production of The Rite of Spring. See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1912: L’Aprèsmidi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet.
August, 1913
Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code The adoption of a code of ethics by the Associated Advertising Clubs of America served to encourage other organizations to adhere to similar high standards. Locale: Baltimore, Maryland Category: Marketing and advertising Key Figures Joseph Swagar Sherley (1871-1941), U.S. congressman from Kentucky James Robert Mann (1856-1922), U.S. congressman from Illinois Joseph Hampton Moore (1864-1950), U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania Summary of Event Recognition of advertising as a viable means of widespread communication came around the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution gave rise 1082
to the need to promote the abundant manufactured goods then being produced, and advertising as a profession developed in response to this need. As the profession grew into an industry, advertising practitioners became concerned about the maintenance of high business standards. Advertising professionals saw the need to join together to protect and promote their trade. Across the United States, advertisers formed local organizations to uphold industry standards. The aims of these associations were primarily education and self-regulation. The formal adoption of a truth-in-advertising code by the Associated Advertising Clubs of America (AACA) in 1913 was prompted by the passage in 1912 of the Sherley Amendment to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The significance of this amendment is best understood in the context of the original act, the purpose of which was to prevent the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated, misbranded, or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors. The act was also intended
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mission created by the member clubs of the AACA, in its attempts to educate the press and public in regard to fraudulent advertising. The creed encouraged every advertising interest to commit to a code of morals that included truth in advertising. Significance Following on the heels of the Sherley Amendment, the AACA’s adoption of a truth-in-advertising creed was a timely attempt to promote the organization’s credibility. Up to that period, the advertising that appeared in magazines and other media contained much material of dubious truth. One result of this was that businesses suffered from mistrust on the part of the buying public. Buyers often were disappointed after being taken in by false claims, some of which carried the potential for harm,
Public distrust in exaggerated advertising claims such as these for an alleged painkiller contributed to the decision of commercial advertisers to adopt a truth-in-advertising code. (Library of Congress)
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to regulate traffic in foods, drugs, and medicine. In section 8 of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the term “misbranded” applied to all drugs, articles of food, and individual contents as well as packages or labels that bore any statement, design, or device regarding the ingredients or contents. The term “misbranded” also referred to any imitation or substitution. An item would be identified as misbranded if its label failed to state the quantity or proportion it contained of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha- or beta-eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of such substances. In addition, if a package did not list the proper weight and measure of the contents, it was considered to be misbranded. A package could not be false or misleading in any way. Section 8 of the act further stated that ingredients could not be imitations of or substitutes for the stated contents. Congressional debate concerning amendment of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act took place on August 19, 1912. Congressman Joseph Hampton Moore of Pennsylvania suggested that one more addition be made to Congressman Joseph Swagar Sherley’s proposed amendment regarding statements of contents in packages. He noted that in the case of nostrums and patent medicines, statements in regard to ingredients and therapeutic properties usually appeared on the inside of the covers of the packages or bottles. Congressman James Robert Mann of Illinois stated that the effect of the Sherley Amendment would not be to keep drugs off the market but to keep sellers from making false claims about the curative powers of those drugs. The Sherley Amendment to section 8 of the Pure Food and Drug Act was approved on August 23, 1912. The amendment contained a clause stating that no package should make false or fraudulent claims pertaining to the curative or therapeutic effects of the package’s contents. Afurther amendment, approved on March 3, 1913, stated that reasonable variations would be allowed in regard to weight, measure, and numerical count. In August, 1913, the Associated Advertising Clubs of America published “A Business Creed.” This document stated the AACA’s belief in the need for continued and persistent education of the press and public in regard to fraudulent advertising. It further stated that each and every member of the AACA owed a duty to the association to enforce a code of morals based on truth in advertising as well as truth and integrity in all functions pertaining to the creed. The AACAcreed also endorsed the work of the National Vigilance Committee, a group similar to a com-
Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code
Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code such as when advertisers made claims that products could cure diseases. The public was tired of throwing money away on false hopes, and this attitude was bad for business, as the members of the AACA well knew. At the time “A Business Creed” was published, few businesses or business associations in the United States had in place any formal codes of conduct of the kind represented by the AACA document, although many people had endeavored to encourage business leaders to conduct their business activities in an ethical manner, arguing that by doing so they could also improve their profitability. The AACA’s action in adopting the creed encouraged other businesses to adopt their own codes of ethics. In 1911, two years before “A Business Creed” appeared, the Advertising Federation of America had formed a national vigilance committee and launched the truth-in-advertising movement, a forerunner to the establishment of the Better Business Bureaus. The Advertising Association of the West entered the movement a year later. These groups worked in cooperation with each other over the years, and in 1962 they held a joint convention to discuss a merger that became a reality in 1967. The new group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., was named the American Advertising Federation (AAF). The AAF is dedicated to serving its members by promoting, protecting, and advancing advertising interests, including the freedom to advertise all legal products. The organization’s actions and goals are based in large part on the AACA creed. The functions of the AAF include professional development, public education to promote awareness and understanding of how advertising contributes to the economy and society, the fostering of high standards of ethical conduct (including truth in advertising), encouragement of the use of the advertising process for the public good, and recognition of excellence in advertising. The AAF also opposes bans or restrictions on truthful, nondeceptive advertisements for any legal products or services. It therefore opposes existing bans and restrictions on advertising for tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. The principle of truth in advertising has evolved to cover a variety of applications. In the United States, for example, the advertising of some consumer goods falls under the scrutiny of the federal Food and Drug Administration. Vitamin supplements and herbal remedies are among the types of products at which the Pure Food and Drug Act was originally aimed. Today, most of these products comply with truth-in-advertising standards to the extent that no claims are made on the labels other than 1084
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 warnings about possible adverse reactions. Consumers must get information about the benefits of these products from other sources. While technically adhering to truth-in-advertising codes, advertisers sometimes use visual images and slogans that do not strictly “tell the truth” about products. The Marlboro Man, for example, portrayed to impressionable audiences the idea that smoking is an activity common among tough, masculine men. Another example is the slogan “Be young, be happy, drink Pepsi.” It does not directly state that by drinking Pepsi a person can become young and happy, but the suggestion is there. The use of young models in advertisements for wrinkle cream provides another kind of example. The implication of such ads is that use of the products will make anyone look as young as the models. Consumer advocates criticize advertisers for using such misleading images and slogans, and they also note that sometimes packaging claims are truthful but leave out important facts. Some food packages, for example, display claims of fewer calories when the simple fact is that the calorie reduction comes from the reduced amount of food in the container. By the end of the twentieth century, truth-in-advertising codes and laws had been extended to cover many service and business sectors in the United States. Today federal agencies, consumer advocates, and advertising professionals continue to keep watch to ensure that businesses adhere to the principle of truth in advertising. —Corinne Elliott Further Reading Associated Advertising Clubs of America. “A Business Creed.” The World’s Work, August, 1913, 384. This is the original published version of the AACA creed, which the organization adopted in an effort to hold business and advertising to a high ethical standard. Goodwin, Lorine Swainston. The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879-1914. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999. Survey of the history of lobbyists and elected officials who fought for legislation to guarantee pure food, drink, and drugs. Hilts, Philip J. Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Documents the history of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from its establishment during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Emphasizes the FDA’s regulatory role and its battles against entrenched business interests.
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Food and Drugs Act of 1906. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. An authority on the history of medical misconduct presents a study of the evolution of the Food and Drug Administration and development of the Pure Food and Drug Act. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising.
September, 1913
Anti-Defamation League Is Founded The wrongful murder conviction of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman, led to the creation of the AntiDefamation League of B’nai B’rith, a major organization with the mission of working against antiSemitism and racial discrimination of all kinds. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Organizations and institutions; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Leo Frank (1884-1915), Jewish American businessman Adolf Kraus (1850-1928), national president of B’nai B’rith Thomas Edward Watson (1856-1922), American newspaper and magazine publisher Summary of Event The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith was founded in September, 1913, with the express purposes of disseminating positive messages about Jews and Jewishness, combating negative stereotypes of Jews, and exerting pressure on public libraries, schools, organizations, and companies to improve the image of Jewish people in the United States. The origins of the AntiDefamation League lie generally in the need to combat the racist and anti-immigrant feelings prevalent in the United States in the early twentieth century and specifically in the conviction of a Jewish businessman, Leo Frank, for the murder of a little girl in Atlanta, Georgia, in August of 1913.
In the early twentieth century, attitudes toward new immigrants were becoming increasingly unfriendly in the United States, for several reasons. First, many of the immigrants who arrived after 1880 came from areas of the world that had not traditionally provided large groups of immigrants to the United States: southern and eastern Europe. By the 1890’s, 72 percent of new immigrants came from these areas, and Jews fleeing pogroms and other forms of persecution made up more than two million of them. In addition to the negative response caused by their sheer numbers, the Jewish immigrants were often derided or feared because few outsiders understood their cultural traditions and beliefs. Finally, labor strife and recurring fears for the stability of U.S. jobs after the depression of the 1880’s encouraged the working populace in the United States to fear this highly literate, socially stable, and upwardly mobile group of immigrants. The federal government repeatedly took steps to check immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and members of the Jewish middle class became increasingly worried about incidents of persecution, synagogue desecration, and other indignities. The final incident leading to the foundation of the Anti-Defamation League was the wrongful conviction of a Jewish man for murder. Leo Frank was born in Texas and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Cornell University and graduated with an engineering degree. In 1907, he agreed to go to Atlanta, Georgia, to help his uncle, Moses Frank, run his company, the National Pencil Factory. Married to Lucile Frank in 1911, Leo Frank became prominent in 1085
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Reid, Margaret G. Consumers and the Market. New York: F. S. Crofts, 1938. A summary of the problems that faced consumers in the early years of the twentieth century in areas such as labeling, product quality, advertising, and price setting. Includes specific examples and historical references. Sullivan, Mark. “The Crusade for Pure Food.” In America Finding Herself. Vol. 2 in Our Times: The United States, 1900-1925. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927. An account of the personalities and controversies that led to the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Sullivan consulted with many of the people involved in passage of the law. Young, James Harvey. Pure Food: Securing the Federal
Anti-Defamation League Is Founded
Anti-Defamation League Is Founded Atlanta Jewish circles and was elected president of the local chapter of the Jewish service fraternity, B’nai B’rith, in 1912. Frank was unknown to the general public until April 27, 1913, when the night watchman at the pencil factory found the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan in the factory basement. Frank, the superintendent of the factory, had seen Phagan on Saturday, April 26, 1913, when she came to pick up her wages at his office. After two days of investigation, the Atlanta police arrested Frank on April 29 and charged him with Phagan’s murder. Immediately the case became a rallying point for antiSemitic feeling in Atlanta, throughout Georgia, and around the world. Thomas Edward Watson of Augusta, Georgia, publisher of two anti-Semitic periodicals—a weekly newspaper called The Jeffersonian and the monthly Watson’s Magazine—immediately seized on the Frank case and began calling for Frank’s conviction in his opinion columns. Circulation of the newspaper and magazine greatly increased, so Watson continued his attacks against Frank and Jews in general, which further incited public opinion against Frank. The investigation procedure used by the Atlanta police was highly suspect from the beginning. The single witness against Frank was Jim Conley, a janitor at the pencil factory who was the only other suspect. Local feelings were further aroused by the fact that workers in Georgia’s city factories were among the most poorly treated in the country, as well as the lowest paid. Mary Phagan, originally from the small, outlying town of Marietta, Georgia, became a symbol of the economic exploitation of formerly rural people in the city factories. In such a climate, the expensive dress and cultured manners of Frank and his family at the trial served only to inflame the passions of the local people against him. Throughout the trial, mobs surrounded the Fulton County courthouse and could be heard shouting through the open windows, “Hang the Jew!” This atmosphere all but ensured that the jury would return a guilty verdict, and in August, 1913, after four weeks of trial, that verdict was pronounced. Frank obtained the services of a new lawyer, William M. Howard of Augusta, Georgia, who persuaded the governor, John Slaton, that Frank was innocent of the crime based on the physical evidence at the scene. The day before his term in office expired, Governor Slaton commuted Frank’s death sentence to life in prison, convinced that eventually a pardon would be issued when all the facts became known. Watson used his newspaper to cry for action, and a mob of five thousand people encir1086
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cled Slaton’s house and threatened to kill him; the next day he left the state. On August 15, 1915, a mob of twenty-five men removed Frank from the jail where he was being held and lynched him near Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown. This same group of men later joined together to form the modern version of the Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia. In September, 1913, four weeks after Frank’s trial ended, the Anti-Defamation League was founded. Such an organization had been discussed for years among the membership of the B’nai B’rith, the oldest and largest Jewish fraternal organization in the United States, but the Frank case was the immediate and deciding factor in its establishment. Adolf Kraus, who was national president of B’nai B’rith at the time, specifically referred to the Frank case and its abuses in the founding statement of the Anti-Defamation League. The aims of the league, according to a 1915 statement of policy, were to encourage libraries to purchase books on Jewish subjects that were factual in nature, to enlist prominent public lecturers on Jewish subjects, to remove anti-Semitic texts from schoolrooms, to stop newspapers from publishing the religious affiliations of known or suspected criminals, to demand retractions of scurrilous anti-Jewish articles, to monitor plays and movies for unfair and untrue depictions of Jews and Jewishness, and to stop hostelries, apartments, and housing developments from discriminating against Jews or advertising that they did so. Significance Throughout World War I and the interwar period, the Anti-Defamation League achieved many of its stated goals. During World War II, the league was particularly important in responding to Nazi propaganda in both Europe and the United States. After World War II, the Anti-
The ADL’s Mission The founding charter of the Anti-Defamation League, dated October, 1913, states the organization’s mission as follows: The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.
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Anti-Defamation League Is Founded factual overview of the Frank case, including excerpts of testimony, diagrams of the murder scene, and subsequent information from sources not presented at the trial. Golden, Harry. A Little Girl Is Dead. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1965. An exhaustive recounting of the Phagan case for the general reader. Describes in simple terms the climate of anti-Semitism in which the trial took place. Grayzel, Solomon. A History of the Contemporary Jews from 1900 to the Present. 4th ed. New York: Atheneum, 1977. Describes the history of anti-Semitism in the United States, particularly actions against immigrants. Mendes-Flohr, Paul R., and Jehuda Reinharz, eds. The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Reprints many documents relating to the history of Jewish organizations, including the 1915 mission statement of the Anti-Defamation League. Oney, Steve. And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003. One of the few fulllength accounts of the Phagan murder case and its aftermath. Vividly describes the context in which the investigation and trial of Frank took place. Woodward, C. Vann. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Provides the best account of Watson’s career as a politician and publisher and details his involvement in the Frank case.
Further Reading Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Leo Frank Case. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. An evenhanded,
See also: June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice; 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South.
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Defamation League continued to reply to anti-Jewish propaganda with corrective information and broadened its scope to include condemnations of all forms of racism, including extensive work for the passage of civil rights legislation for African Americans and other underrepresented groups. In the 1980’s, the Anti-Defamation League requested that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole issue a posthumous pardon for Leo Frank based on new data and ample evidence that the initial conviction was prompted largely by a fear of violence from the anti-Jewish mobs outside the courthouse. Although the board initially turned down the request, on March 11, 1986, an official full pardon was issued at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, close to the courthouse in which Frank was originally tried. In the twenty-first century, the league continues to work for racial justice and the fulfillment of its stated mission to “strengthen interreligious understanding and cooperation, to improve relations between the races, and above all to protect the status and rights of Jews.” In addition to identifying and challenging anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League is concerned with issues ranging from interfaith dialogue and preservation of religious freedom to foreign policy concerns relating to the state of Israel and terrorism. The Anti-Defamation League continues to point out examples of anti-Semitism in the United States and to agitate not only for an end to antiJewish propaganda and misinformation but also for a cessation of racism and racist speech everywhere. —Vicki A. Sanders
Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct
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November 5, 1913
Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct The city of Los Angeles completed construction of an aqueduct to bring water from the Owens Valley to the city, permitting the growth of Los Angeles and hampering growth in the Owens Valley. Locale: Southern California Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics; engineering; economics; natural resources Key Figures William Mulholland (1855-1935), superintendent of the Los Angeles Water Department Fred Eaton (1855-1934), city engineer for Los Angeles Summary of Event The growth of Los Angeles was made possible by the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which conveys water 222 miles from the Owens Valley to the city. With its water going to Los Angeles, the Owens Valley could not irrigate much of its own agricultural land, and the valley suffered a significant loss in population. In the 1920’s, it appeared that Los Angeles had won the battle over water and that the Owens Valley had lost. Los Angeles suffered a severe drought in 1903 and 1904, and it became clear that the water available to the city would not be sufficient for additional growth in the region. In the Owens Valley, however, there was enough water for a city of two million. Under the leadership of department superintendent William Mulholland, the Los Angeles Water Department began to buy up land and water rights in the lower valley between Owens Lake and the town of Independence. Not wanting to see its costs skyrocket, the Water Department was not particularly open about its plans. Eventually word leaked out, however, and the plans were made public: The Water Department planned to spend twenty-three million dollars to build an aqueduct from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Residents of the valley were not pleased. The Water Department had purchased enough land at rock-bottom prices to establish rights to most of the water in the valley. The Reclamation Service, which had been investigating the possibility of a federally funded reclamation project in Owens Valley, rather suddenly canceled its work. When it turned out that the Reclamation Service engineer who had been responsible for that decision had also been on the payroll of the Los Angeles Water De1088
partment, the mood in the valley deteriorated further. When Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, an ardent conservationist, extended the National Forest Reserve to include much of the Owens Valley, which had virtually no trees, the residents of the valley began to believe that the system was against them. In most western U.S. states, water rights were appropriative—that is, determined by first use and continued use. The first person or group to use water from a particular source thereby established the right to the water. If that person or group discontinued the water’s use, the water right was forfeited. In England, Spain, and the eastern United States, in contrast, water rights were riparian; that is, they were owned by the people who owned the land adjacent to a body of water. California declared in 1850 that English common law should be applied to water rights, but in 1872 the state offered users an opportunity to assert appropriative rights. In 1887, California permitted the formation of irrigation districts to acquire rights to water from distant streams. To maintain its right to the Owens Valley water, Los Angeles had to use it. To maintain adequate resources for future growth, the city had to have rights to water that was not essential for its current day-to-day business. The solution was to use excess Owens Valley water to irrigate farmland in the nearby San Fernando Valley. As the city grew, farms would become neighborhoods, irrigation would diminish, and the water would be used by the city. Although this ploy constituted a legal way for Los Angeles to maintain water rights, it did little for the image of the city. As real estate values in the San Fernando Valley doubled and redoubled, charges flew that the whole aqueduct project was designed to line the pockets of those who had known it was coming and had speculated in real estate accordingly. Residents of the Owens Valley believed that their water supply had been stolen so that the San Fernando Valley could prosper. In June, 1907, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly approved a bond issue to raise the twenty-three million dollars to build the aqueduct. Work began immediately. To prepare the way, railroad tracks were laid to transport 320,000 tons of materials. Some 500 miles of roads and trails and 240 miles of telephone lines were established, 2,300 buildings and tent houses were erected, a plant was built to supply one million barrels of cement, and two hydroelectric plants were constructed on Owens Valley creeks. After these tasks were accomplished, work began
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Significance For all the controversy it generated, the aqueduct worked. This success showed local politicians that natural limits to growth could be circumvented by extraordinary engineering accomplishments, prompting Los Angeles and the state of California to tap into other rivers, principally the Colorado, to keep up with growth. Additional water permitted additional growth, and growth always seemed to help alleviate the city’s problems; the water was like a drug, and the city became addicted to it. The region’s power brokers never had to confront many of the difficulties faced by most urban areas. The success of the aqueduct reinforced a number of ideas that pervaded California’s public policy for decades. Rural areas with little political clout could be sac-
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on the aqueduct itself. Tunnels were drilled through mountain ranges, and enclosed pipes eight to ten feet in diameter carried the water across canyons. The number of people on the project’s payroll reached 3,900 before a crisis in the money markets interrupted bond financing and employment declined to 1,100. Unions organized strikes, but because the strikes came at a time when financing was weak, they accomplished little. In a little more than five years the work was done, and the aqueduct, which was completed on November 5, 1913, was being called the second-greatest engineering accomplishment in the world, after the Panama Canal. In the 1920’s, another drought arrived. The Water Department had been unwilling to purchase land for a storage dam in the Owens Valley, so there were no water reserves on which to draw. The city had little choice but to return to the upper part of the Owens Valley and buy more land and water rights. By this time, resentment was high; opposition grew, and landowners tried to unite to get better prices for their land. Hostility and skulduggery abounded, and it was not long before valley residents used dynamite to express their sentiments. Although guarded by men with machine guns and searchlights, the concrete-and-steel aqueduct was an easy target for sabotage. California’s “water war” continued for seventeen months; it came to an abrupt end when it was discovered that two brothers who had led the Owens Valley resistance had embezzled the savings of most of the valley residents. Nearly a century after the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, an agreement was reached to return water to the southern Owens River, and water began to flow in December of 2006, filling the more than sixtymile stretch of river that had remained dry for so long.
Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct
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The assumption that population growth would occur led to an assumption that real estate values would always increase, making it easy to justify borrowing money, as future tax bases would always be much bigger than the current tax base. The success of the aqueduct seemed to support this notion. Another impact of the aqueduct and the acquisition of water rights was the hostility that developed between the residents of the Owens Valley and the city of Los Angeles. The underlying reason for this hostility was competition. As a function of the dominant culture of the day, each move was seen as calculated: If Owens Valley residents had known about the aqueduct and had gotten more money for their land, they would have won; if the water department had paid city engineer Fred Eaton (the first person to suggest bringing Owens Valley water to Los Angeles) the one million dollars he wanted for his land in the valley, he would have won; if an agreement had been reached allocating some water to farmers in the upper valley, the farmers would have won. By inH. A. Van Norman (wearing coat) and workers open the gates of the Los Angeles sisting that they would comply with Aqueduct on November 5, 1913. (Courtesy, USC Regional History Center) legal requirements and do nothing more, the people in Los Angeles set themselves up as the opponents of rificed for the growth of urban areas. In terms of costs those in the Owens Valley. This hostility persisted for and benefits, a minor benefit to a city was seen to offset a decades, influencing politics and prompting critics to substantial cost to a rural county. To local decision makportray Los Angeles as an evil empire. ers, the growth of urban centers outweighed any probAlthough the tactics and strategies used by the Los lems associated with disruption of the environment in the Angeles Water Department engendered bitterness and countryside. Social problems, it was believed, could be animosity in the Owens Valley, no valley residents had solved by technological means. their property condemned, all were paid at least market Riots, crime, and wildfires would eventually demonprices for their land, and many were offered very attracstrate the fallacy of relying on growth to solve urban tive prices. Many landowners in the Owens Valley conproblems. The argument can be made that had Los Anverted their holdings into substantial fortunes. This figeles been unsuccessful in its efforts to import water nancial success permitted many residents to leave the from beyond its boundaries, the city’s growth might have valley in search of a better life; however, local merchants been impeded but its quality of life might have been suffered and had no real estate gains to counter the loss in higher, and the cost of eventual social reforms might business. The communities of the Owens Valley did not experience the prosperity that Los Angeles enjoyed, and have been considerably lower. 1090
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Further Reading Cooper, Erwin. Aqueduct Empire: A Guide to Water in California, Its Turbulent History, and Its Management Today. Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1968. A comprehensive review of the water situation in California. Background information is extensive and informative, particularly the section on water law. Morgan, Judith, and Neil Morgan. “California’s Parched Oasis: The Owens Valley.” National Geographic 149
(January, 1976): 98-127. Presents an update on Owens Valley, its people, and their feelings about Los Angeles sixty-three years after the aqueduct was completed. Includes interviews with residents who remember the great water war. Moss, Frank E. The Water Crisis. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. A good general background to water-resource development throughout the United States written by a U.S. senator who was active in water legislation. Emphasizes the importance of planning. Although deploring some of the tactics used, Moss grudgingly admires the acquisition of water resources that permitted Los Angeles to grow. Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. This biography of Mulholland, written by his granddaughter, covers his entire life, from his childhood in Ireland through his success with the Los Angeles Aqueduct and beyond. Includes forty photographs, many previously unpublished, and seven maps. Nadeau, Remi. The Water Seekers. 4th ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Crest, 1997. A well-written account of the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Follows the chronology carefully, attempting to explain the motivations and expectations of the participants in the drama. Fairly successful in avoiding any obvious bias toward either Los Angeles or the Owens Valley. Wyatt, David. Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California. Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley, 1997. An account of major events that have shaped California history. Chapter 5, devoted to “the politics of water,” addresses the impact of the Los Angeles Aqueduct project. Includes bibliography and index. See also: May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles.
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many residents who felt betrayed deeply resented the city’s success. Eventually, however, the value of the city’s growth became suspect. In the early twentieth century, growth was seen as undeniably beneficial to any community; modern communities, in contrast, struggle to enact ordinances that will permit them to limit growth. Los Angeles has grown, sprawling across huge areas of Southern California, but the Owens Valley, two hundred miles away, has been able to avoid many of the ills associated with such growth. Forced to turn from agriculture, the valley discovered tourism. Los Angeles, which resisted paying for the loss of business that its aqueduct caused in the Owens Valley, now supports the economy of the region with its tourist dollars. Many of the earlier residents of the Owens Valley returned, and new occupants arrived, drawn by the scenic splendor of the Sierra Nevada and Inyo Mountains, still clearly visible through unpolluted skies. Moreover, residents worry much less about crime and violence in their midst than do most of the inhabitants of Los Angeles. If the Owens Valley had been successful in thwarting the plans of the big city and had prevented construction of the aqueduct, perhaps the valley communities, not Los Angeles, would have become overdeveloped. Instead, the Owens Valley waited nearly one hundred years for water to return to the southern Owens River in 2006 in a move that promised not only to help restore riparian ecology but also to attract new tourism. —Otto H. Muller
Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct
Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution
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December, 1913
Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution Henry Norris Russell used the color-luminosity relationship of stars to work out a theory of how stars change over time. Locale: Princeton, New Jersey Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957), American astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), Danish astronomer and photographer Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (1836-1920), British astronomer Summary of Event Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) described the starry sky as a garden wherein one sees stars in varying stages of their lives, as one sees plants and trees in varying stages of early growth, maturity, and death in a garden or forest. The assumptions that stars are of different ages and that stars change as they age were important prerequisites of the formation of theories of stellar evolution. The advent of increasingly sophisticated techniques for classifying stars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought a wealth of data on spectral types from which a theory of stellar evolution could be built. Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, working in the late 1800’s, used the simple classification systems of Pietro Angelo Secchi and Hermann Karl Vogel—which placed stars in one of four categories—to develop a scheme for stellar evolution. This scheme was based on current theory regarding the energy source for stars and the physical forces shaping their life histories. At the time, physicists believed that a star’s radiation consisted of heat and light, which were released as the star contracted under the force of gravity. It was believed that a star was formed when enough interstellar matter accumulated in one place to begin to exert gravitational attraction on itself and to form a sphere. The star would then begin to contract inward under the force of gravity and to heat up and to shine. Eventually, the collapse was halted when a critical density was reached, and the star would begin to cool off and die. Lockyer used the spectral classes of the time to identify a sequence of stages through which it was believed that all stars pass. Henry Norris Russell had at his disposal a more sophisticated system of classification that involved seven 1092
classes of stars. Also, many more stars had been classified while Russell was conducting his research. This was largely the result of a program carried out at Harvard College Observatory at the beginning of the twentieth century, under the direction of Edward Charles Pickering, in which stars were classified based on their spectra. A star’s spectrum, or the bands of color and darkness produced when its light is spread out by a prism or grating, contains distinctive dark lines that can be used to classify the star. The researchers at Harvard College Observatory looked at thousands of such spectra and classified their associated stars, producing massive catalogs of information on stellar types. Russell was able to use this information in developing his scheme of stellar evolution. Given that stars cannot be directly examined in the laboratory, astronomers are forced to deduce the characteristics of stars from things that can be observed, such as their spectral types and their brightness. Russell was faced with the question of how to use what is visible about a star to identify the star’s characteristics and thus its stage of evolution. At the time, a star’s spectral type was almost universally believed to be linked to its surface temperature and its color, and it was further believed that the different types were the results of differing temperatures; however, no consensus had been reached on the cause of differences in brightness. Russell showed that differences in brightness were a result of variations in density. Spectral type was thus related to surface temperature and color, and brightness was related to density. Russell plotted data on spectral types versus data on the absolute brightness of stars (that is, a star’s true brightness, after its brightness as seen from Earth is corrected for its distance). In 1913, he produced a plot of spectral type versus brightness. (Ejnar Hertzsprung had made a similar diagram in 1911; this type of plot is known today as a Hertzsprung-Russell, or H-R, diagram.) Russell then used this plot to view the relationship between brightness (and density) and spectral type (and color and temperature). Russell presented his diagram to the Royal Astronomical Society in London on June 13, 1913, and to the American Astronomical Society in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 30, 1913. He also offered his interpretation of the diagram, in terms of stellar evolution. Most stars fell either on a diagonal band stretching across the plot (the main sequence) or on a horizontal strip across the top of the plot (the giant sequence). The names given to these two sequences were based on work by Hertzsprung and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Thus Russell believed that this track, along the giant sequence and down the main sequence, was a path of increasing density and increasing age. According to his theory, there were two sorts of red stars: young, diffuse, large ones of increasing temperature and old, dense, small ones of decreasing temperature. A red star could therefore be at either end of its lifetime. Hertzsprung had demonstrated earlier that the spectra of the two types of red stars were different, thus enabling astronomers to tell whether a red star was old or young. Russell presented a concise and straightforward scheme of stellar evolution that neatly fit the known data in terms of the accepted explanation for why stars shine and how they form, exist, and die. He was able to use his diagram to illustrate succinctly the life stages of a star as he hypothesized them. His work on the temperature and density of stars, as related to spectral type and brightness, was confirmed by later work. Although his evolutionary scheme later required major revision, it was still an important step in the understanding of the “garden” of varying stars we see. Significance Many astronomers began to use Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams immediately after Russell first presented one in 1913, and the H-R diagram remains an important tool in astrophysics. Walter Baade was able to compare H-R diagrams for groups of stars to show that there are, in fact, two populations of stars (one much older than the other) and that each type has its own distinct H-R diagram. This
Life of a Massive vs. Smaller Star
Massive star Main sequence lifetime
Neutron star or black hole Supergiant
Supernova
Smaller star Main sequence lifetime
White dwarf
Red giant
Planetary nebula
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others that determined that the stars on the giant sequence were much larger than the stars on the main sequence. On the main sequence, stars vary in brightness and color, with stars ranging from bright blue to dim red. On the giant sequence, stars have a fairly constant brightness but vary in type (color). Russell explained these two groups or sequences of stars in terms of the age of the stars in each sequence. Russell theorized that a star’s evolution is driven by gravity alone and that a star begins its life as cool, red, dim, and diffuse and then grows increasingly dense, bright, and hot (with an associated color change) as it contracts. Once it has contracted as far as it can, so that no more gravitational energy is available to it, it begins to cool off and become less bright and more red. Russell hypothesized that the large red stars at one end of the giant sequence are the youngest of stars and that they represent the earliest stages in a star’s life, when it is very diffuse and just beginning its gravitational collapse. As a star collapses, it becomes more dense and begins to change color and spectral type as it moves across the giant sequence; it eventually brightens and leaves the giant sequence for the main sequence. At its hottest point, which Russell believed to be the midpoint of its life, the star is at the top of the main sequence among the brightest and bluest stars. As it then begins to cool, while continuing to become denser, it slides down the main sequence from being a hot blue star to being a yellow star (like the Sun) and finally becomes a dim red star, very dense and near the end of its life.
Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution
Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution work had important cosmological implications. Robert Julius Trumpler, Bengt Georg Daniel Strömgren, and Gerard Peter Kuiper, among others, studied the H-R diagrams of clusters of stars in the Milky Way to work out theories of stellar formation and evolution. The discovery that nuclear fusion, rather than gravitational collapse, powers stars for most of their lifetimes brought about drastic revisions in Russell’s scheme. Russell’s work was important, however, in that it was an early attempt to deduce, from observable quantities, the life cycles of stars. His use of the H-R diagram was a key step in the development of the science of astrophysics. Astronomers’ knowledge of the causes of a star’s observable properties, as plotted on the diagram, changed as they learned of nuclear fusion and nuclear science, but the method of using the H-R diagram as a clue to a star’s properties and life cycle has remained the same. Russell pioneered a practice that continues into the twenty-first century. In his explanation of how the H-R diagram reveals the evolution of stars, Russell gave at least a hint of what was to be discovered later about nuclear power fueling the stars. He suggested that perhaps there is a type of energy release related to radioactivity that could counteract the gravitational pull inward for a brief period and give a star a longer lifetime than it would have had otherwise. He thought this would not be an important enough effect to change the overall life cycle of the star as he described it. Today, however, it is known that although a star starts to form because a cloud of material collapses under the influence of gravity, eventually conditions become hot enough in the center of the forming star that nuclear fusion begins to occur. The star then lives out most of its life cycle in one spot on the main sequence, its gravitational pull inward balanced by the pressure outward resulting from energy being released in nuclear fusion. Gravity becomes important again at the end of the star’s lifetime, when its fate is determined by the amount of mass it contains. (This is also the factor that determines how long the star lives and where on the main sequence it appears—that is, its brightness and color.) Astronomers have learned a great deal about such exotic objects as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, which are the end products of evolution for various masses of stars. Without the H-R diagram, and the foundation of knowledge it offers for the understanding of the interrelationships among a star’s density, brightness, temperature, and spectral type, astronomers could not have arrived at their current understanding. —Mary Hrovat 1094
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Abell, George O. Realm of the Universe. 5th ed. New York: Saunders College Publishing, 1994. Introductory college textbook includes sections on properties of stars (including a discussion of the H-R diagram) and on stellar evolution (including information on the use of H-R diagrams to test current theories). Glossary and bibliography, numerous diagrams and drawings, and color plates. Chaisson, Eric, and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Chapter 17, titled “Measuring the Stars,” includes discussion of Russell’s work and explains how H-R diagrams are constructed and used to identify stellar properties. Degani, Meir H. Astronomy Made Simple. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976. Chapter 7 contains useful information on stellar properties, such as temperature and density, plus an explanation of the spectral classes and the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Chapter 9 details current knowledge regarding stellar evolution. Written for the self-motivated learner, includes exercises, drawings, and glossary. Moore, Patrick. Patrick Moore’s History of Astronomy. 6th rev. ed. London: Macdonald, 1983. Chapter titled “The Life of a Star” gives the history of the theory of stellar evolution and discusses stellar spectra and different types of stars. Drawings, some color photographs, and a list of landmarks in the history of astronomy. Written for the layperson. Pagels, Heinz. Perfect Symmetry. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. Section 1, “Herschel’s Garden,” contains information about H-R diagrams and the wealth of current information on stellar evolution that has resulted from their use. Some diagrams, notably a schematic H-R diagram, and bibliography. Pannekoek, A. A History of Astronomy. 1961. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1989. Chapter titled “Common Stars” discusses stellar spectroscopy at the beginning of the twentieth century, Russell’s work in constructing H-R diagrams, and his theory of stellar evolution. Includes important diagrams, notably Lockyer’s evolutionary scheme and Russell’s original diagram. A classic in the history of astronomy. Rigutti, Mario. A Hundred Billion Stars. Translated by Mirella Giacconi. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984. Part 3 is devoted to the story of stellar evolution, including use of the H-R diagram, and part 2 discusses the H-R diagram. Diagrams and some black-and-white photographs. Conversational style;
U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley
accessible to amateur astronomers. Contains some mathematics. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Cowritten by an astronomer who participated in some of the history described, this book contains several chapters on the work of Russell and others in determining the life cycles and natures of stars and the development of the H-R diagram. Diagrams, photographs, glossary, and bibliography. Trefil, James S. Space, Time, Infinity: The Smithsonian Views the Universe. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Although the emphasis of the book is on the universe, it contains a brief chapter, “We Are Made of
Star Stuff,” that discusses the H-R diagram and theory of stellar evolution. Many beautiful full-color illustrations, including color schematic H-R diagram. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. This introductory text provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues and the use of H-R diagrams. See also: 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity; 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; Mar., 1924: Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars.
December 19, 1913
U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley After intensive lobbying by the city of San Francisco, the U.S. Congress approved the building of a dam in Yosemite National Park, despite objections to the project as an intrusion on the sanctity of the park. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history; natural resources Key Figures John Muir (1838-1914), American naturalist and wilderness preservation advocate Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), American forester Summary of Event On December 19, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that permitted construction of a dam across Hetch Hetchy Valley in California’s Yosemite National Park. The dam would impound water from the Tuolumne River and supply the growing and water-poor city of San Francisco, 175 miles away, with an additional source of drinking water. The reservoir and dam would also provide the city with hydroelectric power to meet its own needs and to sell at a profit. Wilson’s signature on the bill ended a decade of often bitter controversy, and it demonstrated that the nation’s national parks were not as sacrosanct as their supporters had believed. Hetch Hetchy Valley is one of two major valleys in Yosemite National Park. The other, Yosemite Valley, about fifteen miles south and east of Hetch Hetchy Valley, is a popular site for visitors to the area. The early ex-
ploration of Yosemite Valley is better documented than that of Hetch Hetchy Valley. The first record of European exploration of Yosemite is an 1849 diary entry by William Penn Abrams, a hunter. In 1851, a U.S. Army contingent, the Mariposa Battalion, carried out a campaign in the valley to subdue a Native American tribe camped there. Stories of the awesome beauty of the Yosemite area appeared in newspapers and magazines, and parties of tourists visited Yosemite Valley as early as 1855. The growing public interest in the rugged mountain scenery of Yosemite Valley did not pass unnoticed. The California legislature and Governor Frederick F. Low appointed a park commission headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer and developer of New York City’s Central Park. The commission also included California state geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney. The commissioners authorized a survey of the Yosemite area, including Hetch Hetchy Valley. The resulting 1868 report of the California Geological Survey, written by Whitney, provides the earliest detailed description of Hetch Hetchy. In dry, technical prose, the report describes Hetch Hetchy Valley as a striking counterpart of the better-known Yosemite Valley. It was Yosemite Valley that visitors sought, however, and the lesser-known and less accessible Hetch Hetchy remained largely ignored. California had gained a foothold in the area when, in 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act that gave Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees to California for use as a state park. In an 1095
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1865 report to the California Park Commission, Olmsted predicted that millions of visitors would stream into the valley to view the awesome scenery, and he recommended that the valley be protected against any activities that might destroy its natural beauty. His report was not warmly received, and the commission shelved it. All this was to change, however, when John Muir came on the scene. One of his contemporaries described Muir as a sort of bearded wood sprite. He exuded a missionary’s zeal about protecting and preserving the natural beauty of his beloved Sierra Nevada. The watersheds of the Merced River, which flowed through Yosemite Valley, and of the Tuolumne River, which flowed through Hetch Hetchy Valley, were special icons to him, to be guarded at all costs. To gain public support for his views, Muir published articles in national magazines in which he described the wonders of the area in glowing terms. The public responded by filling Yosemite Valley with tourist tents and horse-drawn caravans. Muir also lobbied national political figures, and, largely as the result of his missionary activities, Yosemite National Park was es-
tablished in 1890. The new park enclosed the state park, and the two were separately administered. In 1906, California turned the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove over to the federal government. California had not forgotten its need for water and hydroelectric power, however, and it had not forgotten Hetch Hetchy Valley. From an engineering standpoint, Hetch Hetchy Valley was nearly ideal as a site for a reservoir. The valley floor was nearly four miles long and varied in width from one-fourth to one-half mile. The narrowest portion of the valley lent itself easily to the construction of a masonryand-concrete dam. Part of the valley floor was a onemile-long meadow with trees restricted to the river banks and the sides of the valley. The most abundant trees were ponderosa pine and sugar pine, with a sprinkling of Douglas fir. Some of the trees were more than two hundred feet tall, and all of the varieties were valued for timber. Advocates of building a dam noted that the trees could be cut and sold for timber. This would prevent waste of the timber, would provide additional funds, and would clear the valley floor of potentially dangerous floating debris. Muir and the newly founded Sierra Club were outraged at what they believed was a desecration of part of the national heritage. Muir continued to lobby the president and sought an ally in Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot, who had been trained in Europe in the science of forestry, had been appointed chief forester of the Division of Forestry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1898. Pinchot was well respected, and he personally liked Muir. Muir soon discovered, however, that he would get no support from Pinchot, who agreed with the supporters of the proposal to dam Hetch Hetchy. In 1901, the city of San Francisco petitioned the U.S. Congress for permission to dam the Tuolumne River, but the petition was rejected in 1903. Later, however, the devastation resulting from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the plight of the city’s people aroused the sympathy of the nation and the federal government, and in 1908 Secretary of the Interior James A. Garfield awarded the city a permit to dam the river. The permit was upheld by both houses of Congress. A bill sponsored by Representative John E. Raker, whose congressional district included Yosemite Park, passed easily in Congress, and in 1913, Wilson signed the law that gave San Francisco free rein in Hetch Hetchy Valley. The loss of his beloved Hetch Hetchy Valley was a grievous blow to Muir. He died on December 24, 1914, some say of a broken heart. The dam, named O’Shaughnessy Dam for the city engineer of San Francisco, M. M. O’Shaughnessy, was not
John Muir. (Library of Congress)
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terfalls on the lower Tuolumne River did not dry up during the summer In his 1912 book The Yosemite, John Muir argued eloquently against the months but rather continued to flow damming of the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley: during the peak tourist season. Perhaps the most damaging effect Hetch Hetchy Valley, far from being a plain, common, rock-bound meadow, as of the dam was the loss of sanctuary many who have not seen it seem to suppose, is a grand landscape garden, one of in the park. Muir, Olmsted, and others Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples. As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or viewed the national parks as places standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms where people could escape the presalike, their brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and gay flowery meadsures of life in built-up cities and ows, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the towns. With the construction of the air into music—things frail and fleeting and types of permanence meeting here dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, a preand blending, just as they do in Yosemite, to draw her lovers into close and concedent had been established. Hotels fiding communion with her. and campsites in Yosemite Valley Sad to say, this most precious and sublime feature of the Yosemite National had helped visitors enjoy the park, Park, one of the greatest of all our natural resources for the uplifting joy and but large-scale development not in peace and health of the people, is in danger of being dammed and made into a keeping with the naturalness of the reservoir to help supply San Francisco with water and light, thus flooding it park had not been permitted. Confrom wall to wall and burying its gardens and groves one or two hundred feet deep. This grossly destructive commercial scheme has long been planned and struction of the dam and reservoir urged (though water as pure and abundant can be got from sources outside of clearly demonstrated that in the face the peoples park, in a dozen different places), because of the comparative of sufficient political pressure, even cheapness of the dam and of the territory which it is sought to divert from the the nation’s most beautiful natural great uses to which it was dedicated in the Act of 1890 establishing the Yosemareas could be put at risk. ite National Park. The building of the dam and the The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the subsequent flooding of the valley world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is recognized. had little real ecological impact on Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Yosemite National Park as a whole. Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natuHetch Hetchy Valley was smaller ral beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little window-sill gardens of the than Yosemite Valley, and its geopoor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city graphic and geologic features were parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks—the Yelnot as magnificent as its neighbor’s. lowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc.—Nature’s sublime wonderlands, the admiIt was not as accessible as Yosemite ration and joy of the world. Valley, it lacked Yosemite’s hotels Source: John Muir, The Yosemite (New York: Century, 1912). and camps, and it was visited by few tourists. The dam and the artificial lake were thus more or less hidden away and did not spoil the casual viscompleted until 1923. It is more than four hundred feet itor’s enjoyment of the mountain scenery in the park. high and impounds a reservoir that is two hundred feet The real impact of the damming of the Tuolumne deep in places. Some of the water goes to satisfy the River in Hetch Hetchy Valley was its effect on citizens at needs of San Francisco, and some generates power used large. It became clear to many Americans that the nain the city; sale of the surplus power provides the city tional parks, which were created to provide inspiration with a source of revenue. and education, might become resorts and exploitable resources. The battle was joined between the preservationists, whose spokesman was John Muir, and the conSignificance servationists, whose spokesman was Gifford Pinchot. Although Hetch Hetchy Valley was lost as a habitat for Muir saw nature as a good for its own sake. Pinchot saw wildlife, some proponents of the dam project saw it as an control of the earth to be humanity’s principal work. ecological trade-off. Habitat had been lost, but the resultThe struggle between these opposing groups led to the ing reservoir provided a lake where none had existed beestablishment of citizen watchdog organizations to profore. Moreover, the impounded water ensured that wa-
Muir Opposes the Dam
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tect the parks. Muir’s fight to save Hetch Hetchy Valley from the dam builders moved forward when he founded the Sierra Club in 1892. In the twenty-first century, the Sierra Club continues to be a strong and effective voice in battles to protect the environment. Also active, especially in the Florida Everglades, is the National Audubon Society, which was founded in 1905 to protect birds. Other longtime citizen-activist groups concerned with environmental issues include the National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA). The NPCA came into being on May 19, 1919, as the National Parks Association; its mission is to champion the national parks and protect their integrity. A major focus of this organization is the role of the national parks as outdoor classrooms where visitors can be educated. In addition to promoting and enhancing the educational function of the parks, the NPCA also fights against development projects that might damage individual parks. In 1992, the organization joined a successful battle to prevent energy drilling adjacent to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. The NPCA also opposed proposals to allow strip mining near Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Virginia and helped prevent construction of a major theme park and shopping malls near national parks that preserve important Civil War battlefields. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the U.S. national parks in general and Yosemite National Park in particular face a dilemma: whether to focus on preservation or to encourage tourism that may be detrimental to the parks’ purity. Park managers are loath to place too many restrictions on park visitors, many of whom consider entrance to a national park to be their sacred right. According to NPCA polling data, however, public attitudes are generally supportive of steps that parks could take to reduce overcrowding, such as charging reasonable user fees, reducing automobile traffic, and regulating activities such as the use of snowmobiles. The loss of Hetch Hetchy in 1913 was a blow to the preservation movement, but the event also served to galvanize preservationists, who began to organize so that they could work effectively to prevent similar episodes in the future. —Albert C. Jensen
of conservation in the United States. Argues that most early conservationists were dedicated to efficient use of natural resources rather than to preservation as an end in itself. Jones, Holway R. John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1965. The classic book on the battle to protect Yosemite National Park and, especially, Hetch Hetchy Valley. Lucidly written and well supported with documentation of original sources. Many excellent photographs of Hetch Hetchy Valley before and after construction of the dam as well as photographs of the people involved in the battle. Lewis, Jack. “Glimpses of Pinchot.” EPA Journal 17, no. 5 (November/December, 1991): 59-61. A brief retrospective of the father of American forestry, with selected quotations from his works. Reveals details of the friendship between Pinchot and Muir that was destroyed by Pinchot’s support of the Hetch Hetchy project. Clearly shows Pinchot’s leanings toward utilization, rather than mere preservation, of natural resources. Mitchell, John G. “Uncluttering Yosemite.” Audubon 92 (November, 1990): 72-94. Good discussion of human effects on Yosemite National Park. Examines the first use of automobiles in the park, the Hetch Hetchy controversy, and the overcrowding that has resulted from the park’s popularity. Muir, John. The Yosemite. 1912. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2003. An excellent glimpse into Muir’s personality and his struggle to protect his beloved Yosemite. The tone is lyrical in places, providing the reader with vivid word pictures of the High Sierra scenery. Curiously, Muir shows no bitterness, although at the time of the writing the fate of Hetch Hetchy had been decided. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness, beginning with the earliest days of European contact. Includes bibliography and index. Parshall, Gerald. “A Knight in the Wilderness: Sierra Club Founder John Muir Launched a Movement a Century Ago.” U.S. News & World Report, July 20, 1992, 57-58. Succinctly describes Muir’s ability to enlist the help of the wealthy and powerful to protect Yosemite. Pope, Carl. “Undamming Hetch Hetchy.” Sierra 72 (November/December, 1987): 34-38. Pope, the Sierra
Further Reading Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Seminal study of the early history 1098
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able citations of primary sources and well-chosen photographs. Sanborn, Margaret. Yosemite: Its Discovery, Its Wonders, and Its People. New York: Random House, 1981. Looks at Yosemite from the tourist’s point of view. Good for another viewpoint on the park’s problems. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams.
December 23, 1913
Federal Reserve Act By establishing the Federal Reserve system, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 provided a central banking arrangement with the potential to improve the functioning of the American economy’s financial sector. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Banking and finance; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Carter Glass (1858-1946), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Banking Subcommittee Paul Moritz Warburg (1868-1932), German American banker Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915), Republican U.S. senator from Rhode Island William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), Democratic leader from Nebraska Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event In the wake of the severe financial panic of 1907, the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of May 30, 1908, authorized emergency currency issues and established a National Monetary Commission to study the issue of permanent reform. The commission supported the 1911 bill sponsored by Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich that called for a banker-controlled single central bank with branches, but public opinion weighed against the bill. Although the Aldrich bill was not passed, it outlined the basis for the
Federal Reserve Act, which was enacted into law on December 13, 1913. The act represented the culmination of two decades of debate concerning how deficiencies in the American banking system could best be remedied. The preamble to the 1913 law enumerates its goals: to provide for the establishment of Federal Reserve banks, to supply currency in amounts appropriate to the needs of the economy, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, and to establish more effective supervision of banking in the United States. The preamble does not mention discretionary central bank intervention intended to stabilize the economy countercyclically, but this type of intervention became commonplace. The twelve branches of the central bank were expected to operate fairly automatically. Changes in gold reserves would lead to corresponding movements in currency and credit under the rules of the international gold standard then in effect. Federal Reserve bank note and deposit liabilities would automatically expand and contract according to the volume of U.S. business activity. Under the law, banks that were members of the Federal Reserve system would own the Federal Reserve banks, as they would be required to purchase shares. The member banks would elect six of the nine directors of the system. The Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president of the United States, would exercise general supervision of the system and implement policy. President Woodrow Wilson would not agree to putting full control of the system in the hands of bankers. Instead, the Federal Advisory Council would make recommendations regarding the operations of the Federal Re1099
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Club’s director of conservation, describes a 1987 proposal by U.S. secretary of the interior Donald Hodel to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley. The Sierra Club leadership was pleased at the prospect and was disappointed when the proposal fell through. A good look at political maneuvering in the environmental movement. Runte, Alfred. Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Ascholarly, well-documented volume. The author, a historian specializing in national parks, writes in a light, academic tone and presents an unbiased discussion of the Hetch Hetchy Valley controversy. Includes valu-
Federal Reserve Act
Federal Reserve Act serve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. The council was to be composed of twelve members, with the board of directors of each Federal Reserve bank electing one member. All national banks, numbering about seventy-five hundred at the time, were required to join the system. Some national banks converted to state charters to avoid joining the system. State-chartered banks were permitted to join, but they were not required to do so. At first, very few chose to join, but amendments to the Federal Reserve Act in 1916 made membership more attractive. In response to the amendments and to President Wilson’s appeal to join the system out of patriotism, about nine hundred of the nineteen thousand state-chartered banks joined by the end of 1918. Carter Glass, chairman of the House Banking Subcommittee and a key sponsor of the act, never tired of insisting that the Federal Reserve system was not a central bank. The decentralized nature of the system, with twelve separate banks, came as a response to a deeprooted suspicion of concentrated financial power and hostility to Wall Street financial interests. Central banking had been tried twice before in the United States with mixed success. The Federal Reserve banks were expected to provide loose supervision, rather than strict control, of the monetary system of the United States. The boundaries of the twelve Federal Reserve bank districts reflected convenience and how business was conducted at the time. District boundaries split twelve states. Most of Pennsylvania, for example, was in the third district, headquartered in Philadelphia, but the western counties were in the Cleveland district. The Boston district comprised all six New England states except for Fairfield County, Connecticut, which was part of the New York City district. The system as a whole was under the supervision of the seven-member Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president. It included the secretary of the treasury and the comptroller of the currency as ex officio members. Two of the five other members were to have experience in finance. That requirement was eliminated in 1922, when the number of freely appointed members was increased to six, so that an “agriculturalist” could be added to the board. Charles S. Hamlin, a Boston lawyer, was the first governor, or head, of the Federal Reserve Board. Frederic Delano, a Chicago railway executive, was the first vice governor. The other appointed members were Paul Moritz Warburg, a partner in the investment banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; W. P. G. Harding, pres1100
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ident of the First National Bank of Birmingham, Alabama; and Adolph C. Miller, professor of economics at the University of California. Miller and Hamlin remained on the board until it was reorganized in 1936. The amount of national bank notes issued previously had depended on the profitability of national bank ownership of government securities. By 1865, a congressional resolution had recognized the need for a paper currency that could change in its amount circulated according to the requirements of legitimate business. The Federal Reserve Act represented a shift from a bondbased to an asset-based currency reflecting the volume of commercial transactions. The amount of currency would expand and contract automatically to meet the needs of trade. To satisfy the followers of Democratic leader William Jennings Bryan, who opposed a strict gold standard, Federal Reserve notes were made obligations of the U.S. Treasury, although they were not given the status of legal tender until 1933. To ensure an appropriate volume of currency for each district, each Federal Reserve bank was made responsible for issuing its own notes. Banks that were members of the Federal Reserve system had the right to “rediscount” loans that they had issued, using them in effect as collateral against loans from the Federal Reserve banks in their districts. To simplify this procedure, a 1916 amendment to the Federal Reserve Act permitted advances to member banks secured by this type of collateral or by U.S. government securities. The district reserve banks established the interest rate charged for discounts and advances “with a view of accommodating commerce and business,” according to the words of the law. In the early years of the system, discount rates varied among the districts, with the rate structure adapting to local conditions. After 1917, the rates tended to uniformity. Loans that were eligible to be discounted, or used as security for loans from the Federal Reserve banks, were defined elaborately in the law. That definition relied heavily on the commercial loan theory, also known as the real bills doctrine. Loans eligible for discounting were to be self-liquidating; that is, they were not to be speculative but instead were to finance carrying, production, or marketing costs for products that already had been contracted for sale. In order to encourage development of a market in bankers’ acceptances, a source of credit to finance international transactions, the Federal Reserve system stood ready to buy them at favorable rates. Member banks were required to keep reserves against withdrawals by depositors as a safety measure. Mandatory reserves of member banks were lower than previ-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance With the opening in November, 1914, of check-clearing facilities of the twelve Federal Reserve banks came significant improvements in the payments mechanism. Circuitous, time-consuming arrangements to collect payment on out-of-town checks were no longer needed. Member banks were required to pay the face value of checks drawn against them when those checks were presented for collection at a Federal Reserve bank. The Federal Reserve system had a goal of making payment of checks at face value, or “par,” universal. That goal was abandoned under pressure from Congress after the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1923 that state laws protecting nonpar payments were constitutional. By the end of 1928, almost four thousand state banks that were not members of the Federal Reserve system chose to be “nonpar banks.” Ineligible because of this choice to clear checks through the Federal Reserve system, these banks turned to large “correspondent” banks in financial centers to collect out-of-town checks and for other services. Many banks eligible for clearing services through the Federal Reserve system also found it more convenient to use correspondent banks. Member banks, in addition to keeping legal reserves with their local Federal Reserve banks, continued to keep active balances with correspondent banks. Private banks thus did not abandon their prior relationships to take full advantage of what the Federal Reserve system had to offer. The federal government itself made little use of the Federal Reserve banks before World War I. The U.S. Treasury continued to use national banks as depositories, but beginning in 1916 it increasingly did business through the Federal Reserve banks. The role of the Fed-
eral Reserve system as fiscal agent of the government was enhanced when subtreasuries, an arrangement in effect since 1846, were discontinued in 1921. An amendment to the Federal Reserve Act in September, 1916, allowed advances by Federal Reserve banks to member banks to be secured by the member banks’ holdings of U.S. government securities. At the time, the federal debt was declining, and most of it served to secure national bank notes. That situation changed radically within a few months as the United States entered World War I. The U.S. Treasury used the Federal Reserve system to finance a swelling national debt on easy terms. Reserve banks made loans at preferential rates to member banks that in turn made loans to purchasers of war bonds. The Federal Reserve did not regain its freedom to raise the rates it charged on loans to member banks (the discount rate) until November, 1919, after installment payments on the Victory Loan of April, 1919, had been completed. In the face of a severe postwar recession in 19201921, the discount rate was not reduced until May, 1921, a year after the index of wholesale prices had peaked. The Federal Reserve Act allowed for open-market operations (purchases and sales of government securities by the Federal Reserve system) as a device to make the discount rate effective and to control interest rates in the open market. In 1922, the Federal Reserve system bought $400 million in securities, partly as a means of obtaining earnings so that it could pay the dividends to member banks that were required by law. In 1923, openmarket operations began to be used as a major instrument to control credit conditions. During the economic downturn between May, 1923, and July, 1924, the Federal Reserve system cut the discount rate and the Open Market Committee authorized purchases of government securities as a means of providing banks with reserves that they could then lend out. Similar measures were taken in response to the milder recession between October, 1926, and November, 1927. The Federal Reserve banks were expected to act as a “lender of last resort” to member banks, providing loans to financially sound member banks that could not get loans elsewhere. This provision was expected to prevent financial panics, as depositors did not have to worry about banks running short of cash to meet withdrawals as long as those banks were financially sound. Banks could simply discount some of their loans at the local Federal Reserve bank if they temporarily came up short of cash. The stock market boom of the late 1920’s led Federal Reserve system officials to worry that speculation in the 1101
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ously required of national banks and could be kept as vault cash or as deposits at a Federal Reserve bank. The reduction in required reserves was deemed appropriate in view of the centralization of reserves within the Federal Reserve system and the availability of rediscounting at the Federal Reserve banks, through which member banks could get cash to meet withdrawals. The 1913 law also distinguished between demand deposits and time (including savings) deposits, requiring a much lower percentage of the latter to be set aside as reserves. Under a June, 1917, amendment, all required reserves had to be in the form of deposits at a Federal Reserve bank. Vault cash no longer counted, but the percentages of deposits that had to be held as reserves declined dramatically. Later, vault cash would again be counted against the reserve requirement.
Federal Reserve Act
Federal Reserve Act market would absorb excessive amounts of credit. They therefore increased the discount rate in January, 1928, in an attempt to slow speculative lending. They reversed direction and eased credit slightly when stock prices collapsed in the fall of 1929. The system largely stood by, however, as the means of payment (currency plus demand deposits) declined by about one-fourth between 1929 and 1933 and as the American banking system collapsed in the early 1930’s. When banks failed, many depositors lost most or all of their money. Bank runs and losses inflicted on small depositors by bank failures prompted passage of the Banking Act of 1933, which established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Through the FDIC, deposits were insured against bank failure. In 1935, Congress reorganized and significantly strengthened the Federal Reserve system, giving it more centralized control over the American banking system in the hope that greater control could be used to avoid a recurrence of the disaster of the early 1930’s. — Benjamin J. Klebaner Further Reading Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2002. An official exposition for the general public. Periodically updated. Burgess, Warren Randolph. The Reserve Banks and the Money Market. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936. Overview featuring the impact of monetary policy actions on financial markets, written by an expert who was with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1920 to 1938. Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. A seminal work that finds federal banking policy errors at the root of the Great Depression. Although challenged on some points, the authors’ view has remained the accepted interpretation of the role of the Federal Reserve system in raising interest rates at crucial times and in exacerbating banking panics. Goldenweiser, Emanuel Alexander. American Monetary Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951. A presentation in straightforward prose by an economist who was director of research and statistics for the Federal Reserve Board from 1926 to 1945. Greider, William. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. A highly politicized, populist ap1102
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 proach to the Federal Reserve system, contending that it has been too restrictive in its policies and that it should democratize money. Hafer, R. W. The Federal Reserve System: An Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005. Provides a comprehensive explanation of the structure, processes, and policies of the Federal Reserve system and describes key events in the system’s history. Moore, Carl H. The Federal Reserve System: A History of the First Seventy-Five Years. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1990. Concise, clear, and interestingly written account by an economist associated for thirty-two years with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Timberlake, Richard H. “Federal Reserve Act.” In Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Banking and Finance to 1913, edited by Larry Schweikart. New York: Facts On File, 1990. Interpretive essay focusing on the relationship between the gold standard and the Federal Reserve Act. Argues that the clearinghouse associations had functioned well and needed no further government control. Warburg, Paul Moritz. The Federal Reserve System: Its Origin and Growth. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1930. A collection of writings by the German-born banker who labored indefatigably for central bank reform and sound practice. Wells, Donald R. The Federal Reserve System: A History. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Describes American banking practices before formation of the Federal Reserve and then presents a full history of the Federal Reserve system, including information on the system’s relationship to each presidential administration and how the system has evolved under different leaders over the years. Includes an appendix listing all members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors through 2003. West, Robert Craig. Banking Reform and the Federal Reserve, 1863-1923. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. A scholarly monograph on the intellectual background to the Federal Reserve Act. Wheelock, David. The Strategy and Consistency of Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1924-1933. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Asserts that the Federal Reserve acted consistently with its earlier policies in the late 1920’s and did not play a crucial role in causing or prolonging the Great Depression. White, Eugene Nelson. The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900-1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Points out the weakness of failing to incorporate branching, and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 notes that during the reforms of the 1930’s, banks that participated in stock market activities were less vulnerable than those that did not. Willis, Henry Parker. The Federal Reserve System. New York: Ronald Press, 1923. An insider’s in-depth view by one of the men who drafted the Federal Reserve Act.
Rutherford Discovers the Proton See also: Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
1914
Rutherford Discovers the Proton
Locale: University of Manchester, Manchester, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), French physicist Hans Geiger (1882-1945), German physicist Philipp Lenard (1862-1947), Hungarian physicist Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), Austrian American physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), Austrian physicist Frederick Soddy (1877-1956), English chemist Summary of Event Until the end of the nineteenth century, atoms were thought to be shaped like hard balls, often visualized as minute billiard balls. This model of the atom had satisfied the laws of physics up to that time, and it worked particularly well with the behavior of gases, where the gas atoms bounced off one another. However, this model of the atom failed to explain certain new phenomena observed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Philipp Lenard had observed cathode rays penetrating thin layers of material as well as the photoelectric effect, where light falling on certain metals produced electricity. By 1903, Lenard suggested that the atom contained more open space than provided by the earlier billiard-ball model or the revised “plum pudding” model, in which the atom was a positive sphere embedded by electrons to make it electrically neutral. Experimental evidence of a new model of the atom had to wait for the work of Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford, a brilliant student, was awarded a scholarship, and he chose to work at Cavendish Laboratory,
where Sir Joseph John Thomson was the leading authority in electromagnetism. Rutherford initially worked on problems associated with X rays and then became interested in radioactivity. In 1898, he was appointed professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal, where he continued his work on radioactivity. In 1902, assisted by Frederick Soddy, Rutherford developed the first major breakthrough in nuclear physics: an explanation of radioactive disintegration. Rutherford and Soddy suggested that radioactive decay involved the transmutation of one element to another over a specific half-life period. The half-life of a radioactive element is that period when half of a given amount has changed to a sister element. A half-life can be short or, as in the case of uranium and radium, can cover thousands of years. From this beginning, Rutherford produced a number of important papers dealing with the nature of radiation; in 1908, his work culminated in his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The process of radioactive decay produced alpha and beta particles, and Rutherford began to concentrate on the characteristics of the more massive alpha particle. By that time, Rutherford was convinced that alpha particles were essentially similar to helium atoms, and he began to use this heavy particle to explore the nucleus of the atom. In 1907, Rutherford began a series of experiments at the University of Manchester on the penetration abilities of the alpha particle. These experiments led him to his greatest discovery: the nuclear structure of the atom. Rutherford first attempted to measure the number of alpha particles given off by one gram of radium. One of Rutherford’s associates, Hans Geiger, developed an instrument (today known as the Geiger counter) that could be used for this purpose. A second series of experiments was set up to measure the scattering of the alpha particles that involved the scintillation method. When an alpha particle strikes a screen of zinc sulfide, the point of contact glows in the dark. The most successful experiment resulted from the 1103
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Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the proton as part of the nuclear structure of the atom contributed to a new age of nuclear physics and quantum mechanics.
Rutherford Discovers the Proton
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
probability of the various scattering angles and hypothesized the size of the positive charge at the center of Born to a rural New Zealand family with twelve children, Ernest Rutherford the atom. His figures indicated an depended on scholarships to pay for his education. He won many, finally reaching the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, in atom that consisted largely of empty 1895. There he worked alongside such eminent scientists as James Clerk space, with an extremely dense nuMaxwell, John William Rayleigh, and his mentor Joseph John Thomson. cleus at the center containing a numIt was the era when X rays were discovered, a scientific development that ber of positively charged protons was to point the way to Rutherford’s future work. His discovery of a curious equal to the negative charges of the “emanation” from thorium (radioactivity) was overshadowed by the discovery electron, rendering the atom electriof radium by Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who were credited with the discally neutral. In a series of papers covery of radioactivity. However, Rutherford and chemist Frederick Soddy published in 1914, Rutherford derecognized that radiation arose from the transformation of one element into anscribed his hypothesis of a new other—an outrageous suggestion, with overtones of alchemy, but soon acatomic model that included the procepted by the scientific community. In 1908, Rutherford was awarded the Noton as the nucleus of the atom, albel Prize in Chemistry for his work on radioactivity. By 1914 Rutherford had achieved international standing and was honored though he did not name the proton at home by a knighthood. He next began to use radioactivity to determine the until later. nature of the atom itself. Max Planck and Neils Bohr separately pushed out the The scientific community paid theoretical boundaries of atomic physics into quantum mechanics; Rutherford little attention to this new model of and his colleagues supplied the experimental verifications. When Rutherford the atom. It was too great a deparsmashed the atom in 1917 and the predicted particles were emitted, Bohr’s theture from the traditionally accepted ory was demonstrated beyond doubt. During this period World War I was ragmodel, and, at the time, several ining, and Rutherford was called to discover ways of detecting submarines under surmountable problems were associwater, concentrating on sonic methods. His talent for diplomacy was engaged ated with the new concept. For one, to construct a team of scientists and naval officers to work together under diffiif the electrons orbited the nucleus, cult and sometimes hostile circumstances. In 1919, Thomson resigned as head they would emit radiation, which in of the Cavendish Laboratory and Rutherford was asked to take his place. Under his direction, the Cavendish led the world in atomic physics, and in 1925 he turn would cause a loss of energy, was elected president of the Royal Society. and eventually the electrons would Perhaps the greatest tribute to Rutherford’s character and convictions can fall into the center of the atom. Albe seen in his efforts on behalf of those living under totalitarian regimes. In the though the theoretical foundation of 1930’s, when many Jewish scientists had to flee from Nazi Germany, Ruthernuclear physics was to come from ford became their champion. He enabled the Nobel Prize winner Max Born to elsewhere, Rutherford continued his work at the Cavendish, and he worked tirelessly on behalf of the brilliant Sodemonstrations of the validity of his viet physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa when he was detained in Leningrad. atomic model. In 1917, one experiFor Rutherford, science was an international pursuit without geographic ment involved shooting alpha partiboundaries. cles into a container of hydrogen. The scintillations produced by the collisions indicated that hydrogen proeffort of a graduate student, Ernest Marsden, who pretons were being hit by alpha particles. pared an experiment to measure the scattering effect of The Rutherford model of the atom gained prominence alpha particles directly by bouncing them from foils of through the work of Niels Bohr. Bohr saved Rutherford’s different materials. In 1909, this experiment produced new model by proposing a quantum theory, in which the dramatic results. Alpha particles were scattered through energy of the spinning electron emitted energy only in a number of angles, including some that reversed their specific quanta. This meant that during stable orbits of directions. Rutherford compared this to firing a cannon the electron, there was no emission of radiation, but shot at a piece of tissue paper and having the cannon ball when the electron jumped from one orbit to another come back at him. Given that alpha particles travel at through increasing or decreasing energy of the atom, more than 16,000 kilometers (9,942 miles) per second, there would be emissions of radiation. Furthermore, the this was a remarkable effect. quantum numbers for the electrons were whole numbers. By 1913, Rutherford worked out the mathematical This idea was supported by the characteristic spectral
Ernest Rutherford, Modern Alchemist
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 line of the hydrogen atom, but it failed to account for the fine detail of the hydrogen spectrum. Although this model of the atom was later referred to as the “Bohr atom,” credit must be given to Rutherford for providing the basic structure of the atom.
Ernest Rutherford. (The Nobel Foundation)
this model did not account for problems in the spectral lines of elements. Two major contributions in 1925 drastically altered the form and methodology of nuclear physics. First, Werner Heisenberg decided to abandon all attempts to create visual representations of atoms and proposed only mathematical relationships between the electrons and the spectral lines of the elements. Second, Louis de Broglie argued that matter and radiation both possessed properties of wave motion as well as particles. In 1926, Erwin Schrödinger brought these developments together and placed the electron into a cloudlike shell, where it was no longer possible to detect the precise location of the particle, but only its wave motion. Meanwhile, exploration of the nucleus of the atom continued. By 1920, Rutherford not only had discovered the proton but also had proposed the neutron. The proton provided a positive charge and half the atomic weight of the element; the neutron held no electrical charge but provided the other half of the atomic weight. In 1932, James Chadwick, a student of Rutherford, supplied experimental evidence for the existence of the neutron. Both Rutherford and Chadwick had pioneered the method of bombarding the atomic nucleus with particles of higher and higher energy. These experiments marked the beginning of high-energy physics and the discovery of about one hundred subatomic particles. Nuclear physics had finally arrived as a field of study with military and commercial consequences. — Victor W. Chen and Frank N. Magill Further Reading Broglie, Louis de. The Revolution in Physics: A Nonmathematical Survey of Quanta. Translated by Ralph W. Niemeyer. New York: Noonday Press, 1953. A highly recommended text for those seeking nontechnical information on quantum mechanics. Attempts to provide a popular explanation of the rapidly changing world of physics and makes the difficult subject of quantum mechanics accessible to the general reader. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Chapter 21 is devoted to Ernest Rutherford. Includes glossary and index. Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. Describes the history of the laboratory, focusing on Jo1105
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Significance The contributions of Rutherford, Bohr, and their predecessors heralded the age of nuclear physics and quantum mechanics. The 1920’s provided one of the most fertile, creative, and imaginative periods in the history of physics. As various physicists modified and changed the Bohr atom, the model of the atom that had begun as a miniature version of the solar system now could be described only in mathematical terms, without a visual counterpart. In 1925, Wolfgang Pauli formulated the exclusion principle, which stated that no two electrons on a specific atom have the same quantum number. By allowing for only four quantum numbers, it was possible to arrange all the elements of the periodic table into shells and subshells around the nucleus. This classification of elements provided chemists with a useful model for the purposes of interpreting chemical reactions. For physicists, however,
Rutherford Discovers the Proton
U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts seph John Thomson, who provided the foundations and research directions of this institution for many years. Eight chapters provide information on Thomson’s successor, Ernest Rutherford. Einstein, Albert, and Leopold Infeld. The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta. 1938. Reprint. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966. Probably one of the most accessible single-volume histories on the development of modern physics available to the general reader. Uses virtually no technical terms, and no mathematics background is required. The sections on the decline of the mechanical view and on quanta are highly recommended. Jammer, Max. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics. 2d ed. Los Angeles: Tomash, 1989. Traces both the physics and the conceptual framework of quantum theory. Sections dealing with the formative development of quantum theory are moderately accessible for the general reader. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. An overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Chapter 3 discusses Rutherford’s work. Includes many illustrations and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Segrè, Emilio. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. Segrè was one of the few physicists who both participated directly in nuclear physics (for which he received a Nobel Prize) and wrote a number of popular accounts on the history of physics. The earlier sections of this volume cover the discoveries and theories of those who produced a coherent picture of the atom. Trefil, James S. From Atoms to Quarks: An Introduction to the Strange World of Particle Physics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980. An excellent introduction to the world of subatomic particles. Chapter 4 on antimatter, chapter 6 on accelerators, and chapter 7 on the discovery of particles are highly recommended. See also: Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron.
1914
U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts By offering cost-plus contracts to business firms, the U.S. government ensured that high-quality war materials were delivered to war agencies on time during World War I. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; business and labor Summary of Event During World War I, in some cases the United States changed the usual method of awarding government contracts on competitive bids because that method was found to be inexpedient given factors related to the urgency of wartime demands. Cost-plus contracts were formally legalized by the National Defense Act of 1916, although they had been in limited use for several years. The major feature of cost-plus contracts is that contractors are reimbursed for all costs and are also paid a profit, 1106
either fixed or a percentage of cost, by the government. Because profits were guaranteed under such contracts, contractors could deliver war materials on time, in sufficient quantities, without having to worry that speeding up orders would cost them more. Markets for materials and labor were in a state of uncertainty during the war period, making it difficult for business firms to bid for contracts on the basis of fixed prices. Contractors argued that the government should assume the risk of wide fluctuations in wages and material prices and that it should guarantee profits to manufacturers in the form of cost-plus agreements. Production of war materials was new to many firms, and experimentation with production in untried fields made it difficult for them to estimate costs. It therefore made sense to employ cost-plus contracts for goods that the government needed urgently. Cost-plus contracts basically take two forms: The
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tion of quality work under wartime conditions. The ordnance department of the U.S. Army entered into cost-plus contracts for a large portion of the total amount contracted out in 1917, which was $1.75 billion. In 1918, naval construction contracts were awarded to the five largest private shipyards to build lighter vessels such as submarine chasers, destroyers, and minesweepers. These contracts were for costs plus a fixed profit. In the summer of 1917, orders for twenty-two thousand Liberty motors, used in aircraft, were placed with six different companies under cost-plus-fixed-profit contracts. U.S. government agencies used cost-plus contracts freely during World War I despite the fact that doing so had some major drawbacks. On one hand, critics asserted that because the government reimbursed all costs plus a profit, contractors had no incentive to control costs. Enormous cost accounting systems were needed to figure out actual costs (for example, calculation of overhead or research expenses), and disputes arose regarding the calculation of costs. Producers who lowered costs also lowered their profits on contracts that called for profits to be calculated as a percentage of costs. This meant there was a premium on inefficiency. On the other hand, contractors were unhappy that the profit percentages were small. In addition, some businesses that were not awarded contracts complained of favoritism on the part of the government. Responding to these criticisms, the U.S. Congress prohibited the use of cost-plus contracts for housing facilities in May, 1918. In July, 1918, the purchase of all standard articles required by the five main War Department bureaus was consolidated under one purchase division. As a result of this reorganization, all cost-plus contracts were rejected. By that time, businesses involved in the war effort were able to forecast costs, and they preferred bidding to having their products commandeered. The Poindexter Bill of May, 1919, prohibited cost-plus contracts in any government contracting, but the law applied only to contracts with profits calculated as a percentage of costs and not to cost-plus contracts with fixed profits. Significance One of the major impacts of the U.S. government’s use of cost-plus contracts was increased cooperation between the government and private enterprise. Traditionally, the relationship between the two had been one of distrust and antagonism. War contracting taught the government the importance of working with business. The government also recognized the contributions of large businesses to 1107
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buyer pays costs plus either a fixed fee or a percentage of costs. Under the fixed-fee type, the buyer reimburses the contractor for all costs actually incurred to perform a job in accordance with the contractual terms and in addition pays a fixed fee to the contractor. The contractor’s fee remains the same whether the final actual cost of the work turns out to be lower or higher than both parties expected when the contractual agreement was signed. Only when there is a change in the scope of the work (for example, an increase in the square footage of a building being constructed) can the fee be changed. Under cost-pluspercentage-fee contracts, the buyer reimburses the contractor for all costs actually incurred to perform the job in accordance with the contractual terms and in addition pays the contractor a fee in the amount of a specific percentage of the costs. The contractor’s fee thus changes in direct proportion to the actual costs incurred. One of the earliest known uses of cost-plus contracts by the U.S. government occurred in 1914, a few years before the United States became involved in World War I. The U.S. Navy found that it was difficult to estimate the costs of production for experimental projects in naval gunnery. When production requires experimentation, cost-plus contracting is attractive to both the manufacturer and the government. Such contracting is also attractive during periods of war, when costs of materials and wages are unpredictable. Using cost-plus contracts does, however, require an assumption that manufacturing firms will behave with integrity and adopt sound cost accounting systems. The construction division of the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army used 250 cost-plus contracts in 1917, with an outlay of about $300 million. In awarding these contracts, the government tried to select contractors with experience, integrity, and the ability to complete large construction projects. Government leaders agreed with business leaders that in times of war the government should bear the brunt of any hazards caused by the emergency conditions, including the financial risks involved in such contracting. Construction engineers of high repute recognized cost-plus contracting as a proven method of efficient compensation for emergency work. It saved time and allowed big construction companies to start work quickly without waiting for detailed plans, and it also allowed the government to select contractors based on reliability and experience rather than awarding contracts to possibly incompetent companies only because they submitted the lowest bids. In addition, cost-plus contracting allowed contractors to be free from worries about profit, so they could instead concentrate onspeedy execu-
U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts
U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts economic development. War contracting resulted in the government’s receiving voluntary cooperation from the three major professions of engineering, accounting, and law. Members of these professions rendered exemplary service in the final settlement, liquidation, and cancellation of these cost-plus contracts. During the World War I years, many American businesspeople became millionaires thanks to cost-plus contracts. At the same time, the wages of millions of workers rose rapidly. This huge increase in purchasing power fueled economic expansion. Because of war needs, many commercial manufacturers were not free to make commercial goods; this reduced the supply of both necessary and luxury products and increased the manufacturers’ profit margins. In some cases, the government had to use its commandeering authority to keep prices under control to protect the public and the war effort. A committee of the War Industries Board was in charge of fixing prices on such goods as chemicals, medical supplies, textiles, leather, rubber, machinery and tools, and metals such as iron, steel, and copper. One of the greatest impacts of the war contracting experience as a whole was the evolution of price control mechanisms to keep supplies of food, fuel, and other crucial materials flowing during wartime. Another impact of the use of cost-plus contracting during World War I was the increased stature gained by accounting as a science and a profession. The government and businesses needed accounting services to establish costs, monitor business practices, and settle claims. Cost accounting methods and practices increased in importance, and contracts between industry and the government became more precise and scientific in character. Wartime contracting also helped introduce greater standardization into the manufacturing process. Precise technical measurements were included in the formal specifications contained in the contracts, and this influenced production processes, often leading to reductions in costs. When the war was over, manufacturers were able to use the standardization techniques they had learned in commercial production. In large part because of the cost-plus contracting used during World War I, accounting came to be recognized as more than just bookkeeping. Both industry and government realized that cost accounting reports can be useful in guiding the efficient administration of large manufacturing plants. During World War I, the U.S. Navy used cost accounting reports to understand how best to distribute labor in such plants. Cost accounting reports provide information that can help manufacturers control 1108
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 costs, eliminate inefficiencies, and secure greater output. Following World War I, cost accounting became a vital tool for industrial management. In using cost-plus contracting during World War I, the U.S. government also faced the major problem associated with such contracting: Contractors had no incentive to control costs, and in some cases this led to waste and inflated costs. Cost accountants played a large role in determining correct unit costs, and better cost accounting systems were designed, but no satisfactory solution was found for this vexing problem. Several additional problems are inherent in cost-plus contracts. When contractors are paid full costs plus a fee, the fee can be either too low or too high when measured as a percentage of investment in plant, inventories, and working capital. For example, a 5 percent fee on full costs can generate a higher annualized return on investment than a 10 percent fee if the project is completed very rapidly. A related problem in cost determination is allowance for depreciation. If replacement or current costs, rather than the purchase price of an item, are used to calculate depreciation, that can inflate production costs to a great extent. In the early twentieth century, the U.S. Navy insisted on using historical costs to compute depreciation allowances. Both of these problems illustrate issues of the time value of capital; that is, value may depend on when something is used. Another impact of cost-plus contracting relates to the extraordinary profits made by manufacturers and the excess-profits tax imposed by the federal government. The Revenue Act of 1917 provided for graduated income taxes and an excess-profits tax. Specifically written into the cost-plus contracts used during this period was the provision that federal income taxes and excess-profit taxes were not to be considered part of manufacturing costs and hence would not be reimbursed by the government. An indirect refund of taxes was considered to be against public policy and beyond the powers of various war agencies of the government. For all of its problems, cost-plus contracting remained a regular part of government procurement. After World War II, various defense projects and space research projects employed cost-plus contracting, as firms were unwilling to take the risk of costs that could be much higher than anticipated. Examples of seemingly wasteful expenditures proliferated, such as hammers and toilet seats costing hundreds of dollars each, but the system made many projects feasible and worthwhile for private contractors. —Srinivasan Ragothaman
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traces the evolution of cost-plus-fixed-profit contracts. Useful for researchers. Kelley, Arthur C. “Cost Analysis of a Cost-Plus Contract.” Accounting Review 17 (October, 1942): 370376. An in-depth analysis of the problems involved in administering a cost-plus contract program. Suggests a system for cost control and unit cost determination. Miranti, Paul J., Jr. Accountancy Comes of Age: The Development of an American Profession, 1886-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Highlights major events in the history of the accounting profession in the United States. Previts, Gary John, and Barbara Dubis Merino. A History of Accountancy in the United States: The Cultural Significance of Accounting. Rev. ed. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. Chronicles the history of the accounting profession in the United States, from the colonial period to the late 1990’s. Addresses accountancy from social, economic, and political perspectives. Chapters 5 and 6 cover the eras immediately before and after World War I. Includes bibliography and index. Shillinglaw, Gordon. Managerial Cost Accounting. 5th ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1982. Chapter 21 provides the theoretical rationale for cost-plus contracts by government with defense contractors. See also: Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded; July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board; Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors.
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Further Reading Aljian, George W., ed. Purchasing Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958. Provides useful information for purchasing agents in government and private industry. Chapter 16 gives a good summary of various types of cost-plus contracts. Easy to read. Baruch, Bernard M. American Industry in the War. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1941. Describes the various facets of the industrial mobilization for war and the experience of the U.S. War Industries Board in 1917-1918. Chapter 6 gives a good summary of the price-fixing activities of the board, which followed the principle of cost plus reasonable profits. Crowell, Franklin J. Government War Contracts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1920. Discusses contractual relations between the U.S. government and private firms during World War I. Chapters 2-4 describe the evolution of cost-plus contracts. A readable, reasonably concise history of contractual accounting and government contracting. Cuff, Robert D. The War Industries Board: BusinessGovernment Relations During World War I. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Describes the motives and methods of businesspeople in government work and the nature of the relationship between business and government during World War I. Chapter 8 details the price-fixing process and describes how the board arrived at fair prices for various commodities. Includes an excellent reference list. Farquhar, Francis P. “Accounting for Cost of Naval Vessels Under Cost-Plus-Profit Contracts.” Journal of Accountancy 29 (July, 1919): 180-189. Describes shortcomings of cost-plus-percentage contracts and
U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts
Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 5, 1914
Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday Henry Ford pioneered the assembly-line method of automobile manufacturing, raised worker productivity, and shared profits with his workers through higher wages and benefits and shorter working hours. Locale: Detroit, Michigan Categories: Business and labor; economics; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Henry Ford (1863-1947), American inventor and industrialist Harry Bennett (1892-1979), chief of security at Ford Motor Company Alexander Malcomson (1865-1923), first vice president of Ford Motor Company Summary of Event In 1864, modern steel production began with the openhearth process. Detroit’s location along the Great Lakes offered it a role in this new industry, and many foundries sprang up. In 1865, the first short stretch of pipeline carried oil along the Allegheny River. Cheap oil, steel, and transportation set the stage for Henry Ford to revolutionize the automobile industry. Ford’s idol was inventor Thomas Alva Edison, whose methods produced the phonograph, incandescent electric lamps, and film for movie cameras. Ford’s imitation of Edison’s “tinkering” eventually led to the creation of the Model T automobile. Ford believed that it was his duty to make better products and better people by promoting gifted employees. In his view, science alone could free people from drudgery and increase the productivity of labor. Science could also find better and cheaper methods of making goods and better ways to carry those goods from the manufacturer to the consumer. Henry Ford grew up on a farm, and he came to believe that too much needless work was being done, with too much duplication of effort. As a young man, he spent several years in Detroit learning mechanics. He later returned to his farm, where he spent his spare time working on the idea of building an internal combustion engine. His first invention was a steam-operated tractor, and by April, 1893, he had completed work on his first automobile. Other inventors who were working on automobiles saw them as a fad and a luxury. In contrast, Ford dreamed of mass-producing inexpensive cars. Consequently, few 1110
bankers and investors of his era were willing to finance his company. They considered him an eccentric, but Ford was ahead of his time. One man, Alexander Malcomson, had faith in Ford’s dream. He put up $25,000 of his own money to finance Ford and also convinced others to invest. Malcomson became the first vice president of Ford Motor Company. Like most businesspeople of his time, Ford was influenced by Frederick Winslow Taylor’s time-andmotion studies. If workers bumped into each other when assembling cars, Ford reorganized their movements and the timing of their work. Rather than have them spend time walking to a storage area to retrieve parts, Ford moved the storage area closer to the workers. He created assembly lines in his factories to bring parts to selected groups of workers for assembly. Soon whole cars moved along conveyor belts to worker groups, each specializing in one of five thousand jobs that could be learned easily and sequenced so that cars could be assembled rapidly. Because each worker produced much more per hour with this method, the company’s profits skyrocketed. Ford in turn used some of these cost savings to reduce the price of his cars. Every time he reduced prices, the market grew and the company’s profits increased. In little more than ten years, Ford had become one of the first billionaires in the United States. He financed most of this growth and expansion with corporate profits and savings. When Ford began making cars, each car took more than a day and a half to build. By introducing and perfecting the use of the assembly line, the company eventually was able to produce one car every twenty-nine seconds. With each incremental increase in efficiency, profits soared. As early as 1905, Ford began sharing profits with his workers. In 1913, he was able to pay workers a total of ten million dollars over and above their salaries. He saw workers and management as partners in production, and he tied profit sharing to employee efficiency. In 1914, Ford was well known in and around Detroit and the Midwest, but neither he nor his cars were known nationwide. On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company released a statement nationwide announcing the introduction of a five-dollar, eight-hour workday for Ford workers, beginning on January 12. Most of the fourteen thousand workers at Ford’s Highland Park (Detroit) plant worked nine hours a day for a little more than two dollars a day before the change. By January 14, 1914,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday
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Ford was the best-known man in the United States, and workers across the nation saw him as a hero. He became a national celebrity, and people around the world engaged in avid discussions of Ford, his assembly techniques, and his wage policies. Some observers consider his announcement one of the greatest publicity stunts in history. Ford did not automatically grant every employee the pay raise and hours reduction following his announcement; to be eligible, an employee had to meet certain qualifications. Ford established a sociological department, headed by Dean Samuel Marquis, an Episcopalian minister, to certify that applicants were worthy of the bonus. The department accepted applications only from men A row of completed Model T’s comes off the Ford Motor Company’s assembly line. over twenty-two years of age who (Library of Congress) had worked for the company for a minimum of six months. Marquis and his sociologists could exclude a Ford’s customers were happy with their cars, they would worker from benefits for gambling, drinking, having a continue to use Ford cars and encourage others to buy dirty house, eating unhealthy foods, or having bad savthem. Raising wages improved quality control by enings habits. Men with stable marriages and loving famicouraging each worker to monitor the quality of each lies were preferred over bachelors. Men who rented out product that passed his workstation, as workers now rooms in their homes to boarders who were strangers shared profits and profits depended on quality. were denied bonuses, because Ford believed that boardHenry Ford understood business. He estimated that inghouses encouraged immorality. Men who cared for the five-dollar day would add ten million dollars to his aged parents were entitled to early bonus packages beannual payroll. Some experts claim that he had no cause they were considered virtuous. Many workers aschoice, that he was forced to raise wages to attract labor serted that Ford was too paternalistic, and Ford responded in a market that was short of workers. Immediately folby ignoring many violations of his sociological departlowing the announcement of the five-dollar day, men ment’s regulations. Almost 90 percent of those who aphoping to be hired formed huge lines outside the Ford plied for bonuses eventually received them. plant. The company’s chief of security, Harry Bennett, Why did Ford raise wages so dramatically? He claimed turned fire hoses on crowds of job seekers in subzero that he wanted to lift workers out of poverty. The surplus weather, but this did not stop them from coming. They value of his workers’ labor had made him rich, and he merely changed into dry clothing and returned, insisting saw the workers as partners in his own progress. He beon jobs. More than ten thousand people thronged Ford’s lieved they were entitled to share in the benefits of the plant in Highland Park for weeks, hoping to participate in wealth that they helped create. He also believed that the the five-dollar-a-day workers’ heaven that Ford had creU.S. economy would grow faster if workers could afford ated. If the announcement was designed to attract labor, to buy the products they made. With higher salaries, it worked extremely well and gave Ford his pick of the workers would be able to buy Fords, expanding the marbest labor available. ket for his products. Ford argued that higher wages Other labor analysts assert that Ford’s problem was would also make workers pay more attention to their not a shortage of labor but high turnover rates. In 1913, work and improve the quality of the cars produced. If
Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday Ford Motor Company hired 50,448 workers, yet its average labor force was 13,623. The company thus had a turnover rate of 370 percent. Vacancies could have been a real problem if filling them had been difficult, but it never was. More than 40 percent of the jobs in the Ford plant took only one or two days to learn and were designed to be taught rapidly to unskilled laborers. Another 36 percent of the jobs took one week or less to learn. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely that Ford introduced the five-dollar day to reduce labor turnover, although turnover did decline dramatically. Still other observers argue that Ford had to pay higher wages to get workers to work harder. As machines drove men to their breaking point, workers resented being treated like machines and would seize every opportunity to shirk work or remain idle. Ford’s high wages gave them an incentive to work hard—they knew they could not earn such high wages elsewhere, so to hold on to lucrative jobs, they would drive themselves to the limit voluntarily. The trouble with this theory is that Ford’s laborers worked on automated assembly lines, where machines dictated the pace of work. Ford had conducted time-and-motion studies to determine precisely how fast the men could work, and the machine speed was set accordingly. Some experts argue that Ford introduced the fivedollar day because the company was vulnerable to work stoppages. Ford’s profits hit $13 million by 1912, $27 million in 1913, and $32 million in 1914. The opportunity costs of work stoppages would be very high, because Ford’s assembly techniques created huge profits from labor, even though the Model T, the main Ford product, sold for less than $600. For example, it is estimated that a one-week shutdown of Ford’s plants in 1913 would have cost the company at least $542,000 in lost earnings. Shutdowns of the same duration would have cost the much more diversified General Motors Company less than $184,000 and Studebaker, another competitor, less than $43,000. Ford’s competition would have been delighted to see Ford rapidly lose profits and perhaps its share of the market. In short, Ford’s labor force was the source of its prosperity as well as its weak spot. Many Ford workers had recently immigrated to the United States in the hope of making better lives for themselves and their children. Life in Detroit’s crowded low-income neighborhoods made them particularly vulnerable to appeals by labor unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW; also known as the Wobblies), which were very active in Detroit. The unions urged workers to organize 1112
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and seize control of factories from the managers and owners. In the spring of 1913, they had successfully shut down Studebaker for a short time. Fear of a similar shutdown and plant takeover may have motivated Henry Ford to announce his famous five-dollar day. Fear of industrial unrest permeated the minds of automobile executives throughout late 1913 and early 1914. Ford Motor Company executives were no exception. Charles Sorensen, head of production at the Highland Park plant, said in one interview that he was ordered to pay workers wages of five dollars a day in order to stifle the IWW and other unions. This, Sorensen claimed, was Ford’s means of taking away from the unions their greatest source of appeal—the desire for material gain and benefits. Ford simply co-opted the unions’ strategy, not only by offering workers high wages before the union could demand them but also by offering wages higher than any union organizer would have the nerve to demand. Significance Other automobile companies did not follow Ford’s lead for many years. Nevertheless, the results of the fivedollar day for Ford were clear. The labor force became much more stable, total production costs declined, and workers volunteered many cost-cutting ideas to management, whom they saw as partners rather than as adversaries. Laborers feared losing jobs that paid so much above the industry average, and there is little evidence of labor unrest at Ford Motor Company during this period. Ford claimed that the five-dollar day reflected the growing productive power of his labor force. As they demonstrated to him that they were capable of creating more wealth, he was willing to offer them ever-larger amounts from profits. The five-dollar day was also part of a larger change in workers’ lifestyles. Ford checked on his workers’ personal hygiene and the cleanliness of their homes, encouraged them to form good savings habits, and rewarded stable, wholesome family life. These actions were not motivated solely by greed or the desire to reduce the number of workers who could share profits; Ford attempted to create a better world. Ford not only raised workers’ wages but also built hospitals for workers. He once ordered his plant managers to hire older workers when it was brought to his attention that they were underrepresented in the company’s workforce. Ford also ordered plant managers to conduct complete studies of every job in his factories to determine which could be performed by the blind and people
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Bennett, Harry. We Never Called Him Henry. New York: Fawcett, 1951. Many blame the brutal treatment of some Ford employees on the heavy-handed tactics of Harry Bennett. In this book, Bennett argues that at all times he was acting under direct orders from Henry Ford. A bitter book that is critical of Henry Ford and portrays Ford as an industrial dictator. Brough, James. The Ford Dynasty: An American Story. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. A wonderfully imaginative book full of narrative and dialogue woven around accurate historical details. Brings the history of Henry Ford, his family, his friends, and his company to life. Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. The Fords: An American Epic. 1987. Reprint. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Details the rise of the Ford dynasty over three generations and the conflicts that almost tore the family apart. Portrays Henry Ford as generous and optimistic yet intolerant, cranky, and bitter. Ford, Henry, with Samuel Crowther. My Life and Work. 1926. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003. Ford’s autobiography is full of pithy sayings that capture his philosophy of life and business. His view of the five-dollar day is that it was the best business decision he ever made. A great source for Henry Ford’s view of the origin and growth of Ford Motor Company. Hooker, Clarence. Life in the Shadows of the Crystal Palace, 1910-1927: Ford Workers in the Model T Era. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1997. Examines how the first large Ford auto plant—known as the Crystal Palace— changed Highland Park, Michigan, the first U.S. city to depend entirely on the automotive industry for its well-being. Discusses Ford’s production processes, the development of a new “manager class,” and the work of Ford’s sociological department. Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machines. Boston: Little, Brown, 1986. A rich account of the public accomplishments and private tragedies of four generations of the Ford family. Portrays Henry Ford as a complicated man, at once a pacifist and a war profiteer; a champion of minority rights and an antiSemite; a dedicated family man who supported a wife, mistress, and illegitimate son; and a loving father who bullied and hounded the son he loved into an early grave. Nevins, Allan. Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954. Most his1113
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with disabilities. He wanted these jobs to be allocated to such workers because he believed they could earn the same wages as others if given a fair chance. In addition, Ford routinely hired ex-convicts; he sincerely believed that reform was possible and that, given the chance to earn a good living under acceptable circumstances, most would abandon a life of crime. He also hired teachers, at his own expense, to teach his workers proper English and the fundamentals of good citizenship in a democracy. Ford’s declaration of the five-dollar workday gave all American workers greater bargaining power, even though most employers attempted to resist this trend. Collective bargaining did not come to the Ford Motor Company until after Ford’s death, when Henry Ford II and his group of “whiz kid” advisers recognized labor unions. Henry Ford’s pay increase helped avoid unionization in his plants. By raising the absolute material standards of many blue-collar workers, however, he also forced American society to place a higher value on such work. The five-dollar day brought many of these workers into the middle class by virtue of their income. Many aspired to improve their children’s education and offer them better opportunities in life. Higher wages made it easier for factory workers to achieve these goals, as well as to buy better homes in more expensive neighborhoods. In these settings, their children played with children from middle-class, well-educated families and began to acquire the values, attitudes, and tastes of the middle class before they acquired traditional middleclass educational credentials and jobs. The five-dollar day made workers aware of the fact that they were worth more because they could produce more with the help of machines. Consequently, the modernization of industry became less difficult. Rather than feeling alienated from machines, workers began to associate better standards of living and benefits with the increased output of labor that machines made possible. Perhaps this explains why Ford’s workers often designed new machines for the company: Every effort to improve the efficiency and productivity of workers in the Ford plants would be rewarded. Ford frequently promoted such workers and publicized the promotions widely. The five-dollar day was a turning point in history, for it publicly recognized and rewarded labor’s increasing value and the right of workers to share the profits created by their labor. As a result, the growth of industrialization proceeded more smoothly, as some of the public’s hostility toward this trend was eliminated. —Dallas L. Browne
Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday
ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music torians consider this the standard reference work on Henry Ford. It is still among the most exhaustively researched works available on Henry Ford. Sinclair, Upton. The Flivver King: A Story of FordAmerica. Detroit: United Automobile Workers of America, 1937. A very imaginative and entertaining pocket novel about several generations of a family that works for Henry Ford. Sinclair portrays Ford as a man who began with idealistic purpose but was corrupted by money, power, and greed. In Sinclair’s view, the five-dollar day did little to soften the dehumanization of the worker. Sward, Keith. The Legend of Henry Ford. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Company, 1948. Even-handed and meticulously researched study explores and explodes many myths, such as the notion that Ford always put profits before principle. Demonstrates that Ford was
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 both a great businessman and a principled person. Watts, Steven. The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Full-scale biography of Ford relates his rise from farm boy to billionaire and examines all of the contradictions the man embodied. Places Ford’s accomplishments in the context of the early twentieth century. Includes index. See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
February 13, 1914
ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers was established to protect music copyright holders by collecting fees and royalties for the performance of copyrighted music. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures Raymond Hubbell (1879-1928), American composer George Maxwell (d. 1931), American music publisher and first president of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Nathan Burkan (d. 1936), American copyright attorney Victor Herbert (1859-1924), American composer and classical musician Stanley Adams (1907-1994), American lyricist and songwriter who was president of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 1953-1956 and 1959-1980 Summary of Event The copyright laws of the United States have changed over the years in response to new uses for copyrighted materials such as literary works and musical compositions. In 1897, the U.S. Congress added performance rights to the copyright statute. In 1909, Congress ex1114
tended coverage to include mechanical reproductions such as piano rolls. This addition helped to set the stage for the establishment of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). In 1913, three friends gathered to establish an organization to protect the writers and publishers of musical compositions. The three—Raymond Hubbell, a composer from Ohio; George Maxwell, an American subpublisher for the Italian firm G. Ricordi; and Nathan Burkan, a New York attorney—wanted to create a body that could enforce the payment of fees for the performance of copyrighted music. They realized that in order to draw attention to their organization, increase its credibility, and bring in members, they needed an important leader. They contacted Victor Herbert, a composer of light operas, a musical theater form popular at the time. Herbert quickly gathered support among his friends and associates within the music industry by stressing the importance of protecting one’s work. Herbert, Hubbell, Maxwell, and Burkan scheduled an initial meeting at Luchow’s Restaurant in New York City. As a result of bad weather, only five additional people showed up: Silvio Hein, Louis A. Hirsch, Glen MacDonough, Jay Witmark, and Gustave Kerker. These nine became founding members and scheduled a second meeting for February 13, 1914, at the Hotel Claridge in Manhattan. More than one hundred people attended that
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Because of its ability to protect its members’ rights and to police public performances of music, ASCAP included some of the most influential members of the music industry. Early members included George and Ira Gershwin,
Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Cole Porter, and Duke Ellington. Even as other groups formed to compete with ASCAP, significant composers and publishers such as Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Leonard Bernstein joined the organization. Eventually, the new genres of pop music and rock and roll added Henry Mancini, Burt Bacharach, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Bruce Springsteen, and Lionel Richie, among many others, to ASCAP’s rosters. In order to keep up with its growing membership, the society opened its first general licensing office, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1933. This office oversaw the licensing of businesses within its district as well as checked on possible nonlicensed performances. ASCAP also opened district offices across the United States that helped to compile information on members. In 1948, the society published the member information it had gathered in its first biographical directory, which contained more than eighteen hundred entries. As ASCAP membership grew and the society tried to license more businesses, several problems arose. Radio broadcasting entered the picture during the 1920’s. ASCAP found its first major challenge in keeping up with the newest technology. Radio stations resisted licensing attempts by ASCAP, which wanted to prevent radio broadcasts of copyrighted music without payment. Again ASCAP went to the courts, which deemed radio broadcasts to be public performances and therefore subject to licensing. In February, 1923, station KFI in Los Angeles became the first radio station licensed by ASCAP. As radio networks and independent stations spread across the country, ASCAP found that policing music performances became more difficult. The society set up a sampling system in which it recorded programs and analyzed them for infringements without giving the radio stations any prior notice. This system resulted in a tremendous amount of data that needed to be processed, so ASCAP created a tabulation department during the 1940’s. Although it had won early court battles, in the 1940’s ASCAP was plagued by lawsuits concerning radio broadcasting and accusations of antitrust law violations. Court decrees in 1941 and 1950 required ASCAP to offer businesses either a blanket or per-program license. A blanket license, the type most commonly used by radio stations, required the licensee to pay a percentage of total revenues plus a fixed sum for the right to use music on unsponsored programs. Per-program licenses, more prevalent among television stations, required payment of a 1115
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meeting, at which ASCAP was officially created. The members elected Maxwell as the organization’s first president and Burkan as the first general counsel. ASCAP rented an office in the Fulton Theater Building on the corner of Forty-sixth Street and Broadway in New York City. From this scantily furnished base, the society set out to protect the musical compositions of its members, who paid $10 in dues for a year’s membership if they were writers and $50 if they were publishers. These fees remained constant for the next eighty years. Performance fees for works protected by ASCAP were to be collected based on adjusted gross receipts (after license fees and operating expenses were deducted) of a production or performance, and revenues were to be shared equally between the writer and the publisher. In its first year, ASCAP added the power to license foreign music through an agreement with the British Performing Right Society, also created in 1914. Relying on the strength of the federal copyright laws, which specified that copyrighted musical works could not be performed publicly without permission of the copyright owners, ASCAP set out to license the public businesses where music was performed. The group first set its sights on restaurants and hotels. It issued its first blanket license (covering all ASCAP-protected music) to Rectors, a restaurant on Broadway, for an annual fee of $180. During that first year, the organization licensed an additional eighty-four hotels and restaurants in New York City. ASCAP’s movement to license faced harsh opposition from hotels and restaurants. Lawsuits ensued between Victor Herbert and Shanley’s Restaurant as well as between John Philip Sousa and the Vanderbilt Hotel. In each case, the business profited from performances of the composer’s work without prior permission. The cases went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and, in 1917, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in the Court’s decision: “If music did not pay, it would be given up. . . . Whether it pays or not, the purpose of employing it is profit, and that is enough.” In essence, this decision gave ASCAP the right to exist and the right to license. By 1921, the society had grown tremendously, as writers and publishers were quick to sign on as members. That year, ASCAP made its first distribution of royalties. The organization was truly operational.
ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music
ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music higher percentage of revenues but applied only to programs using ASCAP music. Also in 1941, ASCAP signed a consent decree stating that it would no longer act as the exclusive agency for its members. Fees would be collected only for the ASCAP songs played and only from the originating stations. This represented a great deal of savings for radio networks that broadcast the same program across the country through affiliate stations. ASCAP had tried to collect fees for each station airing a program, not just from the originating station. ASCAP remained the only U.S. licensing and collection organization for copyrighted music for several years, but this ended in 1937 with the creation of the American Composer Alliance (ACA), started by Aaron Copland, who later became an ASCAP member. ACA became the chief organization joined by “serious” composers. The creation of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), in 1939, however, affected ASCAP to a much greater degree. BMI started as an attempt by radio broadcasters to gain more control over their stations. In 1940, the contract between ASCAP and the National Association of Broadcasters expired. Radio networks across the United States dropped the ASCAP catalog of 1.5 million songs in favor of music that was in the public domain (that is, carried no copyright) in addition to new songs produced for BMI. This experiment lasted almost a year and resulted in the increased popularity of such copyright-free tunes as Stephen Foster’s 1854 composition “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” ASCAP found itself forced into a corner. A 1945 court ruling that collaborative works could be licensed by either group furthered the competition between ASCAP and BMI. The film industry also had its complaints about ASCAP licensing. In 1942, owners of film theaters filed suit against ASCAP for misusing its power by requiring film exhibitors to carry licenses. Because ASCAP carried rights to nearly all the music available, the theater owners had no options. Six years later, the courts ruled this licensing practice to be illegal. The ruling led the government to file more antitrust suits against the society for monopolizing music performance rights in a worldwide cartel. A 1950 court decision effectively ended ASCAP’s monopoly on the licensing of foreign music and opened the door for BMI. Also in 1950, another court required ASCAP to offer single licenses for film or television producers for all the music performed within a film or television broadcast. In 1949, ASCAP began offering licenses to television stations. Although television greatly expanded the ave1116
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nues available for music composers, it created problems concerning performance monitoring, as radio had done decades earlier. Television broadcasters resisted licensing. In the late 1960’s, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), which wanted a per-program license, gave ASCAP its biggest fight over television licensing. ASCAP wanted to issue a blanket license to CBS at a fee of $12,500 a month, with additional fees for ASCAP music performances. The debate raged concerning blanket licenses versus per-program licenses, even though earlier court decrees in 1941 and 1950 had required ASCAP to offer both. Early court rulings favored CBS; however, in the early 1980’s, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld ASCAP’s right to blanket license. Other lawsuits concerning licensing were filed after this ruling, and it appeared as though ASCAP faced a long battle over this issue. The long court case with CBS occurred during the ASCAP presidency of Stanley Adams, who held the office of president from 1953 to 1956 and again from 1959 to 1980. He helped ASCAP to enjoy a period of tremendous success. New genres such as pop music and rock and roll found a youthful market, and the rise of country music called attention to the need for a Nashville district office, which was established in 1963. The television industry expanded rapidly and offered new avenues for composers in the form of commercial and theme or background music. Adams’s efforts brought ASCAP into the modern age. The society began to use computers and other new technologies to police the music industry more efficiently. At the end of Adams’s presidency in 1980, ASCAP faced new challenges, including the licensing of the video market and cable television. The organization was successful in reaching a license agreement with the cable leader, Home Box Office (HBO), and the newest powerhouse in music, the MTV (Music Television) cable network. ASCAP’s commitment to keeping up with the latest technologies and their use of music was clear. If the technologies used copyrighted themes, tunes, or other musical work, ASCAP would seek to license them. Even with all the controversy and court cases, ASCAP has had its proud moments. Members have won numerous awards through the years, including several firsts. Con Conrad and Herb Magidson won the first Oscar for Best Song for “The Continental,” from The Gay Divorcée, in 1934. Ira Gershwin became the first songwriter to receive a Pulitzer Prize in theater, for Of Thee I Sing (pr. 1931) in 1932. Cole Porter won the first Tony Award, for Kiss Me Kate (pr. 1948) in 1949. Other notable awards include the first Emmy awarded for music,
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Further Reading Finkelstein, Herman. Public Performance Rights in Music and Performance Right Societies. Rev. ed. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1952. A detailed description of copyright laws as they pertain to music and public performances. Includes information on how these laws affect ASCAP. Fornatale, Peter, and Joshua E. Mills. Radio in the Television Age. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1980. A concise examination of how the radio industry re-
sponded to challenges posed by the development of television. Covers new formats that emerged in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Jasen, David A. Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song. Rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. A study of American popular music from 1886 to 1956. Focuses on songs and songwriters and the role of the big publishers. Provides a picture of the musical world in which ASCAP thrived. Krasilovsky, M. William, and Sidney Shemel. This Business of Music: The Definitive Guide to the Music Industry. 9th ed. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2003. A bible for the music business. A fine encyclopedia, with many well-written and lucid guides to all aspects of the music industry, historical and contemporary. Chapters on copyright, performing-rights organizations, and mechanical rights provide excellent introductions to the topics for the beginner. Meyer, Hazel. The Gold in Tin Pan Alley. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1958. Traces the development of the music industry during the first half of the twentieth century. Includes a chapter on ASCAP and BMI titled “They’re Playing Our Songs.” Ryan, John. The Production of Culture in the Music Industry: The ASCAP-BMI Controversy. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985. Wonderfully informative about all aspects of the popular music business. Includes anecdotes, charts, figures, and a fine overview that encompasses theory and practicality in its handling of complex matters. Sanjek, Russell. From Print to Plastic: Publishing and Promoting America’s Popular Music, 1900-1980. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College, 1983. Based on lectures, this seventy-page book offers insights into the music business. Sanjek, Russell, and David Sanjek. American Popular Music Business in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. A comprehensive and exhaustively detailed history of the subject cowritten by an insider who was there through much of the period. Provides a definitive summary of events. Sterling, Christopher H., and John M. Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. A detailed look at the broadcasting industries. Good coverage of the development of television. See also: Mar. 4, 1909: U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law; 1934: Squier Founds Muzak. 1117
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which went to Walter Schumann for the theme to Dragnet in 1954, and the first Grammy awarded for Song of the Year, which went to Domenico Modugno for “Volare” in 1958. In 1959, when the practice of awarding gold records for sales was established, ASCAP members Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance were the first to receive the honor, for “Catch a Falling Star” (sung by Perry Como for RCA Records). Other accomplishments reflect ASCAP’s commitment to its members, which has continued into the twenty-first century. (As of 2005, the society enjoyed a membership of more than 200,000 music publishers and professional writers, composers, and lyricists.) For example, the society offers financial help to struggling writers and publishers of music. Part of its ongoing mission is to promote interest in and growth of the music industry, as reflected by the scholarships and grants awarded by the ASCAP Foundation since the 1970’s. These are made possible by the donation to ASCAP of the rights to the popular songs “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and “Shine on, Harvest Moon” by the widow of the man who wrote them, Jack Norworth; the royalties from these songs fund the foundation. In 1985, the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center established the permanent archives of ASCAP and began allowing all interested individuals access to the organization’s history. The archives contain a wide range of items, including Irving Berlin’s piano, John Philip Sousa’s baton, Victor Herbert’s membership application, ASCAP’s first licenses, and photographs of influential members. Despite opposition to its efforts, ASCAP carried on with its struggle to become the primary licensing and collection organization for the performance of copyrighted music. Without the efforts of the founders and early leaders of ASCAP, the composers, authors, and publishers of music likely would have lost control over their own work as the radio, film, and television industries expanded. —Jennifer Davis
ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music
Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March, 1914
Gilbreth Publishes THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT Lillian Gilbreth’s discussion of the psychological impacts on workers of various management approaches highlighted the importance of an understanding of psychology to the effective practice of management. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Business and labor; psychology and psychiatry Key Figures Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth (1878-1972), American author and efficiency expert Frank Bunker Gilbreth (1868-1924), American engineer, author, and efficiency expert Hugo Münsterberg (1863-1916), American psychologist Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), American efficiency expert Summary of Event The Psychology of Management: The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching, and Installing Methods of Least Waste, written by Lillian Gilbreth, was first published in 1914 by Sturgis and Walton of New York. This text, which examined management from a psychological perspective, earlier had been published in serial form by Industrial Engineering in 1912 and 1913. The work was significant because of its attempt to extend management theory to include psychological factors. Gilbreth initially wrote the work to fulfill the thesis requirement for her doctoral studies in psychology at the University of California. Although Gilbreth’s faculty committee members found the thesis itself acceptable, they were unwilling to grant her the Ph.D. because of her failure to fulfill a one-year residency requirement, which she had expected to be waived. As a consequence, Lillian’s husband, Frank Bunker Gilbreth, was angered enough to pursue publication of the thesis and thus prove the merit of his wife’s work. Ultimately, Gilbreth was allowed to complete her residency requirement at Brown University and was granted the doctorate in 1915. It is quite possible that the work would not have gained the attention it did or had the same impact if Lillian Gilbreth had been granted the degree as she originally expected. The context of this work is worthy of mention. First, it should be noted that Lillian Gilbreth was the wife of Frank Gilbreth, a proponent of scientific management 1118
who was well known for his developmental work in the area of motion study. Second, the field of management was itself in its embryonic stages, with considerable debate occurring as to whether management skills could be taught and learned or were instead innate. Third, the field of psychology was not well developed and, as Lillian Gilbreth noted, had focused primarily on the “psychology of the crowd,” developing very limited insights into the psychology of the individual. Industrial psychology, in particular, was a new field of inquiry championed by Hugo Münsterberg, whose seminal work was based on experiments in his laboratory at Harvard University. This work, Psychologie und Wirtschaftleben, published in 1912, was translated to English for publication as Psychology and Industrial Efficiency in 1913. Fourth, scientific management and its founder, Frederick Winslow Taylor, were being subjected to extremely severe criticism, including congressional inquiry, at the time Gilbreth was writing her doctoral thesis. By no means did Gilbreth intend The Psychology of Management to be a break with Taylorism and scientific management. Her chief aims in the book were to introduce readers to psychology and to management, to suggest the relationship between the two, and to promote further investigation. The first chapter of the text was primarily introductory. In addition to giving an explanation for the organization of the book, Gilbreth went to considerable lengths to define the terms “psychology,” “management,” and “psychology of management.” Gilbreth defined psychology as “the study of the mind.” She noted that psychology was then viewed as a “culture subject,” included in the studies of philosophy and education students but not included in the studies of scientific or engineering students. According to Gilbreth, “It was not recognized that every man going out into the world needs all the knowledge that he can get as to the working of the human mind in order not only to give, but to receive information with the least waste and expenditure of energy, nor was it recognized that in the industrial, as well as the academic world, almost every man is a teacher.” Management was defined as “the art of directing activity.” Gilbreth contended that most individuals of her day failed to recognize that management involves more than the “managing part of the organization” and includes the “best interests of the managed.” She argued that the importance of management is magnified by the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
From THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT In the first chapter of The Psychology of Management, Lillian Gilbreth addresses the importance of her topic by presenting these five points: 1. Management is a life study of every man who works with other men. He must either manage, or be managed, or both; in any case, he can never work to best advantage until he understands both the psychological and managerial laws by which he governs or is governed. 2. A knowledge of the underlying laws of management is the most important asset that one can carry with him into his life work, even though he will never manage any but himself. It is useful, practical, commercially valuable. 3. This knowledge is to be had now. The men who have it are ready and glad to impart it to all who are interested and who will pass it on. The text books are at hand now. The opportunities for practical experience in Scientific Management will meet all demands as fast as they are made. 4. The psychology of, that is, the mind’s place in management is only one part, element or variable of management; one of numerous, almost numberless, variables. 5. It is a division well fitted to occupy the attention of the beginner, as well as the more experienced, because it is a most excellent place to start the study of management. A careful study of the relations of psychology to management should develop in the student a method of attack in learning his selected life work that should help him to grasp quickly the orderly array of facts that the other variables, as treated by the great managers, bring to him. Source: Lillian M. Gilbreth, The Psychology of Management (New York: Macmillan, 1914).
scientific management and elaborated on the ways in which recognition of individuality provides superior results to the absence of such recognition. Included in her discussion of each principle of scientific management was an underlying theme of the need for further discovery. Gilbreth clearly suggested that scientific management was superior to other forms of management extant in her day, but she also indicated that more knowledge about the relationship between psychology and management was needed for the further development and improvement of scientific management. Each of the twenty conclusions Gilbreth reached was favorable to scientific management. Among these conclusions, three paid particular attention to the psychological aspects of her discussions. First, she concluded that the psychological element of scientific management is 1119
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realization that it involves structuring the relationship between the managing and managed individuals. Further, Gilbreth distinguished among three approaches to management: the traditional approach, the transitory approach, and the ultimate approach. The traditional approach places managerial power in the hands of a single manager with clear, fixed lines of authority. The transitory approach includes all forms of management that are “passing into Scientific Management.” Thus any management environment in which at least one, but not all, of the principles of scientific management has been applied would be classified as transitory. The third type of management is pure scientific management. According to Gilbreth, this differs from the prior two types in that “it is a definite plan of management synthesized from scientific analysis of the data of management.” Gilbreth defined the psychology of management as “the effect of the mind that is directing work upon that work which is directed, and the effect of this undirected and directed work upon the mind of the worker.” Gilbreth believed that scientific management would enlighten people to the value of studying the psychology of management. She argued that “efficiency is best secured by placing the emphasis on the man, and modifying the equipment, materials and methods to make the most of the man.” Gilbreth organized The Psychology of Management around the following underlying ideas and divisions of scientific management: individuality, functionalization, measurement, analysis and synthesis, standardization, records and programs, teaching, incentives, and welfare. Through this organization, Gilbreth sought to illuminate the underlying principles of scientific management, compare scientific management with other types of management that she had identified, and discuss the psychological factors influencing each principle of scientific management. In discussing the scientific management principle of “individuality,” for example, Gilbreth noted that the traditional form of management seldom recognizes it, as evidenced by an absence of individual rewards and measurement of individual output, limited individual teaching, and few attempts to study the individuals applying for work through a defined selection process. She observed that the principle is recognized, although not fully pursued, in the transitory form of management. Finally, she noted that individuality is a fundamental principle of
Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management
Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management its most important element. Second, she asserted that because scientific management is “psychologically right,” it is the ultimate form of management. Third, she concluded that the psychological study of scientific management should especially emphasize its teaching features. Significance Gilbreth’s thesis was submitted in 1912, thus it predated the 1913 publication of Münsterberg’s seminal work. It was published in serial form in 1912 and 1913 and in book form in 1914. The fact that the field of industrial psychology gained acceptance and became an area of ongoing study must be attributed, at least in part, to these publications. Gilbreth’s book brought the required initial credibility to the field, developed awareness, and provided the context, rationale, and objectives for development of the field. Had an individual of stature similar to that of Gilbreth within the scientific management movement not endorsed industrial psychology, the field could very well have been met with strong resistance in its early period. The field likely would have developed more slowly, and the course of its development may have been altered. It is unrealistic, however, to suggest that Gilbreth’s thesis made significant theoretical contributions to the field of industrial psychology. These contributions were made by Münsterberg and others who followed. This viewpoint is consistent with Gilbreth’s stated objectives for her work. Although Gilbreth’s pioneering work may have had limited impact on the field of industrial psychology, it did contribute significantly to the development of the field of management. First, this work suggested an area of content in which managerial expertise could clearly be developed, taught, and learned. The work thus helped resolve the controversy as to whether management could and should be taught, in favor of establishing programs of managerial education. Second, Gilbreth’s work focused attention on the managed as well as on the managers. Third, The Psychology of Management was followed by extensive studies of human fatigue and its elimination, worker selection processes, vocational guidance, worker relations, and worker training. Gilbreth’s call for investigation of the psychology of management thus was effective. An unstated objective of Gilbreth’s work appears to have been to present evidence from the field of psychology that scientific management is the ideal approach to management. The book promoted and justified the Taylor system and apparently had some success in this regard between 1913 and the late 1920’s. Evidence of this success includes the fact that the early development of 1120
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 industrial psychology was clearly rooted in scientific management and grew out of it. Further evidence of this success is the fact that the book was published repeatedly by separate publishers. After the 1920’s, however, the industrial gestalt of scientific management began to be superseded by the disciplines of labor relations, personnel management, and industrial sociology. Ironically, the work that Gilbreth designed to defend and promote scientific management contained the seminal arguments of theories that would displace scientific management from its preeminent role with regard to managerial theory and practice. Hugo Münsterberg, not Lillian Gilbreth, is the acclaimed “father of industrial psychology.” The new field had its roots in scientific management yet sought to extend scientific management into the realm of human thought processes. Münsterberg noted that although scientifically structured attention was given to machines and methods of production, the management of workers was left to managers who had limited scientific understanding. A scientific understanding of individual worker psychology was sought so that work might be designed scientifically for the attainment of ideal levels of efficiency. The focus on development of an understanding of individual worker behavior provided a basis for discovery of the importance of group factors in individual behavior. Taylor described this group influence as worker “soldiering,” an element of individual behavior that scientific management sought to overcome through design of work and establishment of individual-based measurement and incentive systems. Out of industrial psychology and the work of management theorists such as Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Vilfredo Pareto, the field of industrial sociology came into being. This was a counterbalancing field for scientific management that sought to develop structured and scientifically valid constructs of the influence of human interactions on the performance of work-related tasks. A growing union movement in the early twentieth century, along with the development of scientific theories in industrial psychology and industrial sociology, ultimately led to the development of fields of managerial practice such as labor relations and personnel management. Practitioners in these fields were the human performance experts who had been absent in the scientific management era. Industrial psychology, labor relations, personnel management, and industrial sociology are all fields of endeavor that, to one degree or another, Gilbreth anticipated in her dissertation. The somewhat ironic conclusion, therefore, must be that The Psychology of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Management, a work Gilbreth designed to defend and promote scientific management, contained the seminal arguments of theories that would displace scientific management. —Mark D. Hanna
Miller, Thomas R., and Mary A. Lemons. “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Lessons from a Management Pioneer.” SAM Advanced Management Journal 63, no. 1 (1998): 4-10. Brief article describes Lillian Gilbreth’s background and career, with emphasis on her ability to accomplish her goals despite gender discrimination. Miner, John B. Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Addresses topics of motivation, leadership, and decision making in organizations. Includes introductory material on the origins and history of management theory. Wren, Daniel A. The Evolution of Management Thought. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Provides a definitive treatment of the development of early management thought, the scientific management era, the “social man” era, and the modern era. An extensive bibliography of works pertinent to each of these eras is provided at the end of the text. See also: Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School; July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management; 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard; Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive.
June 28-August 4, 1914
Outbreak of World War I The outbreak of World War I began a conflict that contributed to the collapse of the Russian, German, and Austrian empires, weakened Great Britain and France and their colonial empires, catapulted the United States to a dominant position in world affairs, and set the stage for an even more devastating world war. Locale: Austria-Hungary; Germany; France; Russia; Great Britain Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I Key Figures Francis Ferdinand (1863-1914), heir to the AustroHungarian throne Leopold von Berchtold (1863-1942), foreign minister of Austria-Hungary
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921), chancellor of the German Empire Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), British foreign secretary Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov (1861-1927), Russian foreign affairs minister William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky (1856-1919), Russian ambassador to France Summary of Event The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, on June 28, 1914, set in motion a chain of events that resulted in a world war that profoundly affected the course of history. Virtually since 1121
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Further Reading George, Claude S., Jr. The History of Management Thought. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968. A comprehensive treatment of the history of management thought from prehistoric times through the 1960’s. Contains a time line of critical events. Gilbreth, Lillian. The Psychology of Management: The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching, and Installing Methods of Least Waste. 1914. Reprint. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004. Discusses scientific management from the psychological perspective, defends scientific management, and calls for study and inquiry into the field of the psychology of management. Korman, Abraham K. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. A textbook with a succinct yet complete description of the development of industrial and organizational psychology in its introductory chapter. Presents a thorough review, geared toward college students of the subject, of the psychological theory and research relating to industrial and organizational psychology.
Outbreak of World War I
Outbreak of World War I
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
that time, historians have attempted to explain how such a relatively minor event as the assassination could have had such devastating consequences. The war not only ravaged the economies of the major European states but also caused or made possible the triumph of communism in Russia, the rise of Nazism in Germany, and the international anarchy that led to World War II. Not least, World War I resulted in the deaths of between ten million and twenty million people. After the assassination of Francis Ferdinand, the chief of staff of the Austro-Hungarian army recommended that his emperor, Franz Joseph, mobilize his army on the border between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The chief of staff argued along with civilian members of Franz Joseph’s government that members of the Serbian government and armed forces had helped plan and carry out the assassination. He noted that individuals within the Serbian government, desirous of incorporating into their own territory the part of the Austrian Empire that contained a large Serbian population, had good reason to wish the Austrian heir dead. Austrian foreign minister Leopold von Berchtold feared that Russian troops might come to the aid of the
Serbs in the event of war. Before agreeing to mobilize the Austrian army, he first sent a letter of inquiry to the German government. The letter asked if help from the Germans would be forthcoming in the event of Russian intervention in a diplomatic or military struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. German military and civil officials received the letter on July 5, 1914, and immediately assured the Austro-Hungarian envoy that they would support their ally (Austria-Hungary had been partners with Germany and Italy since 1888 in a defensive treaty called the Triple Alliance). The leaders of Austria-Hungary sent a ten-point ultimatum to the Serbian government on July 23. The ultimatum stipulated (among other demands) that Austro-Hungarian officials be allowed to conduct an investigation into the assassination in Serbia and to bring to trial and punish any Serbs found guilty of involvement in Francis Ferdinand’s death. The ultimatum gave the Serbs forty-eight hours to make a satisfactory reply or face a rupture of relations with the Austrians. When the contents of the ultimatum became known, leaders of other European governments became aware for the first time that a major crisis in international affairs had
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife moments before both were assassinated. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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about to cause a German declaration of “state of imminent danger of war”—the final step before mobilization of the German military. All European diplomats understood that the mobilization of the military forces of any of the major powers meant war. The next day, the Russian czar signed two orders for the mobilization of Russian troops, one for partial mobilization (along the Austrian border only) the other for total mobilization along Russia’s frontiers, including the border with Germany. Nicholas did not implement either order immediately. A few hours later, the German ambassador to Russia delivered a telegram from German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to Sazonov warning that the mobilization of Russian forces on the German border would mean war. To emphasize this point, the German emperor, William II, sent a personal telegram to his cousin, Nicholas II, warning him of the danger of war and requesting that Russian steps toward mobilization be halted. Nicholas sent a reply assuring his cousin that Russia would not mobilize. On July 30, Sazonov joined with the Russian minister of war and the chief of the Russian general staff in implementing Nicholas’s previously signed order for full mobilization. The next day a representative of the French foreign ministry informed the Russian ambassador to France, Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky, that the French government had decided to go to war against Germany. At about the same time, the German government issued a declaration of “imminent danger of war.” Austrian officials simultaneously ordered mobilization of the Austrian army along its border with the Russian Empire. British government officials failed to make clear to any of the antagonists what action they might take in the event of war between the members of the Dual and Triple Alliance systems. A few members of the French government were aware of a secret agreement contained in the Anglo-French Entente of 1904, which guaranteed that the British fleet would protect French channel ports if France became involved in a war. The British government never made public this secret protocol, nor had Parliament approved it. Nevertheless, Grey and other members of the British government talked privately throughout the crisis about British entry into the war on the side of the French. On August 1, the French government mobilized its armed forces. The German government mobilized its own troops and declared war on Russia. German officials sent an ultimatum to the French to cease mobilization. When the French failed to comply, the Germans declared war on them the next day and delivered an ultimatum to 1123
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arisen. European leaders seemed incapable of halting the following sequence of events even though most of them wanted to avoid the catastrophe they saw looming ahead. The Serbs ordered mobilization of their army on receipt of the Austrian ultimatum. Nikola Paši6, Serbian prime minister, contacted members of the Russian and French governments (allied since 1894 in the Dual Alliance) in an effort to garner support. Paši6 received assurances from Czar Nicholas II of Russia that a secret agreement signed previously between Russian and Serbian officials would be honored. The agreement guaranteed Russian military assistance in any dispute between Serbia and Austria. The Serbs then sent a reply to the Austrian ultimatum on July 25. The Serbs agreed to all Austrian demands except one: They declined to allow Austrian officials to participate in the internal Serbian investigation into any alleged plot to assassinate Ferdinand. Some historians say Paši6 feared to permit Austrian participation in the inquiry because it would have revealed the complicity of the Serbian government. Other historians maintain that the Serbian rejection of the term resulted from the promise of Russian support. The Austrians broke off diplomatic relations with the Serbs because of the unsatisfactory Serbian reply, and ordered the mobilization of their army on the Serbian border. Upon hearing of the Serbian reply and the Austrian reaction, British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey sent an appeal to the governments of France, Germany, and Italy to convene an international conference the next day (July 26) to mediate a settlement of the crisis. Representatives of the German government declined the invitation, suggesting instead that the matter should be settled through direct negotiations between the Austrians and the Russians. Some German officials were privately urging Austrian officials to take immediate military action against the Serbs to preempt any intervention by the Russians or the French. The French general staff began recalling its Moroccan garrisons to France, a move the German general staff considered provocative. The French ambassador to Russia assured the Russian foreign affairs minister, Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov, of French support for whatever action the Russian government decided to take. On July 28, the Austrian government declared war on Serbia and the Austrian army began bombarding the Serbian city of Belgrade. The next day, the German ambassador to France warned the French foreign minister that French troop movements on the German border were
Outbreak of World War I
World War I the Belgians demanding that the German army be permitted to pass through their territory. The Belgians rejected the German ultimatum on August 3, causing the Germans to declare war on the Belgians and invade their borders. The British government sent an ultimatum to the Germans, demanding that the German army withdraw from Belgium. When the ultimatum expired the next day, the British government declared war against the German Empire.
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Significance The war that ensued eventually involved most of the world, and the terrible loss of life attendant to that war was, sadly, only a harbinger of the carnage to come in the bloodiest century known to human history. In part owing to the damage it did to the economies of the Russian, German, and Austrian empires, World War I contributed to the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia and the rise of Nazism in Germany. In addition, the war weakened the colonial empires of Great Britain and France while bringing the United States to a newly dominant position in world affairs. The international anarchy that led to World War II can be traced directly to the impacts of World War I. —Paul Madden
ists, created a situation that by 1914 made a general war probable, if not inevitable. Fischer, Fritz. Germany’s Aims in the First World War. London: W. W. Norton, 1967. Asserts that the German government was to blame for the outbreak of the war. Fromkin, David. Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Asserts that diplomatic efforts to avert the war were useless, as Germany deliberately instigated hostilities for its own purposes. Joll, James. The Origins of the First World War. 2d ed. London: Longman, 2000. Presents a balanced synthesis of the enormous literature concerning the outbreak of war in 1914. Lafore, Laurence. The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I. 2d ed. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1997. Evenhanded account seeks to explain the origins of the war rather than to apportion blame. Lee, Dwight E., ed. The Outbreak of the First World War: Causes and Responsibilities. 4th ed. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1975. Excellent starting place for readers seeking an understanding of the events surrounding the outbreak of World War I.
Further Reading Fay, Sidney B. The Origins of the World War. Rev. ed. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1930. Argues persuasively that the actions of European governmental and military leaders, along with intellectuals and journal-
See also: Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I.
June 28, 1914-November 11, 1918
World War I World War I devastated the Great Powers of Europe and brought sweeping consequences for the entire world, including the slaughter of millions, the reshaping of empires and colonial territories, deadly innovations in warfare, and an unstable peace that eventually ushered in the even more destructive World War II. Also known as: Great War; War to End All Wars Locale: Global, especially Europe Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I; military history Key Figures Francis Ferdinand (1863-1914), Austrian prince William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 1124
George V (1865-1936), king of Great Britain, r. 19101936 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Summary of Event The advent of World War I came as a surprise to few astute observers, but the carnage it wrought, especially in the very heart of Europe, was a great shock to civilized nations. War fever had gripped much of Europe prior to the outbreak of World War I, most thinking that a quick war would settle the various balance-of-power considerations then motivating European governments. The two previous Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, although nasty,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 had been quite local affairs, so even after the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a disgruntled Bosnian Serb in Sarajevo, few believed that such an event would trigger the most devastating war waged in human history to date. With the benefit of hindsight, however, several factors can be seen as setting the stage both for the outbreak of the war and for its unprecedented destructive impact.
the colonial territories of the European powers. Another major factor in the dynamic movement toward war was a complicated series of diplomatic treaties and defensive alliances meant to assure each major power of military support should war break out. Germany maintained an alliance guaranteeing support to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, even as Russia and France allied themselves against the threat of German aggression. Britain remained largely aloof from such alliances, preferring a policy of neutrality, but even it was party to an agreement guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, which would eventually be violated by Germany. The defense pacts implied, among other things, that any threat of aggression against an ally would initiate mobilization of forces by treaty partners, and, once initiated, these mobilizations would be difficult to reverse. Still, the economic interdependence and trade among European countries was significant, and the blood ties between European monarchies suggested that the diplomatic and peaceful resolution of disputes could be achieved. George V of England, Emperor William II of Germany, and Czar Nicholas II of Russia were all related to one another and presumably had no intention of exposing their peoples to any prolonged or destructive war. Despite them, however, such a war began during the summer of 1914, as the Great Powers of Europe began to march inexorably toward what each thought would be a short and decisive confrontation but what instead descended into four years of brutal war. Road to War The road to war began with the assassination of Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, by a young Serbian member of the ultranationalist Black Hand movement, which was not officially supported by Serbia. Austria accused the government of Serbia of having sponsored the assassination and, after three weeks of deliberation, demanded that Serbia make humiliating concessions or face war. Germany initially pushed Austria toward invasion of Serbia, but on actually seeing the conciliatory response of Serbia reconsidered. Serbia agreed to do everything Austria demanded, with the exception of permitting Austrians to participate in the judicial action against perpetrators found in Serbia. This, Serbia said, should be submitted to international arbitration. By this time, Austria was already engaged in a partial mobilization. Russia, despite threats from Germany, secretly agreed with Serbia that it would mobilize, and Serbia itself—not trusting to a peaceful Austrian response—also mobilized. Austria rejected the conciliatory Serbian reply to its 1125
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Background Factors Among the major causes of World War I were the rising nationalist sentiments among governments and peoples throughout the world, especially in Europe. This involved not just the rise of nationalist sentiments in the Balkans as expressed in the royal assassination but also long-term rivalries among the major European powers. The French resented the loss of the Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. Germany feared the rising tide of Slavic nationalism, especially in Russia, whose prestige in the Balkans had grown even as it began a rapid military buildup. In the weeks prior to the war, popular support for martial action in Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and France was palpable. Adding to this were the frustrated national aspirations of minority populations not only of Serbs but also of Poles, Ukrainians, and Ruthenians against German, Austrian, and Russian imperial domination. Coupled with rising nationalism was a growing arms race, as the major powers—in particular Germany, France, Great Britain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia—sought to expand their military capabilities, develop weaponry and naval capacities, conscript large armies, and perfect the process of rapid mobilization of forces. This expansion of power extended to the farflung colonial holdings of Germany, Great Britain, and France, as well as to the control over neighboring minority populations exerted by Russia and the AustroHungarian Empire. Other smaller powers, including Turkey, the new Balkan states, Italy, and Spain also competed for territorial sway, while the United States and Japan, fresh from victories over Spain and Russia, respectively, also expanded their political and economic influence, especially in the Pacific region. The emphasis on naval power grew, as almost all of the major world powers raced to build battleships. Britain and Germany were foremost in this shipbuilding push, with the United States, France, Japan, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire following, and even Italy and Russia joined the race for dominance of the seas. World War I, then, would be fought not only in Europe but also on the high seas and in
World War I
World War I
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Time Line of World War I June 28, 1914 Aug. 4, 1914 Aug. 14-25, 1914 Aug. 23, 1914 Aug. 26-31, 1914 Sept. 5-9, 1914 Sept. 9-14, 1914 Oct. 30-Nov. 24, 1914 Dec. 8. 1914 Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916 Apr. 22-May 25, 1915 May 2-June 27, 1915 June 23, 1915-Sept. 12, 1917 Dec. 8, 1915-Apr. 29, 1916 Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916 May 31-June 1, 1916 June 4-Sept. 30, 1916 June 24-Nov. 13, 1916 Mar. 11, 1917 Apr. 6, 1917 Apr. 9-15, 1917 June 15, 1917
July-Oct., 1917 July 8, 1917 July 31-Nov. 10, 1917 Oct. 24-Nov. 12, 1917 Oct. 31, 1917 Nov. 20-Dec. 7, 1917 Dec. 7, 1917 Apr. 6, 1918 May 27-July 1, 1918 July 15-18, 1918 Aug. 8-Sept. 4, 1918 Sept. 12-16, 1918 Sept. 20, 1918 Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918 Nov., 1918-Jan., 1923 Nov. 11, 1918 Jan. 18, 1919 June 28, 1919 July 2, 1921
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Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, assassinates Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo Great Britain’s declaration of war on Germany opens World War I Battle of the Frontiers Battle of Mons Battle of Tannenberg First Battle of the Marne Battle of Masurian Lakes First Battle of Ypres Battle of Falkland Islands Gallipoli Campaign Second Battle of Ypres Battle of Gorlice-Tarnow Eleven Battles of the Isonzo Siege of Kut-al-Amara Battle of Verdun Battle of Jutland Brusilov Offensive Battle of the Somme Battle of Baghdad United States declares war on Germany Battle of Vimy Ridge Espionage Act: U.S. Congress passes the Espionage Act; implementation leads to the suppression of free speech and the press during the war and to the prosecution and incarceration of political dissenters U.S. forces mass in eastern France; General John J. Pershing establishes headquarters in Chaumont Mobilization: U.S. government organizes the War Industries Board to direct economic resources for the war effort Third Battle of Ypres Battle of Caporetto Battle of Beersheba Battle of Cambrai United States declares war on Austria-Hungary Piccardy Offensive: Germans attack Allied lines near Amiens Battle of Chateau-Thierry/Belleau Wood Second Battle of the Marne Battle of Amiens Battle of St. Mihiel: Offensive mounted almost totally by United States; ends German threat in the region and demonstrates U.S. military force Battle of Megiddo Battle of Meuse-Argonne: U.S. offensive cuts off railroad supplies to Germans; United States suffers heavy casualties in this last significant battle of the war Postwar demobilization: Two million members of the American Expeditionary Force are reintegrated into the U.S. economy Armistice ends the war Peace conference opens in Paris Germany signs Treaty of Versailles Joint resolution of U.S. Congress recognizes a formal end to the war
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World War I
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ultimatum, even as Britain proposed World War I Western-Front Offensives, 1915-1917 a peace conference, which was reN o r t h jected by Germany. Austria bomS e a barded Belgrade on July 29, and Flanders NetherJune-Nov., 1917 Russia ordered a general mobilizaLands tion on the following day. Germany demanded that France declare that it Antwerp Ghent would remain neutral in any war beBrussels tween Germany and Russia. The Ypres French responded that they would Vimy Belgium April, 1917 Vimy pursue their own best interest and S then mobilized their troops. Gerer o mArras iv me River R many responded on August 1 by deAmiens le r claring war on Russia and on August el ve s i R o Somme 3 by declaring war on France. S M e isne River June-Nov., 1916 is A Britain, hoping to remain neutral, O sought guarantees from both France Rheims Marne Verdun and Germany for respect of British Ri Paris v neutrality. France agreed, but GerSe Strasbourg many demurred from a clear reine River sponse, and when German troops inVerdun Champagne vaded neutral Belgium on August 4, Feb.-Dec., 1916 Jan.-Mar. & F r a n c e Britain was compelled to declare Sept.-Oct., 1915 April, 1917 war on Germany. The pattern of mutual defense alliances had drawn all of the major powers of Europe into war. Italy remained neutral. Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, while Turkey joined the GerAfrica, as German and British forces clashed there. By mans as part of the Central Alliance on November 3. the end of 1914, the hopes for swift victory were met Within four months, what began as a European war had by stalemate on every front, as casualties mounted to already taken on a more global coloration, as Japan unprecedented levels. The one Great Power remaining seized German island territories in the Pacific Ocean. out of the fray was the United States, which declared Germany and Britain clashed in naval battles off the neutrality. coast of Chile in the Pacific and off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, as massive armies squared off against one another in Europe. Germany initially enA War of Attrition and Frustration joyed a rapid forty-day advance deep into French terriNew kinds of warfare and weapons were introduced as tory, but the Battle of the Marne in September ended any the war continued. Trench warfare on the western front German hopes for a swift victory. saw the use of heavy artillery, machine guns, tanks, and A terrible war of attrition on the western front foleven flamethrowers, all of which reaped a bitter harvest lowed, as none of the combatants could score a decisive of casualties. On April 22, 1915, Germany introduced victory during four years of carnage. Serbia fended off the use of chlorine gas at the Battle of Ypres. This Austria’s military offensive, even as Russia and the weapon, although deadly, was unpredictable and offered combined German and Austro-Hungarian forces largely no real military advantage. Despite this, various deadly fought to a standstill in a seesaw battle that saw Russia gases, including mustard gas, were later introduced. crush initial Austrian advances in Poland, followed by At sea, Britain established its dominance with its German reinforcement that led to a swift advance nearly victory in the naval battle of Jutland in late May, 1916. to the gates of Moscow, before the Russians repelled the Although the British sustained heavier damage, Germany’s fleet was sufficiently reduced that it no longer central power offensive. The war spread even to South e
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World War I played a decisive role in the war. However, Germany’s submarine forces continued to wreak havoc on Allied shipping in the Atlantic and began a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping, including that of neutral parties in 1916. The sinking of the Lusitania in May, 1915, served as a turning point in U.S. opinion against Germany, as more than one hundred American lives were lost. Still, the United States persisted in its policy of neutrality. Only after unrestricted German warfare did the United States break diplomatic relations with Germany in February, 1917, and deploy ground forces during the fall of that year. The global nature of the conflict was underscored as Britain moved against Ottoman holdings in the Middle East. British forces advanced rapidly through southern Iraq in 1915, only to be stopped at Kut by Turkish forces, even as Ottoman forces unleashed a genocide against Armenians that eventually left as many as two million civilians dead. Trench warfare came to characterize Allied efforts to gain a foothold in Asia Minor against Turkey. Forces from Australia and New Zealand joined the British in the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign of that year. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, with help from Bulgaria, managed to subjugate Serbia in 1915. German forces in southwestern Africa were defeated by British-supported South African forces, and Anglo-French forces eventually defeated Germany in the Cameroons in February, 1916, but in Central and East Africa, German forces continued fighting until the war’s end in 1918. In the Middle East, Britain collaborated with Arab nationalists in 1917 to mount attacks against Ottoman holdings in Arabia and Palestine, consolidating advances made against Turkish forces in oil-rich Iraq. The War Ends Three decisive diplomatic events occurred in 1917 that eventually determined the outcome of World War I. First, in January the Allies promised independence to peoples living under Central Power rule. The AustroHungarian Empire immediately saw the implication of this for its multinational empire of Poles, Czechs, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Rumanians, and began to seek a negotiated end to the war. Second, the Germans had encouraged and assisted the return of Vladimir Ilich Lenin to Russia, in hopes that a Bolshevik victory would lead to Russian withdrawal from the war. The Bolshevik October Revolution realized this hope, allowing Germany to focus its military assets on the western front. However, the U.S. entry into the war on the side of the Allies, the third decisive event, more than compensated the Allies 1128
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 for the loss of Russia. The U.S. forces—deployed under the slogan of “making the world safe for democracy” and backed by the powerhouse American industrial economy—and their military weaponry began flooding into Europe. The Allies repulsed three major German offensives in 1918. Austria and Bulgaria fell to Allied forces, as Ottoman forces were routed. On the western front, the British, Canadians, Australians, Americans, and French pressured the German Hindenburg line, which they breached in September. Germany, bereft of allies and with a navy in mutiny, sued for peace. An armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. Significance Unprecedented in its bloodshed and destructiveness and in the lack of inhibitions restraining the use of new and more destructive weaponry and forms of warfare, World War I provoked a worldwide sense of revulsion at what supposedly civilized peoples were capable of doing to one another. The number of dead is estimated to have been about 8.5 million; 5 million among the Allies and 3.5 million among the Central Powers. That figure does not include civilian deaths or the even more significant numbers of dead produced by the Spanish flu epidemic that struck in 1917 or the Armenian genocide of 1915. The war provoked the emergence of communism in Russia, which was quickly embroiled in a civil war of its own that produced around 3 million refugees. These refugees from the Russian Civil War were added to the 10 million people in Europe and the former Ottoman Empire who were displaced as a result of the world war. The suffering inflicted on civilian populations was unmeasurable. A whole generation was scarred by these human losses, especially in the countries most centrally involved, including France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, each of which lost around one million dead. The rise of communism during World War I set the stage for a century of ideological conflict of global proportions. Conscious of new security threats, governments throughout the world introduced visa and passport requirements in an effort to protect and control their borders. Former territorial holdings and colonies of the Central Powers fell under new administrative authority, as the principle of self-determination gained currency and eventually led to a proliferation of newly independent states. The experience of war even in the colonies of Allied countries, such as British India, stoked the fire of independence movements that would eventually blossom after World War II. World War I stimulated a proliferation in interna-
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Further Reading De Groot, Gerard J. The First World War. New York: Palgrave, 2001. A trim summary of the origins, major military campaigns, and life in the trenches and on the home fronts. A useful introduction for the beginning student. Fromkin, David. Europe’s Last Summer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. A prominent historian revisits
the old questions regarding both the causes and the responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Gilbert, Martin. First World War. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. With detailed year-by-year coverage, Gilbert provides colorful details about the events related to World War I. Mosier, John. The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. This military history offers new assessments of the military aspects of World War I, and of the decisiveness of American economic and military contributions to Allied victory. Winter, Jay and Blaine Badgett. The Great War: And the Shaping of the Twentieth Century. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. A pictorial history of World War I and its aftermath offering both a visual record and an analytic assessment of key personalities, events, and, trends. See also: June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I; Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids; Apr. 2227, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns; May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania; Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari; Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier; Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War.
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tional cooperation and diplomacy, with the creation of the League of Nations and numerous related international bodies, but national rivalries after the war prevented these new institutions from curbing the nationalist resentments that would eventually lead to the outbreak of World War II. Indeed, attempts to assign blame began immediately after World War I, with the French at the forefront of those seeking major punishment for Germany. Germans, on the other hand, felt both undefeated and improperly maligned. Despite efforts by Woodrow Wilson to moderate the terms of the peace, the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 placed blame for the war squarely on Germany, imposing territorial transfers and reparations on that nation. The territorial transfers precipitated major emigration out of former German territories. Although most of the reparations were never actually paid, many Germans deeply resented them, and this resentment reinforced German nationalism, which was further manipulated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in the 1930’s. Many historians regard World War I and its complicated conclusion as a major cause of World War II, which was even more global and more devastating than had been World War I—supposedly “the war to end all wars.” —Robert F. Gorman
World War I
Panama Canal Opens
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 15, 1914
Panama Canal Opens The completion and opening of the Panama Canal significantly lowered shipping costs and improved transit times. Locale: Panama Categories: Transportation; trade and commerce; engineering Key Figures Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), president of the United States, 1869-1877 George Washington Goethals (1858-1928), American army engineer who directed the Panama Canal project Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Summary of Event Early maps were based as much on beliefs as on facts. When Christopher Columbus searched for a new route to the Orient, he happened to land first in the West Indies. The people there told him stories about a strait through which one might sail westward into waters that led directly to the land he sought. He believed these stories were true and sought that strait, in the process coming closer and closer to the North American continent. His belief in the secret strait is reflected in a map inspired by him, although not published until two years after his death. The map has no Isthmus of Panama, showing in its place a strait permitting direct passage from Europe to India. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa followed Columbus with exploration of the isthmus, ultimately discovering the Pacific Ocean. Even at that time, the legend of the strait persisted. Native people told Balboa that a newly discovered isthmus provided a connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Balboa also believed these stories. Many explorers and geographers accepted the existence of this unseen strait, and this led to exploration up and down the coast. Explorers never found the mysterious strait, but their work spawned the idea of digging a waterway to connect the two oceans. The Panama Canal therefore is not entirely a project of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its conception lies in a much earlier time, in particular in a proposal given to King Charles V of Spain in 1523. It was, in fact, Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, who first proposed constructing this great waterway after he had failed to find the legendary strait. 1130
The creation of the Panama Canal thus represents a historical legacy as well as an unprecedented feat of engineering and design. The canal became a major transportation link, facilitating direct trade and changing the face of the political and economic world. It has critical historic dimensions, as it represented the largest, most costly single effort attempted in modern times. The canal’s construction held much of the world’s attention over a span of forty years, affecting the lives of tens of thousands of people at almost every level of society and of many races and nationalities. The nations involved were much affected by the process: The Republic of Panama was born; Colombia lost its prize possession, the Isthmus of Panama; and Nicaragua was left to wait for some future chance to participate in such a venture. The construction of the Panama Canal marked significant advances in engineering, in government planning, and in labor relations. Planning focused on the construction of an enduring wonder, a canal of unprecedented length and breadth. Its construction and operation would require extensive government planning and direction as well as an unheralded organization of large numbers of laborers. The canal was born of the conviction that sea power would become the political and economic base for the future. It was judged to be the greatest enterprise of the Victorian era and the first significant demonstration of American power at the dawn of the new century. Its completion in 1914 marked the conclusion of a dream as old as the voyages of Columbus. The cost of the canal was enormous. Dollar expenditures totaled $352 million, including $10 million paid to Panama for land rights and $40 million paid to the French company that had been involved in an earlier canal project. The cost was more than four times that of the Suez Canal and much higher than that of anything previously built by the U.S. government. Except for wars, the only remotely comparable federal expenditures up to the year 1914 had been for acquisition of new territories. The total price for all U.S. acquisitions as of that date—the Louisiana Purchase, Florida, California, New Mexico, and other western lands acquired from Mexico, Alaska, and the Philippines—was $75 million, or only about onefifth of the amount spent on the canal. American costs for the canal plus the expenditures of the French companies that had earlier been involved in the canal project, beginning in 1880, totaled almost $639 million. The canal also involved nonmonetary costs. Accord-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Even though it was completed at a cost below what was estimated at the midpoint of the project, the canal was opened six months ahead of schedule. The final product came amazingly close to precise engineering targets as to location, structure, and operation, and the process showed no signs of graft, kickbacks, payroll padding, or other corruption. Successful completion of such a vast project is noteworthy, given that most previous and subsequent projects had shortcomings in the dimensions mentioned above. Much of the project’s success resulted from the management and expertise of the director of the project, George Washington Goethals. He exhibited considerable insight in the design of the project, considerable influence in coordinating the various constituencies affected by and involved in the project, and unusual management control techniques in monitoring expenditures and progress. No excessive profits were registered by the thousands of firms involved with a project under the auspices of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Three men stand atop the gigantic lock gates of the Panama Canal in 1913, approximately ten months before the canal began operating. (Library of Congress)
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ing to hospital records, more than 5,600 lives were lost to disease and accidents during the canal’s construction. Approximately 4,000 deaths were those of black workers, with only 350 white Americans dying in the process. If one includes earlier French efforts, the total loss of human lives may have been as high as 25,000. Unlike most government projects, the canal cost less in dollars than had been projected. The final price was $25 million below what had been estimated in 1907, despite a change in the width of the canal and the building of fortifications. Had these additional expenses been calculated into original budgets, Congress might not have approved the project. The Spooner Act of 1902 approved a $40 million payment to the French company involved in the original canal project, but Colombia, which controlled Panama, stood in the way of further construction. Panama declared its independence from Colombia on November 3, 1903, and construction of the canal by the U.S. team began in 1904.
Panama Canal Opens
Panama Canal Opens The United States was sole administrator of the Canal Zone until late in the twentieth century. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter oversaw U.S. ratification of a new treaty with Panama that provided for a period of joint Panama-U.S. administration of the Canal Zone, with a gradually increasing share of the leadership positions given to Panama until December 31, 1999, when all U.S. participation and control of the canal ceased. Significance Much of the history of the world is based on the quest for improved transportation, particularly the discovery of and building of all-water routes connecting bodies of water. With the completion of the Panama Canal came direct and lower-cost transportation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Savings came in terms of both dollar outlays and time. The cost savings that resulted from the canal encouraged businesspeople to explore new markets that now appeared to be profitable. World War I kept the traffic flow through the canal low, with only four or five ships passing through per day, on average. It was not until July, 1919, that the vision of President Theodore Roosevelt was realized when an American armada of thirty-three ships passed through the canal. The first thirty made it through in only two days. This was an astounding accomplishment given the rigors of the previous route around the tip of South America. About ten years after it opened, the canal was handling more than five thousand ships a year, traffic approximately equal to that of the Suez Canal. Even then, large British and U.S. carriers squeezed through the locks with only feet to spare. By the late 1930’s, annual traffic exceeded seven thousand ships. Following World War II, that figure more than doubled. Channel lighting was installed in 1966, allowing nighttime transit, and ships were going through the canal at the rate of more than one per hour, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Many of them were giant container and bulk carriers of a size never imagined when the canal was designed and built. The 950-foot Tokyo Bay was the largest container ship in the world at the time it made its first Panama Canal transit in 1972. By the 1970’s, traffic reached fifteen thousand ships a year, with annual tonnage well beyond 100 million tons, twenty times that of 1915. Clearly, shippers were taking advantage of the improvement in transport speed made possible by the canal. The canal made feasible the opening of Far Eastern markets to the East Coast of the United States. It can be argued that the facilitation of 1132
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 trade allowed by the canal markedly altered the configuration of world industrial patterns. The Queen Mary, launched in 1934, was the first ship that was too large for the canal’s locks. Many others followed, even though the builders realized at the time of construction that ships of more than 1,000 feet in length and beams of 150 feet could not pass through the canal. As ships grew in size, the canal handled a decreasing proportion of the world’s sea traffic. Proposals to find an alternate route or to build a larger canal were considered. Attention turned to consideration of a route through Nicaragua, as earlier proposals for an isthmus canal had suggested that possibility. However, by the early years of the twenty-first century, no action had been taken to pursue such a route. Tolls collected for passage through the Panama Canal in 1915 reached only $4 million. In 1970, they exceeded $100 million, even though rates remained unchanged. In 1973, the Panama Canal’s operating company recorded its first loss, largely as a result of mounting costs of operation. In 1974, tolls were raised for the first time, from $0.90 per cargo ton to $1.08. The Queen Elizabeth II locked through the canal in 1975 and paid a record toll of $42,077.88. The average toll per ship was approximately $10,000, about one-tenth of the cost of sailing around Cape Horn as an alternate direct all-water route. The lowest toll on record was paid by Richard Halliburton, a world traveler who in the 1920’s swam the length of the canal in installments. Although he was not the first to swim the canal, he was the first to persuade authorities to allow him through the locks. Some changes were made in the design of the canal over time. Parts were widened by up to 500 feet, a storage dam was built across the Chagres River, and the original towing locomotive was retired and replaced by more powerful models. The fundamental characteristics of the canal remained unchanged, however. Only two issues of design have received significant criticisms. First, it has been argued that the two sets of locks should have been replaced by a single unit at Miraflores. Second, it has been noted that Goethals seems to have underestimated the impact of landslides. Slides have posed a continuing problem, affecting the canal on many occasions. In 1914, a slide at East Culebra caused blockage of the entire channel. In spite of these issues, the all-water passage across Panama is recognized as a supreme achievement. Its completion fulfilled a dream that had been held for hundreds of years. The Panama Canal enhanced East-West trade by shortening transit times (and thus costs), a development that helped to unify political and economic interests in the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Eastern and Western worlds. Construction of the canal also served to demonstrate humankind’s dedication to technological improvement in transportation. —Theodore O. Wallin
lina Press, 1990. Covers the entirety of the Panama Canal’s construction and operation process. McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977. Offers comprehensive coverage of the building of the canal, including many interesting statistics and helpful perspectives. Mellander, Gustavo A., and Nelly Maldonado Mellander. Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río Piedras, P.R.: Editorial Plaza Mayor, 1999. Biography of an early governor of the Panama Canal Zone. Snapp, Jeremy Sherman. Destiny by Design: The Construction of the Panama Canal. With photographs by Gerald Fitzgerald Sherman and Jeremy Sherman Snapp. Lopez Island, Wash.: Pacific Heritage Press, 2000. Photo essay and narrative combine to pay tribute to one of the greatest engineering feats of the twentieth century. Features more than 160 photographs that have never been published before, most taken by Sherman during the canal’s construction. See also: Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia; Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control; Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal.
September 1, 1914
Last Passenger Pigeon Dies The death of the last passenger pigeon, once among the most numerous birds in North America, marked the extinction of the species. Locale: Cincinnati, Ohio Category: Environmental issues Key Figures Sol Stephan (1909-1995), superintendent of the Cincinnati Zoo Charles O. Whitman (1842-1910), American zoologist and university professor David W. Whittaker (fl. early twentieth century), American prospector and naturalist Summary of Event The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was once a common bird in the eastern United States, one of the most populous of American bird species. Recorded ac-
counts of the passenger pigeon date to as early as 1534. Early accounts describe flocks of thousands of birds, so numerous in flight that they blocked the sun, like a giant cloud extending as far as the eye could see. Distribution of the passenger pigeon extended from northern Florida through Canada and from the eastern seaboard through the Midwest region of the United States. A migratory species, the birds ranged throughout the whole eastern half of the United States and Canada, except for the southern tip of Florida and the northern edge of Canada. Their nesting area was in the region south of the Great Lakes and throughout most of New England. The species was given a number of common and scientific names over the years, but the one that remained is the one referring to its migratory habit. Like the buffalo, once an extremely common mammal in North America, the passenger pigeon suffered a significant decline in its population; unlike the buffalo, 1133
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Further Reading Brands, H. W. T. R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Iconoclastic biography of Theodore Roosevelt. Diaz Espino, Ovidio. How Wall Street Created a Nation: J. P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001. Argues that a combination of American imperialist attitudes and the prospect of financial gain led to the building of the Panama Canal. Gause, Frank Ales, and Charles Carl Carr. The Story of Panama. 1912. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1970. A comprehensive analysis of the development of the Panama Canal, drawn from materials prepared at the time. Harmon, George M., ed. Transportation: The Nation’s Lifelines. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1968. Offers general comments about the developing role of the transportation infrastructure, including the Panama Canal. Kemble, John H. The Panama Route: 1848-1869. 1943. Reprint. Columbia: University of South Caro-
Last Passenger Pigeon Dies
Last Passenger Pigeon Dies which survived thanks to a captive propagation and reintroduction effort, the bird became extinct. The very fact that the passenger pigeon was so commonplace was part of the problem, as it was hard for people to believe that such a populous species could possibly vanish. Hunters continued to pursue the birds even after it was known that their population was declining. A somewhat gradual decline occurred up through the late 1800’s. A serious increase in the rate of decline began in the 1870’s, brought about by the fact that the commercial trade in passenger pigeons became viable as a result of improvements in rapid rail transportation to the urban marketplaces on the East Coast. In 1855, the market for game birds in New York City consumed about 300,000 pigeons annually. By 1871, 300,000 pigeons were being shipped east in a single month. The number of birds killed each year for the market was in the millions. Other factors also contributed to the decline of the passenger pigeon. Perhaps most significant was the loss of the bird’s forest habitat as a result of the destruction of a substantial portion of the eastern forest from colonial times through the 1800’s. Some passenger pigeons were killed as agricultural pests, and some were trapped alive (accounts of tame pigeons that had been trapped have been found from as early as 1748). Attempts to breed passenger pigeons were few, which is understandable considering how numerous the birds were in the wild. John James Audubon took some to England, where they bred at the London Zoological Gardens in 1832. A few other individuals are also known to have bred them, especially in the later 1800’s, when they were becoming seriously depleted in the wild. The prospector and naturalist David W. Whittaker had about fifty passenger pigeons, which he raised in Wisconsin from a pair given to him in 1888 by a Native American. By 1896, fifteen passenger pigeons remained in this flock, one of the last known captive flocks, which was sold in 1897 to Charles O. Whitman at the University of Chicago; some were returned the following year. The last of these birds died in 1907. Soon after its opening in 1875, the Cincinnati Zoo, under superintendent Sol Stephan, included passenger pigeons in its collection. They bred, but not successfully. In 1875, the zoo had twenty-two passenger pigeons. It captured about seventeen in 1876, and in 1878 it purchased six pair. The birds began to breed in 1878 or 1879. By 1881, the zoo had twenty passenger pigeons, and by 1885, another fourteen had hatched. Nevertheless, the captive population continued to decline, and by 1907, only two males and a female were left. One male died in 1134
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1909 and another in 1910, and the sole remaining female, Martha, died on September 1, 1914, at the age of twentynine. It is believed that Martha (who was named after Martha Washington) was one of a trio of birds obtained from Whitman’s flock in 1902, and thus that she was descended from Whittaker’s Wisconsin pigeons. She was not only the last passenger pigeon at the Cincinnati Zoo but also the last one in captivity, given that those in the Whittaker and Whitman flocks had died. She was also, apparently, the last of the species, as the wild population had completely disappeared. After 1899, the Cincinnati Zoo made a standing offer to pay one thousand dollars— a large sum of money at the time—to anyone who could provide it with another pair of passenger pigeons. No one ever claimed that payment. Martha’s body was given to
Artist’s rendering of a passenger pigeon from a volume on pigeons published in 1920. (Carnegie Institution of Washington)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Smithsonian Institution and displayed at the U.S. National Museum.
Last Passenger Pigeon Dies
Eulogy for the Passenger Pigeon The famous American preservationist Aldo Leopold offered these thoughts
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on the extinction of the passenger pigeon in his essay “A Monument to the Significance Pigeon,” from A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University The most immediate effect of the passenPress, 1949): ger pigeon’s decline and extinction was the passage of the first federal wildlife Men still live who, in their youth remember pigeons; trees still live that, in protection law, the Lacey Act of 1900, their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a few decades hence only which was followed by several other wildthe oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know. life protection and endangered species We grieve because no living man will ever see again the onrush of vicconservation laws. The loss of the passentorious birds, sweeping a path for spring across the March skies, chasing the defeated winter from all of the woods and prairies. ger pigeon and the declines observed in There will always be pigeons in books and in museums but they are other species resulted in the first serious dead to all hardships and to all delights. They cannot dive out of a cloud, efforts at conservation in the United States nor clap their wings in thunderous applause. They know no urge of seaduring the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. sons; they feel no kiss of sun, no lash of wind and weather, they live forThe expanded role of the federal governever by not living at all. ment in protecting wildlife eventually led to the passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. A more gradual consequence of the remaining extant in captivity while becoming extinct in passenger pigeon’s extinction was the improvement of the wild. Still others remain extant in the wild because of captive propagation efforts to conserve endangered specaptive propagation programs. cies. Conservation had been an aim of zoological parks In 1980, the American Zoo and Aquarium Associasince the end of the nineteenth century, but their ability to tion (AZA) designated conservation as the highest priorconserve species effectively was limited. The earliest ity of its member institutions, and since that time efforts zoos at Philadelphia (1874), Cincinnati (1875), Washat conservation have intensified. AZA and its member inington, D.C. (1889), and New York (1899) led the way stitutions have established species survival plans for inwith breeding and conservation efforts. Most zoos, howdividual species, taxon advisory groups for groups of ever, were small and poorly funded, and such efforts did species, and fauna interest groups for species within geonot become common in the United States until after the graphic regions, among other groups and committees. 1950’s. Zoos’ ability to establish serious coordinated Studbooks (breeding records) have been established for propagation programs was not very strong until after the rare or endangered species, and the U.S. Fish and Wild1960’s, and the biotechnology and reproductive biology life Service has formed species-recovery teams. As of knowledge needed to support successful efforts was not 2005, 416 recovery programs for endangered or threatavailable until after the 1980’s. ened animal species were operating in the United States. The passenger pigeon was by no means the only speAt the same time, Congress was considering a bill cies to become extinct in North America. The Carolina amending the Endangered Species Act that critics argued parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), the only parrot spewould weaken its ability to protect threatened species. cies to nest in the United States, was another example. In On the international level, the World Zoo Organiza1886, the Cincinnati Zoo purchased several from Florida tion has devoted eleven sections of its global plan to the and bred them, but not successfully. Some months after role of zoological parks in conserving the world’s endanits mate died, a male named Incas—the last of its spegered species. The organization’s strategy emphasizes cies—died at the zoo on February 21, 1918. Despite a the use of integrated conservation programs that involve beleaguered attempt to breed the last specimens of the the captive propagation and reintroduction of specimens dusky seaside sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus niinto their natural habitats. As of December, 1992, 138 regrescens) in captivity and to provide the species with the introduction projects were operating, involving 120 speprotection of the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish cies and more than 14 million captively bred specimens. and Wildlife Service in 1990 declared the species extinct Of these, 40 percent involved bird species. Zoological and removed it from the official list of endangered speparks were involved in 52 percent of all the reintroduccies. Many other species have had a slightly happier fate,
Last Passenger Pigeon Dies tion projects, and some 9,000 of the reintroduced specimens were born in zoos. As of 2005, in addition to those in the United States, 560 species were considered endangered or threatened throughout the rest of the world. One aspect of modern captive propagation that was not available at the time the passenger pigeon became extinct is improved biotechnology. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, scientists had developed genetic and reproductive techniques that could be used to increase numbers of offspring and improve reproductive success. Greater knowledge of genetics at both the individual and the population levels and improvements in small population biology, veterinary medicine, and animal management also contributed to the development of successful propagation programs. — Vernon N. Kisling, Jr. Further Reading Ehrlinger, David. The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden: From Past to Present. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, 1993. Presents a history of the zoo, including a section on the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet, and the zoo’s memorial to these two species. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species. Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Moore, H. D. M., W. V. Holt, and G. M. Mace, eds. Biotechnology and the Conservation of Genetic Diver-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sity. Symposium of the Zoological Society of London 64. London: Zoological Society of London, 1992. A relatively technical book on the use of biotechnology in reproductive biology, especially in captive propagation programs. Petersen, Shannon. “Congress and Charismatic Megafauna: A Legislative History of the Endangered Species Act.” Environmental Law 29, no. 2 (1999): 463-472. Examines the expectations attached to the Endangered Species Act when it was passed in 1973 and how interpretation and enforcement of the act have evolved. Saikku, Mikko. “The Extinction of the Carolina Parakeet.” Environmental History Review 14, no. 3 (1990): 1-18. Discusses the natural history, decline, and extinction of this species, which are similar to those of the passenger pigeon. Schorger, W. A. The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction. 1973. Reprint. Caldwell, N.J.: Blackburn Press, 2004. A well-researched and welldocumented account. Explains clearly how a species can be brought to the brink of extinction. Walters, Mark J. A Shadow and a Song. Post Mills, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 1992. An account of the natural history, decline, and extinction of the dusky seaside sparrow. Focuses on the conservation and captive propagation efforts to save this subspecies. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established; Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Battle of the Marne
September 5-9, 1914
First Battle of the Marne
Locale: Marne River Valley, east of Paris, France Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I; military history
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Summary of Event Before the outbreak of World War I, Germany’s only battle plan to meet the contingency of war on two fronts against France and Russia was the 1905 Schlieffen Plan, developed by General Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of staff of the Germany army from 1891 to 1906. He knew that the vast size of Russia and its undeveloped railroad system meant that the mobilization and deployment of the Russian armies on the German frontier
First Battle of the Marne, 1914
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Key Figures Karl von Bülow (1846-1921), commander of the German Second Army Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929), commander of the French Ninth Army Louis-Félix-Marie-François Franchet d’Espérey (1856-1942), general commander of the French Fifth Army John French (1852-1925), commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force Joseph-Simon Galliéni (18491916), military governor of Paris Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre (1852-1931), commander in chief of the French armies Heinrich Rudolph Alexander von Kluck (1846-1934), commander of the German First Army Helmuth von Moltke (1848-1916), chief of staff of the German army, 1906-1914 Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913), chief of staff of the German army, 1891-1906
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would take two months. France, on the other hand, being a compact country and possessing a dense network of railroads, could bring up all its troops against Germany in three weeks. Schlieffen’s plan, accordingly, was to throw seven of the eight German armies against France initially. He proposed going around the strong fortifications on the border between France and Germany by marching two strong armies through Belgium in a westerly direction to the English Channel and then wheeling southward with the German First Army passing west of Paris and then turning back east to push the French against the German fortifications in the province of Lorraine. The French armies would be enveloped in a pocket southeast of Paris and they would be forced to surrender. Schlieffen’s plan called for massing a strong force on
The First Battle of the Marne halted the German advance into Paris and changed the nature of World War I combat, placing the emphasis on position rather than on movement.
First Battle of the Marne
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tacking, they were in fact more often thrown on the defensive, but their artillery and machine guns did repel the French attacks. On August 25, General Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre, commander in chief of the French armies, was forced to order a general retreat of all the French arTo view image, please refer to the mies. German troops followed the print edition of this title. retreating French and British armies, who led them east of Paris and south toward the Marne River. There, the French would halt the retreat, turn around, and fight the Germans in the First Battle of the Marne, September 5-9, 1914. On August 4, the day after Germany declared war on France, General Joffre established his staff headFrench soldiers shoot over the head of their fallen comrade during the First Battle of quarters at Vitry-le-François on the the Marne. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Marne, where he would be within eighty to ninety miles of each of the five French army headquarters. Unthe right flank and leaving the weaker left flank exposed like Moltke, who never visited the German field headto lure the French into an attack on the left flank while the quarters, Joffre remained in constant contact with his main German force overran the French from behind their commanders in the field. Delayed communications belines. “It would be like a revolving door,” one military tween the German field commanders and Moltke’s headanalyst explained, “if a man pressed heavily on one side, quarters in Luxembourg would be a decisive factor in the the other side would spring round and strike him in the Battle of the Marne. back.” Once the French were defeated, the German The British Expeditionary Force under the command forces could then be sent to the eastern front to destroy of Field Marshal Sir John French entered the fight on Authe Russian armies, which in the meantime were exgust 23. Three days later, Joffre ordered the formation of pected to have advanced through eastern Prussia but no a new French Sixth Army in Paris, where it came under further than the Vistula River. Within about four months, the orders of the capital’s military governor, General the whole war should have been over. Joseph-Simon Galliéni. Joffre also created from elements General Helmuth von Moltke succeeded Schlieffen as of other armies a French Ninth Army under the command chief of staff of the German army in 1906. Fearful that of General Ferdinand Foch. Moltke was still intent on the French might invade German Alsace while the Geroutflanking the French Fifth Army at the Franco-Belgian man army’s right wing was still advancing, Moltke modfrontier, and on August 30, he abandoned the part of the Schlieffen Plan that called for an advance to the west of ified Schlieffen’s plan by strengthening the German left Paris. Instead, he directed the German First Army to adflank with new divisions that were formed before 1913. vance east of Paris as an echelon of the German Second At the outbreak of war in 1914, this variant of the original Army and one day’s march behind it. Nevertheless, the plan was put into effect. The German First and Second commander of the German First Army, General Heinrich Armies, consisting of thirty-two out of the seventy-eight Rudolph Alexander von Kluck, continued to push forGerman infantry divisions in the west, advanced through ward in line with the German Second Army on his left, Belgium. commanded by General Karl von Bülow. Kluck did Meanwhile, the French launched a headlong offentransfer one army corps from his left to his right as a flank sive at the advancing Germans. Between August 20 and guard against Paris, but this maneuver opened a small 24, 1914, a series of bloody collisions occurred along the gap between himself and Bülow. Franco-Belgian frontier. Although the Germans were at1138
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Significance The German plan to overwhelm France rapidly and then crush Russia with the help of Austria-Hungary was frustrated by this Franco-British victory. The Germans now were faced with the stalemate of trench warfare on the western front. The war continued for more than three years, with thousands of lives lost on both sides in futile efforts to break through the defensive positions marked by opposing trenches stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea. During the First Battle of the Marne, none of the opposing generals proved to be a great leader. In the moment of crisis, Moltke lost his nerve, and German emperor William II consequently relieved him of his command on September 14, 1914. Joffre’s victory, although aided by German mistakes, was largely a result of the brilliant execution of orders by his subordinates. The decision to turn and fight at the Marne halted the German invasion, saved France from defeat, and kept the Germans from imposing their hegemony on Europe. — Samuel K. Eddy and Marguerite R. Plummer
Further Reading Asprey, Robert B. The First Battle of the Marne. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962. Analyzes the military operations and the capabilities of the commanders involved in the battle. Attributes the Franco-British victory to an inspired will to win. Blond, Georges. The Marne: The Battle That Saved Paris and Changed the Course of the First World War. London: Prion Books, 2002. Provides a detailed account of the battle, in part by following the events experienced by one particular French soldier. Gilbert, Martin. The First World War: A Complete History. New York: Henry Holt, 1994. Comprehensive history provides incisive analyses of the causes and consequences of the war as well as detailed accounts of battles. Includes maps, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Isselin, Henri. The Battle of the Marne. Translated by C. Connell. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Attributes the Franco-British victory to the Germans’ abandonment of the Schlieffen Plan. Joll, James. The Origins of the First World War. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 2000. Ageneral examination of the causes of World War I, emphasizing the international system, strategic planning and the arms race, domestic politics, international economics, and imperial rivalries. Ritter, Gerhard. The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth. Translated by Andrew Wilson and Eva Wilson. 1958. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Examines the strategic thinking shared by Schlieffen and Moltke. Strachan, Hew, ed. World War I: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Collection of essays covers all aspects of the war and the issues surrounding it. Includes many illustrations, maps, and index. Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August. 1962. Reprint. New York: Presidio Press, 1994. In-depth account of the preparations of Germany, Russia, France, and Britain for World War I, including operations preceding the Battle of the Marne. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun; May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland; Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive. 1139
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On September 3, Galliéni’s reconnaissance reported that Kluck’s and Bülow’s forces were slightly separated, and he suggested attacking Kluck’s army. On September 4, Joffre ordered a general “about-face” of the Allied armies, and a general offensive was to begin against the Germans on September 6. The battle began a day early, however, when troops dispatched from the Paris garrison ran into the right flank of the German First Army. When Galliéni’s troops made contact with Kluck’s flanking corps, Kluck transferred more men from his left to his right in order to avoid being taken from the rear. This deployment widened the gap between Kluck and Bülow to some twenty miles, screened only partially by light infantry and cavalry. If the German right wing had had the extra troops that Moltke sent to the German left flank on mobilization, there might have been no gap, and the Battle of the Marne might have developed differently. On September 6, however, the French Fifth Army, under the command of General Louis-Félix-Marie-François Franchet d’Espérey, and the British Expeditionary Force sent forward by Field Marshal French advanced slowly into the gap to threaten the flanks of both the German First and Second Armies. General Foch’s Ninth Army was instrumental in repelling German counterattacks for two days. Finally, on September 9, the Germans were driven back across the Marne and pushed sixty miles farther to positions across the Aisne River. The First Battle of the Marne was over.
First Battle of the Marne
Irish Home Rule Bill
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 15, 1914
Irish Home Rule Bill The Irish Home Rule Bill marked the collision of Irish nationalism and British party politics, bringing about a constitutional crisis that nearly resulted in the enactment of a law that could not be enforced. Locale: London, England; Ireland Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures H. H. Asquith (1852-1928), prime minister of Great Britain, 1908-1916 Sir Edward Carson (1854-1935), Ulster Unionist leader and member of Parliament Winston Churchill (1874-1965), first lord of the British Admiralty and Liberal leader in the House of Commons James Craig (1871-1940), Ulster Unionist leader and member of Parliament Bonar Law (1858-1923), Unionist Party leader in the House of Commons David Lloyd George (1863-1945), Chancellor of the Exchequer Eoin MacNeill (1867-1945), founder of the Nationalist Volunteers and leader of the Gaelic League Patrick Henry Pearse (1879-1916), leader of Sinn Féin John Redmond (1856-1918), leader of the Irish Nationalist Party Frederick Edwin Smith (1872-1930), Unionist Party member of Parliament Summary of Event The Act of Union of 1800, which established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, had never been popular either in Catholic Ireland or in Protestant Ulster. When Catholic Irish Nationalists sought the restoration of the Irish parliament, or home rule, during the nineteenth century, Ulster Protestants, fearing for their safety, turned to the Conservative Party for help. In the 1880’s the matter became important in British politics when the Irish Nationalist Party delegates, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, used their 85 votes to keep the Liberal Party in power in exchange for home rule. As a result, William Ewart Gladstone’s Liberal government introduced the first Home Rule Bill in 1886, but it was defeated by 30 votes, and part of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Unionists, broke away to join with the Conservatives. Gladstone’s second Home Rule Bill passed the House of Commons by 34 votes in 1140
1893, but it was overwhelmed in the House of Lords by a vote of 419 to 41. In succeeding years Conservative-Unionist governments tried unsuccessfully to divert Irish attention from home rule by a series of economic reforms. John Redmond, a good parliamentarian and an orator of repute, became leader of the united Irish Nationalist Party in the House of Commons in 1900, but as neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives needed Irish votes, no progress was made until 1910. In the campaign of that year, the Liberals supported home rule but lost so many seats that they needed the votes of the Irish Nationalists to form a cabinet and pass their legislative program. A new Home Rule Bill for Ireland was assured as a result of this political necessity. The obstacle to such a measure in the House of Lords had been removed with the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which had reduced the power of the upper chamber. The third Home Rule Bill was introduced into the House of Commons on April 11, 1912, by H. H. Asquith, the Liberal prime minister, and managed by Winston Churchill, who was then Liberal leader in the House of Commons and a strong proponent of home rule. The provisions of the bill were similar to those of the earlier bills, which had proposed an Irish parliament in Dublin while reserving for the British parliament at Westminster control over foreign affairs, customs duties, and defense. The number of Irish members of Parliament at Westminster would be cut by half, to forty-two. Redmond and the Irish Nationalists praised the bill and argued that it would strengthen the relationship between Great Britain and Ireland. Liberal leaders defended it as a rightful measure of self-determination and noted that home rule would relieve the British parliament from being burdened by local Irish affairs. The Home Rule Bill met bitter opposition from the Unionists, including both the Conservative-Unionists and the Ulster Unionists. With the Conservative Party having lost three consecutive elections, newly elected Conservative Party leader Bonar Law seized on Unionism as a means by which he could reunite a badly divided party. Sir Edward Carson’s goal was simpler: protection of the rights of Ulster, present-day Northern Ireland. This area was predominantly Protestant Scots-Irish and somewhat industrialized; the residents were bitterly opposed to joining the more rural Catholic south. The situation was complicated by the presence of a large Catholic mi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Volunteers, led by their founder, Eoin MacNeill, and by Patrick Henry Pearse, leader of Sinn Féin, began to drill in the south. In the face of such threats, Asquith backed down to some extent when the Home Rule Bill passed the Commons for the third and last time in March, 1914. He compromised by adding an Amending Bill, crafted by David Lloyd George, which provided a six-year exclusion clause for Ulster. Reluctantly, Redmond accepted it, but Nationalist groups objected. Neither Carson nor Law would, or could, accept the compromise. Tragically, other events quickly outpaced the parliamentary leadership. In late March, the so-called Mutiny at the Curragh apparently left the government with the prospect of a Home Rule Act that it could not enforce. Under the leadership of James Craig, German rifles were smuggled to the Ulster Defense Force; weapons were now poised behind words. With the Nationalist Volunteers in the south growing in influence and restlessness, Redmond unwillingly took command of them in May to avoid a split with MacNeill and Pearse. In this atmosphere, the Home Rule Bill passed the Commons on May 25, and the Amending Bill passed on June 23. The House of Lords again amended the Bills far beyond what Asquith could accept. When Carson proclaimed the “Ulster Provisional Government” on July 12, Britain appeared poised on the brink of civil confrontation. King George V called a conference at Buckingham Palace on July 21, but the questions of permanent exclusion and the boundaries of Ulster could not be solved, and the conference broke up. The situation became even more tense when, on July 26, after some guns had been smuggled into town, British troops fired on an angry Irish crowd in Bachelors’ Walk, Dublin, killing three and wounding many others. Austria declared war on Serbia the next day, however, and Great Britain was plunged into World War I by August 4. There does appear to have been a collective sigh of relief when those events forced home rule to the back burner. Redmond, Carson, and Law all agreed to postpone the Amending Bill until the end of hostilities in Europe. Redmond, in a loudly applauded speech, stated that his Irish Nationalist Volunteers would aid Great Britain; the Ulster Defense Force volunteered en masse to serve in the British army. Finally, on September 15, 1914, the Home Rule Bill became law, but its operations were suspended for the duration of the war. Nevertheless, home rule was dead, and the radical elements in Ireland soon split from Redmond. Eventually they were responsible for the Easter Rebellion of 1916 and for civil war after 1918. 1141
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nority in Ulster and a smaller but influential Protestant minority in the south of Ireland. Partition, however, was opposed by both sides. Irish Nationalists opposed it because they wanted Ireland to remain one nation, and the Ulster Protestants fought it because they did not wish to abandon the Protestants in the south. Ulster Unionists also argued that they were loyal Protestant Britons who were being sacrificed to disloyal Catholic Irishmen for the sake of political expediency. They were convinced that the Catholic Irish would persecute them religiously and economically. The debate in the House of Commons was heated and disorderly, but the Liberal-Irish coalition had the votes and the Home Rule Bill passed the Commons on January 16, 1913. The House of Lords rejected it by a huge majority, as expected, which meant that the bill would have to be passed again by the Commons at its next two sessions to overcome the Lords’ veto. Nevertheless, it was almost certain to pass, as the same Parliament would still be in session. Second passage was accomplished in the Commons on July 7, 1913; eight days later, the Lords again rejected the bill in uncompromising fashion. It was clear that, if constitutional means were followed, there was no real obstacle to the Home Rule Bill becoming law in 1914. Thus Ulster Protestants and Conservative-Unionists were willing to use any means, even apparently unconstitutional ones, to stop home rule. At first, the Liberal government did not consider the threat of rebellion in Ulster to be real, and they believed that the situation would settle down if they avoided provocation. Carson was aware that some hardline Protestants favored overt action against the bill, and he undertook measures that he hoped would control and direct Ulster Protestant emotions. A “covenant” was drawn up containing a total of 470,000 signatures, and the Ulster Unionists began to drill a militia, the “Ulster Volunteers.” The Conservative-Unionist leaders, Bonar Law, Frederick Edwin Smith, and others, openly supported these measures in speeches throughout Great Britain. It was hoped that rhetoric and demonstrations could force the Liberal-Irish Nationalist coalition to the bargaining table. Southern Irish Nationalists were much upset by Ulster’s defiance and by the Liberal government’s weakness in the face of Ulster threats. Although Redmond continued to support Asquith and Parliament, other Irishmen became convinced of the need for stronger measures and for more than home rule. Groups such as the Irish Republicans and certain labor unions urged the south to imitate Ulster’s tactics. In November 1913, the Nationalist
Irish Home Rule Bill
Irish Home Rule Bill Significance The passage of the Home Rule Bill had profound effects on both Great Britain and Ireland. The ConservativeUnionist preaching of revolution seriously threatened the entire parliamentary system of government. Tragically, the danger of hyperbolic rhetoric is that there are always some individuals who take the arguments seriously and literally. Radical Irish groups, Protestant and Catholic, did so and broke with parliamentary tactics. The battle over the bill itself resulted in great domestic unrest throughout Ireland, and only the outbreak of World War I prevented an ominous constitutional crisis, and possibly even a bloody civil war, in Great Britain and Ireland. Ultimately, the failure to enforce home rule helped to sever the bonds between Great Britain and Ireland, preparing the way for the Irish Rebellion and eventual independence. Ulster opposition to home rule also resulted in the partition of Ireland that split off Northern Ireland from the rest of the island. —James H. Steinel and William S. Brockington, Jr. Further Reading Bew, Paul. Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Unionism, 1912-1916. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Contends that conciliation was viable before the Easter Rising of 1916 brought Sinn Féin to dominance. Includes index. Blake, Robert. The Unknown Prime Minister. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955. A summary of Bonar Law’s role in the home rule crisis that provides insight into the motivations of the Conservative-Unionist leadership. Boyce, D. G. The Irish Question and British Politics, 1868-1986. 2d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. An overview of the use of the Irish question by
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 political parties during the period. Includes maps, appendixes, and index. Dangerfield, George. The Strange Death of Liberal England, 1910-1914. 1935. Reprint. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. Provides brilliant exposition of the turmoil in Great Britain in the years just before World War I, but presents conclusions that require careful scrutiny. Hughes, Michael. Ireland Divided: The Roots of the Modern Irish Problem. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Examines the nationalistic ideas and myths that provide the underpinnings of the various Irish groups. Jalland, Patricia. The Liberals and Ireland: The Ulster Question in British Politics to 1914. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980. Provides an overview of the Irish question as a political issue in Britain and its effect on the Liberal Party. Laffan, Michael. The Partition of Ireland, 1911-1925. Dundalk, Ireland: Dundalgan Press, 1983. Presents a narrative of the issues and events surrounding the partition, from the time of the introduction of home rule. Mansergh, Nicholas. The Unresolved Question: The Anglo-Irish Settlement and Its Undoing, 1912-1972. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991. Presents important analysis of the long-range impact of the failure of compromise. Stewart, A. T. Q. The Irish Question. London: Edward Arnold, 1986. Brief, well-balanced account written by an Ulster Unionist historian. See also: Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded; Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy; Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion; 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare
September 22, 1914
Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare Germany began extensive submarine warfare as a strategy to cut off supplies to England before the United States or other neutral powers could enter World War I.
Key Figures Prince Louis of Battenberg (later Louis Mountbatten; 1900-1979), first sea lord of the British Admiralty, 1912-1914 Henry H. Campbell (fl. early twentieth century), commander of the British Seventh Cruiser Squadron Otto Weddigen (1882-1915), captain of the German submarine U-9
Summary of Event At the beginning of World War I, the first sea lord of the British Admiralty, Vice Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg, established patrols in the southern North Sea to protect the eastern entrance of the English Channel against raids by German destroyers and minelayers. The force assigned to this task included two flotillas of destroyers and a squadron of five old armored cruisers, but the risk of attack by German submarines was not actually taken very seriously. On September 5, 1914, however, the British light cruiser HMS Pathfinder was sunk by the German submarine U-21 off the Firth of Forth, and on September 13, the British submarine E-9 destroyed the German light cruiser Hela off Heligoland. It should have been apparent that submarines were making a significant appearance in the war and would have to be regarded as a serious danger to surface ships, but the Admiralty did nothing to alter the dispositions of the southern patrol. On September 22, three ships of the British Seventh Cruiser Squadron, HMS Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, were patrolling west of the The crew of a German submarine posing on their vessel in 1916. (Library of ConDutch coast. The squadron comgress) mander, Admiral Henry H. Camp-
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Locale: Southern North Sea Categories: Science and technology; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I; military history
bell, was on his flagship, which was refueling in port. When bad weather drove the escorting destroyers into port, the three cruisers were left without escort. In accordance with the admiral’s orders, they were steaming on a straight course at less than ten knots. Shortly after sunrise, they were sighted by Otto Weddigen, captain of the German submarine U-9. At 6:30 a.m., the submarine hit the Aboukir with a single skillfully directed torpedo. The cruiser quickly took on a dangerous list. The captain of the Aboukir, Captain John E. Drummond, believed that he had hit a mine, and, being the senior officer present, he ordered the other two ships to close in on him. The Hogue neared the sinking ship, came to a stop, and launched boats to rescue the crew of the Aboukir. U-9 then took aim at the stationary Hogue and fired again at close range. Two torpedoes hit and mortally wounded the Hogue. Meanwhile, the Aboukir capsized and sank. Ten minutes later, the Hogue also foundered, and the survivors joined those from the Aboukir in the sea. Unwilling to abandon the struggling men, R. W. Johnson, captain of the remaining ship Cressy, brought his vessel to a dead stop, thereby providing Weddigen with a helpless target. Weddigen did not miss the opportunity; he reloaded his torpedo tubes and fired three times at the Cressy. Two torpedoes exploded against the ship, ripping out its side. The cruiser sank in fifteen minutes. In little more than an hour, Weddigen had accounted for three 12,000ton armored cruisers with his small 493-ton ship manned
Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare by twenty-nine men. British loss of life was extremely heavy; fourteen hundred men out of the twenty-two hundred in the crews of the three ships were either killed or drowned. Shortly afterward, German submarines began to attack merchant vessels and proved themselves highly effective, and inhumane, destroyers of commerce. On October 20, 1914, U-17 sank the British Glitra; it was the first of more than 13,000 merchant ships, 36 million tons in all, to be sunk by submarines of all navies in both world wars. In 1917, the Germans inaugurated a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. “Unrestricted” meant that the U-boats did not observe the rules of international law, which prescribed that warships must search merchantmen suspected of carrying contraband before sinking them and that merchant ships must not be sunk at all if the crew could not first be put in a safe place. It was this offensive against civilian shipping, deemed brutish and cowardly by the standards of those days, that brought the United States into the war against Germany. Meanwhile, through unrestricted torpedo attacks and by laying mines, in the first four months of 1917 German submarines sank no fewer than 1,147 ships totaling more than 2.2 million tons, forcing Great Britain to face the possibility of starvation and defeat. The British responded by collecting their merchant ships into convoys that could be protected directly by escorting warships. Germany’s risky strategy—attempting to use U-boats to isolate and blockade Britain into submission before accidental sinkings of noncombatants could bring neutrals such as the United States into the war—failed. The sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915, with more than one hundred Americans aboard, was met with sharp rebukes and general threats from Washington, D.C. Other sinkings, including those of the Arabic in August, 1915, and the Sussex six months later, were followed by outrage in the United States and promises by Germany to end “unrestricted submarine warfare.” When it became clear that Germany actually had no intention of ordering a change in tactics for the U-boats, the United States entered the war in April, 1917. Significance At first, a certain amount of disdain existed for submarine warfare, as many believed that it was not an “honorable” way to fight. The nations of the world soon decided, however, that the areas beneath the ocean surfaces were as much a part of the military map as those above, and they devised strategies accordingly. Admiralty staffs started to procure submarines and plan for their use. 1144
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Likewise, those charged with defending against submarine attacks developed new strategies. In World War II, the British and their allies used the convoy system from the beginning of hostilities. The Germans retaliated by grouping their U-boats into packs, and great actions were fought between five or ten submarines and the convoy escorts in the grim Battle of the Atlantic. In 1942 alone, German submarines sank 1,054 ships totaling more than 5.7 million tons, seriously impeding the offensive capacity of the Allies. In the Mediterranean, British submarines dispatched a quarter of the entire Italian merchant marine, thus helping to cut off the Italo-German armies in Libya from their sources of food, fuel, and ammunition. During World War II, antisubmarine warfare efforts featured new “combined arms” approaches utilizing aircraft and surface ships; by the 1950’s, other submarines were used to track and sink submarines. By the 1960’s and 1970’s, attack submarines became a focal point of the antisubmarine warfare battle, especially against ballistic missile submarines. — Samuel K. Eddy and Larry Schweikart Further Reading Gibson, R. H., and Maurice Prendergast. The German Submarine War, 1914-1918. 1931. Reprint. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003. Objective account of the U-boats in World War I includes an estimate of their effectiveness in the conflict. Discusses the development and evolution of the U-boat before World War I and speculates about the effectiveness of submarines in future conflicts. Gray, Colin S. The Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War. New York: Free Press, 1992. Classic analysis of the effect of sea power on land conflicts provides an excellent overview of the topic. Includes discussion of submarine warfare. Macintyre, Donald. The Battle of the Atlantic. 1961. Reprint. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword Books, 2006. Review of antisubmarine warfare during World War II by a former captain of British antisubmarine warfare units. Emphasizes not only the close cooperation between air and sea forces in fighting the U-boats but also the coordination of military men and scientists, who provided the sophisticated electronic equipment that finally gave the Allies an edge. Möller, Eberhard, and Werner Brack. The Encyclopedia of U-Boats: From 1904 to the Present. London: Greenhill Books, 2005. Comprehensive reference volume
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 covers the full history of the German U-boat. Includes detailed information on individual boats’ service records, crew strengths, locations, and more. Tall, Jeffrey. Submarines and Deep-Sea Vehicles. San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Press, 2002. Illustrated history of submarines includes discussion of Germany’s U-boat fleet. Terraine, John. The U-Boat Wars, 1916-1945. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989. Exhaustive study of warfare and tactics in both world wars, laced with detail
Federal Trade Commission Is Organized about individuals, flotillas, strategies, and technology. Highly recommended. See also: 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass; Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I; May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania; Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar; May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland. 1914
September 26, 1914
Federal Trade Commission Is Organized Creation of the Federal Trade Commission empowered an agency of the U.S. government to protect competition and proactively deter the development of potential monopolies. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; government and politics Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), economic adviser to President Wilson George Rublee (1868-1957), American attorney Summary of Event The establishment of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914 signaled a dramatic change in the relationship between the U.S. government and business. No longer would the courts and the executive branch be the only interpreters of antitrust legislation; instead, the FTC, an independent regulatory commission, was empowered to define “unfair competition” and was also granted the requisite discretionary authority to apply the standard of unfairness. Although the Federal Trade Commission Act was passed in 1914, the law’s roots can be traced to the late nineteenth century. It was the exercise of corporate economic power in that period by men such as John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt that seemed to galvanize antibusiness sentiment among small-business owners, labor unions, and the middle
class. These groups would become the core of the Progressive movement. The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the beginning of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by social, economic, and political reform movements aimed at creating a society organized for collective action in the public interest. In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt advocated the supremacy of the “public interest” over business when he assumed the presidency. In 1903, the newly created Department of Commerce contained a Bureau of Corporations with a function of investigating corporate practices and publicizing unethical competitive methods of businesses. A series of informal agreements evolved between big business and the bureau under which firms granted the government access to their records and the bureau approved mergers when it found them to be in the public interest. The Progressive Era saw the development of a clear sense of the obligations of business to society. The role of the state started to evolve from laissez-faire to the belief that the state has a moral obligation to provide for the general welfare. It was during Woodrow Wilson’s first presidential administration that the Bureau of Corporations was transformed into the FTC. Wilson and the Democrats swept the country on election day in November, 1912. A key component of the winning party platform was a program Wilson called the New Freedom, which was aimed at the destruction and prevention of industrial and financial monopolies. Wilson proposed to accomplish this goal by reducing tariffs, reforming the banking and currency systems, and strengthening the Sherman Antitrust Act. A tariff reduction bill was quickly passed, and the Federal Reserve system was created in 1913. The last major item on the 1145
Federal Trade Commission Is Organized New Freedom agenda was the creation of legislation to strengthen the Sherman Act. The Sherman Act of 1890 to this point was the sole federal antitrust legislation. It did not enumerate specific monopolistic behaviors; rather, it declared as illegal any contracts, combinations, and conspiracies in restraint of trade. The act’s vagueness ultimately left determination of the meaning of its prohibitions to the courts. The U.S. attorneys general of the 1890’s were reluctant to exercise their discretionary authority to initiate prosecutions under the act’s provisions. The act was further weakened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s promulgation of the “rule of reason” in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco cases of 1911. The Court held that only “unreasonable” restraints of trade were illegal. The first response in an attempt to strengthen the Sherman Act was the Clayton bill. Drafted by Representative Henry Clayton, it attempted to overcome the vagueness of the Sherman Act and the rule of reason by enumerating specific illegal business practices. Prohibited activities included discriminatory pricing, tie-in selling, exclusive dealing, and interlocking directorates. These were deemed illegal per se, regardless of their reasonableness. The political compromises necessary to obtain passage of the bill led to an act with provisions that were easily circumvented. The Clayton Antitrust Act was signed into law three weeks after the Federal Trade Commission Act, on October 15, 1914. President Wilson described the Clayton Act as “so weak you cannot tell it from water.” A major cause of concern was that the primary responsibility for enforcement remained with the U.S. Department of Justice and the judicial system. Originally, neither Wilson nor his primary economic adviser, Louis D. Brandeis, supported the concept of a strong trade commission. Wilson at first proposed the creation of an agency that would moderate but not unduly restrict business. In keeping with this philosophy, the administration supported a bill introduced by Representative James Covington that envisioned a commission that would secure and publish information, conduct investigations as requested by Congress, and support methods of improving business practices and antitrust enforcement. This proposal submitted to Congress to create an advisory commission was transformed into an act creating a powerful commission with broad regulatory powers. This metamorphosis can be attributed to the inability to pass a strong version of the Clayton Act and the pragmatic difficulty of specifying all unlawful trade 1146
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 practices. Faced with these difficulties, Wilson, in consultation with congressional leaders, decided on a new strategy that would abandon a legislative solution for an administrative one. The new strategy was greatly influenced by George Rublee, an attorney and former member of the Progressive Party whom Wilson called in to assist in the drafting of antitrust legislation when Brandeis was occupied by an Interstate Commerce Commission rate case. Rublee’s intervention and the deadlock over the Clayton bill were primary factors in the creation of a regulatory agency as the primary method of restraining the activities of business. The FTC Act was signed into law on September 26, 1914. The newly created commission had two major duties: to see that unfair methods of competition were prevented and to keep the public and Congress informed as to developments within an industry that threatened competition. The agency would carry out this mission through the utilization of its three major powers: the cease and desist order, the stipulation, and the trade practice conference. The FTC was structured as an independent regulatory commission with five members (no more than three from the same political party) serving staggered sevenyear terms, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The creation of a bipartisan, independent commission with broad discretionary authority was viewed as a radical step in the federal government’s attempts to control and regulate business. The FTC was to become perhaps the most controversial of the independent regulatory commissions, with its broad discretionary powers the primary source of the controversy. Significance In assessing the impact of the FTC, it is necessary to analyze both the political and the pragmatic consequences associated with the commission’s creation. Politically, the FTC represented the institutionalization of the widespread public opinion that competition is beneficial and an integral part of the American economy. It further inexorably altered the relationship between the federal government and the private sector. The commission represented a continuation of the repudiation of the laissezfaire doctrine that had commenced with the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887. The FTC was a permanent administrative apparatus that was granted broad statutory powers, discretionary authority, and a jurisdiction not limited to a specific industry. These delegations of authority created an agency that could attack economic and societal problems with-
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practices of competitors. Critics also assert that failure to establish priorities has led to the commission’s handling too many cases, the vast majority of which have had little impact on the public interest. In addition, the FTC has been accused of failing to exercise enforcement powers, too often relying on voluntary correction of behavior. Some observers have asserted that the agency has dissipated its own power by allowing unreasonable amounts of time to elapse between investigations and final decisions. During the period of an investigation, the FTC has no punitive power to discourage illegal behavior, and many firms under investigation have continued their behavior until actual sanctions were imminent. Delay also undermines a major goal of the FTC, that of preventing unfair practices. The delay in starting agency proceedings is primarily a function of poor staff work, raising the issue of the efficacy of FTC personnel. Critics question the ability of staff and cite the high turnover rate among FTC personnel. The FTC was born of political compromise, with no consensus as to its mission, and as such it has been exposed to shifting political winds. The FTC was created as an independent, bipartisan regulatory commission, but too often it has employed or promoted the politically well connected and allocated resources to marginal issues solely because of requests from members of Congress. The FTC has not been without its advocates, who have been as vigorous as its critics. Criticisms of personnel and actions, they have argued, should have produced significant reforms if valid. Defenders of the FTC have rebutted allegations that the absence of precise standards has led the commission to concentrate on smaller firms by citing incidents in which the commission has been both innovative and courageous. Proponents of the FTC have noted further that its activities have been severely hampered by a lack of financial resources to accomplish a vast array of tasks. They have defended the slow speed at which the FTC has resolved cases by reminding critics that the commission is bound by procedures of due process. In the final analysis, a given individual’s evaluation of the impact of the FTC on the U.S. economy, society, and public interest is probably a function of that person’s expectations of the commission and perceptions of the optimal level of government involvement in the private sector. FTC advocates demand greater involvement in reaction to the evils of business, whereas critics tend to view any FTC action as tampering with the market system. —Eugene Garaventa 1147
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out reliance on the judicial or executive branches of government to initiate antitrust actions. As an independent regulatory commission, the FTC combined the functions of policy making, administration, and adjudication. The agency set precedents for the evolution of the American administrative state. Starting in the late nineteenth century and continuing into the 1970’s, the federal government became increasingly involved in regulating industries and activities. The creation of the FTC was surrounded by great controversy, and throughout the twentieth century the commission continued to be one of the most studied of all federal agencies. A major source of controversy was the FTC’s broad legislative delegation of authority. Section 5 of the FTC Act defines the commission’s primary responsibilities as identifying and preventing “unfair methods of competition” by issuing enforceable ceaseand-desist orders. Section 6 outlines eight additional powers: to investigate corporations, to request reports from corporations, to investigate compliance with antitrust decrees, to conduct investigations for the president or Congress, to recommend business adjustments to comply with law, to make public the information obtained, to classify corporations, and to investigate conditions in foreign countries that affect trade. In 1938, the Wheeler-Lea Act amended the FTC Act to empower the agency to protect the consumer as well as to promote competition. A 1974 amendment expanded the commission’s jurisdiction from “methods, acts, practices in commerce” to “ methods, acts, practices affecting commerce.” The discretionary authority granted the FTC proved to be a double-edged sword. Discretion theoretically allowed the commission to take action in numerous areas with various tools, but it could also choose to take no action. The perceived failure of the FTC to exercise its discretion in the form of action has been the source of much criticism. The commission has been accused of misallocating its resources toward minor issues and failing to take action on substantial matters. Critics have argued that the cases investigated have involved minor matters with only minimal impact on the U.S. economy or the public interest. The agency’s broad mandate has contributed to its inability to articulate definite goals, objectives, and standards of performance. The absence of direction leaves the commission rudderless in a complex environment. The FTC has also been accused of failing to detect violations, as its primary means of detecting deceptive practices is to wait for a businessperson to inform on the
Federal Trade Commission Is Organized
Federal Trade Commission Is Organized Further Reading Blackford, Mansel G., and Austin K. Kerr. Business Enterprise in American History. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Provides concise coverage of the history of the American business firm and the evolution of government-business relations from colonial times to the end of the twentieth century. Clements, Kendrick A. The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. Brief coverage of the Wilson presidency. Valuable for highlighting major issues in a direct and concise manner. Chapter 3 covers major domestic issues, including establishment of the FTC. Cox, Edward, Robert C. Fellmeth, and John E. Schulz. The Nader Report on the Federal Trade Commission. New York: Richard W. Baron, 1969. A scathing criticism of the Federal Trade Commission’s operations, highlighting its failures, politicization, and attempts to mask inefficiency. Green, Mark J. The Closed Enterprise System. New York: Grossman Press, 1972. Analyzes the impacts of the FTC on American antitrust policy. Link, Arthur. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917. New York: Harper, 1954. Addresses the political and diplomatic history of the United States from the disruption of the Republican Party in 1910 to U.S. entrance into World War I. Provides excellent coverage of the transitional reform period and the increasing role of government in society. McClure, Marc Eric. Earnest Endeavors: The Life and Public Work of George Rublee. New York: Praeger, 2003. First biography of the largely overlooked Rub-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lee, who was instrumental in the writing of the Federal Trade Commission Act and was also involved in several important international events in the early decades of the twentieth century. Stid, Daniel D. The President as Statesman: Woodrow Wilson and the Constitution. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998. Examines Wilson’s views concerning what constitutes responsible government and describes his efforts to establish such government in the United States. Discusses the effects of Wilson’s presidency on American political thought. Stone, Alan. Economic Regulation and the Public Interest: The Federal Trade Commission in Theory and Practice. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. Provides an objective analysis of the Federal Trade Commission’s strengths and weaknesses. Wilson, James Q., ed. The Politics of Regulation. New York: Basic Books, 1980. Wilson and other contributors analyze the politics of the major regulatory agencies. Of special interest is Robert A. Katzmann’s chapter on the FTC, which presents an unconventional explanation of the agency’s political behavior. See also: 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing; Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Clayton Antitrust Act
October 15, 1914
Clayton Antitrust Act With the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914, the U.S. government further codified prohibitions against unlawful restraints of trade and monopolies. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event On October 15, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act. This law was designed to strengthen the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by fully codifying specific illegal activities. The Clayton Act forbade a corporation from purchasing stock in a competitive firm, outlawed contracts based on the condition that the purchaser would do no business with the seller’s competitors, and made interlocking stockholdings and directorates illegal. It also contained provisions designed to make corporate officers personally responsible for antitrust violations. In addition, the Clayton Act declared that labor unions were not conspiracies in restraint of trade, thus exempting them from provisions of the bill. To carry out and enforce the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act, Congress created the Federal Trade Commission in a related measure. For more than a decade after its passage, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 had very little effect on corporations in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, however, pushed enforcement of the Sherman Act. In 1902, the Roosevelt administration brought suit against the giants of the railroad industry and the “beef trust.” The U.S. Supreme Court ordered dissolution of the Morgan-Hill-Harriman railroad holding company in the Northern Securities case (1904), and in the case of Swift & Company v. United States (1905) the Court enjoined the beef trust from engaging in collusive price-fixing ac-
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Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), American attorney Henry D. Clayton (1857-1929), U.S. congressman from Alabama Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909, and presidential candidate in 1912 Arsène Pujo (1861-1939), U.S. congressman from Louisiana
tivities. In 1906 and 1907, Roosevelt had the Justice Department bring suit against the American Tobacco Company, the E. I. du Pont Chemical Corporation, the New Haven Railroad, and the Standard Oil Company. The Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the American Tobacco (1910) and Standard Oil (1911) companies. Between 1890 and 1905, the Department of Justice brought twenty-four antitrust suits; the Roosevelt administration brought suit against fifty-four companies. The single administration of William Howard Taft later prosecuted ninety antitrust cases. Despite this increase in federal antitrust regulation and prosecution, the trend toward large corporations grew. The economic concentration that had increased dramatically in the late nineteenth century continued to increase in the early twentieth century. The greatest period of business mergers in the United States occurred during the William McKinley administration, from 1897 to 1901. Between 1896 and 1900, approximately two thousand mergers were completed, with nearly twelve hundred of them occurring in 1899. Business consolidations took place in phases after that. Between 1904 and 1906, there were roughly four hundred mergers; between 1909 and 1913, more than five hundred mergers took place. During this time of increasing economic concentration, interlocking directorates (in which individuals serve on the boards of directors of several corporations, particularly within the same industry) also increased. By 1909, 1 percent of the industrial firms in the United States produced nearly half of the nation’s manufactured goods. By 1913, two financial groups, the investment banking firm of J. P. Morgan and the interests of John D. Rockefeller, held 341 directorships in 112 corporations, with an aggregate capitalization of more than $22 billion. These facts and many others were made public by the House of Representatives subcommittee on the “money trust” in the summer of 1912. Led by Representative Arsène Pujo, the hearings heightened existing public fears about economic concentration and intensified the political debate over the trust issue during the presidential campaign of 1912. Louis D. Brandeis, a Boston attorney who had developed a reputation for being “the people’s lawyer,” greatly influenced Democratic presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson’s policies on business trusts and government regulation. Brandeis often represented small and medium-sized manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers and had developed a philosophy he believed would
Clayton Antitrust Act protect them against the actions of their larger competitors. Brandeis met Wilson in the summer of 1912, and he later advised Wilson on matters concerning banking reform, monopoly and antitrust policy, and a trade commission to enforce existing antitrust laws. Brandeis also publicized his regulatory philosophy in a series of articles appearing in Harper’s Weekly titled “Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It.” Coming in the wake of the Pujo Committee hearings, these articles further directed public attention to the issues of banking reform, antitrust, and economic concentration. Brandeis denounced combinations and trusts of all kinds, including interlocking directorates. In the 1912 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt, in his attempt to regain the presidency, proposed an increase in the use of governmental agencies to regulate large corporations. Agencies would police certain corporate actions rather than focus on corporate size. Roosevelt believed that large corporations could be more efficient than smaller businesses and that unlimited competition could be devastating to corporations and ultimately to the economy. His Progressive/Bull Moose Party platform advocated establishment of a trade commission to begin a cooperative regulatory approach. Wilson, influenced by Brandeis and to some extent by former Populist/Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, opposed bigness in general, both in business and in government. Wilson favored dissolutions such as those of Standard Oil and American Tobacco. He believed that such large corporate monopolies squeezed economic opportunity away from small and medium-sized businesses. For much of the 1912 campaign, Wilson failed to propose an antitrust agency or trade commission, as Roosevelt did. Toward the end of the campaign, and certainly once in office, Wilson came to support positions on the issues of antitrust and a trade commission that were closer to those of Roosevelt. The general public wanted increased regulation of large corporations, but businesses of all sizes wanted clarification and further codification of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Both small and large businesses wanted a clear line between legality and illegality to be embodied in legislation and enforced by a trade commission that would work with the private sector. What the business community opposed was being subject to the unpredictable policies of the Justice Department and the shifting jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, which had clouded the already vague standards and definitions of antitrust with its decisions in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco cases. In those cases, the 1150
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Court ruled that not every restraint of trade was illegal in terms of the Sherman Act. In the Standard Oil case, the Court ruled that it would determine whether combinations restrained trade rather than using size alone as a criterion of noncompetitive behavior. Firms would be within the law, through the “rule of reason,” no matter how large they were, if they did not engage in “unreasonable” behavior. The main objectives of additional antitrust legislation were thus clear: to create statutory specifics on antitrust prohibitions, to make monopolistic price-fixing agreements and price discrimination illegal, and to eliminate interlocking directorates. After obtaining legislation on tariff and banking reform in 1913, Wilson turned his attention to antitrust in 1914. In his message to Congress of January 20, 1914, Wilson stated that although further antitrust legislation would make a number of activities illegal, the main purpose was to help businesses remain within the bounds of legality. “Nothing hampers business like uncertainty,” said Wilson. “The best informed men of the business world condemn the methods and processes and consequences of monopoly as we condemn them.” With this presidential support, two days later Representative Henry D. Clayton introduced four bills in the House to amend the Sherman Act. Proposed antitrust bills and trade commission bills developed from February through June as the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee held hearings. Although businesses wanted antitrust clarification, some provisions of the developing Clayton bill alarmed smaller and “peripheral” businesses, which often engaged in trade or associational activities and price agreements initially prohibited by the bill. Businesses such as merchants, grocers, small manufacturers, and retailers desired prosecution of “unfair price competition” engaged in by larger firms. Conversely, these peripheral businesses feared government prosecution of trade association activities that included “fair-price agreements” designed to ensure profitability. Smaller businesses had been hit especially hard by federal antitrust policies in the past. From 1905 to 1915, seventy-two antitrust cases had been brought against these peripheral businesses; fewer than thirty had involved the largest firms. Under pressure from business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers, Congress amended the bill. The Clayton Act made price discrimination illegal but attached amendments that gave businesses considerable allowances and exemptions.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The Clayton Act proved to be an enduring piece of legislation, and it has been strengthened a number of times since its passage. Just after its passage, however, the antitrust movement began to fade away. The great period of antitrust activity in the United States began during the McKinley administration and peaked under President Taft. The Wilson administration brought fewer antitrust suits than did either the Roosevelt or the Taft administration. Late in 1914, Wilson stated that he believed federal regulation had gone far enough. He viewed the Clayton Act as the concluding act in the antitrust movement, noting, “The reconstructive legislation which for the last two decades the opinion of the country has demanded has now been enacted.” At least as important, however, was the fact that for-
eign policy and World War I increasingly demanded Wilson’s attention. Many historians have contended that although the antitrust movement had reached a natural decline, World War I further undermined it. War mobilization required the coordinated efforts of the leaders of every industry involved. Economic concentration and collusive efforts were necessary and accepted for the war effort. For example, in early 1918 the Fuel Administration, a wartime agency, suppressed an attempt by the Federal Trade Commission to begin litigation against Standard Oil of Indiana for violation of the Clayton Antitrust Act. Some economic historians contend that the Clayton Act actually promoted economic concentration. The act clarified illegal actions, thereby helping to eliminate some monopolistic activities, but in so doing it allowed business combinations and trusts to engage in collusive activities not specifically prohibited. By codifying illegal behavior, Congress tacitly sanctioned other collusive activities aimed at reducing chaotic competition and ensuring stability. Large corporations such as General Motors and the Du Pont Chemical Company grew much larger immediately after passage of the Clayton Act and especially during the war effort. Desire for further antitrust reform was rekindled, briefly, by the federal New Deal response to the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935 prohibited public utility systems with more than three tiers of companies and designated the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate their size and finances. The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 and the Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 both supplemented the Clayton Act by attempting to protect small business from wholesalers that practiced price discrimination and by establishing “fair trade” price floors on numerous items. In 1938, Congress created the Temporary National Economic Committee to hold hearings on the issue of antitrust. Attorney General Thurman Arnold reinvigorated federal antitrust prosecution. Arnold brought a number of antitrust suits, notably against General Electric and the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa). Like the earlier antitrust effort of the Progressive Era, this campaign lost its strength and direction as a result of foreign policy concerns and economic mobilization for a war effort. Some important antitrust cases have taken place since World War II. In 1945, Alcoa was found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1948, the federal government forced a number of major U.S. film studios to divest themselves of studio-owned theaters. In 1961, the Supreme Court ordered the Du Pont Corporation to 1151
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Other amendments undermined the strength of the bill. The prohibition against corporate mergers in the Clayton Act was modified to apply only in those cases in which mergers tended to decrease competition, a vague standard open to judicial interpretation. The exemption of labor unions under the Clayton Act was equivocal and subject to judicial review. It was in fact the intention of Congress and the Wilson administration to allow the courts to settle the ambiguity of the new antitrust law. As a consequence, federal courts often ruled that the Clayton Act was inapplicable to business mergers, and labor unions found that they had no more protection under the Clayton Act than they had before. In its final form, the Clayton Act prohibited a corporation from discriminating in price between purchasers, engaging in exclusive sales, and tying purchases of one good to purchases of another if the effect of any of these actions was “to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly,” a standard open to broad judicial interpretation. Executives, directors, and officers of a corporation were made personally liable for corporate antitrust violations. The Clayton Act also prohibited one corporation from acquiring the stock of a competitor or a holding company from acquiring the stock of two competitors if such acquisition would substantially lessen competition, restrain commerce, or tend to create a monopoly; these were again standards open to judicial review. The Federal Trade Commission Act, also passed in 1914, transferred the functions of the U.S. Bureau of Corporations to the Federal Trade Commission and authorized the commission, among other duties, to issue cease-and-desist orders enjoining “unfair methods of competition and commerce.”
Clayton Antitrust Act
Clayton Antitrust Act divest itself of its holdings in General Motors Company. In 1967, the Federal Communications Commission ordered the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) to lower its rates. In 1982, after eight years of battling a private antitrust suit in federal court, AT&T agreed to be broken up, and a number of rival longdistance communication companies began to challenge AT&T’s control over the market. In 1950, the Celler-Kefauver Act extended the Clayton Act by tightening prohibitions on business mergers that lessen competition and lead to monopoly. In 1976, Congress passed the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, also known as the Concentrated Industries Act, a mild reform law that attempted to strengthen provisions of existing antitrust laws. Clearly, monopolistic behavior remained a fact of American economic life throughout the twentieth century, but federal prosecution of anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions became rare, although several high-profile antitrust actions were pursued with some vigor in the 1990’s in the federal courts, including a U.S. government suit against Microsoft Corporation. — Bruce Andre Beaubouef Further Reading Blum, John Morton. “Woodrow Wilson and the Ambiguities of Reform.” In The Progressive Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. Good for an introduction to progressive policies and politics, as well as foreign policies, of Roosevelt and Wilson. A concise section discusses the development of Wilson’s legislative reform efforts, especially the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission. Clark, John D. The Federal Anti-trust Policy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1931. Analytic, detailed, and still brief enough to be of use both to those seeking an introduction to the topic of antitrust at the federal level and to those with some familiarity with the topic. Presents the varying economic analyses of the time and includes a chapter on the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. Kolko, Gabriel. The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963. Presents an interpretation challenging the standard view of progressive regulation and business-government relationships in the early twentieth century by showing the ways in which businesses desired and influenced regulatory legislation as a means to achieving their 1152
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 own goal of ending cutthroat competition and stabilizing industries. Includes a lengthy section on the development of the Federal Trade Commission and the Clayton Act in this vein. Link, Arthur S. Wilson: The New Freedom. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956. Part of a series on Wilson, this is one of the best works available on Wilson’s New Freedom progressive reforms. Provides detailed discussion of the development of the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission bills in Congress, along with Wilson’s role with them. McCraw, Thomas. Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn. 1984. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2005. An excellent study of businessgovernment relations in U.S. history. Uses the efforts of these prominent individuals to focus an assessment of the successes and failures of regulation. Milkis, Sidney M., and Jerome M. Mileur, eds. Progressivism and the New Democracy. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Collection of essays by political scientists and historians examines various achievements and failures of the Progressive Era and their long-term impacts on American government and politics. Peritz, Rudolph J., Jr. Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. A history of federal government policies relating to antitrust issues. Includes a substantial bibliography and index. Thorelli, Hans B. The Federal Antitrust Policy: Origination of an American Tradition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955. A comprehensive and in-depth treatment of antitrust policy in U.S. history. Covers economic, social, and political formation of the antitrust movement in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws
October 15, 1914
Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws Provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act exempted unions from prosecution under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and under the Clayton Act itself. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event The labor reforms embodied in provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 had been decades in coming to realization. American labor legislation in the midnineteenth century had been as advanced in some regards as any in the world. The famed decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Hunt in 1842 exemplified wide public acknowledgment that efforts by labor combinations to raise wages did not constitute “conspiracy” and that laborers were justified in striking to win closed, or all-union, shops. Half a century later, however, the public’s tolerance of labor’s right to organize in its own self-interest had altered drastically, and therefore the character and interpretations of labor legislation had changed. The unprecedented industrialization of the United States and the attendant political ascendancy of the business classes were reflected in judicial decisions relevant to labor organizations and their methods. By the 1880’s, the nation’s courts were stipulating that labor’s rights to combine and to strike were subject to serious legal restrictions. The judiciary’s antilabor bias was attributable in part to the violence that had marked many labor protests, notably during an 1877 national railroad strike and in the Haymarket Square bombing in 1886. More basically, however, judges’ antilabor decisions mirrored fresh interpretations of the nature of property and the presumptive rights of business. That is, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the right to do business became a “property.” However troublesome strikes against employers’ physical properties were, they usually could be dealt with by police, by troops, or through criminal law. Labor’s picketing and boycotts, however, disrupted employers’
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Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), president of the American Federation of Labor
claimed right to have access to their markets. Beginning in the 1880’s, this perspective brought court injunctions into play as a preferred weapon of business against labor. Injunctions first won general public attention in 1894, when they were issued under provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 against labor organizer Eugene V. Debs. Injunctions were one cause of labor’s cries for national legislative reform. Such cries turned into screams when injunctions included provisions that led to the assessment of damages against unions resulting from boycotts that prevented employers from doing business. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Danbury Hatters case in 1908 (Loewe v. Lawlor) not only gave specificity to this menace to labor but also, by subjecting labor organizations and their members to damages under antitrust law, threatened trade unions with extinction. Labor’s salvation appeared in 1913 with the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. Taking a positive view of his office under the banner of his New Freedom, Wilson sponsored or supported a whirlwind of reform legislation. These measures affected tariffs, banking, the hours and conditions of labor, the protection of seamen, income taxation, popular election of U.S. senators, aid to agriculture, and, by way of strengthening the Sherman Act, the regulation of business trusts. It was from this last step toward improved trust regulation that the Clayton Act emerged. Three bills that had been drafted by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Henry D. Clayton of Alabama, were subsequently combined into one. In its original form, the bill left the proclaimed needs of labor unaddressed. Primarily, the bill sought to abolish the trusts’ characteristic unfair trade practices, including price discrimination, tying contracts, and interlocking directorates and stockholdings. Representatives of big business assailed the bill immediately, but the most vociferous of its critics were representatives of organized labor, led by a founder and the president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Samuel Gompers. Anticipating Wilsonian reform, Gompers had broken with AFL tradition by throwing the group’s political support behind Wilson’s election campaign. Nothing in the initial Clayton bill removed labor from the purview of Sherman Act antitrust injunctions and prosecutions. Vowing that he would lead the AFL into Republican arms against Wilson’s antitrust reforms,
Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws Gompers declared publicly that “without further delay the citizens of the United States must decide whether they wish to outlaw organized labor.” President Wilson remained adamant, but pressure from Gompers produced a congressional compromise. It was engineered by North Carolina’s Representative E. Y. Webb, who believed, as did many others, that the Sherman Act was never intended to apply to labor unions. The compromise therefore incorporated labor provisions in a bill otherwise aimed at eliminating restraint-of-trade strategies employed by trusts. Affirmed by an overwhelmingly favorable vote, the Clayton bill cleared the House of Representatives on June 5, 1914. After its Senate passage, it was signed into law on October 15, 1914. Because of the Clayton Act’s sections 6 and 20, Gompers instantly hailed the law as providing basic but important rights. On its face, the act appeared to confirm this appraisal. Section 6 asserted that human labor was neither a commodity nor an article of commerce and further declared that nothing in federal antitrust laws forbade the existence of labor and agricultural unions or their lawful activities. Section 20 prohibited federal courts from issuing injunctions in labor disputes, except when irreparable damage to property might result and when there was no legal remedy for the dispute. More
Samuel Gompers. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 specifically, section 20 forbade federal injunctions prohibiting the encouragement of strikes, primary boycotts, peaceful assembly, and any other labor activities that were otherwise lawful under federal statutes. Significance With passage of the Clayton Act, organized labor had its day in Congress, but it had not had its day in the nation’s judicial system. Outside labor circles, many experts agreed that the act in no sense gave labor organizations immunity from antitrust prosecution. Evidence indicates that Wilson himself opposed such exemption. Sharp critics of the act’s provisions further noted that the original bill had been so diluted in debate that its final version was an anemic sop to labor. As swift and brilliant as President Wilson’s reform legislation had been, its momentum was halted by the nation’s preparation for and participation in World War I. At war’s end, the American public soon wearied of ideological and partisan battles over Wilson’s foreign policy and became disillusioned with reformist exuberance. The 1920’s witnessed a revival and strengthening of traditional conservative probusiness politics. Taking advantage of the nation’s postwar lassitude, fears generated by violence attending postwar strikes, and antipathy toward Communists, who were said to be leaders of the labor movement, employers again went on the offensive against labor. They created thousands of company-sponsored unions and again resorted to hiring armed company guards and strikebreakers. Capitalizing on antilabor sentiments, employers drew on local and state authorities to deploy police and troops to harass and arrest union organizers. Yellow-dog contracts (which threatened workers with dismissal if they joined a union) became commonplace and, chiefly under the auspices of the National Association of Manufacturers, antilabor propaganda was circulated widely and systematically that argued in favor of open shops, which allow nonunion workers to be employed even though a union may have organized the workplace. The fabric of protective legislation that Gompers and his fellow la-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
torney general Harry M. Daugherty invoked a wholesale issuance of court injunctions, nearly three hundred of them, against striking railway workers. Final hearings on these injunctions were repeatedly postponed until union battles against employers had failed. The wide latitude allowed to courts by the Duplex decision meant not only a denial of jury trials but the use of injunctions against payment of strike benefits and even against the public’s feeding of strikers’ families. Relief from what labor and most liberals regarded as the blatant injustices of a probusiness and ultraconservative decade seemed possible by the end of the 1920’s. In 1928, the platforms of both major political parties featured anti-injunction proposals. The public pressures that resulted in enactment of the prolabor Norris-La Guardia Act in 1932 and passage of the seminal National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) three years later were mounting. The New Deal administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in an era rich in labor reform. However, in 1947, under the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress tempered its previous prolabor posture by disallowing jurisdictional strikes by unions, prohibiting closed shops (in which unions could force all employees to become union members), and requiring that both business and labor must bargain in good faith. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. A concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Brooks, Thomas R. Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor. 2d ed. New York: Delacorte Press, 1971. A colorful and not uncritical prolabor account. Solid and informative. Chapters 11 and 12 provide especially relevant discussion related to antitrust laws. Greene, Julie. Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 18811917. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Study of the American Federation of Labor shows the organization’s attention to political activity and focuses on the dilemmas this approach posed for union members. Includes index. Gregory, Charles O. Labor and the Law. New York: W. W. Norton, 1946. A law professor’s pithy and straightforward account. Excellent on labor, injunctions, and antitrust problems in chapters 7 and 8. Includes a list of cases. 1155
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bor leaders presumed to be embodied in the Clayton Act’s labor provisions was shredded by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1921 in the seminal case of Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering. This case presented the Court’s interpretation of the Sherman and Clayton Acts as protecting employers from labor violence, from secondary boycotts, and from the use of other labor tactics that could be construed as unlawful interference with interstate commerce. The Duplex case involved attempts by a Michigan union in 1919 to organize the Duplex Company, one of only four such companies manufacturing printing presses and the only one that remained unorganized. To this end, the Michigan union persuaded workers and their employers in New York to boycott Duplex products—that is, to impose a secondary boycott. Speaking for a conservative Court, Justice Mahlon Pitney held that certain union tactics constituted unlawful interference with interstate commerce and therefore were subject to antitrust laws. Secondary boycotts fell under antitrust laws as restraints of interstate trade and conspiracies. Section 6 of the Clayton Act, Pitney asserted, protected unions solely in regard to their lawful pursuit of legitimate objectives. Given that, in the Court’s view, secondary boycotts were unlawful, unions that instituted them were deprived of protection by the Clayton Act. The act’s provisions in section 20 shielded unions from the issuance of injunctions against them, but injunctions were prohibited, Pitney noted, only in regard to the employees of an offending employer, the immediate parties to a labor dispute. The act thus did not prohibit an injunction against the New York workers and employers secondarily involved in the dispute. By holding unions accountable under antitrust laws for anything the Court deemed to be other than normal and legitimate union activity, the Court effectively nullified the Clayton Act’s labor provisions. As experts observed, the only remaining union actions that fell under protection of the Clayton Act were those considered lawful before passage of the act. This narrow judicial interpretation of sections 6 and 20 effectively negated the intent of a reform Congress and made it almost impossible for unions to organize workers in nonunion companies. It scarcely mattered in the short run that Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who had been one of the architects of Wilson’s New Freedom, defended labor’s right to push its struggle to the limits of its self-interest through encouraging sympathetic strikes. Employers benefited from judicial protection, a fact seemingly confirmed in a 1922 decision that upheld the possibility of prosecution of unions as trusts. That same year, U.S. at-
Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws
Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954. Authoritative survey by the leading Wilson scholar. Chapter 3 is excellent on Wilson, Congress, labor, and the Clayton Act. A fine introduction to the topic. Northrup, Herbert R., and Gordon F. Bloom. Government and Labor. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1963. Balanced, detailed, and authoritative discussion of the relationship between government and labor. Includes a table of cases. Taft, Philip. The A. F. of L. in the Time of Gompers. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. Dry, dense narrative, but an authoritative study. Invaluable for discussion of Gompers’s views on and politics involving the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sherman and Clayton Acts and injunctions. Wilcox, Clair. Public Policies Toward Business. 3d ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1966. Splendid analysis of the subject. Balances the interests and motives of government, business, and labor in regard to antitrust regulations. Includes table of cases. See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations.
October 30, 1914
Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I Spain’s declaration of neutrality in World War I brought the nation economic prosperity but also heightened its internal political polarization and instability. Locale: Madrid, Spain Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Alfonso XIII (1886-1941), king of Spain, r. 1886-1931 Francisco Cambó (1876-1947), leader of the Catalonian Lliga Regionalista Eduardo Dato Iradier (1856-1921), premier of Spain, 1913-1915 and 1917 Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli (1871?-1925), sharif of Djebala, Morocco Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres (1863-1950), premier of Spain, 1912-1913, 1916-1917, and 1918 Alejandro Lerroux (1864-1949), republican leader of Barcelona Benito Márquez Martínez (1858-1923), Spanish colonel Summary of Event The outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914 exacerbated the fragmented, increasingly tumultuous quality of Spanish politics. In an unstable political environment, King Alfonso XIII’s control had brought continuity to foreign policy. Now the king’s sympathies lay with the Franco-British Entente, not the German1156
Austrian Central Powers, because of the former’s potential usefulness in developing Spain’s Moroccan empire (compensation for losses to the United States in 1898). The king’s interest in Morocco also came from the loyalty of the africanista faction of Spain’s army. On the other hand, most of Spain’s conservative classes, military personnel, and Eduardo Dato Iradier, premier in 1914, sympathized with Germany. They admired Germany for its military triumph over France in 1871, and they distrusted British and French liberalism. In addition, Britain and France had largely ignored Spain’s interests in settling Moroccan crises in 1905 and 1911. Spanish efforts to take effective control in Morocco had also been frustrated since 1909 by native resistance led by Sharif Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli in the Rif region. Thus, at the outbreak of the European war, half of Spain’s army was tied down in Morocco; the other half, underfunded, was not up to the standards of modern warfare. From 1908, available money had gone into naval shipbuilding, but Spain’s navy remained far behind the naval forces of the Great Powers in 1914. Britain had not sought a Spanish alliance in the crucial months before the war’s outbreak, and declaring neutrality seemed the best course. The Spanish also believed that Spain might play a more influential role politically and economically as a neutral nation than as a combatant. An initial declaration of neutrality was made on July 30, 1914, and the Cortes (the Spanish parliament) confirmed Premier Dato’s decision an October 30, 1914. During the early years of the war, both the Allies and
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In June, Spain’s junior officers formed “defense committees” (juntas de defensa) under Colonel Benito Márquez Martínez, calling for increased salaries and general army reform. In the course of that summer, civil servants, taxpayers, and others also formed defense committees. Alejandro Lerroux, Barcelona’s republican leader, offered to support the military junta with eight hundred men, but Márquez did not respond. In May, an assembly of parliamentarians composed of republicans, reformists, and socialists had convened in Barcelona and later in Madrid. The assembly demanded clarification of Spain’s foreign policy and asserted the parliamentary right to control it. The assembly’s larger goal was to reform the parliamentary system toward more effective democracy. Francisco Cambó, the Lliga leader, took the initiative in the Madrid meeting in October. After unsuccessfully inviting the military junta to join them, however, he left to join Maura’s coalition cabinet, and the assembly collapsed. Earlier, Spanish laborers had formed an unprecedented alliance between the anarchist CNT (National Confederation of Labor) and the socialist UCT (General Confederation of Labor). In August, 1917, they declared a general strike. The government now gave in to the military junta in order to gain their assistance in suppressing the strike. A total breakdown—even a revolution—had been averted, but at the cost of putting the army in control. Significance The wartime experience of 1917-1918 set the scene for Spain during the next fifty years. The nation emerged from World War I with increased diplomatic influence. Within the League of Nations, as a member of the Council, Spain’s continued neutrality allowed it to speak for a coalition of small nations. Spain’s military, secure in its power over domestic affairs, supported revolts and the dictatorships of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (19231930) and General Francisco Franco (1940-1975). Both military regimes remained committed to monarchy. Repressed by these dictators, socialists, anarchists, and Catalonian extremists contributed to the failure of the liberal Second Republic (1930-1940) through their infighting and incoherent challenges to government authority. —José M. Sánchez and Paul Stewart Further Reading Bledsoe, Gerie B. “Spanish Foreign Policy 1898-1936.” In Spain in the Twentieth-Century World: Essays on Spanish Diplomacy, 1898-1978, edited by James W. Cortada. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. 1157
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the Central Powers expended considerable effort propagandizing Spain. This effort escalated when Italy joined the Allies in 1915 after promises of postwar rewards. The Germans now promised Spain a free hand in Morocco and in revolutionary Portugal as well as possession of Tangier and Gibraltar. German agents encouraged Catalonian separatists in Barcelona, who also found encouragement in Allied propaganda favoring selfdetermination for subject peoples. The lively debate between Germanophiles and Francophiles (or aliadofilos) primarily reflected ongoing divisions between the right and the left of the Spanish political spectrum. Wartime prosperity also aggravated these divisions. Trade increased enormously as orders from belligerent nations poured in and investment funds from abroad increased. Spain’s boom brought inflation, and wages lagged behind prices. Underclass persons not employed in industry suffered greatly, a situation that encouraged already active socialism and anarchism. Wartime profiteers in Barcelona, Spain’s industrial center, refused to pay taxes commensurate with the gains; instead, they rallied behind the Lliga Regionalista (Regional League), which stood for Catalonian autonomy. Increased taxes might have eased the lot of soldiers, who also suffered from wartime inflation. A crisis came on February 1, 1917, when Germany announced renewal of unrestricted submarine action against neutral shipping to Britain and France (even though German ships used Spanish ports). This declaration prompted the United States to enter the war in April, 1917. Spain’s Francophile premier, Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres, protested the declaration and was fiercely attacked by Madrid’s pro-German press, which treated the protest as portending Spain’s entry into the war. Figueroa y Torres resigned in the midst of general domestic disorder and was succeeded by another Liberal premier, Manuel García Prieto, then by Dato, and then by Conservative Antonio Maura. The policy of neutrality continued despite German submarine attacks on Spanish shipping. In late August, 1914, Dato and Figueroa y Torres, both members of Maura’s cabinet, supported a letter threatening the use of impounded German ships to replace sunken Spanish ships. Although this letter brought another fierce attack from Spanish Germanophiles, Germany agreed in the final month of World War I that six impounded ships might be so used for the duration. In the meantime, wartime pressures had driven Spain to a general domestic breakdown in 1917. The king panicked, in part because of the collapse of Russia’s monarchy in February after a revolt by soldiers and socialists.
Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I
British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans Succinct account places the problem of Spanish neutrality within its diplomatic context. Boyd, Carolyn P. Praetorian Politics in Liberal Spain. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. One of few detailed treatments of Spain’s neutrality available in English. Emphasizes the period from 1898 to 1923 and the activities of the Spanish army. Meaker, Gerald. The Revolutionary Left in Spain, 19141923. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974. Provides a clear and objective account of the complex interaction of socialists, communists, and anarchists in a nation where regionalism and individualism often proved more important than political parties. Payne, Stanley G. Politics and the Military in Modern Spain. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967. Discussion covering the period 1815-1965 traces Spain’s problems from their roots to their logical conclusion in the dictatorship of Franco. Pilapil, Vicente R. Alfonso XIII. New York: Twayne, 1969. Biography emphasizes the king’s influence on
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 foreign policy, including his manipulation of “praetorian politics,” which is often lost in other treatments. Rivas Cherif, Cipriano. Portrait of an Unknown Man: Manuel Azaña and Modern Spain. Edited and translated by Paul Stewart. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995. Memoir from the vantage point of the moderate Left (a key element in divided Spain) gives a lively sense of what it was like to live through the turbulent World War I era in Spain. Romero, Francisco. “Spain and the First World War.” In Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century, edited by Sebastian Balfour and Paul Preston. New York: Routledge, 1999. Discusses the crises that Spain experienced as the result of its neutrality policy. See also: Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins.
November 5, 1914
British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans During World War I, the British wanted to open a second front against Turkey to safeguard both oil supplies and the route to the East. The campaign in Mesopotamia went well at first, but the British were stymied by a humiliating defeat, and they were unable to capture vital oil fields in northern Iraq until the end of the war. Locale: Tigris-Euphrates river system Categories: World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history Key Figures Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend (1861-1924), British major general and commander of advanced forces in Mesopotamia until his capture in April, 1916 Sir John Eccles Nixon (1857-1921), general and commander of all British forces in Mesopotamia until January, 1916 Sir Frederick Stanley Maude (1864-1917), major general who took command of Tigris Corps and then the army of Mesopotamia in 1916 Sir William Raine Marshall (1865-1939), major general who replaced Maude in November of 1917 as commander of the British army 1158
Colmar von der Goltz (1843-1916), Turkish field marshal and German commander of the Ottoman forces until his death in Baghdad Summary of Event At the beginning of World War I, the Ottoman Empire joined forces with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to form the Axis Powers. At the time, the Ottoman Empire consisted of what is now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan (present-day Jordan), Israel, Palestine, and parts of Saudi Arabia. The Allied and Axis forces met in several places: The French and British Commonwealth forces battled Axis troops in the Dardanelles (in northwest Turkey), the British fought Axis soldiers in Egypt, and the Russians took on Axis forces in northeast Turkey. Great Britain was especially concerned about its oil supplies—the British navy was converting its energy systems from coal to oil—and about the protection of its Indian empire in the east. Ottoman domination of the Persian Gulf would place British interests in serious danger, and so the British decided to open a defensive front in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), where they would have better access to the Persian oil fields around Abadan, Persia (modern-day Iran). This region was
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the Dardanelles. The War Office promised to send reinforcements but ultimately sent troops to Egypt instead. On October 23, 1915, Nixon allowed Townshend to push on from Al-Kut, in eastern Iraq. He took Ctesiphon, an ancient city in east-central Iraq twenty miles from Baghdad, on November 22, 1915. After several successful Turkish defensive actions, Townshend decided to retire to Al-Kut; half his British officers were sick or wounded. Once at Al-Kut, however, he was rapidly besieged (on December 8, 1915) by a reinforced Turkish army under Colmar von der Goltz, an extremely experienced German field marshal who had helped modernize the Turkish army, and General Nur-ed-Din. Three British brigades finally arrived in Basra in January, 1916, but the lack of experienced officers meant that no divisional staff could be formed. Townshend waited, hoping for relief. Three attempts at rescue were defeated with great loss of life, and some twenty-four thousand soldiers were killed. The floods returned, cutting off the town, and the original supply of two months’ food was completely exhausted. After the Turks refused an offer of two million pounds to release the army, Townshend was forced to surrender on April 29, 1916. Townshend’s troops were humiliated: They were marched through Baghdad and beaten before being shipped off to prisoner-of-war camps, from which onethird never returned. Townshend himself was interned in the Bosporous until the war’s end, when the Turks used him to negotiate the terms of their surrender. On July 20, 1916, British prime minister H. H. Asquith promised an inquiry into the defeat. Nixon resigned, ostensibly on the grounds of ill health, but his military career was in ruins. The ensuing report criticized him severely, and Sir Frederick Stanley Maude was given full command in August, 1916. Maude and his division had come from the Dardanelles through Egypt in February, and he spent three months attempting to unify the disheartened troops that remained in Mesopotamia. By this time, Russian successes around Erzurum (in modern-day Turkey) were pulling Turkish troops away from the area, and on December 12, 1916, Maude began a series of cautious advances along the Tigris. By now he had eight new gunboats and armored steamboats to accompany his land forces, and Al-Kut was recaptured on February 24, 1917. The addition of British reinforcements and the loss of Turkish troops to fights in the north meant that the Sixth Division of the Turkish army under Halil Pala was outnumbered four to one. Maude was unopposed as he captured Baghdad on March 11, 1917, but 1159
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nominally independent, although the British had a sphere of influence in the south, and the Russians had one in the north. Most of the British troops were either regiments of the Indian army or units of the British army that had been stationed in India and moved to bases in Bahrain (a British protectorate after 1861) or Kuwait (a British protectorate after 1899). Turkish troops had been very thinly deployed in Basra (modern-day Iraq’s principal port), and the city was taken almost at once, on November 22, 1914. On April 9, 1915, British forces were placed under the command of General Sir John Eccles Nixon. Nixon had been commander of the northern army in India, and he had also seen service in the Boer War (1899-1902) and in Afghanistan. His instructions were to secure the Persian pipelines, to control the Basra district of southern Iraq, and to develop a plan to advance on the city of Baghdad. Sir William Robertson, commander of the Imperial General Staff in the War Office in London, wanted all plans to be executed as carefully as possible. General Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend, an ambitious soldier who had held a number of administrative duties in Britain and India, served under Nixon. He had been given command of the Sixth Division of the Indian army in Mesopotamia in April, 1915, and Nixon charged him with advancing north along the Tigris with this division and a handful of other soldiers. This move was technically beyond Nixon’s War Office remit, but lines of responsibility were confused because the Indian government also had a stake in the policy. Townshend set out in May from Qurna, at the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates. All went well at first: Townshend described the ascent as a “regatta up the Tigris,” and he steadily advanced for some two hundred miles. Kut-al-Amara, a town on a bend of the Tigris at the confluence of the Shatt-al-Hai, had been secured by the end of September. By this time, the War Office had approved Nixon’s actions, especially since the main front at the Dardanelles was going badly for the Allied forces, who feared that they were on the verge of losing prestige in the Muslim world. The British appeared to have numerical superiority, however, and they hoped to strengthen their numbers if Russian troops came south. Nixon wanted to push on to Baghdad, a move that Townshend may have opposed. Both the health of the troops and logistical supplies were dwindling, the flood season had made the Tigris difficult to navigate, and Basra lacked good rail and docking facilities. The Turks, on the other hand, had part of a rail system reaching to Baghdad from the north, and they were beginning to release troops from
British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans
British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans future progress was slowed as troops were sent to fight the Turks in Palestine. Maude died of cholera in November, and his immediate subordinate, General William Raine Marshall, took command. Marshall divided his force of three hundred thousand into three sections: one column directed toward Baquba, Iraq, and then east into northern Persia and north toward Kirkuk, Iraq; one column along the Euphrates toward Falluja, Iraq; and the third and main thrust northward through the Iraqi cities of Samara and Tikrit to Mosul. Although the Turks were weakening, the Russian Revolution had caused a collapse on the Anatolian front, and Turkish forces had been able to move south. Kirkuk, an important oil center, was captured on May 7, 1918, but the advance on Mosul occurred with painful slowness. Samara fell in April and was followed by Ramadi and Tikrit in the autumn, but Mosul itself was not captured until November 3, 1918, shortly after the Anglo-Turkish Armistice of October 20, 1918. Significance The Ottoman campaign was successful in its attempt to secure Britain’s oil supplies: By the war’s end, all Iraqi oil fields were in British hands, and Britain had been awarded protectorate rights over Mesopotamia (which was renamed Iraq) as well as the southern fields in Persia. The British defeat at Al-Kut had reinforced the greater Gallipoli defeat, which could have sparked an Arab reaction against the Allies. Fortunately, this did not happen. Thus, by the end of the war, the British Empire had secured its access to the east, created a semicircle of control around the Indian Ocean, and conquered the threat of Russian dominance to the north through Afghanistan and northern Persia. —David Barratt
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Barker, A. J. The Neglected War: Mesopotamia,19141918. London: Faber, 1967. This is the definitive historical account of the campaign. _______. Townshend of Kut: A Biography of MajorGeneral Sir Charles Townshend. London: Cassell, 1967. A good summary of the surrender at Al-Kut. This version is somewhat more sympathetic toward Townshend than other accounts. Carver, Michael. The National Army Museum Book of the Turkish Front, 1914-1918: The Campaigns of Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2003. Account draws on the letters, diaries, and other papers of those involved. Carver demonstrates both the incompetence of the commanders and the endurance of the common soldiers. Moberly, Frederick James. The Campaign in Mesopotamia. 4 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1923-1927. These volumes comprise the full collection of official historical documents relating to the campaign. Stevenson, David. The History of the First World War, 1914-1918. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Comprehensive volume on the war puts the Mesopotamian campaign in context. See also: May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt; May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East; Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia.
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Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic
November 7, 1914
Lippmann Helps to Establish THE NEW REPUBLIC Designed to stimulate liberal Progressive reform, The New Republic became an important vehicle for young Walter Lippmann’s evolving public philosophies. Locale: New York, New York Category: Publishing and journalism
Summary of Event When it first appeared on November 7, 1914, The New Republic loosed a stream of liberal social, political, and cultural analysis and criticism that continued into the twenty-first century. The inspiriting force behind inception of the journal, which was swiftly to become the flagship of American moderate liberal commentary, was the seemingly unlikely pair of Willard and Dorothy Straight. Each was wealthy and each was identified socially with the old-style capitalist establishment that their journal would seek to restructure. Willard Straight’s wealth and notoriety came from his association with the House of Morgan, then the premier banking firm in the United States, as well as from his subsequent diplomatic service in China. Despite their wealth, the Straights’ political dispositions were generously liberal. Accordingly, from its conception, The New Republic was bounteously subsidized by the Straights. New York-born, a Harvard University graduate, and by 1909 renowned for his polemical The Promise of American Life, influential Progressive author Herbert Croly provided the executive and intellectual linkage between the Straights and The New Republic’s editorial and writing staff. Croly immediately enlisted the writing and editorial abilities of a fellow Harvard graduate and New Yorker, Walter Lippmann. Young, brilliant, idealistic yet practical, already widely traveled and well connected, Lippmann was steeped in the political, cultural, and intellectual currents of his age: Croly’s “New Nationalism” (which became the battle cry of Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressivism), William James’s pragmatic psychology, John Dewey’s programs for social and edu-
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Key Figures Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), American journalist, editor, and publicist Willard Straight (1880-1918), American financier and diplomat Herbert Croly (1869-1930), American author and political philosopher Walter Weyl (1873-1919), American author
cational reform, Henri Bergson’s intuitive philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche’s affirmation of the will, H. G. Wells’s scientific utopianism, and the novel and exciting theories of Sigmund Freud. In sum, Lippmann had creatively exploited every advantage afforded him by his birth and education among the elite of New York’s cosmopolitan Jewish community. When he agreed to join Croly on The New Republic, Lippmann already enjoyed the esteem won him in intellectual circles by his A Preface to Politics (1913), and he further augmented that reputation with Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest in 1914. Both works reflected Lippmann’s admiration for Theodore Roosevelt’s brand of political Progressivism and his perception of Roosevelt himself as a model statesman. Like Roosevelt, Lippmann favored strong political leadership, the fostering of a sense of civic responsibility, sympathetic address to the plight of labor and of the poor, and extensive federal regulation of the country’s great corporate enterprises. Although Lippmann’s reformism was heady stuff, he also shared with Croly and many other Progressives a more conservative interest in deflecting what were depicted as the nation’s revolutionary currents. Avowedly contemptuous of Victorian traditions, disdainful of popular sentimentality about the political wisdom of majorities, dubious about the efficacy of electoral reforms, skeptical of the touted glories of free competition on one hand and of socialist orthodoxies on the other, the acute and eclectic Lippmann championed reform and governance by scientifically trained experts who could seize control of events and then set and guide the public agendas at home and abroad. Lippmann’s informed enthusiasms were held in common not only with Croly but also with a host of prominent Americans and Europeans who reveled in the prospect of peacefully revolutionizing society. Lippmann was to be one of The New Republic’s conduits to these political reformers, artists, poets, professionals, and assorted intellectuals. Always ambitious, he was assiduous in effecting personal exchanges with prominent people whose views mattered. Among those he found to be weighty presences in the United States were muckraking reformers such as Lincoln Steffens and Walter Weyl; politicos such as Cleveland’s Tom Johnson and the new and relatively unknown president, Woodrow Wilson; jurists such as Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and
Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 John Reed, soon to be made famous by his observations on the Russian Revolution, explored the plight of the poor. The quality of its overwhelmingly liberal staff and of its domestic and foreign essayists, commentators, and reviewers made The New Republic an important publication. As Ronald Steel, Lippmann’s ablest biographer, has noted, the journal was first among the forums “for the most serious and original minds writing in English.”
Walter Lippmann. (Library of Congress)
Louis D. Brandeis; social workers, principal among them Jane Addams; and presidential advisers such as Colonel Edward House and ascendant cabinet officers such as Newton Baker. Abroad, Lippmann numbered many productive contacts among Great Britain’s fractious socialists such as Graham Wallas, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and John Hobson, in company with additional hosts of the most vital personalities among Great Britain’s artistic, literary, social, and intellectual elites. Nearly a fourth of The New Republic’s early articles, commentaries, and reviews were to spring from this remarkable reservoir of British talent. For The New Republic’s staff, Lippmann in addition corralled a number of his former Harvard friends. Hiram Moderwell provided contributions on music, Lee Simonson contributed on the fine arts, and Kenneth Macgowan furnished commentaries on the expansive new art form of film. Alfred Kuttner was invited to write on the latest revelations afforded by psychoanalysis, and leftist 1162
Significance The appearance of The New Republic and the burgeoning careers of Lippmann, Croly, and other staffers were synonymous with an era marked by exuberant cries for cultural and political change. Such reformist urges manifested themselves in Europe during the 1880’s and 1890’s—a decade before they became apparent in the United States—and, although not destroyed, were thrown into disarray by the cataclysmic events of World War I. American progressive reform was later to develop and was more parochial than its European counterparts; thus, superficially, it appeared more timid. However, the movement was in full flood in 1914 as The New Republic went to press. The provocative journal was almost instantly successful. Anticipating fewer than a thousand subscribers, the eager staff watched circulation rise to twenty-five hundred within a few months and to more than forty thousand by the end of World War I—by which time American progressivism also was entering into a conservative eclipse. Although Lippmann had hoped that The New Republic would stimulate a series of minor insurrections, and although the journal was to the left of the American liberal consensus, its general tone was restrained and responsible, whether its subjects of discussion were the arts or politics. Explanations for The New Republic’s successful reception lay both in the spirit of the times and, most assuredly, in the quality of the magazine’s contributors. Unquestionably, the timing of the journal’s introduction was propitious. Late nineteenth century architectural, artistic, musical, and political forms were being altered in response to new visions and styles. In architecture, for example, Barcelona’s Antonio Gaudí had designed seemingly bizarre structures that laid the basis of Art Nouveau; in Germany, the seeds of Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus school had been sown in the first decade of the twentieth century. Radical departures in the fine arts were evidenced by Wassily Kandinsky’s abstractions, Georges Braque’s and Pablo Picasso’s cubism, and the
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their foreign counterparts, its contributors—Lippmann notably—had some immediate effect on the nation’s politicians and political discourse. Although Lippmann was enamored of Theodore Roosevelt, neither he nor Croly avoided criticism of the former president. In fact, Roosevelt, who had been one of the journal’s staunch fans, acerbically broke with its editors when they rebuked him for overreacting to Wilson’s intervention in Mexico. Similarly, although the editors had generally supported Wilson, they likewise challenged his “New Freedom,” believing that it represented a throwback to the nineteenth century; their stance was much the same in regard to Wilson’s Mexican adventure as well as to the president’s version of World War I neutrality. Watched closely by other opinion makers throughout the United States and abroad, The New Republic quickly developed a formidable stature and voice. After seven years, Lippmann, well-established as a major publicist, left the journal to pursue his own evolving career of public commentary. The New Republic continued to publish into the twenty-first century. Although it remained a voice for the American left, its editorial focus gradually moved somewhat to the center, so that it commanded a moderate leftof-center position in American political life, stating policy preferences that were more business-friendly than in the past and more hawkish in the arena of foreign policy. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Blum, D. Steven. Walter Lippmann: Cosmopolitanism in the Century of Total War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984. Concentrates on synthesizing Lippmann’s theoretical writings, which were aimed at devising a cosmopolitan public philosophy appropriate to twentieth century problems. Very interesting and informative; scholarly, yet eminently readable. Includes notes and index. Lippman, Walter. Public Philosopher: Selected Letters of Walter Lippmann. Edited by John Morton Blum. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1985. Arranged chronologically by a distinguished historian, these letters—in company with the editor’s informative introduction, identifications, and annotations—provide fascinating insights into Lippmann’s intellectual evolution. Lippmann’s own writings are as good as anyone’s writings about him. Includes chronology and index. Rauchway, Eric. “A Gentlemen’s Club in a Woman’s Sphere: How Dorothy Whitney Straight Created The 1163
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avant-garde contributions of Marcel Duchamp and others to New York’s 1913 Armory Show, an exhibit that regaled Americans with striking new emotional and visual perceptions. In similar fashion, the new music of Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aleksandr Scriabin, Arnold Schoenberg, and Edward Elgar, among others, was paving the way for fresh tonal and compositional creativity. The growing motion-picture industry had also begun transforming recreational patterns and opening vast prospects for artistic communication. In nearly every sphere touching people’s daily lives—from cheaper newspapers to novel understandings of the composition or character of humankind, matter, and the universe— fresh precepts, approaches, and techniques were demanding the attention of thoughtful publics. A principal function of The New Republic was to initiate thinking Americans into considering the latent possibilities opened by these and analogous developments. Attainment of that goal rested on the shoulders of a staff and contributors whose collective quality and brilliance were unprecedented in American journalism. In addition to the contributions of Lippmann, Croly, Weyl, and other insiders, essays and comments featured during the journal’s first year of publication were signed by some of the finest intellects in the Anglo-American world. Historian Charles Beard addressed the task of placing history at the service of society. James Harvey Robinson reviewed major Western intellectual currents. Social philosopher and educator John Dewey dealt with the pragmatic breaking of traditional educational molds. In his ruminations, Dewey was joined by Harvard’s great philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist George Santayana. Van Wyck Brooks, Ralph Barton Perry, and Randolph Bourne variously dealt with literary matters, and their work sometimes appeared together with that of George Bernard Shaw and Rebecca West. Politics, inclusive of foreign affairs, solicited the observations of a galaxy of intellectuals and insightful polemicists: Great Britain’s rising leftist economist Harold Laski; the former British ambassador to the United States, and distinguished author of The American Commonwealth (1888), James Bryce; and England’s leading socialists, such as Norman Angell, Graham Wallas, and H. G. Wells. Rising stars of poetry and literature were also given exciting exposure: Amy Lowell, Robert Frost, Alan Seeger, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Conrad Aiken, along with Theodore Dreiser. While The New Republic brought American intellectuals into close contact with one another as well as with
Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic
Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded New Republic.” Journal of Women’s History 11, no. 2 (1999): 60-85. Examines the role that Dorothy Straight played in the founding and running of The New Republic, making use of new research findings. Steel, Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. 1981. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1999. Deservedly the standard biography of Lippmann. Interesting, scholarly, and intelligently critical, in addition to being a pleasant read. Affords a fine three-dimensional picture of Lippmann’s personality and career. Includes photos and illustrations, a brief chronology, extensive notes, a short bibliographical essay, and a detailed index. Wellborn, Charles. Twentieth Century Pilgrimage: Walter Lippmann and the Public Philosophy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969. An insightful effort to define Lippmann’s view of “political realities” as consisting of tensions between the human condition and what he understood as a world of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 underlying essences. Lippmann’s impressive publications allow such analysis. Footnotes throughout; select bibliography and a detailed index. Wright, Benjamin Fletcher. Five Public Philosophies of Walter Lippmann. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973. Intelligent, scholarly, and readable study proceeds on the assumption that Lippmann’s estimates of the world and its changing realities inevitably caused adjustments in his public philosophy. Provides details on the origins and aims of The New Republic. Includes footnotes, a select bibliography, and an extensive index. See also: Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
1915
Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded By opting to woo small investors to Wall Street, Charles Merrill revolutionized the brokerage business. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Banking and finance; organizations and institutions Key Figures Charles E. Merrill (1885-1956), American stockbroker and investment banker Edmund Lynch (1886-1938), American businessman Summary of Event Charles E. Merrill was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1885. After elementary school, he attended Worcester Academy in Massachusetts and then went on to Amherst College. He soon transferred to Michigan Law School but left to play a season of minor-league baseball. Soon it became clear that Merrill did not have the athletic talent to make the major leagues, and he searched elsewhere for a career. He accepted an offer from his prospective father-in-law of a post at Patchogue-Plymouth Mills, but he lost the job as a result of the financial panic of 1907. In 1909, Merrill took a sales position at the investment house of George H. Burr & Company. At the time, the business was restricted to a few investors. Merrill 1164
thought it could be expanded to offer services to middleclass individuals, but he soon realized that common stocks, rather than the corporate bonds his company traded, were more appropriate for small investors. In 1911, Merrill wrote an article titled “Mr. Average Investor” for Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. In the article, he set down the principles that would guide his professional career. Merrill noted that most stockbrokers placed the interests of their firms over those of the customers. It was common for sales managers to tell brokers which stocks they were to tout, either because their firms had large interests in the shares and wanted to boost their prices or because they hoped to dump the shares before the price collapsed. Brokers tended to concentrate on short-term results rather than on developing long-term relationships with their customers. Not only would the latter approach be more ethical, wrote Merrill, but it would be more profitable as well. He wrote that having “thousands of customers scattered throughout the United States is infinitely preferable to being dependent on the fluctuating buying power of a smaller and perhaps on the whole wealthier group of investors in any one section.” Later, Merrill would state, “The customer may not always be right, but he has rights.” In 1913, Merrill moved to Eastman Dillon as sales
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Merrill suffered a heart attack three years later. He returned to his firm soon after, but for the rest of his life he worked on a part-time basis. Smith assumed day-to-day leadership, presaging the firm’s later name of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith. Merrill concentrated on development of the firm’s sales operations and public relations. It was in this area that he made his signal contribution, transforming the nature of brokerage and helping to create the first market based on widespread participation. In effect, he democratized share ownership. Merrill hoped to convince a public with memories of the market crash of 1929 that investment in stocks was prudent and that brokers could be honorable and forthright at a time when they were perceived as hustlers. Some brokers working out of marginal houses were making telephone calls to lists of prospective clients, hoping to snare the unsuspecting with supposed bargains or tips. Such brokers, who had more in common with racetrack touts than with bankers, harmed the reputation of others. Many of their customers did not mind their practices, however, as those customers were gamblers, hoping one or another of the low-priced stocks they favored would shoot up in value. Such occurrences were less likely than brokers suggested. Merrill thought that the public had to be convinced of brokers’ scrupulous honesty. If potential small investors could be persuaded that a broker was a professional in every sense of the term, they might be induced to use his or her services. Honest brokers traditionally had ignored small investors. They discouraged individuals with only a few hundred dollars from investing, as the low commissions and small fees such investors generated were hardly worth the brokers’ trouble of consultation, planning, and management. Merrill argued that although newcomers to the market usually started with small investments, in time, if they had good experiences, they might become more substantial investors. In effect, Merrill hoped to do for brokerage what chain stores had done for retailing: make smaller profits per client but lure many more of them. The New York Stock Exchange mandated minimum commissions, but there was no maximum, and most brokerage firms extracted what the traffic would bear. Merrill Lynch not only charged the minimum but also campaigned for lower rates. The firm beefed up its research operations and, at a time when other brokerage firms charged for such material, offered reports free to interested individuals. Although it was a private concern, beginning in 1940 Merrill Lynch issued annual reports. Other brokerage firms charged for monthly statements, 1165
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manager. In January of the following year, he left to create Charles E. Merrill & Company, with his friend Edmund Lynch joining him soon after, whereupon the firm became Merrill Lynch & Company. They made a good team. Merrill was an imaginative extrovert, whereas Lynch was a dour man, always fearful of failure. Without Lynch, Merrill might have plunged into unwise ventures; without Merrill, Lynch would have been a mildly successful broker. After serving in the military during World War I, Merrill and Lynch returned to the firm, which in their absence had been run by associates. Merrill added underwriting to the brokerage business, specializing in retail stores—this was perhaps natural considering his interest in sales. He handled underwritings for such firms as Grand Union, Western Auto Supply, J. C. Penney, and National Tea. The firm also invested in several new companies, among them the Pathé Exchange, a film company later sold to Joseph Kennedy. With the proceeds, Merrill Lynch purchased Safeway Stores, a grocery chain based in Southern California. Over the next few decades, Merrill nursed it into a national chain. Merrill was not a major Wall Street figure during the “great bull market” of the 1920’s, largely because he was unwilling to engage in some of the shady practices of the period. His retail operation suffered, and he was obliged to do most of his brokerage business through E. A. Pierce & Company, a large brokerage firm. By early 1928, Merrill had become convinced that stock prices bore no relation to reality. In March, he suggested that his clients lighten their portfolios: “Now is the time to get out of debt. We do not urge that you sell securities indiscriminately, but we do advise in no uncertain terms that you take advantage of present high prices and put your own financial house in order.” Shortly after the stock market crash in October, 1929, Merrill transferred all his brokerage clients and employees to E. A. Pierce, invested five million dollars in that firm, and went into semiretirement. Lynch died in 1938, forcing Merrill to put in more time at the office. The following year, E. A. Pierce experienced difficulties, and, at the urging of an old associate, Winthrop Smith, Merrill absorbed it and another, much smaller brokerage house. With the transaction, Merrill Lynch was transformed into Merrill Lynch, Pierce & Cassatt. In 1941, Merrill purchased New Orleans-based brokerage Fenner & Beane. Out of this purchase came Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane. It was a substantial operation, the nation’s largest, with close to one hundred branch offices.
Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded
Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded for holding securities, for clipping interest coupons on bonds, and for practically all other services. Merrill Lynch waived such charges. During this period, Merrill Lynch brokers were paid salaries rather than the usual commissions, and Merrill made certain that the public knew this. Brokers at other firms therefore had an incentive to encourage clients to buy and sell stocks, as their incomes depended on the commissions generated by trades. Brokers at Merrill Lynch had no such incentives. Merrill substituted a true trainee program for the casual ones then prevalent. He stressed his first precept, that the interests of customers must come first. Merrill Lynch was not the first brokerage to advertise, but it carried the art to new levels. In the past, advertisements either were simple statements of availability of services or were blatantly sensationalist. Merrill Lynch was interested in educating potential customers. One of its advertisements, headlined “What Everybody Ought to Know About the Stock and Bond Business,” was a long essay that read more like a textbook than an advertisement. Merrill Lynch was besieged with requests for reprints and eventually distributed more than one million copies. The firm also published a series of booklets on investing and made them available free for the asking. One of the more popular of these was How to Read a Financial Statement. A version of this publication, first offered in 1946, was still being distributed at the end of the twentieth century. The firm also warned novice investors away from exotic trading more suitable for sophisticated accounts. Accordingly, another brochure was titled Hedging: Insurance Policy or Lottery Ticket? The approach to small investors worked. Merrill Lynch became a powerhouse of finance. By 1955, the firm handled 10 percent of the transactions at the New York Stock Exchange and 18 percent of the odd-lot business (trades not in even lots of one hundred shares). Its gross income came to $45.6 million in 1950; four years later it was $73.3 million. Significance Merrill Lynch’s success led other houses to imitate its methods, and in this way Merrill set the tone for the industry. Other firms patterned themselves after Merrill Lynch in all matters except broker commissions. As trading volume increased and commissions rose, Merrill Lynch too abandoned fixed salaries and paid commissions. The alteration of public attitudes toward stock investing that Merrill sought took time. As late as 1952, ac1166
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cording to a report by the New York Stock Exchange, only 6.5 million Americans were shareholders; that is, one of every twenty-four Americans held stocks. By 1970, the number of American shareholders had risen to 30.9 million, or one of every six Americans. More than anyone before his time, Charles Merrill remade the face of the American securities business. As trading volume increased, partly because of the influx of new clients, brokers made a great deal of money on commissions. By the 1960’s, it was not at all unusual for brokers to draw larger paychecks than did investment bankers. The best became superstars with large client bases that could be transferred should the brokers decide to change companies. Brokers at major houses no longer had to be hucksters. Backed by a large staff of researchers, the broker of the 1960’s was deemed a professional in every sense of the word. Bright young college graduates flocked to Wall Street, where they hoped to become brokers. As for Merrill Lynch itself, in the 1960’s and 1970’s the firm expanded sharply and entered new areas of business. As the nation’s center of gravity moved southward and westward, Merrill Lynch opened new offices in those regions. Under the leadership of Donald Regan, who in 1981 left to take the post of secretary of the treasury and later White House chief of staff, the company entered the areas of insurance and real estate, among others. Investment methods changed drastically in the century following Merrill Lynch’s founding. For instance, many new investment instruments were developed, such as new forms of government bonds issued by agencies, certificates of deposit, options, and money market funds. Changes in investment techniques required increased sophistication, and markets became global. Merrill Lynch responded by introducing new services and products, such as its Cash Management Account, built around a money market fund and first offered in 1977. In cooperation with Bank One, Merrill Lynch created a unified account into which investors might put all their assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, savings and checking accounts, and even their homes. In the 1970’s, declining trading activity and deregulation caused more than one hundred American brokerage firms to close down. Merrill Lynch was there to pick up the pieces, hiring top brokers who found themselves jobless. In 1978, under Regan’s leadership, Merrill Lynch acquired White Weld, itself a significant force in the industry. When the increased complexity of investments began to lead many investors to mutual funds rather than indi-
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Further Reading Brooks, John. Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street, 1920-1938. 1969. Reprint. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999. A study of Wall Street in the 1950’s by a master historian, with an analysis of Merrill Lynch’s role in the market. Carosso, Vincent. Investment Banking in America. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970. The classic history of American investment banking. Provides good background for understanding Merrill’s position in its history. Ferris, Paul. The Master Bankers: Controlling the World’s Finances. New York: Morrow, 1984. A survey of the banking scene in the mid-1980’s. Includes a section dealing with Merrill Lynch. Fraser, Steve. Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life. San Francisco: Har-
perCollins, 2005. Addresses the impacts that the business of Wall Street has had on American values and democracy, from the Revolutionary War period to the present day. Geisst, Charles R. One Hundred Years of Wall Street. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. Discusses the most important events in Wall Street history, and the people involved in those events, from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Many illustrations, including cartoons, charts, and photographs. Hecht, Henry, ed. A Legacy of Leadership: Merrill Lynch, 1885-1985. New York: Merrill Lynch, 1985. A collection of essays and documents relating to the history of Merrill Lynch, published privately by the company. Merrill, Charles E., and E. A. Pierce. “The Policies That Guide Us.” In Classics II, edited by Charles D. Ellis with James R. Vertin. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones Irwin, 1991. Merrill’s statement of principles, first published in 1940, indicates the policies that made Merrill Lynch so successful. Regan, Donald T. A View from the Street. New York: New American Library, 1972. A survey of Wall Street’s prospects and problems in the early 1970’s. Also discusses the structure of Merrill Lynch and related issues. Sobel, Robert. NYSE: A History of the New York Stock Exchange, 1935-1975. New York: Weybright & Talley, 1976. Contains a discussion of the impact that Merrill and his company had on the securities business. Spragins, Ellyn E. “At Merrill, a Frustrating Hunt for Profits.” The New York Times Magazine, June 10, 1990, 52-55, 73-77. Contains material on the early years at Merrill Lynch and the changes that have taken place since Merrill’s death. See also: Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established.
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vidual stocks, brokerage profits declined. Merrill Lynch did not offer mutual funds while Charles Merrill headed the firm. Merrill believed them to be “unnecessary intermediaries” and thought customers would prefer to organize their own portfolios with the help of his account executives. After Merrill’s death in 1956, Merrill Lynch adjusted to the markets and created its own family of funds. By 1993, its mutual fund operation was second in size only to Fidelity in assets under management. During the 1980’s, the firm expanded into the financing of hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts and became a major force in the “Ginnie Mae” market, the market for bonds issued by the Government National Mortgage Association to back home mortgages. It also remained a leader in underwritings and sales. Merrill Lynch built on Merrill’s insight that insufficient attention was being paid to small investors by developing its trust and estate operations. In 2000, Merrill Lynch joined with HSBC to form the first-ever global online investment and banking service, which was later integrated into the HSBC Group. In the same year, the firm merged with Herzog Heine Geduld. —Robert Sobel
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The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation
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1915 THE
METAMORPHOSIS Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation Franz Kafka, an obscure writer and lawyer working for a Prague insurance company, published The Metamorphosis, a seminal work of surrealistic fiction focusing on a modern, alienated, and angst-ridden antihero who cannot adapt to his grotesque, inexplicable transformation into an insect. Locale: Prague, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Czech Republic) Category: Literature Key Figures Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Austrian fiction writer and diarist Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), French novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet and dramatist Summary of Event By 1912, Franz Kafka had completed The Metamorphosis and was reading it to his small circle of friends, but it was not until 1915 that he agreed to publish the novella, which was issued in a minor serial publication, Die Weissen Blätter, under the German title Die Verwandlung. It was first published in English as The Metamorphosis in 1936. The haunting, nightmarish piece, destined to become a modern classic, tells the story of a self-effacing salesman named Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to discover that he has been transformed into a large insect similar to a cockroach. Unable to adapt to this circumstance, Gregor finally, and willfully, dies of disillusionment and starvation. Despite its somewhat repulsive predication, The Metamorphosis is an intriguing modern allegory. Gregor, a hardworking, respectful young man, simply accepts the grotesque change as his lot. In fact, he is anxious only about its impact on his ability to meet his obligations to his employer and his family. The metaphysical implications of his fantastic transfiguration concern him not at all. In his insect body, Gregor calmly attempts to meet or evade his humdrum responsibilities as if he were suffering from nothing worse than the flu or the common cold. How to get out of bed, how to move across the room, how to get to work on time, how to explain his failure to get there when it becomes obvious that he will be late—these and myriad other banal problems occupy his thoughts. A decent man, Gregor is particularly concerned about 1168
the impact he will have on others, especially his sister, Grete. He worries about how his family will manage without the income he had long provided, and he is especially cautious about staying out of sight, knowing that his appearance is offensive to everyone. He stays primarily in his room; when he needs to venture out, he is careful to scuttle into dark corners or hide under furniture in a deferential attempt to avoid confrontations with his family members and the household servants. Unable to communicate his feelings or concerns to anyone, Gregor slowly becomes totally alienated from the human world. He also becomes a major liability. Without Gregor’s income, the family faces increasing hardships. First his father is forced out of retirement to go to work as a bank messenger, then Grete and her mother must find menial work. Eventually, the family has to take in boarders. Resentment toward Gregor quickly mounts. Even his sister, who is at first kind and solicitous of Gregor’s welfare, begins to turn against him when, inadvertently, he appears before his mother and shocks her into a life-threatening swoon. The father, who was harshly critical of Gregor even when he was in his human form, is wholly unsympathetic. He takes to throwing things at Gregor, and at one point hits him with an apple, leaving a deep wound that festers—a recurring symbol in Kafka’s fiction—and seems to drain from him the will to live. As Gregor’s appetite wanes, the troubles of the family intensify. As if to express their resentment at Gregor’s failure to fulfill his responsibilities, the family members eventually neglect him altogether and turn his room into a depository for the household’s refuse. The three boarders, fastidious gentlemen obsessed with cleanliness, catch sight of Gregor when he tries to approach Grete while she is playing her violin. Using Gregor’s appearance as an excuse, the boarders all give notice and refuse to pay for the time they have already spent in the house. Even Grete then concludes that the family must rid itself of the unwanted vermin. His sister’s total rejection is the fatal blow for Gregor. He stops eating and dies, dispirited and totally alone. In this story, Kafka was undoubtedly exorcising some personal devils, notably his ambivalent feelings toward his father, Herrmann, an overbearing, intemperate, and tyrannical man whose worldly values repeatedly collided with his son’s aesthetic interests. A shrewd, self-
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The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation
made entrepreneur and owner of a wholesale luxurygoods business, Herrmann Kafka was an unmerciful taskmaster who treated his servants and employees abysmally. Kafka’s reactions to his father’s behavior were to turn inward and to nurture a basic kindness and decency in his dealings with others, behavior for which his father viewed him as weak and irresponsible. Although the equation of Gregor with Franz Kafka and the senior Samsa and Gregor’s boss with Herrmann
When Gregor Samsa Awoke Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis opens with this matter-of-fact description of the protagonist’s new reality:
Source: Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, translated by Willa Muir and Edwin Muir, in Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1971).
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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armorplated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes. What has happened to me? he thought. It was no dream. His room, a regular human bedroom, only rather too small, lay quiet between the four familiar walls. Above the table on which a collection of cloth samples was unpacked and spread out—Samsa was a commercial traveler—hung the picture which he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed a lady, with a fur cap on and a fur stole, sitting upright and holding out to the spectator a huge fur muff into which the whole of her forearm had vanished! Gregor’s eyes turned next to the window, and the overcast sky—one could hear raindrops beating on the window gutter—made him quite melancholy. What about sleeping a little longer and forgetting all this nonsense, he thought, but it could not be done, for he was accustomed to sleep on his right side and in his present condition he could not turn himself over. However violently he forced himself toward his right side he always rolled onto his back again. He tried it at least a hundred times, shutting his eyes to keep from seeing his struggling legs, and only desisted when he began to feel in his side a faint dull ache he had never experienced before.
Kafka is of speculative interest, it is of less importance than the particular modern themes that evolve from such character contrasts. Gregor is a victim—a hapless, antiheroic protagonist who, hamstrung by his own decency, is unable to cope in a world that is at best indifferent and at worst deliberately hostile and cruel. Furthermore, he becomes totally alienated from those whose love and loyalty he should command. Turned into an insect, lacking the physical capacity for speech but still endowed with human longing and rational powers, Gregor is literally unable to communicate with his family. As metaphor, Gregor, despite his limited spiritual vision, is the sensitive but ineffective man isolated and alone in a brutal, depressing world that relentlessly progresses along Darwinian and Freudian lines. The dominant mood of The Metamorphosis is one of gloom and despair. Life for the Samsa family is dreary and largely uneventful. If there is any hope for anything other than an empty, time-serving existence ending in an obscure grave, it lies in Grete’s potential as a violinist or, for the author, in his own art. It had been Gregor’s hope to fund his sister’s training at a conservatory, but with his metamorphosis, that hope is crushed. Ironically, as the story progresses and Gregor becomes more adept as an insect, he also becomes increasingly sensitive to Grete’s playing, with the allegorical implication that in order to develop an aesthetic sensibility fully, modern man must withdraw from or be ostracized by a society that no longer cares about what he thinks, much less what he feels. Although there is an apparent kinship between Kafka’s fiction and that of Russian writers from Nikolai Gogol to Anton Chekhov, the writers Kafka admired most were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Gustave Flaubert. The latter has been credited with having prompted Kafka to use antiheroic protagonists treated with scientific detachment, the former with having instilled in him an abiding sense of Weltschmerz, or world sorrow. Kafka, a Jew, filtered these influences through a consciousness acutely sensitive to social victimization and familial obligation. What evolves from that confluence of ethnic and literary heritages is the “Kafkaesque” tale, a story told in straightforward, simple prose that deals with a hapless protagonist who, while maintaining a cringing respect for authority, suffers anxiety and depression from a failure to measure up to its demands. Ironically, that authority, in whatever form, is often illogical or inscrutable and is invariably dehumanizing. It is that irony that gives The Metamorphosis its disquieting and provocative power. After his transformation, Gregor, although powerless to meet his obligations
The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation to job and family, develops a maturing, humanizing selfawareness. In addition to becoming increasingly sensitive to the feelings of others, he begins to appreciate his sister’s music, that form of human expression that impinges most directly on the soul. Meanwhile, the authoritarian figures, Gregor’s loutish father and the bullying office manager, both reveal a total insensitivity and mounting hostility toward Gregor—particularly the parasitical father, who resents having to return to work and holds Gregor responsible for all ills that befall the family. Clearly, the real vermin of the piece are the selfish exploiters who treat others without a shred of human compassion or respect. Significance General recognition of the literary achievement of Franz Kafka did not come until after his death from tuberculosis in 1924, in part because Kafka himself had been reluctant to publish more than a small sampling of work. Although he had early champions among a small coterie of German-language literati—in Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann, for example—it was not until the posthumous publication of his unfinished novels in the late 1920’s that Kafka’s reputation began to grow and his works, in translation, broke geographic and language boundaries. Had his friend and biographer the German novelist Max Brod not chosen to ignore Kafka’s dying wish that his unpublished works be burned, Kafka would probably have remained an obscure and largely ignored writer. Brod was the first important critical interpreter of Kafka’s fiction, and although many of his opinions have been discredited, he played an extremely important role in bringing Kafka to an international audience. That was paramount for Kafka’s artistic survival, for in the 1930’s, despite Kafka’s early espousal of atheism and socialism, the Marxist critics of Eastern Europe rejected his works as nihilistic and defeatist; in Nazi Germany, they were suppressed as the irrelevant whinings of an effete, intellectual Jew. By then, much of Kafka’s work had been translated into both English and French, and by the 1940’s Western European and American scholars and critics began to herald both the finished and the fragmentary works as major contributions to modern fiction. Thereafter, Kafka was rediscovered in the Germanspeaking nations of Europe and became a major influence on contemporary German fiction. In the 1960’s, he gained belated recognition in the intellectual and literary circles of his native Czechoslovakia, then under Communist rule. 1170
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By midcentury, Kafka’s name had become synonymous with the modern theme of alienation, and The Metamorphosis, his first important published work, was often singled out as the seminal piece of fiction developing that theme. Less perplexing and more tightly structured than more ambitious works such as Der Prozess (1925; The Trial, 1937) and Das Schloss (1926; The Castle, 1930), The Metamorphosis quickly gained a reputation as Kafka’s most approachable work, and it was widely read and discussed. Since then, it has continued to enjoy a reputation as a modern classic, a brilliant tour de force embodying in mode and manner Kafka’s artistic genius and his dominant themes and technique. The general influence of Kafka’s work, directly or indirectly, is both diffuse and pervasive in modern literature. Although his work’s greatest impact has been on fiction, Kafka’s influence cuts across literary genres and is particularly visible in drama. In The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), Martin Esslin credits Kafka with having had a formative influence on the absurdist playwrights of the 1950’s and 1960’s, including Kafka’s fellow countryman Václav Havel and the English playwright Tom Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia. In general, existentialist playwrights and novelists, notably Albert Camus, were drawn to Kafka’s work, seeing in his protagonists the plight of the existential hero who somehow must plod on in the face of cosmic insignificance and personal despair. The theme of the individual’s alienation from an increasingly impersonal and mechanistic world will always be associated with Kafka, but of equal importance and lasting influence is the technique he developed in The Metamorphosis and other fictional works. Although he dealt with mostly mundane human activity, he filtered it through the crazy-quilt world of the dream, rich with symbolism subject to a wide range of psychological and critical interpretations. In fact, few modern writers have inspired as much controversy as Kafka, and academic interest in his work remains intense. About one thing, however, there has long been a lasting scholarly consensus: that Kafka was a prescient visionary who left behind an important literary legacy. — John W. Fiero Further Reading Corngold, Stanley. The Commentators’ Despair: The Interpretation of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1973. An important critical bibliography on The Metamorphosis. Digests the content of several English- and foreign-
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This highly regarded and readily available translation and critical edition includes excellent explanatory notes, a selective bibliography, relevant Kafka letters and diary entries, and excerpts from important critical articles. Spann, Meno. Franz Kafka. 1976. Reprint. Boston: Twayne, 1984. An excellent starting place for assessing Kafka’s importance, this critical overview of the author’s works includes a useful chronology, a brief biography, a survey of his style, and interpretive sections on each of his principal works. Selective bibliography. Stach, Reiner. Kafka: The Decisive Years. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. First of a planned three-volume biography of Kafka covers the years 1910 to 1915, during which he produced The Metamorphosis and other seminal works. Draws on thousands of pages of Kafka’s journals and letters as well as unfinished literary works. See also: 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics; 1921-1923: Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment; Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin.
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National Birth Control League Forms The formation of the National Birth Control League marked one of the earliest organized efforts to ensure the availability of contraceptive information for women in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Women’s issues; organizations and institutions; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), director of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice Mary Ware Dennett (1872-1947), first director of the National Birth Control League Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), American nurse and birth control activist William Sanger (b. 1871?), American birth control activist Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, industrial cities in the United States were filled with poor immigrant families.
Many lived in squalid conditions, and the children were often sickly and undernourished. At the time, some middle- and upper-class women were aware of and practiced rudimentary methods of birth control, but information about these methods could not be advertised or distributed publicly. Lower-class women were uninformed about reproductive health and personal hygiene, which led to many unwanted pregnancies, illegal and selfinduced abortions, and the proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases. Margaret Sanger, a practicing nurse, had attended to the obstetric care of many such women in New York City. She and her husband, William Sanger, were active in the radical intellectual causes of the day. Emma Goldman, another well-known radical, had for years preached the value of preventing conception from a political perspective, noting that when poor people had large families, they were furthering their own oppression by increasing the size of the labor force and thus driving wages down. Margaret Sanger also took a radical political approach to birth control—a term she coined in 1914. 1171
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language articles and reflects the great range in critical interpretations of the story. Gray, Richard T., et al. A Franz Kafka Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005. More than eight hundred entries provide information on Kafka’s works, characters, and themes as well as details of his personal life. Includes a select general bibliography in addition to suggestions for further reading provided with most entries. Gray, Ronald D., ed. Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962. Included in this anthology of critical pieces are important essays by such influential thinkers as Friedrich Beissner, Albert Camus, Erich Heller, Martin Buber, and Edmund Wilson. Hayman, Ronald. A Biography of Kafka. 1981. Reprint. London: Phoenix Press, 2001. One of several significant biographies of Kafka, this study is thorough, well researched, and well documented. Includes a useful chronology, photographs, selective bibliography, and glossary of German and Czech names. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Translated and edited by Stanley Corngold. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
National Birth Control League Forms
National Birth Control League Forms In 1912, Sanger had attended to Sadie Sachs, a young woman who had turned to abortion after her doctor told her another pregnancy would endanger her health but gave her no information on preventing pregnancy beyond the suggestion that she make her husband sleep on the roof. After Sadie’s death as a result of the abortion, Sanger turned her full political energies to the cause of getting information about reproduction to women of the working class. Sanger’s first attempt at providing information on sexually transmitted diseases and feminine hygiene to the masses was a series of articles titled “What Every Girl Should Know,” which appeared in 1912 in a daily socialist newspaper, the New York Call. The U.S. Post Office Department refused to deliver the Call after learning that the articles frankly discussed sexually transmit-
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ted diseases. None of Sanger’s articles at the time concerned birth control, however. In October, 1913, the Sanger family traveled to Paris, where Margaret Sanger was surprised to see that birth control was openly advocated and practiced. She soon returned to the United States with her children and began publishing The Woman Rebel, seven issues of which were printed in 1914, until it was suppressed by the Post Office. The Woman Rebel focused on the ways in which the capitalist system oppressed women; it also discussed birth control in general terms but did not give specific information. In an early issue of The Woman Rebel, Sanger mentioned a group she was founding, the Birth Control League of America, but before it could become active, Sanger had been charged with nine counts of violating antiobscenity laws. Rather than face trial and likely imprisonment, Sanger left the country alone in October, 1914, and spent the next year in Europe, researching birth control and visiting Sanger’s Defiance clinics in Holland, France, and England. In a 1916 pamphlet titled The Fight for Birth Control, Margaret Sanger often exaggerated and dramatized Sanger explained why she became involved in the effort to educate incidents to promote her cause and herself as American women about contraception and told of the battles she faced its chief spokeswoman. Her proclamation in publishing The Woman Rebel: that she needed to spend a year in France searching for information on contraception During fourteen years experience as a trained nurse, I found that a because no such information was available in great percentage of women’s diseases were due to ignorance of the means to prevent conception. I found that quackery was thriving on the United States was inaccurate—although this ignorance, and that thousands of abortions were being performed indeed the information was more widely each year—principally upon the women of the working class. Since available abroad. An 1898 publication of the the laws deter reliable and expert surgeons from performing abortions, U.S. Surgeon General’s office included a working women have always been thrown into the hands of the incomtwo-page listing of books and articles on the petent, with fatal results. The deaths from abortions mount very high. subject. It was true, however, that such inI found that physicians and nurses were dealing with these sympformation was not advertised openly, and it toms rather than their causes, and I decided to help remove the chief seldom was available to the lower classes. cause by imparting knowledge to prevent conception, in defiance of Among the main barriers to access to existing laws and their extreme penalty. I sent out a call to the proletarcontraceptive information was the so-called ian women of America to assist me in this work, and their answers Comstock law. A federal law passed in 1872 came by the thousands. I started The Woman Rebel early in 1914. The first issue of the magazine was suppressed. Seven issues out of nine that prohibited the mailing of obscene matewere suppressed, and although sent out as first-class mail, the editions rial was deemed inadequate by reformer Anwere confiscated. The newspapers—even the most radical—declined thony Comstock, who managed to push Conto give this official tyranny any publicity. gress to pass a more restrictive law in 1873. In August, 1914, a Federal Grand Jury returned three indictments The 1873 Comstock law marked the first inagainst me, based on articles in the March, May and July issues of The stance in which information regarding the Woman Rebel. The articles branded as “obscene” merely discussed prevention of conception was defined as obthe question and contained no information how to prevent conception. scene. Comstock also was appointed by ConBut the authorities were anxious to forestall the distribution of this gress as a special postal agent with the auknowledge and knew that this could only be done by imprisoning me. I thority to arrest persons who violated the law decided to avoid the imprisonment, at least until I had given out the inregarding mailing obscene materials, a job formation. One hundred thousand copies of a pamphlet, Family Limitation, were prepared and distributed, and I sailed for England. that Comstock embraced with relish. Before she left the country, Sanger had
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she had fled. She appealed to the NBCL for support in her upcoming trial, but the league’s executive committee was unwilling to aid her. The aim of the NBCL was to change the laws restricting information about birth control, and the group’s members disagreed with Sanger’s confrontational tactics and her focus on changing laws through judicial decisions. By 1919, the National Birth Control League had been replaced by the Voluntary Parenthood League, headed by Mary Ware Dennett. This organization worked toward the repeal of federal laws prohibiting dissemination of contraceptive information. In 1921, Margaret Sanger announced the founding of a short-lived rival group, the American Birth Control League, in conjunction with the First American Birth Control Conference in November, 1921, which Sanger also organized. Significance Largely as a result of Margaret Sanger’s efforts and the formation of the National Birth Control League, doctors began to provide women with contraceptives and related information routinely, if discreetly. In addition, birth control clinics began to be established across the United States. It was not until 1970, however, that Congress rewrote the Comstock law to remove contraceptive information and devices from the list of obscene materials that may not be sent through the U.S. mails. — Irene Struthers Further Reading Brodie, Janet Farrell. Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. Discusses nineteenth century contraceptive methods and the forces that led to their being restricted. Useful background for understanding the birth control struggles of the early twentieth century. Chandrasekhar, Sripati. “A Dirty, Filthy Book.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Discusses the nineteenth century trial of the English publishers of a book on reproduction and contraception. Title comes from the prosecutor’s description of the book in court. Includes texts of three famous nineteenth century books on reproduction. Critchlow, Donald T., ed. The Politics of Abortion and Birth Control in Historical Perspective. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Collection of essays discussing the history of birth control and abortion in the United States from the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. Contributors provide a variety of perspectives, some1173
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written a booklet titled Family Limitation, which dealt with issues of hygiene, explained the contraceptive devices available at the time, and even suggested an abortifacient. Family Limitation provided specific, accurate contraceptive information, framed in radical socialist terms, advocating that women limit families rather than “supply the market with children to be exploited” and “populate the earth with slaves.” The booklet had to be printed secretly and was distributed primarily through radical labor groups such as the Industrial Workers of the World. While Margaret Sanger was in Europe, her husband was approached by a man who claimed he wanted to obtain a copy of Family Limitation in order to translate it into other languages and distribute it to poor families. The man, however, was working for Comstock, and a month later Comstock himself came to the Sanger home to arrest William Sanger for violation of the Comstock law. Comstock had set up William Sanger in the hope of forcing Margaret Sanger to end her exile so that he could personally arrest her. She did make plans to return to the United States, but Comstock died a few weeks before she arrived. William Sanger’s trial became a cause célèbre not only among advocates of birth control but also among Americans concerned with the issue of free speech. Expressions of support, including monetary donations, came in from around the country. At his trial in September, 1915, Sanger acted as his own attorney, declaring, “The law is on trial here, not I.” His thirty-day sentence only added to the general distaste for the Comstock law. As Margaret Sanger’s self-imposed exile had inspired birth control advocates to continue organizing in her absence, her husband’s trial spurred greater efforts on the part of radical socialists to preach the gospel of birth control and motivated others to work to overturn the Comstock law. While Sanger was out of the country, a group of liberals, including Mary Ware Dennett, Clara Stillman, and Lincoln Steffans, organized the National Birth Control League (NBCL). This organization, however, eschewed the tactics and philosophy of radicals such as Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman, preferring to cast birth control as a scientific and medical matter, which could not, therefore, be deemed obscene. The secretary of the birth control group that Sanger had begun to set up the previous year had made Sanger’s files and lists of supporters available to organizers of the new group. When Sanger returned from Europe after her husband’s arrest, she faced trial on the charges from which
National Birth Control League Forms
Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids times differing among themselves on particular points of interpretation. Katz, Esther, ed. “The Woman Rebel,” 1900-1928. Vol. 1 in The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Sanger’s collected diaries, journals, speeches, personal correspondence, and more are assembled to tell the story of her tumultuous life and place her within the context of her times. Includes an introduction by the editor, chronology, substantial notes, bibliography, and index. Kennedy, David M. Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970. Primarily deals with Sanger’s public career, with some details of her personal life. Biographical essay, selected bibliography, and extensive index. Reed, James. From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830. New York: Basic Books, 1978. Discusses early pioneers of the birth control movement and the social forces against which they struggled. Notes, bibliographic essay, and index. Sanger, Margaret. The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger. 1938. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2004. First-person account is somewhat flawed by exaggeration, as when Sanger takes responsibility for establishing the National Birth Control League, which was founded by others while she was out of the country. See also: Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens; Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control; Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception.
January 19, 1915
Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids The use of zeppelins as bombing platforms marked the first use of strategic bombing in warfare. The purpose of the bombing was to destroy British industrial targets and affect British support for World War I by terrorizing the civilian population. Locale: Germany; Great Britain Categories: Military history; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; space and aviation Key Figures Hugo Eckener (1868-1954), director of the German airship program during World War I Peter Strasser (1876-1918), combat leader of the German navy’s airship force Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), German airship designer Summary of Event When World War I broke out in 1914, airpower was still in its infancy. Airplanes, invented barely a decade before, were still unreliable and underpowered. The first significant use of airplanes was as reconnaissance platforms; they were not employed in combat. As the war progressed, aircraft technology improved dramatically, but in the early years of the war the airplane seemed destined to play only a minor role. Only one type of aircraft, 1174
the airship, seemed to hold any promise as a potential weapon. Germany was the leading developer of airships, thanks to the work of Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a military officer interested in lighter-than-air craft. As a formal military observer for the Prussian army, Zeppelin saw the use of observation balloons during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and became convinced of their usefulness to the military. Balloons, however, were relatively fragile and immobile, and Zeppelin began to visualize a much more effective tool. He conceived the idea of an aircraft held aloft by gasbags filled with hydrogen, with the gasbags contained within a rigid metal frame covered with fabric to make the vessel sturdier. To solve the immobility problem, Zeppelin proposed to add engines to propel the craft, and the airship that came to be known by its inventor’s name was born. In 1900, Zeppelin completed construction of his first airship, the LZ-1, the first of many airships to follow. The German military immediately became interested in possible uses for the new machine. Airships had long range and reasonably large cargo capacity, and the German army and navy saw their potential for playing roles in reconnaissance and logistics. The German navy, greatly outnumbered by the superior British navy, especially wanted airships as scouting craft to provide fleet
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
1915
A German zeppelin is caught in British searchlights during a bombing raid. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
reconnaissance. Zeppelin concentrated on passenger airships, however, and when World War I broke out the German army had only a handful of airships and the navy had only one. The German navy increased its number of zeppelins, however, when the war began in earnest. Hugo Eckener, director of the Zeppelin Company’s factory, received an honorary naval commission and was put in charge of procuring airships for the navy and training their crews. Eckener worked closely with Captain Peter Strasser, who would lead the zeppelins in combat from a new airship base established at Nordholz, on the North Sea coast. Eckener, who would assume control of the Zeppelin Company after World War I, turned naval recruits into experienced aircrews, and Strasser molded these crews into effective fighting units. The problem was that no one knew how to employ the airships and their crews. The German navy seldom went to sea, so reconnaissance missions were rare. Instead, the airships were used to observe British merchant shipping, to conduct antisubmarine patrols, and to monitor protective minefields off the German coast. From the start of the airship program, some officers proposed the idea of employing airships as bombing platforms, but this use was limited. German army airships had bombed Ant-
werp, Belgium, soon after the outbreak of the war, but the German emperor, William II, initially rejected the idea of bombing England, a country he admired and to which he had blood ties (he was the nephew of Queen Victoria and the cousin of the English king, George V). As the war continued, however, the emperor’s resistance to bombing England eroded, and the German navy received permission to conduct limited bombing to test English defenses. On January 19, 1915, two German airships bombed the port of Yarmouth, on the Norfolk coast, killing four civilians. The attack became the prototype for every subsequent zeppelin raid. The airships, slow and vulnerable because of their massive volume of highly flammable hydrogen, attacked only under the cover of darkness and on moonless nights, making them difficult targets to locate. The coastal raids continued, aided by Germany’s acquisition of new L-31-type airships. Powered by four engines that gave a top speed of sixty miles per hour, the L-31s were more than six hundred feet long and contained more than one million cubic feet of hydrogen. Protected by numerous machine guns, an L-31 could carry two tons of bombs and had sufficient range to hit any target in Great Britain. Weak British defenses aided the effectiveness of the zeppelins. The British possessed few 1175
Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids searchlights to locate the nighttime raiders and even fewer antiaircraft guns to shoot them down. Also, zeppelins typically flew at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet, beyond the reach of early wartime airplanes. In May, 1915, the German airship force received permission to bomb targets in London, and on May 31, an L-31 conducted a solo attack on the city. In a raid that lasted ten minutes, the craft dropped 154 small bombs, starting numerous fires, killing seven people, and injuring thirty-five. Raids against London continued through the summer of 1915, reaching a crescendo on September 8, when the most damaging raid took place. Two zeppelins targeted the Bank of London in the center of the city, and their bombs caused heavy damage and greatly demoralized the city’s population. The massive airships seemed to bomb at will, impervious to any attempts to shoot them down. Other British industrial cities were targeted as well, with the airships causing havoc everywhere they went. The impact of the zeppelins declined by 1916, however, as the airships never fully lived up to their promise as weapons. The German navy never had enough airships to conduct a proper aerial campaign, and the zeppelins’ performance was insufficient. The airships were slow, vulnerable because of their flammable hydrogen, and unable to handle rough weather, and they did not allow for great accuracy in bombing. Moreover, after 1915 British defenses improved to the point that zeppelin raids became increasingly suicidal. More searchlights aided the British in targeting the slow-moving airships, and larger numbers of antiaircraft guns defended British cities. The biggest threat to the airships, however, was the improving performance of airplanes. In 1915, only a single airship was brought down by an airplane, which managed to drop a light bomb on top of the airship as it descended to land near the German coast. By 1916, however, better airplanes could easily reach the same altitude as the airships, and a few machine-gun bullets were enough to turn a zeppelin into a fiery death trap. Soon, airships began falling in flames all over England, and numerous crew members died, including Strasser himself in a late-war raid. Of the approximately one hundred air-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ships in German wartime service, thirty-seven were shot down by British and French defenses. By June, 1917, the airship raids ended as Germany turned to bombing by conventional aircraft. Significance The German airship raids of World War I foreshadowed the bombing of civilians that became common in World War II, when London again became a target for German bombs. The zeppelin raids also demonstrated the difficulties of strategic bombing and the resistance of a civilian population to bombing as a means of terror and intimidation. The zeppelin raids dropped nearly one million pounds of bombs on Great Britain, killing 556 people and injuring 1,913, but the bombing neither weakened British determination nor seriously hindered the British war effort. —Steven J. Ramold Further Reading Botting, Douglas. Dr. Eckener’s Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel. New York: Henry Holt, 2001. Both a history of the zeppelin and a biography of Hugo Eckener. Devotes a full chapter to the role of the airship in World War I. Brooks, Peter W. Zeppelin: Rigid Airships, 1893-1940. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. A comprehensive history of zeppelin airships from the first machines to the great passenger airships of the 1930’s. Duggan, John, and Henry C. Meyer. Airships in International Affairs, 1890-1940. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Economic history of the airship places the zeppelin in context with its rivals in the international market of global travel. Nielsen, Thor. The Zeppelin Story: The Life of Hugo Eckener. London: Wingate, 1955. The first major biography of Hugo Eckener, published after his death in 1954. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns; May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made
January 25, 1915
First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Augustus Watson, inventors of the telephone, officially opened longdistance telephone service coast to coast across the United States. Locale: Jekyll Island, Georgia; New York, New York; San Francisco, California Categories: Science and technology; inventions; communications and media Key Figures Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), American inventor Thomas Augustus Watson (1854-1934), American electrical engineer Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American scientist and inventor
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Summary of Event It would be difficult to dispute the assertion that the telephone is the single most important invention to come out of the nineteenth century. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Augustus Watson opened a new era in communications with their talking machine, making it possible for people to converse over long distances instantaneously for the first time. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) continued to refine and upgrade telephone facilities, introducing such innovations as automatic dialing and long-distance service. One of the greatest challenges faced by AT&T engineers was to develop a way to maintain signal quality over long distances. Telephone wires were susceptible to interference from electrical storms and other naturally occurring phenomena, and electrical resistance and radiation caused a fairly rapid drop-off in signal strength, so that a long-distance telephone conversation was often barely audible and even more often unintelligible. By 1900, AT&T engineers had discovered that they could improve signal strength somewhat by wrapping the main wire conductor with other, thinner wires, called loading coils, at prescribed intervals along the length of the cable. Using this procedure, AT&T extended longdistance service from New York to Denver, Colorado, then considered the farthest point accessible with acceptable and reliable quality. Still, the result was less than satisfactory, as the quality of the signal was unreliable.
The company recognized a need for some form of amplification of the signal along the line to improve its quality. A breakthrough came in 1906 when a young scientist, Lee de Forest, invented the audion tube, a device capable of sending and, for the first time, amplifying radio waves. AT&T scientists immediately recognized the potential of the new device for improving long-distance telephone circuitry and began building repeaters, or amplifiers, to be placed strategically along the long-distance wire network. Work progressed so quickly that by 1909, officials at AT&T were predicting that the first transcontinental long-distance service, between New York and San Francisco, was imminent. In that year, company president Theodore Newton Vail went so far as to promise organizers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, scheduled to open in San Francisco in 1914, that coastto-coast telephone service would be available by that date and that AT&T would offer a demonstration at the exposition. Making such a promise was risky, because technical problems associated with sending a telephone signal over a wire almost 2,983 miles (4,800 kilometers) long had not been solved yet. De Forest’s audion was still a crude device, less capable of meeting the needs of longdistance amplification of telephone signals in the practical sense than in the theoretical sense. Nevertheless, progress was being made. Two more breakthroughs came in 1912, when de Forest improved on his original concept and a Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer, Harold D. Arnold, improved on de Forest’s concept. AT&T bought the rights to de Forest’s vacuum tube patents in 1913 and completed construction of the New York-to-San Francisco circuit, using both loading coils and repeaters. The last connection was made at the Utah-Nevada border on June 17, 1914. The network was tested successfully on June 29, 1914, but the official demonstration of it was postponed until January 25, 1915, to accommodate the Panama-Pacific Exposition, which also had been postponed. On that date, a circuit was established between Jekyll Island, Georgia, where Theodore Vail was recuperating from an illness, and New York City, where Alexander Graham Bell was standing by to talk to his former associate, Watson, in San Francisco. Once everything was in place, Bell spoke into the telephone. The following conversation took place. Bell: “Hoy! Hoy! Mr. Watson? Are you there?
First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made
Alexander Graham Bell. (Library of Congress)
Do you hear me?” Watson: “Yes, Dr. Bell, I hear you perfectly. Do you hear me well?” Bell: “Yes, your voice is perfectly distinct. It is as clear as if you were here in New York.” The first transcontinental telephone conversation over wire was followed quickly by another that was transmitted by radio. Although AT&T was slow to recognize the potential of radio wave amplification for “wireless” transmission of telephone conversations, by 1909 the company had made a significant commitment to research in radiotelephony. On April 4, 1915, AT&T technicians transmitted a wireless signal from Montauk Point on Long Island to Wilmington, Delaware, a distance of approximately 199 air miles (320 air kilometers). Shortly thereafter, a similar test was conducted between New York and Brunswick, Georgia, via a relay station at Montauk Point. Total distance of the transmission was more than 994 miles (1,600 kilometers). Finally, in September, 1915, Vail placed a successful transcontinental radiotelephone call from his office in New York to Bell 1178
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Laboratories engineering chief John J. Carty in San Francisco. The first transcontinental call of its kind, it represented the final event in the conquest of the continental United States by the builders of the nationwide telephone network. Only a month later, the first telephone transmission across the Atlantic Ocean was accomplished by radio from Arlington, Virginia, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The signal was detectable, but the quality was poor. It would be ten years before true transatlantic radiotelephone service would begin. AT&T recognized that it could increase the total volume of telephone calls simply by increasing the number of destinations reachable from any one telephone station on the system through the creation of a nationwide longdistance network. As the network expanded, each subscriber would have more reason to use the telephone more often, resulting in enhanced revenue for the company. The strategy thus became one of tying local and regional networks together into one great system. Several factors were involved in the implementation of this strategy. In the early days of long-distance telephony, AT&T refused to grant many independent telephone companies access to its long-distance network, in some cases forcing those operators to deploy their own long-distance lines from city to city. Eventually, company officials began to recognize the possibility that their own refusal to grant long-distance access to competing companies might encourage serious long-distance competition. The company reversed itself and offered to lease long-distance lines to all telephone companies, including the independents. The result was an immediate upsurge in the volume of calls and a stronger relationship between AT&T and the independent companies. The political climate of the time also encouraged the company to rethink its policies. Growing antitrust sentiment included calls in Congress for the breakup of the near monopoly, and company officials sought a way to appease critics who said that AT&T was growing too big, too fast. Some said the issue was not the amount of the growth but the methods used to accomplish it. In the early years of the twentieth century, AT&T gained a reputation for ruthlessness in the acquisition of independent telephone companies. During that period, the company was owned primarily by the famous financier J. P. Morgan, who, critics said, often forced independent telephone companies to sell out to AT&T at low prices by cutting off their financing. Eventually, Congress became alarmed at the possibility that nationwide telephone service might soon be con-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 trolled by a monopoly capable of setting its own rates without concern for the public welfare. The decision by AT&T to make its long-distance facilities available to independent telephone companies saved it from a government-mandated restructuring that might have been similar in impact to the 1982 consent decree that eventually broke up AT&T. The decision to open the long-distance network to all comers proved to be a boon to both the company and all telephone subscribers.
Still, long distance was fairly regional in 1910. Major cities in the East and the Midwest were interconnected, but loading coil and repeater amplification technology was not yet refined. Also, some regions were still isolated from one another by the lack of workable longdistance circuitry. Once the issue of access was solved, AT&T engineers began to seek aggressive ways to amplify telephone signals so that they could be transmitted over great distances. With the invention by de Forest of the audion tube and advances in the conductivity of wire, it was merely a matter of time before the first transcontinental telephone conversation would occur in 1915. This event became a milestone in the evolution of telephony for two reasons: First, it was a practical demonstration of the almost limitless application of this innovative technology. Second, for the first time in its brief history, the telephone network took on a national character. It was clear that large central-office networks, even in big cities such as New York, Chicago, and Baltimore, were but relatively small parts of a much larger, universally accessible communication network that spanned a continent. The next step would be to look abroad, to Europe and beyond, as instantaneous communication became a reality around the world. —Michael S. Ameigh Further Reading Brooks, John. Telephone: The First Hundred Years. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. An excellent corporate history of the AT&T system. Includes many anecdotes and colorful stories about the early years of telephony, giving life and context to what could otherwise be described as a highly technical description of the birth and development of one of the world’s most remarkable companies. Includes illustrations and a partial transcript of the conversation between Bell and Watson during their transcontinental telephone call. Casson, Herbert. The History of the Telephone. 1913. Reprint. Austin, Tex.: 1st World Library, 2004. A rare glimpse into the early days of telephony as described by many of the innovators who participated in the development of the nationwide telephone network. Danielian, Noorbar R. AT&T: The Story of Industrial Conquest. 1939. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974. A good look at some of the personalities involved in the development of the world’s largest telephone network. Provides a strong backdrop for understanding how and why decisions were made regarding the adoption of technical innovations at AT&T through the years. 1179
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Significance Just as the railroads had interconnected centers of commerce, industry, and agriculture all across the continental United States in the nineteenth century, the telephone promised to bring a new kind of interconnection to the country in the twentieth century: instantaneous voice communication. During the first quarter century after the invention of the telephone and during its subsequent commercialization, the emphasis by telephone companies was to set up central-office switches that would provide interconnection among subscribers within fairly limited geographic areas. Large cities were wired quickly, and by the beginning of the twentieth century most were served by telephone switches that could accommodate thousands of subscribers. Long-distance services, through interconnections among central offices, developed less quickly and almost exclusively under the aegis of AT&T. Many independent local telephone companies were operating, but few provided long-distance service to subscribers. Over time, as telephone service providers and subscribers became increasingly sophisticated in the use of telephone technology, demand for long-distance service increased. Many independent companies sought access to AT&T longdistance lines to provide that service but were rebuffed by the company. At the same time, AT&T was gaining a reputation as a ruthless competitor, intent on taking over independent telephone companies by pressuring their bankers to squeeze them financially, then buying them out at bargain-basement prices. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the U.S. government began to question whether AT&T was becoming an undesirable monopoly that should be regulated. The company, feeling threatened, agreed to open its long-distance network to independent companies, in part to protect itself from antitrust litigation. Ironically, the company soon learned that providing long-distance network access to outside companies was good business, as it resulted in significantly increased revenues brought on by the increase in the volume of long-distance traffic.
First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made
Gallipoli Campaign Falters Fagen, M. D., ed. A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: The Early Years (1875-1925). New York: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975. A large work prepared by members of the technical staff at the Bell Telephone Laboratories as part of a multivolume set tracing the corporate and technical history of the company. McMaster, Susan E. The Telecommunications Industry. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. A concise history of the development of telephony and the growth of telecommunications technology into a billion-dollar industry. Rhodes, Frederick Leland. Beginnings of Telephony. 1929. Reprint. New York: Ayer, 1974. Describes many of the key developments in the evolution of the telephone and related technology, much of it gleaned
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 from interviews with individuals who were there at the time. Winston, Brian. Media Technology and Society: A History—From the Telegraph to the Internet. New York: Routledge, 1998. Examines the history of communication technologies from the printing press to the Internet. Emphasizes the influences of social necessity and suppression of potential societal disruption in the development of new media and discusses the roles played by particular individuals in the introduction of new technologies. Includes references and index. See also: 1901-1925: Teletype Is Developed; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed; 1937: Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone.
February 19, 1915-January 9, 1916
Gallipoli Campaign Falters Allied attacks and invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula proved unsuccessful and, instead of cutting off Turkish lines of communication and knocking the Ottoman Turks out of the Great War, devolved into devastating trench warfare. Casualties were enormous, and the action did not advance the Allied cause. Also known as: Dardanelles Campaign Locale: Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey Categories: World War I; military history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Winston Churchill (1874-1965), first lord of the British Admiralty, 1911-1915, and British prime minister, 1940-1945 and 1951-1955, who formulated the Gallipoli attack plan Sir John de Robeck (1862-1928), commander of the naval assaults on Gallipoli Sir John Fisher (1841-1920), first sea lord, modernized the British navy and harshly opposed the Gallipoli Campaign Sir Ian Hamilton (1853-1947), commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces at Gallipoli Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk; 1881-1938), commander of Turkish forces at Gallipoli, later the founder of modern Turkey Otto Liman von Sanders (1855-1929), field marshal of the Turkish army for Germany 1180
Summary of Event In early 1915, one year into World War I, the western front was basically gridlocked: Attacks from French and Belgian soil were no longer effective against the entrenched German forces. This caused Allied strategy to shift to a direct attack on Germany, either along the Baltic Coast or through the Mediterranean and Balkan countries. At the same time, the Russians were being blockaded by the German navy on the Baltic Sea and attacked by Turkish forces in the Caucasus. The Black Sea was Russia’s only other warm-water port in the west, but the entrance was through the strait of Dardanelles, which were controlled by the Ottoman Turks for the Central Powers. Russia called on the Allies for help, and the British War Cabinet decided to mount a naval attack along the Gallipoli Peninsula, on the western coast of Turkey in the Dardanelles. The British planned to move from Gallipoli to Constantinople, where they would connect with Russian forces, knock the Ottoman Turks out of the war, and persuade the Balkan counties, especially Bulgaria, to join the Allies. By doing this, the British planned to create a new front, break the stalemate, and answer Russia’s plea for help. The actual attack on the Ottoman Turks was proposed by Winston Churchill, first lord of the British Admiralty. The Allies underestimated the power of Turkish forces in Gallipoli. The Turkish troops were led by Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk) under the German
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Gallipoli Campaign Falters
adviser of the Ottoman army, General Otto Liman von Sanders, and they were both excellent field commanders. The area was fortified with twenty reinforced fortresses and lined with mobile artillery batteries and searchlights. The waters hid many lines of underwater mines, and the Turks lay new mines wherever they could. The first naval attack began on February 19, 1915. The British moved against Cape Helles, on the southern tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, but they were turned back by strong resistance from the Turkish forces. There were subsequent attacks on February 25 and March 10, in which Turkish mobile artillery units decimated the British minesweeper fleet. On March 18, Rear Admiral Sir John de Robeck took command of the British fleet and attacked. The Turks had managed to lay a whole new line of mines without being detected, and between the mines and the mobile artillery fire, the Turks sank three British
battleships and severely damaged three others. Amid the ensuing chaos, de Robeck pulled back and requested assistance. This catastrophe further delayed the planned landings, which gave the Turks valuable time to mobilize troops and material and move into the area. The British had retreated at the very moment that the Turks had reached their breaking point: Turkish troops and munitions were exhausted. Had the British persevered, the outcome of the Gallipoli Campaign would have been entirely different. As it was, the Turks managed to increase their troop presence sixfold from February 19 to April 25, 1915, when the Allied British forces finally began to land at Gallipoli. The Allied forces were delayed because, after the naval failure in the Dardanelles, the Allies were forced to restructure their plan of attack. In late April, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) units established a bridge-
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Gallipoli Campaign Falters head at ANZAC Cove, on the Aegean side of the peninsula. This was not the broad beach at which the Allies had initially planned on landing; instead, it was a labyrinth of arroyos and ridges that made it impossible for the troops to gain the uplands of the Sari Bair Hills. The Turks pushed the ANZAC units back to the narrow beach and stranded them there under machine-gun fire. After the first day, this site slipped into bloody trench warfare that lasted until August, 1915. The other Allied troops (British, Canadian, and French) tried to land at five separate spots around Cape Helles, but they only succeeded in landing at three before they were forced to request reinforcements. The Turks, taking advantage of the faltering invasion, flooded troops into the area. This beachhead invasion also ground to a standstill. Back in London, first Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill came to verbal blows with first Sea Lord Admiral Sir John Fisher. Fisher demanded that the Gallipoli
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Campaign be abandoned, but he was overruled. Outraged, he resigned his post. His resignation caused the Liberal government to teeter, and it was soon replaced by a coalition government. In the aftermath of Gallipoli, Churchill was blamed and demoted. He resigned altogether and went to fight in the western front. Initially, five Allied divisions landed on the Gallipoli beaches, where they faced the six Turkish divisions who held the uplands. In the end, fourteen Allied divisions lay stalled on the Gallipoli beaches, trapped by fourteen divisions of Turkish troops entrenched on the upland. By May 8, 1915, all the Gallipoli beachheads were scarred by trenches, the hallmark of World War I’s stalemated battles. As the year advanced, the climate began to play havoc with the Gallipoli Peninsula. Stranded under machine-gun fire from the cliffs above, the Allied troops suffered as the heat and humidity worsened, and troops began to become infected with various kinds of diseases. In July of 1915, the British finally sent reinforcements to ANZAC Cove to relieve the New Zealand and Australian troops still doggedly holding the bridgehead there. A Soldier’s Memories of Gallipoli In August, the British also landed more Private Fred T. Wilson recorded these memories of his experiences on the troops at Suvla Bay in an attempt to Gallipoli peninsula in May of 1915: take the Sari Bair Heights and cut Turkish communications. General Ian Barbed wire there certainly was, but it hung in shreds from wooden posts, and Hamilton, famous for his lack of connearer to us a small trickle of water flowed alongside the trench, coming cern over the lives of his troops, orthrough the trench side a little lower down. In this, opposite to where I stood, dered the ANZAC units to advance lay a couple of dead Turks. There was no need to tell us not to drink this water, through the arroyos and over the ridges but we had to later, after it had been boiled. toward the Sari Bair Heights. DisoriThat day our time was taken up chiefly with making more comfortable the ented by the dark, moonless night, the trench that served as a home, and in the days that followed there was no great excitement. Only a few big shells and sniping. troops failed to gain ground and Then a fifteen-hour bombardment by our guns commenced. The noise we brought on more deadly Turkish counnow heard was terrific. A continual roar; thousands of big shells hurtling terattacks. After the late-summer acthrough the air at the same time. If more noise had been added it would have tions on Gallipoli failed, the area once passed unnoticed, so great was the din, but the Turks did reply, as our casualagain became locked in the bloody ties that night were very heavy. stalemate of trench warfare. The Allies I was losing most of my friends. We were in the support trench at the time did not decide to cut their losses until and received an order to carry ammunition for the gunners from the dumps. November, when they evacuated the Dozens of us carried heavy shells through mud that was impassable for divisions stranded on the peninsula. mules. Instead of the fifteen hours, the bombardment lasted only seven hours. Even after the British war council Ammunition had run out. There was only sufficient left for desultory voted to evacuate troops, evacuation shelling by our guns for one more day. The ammunition boats had not arrived according to schedule, and the bombardment took place, as we afterwards plans were delayed by heavy rains and learned, to impress upon the enemy how well supplied we were with shells. A blizzards, and the troops in Gallipoli peculiar thing is war. The Turks could, this night, have driven us into the sea. were decimated even further. Finally, beginning December 7, the ANZAC Source: Fred T. Wilson, “Memories and Diaries: A Boy at Gallipoli,” in Everyman at War: Sixty Personal Narratives of the War, edited by C. B. Purdom (New Cove troops were pulled out a little at a York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1930). time. The evacuation was complete by December 20, 1915. The Helles re-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gion was maintained a little longer, and the last troops there were pulled out on January 9, 1916. Amazingly, no troops were lost during the evacuation from Gallipoli.
Further Reading Blair, Dale. Dinkum Diggers: An Australian Battalion at War. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2001. A firsthand account of the experiences of one battalion at Gallipoli. Erickson, Edward J. Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2001. Chronicles the Turkish army in World War I, including the battle at Gallipoli. Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Random House, 1998. Narrative history includes an extensive section on the battle and significance of the Gallipoli disaster. Macleod, Jenny. Reconsidering Gallipoli. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Presents a detailed cultural history of the Gallipoli Campaign. Moorehead, Alan. Gallipoli. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. This book is considered the classic account of the Gallipoli Campaign. See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans; Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins; May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement.
March, 1915
Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle
Locale: India Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; indigenous peoples’ rights; colonialism and occupation
Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), leading Indian journalist and politician John Morley (1838-1923), secretary of state for India, a man of moderate views Reginald Edward Harry Dyer (1864-1927), British general who ordered the attack on Jallianwala Bagh Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), successful Indian lawyer, president of the All-India Congress in 1928 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), leader in India’s independence movement and first prime minister of India (1947-1964)
Key Figures Annie Besant (1847-1933), British Theosophist and active leader in India’s independence movement Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Hindu nationalist leader and social reformer
Summary of Event The redeployment of Indian and British troops to locations in Europe and Africa during World War I sharply reduced the number of units available for maintaining
The Defense of India Act enabled the British government to wield extraordinary powers, and it bypassed existing laws to suppress dissent in India during World War I. The act was particularly effective in repressing civil liberties and in facilitating police efforts to force confessions.
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Significance The idea of the Gallipoli Campaign was to capture Constantinople, capital of Ottoman Turkey, and knock the Turks out of World War I. The real outcome was that the Turks lost 300,000 troops, while the Allies lost 214,000, and the Turks still maintained control of the Dardanelles for the Central Powers. Mustafa Kemal emerged as a daring and skillful leader who assured the Turkish victory and was promoted to general. Although the Allies diverted the Turks from direct attack on Russia, Russia remained cut off from the other Allied countries until the end of the war. Bulgaria joined Germany and the Central Powers against the Allies, and this alliance, coupled with Russia’s isolation, forced the Allies to refocus on the western front. The Gallipoli Campaign was a complete failure for the Allied forces because of bad planning, poor leadership decisions, and shortages of war matériel and equipment. The stalled trench warfare was reactivated into the bloody battles that would eventually lead to Allied victory after the United States entered the war in 1917 and rejuvenated the Allied garrisons with fresh troops and matériel. Because of its heavy casualties and meager results, the Gallipoli Campaign has become known as one of the great disasters in military history. —Peggy E. Alford
Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle
Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle
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control and suppressing dissent in India. This provided a timely opportunity for the revolutionary groups already active in India to accelerate the pace of their activities. At the same time, an opportunistic coalition between wartime enemies of Britain and the revolutionaries became feasible. Germany and Turkey, for example, were anxious to divert Britain’s attention from the war effort. They attempted to contribute to the undermining of colonial authority by providing a measure of support for the revolutionaries, who were willing to accept help from foreign sources. Finally, revolutionary groups based in San Francisco (Ghadr movement), Berlin (Indian Independence Committee), Kabul (Provisional Government of India), Geneva, and Paris (Madame Bhikhaji Cama’s 1184
= dependent Indian states = British possessions
circle) continued actively to support their fellow Indians. The British adopted a series of repressive measures to cope with the complex situation. Initially, there was some reluctance to take this path, as a large proportion of the revolutionaries were highly educated Indians trained to believe in the rule of law and civil liberties. This belief had sustained them in their manner of conducting the struggle for independence. Nevertheless, their activities continued to trouble the British authorities. The first signs of a British crackdown had appeared several years earlier, when the nationalist slogan Bande mataram (which can be translated as “Victory to the motherland”) was banned. Likewise, the Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1913 had identified conspiracy
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pressed his belief that the police spent an extraordinary amount of their time and energy in extracting confessions. What was even more curious, however, was the large number of apparently voluntary confessions that were retracted. This is further confirmed by statements of prisoners regarding the poor conditions prevailing in detention centers and the brutality of the police. The effective suspension of civil rights and liberty in India resulted in the government’s carte-blanche approach. This was further encouraged by the seeming acquiescence of “moderate” Indian politicians to this measure. As a result, a series of highly publicized trials were held throughout the country, many in Bengal and Punjab. The most extensive were the Lahore Conspiracy Trials, a series of three trials that heard evidence of a conspiracy for a general uprising against the British authorities. The elaborate plan involved revolutionaries from abroad and from several regions within the country, and it sought to overpower the war-weakened garrisons, disrupt communications, release political detainees, and meet in Lahore to plan strategies for implementing the rest of their goals. A police informer, however, infiltrated the ranks of the conspirators and alerted the authorities. A large proportion of the several hundred revolutionaries who were tried were convicted of serious crimes punishable by death. Thirty-eight death sentences were handed out, but eighteen of these were later commuted to life sentences. Fifty-eight people were given varying periods of imprisonment, and an equal number were given life sentences and transported. This elaborate attempt to achieve freedom from colonialism was effectively prevented by the British, who characterized the effort as a conspiracy to wage war against the emperor. The struggle for freedom was not entirely centered on uprisings of this nature. While the Lahore Conspiracy Trials were under way, Annie Besant, head of the Theosophical movement in India, launched the “home rule” campaign. She publicized her ideas through two publications that she controlled, New India and Commonweal. Congress was initially reluctant to endorse the idea, but eventually Bal Gangadhar Tilak became active in the establishment of a Home Rule League, which came into being on April 28, 1916. In August, the government moved against Besant’s publications and demanded exorbitant securities. When her appeal was rejected by the Madras High Court and the Privy Council, she sold her two presses. The censorship provisions of the 1915 act, in combination with the restrictions of the 1910 Press Act, had strengthened the government’s power to suppress free speech. The response to Besant’s continuing 1185
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as an independent criminal offense. This had resulted in the trial and sentencing of several people whose actions were subject to the definitions of this new code. A demonstrably repressive attitude came to characterize IndoBritish relations despite the conciliatory efforts of liberal British leaders such as John Morley, secretary of state for India. The Defense of India Act was therefore the logical outgrowth of a period of increasingly stringent controls that preceded its adoption. Modeled along the lines of the Defense of the Realm Act, which prevailed in wartime Britain, the Defense of India Act was far more extensive in its provisions. It was presented as a wartime measure ostensibly designed to protect British military interests and thus to promote war objectives. In fact, however, its mandate went far beyond the protection of purely military interests, as its provisions endowed the government with extraordinary powers to supersede the existing legal system. These included the appointment of special tribunals to hold summary trials. Provincial authorities could convene these tribunals, giving them extensive powers and jurisdiction over a wide range of activities. The new laws were loosely interpreted, and they were applied with varying levels of intensity in different regions of the country. As a result, publications banned in one province could be found in another. Individuals used the mandate of the Defense of India Act for suppression of civil liberties, but they did so to different degrees. The principal clauses of the act authorized the government to empower any civil or military authority to deny individuals the right to enter or reside in designated areas on the basis of mere suspicion that they might be acting in a manner prejudicial to the government’s or the public’s interests. Authorities could enter and search buildings and also seize property of individuals if they believed that the property was being used for purposes that were contrary to the rules of the Defense of India Act. The power of the press to comment on such events was curbed through censorship rules, thereby enabling the authorities to intern citizens without trial. Those who were brought to trial were often arrested and convicted on the basis of flimsy evidence. Individuals were sentenced to imprisonment of ten or more years, even to transportation for life, and in several cases the death penalty was imposed. Confessions of an accused person or parties known to him or her were often cited as the principal evidence. The manner in which confessions were obtained was a matter of great concern even to judges. In his commentary on this issue, Justice Straight, a British judge, ex-
Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle
Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle efforts to make speeches in support of the Home Rule League was to ban her entry into various cities. Eventually, she was interned in order to secure her silence. This action was condemned both in India and overseas. Indignation swept a number of moderates into supporting the home rule campaign, including Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and father of independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Significance World War I had a tremendous impact on the freedom struggle in India: It diverted Britain’s attention away from the need for political reforms in the country. Consequently, the leaders of the freedom struggle believed that they had to look elsewhere for support, as the British appeared preoccupied with their own wartime concerns. The German government even went as far as signing a written agreement with an Indian committee promising to insist on Indian freedom in the event of a German vic-
Annie Besant. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tory. Indian sympathies were often with Turkey and Germany, despite the fact that Indian soldiers were fighting their armies and contributing in other ways to the British war effort. The war provided the opportunity for British authorities to adopt special regulations and laws that quickly were used to suppress a wide variety of activities that had little or no direct relation to military concerns. The new powers assumed during this time were wide-ranging and absolute. The efficacy of these powers in eradicating dissent showed the authorities how much they had come to depend on these special provisions. Consequently, when the wartime measures lapsed, there was a move to extend or enact similar laws. An inquiry committee, the Rowlatt Commission, was appointed to study the matter. The committee recommended that trial by jury should continue to be used as a means of controlling seditious activities. The continued suspension of existing laws and the continuation of extraordinary powers at the level of provincial government were also endorsed. This was predictably unpopular and was not received well among the Indian intellectuals and professionals who had been hoping for some signs of understanding of their desire for self-government. The Rowlatt Acts, as they were known, came into law on March 17, 1919, over the objections and boycott of the Indian members of the Legislative Council. From the perspective of the nationalists, this measure was another example of the intransigence of imperial domination. Mahatma Gandhi called for the start of a civil disobedience movement on April 6, 1919. A series of violent public reactions, including lootings, murder, and mass meetings, followed. In the Punjab, the order banning public meetings of more than four persons was disregarded by a peaceful crowd of five thousand, leading to the notorious massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, in the city of Amritsar, on April 13, 1919. The British General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer was tried for his part in this atrocity and relieved of his command, and tensions between the government and the people were considerably heightened. There is reason to conclude that some of the precipitating incidents leading to the full-fledged launching of the Indian independence movement were, in part, a result of the climate of tension and mistrust created by the application of the Defense of India Act. Not only did the provisions of this act bypass the existing code of law, it revealed to the Indian intelligentsia the fragility of reason and the growing reliance over time of the British on authoritarian measures to maintain control over the popula-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion. The bond of trust and sense of fair play were undermined, leading to the creation of a rift between the colonial government and the leadership of the freedom struggle. The leadership turned to the masses, mobilizing them to express their sense of injustice and thus accelerating the momentum of the independence movement. —Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel
England: Oxford University Press, 1960. An excellent analysis of British rule in India with special emphasis on identifying sources of change. Metcalf, Barbara, and Thomas Metcalf. Concise History of India. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of the people and events that shaped India’s history. Includes a chapter on colonial India, a glossary, and a bibliographic essay. Nehru, Jawaharlal. Nehru: The First Sixty Years. Vol. 1. New York: John Day, 1965. A compilation of Nehru’s writings, speeches, press conferences, and other documents that provides an invaluable perspective on the independence movement from within. Sarkar, Sumit. Modern India, 1885-1947. Delhi: Macmillan, 1983. This is a detailed account of the emergence of a modern nation from a left-of-center viewpoint. The specialist would be well advised to read this scholarly work that includes information not easily available in other sources. Spear, Percival. “The First World War and the Great Leap Forward.” In A History of India. Vol. 2. 1965. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Chapter within an excellent history of India during the modern period provides a good context for understanding the massacre. See also: Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India; Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion; 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact; Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables.
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Further Reading Brown, Judith M. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985. The author suggests the presence of a strand of continuity in the tradition of repression first introduced by the British and then coopted by the nationalists. One of the most competent analyses of a complex relationship between the governing and the governed. Dodwell, H. H., ed. The Indian Empire, 1858-1918. Vol. 6 in The Cambridge History of India. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1932. A standard reference for this period, reflecting largely a British perspective on events. Not as detailed as some of the other sources for this period. Kulke, Hermann, and Dietmar Rothermund. A History of India. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Comprehensive history of India since ancient times. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the period of British rule, including the Indian struggle for independence. Features illustrations, glossary of Indian terms, chronology, bibliography, and index. Majumdar, R. C., ed. The History and Culture of the Indian People. Vol. 11 in Struggle for Freedom. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1978. The most detailed source for the history of the freedom struggle from the Indian perspective. It is particularly informative on the location and origin of the various groups that shared the common goal of political freedom. Masani, Rustom Pestonji. Britain in India: An Account of British Rule in the Indian Sub-continent. Oxford,
Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle
Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 3, 1915
Griffith Releases THE BIRTH OF A NATION D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, a huge commercial success, was hailed as a great achievement of art but assaulted as a vicious distortion of history. It remained famous for its technical advances and notorious for its racist depiction of American society. Locale: New York, New York Category: Motion pictures Key Figures D. W. Griffith (1875-1948), director of The Birth of a Nation and other significant films Thomas Dixon, Jr. (1864-1946), author of the novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), the basis for The Birth of a Nation Billy Bitzer (1872-1944), photographer for The Birth of a Nation and other Griffith films Lillian Gish (1893-1993), actor who played Elsie Stoneman in The Birth of a Nation Mae Marsh (1895-1968), actor who played Flora Cameron Henry B. Walthall (1878-1936), actor who played Colonel Ben Cameron Ralph Lewis (1872-1937), actor who played Austin Stoneman Walter Long (1879-1952), actor who played Gus Raoul Walsh (1887-1980), actor who played John Wilkes Booth Summary of Event It took just a little more than two months in late 1914 for D. W. Griffith to shoot scenes for The Birth of a Nation, at first called The Clansman (the title of the novel from which the story was taken). After spending about three months on editing more than fifteen hundred shots, he had twelve reels of film, and he gave a private showing in February, 1915, after which he issued the film for the general public as The Birth of a Nation on March 3 at the Liberty Theater in New York City. It ran twice daily for almost a year and was distributed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The film’s story is about courtship, love, and marriage for two couples: southerner Ben Cameron and northerner Elsie Stoneman, and Margaret Cameron and Phil Stoneman. Their trials of love are offered as parallels to the events of the American Civil War and Reconstruc1188
tion. The Cameron family suffers terribly from the devastations of these events. Two sons are killed in battles, a third son is wounded and nearly executed by his Union captors, and one daughter (the youngest, Flora) leaps to her death rather than submit to the embrace of a black Union soldier known as Gus. Flora’s suicide is symbolic of the effect of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination by John Wilkes Booth on family values and the social integrity of the South. In the film, the era of Reconstruction is depicted as one of social disintegration, terrorism, and black reprisals against southern whites that is encouraged by white and mulatto carpetbaggers from the North. Political power is transferred to African Americans in the South under the leadership of a northern abolitionist, Austin Stoneman, and his mulatto henchman, Silas Lynch. When Lynch lusts after Stoneman’s daughter, Elsie, and plans to force her into marriage, the plot lines merge in a climactic ride to the rescue, conceived and organized by Ben Cameron and the heroic Ku Klux Klan. Flora’s death sets the Klan into action, and they pursue, capture, try, and execute Gus. Silas Lynch responds with orders for his black followers to attack whites everywhere. When black soldiers arrest Ben Cameron, his family rescues him, and they all escape to a lonely cabin where they are besieged by black Union soldiers. Meanwhile, the Klan gathers, and Lynch assaults Elsie after she refuses his marriage proposal. After the Cameron family is nearly captured by soldiers and Elsie is nearly raped by Lynch, the Klan arrives to rescue all and then parades in victory through the streets of Piedmont, South Carolina. The multiple scenes of siege and assault, with simultaneous rides to the rescue, are narrative achievements of Griffith’s masterful editing. They highlight his ability to create excitement through intercutting of shots of varying length, gradually diminishing as the climax of each sequence is approached. The film is marked throughout by this technique and others, such as close-ups for symbolic purposes (plates of parched corn, the portrait of Elsie), night photography (of the burning of Atlanta), dissolves (of the black-dominated South Carolina legislature), split screens, and iris shots (as in the juxtaposition of the desolate mother and children with a scene of General William Sherman’s army marching through Georgia). To compose his battlefield shots, Griffith and his
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Significance As The Clansman the film was impressive, but as The Birth of a Nation it was wildly controversial. The new title captured the political point of the film’s interpretation of its historical events. The nation of the United States could come into being only after the Civil War, but a more important point in the film was that the country could become one nation only after it reduced the threat of political power from its black citizens, who were as dangerous to morals as they were to political justice. The newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and many other groups and individuals attacked Griffith’s film as a cruelly racist misrepresentation of the truth about national historical events. Some have argued, moreover, that the film also was directly responsible for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the years that followed its premiere showing. Because of this criticism, Griffith removed some scenes, so that the original showing of fifteen hundred
Preface to THE CLANSMAN In his preface to The Clansman, Thomas Dixon’s racism, bigotry, and belief in white supremacy are unmistakable: To the Reader “The Clansman” is the second book of a series of historical novels planned on the Race Conflict. “The Leopard’s Spots” was the statement in historical outline of the conditions from the enfranchisement of the Negro to his disfranchisement. “The Clansman” develops the true story of the “Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy,” which overturned the Reconstruction régime. The organisation was governed by the Grand Wizard Commander-in-Chief, who lived at Memphis, Tennessee. The Grand Dragon commanded a State, the Grand Titan a Congressional District, the Grand Giant a County, and the Grand Cyclops a Township Den. The twelve volumes of Government reports on the famous Klan refer chiefly to events which occurred after 1870, the date of its dissolution. The chaos of blind passion that followed Lincoln’s assassination is inconceivable to-day. The Revolution it produced in our Government, and the bold attempt of Thaddeus Stevens to Africanise ten great states of the American Union, read now like tales from “The Arabian Nights.” I have sought to preserve in this romance both the letter and the spirit of this remarkable period. The men who enact the drama of fierce revenge into which I have woven a double love-story are historical figures. I have merely changed their names without taking a liberty with any essential historic fact. In the darkest hour of the life of the South, when her wounded people lay helpless amid rags and ashes under the beak and talon of the Vulture, suddenly from the mists of the mountains appeared a white cloud the size of a man’s hand. It grew until its mantle of mystery enfolded the stricken earth and sky. An “Invisible Empire” had risen from the field of Death and challenged the Visible to mortal combat. How the young South, led by the reincarnated souls of the Clansmen of Old Scotland, went forth under this cover and against overwhelming odds, daring exile, imprisonment, and a felon’s death, and saved the life of a people, forms one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of the Aryan race. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Dixondale, Va., December 14, 1904. Source: Thomas Dixon and Arthur I. Keller, preface to The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1905).
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cameraman, Billy Bitzer, studied the Civil War photographs of Matthew Brady. The most impressive features of Griffith’s battle scenes are the movement of the camera in panning shots and moving shots and the arrangement of objects in the scenes to include distant, middle, and close details. Griffith showed himself to be a master of composition of elements in the scenes he photographed, and he was careful with details of both setting and acting. One of the most highly acclaimed scenes is that of the assassination of President Lincoln. The set was built and designed according to minute specifications of the scene in Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was shot, and the movements of the actors were directed in accordance with witnesses’ accounts. These actions include the way Booth caught his spur in a balcony scarf as he leaped to the stage after shooting the president. These technical and stylistic achievements were testimony to Griffith’s artistry. They made the narrative powerful and instilled imaginative energy in the film’s audiences. The director controlled spectators’ vision, manipulated emotions, and drew viewers into the action of the film, practically eliminating the critical distance that ordinarily separated audience from art object. Precisely because the film was so powerful, however, it was condemned by many as a manipulation of minds for political purposes and according to racist ideas. The event of the film’s showing, repeated many times, was sometimes a riotous political event as well as an aesthetic triumph.
Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation
Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
intercutting shots in Intolerance. In that film, Griffith created parallels among four different stories of intolerance, each representing tragic, or neartragic, consequences from intolerance in the lives of individuals throughout history: from ancient Babylon to biblical Judea to medieval France to the modern United States. Rescue scenes were intercut according to Griffith’s principle of film lengths. In the exciting rush to rescue the hero from execution in the story line set in the modern United States, Griffith used the same moving camera technique as used to photograph the ride of the Klan in The Birth of a Nation, To view image, please refer to the mounting the camera on a moving automobile with print edition of this title. a view of the characters’ faces coming toward the audience. In addition, Griffith created links between the stories with a repeated image of a mother rocking a cradle to the words of a poem by Walt Whitman. After Intolerance, Griffith continued to make films that showed the impact of his experience with The Birth of a Nation, although none achieved the financial and popular success of that film. Orphans of the Storm (1922) imitated the narrative scheme of telling a story about individual fates in the swirl of great national and epic events, in this case the French Revolution. Both Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920) were limited in scope to the problems of women preyed upon by brutal men and harsh reality. The first was a successful venture into domestic violence made Advertising poster for The Birth of a Nation. (The Granger Collection, visually more painful by editing techniques and New York) beautiful use of lighting; the second is famous for another of Griffith’s great rescue scenes, as the heroine is saved from death on a floating cake of shots was reduced to thirteen hundred. Although those ice in a raging river. The director’s repetition of skillful shots became unavailable for viewing, reports indicate stylistic techniques such as this and his penchant for that they included scenes of black assaults on whites as melodramatic stories of sentiment marked his films as well as close-up views of Gus being tortured by the Klan. distinctly his own. This has made Griffith an early examThe removal of scenes in response to political criticism ple of what have been called “auteurs” in film theory. indicated the film’s impact on the public, showing cenThe Birth of a Nation also encouraged big-budget, epic sorship driven by moral and political interests. Griffith films of grandeur, such as James Cruze’s The Covered published a spirited written defense of his work and proWagon (1923) and King Vidor’s The Big Parade (1925) duced another film, Intolerance (1916), as an aesthetic in the United States, Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1927) in answer by the artist. Other films were made to correct France, and Sergei Eisenstein’s Potemkin (1925) in the Griffith, such as the all-black The Birth of a Race in 1918. Soviet Union. Both Cruze and Vidor imitated Griffith’s For the history of the development of film art, howfilm, with their pictures composed along vertical lines to ever, it was in aesthetic and technical accomplishments show a wagon train or truck convoy moving toward the that The Birth of a Nation had its greatest and most audience as in the ride of the Klan. Griffith’s film was especially influential among Soviet directors, who were imlasting impact. Griffith later extended his method of 1190
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pressed by Griffith’s use of editing techniques. This led to exciting developments in narrative in Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Vsevolod Pudovkin’s Storm over Asia (1928). These films and others developed the artistic device of montage. Although Griffith’s editing techniques were imitated by many who saw his film, the film’s main impact as a cultural event was to raise the entertainment value of narrative films. At this new level, motion pictures could make money and also endure as aesthetic objects. They could equally well become instruments for political propaganda, as many viewers would remember after having felt the power of The Birth of a Nation. —Richard D. McGhee
cludes a filmography, notes, index, and illustrations. Jacobs, Lewis. “D. W. Griffith: New Discoveries.” In The Emergence of Film Art, compiled by Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1969. Griffith was innovative from the beginning of his career. He used double exposure, camera mobility, full shots, close-ups, lighting, and, most important, intercutting. Griffith’s need for innovation increased with his desire to tell longer stories. Mast, Gerald, and Bruce Kawin. “Griffith.” In A Short History of the Movies. 9th ed. Harlow, England: Longman, 2005. Strong survey of Griffith’s career in developing film art. After sketching Griffith’s apprenticeship at Biograph, Mast and Kawin focus on The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance to discuss Griffith’s mastery of technique, narration, and moral themes. A brief survey of Griffith’s career from 1916 to 1931 suggests that it had a long decline. Stern, Seymour. “The Birth of a Nation: The Technique and Its Influence.” In The Emergence of Film Art, compiled by Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1969. Technical triumphs included night photography, panoramic landscapes, thematic iris and still shots, tinting, various camera movements and angles, close-ups, vignettes, dissolves, linear composition, subtitles for a variety of functions, and intercutting for narrative climax. The film greatly influenced Soviet directors Eisenstein and Pudovkin. Watts, Richard, Jr. “D. W. Griffith: Social Crusader.” In The Emergence of Film Art, compiled by Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1969. Griffith is discussed as an innovator of films for social commentary. Controversy over the racial interpretations of the Civil War in The Birth of a Nation led Griffith to make Intolerance as an answer to critics. Social concerns in Broken Blossoms were nearly overwhelmed by sadism, but the film survives because of its aesthetic power. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques. 1191
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Further Reading Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Analyzes Griffith’s crafting of detailed arrangements within film frames, including rehearsals, camera placement, and location shooting. Examines some of Griffith’s other films as preparation for filming The Birth of a Nation, which receives respectful critical attention. Ellis, Jack C. “Rise of the American Film: 1914-1919.” In A History of Film. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990. Focusing on The Birth of a Nation, Ellis analyzes the film as one of the masterpieces, along with Intolerance, of early film art. Griffith’s technique and style set the pattern for classic Hollywood films. While praising the director’s art, Ellis condemns the racism of his films. Fabe, Marilyn. Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Presents analytic tools for understanding the narrative structure of films. Includes illustrations, glossary, bibliography, and index. Fulton, A. R. “Editing.” In Motion Pictures: The Development of an Art from Silent Films to the Age of Television. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960. From the use of crosscutting and still shots in 1909, with A Corner in Wheat, Griffith moved toward The Birth of a Nation. The film is analyzed for its parallelism, contrasts, and symbolism, achieved as effects of skillful editing. Henderson, Robert M. D. W. Griffith: His Life and Work. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. In fifteen balanced chapters, Griffith is presented as rising from playwright to screen actor to film director. Central chapters focus on the making of his major films. In-
Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation
Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 22-27, 1915
Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops In the Second Battle of Ypres, the German army introduced the widespread use of poison gas to end the deadlock of trench warfare in World War I. In spite of the panic that was initially created, determined Allied soldiers slowed the German advance and reconstituted the line. Although this battle did not result in a breakthrough, it introduced a horror that would affect battles throughout the war and enhance antiwar sentiment in the postwar years. Also known as: Second Battle of Ypres Locale: Ypres, Belgium Categories: World War I; military history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; atrocities and war crimes Key Figures Fritz Haber (1868-1934), chief of Germany’s Chemical Warfare Service Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922), general and chief of the German general staff Albert (Duke of Württemberg; 1865-1939), commander of Germany’s Fourth Army Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929), general and liaison between French and Allied forces Summary of Event The opening campaigns of World War I in 1914 saw horrendous losses inflicted by quick-firing artillery and machine guns. Soldiers sought protection from fire in elaborate trench networks, but attacks on the trenches resulted in heavy casualties. In response, both sides investigated the possibility of technological solutions, including the use of gas. In February of 1915, the French unsuccessfully tried to use ethyl bromo-acetate (a type of tear gas) in special projectiles fired by rifles. German research into gas use began in the fall of 1914. From September 5 to 9, 1914, the German army had fought and was ultimately defeated in the First Battle of the Marne. In response, the new chief of the general staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, authorized the use of gas. Early German efforts to employ chemical weapons were disappointing, however. The first attempts used a form of sneezing powder; when that failed, attention turned to another form of tear gas, xylyl bromide, which was delivered by artillery shells. Xylyl bromide was used in Russia at the Battle of Bolimov in January of 1915, but the extreme cold prevented the gas from spreading. Most of the Russian troops in the battle did not even realize they had been gassed. 1192
Dr. Fritz Haber, a German scientist, understood that special shells might be fragile as well as difficult to design, build, and produce. Instead of shells, Haber recommended that canisters be used to release chlorine gas. Germany’s chemical industry was the world’s largest, and chlorine already had industrial applications, so it was easily turned into a weapon. However, Haber’s contribution to the German war effort was not limited to the use of canisters or the selection of chlorine gas: He was the first to propose the use of gas as a method of overwhelming opposing forces. His delivery system was flawed, however, because it meant that gas could be used as a weapon only when winds blew in the correct direction, and on the western front prevailing winds blew toward German positions. Many German generals opposed the idea of gas warfare, since the 1896 Hague Peace Conference had banned the use of “asphyxiating and deleterious gasses.” Haber and others justified their work as a response to France’s unsuccessful efforts to develop a poisonous gas, and they also argued that gas would save lives by ending the war. Duke Albert of Württemberg was willing to use gas, and so Falkenhayn ordered the new weapon to be tested in Albert’s area, which included the Ypres salient, thirty miles southwest of Bruges, Belgium. Since Falkenhayn had ordered a gas attack as an experiment, attack plans focused on testing rather than on opening the front. Like the much-heralded British misuse of a small number of tanks in 1916, Falkenhayn’s decision would waste a golden opportunity. Canisters were placed near British trenches in March of 1915, but consistently poor wind conditions delayed the attack until April. By late April, the attack had been relocated from the eastern face of the salient to its northern face, where the winds were more reliable. Here the Allied positions amplified German advantages. Ypres was a juncture of Belgian, French, and British units, and coordination among these armies remained poor throughout the battle. The ground’s flat, waterlogged condition made trench life miserable, and maintaining continuous trench lines was unrealistic. As a result, many positions were scattered, fortified posts rather than trenches. Germany’s position was further strengthened by the fact that the enemy’s forces were relatively inexperienced. French positions were manned by the Forty-fifth Division, which consisted of troops from France’s African colonies, and the Eighteenth Division, which was largely composed of overage draftees. Most of the British troops were from
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the First Canadian Division, which had its first combat experience at Ypres. Because of the repeated weather delays, the German reserves originally slated for the offensive were shipped east to reinforce operations in Russia, which meant that the Ypres attack was effectively unsupported. Wind conditions remained a crucial factor in the operation’s timing: The attack ordered for the morning of April 22, 1915, was delayed until 5:00 p.m., when the wind finally blew in the correct direction. The use of gas took the Allies by surprise, despite several warnings that such an attack was planned. Air reconnaissance had noted the emplacement of the canisters, and two disgruntled German deserters had surrendered, warned of the impending attack, and even shown their primitive gas masks—gauze face masks impregnated with a chemical to negate the gas—to no effect. French generals discounted these reports, and the troops were not warned. When attackers released more than four hundred tons of gas from fifty-seven hundred canisters, the resultant gas cloud was nearly four miles wide, fifty feet high, and hundreds of yards deep. In response, France’s Eighteenth Division disintegrated, while many men in the Forty-fifth Division scattered. German troops followed the retreating French forces, and in the process the Germans were able to destroy a great deal of the Eighteenth Division’s artillery. After the first day of battle, French forces had been largely stripped of their weapons and had to depend on neighboring units for fire support. As soldiers fell, a mile-wide gap opened in the Allied line. The Germans, however, failed to exploit this opportunity. This was partially the result of the tenacity shown by the many French soldiers who continued to fight, even as they inhaled the gas, as well as the ferocity of the betterorganized Canadians, whose good fortune saw the gas cloud blow past rather than into their positions. The limited German advance was also the result of that army’s tepid expectations. Neither Falkenhayn nor Albert really expected a breakthrough, so subordinates were not ordered to rush into the gap as soon as it appeared. As darkness fell, the Germans consolidated their gains rather than exploit the breach, and by midnight, they had constructed entrenchments against anticipated Allied counterattacks. This pause gave the Canadians and French time to shift troops and launch counterattacks. The first of these began at midnight on April 22, when the Canadians marched into the line. There had not been time for preattack reconnaissance, and the result was a bloodbath: The two Canadian battalions suffered nearly 75 percent casualties. Subsequent German advances grew more cautious, however. Furthermore, as the Allied generals
Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops began to recognize the scope of the German penetration, they planned other counterattacks. France’s representative in this area was General Ferdinand Foch, who promised French counterattacks before receiving accurate information about the conditions in the salient and the disintegration of the two French divisions. Ferocious attacks by the Canadians and grim defensive battles fought by small groups of intermixed Canadian and French stragglers inflicted heavy German casualties, and the limited German forces were ultimately exhausted. German officers had anticipated neither the sudden breakthrough nor the subsequent heavy resistance, and they were unable to sustain the fighting. By April 27, the breach had been sealed, and the rest of the battle—which most scholars date from April 22 to May 25, 1915—devolved into a contest of attrition. By the battle’s end, thirty-five thousand Germans, sixty thousand British and Canadians, and ten thousand French soldiers had been killed. Most of the deaths were caused by artillery and machine gun fire, however, not by gas. It is believed that approximately three thousand British and Canadians—a relatively small percentage of total deaths—were killed by gas at Ypres. Still, the use of chlorine gas had considerable impact on morale, and the Allies quickly developed their own gas weapons in response. Building gas weapons and respirators was relatively simple, and the winds moved in the Allies’ favor. As a result, by war’s end, the Germans had launched just 24 gas attacks and had been the targets of more than 170 gas attacks by the British, French, and Americans. Clearly, the introduction of gas warfare harmed the Germans far more than it helped them. Significance The surprise German gas attack near Ypres was the war’s first successful application of gas warfare. Although the attack at Ypres initially caused many troops to panic and briefly tore a hole in the Allied defenses, the Germans were unable to exploit the temporary advantage created by their use of gas. Courageous counterattacks blunted German movements, and by the second day the Allies had improvised masks that reduced the effectiveness of the chlorine gas. Furthermore, the short-term German gain in one battle in no way balanced the terror and misery that gas weapons inflicted throughout the remainder of the war. Once the Germans had introduced poison gas, the Allies quickly manufactured their own and inflicted great damage on the German troops. Although a relatively small proportion of deaths among soldiers were the result of gas exposure, the rates of death and injury 1193
Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops from the use of chemical weapons was high enough to have a strong impact on morale. When World War I ended, negative feelings about gas attacks helped to fuel a loud and sometimes effective antiwar movement that helped shape interwar politics and diplomacy. —Kevin B. Reid Further Reading Brown, Frederick J. Chemical Warfare: A Study in Restraints. 1968. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2005. Account of the history of the use of chemical weapons and attempts to restrain use by legal measures. Also discusses the “humanity” of chemical warfare. Includes important material about chemical warfare and chemical arms control that is difficult to find elsewhere. Charles, Daniel. Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Full-scale biography of the scientist who led the German chemical weapons effort during World War I. Places Haber’s work in the context of his times. Includes bibliography and index. Christie, N. M. Gas Attack! The Canadians at Ypres, 1915. Nepean, Ont.: CEF Books, 1998. Although focused on the Canadians, this presents a balanced view of the battle and features many firsthand accounts from survivors. Coleman, Kim. A History of Chemical Warfare. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Describes the development and use of chemical weapons from 700 b.c.e. to the beginning of the twenty-first century, with extensive discussion of World War I. Also assesses current attempts to control the use and proliferation of such weapons and analyzes their potential use by terrorist groups. Fotion, Nicholas G., and Gerard Elfstrom. “Weapons of War.” In Military Ethics: Guidelines for Peace and War. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. Interesting and persuasive utilitarian argument for why use of some kinds of weapons, including chemical and biological weapons, ought to be morally condemned whereas use of others is permissible. Distinguishes between first use and retaliation. Groom, Winston. A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002. This is a very accessible overview of all of the battles at Ypres, including the Second Battle of Ypres in April, 1915. Haber, L. F. The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War. New York: Oxford University 1194
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Press, 1986. A painstaking and thorough account of the origins, development, organization, use, and effects of chemical weapons in World War I. Written by the son of chemist Fritz Haber, who presided over the German chemical weapons program. Some of the conclusions are controversial, but this book should not be missed by anyone interested in the history of chemical warfare. Hart, Liddell. History of the First World War. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. Originally published in 1930 under the title The Real War, 1914-1918, this book provides a readable and detailed account of World War I that manages to capture not only successes and failures of strategy on the grand level but also a good deal of the flavor of what it was like to live through the events chronicled. Provides a good background for understanding chemical warfare in the context of World War I. McWilliams, James L. Gas! The Battle for Ypres, 1915. St. Catharine’s, Ont.: Vanwell, 1985. This is an excellent study of the details of the battle. Its balanced treatment of the French and Belgian contributions to victory is especially impressive. Richter, Donald C. Chemical Soldiers: British Gas Warfare in World War I. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. Presents a detailed, scholarly look at the use of chemical weapons during World War I from the perspective of the British military brigade instituted to combat the Germans’ use of chemicals. Includes maps, appendixes, and bibliography. Spiers, Edward M. Chemical Warfare. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986. A useful account of the modern history of chemical warfare and chemical arms control, now somewhat dated by the fact that it was written before the 1988 chemical weapons offensives by Iraq. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The Rise of CB Weapons. Vol. 1 in The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare. New York: Humanities Press, 1971. Part of a series that constitutes the definitive account of chemical and biological weapons before the 1970’s. Provides an overview and covers the history of chemical weapons and warfare from 1914 to 1970 and also evaluates more than two hundred alleged uses. Both comprehensive and carefully objective in approach. See also: Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Armenian Genocide Begins
April 24, 1915
Armenian Genocide Begins The genocide of nearly one million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire was a carefully orchestrated plan by that government and its officials to provide a final solution to the Armenian question. Locale: Armenia; Turkey Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event Several factors contributed to the massacre of close to one million Armenians in Turkey during World War I. The Ottoman Empire was in rapid decline in the latter half of the nineteenth century. European powers, notably the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and (after 1871) the German Empire gradually severed various parts of the once-great empire. The Treaty of San Stefano ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 at Turkey’s expense. The genesis of that war had been the massacres carried out by Turkish troops in Bulgaria in 1876. As a result of the treaty, the Ottomans lost territory to Russia. The Russian imperial government acted as the protector of Christians within the Islamic Ottoman Empire, and Russia pressured the Ottoman government to allow Christian Armenians to have administrative autonomy in eastern Turkey. A second treaty, the Treaty of Berlin (1878), signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia, essentially modified the San Stefano stipulations by allowing the Otto-
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Key Figures Mehmed Talât Pala (1874-1921), triumvir of the Ottoman Empire, r. 1913-1918 Enver Pala (1881-1922), triumvir of the Ottoman Empire, r. 1913-1918 Ahmed Cemal Pala (1872-1922), Ottoman navy minister and governor of Syria and later triumvir, r. 1913-1918 Abdülhamid II (1842-1918), sultan of the Ottoman Empire, r. 1876-1909 Henry Morgenthau, Sr. (1856-1946), U.S. ambassador to Turkey Ziya Gökalp (Mehmet Ziya; 1876-1924), Pan-Turkism writer Johannes Lepsius (1858-1926), German missionary and historian Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (1884-1923), German vice consul in Erzerum
man government to agree only to treat the Armenians fairly rather than granting them autonomy. The modification eliminated the earlier treaty’s insistence on better treatment of the Armenians as a condition for the withdrawal of Russian troops from eastern Turkey. Nevertheless, Armenians were confident that Russian policy and national interest would effectively guarantee their safety from any attempts by the Turks to massacre their people. This confidence provided misplaced: Sultan Abdülhamid II carried out a large-scale massacre of Turkish Armenians between 1894 and 1896. The sultan justified his actions by accusing the Armenian mountaineers of the Sassoun district of rebelling against government authority. He claimed that the Armenians’ refusal to pay customary protection tribute to Kurdish chieftains was sufficient grounds for military action. In the end, a total of between 200,000 and 250,000 Armenians are estimated to have been killed by Turks and Kurds (a predominantly Islamic ethnic minority). International protests and Russian threats averted a greater loss of Armenian lives. This event, together with the discontent of national minorities within the Ottoman Empire, especially in the Black Sea area, eroded the power of the sultanate. Turkey was perceived by the Great Powers as the “sick man” of Europe. In Thessaloníki (Salonika), Turkish army officers loyal to the Committee of Union and Progress (the “Young Turks”) were embracing a new revolutionary ideology and a program of action that would capsize Abdülhamid II’s regime and, they hoped, restore the empire to its former grandeur. On July 23, 1908, Abdülhamid II was overthrown. The Young Turks, however, were not able to consolidate power until January 26, 1913, when Enver Pala and Mehmed Talât Pala took control of the Ottoman Empire. They were joined later by Ahmed Cemal Pala. These three constituted the dictatorial triumvirate that was responsible both for Turkey’s entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers and for the genocide of nearly one million Armenians. The triumvirs espoused a new ideology known as “Pan-Turkism.” This ideology was shaped by the intellectual Ziya Gökalp, who was a close friend of Mehmed Talât Pala and a member of the Central Council of the Committee of Union and Progress. Mehmed Talât Pala was a forceful advocate for extermination of the Armenian people as part of an effort to “Turkify” Turkey.
Armenian Genocide Begins The triumvirate planned the extermination of the Armenians before the outbreak of World War I. The genocide was discussed by members of the Central Council in 1913 at a series of secret meetings. A chief aim of the Young Turks was the reunification of Ottoman Turkey with Turkish Caucasia (which was part of Russia) and Central Asia, but the Armenians were an obstacle to their proposed Pan-Turkish empire. The Armenians were accordingly scheduled for elimination. It is unclear if the triumvirs really believed that the Armenians might pose a threat to Turkey by fighting on the side of Russia in the event of war. They may merely have seen them as ethnically “impure” elements standing in the way of Turkish racial unity. Whatever the case, from 1913 onward the officials of the junta at Constantinople informed governors and police chiefs of their planned genocide of the Armenians. The exact time of the genocide would be determined by events. After Germany invaded France on August 2, 1914, the Turkish government moved swiftly to join the war on the side of Germany. Ottoman troops crossed the Egyptian border and had a minor clash with British forces, and the United Kingdom declared war in response. The war served as a pretext for the planned genocide, and the triumvirs were poised to strike at the Armenians. The Dashnak Party, an Armenian political party, called on its members and all Turkish Armenians to be loyal to Turkey in the event that war broke out between Russia and Turkey. Nearly one-quarter million Armenians were inducted into the Ottoman armed forces. During January, 1915, Turkish forces led by Enver Pala suffered a major defeat by Russia at Sarikamil, on the Russian border. The junta was convinced that military defeat by the Russians was imminent and feared that revolution might break out among their subjugated nationalities. The Turkish triumvirate made the crucial decision to exterminate the Armenians in order to deflect attention from their failure on the battlefield and to implement their ideology of “Turkey for the Turks.” Melvanzrade Rifat, a member of the Central Council, recorded a telling discussion at a council meeting to the effect that, because Turkey was at war, the time was opportune to exterminate the Armenians while the European powers were preoccupied with their own struggles. Rifat noted the council’s decision that even though the projected massacre might create some difficulty and public objections, it would be an accomplished fact before the Europeans could react. Another member of the Central Council did not mince words, stating that an easy technique to exterminate the Armenians would be to 1196
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 send Armenian troops to the front to fight the Russians. The Armenians who were engaged with the Russians would then face fire from special forces in their rear sent there by the government for that purpose; they would be trapped and annihilated. The massacres began on April 24, 1915, when the leaders of the Armenian community in Constantinople were seized by the authorities and executed. This date is still commemorated as the beginning of the Armenian genocide, which would continue, in spurts, until the early 1920’s. Armenian military units were disarmed by the Ottoman government. They were systematically starved, beaten, and finally shot. Squads of fifty or one hundred Armenian troops were sent into the countryside, allegedly to work on roads and other projects, and were shot by Turkish troops. Two thousand Armenian soldiers were sent out from Harput in July, 1915, and murdered in the countryside; their bodies were piled in caves. Many thousands of Armenians were murdered in this fashion. The Ottoman government, to save ammunition, decided to carry out a mass deportation of Armenians, claiming that they posed a national security threat near the Russian border, where Russian forces were penetrating eastern Turkey. Many of the deportations, however, occurred far from the front. The deportation of many thousands was carried out during the summer months of 1915. Few of the deportees reached their destination in the Syrian wilderness. In Angora (modern Ankara), the vali (governor) refused to deport Armenians. The Young Turks replaced him with a governor more eager to do the bidding of the Central Council. This reliable party man carried out the wishes of the junta. Most of the Armenian inhabitants of Angora were moved at night to an area called Asi Yozgad, where Turkish tanners and butchers murdered the defenseless Armenians and threw their bodies into a river from a bridge. The sight and stench of the many bodies in the river compelled the authorities to close the bridge during the hours of daylight. The triumvirs did not keep count of the dead. According to an American relief worker, Stanley Kerr, of eighty-six thousand Armenians once living in the city of Sivas, only fifteen hundred remained in 1918. Fifteen thousand Armenians were killed in Bitlis, in the adjacent district, in a single day in 1915. Kurds were employed by Turkish officials to murder Armenians. The Ottoman government recruited Kurds and ordered them to kill Armenians, especially males, children, and old women; young women were often spared. Kurds tossed bodies of Armenians into ravines, cisterns, and caves. Mehmed Talât Pala, after making
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 himself grand vizier, boasted to the American ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., that he had done in three months what Abdülhamid II had failed to do in thirty years. When Morgenthau protested the massacres, Talât reportedly replied, “The massacres! What of them? They merely amused me.” The massacres were repeatedly denied by Turkish and German officials as inventions of the newspapers. Later, when the fact of the massacres was established, both the junta and its German allies dismissed them as a national security necessity. The United States protested and, along with the United Kingdom, made it clear that Turkish officials would be held personally responsible for the atrocities in the Armenian provinces of Turkey. Otherwise, nothing further could be done until the end of the war. A Turkish military tribunal then tried the triumvirs in absentia for complicity in mass murder of the Armenians. Their sentences were carried out in various ways:
Armenian Genocide Begins Mehmed Talât Pala was killed by Armenian exiles in 1921; Ahmed Cemal Pala was assassinated on July 21, 1922, in Soviet Georgia, also by Armenian exiles; and Enver Pala was killed in action in the Bukhara region on August 4, 1922, leading an attack against Soviet troops. Significance The calculated murder of the Armenians generated world outrage. Unfortunately, that outrage took the form of parades, speeches, fund-raising for the hapless survivors, and protests from several foreign offices in a futile attempt to stop the genocide. These efforts provided no meaningful punitive or ameliorative effects. The inadequacy of the international response was perhaps influenced by the fact that the governments of the United States, England, and France reacted incredulously to the mounting evidence of the mass extermination of a people. Such gargantuan evil seemed beyond imagining, al1915
Threats to Armenian survival in Turkey continued after1918, and residents of the neighboring Armenian homeland faced new challenges when the Soviet Union was formed in the early 1920’s, as this 1921 appeal for American help shows. (Library of Congress)
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Armenian Genocide Begins though history was already replete with pogroms and genocide. The establishment of the League of Nations after World War I was an important development and perhaps did prevent many atrocities. The League of Nations was clearly concerned about human rights and had some limited success combating the international slave trade. Its several conventions on the rights of people to be free from compulsory labor and state torture were giant steps that laid at least a foundation for respect of human rights. The Armenian genocide did not inspire all these efforts, but it did galvanize much contemporary interest in preventing mass atrocities. The world forgot the Armenian genocide too quickly. In part, such forgetfulness was connected with the enormous slaughter on the battlefields of Europe and Africa; another several hundred thousand deaths did not seem to matter. Indeed, in August, 1939, Adolf Hitler, in discussing his planned murder of the Polish people, asked his advisers, “Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?” Hitler understood how quickly that slaughter was forgotten by the world. Who would be concerned about the Poles or the Jews in the midst of a world war? Hitler’s question places in stark relief the significance of the Armenian genocide: It was an emblematic opening to a century characterized by such atrocities. —Claude Hargrove Further Reading Bloxham, Donald. The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. In addition to the details of the genocide itself, this book spends a great deal of time on the international situation that made the genocide possible and on the international reaction both during and afterward. Bibliographic references and index. Boyajian, Dickran, ed. Armenia: The Case for a Forgotten Genocide. Westwood, N.J.: Educational Book Crafters, 1972. A collection of primary sources that document the origins and implementation of the Armenian genocide. Dadrian, Vahakn N. The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Providence, R.I.: Berghahn Books, 1995. Scholarly account of the history of and factors leading to the Armenian genocide. Annotated bibliography. _______. “The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide During the First World War.” In 1198
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Minorities in Wartime, edited by Panikos Panayi. Providence, R.I.: Berg, 1993. This informative study examines the origins and activities of special units that were recruited from Ottoman prisons and used in actions against the Armenians. Hartunian, Abraham. Neither to Laugh Nor to Weep: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide. Boston: Beacon Press, 1968. Detailed and sympathetic treatment of how a people were murdered. Contains graphic descriptions of torture, drowning, and other nightmarish ways people were exterminated. Hovannisian, Richard G. The Armenian Holocaust: A Bibliography Relating to the Deportations, Massacre, and Dispersion of the Armenian People, 1915-1923. Cambridge, Mass.: Armenian Heritage Press, 1980. This book provides a convenient list of archival resources, collections of documents, and memoirs on the Armenian genocide. _______, ed. The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. This collection of fourteen essays by specialists examines various aspects of the Armenian genocide. _______. The Armenian Genocide in Perspective. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Press-Rutgers University, 1986. These eleven multidisciplinary studies of the genocide incorporate findings from sociology, psychiatry, political science, literature, ethics, and history. Kloian, Richard, ed. The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts from the American Press, 1915-1922. 3d ed. Richmond, Calif.: ACC Books, 1985. Voluminous collection of contemporary news accounts of the genocide tells a poignant but credible story of the first holocaust of the twentieth century. The author comments on numerous specific atrocities that prove that there was a holocaust. Turkish revisionism is forever debunked by this interestingly designed account of the Armenian genocide. Lang, David M. The Armenians: A People in Exile. Winchester, Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1981. Describes successive genocides against the Armenians by Ottoman rulers. The focus is on the years from 1894 to 1918. A balanced account by any criterion. Melson, Robert. Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Examines the roots of both the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. Seeks to analyze the forces that led to genocide and to revolution. Bibliography and index. Miller, Lorna Touryan, and Donald Eugene Miller. Sur-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. This collection of interviews from more than one hundred survivors of the Armenian genocide provides highly personal historical insights. Includes a bibliography and an index. Morgenthau, Henry. Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story. Reprint. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. Memoir of the U.S. ambassador to Turkey; provides a firsthand account of the triumvirate and the Armenian genocide. Bibliographic references and index.
International Congress of Women Somakian, Manoug. Empires in Conflict: Armenia and the Great Powers, 1912-1920. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995. This work examines the Armenian question in the context of international relations before and after the genocide. See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: GrecoTurkish War; Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
April 28-May 1, 1915
International Congress of Women
Locale: The Hague, the Netherlands Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; social issues and reform; women’s issues; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Jane Addams (1860-1935), American humanitarian and activist Emily Greene Balch (1867-1961), American professor and activist Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), American reformer and expert on industrial medicine Rosika Schwimmer (1877-1948), Hungarian pacifist and feminist Summary of Event Women’s opposition to World War I had roots in the Victorian perception of male and female roles, the “comingof-age” of the first generation of women to have graduated from college in large numbers, and the women’s suffrage movement. In the Victorian view, motherhood, nurturing, and caring provided the core of a woman’s being. Conversely, men were considered to be innately martial in spirit, and it was thought that they might benefit (even if society did not), in terms of resoluteness and hardening of the manly spirit, from the crucible of war. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, women’s caring nature would become sufficient cause for them to embrace is-
sues beyond the confines of the home. This outreach to the larger society was facilitated by the fact that higher education of women was no longer viewed as a societal extravagance. Education and the maternal instinct combined in women’s espousal of a host of causes, including pacifism, women’s suffrage, and campaigns against child labor and in favor of a minimum wage and decent working conditions. The leap from maternalism to humanitarianism, pacifism, and women’s suffrage was neither long nor intricate. Ensuring the welfare of children implied activism to elevate society to a higher, more equitable plane. This elevation required an end to war and the full enfranchisement of women to enable the change. The correlation between pacifism and women’s issues (feminism) was strong, but it was sometimes breakable, as World War I would prove. The onset of World War I in 1914 was of grave concern to humanitarians such as Jane Addams, who, in her desire for a more equitable, less violent society than a free market could produce, had hoped that human beings had progressed beyond the “need” for war. The fomentation of the peace movement in the United States would grow to include conservative groups such as the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). In 1914, Hungarian feminist Rosika Schwimmer and English peace activist Emmeline Pethic-Lawrence toured the United States to advocate the mediation of the conflict by neutral nations. Together with Addams, Schwimmer founded the Women’s Peace Party (WPP) in January, 1915, as a cornerstone on which a better society might be built. The WPP drafted plans for an international conference of 1199
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The International Congress of Women brought women peace activists together on the eve of the entry of the United States into World War I in an attempt to resolve the war and subsequent disputes through impartial, international mediation.
International Congress of Women neutral interests that gained support from European organizations such as the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance (IWSA). In February, 1915, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and a group of her fellow IWSA members from Europe drafted a blanket invitation to an International Congress of Women at The Hague. Financing was forthcoming and Addams, chair of the WPP, agreed to preside. The belligerent countries in World War I were almost uniformly opposed to the conference in neutral Netherlands. In fact, the ship carrying the American delegation to the conference, the Noordam, was detained in England for four days before being allowed to proceed. Most of the British delegation was restrained from attending, whereas the Germans sent five delegates and allowed five delegates from occupied Belgium to attend. The press in the United States, Britain, and France was hostile, labeling the group “pro-Hun,” and the American ambassador to Britain likened the Noordam to a cage of doves. In the face of imposing governmental barriers, fourteen hundred delegates attended the first session of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 conference, and twenty-four hundred attended the last. In all, twelve countries were represented, with delegates from 150 different organizations. The American delegation was an illustrious group of forty-seven that included physicians such as Dr. Alice Hamilton, journalists such as Mary Heaton Vorse, social reformers such as Elizabeth Gwendover Evans, union leaders such as Annie Molloy, and political activists such as Belle La Follette. A Canadian-born member of the Noordam group, Julia Grace Wales, had proposed a plan under which a group of neutral (nonpolitical) experts would convene to mediate the war—after offering the disputants a menu of proposals that might end the conflict. The actual meetings at The Hague were full of spirited discussion but constrained by a rigid system of rules of procedure, which galled Addams, who was accustomed to the freer give-and-take of American democracy. The press continued to report on the gathering in a biased manner. The German press accused the delegates of leanings in favor of the Allied Powers, the British press regarded the conference as offering a pro-German agenda, and much of
Jane Addams (second from left, behind banner) and other peace activists on the Noordam en route to Europe in 1915. (Library of Congress)
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Significance Despite the success of the congress itself, when the delegates returned home from The Hague in the summer of 1915, having facilitated communications among belligerents and neutrals, they realized there was little chance for government-sponsored mediation to succeed. There was a possibility, however, that private-sponsored mediation might fill the void. In a move that seemed more
fancy than substance, delegate Rebuke Shelley arranged a meeting between American automobile magnate Henry Ford and Rosika Schwimmer, with the goal of obtaining financing for a private war-mediation effort. The two made a colorful pair: Ford was self-educated, entrepreneurial, isolationist, and anti-Semitic in his preferences, whereas Schwimmer was European, educated, radical, and Jewish. Surprisingly, Ford agreed to fund a new venture by the International Committee of Women to bring the instrument of independent mediation to all concerned parties. Previously, Ford had unsuccessfully tried to get President Wilson to accept the idea of a mediated peace. Undeterred, Ford chartered the ocean liner Oscar II, quickly dubbed the Peace Ship, to transport the American women’s delegation abroad. The contingent that sailed on December 4, 1915, consisted of fifty-seven delegates from a spectrum of vocations, a clutch of animated reporters, and more than a few hangers-on wishing to benefit from an all-expenses-paid ocean vacation. The voyage did not proceed as smoothly as the congress at The Hague, however. Instead, bickering, political infighting, and mistrust were fueled by ever-skeptical reporters in search of a story. When they reached Europe, the delegates found their input unwelcome in what was regarded as a European affair. Wilson’s call for military preparedness in the face of aggression had weakened the American peace movement. On December 21, Ford returned home, claiming illness. The Peace Ship had failed, yet it had succeeded in convening a conference of neutrals: the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, conceived in Stockholm, funded by Ford, and convened in January, 1916. This six-nation group conducted studies, authored peace proposals, and was willing to put itself in the service of belligerents. German resumption of full-scale submarine warfare and Ford’s withdrawal of funds, however, led to the conference’s demise in the summer of 1916. — John A. Sondey Further Reading Chatfield, Charles. For Peace and Justice. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971. A well-documented, readable text that provides insight into the American pacifist movement from 1914 to World War II. Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Biography of Addams discusses the political and cultural influence of her activities both on her own time 1201
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the nonaligned press reported the meetings as either underattended or terminated by dispute. Nevertheless, the accomplishments of the conference were significant. The participants somehow managed to avoid placing blame for responsibility for the war or for the use of some of the more heinous instruments (poison gas among others) employed in the war. Instead, the delegates focused on the purpose of the convention: establishment of a peace mechanism. They engaged in considerable philosophical give-and-take with respect to immediate peace and peace with justice, the acceptability or unacceptability of some wars, and the unique role of women in the peace process. The landmark of the meetings was agreement on a set of principles necessary for a lasting peace. Among the conditions the participants agreed to were the following: that conquests should not be recognized by nondisputants; that democracy should be the rule, and foreign policy should be subject to the democratic process; that all governments should agree to submit international disagreements to mediation or arbitration; that nations that resort to arms in resolving disputes should be subject to economic sanctions; and that women deserve political equality with men. President Woodrow Wilson later complimented Addams on the peace proposals and reportedly used them as guidelines in establishing his Fourteen Points. Additionally, the congress created the International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace, which was intended to have a role in the postwar peace process. Rosika Schwimmer convinced the congress of the viability of her quixotic proposal that a delegation should physically present the leaders of belligerent and neutral countries with the findings and recommendations of the conference. To that end, Jane Addams, Aletta Jacobs, and Alice Hamilton set off to visit political leaders from France, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium. Concurrently, Schwimmer, Emily Greene Balch, and a second group journeyed to Russia and the Scandinavian nations to share the congress’s recommendations.
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Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns and on the generations that followed. Includes chronology, list of Addams’s books, and index. Elshtain, Jean Bethke, and Sheila Tobias, eds. Women, Militarism, and War. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990. A collection of essays in the politics and social theory of the feminist movement in its focus on war and pacifism. Lundarini, Christine A. The American Peace Movement in the Twentieth Century. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1994. An instructive, alphabetically arranged compendium of articles on historical factors in the American peace movement. Randall, Mercedes. Improper Bostonian. New York: Twayne, 1964. An excellent biography of Emily Greene Balch, professor, reformer, humanitarian, and pacifist. Schneider, Carl J., and Dorothy Schneider. Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I. New York: Viking Press, 1991. A full and engaging record of the roles American women played during
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 World War I, both in the peace movement and in military service. Sharer, Wendy B. Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915-1930. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. Examines the writing and speaking practices of the women who were active in political organizations in the years of the suffrage movement and immediately after. Includes illustrations and index. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
May, 1915
Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns True aerial combat was made possible when Anthony Fokker designed a cam-operated interrupter gear, connected it to the oil-pump drive of an Oberursel engine and the trigger of a Parabellum machine gun, and synchronized the gun to fire through a moving airplane propeller. Locale: Schwerin, Germany Categories: Science and technology; inventions; military history; space and aviation Key Figures Anthony Fokker (1890-1939), Dutch-born American entrepreneur, pilot, aircraft designer, and manufacturer Roland Garros (1888-1918), French aviator Max Immelmann (1890-1916), German aviator Raymond Saulnier (1881-1964), French aircraft designer and manufacturer Franz Schneider (1871-?), German inventor and aircraft designer Summary of Event The first true aerial combat of World War I began in 1915. Until that time, defensive and offensive weapons 1202
attached to airplanes were inadequate for any real combat work. Pilots and crew members used handheld weapons and clumsily mounted machine guns in attempts to convert their observation planes into fighters. In the spring of 1915, the German army had 230 frontline aircraft to the Allies’ 500. On April 1, 1915, this situation became even more lopsided. From an airfield near Dunkerque, France, a French airman, Lieutenant Roland Garros, was armed with a device that would make his plane the most feared weapon in the air at that time. Prior to the war, Garros had been an acclaimed exhibition pilot, holding the world altitude record and becoming the first person to fly across the Mediterranean. As a combat pilot, however, Garros was frustrated by the inability to maneuver his aircraft into a position where either he or his observer could bring weapons to bear on the enemy. During a visit to Paris, Garros met with Raymond Saulnier, a French aircraft designer. In April of 1914, Saulnier had applied for a patent on a device that mechanically linked the trigger of a machine gun to a cam on an airplane engine shaft that, theoretically, would allow the machine gun to fire between the moving blades of the propeller. Unfortunately, the available machine gun Saulnier used to test fire his device was a Hotchkiss
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Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns
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A Fokker E-III, the first airplane to be equipped with a synchronized machine gun. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
gun, which tended to fire at an uneven rate. The lowquality ammunition produced for the Hotchkiss gun resulted in a large number of delay-fired rounds. No device could prevent the Hotchkiss gun from mistiming and destroying the propeller. On Garros’s arrival, Saulnier showed him a new invention: a steel deflector that, when fastened to the propeller, would deflect the small percentage of mistimed bullets that would otherwise destroy the blades. The first test firing was a disaster: The propeller was shot off and the fuselage was destroyed. Saulnier modified the deflector braces, streamlining the deflector into a wedge shape with channels for deflected bullets. The invention was attached to a Morane-Saulnier monoplane. On April 1, Garros took off alone in the plane toward the German lines. For the first time, a fast, maneuverable airplane— of a design suited for aerial combat—was armed so that the pilot could use the plane for aiming directly at a target. Success was immediate. Garros shot down a German observation plane that morning. It was the first time a flier ever aimed an aircraft as a weapon and shot through the propeller to bring down an enemy. During the next two weeks, Garros shot down five more German aircraft. The German high command, frantic over the effectiveness of the French “secret weapon,” sent out spies to try
to steal the secret and also set up armament committees to develop a similar weapon. As it turned out, luck was with them. On April 18, 1915, despite warnings from his superiors not to fly over enemy-held territory, Garros was behind German lines when engine trouble forced him to crash-land. Before he could destroy the aircraft, Garros was captured by German troops, and the secret weapon was revealed. The Germans were ecstatic about the opportunity to examine the new French weapon. Unlike the French, the Germans had the first air-cooled machine gun, the Parabellum, which shot continuous bands of one hundred bullets and was reliable enough to be adapted to a timing mechanism. In May of 1915, the German high command sent a message to Anthony Fokker, who at that time was building airplanes for the German Signal Corps in Schwerin, and asked if he could produce a forwardfiring machine-gun mount similar to the one used by the French. Fokker was shown Garros’s Morane plane and was ordered to copy the idea, but instead Fokker and his assistant designed a new firing system. The design was similar to an interrupter gear patented in 1913 by German designer Franz Schneider, who had devised a method of shooting through the air-screw shaft in the same year. Both these inventions had been overlooked by the military. 1203
Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns It is unclear whether Fokker and his team were already working on a synchronizer or to what extent they knew of Saulnier’s previous work in France and Schneider’s in Germany. Within several days, however, they had constructed a working prototype and attached it to a Fokker Eindecker 1 airplane. The design consisted of a simple linkage of cams and pushrods connected to the oil-pump drive of an Oberursel engine and the trigger of a Parabellum machine gun. The technical problem that Fokker encountered was how to shoot between the rotating propeller blades. The two-bladed propeller revolved twelve hundred times per minute, so a blade would pass a given point twenty-four hundred times per minute. The firing rate of the Parabellum was six hundred rounds per minute. The solution to the problem involved keeping the pilot from pulling the trigger when the propeller blade was directly in front of the muzzle. The answer was to make the propeller shoot the gun. During the testing trials, Fokker attached a small knob to the propeller that struck a cam as it revolved. The cam was attached to the hammer of the machine gun. Slow rotation of the propeller showed that the gun shot between the blades. To set the timing, Fokker attached a plywood disc to the propeller, and test firing continued until an even pattern of bullet holes appeared between the blades. One blade-mounted cam was found to be sufficient to operate the system, because the gun could shoot only six hundred times a minute, and the blades passed a given point twenty-four hundred times a minute. Fokker then attached a knee lever to the cam to operate a spring-held pushrod. A piece of the rod striking the gun hammer was hinged so that the pilot could engage the device when he was ready to shoot. Fokker took his invention to Doberitz air base, and, after a series of exhausting trials before the German high command, both on the ground and in the air, he was allowed to take two prototypes of the machine-gunmounted airplanes to Douai in German-held France. At Douai, two German pilots crowded into the cockpit with Fokker and were given demonstrations of the plane’s capabilities. The airmen were Oswald Boelcke, a test pilot and veteran of forty reconnaissance missions, and Max Immelmann, a young, skillful aviator who was assigned to the front. When the first two combat-ready versions of Fokker’s Eindecker 1 were delivered to the front lines, one was assigned to Boelcke and the other to Immelmann. On August 1, 1915, with their aerodrome under attack from nine English bombers, Boelcke and Immelmann manned their aircraft and attacked. Bo1204
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 elcke’s gun jammed, and he was forced to cut off his attack and return to the aerodrome. Immelmann succeeded in shooting down one of the bombers with his synchronized machine gun. It was the first victory credited to the Fokker-designed weapon system. Significance At the outbreak of World War I, military strategists and general high commands on both sides saw the wartime function of airplanes as a means to supply intelligence information behind enemy lines or as airborne artilleryspotting platforms. As the war progressed and aircraft flew more or less freely across the trenches, providing vital information to both armies, it became apparent to ground commanders that although it was important to obtain intelligence on enemy movements, it was also important to deny the enemy similar information. Early in the war, the French used airplanes as strategic bombing platforms. As both armies began to use their air forces for strategic bombing of troops, railways, ports, and airship sheds, it became evident that aircraft would have to be employed against enemy aircraft to prevent reconnaissance and bombing raids. No aircraft in service to either army at the outset of World War I was intended officially for fighting. It was left to the pilot in a single-seat scoutcraft or to the observer in a two-seat observation plane to have a pistol or rifle on hand to defend himself and his craft if he encountered an enemy aircraft during a mission. Pistols, rifles, and shotguns loaded with chains, grenades, fléchettes (steel darts), rocks, and grappling hooks were all used in attempts to down enemy aircraft. It was apparent to most aviators that the ideal weapon for aerial combat was the machine gun. The problem was that no airplane in service at the war’s start was designed to carry such a weapon. Airplanes at that time were so fragile that the extra weight of a machine gun was enough to hamper their performance. Two types of aircraft were in service to both armies: pusher-style planes with a propeller in the rear and tractor types with the propeller in the front. Although tractor types were faster, there was no means of mounting a machine gun in front of the pilot, where he could take aim, as a gun in that position would shoot off the blades of the propeller. A pusher plane with a machine gun mounted on the front offered the observer a wide field of fire forward, but his field to the sides and rear was obstructed by wings, struts, and wires. The observer also was forced to rely on the pilot to place him in proper firing position. Designers experimented with mounting machine guns
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on the sides of aircraft fuselages, on wing tops, and on swivel mounts, but these all denied the aviator the ability to use his aircraft as a means of aiming at a target. With the invention of the synchronized forwardfiring machine gun, pilots could use their aircraft as attack weapons. A pilot finally could coordinate control of his aircraft and his armaments with maximum efficiency. This conversion of aircraft from nearly passive observation platforms to attack fighters is the single greatest innovation in the history of aerial warfare. The development of fighter aircraft forced changes in military strategy, tactics, and logistics, ushering in the era of modern warfare. Fighter planes are responsible for the battletested military adage: Whoever controls the sky, controls the battlefield. — Randall L. Milstein
illustrated. Fokker’s contemporaries and historians have described him as a person of immense ego. In the chapter titled “I Invent the Synchronized MachineGun,” Fokker claims total credit for the idea, with no reference to the work of others. Grey, Charles G. The History of Combat Airplanes. Northfield, Vt.: Norwich University, 1942. Highly opinionated book by a contemporary of Fokker. A good reference point to learn about the military and political climate surrounding the invention of the synchronized machine gun. Lawson, Eric, and Jane Lawson. The First Air Campaign: August 1914-November 1918. 1996. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002. Discusses all of the air warfare of World War I as though it was one long campaign, focusing on the race to develop new tactics and technologies. Includes maps, diagrams, bibliography, and index. Phelan, Joseph A. Heroes and Aeroplanes of the Great War, 1914-1918. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973. Documents the lives and exploits of many early innovators in aerial combat tactics and illustrates the progression in fighter aircraft design throughout World War I. See also: June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids; May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I.
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Further Reading Batchelor, John, and Bryan Cooper. Fighter: A History of Fighter Aircraft. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. A beautifully illustrated book on the history of fighter aircraft. Contains a set of diagrams showing the principles of the Fokker interrupter gear and the Garros Wedge. Bowen, Ezra, and the Editors of Time-Life Books. Knights of the Air. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1980. A richly illustrated volume documenting the rise of aerial warfare during World War I. Gives a good overview of the facts surrounding the development of the synchronized machine gun. Fokker, Anthony H. G., and Bruce Gould. Flying Dutchman: The Life of Anthony Fokker. New York: Holt, 1931. Fokker’s autobiography is easily read and well
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German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania
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May 7, 1915
German Torpedoes Sink the LUSITANIA When a German submarine off the coast of Ireland sank the Cunard liner the Lusitania, more than twelve hundred passengers died. The event sparked a serious diplomatic controversy among the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Locale: North Atlantic Ocean Categories: World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), renowned naval strategist of the late nineteenth century Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), head of the German navy William Thomas Turner (1856-1933), captain of the Lusitania Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event The sinking of the Lusitania was the result of a naval strategy whose foundation lay in the writings of the renowned geopolitical theorist and naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan. Firmly rooted in the Western imperialism that dominated much of the period, Mahan’s writings emphasized the connection between a nation’s ability to project its power around the world and the likelihood of its success in the international arena. A nation’s destiny, Mahan believed, was directly affected by the size and power of its navy. Mahan eventually developed a naval strategy in which the goal was to destroy a potential adversary’s fleet completely. This destruction, Mahan said, would occur as the result of a single violent naval encounter that would cripple an opponent’s ability to make war. Victory at sea would allow a nation to blockade its opponent’s harbors and would eventually prevent an enemy from conducting international trade. This, in turn, would create economic chaos in the enemy nation, which would gradually lead to the opposing government’s political downfall and eventual collapse. Mahan also theorized that a weaker naval power could focus its energy on targeting its opponent’s merchant fleet. In fact, this had been the objective in many of history’s naval battles, but Mahan believed that naval warfare in the twentieth century would be characterized 1206
by large, powerful navies that fought desperate battles on the high seas. This scenario gave birth to his “decisive battle theory,” which dominated the strategies of the world’s major naval powers for many decades. The modern German nation was founded in January of 1871. A quarter of a century later, Alfred von Tirpitz was placed in charge of the new German navy, and over time he became the nation’s first important naval strategist. His philosophy was deeply influenced by Mahan’s writings, especially the aspect that placed great emphasis on the creation of a strong, modern battle fleet. Building on Mahan’s decisive battle theory, Tirpitz constructed a German naval strategy known as “risk theory,” a battle plan aimed at reducing Great Britain’s naval superiority. Tirpitz believed that the only way Germany could challenge British supremacy was to create a navy that was so powerful that Great Britain would never risk a naval confrontation. Tirpitz began a massive buildup of naval arms that called for the creation of a sixty-ship German navy, twothirds of which would be battleships. By the first decade of the twentieth century, however, it was obvious that Germany would be unable to sustain such a costly military presence on the world’s oceans. In reaction to this reality, German naval strategists created a new theory that synthesized Mahan’s concept of targeting an opponent’s merchant fleet with his emphasis on the decisive battle. The submarine, which had the advantages of being small, inexpensive, and able to surprise much larger ships, was to play a pivotal role in this new naval paradigm. In the weeks following the outbreak of World War I, Great Britain and Germany targeted each other with naval blockades in an attempt to deprive the opposing military of needed materials. England used its navy, the largest in the world, to intercept merchant ships from neutral nations in an attempt to stop the flow of important resources to Germany. Initially, Americans were concerned about the fact that many American ships were taken to British ports and held for a number of weeks while the English military searched for contraband. Despite the fact that such action curtailed the freedom of the United States to take part in international trade, the situation never reached a crisis level, for the most part because Americans believed that Great Britain would make financial restitution for all the materials seized once hostilities were over. Germany, on the other hand, was becoming increas-
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disrupting its capacity to conduct international trade. The Germans realized, however, that the fruits of their labors would come not from one major battle but from a prolonged and extensive interdiction of supplies headed for England. This approach, the Germans hoped, would result in the defeat of both Great Britain and its system of alliances. The 1,201 passengers killed—including 128 Americans—aboard the Lusitania were among the first victims of the German’s submarine-based strategy. In the days leading up to their voyage, passengers booked on the Lusitania read notices published by the German government in various New York City newspapers warning them that they would be sailing into the newly established war zone. In fact, shortly before the Lusitania reached the critical area, the ship’s captain, William Thomas Turner, received a message from the English high command informing him that there had been a number of submarine sightings in his vicinity. Twelve hours later, on the morning of May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was enveloped by a thick fog off the coast of Ireland. In an attempt to navigate through an area of low visibility, Captain Turner reduced the ship’s speed, and he also stopped the zigzag pattern that was part of the
A 1915 artist’s rendition of the torpedoing of the Lusitania. (Library of Congress)
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ingly concerned about the development of an undeclared alliance between the United States and Great Britain: Every time a potential controversy about the British blockade appeared, the United States seemed more than willing to accept a compromise. Furthermore, German intelligence had collected evidence that American arms were flowing directly into English ports. German agents were positive that Great Britain was using passenger liners such as the Lusitania to transport large amounts of weapons and ammunition. The German high command believed that the AngloAmerican relationship posed a direct threat to German security, and it reacted to the challenge by issuing a proclamation. This document asserted that as of January, 1915, the German war zone included the entire area around the British Isles, and it went on to declare that, as of February 4, all ships believed to be delivering contraband to Great Britain would be attacked. The German navy would employ submarines to enforce the newly established quarantine around the British Isles. German submarine tactics were based on a modified version of Mahan’s and Tirpitz’s theories: These attacks focused on destroying Britain’s ability to wage war by
German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania
German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania
Germany’s Warning to LUSITANIA Passengers Passengers on the Lusitania knew that the German government had issued the following warning to all travelers, but few took the threat seriously. Notice! Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cestry, and in the United States a small contingent lobbied for a declaration of war. Although most Americans rejected military intervention, many supported the British cause. Most important, the event prompted President Woodrow Wilson to draw a “line in the sand,” informing the Germans that the United States would take military action against them if they did not stop the unrestricted use of submarines. The German government agreed to Wilson’s demands and signed the Sussex Pledge, in which Germany promised to curtail the strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Early in 1917, however, the German military resumed submarine operations, and this action was one of the primary reasons the United States became a combatant nation in World War I. — Richard D. Fitzgerald
standard operating procedure followed to avoid enemy submarines. These two decisions enabled a German Uboat to target and launch an attack against the passenger liner. A torpedo hit the ship, exploded, and was followed a few moments later by a second, more devastating explosion that ripped a large hole in the ship’s side. Eighteen minutes later, the Lusitania had sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
Further Reading Butler, Daniel Allen. The Lusitania: The Life, Loss, and Legacy of an Ocean Legend. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2000. Provides the reader with important firsthand accounts of the sinking of the Lusitania. Kagan, Donald. On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. New York: Anchor Books, 1995. Offers an excellent account of German naval strategy during World War I. O’Sullivan, Patrick. Lusitania. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Sheridan House, 2000. Discusses the importance of the sinking of the Lusitania to the overall outcome of World War I.
Significance The British government immediately denounced the attack and vehemently denied that the second explosion was the result of contact between the German torpedo and a large cache of contraband weapons. Descriptions of the disaster led to a number of violent uprisings across the British Isles against English citizens of German an-
See also: June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board.
Imperial German Embassy Washington, D.C., April 22, 1915
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Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex
May 20, 1915
Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex Corning trademarked the name Pyrex for the heatresistant borosilicate glass it had developed previously and began marketing the material for bakeware and laboratory applications. Locale: Corning, New York Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures Jesse T. Littleton (1888-1966), American physicist Eugene C. Sullivan (1872-1962), American scientist and founder of Corning’s research laboratories William C. Taylor (1886-1958), American scientist
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Summary of Event The first use of Corning’s heat-resistant glass for cooking occurred in 1913. Various stories abound regarding this event. According to one version, Jesse T. Littleton’s wife broke a casserole in which she was about to bake a pudding, so she substituted the only vessel available, the cutoff bottom of a battery jar made of heat-resistant glass. The result was “so surprisingly good” that Corning Glass Works immediately instituted trials, furnishing the wives of laboratory technicians with glass dishes to be used in all kinds of baking. Following these successful experiments, the marketing of Pyrex bakeware began in 1915. The actual event was somewhat less serendipitous and more systematic. To place it in perspective, it is necessary to review the history of Corning Glass Works to see why the company produced a heat-resistant glass with no apparent plans to use it in the kitchen or the laboratory. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Corning had a reputation as a company that cooperated with the world of science to improve existing products and develop new ones. In the 1870’s, Corning had hired university scientists to advise on improving the optical quality of glasses, an early example of today’s common practice of academics consulting for industry. The company had worked with Thomas Alva Edison to produce blanks for his new incandescent lamps. It had also made lenses for railroad signal lanterns, and Corning’s colorants for lens glass were accepted in 1908 by the Railway Signal Association as the standard for the industry. This is the avenue that led to the heat-resistant glass. Lenses for oil or gas lanterns were vulnerable to weather damage; that is, they could shatter if they were sprayed with cold rain or wet snow after being heated by the flame that produces the light. When a lens in a red
“stop” light broke, the lantern appeared to be giving a clear “proceed” signal; this problem caused many accidents and near misses in railroading in the late nineteenth century. When Eugene C. Sullivan established Corning’s research laboratory in 1908 (the first of its kind devoted to glass research), the task that he undertook with his assistant William C. Taylor was that of making a heat-resistant glass for railroad lantern lenses. The problem was that ordinary flint glass (the kind in bottles and windows, made by melting together silica sand, soda, and lime) has a fairly high thermal expansion but a poor heat conductivity. This means that when it is heated, the outer parts can expand greatly, long before the inner parts are heated at all; conversely, when it is cooled, the outer parts can contract before the inner parts cool. Either situation can cause the glass to break, sometimes violently. Two solutions were possible: improvement of the thermal conductivity and reduction of the thermal expansion. The first is what metals do; most metals have an expansion with heat much greater than that of glass, but they conduct heat so quickly that they expand nearly equally throughout and seldom lose structural integrity from uneven expansion. Glass, however, is inherently a poor heat conductor, so this approach was not possible. Sullivan and Taylor had to find a formulation that had little or no thermal expansivity. Pure silica (one example is quartz) fits this description, but it is expensive and, with its high melting point, very difficult to work. The formulation that Sullivan and Taylor devised was a borosilicate glass, essentially a soda-lime glass with the lime replaced by borax, with a small amount of alumina added. This gave the low thermal expansion needed for signal lenses. It also turned out to have good acid resistance, which led to its being used for the battery jars required for railway telegraph systems and other applications. Corning marketed this glass as Nonex (for “nonexpansion glass”). Littleton joined Corning’s research laboratory in 1913. The company had a very successful lens and battery jar material, but no one had even considered it for cooking or other heat-transfer applications, because prevailing opinion was that glass absorbs and conducts heat poorly. This meant that in glass pans, cake batters, pies, and other baked foods would cook on the top, where they were exposed to hot air, but would remain cold and wet (or at least undercooked) next to the glass surfaces. Further, stove burner operations were out of the question. As
Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex a physicist, Littleton knew that glass absorbs radiant energy very well. This solved the heat-conduction problem by giving a source of heat in the glass vessel. It would also give glass a significant advantage over metal in baking. Metal bakeware mostly reflects radiant energy to the walls of the oven, where it is lost ultimately to the surroundings. Glass would absorb this radiant energy and conduct it evenly to the vessel’s contents, giving a better result than that of the metal bakeware. Moreover, glass would not absorb and carry over flavors from one baking to the next, as some metals do. Littleton took a cut-off battery jar made of Nonex home with him and asked his wife to bake a cake in it. He then took the cake to the laboratory the next day and handed pieces around, not disclosing the method of baking until all had agreed that the results were excellent. With this agreement, he was able to commit laboratory time to developing variations on the Nonex formula that were more suitable for cooking. The result was Pyrex, patented and trademarked in May, 1915. Although the patents have long since expired, the trademark remains the property of Corning. The etymology of the name is interesting. The association with the Greek root pyr (fire) is only fortuitous; the original intent was to model the name on the existing Nonex, but with the word “pie” substituted before the suffix, as the first piece explicitly fabricated as a baking dish was a pie plate. Initial sale of Pyrex bakeware took place at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston in 1915. In addition to the pie plate, the company offered cake pans, custard cups, and bread pans. Within a short time, Americans overcame their skepticism about glass as a cooking material, and in 1919 more than 4.5 million pieces of Pyrex bakeware were sold. In the 1930’s, Corning introduced Pyrex Flameware, with a new glass formulation that could withstand the extreme heat of stove-top cooking. The cookery revolution was complete. In the same year Corning began marketing Pyrex for cooking, the company also introduced Pyrex laboratory glassware. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the glassware used in American laboratories came from Germany. After World War I cut off the supply, Corning filled the gap with Pyrex beakers, flasks, and other items, and, by the end of the war, the Pyrex products were so well entrenched that they remained. Today, Corning-style glassware is found in laboratories all over the world. Significance Corning’s introduction of Pyrex cookware brought a wide range of products, in an entirely new material, to Ameri1210
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 can kitchens and, within a very few years, to kitchens around the world. In the years after Flameware was introduced, Corning went on to produce a variety of other products and materials, such as tableware in tempered opal glass; cookware made of Pyroceram, a glass product made crystalline by heat treatment with such mechanical strength as to be virtually unbreakable; and even hot plates and stoves topped with Pyroceram. It became possible to outfit a kitchen and dining room exclusively with heat-resistant glasses or glass-ceramics, although most households continued to mix these with dishes and cookware in metals and conventional ceramics. The revolution that Corning brought to the kitchen was a revolution by way of addition to existing materials and methods. In the laboratory, in contrast, the revolution was one of total replacement. The delicate blown-glass equipment from Germany that had previously been the standard was completely displaced by the more rugged and heat-resistant machine-made Pyrex ware. Any number of operations are possible with Pyrex that cannot be performed safely using vessels made of flint glass: Test tubes can be thrust directly into burner flames, with no preliminary warming; beakers and flasks can be heated on hot plates, unlike flint glass, which (because contact and heat transfer occur at only a few points) almost inevitably shatters when heated this way; materials that dissolve with evolution of heat, such as sodium or potassium hydroxide, can be made into solutions directly in Pyrex storage bottles, a process that would leave the benchtop and the floor covered with hot caustic solution if carried out in regular glass; thermometers can be placed directly into heating baths 300 degrees or more above room temperature. The list of heating and cooling operations that can be done in Pyrex or other borosilicate vessels (for example, Kimble’s Kimax) and cannot be done in regular glass can be expanded almost indefinitely. It is safe to say that in any laboratory doing “wet chemistry” (that is, syntheses and analyses in solution in water or other solvents), if all glassware were replaced overnight with that used before Pyrex was developed, work would immediately stop. Weeks would go by while chemists and technicians retrained themselves in different techniques and slowly reached their previous level of activity. Pyrex revolutionized laboratory practices. Other unique applications found for Pyrex since its introduction in 1915 include as the material of choice for lenses in the great reflector telescopes, beginning in 1934 with that at the Palomar Observatory in California. By its nature, astronomical observation must be done with the scope open to the weather. This means that the mirror
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 must not change shape with temperature variations, which rules out metal mirrors. Silvered (or aluminized) Pyrex serves very well, and Corning developed great expertise in casting and machining Pyrex blanks for mirrors of all sizes. Pyrex also was found to be useful as the glass of glass fibers, whether for insulation or as a component in glass-plastic construction materials. Pyrex is less brittle than regular glass and has less of a tendency to break into tiny, needlelike shards. —Robert M. Hawthorne, Jr.
_______. “Pyrex Brand Glass Found Suitable for Oven Cooking: 1913.” In Historical Records of Corning Glass Works 1851-1930. Corning, N.Y.: Corning Glass Works, Archives and Records Division, 1931. Typescript from the Archives and Records Division of Corning Glass provides good technical historical background. _______. “The Story of Pyrex and Heat Resistant Glass.” Leader, October 21, 1968, B6. Newspaper account from the local paper in Corning, New York. Article is authoritative if brief, with some information not easily found elsewhere. Morey, George W. The Properties of Glass. New York: Reinhold, 1938. Gives technical material, in tabular and discussion form, of types of glass, including Pyrex. Discusses formulations and chemical, physical, and engineering properties of different kinds of glass. Uhlmann, Donald R. Glass: Science and Technology. 4 vols. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 19791990. Standard work presents discussion of glass formulas. See also: Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner; 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite; 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods; Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas; Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon.
Summer, 1915
Denishawn School of Dance Opens American modern dance blossomed when Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn established a school that fostered the talents of the first generation of great modern dancers and helped to establish American dance as a legitimate art form. Locale: Los Angeles, California Categories: Dance; organizations and institutions Key Figures Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968), American dancer Ted Shawn (1891-1972), American dancer, educator, and author Martha Graham (1894-1991), American dancer Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), American dancer
Charles Weidman (1901-1975), American dancer and choreographer Louis Horst (1884-1964), American musician and teacher of dance composition Summary of Event The marriage of Ruth St. Denis to Ted Shawn in 1914 began a partnership that contributed significantly to the development of American modern dance. The institution of Denishawn, created from the collaboration of these two dancers, emerged in the first few decades of the twentieth century as the impetus for a dance school, a pedagogic theory, and a performing company. Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn officially acquired the name Denishawn on February 6, 1915. A theater man1211
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Further Reading Hecht, Jeff. City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Presents the history of the development of fiber optics, in which Corning’s innovations in glass products played an important role. Covers developments in the manufacture of glass since Victorian times that led up to fiber-optic technology. Hollister, George B. “The Battery Jar That Built a Business.” Gaffer, July, 1946, 3-6, 18. An account of the original development of Pyrex bakeware, followed by much information on manufacturing and marketing practice. Gaffer is an in-house publication of the Corning Glass Works. _______. Historical Highlights, Corning. Corning, N.Y.: Corporate Communications Division, Corning Glass Works, 1982. Pamphlet provides a useful chronology of major events in the company’s history from 1851 to 1981. Lists both technical and managerial advances.
Denishawn School of Dance Opens
Denishawn School of Dance Opens
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
classical ballet was indispensable to the dancer, as long as the instructor taught with wisdom and discrimination. The Denishawn system of training included an adaptation of ballet instruction executed while barefoot. The curriculum included ethnic and folk dance in addition to training in eurythmics, in which the dancer enhanced rhythmic sense and expression through a progression of physical exercises that were originally formulated by Swiss music teacher Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. Denishawn also offered beginning German modern dance as well as training derived from the work of François Delsarte. Delsarte, a French teacher of music and acting, developed a complex system of gesture in relation to human expression. Shawn maintained that An outdoor performance by some of the students of the Denishawn School. (Library Delsarte’s teaching was the first to inof Congress) corporate the concepts of tension and relaxation, or contraction and release, which still serve as a foundation for ager ran a promotion in which contestants competed to much of modern dance. St. Denis and Shawn hired a disname a ballroom dance that the couple performed on the ciple of Delsarte to bring this training to Denishawn. vaudeville circuit. The winning name, Denishawn, then The Denishawn system of training was eclectic yet became the official title of the dance school directed by energetic and colorful. A typical dance class at DeniSt. Denis and Shawn. The first Denishawn school was esshawn began with stretching exercises performed with tablished in Los Angeles during the summer of 1915 as one hand on the ballet barre for support. The dancer perthe Ruth St. Denis School of Dancing and Its Related formed a basic ballet warm-up at the barres that circumArts. In the summer of 1916, however, the school underscribed the periphery of the studio and then progressed to went a name change and became known thereafter as the the center of the floor. Arm exercises were executed Denishawn School. next, in addition to a series of balletic dance combinaKnown for her exotic and highly theatrical dances, St. tions designed to promote strength, flexibility, and coorDenis supplied inspiration and an image of glamour and dination. After these initial exercises, the student perspirituality to the Denishawn School. She emphasized formed an array of ethnic dance styles, including dances the dance techniques of the East and included the history of Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese, and East Indian derivaand philosophy of dance within her classes. St. Denis tion. As a closure to class work, dancers often learned an also experimented with music visualization at Deniexcerpt from the Denishawn repertory. A dance called shawn. In this method, the movements and rhythms of Tunisienne promoted the dexterous use of finger cymeach dancer directly correspond with a specific instrubals. Japanese dance forms were taught through reperment in the orchestral score. The dancers become physitory dances such as Lady Picking Mulberries. Several other dances, such as Serenata Morisca, Maria-Mari, cal manifestations of the musical notation. Gnossienne, and Invocation to the Thunderbird, origiSt. Denis’s husband and collaborator, Shawn, offered nated as classroom exercises; thus performance repera more systematic approach to movement. He maintory also emerged from the classroom dance combinatained respect for formalized technical dance training tions that St. Denis and Shawn taught at the school. and helped to create a curriculum of study at the DeniOut of the Denishawn School a dance company shawn School. Although he did not view it as an excluevolved that was destined to nurture some of the greatest sive form of training, Shawn felt that some training in 1212
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Significance The partnership of St. Denis and Shawn that propagated the Denishawn School and company lasted for eighteen years. From 1914 through 1932, the duo completed thirteen major tours of the United States and emerged as pioneers of American dance, creating an audience for the art form among the middle-class theater clientele much as the tours of Sergei Diaghilev did for ballet. St. Denis and Shawn were advocates of diversity within the education of the dancer. They believed that a dancer must study a multitude of techniques and styles in order to become a more proficient performer. During the 1930’s, Denishawn sponsored the first course in the United States that incorporated the dance technique created by German modern dance pioneer Mary Wigman. Both Shawn and St. Denis continued to study dance forms themselves in an attempt to enhance their art, and, while on tour in the Far East, the couple studied dance in Japan, China, Burma, India, and Ceylon.
Between August, 1925, and November, 1926, the Denishawn company toured the Far East and became the first American dance company to perform in the Orient. The company also performed in Great Britain, and Shawn presented a solo program during a three-month tour of Germany. St. Denis, Shawn, and the Denishawn dancers completed five individual concerts at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York City, the last of which marked the final performance of Denishawn on August 28, 1931. After this concert, the partnership of St. Denis and Shawn dissolved, and each followed an individual career in the dance world. Shawn toured with a group of male dancers and wrote several books on dance, including Dance We Must (1940) and Fundamentals of a Dance Education (1937). He taught dance at a number of colleges, thereby helping to establish and legitimate dance in academe. In the latter part of the 1930’s, Shawn formed a famous group of male dancers that toured the United States. He worked to dispel ideas of dance as solely a feminine activity and championed the cause of dance as a worthy occupation for men. Shawn consistently commissioned original music scores for his choreography and began the practice of collaboration with composers. Much of his choreography explored specifically American themes, including themes concerning early pioneers, Native Americans, and African Americans. Later, Shawn founded and directed Jacob’s Pillow School of Dance in Lee, Massachusetts, which continued after his death as a prestigious summer dance program. St. Denis focused her attention on the development of Denishawn House in New York City and continued to perform solos of a multicultural nature, including her interpretation of biblical psalms that utilized the Indian gesture language of mudras. St. Denis’s major contributions to the dance world include her experimentation with music visualization and her choreography, which often accentuated mystical or religious themes. Although she was not known as a technically proficient dancer, St. Denis brought to the general populace the essence of exotic lands through her dances. Perhaps the greatest contribution of Denishawn was its presentation of contemporary American dance as a legitimate art form. Prior to the establishment of Denishawn, dance in the United States largely consisted of performances by vaudevillians, acrobatic and novelty dancers, “hoofers,” and skirt dancers. Exponents of European dance were the only dancers seriously regarded by the American public, and many talented young American performers, such as ballet dancer Augusta Maywood 1213
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names in modern dance. St. Denis and Shawn had performed together since 1914, and with the establishment of the school in 1915, the couple began training other dancers to perform with them. The Denishawn dancers performed a repertoire that was as eclectic and vigorous as was their classroom training. In a typical Denishawn concert, the company of from seven to twelve dancers performed St. Denis’s music visualizations, Spanish dances, Japanese pieces, dances sharing an Egyptian motif, and dances based on American themes. Most of the pieces were not authentic ethnic dances reflecting traditional cultural forms; rather, they were dances that retained a flavor of foreign lands. St. Denis, for example, incorporated authentic costumes and music for her Egyptian-influenced ballet Radha; however, the music was played on Western instruments. Denishawn fostered and refined the talents of several dancers who would later become prominent figures in the field of modern dance. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman were among the early Denishawn dancers and teachers, fulfilling dual roles as performers with the company and instructors within the school. For a decade following the opening of the Denishawn School, musician and composer Louis Horst accompanied dance classes and served as musical director. Accompanied by a staff of talented artists, St. Denis and Shawn expanded Denishawn, opening an additional school in New York City and mentoring teachers of the Denishawn method in many small towns across the country.
Denishawn School of Dance Opens
Denishawn School of Dance Opens and modern dancer Isadora Duncan, pursued careers in Europe. Denishawn helped to convert theatergoers to American dance and assisted in establishing it as a serious art form. As pioneers of modern dance, St. Denis and Shawn tilled the fertile ground for the first generation of great modern dancers. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman were all leading dancers in the Denishawn company. In 1916, Graham entered the Denishawn School and studied almost exclusively with Shawn. Graham performed with the Denishawn company from 1919 to 1923, after which she embarked on an independent dance career that spanned almost seventy years and established her as one of the greatest figures in American modern dance. Humphrey began studies at Denishawn in 1917 and subsequently danced with the company from 1918 to 1928. In 1928, Humphrey and her partner, Weidman, left to found a school and dance company in New York City. Weidman had performed with Denishawn for the previous eight years. All of these paramount figures of modern dance were greatly influenced by the training and theatrical experience offered at Denishawn; however, they left the Denishawn company when their original ideas and independent ambitions were stifled. Critic John Martin has stated that modern dance originated more as a rebellion against the Denishawn system than as an outgrowth of it. Nevertheless, as a direct result of Denishawn and the pioneering efforts of St. Denis and Shawn, American modern dance came into existence during the 1920’s. —John R. Crawford Further Reading Foulkes, Julia L. Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Indepth examination of the development of American modern dance includes discussion of Denishawn and its influence. Includes bibliography and index. Kraus, Richard, Sarah Chapman Hilsendager, and Brenda Dixon. History of the Dance in Art and Education. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991. Comprehensive history of dance discusses the beginning years of modern dance in chapter 7, which provides an overview of Denishawn as well as information on early influences of Denishawn and brief biographies of St. Denis and Shawn. Places Denishawn in context with other events and individuals involved in the development of modern dance. Includes photographs, bibliography, and indexes. 1214
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 McDonagh, Don. Complete Guide to Modern Dance. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976. Provides a concise overview of the development of Denishawn within historical and cultural context, along with biographies of St. Denis and Shawn, descriptions of nine Denishawn dances, and a chronology of the choreography of St. Denis and Shawn. Includes photographs, annotated bibliography, and index. Shelton, Suzanne. Ruth St. Denis: A Biography of the Divine Dancer. 1981. Reprint. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. Provides an extensive account of the Denishawn School and company as well as detailed information on St. Denis’s early life and career. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Sherman, Jane. Denishawn: The Enduring Influence. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Work by a former Denishawn dancer focuses on the Denishawn School and company rather than on St. Denis and Shawn. Includes a chronology of the company, appendixes devoted to Denishawn choreography, photographs, bibliography, and index. _______. The Drama of Denishawn Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1979. Provides clear descriptions of specific Denishawn dances from 1914 to 1926 and offers intriguing accounts of the company’s choreography. Includes many photographs never before published, a chronology of Denishawn tours, appendixes of choreography, bibliography, and index. Terry, Walter. Miss Ruth: The “More Living Life” of Ruth St. Denis. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1969. Biography of St. Denis places her work with the Denishawn school within the larger context of her life and times. Includes an interesting epilogue featuring quotations from St. Denis. Thomas, Helen. Dance, Modernity, and Culture: Explorations in the Sociology of Dance. New York: Routledge, 1995. Approaches the study of dance from a sociological perspective, noting the influences of societal change, economics, and popular culture on dance and other art forms. Discusses Denishawn in this context. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and indexes. See also: Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres; Jan. 26, 1936: Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin
September, 1915-February, 1916
McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin While studying cephalin in liver tissue, Jay McLean accidentally discovered the natural anticoagulant heparin. Locale: The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures Jay McLean (1890-1957), American physician William H. Howell (1860-1945), American physiologist Charles Herbert Best (1899-1978), Canadian physiologist
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Summary of Event Jay McLean, a young medical student at The Johns Hopkins University, accidentally discovered the natural anticoagulant heparin in 1916 while working on a physiology research project for William H. Howell. McLean wished to become a surgeon with a strong basis in physiology, and he asked to be assigned a problem on which he could finish the research and publish the findings in a year. He specifically requested that he be allowed to work on the problem alone in order to prove to himself that he had the ability to accomplish such a complex task on his own. For more than thirty years, Howell had been studying the various aspects of the coagulation of blood. At the time, he was performing blood clotting experiments involving a substance known as cephalin. Howell considered cephalin to be the thromboplastic substance of the body—that is, the substance that caused the blood to clot. The problem Howell assigned McLean was to develop a method to prepare cephalin in a highly purified form and to determine whether it enhanced the clotting process. The method of obtaining cephalin that Howell had previously employed involved the use of macerated brain tissue, which contains large amounts of cephalin. This brain tissue was dried on glass plates and then taken through a series of complex, time-consuming steps, using extraction by ether and alcohol precipitation to separate out the cephalin. As McLean began work on his project, he also began taking an advanced course in German. While reading in the German chemical literature, he learned of work in Germany in which substances similar to cephalin were
being extracted from heart and liver tissue. McLean suggested to Howell that it might be advantageous to use such organs in his experiments. Subsequently, he found that extracts from heart and liver tissue did indeed exhibit thromboplastic activity, but apparently the extracts were not pure cephalin. This was demonstrated by the fact that the precipitates from the heart and liver tissue had different appearances from the cephalin precipitate from brain tissue. McLean referred to the extract from the heart as “cuorin” and the extract from the liver as “heparphosphatid,” the terms used in the German literature. In the course of his experiments, McLean also found that with time the thromboplastic activity of cephalin deteriorated in these tissues. It was while he was attempting to determine how long the thromboplastic activity lasted that McLean discovered that at a certain point, rather than simply failing to cause the blood to clot, the liver extract actually prevented the blood from clotting. McLean concluded that this inhibition of coagulation was the result of the substances mixed with the cephalin in the heparphosphatid extract. As this discovery was not related to his assigned problem, McLean did not inform Howell immediately of what he had found. Instead, he repeated the experiment several times to prove that the conclusion was correct. When McLean informed Howell of his finding, Howell was understandably skeptical that McLean had discovered a naturally occurring anticoagulant. In order to convince Howell, McLean added some of his extract to the freshly drawn blood of a laboratory cat, and, as McLean predicted, the blood failed to clot. Even though Howell still was not totally convinced, he realized the importance of McLean’s work and decided to continue research on the project. The first presentation concerning the anticoagulant delivered at a scientific meeting took place on February 19, 1916, before the Society of the Normal and Pathological Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania. In June, 1916, McLean submitted his work on the thromboplastic action of cephalin for publication in the American Journal of Physiology. Howell had discouraged McLean from mentioning the discovery of the anticoagulant substance, which McLean called heparphosphatid. In a letter to Canadian physiologist Charles Herbert Best, McLean stated that Howell did not think that he should include anything about the discovery of the anticoagulant in his paper; rather, it should be studied
McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin thoroughly and a separate paper written on it later. McLean argued that the finding was made during 19151916, and he believed that its discovery should be included as a record of the work done during that period. Howell finally agreed to permit its inclusion in the body of the paper. Further, in his letter to Best, McLean stated that Howell was very skeptical that he had found a true anticoagulant. This was because McLean was using a very weak solution of the anticoagulant, and it was only through very careful records and the systematic saving of little tubes and repetition that he was aware that he had an actual anticoagulant. After McLean left The Johns Hopkins University, Howell, working with Emmett Holt, continued McLean’s work. Howell and Holt, after evaluating many variations of McLean’s methods, developed a technique that yielded a reliable preparation of the anticoagulant. In their publication in the American Journal of Physiology submitted in October, 1918, Howell and Holt first introduced the word “heparin” for the heparphosphatid that McLean had discovered. In this article, they also described how heparin could be prepared from lymph glands as well as from heart and liver. They described the antagonism between heparin and cephalin in the clotting mechanism. Howell later published papers, in 1922 and 1925, describing the preparation of heparin in a more purified form. In 1928, he published a detailed paper on the chemical and physiological reactions of heparin. Meanwhile, Best, working at the University of Toronto, had been concerned with the preparation of insulin for administration to diabetic patients; after learning of Howell’s work, he recognized the potential clinical applications of heparin. Realizing that clinical trials of heparin must be preceded by extensive work on its chemical preparation, Best organized a group of scientists to study its chemistry and physiology. From 1928 through 1936, the University of Toronto researchers made numerous discoveries concerning heparin. Working under the direction of Best, David Scott and Arthur Charles discovered that heparin could be extracted from beef lung, a much less expensive source. These investigators also developed methods of purifying, concentrating, and standardizing heparin. During this period it was demonstrated also that heparin is an effective anticoagulant in dogs. Significance The first clinical trials with heparin were conducted by E. C. Mason in 1924 and Howell in 1928 in blood transfusion studies. These trials were largely unsuccessful 1216
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 because of the undesirable reactions in the patients. As soon as a purified, concentrated form of heparin became available in 1935, Gordon Murray began clinical trials in Toronto. His results, published in 1937, clearly indicated that treatment with heparin could prevent some types of clinical thrombosis. The availability of heparin also made possible a large number of experimental studies. These resulted in the first exchange transfusion in 1938 and the development of the artificial kidney in 1944. In the 1940’s, researchers began large-scale clinical experiments with anticoagulant therapy in the United States, Sweden, and Switzerland. These experiments involved heparin treatment of medical conditions such as leg thrombosis, thrombophlebitis of deep veins, and pulmonary embolism. The success of these studies firmly established the use of heparin in medical practice. It was not until 1966, however, that studies were done to demonstrate the use of heparin in the prevention of postoperative thrombosis, a frequent cause of complications and mortality following surgery. In a study by J. G. Scharnoff, patients receiving small doses of heparin subcutaneously prior to surgery had a lower incidence of thromboemboli. This study did not have proper controls, however, so the results were not widely accepted as valid, but beginning in the early 1970’s numerous other studies demonstrated conclusively the benefit of prophylactic administration of heparin. Heparin plays an important role in both treatment and prevention of thrombosis, but its use can have drawbacks. Clotting is a natural protective mechanism of the body, and its inhibition by heparin can lead to excessive bleeding. Heparin-associated complications are not uncommon. A 1977 study by J. Porter found heparin use to be the most frequent cause of drug-related deaths of hospitalized patients. Heparin also has uses in medical science beyond treatment and prevention of thrombosis. It makes possible the maintenance of blood circulation outside the body, which is necessary in heart surgery and in renal dialysis. Heparin is used also to prevent clotting in devices implanted in veins for the intermittent injection of medication or the withdrawal of blood for laboratory testing. —Deborah L. Rogers Further Reading Best, Charles H. “Preparation of Heparin and Its Use in the First Clinical Cases.” Circulation 19 (January, 1959): 79-86. Very interesting article, written as part of a historical symposium on anticoagulants, gives a historical perspective by one of the early investigators
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of heparin. Includes excerpts from McLean’s and Howell’s letters and makes reference to other early investigators of heparin. Howell, William H., and Emmett Holt. “Two New Factors in Blood Coagulation—Heparin and Proantithrombin.” American Journal of Physiology 47 (1918): 328-341. A technical article in which Howell expands McLean’s work and first introduces the term “heparin.” Also describes other factors involved in the coagulation process and correctly identifies the role of heparin in preventing intravascular coagulation. McLean, Jay. “The Thromboplastic Action of Cephalin.” American Journal of Physiology 41 (1916): 250-257. The article in which McLean first reported his discovery of the natural anticoagulant. Provides considerable insight into the extent and complexity of McLean’s work. Written in fairly technical language.
Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences Triplett, Douglas A., ed. “Heparin: Clinical Use and Laboratory Monitoring.” In Laboratory Evaluation of Coagulation. Chicago: American Society of Clinical Pathologists Press, 1982. Provides a thorough and accessible description of heparin’s biochemistry, biological actions, and clinical applications. Includes references. Wintrobe, Maxwell M. Hematology, the Blossoming of a Science: A Story of Inspiration and Effort. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1985. A very impressive work that covers the historical development of the study of blood. Valuable for anyone interested in the history of medicine. See also: 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups; 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels; Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine. 1915
September 5-8, 1915, and April 24-30, 1916
Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences Divisions in the international socialist movement became more apparent during the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, two meetings of antiwar European socialists. In response, Vladimir Ilich Lenin organized a left-wing communist group that criticized the more moderate socialist majority. Locale: Zimmerwald and Kienthal, Switzerland Categories: Government and politics; social issues and reform Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party Karl Radek (Karl Sobelsohn; 1885-1939), Polish Marxist and former member of the German Social Democratic Party Robert Grimm (1881-1958), Swiss socialist and newspaper editor Émile Vandervelde (1866-1938), Belgian Marxist and chairman of the International Socialist Bureau of the Second International Summary of Event In August of 1914, patriotic fervor had swept aside lastminute attempts by the International Socialist Bureau
(ISB) of the Second International, a loose association of the world’s socialist parties, to organize large-scale antiwar demonstrations throughout Europe. As a result of this lack of organization, most socialists in the warring countries had rallied behind their governments, and most parliamentary delegations—except those in Russia and Serbia—had voted almost unanimously for war-appropriations bills. Union leaders had proclaimed a “civil truce,” forswearing strikes and other actions in the workplace that might undermine the national war effort. About six months after the outbreak of World War I, antiwar socialists began to regroup in hope of finding a way of ending the conflict. Socialists from Italy and Switzerland took the lead in trying to persuade the ISB to summon a conference that would help reunify the Second International. ISB leaders, however, believed that such a meeting could not possibly succeed. The leaders of the French and Belgian Socialist Parties bitterly rejected the idea of meeting with their counterparts from the German Social Democratic Party, which had backed Germany’s invasion of Belgium and France in August of 1914. In particular, the Belgian socialist Émile Vandervelde, chairman of the ISB, vowed to block an international conference unless the German Social Democratic Party repudiated its support for the German war effort. 1217
Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences Undeterred by Vandervelde’s threat, the Italians, the Swiss, and the Russian Marxists living in exile in Switzerland began preparing for a meeting of antiwar socialists to be held in Bern, Switzerland’s capital city. Robert Grimm, the editor of a socialist newspaper in Bern, was the conference’s principal organizer. Invitations went out to Socialist Party members from neutral European countries and to socialist groups in the warring countries who either had opposed the war from the outset or had recently taken an antiwar position. Fewer than forty delegates, however, showed up in Bern in early September, 1915. On the morning of September 5, Grimm transported the delegates to the tiny mountain village of Zimmerwald, about ten kilometers (a little more than six miles) from Bern, to begin the conference. Discord among the antiwar socialists quickly became apparent. A “left bloc” of eight presented a militant resolution. The leading leftist figures were Vladimir Ilich Lenin, head of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, and Karl Radek, a Polish Marxist who had been expelled from the German Social Democratic Party in 1913. Both Lenin and Radek had reputations as fractious, vituperative critics of any Marxists they deemed less than fully committed to revolutionary action. True to form, their draft resolution called on socialists to use both legal and illegal means in their work against the national war effort in all countries; their goal was to replace the war between nations with a war between classes. Lenin and Radek wanted socialists to condemn both the prodefense socialists, whom they considered opportunists, and the bankrupt Second International and to establish a truly revolutionary Third International. In short, the left bloc wanted the Zimmerwald Conference to issue a call for an immediate socialist revolution. This radical agenda was unable to muster more than twelve votes at the Zimmerwald Conference. The majority of the delegates wished to resuscitate the Second International, not overthrow it or break with their respective socialist parties. Most of the delegates also opposed the call for an immediate revolution; some were pacifists, and others believed that the agenda was doomed to fail under the current circumstances. In the end, both factions accepted a compromise resolution that denounced the war, condemned the prodefense socialists for supporting it, and criticized the ISB for failing to take effective antiwar action. The resolution refrained, however, from embracing any of the specific revolutionary measures proposed by the left bloc, although Lenin and Radek continued to promote the left bloc’s program. The manifesto issued by the Zimmerwald Conference barely 1218
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 concealed the inability of the antiwar socialists to unite behind a common strategy for ending the war. The Zimmerwald Conference had little impact on socialist groups in the warring nations, where the “civil truce” continued to prevail. The continued dominance of the prodefense factions was a source of increasing frustration for the antiwar socialists, who were also growing impatient with the ISB. The bureau’s leadership was reluctant to initiate measures that might alienate patriotic socialists, and their strategy amounted to little more than waiting for socialists on both sides to begin seeking a compromise settlement. Consequently, in February of 1916, the International Socialist Commission elected by the Zimmerwald Conference began to organize a second international conference of antiwar socialists. Once again, the ISB and the prodefense majorities attempted to marginalize the conference by pressuring dissidents not to attend, and the governments of the nations at war made matters more complicated by refusing to issue passports to potential delegates. As a result, the second antiwar conference, which met in the Swiss village of Kienthal from April 24 to April 30, 1916, was only slightly larger than the one at Zimmerwald. Ironically, the attempts by the ISB and the warring governments to thwart the second conference actually strengthened the hand of the left-wing socialists, who continued to call for a complete break with the Second International and an immediate socialist revolution. The left-bloc faction could count on twelve delegates, while as many as seven others voted for resolutions that were sharply critical of the bureau’s leadership and of pacifist strategies (these seven, however, refused to agree to a complete repudiation of the Second International). Together, the nineteen delegates constituted nearly half of the people attending the Kienthal Conference. As at Zimmerwald, a compromise formula preserved the appearance of socialist unity: The revolutionary leftists dropped their demand for a repudiation of the Second International, and the majority accepted language condemning socialist patriotism and endorsing the concept of class war. This compromise fell short of the left bloc’s calls for a Third International and for the soldiers of all the warring nations to turn their weapons against their own ruling classes, but it represented a weakening of the center’s opposition to revolution as a viable alternative to patriotic socialism. Significance Lenin did not win acceptance for his revolutionary proposals at the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, but
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 he still made significant gains in promoting his radical socialist agenda. After more than a full year of war, many of the socialists who took the rhetoric of internationalism seriously were less and less opposed to Lenin’s radicalism. The war was not the root cause of the tensions within Europe’s socialist parties, but as the war dragged on into its second year, the cracks were rapidly widening. Most of the delegates at the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences resisted either secession from their own parties or rejection of the Second International. Nevertheless, political momentum began to flow in Lenin’s direction. In March of 1919, sixteen months after his Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, Lenin established the Third International, and this move forced the moderates to choose between acceptance of Lenin’s revolutionary program and reconciliation with the patriotic socialists. —Richard D. King
tains that Lenin was an orthodox Marxist in his economic and social analysis despite dramatic shifts in his revolutionary tactics after 1914. Kirby, David. War, Peace, and Revolution: International Socialism at the Crossroads, 1914-1918. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Focuses on the peace efforts of socialists from neutral countries; argues that the civil peace began to break down only in the winter of 1916-1917. Lerner, Warren. Karl Radek: The Last Internationalist. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970. Elucidates Radek’s tenuous relationships with fellow Marxists. Nation, R. Craig. War on War: Lenin, the Zimmerwald Left, and the Origins of Communist Internationalism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989. Argues that Lenin’s rejection of pacifism closely followed Marx’s teachings. Senn, Alfred Erich. The Russian Revolution in Switzerland, 1914-1917. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971. Traces the political and ideological conflicts within the community of exiled Russian socialists living in Switzerland. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. Argues that Lenin’s ideas and policies were shaped by an intense but controlled rage to destroy the old order and overcome political obstacles. See also: Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 19181921: Russian Civil War; Jan. 15, 1919: Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy.
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Further Reading Braunthal, Julius. 1914-1943. Vol. 2 in History of the International. 3 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Detailed history of the international socialist movement from the outbreak of World War I to the dissolution of the Comintern. Eley, Geoff. Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002. A sympathetic history of the European Left, arguing that radical movements played the central role in the creation and evolution of democracy in Europe. Fainsod, Merle. International Socialism and the World War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935. Classic history of European socialism from the outbreak of World War I to the founding of the Third International; argues that the war aggravated preexisting divisions within the socialist factions. Harding, Neil. Leninism. 2 vols. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996. Shorter version of the author’s Lenin’s Political Thought (1977-1981). Main-
Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences
Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 11, 1915
Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain Although known primarily for their focus on home economics, the Women’s Institutes exerted a fundamental influence on British society by empowering rural women and by addressing a variety of social and health issues. Locale: Llanfair, Wales Categories: Women’s issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures Margaret Watt (1868-1948), Canadian who initiated the creation of Women’s Institutes in Great Britain Adelaide Hunter Hoodless (1857-1910), founder of the Women’s Institutes movement in Canada Gertrude Denman (1884-1954), first chairperson of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes in Great Britain Summary of Event Histories of the women’s movement in both Great Britain and the United States usually begin with the suffragist movement. However, given the suffragists’ singular focus on acquiring the vote and the general limitation of participation in that movement to middle-class women from towns and cities, such histories present an incomplete picture of the emerging women’s movement, which sought a full and equal role for women in a modern society. Studies of women’s role in society often ignore rural women. The process of modernization largely entails the incorporation of traditional society into new ways of living, usually through migration from rural to urban areas. Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, a significant number of women in Great Britain and the United States lived on farms or in small villages. Conditions in rural Great Britain throughout the nineteenth century deteriorated as industrialization increased. The population shift to urban centers created a vacuum in rural areas, and the importation of foods further contributed to the depression of the countryside. Village life ceased to be the heart of British culture as urban centers increased their dominance. With these changes, the lives of rural women became increasingly isolated from larger social and political contexts. In Great Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century, rural women were consumed by work and had little time or opportunity to cultivate social networks beyond the family. The rapid transformation of urban society 1220
generally had bypassed the rural communities. Women in the countryside were isolated. The contrast between rural and urban life caused some to seek changes in the agricultural regions. Economic and health conditions were of particular interest. Some government leaders recognized the flagging rural conditions and responded in 1889 with the creation of the Board of Agriculture. Attention increasingly focused on education for the agricultural regions. In 1901, the Agricultural Organization Society (AOS) was formed to create a coalition of farmers and other rural interests. As AOS leaders searched for models of reform, their attention was drawn to Canadian efforts to promote agrarian development through rural adult education. Women’s Institutes, begun in Canada in 1897, were among the useful strategies they noted. The first Women’s Institute was established on February 19, 1897, at Stoney Creek, Ontario, by Adelaide Hunter Hoodless. A lack of knowledge of basic hygiene had contributed to the death of one of Hoodless’s children, and her ensuing desire to learn better family care practices motivated her to form an organization to promote education in child care and other health practices related to the home. Domestic matters, rather than the general well-being of the rural community or agricultural development, were the exclusive concern of this first institute. The movement spread in Canada, but it never caught on there to the extent that it later did in Great Britain. The Canadian need for such programs was not as great as the British need, in part because of Canada’s relative agricultural prosperity resulting from the export of grain to Europe. The founding of the first British Women’s Institute at Llanfair, Wales, on September 11, 1915, was thus especially significant, given the degree of change the British movement promoted, the growth and prominence of the movement in Great Britain, and the subsequent spread of the organization from Great Britain to many other countries. Much of the initial drive to establish Women’s Institutes in Great Britain came from Margaret Watt, a Canadian who had moved to Great Britain in 1913 following the death of her husband. She had been active in spreading the Women’s Institutes in Canada, and after she gave a speech on her Canadian experiences with the institutes, the AOS hired her to take part in a small group directed to organize rural women with the specific objective of establishing Women’s Institutes in Great Britain. North
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
speech she made to a cooperative society gathering in London. The mutual-benefit nature of the Women’s Institutes on ostensibly safe topics of home and hearth and the growing popularity of scientific management in the form of home economics also contributed to the popularity of the British Women’s Institutes. Growth was rapid, with more than one hundred Women’s Institutes formed by 1917. The AOS found itself overwhelmed by the response and yielded direction and support for organizing the spread of the institutes to the Board of Agriculture. This government agency supported the movement in the early years through monetary grants and provision of staff. Of considerable importance was the role played by the social elite as leaders of the body, especially at the regional and national levels. Social privilege was important in working with the government for legislative actions, a strategy that became part of the Women’s Institutes’ agenda. This linkage with government also served to advance the direct role of women in political action, albeit by those of the upper class. Leaders of the movement, especially Lady Gertrude Denman, the Women’s Institutes’ first national chairperson, sought to cut formal ties with the Board of Agriculture to assure the movement a greater degree of autonomy. The rules of the Women’s Institutes called for nonsectarian and nonpolitical activity. The latter restriction, however, suggested the maintenance of the status quo and thereby the fundamentally conservative nature of the movement. These surface qualities were essential to the institutes’ acceptance by the general populace in the rural communities. Significance The growth of the movement in Great Britain and the eventual use of the Women’s Institutes as a model for rural women’s development projects in many other countries testifies to the responsive chord struck by the first institute. The most significant influence of the Women’s Institutes was in their general empowerment of women to take control of aspects of their daily lives and to experience the consequences of working together for local, regional, and even national goals. The Women’s Institutes brought women to a level of broad political action unprecedented to that point. Networks for women were created across social class lines, although much of the institutes’ real power was in the hands of upper-class leaders. The actions that the national and some local groups undertook were of varying importance. Primary among the goals was the promotion of education for rural 1221
1915
Wales was suggested as a starting point, given the region’s need for cross-cultural collaboration (between English- and Welsh-speaking groups as well as among different religious congregations). In addition, some attempts had been made in the area to bring women into participation with men’s groups that aimed to promote economic growth, but the women had been reluctant to speak their minds openly in these mixed groups. The first meeting of the Women’s Institute at Llanfair offered little to suggest the impact that the organization would soon make in the daily lives of rural women. The small charter group was led by individuals whose position in society suggested connections with the rural elite and by local officials interested in promoting the venture. The idea for establishing this institute was promoted by the head of the AOS and by a local landowner, Colonel R. Stapleton-Cotton, who was engaged in various aspects of rural economic development. The meeting was held in the cottage of Mrs. W. E. Jones, who became the institute’s vice president and treasurer. Her husband was the agent for the marquis of Anglesey, the principal landowner in that region of Wales. Mrs. R. Stapleton-Cotton became the institute’s first president. Margaret Watt was not directly involved in establishing the group; however, she arrived a few days later to show her support for the new endeavor and to instill some of the organizational characteristics gained from her Canadian experiences. She moved quickly to promote the creation of similar groups elsewhere. Although the initiative for starting the Llanfair Women’s Institute had come in part from several men and had official backing, rural women controlled the agenda and destiny of the group. That control was the essential and lasting significance of the group’s formation. In the beginning, the movement was tied to a program first promoted by the AOS and the Board of Agriculture. World War I, which had begun just a year earlier, heightened the perceived need for rural groups of any complexion to promote improved production and quality of foodstuffs. Indeed, the promotion of the Women’s Institutes was connected directly to concern over potential food shortages caused by the reduction in the workforce because of the war. As a result, domestic production of foodstuffs such as jam was associated with the Women’s Institutes from the start. The institutes appealed to a culture with a strong tradition of self-help organizations such as the “friendly societies.” Great Britain was the place of origin for the cooperative movement as well. In fact, Margaret Watt first came to the notice of agrarian reformers on the basis of a
Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain
Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain women, with a focus on home economics. Special emphasis was given to hygiene and nutrition. Through these means, the institutes improved the quality of life of many rural families. Only gradually did an awareness of larger social issues emerge, yet from the start, the Women’s Institutes had a profound effect on the role of rural women. Some local groups included women who were also interested in such other issues as suffrage and the attainment of a more active role for women in society. The nature of the organization, as a basically conservative group, meant that its support for various issues of concern was relatively difficult for politicians to reject. In the group’s earliest years, the direct connection with the Board of Agriculture was a two-way street; potential government control of the movement was matched by opportunities for direct input from the Women’s Institutes to government officials. For an organization made up only of women, this access created a unique situation. Even after the formal ties with the Board of Agriculture were severed, the conservative nature of the organization, the relatively safe reform agendas it adopted, and its broad social class membership provided opportunities for effective lobbying for change. Some of the issues that the Women’s Institutes lobbied directly for in their first fifteen years included removing the exemption of women from jury duty, maintaining women on the rural constabulary, providing adult education for women, promoting health issues (including public education on venereal disease), and establishing access to emerging communications technology, with the goal of at least one telephone in every village. For many women, the Women’s Institutes provided their first experiences with any form of public action. Some members eventually would pursue active political lives, especially on the local level. The Women’s Institutes were a vital mechanism for bringing rural women into direct participation in public affairs and into elected office. —Daniel J. Doyle Further Reading Dudgeon, Piers. Village Voices. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989. Includes discussion of the broader
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 accomplishments of the Women’s Institutes in social reform. Sets the movement in both personal and historical contexts with an abundance of personal recollections and photographs. Goodenough, Simon. Jam and Jerusalem. Glasgow: Collins, 1977. Stresses the accomplishments of the movement. Lists of numerous resolutions adopted by the national conferences focus on the Women’s Institutes’ principal areas of interest and accomplishments, including social reform. The first book on the topic to emphasize the broader consequences of the Women’s Institutes. Includes photographs. Howkins, Alun. The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside Since 1900. London: Routledge, 2003. Describes the social changes that have taken place in rural England and Wales since the beginning of the twentieth century, including the conditions that led to the need for organizations such as the Women’s Institutes. Huxley, Gervas. Lady Denman, G.B.E. London: Chatto & Windus, 1961. An admiring biography of the first president of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes that includes chapters on her role in the early years. Places her very public role in the context of her personal life as a woman of privilege in an unhappy marriage. Includes photographs. Jenkins, Inez. The History of the Women’s Institutes Movement of England and Wales. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1953. The first substantive history of the movement, written in an admiring tone by an insider. Provides extensive detail on the movement’s origins. Includes a brief bibliography. McCall, Cicely. Women’s Institutes. London: William Collins, 1943. A chatty account of the movement with particular emphasis on the organization’s role in paiding children evacuated from the cities during World War II. Illustrated with drawings and paintings. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Langevin Develops Active Sonar
October, 1915-March, 1917
Langevin Develops Active Sonar Paul Langevin developed the first active ultrasonic underwater sonar transducer for detecting reflected sound from submerged objects and the seafloor. Locale: Toulon, France Categories: Science and technology; earth science; physics; inventions Key Figures Paul Langevin (1872-1946), French physicist, engineer, and educational reformer Constantin Chilowski (fl. early twentieth century), Russian engineer working in France
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Summary of Event The concept of detecting submerged objects using acoustic waves impinging on and reflected from an underwater vessel has been argued as inherent in any detailed understanding of acoustic wave propagation in the ocean, sound velocity in liquids, viscous frictional damping of underwater sound, and sound radiation and diffraction patterns. Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687; The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1729; best known as the Principia) gives a formula for calculating the approximate depth of a water well from the time it takes for a falling stone to be heard striking the water. Following the experiments by French physicists Daniel Colladon and Charles-François Sturm on Lake Geneva in 1826, employing submerged bells to measure acoustic sound velocity in water, the French astronomer François Arago proposed that it would be possible also to find the depth of a lake or ocean location by noting the round-trip travel time for a strong acoustic impulse to be reflected or echoed from the bottom. This suggestion apparently was tested first by the U.S. Navy in 1838, in a study that confirmed the greater velocity, clarity, and constancy of a bell signaling underwater compared with through the air. Later experiments, in 1841, showed that whereas the acoustic self-noise from the paddle wheels and propellers of steamboats could not be heard by a person using an underwater listening trumpet beyond about 0.5 kilometer (0.31 mile), the noise of a ship’s chain or underwater bell could be detected distinctly at ranges exceeding 2 kilometers (1.24 miles). As reported by Sir William Henry Bragg, an English physicist heavily involved in the development of uniand bidirectional hydrophones for passive underwater
sound detection, after serious U-boat attacks on military and commercial shipping in 1914, numerous suggestions were debated for reliably detecting hostile submarines in shallow coastal and adjacent ocean waters. The basic operational detection requirement for the Allied naval forces was reliable detection within about 0.75 kilometer (0.47 mile) from the defending vessel to permit evasive navigation and artillery/depth-charge response. With underwater sound remaining the readiest expedient with at least some precedent, specific questions remained as to whether the mechanical propeller and flow noises generated by target submarines as signal and by the listening vessel as unwanted background noise could be discriminated reliably to permit estimation of submarine distance, angular bearing, and speed. As onshore coastal listening experiments in the English Channel soon showed, unless more than one listening station was used, passive sonar provided, at best, information only on the probable presence of an underwater acoustic sound source, which detectability could be lost easily if the target submarine reduced speed or the listening vessel increased speed. In 1914, John Joly and others reported on experiments with ship-to-ship underwater signaling and telephony using multiple controlled sound sources and listening hydrophones. After visual or audible sighting of a submarine by one or more listening vessels, additional sweeper craft would explode a small depth charge, the position of which could be found relative to submerged hydrophones near the coast, giving the submarine’s prior position and bearing. This early echo-sounding, or active insonification, approach for detecting a submerged sound-reflecting surface had been proposed previously and patented by American inventor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden in 1889 and tentatively developed by him and others in the early 1900’s by the Submarine Signal Company of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Underwater bells, or vibrators, operated electrically, pneumatically, or by wave action, were located near lighthouses, shoals, and wrecks. Under favorable ocean conditions, their signals were received by ships at ranges of up to 15 kilometers (9.32 miles) using hydrophones fitted to or suspended from the ships’ bows. By about 1912, these technologies were in use in the United States, England, France, and Germany, not only for communication but also for navigational use. All these devices, however, generated acoustic signals of frequencies
Langevin Develops Active Sonar
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
lower than about 600 cycles per second in a frequency band filled with generally strong competing noises that could not, in general, be screened against or distinguished. Fessenden’s method, one of the most widely used (for example, by the German navy), was the first electroacoustic transducer based on an oscillator constructed from a reciprocating electromagnetic induction motor moving a steel membrane. The year before its introduction in 1913, the Titanic sank after hitting a submerged iceberg, causing intense international interest in reliable advance detection of navigational obstacles. Unfortunately, Fessenden’s oscillator was not very effective, as it did not produce enough power or sound impulses that were sufficiently sharp for reliable timing and ranging. English and French antisubmarine warfare engineers soon realized that considerable improvement in performance and reliability would require greater acoustic output intensity as well as a pulse width smaller than the shortest conceivable two-way acoustic travel time. Although English physicists Lord Rayleigh and E. G. Richardson proposed various ideas after the Titanic sinking in 1912, a Russian engineer working for the French navy,
Constantin Chilowski, built the first prototype ultrasonic source unit. The unit’s output intensity, however, was still too weak to permit reliable insonification and detection of reflected signals for objects more than about 100 meters (about 109 yards) distant. After initial work for the French artillery ranging service in developing acoustic detectors for explosions, French physicist Paul Langevin joined Chilowski in mid-1915. Langevin was well known in Europe for his numerous contributions to the study of X rays (1897 to 1898), of ionization in gases and kinetic theory (1899 to 1912), and, notably, of the electromagnetic properties of dielectric and paramagnetic/diamagnetic solids (1903 to 1913). During World War I, the last of these was still considered esoteric pure research of little applicability, although it proved crucial to Langevin’s sonar transducer work. In 1880, French physicists Jacques Curie and Pierre Curie discovered the change in dimensions of crystals subjected to electromagnetic fields. The effect on quartz and Rochelle salt is one of alternating compression and expansion when subjected to an alternating electric current. As the field oscillates, the crystal slab vibrates longitudinally in the three axes of optical symme-
Sonar
Active sonar locates underwater objects by sending out sound pulses and detecting the reflection of those pulses from the objects.
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The total quartz oscillator area was of the order of 400 square centimeters (62 square inches), permitting interception of considerable reflected acoustic energy by the same surface (in receive mode). In June, 1918, using basically this multicrystal transducer, results were obtained that were superior to those achieved using Rutherford and Boyle’s techniques. Shortly before the end of World War I, a prototype active sonar unit housed in a canvas dome was fitted for secret sea trials aboard a shallowwater trawler. Final operating frequencies could be selected between 20,000 and 50,000 cycles per second; at vessel speeds of 15 knots, the final prototype had an effective underwater echo detection range of more than 2.7 kilometers (1.68 miles). Significance Concurrent with French-English efforts, several civilian and military research groups in the United States were concentrating on lower-noise thermionic amplifiers (M. I. Pupin at Columbia University), improved transducer reliability and focusing (A. P. Willis, J. Langmuir, A. W. Hull, and C. E. Eveleth at General Electric Company), and collateral prototype system development using watershielded Rochelle salt crystals (Western Electric Company, Wesleyan University). Shortly after the end of World War I, these transducers were tested successfully at the Naval Experimental Station in New London, Connecticut, with reliable acoustic echoes detected from an armored schooner streaming past a sending/listening ship at distances of more than 400 meters (437.44 yards). Although a joint Allied sonar research conference was held in Paris in October, 1918, to plan further cooperative development of “the Langevin apparatus for supersonic signalling and detection of submarines by echo,” when the war ended, the exchange of scientific information ceased. During the interwar years, American, English, and French active sonar research progressed along strikingly similar lines. Within about three and one-half years of Langevin’s final prototype, Boyle demonstrated successful ultrasonic detection of submerged icebergs, rocky reefs, shipwrecks, and undersea topographic features, giving birth to what has since been designated acoustic fathometry. Soon after, an improved piezoelectric quartz oscillator was employed, with operating frequencies of up to 500,000 cycles per second, to make the first systematic investigations in vivo of chemical and biological effects of ultrasound—the starting point for the acoustic subdiscipline of ultrasonics. In 1919, Rochelle salt was used as a more efficient 1225
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try. When the crystal dimension in either direction is a whole-number multiple of half an acoustic wavelength, an electromechanical resonance is set up, resulting in greatly increased output amplitude. Although Rochelle salt has a higher Curie constant than quartz and, hence, greater sensitivity to smaller signal voltages, it is readily dissoluble in water. Thus, late in 1915, Langevin had the idea of exciting one or more quartz crystals in ultrasonic resonance using a tuned amplifying circuit of the type invented by William du Bois Duddell in 1900. Langevin’s first experiments with an electrostatic spark generator and carbon button (telephone type) receiver were not successful. After several false starts, an improved thermionic valve amplifier finally became available in France in early 1917. The comparatively weak reflected signals were no longer swamped by amplifier self-noise, and in April, 1917, Langevin finally received the first acoustic echoes from a piezoelectric quartz transmitter and hydrophone receiver. Sound ranging in seawater is limited by intensity decreases, because of inverse square geometric spreading, and by the thermoviscous absorption of acoustic energy by water molecules, which above 5,000 cycles per second results in roughly a 10-decibel loss per 1,000 meters (about 1,094 yards). Although tests over the 20 to 150 kilocycles band were conducted, based on trade-offs between lower in-water sound attenuation and wider acoustic beams with decreasing transducer frequency, operational frequencies between 30,000 and 40,000 cycles per second were chosen. Close technical liaison was established between English and French scientists coordinated with, but independent of, Langevin. In 1918, English physicist Ernest Rutherford and Canadian physicist R. W. Boyle obtained echoes in the field from a submarine at a range of almost 0.5 kilometer (0.31 mile) using a separate single-quartz crystal transmitter/receiver combination with a French electronic amplifier. In the meantime, Langevin had developed a more efficient piezoelectric quartz transducer from a composite block including a number of quartz crystals in series cut relative to their optical axis, with thickness of one-fourth the desired acoustic output wavelength, firmly mounted between iron slabs. Much care was needed in coupling the thermionic amplifier to the crystal to prevent unwanted “pinging” effects from extraneous mechanical shocks. The result was a notable increase in acoustic radiated efficiency over singlecrystal designs, limited predominantly by dielectric and elastic hysteresis effects (which still govern active sonar design).
Langevin Develops Active Sonar
Langevin Develops Active Sonar pickup receiver, replacing cactus needles and tungsten styli in gramophone transmitters. By the late 1920’s, routine studies by the U.S. Coastal and Geodetic Survey and the German Oceanographic Meteor Survey were employing active sonar fathometry for comprehensive sounding of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge area, and soon thereafter 14-to-25-kilocycle dual-frequency active sonar units were deployed for commercial whale and fish school location. Although limited by ocean and seafloor medium conditions that have become an increasingly major focus of supporting research, since World War II, active sonar has continued to play a critical role in under-ice navigation, bathymetric mapping, and antisubmarine warfare. —Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Bragg, William Henry. The World of Sound: Six Lectures Delivered Before a Juvenile Auditor at the Royal Institution. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1930. Bragg, a major developer of underwater acoustic hydrophones during World War II, presents then declassified aspects of the Royal Navy’s work on directional acoustic detection of ship, submarine, and artillery-generated sounds. Crandall, Irving B. Theory of Vibrating Systems and Sound. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1926. Although intended as an intermediate-level physics text, this is an invaluable reference. Bibliography captures a significant portion of American, English, French, and German literatures from both world wars. Hackmann, Willem Dirk. Seek and Strike: Sonar, Antisubmarine Warfare, and the Royal Navy, 1914-1954. London: Her Majesty’s Scientific Office, 1984. Comprehensive study of the specific military requirements
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and technological possibilities and limits imposed on underwater acoustic transduction in submarine detection. Succeeds in communicating to a general audience the central technical, as well as military-political, issues. Hunt, Frederick V. Electroacoustics: The Analysis of Transduction and Its Historical Background. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954. Although comparatively technical in focus, this is the acknowledged central reference of choice. Especially convenient is a nearly complete listing of historical English and foreign-language publications, reports, and patents. Lurton, Xavier. An Introduction to Underwater Acoustics: Principles and Applications. New York: Springer, 2002. Introductory text provides an overview of the physical phenomena affecting underwater acoustical waves and discusses the features of sonar systems. Richardson, Edward G. Sound: A Physical Textbook. 4th ed. New York: Longmans, Green, 1947. Elementary reference. Includes specific discussion of the impact of war on ocean acoustics. Urick, Robert J. Principles of Underwater Sound. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983. A central source for the principles and applications of underwater acoustic transduction and propagation. See also: 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass; Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony
October 21, 1915
First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony Communications technology was advanced significantly by the work of telephone engineers who sent radio messages from the United States to Europe for the first time. Locale: Arlington, Virginia; Paris, France Categories: Science and technology; communications and media; radio and television
Summary of Event The idea of commercial transatlantic communication was first raised by Guglielmo Marconi, the pioneer of wireless telegraphy. Marconi used a spark transmitter to generate radio waves, which were interrupted, or modulated, to form the dots and dashes of Morse code. The rapid generation of sparks created an electromagnetic disturbance that sent radio waves of different frequencies into the air—a broad, noisy transmission that was difficult to tune and detect. The inventor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden produced an alternative method that became the basis of radio technology in the twentieth century. His continuous radio wave kept to one frequency, making it much easier to detect at long distances. Furthermore, the continuous waves could be modulated by an audio signal, making it possible to transmit the sound of speech. Fessenden was faced with the problem of generating continuous waves. He found the answer in the alternator that produced electric current for use in the home and workplace. Fessenden’s alternator was designed to generate electromagnetic waves at the high frequencies required in radio transmission. It was specially constructed at the laboratories of the General Electric Company and shipped to Brant Rock, Massachusetts, in 1906 for testing. Radio messages were sent to a boat cruising offshore, and the feasibility of radiotelephony was thus demonstrated. Fessenden followed this success with a broadcast of messages and music between Brant Rock
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Key Figures Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932), American electrical engineer Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American inventor Harold D. Arnold (1883-1933), American physicist John J. Carty (1861-1932), American electrical engineer Theodore Newton Vail (1845-1920), American businessman
and a receiving station constructed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The equipment installed at Brant Rock had a range of about 99 miles (160 kilometers). The transmission distance was determined by the strength of the electric power delivered by the alternator, which was measured in watts. Fessenden’s alternator was rated at 500 watts, but it usually delivered much less. This was sufficient, however, to send a radio message across the Atlantic. Fessenden had built a receiving station at Machrihanish, on the west coast of Scotland, to test the operation of a large rotary spark transmitter he had constructed. An operator at this station picked up the voice of an engineer at Brant Rock who was sending instructions to Plymouth. The first radiotelephone message had been sent across the Atlantic by accident. Fessenden decided not to make this startling development public. The station at Machrihanish was destroyed in a storm, making it impossible to carry out further tests. The successful transmission undoubtedly had been the result of exceptionally clear atmospheric conditions that might never again favor the inventor. Fessenden decided to concentrate on perfecting and marketing a system of radiotelephony that would join ships at sea with stations on the shore. He set up companies to exploit his invention and continued experiments with radio wave generation. One of the parties following the experiments in radiotelephony was the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). Fessenden entered into negotiations to sell his system to AT&T, but the sale was never made, as the company was more interested in finding a way of improving its wired communications than branching out into radio. The strategy followed by AT&T president Theodore Newton Vail was to dominate telephone communication in the United States with one integrated system and one universal service. This ambitious plan required control of all technologies related to long-distance communication. Subsequently, AT&T consolidated its research and development effort into a department led by John J. Carty, formerly chief engineer of the New York Telephone Company. After the financial panic of 1907 had been overcome, Carty was given the resources and scientific personnel to initiate a program of impressive technical development of the telephone system. His laboratory became one of the leading industrial research organizations in the United States.
First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The technical problem facing Carty was to extend the reach of long-distance telephone service. Vail’s strategy of one system was based on transcontinental service, and Carty had promised a demonstration of a coast-to-coast telephone call for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition scheduled for 1914. Carty’s laboratory searched for a means to amplify telephone messages so that they could travel longer distances. After examining magnetic and electromechanical devices, Carty’s research staff decided that electronic amplification promised better results. This led them to examine the newly developed vacuum tube. The English physicist John Ambrose Fleming invented a two-element (diode) vacuum tube in 1904 that could be used to generate and detect radio waves. Two years later, the American inventor Lee de Forest added a third element to the diode to produce his “audion” (triode), which was a more sensitive detector. Announcements of this progress in radio technology had made the stockholders of the telephone compaLee de Forest sends a message using radiotelephony. (Library of Congress) nies fear that wired communications soon might be replaced completely by radio. AT&T wanted to gain a foothold in radio in air). Arnold designed the power amplifier around banks case rapid technical advances made it a better form of of triodes arranged in parallel. The test transmitter concommunication than the telephone. structed in 1915 consisted of a modulator and a threeThe AT&T research laboratory had carefully examhundred-tube parallel amplifier. As each tube gave out ined the new devices produced for radio. Carty became 25 watts, the total power output of the transmitter was convinced that the amplification problem in both tele7,500 watts, enough to send the radio waves over thouphony and radio had the same solution. An electronic sands of kilometers. amplifier could be used to increase the strength of teleThe apparatus was installed in the U.S. Navy’s radio phone signals, and it could generate continuous radio tower in Arlington, Virginia, in 1915. Radio messages waves that could travel long distances. On Carty’s adfrom Arlington were picked up at a receiving station in vice, AT&T purchased the rights to de Forest’s audion. A California, a distance of 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers), team of about twenty-five researchers, under the leaderthen at a station in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which was ship of physicist Harold D. Arnold, undertook the job of 4,474 miles (7,200 kilometers) from Arlington. AT&T’s perfecting the triode and turning it into a reliable amplifier. The improved triode was responsible for the success engineers had succeeded in joining its telephone lines of transcontinental telephone service introduced in Januwith the radio transmitter at Arlington; therefore, presiary, 1915. Also, the triode was the basis of AT&T’s foray dent Vail could pick up his telephone and talk directly into radiotelephony. with someone in California. Carty’s research plan called for a system composed of The next experiment was to send a radio message an oscillator (to generate the carrier wave), a modulator from Arlington to a receiving station set up in the Eiffel (to impose the audio signal on the carrier), and an ampliTower in Paris. After several unsuccessful attempts, the fier (to transmit the modulated carrier wave through the telephone engineers in the Eiffel Tower finally heard 1228
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Arlington’s messages on October 21, 1915. The AT&T receiving station in Hawaii also picked up the messages. The acknowledgments of receipt of the messages had to be sent by telegraph to the United States because both stations were set up to receive only. The Arlington-toParis transmission was a one-way transmission; twoway radio communication was still years in the future.
new radio technology. The messages sent were short and faint. There was a great gulf between hearing “hello” and “good-bye” amid the static and the setting up of reliable and affordable communication. Subsequently, the many predictions of a direct telephone connection between New York and other major cities overseas were premature. It was not until 1927 that a transatlantic radio circuit was opened for public use. By that time, a new technological direction had been taken, and the method used in 1915 had been superseded by shortwave radio communication. — Andre Millard Further Reading Aitken, Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio 1900-1932. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. Authoritative work on the development of radio technology written by the leading scholar in the field. Following on his Syntony and Spark (see below), Aitken provides a detailed and comprehensive account of the technology and the business affairs of radio. _______. Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976. A good history of the early development of radio from the discovery of radio waves to the work of Marconi. Includes many diagrams of early radio apparatuses. Brooks, John. Telephone: The First Hundred Years. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Popular account of the growth of the communications industry. Provides clear technical explanations for the general reader. Useful for putting technical events into a broader context. De Forest, Lee. Father of Radio: The Autobiography of Lee de Forest. Chicago: Wilcox & Follett, 1950. Firsthand account of the early years of radio provides many insights into the interaction of business and technology. As the author is highly biased, only his version of the events is described. Fagen, M. D., ed. A History of Science and Engineering in the Bell System: The Early Years, 1875-1925. Murray Hill, N.J.: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975. The official history of the work carried out by the AT&T laboratories. Chapters are arranged by topic. “The Advent of Radio” describes the development of this technology in detail. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Begins with 1229
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Significance The announcement that messages had been received in Paris was front-page news that brought about an outburst of national pride in the United States. The demonstration of transatlantic radiotelephony was more important as publicity for AT&T than as a scientific advance. The national attention and media response were fixed firmly on the Arlington-to-Paris transmission, despite the fact that the Arlington-to-Hawaii transmission was longer and involved the more difficult task of sending radio waves across land. The great publicity given to the receipt of messages in France achieved AT&T’s goal of taking the high ground of radio technology and imprinting this fact on the public mind. Telephone stockholders would not concern themselves any longer with the threat that radio posed to wired communication. AT&T announced a transcontinental radiotelephone service in 1915, although it had no intention of replacing its wires; radio was to complement the universal service. Vail ensured that all the credit went to AT&T and to Carty’s laboratory. Both Fessenden and de Forest attempted to draw attention to their contributions to longdistance radiotelephony, but to no avail. The Arlingtonto-Paris transmission was a triumph for corporate public relations and corporate research. The development of the triode had been achieved with large teams of highly trained scientists—a contrast to the small-scale efforts of Fessenden and de Forest, who had little formal scientific training. Carty’s laboratory was an example of the new type of industrial research that was to dominate the twentieth century. The golden days of the lone inventor, in the mold of Thomas Alva Edison or Alexander Graham Bell, were gone. Only large corporations had the resources to develop new technology and market it. It was significant that all the businesses started by Fessenden and de Forest failed. The pioneers of radio received little financial reward for their efforts. In the years that followed the first transatlantic radiotelephone messages, AT&T did little to advance the technology or to develop a commercial service. The equipment used in the 1915 demonstration was more a makeshift laboratory apparatus than a prototype for a
First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony
Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity an analysis of the invention of wireless radio broadcasting. Hong, Sungook. Wireless: From Marconi’s Black-Box to the Audion. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Draws on previously untapped archival evidence and recent work in the history of technology to provide a new perspective on the early days of wireless communication. Concludes with a discussion of Lee de Forest’s audion and the shift from wireless telegraphy to radio. Reich, Leonard S. The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876-1926. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 versity Press, 1985. Concentrates on the operation of industrial research and the business strategy that lay behind it. Gives a detailed analysis of the work done by Carty and Arnold in the AT&T laboratory. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded.
November 25, 1915
Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity Einstein proposed that physical laws appear the same in any reference frame, even one accelerated under the influence of gravitational fields. Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Marcel Grossman (1878-1936), Swiss mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English scientist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), Scottish physicist Ernst Mach (1838-1916), Austrian physicist and philosopher Summary of Event When Albert Einstein was young, a two-hundred-yearold principle of relativity already existed. This principle stated that there is no standard of absolute motion or rest; the velocities of all objects are defined only in relation to other objects. This is a statement of Galilean relativity, named for the Italian physicist, mathematician, and astronomer Galileo (1564-1642). On the other hand, changes in velocity, or accelerations, do not depend on the observer’s velocity. Suppose there is a train moving at 100 kilometers per hour and two observers: one in a car traveling alongside the train at 60 kilometers per hour and one standing on a station platform. If the observer on the platform observes the train accelerate by 20 kilometers per hour to 120 kilometers per hour, the observer in the car will also see that the train has accelerated by 20 kilometers per hour, to 60 kilome1230
ters per hour. Thus velocities have only a relative meaning, whereas accelerations have an absolute one. From these two facts, Sir Isaac Newton deduced, in 1687, that the physical laws of nature must be based on the acceleration of objects, not their velocities. The physical laws of nature (or, in mathematical terms, the equations of motion) thus appear the same to all observers each moving at any arbitrary velocity, as long as their velocities do not change with time. Such special observers are said to be in inertial frames of reference. In 1865, however, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell presented his theory of electricity and magnetism, which required that the speed of light be the same number for an observer moving at any constant velocity. Here, a velocity (the speed of light) has an absolute meaning. If a light beam is thought of as a train racing at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, then no matter how fast an observer flies in a rocket ship alongside this light-train, the light-train will always be moving 300,000 kilometers per second faster than the rocket ship. Scientists, quite confused, proposed that there was an absolute standard of rest, an ether filling space, and that somehow this ether explains why Galilean relativity breaks down. This ether had originally been proposed as the medium that carries the electromagnetic waves. In 1887, experiments by scientists Albert A. Michelson and Edward Williams Morley revealed no evidence of this ether. Meanwhile, the Irish physicist George Francis FitzGerald (1889) and the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1899) worked out the correct equations of transformation between inertial frames. A proper un-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ing with his old school friend Marcel Grossman. Although their theory proved incorrect, Grossman, a mathematician, introduced Einstein to differential geometry, essential to the mastering of curved space. Finally, in the summer of 1915, Einstein discovered his errors. After furious work, he presented his general theory in its final form on November 25, 1915. (David Hilbert, a mathematician, discovered the errors at the same time Einstein did and presented the fundamental equation only five days before Einstein; however, the physical principles behind the general theory and the vision of its existence are usually credited to Einstein.) The resolution of the conflict between special relativity and Newtonian gravitation came in the form of gravity waves, which carry information about the motion of masses at the speed of light in much the same way electromagnetic waves carry information about the motion of electrical charges. Far-off objects thus do not instantly perceive changes in the position of a nearby object, but must wait for gravity waves from the nearby object to reach them. There is more than one way to formulate a theory of gravity waves, however. Einstein made one further assumption (partly inspired by the assertion of Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach) that all motions possess only relative meaning, not simply inertial (constant velocity) motion. Einstein required that physical laws should appear the same regardless of frame of reference, even one accelerated under the influence of gravitational fields. Yet again there was a twist, this time requiring a generalization of what is meant by inertial motion and a revolution in the concept of the structure of space and time. Significance Both general relativity and special relativity revolutionized ideas about the structure of space and time. Special relativity introduced the concept of four-dimensional space-time, wherein measurements of the spatial dimensions of an object cannot be made independent of a measurement of the temporal dimension—that is, the velocity with which the object is moving to or away from the observer. Objects that move away very quickly will shrink along the direction of motion. General relativity introduces the idea that space-time is curved; that is, the presence of mass or other forms of energy distorts space-time, in much the same way that a bowling ball placed on a trampoline distorts the surface of the trampoline. What appears as gravitational force is not, within general relativity, a force at all; it is simply 1231
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derstanding of these equations was lacking, however. Einstein dismissed the ether conjecture and reaffirmed that the laws of physics should appear the same in all inertial reference frames; excepting the velocity of light, all velocities are again relative. Still, there was a twist. In order to account for the fact that the speed of light is the same in any inertial frame, Einstein proposed that measurements of both length and time are different for observers in different inertial frames. Observer A will find that objects in Observer B’s inertial frame shrink in the direction of relative motion and that Observer B’s wristwatch runs slower than Observer A’s. Observer B will, with equal justification, say that objects in Observer A’s inertial reference frame appear shorter in the direction of motion and that Observer A’s wristwatch appears to be running slower. This theory is now referred to as special relativity. Another profound consequence of special relativity is that it is impossible to accelerate a body from rest or from sublight velocities up to the speed of light. The equations that Einstein derived predict that it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so. The faster a body is moving, the harder it is to accelerate the body further. A popular interpretation is that the mass of an object increases as it gains velocity, becoming infinitely massive as the speed of light is reached. More generally, mass is merely another form of energy and can be converted back and forth. Unfortunately, the conclusion that nothing can be accelerated past the speed of light conflicted with the thencurrent understanding of gravitation. According to Newton, given two objects with a gravitational force between them, if one of the objects is moved slightly, the other object instantly feels a shift in the gravitational force between them. The line of force between the two objects is always a straight line connecting them. Aided by the insights of special relativity, Einstein realized that information on the movement of the first object cannot travel instantly to the second. At the fastest, this information may travel at the speed of light. The line of force between two objects must curve if one of the objects experiences a push. There must be a lag time before the second object realizes the first has moved. The reconciliation between special relativity and gravitation forms Einstein’s theory of general relativity. After Einstein had made some first steps toward the general theory, between 1905 and 1907, mathematical difficulties and an increasing interest in the new quantum physics caused him to defer work on gravitation. Between 1905 and 1911, he made stunning contributions to statistical and quantum physics. Then, between 1912 and 1913, he returned to the study of gravitation, collaborat-
Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity
Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity the motion of bodies in curved space-time along paths as nearly straight as possible. Thus the motion of Earth around the Sun, which appears in three dimensions as a circular orbit, in curved four-dimensional space-time is actually a straight line. Thus a marble placed on the trampoline holding the bowling ball will roll toward the bowling ball, not because it is gravitationally attracted to the bowling ball but because the trampoline is not flat. Einstein generalized the concept of an inertial frame to curved space-time. One of the most important results of this generalization is a proof of the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, which had puzzled scientists since the time of Newton. Inertial mass is the resistance a body gives to force. A larger inertial mass means it is harder to accelerate a body to a given speed. Gravitational mass is a measure of a body’s gravitational force field. The larger the gravitational mass, the more strongly it feels the gravitational force of other mass. Since motion in a gravitational field is a generalized inertial motion in curved spacetime, there is no gravitational force, per se, in general relativity. Hence there is actually only inertial mass, no gravitational mass. Predictions based on general relativity, now confirmed by experiment, include the bending of light rays on passing massive celestial objects, the shift of light frequency in a gravitational field (the gravitational redshift), an additional rotation of the elliptical orbit of Mercury around the Sun (the precession of the perihelion of Mercury), the existence of black holes (regions of such enormous mass density that even light cannot escape), and the expansion of the universe. Light rays bend toward massive objects because space is deformed around them, and the light rays simply follow the straightest contours of space-time by them. A black hole occurs when the deformation of space is so great that the light ray is continually bent toward the gravitational source, never able to escape. Light frequencies shift in the neighborhood of strong gravitational fields because the passage of time is also distorted by the deformation of space-time. Wristwatches, for example, appear to run slower in strong gravitational fields. (Light cycles through phases much like a common alternating current electrical outlet. Its frequency is hence a measure of time, much like a wristwatch with a variable-speed second hand.) The additional rotation of the elliptical orbit of Mercury and the expansion of the universe come from analysis of Einstein’s new equations of motion. There is also a practical significance to general relativity in the field of satellite communications, because 1232
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 measurements of time and space are different when observed from high-altitude satellites compared with when observed on the surface of the earth. For example, highly accurate satellite-based navigation systems would send oceangoing ships off course by several kilometers if relativistic corrections were not taken into account. —David Hsu Further Reading Bergmann, Peter G. The Riddle of Gravitation. Rev. ed. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1993. A clear, full presentation of gravitation from the ancient Greeks through special and general relativity and the consequences of quantum mechanics. No mathematical background is required. Many illustrations and diagrams. Helpful bibliography, glossary, and index. Einstein, Albert. Relativity: The Special and General Theory. Translated by Robert W. Lawson. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 2001. An intelligible and elegantly written explanation of Einstein’s theory, but fairly demanding for the average reader. Knowledge of high school-level algebra helpful but not essential. Includes diagrams, index, and bibliography. Gamow, George. Biography of Physics. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Chapter 6 is devoted to relativity. Chatty, with amusing anecdotes, helpful diagrams, and a few equations. Presents basic ideas, but no discussion of black holes or quantum effects. Fairly light reading. Hawking, Stephen A. A Brief History of Time. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1996. Clear and well organized, with vivid explanations of basic principles; excellent for the nonspecialist. The first two chapters provide historical background and describe the major concepts of relativity. Succeeding chapters deal with black holes, quantum effects, particle physics, time, and the unification of physical laws. Includes helpful diagrams, glossary, and index. Pais, Abraham. Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. 1982. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Meticulously referenced biography of Einstein. Features detailed chronology of Einstein’s life, good subject index, and exhaustive name index. See also: Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity; 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity; Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers
December 8, 1915
Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers After Punch magazine published the unsigned poem “In Flanders Fields” in 1915, the poppy, which figures as a major conceit in the poem, quickly became a symbol for the Allied war dead. Also known as: “In Flanders Fields” Locale: London, England; Ypres, Belgium; New York, New York Categories: Literature; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event The red poppy is internationally recognized as a symbol for fallen soldiers, an association that has its roots in World War I. The relationship between the poppy and remembering war dead is the direct result of the 1915 publication of a poem titled “In Flanders Fields” in the British magazine Punch. The poem, unsigned on its first publication, was written by a Canadian army medical officer named John McCrae, who was serving in the World War I campaign of the Ypres salient. In April, 1915, McCrae was assigned as a brigade surgeon to the First Brigade of the Canadian Forces Artillery, which was stationed in the trenches in an area near Ypres, Belgium, commonly known as Flanders. Much of the bloodiest fighting of World War I took place in that area. McCrae’s brigade was involved in combat in the Second Battle of Ypres, during which the German forces deployed chlorine gas against the Allied troops in an effort to break the ongoing stalemate. In the trenches, McCrae tended to wounded soldiers and was constantly surrounded by the dead and dying. Among these soldiers was a close friend and former student of McCrae, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who was killed in battle by a direct hit from an eight-inch German shell. On May 3, 1915, the First Brigade laid Helmer to rest in the burial ground known at the time as the
In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Source: John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields” (1915), in In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919).
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Key Figures John McCrae (1872-1918), major and medical officer in the Canadian army Alexis Helmer (1893-1915), lieutenant in the Canadian army Moina Belle Michael (1869-1944), American social secretary for the Young Men’s Christian Association Overseas Headquarters
Essex Farm British Military Cemetery. No chaplain was present, so McCrae conducted a simple graveside service for his fallen friend. Taking inspiration from the sight of Helmer’s makeshift grave and the others in the cemetery, McCrae composed the poem that soon became famous. On and around the graves of the fallen soldiers, which were marked by simple wooden crosses, vibrant red wild poppies had begun to bloom; McCrae captured this image in the poem. After he completed the poem, McCrae was somewhat dissatisfied and discarded it, but a fellow officer retrieved it. McCrae sent the poem to the English magazine The Spectator, which rejected it, but Punch magazine published it on December 8, 1915. McCrae later contracted pneumonia while posted to a Canadian military hospital in Boulogne, France, and died on January 28, 1918, after developing meningitis. On November 9, 1918, two days before the armistice that ended World War I, Moina Belle Michael, who was working as social secretary for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Overseas Headquarters in New York City, came across the poem in a magazine and, although she had read it many times before, reread it
Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers and found herself greatly affected by it. She was inspired to write her own poem in response, “We Shall Keep the Faith,” and she vowed always to wear a red silk poppy as a symbol of tribute to the war dead and surviving veterans. Her campaign to encourage others to do so also began that same day, when three delegates to the Twentyfifth Conference of the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries asked her to accept a ten-dollar check in appreciation of her efforts to brighten up the headquarters office with the red flower. Michael showed both McCrae’s poem and her own to the delegates, and they took the poems back to the conference and shared them with the others in attendance. Michael was then invited to discuss the poems and her poppy campaign at the conference. With the money the delegates had given her, Michael bought twenty-five red silk poppies, and when she returned to the headquarters office after the conference, she distributed the flowers to delegates who accosted her with requests for poppies to wear. This was the first official sale of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy. Several of those in attendance, most notably the French secretary Anna Guérin, took this idea back to their home countries and began similar successful campaigns for the poppy to symbolize remembrance of those lost in the war. Michael devoted the rest of her life to this cause, and by the time of her death in 1944, the poppy campaign had raised nearly two hundred million dollars for veterans and their families in the United States and England. Significance Thanks to McCrae’s poem and Michael’s campaign, the poppy became a universal symbol for war remembrance. Through the efforts of Michael and her counterparts in other countries, the poppy appeal spread throughout the United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and more than fifty other nations. In the United States and Great Britain, silk poppies made by disabled veterans are sold to the public, and the profits are channeled to programs that provide relief and rehabilitation for veterans and their dependents. King George V of the United Kingdom designated November 11 as Armistice Day in 1919, and with that began the tradition of laying poppy wreaths at national graveside ceremonies. The first annual poppy appeal was held in Britain on November 11, 1921, by the Royal British Legion, a tradition that has continued into the twentyfirst century. The Australian Returned Soldiers and Sailors League first sold poppies on Armistice Day in 1921. In the United States, the first organized sale of pop1234
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pies took place in 1921 when the Franco-American Children’s League sold poppies made by children in French orphanages for the benefit of children in the wardevastated areas of France and Belgium. When the Franco-American Children’s League was dissolved early in 1922, Anna Guérin contacted the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States regarding selling poppies made in France. The VFW supported the idea and conducted a poppy sale that year. The following year, the VFW decided to sell poppies made by disabled and needy American veterans, and a factory was established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to make flowers named Buddy Poppies by the VFW. Later, Buddy Poppies were assembled by disabled and aging veterans in Veterans Administration hospitals and domiciliaries across the United States. The VFW adopted the poppy as the organization’s official memorial flower in 1922. In October, 1922, the American Legion also adopted the poppy as its official flower. —Amanda J. Bahr-Evola Further Reading Beckett, I. F. W. Ypres: The First Battle, 1914. Harlow, England: Pearson, 2004. Provides a detailed account of the Flanders campaign. Cox, Ian. “The Larks Still Singing.” Times Literary Supplement, November 13, 1998, 6. Contains brief biographical information on John McCrae and his role in the rise of the Armistice Day celebration. Graves, Dianne. A Crown of Life: The World of John McCrae. Staplehurst, England: Spellmount, 1997. Very thorough biography pays special attention to McCrae’s medical career. Groom, Winston. A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918—Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front. New York: Grove Press, 2002. Tells the story of the Flanders campaign and provides context for the poem “In Flanders Fields.” Johnston, Penelope. “The Life of Dr. John McCrae.” Medical Post 34, no. 38 (November 10, 1998): 34. Presents a succinct biography of McCrae and outlines his many accomplishments in the medical profession. McCrae, John. “In Flanders Fields.” In In Flanders Fields: Poetry of the First World War, edited by George Walter. New York: Allen Lane, 2004. A recent reprinting of the poem that inspired the poppy campaign, within a volume that provides the context of other World War I-era poetry.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Michael, Moina Belle. The Miracle Flower: The Story of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1941. Autobiography of the woman responsible for launching the memorial poppy campaign. Describes her work in the war, her rationale for participating in the poppy campaign, and the logistics of putting it together.
Malevich Introduces Suprematism Prescott, John F. In Flanders Fields: The Story of John McCrae. Erin, Ont.: Boston Mills Press, 1985. Biography covers McCrae’s military career. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion.
December 17, 1915
Malevich Introduces Suprematism When Kazimir Malevich exhibited thirty-nine paintings to which he attached the subtitle “Suprematism,” critics saw the abstract forms as a direct challenge to realism and responded with insults and verbal fireworks.
Key Figures Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935), Russian artist Ilia Chashnik (1902-1929), Russian artist Vera Ermolaeva (1893-1938), Russian artist Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922), Russian poet Ivan Kliun (1870-1943), Russian artist Ivan Kudriashev (1896-1970), Russian artist El Lissitzky (1890-1941), Russian artist Ivan Puni (1894-1956), Russian artist Nikolai Suetin (1897-1954), Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), Russian artist Summary of Event The movement known as Suprematism had its birth at a 1915 art exhibition in St. Petersburg, Russia, that was promoted as the “last Futurist exhibition.” The focal point of the exhibition was the display of thirty-nine Suprematist paintings by Kazimir Malevich, who, in calling the new movement Suprematism, appeared to be designating the total nonobjectivity of Suprematism as the last stage of his progress as an artist. The first of the paintings by Malevich listed in the exhibition catalog is the famous Black Square on White. The painting consists of two shapes, a black square set in a larger white square; the contrast between the black and the white presents composition at its most economical. In particular, the painting calls attention to the effect of spatial infinity opening into the nothingness of the black square. Despite the total abstraction of the painting, the
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Locale: St. Petersburg, Russia Category: Arts
tactile quality of the surface of the canvas tended to overcome the viewer’s impulse to regard the painting merely as an arrangement of basic forms. Similarly, Malevich’s other paintings, with titles such as Eight Red Rectangles and Painterly Realism: Boy with Knapsack—Colour Masses of the Fourth Dimension, called attention to constructed, painted geometric forms. Malevich, however, undermined the organized nature of such concepts by giving each rectangle its own orientation within the spatial composition, thereby denying the imposition of a predetermined or expected design, pattern, or structure. In particular, the paintings stretched the limits of representation because of their total abstraction and lack of any allusions to reality, despite such allusive titles as Boy with Knapsack and Red Square: Painterly Realism of Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions. Malevich also installed his paintings so that their deliberate proximity extended the space of each painting beyond its individual frame and consequently informed viewers of the intended spatial relationship between separate works. Because most critics at that time judged art according to traditional values of locating meaning in art, Malevich’s Black Square on White became the focal point of attacks against the notions of the Suprematists. Black Square on White was described as nothing but a void and the embodiment of emptiness, and art critics regarded this work and the others in the exhibition as degenerate examples of the destructive rejection of tradition. More positive critics likened the total abstraction of Malevich’s Suprematist paintings to the recent efforts of theoretical physicists Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Niels Bohr to define non-Euclidean space. New scientific concepts required articulation in a new scientific syntax; Malevich and poets such as Velimir Khlebnikov attempted to extend the limits of the language of the arts in the same manner in order to express the alteration of perception caused by the new explorations of space and
Malevich Introduces Suprematism
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
time. Consequently, in bringing art to the edge of innovastage decor. Khlebnikov and Malevich advocated the detion, Malevich’s Suprematist paintings can be regarded struction of language as well as the “antiquated moveas directly reflecting the dialectic between language and ment of thought based on laws of causality.” From these thought. experiments, as well as from the statements published in In his exploration of the changing nature of art, MaMalevich’s brochure From Cubism to Suprematism in levich wrote that “characteristic signs which distinguish Art, to the New Realism of Painting, to Absolute Crethe new painting from representative painting . . . are reation, it became evident that Malevich’s paintings mirflected in painters’ differing perceptual conceptions of rored the development and the formulation of personal the world and attitudes regarding it.” As Suprematism creative principles. Ultimately, Malevich’s personal exwas not concerned with the reflection of everyday life, plorations in art also reflected the experiments of the Suprematist art was not bound to representation but inRussian avant-garde, and, consequently, his theoretical stead sought to establish its freedom to represent the abwritings not only influenced the development of Sustraction of infinity. For Malevich, color became a means prematism but also contributed to the explorations of of creating form and structure, of creating a language constructivism. “composed of special words . . . an aid with which one can talk about the universe or about the state of our inner Significance animation, something one cannot express by means of Malevich’s introduction of Suprematism had a profound universe of words, sounds.” effect in that it released art from the constraints of easel To appreciate Malevich’s Suprematist period, one painting. As part of his program to alter the conceptual needs to consider the period of his artistic maturation frame of art, Malevich began experimenting with threefrom Impressionism to Suprematism as an attempt to dimensional architectural drawings, which he called “arachieve the maximum of artistic freedom. Malevich rechitectonics,” and he inspired his fellow Suprematists to jected the broken brushwork of Impressionism to conproclaim a transition from painting toward a universal centrate on the static quality of the surface plane; he system of art headed by architecture. In addition, Mafurther developed this static quality in paintings he dislevich devoted himself to working out his pedagogical played at a 1910 exhibition of neoprimitivists. In his method and to writing treatises on the history of the modpaintings of peasants, he heightened the static quality ern art movements and on the nature of art for the Vitebsk even more by presenting the peasants working in the UNOVIS, a new kind of art school that was conceived to fields as shapes whose heads, instead of being individufunction not only as a teaching institute but also as a scialized, had the abstract quality of icons. Shortly thereafentific research institute and workshop engaged in practer, in a 1911 exhibition at the Moscow Salon, Malevich tical work to promote the program of the Suprematists attempted to integrate the color experiments of his and to train succeeding generations of artists. Conseneoprimitivist paintings into works that reflected the inquently, all of Malevich’s paintings and architectural fluences of cubism and Futurism. His Knife Grinder constructions from this period served as illustrations of (1912) reflected the evolution of his individual style as he adjusted it to the theories of the Italian Futurists, who advocated the representation Malevich on Color of velocity and dynamism. In paintings shown In the catalog for a 1919 art exhibition in Moscow titled Nonobjecat a 1913 exhibition in Moscow, Malevich contive Creation and Suprematism, Kazimir Malevich made this declatinued to experiment with Futurism; his paintration: ing Peasant Woman with Buckets suggested movement by showing cones broken into alI have broken through the blue lampshade of color limitations and most unrecognizable shapes. passed into the white beyond: follow me, comrade aviators, sail on into the depths—I have established the semaphores of SupremaInfluenced by Khlebnikov’s experiments in tism. I have conquered the line of the colored sky, I have plucked creating disjunctions between sound and the colors, put them into the bag I have made, and tied it with a knot. meaning in language, Malevich joined the First Sail on! The white, wide-open depths, eternity, is before you. All-Russian Congress of Poets of the Future in Source: Quoted in Soviet Art, 1920s-1930s: Russian Museum, Leningrad, the production of Victory over the Sun, staged edited by Vladimir Leniashin (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988). at the Luna Park Theater in St. Petersburg in 1913, for which he designed the costumes and 1236
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during his Suprematist phase offers the only example of Suprematist painting extended into actual three-dimensional space through the use of real objects, attached wooden pieces that were incorporated with the illusionistically painted objects into a spatial composition. Ivan Kliun, one of the oldest members of the Russian avant-garde, represents the intersection between adherence to cubist fragmentation and Suprematist assertion of flat, geometric shapes. Ultimately, Kliun was to draw inspiration from both Suprematism and the constructivism of Malevich’s ideological opponent, Vladimir Tatlin. Similarly, El Lissitzky, who had a long-standing commitment to the Suprematism of Malevich, his mentor, was to extend the application of Suprematist theory toward utilitarian ends, and his contributions to the Russian avant-garde encompassed a wide range of activities, including painting, architecture, book design, photomontage, city planning, teaching, and theoretical explorations. His “Prouns” project (an acronym for “Project for the Affirmation of the New”) represents a cross between constructivist and Suprematist ideals. Although Tatlin, as the founder of the constructivist movement, fought long-standing ideological and aesthetic battles with Malevich regarding the function of art, Tatlin’s constructions and systems of design were to polarize and clarify the position of Malevich’s Suprematism. Consequently, when one views the impact of Suprematism, one must also examine the mutual impacts of parallel movements. The combination of Suprematist and constructivist ideals was to influence the Bauhaus movement, and the most telling examples of the wide-ranging influence of Suprematist architectonics on Western architecture is clearly evident in the style of such artist-architects as Theo van Doesburg, Le Corbusier, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, and Walter Gropius. — Christine Kiebuzinska Further Reading Barron, Stephanie, and Maurice Tuchman, eds. The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1933: New Perspectives. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980. Well-illustrated and well-documented volume published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of the Russian avant-garde at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1980. Provides biographical data, essays, and chronologies of the leading Russian artists. Represents an invaluable introduction to both the period and the individual artists. Includes a section devoted to Malevich and Suprematism. 1237
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his theories and were meant to stimulate his colleagues and students to extend their experiments into both the decorative and the applied arts. Ultimately, the Suprematist experiments outlined a new field of activity for art in which painting, experiments in architecture, furniture, ceramics, polychrony, scientific experimentation, and theoretical statements were closely interlinked. The impact of the UNOVIS program in Vitebsk is particularly evident in the work of Malevich’s closest collaborators, Ilia Chashnik and Nikolai Suetin. Chashnik cofounded the journal Unovis, assisted Malevich with architectural constructions, and worked on ceramic designs as well as on his own Suprematist paintings. Chashnik’s contributions to Suprematism were, however, cut short by his untimely death at the age of twentyseven. Suetin’s contributions to Suprematism related to his applications of Suprematist forms to functional objects. Because Malevich was interested in the conceptual framework for design, he left the actual execution to Suetin and Chashnik, and Suetin concentrated on porcelain design and decorations of porcelain with highly colored, asymmetrical patterns. Perhaps the most influential of Malevich’s followers was Vera Ermolaeva, the director of the Vitebsk art school, who played a significant role in promoting Suprematism; it was at her invitation that Malevich established the UNOVIS program at Vitebsk. Along with Chashnik and Suetin, Ermolaeva, who managed the color laboratory at Vitebsk, formed the original core of Malevich’s collaborators and practitioners of Suprematism. In addition to Chashnik, Suetin, and Ermolaeva, Ivan Kudriashev represents the generation of artists who came to maturity in the transitional period in the history of the Russian avant-garde. Although Kudriashev was trained as a Suprematist, by the time he had an opportunity to develop as an artist, the Soviet government had restricted artistic freedom in the promotion of the doctrine of Socialist Realism. Consequently, Kudriashev’s Suprematism is highly eclectic, as he had to adhere to the new restrictions but nevertheless showed his loyalty to Suprematism by using clear, bright, unmodulated color applied to simple geometric shapes. The last tribute to Suprematism occurred long after abstract art was banned in the Soviet Union, when Suetin organized the last Suprematist event, the painting of the Suprematist coffin for the funeral of Malevich. Malevich’s influence is also evident in the work of a number of artists who were later to search for different approaches. Among these was Ivan Puni, one of the earliest followers of Malevich’s Suprematism. Puni’s work
Malevich Introduces Suprematism
Malevich Introduces Suprematism Bowlt, John E., ed. Painting Revolution: Kandinsky, Malevich, and the Russian Avant-Garde. Bethesda, Md.: Foundation for International Arts and Education, 2000. Published in conjunction with the world premiere of an exhibition of Russian avant-garde paintings at the Phoenix art museum. Features three scholarly essays, color plates, glossary, and bibliography. _______. Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism. Rev. ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988. Introduces in translation significant essays from the theory and criticism of Russian art movements of neoprimitivism, Cubo-Futurism, Suprematism, constructivism, and Socialist Realism. Includes Malevich’s influential “From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Realism.” Features illustrations, notes, and extensive bibliography. Crone, Rainer, and David Moos. Kazimir Malevich: The Climax of Disclosure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Situates Malevich’s experiments in art in contemporary critical theory and provides a scholarly exploration of Malevich’s theory and practice. Color plates illustrate each stage of Malevich’s artistic progress. Includes extensive notes and bibliography. D’Andrea, Jeanne, ed. Malevich. Los Angeles: Armand Hammer Museum of Art, 1990. Catalog from a 1990 exhibition held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., features introductory essays, catalog illustrations, supplemental essays by contemporary Malevich scholars, endnotes, and selected bibliography. Excellent and comprehensive introduction to Malevich’s work.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Drutt, Matthew, ed. Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2003. Features more than one hundred paintings, drawings, and objects created by Malevich as well as essays on Malevich’s art by international scholars and material from the artist’s previously unpublished personal papers. Lodder, Christina. Russian Constructivism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. Provides parallels between Russian constructivism and Suprematism. Although devoted to examples of the theory and practice of the constructivists, contributes to awareness that many of the Suprematists also participated in the experiments of constructivism. Serves as an excellent supplemental text. Includes illustrations, biographical sketches, notes, and bibliography. Zhadova, Larissa A. Malevich: Suprematism and Revolution in Russian Art, 1910-1930. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1982. Exploration of Malevich’s contributions to Suprematism covers a wide range of material, including documents by Malevich and articles on Malevich and Suprematism by representative Russian artists and critics. Includes more than four hundred illustrations (eighty-four in color) and index. See also: Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto; Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
1916
Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad Inaugurated in 1891 and constructed in sections, the last of which was completed in 1916, the state-initiated and -financed Trans-Siberian Railroad connected European Russia with Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. Poor engineering and lack of development along most of its 4600 miles length limited its strategic and commercial value. Also known as: Mid-Siberian Railway; Transbaikal Railway Locale: Siberia, Russia Categories: Transportation; engineering; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Sergey Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915), Russian finance minister Alexander III (1845-1894), czar, r. 1881-1894 Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar, r. 1894-1917, nominal director of the Trans-Siberian Railroad Ivan Vyshnegradsky (1830-1895), Russian finance minister, 1887-1892 Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862-1911), Russian minister of the interior and prime minister, 19061911
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Summary of Event In the seventeenth century, the Russian Empire expanded into Siberia, and established settlements were created on the Pacific coast, but much of that vast territory remained inaccessible well into the latter part of the nineteenth century. Russian officials realized that a railroad network would provide the link on which Russia’s development as a modern industrial nation depended, but there were many obstacles to construction. In Britain and the United States, private companies built railroads because past experience had shown that passengers and freight generated profits. However, in Russia, longer distances and lack of industry made this model’s implementation unrealistic. Czar Nicholas I initiated Russia’s first railway, the Moscow-St. Petersburg line, as a state enterprise in 1842. Completed in 1855, the line had more psychological and strategic than commercial value. Attempts to extend the system throughout western Russia met with indifference from foreign investors and domestic Russian firms, and without state subsidies, private companies could not operate. By 1881, when Alexander III ascended the throne
(following his father’s assassination), Russia had become committed to state development and control of railroads. The first railways to penetrate Siberia ran from Perm to Ekaterinberg (completed in 1878) and Samara to Ufa (completed in 1890); they connected mining areas in the eastern Urals to water transport via the Volga River and its tributaries. Between the Ekaterinberg and Vladivostok on the Pacific coast—a distance of 4,500 miles— there was a single unpaved, frequently impassible road that required months to traverse. Vladivostok’s growing importance as a naval base focused attention on this communications impasse. Maintaining and expanding a presence on the Pacific solely through oceanic transport left Russia at the mercy of the British, who controlled the Suez Canal, and the Japanese, who were direct rivals in Manchuria. For defense purposes alone, being able to transport men and materials expeditiously to the Far East was becoming critical. Furthermore, Alexander III favored railway expansion. Best known for his commitment to autocratic rule and his retreat from the liberal social policies of his predecessor, Alexander possessed sound judgment in matters of economics and international relations. Working with Ivan Vyshnegradsky, the conservative minister of finance, Alexander ordered surveys of possible routes, and in July of 1890 he presented the council of ministers with outlines for a proposed route from Ufa through Tiumen (also called Chelyabinsk), Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, along the Amur River to Khabarovsk, and then south to Vladivostok. The project commenced on March 17, 1891, when Alexander issued an imperial edict against the recommendations of Vyshnegradsky, who considered the project fiscally impractical. Sergey Yulyevich Witte, Vyshnegradsky’s replacement, believed that railroads were key to economic development, and he thought that a railroad across Siberia would embody Russia’s nationalistic aspirations. To head the enterprise, Alexander III appointed his son and heir, Nicholas II. Returning from a tour of Asia, Nicholas inaugurated construction efforts by turning up the first spade full of earth in Vladivostok. Work proceeded over several sections simultaneously. In western Siberia, the section from Chelyabinsk to the Ob River opened in 1895. This section presented the fewest logistical difficulties: It traversed level terrain, was closer to sources of rails and machinery, and
Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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was able to draw laborers from the Volga region. Problems mounted further east: Engineers confronted hundreds of watercourses, increasingly mountainous terrain, and permafrost, and they struggled with primitive equipment and a lack of familiarity with local conditions as they tried to meet deadlines set in St. Petersburg. Convicts supplied the bulk of the labor force, which worked under brutal conditions that contributed to the frequent accidents and high rates of disease that killed many. Builders made matters worse for workers by cutting corners on nearly all aspects of the railway’s engineering, from the depth of ballast to use of unseasoned, softwood railroad ties, lightweight rails designed for spur tracks, wooden bridges vulnerable to floods, excessively steep grades, sharp curves, and inattention to risk of landslide. Poor engineering lead to excessive wear on locomotives and rolling stock, and long stretches of single track meant a breakdown or obstruction blocked traffic in both directions. The journey from Moscow to Vladivostok, which theoretically should have taken two weeks, seldom took less than six. This section’s poor construction limited its usefulness for both civilian and military purposes. The section between the Ob’ River and Irkutsk was completed in 1898, and a short section from Lake Baikal to the upper Amur River was finished in 1900. Meanwhile, the Russian and Chinese governments signed a 1240
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treaty in 1896 that authorized the construction of a railway line across Manchuria to Harbin (a city in central Manchuria now located in China’s Heilongjiang Province) and Vladivostok, and the Chinese Eastern Railway opened in 1903. Its operation helped establish Russian influence in China in the face of competition from Britain and Japan. Working from the other end, Russia built a railway line northward along the Issuri River from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk. This left two significant gaps in the Trans-Siberian Railroad as it had originally been envisioned, but rather than tackle the sheer cliffs surrounding Lake Baikal, Russia purchased a massive train ferry from Britain and shipped it piecemeal to Irkutsk. For several years, trains were decoupled and ferried across the lake for the run to Vladivostok. Passengers and freight to Khabarovsk traveled on the Amur River. Japan’s attack on Manchuria in 1904 was timed to coincide with the freezing of Lake Baikal, and it highlighted the railroad’s inadequacies. To move troops and weaponry, rails were hastily laid across the frozen lake, but the normal hazards of the brutal Siberian winter coupled with the sudden increase in traffic created massive delays. Some historians maintain that the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) would have favored Russia if the Trans-Siberian Railroad had been complete and fully functional. After the war, Russia mounted a re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 newed effort to complete both the section around Baikal and the 1,200-mile stretch along the Amur River. The Chinese Eastern Railway’s vulnerability to Japanese attack made completing the Amur section a high priority. Chinese and Korean laborers and American equipment helped the Russians complete the enterprise’s most complex engineering work. Following the Russian Revolution of 1905, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, Russia’s reform-minded chairman of the Council of Ministers, encouraged colonization of Siberia. From 1892 to 1914, the Russian government paid for more than a million people to resettle from European Russia to Siberia. The opening of Russia’s “wild east” met with mixed reactions from those already living in Siberia, including an estimated million indigenous Siberians whose tribal way of life was still comparatively intact. The settlement campaigns also met with resistence from descendants of religious minorities who had immigrated to Siberia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to escape persecution.
menced in 1903, but by the time a continuous rail line on Russian territory existed, Russia’s mounting political instability was already reaching untenable levels. The problems caused by the drain on czarist Russia’s slender treasury probably outweighed the modest gains to the nation’s economy, but the railroad’s status as the most ambitious engineering feat undertaken by any nation in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century continued to be a source of great national pride. The Trans-Siberian Railroad was sometimes cited as an example of the inferiority of state-run command economics to private enterprise, but the project was unlikely to have ever been undertaken had it been left to private enterprise and foreign investment. — Martha A. Sherwood Further Reading Hardcave, Sydney. Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. Biography of the man behind the Trans-Siberian Railroad; overview of late-imperial politics and finances. Haywood, Richard Mowbray. Russia Enters the Railway Age, 1842-1855. Boulder, Colo: East European Monographs, 1998. Focus on the Moscow-St. Petersburg railway; considerable background information on economic and political barriers to railway development. Hookham, Hilda. “Builders of the Trans Siberian Railway.” History Today 26, no. 8 (1976): 528-537. Illustrated account of the laborers and the hardships they endured. Marks, Stephen G. Road to Power: The Trans Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia, 18501917. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Covers political background, engineering aspects, and economic impact. See also: Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma; 1907: Famine Strikes Russia; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives; Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White SeaBaltic Canal.
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Significance Early in 1917, shortly after the Amur section was completed, the United States assumed control of the TransSiberian Railroad in order to ensure that military aid destined for the eastern front (on Russia’s western border) reached its destination. At the time, the czarist government was on the verge of collapse and was unable to maintain the tenuous link with its eastern provinces. Revolution soon followed. During the Russian Civil War (1918-1921), rival factions of “Whites” and “Reds” battled each other as the whole region descended into anarchy. Fortunately, the kind of dependence on modernization envisioned by Witte and Stolypin had not penetrated far into Siberia by 1917, and most people were able to survive by reverting to a subsistence economy. In fact, Russia’s poorly planned development efforts in Siberia—of which the most notable example was the TransSiberian Railroad—had the unexpected benefit of preserving the region’s native populations. The impetus for Siberian development did not regain its momentum until World War II forced evacuation of Russian industry to western Siberia. No “golden spike” signified the Trans-Siberian Railroad’s completion. Rail service through Manchuria com-
Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1916
Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire The Dadaists demanded liberation from outmoded social conventions and challenged the traditional role of art, its subject matter, its modes of representation, and its boundaries. Locale: Zurich, Switzerland Category: Arts Key Figures Hugo Ball (1886-1927), German writer, social critic, and philosopher Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), Romanian writer Hans Arp (1887-1966), French painter, sculptor, and poet Marcel Janco (1895-1984), Romanian artist Richard Huelsenbeck (1892-1972), German psychiatrist, poet, and writer Emmy Hennings (1885-1948), German cabaret artist Summary of Event In the winter of 1915, the German writer Hugo Ball opened the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland. Having fled war-torn Germany in 1914 with his girlfriend, Emmy Hennings, Ball established a gathering place for writers, artists, and intellectuals to converse and perform impromptu dances, music, and poetry readings. He enlisted the help of several of his friends in this endeavor, including Marcel Janco, Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, and Richard Huelsenbeck, who became the nucleus of the Cabaret Voltaire group. According to Huelsenbeck, the Cabaret Voltaire was named “out of veneration for a man [Voltaire] who had fought all his life for the liberation of the creative forces from the tutelage of the advocates of power.” The Cabaret Voltaire opened on February 5, 1915, and every evening it featured a hybrid form of entertainment that included skits, lectures, poetry readings, music, and dance recitals. Later, it also presented art exhibitions. Ball and his collaborators at the café wanted to unite music, dance, poetry, and art in a combined Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. The first few performances at the Cabaret Voltaire were relatively mild. Ball played the piano, Hennings sang folk songs, and Tzara recited Romanian poetry. Janco decorated the café with semi-African-style masks that he made and painted blood red. Arp, who renounced traditional illusionistic painting, contributed pictures with undefinable subject matter. The small café immediately became popular with students and soon attracted a 1242
diverse clientele. Janco later recalled that it was a place where “painters, students, revolutionaries, tourists, international crooks, psychiatrists, the demimonde, sculptors, and polite spies . . . all hobnobbed with one another.” The Cabaret Voltaire became a platform for artists in exile, and the entertainment there became progressively more extreme and avant-garde. It was in this tiny café in 1916 that Dada, the most aggressively radical movement in art history, was born. The Dadaists rebelled against bourgeois values and rejected all principles on which society was founded. Their ambition was to create a new world out of chaos and confusion by negating the past and annihilating the present. In Zurich, Dada was initially a literary phenomenon, and poetry was the first of the arts to come under Dada’s attack. Ball bewildered the audience at the Cabaret Voltaire with his “sound poems,” which abandoned all preconceived systematic thought. Dressed in a cardboard cubist costume, Ball slowly recited such lines as “gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori.” Huelsenbeck, a young German poet and medical student from Berlin, introduced the practice of simultaneous readings of different poems, a technique that created utter chaos. The concept of simultaneity was borrowed from the Italian Futurists, who had first used the technique in their work to celebrate speed and modern technology. Huelsenbeck also read “sound poems,” similar to Ball’s, that emphasized dissonant sounds and were meant to be evocative of magical or primitive chants. Ball and Huelsenbeck were both interested in the irrational and the primitive as potential creative sources for producing paradoxes and complexities in art and language. Tzara’s work titled “Roar” consisted of that single word repeated 147 times. All the Dadaists stressed irony and nihilism in their work, an emphasis prompted by their desire to negate conventional values in a world whose values were rapidly collapsing. Although Dada was not a unified art movement, it was conditioned by the social and historical atmosphere in which it originated, including the existing international movements in the arts. The Dadaists and the artists associated with international modernism were all seeking alternatives to established artistic conventions. One year after the Cabaret Voltaire opened, Ball and Tzara established a Dada gallery and organized avant-garde art exhibitions featuring works by an international lineup of artists, including Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Wassily Kan-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dinsky, Janco, Arp, August Macke, Amedeo Modigliani, and many others who rejected conventional academic art.
ject for art, and the content of a work of art became the material itself. A major independent, undeclared Dada artist in France was Marcel Duchamp, who also challenged the viewer’s preconceptions about what constitutes a work of art. In 1913, Duchamp elevated a common, massproduced object, a bicycle wheel, to the status of fine art. Duchamp called his bicycle wheel attached to a wooden stool a “readymade.” Duchamp and the Dadaists rejected the traditional definitions of art and extended art beyond the artist’s canvas to encompass the entire environment. The impact of Dada can be seen in such later movements as Surrealism, abstract expressionism, and pop art. In Paris, Dada became transformed into Surrealism, which also glorified the irrational. Although André Breton, the leader of Surrealism in France, deplored the nihilistic and destructive characteristics of Dada, the Surrealists shared many of the Dadaists’ concerns and concepts. Surrealism, like Dada, was essentially a revolt against traditional, established art ideals. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Surrealism was the dominant avant-garde art in Europe. Surrealist artists and writers were interested in tapping the potential creative impulses derived from recollected dreams and the unconscious. Automatism, or writing and painting in an unconscious, trancelike state, became a major interest for many of the Surrealists, who valued automatism for freeing their painting from any representational style. The American abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock later used the Surrealists’ device of automatism in his famous “drip” paintings of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Pollock’s brand of automatism consisted of the production of squiggly lines through agitated movements over a canvas’s painted surface. His technique resulted in a layered, calligraphic complexity in his work. Pollock’s abstract painting Autumn Rhythm is an example of this use of automatism. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, pop art challenged some of the same assumptions about art that Dada had earlier challenged, but pop art did not have the same satirical or anarchistic edge to it as Dada. Pop art, however, also rebelled against traditional artistic modes of expression and representation. Inspired by Duchamp and the Dadaists, pop artists used everyday objects in their paintings and constructed assemblages. The American pop artist Robert Rauschenberg used a real pillow and quilt in his work Bed, which he hung on the wall as though it were a conventional stretched painting. Placing the work on the wall contradicted the bedding’s original function and confounded viewers. 1243
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Significance In 1917, Huelsenbeck returned to Germany and sparked the inception of Berlin Dada. He introduced the manifestations of Zurich Dada in an article titled “The New Man.” In this stream-of-consciousness essay, Huelsenbeck called for the modern “New Man” to be anarchistic, to welcome chaos, and to create new ideas. He advocated radical action and revolutionary change, and, under his tutelage, Dada became more aggressive and political in Berlin than in Zurich. In Berlin, there were two Dada factions: those who banded around Huelsenbeck, including Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, and Johannes Baader, and those who were associated with the Malik Publishing Company, including John Heartfield and George Grosz. The Dadaists who formed around Huelsenbeck were more interested in intellectual issues than in aesthetic concerns. They consciously emphasized a lack of obvious content in their work, strove to negate all previous aesthetic values, and challenged the outward appearances of the external world in their work. Influenced by his Cabaret Voltaire association, Huelsenbeck also stressed the irrational in his writings, and this became one of the major characteristics of German Dada. Hausmann and Heartfield both independently developed the medium of photomontage, using randomly cut-out mass-media topography, magazine illustrations, and photographs. By juxtaposing these familiar objects in unfamiliar ways, they created irrational, sometimes shocking, visual images. Heartfield’s politically oriented photomontages lampooned Prussian militarism and later criticized Weimar culture and National Socialism. Grosz also engaged in leftist satire in his works, which brutally scrutinized the irrational attitudes of German society. Grosz’s work emphasized the ugliness, the grotesqueness, and the social decay of Berlin society. The Hanover artist Kurt Schwitters was not accepted by the Berlin Dadaists. In 1919, Schwitters founded his own apolitical brand of Dada, which he called Merz. He developed the idea of using “found” objects, or discarded visual debris from the urban environment, in his pictures and constructions. Schwitters created collages with found objects such as theater ticket stubs, postage stamps, cigarettes, and other discarded scraps. He also built multimedia assemblages, called Merzbau constructions, from nontraditional materials. For the Dadaists, the discovered or found object became the elevated ob-
Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire
Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire Rauschenberg also incorporated junk materials from a consumer-oriented society. In his 1959 assemblage Monogram, Rauschenberg used a stuffed goat, a rubber tire, newspaper, and hand-painted typography. Jasper Johns also elevated commonplace objects to the status of fine art in his series of mixed-media flag paintings, target assemblages, and Painted Bronze beer cans. These works, however, were not “readymades”; rather, they were pristinely constructed, reproduced objects from the everyday American environment. “Happenings” and performance art are also distant descendants of Dada. Happenings relied on the element of chance and the spontaneous, but, unlike Dada, they also followed specific, basic programs. Many happenings, such as Allan Kaprow’s Soap, also emphasized the irrational. In Soap, several participants smeared jam all over a car. Performance art frequently employs the fusion of all the arts in keeping with the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk. In the 1960’s, the German artist Joseph Beuys staged happenings with mystical overtones in which he often took on the role of a shaman or high priest. In How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, Beuys sat in a chair, his face covered with gold paint, and talked to a dead hare. Like the original Zurich Dadaist performances, these theatrical modes of expression aimed to dissolve the barriers separating various art disciplines The Zurich Dadaists inspired future generations of artists to challenge the traditional role of art as well as art’s subject matter, modes of representation, and boundaries. —Carmen Stonge Further Reading Ball, Hugo. Flight out of Time: A Dada Diary. Translated by Ann Raimes. Edited by John Elderfield. 1974. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Ball’s diary, spanning the years 1914 to 1921, provides a fascinating account of the Cabaret Voltaire. Excellent introduction by Elderfield provides indepth biographical information on Ball as well as a history of Dada in Zurich. Recommended for students of Dada literature and art. Coutts-Smith, Kenneth. Dada. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1970. Small, popular book provides a brief overview of the Dada movement. Includes a brief history of Cabaret Voltaire and the artists involved there. Contains some reproductions of Dadaist works and a short bibliography. A good introduction to Dada. Elger, Dietmar. Dadaism. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2004. Brief volume provides a basic introduction to Dadaism. Includes a time line of important events during 1244
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the period, photographs, and discussion of a selection of important Dada works. Foster, Stephen C., and Rudolph E. Kuenzli, eds. Dada Spectrum: The Dialectics of Revolt. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1979. Twelve essays discuss works by Dadaists, earlier books on the movement, and the viewpoints of other artists on individual Dada artists. Intelligently written and compiled. Good for different views on Dada movement; recommended for students of Dada art. Hopkins, David. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Concise introduction to these art movements discusses their international nature and the range of media employed. Also addresses the debates surrounding them, including issues of quality and attitudes toward women. Huelsenbeck, Richard. Memoirs of a Dada Drummer. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel. Edited by Hans J. Kleinschmidt. 1969. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Interesting book about Dada and its beginnings in Zurich and Berlin is filled with Huelsenbeck’s personal recollections. Informative introduction by Kleinschmidt. Includes a few photographs of the Dadaists, but very few reproductions of their artwork. Lippard, Lucy R., ed. Dadas on Art. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. A reconstruction of the Dada movement that provides samples of the Dadaists’ prose, poetry, and essays. This volume made many of these works available in English for the first time. Also examines how Dada continued to influence the arts in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Includes a good general introduction and biographical commentary. Motherwell, Robert, ed. The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1989. Well-researched and well-documented major study of Dada, from its inception in Zurich to its aftermath in Germany and its demise. Contains some interesting photographs, but few reproductions of Dada artwork. Includes Dada manifesto by Huelsenbeck and an extensive annotated bibliography. Richter, Hans. Dada: Art and Anti-Art. 1965. Reprint. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Presents the history of Dada from its beginnings in wartime Zurich to its collapse in Paris in the 1920’s, but from a highly subjective point of view, as Richter, a pioneer avant-garde filmmaker, was loosely associated with Zurich Dada. Willett, John. Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 New Sobriety, 1917-1933. 1978. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Examines the artistic and political activities at the time of the Weimar Republic. One segment focuses on Berlin Dada and the artists Heartfield, Grosz, and Hausmann. Main emphasis is on the political aspects of Berlin Dada. Good bibliography.
Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education See also: Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art; 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph; Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born; 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced; Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public.
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Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education In Democracy and Education, John Dewey expounded a philosophy of education that represented an extension of his “instrumentalist” version of pragmatism, one centered on individual students’ perceptions of their needs and their active agency in framing perceived problems and devising means for their solutions. Also known as: Democracy and Education Locale: New York, New York Categories: Education; philosophy; publishing and journalism
Summary of Event John Dewey was unarguably the premier public intellectual of his time and arguably the greatest of all American philosophers. Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, Dewey was a leading figure in the only purely indigenous American philosophical school of thought to date, known as pragmatism. Dewey’s own variant of the pragmatist theme, instrumentalism, treated ideas and concepts as tools that would be evaluated according to their usefulness in solving practical problems. Influenced by the spread of scientific methods of investigation into fields of inquiry (including anthropology, biology, and psychology) that had traditionally been dealt with in a descriptive, literary manner, Dewey set out to harness the power of these methods in the service of participatory democracy and the solution of social problems. His 1916 work Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education was the
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Key Figures John Dewey (1859-1952), American philosopher and social critic Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), American mathematician and philosopher William James (1842-1910), American philosopher
mature expression of Dewey’s instrumentalist approach as it applied to the study of educational institutions and practices. Dewey believed that the most important criteria for educational success were the expansion of students’ capacities for observation, foresight, and judgment, and in their abilities to integrate new experiences in light of their own unique gifts and interests. This continuous reconstruction of experience was what Dewey referred to as “growth,” and he defined education as a process of growth. His major thesis in Democracy and Education is that, of all of the conceivable arrangements by which people could organize their collective affairs, democracy is the one type of social structure that provides the maximal opportunities for growth for all of its members. In addition, Dewey saw that democracy could not flourish except under conditions that allowed for the widest possible participation and therefore maximized the potential for learning through social interaction. In order to establish and nurture the democratic form of life, Dewey believed that the habits of social cooperation and openended inquiry must be developed in the earliest years of the child’s educational experience. In chapter 1, “Education as a Necessity of Life,” Dewey makes the connection between the type of society and the educational institutions by which the society reproduced itself. Primitive societies might rely on informal modes of enculturation (which Dewey termed “incidental”), while modern industrial systems required extensive formal structures for the transmission of cultural traits from one generation to the next. Of paramount importance in this regard is the preparation of the young, not simply to rehearse the patterns of life as they have been in the past, but rather to adjust to the rapid changes that modern technologically oriented societies must inevitably undergo. This requires the greatest possible development of the means of social communications, so that all
Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education such communication becomes inherently educative. In the remaining chapters, Dewey draws on his earlier works in educational theory, including The School and Society (1899), interpreting his previous conclusions in light of both his overall philosophical development and his forty years’ experience as an educator. He describes the ideal school as a special environment, one that is structured to provide a matrix for the child’s participation and interactions with others on multiple levels. At the same time, such a structured environment must be as open as possible to the child’s potential for growth. This implies that the school was not to be separate from the community, but rather was to be a reflection of it, a microcosm within which students could develop the “habits of intelligence” on which democracy depends. Dewey contrasts other popular theories on education with his theory of the educative process, which is open to the potential for development of the individual student, directed toward growth in skills of problem solving and critical thinking, and treats the school as an integral part of the present community. These other theories include both traditional approaches that focus on fixed subject matters that are externally imposed and memorized, as well as “child-centered” theories that allow the child’s preferences and interests to dictate the subject matter, the
John Dewey. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nature of the learning activities undertaken, and the criteria for successful conclusion. Dewey’s critique of the traditional approach highlights the authoritarian and repressive nature of such top-down procedures and points out the fundamental flaw in the notion that knowledge is passively received by students rather than being a result of active absorption based on the student’s felt needs. At the same time, the child-centered view idealizes the child and fails to account for the crude and inchoate nature of preferences in the young. It omits any consideration of the need for interaction and social feedback in the maturation of interests. Dewey’s definition of education assumes that knowledge comes from active engagement with real objects and that interests are expanded and refined as the student partakes in the process of communication and reconstruction of experience. The mark of a democratic society is the absence of externally imposed aims and limits and the consequent freedom of all members to participate in existing relationships as well as to shape new forms of interaction as need arises. Dewey concludes with a chapter, “Theories of Morals,” in which he develops the moral significance of education as it relates to the child as well as to the society at large. For the child, the greatest good is found in continuous growth; society owes to every member the greatest possible freedom to actualize their individual gifts. This implies both the autonomy to choose and access to the means of pursuing the options entailed by that choice. In order for the society to prosper, all members must be able to utilize all of their talents and capabilities in pursuit of common aims. By linking the concepts of growth, communication, and participation in this way, Dewey created a model of democracy as a moral order in which education serves as the common thread binding the various aspects of social life. Significance John Dewey believed that contemporary educational practices had failed to take account of three revolutionary changes in the modern world: the intellectual revolution caused by the discoveries of modern science, the Industrial Revolution and its supplanting of traditional modes of living, and the social revolution that was reflected in the growth of democratic forms of governance. His attempts to remedy these deficiencies drove all of his work in the field of education; he even went so far as to identify all philosophy with the philosophy of education, since every area of philosophical investigation is an attempt to clarify thought and clear the way of inquiry.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The importance of Democracy and Education as a systematic statement of the intellectual justification for progressive educational reform is impossible to overstate. In this work, Dewey succeeded in explicating the social purpose of education in a democracy and in synthesizing the competing approaches to educational philosophy that had formerly set the terms of national debate (“subject-centered” versus “child-oriented”). In the process, he corrected the excesses of both extremes and put forth a challenge to educators to incorporate the idea of “learning to learn” into their own activities as an integral part of professional development. The subsequent trends toward professionalization of teaching and toward the evaluation of schools through measurement of student performance were epochal and irreversible. — Ivan Weinel Further Reading Bernstein, Richard. John Dewey. New York: Washington Square Press, 1967. Excellent overview of Dewey’s work, with interesting insights into the evolution of Dewey’s thought over a very long career. Boisvert, Raymond. John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press,
Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony 1998. Comprehensive survey of Dewey’s philosophy, written to be accessible to curious nonspecialists. Places Dewey’s educational theory in context of his entire body of work. Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. 1916. Reprint. New York: Free Press, 1997. Faithfully reprinted from the original. Indexed. Dewey Society. http://cuip.net/jds/. Founded in 1935, the society’s mission is to continue and expand Dewey’s work in the areas of educational theory and reform. It also publishes a journal, Education and Culture. Shook, John. Dewey’s Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000. Places Dewey firmly in the pragmatic tradition and explains the fundamental differences between the traditional theories of learning based on fixed objects and categories and the pragmatic view of knowledge as a product of action. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy.
1916 Charles Ives’s Fourth Symphony typified his unique approach to music as a combination of heterogeneous elements. Locale: Danbury, Connecticut Category: Music Key Figures Charles Ives (1874-1954), American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965), American composer and music critic Summary of Event Charles Ives’s career is so filled with distinctively American touches as to make him seem almost a textbook example of an American composer. Ives’s work was almost completely neglected during his most creative period, 1908-1917; even at the time of his death in 1954, his music had only begun to generate professional respect and had not aroused any substantial popular interest. Yet by the time of the premiere performance of the entire Fourth Symphony in 1965, eleven years after his death, Ives had
become something of a popular icon, and by the end of the twentieth century his music enjoyed the kind of respect and enthusiasm that is rarely granted to a serious American composer. From his father, George Ives, who was the most important influence in his creative life, Charles Ives learned a deep respect for musical experimentation, such as the playing of pieces in remote harmonies simultaneously. From Horatio Parker, his composition professor at Yale University, Ives gained respect for the European symphonic tradition and learned well the academic rules of music, which in some of his compositions he nevertheless violated. Although he spent years as a hardworking church organist, Ives did not aspire to pursue either an academic career in music, like his mentor Parker, or a professional career as a composer or performer. As his early biographer and friend Henry Cowell noted in Charles Ives and His Music (1955), “The period of Ives’s most strenuous devotion to his business was also the period of his most energetic creative production of music.” Critics agree that Ives enjoyed his period of maximum 1247
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Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony
Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony creativity in the years 1908 to 1917, beginning with his marriage to Harmony Twichell in June, 1908, and ending when the composer suffered the first of a series of heart attacks. Ives composed his last works in the years after World War I, from 1918 to 1926, and then spent the rest of his long life “tinkering” (as J. Peter Burkholder describes it in his 1985 study Charles Ives: The Ideas Behind the Music) with the vast amount of music he had already produced. Ives ceased composing, but he did not stop refining and advocating his works. Ives composed his Fourth Symphony over the years 1910 to 1916, which neatly coincided with the period of his greatest musical creativity. The symphony utilizes nearly all the characteristics that have come to be celebrated in Ives’s music: powerful contrasts and mood changes, collages, multiple tempi, improvisation, and indeterminacy (in which some orchestral voices enter and keep time at a pace independent of that of the other instruments), polyharmonies, and microtones. Possibly the most famous characteristic of Ives’s music is abundantly evident in the symphony: the use—and collision and transformation—of hymn tunes and popular songs. The Fourth Symphony opens with a choral statement of a Protestant hymn that begins, “Watchman, tell us of the night/ What the signs of promise are.” The short first movement, which functions as a prelude to the remainder of the symphony more than as a traditional first movement in the style of a European symphony, poses a metaphysical question: When is the night coming, and what are the signs of promise? As the symphony progresses, the existential depth of this initial question becomes more pronounced. The work also contains quotations from or references to at least thirty other identifiable sources, however, from Protestant hymns such as “Beulah Land” and “Nearer My God to Thee” to popular songs such as Stephen Foster’s “Massa’s in the Cold, Cold Ground.” Like Claude Debussy, his French near contemporary, Ives sought to paint a musical portrait of life as it is actually experienced, with the mind assailed by a variety of sounds and musical impressions. Ives never got over the excitement of hearing two bands in a parade playing at once, with the subsequent overlap and spontaneous harmonic possibilities. He sought to convey how the mind is filled with snatches of ideas and memories and is constantly assailed by new sensations. As is often the case with Ives’s larger works, the Fourth Symphony features a variety of contrasts, in volume, mood, rhythm, and deployment of musical forces. The first and fourth movements serve as the question and a tentative answer; the first movement is interrogatory 1248
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and chromatic, whereas the third movement is restrained and diatonic. The second and fourth movements are highly complicated and require huge orchestral forces, whereas the third movement is relatively simple and musically conservative. The third movement is largely a fugue, based on “The Missionary Hymn” (“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains”) and concluding with an unexpected quotation of “Let heaven and nature sing” from the Christmas carol “Joy to the World.” The third movement serves as a moment of religious introspection amid the swirl and anxiety of the second and fourth movements. The second movement is a ferocious assault on the capacity of the listener to catch multiple musical quotations and to reconceive them as part of a harmonious, challenging whole. The fourth movement, which requires an even wider variety of instrumental forces, has the effect of a deeply considered reflection on the initial question about “what the signs of promise are,” and both the second and fourth movements require the services of a second and possible third conductor to manage the dizzying rhythmic complexity of the score. The final effect of Ives’s Fourth Symphony is that of a profoundly exhausting but exhilarating spiritual struggle in which the complex musical quotations finally yield to an impression of renewal and reinvigoration. Significance In a way, Ives seems too exemplary to have been real. Like a Romantic poet feverishly tossing completed pages over his shoulder, Ives proved to be an inspirational figure to American composers. He came to be seen as an archetype of the rugged American individualist (he was a life insurance executive with a totally unpredictable alternative life as an experimental composer) and as the last New England Transcendentalist. He was a prodigiously gifted composer of some watershed works in the history of European and American music, and he composed works with rapidity and skill. American audiences tend to respond enthusiastically to Ives’s obsessive use of musical quotations, pointing out the phrases as they occur; European critics, by contrast, often criticize Ives’s use of this material, hinting that it reveals a lack of imagination on the composer’s part. The English critic Peter Jona Korn, writing as late as 1967, argued that “the quality of Ives’s music is, to say the least, highly inconsistent. He mixes many techniques, and he masters none.” Yet composers still profit from Ives’s experiment, and the integrity of his musical vision has made him an exemplary figure of the disciplined, incorruptible, visionary artist. What Ives’s music
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Ives on the Nature of Music Charles Ives pondered music’s potential in his Essays Before a Sonata, which he wrote to accompany his Concord Sonata. In this excerpt, he begins by quoting from a work titled “Philosophy of Art and Personality,” by an author he calls Professor Sturt:
Source: Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata, edited by Howard Boatwright (New York: W. W. Norton, 1961).
supplies to his American audiences is the nostalgic pleasure of past memories as retrieved through his artistry. Ives made few efforts to have his work performed in his lifetime. When he did take the trouble to have his work edited and published, as with his 114 Songs (1922), he was emphatic that it was not with the intention of making money. When the second movement of the Fourth Symphony appeared in the musical journal New Music in January, 1929, it was the first time a composition of Ives’s had been published, as opposed to printed and dis-
tributed privately. Given that this movement is one of the most complex and difficult of Ives’s scores, it is hard to imagine the impression it must have left in 1929. Yet it was performed, under the direction of the distinguished British conductor Eugene Goossens, in January, 1927, at Pro Musica’s International Referendum Concert. The piece was reviewed, with some incomprehension and some enthusiasm, by the major music critics of the time, such as Lawrence Gilman and Olin Downes. The premiere of the entire work did not take place until more than a decade after Ives’s death, when Leopold Stokowski was encouraged to conduct the Fourth Symphony at a triumphant performance by the American Symphony Orchestra in New York on April 26, 1965. Stokowski’s recording of the work generated a new admiration for Ives and new enthusiasm for a previously unknown American musical masterpiece. The award to Ives of a Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony in 1947, almost a half century after its composition, now seems like an embarrassment, so belated was the recognition for America’s greatest serious composer. By the mid-1960’s, after Stokowski’s premiere performance of the Fourth Symphony and his recording of it in 1965, Charles Ives became something of a cultural icon. The prestige of Ives continued to climb, as the importance of his musical experiments were increasingly recognized and made part of the familiar idiom of serious American music. The scope and complexity of the Fourth Symphony also came to be seen as part of the late Romantic effort to capture the range and variety of the human experience in musical terms. The affinity of the Fourth Symphony to such other monumental late Romantic scores as Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder (1900-1911) and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand (1906-1907) thus became clearer. Ives was increasingly honored for having subsumed the finest aspects of the European musical tradition into the American experience and for having recognized and honored the American roots of his aesthetic experience with honesty, vigor, and no trace of sentimentality. That Ives’s music was virtually unknown during the most creative phase of his long career has led some observers to comment on the missed opportunities for growth suffered by the serious music tradition because of its indifference to Ives’s genius. — Byron Nelson Further Reading Block, Geoffrey, and J. Peter Burkholder, eds. Charles Ives and the Classical Tradition. New Haven, Conn.: 1249
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“We cannot explain the origin of an artistic intuition any more than the origin of any other primary function of our nature. But if as I believe civilization is mainly founded on those kinds of unselfish human interests which we call knowledge and morality it is easily intelligible that we should have a parallel interest which we call art closely akin and lending powerful support to the other two. It is intelligible too that moral goodness, intellectual power, high vitality, and strength should be approved by the intuition.” This reduces, or rather brings the problem back to a tangible basis namely:—the translation of an artistic intuition into musical sounds approving and reflecting, or endeavoring to approve and reflect, a “moral goodness,” a “high vitality,” etc., or any other human attribute mental, moral, or spiritual. Can music do MORE than this? Can it DO this? and if so who and what is to determine the degree of its failure or success? The composer, the performer (if there be any), or those who have to listen? One hearing or a century of hearings?—and if it isn’t successful or if it doesn’t fail what matters it?—the fear of failure need keep no one from the attempt for if the composer is sensitive he need but launch forth a countercharge of “being misunderstood” and hide behind it. A theme that the composer sets up as “moral goodness” may sound like “high vitality,” to his friend and but like an outburst of “nervous weakness” or only a “stagnant pool” to those not even his enemies. Expression to a great extent is a matter of terms and terms are anyone’s. The meaning of “God” may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world.
Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony
Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity Yale University Press, 1996. Essays examine the influences on Ives’s work of the European classical tradition and argue that Ives extended rather than rejected that tradition. Burkholder, J. Peter. Charles Ives: The Ideas Behind the Music. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Interesting defense of Ives the thinker. Takes seriously Ives’s elaborate statements of his theories of music and places Ives squarely within the tradition of New England Transcendentalism. _______, ed. Charles Ives and His World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. Contributors to this collection explore Ives’s life and work from several perspectives, including discussion of Ives’s relationship to European music, his political orientation, and his career in insurance. Includes a collection of Ives’s personal correspondence and a selection of reviews of Ives’s work published during his lifetime. Cowell, Henry, and Sidney Cowell. Charles Ives and His Music. Rev. ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Provides a very sympathetic assessment of Ives’s music. First published just after the composer’s death, this book helped to spark initial interest in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Ives’s music that blossomed into remarkable enthusiasm in the 1960’s. Korn, Peter Jona. “The Symphony in America.” In Elgar to the Present Day. Vol. 2 in The Symphony, edited by Robert Simpson. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1967. Typifies the all-toocommon British and European incomprehension of the nature of Ives’s musical experimentation. Unfortunately included in an influential standard guide to the symphonic tradition. Reilly, F. Warren, ed. South Florida’s Historic Ives Festival, 1974-1976. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami, 1976. Brochure on the occasion of the Ives centennial contains essays on a variety of topics, from Ives’s innovations as an insurance broker to his use of popular songs. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Dec. 3, 1908: Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim; Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony; Nov. 20, 1911: Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres; Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York.
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Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity Karl Schwarzschild’s exact solution to the equations of Einstein’s theory of general relativity described a gravitational black hole. Locale: Potsdam, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics; astronomy; mathematics Key Figures Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916), German physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English scientistphilosopher Summary of Event In 1915, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity. This revolutionary new concept of curved space-time stood in opposition to the universal law of gravitation, which had been developed by Sir Isaac Newton in 1665. According to Newton, gravity is an attractive force acting between all particles of matter in the universe. Einstein believed that gravity is a consequence 1250
of the shape of space-time. Local space-time, according to the theory of general relativity, is distorted by the presence of a large mass such as a star or a planet. Objects traveling in close proximity to a massive body would therefore travel in a curved path—hence the appearance of a gravitational field. When the theory of general relativity was first proposed, its mathematics were thought to be beyond comprehension. In fact, it was frequently stated that only about twelve or so scientists in the world completely understood the theory. To appreciate the complexity, consider that the theory contains sixteen separate equations, each of which is a nonlinear partial differential equation for sixteen separate unknown functions. In addition, problems arise even after the equations are solved because interpretation of the solutions is extremely difficult. Even today, many of the theory’s implications remain to be understood. The first person to find an exact solution to the equations of the theory of general relativity was the German physicist Karl Schwarzschild. Prior to Schwarzschild’s work, the only solutions to the equations had been approx-
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Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity
The formation of a black hole is believed to be the final stage in the decay of a massive star. During its life, the star produces energy in its core through the process of nuclear fusion. The resulting outward flow of heat and energy enables the various layers of the star to balance the inward force of gravity. When nuclear fuel is exhausted in the core, the star begins its decay stage. The exact sequence of events depends entirely on the mass of the star. Toward the end of its life, a massive star goes through the supernova stage, where much of its outer material is blasted off into space. The core—no longer producing energy to counteract the crushing force of gravity—begins to collapse. If the star’s mass is 1.4 or fewer solar masses, the final decay product is a white dwarf. At this stage, the pressure exerted by the electrons of the atoms making up the core is sufficient to stop the collapse. This hot carbon mass will eventually cool to become a black dwarf. If the mass of the decayed star is between 1.4 and 3.1 times the mass of the Sun, gravity causes a much more extensive collapse. At this point, the pressure is so great that electrons cannot support the core. Electrons and protons combine to form neutrons in a process called neutronization. The result is a neutron star. If the remnant is greater than 3.1 solar masses, neutrons are not able to counteract the force of gravity, and the star continues to collapse. As this collapse proceeds, the surface gravity for the collapsed star becomes greater and greater. As a result, the velocity needed to escape this gravitational body increases. When the escape velocity reaches the velocity of light, further collapse results in the formation of a black hole. This distance, at which the escape velocity is equal to the velocity of light, is the distance calculated by Schwarzschild in his solution to Einstein’s equations; it is known as the Schwarzschild radius or the event horizon. Beyond this point, there is no way of deterThe Making of a Black Hole mining events. It is an area that is totally disconnected from our space and time. When a star collapses within its Schwarzschild radius, it Massive becomes a black hole. The term Black Collapsing main-sequence hole star “black hole” comes from the fact that star no visible light or any other form of electromagnetic radiation can escape from such an object. It therefore cannot be detected optically. In theory, any object could become a black A massive star may end its life as a black hole. During its main sequence (left), radiahole if it were compressed enough. If tion emits outward. As the core burns (center), the star begins to collapse in on itself. Finally (right), the increasing mass at the core is so great that gravity is extremely Earth were shrunk to slightly less strong, preventing any radiation (including light) from escaping. than 1 centimeter (0.39 inch) in ra1251
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imations. In 1916, when Schwarzschild was working on his solution, Germany was at war. Because of his patriotism, the forty-year-old Schwarzschild insisted on serving in the German armed forces. Various campaigns took him to Belgium, France, and finally to Russia. While serving in Russia he contracted pemphigus, a fatal autoimmune disease. Although he became too ill to continue in the military service, he continued to work on the equations. Shortly after Schwarzschild returned to Germany, he completed his paper titled “Über das Gravitationsfeld eines Mass enpunktes nach der Einstein Theorie” (on the field of gravity of a point mass in the theory of Einstein) and sent a copy to Einstein. Within a few months following completion of his work, Schwarzschild died. His paper was published in the 1916 edition of Sitzungsberichte der Preussichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (the journal of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences). Schwarzschild had sought to investigate what would happen if gravity around a spherical body became infinitely powerful. He was also concerned with finding the least complex explanation. The result is known as the Schwarzschild solution. This solution describes a bizarre object: a black hole. The French astronomer PierreSimon Laplace first considered the possibility of an object so dense that light itself could not escape from its surface. Unfortunately, at the time (1796) there was no way to test his ideas, and they were soon discarded. When Schwarzschild derived his solution to Einstein’s equations, the scientific community did not readily recognize that, like Laplace, he was describing a model for a black hole. Difficulties in interpreting the Schwarzschild solution cast some doubt on its validity until the 1960’s, when its true significance was recognized.
Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity dius, it would become a black hole. If the Sun were to be compressed to a radius of less than 3 kilometers (1.86 miles), it would become a black hole. The diameter of the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole depends on the mass of the decayed stellar core. For example, a decayed core with a mass five times greater than the Sun would have an event horizon with a radius of 30 kilometers (18.64 miles). A stellar remnant of twenty solar masses would have an event horizon with a 60-kilometer (37.28-mile) radius. Within this boundary, however, the remains of the star continue to collapse to a point of infinite pressure, infinite density, and infinite curvature of space-time. This point is known as the Schwarzschild singularity. The Schwarzschild solution describes a black hole that has neither electrical charge nor rotation, but only mass. Consider a body falling toward such an object. As the body passed through the Schwarzschild radius, it would feel nothing unusual. For observers watching from some distance away, however, the situation would appear quite different. Observers would notice the effects on time predicted by the theory of general relativity. As the body approached the event horizon, its onboard clock would appear to slow. When the body reached the event horizon, it and its clock would both appear to stop, frozen in time. The body would enter the event horizon and plunge—at nearly the speed of light—toward the singularity. At this point, what would happen is not possible to predict because the laws of physics are no longer valid. An interesting solution to this problem was presented in the 1930’s: The Einstein-Rosen bridge interpretation described space-time warped into a tunnel or a bridge to another universe or to some other part of the universe. As of the early twenty-first century, however, the concept of infinite space-time warps can be the topic of little more than interesting speculation for cosmologists. Significance In 1916, when Schwarzschild published his exact solution to the equations of general relativity, the work was thought to be an exercise in mathematics without any actual application. Schwarzschild believed that his solution would have no more application in the natural sciences than the approximate solution that Einstein had worked out previously. The true significance of Schwarzschild’s work was not recognized until more study had been done on stellar structure and evolution. An important step was taken in 1931 when the astronomer Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar completed calculations that described the interior of a white dwarf star. At that time, he did not 1252
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 consider the fate of very massive stars, but English astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington proposed that massive stars in their death stages continue to radiate energy as they become smaller and smaller. At some point, they reach equilibrium. In 1939, the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his student Hartland S. Snyder showed that a star that possesses enough mass will collapse indefinitely. In their paper, they actually expanded on the work of Schwarzschild and proposed that black holes may exist in the universe. It is now fully recognized that the Schwarzschild solution describes a black hole. The type of black hole described by the Schwarzschild equations is static. A static black hole does not rotate and has no electrical charge. The only property possessed by such a body is mass. Based on the work of Schwarzschild, Oppenheimer, Chandrasekhar, and others, scientists have formulated a model for the formation of a black hole. Although there is some debate on the lower limit of solar masses necessary for black hole formation, a value of about 3.1 is generally acceptable. This means that if the decayed star has a mass of 3.1 solar masses or greater, it will become a black hole. As the stellar remnant begins to collapse, gravity compresses the star’s matter into a smaller and smaller volume. The curvature of space-time around the body becomes more pronounced, and, as a result, beams of light no longer leave the surface in a straight path. As the gravitational collapse continues, more light beams are drawn back to the surface. When the star collapses within the Schwarzschild radius, light can no longer escape; the object has become a black hole. The object described by Schwarzschild consists of only one event horizon, or Schwarzschild radius. Within this boundary lies the singularity, the point that constitutes the remains of the collapsed star. Variations on the work of Schwarzschild have produced such theoretical objects as rotating black holes, black holes with electrical charge, and those with both charge and rotation. At this time, there is no actual proof that these objects exist. Astrophysicists, however, have identified several objects in the universe that may be black holes. Further research will determine whether the Schwarzschild solution describes a real subject or whether it was only an exercise in theoretical mathematics. — David W. Maguire Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. The Collapsing Universe. 1977. Reprint. New York: Pocket Books, 1986. A very readable vol-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ume describing such topics as the forces of nature, planets and planetary formation, and the stages of stellar evolution. Suitable for lay readers. Greenstein, George. Frozen Star. New York: Freundlich Books, 1983. Discusses pulsars, black holes, and stellar evolution. Recommended for readers with some general physics and astronomy background. Kaufmann, William J., III. Black Holes and Warped Spacetime. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1979. Wellillustrated volume deals with stellar evolution and the warped space-time of general relativity. Presents the study of the structure and properties of black holes. Suitable for the average reader. Krane, Kenneth S. Modern Physics. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995. A highly technical treatment of selected topics in modern physics, including special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and nuclear physics. Intended as a textbook for advanced undergraduate courses in modern physics. Miller, Arthur I. Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Provides background on the history of the idea of black holes and describes the debate between Chandrasekhar and Eddington concerning the nature of black holes as well as the implications of that debate for twentieth century science.
Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism Shipman, Harry L. Black Holes, Quasars, and the Universe. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. Covers such topics as stellar evolution, galaxies, active galaxies, cosmology, and astrophysics. Designed for readers with some background in elementary physics and astronomy. Sullivan, Walter. Black Holes: The Edge of Space, the End of Time. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979. Describes the evolution of the concept of black holes from early theory to modern cosmology. Well illustrated. Suitable for the general reader. Susskind, Leonard, and James Lindesay. An Introduction to Black Holes, Information, and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe. Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific, 2004. Explains concepts that physicists of the early twenty-first century have developed in relation to black holes and thinking about space, time, matter, and information. See also: Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity; 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions; Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity; 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation; Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory; Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes. 1916
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Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism First published in pamphlet form in St. Petersburg in 1917, Lenin’s Imperialism condemned the modern bourgeois state and the global capitalist system. Lenin saw war as the inevitable consequence of finance capitalism in its monopoly stage, and he developed a theory of international relations not found in classical Marxist theory. Also known as: Imperialism: The Latest Stage in the Development of Capitalism Locale: Zurich, Switzerland; St. Petersburg, Russia Categories: Government and politics; economics Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party Rudolf Hilferding (1877-1941), Austrian Marxist economist and theoretician
Karl Marx (1818-1883), German socialist and philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), German socialist and Marx’s friend and collaborator Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin (1888-1938), Russian Bolshevik economist and theoretician Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), Polish socialist and member of the German Social Democratic Party Summary of Event When World War I broke out in August of 1914, Europe’s Marxist socialists split over the meaning of the conflict. Most of the socialists in the fighting countries viewed the war as one of national defense and rallied behind the war effort in their own country. A minority vehemently argued that the prodefense socialists had failed to understand that the war’s true purpose was to serve the interests of capitalists who were trying to increase their profits by 1253
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Lenin on Imperialism Near the end of Imperialism (1916), Lenin excoriates imperialism as the worst, end stage of capitalism: The extent to which monopolist capital has intensified all the contradictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient to mention the high cost of living and the tyranny of the cartels. This intensification of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the final victory of world finance capital. Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations—all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. More and more prominently there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism, the creation of the “rentier state,” the usurer state, in which the bourgeoisie to an ever-increasing degree lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by “clipping coupons.” It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (Britain). . . . The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this urge. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism. . . .
conquering nations both in Europe and overseas. Among the Marxists who condemned the war as an imperialist conflict and denounced prodefense socialists for supporting it was Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, who had gone into exile in neutral Swit1254
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 zerland. Toward the end of 1915, Lenin resolved to undertake an intensive study of imperialism, and the result was an influential pamphlet titled Imperializm, kak noveyshy etap kapitalizma (1917; Imperialism: The Latest Stage in the Development of Capitalism, 1924), which he completed in June, 1916. The intense competition for control over regions in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific in the late nineteenth century challenged Marxists to rethink their assessment of the role of imperialism in capitalist economic systems. Karl Marx had attached little importance to imperialism in his theory of capitalism’s development and did not even see it as a distinct stage. Imperialist expansion might, he argued, delay the inevitable collapse of capitalism, but socialist revolution would inevitably break out in advanced industrial societies. To the extent that he considered the impact of imperialism on colonies, Marx viewed it as a force that laid the foundations for the future industrialization of backward countries. Friedrich Engels, Marx’s collaborator, hinted at a new interpretation shortly before his death in 1895. Engels still believed that the overthrow of capitalism would begin in the industrial heartlands rather than in less developed societies, but he suggested that imperialism would actually accelerate rather than postpone capitalism’s collapse. Over the next two decades, a number of Marxian theorists—most notably Rudolf Hilferding, an Austrian economist; Rosa Luxemburg, a Polish socialist who belonged to the German Socialist Democratic Party; and Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, a member of Lenin’s Bolshevik faction—expanded this insight into detailed theories that argued that capitalism had entered a new stage of its history. Lenin was a political strategist, not a scholar. In his studies of imperialism, he was seeking material to use in his polemics against Marxists who did not share his conviction that the outbreak of war had demonstrated the immediate need for capitalism’s overthrow. Lenin was strongly influenced by several aspects of Hilferding’s Finanzkapital (1910; Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development, 1981), and he incorporated the Austrian’s ideas into the pamphlet on imperialism even as he denounced Hilferding’s preference for reform over revolution. Following Hilferding’s analysis, Lenin argued that capitalism in the era of imperialism had become dominated by capitalist oligarchies. These capitalist systems needed a strong state to protect their domestic market and to conquer and defend foreign markets, and this would lead to a growing level of conflict between rival capitalist
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Significance Lenin’s Imperialism had little intrinsic importance. As Lenin acknowledged, other thinkers had developed the
basic precepts of a Marxist theory on imperialism before the war. Most notable among these thinkers was Hilferding, whose influence was clearly evident in Lenin’s writings. Even the insight that imperialism was sowing the seeds of its own destruction—in much the same way that earlier phases of capitalism had given birth to the working-class movement that would someday overthrow capitalism—came from Hilferding’s book. Lenin’s pamphlet was a polemical popularization whose principal purpose was to argue for the urgent movement toward socialist revolution. The real significance of the pamphlet lay in the impact it had on Lenin’s subsequent ideas about revolutionary strategies. In his criticisms of Bukharin and Luxemburg, Lenin merged the Marxist theory of imperialism with his own convictions that World War I marked the beginning of capitalism’s death throes and that all true Marxists needed to seize the moment in order to effect a worldwide socialist revolution. He began to perceive that the less developed areas of the world, such as Russia and the colonies, were the weakest points in the capitalist system. Contrary to what Marx and his followers had predicted, the socialist revolution was more likely to begin along the peripheries of the capitalist world rather than in its advanced industrial heartland. —Richard D. King Further Reading Carrère d’Encausse, Hélène. Lenin. New York: Holmes & Meier, 2001. Translated by George Holoch. Emphasizes Lenin’s role in ideological disputes within the Socialist movement. Cohen, Stephen F. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. A sympathetic analysis of Bukharin’s contributions as a Marxist theoretician. Harding, Neil. Lenin’s Political Thought. 2 vols. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977-1981. Argues that Lenin was an orthodox Marxist theoretician even though his ideas underwent a radical transformation after the outbreak of World War I. Meyer, Alfred G. Leninism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957. Presents the thesis that Lenin was an opportunistic Marxist thinker whose innovations reflected the failure of orthodox Marxist theory. Mommsen, Wolfgang J. Theories of Imperialism. Translated by P. S. Falla. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Concise survey of the principal Marxist and non-Marxist theoretical writings on imperialism; 1255
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states. Inevitably, Lenin theorized, attempts by these states to assert monopoly control over increasingly large parts of the world would result in war, and oligarchies would reorganize the capitalist system to minimize the anarchy of laissez-faire competition within each country. As a result, a new order of rationally regulated economic production would emerge and could form the basis for the socialist system that would be rapidly implemented after capitalism’s overthrow. Lenin endorsed Hilferding’s contention that the precapitalist colonies would ultimately reject imperialism. National independence movements, while not Marxist in character, would inevitably emerge to challenge foreign domination of their lands. The current war, Lenin argued, was a product of this latest stage of capitalist development, and it would be merely the first of a series of imperialist wars that would redivide the world unless capitalism was overthrown. After finishing the draft of his pamphlet in June, 1916, Lenin sharpened his analysis of imperialism in a series of essays that critiqued the theories of other Marxist theorists, particularly those of Luxemburg and Bukharin. In Lenin’s view, both Luxemburg and Bukharin underestimated the importance of colonial movements toward national liberation, which he saw as fundamental to the development of a socialist revolution. Nationalist movements would become difficult to pacify, Lenin argued, and they would soon require an increasingly expensive military presence. This would, in turn, induce falling rates of profit and rising discontent among the workers in the imperialist countries, eventually leading to the overthrow of the capitalist system. Gradually, Lenin began to develop a new revolutionary strategy, one that emphasized the importance of the struggle against capitalism in the outer fringes of the industrialized world. Lenin asserted that rather than ignoring the developing areas and deprecating their national liberation movements as non-Marxist, Marxist revolutionaries should endorse national liberation movements in the colonies and take advantage of the disruption they caused in the capitalist system. Lenin remained convinced that the success of the socialist revolution would depend on the working class in the most advanced industrial countries, but he had come to believe that the revolution’s spark would come from the world’s less developed nations.
Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism
Battle of Verdun assesses their strengths and limitations in light of subsequent historical scholarship. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. Argues that Lenin’s theories and policies were shaped by an intense but controlled rage and hunger to destroy the old order and overcome political obstacles. Tucker, Robert C., ed. The Lenin Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. Convenient one-volume collection of Lenin’s writings; includes a slightly abridged version of Imperialism.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; Jan. 15, 1919: Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy.
February 21-December 18, 1916
Battle of Verdun Germany began the Battle of Verdun as part of a plan to force the surrender of France through excessive losses, but heavy costs were inflicted on both sides. Locale: Verdun, France Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I; military history Key Figures Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922), chief of general staff of the German army, 1914-1916 William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 William (1882-1951), crown prince of Germany and commander of the German Fifth Army Schmidt von Knobelsdorf (fl. early twentieth century), chief of staff to the crown prince Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre (1852-1931), commander in chief of the French armies Noël-Marie-Joseph-Édouard de Curières de Castelnau (1851-1944), chief of staff to General Joffre Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), commander of French forces at Verdun Robert Nivelle (1856-1924), commander of the French Second Army Summary of Event When Allied and German forces reached a stalemate on the western front following the Battle of the Marne in 1914, they prepared different strategies. The French and the British tried to break through the German lines and repeatedly attacked German defenses along the hastily fortified northern portion of the front, but the German lines held despite bloody assaults at Ypres and elsewhere. In 1256
contrast, the Germans held to their defensive positions. They realized the great cost in troops spent on offensives in such a war and chose to concentrate on an offensive in the east, where they routed the Russian armies. Sensing the effect that the loss of men was having on Allied forces, General Erich von Falkenhayn, the chief of the General Staff of the German army, approached Emperor William II with a plan late in 1915. Falkenhayn suggested hurling an army against a fortified French position that the French could not surrender without a great loss of prestige. This hesitancy to lose such a position would force France to defend the position. In the process of defending the position, Falkenhayn calculated, France would suffer such tremendous losses it would be forced to surrender. The plan was designed to inflict French casualties rather than to capture strategic positions. The emperor approved the plan, and the fortress town of Verdun was selected as the target. Verdun, a small town ringed with fortresses, was in a salient and could be attacked on three sides. A fortified city, Verdun was 125 miles east of Paris and 40 miles from the German fortress of Metz. Although the French valued Verdun as a defensive position, they did not believe a massive German attack on the city was likely. Indeed, shortly before the attack the French military command began moving supplies from Verdun to what were believed to be more threatened positions. Falkenhayn’s plan called for the German army, led by Crown Prince William, to attack the ring of the fortress. German troops would then be supplied to the crown prince at a rate to ensure the attack kept pace, but not in sufficient numbers to enable a breakthrough by German forces. Neither the crown prince nor his chief of staff, General Schmidt von
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Knobelsdorf, was told anything about the design of the attack. Like their men, they believed that the assault was designed to achieve a military breakthrough. Falkenhayn was convinced that the plan would “bleed the French army white” and force them to negotiate with Germany. The German plan was code-named Gericht, German for “a place of execution.” The German attack began with a massive artillery barrage on February 21, 1916. More than one million German shells pounded the French fortifications. A force of 140,000 German infantrymen attacked the French positions. The German troops made some early gains and captured a few of the key fortresses. German gas attacks on the first day of battle prompted the French to launch gas attacks on the advancing German forces. General JosephJacques-Césaire Joffre, commander in chief of the French armies, and his chief of staff, General Noël-Marie-JosephÉdouard de Curières de Castelnau, reacted as Falkenhayn
Battle of Verdun had predicted. The French command concluded that Verdun was to be held at all costs and moved the French Second Army under General Philippe Pétain to the defense of Verdun. A number of leaders in the French military believed that a German attack on Verdun would prove to be a strategic and military victory for the French. Before the battle, Joffre seemed to welcome the opportunity to confront the Germans at Verdun. He said, “I ask only one thing, and this is that the Germans will attack me and if they do attack me, that it will be at Verdun.” Pétain immediately realized that the main problem was to keep Verdun supplied with troops and material. As troops moved into the area to stop the German advance, supplies became jammed because German forces had managed to cut the southern and western rail links to the city. Transport was of utmost importance, and the only access the French possessed were a narrow-gauge railway and one small road. Pétain ordered the road re-
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French troops come under shellfire during the Battle of Verdun. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Battle of Verdun built and organized a massive motorized supply column of more than three thousand trucks per day to supply French forces. The road became a critical supply route during the ten-month battle and became known to the French as the voie sacrée, or “sacred path.” The crown prince and Knobelsdorf attempted to break through the French lines but were hampered by Falkenhayn’s limitations on the number of troops as well as Pétain’s organized defense. The Germans soon realized that their casualties began to equal and at times exceed those of the French. By mid-April, Pétain moved to the offensive, and Falkenhayn found that he had extended his troops into a dangerous position. German prestige now demanded the capture of Verdun. In June, the Germans almost broke through the French lines, but French forces held firm. Complicating matters for the Germans was the British attack on the Somme that began in midsummer. German troops had to be pulled away from the Verdun sector to counter the Allied offensive. As the summer turned to fall, the fighting degenerated into vicious attacks and counterattacks amid the misery of trench warfare. Pétain was elevated to commander of the entire central front, and General Robert Nivelle was placed in command of the French Second Army. Like the Germans, the French now saw Verdun as a test of national will. Despite the fact that Verdun was never of great strategic importance to the French, political leaders now directed the military to hold the line at Verdun despite the tremendous loss of life. Aristide Briand, the French prime minister, told Joffre and his staff, “If you surrender at Verdun, you will be cowards, cowards. And you needn’t wait till then to hand in your resignation. If you abandon Verdun, I sack you all on the spot.” General Nivelle led a series of French counterattacks in the late summer and fall. By the winter, the exhausted German army gave up their positions; the Battle of Verdun was officially over on December 18, 1916. Significance The French had held the city, but the sacrifice was enormous. The battle had been the longest and most costly of the war. Militarily, the ten months of fighting were inconclusive. Neither the Germans nor the French succeeded in delivering a decisive strategic blow to end the battle. The French sustained some five hundred thousand casualties, and the Germans, four hundred thousand. Nevertheless, the battle did considerable psychological damage to the Germans, whereas for the French, Verdun became the outstanding symbol of French resistance.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The battle’s outcome also influenced the futures of the commanders of both sides. Falkenhayn was dismissed, and General Paul von Hindenburg succeeded him. Nivelle, covered with glory, attempted to repeat his performance at the Battle of the Aisne in 1917, which ended with disastrous results and a mutiny that almost broke the French army. Pétain gained the greatest prestige, eventually replacing Joffre as commander in chief of the French armies and later becoming the marshal of France. —José M. Sánchez and Lawrence I. Clark Further Reading Gilbert, Martin. The First World War: A Complete History. New York: Henry Holt, 1994. Comprehensive volume provides a thorough account of the battles of World War I as well as the diplomacy of the time. Includes maps, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Marshall, S. L. A. World War I. 1964. Reprint. New York: Mariner Books, 2001. History of the war written by an American general. Chapter titled “Ordeal of Nations” provides a brief introduction to Verdun and other ill-fated battles designed by generals to deliver a decisive blow and bring the “Great War” to a close. Ousby, Ian. The Road to Verdun: World War I’s Most Momentous Battle and the Folly of Nationalism. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 2002. Describes the battle in detail and also examines its underlying causes. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. Strachan, Hew, ed. World War I: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Collection of essays covers all aspects of the war and the issues surrounding it. Includes many illustrations, maps, and index. Winter, J. M. The Experience of World War I. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Collection of historical materials, eyewitness accounts, photographs, and more aims to convey what it must have been like to experience World War I firsthand. Chapter titled “1916-17: The Great Slaughter” provides a valuable introduction to the Battle of Verdun that includes a chronology and maps detailing the attacks and counterattacks. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland; Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
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Pershing Expedition
March 15, 1916-February 5, 1917
Pershing Expedition In a response against Mexican revolutionaries, the United States sent armed forces into Mexico on a punitive expedition. Also known as: Mexican expedition Locale: Mexico Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history Key Figures Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), provisional president of Mexico, 1915-1920 Pancho Villa (Doroteo Arango; 1878-1923), governor of Chihuahua and Mexican revolutionary Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 John J. Pershing (1860-1948), commander of the U.S. punitive expedition Frederick Funston (1865-1917), American general Álvaro Obregón (1880-1928), Mexican minister of war and marine, and commander of military forces in northern Mexico Hugh L. Scott (1853-1934), chief of staff of the U.S. Army
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Summary of Event At 4:15 a.m. on March 9, 1916, a force of about five hundred Mexican revolutionaries commanded by General Pancho Villa attacked the tiny border settlement of Columbus, New Mexico, and the nearby U.S. Army garrison. Less than an hour later, the Mexicans were in full retreat toward their border, closely pursued by a troop of U.S. cavalry. Seventeen persons from the United States were dead, eight of them civilians. Villa’s raid on Columbus was a direct outgrowth of the turbulent and often bloody struggle for the leadership of the Mexican Revolution that had begun with the overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1911. The next president of Mexico, Francisco Madero, had not held office two years before being deposed by one of his own generals, Victoriano Huerta. Although Huerta enjoyed the backing of the Roman Catholic Church, the landed interests, and the foreign investors who controlled much of Mexico’s natural resources, he had little support from the Mexican people. In addition, one of Huerta’s first acts was to arrange for the murder of his predecessor, Madero. The new U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson, horrified by this spectacle of government by assassination, refused to
recognize Huerta’s government. Wilson gave his support to Huerta’s two chief opponents, Venustiano Carranza and Villa, who claimed to be the true heirs of Madero. In April, 1914, Wilson took advantage of a minor incident at Tampico, Mexico, and ordered the U.S. Navy to seize the port of Veracruz. Wilson hoped to force Huerta’s resignation by cutting off both his supply of arms from abroad and a major source of revenue, the Veracruz customhouse. A short, bloody battle ensued, during which both Mexican and U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties. Wilson, who had not expected the Mexicans to resist, gladly took advantage of an offer of mediation made by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Although the mediation was inconclusive, the Veracruz incident helped topple Huerta’s already shaky government. In August, 1914, Villa and Carranza entered Mexico City, and the civil strife that had plagued Mexico for years seemed to be ending. Within a few weeks, however, the leaders of the revolution were once more at odds. At one point, it seemed as though Villa would emerge as president of Mexico. His rivals in the revolutionary movement, however, refused to recognize Villa’s leadership. Some historians believe conflict between Villa, who favored radical social reform, and Carranza, a political moderate, was inevitable. Frustrated by Carranza’s reluctance to institute reforms such as changes in landownership, Villa attempted a military coup. Under the leadership of General Álvaro Obregón, the regular Mexican army under Carranza inflicted a series of sharp defeats on Villa’s forces, driving Villa back to his home state of Chihuahua. On October 19, 1915, the United States, which had favored Villa, formally recognized Carranza’s provisional government as the legitimate government of Mexico. By early 1916, Villa’s army, the remains of his famous División del Norte, had shrunk to a few hundred men hiding from Obregón’s troops in the Chihuahua mountains. Villa’s motives for attacking Columbus with this small force are not clear. Some historians believe that Villa hoped to provoke an invasion of Mexico by the United States so that he could then emerge as a hero of the people resisting foreign aggressors. If war with the United States was Villa’s aim, his raid on Columbus nearly succeeded in provoking it. News of the raid raised a storm of anger throughout the United States. In a rare display of unanimity, citizens of all political persuasions called for Villa’s blood. President Wilson announced to
Pershing Expedition
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the press that troops would be dispatched immediately in pursuit of Villa. Orders were telegraphed to General Frederick Funston, commander of the Southern Department, in San Antonio to prepare an expeditionary force to pursue and destroy Villa’s band. Nothing was said in the order about capturing Villa himself, but the public persisted in the belief that the object of the expedition was to bring back Villa, dead or alive. The punitive expedition, comprising approximately 6,000 U.S. troops under the command of Brigadier General John J. Pershing, crossed the border into Mexico in the early hours of March 15, 1916. Villa’s forces, which numbered some 450 men, continued to move deeper into Mexico. Elements of the Seventh and Tenth Cavalries caught up with them near the town of Guerrero and, in a series of sharp engagements fought between March 28 and April 1, killed or captured most of Villa’s men. Villa himself avoided capture and continued south toward the town of Parral in Chihuahua.
The Mexican government, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly concerned about the spectacle of six thousand U.S. troops deployed deep within Mexican territory. President Carranza, who had never formally agreed to allow the U.S. troops to enter Mexico, now addressed a series of notes to Washington, requesting that the expeditionary force be withdrawn on the grounds that it had already accomplished all that could be hoped for, and that Mexican troops were now adequate to police the border. Villa, the self-taught son of a field laborer, enjoyed widespread popular support among the ordinary people of northern Mexico. Carranza knew that the continuing presence of foreign troops on Mexican soil could serve only to weaken his own government and strengthen Villa’s guerrilla movement. While the negotiations over the status of Pershing’s forces were being conducted, a mob attacked a detachment from the U.S. Thirteenth Cavalry attempting to purchase supplies in Parral. In the ensuing fight, a large
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
General John J. Pershing leads U.S. troops across a river in pursuit of Pancho Villa and his followers. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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manding a troop of the Tenth Cavalry, attempted to enter the town of Pine U n i t e d Wichita Falls Carrizel in disregard of orders from Phoenix Roswell SLubbockt a El D Texarkana Scottsdale N e wArtesia t a M Pershing to avoid places garrisoned n e e o Hobbs xico s iz Abilene Dallas A r Tucson Columbus Carlsbad Shrev ali Las Cruces by Carrancista troops. The Mexican Big Spring Odessa Waco Ciudad Juarez El Paso s AngeloTemple Te x aSan soldiers in the town opened fire. Nogales Bisbee Alexand Carrizel Austin Twelve U.S. soldiers, including Glen New Ri Chi San Antonio Houston Springs o h Boyd, were killed, and twenty-three ua Hermosillo Del Rio hu Galveston were taken prisoner. a Boquillas Guerrero Chihuahua War with Mexico now appeared Laredo Corpus Christi Nuevo Laredo certain, but President Wilson was Parral determined to avoid it, if at all possiMonterrey ble. Carranza, anxious to prevent Gulf Saltillo Culiacan M e x i c o American occupation of his country, La Paz Durango of Ciudad Victoria released the prisoners and offered to Zacatecas enter into direct talks with the U.S. Mexico San Luis Potosi Aguascalientes government to settle the dispute. The Leon long, drawn-out negotiations opened Tepic Queretaro at New London, Connecticut, on SepGuadalajara Pachuca C Morelia Mexico City tember 6, 1916, and ended in a staleColima Toluca Puebla mate four months later. They had, however, served to relax tensions and to remove the embarrassing issue of number of Mexicans and two U.S. citizens were killed. Mexico from the 1916 presidential campaign. In an atmosphere of increasing tension, Carranza agreed Although the New London talks failed to produce an to send Obregón, his minister of war and marine, to meet agreement with Mexico, Wilson and his advisers decided with General Hugh L. Scott, the U.S. Army chief of staff, to withdraw the remaining troops. Villa, while still a at El Paso. After much argument, the two generals sucthreat to the Carranza administration in Mexico, was ceeded in drafting an agreement for the gradual withnow operating in an area far from the border. In addition, drawal of the U.S. expeditionary force. Carranza, howwar with Germany was now a distinct possibility, and ever, refused to accept the agreement. It is doubtful Pershing’s forces might need to be deployed to Europe. whether the U.S. government could have honored it in On February 5, 1917, the last troops of Pershing’s expeany case, because on the same day that the agreement ditionary force reentered the United States. was signed, a band of Mexican raiders attacked the towns of Glen Springs and Bougilas in the sparsely populated Significance Big Bend country of Texas, killing three U.S. settlers, The punitive expedition into Mexico by the United States one of whom was a nine-year-old boy. constituted an act of abatement and thus was lawful unAlthough the raiders had no connection with Villa, a der the customary norms of international law. That is, a new wave of anger and exasperation swept the country state is permitted to intervene temporarily into the terrifollowing this latest demonstration of the defenselesstory of a neighboring state when the latter is unable or unness of the border area. Amid renewed demands for war willing to prevent the use of its territory for activities that with Mexico, President Wilson mobilized the National either injure or threaten the security of the former. This Guards of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to patrol the kind of intervention is allowed as long as the forces withborder and ordered an additional four thousand regulars draw once the threat is abated and the intervening nation to the Southwest. advances no claims to territory. Although technically The Mexicans also were nearing the end of their palawful, however, the Pershing expedition served to reintience. On June 16, 1916, Carranza warned the U.S. govforce anti-American sentiment among Mexicans and to ernment that if U.S. soldiers in Mexico made further increase charges of American imperialism. moves in any direction but north, they would be fired After the expedition was concluded, Villa continued upon. Five days later, Captain Charles T. Boyd, comto plague the Carrancista forces for several more years. dles
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Easter Rebellion In 1920, following the death of Carranza and other changes in the Mexican government, Villa accepted a pardon in exchange for his agreement to leave politics. He retired to a ranch near Parral, where he died in 1923. —Ronald N. Spector and Nancy Farm Mannikko Further Reading Harris, Larry A. Pancho Villa: Strong Man of the Revolution. Reprint. Silver City, N.Mex.: High Lonesome Books, 1996. Biography emphasizes Villa’s role as a revolutionary and military leader. Link, Arthur S. Wilson. 5 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947-1965. Definitive study of Wilson’s life and career is an indispensable resource. Volume 4 addresses U.S. relations with Mexico and the Pershing expedition. Machado, Manuel A. Centaur of the North: Francisco Villa, the Mexican Revolution, and Northern Mexico. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1988. Combination of biography and history provides social and political context for Villa’s activities. McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001. Focuses on events of the Mexican Revolution involving Villa and revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. Includes black-and-white photographs, bibliographical essay, and index. Mason, Herbert Molloy. The Great Pursuit: Pershing’s Expedition to Destroy Pancho Villa. 1970. Reprint.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 New York: Smithmark, 1995. An account of the Pershing expedition from the perspective of the U.S. military. Includes index. Meyer, Michael C., William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds. The Course of Mexican History. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Interesting and readable history devotes several chapters to the Mexican Revolution and surrounding events, including the Pershing expedition. Features maps, illustrations, and index. Rippy, James Fred. The United States and Mexico. New York: F. S. Crofts, 1931. For many years the standard work on Mexican-U.S. relations, this book is now somewhat out of date but still contains useful material. Smith, Gene. Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Biography includes discussion of Pershing’s role in the U.S. expedition into Mexico. Features photographs, bibliography, and index. Tompkins, Frank. Chasing Villa: The Last Campaign of the U.S. Cavalry. 1935. Reprint. Silver City, N.Mex.: High Lonesome Books, 1996. Firsthand account by one of Pershing’s commanders who played an important part in the expedition. See also: Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution; Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code.
April 24-29, 1916
Easter Rebellion The Easter Rebellion against Britain failed, but it persuaded the Irish people to seek freedom from British rule. Also known as: Easter Rising Locale: Dublin, Ireland Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; independence movements Key Figures Patrick Henry Pearse (1879-1916), Irish poet and teacher who was commander in chief of the republican forces in the rebellion Eoin MacNeill (1867-1945), Irish scholar and head of the volunteers who tried to stop the rebellion 1262
Sir Roger Casement (1864-1916), Irish revolutionary James Connolly (1868-1916), socialist, leader of the Irish Citizen Army, and military commander of the republican forces in Dublin Tom Clarke (1857-1916), early organizer of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a leader of the rebellion Sean MacDermott (1884-1916), Irish political organizer, journalist, and member of the military council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), chief secretary for Ireland Ivor Churchill Guest (Baron Wimborne; 1873-1939), lord-lieutenant of Ireland Sir John Grenfell Maxwell (1859-1929), British general
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Easter Rebellion
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Summary of Event On the Monday after Easter, 1916, several hundred Irishmen and Irishwomen began a rebellion against the British Empire. The rising lasted until the following Saturday, when, after considerable death and destruction, the surviving rebels surrendered. The leaders were quickly executed, but within six years an independent Ireland came into existence. Paradoxically, from defeat came victory. England’s power and influence had hung over Ireland for hundreds of years, and throughout the nineteenth century many demanded greater independence for Ireland. Some were primarily peaceful and political in their approach—such as Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell—but some were violent, such as the Fenians of the 1860’s. In 1910, with the British parliament deadlocked, the Liberal government promised the Irish delegates that legislation for greater home rule would be introduced in exchange for their support.
Opposition came mainly from Protestants in Ulster, who feared for their future in a largely Catholic Ireland. Forming a volunteer army, they were prepared to go to war against the British government in order to remain British. Their example inspired home rulers and Irish nationalists in the south to form their own volunteer movement to support home rule. When World War I began in August of 1914, Ireland was divided into two armed camps. Home rule became law, but its implementation was postponed until the war’s end. With the outbreak of war, many Irishmen, both Protestant and Catholic, joined the British army. However, under the maxim that “England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity,” a small group, connected to the old Fenian movement through the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), infiltrated the remnant opposed to participating in a British war and began to plan a rising against Britain. The IRB’s beliefs were exemplified in 1915 by Patrick Henry Pearse, a schoolteacher and poet 1263
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Soldiers inspect the interior of Dublin’s General Post Office after the building was almost completely destroyed during the Easter Rebellion. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Easter Rebellion who, at the Dublin funeral for an old Fenian, cried out that Ireland unfree could never be at peace. The IRB leadership hoped to rely on as many as ten thousand volunteers, and planned that weapons, even soldiers, would come from Germany, Britain’s enemy. Sir Roger Casement, British diplomat turned Irish rebel, traveled to Germany, but his negotiations with the German government resulted only in promises of some weapons. Casement was captured by the British on the Friday before Easter after he secretly returned to Ireland, and the German submarine carrying twenty thousand guns for the volunteers was scuttled when it was discovered by the British. The uprising was planned for Easter Sunday, the resurrection of Ireland paralleling the resurrection of Christ. The head of the volunteers, Eoin MacNeill, was not part of the IRB, however, and when he heard of the proposed rebellion and that Casement had been captured, he canceled scheduled maneuvers. The inner group decided to go ahead, however, a day late; thus about noon on Monday, April 24, hundreds of rebels took to the streets of Dublin and quickly occupied several preselected sites, trusting that once the rising began others would join. As they marched forth that day, however, they could not have been overly optimistic. James Connolly, a union leader and head of his own Irish Citizen Army, who had only recently been made privy to the IRB plans, commented that they were all going out to be slaughtered. Among the several locations occupied by the small band of rebels—only about one thousand men and women took part—was the General Post Office (GPO), an imposing structure on Sackville Street, in the heart of Dublin. Shortly after noon, Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic, beginning with the emotive words, “In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.” In addition to Pearse and Connolly, the proclamation was signed by Tom Clarke, who had spent years in English jails, Joseph Plunkett, Sean MacDermott, Eamonn Ceannt, and Thomas MacDonagh. There were a few cheers from onlookers, but the responses were mostly just curiosity, amusement, and even outright hostility: Irishmen were serving in the British army in Flanders, and many saw the rebels’ actions as a cowardly stab in the back. The British authorities were caught off balance. They had information about a rumored rebellion, but Casement was in jail, the German submarine was sunk, and MacNeill’s cancellation of Easter Sunday’s mobilization 1264
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cast doubt on any immediate threat. Monday was a holiday, and many of the British troops stationed in Dublin were out of the city. The chief secretary for Ireland, Augustine Birrell, who had doubted any threat, was away in London. Ivor Churchill Guest, Baron Wimborne, the lord-lieutenant and the king’s representative in Ireland, wished for a stronger response to the rumors of rebellion, but before action could be taken, the rebels had occupied not only the GPO but also the Four Courts along the River Liffey, St. Stephen’s Green, and other positions, mostly on the south side of the city, that could interdict any British support troops arriving by sea. Lacking any creative strategy, the republicans merely occupied key places and waited, hoping for the best—a popular uprising by the populace of Dublin and throughout Ireland, a reversal of the German decision not to send troops, or a British collapse. All were unlikely, and none materialized. There were a few minor skirmishes elsewhere, but they had little effect. The Irish population did not rise up in support. The British general staff preferred a cautionary approach, isolating the various rebel locations, wearing them down by attrition rather than frontal assaults against entrenched positions. Still, there were British casualties, most notably on Northumberland Road and Lower Mount Street where a small detachment of Irish rebels fired from nearby houses, decimating an inexperienced British force, causing about two hundred casualties. There were probing attacks by the British, but mainly they resorted to artillery against the rebel outposts. Republican morale remained high, but superior force began to tell. At the GPO and Sackville Street, where the Republic’s proclamation was first read, the destruction was the greatest. By Friday, British artillery had such an effect that the building was in danger of being engulfed by fire. Although Connolly had been shot twice on Thursday, most seriously in the ankle by a ricocheting bullet, the rebels had suffered relatively few casualties because of their defensive strategy. Pearse issued a statement on Friday morning, saying, “If we accomplish no more than we have accomplished, I am satisfied. I am satisfied that we have saved Ireland’s honour.” Early on Saturday, concluding that the GPO must be abandoned, the rebels escaped into side streets to the north, but retreat was no longer possible, and at 12:45 p.m. a young nurse was sent out under a white flag to seek a truce. The British authorities would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. At 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, April 29, Pearse signed the surrender document. Bypassed by the British, some of the rebel locations that had seen little
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 fighting were reluctant to surrender, but they did so anyway. Significance Officially, 1,353 individuals were reported killed during the rising, with losses greater among the British soldiers than among the rebels. Property damage was immense. None of the signers of the proclamation had been killed, but the commander of the British forces, General Sir John Grenfell Maxwell, established courts-martial to try the leaders for rebellion in time of war. Pearse, Clarke, and MacDonagh were sentenced to death and were shot on May 3, 1916, at Kilmainham Jail. On the following day Plunkett, married in the jail chapel only a few hours earlier, and three others followed. Fifteen executions occurred in all, the last on May 12 with Connolly and MacDermott. Casement was hanged in August in Britain. As the executions dragged on, public opinion began to change in support of the rebels. Pearse, Connolly, and the others did not intend merely to make a blood sacrifice, but as martyrs they were more influential than they had been when they were alive. War broke out again in 1919, and in 1922 the Irish Free State came into being. —Eugene Larson
guin Books, 1988. History of Ireland by a leading scholar includes an informative and readable account of the rebellion. Features maps, tables, and figures. Kee, Robert. Ireland: A History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980. One of the best introductions to Irish history available for the general reader, particularly concerning the centuries-long conflict between Ireland and Britain. Debunks many of the myths of Irish history and also shows how they influenced future events, effectively connecting past and present. Lee, J. J. Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Presents an informative discussion of the causes and results of the rebellion. Includes maps, tables, and index. McHugh, Roger, ed. Dublin 1916: An Illustrated Anthology. New York: D. Elliot, 1980. Unusual compilation of illustrations, diary entries, autobiographical accounts by participants in the rebellion, contemporary newspaper stories, interviews, essays, poetry, and historical articles related to the rising. Places the events in a larger context. Nowlan, Kevin B., ed. The Making of 1916: Studies in the History of the Rising. Dublin: Stationery Office, 1969. Collection of articles commissioned by the Irish government to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the rebellion. Surprisingly objective, despite its sponsor. Several essays provide useful background material, and two unusual chapters explain the influence of the Gaelic cultural movement on the nationalist movement. O’Broin, Leon. Dublin Castle and the 1916 Rising. New York: New York University Press, 1971. Scholarly, readable discussion of the response of the British administration in Dublin to the rising. O’Broin’s experience as secretary of the Irish Department of Posts and Telegraphs is reflected in his ability to present the rebellion from the viewpoint of the government bureaucracy. Ward, Alan J. The Easter Rising: Revolution and Irish Nationalism. 2d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 2003. Uses the Easter Rising as a starting point from which to examine Irish history from the twelfth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. See also: Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded; Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy; Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill; 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created. 1265
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Further Reading Caufield, Max. The Easter Rebellion: Dublin, 1916. 1963. Reprint. Boulder, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart, 1995. Well-written, detailed account of the events surrounding the Easter Rising. Depicts the rising in a highly dramatic, moment-by-moment style. Portrays the republicans as heroes, but attempts to present a generally balanced point of view. Coogan, Tim Pat. 1916: The Easter Rising. London: Cassell, 2002. Account of the rebellion and its surrounding events by a recognized Irish scholar. Includes photographs and maps. Edwards, Ruth Dudley. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure. 1977. Reprint. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006. Presents a sympathetic but not uncritical analysis of the Easter Rebellion. Fitzgerald, Redmond. Cry Blood, Cry Erin. New York: C. N. Potter, 1966. Colorful discussion of the Irish nationalist movement from the early nineteenth century to the end of the Irish civil war in 1923. Written from a nationalist perspective by an Irishman obviously sympathetic to the republicans. Includes an outstanding series of illustrations, especially many photographs from the period 1914-1923. Foster, R. F. Modern Ireland, 1600-1972. London: Pen-
Easter Rebellion
Battle of Jutland
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 31-June 1, 1916
Battle of Jutland The Battle of Jutland established the decisive superiority of the British Grand Fleet over its rival, the German High Seas Fleet, despite heavy British losses in ships and men. Locale: North Sea Categories: Military history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I Key Figures Sir David Beatty (1871-1936), commander of the British Battle Cruiser Fleet Franz von Hipper (1863-1932), commander of German scouting forces
John Jellicoe (1859-1935), commander of the British Grand Fleet Reinhard Scheer (1863-1928), commander of the German High Seas Fleet Summary of Event Early in 1916, the German naval staff decided to undertake an offensive campaign against the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea. Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the German High Seas Fleet of twentythree dreadnoughts, realized that he could conduct only limited operations against the British Grand Fleet of forty-two dreadnoughts under the command of Admiral
The British navy strikes the German battleship Oldenburg during the Battle of Jutland. (Library of Congress)
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Battle of Jutland
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Sir John Jellicoe, so he planned to Battle of Jutland, 1916 lay minefields off the British naval N o r way bases and then lure the Grand Fleet out to sea. If German U-boats could Goteb take a toll on the British battleships, Scheer imagined that he could enter Battle of verness Jutland battle on more equal terms. At the same time, the British beow N o r t h C came more aggressive. They wanted Vejle Edinburgh to attack the zeppelin bases in northOdense Sunderland S e a ern Germany and also support the Russian navy in the Baltic. They, Kiel Leeds too, hoped to lure the enemy fleet out Hamburg pool to battle in the North Sea. Groningen Bremen Manchester United Minor sorties began in March, Berli irmingham Amsterdam K i n g d oLeicester m 1916. German battle cruisers bomThe Hague Magdeburg e barded a few British towns without London th Swansea Rotterdam German Essen Ne Leipzig inflicting or receiving much damBristol Dover Empire Cologne Dre age. The British bombarded selected Bonn Brussels targets in Germany with even less efLiege Frankfurt Pr France ymouth Wiesbaden fect. At the end of May, Scheer took his fleet out to sea, with Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper scouting ahead two battle fleets exchanged salvos briefly. The Germans with battle cruisers. Fourteen U-boats were operating off blew up a third battle cruiser. The British built up a supeBritish bases, and Scheer’s strategy was to attack British rior concentration of gunfire on Scheer’s battleships, but shipping off the Norwegian coast in the hope that the he skillfully reversed course, laid down a smoke screen, British would take to sea in force. The plan was put into and escaped serious damage, although one of Hipper’s effect when the British intercepted a coded wireless sigbattle cruisers was so battered that it had to be sunk later. nal that, they believed, indicated the prelude to a German Once again Scheer returned to the attack, but he was advance. On the evening of May 30, the British Grand forced to withdraw at 7:20 p.m. He covered his retreat Fleet proceeded to sea from Scapa Flow, Invergordon, and with an attack by destroyers, from which Jellicoe, with Rosyth, Scotland. The ships evaded Scheer’s submarines great circumspection, turned away. The main bodies of and mines without difficulty, and the Battle Cruiser Fleet the two fleets were now separated. under the command of Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty When darkness fell, Scheer firmly led his smaller, went ahead southeastward, searching for the Germans. slower fleet homeward. By a remarkable combination of On May 31, light cruisers of the British and German accurate gunfire and quick maneuvering, he succeeded scouting forces came into chance contact, and at 2:18 during the night in cutting through the British destroyer p.m. they guided the heavy ships into action. At 3:48 p.m., flotillas to the rear of Jellicoe’s battleships and reached the battle cruisers opened fire, and Hipper retired with the safety of his mined home waters early the next mornhis five ships toward the main German force under ing. The battle was over. The British had lost fourteen Scheer. Beatty pursued him with six cruisers supported ships, including three battle cruisers totaling 110,000 by four fast battleships. A fierce and resolute action detons, and more than 6,200 men had been killed or taken veloped. Accurate German gunfire and weak British proprisoner. The Germans had lost eleven ships totaling tection led to the destruction of two of Beatty’s cruisers, 62,000 tons, including one battle cruiser and one battlewhich exploded, leaving almost no survivors. Scheer arship, and 2,500 men had been killed. Neither side had rived on the scene at 4:48 p.m. and, led by Hipper, chased won a victory because the battle had done little to change Beatty northward. the relative strengths of the two fleets. Jellicoe hurried southward with twenty-four battleThe battle thus fell into five distinct segments. The ships and joined forces with Beatty; together, they turned first was the battle cruiser action during which Beatty on the Germans. Between 6:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., the
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Battle of Jutland
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
pursued Scheer’s force south. This was followed by Beatty’s dash north after the encounter with Hipper’s main battle fleet; the dual purpose was to protect the battle cruisers and simultaneously lure the High Seas Fleet within Jellicoe’s range. The encounter between the two main battle fleets did indeed occur in two brief, destructive, but essentially inconclusive actions. Once the two battle lines separated there remained only a confused series of night actions between the lighter ships, during which time Hipper’s forces escaped to their home ports. The statistics of the battle at first appeared to be in Germany’s favor: For the loss of one modern battleship and one “pre-dreadnought” along with some smaller vessels, the High Seas Fleet had sunk three armored cruisers, eight destroyers, and three battleships. In strategic terms, however, the Battle of Jutland was a British victory, even though its effects were long delayed. The Grand Fleet remained intact, and, on his return to port, Jellicoe signaled the Admiralty that he could steam at four hours’ notice. By contrast, Hipper’s High Seas Fleet was so battered, morally as well as physically, that it hardly dared venture out for the remainder of the war.
in harm’s way the fleet that had cost them so dear and meant so much. German hopes of sinking British dreadnoughts by mines or submarines were dashed, and the Germans themselves lost five capital ships to British mines and submarines. The reasons for the British successes were largely geographic. The shallow waters off the German coast were easy to mine, and German ships had to put to sea through the right angle formed by the German and Danish coasts. The exits from the British bases were broader, and British coastal waters were deeper, making them more difficult to mine effectively. The failure of Scheer’s maritime guerrilla tactics led him to abandon his campaign in the North Sea. He did make a final bid for victory in November, 1918, but the German naval crews could not forget the Battle of Jutland. They refused to weigh anchor, and the final result of this mutinous outbreak and others was demonstrated on November 21, 1918, when Beatty received the surrender of the greater part of the German High Seas Fleet. —Samuel K. Eddy and Michael Witkoski
Significance After Jutland, Jellicoe abandoned his attacks on the German coast and instead sat back to await the reappearance of the Germans. In August, Scheer obliged, intending to bombard the British coast again. Once more his submarines lay in ambush. Forewarned again by the Germans’ careless use of radio, the British came out to intercept. Scheer was then turned away from his objective by an erroneous report from a scouting zeppelin. He turned away from Jellicoe to pursue an isolated British squadron, which itself turned away from him. No contact was made, and both sides returned to their bases. The British had lost two light cruisers to German submarines, and the Germans suffered damage to one dreadnought. Scheer came out a third time in October, and that time the British Grand Fleet remained in port. The German naval offensive of 1916 was essentially a failure. The German strategy had been to inflict unacceptable damage to the British fleet, thus severing that island nation’s links to the outside world. The Germans relied on a belief in the technical superiority of their ships over those of the British, especially in the vital area of armored protection, and also on their willingness to risk their fleet in all-out naval engagement. As Jutland and its aftermath demonstrated, German material superiority was real but not decisive, and the German emperor and his commanders clearly lacked the nerve to place again
Further Reading Campbell, John. Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting. Rev. ed. New York: Lyons Press, 1998. Comprehensive analysis of the Battle of Jutland based on technical material available from both navies involved. Includes a preface by naval historian Antony Preston, diagrams, and charts. Costello, John. Jutland, 1916. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. A very accessible and readable account of the engagement. Halpern, Paul. A Naval History of World War I. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1994. Includes a chapter on the Battle of Jutland that is clearly presented and incisive. Places the battle within the context of the larger struggle. Hough, Richard. The Great War at Sea: 1914-1918. 1983. Reprint. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001. Places the Battle of Jutland and its aftermath within the larger confines of the Anglo-German naval rivalry as well as the war itself. Keegan, John. The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare. New York: Viking, 1988. Includes a chapter on Jutland that is an outstanding example of military history. London, Charles. Jutland 1916: Clash of the Dreadnoughts. Oxford, England: Osprey, 2000. A detailed and highly illustrated account of the battle and its
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 aftermath. Includes chronology and select bibliography. Roskill, Stephen. Admiral of the Fleet: Earl Beatty, the Last Naval Hero—An Intimate Biography. New York: Atheneum, 1981. Presents a generally favorable yet fair picture of Beatty’s pivotal role as commander of the British battle cruiser force at Jutland.
Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice See also: Oct. 6, 1906: Launching of the Dreadnought; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Apr. 2227, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun; Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
June 5, 1916
Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice President Woodrow Wilson’s nomination of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court broke the corporate lawyers’ attack on Jewish lawyers and legitimated new approaches to the law. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Organizations and institutions; social issues and reform
Summary of Event On January 28, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to the nomination, Wilson conferred privately only with Senator Robert M. La Follette, the leader of the Progressive Party. The suddenness of the announcement and the secrecy of the decision to appoint a Jew caused a political sensation. For more than four months, the longest period in the history of Supreme Court nominations, the Senate Judiciary Committee
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Key Figures Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), American attorney and associate justice of the United States, 1916-1939 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913, and chief justice of the United States, 1921-1930 A. Lawrence Lowell (1856-1943), president of Harvard University Thomas J. Walsh (1859-1933), U.S. senator from Montana Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), U.S. senator from Massachusetts Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), U.S. senator from Wisconsin Charles William Eliot (1834-1926), president emeritus of Harvard University
heard heated and complicated testimony. The committee’s final report of 1,316 pages revealed that the issues involved radical threats to the American legal system. Brandeis’s confirmation on June 1 and appointment on June 5 signaled reform in American economic, political, and social systems. The appointment broke a taboo that kept Jews from serving on the Supreme Court and in high positions in government and education. Louis Brandeis was born on November 13, 1856, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Adolph and Frederika Dembitz Brandeis. His parents had come to the United States from Austria after the 1848 Prussian Revolution. After finishing high school, Brandeis traveled in Germany for three years. In 1875, he entered Harvard Law School, from which he graduated with highest honors. In 1879, Brandeis established a law practice in Boston that grew into a profitable business. He also became known as “the people’s lawyer” because of his pro bono advocacy in the public interest, such as in cases involving municipal railway monopolization, life insurance practices, conservation of public lands, and laws setting maximum hours of work for women and children. He joined with the Progressive movement in its attack on overly large corporations and the exploitation of the working class and the consumer. In Brandeis’s view, the sacred concept of “protection of property” had to be balanced with concepts of equity and social justice. He promoted a view of government as an active regulator of industry and a force for economic and social opportunity, and he became a close adviser to La Follette and Wilson. Brandeis became famous for reforming legal arguments when he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1908 case of Muller v. Oregon. The state of Oregon was challenged for its statute restricting female workers to ten hours of labor per day. The employer, Muller, argued that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protected his “life, liberty and property.” Without
Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice
Louis D. Brandeis. (Library of Congress)
using any constitutional precedents, Brandeis amassed more than one hundred pages of sociological and economic data to prove that excessive hours of toil were a threat to a woman’s constitution. Brandeis won his case. Subsequently, he used similar arguments against child labor. Brandeis advocated that the law must promote social justice even if there is no legal precedent. This type of sociological and idealistic rather than strictly legal argument became known as the “Brandeis brief.” Reared as a nonreligious German Jew in Kentucky and Boston, Brandeis did not directly feel the virulent anti-Semitism that arose in the United States in the early twentieth century. A massive riot and a lynching demonstrated the violent aspect of this prejudice against Russian and Polish Orthodox Jews. Hundreds of Jews were injured when the largest anti-Semitic police riot in American history erupted on New York City’s lower East Side in July, 1902. In Atlanta, Georgia, Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman who had been wrongly convicted of murdering a young girl, was dragged from his jail cell by an anti-Semitic mob and lynched in August, 1915, just six months before Brandeis’s Supreme Court nomination. The anti-Semitism evident at Brandeis’s Senate hear1270
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ings was subtle. Neither the Boston Brahmins nor the Wall Street lawyers openly admitted their prejudice, but many saw Brandeis’s nomination as a slap in the face of the conservative Anglo-Saxon male elite who ruled American corporations, law firms, and government offices. Brandeis was an outsider who denied the legitimacy of the legal system that supported unfettered capitalism. Given that Brandeis’s intellect, knowledge of the law, and judicial accomplishments were unimpeachable, the Senate hearings focused on the nature of his character. The attack on Brandeis’s nomination was led by the Boston and Wall Street legal elite: Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican senator from Massachusetts; A. Lawrence Lowell, a corporate lawyer, former president of the American Bar Association, and the president of Harvard University; and former U.S. president William Howard Taft. Lodge questioned Brandeis’s fitness to serve, stating: “For the first time in our history a man has been nominated to the Supreme Court with a view to attracting to the President a group of voters on racial grounds. Converting the United States into a Government by foreign groups is to me the most fatal thing that can happen to our Government.” Opponents of the nomination made the vague charge that Brandeis lacked the “judicial temperament and capacity” to be a proper judge and asserted that he did not have “the confidence of the people.” When repeatedly asked by friends and colleagues to give details as to why Brandeis was personally unfit to be a judge, neither Lodge nor Lowell offered any. Taft believed that Brandeis and other Jewish lawyers would interpret the Constitution to uphold anticorporate social and economic reforms. Throughout the four months of debate, it became clear to many that the charges against Brandeis were spurious and were coming from a particular group of men in Boston and on Wall Street. In fact, this group had hired a lobbyist, Austen Fox, to stall the proceedings. Senator Thomas J. Walsh, a Democrat, was Brandeis’s leading defender on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He recognized that the attacks stemmed from Brandeis’s religion and radicalness, and he stated: “No doubt much of the hostility toward Mr. Brandeis had its origin in the senseless racial prejudice. The real crime for which this man is guilty is that he has exposed the inequities of men in high places in our financial system.” In a surge of support, Charles William Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, rallied to Brandeis’s defense. Eliot praised Brandeis’s “gentleness, courage . . . altruism and public spirit.”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The appointment of Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court did not end anti-Semitism in the United States. In fact, it made Brandeis acutely aware of his Judaic background. Many conservatives viewed the Supreme Court as a bastion of tradition and order. In 1916, the Court consisted of eight Christian judges, all nativeborn, seven of whom were of Anglo-Saxon heritage. Brandeis was an outsider—a Jew and a radical who sought to change the law. The Court itself harbored a renowned anti-Semite, Associate Justice James C. McReynolds. After Brandeis’s appointment, McReynolds refused to speak to him for three years and would not sit next to him for an annual Supreme Court photograph. McReynolds staunchly opposed the nomination of any more Jews to the Court and even refused to accept a Jewish law clerk. Brandeis’s professional success helped to encourage other Jews to seek careers in law and education. The poli-
tics of Progressivism tolerated these aspirations. During the early twentieth century, Jews in the United States possessed an intellectual tradition that made them good allies with social and economic reformers. Brandeis mentored many able lawyers by offering them positions as his law clerks. He generously endowed many Jewish and educational charities, thus giving many scholars opportunities to become successful. The Jewish challenge to the professions created a backlash. Throughout the college and university systems of the United States, quotas were instituted to limit the numbers of Jews who could gain the education necessary to join the white-collar professions of law, medicine, academia, and science. For example, in the 1920’s, A. Lawrence Lowell, still president of Harvard, announced that he would limit Jewish admissions to the university by no longer selecting the freshman class on the basis of scholarship alone. The admissions policy would instead be based on an applicant’s “character and fitness and the promise of the greatest usefulness in the future as a result of a Harvard education.” Consequently, Harvard reduced its Jewish enrollment from 25 percent to less than 15 percent. Brandeis’s eloquence on the bench and his growing involvement with Zionism made him a role model for many Jews. His strong advocacy for the disadvantaged was compared to the moral indignation of the great Jewish prophet Isaiah. As an American Zionist, he played an active part in drafting the Balfour Declaration, which endorsed the establishment of a homeland for Jews. His ascension to the Supreme Court highlighted and furthered the contribution of Jews to American government and society. —Richard C. Kagan Further Reading Abraham, Henry J. Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Includes analyses of the relationship between Wilson and Brandeis and of William Howard Taft’s opposition to the appointments of Brandeis and Benjamin N. Cardozo. Appendixes rank Supreme Court justices in terms of importance. Auerbach, Jerold S. Rabbis and Lawyers: The Journey from Torah to Constitution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. A brilliant analysis of the Jewish role in American legal thought. The chapter on Brandeis argues that his sense of legal advocacy was derived from two sources: the prophetic pronounce1271
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President Wilson waited until the end of the hearings to endorse his candidate. He was aware that his attempt to nominate Brandeis in 1912 for the position of U.S. attorney general had been thwarted because of anti-Semitism and opposition from the legal and corporate elite. In 1915, the prestigious Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., initially refused Brandeis’s membership application, saying that he did not “belong.” Only Wilson’s direct intervention broke the religious ban, and Brandeis was allowed entry. Wilson avoided a religious defense of Brandeis’s appointment, arguing only that it was necessary to promote the social, economic, and political values of his “New Freedom” and of Progressivism. Rallying the country to his platform through the Brandeis appointment may, indeed, have given Wilson the edge in winning the presidential race of 1916. Brandeis remained publicly quiet during the months of hearings. He wrote to his brother that “eighteen centuries of Jewish persecution must have enured me to [these] hardships.” After his confirmation, he privately analyzed the campaign against him. He blamed large corporations for being morally “abnormal and lawless” and blamed “men like A. Lawrence Lowell who had been blinded by privilege.” He held special scorn for those who had abstained from comment. As a member of the Supreme Court, Justice Brandeis became famous for his advocacy of social justice. For Jews, he was a hero, and he was a voice of commitment to Jewish and Western values until he retired from the Court in 1939.
Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice
Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management ments of the Torah and the U.S. Constitution. His creativity derived from his being an outsider to both traditions. An excellent discussion of Brandeis’s Zionist views in terms of his commitment to American values. _______. Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. A history of the American Bar Association’s early twentieth century struggle to restrict blacks from membership and to prevent Jews from obtaining judicial appointments. Burt, Robert A. Two Jewish Justices: Outcasts in the Promised Land. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. A comparative study of Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter. Concludes that Brandeis’s Jewish experience provided him with a sense of mission to save the outcast. Gerber, David A., ed. Anti-Semitism in American History. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1986. Provides excellent background reading on the anti-Semitism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. McWilliams, Carey. A Mask for Privilege: Anti-Semitism in America. 1948. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. The classic study on the nature of anti-Semitism in the United States. A stinging attack on how privileged groups used anti-Semitism to protect “their attempted monopoly of social, economic, and political power.”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mason, Alpheus T. Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life. New York: Viking Press, 1946. One of the best biographies of Brandeis. Excellent on Brandeis’s legal cases as well as his nomination, but does not deal adequately with his Jewishness and Zionism. Based on voluminous primary sources. Strum, Philippa, ed. Brandeis on Democracy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. Collection of Brandeis’s writings—speeches, personal correspondence, newspaper articles, judicial opinions, and more— shows his views on a wide range of issues, including the problems associated with corporate power, the importance of education, and the need for society to address poverty and inequality. Todd, A. L. Justice on Trial: The Case of Louis D. Brandeis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. A welldocumented record of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Brandeis nomination. Concentrates more on the political nature of the struggle than on the anti-Semitism. Provides thorough background on the personalities and the arguments. See also: Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon; Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President; Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations; May 27, 1935: Black Monday.
July, 1916
Fayol Publishes GENERAL AND INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT In his General and Industrial Management, Henri Fayol provided the beginnings of a general theory of management based on his fifty-eight years of successful administrative experience. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Business and labor; publishing and journalism Key Figures Henri Fayol (1841-1925), French mining engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), American industrial engineer Summary of Event Henri Fayol was born in 1841 to a family of the French lower middle class. He was educated at the National 1272
School of Mines at St. Étienne and at the age of nineteen graduated as a mining engineer. In 1860, he accepted a job in the mines of the Commentary-Fourchambault Company (Comambault). He stayed with the same employer until his retirement in 1918. During his years with Comambault, Fayol pursued three different career stages. During the first twelve years, he worked on technical issues, especially the problem of overcoming explosions and fires in the coal mines. From 1872 to 1888, he served as director of operations for a group of mines in the company’s coal business. His intellectual efforts during this second stage were centered on geologic questions, and he published his thoughts on this subject in three technical monographs. Beginning in 1888, Fayol took on the greatest chal-
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His most important written work was a monograph titled “Administration Industrielle et Générale,” which first appeared in the Bulletin of the Societe de L’Industrie Minerale in 1916. This work merged his thoughts from the two previous papers and expanded on a set of principles and concepts that he considered to be “lighthouses” that would lead to a theory of administration. In 1925, the monograph was published in book form in France, and in 1929 it was translated for the first time into English and published in Great Britain. Known to many management scholars in English-speaking countries by the title General and Industrial Management—a translation of the original title that appeared on a 1949 publication of the work—it became a milestone in the history of management thought. So much of contemporary management theory and practice is built on Fayol’s ideas and terminology that it has become difficult to find anything that appears to be unique in his writings. His ideas, however, were certainly revolutionary in the early decades of the twentieth century. In General and Industrial Management, after repeating his arguments for the teaching of management in the schools, Fayol directed his attention to finding a starting point for the educational process by detailing those ideas and principles that he had discovered through practice. His theory, therefore, is based on experience. He first segregated industrial undertakings into activities to clarify the place of administration. Duties within the enterprise, he proposed, could be divided into six categories: technical activities, including production and manufacture; commercial activities of buying, selling, and exchange; financial activities of finding and using capital; security activities of protecting property and persons; accounting activities of inventory control and calculation of balance sheets, costs, and statistics; and managerial activities involving foresight, organization, coordination, and control. Fayol pointed out that individuals need specialized learning to carry out the particular tasks of each of the first five activities, but that managerial capability is generally applied. That is, managerial capability is necessary in each of the first five activities, and it is needed to provide high-level overall direction to the enterprise. Fayol also sought to spell out the personal characteristics of a good manager. He listed six qualities to look for in determining administrative potential: physical qualities of health and vigor; mental qualities, including the ability to understand and learn, judgment, mental vigor, and adaptability; moral qualities of energy, firmness, willingness to accept responsibility, initiative, loyalty, 1273
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lenge of his industrial career. He was appointed directorgeneral of Comambault, becoming chief executive of a firm that was on the verge of bankruptcy. According to Lyndall Urwick, author of a foreword to the 1949 edition of Fayol’s General and Industrial Management, “The success with which he carried out those duties is one of the romances of French industrial history.” Fayol became known across Europe for his success in turning the firm around. When Fayol retired in 1918, Comambault was financially strong and among the largest industrial combines of Europe. The practical knowledge that Fayol gained through his legendary industrial success led him to a fourth career after retirement. He became an advocate of management studies in the schools, and in the process of promoting this belief he gained even more notability as the founder of a revolutionary new approach to management thought. In two papers written prior to his retirement, Fayol began to express his views on management and on the methods he had used successfully at Comambault. In 1900, he argued that management should be considered a necessary skill of organizational life, a skill that is separate and apart from any technical knowledge. His point was that every individual at work and at home carries out administrative functions to a certain degree every day, no matter what title or position the person holds. Fayol had become convinced of the universality of administrative processes, and from this belief he argued that society in general would benefit from the study of management fundamentals at all educational levels. In private enterprise and in public administration, the development of effective managers would be speeded if young trainees were first given a theoretical foundation and then matured through experience. In the home, the church, and social organizations, improved administrative abilities would lead to more efficient uses of personal and societal resources. In his second preretirement paper, “Discourse on the General Principles of Administration,” presented in 1908, Fayol began to identify some of the methods that he believed had led to his successes at Comambault. He was searching for a theory of management to act as a foundation for the practices he had discovered through experience. In this paper he also began to argue that a firm’s technical expertise (tactical actions) is of little benefit if the firm’s administrators are “defective” in their managerial duties (strategic actions). According to Fayol, good administrative talent is more important to the success of an organization than is technical expertise.
Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management
Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management tact, and dignity; general education; special knowledge peculiar to any technical, commercial, financial, or managerial function to be performed; and experience. He understood that the importance of each of these characteristics varies with the level in the hierarchy of the position to be filled. He attempted to establish the relative importance of each of these abilities by graphically plotting their relationships to each of his six industrial activities. The primary obstacle to offering management courses in the schools, Fayol determined, was the lack of something to teach. There was an absence of theory, and without theory the only method of developing managerial capabilities was on-the-job experience. Fayol attempted in part 2 of General and Industrial Management to build a foundation for a theory of management. His fourteen principles of good management, taken from his fifty-eight years of experience, were in his view the beginnings of the development of a theoretical basis for organizational administration. These fourteen principles were as follows: division of work into specialized tasks; authority and responsibility, or the right to give orders and the power to exact obedience; discipline, or clear agreement between management and labor regarding rules and the judicious use of sanctions; unity of command, by which an employee should have only one superior; unity of direction, with only one head and one plan for a group of activities having the same objective; subordination of interests, with individuals subordinating their personal interests to those of the firm; fair and reasonable pay; centralization; a clear hierarchy of authority; a place for everything and everything in its place; equity, with kindness and justice in employee relations; stability of tenure of personnel, with orderly personnel planning and provisions to replace human resources; initiative, with promotion of zeal and energy on the job; and a spirit of teamwork. To provide structure to this study of management, Fayol suggested that a school’s curriculum be designed around the functions performed by a manager. He broke the managerial process into five basic elements: forecasting and planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Based on his experience, he concluded that these are the managerial activities carried out in the direction of the parts or the whole of an organization. Significance During the nineteenth century, business firms in the United States and Europe grew in size beyond anything ever seen before, and many were profitable because they were the first to apply some newly discovered opera1274
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tional or marketing strategy. Efficiency, however, was neglected, and the potential for tactical improvements was quite high. New methods of organizing the production process would turn out to be the keys to success for the first two decades of the twentieth century. Henry Ford revolutionized the manufacturing process by achieving great increases in productivity through the use of the moving assembly line. His specialized machines, interchangeable parts, and standardized products became the definition of American mass production. The tremendous success of the Ford Motor Company earned the attention of managers worldwide. Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American industrial engineer, began to study work itself by examining the actual steps taken by workers on the shop floor. He applied science to the improvement of the work process and by so doing introduced the world to the time study and other scientific management ideas. Taylor and his disciples began a “cult of efficiency” that spread across American industry. Taylorism was popularized in Europe through the successful use of scientific management techniques to meet military needs during World War I. Americans demonstrated the potential of such techniques in building docks, roads, and bridges, and in setting up communication lines. After the war, Henry-Louis Le Châtelier and Charles de Freminville promoted Taylorism in France. Its popularity overshadowed Fayol’s efforts until the last few years of his life. Immediately after his retirement in 1918, Fayol founded and presided over the Center of Administrative Studies, an organization he used to promote the concepts of what would become known as Fayolism. For most of the years after the initial publication of General and Industrial Management and before Fayol’s death in 1925, the disciples of Taylor and the followers of Fayol competed with each other for the attention of French managers. Fayol always contended, however, that the two approaches were in fact complementary. In 1924, others began to agree with his assessment of the situation, and the Center of Administrative Studies merged with Le Châtelier-de Freminville to form the Comité National de l’Organization Française. The approaches that Taylor and Fayol took were simply different paths to the same general goal. They both sought to improve the practice of management through the application of scientific methods. Taylor had begun his career on the shop floor, and his approach came from these beginnings. His methods were mostly tactical and were centered on production processes and accounting
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 procedures. His view was primarily from the bottom up. Fayol, in contrast, discovered his principles and processes while holding a position at the top of a large mining organization. His concepts were mostly strategic, taking the top executive’s view and attempting to integrate the whole from the top down. Although Fayol’s writings were not translated into English until 1929, and even then were not well distributed in book form outside of France, his ideas began to be disseminated in the United States somewhat earlier through the debates that became rather common between Taylorites and Fayolites on the European continent. Fayol’s major influence on American management, however, came after World War II with the 1949 publication of his book under the title General and Industrial Management, translated by Constance Storrs. His functional approach to the study of management became known in the literature as the process school of management thought. By the 1950’s, chapters of most management textbooks were structured around his functional areas of planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Fayol’s work provided the important theoretical foundation needed to prepare students to enter the practice of management. —Robert G. Lynch
tivities, details of his management principles, and a discussion of the functions included in the administrative apparatus. The foreword by Lyndall Urwick provides an excellent overview of Fayol’s accomplishments. George, Claude S., Jr. The History of Management Thought. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972. Includes Fayol among six early contributors to the science of management in his classic history of management. Discusses each of Fayol’s principles and his functions of the manager briefly. Miner, John B. Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Addresses topics of motivation, leadership, and decision making in organizations. Includes introductory material on the origins and history of management theory. Parker, Lee D., and Philip A. Ritson. “Revisiting Fayol: Anticipating Contemporary Management.” British Journal of Management 16, no. 3 (September, 2005): 175-194. Presents a reexamination of Fayol’s life and career, including the arguments he made in General and Industrial Management, to show that today Fayol’s work is often somewhat misrepresented and that it actually anticipated a number of elements of modern management thought. Urwick, Lyndall. The Elements of Administration. New York: Harper & Bros., 1944. Uses the work of Fayol as the framework for a study of several key management scholars. Consolidates the principles and ideas of each scholar. A key resource for those studying Fayol. Wren, Daniel. The Evolution of Management Thought. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Includes brief discussion of Fayol’s career and his key contributions to management theory. Discusses his arguments for teaching management in schools, lists and discusses his principles, and spells out clearly and concisely the processes of planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Well written and well researched. See also: Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School; Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard; Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive. 1275
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Further Reading Archer, Earnest R. “Toward a Revival of the Principles of Management.” Industrial Management 32 (January/February, 1990): 19-22. An analysis of how Japanese management methods are related to Fayol’s classic principles. Argues that the Japanese have applied Fayol’s principles and that the United States should return to these basic ideas. An excellent comparison of the classical approach and the precepts that have brought success to the Japanese. Breeze, John D. “Harvest from the Archives: The Search for Fayol and Carlioz.” Journal of Management 11 (Spring, 1985): 43-47. A discussion of Fayol’s management ideas as applied by one of his top management assistants. Carlioz directed Comambault’s commercial department and was in charge of purchasing and selling. His application of Fayol’s methods brought practicality to the theory. Fayol, Henri. General and Industrial Management. Translated by Constance Storrs. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1949. Consists of the first two sections of Administration Industrielle et Générale. Includes Fayol’s arguments for teaching management in the schools, his discussion of the six industrial ac-
Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management
New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July, 1916
New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law New York City’s comprehensive zoning ordinance became the model for zoning regulations nationwide, ushering in a new era of local land-use controls. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics; urban planning Key Figures Edward Bassett (1863-1948), American attorney George B. Ford (1879-1930), consultant to the New York Commission on Building Districts and Restrictions Summary of Event Zoning is a system of regulations that place restrictions on the ways in which land can be used and on the height, bulk, area, and placement of buildings on the land. Zoning ordinances are probably the most widely used tools that local governments have to protect the environment. Zoning’s legal foundation lies in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This clause gives the government the right to take action to protect the public health, safety, morals, and general welfare. This “police power” is also the basis for the provision of fire, health, and police services by local governments. Whenever a zoning regulation is challenged in court, it must be linked to the goal of protecting the public if it is to survive the legal challenge. Although it was not the first zoning ordinance in the United States, the 1916 New York City zoning law was one of the most influential. As early as 1911, New York residents united to ask for height restrictions on the skyscrapers that were growing rapidly on the city’s skyline, causing traffic congestion and other problems. Two years later, attorney Edward Bassett, head of the city’s Heights of Buildings Commission, proposed that the entire city be zoned. Meanwhile, pressure for zoning built on another front. Around 1900, garment factories and warehouses began invading Fifth Avenue. As the exclusive shops that characterized the area moved up the street, the manufacturers followed them, lowering property values and creating truck traffic. The retailers then appealed to the public, taking out a full-page advertisement enlisting the support of unions, property owners, and the financial 1276
community. The Board of Estimate adopted the regulations proposed by Bassett’s committee in July, 1916. The zoning law provided for three categories of use districts: residential, commercial, and unrestricted. There were five kinds of height districts, with the allowable height of a building depending on the width of the adjoining street. Finally, there were five kinds of area districts, which governed the sizes of yards and courts. It was the first time that bulk and use regulations had been combined and also the first time that maps were used to show the district boundaries. The restrictions on building bulk, designed by consultant George B. Ford to ensure that light and air reached the street, are the reason so many New York buildings have a “wedding cake” design, with each successive floor smaller than the one below it. The ordinance helped retailers by forbidding factories to locate in central Manhattan. Because zoning is not retroactive, however, those factories already in place were not forced to move. In general, the zoning law failed to solve New York’s problems because it was not based on a city-planning study of the area’s projected future population, how the population could be distributed, or how much land would be needed for various uses to serve this population. For example, the resolution allowed space for more than 300 million employees within the city, providing little relief from congestion. Such overzoning was a problem that would continue to plague New York City. Significance Despite the warnings of Ford and others who were familiar with the drawbacks of the New York ordinance, cities nationwide began using the ordinance as a model. Urban areas of the United States were experiencing a zoning crisis in the early 1920’s: Zoning was seen as the cure for every city ill. People were tired of repair shops in residential areas, warehouses in retail shopping districts, and apartment buildings in single-family neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Bassett’s strategy of justifying the city’s right to zone under the provisions of the police power worked: The New York City zoning ordinance withstood all court challenges. This further encouraged many cities throughout the nation to use the New York ordinance as a model for their own city planning. The most famous court case that evolved from cities’ establishment of such ordinances was Village of Euclid
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general, however, zoning in the United States is a function of local governments. In order for local governments in a given state to have the power to zone, the state must first pass enabling legislation that gives zoning power to the localities. The Standard Zoning Enabling Act of 1924, developed by the U.S. Commerce Department under Secretary Herbert Hoover for use as a model by the states, is the foundation of the states’ enabling laws. It in turn is grounded in the New York City zoning ordinance of 1916. Another model law developed under Hoover’s auspices, the Standard City Planning Enabling Act of 1926, governs the power of a city to develop a comprehensive plan and to regulate subdivisions. Thus even the enabling legislation for city planning came after legislation for zoning. All fifty U.S. states eventually passed enabling legislation, and nearly every city in the United States enacted a zoning ordinance. The results of these ordinances in terms of environmental protection are a matter of heated debate, however. Zoning administration is widely seen as a point where planning breaks down because zone changes are granted with little regard for the plan. Inappropriate use of New York-style pyramidal zoning has led to ineffective protection, with incompatible uses still appearing together. Conversely, abuse of the exclusive Berkeley-style zoning has led to extreme dependence on the automobile, as residents are forced to leave their suburban neighborhoods in search of basic goods and services. Zoning too much land for business and industry has led to inappropriate mixes of land uses and urban blight. Techniques were eventually developed to address such problems. Modern zoning ordinances attempt to combine the positive aspects of the two zoning styles by authorizing development on a case-by-case basis using planned unit development zoning districts, in which a variety of use types are permitted under certain restrictive conditions meant to ensure their compatibility. This zoning technique can be used to protect ecologically fragile areas while providing more services to residents. Houston is the largest unzoned city in the United States. Proposals for zoning have been defeated there regularly, and the city is often cited as an example of the effectiveness of nonzoning. Zoning opponents contend that the city is similar to zoned communities in its geography of land uses and in its appearance. Zoning supporters point to problems of skyscrapers next to homes, inadequate sewage systems, and inadequate street capacity as evidence of the need for zoning in the city. Although zoning has not been especially successful in 1277
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v. Ambler Realty (1926), in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the validity of a Euclid, Ohio, zoning ordinance that prohibited apartments in a single-family dwelling zone. This case raised what is commonly called the “takings” issue, a reference to another clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits the government from taking a person’s property without just compensation. Ambler Realty claimed that the singlefamily zoning constituted a taking; the Court, however, ruled that apartments in single-family zones were little more than “parasites” and thus were subject to regulation under the police power clause. Court battles over what degree of zoning regulation constitutes a taking of property continued into the twenty-first century. Bassett’s narrow focus on legality prevented him from basing New York’s zoning on a wider, long-term view of what the city should become; that is, the zoning was not based on a comprehensive city plan. This “zoning before planning” approach was widely copied, with unfortunate results. The New York ordinance employed a pyramidal classification of permitted land uses—that is, uses were restricted in single-family districts, but more and more uses were allowed in the hierarchy of zones, until every use was allowed in the heavy industrial zone. Pyramidal zoning offers little protection to public health, safety, or welfare, because homes can still be built next to factories. The widespread imitation of the New York ordinance left many communities with pyramidal land-use categories that do little to prevent incompatible land uses from occurring. Berkeley, California, adopted a zoning ordinance intended to remedy this problem. Largely as a result of factory owners’ complaints about having to deal with angry home owners nearby, consultant Charles H. Cheney designed an ordinance for Berkeley in 1917 that led to another major trend in zoning: rigid segregation of uses. Cheney’s ordinance did not follow the pyramidal scheme of New York; instead, it prohibited homes from being built in industrial zones. This reaction to the New York scheme, carried to extremes in later years, led to the bland rows of similar homes that characterize many American suburbs. Because the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that all powers not specifically given to the national government shall remain with the states or the people, the U.S. federal government cannot take part in zoning, but national zoning is carried out in many other nations. U.S. states do have the power to zone, however, and a few (Hawaii, for example) have exercised it. In
New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law
New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law protecting environmentally sensitive areas, it retains the potential to become a powerful tool for environmental preservation. Zoning has been widely used to limit development in floodplains, on steep hillsides, in wetlands, in areas sensitive to water pollution, and in areas that provide habitat for endangered species. Related police power laws govern removal of trees, grading, filling, and landscaping for new development. Zoning has also been used to protect areas of cultural and historical significance. Perhaps most important, it has become widely accepted that good zoning must be based on a comprehensive plan that includes environmental data. Computer programs can synthesize large amounts of detailed environmental information to produce composite maps of areas best suited for various types of land use, allowing planning and zoning to be based on ecologically sound information rather than on arbitrary best-guess land allocations. Zoning is thus one of the most powerful environmental protection tools available to local governments. —Elise M. Bright Further Reading Babcock, Richard. The Zoning Game: Municipal Practices and Policies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. This controversial book argues that zoning has drifted away from its avowed legal purposes, becoming a political game that serves special interests rather than the public welfare. Babcock, Richard, and Clifford Weaver. City Zoning: The Once and Future Frontier. Chicago: Planners Press, 1979. Argues that zoning has failed to be an effective tool and in fact has furthered the decline of many inner-city neighborhoods. Presents proposals for using zoning as a proactive tool in urban settings to encourage more livable city environments. Bright, Elise M. “The ALLOT Model: A PC-Based Approach to Land Use Planning.” Computers, Environment, and Urban Systems 16 (1992): 435-451. De-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 scribes ways in which environmental data can be used as the basis for planning and zoning. Cullingworth, J. Barry. The Political Culture of Planning: American Land Use Planning in Comparative Perspective. New York: Routledge, 1993. Offers an extensive history of zoning in the United States and draws valuable comparisons with the systems used in Great Britain and Canada. A useful introduction to the field. Cullingworth, J. Barry, and Roger W. Caves. Planning in the USA: Policies, Issues, and Processes. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. Introduction to the theory and practice of city planning. Includes extensive discussion of the history, purposes, and techniques of zoning. Fishman, Robert, ed. The American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000. Collection of essays discusses the early planners who shaped American cities as well as the principles of planning theory and modern efforts to plan for transportation and protection of the environment and natural resources. Scott, Mel. American City Planning Since 1890. 1971. Reprint. Chicago: American Planning Association, 1995. Presents an extensive history of planning and zoning, with sections on the New York ordinance and a brief treatment of the Standard Zoning Enabling Act. Thurow, Charles, William Toner, and Duncan Erley. Performance Controls for Sensitive Lands. Chicago: American Planning Association Planners Press, 1968. A thorough treatment of those aspects of the environment that are of greatest concern to planners. Presents and analyzes relevant provisions from zoning and related police power ordinances from localities across the United States. Valuable for anyone who must write an environmentally based ordinance. See also: May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy
August, 1916
Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy The Hindenburg Program of 1916 attempted to organize the German economy more effectively for war once it became clear that a quick victory was not in sight. Locale: Germany Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; economics; World War I Key Figures Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), German general Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), German general William II (1859-1941), emperor of Germany, r. 18881918 Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921), chancellor of Germany, 1909-1917 Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922), Prussian general and minister of war Max Bauer (1869-1929), German colonel and artillery expert Wilhelm Groener (1867-1939), German general
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Summary of Event The Hindenburg Program is the name given to a series of initiatives that attempted to reorganize Germany’s war effort during World War I around the concept of total war. The program reversed previous policies regarding munitions and manpower, seeking to produce a vastly increased amount of weapons and munitions in a fixed amount of time. The results were mixed. Some increase in weapons production was achieved, but at the expense of major disruptions in coal production and transportation, accompanied by heightened social tensions and strikes. For all of its aggressive activity and rhetoric prior to 1914, Germany entered World War I only minimally prepared to mobilize its enormous industrial potential behind the war effort. This lack of preparation was the result of German military planners’ belief that any war would be short. On August 13, 1914, the War Raw Materials Department (Kriegsrohstoffabteilung, or KRA) was established within the Prussian War Ministry. The KRA fixed maximum prices, allocated raw materials, and was charged with developing substitutes for scarce materials. Special, privately held, war raw materials corporations under business leadership were set up to control the acquisition and distribution of individual strategic materials. The War Ministry and the KRA centered all war pro-
duction goals on the production of powder, based on the appreciation that weapons required munitions and munitions required powder. They also held war materials producers to higher standards and lower profit margins than those producers desired. An importer of food, industrial raw materials, and labor, the German economy was peculiarly dependent on international markets and could ill afford a long war. When the Schlieffen Plan went awry in September, 1914, the German war economy was left in a perilous situation. Any policies carried out by Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, the War Ministry, and the KRA were sure to come under criticism. Businesspeople claimed that they could produce more and better weapons if the War Ministry would get out of the way. They were supported and urged on by individuals on the general staff such as Colonel Max Bauer, who wanted to wrest power from the War Ministry. Other staffers, such as General Wilhelm Groener, head of the railways section of the general staff at the beginning of the war, thought that a more efficient mechanism than the KRA could be found. These individuals found an ally in General Erich Ludendorff, who advocated an all-out offensive on “his” front, that in Russia. All agreed for their own reasons that some sort of dictator or strongman was necessary. Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg wanted to use the prestige of the hero of the East, General Paul von Hindenburg, as a shield behind which he could negotiate a compromise peace. Only in August, 1916, did this strange, divided coalition succeed in convincing Emperor William II to replace Falkenhayn with Hindenburg. William was reluctant to make this move because he knew that the lionized Hindenburg could easily eclipse him in popularity. Moreover, he despised Ludendorff, the true genius behind Hindenburg’s success. As little as William cared for civilian servants such as Bethmann Hollweg, he reasoned that although they shared some power with the military, he as emperor was not out of the picture. The Hindenburg Program developed in stages. In November, the Supreme War Office (Oberstes Kriegsamt, or OK) was created under the leadership of Groener. Theoretically, the OK functioned as part of the War Ministry, but in reality it was the domain of the army high command. It was put in charge of both the KRA and the Arms and Munitions Procurement Office, both formerly the province of the War Ministry. The OK set new, high
Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance During the course of 1917, the goals of the Hindenburg Program had to be scaled back continually. The program experienced the sorts of bottlenecks and dislocations that Falkenhayn, the War Ministry, and the KRA had with some success managed to avoid before August, 1916. As a plan to concentrate on war production, the Hindenburg Program was partially successful. It is estimated that production in the consumer goods sector shrunk by half. The program, however, failed to produce weapons and munitions sufficient to turn the tide of the war in Germany’s favor. Whatever increase in war production was realized, it was at the exGerman emperor William II (center), flanked by his primary World War I military pense of social cohesion. The polleaders, Paul von Hindenburg (left) and Erich Ludendorff . (Library of Congress) icy of financing the war by printing money, in tandem with the program’s goals for the production of weapons and munitions. Price weapons-at-any-price procurement policy, resulted in and quality became less significant, and waves of highthe creation of a wealthy class of “war profiteers” who priced contracts were let out. Transportation bottlenecks were able to live extravagantly while others suffered developed. Coal production failed to keep pace with infrom shortages and overwork. The government’s food dustry’s increased demand, which incidentally diverted policies, which favored producers to the detriment of warmth from people’s homes. Their coffers overflowing consumers, heightened social tensions as well. Aware of with marks fresh off the government’s printing presses, growing disquiet among the population at large, the ciindustrialists competed to attract skilled workers who vilian government tried to offer the hope of future social had returned from the war or were exempt from service. reform as a means of staving off social unrest. In his This latter development led to the second aspect of the Easter Speech of April, 1917, the emperor promised Hindenburg Program, an attempt to mobilize and control postwar political reform and the abolition of Prussia’s inlabor resources known as the Auxiliary Service Law of equitable suffrage laws. None of this sat well with the December 5, 1916. Before 1914, Germany had been a militarists and expansionists coalesced around Ludenlabor-importing country. With traditional supplies of dorff and the high command, nor was it sufficient to preforeign labor disrupted and several million men in servent the outbreak of strikes in Berlin and Leipzig the vice at the front, the labor shortage had become acute by same month. These strikes at first concerned food and the second year of the war. Workers in the weapons inworking hours, but later strikers began to issue political dustry had responded by exercising greater mobility in demands. search of higher wages or better conditions. The AuxilThe immediate result of the Hindenburg Program was iary Service Law mandated that all men between seventhus a minimal, strategically insufficient increase in war teen and sixty years of age be drafted into work deemed production achieved at high economic and social cost. necessary to the war economy. At the same time, the law The program failed to provide Germany with the weapplaced restrictions on their mobility. In return, workers’ ons needed to win the war. Moreover, it helped to committees were introduced in all firms with more than sharpen social and political antagonisms between interfifty employees. These committees, elected by and repests and classes and, by doing so, ensured the fall of the monarchy, which occurred in November, 1918. resentative of the workers, were legally recognized as The Hindenburg Program had two important mediumequal partners with the employers in negotiations over term effects. The Auxiliary Service Law established the wages and working conditions. 1280
Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy
terrain on which many of the domestic political disputes of the 1920’s would be fought. The workers’ committees established under the law, for example, provided the basis for collective bargaining. The industrialists of the Weimar Republic bitterly resented the increased power of their workers, as represented by collective bargaining and the forty-hour week; they made a diminution of these workers’ gains a condition of their participation in government after 1923. Perhaps of even greater significance, the policy of purchasing war matériel with unsupported paper currency laid the groundwork for Germany’s postwar hyperinflation. The inflation, in turn, probably did more to discredit the new republican regime in the popular mind than any other factor. The Hindenburg Program’s long-term effects were similarly pernicious. The program’s authors were never really brought to task for their role in unleashing social and political chaos or in losing the war. Instead, other scapegoats, including politicians, socialists, and the Jews, were found. Hindenburg’s popularity never diminished. In 1925, he was elected the second president of the republic by a coalition of conservative, nationalist, and monarchist parties. In 1930, he appointed a chancellor to rule without a parliamentary majority, and three years later he accepted Adolf Hitler as the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic. Hitler, for his part, learned little from the failure of Ludendorff’s eastern expansionism or from the failed experiment with “war socialism.” Although Hitler and his cronies would claim to enter World War II with a realistic economic plan in place, the competing fiefdoms made a full utilization of resources for the war effort impossible. The regime only opted for “total war” in 1942. If armaments czar Albert Speer did a better job than Ludendorff, Groener, and Bauer, it was not because he had learned from their mistakes. —George Vascik
Further Reading Feldman, Gerald D. Army, Industry, and Labor in Germany, 1914-1918. Rev. ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. The standard text on the Hindenburg Program, first published in 1966. New preface in this edition describes the research done between 1964 and 1992 on German domestic policy during the war and suggests how the author’s views changed in the intervening years. _______. The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914-1924. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Comprehensive study of the German hyperinflation places that development within the context of broader issues. Includes tables, illustrations, and index. Hardach, Gerd. The First World War, 1914-1918. Translated by Peter and Betty Ross. London: Allen Lane, 1977. A good overview text on the war, with attention to the German internal situation. Kocka, Jürgen. Facing Total War: German Society, 1914-1918. Translated by Barbara Weinberger. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. The standard text on the domestic policies of the German government during the war. Vincent, C. Paul. The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915-1919. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985. Concerns how the nutritional requirements of Germans were met and the effects of the Hindenburg Program on provision of food. See also: Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government; Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
National Park Service Is Created
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 25, 1916
National Park Service Is Created A new philosophy of natural resource conservation spawned a federal program of park management in the United States. Also known as: National Park Service Act; Organic Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions; natural resources Key Figures Stephen T. Mather (1867-1930), first director of the National Park Service Horace M. Albright (1890-1987), second director of the National Park Service Franklin K. Lane (1864-1921), U.S. secretary of the interior John Muir (1838-1914), cofounder and first president of the Sierra Club Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), first director of the U.S. Forest Service William E. Colby (1875-1964), secretary of the Sierra Club, 1900-1949 William Kent (1864-1928), U.S. congressman from California Reed Smoot (1862-1941), U.S. senator from Utah John F. Lacey (1841-1913), U.S. congressman from Iowa J. Horace McFarland (1859-1948), first president of the American Civic Association Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957), American landscape architect and conservationist Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event Many of the national parks, national monuments, and other areas in the United States that eventually became parts of the national park system predate the creation of the National Park Service. They were created on an ad hoc basis without any clear plan for their management. Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872 because the area’s scenic wonders had impressed those who had visited it, some of those visitors were politically influential and agitated for creation of the park, local officials supported the idea, and the area was considered to have little economic value. Yellowstone was not a part of any state, so if it were to be a park, it would necessarily be a 1282
national park. In the years following passage of the Yellowstone Act, the U.S. Congress reserved other areas of superlative scenery, and—although their legal descriptions differed—the Department of the Interior treated them as national parks. Prominent early parks included Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant (now Kings Canyon), created in 1890; Mount Rainier, established in 1899; Crater Lake, 1902; Mesa Verde, 1906; Glacier, 1910; and Hawaii (now Haleakala and Hawaii Volcanoes) and Lassen Volcanic, 1916. These early parks were created because particular individuals or organizations promoted their creation and there was no organized opposition. Other areas that eventually became national parks were declared to be objects of historic or scientific interest and set aside as national monuments by the president under authority of the 1906 Antiquities Act. Prominent examples are the Petrified Forest, 1906; the Grand Canyon, 1908; Mount Olympus (now Olympic) and Mukuntuweap (now Zion), 1909; and Sieur de Monts (now Acadia), 1916. Some national monuments were managed by the Department of the Interior, others by the Department of Agriculture or the War Department. These parks and monuments enjoyed some legal protection, but practical protection was another matter. Park management was minimal and unsystematic. The Department of the Interior was able to do little to prevent wholesale trespassing and looting; for that reason, between 1883 and 1918 some of the nation’s premier parks were administered by the U.S. Army. Furthermore, even the legal protections proved to be undependable. In 1913, the city of San Francisco received congressional approval to have the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite National Park dammed for a municipal water supply. Two years later, President Woodrow Wilson cut the size of Mount Olympus National Monument in half to make more lumber available for harvest. Gifford Pinchot, director of the U.S. Forest Service until 1910, had expressed the wish to have the national parks transferred to his agency for management. The precariousness of legal and practical protections enjoyed by the parks convinced many preservationists that the parks needed an organic act providing a firm legal foundation and an agency of the federal government dedicated to their protection and management. The campaign for a national park service was waged simultaneously inside and outside the government. At
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
National Park Service Is Created
the center of the private effort was a coalition of conservationists, headed in the East by J. Horace McFarland, president of the American Civic Association, and in the West by William E. Colby and John Muir of the Sierra Club. Colby and others organized the Society for the Preservation of National Parks, with Muir as president and a number of prominent preservationists, including McFarland, on the group’s advisory council. Many of those active in the effort were prolific writers, and their advocacy of the parks appeared frequently in popular magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ladies’ Home Journal, National Geographic, Outlook, and the Saturday Evening Post. Inside the government, the effort was led by Stephen T. Mather and Horace M. Albright. Both were recruited
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to work for Franklin K. Lane, who had become secretary of the interior in March, 1913. Mather worked tirelessly to make the parks accessible and popular with the traveling public, often using private funds, including his own, when governmental appropriations were insufficient. He forged alliances with interested railroads and worked effectively with the leaders of the American Civic Association, the Sierra Club, and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, all of whom were active in promoting a parks bureau. In 1910, Congressman John F. Lacey of Iowa, author of the 1906 Antiquities Act, introduced a bill to create a national park bureau, but it was not acted upon. Thereafter, bills proposing some sort of management agency for the parks were introduced regularly, but there was significant opposition. Much of it came from the Forest Service, which reflected Pinchot’s commitment to a multiple-use management philosophy for all the federal lands, and from legislators opposed to bureaucratic growth. By 1915, McFarland and his associates outside the government were working closely with Mather, Albright, and selected members of Congress. Early in 1916, this informal group drafted a bill that was introduced by William Kent in the House and Reed Smoot in the Senate. Somewhat different bills were passed by the two houses of Congress, and it appeared that the session would end yet again without a park service bill being passed. Albright intervened to facilitate an agreement between the House and Senate committee chairs, and that agreement eventually was ratified by the conference committee. The bill was approved by Congress and signed by President Wilson on August 25, 1916. The act of August 25 has no formal title, but it is often called the National Park Service Act or, in park circles, the Organic Act. It created the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior and gave that department control over all national parks and over those national monuments already administered by the department. In its most important sentence, believed to have been written by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the act charged the National Park Service “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife . . . and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall (left) and Stephen T. Mather, first means as will leave them unimpaired for the endirector of the National Park Service, at Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, in 1921. (National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection) joyment of future generations.”
National Park Service Is Created Significance The creation of a park service did not produce immediate results, but between 1916 and 1933, first Mather and then Albright led the agency through an era of growth, consolidation, improved infrastructure, and increasingly professional management. After World War II, Americans’ interest in the parks grew, and visitation mushroomed. By the mid-1990’s, park visits numbered about three hundred million per year, and the National Park Service supervised a system comprising eighty million acres, including some fifty national parks and approximately three hundred other natural, historic, and cultural sites. The U.S. National Park Service’s practice of employing management experts in a variety of fields was emulated widely by park managers around the world. With increased popularity came a multitude of new problems, however, including crime, overcrowding, and inadequate infrastructure. Contentious debates began concerning how to handle these issues, pitting those in favor of preservation against those who argued for greater public access. These debates continued into the twenty-first century, as the National Park Service appeared at times to be increasingly influenced by the vagaries of electoral politics. —Craig W. Allin Further Reading Albright, Horace M. The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33. Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1985. Account of the foundation and early years of the National Park Service by one of the most important participants in the events. Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. A political scientist presents the story of the national parks as part of the movement to preserve wilderness in the United States. Examines the motivations of those involved and the political compromises made. Everhart, William C. The National Park Service. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983. Readable account begins with a history of the establishment of the agency and continues through the early 1980’s. The author served as adviser to two directors of the National Park Service. Foresta, Ronald A. America’s National Parks and Their Keepers. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1984. Analysis of modern park policies and issues, informed by a sense of history.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lowry, William R. The Capacity for Wonder: Preserving National Parks. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994. Discusses how the political compromises that have shaped the structure of the National Park Service from the beginning have shaped its ability to meet the modern problems of overcrowding, crime, inadequate infrastructure, and environmental pollution. Mackintosh, Barry. The National Park Service Administrative History: A Guide. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1991. Bibliographic guide contains annotated entries on the administrative and topical histories of the national parks, books contained in the park service’s history collection, and records on the parks held in the National Archives. Invaluable resource for anyone researching any U.S. national park or the history of the service. _______. The National Parks: Shaping the System. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. Provides a good history of the National Park Service. Includes maps. Rettie, Dwight F. Our National Park System: Caring for America’s Greatest Natural and Historic Treasures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. A tour of the modern national park system and the agency that manages it, presented by a longtime employee of the National Park Service. Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience. 3d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Interpretive history of the national parks and what they mean to Americans. Argues that park creation and maintenance has had more to do with nationalism and commercialism than with environmentalism. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. Shankland, Robert. Steve Mather of the National Parks. 3d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. Popular biography of the National Park Service’s charismatic first director. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon; 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission
September 8, 1916
United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission Seeking to restructure and reform tariffs along “scientific” lines, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration created the Federal Tariff Commission. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; organizations and institutions Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Frank William Taussig (1859-1940), American economist Oscar Underwood (1862-1929), U.S. congressman from Alabama Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Robert John Walker (1801-1869), U.S. secretary of the treasury, 1845-1849
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Summary of Event The U.S. government’s establishment of the independent Federal Tariff Commission in 1916 represented a turning point in reformers’ half-century struggle against the politics of protectionism. Tariffs are schedules of duties levied by government fiat on imports, and sometimes on exports. Since 1789, when the first such duties were levied in the United States, tariffs had been the subject of debate and often of passionate controversy among Americans. Debates concerned the levels of tariffs and their uses, such as the promotion of free trade and the protection and subsidization of “infant industries” (those in the process of development and therefore unable to compete in international markets), sectional interests, and politically powerful farmers and manufacturers. Tariffs also represent a source of federal revenues and are used as weapons of trade policy and foreign policy. Such issues have surrounded the subject of tariffs in many local elections and in nearly every presidential campaign from the founding of the United States into the beginning of the twenty-first century. In pre-Civil War years, while southern and eastern agricultural interests held sway in Washington, the tendency of the Democratic administrations representing them to maintain low tariffs became an article of faith. With the ascendance of northern and western Republicanism from the 1860’s to the early 1900’s, and again in the 1920’s, the political al-
legiance of the dominant party shifted to protectionism and high tariffs. Reform impulses of the Progressive Era emerged during a fifty-year period of high, at times exclusionary, Republican-made tariffs. Rarely did political pronouncements of the dominant Republicans include discussion of the virtues of liberalizing foreign trade. The momentum of reform, which cut across party lines, did encompass tariff rates. Convictions about tariff issues thus became a simplistic touchstone of whether individuals were identified as conservative champions of economic privilege or were marked as liberals eager to relieve consumers of tariff-raised prices and to restore a competitive marketplace. Without publicly abandoning their support of high tariffs, Republican administrations beginning early in the 1880’s nevertheless negotiated a series of short-term reciprocal trade treaties that in principle modified their protectionism. Even a paragon of Republican conservatism such as President William McKinley had concluded privately by 1897 that, as the world’s major industrial power, the United States had outgrown the need to isolate and safeguard its economy behind high tariff walls. The nation’s productivity and attendant surpluses of goods, its new international interests, its growing imperial commitments, and its increasingly restive antitariff forces all indicated that prosperity was no longer tied exclusively to the domestic market. Consequently, under McKinley’s presidential successor, Theodore Roosevelt, there were signs of tariff moderation and of lowered rates, including passage of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909. President Woodrow Wilson, an eloquent advocate of reforms and a learned exponent of “positive government,” engineered or supported the largest packet of American reform legislation in history, most of it during his first term in office. Tariff reform was ranked foremost on his legislative agenda and proved in 1913 to be the earliest of his political tests before Congress. Wilson chose the Underwood bill, vetoed by his predecessor, William Howard Taft, as the vehicle to affirm his commitment to making American business and agriculture genuinely competitive through a restructuring of tariffs. After his inauguration, Wilson consulted with the bill’s author, Oscar Underwood, an Alabama Democrat who chaired the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives. The bill stung hordes of lobbyists into action and was debated hotly. Wilson’s
United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission personal appearance before Congress to urge its passage was almost unprecedented and constituted a daring gamble in which he risked his party stature and his executive authority. Successfully enacted in 1913, the Underwood Tariff Act (also known as the Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act) was described appropriately as the most revolutionary tariff reduction and revision in more than half a century, matched only by Treasury Secretary Robert John Walker’s classic enunciation in 1846 of principles of low tariffs, to be used only for revenue and not for protectionism. The Underwood Tariff specifically invested wide discretionary authority in the secretary of the treasury to examine the books of importers suspected of dishonesty, to strengthen the power of collectors, and to improve the assemblage of accurate trade and tariff statistics. These were all subtle extensions of federal authority. Of more lasting significance, the act carried provisions for an income tax to compensate for the $100 million in revenues expected to be lost from tariff reduction, a tax soon institutionalized by the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Federal Tariff Commission, created in 1916 as one of the first independent federal agencies, was designed as a keystone to this lengthy and often tortuous process of tariff reform. The immediate aims of the commission were to winnow the morass of often-unreliable information on which previous tariffs had been based and to collect accurate data that would inform the structuring of “scientific” tariffs. The Wilson administration hoped to depoliticize the tariff-setting process, removing it from insidious lobbying and favoritism that generally had marred it in the past. It was hoped that future Congresses and presidents could be informed by the unbiased advice of experts. The six members of the commission, among them the distinguished Harvard economist and tariff historian Frank William Taussig, were presidential appointees. The members, three Republicans and three Democrats, were to serve six-year terms upon their Senate confirmations. Neither political party was enthused about establishing the commission; Wilson’s demonstration of his presidential authority alone carried the commission into being. Wilson was clear about wanting to depoliticize the process of setting tariffs, about eliminating the special privileges masked behind earlier tariffs, and about listening to the complaints of small businesses and reformers. Wilson was not an unbridled advocate of free trade. He described himself as a “rational protectionist” and had insisted in campaign speeches on a “competitive tariff,” 1286
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a position close in practice to the Republican call for tariffs designed to equalize domestic costs of production with the costs of imported goods. The fate of the commission and the services it might be called on to perform depended on presidential perceptions about the objectives to be sought in the formulation of national policies. Significance Tariff experts and economists such as Taussig were aware of the inherent limitations imposed on the Federal Tariff Commission at its inception. They saw as illusory the hope among reformers that the commission could help the enactment of scientific tariffs. As Taussig wrote dismissively in this connection, “There are no scientific laws applicable to economic problems.” Later, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson described pleas for a scientific tariff as “the most vicious” argument for a tariff, one that for generations had ignorantly informed federal policy and reflected adversely on the “economic literacy” of the American people. Many of the justifications advanced by Wilson and other Progressives in the battle to establish a tariff commission were fallacious. Reformers hoped to make the tariff scientific by making it “competitive,” and Republican conservatives insisted on a tariff that “equalized the costs of production at home and abroad.” In practice, these were nearly identical positions. The unsoundness of them rests on the fact that trade is based on differences in costs and advantages among individuals and nations. Contrary to this, a so-called scientific tariff gave sanction to the prejudices that all industries are equally worth having; that when cost differences between nations grow, duties accordingly should rise; and that every industry, regardless of the quality of its products and its adaptation to American natural resources, should enjoy the equalizing protection of the tariff. The fallacious reasoning stemmed from politics and not from economics, but its prevalence highlighted the political limitations that weighed on the Federal Tariff Commission. The commission was an administrative agency and as such was incapable of significantly influencing national policy making. Moreover, as friendly observers of the commission noted during its first years of operation, even if it were to be charged with preparing a tariff or elaborating a tariff bill, it was ill equipped to do so. The experience of the Tariff Commission of 1882 and the Tariff Board of 1910 (both temporary organizations) indicated that the time required for requisite investigations of costs and conditions at home and abroad, as well as for reviews and the actual formulation of tariff sched-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
without domestic opposition, the general bent of American trade policy at the end of the twentieth century was toward free trade, as evidenced by the negotiation of free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the regional level and participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the international level. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Eckes, Alfred E., Jr. Opening America’s Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Examines the history of American foreign trade policy since the nation’s founding. Includes discussion of the Underwood Tariff Act and the Federal Tariff Commission. Leech, Margaret. In the Days of McKinley. 1959. Reprint. Newtown, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 1999. Discusses McKinley’s career, which was closely identified with protectionism. Insightful on changes in his views. Fine background to an understanding of why reformers wanted a permanent tariff commission. Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954. Authoritative synthesis by a leading Wilson scholar. Excellent on tariff issues and the commission. Photos, ample footnotes, essay on sources, excellent index. Invaluable for context and specifics. Lyon, Leverett S., and Victor Abramson. Government and Economic Life. Vol. 2. 1940. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978. Authoritative and easy to read. Chapter 20 is a superb summary of tariff history and the tariff commission. Updates and condenses Taussig’s works. Taussig, Frank W. Free Trade, the Tariff, and Reciprocity. New York: Macmillan, 1920. Taussig remains the chief authority on tariff history through 1930. This clearly written work reflects his interactions with working government as well as his academic specialization. _______. The Tariff History of the United States. 1892. Reprint. New York: A. M. Kelley, 1967. An essential, authoritative, easy-to-read survey. Chapters 8 through 11 discuss the commission’s evolution and functions. Includes index. See also: Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy; June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements. 1287
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ules, would prove much too lengthy for such work to be of service to Congress. Exactly how contingent the work of the Federal Tariff Commission was on the varying degrees of enlightenment that characterized national politics was manifested by a renaissance of high protectionism from 1921 to 1934. Wilson’s emergency tariff of 1921 raised import levies on most agricultural products and reversed the pronounced downward trend of the Underwood Tariff. This reversal was followed swiftly by the FordneyMcCumber Tariff Act in 1922, which elevated levies imposed on manufactured imports and farm products substantially above the Payne-Aldrich levels of 1909. Presidential selection of tariff commission members, moreover, ran to the mediocre. Then, in the midst of economic crisis at the onset of the Great Depression and against the advice of more than a thousand economists, the administration of President Herbert Hoover enacted the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act in 1930, imposing the highest protective tariffs in the nation’s history. Tariff commissioners could draw some comfort from changes in the law that allowed presidents, after receiving the commission’s recommendations, to alter individual tariff rates by half of those set by Congress. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first New Deal administration shifted from economic isolationism to the initiation of long-term tariff reductions by means of reciprocal trade agreements in 1934, vitality was infused into the commission’s functions by the perceived mandates of a new trade era. After 1934, and continuing almost unabated into the twenty-first century, with a few exceptions, protectionism was repudiated as national policy. That change was reflected in the Federal Tariff Commission’s redesignation in 1974 as the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC, in conjunction with advising presidents, Congress, and other governmental agencies on a wide array of trade and tariff questions, exercises important investigatory and reporting functions in regard to the fiscal and industrial effects of American customs laws. These encompass relationships between duties on raw materials and finished products, the impact of customs laws on national revenues as well as on industry and labor, the trade and tariff relations between the United States and other countries, economic alliances, commercial treaties, multilateral trade negotiations, and the effects of foreign competition on American industries. ITC data analysts monitor the impacts of hundreds of categories of imports on the domestic economy. As always, the utility and effectiveness of such agencies are determined by the nation’s political course. Not
United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission
First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 11, 1916
First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens With his Piggly Wiggly grocery store, Clarence Saunders introduced self-service grocery shopping and established the basis for the supermarket. Locale: Memphis, Tennessee Categories: Marketing and advertising; trade and commerce; business and labor Key Figure Clarence Saunders (1881-1953), American grocer Summary of Event On September 11, 1916, Clarence Saunders opened his first retail grocery outlet, which he named King Piggly Wiggly. This store and others that followed incorporated Saunders’s ideas regarding how best to organize, sell, and advertise grocery products. Unlike virtually every other store in the trade at the time, Saunders’s Piggly Wiggly featured self-service, which meant there was no need for the many clerks who served customers in more traditional grocery stores. Saunders’s was the first chain of stores to incorporate self-service. A native of Amherst County, Virginia, Saunders acquired his early experiences in the grocery trade while he was a young man in Clarksville, Tennessee. Saunders moved in 1900 to Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked as a clerk in a local grocery store. In 1904, he assumed the position of salesman for Shanks-Phillips, a Memphis grocery company. He spent a number of years learning the grocery business, and by 1915 he had moved from salesman to head of a grocery cooperative and finally had become the owner of a wholesale grocery business, the Saunders-Blackburn Company. Having seen the industry from every angle, Saunders concluded that the methods being used to deliver food and beverages demanded significant rethinking, especially given the combination of high operating costs and excessive credit so widespread among grocery outlets. Saunders’s understanding of the grocery business encouraged him to move beyond self-service in organizing his stores. He mandated that each shelf item in his stores display a clearly marked price. This eliminated haggling over prices and thus quickened the pace of customers’ shopping. Saunders also introduced a new type of store design that compelled each patron to walk down every aisle and pass every type of grocery product before leaving the store. Saunders hoped this exposure would spark impulse buying and boost his sales. To encourage this 1288
buying, Saunders demanded that shelves be within easy reaching distance of customers and always fully stocked. Products appeared on shelves according to type and brand, facilitating customers’ searches for specific products. When customers were finished shopping, they passed through a turnstile, another innovation pioneered by Saunders, and a single clerk totaled the prices for all the items and packaged the goods. The exteriors of all Saunders’s stores were painted in blue, brown, and yellow, with the name Piggly Wiggly appearing in white. This standard design increased customer recognition. Saunders understood the growing popularity of nationally produced brand-name goods and the widespread knowledge made available to customers through the national advertising of large-scale producers. By the 1910’s, national manufacturers had built up substantial levels of trust among customers through aggressive promotional campaigns that often made their products more appealing to customers than locally manufactured brands. Saunders’s stores capitalized on the free advertising provided by these manufacturers to lure customers and to reassure them of the quality of the products featured in Piggly Wiggly outlets. Saunders complemented this strategy with advertisements composed in his own unique prose. He also decorated his stores with thoughtfully crafted and patented fixtures and fittings to give the stores a modern appearance. Saunders’s concern with details was evidenced in his dealings with employees as well. He insisted that no clerk handle merchandise or render assistance to a customer in choosing a grocery product, both long-standing traditions in the grocery trade. To reinforce customer confidence, all clerks in Saunders’s stores were required to wear sanitary uniforms provided by the company whenever they were on duty. The manual that stated the rules of appropriate conduct for all Piggly Wiggly employees noted that each clerk had an assigned task and should work at that task exclusively. Saunders even hired experts who used the time-andmotion approach, made famous among large-scale corporations by Frederick Winslow Taylor, to study his employees and the ways they carried out tasks. These efficiency experts aimed to remove all unnecessary motions and create the most time-effective means of accomplishing specific tasks. Saunders and his management team planned almost all aspects of the stores’ operations, from the handling of customer-damaged goods to the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 number of keys allocated to each outlet. Devices used in the operation of the stores, such as weights, were placed in locations that allowed clerks to handle products only once before transferring them to the customers. These techniques dictated practices throughout the growing Piggly Wiggly self-service chain, which was formally incorporated in 1919. In developing his company’s methods, Saunders jettisoned time-honored practices that had marked the grocery business. Credit, which grocers had long made available to the majority of their customers, and delivery of orders had no place in a self-service system. Practices such as assisting customers in selecting goods also conflicted with Saunders’s guidelines for the behavior of all employees. Individual attention to customers had been
First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens the rule in the traditional grocery store; Saunders’s approach left customers alone and had them do much of the work that clerks performed in other stores. The benefits of Saunders’s innovations quickly appeared in the company’s balance sheets. In the first six months of operation, the first Piggly Wiggly generated $114,000 in business. Saunders’s eye for detail and efficiency reduced operating costs $300 a month from those of the previous owners, who had conducted a grocery business in the same building. Saunders accomplished this feat with many of the previous owners’ employees, whom he kept on and retrained. By 1922, the Piggly Wiggly chain had grown to twelve hundred stores operating in twenty-nine states. Saunders’s control of the Piggly Wiggly chain failed
1916 Interior view of the first Piggly Wiggly store shows the entrance turnstile, wicker baskets for customers to use in collecting their groceries, and the checkout counter. (Library of Congress)
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First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens to survive an attack on his stock by hostile Wall Street interests. These speculators sought to make money by manipulating Piggly Wiggly’s stock price. In an effort to defend his company, Saunders secured $10 million in loans to do battle with the speculators, but despite his best efforts, he lost his grip on the grocery chain and faced economic ruin. Saunders then made a spectacular appeal to the Memphis community for financial backing to repay the borrowed money. He argued that his personal failure would be bad for Memphis and its businesses. With powerful backing from the press, Saunders attempted to sell fifty thousand shares in the company to the citizens of Memphis. Open declarations of support from civic groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Legion seemed to promise a way out of his dilemma. Growing suspicions about his handling of Piggly Wiggly affairs, however, undermined this bid for community support and convinced Saunders to step down as head of the Piggly Wiggly chain. Before the end of 1924, he had sunk into bankruptcy. By 1928, local backing in Memphis enabled Saunders to open another chain, which he called Clarence Saunders’—Sole Owner of My Name, but the business proved unable to withstand the impact of the Great Depression. Saunders tried again with a new grocery store, the Keedoozle, in which he introduced mechanical means of selecting and packing food and beverages. Despite years of effort, difficulties with the mechanized shopping devices prevented the store from ever operating as anticipated. Never despairing, Saunders prepared in the early 1950’s to open the “foodelectric,” another venture into automated shopping. He suffered a heart attack in October, 1953, however, and died before he had completed work on his new design. Significance Clarence Saunders’s self-service idea foretold sweeping changes in the grocery business. As a forerunner of the supermarket, Piggly Wiggly challenged the practices of established chains such as the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P). The grocery business included both small independent outlets and chain stores that pursued a strategy of multiple, low-inventory stores scattered over an area. Such outlets depended on a daily neighborhood trade, which later diminished in the age of the automobile and the refrigerator. In both independent retailers and the chain stores, most grocery shopping in the United States retained its traditional character well into the 1930’s. Clerks dealt 1290
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 with each customer on an individual basis, including extending credit and delivering orders placed by telephone. Buyers did not handle the grocery items, which were situated behind counters. Clerks filled orders on an itemby-item basis, often suggesting related products to customers as a way of boosting sales. Once a patron’s order was filled, the clerk wrapped and packaged the groceries and totaled the bill, which the customer promptly settled or had recorded in a credit ledger. Speed and customer turnover played no role in the thinking of most grocery store owners. The small-scale independents relied on high prices and high margins to generate their profits, as their volume of business was lower than that of chain stores. The independents’ grocery trade was usually anchored within a network of friends and neighbors. In contrast, chain stores pursued a strategy of volume sales, numerous outlets, and low prices to spur profits. By 1914, the A&P had introduced the Economy Store, which dispensed with most services commonly associated with grocery outlets. All business in such a store was conducted strictly on a cash-and-carry basis. This approach precipitated a sharp drop in prices and boosted sales among cost-conscious customers. Still, neither the chains nor the independents had adopted self-service for their operations. Saunders combined the advantages of the chains with the notion of unhindered customer choice. Self-service encouraged impulse buying on the part of the consumer and stimulated volume, crucial in a growing chain that depended on low prices, high sales, and rapid turnover. Saunders’s ruthless standardization further reduced costs and made Piggly Wiggly one of the most efficient and rapidly growing grocery chains in the country. Saunders’s decision to embrace the notions of scientific management as the basis of his operations contrasted sharply with the practices of many independents, who even ignored the use of sales slips as a means of checking the turnover of grocery products. By the mid-1920’s, Piggly Wiggly’s success had spawned a number of smaller self-service chains, such as Handy Andy stores, but Saunders’s ideas about store operation had yet to dominate thinking about grocery store organization. Only in the 1930’s, with the appearance of Michael Cullen’s King Kullen stores, would the supermarket begin to achieve dominance in grocery distribution. Cullen had operated an outlet in Herrin, Illinois, for the Kroger grocery chain in the 1920’s. He fruitlessly appealed to the vice president of Kroger to use company funds to test out his idea for a supermarket. Cullen finally
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Further Reading Bowlby, Rachel. Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Mixes sociology, cultural criticism, and literary scholarship to examine how Americans (as well as the French and the British) have come to view shopping. Includes discussion of the Piggly Wiggly chain and the history of the supermarket. Brooks, John Nixon. “Annals of Finance.” The New Yorker, June 6, 1959, 128-150. Provides a thorough description of Clarence Saunders’s efforts to protect Piggly Wiggly against attacks by stock market speculators. Includes a brief description of Saunders’s personal life.
Charvat, Frank. Supermarketing. New York: Macmillan, 1961. The first chapter outlines the history of the supermarket. Discusses the founding of Piggly Wiggly and the ideas behind Saunders’s decision to open a self-service store. Also describes the King Kullen and Big Bear stores, which firmly established the supermarket in the grocery business. Hayward, Walter S., and Percival White. Chain Stores: Their Management and Operation. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1928. The first chapter provides a good analysis of the organization of a Piggly Wiggly store and how Saunders’s ideas about store layout, selfservice, and monitoring costs gave the company a number of advantages. Includes contemporary reactions of other chain store operators to the role of Piggly Wiggly in changing patterns of food distribution. Michman, Ronald D., and Alan J. Greco. Retailing Triumphs and Blunders. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1995. Describes how retailers of various kinds have responded to changes in society and the marketplace. Chapter 4 is devoted to the development of the grocery business and the rise of the supermarket. Nystrom, Paul H. Economics of Retailing: Retail Institutions and Trends. 3d ed. Vol. 1. New York: Ronald Press, 1930. Describes the history of chain stores in the grocery business. Includes an account of the Piggly Wiggly chain and its impact on the trade. Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market. 1989. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1995. Chapter 7 describes changes in retailing that occurred in the early twentieth century. Includes a first-rate analysis of the grocery trade and Piggly Wiggly’s place in the new patterns of food distribution. Provides a picture of an aisle in an early Piggly Wiggly store in which the labels and price tags on the goods are identifiable. Tedlow, Richard. New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America. New York: Basic Books, 1990. Chapter 4 focuses on the rise and fall of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. An insightful analysis of food distribution from the late nineteenth century through the 1950’s. Discusses Piggly Wiggly and the impact of the supermarket on the market strategies of A&P. Zimmerman, M. M. The Supermarket: A Revolution in Distribution. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955. Succinct and effective description of grocery store practices through the early 1950’s. Particularly insightful on the early history of the supermarket, including 1291
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persuaded Harry Socoloff, vice president of Sweet Life Foods Corporation, to contribute half of the start-up capital. With this backing, in August, 1930, Cullen opened a self-service store on Long Island that marked the beginnings of the supermarket. Cullen’s stores featured low prices, minimal help, no services, only national brands, and well-stocked shelves, all factors that had made the Piggly Wiggly chain so successful. Unlike Saunders, Cullen chose to place his stores in low-rent districts, often in abandoned buildings with abundant floor space. He minimized store decoration and concentrated on lowering costs. The supermarkets benefited from the increasingly widespread use of the refrigerator, which allowed customers to make large purchases and to stock up on perishables. Increasing ownership of automobiles also facilitated supermarket shopping. Finally, the spread of radio to almost every home opened possibilities for advertising. Radio also enhanced the aggressive promotional campaigns of national brand manufacturers. Brand names became widely known, and this worked to the advantage of the supermarket chains that featured brand-name products. By 1936, more than a thousand supermarkets were operating in the United States, exerting market pressure on chains that still relied on numerous small stores, such as A&P. By the end of the decade, John A. Hartford, son of A&P founder George Hartford, had persuaded his father that only a supermarket strategy would enable the mammoth A&P operation to survive and maintain its status as a leader in a competitive business. This decision ultimately made A&P the second-largest industrial corporation in the United States as measured by sales. By the 1950’s, supermarkets dominated food and beverage distribution in the United States. —Edward J. Davies II
First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens
American Institute of Accountants Is Founded Piggly Wiggly. As editor and publisher of the trade journal Super Market Merchandising, the author brings the perspective and knowledge of an insider. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Code; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens; 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising.
September 19, 1916
American Institute of Accountants Is Founded By offering a national qualifying examination and an ethics code, the Institute of Accountants in the United States of America assured businesspeople of the competence and integrity of the accounting profession. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures Elijah Watts Sells (1858-1924), president of the American Association of Public Accountants, 19061908 George O. May (1875-1961), accounting scholar and a vice president of the American Institute of Accountants W. Sanders Davies (1862-1940), first president of the Institute of Accountants in the United States of America Summary of Event The American Association of Public Accountants (AAPA) was established in 1887 in New York as the first organized body of professional accountants in the United States. In 1896, the AAPA prompted passage of the first state law pertaining to certified public accountants, and several other states soon followed suit. By 1915, thirtynine U.S. states had granted legal recognition to the accountancy profession, and practicing accountants in various states perceived a growing need to communicate and exchange ideas with one another. The AAPA responded to this need by admitting members not only directly as individuals but also indirectly as members of state societies. This practice of dual membership continued from 1896 through 1915. By then, it had become obvious that the practice was not satisfactory, especially when it came to disciplining members for bringing the profession into disrepute by their acts of omission or commission. It was 1292
also widely believed by then that the profession should set its own standards of competence and hold rigorous national qualifying examinations. At its meeting held on September 19, 1916, the AAPA approved its own merger with the newly created Institute of Accountants in the United States of America (IAUSA), a society composed of individual members. The IAUSA had 1,150 charter members. In January, 1917, the IAUSA adopted a new name: the American Institute of Accountants (AIA). Accountancy as a profession was relatively unknown in the United States in the 1870’s, but it flourished as a respected profession in Great Britain at that time. Two years after incorporation of the AAPA, the organization’s membership stood at thirty-two. The AAPA made many attempts to elevate the status of the profession through collegiate instruction in accounting. For example, the University of Pennsylvania started the Wharton School of Finance and Economy and included accounting in its curriculum. The AAPAalso obtained a two-year charter from the Regents of New York University and established a “college of accounts” with degree-conferring powers. This effort soon failed. The School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance was established at New York University in 1900. In 1906, the Pace Institute of Accountancy was founded. Overall, these attempts in collegiate education were largely unsuccessful. Seeing that accountancy would not gain recognition quickly through university degrees in the field, the AAPA started advocating public accountancy legislation so that accountants could gain status. Leading public accountants were of the opinion that federal regulation and recognition would help the accounting profession. This argument was based on the fact that accounting was to a great extent an interstate enterprise. That is, most of the major accounting firms practiced in more than one U.S. state, and some practiced in foreign countries. A federal license would be recog-
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tant to grant reciprocity to qualified accountants from other states. State licensing board appointments were sometimes made as a result of political considerations rather than on the basis of candidate qualifications. There was no uniformity in the examinations administered by different states. Generally speaking, the minimum educational standards were not very high, and they varied from state to state. In 1915, the national leaders of the AAPA appointed a Special Committee on the Form of the Organization of the Association. This committee, which included W. Sanders Davies, Elijah Watts Sells, Carl Nau, and Waldron Rand, submitted a report in 1916 suggesting that the profession should be represented and controlled by a national organization and that only individuals should be admitted as members. State societies would not be members of the new national institute. It was envisioned that this national organization would establish uniform admission standards and offer national qualifying examinations. At the meeting held on September 19, 1916, the AAPA approved its own merger with the newly created IAUSA, a society of individual membership. The IAUSAwas incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia, which had provisions for incorporating educational and scientific bodies. Significance One of the major impacts of the formation of the AIA came through its successful efforts to raise qualification standards. Because the state CPA examinations were not uniformly rigorous, one of the first acts of the AIA was to set up a board of examiners in 1916. The first national CPA examination under the auspices of the AIA was offered on June 15, 1917. This examination was used by California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee. This examination was given in the fields of accounting theory and practice, auditing, and commercial law. By 1929, a majority of state licensing boards adopted the uniform CPA examination offered by the AIA. The AIA also strongly pushed states to adopt stringent practice requirements for certification. Another impact of the newly formed AIA was in the area of professional ethics. In 1918, the AIA set up the Special Committee on Ethical Publicity to make recommendations about advertising and solicitation of clients by public accountants. In 1919, the AIA passed a resolution, proposed by accounting scholar George O. May, that disapproved of circular letters that promised prospective clients substantial tax savings. In 1921, the AIA 1293
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nized in all states and hence was very desirable from the accounting firms’ viewpoint. The AAPA’s attempts to get Congress to take legislative action were unsuccessful, however. Several large states, including New York, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Maryland, had legislation pertaining to certified public accountants (CPAs) in force, and Congress was reluctant to intrude on states’ rights to regulate. The AAPAwas eager to help other states in obtaining state accountancy laws and held out the New York CPA law as the model. The AAPA was dominated by New York accountants at this time. State CPA laws were passed in Georgia, Connecticut, Ohio, Louisiana, and Rhode Island in 1908; in Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Montana in 1909; and in Virginia in 1910. By 1924, all states had CPA laws, although they varied in their definition of the CPA title. A major event in the history of the AAPA was the First International Congress of Accountants, held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904. More than one hundred fifty accountants from England, Canada, Holland, and the United States attended the congress, a large number for those days. George Wilkinson, president of the Illinois Society of Public Accountants, was elected secretary of the congress, and as such he organized and directed the meeting. The program of the 1904 congress included mostly technical accounting papers. The papers and discussions were subsequently published as proceedings of the congress. This proceedings volume became the most important professional accounting publication thus far in the United States. In many respects, this congress was a huge success and greatly contributed to the progress of the accountancy profession in the following years. In 1906, the AAPA included fifteen state societies whose members were automatically AAPA members as well. Of these fifteen, only eight were societies of certified public accountants. Thus the dual-membership policy allowed the admission of both CPAs and non-CPAs as members of the AAPA. Even among CPAs, there were differences in the examinations they had taken to qualify for the CPA designation. Some states had rigorous standards, whereas others had standards that were considered lax. There was no national standard of qualification and no national test for public accountants. The AAPA advanced two mechanisms for standardization: the model CPA law and the model state society bylaws. Neither mechanism was adopted widely. Some states required high school education; others did not. Many required practice for licensure, but Illinois, Vermont, and Washington did not. Many states were reluc-
American Institute of Accountants Is Founded
American Institute of Accountants Is Founded passed stringent ethical rules prohibiting such activities as advertising and direct solicitation of clients. This infuriated some practitioners. The AIA was thought to be controlled by big national firms and by the elite from the East. Many local practitioners rebelled against these rules, which were thought to be useful for large firms to consolidate their practices. A rival accounting association, the American Society of Certified Public Accountants (ASCPA), was started in December, 1921. The AIA and the ASCPA coexisted until 1937, when these two organizations merged, retaining the AIA name. An important achievement of the AIA was the creation of a world-class accounting library. In 1917, George May and his partners at the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse donated $25,000 to the Library Endowment Fund. Sells subscribed $15,000, and by 1919, $150,000 had been collected. The AIA library began its operations with eleven hundred bound books and thirteen hundred unbound books and pamphlets. A singular achievement of the librarians at the AIA library was the publication of the Accountants’ Index in 1921. This volume listed all articles and books on accounting published until that time. In 1926, the AIA also established a Bureau of Research, which existed for some twenty-five years. Leaders of the accounting profession perceived a need to disseminate technical accounting information to educators and practitioners who could not attend annual meetings and special congresses. In 1905, the AAPA made arrangements to take over a magazine titled the Auditor, which had been launched by the Illinois Society of Accountants. The organization changed the periodical’s name to the Journal of Accountancy and published its first issue in 1905. Since that time, the journal has been published continuously by the AIA and successor organizations. This journal freed American accountants from relying on the British journal the Accountant. By 1909, circulation of the Journal of Accountancy had reached nearly two thousand. Five years later, the journal had a circulation of nearly five thousand. It became the principal medium through which educators and practitioners throughout the nation exchanged information, ideas, and opinions. During the years of World War I, the AIA offered its services to the Naval Consulting Board and the Council of National Defense. An AIA committee conferred with both these bodies. The Journal of Accountancy published many articles on topics such as wartime taxes, construction records and accounts, Navy Yard cost accounting, and the determination of costs for contract pur1294
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 poses. Accountants were needed for audits of costs and other accounting work. Many AIA members were appointed as division auditors. They drew up manuals for audits and generally supervised accounting for the army. Joseph Strett served as the vice chairman of the ExcessProfits Tax Review Board, Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Montgomery served as the representative of the War Department on the Price-Fixing Committee of the War Industries Board, and Arthur Teele served on a committee appointed by the quartermaster’s department to consider the determination of property accountability. The AIA took justifiable pride in its war activities. In addition, the friendships that institute members formed with important people in Washington, D.C., during the war years helped the organization gain access to government leaders after the war. —Srinivasan Ragothaman Further Reading Academy of Accounting Historians. Working Paper Series. Edited by Edward N. Coffman. Richmond, Va.: Author, 1979. Collection of twenty research papers on accounting history. Useful for researchers. Carey, John L. The Rise of the Accounting Profession: From Technician to Professional, 1896-1936. New York: American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 1969. Describes the first forty years of the accounting profession in the United States from the viewpoint of the AICPA. Accessible to readers with no accounting background. Chatfield, Michael, ed. Contemporary Studies in the Evolution of Accounting Thought. Belmont, Calif.: Dickenson, 1968. Collection of articles with a focus on accounting history. Chapter 16, “Some Significant Developments of Public Accounting in the United States,” gives a good summary of factors contributing to the growth of the American accounting profession. Includes annotated bibliography. Edwards, James D. History of Public Accounting in the United States. 1960. Reprint. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1988. Readable, reasonably concise history of the accounting profession. Provides a discussion of the European antecedents of American accounting practices and describes the evolution of the educational, legal, and organizational aspects of the profession. Miranti, Paul J., Jr. Accountancy Comes of Age: The Development of an American Profession, 1886-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Highlights major events in the history of the ac-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 counting profession in the United States. Chapter 6 covers the period between 1916 and 1923, which includes the formation of the American Institute of Accountants. Previts, Gary John, and Barbara Dubis Merino. A History of Accountancy in the United States: The Cultural Significance of Accounting. Rev. ed. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. Chronicles the history of the accounting profession in the United States, from the colonial period to the late 1990’s. Addresses accountancy from social, economic, and political perspectives. Includes bibliography and index. Strawser, Jerry R., and Robert H. Strawser. Auditing: Theory and Practice. 9th ed. Houston: Dame, 2001. College textbook includes excerpts from newspaper
First American Birth Control Clinic Opens and journal articles relating to developments in the accounting profession. Zeff, Stephen A., ed. The U.S. Accounting Profession in the 1890s and Early 1900s. New York: Garland, 1988. Collection of essays by eminent scholars discusses the early decades of the accounting profession in the United States. Includes three kinds of papers: historical studies, contemporary accounts, and recollections. See also: 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using CostPlus Contracts; Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors.
October 16, 1916
First American Birth Control Clinic Opens The first birth control clinic in the United States, opened by Margaret Sanger, publicized the need for safe and available contraception and ignited a movement to secure reproductive freedom for all women.
Key Figures Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), American nurse and birth control activist Ethel Byrne (1883-1955), American nurse and birth control activist Fania Mindell (fl. early twentieth century), American language interpreter and birth control activist Jonah J. Goldstein (1886-1967), American attorney Frederick E. Crane (1869-1947), justice on the New York State Court of Appeals Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), American morals crusader Summary of Event By 1850, state and federal legislation had outlawed most forms of contraception in the United States. The “Comstock law,” passed in 1873 and named for the antivice crusader Anthony Comstock, labeled information about contraception “obscene” and banned its circulation through the U.S. mails. Although government antagonism did not deter middle- and upper-class families from
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Locale: Brooklyn, New York, New York Categories: Women’s issues; health and medicine
voluntarily reducing their birthrates—by acquiring contraceptive knowledge through sympathetic doctors or deceptive mail-order firms—legal restrictions and moral inhibitions prevented most poor and uneducated women from using birth control, although many resorted to crude, ineffective, and often dangerous practices. Attempts to distribute birth control information proved largely unsuccessful until Margaret Sanger began her pioneering crusade in 1916 by opening the first birth control clinic in the United States, a revolutionary event that initiated a social movement dedicated to legalizing contraception and liberating sexuality. Sanger first took an interest in sex education and birth control in the early 1910’s, when she was a young nurse in New York City, where she accompanied doctors to the tenement districts of New York’s lower East Side. There she met women who suffered from exhaustion, venereal disease, and the consequences of self-induced abortions—women who pleaded to know the “secrets” to controlling their fertility that were denied them by their churches and government. Sanger’s experiences as a nurse persuaded her to seek a means of educating women about their bodies. Encouraged and advised by friends from New York’s intellectual salons and radical political circles, including such vocal advocates of birth control as Emma Goldman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Bill Haywood, Sanger left nursing to devote herself to helping women acquire safe and effective contraception, not only to prevent un-
First American Birth Control Clinic Opens wanted pregnancies but also to give women the choice of greater sexual freedom. Over the next four years, Sanger published articles and pamphlets on sexual hygiene and contraceptive techniques, using information she had gathered during trips to France, England, and Holland and assimilated under the tutelage of the English sex psychologist Havelock Ellis. In 1914, Sanger’s most controversial publication, an extremist newspaper called The Woman Rebel, prompted postal authorities to indict Sanger for violating obscenity laws. The charges were eventually dismissed, but the publicity generated by her arrest and the subsequent arrest and imprisonment of her husband, William Sanger, for distributing a birth control pamphlet created a legion of new supporters. From April to July of 1916, Sanger toured the United States, drumming up support for her controversial cause. She met vocal and stubborn resistance, but audiences overwhelmingly supported the notion of legalized birth control and Sanger’s demand for women’s sexual emancipation. The tour convinced Sanger of the need for affordable, accessible clinics. When she returned to New York in October, she moved quickly to capitalize on the
Margaret Sanger. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 publicity generated by her speaking appearances. She vowed to extend the fight for legalized birth control into a direct-action campaign—the opening of a clinic. In early October of 1916, Sanger, with her sister Ethel Byrne, a nurse, and Fania Mindell, a language interpreter from Chicago, rented a small storefront apartment in Brownsville, a working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The three women canvassed the dingy grid of tenements and circulated flyers printed in English, Italian, and Yiddish that advertised the clinic and offered information on the prevention of conception from trained nurses. On October 16, Sanger, Byrne, and Mindell opened the doors of a makeshift birth control clinic modeled on the state-run clinics in Holland that Sanger had observed in 1915. On the first day alone, more than one hundred women obtained contraceptive advice. For ten cents, each woman received one of Sanger’s sexual hygiene pamphlets and instruction on the proper use of contraceptives. The clinic also distributed suppositories and condoms. Sanger and her coworkers kept careful records on each new client and listened to emotional accounts of difficult pregnancies, neglected children, and illegal abortions. One woman told Sanger, “When I was married, the priest told us to have lots of children, and we listened to him. I had fifteen. Six are living. Nine baby funerals in our house.” More than four hundred women came to the clinic before an undercover policewoman and vice squad officers arrived on the tenth day and placed Sanger, Byrne, and Mindell under arrest for distributing contraceptive devices. After a night in prison and arraignment in court, Sanger reopened the clinic but was arrested a second time on November 14 and charged with maintaining a public nuisance. Sanger opened the clinic for a third time on November 16, but police forced the building’s landlord to evict his tenants, and the clinic closed its doors permanently. The arrests of Sanger, Byrne, and Mindell and their ensuing trials thrust the issue of birth control onto the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, giving the cause its greatest publicity to date. Byrne came to trial first on January 4, 1917. She entered a courtroom filled with socially prominent women from New York, organized by Gertrude Minturn Pinchot as the Committee of One Hundred, a group that financed much of the early work of the birth control movement. Byrne’s attorney,
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Jonah J. Goldstein, argued that the Sanger Argues for Sex Education New York state law that made it a In a 1920 booklet titled What Every Girl Should Know, Margaret Sanger asmisdemeanor for anyone to distribserted that it is healthy for young women to understand their bodies: ute contraception—except for doctors in cases of venereal disease— The whole object of teaching the child about reproduction through evolution is was in opposition to the best interests to clear its mind of any shame or mystery concerning its birth and to impress it and well-being of the people. The with the beauty and naturalness of procreation, in order to prepare it for the court, however, refused to hear any knowledge of puberty and marriage. medical testimony in support of There must of necessity be special information for the pubescent boy and Goldstein’s claims; Byrne was sengirl, for having arrived at the stage in their mental development they no longer tenced to thirty days in prison on take for granted what has been told them by the parents, but are keen to form their own ideas and gather information independently. It is right, therefore, to Blackwell’s Island. give them the facts as science has found them. . . . Byrne immediately went on a hunEvery girl should first understand herself; she should know her anatomy, inger strike, following the example of cluding sex anatomy; she should know the epochs of a normal woman’s life, English suffragists. The publicity tacand the unfoldment which each epoch brings; she should know the effect the tic succeeded, and the press ran daily emotions have on her acts, and finally she should know the fullness and richreports on Byrne’s weakened condiness of life when crowned by the flower of motherhood. tion. After 185 hours without food or water, Byrne was forcibly fed, prompting Sanger and the Committee of One Hundred to protest to legCrane’s decision also provided a degree of legal protecislators and state officials and to call for Byrne’s release tion for future clinics that employed certified physicians. at a giant rally for birth control at Carnegie Hall on JanuThe new interpretation of the law was a small victory for ary 26, 1917. Several days later, Sanger and Pinchot conthe birth control movement but an emphatic first step in vinced Governor Charles S. Whitman to release Byrne overturning a series of state and federal legal restrictions before her condition proved fatal. that denied women the right to control their own fertility. Sanger’s trial began on January 29 before a courtroom crowded with fifty women who had visited the BrownsSignificance ville clinic. Several of them testified for the prosecution, The Brownsville clinic provided a rallying point and a stating that they had received contraceptive information cause célèbre for the early organizers of the birth control from Sanger. Although these witnesses incriminated movement. Supporters of the first clinic went on to form, Sanger, their accounts of infant deaths, miscarriages, and in 1921, the American Birth Control League, a powerful severe poverty substantiated the need for birth control lobbying group for legislative change, and, in 1923, the clinics for many throughout the country who followed Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, the prototype the case. After several days of testimony, the court offor a chain of doctor-staffed birth control clinics that fered Sanger a suspended sentence if she promised to upopened across the country in the 1920’s. Moreover, the hold the law. She refused and was sentenced to thirty publicity generated by the Brownsville clinic brought the days in prison. Meanwhile, the court convicted Fania issue of birth control into the nation’s living rooms, Mindell of distributing obscene material and fined her churches, and schools, leading to more open discussion fifty dollars. of sexuality, gender roles, and family planning. Sanger served her time in prison without incident and In fact, the opening of the first clinic and the emerappealed her conviction. Her case journeyed through the gence of a viable national birth control movement marked courts for nearly a year before Judge Frederick E. Crane a momentous shift in the sexual attitudes of middle-class of the New York Court of Appeals sustained Sanger’s America. The very idea of available birth control chalconviction on January 8, 1918. Crane’s liberal interprelenged traditional beliefs about marriage and family. The tation of the law, however, enabled physicians to presubstantial support for legal, accessible contraception scribe contraception for general health reasons, rather among the middle classes signaled a general approval of than exclusively for venereal disease, making the law sex for pleasure and a growing acceptance of female sexnon-gender-specific, as only men had previously reual expression within the marriage bond. As birth control ceived contraceptives for the prevention of disease.
First American Birth Control Clinic Opens became more widely used in the 1920’s, more women had the option of choosing careers and other endeavors outside the home and found greater autonomy in both their public and their private lives. Critics of contraception and the contraceptive mentality, fearing adverse moral and social consequences, charged that the movement would erode the very foundations of family life and lead to increased promiscuity and divorce. Despite the effectiveness of the Brownsville clinic in raising the nation’s awareness of birth control, the availability of contraception for the poor did not immediately increase. Rather, the legal consequences of the Brownsville case—giving doctors the only legal authority to dispense contraceptives—further excluded poor women from access to contraception, as few could afford medical care. Even in the 1920’s, few working-class women were able to obtain safe and reliable contraceptives; among these women, withdrawal and rhythm were still the most-used methods of birth control. Furthermore, the increased dependence on doctors for birth control initiated an alliance between birth control activists and the medical profession that shifted the impetus of the movement from women’s rights to medical advocacy, leaving women with a diminished role in controlling the means of contraception. At the same time, Sanger turned for guidance and financial support increasingly to the socially prominent and wealthy, who were generally more concerned with reducing birthrates than with empowering women to achieve equality through the control of their own bodies. Not until the 1960’s and the rise of the women’s movement was birth control redefined as a reproductive rights issue rather than primarily a medical one. The Brownsville clinic laid the foundation for the future work of the birth control movement and the personal crusade of Margaret Sanger. Sanger followed the same tactics she used in Brownsville—direct action, agitation, publicity, and education—to challenge further obscenity laws in the 1920’s and 1930’s and to solidify a network of clinics and sympathetic physicians so that a majority of Americans had access to birth control by World War II. Sanger’s crusade for safe, available, and effective birth control culminated in the 1950’s, when she organized the international birth control movement and arranged financial support for the development of the birth control pill. The activist, reformer, writer, and mother of three died in 1966 at the age of eighty-seven, having devoted her life to family planning, sexual enlightenment, and reproductive autonomy for all women. —Peter C. Engelman 1298
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Brodie, Janet Farrell. Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. Discusses nineteenth century contraceptive methods and the forces that led to their being restricted. Useful background for understanding the birth control struggles of the early twentieth century. Chesler, Ellen. Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Biography of Sanger presents previously unpublished information gathered from interviews and archives. Addresses Sanger’s personal life as well as her role as leader of the movement for women’s reproductive rights. D’Emilio, John, and Estelle B. Freedman. Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Scholarly interpretation of the history of sexuality in the United States includes two chapters on Sanger and a short account of the Brownsville clinic. Analyses of contraceptive techniques, devices, and availability make this a valuable resource for readers interested in reproductive freedom and the birth control movement. Gordon, Linda. Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Thorough social history of women’s sexuality, feminism, and birth control in the United States. Argues persuasively that the birth control movement coalesced around women united by their shared experience, but Sanger, in particular, impeded women’s progress toward reproductive self-determination by courting elites and the medical establishment. Includes a short but insightful account of the Brownsville clinic. Features reference notes and index. Reed, James. From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830. New York: Basic Books, 1978. Resourceful history of birth control with a biographical focus on four major figures: Sanger, Robert Dickinson, Clarence Gamble, and Gregory Pincus. Presents a short summary of the establishment of the Brownsville clinic. Includes a bibliographic essay and extensive index. Reed, Miriam, ed. Margaret Sanger: Her Life in Her Words. Fort Lee, N.J.: Barricade Books, 2003. Collection of Sanger’s writings includes materials presenting her views on socialism, prison reform, and pacifism in addition to birth control and sex educa-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion. Chronological order shows the progression of Sanger’s thinking as well as the impact her activism had over time. Sanger, Margaret. My Fight for Birth Control. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1931. Sanger’s first autobiography includes an extended but sometimes inaccurate account of the Brownsville clinic and subsequent trials. Largely a work of propaganda but offers insight into Sanger’s social and political vision. Includes illustrations. _______. The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger. 1938.
First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2004. Sanger’s second and more polished autobiography condenses the account of the Brownsville clinic in My Fight for Birth Control but provides better context for the event. Also addresses how Sanger wished to be perceived. Includes an index. See also: 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms; Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control; Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception.
November 7, 1916
First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916, four years before the Nineteenth Amendment extended suffrage to all women in the United States. Locale: Montana Categories: Women’s issues; government and politics
Summary of Event Jeannette Rankin’s 1916 election to the U.S. House of Representatives was a landmark occasion. Before that time, only a few women had ever held public office in the United States, none at the national level, primarily because women did not have the right to vote in most of the United States. The American colonies, and later the United States, based their legal system on English common law. Under common law, a married woman could not own property (even property that she brought into the marriage) and had no legal identity separate from her husband’s. During the colonial period, voting and office holding usually were restricted to property owners and hence were closed to married women. There were a few instances in which unmarried women (spinsters or widows), as property owners, voted in the colonial period, and at least one woman tried to serve in a colonial legislature. On January 21, 1648, Margaret Brent, a landowner who would
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Key Figures Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), American social reformer and U.S. congresswoman from Montana Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), American suffragist
have been entitled to a vote in the assembly if she had been a man, tried unsuccessfully to be seated in the Maryland House of Burgesses. She demanded two votes in the assembly, one as the executrix for the estate of the deceased governor and one for herself as a freeholder. After the American Revolution, qualifications for voting and holding office gradually were relaxed. Nothing in the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution specifically prohibited women from voting or holding office. These decisions were left to the states. For a brief time after the Revolution, some women voted in a few states. As the states drew up constitutions, however, most specifically restricted suffrage to males over the age of twenty-one and began to eliminate property qualifications for voting and holding office. Soon, all adult white males were eligible to vote in all states, and no woman could vote anywhere. Women in the United States were more concerned in those years with their economic and legal status than with their political status. The rights to vote and to hold public office were so far outside their experience that most did not even realize they could demand such rights. Women’s concerns focused on economic and social issues, such as protection from abusive husbands, the right to initiate divorce proceedings, and control over their earnings, their property, and their children. Many were encouraged when New York became the first state to pass a married woman’s property act (1849) and was emulated by several other states, but women still had to contend with many laws that were not in their best interests. Afew women realized that the only way they could influence legislation and get rid of discriminatory laws was by voting for and serving as members of legislative bod-
First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress
Jeannette Rankin. (Library of Congress)
ies. One of these was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who, with Lucretia Mott and three other women, organized the Women’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19-20, 1848. The convention adopted the “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” modeled on the Declaration of Independence, which cited women’s grievances against men, including the denial of suffrage to women and their resulting lack of representation in legislative bodies. The ninth resolution, calling for woman suffrage, was considered so radical that the convention delegates passed it by a narrow margin only after heated debate; it was the only resolution that was not passed unanimously. Although some women in eastern states organized for the right to vote after the Seneca Falls convention, the first gains for woman suffrage and women’s right to hold office came in the West. In 1869, the Wyoming Territorial Legislature passed the first woman suffrage bill in the United States. In February, 1870, Esther Morris of South Pass City, Wyoming, became justice of the peace. She was nominated for the legislature in 1873 but withdrew before the election. Wyoming continued woman suffrage when it became a state in 1890 and was joined by Colorado (1893), Idaho (1896), and Utah (1896). Utah also allowed woman suffrage as a territory (18701887). 1300
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 It was during the suffrage campaign in Washington State that Jeannette Rankin began her involvement in political activity as a means of improving conditions for women and children. Like many reformers of the Progressive Era, she became aware of the plight of the poor during visits to several cities. At the time, she was a restless young woman from Missoula, Montana, searching for her place in life. She attended the New York School of Philanthropy, where she learned from many of the country’s leading social activists. She graduated in 1909 and worked briefly as a social worker, but she became so frustrated by laws that handicapped rather than helped women and children that she left social work. She enrolled at the University of Washington and worked for the woman suffrage movement there. Her role in the Washington suffrage victory (1910) was small, but through her involvement she developed the belief that woman suffrage offered the best way to change laws that were unfair to women and children. On February 2, 1911, Rankin spoke to the Montana legislature on behalf of a woman suffrage bill and asked that it be submitted to the voters in a referendum. The bill was narrowly defeated, but Rankin had inspired many Montana women, who offered their assistance in a future suffrage campaign. She also attracted attention from suffragists outside Montana who invited her to join their campaigns. Her experience working in suffrage campaigns in New York, California, Ohio, Florida, and Michigan led to her appointment as a field secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1913. When the Montana legislature called a woman suffrage referendum in 1914, Rankin resigned from the NAWSA and returned to Montana to lead the campaign for suffrage. As president of the Montana Equal Suffrage State Central Committee, she traveled throughout the state. While building a network to support suffrage, she also laid the foundation for her later campaign for public office. She focused on the ways in which women voters could improve conditions relating to the home and children’s welfare. On July 11, 1916, Rankin announced that she would be a candidate for one of Montana’s two at-large seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although most of her ideas leaned toward those of the Progressive Party, she filed as a Republican candidate. One of eight candidates (and the only woman), she campaigned widely throughout the state, with her brother, Wellington Rankin, serving as her campaign manager. She accused the federal government of caring more about hogs than about chil-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dren and contended that Congress needed a woman to look after the interests of children. She was not the only woman running for Congress in 1916; unsuccessful female candidates campaigned in California, Colorado, and Washington. Soon after the polls closed, it looked as though Rankin had lost, and she prepared to concede the election to the other Republican candidate, George Farr. The votes from the rural areas of eastern Montana changed the balance in Rankin’s favor, however, and two days after the election, Jeannette Rankin was declared the winner, the first woman ever elected to Congress. Her election was especially surprising given that the Democratic presidential candidate, Woodrow Wilson, carried Montana.
them were elected. Between Rankin’s first election to Congress in 1917 and her second on November 5, 1940, twenty-five women were elected to the House and one, Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, was elected to the Senate. (The first woman senator, however, was Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia, who was appointed to fill a vacancy from October 2, 1922, to November 22, 1922.) The number of women serving in each Congress remained small, far below the percentage of women in the U.S. population. It was not until the 1982 election that the total number of women ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives reached one hundred. Women also made slow gains in other elective offices. Two women were elected as state governors in 1924. Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming was elected to complete her deceased husband’s term but was defeated for reelection in 1926. Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas was elected to complete the term of her impeached husband, James. She lost bids for reelection before winning another term in 1932. Not until 1974, when Ella Grasso was elected governor of Connecticut, was a woman elected to a governorship whose husband had not previously held the office. Since the 1970’s, women have been elected to public office in the United States in increasing numbers, especially on the state and local levels. —Judith A. Parsons Further Reading Braden, Maria. Women Politicians and the Media. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. Discusses how women politicians have been scrutinized by the American media and how the media’s treatment has influenced public perceptions of these women, beginning with Jeanette Rankin. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Chamberlin, Hope. A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress. New York: Praeger, 1973. A collection of brief personal and political biographies of the eighty-five women who served in the U.S. Congress between 1917 and 1972, with a postscript on the effects of the 1972 election. Good information on Rankin’s elections and activities in Congress. Chart of women members of Congress 1917-1973. Includes photographs and index. Clift, Eleanor. Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Brief history of the suffrage movement in the United States describes important events and organizations and provides background on the movement’s leaders. Includes bibliography. 1301
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Significance Jeannette Rankin’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives had significant impact on the political activities of women in the United States. It encouraged woman suffrage and served notice that elective public office was open to women. The most immediate impact was on woman suffrage. Rankin’s election encouraged all factions of suffragists. Such leaders as Carrie Chapman Catt of the NAWSA and Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party united temporarily to honor Rankin before she was sworn in at the emergency session of Congress on April 2, 1917. When Rankin voted against U.S. entry into World War I on April 6, 1917, Catt reacted angrily, believing that Rankin’s vote hurt the suffrage movement. Thereafter, the relationship between the two women was uneasy, and Catt supported Rankin’s male opponent when Rankin ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 1918. Nevertheless, Rankin cosponsored the proposed woman suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution and opened the debate in the House of Representatives on January 10, 1918. She was not, however, a member of the Congress that finally passed the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, which extended suffrage to women, and she had little role in the final campaign for it in Congress or in the ratification campaign that culminated in victory in August, 1920. Rankin’s election to the House of Representatives signified that elective public office, and especially membership in the U.S. Congress, was no longer restricted to men. She decided not to seek reelection to the House in 1918, as redistricting had placed her in a congressional district where she had little support, and her vote on the war was very unpopular in Montana. She instead ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. Soon, however, more women became congressional candidates, and a few of
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First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1996. Sound standard account of the women’s rights movement is useful for placing Rankin’s election to Congress in the context of its time. Includes illustrations and index. Gertzog, Irwin N. Congressional Women: Their Recruitment, Integration, and Behavior. 2d ed. New York: Praeger, 1995. Study of women in Congress uses material from interviews (with forty-five members of the 103rd Congress) to examine how women have become integrated into the House of Representatives and the impact they have had. Includes tables, appendixes, and index. Giles, Kevin S. Flight of the Dove: The Story of Jeannette Rankin. Beaverton, Oreg.: Lochsa Experience, 1980. Biography focusing on Rankin as a dissident and feminist. Useful for insights into her character and family relationships and for information about her elections to Congress (1916 and 1940). Extensive material on her antiwar activities. Includes references and some photographs. Harper, Ida Husted. History of Woman Suffrage, 19001920. 1922. Reprint. New York: Arno, 1969. Fifth volume in the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s official account of the suffrage movement. Contains limited information about Rankin’s activities as a suffrage worker, her election, and her sponsorship of the suffrage amendment. Coverage reflects the cool relationship between Rankin and the NAWSA leadership. McGinty, Brian. “Jeannette Rankin: First Woman in Congress.” American History Illustrated 23 (May,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1988): 32-33. Brief article focuses on Rankin’s congressional career. Also presents brief biographical information. National American Woman Suffrage Association. Victory: How Women Won It—A Centennial Exposition, 1840-1940. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1940. Uncritical brief account of the achievement of woman suffrage. Reflects the NAWSA’s position but gives little information on Rankin. Includes a useful chart showing woman suffrage in states and territories. Wilson, Joan Hoff. “‘Peace Is a Woman’s Job . . .’: Jeanette Rankin and American Foreign Policy—The Origins of Her Pacifism.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 30 (January, 1980): 28-41. First of two parts. Deals primarily with Rankin’s antiwar attitudes and actions. Brief biographical information and an analysis of the influences on her character. Some mention of her congressional campaign. Includes photographs. Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. General history of women in the United States. Chapters on feminism and suffrage and on the twentieth century help place Rankin’s election in context. References, photographs, tables, and index. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use
1917
American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use Entomologists’ development of a technique to poison the cotton boll weevil led to intensified and widespread use of insecticides and diminished support for cultural and biological controls of insect pests. Locale: Tallulah, Louisiana; Lake Village, Arkansas; Scott, Mississippi Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; agriculture; environmental issues Key Figures Bert Raymond Coad (b. 1890), entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Charles Valentine Riley (1843-1895), American naturalist and entomologist Leland Ossian Howard (1857-1950), chief of the Division of Entomology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
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Summary of Event The use of chemical insecticides in the United States intensified during the 1920’s following the development of a technique to poison the cotton boll weevil, one of the nation’s worst agricultural pests. Insecticide use had become established in the nineteenth century, when exotic pest insects arrived on steamers with European immigrants and on cargo ships. As early as 1868, an unknown farmer discovered that Paris green (a brightly colored dye often used to paint window shutters) could kill the Colorado potato beetle. The active toxic ingredient in Paris green was arsenic, a poison also employed in insecticides developed later, such as London purple and lead arsenate. In a letter to the editor of the Galena Gazette on May 28, 1869, a Wisconsin farmer informed Illinois potato growers that an earlymorning dusting of Paris green mixed with flour would kill beetle larvae. This advice was repeated in the July issue of the American Entomologist, and the practice of using Paris green on the potato beetle rapidly gained acceptance. In the 1870’s, Paris green was found to be effective against other pests as well, and it soon became a standard insecticide for the American farmer. The nation’s agricultural industry had a serious need for insect control. In 1870, for example, journalist Horace Greeley estimated that the average annual loss to farmers from insect damage exceeded $100 million. Assisted by the Division of Entomology in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmers found themselves
with three basic strategies for fighting pest insects: insecticides, biological controls, and cultural controls. By the 1920’s, insecticides had emerged as the principal means of insect control, in large part because of the Division of Entomology’s experience with three pests: the cottony-cushion scale, the gypsy moth, and the cotton boll weevil. The cottony-cushion scale had been accidentally imported from Australia or New Zealand in the 1870’s. Arsenicals had limited effect on the pest, so there was little to prevent its rapid spread through the orange and lemon groves of California in the 1880’s. Charles Valentine Riley, first chief of the USDA’s Division of Entomology, noted that the cottony-cushion scale posed a significant problem in New Zealand. He concluded that the species was native to Australia and had been kept in check there by natural enemies, so it was neither abundant nor injurious. Riley sent his assistant, Albert Koebele, to Australia to search for the scale’s natural predators. Koebele returned in 1889 with a small beetle that preyed on the scale. Known as the Australian ladybird, or vedalia beetle, the new predator became so effective that the scale was brought under control in the first season after the beetle’s release. The results of this experiment aroused great enthusiasm among farmers and entomologists, many of whom saw biological control as the solution to the war on insects and boldly predicted that spraying insecticides would no longer be necessary. By 1920, however, this confidence in biological control had been replaced largely by a renewed faith in insecticides. The gypsy moth had been introduced into the United States in 1869 by Leopold Trouvelot, a French-born astronomer with an avocation in the breeding of silkworms. He imported from Europe the eggs of the gypsy moth—a leaf-eating insect known to be harmful to trees. Some of the insects escaped from Trouvelot’s laboratory and gradually became established near his home in Medford, Massachusetts. Twenty years after the accidental release, their population exploded. Writing in 1930, the chief of the Division of Entomology, Leland Ossian Howard, described the infestation of caterpillars that invaded the town in 1889: “The numbers were so great that in the still, summer nights the sound of their feeding could plainly be heard, while the pattering of their excremental pellets on the ground sounded like rain.”
American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use The caterpillars created a nightmare for Medford, defoliating trees, covering sidewalks and fences, and invading food and bedding inside houses. They were found to be resistant to Paris green and able to consume nearly ten times the amount of arsenic required to kill caterpillars of other species. Increasing the proportion of arsenic merely burned the foliage. Relief came in 1892 when the chemist F. C. Moulton found that lead arsenate could kill the caterpillar without as much injury to foliage as that produced by Paris green. Lead arsenate proved effective on the moth and on other insects; in the early 1900’s, it became the most popular insecticide until it was replaced by dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) in the 1940’s. After the California experience with the vedalia beetle, however, many believed that ultimate control of the gypsy moth would come when a suitable insect predator was found. Financed by state and federal funds, Howard traveled to Europe to search for natural enemies of the moth. Progress was slow. In Europe, the gypsy moth was kept in check by fifty parasites, and control in the United States might require importing all of them. Finally, in 1930, Howard concluded that biological control was far more complicated than entomologists had believed twenty years earlier and that the successful experience with the vedalia beetle had been an exceptional case. Although some control was eventually achieved through the introduction of natural enemies, the gypsy moth generally was kept in check through the use of lead arsenate. The cotton boll weevil problem furnishes an example of why cultural insect controls largely failed in American agriculture. The USDA was alerted to the boll weevil problem in 1894, when it received word from Corpus Christi, Texas, that a peculiar weevil had destroyed much of the “top crop” of cotton (a late harvest possible whenever the first frost arrives late). Local farmers found that ordinary poisons had no effect on the pest. Howard immediately dispatched entomologist C. H. Tyler Townsend to investigate the infestation. Townsend found extensive crop damage and recommended cultural control measures, such as burning or flooding the stalks after the main harvest to eliminate the weevil’s food source prior to hibernation and the establishment of a fifty-mile-wide noncotton zone along the Texas international border to prevent further in-migration of the insect from Mexico. By the end of the next year, the boll weevil had spread well into Texas. Strong opposition from constituent farmers forced state legislators to decide against a noncotton zone on the Mexican border. Farmers also rejected other cultural control measures recommended by the Division 1304
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of Entomology for socioeconomic reasons. Destruction of the crop after the main harvest, for example, would deprive farmers of the chance for a top crop and thus posed an immediate economic cost with no guarantee of a more profitable harvest the next year. Furthermore, if neighboring farmers did not employ the same measures, the weevils would continue to thrive in nearby fields. It was known that weevils fed from the cotton squares and bolls through deep punctures, thus avoiding poisons, which would remain on the surface tissue of the plant. Nevertheless, Texas farmers used an estimated twentyfive boxcarloads of Paris green during a three-month period in 1904 in futile attempts to destroy the boll weevil. A breakthrough finally occurred in 1914 when bureau entomologist Bert Raymond Coad saw the possibility of poisoning the insect by means of the dew on the leaves of cotton plants. Over the next three years, he experimented with this idea on cotton plantations in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The results of these tests were highly encouraging. Numerous large-scale experiments were conducted in 1917 and 1918, and the success of these tests led to USDAguidelines on poisoning the boll weevil. Coad had found calcium arsenate to be more poisonous to the insect than other arsenicals. His experimental work also verified his theory that the weevil’s habit of drinking from water on the plant’s surface could be used to introduce the poison. He recommended that farmers dust their crops at night, when the plants were especially moist from the dew. The combination of the new insecticide and the approach of poisoning weevils through their drinking rather than their feeding habits proved effective in controlling cotton damage caused by the pest. An insecticide again had provided the most convenient form of insect pest control. Significance During the 1920’s, American farmers became increasingly reliant on the utility offered by insecticides. No other method, it seemed, would stop insects as effectively as chemicals. New techniques were developed to increase the ease and efficiency of insecticide application. In 1922, for example, Coad demonstrated the possibility of dusting cotton crops from the air; by 1927, one aerial crop-dusting company had contracts to treat onehalf million acres of cotton. The manufacture of insecticides developed into a large industry that provided further encouragement and support to farmers inclined to dust and spray. Prior to 1918, for example, only one manufacturer was making
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Berenbaum, May R. Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs. Boston: AddisonWesley, 1995. Survey of the life and evolution of insects around the world, with emphasis on how insects have affected and continue to affect human beings and their societies. Chapter 9 is devoted to humans’ development of ways to eradicate insects. Includes index. Dunlap, Thomas R. DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and Public Policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Excellent, highly readable source for the DDT story in historical context. Focuses on the interaction of science and politics in the DDT controversy, but also provides background on insecticides, entomology, and public health prior to DDT. Includes bibliography and index. Howard, Leland Ossian. A History of Applied Entomology (Somewhat Anecdotal). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1930. A valuable resource for students of the history of entomology. Highly personal account ranges from biographical sketches of important figures such as Riley to the use of beneficial predatory insects in thirty-two countries. A useful synthesis of the early development of economic entomology by a man with more than fifty years of government service. Includes illustrations and index. Perkins, John H. Insects, Experts, and the Insecticide Crisis: The Quest for New Pest Management Strategies. New York: Plenum, 1982. A useful source for students interested in the history of science and technology as it applies to entomology and insecticides. Traces the movement toward integrated pest management strategies and the role of the entomological expert in American agriculture. Includes figures and index. Rudd, Robert L. Pesticides and the Living Landscape. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. Includes some historical background, but primarily addresses the environmental hazards of chemical pest control. Describes various kinds of pesticides and summarizes their regulation and economics. Argues for the diversification of pest control measures with limited use of chemicals. Includes tables, bibliography, and index. Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. An examination by an environmental historian of how geography, plants, animals, and natural resources have shaped the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States. Includes brief 1305
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calcium arsenate, with a total annual production of about 50,000 pounds. Two years later, twenty-five manufacturers were making it, and their combined output was more than 10 million pounds per year. The sharp increase in production reflected the new demand for calcium arsenate as an insecticide for the boll weevil. From the time of Coad’s discovery in 1917, production continued to grow until calcium arsenate became the second most common arsenical insecticide in use, next to lead arsenate. The annual production of lead arsenate increased from 11.5 million pounds in 1919 to more than 37 million pounds in 1931. Annual production of calcium arsenate by 1931 had climbed to more than 26 million pounds. In 1924, A. G. Ruggles, president of the American Association of Economic Entomologists, complained that young entomologists were not dedicating enough time to the study of insects; instead, they were experimenting with insecticides to control pests even before they had thorough understanding of the life cycles of those insects. Publicly funded economic entomologists were under pressure to make recommendations on control methods they knew would produce immediate results, and chemical insecticides had become the most efficient weapons in the war on insects. Some commentators raised public health concerns about chemical residues on food shortly after Paris green first gained popularity as an insecticide, but the U.S. government did not set tolerance levels for arsenic and lead residues until the 1920’s and 1930’s. These levels, set by the USDA, were based more on what the department believed industry could achieve through washing than on information about safe amounts of exposure. With few exceptions, government officials were looking for evidence of acute poisoning rather than chronic health effects from long-term exposure to spray residues. The potential for cumulative impacts from lifetime ingestion of these chemicals did not become an important issue for public debate until after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. The popularity of arsenical insecticides prepared the way for the rapid, almost indiscriminate, acceptance of DDT when it became available after World War II. By 1945, insecticides were already well established in the social and technological framework of American agriculture. It was not until the 1960’s, however, that the general public became aware of indirect health effects resulting from insecticides that washed off the land into streams and lakes, poisoning fish, wildlife, and humans. —Robert Lovely
American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use
Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods discussion of the impact of agricultural use of pesticides. Whorton, James. Before “Silent Spring”: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974. A good source for the early history of insecticide use, recognition of public health problems from spray residues, and the federal regulation of insecticides as these health prob-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lems became increasingly apparent. Explains the background of the DDT controversy thoroughly and provides examples. Includes index. See also: 1930: Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT.
1917
Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods Clarence Birdseye’s development of a technique for quick-freezing fresh foods led to the creation of the frozen-foods industry. Locale: Gloucester, Massachusetts Categories: Science and technology; inventions; trade and commerce Key Figures Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956), American scientist and inventor Donald K. Tressler (1894-1981), American food preservation researcher Wetmore Hodges (d. 1957), American businessman Summary of Event In 1917, Clarence Birdseye developed an inventive process for quick-freezing meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit without substantially changing their original tastes. Fortune magazine called his system of freezing “one of the most exciting and revolutionary ideas in the history of food.” Birdseye went on to refine and perfect his freezing method and to promote the frozen-foods industry until it became a commercial success nationwide. Even as a boy, Birdseye was interested in preserving things, animal skins in particular. By the time he was a teenager, he considered himself an authority in taxidermy and placed an advertisement in a sports magazine announcing courses at his newly founded American School of Taxidermy. Later, he worked as a fur trader in Labrador, where his interest in quick-frozen foods first began. During one of his Labrador trips, Birdseye’s new wife and five-week-old baby accompanied him. In order to keep his family well fed, he placed barrels of fresh cabbages in salt water and then exposed the vegetables to freezing winds. When this proved successful, he went on to freeze a winter’s supply of ducks, caribou, and rabbit meat. 1306
This was the start of the frozen-foods industry. In the following years, Birdseye experimented with many freezing techniques. He started with only seven dollars, with which he purchased an electric fan, cakes of ice, and buckets of salt brine. His earliest experiments were on fish and rabbits, which he froze and packed in old candy boxes. By 1924, he had borrowed against his life insurance to continue his research and was fortunate enough to locate three partners to invest in his new General Seafoods Company (later renamed General Foods), located in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Although it was Birdseye’s genius that put the principles of quick-freezing to work, Birdseye did not invent quick-freezing. The scientific principles involved had been known for some time when he put them to use. In the mid-1800’s, ice-salt systems were used to freeze foods. As early as 1842, a patent for freezing fish was granted to H. Benjamin in England, and in 1861 another such patent went to Enoch Piper in Maine. Nevertheless, the commercial exploitation of the freezing process could not have happened until the end of the 1800’s, when mechanical refrigeration was invented. Even with the refrigerator, however, Birdseye had to overcome major obstacles. By the 1920’s, few mechanical refrigerators were yet found in American homes, and it was years before adequate facilities for food freezing and retail distribution were in place across the United States. By the late 1930’s, frozen foods had, indeed, found their role in commerce, but they still were not important competitors with canned or fresh foods. Birdseye became a prime mover of the industry, working tirelessly, writing and delivering numerous lectures and articles to advance the popularity of frozen foods. His efforts were aided by scientific research being conducted at Cornell University by Donald K. Tressler and at Massachusetts State College (now the University
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the foresight to interest J. P. Morgan & Company in refinancing General Foods. By 1928, Hodges had convinced two other corporations that Birdseye’s process had a sales potential of one billion dollars per year. Within the year, these companies negotiated the purchase of Birdseye’s system, with its 168 patents. Soon, foods frozen using Birdseye’s methods began to appear on the market under the trademark name Birdseye Frosted Foods. Birdseye, by then a millionaire, continued to act as a consultant to General Foods while promoting the frozen food industry by writing articles and presenting lectures on food preservation. In later years, Birdseye turned his attention to developing an improved method of dehydrating foods, which he called “anhydrous.” Relying on the same principle of speed that had served him well in the quick-freezing industry, he discovered that rapidly dehydrated foods retain their cell structure. His new quick-drying method extracted water from fresh-picked fruits and vegetables in one-tenth the time used by other methods and was said to retain color, flavor, texture, aroma, and nutritional qualities. This was Birdseye’s second major contribution to the field of food preservation. Significance During the months between one food harvest and the next, humankind requires trillions of pounds of food for sustenance. In many parts of the world, adequate supplies of a variety of foods are available all year long; elsewhere, much food goes to waste at some times and many people go hungry at others. Methods of food preservation such as those developed by Birdseye have contributed immensely to reducing the number of malnourished in the world, as extending the season of availability of perishable foods increases the quantity and variety of foods that people can eat. Economically, frozen foods quickly became and still remain important items of commerce. In a free market system, frozen foods compete successfully with fresh and canned foods. For consumers this means better foods at lower prices, whether fresh, frozen, or canned. The success of the frozen-foods industry also improved the fortunes of many related industries. For example, Birdseye’s freezing methods revolutionized the shellfish industry, and today some 90 percent of Iceland’s export trade involves frozen fish. The prepared frozen foods industry came into being as a natural offshoot of the groundwork laid by General Foods. Aside from the benefits of improved nourishment for many and economic growth, the industry that Birdseye 1307
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of Massachusetts at Amherst) by C. R. Fellers. Also, war conditions advanced public acceptance of quick-frozen packaged foods as rationing, combined with a shortage of canned foods, contributed to demand. The armed forces made large purchases of these items as well. Although Birdseye’s new company was not the first to freeze whole fish commercially, General Foods was the first to use a system of extremely rapid freezing of perishable foods in packages. Under the Birdseye system, fresh foods, from berries to lobster, were packaged snugly in convenient square containers. The packages were then pressed between refrigerated metal plates under pressure at very low temperatures. General Foods used two types of freezing machines: the “double-belt” and “multiplate” Birdseye freezers. In the former, two metal belts held the food and were sprayed with calcium chloride brine as they ran through a 49-foot (15-meter) freezing tunnel. This type of freezer was used only in permanent installations and was soon replaced by the multiplate freezer, which was portable and required only about 124 square feet (11.5 square meters) of floor space, compared with the double-belt freezer’s 1,636 square feet (152 square meters). The multiplate freezer made it possible to bring quick-freezing to seasonal crops. Such a freezer could be transported easily from one harvesting field to another to freeze crops such as peas fresh off the vine. This type of freezer consisted of an insulated cabinet equipped with refrigerated metal plates. Placed one above the other, these plates could be opened and closed to receive food products and to compress them with evenly distributed pressure. Each aluminum plate had internal passages through which ammonia flowed and expanded at a temperature of –3.8 degrees Celsius, thus causing foods to freeze. A major benefit of the new methods of freezing foods was that the taste and vitamin content of most foods were not lost, as had been the case with previous methods. Ordinarily, when food is frozen slowly, ice crystals form within the food, slowly rupturing the cells and thus altering the taste of the food. In contrast, when food is frozen quickly at very low temperatures, cellular rupturing is minimized because the ice crystals formed are very small. Consequently, the food’s texture, flavor, color, and odor are retained. Compared with slower freezing methods, quick-freezing also cuts down bacterial growth and retards oxidation in foods. Up until 1925, financial problems plagued Birdseye’s commercial efforts. Later, Wetmore Hodges, son of the vice president of the American Radiator Company, had
Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods
Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods fathered had a major impact on the lifestyles of many people, especially those in developed nations, as the time-saving option offered by frozen foods gave them more leisure time. In addition, the frozen-foods industry greatly increased the food choices available to people who live in even the most remote areas of the world. —Nancy A. White Further Reading Birdseye, Clarence. “Bringing Quick-Freezing to Seasonal Crops.” Food Industries 3 (1931): 490-491. Presents the first authentic description of the multiplate freezer. Includes a discussion of how this portable unit was an improvement over Birdseye’s earlier model. _______. “Freezing Foods.” In Refrigeration Data Book. Vol. 1. New York: American Society of Refrigeration Engineers, 1932. Includes a discussion of biological and chemical aspects of freezing, thermal considerations, low-temperature refrigerating machinery, storage, and packaging. _______. “Preparation and Distribution of Frozen Perishable Products.” Refrigeration Engineering 19 (1930): 173. Discusses the benefits of quick-freezing and briefly covers packaging, equipment for storage and display, and difficulties encountered in thawing. Carlton, Harry. “Freezing Methods.” In The Frozen Food Industry. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1941. Presents an overview of a variety of freezers designed by engineers after Birdseye created his original models and includes detailed descriptions of how these freezers work. Desrosier, Norman W. The Technology of Food Preservation. Westport, Conn.: AVI, 1959. Presents the elements of the technology of food preservation as
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 founded in the physical and biological sciences. Chapter 5 offers a thorough description of the physical, chemical, and biological changes that occur during the freezing and thawing of foods. McIntosh, Elaine N. American Food Habits in Historical Perspective. New York: Praeger, 1995. Examines the nutritional history of the United States, including how nutrition has been affected by available foodpreservation technology. Chapter 6 presents information on the advent of frozen foods in the twentieth century. Includes bibliography and index. Pillsbury, Richard. “Stocking the Pantry: Technology and the Food Supply.” In No Foreign Food: The American Diet in Time and Place. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998. Discusses how methods of food preservation, including freezing, have influenced Americans’ dietary habits over time. Tressler, Donald K., and Clifford F. Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods. 2d ed. New York: AVI, 1947. Covers the freezing of not only fruits, fruit juices, and vegetables but also meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, and dairy products. Includes a section on the economic status of the food-freezing industry, with comments on its importance and probable trends. Illustrations of Birdseye’s multiplate freezer and “gravity froster” are accompanied by thorough explanations of how these freezers work. See also: Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner; 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced; May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex; Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
National Woman’s Party Is Founded
1917
National Woman’s Party Is Founded The National Woman’s Party helped bring the vote to U.S. women and later gave birth to the Equal Rights Amendment. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Organizations and institutions; women’s issues Key Figures Lucy Burns (1879-1966), American activist for women’s rights Alice Paul (1885-1977), American activist for women’s rights Harriot Stanton Blatch (1856-1940), American suffragist Anne Martin (1875-1951), American historian and activist for women’s rights Christabel Pankhurst (1880-1958), English suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), English suffragist
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Summary of Event Alice Paul and Lucy Burns made their entrance onto the stage of U.S. politics at a time when the issue of equal rights for women was at its peak of agitation at the state level. Six states had passed woman suffrage amendments, accounting for approximately two million women voters. On the national level, however, such activity had practically ceased. President Woodrow Wilson offered no active support of women’s issues. Paul and Burns became aggressive leaders of the fourth generation of U.S. women to devote themselves to the cause of women’s rights. Alice Paul was born in Mooretown, New Jersey, to Quaker parents and was educated at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the London School of Economics. In addition to being reared by Quakers, who instilled in her a basic respect for all people, she was descended from a long line of political activists. In 1909, while in London at the university, she became active in the militant suffrage work of mother and daughter Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. Paul was arrested and jailed several times for her participation in protests, and during one of these demonstrations she made the acquaintance of another remarkable young American woman, Lucy Burns, from Brooklyn, New York. Burns was also well educated (Vassar, Yale, University of Berlin) and had intended to pursue a career in aca-
demia. A taste of political activity caused her to change her mind, however, and she threw herself wholeheartedly into the fight for women’s rights. The meeting between the two women was fortuitous, and the partnership that ensued changed the course of history with respect to equality for women in the United States. Both of these courageous women suffered jail sentences and undertook hunger strikes. As leaders they were complementary: Paul was known as the quiet but bold strategist; Burns was the active, more militant public figure whose fierce leadership was tempered by her Irish sense of humor. Their observations of the Pankhursts readied them to return to the United States and take positions of leadership for their cause. In 1910, when Paul returned to the United States, she joined with Harriet Stanton Blatch (daughter of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton) to organize suffrage parades in New York. The next window of opportunity for Paul and Burns was provided by the long-standing Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which had become inactive. The original purpose of the committee was to propose an amendment for woman suffrage to the U.S. Constitution. Under the leadership of Paul and Burns, who served as chair and vice chair, respectively, the NAWSA staged a march of five thousand women on the White House the day before the presidential inauguration of Woodrow Wilson in April, 1913. The idea of holding the party in political power responsible for its actions on important issues was modeled on the work of the Pankhursts in England. Flamboyant publicity, street marches, protests, and demonstrations at federal events became synonymous with the style of Paul and Burns. It was not, however, in keeping with the previous style of the NAWSA, which had been less aggressive and more educative. Frustrated by hesitation within the NAWSA to demonstrate actively, Paul and Burns broke away from the association in 1913 to form the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, known as the CU. The CU rivaled the NAWSA nationally and published its own newspaper, The Suffragist, edited for a time by Burns. The CU sent representatives to various states to campaign against Democratic candidates who were not assisting the cause of women’s equality under the law. In 1916, the group formed the Woman’s Party. Women voters in the western states convened in Colorado to make plans to infiltrate the upcoming national
National Woman’s Party Is Founded
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Alice Paul (second from left) and other officers of the National Woman’s Party in front of the organization’s headquarters in June, 1920. (AP/Wide World Photos)
election campaigns with women’s equality issues. With Nevada historian Anne Martin at its helm, the party worked aggressively to organize voters against the Democratic national leadership, which had proved weak in its stand on suffrage. Twelve states had allowed women the right to vote, and Paul emphasized the importance of a group of voters, however small, that would not deviate from its mission. In 1917, under the leadership of Paul and Burns, the CU joined with its western contingent and became the National Woman’s Party (NWP). Paul was elected the NWP’s first chairperson, with Martin as vice chair. Women from all areas of life—including homemakers, union workers, physicians, attorneys, and philanthropists—were represented in the ranks of the organization. Significance Although the NWP was effective enough to initiate discussion of the Susan B. Anthony (Suffrage) Amendment 1310
on the floor of Congress, women were still not enfranchised in most U.S. states. Paul and Burns were recognized for maintaining momentum and imparting a sense to the party’s members that the fight was in perpetual motion; they continually changed and refreshed the party’s strategies. Paul’s leadership was autocratic; to some she was the party itself. Nevertheless, she was so selflessly devoted to the single purpose of federal recognition of women’s rights that her followers did not object. Her single-issue political strategy did draw fire from other groups, however, when she refused to speak out on issues such as racial discrimination or the Great War for fear of diluting her effectiveness on the main issue of gender equality. Burns continued her activity as well, traveling often to state functions and inciting groups with her fiery spirit. The NWP continued to work for suffrage until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which finally gave all women in the United States the right to
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vote. Paul and Burns saw well beyond the suffrage issue, however, and immediately refocused their energies on the issue of total gender equality under the law, resulting in the first presentation of the Equal Rights Amendment before Congress on December 10, 1923. The amendment stated simply that “men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction.” Thus began the long history of the campaign to ratify the amendment in all states—an objective that was never accomplished. The amendment that was eventually passed by Congress in 1972 included a requirement that, in order to become law, it must be ratified by three-quarters of the states within seven years. Although Congress extended the deadline by four years, in 1982 only thirty-five of the thirty-eight states required had ratified, and the effort to secure ratification was eventually abandoned. —Sandra C. McClain
_______. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Provides background and analyzes the effects of the feminist movement on subsequent events. Lengthy bibliographic notes. Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1996. Good historical overview of the movement, with specific information on forming of the NWP in chapter 21. Irwin, Inez Haynes. The Story of the National Woman’s Party. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1921. A thorough account of the founding and early days of the party from the perspective of a contemporary of Burns and Paul. Includes personal reflections from people involved in the suffrage movement. Kraditor, Aileen S. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920. 1965. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. Clearly outlines differing views of leaders in the feminist movement and presents the two sides of the suffragist argument both before and after the turn of the century. Lunardini, Christine A. From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, 1910-1928. 1986. Reprint. Lincoln, Nebr.: iUniverse, 2000. Focuses on Paul’s role in the suffrage movement and examines the importance of the NWP in continuing the fight for gender equality after American women had won the right to vote. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
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Further Reading Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. New York: Hill & Wang, 2005. Discusses the lives and work of the five most prominent activists in the U.S. suffrage movement: Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, and Alice Paul. Blends personal information on the subjects with political and historical analysis. Includes index. Clift, Eleanor. Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Brief history of the suffrage movement in the United States describes important events and organizations and provides background on the movement’s leaders. Includes bibliography. Cott, Nancy. “Feminist Politics in the 1920’s: The National Woman’s Party.” Journal of American History 71 (June, 1984): 43-68. Precise, well-referenced article focuses specifically on the work of the NWP and its leaders.
National Woman’s Party Is Founded
De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism
1917 DE STIJL Advocates
Mondrian’s Neoplasticism
Although Piet Mondrian’s neoplasticism did not succeed in establishing a new, universal style for art and architecture, it had a marked influence on the development of both. Locale: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Category: Arts Key Figures Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), Dutch artist and art critic Bart van der Leck (1876-1958), Dutch artist J. J. P. Oud (1890-1963), Dutch architect M. H. J. Schoenmaekers (1875-1944), Dutch mathematician and philosopher Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (1888-1964), Dutch designer and architect Summary of Event In 1917, when the magazine De Stijl (the style), recently and jointly founded by artists Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg of the avant-garde de Stijl movement, advocated Mondrian’s new style of neoplasticism, it was promoting a style that had been long in developing and to the perfection of which Mondrian would devote his artistic life. Basically, neoplasticism was the reduction of art to its basics through the rejection of any representational reference, individualism, or subjectivity. The objective was a picture language, universal rather than individualistic in spirit and, ultimately, universally comprehensible. Neoplastic paintings were compositions of straight black lines of varying widths that intersected to form rectangular shapes, which were filled in with the primary colors, supported by white and gray. Although Mondrian’s “constructions,” as he called them, seemed simplistic, they were amazingly complicated in their subtle structures and inherent spiritual quality. Mondrian came to his style of neoplasticism in slow stages, markedly influenced by his background. He was born in Holland, a flat, human-made country that can seem almost two-dimensional, with its squared-off polders, roads, and canals intersecting at right angles. The most dominant feature of the landscape is the sharply delineated straight line of the horizon. Mondrian’s schoolmaster father was a Calvinist who instilled in his son the idea of a chosen people destined to lead austere, useful lives imbued with social purpose. Al1312
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though Mondrian later abandoned Calvinism for the more personal religion of Theosophy, the Calvinist idea of duty remained. His motto was “Always further!” Indeed, Mondrian’s entire artistic career was a constant evolution into a more and more sharply defined personal style, one he believed would benefit humankind. Mondrian showed artistic talents as a child and was encouraged by his father, who was a talented amateur artist. After securing certificates to teach drawing in primary and secondary schools, Mondrian enrolled in the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts, his tuition paid by an unknown benefactor. His first paintings were representational, mainly landscapes influenced by tonalism. Even in these early paintings, however, the emphasis is on composition rather than on effects and details. A marked change occurred in Mondrian’s painting style between 1903 and 1909. In 1903, he went to live and work among the peasants of Dutch Brabant; through their simple and uncomplicated lives, he became aware of a collective, universal human spirit. A stay by the sea in 1907 and 1908 reinforced his feeling for infinity. The ocean’s endless expanse, so different from the closed world of his childhood, made a marked impression, as did the abstract formation of sand dunes, which contrasted sharply with the precisely constructed canals and roads he had known. Mondrian’s painting now attained a monumental quality—great towers, windmills, and trees, increasingly painted in primary colors. In 1909, Mondrian converted to Theosophy, which would have an even greater effect on his artistic style than Calvinism. Theosophy assumes the absolute reality of the essence of God and the essentially spiritual nature of the universe. Mondrian’s objective was to perfect an art form in harmony with, if not part of, the spiritual structure of the universe. Given that the nature of such a form was necessarily collective, the starting point would be the rejection of all forms of individualism, both human and natural. His recent conversion to Theosophy was probably the reason why the cubist works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque made such an impression on Mondrian when he saw them for the first time at an art exhibit in 1911. He was fascinated by an art form that appealed to the mind more than it did to the emotions. The same year, he left for Paris, and the period between 1911 and 1915 is known as Mondrian’s cubist period. Again, the evolution of his style can be seen, as he increasingly moved toward
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Significance The style Mondrian advocated did not materialize as the familiar precisely delineated geometric forms in blue, yellow, red, black, white, and gray until 1921. Meanwhile, van Doesburg’s hope of adapting the principles of the neoplastic style to all the arts never materialized. The concept was too utopian. Mondrian returned to Paris and
single-mindedly worked on making his compositions ever more refined and luminous. The impact of his art was to be left to others. The impact of neoplasticism on the arts was considerable, although largely indirect. One direct influence was felt in the United States by a group of abstract artists that included Josef Albers, Burgoyne Diller, and Fritz Glarner. A direct influence can also be seen in the art of the minimalists. Indirectly, Mondrian’s emphasis of structure and form, the clarity and asymmetry of his compositions, had a marked influence on many artists, including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. Even more important was the legitimacy Mondrian gave to total abstraction in art, the best-known examples of which were provided by the abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock. The abstract expressionists, like Mondrian, searched for universal values that might lend sanity to a world seemingly going berserk. The greatest impact of neoplasticism, however, was on architecture and industrial design. Adhering closely to the principles of neoplasticism, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld in 1924 designed the Schröder House in Utrecht, a Mondrian composition in three-dimensional form. Even the windows opened at ninety degree angles. Rietveld also designed his famous red-blue chair (more interesting than useful) in the neoplastic style. About the same time, architect J. J. P. Oud designed the facade for the Café de Unie in Rotterdam. Geometry did not hold for Oud the mystical connotations it did for Mondrian. Working with van Doesburg, he made modifications to the neoplastic style but used the spatial relationships in Mondrian’s compositions to create houses and housing developments that were both handsome and economical. For a demonstration housing exhibition held in Germany in 1927, Oud achieved striking beauty through a series of carefully proportioned syncopated geometric forms. Oud, too, restricted himself to primary colors, using them not as decoration but as an ancillary to special definition. Through his compositions and following the initiative already established by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Mondrian helped architects to escape from the “box” that was the basic unit of traditional architecture and to move into new spatial relationships. Devices such as cantilevering and achieving an effect of weightlessness by placing houses on stilts, as was done by the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier, are evidence of Mondrian’s influence. Mondrian’s greatest impact was to come through the merging of many of his basic ideas with those of the architects and designers of the Bauhaus in Germany, where 1313
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abstraction. Mondrian, however, found the cubist style too representational and subjective. Cubism was a means, not an end. When World War I broke out in 1914, Mondrian left Paris for neutral Holland. Flanders, where some of the most appalling butchery of the war occurred, was a geographic and cultural extension of Holland, and Mondrian’s faith in the world he had known was severely shaken. It was a world that championed individuals, and the senseless war seemed to him to be a clash of nationalities that was merely individualism writ large. Increasingly, he sought the company of a group of avant-garde artists and critics with whom he became acquainted. Three of them would help Mondrian to effect the style he had been seeking. The artist Bart van der Leck worked with geometric forms and primary colors. The clarity and strength of his compositions fascinated Mondrian. Theo van Doesburg, a versatile artist and critic, advocated a universal style applicable to all the arts and adaptable to the machine age. He was especially interested in possible changes in architecture. It was the theologian and mathematician M. H. J. Schoenmaekers who provided both the spiritual inspiration and the mathematical formula for the new style that would lead, Mondrian hoped, to an understanding of how the universe worked and that would enable humankind to live in harmony within it. It was also Schoenmaekers who provided the rationale for neoplasticism. The new style was to be limited to the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow; the three primary values, black, white, and gray; and the two primary directions, horizontal and vertical. The analogy with yellow, the vertical line, and the sun’s rays was obvious. Just as obvious was the blue and the horizontal. The primary values could represent the cosmos in its formative stage. Mondrian called the new style “neoplasticism,” or a new form of creativity. It was adopted by the other artists, and the manifesto proclaiming its validity was made in 1917. Van Doesburg became the chief promoter of the new style, with Mondrian continuing to be the chief source of artistic inspiration, although he withdrew from active participation.
De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism
De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism van Doesburg went to teach in 1925. That same year, the Bauhaus published a series of Mondrian’s essays on neoplasticism. German architects such as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, leaders of a trend in Germany that had been combating conservative trends in architecture, were already working with straight lines, right angles, and minimal uses of color. Influenced by the philosophy of New Objectivity, which asserted that the development of architecture is determined by social and technological factors, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, like Oud, sought to create, through the use of new technologies and materials, handsome constructions at minimal cost. Mondrian, together with Oud, can be considered to be among the creators of the International Style that was to become universal, dominating the field of architecture for the next fifty years. Mondrian’s single greatest influence can be seen in the dominance of the straight line in much modern architecture. The Bauhaus was among the pioneers in industrial design, in new forms of poster art, and in advertising layout. In the United States, the influence of the Bauhaus and the clean lines and precise spatial relationships of Mondrian can be seen in the work of Walter Dorwin Teague and Raymond Fernand Loewy, pioneers in industrial design. In 1938, Mondrian left Paris for London; in 1940, he left war-torn London for New York and was overwhelmed by the vitality of the great metropolis. His neoplastic style, to which he had rigidly adhered for nearly two decades, underwent marked changes, notably in the replacement of black lines with lines of dancing colors. His unfinished Victory Boogie-Woogie (1942-1943) was painted in the new style anticipating the Allied victory in World War II, which he did not live to see; Mondrian died in 1944. Had he lived longer, he might have had a still greater impact, for he died in a city that he helped to make the art capital of the world. —Nis Petersen Further Reading Dunlop, Ian. Piet Mondrian. Bristol, England: Purnell & Sons, 1967. Provides a good introduction for the lay reader to the fairly complicated subject of Mondrian’s change of styles. Includes fifteen color plates that represent outstanding examples from each of his major periods, beginning with landscapes and seascapes and progressing through cubism and total abstraction before reaching his final style. Summaries accompanying the plates make the transitions easy to follow. Jaffé, Hans Ludwig C. De Stijl, 1917-1931: The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art. Cambridge, Mass.: Bel1314
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 knap Press, 1986. Treats neoplasticism in minute detail; the three main parts of the book deal with the style’s origins, character and development, and influence on various artistic domains. Includes an interesting introduction by J. J. P. Oud, who frankly admits the movement was part of the idealism of his youth but that he felt he had to leave it even though its principles still influenced his work. _______. Piet Mondrian. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1970. Excellent work on Mondrian as an artist. Features forty-eight color plates, each accompanied by detailed text, providing a useful overview on Mondrian’s artistic development. Includes bibliography divided into primary and secondary sources. Mondrian, Piet. Piet Mondrian: The Earlier Years. Basel, Switzerland: Galerie Beyeler, 1956. Begins with Mondrian’s earliest paintings in 1898 done in the manner of the so-called Hague school. Demonstrates his remarkable transition to total abstraction; the last painting included was completed in 1935. Paintings are accompanied by commentary by Mondrian, much of which is fairly obscure, at least in part because of his spiritual orientation. Overy, Paul. De Stijl. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. Excellent general overview of the ideas, projects, and personalities associated with de Stijl. Includes illustrations, select bibliography, and index. Rembert, Virginia Pitts. Mondrian in the USA. New York: Parkstone Press, 2002. Focuses on Mondrian’s work during the brief period when he lived in New York, shortly before his death. Includes more than four hundred reproductions, more than two hundred of which are in color. Russell, John. The Meanings of Modern Art. Rev. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. One of the best introductions to the subject available. Covers Mondrian’s work extensively, but pays little attention to the de Stijl movement. Includes extensive and detailed bibliography. White, Michael. De Stijl and Dutch Modernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Focuses on the local context of the de Stijl movement in examining Dutch modernism. Discusses the relationship between mass culture and the fine arts. See also: Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; 1918-1919: Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole
1917
Yeats Publishes THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE William Butler Yeats, the major poetic voice of his age, consolidated the style and themes of his mature work in The Wild Swans at Coole, bridging the divide between nineteenth century sensibilities and twentieth century concerns. Locale: Dublin, Ireland Category: Literature Key Figures William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and playwright Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932), patron of Yeats Maud Gonne (1866-1953), Irish revolutionary
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Summary of Event In The Wild Swans at Coole, William Butler Yeats produced the second in the series of volumes of poetry on which any serious evaluation of his reputation must be based. Critical opinions differ as to the extent and regularity of this series. It has its origins, however, in Responsibilities (1914), the book of Yeats’s poetry that immediately preceded The Wild Swans at Coole. The shift of emphasis in Responsibilities constituted a watershed in the development of Yeats’s comprehension and acceptance of his poetic and personal preoccupations. The Wild Swans at Coole consolidated and extended this new phase, which was characterized by increased candor, a more spare poetical style, a greater formal sophistication, and a more explicitly philosophical dimension. Yeats’s effective revaluation of his imaginative origins in late Romantic verse is confirmed by the sheer range of The Wild Swans at Coole and the poet’s command of this range. If Yeats’s career as a whole is characterized by his ability to remake continually his poetic presence while at the same time preserving that presence’s continuity, this ability is nowhere more in evidence than in the variety of work in The Wild Swans at Coole. A large number of the changes in tone and subject matter in Yeats’s verse from Responsibilities to the end of his career may be classified under the general heading of “realism.” In the context, this term attains a somewhat specialized meaning, given that Yeats did not by any means forgo the passionate, visionary energy that he derived from reading such English Romantic poets as William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley. In addition to identifying sources of this energy in his own imagina-
tion, however, Yeats began to develop a critical sense of its power. This sense led him, on one hand, to develop an elaborate codification of this visionary power’s substance and usefulness, an ambition that receives expression in the complex and daunting poem “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes,” with which The Wild Swans at Coole concludes. On the other hand, Yeats intensified the expression of his awareness that ideals are both necessary and virtually impossible to attain. It is in his increasingly painful awareness of the latter fact of life that a realistic quality may be said to enter the verse. This quality gives the verse a greater dialectical impetus and sets forth more clearly than ever the poet’s emotional and psychological engagement with the antithetical nature of human existence and his impassioned articulation of that engagement. The effect of the realistic component on Yeats’s verse can readily be appreciated through an account of the title poem of The Wild Swans at Coole. It is clear from the poem’s title that the poet’s realistic tendencies are not merely confined to matters of theme and tone, even if their expression has its most significant impact in those two areas. The poem itself, however, has the real-life setting of the Coole Park estate of Yeats’s friend and patron Lady Augusta Gregory, a notable dramatist and author in her own right as well as the single most important material contributor to both Yeats’s career as a poet and his career as a public man of letters. Coole Park, then, is specifically at odds with the largely mythological landscapes, drawn largely from Irish mythological literature, in which Yeats initially attempted to secure his poetic identity. The scenic effects, including the swans, also faithfully reflect Coole Park, and the walk that is the poem’s ostensible occasion is based on Yeats’s familiarity with the park’s grounds. In addition, the poet delves into his own past in order to address the poem’s subject, illustrating from his own experience the interest and urgency of the poem’s ultimately abstract considerations. As though to underwrite the documentary character of this material, the poem proceeds in a meditative tone, the principal inspiration of which is human speech. The reflective, confiding, deliberate tone brings the reader into intimate association with the poet’s thought, yet at the same time Yeats retains his sense of large questions. For all the poem’s occasional character and almost conversational tone, it finally ad-
Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole dresses issues that, however intensely they preoccupy the poet, cannot be of concern only to him. Matters of youth and age, the effects of time, an awareness of transience in the presence of permanence, and the recollection of human emotional uncertainty in the light of the swans’ embodiment of fidelity both define the scope of Yeats’s personal experience and give a sense of the representative nature of experience. This strategy of drawing on the emblematic potential of his own and others’ experience underlies many of the most important poems in The Wild Swans at Coole. The collection’s notable elegies—and the fact that it is in this collection that Yeats adds the important new form of the elegy to his artistic repertoire—are perhaps the most obvious demonstration of the strategy in operation. In addition, however, Yeats continues to address with increasing candor the complexities of his emotional life. It might be thought that the poet is, in effect, elegizing his emotional life in the title poem. If he is, other poems reveal some of the reasons this may be the case. The collection registers the emotional impact of the loss of such beloved friends as Robert Gregory (Lady Gregory’s only son, whose death in action during World War I informs the background of three poems in the volume, “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory,” “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” and “Shepherd and Goatherd”) and Mabel Beardsley (sister of the English artist Aubrey Beardsley), whose passing is the subject of the sequence “Upon a Dying Lady.” Yeats also confronts once more what was arguably his greatest source of emotional conflict, his relationship with Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne. The presence of Maud Gonne in Yeats’s poetry continues to be paradoxically inspirational. Out of his personal distress at her rejection of his love comes poetry that, in a typical Yeatsian maneuver, hymns the unattainable. The poet’s sense of his beloved’s vital personality and his complicated attitude toward the thoughts and causes that animate her are debated again in such poems as “The People” and “His Phoenix,” to mention the most notable instances. Yeats’s attitude toward Gonne is further complicated by the brief, although prominent, presence in his life of her daughter, Iseult, to whom he confides in “The Living Beauty,” “To a Young Beauty,” and “To a Young Girl.” It would be facile and simplistic to suggest that the personal turbulence that underlies much of The Wild Swans at Coole is the reason the volume closes with complex poems such as “The Phases of the Moon” and “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes,” which at1316
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William Butler Yeats. (Library of Congress)
tempt to map in verse the poet’s private philosophical system of reconciliation and stability. The presence of these poems at the conclusion of the volume, however, offers an additional, and significantly impersonal, lens through which the human issues and the idealizing mind that addresses them may be retrospectively assessed and appreciated. Significance The impact of The Wild Swans at Coole can be assessed from a number of different standpoints, including that of contemporary Irish culture, in the formation and direction of which Yeats continued to play an active and increasingly critical role. The volume’s impact can also be evaluated from the standpoint of the development of poetry that would articulate the tensions of the modern age. In addition, the volume announced in clear form the interest in intellectual and philosophical synthesis that the poet would continue to address urgently, in poetry and prose, until his death in 1939. Fresh technical considerations of language and form also arise from The Wild Swans at Coole and constitute the area where the reader of Yeats will most vividly encounter both the volume’s continuity with Yeats’s earlier
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Irishmen of Gregory’s class), Yeats re-creates Gregory in the name of a different dispensation. Yeats installs his hero in cultural, rather than military, history, rendering him representative of a specifically aristocratic tradition, a tradition that Yeats long admired and sought to persuade the Irish people to retain. The response to the unprecedented conditions and consequences of World War I in terms of projecting codes and emblems of physical mastery and spiritual passion is not unique to Yeats, but his rehearsal of such a projection by his recuperation of the hero type, and by his formally locating that type in a volume of poems that is otherwise rather disquieted by life’s painful transitions and imperfections, sounds a distinctly modern—and modernist—note. Younger poets, particularly Ezra Pound (who was Yeats’s secretary during the period when some of the poems in The Wild Swans at Coole were written), had their sense of the dislocation of historical continuity and cultural tradition endorsed by Yeats’s evolving vision. The philosophical idiolect that Yeats produced as the underpinning of this vision, and that is invoked in the poems that conclude The Wild Swans at Coole, may have proved too idiosyncratic to have any permanent influence on the younger generation of poets. Nevertheless, the reformulations of tradition and the revaluations of the European literary heritage that became a persistent preoccupation of Pound and of T. S. Eliot may be seen to have been encouraged by Yeats’s example. From both an international and an Irish perspective, therefore, as well as from the standpoint of Yeats’s own poetic development, The Wild Swans at Coole is a landmark publication. —George O’Brien Further Reading Bradford, Curtis. Yeats at Work. Abridged. New York: Ecco Press, 1978. Study bases its account of Yeats’s methods of composition on comparisons of various manuscript versions of a selection of his poems. “The Wild Swans at Coole” is one of the poems selected for discussion, and various drafts of it are reprinted. Donoghue, Denis. Yeats. London: Fontana, 1971. One of the best single brief surveys of the subject. The author is the leading Irish literary critic of his generation. Clearly presents Yeats’s life, work, and thought in their many complex interrelations. The study’s unifying argument is based on an interpretation of Yeats’s conception of power. Contains a useful chronology and succinct bibliography. 1317
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work and new developments within the prosodic continuum of Yeats’s poetic achievement as a whole. These considerations find a focus in the flexibility and range of voice that the volume possesses and in the increasing confidence with which the poet deploys the discursive person of his mature verse. Noteworthy examples of the resourcefulness, ease, and control of the vocal component of Yeats’s compositional technique may be found in the volume’s title poem and in the long opening sentence of “The Fisherman.” It is to “The Fisherman,” also, that the reader initially must turn to acquire a sense of Yeats’s developing conception of Irish culture in The Wild Swans at Coole. The poem draws on some staple elements in the poet’s imaginative repertory: the western Ireland location of Coole Park, the peasant cloth from which the clothes of the fisherman are made, and the figure’s solitariness and his association with nature. Yet the poet’s deliberately iconographic intention with regard to the figure, the elevation of the fisherman above the concerns of the mean-spirited and opportunistic vulgarity of cultural politics in “the town,” and the frank avowal of the figure’s visionary character give the poem an ideological weight that is much more covert in Yeats’s earlier work. Similarly, the poems about Robert Gregory do not merely articulate the burden of their unhappy occasion but also use that occasion as a pretext to strike a triumphal note. The qualities of Gregory’s life and character are preserved by the poems, so that the subject is turned into a repository of enduring values. According to “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory,” the most important of the three Gregory elegies, these values are best appreciated in a cultural context. For that reason, Yeats devotes the poem’s opening verses to the creation of a pantheon of artistic friends in whose company Gregory properly belongs—despite the meager record of Gregory’s actual artistic achievements. The poem’s emphasis on the force of personality, an emphasis underlined in the conception of the heroic embodied by Gregory in “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” is additionally noteworthy for occurring in a volume of poems in which the development of Yeats’s own poetic personality is a striking feature. Moreover, as though to confirm that his concern is for the exemplary power of the individual value rather than for the context that throws that power into tragic relief, Yeats includes the brief, occasional, but telling “On Being Asked for a War Poem.” Rather than offer Robert Gregory as a martyr for any of the causes for which the conflict that took his life was being fought (and which were dear to many
Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole
Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church Ellmann, Richard. Yeats: The Man and the Masks. 1948. Reprint. New York: Macmillan, 1999. The first biography to make use of unrestricted access to Yeats’s posthumous papers. Adopts the poet’s doctrine of the mask as a biographical trope, so that the dialectic between Yeats’s life and work is fully recounted. One of the most satisfactory biographical treatments of Yeats available. Jeffares, A. Norman. A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats. London: Macmillan, 1984. Comprehensive annotations of each of Yeats’s poems and other very helpful scholarly material. An indispensable student’s guide. _______. W. B. Yeats. London: Hutchinson, 1988. A reworking of this noted Yeats scholar’s earlier biographical studies of the poet. Makes extensive use of Yeats’s unpublished papers to provide some new information in a work that combines scholarship with general reader accessibility. _______. W. B. Yeats: A New Biography. Rev. ed. New York: Continuum, 2001. Rewrite of the author’s 1949
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 book W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet makes use of material that has become available in the intervening years. Provides an introduction to Yeats’s life for the general reader. Includes photographs and drawings. Longenbach, James. Stone Cottage: Yeats, Pound, and Modernism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. A detailed study of the artistic and personal relationship between two of modernism’s major figures. Covers the period when a number of the poems in The Wild Swans at Coole were composed. Whitaker, Thomas. Swan and Shadow: Yeats’s Dialogue with History. 1964. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989. A sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of one of the key areas of Yeats’s imagination. Addresses the poet’s visionary sense of history in particular. See also: Dec. 27, 1904: Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival; Jan. 26, 1907: The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences; Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation.
1917-1918
Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church In 1918, the new Bolshevik government in Russia began confiscating church property, forbidding religious instruction in schools, and taking civil rights away from priests. Locale: Russia Categories: Government and politics; human rights; religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Vasily Belavin Tikhon (1865-1925), patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Bolshevik leader Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov (1861-1925), Russian politician Summary of Event The Bolshevik Revolution of October, 1917, meant serious trouble for the Russian Orthodox Church. Church authorities for centuries had closely associated themselves with the Russian monarchy. The Russian church had evolved from the Greek Orthodox Church, which followed the doctrine of caesaropapism; that is, the head 1318
of the state was also the head of the church. In the tenth century, Kievan Grand Prince Vladimir made Orthodox Christianity the official religion of Russia. For a period in the seventeenth century, during the “Time of Troubles,” the head of the church (the patriarch) emerged as a more important political leader than the Russian emperor, but Peter the Great reestablished the power of the emperor over the church in the eighteenth century. Peter created the Holy Synod to replace the patriarch as head of the church. Synod members were selected by the emperor. Despite the protests of many radical priests in the nineteenth century, state control of the church remained intact into the twentieth century. At the time of the 1917 revolutions, the Russian Orthodox Church was still a powerful institution. It continued to receive political and financial benefits from the government of Czar Nicholas II through 1916. Nevertheless, when the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew the czar, the Holy Synod offered Nicholas II only perfunctory support. Although some Orthodox priests, particularly in the rural areas, remained loyal and even refused to admit that the czar had abdicated, many in the
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talistic about their circumstances and saps their will to accomplish needed change. While the Bolsheviks were attempting to consolidate their authority in the days just after the revolution, the church sobor was in session. This gathering of representatives from all ranks of the clergy was swift in its condemnation of the Bolshevik takeover. Conservative leaders in the sobor believed that the time had come for the church, in a twentieth century “Time of Troubles,” to choose one person to guide the future of the institution. They prepared to reestablish the office of the patriarch, a position abolished by Peter the Great in the eighteenth century. Traditionally, the patriarch was not only the highest church official but also a national leader with great influence in government, and that is what conservatives in the sobor desperately wanted in 1917. Although some clergy objected to the plan, the sobor selected Vasily Belavin Tikhon, formerly archbishop of Vilna. His name was drawn from an urn that contained the names of three nominees who had received sufficient votes from the sobor. Tikhon lacked outstanding characteristics of leadership, but, with the Bolsheviks in power, it really mattered very little. Church officials clearly deceived themselves if they thought any person holding the title of patriarch could have any impact on the Bolsheviks. Lenin’s first act against the church came on December 4, 1917, when he ordered the nationalization of all land in Russia. As the church was the country’s single biggest landowner, this was a serious blow to its finances. In succeeding weeks, the Bolshevik government closed church schools and seminaries, made marriage a civil ceremony, and placed records of births, marriages, and deaths in government hands. On January 23, 1918, Russia was made a secular state by government decree. This meant that all religious observances would disappear from state functions and that the government would make no further payments to the church. During the course of 1918 and beyond, recalcitrant priests and monks were arrested and imprisoned or killed. When the great civil war began in March, 1918, the assault on the church, which sided with the opponents of the Bolsheviks, intensified. It is important to note, however, that Lenin recognized the significant place that religion held in the lives of many Russian citizens. He did not try to prevent private religious worship, nor did he arrest Patriarch Tikhon or disband the sobor. Throughout 1918 and into the early 1920’s, the patriarch and the sobor continued to berate the Bolshevik Party. (The Bolsheviks officially changed the name of their party to 1319
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clergy not only backed the February revolutionaries but also wished to see the order of Russian society completely overturned. The lower clergy in the church long had been associated with radical reform activity. It was not unusual for radical priests to take the lead in anticzarist organizations. The Holy Synod attempted to work positively with the provisional government established after Nicholas II’s abdication, but it was not long before conservative members of the synod began to resent the government’s attempt to advance the cause of church reform. Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov, titular head of the provisional government in March, 1917, on several occasions tried to circumvent the Holy Synod to achieve reforms he believed to be necessary. Lvov had hoped that the sobor (an all-Russian church council) he had helped to plan for the autumn of 1917 would adopt reform measures, but he soon realized that the sobor would be restrained by the ultraconservative synod. Lvov’s intended reforms were far from sweeping, but clergy at all levels were alarmed that he wanted to reduce the role of the church in education. Throughout the summer and early autumn of 1917, the church and the provisional government experienced numerous changes in leadership. In these circumstances, it was very difficult to reach an understanding as to what position and role the church would have in the new regime. By the end of July, 1917, uncertainty about the future drew liberal and conservative clergy together in defense of the church. There was grave concern that the church was on the verge of losing its privileged place in Russian society. This reality led those in the church’s hierarchy to ally themselves more firmly with conservative political interests. The church, therefore, continued to support Russia’s participation in World War I at a time when the army was in shambles, large numbers of people were without food, and industry was at a standstill. The church accused those who argued for dramatic social reform (especially the Bolshevik Party) of disloyalty to the country. Even reform-minded priests tended to support the war effort. The provisional government, which had been shaky and under attack from the left and the right since May, collapsed in September, 1917, and the Bolshevik Party seized control of the government in mid-October. Before the October Revolution, Orthodox Church officials had condemned the Bolsheviks as traitors and haters of Christ. The organizers of the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Ilich Lenin and Leon Trotsky, accepted the view of Karl Marx that religious belief makes people fa-
Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church
Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church Communist in February, 1918.) The patriarch, for example, contended that the revolution was part of an international Jewish-Masonic conspiracy and that the czar had been cast out so that Russian Christians could be made slaves of the Jews. The sobor, meanwhile, encouraged Russian believers to resist the separation of the church from the state. It was not until 1922 that Lenin brought charges against Patriarch Tikhon and had him arrested. Tikhon was later released when he agreed to end his protests against the Communist government. By that time, it was clear that all hope of displacing the Communist regime was gone. Significance The denial of church rights by the Bolsheviks put an end to the privileged relationship the Orthodox Church had long held with the government of Russia. For centuries, the church and the emperors had reinforced and protected each other psychologically and financially. Suddenly, the church and its followers needed to fight for survival. Orthodox followers benefited from the New Economic Policy imposed by Lenin in 1921, which provided for slowing down the march toward a fully communist state. The government backed away from an aggressive assault on religious belief. It was not until Joseph Stalin came to power, after a brief leadership struggle following Lenin’s death in 1924, that a major effort was made to eradicate all religious worship in the Soviet Union (which was officially formed in 1922). Even Stalin, however, was forced to relax his efforts in the burst of patriotism that accompanied the Soviet Union’s participation in World War II. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, many church officials and priests left Russia to pursue their faith in other European locales. Wherever they migrated, they found other Russians who had fled from the country before the Bolsheviks could secure the borders. Large numbers of émigrés, including many from the Russian intelligentsia, found their way to France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Bulgaria. Even among those who had become disillusioned with the practices of the Orthodox Church, there was never doubt that the church still existed in exile. For those who were not fortunate enough to escape, it was necessary to carry out religious observances in secrecy during times of the most severe repression. Although the church followers who remained in Russia could never match the government’s massive funding of atheist organizations and publications that were intended to denigrate religious belief, scholars are 1320
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 unanimous in their assertions that there was never much chance that the Communist government would succeed in eliminating religious belief or the longing of Russian believers for the return of their church. The greatest impacts of the early Bolshevik attack on the Orthodox Church were the reduction of the church’s political significance, depletion of its financial resources, and sharp diminishment in the number of clergy. The attack also served to discourage young people from following the religion of their parents. It was not until the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev as the Soviet leader in 1985 that circumstances improved for the church as an institution. Although an atheist himself, Gorbachev showed little opposition to religious ceremonies. In the spirit of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), he joined in the celebration of one thousand years of Russian Orthodox Christianity in 1989. Subsequent events in 1990-1991, principally the crumbling of the central power of the Soviet state, brought about a major revival of church activities. After the fall of the Communist regime in the late 1980’s, the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church greatly improved. Even before the fall, despite decades of repression, as many as half of Russian children were baptized, indicating the persistence of religiosity among the Russian people. After religious expression was no longer persecuted, the Russian Orthodox Church rapidly regained its preferred status in Russia, both in law and in practice. Much of the twelve million acres of church property seized by the Communists was returned to the church, which operates more than twenty-three thousand parishes. By the end of the twentieth century, the chief concerns for Russian Orthodoxy came not from the government but from intrusion by other religious groups, including the Roman Catholic Church, which has strained relations with the Russian Orthodox Church. A 1997 law prohibited religious cults in Russia, and churches that wish to practice must show that they had a presence in Russia extending back into the late years of Communist rule. Only large, well-recognized faiths were granted full rights under that law, Russian Orthodoxy being chief among them. —Ronald K. Huch Further Reading Brovkin, Vladimir, ed. The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Collection of works by various scholars explores the Bolshevik
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 government. Focuses in particular on Russian resistance to the Bolsheviks, including resistance to policies governing religion. Well organized and indexed. Curtiss, John Shelton. The Russian Church and the Soviet State, 1917-1950. Boston: Little, Brown, 1953. One of the best works available on the Orthodox Church and the Bolsheviks from 1917 to 1928. Suitable for the general reader as well as the serious scholar. Highly recommended. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Freeze, Gregory L. The Parish Clergy in Nineteenth Century Russia: Crisis, Reform, Counter-Reform. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Delves into the serious problems that burdened the Russian church in the nineteenth century, problems that had not disappeared at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Superb notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. 2d ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. A study of the years of the Bolshevik regime by a widely respected scholar of Russian history. Includes discussion of the regime’s impact on the Russian Orthodox Church.
Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence Ulam, Adam B. The Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia. 1965. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Classic work offers a comprehensive history of the Bolsheviks in Russia. New preface places Lenin and the Bolsheviks in perspective from the viewpoint of the late twentieth century. Young, Glennys. Power and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. Recounts the religious persecution that took place during the Bolshevik regime from the perspective of those who resisted. Includes illustrations, glossary, and bibliography. See also: Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 19181921: Russian Civil War; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern.
1917-1920
Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko (18831939), Russian revolutionary and Red Army officer Khristian Georgiyevich Rakovsky (1873-1941), leader of the Bolshevik government in Kharkov
Locale: Ukraine Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; independence movements
Summary of Event Russia’s new Time of Troubles, 1917-1921, involved foreign interventionist armies, civil wars among Russians, and wars of national liberation. One of the last was the Ukrainian bid for independence that began weeks after the Bolsheviks seized St. Petersburg in November, 1917. The attempt to establish a separate Ukraine was made difficult by the Russian White forces that invaded the Ukraine under Anton Ivanovich Denikin from the southeast in the name of imperial unity, by the occupying German armies that set up a puppet state under Pavlo Skoropadsky, by the French armies in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, by the forces of newly independent Poland under Marshal Józef Piusudski, who seized the western Ukrainian territories, and by the civil strife among Ukrainian parties. An unrepresentative Ukrainian government called the
Key Figures Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1947), leader of the White armies in southern Russia during Russia’s civil wars Pavlo Skoropadsky (1873-1945), Cossack leader installed as president of Ukraine in 1918 Józef Piusudski (1867-1935), Polish revolutionary, politician, and military leader Symon Vasylovych Petliura (1879-1926), Socialist leader of the Rada Vladimir Kirillovich Vinnichenko (1880-1951), coleader of the Directory
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Ukrainian nationalists struggled for independence in the wake of the collapse of Russia’s czarist government and the October Revolution, but they failed in their bid for autonomous statehood.
Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence
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P
Central Rada was set up in Kiev in The Soviet Ukraine March, 1917. Following the BolsheHelsinki vik coup in St. Petersburg, the Rada St. Petersburg m desired a people’s republic within a Vologda Tallinn Russian federation. When the Rada Novgorod Parnu Tartu allowed rebel Cossacks to cross its Pskov borders with impunity, Vladimir Ilich Jaroslav Rostov Lenin’s government regarded that as Riga a a hostile act and responded with S o v i e Moscow Daugavpils t armed force that was resisted by the a Vitebsk Sovietsk U Ukrainians in the so-called Railway Kaunas nKaluga Smolensk Kaliningrad War. Russian forces moved into i Minsk o Lida Kharkov and used that Ukrainian city Olsztyn Mogilev n as a base from which to attack the Orel White armies to the east and UkrainiGomel ans to the west. Warsaw Voronezh Voronezh Disagreements within the Comu munist Party in Russia on how to Lutsk Kiev deal with the Ukraine led to further akow Dn Kharkiv U iep Donets Lvov confusion, but in December, the govk er D o basin Vinnitsa R r erokKosice ne iv ernment of Lenin sent an ultimatum a ts er Dnepropetrovsk Riv i n to Kiev to cease disarming Red Guard er e Donetsk Miskolc detachments and support the miliZaporozhye Krivoy Rog Botosani recen Odessa tary campaign against the Whites. Cluj Frunze Chisinau When the Ukrainian Congress of SoArad Sea of viets met in Kiev, the delegates overAzov Timisoara Braila whelmingly supported the Rada and Simferopol Krasnodar Sad Bucharest rejected the ultimatum. By the end of Sevastopol elgrade Crimean Constanta December, however, most Ukrainian Peninsula o Sochi Mikhaylovgrad Pleven towns, including Odessa, had fallen Varna S e a Sofia B l a c k to the Red armies; only Kiev held Burgas Skopje Stara Zagora out. Bolshevik agitators infiltrated Titov Veles the Rada forces led by Symon VaIstanbul Zonguldak Xanthi sylovych Petliura, and on February 8, Thessaloniki T u r k e y 1918, Bolshevik armies entered Kiev Bursa Ankara oannina to reassert Russian control over the thirty-two million “Little Russians.” In truth, Ukrainians were less than envent the Russian Bolsheviks from maintaining control. thusiastic about independence, as national feelings had In March, the Central Powers signed a treaty with Russia not penetrated the peasant villages and the cities were popat Brest and compelled the Russians to withdraw from ulated by large numbers of Great Russians and Jews. The the Ukraine. Meanwhile, German armies continued to Bolsheviks were not popular either, although they did advance deep into Ukrainian and Russian lands, taking manage to seize the moment to take more decisive actions. Kharkov on April 8, the Donets basin by April 29, and The Germans, still fighting in World War I on the Sevastopol naval base on May Day. The Rada, overeastern front, sought to make a protectorate over the thrown by Bolsheviks, restored by Germans, was soon Ukraine. On February 12, 1918, the Central Powers (April 29) ousted by the Germans in favor of Skoro(Germany and Austria-Hungary) signed a separate treaty padsky, who headed a puppet state supplying the Central of peace with the Ukrainian Rada in exile, sent an occuPowers with much-needed raw materials. pying army into the country, and were welcomed by The Rada had been popular at least among the urban some people who were anxious to restore order and prea n d o l
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Polish war was a seesaw contest between the Polish leader and the armies of Marshal Mikhail Tukhashevsky, who brought his Russian forces to the outskirts of Warsaw only to be pushed back again. The Treaty of Riga in March, 1921, left the western Ukraine in Polish control. Ukrainian resistance to Bolshevik rule ceased because there was too little support from the rank-and-file peasantry for a nationalist government and no national army of consequence remained. All leftist parties merged with the Reds, and Moscow controlled the Communist Party of the Ukraine. Significance In the end, the Russian government retained control of this large Slavic region. Many Russian historians view this episode as part of the historic struggle between North and South, the latter the traditional haven for rebels. Others see it as continued evidence of foreign interference in the internal life of Russian lands. Although Lenin had stated his support for the principle of self-determination of all nations, he was surprised when some nationalities opted to take the Bolsheviks’ declaration of the right of national self-determination seriously and leave the new proletarian state. Lenin justified the use of force against those separatists by arguing that such societies were unrepresentative of the working class. Although Ukrainian nationalism was too weakly perceived in that region for the struggle for independence to succeed, the folklore that emanated from the revolution helped to create a deeper feeling of nationhood in succeeding years. —John D. Windhausen Further Reading Brovkin, Vladimir N., ed. The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Collection of essays by distinguished scholars focuses on the reactions to the Bolsheviks and their rule among the rest of Russian society. Includes index. Iroshnikov, M., D. Kovalenko, and V. Shishkin. Genesis of the Soviet Federative State, 1917-1921. Moscow: Progress, 1982. Provides a standard Soviet view of Ukrainian upheavals resulting from bourgeois class interests and leading to the triumph of Lenin’s nationalist principles. Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1921. 1989. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1999. Comprehensive, masterfully written history describes all aspects of the Ukrainian bid for independence. Includes endnotes and index. 1323
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working classes, but Skoropadsky’s regime found less support. Consequently, when the armistice was signed ending World War I in November, 1918, the armies of the Central Powers evacuated the Ukraine, and one month later the nationalists sent Skoropadsky packing to Germany. The Rada then returned as the Directory under Petliura and Vladimir Kirillovich Vinnichenko. This nationalist government, however, which called itself the Ukrainian People’s Government, was hampered by divisions in its ranks and fell prey to advancing Red armies from Russia. Although by the spring of 1919, the latter successfully removed the Directory leaders, by then much of the country had been overrun by the White armies of Denikin, who was also hostile to Ukrainian independence. After a year of fighting, Soviet armies had defeated the White forces and ensured that most of the Ukraine was again subservient to Russia. Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko, the veteran revolutionary who arrested the provisional government in St. Petersburg in November, 1917, organized the Ukrainian Soviet Army as the Bolsheviks established their own capital at Kharkov under G. L. Piatakov and Khristian Georgiyevich Rakovsky. Their refusal to share power with other radical parties and their policy of requisitioning grain from the villagers ensured that support for the Bolsheviks would be minimal. Petliura mounted a counteroffensive in the west and briefly retook Kiev, but monarchists and Whites (especially the Don Cossacks) took Kharkov from the Bolsheviks and arrived in Kiev to frustrate attempts at Ukrainian national unity, carrying out vicious pogroms against the Jewish communities. French armies in Odessa tried to protect that city against both Whites and Reds, rendering some support to Petliura. After the French withdrew, White forces took Odessa and Ekaterinoslav, then crossed the Dnieper and chased Petliura westward, where his troops were caught in the so-called triangle of death among hostile Polish, Russian, and White armies. By June, 1919, the new Moscow government reversed itself by abandoning national armies in favor of centralized administrations, civil and military. Leon Trotsky told the Red armies that their duty was not to conquer but to liberate the Ukraine from German allies in the Rada. Meanwhile, Piusudski, the hero of Poland reborn, invaded western Ukraine and even captured Kiev by May, 1920. Making a deal with Petliura to take eastern Galicia from Ukraine, Piusudski hoped that the forces of Petliura could be restored to power, but the nationalists of the Rada were no more popular than before and so were little help to the Poles. The resulting Russian-
Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence
Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. 2d ed. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2005. Presents a clear account of Russia’s troubles. Explains how the Bolsheviks succeeded by making a favorable offer of some state independence coupled with centralization of the Soviet military and the party. Pipes, Richard. Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Comprehensive history by one of the leading authorities on the Soviet Union provides coverage of the Bolshevik policy toward non-Russian nationalities. Shows how the Bolsheviks derived great advantages from the civil war.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Reshetar, John S., Jr. The Ukrainian Revolution, 19171920: A Study in Nationalism. 1952. Reprint. New York: Ayer, 1972. Argues persuasively that the fundamental failure of Ukraine’s bid for independence can be traced to the weak feelings of nationhood among the vast peasantry. See also: 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence; Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence; Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence; May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland.
1917-1924
Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror The Bolsheviks under Vladimir Ilich Lenin seized power in Russia and proceeded to eliminate opposition through ruthless repression and violation of fundamental human rights. Locale: Russia Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; human rights; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), Russian communist leader Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), Soviet political leader Summary of Event Russia entered World War I allied with Britain and France against the Central Powers, of which Germany and Austria were the chief members. Although Russians fought bravely, their country’s poorly developed industries could not meet the needs of the armed forces or the civilians. Decades of protest against autocratic rule had divided Russia at a time when conduct of the war demanded national unity. The war brought defeat and the end of czarist rule. Nicholas II abdicated in March, 1917, amid revolution. The abdication left Russia without a legal government. Nicholas named Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov as prime minister. Lvov became leader of a committee from the Duma, Russia’s ineffectual parliament, 1324
that formed a provisional government that was largely under the influence of liberals who wanted a constitutional republic. More radical factions desired sweeping social and economic, as well as political, changes and therefore viewed the provisional government with malice. Among the dissidents, two Marxist movements, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks (communists), competed for power with other factions. The government’s decision to continue the war gave the Bolsheviks a major propaganda advantage. They demanded immediate peace. Lvov and Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky, the minister of war, tried to revitalize military efforts, but discipline in the army was extremely poor, and mass desertions occurred. Lvov resigned in July, 1917, and Kerensky became prime minister while German armies advanced and the provisional government languished in confusion. In the midst of this disarray, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, returned to Russia after three years spent in exile as punishment for revolutionary activities. He called for the overthrow of the government as a prelude to peace and a radical restructuring of society. Soon the populace of Petrograd became an uncontrollable mob demanding peace, and the ranks of the Bolsheviks grew rapidly. Kerensky’s frantic effort to find support failed as military units defied his orders. On November 6, 1917, communists seized control of the capital and arrested ministers of the provisional government. The Military Revolutionary Committee, under Leon
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Trotsky, had gained support of the Trotsky on Dictatorship and Democracy garrison in Petrograd. Armed force Leon Trotsky wrote Dictatorship Versus Democracy in response to the Gerbrought the communists to power. man politician Karl Kautsky. In the book’s later sections, Trotsky describes the At the time of their victory, the enormous struggle he and his colleagues faced as they opposed antirevolutioncommunists were still only one of ary forces: several revolutionary groups in the capital. Ever since the unsuccessful The balance of political power at any given moment is determined under the inuprising of 1905, soviets (revolutionfluence of fundamental and secondary factors of differing degrees of effectiveary councils) had provided leaderness, and only in its most fundamental quality is it determined by the stage of ship for various socialist factions in the development of production. The social structure of a people is extraordithe country. The Petrograd Soviet of narily behind the development of its productive forces. The lower middle classes, and particularly the peasantry, retain their existence long after their Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was economic methods have been made obsolete, and have been condemned, by the most important such body in 1917. the technical development of the productive powers of society. The consciousSocialist Revolutionaries, Mensheness of the masses, in its turn, is extraordinarily behind the development of viks, and Bolsheviks all had blocs of their social relations, the consciousness of the old Socialist parties is a whole support within it, as they did within epoch behind the state of mind of the masses, and the consciousness of the old soviets elsewhere. A Congress of Soparliamentary and trade union leaders, more reactionary than the consciousviets convened as the communists ness of their party, represents a petrified mass which history has been unable seized power in Petrograd (now St. hitherto either to digest or reject. In the parliamentary epoch, during the period Petersburg). Most Mensheviks and of stability of social relations, the psychological factor—without great error— Socialist Revolutionaries denounced was the foundation upon which all current calculations were based. It was the Bolsheviks’ action and withdrew considered that parliamentary elections reflected the balance of power with sufficient exactness. The imperialist war, which upset all bourgeois society, from the congress to protest it. This displayed the complete uselessness of the old criteria. The latter completely lack of action left Lenin’s party in ignored those profound historical factors which had gradually been accumulatcontrol. ing in the preceding period, and have now, all at once, appeared on the surface, Lenin demanded “all power to the and have begun to determine the course of history. soviets” and total authority for the The political worshipers of routine, incapable of surveying the historical Communist Party. The congress deprocess in its complexity, in its internal clashes and contradictions, imagined to clared the immediate creation of a themselves that history was preparing the way for the Socialist order simultasocialist society and instituted the neously and systematically on all sides, so that concentration of production and Council of People’s Commissars to the development of a Communist morality in the producer and the consumer lead the new regime. Lenin was mature simultaneously with the electric plough and a parliamentary majority. chairman of the council, Trotsky was Hence the purely mechanical attitude towards parliamentarism, which, in the eyes of the majority of the statesmen of the Second International, indicated the foreign commissar, and Joseph Stadegree to which society was prepared for Socialism as accurately as the malin was commissar of nationalities. nometer, indicates the pressure of steam. Yet there is nothing more senseless The transition to dictatorship did than this mechanized representation of the development of social relations. not proceed smoothly. Most governSource: Leon Trotsky, Dictatorship Versus Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): ment officials were hostile and went A Reply to Karl Kautsky (New York: Workers Party of America, 1922). on strike as soon as commissars appeared to take charge. The state bank refused to give money to the new rulers. The communists responded with and a dissident wounded Lenin, his regime imposed a brutal coercion. reign of terror executed by the communist secret poOnce the Congress of Soviets had disbanded, the lice, known as the Cheka (an acronym from the Russian Communist Party cemented its control over a one-party form of the organization’s official name, Extraordinary state. Against some opposition within his own Central Commission to Fight the Counterrevolution and SaboCommittee, Lenin made peace with the Germans on tage). Among the victims of the terror were former offiterms that were humiliating and costly to Russia, but the cials of the provisional government who, upon release imminence of a German conquest had left no alternative. from jail, denounced Bolshevik tyranny and demanded When Socialist Revolutionary protests became violent
Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror free elections to choose a constituent assembly. The Cheka incarcerated them at Kronstadt Naval Base. Lenin ordered the abolition of hostile local councils and city governments. Immediately after the communist coup, Lenin had promised parliamentary elections, but he feared that the outcome might be detrimental to his party. Trotsky persuaded him to hold the elections rather than risk a severe reaction for reneging on the promise. The results confirmed Lenin’s fears. Of the 703 deputies chosen, only 168 were communists. The Socialist Revolutionaries had a clear majority. The people had spoken, and Lenin decided to silence them. The communists arrested more opposition leaders to intimidate the assembly into declaring a vote of confidence in Lenin’s government. When that body met, it nevertheless elected Socialist Revolutionary leader Viktor Chernov its president rather than accept dictation from the communists. When the deputies recessed, the communists would not allow them to reconvene. They shot those who protested. The duly elected assembly was no more, and the communists had full control of the government. By this time the plight of the imperial family was precarious. Nicholas, Czarina Alexandra, and their five children were under house arrest at Ekaterinburg, Siberia. In July, 1918, local Soviet leaders executed all of them. Even the family dog died in a volley of gunfire. Despite its control of the central government, the Communist Party was not secure in its position across Russia. It needed a large, disciplined military force to impose its directives and to fight opposition groups in various parts of the country. Trotsky proceeded to construct the Red Army. Military training became compulsory for urban workers and peasants. People deemed incurably anticommunist became conscripted laborers. Capital punishment awaited deserters. Trotsky coerced former officers of the czar’s army to serve his regime; reprisals awaited their families if they refused. Political commissars watched such officers and indoctrinated the troops. To feed the Red Army, the government forced peasants to deliver to the state all but the minimum needed for their own subsistence. Peasants often resisted and suffered execution for doing so. In factories, managers worked under the supervision of Communist Party agents. Sporadic uprisings against the regime were unsuccessful. Organized military forces gathered around commanders of the old imperial army and navy, and civil war raged until 1921. Despite intervention from the West and 1326
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 from Japan, the communists won. Foreign assistance to the anticommunists was insufficient for their victory but just enough to allow the Bolsheviks to claim they were defending Russia against outside aggressors. The empire of the czars had been a multiethnic state in which Russians dominated other peoples. Resentment led to secessions, beginning in 1917, as the war effort disintegrated. Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia declared independence. The communists lacked the means to prevent the loss of the Baltic states, but they did reclaim a large sector of the Ukraine, which they made a Soviet republic despite Lenin’s avowed subscription to the principle of self-determination of peoples. In Central Asia, the Red Army, aided by communist subversives, imposed its rule without regard for the wishes of the peoples involved. When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came into being in 1922, its constitution affirmed the right of constituent republics to secede, but rulers in the Kremlin had no intention of allowing secession. Despite losses of territory, the Russian empire remained intact, with Lenin in control. Not only did the communists impose their rule on the non-Russians of their country, but they also dealt severely with all dissidents within Russia itself. In March, 1921, when sailors at Kronstadt showed support for striking workers in Petrograd, Trotsky led the Red Army in conquering the naval base. Many of the sailors who surrendered were shot, and many more went to prison camps. The strength of the Kronstadt rebellion, in addition to continuing unrest in general, convinced Lenin to compromise communist ideology in order to save his regime. From 1921 until his death in 1924, he followed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a temporary retreat from state socialism. The government allowed small businesses and factories to operate in private hands, and it obtained foreign investments to aid the economy. Although many problems remained, the NEP did bring stability that aided Lenin’s government. The achievement of relative stability gave Lenin an opportunity to eliminate his opponents in a systematic way. Frightened Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and others fled into exile. Many who remained spent years in prison and went into exile afterward. By the end of 1922, organized opposition no longer existed within the country. In addition to dealing with opposition parties, Lenin had to face contention within the Communist Party, where abject surrender to the Germans and the NEP contradictions of Marxism had aroused criticism. Some
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bolsheviks, including Trotsky, became alarmed at the growth of bureaucracy as a power base for dictatorship. A workers’ opposition group protested the trend toward despotism and joined Trotskyites in complaining about the NEP. At the same Party Congress that adopted the NEP, Lenin denounced deviations from this program and vowed to stop them. He purged party membership from 730,000 to 530,000. The secret police arrested troublesome party members. Although Lenin was a dictator, he claimed that the Soviet government operated on the principle of democratic centralism, which allowed free discussion at all levels until a Party Congress established policy. This freedom was, however, entirely theoretical. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee (Politburo) ran the party, and its members sat on the Council of People’s Commissars and controlled the state. In July, 1918, a Congress of Soviets adopted a constitution that included the Declaration of Rights of Toiling and Exploited People. It soon became clear, however, that this was not a guarantee of rights but an expression of aspirations for the future. This remained the case in the constitution of 1923, of which Joseph Stalin was the chief author. Despite proclamations about human rights in official documents, the peoples of the Soviet Union were subjects more than citizens, as policies toward education, religion, and the Jews indicated.
In return, the regime allowed the church to continue its strictly ceremonial and sacramental ministries. Lenin believed that public interest in religion would disappear as Marxist ideology prevailed through statecontrolled education. Although individual clergy members and members of various sects continued to defy the government and paid a high price for their disobedience, the Orthodox Church’s hierarchy remained subservient. Some bishops became tools of propaganda, telling the world that the Soviets respected freedom of religion. In contrast with its animosity toward Christians, the regime appeared at first favorably disposed toward Jews. Among thirty-one members of the first Communist Party Central Committee, five were Jews. War Commissar Trotsky was a Jew, as was Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev, director of the Comintern, the agency charged with promoting revolution worldwide. Jews obtained positions even in the Cheka. Given that Jews were welcome in the Communist Party, many believed that a new day of freedom and opportunity had dawned for Soviet Semites. Others regarded the disproportionate number of Jews in the Red leadership as evidence that communism was an international Jewish conspiracy, and some Gentiles distrusted Jews because of their prominence in the Cheka. When Lenin came to power, he recognized the Jews as a minority entitled to self-determination, but as the Jews were dispersed across the country, that recognition was meaningless. Stalin said that all minorities would eventually be submerged into a single socialist culture, a prospect acceptable to Jews who had become communists. Jews who remained religious, however, were often victims of persecution. Communist leaders showed special hatred of Zionism, the belief that world Jewry should repossess Palestine, its historic homeland. Jewish communists induced their government to outlaw Zionist organizations as counterrevolutionary. Soon the state ordered all Jewish social bodies to disband, and confiscation of Jewish schools and synagogues followed. Jews in so-called bourgeois occupations—clergymen, landlords, businesspeople, and moneylenders—suffered the same discriminations imposed on their Gentile counterparts. Writing prophetically in the nineteenth century, novelist Fyodor Dostoevski had predicted that, when it came, the Russian revolution would begin with the promise of great freedom but lead to a cruel despotism. The rule of authoritarian czars gave way to that of totalitarian Soviets. A revolution many expected to produce a free and just society led to perhaps the most rigorous po1327
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Significance In the early days of Bolshevik rule, schools became chaotic as revolutionary fanatics introduced an anarchic concept of freedom. The state eventually imposed discipline and made schools instruments of propaganda. Attendance was compulsory, and teaching had to conform to communist ideology. Children learned to spy on their parents, and the Young Communist League (Komsomol) became a training ground for future party members. Communism was militantly atheistic, and Lenin’s regime attacked Russia’s churches. Russian Orthodoxy ceased to be the state religion, and the government seized the church’s properties, including schools. A decree in 1921 forbade teaching religion to young people. When church leaders demanded freedom of religion under the constitution, the communists responded with terror. They murdered the metropolitan of Kiev and executed 28 bishops and 6,775 priests. Despite mass demonstrations in support of the church, repression cowed most ecclesiastical leaders into submission. Bishops asked the people to accept the authority of the government and promised to refrain from political pronouncements and activities.
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Pound’s Cantos Is Published lice state in history. Atrocities that began under Lenin reached huge proportions under Stalin, whose purges of the Communist Party and imposition of collective farming brought death to at least ten million people. —James Edward McGoldrick Further Reading Courtois, Stéphane, et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Translated by Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Collection of essays by scholars and historians examines the brutal history of communism throughout the world. Includes index. Mailloux, Kenneth F., and Heloise P. Mailloux. Lenin: The Exile Returns. Princeton, N.J.: Auerbach, 1971. Vivid account of how Lenin and his Bolshevik supporters seized power from the confused provisional government and then rendered other revolutionary factions impotent using divide-and-conquer tactics. Shows that Lenin never maintained a sincere commitment to democracy either within the Communist Party or for the Soviet Union. Pipes, Richard. Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Comprehensive history by one of the leading authorities on the Soviet Union. Especially valuable for coverage of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Bolshevik policy toward non-Russian nationalities. Shows how the communists derived great advantages from the civil war. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2000. Authoritative and well-rounded biography uses information recently available from Soviet archives to shed new light on Lenin. Includes illustrations, map, glossary of names, select bibliography, and index. Wolfe, Bertram. Three Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. 1964. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. One of the best histories of the Bolshevik Revolution available, a masterpiece of research and writing. The author was acquainted with several original Bolsheviks and lived for a time in Moscow. No student of the Russian Revolution can afford to ignore this work. See also: Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; 1907: Famine Strikes Russia; Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; 19211923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives.
1917-1970
Pound’s CANTOS Is Published With the publication of “Three Cantos” (1917), Pound launched his modernist epic, the Cantos, a project that absorbed most of his creative career. Locale: Great Britain; France; Italy; United States Category: Literature Key Figures Ezra Pound (1885-1972), American poet, prose writer, and translator William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), American poet, prose writer, and physician William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and playwright T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), American poet, playwright, editor, and critic Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), English novelist, painter, and prose writer 1328
Summary of Event Ezra Pound’s Cantos is a modernist verse epic. It is a very long poem, at 802 pages, with 116 complete cantos and four fragments at the end. A lifetime effort on the part of the poet, this ongoing work was published in ten sections from 1925 to 1968, then as a one-volume collected edition, The Cantos of Ezra Pound I-CXVII (1970). Canto LXXII and Canto LXXIII did not appear in any of the collections, having been suppressed because of the fascist sympathies they expressed. Although the Cantos has an epic basis, except for its length it does not conform to the main features of the classical epic. It is not a progressive narrative describing the actions of a mythical hero; Pound himself defined an epic simply as “a long poem about history.” He referred to his Cantos as “a tale of the tribe.” When he began this work, he had in mind the actions not of one hero but of many who would be presented as personae. He realized
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values, of personalities righteous and unrighteous. History also included economics. He stated bluntly, “History that omits economics is mere bunk, it is shadow show.” Finally, he was not content to know one or two foreign languages, for languages are the keys to cultures, and he preferred to read texts in their original languages. He was critical of the narrow range of education in his day. He remarked sternly, “A sane university curriculum would put Chinese where Greek was.” The Cantos contains words, phrases, and passages in some sixteen languages other than English, including Chinese (in both romanization and original characters), romanized Japanese, romanized Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, and Greek (both romanized and in the original). The difficulty of reading the Cantos for average educated readers stems not from the work’s obscurity per se but from the disadvantage of their not having studied Pound’s unorthodox curriculum, which he outlines in his Guide to Kulchur (1938). Although Pound found the Dante and Browning models useful in projecting the shape of his long poem, unlike the earlier poets he did not plan to contain his poetry in the traditional narrative frame. Because he planned to present numerous persons and actions scattered in time and space, his idea of the “repeat of history” came in handy. This idea amounted to a doctrine of correspondences whereby, as time went on, persons, events, and actions were repeated. He called each such recurring pattern in history a “subject-theme.” He derived his cyclical theory of history from Brooks Adams’s The Law of Civilization and Decay (1895). Adams postulated that society oscillates between barbarism and civilization in a process that goes through definite stages. When society concentrates into nations, greed dominates the economy. Usurers weaken the people by constricting the money supply, causing nations to fall. Pound’s objection to usury is a persistent leitmotif throughout the Cantos. Pound saw each cultural stage of society reflecting a complex of ideas and energy, expressed in thought, action, and art forms. In studying the ethnologist Leo Frobenius, Pound found a term for this complex in the word “paideuma.” In the Cantos, he sought to reveal such composites. The perspective he chose to do so was partial rather than complete, an examination of parts and specimens rather than of wholes. Pound deliberately lost his self in the many-voiced cantos written prior to The Pisan Cantos (1948) in an effort to conform to Homeric objectivity. At the prison camp near Pisa where Pound was held pending trial on charges of treason after World War II, his humiliation 1329
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that his verse would have to be something new, that he would have to invent for himself a new poetics and a new language. Instead of providing a principal hero and his actions, Pound wished to present in his long poem many heroes and each one’s particular actions. He tried to present them objectively by presenting them dramatically, at the same time having them expose themselves through their own actions and voices, often through documentation. In projecting his own self into his characters, he hoped that their personae would disguise his own subjectivity. Because each hero would be presented in this manner, Pound saw Robert Browning’s long, personal, confessional blank-verse poem Sordello (1840) as a model for what he wanted to do. In Canto II, Pound writes: “Hang it all, Robert Browning, there can be but the one ‘Sordello.’/ But Sordello, and my Sordello?” After long and tiresome work, Browning had made himself master of the dramatic monologue, and Pound admired the Victorian romantic for his vitality and gusto. At the same time, Pound saw his many heroes as representatives who merged into “man” (humankind), whom he saw as basically good but capable of being corrupted by the power of money. A person’s life, Pound believed, is a struggle to resist temptation, to pass through the darkness of suffering and sadness until he or she sees the radiant light of the Godhead. The structural model Pound chose for the Cantos was the fourteenth century epic La divina commedia (c. 1320; The Divine Comedy, 1802), by Dante. The Divine Comedy sets forth its narrative in vernacular Italian (Tuscan) in hendecasyllabic verse. In one hundred cantos, it describes the journey of Dante, guided by the Roman poet Vergil, through the netherworlds of Hell and Purgatory and then upward into Paradise, where Dante has a radiant vision of God. Dante’s long poem was designed for educational purposes, to convey the kind of knowledge he thought would bring about a renewal of a better life for humankind. Pound also intended to educate, although in a quite different way. The Cantos presents an unorthodox curriculum, a result of Pound’s personal unorthodoxy in pursuit of his studies. There was nothing parochial about Pound’s outlook. Literature concerned him as a whole, without regard to nation or language. He wanted “to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world” and believed in the comparative method and the close observation of an individual specimen. Pound saw history as a matter of motion, of the rise and fall of civilizations, of order and disorder, of cultural
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Pound’s Cantos Is Published and suffering restored his self and voice. This revival, reflected in The Pisan Cantos, disclosed that the poet’s struggle against the evil forces of usury always had been a personal struggle and also revealed that the essential tension in the Cantos is the opposition between objectivity and subjectivity. This personal struggle may be the most dramatic part of the Cantos and is in large part responsible for its unity. The Cantos is wide-ranging in terms of persons, places, and times. It consists of a miscellany of single cantos together with important groupings concerning persons and subjects. Two important single cantos are Canto I, introducing the Greek hero Odysseus, and Canto XIII, introducing the Chinese sage Confucius. Of the groupings, Cantos VIII-X are the “Malatesta Cantos,” featuring the Italian Renaissance hero Sigismundo Malatesta, the lord of Rimini. Cantos XIV-XVI are the “Hell Cantos,” showing the just punishment of usurers. Cantos XXI-XXIV are the “American History Cantos,” in which appear Pound’s American heroes Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and John Quincy Adams. Cantos XLII-LI are the “Bank Cantos,” in which the evils of banking and monetary policy are discussed. Cantos LII-LXXI are the “Chinese History Cantos,” in which Confucian principles are upheld. Cantos LXXIVLXXXIV are the “Pisan Cantos,” which concern Pound’s imprisonment and personal failure. Cantos LXXXV-XCV are the “Rock-Drill Cantos,” which attack usury but end on a personal note. Cantos XCVI-CIX are the “Thrones Cantos,” in which the poet proclaims the need for social order and right action. Cantos CXCXII are drafts and fragments. There is no settled conclusion to Pound’s epic, and it is regarded as not having been complete at the time of Pound’s death. Significance The first three of Pound’s cantos were published in 1917. Later, these initial cantos were almost completely revised. The first collection of cantos appeared in the volume A Draft of XVI Cantos, published in Paris in 1925. Pound then brought out successive volumes of cantos. The last one, Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CXCXVII, appeared in 1968. The Cantos as a whole appeared for the first time in one volume in 1970, containing Cantos I-CXVII. The effects and impact of the epic are therefore spread over a lengthy period. For practical examination, this period can be divided into two parts: prewar and postwar. The critical attitude toward Pound’s lengthy poem differed radically during the prewar and postwar periods. 1330
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The controversy over Pound’s epic is partly a result of the character of the work itself. In studying China’s history and literary classics, Pound became a Confucian. Confucius, the son of a magistrate, had become a teacher of government and ethics. He sought a prince who would give ear to his principles of good government and the virtues of the exceptional man. Pound apparently sought to be such a prince and to pass these principles on as well. The contentiousness is also a result in part of Pound’s political actions in Italy, actions that resulted in his indictment and arrest for treason. He was accused but never tried and convicted. In considering the effect of the Cantos on critics and other literary persons (the general public was little involved in such appraisal), it is noteworthy that none of Pound’s friends pulled punches when criticizing Pound’s writing. For instance, Wyndham Lewis in 1927 attacked aspects of Pound’s style in the Cantos. He alleged that Pound’s addiction to “clipping and stopping” produced a “melodramatic, chopped, ‘bitter tone’” that he found undesirable. He charged that Pound’s characterizations were “made up of well-worn stage properties.” According to Lewis, Pound’s “comic reliefs” amount to caricature of his efforts “to deal with real life—they are Pound at his worst.” William Butler Yeats complained that the Cantos has “more style than form.” Pound’s “raging at malignants” he presents in grotesque shapes indicates a “loss of control.” This is shown by the work’s “unbridged transitions” and “unexplained ejaculations.” These faults, Yeats contended, contribute to the poem’s unintelligibility. In reviewing The Fifth Decad of Cantos (1937), Edwin Muir recorded that it dealt with “usury, banks, scarcity, and their consequences,” together with a variation on the descent-into-hell theme. Muir reported on the powerful and strange effect this installment has on readers’ emotions. It develops a pattern that conveys the feeling “that all the events in the poem are contemporaneous, that they are all together in one place.” Indeed, Muir contended, “everything in the poem tends to be archetypal and fixed; everything is on the same plane and in the same time, a prolonged present.” In sum, Muir held, there is “little doubt that it is one of the most remarkable poems of our time.” In 1940, Muir commented on Cantos LII-LXXI (1940; the “Chinese History Cantos”) as political, having to do with “the ways in which societies are ruled, well or badly.” He believed that Pound had “a clear idea of good rulership and bad; the first thing being to him in accordance with nature, and the second against it.” According to Muir, the Chinese cantos “are vivid and
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never met Pound but did correspond with him and became a disciple of both Pound and Eliot. Pound and William Carlos Williams met in college in Philadelphia. Williams might never have made it as a poet if Pound had not critically abused him; Williams’s long poem Paterson (1946-1958) shows Poundian influence. Pound thus influenced perhaps the three greatest long poems in English, other than his own, of the twentieth century. Pound also had an impact on the work of other distinguished poets, including E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Archibald MacLeish. His influence continued with Charles Olson and the Black Mountain poets of the 1940’s and 1950’s. —Richard P. Benton Further Reading Alexander, Michael. The Poetic Achievement of Ezra Pound. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. An appreciation of Pound’s poetry as a whole but with the main focus on the Cantos. Provides a useful introduction to Pound’s poetry. Bell, Ian F. A. Critic as Scientist: The Modernist Poetics of Ezra Pound. London: Methuen, 1981. Argues that Pound’s critical terminology was derived from analogy to the scientific disciplines. Cookson, William. A Guide to the “Cantos” of Ezra Pound. Rev. ed. New York: Persea Books, 2001. Useful reference tool presents background information on each canto and supplies detailed explanations of allusions, cross-references, and foreign phrases. Edwards, John Hamilton, and William V. Vasse. Annotated Index to the “Cantos” of Ezra Pound. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957. Both an index to the Cantos and an annotation of the materials indexed. The general index contains the names of persons, places, and things; quotations in English; and all foreign-language expressions except those in Greek and Chinese scripts, which appear in the appendixes. Flory, Wendy Stallard. Ezra Pound and the “Cantos”: A Record of a Struggle. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980. Argues that in 1938 Pound envisioned the central theme of the Cantos as the struggle in which he and like-minded others engaged against the obstructors of knowledge (the academies) and of the distribution of wealth (the banks), but that in 1945, at Pisa, Pound entered into a personal struggle against the moral authority of his own government, with this struggle giving the Cantos its unity. Kayman, Martin. The Modernism of Ezra Pound: The Science of Poetry. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1331
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condensed,” presenting history skillfully “in a series of concrete images.” The American section, however, to Muir “reads like a prolonged footnote to a detailed history” and requires knowledge that most readers are unlikely to possess. While Pound was incarcerated from 1946 to 1958 in St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., after being declared mentally unfit to stand trial for treason, the Library of Congress announced on February 20, 1949, that his book The Pisan Cantos had won the prestigious Bollingen Prize in Poetry, which carried a monetary award of one thousand dollars. This prize was to be awarded annually by a jury of selection of the Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress in recognition of the highest achievement in American poetry in any one year. In making the award for 1948, the jury stated: “The fellows are aware that objections may be made to awarding a prize to a man situated as is Mr. Pound.” Indeed, a volatile controversy took place immediately following announcement of the prize. The controversy focused largely on the question of “pure poetry” versus “impure politics.” The debate raged wildly throughout the 1950’s. Although it eventually became less heated and less often voiced, no reconciliation had been accomplished by the time of Pound’s death. Critics have varied in the manner in which they have treated Pound. Peter Viereck dismissed both the man and the Cantos as satanic and repugnant. Randall Jarrell accepted the poetry but condemned the man. A third approach was employed by Max Wykes-Joyce, who made a sympathetic attempt to understand Pound’s behavior in terms of his upbringing, his education and social experience, and his personal character. Wykes-Joyce acknowledged the poet’s unwise support of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, whose character Pound completely misjudged, and Pound’s selective anti-Semitism. Wykes-Joyce argued that Pound’s “view of the function of banks” and “his pleasure at a ruler who ruled” accounted for his praise of Mussolini. As a man of letters as well as a brilliant poetic technician, Pound influenced two other great poets who had become his friends, Yeats and T. S. Eliot. Pound introduced Yeats to the Japanese No drama, influences of which appear in Yeats’s play At the Hawk’s Well (pr. 1916) and several others. As for Eliot, Pound helped him with Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) and carefully tidied up the long poem The Waste Land (1922), for which tasks Eliot always remained grateful. Pound also helped in the poetic training of Hart Crane, who eventually composed the long poem The Bridge (1930). Crane
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Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code 1986. A historical and formal analysis, pursued from the perspective of dialectical materialism and the Marxist ethic, of the Poundian discourse as it is related to the central issues of modernism. Evaluates Pound’s importance as a modernist—in a tradition he himself helped to establish—and examines the relationship between art and politics. Knapp, James F. Ezra Pound. Boston: Twayne, 1979. Brief volume offers accurate information on Pound’s life and work as well as perceptive criticism. Serves as a useful introduction to the development of Pound’s thought and art. Makin, Peter, ed. Ezra Pound’s “Cantos”: A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Collection of critical essays on the Cantos shows how Pound’s work was affected by personal and historic events. Pound, Ezra. Guide to Kulchur. 1938. Reprint. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions Books, 1968. Indispensable guide to the Cantos discloses the unorthodox curriculum Pound pursued.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Redman, Tim. Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991. A carefully muted inductive examination of Pound’s relationship to Italian Fascism, with the goal of discovering whether Pound’s political activity squares with what his critics allege he did. Covers Pound’s actions from the early 1930’s to the end of World War II. Terrell, Carroll F. A Companion to the “Cantos” of Ezra Pound. 1980. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Update and supplement to the Edwards and Vasse volume cited above. Designed not for Pound scholars but for those beginning the study of Pound’s epic. Includes sources, background, exegeses, and glosses. See also: Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement; Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism.
January 31, 1917
Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code Article 123 of the Constitution of 1917 set a legal basis for unionization and other workers’ rights that placed Mexico at the forefront of international labor activism. Locale: Querétaro, Mexico Categories: Business and labor; government and politics Key Figures Francisco J. Múgica (1884-1954), Mexican revolutionary politician Pastor Rouaix (1874-1950), Mexican engineer and revolutionary politician Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), president of Mexico, 1915-1920 Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915), Mexican political and military leader who became dictator in the late 1800’s Luis N. Morones (1890-1964), Mexican labor organizer Vicente Lombardo Toledano (1894-1968), Mexican radical labor leader 1332
Summary of Event The difference between the violent repression of the 1906 miners’ strike in Cananea, Sonora, in northwestern Mexico and the ultimately triumphant strike of oil workers in and around the Caribbean port of Tampico in the late 1930’s is measured by more than time and distance. In the intervening three decades of revolutionary change, an obscure but determined group of political activists from across Mexico gathered in the small, provincial city of Querétaro to write a constitution that contained one of the world’s most advanced labor codes of its day. Article 123 of that constitution established the legal bases for unionization, strikes, and improved conditions for workers. Mexican labor unions’ growth in membership and influence in the period between the strike in Cananea and the one in Tampico was directly related to Article 123. The labor violence at Cananea was typical of the unrest in the last years of the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Late nineteenth century railroad construction and foreign investment had stimulated an economic boom that, in spite of prominent pockets of prosperity, had also brought with it onerous working conditions in mines and
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revolutionary activity after 1906. One of the first to join in efforts to overthrow Díaz, Múgica was determined to mold the constitution into a legal device for sweeping social and economic reform, including betterment of the working class. The primary author of Article 123 was a Carranza loyalist whose ideology was somewhat more moderate than the radicalism of Múgica. Pastor Rouaix, a forty-twoyear-old engineer, was typical of the mixture of middleand lower-class influences in the convention. The son of a mestizo construction worker, Rouaix was a quiet, conscientious student who surpassed his humble origins when he earned an engineering degree and became a successful surveyor. His rise in politics was rapid. Between 1913 and 1917, he was governor of Durango and headed Carranza’s Ministry of Development. Throughout his political career, he revealed a consistent sense of social conscience that derived from his youth, when he had seen exploitative merchants and landowners practicing their wiles on unwitting workers and peasants. Even though he was not a gifted orator, Rouaix was the guiding force behind the drafting of Article 123. He and a handful of colleagues wrote the original draft in a series of meetings during the first two weeks of January, 1917. Rouaix relied on the work of several staff members from the Ministry of Development who had assembled studies on labor conditions in Mexico and labor legislation in other nations. The group members’ concern about the plight of workers in Mexico led them to move far beyond existing labor law to give the national government the central role in the amelioration of these conditions. With Múgica’s powerful presence behind the proposed Article 123, Rouaix and his colleagues enjoyed a surprisingly easy victory when their proposal reached the floor of the constitutional convention. The discussion of Article 123 took place during the evening of January 23. The previous successes of Múgica and the radicals apparently had established the tenor of the debate. By 10:15 p.m., the delegates, weary from earlier sessions and impressed by the left’s enthusiasm, voted their approval. The final version was a ringing endorsement of the cause of the working people and, in particular, the organization of labor unions. As a part of the document known as the Constitution of 1917, Article 123 established a maximum eight-hour workday, abolished debt peonage, and recognized the strike as a legitimate tool in labor-management relations. Article 123 also created government standards to benefit the health and safety of workers and required the states to pass minimum wage laws and other regulations to benefit workers. These 1333
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factories. A laborer in a mine, a textile mill, or a brewery generally worked ten or more hours a day, seven days a week. Pay was so low that workers had inadequate diets and lived in unsanitary housing. Foreign observers of the condition of these workers often dismissed the Mexican lower class as passive and practically helpless, a misconception soon discredited by the revolution. Worker assertiveness began to emerge in 1906. The American-owned Cananea Consolidated Copper Company’s low wages for Mexican workers and inflated prices at its company stores sparked a confrontation with miners in Sonora. During five days of one-sided fighting, at least thirty workers and workers’ family members perished. The strike ended in failure, but labor unrest spread to other areas. Francisco Madero led the overthrow of Díaz in 1911, but his short-lived government never went beyond a limited program of political reform centered on elections and greater voter participation. The urgent demands of workers and peasants for social and economic change became more strident as the feebleness of the Madero administration’s policies became apparent. Madero’s government was overthrown in 1913 by a recalcitrant military faction, and Madero was shot while allegedly attempting to escape. By then, workers were active in several revolutionary movements. In particular, a group called Casa del Obrero Mundial (house of the world worker) promoted anarchist solutions for workers’ problems. By 1916, the regime of Venustiano Carranza had emerged from the chaos of the revolution with substantial support from anarchist labor unions, which supplied six “Red Battalions” of armed workers for the crucial fighting in 1915. Carranza saw that the adoption of a constitution would add legitimacy to his government and open a forum for the discussion of social and economic issues that had arisen in the revolution. His government organized the October, 1916, elections for a special congress to draw up a new constitution. After years of political disorder, only 20 to 30 percent of eligible voters participated in the elections, and apparently no labor union or workers’ party offered a labor candidate. Although the elected delegates were mostly from the middle class (more than half were college-educated professionals), the years of labor unrest gave them a decided awareness of the concerns of workers. The radical leader Francisco J. Múgica had considerable influence in writing the constitution. The son of a provincial schoolteacher, Múgica saw the impact of poverty throughout Mexico during his decade of peripatetic
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Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code changes did not go into effect immediately, of course, because the new constitutional provisions required additional national and state legislation, the formation of government agencies to oversee enforcement, and time for workers to form unions to initiate their own actions. The reforms were more abstract than real, but the course of Mexican labor history had clearly taken a profoundly new direction. Carranza signed the constitution into effect on January 31, 1917, some nine months before the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Mexico’s new labor code was based on the acceptance of private property and free enterprise, so it was not as extreme as the systemshattering program of the Bolsheviks. The comparison is misleading, because it takes the Mexican constitution out of its context. The Mexican environment was one in which large estates and corporations (often owned in part or wholly by U.S., British, or French investors) dominated the commercially active sectors of the economy. The Constitution of 1917, through its labor code (and other radical sections such as Article 27, restricting the rights of property ownership), threatened to disrupt established patterns of business operations in order to improve the lives of workers. In that sense, Article 123 was a radical part of a revolutionary document. Significance The Carranza government did not immediately enforce Article 123, but the presence of this new labor code was a large stimulus to the growth of labor unions. The anarchist unions quickly joined forces in the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), headed by the ambitious Luis N. Morones. Morones established CROM in 1918, and in ten years claimed, with exaggeration, that it had nearly two million members. Adept at politics as well as union organization, Morones was minister of industry in the cabinet of President Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-1928) and used his executive authority to extend the application of Article 123 to the benefit of CROM. Working conditions and wages improved, but not for everyone. Unions outside CROM saw few improvements and usually lost influence and members to Morones. Wages rose significantly for some sectors of CROM as a result of a series of governmentsettled labor disputes that favored workers over management, but most Mexican workers were left out of these improvements. New migrants to the cities from rural areas found limited opportunities for employment, and the available nonunion jobs carried low salaries. Article 123 remained an unfulfilled promise for Mexican workers 1334
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 except for the fortunate groups within the ranks of CROM. Morones suffered severe defeats in the political struggles of the late 1920’s, defeats that were exacerbated by his flamboyant corruption. CROM splintered into factions, one of which, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), emerged under the leadership of Vicente Lombardo Toledano in the 1930’s. Lombardo Toledano, a lean-figured, sharp-tongued, free-willed Marxist, collaborated with President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) to propel the CTM to a position of power in national politics. The reform of federal labor laws in 1931 had broadened the impact of Article 123 even further and furnished Lombardo Toledano and Cárdenas with an even stronger tool in their dealings with labor. More important, more than two decades of labor activism finally had produced a movement that could not be denied. Lombardo Toledano, a close ally of Cárdenas, sponsored a variety of programs among workers, including sports and recreational events as well as mass meetings and educational conferences. Workers were not content with their higher prestige in the Great Depression decade, however, and demanded concrete improvements in wages and working conditions, initiating a wave of disruptive strikes in the mid-1930’s. Cárdenas and Lombardo Toledano supported them on these issues, and soon members of the CTM made impressive gains. For example, electrical and textile workers, streetcar operators, and miners struck for and received substantial wage increases. The ten-hour day and other oppressive working conditions of the Díaz years became the exception rather than the rule, at least in areas under the dominion of the CTM, which soon had well in excess of one million members. These material improvements in the lives of workers were more broadly based than the changes of the 1920’s, but nonunion laborers again received only spillover from these benefits. The most dramatic evidence of the increased power of organized labor under Article 123 came in the 1938 confrontation between Mexico’s oil workers’ union (allied with the CTM) and U.S. and British petroleum companies. In an assertion of spontaneous union activism, Mexican oil workers around Tampico used strikes to demand improved wages and working conditions in the oil fields. The oil companies refused to grant these demands and defied not only the unions but also Mexican law and, by implication, Article 123. President Cárdenas responded decisively. On March 18, 1938, he signed a decree that nationalized the oil properties of the defiant companies, thereby placing the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mexican government in charge of the bulk of the petroleum industry. The working-class population of Mexico City engaged in a massive demonstration of support for the nationalization. On March 22, an estimated crowd of 200,000 people, led by the CTM and the oil workers’ union, celebrated what many present hailed as Mexico’s economic declaration of independence. Article 123 and union activism contributed to this assertion of nationalism, which had repercussions throughout Latin America and other Third World regions for years to come. During the Cárdenas presidency, Mexican workers made significant gains both in material terms and in terms of their sense of involvement in national life. Article 123 triggered two decades of labor unionization and union activism in Mexico, but by the 1940’s, the initial impetus for reform declined. The CTM was a large and powerful organization, but as it became enmeshed in politics, the thrust of worker initiatives collapsed under the weight of union and government bureaucracy. CTM leaders continued to have decisive influence in national life, but they often seemed more concerned about elite politics than about the needs of ordinary workers. The history of Article 123 remained, however, a symbol and an example of the legitimation of unionization and the empowerment of the working class. —John A. Britton
cess of the Mexican Revolution. 10th anniversary ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Interpretive history covering the period from the Díaz era to 1924 provides extensive discussion of the causes of labor unrest (chapter 2), the struggle and defeat of an autonomous labor movement (chapter 9), and the triumph of the central government over worker and peasant movements (chapter 10). Includes essays that compare the Mexican revolution with revolutions in Iran, China, and Russia (chapters 7 and 11). Knight, Alan. The Mexican Revolution. 2 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Massive survey and analysis focuses on events from 1910 to 1920 but offers commentary on the political, economic, and social issues of the revolution that extends over a much broader chronological framework. Provides a thorough examination of the revolutionary setting in which the Constitution of 1917 was written and the ups and downs of the Mexican labor movement throughout the decade. Meyer, Michael C., William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds. The Course of Mexican History. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Readable introductory text combines clear style with a command of the full sweep of Mexican history from the Maya to the modern age. Provides an overview of the events surrounding the emergence of the Constitution of 1917 and the labor movement within the context of the revolution. Niemeyer, Eberhardt Victor. Revolution at Querétaro: The Mexican Constitutional Convention of 19161917. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974. One of the most extensive studies available in English of the politics, ideologies, and personalities that produced the Constitution of 1917. Chapter 4 covers the origins and content of Article 123. Includes useful biographical sketches of the main authors of the constitution. Richmond, Douglas W. Venustiano Carranza’s Nationalist Struggle, 1893-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. A full account of the rise and demise of Carranza. Argues that Carranza, who accepted Article 123 but did little for its immediate implementation, was not a radical but a nationalist whose main goal was the restriction of U.S. economic power in Mexico. Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo. Labor and the Ambivalent Revolutionaries: Mexico, 1911-1923. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. Succinct discussion of the relationship of revolutionary leaders such as Madero and Carranza with organized labor. 1335
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Further Reading Anderson, Rodney D. Outcasts in Their Own Land: Mexican Industrial Workers, 1906-1911. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1976. A careful study of working conditions in mines and factories and the consequent labor unrest that contributed to the coming of the revolution and the writing of Article 123. Ashby, Joe C. Organized Labor and the Mexican Revolution Under Lázaro Cárdenas. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967. A detailed study of labor activism in the 1930’s, including the oil workers’ strike and the expropriation of the property of U.S. and British oil companies. Reveals the ramifications of Article 123 under Cárdenas. Hart, John Mason. Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987. An analysis of the rise and decline of anarchist groups in the Mexican labor movement. Mexican anarchists insisted that the future lay with a vision of a decentralized industrial society, but their movement was lost in the political machinations and military repression of the mid-1910’s. _______. Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Pro-
Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code
Immigration Act of 1917 Generalizes that leaders offered labor the promise of meaningful reform through Article 123 but had actually accomplished very little as of 1923.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution; Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition.
February 5, 1917
Immigration Act of 1917 With passage of the Immigration Act of 1917, immigration into the United States was significantly restricted through the imposition of a literacy test, among other measures. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), president of the United States, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president of the United States, 1909-1913 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 William Paul Dillingham (1843-1923), U.S. senator from Vermont Summary of Event During the early 1600’s, the Massachusetts Puritans prohibited newcomers from settling in their communities without their permission. As the colonial population grew from 275,000 in 1700 to 3,929,000 in 1790, each colony made and enforced its own rules: Massachusetts was restrictive, Rhode Island was more lenient, and Pennsylvania was a sanctuary from religious persecution. After ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Congress passed the first Naturalization Act in March, 1790. The act required individuals seeking to become U.S. citizens to have two years of residency and limited naturalization to “free white persons.” The residency requirement was increased to five years in 1795. The first federal legislation that dealt with the expulsion of aliens from the United States was the Alien Act of June 25, 1798. It allowed the president to deport any alien he considered dangerous, but it expired two years after it was enacted. From 1800 to 1875, no federal legislation restricted admission into, or enabled deportation from, the United States. Congress enacted other laws related to immigration issues during the period, however. In 1819, concerns about conditions for immigrants on inbound ships 1336
prompted a number of steerage acts to safeguard the passage of people en route to the United States. Limits were placed on the numbers of passengers that ships of various sizes could carry, and requirements were established for ships to stock sufficient supplies of food and water before sailing. Customs officials were authorized to count the people debarking from vessels, thus providing a record of arrivals. In 1837, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individual states could pass their own laws regarding immigrant arrivals. Throughout the first great wave of immigration, from 1820 to 1880, more than ten million immigrants arrived on American shores. Originating mostly from northwestern Europe, they were predominantly Irish and German. As the number of Roman Catholics coming from Ireland and other countries increased, anti-Catholic sentiment began to assert itself through nativist organizations such as the Know-Nothings. As members of these organizations were elected to seats in Congress and state legislatures, they called for extensive limitations on immigration, but they were unable to effect changes in national policy. The states passed laws to protect themselves against the expense of caring for sick, destitute, or otherwise dependent immigrants. In 1848, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the power of individual states when it found that taxes levied on immigrants by the states of New York and Massachusetts were unconstitutional. An outcome of this Supreme Court decision was that government exercised no control over the movement of immigrants. In response to the Court ruling and the enormous influx of immigrants, in 1875 Congress voted to exclude from entry into the United States people who had been convicted of nonpolitical crimes and prostitutes. In 1882, a general immigration act barred the entry of paupers, criminals, the insane, and others likely to become public charges. The Supreme Court also ruled that year that only Congress, not individual states, had the power to make laws restricting immigration (Henderson v. New York). All inspection and regulation of immigration that previously had been held by the states was restored to the
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Immigration Act of 1917
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federal authorities by an 1891 immigration act. The California gold rush in 1848 and 1849 drew settlers not only from the eastern United States and Europe but also from South America and China. At first the Chinese were welcomed, but as their numbers increased and the need for their labor as miners and railroad workers decreased, they became targets of hostility. When the California State Assembly concluded that the Chinese were a threat to white immigrants, California’s governor introduced measures to impede the “tide of Asiatic immigrants.” On May 9, 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act— the first U.S. law to prohibit immigration based on race or nationality— was enacted. It barred Chinese from naturalization and suspended Chinese immigration into the United States for ten years. The act was extended for another ten years in 1892, and on April 17, 1904, it was extended for an indefinite time. This suspension remained in effect until passage of the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. From 1880 to 1920, more than 23.5 million people arrived in the United States from other countries, mostly from southern and eastern Europe. In 1894, a group of New England BrahIn the early part of the twentieth century, large numbers of immigrants to the United mins founded the Immigration RestricStates crowded big-city neighborhoods like this one in New York City. Hester Street, shown in 1903, was home to many European Jewish immigrants. (NARA) tion League. The league’s members had been pleased with the Forant Act of 1885, which had outlawed EuroThe first Japanese arrived in California in 1871. Rispean contract labor. They perceived the increasing numing tensions between Asians and Californians had rebers of immigrants arriving from outside northern Eusulted in a movement to exclude Asians. By 1906, it was rope as a threat to the United States, and the league apparent to President Theodore Roosevelt that the only became a leading advocate of restrictive immigration way to stem the overt hostility toward the Japanese laws. The U.S. Congress passed laws in 1903 to exclude would be to prohibit the entry of Japanese labor into the from entry polygamists, anarchists, epileptics, and peocountry. Negotiations to redress the situation between ple who had been insane during the previous two years or Japan and the United States began in December, 1906. who had had two or more attacks of insanity at any time The result was the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, previously. Immigration peaked at 1.3 million in 1907, which limited immigration from Japan to nonlaborers and added to the prior list of unauthorized aliens were “feeble minded persons, those with tuberculosis and and to those laborers already resident in the United States those whose physical or mental defects hindered their and their families. earning a living.” The public concern over European immigration in
Immigration Act of 1917 1907 prompted Congress to establish the Joint Commission on Immigration, which comprised three members of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, and three others. In 1911, this body, known also as the Dillingham Commission (for the legislation’s author and the commission’s chairman, Senator William Paul Dillingham of Vermont) issued a forty-one-volume report that advocated the restriction of immigration. It stated that recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were more likely to be unskilled, unsettled, and generally less desirable than the northern and western European immigrants who had arrived previously. Experts later disputed these conclusions, but the report was used to justify the new restrictions that Congress continued to write into law in the comprehensive Immigration Act of 1917. The Dillingham Commission suggested a number of different ways to restrict immigration, including the institution of a literacy test, the exclusion of unskilled laborers, an increase in the amount of money immigrants were required to have in their possession, and an increase in the head tax. The commission also advocated the establishment of racial quotas. The literacy test proposal received a significant amount of attention. Congress had introduced prior bills requiring literacy tests for immigrants. In 1897, President Grover Cleveland had vetoed such a bill, saying that immigration restrictions were unnecessary. The House voted (195 to 37) to override the president’s veto on March 3, and the Senate referred the veto message and bill to the Committee on Immigration. When the bill resurfaced at the Sixty-second Congress, it was the Senate that voted to override President William Howard Taft’s veto on February 18, 1913, whereas the House voted to sustain it on February 19. During the Sixty-third Congress (1914-1917), the House voted to sustain President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the latest version of the bill. At the second session of the Sixty-fourth Congress, a bill was introduced “to regulate the immigrating of aliens to, and the residence of aliens in, the United States.” Wilson vetoed the bill. On February 1, 1917, the House voted to override the president’s veto, 287 to 106, and the Senate voted similarly on February 5, 1917, 62 to 19. The veto was overridden, and the bill became Public Law 301, the Immigration Act of 1917. The act excluded from entry “all aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who can not read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish.” The act also incorporated other major recommendations the Dillingham Commission had made six years 1338
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 earlier. The head tax was increased, and vagrants, alcoholics, advocates of violent revolutions, and “psychopathic inferiors” all were barred. A further provision created an Asiatic Barred Zone in the southwest Pacific, which succeeded in excluding most Asian immigrants who were not already excluded by the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Significance Despite the literacy test and its other provisions, the Immigration Act of 1917 failed to reduce immigration into the United States; in fact, immigration increased in the four fiscal years following enactment of the law, much of it from southern and eastern Europe. During that time, only a tiny fraction of aliens were deported for having failed the literacy test. Case studies of aliens who were unable to pass the literacy test indicate that some immigration authorities tried to ensure that the 1917 law was not enforced inhumanely. Applicants were sometimes granted admission, under bond, for a limited period, so that they could have the chance to take classes in reading and writing in a language of their choice. Also, applicants who appeared capable of supporting themselves were sometimes given more than one opportunity to pass the literacy test. The racist attitudes that led to much of the anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States in the early twentieth century dominated immigration policy for many years. Negative attitudes toward many immigrant groups did not begin to change until after the United States had participated in two world wars and researchers had refuted the findings of earlier studies that attributed superior intellect and character to people of northern European descent. — Susan E. Hamilton Further Reading Abbott, Edith. Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records. New York: Arno Press, 1969. Contains extracts of immigration acts and relevant court decisions as well as social case histories from the files of Illinois immigration officials. Includes index. Bernard, William S., ed. American Immigration Policy. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1969. Discusses growth and its effect on immigration policy; includes the text of the 1917 Immigration Act. Cose, Ellis. A Nation of Strangers: Prejudice, Politics, and the Populating of America. New York: William Morrow, 1992. Chapters 1 through 4 present an overview of American immigration from colonial settlement to World War I.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. 2d ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Part 2 discusses immigration from 1820 to 1924. Includes tables, maps, and charts. Fairchild, H. P. “The Literacy Test and Its Making.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 31 (1916): 447-456. Describes the events preceding and the attitudes surrounding Congress’s several attempts to require a literacy test. According to the author, President Cleveland changed his mind after his veto of the 1896 bill and stated that, had he been better informed, he would have signed it into law. Harper, Elizabeth J. Immigration Laws of the United States. 3d ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. Discusses immigration history and trends, explains immigration law terminology, and describes classes of inadmissible aliens. Nugent, Walter. Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 1870-1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. A thorough treatise on U.S. immigration accompanied by maps, tables, and photographs. Orth, Samuel Peter. Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making. 1921. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003. Originally published shortly
Mount McKinley National Park Is Created after the enactment of the 1917 law, when not a great deal had been written about the subject, this book provides insight into the language and thinking of the period. Includes an index and an annotated bibliography that groups immigrant subject material according to race and country of origin. Chapter titled “The Guarded Door” provides background on the 1917 act. Tichenor, Daniel J. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Examines the history of immigration policy in the United States since the nation’s founding, focusing on the factors that have influenced attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Includes tables, figures, and index. U.S. Immigration Commission. Reports of the Immigration Commission. 41 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911. The report of the Dillingham Commission’s investigation of U.S. immigration policy. See also: Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement; May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law; May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act; May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924; May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol; Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans.
February 26, 1917
Mount McKinley National Park Is Created Mount McKinley National Park was created to protect from extinction the white Alaskan mountain sheep and other animals such as the caribou, the Alaska moose, and the grizzly bear.
Key Figures W. A. Dickey (fl. late nineteenth century), American gold prospector Charles Sheldon (1867-1928), American naturalist and author Stephen T. Mather (1867-1930), first director of the National Park Service Key Pittman (1872-1940), U.S. senator from Nevada James Wickersham (1857-1939), Alaskan territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress
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Locale: Mount McKinley, Alaska Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event On February 26, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed Senate Bill 5716 and House of Representatives Bill 14775 into law and created Mount McKinley National Park in the Territory of Alaska. The joint bill, which had been introduced to both houses of Congress in 1916, enjoyed quick passage with little opposition owing largely to its provision for the protection of wildlife. Mount McKinley National Park became the first national park added to the National Park Service following the agency’s creation on August 25, 1916. Three major reasons were expressed for the creation of the park: promotion of travel to the U.S. territory of Alaska, preservation of natural scenery, and most important, the protection of wildlife. The Dall sheep—white mountain sheep—that lived in the region were facing extinction. The magnificent, heavy-horned ram of the Dall species can weigh up to two hundred pounds. Other animals such as the Alaska moose—the largest animal in the
Mount McKinley National Park Is Created
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park—the grizzly bear, and the caribou also needed protection from prospectors entering the region by way of the new Alaskan railway. Other types of animals found in the region included black and brown bear, rabbit, lynx, beaver, and silver, red, and dross fox. An additional 120 species of birds and 36 species of mammals have been sighted within the boundaries of Mount McKinley National Park. The original park had a curious shape. Its long dimension followed the general course of the Alaska Range from Mount Russell to Muldrew Glacier. The park included the main range from its northwest face to beyond the summit. East of Muldrew Glacier, the range widens toward the north and consists of a number of parallel mountain ridges separated by wide, open basins. 1340
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Until 1914, the area had been highly inaccessible. From the coast, it could be reached by pack train, dogsled, or small boat. From the north, it could be reached by pack train or dogsled. This route was a more difficult journey, but hunters disregarded the travel problems to hunt for big game. With the railroad coming to the vicinity of Mount McKinley, there was concern that the area would be overrun with hunters. Measures had to be taken to prevent the massive slaughter of animals and to preserve the beauty of the area. Mount McKinley was described as early as 1897 by gold prospector W. A. Dickey, who estimated its height at 20,000 feet (it was actually 20,300 feet). The snow line on Mount McKinley is at 7,000 feet; the remaining
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
soon, but that the service would still try to protect wildlife within the park boundaries. In 1920, Mather reported that no appropriation had been made, no control of the park had been established, and no protection was possible other than incidental protection from the territory of Alaska. At this point, Sheldon again came to the aid of the park. He appeared before the Appropriations Committee and pleaded for the protection of the wildlife in the park. The following year, 1921, Congress appropriated a sum of $8,000 to protect, maintain, and improve 2,650 square miles of wilderness, pay the superintendent and assistants, erect needed buildings, protect the Dall sheep and caribou, assume control of the area, and arrange for a survey of the park’s boundaries. Several more years passed before, in 1927, a bill finally was enacted that allowed for an increase in appropriations for Mount McKinley National Park. It was not until 1931, however, that the U.S. secretary of the interior was authorized to issue regulations to miners and prospectors entering the park. After World War II, Congress granted a respectable appropriation of $200,000 for the administration of Mount McKinley National Park. Construction of the railroad was finished in 1923 and afforded access to the park, but roads and trails were nonexistent for many years. There were no facilities for camping. There was little or no management for the park, which had 445 square miles of natural breeding grounds for mountain sheep and caribou added to its boundaries in 1922. Only sixty-two visitors were reported in 1924; in 1939, a hotel was constructed for use by visitors. The Mission 66 Plan of the 1950’s and 1960’s, a tenyear plan to improve the national parks for the golden anniversary of the National Park Service, helped to improve Mount McKinley National Park and make it more attractive to visitors. Old campsites were rehabilitated, new campsites were added, and new roads were constructed, permitting more visitors to experience the scenic beauty of Mount McKinley. By 2004, slightly more than 270 campsites existed at various locations around the park, and two visitors’ centers had been constructed. The park boasted more than 400,000 visitors in 2004. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter ordered extensive additions to the park and created Denali National Monument. On December 2, 1980, with the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the former Mount McKinley National Park with slightly modified additions was redesignated by Congress as Denali National Park and Preserve under Public Law 98-487. 1341
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13,300 feet of glacier and snow offer mountain climbers the highest climb above a snow line in the world. In 1913, Archdeacon Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens, with native companions, became the first to climb to Mount McKinley’s peak. The Boone and Crockett Club of New York, founded by Theodore Roosevelt in the 1880’s as a hunting club, turned to conservation in the early twentieth century, and the Campfire Club of America, devoted to the saving of wildlife, unofficially sponsored making the Mount McKinley area a national park. Author Charles Sheldon, a member of the Boone and Crockett Club who wrote extensively about the Yukon, spent considerable time in Washington on behalf of the formation of the park. One of his books on the Yukon is titled Denali, which is the Native American name for Mount McKinley. Senator Key Pittman of Nevada and Alaskan territorial delegate James Wickersham introduced legislation into both houses of Congress for the creation of a national park. A climbing party that included Wickersham made the first attempt to reach the peak of Mount McKinley during the summer of 1903 but had to turn back at ten thousand feet because of a lack of proper equipment and provisions. Pittman’s bill provided for a park twenty-five miles square. The park would be open to irrigation enterprises, as required by a law passed in 1901, and to mining. There would be no hunting in the park except to protect human and other animal life and to provide food for prospectors. The House amended the bill to limit appropriations for the park to $10,000 annually and to require that revenues from leases were to go to the Treasury Department. The Senate agreed, and the resulting bill, Public Law 64-353, was signed on February 26, 1917. The act creating Mount McKinley National Park had several flaws. One problem was the authorization of mining and prospecting, which in turn resulted in the killing of wild game by miners and prospectors. A more significant problem arose in the annual funding by Congress. Appropriations provided by the act for the administration of the park did not materialize for several years, and the National Park Service had to turn the administration of the park and the protection of its wildlife over to the governor of Alaska. The game laws of Alaska were not the same as those governing national parks, and the game wardens were inefficient in dealing with hunters, thinking the game laws of Alaska should take precedence. In 1919, Stephen T. Mather, first director of the National Park Service, reported that the park could not open
Mount McKinley National Park Is Created
Mount McKinley National Park Is Created Significance Denali National Park and Preserve encompasses an internationally significant Subarctic ecosystem that serves as a baseline for the study of comparable environments around the world. The original purposes of establishing the park in 1917 were to preserve wildlife, scenic beauties, and natural curiosities for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. The 1980 expansion of the park was preceded in 1974 by action on behalf of the international community to designate the original park acreage as a biosphere reserve under the Man and the Biosphere program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The purpose of this designation was to support the protection of the park’s natural processes and genetic diversity for comparison with areas that have been altered by human activity. Legislation to create a national park and later a preserve resulted in the preservation of more than scenic beauty and wildlife. Not only are Dall sheep, caribou, bear, moose, and other animals protected in their natural environment, but also many other species of fish, birds, vegetation, and plant life are protected. Mineral deposits in the region are abundant. Gold was mined in abundance for many years, and renewed mining interests were seen in the 1970’s. Important mineral deposits of silver, antimony, lead, tin, and zinc are also found in the region. Coal is estimated at eight million tons in the nearby area. Nonmetallic minerals such as sand, gravel, limestone, perlite, and shale are found in the region, but they have not been heavily extracted, except during construction of the railroad and the highway. Two plant species reported to occur within the park and preserve have been cited as potentially eligible for the list of endangered species. These are the Smelowskia borealis variety Villosa and Taraxacum carneocoloratum, which are both located along the dry ridgelines in high elevations. Five major vegetation associations are also found in the park. They are the low brush-bog, bottomland spruce-poplar forest, upland spruce-hardwood forest, moist tundra, and alpine tundra. These associations include a variety of timber including white spruce, black spruce, Alaska paper birch, poplar, aspen larch, and willow trees. Denali’s birdlife includes a variety of migratory waterfowl. Nonmigratory birds include the chickadee, raven, magpie, woodpecker, owl, and ptarmigan. Trumpeter swans, formerly listed as endangered, are frequently seen in meadows and small ponds. Several types of fish are abundant in the park and preserve. They include salmon, arctic char, Dolly Varden, whitefish, 1342
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 burbot, northern pike, and grayling. The only amphibian known to exist in the area is the frog. The creation of Mount McKinley National Park succeeded in saving wildlife, vegetation, and other living things from extinction while preserving a huge wilderness area’s scenic beauty. Denali National Park and Preserve, which covers more than six million acres, is administered jointly by the National Park Service and departments of the state of Alaska. This joint administration is necessary because of the vast amount of land involved and the state laws pertaining to gaming, fishing, mining, and other interests. In cooperation with the National Park Service, the state of Alaska is responsible for establishing fishing, hunting, and trapping regulations for lands added to the park and preserve. A memorandum of understanding between the National Park Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game defines the cooperative management responsibilities of each agency. Mount McKinley remains the primary focus of the national park, and people still seek to climb it. In November, 1994, a fee was placed on climbing applications, with advance reservations required to travel to the highest peak in North America. —Larry N. Sypolt Further Reading Albright, Horace M. The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33. Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1985. Account of the foundation and early years of the National Park Service by one of the most important participants in the events. Cameron, Jenks. The National Park Service: Its History, Activities, and Organization. 1922. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1974. Report for the Institute for Government Research examines the early history and development of the park system in the United States. Discusses all of the parks in the system and the laws enacted in their creation as well as the future of the National Park Service. Capps, Stephen R. “A Game Country Without Rival in America: The Proposed Mount McKinley National Park.” National Geographic 31 (January, 1917): 6984. Presents an excellent firsthand account of the beauty and wildlife in the area proposed for Mount McKinley National Park. Includes photographs. Ise, John. Our National Park Policy: A Critical History. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1961. Describes the national park system in the United States from the time of the establishment of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the first parks. Discusses the problems and accomplishments of the National Park Service, the administration of each director, and the shifts in public opinion about creation and use of the parks. Rettie, Dwight F. Our National Park System: Caring for America’s Greatest Natural and Historic Treasures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. A tour of the modern national park system and the agency that manages it, presented by a longtime employee of the National Park Service. Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience. 3d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Interpretive history of the national parks and what they mean to Americans. Argues that park creation and maintenance has had more to do with nationalism and commercialism than with environmentalism. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. Scoggins, Dow. Discovering Denali: A Complete Reference Guide to Denali National Park and Mount McKinley, Alaska. Lincoln, Nebr.: iUniverse, 2001. Comprehensive guidebook for visitors begins with a brief chapter on the park’s history. Includes maps as well as information on activities and wildlife. Shankland, Robert. Steve Mather of the National Parks. 3d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. Examines
Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution the life and accomplishments of the first director of the National Park Service and the influence he had over policies and decisions of the agency’s future directors. Describes Mather’s devotion to the park system and his concern for the scenic wilderness heritage of the United States. U.S. Department of the Interior. National Park Service. Denali National Park and Preserve/Alaska. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. Provides a brief history of the creation of Mount McKinley National Park and Denali National Park and Preserve. Covers many of the reasons for the park’s creation and its establishment as a national preserve. Informative introduction to the park written by park personnel. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon; 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed.
March-November, 1917
Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution The deprivation and turmoil caused by World War I made revolution almost inevitable in Russia, the only country in Europe without any form of representative government.
Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), Bolshevik leader Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Alexandra (1872-1918), German wife of Nicholas II Summary of Event Prior to 1900, Imperial Russia was largely a land of illiterate peasants controlled by the wealthy nobility. Life in
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Locale: Russia Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics
the countryside was much like that of the sixteenth century feudal period in central Europe. On the large estates and in the cities, the aristocracy lived rich, wasteful lives. The beginning of the twentieth century saw a slow, subtle change in the conditions of the Russian people as industrialization developed, later than it had in the rest of Europe. In every country it had reached, industrialization had created changes in class structures; this had forced changes in government policies, usually in the form of creation of representative governments. In Russia, modernization in the industrial sense created an urban working class that was politically unrepresented and economically exploited. This new working class was a forced, artificial creation of the czar and had not evolved slowly, as it had elsewhere. No artisan or guild community had existed on which to draw, and one had to be created. Peasants were forced from the land into the cities to fill the positions created by new factories and service organizations. The Russian worker, in contrast
Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution with the conservative union member who evolved in other countries, was an illiterate, violent protester, given to revolutionary types of protest and rebellion that by their nature bordered on anarchy. A revolution in 1905 led Czar Nicholas II to promise reform. The distrust that many workers held for him and his government, however, led to the establishment of secret revolutionary societies. It was during this time that several new types of leaders emerged. These men were professional revolutionists. Scholars as well as trained Marxists, they believed in the need to unite the world under socialism and that the violent overthrow of nations was the way to accomplish this. After the revolution in 1905, many new converts to revolutionary socialism developed in Russia. One of these revolutionary leaders was Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, more commonly known by his revolutionary pen name, Lenin. He became the head of an arm of the Russian Social Democratic Party, the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks gained their name, which can be translated as “those of the majority,” at the Congress of Brussels in 1903. The opponents of Lenin’s party, the Mensheviks (or minority party), were also present at the congress. Together, the parties planned changes in the Russian government. The Mensheviks favored strengthening the weak parliamentary arm of government, the Duma. The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin, called for revolutionary overthrow of the government. In 1914, with the beginning of World War I, the talk of revolution died down. When the Austrian government declared war on Russia, the people rallied to the needs of the country and to their czar. The revolutionaries, with the exception of the Bolsheviks, vowed to put aside their demands for the duration of the conflict. Brave and patriotic peasants, under the guidance of often inferior generals and with outdated, often defective, weapons and other materials, were at first decidedly effective, advancing deep into Austrian territory. Germany changed the outcome, however, by coming to the assistance of Austria. Under the pressures of war, the Russian government began to fail miserably. Not only were the weapons inferior, but also ammunition was in short supply. Transportation was inadequate and at times nonexistent. Between fourteen and fifteen million men were mobilized for the army. One-third to one-half of all peasant households were left without their primary workers. The fuel shortage caused by the war affected agricultural production and delivery. The threat of invasion, the disruption of all services, and the food shortages that grew with each year of the war left the countryside in a state of de1344
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 privation and panic. The attitudes of the czar’s court also fueled resentment among the people of Russia. Czarina Alexandra was German, and she and many of the court advisers and their families were often heard to make proGerman comments even as Russians died on the battlefields opposing German armies. Trains were given over to support the war effort, but the strain was more than they could deal with adequately. Rumors began to circulate that speeding troop trains often shunted other trains onto sidetracks, where they stayed for days or forever in Russia’s vast wastelands. According to the rumors, the trains shunted aside were often hospital trains, and wounded soldiers were being left to die. Food that was being sent from central Russia to the cities was left to spoil on other trains. The early part of 1917 saw a series of more than thirteen hundred strikes by more than six hundred thousand workers. On March 8, 1917, a riot that lasted for three days broke out spontaneously in the capital city of Petrograd because of bread and coal shortages. On March 10, reserve army troops were sent in to quell the riot, but the troops mutinied and joined the rioters. By March 12, a revolution had occurred. Czar Nicholas II abdicated on March 15, and the Duma established a provisional government the same day. Immediately, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies established a shadow government that rivaled the provisional government of Russia and forced a partnership on all decisions. The initial revolution had lasted only days, but the question remained as to what form of government would be established and which political group would control it. In the outlying areas of Russia, where transportation and communication were extremely poor, many of the peasants did not know for years that a revolution had taken place. In other areas, chaos and terror reigned. The land-hungry peasants of Russia saw the revolution as an opportunity to acquire the land for which they had always yearned. Mass murder and torture were not unusual tactics. Some land changed hands several times. The food shortages that were crippling the cities worsened as peasants turned to rebellion instead of farming. By June, 1917, the outlying areas of Russia were also suffering from growing ethnic and nationalistic movements. In areas such as Georgia and the Caucasus, where Muslims and non-Russian ethnic groups had always suffered as second-class citizens under the Russian nobility, movements to separate from the Russian government grew. There were rumors of appeals by some to Germany and Austria for citizenship in return for aid
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Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution
burg), against Lenin’s advice. Lenin knew that the time was not right and Between December, 1922, and January, 1923, Lenin sent three letters recomthat the Bolsheviks were not orgamending changes to the ruling Central Committee of the Communist Party. His nized enough to pull off a coup, so he health was failing, and he clearly foresaw trouble for the Union of Soviet Sojoined forces with the popular Leon cialist Republics and wanted to avert it. According to Leon Trotsky, Joseph Trotsky to gain strength. The coup Stalin suppressed the letters. Few people ever knew about them. In the power attempt failed, and Lenin and several struggle between Stalin and Trotsky that ensued after Lenin’s death in 1924, other leaders fled to Finland to esStalin won; he had the exiled Trotsky assassinated in 1940. cape execution. Lenin began to call for a second “Letter to Congress” revolution, one of the proletariat, or • I would urge strongly that at this Congress a number of changes be made in our political structure. . . . workers. He stated that the original • I think that from this standpoint the prime factors in the question of stability revolution had been one of the bourare such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I think relations begeois or middle class and that it obvitween them make up the greater part of the danger of a split, which could be ously was going to maintain the staavoided, and this purpose, in my opinion, would be served, among other tus quo of exploiting the workers. A things, by increasing the number of Central Committee members to 50 or trained Marxist, Lenin knew that 100. Russia was not really ready for a pro• Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in letariat revolution. Karl Marx had dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. outlined a plan for socialist revolution That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin that required a secure and effective from that post. capitalist economy to ensure success. “Granting Legislative Functions to the State Planning Active, violent revolution was not a Commission” necessary ingredient in Marx’s plan, • [T]he State Planning Commission stands somewhat apart from our legislabut successful economics was. Rustive institutions, although, as a body of experienced people, experts, represia did not have any of the necessary sentatives of science and technology, it is actually in a better position to form ingredients: The economy was not a correct judgment of affairs. . . . • I think that we must now take a step towards extending the competence of based on capitalism, it was not sucthe State Planning Commission. cessful, and it did not possess an established, organized labor class. Le“The Question of Nationalities or ‘Autonomisation’” nin was determined to push through • It is quite natural that in such circumstances the “freedom to secede from the a revolution that would attain the union” by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to ends he believed would lead Russia defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal and a tyrant, such as the typiand, by example, the rest of the world cal Russian bureaucrat is. There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage into a Marxist socialistic utopia. of Soviet and sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Lenin’s attempt came on NovemGreat-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk. . . . ber 7, 1917. Trotsky helped to orga• [W]ere we careful enough to take measures to provide the non-Russians nize the Red Army, which was highly with a real safeguard against the truly Russian bully? I do not think we took trained and in possession of military such measures although we could and should have done so. technology as advanced as Trotsky could obtain. The Bolsheviks took control of the provisional government, but the revolution was not over. and assistance in overthrowing their Russian masters. From November 7, 1917, until 1921, civil war would rage July 16-18, 1917, saw the Bolsheviks make their early in Russia. It took three years for Lenin and Trotsky to pull and abortive attempts to take over the government. The the country together under the leadership of the socialists. provisional government had failed to accomplish the two major demands of the revolutionaries, the end of the war Significance and land reform. Bolsheviks, soldiers, sailors, and mobs The Russian people, particularly the peasants, had never of civilians attempted to take Petrograd (now St. Petersknown freedom. In 1917 they were ripe for any political
Lenin’s Last View of Soviet Government
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Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution idea that promised them a measure of input and selfdetermination. The revolutionary groups in Russia made these promises, and Bolshevism offered the most. Tired of working land that they could never own, going hungry while their masters ate unsparingly of the food they had produced, the peasants were the most exploited class. They would, however, continue to be exploited: Under the new regime of Communism, the land for which the peasants fought was taken from them and managed by the state. Lenin viewed the peasants as a great body of uneducated, unthinking, animalistic creatures, much like the farm animals they raised. The proletariat, or urban labor class, was the group that was to be freed, trained, and utilized to create the new society that Russia was to become, and would set an example for the rest of the workers of the world. Many socialists in other countries of Europe staged small uprisings in sympathy with the Russian Revolution. The country most affected was Germany. At one point there was fear that the German government was in danger of being overthrown, but nationalism prevailed. The industrialized nations of Europe had evolved a sense of self and identity that was lacking in Russia, an unindustrialized, feudalistic society. Lenin did not understand the impact that nationalism would have on the socialists of Europe. They were in most cases German, Italian, and French first, and socialists second. Undaunted by the failure of the rest of Europe to follow Russia’s lead, Lenin continued to consolidate his power and to reform Russia into the communist state that he was sure would eventually be emulated by the rest of Europe and then the world. In 1921, when the civil war in Russia finally ended, Lenin began an era of forced collectivization of land and dictatorial control of peasant labor. The peasants continued to be hungry as they toiled in their fields in an effort to produce the food needed in wartorn and devastated Russian cities. The urban labor force was regimented into labor battalions. Laborers’ dream of worker-owned factories ended with takeovers by the government. This was followed by a reign of terror ordered by Lenin to remove any dissent or opposition to the government. Minorities were killed when any discussion of nationalistic movements reached governmental agencies. Religious affiliation was outlawed, as Lenin perceived it as a source of antigovernment agitation. When Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin, not Trotsky, took control after a brief power struggle. Trotsky remained head of the Red Army but was eventually dis1346
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 credited by Stalin, who saw him as a possible threat to his own power. The Russian Revolution produced a global reaction as countries lined up to join with or to fight against the communists. The history of much of the twentieth century was influenced by opposition to communism as well as by nations’ adoption of communist or socialist systems, as in the case of China and many parts of the developing world. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the final decades of the twentieth century, given communism’s earlier successes, stands as one of the most important, and perhaps most unexpected, events of the twentieth century. —Celia Hall-Thur Further Reading Adams, Arthur E., ed. The Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Victory: Why and How. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1960. A collection of essays, mostly by Russian writers, that shed light on the causes and the personalities of the Russian Revolution. Brown, Anthony Cave, and Charles B. MacDonald. On a Field of Red: The Communist International and the Coming of World War II. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981. Provides information on Russian history from 1917 to 1939 and goes into great depth concerning the revolution itself and its impact on Russia’s development. Gives very little consideration to earlier Russian history in explaining the conditions of the country or government. Includes index and excellent map showing the placement and areas of intervention of the British, German, Austrian, Japanese, and American troops after 1918. Crankshaw, Edward. The Shadow of the Winter Palace: Russia’s Drift to Revolution, 1825-1917. 1976. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 2000. Examines the czarist government’s attitudes and concerns. Some mention of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin and the personalities of the court officials. Includes maps, bibliographic notes, and index. Lindemann, Albert S. A History of European Socialism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. Discusses the Russian Revolution only as an outcome of the socialist movement. Invaluable to an understanding of the political movements engendered by the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Includes reading guide, bibliography, and index. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A broad overview of Russian
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 history from its beginnings through the end of the twentieth century. Includes maps, photographs, and index. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2000. Authoritative and well-rounded biography uses information recently available from Soviet archives to shed new light on Lenin. Includes illustrations, map, glossary of names, select bibliography, and index. Wilkinson, James, and H. Stuart Hughes. Contemporary Europe: A History. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1997. An overview of European history from 1914 through the end of the twentieth century.
Jones Act of 1917 Addresses the effects of the Russian Revolution on the rest of Europe. Good source of information on the political decisions made by European leaders in their dealings with the Russian governments. Includes excellent illustrations, maps, and index. See also: Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives.
March 2, 1917
Jones Act of 1917 Through passage of the Jones Act of 1917, the United States formed a unique and permanent relationship with the overseas territory of Puerto Rico. Also known as: Organic Act of 1917 Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event On December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the United States ended the Spanish-American War and set forth terms that became effective April 11, 1900. The agreement transferred the control of Puerto Rico from Spain to the United States, thereby legitimating the occupation of the island and its satellites by U.S. forces. One of the provisions of the Treaty of Paris was as follows: “The civil rights and the political status of the
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Key Figures Joseph Benson Foraker (1846-1917), chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Pacific Islands and Puerto Rico William Atkinson Jones (1849-1918), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Insular Affairs William McKinley (1843-1901), president of the United States, 1897-1901 Luis Muñoz Rivera (1859-1916), resident commissioner from Puerto Rico in Washington Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921
native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.” The natives of Puerto Rico, no longer subjects of the Spanish crown, now found themselves without any citizenship recognized under international law or U.S. domestic law. The Organic Act of 1900 (also known as the Foraker Act, for its sponsor, Senator Joseph Benson Foraker) established a political entity called the People of Porto Rico (Puerto Rico), but it made no mention of U.S. citizenship for those born on the island, only that they would be “held to be citizens of Porto Rico, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States.” Puerto Ricans were now stateless, essentially confined to their island because of the difficulty of traveling across national borders without a passport. The U.S. Supreme Court, in cases such as Downes v. Bidwell (1901), confirmed that Puerto Rico was merely a possession of the United States, not an incorporated territory, to be disposed of by the U.S. Congress. The reelection of William McKinley to the U.S. presidency in 1900 favored U.S. imperial expansion. Nevertheless, the debate as to whether racially, culturally, and linguistically distinct peoples brought under U.S. control should be granted U.S. citizenship and, if so, with what rights continued intermittently between 1900 and 1916. In 1916, the Philippines, also seized by the United States from Spain in the war, was promised independence by the Organic Act of the Philippine Islands, also known as the Jones Act (for its sponsor, Representative William Atkinson Jones). The Organic Act of 1917 (the Jones Act of 1917) did not similarly grant independence to Puerto
Jones Act of 1917 Rico, but it did confer U.S. citizenship collectively on the natives of the island. Although the 1917 Jones Act changed the status of Puerto Ricans from that of U.S. nationals—noncitizens, but owing allegiance to and subject to the protection of the United States—the granting of citizenship did not give the islanders the right to vote in U.S. federal elections because the territory fell short of statehood. In the case of Balzac v. Porto Rico (1922), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that as citizens of an unincorporated territory, the islanders enjoyed only fundamental provisions in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, not procedural or remedial rights such as the guarantee of trial by jury. The extent to which Puerto Ricans participated in the debate relating to their prospective status between 1900 and 1917 remains a matter of conjecture. For one thing, the spokesmen for the Puerto Rican community—such as Resident Commissioner Luis Muñoz Rivera and the Puerto Rican House of Delegates (the local legislature)—were ambivalent and contradictory on the subject. For another, much of the evidence placed before the Congress about the Puerto Ricans’ preferences during the drawn-out debate was impressionistic and anecdotal rather than objective. Accordingly, while some U.S. legislators talked of the yearnings, longings, and aspirations of Puerto Ricans to citizenship, critics claim that citizenship was pressed on the islanders. It has also been charged that members of Congress were not unaware of the expediency of acquiring additional recruits for military service only weeks before President Woodrow Wilson sought a declaration of war on Germany on April 4, 1917. Whatever the truth, making Puerto Ricans native U.S. citizens and the establishment of a seemingly permanent political link between the United States and Puerto Rico by the Jones Act of 1917 contrasted with the creation of an articulately temporary relationship between Washington, D.C., and the Philippines. In fact, the defining of the latter’s status under the 1916 Jones Act catalyzed the following year’s Jones Act relating to Puerto Rico. The racist comments that peppered the congressional debates were infinitely harsher as they related to Filipinos, partly because of the Philippines’ spirited resistance to U.S. occupation, than in regard to Puerto Ricans, who were much more receptive to occupation. Some legislators even produced statistics to “prove” that a high percentage of the islanders were white in order to justify their being granted U.S. citizenship. The final version of the 1917 Jones bill, introduced in the House on January 20, 1916, was only slightly different from Congressman Jones’s earlier versions. The only 1348
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 noteworthy change was that Puerto Ricans residing on the island were allowed one year instead of six months to reject U.S. citizenship if they desired. The House passed the bill by voice vote on May 23, 1916, the Senate approved it on February 20, 1917, and the House-Senate Conference Committee followed suit on February 24, 1917. President Wilson, a Democrat, signed it into law on March 2, 1917. Significance Only 288 Puerto Ricans legally declined to accept U.S. citizenship within the statutory period set by the act, thereby losing their right to hold or run for any public office on the island. Because the Jones Act established five different categories in determining the status of different individuals, great confusion followed passage of the act regarding who qualified for citizenship. In the interest of administrative simplification, the U.S. Congress subsequently passed several additional related laws. In 1952, the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico became the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, known in Spanish as a “free associated state.” As such, Puerto Rico elected a nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress but cast no vote in presidential, congressional, or senatorial elections. Although islanders paid no federal taxes, the aid that Puerto Rico received from Washington was less than it would have received had it been a state. On November 14, 1993, a nonbinding referendum— the result of which President Bill Clinton nevertheless pledged to respect—was held in Puerto Rico regarding the island’s future status. Of the 2.1 million Puerto Ricans who voted, 48.4 percent opted for continued commonwealth status, 46.2 percent voted for statehood, and 4.4 percent favored independence. The vote spread between the first two options had narrowed drastically since an earlier referendum in 1967. Another referendum in 1998 demonstrated that the split in opinion remained stable. Just above 50 percent voted for a “none of the above” option on the ballot, whereas 46.5 percent voted for U.S. statehood and 2.5 percent voted for independence, indicating that a very slight majority of voters were essentially in favor of the status quo. The issue of Puerto Rico’s status—and thus the nature of the citizenship of the islanders—was far from over. It now was up to Puerto Ricans themselves, increasingly aware of their Latino roots, to decide their own political future. — Peter B. Heller Further Reading Burnett, Christina Duffy, and Burke Marshall, eds. Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Ex-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pansion, and the Constitution. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001. Collection of essays by legal scholars focuses on the constitutional issues involved in Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. territory. Cabán, Pedro A. Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898-1932. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Economic history examines the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico from its beginnings in 1898, drawing on policy papers, speeches, memoirs, and other documents of the time. Chapter 6 discusses the Jones Act. Cabranes, Jose A. Citizenship and the American Empire: Notes on the Legislative History of the United States Citizenship of Puerto Ricans. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979. A well-annotated, objective account, by a law professor of Puerto Rican extraction, of how Congress decided that the distinct people of a colonial territory should be made U.S. citizens. De Passalacqua, John L. A. “The Involuntary Loss of United States Citizenship upon Accession to Independence by Puerto Rico.” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 19, no. 1 (Fall, 1990): 139161. A short discussion of the Jones Act of 1917 is included in this article on the effect that independence
United States Enters World War I would have on the legal status of Puerto Ricans. Gatell, Frank O. “The Art of the Possible: Luis Muñoz Rivera and the Puerto Rico Jones Bill.” The Americas 17, no. 1 (July, 1960): 1-20. Discusses how the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico in Washington, D.C., fought to liberalize the Jones bill while it was debated in Congress but without his Unionist Party’s radical proindependence stand. Karst, Kenneth L. Belonging to America: Equal Citizenship and the Constitution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989. Argues that equal citizenship for cultural minorities who have experienced exclusion, forced conformity, and subordination under the influence of U.S. nativism has become more topical over the years. See also: May 27, 1901: Insular Cases; 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States; 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy”; Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act.
April 6, 1917
United States Enters World War I U.S. involvement transformed the Great War into a global conflict with worldwide ramifications.
Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921), chancellor of Germany, 1909-1917 James Watson Gerard (1867-1951), U.S. ambassador to Germany Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), British secretary of state for foreign affairs Robert Lansing (1864-1928), U.S. secretary of state Walter Hines Page (1855-1918), U.S. ambassador to Great Britain
1917
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I; diplomacy and international relations
The most enduring American propaganda image of World War I is James Montgomery Flagg’s “I Want You” Army recruiting poster with the compelling picture of Uncle Sam pointing his finger at prospective recruits. (U.S. Army)
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United States Enters World War I
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Summary of Event On April 2, 1917, Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, stood before the combined members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and asked for a declaration of war against Germany. “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war,” he concluded. “But the right is more precious than peace.” Four days later, on April 6, the United States was formally at war. For two and a half years following the outbreak of the war in Europe in August, 1914, the United States had practiced a policy of neutrality. The U.S. government had lent money and supplies to the Entente Allies (Great Britain and France) but also had attempted to avoid antagonizing the Central Powers (Germany, AustriaHungary, and the Ottoman Empire). Neutral U.S. ships carried arms and munitions to the Allies, and Germany, seeing its war effort threatened, attempted to restrict this trade by sinking U.S. ships, primarily through the use of submarine warfare. In 1914, 1915, and 1916, Germany
announced increases in the kinds of neutral ships that would be subject to submarine attack, only to moderate its demands in the face of strong U.S. threats to break off diplomatic relations. During these years, Wilson made several sincere efforts to mediate the European dispute, but his attempts failed. In early 1917, the German government determined to take a calculated risk. Effective February 1, Germany announced, a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare would begin, and any neutral ship, armed or not, that attempted to transport supplies to the British or French would be attacked. Two days later, Wilson’s administration broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. Addressing a joint session of Congress on February 3, the president explained that it was the only alternative “consistent with the dignity and honor of the U.S.” However, he stated, he was not heading toward war, which would come only if Germany indulged in overt acts against the United States.
U.S. soldiers leave for France. (NARA)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 These acts came in the form of an escalated German submarine campaign in which many U.S. and Allied vessels were sunk and massive numbers of lives were lost. Wilson’s response was to call for armed neutrality, but the subsequent interception by the British of an encoded message from German foreign secretary Alfred Zimmermann to Mexico’s German minister proposing an alliance should war break out (known as the Zimmermann note) raised the threat of Mexican involvement and brought the war closer to home. On April 2, 1917, Wilson made it clear before a joint session of Congress that armed neutrality was an insufficient response to German attacks, and on April 6, the United States formally declared war on Germany.
United States Enters World War I
Making the World “Safe for Democracy” President Woodrow Wilson addressed both houses of the U.S. Congress on April 2, 1917, to ask for a declaration of war against Germany. He concluded with these words: The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. . . . It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
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Significance Why Wilson went on to ask for a declaration of war two months after breaking off diplomatic relations Source: U.S. Senate Document No. 5, Sixty-fifth Congress, First Session, April 2, with Germany has been the subject 1917. of intense historical debate. Six major arguments have been advanced: (1) U.S. bankers and arms manufacturers forced Wilson to declare war into the war. Not to be discounted also was Wilson’s perbecause the Allies would not be able to repay their debts sonal belief that he could bring about an idealistic peace if they lost the war; (2) clever British propaganda tricked in Europe only by helping the Allies defeat the Central Americans into believing that moral wrong resided exPowers. clusively in Germany; (3) U.S. security would be endanThere can be no doubt of Wilson’s sincerity in believgered by a German victory, because Germany was bent ing that the United States must undertake a moral crusade on worldwide aggression; (4) public opinion in the by fighting a war “to end all wars.” In spite of his genuine United States demanded war; (5) German submarine unwillingness, Wilson opted for war largely through calwarfare forced the United States into the war; and (6) by culations of cost and benefit. His policy of armed neuApril, 1917, Wilson believed that peace without victory trality had turned out to be a failure in terms of the loss of in Europe demanded that U.S. forces be sent overseas, so lives and property it had entailed and the enemies it had Wilson personally decided that a declaration of war was necessary. created at home. In addition, it had not been able to reThe first four of these arguments have their enthusiaslease the tensions of war, let alone create the ground for tic proponents but lack persuasive evidence. By the end an ideal peace settlement. For Wilson, the raging war of the twentieth century, most historians tended to emwas inglorious, a macabre slaughter of millions of innophasize the final two arguments. German submarine polcent people, a disaster, and a sheer horror. The world icy determined the course of U.S. neutrality after 1914; needed a new order such as he had outlined in his “peace Germany’s decision to begin unrestricted warfare in without victory” address. In the end, the president was February, 1917, was a major reason for U.S. entrance left with no choice but to seek that order by entering the
United States Enters World War I war. U.S. intervention would crush the might of Germany and bring Allied victory surely and swiftly. However, when the aftermath saw no restoration of international order, critics blamed Wilson’s idealism for subsequent problems. —Burton Kaufman and Sudipta Das Further Reading Buehrig, Edward H. Woodrow Wilson and the Balance of Power. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955. Pointed analysis of close Anglo-American political, economic, military, and cultural relations and the corresponding decline in relations with Germany. Explains U.S. entry into the war as shaped by German aggression at sea and the urge to protect British naval superiority. Esposito, David M. The Legacy of Woodrow Wilson: American War Aims in World War I. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996. Argues that Wilson was motivated by his belief that Germany was a threat to U.S. national security and that, forced into the war, he wanted U.S. intervention to be decisive so that the United States would hold a dominant position in a postwar peace conference. Ferrell, Robert H. Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917-1921. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Superb study covers both domestic and foreign developments. Focuses on Wilson as a reluctant and tragic figure amid a national crisis. Gregory, Ross. The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. Describes the background to U.S. entry into the war, with focus on Wilson’s administration and the domestic forces that shaped its decisions. Examines the out-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 side forces in London, Berlin, and Paris that influenced the course of U.S. policy. Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. 25th anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Study of the impact of World War I on U.S. society and culture explores topics of race, gender, and radicalism. Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1979. Wilson’s chief biographer and editor of his papers argues that Wilson, imbued with only the highest motives, was influenced by both moral and practical factors. Provides extensive description of events in belligerent nations and their impact on the United States. May, Ernest R. The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Based on multiple archival sources, posits that Wilson, after much soul-searching, could not stay out of war because of U.S. interests and European pressures. Asserts that Wilson’s policy was more correct than incorrect. See also: June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts; July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board; Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I
April 13, 1917
U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I During World War I, the U.S. government took action to curtail civil liberties in an effort to ensure national security. Locale: United States Categories: Civil rights and liberties; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I Key Figures George Creel (1876-1953), American journalist Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), American socialist Bill Haywood (1869-1928), American labor leader Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921
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Summary of Event On the evening of April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson, in delivering his war message to Congress, said that the United States was to embark on a crusade to “make the world safe for democracy.” Unfortunately for socialists, pacifists, German Americans, and the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, popularly known as the Wobblies), who opposed this intervention, the president said nothing about protecting democracy at home. U.S. participation in World War I gave rise to an alarming attack on civil liberties as Congress enacted laws to curtail constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press. For the first time, the U.S. government embarked on a concerted propaganda campaign to “sell” a war to the American public. As a result, hysteria swept the country. The responsibility for these occurrences rests with Wilson, with journalist George Creel, with Congress, and with thousands of superpatriotic citizens who saw a monumental foreign menace rather than its meager substance. Two problems faced the government. First, Americans had to be mobilized behind a war that did not involve a direct attack on the United States and into which the nation had entered slowly and unwillingly. Second, the government needed to guarantee internal security against enemies, real and imagined. On April 13, 1917, President Wilson established the Committee on Public Information (CPI) under the leadership of Creel, whose name soon became synonymous with the office. The committee was established to convince wavering citizens that the war was a righteous one and to educate them about the government’s war aims. Similar offices of war
information had been created in Great Britain, Germany, and France. Propaganda came of age during World War I. Its purposes were multifaceted: to mobilize hatred of the enemy, to preserve friendship among allies, to maintain the friendship of neutrals (and, if possible, to gain their cooperation), to demoralize the enemy, to promote the economical use of commodities, to stimulate war production, to encourage the purchase of war bonds, and to alert citizens to the danger of spies and saboteurs. During this period, the mobilization of the civilian mind for total war was seen as more important than the preservation of human rights. George Creel was an excellent choice for chairman of the CPI. A veteran Progressive from Denver and one of Wilson’s earliest supporters, Creel had built a reputation as a crusading journalist. Because of Creel’s reform record, his appointment was cheered by the press, which had feared repressive censorship. Instead, Creel called for voluntary censorship and usually received cooperation. The CPI relied on securing publication of a torrent of government-sponsored reports and stories. During the course of the war, Creel hired 150,000 artists, writers, lecturers, actors, and scholars to sell the war to the public. Colorful posters urged citizens to join the army or navy, buy Liberty Bonds, knit socks for soldiers, and guard against the ever-present danger of spies and saboteurs. Writers turned out hundreds of “true” stories concerning German atrocities and “accounts” of what the Hun planned to do to the United States. Columbia University professor Charles Hazen wrote The Government of Germany, a booklet “exposing” the medievalism of a military-dominated Germany. Teams of speakers toured the country delivering anti-German talks. Anti-German motion pictures were produced, including Pershing’s Crusaders, The Prussian Cur, and The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. Americans were encouraged to see the Central Powers as constituting a clear and present danger to civilization. Although the Creel Committee became synonymous in the public mind with censorship, it had no such power. That authority was vested in the Post Office Department and the Department of Justice. Public confusion was understandable. On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act, after considerable debate and many amendments. This act gave the government authority to limit
U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Espionage Act was bolstered in May, 1918, by the Sedition Act, which George Creel, chair of the Committee on Public Information during World provided penalties of up to ten thousand War I, wrote about the committee’s work in his 1920 memoir How We dollars and twenty years’ imprisonment Advertised America. Noting that the “war was not fought in France for the willful writing, utterance, or pubalone,” he went on: lication of material abusing the government, showing contempt for the ConIt was the fight for the minds of men, for the “conquest of their convicstitution, inciting others to resist the tions,” and the battle-line ran through every home in every country. government, supporting the enemy, or It was in this recognition of Public Opinion as a major force that the hindering production of war matériel. UnGreat War differed most essentially from all previous conflicts. The trial der this law, the government did not need of strength was not only between massed bodies of armed men, but between opposed ideals, and moral verdicts took on all the value of military to prove that the language in question had decisions. . . . In all things, from first to last, without halt or change, it was affected anyone or had produced injuria plain publicity proposition, a vast enterprise in salesmanship, the ous consequences. The postmaster genworld’s greatest adventure in advertising. . . . eral was empowered to deny use of the There was no part of the great war machinery that we did not touch, no mails to anyone who, in his opinion, used medium of appeal that we did not employ. The printed word, the spoken them to violate the act. A total of 2,168 word, the motion picture, the telegraph, the cable, the wireless, the poster, people were prosecuted under the Espiothe sign-board—all these were used in our campaign to make our own nage and Sedition Acts. people and all other peoples understand the causes that compelled AmerThe limitations placed on dissent by ica to take arms. . . . What we had to have was no mere surface unity, but a Congress and the Departments of Justice passionate belief in the justice of America’s cause that should weld the and the Post Office, together with the people of the United States into one white-hot mass instinct with fraternity, devotion, courage, and deathless determination. Creel Committee’s encouragement of sentiments favoring the Allied Powers, Source: George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York: Harper & might have been expected to produce a Brothers, 1920). climate of loyalty in the United States without help from unofficial sources. However, a number of superpatriotic volthe rights of speech and the press. Somehow, the public unteer organizations also arose, dedicated to spreading became convinced that the act conferred enforcement propaganda and discovering alleged traitors, saboteurs, powers on the CPI, a misconception that Creel never atand slackers. The most influential of these groups were tempted to dispel, as the illusion of power gave the comthe National Security League and the National Protective mittee an effective tool for securing public cooperation. Association. The Boy Spies of America, the Sedition Title I, section 3, of the Espionage Act made it a crime Slammers, and the Terrible Threateners had more picturfor an individual to make false reports that would aid the esque names but were less powerful. These volunteer enemy, incite rebellion in the armed forces, or obstruct groups carried patriotism to excess and often were rerecruitment or the draft. In practice, the government used sponsible for violations of human rights, which the govthis section to stifle criticism. Those prosecuted under ernment made no real attempt to discourage. As a rethe act included socialists Victor Berger and Eugene V. sult, coercion became the order of the day, and the Debs as well as “Big Bill” Haywood, one of the leaders government never regained control of the explosive situof the Industrial Workers of the World. Socialist and pacation. ifist newspapers were denied use of the mails under Title The brunt of government and vigilante activity was XII of the act. The editors of the Messenger, a New York borne by the country’s largest minority: German AmeriAfrican American newspaper, were imprisoned for quescans. Although German Americans were never interned tioning the war. Ricardo Flores Magon, a Mexican in camps, their plight during World War I paralleled that American labor organizer, was sentenced to twenty years of Japanese Americans during World War II: They were in prison for voicing his dissent. In October, 1917, ansuspected as traitors. Attempts were made to eradicate anything German other law was passed that required foreign-language from American life. Schools and colleges banned the newspapers to submit translations of all war-related mateaching of German as a “language that disseminates terial before distribution to local readers.
The Propaganda Battle
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the ideals of autocracy, brutality, and hatred.” South Dakota prohibited the use of German on the telephone. Fewer than one hundred of the twelve hundred Germanlanguage periodicals that had been publishing in the United States survived to 1920. Thousands of Pennsylvania German parents, seventh- and eighth-generation Americans, forbade their children to learn their dialect. Several cities, including Boston, banned the music of Beethoven, Wagner, and other German composers. Pretzels were removed from saloon lunch counters in Cincinnati. German sausages, sauerkraut, German shepherd dogs, German measles, and pinochle were all given new names, as were many towns with names such as Berlin, Frankfurt, and Bismarck. Many people of German heritage hastened to Americanize their surnames. The superpatriotic volunteers, encouraged by the CPI’s propaganda, produced a wave of hysteria that resulted in bodily or mental harm to thousands of innocent citizens. IWW organizer Frank Little was tortured and lynched in Montana. In April, 1918, a mob in East St. Louis humiliated and hanged a young German American, Robert Prager. The ringleaders were eventually acquitted on the grounds that the murder was patriotic. In Los Angeles, where police ignored the harassment of Mexican Americans—who were all regarded as proGerman—three pacifist clergymen were beaten by a mob and then jailed for expressing “thoughts calculated to cause any American citizen then and there present to assault and batter them.”
Further Reading Carruthers, Susan L. The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Assesses the role of the news media before, during, and after wartime. Asserts that mass-media news outlets tend to follow the lead of the states in which they operate, contributing to wartime propaganda more often than they are willing to admit. Johnson, Donald. The Challenge to American Freedoms: World War I and the Rise of the American Civil Liberties Union. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1963. Scholarly examination of the attack on civil liberties during the war and the subsequent establishment of the American Civil Liberties Union to serve as a watchdog organization. Lasswell, Harold. Propaganda Technique in World War I. 1927. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971. The honesty of this general work on World War I propaganda provoked a small furor when it was first published (as Propaganda Technique in the World War). Mock, James, and Cedric Larson. Words That Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information, 1917-1919. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1939. Ably demonstrates the effectiveness of the Creel Committee. Parsons, William. The Pennsylvania Dutch: A Persistent Minority. Boston: Twayne, 1976. General history of Pennsylvania Germans contains an excellent chapter on their wartime situation. Peterson, H. C., and G. C. Fite. Opponents of War, 19171918. 1957. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986. Uses a largely biographical approach to provide a broad summary of opposition to the war. Preston, William, Jr. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933. 2d ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Study of U.S. nativism in the early twentieth century puts the suppression of civil liberties during wartime in perspective. Read, James Morgan. Atrocity Propaganda, 1914-1919. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1941. An excellent summary of the use of atrocity propaganda during World War I. Smith, Jeffery A. War and Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Examines the history of American press coverage of wars from the time of the ratification of the First Amendment in 1791 through the Gulf War in 1991, focusing on the laws and military regulations that have placed limits on the press. Argues against 1355
1917
Significance Once unleashed, antiforeign biases could not be controlled when the war ended. These sentiments eventually backfired on Wilson: His dream of the League of Nations was rejected by the U.S. public, and one of his own books was banned in Nebraska. Somewhere during the fight to make the world safe for democracy, the United States abandoned its most democratic ideals: tolerance and compassion. Perhaps the greatest loss, however, was to the nation’s self-confidence. When new challenges arose, they were met with newer, more repressive laws and public hysteria, exemplified in the Red Scare, the race riots of 1919-1920, and other postwar disturbances. The high price that the United States paid in the loss of civil liberties during World War I is an example of the way national security policy inevitably affects domestic policy during times of war or other heated international ideological competition. —Anne Trotter and Randall Fegley
U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I
Formation of the American Friends Service Committee the suspension of press freedom during armed conflict. Thernstrom, Stephan. A History of the American People Since 1865. 2d ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989. Includes an excellent overview of the violation of civil liberties during World War I.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded.
April 30, 1917
Formation of the American Friends Service Committee During World War I, fourteen members of the Religious Society of Friends met in Philadelphia to establish the American Friends Service Committee, which helped establish relief programs in France and served as a resource for drafted conscientious objectors. After the war, the organization developed into a major overseas relief agency that assisted hospitals, food kitchens, and European refugees. Locale: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Categories: Organizations and institutions; social issues and reform; humanitarianism and philanthropy Key Figures Rufus Jones (1863-1948), Quaker historian, theologian, and cofounder and first chairman of the American Friends Service Committee Henry J. Cadbury (1883-1974), cofounder and second chairman of the American Friends Service Committee Newton D. Baker (1871-1937), U.S. secretary of war, 1916-1921 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), administrator of food relief in Germany, 1919-1921 Summary of Event On April 30, 1917, a few weeks after President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for the declaration of war that brought the United States into World War I, fourteen members of the Religious Society of Friends—commonly known as Quakers or Friends—met in Philadelphia to create an organization that would mirror the English Friends organizations providing relief on the battlefields of Europe. They developed the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in order to accomplish two primary goals: to provide support and service alternatives for conscientious objectors and to help the U.S. government initiate relief activities in France. On April 7, 1917, the day after the United States officially declared war, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker 1356
had submitted a bill to Congress that requested immediate institution of a military draft. Against this backdrop, Rufus Jones, an educator and theologian from Haverford College (founded in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends), became the first chairman of the AFSC. Through World War I and into the 1920’s, Jones guided the organization as it developed programs to serve the United States and humanity. The history of conscientious objectors—individuals whose personal beliefs are incompatible with military service—in the United States began with resistance to the creation of militias in the American colonies prior to the American Revolution. Traditionally, pacifism was the Society of Friends’s official policy, and although a majority of Quaker men joined the military and served during World War I, many refused to participate. In 1917, Congress limited exemptions from the draft to members of recognized groups with pacifist beliefs (including the Quakers), but there was no absolute exemption from military service. People who qualified under the exemption were classified as noncombatants. They were frequently sent to army training camps, where they were often segregated and subject to verbal and occasionally physical abuse from other trainees, before being assigned to specific military duties. Furthermore, because some Americans considered any resistance to military service to be a form of treason, several conscientious objectors were jailed, and some were sentenced either to life imprisonment or to death. Although the death sentences were ultimately commuted, a few of these conscientious objectors died before their sentences were lifted. One of the AFSC’s first actions was to form a unit of Quakers that worked in France under the direction of the American Red Cross, which President Wilson had chosen to lead relief efforts. A group of one hundred volunteers arrived at Haverford College in the summer of 1917 and began training while AFSC representatives in France
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 negotiated the unit’s placement. Fortunately, the head of the American Red Cross in France was a former Haverford student and a friend of Rufus Jones who was sympathetic to the AFSC’s mission, and the Friends Reconstruction Unit began arriving in France in September of that year. The AFSC and the U.S. War Department agreed to furlough 116 men from the draft and send them and 20 women to France by the end of 1917. This unit worked with its English counterpart on reconstruction, medical relief, and agricultural projects. Throughout the war years, the AFSC raised money to support its relief efforts and received additional funding from the Red Cross and the American government. Relief efforts continued after the war, and in 1919, Herbert Hoover, serving as administrator of food relief in Germany, asked the AFSC to take charge of a program that provided food to starving children in that nation. The organization continued to provide relief in Europe and Russia through the 1920’s. By 1924, the AFSC had secured its status with a board divided into four sections: foreign service, race relations, home service, and peace. The first domestically focused efforts began in the 1920’s and continued during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. Meanwhile, the AFSC’s relief work in war zones continued, especially during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and World War II (1939-1945).
Further Reading Bacon, Margaret Hope. Let This Life Speak: The Legacy of Henry Joel Cadbury. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. Gives a nice overview of one of the founders of the AFSC but fails to provide insights into his politics and actions. Barbour, Hugh, and J. William Frost. The Quakers. Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1994. One of the best single-volume studies of Quaker history available. Brock, Peter, ed. “These Strange Criminals”: An Anthology of Prison Memoirs by Conscientious Objectors from the Great War to the Good War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. A compilation of diaries, memoirs, and interviews with imprisoned conscientious objectors, including three Americans imprisoned for refusing to fight during World War I. Hamm, Thomas D. The Quakers in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Provides some history of the Quakers but focuses primarily on the practices of various Quaker groups in the twentieth century. Jones, Mary Hoxie. Swords into Ploughshares: An Account of the American Friends Service Committee, 1917-1937. 1937. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Provides an excellent introduction to the formation of the AFSC. Includes accounts of the organization’s relief work in France. Jones, Rufus Matthew. A Service of Love in Wartime: American Friends’ Relief Work in Europe, 1917-1919. New York: Macmillan, 1920. Vivid description of the founding of the AFSC and of Quakers’ service during World War I and the postwar years by the first chairman of the AFSC. Levi, Margaret. Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. A comparative history of military service in selected countries, including the United States, from the role of citizenship to conscription and conscientious objection. See also: Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace; Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; 1921: Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment; Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize; Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact; Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace. 1357
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Significance Although the AFSC’s efforts were initially focused on alleviating conditions created by World War I, the group developed into one that provided assistance throughout the world. The success of the AFSC’s campaigns during World War I was a source of pride for Quakers in the United States and established the AFSC’s reputation as an agency whose willingness to provide humanitarian aid was independent of the relationship between aid recipients and the U.S. government. As a result, the AFSC was recognized as a legitimate organization even by countries that had tense relations with the United States, such as the Soviet Union. In 1947, the AFSC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Speaking on the organization’s behalf on that occasion, Henry J. Cadbury, the AFSC’s second chairman, acknowledged the difficulties faced by Quakers and other pacifists when a country and its civilian population mobilize for war, and he reminded his audience that the AFSC’s focus on preventing war stemmed from its beginnings as a defender of pacifists whose beliefs were considered disloyal or unpatriotic. — John Boyd
Formation of the American Friends Service Committee
Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May, 1917
Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter The establishment of a U.S. chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, an organization dedicated to advancing racial pride among people of African heritage, represented a major step in the growth of black nationalism. Locale: Harlem, New York, New York Categories: Civil rights and liberties; organizations and institutions Key Figures Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), Jamaican black nationalist leader Amy Jacques Garvey (1896?-1973), American journalist Summary of Event In March, 1916, Marcus Garvey, a young black Jamaican, arrived in New York City. He had come to the United States in the hope of securing financial help for the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), an organization he had founded in Jamaica two years ear-
Marcus Garvey. (Library of Congress)
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lier. After delivering his first public speech in Harlem in May, 1916, Garvey began a long speaking tour that took him through thirty-eight U.S. states. In May, 1917, he returned to Harlem and—with the help of his secretary and future wife, Amy Ashwood—organized the first American chapter of the UNIA. Although hardly noticed at the time, this infant organization was a significant first step in the growth of black nationalism in the United States. Within a few years, the UNIA would claim millions of members and hundreds of branches throughout the United States, the Caribbean region, and Africa, and Garvey would be one of the most famous black people in the world. Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, in 1887. He claimed to be of pure African descent. His father was a descendant of the maroons, or Jamaican slaves, who successfully revolted against their British masters in 1739. During his early years, Garvey gradually became aware that some in his society considered his color to be a badge of inferiority. Jamaica, unlike the United States, placed the mulatto in a higher caste as a buffer against the unlettered black masses. This reality gave the young black man a sense of racial isolation and yet stimulated pride in him as well. By his twentieth birthday, Garvey had started a program to change the lives of black Jamaicans. While working as a foreman in a printing shop in 1907, he joined a labor strike as a leader. The strike was quickly broken by the shop owners, and Garvey lost faith in reform through labor unions. In 1910, he started publishing a newspaper, Garvey’s Watchman, and helped form a political organization, the National Club. These efforts, which were not particularly fruitful, led Garvey to visit Central America, where he was able to observe the wretched conditions of black people in Costa Rica and Panama. Garvey’s travels finally brought him to London, the center of the British Empire. There he met Dusé Mohamed Ali, an Egyptian scholar, who increased the young Jamaican’s knowledge and awareness of Africa. During his stay in England, Garvey also became acquainted with the plight of African Americans through reading Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery (1901). Washington’s book raised questions in Garvey’s mind: “I asked, where is the black man’s Government? Where
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter tracted to the accommodationist philosophy of Booker T. Washington or the middle-class goals of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Indeed, urban African Americans were wary of all prophets, even Garvey. The young Jamaican was able to obtain support from Jamaican immigrants in Harlem, who felt isolated, and he established a branch of the UNIA there in May, 1917. Significance At first the Harlem UNIA chapter encountered difficulties. Local politicians tried to gain control of it, and Garvey had to fight to save its autonomy. The original branch of the UNIA was dissolved, and a charter was obtained from the state of New York that prevented other groups from using the organization’s name. By 1918, under Garvey’s dynamic leadership, the New York chapter of the UNIA boasted thirty-five hundred members. By 1919, Garvey optimistically claimed two million members for his organization throughout the world and 200,000 subscribers for his weekly newspaper, The Negro World. In an effort to promote the economic welfare of blacks under the auspices of the UNIA, Garvey established in 1919 two joint stock companies: the Black Star Line, an international commercial shipping company, and the Negro Factories Corporation, which was to “build and operate factories . . . to manufacture every marketable commodity.” Stock in these companies was sold only to black investors. The Black Star Line was to establish commerce with Africa and transport willing emigrants “back to Africa.” Although both companies were financial failures, the fact that they existed gave many black people a feeling of dignity. Based on his promotional efforts on behalf of the Black Star Line, the U.S. government, prodded by rival black leaders, indicted Garvey for fraudulent use of the mails in 1922. He was tried, found guilty, and sent to prison in 1923. Although his second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, worked to hold the UNIA together, it declined rapidly. In 1927, Garvey was released from prison and deported as an undesirable alien. He returned to Jamaica and then went to London and Paris in an effort to resurrect the UNIA, but with little success. He died in poverty in London in 1940. Although a bad businessman, Garvey was a master propagandist and popular leader. His promotion of the UNIA made a major contribution toward increased race consciousness among African Americans. —John C. Gardner and R. Kent Rasmussen 1359
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is his King and his Kingdom? Where is his President, his country and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs? I could not find them, and then I declared, I will help to make them.” Returning to Jamaica in 1914, Garvey created a selfhelp organization for black people to which he gave the imposing name the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League. This new organization, later renamed the Universal Negro Improvement Association, based its philosophy on the need to unite “all people of Negro or African parentage.” The goals of the UNIA were to increase racial pride, to aid black people throughout the world, and “to establish a central nation for the race.” Garvey, elected the first president of the association, realized that black people would have to achieve these goals without assistance from white people. This self-help concept, similar to the philosophy (but not the practice) of Booker T. Washington, led Garvey to propose the establishment of a black trade school in Kingston, Jamaica, similar to Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. The idea did not attract wide support, however, and Garvey was temporarily frustrated. In 1915, Garvey decided to travel to the United States to seek aid for his Jamaica-based organization. He had corresponded with Booker T. Washington, but Washington died before Garvey arrived in the United States in 1916. Garvey went directly to Harlem in New York City, which in the early twentieth century was becoming a center of black culture. The lives of African Americans changed rapidly during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Metropolitan areas in the North were experiencing mass inmigration of African Americans from the South. In New York City, for example, the black population increased from 91,709 in 1910 to 152,467 in 1920. African Americans were attracted to northern urban areas by the promise of jobs and by the possibility of escaping the rigid system of segregation in the South. They found, however, that they could not escape racism simply by moving. Northern whites also believed in the racial inferiority of African Americans and opposed black competitors for their jobs. The new immigrants, like their foreign-born counterparts, were crowded into ghettos in northern cities, without proper housing or the possibility of escape. Race-related violence broke out in several northern cities. The North proved to be no utopia for African Americans. These harsh realities aided Garvey in establishing the UNIA in New York. The residents of Harlem were not at-
Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal Further Reading Cronon, E. David. Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955. This first scholarly biography of Garvey remains one of the best introductions to his life. Garvey, Amy Jacques. Garvey and Garveyism. 1963. Reprint. New York: Collier Books, 1976. Intimate memoir of Garvey written by his widow more than two decades after his death. Garvey, Marcus. Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Edited by Amy Jacques Garvey, with new introduction by Robert A. Hill. New York: Atheneum, 1992. This classic collection of Garvey’s speeches and writings was assembled by his wife during the early 1920’s, while Garvey was fighting charges of mail fraud. New introduction places the work in a broad historical perspective. Hill, Robert A., et al., eds. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. 10 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 19832006. The most extensive collection of original documents by and about Garvey and his movement, this set is the best starting point for all research on the UNIA. Hill, Robert A., and Barbara Bair, eds. Marcus Garvey: Life and Lessons. Berkeley: University of California
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Press, 1987. Collection of Garvey’s most didactic writings, including autobiographical material that he wrote in 1930. A long appendix includes biographies of figures important in his life. Lewis, Rupert, and Maureen Warner-Lewis, eds. Garvey: Africa, Europe, the Americas. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1986. Collection of original research papers on international aspects of Garveyism. Wintz, Cary D., ed. African American Political Thought, 1890-1930: Washington, Du Bois, Garvey, and Randolph. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. Presents personal correspondence, speeches, and essays written by these four black leaders to illustrate the ideas and the evolution of political thought among African Americans during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See also: July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement; Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded; 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded; Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded.
May 13-October 17, 1917
Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal Three peasant children reported being visited by the Virgin Mary each month for six months, and these accounts created widespread interest in the hillside site outside the village of Fátima. Reportedly, the apparition delivered three prophecies that were not revealed until much later. The final visitation culminated in the Anomaly of the Sun, an atmospheric phenomenon witnessed by more than seventy thousand people. Locale: Cova da Iria, outside Aljustrel near Fátima, Portugal Category: Religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Francisco Marto (1908-1919), one of the children who reported seeing the Virgin Mary Jacinta Marto (1910-1920), one of the children who reported seeing the Virgin Mary 1360
Lúcia Santos (1907-2005), one of the children who reported seeing the Virgin Mary Benedict XV (Giacomo della Chiesa; 1854-1922), Roman Catholic pope, 1914-1922 John Paul II (1920-2005), Roman Catholic pope, 1978-2005 Summary of Event In 1917, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and Pope Benedict XV was exhausted by his attempts to broker an armistice. On May 5, he addressed a letter to Christians around the world that begged believers to pray to the Virgin Mary, whom Catholics venerate as a mediator between humans and God. Benedict XV insisted that Mary alone could stop what the pope saw as Europe’s self-destruction. Eight days later, on Sunday, May 13, Francisco Marto, his sister Jacinta, and their cousin Lúcia Santos,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and suddenly dropped toward both the horizon and the frightened pilgrims before coming to an abrupt halt and returning to its position high in the afternoon sky. The entire phenomenon, which lasted a little more than nine minutes, was seen as far away as thirty miles. In response to the event, witnesses burst into shouts of joy and later reported that their rain-soaked clothes had been thoroughly dried. Lúcia herself recorded that while the sun danced, she was given beatific visions of Mary as Mother of Christ, the Mother of Sorrows, and the Mother of Heaven, symbols that were widely interpreted as representations of the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. More than twenty years later, Lúcia, who had become a Carmelite nun, revealed the contents of the conversation in her memoirs, written at the request of the bishop of Leiria, who directed the ten-year Vatican inquiry into the apparition’s appearances. She recounted that the apparition gave the children a terrifying glimpse of Hell before delivering three prophecies, two of which Lúcia revealed in her memoirs. The vision prophesied that the Great War would end soon but that it would be followed by another, far greater war that would punish humanity for its persistent sinfulness. The vision then prophesied the specific threat of Russia—which was unimaginable at the time, since Russia was immersed in the chaos of the Communist revolution—and said that Russia would abandon Christianity and cause great suffering to the world until it returned to the faith. Lúcia recorded the third prophecy in a letter that was carefully guarded by the Vatican for fifty years. Both Francisco and Jacinta died during the influenza epidemic that peaked in 1918-1919, but Lúcia lived to the age of ninety-seven and died on February 13, 2005, a day of the month that carried a great deal of significance for Fátima believers. Lúcia, who was cloistered near Coimbra, claimed that Mary continued to visit her after Fátima. In the meantime, the Church had investigated the apparition, and on October 13, 1930, it confirmed that the visitation was worthy of belief. Upon publication of Sister Lúcia’s four-volume memoir in the 1940’s, interest in the events at Fátima heightened. Given the second prophecy’s emphasis on Russia, the third prophecy, the so-called secret of Fátima, became part of the apocalyptic rhetoric of the escalating Cold War. The Vatican, however, refused to reveal the details of the third prophecy until May 13, 2000. On that date, Pope John Paul II, whose long pontificate had been centered on his devotion to Mary—he consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1984, a few years before the collapse of the 1361
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three Catholic peasant children who tended sheep in the hills near Fátima, Portugal, were visited by an apparition that identified itself as the “Angel of Portugal.” The angel, a female figure dressed in white who hovered above a small oak tree and from whom emanated a bright light, instructed the children to pray to the Trinity, to embrace suffering, and to venerate the Eucharist. The children initially told no one of the visions but dedicated themselves to prayer. Of the children, only Lúcia communicated with the apparition; Francisco saw but could not hear the vision, and Jacinta saw and heard her but did not speak with her. The figure told the children that they could help end the war by consecrating themselves to the Rosary and by converting sinners to Catholicism. The figure then asked them to return to the site on the thirteenth day of each of the next six months. Although the children agreed to tell no one of the vision, Jacinta told her parents, and word spread through the tiny village. On June 13, a hundred onlookers joined the children, who again saw the vision. The onlookers, however, only heard thunder and saw a cloud move across the sky. The following month, more than five thousand people gathered to watch the children receive another vision. On August 13, more than ten thousand pilgrims gathered on the hillside, but the children were not there. The threat of religious fanaticism loomed large at the time, and many Portuguese wanted to lessen Catholicism’s influence. In response, the provisional authority had the children imprisoned and threatened with death (a cauldron of boiling oil was even prepared) unless they admitted they were lying or revealed the vision’s prophecies. The children refused and instead embraced their approaching martyrdom. They were released two days later, and the vision appeared to them again with a promise to perform a miracle on the sixth visit. In anticipation of the October visit, the children devoted themselves to prayer and sacrifice: They refused to drink water on hot days and bound their waists with rope. On October 13, despite a chilling rain, close to seventy thousand people crowded the hillside. When the vision appeared to the children, she identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. She then requested that the entire world be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and ascended into the sky. Although they did not see Mary, witnesses later reported that the rain abruptly stopped and that the sun turned like a wheel and emitted a rainbow of colors (witnesses’ eyesight appeared to have been undamaged, however) before the atmosphere assumed a purplish glow. The sun then turned blood red
Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal
Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal Soviet Union—announced in Fátima on the occasion of the beatification of the two Martas that the third prophecy had in fact been a symbolic vision describing a gunfire attack on the pope by forces of evil. John Paul II further interpreted the assassination attempt against him by a Turkish extremist in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981 (yet another thirteenth) as the prophecy’s fulfillment. Significance Although skeptics initially questioned the vision and disputed the specifics of the third prophecy, the Fátima apparitions were endorsed by the Holy See as a divine intervention. The sensationalism caused by the serial visitations reignited Portuguese Catholicism at a time when urban liberals dismissed religion in general as a collection of rural superstitions and a public menace, and in an ironic twist Fátima became a national icon and a cornerstone of Portuguese pride. More important, however, was the impact of the vision’s endorsement of fervent prayer, reparative suffering, and religious conversion as ways to secure international peace. Many were frustrated by the continuing horrors created by World War I, and their feelings were validated by the vision’s reference to war as an affront to God. Although healings were documented among the millions of Fátima pilgrims, Fátima differed from sites in which Marian apparitions became healing shrines because it promulgated the power of prayer to influence and even define history. In framing the rise and fall of the Soviet empire in a Christian historiography, Fátima’s prophecies molded twentieth century history into an extended drama of humanity’s chastisement and the ultimate triumph of good. —Joseph Dewey Further Reading Allegri, Renzo, and Roberto Allegri. Fátima: The Story Behind the Miracles. New York: Charis, 2002. Valu-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 able retelling, without theological agenda, that covers the revelation of the third prophecy. Alonso, J. M. The Secret of Fátima: Fact and Legend. Translated by the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary. Cambridge, Mass.: Ravengate Press, 1979. Summarizes the Catholic defense of the apparition and sorts through the conflicting stories offered by eyewitnesses. Cunneen, Sally. In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol. New York: Ballantine, 1996. Invaluable study that contextualizes Fátima as an element of Catholicism. Kondor, L., ed. Fátima in Lúcia’s Own Words. Translated by the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary. Fátima, Portugal: Postulation Centre, 1976. A reliable summary of Lúcia’s four-volume memoir. Swann, Ingo. The Great Apparitions of Mary: An Examination of Twenty-Two Supernatural Appearances. New York: Crossroad, 1996. Examines the visions as paranormal experiences that reflect the visionaries’ psychologies. Walsh, William T. Our Lady of Fátima. 1954. New York: Image, 2001. Definitive, carefully researched account of the apparitions. Includes interviews with the families of the children and eyewitnesses to the “dance of the sun.” Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra L. Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjudgorje. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Detailed analysis of the visitation and its political ramifications, the history of the three prophecies, and the life of Lúcia herself. See also: May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous; Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded
June, 1917
First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded Authorized by a bequest of Joseph Pulitzer, the Pulitzer Prizes established standards of excellence in journalism, fiction, drama, history, and biography for American journalists and authors. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; literature Key Figures Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), American newspaper publisher Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947), American educator and president of Columbia University, 1901-1945 Frank Diehl Fackenthal (1883-1968), secretary of Columbia University
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
1917
Summary of Event On May 24, 1915, Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of New York’s Columbia University, met with the advisory board of Columbia’s school of journalism. The purposes of the meeting were to verify that the terms set down in the will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer had been faithfully followed and to approve plans for awarding prizes in journalism and letters that were to be awarded in Pulitzer’s name and through his financial bequest. Butler’s relations with Pulitzer, who had died in 1911, had often been difficult, and the Columbia president had been required to follow Pulitzer’s expressed intentions carefully. Prior to the May 24 meeting, Butler asked Frank Diehl Fackenthal, Columbia University’s secretary, to draft a plan of award for the prizes. Fackenthal envisioned that in each of the prize areas, eminent experts in the field would make the initial determination and give their recommendations to the advisory board, which would in turn send its selections to the trustees of Columbia University; the prizes would then be awarded under the auspices of the trustees. There were seeds of future controversy in this plan, but the structure that Fackenthal proposed has remained the basic one used in allocating the Pulitzer Prizes. Difficulties concerning the prospective prizes existed long before 1915, in large part because of the personality and accomplishments of Joseph Pulitzer, one of the most powerful persons in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Hungary in 1847, Pulitzer migrated to the United States and fought
for the Union during the Civil War. After the war, he became a newspaper reporter in St. Louis, Missouri, as well as a political reformer, first supporting the Republicans and later the Democrats. He acquired two St. Louis newspapers and formed the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; in 1883, he bought the New York World from the controversial financier Jay Gould. Pulitzer’s newspapers became extremely profitable. Through a brilliant combination of reform advocacy and sensationalism, Pulitzer, along with his rival William Randolph Hearst, created a new and controversial type of journalism. Pulitzer was committed to reaching the democratic majority, not simply the governing elite, and in creating his mass-circulation newspapers he added entertainment—sports, comics, illustrations—to information. Seeing himself as a crusader on the side of the people, Pulitzer supported labor, attacked trusts and monopolies, and pilloried political bosses. The more papers
Joseph Pulitzer. (The Granger Collection, New York)
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Pulitzer Prize Categories As of 2006, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded for three main categories of writing: Newspaper, Letters and Drama, and Music. The major awards and their definitions are listed below: Letters and Drama • Biography or Autobiography: for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author • Drama: for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life • Fiction: for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life • General Nonfiction: for a distinguished book of nonfiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category • History: for a distinguished book on the history of the United States • Poetry: for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author Music • Music: for a distinguished musical contribution by an American that had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year Newspaper • Beat Reporting: for a distinguished example of beat reporting characterized by sustained and knowledgeable coverage of a particular subject or activity • Breaking News Photography: for a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album • Breaking News Reporting: for a distinguished example of local reporting of breaking news • Commentary: for distinguished commentary • Criticism: for distinguished criticism
he sold in the process, of course, the higher his profits were. If Pulitzer’s accomplishments were a paradoxical combination of high-minded reform and journalistic sensationalism, his personality was equally a study in contradictions. The poor immigrant became a millionaire. The spokesman for democracy had extravagant aristocratic tastes and ran his newspapers like a dictator. He was generous with his employees, but he was a tyrant toward his managers. In 1889, declining health forced him to give up day-to-day operation of his newspapers, but he ruled them autocratically from a distance. Finally, the 1364
• Editorial Cartooning: for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect • Editorial Writing: for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clarity of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction • Explanatory Reporting: for a distinguished example of explanatory reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing, and clear presentation • Feature Photography: for a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album • Feature Writing: for a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality • International Reporting: for a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, including United Nations correspondence • Investigative Reporting: for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series • National Reporting: for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs • Public Service: the most celebrated award, for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the use of its journalistic resources, which may include editorials, cartoons, and photographs, as well as reporting; awarded to a newspaper, not an individual
purveyor of sensationalism was committed to raising the standards of journalism to those of a true profession, and one of his chief desires was to establish a school of journalism. In the early 1890’s, Pulitzer offered Harvard University and then Columbia University one million dollars to establish such a school, but neither institution showed interest—a fact not surprising in the years when Pulitzer and Hearst were supposedly lowering newspaper standards through their “yellow journalism” techniques. In 1902, Pulitzer returned to his “grand scheme,” as he called it. He wrote a memorandum about using his wealth
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the prizes would not be implemented until after his death. In his will, Pulitzer established the primacy of the advisory board in the awarding of the prizes, specifying that if any attempt was made to reduce the powers of the board, the funds would be shifted to Harvard University. The will also described the prizes to be awarded: Four were to be in journalism, and others were to be awarded in the categories of fiction, drama, history, and biography. The monetary awards connected to the prizes ranged from five hundred dollars to two thousand dollars. For the literary prizes, the qualifications mirrored the times, with the prizes to be given to authors demonstrating morality, good taste, and patriotic values. These requirements were to lead to difficulties in the future. Pulitzer died in 1911. According to his will, the prizes could not be awarded until the journalism school, which was established in 1912, had been in operation for three years. By the spring of 1915, that requirement had been met, and in May of that year, Butler and Fackenthal presented their plan for the prizes to the advisory board. The plan was accepted, and it was decided that the first Pulitzer Prizes, for work published in 1916, would be announced at the university’s commencement in June, 1917, six years after Pulitzer’s death. Significance The first Pulitzer Prizes could not have been awarded at a more inauspicious time. In April, 1917, the United States entered World War I against Germany, and in that climate the prizes received only limited attention (and that primarily from the Pulitzer newspapers). Nevertheless, choices were made. The journalistic prizes were recommended by juries made up of staff from the Columbia University School of Journalism. Talcott Williams, the first director of the journalism school and a strong supporter of the awards, took an active role, sitting on all the recommending juries. Given the patriotic atmosphere surrounding the first year’s prizes, it is understandable that the initial awards in journalism went to the New York Tribune for an editorial condemning Germany on the anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania and to Herbert Bayard Swope of Pulitzer’s own New York World for his reports titled “Inside the German Empire.” In time, critics began to complain that the Pulitzer juries showed a bias toward eastern newspapers; it was not until 1924 that a West Coast newspaper was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Fackenthal’s 1915 plan for the awards in letters envisioned that the American Academy of Arts and Letters would select juries to make the recommendations. No 1365
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to establish a school to raise the prestige and professionalism of journalism to the level of law and medicine. Alfred Nobel had endowed the famous prizes under his name that were first awarded in 1901; the Nobel Prizes may have been an inspiration to Pulitzer, for in that 1902 memorandum and as a part of his proposed bequest, he suggested awarding annual prizes in journalism. Pulitzer again contacted Columbia, this time with an offer of $2 million for a journalism school, with $500,000 of that amount to be set aside for journalistic and literary prizes. The university authorities were cautious. Journalism was not a respectable profession, and too close an identification with it, and with Pulitzer, might damage Columbia’s reputation. Pulitzer persisted, however, and this time was successful. In 1901, Columbia’s president Seth Low, who had rejected Pulitzer’s first offer, was elected mayor of New York and resigned his university post. The new president of Columbia was Nicholas Murray Butler, a Columbia graduate who was not yet forty years old. Butler had been involved in the university’s recent building project, and as president he was committed to making Columbia one of America’s great universities. “Nicholas Miraculous,” as Theodore Roosevelt referred to him, became almost as much of a household name as Pulitzer himself. A professional academic as well as a prominent Republican, Butler was in many ways a contrast to Pulitzer, a self-made businessman and Democratic publisher who had doubts about the value of higher education. The two men differed even in appearance: Pulitzer was lean and bearded, Butler heavy, bald, and clean shaven. Both men, however, combined ambition, autocratic tendencies, and a desire for excellence, and after long negotiations they struck an agreement in the summer of 1903. Old difficulties had not been fully resolved, however. Pulitzer refused to give the university an entirely free hand. His 1902 memo envisioned an advisory board drawn from the executives of New York’s newspapers, and the authority of that board had been a contentious matter throughout the discussions. Pulitzer held fast, and Butler accepted the advisory board, but then Pulitzer’s conception of the makeup of the board changed. Newspapermen were not enough: In order to give the proposed school and awards greater standing, he demanded that the presidents of Harvard University and Cornell University be included. That was too much for Butler; he refused to allow other universities to become involved in Columbia affairs. As a result, in 1904 Pulitzer announced that the establishment of both the journalism school and
First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded
First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded prizes were awarded for a novel or drama in the first year, perhaps because of some confusion in getting the jury system under way, possibly because no works in 1916 were judged to be of sufficient quality. The first history and biography awards, like the prizes in journalism, reflected the spirit of the times. The French ambassador to the United States, Jean-Jules Jusserand, received the history prize for a study of Americans, and a book about Julia Ward Howe, the writer of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” won the prize in biography for coauthors Laura E. Richards and Maude Howe Elliott. It was not until the 1920’s that the Pulitzer Prizes made a significant impact on the public. The 1920’s differed radically from the war years and before, creating difficulties for those charged with choosing whom to honor with Pulitzer awards. Pulitzer himself was a product of the nineteenth century, and Butler, a conservative Republican, also generally supported the standards, artistic and moral, of an earlier day. Less controversy was attached to the journalism awards. Issues of war and peace and other international concerns reaped recognition during that decade as they had during World War I. Pulitzer had been a reformer, and his newspapers were noted for their attacks on the perceived evils of the times. New ground was broken, however, when Pulitzer Prizes were awarded for journalism that exposed the nefarious practices of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become a powerful force during the 1920’s. Reports of dehumanizing prison conditions and the problems faced by labor during a national coal strike also received Pulitzer Prizes. Coverage of the infamous Teapot Dome scandal, which saw a former secretary of the interior going to prison, received an award, as did an editorial criticizing the lack of justice accorded Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two anarchists sentenced to death after a travesty of a trial. Discussions of social problems and defenses of the rights of the underdog became staples of the Pulitzer Prizes. Literary awards during the first decade of the Pulitzer Prizes were dogged by controversy, primarily because of Pulitzer’s instructions. The wording of the standard for the history prize was to cause the least trouble; Pulitzer wanted the award to go to “the best book of the year upon the history of the United States.” Later, “the best” was changed to “a distinguished,” and the general wording helped to subdue controversy. The biography standard was more restrictive, requiring that the award be given to a work “teaching patriotic and unselfish service” but excluding biographies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as too obvious. 1366
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The drama and the novel were even more problematic. For the drama award, the play honored had to have been performed in New York and also had to assist in “raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners.” The novel prize was to be given only to a work that “shall best present the whole atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood.” Prewar attitudes on such matters came under attack in the 1920’s and after. Butler created an additional difficulty when he presented the 1915 plan of award to the advisory board, changing Pulitzer’s wording for the novel prize from “whole atmosphere” to “wholesome atmosphere,” an even more restrictive defense of earlier values. Playwright Eugene O’Neill was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes during the 1920’s, for Beyond the Horizon in 1920, Anna Christie in 1922, and Strange Interlude in 1928. He was something of an unknown in 1920, and the prize jury was divided. One juror argued that O’Neill’s play was not sufficiently “ennobling”; however, the majority felt otherwise. The advisory board accepted their recommendation, and O’Neill, one of America’s greatest playwrights, received his first Pulitzer. In 1921, there was opposition to Sinclair Lewis’s novel Main Street, which was alleged to be too satiric regarding small-town values. Although the jury decided to recommend the work, the advisory board, perhaps under Butler’s guidance, unanimously turned down Main Street, selecting instead Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. In time, Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in additional areas. The first editorial cartoon prize was awarded in 1922, and the initial prize for photography was given in 1942. Edwin Arlington Robinson was honored in 1922, the first in a long line of distinguished poets. In history and biography, later awards were given more often to academics than in the earliest years, but those honored were generally deserving of their recognition. The novel award, which was changed to an award in fiction in 1948, proved to be the most controversial. Neither Ernest Hemingway nor William Faulkner, both of whom published significant works in the 1920’s, was honored until the 1950’s. In time, the Pulitzer Prizes were not the only literary or journalistic prizes to be awarded to American writers and journalists, and some of the other prizes carried a much higher financial award. Nevertheless, the Pulitzer Prizes continued to hold a high place not only in the public’s perception but also among writers themselves. Pulitzer’s “grand scheme” endured. — Eugene Larson
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Brian, Denis. Pulitzer: A Life. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. Biography of Pulitzer describes his rise from poor immigrant to powerful newspaper magnate and examines his impact on journalism. Includes bibliography and index. Hohenberg, John. The Pulitzer Diaries: Inside America’s Greatest Prize. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1997. Autobiographical account of the author’s activities during the time he served as administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes from 1954 to 1976. Recounts many of the controversies surrounding the prizes awarded. _______, ed. The Pulitzer Prize Story. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Presents a number of significant news stories, editorials, cartoons, and photographs that received Pulitzer Prizes from the earliest years until the 1950’s. _______. The Pulitzer Prize Story II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. A selection of Pulitzer
Espionage and Sedition Acts Prize-winning stories, columns, editorials, cartoons, and photographs from 1959 to 1980. Together, this and the volume cited above provide an excellent summary and cross section of the first sixty years of the Pulitzer Prizes. Stuckey, W. J. The Pulitzer Prize Novels. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. An insightful account of the issues and controversies involved in the selection of novels to receive Pulitzer Prizes. Swanberg, W. A. Pulitzer. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967. A classic biography of Pulitzer. Swanberg also wrote a major biography of Pulitzer’s chief journalistic rival, William Randolph Hearst. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded; 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme; 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South; Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway; Apr., 1939: The Grapes of Wrath Portrays Depression-Era America.
June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918
Espionage and Sedition Acts The challenges to Americans’ civil liberties and to political reform represented by the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 redefined the Progressive movement. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Civil rights and liberties; government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history
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Key Figures Jane Addams (1860-1935), American social reformer Albert Sidney Burleson (1863-1937), postmaster general of the United States George Creel (1876-1953), American journalist and head of the Committee on Public Information Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), leader of the Socialist Party of the United States Learned Hand (1872-1961), U.S. federal judge Rose Pastor Stokes (1879-1933), member of the Socialist Party of the United States Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921
Summary of Event Enacted by the Congress of the United States on June 15, 1917, the Espionage Act made it illegal for a person to obstruct willfully the recruiting or enlistment of individuals into the armed forces of the United States. The 1918 amendments to this act, known collectively as the Sedition Act, carried the original law even further by making it a crime to voice any criticism about the U.S. government or government policy with regard to World War I. Worried about possible opposition to the American position in the war, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration had called on Congress to make it illegal to voice opposition to government policy. Anationwide police structure was created to seek out opponents to the war. Raids were carried out by national and local lawenforcement units, in many cases without proper warrants, against individuals and groups accused of seditious behavior. Property was confiscated illegally, beatings and worse punishments of those accused became commonplace, and restrictions of civil liberties became the norm. Official censorship also was common. Postmaster General Albert Sidney Burleson denied mailing privi-
Espionage and Sedition Acts leges to any publication officially labeled “radical” on the grounds that it contained treasonable messages. Even if a publisher appealed such denial, the government could take other actions to suppress publications that opposed the war. Such was the case of Burleson’s move against the “radical” journal The Masses. After federal judge Learned Hand overturned the postmaster’s decision to close down the journal, Burleson found another way to force it to cease publication. During the appeals process, the journal had missed publishing an issue, and Burleson seized on this fact to assert that it was no longer a regularly issued periodical and therefore was not eligible for second-class postage privileges. The financial burden to the journal was enough to interrupt its regular publication. Vocal opposition to such government action sprang up immediately. Guarding against objections that might fuel public opinion against the war or government policy in general became the work of the Committee on Public Information. Headed by Denver newspaperman George Creel, the committee sought to manage public opinion.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The committee organized efforts to promote draft registration, the purchase of liberty bonds, the conservation of food and fuel, and spying on neighbors who expressed opinions against the war. It employed movie stars, famous writers, and other publicly recognized individuals who supported U.S. entry into the war to encourage Americans to rally around the flag. On a weekly basis, it placed advertisements in popular magazines in an attempt to galvanize the population. The committee’s propaganda cajoled factory workers into joining loyalty leagues and called on citizens to make personal sacrifices in support of the war effort. Conformity became the message. Under the banner of “100 percent Americanism,” the committee sought to unify expression in the United States. The denial of civil liberties during this period went beyond official action against war opponents. Joining the government action were local vigilante groups and other superpatriotic organizations that combined forces to seek out anyone or anything they determined to be radical. Socialists and labor leaders, such as Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs speaks at a labor convention. (Library of Congress)
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sheriff and two thousand vigilante deputies rounded up twelve hundred On June 16, 1918, Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs gave a speech in workers, herded them into railroad Canton, Ohio, that included the following antiwar sentiments. As a result, he boxcars, and shipped them in 120was arrested for violating the 1917 Espionage Act, tried, found guilty, and imdegree weather to New Mexico. In prisoned. Montana, six IWW members were lynched because they belonged to an Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. . . . The international organization. In Chifeudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists cago, social reformer Jane Addams, of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. founder of the settlement house Hull The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that House and of the Women’s Internawhen their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of tional League for Peace and Freethe lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. dom—who previously had been soThe master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always licited for her support in the 1916 fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, presidential election by the leaders while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their of the two major political parties— lives. was placed under surveillance by the They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic U.S. Department of Justice for speakduty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in ing out for peace. all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring The enforcement of these acts also war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has necessitated a buildup of the national, ever been declared by the people. state, and local police machinery. The And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often— that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the Military Intelligence Service grew supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish from a staff of two in 1917 to three the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. hundred in 1918. This agency was It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they also assisted in its domestic spying alone make peace. . . . efforts by a thousand civilians. A If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to newly created Bureau of Investigalose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous istion, later renamed the Federal Busue of war or peace. reau of Investigation (FBI), was charged with crushing all opposition to the war. By war’s end, the Department of Justice had prosecuted some and Rose Pastor Stokes, were arrested. Members of the twenty-one hundred cases of purported sedition and esIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW, known as Wobpionage. Officially sanctioned support groups such as blies)—an early labor union that opposed the war—were the American Protective League (APL) had been orgaarrested, beaten, jailed, and even killed. In Canton, Ohio, nized. The APL mobilized a quarter of a million citizens Debs received national attention when he was prosein more than six hundred U.S. towns and cities who spied cuted for giving a speech supporting antiwar protesters. on their neighbors and participated in raids on suspected Found guilty, he was sentenced to a ten-year prison term; slackers, protesters, and draft resisters. his sentence was commuted to time served by Wilson’s successor, President Warren G. Harding, after he had Significance been imprisoned for thirty-two months. Stokes received It was the unofficial machinery inspired by the Espioa ten-year sentence for writing a letter to the Kansas City nage and Sedition Acts that most directly challenged Star accusing the federal government of encouraging inAmericans’ civil liberties. By the end of 1917, newspadustrial war profiteering rather than serving the domestic per stories told of people being harassed by gangs of needs of U.S. citizens. superpatriots. Explanations for such activity varied: Other antiwar protesters and peace advocates were Draft resistance, not displaying the flag, criticizing U.S. subjected to social ostracism and acts of violence at the war aims, and not contributing financially to the war efhands of hysterical patriots. In Brisbee, Arizona, the fort were the most popular. In Nebraska, mechanic Ru-
Debs Speaks Out Against War
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Espionage and Sedition Acts dolph Schopke was tarred and feathered for declining to contribute to the Red Cross. Wisconsin farmer John Deml was almost lynched because he could buy no more than $450 in war bonds. Professor J. McKeen, a Columbia University psychologist who was opposed to the war yet still participated on the government committee formed to set guidelines for army aviators, was dismissed from his faculty position. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, S. L. Miller shot and killed a waiter in a restaurant for allegedly making pro-German remarks; he was acquitted after a jury trial. The Espionage and Sedition Acts were judiciously supported by the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the acts’ constitutionality in several cases. In Schenck v. United States (1919), the Court unanimously agreed that Congress could restrict free speech in circumstances of clear and present danger. In Abrams v. United States (1919), the Court upheld the convictions of four Russian immigrants who distributed pamphlets condemning U.S. intervention in the Russian Revolution. In Debs v. United States (1919), the Court stated that even though Debs did not specifically urge draft resistance, his speech clearly created a danger for the government. The raids, arrests, and convictions inspired by the Espionage and Sedition Acts carried over into peacetime. The procedures that arose out of the creation of the acts helped to set the stage for official responses to dissident activity throughout much of the twentieth century. The antiradical, anti-trade union, and anti-immigration sentiments that emerged in the 1920’s continued the official prosecutions of the war years. The U.S. Senate committee that investigated German espionage during the war switched to hunting radicals after the war. The roundup of aliens suspected of being radicals became an official activity of the FBI. The patriotic wartime fervor reflected in the Espionage and Sedition Acts was later transformed into other fears. Stretching beyond the fear of radicalism were fears about trade unionism and the feminist and Civil Rights movements. The social trauma of World War I and the subsequent measure of U.S. identity it inspired produced exaggerated responses to unpopular ideas and speech in the name of national security. The trauma of the war years also produced responses to the denial of civil liberties. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Union and Common Cause were founded by concerned Americans who believed that government power and special interests’ attempts to define American identity needed to be kept in check. —Thomas J. Edward Walker Further Reading Barnet, Richard J. The Rockets’ Red Glare: When America Goes to War—The Presidents and the People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Presents an astute analysis of how the manufacturing of consent influences wartime policy making. Blum, John Morton. Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality. 1956. Reprint. New York: Talman, 1995. Analyzes Wilson’s attempts to define U.S. morality, especially during World War I. Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Biography discusses the political and cultural influence of Addams’s activities both on her own time and on the generations that followed. Includes chronology and list of Addams’s books. Preston, William, Jr. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933. 2d ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Definitive account of U.S. nativism in the early twentieth century puts the suppression of civil liberties during wartime in perspective. Thernstrom, Stephan. A History of the American People Since 1865. 2d ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989. Includes an excellent overview of the violation of civil liberties during World War I. Walker, Samuel. In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU. 2d ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Comprehensive examination of the history of the American Civil Liberties Union begins with a chapter devoted to the repression of civil liberties during the World War I years. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
United States Establishes the War Industries Board
July 8, 1917
United States Establishes the War Industries Board The U.S. government’s establishment of the War Industries Board to manage the resources needed to fight in World War I led to improved relations between big business and government. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; trade and commerce; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I Key Figures Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870-1965), American businessman Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921
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Summary of Event The U.S. government organized the War Industries Board (WIB) on July 8, 1917, to coordinate and control the industrial resources of the United States in its World War I effort against Germany. Establishment of the WIB was the climax of several frustrating months of efforts to mobilize agencies of production and distribution following the nation’s entry into the war in April. Federal coordination of industry had begun in 1915, when Congress authorized the creation of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness to study the supply requirements of the army and navy. The committee’s work was narrow in scope—its primary accomplishment was the preparation of an inventory of plants able to manufacture munitions. As the war emergency became more acute, the U.S. government extended its power over the nation’s industrial life. Through the National Defense Act of June, 1916, Congress authorized the president to place orders for war matériel with any source of supply and to commandeer plants when it was in the national interest to do so. Two months later, Congress approved the Military Appropriations Act, which provided for a Council of National Defense, consisting of the U.S. secretaries of war, the Navy, the interior, agriculture, commerce, and labor; it also established an advisory commission comprising civilian representatives from all major sectors of the nation’s economy. The purpose of both groups was to plan for the most efficient use of the country’s resources in case of war. The advisory commission, which served as the executive committee of the Council of National Defense, did most of the work and mapped out extensive preparations
to meet wartime needs. Each of the seven members of the commission took charge of one of the following segments of the economy: transportation, engineering and education, munitions and manufacturing, medicine and surgery, raw materials, supplies, and labor. The commission soon became the nucleus of numerous committees and boards that were the forerunners of several wartime agencies, including the WIB. Finally, Bernard Mannes Baruch, a Wall Street investor and the commissioner in charge of raw materials, formulated an elaborate plan whereby representatives of various businesses were organized into “committees of the industries” to work with the council in coordinating the nation’s resources. For their efforts, they received payment of one dollar per year; thus they were known as the “dollar-a-year men.” Because the Council of National Defense had been formed to plan for, rather than direct, industrial mobilization, its powers were only advisory. Moreover, its organization was extremely loose; many of its ablest members served only in a part-time capacity. The council was ill prepared, therefore, to assume the responsibility of directing mobilization, which was forced on it after the United States entered into war in 1917. That unpreparedness was readily apparent in the council’s attempt to coordinate the purchases of the U.S. Department of the Navy and the Department of War. For that purpose, the advisory commission first established the Munitions Standard Board and then the General Munitions Board, on which members of the commission and representatives from the military purchasing bureaus served. The power and authority of the General Munitions Board were poorly defined, and the board’s machinery nearly broke down under the pressure of the war orders. Within a month after the board was established, it became clear that its jurisdiction and authority merely overlapped with those of many of the other committees formed by the advisory commission. As a result, the board was unable to coordinate the purchases of the military bureaus, which, jealous of their own prerogatives, continued to go their own ways. Realizing that a central coordinating agency was needed, the Council of National Defense replaced the General Munitions Board with the WIB on July 18, 1917. The new board comprised five civilians and one representative each from the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy. Before the Civil War, the United States had adopted a policy of procuring many—if not most—goods and
United States Establishes the War Industries Board
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
President Woodrow Wilson at the White House with some of his advisers, including Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo (front row, second from left), Bernard Mannes Baruch (front row, far right), and Herbert Hoover (back row, far left). (The Granger Collection, New York)
weapons needed in wartime from civilian businesses. With the exception of a few shipyards and munitions plants, the government therefore relied primarily on private industry to provide a steady stream of war goods and combat weapons. Coordinating that production and flow was a major problem for a nation that allowed the market to determine the types and numbers of goods to be supplied. In wartime, the urgency of delivery dictated that the government take over coordination of production and delivery systems. Although the War Industries Board was given broad responsibilities for the direction of war industry needs, its ability to do effective work suffered from the board’s lack of any executive power. As a result, the government’s attempts to coordinate the nation’s military and industrial efforts continued to flounder for the next eight months. The WIB’s first chairman, F. A. Scott, broke down under the strain of the war; its second, Daniel Wil1372
lard, soon resigned because he believed that the board lacked authority. In the spring of 1918, President Woodrow Wilson reorganized the WIB and named Bernard Baruch as its chairman. In effect, the president transferred to Baruch the power to coordinate industry that Congress had granted to the president in the National Defense and Military Appropriations Acts of 1916; he also gave Baruch certain controls over the military that Wilson had in his capacity as commander in chief. Endowed with this authority, Baruch was able to determine priorities, requisition supplies, conserve resources, commandeer plants, and make purchases for the United States and the Allies. The only important control he did not exercise directly was that of fixing prices, which was left to a separate committee within the board. Despite some sharp criticism later from some members of Congress regarding the extent of the power the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 WIB assumed, the board was highly effective in coordinating the nation’s industrial and military efforts. The pattern of organization created by the board became the model for the war regulation of industry by the Allies in World War II. Moreover, the introduction of businessmen into government procurement placed professional business managers in close proximity with bureaucrats. This led to an appreciation by business for the role of control and planning, and it convinced many in government that business management practices could be effective in improving the government during peacetime. Business already had undergone a managerial revolution that emphasized planning; therefore, the new, centralized control reinforced the notion that stability can be achieved through proper accounting and forecasting. The quintessential proponent of that approach was Herbert Hoover, elected president in 1928, who attempted to apply such nostrums to the Great Depression. On December 31, 1918, President Wilson directed that the War Industries Board be dissolved, and it was liquidated on July 22, 1919. Other wartime agencies that were involved in economic mobilization—such as the War Trade Board, which licensed exports and imports and rationed supplies to neutrals, and the U.S. Railroad Administration, which controlled the nation’s railroads— also were dissolved gradually after the war ended.
then never to recede to its original levels once the emergencies were past, the war intruded federal authority into the lives of millions of people who had never before experienced it. Thus, although the WIB was disbanded after World War I, the notion that government planning and direct management of businesses could keep the economy stable was revived on a larger scale during the Great Depression. —Burton Kaufman and Larry Schweikart Further Reading Baruch, Bernard. American Industry in the War. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1941. A strong defense of the WIB by its third chairman. Includes the board’s last official report. Clarkson, Grosvenor B. Industrial America in the World War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923. A comprehensive history of the War Industries Board that ignores the predecessor Council of National Defense. Crowell, Benedict, and Robert F. Wilson. How America Went to War. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1921. An administrative history of the United States during World War I. Cuff, Robert D. “Bernard Baruch: Symbol and Myth in Industrial Mobilization.” Business History Review 43 (Summer, 1969): 115-133. Reinterprets the managerial revolution as it affected World War I, emphasizing the role of private suppliers to the government. Higgs, Robert. Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Stresses the expansion of the federal government’s power during crisis periods, particularly wars. Argues that the WIB had considerable coercive power. Koistinen, Paul A. C. Mobilizing for Modern War: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1865-1919. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. Examines the relationship between business and government that emerged from mobilization for war in the United States from 1865 through World War I. Includes discussion of the work of the War Industries Board. Porter, Bruce D. “The Warfare State.” American Heritage 45 (July/August, 1994): 56-67. Asserts that war has been the greatest force behind the growth of the U.S. federal government, as presidents and others in power have used the need to defend the nation to overcome resistance to increased federal authority. Discusses U.S. mobilization for five wars, including World War I. 1373
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Significance The friendly relationship between big business and the U.S. government that emerged from the experience of World War I cemented an alliance that lasted until the Great Depression. In the short term, business leaders believed that they were the beneficiaries of that relationship, receiving government contracts and favorable treatment. Although the boom provided by the Roaring Twenties proved nourishing to many small businesses, as witnessed by the extensive growth of all business during that decade, the special treatment afforded to such new enterprises as airplane manufacturers and some shipping companies, based on future wartime needs, served to align government with some industries at the expense of others. More important, however, were the lessons learned by the government during wartime that were inapplicable during peacetime. The government assumed that wartime planning—based on the coercive powers yielded to bureaucrats by citizens facing a national emergency—would provide the same degree of effectiveness in the absence of an emergency. As the tendency of the government was to increase during emergencies and
United States Establishes the War Industries Board
Forbes Magazine Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Schaffer, Ronald. America in the Great War: The Rise of the War Welfare State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. A similar approach to that of Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan (cited above), but more sympathetic to the rise of government power.
September 15, 1917 FORBES Magazine
Is Founded
When Forbes magazine was established, it became the voice of the investing public, reporting, interpreting, and commenting on the accomplishments and failures of American business leaders and their companies. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Trade and commerce; publishing and journalism Key Figures B. C. Forbes (1880-1954), American journalist Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990), son of B. C. Forbes, American politician and author Bruce Forbes (1916-1964), son of B. C. Forbes Summary of Event Professional managers, investors, and others interested in knowing how business events help shape their lives turn to business periodicals for both information and entertainment. Although dozens of important magazines and journals are devoted to satisfying the demands of this special readership, at the end of the twentieth century three of them—Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Fortune— owned the lion’s share of the market. The oldest of these, Forbes, was launched in 1917, more than a decade earlier than either of its two major competitors. B. C. Forbes founded the magazine that bears his name. A man possessed of many talents, interests, and ambitions, he at first wished to name his periodical Doers and Doings because that title reflected his philosophy that individuals make companies and markets. This worldview was a product of his experience as an apprentice printer’s devil in his native Scotland and later as a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, South Africa. After his arrival in the United States, Forbes quickly rose to prominence in the investment and journalism communities through his syndicated columns for the Journal of Commerce and subsequently for the daily New York American. Forbes was an outgrowth of his fecundity in both newspaper and magazine journalism. 1374
See also: 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using CostPlus Contracts; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act.
The American business press has a long and distinguished record of achievement, consistently and successfully identifying and adapting to changes in the economy, commerce, industry, and the workplace. The earliest business publications were known as price-currents. Edited by commodity brokers and commission merchants, they provided businesspeople with wholesale commodity prices and basic shipping information. In the early nineteenth century, they evolved into publications that reported intricate commodity and maritime data and offered commentaries on market conditions and occasional analyses of commercial problems. The growing role of financial capital in the midnineteenth century was met with increased interest in news about banking and investment matters. Two premier financial papers founded during this era were The Wall Street Journal and The Commercial and Financial Chronicle. It was in this milieu that B. C. Forbes both cut his journalistic teeth and learned the business lessons he needed to launch and develop an important new magazine. In time, Forbes would serve as a model for business journalism in the twentieth century. As a reporter for the Journal of Commerce and other daily newspapers, Forbes recognized that the business press was characterized by good writing and strong news gathering, analysis, and interpretation. As a gifted writer, he brought talent in these areas to the new venture. He also noted, however, that many business leaders of the day were excessively secretive in their commercial dealings, and thus little of the most important information about individual companies and their dealings found its way into print. Cognizant of this, many potential readers found business publications of almost no value beyond the statistical data they reported. As both a journalist and an entrepreneur, Forbes knew that for his magazine to prosper, he would need to bring the knowledge and insights of leading investment bankers and businesspeople to bear in each article. The formula that provided Forbes with its early, and lasting,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
were not truly in touch with their audience. Magazines depended too heavily on subscriptions as a source of revenue, and subscription prices were excessive. Advertising was negligible. Advertisers could not be expected to promote products to an ill-defined audience. These conditions, along with faulty distribution processes, especially through the U.S. mail, discouraged entry into the field. Although Forbes could not remedy all these ills, he made significant inroads. Among his most enduring accomplishments were defining his audience and ensuring that its interests were represented in each issue of the magazine. This strategy of carving out a market niche of prosperous, well-educated readers served to increase circulation and advertising revenues and placed the magazine on a path of dynamic growth. He also improved production and distribution processes, but major advances in this area were left to his son Bruce. Later, his son Malcolm, through extensive promotional efforts and effective reporting, turned the magazine into the “capitalist tool” it claimed to be as well as a model for modern business magazines. Significance The years of the Great Depression were not kind to B. C. Forbes and his founding copartner, Walter Drey. Their magazine’s fortunes ebbed in direct proportion to the number of individuals interested in investment matters during this bleak period. For a time, Forbes employees worked one week each month without remuneration. Forbes himself did not draw a paycheck for much of this era. Subscriptions fell to sixty thousand. Like its competitor Fortune magazine, Forbes devoted many issues to bolstering the sagging spirits of American business leaders. In the years following World War II, B. C. Forbes’s sons Bruce and Malcolm ascended to senior leadership positions within the organization. The congenial Bruce Forbes made important advances in strengthening operating and marketing functions. In the nearly ten years that he was at the helm, the magazine’s circulation almost doubled. The editorial side was enriched with the addition of Byron (Dave) Mack and James Michaels. As an editor, Michaels in particular emphasized investigative reporting and sought to make the magazine more controversial and outspoken on behalf of investors. Although Malcolm Forbes devoted much of his time to winning political office, two of his strategic ideas altered the future of the magazine. First, in an effort to 1375
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success blended crisp writing, formatting, and presentation with inside sources of information, a view of the human side of each enterprise, a willingness to make predictions, and a desire to represent stockholders’ interests. This approach would be emulated successfully by dozens of other periodicals. The initial success of Forbes and many of its early rivals in the business press can be traced to economic and cultural factors present in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Among the more notable were revolutionary changes in distribution and manufacturing processes, new inventions, and the scientific management movement. As a disseminator and interpreter of information about changes in American industry, the business press served as an invisible classroom, and the publications’ editors served as teachers for a population hungry for information on how to advance in their careers and make prudent choices about investments and lifestyles. As an entrepreneur and journalist, B. C. Forbes recognized that he could make an important contribution in this exciting era by using his prodigious writing talent and his many sources in the investment banking community to report on the achievements, failings, and foibles of business leaders. He recognized that businesses often neglected stockholder interests, and he was concerned with reporting such disregard. From the outset, the Forbes publishing formula combined popular folk wisdom that sought to harmonize the managerial process with a tough, biting, investigatory approach that often upbraided poorly performing companies and their managers. This approach characterized the editorial policies of the magazine through three generations of family management and found favor within the journalistic community. An illustration of the Forbes publishing style is each issue’s “Fact and Comment” opinion piece, which was frequently acerbic, written in the free-spirited style that characterized the lives of the publishers. Forbes’s contributions to the business press extended far beyond his important achievements on the editorial side of journalism. His many innovations as a publisher were also of seminal value. His early experiences made him painfully aware that failing to make significant changes on the “business side” of publishing would have dire consequences not only for his new venture but also for the entire arena of business journalism. He knew that even though business periodicals of the era had lives far longer than those of popular magazines, those lives were still painfully short. Many periodicals lacked any specific purpose: Their editors and publishers
Forbes Magazine Is Founded
Forbes Magazine Is Founded bring more consistent quality and focus to the magazine, he suggested replacing freelance writers with a permanent editorial staff. Second, as a way of increasing January advertising revenue and competing more directly with Fortune, he proposed an issue that would rank corporations not only by revenue (as in the Fortune 500) but also by such measures as profitability and return on equity. This early fascination with lists continued. Later, Forbes’s rankings of the four hundred richest Americans catapulted the magazine to new heights of popular recognition and acceptance. Upon Bruce Forbes’s death in 1964, Malcolm, who was functioning as editor in chief, assumed complete operating control of the magazine. Known for enjoying considerable promotional skills, Malcolm Forbes is also remembered for his dynamic leadership on the editorial side. During his tenure, Forbes became an even greater proponent of shareholder interests. Toughly worded commentaries, in-depth investigations, and incisive reporting often lambasted business leaders for their ineptitude and general neglect of the true owners of their corporations, the stockholders. By 1983, Forbes had tripled its advertising revenue and ranked eighth among Ad Week’s leading magazines. The Magazine Publishers Association named Malcolm Forbes publisher of the year in 1984. This recognition came at a plateau in the magazine’s history; soon, Forbes would lose market share to competitor BusinessWeek. After Malcolm Forbes’s death in 1990, his son Steve Forbes (Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Jr.) took over his father’s position (from 1982 to 1990, the younger Forbes had served as the magazine’s deputy editor in chief ). Steve Forbes’s many talents and interests served the magazine well, helping it to maintain its place among the leading business periodicals. Forbes earns high marks when evaluated by most measures of organizational success. The magazine survived when others failed, brought enormous financial rewards to its owners, and enjoyed almost universal recognition and public acclaim. Forbes’s many imitators and the robust health of business journalism are testimony to the magazine’s accomplishments. Forbes’s impact, however, extends well beyond the magazine’s institutional boundaries. Its significance lies in its contribution to enlarging and enriching the public debate on matters of vital economic and financial interest. The depth and detail of its articles, its editors’ willingness to take the risks of prediction and to take positions that could be damaging
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to the magazine, and a professional approach to publishing earned Forbes its preeminent position in the world of communications. —S. A. Marino Further Reading Forbes, Malcolm S. Fact and Comment. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Collection of the writings of Forbes’s longtime owner and editor in chief. Columns written over a twenty-five-year period illustrate how the magazine reacted to and attempted to influence important events of the day. _______. More Than I Dreamed. Edited by Tony Clark. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. An autobiography that reveals Forbes’s many talents and interests. Chapter 1 provides an invaluable brief history of the early days of Forbes and the life of B. C. Forbes. Forsyth, David P. The Business Press in America. Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Books, 1964. Although the 17501865 period covered predates Forbes’s launching, this scholarly work is indispensable for understanding the early business press and, more specifically, the financial periodicals extant before World War I. Kohlmeier, Louis M., Jon G. Udell, and Laird B. Anderson, eds. Reporting on Business and the Economy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981. The contribution to this collection by James W. Michaels (who served as a Forbes editor) on business magazines provides insights into the workings of the editorial side of Forbes and other important business journals. Tebbel, John, and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. The Magazine in America, 1741-1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. A thoroughly researched and wellwritten book that will appeal to both scholars and general readers. Winans, Christopher. Malcolm Forbes: The Man Who Had Everything. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. An entertaining and thoroughly researched work about the life of the man most responsible for the growth and development of Forbes. Valuable information about B. C. Forbes is presented in chapter 2. See also: Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Canadian Women Gain the Vote
September 20, 1917
Canadian Women Gain the Vote Canadian women’s struggle for the right to vote, which began in the 1880’s, succeeded province by province. Locale: Canada Categories: Civil rights and liberties; women’s issues; social issues and reform Key Figures Emily Howard Stowe (1831-1903), Canadian physician and suffragist Mrs. Gordon H. Grant (1875-1962), Canadian suffragist
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Summary of Event Canadian women’s struggle to achieve the right to vote spanned more than fifty years. With the exception of Quebec, the woman suffrage movement in Canada closely paralleled the one in the United States. The success of the movement in Canada is indebted to the efforts of numerous women. Emily Howard Stowe, Canada’s first woman physician, emerged as one of the most active and successful women in the movement, working intensively for the advancement of Canadian women. Stowe and several Toronto women founded the Toronto Women’s Literary Club in November, 1876, to work for women’s right to vote. Apparently, they called the group a literary club because of negative societal attitudes regarding woman suffrage. One popular argument against women’s voting at the time was that women should be protected from the contamination of politics. Stowe’s efforts are notable for the courage and persistence she showed in working for the enfranchisement of women in the face of society’s hostility. In 1882, the Literary Club successfully lobbied the Ontario legislature to pass a law permitting unmarried women who met certain property qualifications to vote on municipal bylaws. In 1883, the club supported the formation of an organization focused completely on woman suffrage. This organization, the Toronto Women’s Suffrage Association, went on to serve as a model for other such groups. The suffrage movement in Canada had distinct occupational and economic characteristics. Most suffrage activists came from a narrow spectrum of the female population, characterized by some degree of professionalism, self-employment, or economic independence, or they were the spouses of wealthy men. These characteristics were useful in that they helped the women gain access to policy makers and enabled them to withstand the hostil-
ity often directed toward proponents of the movement. Unlike the suffrage movement in the United States, the Canadian movement was relatively quiet. Canadian activists were able to employ effective persuasive strategies rather than having to rely on the more militant kinds of tactics used in the United States. The pattern for achieving political equality was initiated at the local level and ended at the national level. For example, by 1900, several Canadian provinces permitted women to vote in elections of school trustees and municipal officials; however, as in Ontario, these privileges were likely to be restricted to unmarried women. Around 1900, suffragists began to focus their attention on gaining the provincial and dominion franchises. Between 1916 and 1922, they reached their goal, except in Quebec. Between 1918 and 1940, Quebec women were allowed to participate in federal elections, but not in provincial ones. The first women’s organization to support political equality in Canada was the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which began organizing in Canada on the local level during the 1870’s. The WCTU used a strategy in which its workers petitioned local, provincial, and federal governments for rights. The most influential and recognized women’s organization in Canada was the National Council of Women (NCW), but the NCW did not compromise its status quo position during the 1800’s by strongly endorsing and supporting women’s political rights. It was not until 1904 that the NCW established its Standing Committee on Suffrage and Rights of Citizenship and openly acknowledged support for the suffrage movement. At its 1910 Halifax conference, the NCW endorsed woman suffrage. The widespread esteem in which the NCW was held made this endorsement extremely important for the movement. Canadian women of the prairies had a far easier time in gaining the right to vote than did women in other regions of Canada because prairie women had tremendous support from male farmers. Because the rigors of prairie life required stamina and hard work from both women and men, prairie men had few illusions regarding the equality of women. Prairie women had support from farmers’ associations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The women founded associations in which they discussed and organized for woman suffrage. They waged the shortest and easiest fight, becoming the first to achieve woman suffrage in Canada. In Manitoba, success came primarily
Canadian Women Gain the Vote as a result of the work of a well-organized suffrage society, but in Saskatchewan and Alberta, influential farmers’ organizations and their women’s auxiliaries were mainly responsible for women’s gaining the right to vote. In other areas of Canada, women found support from organized labor. For example, in 1912, a labor convention in Kamloops, British Columbia, drafted a resolution that called for woman suffrage. The British Columbia Federation of Labor endorsed this resolution the same year. The Protestant clergy in several English-speaking provinces also came to the support of the suffrage movement. In Quebec, however, the Roman Catholic Church consistently rejected woman suffrage. The English-language newspapers gave tacit support to woman suffrage; the French-language press, in contrast, did not hesitate to express strong opposition. In British Columbia, the equal rights movement began in the mid-1880’s. Suffrage activists in British Columbia were primarily isolationist in advancing their cause, unlike the Ontario activists, who were involved in suffrage work in other provinces. One of the most active members and a leader of the British Columbia movement was Mrs. Gordon H. Grant of Victoria. For more than thirty years, she was active in the WCTU and the Victoria Council of Women. Grant led a delegation to the legislature nearly every year throughout the struggle for suffrage. During the primary years of the movement—from 1911 until victory in 1917—Grant and the Political Equality League (PEL), under her leadership, led suffrage activities in the province. The PEL organized delegations, held public meetings, and brought petitions containing ten thousand signatures to the legislature. External influences on the Canadian suffrage movement included women’s activities in the United States. Canada sent delegates to a women’s rights convention in the United States in 1876, which influenced the initiation of suffrage societies in Canada. Canadian groups participated in the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., during Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration. Suffrage groups arranged for movement leaders Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and Susan B. Anthony to speak in Toronto in 1889. On April 12, 1917, the Ontario government yielded to suffragists and approved the right to vote for women. Eventually, all the provinces from the Ottawa River to the Pacific Ocean passed legislation for woman suffrage. In Ottawa, long, heated debates took place in the Canadian parliament before the bill emerged from the upper chamber on September 20, 1917, enacting into federal law woman’s right to vote. More than half a million Ca1378
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nadian women received the right to vote for the first time on that day. The four eastern provinces granted women the right to vote soon thereafter. The traditional conservatism of the Maritime Provinces—Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island—held up the progress of women’s gaining political rights. In November, 1917, it was reported that there was little opposition to the demand for woman suffrage in this region, but there was a tremendous amount of indifference. New Brunswick, however, was very active in the suffrage campaign, mainly due to the presence of an active branch of the WCTU. Prince Edward Island was the site of very little activity, which is attributable to its isolation from the rest of Canada. Of all the provinces, Quebec put up the greatest and longest resistance. The WCTU, organized in 1883-1884 in Montreal, was the first organization in Quebec to demand woman suffrage. Quebec’s legislature refused to acknowledge bills and petitions relating to women’s political rights until after World War I. The first bill proposed to grant the provincial franchise to women was introduced into the legislature in 1927. The Montreal Local Council of Women (MLCW), founded in 1893, was active in seeking local political victories for women. The MLCW was the main force for women’s rights until 1913, when the Montreal Suffrage Association (MSA) became a focal point for Quebec’s suffrage activities from 1913 to 1919. The MSA was hindered by its Englishspeaking orientation, however, and in May, 1919, it disbanded. Montreal was without a suffrage organization until the Provincial Franchise Committee was organized on January 16, 1922, under dual French and English leadership. In 1939, suffragists in Quebec finally had a friendly premier in office and a legislature committed to woman suffrage. For three and a half months between the 1939 election and the opening of the 1940 legislative session, women intensified their campaign. On April 9, Bill Number 18 proposed to give women the dual rights of voting and office holding in the province. On April 25, 1940, the bill passed. Significance The acquisition of the right to vote was only the first step for Canadian women’s participation in political life. Winning political office was still difficult for women after suffrage was achieved, but in the House of Commons women saw steady growth in their representation in the country’s most important legislative body. As recently as 1972, women held only five seats, or 2 percent of the to-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tal. Their numbers steadily increased over three decades to sixty-five seats in 2004, 21 percent of the total. There is little reason to believe that Canadian women’s rising level of political representation will not continue as the twenty-first century progresses. —Gregory Freeland Further Reading Cleverdon, Catherine L. The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada: The Start of Liberation. 2d ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974. Excellent critical source on the Canadian woman suffrage movement. Kealey, Linda, ed. A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 1880’s-1920’s. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1979. Informative, analytic discussion. Sheehan, Nancy M. “The WCTU on the Prairies, 18861930: An Alberta-Saskatchewan Comparison.” Prairie Forum 6 (Spring, 1981): 1-33. A close look at the regional approach to woman suffrage taken in Canada.
U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax Stephenson, Marylee. Women in Canada. Rev. ed. Don Mills, Ont.: General Publishing, 1977. Agood general text on the history of women’s issues in Canada. Strong-Boag, Veronica, Mona Gleason, and Adele Perry, eds. Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Collection of essays that examine the contributions of women to key moments in Canadian history. Includes discussion of the woman suffrage movement. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
October 3, 1917
U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax By significantly increasing corporate tax rates and the complexity of federal tax laws, the U.S. Congress virtually mandated that businesses use the services of professional tax consultants, providing the catalyst for the development of the emerging profession of public accountancy. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event The War Revenue Act, passed into law on October 3, 1917, significantly modified the existing corporate tax structure in the United States through the enactment of an excess-profits tax. Tax rates were increased from 1 to 12 percent with the avowed intention of raising revenue to
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Key Figures Thomas S. Adams (1873-1933), American economist Robert H. Montgomery (1872-1953), American certified public accountant Arthur E. Andersen (1885-1947), American certified public accountant and educator
defray costs associated with conducting World War I. Prior to this act, business income taxation had been so insignificant in amount that it was considered, for all intents and purposes, a nonexistent factor in the U.S. business environment. Although this tax legislation affected all people in the United States, its most important consequences were reserved for management, shareholders, and the emerging profession of public accountancy. For the first time, it was abundantly evident that Congress would utilize its new powers under the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which had been ratified in 1913) to enact extensive tax statutes to raise substantial funds for the operation of the federal government. The passage of this act foreshadowed income taxation, in partnership with tax advice, as an important factor in the successful operation of American businesses in the future. The history of income tax law in the United States, and the genesis of the War Revenue Act of 1917, can be traced to the Revenue Act of July 4, 1861. This statute, the first serious congressional attempt to tax income, was also associated with hostilities. Congress convened an extraordinary session pursuant to the outbreak of the
U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax Civil War. The intent was to enact a system of internal taxation to finance this historic confrontation. Subsequent sessions of Congress held between July 4, 1861, and August 5, 1861, evoked considerable discussion of the proposed revenue bill. Members of Congress, perhaps realizing the immense ramifications of a comprehensive income tax bill, displayed concern and reluctance to enact such a measure. Faced with the task of preserving survival of the union, Congress opted to enact the forefather of the present system of taxation. This seminal legislation embraced a cash receipts/disbursements approach to earnings determination, essentially an income statement, a method in direct opposition to the economic value approach advocated and used by most businesspeople at that time. A major obstacle to development of a far-reaching income tax during the later half of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century was the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution did not provide for an income tax without a proper apportionment of the tax burden among the states with respect to their populations. Such an apportionment would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Congress, however, chose to overlook questions of constitutionality and enacted numerous tax provisions between 1870 and 1894. With each law, the judicial branch of government came into play. Ultimately, in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company (1895), the U.S. Supreme Court declared income taxation without apportionment invalid. The Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified on February 25, 1913, gave Congress the constitutional power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without any apportionment among the individual states. On October 3, 1913, the first constitutionally valid income tax, based on the cash receipts/disbursements concept as originally articulated in 1861, was enacted in the Revenue Act of 1913. These tax provisions were made retroactive to March 1, 1913, and scheduled to expire on February 28, 1914. They provided a limited degree of complexity and minimal tax rates, ranging from 1 to 7 percent, on a progressive scale of taxable income. Although this legislation represented a significant historical event, the limited complexity and low rates of taxation coupled with reasonable levels of income progression were such that the overall burden was quite small for most people. As a result, the tax did not command a high level of concern among businesspeople. Yearly revenue-raising measures were enacted between 1914 and 1917 to replace the respective tax provi1380
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sions as each expired. None was more complex or significant than the Revenue Act of 1913. These acts provided little evidence that Congress had more than a transitory and minimal interest in income taxation. It was widely believed that an insignificant tax bill would be enacted each year and that ultimately the necessity to raise revenue for the government would disappear, bringing an end to the income tax. This simplistic, naïve belief and hope collapsed with the entry of the United States into World War I. Rapidly expanding business activity accompanied the war effort, leading to a dramatic increase in corporate profitability. Concurrently, the leaders of the United States were faced with a mandate to raise substantial sums of revenue in support of the war effort. The obvious course of action, given the relatively new congressional power to tax income, was to enact a scheme of corporate income taxation. Thus, with two objectives in mind—dampening corporate profitability and financing the military effort—Congress enacted the War Revenue Act of 1917, forever changing the business environment in the United States. Significance Passage of the excess-profits tax legislation had two critical effects on virtually every business in the United States. First, the corporate tax burden was, for the first time, increased to significant levels. Required payments to the government substantially decreased the profitability of many businesses and diminished the funds available for distribution to managers and shareholders in the form of salaries and dividends. Second, the law added a high level of complexity and regulation to the already complex nature of American commerce. Businesses needed dependable, verifiable data on earnings to comply with the provisions of this legislation and to satisfy the accountability demands of the revenue service. Further, of paramount importance to business managers and shareholders was the need for expert knowledge and assistance to ensure that businesses did not pay too much in income tax. Therefore, the most immediate and far-reaching impact of the legislation on business and commerce was the attention it focused on the evolving need for competent professionals schooled in the fundamentals of income determination and the complexities of tax law. The question became, Who would fill this void? The practice of public accountancy in the United States in the early 1900’s was evidenced by a limited usefulness to businesses. Businesses seldom sought out the
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public accountants were quick to respond. Leaders among the practitioners of the day were able to convince the business public, through exceptional service, that public accountants possessed the intelligence and initiative to cope with the new legislation. Norman L. McLaren has suggested that the War Revenue Act was the greatest single factor responsible for elevating the status of public accountants from master bookkeepers to members of an honored profession. He estimated that less than 10 percent of the businesses in the United States regularly used the services of public accountants prior to this historic event. Corporate tax returns opened wide and profitable avenues for service, providing an impetus for the development of public accountancy in the United States. Educators such as Arthur E. Andersen of the accounting department at Northwestern University recognized that a system of formal education was a fundamental ingredient for the successful emergence of the profession. He had prepared a textbook for publication in 1917, perhaps the first such available, titled Complete Accounting Course. During the 1917-1918 academic year, Andersen expanded his curriculum by offering a course of six lectures on the wartime and excess-profits taxes. The lectures were well attended by prominent service professionals and business executives. Other universities throughout the country, envisioning the instrumental part public accountants would be expected to play in the modern business world, reorganized their course offerings to provide intensive training in accountancy and taxation. Authors responded by publishing an array of books aimed at accountants in school and already in practice. Robert H. Montgomery, a prominent public accountant and influential member of the American Association of Public Accountants, wrote a tax treatise that, through yearly updates, would become the standard for accounting education and a required volume in the professional libraries of all practitioners. The single most important long-term outcome of the War Revenue Act of 1917 was its demonstrated ability to raise significant amounts of revenue. It became clear to Congress that a readily available source of funds existed. New and expansive tax laws were developed and enacted in yearly revenue acts over the next two decades. This litany led to the permanent codification of the income tax system with passage of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 (recodified in 1954 and 1986). For businesspeople, shareholders, and professional accountants, the income tax became a persistent feature in the business environment, and its presence elevated public accountants to po1381
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advice of public accountants except in cases of fraud detection. Businesses were characterized by either common ownership and management or limited outside ownership with majority stockholders as management. The financial information desired by these parties concerned primarily calculations of net worth; they were not interested in measuring yearly performance. Accounting data were developed, as deemed necessary, by management and bookkeepers inside a company. Secrecy was the hallmark of the day, with little, if any, operational or financial information being supplied to anyone outside the management circle. When information was supplied to outside parties, it was of questionable value, as no mandated set of financial statements had been agreed upon. Exacerbating the situation further, what was published was lacking in conformity to any accounting standards of consistency or comparability. No rules of taxation or generally accepted accounting principles existed to guide the process. Into this unregulated environment came the War Revenue Act of 1917, containing significant tax provisions that demanded proper accounting and reporting of taxable income in accordance with a detailed set of rules. A determination and assessment would be made concerning a business’s required, perhaps significant, payment to the government based on the contents of a self-prepared tax return. The net effect was to force businesspeople to direct attention to the income statement (tax return) and the proper determination of net income (taxable income). Management and owners were spurred to keep better internal accounting records, to keep such records in a consistent fashion in accordance with tax rules, to take an active interest in providing an accurate and proper accounting to the taxing authorities, and—most important to the emerging profession of accountancy—to seek competent advice from external tax professionals to ensure accuracy and to mitigate the substantial effects of the new tax provisions. The adoption of the cash receipts/disbursements concept for tax reporting was of paramount importance. This approach required a specific set of rules for determining taxable income, rules based on sound accounting principles. Such a methodology placed public accountants, who were really master bookkeepers, in a preferred position because they alone possessed the necessary training and skills to respond successfully to businesspeople’s immediate need for reliable tax information. These skills also enabled them to respond to the changing tax environment of the future. The potential for the profession was apparent, and
U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax
U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax sitions of prominence as valuable members of business management teams. —Robert E. Rosacker Further Reading Arthur Andersen & Company. The First Fifty Years, 1913-1963. Chicago: Author, 1963. Historical account summarizes the development of one of the largest accounting firms in the world. Includes a chapter on the period from 1913 to 1920, with a section describing the impact of federal income tax law on the advancement of the profession of accountancy. Articulates the significant contributions and accomplishments of Andersen as a university professor. Brundage, Percival F. “Milestones on the Path of Accounting.” Harvard Business Review 29 (July, 1951): 71-81. An excellent overview of the growth of the accounting profession in the United States prior to 1950. A section assesses the impact of war and taxes on the profession, identifying World War I as a milestone. Chatfield, Michael. A History of Accounting Thought. Hinsdale, Ill.: Dryden Press, 1974. Covers the earliest development of accounting methods, the industrial era, and concepts of accounting theory. Chapter 15 concentrates on income taxation in the United States. Provides an excellent overview concerning the temporal evolution of revenue statutes and their importance to the development of accounting as a profession. Edwards, James Don. History of Public Accounting in the United States. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1960. Offers a comprehensive analysis of the significant historical developments in public accountancy, emphasizing the growth and develop-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ment of the profession in the United States. Chapter 6 concentrates on the period from 1913 to 1928, inclusive of the early years of income taxation. Extremely informative and readable. An excellent source for students at all levels. McLaren, Norman L. “The Influence of Federal Taxation upon Accountancy.” Journal of Accountancy 44 (December, 1937): 426-439. A lighthearted, thoroughly enjoyable depiction of the development of the accounting profession specifically addressing the significance of the income tax. Helpful for anyone interested in the history of accounting. Miranti, Paul J., Jr. Accountancy Comes of Age: The Development of an American Profession, 1886-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Highlights major events in the history of the accounting profession in the United States. Previts, Gary John, and Barbara Dubis Merino. A History of Accountancy in the United States: The Cultural Significance of Accounting. Rev. ed. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. Chronicles the history of the accounting profession in the United States, from the colonial period to the late 1990’s. Addresses accountancy from social, economic, and political perspectives. Chapters 5 and 6 cover the eras immediately before and after World War I. Includes bibliography and index. See also: 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using CostPlus Contracts; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
France Executes Mata Hari
October 15, 1917
France Executes Mata Hari The losses that France incurred during World War I frustrated the country’s concerned citizens. Mata Hari’s execution on charges of espionage was considered a remarkable victory for French Intelligence, and the death of the notorious dancer and courtesan also made Mata Hari into a legendary symbol of the seductive female spy. Locale: Vincennes, near Paris, France Categories: Crime and scandal; diplomacy and international relations; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, née Zelle; 1876-1917), Dutch exotic dancer, courtesan, and convicted World War I spy George Ladoux (1875-1933), head of French counterespionage during World War I Pierre Bouchardon (1870-1950), French military lawyer in charge of investigating and interrogating Mata Hari André Mornet (1870-1955), French lieutenant and chief prosecutor in Mata Hari’s trial Édouard Clunet (1845-1922), Mata Hari’s defense attorney Arnold Kalle (fl. early twentieth century), German military attaché in Spain who framed Mata Hari Adolphe-Pierre Messimy (1869-1935), French statesman and minister of war, 1912 and 1914
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Summary of Event In the early morning of October 15, 1917, a firing squad of twelve French soldiers executed forty-one-year-old Mata Hari, a famous exotic dancer and courtesan. She had been arrested in Paris, tried by a closed military court, and convicted of espionage: Her accusers asserted that she had acquired Allied military secrets from lovers and sold them to German intelligence. Allegedly, the stolen information had resulted in the deaths of thousands of French soldiers. The validity of these charges was questioned by some, however, and Mata Hari’s guilt, her alleged spying activities, the secret trial process, and the actual reasons for her execution were all surrounded by mystery and debate. Two nuns, Sister Leonide and Sister Marie, had accompanied Mata Hari during the car ride from the SaintLazare women’s prison in Paris to the place of execution,
a field at the castle of Vincennes, on the edge of Paris. Also in attendance were her defense lawyer and former lover, Édouard Clunet, who was a prominent expert in international corporate law but not an experienced court lawyer. Pierre Bouchardon, the military prosecutor who had interrogated Mata Hari and prepared the case against her, also witnessed the event. Only one loose rope around Mata Hari’s waist bound her to the pole, and she had refused to be blindfolded. By some accounts, she blew a kiss to her executioners before they shot her; by all accounts, she faced death with dignity and courage. To the end, she proclaimed her innocence. Since no one claimed the body, it was donated for dissection at the University of Paris medical school. Her belongings were sold to pay for her trial. Born into a prosperous Dutch family on August 7, 1876, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle married a Dutch military officer at the age of eighteen. After separating from her husband, in 1905 she moved to Paris and became the exotic striptease dancer known as Mata Hari, which means “eye of the dawn” in the Southeast Asian language of Malay. By the time World War I began, she had attracted powerful and wealthy lovers, including many German and French military officers. In 1916, she fell in love with Vadim de Masloff, a young Russian officer. When she and Masloff started to run out of money, Mata Hari offered to spy for French intelligence captain George Ladoux. He hired her to spy in German-occupied Belgium, and from there Mata Hari worked her way east to Berlin to see Germany’s Crown Prince Wilhelm, a former lover. In return, she was to receive a million francs. Ladoux instructed her to return from Berlin to The Hague, where an agent would contact her. However, when Mata Hari’s ship stopped in Falmouth, Cornwall, England, the British mistook her for a German spy named Clara Benedix and placed her under arrest. After several days of interrogation, they released her, and she returned to Spain. She wrote to Ladoux for new instructions, but he never responded. In December of 1916, Mata Hari attempted to extract information from a new lover, Major Arnold Kalle, the German military attaché in Spain. He suspected her of spying on him and deliberately framed her: Using a code that he knew the French had already broken and would be able to intercept, Kalle sent radio messages to Berlin naming Mata Hari as the valuable German spy H-21, an operative who passed sensitive military secrets
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to the Germans. British Intelligence also alerted the French about Mata Hari’s activities with the German consul. At the time of Mata Hari’s arrest, the French were suffering huge losses in the battlefield, and military morale was low. The government was under tremendous pressure to catch spies, and in response they brought charges against more than five hundred foreign citizens. More than three hundred of these would be executed by the end of the war. Mata Hari joined the ranks of the accused on February 13, 1917, when the French arrested her for espionage. While she awaited trial, the military tribunal’s chief investigator, Captain Pierre Bouchardon, interrogated her at least seventeen times. She declared her inno-
cence and denied being a double agent. Before the trial began, the case was transferred to the chief prosecuting attorney, André Mornet. On July 24 and 25, Mata Hari was tried by a closed military court on eight counts of spying. According to the rules of military trial, her lawyer, Édouard Clunet, was not permitted to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses or even the defense’s own witnesses. Still, Mata Hari persistently denied accusations that she had betrayed military secrets given to her by Allied military officers and insisted that she had actually worked for French Intelligence. Indeed, there was no evidence that she gave the Germans anything but gossip, and the defense presented a letter from a former lover, General Adolphe-Pierre Messimy, the former French minister of war, who affirmed that he and Mata Hari had never disBefore the Firing Squad cussed diplomatic or military affairs. The prosecution, however, showed “I am a woman who enjoys herself very much; sometimes I lose, sometimes I the court the intercepted German milwin,” Mata Hari once said. This aplomb carried over even to her execution, itary radio messages that identified according to an article by British journalist Henry Wales, an eyewitness to at least part of the event. At five o’clock in the morning on October 15, 1917, she Mata Hari as Agent H-21of the Cowas told her plea for clemency had failed, and her hour had come. Shocked at logne intelligence center. Mornet defirst, she quickly composed herself. Wales writes: clared her the greatest female spy of the century, and the court found her Never once had the iron will of the beautiful woman failed her. Father Arbaux, guilty and sentenced her to death. accompanied by two sisters of charity, Captain Bouchardon, and Maitre Years later, both Bouchardon and Clunet, her lawyer, entered her cell, where she was still sleeping—a calm, unMornet would admit in interviews troubled sleep, it was remarked by the turnkeys and trusties. The sisters gently that there had not been sufficient evishook her. She arose and was told that her hour had come. dence to convict Mata Hari of the se“May I write two letters?” was all she asked. Consent was given immediately by Captain Bouchardon, and pen, ink, parious charges for which she had been per, and envelopes were given to her. executed. She seated herself at the edge of the bed and wrote the letters with feverish haste. She handed them over to the custody of her lawyer. Then she drew on her stockings, black, silken, filmy things, grotesque in the circumstances. She placed her high-heeled slippers on her feet and tied the silken ribbons over her insteps. She arose and took the long black velvet cloak, edged around the bottom with fur and with a huge square fur collar hanging down the back, from a hook over the head of her bed. She placed this cloak over the heavy silk kimono which she had been wearing over her nightdress. Her wealth of black hair was still coiled about her head in braids. She put on a large, flapping black felt hat with a black silk ribbon and bow. Slowly and indifferently, it seemed, she pulled on a pair of black kid gloves. Then she said calmly. “I am ready.” . . . Mata Hari was not bound, and she was not blindfolded. She stood gazing steadfastly at her executioners, when the priest, the nuns, and her lawyer stepped away from her. Source: International News Service, October 19, 1917.
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Significance Within a few years of her execution, Mata Hari had become a legend and the most celebrated female spy in history. By the time of her arrest, she had already become a famous exotic dancer who had turned striptease into an art form. After her execution, she became the symbol of the treacherous, seductive femme fatale, and her name became synonymous with espionage. Great debate remained, however, over the issue of whether she had actually been a dangerous double agent or German spy. In 1999, previously sealed British intelligence files were opened, and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 they showed that officials had found no evidence of espionage after interrogating Mata Hari in 1915 and again in 1916. Since neither French nor British military records were able to produce evidence of Mata Hari’s guilt, increasingly vocal concerns were raised about a miscarriage of justice. In 2001, the Mata Hari Foundation and the Dutch town of Leeuwarden asserted that she had been a scapegoat and the victim of a state conspiracy. They requested a new trial and a pardon from the French Ministry of Justice. Ultimately, Mata Hari became a cultural icon and was immortalized in cinema, literature, and the arts. In 1976, a bronze statue of her was erected in Leeuwarden, and many actresses have portrayed her in films: Asta Nielsen in Mata Hari (1920), Magda Sonja in the German film Mata Hari (1927), Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1931), Marlene Dietrich in Dishonored (1931), Jeanne Moreau in the French film Mata Hari Agent H21 (1965), Zsa Zsa Gabor in the comedy Up the Front (1972), and Sylvia Kristel in Mata Hari (1985). In 2003, Maruschka Detmers played Mata Hari in the French television program Mata Hari: La Vraie Histoire. —Alice Myers Further Reading Bentley, Toni. Sisters of Salome. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002. A former dancer, Bentley examines how Mata Hari and three other famous women portrayed the biblical femme fatale Salome. Discusses the impact of striptease perfor-
Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson mances on modern dance and feminism. Illustrated. Bibliography, illustrations, and index. Coulson, Thomas. Mata Hari: Courtesan and Spy. 1930. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004. One of the books on which the 1931 Greta Garbo movie was based. Illustrated. Howe, Russell Warren. Mata Hari: The True Story. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986. A readable biography based on extensive research that included access to sealed French records. The author concludes that there is not sufficient proof that Mata Hari was a spy. Index. Ostrovsky, Erika. Eye of Dawn: The Rise and Fall of Mata Hari. New York: Macmillan, 1978. A wellresearched portrait of the woman behind the legend and of the events that contributed to her transformation into the infamous Mata Hari. Bibliography, index, and illustrations. Wheelwright, Julie. The Fatal Lover: Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage. West Sussex, England: Collins & Brown, 1992. The author asserts that wartime culture generally supported the erroneous idea of the treacherous and seductive female spy, and that Mata Hari was a victim and an embodiment of this myth. Illustrated. Index and bibliography. See also: July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I.
November, 1917
Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson
Locale: Mount Wilson, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures George Ellery Hale (1868-1938), American astronomer John Daggett Hooker (1838-1911), American businessman George Willis Ritchey (1864-1945), American optician Walter Sydney Adams (1876-1956), American astronomer
Summary of Event Since Galileo first used a telescope to view celestial objects in 1609, astronomers have worked to make bigger and better telescopes. Galileo’s first telescope was a refracting telescope; that is, it worked by using lenses to bend, or refract, light. In the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton and N. Cassegrain worked to perfect reflecting telescopes, which worked by using mirrors to reflect starlight. There is a limit to how big a refracting telescope can be, because a lens supported only around its edges will distort under its own weight past a certain point. The largest refracting telescope is the 40-inch (102-centimeter) telescope at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. A reflect1385
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George Ellery Hale oversaw the Mount Wilson Observatory’s installation of the Hooker telescope, the world’s largest telescope until 1948.
Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson ing telescope can be made much larger than this, however, because the mirror is supported across its whole lower surface. Astronomers want to have big telescopes because the bigger a telescope’s aperture (the width of the primary mirror or lens receiving the starlight), the more light the telescope gathers. Given that stars are extremely small and faint sources of light as seen from Earth, the more light-gathering capacity a telescope has, the better. In 1906, astronomer George Ellery Hale of the Mount Wilson Observatory in California was overseeing the construction of a 60-inch (153-centimeter) reflecting telescope. With characteristic enthusiasm and energy, Hale described to John Daggett Hooker how a larger telescope would perform even greater wonders than the 60inch telescope could. Hooker, a wealthy businessman who had contributed money for the initial expedition to set up a telescope on Mount Wilson, was excited to hear this and immediately offered the observatory $45,000 to have an 84-inch (213-centimeter) mirror cast. He decided later to fund a 100-inch (254-centimeter) mirror instead. He wanted the telescope to be the biggest in the world and thought that a 100-inch mirror would not be easy for anyone else to surpass in size. The Saint-Gobain Company in France was the only company willing to cast such a large mirror. The glass for the mirror had to be melted in three separate batches and then all poured into the mold simultaneously. The meeting of the three streams of molten glass formed large clouds of air bubbles in the glass, and the glass also crystallized partially during its cooling. Nevertheless, the Saint-Gobain Company shipped the disk to Hoboken, New Jersey; from there it was shipped to New Orleans and then sent on the final leg of its journey to Pasadena, California, where it arrived on December 7, 1908. Both Hale and Hooker were disappointed with the quality of the mirror blank, and George Willis Ritchey—who was to be responsible for the mirror grinding—believed that the glass would never hold the necessary shape. The Saint-Gobain Company accepted financial responsibility for the failure and proceeded to cast another disk. The second disk broke during cooling, and further tries at casting a new disk were also unsuccessful. The advent of World War I halted the attempts. Ritchey and Hooker were both reluctant to use the original disk, which they thought was worthless. In fact, Hooker refused to give any more financial support to the enterprise, and the remainder of the expenses entailed in building the telescope were paid by a gift from Andrew Carnegie. Astronomer Walter Sydney Adams carried out 1386
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tests on the original disk and decided that his results showed that it could be ground to the proper shape. Despite Ritchey’s disagreement, in 1910 Hale told Adams that the polishing of the mirror was to begin. The blank contained roughly 7,905 square inches (51,000 square centimeters) of surface, all of which had to be polished and shaped accurately to within millionths of an inch. Ritchey began this painstaking job, and it was completed by W. L. Kinney. Meanwhile, the construction of the mounting and controls for the telescope also was being carried out. The mounting design was Ritchey’s, with major revisions from Hale, Francis Gladheim Pease, and F. L. Drew. The mounting, a huge rectangular steel cradle, was built in Quincy, Massachusetts; it was shipped to San Pedro Harbor in California by way of the Panama Canal. The finer parts of the instrumentation, such as the driving mechanisms that would enable the telescope to track an object across the sky, were crafted by the machinists in the observatory’s workshops. The dome that would house the telescope was designed by architect Daniel Hudson Burnham of Chicago. The motions of the telescope and dome were controlled by more than thirty electric motors, which worked to control the motion of the massive mirror and mounting smoothly and accurately, so that the telescope could track and photograph an object with no blurring of the image. The telescope was designed to have several “foci,” or places where the light is focused and observed. Newton had developed a telescope in which the light was reflected from the main or primary mirror up to a much smaller secondary mirror, which reflected it out the side of the telescope, where it was brought to focus and observed. Cassegrain had developed a telescope in which the light, after leaving the primary, was reflected from a secondary mirror at the opposite end of the telescope and then back down to the vicinity of the primary. The Hooker telescope utilized both of these types of focus: The Newtonian focus was used for photography and the recording of stellar spectra (the light of stars broken down into its component wavelengths), and various instruments were used at the Cassegrain foci. Each focus has different characteristics that make it suitable for a particular type of work. By early 1916, the grinding and testing of the mirror were completed, the great piers to hold the mounting and telescope were ready, and the trip up Mount Wilson could begin. Getting the huge mirror and its massive mounting and machinery to the observatory site was a harrowing task, requiring the building of a special road
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson fied astronomers attempted to guess what could have gone wrong with their new telescope. The dome had been open during the day and the sun had warmed the mirror; perhaps this warming and the subsequent cooling it was undergoing were distorting the mirror’s shape and thus the image. The only way to test this idea was to wait and let the mirror cool further. This process took several hours. The astronomers waited, even attempting to go home and get some sleep. Hale could not sleep, however, and returned to the observatory at around 2:30 a.m., where he was joined by Adams. Jupiter had set, and Hale moved the telescope to view the bright star Vega. One can only imagine how delighted Hale must have been to see at last a clear, sharp image of the star in the telescope. This was the beginning of the long and useful career of the Hooker telescope.
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Significance The Hooker telescope began to prove its worth immediately. Photographs of the Moon and of nebulas revealed previously unseen fine details. The great light-gathering capacity of the huge mirror allowed astronomers to study the spectra of very faint stars. Over the years of its use, the telescope contributed a vast amount of information to human knowledge of the stars Astronomer Francis Gladheim Pease looks through the Hooker telescope. (The Oband their properties. servatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington) Rather than make many unrelated observations with the new telescope, and involving some physical danger to the participants. Hale organized the first observing program to focus on On July 1, 1917, the mirror was safely carried up the one of the great controversies of the time: whether the mountain, and in November, 1917, the telescope was asspiral nebulas visible in the sky were relatively nearby sembled. The astronomers and technicians were ready parts of the Milky Way or whether they were huge, disfor first light, the first trial of the telescope. tant, independent systems. The Hooker telescope was On the evening of November 1, 1917, Hale pointed used to make photographs of the Andromeda nebula. the telescope at Jupiter. Despite the fact that the teleEdwin Powell Hubble studied these photographs; the descope weighed 198,416 pounds (90,000 kilograms), it tail they showed enabled him to identify a star of a type moved smoothly. Unfortunately, the image of Jupiter known as Cepheid variables. These stars vary in light was distorted disastrously. Rather than one clear image, output, and the period of variation is related to the absolute brightness of the star; the absolute brightness can be there were six or seven overlapping images. The horri-
Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson compared to the brightness as seen from Earth and this comparison used to calculate the star’s distance. Hubble calculated the distance of this star, and thus of the entire Andromeda nebula; the distance was very great, and this proved to be decisive evidence in the controversy over the spiral nebulas. They are, indeed, remote separate galaxies that are not part of the Milky Way. The Hooker telescope was crucial in the resolution of this basic question, which changed astronomers’ view of the universe and Earth’s place in it. After this 1924 discovery, Hubble and Milton L. Humason worked with the Hooker telescope and gathered the data that would enable them to conclude that all the galaxies are receding from one another, and the speed of their recession can be used to measure the age of the universe. The Hooker telescope was also used to measure the diameter of a star. Stars are so tiny as seen from Earth that the measurement of their diameter is exceedingly difficult. Albert A. Michelson had developed a method of measuring star diameters, and in 1920, Francis Pease and John August Anderson carried out the measurements for the bright-red star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. Ejnar Hertzsprung had used indirect means to deduce that Betelgeuse was a giant star; this measurement confirmed his deduction, giving the result that the diameter of Betelgeuse was about 350 times that of the Sun. This and other work done with the Hooker telescope led to results that astronomers could not investigate further without a larger telescope. The success of this instrument thus led to Hale’s plans for the 200-inch (508centimeter) Hale telescope, which was eventually completed at the Palomar Observatory in California in 1948. —Mary Hrovat Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Eyes on the Universe: A History of the Telescope. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975. Written in Asimov’s customary engaging style, this book focuses on the development of the telescope. The chapter “Reflectors Take Over” covers the period during which the Hooker telescope was built and briefly discusses its construction and some of the astronomical advances to which the telescope contributed. Includes photographs. Brunier, Serge, and Anne-Marie Lagrange. Great Observatories of the World. Richmond Hill, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2005. Oversize volume presents profiles of thirty-six of the world’s leading observatories (including Mount Wilson), ten space-based telescopes, and 1388
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 eleven “observatories of the future.” Focuses on telescope technology. The many illustrations include photographs of the observatories themselves as well as of the celestial objects seen through their telescopes. King, Henry C. The History of the Telescope. 1955. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003. Includes a chapter that discusses the various telescopes of Mount Wilson, including the Hooker telescope. Provides drawings, diagrams, and technical details on the mounting and optics of the telescopes. Recommended for readers interested in the technical aspects of telescopes. Includes photographs. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Contains some discussion of the building of the Hooker telescope and of the work of Hubble and Harlow Shapley in which this telescope played a part. Discussion of Hale and Mount Wilson, however, emphasizes solar work rather than the Hooker telescope. Includes photographs, drawings, bibliography, and glossary. Watson, Fred. Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. History of the telescope’s development includes discussion of the impacts on society of the discoveries the instrument has made possible. Presents the stories of the astronomers and other scientists responsible for advances in telescope technology, including Hale. Wright, Helen. Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale. 1966. Reprint. Melville, N.Y.: American Institute of Physics Press, 1994. Excellent source for general readers on Hale’s work on Mount Wilson, including the building and use of the Hooker telescope. Personal correspondence and other original documents convey the thoughts and hopes of the astronomers of the time. Includes photographs, drawings, and bibliography. Wright, Helen, Joan N. Warnow, and Charles Weiner, eds. The Legacy of George Ellery Hale: Evolution of Astronomy and Scientific Institutions, in Pictures and Documents. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972. Includes some discussion of the Hooker telescope, although emphasis is on the larger Hale telescope and on solar telescopes. Interesting and useful for the many photographs and references to original letters, newspapers, and other documents. See also: 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory; June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine
November 2, 1917
Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine The British government, in a letter sent to Lionel Walter Rothschild, announced its support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Locale: London, England Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; human rights
ists such as Leo Pinsker and Theodor Herzl argued that Jewish life would continue to be endangered unless Jews lived in a Jewish land. The rise of nationalism in nineteenth century Europe inspired Jews to change religious sentiments about Zion into political reality. In 1897, the first World Zionist Congress was held. Participants and their supporters urged the return of Jews to Palestine, and
Key Figures Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), British foreign secretary Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), Russian scientist and Zionist leader who became the first president of the state of Israel Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), president of the British Zionist Federation Edwin Samuel Montagu (1879-1924), British secretary of state for India
1917
Summary of Event The story of the Balfour Declaration’s role in Zionism, the Jewish independence movement, began more than two thousand years ago with the loss of Jewish independence. After the Roman conquest of ancient Israel in 63 b.c.e. and the unsuccessful Jewish revolts in the century that followed, most of the surviving Jews were expelled from their land. So began the exile of the Jewish people and the loss of their political rights. The Jews’ desire for the reestablishment of political independence is a relatively new phenomenon, but religious attachment of Jews to Israel had never abated. Jews trickled back to Palestine throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance for reasons of piety, often combined with necessity. The Spanish Inquisition, for example, sent a wave of Jews back to their ancient home. Not until the American and French revolutions did Jews come to be considered citizens in their adopted lands, and then only in countries experimenting with new freedoms. With the rise of nationalism and the refinement of civil rights in the West, Jewish nationalism became problematic. How could a Jew be loyal to France while maintaining the centuries-old belief that the Jews’ sojourn in foreign lands was temporary and would be followed by a return to Palestine? For some, the answer came from the imperfect realization of citizenship. Prejudice and persecution continued despite legal equality. Pogroms in Eastern Europe emphasized the frailty of Jewish rights, and early Zion-
Arthur Balfour. (NARA)
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secretary, was among those who came to have an emotional attachment to the idea of a Jewish national home. His Christian Foreign Office upbringing led him to believe in a special November 2nd, 1917 role for the Jews in the Holy Land. SimiDear Lord Rothschild, lar views were held by Prime Minister David Lloyd George. On the practical I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s side, British leaders hoped this policy Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist would win support for the British war efaspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. fort from Jews all over the world. “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in The connection between British war Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best interests and Jewish interests in a national endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly unhome was actively pursued by Zionist derstood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and relileader and scientist Chaim Weizmann, a gious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights Russian Jew who had emigrated to Enand political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” gland in 1904. Weizmann had done a I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. great service to the British by developing a synthetic substitute for a key compoYours sincerely, nent in an essential explosive. He became Arthur James Balfour friends with many prominent British leaders, and he used his personal warmth and persuasiveness to convey the message of Zionism to them. about twenty-five thousand Jews emigrated between One member of the British cabinet, Edwin Samuel 1902 and 1903. Montagu, strongly opposed British support for a Jewish Britain recognized an opportunity in Zionist aspirahomeland. Montagu was secretary of state for India and tions. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, the only Jew in the cabinet. His opposition illustrated the Britain entertained the notion of using the Jewish desire tension within the Jewish community over loyalty to for a homeland as a tool of British imperial policy. The one’s country versus loyalty to Zion. Montagu believed Zionist movement rejected offers of settling Jews in Britthat the establishment of a Jewish national home would ish East Africa, Cyprus, and the Sinai. lead people to question the loyalty of British Jews and During World War I, Jews resided in countries that would create problems with India’s Muslim population. were at war with each other. The Jews of Palestine were The government, however, came to the decision that in a particularly precarious position because of persecusupport for Zionist aspirations would be to Great Brittion by the Ottomans. Some Jews in Palestine wanted to ain’s advantage. Government representatives and Zionjoin the Turkish army in opposition to czarist Russia; ist leaders negotiated the text of the letter that came to be others, including those deported by the Ottomans, supknown as the Balfour Declaration. The Zionists wanted ported the British. The Zionists’ aim was to choose the the government to support Palestine as the Jewish homeside that was most likely to help Jews achieve indepenland. The government, sensitive to the Arab population dence in Palestine. that might also serve as a bulwark against the Ottoman The British government’s interests were in winning Turks, chose a milder phrase supporting a Jewish homethe war and in maintaining control over the Holy Land land in Palestine. after the war. Getting the support of the populace in an The Balfour Declaration took the form of a brief letarea controlled by the Ottomans was an important part of ter, dated November 2, 1917, from Arthur Balfour to Britain’s strategy, which it accomplished by making Lionel Walter Rothschild, president of the British Zionist promises to both the Arabs and the Jews. Raw calculaFederation. It was a simple communiqué, but it brought widespread rejoicing in Jewish communities. Britain had tions of power were not the only motivations for this polhoped that in the Allied countries the Balfour Declaraicy, however. The British government was influenced as tion would mobilize Jews to deepen the commitment of well by the romantic and religious pro-Zionist ideals of their governments to the Allied cause and that in the Censome of its members. Arthur Balfour, the British foreign
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Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine
Significance The Balfour Declaration affected two groups of people, Jews and Arabs. Neither group enjoyed the rights that
sovereignty confers, and both groups suffered persecution. For the Arabs of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration came to symbolize British abandonment of Arab independence goals. At first, there was no Arab consensus about whether Zionism was good or bad for Arabs. Many Arab leaders initially ignored Zionism, and some saw common interests between Jews and Arabs. The British had promised independence to Arabs, and Weizmann and the Hashemite representative, Emir Feisal, held some cordial discussions of joint aims. When the Zionists failed to work independently of the British to oppose French control of Syria, however, their talks broke down. Other Arab leaders had argued from the beginning that Jewish independence was inimical to Arab nationalist aims. Cooperation for independence between Arabs and Zionists ended in 1919. As a result of the Balfour Declaration and increased immigration of Jews to Palestine, antagonism between the two groups increased. Instead of complementing each other, the two independence movements began to view themselves as being in opposition. Violence between the communities in Palestine spread and intensified. For the Jews, the Balfour Declaration gave Zionism the official recognition and support of a Great Power. Before the Balfour Declaration, Zionism met resistance from those Jews who wanted to enjoy their newly granted citizenship in modern countries. They wanted to be Jewish—to have the right to believe and worship as Jews—but they wanted to be citizens of modern states, with all the political freedoms that these countries afforded. They did not want their loyalty to be questioned. Zionists, however, pushed for the Balfour Declaration because they correctly believed that official recognition of Zionist aims by a world power would provide an imprimatur of legitimacy to their movement. Not only would this recognition convince the nations of the world that a Jewish homeland was both right and possible, but it would also convince Jews that a Jewish national home in Palestine was desirable. The tangible effects of the declaration included the founding of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a resurgence of interest in emigration to Palestine. After the declaration, more Jews settled in Palestine. Prior to World War I, there were an estimated eighty-five thousand Jews in Palestine. Many died from the war or from the famine that came with it, and the Jewish population declined to fifty-five thousand. British documents recorded authorized immigration to Palestine of more than five thousand in 1920. The highest level of immigration prior to the release of the White Paper of 1939 came in 1391
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tral Powers, British support for a Jewish homeland would end Jews’ support of their own governments. The strategy was partially successful. The Jews had no influence in the newly formed Soviet Union, but in England, the United States, and (to a lesser degree) France, most Jews rededicated themselves to supporting the Allied war effort. Most German Jews were not swayed to the British and Zionist causes, but in Palestine, the vast majority of Jewish inhabitants gave their allegiance to the Allies. After the war, further support for the declaration came from the Jews of many other countries. At the end of the war, the Western governments included the text of the Balfour Declaration in the document granting Great Britain control of Palestine. Zionists read the declaration in the most inclusive of terms, assuming that the British were committed to unlimited immigration of Jews to Palestine. In 1922, these hopes were reined in because the Arabs feared that Jews were taking over their land. The Churchill White Paper limited Jewish settlement to the area of Palestine west of the Jordan River. To the Arabs, the Balfour Declaration was not sufficient to guarantee Arab rights. To the Zionists, the Churchill White Paper’s restrictions were a necessary evil. Violence continued intermittently between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. By 1939, the severity of the situation prompted the British government to, in effect, rescind its support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. The White Paper of May, 1939, stated that Great Britain would create a state of Palestine, one that was neither exclusively Arab nor exclusively Jewish, within ten years. More important, the White Paper announced the prohibition of the sale of land in Palestine to Jews and the elimination in five years of all Jewish immigration to Palestine. In essence, the White Paper of 1939 repudiated the Balfour Declaration on the eve of the Nazi Holocaust. The new British policy restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine had the effect of contributing to the deaths of many Jews who could not find asylum from the horrors of Hitler’s Europe. The Zionists continued their planning for a Jewish national home. In 1942, they decided to advocate an independent Jewish state. In 1947, the newly formed United Nations voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. In 1948, Zionist leaders announced the independence of Israel.
Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine 1935, when more than sixty thousand Jews moved to Palestine. Although the Balfour Declaration did not explicitly support the establishment of an independent Jewish state, the prospect that it raised of a Jewish national home recognized by the Western powers vitalized the Zionist movement. In this way, the Balfour Declaration helped make the creation of a Jewish state possible. Despite the serious problems afflicting the state of Israel, it remains a Jewish national home. —Renée Marlin-Bennett Further Reading Dugdale, Blanche E. C. Arthur James Balfour: First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., 1906-1930. 1936. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970. The second volume of a biography written by Balfour’s niece. The chapter on Balfour and Jewry reveals the complexity of the foreign minister’s attachment to Zionist principles. Discusses how important Zionism was to Balfour the man as well as to Balfour the foreign minister. Khalidi, Walid, ed. From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948. Beirut, Lebanon: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1987. Articles and excerpts from Zionist, neutral, and antiZionist sources make the anti-Zionist case. Quality is uneven. The excerpt by J. M. N. Jeffries on the Balfour Declaration is too vitriolic to contribute to sober analysis. Other selections, including Montagu’s memorandum opposing the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and Frank E. Manuel’s analysis of the role of U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis D. Brandeis in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, are more useful. Khouri, Fred J. The Arab-Israeli Dilemma. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1985. Focuses on the relationship between the state of Israel and its Arab neighbors after 1948. The author, an Americanborn political scientist, maintains an objective tone.
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Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Comprehensive history of the long struggle over Palestine between Arabs and Jews. Chapter 3 addresses the era of World War I and the Balfour Declaration. Includes maps, select bibliography, and index. O’Brien, Conor Cruise. The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Engaging and empathetic account by an Irishman who has been a diplomat, academic, and journalist. Accepts the legitimacy of the existence of a Jewish state but attempts to give voice to all sides’ opinions. Includes extensive bibliography and helpful chronological table and glossary. Sachar, Howard M. A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time. 2d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. A comprehensive and detailed work, free of jargon. The author’s pro-Zionist beliefs are apparent, but the discussion is balanced. An entire chapter devoted to the Balfour Declaration carefully interprets the roles of power politics and moral concerns in the formulation of British policy. Weizmann, Chaim. Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann. 1949. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Memoir by the individual who was preeminent among Zionist leaders in his push for official British recognition of Jewish aims in Palestine. Provides a readable account of the interplay of personalities behind the modern history of Zionism and the Jewish state. See also: June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots; Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution
November 6-7, 1917
Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution The October Revolution allowed the Bolshevik Party to seize power from a weak coalition of liberals and moderate socialists and establish a Communist dictatorship. Also known as: Bolshevik Revolution Locale: Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), Russia Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Bolsheviks and head of the Council of People’s Commissars Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov (1861-1925), premier of the provisional government, March-July, 1917 Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky (1881-1970), Socialist revolutionary, successively minister of justice and minister of war in the provisional government and premier, July-November 7, 1917 Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov (1870-1918), supreme commander of Russia’s armies, July-September, 1917 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), leading Bolshevik, commissar for national minorities Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), leading Bolshevik, chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and commissar for foreign affairs Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinski (1877-1926), leading Bolshevik, head of the Cheka
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Summary of Event The October Revolution of the Bolsheviks took place on November 6-7, 1917 (or October 24-25, 1917, by the Julian calendar, which was then in use in Russia). It was the second revolution to happen in Russia that year, and through it Vladimir Ilich Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, seized power from the provisional government that had superseded the autocracy of the last Romanov czar of Russia, Nicholas II, in the February Revolution. The February Revolution had followed years of czarist misrule and the disastrous impact on Russia of World War I, during which the Russian armies had endured stunning defeats and deep privations had been inflicted on the Russian people at home. In the second week of March, workers and soldiers in Petrograd (as St. Petersburg had
been renamed during the war) had revolted and joined forces, thereby forcing the abdication of Nicholas II. The provisional government that had then come into power was born out of negotiations between the previously elected assembly, or Duma, a moderate group dominated by the property-owning classes, and the recently established Petrograd Soviet, or council, of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, a relatively moderate socialist organization but clearly to the left of the Duma. It was agreed that the Duma was to form the provisional government, which would rule until a new constitution was written for Russia by a popularly elected Constituent Assembly, but the Petrograd Soviet (with the exception of Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky) refused to participate because of the bourgeois nature of the Duma. The Petrograd Soviet regarded itself as the guardian of the working masses, who would in time transform the bourgeois revolution into a socialist one. The provisional government was composed mainly of Constitutional Democrats, or Cadets, and Octobrists, with Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov as premier and the lone Socialist, Kerensky, as minister of justice. There now existed two centers of authority, the liberal provisional government and the leftist Petrograd Soviet, but the real power was in the hands of the latter. The Petrograd Soviet quickly decreed that the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison should not obey orders that conflicted with the Soviet’s commands. As news of the revolutionary events in Petrograd spread throughout Russia, workers, soldiers, and peasants elected local soviets that proclaimed their loyalty to the Petrograd Soviet rather than the provisional government. During the succeeding months, the absence of a strong central authority made it impossible for anything to be done about the terrible conditions facing Russia. The two most serious problems were the peasants’ demands for land and Russia’s future role in World War I. To the demand of the peasants that the great landed estates be divided among them without delay, the provisional government answered that this matter could be dealt with legally only by the Constituent Assembly, elections for which were to be held later in the year. This answer did not satisfy the peasants, whose thirst for land was equaled only by their desire for peace, and yet the provisional government alienated the peasants still further by making it clear that it intended to prosecute the war vigorously in close cooperation with the Allies in or-
Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution der to secure a victorious peace together with territorial annexations, namely, the Turkish Straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The insistence of the provisional government in pursuing these aims led, by May, to a serious clash with the Petrograd Soviet, which had approved continuing the war to defend Russian territory but had not approved fighting for the annexations. The crisis ended with a reorganization of the provisional government to include several members of the Petrograd Soviet as ministers. This “First Coalition,” in which Kerensky became minister of war, represented the successful effort of the Petrograd Soviet not only to impose its views on the provisional government but also to attempt to close the ranks of the Center and the moderate Left against the Bolsheviks. The leader of this faction was Lenin, who had recently returned from exile in Switzerland with help from the German high command. Lenin found the situation in Russia much to his liking; it encouraged him and his lieutenants, among them Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, to
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 begin plotting the takeover of the Petrograd Soviet and the overthrow of the provisional government. The German high command was ultimately proved correct in its assumption that Lenin would in time undermine the proAllied provisional government. Lenin, a leading Russian Marxist revolutionary since 1895 and, after 1903, the head of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, had a program that was perfectly attuned to the unanswered grievances of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. He called for an immediate end to the war, immediate seizure of land by the peasants, control of industry by committees of workers, and the transfer of power from the provisional government to the Soviets (“All power to the Soviets”), whose numbers were proliferating throughout Russia. Indeed, much of Lenin’s success may be attributed to his ability to understand the feelings and desires of the masses and to act accordingly. Kerensky, however, lacked this ability, as was clearly demonstrated in June when he decided to launch an offensive against the Austro-German armies. A great vic-
Bolsheviks form a barricade on the streets of Petrograd in 1917. (Library of Congress)
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Lenin now emerged from hiding and, on October 23, convinced the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party that the moment had come to seize power. Finally, on the night of November 6, Bolshevik troops occupied key points in Petrograd and isolated the Winter Palace, headquarters of the Kerensky regime. The next morning, November 7, the Bolsheviks announced the fall of the provisional government. The Winter Palace, which held out until evening, was captured after a light skirmish in which a few lives were lost. Kerensky, who had left Petrograd in search of loyal troops to use against the Bolsheviks, managed to flee the country. Significance Lenin immediately began the consolidation of his power, a task he would not complete until the end of the Russian Civil War in 1921. In his efforts to assert authority outside the capital, he frequently encountered strong resistance from anti-Bolshevik elements. Moscow, for example, came under his control only after a week of fighting. Most of the great Russian heartland, Siberia, and Central Asia had come over, at least nominally, to the Bolshevik standard by the end of December, 1917. Years of bitter warfare lay ahead before these lands were brought under Bolshevik control. In Petrograd, meanwhile, Lenin issued two decrees in the meeting of the Bolshevikdominated Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies during November 8-9. One decree declared an end to the war (a manner of terminating the conflict that did not satisfy the Germans), and the other handed land over to the peasants. Lenin also created the new government of the state, the Council of People’s Commissars, a body made up entirely of Bolsheviks. Key figures in this cabinet were Lenin, the chairman; Stalin, commissar for national minorities; and Trotsky, commissar for foreign affairs. Lenin did allow the scheduled elections to the Constituent Assembly to take place within days of the Bolshevik takeover, but after permitting the assembly one meeting in January, 1918, he decreed its dissolution. To combat opposition to the Bolshevik dictatorship, Lenin established the Cheka (an acronym for the Russian for its official name, Extraordinary Commission to Fight the Counterrevolution and Sabotage) in December, 1917. Headed by Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinski, this secret police force, which resembled the czarist internal security force that had been disbanded after the abdication of Nicholas II, was empowered to bypass normal legal procedures in investigating and punishing opponents of the new or1395
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tory at the front, he believed, would placate the discontented elements at home. Instead, the offensive was completely routed by July 7. In the wake of this disaster, the soldiers, sailors, and workers staged an uprising in Petrograd during July 16-18. A halfhearted attempt by the ill-prepared Bolsheviks to seize power was easily foiled by the government. Lenin fled into hiding in Finland; Trotsky was arrested along with several other leading Bolsheviks. Kerensky now became premier in a second coalition of Liberals and moderate Socialists. The coup that Kerensky had weathered from the Left was in September matched by one from the Right led by General Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov, recently appointed supreme commander of Russia’s armies. Supported by conservative elements and property owners, this coup was directed against the Petrograd Soviet and probably against Kerensky as well. By September 14, the coup had collapsed, primarily because Kornilov’s troops refused to obey him. Kornilov’s movement also foundered because of the agitation carried on in his ranks by Bolshevik radicals, many of whom, including Trotsky, the government had released from prison to assist its cause. Kerensky won only a Pyrrhic victory, for his government was unable to contain the spread of popular unrest. Regular deliveries of food and other supplies were becoming harder to obtain, and this drove increasingly desperate workers to take control of factories themselves. After the failure of Kornilov’s coup, the army began to disintegrate as entire units of peasant soldiers left the front to return to their villages. The arrival of armed deserters encouraged the impatient peasants to seize and divide up the privately owned estates. The provisional government almost completely lost control of the major cities, the army, and the countryside. Lenin and Trotsky now decided that the moment had come for them to seize power. The Bolshevik Party had been growing progressively stronger since its defeat in the July coup. By August, its membership had grown to almost a quarter of a million, a tenfold increase since the start of the Russian Revolution in March. Significantly, the Bolsheviks secured a majority in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets during mid-September. Early in October, Trotsky was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet; later he became the head of the newly formed, Bolshevik-dominated Military Revolutionary Committee. Trotsky, as head of these organizations, had control of the Bolshevik militia, the Red Guard, and by the end of the month he managed to gain control of the Petrograd military garrison and contingents of sailors of the nearby Kronstadt naval base.
Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution
Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution der. In other moves early in 1918, Lenin dissolved all ties between the church and the state, introduced the Gregorian in place of the Julian calendar, and decreed the nationalization of the land given to the peasants in November. Finally, in March, Lenin completed the first stage of his consolidation of power by concluding a formal peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk, transferring the Russian capital back to Moscow, and adopting the name “Communist Party” to describe his movement. The success of the Bolshevik movement was by no means completely assured in March, 1918; years of hard fighting and bloodshed lay ahead. The measure of success that the Bolsheviks had achieved by this time, however, was attributable to at least two factors. Negatively, they had succeeded not because they had the support of a majority of the people, but rather because the majority had never been in sympathy with the provisional government; most Russians considered the provisional government as aloof and unconcerned about their welfare as had been the czar. On the positive side, it was much easier for people, whether Bolsheviks or not, to identify with the promises held out by Lenin for bread, peace, and land, promises he said would be fulfilled once he came to power. In the last analysis, the real measure of the Bolsheviks’ success lay not in their assuming power but in their consolidating that power against overwhelming odds during the years 1918 to 1921. In that process, and in the years of growing authoritarian and repressive rule that followed, Lenin’s promise of bread, peace, and land seemed like a cruel joke. A famine of major proportions was unleashed as civil war brought only more turmoil and death, and in the long run the collectivization of agriculture deprived private ownership of land to everyone. The failure of the latter policy led to ongoing shortfalls in agricultural production that hampered economic development in the Soviet Union under Communist rule. — Edward P. Keleher and Richard D. King Further Reading Abraham, Richard. Alexander Kerensky: The First Love of the Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Sympathetic biography of a figure whom historians have often judged harshly. Daniels, Robert V. Red October: The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. 1967. Reprint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984. Reconstructs the debates within the Bolshevik Party’s Central Committee and describes the overthrow of the provisional government.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Katkov, George. Russia, 1917: The Kornilov Affair: Kerensky and the Break-up of the Russian Army. London: Longman, 1980. Defends General Kornilov against charges that he plotted to overthrow the provisional government. Lincoln, W. Bruce. Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Lively history shows the terrible impact of World War I and the revolution on Russia and its peoples. Pipes, Richard. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. Contains condensed versions of two earlier volumes on the revolution and its aftermath by a widely respected scholar of Russian history. Emphasizes the role of the radical intellectuals in shaping the course of the revolution. Rabinowitch, Alexander. The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. 1976. Reprint. London: Pluto Press, 2004. Provides a detailed account of events in Petrograd from July to the Bolshevik seizure of power. Stresses the importance to the revolution of the radicalization of popular opinion. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2000. Authoritative and well-rounded biography uses information recently available from Soviet archives to shed new light on Lenin. Includes illustrations. Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: A New Biography. Translated and edited by Harold Shukman. New York: Free Press, 1994. Biography by a former Soviet general makes use of previously unavailable secret documents from the Soviet archives. Wolfe, Bertram. Three Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. 1964. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. One of the best histories of the Bolshevik Revolution available. The author was acquainted with several original Bolsheviks and lived for a time in Moscow. See also: Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; 19181921: Russian Civil War; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Halifax Explosion
December 6, 1917
Halifax Explosion In one of the worst human-made disasters in history, the explosion of an ammunition ship nearly destroyed the city of Halifax and killed nearly two thousand people. Also known as: Mont Blanc explosion Locale: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Categories: Disasters; transportation Key Figures Haakon From (1870-1917), captain of the Imo William Hayes (1877-1917), pilot of the Imo Aimé Le Médec (b. 1878), captain of the Mont Blanc Francis Mackey (b. 1872), pilot of the Mont Blanc
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Summary of Event Halifax became an important North Atlantic shipping center during World War I. Merchant ships from around the world passed through Halifax, bound for war-torn Europe. These ships congregated in Halifax before British warships convoyed them across waters infested with German U-boats, and as a result Halifax became one of the busiest ports in the world. Wartime demands led to modernizations in Halifax’s harbor facilities, and the city had all the markings of a boomtown. Halifax’s narrow harbor was not easy to navigate: The town of Halifax was on the south side, and the community of Dartmouth was on the north side. Between the cities was a stretch of water, known as the Narrows, that connected the outer harbor with an inner harbor called Bedford Basin. Merchant ships making routine trips generally used the outer harbor, whereas ships awaiting convoy to Europe assembled in Bedford Basin. The harbor’s heavy traffic made the Narrows a hazardous place for ships to maneuver. Halifax was known for potentially treacherous tides and weather, but the tides were moderate and the weather sunny as the French steamer Mont Blanc entered the Narrows on the morning of December 6, 1917. The ship was headed for Bedford Basin to join a convoy bound for Bordeaux two days later. Constructed in 1899, the 3,000ton ship flew the flag of the French shipping company Compagne Générale Transatlantique. Its captain was Aimé Le Médec; harbor pilot Francis Mackey guided the ship into the Narrows. The Mont Blanc carried a dangerous cargo of 2,600 tons of American explosives (TNT, benzene, picric acid, and guncotton) destined for Allied armies in Europe. Ammunition ships typically flew red
flags to warn other vessels of such dangerous cargo and to ensure that they were given a wide berth, but the Mont Blanc was not flying a red flag. Ammunition ships were prime targets for German submarines, and Captain Le Médec did not want to signal his cargo to any U-boats along the way. At the same time the Mont Blanc was entering the Narrows, the 4,000-ton Norwegian steamship Imo was headed out to sea. A former passenger ship owned by the Belgium-based South Pacific Whaling Company, the Imo had been chartered by American relief agencies planning to distribute donated food and clothing to those suffering from the war in Europe. The Imo’s captain was Haakon From, and its harbor pilot was William Hayes. The Imo, empty of cargo, had arrived in Halifax from Rotterdam the previous day as part of a westbound convoy and was now headed for New York. Both ships, coming from opposite directions, entered the Narrows at 7:30 a.m. Either Le Médec or Mackey spotted the Imo and signaled to the ship that the Mont Blanc intended to pass on the wrong side; that is, on the starboard side instead of the traditional passing down the port side. This was contrary to established maritime procedure, but it was easier for ships entering the harbor to dock in Halifax on the south side of the Narrows by passing outbound ships on the left. At 8:15 a.m., the tugboat Stella Maris pulled away from the Halifax docks. The sudden appearance of the tugboat caused the Imo to turn to avoid a collision, placing it in the path of the Mont Blanc. The Mont Blanc sounded a blast of its steam whistle to signal its intention to maintain course. Unaware of the Mont Blanc’s hazardous cargo, the Imo responded with two steamwhistle blasts that announced the Imo’s claim of right-ofway and intention to continue on its course. Unwilling to yield, both ships reduced speed, but not enough to avoid a glancing collision. The jolt, which occurred at 8:45 a.m., ruptured the benzene tanks on the Mont Blanc’s upper deck, and sparks from the scraping hulls caused the area to burst into flames. The Mont Blanc’s crew was unable to contain the fire, and rather than forcing the Mont Blanc to sink by flooding its explosive-filled holds—an act that might have prevented the looming catastrophe—they abandoned ship. The impact with the Imo caused the Mont Blanc to drift toward the shore and into the crowded city. The crews of the Stella Maris and the Royal Canadian Navy warship Niobe attempted to take the Mont
Halifax Explosion
Responding to the Halifax Disaster In December of 1917, Percy McGrath was a recently graduated officer and physician at Camp Aldershot in Kentville, Nova Scotia. He and his wife, a nurse, were two of the first responders at the scene of the Halifax explosion. In a 1984 interview, McGrath recalled the events: All of the wires out of Halifax were destroyed, but there was still a cable over to England that they could use to relay the call for help. . . . We only knew that a dreadful explosion had destroyed the city of Halifax. We arrived at Rockingham at about 12:30. We couldn’t get any closer to the city because there was debris all over the place, and the track was blown up. There must have been fifty or a hundred of us, and we had to make our way in through the debris until we came in to where the army had taken over. They had cleared a bit of a roadway in as far as they could, perhaps a quarter of a mile. We were climbing over all sorts of things; there were dead bodies all around. When we got in to this roadway they had piled the bodies on each side like cord wood, three feet high. When we got to where the North Street station and the King Edward Hotel were, it was roped off, the military were there, and they wouldn’t let people through. When we got there they didn’t expect us. The military took control. . . . My wife and I were sent to Camp Hill. We didn’t know where the operating room was. There was none of the Camp Hill staff there to organize it. We didn’t know anything. We just did what we could. The beds there were all filled with veterans; there was no place to put the newly injured. They were in the corridors, on the floor, between the beds, and as far as I know there were about twelve hundred of them. The windows were all blown out, and they had blankets up to cover the holes and it was dark. When somebody saw you with a satchel, they knew you were a doctor and often shouted, “Come over here, come over here.” So you would see to this person, and if they were bleeding you stopped it. We had to be very careful with lots of the people who had wounds, for inside those wounds could be glass, plaster, or bits of wood, and if you sewed them up immediately you might be sewing them in.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 wave crashed into the shattered shore, drowning many of those not killed outright in the blast. Fires, ignited by toppled coal stoves, spread out of control. The detonation destroyed huge sections of Halifax. More than sixteen hundred buildings were leveled, and nearly half of Halifax’s population of roughly fifty thousand were homeless or lacked adequate shelter. To add to the city’s misery, a blizzard on December 7 seriously hampered relief efforts. In all, nearly two thousand residents of Halifax and Dartmouth died in the attack. Among the dead were half the crew of the Imo, including Captain From and Pilot Hayes. Only one crew member from the Mont Blanc died; Captain Le Médec and Pilot Mackey both survived.
Significance The Halifax explosion was one of the world’s most devastating humanmade disasters. The accident triggered the most powerful explosion in history up to that time and remained the largest nonnuclear explosion in history. Its destruction was alleviated, however, by the financial Source: “Percy McGrath’s Story,” interview conducted in 1984. Halifax Explosion Web site. and humanitarian assistance that immediately flowed into Halifax. Ship captains at sea, either hearing or feeling the explosion from miles away, Blanc under tow, but the ship drifted to the Halifax side steamed toward Halifax. Relief trains from Boston of the Narrows. Innocent bystanders assembled to watch plowed through the blizzard, arriving in time to save the events in the harbor, and many were killed and inthousands of lives. In the months immediately after the jured when, twenty minutes after the collision, the Mont blast, the Halifax Relief Commission received and disBlanc exploded. bursed nearly thirty million dollars’ worth of food, clothThe eruption transformed the Mont Blanc into a storm ing, and supplies. Because of its importance as a wartime of shrapnel: The half-ton anchor flew more than two port, the reconstruction of Halifax and its harbor facilimiles. An enormous shockwave flattened more than two ties became a priority for the Canadian and British govsquare miles of the city, and an eerie mushroom cloud ernments. Temporary housing sheltered most of the rose three miles over Halifax. The explosion shattered city’s returning inhabitants until the city’s reconstruction windows ten miles away, and the detonation was felt on after World War I. Prince Edward Island, which was more than one hundred No one was ever held responsible for the accident. A miles away. Many small boats simply disappeared, and maritime investigation concluded that the Mont Blanc several larger vessels capsized. A fifteen-foot seismic caused the collision but that the Imo was also partially re1398
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sponsible. Because both From and Hayes died in the explosion, however, prosecutors could offer only a limited amount of evidence, and although they charged Le Médec and Mackey with manslaughter, there was not enough evidence available to convict them. Le Médec returned to France, Mackey resumed his job as a harbor pilot, and Halifax tried to recover from its deadly blow. —Steven J. Ramold Further Reading Armstrong, John G. The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy: Inquiry and Intrigue. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002. A study of the Royal Canadian Navy that examines charges that the navy failed to adequately monitor and control the harbor and must accept some blame for the disaster. Bird, Michael J. The Town That Died: The True Story of the Greatest Man-Made Explosion Before Hiro-
Finland Gains Independence shima. New York: Putnam, 1962. The first major historical examination of the explosion. Kitz, Janet F. Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus, 1989. Using the explosion as an introduction, this work emphasizes Halifax’s postexplosion reconstruction and repopulation. McDonald, Laura. Curse of the Narrows. New York: Walker, 2005. Concentrates on the explosion’s human cost and examines the explosion’s impact on common citizens. Also explores contemporary rumors that the explosion was the work of German saboteurs. See also: Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake; Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster; May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames; Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses.
December 6, 1917-October 14, 1920
Finland Gains Independence After being under Swedish and Russian rule for more than seven centuries, Finland declared its independence in 1917 but was not fully recognized as an independent nation until 1920. Locale: Helsinki, Finland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; indigenous peoples’ rights; independence movements
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Key Figures Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791-1858), Finnish patriot Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806-1881), Finnish philosopher and politician Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917 Nikolai Bobrikov (1839-1904), Russian governorgeneral of Finland, 1898-1904 Pehr Evind Svinhufvud (1861-1944), prime minister of Finland, 1917-1918 Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951), Finnish general and politician Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (1865-1952), president of the Finnish Diet, 1914, and first president of the Finnish Republic, 1919-1925 Rudolf Holsti (1881-1945), Finnish minister to Britain, 1918-1919, and Finnish foreign minister, 19191922
Summary of Event “Swedes we are not, Russians we can never be; let us therefore be Finns.” Thus wrote Adolf Ivar Arwidsson in an apt characterization of the Finnish sense of selfidentity. The challenge was especially daunting as the small Finnish population had to endure six centuries of Swedish domination followed by another century of Russian rule. The story of Finland’s striving for national independence is a lengthy one. Swedish control over Finnish territory began in the twelfth century and steadily expanded. Because of Finland’s isolated location, a degree of regional self-rule became possible, but the Finns were still a subject population. Finland’s geographic location unfortunately placed it in the middle of competition between the empires of Sweden and Russia. Under Peter the Great, the Russian Empire expanded to the northwest toward the Gulf of Finland. Extended warfare continued between the two nations, especially in the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Russian forces invaded the Swedish Empire in 1808, and Sweden ceded Finland to Russia in the peace treaty of 1809. Shifting masters did not initially reduce existing Finnish rights. Czar Alexander I promised to continue Finnish institutions and legal practices. A governor-general served as the czar’s personal representative in the Finn-
Finland Gains Independence ish city of Helsinki. Gradually, however, Finnish autonomy and institutions eroded or vanished. Despite Finland’s transfer to Russia, substantial Swedish influence continued. Swedish was the primary language of the duchy’s social elite, as well as being used in local government, education, law, commerce, and culture. Finns were widely perceived as rustic, illiterate, and incapable of leadership or importance. This perception began to change in the 1820’s and 1830’s with the emergence of a Finnish cultural and national consciousness. During this period, the patriot Arwidsson was banished from Finland for his views. Several individuals began collecting the national epic, the Kalevala, comparing oral variations to re-create the story, which represents an ancient literary and cultural manifestation of early traditions and Finnish mythology. Elias Lönnrot is the most famous of those who compared the versions of the Kalevala and developed a coherent written story. Also during this period, philosopher and politician Johan Vilhelm Snellman advocated the use of Finnish, a language with no clear connections with Swedish or Russian, as it was the daily tongue of the ordinary people. Relations between the Russians and the Finns improved in the 1860’s, during the reign of Czar Alexander II (1855-1881), and expanded use of the Finnish language was authorized by an 1863 decree. The Russian monarchy also permitted the creation of a Finnish parliament (the Diet) in 1863. By 1878, Finnish military units were authorized. These positive changes enhanced the Finns’ sense of national identity. This improved atmosphere deteriorated in the 1890’s, however, with the imposition of policies representing “Russification” of the Finnish grand duchy. These events coincided with the assignment of General Nikolai Bobrikov as governor-general. Finnish army units were merged with the Russian army and placed under Russian officers. The term of military service was extended, and a new conscription law was imposed in 1901. Many youths evaded this unpopular draft. Russian became the compulsory language in Finnish schools, and Russians dominated the Finnish civil service. In 1899, a decree of Czar Nicholas II confirmed the primacy of Russian laws over Finnish laws. The Finnish Diet continued to meet, but it had reduced powers and influence. These infringements on Finnish liberties led to widespread resistance. More than half a million Finns (out of a population of fewer than three million) signed a petition protesting Russification. A delegation of five hundred traveled to St. Petersburg to present the petition personally to Nicholas II, but he refused to see them. Finnish 1400
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 feelings of nationalism grew and were reinforced by such cultural elements as composer Jean Sibelius’s famous work Finlandia (1899; revised 1900). First performed in 1900, the piece became an example of musical nationalism. Russian authorities occasionally banned its performance because of its anti-Russian effect on Finnish audiences. As Russification policies continued, various factions considered their responses. The “Compliants” argued that by accommodating Russian authorities and policies, Finland might retain a degree of autonomy. The “Constitutionalists” looked to the historic rights of the Finns and demanded that the Russians honor those principles and institutions. The “Activists” opposed past, present, and future Russification and called on Finns to strive for national independence, advocating the use of force if necessary to achieve that goal. A new unicameral legislature was created in 1907, with two hundred elected members. A revised suffrage law gave the vote to all Finns twenty-four years of age or older, including women, making Finland a prominent example of voting democracy. The nation’s granting of suffrage to women was the first such example in modern Europe. This reform increased the number of voters in Finland from 126,000 to nearly 1.3 million. Twenty-five women won seats in the 1907 Diet elections. A second assembly was elected in 1910, but the Russian authorities quickly dissolved it. A third assembly was elected in 1910 but was also dissolved before the end of the year. These conditions greatly increased Finnish antagonism toward Russian influence and authority. Finland’s chance to declare independence came in the chaotic period of World War I and the Russian Revolution, as Russia was weakened by military defeats and a deteriorating internal situation. With the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in March, 1917, events moved rapidly. Pehr Evind Svinhufvud provided executive leadership as the head of Finland’s government following his return in 1917 from exile in Siberia. The Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) gave the leaders of the Finnish independence movement the confidence to declare Finland’s independence on December 6, 1917. On December 31, 1917, the new Soviet government responded favorably. National unity appeared to be a reality, but the next several years brought more trauma to the Finns before complete independence was confirmed in the fall of 1920. In early 1918, Finland became embroiled in a civil war between diverse parties and ideologies attempting to determine the shape and values of the new state. Violent conflict
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pitted Finnish “Reds” against Finnish “Whites.” Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, a later president of the republic, commanded the “White” forces in this conflict. By the civil war’s end in May, 1918, the prosocialist and pro-Bolshevik “Red” movement had been defeated decisively at a cost of approximately twenty-four thousand dead on both sides. This critical period also included a short-lived German intervention in the last year of World War I. Only afterward could the Finns create the institutions of an independent state. A new constitution was written, elections took place, and in July, 1919, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg became the first president of the Finnish Republic. Foreign Minister Rudolf Holsti successfully gained the support of the Paris Peace Conference for this new infant republic. Even then, Finland had to resolve some problems with the Soviet government. Boundary disputes and other controversies slowed the process, but negotiations in the summer and fall of 1920 culminated in the Treaty of Tartu, signed on October 14, 1920, by which the Soviet Union guaranteed Finnish independence. The same year, Finland entered the League of Nations as a full member.
Karelian area led to severe problems in the early 1920’s, and in the late 1930’s, deteriorating relations culminated in the Soviet invasion of Finland in November, 1939. This conflict, known as the Winter War (fall, 1939spring, 1940), was an uneven match between the large Soviet and small Finnish populations, and Finland surrendered in March, 1940. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941, Finland and the Soviet Union became combatants again in what is known as the Continuation War (summer, 1941-fall, 1944). Finnish defeat in this war resulted in shifts of territory and the imposition of reparations to be paid to the Soviet Union. Because its location creates potential dangers, as history clearly shows, Finland adopted a policy of strict neutrality in the post-World War II years. This policy is especially identified with President Juho Kusti Paasikivi (1946-1956), who helped negotiate the Treaty of Tartu in 1920 with the Soviet Union. Finland refused to join either the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or the Warsaw Pact. This policy of “Finlandization” has been viewed as a model for other small nations in similar circumstances, adjacent to large and powerful neighbors. Finland became a member of the United Nations in 1955 and joined the European Free Trade Association as an associate member. From its beginnings as a free nation, and especially since 1945, Finland has been very successful in continuing its national development and providing opportunities for the enhancement of the rights of its citizens. The nation’s progressive leadership and policies have been widely admired for the social, economic, and political benefits they have provided the hardy Finnish population. —Taylor Stults Further Reading Jagerskiold, Stig Axel Fridolf. Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Biography of the famous military and political figure provides excellent coverage of Finland’s independence and postindependence periods. Jussila, Osmo, Seppo Hentilä, and Jukka Nevakivi. From Grand Duchy to a Modern State: A Political History of Finland Since 1809. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. Informative volume divides Finnish history into three periods—18091917, 1917-1944, and 1944-1999—each of which is addressed by an individual author. Includes useful appendixes. 1401
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Significance Achieving national independence permitted the Finns to develop their national institutions and to adapt them as conditions required. Finland’s freedom as a sovereign nation in the twentieth century illustrated the nation’s fundamentally democratic outlook and its ability to adjust to its dominant Soviet neighbor. After independence, Finland established the political system called for by its July, 1919, constitution: a republic with a national parliament elected by universal suffrage on the basis of proportional representation. In 1991, the minimum voting age was lowered to eighteen. Finnish political parties offer voters a wide spectrum of ideologies and proposed agendas. Cabinets are usually formed by coalition, as one party rarely wins a majority of parliamentary seats. This situation encourages representatives to compromise in reaching consensus and in making formal decisions. Executive power is placed in an elected president, and civil rights are guaranteed and protected by the state. Initially, the major challenges to Finland’s independence and foreign policy came from its neighbor, the Soviet Union. Although the Treaty of Tartu appeared to resolve major issues and guarantee independence, the years following 1920 saw major confrontations and even several wars between the two nations. Disputes over the
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Finland Gains Independence Jutikkala, Eino. A History of Finland. 5th rev. ed. Helsinki, Finland: W. Söderström, 1996. Readable account of Finnish history provides ample coverage of the period of Swedish and Russian control. Presents a clear narrative of the independence movement and further development of the nation after World War I. Kirby, D. G., ed. Finland and Russia, 1808-1920: From Autonomy to Independence. London: Macmillan, 1975. Collection of primary source materials provides a thorough examination of conditions in the grand duchy of Finland and how the gradual loss of autonomy contributed to the nationalistic drive for independence from Russia. Klinge, Matti. Let Us Be Finns: Essays on History. Helsinki, Finland: Otava Publishing, 1990. Interesting collection of essays on various aspects of Finnish history and culture. Mannerheim, Carl Gustaf. Memoirs. Translated by Eric Lewenhaupt. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954. Autobiography includes information on vital periods of Mannerheim’s life and leadership but is sometimes selective in choice and interpretation of events. Mead, William Richard. Finland. London: Benn, 1968. Solid account of Finnish history, including the Swedish and Russian periods as well as the years after independence. Focuses more on political issues than on Finnish social or cultural life. Paasivirta, Juhani. Finland and Europe: The Early Years of Independence, 1918-1939. Helsinki, Finland: SHS, 1988. Social and cultural history describes life in Finland in the interwar period. Rintala, Marvin. Four Finns: Political Profiles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Brief, read-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 able profiles of four major figures in Finnish history in the twentieth century: Mannerheim, Paasikivi, Ståhlberg, and Väinö Tanner. Places them in the context of the political and national issues in which they played central roles as active participants in the independence movement. Singleton, Frederick Bernard. A Short History of Finland. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Lively survey of the history of Finland provides comprehensive information on the struggle for independence. Easily accessible to the general reader. Smith, C. Jay. Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1958. Detailed account of the relationship between Finland and Russia in this critical period. Includes discussion of political, diplomatic, and military aspects as well as Russification policies from the 1890’s. Tillotson, H. M. Finland at Peace and War, 1918-1993. Wilby, Norwich, England: Michael Russell, 1993. Comprehensive history of Finland in the twentieth century includes discussion of the independence period. Upton, Anthony F. The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. Excellent, thorough history of the revolution. Includes maps to both help clarify border issues and identify sites of military conflict. See also: 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence; Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence; Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War.
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Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature
1918
Cather’s MY ÁNTONIA Promotes Regional Literature The publication of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia opened new possibilities for regional literature and expanded novelists’ alternatives for plot structure. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts Category: Literature Key Figure Willa Cather (1873-1947), American journalist and novelist
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Summary of Event In October, 1918, when Willa Cather was forty-four years old, she was considered a promising “young” novelist by critics and reviewers such as H. L. Mencken. She had by then published an unheralded collection of poems (April Twilights, 1903), a collection of short stories (The Troll Garden, 1905), and three novels: Alexander’s Bridge (1912), O Pioneers! (1913), and The Song of the Lark (1915). Although Cather had been publishing short fiction in magazines since 1892 and by 1918 usually was able to sell her stories for good prices, she was not yet very strongly established as a fiction writer. She had begun her professional career in journalism and eventually served as managing editor at the muckraking magazine McClure’s (1908-1911), yet she had long aspired to write fiction. Her brief acquaintance with author Sarah Orne Jewett in 1908-1909 brought her advice that she gradually took to heart: to seek to write truly about the Nebraska experiences that clearly were important to her. Cather had moved with her family to the area of Red Cloud, Nebraska, when she was ten years old, and she lived there until after her graduation from the University of Nebraska in 1895. After moving to Pittsburgh and then to New York, she returned home often to visit with her family and friends, many of whom were immigrants. In O Pioneers! she was notably successful in making use of late nineteenth century Nebraska and its pioneer farming culture, made up of a diversity of immigrants, and this novel earned for her the recognition that led reviewers such as Mencken to pronounce her promising. My Ántonia (1918), like O Pioneers!, is set in southeastern Nebraska in the second half of the nineteenth century and vividly presents the unique rural and small-town culture of that period. Upon its publication, it was immediately recognized as a masterpiece.
My Ántonia is a complex novel simply told, accessible to younger readers yet challenging and provocative for professional scholars. It is constructed as a memoir in five books. The introduction presents Jim Burden, author of the memoir, for whom Ántonia Shimerda, an immigrant Bohemian girl, has become a symbol of the whole meaning of his experience of growing up in and around the Nebraska prairie town of Black Hawk. Jim’s youth exactly parallels Cather’s, and most of the characters are based on people Cather knew in Red Cloud. Ántonia is based on Cather’s friend Annie Sadilek. Book 1 of the novel tells of Jim’s move to Nebraska and his early friendship with Ántonia; book 2 recounts Jim’s adolescence in Red Cloud as he prepares for college and Ántonia prepares for becoming a rural wife and mother; book 3 covers Jim’s college days, when he sees little of Ántonia; and book 4 tells the story of Ántonia’s hard life after the man who had promised to marry her deserts her and she bears an illegitimate daughter. The final book shows Jim returning after twenty years without seeing Ántonia. She has married and reared a large family, while he has become a corporation lawyer and has made a bad marriage. He finds her still a vital person and a dear friend who has preserved their youthful friendship in the stories she tells her children. Although the overall plot is governed by a pattern of separation and return that emphasizes a kind of nostalgic treasuring of a beautiful shared past, the novel is not simply nostalgic, nor is it sentimental. Jim treasures the moments of communion with friends and the landscape, but he does not forget the pains and horrors of hard and greedy people, the often forbidding landscape, and the narrow-mindedness and materialism that tend to dominate his rural culture. The novel forms a moving, realistic portrait of its setting and time. Upon its publication, My Ántonia was reviewed enthusiastically, and positive evaluation of the novel continued even through the 1930’s, when Cather’s apparent lack of direct concern for social and political issues brought her much negative criticism from reviewers. Critics praised Cather for bringing the people of the American West to life vividly and showing them to be worth knowing. Sophisticated readers noted the apparent artlessness of her technique, especially the power of giving subtle unity and epic scope to a work that appeared episodic in plot. Such readers also recognized the hardedged realism behind Jim Burden’s somewhat romantic
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nostalgia and emphasized that the overall Cather’s Prairie portrait was not an idealized one. Cather was seen as moving beyond the localThe opening paragraph of My Ántonia illustrates Willa Cather’s deep color writers who preceded her by giving feeling for the region in which the novel takes place: universal significance to local settings Last summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of and characters. intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companMy Ántonia established Cather as one ion James Quayle Burden—Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. of the most respected writers of her genHe and I are old friends—we grew up together in the same Nebraska eration. After 1918, each of her novels town—and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed was eagerly awaited and reviewed by sethrough never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and brightnior reviewers in all the important national flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observamagazines and newspapers. Magazines tion car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep clamored for her short stories, offering over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of very high prices, although she preferred many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one’s childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating to write novels and resorted to stories extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and bilmainly when she needed more money lowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the than her novels earned. Her next novel, color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with One of Ours (1922), was inspired by the little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheetloss of a relative in World War I. Aliron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town though usually considered not among her could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said. best works, One of Ours was very popular Source: Willa Cather, My Ántonia (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918). and won a Pulitzer Prize. The encouragement of fame led Cather to bold experimentation in her writing, although she always strove for a clarity of with James. Her heart and imagination, however, were style and representation that would make her work apmost impressed by the life and culture she experienced pealing to general readers. Among her most highly regrowing up in rural Nebraska, a locale that might not garded works that followed My Ántonia are A Lost Lady seem to lend itself easily to her artistic ambitions. Her (1923), The Professor’s House (1925), Death Comes for greatest success as a novelist seemed to come when she the Archbishop (1927), and a collection of three short brought these devotions together: the realism and artfulworks, Obscure Destinies (1932). ness of James; the simplicity, clarity, and universality of the classical; and her deep love for the people and places Significance among which she was reared. Cather had to distinguish The importance of My Ántonia may be seen best, perherself from the cosmopolitan James if she was going to haps, in the context of the general movement in U.S. culmake fiction out of her rural background. As a woman, tural history to produce great literature that proceeded moreover, she found herself inclined to focus on womfrom and represented the unique localities and cultures en’s experiences and to create structures rather unlike existing within the nation. Cather’s most famous predethose that tended to dominate the realistic fiction of her cessors in fiction tend to be best known for works that famous male predecessors. vividly represent unique locales and tell moving, univerIn My Ántonia, she moved decisively away from the sal stories that seem to belong to and grow naturally out quest as a dominant plot form, and her subsequent experof their settings, works such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s imentation with fictional plots is largely a search for The Scarlet Letter (1850), Herman Melville’s Moby structural forms that offer an alternative to the quest Dick: Or, The Whale (1851), Mark Twain’s Adventures narrative. Several of Cather’s contemporaries, notably of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Theodore Dreiser’s SisSherwood Anderson, were also experimenting with alter Carrie (1900). ternative forms, and one important influence on Cather’s Cather began her literary career as a disciple of Henry experiments was local-color writing, especially that of James. An enthusiastic admirer of the Greek and Roman Sarah Orne Jewett. “Local color” is a term used to declassics, Cather sought to bring to her own fiction the scribe the works of a group of post-Civil War authors aesthetic principles she associated with classical art and 1404
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who represent the more powerful and dominant cultural values, a wisdom they lack, a wisdom that calls into question seemingly pervasive American values such as materialism, commercialism, and overconfidence in moral systems and technology. Jim Burden seems to see negative values triumphing in North American culture, and his nostalgia reflects a general theme of U.S. literature during and after World War I: the sense that a sort of innocent idealism has passed from the scene with the closing of the frontier and the entrance of the United States into world politics. Another main theme of My Ántonia is the importance of cultural diversity to the richness of a community. One of the negative developments in the novel is the town of Black Hawk’s insistence on conformity to a set of “American” values that devalues the rich contributions of the diverse European cultures that Cather herself experienced and treasured in Nebraska. This theme echoes through all of Cather’s works, notably Death Comes for the Archbishop, and it helped to make her an especially important example to ethnic writers at the end of the twentieth century. When literary critics look back on the first half of the twentieth century in American fiction, two authors, Willa Cather and William Faulkner, tend to stand out. Each produced short stories (such as Cather’s “Neighbor Rosicky,” which first appeared in Obscure Destinies) that are studied by almost every college student who takes a modern American literature course, and each produced several novels that are widely recognized as belonging to world literature. — Terry Heller Further Reading Arnold, Marilyn. Willa Cather: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986. Includes a discussion of Cather’s literary reputation followed by a bibliography of writings by Cather and an annotated bibliography of writings about Cather from 1895 to 1984. Also includes author and subject index. An excellent source for gaining an impression of how each of Cather’s novels was reviewed when it appeared as well as for surveying literary criticism of her work. Bloom, Harold, ed. Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia.” New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Collects eleven discussions of the novel by literary historians and critics such as David Stouck, Blanche Gelfant, Evelyn Helmick, and James E. Miller, Jr. Includes a variety of approaches to structure and theme, with emphasis on Cather’s concept of time and on representations of 1405
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who sought to preserve in fiction unique regional cultures that began to disappear as the nation was unified by industrialization, mass communication, rapid transportation, and urbanization after the war. Although this literature, often written by women, tended to be considered ephemeral despite its popularity, it became one foundation for the realistic and naturalistic movements in American literature and produced such illustrious writers as Mark Twain. Cather saw in the work of women writers such as Jewett ways of structuring plots that would allow the unification of a substantial novel without recourse to romance, action, and adventure. Certainly, a key example for her was Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), which pretends to be the journal of a summer spent by a city writer in a rural town, much as My Ántonia pretends to be an unstructured memoir, a collection of a middle-aged man’s memories of a childhood friend. Scholars also have documented Cather’s indebtedness to European Impressionist and Symbolist writers and painters. As a result of her success with My Ántonia and her subsequent experimentation, Cather became an important influence on younger writers. She continued a trend, most visibly begun by James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain, of making widely appreciated fiction out of local and western materials, helping to earn worldwide respect for American authors. Her work contributed to the later success of authors such as William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, who also drew their fiction from regions that could have been considered remote and unimportant. Cather also continued and brought more decisively into the mainstream of modern fiction what might be considered feminine alternatives to the traditional quests for love, enlightenment, and power that tended to dominate in popular and successful fiction, helping to make way for the acceptance of later experiments in plot form such as Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929) and Go Down, Moses (1942), Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples (1949), Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine (1984), and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home (1985) and Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand (1991). In addition to continuing important traditions and helping to open up new possibilities in fictional structure, My Ántonia dealt with and questioned traditional American themes. Jim Burden’s relationship with Ántonia parallels Huck Finn’s relationship with the slave Jim. As in several ways opposites to their observers, Ántonia and the slave Jim seem capable of giving their friends,
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Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation gender and sexuality. Includes a chronology of Cather’s life and a bibliography. Gerber, Philip. Willa Cather. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1995. A biographical and critical study of Cather’s literary career. Less detailed than James Woodress’s biography (cited below) but offers an informative introduction to Cather and her works as well as scholarship on her works. Includes a chronology of her life and an annotated bibliography. Lindemann, Marilee, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Collection of essays covering the full range of Cather’s career, including most of her novels and short stories. Contributors place the works in their cultural and literary contexts. Includes chronology and suggestions for further reading. Murphy, John J., ed. Critical Essays on Willa Cather. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. Valuable introduction traces the progress of Cather’s critical reception. Includes essays and reviews from 1912 to 1984. Provides a good mixture of contemporary reviews and later interpretations of Cather’s major work. _______. “My Ántonia”: The Road Home. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Study emphasizes the novel’s realism and the complexity of its narrative construction. Sum-
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marizes its historical context, literary importance, and critical reception and then looks closely at historical and biographical sources, discusses how Cather composed the novel, and comments on major aspects of the story. Conclusion compares Cather with Walt Whitman. Includes related documents and annotated bibliography. Rosowski, Susan J. Approaches to Teaching Cather’s “My Ántonia.” New York: Modern Language Association, 1989. Designed for college teachers, the short essays in this volume present a broad range of ways of looking at and thinking about the novel, making this a primary tool for stimulating ideas for further thought. Woodress, James. Willa Cather: A Literary Life. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. Detailed and readable account of Cather’s life and works, with many photographs and a good index. Includes a chapter on each of Cather’s books, telling about her activities and research during the period of composition, describing the novel, detailing biographical elements she included, and summarizing how the book was received by reviewers. See also: Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published; Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career.
1918
Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation Emmy Noether wrote one of the most beautiful chapters in mathematical physics by demonstrating the necessary and sufficient connection between a symmetry and a conserved quantity. Locale: Institute of Mathematics, Göttingen, Germany Categories: Mathematics; physics Key Figures Emmy Noether (1882-1935), German mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943), German mathematician Felix Klein (1849-1925), German mathematician Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Summary of Event As an achievement of theoretical physics, Emmy Noether’s 1918 theorems were the upshot of developments in 1406
mathematics and physics along several lines. With the proof of these theorems, Noether succeeded in bringing together various threads that had close mutual connections scientists had not suspected. The physics threads included conservation laws, the “symmetry principle,” and Albert Einstein’s theory of gravitation (general relativity). On the side of mathematics, the threads were the theories of invariants, the notion of transformation groups, and an abstract concept of geometries. The idea of symmetry, which theoreticians were processing into a precise, abstract, and useful formulation, was another theorem. Noether was the daughter of Max Noether, professor of mathematics at the University of Erlangen and a specialist in algebra. For mathematicians, Erlangen had been famous for Felix Klein’s Erlanger Programm, which was proclaimed in 1872. Klein unified the prolif-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation tinuous transformation groups, which can be used, for example, to classify mathematical theories. Moreover, in physics, one has to make transformations from one reference system to another; these are continuous transformations. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Einstein became concerned with a fundamental question of physics: A physicist measures physical phenomena and formulates physical laws in relation to a reference system, yet an infinite number of possible reference systems exist, all equally good. This line of inquiry led to the relatively late idea of the “symmetry of physical laws,” or the “symmetry principles.” Einstein noticed that there existed a certain incongruity between dynamics (Newtonian mechanics) and electrodynamics (Maxwellian electromagnetism): Dynamic laws are valid for all the “inertial systems,” whereas electrodynamic laws appear to be valid in only one of these infinitely many “inertial systems.” He solved this problem by establishing the theory of special relativity. Now, dynamics and electrodynamics are unified on a common basis: They are both valid for all inertial systems. In other words, the symmetry principle of the theory of special relativity requires that physical laws are symmetrical—invariant, unchanged—under any transformation from one inertial system to another. After establishing the theory of special relativity in 1905, Einstein saw the need to generalize his result to include all possible reference systems. Previously, he had found electromagnetic laws in his way, as if they posed a hurdle; now, he found a barrier in the traditional gravitational law. Prior to 1916, Einstein made a great effort to reform the theory of gravitation. Göttingen mathematicians were aware of and very interested in his work. In 1915, Hilbert independently derived the basic equations of the theory of general relativity. Both Hilbert and Klein welcomed Noether at Göttingen because she was able to help them with her invarianttheoretic knowledge. In fact, her work on the theory of general relativity ended in its most general mathematical formalism. On the basis of such eminent work, in 1918 Noether proved two theorems. One of these theorems is about the symmetry of a physical system. If it is symmetrical, there must exist a conserved quantity corresponding to this specific symmetry, and vice versa. The second theorem is about the symmetry of a physical law. Starting from a certain physical condition, which is decided by physical measurements, the requirement that the physical law is invariant under a transformation group leads to the quantitative law itself. Noether’s theo1407
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erating family of geometries by declaring that, defined by a group of transformations, a geometry investigates everything that is invariant under the transformations of this given group. Nevertheless, Noether did not start with an abstract approach. Her Ph.D. adviser was Paul Gordan, an old-fashioned specialist on the algebraic theory of invariants. After 1907, Noether became known as a theoretician on invariants. In 1915, Klein and David Hilbert invited Noether to join them at Göttingen University because they were interested in Einstein’s theory of general relativity and because they wanted Noether, with her expertise in invariants, to make contributions in this regard. “Invariant” means constant, unchangeable. From the nineteenth century, in both physics and mathematics, scientists became increasingly interested in unchangeable characteristics in both physical systems and mathematical entities. Beginning from the law of the conservation of matter, a list of conservation laws began to take shape, concerning energy, momentum, angular momentum, electric charge, and so on. Physicists realized that it was important to ask under what conditions what quantities maintain constant values. The conservation of energy was officially titled the first law of thermodynamics. At the same time, physicists became aware that heat itself is hardly a conserved quantity (even under most usual physical conditions). The conservation of electric charge was confirmed as a basic principle; in the meantime, scientists realized that “magnetic charges” did not exist, much less as conserved quantities. In mathematics, by the middle of the nineteenth century, Arthur Cayley and James J. Sylvester began to develop the idea of invariants. For example, Cayley showed that the order of points formed by intersecting lines is always unchangeable, regardless of spatial transformation. It is ironic that in the late 1820’s, the seminal idea of group theory occurred independently to two tragically short-lived mathematical prodigies: Niels Henrick Abel, a Norwegian, and Évariste Galois, a Frenchman. When they attacked the same problem of algebra, their approaches took similar paths. In 1824, Abel proved the impossibility of solving the quintic equation—general equation of the fifth degree—by “radicals” (algebraically). Galois devised a more general solution: the clarification of the conditions that an equation must satisfy in order for it to be solvable algebraically. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Cayley was most responsible for furthering the idea of transformation groups. Later, Marius Sophus Lie, in collaboration with Klein, discovered the fundamental importance of the concept of con-
Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation rems thus represent a high degree of generalization. Physicists had already begun to realize the equivalence between a symmetry and a conservation law; Noether collected all these specific cases under the designation of her first theorem. Physicists had begun to realize the symmetry principle; Noether stated the “principle” in a general, rigorous, and succinct mathematical formulation. Significance For three decades, most physicists were not aware of Noether’s significant contribution. For several years following 1918, only the mathematicians at Göttingen introduced or extended her theorems. Ernst Bessel-Hagen applied Noether’s results to dynamics and electrodynamics (1921). Hermann Weyl mentioned them in his book Raum, Zeit, Materie (1918; space, time, matter), and so did Wolfgang Pauli in his Relativitätstheorie (1921; Theory of Relativity, 1958). Hilbert included them in his Methoden der Mathematischen Physik (1924; the methods of mathematical physics), which was coauthored by Richard Courant. Around 1950, physicists began to cite Noether’s theorem—a trend in which Soviet mathematicians and physicists played an influential role. Since the middle of the 1950’s, because of the revolutionary impact of the confirmation of parity-nonconservation, “Noether equations” have been applied frequently in the context of general theory of relativity and in the exposition of quantum field theories. Textbooks sometimes do not explicitly mention either the title of the theorem or its inventor. When Richard P. Feynman, Nobel laureate and distinguished teacher, gave a series of lectures on the new college physics between 1961 and 1963 at the California Institute of Technology, he discussed the “symmetry and conservation laws.” Symmetry is important, according to Feynman, because one can examine “some of the even more remarkable symmetries of the universe—the symmetries that exist in the basic laws themselves.” In quantum mechanics, for each of the rules of symmetry, there is a corresponding conservation law. Feynman noted that there is “a definite connection” between the laws of conservation and the symmetries of physical laws. This “definite connection” is the Noether theorem. In 1983, the First International Meeting on the History of Scientific Ideas took place; the title chosen for this scholarly gathering was “Symmetries in Physics (1600-1980).” The meeting’s major speaker on the Noether theorem was Hans A. Kastrup from Aachen, 1408
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Germany. His paper, “The Contributions of Emmy Noether, Felix Klein, and Sophus Lie to the Modern Concept of Symmetries in Physical Systems,” was published in the proceedings of the conference in 1987. In 1981, an anthology, Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work, was published to commemorate Noether’s one hundredth birthday. This great scientist is now very well known, and her personal stories have been told through a number of magazine articles, one of which was titled “Emmy Noether: She Did Einstein’s Math.” That part of her math is her 1918 achievement, but many specialists point out that it represents only a minor part of her total mathematical contribution. — Wen-yuan Qian Further Reading Brewer, James, and Martha Smith, eds. Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1981. Includes articles by several specialists, Noether’s former colleagues. Valuable for its history of twentieth century mathematics. Dick, Auguste. Emmy Noether, 1882-1935. Translated by Heide I. Blocher. 1970. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Birkhäuser Boston, 1981. The earliest biography of Noether in a single volume. Authoritative. Includes Weyl’s often-quoted memorial address. Feynman, Richard P. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Rev. ed. 3 vols. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 2005. Text of lectures Feynman delivered in the early 1960’s; geared for college physics students. Reads like a verbatim record of Feynman’s lively language. Kastrup, Hans A. “The Contributions of Emmy Noether, Felix Klein, and Sophus Lie to the Modern Concept of Symmetries in Physical Systems.” In Symmetries in Physics (1600-1980). Proceedings of the First International Meeting on the History of Scientific Ideas, edited by Manuel G. Doncel, Armin Hermann, Louis Michel, and Abraham Pais. Barcelona: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 1987. Although somewhat technical, provides an excellent view of the “internal history” of science. Kramer, Edna E. The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics. 1970. Reprint. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Discusses outstanding mathematicians around Noether as well as the topic of invariants. Unfortunately, does not include the two theorems or the topic of conservation. Weyl, Hermann. Symmetry. 1952. Reprint. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. As the late
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1950’s witnessed feverish discussion on symmetries among physicists, this brief popular book can be described as timely, even prophetic. Introduces the general, abstract notions of group, geometry, symmetry, and so on by discussing the prevalence of symmetry in nature and the arts.
Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government See also: 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1909: Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra; 1921: Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings.
1918-1919
Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government The German Revolution marked a defeat for autocratic monarchy and a victory for responsible government. Locale: Germany Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics Key Figures Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), leader of the German Social Democrats and first president of the Weimar Republic Maximilian (1867-1929), last chancellor of the German Empire, October-November, 1918 Philipp Scheidemann (1865-1939), first chancellor of the Weimar Republic Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919), German Socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), German Socialist leader Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), German general Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), German general Wilhelm Groener (1867-1939), German general
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Summary of Event The German Revolution of 1918-1919 was a direct result of the German defeat in World War I. As of 1914, only a handful of German liberals were also “Republicans.” Members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) were revisionist Marxists, too old and conservative to promote revolution, and German society was too prosperous and complacent to demand radical change. Four years of war, blockade, rationing, casualties, and shortages greatly reduced German national morale. The failure to end the war victoriously was a factor in the German industrial strike of January, 1918, the first major sign of popular antiwar sentiment. The strike was called off on February 3 as Germany prepared for the 1918 drive to take Paris. When this gamble failed, Germany’s chance for victory was gone. The nation’s allies (Bul-
garia, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary) began to capitulate or collapse, and the outnumbered German soldiers on the western front began to surrender. Germany’s enemies (Britain, France, the United States, and Italy) advanced with increasing confidence, divided on some territorial issues but united in their war aim of demanding the removal of the German emperor, William II, whom they blamed for the war itself. In September of 1918, the German high command— Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff—insisted that the emperor’s new chancellor, Maximilian, prince of Baden, seek an immediate armistice from the Allies and also form a broader coalition government, including the Centrists, Progressives, and Socialists, whom Ludendorff blamed for his military defeat. The armistice notes between Maximilian and U.S. president Woodrow Wilson clearly pressured Maximilian into making the October 28 reforms by which the emperor’s veto power in the Bundesrat, his personal control of the chancellor, and his personal command of the army were all ceded to the popularly elected Reichstag. On paper, the emperor had become only a figurehead. Wilson, however, persistently declined to make any binding commitment to William II, who headed the Allies’ list of German war criminals to be tried. The German people began to view their emperor as an obstacle in the armistice negotiations. Decisive events were set in motion when the German navy’s October 28 order for a quixotic “last battle” against the British caused a seamen’s mutiny beginning on October 29. This incident sparked a flame of revolt that spread through northern and western German cities, with demonstrators calling for peace, bread, and William II’s abdication. As the authority of the German Empire crumbled, the Berlin Socialist leaders, who had planned to seize power after the armistice signing at Compiègne, France, on November 11, 1918, were forced to advance this action by two days.
Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government Saturday, November 9, became the day of the German Revolution. Berlin’s workers staged marches and shouted for the emperor to step down. In the chancellery, Maximilian and a changing group of political leaders agreed that the time for abdication had come. They telephoned their views to the General Staff Headquarters at Spa, where the emperor listened to Hindenburg, Wilhelm Groener (Ludendorff’s replacement), and other generals emphatically telling him that he no longer had the support of the troops and must abdicate. At noon, as the demonstrators converged on the chancellery, Maximilian had the Wolff Telegraph Agency announce that William II had resolved to renounce the throne, although in fact the emperor fled to Holland on November 10 before signing any documents of abdication. Meanwhile, Maximilian invited Friedrich Ebert to become chancellor. Ebert was the leader of the Social Democrats, the largest single party in the adjourned Reichstag. With this peaceful if dubiously legal step, the German party leaders combined legitimacy with revolution. Ebert’s immediate task was to calm the crowds in Berlin, where fifteen people had been killed, as a first step toward establishing national control and order. Near day’s end he received a telephone call from General Groener, who promised the support of Hindenburg and the army. The most potent force on the German right appeared to accept the revolution. Late the following afternoon, some three thousand socialists, workers, and soldiers met at the Berlin Circus Busch to establish a new revolutionary government. Amid speeches calling for socialist unity, three SPD members, including Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann, were chosen as commissars, as were three leaders of the Independent Socialist Party (USDP). A small band of antiwar radicals who called themselves Spartacists, for the leader of a Roman slave revolt, were excluded from any substantive role. The Spartacist leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, declined any honorary posts. Constitutional questions were left to a later National Assembly, and social and human rights issues were left to a future Reich Congress of Workers and Soldiers. The “bloody days” of the revolution in December and January stemmed from Berlin police power disputes between paramilitary leaders. After the Marstall incident of December 23-24, the Independent Socialists resigned as commissars and became active opponents of the bourgeois-socialist coalition. The Spartacists, again excluded from power at the December 16-18 Reich Congress of 1410
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Councils, turned to the desperate expedient of depending on the prestige and financial support of a foreign source, Russian communism, represented in Germany by Lenin’s agent, Karl Radek. The German Community Party, or KPD, was established in Berlin on January 1, 1919. In the hope of gaining broader support, the new party joined the Berlin police dispute in January. At the Sunday, January 5, mass demonstration in the Siegesallee, the USDP, KPD, and Shop Stewards proclaimed Ebert’s overthrow, the establishment of a revolutionary government, and a general strike for January 6. Seriously threatened, Ebert’s government fought back, resorting to right-wing Freikorps volunteers to suppress the uprising. On January 15, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were apprehended, brought to Freikorps headquarters at the Hotel Eden, openly clubbed into insensibility, and subsequently shot. The SPD coalition government began to depend increasingly on aggressive Freikorps elements of a reviving right wing. In the National Assembly elections of January 19, the SPD polled 37.9 percent and the Independents 7.6 percent, a 45.5 percent total that was socialism’s best showing in the Weimar era but not a mandate for socialization. The assembly elected Ebert as provisional president and Scheidemann as chancellor. Sporadic civil strife in Germany continued from January through May, with twelve hundred or more killed in Berlin in March. The Second Reich Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils met April 8-14 to discuss economic and social goals for the projected councils that were to be part of the new government. These sessions were the most extensive discussions of citizens’ rights and socialization plans by a major forum during the revolution. Some of their ideas were referred to in the new constitution, but not always in enforceable form. After the June 28 signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar National Assembly voted approval (262 to 75) of the new constitution, which went into effect on August 11, 1919. The national government returned from Weimar to Berlin. The Weimar Constitution, drafted by a committee under Professor Hugo Preuss, made Germany a people’s state republic governed by parliamentary democracy. Proportional representation in the Reichstag gave voting status to small minority parties, making it difficult for any one party to gain a majority, and coalition governments were the norm in the Weimar period. Suffrage for men and women at age twenty was universal. Article 48 of the constitution gave the president extensive emergency powers that were sig-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nificant in the decline and fall of the republic from 1930 to 1933. The constitution’s fifty-seven clauses devoted to individual and group rights were hailed as advanced and groundbreaking. Some of these, however, were only the philosophical slogans of different political parties: “All Germans are equal before the law”; “Motherhood has a claim to the protection and care of the state”; “War veterans shall receive special consideration”; “The right of private property is guaranteed”; “Freedom of contract prevails”; and “Labor is under the special protection of the Commonwealth.” Some of these ideas were sorted into practical gains by the Reichstag or by the National Economic Council, but the councils often became tools of business interests. The constitution’s economic promises were hard to achieve, even before the stock market crash in 1929. In the spring of 1920, the army’s “Kapp Putsch” in Berlin and subsequent national elections showed a distinct ultraconservative trend. The most dangerous threats to the Weimar Republic came from the nationalist right, fatally consolidated in 1933 by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi movement.
was the failure to develop a revolutionary armed force similar to the Red Army, which Trotsky created in Russia. Some critics have overlooked the extent of political confusion and revulsion against war that dominated postarmistice Germany. Less easy to comprehend is the republic’s failure to reform and purge the judiciary, the civil service, and the educational system. Conservative judges were notoriously lenient to right-wing extremists, and higher education in the humanities and sciences was overwhelmingly limited to upper-class and upper-middle-class students. The “workers’ republic” treated the working class as inferior, while right- and left-wing intellectuals derided and ridiculed the institutions and leaders of the republic. The division of the Left was a problem for the revolution. No single party had a majority in the Reichstag, and the Social Democratic leaders of 1918 were already known as revisionists and reformers rather than Marxist radicals. If Ebert and his colleagues were guilty of betraying the revolution and stabbing the revolution in the back, as some accused, they did it in plain sight and with the support of the voters. It was the minority extremists who perpetuated the division, while blaming it on the majority. In broad terms, the German Revolution of 1918 and the Weimar Republic were the products of defeat and were burdened by the Treaty of Versailles, the Ruhr occupation, the inflation of 1923, and mass unemployment following the stock market crash of 1929. In spite of all this, after the Nazi era and the devastation that Germany brought on itself in World War II, the West German people in 1949 resurrected a republican government much like the Weimar regime of 1919. — K. Fred Gillum Further Reading Caldwell, Peter C. Popular Sovereignty and the Crisis of German Constitutional Law: The Theory and Practice of Weimar Constitutionalism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997. Presents analysis of the debates concerning political theory and constitutional law that took place in the Weimar Republic. Includes bibliography and index. Coper, Rudolf. Failure of a Revolution. London: Cambridge University Press, 1955. Brief, readable account, decidedly pro-Spartacist in interpretation. Includes bibliography and index. Eyck, Eric. A History of the Weimar Republic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962. Standard general history of the period supplies a German 1411
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Significance The German Revolution and the Weimar Republic had more of a lasting impact on the German people than on Germany’s neighbors, who hoped that defeat in World War I had shown Germany the folly of aggressive nationalism and militarism. Later, after the Nazi takeover of 1933, the German Revolution and the Weimar Republic were widely blamed for failing to prevent this calamity. In fact, the Weimar era did make some progress in human rights. Ending the arbitrary monarchy of the Hohenzollerns and the legal titles of hereditary nobility were steps in democratization, as were suffrage and equal rights for women and the end of Prussia’s property-based three-class suffrage system. The regulation of working conditions, especially for children, was a real reform, as were improvements in health, both in conjunction with the League of Nations. In the field of civil liberties, the Weimar Constitution balanced individual and group rights in search of a German sense of community, with state intervention permissible only by authority of law. Certainly, the Weimar Republic was involved in misadventures and mistakes. In Germany as elsewhere, direct government provisions proved disappointing. The most significant use of the referendum was in the 1929 Nazi-Nationalist propaganda attack on the Young Plan of war reparations financing. More frequently criticized
Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government
Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair perspective. Coverage of the 1918 revolution is brief. Includes notes, extensive bibliography, and index. Haffner, Sebastian. Failure of a Revolution. Translated by George Rapp André. 1973. Reprint. Chicago: Banner Press, 1986. Ludendorff and Ebert are the chief villains in this brief and entertaining but superficial and even fanciful account. Includes index of persons only. Halperin, S. William. Germany Tried Democracy. 1946. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. Well-written survey of the years 1918 to 1933 presents the interpretation that the Weimar Republic “was sabotaged by friend and foe alike.” Includes extensive bibliography and index. Lutz, R. H. The Fall of the German Empire. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1932. Contains a selection of documents and articles from Lutz’s twelve-volume work, Causes of the German Collapse in 1918 (University of California Press, 1934). Includes chronology of events and index. Mommsen, Hans. The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Translated by Elborg Forster and Larry Eugene Jones. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Examines the period of the Weimar Republic from the perspective of Germany’s political and economic history. Includes selected bibliography and index. Pinson, Koppel. Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization. 2d ed. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Press, 1989. College textbook includes detailed information on the German collapse and revolution in 1918-1919. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Rosenberg, Arthur. The Birth of the German Republic. Translated by Ian F. D. Morrow. 1931. Reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1962. Classic account by a USDP-KPD participant and scholar. Author’s political viewpoint does color his interpretation, but the narrative gives a valuable sense of the period. Ryder, A. J. The German Revolution of 1918. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967. Broad-based, scholarly work updates some of the earlier research. One of the most useful single volumes on the subject. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Scheidemann, Philipp. The Making of New Germany. Translated by J. E. Mitchell. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton, 1929. Memoirs present Scheidemann’s impressions of the events of November 9 and 10, of which he was a witness and participant. Waldman, Eric. The Spartacist Uprising of 1919 and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1958. Brief, clear, and critically well-balanced analysis of crucial factors within the Spartacist movement. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. See also: July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933.
1918-1919
Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair Gerrit Thomas Rietveld’s red-blue chair illustrated the program of the Dutch avant-garde de Stijl movement and was an influential early example of the machine aesthetic of modernism. Locale: Utrecht, the Netherlands Categories: Fashion and design; arts Key Figures Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (1888-1964), Dutch designer and architect Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), Dutch painter, decorator, and poet Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Dutch artist 1412
Summary of Event At the age of eleven, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was an apprentice in his father’s cabinetmaking shop, designing and building pieces derivative of medieval and Louis XV styles. By 1915, after he had finished an additional apprenticeship with the premier goldsmith in Holland and had successfully completed several pieces of furniture in the studio of his drawing teacher, the Dutch architect J. P. Klaarhamer, Rietveld opened his own shop in Utrecht. His early work was typical of the rectilinear craftsman style of early twentieth century architects and designers in Western Europe and the United States, displaying a simple, unpretentious attitude toward both materials and construction.
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stered chair, the seat and back of the chair do support the body comfortably in a relaxed seated posture. The hard surfaces and angular qualities of the red-blue chair, however, reinforce the design’s primary purpose as a kind of three-dimensional theorem: a demonstration of seat construction, an examination of spatial plasticity, and a diagram of the forces of pressure and weight. For example, the separation of supporting and supported parts infuses the chair with the appearance of weightlessness and celebrates the mysterious properties of space. The red-blue chair reveals that although space may seem to be defined by juxtaposed, contrasting solid forms, it is simultaneously an uninterrupted void. The addition of color to the design reinforced the chair’s sculptural qualities. The first versions of the chair were either bleached to emphasize the lines of the wood grain or stained a neutral black. After Rietveld joined the de Stijl movement in 1919, perhaps at the suggestion of its founder and leader, Theo van Doesburg, a painted version of the chair appeared on the cover of the magazine De Stijl. The chair’s design evolved to include a red backrest and a blue seat, and the listels were lacquered black, with bright yellow ends. These color choices were not capricious; rather, Rietveld sought to emphasize the chair’s abstract qualities and to reinforce the active interplay between the continuous and contiguous spaces that surround and penetrate it. The color scheme and the form of Rietveld’s red-blue chair point up a number of the issues with which Rietveld grappled throughout his distinguished career. In Rietveld’s hands, furniture became both architectural and sculptural, symbolically and communicatively uniting function and aesthetics. In the early 1920’s, he built a group of dynamically formalistic wooden buffets, tables, and chairs. His experiments with metal, however, were less successful and less innovative. In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, Rietveld’s rather clumsy tubular-steel designs were manufactured by the Dutch firm of Metz and Company, and in the 1940’s he made a few pieces in bent aluminum. Happily, Rietveld continued to create wooden chairs throughout his life. In 1934, he cantilevered the seat, back, support, and base planes of his “zigzag” chair and added the oblique angle to the vocabulary of seating. Rietveld’s “crate” system, designed during the Great Depression for Metz and Company, celebrated the material qualities of wood itself. Although the crate design was originally commissioned to create furniture suitable for weekend houses, Rietveld’s intention was to offer a readily available collection of useful and inexpensive 1413
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After World War I, however, Rietveld’s work moved in a new direction. From 1918 to 1920, he designed a variety of domestic objects, ranging from chairs and lamps to a baby buggy, that were experiments in a new sort of modern sensibility, dependent on neither historical precedents nor craft production concerns. Rietveld “exploded” his designs, reassembling the parts so that normally massive everyday objects were replaced by pieces that were lighter than the originals in both appearance and construction. His chairs, in particular, united functional and theoretical concerns. Perhaps influenced by the writings of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who visited Holland in 1909 and whose designs generated considerable interest in Europe, Rietveld began to test the variety of ways in which construction, form, and materials might be manipulated. A central innovation of Rietveld’s work was a redefinition of the meaning of space. In all of his designs, from buildings to buffets, from chairs to toys, Rietveld recognized that space was a central, significant, and neglected element in design. Space became a meaningful component of every piece, intersecting with and penetrating its structure. The range and depth of these experiments, especially in furniture design, were the basis of much of Rietveld’s later achievement in architectural design. The red-blue chair, built in 1918, is a perfect illustration of the ways in which Rietveld’s interest in space allowed him to attend to both practical and abstract design objectives. From 1916 on, Rietveld and his craftsmen experimented with a variety of construction theories and practices. The most provocative of these was a manipulation of the Cartesian coordinates of zenith, abscissa, and ordinate into a structural module, the elements of which might be pivoted, extended into planes, and repeated to form furniture. Rietveld decided to construct a chair that would exploit this theoretical idea while at the same time using the dimensions and proportions of the furniture he had made in Klaarhamer’s studio. The prototype chair was made of inexpensive pieces of unpainted wood. Thirteen listels acted as the chair’s structural framework, and two pieces of plywood formed the back and seat of the design. In addition, traditional wooden pegs were used to join the pieces of the chair together; for the most part, however, the pegs were invisible. The original design included pentagonal sidepieces set below the arms, but these were removed soon after construction. Although the red-blue chair’s appearance does not seem to promise the comfort of a traditionally uphol-
Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair
Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair pieces. Using industrial-quality untreated red spruce of the sort used for packing cases, Rietveld designed the first “knock-down” furniture. Many of these pieces repeated the projection and crisscrossing of structural lines into space that were characteristic of Rietveld’s work beginning with the red-blue chair. Despite the breadth, depth, and quality of Rietveld’s work, he is best known for one of his earliest pieces. His important interior designs, his innovative architectural commissions such as the Schroder House (1924) and Ilpendam House (1958-1959), and his experiments with furniture, which lasted into the 1950’s, were all outgrowths of Rietveld’s interest in the geometry of lines and planes and the shape and meaning of enclosed and enclosing space. These preoccupations were first made manifest in the red-blue chair, which illustrated a provocative and significant new way of thinking about the relationships between objects and their environments. The red-blue chair is a classic illustration of important developments in modern art, architecture, and design. Significance Because furniture making is generally considered an “applied” or “minor” art, individual pieces are rarely given the status that was almost immediately attached to the red-blue chair. Whereas artists often use designs for domestic objects such as furniture to experiment with stylistic and technological innovations, architecture is more commonly celebrated, both as an art form and as an exercise in functional problem solving. Furniture and its design are thus commonly viewed as less important than architectural projects or the visual arts. This was not the case in the de Stijl movement, which generated high-quality projects in architecture, typography, painting, and furniture. Within de Stijl, furniture design received an unusual amount of attention, a fact that accounts for Rietveld’s early prestige in the group. Although he joined de Stijl after designing the prototype for the red-blue chair, the chair is regarded as a significant example of the movement’s aesthetic and as a prime illustration of de Stijl principles of neoplasticism and abstract geometry. The chair’s significance in this regard is underscored by its role in stimulating the theoretical and conceptual work of two central members of de Stijl, Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. De Stijl, Dutch for “the style,” is the name taken by a group of radical artists, writers, and architects organized by the semitheoretical architect Theo van Doesburg in Leiden in 1917. The group published a monthly magazine, De Stijl, in which it argued for a new style of visual 1414
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 arts that might stimulate and mirror the new style of life emerging in post-World War I Europe. Van Doesburg edited the magazine from its conception until his death, and he used the publication to espouse the “neoplastic” aesthetic, which rejected overt representation, celebrated the straight edge and the plane, and used a palette limited to the primary colors and black, white, and gray. Van Doesburg’s inclusion of Rietveld’s design in a 1919 issue of De Stijl signaled a long-lasting collaboration between the two men and a broadening of the movement’s concern with development of a unified approach to the arts. Piet Mondrian is probably the best-known member of de Stijl. Van Doesburg may have been the driving force behind the movement, but Mondrian was its most successful practitioner. He championed the primacy of painting in the creation of the utopian future that was at the center of the de Stijl vision. He was particularly concerned with reforming the visual arts so that they could take their proper place at the center of life, providing organizing principles and generating a new moral code. Like Rietveld’s red-blue chair, Mondrian’s paintings experiment with the neoplastic aesthetic. As a matter of fact, Mondrian wrote a pamphlet in 1920, Le Néoplasticisme, which he dedicated to a future shaped by this new form of art. Curiously, Mondrian believed that as reform took hold, painting would gradually disappear as a meaningful art form. This concept is nicely paralleled in Rietveld’s red-blue chair, which may be seen as dissolving into the surrounding space. De Stijl, like the Russian constructivist and the German Bauhaus movements, explored a broad spectrum of art forms. The de Stijl vision was a modern one, emphasizing an abstract, rational, and revolutionary relationship between the arts and industrial production that, adherents believed, would lead to the creation of a modern, utopian society. The modern movement in design was characterized by an emphasis on the illustration of abstract principles and a passion for simplicity, flavored by interest in the emerging promise and requirements of machine production. In an interesting evolution of his early training, all Rietveld’s post-World War I designs, including the redblue chair, were produced according to a sort of industrial rationale. Rietveld was interested in producing furniture that could be manufactured by machine for a modest price—at once making it readily available and freeing the craftsman from the tedium of repetitive manual labor. This romantic connection of industrialization and social ideals was typical of the late nineteenth and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 early twentieth centuries. For the most part, the resulting designs were pseudomechanistic at best; although the modern aesthetic celebrated, and perhaps even revered, the machine, few such designs were produced under industrial conditions, and even fewer were mass-produced. Most of Rietveld’s furniture, like the red-blue chair, was built in his Utrecht shop. It was not until 1971, when the Italian firm of Cassina began to reproduce a number of classic designs of the early modernists, that the chair was part of anything resembling factory production, and its price has remained beyond the purchasing power of most consumers. Given Rietveld’s background and his interest in producing well-designed products for everyday use, it is ironic that his most famous chair is valued more as a work of art than as a functional seat. The contradiction, however, does not diminish the significance of what he accomplished. The red-blue chair occupies a central position in the history of design because of its preliminary conclusions to the issues that would preoccupy Rietveld in his other designs (including seventy-four other pieces of furniture), because of its power as a physical manifestation of the tenets of de Stijl, and because of its concrete illustration of the philosophy of modern design. —J. R. Donath Further Reading Baroni, Daniele. The Furniture of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron’s, 1977. Translated from an Italian original, this volume continues to be a central source for those interested in Rietveld’s work. Divides Rietveld’s career into three phases and contextualizes his furniture designs within the larger body of his oeuvre. Well illustrated, although with mostly black-and-white plates. Brown, Theodore M. The Work of G. Rietveld, Architect. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1958. Although pri-
Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair marily concerned with Rietveld’s architectural commissions, this detailed and organized (and somewhat dry) volume does address his furniture designs. Includes translations and transcriptions in Dutch of several essays by Rietveld, notes, index, and bibliography. Friedman, Mildred, ed. De Stijl, 1917-1931: Visions of Utopia. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1982. Lavishly illustrated catalog of an exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center. Includes well-written essays on various elements and personalities of the de Stijl movement by prominent scholars. Excellent and comprehensive biography section with short bibliographies, chronology, and index. Jaffé, Hans Ludwig C. De Stijl, 1917-1931: The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1986. A complete and exhaustive history of de Stijl that also considers the movement’s influence on modern arts and life. Particular emphasis on the work of Piet Mondrian. A few plates (all blackand-white), notes, and bibliography. Overy, Paul. De Stijl. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. Excellent general overview of the ideas, projects, and personalities associated with de Stijl. Includes illustrations, select bibliography, and index. White, Michael. De Stijl and Dutch Modernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Focuses on the local context of the de Stijl movement in examining Dutch modernism. Discusses the relationship between mass culture and the fine arts. See also: 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship.
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Russian Civil War
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1918-1921
Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War marked the consolidation of Bolshevik power against an array of anti-Communist groups that were never able to unite politically or coordinate their military forces. Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Nikolay Vasilyevich Chaykovsky (1850-1926), Socialist Revolutionary Party leader of anti-Soviet movement in northern Russia Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1947), commander of White forces in southern Russia Aleksandr Kolchak (1874-1920), White commander in Siberia and White “supreme ruler,” 1918-1920 Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov (1870-1918), commander of White forces in southern Russia Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Bolshevik leader and head of Communist Russia, 1917-1924 Nestor Makhno (1889-1934), Ukrainian anarchist peasant leader Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), Red Army commander and commissar of war after 1918 Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (1878-1928), commander of White forces in southern Russia Nikolay Nikolayevich Yudenich (1862-1933), White commander in northwest Russia Summary of Event Any revolution that suddenly topples a long-standing regime is likely to face continued resistance from remnants of the “old order.” Opposition can be centered among embittered émigrés who flee to distant havens of refuge, or it can take the form of open counterrevolution. When Vladimir Ilich Lenin and his Bolshevik followers staged their successful coup in November, 1917 (October according to the Julian calendar in use in Russia at the time), the new Soviet government encountered both types of residual opposition. Many anti-Bolshevik Russians sensed the seriousness of Bolshevik aims and fled the country for Paris, New York, and other Western cities, where they continued to oppose the Bolshevik regime. By far the most serious threat to the Bolshevik Revolution was a series of armed uprisings that shook the 1416
edges of Soviet Russia from 1918 through 1921. These uprisings, collectively known as the Russian Civil War, for a time posed a serious threat to the infant Soviet state. Lenin’s eventual victory ensured the triumph of the Communist experiment in Russia. The White (anti-Bolshevik) movement included, at one time or another, several politically incompatible groups: patriotic socialists, liberals, and military officers who rejected Lenin’s separate peace with Germany and his suppression of the Constituent Assembly; national minorities seeking independence from Russia; reactionaries who wished to revive the autocracy and restore all land seized by the peasants to its former owners; and peasants who, although fearing the return of the nobles whose lands they had usurped, resented the forcible confiscation of grain by armed Bolshevik detachments sent to collect food for the cities. These disparate groups, moreover, were not concentrated in a single area, but widely scattered across the vast Russian empire. White forces in southern Russia centered in a volunteer army augmented by Cossack forces. Led in succession by Generals Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov, Anton Ivanovich Denikin, and Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel from 1918 through 1920, the volunteer army attempted to simultaneously maintain both an anti-Soviet and antiGerman campaign. Politically, the campaign aimed for restoration of an assembly form of government featuring traditional political parties. The southern movement, however, was hampered by a lack of cohesion in its daily operations, which would lead to ultimate defeat. Siberia proved to be another important center of White activity. Here fighting erupted in 1918 between Soviet troops and the famous Czechoslovak Legion, which had been recruited from captured Austro-Hungarian soldiers to fight for the Allies against the Central Powers. The legion was on its way through Siberia for eventual crossing into North America and from there to the western front in Europe when frictions with the Soviets erupted into violence. The legion, comprising some thirty-five thousand troops, abandoned plans to leave Russia and effectively sealed off the Siberian east, creating a zone where anti-Soviet movements might flourish. Ultimately, the Siberian White movement was led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak. Smaller White movements were based in seaports on the White and Baltic Seas. Northern anti-Soviet movements, led by Nikolay Vasilyevich Chaykovsky, relied
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Russian Civil War
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heavily on British troops brought in as part of the Allied generals, who wanted to keep the Russian empire intact. intervention. So did the White forces in Estonia, where Of great importance in the Ukrainian movement was the the White movement was under the control of General peasant leader Nestor Makhno, an avowed anarchist who Nikolay Nikolayevich Yudenich. The first year of the was not aligned with either side. By 1920, the Soviets civil war was characterized by savage partisan warfare had crushed the Ukrainian independence movement and between small, mobile units. Unable to hold captured terestablished control over most of the Caucasus. ritory by leaving behind an army of occupation, these Another aspect of the civil war had more diplomatic units frequently resorted to terror to pacify the populathan military impact. This was the famous intervention tion. By the fall of 1918, both Reds (Soviets) and Whites of the Allied armed forces of Great Britain, France, the had managed to form regular armies. Although indepenUnited States, and Japan in Russia in 1918. Japan, in dent partisan units still operated and both sides continued landing its forces at Vladivostok, had definite territorial to use terror, the decisive engagements of 1919 and 1920 aims, a stance that did not characterize the other interwere fought by these better organized armies along more ventionist powers. British, French, and American troops clearly defined fronts. At first, these White forces, peripheral though they were, scored Russian Civil War, 1918-1921 some impressive victories. Indeed, for a time in 1919, they threatened the Soviet regime. In the south, Gen= Battle site eral Denikin scored key victories, notably his capture of Kiev in Septemn ber, 1919. By November, however, the Red Army (Soviet) launched a reF i n la n d sounding counteroffensive that drove the remnants of the volunteer army into the Crimea, whence under Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel they were later evacuated in disarray. In Siberia, Admiral Alexsandr Kolchak began an Estonia Petrograd Baltic offensive against key sites near the Sea Novgorod Volga River. Kolchak rode a wave of Riga military successes through March, Latvia 1919, but with the Volga threatened, Lithuania Moscow the Red Army repelled his forces Smolensk East Kazan Prussia R u ssia through the month of April. Attempts y an m r by northern Whites based in ArchanMinsk Poland Ge Orel gel to link up with Kolchak’s troops Simbirsk Brest-Litovsk Cz failed, as did two attacks by Yudeec ho Kiev slov nich’s forces against Petrograd. By akia Ukraine the winter of 1919-1920, impressive Be ria s Aust White campaigns ceased. Hungary The anti-Soviet revolt was also Odessa Romania Tsaritsyn joined by forces from Russia’s miYu g osl nority nationalities, particularly in the Sevastopol av Ad ia ri Ukraine and the Caucasus, where Se at Bulgaria Black Sea a ic fierce nationalist pride motivated e many to use the civil war as a backeec Gr Georgia drop for national independence. The Albania Turkey national minorities, however, were unwilling to cooperate with the White sa r
a b ia
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Russian Civil War were sent to Vladivostok, Odessa, and Archangel, but seldom played a direct combat role. Instead, these Western forces acted as suppliers of arms, aid, and advice to the White forces to help them fight both Germany and the Bolsheviks. By 1919, with the end of World War I, the Allied forces were withdrawn, as the rationale of restoring Russia to the Triple Entente no longer mattered. By 1920, the Russian Civil War was nearing completion with Soviet victory. The volunteer army had been chased out of the Crimea, evacuated via Istanbul to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (as Yugoslavia was then known), ending all southern resistance. In Siberia, the tired and demoralized Czechoslovak Legion, which had buttressed the eastern White forces, quit the field and handed Kolchak over to the Soviets, who promptly executed the admiral in February, 1920. With Allied forces gone, the civil uprising was over. Significance Several factors explain how the fledgling Soviet state won the civil war. The Soviet forces had the advantage of defending interior lines, whereas the Whites were fighting the offensive from the periphery of Russia. Transportation and communications had been difficult even before the destruction Russia had suffered because of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. It proved exceedingly difficult for the Whites to fight a united war, given their disparate locations and lack of political unity. Leon Trotsky, who was made commissar of war by the Lenin government in March, 1918, quickly abandoned many Bolshevik concepts of a people’s army that had held sway since 1917. Discipline of a strict type was restored, as was the practice of conscription. Trotsky recruited several thousand czarist officers who out of patriotism were willing to help the Bolsheviks defend Russia. The Red Army did not have to defend far-flung points such as those held by the Whites. The Bolsheviks controlled a larger population than the Whites, and they had most of the defense industries. The Red Army therefore enjoyed a decisive edge in manpower resources and armaments, and its rear was not threatened by rebellious national minorities. In addition, the Red Army, quite unlike the Whites, had a unified outlook and program that lifted members’ morale as the war continued. Finally, although the peasants frequently rebelled against Bolshevik grain requisitions, they were even more fearful of
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a White victory and return of the nobility. Lenin’s government, under a program of “War Communism,” thus obtained the necessary sacrifices from the Soviet populace to secure victory. —Edward A. Zivich and Richard D. King Further Reading Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. An interpretive essay of the years 1917-1938. Kennan, George F. Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. Written by a distinguished scholar and diplomat, this book is a good starting point for studying the causes and consequences of Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 1999. A vivid narrative addressed to a general audience that captures the violence and brutality of the civil war. Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. A balanced survey, particularly strong on military aspects of the civil war. Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. New York: Vintage, 1995. This book addresses cultural and religious affairs, the non-Russian nationalities, and Soviet attempts to export the Bolshevik Revolution. Swain, Geoffrey. The Origins of the Russian Civil War. London: Longman, 1996. Concentrating on events in 1918, this study emphasizes foreign intervention and the desires of the peasants, who were caught between the Reds and the Whites. Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: A New Biography. Translated and edited by Harold Shukman. New York: Free Press, 1994. Written by a former Soviet general who became highly critical of the Soviet system created by the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. See also: Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; 19171918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy
January 8, 1918
Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy From his studies of star clusters, Harlow Shapley deduced the size of the Milky Way galaxy and Earth’s location within it. Locale: Mount Wilson Observatory, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer, humanitarian, and civil libertarian Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922), Dutch astronomer Adriaan van Maanen (1884-1946), Dutch American astronomer Heber Doust Curtis (1872-1942), American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer
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Summary of Event Over the centuries, the question of humans’ place in the universe has been a very fruitful area of inquiry for both science and religion. After giving the matter long and careful thought, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle concluded that Earth lay in the center of the universe and that the universe visible to humans ended at the sphere of stars that lay just beyond the planets. He considered the possibility that Earth might move around the Sun but could find no evidence to support this idea. It thus seemed that the universe was a cozy abode for humans and was focused on humans at its center, as the Greeks supposed their gods had intended. Some nineteen hundred years later, Nicolaus Copernicus established the Sun as the center of the universe. As it seemed that the Sun was largely here for our benefit, human beings could still consider themselves special because of their location in the universe. At about this same time, Christian scholars began to suggest that God, being infinite, must have a domain far more extensive than Earth and the heavens that surround it. This was not a new idea, given that Christian cosmological understandings from late antiquity had generally accepted Ptolemy’s claim that the Earth was but a small point in a vastly large universe. The writings of early Church fathers, such as St. Augustine, largely adopted this Ptolemaic cosmological assertion. The English astronomer Thomas Diggs supposed that the stars were dis-
tributed throughout an infinite universe and that myriad planets orbited these stars and were inhabited by the creations of God. Several astronomers attempted to discover how stars were distributed throughout space by doing “star counts.” These efforts culminated in the work of Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn. In its simplest form, the star-counting method requires counting the number of stars seen in a patch of the sky. Some stars will look faint and others bright. If it is assumed that all stars would be equally bright if they were all placed at the same distance from Earth, then the faint stars are faint only because they are farther away. After one has repeated this process for many patches across the sky, one can construct a model of our galaxy. Suppose one had the means to place tiny sparks in the surrounding air and they would stay put. Using the data from the star counters, the model would be shaped rather like a grindstone, a squat cylinder many times wider than it is thick. The Sun would be about in the center. In order to establish a scale for the model, one might assume that all the stars are as bright as the Sun. One must then deduce how far away they must be in order to look as dim as they do in the sky. All stars do not have the same brightness as the Sun, however. Some are brighter, but most are fainter. In order to improve the model, a better method is needed to estimate distances to stars. This was Kapteyn’s specialty. He began by using parallax to determine distances to nearby stars. Parallax is the apparent change in position of an object produced by a real change in position of the viewer. Perhaps the most familiar example of parallax is that objects near the road appear to move rapidly as one drives past, whereas the farther from the road an object is, the more slowly it seems to move. In a similar fashion, as Earth moves around the Sun, nearby stars appear to move as seen from Earth. Measuring how much the stars seem to move allows one to find the accurate distance to nearby stars. The parallax of even the nearby stars is quite small and can be detected only with cameras and telescopes. This explains why Aristotle was unable to detect stellar parallax even though he searched carefully for it. Knowing the distances to many stars, one can now calculate the brightness of different kinds of stars and use that information to estimate how far away distant stars
Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy of a given type are from Earth. Kapteyn’s “grindstone” galaxy, also called “Kapteyn’s universe,” was ragged around the edges and had the Sun just off center. Overall, it was 30,000 light-years across and 6,000 light-years thick. (A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year. For comparison, it takes light slightly more than eight minutes to make the trip from the Sun to Earth.) Harlow Shapley took a different approach. Scattered throughout the sky are ball-shaped groups of stars called globular clusters. Rich clusters contain tens to hundreds of thousands of stars and, therefore, can be seen even when they are relatively distant. To determine how far away the clusters were, Shapley used a new method involving a rare type of star called a variable star. Variable stars grow bright and dim as they swell in size and then shrink. Some variable stars have very regular periods of hours, days, or months. In 1908, Henrietta Swan Leavitt of the Harvard College Observatory discovered that for certain variable stars, the brighter the star, the longer its period. These particular stars are called Cepheid variables because the first star of this kind was found in the constellation Cepheus. Shapley supposed the Cepheids to be the same as the variable stars he found in globular clusters. He measured their periods and used Leavitt’s results to calculate how bright these cluster variables should be. Comparing this value with how bright they looked, Shapley could then calculate how far away they must be. If globular clusters were placed on the grindstone galaxy model, one would find that none of them fit into the grindstone. Instead, the clusters would float above and below the grindstone and would occupy a roughly spherical volume. Two other aspects of the model would be striking: First, the sphere of globular clusters would be ten times the size of Kapteyn’s grindstone; second, the center of the cloud of clusters would be well off to one side of the grindstone. Assuming that the globular clusters reflected the structure of our galaxy, Shapley found the Milky Way to be 300,000 light-years across, with its center 50,000 light-years from the Sun in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Later, Shapley would write in his book The View from a Distant Star (1963), “It was a shocking thought—this sudden realization that the center of our universe was not where we stood but far off in space, that our heliocentric picture of the universe must be replaced by a strange sort of eccentric universe.” Shapley’s summarized his results on January 8, 1918, in a letter to Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, a well-known English astronomer and physicist. 1420
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Significance The full impact of Shapley’s work was years in coming because it took that long to separate truth from error. The relevant questions were brought into focus by the “great debate” held between Shapley and another astronomer, Heber Doust Curtis, in April of 1920. One important issue was that of the nebula. “Nebula” is Latin for cloud, a meaning it retains in the word “nebulous.” In 1920, astronomers were mostly concerned with two kinds of nebulas: irregular patches of glowing gas near hot stars and glowing patches with a somewhat spiral shape. Curtis championed Kapteyn’s view of our galaxy. He further supposed that spiral nebulas were galaxies like our own Milky Way but that they were so far away that their individual stars could not be discerned. Curtis eventually found support for his position when novas were observed in a few of these spiral nebulas. A nova is a star that explodes with tremendous energy. For many days it can shine with the brightness of billions of stars. If these novas were similar to those that occur in our galaxy, then their distances could be estimated. It followed that spiral nebulas must be galaxies themselves, and they must be far beyond our own galaxy. A close associate of Shapley, Adriaan van Maanen, attempted to measure the speed at which spiral nebulas rotate. He found that they rotated in a fashion predicted by some of the leading theorists of the day. Shapley pointed out that if spiral nebulas are very far away, van Maanen should not have seen evidence of their rotation over the few years for which photographs were available. It was later proved that van Maanen’s measurements were in error. Accurate measurements were beyond the capabilities of the equipment available to him. Another important factor was interstellar dust. A handful of dust particles scattered throughout a volume of cubic kilometers is not enough to change it from a good vacuum, but thousands of light-years of such dusty vacuum is enough to dim, or even block, starlight. Shapley looked for evidence of dust, but, by chance, he looked in a direction in which there was little. The chief effect dust was to have on Shapley’s measurements was to explain why he did not see globular clusters close to the plane of the Milky Way, which is dusty. The effect of dust was far greater on Kapteyn’s results. The Sun appeared to be near the center of our galaxy only because he could see into the dust about the same distance in all directions. Also, because his view was limited by dust, “Kapteyn’s universe” was only a fraction of the real Milky Way galaxy. The final piece fell into place when Shapley discov-
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Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy
ered an error in the calibration of the distances to variable stars. Shapley had originally supposed that our galaxy was an “island universe” containing all the stars and nebulas that exist surrounded by an infinite dark space devoid of gas, dust, stars, and humans. Today, it is recognized that the universe is filled with other galaxies— islands like the Milky Way. Modern measurements place the diameter of the visible part of our galaxy at 80,000 light-years. This is roughly three times Kapteyn’s number and only onefourth of Shapley’s original number. Shapley’s philosophical legacy remains, however: The Sun is not at the center of our galaxy. The center lies 25,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The Milky Way is vast beyond anything Kapteyn had imagined. —Charles W. Rogers Further Reading Berendzen, Richard, Richard Hart, and Daniel Seeley. Man Discovers the Galaxies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Excellent book, written in an engaging, nontechnical style, is filled with historical photographs and drawings. Presents biographies of all the principals, includes extensive bibliographies in each section, and even offers thought questions for those who would match wits with people of the past. Covers the period from Thomas Wright (1750) to Albert Einstein and the expanding universe. Ferris, Timothy. Galaxies. New York: Tabori & Chang, 1982. Outstanding volume for anyone wanting a modern view of galaxies. Presents a magnificent collection of some of the finest pictures of galaxies ever published accompanied by lucid text. Begins with objects in our galaxy and moves outward to the rest of the universe. Includes helpful diagrams and glossary. _______. The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe. Rev. ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. Discusses the history of the major discoveries in astronomy, paying particular attention to the individuals who made the discoveries. Comprehensible, accurate discussion of astronomy written in an engaging style for readers who have no familiarity with
modern cosmological ideas. Includes extensive glossary, selected bibliography, and index. Harrison, Edward R. Masks of the Universe: Changing Ideas on the Nature of the Cosmos. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Fascinating book, aimed at lay readers, discusses the various notions held about our galaxy and the universe from the dawn of time up to the late twentieth century. Shows how culture and science influence each other and places Shapley’s work within the panorama of the ten-thousand-year-long reach for the stars. Shapley, Harlow. Galaxies. 3d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Reviews the work of Shapley and others on galaxies and summarizes what was known then about our galaxy, neighboring galaxies, and the expanding universe. Intended for lay readers, but contains some technical material. Includes many helpful pictures and charts. _______. Through Rugged Ways to the Stars. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. “Informal” autobiography based on interviews conducted with Shapley for an oral history project. Includes chapters on finding the center of the Milky Way and on the great debate between Shapley and Curtis. Also discusses Shapley’s studies of ants, which he performed while waiting for nightfall. For the general reader. _______. The View from a Distant Star: Man’s Future in the Universe. New York: Basic Books, 1963. Collection of many of Shapley’s lectures and articles. One chapter deals with his discovery of the vastness of the Milky Way. Other topics covered are humans’ place in the universe, the educational system, astrology, and water dowsing. For the general reader. See also: 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems.
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British Women Gain the Vote
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 6, 1918
British Women Gain the Vote The granting of voting rights to women age thirty and over marked the removal of a significant symbol of women’s subordinate status in Great Britain. Also known as: Representation of the People Act Locale: London, England Categories: Women’s issues; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929), English suffragist Christabel Pankhurst (1880-1958), English suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), English suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960), English suffragist Ray Strachey (1887-1940), English suffragist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British philosopher, economist, and member of Parliament Summary of Event The granting, in 1918, of the vote to British women age thirty and over marked the culmination of a struggle for a basic right that had been in progress for nearly half a century. The vote was a symbol of the political power that women lacked. Some saw enfranchisement of women as a means of overthrowing male tyranny in all aspects of life, whereas many others saw it as a matter of asserting the equal dignity of women and men. In late nineteenth century Britain, women were denied opportunities in many areas. Although a few women’s colleges had been established, higher education existed almost entirely to benefit men. Women who wished to be considered respectable were discouraged from seeking paid employment. Those who persisted in doing so discovered that jobs were segregated by sex, with higher-paying positions reserved for men. Until the 1880’s, a married woman in Britain did not even have the legal right to own property; her property became her husband’s when she married. The discrimination against women was justified by the “separate spheres” doctrine, which asserted that men and women were designed by nature to perform different roles, with women best suited to being wives and mothers. It was impossible for all women to marry, as the population consisted of more women than men; even so, those women who remained single were viewed as incomplete persons for not having experienced marriage and motherhood. Some women bitterly resented the re1422
strictions on their lives because they did not believe that their destiny should be determined by their sex. The organized campaign for woman suffrage in Great Britain began in 1866, when Parliament considered extending the franchise to several million more men than had previously been eligible. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett, and others collected almost fifteen hundred signatures on a petition requesting that the vote also be extended to women. When the government introduced a franchise bill the following year, John Stuart Mill, speaking for women, proposed an amendment that would have added woman suffrage to the measure. After Parliament rejected the amendment, women seeking the right to vote formed several suffrage societies. In 1897, these societies joined forces and formed the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS); this organization directed the suffrage campaign until the vote was granted. Opponents of woman suffrage believed that women’s nature made them unsuited for participation in political life. They claimed that women were too emotional to evaluate political issues rationally. Others maintained that women lacked sufficient knowledge of public matters, arguing that women’s expertise was in household and family matters, which had no relevance to the issues voters had to resolve. Also, because voting was often carried out in pubs and other places where alcohol was consumed, coarse language and brawling were known to occur in polling places; some opponents of woman suffrage argued that such environments were inappropriate for ladies. Finally, because women were generally believed to have a higher moral nature than men, many men feared that if women had the vote they would support reforms, such as temperance legislation, that men believed to be detrimental to their interests. During their first thirty years of organized struggle for suffrage, women made little progress in gaining the vote in national elections. Woman suffrage drew its main political support from members of the Liberal Party, but that party refused to proceed with legislation because its leaders believed that most women, if given the vote, would support the Conservative Party. Women were thought to be especially susceptible to the influence of the Church of England, and the church’s active members tended to be Conservatives. Although the Conservative Party therefore might have gained the most from woman suffrage, it refused to sponsor legislation because its
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
accepted her proposal. The bill was thus a modest measure, deliberately limited to make it acceptable to all parties. This helped the woman suffrage clause to pass the House of Commons easily in June, 1917, by a vote of 385 to 55. The Representation of the People Act, which became law on February 6, 1918, was an important step toward ending the subordinate position of British women in public life, but in order to gain acceptance from the all-male legislature it had been carefully worded to minimize the degree of change it would bring. It extended the vote only to a carefully restricted group of women—those age thirty or older who themselves were qualified to vote in local elections or were married to men qualified to vote in local elections. Suffragists’ elation at having gained the principle of women’s right to vote was thus dampened by their awareness that they would have to continue their campaign in order to achieve equal suffrage rights. Significance The 1918 Representation of the People Act established the principle of woman suffrage in Britain, thus opening the door to the establishment of full and equal suffrage in 1928. The act was followed by a series of changes in law and policy that removed many restrictions on women’s opportunities. Measures were passed allowing women to be elected to the House of Commons, to be members of juries, to enter professions previously closed to them, and to receive degrees from Oxford University. Under the Representation of the People Act, almost 8.5 million women gained the vote. Women constituted 39.6 percent of the electorate in the first general election in which they could vote, held in December, 1918. Candidates for election were very conscious of the new female voters and made special efforts to appeal to them. The three major parties added proposals to their election platforms designed to attract female voters. The women who had campaigned for woman suffrage were disappointed, however, by this first experiment with a female electorate. Seventeen women sought seats in the House of Commons in that first election, but only one was elected. The election resulted in a substantial increase in votes for the Conservative Party, and it is believed that the Conservatives benefited more from the new female voters than did the other parties. When it had become clear in 1918 that Parliament would enact woman suffrage, many women shared the belief—articulated by Ray Strachey, an influential leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies—that women would now have the power to bring 1423
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members tended to believe that a woman’s place was in the home. Despite the barriers they encountered, women eventually made substantial gains. Many who opposed granting women the vote in national elections accepted women’s voting in local elections. Local government often involved issues of education, health, and welfare, which were perceived as being an extension of women’s domestic role. By 1900, women had gained the right to vote in many municipal and county elections and for school boards across Britain. Their responsible participation in local elections was important in undermining Conservative resistance to women’s right to vote in national elections. The beginning of a new stage in the woman suffrage campaign came when Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia formed the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903. The members of this organization deliberately sought confrontation to force politicians to deal with the suffrage issue. Through its flamboyant tactics, the union gained much more publicity than had the NUWSS. On the other hand, its use of unlawful acts, such as setting fire to mailboxes, hampered efforts to obtain suffrage legislation by making it difficult for the government to grant the vote without appearing to be giving in to violence. World War I created conditions in Britain that helped women achieve the goal of suffrage. Most suffragists were loyal supporters of the government’s war policy and concentrated their energies on shoring up the nation’s war effort. The suffrage groups stopped campaigning for the vote, thereby giving the government the opportunity to enact reform without appearing to be giving in to pressure. The war also forced the government to consider franchise reform in order to allow men in the armed forces to vote. Once the process of reforming the franchise was under way, it was difficult not to include some measure of woman suffrage. Conservatives who had doubts about the principle of woman suffrage were persuaded that it was wiser to include a modest women’s franchise clause in the bill than to risk the revival of agitation for a more radical measure after the war. Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, president of the NUWSS, agreed to accept a limited proposal in return for a pledge that some measure of woman suffrage would definitely be included in the bill. Fawcett suggested that setting a higher eligibility age for women than for men would be the least objectionable means of restricting the number of female voters. She recommended that the age of thirty be adopted, and the committee drafting the bill
British Women Gain the Vote
British Women Gain the Vote about sweeping changes in their lives. Strachey expected equal pay and equal employment opportunities to follow the vote, but she overestimated the impact of the franchise. Although important as a symbol of women’s acceptance as active citizens, suffrage did not bring dramatic changes in their lives. Instead of voting as a group for reforms specifically affecting women, female voters were drawn into existing political parties and adopted the political views of those parties. Furthermore, the women who had the vote, those age thirty and older, were for the most part married and not in paid employment, and thus did not always have the same outlook on issues as younger women, more of whom were single and working to support themselves. —Harold L. Smith Further Reading Bartley, Paula. Emmeline Pankhurst. New York: Routledge, 2003. Biography of Pankhurst uses newly available archival material to examine her evolution into a militant leader of the woman suffrage movement. Includes bibliography and index. Hamilton, Susan, ed. “Criminals, Idiots, Women, and Minors”: Victorian Writing by Women on Women. 2d ed. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2004. Collection of essays that are not otherwise easily accessible from women with views ranging from those of suffragist Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett to those of antisuffrage writer Eliza Lynn Linton. Includes chronology and biographical notes. Holton, Sandra Stanley. Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918. 1986. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Shows that although the Women’s Social and Political Union may have been the most militant in terms of tactics, it was not the most radical group seeking woman suffrage. The democratic suffragists within the NUWSS were more radical in that they urged universal adult suffrage and sought to link the Labour Party with the women’s suffrage movement. Hume, Leslie Parker. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1897-1914. New York: Garland, 1982. One of the most important works available on the main British women’s suffrage organization. Provides much information not available in other sources. Stresses the shift in the NUWSS focus from women’s right to equality to the notion that women needed the vote to protect their interests as wives and mothers. Includes bibliography and index. 1424
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kent, Susan Kingsley. Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 18601914. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987. Demonstrates that the woman suffrage movement was not a single-issue campaign. Rather, suffrage was sought as part of a broad attack on the subordination of women. Includes bibliography and index. Liddington, Jill, and Jill Norris. One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. 3d ed. London: Rivers Oram Press, 2000. Focuses on the rise of the suffrage movement among working-class women in industrial towns. Mackenzie, Midge. Shoulder to Shoulder: A Documentary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Compiled as a companion for a BBC-Warner Bros. television series. Especially valuable for numerous pictures documenting the activities of the suffragettes. Also reproduces selections from suffragists’ letters and other writings to provide an account in the participants’ own words. Includes brief bibliography and index. Mitchell, David. The Fighting Pankhursts: A Study in Tenacity. New York: Macmillan, 1967. Excellent study of the militant woman suffrage leaders, despite the fact that it has received some criticism from feminists for lack of understanding. Romero, Patricia W. E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Excellent, readable biography is very frank about some of the less attractive aspects of Pankhurst’s personality. Provides useful information on the East London Federation of Suffragettes. Includes extensive endnotes and index. Rosen, Andrew. Rise Up, Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union, 1903-1914. 1974. Reprint. London: Ashgate, 1993. Thorough account of the WSPU makes extensive use of the organization’s unpublished records. Critical of WSPU tactics, but not an unsympathetic study. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Rubinstein, David. A Different World for Women: The Life of Millicent Garrett Fawcett. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991. Reevaluates the life of the longterm suffrage leader in the light of postsuffrage scholarship. Smith, Harold L., ed. British Feminism in the Twentieth Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. An account of the broader feminist movement of which the suffrage campaign was an important part. Includes a chapter on Emmeline Pankhurst’s ideas that shows how Romanticism shaped her views
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on how to bring about political change. Includes brief bibliography and index. Strachey, Ray. “The Cause”: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain. 1928. Reprint. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1978. Authoritative history by an NUWSS officer includes an appendix that contains Florence Nightingale’s important essay “Cassandra.”
Baltic States Gain Independence See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
February 24, 1918-August 11, 1920
Baltic States Gain Independence Through their fights for independence and the organization of their own governments, the three Baltic nations consolidated national political identities that later withstood half a century of Soviet rule. Locale: Lithuania; Latvia; Estonia Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; independence movements Key Figures Konstantin Päts (1874-1956), first head of state of the Estonian Republic Antanas Smetona (1874-1944), first head of state of Lithuania K3rlis Ulmanis (1877-1942), first head of state of Latvia Johan Laidoner (1884-1953), commander of the Estonian army Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union Józef Piusudski (1867-1935), head of state of Poland Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), Soviet commissar of nationalities
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Summary of Event The emergence of the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia at the end of World War I had an impact on the history of Eastern Europe throughout the twentieth century. An expression of the idea of the right of national self-determination, the creation of the states was made possible by the collapse of the two major Eastern European empires, czarist Russia and the German Reich. Before World War I, the territory that became the three states was a part of the Russian Empire. The Ger-
man offensive of 1915 basically occupied Lithuania and western Latvia. Eastern Latvia and Estonia therefore took part in the political revolutions sweeping Russia in 1917, from the collapse of the czarist order in March to the Bolshevik seizure of power, under the leadership of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, in November. While new democratic ideas came to Estonia and Latvia in 1917, German authorities considered ways of incorporating Lithuania and western Latvia into the German Empire. In February and March of 1918, German troops moved into eastern Latvia and Estonia. Thoughts of national independence for all three nations began to develop behind both the Russian and the German lines, but these became feasible only in the fall of 1918, after the collapse of the German war effort and the victory of the Allies in Western Europe. Even then, however, the new governments had to struggle to find their place in Eastern Europe. The Estonians were the most advanced in organizing their own institutions. At the time of the collapse of the Russian czarist government in March of 1917, the Russians still occupied Estonia. In May of 1917, the Estonians elected their first local parliament, the Maapäev, and they also began to organize an Estonian military force. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet authorities drove the Maapäev into the underground, but on February 24, 1918, when German forces occupied the region, the Maapäev’s Committee of Elders declared Estonia’s independence and formed a provisional government headed by Konstantin Päts. The Germans suppressed Estonian institutions and arrested Päts. Only after the collapse of the German war effort in November could the Estonian government begin to build public institutions, and then it faced the challenge of the coming of the Red Army. The Lithuanians, who had lived under German occupation since 1915, were able to organize a national coun-
Baltic States Gain Independence cil, the Taryba, only in September of 1917, and even then the Taryba, headed by Antanas Smetona, worked under the supervision of the German military. In connection with the talks with Russia at Brest-Litovsk, the German authorities encouraged the Taryba to proclaim Lithuania’s independence, but when the Lithuanians, on February 16, 1918, issued a declaration that made no mention of maintaining close future ties with Germany, the Germans refused to recognize it. The Lithuanians also were able to build public institutions only in the fall of 1918, after establishing a provisional government. In April of 1919, Smetona became president of Lithuania. The Latvians were the last of the three to organize, establishing a council on November 18, 1918; the council immediately proclaimed the existence of a provisional government for the Republic of Latvia, headed by K3rlis Ulmanis. From the fall of 1918 to the fall of 1920, the Baltic area became a major battleground for the contending forces in the Russian Revolution. The Western Allies, fearing the expansion of the Bolsheviks’ revolution into central Europe, insisted that the Germans keep their forces in place in the territory of the former Russian Empire. The troops, however, withdrew on their own initiative, and at a distance the Red Army followed their tracks into the Baltic. The Communist leaders of Soviet Russia, after having seized power in November of 1917, proclaimed the right of all peoples to “national self-determination even to the point of separation and formation of an independent state.” They did not, however, automatically recognize the right of the three Baltic peoples to separate from the empire; as Joseph Stalin, commissar for nationalities, explained, the leaders insisted that they themselves would decide who could exercise the right of national self-determination. Although the Soviet government declared that it had no claim on the Baltic, the Bolsheviks organized their sympathizers from the region as local Communist Parties ready to follow the dictates of the leaders in Moscow. The parties then became the spearheads for the advance of the Soviet Red Army into the Baltic. The Soviet military also included troops from the Baltic, the most notable of these being the Latvian Rifles, known as the strelnieki, which were units organized in 1915 and 1916 as part of the Russian army. To prepare the way for moving into the Baltic, Lenin and Stalin ordered the proclamation of Soviet Socialist Republics for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Soviet troops succeeded in driving the provisional Latvian and Lithuanian governments out of their capitals, but the So1426
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 viet governments failed to win the support of the local peoples in any of the three territories. The men whom Moscow installed actually disapproved of establishing independent republics in the region, and on Moscow’s orders they opposed extensive land reform, preferring to keep large estates intact for more efficient exploitation. The local populations supported their own national governments. Outside aid helped the Baltic governments to withstand the Soviet attack. British ships provided equipment to Estonians and Latvians. Finnish volunteers arrived in Estonia to fight the Bolsheviks, and in both Latvia and Lithuania, German volunteers fought the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks had to withdraw and Moscow suppressed its puppet governments in the Baltic. The German volunteers, however, together with some Russian adventurers, posed new threats, and in Latvia proGerman forces briefly organized a countergovernment in the spring of 1919. In the summer, the Western Allies demanded that the German forces finally withdraw from the Baltic, and after battles with both Latvian and Lithuanian forces, the last German soldiers left the region in December, 1919. The Lithuanians had a problem of a different sort in their relations with the new government of Poland, headed by Józef Piusudski. Piusudski wanted to extend the Polish frontier with the new Russia eastward as far as possible, and he dreamed of restoring the historic alliance of Poles and Lithuanians in a single state. The Lithuanians rejected his ideas, and in October of 1920, Polish forces seized the city of Vilnius (Wilno in Polish), which the Lithuanians claimed as their capital. The resulting tension between Poland and Lithuania constituted a major block to cooperation between the states of Eastern Europe between the world wars. The Baltic governments won recognition of their independence in a series of peace treaties with Soviet Russia in 1920. In September of 1919, recognizing their failure in the Baltic, the Soviet leaders had agreed to enter into negotiations with the new governments, and in February of 1920, Estonia signed a peace treaty with Moscow. On July 12, 1920, the Lithuanians signed their peace treaty with the Russians, and the Latvians followed suit on August 11. The three republics became members of the League of Nations in 1921. Significance In the interwar period, all three Baltic governments consolidated the foundations of their independent existence. All three carried out extensive land reforms; in the case
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the Estonians and Latvians, these reforms struck at the historic position of German landowners, and in the case of the Lithuanians, they struck at Polish landowners. The cultural lives of all three developed and grew, with the result that after the Soviet Union occupied and annexed the three republics in 1940, a half century of Soviet domination was unable to wipe away the memories and accomplishments of the period of independence. The Baltic peoples eventually played a major role in the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1990 and 1991. Each state in turn reasserted its independence from the Soviet Union, starting with a legislative declaration of independence by the Lithuanian parliament in March, 1990. The parliaments of Latvia and Estonia asserted that the annexation and occupation of these countries by the Soviet Union in 1940 constituted illegal acts, and thus there was no need for them to redeclare independence. These legislative declarations in 1990 were followed in 1991 by popular referenda in each of the three countries that overwhelmingly approved independence. Russian reaction to these elections was hostile, and Soviet military intervention seemed imminent until the Kremlin coup of August 19, 1991, which precipitated declarations of independence in all three Baltic republics on August 20. Within weeks, the Kremlin formally recognized these claims to independence, and the Baltic states reveled in the hope of regained autonomy. —Alfred Erich Senn
biased, but still a useful general history with a contemporary view of the independence period. Includes brief bibliography and index. Page, Stanley W. The Formation of the Baltic States. New York: Howard Fertig, 1970. Excellent survey of the independence struggles and their aftermath. Includes bibliography and index. Plakans, Andrejs. The Latvians: A Short History. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1995. Very informative, balanced account of Latvian history. About half of the volume is devoted to the twentieth century. Includes maps, tables, bibliography, and index. Rauch, Georg von. The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, 1917-1940. London: C. Hurst, 1974. Useful, brief survey of the independence period, with emphasis on politics. Includes bibliography and index. Raun, Toivo U. Estonia and the Estonians. Updated 2d ed. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2001. Excellent, comprehensive history by an American historian of Estonian heritage. Focuses primarily on the twentieth century. Includes extensive bibliography and index. Senn, Alfred Erich. The Emergence of Modern Lithuania. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Excellent history of the independence period and Lithuanian politics. Includes extensive bibliography and index. Tarulis, Albert N. American-Baltic Relations, 19181922: The Struggle over Recognition. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1965. Examines the national and international issues involved in the American and Western recognition of the Baltics, with an emphasis on Lithuania. Includes bibliography and index. Vardys, V. Stanley, and Romuald J. Misiunas, eds. The Baltic States in Peace and War, 1917-1945. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978. Collection of thirteen essays dealing with diverse aspects of the independence period. Intended for readers with a general knowledge of the topic. Includes endnotes, chapter bibliographies, and index. See also: 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence; Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence; Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War.
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Further Reading Bilmanis, Alfred. A History of Latvia. 1951. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970. Informative general resource on Latvia before 1940, with emphasis on the modern period. Written from a strongly nationalist viewpoint. Includes index and bibliography. Graham, Malbone. The New Governments of Eastern Europe. New York: Pitman, 1927. Offers a useful introduction to the events of 1917-1922. Appendixes contain important documents, including the constitution of each state. Hiden, John. The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik. 1987. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Scholarly and informative work on German-Baltic relations in the 1920’s. Includes map, tables, bibliography, and index. Jackson, J. Hampden. Estonia. 1941. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Somewhat dated and
Baltic States Gain Independence
Influenza Epidemic Strikes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March, 1918-1919
Influenza Epidemic Strikes The influenza epidemic constituted a major medical disaster more severe than any witnessed since the fourteenth century. The outbreak spurred the discovery of influenza’s viral agent and a vaccine against the disease. Locale: Worldwide Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology Key Figures Christopher Howard Andrewes (1896-1988), British pathologist Thomas Francis, Jr. (1900-1969), American epidemiologist Patrick Playfair Laidlaw (1881-1940), British researcher Richard Edwin Shope (1901-1966), American animal pathologist and virologist Wilson Smith (1897-1965), British bacteriologist Charles Herbert Stuart-Harris (1909-1996), British virologist and influenza researcher Summary of Event The influenza (or grippe) pandemic of 1918-1919 was deadlier than any war in history. Its global fatalities were estimated at more than twenty million, but they may have been as high as forty million. All told, about a billion of the total world population of two billion at the time are thought to have been exposed to the virus. In addition, this epidemic spread faster and more widely than any previous epidemic. A noted American epidemiologist, Edwin Oakes Jordan, eventually computed the estimated breakdown of mortality by continents as follows: North and Central America, about 1 million; Latin America, about 300,000; Europe, about 2.2 million; Asia, about 15.8 million; Australia and Oceania, about 1 million; Africa, about 1.4 million. In the United States alone, some 550,000 died from influenza or its frequent pneumonic complications. One peculiarity of the 1918 version of the flu was that it especially affected young adults between the ages of twenty and forty. Uncharacteristically, older citizens above sixty years, normally the most vulnerable, were now least so. Accordingly, it is on the basis of substantial increases in young adult deaths that pandemic pathways around the globe could be traced. The United States was hit as early as March of 1918, 1428
as were France, Japan, China, and other countries. This initial wave of the attack was fairly mild and attracted little notice. Indeed, in recent times influenza had appeared identifiably in 1627, 1729, 1788, 1830, 1847, 1872, and 1889-1892 but it was known to have existed for centuries, and the disease had ravaged communities frequently but irregularly. In the early days, influenza epidemics had been attributed by astrologers to the influence (hence influenza) of the heavenly bodies. Only when the second, much more lethal, wave broke out in August-September, 1918, did the world witness an unprecedented flu epidemic. The added virulence of this newer onslaught was subsequently explained as having been caused synergistically by a fairly mild flu virus acting in conjunction with an equally benign Pfeiffer bacillus. In combination, these two parasites produced a maverick killer that injured human lungs beyond their capacity to recover. During its peak in October-November, 1918, the influenza morbidity rate in the United States ranged from two hundred to four hundred per thousand; the mortality rate was about fifty, compared with the normal thirteen from all causes. Even though the pandemic visited all continents, this new strain of an old affliction was dubbed the “Spanish flu” because uncensored news of its devastation was coming out of that neutral country, Spain, during the world conflict. Wartime conditions—individuals in their prime crowded in cities, in military camps, on vessels, in hospitals, and elsewhere and moving about in unprecedented numbers—contributed to the disease’s rapid spread. On the western front in Europe, major offensives, first by the Germans and then by the Allies, were blunted in the summer and fall of 1918, partly because of the large number of troops victimized by the flu. The ailment recognized no regions, races, or categories other than age. The epidemic seems, however, to have found easy victims among people worn down by the deprivations of war and/or poverty in countries such as India. Important world leaders were not spared; the flu’s victims included President Woodrow Wilson (who nearly died of influenza in April of 1919), Premier Georges Clemenceau of France, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain. At the time, the specific cause of this highly contagious respiratory infection was unknown. Its symptoms, since its identification as the “English sweat” in the six-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 teenth century, were, however, familiar: sudden fever, inflammation of the mucous membranes, coughing, headache, acute perspiration, occasional nosebleed, muscular discomfort, prostration. Even though an attempt was made in 1951 to exhume the well-preserved bodies of Eskimo victims known to have died of influenza in the pandemic and buried in Alaska’s permafrost, there was no trace of what was by then known conclusively to be the general cause of influenza: any of three distinct types of viruses, A, B, and C. These minute organisms mutate rapidly and resurface in several strains, or subtypes. Type Awas identified in 1933 by Dr. Wilson Smith, Christopher Howard Andrewes, and Patrick Playfair Laidlaw as a filterable virus that was experimentally transmitted to animals and that the latter—not just hogs but also horses and birds among others—are suspected of harboring “underground” without causing outbreaks, except on occasion. One of these instances was in 19181919.
Influenza Epidemic Strikes Significance The countermeasures taken in that epidemic, most vigorously in cities such as San Francisco, were generally gauze masks, at times medicated, worn on the face, and even some makeshift attempts at vaccination. Nevertheless, such countermeasures did not seem to be effective. Indeed, it was not until the 1930’s that virology had advanced sufficiently to pinpoint the basic agent that had killed more in a year than World War I had done in four. Without a miracle drug or appropriate vaccine, rest, warmth, fresh air, and good nursing care were about the best that the medical profession could prescribe in 19181919, as immediate priorities at that time necessarily had to focus on symptoms and disease control rather than prevention. Although individual survivors of the pandemic vividly recalled how the event affected them, surprisingly, this plague seems to have had little impact on the collective psyche. Mention of the epidemic by historians and
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
1918
Victims of the influenza epidemic fill an emergency hospital facility at Fort Riley, Kansas. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Influenza Epidemic Strikes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
writers describing the period has been generThe Flu Epidemic’s Toll ally casual, brief, or nonexistent. (Notable Because of the U.S. government’s active role in Native American affairs, exceptions include authors Katherine Anne the influenza epidemic’s effects on Native American populations were Porter, Thomas Wolfe, and Mary McCarthy, well documented. This letter of condolence from the superintendent of the who were markedly affected by the event.) Yakima Indian Agency to the mother of a child who died of influenza at an There may be at least two reasons for the Indian boarding school in 1918 is typical of many letters written at the lack of attention. First, influenza is usually time. an uncomplicated illness and a minor inconvenience. Second, because it recurs freOctober 29, 1918 quently, the ailment is only too familiar. In My dear Mrs. Nye, short, it lacks the drama of other killers, such During the scourge of Spanish Influenza from which your daughter as tuberculosis. Cecilia died I was so extremely busy that it was impossible for me to tell Several influenza epidemics have taken the particulars in connection with the death of Cecilia. place since that of 1918-1919, going by difThe plague attacked this school on the 13th of October. It was brought ferent names, including “swine flu,” “Hong here at first by new students coming in and it spread rapidly until we had Kong flu,” and “Asian flu.” The reason is about 250 cases. The entire school stopped its regular activities and dethat most epidemics are caused by different voted itself absolutely to the care and nuturing of the sick. Out of the 250 strains of the Group A virus, and there are cases we lost a comparatively few. Among the number was your daughabout a thousand of them. Samples of these ter. Absolutely everything possible was done in the way of medical care are stored at the Influenza Center of the and nursing. The sick was never left alone for one minute, someone was World Health Organization in London, but administering to their needs and looking after them and I want you to feel determining which particular subtype will that in this sickness that your daughter has had as good attention as she possibly could have had in any hospital or home. I have spared neither exhit in any particular flu season—essential pense nor time nor trouble. Altogether I feel that we have done just as well to preparing an appropriate vaccination reas could be done. This disease which has taken thousands upon thousands sponse in time—remained problematic. The throughout the country was no worse here than elsewhere. It was not due variation of the virus is still not fully underto Chemawa or its location. It was a general disease everywhere. stood—though scientists have been able to Now that the plague is over we have resumed our regular school work. piece together the 1918 virus’s genetic seAll the students we have now are strong and getting along all right. quence—and the world may again witness Trusting that Cecilia’s body reached you in good shape and sympathe visitation of the “Spanish Lady.” In fact, thizing with you, I am in late 2005, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deSincerely your friend, termined that the 1918-1919 epidemic was Harwood Hall Superintendent caused by genetic mutations that have a great deal in common with flu strains traditionally Source: “The Deadly Virus: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918.” National found mostly in birds, including the H5N1 Archives and Records Administration. strain from Southeast Asia, the strongest candidate for the next epidemic’s cause. Although this strain’s genes had much in comand effects. The author takes pains to show how the mon with the 1918 virus and H5N1 proved capable of U.S. government’s casual treatment and lack of attentransferring from animal to human, scientists were untion to the science behind the disease hastened its sure whether it would mutate to a state that would allow it spread. to transfer easily from human to human. Beveridge, W. I. B. Influenza, the Last Great Plague: An — Peter B. Heller Unfinished Story of Discovery. New York: Prodist, 1977. The author, a British veterinarian, speculates on Further Reading the possible animal origins of the 1918 epidemic. Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of Collier, Richard. The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The the Deadliest Plague in History. New York: Penguin Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. New York: AtheBooks, 2005. Scientists and nonscientists will appreneum, 1974. Based on the personal accounts of 1,708 ciate this fascinating account of the disease’s causes 1430
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 survivors of the epidemic and thus highly anecdotal but nevertheless informative. Illustrated and with a good bibliography. Crosby, Alfred W., Jr. America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. This American medical writer puzzles over why the epidemic, despite its magnitude, was, generally speaking, neither traumatic nor memorable. Jordan, Edwin O. Epidemic Influenza: A Survey. Chicago: American Medical Association, 1927. Although dated, still one of the most authoritative sources by an eminent American epidemiologist. Kilbourne, Edwin D. Influenza. New York: Plenum, 1987. In chapter 1, “History of Influenza,” this medical doctor considers technical aspects of the 1918 pandemic. Kolata, Gina. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. Morongo Valley, Calif.: Sagebrush, 2001. A good popular history of the 1918 outbreak. Illustrated. Osborn, June E., ed. Influenza in America 1918-1976.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk New York: Prodist, 1977. Includes an essay by Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., “The Pandemic of 1918,” that provides an excellent synopsis. Pettigrew, Eileen. The Silent Enemy: Canada and the Deadly Flu of 1918. Saskatoon, Sask.: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1983. An account of how the epidemic killed more Canadians than World War I. Includes illustrations and a good bibliography. Pyle, Gerald F. The Diffusion of Influenza: Patterns and Paradigms. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986. Chapter 3, “Calamity and Discovery: The Early Twentieth Century,” describes the epidemic of 1918 with considerable statistical information. Maps by the author-geographer graphically illustrate the spread of influenza. See also: 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi; Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever; 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed; June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever.
March 3, 1918
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended hostilities between Russia and Germany, giving Germany a break from a two-front war and the Soviet Communist regime in Russia a chance to organize. Locale: Brest-Litovsk, Russia (now in Belarus) Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event Since 1914, Germany had been conducting a two-front war. The eastern front was the war between Germany and Russia. By 1917, Czar Nicholas II was in personal command of the army, since all his officers had deserted him. There was growing unrest in Russia: Vladimir Ilich Lenin led the Bolsheviks in advocating overthrow of the Romanov Dynasty and the establishment of a Marxist government in Russia. (Lenin and his followers’ agitation originated outside Russia, because the leaders were in exile.) The soldiers and people of Russia were tired of war and the Bolsheviks promised that if they were in power, they would end the war immediately. Meanwhile, Germany was being overstretched in its attempts to defend both fronts. General Max Hoffmann 1431
1918
Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Bolshevik leader in Russia, 1917-1924 Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), foreign commissar of the Bolshevik government and negotiator at the Brest-Litovsk conference Richard von Kühlmann (1873-1948), German foreign secretary Max Hoffmann (1869-1927), commander of German armies on the eastern front Adolf Joffe (1883-1927), Bolshevik representative at the cease-fire negotiations
Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), leader of the German high command Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), high-ranking leader of the German high command Nicholas II (1868-1918), czar of Russia, r. 1894-1917
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had eighty divisions under his command, and while he was engaged in a great deal of political maneuvering, the Soviet troops piled their weapons and began to consort with the idle German soldiers. During the confusion that followed the Russian czar’s overthrow and the establishment of the provisional government, Germany did not attack the idle troops for two reasons. By treating the enemy gently, the Germans were likely to receive a bid for peace from Petrograd. This strategy would also allow them to conserve the German troops for the western front. In an attempt to continue its war aims by signing a separate peace with one of the Entente powers and end a war on at least one front, Germany agreed to allow Lenin to return from exile in what became known as the infamous “sealed train,” which carried Lenin and his party from Switzerland to Finland via Germany. Germany agreed to allow Lenin through their country in the hope that he would soon gain power and fulfill his promise of ending the war. The Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd on November 6-7, 1917, and had gained control of much of European and Asiatic Russia by the following spring. Lenin published his “Decree on Peace” on November 8, proposing a three-month armistice and negotiations for a general settlement without annexations or indemnities. On December 2, the Bolshevik Armistice Delegation passed through German lines to enter Brest-Litovsk. Heading the Russian delegation was Adolf Joffe. General Hoffmann led the German team. At the peace table, the difference in power was evident among the representatives of each government. Germany sent elegant diplomatic and grimly correct military staff officers to the table, while Russia sent unkempt, bearded peasants and workers of the soviets. In fact, the Russian delegation included only one military adviser. Lenin was trying to gain political clout by including representatives of each strata—except the aristocracy—at the talks, including a woman, Madame Anastasia Bizenko. On December 15, Russia signed a separate cease-fire with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, where peace negotiations began a week later. The Russians presented a six-point plan for peace without annexations or indemnities, which the Central Powers accepted with reservations on Christmas Day on the condition that the Allies should do the same. The Allied response to the negotiations in BrestLitovsk was confused. The French were convinced that an “eastern barrier” of nations, declaring their independence from Imperial Russia, would counterbalance the power of Germany. The British, on the other hand, be1432
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lieved that drawing Austria into a separate peace with the Allies, with the assistance of the United States, would cause the downfall of the German coalition. For the most part, the Allies condemned the plan, with President Woodrow Wilson stating his Fourteen Points and Prime Minister David Lloyd George making a fiery speech to rouse the English nation. From the German perspective, if the Allies could not be drawn into negotiations based on no annexations and the prewar status quo, a separate peace with Russia would allow the Germans to reach Paris and force the West to negotiate. The German leadership, however, was caught in a power struggle between the German high command, as represented by General Erich Ludendorff and Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, and Richard von Kühlmann, the German emperor’s adviser on foreign policy. Ludendorff believed that the Russians could be overwhelmed by a display of force by the German troops, allowing Germany to annex more land, and forced to sign the treaty on German terms. Kühlmann, the civilian adviser in charge of foreign policy, wanted to sign the treaty in order to release the troops to the western front. On January 5, 1918, after the Allied response, the Central Powers declared the plan null and void and imposed their own plan on Russia in the Treaty of BrestLitovsk. Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the Bolshevik regime, personally headed the Russian delegation when negotiations began again on January 9. When the Central Powers signed a separate peace treaty with representatives of the Rada parliament of Ukraine one month later, Trotsky walked out of the conference, declaring unilaterally that hostilities were ended, but refusing to accept Germany’s terms. This was Russia’s famous slogan of No War, No Peace. This brought the internal conflict between Kühlmann and the German high command to a head. Kühlmann wished to accept the no war, no peace scenario and continue to fight against the Allies on the western front. He believed that continuing the assault into Russia would lead to the same results that Napoleon experienced and would stretch the German forces to the breaking point. Hindenburg and Ludendorff insisted on an imposed peace in the hope of uniting Germany and perhaps toppling the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Hindenburg and Ludendorff won the support of the emperor and proceeded to call Trotsky’s bluff by resuming the German advances into Russia on February 18, 1918. German forces advanced almost at will. The Central Power’s new terms required Russia to yield sovereignty
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 over territory west of the line from the Gulf of Riga to Brest-Litovsk, including Poland, Courland, and Lithuania. In the south, Russia would evacuate the districts of Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to Turkish overrule. Russia would also give up all rights to the Ukraine and Finland. On March 3, 1918, in order to save the Bolshevik regime, Lenin was forced to accept terms for Russia worse than those they had previously rejected in February. Russia’s loss in human life, territory, and prestige was horrendous. Russia lost more than 30 percent of its former lands and more than fifty-five million people by accepting these terms. Russia also lost nearly all of its iron ore and coal resources. Lenin’s justification was that this was breathing space until Russia could recover its strength. Although the “no war, no peace” cry was the beginning of Trostky’s downfall, Lenin emerged from this treaty in a stronger political position.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Further Reading Farrar, L. L. Divide and Conquer: German Efforts to Conclude a Separate Peace, 1914-1918. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. Interesting German perspective detailing German efforts to shatter the entente by concluding a separate peace with one of its members. Marshall, S. L. A. World War I. Boston: Mariner Books, 2001. Concise one-volume work that discusses the major events of World War I, with two excellent
See also: Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; 19171920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence; Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile.
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Significance The immediate consequences of the Treaty of BrestLitovsk were the civil wars that broke out in Finland and Russia. These wars promoted Allied “intervention” into Russia and Finland in 1918 as part of an undeclared war between the Reds and the Whites (Bolshevik forces and Royalist-Provisional forces), with the Allies supporting the Whites. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an unqualified disaster for all parties, but the consequences of the negotiations lingered into the late twentieth century. Wilson’s Fourteen Points became the basis of the American commitment to European affairs and the basis for the establishment of the League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations. Wilson also stated that nationality should be a factor in determining a nation’s borders, with some references to the Balkans. These points became the basis of the armistice that was signed with Germany at the end of World War I. —Elizabeth L. Scully
chapters on the consequences of the Treaty of BrestLitovsk. Mayer, Arno J. Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918. New York: Howard Fertig, 1969. Investigates the war aims of the various nations involved based on military stalemate, the Russian Revolution, and the American intervention and the creation of the New Diplomacy in world politics. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A broad overview of Russian history from its beginnings through the end of the twentieth century. Includes maps, photographs, and index. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2000. Authoritative and well-rounded biography uses information recently available from Soviet archives to shed new light on Lenin. Includes illustrations, map, glossary of names, select bibliography, and index. Stevenson, David. The First World War and International Politics. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1988. While probing the political dynamics of World War I, this work contains an excellent chapter on the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and its consequences. Wheeler-Bennett, John W. Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March, 1918. London: Macmillan, 1963. Examines all aspects of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations and the long-term effects of the treaty. Wilkinson, James, and H. Stuart Hughes. Contemporary Europe: A History. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1997. An overview of European history from 1914 through the end of the twentieth century. Addresses the effects of the Russian Revolution on the rest of Europe. Good source of information on the political decisions made by European leaders in their dealings with the Russian governments. Includes excellent illustrations, maps, and index.
Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Summer, 1918
Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West posed a fundamental challenge to beliefs held by most professional historians of his time. By rejecting the ideas of progress, the inherent superiority of European civilization, and the possibility of any objective “scientific” knowledge of history, Spengler contributed to the rise of cultural relativism as a prominent characteristic of much present-day historiography. Also known as: Die Untergang des Abendlandes; The Decline of the West Locale: Munich, Germany Categories: Historiography; publishing and journalism; philosophy Key Figures Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), German philosopher of history Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German philosopher, poet, dramatist, and novelist Michel Foucault (1926-1984), French historian and philosopher Summary of Event Belief in the permanent, linear progress of human society and the essential rationality of human nature derived from an eighteenth century European cultural movement known as the Enlightenment. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, Enlightenment-based convictions spread throughout Europe, where they were nurtured by booming economies, by the bold new thrust of European colonial expansion into Asia and Africa, and by Charles Darwin’s stunning theory of natural selection. A few even speculated that, if peace could be maintained for another generation or so, prosperity and scientific advances could assure a virtually utopian existence for all. Instead, the early twentieth century brought the cataclysm of World War I. From 1914 through 1918, Europe experienced a level of carnage and destruction without historical precedent. Virtually no one had foreseen the sheer extent of this disaster, although the brutal competition among the major European nations for power overseas had contributed directly to it. Among the Great War’s many casualties were the veneration of reason and the belief in social progress. However, even before 1914, not everyone had subscribed to the optimistic cult of progress. Among the dis1434
senters was a young German scholar named Oswald Spengler. After completing a doctorate in philosophy and mathematics in 1904, Spengler had taught high school history and geography in northern Germany before his poor health forced him to leave. In 1911 he moved to Munich, in southern Germany, where he wrote and survived on income from a modest inheritance. He had become increasingly alarmed by the political and military trends of his time, and sensing an impending calamity, he grew determined to place this threat within the broader context of world history. By the outbreak of war in 1914, Spengler had completed the first draft of his book under the foreboding German title Die Untergang des Abendlandes (19181922; The Decline of the West, 1926-1928). Spengler’s thesis stretched beyond Europe’s borders to encompass the history of the world. For several years, however, no publisher would accept this unknown author’s sprawling philosophical history. The first volume finally reached print in the middle of 1918, only a few months before the war ended. Surprisingly, The Decline of the West became a best-seller across Germany and was often reprinted. A German populace devastated by war, humiliated by defeat, and afflicted by the onset of economic depression seemed to have found a grim satisfaction in the book’s prediction of the inevitable collapse of Western civilization (which would include the demise of Germany’s enemies). In The Decline of the West, Spengler ridiculed the Enlightenment’s glorification of reason and progress. Instead, he saw a human history governed only by the irrational and the frequent reversal of human fortunes. Spengler acknowledged his great indebtedness to the nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, especially the Nietzschean idea that all moral values have to be considered in the light of the people and communities in which they arise. Nietzsche had revived the ancient Greek concept of the “cosmic year,” a vast period characterized by the eternal recurrence of all living things. Like him, Spengler espoused a cyclical view of history that precluded the inevitability of a linear advance in human fortunes. In his search for reality’s fundamental principles, Spengler was deeply affected by the work of another German philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. From Goethe, Spengler gleaned a cosmopolitan perspective that looked far beyond Europe, and he was inspired
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Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography
explanations based on simple, cause-and-effect-based ideas. This method of study, Spengler insisted, could never penetrate to a civilization’s essence. The historian has to be able to use intuition, because the events of the past were not driven by reason and logic. Instead, they were caused by the unfolding of an inexorable and mysterious biological fate in which the life cycle of each organic civilization had been predetermined. This force of destiny was not God but was nonetheless beyond human comprehension. In short, Spengler insisted that empathy and imagination are required for genuine historical understanding; one needs patience and creativity in order to comprehend, for example, certain unique symbols created by a particular society. Spengler believed Western civilization’s most unique identifying symbol to be its longing for the unattainable, which he called the Faustian spirit, after Goethe’s Faust: Eine Tragödie (1808; The Tragedy of Faust, 1823). The Western tendency to strive for the infinite is best expressed in architectural wonders, such as the soaring vaults and spires of the medieval Gothic cathedrals; the fine arts of music, architecture, sculpture, and painting are the best mirrors of a society’s disPolitics and THE DECLINE OF THE WEST tinctive qualities. In The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler emphasizes the relationship beAccording to Spengler, other civtween other cultures’ histories and modern politics, but he also stresses that ilizations have their own master symmodern citizens should not try to mirror the structure of past civilizations. bols, and these can be studied using the intuitive method. Spengler idenThe essential, therefore, is to understand the time for which one is born. He tified a roster of eight civilizations in who does not sense and understand its most secret forces, who does not feel in history, including modern Western himself something cognate that drives him forward on a path neither hedged civilization, that he considered wornor defined by concepts, who trusts to the surface—public opinion, large thy of serious attention. In focusing phrases and ideals of the day—he is not of the stature for its events. He is in beyond Europe, Spengler stripped their power, not they in his. Look not back to the past for measuring-rods! There are times, like our own present and the Grecchan age, in which there are Western civilization of any claim to two most deadly kinds of idealism, the reactionary and the democratic. The one a privileged status among world socibelieves in the reversibility of history, the other in a teleology of history. But it eties. He denounced the conventional makes not difference to the inevitable failure with which both burden a nation division of history into ancient, meover whose destiny they have power, whether it is to a memory or to a concept dieval, and modern segments, saying that they sacrifice it. The genuine statesman is incarnate history, its directedthat the separation was too Eurocenness expressed as individual will and its organic logic as character. tric and irrelevant to the study of . . . The genuine statesman is distinguished from the “mere politician”—the other civilizations. By condemning player who plays for the pleasure of the game, the arriviste on the heights of the extreme Eurocentrism of his day, history, the seeker after wealth and rank—as also from the schoolmaster of an he prepared the intellectual commuidea, by the fact that he dares to demand sacrifices–and obtains them, because nity for a fuller appreciation of the his feeling that he is necessary to the time and the nation is shared by thousands, transforms them to the core and renders them capable of deeds to which otherlarger, non-Western world. wise they cold never have risen. Spengler invented a new method of historical interpretation, one based Source: Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, translated by Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926). not only on a society’s visible features but also on the analogies that
by Goethe’s concepts of organic growth and change, which said that an organism’s ability to change is the only true sign of its vitality. Spengler blended Nietzsche’s cosmic cycles and relativistic outlook with Goethe’s global orientation and fascination with living nature, and the result was an original philosophy of world history. Adapting Goethe’s biological model, Spengler concluded that every civilization in history was an organism, a living thing, that unfolded through a predetermined cycle of birth, maturity, decline, and death. This organic analogy formed the core of Spengler’s historical thesis. The basic units of historiography, he said, could be found in all aspects of the great civilizations, not merely the narrow European political history preferred by most professional historians. Only by treating civilizations as successful manifestations of these life cycles could historians begin to answer significant questions. Furthermore, Spengler claimed that the scientific method used by empiricist historians was suitable only for determining facts and collecting evidence to support
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Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography could be drawn between two or more civilizations in comparable phases of their history. By broadening his perspective in this way, Spengler was able to predict the future course of an existing civilization by referring to past societies, and he found a direct parallel between the late Roman Empire of the caesars and Western European civilization. According to Spengler’s time line, civilizations typically do not rule for more than one thousand years, and so he calculated that a Western society born in the Middle Ages had only a couple of centuries left. These years, he predicted, would be times of great upheaval, and they would end with the collapse of Western civilization. Significance Not surprisingly, Spengler’s pessimistic philosophy sparked great controversy. In the decades since its appearance, The Decline of the West has been harshly criticized for its rigid dogmatism and for its mystical emphasis on biological determinism, including its attempt to compare cultures and civilizations to plants. Spengler became known as the “wild man of comparative history.” What endured, however, was not the superstructure of Spengler’s philosophical system but his fervent commitment to the importance of cultural relativism in the study of history. The values and norms of a society, according to Spengler, can be understood only in relation to the milieu in which they originated. The relentless subjectivism and relativism of The Decline of the West clearly anticipated the work of later twentieth century historians such as Michel Foucault, whose Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (1961; Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, 1965)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 most fully expresses his subjective view of knowledge. According to Foucault, there are no facts, only interpretations; language is the only reality, and history texts are not sources of historical truth but only the subjective reflections of their authors. —Donald Sullivan Further Reading Farrenkopf, John. Prophet of Decline: Spengler on World History and Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. Study based largely on newly available materials found in the Spengler archive in Munich. Comments on Spengler’s cultural relativism. Hughes, H. Stuart. Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate. Rev. ed. New York: Scribner’s, 1962. One of the best overviews of Spengler’s achievement available. Particularly valuable for tracing the intellectual background behind The Decline of the West. Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West. Translated by Charles Francis Atkinson, edited by Arthur Helps. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962. Contains the essence of Spengler’s philosophy of world history. Windschuttle, Keith. The Killing of History. New York: Free Press, 1997. Incisive critique of the impact of cultural relativism on the writing of history, especially in chapters 7 and 9. See also: 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History; 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears; 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Migratory Bird Treaty Act
July 3, 1918
Migratory Bird Treaty Act The Migratory Bird Treaty Act established federal ownership of economically important migratory birds, and in doing so it shifted the power to regulate wildlife away from the states. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures John Wingate Weeks (1860-1926), U.S. senator from Massachusetts George Payne McLean (1857-1932), U.S. senator from Connecticut John F. Lacey (1841-1913), U.S. congressman from Iowa T. Gilbert Pearson (1873-1943), president of the National Association of Audubon Societies
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Summary of Event Until 1920, wildlife management was a state-level activity. In 1913, however, the federal Migratory Bird Act was passed to protect migratory game and insectivorous birds from excessive hunting pressure. Lower federal courts found the act unconstitutional. In 1916, Congress concluded a treaty with Great Britain for the protection of migratory birds, and in 1918, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to implement the provisions of the treaty. In 1920, this act withstood a constitutional challenge brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Holland. The Court decided that the treaty power of the federal government, unlike its legislative power, is not constrained by the constitutional rights of the states. The decision destroyed the doctrine of state ownership of wildlife and set the stage for further assertions of federal supremacy. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was the first successful challenge to the established legal doctrine that ownership and control of wildlife were vested in state governments and held in trust for state citizens. Based on English common law, the state ownership doctrine evolved as states sought to protect their dwindling fish and game resources from heavy commercial demand. The height of the state ownership doctrine was reached in Geer v. Connecticut (1896), in which a Connecticut law that prohibited interstate transportation of game that had been lawfully killed in Connecticut was successfully defended against the charge that this was unconstitutional interfer-
ence with interstate commerce. The Supreme Court decided that the state, as owner of the wildlife, could impose any reasonable restriction on its use, alive or dead. Although Geer established the states’ rights to prohibit the export of wildlife, states still had no mechanism to prohibit the importation of wildlife. Many states had laws restricting hunting and the sale of illegally harvested game, but they were hampered in enforcing such laws by market hunters who brought in game killed in other states. Dealers charged with violating state laws could claim that their product was taken in another state, and it was virtually impossible to disprove such assertions. Solving such problems was clearly a federal concern, given that the matter involved interstate commerce. In 1900, Representative John F. Lacey of Iowa introduced a bill in Congress to remedy this problem. Passed in 1900, the Lacey Act provided federal sanction to state laws that prohibited interstate transportation of unlawfully killed animals. The act also allowed states to assume that any dead wildlife found within a state had been killed in the state and thus was subject to state game laws. The Lacey Act helped the states in their efforts to enforce existing laws, but it did nothing to regularize or to enhance protection for migratory birds. Across the nation, a patchwork of hunting regulations and irregular enforcement left many species at the mercy of the casual hunter. Lobbyists such as T. Gilbert Pearson of the National Association of Audubon Societies began to work toward federal regulation, and in a political climate that increasingly supported centralization of governmental power, they soon found supporters in Congress. The first congressional attempt to establish federal control over migratory birds came in 1904, when Pennsylvania congressman George Shiras III introduced a bill to put the birds under the protection of the national government. His first bill died in the Agriculture Committee; a second attempt in 1906 failed as well. Two years later, after Shiras had retired, Massachusetts congressman John Wingate Weeks introduced a similar but also unsuccessful bill. By 1912, when Weeks, joined by Senator George Payne McLean of Connecticut, tried again, other interest groups had begun to rally around the cause. The firearms manufacturers and dealers were interested in protecting their markets, and game associations wished to preserve their sport. Some advocates were moved by the plight of the disappearing species and the wanton slaughter, especially for feathers in women’s hats. The
Migratory Bird Treaty Act bill was expanded to include insectivorous birds, bringing agricultural interests into the fold, and the legislation was hidden as a rider to an agricultural appropriations bill and was signed by President William Howard Taft on March 4, 1913, as his administration was rushing to a close. Taft later said that he thought the migratory-bird provisions of the bill were unconstitutional and that he would have vetoed the bill had he been aware of its contents. Relying on the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, the Migratory Bird Act, also known as the Weeks-McLean Act, gave jurisdiction over migratory birds to the federal Department of Agriculture. Challenges to the Migratory Bird Act reached the federal courts in United States v. Shauver in 1914 and United States v. McCullagh in 1915; in both cases, the courts relied on Geer, finding the Migratory Bird Act to be an unconstitutional exercise of federal power. President Taft had not been alone in his misgivings over the act. Only a month after the act became law, the rapid state response challenging the bill led Senator McLean to introduce a resolution asking the president to negotiate a North American treaty to protect migratory birds. The resolution passed, aided considerably by the public furor over the 1914 death of the last known passenger pigeon. Treaty negotiations with Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) began almost at once. The Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds was signed on August 16, 1916, and swiftly ratified by the Senate; the convention entered into force on August 22, 1916. Opposition in Congress to the enabling act for the Migratory Bird Treaty was stiff. Members of Congress were dismayed that the treaty power was being used to give the federal government an authority that would otherwise be unconstitutional, and issues of states’ rights were hotly debated. Even members who recognized the need to protect diminishing bird populations feared that this use of the treaty power to limit state authority might undermine the federal system of government. They warned that the national government might use the same vehicle to invade other areas constitutionally reserved to the states. Nevertheless, Congress passed enabling legislation in 1917, and on July 3, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The states moved promptly to challenge the enabling legislation in court, but use of the federal treaty power complicated their arguments considerably. The landmark case that decided the supremacy of the treaty power over the reserved rights of the states was Missouri v. Holland (1920). This case arose in federal district court 1438
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 against federal game warden Ray P. Holland, whose enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Missouri was interfering with the amount of state revenues generated by hunting. The district judge found that the treatymaking power of the United States was supreme over state authority; therefore, he ruled, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was constitutional. Missouri appealed to the Supreme Court, but the Court upheld the lower-court decision. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was indeed constitutional; the erosion of the state ownership doctrine confirmed in Geer had begun. Significance Early in the Progressive Era, the issue of regulating wild game seemed settled: No matter how unsatisfactory state efforts might be, the states’ power to regulate was practically absolute. Within twenty years, however, the federal presence in wildlife regulation was permanently established. How did this happen? The conservation movement was part of the larger Progressive movement at the turn of the century. Disgusted with the excesses of big business, monopolistic control of industry, and machine politics, reformers struggled to protect the rights of the people to the natural resources of the land, not in a spirit of preservation but rather to ensure that the opportunities and benefits held in reserve in these resources were accessible to the general public. The conservation movement was partly a response to the drive for rational and efficient organization of time and resources imposed on many facets of American life during this era. The precepts of scientific management in business overflowed into the public sector; government regulation of businesses such as the railroads and the passage of pure food and drug laws were motivated as much by goals of efficiency as by the public interest. The conservation movement also reflected the American people’s concern that the frontier was truly gone; the 1890 census had formally declared the closing of the American frontier. With the disappearance of the frontier, Americans could no longer accept wasteful exploitation of resources, and the movement to preserve some of the natural world that had partially defined the American experience gained wider acceptance. Finally, federal assumption of control over wildlife was part of a larger effort to centralize national power. Virtually all congressional debates over the Migratory Bird Act of 1913 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 focused on the constitutional issues of the proper relationship between the state and federal governments. It is clear from the congressional debates and judicial
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Further Reading Bean, Michael J., and Melanie J. Rowland. The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. 3d ed. New York: Praeger, 1997. The essential background book. Covers the development of wildlife law from its commonlaw origins to the present day. Superb scholarship. Comprehensive, well-written, excellent resource. Belanger, Dian Olson. Managing American Wildlife: A History of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. An organizational history commissioned by the association. Perhaps the association is not as pivotal a player as this book suggests, but the book’s state-level approach provides a valuable resource for understanding federal-state relations in wildlife management. Covering more than eighty years of conservation activity, the book is extremely well-researched and detailed. Chandler, William. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” In Audubon Wildlife Report 1985, edited by Roger Di Silvestro. New York: National Audubon Society, 1985. The evolution of the Fish and Wildlife Service is complex, and Chandler writes an excellent, brief history of the evolution of the federal agency primarily responsible for wildlife management. The entire Audubon Wildlife Report series is highly recommended; each volume contains discussion of a featured agency, federal agency activities, and species accounts. The 1986 Wildlife Report has a special section on state wildlife conservation. Fox, Stephen. The American Conservation Movement: John Muir and His Legacy. 1981. Reprint. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986. Thorough biography of John Muir based on his personal papers and manuscripts. Uses the work of Muir and similar early environmental activists to chronicle the history of the conservation movement from 1890 to 1975. Important and fascinating glimpses into the back rooms of the early years in conservation policy formation. Strong scholarship, readable. Hays, Samuel. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. A classic work. This book defined early scholarship in environmental history. Hays makes a convincing argument that efficiency was the prime motivator for conservation in the Progressive Era. McEvoy, Arthur. The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1439
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opinions that all parties were agreed that game in general, and migratory birds in particular, needed protection. They also agreed that the federal acts would provide protection, yet they argued bitterly over the legislation. For the most part, the arguments were not on scientific or administrative grounds but rather on constitutional ones. Even men who favored the policy ends were driven to object to the policy means. Using a popular policy agenda to achieve a hidden agenda is an ancient political ploy. Environmental policy is often used to camouflage less respectable goals, partly because environmental issues have such high social appeal. For example, historian Arthur McEvoy has noted that the regulation of California shrimp fisheries was as much an attempt to force Chinese immigrants out of business as it was scientific regulation of a natural resource. Having flexed its muscles over migratory birds, the federal government allowed the states to retain some control over wildlife. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the states were given considerable autonomy in choosing how and to what extent they complied with federal guidelines, subject of course to the silken chains of federal money through such programs as the PittmanRobertson Act (1937), which redistributed a federal tax on ammunition and firearms sales to the states for wildlife restoration. Some protective legislation, however, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), and implementation legislation for the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species (1973), placed responsibility for compliance with the national government. The courts have continued to support federal authority over wildlife: For example, federally owned lands within state borders are not subject to state regulation (Hunt v. United States, 1928), the federal government may kill animals on national land without state permits (New Mexico State Game Commission v. Udall, 1969), and the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the power to protect wildlife in navigable waters when such wildlife is affected by dredge and fill operations conducted on privately owned riparian land (Zabel v. Tabb, 1970). None of this legislation would have been possible had the state ownership doctrine enunciated in Geer been allowed to stand. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which withstood a legal challenge to the constitutional right of the federal government to regulate wildlife, was thus the beginning of a unified national policy for wildlife regulation. —Susan J. Buck
Migratory Bird Treaty Act
Meuse-Argonne Offensive 1986. This book is already a classic, cited by virtually every economic historian with an interest in the environment. The focus is on California, but the methodology is applicable to a wide range of environmental analysis. Although written for a scholarly audience, this will also be enjoyed by general audiences. Orr, Oliver H., Jr. Saving American Birds: T. Gilbert Pearson and the Founding of the Audubon Movement. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992. Although sometimes mired in detail, this volume is a vivid account of the life of a poor boy interested in birds who became one of the most influential lobbyists in the United States. A good companion to Fox’s work on Muir. Sinclair, Anthony R. E., John M. Fryxell, and Graeme Caughley. Wildlife Ecology, Conservation, and Management. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. An excellent introduction to ecology and conservation studies. Includes a CD that helps students create computerbased models of different ecological scenarios. Taber, Richard D., and Neil F. Payne. Wildlife, Conservation, and Human Welfare: A United States and Ca-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nadian Perspective. Malabar, Fla.: Krieger Publishing Company, 2003. Attempts to chronicle the history of human impact on wildlife and analyzes the response to its destruction. Tober, James A. Who Owns the Wildlife? The Political Economy of Conservation in Nineteenth Century America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981. An extraordinarily fine book detailing the economic and political forces behind the conservation movement. Excellent complement to Bean’s The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act; Sept. 2, 1937: Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding; July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed.
September 26-November 11, 1918
Meuse-Argonne Offensive Heavy casualties in the final major battle of World War I underscored the importance of providing troops with adequate training. Locale: Northeastern France Categories: World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history Key Figures Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929), Frenchman who served as supreme commander of the Allied Armies Douglas Haig (1861-1928), commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Forces John J. Pershing (1860-1948), commander of the American Expeditionary Forces Summary of Event When the United States declared war on Imperial Germany on April 6, 1917, the U.S. Army, consisting of only about 125,000 officers and enlisted men, was not an organized, professional army with modern equipment or training doctrines. The United States found itself embarrassingly short of weapons, uniforms, accoutrements, air1440
craft, and other critical items. The National Guard, called up to serve by President Woodrow Wilson, numbered only 73,000 to add to the army regulars. The United States did have a huge reservoir of eager recruits, however, and plans were made to raise, by means of the 1917 Conscription Act, a national army to augment regular and National Guard forces. The commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), General John J. Pershing, knew that his troops were ill prepared for combat on the western front. After he arrived in France, he announced to the Allies that U.S. troops would need to be trained. The ultimate goal of the AEF, however, was to have a strictly American army, with its own sector of the line. Pershing received support in the form of training assistance and facilities from French general Ferdinand Foch and from Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, commander of British forces in France and in Flanders. Neither Foch nor Haig, however, was optimistic about an exclusive U.S. zone and the creation of an American army. Pershing firmly believed in a doctrine of maneuver warfare—getting the troops out of the static trenches,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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tensive training and experience, but many of the new divisions had not. Division commanders and staffs had difficulty writing and overseeing the implementation of orders for subordinate brigades and regiments, let alone integrating air assets, tanks, and the like, which were habitually attached to the divisions. During May and June, some 400,000 troops made the dangerous ocean crossing. Supplies for this growing force were shipped by rail from the huge Service of Supply (SOS) base in Tours to depots near the western front. The SOS remained critically short of heavy-duty trucks, however, and aircraft, artillery, and heavy weapons had to be begged from the Allies. Despite the shortfall in supply and the tentative training of many AEF divisions, Pershing pushed ahead with plans to reduce the St. Mihiel salient, a large bulge that jutted into the Allied lines. The bulge resembled a triangle, with the town of St. Mihiel at its apex and the city of Metz a few miles from the base. Setting the attack for dawn on September 12, Pershing moved his most experienced units into line for the attack. The French sent combat divisions and augmented U.S. artillery with a large number of guns. Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell assembled more than fourteen hundred aircraft for the attack, and Major General James Harbord’s SOS brought up vast quantities of supplies. When the attack began, however, heavy rains 1441
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forcing an end to the war by destroying the enemy, and seizing terrain. He argued that trench warfare sapped the aggressive spirit of an army, and he distrusted the morale of both British and French armies after four years of trench fighting. Despite these feelings, Pershing placed the incoming 28,000-soldier infantry divisions under foreign tutelage in training areas and then in the trenches in so-called quiet areas. Pershing, however, stressed maneuver warfare without really knowing the impact of modern artillery, machine guns, aircraft, and chemicals on the battlefield. By December, 1917, Pershing had four divisions (the First, Second, Twenty-sixth, and Forty-second) in training, but it was not until the German offensives that began on March 21, 1918, that Pershing allowed AEF divisions to see combat. They were then primarily under the operational control of French senior commanders. One result of the German offensives was the naming of Ferdinand Foch as supreme Allied commander. Although Foch was frustrated with Pershing’s obstinacy, he understood Pershing’s desire to have an American army in the field. In August, Pershing was allowed to form the First U.S. Army, with himself as commander. Pershing divided his army into three corps, selecting solid but inexperienced commanders. The divisions that made up the corps were of varying quality. Those divisions that arrived early in France had been exposed to ex-
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Meuse-Argonne Offensive made roads impassible for the trucks of the SOS, tanks became bogged down, and aircraft had difficulty flying. Unknown to the AEF, the German high command had chosen to evacuate the salient, fighting the oncoming U.S. troops with well-placed machine guns and artillery. For four days, U.S. soldiers reduced the St. Mihiel salient, and Pershing firmly believed that maneuver warfare had been proven. He also had promised Foch that a large U.S. force would be in place to begin the MeuseArgonne offensive on September 26. Pershing hurried forces to staging areas for the offensive. His operational planners, including Colonel George C. Marshall, did not have time to reflect on reports from the St. Mihiel operation, and a false sense of optimism reigned at the headquarters of the First U.S. Army. Pershing himself wrote that everyone at army headquarters felt alert and confident, but they set impossible objectives, disregarding terrain, the enemy, the climate, and the ability to resupply. Pershing’s best and most combat-experienced divisions had yet to leave the St.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mihiel area. The attack would begin with less experienced, less well trained combat divisions. The Meuse-Argonne area resembled a box twenty miles long and about forty miles in depth. Dense forests such as the Argonne and ranges of rugged, thicketed hills had been turned into formidable defensive positions by the Germans. There were three solid defensive lines, the strongest being the second line, the Krimhilde Stellung (the Hindenburg line). Unlike at St. Mihiel, the Germans had continually improved their defensive positions in the area with machine guns and more artillery; most important, they had sent first-class infantry to the defense. Against these determined, dug-in defenders, the AEF arrayed divisions with little training or experience. The Thirty-fifth Infantry Division, for example, had had no time to work with its artillery prior to starting the assault against the first defensive line, and by the end of the first day, the division was showing signs of confusion. Although Pershing was overly optimistic about the combat capabilities of his troops, his operational in-
Members of the U.S. Thirty-fifth Coast Artillery loading a mobile railroad gun on the Argonne front in September, 1918. (NARA)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 stincts were correct. He arrayed from left to right three corps of four divisions each on the start line, which were to advance together. The Meuse-Argonne was not the battle of maneuver that Pershing had preached. It was a head-on, frontal assault that pitted muscle against muscle, and the casualties were appalling. By the end of the operation, 120,000 U.S. troops had been killed or wounded, and the number of stragglers, those who wandered off from their units, numbered near 100,000. Heavy rains continued, supplies went forward very slowly, and many of the wounded languished in agony for days before they could be removed to combat hospitals. By November, 1918, the AEF was reaching the end of its rope, as combat fatigue, lack of supplies, bad weather, and the German defense took their toll. The attack had begun on September 26 and in four days had ground to a halt. On October 7, Pershing ceased all operations and ordered the Twenty-eighth and Eighty-second Divisions to clear the Argonne forest of German defenders. This they did, at great cost, for several days, but the Hindenburg line had not yet been reached. In mid-October, the AEF attacked the Hindenburg line. Some of the best divisions of the AEF, such as the First and the Forty-second, were used up in the attack. On October 15, a brigade of infantry of the Forty-second Division, under Brigadier General Douglas A. MacArthur, established a foothold on one key position of the line. After another lull, U.S. forces attacked on November 1 with great success. By this time, however, the Germans were in full retreat. Continuing to take casualties against a stiff German rearguard action, the AEF finally reached the Meuse River on November 11, when the armistice was announced. The date would later be dubbed Armistice Day. Significance The fighting in the Meuse-Argonne came to an end because Germany was at an end. The AEF fought with grim determination, but the army that Pershing commanded was near collapse. Despite the horrendous casualties, Pershing and his many disciples came to believe that the battle had confirmed the correctness of their doctrine: that determined infantry with rifle and bayonet, sup-
Meuse-Argonne Offensive ported by artillery and machine guns and air, was the decisive factor in war. Because of strict censorship, few civilians realized the terrible conditions under which U.S. soldiers fought. For decades, the extent of the slaughter that had taken place in the Meuse-Argonne remained undiscussed. The Meuse-Argonne offensive, however, showed the fighting spirit of the AEF and confirmed the concept that only trained, well-schooled soldiers should be committed to battle. Memories of the early confusion and subsequent combat in the Meuse-Argonne motivated men such as General George C. Marshall to train and prepare troops extensively for the next great global conflict. —James J. Cooke Further Reading Braim, Paul F. The Test of Battle: The American Expeditionary Forces in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. 2d ed. Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane, 1998. A solid overview of the campaign that examines the weaknesses of the U.S. effort. Includes extensive appendixes, bibliography, and index. Cooke, James J. The Rainbow Division in the Great War, 1917-1919. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. An account of a World War I infantry division. Includes material on the Meuse-Argonne campaign. Hallas, James H. Squandered Victory: The American First Army at St. Mihiel. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995. An in-depth account of U.S. planning for and operations leading up to the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Includes maps, bibliography, and index. Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the World War. 1931. Reprint. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1989. Presents excellent material on the MeuseArgonne offensive from the personal viewpoint of the U.S. general. See also: Oct. 6, 1906: Launching of the Dreadnought; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Apr. 2227, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun; May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland. 1918
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Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November, 1918-June, 1920
Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I After World War I ended, the reintegration of two million members of the American Expeditionary Forces had a significant impact on the U.S. economy. Locale: United States Categories: Economics; business and labor Key Figures Peyton March (1864-1955), chief of staff of the U.S. Army John J. Pershing (1860-1948), commander of the American Expeditionary Forces Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event At 11:00 a.m. Paris time on Thursday, November 11, 1918, World War I, the Great War, ended. News of the German armistice reached the United States at 3:00 a.m. eastern standard time by way of the Associated Press. From the White House that same day, President Woodrow Wilson announced the armistice: Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. It will now be our fortunate duty to assist by example, by sober, friendly counsel, and by material aid in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world.
The events that took place over the next two years indicate that Wilson was thinking primarily of his plans for the peace conference soon to open in Paris. It appears that he was not concerned with the more immediate problems of demobilizing the U.S. armed forces and managing U.S. society itself. By November, 1918, Wilson had planned virtually nothing in the way of a domestic program of postwar reconstruction. Preoccupied with the coming peace conference, he proposed no program of his own and encouraged none from his administration. Even the army seemed surprised when it suddenly faced the problem of disbanding the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Preparations for military demobilization got under way just before the armistice, when a War Department committee began making tentative plans and was faced with certain immediate problems. Should soldiers be demobilized by military units, and as quickly as possible, without reference to their employment opportunities or the industrial needs of the country? Should the army transport soldiers to their home areas 1444
before releasing them from service, or would the use of several major mustering-out centers make for a more effective demobilization? In making its plans, the army had no comparable precedent and few European procedures to emulate. With the armistice, massive pressure arose to demobilize quickly. The soldiers’ families wanted them home at once, and economic arguments were as strong as family sentiment. On November 11, the war was costing the United States approximately $50 million per day; every day’s delay in demobilization added to the burden of taxation required to finance the army’s upkeep. One great problem faced by General John J. Pershing, commander of the AEF, was timing. Pershing had planned for a massive U.S. offensive in the spring of 1919. This involved a huge buildup of AEF troops as well as the procurement of supplies and the letting of contracts for facilities. After the armistice, all of those plans had to be reversed immediately. On the afternoon of November 11, Pershing received a cable from Washington, D.C., stating that on November 12, all overtime pay and Sunday work on behalf of the war effort would end in the United States. It was clear to Pershing that economy was now all-important. Working with Major General James Harbord, his chief of supply, Pershing quickly identified a large number of contracts with the British and French that would have to be canceled immediately. Loud protests came from both London and Paris, as well as from local contractors and suppliers, but Pershing was bound by his instructions from Washington. Pershing also ordered that all AEF schools be closed as rapidly as possible. Only those soldiers already halfway through their courses of study would be allowed to complete their training. The massive U.S. Army Air Service training center at Issoudun in France, which was the largest in the world, would be closed by December, 1918. Several thousand pilot trainees were released from Issoudun by the end of November and ordered to report to processing stations for return to the United States. All over France this process was repeated, despite the hardships caused to local concerns and protests from the French government. The AEF at the time had some two million troops equipped with thousands of horses, trucks, motorcycles, railroad cars, weapons, tanks, and planes. Most of the equipment, animals, vehicles, and weapons remained in France, there to rust, to die, or to be sold in a huge salvage operation.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 To bring the men home, the army had to find transportation. More than half the AEF had been transported to France in foreign ships, mostly English. At war’s end, the British government, wanting to return its people to their countries and also eager to restore its maritime trade, immediately withdrew its ships from use by the United States, as did France and Italy. The U.S. Army began to convert cargo carriers into troop ships, and the U.S. Navy did the same with fourteen battleships and ten cruisers. Several confiscated German ships were added to the demobilization fleet. By June, 1919, that fleet reached its maximum: 174 vessels with one-trip accommodations for 419,000 troops. The fleet could have carried the entire AEF in five trips, with room to spare. Acting with dispatch, U.S. Army chief of staff Peyton March issued orders on November 16 for mustering out the first 200,000 troops. March expected to release 30,000 soldiers per day when the process was in full operation. In the months to come, the War Department occasionally tried to demobilize according to soldiers’ occupational skills, but such sporadic gestures did not
Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I occur until the great machine of military demobilization had begun pouring the AEF back into the United States from stations abroad. For nearly a year thereafter, the homecoming stream continued, reaching a peak in June, 1919, when almost 350,000 troops reached the United States. By September, 1919, only 40,000 U.S. troops remained in Europe, all of them either serving in logistical units or part of the U.S. occupation force in Germany. At home, demobilization went even more rapidly. In December, 1918, the army discharged more than 600,000 of the soldiers then stationed in the United States. By April 1, 1920, the population of the U.S. Army was less than one-eighth of 1 percent of the size it had been when the ranks were swelled with men enlisted for emergency duty during the war. The U.S. Navy discharged with equal dispatch, releasing 400,000 persons within a year after the armistice. The U.S. Marine Corps demobilized 50,000 in the same period. Efficient though it was, this massive demobilization was not free of delays and frustrations. In France, after the armistice, fifty-one new companies of military police
1918
U.S. soldiers are mustered out at Camp Dix in New Jersey after World War I. (NARA)
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Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I were organized and kept busy as soldiers began to grumble and discipline began to break down. Soldiers who were absent without leave began to collect in Paris and at the French embarkation ports. Barracks graffiti appeared: “Lafayette, we are still here.” Meanwhile, the machinery of demobilization did its job. The U.S. Quartermaster Service chose Brest, Bordeaux, and Saint-Nazaire as French ports of embarkation. Midway between Paris and the Biscay coast of France, at Le Mans, the army built an enormous assembly area for troops bound for the coast. At Le Mans or at the embarkation port itself, the troops received medical examinations, treatment from barbers and dentists, and new or supplementary outfits of clothing. They also went through a delousing center. Coming in from the western front, with its filth and stench, nine out of ten U.S. service personnel brought with them the infamous louse, or “cootie,” parasite of the trenches. Once they had made the routine voyage across the Atlantic—during which not one life was lost—the troops docked at one of four ports: Boston, New York, Newport News, or Charleston. Each person leaving the army kept a complete outfit of clothing and various items of equipment, such as a safety razor. The enterprising Gillette Safety Razor Company had designed and sold this item to the army, thereby changing the shaving habits of a generation of Americans while making a fortune for itself. Many soldiers carried duffel bags that bulged with souvenirs of their time in Europe. Once back in the United States, soldiers were rushed through processing stations. Many were told to take all of their military equipment home, and the government would send for it later, but it never did. Each soldier was to receive sixty dollars in cash to buy a new suit of clothes. The processing was so rapid that a majority of soldiers did not receive their victory medals. When the soldiers arrived back home, they found they had no job protection, and many remained unemployed for some time after the war. Record keeping tended to be sloppy, given the emphasis on speedy demobilization, and a large number of soldiers with wounds and disabilities never had their medical status properly recorded. Although Pershing was under orders to send the troops home as rapidly as possible, he still had to send a sizable military force, eventually numbering thirty divisions, to occupy Germany. This newly created Third Army had to be ready to commence combat operations if the Versailles peace talks failed. Pershing sent to Germany the oldest, most experienced combat divisions he had, which caused a good deal of grumbling among those 1446
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 soldiers who had been in combat the longest. U.S. troops were scattered from the port of Antwerp, Belgium, to the west bank of the Rhine River, with army headquarters in Koblenz, Germany. By the spring of 1919, Pershing had begun to send those divisions back to the United States. The troops returning from the occupation were among those who suffered the most from the lack of employment. Demobilization did not officially end until the army of occupation had come home and the U.S. Army had disposed of its huge properties in Europe. Portions of the occupation army remained on the Rhine until January, 1923. Well before that date, the army disposed of its European properties. Pershing had been authorized to sell all surplus property on the spot, and the supply section of the AEF remained busy with contracts. Except for some 850,000 tons of artillery, road-making machinery, and other heavy equipment that it shipped home, the army sold its holdings in Europe or simply allowed them to disintegrate or disappear. The French government agreed to pay $400 million for some of it. The Czechs bought overcoats, the Estonians bought army bacon, and the Portuguese bought shoes. At home, the army disposed of much unneeded property through surplus stores. It gave up other items in sundry ways; for example, fourteen National Guard camps, three embarkation camps, sixteen training camps, four flying fields, four hospitals, and various other buildings brought a total return to the government of $4.2 million. One camp in Louisiana, built at a cost of $4.3 million, sold for $43,000 in “salvage recovery.” As the army’s property diminished, so did its regular workforce. As soon as the war ended, debates began concerning the proper size and functions of a peacetime military force. In June, 1920, through the new National Defense Act, Congress cut the size of the regular army to 280,000 soldiers. It reduced this number still more in the next two years; by 1927, the U.S. Army had been reduced to little more than a token force. The U.S. Navy was reduced in 1921 to fewer than 138,000 men. Significance When Woodrow Wilson left the White House, the great military force raised to fight World War I had been demobilized. The readjustment of the troops to civilian life, the dismantling of war industries, the return of property (such as the railroads) to private industry, and countless other adjustments that U.S. society had to make after the war all created enormous difficulties, many of which were felt for another generation. By comparison, the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mustering out of hundreds of thousands of service personnel was a relatively easy task. In its broader meaning, the demobilization after World War I and the consequent societal adjustment from war to peace shaped the history of the United States for the next two decades, until another world war brought on an even greater mobilization. —Burl L. Noggle and James J. Cooke Further Reading Cooke, James J. The Rainbow Division in the Great War, 1917-1919. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. An account of one of the AEF’s oldest combat divisions. Includes extensive information on the occupation of Germany and demobilization. Crowell, Benedict, and Robert F. Wilson. Demobilization. Vol. 6 in How America Went to War: An Account from Official Sources of the Nation’s War Activities, 1917-1920. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1921. An invaluable work, written by persons who were involved with demobilization.
Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era Hagood, Johnson. The Services of Supply: A Memoir of the Great War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. Written by a general in the Service of Supply who had intimate knowledge of the many problems caused by demobilization. Palmer, Frederick. Newton D. Baker: America at War. 2 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931. Includes a solid chapter on postwar activities. See also: 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using CostPlus Contracts; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts; July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference.
November 5, 1918-November 2, 1920
Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era The national elections of 1918 and 1920 returned the Republican Party to dominance and ended an era of progressive reform in the United States. Locale: United States Category: Government and politics Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), U.S. senator from Ohio Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), governor of Massachusetts James M. Cox (1870-1957), governor of Ohio Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), U.S. senator from Massachusetts Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), assistant secretary of the Navy
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1918
Summary of Event On November 2, 1920, radio station KDKA made one of the first commercial radio broadcasts in the United States, and the first commercial broadcast of presidential election coverage, from its facilities in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A small scattering of people, straining to
hear through the static in their earphones, heard a voice reporting the election returns. The Republican candidate, Warren G. Harding, had won by a landslide over his Democratic opponent, James M. Cox, governor of Ohio, with sixteen million to nine million votes. The U.S. electorate, after eight years of the New Freedom, world war, and postwar tensions, had turned their backs on Woodrow Wilson and the Democratic Party. The Republican resurgence began in the off-year elections of 1918. The strains of wartime politics and the mistakes of the Wilson administration had disrupted the Democratic coalition. Midwestern wheat farmers disliked the government’s price controls on their crop, liberals resented the suppression of dissent during the war, and business interests believed that the White House had been too intrusive in regulating their affairs. The Republicans were in an excellent position to gain control of the House of Representatives and a few Senate seats as well. Dislike of Wilson drew such former enemies as William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt together against the common foe. By the autumn of 1918, with the war obviously won, Wilson was looking ahead to the peace conference at Versailles; he did not want to go to Europe after having been repudiated at home. Worried Democrats pressed
Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era Wilson to provide an endorsement of the party’s candidates to stave off a Republican victory. Despite the support that many Republicans had given to his foreign policy and to his wartime programs on Capitol Hill, Wilson issued a partisan appeal on October 25 for the return of a Democratic Congress. The Republicans, he charged, had been prowar but antiadministration; a time of peacemaking was no time for divided leadership. The tactic backfired. For Wilson, the election was a stunning upset. On November 5, the Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress, 49 to 47 in the Senate and 237 to 193 in the House. The Republican Party now had a strong base on which to build a victory in the next presidential election, still two years away. The Democrats found themselves confused and leaderless while Wilson pursued his foreign policy goals at the Paris Peace Conference early in 1919. From 1918 through 1920, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had the difficult task of maintaining party unity. Senate Republicans were badly divided on the Treaty of Versailles, ranging from a minority of bitter-end isolationists who opposed it in any form to the majority who favored ratification with reservations. The isolationists could defeat the party in 1920 if they decided to bolt on creation of the League of Nations, one of Wilson’s Fourteen Points incorporated into the treaty. As Lodge knew, Wilson owed his election victory in 1912 to Republican division. If the League of Nations proved successful, that result might offset the domestic problems of the Democratic Party in 1920. For his part, Wilson had failed to include any prominent Republicans in the American Peace Commission; he now had to accept Republican amendments that would give the League of Nations a bipartisan character, or Lodge would have to defeat it in the Senate. After Wilson suffered a crippling stroke in the autumn of 1919, he resisted all attempts at compromise. Lodge adroitly led his party to victory, defeating the treaty and the League of Nations while keeping together the disparate elements of his party. Republican delegates were confident when they gathered at Chicago for their national convention. “Any good Republican,” said Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania, “can be nominated for president and defeat any Democrat.” At the start of the convention, no clear frontrunner had emerged. In the balloting, neither of the two leading candidates, U.S. Army chief of staff Leonard Wood and Governor Frank O. Lowden of Illinois, displayed enough strength to secure the nomination. 1448
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Senator Hiram Warren Johnson of California, another contender, had little support. With the convention deadlocked, the delegates turned to a compromise candidate, Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio. He was the perfect dark horse. He had made many friends and no enemies in the Senate since his election in 1914. Tall, handsome, with silver hair and a suntan, Harding even looked like a president. He was an acceptable second choice to the delegates, and the next day the convention nominated him. The convention then did the unexpected and named Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts as the vice presidential candidate. The specter of the stricken Wilson, who had not recovered from his stroke, hung over the Democratic Party’s convention in San Francisco. After the Senate failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, Wilson sought vindication at the polls. He called for a “solemn referendum” on the League of Nations in the election of 1920. Wilson even hoped to break tradition with a third nomination and to barnstorm the country again on the League of Nations issue. His doctors knew that such an attempt would kill him. The nomination for which Wilson hoped never came. Three contenders battled one another through four grueling days of roll calls: the former secretary of the treasury and the son-in-law of the president, William G. McAdoo, perhaps the most able contender; Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, most recently noted for his anticommunist crusade during the Red Scare of 19191920; and Governor James M. Cox of Ohio. On the fortyfourth ballot, the convention picked Cox as the party’s nominee and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the popular assistant secretary of the Navy, as his running mate. Cox, a three-term governor with a progressive record, had the advantage of not being identified with the Wilson administration and its political failures. The campaign took place in an atmosphere of postwar upheaval. Since the end of World War I, a wave of strikes, bombings and attempted bombings, race riots, and lynchings had frayed the country’s nerves. Many Americans had tired of Progressivism, bigger government, and higher taxes; the nation indulged in a period of intolerance and repression of minorities and unpopular ideas. In May, 1920, Harding accurately captured the mood of the nation when he said, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy.” Since 1896, the Republican Party had been the majority party, and with his party united behind him, Harding had only to sit back and wait for the most smashing victory up to that time in U.S. presidential politics. Rolling up a 60 percent majority, he carried every state outside
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the South, and he even cracked that region with a victory in Tennessee, leading Cox by 404 to 127 in the electoral college. Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs, a prisoner in the Atlanta penitentiary, received more than 900,000 votes, about 3 percent of the total. Significance The Republican resurgence of 1918-1920, which stemmed from voter disgust with Progressivism, Wilson, and the Democrats, led to a decade of Republican electoral dominance. Harding’s scandal-ridden administration ended with his death in 1923, and then Calvin Coolidge assumed the presidency, easily winning election in his own right in 1924. Both Coolidge and his successor as president, Republican Herbert Hoover, led strongly probusiness and antiprogressive administrations. It was not until the 1930’s that the Democratic Party regained dominance in U.S. politics, as Hoover’s insufficient measures to repair the economy during the Great Depression contributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to the presidency in 1932. — Donald Holley and Lewis L. Gould
Further Reading Boller, Paul F., Jr. Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Brief essays, written for the general reader, describe every U.S. presidential election campaign from the country’s founding to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Concludes with a postscript that discusses how campaigns and elections have changed over the course of the nation’s history. Includes index. Burner, David. The Politics of Provincialism: The Democratic Party in Transition, 1918-1932. 1968. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Takes a close look at why the Democratic Party collapsed during World War I. Notes the impact of
Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era such issues as Prohibition and woman suffrage on the party’s electoral coalition. Cooper, John Milton. Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900-1920. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Overview of the Progressive Era presents a good analysis of the last two years of Wilson’s presidency. Includes maps, suggestions for further reading, and index. Ferrell, Robert H. Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917-1921. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Provides detailed treatment of Wilson’s performance as a war leader, with coverage of key issues leading up to the repudiation of the Democrats in 1918 and 1920. Gould, Lewis L. Reform and Regulation: American Politics from Roosevelt to Wilson. 3d ed. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1986. Political history of the period concludes with a chapter that considers the Republican victories in the 1918 and 1920 elections. Livermore, Seward W. Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916-1918. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1966. Thorough study of the reasons for the Republican success in the 1918 elections. Emphasizes the policy mistakes of the Wilson administration. Miller, Karen A. J. Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Focuses on the effects of the Republican resurgence on U.S. foreign policy, with an emphasis on the political maneuvering of politicians William E. Borah and Hiram Warren Johnson. Includes select bibliography and index. See also: Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency; Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President; 1921-1923: Scandals of the Harding Administration; Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President.
1918
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Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 1, 1918
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence Out of the chaos of the Balkan Wars and World War I emerged a South Slav state whose principal ethnic communities maintained a shaky union that completely disintegrated with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also known as: Yugoslavia; South Slav state Locale: The Balkans Categories: Independence movements; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures Anton Korošec (1872-1940), Slovene priest and politician Ante Trumbi6 (1864-1938), Croatian nationalist and cofounder of Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Nikola Paši6 (1845-1926), dominant Serbian politician in the early twentieth century Alexander I (Alexander Karadjordjevi6; 1888-1934), first king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, r. 1921-1929 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event Although President Woodrow Wilson believed that the Slavic peoples of southern Europe shared a common national identity that made them prime candidates for a state of their own under the principle of national selfdetermination, the Croatians, Serbs, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, and other former subjects of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the region did not. During the nineteenth century, most of them, especially the two largest communities—the Serbs and the Croats—had developed separate national identities based on different histories, religions, and, in some instances, alphabets. By the early twentieth century, Serbian nationalism had departed from its idealistic, pan-Slavic origins and was focused on creating a Serbian nation that included many regions where Serbs dwelt, even though in areas like Croatia the Serbs were ethnic minorities. In 1878, Serbia and Montenegro had achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire’s rule, and Serbian nationalists were already focused on liberating other Serboccupied lands from Ottoman and Austrian rule. This desire for independence was often accompanied by the 1450
fervor that drove a young Bosnian Serb to assassinate the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand, in Sarajevo in 1914 in the hope of ending Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia. The wars in the Balkans did not, however, begin with an assassin’s shot in Sarajevo. By 1914, intrigue, perfidy, and political rivalry had already produced two wars and multiple alliances of convenience among the region’s principal Slavic communities. The First Balkan War (October, 1912-May, 1913), pitted Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece against Turkey and resulted in Serbian reacquisition of several Serb-populated areas of the Ottoman Empire, including the city of Kosovo and large portions of western Macedonia. Soon after the First Balkan War ended, however, conflict among the victors over Macedonia’s final division led Bulgaria (with encouragement from the Austro-Hungarians) to attack its former allies in June of 1913, triggering the Second Balkan War. This time, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro, and Turkey joined forces to rout Bulgaria. Serbia’s success in the two wars had nearly doubled its territory, and Serbian nationalism gathered momentum. The conflict’s next round focused on Bosnia, whose annexation by Austria in 1908 had thwarted Serbia’s pursuit of land to the west. When the archduke was assassinated, threats and counterthreats involving the investigation of the murder triggered a network of secret treaties of mutual assistance on all sides, and World War I began. At the war’s outset, Croats, Slovenes, and even Serbs living in parts of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire battled the besieged region of Serbia and Montenegro. In late 1914, however, the dynamics of the war changed when Slovene, Croatian, and Serbian nationalist leaders announced their intention to create a united South Slav state at the war’s end. Slovenes and Croatians had previously contemplated the creation of a South Slav state of their own under Austrian sponsorship, but wartime exigencies gave the idea a new direction. As the war progressed, the idea also gained support among the Allied Powers as hundreds of thousands of Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, and Montenegrins died in battles against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. On the diplomatic and political front, Serb, Slovene, and Croatian leaders aggressively worked toward that objective. In London, for example, Ante Trumbi6
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence
and others from the Dalmatian region of Croatia formed the Yugoslav Committee in an attempt to convince the Allies to repudiate the Treaty of London (1915), in which the British, French, and czarist Russian governments promised much of Croatia to Italy in return for its support. In July of 1917, Trumbi6 and the Serbian leader Nikola Paši6 signed the Declaration of Corfu, in which they agreed to form a democratic Serb, Slovene, and Croat state governed by a constitutional monarchy. Toward that end, a National Council of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs was formed to take control of the future country. In October, 1918, Austro-Hungarian forces in the region collapsed, and World War I ended one month later. Under the leadership of Anton Korošec, the National Council had already become the de facto government of Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia, although details concern-
ing the rights of minorities and the form of government were still to be negotiated. When Italian forces quickly launched an attack against Dalmatia, the negotiation of details was tabled in favor of the quick construction of the state and Serbian royal dynasty. On December 1, 1918, the kingdom announced its independence. It was immediately recognized by the victorious wartime powers at Versailles, although the Versailles delegates did express concerns about the new state’s stability and its policies on the rights of minorities. In the short term, the latter issue led the League of Nations to make the adoption of minorityrights charters in each of the new European states (carved from the former Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires) a prerequisite of official recognition. Unfortunately, despite these covenants, minority rights languished in the region. Matters were made more com-
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Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence plicated by disputes between the Croats and Serbs over the state’s form—the Croats favored a loose federation of states, whereas the Serbs wanted a centralized country under Serb rule—and this disagreement destabilized the kingdom for nearly a decade. Significance In 1929, the Serbian king Alexander I assumed dictatorial powers and renamed the country Yugoslavia (land of the Slavs). Five years later, while vacationing out of the country, Alexander died at the hands of an assassin with Croatian connections. Political conflict between the Croats and Serbs continued until Germany invaded Yugoslavia in June of 1941, an event that ended both the debate and the pre-World War II Yugoslav state. Yugoslavia’s interwar history was filled with ethnic strife, and many Yugoslav lives were lost during World War II. To secure its hold on Yugoslavia, German occupiers exploited anti-Serbian sentiments and created puppet governments in Croatia and in the primarily Muslim region of Kosovo (in present-day Serbia and Montenegro). Frequently, Croats used the cover provided by the German army to settle old scores with the Serbs. In response, Tito (born Josip Broz), the leader of the Yugoslav Communist Partisans, led a resistance that killed at least 200,000 Yugoslavs, most of whom were Croats. Under Tito’s independent communist regime, postwar Yugoslavia was relatively stable, and the danger of a backlash was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Tito was a Croat by birth. Above all, however, ethnic strife was tabled during Tito’s regime and for a decade thereafter by Tito’s systematic efforts to unite Yugoslavs around a transnational identity and by the persistent threat of Soviet intervention in Yugoslav politics (although he was initially aligned with Joseph Stalin, Tito broke with the Russian leader after World War II). With Tito’s death in 1980, the foundation of Yugoslav politics—which had seemed shaky even at Versailles—began to erode. This disintegration quickened as the Soviet Union began to liberalize and tolerate more
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political debate, and old divisions between Yugoslav communities resurfaced. When the Soviet Union collapsed, so did Yugoslavia: In 1991, Croatia and Bosnia— which both had large Serbian minorities—seceded, and this led to the dissolution of the South Slav state of Yugoslavia in a series of civil wars whose most intense period lasted roughly from 1991 to 1995. This conflict was so bloody and vile that the United Nations was forced to create a permanent War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague where cases arising from the Yugoslav wars were still being heard a decade after their end. — Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr. Further Reading Benson, Leslie. Yugoslavia: A Concise History. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Excellent follow-up reading on both the origins and development of the area formerly known as Yugoslavia. Curtis, Glenn E., ed. Yugoslavia: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992. The last edition of the long-trusted Library of Congress study of the country, this volume contains an excellent summary of Yugoslavia’s founding and a wealth of data on the nature of the state on the eve of its disintegration. Lederer, Ivo. J. Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study of Frontier-Making. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963. Older but widely available and still perhaps the most detailed account of the critical, World War I-era state-making days. Ramet, Sabrina P. 1996. Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to Ethnic War. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press/HarperCollins. An outstanding analysis of the country’s final days. See also: Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Birth of Czechoslovakia
December 21, 1918
Birth of Czechoslovakia Centuries of outside rule came to an end when the Czech and Slovak peoples joined to form Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak state’s creation occurred largely because of its significant political advantages and because the U.S. government supported the implementation of the principle of national self-determination in the former AustroHungarian Empire. Locale: Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia) Categories: Independence movements; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures Tomáš Masaryk (1850-1937), Czech cofounder and first president of Czechoslovakia Edvard Beneš (1884-1948), Czech cofounder of the First Czechoslovak Republic and its last president Štefan Osuský (1889-1973), Slovak lobbyist for the founding of Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovak statesman Milan Štefánik (1880-1919), Slovak cofounder of Czechoslovakia Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921
1918
Summary of Event The designation of Tomáš Masaryk as the first president of the new nation of Czechoslovakia on December 21, 1918, marked both the end of a long struggle by the Czechs and Slovaks for a state of their own and the fulfillment of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s desire to create a northern Slavic state based on the principle of national self-determination. Both of these issues, however, were more complicated than they first appeared. To the outside world, the linguistic similarities and frequent history of intermarriage between the Czech and Slovak peoples made them prime candidates for union in a state based on the principle of national self-determination; that is, the right of a people united by national identity to have a country of their own. Before World War I, both countries were governed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was on the war’s losing end. As a result, throughout most of 1918, there was no Czechoslovak nation; instead, there were the Slovaks and the Czechs, both of which had their own national consciousnesses. These consciousnesses devel-
oped primarily during the fifty years before 1918, when these communities were joined—for the first time in their history—by a system of joint rule based in both Vienna and Budapest. Although they were nominally united under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in reality the Czechs and Slovaks lived under two different forms of rule, and the form that their respective nationalist philosophies took reflected these differences. By 1918, Slovakia had been under the heavy-handed rule of Hungary for approximately nine hundred years. As a result, much of Slovak nationalism was reactive and defensive in nature. In contrast, the Czechs had traditionally been allowed a comparatively significant degree of freedom: They were widely considered an economically advanced people whose capital, Prague, was one of Europe’s grandest cities. Not surprisingly, Czech nationalism was characterized by its sense of pride, and it even developed a pan-Slavic flavor that was largely absent from Slovak nationalism. It is important to note, how-
Tomáš Masaryk. (Library of Congress)
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Birth of Czechoslovakia ever, that Czech nationalism also presupposed a degree of superiority over the Slovaks. What the Czechs and Slovaks did share by the time of World War I were extremely skillful politicians. Czech leaders Tomáš Masaryk and Edvard Beneš and Slovak leaders Milan Štefánik and Štefan Osuský realized that the World War I-era emphasis on the right to national self-determination offered an opportunity for the formation of an independent, mutually beneficial Czech-Slovak state. To be sure, Wilson and other proponents of selfdetermination never intended that principle to be universally applied. There was, for example, no serious plan to meet the demands of the Irish, who sought independence from British rule. Wilson did, however, believe that selfdetermination was relevant to the lands of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Moreover, since the Czechs and Slovaks were surrounded by non-Slavic states— Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland, and Russia—the region seemed well positioned for statehood. Czech and Slovak leaders aggressively lobbied the American and French governments in their attempt to make statehood a reality. Ultimately, the creation of the Czechoslovak state occurred because Wilson and other leaders decided that the union offered significant political advantages. By merging with the larger Slavic community, Slovakia would be protected from Hungary, its neighbor to the south. For the Czechs, the Slovaks represented a useful counterweight to the large German minority living in Czech territories; combined, the Czechs and Slovaks would constitute a substantial Slavic majority in the new state. For Wilson, the bargain was sealed by a visit from Masaryk shortly before the war’s conclusion. Masaryk, a seasoned politician who had served twice in the Austrian parliament as a Czech representative and a wartime ally who had organized Slavic resistance against the AustroHungarian army on the Russian front, won Wilson’s strong support. After the war, Masaryk became the head of the new country’s provisional government, and two years later he was elected its president. He was reelected to this office twice before his 1935 retirement and replacement by Edvard Beneš. Significance Instead of making a seamless transition into unification, Czechoslovakia became a multinational state primarily composed of two ethnically and linguistically similar but competing populations. The Czechs continually offered the Slovaks the type of benevolent leadership they did not want after centuries of external rule, but fortunately 1454
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 this arrangement did not prove to be a prescription for disaster. In the end, however, differences between Czech and Slovak identities became insurmountable, and in 1992, less than four years after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, Czech and Slovak leaders agreed to dissolve their country into two independent states. The Czech Republic and Slovakia (also known as the Slovak Republic) were created on January 1, 1993. The years between Czechoslovakia’s founding and its dissolution were turbulent ones both in the region and around the world. As a result, the development of a unified Czechoslovak identity proved difficult. The country had barely been established when the leading Slovak statesman, Štefánik, died in an airplane accident under circumstances mysterious enough to lead many Slovaks to believe that he was intentionally killed by the Czechs. These suspicions may have been rooted in Slovak frustration over Czechoslovakia’s consistent domination by its more numerous Czech community. Meanwhile, interwar political disorder, the devastating economic effects of the Great Depression, Czechoslovakia’s occupation by Germany during World War II, and its 1948-1989 absorption into the Soviet Union further complicated the creation of a Czecho-Slovak national consciousness. During World War II, the Germans created a puppet government staffed by Slovak collaborators called the First Slovak Republic. After the war, the communists converted the country into a federal state, giving Slovaks a measure of self-rule on which nationalists built later demands for an independent Slovakia. Furthermore, by the 1990’s, Slovaks no longer feared that Hungary would reestablish control over Slovakia. The Czechs had expelled their German citizens immediately after World War II and no longer needed a Slovak counterweight to assure a solid Slavic majority, and they saw the less developed Slovak lands as a drain on Czech resources and a potential hurdle in the Czechs’ drive to be admitted to the European Union. — Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr. Further Reading Kirschbaum, Stanislav J. A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. An excellent examination of Czechoslovak politics from the vantage point of Slovak nationalism. Left, Carol Skalnik. National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Perhaps the most cited work on the topic. An outstanding analysis of the origins of the state.
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Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes Martin’s Press, 1996. Excellent essays on the development of national consciousness in the Czech and Slovak lands and elsewhere in the region. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence.
1919
Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes Francis William Aston invented the first mass spectrograph to measure the mass of atoms and discovered that the atomic mass of elements is a combination of isotopes. Locale: Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; physics; inventions Key Figures Francis William Aston (1877-1945), English physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist William Prout (1785-1850), English biochemist Summary of Event Isotopes are one or more forms of a chemical element and act similarly in chemical or physical reactions. Isotopes differ in two ways: They possess different atomic weights and different radioactive transformations. In 1803, John Dalton proposed a new atomic theory of chemistry that claimed that chemical elements in a compound combine by weight in whole-number proportions to one another. By 1815, William Prout had taken Dalton’s hypothesis one step further and asserted that the atomic weights of elements are integral multiples of the hydrogen atom. For example, if the weight of hydrogen were 1, then the weight of carbon would be 12 and the weight of oxygen would be 16. Over the next decade, scientists conducted several carefully controlled experiments to determine the atomic weights of a number of elements. Unfortunately, their results did not support Prout’s hypothesis. For example, the atomic weight of chlorine was found to be 35.5. It took a theory of isotopes, developed in the early part of the twentieth century, to justify Prout’s original theory. After his discovery of the electron, Sir Joseph John Thomson, the leading physicist at Cavendish Labora-
tory, devoted much of his remaining research years to determining the nature of “positive electricity.” As a result, without specifically looking for isotopes, Thomson became one of the first to confirm the possibility of isotopes of elements. The phenomenon of positive electricity was first identified by Wilhelm Wien, and Thomson then began developing an instrument sensitive enough to analyze the positive electron. Francis William Aston, as a result of the combination of these events, was pivotal to the discovery of isotopes. Aston was ideally suited for the line of research that would eventually win for him a Nobel Prize. He was an experimenter who could patiently repeat a series of experimental procedures many times while making minute adjustments in his instruments. He possessed the mechanical skills to make instruments that produced the desired results—particularly glassblowing; Aston created the discharge tubes necessary for atomic research. The publication in 1903 of Thomson’s book Conduction of Electricity Through Gases opened up a world of new challenges for Aston. He was captured by the new phenomena of cathode rays and X rays. He became interested in an effect called “Crookes’s dark space,” which exists between the cathode and the negative glow. By designing a discharge tube with a movable cathode, Aston was able to define mathematically one of the dark spaces; it was subsequently named for him. Aston continued to work on the variables among current, pressure, electrode materials, and dark space until 1923. Thomson had a reputation for inviting gifted scientists to work at the Cavendish Laboratory. The invitation to Aston in 1910 was such a case. Recommended by J. H. Poynting, who had taught Aston physics at Mason College, Aston began a lifelong association at Cavendish, and Trinity College became his home. By 1906, Thomson had discovered the electron and turned his attention 1455
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Olivová-Pávová, Vera. The Doomed Democracy: Czechoslovakia in a Disrupted Europe, 1914-1938. Translated by George Theiner. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972. An older but widely available source on the first Czechoslovak republic. Pynsent, Robert B., ed. The Literature of Nationalism: Essays on East European Identity. New York: St.
Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes
Francis William Aston. (The Nobel Foundation)
to positive rays generated by the cathode of the discharge tube. When the electrons are stripped from an atom, the atom becomes positively charged. Through the use of magnetic and electrical fields, it is possible to channel these positive rays into parabolic tracks. By examining photographic plates of these tracks, Thomson was able to identify the atoms of different elements. Aston’s first contribution at Cavendish was to improve this instrument by blowing a spherical discharge tube with a finer cathode; he developed a more efficient pump to create the vacuum. He also devised a camera for sharper photographs of the parabolic tracks. By 1912, the improvements to this apparatus provided proof that the individual molecules of a substance have the same mass. While working on the element neon, Thomson obtained two parabolas, one with a mass of 20 and the other with a mass of 22. Aston was given the task of resolving this mystery. To separate the two constituents of neon, Aston decided to try fractional distillation and diffusion. The fractions of the distillation were in such minute quantities, however, that he had to invent a new balance to measure the differences. The quartz microbalance used a 1456
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sealed quartz bulb balanced on a liquid of known density. By measuring the degree to which the bulb floated or sank, he could compare the density of a known gas with that of an unknown one. Aston started with a quantity of neon and after several thousand operations was able to extract a minute amount of the heavier element of neon. The change in density was barely outside the range of experimental error, however, and hence too doubtful to prove his case. During World War I, Aston worked as a chemist at the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, improving the substance used to coat the canvas that covered the aircraft. These were productive years; a number of scientists, housed at the same facility, were able to discuss the latest developments in physics and chemistry. Aston, who was normally shy, was encouraged to discuss his work. In addition, neon discharge tubes were a focus of research in the factory because they were an excellent source of light for the stroboscope. After the war, Aston continued his attempts to distill the heavier part of neon but failed to achieve the necessary results. In 1919, Aston began to build a mass spectrograph, an idea he had developed while at Farnborough. The idea was to treat ionized or positive atoms like light. He reasoned that just as light can be dispersed into a spectrum and analyzed through its constituent colors, the same could be achieved with atoms of an element such as neon. By using magnetic fields to focus the stream of particles, he was able to create a mass spectrum and record this on a photographic plate. The heavier mass of neon was collected on one part of a spectrum and the lighter neon showed up on another. This was a magnificent apparatus: The masses could be analyzed without reference to the velocity of the particles, which was a problem with the parabola method devised by Thomson. Neon turned out to possess two isotopes: one with a mass of 20 and the other with a mass of 22 in a ratio of 10:1. When combined, this gave the atomic weight 20.20, which was the accepted weight of neon. Aston’s accomplishment in developing the mass spectrograph was recognized immediately by the scientific community. It was a simple device and one capable of accomplishing a large amount of research quickly. Following Aston’s pioneering work, the field of isotope research played an important part in other areas of physics. Significance The years following 1919 were highly charged with excitement, as month after month new isotopes were an-
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Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes
Further Reading Aston, F. W. Mass-Spectra and Isotopes. Rev. ed. New York: Longmans, Green, 1941. Expanded and reedited edition of Aston’s earlier work Isotopes. Describes the physics in terms that can be understood by general readers, although much of the content is aimed at readers with technical knowledge. Particularly valuable for insights into Aston’s precise and clearly focused mind. Ball, Philip. The Ingredients: A Guided Tour of the Ele-
ments. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Entertaining volume aimed at the general reader explains the chemical elements, offering both historical and practical perspectives. Includes illustrations and index. Chalmers, T. W. Historic Researches: Chapters in the History of Physical and Chemical Discovery. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. Provides an overview of the experimental work done through the 1920’s in physics and chemistry. Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. History of the laboratory includes extensive sections on the working environment in which Aston conducted his studies. Ihde, Aaron J. The Development of Modern Chemistry. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Comprehensive history of the different aspects of chemistry includes brief coverage of Aston’s contribution. Chapter 18 covers the developments in radiochemistry that led directly to Aston’s work. Laidler, Keith J. To Light Such a Candle: Chapters in the History of Science and Technology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Discusses the progress of both pure science and applied science over the past two centuries through the work of individual scientists and technologists. Chapter 6, which is devoted to the work of Thomson, briefly discusses Aston’s contribution. Includes bibliography and index. Thomson, George Paget. J. J. Thomson and the Cavendish Laboratory in His Day. London: Thomas Nelson, 1964. Details the work done by Thomson and his associates. Describes experiments in great detail and provides excellent drawings of the experimental equipment and photographs of the results. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton.
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nounced. Chlorine had two; bromine had isotopes of 79 and 81, which gave an almost exact atomic weight of 80; krypton had six isotopes; xenon had even more. In addition to the discovery of nonradioactive isotopes, the “whole-number rule” for chemistry was verified: Protons were the basic building blocks of different atoms, and these occurred in whole numbers. In 1920, Aston found that the mass of the hydrogen atom was about 1 percent greater than a whole number. At the time, it was thought reasonably certain that when four atoms of hydrogen were brought together, they would produce one atom of helium. This means that in “packing” the nucleus, about 1 percent of the mass would be lost. Aston’s original mass spectrograph had an accuracy of one in one thousand. In 1927, he built an instrument that was capable of ten times greater accuracy. Using this instrument, he was able to determine the packing fractions of a large number of elements. The apparatus was also sensitive enough to measure Albert Einstein’s law of mass-energy conversion during a nuclear reaction. Between 1927 and 1935, Aston reviewed all the elements he had worked on earlier and published updated results. He also began to build an instrument with another ten times greater accuracy; this instrument proved to be of great value to nuclear chemistry. The discovery of isotopes opened the way to further research in nuclear physics and completed those speculations begun by Prout during the previous century. Even though radioactivity was discovered separately, isotopes played a central role in the field of nuclear physics and chain reaction. — Victor W. Chen
Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1919
Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association William Bell Riley founded the World Christian Fundamentals Association because of increasing concern among conservative Christians that American culture was moving away from the central tenets of a biblically based Christianity. Locale: Minneapolis, Minnesota Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; organizations and institutions Key Figures William Bell Riley (1861-1947), American Baptist minister William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American political leader Curtis Lee Laws (1868-1946), American newspaper editor Summary of Event The founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association by William Bell Riley was a watershed moment in the development of the evangelical movement, which would be a major force in twentieth century American religion and politics. Conservative Christians had long been frustrated by the trends in American culture. In particular, they objected to the widespread influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Set forth in his groundbreaking 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Darwin’s theory cast doubt on the biblical account of creation and thereby undermined Americans’ trust in the factual accuracy of the Bible. Orator and political leader William Jennings Bryan called Darwin’s theory “the only thing that has seriously menaced religion since the birth of Christ.” The growing acceptance of what conservative Christians began to call Darwinism was only one of the issues that galvanized the conservative Christian movement, however. World War I and its aftermath created chaos in American culture. U.S. participation in the war was not universally supported by Americans. Many citizens were not accustomed to viewing their country as a world power, and they held to the position that the United States should not concern itself with matters outside its own shores. American participation in the war was not initially supported by all conservative Christians. Bryan had resigned from Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet in 1915 1458
rather than become part of a process that might lead the nation to enter the war. When the United States declared war in 1917, he supported the war effort, but without the zeal he brought to many other issues. Curtis Lee Laws, editor of the Baptist newspaper the Watchman Examiner, defended peace activists, but he did write that Wilson’s decision to go to war was justified. (Laws is credited with being the first to use the word “fundamentalist” to describe those willing “to do battle royal for the fundamentals.”) Other conservative Christians supported the U.S. war effort with fervor. Fiery evangelist Billy Sunday said in 1917 that “Christianity and Patriotism are synonymous terms and hell and traitors are synonymous.” By the end of the war, almost all conservative Christians had become zealots for the cause. To understand this shift in positions, one must understand the mind-set of the conservative Christian movement. A central component of the perspective of many conservative Christians sprang from their interpretation of chapter 20 of the Bible’s Book of Revelation. This passage describes a future time when an angel shall bind “the Devil” and cast him into a pit for one thousand years. During this thousand-year period, Christ shall rule upon the earth, bringing harmony and prosperity. All of those who were witnesses for Christ or who were persecuted for Christ will thrive and prosper with Christ during this period. At the end of this thousand-year rule, Satan will be released and all men will be judged from the “book of life.” Those who worked and lived for Christ will live forever with God. Those who did not will be damned to “the lake of fire.” Most conservative Christians thought that the thousand-year period was yet to come. Some even thought that the return of Christ was imminent. They called themselves “premillennialist,” meaning that they believed the millennial period of Christ’s rule was yet to come. Other Christians believed that the thousand-year reign was the period of time since the death and resurrection of Christ, during which the world was becoming more and more Christlike. They were “postmillennialist”—that is, they believed that the millennium had begun with the death and resurrection of Christ. Christians who did not believe that there would be a millennium were called “amillennialist.” One reason American conservative Christians were slow to support U.S. participation in World War I was
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and leftists began predicting a revolution in the United States. Echoing Darwin’s theory of evolution, Marx’s theory was based on a materialistic view of human economic history, a point of view that contained no role for Christianity or any other religion. Amid all these signs of impending doom, Riley fanned the fires of discontent among the faithful, and in 1919 he created the World Christian Fundamentals Association, an organization that was intended to hold the line against change in American culture. Significance Although Riley’s organization was short-lived and failed to accomplish much of what it set out to do, its founding created a precedent. It was the first of many attempts on the part of conservative Christians to reform American society, to fight back or at least hold the line against what they considered to be decadence. Premillennialist Christians moved from being observers of a world that would be repudiated and judged by Christ to being actors in the spiritual drama of trying to save their portion of that world. —H. William Rice Further Reading Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine, 2001. Presents an examination of the global phenomenon of fundamentalism and the irony of fundamentalism in a materialistic culture. Brasher, Brenda, ed. The Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism. New York: Routledge, 2001. A thorough guide to people and concepts in the fundamentalist movement. Focuses not only on Christian fundamentalism but also on fundamentalism in other religions. Carpenter, Joel A. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. A study of American fundamentalism from the Scopes trial through 1950. Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. An excellent study of the historical, economic, and cultural forces that brought fundamentalism into prominence in American culture. See also: 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses. 1459
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their premillennialist convictions. If the only true ruler would be Christ, and if his coming might be at any moment, Christians should not recognize earthly rulers. However, as Germany began to be identified with evolution and modernism—forces that Christians saw as threats to the Christian worldview—conservative Christians suddenly became ardent patriots. In this turn to patriotism, there is, of course, a contradiction. If Christ were to return to rule the world, the United States would cease to exist. Nonetheless, conservative Christians connected Germany, evolution, and modernism with all that they perceived to be destroying the Christian perspective. They became fervent defenders of traditional American culture, something that they associated with a Christian perspective. The aftermath of the war only intensified this thinking, creating the climate that gave birth to the World Christian Fundamentals Association. Thousands of soldiers came home from war, creating economic upheaval. Furthermore, the early part of the 1920’s was a time of rampant unrest in American industry, as labor unions embarked on strikes to better the position of workers and industries successfully resisted their demands. Large numbers of immigrants sought better lives in the United States, and many Americans believed the newcomers were taking jobs that should be reserved for citizens. Meanwhile, a generation of young people who came of age during the war adopted points of view and lifestyles that were far from traditional. F. Scott Fitzgerald summarized their plight in his widely read postwar novel This Side of Paradise (1920). Describing them as a generation who grew up “to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken,” Fitzgerald became one of the most important novelists of what came to be called the Jazz Age. Author Gertrude Stein described this generation in starker terms: She called them the “lost generation,” in a phrase that Ernest Hemingway would use in an epigraph to his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. In short, loss of tradition, restlessness, and a sense of ultimate doom pervaded American culture in the postwar years. Conservative American Christians saw in these characteristics of their culture not only the signs of an end time but also a turning away from the religious traditions that had sustained their faith. Complicating matters even more was the so-called Red Scare of 1919-1920. The successful communist revolution in Russia had disquieted many in the world community. Because Karl Marx (in 1848) had defined capitalism as a stage of economic development that would lead the way to communist revolt, many American artists
Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association
German Artists Found the Bauhaus
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1919
German Artists Found the Bauhaus Despite opposition from the Nazis—or perhaps because of it—the Bauhaus achieved international fame as the most innovative and progressive art school of its time. Locale: Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin, Germany; Chicago, Illinois Categories: Architecture; arts Key Figures Walter Gropius (1883-1969), German architect Johannes Itten (1888-1967), Swiss painter László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), Hungarian painter, photographer, and graphic designer Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian painter, graphic artist, and writer Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss painter and writer Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), American painter Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), German architect Summary of Event On April 1, 1919, the architect Walter Gropius accepted the directorship of the Weimar Academy of Art with the understanding that it would be combined with the Weimar Arts and Crafts School, which had been closed since 1915. When Gropius arrived in Weimar, he already had in mind a name—Das Staatliche Bauhaus—and a wellconceived program for the new school, which he outlined in a four-page proclamation. Like many others before him, Gropius believed in the necessity of uniting the fine arts (architecture, painting, and sculpture) with the crafts, thus he was working within the traditions of the English Arts and Crafts movement and the German Werkbunds (workshops). Gropius contributed to these traditions his own conviction that architects, painters, and sculptors must not merely work with craftspeople but must be craftspeople themselves. When he declared that there is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsperson—that the artist is an exalted craftsperson—he was advocating a revolutionary new principle of learning by doing, of developing an aesthetic based on sound craftsmanship. Gropius’s ideas not only gave a new direction to aesthetics but also revolutionized the actual practice of teaching. The basis of the Bauhaus program was a foundation course designed to free the student from past experiences and prejudices. This course, developed by Jo1460
hannes Itten, was a six-month introduction to materials and techniques, utilizing basic practical experiments as well as the exact depiction of actual materials. Students were also encouraged to avoid classical traditions in favor of studying non-Western philosophies and mystical religions. In the beginning, almost no thought was given to the machine or to art’s role in an industrialized world. The curriculum, however, was constantly changing and developing. By 1923, for example, the emphasis was on training designers for industry; later, Gropius increased the accent on architecture, declaring his intention to create an architecture adapted to the world of machines, radios, and fast motorcars—an architecture the function of which would be clearly recognizable in its form. The history of the Bauhaus can be divided into three periods: the Weimar period of 1919-1925, the Dessau period of 1925-1932, and the Berlin period of 1932-
Walter Gropius.
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of Dessau in new buildings designed by Gropius. The first excitement of breaking new ground that had characterized the Weimar Bauhaus was past; the Dessau Bauhaus was marked by an attitude of self-confidence, sobriety, and sense of purpose. The school became a center for the development of industrial design, creating prototypes for mass production while maintaining a balance between the aesthetic and the functional. Students were encouraged to experiment within the context of artistic expression. Several former students joined the faculty, including the architects and designers Marcel Breuer and Herbert Bayer and the painter Josef Albers. In 1928, Gropius resigned as director and was replaced by Hannes Meyer, a Swiss architect who had little understanding of Gropius’s concept of the integration of the arts. Meyer’s narrow technological leanings and his Marxist political beliefs made many enemies, and he was replaced in April, 1930, by another architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Although Mies van der Rohe was a more capable administrator, he was unable to cope with the volatile political tension that had come to pervade German society. In 1932, the Nazis gained control of the Dessau parliament and forced the Bauhaus to close. In the fall of 1932 in Berlin, Mies van der Rohe established the Bauhaus as a privately funded institution with no government subsidy. Soon after the school reopened, however, the Nazis took control of the country, with Adolf Hitler as chancellor. Declaring that the Bauhaus was one of the most obvious refuges of “the JewishMarxist conception of degenerate art,” the Nazis invaded the school in April of 1933 with one hundred well-armed storm troopers and Berlin policemen, who checked everyone’s credentials, arrested some faculty and students, and then padlocked the building. Significance Shortly after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus, most of the faculty and many students left Germany in search of more liberal climates of thought. Kandinsky went to Paris and Klee went to Berne; both continued to paint until their deaths. Itten settled first in Switzerland, where, from 1938 to 1954, he served as director of the Arts and Crafts School and Museum in Zurich. Moholy-Nagy, Breuer, and Gropius fled first to London and then, in 1937, to the United States. Gropius and Breuer joined the architecture faculty at Harvard University, where Gropius became chairman of the department in 1938. Moholy-Nagy founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago (later the Institute of Design) and served as its director 1461
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1933. The Weimar period, although marked by financial difficulties for the school, was an exciting time, characterized by enthusiasm for new experiments and new beginnings. Gropius appointed some of the leading artists of the day to the faculty: Lyonel Feininger (the first American at the Bauhaus), Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, George Muche, and Oskar Schlemmer taught painting, graphic arts, and stage design; Johannes Itten and László Moholy-Nagy gave the foundation course; and Gerhard Marcks taught pottery, sculpture, and graphics. The antispecialist emphasis of the Bauhaus appealed to Kandinsky, who had always been interested in a synthesis of the various arts. Earlier, he had searched for ways in which music, painting, theater, and dance could be combined into one great, complete work of art; he believed, as did Gropius, that the artist’s ultimate goal was the production of a unified work of art in which no distinction between monumental and decorative art remained. At the Bauhaus, Kandinsky continued his search. He would, for example, create a painting and then ask a musician to use the painting as inspiration for a composition. A dancer would then be asked to devise choreography in keeping with the music. Klee, on the other hand, was strongly influenced by the constructivist atmosphere of the Bauhaus and experimented with his own personal forms of geometric abstraction. During the 1920’s, he painted works of fantasy created out of abstract elements, with the total effect being organic rather than geometric. To achieve an effect of fluidity and a sense of form produced by growth and change, he worked mostly with combinations of ink and watercolor. While the faculty and students at the Bauhaus were busily involved with their own experimental forms of art, opposition to them was growing stronger in the city of Weimar. From the very beginning, some citizens had objected to Gropius’s restructuring of the Weimar Academy of Art; for example, one poster circulated in 1920 had declared that “our old and famous Art School is in danger . . . all to whom the abodes of our art and culture are sacred are requested to attend a public demonstration.” Part of the opposition came from people who simply clung to the past and refused to accept that the prewar world was dead. Additionally, the members of the old art academies and their bourgeois patrons resented and rejected changes in any form. From all these factions, there was much talk of the “art Bolshevism” of the Bauhaus. In 1925, hostile Weimar city officials finally forced the Bauhaus to close, but shortly after, supported by liberal civic leaders, it reopened in the larger industrial city
German Artists Found the Bauhaus
German Artists Found the Bauhaus until 1946. Feininger settled in New York City in 1936 and continued to paint; Bayer arrived there in 1938 and became a corporate director of art and design. Albers served as a professor of art at Black Mountain College in North Carolina from 1933 to 1949. In 1950, he became chairman of the department of design at Yale University. As the Allied countries welcomed these emigrants from the Bauhaus, word of the school’s fate at the hands of the Nazis ensured its fame throughout the world, and its reputation and influence quickly grew. The activities of Gropius and Breuer at Harvard, Moholy-Nagy in Chicago, Albers at Black Mountain College and Yale, and Bayer and Feininger in New York were the most obvious results of that influence. Less obvious, but perhaps even more important, is the continuation of Bauhaus ideas in countless art schools that offer well-planned foundation courses and carefully designed projects of one kind or another as a stimulus to creativity. Art educators continue to place a great deal of faith in Bauhaus teaching methods, recognizing the value of individual differences. Both Klee and Kandinsky were good teachers, for example, but Klee gave his students almost unlimited freedom to explore on their own, whereas Kandinsky tended to be more dogmatic and demanding. Because the Bauhaus was revolutionizing both teaching and art theory, no appropriate textbooks were available, so many of the faculty wrote their own—Kandinsky’s Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (1926; Point and Line to Plane, 1947) and Klee’s Pädagogisches Skizzenabuch (1925; Pedagogical Sketchbook, 1953) remained in use in art schools for decades. In spite of the many talented painters who taught at the Bauhaus, few painters of distinction actually emerged from among the school’s students. The faculty painters had their greatest influence on young painters in the countries to which they fled after 1933. The works of the Bauhaus painters were already well known in most of these countries, as they had exhibited outside Germany throughout the 1920’s. Feininger, Klee, and Kandinsky had participated in many American exhibitions, especially the Société Anonyme and the Blue Four exhibitions in New York. In 1930 and 1931, exhibitions of Bauhaus art were organized by the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, by the John Becker Gallery in New York, and by the Arts Club of Chicago. Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, moreover, continued to be recognized as leading architects. Both exerted profound influence on the evolution of the International Style, perhaps the century’s most important architectural development. 1462
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The Bauhaus changed the modern environment by transforming and reshaping interior, product, and graphic design. The effects of this transformation have become an accepted part of the environment, to such an extent that virtually anything “modern,” functional, and geometric can be identified as being in “the Bauhaus style.” Gropius, however, vehemently denied the existence of a Bauhaus style in anything, pointing out that the school’s purpose was not the development of a uniform visual identity but the promotion of an attitude toward creativity that would result in variety. Nevertheless, many of Breuer’s furniture designs became classics (for example, his first tubular steel chair and his basic table and cabinet designs), as did Gropius’s designs for standard-unit furniture. Many other successful designs for stacking chairs, stools, dinnerware, lighting fixtures, and textiles came from the Bauhaus design studios and workshops. Moholy-Nagy, Bayer, and others revolutionized typographic design, and Moholy-Nagy’s experiments in abstract film and photography began a new era in those media. Any discussion of the impact of the Bauhaus on culture and society calls to mind an observation made by Mies van der Rohe in 1953. He stated that the widespread influence of the Bauhaus on progressive art schools came from the fact that the Bauhaus was never an institution with a clear program; rather, it was an idea. He declared that such enormous influence cannot be achieved through organization or propaganda—only an idea can spread so far. —LouAnn Faris Culley Further Reading Bayer, Herbert, Walter Gropius, and Ise Gropius, eds. Bauhaus, 1919-1928. 1938. Reprint. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1975. Still one of the most valuable accounts available of the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau. Contains the texts of many proclamations, articles, and course notes written by Gropius and other faculty. Well illustrated with black-and-white photographs, drawings, and diagrams. Dearstyne, Howard. Inside the Bauhaus. New York: Rizzoli, 1986. Written by one of the few American students at the Bauhaus, based on his own letters to family members during his years at the school. Includes a history of the school, detailed descriptions of the studios and workshops, and personal recollections of faculty and other students. Droste, Magdalena. Bauhaus, 1919-1933. Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1998. Focuses on
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haus and how their associations with the school shaped their own work. Devotes a chapter to each of the ten most talented and influential painters at the Bauhaus. Well illustrated, with both black-and-white and color photographs. Whitford, Frank. Bauhaus. London: Thames and Hudson, 1984. A complete introduction to the Bauhaus. Discusses ideas and philosophies, teaching methods, activities of the faculty, the daily lives of the students, and the social, economic, and political unrest of the times. Thoroughly documented and well illustrated. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication.
1919
Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability Richard von Mises used the concept of relative frequency to develop the first precise empirical interpretation of probability. Locale: Dresden, Germany Category: Mathematics Key Figures Richard von Mises (1883-1953), Austrian American mathematician and physicist Alonzo Church (1903-1995), American logician and philosopher Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994), Austrian British philosopher of science Andrey Nikolayevich Kolmogorov (1903-1987), Soviet mathematician Bruno de Finetti (1906-1985), Italian mathematician Summary of Event The classical theory of probability, the earliest detailed analysis of probability, was developed by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1820. Laplace proposed his principle of indifference as the foundation for understanding probabilities. This principle stipulates that the probability of an
event is the number of favorable outcomes of the event divided by the total number of cases possible, given no particular reason to prefer any of those cases. Thus the probability of heads on a coin toss is 1 2, as there is one favorable case out of two “equipossible” cases. Laplace’s theory served quite well in systematizing earlier work by Blaise Pascal and others on the probabilities of gambling devices. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, it was gradually realized that games of chance formed an artificial set of problems, where the outcomes of, say, the roll of a die were already fixed to be equiprobable. When the principle of indifference is applied to other situations, a variety of absurdities may result. For example, consider the probability that it will rain tomorrow. The two outcomes of interest are rain and no rain, so the indifference principle suggests an assignment of equal probabilities to each, namely, 1 2. If one then asks “What is the probability that it will snow tomorrow?” the answer must come out the same. Therefore, the probability of rain or snow is one. Such difficulties led John Venn (in his Logic of Chance, 1866), Charles Sanders Peirce, and other nineteenth century thinkers to identify probabilities with the 1463
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the collection of the Bauhaus Archiv Museum of Design in Berlin in examining the progression of the Bauhaus movement. Extensively illustrated. Includes artist and architect biographies, bibliography, and index. Kentgens-Craig, Margret. The Bauhaus and America: First Contacts, 1919-1936. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Scholarly examination of the reception of the Bauhaus in the United States and the reasons for American reactions to the movement’s concepts. Includes bibliography and index. Poling, Clark V. Bauhaus Color. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1975. Published in conjunction with an exhibition illustrating the stylistic and theoretical characteristics shared by Bauhaus artists, with major emphasis on the use of color. Discusses the principles of color theory and their application. Contains many good illustrations. Roters, Eberhard. Painters of the Bauhaus. Translated by Anna Rose Cooper. New York: Praeger, 1969. Stresses both the influence painters had on the Bau-
Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability
Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability
Richard von Mises.
observed frequencies of an outcome relative to a reference class, or relative frequencies. Thus the probability of a sunny day tomorrow would be identified with the empirical frequency of sunny days in the given location. Probabilities cannot be identified with frequencies within a finite sample, however. For example, if a coin is tossed ten times, one may get a frequency of heads of 4 10. A second series may yield six heads. Clearly, the probability of heads is not both 4 10 and 6 10; indeed, it is most likely neither. Frequency theorists instead equated the probability with the relative frequency in “the long run”—that is, what happens if the sampling is continued without limit. Unfortunately, the frequentists of the nineteenth century did not provide an unambiguous account of long-run frequencies. Therefore, in 1921, John Maynard Keynes regretted that he could not find a careful analysis of the frequency theory to criticize. About that time, Richard von Mises was developing such a detailed exposition, initially in technical papers (1919) and subsequently in the book Probability, Statistics, and Truth (1928). 1464
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mises conceived of his task as replacing a commonsense, vague notion of probability with a scientific, precise concept. For this purpose, he restricted himself to considering “mass phenomena”—that is, the infinite sequences that would be formed by indefinitely repeating an experiment or event. Such a sequence is a collective only in the case that it satisfies two requirements: the axiom of convergence and the axiom of randomness. The axiom of convergence postulates that as a sequence is extended, the proportion of outcomes having a specified property shall tend toward a definite mathematical limit. This corresponds to what Mises called the empirical law of large numbers: Repeating experiments tends to produce stable frequencies of outcomes. The axiom of randomness was Mises’s most original contribution to the definition of probability. The idea behind it is that probabilities depend on more than merely stable frequencies in the limit. Thus the sequence of heads and tails (T, H, T, H, T, H, . . .) will yield the limiting frequency of 1 2 for heads; however, the probability of an H in the Nth location is not 1 2, but either 1 or 0, depending on whether the index N is even or odd. To eliminate such trivialization, one must disallow sequences open to useful predictions based on their initial outcomes; in other words, one must rule out the possibility of successful gambling systems. The axiom of randomness is designed to do so. It requires that the limits of the relative frequencies be unaltered by any place selection, where place selections are subsequences whose members are chosen only on the basis of their index numbers in the original sequence and knowledge of prior members of the sequence. The sequence of H’s and T’s is not a collective, because the place selection of even-numbered outcomes has a different limiting frequency of heads (namely, one) from that of the original sequence. A problem with this definition of place selection is that it imposes no clear restriction on which subsequences count as a place selection and which do not. Any subsequence will be selected by some infinite binary number, where each digit “1” is used to indicate that the corresponding element of the original sequence goes into the subsequence and the digit “0” indicates the element is excluded. Alonzo Church answered this objection in 1940. He restricted the allowable place selections to those that are Turing computable (calculable by a computer), given the index of the element and prior outcomes. Thus a sequence is a collective only in the case that none of the computable place selections alters its limit frequencies. Limiting frequencies within collectives are provable
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Significance Problems of this kind led Sir Karl Raimund Popper to introduce (in the 1950’s) a related conception, the propensity interpretation of probability. He criticized Mises’s theory on the ground that if he introduced even one toss of a biased coin into an infinite sequence of fair tosses, then the probability of heads for that toss must be different from 1 2, regardless of the limit frequency. Popper then identified probabilities with the individual experi-
ments, rather than infinite repetitions of experiments. The individual experiment has the disposition or propensity to produce a limiting relative frequency if it were to be repeated indefinitely. Popper’s theory is thus empirical in the same sense as Mises’s theory, but it directly applies to finite cases. Objections have been raised to this theory as well, among them the problem of the reference class: It is unclear what to count as a repetition of the same experiment. Different descriptions of an experiment lead to very different infinite sequences and therefore conflicting propensities for a single experiment. Another influential competitor to the frequency view is the subjective interpretation of probability (Bayesianism). This view identifies probabilities with rational degrees of belief. It is possible to discover how strongly a person believes something by finding the odds he would accept for a bet on that proposition. Furthermore, using certain natural assumptions, it has been proved that rational degrees of belief obey Kolmogorov’s axioms of probability. Nevertheless, there remain many objections to simply identifying probabilities with the strength of beliefs. Subjectivism fails to do justice to the common intuition that the flip of a coin merely has a probability 1 2 of heads. In 1937, Bruno de Finetti attempted to answer this with a convergence theorem: In the long run, the probabilities hypotheses scientists ascribe to will converge, as long as they update those probabilities with empirical evidence using Bayesian theories. If two scientists start out with radically divergent probabilities, however, then even an enormous number of experiments will fail to bring their assessments together. In actual practice, agreement is normally reached within decades rather than millennia, so there must be some rational constraint in prior probabilities that subjectivism does not acknowledge. The subjective Bayesian view is at least incomplete. The frequency theory arose in the context of the logical positivist philosophy of science propounded by the “Vienna Circle,” of which Mises was a member. Frequentism has continued to appeal to empiricist philosophers who wish to find a foundation for scientific knowledge in empirical observation and has been defended by, for example, Hans Reichenbach and Wesley Charles Salmon. The frequency interpretation has been attractive to statisticians also, satisfying their intuition that there should be a connection between frequencies and probability. In practice, however, statisticians use any function obeying Kolmogorov’s probability axioms, ignoring the question of whether it corresponds to limiting relative frequencies. Despite the intellectual achievements of Mises and 1465
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probabilities in the sense of the modern mathematical theory; that is, they satisfy the axioms of probability theory put forward by Andrey Nikolayevich Kolmogorov in 1933. Mises had succeeded in providing an objective and empirical conception of probability: Rather than attempting to identify probabilities with a priori analyses of the state of ignorance, like Laplace, he defined them in terms of an idealization from observed frequencies. The task of statistics would be to identify what kinds of experiments are capable of generating collectives and to educe the associated probabilities. Mises’s theory, however, has remained highly controversial. If a probability is identified with a limit in an infinite sequence, then any finite sequence can be attached to the front of the sequence without affecting the probability in the least. For example, if the probability of heads in a collective is 1 2, then it will remain 1 2 if one puts any number of heads, say one trillion, in front of the sequence. The unfortunate consequence of this mathematical result is that any observation of finite frequencies is compatible with any probability at all, so it seems that statistics can find no foundation in Mises’s theory. Mises attempted to defend his theory by invoking the law of large numbers: Assuming a hypothetical probability (limit frequency) for a sequence, then given a large enough sample from that sequence, it can be deduced that there is a high probability that the sample frequency will be very close to the hypothetical probability—that the sample estimate will be good. This argument has not been accepted because it leads immediately to an infinite regress: The “high probability” of getting a good sample must itself be understood as a limit frequency on Mises’s account, and so is again compatible with any finite number of bad samples that diverge arbitrarily from the probability being estimated. The price of Mises’s insistence on considering only mass phenomena was that it left probability statements impossible to confirm or falsify. It also led Mises to the implausible view that ascriptions of probability to individual events are strictly meaningless.
Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability
Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered others, a consensus has not emerged. How to understand probabilities and their relation to the world remains an open and perplexing issue in philosophy and the foundations of statistics. —Kevin B. Korb Further Reading Howson, Cohn, and Peter Urbach. Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. 3d ed. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 2005. Elaborates and defends the subjective Bayesian approach to probability. Attempts to incorporate Mises’s work on collectives into a subjectivist framework. Without hiding their biases, the authors provide a clear survey of competing views, including classical statistical inference. Kyburg, Henry E., Jr. Probability and Inductive Logic. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Excellent survey of the different interpretations of probability in philosophy and science. Each chapter ends with extensive bibliographic notes. Includes exercises. Kyburg, Henry E., Jr., and Mariam Thalos, eds. Probability Is the Very Guide of Life: The Philosophical Uses of Chance. Peru, Ill.: Open Court, 2003. Collection of sixteen essays addresses the topic of probability from the point of view of its applicability to practical matters. Includes index. Mises, Richard von. Mathematical Theory of Probability and Statistics. Edited by Hilda Geiringer. New York: Academic Press, 1964. A collection of Mises’s lectures and papers on probability and statistics, orga-
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nized and supplemented with notes by his widow. Attempts to provide a rigorous, objective foundation to the methods of statistical inference. Highly technical. _______. Positivism: A Study in Human Understanding. New York: George Braziller, 1956. A readable presentation of the logical positivist worldview. Applies positivism to a broad spectrum of issues, including language, science, probability, and art. _______. Probability, Statistics, and Truth. 2d rev. ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957. A semipopular and clearly written account of Mises’s frequency interpretation of probability and its implications for science. A classic exposition of the frequentist view. Popper, Karl R. Realism and the Aim of Science. Edited by W. W. Bartley III. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1983. Part of a “postscript” to Popper’s influential Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), written, but not published, in the 1950’s. Part 2 describes and defends the propensity interpretation at length. Salmon, Wesley C. Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Applies a version of Mises’s definition of probability to a philosophical analysis of the nature of statistical explanations in science. Also examines the role of causality in explanation and in quantum mechanics. See also: 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher; 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle.
1919
Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered Theoretical principles proposed and tested by physicists, coupled with technological and empirical experimentation, made possible reliable long-distance radio communication via shortwaves. Locale: Europe; North America Categories: Science and technology; physics; radio and television; communications and media Key Figures James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), Scottish physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851-1940), English physicist 1466
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian engineer and inventor Summary of Event When James Clerk Maxwell first postulated the theory that the flow of an electric current created an accompanying electromagnetic force, he did so without recourse to empirical experimentation and as an enlargement on his theories of light waves and optics. His mathematical and theoretical suppositions were published in the celebrated 1864 article “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field,” in which he maintained that electromagnetic waves operated under the same laws and in the
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Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered use of resonant circuits, and his practical experiments with transmissions on low frequencies enabled him to conduct the first transatlantic radio transmission on December 12, 1901, thus demonstrating the possibilities the medium offered. Despite the distance covered in that demonstration (nearly 2,700 kilometers, or approximately 1,678 miles, from England to Newfoundland), however, the first practical application of early radio was in maritime communications between ships at sea and ship to shore at distances up to 300 kilometers (about 186 miles). Beyond that range, communications were not reliable. The establishment of reliable long-distance radio communications became Marconi’s goal. He found little guidance from theoretical physics in this area. Nineteenth century physicists had supposed earlier that electromagnetic forces necessarily traveled through some sort of medium, which, although of unknown composition, they called the “ether.” Only at the beginning of the twentieth century did the experience of radio communicators suggest that the particular frequency range of a given radio wave had much to do with the distance it seemed to cover and that no other medium was necessary to account for electromagnetic wave propagation. Today, the radio frequency spectrum is divided into various “bands,” or ranges of frequencies, that share similar propagation characteristics. At the dawn of the radio age, however, it seemed clear only that radio waves with wavelengths greater than 200 meters (656 feet) were the most reliable for communications up to 300 kilometers. Consequently, very low frequency (VLF, 10 to 30 kilohertz), low-frequency (LF, 30 to 300 kilohertz), and medium-frequency (MF, 300 to 3,000 kilohertz) ranges were employed by corporations and by governments for their commercial and military communications. Prior to 1919, the wavelengths below 200 meters (that is, frequencies above 1.5 megahertz) were held to be of no commercial value. This band of frequencies from 3 to 30 megahertz (the high-frequency, or HF, band) is known as the “shortwave” band because their wavelength is, in comparison with wavelengths then generally in use, considerably shorter. Prior to World War I, there was virtually no governmental regulation of radio transmissions, and many individuals with sufficient inclination, money, and interest in this new technology built their own transmitting and receiving apparatuses. When the war broke out, amateurs in Europe and the United States were forbidden to use their equipment. It was only with the active lobbying of amateur investigators such as Hiram Percy Maxim that, on October 1, 1919, hobbyist radio experimenters in the 1467
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same manner as light. As a theoretician, Maxwell neither proposed nor foresaw any practical uses for the electromagnetic (radio) waves his formulas described. Heinrich Hertz, however, was a physicist with a distinctly experimental approach. Basing his work in part on Maxwell’s theories, he designed and built what is generally acknowledged to have been the first practical demonstration of transmitted and received radio waves. His design consisted of a spark gap oscillator and a loop receiving aerial, in which a small opening allowed the received “signal” to spark. Because of the space limitations of his laboratory, the aerials he constructed were relatively small. In fact, his initial experiments, which demonstrated the practical ability to transmit radio waves and detect them at a distance from the transmitter, were conducted in what is now called the very high frequency (VHF) range; that is, the waves oscillated approximately 100 million times per second or at a frequency of 100 megahertz. Because his experiments were carried out at a frequency that operates best in direct, line-of-sight fashion, his apparatus was more important for the physical phenomenon it demonstrated, not as an immediately useful communications device. In the years after Hertz’s results were published, much work was done in extending the sensitivity of radio wave devices; as a result, the range over which such waves could be sent and received was increased. Particularly important was the work of Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, who developed and refined the radio wave detector, then called a “coherer,” a device that would complete an electrical circuit (which, in turn, might be used to ring a buzzer) in the presence of radio waves of sufficient intensity. Second, Lodge emphasized the significance of “syntony,” or tuned resonance, in the radio wave spectrum. The design of spark gap transmitters used at the time was such that their radiated energy was spread over a broad number of frequencies. Lodge’s insistence on tuning circuits to “focus” transmitted and received radio wave energy was an important step in making simultaneous communications between many stations practical. In fact, Lodge received patents for both of these achievements. The progress made by Lodge was the basis on which Guglielmo Marconi (whose name is associated most often with the early days of “wireless” technology) was able to establish a corporation whose sole product was radio equipment and communications services. Marconi relied less on theoretical physics than on empirical research; that is, he tried what worked and refined it as best he could, even if such an approach led him to investigate unproductive ideas. His refinements of the coherer, his
Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered United States were allowed once again to make their broadcasts to one another. Amateur operators undertook the same types of communications experiments on the higher frequencies as Marconi’s corporation was conducting. It soon became clear that as one went higher in frequency (that is, as the wavelength became shorter), greater distances could be covered. A combination of improved antennas, more powerful transmitters, and more sensitive and selective receiving equipment proved that transatlantic communications were possible. As continuing experiments were to reveal, there is a region of electrically charged ions and electrons located about 50 to 400 kilometers (about 31 to 249 miles) above and encircling the earth. This region is called the ionosphere and it acts to refract or bend radio waves below 30 megahertz. (The ionosphere is a complex series of differing layers whose electrical charges vary on a daily basis as well as in response to the elevenyear cycle of sunspot activity.) Whereas VLF, LF, and MF waves tend to radiate along the ground and will follow the curvature of the earth, HF waves—shortwaves—are bounced back by the ionosphere, generally at distances quite far from the transmitting station. If an operator chooses carefully a frequency of operation within the shortwave band, even low-power transmitters can be heard around the world as a consequence of waves reflected multiple times (or “hops”) by the ionosphere. Significance Throughout history, humanity has continually sought ever faster and more reliable means of communication. With the rise in scientific and engineering research that preceded and accompanied the industrial age in Europe and North America came not only the ability but also the perceived need to send messages over great distances. Samuel F. B. Morse’s invention of the telegraph system in the 1860’s thus met with ready acceptance and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, undersea cables linking the United States to Europe were already in operation. Radio communications were seen initially as little more than an oddity inasmuch as early radio systems had limited range, were not always easy to operate, and were not secure (because radio waves were transmitted through open air, anyone within range of a transmitter and inclined to build a receiver could intercept those radiotelegraphic signals). The business of radio communications was first limited primarily to maritime use. The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 provided dramatic evidence of how useful such communications could be and impetus toward further re1468
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finement of the technology. As the Titanic began to sink, its wireless operator transmitted an emergency call for aid. A ship about 130 kilometers (81 miles) distant happened to be equipped with radio as well and, although it took hours, came to assist the ship, saving hundreds of lives. As a result of this incident, in both the United States and Europe, laws were passed to equip ships with operating networks of shore stations. Nevertheless, such communications were limited to relatively short distances. It was to be the role of the shortwave band to encourage long-distance radio communications. Among the “amateur” experimenters in this field were most of the noted engineers and scientists of radio, who communicated their findings in their amateur radio journal, QST. In the 1920’s, AM (amplitude modulation) radio broadcasting became an important part of everyday life. Broadcasters were quick to realize that the shortwave frequencies offered them the chance to transmit not only to a local audience in a given city but also to a large area. Because it has always been impractical for one transmitter on any one shortwave frequency to service the entire world adequately, both nations and individual corporations soon erected numerous transmitting sites and appropriate directional antennas operating on different frequencies. In order to increase the amount of information that could be sent by shortwave radio and to “encode” those data to keep all but the most determined from listening in on transmissions, alternate forms of communication were developed. Radioteletype, for example, uses mixtures of two different tones in patterns not at all like the Morse code to transmit data quickly; it soon became standard for international news services, telegraph companies, and governments (who further encrypted their messages using ciphers). The airline industry found shortwave radio communications to be of considerable value in keeping in touch with airplanes en route and in communicating with foreign airports to learn of weather conditions. In the 1930’s, facsimile devices were invented that allowed international transmission of pictures and diagrams. In short, the shortwave band was exploited quickly for its ability to provide long-distance radio communication. By the mid-1930’s, it became clear that uncontrolled radio use, especially in the shortwave band, was growing in an alarming fashion, and nations enacted laws to regulate the limited radio spectrum at home. Because radio waves—especially the far-reaching shortwaves—do not respect borders, however, an international organization was formed to divide the shortwave spectrum into vari-
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Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered
Further Reading Aitken, Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. Continuation of Aitken’s earlier book, cited below, concentrates on the establishment of broadcast services and the development of radio technologies employed in the late 1980’s. Accounts for the economics of radio as well by following the rise of large American technology and broadcasting corporations. Well illustrated and indexed. _______. Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976. Discusses both the physical and the experimental bases of the discovery of spark gap radio communications, the earliest phase of radio. Emphasizes the processes by which physics at first anticipated the discovery of radio waves and, later, was surprised by the discovery of the ionosphere. Includes numerous diagrams, illustrations, and index. Hale, Bruce S., ed. The ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications, 2006. Newington, Conn.: American Radio Relay League, 2005. Massive volume, updated annually since its first appearance in 1926, covers virtually all aspects of radio (and television) communication for the enthusiast. Includes heavy emphasis on
shortwave frequency communications, construction and alignment of equipment, and erection of various antennas. Presents fundamentals of electricity, waves and their propagation, and electronics as well as amateur operating principles. Well illustrated and indexed. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Begins with an analysis of the invention of wireless radio broadcasting. Maclaurin, W. Rupert, and R. Joyce Harman. Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry. 1949. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1976. Readable account of the early history of radio communications. Includes discussion of individuals not mentioned elsewhere. Illustrated and indexed. O’Hara, J. G., and W. Priche. Hertz and the Maxwellians. London: Peter Peregrinus, 1987. Brief, eminently readable history of the discovery of electromagnetic waves. Introduction is followed by excerpts from the correspondence of Hertz and the scientists with whom he discussed and evaluated his findings. Includes illustrations and photographs. Terman, Frederick E. Radio Engineering. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947. Explanations of radio technology of historical interest only; discussions of radio wave propagation and antennas as valid in the twenty-first century as at the time of publication. Well illustrated. Weightman, Gavin. Signor Marconi’s Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the Nineteenth Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003. In addition to describing Marconi’s experiments, focuses in large part on the competition that existed among the various inventors who were pursuing the goal of wireless communications at the same time as Marconi. Includes photographs. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere; Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded. 1469
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ous subbands for different uses (commercial, amateur, governmental, international maritime, and the like) in different regions. Today, the International Telecommunication Union’s Radiocommunication Sector holds a World Radiocommunication Conference every two or three years to review the international treaty governing radio spectrum use. By the late twentieth century, an alternative technology had been developed that somewhat reduced the importance of the shortwave band. Geosynchronous satellites, which reliably carry the broad signals necessary for television transmissions and for multiplexed voice and computer data transmissions, gained widespread use. Nevertheless, demands made on the shortwave spectrum scarcely diminished. Whereas international telephone and television transmissions shifted to satellite systems, the shortwave band continued to provide a reliable and inexpensive medium for individuals, small organizations, and nations with limited financial resources. Indeed, the fact that there are so many international shortwave broadcasts intended for individual listeners around the world demonstrates the interest and use this technology still garners in the twenty-first century. —Joseph T. Malloy
Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme
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1919-1920
Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme Federal regulation of the U.S. securities industry was prompted in part by the success of the fraudulent investment schemes perpetrated by Charles Ponzi and his imitators. Locale: Boston, Massachusetts Categories: Banking and finance; crime and scandal Key Figures Charles Ponzi (1883-1949), Italian American perpetrator of investment fraud Richard Grozier (1887-1946), American newspaper publisher Clarence W. Barron (1855-1928), American editor and magazine publisher Summary of Event Charles Ponzi achieved immense but short-lived success marketing investments of dubious merit to the public in the 1920’s. In what came to be known as “Ponzi
Charles Ponzi. (Library of Congress)
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schemes,” although the method was first used by other swindlers, Ponzi attracted gullible investors by promising high yields over short periods of time. In general, Ponzi scheme promoters develop an ever-widening circle of customers for a nonexistent investment by paying interest and dividends from the client’s own funds or from contributions of subsequent investors. The schemes involve paying early investors with money received from later investors; the promoter can then point to high dividend payments to encourage new investors. Ponzi’s most notorious and successful scheme involved taking advantage of exchange-rate disparities in the trading of international reply coupons, which are negotiable postage stamps used to facilitate international correspondence. He managed to attract thousands of investors from all the social and economic strata of Boston in 1920. Ponzi was born Carlo Ponsi in Parma, Italy, in the 1880’s. He failed to meet the expectations of his wealthy family and spent much of his youth in aimless pursuits. Hoping he would find success in the New World, Ponzi’s family gave him a thousand lire (about two hundred dollars) and a one-way ticket to the United States in 1902. Ponzi spent the next fourteen years holding an assortment of odd jobs as he traveled throughout the United States and Canada. In 1917, he settled in Boston, where he worked with his father-in-law as a fruit dealer. Ponzi received a business letter from Spain in 1919 that contained an international reply coupon that had cost the sender the equivalent of one cent in Spain. The Universal Postal Union issued international reply coupons to enable senders to prepay reply postage. Immigrants in the United States often sent such coupons in letters to European relatives. A coupon could be exchanged at any U.S. post office for a six-cent stamp, enough to send a letter back to Spain. Ponzi discovered that the pricing disparity existed in several European countries, and thus the profit potential was theoretically enormous. He began a speaking tour of the Boston area in August of 1919, giving investment seminars designed to raise capital for the Securities Exchange Company, a firm he created to perform the international reply coupon transactions. Advertising a 50 percent return in forty-five days, he initially attracted small sums from Boston’s Italian immigrants. Word of the phenomenal promised returns reached the elite of Boston society, and Ponzi was soon collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars daily. Poten-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme
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tial investors either waited for hours in Kudos for Ponzi’s Scheme long lines outside his School Street office In the introduction to his hand-typed autobiography The Rise of Mr. or simply mailed him cash. His clerks Ponzi (1937), Charles Ponzi takes great delight in quoting the accolades were forced to store cash in baskets and in that his scheme initially received in the press. It is small wonder that his closets as contributions flooded Ponzi’s name became synonymous with the fraud he perpetrated: rented offices. Ponzi used some of the proceeds to gain Meet Mr. Ponzi, the Champion Get-Rich-Quick control of several Boston businesses, inWallingford of America cluding area banks that had made loans to him. Ponzi quickly adopted a lavish life“Ponzi is the guy who put the crease in Croesus,” wrote Neal O’Hara for style and became a hero to the immigrant the Boston Traveler toward the end of July, 1920. “He is the guy that ran up millions from a two-cent stamp. If five-spots were snow flakes, Ponzi community and small investors. His sucwould be a three day blizzard.” cess inevitably attracted the attention of “You’ve got to hand it to his credit. He makes your money gain 50 per Boston’s legal authorities. Police Comcent in 45 days, which is as much as the landlords do. He delivers the missioner Edwin U. Curtis sent three ingoods with postage stamps, which is more than Burleson does. The way vestigators to Ponzi’s office in the summer Ponzi juggles the reds and the greens, he makes Post Office look like a of 1920. Two of them bought shares in the child’s game. He simply buys stamps in Europe while the rest of the boys scheme after speaking with Ponzi. Postal are buying souvenir post cards. And a postage stamp is still worth two inspectors, the district attorney’s office, cents in spite of the service you get for it, and any yap knows that you and federal attorneys paid visits to Ponzi’s cannot get stuck on postage stamps unless you sit on the gluey side up.” operation. No evidence of illegal activities “Worried” isn’t the half of it. According to Miss Marguerite Mooers was uncovered and Ponzi, a public relaMarshall, a staff writer for the New York Evening World, Ponzi had them in a frenzy. Listen to what she said: tions genius, used these official pronounce“Whoever said that proud old New Englanders are conservative, unments to mitigate any suspicions potential doubtedly made that statement before the advent of Charles Ponzi. Toinvestors might have held. Ponzi had colday all Boston is get-rich-quick mad over him, the creator of fortunes, lected nearly fifteen million dollars by Authe modern King Midas who doubles your money in ninety days. Did I gust of 1920. say Boston? My mistake. I should have said the entire New England, Richard Grozier, publisher of the Bosfrom Calais, Maine, to Lake Champlain, from the Canadian border to ton Post, doubted Ponzi’s claims and set New Jersey.” out to prove that Ponzi was engaged in “At every corner, on the street-cars, behind the department store a massive fraud. Grozier interviewed counters, from luxurious parlors to humble kitchens, to the very outskirts Clarence W. Barron, founder of Barron’s of New England, Ponzi is making more hope, more anxiety, than any Weekly, about Ponzi’s operation for a July conquering general of old. Mary Pickford, Sir Thomas Lipton and smuggling booze over the Canadian border aren’t in it any more.” 25 article. The article iterated Barron’s opinion that it would be impossible to turn over more than a few thousand dollars worth of coupons in the manner described covered that Ponzi had been convicted of forgery in Canby Ponzi. ada in 1908 for activities strikingly similar to the reply The article resulted in a run on the Securities Excoupon enterprise. Publication of these allegations on change Company that Ponzi stemmed by offering a full August 11 prompted federal postal inspectors to focus atrefund to anyone who requested it. Ponzi admitted that tention on Ponzi’s activities. He was arrested by a U.S. the coupon scheme was simply a ruse to cover an even marshal on August 13 and charged with mail fraud. Six more inventive plan he had developed that he sought to Boston banks that were closely tied to Ponzi failed, inkeep secret from Wall Street speculators. These developcluding Hanover Bank and the Tremont Trust. Investigaments, to Grozier’s chagrin, only caused more investors tors soon discovered that Ponzi had also been convicted to entrust Ponzi with their money; Grozier had unwitof smuggling illegal aliens into the United States from tingly promoted Ponzi’s operation. Grozier ordered his Canada after being released from Canadian prison. staff to widen the investigation of the immigrant millionaire. Ponzi was tried and convicted in Boston’s federal The Boston Post, exploring an anonymous tip, discourt and was sentenced to five years in prison. Because
Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme federal facilities were unavailable, Ponzi was incarcerated in the Plymouth County Jail and was paroled after serving forty months of the sentence. Massachusetts then tried him on state charges, with twenty-two counts of conspiracy and larceny against him. Found guilty, Ponzi was sentenced to seven to nine years in prison in February of 1925, but he escaped while free on bail. He resurfaced in Florida in 1926, selling swampland for ten dollars an acre to naïve investors. He was convicted of fraud and sentenced by a Florida court but again escaped while on bail. He was rearrested in New Orleans in 1927 and was returned to Boston to serve his sentence. In 1934, he was released and deported to Italy, where he had achieved celebrity status. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini asked Ponzi to manage the Brazilian offices of Italy’s new airline, but he was fired in 1942 after allegations surfaced that he was involved with currency smuggling. He retired to a pauper’s life that was interrupted briefly by efforts at finding renewed glory. He reportedly tried to swindle the Soviet Union in a gold-smuggling operation in the late 1940’s. Ponzi died of a stroke in a Rio de Janeiro hospital’s charity ward on January 18, 1949, leaving an estate of seventy-five dollars, which was used to cover his burial expenses. Significance Few concrete steps were taken in the 1920’s to stem the proliferation of investment scams that helped define the decade. Although the more outrageous schemes received intense press coverage, victims found little recourse at the federal level. It is ironic that, like Ponzi before them, many promoters experienced increased demand for their securities as the level of media coverage intensified, regardless of whether the reporting was salutary or critical. The 1920’s was a decade of rapid income growth coupled with amazing returns for holders of stocks of both established and new corporations. Given these conditions, a novice investor could rationalize looking past risk in the hope that a token investment could be parlayed into a fortune. Some social historians have attributed the speculative fever that infected the United States in the 1920’s to consequences stemming from World War I. Consumer demand was suppressed throughout the war by a comprehensive rationing system, despite impressive growth in real personal income throughout the war and into the early 1920’s. As a result, the savings rate reached levels not seen again until late in World War II. A large portion of wartime savings had been accom1472
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 plished through the purchase of war bonds. Americans began the 1920’s with stockpiles of these long-term securities paying yields of 3.5 to 4.5 percent, which seemed paltry when compared to the returns generated by stocks and other risky investments in the war’s aftermath. Savvy promoters seized on this dissatisfaction and allowed investors to exchange the bonds at par for investments in the promoters’ schemes. Ponzi’s success spawned countless imitators who profited throughout the 1920’s. For example, hundreds of itinerant Russian immigrants invested half a million dollars in a fictitious gold and platinum mine on the Hudson River. Brazen Chicago swindlers sold shares in the League of Nations. Midwestern investors purchased uninspected wetlands under the Mississippi River, land that was advertised as already having running water. Countless investors contributed millions of dollars to fraudulent oil well ventures. Hundreds of entrepreneurs sold Florida real estate at seminars held in cities throughout the eastern half of the United States. Few in government had the inclination or power to stop Ponzi and his imitators. Beginning with Kansas in 1911, states passed laws that attempted to regulate investment sales. New York’s Martin Act stood out because it provided for criminal proceedings against fraud. The investment regulation laws of most states—especially the “blue-sky” laws regulating stock and other investment sales in Texas and other states—were cosmetic or were not enforced. In the case of Ponzi, only the Pulitzer Prize-winning efforts of the Boston Post forced state authorities to intervene, although belatedly. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was forced to prosecute Ponzi under arcane “common and notorious thief ” statutes. Federal investigative units had the greatest success prosecuting investment fraud cases in the 1920’s. Postal inspectors successfully collected evidence for local prosecuting attorneys and had the power to stop the flow of mail to operators of investment scams. Postal investigations, however, typically consumed a year or more before completion, and federal prosecutors often took months or years to press charges against the promoters once they received evidence. Even when promoters were convicted, prison terms were generally short and fines were small. Large fines often went unpaid. State and local efforts at interdiction generally stopped at political borders. It was a relatively simple matter for an investment scheme operator to move to a new community when local authorities responded to complaints and initiated investigations. The lack of a na-
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Further Reading Dunn, Donald H. Ponzi: The Incredible True Story of the King of Financial Cons. 1975. Reprint. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. Authoritative biography highlights major events in Ponzi’s life and gives the reader an idea why Ponzi was driven to succeed. Evans, D. Morier. Facts, Failures, and Fraud. Reprint. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968. Case history of financial fraud in Victorian England makes it clear that Ponzi’s scheme was innovative but not original. Kahn, Ely J. Fraud. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Comprehensive and entertaining account of the long history of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Covers major fraud investigations from the 1700’s to the early 1970’s in a case format. Olien, Roger M., and Diana Davids Olien. Easy Money. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Examines investment schemes of the 1920’s, with a particular emphasis on oil promoters. Provides an interesting psychological perspective on the Jazz Age and presents theories on why so many investors were duped. Includes glossary. Russell, Francis. “Bubble, Bubble—No Toil, No Trouble.” American Heritage 24 (February, 1973): 74-80. Provides a historian’s perspective on Ponzi’s impact on Boston. Examines both political and social tensions related to Ponzi’s rise and fall. Includes several photographs and political cartoons reprinted from the Boston Post. Shapiro, Susan P. Wayward Capitalists: Target of the Securities and Exchange Commission. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984. Scholarly work provides detailed information on how the SEC detects securities violations and prosecutes offenders. Thoroughly documented, with excellent references and footnotes. Zuckoff, Mitchell. Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend. New York: Random House, 2005. Sympathetic portrait of Ponzi conveys his likable persona and the context of the time and place within which he carried out his greatest fraud. Includes select bibliography and index. See also: Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; 19211923: Scandals of the Harding Administration; Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal; May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde; June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established. 1473
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tional tracking system ensured that a criminal’s past was easily buried with each relocation. The newly created Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated a handful of investment fraud cases on the premise that crooked schemes unfairly competed with honest ones and were thus a restraint of free trade. The FTC was thought to be so incompetent in carrying out its work, however, that The New York Times described it as the “fragile sword.” The speculative boom of the 1920’s died with the 1929 stock market crash, so the legal impact of Ponzi’s international reply coupon swindle was not immediate. It took many other investment frauds, a stock market crash, and the near collapse of the banking system before Congress acted in the early 1930’s and passed the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The latter law required registration with the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before securities could be offered or sold. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company Act of 1940, and the Investment Advisors Act of 1940 placed licensing and activity limitations on individuals engaged in security sales or distribution. The SEC is an independent bipartisan administrative agency that enforces compliance with laws against false and misleading investment disclosures and unethical securities sales practices. Learning from the difficulties Massachusetts had in convicting Ponzi of fraud, the SEC found it easier to derail Ponzi schemes by citing technical violations of SEC regulations instead of focusing on fraud allegations. Ponzi schemes continue to surface on a regular basis, despite increased investor sophistication and enhanced legal weapons for prosecution. Instances in the late twentieth century included the Moses Lake commodity futures scheme, the J. David currency trading scandal, the ZZZZ Best penny stock scam, and the Memory Metals affair. Each of these plans paid interest or dividends to investors from the capital of later investors. Many investment industry observers have attributed the continued success of Ponzi scheme promoters to the SEC’s tendency to concentrate on “big fish” (for example, insider traders who victimize small circles of investors for large sums) instead of scams that defraud large numbers of investors of relatively small amounts. It has also been argued, however, that Ponzi schemes systematically surface because there will always be some investors who lose sight of economic reality when faced with the prospect of immediate wealth. —Robert A. Nagy
Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme
Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1919-1921
Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation Vilhelm Bjerknes developed a model of the atmosphere that emphasized the idea of “fronts,” the boundaries along which masses of warm and cold air clash and converge to produce the weather. Locale: Bergen, Norway Categories: Science and technology; earth science Key Figures Vilhelm Bjerknes (1862-1951), Norwegian meteorologist Jacob Bjerknes (1897-1975), Norwegian meteorologist Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby (1898-1957), Swedish American meteorologist Tor Bergeron (1891-1977), Swedish meteorologist Summary of Event Vilhelm Bjerknes, a Norwegian geophysicist and meteorologist, knew in the early 1900’s that accurate forecasting of weather required much information. He also knew that local weather was tied to the global circulation of the atmosphere. While teaching at Stockholm University from 1895 to 1907, he proposed that movements in the atmosphere are stimulated by heat from the Sun. At the same time, these movements radiate heat as air masses rub up against one another, causing friction. Bjerknes was motivated by the need for improved weather prediction for commercial fishing and agriculture. In part, the urgent need for better domestic food production arose from restrictions of imports and communications as a result of World War I (1914-1918). He persuaded the Norwegian government to help set up strategically located observing stations. In addition to the stations, he founded a school at Bergen that attracted meteorologists from all over the world, including his son Jacob Bjerknes; Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby, a Swedish American meteorologist; and Tor Bergeron, a Swedish meteorologist. Weather types and changes, along with the interaction of moving masses of air, have been studied and noted for centuries. In the nineteenth century, Luke Howard, an English physicist, had written of northerly and southerly winds blowing alongside each other, with the colder wedging in under the warmer and the warmer gliding up over the colder and causing extensive and continued rains. In 1852, evidence had been found of a polar wind advancing under a warm, nearly saturated tropical wind and pushing it upward, producing cumulus clouds. 1474
Vilhelm Bjerknes was a pioneer in the development of a mathematical theory of fronts and their effects. In addition, along with his son, he was the first to study extratropical cyclones and use them to forecast the weather. Extratropical cyclones are cyclones that may cross an ocean in ten days, lose most of their intensity, and then develop again into large and vigorous storms. In the years following World War I, Norwegian meteorologists had a fairly good understanding of the action in the big storms sweeping across the Atlantic. From this knowledge, Vilhelm Bjerknes theorized that the main idea in storm development is a clashing of two air masses, one warm, the other cold, along a well-defined boundary, or front. Aside from the idea of storm fronts, his view of cyclone development produced another important idea. At the beginning of the life cycle of a storm, there is an undisturbed state in which cold and warm air masses flow side by side, separated by a front. Each air mass flows along its side of the front until some of the warmer air begins to invade the cooler air, leading to a wave disturbance. This disturbance spreads and grows, creating lowpressure areas at the tip of the wave. Air motions try to spiral into these areas, and both fronts begin to advance. The cold air generally moves faster, catching up with and moving under the lighter warm air. As the storm grows deeper, the cold front becomes more pronounced. The whole process—from the time the polar air meets the northward-flowing warm air to the point at which the area of low pressure is filled completely—is known as the “life cycle of a frontal system.” This description is based on the wave theory, which was originally developed by Vilhelm Bjerknes in 1921. In 1919, when this work began, upper-atmosphere studies were limited by the lack of knowledge of such things as radar images, lasers, computers, and satellites. Vilhelm Bjerknes showed that the atmosphere is composed of distinct masses of air meeting at various places to produce different meteorological effects. He published the study On the Dynamics of the Circular Vortex with Applications to the Atmosphere and Atmospheric Vortex and Wave Motion in 1921. Significance The weather forecasting stations established by Vilhelm Bjerknes in the 1920’s were a monumental accomplishment, considering the limited amount of information and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Aguado, Edward, and James E. Burt. Understanding Weather and Climate. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. Meteorology textbook aimed at both science majors and non-science majors focuses on the processes that produce weather and climate. Includes many illustrations and other learning aids. Bates, Charles C., and John F. Fuller. America’s Weather Warriors, 1814-1985. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1986. Comprehensive history of meteorology carried out by the U.S. military. Includes maps, bibliography, and index. Friedman, Robert Marc. Appropriating the Weather: Vilhelm Bjerknes and the Construction of a Modern Meteorology. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989. History of modern meteorology discusses Bjerknes’s work and its significance. Humphreys, W. J. Physics of the Air. New York: Dover, 1964. Textbook on physical meteorology for upperlevel and graduate students. Although somewhat technical, still a good reference for advanced high school and lower-level college students. Well illustrated. Lutgens, Frederick K., and Edward J. Tarbuck. The At-
mosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. Introduction to meteorology for college students is accessible to advanced upper-level high school students as well. Well illustrated. Includes glossary and index. Neiburger, Morris, James G. Edinger, and William D. Bonner. Understanding Our Atmospheric Environment. 2d ed. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1982. Textbook for college students focuses on physical explanations of atmospheric phenomena. Well illustrated. Includes a section after each chapter devoted to questions, problems, and projects. Reiter, Elmar R. Jet Streams: How Do They Affect Our Weather? 1967. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Excellent source on the topic for high school and lower-level college students. Presents a popular survey on how jet streams are formed, how they move, and the effects they have on weather and climate. Includes illustrations and a brief list of suggested readings. Schaefer, Vincent J., and John A. Day. A Field Guide to the Atmosphere. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Excellent reference source for high school and lowerlevel college students. Features numerous color and black-and-white photographs as well as drawings to help clarify the physical principles discussed. Includes twenty appendixes and a very good bibliography after each chapter. See also: Jan. 17, 1913: Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere; 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere; 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
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the lack of high-speed, worldwide communications. All the computations were done without the assistance of a computer or modern weather satellites to analyze and model the data. Today, these and other tools have made it possible for scientists to compile data into real-time images of current weather patterns around the globe. —Earl G. Hoover
Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation
Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1919-1933
Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power The incorporation of several popular ideas concerning human racial types and human political evolution contributed significantly to the Nazi Party’s political triumph in 1933. Locale: Germany Categories: Government and politics; civil rights and liberties; human rights Key Figures Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927), son-inlaw of composer Richard Wagner and British-born scholar whose book on race influenced Adolf Hitler Francis Galton (1822-1911), British scientist and founder of the eugenics movement, which heavily influenced Nazi racial ideas Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), widely read French champion of “scientific” theories concerning the superiority of the German (Teutonic) race Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), master propagandist of the Nazi Party who simplified racist theories for mass consumption Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Wilhelm Marr (1818-1904), one of the earliest German exponents of a racial interpretation of history Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russianborn founder of the Theosophical Society Richard Wagner (1813-1883), German composer whose music promoted the idea of a superior German race Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946), leading theorist for the Nazi racial interpretation of history and editor of the Nazi newspaper Völischer Beobachter Summary of Event In the German parliamentary elections of March, 1933, the Nationelsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party, NSDAP, or Nazis for short) attracted slightly more than 44 percent of the total vote. The Nazi leader, or führer, Adolf Hitler, immediately formed a coalition government with another nationalist party, giving his movement a slim majority in the Ger1476
man Reichstag (parliament). Hitler then proceeded to establish a totalitarian dictatorship that attempted to make every aspect of German society conform to his own peculiar ideology. Many historians have pointed out the importance of the racism of Hitler’s program as a major element in the endorsement of his movement by many German voters at the polls in 1933. Once the Nazis were in power, racism formed a major component of their reorganization of German society. Hitler, his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, and the self-proclaimed leading “theorist” of
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (left) with Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, in 1936. (Library of Congress)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Maurras’s newspaper Action Français gained a huge popular following by denouncing the pernicious influence on French society of “alien” and unpatriotic Jews. The people of Vienna elected Luger as their mayor several times even though his political platform consisted of little more than denunciation of Jews and promises to limit their influence. During this same era of European history, “scientific” theories of race emerged that seemed to lend credibility to this rapidly spreading religious, economic, and political anti-Semitism. Anthropologists and linguists produced works that suggested “Indo-European” or “Aryan” origins of many of the great civilizations of antiquity. Count Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau produced a work titled Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1876; Essay on the Inequality of Races, 1915) that used the terminology of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Gobineau ranked the races of the world according to their “evolution,” concluding that the “Germanic” (Aryan/ Teutonic/Indo-European) race had evolved to the highest level, with the Australian aborigines at the bottom. According to Gobineau and others who elaborated on his thesis, only the Germanic race was capable of producing true civilization. Gobineau’s imitators reserved a special place for the Jews, whom they characterized as parasites—destroyers of civilization that they themselves were incapable of creating. While these racist ideas were spreading, they became enmeshed with a new science founded by a first cousin of Darwin and took on a more sinister dimension. Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin and a scientist in his own right, published a book in 1883 that marked the beginning of a new science called eugenics. Galton and the huge international following he attracted began to argue that the human race could and should be improved through encouraging mating between physically and intellectually superior persons and discouraging reproduction by persons with physically or mentally undesirable characteristics. In every European nation, the United States, and many other countries as well, prominent citizens (often led by prominent academicians) formed eugenics societies that brought pressure on politicians to implement Galton’s ideas about racial hygiene. Many of the members of these eugenics societies also subscribed to the theories popularized by Gobineau, Maurras, Marr, and others. These racist ideas received further popular impetus from the works of Helena Blavatsky and composer Richard Wagner. Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society, which incorporated occult philosophies into a racial interpreta1477
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the NSDAP, Alfred Rosenberg, did not invent the racial theories and ideas they helped popularize before 1933 and tried to implement in subsequent years. They took them from a number of divergent and largely unrelated movements and ideas of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from all parts of Europe and blended them into a powerful political force in the turbulent years following World War I. Some historians trace the origins of Nazi racial ideas to the anti-Semitism of the Christian churches in Europe during the Middle Ages. This argument must take into account that although some church leaders preached against acceptance of Jews in Christian communities, others came to the defense of Jewish populations during outbursts of anti-Semitism. Against this backdrop of religious anti-Semitism, a much more complex racism emerged after the French Revolution of 1789. During the revolutionary era, many of the restrictions on Jewish political and economic life—under which the Jews had suffered for centuries—allowed many Jews to prosper in Europe. Some Jews amassed great fortunes as industrialization spread during the nineteenth century, and many Christians bitterly resented the success of people they considered aliens. Some European writers in the middle of the century began to refer to Jews as parasites who accumulated wealth not through honest labor but through duplicitous exploitation of Christians. This new economic anti-Semitism complemented and supported the older Christian anti-Semitism, which never disappeared but was balanced somewhat by Church interventions against more egregious anti-Semitic outbursts. During the final quarter of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth century, writers in several European countries began calling for political action to eliminate the threat posed by “aliens,” especially Jews, to native European civilization. Wilhelm Marr and Adolf Stoecker in Germany, Charles Maurras in France, and Karl Luger in Austria attracted large popular followings by advocating political action to limit or eliminate Jewish influence in their countries. Marr’s Judentum und Deutschtum (1876; Jewishness and Germanness) persuasively argued that Jewish materialism corrupted the idealistic essence of the Germanic soul and would, if left unchallenged, eventually destroy German civilization. At least partly in response to Marr’s contentions, Stoecker (once court chaplain to Emperor William II of Germany) formed the Christian Socialist Union, which had as its primary purpose the elimination of Jewish economic and political influence in Germany. During the Dreyfus affair in France during the 1890’s,
Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power
Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power tion of history that attracted many pseudointellectuals during the generation before World War I. Wagner’s immensely popular music drew on themes from Germanic mythology. Both Blavatsky and Wagner appealed to the irrational emotions of their audiences, which included many of the religious, economic, scientific, and political racists of European society. European governments at least indirectly encouraged the wide dissemination of these racist ideas by deliberately attempting to inspire nationalist fervor in their citizens. Many European political leaders saw a blind and unquestioning loyalty to the “fatherland” as necessary if citizens were to be convinced of the importance of imperialistic expansion and the need for the high financial expenditures of military buildup. Some political leaders also felt that by inspiring a chauvinistic nationalism in their citizens through the educational system and the popular press they could divert the working class from socialism’s growing political appeal.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Goebbels on World Propaganda After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Joseph Goebbels gave a speech in which he directly addressed criticism of the Nazis’ racist beliefs and proposed that the world would ultimately realize the necessity of the Nazis’ actions. People abroad often do not know the real causes of German Jewish legislation. The statistics are most persuasive. Nonetheless, we held back at the beginning of our work. We had more important things to do than to take on a question of such great scope. It is entirely the fault of Jewry that things turned out differently. The boycott and atrocity propaganda they made in other countries was an attempt by International Jewry to accomplish by means of public opinion in other countries what had been made impossible by our takeover in Germany. They attempted to cause difficulties for Germany’s rebirth through a world-wide boycott campaign, and to render it ineffective. We finally resorted to a counter-boycott during that critical period. The fact that their racial comrades still in Germany suffered loss is thanks to their racial comrades beyond our borders, who were trying to cause difficulties for us. They only caused economic difficulties for their own race. We can predict the future consequences for Jewry. We have not done anything to encourage them, they are simply the product of the times. Many clever Jews have already realized what they have done, above all to those remaining in Germany, who were the most directly affected. They shouted their warnings. But they could not overcome the radical wing, and in the end had to let things take their course for better or worse. This radical wing has delivered an extraordinarily hard blow to World Jewry and its allies. They put the Jewish Problem up for debate, and where it is debated the results can only be unpleasant. Jewry’s strength is in its anonymity; if it loses that, the results can only be harmful. The recent Zionist Conference in Paris shows the hopeless situation World Jewry has been driven into by its radical wing. When one of the various Jewish groups is no longer united, when there are only fruitless debates, it is a sign that Jewish power is on shaky ground. That is already beginning to have consequences for Jewry. These events reveal the racial problem in all its difficulty. It will not fade away until Europe’s peoples solve it. It will be solved when the people for their own good do what is necessary for their security.
Significance In Germany, all the racist ideas mentioned above merged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into something called the Völkisch movement. Popular writers and Source: Joseph Goebbels, “Rassenfrage und Weltpropaganda,” Reichstagung in newspaper publishers such as Georg Nürnberg 1933 (Berlin: Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller, 1933), translated by the German Propaganda Archive. von Schoenerer, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whose Die Grundlagen des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts Völkisch movement. He and his party propagandists (1899; The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, used the groundwork laid by decades of Völkisch agita1911) influenced Hitler, Rosenberg, and other Nazis, tion to convince German voters to support the Nazi Party along with the influential publicist Friedrich Lienhard, at the polls. spread Völkisch ideas to every area of Germany and — Paul Madden throughout all segments of the German population. The Völkisch movement also disseminated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1934), purportedly a Jewish plan Further Reading for world domination, which fanned the flames of the Field, Geoffrey C. Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. New York: spreading racist hysteria. Hitler’s movement was only a Columbia University Press, 1981. Critiques Chamsmall and (at first) insignificant part of the hyperracist 1478
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tism from its Christian origins through the stages of economic, political, scientific, and occult racism before 1933. Mosse, George Lachmann. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Considers European racism within the larger context of the industrial and scientific revolutions. Shows the influence of previous ideas of race on Nazi racist doctrine. Weiss, Sheila Faith. Race Hygiene and National Efficiency: The Eugenics of Wilhelm Schallmayer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Examines the nature of the German eugenics movement and its influence on Nazi racial ideas. Shows the cross-fertilization between scientific racism and the Völkisch movement. See also: Jan. 11, 1906: Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement; Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews.
January 15, 1919
Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg’s assassination elevated her to the status of a martyr for Marxism. Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Government and politics; terrorism Key Figures Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), German Marxist philosopher, orator, and Spartacist leader Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), chancellor of Germany Leo Jogiches (1867-1919), associate of Luxemburg Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919), German lawyer and organizer of the Spartacists Otto Runge (fl. early twentieth century), German soldier Kurt Vogel (fl. early twentieth century), German army lieutenant Summary of Event The murder of Rosa Luxemburg in January, 1919, can best be understood in the context of Luxemburg’s entire life, career, and political philosophy. Born in Zamose,
Poland, on March 5, 1870, of Jewish parentage, and handicapped by a limp at an early age, she left her home in Warsaw for Zurich, Switzerland, in 1889, and enrolled at the university. In Zurich she met Leo Jogiches, who throughout her life would be her confidant, her collaborator, and, intermittently, her lover. Luxemburg graduated from the university in 1897 with a doctorate in law and political science; her thesis, The Development of Industry in Poland, was published in July, 1898, and an article she wrote, “Step by Step,” a study of the Polish middle class, appeared in an important German newspaper. In April, 1898, in order to obtain German citizenship, Luxemburg married Gustav Lübeck (they were divorced in 1903). The next month she left Zurich for Berlin, where she immediately became involved in the activities of the German Social Democratic Party. She was sent to Upper Silesia, a part of Poland annexed by Prussia, where she campaigned for Social Democratic candidates for the Reichstag. One of her most important contributions to socialist thought, Social Reform and Revolution, appeared in six installments in September, 1898. In con1479
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berlain’s racial theories and evaluates their influence on the evolution of European racism. Gasman, Daniel. The Scientific Origins of National Socialism. Somerset, N.J.: Transaction, 2004. A very thorough analysis of the racist nineteenth and early twentieth century theories that permeated German ideology. Hau, Michael. The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Deals with the German obsession with physical culture—which was at the root of Germans’ ultimate acceptance of Naziespoused racism—and the illusion of German superiority. Hay, Malcolm. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism. New York: Hart, 1975. Traces the origins and influence of Christian anti-Semitism. Argues that hatred of Jews preached by Christian ministers contributed heavily to Nazi racism and the Holocaust. Katz, Jacob. From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. Shows the evolution of anti-Semi-
Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg
Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg trast and in conflict with the arguments of Eduard Bernstein, who advocated a policy of peaceful social and political reform in Germany, she restated and refined Marxist doctrine, insisting on the need and inevitability of social revolution. Luxemburg’s speeches and writings, her organizing on behalf of the Social Democratic Party of the kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania, and her participation in international socialist conferences attracted the attention and reaction of both German and Russian authorities. In May, 1903, addressing audiences in twelve cities, she spoke to fifteen hundred people in Bydgoszcz, five hundred the next day in Pila, and two thousand in Liechtenstein a few days later. Her speeches were usually two hours in length, followed by question-and-answer sessions and long meetings. A few months later, in 1904, Luxemburg spent two months in prison for insulting Emperor William II of Germany. In 1906, along with Jogiches, she was arrested by the czarist police and for a time incarcerated in the Warsaw Citadel. Between her two prison terms, mass strikes had erupted in Germany, Poland, and Russia in 1905, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to permit the organization of
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the Duma, a representative assembly. Luxemburg spoke out against a policy of caution urged by the leadership of the General Commission of the German Trade Unions. At the Jena Party Congress in September, 1905, she argued that “we must remind ourselves that for us the final words of the Communist Manifesto are not merely fine phrases . . . but that we are in bloody earnest when we appeal to the masses [saying] the workers have nothing to lose but their chains—but a whole world to gain.” Luxemburg believed strongly in the importance and spontaneity of mass strikes ushering in the socialist revolution; for the German opposition to her ideas, she would become known as “Bloody Rosa.” Despite another imprisonment in Berlin in 1907, and despite arguments in the factional struggles of the German and Russian socialist parties, Luxemburg persisted and persevered. She found time to write The National Question and Autonomy, published in 1908, condemning nationalistic movements in Poland, India, and Latin America as middle-class obsessions, unworthy of the support of Social Democrats. “Social Democracy,” she said, “is called to realize not the right of self-determination of nations [but] the self-determination of the working class.” Increasingly, Luxemburg was at odds with the leadership of the German Social Democratic Party, embittering her relations with Karl Kautsky, one of Germany’s most prominent Marxists, and humiliating him in the party press. There were charges and countercharges between Luxemburg and other radicals, accusations that she betrayed the party; she was being politically isolated, finding difficulties in placing her articles in party journals and disseminating her viewpoints. She was determined to remain within the party, however, and discouraged To view image, please refer to the efforts by her supporters to form a new political orprint edition of this title. ganization. The beginning of the final rupture with the German Social Democratic Party came during World War I. In the Reichstag, the Social Democratic deputies, adopting the position that the German declaration of war against France and Russia was a defensive posture against czarist despotism, voted to endorse the government’s appeal for war credits. Despite another conviction for pro-republican and anti-imperial sentiments, Luxemburg, along with Karl Liebknecht, denounced the policy of the Social Democratic majority. With Liebknecht, she formed the “International Group,” soon to become known as the Spartacists, and published the group’s own newspaper. Luxemburg wrote “The Rosa Luxemburg speaks at a political gathering. (Archive Photos)
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Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg
From THE JUNIUS PAMPHLET
German Social Democracy, as the Vienna Arbeiterzeitung wrote on August 5, 1914, was “the jewel of class-conscious proletarian organizations.” In her footsteps trod the increasingly enthusiastic Social Democrats of France, Italy, and Belgium, the labor movements of Holland, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the United States. . . . Especially in the questions of the struggle against militarism and war, German Social Democracy always took the lead. “For us Germans that is unacceptable” regularly sufficed to decide the orientation of the Second International, which blindly bestowed its confidence upon the admired leadership of the mighty German Social Democracy: the pride of every socialist and the terror of the ruling classes everywhere. And what did we in Germany experience when the great historical test came? The most precipitous fall, the most violent collapse. Nowhere has the organization of the proletariat been yoked so completely to the service of imperialism. Nowhere is the state of siege borne so docilely. Nowhere is the press so hobbled, public opinion so stifled, the economic and political class struggle of the working class so totally surrendered as in Germany. But German Social Democracy was not merely the strongest vanguard troop, it was the thinking head of the International. For this reason, we must begin the analysis, the self-examination process, with its fall. It has the duty to begin the salvation of international socialism, that means un-
sparing criticism of itself. None of the other parties, none of the other classes of bourgeois society, may look clearly and openly into the mirror of their own errors, their own weaknesses, for the mirror reflects their historical limitations and the historical doom that awaits them. The working class can boldly look truth straight in the face, even the bitterest selfrenunciation, for its weaknesses are only confusion. The strict law of history gives back its power, stands guarantee for its final victory. One thing is certain. The world war is a turning point. It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need only survive the war, like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in order to fall happily back into the old routine once it is over. The world war has altered the conditions of our struggle and, most of all, it has changed us. Not that the basic law of capitalist development, the life-and-death war between capital and labor, will experience any amelioration. But now, in the midst of the war, the masks are falling and the old familiar visages smirk at us. The tempo of development has received a mighty jolt from the eruption of the volcano of imperialism. The violence of the conflicts in the bosom of society, the enormousness of the tasks that tower up before the socialist proletariat—these make everything that has transpired in the history of the workers’ movement seem a pleasant idyll.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet (1916), translated by Dave Hollis for the Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive.
Crisis of Social Democracy,” an analysis of the events that led to the European War and criticizing the mistakes of the Social Democratic Party “in the abdication of our will to struggle, of our courage, our fidelity to our convictions.” Luxemburg herself did not lack a “will to struggle . . . courage . . . fidelity.” She was in prison for a year, from February, 1915, to February, 1916; later, she was placed in “protective custody” in July, 1916, where she remained until November, 1918. She was in prison during the March Revolution of 1917 in Russia, remained there during the Bolshevik Revolution in October, and was still incarcerated when mass strikes took place in Germany in March, 1918, as its leaders prepared to leave the war. By the time of Luxemburg’s release on November 9,
1918, the German emperor had abdicated his throne and gone into exile in neutral Holland, and Social Democratic deputies had joined the new government. On her return to Berlin, a republic had been proclaimed by the Social Democratic deputy, Phillip Scheiderman, and the Social Democratic deputy Friedrich Ebert had become chancellor. Neither Liebknecht nor Luxemburg was satisfied with the establishment of a republic, however. While Luxemburg was still in prison, the Spartacists had joined in an uneasy coalition with the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, the pacifist wing of the Social Democrats, after their expulsion from the party in 1917. In December, 1918, after a government attack on the People’s Naval Division, which had mutinied in Kiel a 1481
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This excerpt from The Junius Pamphlet, written in 1915 and first published in 1916, eloquently conveys Rosa Luxemburg’s conviction that the working class would ultimately bear the greatest burden in World War I. The pamphlet—the title of which is probably a reference to the Roman republican Lucius Junius Brutus—was essential to the foundation of the German Communist Party in 1919.
Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg year before, the Spartacists demanded that the Independent Social Democrats convene a party congress. The refusal of the Independent Social Democrats led to the establishment of the Communist Party of Germany. On January 4, 1919, the Ebert government discharged Emil Eichhorn, the radical Berlin police chief. A protest demonstration was held; the Spartacists took control of the offices of the Social Democratic newspaper, and Liebknecht joined a revolutionary commission that declared the end of the Ebert government. The Spartacists had acted too precipitously in fomenting an insurrection, however. The army supported the government, and Luxemburg and Liebknecht went into hiding, moving from place to place as hunted fugitives with a price on their heads. The end came on the evening of January 15, 1919. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were arrested by army troopers and taken to the Eden Hotel, the headquarters of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division. There, they were informed that they would be transferred to the Moabit Prison. Liebknecht went first. As he left the hotel under army escort past jeering guests, an army rifleman, Otto Runge, struck Liebknecht with his rifle butt. Luxemburg then followed, also past whistling and spitting guests. Runge also hit her with his rifle, and blood poured from her nose and mouth. Dragged into a waiting car, Luxemburg was shot in the left temple by Lieutenant Kurt Vogel. Her body was then thrown from the Liechtenstein Bridge into the Landwehr Canal. At approximately the same time, Liebknecht was killed “while attempting to escape.” Significance In May, 1919, a military court-martial sentenced Runge and Vogel to two years in prison for killing Luxemburg. Liebknecht’s escorts were acquitted of all charges. Two months earlier, in March, 1919, Jogiches, who had revealed the identities of the perpetrators of the Luxemburg-Liebknecht murders, was taken into custody, severely beaten, and then shot “while attempting to escape.”
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Luxemburg’s assassination, along with the light sentences meted out to her killers, served to elevate her status among leftists. She came to be known as a martyr for the Left, and her theoretical writings attained lasting respect among Marxists. —David L. Sterling Further Reading Abraham, Richard. Rosa Luxemburg: A Life for the International. Oxford, England: Berg, 1989. A concise analysis of Luxemburg’s life and thought. Includes an extensive and helpful bibliography and a guide to political parties and factions. Bronner, Stephen Eric. Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary for Our Times. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. Biography focuses on Luxemburg’s political thought and work, connecting both with socialist theory and practice at the end of the twentieth century. Ettinger, Elzbieta. Rosa Luxemburg: A Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Biography focuses on Luxemburg’s personal life and her relations with Leo Jogiches and other men. Geras, Norman. The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg. London: NLB, 1976. Four essays on the political theories of Luxemburg, including a study of her views on the mass strike. Le Blanc, Paul, ed. Rosa Luxemburg: Reflections and Writings. New York: Humanity Books, 1999. Collection presents essays on Luxemburg by various intellectuals and activists as well as selected writings by Luxemburg. Includes bibliography. Nettl, John Peter. Rosa Luxemburg. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1966. Excellent comprehensive biography. See also: Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government; July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution.
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Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities
January 19-21, 1919
Participants in the Paris Peace Conference attempted to make the protection of the civil rights of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities a matter of international concern. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Civil rights and liberties; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Robert Lansing (1864-1928), U.S. secretary of state, 1915-1920 Edward M. House (1858-1938), U.S. special presidential emissary at Paris David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), premier of France, 1906-1909, 1917-1920 Summary of Event Before World War I, full and equal civil rights were denied to minorities, or subject nationalities, within the multinational empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Ottoman Turkey. Ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities such as the Finns, Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, and Jews suffered varying degrees of discriminatory treatment under alien, imperial rule in Central and Eastern Europe. The empires refused full political rights to minorities with regard to such activities as voting and holding public office. Rights to property ownership and the right to engage in certain professions were restricted. Freedom of religious worship was limited in many regions for minorities. Linguistic traditions were threatened by the imposition of official languages in imperial governmental and educational institutions. By 1918, all four multinational empires had collapsed. Military defeat and the exhaustion and deprivations suffered during World War I produced revolutions that overthrew the imperial governments of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey. The victorious Allied and Associated Powers met in Paris in 1919 to create a peace settlement that was meant to make the Great War “the war to end all wars.” Part of this settlement in-
volved redrawing the map of Central and Eastern Europe to restructure these regions geographically. It was U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s insistence on the Fourteen Points concerning the concepts of equality, liberty, and justice for all peoples and nationalities that added a new dimension to the territorial reconstruction of Europe at the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson’s stress on the principle of “national self-determination,” or the right of all national groupings to determine their own destinies, made redrawing the map of postwar Europe an even more complex task. Self-determination, as a practical policy, was virtually impossible to implement. In Central and Eastern Europe, in particular, ethnic, religious, and linguistic groupings were so intermixed that nothing short of massive population removals and transfers would have allowed each nationality to have its own separate state. Not only would such a policy have been impracticable, not to mention inhumane, but also each of the multitude of new states this policy would have created would have been too small and weak to have any real chance of survival in political, economic, or military terms. Consequently, the practical redrawing of frontiers made necessary the existence of large minority populations in the newly created and reorganized states of Central and Eastern Europe. The reorganized state of Poland contained not only some twenty-seven million Poles but also one million Germans, three to five million Ukrainians, and two to three million Jews. The new state of Czechoslovakia counted among its total population of fourteen million citizens some three million Germans, one-half million Magyars, and one-half million Ruthenians. The new state of Yugoslavia counted, in addition to its main Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian populations, one-half million Germans, one-half million Magyars, one-half million Albanians, and six hundred thousand Macedonians, out of a total population of twelve million. Wilson’s principle of national self-determination was significant for the minority populations in postwar Central and Eastern Europe because they regarded it as a concept that, by extension, could be applied to minority civil rights. The minorities in the newly created and reorganized states considered themselves to be nationalities, just as Poles, Czechs, and Serbs, among others, had considered themselves subject nationalities within the pre1483
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Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities 1918 multinational empires. For this reason, representatives of the minority populations pressed the leading statesmen at the Paris Peace Conference to regard the protection of minority civil rights as an important feature of the peace settlement. It was in the interest of such countries as the United States, Great Britain, and France to consider the wishes of minorities not only for obvious ethical reasons but also in an attempt to ensure long-term stability and peace in the newly reconstructed regions of Europe. The growing resistance and opposition of the subject nationalities before World War I had produced internal instability that weakened the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. Balkan nationalism in Southeastern Europe had contributed to the outbreak of the general war in Europe in 1914. Precedents were not lacking for the Paris Peace Conference to impose special obligations on newly created and reorganized states regarding minority rights. In 1878, the Congress of Berlin had elaborated provisions on religious freedom and political equality to be embodied in the public law of the new principality of Bulgaria and had imposed similar guarantees as a condition of its recognition of the independence of the states of Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania. The congress also included in the Treaty of Berlin specific clauses for the protection of religious liberties in the Balkan territories that remained within the Ottoman Empire. Consequently, Wilson and his chief advisers, Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Special Presidential Emissary Colonel Edward M. House, set out to persuade other leaders at Paris, such as British prime minister David Lloyd George and French premier Georges Clemenceau, to join the United States in pursuing measures to protect minorities in the newly created and reorganized states of Central and Eastern Europe. Wilson’s insistence on this policy resulted in the establishment of the Committee on New States and the Protection of Minorities at the Peace Conference. The committee devised a series of treaties by which each newly created, or reorganized, state pledged itself to grant fair and equal treatment to the minority populations within its frontiers and agreed that the execution of its pledges should be treated as a matter of international concern. Four of the defeated powers—Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey—had to make similar agreements as part of the separate peace treaties they signed with the Allied and Associated Powers at Paris. At a later date, Germany also had to pledge itself to protect minority rights, but only with regard to the province of Upper Silesia. The United States, Great Britain, France, and It1484
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 aly were afraid that imposing further minority protection obligations on a still powerful Germany might help to legitimate future efforts by Berlin to champion the cause of German minority populations in Central and Eastern Europe, causing destabilization in that reconstructed region. By the mid-1920’s, the defeated powers and the new states of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, as well as Iraq, had pledged themselves to the protection of minority civil rights. The undertaking of formal pledges to protect minority rights became prerequisite to the above-named states’ entering the League of Nations, the organ created by the Paris Peace Conference to regulate international affairs. The principle of minority protection was not incorporated into the wording of the Covenant that established the League because it was believed that this might be too contentious an issue for many prospective member states. The drafters of the Covenant wanted to avoid the impression that the League of Nations would continually pursue policies that might be regarded as unduly interfering in the domestic affairs of individual states. The League did take on itself the role of ultimate guarantor of minority civil rights. Minority populations in the defeated and new states of Central and Eastern Europe were given the right to petition the League over grievances. The League Council had the power to appoint special “Committees of Three,” to which each minority petition was submitted. Between 1921 and 1929, 150 such committees were appointed. Theoretically, the League had not only moral but also more practical means of persuasion, such as economic sanctions, to pressure signatories of the minorities treaties and clauses to live up to their pledged obligations. By incorporating such powers into the functions of the League of Nations, the Paris Peace Conference attempted to make the protection of the civil rights of minority populations a concern of the international community. Significance For all of its efforts, the work of the Paris Peace Conference proved to be largely ineffectual in protecting the civil rights of minorities in Central and Eastern Europe in the interwar period. Despite its theoretical powers, the League of Nations could do little more than exert moral pressure concerning minority rights, relying on the unwillingness of governments to be recognized, in the League Assembly, as having failed to carry out their treaty obligations. Finding enough support for stronger sanctions proved to be extremely difficult.
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Further Reading Bailey, Thomas. Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1944. Critical interpretation of the U.S. role in the failures of the Paris Peace Conference. Condemns Wilson for his inability to translate into reality such ideals as the principle of self-determination. Includes excellent bibliography and index. Birdsall, Paul. Versailles Twenty Years After. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1962. Well-written highly critical analysis of the Paris Peace Conference, written just before U.S. entry into World War II. Condemns the inadequacies and harshness of the peace settlement, along with American isolationism, as the reasons for the breakdown of stability and peace in Europe. Includes bibliography and index. Dockrill, Michael, and John Fisher, eds. The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace Without Victory? New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Collection of essays by historians and by one former British foreign secretary examines the difficult issues faced by the Paris conference delegates. Includes index. Hudson, Manley. “The Protection of Minorities and Natives in Transferred Territories.” In What Really Happened at Paris: The Story of the Peace Conference, 1918-1919, by American Delegates, edited by Edward M. House and Charles Seymour. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921. Detailed account by an American delegate of the minorities question and Wilson’s central role in its settlement. A somewhat uncritical analysis, but interesting to the general reader nevertheless. Lederer, Ivo, ed. The Versailles Settlement: Was It Foredoomed to Failure? Boston: D. C. Heath, 1960. One of the best collections available of short essays, articles, and other materials concerning the Paris Peace Conference. Contributors include both historians and statesmen. The final four essays address the minority rights issue. Includes suggestions for further reading. Macartney, C. A. “League of Nations’ Protection of Minority Rights.” In The International Protection of Human Rights, edited by Evan Luard. New York: Praeger, 1967. Intelligent and critical analysis of the background of the League’s efforts to protect minorities. Provides detailed information concerning the minority treaties and the resistance the League faced from the treaty states and their friends in attempting to implement this policy. Includes bibliography and index. Marks, Sally. The Illusion of Peace: International Rela1485
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The minorities themselves urged the League often to establish an independent and permanent minorities commission with the same functions and powers as the mandates commission, which oversaw the rights of native populations in League-mandated territories outside Europe. The powers of the League with regard to European minorities were based on formal treaties. Nothing could be added to the minorities treaties without the consent of the signatories, and the signatories were utterly opposed to the creation of a permanent commission. They believed that a minorities commission would represent an unacceptable source of interference in their domestic affairs by the League of Nations and the international community. As it was, the hostility and lack of cooperation of the signatory states toward the temporary, ad hoc “Committees of Three” frustrated League attempts to deal effectively with minority grievances. Even more infuriating to the signatory states was the fact that the other countries that entered the League of Nations chose not to pledge themselves formally to the protection of minority rights. The victorious Allied and Associated Powers and the nonbelligerent countries joining the League were afraid that such a pledge might obligate them to admit the claims of such racial, religious, and linguistic minorities as the African American populations of the United States, the Irish in Great Britain, the Flemings in Belgium, the Bretons in France, the Basques in Spain, and the Chinese in the Japanesecontrolled Shantung Peninsula. The principles of national self-determination and, by extension, the protection of minority civil rights appeared to be acceptable to the victorious and nonbelligerent powers at Paris and in the League only if they could be imposed on the defeated countries and the small, newly created states of Europe, which were too weak to oppose such impositions. The real purpose of the minority rights provisions of the Paris peace settlement was not to protect particular groups but to give stability to the political and territorial postwar settlement in Central and Eastern Europe. The precedent set at Paris in establishing the protection of minority civil rights as a matter of international concern had some significance. Although the successor organization to the League of Nations, the United Nations, did not include minority protection in its founding charter, the United Nations and the international community have taken an increasing interest in minority rights since 1945, as an aspect of the growing world concern for human rights issues. —Douglas A. Lea
Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities
Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve tions in Europe, 1918-1933. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Excellent analysis of preNazi, interwar international relations in Europe. Particularly critical of the Paris Peace Conference and the weaknesses of the League of Nations. Places the minorities issue in this context. Includes bibliography and index. Mayer, Arno. Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959. This and Mayer’s later volume, cited below, provide excellent examinations of the ideas and interests that influenced and determined the Paris peace settlement. Includes bibliography and index. _______. Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 19181919. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. Presents thorough analysis of the minorities issue. Includes bibliography and index. Nicolson, Harold. Peacemaking, 1919. 1929. Reprint.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Phoenix, Ariz.: Simon, 2001. Excellent personal account of the Paris Peace Conference by one of the most important members of the British delegation. Summarizes the issues, personalities, and day-to-day events at Paris. Features entries from the author’s personal diaries. Includes index. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. 2 vols. 1952. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986. Provides a detailed and sympathetic study of the League and its interwar activities. Gives a thorough account of the League’s dealings with the minorities issue. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement; June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established; Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr.
February 1, 1919
Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve In 1919, the Astrakhan National Forest Preserve became the first nature reserve established under Soviet auspices. After its creation, general legislation established a nationwide system of nature reserves in the Soviet Union. Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and general secretary of the Communist Party and supreme ruler of the Soviet Union, 1917-1924 Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933), Soviet commissar of education Nikolai Podialpolski (fl. early twentieth century), agronomist and deputy commissar of the Astrakhan branch of the Soviet regime Andrey Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (1866-1942), Russian entomologist who advocated an aesthetic approach to the preservation of nature V. V. Stanchinsky (1882-1942), pioneer in community ecology and director of the Steppe Research Center at Askania-Nova 1486
Summary of Event In January of 1919, when the Russian Civil War was at its height and the new Soviet government was struggling to survive, Deputy Commissar Nikolai Podialpolski traveled to Moscow to submit requests to the commissar of education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, to establish a university in Astrakhan and set aside a portion of the Volga River delta as a zapovednik, or nature reserve. After routinely approving the request for a university, Lunacharsky dictated a letter of introduction to Vladimir Ilich Lenin, recommending Podiapolski as “a splendid Soviet worker from Astrakhan” and encouraging him to present his conservation proposals to Lenin. At a meeting on January 16, 1919, Lenin expressed his approval of the proposal to set aside land in the Volga Delta as a nature reserve and directed Podiapolski to draft legislation for a general decree on conservation for the entire Russian Republic. Lenin’s involvement illustrated the centralized nature of Soviet government in this and subsequent periods and the personal interest Lenin took in nature conservation. Lenin referred both the specific request for a nature preserve and the general question of establishing natureconservation policy to the State Commissariat of Education, which approved establishing an Astrakhan nature reserve on February 1, 1919. In the spring of that year,
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of income for the Russian people. The export of furs from the vast forests of Russia, in particular, was a major source of foreign exchange. The ministry therefore considered it important to prevent the kind of unregulated plundering of limited natural resources that had characterized the civil-war period. Consequently, they managed their zapovedniki as research centers for forestry- and range-management practices and as hunting preserves for high yields of commercially valuable species. In practice, unrealistic production goals during the Five-Year Plans of the 1930’s severely compromised legitimate conservation efforts in areas under the agriculture ministry’s control. The oldest nature reserve in pre-Soviet Russia was the venerable Askania-Nova Research Station, an extensive area of unspoiled steppe in an otherwise heavily agricultural area in the southern Ukraine. Originally the estate of a nobleman who had dedicated it to the preservation of rare wildlife (species native to the steppes of Russia as well as species imported from elsewhere), Askania-Nova became a research station in late Czarist times. Another reserve that dated from the civil war period was the Il’menski mineralogical zapovednik in the Ural mountains, which became the first national reserve created by the Soviet regime. The Astrakhan zapovednik was the first regional nature reserve founded by the Soviet regime. The Astrakhan National Forest Preserve lay in the lower delta of the Volga River—one of the world’s great wetlands—where it joined the Caspian Sea; in 1980, it occupied a total area of 62,569 hectares out of a total 650,000 acres of designated wetland. The level of the Caspian Sea gradually fell, and the Volga River continually deposited silt in the delta; thus the area of the preserve grew by 33 percent between 1919 and the end of the twentieth century. The delta was an important gathering place for migratory waterfowl, and it occupied a critical position in the ecology of migratory birds; thus the continued existence of protected tracts in this area was of international importance. The delta was also home to an enormous variety of plants and invertebrates, including endemic and relict species, and formed a striking contrast to the surrounding desert. Important fisheries in the Volga and Caspian also depended on the integrity of the region. Significance Unlike the U.S. national park system, the Soviet network of zapovedniki functioned primarily as a system of research stations for the study of intact natural communities. Conditions in Russia in the 1920’s favored expansion into new scientific disciplines, and the study of 1487
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the Soviet government also set up the State Committee for the Protection of Monuments of Nature under the direction of the State Commissariat of Education. In 1919, the permanence of the newly established Soviet state was questionable, the economy had been replaced by “War Communism,” and large chunks of Russian territory were in the hands of hostile forces. The government nevertheless perceived that some conservation measures were necessary to avoid irreparable damage to the country’s environment. The last wild herds of the European bison had been destroyed by the invading German army in the west and by hungry peasants in the Caucasus (the species survived in captivity and was later reintroduced in the Caucasus), and the European moose was on the verge of extinction. Podialpolski’s draft for a general conservation measure, titled “On State Protection of Parcels of Dry Land, Water, and Subterranean Areas,” languished for two years during the Russian Civil War. On September 16, 1921, Lenin signed a revised conservation statute, On the Protection of Monuments of Nature, Gardens, and Parks, that empowered the ministry of education to declare parcels of nature having special scientific or cultural-historical value as a zapovednik. From the outset, zapovedniki were established and managed by two separate administrative units, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture (the Narkomzem), whose aims were quite different and whose management philosophies were consequently often in conflict. The individuals in the education ministry responsible for overseeing nature reserves were research scientists and included some of the most distinguished ecologists of the day. They saw nature reserves primarily as sites for the preservation and study of pristine natural ecosystems and resisted attempts at commercial, that is, state, exploitation of resources within their boundaries. The proponents of an aesthetic approach and appreciation for unspoiled nature for its own sake aligned themselves with the education ministry. The purely aesthetic ethic was, however, never very prominent in resource management in the Soviet Union, and it ceased to have any influence after the mid-1920’s. Nor was tourism seen as an important or desirable use of preserved “monuments of nature” in the early Soviet period, although the ministries were aware of the role of tourism in the U.S. national park system, and they thought that tourism might provide needed cash for a program that received limited financial support from the state. The Ministry of Agriculture had jurisdiction over forestry and hunting, both historically important sources
Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve
Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve community ecology flowered briefly during this early Soviet period. Preeminent among Russia’s ecologists was V. V. Stanchinsky. Based at the Askania-Nova Research Station, Stanchinsky conducted pioneering studies involving productivity, food webs, predator-prey relationships, and quantitative modeling of the prairie ecosystem. Such studies of intact natural systems had practical as well as theoretical value; the assumption was that a thorough understanding of the natural ecology of a region was necessary for optimum management of agriculture, grazing, and forests. The 1920’s also saw the creation of the All-Russian Society for Conservation, a state-run organization that published the influential journal Okhrana Prirody (protection of nature). During the 1930’s, this organization came under attack for its “bourgeois tendencies” and failure to develop a broad base among working people and peasants. Significantly, in 1931, the name of the journal was changed to Nature and the Socialist Economy. From 1919 to 1932, 128 state and local zapovedniki, with a total area of 12.6 million hectares, were created in the Soviet Union (.56 percent of the total area). These preserves were concentrated in the Ukraine, European Russia, and the Caucasus, but they also included tracts in most of the republics, Siberia, and the far east. They ranged in size from small parcels of fewer than one hundred hectares to areas of more than one million hectares, including the Pechoro-Ilchshinskii preserve, established in 1930 in northern European Russia; Altai, established in central Asia in 1932; and Kronotskii, established in Kamchatka in 1927. The conservation movement in Russia fell prey to the same political demagoguery that doomed genetics in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist period; during that time, the system of nature preserves built up during the 1920’s was partially dismantled. Whereas during the 1920’s it had been possible to reconcile Marxist dialectic with objective observation of natural processes, in the Russia of the 1930’s the emphasis of the natural sciences shifted toward transformation of nature, and was increasingly dominated by models of nature based on incorrect assumptions and the grandiose plans of people with no understanding of nature or agriculture. Industrial expansion was paramount in the Five-Year Plans, and agriculture, along with the forest-product and fur industries, was to be pushed to the limit to support industrial expansion. Spokespersons for the All-Russian Society for Conservation argued in vain that the hunting quotas were disastrous (a yearly quota of 350 sea otter pelts when the estimated total population was only 450) and that clear-cutting was irrevers1488
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ibly damaging vast forested tracts. Conservation considerations were virtually ignored when designing and siting factories and dams, a legacy that continued to haunt the country, where the ratio of pollution and environmental degradation to industrial productivity for decades remained one of the highest in the world. The fate of Askania-Nova and its distinguished scientific staff was a microcosm of the conservation establishment. Askania-Nova had always functioned both as a steppe preserve and as an agricultural research station; more than half the total area was under cultivation. During the Stalin era, the agricultural research station came under the aegis of Isai Prezent and Trofim Lysenko. Lysenko was the notorious guru of Lamarckian genetics, a science based on the mistaken notion that individual organisms could be transformed by experimental manipulation and could then pass the new characteristics on to their offspring. Stanchinsky was removed from his post in shame and spent the remainder of his life in obscurity. Lamarckian genetics had a parallel in the belief that a biological community could be similarly transformed. According to this belief, it was unnecessary to study the existing ecosystem in detail; rather, one could simply visualize the ideal productive community and then manipulate nature to produce the desired result. Askania-Nova and other zapovedniki that preserved unspoiled territories in otherwise populated regions lost much of their “reserve” character and were subjected to poorly designed experiments in environmental manipulation as well as direct commercial exploitation. Attempts were made to introduce exotic species such as the American muskrat, but rational game management fared badly; hunting quotas were set at excessive levels, so-called predator control upset population balance, and traditional hunting communities were destroyed. The preserved tracts were not unspoiled in the sense of never having been subject to human activity. The larger ones remained home to indigenous peoples who had exploited their resources at a sustainable level for millennia. Efforts of dogmatic Marxist planners to improve on the management practices of traditional hunters and nomadic pastoralists dramatically increased the rate of environmental degradation, caused wholesale famine and misery, failed in most cases to produce a sustained increase in productivity, and destroyed much of the traditional culture. By the end of World War II, the zapovedniki had lost much of their reserve character, and there was increasing pressure to liquidate those that occupied productive, desirable land. In 1950, the director of the zapovednik sys-
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Further Reading Mnatsakanian, Ruben A. Environmental Legacy of the Former Soviet Republics. Edinburgh: Center for Human Ecology, 1992. Primarily statistics about air and water pollution, salinization, desertification, and toxic and radioactive waste in the various regions of the former Soviet Union. Useful as a source of specific information, but virtually unreadable. Pelloso, Andrew J. Saving the Blue Heart of Siberia: The Environmental Movement in Russia and Lake Baikal. Bloomington: Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, 1993. Discusses postWorld War II conservation activity in the Soviet Union, including the work of both official and dissident environmental groups. Stewart, John Massey, ed. The Soviet Environment: Problems, Policies, and Politics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992. A collection of papers on the state of the environment and environmental politics in the Soviet Union, with emphasis on the growth of environmental movements during perestroika in the late Brezhnev-Gorbachev era, and on the interaction between environmentalism and nationalism among ethnic minorities before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Treadgold, Donald, and Herbert J. Ellison, eds. Twentieth Century Russia. 9th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. A standard reference on Russian history and politics. Excellent background for the Soviet politics of the period. Weiner, Douglas R. Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia. 1988. Reprint. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. A detailed history of the conservation movement in the Soviet Union from its pre-revolutionary roots through its blossoming in the 1920’s and eclipse during the Stalin period. Lucidly explains the interaction among conservation, ideology, and development. See also: Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature; 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere; May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society.
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tem proposed that 85 percent of the lands be taken out of protected status and turned over to state farms or the lumber industry, and that the remaining reserves be operated as agricultural experiment stations. Both proposals went into effect in the period 1951-1952, leaving the system with forty reserves and a total area of 1,465,000 hectares, which was approximately 12 percent of the prewar total. After Nikita S. Khrushchev’s leadership, which focused on agricultural expansion, there was a resurgence of interest in conservation under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982). Interest in the environment was rekindled, and popular interest in preserving nature for aesthetic and philosophical reasons became more prominent. Tourism also became more important for the more mobile and prosperous Russians, and with the breakdown in travel restrictions under perestroika, the country began to attract international visitors. Increasingly, what unspoiled areas remained in Russia were seen by the international scientific community as being of worldwide importance. As a result, international cooperation became more common. By 1981, the number of reserves had increased to 129, exceeding the prewar total. The breakup of the Soviet Union posed new challenges for conservation, as each newly independent state faced its own set of problems, not the least of which was bankruptcy. Industrialization in the Soviet Union left a legacy of pollution and environmental degradation that affected all the preserves to some degree. Although not threatened by direct development within its confines, the Astrakhan preserve in the Volga Delta had been essentially a dumping ground for all the pollutants produced by industry, agriculture, and urban development along Europe’s longest river. Pollution by heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, and fertilizers had turned the Volga River into an ecological disaster area. The delta and the unique community of plants and animals that had evolved in response to the nutrients brought down by the river were particularly vulnerable to toxic substances, which persisted and caused damage even after measures had been taken to curtail upstream sources of pollution. The result was a decrease in the level of biological diversity, the invasion by weedy species, and increased mortality and deformed offspring among wildlife; many biologists regarded the situation as critical. The Astrakhan preserve, which reflected the foresight of the Soviet government at the beginning of Communist rule, also illustrated the principle that an isolated “monument of nature” cannot be preserved intact unless the surrounding areas are also properly managed. — Martha A. Sherwood
Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve
Lenin Establishes the Comintern
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 2-6, 1919
Lenin Establishes the Comintern Vladimir Ilich Lenin founded the Third or Communist International as a mechanism for the Soviet Communist Party to control the international socialist movement. This led to a worldwide split in the working class between moderate and radical socialist parties. Also known as: Third International Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; organizations and institutions
ing collapse, and most of Europe was hostile to Russia’s new regime. If the revolution were to survive, it would have to spread, and the most likely place for that to happen was in Germany. Lenin and Trotsky believed that Germany in 1918 had been as ripe for revolution as Russia had been in 1917. Defeated in war, Germany was demoralized. The economy was suffering badly because of the Allied Powers’ wartime blockade. Politically, the country was unstable. When the German emperor, William II, abdicated in November, 1918, political power fell to the German Social
Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), founder of the Bolshevik Party and chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, 1917-1924 Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky; 1883-1936), president of the Comintern, 1919-1926 Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), organizer of a 1917 coup against Russia’s Provisional Government and commissar for war, 1918-1926 Summary of Event World War I produced a deep split in Europe’s socialist movement. The more moderate elements, who constituted a majority, generally supported their governments’ participation in the war. A smaller, more radical group of socialists opposed any support of the war on the grounds that it was an imperialistic conflict. This division paralyzed the Second International, the organization that united most of the world’s socialist political parties. Vladimir Ilich Lenin belonged to the radical fringe of socialistic politics. When the war ended, he and other Russian leaders sought to create a new revolutionary organization that would preempt a revival of the Second International. For Lenin and his close colleague Leon Trotsky, the need for a new revolutionary organization to spread a radical vision of socialism was not an academic issue; they believed such an organization was central to preserving communism in Russia and thus their own power. Both leaders adhered to a theory—developed by Trotsky—known as the theory of permanent revolution, according to which the revolution in Russia would survive only if it extended to other countries and ultimately around the world. Russia in 1919 was in a desperate condition. Civil war had broken out, the economy was near1490
Vladimir Ilich Lenin. (Library of Congress)
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Lenin Establishes the Comintern
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Democratic Party, the largest politiLenin on the Founding of the Comintern cal party in the German parliament. Vladimir Ilich Lenin gave the following speech in late March, 1919, formalizHowever, as was the case throughout ing the establishment of the Comintern: Europe, Germany’s socialists were split. The larger, more moderate facIn March of this year of 1919, an international congress of Communists was tion of Germany’s socialists was led held in Moscow. This congress founded the Third, Communist International, by Philipp Scheidemann, who proan association of the workers of the whole world who are striving to establish claimed the establishment of a GerSoviet power in all countries. man republic. Karl Liebknecht, the The First International, founded by Marx, existed from 1864 to 1872. leader of the more radical left-wing The defeat of the heroic workers of Paris—of the celebrated Paris Commune— socialists, declared Germany to be a marked the end of this International. It is unforgettable, it will remain for ever in the history of the workers’ struggle for their emancipation. It laid the foundaSoviet state. The struggle between tion of that edifice of the world socialist republic which it is now our good forthese two factions was decided ultitune to be building. mately in favor of the moderate maThe Second International existed from 1889 to 1914, up to the war. This jority, in large part because of the was the period of the most calm and peaceful development of capitalism, a backing of the German army. period without great revolutions. During this period the working-class moveGermany’s first socialist chancelment gained strength and matured in a number of countries. But the workers’ lor was Friedrich Ebert. From the beleaders in most of the parties had become accustomed to peaceful conditions ginning, Ebert’s policy was to look and had lost the ability to wage a revolutionary struggle. When, in 1914, there to the West for reconciliation and to began the war, that drenched the earth with blood for four years, the war beshun a close association with Letween the capitalists over the division of profits, the war for supremacy over nin’s Bolshevik government. Mossmall arid weak nations, these leaders deserted to the side of their respective governments. They betrayed the workers, they helped to prolong the slaughter, cow came to view Ebert’s governthey became enemies of socialism, they went over to the side of the capitalists. ment as an adversary and determined The masses of workers turned their backs on these traitors to socialism. All to overthrow it by supporting the over the world there was a turn towards the revolutionary struggle. The war radical wing of Germany’s socialproved that capitalism was doomed. A new system is coming to take its place. ists. Lenin and the Bolsheviks beThe old word socialism had been desecrated by the traitors to socialism. lieved that, however small, these Today, the workers who have remained loyal to the cause of throwing off forces could produce a second Gerthe yoke of capital call themselves Communists. All over the world the associman revolution and thereby contribation of Communists is growing. In a number of countries Soviet power has alute to the survival of Russia’s revoready triumphed. Soon we shall see the victory of communism throughout the lution. world; we shall see the foundation of the World Federative Republic of SoThe radical core of Germany’s viets. socialists was the Spartakusbund. In Source: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 29, translated by George Hanna (Moscow: December, 1918, the Spartakusbund Progress Publishers, 1972). convened its first legal congress in Berlin. To influence the decisions of the congress, Moscow sent Karl place a revived Second International. In January, 1919, Radek, a communist with considerable experience in they therefore invited a number of left-wing socialist German revolutionary activities. Radek was influential parties and organizations to meet in Moscow for the purin the transformation of the Spartakusbund into a sepapose of establishing a new international. Most of those rate political party, which took the name Communist invited were located in Europe, but a small number of Party of Germany. Lenin saw the party as the potential North American and Asian groups were also invited. spearhead for revolution in Germany, a revolution that The First Congress of what was to become known as would displace Germany’s moderate Social Democrats the Comintern convened from March 2 to March 6, 1919, and spur revolution in other industrial states. in Moscow. A total of thirty-five persons participated, As these events were taking place, the leaders of the most of them handpicked Russians from left-wing splinSecond International were preparing for a new congress ter groups already resident in Moscow. Only five deleto convene in February, 1919. It was important to the gates—representing Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Russians that a Third International be organized to dis-
Lenin Establishes the Comintern Norway, and Sweden—actually came from abroad. As an international congregation, the affair was almost a farce, but it accomplished Lenin’s goal of creating a framework through which the Russian Bolsheviks could control radical forces abroad, particularly in Germany. Gregory Yevseyevich Zinovyev, one of Lenin’s closest associates in the Bolshevik Party, was selected to be the first president of the Comintern. Although formally created in 1919, the Comintern did not acquire its structure or establish its rules for governance until its Second Congress, which met in July, 1920, again in Moscow. Unlike the earlier congress, the second was a large and far more widely representative affair. More than two hundred delegates participated, including many from political movements of some importance. A general mood of optimism prevailed at this congress in part because of the success (albeit temporary) of the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War of 19191921. The most important accomplishment of the Second Congress was the formulation of twenty-one conditions required of any party, group, or faction seeking admission to the Comintern. These conditions were designed to be unacceptable to moderate socialist leaders and thus to compel the more radical elements of the working-class movement to split off from those deemed to be reformist. The twenty-one conditions included the following: Each party had to organize itself along the same lines as the Communist Party of Russia (i.e., according to the principles of “democratic centralism”), take over the trade unions, carry out systematic propaganda in support of proletarian revolution, remove all reformists and moderates from all positions in the party, engage in both legal and illegal activities, supervise the activities of its members in parliament, denounce pacifism and the League of Nations, support colonial liberation movements, conduct periodic purges of its members, support Soviet Russia and all existing Soviet republics, accept all decisions of the Comintern as binding, take the name “Communist Party,” and expel any members who rejected the twenty-one conditions. Russian dominance was assured by the location of the headquarters of the Comintern in Moscow. The Second Congress of the Comintern was followed by activities throughout much of the socialist world that produced splits between radicals and moderates into communist and socialist parties, respectively. When the Comintern convened its Third Congress in June and July of 1921, the bright hopes of the summer of 1920 had faded. In Europe, once the forefront of Soviet hopes for a 1492
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 working-class revolution, the prospects for success subsided, and when revolution did come in the 1930’s in Germany, it brought not communism but fascism. Significance Although the Comintern failed to bring about a single successful revolution, its establishment had important consequences for socialist politics globally and for relations between the Soviet Union and the West. The twenty-one conditions that parties had to meet to gain membership in the Comintern brought about a split in the working class throughout much of the world, particularly in Europe. Socialist forces became divided into moderate, reformist (and democratic) political parties—Social Democrats, Socialists, Labor—and communist parties committed to social revolution. Ultimately, this division of Europe’s working class weakened it politically as the communists became as hostile to the reformist socialists as they were to the bourgeoisie. Another consequence of the Comintern’s activities was the poisoning of relations between the Soviet Union and the other Great Powers in the interwar period. For example, the normalization of relations between London and Moscow was impeded for half a decade by the publication in October, 1924, of a forged letter purportedly from Zinovyev to the British Communist Party giving instructions for subversive activities. In 1943, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dissolved the Comintern in order to allay the misgivings of his nation’s allies. —Joseph L. Nogee Further Reading Borkenau, Franz. World Communism: A History of the Communist International. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962. Chronicles the failure of the Comintern from an insider’s perspective; the author was a member of the German Communist Party in the 1920’s. Braunthal, Julius. 1914-1943. Vol. 2 in History of the International. New York: Praeger, 1967. Comprehensive and detailed account written by a socialist who was active in the International. Astandard reference. Kennan, George. Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. Presents a brilliant account of Soviet foreign policy. Chapter ll covers the Comintern. Offers particularly valuable insights on Germany. McDermott, Kevin, and Jeremy Agnew. The Comintern: A History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Focuses on the Comintern’s central leadership and Europe.
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See also: 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party; Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials; Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact.
March 15-May 9, 1919
Formation of the American Legion Members of the American Expeditionary Forces stationed in Europe during World War I convened in Paris to make a plan to support returning soldiers as they made the transition to civilian life. The organization they established, the American Legion, helped soldiers reintegrate into society in several crucial ways. Locale: Indianapolis, Indiana; Washington, D.C. Categories: Organizations and institutions; social issues and reform Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1887-1944), decorated veteran of World War I and cofounder of the American Legion Henry D. Lindsley (1872-1938), former mayor of Dallas, Texas, and first chairman and founding editor of the American Legion’s periodical, The Weekly Franklin D’Olier (1877-1953), first national commander of the American Legion and president of Prudential Insurance John T. Taylor (1886-1965), American Legion lobbyist Luke Lea (1879-1945), member of the American Legion who was responsible for writing its charter and other key documents George A. White (1881-1941), cofounder of the American Legion Eric Fisher Wood (fl. early twentieth century), cofounder of the American Legion William J. Donovan (1883-1959), cofounder of the American Legion Summary of Event At the close of World War I, nearly 2.1 million American soldiers were faced with the options of returning to the United States, remaining in Europe, staying in the military, or becoming civilians in a society unprepared to
deal with their psychological, emotional, and financial needs. The intensity of the soldiers’ experiences fighting abroad did not easily disappear. Some felt they must continue to promote American democratic values abroad, but their attempts—including an unsuccessful effort to form an American troop (or legion) in the Polish army in 1919—met with mixed results. Others, including the founders of the American Legion, wanted to honor the soldiers once they returned and protect what they came to label “Americanism”: devotion to the core values and freedoms of American democracy. To that end, in January of 1919, four officers of the American Expeditionary Forces—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., George A. White, Eric Fisher Wood, and William J. Donovan—developed the nucleus of a new kind of veterans’ organization. Roosevelt presented their plans to his commander, General John J. Pershing, for approval. The fledgling organization intended to address morale, plans for demobilization, the idea of ongoing military training in peacetime, and the plan to create a standing army. From February 15 to 17, 1919, the Temporary Committee of Twenty, chaired by Roosevelt and Wood, planned a pair of mass meetings, first in Paris and then in the United States. On March 14, 1919, Wood placed an ad in the military newspaper Stars and Stripes that invited American soldiers stationed in six countries to attend the meetings. On March 15, 1919, the first meeting was held in the Cirque de Paris. Wood and White led the meeting; Roosevelt was scouting locations in the United States. Soldiers sat in groups under banners as Wood guided them through their first orders of business: preparing for the U.S. meeting, writing a constitution, electing officers, and deciding on a name for the group. Caucuses and committees were formed to allow for maximum participation. Within three days, the group had accomplished all its tasks, including adopting American Legion as its name. On March 28, 1919, Stars and 1493
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Shows that communist parties were not always subservient to Moscow. Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Utilizes archival materials that became available after the fall of the Soviet Union in discussing Russia during the period from 1918 to 1924. Chapter 4 covers the Comintern.
Formation of the American Legion
Formation of the American Legion Stripes became the first media outlet to report on the Paris meeting using the name American Legion. Stories about the Paris caucus were subsequently carried in newspapers in New York and Chicago, and the dates of the St. Louis meeting (the city had been chosen because of its location in the middle of the United States), were set for May 8-10, 1919. Roosevelt and the members of the executive committee opened an office at 19 West 44th Street in New York City to facilitate Legion business. At the St. Louis meeting, participants elected Henry D. Lindsley, former mayor of Dallas, Texas, as chairman and Eric Wood as secretary of the American Legion. Sailors were approved for membership, the name American Legion was formally adopted, a public relations committee was created, and Minneapolis was chosen for the first convention site. Legion members agreed to launch lobbying efforts to promote the idea that the country’s World War I debts be paid by citizens’ subscriptions to Victory Bonds offered by the federal government. The resolutions committee proposed new pension and insurance plans, and another committee decided that local branches would be called “posts.” The official preamble was also crafted; it emphasized the promotion of “peace and goodwill on Earth.” From June through November, 1919, when the Minneapolis Convention opened, the Legion’s officers created a dues structure, organized the publication of The Weekly (the first issue of which appeared on July 4, 1919), selected Indianapolis as the site for the national headquarters, and crafted its charter under the leadership of Luke Lea. On June 9, 1919, the executive committee approved the Legion’s emblem, and on September 16, 1919, Congress gave the American Legion its charter. At the convention, members focused on developing resources for disabled veterans, and their efforts led to the “Washington rehab” conference in December of 1919. They also approved the opening of a second office in Washington, D.C., which facilitated members’ work with Congress. Under Frank D’Olier, the group’s first national commander, the American Legion lobbied for what it called “beneficial legislation” to improve the quality of veterans’ lives. Members worked the Congress to secure landownership rights, create employment opportunities, and reduce mortgage loans for houses. By 1923, John T. Taylor, the Legion’s first lobbyist, was joined by John Robertson Quinn, and together they pressured the administration of President Warren G. Harding to create the U.S. Veterans Bureau (now known as the Veterans Administration) on August 9, 1921. 1494
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 During the 1921 annual meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, the Legion decided to partner with the National Education Association (NEA) in its efforts to obliterate illiteracy among veterans by collaborating on National Education Week. Together, the organizations promoted English as the standard language, teacher training, and compulsory school attendance. They enlisted the help of churches, movie theaters, and businesses in the literacy campaign. In June of 1923, the Legion’s Executive Committee wrote “The Flag Code,” which describes the proper handling of the U.S. flag in public and private. In 1926, the Legion founded its popular American Legion Junior Baseball League, which produced such prominent alumni as Frank Robinson and Bob Feller. In 1934, Taylor presented the Legion’s Four Point Program, which requested congressional aid for widows and children of soldiers, more support for the hospitals and pensions, and a review of some thirty thousand individual soldiers’ claims for veterans’ benefits. On April 25, 1936, veterans began receiving their first “bonuses” or service recognition payments from bonds that had been issued beginning in 1925. In June of 1935, the American Legion Boys State was launched in Springfield, Illinois, to promote knowledge of the U.S. government among young men. At the end of September 1940, the Legion met in Boston, where roughly one million members were represented by fourteen hundred delegates. With the escalation of World War II, the Legion faced a major change in both its membership and its role within society as the World War I veterans felt compelled to support universal military training even as they lobbied the government to stay out of the war. Significance In a period of one year, the American Legion became the leading voice of the American soldier and the American veteran. Using the talents and creativity of like-minded men, the Legion moved rapidly through its formative stage and on to working for issues that advanced a practical agenda highlighting the debt that American society owed its veterans. In December of 1943, the Legion wrote the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (also known as the G.I. Bill of Rights), the passage of which on June 22, 1944, is considered the Legion’s foremost legislative accomplishment. After a great debate on October 29, 1942, the Legion voted to accept veterans of World War II as members, and by August 28, 1946, Legion membership approached four million. At the close of the 1940’s, the ambitions and desires of the organization’s founders had
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Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements
Further Reading Littlewood, Thomas B. Soldiers Back Home: The American Legion in Illinois, 1919-1939. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. Political and social history of the American Legion’s first twenty years focuses on the organization’s impacts and experiences in Illinois, but also discusses the national organization. Pencak, William. For God and Country. The American Legion, 1919-1941. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989. A concentrated history of the Legion between the wars. Rumer, Thomas A. The American Legion: An Official History, 1919-1989. New York: M. Evans, 1990. Based in archival materials and sanctioned by the Legion, Sections 1-8 address the founding and growth of the Legion to 1944. Tidwell, Cromwell. “Luke Lea and the American Legion.” Tennessee Historical Society 28, no. 1 (1969): 70-83. Concentrates on the role of Colonel Luke Lea
at the founding meeting; his work in writing the charter and the constitution; and his role in creating the War Memorial Building in his native Nashville, Tennessee, to honor World War I veterans. Ulrych, Richard. “General Tadeusz Rozwadowski and the Attempt to Establish a Volunteer American Legion Within the Polish Army, 1919-1920.” Polish Review 37, no. 1 (1992): 95-109. Describes how American soldiers attempted to continue their military service with the Polish army to fight the spread of Communism from Russia. These soldiers’ efforts were adopted by the American Legion in their fight against internal and external enemies of the United States. See also: June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed; Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War; July 28, 1932: Bonus March.
Spring, 1919
Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements Karl von Frisch discovered that honeybees returning to the hive use a so-called round dance to communicate to their comrades that food is nearby. Locale: Munich Zoological Institute, Munich, Germany Categories: Science and technology; biology Key Figure Karl von Frisch (1886-1982), Austrian physiologist and student of animal behavior Summary of Event Karl von Frisch can be credited, in part, for several lines of experimentation, such as the study of color perception in bees and hearing in fish. It was his study of communication in bees, however, that brought him world fame and, in 1973, a Nobel Prize, which he shared with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen.
Many observers, including the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, have noticed that when honey or sugar water is placed near a hive, it may be many hours before a wandering bee discovers the food. Once a bee discovers the food, however, hordes of bees soon descend upon the new find. Obviously, the forager bee somehow communicates information about the presence of food to other members of the hive. A few naturalists noticed the dancing movements of bees and speculated about what their meaning might be, but it remained for Frisch to perform the many years of exacting experiments that were needed to substantiate that dancing in bees is actually a form of communication. Frisch’s autobiography recounts the experiment that led to the most far-reaching observation of his life. At the time, he was at the Munich Zoological Institute, studying bees in a queen-breeding cage, which has glass sides so that all the bees can be seen easily. Frisch put out a dish of 1495
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been realized in the Flag Code, the Education Week campaign, and the many advances the Legion had helped to make in improving the quality of the lives of disabled veterans. —Beverly Schneller
Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements sugar water to feed foraging bees from the little glasssided hive. He marked the bees that fed on the sugar water with small dots of red paint. He then removed the dish of sugar water, and the bees came less and less frequently. Finally, he once again put the sugar water out and allowed a bee to feed. He watched the behavior of the bee once it returned to the hive. As Frisch recalls in his autobiography, “I could scarcely believe my eyes. She performed a round dance on the honeycomb which greatly excited the marked foragers around her and caused them to fly back to the feeding place.” When Frisch and his family moved to Brunnwinkl, Austria, he continued his studies of the round dance as a form of communication in honeybees. The results of these early studies were published in 1920. When the dancing bee performs the round dance, it moves in a tight circle to the right and then to the left, describing between one and two circles in each direction, and repeating the turning movements for half a minute or longer. The sweeter the food source, the more vigorous the dancing becomes. Typically, a group of bees surround the dancing bee and extend their antennas over the body of the dancing bee. This behavior allows the new recruits to detect odors adhering to the dancer’s body. These odors enable the recruits to find the particular species of flower that is producing nectar at distances of up to about 50 meters (about 164 feet). During pauses in the dance, the dancer regurgitates nectar from her honey stomach and feeds the bees around her. This nectar carries the scent of the flower that was visited. Frisch also demonstrated that bees have color vision and can learn to seek out a given color that they have associated with food. He found that bees cannot distinguish red from black and can see ultraviolet as a distinct color. The patterns of color on flowers thus appear different to bees from the way they appear to humans. Individual bees use color vision to locate flowers they have already visited, but there is no indication that they can communicate colors to other bees. It was another twenty years before Frisch discovered the workings of the more incredible “wagging dance” that was often performed by bees returning from a distance with loads of pollen. Upon closer inspection of bees fed 400 meters (about 1,312 feet) north of their hives at Brunnwinkl in June of 1945, he discovered that this more elaborate dance communicates both direction and distance and is used for finds at more than 50 meters from the hive. The dancing bee moves in a figure-eight pattern, its movements followed by the outstretched antennae of forager bees. The greater the distance to the 1496
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food, the slower the tail wagging performed by the dancing bee. If the tail wagging is in an upward direction, then the food is toward the Sun; if the tail wagging part is downward, the food is away from the Sun. The biological clock of the bee gradually corrects the dance for changes in the apparent position of the Sun. Significance Frisch’s publication of his 1919 observations on the round dance as a form of communication in bees did not result in either immediate fame or controversy, although eventually both would come. It was the steady stream of scientific papers on animal physiology and behavior, especially on fish and bees, that eventually established Frisch as the most widely known German biologist. By World War II, his reputation allowed him to continue his work for a time, even though his mother was in danger because she was of Jewish descent. Later, forced into isolation at Brunnwinkl, Frisch continued his research during the war years. It was there in 1943 that he discovered the importance of the wagging dance. Frisch’s studies on the round dance honed the experimental techniques that he later applied to the wagging dance. The work with the round dance generally furthered Frisch’s reputation, and it played an important role in the development of the slowly emerging field of animal behavior. — John T. Burns Further Reading Frisch, Karl von. Bees: Their Vision, Chemical Senses, and Language. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1950. Pocket-sized book gives a quick overview of Frisch’s honeybee research. Based on revised notes for his lecture tour of the United States in 1949. Well illustrated and presented in a simple and readable fashion. _______. A Biologist Remembers. Translated by Lisbeth Gombrich. New York: Pergamon Press, 1967. A chronicle of Frisch’s long and productive life with insights into how a scientist uses experiments to test various competing hypotheses. Of great human interest because of the importance of Frisch’s family in nurturing his fascination with nature and because of the drama involved in his maintaining a professional career in Austria and Germany during World Wars I and II. _______. The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees. Translated by Leigh E. Chadwick. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1967. A rather technical review of Frisch’s scientific findings; filled with many dia-
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Bee. 1988. Reprint. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1995. A semitechnical survey of all aspects of the natural history of honeybees, their evolution, types of learning, communication, and navigation. A chapter on the role of dancing in communication gives a positive assessment of Frisch’s research. Includes colored illustrations and excellent lists of selected readings appended to chapters. Wenner, Adrian M., and Patrick H. Wells. Anatomy of a Controversy: The Question of a “Language” Among Bees. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Presents all sides of the debates that eventually arose around the work of Frisch and other scientists regarding communication in bees. Includes references and index. See also: 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement; Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System.
April 13, 1919
British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar The British military action known as the Amritsar Massacre or the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre was so atrocious that it can be singled out as the event that did the most to spur the Indian independence movement. Also known as: Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Locale: Amritsar, Punjab, India Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; indigenous peoples’ rights; independence movements Key Figures Reginald Edward Harry Dyer (1864-1927), British military officer Sir Michael O’Dwyer (1864-1940), British lieutenant governor of Punjab Saif ud-Din Kitchlew (1883-1963), Kashmiri Muslim who was a coleader of agitation against the Rowlatt Acts in Amritsar Dr. Satyapal (fl. early twentieth century), Indian medical doctor who was a coleader of agitation against the Rowlatt Acts in Amritsar Summary of Event Historian Alfred Draper titled one of his books Amritsar: The Massacre That Ended the Raj. The book’s subtitle is correct, for it was this incident that galvanized Indian
sentiment to terminate British rule (the raj) in India. Britain had ruled India for two hundred years, and India was considered the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. Under British rule, Indians had viewed the world through British spectacles. For the average Indian, there were two major powers in the world: Great Britain and Russia. Other European powers, except for Germany, a trading partner, were not relevant, nor was the United States. In spite of this worldview, disenchantment had developed among Indians by the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1857, the Indian Mutiny had exposed the exploitation of British rule, and Indian society was combating philosophical and religious encroachment from the West. Revitalization movements developed to counter Christian and Western ideas. One reaction was the elimination of the Brahmo Samaj movement, which had combined Christian doctrine and practices with Hindu philosophy. This was replaced by the Arya Samaj, or Society of the Aryan People, which not only emphasized a return to Aryan foundations but also included personal relationships that were merged with Hindu traditions to develop a sense of superiority. Events after World War I, however, altered the British-centric view held by Indians. The change was so 1497
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grams and many references to the scientific literature. Best source for Frisch’s scientific papers short of reading the original German articles. Only for motivated readers who want the details of Frisch’s experimental methods and procedures. _______. The Dancing Bees. Translated by Dora Ilse. New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1955. One of the most readable books in English on Frisch’s research as well as the natural history of honeybees. Includes a chapter on ants, wasps, and bumblebees. Written for the layperson and filled with line drawings and photographs. Gould, James L. “The Dance-Language Controversy.” Quarterly Review of Biology 51 (June, 1976): 211-244. Detailed analysis of experiments by various scientists relating to how bees communicate and find their way. Considered to be the decisive vindication of Frisch’s discovery of communication by dance in bees. Gould, James L., and Carol Grant Gould. The Honey
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British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar rapid that within three months after the war, British prime minister H. H. Asquith stated that Indian questions would have to be approached from a new angle. Events in the world contributed to the loss of awe for British power. Stirrings of nationalism in Asia and the defeat of Russia by the Japanese showed that Europeans were not invincible. The Russian Revolution resulted in the collapse of a great reactionary power and of prewar ideas of world political relations. Also, the emergence of the United States and President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points emphasized rights rather than the British idea of concessions. The changes were not merely in attitudes or worldview. An educated leadership had emerged in India, many of whose members had attended university in London and had been influenced by the political philosophies of John Locke and Karl Marx. It was these men, who included Jawaharlal Nehru, who would later provide political leadership to the country. More immediate, however, were the treatment of and attitudes toward the British after the war. At the outset of World War I, the Indian people displayed an outburst of loyalty to the British, but this feeling diminished after the Allied victory. A social gap had always existed between the British and the Indians, and this gap increased as changes took place in the personnel who made up the Indian Civil Service (ICS). The old component of the ICS had stayed on during the war, while younger people had served in the military, with the result that by the end of the war, India was ruled by an old and tired bureaucracy. Furthermore, the Indian Civil Service lacked the ability it had in early years; it lost its prestige, and the quality of its recruits decreased. Those in the ICS saw themselves as rulers of an inferior people and perceived themselves as fulfilling the “white man’s burden” by administering to incompetent heathens. The Indian contribution to World War I, especially from the Sikhs of Punjab, had been enormous. Sixty thousand men had been recruited from Patiala, and Sikh soldiers had fought on all fronts. Fourteen of the twentytwo military crosses awarded for gallantry during the war went to Sikhs. Nevertheless, British police and local officials treated the Sikhs like rustics. When Sikhs faced discrimination in Canada and the United States, the British government did not come to their aid. Tales of discrimination and humiliation meted out to Sikh soldiers in Canada and California filtered back to villages in Punjab, and the Indians came to believe they had been betrayed by their British rulers. In spite of the sacrifices and support 1498
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 they had given to the Allied cause in the war, they did not receive promised reforms. Dissatisfaction became rampant among the Indian overseas community in Canada and the United States. As a result, the Ghadr Party was formed in North America. The party sent money and fighters to spark an uprising in India. Although the uprising did not materialize, the group’s activities were worrisome for the British administrators. In 1919, the harvest in Punjab was poor, land prices were high, productivity in the canal colonies decreased, and the cost of living rose. Not only were general economic conditions worsening, but the oppressive Rowlatt Acts were introduced in February of 1919 and passed in March. The Rowlatt Acts were two laws that empowered police to arrest and search people without warrants and empowered the government both to detain suspects without bringing them to trial and to try people before special courts with neither juries nor rights of appeal. Interestingly, wild stories spread about what the laws allowed authorities to do. It was said that the laws enabled a policeman who coveted a man’s wife to get the husband out of the way, that a bride and bridegroom had to be inspected by a British doctor before they could get married, and that the family of someone getting married would have to pay the government a sum of money equal to that spent on the wedding. The uneducated masses believed these rumors. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, an Indian politician who resigned from his post in protest, stated in his letter of resignation, “In my opinion a government that passes such a bill in times of peace forfeits the claim to be called a civilized government.” The passage of the Rowlatt Acts energized the independence movement. At that time, Sir Michael O’Dwyer was the British lieutenant governor of Punjab. O’Dwyer was a brilliant academic and a good sportsman who had entered the ICS full of confidence and imbued with the conviction that the British had the divine right to rule India. Pugnacious and outspoken, he openly expressed his disdain for and distrust of educated Indians, who in turn came to detest and distrust him. Brigadier General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer came from a family with a long line of associations with India. His family had lived through the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and the events were still in their memory, as was the fear of a fresh uprising. After graduating from Sandhurst, Dyer saw several military campaigns; he was a swashbuckling character who had done well in fights and brawls. In April, 1919, O’Dwyer and Dyer were the principal British players in Punjab as Mahatma Gandhi led Indian
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The Jallianwala Bagh was a walled-in area of seven hundred by four hundred feet; it had only one entrance, a passage about seven and one-half feet wide. A large crowd of people had gathered within the walls; estimates of its size range from fifteen thousand to fifty thousand. A meeting was going on, and pictures of Kitchlew were prominently displayed. Speeches and poetry were read, and the group passed a resolution calling for Kitchlew’s release. At around 5:15 p.m., troops under Dyer’s command surrounded the gathering. Seeing the soldiers, people rose to leave, but Hans Raj, a revolutionary leader, urged them to remain, arguing that the government would never fire on them. Hans Raj was wrong. Dyer ordered the soldiers to shoot, and they fired a volley of shots into the crowd. Hans Raj was still encouraging people to stay; he was shouting that the bullets were “only blanks” when he fell. As people in the crowd fell dead and wounded, others made desperate attempts to escape, but they were trapped by the high wall surrounding the area. The only exit was blocked by soldiers firing at them. Some climbed into a well in which they later drowned. Dyer ordered the soldiers to continue firing and to aim where the crowd was the most dense. There was no escape. In all, the soldiers fired some 1,650 rounds into the crowd, killing 379 and wounding more than 2,000. Cries of agony could be heard long into the night as the wounded lay dying among the corpses. It was not until the next day that Dyer allowed anyone to help the wounded and attend to the dead. Significance Following the massacre, the British introduced repressive measures that came to be known as “Dyerarchy,” in reference to the lawlessness of the British administrators. These measures did not impose excessive physical pain or loss of money on the Indians; rather, they served to humiliate. An Indian meeting a white person was required to bow. Electricity was cut off in the Indian quarters, and a rigid curfew and other restrictive measures made normal existence impossible for the Indians. In the meantime, police had the power to round up suspects at will and seemed motivated to obtain convictions at any cost. Indians were flogged without trial, and bicycles, carts, and vehicles not owned by Europeans were confiscated. The courts tried three hundred men, summarily sentencing fifty-one to death and others to imprisonment. Lahore, Kasur, Gujranwala, and most of Punjab suffered under martial law. In seven weeks, twelve hundred Indians were killed and thirty-six hundred were wounded. 1499
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agitation against the Rowlatt Acts. In fact, it was the oppressiveness of the Rowlatt Acts and Gandhi’s agitation against it that propelled Gandhi from his role as an obscure politician into national prominence. Protests in Punjab were conducted in an orderly and peaceful manner until police actions caused problems in Amritsar. Peaceful demonstrations had been led by a Hindu and a Muslim in a show of unity that surprised the British. One leader was Saif ud-Din Kitchlew, a Kashmiri Muslim who had been at the University of Cambridge with Nehru. Kitchlew had a Ph.D. from Münster University and was considered pro-German. He was an eloquent speaker and supported home rule for India. The Hindu leader, Dr. Satyapal, was a medical doctor from a middle-class family and a progressive nationalist who believed that Indians should gain political freedom through peaceful and constitutional means. Although reserved, he was a good orator. When the police arrested Kitchlew and Satyapal and whisked them away to Dharamsala, the news of their capture spread throughout the city, and crowds protested the action. The mob got out of hand, and in trying to disperse the crowd, the police killed six people and wounded more than thirty. As a result, the mob assaulted non-Indians and set fire to English-owned banks, a church, and other establishments. Marcia Sherwood, an Englishwoman and doctor who had spent fifteen years helping the people of Amritsar, was caught in the mob and beaten. This event resulted later in General Dyer’s infamous “crawl order,” which required every Indian passing the spot where Sherwood had been assaulted to crawl along the street. Three British soldiers were stationed on the spot to enforce the order. On April 12, 1919, when Dyer arrived in Amritsar from Jullundur with troops and armored cars, he was greeted in the bazaar by crowds shouting anti-British slogans. When he received information that telegraph cables had been cut and railroad tracks had been tampered with, he declared a state of emergency, which made all meetings among Indians illegal. The local Congress party had already called a meeting for April 13 at the Jallianwala Bagh (an area that served as Amritsar’s public square) for the Baisakhi fair, and Sikhs were there to celebrate the birth anniversary of their Khalsa, the Sikh soldier-saint brotherhood. Many were unsuspecting villagers who came from outlying areas and were not aware of the events that had preceded their arrival at Amritsar. Dyer believed it was best to use quick and strong force on such occasions, so when he heard of the meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh, he marched troops to the scene.
British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar
British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar Public opinion was divided: The British community stood behind Dyer, and Indians were confused over what they saw as a change in British justice and administration. On April 19, when Dyer saw Sherwood in the hospital, in pain and her life in the balance, he was outraged and issued the infamous crawl order. The summary court decisions that followed destroyed the little faith many Indians had left in British fairness. Punjabis were confused, for they had believed that the British, in spite of their faults, ruled with a semblance of fairness, yet they had witnessed the opposite. The punishments meted out to Indians were not countered by higher British officials, and this surprised and bothered many Indians, especially those in the middle and upper classes who had grown up with a respect for English justice and fair dealings. Further publicity followed when Satyapal and Kitchlew were tried for revolutionary plotting against the British. The trial did much to destroy British credibility and galvanized public opinion against Dyer’s and O’Dwyer’s actions. Nobel Prize winner Sir Rabindranath Tagore wrote to the British viceroy and relinquished his knighthood, and Mahatma Gandhi returned medals he had received in honor of service to the British. The events aroused little interest in Britain, but in India they exposed to the Indian people the racist attitudes of the British. The Hunter Committee, composed of both English and Indian members, was formed to investigate the disturbances in Punjab, and during his testimony before the committee, Dyer displayed a callous attitude. After the hearings, on a train journey to Jullundur, Dyer talked freely about teaching the “bloody browns a lesson.” He did not know that the man in the bunk above his was Jawaharlal Nehru, who was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and was the future prime minister of India. Nehru was appalled by Dyer’s callousness, and his previous admiration for the British changed to animosity. Dyer was censured by the committee and subsequently relieved of his command. The matter of Dyer’s actions in India was debated in the British House of Lords and the House of Commons. Dyer was censured by the House of Commons but vindicated by the House of Lords, a finding that had an adverse effect on British-Indian relations. In the meantime, O’Dwyer continued to proclaim his and Dyer’s innocence. Eventually the matter went to court, and O’Dwyer came out victorious. Dyer had been in poor health during much of his time in India, and he died on July 23, 1927. A Sikh by the name of Udham Singh assassinated O’Dwyer on March 13, 1940. For this action, Udham Singh became a hero among the Sikhs. 1500
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Among the many results of the Amritsar Massacre was Gandhi’s rise to national prominence. Gandhi inspired many Indians to fight the British when he visited Punjab and encouraged patriots to be nirbhai (fearless). He was also instrumental in the decline of the Chief Khalsa Diwan, a group that espoused Western ways, and in the creation of the Central Sikh League, a group more aligned with revolutionary ideology. Tensions between the British and the Indians increased following the massacre. The British feared the Indians and looked on their actions with suspicion, as they had after the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when the British almost lost India in an uprising of Indian soldiers. From the Indian point of view, the myth of British fairness and honor was destroyed. Even Indians who had previously been loyal to the British Empire suffered and were victimized by O’Dwyer, who claimed that he had saved the Empire when in fact he had alienated some of its most loyal supporters, especially the Sikhs, who had been crucial in maintaining British rule in India. — Arthur W. Helweg
Further Reading Colvin, Ian. The Life of General Dyer. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1931. Biography provides good insight into Dyer’s life. Draper, Alfred. Amritsar: The Massacre That Ended the Raj. 1981. Reprint. London: Ashford, Buchan and Enright, 1990. Provides a well-researched and detailed account of the massacre. Kulke, Hermann, and Dietmar Rothermund. A History of India. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Comprehensive history of India since ancient times. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the period of British rule, including the Amritsar Massacre and the Indian struggle for independence. Features illustrations, glossary of Indian terms, chronology, bibliography, and index. Singh, Khushwant. The Illustrated History of the Sikhs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Authoritative account of Sikh history provides an excellent summary of the Amritsar Massacre and subsequent events. Spear, Percival. “The First World War and the Great Leap Forward.” In A History of India. Vol 2. 1965. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Chapter within an excellent history of India during the modern period provides a good context for understanding the massacre. Tinker, Hugh. “The Rise of Modern Social, Religious,
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See also: Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact.
April 28, 1919
League of Nations Is Established The League of Nations was created in an attempt to preserve international peace by means of multilateral diplomacy and collective action against states committing acts of aggression. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; organizations and institutions Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Lord Robert Cecil (1864-1958), British statesman Jan Christian Smuts (1870-1950), South African statesman Léon Bourgeois (1851-1925), French statesman James Eric Drummond (1876-1951), first secretarygeneral of the League of Nations Summary of Event World War I was the single most important event leading to the creation of the League of Nations. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, many governments had anticipated the coming of a major war—although they did not imagine anything of the magnitude of World War I—and had tried to take steps to prevent it. At the First Hague Peace Conference, which was convened in 1899, twenty-six nations came together to explore what could be done to preserve peace and reduce armaments. The conference was unusual, perhaps even unprecedented on such a scale, in that its goal was to devise procedures and possibly new international machinery for the purpose of maintaining a stable and peaceful international order rather than to settle a specific problem. Governments were acting preventively—a sign of progress. Unfortunately, however, the threat of war was not sufficiently imminent and international tensions were not sufficiently great to impel the participants to be
radically innovative. The conference did nothing to reduce the risk of war beyond making a rather bland attempt to improve international arbitration. Discussions did not touch on the issue of armaments. Ironically, the participants codified some of the laws and customs of war to reduce the inhumanity of armed conflict, but they did not interfere with the traditional right of states to resort to war. The conference participants did agree, however, that meeting in such a fashion was desirable and should happen again. They could not be accused of being overly eager or driven by a sense of urgency; the Second Hague Peace Conference did not take place until eight years later, and, despite worsening international tensions, it also failed to devise new ways to protect world peace or to reduce armaments. Once again, the participants agreed to another meeting in about eight years, but World War I interrupted their leisurely process. The terrible losses and the magnitude of the suffering caused by World War I drastically changed perceptions of the need for change. By the end of the war, the idea of establishing some sort of international organization or association of nations to prevent another world war was strongly supported in many countries. In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson made the creation of such an organization one of his Fourteen Points, and he arrived at the Paris Peace Conference determined that this should be among the first questions raised. At the plenary meeting of January 25, 1919, conference participants agreed that a League of Nations should be created to provide safeguards against war and that it should be an integral part of the peace treaty. A commission was appointed to draft the Covenant of the new organization. Wilson served as chair; other members of the commission included Lord Robert Cecil of Great Britain, Jan Christian Smuts of South Africa, and Léon Bourgeois of France. The Covenant was written in record 1501
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and Political Movements.” In South Asia: A Short History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990. Offers an excellent explanation of the cultural conflict faced by Indians as they dealt with Western dominance. Chapter appears in a volume widely recognized as one of the most authoritative accounts of South Asian history available.
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League of Nations Is Established time, in part because of the great amount of work done in previous years on the subject. The text of the Covenant was adopted by a unanimous vote of the conference participants on April 28, 1919, but it could come into force only as part of the Treaty of Versailles, which was set to go into effect on January 10, 1920. Implementation work began immediately, however. Sir James Eric Drummond was named as the new organization’s first secretarygeneral, and a preparatory committee was appointed. The peace conference specified that the League of Nations would be headquartered in Geneva, although the preliminary seat of the organization was in London. The main organs of the League were the Assembly, the Council, and the Secretariat. The Assembly was composed of the entire membership (initially forty-one nations), but it never became global. The U.S. Congress refused to consent to the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and never joined the League of Nations; Japan, Germany,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and Italy left the organization as a result of their expansionist policies. The Soviet Union became a member but was expelled when it invaded Finland in 1939. Meeting once a year, the Assembly was empowered to discuss any issue brought to it by League members; however, it could only make nonbinding resolutions requiring unanimity among those who voted. Thus, in theory, any member could veto any recommendation. In practice, this rarely happened. Rather, dissenting members expressed their displeasure in committee meetings and simply abstained from voting in plenary sessions. The Council was initially composed of four permanent member nations (France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan) and four nonpermanent members, subsequently increased to six, then nine, and finally eleven. Germany was made a permanent member in 1926. The Council developed the practice of having four regular meetings a year (and special meetings as needed). Member states
The first meeting of the Assembly of the League of Nations, 1920.
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League of Nations Is Established
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regularly sent their foreign ministers The League of Nations Covenant or prime ministers to attend these meetings, and they developed the The opening sections of the League of Nations Covenant read as follows: habit of working together as colleagues. The League’s Covenant The high contracting parties, made no clear differentiation between In order to promote international co-operation and to achieve international the duties of the Council and those of peace and security the Assembly. Both bodies had the • by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, right to deal with any matter of con• by the prescription of open, just and honourable relations between nations, cern to the League of Nations but were • by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the allowed to make only nonbinding recactual rule of conduct among Governments, and • by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligaommendations. The rule of unanimity tions in the dealings of organised peoples with one another, applied in the Council as it did in all League of Nations organs. Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations. The small Secretariat, under the authority of the secretary-general, was Article 1 given the duty of servicing the organiThe original Members of the League of Nations shall be those of the Signazation; it started with a staff of about tories which are named in the Annex to this Covenant and also such of those one hundred in 1919, a number that other States named in the Annex as shall accede without reservation to this rose to a maximum of about seven Covenant. Such accession shall be effected by a Declaration deposited with hundred in 1931. Under Drummond’s the Secretariat within two months of the coming into force of the Covenant. leadership, the staff became a truly imNotice thereof shall be sent to all other Members of the League. partial and independent international Any fully self-governing State, Dominion or Colony not named in the Ancivil service with high standards of efnex may become a Member of the League if its admission is agreed to by twoficiency. Members of the League of thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its Nations, however, especially the most sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept affluent, made determined efforts to such regulations as may be prescribed by the League in regard to its military, cut expenditures to the bone. naval and air forces and armaments. Any Member of the League may, after two years’ notice of its intention so The Paris Peace Conference had to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international obligastipulated in the League’s Covenant tions and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled at the establishment of a permanent Court the time of its withdrawal. of International Justice, and it was left to the League of Nations to set up the court. The Assembly approved the structure of the court in 1920, but it separately. The ILO later became an agency of the United was kept independent of the League of Nations. The Nations. court quickly became highly respected for the quality of The League of Nations rapidly became a complex its decisions; when the United Nations was created, the structure, and it created subsidiary organs to address court was incorporated into the U.N. structure without some of the many issues brought to it. These included the any substantive changes. Permanent Mandate Commission to supervise the adThe Treaty of Versailles also created the International ministration of the former colonies taken from the deLabor Organization (ILO), the function of which was to feated powers, the minorities committees of the Council, promote the rights of working people around the world. and the committees concerned with military affairs and In many respects independent from the League of Nawith the problems of disarmament. Even more numerous tions but administratively tied to it, the ILO was strucwere bodies dealing with economic and social matters, tured in a highly innovative way. In contrast to other among them the Economic and Financial Organization, international organizations whose member states were the Health Organization, and the Intellectual Cooperarepresented by governmental personnel, national delegation Organization as well as offices dealing with child tions to the ILO included representatives of employees welfare, the abolition of slavery, and refugee problems. and of employers, each group having the right to vote
League of Nations Is Established Some of these had subsidiary organs of their own. They did an enormous amount of work that seldom made headlines but nevertheless affected the well-being of people around the world. Peace was beginning to be understood not simply in terms of power relationships, armaments, and political disputes but also in terms of the economic and social conditions of people in various parts of the world. Agencies integrated into an administrative system were for the first time available to deal with the needs of a growing global society. The world had come a long way since the conferences at The Hague. Sovereign states remained the primary actors, but most of them now accepted the need to work together as members of permanent international structures. Significance The League of Nations is seldom given credit for having done much for global society. Given that it was created in an attempt to prevent the folly of another world war and yet World War II occurred anyway, it is often said that the League of Nations failed. That conclusion is debatable, however. The League of Nations, imperfect as it was, provided all the machinery that was needed to curb the unbounded ambitions of Japan, Italy, and Germany. What was lacking was the will to use that machinery. The members of the League of Nations had pledged to act collectively under the organization’s Covenant to stop aggression. When aggression was committed, however, they were not prepared to carry out under the banner of the League of Nations the kind of military action that was needed. No organization or governmental body can work without the will to act on the part of its members. In the case of the League of Nations it is convenient to blame the machinery, but the truth is that the governments that had pledged to protect peace and justice betrayed the trust that had been placed in them. The League could have stopped Japan in its first act of aggression (perhaps teaching a lesson to future potential aggressors). It could have stopped Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia. Adolf Hitler himself was incredibly vulnerable when he gambled and remilitarized the Rhineland, but the members of the League of Nations were unwilling to act in fulfillment of the Covenant. With regard to the process of world politics, the creation of the League of Nations represented a considerable improvement over the Hague Peace Conferences convened at eight-year intervals. It provided an ongoing world forum in which every nation, the weak as well as 1504
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the strong, could be heard. This was progress in a world in which smaller states tended to be ignored. Moreover, the League of Nations brought about a major change in the traditionally recognized right of states to go to war. For the first time in the history of the modern state system, organized society had claimed the right to assess the legitimacy of recourse to force. No previous organization had ever had this option. The League of Nations was a stepping-stone toward the more elaborate form of international organization created after World War II. As the world became more interdependent, states discovered that international institutions could help them meet the needs of their people. Economic and social issues were added to the agenda of diplomacy, with enormous benefits for ordinary people around the world. Dependent people were able to appeal in defense of their rights, refugees found more coordinated assistance, and workers gained better protection against a variety of abuses. It was the first time in the history of international affairs that such an array of public agencies had been made available to serve international society. The people of the world gained much from this experiment, despite the slowness or reluctance of some national governments to adjust to the new environment. — Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux Further Reading Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. A thorough narrative of the development of the League concept in Woodrow Wilson’s political thought and his efforts to create an international organization in 1919-1920. Bailey, Thomas A. Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace. New York: Macmillan, 1944. An older, but still useful, account of how Woodrow Wilson inserted the League of Nations idea into the Treaty of Versailles. Cooper, John Milton, Jr. Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Describes Wilson’s part in the struggle to establish the League of Nations and to gain support for the international body in the United States. Eagleton, Clyde. International Government. Rev. ed. New York: Ronald Press, 1948. An excellent presentation of the historical background of the League of Nations and the international political context within which it operated. Discusses the League’s work and
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about the League of Nations by one of the foremost students of his life. Ostrower, Gary B. The League of Nations from 1919 to 1929. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery, 1996. Concise history of the League of Nations focuses on the organization’s first ten years. Includes chronology, bibliography, and index. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. 1965. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986. Classic study of the League of Nations offers a superb historical presentation. Comprehensive, detailed, and accurate. Covers developments prior to World War I leading to the creation of the League of Nations and includes one chapter on the drafting of the League’s Covenant. Zimmern, Alfred. The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 1918-1935. 1936. Reprint. Holmes Beach, Fla.: Wm. Gaunt & Sons, 1998. An excellent study of the pre-World War I international setting leading to the creation of international organizations. Presents the various plans proposed for the League of Nations. A superior historical work. See also: Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Aug. 27Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis; Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations.
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compares it with the United Nations. A very good introduction to international organization. Egerton, George W. Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations: Strategy, Politics, and International Organization, 1914-1919. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978. Useful for its focus on how the British and Americans cooperated and differed in framing the League of Nations during World War I. Gathorne-Hardy, G. M. A Short History of International Affairs, 1920-1939. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960. An excellent review of the evolution of international politics during the era of the League of Nations. Very helpful in explaining the issues facing the organization and how it performed. Goodrich, Leland M. “From League of Nations to United Nations.” In International Organization: Politics and Process, edited by Leland M. Goodrich and David A. Kay. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973. Contrasts the two world organizations in their character, structure, and functions in the realm of international security and in economic and social cooperation. A concise comparison by a long-established scholar in the field. Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Examines how Wilson’s ideals for a League of Nations emerged from the American political environment and his own political thought. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1979. A good brief analysis of Wilson’s thinking
League of Nations Is Established
May Fourth Movement
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 4, 1919
May Fourth Movement The decision made at the Paris Peace Conference to give China’s Shandong province to Japan enraged college students in Beijing and led to demands for international justice and domestic reforms. Locale: China, especially Beijing Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; indigenous peoples’ rights; social issues and reform Key Figures Chen Duxiu (Ch’en Tu-hsiu; 1879-1942), dean of the School of Letters at National Beijing University and founder of New Youth, a magazine advocating reform Fu Sinian (Fu Ssu-nien; 1896-1950), National Beijing University student and editor in chief of New Tide magazine Hu Shih (1891-1962), professor at National Beijing University, supporter of academic freedom, and advocate of language reform and the vernacular Cai Yuanpei (Ts’ai Yüan-p’ei; 1867-1940), chancellor of National Beijing University who encouraged research and academic freedom Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen; 1866-1925), Chinese revolutionary leader Li Dazhao (Li Ta-chao; 1888-1927), head of the library at National Beijing University and the first important Chinese to convert to Marxism Luo Jialun (Lo Chia-lun; 1897-1969), National Beijing University student, editor of New Tide magazine, and author of the May Fourth Manifesto Summary of Event The revolution of 1911 overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China. Without significant military power, Sun Yixian, father of the republic and founder of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), soon resigned as president of the Republic of China. The weak governments that followed were dominated by warlords. There were no democratic reforms, civil wars prevailed, and China’s international position deteriorated. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, Japan captured the Shandong province of China from German forces; Germany had established a sphere of influence and enjoyed political and economic rights extracted from a weak China in 1898. In 1915, Japan imposed the Twenty-One Demands on China; these demands gave Japan extensive concessions in China and the right to 1506
permanently assume Germany’s privileges in Shandong. China’s warlord governments agreed to this and other Japanese demands in return for loans and Japanese support. Japan also secured secret agreements with Great Britain, France, and Italy and tacit approval from the United States that it should continue to control Shandong after Germany’s defeat. In 1917, China declared war against Germany. Chinese light industries boomed during World War I as a result of the decline of Western imports. This led to the development of a new entrepreneurial and managerial class in the industrial cities and the rise of a factory working class. New schools proliferated, and in 1915, the Ministry of Education listed 120,000 government schools of all sorts. In addition, there were private schools, many of which were run by Western missionaries. As a result, new social classes imbued with modern ideas emerged. Most Chinese were excited about U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and his advocacy of national self-determination for oppressed peoples, which the Chinese thought would benefit them. Thousands of Chinese in many cities demonstrated joyfully at the end of World War I, anticipating a new dawning of justice for China. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, China attempted to win back Shandong and sought an end to the unequal treaties that made it a quasi-colony of Japan and powerful Western nations. However, President Wilson agreed with British and French leaders to transfer Germany’s rights in Shandong to powerful Japan rather than return the province to weak China, in violation of national self-determination and Chinese human rights. Chinese intellectuals who were dissatisfied with their inept government and China’s low international status sought ways to reform and renew their national life, and many young men who had studied in Europe and the United States admired the democratic institutions and prosperous societies of the West. Upon his return from studying in France, one of these young men, Chen Duxiu, had founded a magazine called New Youth that championed political and social reforms. He was joined by Hu Shih, a professor who had begun his advocacy of language reforms and the use of the vernacular instead of the classical written form while a graduate student in the United States and who contributed articles to New Youth. In 1916, Cai Yuanpei, who had participated in the 1911 revolution as a member of Sun Yixian’s Kuo-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
China’s national salvation. The warlord government in Beijing attempted to suppress the movement by imprisoning more than one thousand students in Beijing. As there was no jail space, part of the National Beijing University’s campus was turned into a prison. A renewed wave of strikes and boycotts forced the government to capitulate. As the students marched triumphantly out of jail, the government apologized, the pro-Japanese officials were dismissed, and the cabinet resigned. These events came to be called the May Fourth movement. Significance The May Fourth movement had far-reaching implications and results, and it is recognized as China’s first mass, student-led patriotic movement. Students became a new force in politics as nationalism became China’s primary political issue. Anti-imperialism also acquired new emotional meaning. It inspired later generations of students to lead in demanding social reforms, democratization, and economic betterment as well as policies that would win equality and respect for China in world affairs. In the United States, the blatant unfairness of awarding Shandong to Japan contributed to the Senate’s rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. When Republican president Warren G. Harding called the Washington Conference in 1921-1922, he and the British delegation successfully pressured Japan to return Shandong to Chinese jurisdiction. The May Fourth movement also had an important impact on China’s political development. Sun Yixian immediately realized the students’ potential to revitalize his hitherto politically ineffective Kuomintang. He recruited many promising students to his cause, and with Soviet help, he eventually restructured the Kuomintang to become a disciplined political party. Some intellectuals were profoundly disillusioned with the West as a result of China’s treatment in Paris. They were particularly disappointed in Woodrow Wilson, whom they had hailed as the herald of a new, just world. As a result, some turned to Russia and to Marxism-Leninism, with its universalist explanation of history, its tight party organization, and its techniques of seizing power. Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao formed a Marxist study club in Beijing in 1919; others were formed in several other cities. In 1921, Chen, Li, Mao Zedong (whom Li had hired as library assistant), and others formed the Chinese Communist Party. Socially, the May Fourth movement led to intensified attacks on Confucianism and on traditional social and familial values and attitudes, such as the subordination of 1507
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mintang, became chancellor of National Beijing University. He implemented academic freedom and other reforms at the university so that the best faculty and brightest students flocked there. Encouraged by Cai, in 1918 Fu Sinian, Luo Jialun, and other students at National Beijing University formed their own magazine called New Tide. This magazine was committed to a critical spirit, scientific thinking, and a reformed style of writing, and it gave focus to student aspirations and won instant national recognition. New Youth and New Tide magazines became the standard-bearers of China’s New Culture movement (also known as the Chinese intellectual revolution). When news of the Allied decision to award Shandong to Japan reached China, students at the National Beijing University organized a citywide student demonstration in protest. Five thousand student demonstrators from thirteen universities and colleges in Beijing assembled at the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) on May 4. They demanded that China not sign the Treaty of Versailles and that pro-Japanese officials who had signed secret treaties with Japan be punished. The rousing May Fourth Manifesto called on Chinese to be ready to die for their nation but never to agree to give up their territory. A student delegation presented petitions of protest to the United States and British diplomatic missions. When the demonstrators passed the house of a pro-Japanese official, they broke into the home and set it afire. Police arrived and arrested ten students. News of the arrests led to a strike of all students in Beijing. The strike quickly spread throughout major cities in China, where students also demonstrated to show solidarity with their fellows in Beijing. Many industrial workers went on strike, and merchants in key cities closed shops and boycotted Japanese-made goods in sympathy. Almost all newspapers supported the students and the patriotic movement they had unleashed, and Sun Yixian also called for strong support for the students. All demanded that China refuse to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and the government vacillated and authorized the Chinese delegation in Paris to use its discretion over signing the treaty. Chinese students in Western Europe then surrounded the hotel where the Chinese delegates stayed and physically prevented them from proceeding to Versailles when the signing ceremony took place. In late May and June, student leaders assembled in Shanghai, formed an all-China student union, and met in conference. Sun Yixian and other Kuomintang leaders met many students to persuade them that Sun’s ideology of nationalism, democracy, and livelihood was crucial to
May Fourth Movement
May Fourth Movement the young to the old and the subordination of women to men. Young people demanded and increasingly received the right to choose their careers and spouses; young women demanded emancipation and equality of rights and opportunities with men. Chancellor Cai readily agreed to accept women students, admitting the first coeducational class after competitive examinations in 1920. Other universities and colleges quickly followed. After it gained power in 1928, the Kuomintang government adopted legislation and enacted laws that gave women equality for the first time in Chinese history. The attack on Confucianism also stimulated a critical evaluation of China’s past and inspired new scholarship in history, philosophy, archaeology, and other fields. It also opened minds to inquire about world cultural and philosophical trends. Enthusiastic audiences listened to lectures by noted scholars such as John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Rabindranath Tagore when they visited China in the early 1920’s. The May Fourth movement also gave impetus to the adoption of the vernacular by the popular press; vernacular became the medium of instruction in schools in 1920. The importance of this change cannot be overemphasized, because it greatly facilitated the spread of popular education and modern ideas and ideals. —Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur Further Reading Bergère, Marie-Claire. Sun Yat-sen. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998. Comprehensive, balanced biography places Sun Yixian in the context of his times. Includes photographs, maps, bibliography, and index. Chiang, Monlin. Tides from the West: A Chinese Autobiography. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1947. Chiang was a scholar trained in the United States and a professor at Beijing University during the May Fourth movement. Here he tells of his early experiences. Chou, Min-chih. Hu Shih and Intellectual Choice in Modern China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984. This well-researched book tells about the forces that molded Hu Shih’s early life. It also explores his views on politics and literature. Chou, Tse-tsung. The May Fourth Movement: Intellec-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tual Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964. This comprehensive book traces the background, development, and outcomes of the May Fourth movement. It includes a detailed chronology of events, notes, and appendixes. Duiker, William J. Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei: Educator of Modern China. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977. Details the important roles Cai played in fostering modern higher education and research in China and in promoting academic freedom. Grieder, Jerome B. Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 19171937. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. An account of the traditional and new influences, and the political and social forces, that shaped the ideas of Hu and his colleagues. King, Wunsz. China at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Jamaica, N.Y.: St. John’s University Press, 1961. China’s failure to achieve its relatively practical goals at the Paris Peace Conference precipitated the May Fourth movement. This book details China’s position in World War I, its postwar goals, and its treatment by the Allied Powers at Paris. Schwarcz, Vera. The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. 1986. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. An interesting reevaluation of the May Fourth Movement and its impact, with emphasis on the students. A valuable work despite some factual errors. Schwartz, Benjamin, ed. Reflections on the May Fourth Movement: A Symposium. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Many experts contributed their views and interpretations of an event that many consider to be the watershed of modern Chinese history. Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. Rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Detailed, accessible, and generally balanced presentation of twentieth century China. Maps, illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. See also: 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms; Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty; 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Winnipeg General Strike
May 15-June 26, 1919
Winnipeg General Strike
Locale: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Categories: Business and labor; social issues and reform Key Figures Charles F. Gray (fl. early twentieth century), mayor of Winnipeg Arthur Meighen (1874-1960), Canadian minister of the interior Gideon Robertson (1874-1933), Canadian senator and minister of labor, 1918-1921 T. C. Norris (1861-1936), premier of the province of Manitoba, 1915-1922 Summary of Event The city of Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, lies in Canada’s geographic center, and for many years it was on the Canadian frontier, just to the west of the old-line province of Ontario and just to the east of the Great Plains settled by immigrants in the first decades of the twentieth century. From its earliest days, Winnipeg was a railroad town dependent on the Canadian Pacific Railway to bring products of the Great Plains to the older, eastern provinces and eventually to Europe. The railroad’s workers organized early: The first union, Local 122 of the International Association of Machinists, was established in 1893. Later groups either rallied around specific railroad-related industries or industries related to the businesses serving the railroad, which were collectively called the contract shops. By the early twentieth century, the unionizing spirit had spread to those who worked in public-service jobs, such as postal workers, police officers, and clerical workers. The relationship between the workers and management was distinctly adversarial. Management saw the workers as a commodity needed to create the product they sold. In contrast, the workers saw management as an enemy who was determined to keep wages as low as possible and to deny the workers the opportunity to act collectively to improve their lot. This situation was, of course, not unique to Winnipeg: All over the world, workers were trying to increase their power. The late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century saw the flowering of
radical programs to transfer control over industry and the economy from the capitalist owners to the workers. The Bolsheviks’ 1917 victory in Russia excited union leaders in Winnipeg and in other communities around the world. Several developments during World War I set the stage for the general strike in Winnipeg. Allied armies needed munitions, many of which were commissioned by the Dominion and produced in Canada. Orders for arms led to prosperity, an influx of jobs (especially in the contract shops), and an increase in prices. However, wages were not rising as quickly as prices, and this gap only added to the financial hardships created by the war. To strengthen their power, the unions considered uniting (an act that would give them more leverage in negotiations with employers) and replacing the craft unions with industrial unions or with a single union called One Big Union. The general strike was precipitated by the failed efforts of the building trades unions (carpenters, masons, and plumbers) to negotiate substantially higher wages with the Builders Exchange, an association of construction firms. The firms refused to grant any concessions to the workers, and on May 1—the traditional “labor day” of workers worldwide) the construction workers went on strike. At the same time, workers in the metals trades gave up their own failed salary negotiations with the owners of the contract shops, and the metals trades workers went on strike on May 2. Both the building trades and metals trades groups appealed to the Trades and Labor Council, the collective body representing the union leadership, for help. The council decided to distribute a ballot to all the workers in the unions it represented, asking them whether they would support a general strike. On May 6, eleven thousand workers voted for the measure; only five hundred voted against it. The council called for a general strike of all workers in Winnipeg to begin on May 15. The Trades and Labor Council turned leadership of the strike over to the Central Strike Committee, which in turn appointed a small group of leaders called the General Strike Committee. These leaders were charged with mobilizing support for the strike, and their efforts were largely successful: By May 16, twenty-two thousand workers were striking, and Winnipeg was effectively paralyzed. Ninety-four out of ninety-six unions in Winnipeg had voted to join the strike: Only the police and typographers were not yet participants. In order to avoid turning public opinion against them, the workers had agreed to continue supplying bread and milk to homes. 1509
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The Winnipeg General Strike tested the Canadian labor movement’s ability to mobilize and unify workers. The strike’s failure showed that effective government could defeat such tactics.
Winnipeg General Strike Deliverymen presented home owners with tickets informing them that their deliveries were a special courtesy of the striking workers. The presence of recently demobilized veterans in Winnipeg’s streets kept the tension high. Most of the veterans supported the strikers, and their parades (which occurred almost daily) reminded many people of the soldier-led revolts against authorities in Russia and Europe. The specter of Bolshevism raised fears, and in response to it, employers and other members of the middle class organized an opposition group, the Citizens Committee, which published its own newspaper. This group was particularly important in persuading the federal government that the threat of Bolshevism was real and that it should intervene in the strike. Meanwhile, Charles F. Gray, the mayor of Winnipeg, had been attempting to negotiate with the strikers while simultaneously imposing order on the city (an order that the veterans defied). After initially agreeing to an arrangement with the strikers that would have conceded their main objective—the right to unionization and collective bargaining—the growing disorder pushed the mayor in the opposite direction, and he forbade demonstrations. The veterans and various strike supporters continued to parade and demonstrate, however, and the police, sympathetic to the strikers, refused to enforce the ban on demonstrations. The federal government intervened largely as a response to two events: A series of convincing arguments from the Citizens Committee and a major show of support for the strikers from the postal workers. Arthur Meighen, the minister of the interior, and Gideon Robertson, minister of labor (who had been sympathetic to the labor movement’s aims up to this point), arrived in Winnipeg on May 21. Both were convinced that the strike could be the first stages of a violent, left-wing revolution. On May 26, Meighen and Robertson threatened the striking postal workers with the loss of their jobs if they did not return to work immediately. Few did, however, and replacement workers were immediately hired. On June 10, the city used the same tactic with the police, who were also replaced with new recruits. At the same time, Meighen and Robertson secured the support of additional forces from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and from the militia. On June 21, these new forces confronted a demonstration of strikers and veterans, the mayor read the riot act, and some shots were fired. One person was killed, and several were wounded. The federal government had previously arranged for the arrest of some of the most radical leaders of the 1510
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 strike committee, and this loss of leadership impaired the strike. The crowds dispersed, and the federal forces were effectively in control of the city. The strike committee offered to negotiate the end of the strike with the premier of the province, T. C. Norris, and Norris agreed to appoint a royal commission to investigate the strike’s causes. With this promise, the strike committee called for an end to the strike on June 26, and most workers immediately returned to work. Significance The failure of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 showed that even the support of the entire working class was not a guarantee that a strike would achieve the labor movement’s wider aims. The movement’s overall aim— to create widespread unionization and secure the right to collective bargaining—was instead achieved through much more gradual means over the next two decades. The strike did prove, however, that a well-organized and functioning government response could prevent strikes from achieving their goals. —Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Bercuson, David Jay. Confrontation at Winnipeg: Labour, Industrial Relations, and the General Strike. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1974. A comprehensive and detailed account of the general strike. Masters, D. C. The Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950. Includes extensive discussion of Canada’s labor movement leading up to the strike. Mitchell, Tom, and James Naylor. “The Prairies: In the Eye of the Storm.” In The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917-1925, edited by Craig Heron. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Places the general strike in the broader context of the labor movement in Canada after World War I. Rea, J. E. The Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. A compilation of newspaper articles that appeared during the strike. See also: 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I; July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Greco-Turkish War
May 19, 1919-September 11, 1922
Greco-Turkish War
Also known as: Turkish War of Independence Locale: Turkey Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; expansion and land acquisition; independence movements Key Figures Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk; 1881-1938), Turkish leader who defeated the Greeks Mehmed VI (Mehmed Vahideddin; 1861-1926), last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 1918-1922 Esmet Pala (later Esmet Enönü; 1884-1973), Kemal’s second in command Eleuthérios Venizélos (1864-1936), leader of the Greek Liberal Party and frequent prime minister of Greece from 1910 to 1933 Constantine I (1868-1923), king of Greece, r. 19131917, and 1920-1922 Alexander I (1888-1934), king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, r. 1921-1929, and king of Yugoslavia, r. 1929-1934 Summary of Event During World War I, England and France helped install the pro-Allied government of Eleuthérios Venizélos in Greece. At the same time, they forced Constantine I, the German emperor’s brother-in-law, and his eldest son, Prince George, into exile, which made Constantine’s younger son, Alexander, the king. The Allies promised Venizélos that Greece’s loyalty to the Allies would be repaid with land in Turkey. Venizélos and the Greeks had hoped for Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) as their prize, but the Allies had not yet decided the fate of the city. As they divided the Ottoman Empire among themselves, they encouraged Athens to take over western Anatolia. In May of 1919, against his military commanders’ advice, Venizélos ordered Greek troops to disembark around Izmir (formerly Smyrna), a Turkish town with a large Greek community that Venizélos hoped to add to Greece. From there the Greeks proceeded eastward. Other Allied forces controlled different parts of Anatolia as well as the remainder of the Ottoman Empire, but they
denied the Greeks’ hopes for shared control in these regions. Meanwhile, on May 28, 1918, Armenia declared its independence. Under the circumstances, Mustafa Kemal, who had been a supporter of the Young Turk movement in 1908 and made a name for himself as a commander at the Battle of Gallipoli and on the Russian front, began to establish a Turkish national government at Ankara (formerly Angora) in central Anatolia. Kemal intented to regain control of the Turkish homeland—but not the whole Ottoman Empire—and to establish a secular republic. To do this, however, Kemal first needed to drive back the Greeks and Armenians. The Treaty of Sèvres (signed in August of 1920) between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire left the Ottomans with Anatolia and Istanbul. The Greeks were awarded Thrace (north of Istanbul), certain islands, and the Izmir district until a plebiscite could be held. The advance of the Greek military into territory that had been awarded to Turkey led many Turks to support Kemal in spite of his opposition to the theocratic monarchy. The Treaty of Sèvres and the Greek invasion gave Kemal enough support to win the parliamentary elections of 1919, and after this victory he was able to express his distaste for the sultan’s regime freely. The Allies feared Kemal’s influence, and they encouraged the Greek invasions. By July, Greek troops had captured Bursa (formerly Brusa), across from Istanbul, and Edirne (formerly Adrianople) and had reached the Sea of Marmora. The sultan acquiesced and accepted Sèvres, but real power now lay with Kemal. While the war-weary Greek citizens supported the occupation of Izmir, they were unhappy with the later invasions. When King Alexander suddenly died on October 25, 1920 (from an infectious bite from his pet monkey), the supporters of the exiled King Constantine voted Venizélos’s Liberal Party out of power (at the time of the election, Venizélos was away at the Paris Peace Conference). Constantine returned and resumed power. Even though the monarchists had initially campaigned against the Turkish adventure, the lure of incorporating Anatolia was too great to resist, and the invasion continued. On January 11, 1921, the Greeks drove the Turks back in a minor skirmish called the First Battle of Enönü but their failure to follow the victory with decisive action meant that they lost a chance to drive the Turks from Eskisehir. The Greek advance, however, continued into 1511
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After the Allies encouraged Greece to assume control of territory in Anatolia, formerly part of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal organized a new Turkish army to repel Greek forces.
Greco-Turkish War
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central Anatolia. In March the troops from occupied Bursa met the Turks at the Second Battle of Enönü (March 26-31), and Greek forces successfully attacked the Turkish right wing and captured an important area known as Metristepe Hill. On March 27, Turkish forces under Esmet Pala failed to retake the heights during a nighttime attack, but four days later they received support from Kemal and successfully conquered the area. The fighting continued into April at Afyon, where the Turks scored another victory. While the Turks withdrew and reorganized, the Greeks reinforced their positions and occupied Eskilehir. This caused some consternation among the Turkish leaders in Ankara, but Kemal remained steadfast and issued a series of decrees that confiscated material for the army. In mid-August, the Greeks were still deep in enemy territory, but their communication with the coast was
limited to a single railway line, and Kemal took advantage of the Greek weakness and made his stand. The fierce Battle of Sakarya raged from August 24 to September 16, when the Turks forced the Greek army to retreat. The casualties on both sides were horrendous: As many as half the soldiers in each army were killed. Kemal became Turkey’s hero, and the sultan was left without power. The Allies were divided on the question of whether they should continue to support Greece or make peace with Kemal, who managed to subdue the Armenians and sign treaties with Italy, France, and the Soviet Union that ensured the evacuation of Turkish territory. As a result, Kemal was able to secure his eastern flank and concentrate his troops against the Greeks, who were left without significant support. In 1922, Kemal launched his final campaign and drove the Greeks out of Anatolia. The Allies proposed an
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armistice in March, but Kemal rejected it and pushed on. On August 22, the last decisive battle of Dumplinar (near Afyon) brought victory to the Turks; this is the date now celebrated as Turkey’s day of national independence. Turkish armies soon entered Izmir (September 9-11) and set the city ablaze. An armistice was signed on October 11 at Mudanya. The Allies then recognized Kemal as the president of the Turkish republic, turned Istanbul and Edirne over to him, and replaced the Treaty of Sèvres with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Significance The Greco-Turkish War established modern Turkey as an important republic in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. Secure in his position at the country’s head, Mustafa Kemal carried out his revolution of secularizing and modernizing Turkey. He made the Turks adopt last names, and he became Atatürk (Father of the Turks). Esmet Pala, who succeeded Kemal as president of the republic, named himself Esmet Mustafa Kemal (center) after his forces repelled the Greek army. (LiEnönü, a name he took from Kemal’s great vicbrary of Congress) tory. These reforms were never completely accepted by all the Turks, however, and many conservative Muslims and those living in the countryside The Modern Sequel; From 1831 to the Present. New continued to oppose them. York: New York University Press, 2002. A thematic In Greece, the commander of the Anatolian campaign interpretation of modern Greek history by two distinand five government officials were executed because of guished scholars. Suffers from a bias toward Greek the defeat. Shortly thereafter, King Constantine was propaganda. forced into exile once again, this time by his own people. Shaw, Stanford J. From Empire to Republic: The Turkish Furthermore, there were a series of population exWar of National Liberation: A Documentary Study, changes among the Greeks, Turks, and Bulgarians. Al1918-1923. Ankara, Turkey: Turk Tarih Kurumu though most of these changes benefited the Turks, some Basimevi, 2000. Published in the Turkish Historical Greeks continued to live in Turkey, especially in Istanbul Society Series. Contains an introductory chapter on and Izmir. Tension between Ankara and Athens continthe Ottoman Empire and Turkish documents on the ued throughout the century, although after 1974 the main war. Bibliography. point of contention centered on the island of Cyprus, _______. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern which had a mixed Turkish and Greek population. The Turkey. 2 vols. New York: Cambridge University republic of Cyprus was mainly Greek, but politicians in Press, 1976-1977. A standard history that favors Ankara helped establish a Turkish Republic of Northern Turkey. Cyprus that was recognized only by Turkey. —Frederick B. Chary See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Further Reading Balkan Wars; Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Dakin, Douglas. The Unification of Greece, 1770-1923. Front Against the Ottomans; Apr. 24, 1915: ArmeLondon: Benn, 1972. Contains an interpretation of the nian Genocide Begins; May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony; Oct. 23, 1925: Greece war from the Greek point of view. Invades Bulgaria; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara. Koliopoulos, John S., and Thanos M. Veremis. Greece: 1513
National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 20, 1919
National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded The National Parks and Conservation Association, a private organization, was founded in 1919 to give support to the national parks of the United States. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures Stephen T. Mather (1867-1930), first head of the National Park Service and one of the founders of the National Parks Association Robert Sterling Yard (1861-1945), journalist and onetime assistant to Mather who cofounded the National Parks Association and, later, the Wilderness Society Horace M. Albright (1890-1987), assistant to Mather in the Department of the Interior and second director of the National Park Service George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938), founder of the Audubon Society and the Boone and Crockett Club and a National Parks Association officer Summary of Event Stephen T. Mather and Robert Sterling Yard founded the National Parks Association with the aim of creating a nonprofit public-service organization to support the numerous national parks in the United States through the backing and activities of private citizens. The national parks had a long history—Yellowstone, the first national park, had been created in 1872—but until well into the second decade of the twentieth century, there was no central direction or control of the country’s parks and national monuments. The need to coordinate the various national parks was widely recognized: Even the generally conservative U.S. president William Howard Taft had, in 1912, urged the creation of a national parks bureau, but Congress had failed to act on his suggestion. Taft’s successor, Woodrow Wilson, was not particularly interested in conservation, but his secretary of the interior, Franklin K. Lane, was more committed—even though he had supported the damming of Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley against the bitter opposition of many conservationists, including John Muir and members of the Sierra Club. In 1913, Lane gave responsibility for the national parks to Adolph C. Miller, an economics professor from the University of California, who brought with him to Washington one of his assistants, Horace M. 1514
Albright. Miller soon moved to the Treasury Department to assist in planning the Federal Reserve Board, and in January, 1915, Lane chose Mather, a former schoolmate, as Miller’s replacement. A wealthy California businessman, Mather was also a member of Muir’s Sierra Club. He had been a Republican but deserted the party in 1912 to follow another apostate Republican, the former president and noted conservationist Theodore Roosevelt, into the Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party. Roosevelt, however, lost his bid for a third term as president to Wilson, a Democrat. Mather, indefatigable and filled with energy and vision, realized that one of his major challenges was to obtain the necessary funds from Congress to both administer and develop the parks. As elected politicians, congressmen would likely respond to voters’ demands; Mather thus strove to increase publicity for the national parks. Years earlier, he had worked at the New York Sun, and he had maintained many contacts from his newspaper career. After assuming responsibility for the national parks, Mather encouraged his acquaintances in the journalistic profession to give the nation’s parks more recognition. He also convinced Robert Sterling Yard, a longtime friend and the editor of The Century magazine, to come to Washington to organize the parks’ publicity campaign. Mather and Yard were more than mere business acquaintances—Yard had been Mather’s best man at his wedding in 1893. Several years older than Mather, Yard was an easterner who had come to love the wilderness through literature. After accepting Mather’s offer, he quickly took up the national park cause. There was no budgetary provision for Yard’s salary, so Mather, whose family had accumulated considerable wealth in California’s borax-mining industry, agreed to pay most of Yard’s salary himself. Although legislation had been introduced annually since 1911 to establish a national park service, it had never succeeded in becoming law, in spite of considerable congressional support for the creation of new national parks. In part as a result of the publicity engendered by Yard and Mather, Congress acted, and in August, 1916, Wilson signed the legislation creating the National Park Service. Implementation of the law was slow. One setback occurred in the beginning of 1917, when Mather suffered a nervous breakdown, but in April, under the shadow of war, Congress voted the nec-
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Significance At the time of its founding, the National Parks Association had only about one hundred members and the money contributed by Mather. Mather and Yard were optimistic, however, envisioning that the several million people who had visited the national parks would flock to the association’s banner. The immediate impact of the formation of the National Parks Association, however, was minimal. Newspaper coverage was almost nonexistent. Yard composed a series of bulletins, but these were ini-
tially amateurish in appearance, and for many years they were published only sporadically. Their topics were varied: For example, bulletin number three discussed the increasing number of park visitors, bulletin number four pointed out the disaster facing the elk herd in Yellowstone, and number twelve featured details on a park-topark automobile tour. By 1921, the bulletins had become more professional, and although the association continued to publicize the parks, it also began to focus on threats to parks posed by special interests, congressional legislation, and Washington bureaucrats. The association had found its voice as a militant organization dedicated to preserving the parks from overdevelopment by either private or public sources. By necessity, the association became a one-man operation—and that one man was Yard. In spite of hopes and expectations, in the 1920’s membership never rose above one thousand, and though Yard continued as the executive secretary for many years and remained as the editor of the bulletins until the late 1930’s, Mather severed his formal connections with the National Parks Association soon after its founding. As director of the National Park Service, Mather had been in a difficult position in his relationship with the private National Parks Association. As a government employee heading a department dependent on funds approved by Congress, Mather had to be something of a politician. Still, he was an effective director of a growing park system. In 1916, visitors to national parks numbered less than one million, but in 1933, 3.7 million people toured the parks. Mather had also spearheaded the building of new park roads and visitor facilities. Paradoxically, the more successful Mather was in developing the parks for tourists, the more suspicious Yard became of Mather’s intentions. During the politically conservative 1920’s, conservation had become more and more the province of business interests and of their quest for efficiency and profits. Mere preservation was not widely popular. Even the Sierra Club lost its militant edge, becoming primarily a social organization. During the decade of normalcy, the National Parks Association was the only conservation group dedicated to wilderness preservation, which was ironic because Yard was not an outdoorsman; he noted that the park he knew best was New York City’s Central Park. Even the National Park Service became one of Yard’s particular worries. Mather retired in 1929 and was succeeded as director by Horace M. Albright. Albright was more suspicious of Yard’s radicalism than Mather had been, and although Albright and Mather were members of the National Parks Association, they 1515
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essary funds for the service. Mather, who was still recuperating, was chosen as the director; Albright was named assistant director, and he served as the acting director until Mather’s return to work in 1918. By the end of World War I, Yard had met the challenge of gaining publicity for the national parks. In addition to writing numerous articles, in 1917 he successfully distributed 250,000 booklets about the parks, 83,000 park maps for automobile users, and 350,000 feet of motion-picture film to churches, schools, and other organizations at no charge. He also assembled two volumes, Glimpses of Our National Parks and National Parks Portfolio, the latter of which became one of the National Park Service’s best sellers. A new complication occurred toward the end of World War I. Mather had continued to provide most of Yard’s salary as well as part of Albright’s. In 1918, an amendment to an appropriations bill was adopted prohibiting the use of private funds to support any government activity. Even though the amendment was the byproduct of an issue that had nothing to do with conservation matters or the National Park Service, it had a significant effect on the partnership between the two men. Albright’s income was reduced only slightly, given that he had a government salary, but Yard lost most of his income. At the age of fifty-seven, he suddenly had a bleak future. Mather tried and failed to obtain a position for Yard with the American Civic Association, which was dedicated to conservation issues. On May 20, 1919, however, Mather and Yard and a few others founded the National Parks Association. Mather personally contributing five thousand dollars. At the time, the organization was one of a number of conservation groups, but it was the only one specifically dedicated to the preservation of the nation’s parks. Its stated objective was “to defend the National Parks and National Monuments fearlessly against the assaults of private interests and aggressive commercialism.” Yard became the new organization’s executive secretary.
National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded
National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded were more concerned about the public and recreation than about preservation in the abstract. Yard tried to increase the membership of the National Parks Association but had little success. In 1923, he made the somewhat grandiose claim that the National Parks Association spoke not only “in defense of the Conservation of the National Parks System” but also “in the interest of Thousands of Organizations and Millions of Americans working together for these ends.” The difficulty with such an assessment was that few people actively supported the organization or its crusades. The National Parks Association’s income averaged less than fifteen thousand dollars per year during the 1920’s— including an annual contribution from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., of about two thousand dollars—and Yard was forced to divide his time and his energies among fundraising, park defense, and wilderness advocacy. Occasionally, he expressed discouragement when so few people seemed to care, and Mather’s National Park Service received much of his criticism. In 1926, Yard visited Yosemite Valley and was disgusted with the commercialization of the area, which featured jazz, dancing, and a so-called Bear Show, in which animals were fed for the public’s amusement. All these activities were encouraged by the park’s private concessionaire, and thus, in Yard’s opinion, by Mather. Although the National Parks Association was largely Yard’s endeavor, he did succeed in getting prominent individuals to serve on its board of directors. In 1924, for example, Herbert Hoover, then the secretary of commerce and future president of the United States, was the organization’s president. George Bird Grinnell, who succeeded Hoover in 1925, also represented the American Forestry Association. His conservation philosophy and approach differed from Yard’s, and Grinnell’s influence was manifest in moving the organization into a more institutional, perhaps less confrontational, direction by the end of the 1920’s. Yard gradually lost his paramount leadership position, and although he remained as editor of the bulletin, his control over the National Parks Association waned. As the association met fewer of his professional aspirations—and, perhaps, his personal needs—Yard joined with Aldo Leopold and Robert Marshall in 1935 in founding the Wilderness Society, and he became the secretary and editor of the organization’s publication, The Living Wilderness. There were always unresolved tensions between the concept that the nation’s parks were for the nation’s people and the need to preserve as much primeval nature as possible. These were not easily compatible. In the 1516
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1920’s, Yard was concerned about protecting the parks from developmental excesses by special economic interests and from ignorant or venal politicians and bureaucrats. The larger issue of use versus preservation was even more daunting. In 1954, the association reported that 46 million people had visited the park system the previous year. It is perhaps no wonder that preservationists such as Yard would be more attracted to the Wilderness Society, an organization less committed to defending the public’s right of park access and use. Nevertheless, the National Parks Association did increase its membership, particularly after World War II. By the end of the 1950’s, membership had reached approximately ten thousand; a decade later, at the time of its fiftieth anniversary, the association claimed forty thousand members. Yard’s National Parks Bulletin had been superseded by a glossy publication, the National Parks Magazine, which in 1970 was renamed the National Parks and Conservation Magazine, subtitled The Environmental Journal. The same year, the association changed its name to the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA). These changes were undoubtedly an attempt to capture the new interest in conservation and the environment emanating from the numerous social movements of the 1960’s. Mather died in 1930, and Yard died in 1945. As the century progressed, the organization they founded took up a middle ground in the preservation-versus-use debate. Still committed to as much preservation as was feasible, the association nevertheless had to consider the needs of both park users and supporters, groups that did not always overlap. The association continued to work to protect wilderness, but it was no longer at the cutting edge of preservation. By the latter part of the century, even the revived Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society had been overtaken on the preservation front by radical groups such as Earth First! If the NPCA had abandoned the left wing of the environmental movement, however, its move to a more moderate preservationist stance may well have stimulated increased membership, which had grown to 300,000 by 2005. — Eugene Larson Further Reading Albright, Horace M. The Birth of the National Parks Service. Salt Lake City, Utah: Howe Brothers, 1985. Albright, a colleague of Mather and Yard and the second director of the National Park Service, writes about the service during the years from 1913 to 1933, when he resigned as director.
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Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness, beginning with the earliest days of European contact. Includes bibliography and index. Shankland, Robert. Steve Mather of the National Parks. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951. This valuable biography of Mather also includes considerable discussion of Yard, but relatively little on the National Parks Association after its founding in 1919. Watkins, T. H. Righteous Pilgrim. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. A brilliant and massive biography of Harold Ickes, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior. Watkins discusses all of the various U.S. conservation organizations, including the National Parks Association. See also: Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
June 28, 1919
International Labor Organization Is Established The International Labor Organization was established to protect the rights of workers, improve working conditions, and promote social justice throughout the world. Locale: Versailles, France Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Harold B. Butler (1883-1951), assistant secretary of the British Ministry of Labour Edward J. Phelan (1888-1967), civil servant in the British Ministry of Labour
Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), president of the American Federation of Labor Albert Thomas (1878-1932), leader of the French Socialist Party who became the first directorgeneral of the International Labor Organization Summary of Event The Industrial Revolution, combined with the drive for profits, caused profound social changes. Throughout the nineteenth century, industrialization was accompanied by dangerous working conditions, minimal wages, exhausting hours, and child labor. It spawned destitution, squalid urban settlements, and the kind of human suffering so vividly portrayed by author Charles Dickens in 1517
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Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. In discussing wilderness preservation, the author illustrates, in the context of other organizations, the activities of the National Parks Association as a continuing force for preservation. Fox, Stephen. John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. This crucial work includes considerable material on all aspects of the conservation movement. Contains useful information about Yard and the National Parks Association. Frome, Michael. Regreening the National Parks. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992. A fascinating work that discusses the troubled national parks from the 1960’s to the 1990’s. Recounts the battles the National Parks Association has fought in recent decades. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. A seminal work on the early history of conservation. Argues that the movement began as a search for greater efficiency in resource management, not as a democratic crusade against supposed business rapacity. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species.
International Labor Organization Is Established
International Labor Organization Is Established such novels as Bleak House (1852-1853) and Hard Times (1854). Workers were sometimes viewed as expendable. The social consequences of the system were disastrous for the working class. Given these conditions, social reformers, clerics, academics, and philosophers (among them Karl Marx) pressed for change. Trade unions were organized. Between 1871 and 1900, socialist parties were formed in more than twenty countries, and some labor legislation was enacted to begin protecting the human rights of the working class. Change was slow and piecemeal, however, and activists increasingly recognized that international action was needed. The First International (1864) and the Second International (1889) represented efforts by labor unionists and socialists to organize on a worldwide level. Switzerland was anxious to bring governments together to generate some form of international regulation to protect workers and, in 1889, suggested setting up an international organization for labor legislation. An international meeting resulted, but the participating governments were against adopting any labor convention, opposed the creation of any international machinery, and even turned down recommendations to hold periodic international meetings on labor issues. Trade unions tried to establish international links. The first international conference of trade union organizations was held in 1901; subsequent meetings defined tasks to be performed, such as exchanging information and providing assistance in industrial disputes. In 1913, the resulting organization became known as the International Federation of Trade Unions. World War I created profound changes in industry, including vastly increased production, expanded mechanization, and enlarged numbers of women in the workforce. Members of the working class contributed greatly to the war effort, and they wanted to be remembered in the creation of the new order that would result from the peace settlement. In 1916, an international trade union congress met in Great Britain and drew up a detailed program of labor rights to be recognized by the peace treaty. It called for the creation of an international commission to ensure that these provisions would be implemented and advocated the establishment of an international labor office to study the development of labor legislation. Labor representatives of the Central Powers held a conference of their own in 1917 to elaborate a set of counterproposals for inclusion in the peace treaty. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was another important factor leading the Paris Peace Conference to address 1518
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 labor concerns. The Russian upheaval helped to dispel complacency elsewhere. As World War I drew to an end, the British Ministry of Labour began to work on a detailed plan for an international labor organization. The Allies were committed to creating a world organization to achieve collective security, and it was considered inevitable that one of its organs would be concerned with labor issues. The Labour Ministry therefore began exploring, with the support of the British cabinet, what this structure should be. The peace conference would make that decision, but the Ministry of Labour wanted to propose a practical blueprint. Harold B. Butler, the assistant secretary of the ministry, and Edward J. Phelan, an expert on foreign questions in the ministry’s Intelligence Department, were the main architects of this document. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference established a fifteenmember commission to draft provisions concerning labor to be incorporated into the peace treaty. This body was headed by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. As it turned out, none of the other national delegations had prepared any proposal as detailed and comprehensive as that drawn up by the British. The commission therefore decided to use that draft proposal for an international labor organization as the basis for discussion. The structure and organization developed by the commission and accepted by the peace conference became Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles. This international organization was unprecedented but was seen as indispensable if grave labor disorders were to be avoided after the war. It did not meet all the objectives sought by workers’ organizations, but it was capable of achieving progressive improvement in the condition of workers, human rights protection, and greater social justice. The framework of the International Labor Organization (ILO) was innovative in many respects. International organizations are usually composed of delegates of governments; the ILO had an unprecedented tripartite structure in order to foster communication among labor, management, and government. Each member state was to send four delegates, two representing government and one each representing labor and management. About 150 nations had joined the ILO by 1990, and by 2005 the membership had risen to 178 countries. The ILO remained independent from the United Nations (as it was from the League of Nations) but linked to it by an international agreement. The ILO has three main organs. The International Labor Conference meets annually at the ILO headquarters
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ILO has developed procedures to monitor the implementation of its Labor Code and ensure that states fulfill their obligations. Another important part of the ILO’s program is provision of technical assistance to underdeveloped countries in labor-related matters. The ILO trains workers to increase their productivity and chances of employment. It assists countries in establishing their own training centers, particularly by providing much-needed equipment, such as computers, software, audiovisual materials, and tools. It acts as a clearinghouse for a large amount of information about occupational safety and health, promotes full employment, provides advice to governments, and fosters planning in all these matters. Hundreds of ILO experts are sent annually on temporary assignments around the world. Furthermore, the ILO does research, collects data on a vast variety of work-related issues, and publishes many studies, reports, guides, and manuals. Significance The ILO has been remarkably successful in improving working conditions, protecting human rights, and fostering social justice in a global environment frequently hostile to social reform. The development of international labor standards implemented by the member states’ own legislation is a major achievement. As of 2004, the ILO had adopted 185 conventions and 195 recommendations covering major labor issues such as length of the workweek, workers’ rights to organize and to engage in collective bargaining, equality of opportunity, just remuneration, employment security, weekly rest, occupational hazards, and social security. The ILO programs of technical assistance to underdeveloped nations became increasingly more significant as former colonial possessions achieved full sovereignty. The ILO has engaged in various kinds of work and training programs for refugees virtually since its inception. In the early 2000’s, hundreds of ILO experts were working in about 140 countries on projects geared to local needs. Many of the projects were funded in large measure by the United Nations Development Program, with assistance from other U.N. agencies and independent contributors. The projects received an average of $150 million annually from all sources. ILO assistance is especially effective in human resources development, particularly vocational training. This is accomplished by means of fellowships given to trainees from underdeveloped countries as well as through training of local instructors and establishment of training centers. The ILO also 1519
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in Geneva. All member states are represented. It addresses problems faced by workers, develops labor standards to be applied worldwide, approves the budget, and decides on matters pertaining to the functioning of the organization. In a major departure from nineteenth century practice, decisions are made by majority votes (instead of unanimity); some require two-thirds majorities. Government, labor, and employer representatives vote in separate groups, another innovation of the tripartite system. Appropriate committees are used to share the organization’s workload. The second organ is the executive Governing Body, which meets three times a year to decide questions of policy and working methods. It is composed of fifty-six members, twenty-eight chosen from the government representatives and fourteen each from the employer and labor groups. The states of chief industrial importance are given the privilege always to be represented on the Governing Body by one government delegate each. The other government seats, as well as the management and labor positions, are filled every three years by elections of peer groups (government, employer, and labor representatives, respectively) attending the International Labor Conference. The third organ, the International Labor Office, is the administrative infrastructure that permits the smooth functioning of the other organs and committees. It publishes a vast array of materials and employs a staff of about three thousand. Members of more than one hundred nationalities serve at headquarters in Geneva, in forty field offices around the world, and in the countries in which the ILO is implementing projects. The staff is headed by the director-general, who is appointed by the Governing Body for a term of five years and who plays a crucial role in the fulfillment of the organization’s mission. The ILO’s first director-general, Albert Thomas, was a prominent French labor activist passionately involved in the international worker movement; he established a firm precedent of dynamic leadership. The ILO’s most important task is to develop international labor standards covering all work-related issues, such as hours of work, vacations, and social security. These standards are created by means of conventions and recommendations adopted by the International Labor Conference. Conventions require the ratification of individual member states. A ratifying state undertakes the obligation of enacting whatever legislation may be needed to make the labor standards applicable as domestic law. Recommendations do not require ratification; they serve as guidelines for national labor policy. The
International Labor Organization Is Established
International Labor Organization Is Established provides instruction at its International Center for Advanced Technical and Vocational Training in Turin, Italy. In addition, the ILO offers assistance for the purpose of improving management performance in many fields, such as water supply, manufacturing, and transportation. This assistance is often aimed at broadening the social role of managers, for example, by leading them to be more concerned about environmental protection. The ILO’s World Employment Program works to increase employment opportunity in member states and consequently to reduce poverty. The rapidly expanding use of highly complex technology and of dangerous materials in industrial production has led to large numbers of industrial accidents, including those causing permanent disability of workers. To remedy this problem, the ILO has established an international information center along with an occupational hazard alert system. This system is responsible for examining and analyzing all the information on occupational safety appearing around the world for the purpose of making it available to all ILO members. Among the ILO’s many accomplishments, its extensive research and data-gathering efforts stand out, together with its publication and information programs. Detailed analyses of labor problems and review of specific remedies actually developed in various parts of the world have been of enormous assistance to government and other agencies. As of 2005, thousands of ILO publications were in print and had been distributed worldwide. In 1969, the ILO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, fitting recognition of its remarkable accomplishments and a just reward for its ceaseless effort to improve the condition of workers everywhere, protect human rights, and promote social justice. —Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux Further Reading Alcock, Anthony. History of the International Labor Organization. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. The ILO commissioned this official history as a fiftieth anniversary project. Thorough and well documented, it clearly shows the diplomacy of ILO activities and the difficulty involved in working with governments whose policies frequently clash. Includes a comprehensive bibliography. Bartolomei de la Cruz, Héctor, Geraldo von Potobsky, and Lee Swepston. The International Labor Organization: The International Standards System and Basic 1520
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Human Rights. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Comprehensive volume on the ILO (an update of an earlier work published in Spanish) provides information on all aspects of the organization. Chapter 1 specifically addresses the ILO’s history. Includes bibliography and index. Compa, Lance A., and Stephen F. Diamond, eds. Human Rights, Labor Rights, and International Trade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. Proceedings of a conference held at Yale Law School in 1992, with updates through 1994. Contributors address the issue of international workers’ and union rights from an American legal perspective. Includes bibliography and index. Galenson, Walter. The International Labor Organization: An American View. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. A well-documented analysis, from an American perspective, of the work of the ILO: what it does, the problems confronting it, and the issues leading to clashes between states. Discusses the problems the United States has experienced within the organization, dissent over structure and operations, and the U.S. decision to withdraw from and subsequently to return to the ILO. Johnston, George Alexander. The International Labor Organization: Its Work for Social and Economic Progress. London: Europa, 1970. Part 1 provides an overview of the origins of the ILO and its structure; part 2 reviews the major problems facing the organization and the programs developed to address them. A substantial reference section supplies much useful information, including the full text of the ILO constitution, a chronology of major ILO events, and a short bibliography. Landy, E. A. The Effectiveness of International Supervision: Thirty Years of ILO Experience. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1966. Examines the procedures used by the ILO to ensure compliance with the International Labor Code and analyzes the results. Reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the system, the reasons for noncompliance, and the problems involved in effective supervision. Useful although somewhat dated. Includes a bibliography. Morse, David A. The Origin and Evolution of the ILO and Its Role in the World Community. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969. A concise historical overview of the organization by one of its former directors. Discusses the ILO’s origins, structure, and evolution. Reviews the changing needs of international society, examines the organization’s program,
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See also: June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World; Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party; June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions; May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike; Nov. 10, 1935: Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded.
June 28, 1919
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles officially ended World War I and created the League of Nations envisioned by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was unable to garner support for the treaty at home, however, and the Senate failed to ratify it. The treaty’s provisions placed an extreme financial burden on Germany, thereby laying the foundation for another world conflict within a generation. Locale: Versailles, France Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), premier of France, 1917-1920 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (1860-1952), prime minister of Italy, 1917-1919 Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau (1869-1928), German foreign minister Summary of Event The Treaty of Versailles was the first and most important of the several peace treaties concluded at the Peace Conference of Paris in 1919. Not only did it formally assert the defeat of Germany in World War I, but, as the basis of the peace settlement, the Treaty of Versailles also represented the attempt of the victorious powers to regulate the new international order that had emerged in Europe as a result of the outcome of World War I. This new inter-
national order was the product of the most far-reaching political and social changes that had taken place in modern European history. Chief among these was the disappearance or imminent collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian, Austrian, and German empires, and their ruling dynasties. In Russia, Romanov rule collapsed in the Russian Revolution of 1917, followed after a brief interlude by the Bolshevik seizure of power in November and the breakup of the czarist presence in Eastern Europe. As the war drew to a close late in 1918, Austria-Hungary virtually disappeared from the map of Europe. Germany, meanwhile, faced the prospect of extensive territorial losses along its western and eastern frontiers to a victorious France and a revived Polish state, respectively. The collapse of Ottoman rule in Europe had actually preceded the war and had helped set it off; after the war, the Turks lost control over non-Turkish peoples in the Near East. In the place of these empires, there emerged in Eastern Europe a series of new states stretching from Finland in the north to Yugoslavia in the south, all of which reflected the spirit of nationalism that the upheaval of World War I had promoted. Situated between Germany and Russia, these states collectively constituted a large unstable power vacuum. Russia had been defeated by Germany early in 1918 and been forced to sign the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Germany had in turn been defeated by the combined French, British, and American armies in November, 1918. Both Russia and Germany were still potentially powerful and posed a threat to the smaller powers located between them. Russia, under Bolshevik rule, was bent on 1521
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and summarizes the ILO’s contribution to social justice. Includes a brief bibliography. Shotwell, James T., ed. The Origins of the International Labor Organization. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1934. Volume 1 gives a complete history of the pre-World War I background of the ILO’s establishment and a detailed account of the work done during the Paris Peace Conference. Volume 2 provides documents, fifty-four of which concern pre-World War I activities and negotiations at the peace conference.
Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
fomenting revolution among the proletariat throughout war-torn Europe, while Germany regarded the middle Danube Valley, now vacated by the Habsburgs, as an area in which to seek compensation for the expected territorial losses mentioned above. Hence, as the diplomats representing the victorious powers made their way to Paris in December of 1918, they sought ways to prevent Germany from once again posing a threat to the peace of Europe and to stave off the menace of Communism as represented by Bolshevik Russia. The Peace Conference of Paris formally convened on January 18, 1919, amid the tumult and confusion of the immediate postwar period and with nations and diplomats from all over the world clamoring for attention. The presence of President Woodrow Wilson from the United States attested the emergence of a new power on the European scene. Major decisions at the conference were made initially by the Council of Ten, which comprised two representatives from each of the five Great Powers: France, Great Britain, the United States, Italy, and Japan. These sessions soon proved unwieldy, and the signifi-
cant decisions fell to the leaders of the major powers. After March 24, the first ranking delegates of these states ceased to attend the sessions of the Council of Ten, which became known as the Council of Five, an agency of relatively secondary importance. To expedite the completion of the German treaty, the four top Western delegates called themselves the Council of Four: Georges Clemenceau, premier of France and president of the Peace Conference; David Lloyd George, the British prime minister; Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States; and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, prime minister of Italy. During the three months when these statesmen were drafting the German treaty, all agreed on the necessity of providing safeguards that would ensure the perpetuation of peace as well as German defeat. Beyond this general aim, the Big Four found it difficult to agree on which provisions should be incorporated into a treaty. Seeking to safeguard France against another German invasion, Clemenceau wanted to strip Germany of the Rhineland and the Saar, the former to be set up as a sepa-
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Diplomats and delegates assemble in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles to watch the signing of the treaty. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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nation of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles. Of the Great Powers that signed the Versailles treaty, only the United States refused to ratify it: The Senate failed to give its approval in 1919 and 1920; not until August 25, 1921, was a separate peace concluded between the United States and Germany. The Paris Peace Conference formally came to a close on January 21, 1920, following the conclusion of the Treaty of St. Germain with Austria on September 10, 1919, and the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria on November 27. Treaties with Hungary and Turkey remained to be signed after the conference had officially ended, but these two instruments may be regarded as part of the same peace settlement. The Treaty of Versailles, in its major provisions, embraced the following areas: the Covenant of the League of Nations, territorial arrangements affecting Germany’s frontiers and its former colonies, German disarmament, and reparations. Throughout the opening months of 1919, President Wilson had insisted on the incorporation of the Covenant of the League of Nations into the treaty as the best means of safeguarding the peace, and the covenant was incorporated into the treaty as the first twentysix articles. In the section of the treaty dealing with territorial arrangements, Germany experienced substantial losses along its western and eastern frontiers. Its western boundary was reduced by the return of Alsace-Lorraine, taken after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, to France, and by the cession of small territories to Belgium. Clemenceau, however, did not secure his demand for the creation of a Rhineland buffer state; instead the treaty set up the Rhineland as a perpetually demilitarized area to be occupied by an inter-Allied force for a period of fifteen years. The Saar, in similar fashion, was surrendered to international control for the same length of time. At the end of this period, the people of the Saar could decide by plebiscite whether they wanted to join France or Germany. In the east, Germany was obliged to recognize a new, independent Polish state to which it had to cede substantial portions of Prussian territory in order to give the Poles an outlet to the sea. The German city of Danzig now became a free state under the protection of the League of Nations. Plebiscites were to be held for ethnically mixed GermanPolish areas; some of these districts voted to remain with Germany, others voted to join with Poland; Germany was also strictly forbidden from annexing Austria. Outside Europe, Germany had to surrender all its colonies in Africa and Oceania, most of which were declared man1523
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rate state and the latter to be annexed directly to France. In addition, he vigorously opposed German annexation (Anschluss) of the new state of Austria. Lloyd George rejected the French effort to establish a weak Germany; instead, he called for a restoration of the traditional European balance of power, but with guarantees to France against another German attack. President Wilson’s program, the famous Fourteen Points, was the best known of the Allies’ war aims. Wilson, however, was prepared to sacrifice complete realization of many of the principles embodied in the first thirteen points, including self-determination, in order to secure the fourteenth, the League of Nations. Aware of political problems in the United States with the Senate, which had to approve whatever treaty he negotiated, Wilson was convinced that the League of Nations, if established, could in time deal with any shortcomings that might be incorporated into the treaty. Hence he pressed for the inclusion of the League Covenant into the treaty itself. The Italian spokesman, Orlando, played a relatively minor role at the conference; he appeared, primarily, in what proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to secure territories in the Adriatic region that Great Britain and France had promised to Italy in the secret Treaty of London in 1915 as a means of bringing Italy into the war on their side. Despite these and other areas of disagreement among the Big Four, they managed to complete their work on the Germany treaty by the end of April. The Allies then instructed the German provisional government to send a delegation to Paris to receive the terms. After some delay caused by Germany’s insistence that it ought to be allowed to “negotiate” and not merely “receive” the treaty, the Allies on May 7 formally presented the document to the German delegation headed by Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the foreign minister of Germany. No negotiations took place; the Germans were merely given three weeks to submit their written observations on the harsh treaty. In their lengthy response of May 28, the Germans deplored among other matters those provisions in the treaty that forbade the German-speaking peoples of Austria and Czechoslovakia from uniting with Germany, and the German representatives denounced in strong terms the double standard that existed on the principle of self-determination. The Allies, in their reply of June 16 to the German observations, made only a few concessions and gave the German government seven days to accept the treaty without any further alterations. Germany did so on June 22. On June 28, 1919, the fifth anniversary of the assassi-
Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles dates or protectorates of the League of Nations and assigned to France, Great Britain, Japan, and other countries. These states were to be responsible to the League of Nations for the welfare of their mandates. Germany was accorded equally demanding treatment in the areas of disarmament and reparations. The German military and naval forces were reduced substantially. The army was not to exceed one hundred thousand men, all of whom were to be volunteers, serving for long periods, in order to preclude the establishment of a large reserve. Germany’s vaunted General Staff was disbanded. Limitations were placed on the production of war matériel. The German navy was reduced to a mere token force that could not include any submarines. The treaty also forbade Germany to maintain an air force. In the section of the treaty dealing with reparations, the famous Article 231 or “war guilt” clause required Germany to acknowledge responsibility for starting the war and for all the damage caused by it. The Allies, after much haggling among themselves, finally agreed that Germany should pay only for actual damages, the Allied costs of war being excluded except in the case of Belgium. No definitive comprehensive sum was fixed in the treaty, but by May 1, 1921, Germany was to pay in case or kind the sum of five billion dollars. The Allies soon found that a Germany deprived of much of its former mineral-rich territory could not begin to meet their reparation demands. The war guilt clause and the issue of reparations contributed to the bitterness with which Germans regarded the Treaty of Versailles and made them highly receptive to the criticisms of it leveled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during the 1930’s. Significance The place of the Treaty of Versailles in history has always been controversial. Certainly the treaty was severe, reflecting the bitterness generated in the Allied camp by a long war that had taken millions of lives, left countless others ruined with wounds of the body or wounds of the spirit, and had completely devastated parts of several countries. Nevertheless, the treaty also represented a settlement that mirrored the military balance of power at the time and did more to draw reasonable national boundaries than any similar pact that had preceded it. Two major guarantors of the peace settlement, Great Britain and France, found their task difficult because of their frequently conflicting foreign policies. A greater difficulty for them rested in the fact that the United States and Russia never officially recognized the treaty and therefore played no role in upholding the peace settlement. 1524
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The United States, whose leading statesmen had contributed so much to the Treaty of Versailles, although not uninvolved in European and world affairs or even in cooperation with the League, tended to be less centrally engaged as a non-League member than other governments, as the isolationist impulse manifested itself during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Bolshevik Russia, which had not taken part in the drafting of the treaty that was at least implicitly directed against her, promoted the cause of worldwide revolution of the proletariat, a direct challenge to the stability and order that the framers of the Versailles treaty pursued. Despite these handicaps, Great Britain and France, with the qualified support of Italy, did manage to uphold the Treaty of Versailles until 1935, when they began to give way in appeasement to the demands of Hitler’s Germany for revision of the treaty. The Allies, it is true, shirked their obligations in not standing up to Nazi Germany in the 1930’s, but then Germany proved unwilling to honor the precepts of international law as it stood when Germany invaded the neutral state of Belgium in 1914. In historical perspective, the Treaty of Versailles was a better peace settlement than its critics claimed in the 1930’s, but it also caused resentments that led the way to a second general war in Europe in 1939. —Edward P. Keleher and Lewis L. Gould Further Reading Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. A well informed and thoughtful analysis of Woodrow Wilson’s role in shaping the Treaty of Versailles and the response to the pact in the U.S. Senate. Dockrill, Michael, and John Fisher, eds. The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace Without Victory? New York: Palgrave, 2001. Collection of essays dealing with all aspects of the Paris Peace Conference. Two essays focus specifically on the terms of the Versailles treaty. Bibliographic references and index. Floto, Inga. Colonel House in Paris: A Study of American Policy at the Paris Peace Conference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973. Looks at the role of Wilson’s closest adviser and the impact of his contribution to the development of the peace treaty. Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991. In chapters 9 through 11, Heckscher recounts Wilson’s role in the formation of the League of Nations and his fight for ratification of the Versailles treaty. Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson
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lem of how the United States and Great Britain viewed the consequences of the war and the best way of maintaining peace in the future. Tomuschat, Christian. “The 1871 Peace Treaty Between France and Germany and the 1919 Peace Treaty of Versailles.” In Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One, edited by Randall Lesaffer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. An essay comparing the Treaty of Versailles to an earlier French-German peace treaty; concludes a collection of essays on the major preceding European peace treaties, which are also useful to place the Treaty of Versailles in perspective. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established; Apr. 16, 1922: Treaty of Rapallo; Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany.
July 31, 1919
Weimar Constitution The Weimar Constitution gave the German people the opportunity to create their own form of government after the monarchy was overthrown. Locale: Weimar, Germany Category: Government and politics Key Figures Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919), German Socialist leader Philipp Scheidemann (1865-1939), first prime minister of the Weimar Republic Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), first president of the Weimar Republic Maximilian (1867-1929), chancellor of the German Empire, October-November, 1918 Hugo Preuss (1860-1925), German jurist and politician Summary of Event On November 9, 1918, after massive uprisings within all major cities and two days before the armistice ending
World War I was signed, Germany was proclaimed a Socialist republic by revolutionary Karl Liebknecht. In immediate response, Philipp Scheidemann, a moderate Socialist, proclaimed a non-Socialist republic to forestall these more radical designs. In this situation of often chaotic political struggle, exhausted by four years of warfare, the German Empire created in 1871 by Otto von Bismarck came to an end. William II, the last emperor of Germany, fled to Holland, where he formally renounced his throne on November 28. Maximilian, prince of Baden, the last chancellor of the German Empire, turned over the government to the moderate Majority Socialists, led by Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann. As the new chancellor, Ebert created a directorate of six men, three Majority Socialists and three radical Independent Socialists, to govern the country until a constituent assembly could be elected. Elections for the National Assembly took place on January 19, 1919, after radical workers had been suppressed 1525
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and the Quest for a New World Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Places the negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles in the context of Wilson’s wartime diplomacy and the relations with other European nations. Mayer, Arno J. Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. A provocative study that emphasizes the impact of Bolshevik Russia on the deliberations in Paris. A very thorough treatment of key aspects of the Peace Conference. Nordholt, Jan Willem Schulte. Woodrow Wilson: A Life for World Peace. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. A Dutch scholar takes a critical look at Wilson’s attitude toward the peace treaty and the League. Very useful for a European perspective on the events of 1919. Stone, Ralph A. The Irreconcilables: The Fight Against the League of Nations. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970. A scholarly study of sixteen senators who fought the treaty. Tillman, Seth P. Anglo-American Relations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961. Deals with the crucial prob-
Weimar Constitution
Weimar Constitution and left-wing Socialists Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been murdered. Although many radicals boycotted the elections, more than 80 percent of the population voted. The results indicated that most Germans were in favor of a republican form of government, as the parties committed to the establishment of a republic won more than three-fourths of the total vote. The National Assembly met in Weimar on February 6, 1919, to ratify the peace treaty and thereafter to proceed to the drafting of a constitution. As early as November 15, 1918, Hugo Preuss, a professor of constitutional law and well known as a liberal jurist, had been appointed as secretary of the interior, and he presented his draft of the constitution to the National Assembly on February 24, 1919. After three days of general debate, the draft was referred to a constitutional committee, which held about forty sessions from March to July to examine each article of the constitution. The assembly adopted the constitution on July 31, and it went into effect on August 11, 1919. The new constitution set up a liberal democratic regime in Germany. Many ideas within it were borrowed from the constitutions of Western European nations and the United States, but it also preserved much of the Bismarckian constitution as a gesture to placate conservatives. For example, the word Reich, with all its imperial associations, was retained to designate “the Republic” as distinguished from individual Lander, or states. As later events would prove, this compromise neither appeased those on the extreme right nor satisfied those on the radical left. The constitution created the office of Reichsprasident, which was filled through election by the people for seven years with the possibility of reelection. The Majority Socialists opposed the creation of a strong presidency because they feared that the office might be used as a vehicle for the restoration of monarchy, as had happened in France with Napoleon III. At their insistence, the German president’s powers were weakened to the extent that the president had to have all orders countersigned by the chancellor. The chancellor was appointed by the president. The constitution also established a bicameral legislature consisting of the Reichstag, representing the people, and the Reichsrat, representing the states. Members of the Reichstag were to be elected for four years by secret, direct, universal suffrage and according to proportional representation. As the expression of the will of the people and the sovereign legislative power, the Reichstag initiated and enacted laws, subject to a suspensive veto. 1526
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The president’s cabinet was made responsible to the Reichstag. In the Reichsrat, each state was to have at least one member, but no state could control more than two-fifths of the membership. The Reichsrat could also initiate legislation, and, if it disapproved of a bill passed by the Reichstag, it could return the measure to that body. The Reichstag, however, could override such a veto by a twothirds vote. The German president, whose powers stood somewhere between those of the strong American president and those of the weak French president, had the authority to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections, but only a single time for a given cause. If the president did not want to enact a law passed by the Reichstag, he could call for a referendum of the people on the matter. Significance No part of the constitution caused more controversy than Article 48, which was a provision giving the president the power to suspend temporarily the fundamental civil rights guaranteed by the constitution in any emergency that threatened public safety and order. Because of the fear of social revolution in Germany after the war, the framers of the constitution considered this article necessary to prevent the young republic from being overthrown by revolutionaries. Intended to prevent left-wing radicals from taking power as they had in Russia, this article later enabled Adolf Hitler to become dictator. The constitution’s creators made the mistake of thinking that, as the Reichstag could demand the termination of such measures, the actions of the president were ultimately controlled by the Reichstag. Although Preuss’s original draft had undergone considerable modification by the time the document was adopted, in its final form the constitution met Preuss’s basic aim: the establishment of a parliamentary, liberal, democratic government. As this new republic left untouched the traditional sources of power—the army, big business, and the courts—the high hopes of the Weimar Republic were to remain unfulfilled. In little more than a decade, this liberal government was overthrown and replaced by the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. —Harry E. Wade and William A. Pelz Further Reading Caldwell, Peter C. Popular Sovereignty and the Crisis of German Constitutional Law: The Theory and Practice of Weimar Constitutionalism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997. Presents analysis of the debates concerning political theory and constitutional
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_______. The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Translated by Elborg Forster and Larry Eugene Jones. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Examines the period of the Weimar Republic from the perspective of Germany’s political and economic history. Includes select bibliography and index. Peukert, Detlev J. The Weimar Republic. New York: Hill & Wang, 1989. Places the Weimar Republic in a larger European context and examines the significance of antimodern reactions. Rosenberg, Arthur. A History of the German Republic. 1936. Reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965. Probably the best Marxist account of the Weimar Republic. See also: 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933.
August, 1919-May, 1920
Red Scare In the wake of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, xenophobia and fear of communism reached hysterical proportions in the United States. Locale: United States Categories: Civil rights and liberties; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), director of the General Intelligence Division, Department of Justice A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936), attorney general of the United States Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event Late in the afternoon of Friday, January 2, 1920, agents of the U.S. Department of Justice, in a concerted raid on reputedly communist headquarters, began arresting thousands of persons in major cities throughout the United States. They poured into private homes, clubs, pool halls, and coffee shops, seizing citizens and aliens, communists and noncommunists, tearing apart meeting halls and damaging and destroying property. The agents jailed their victims, held them incommunicado and with-
out counsel, and interrogated them. Those who could demonstrate U.S. citizenship were released, although often into the custody of state officials who hoped to try them under state syndicalist laws. Aliens were released a few days later, unless they were members of the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party—two factions in the new U.S. communist movement. The Department of Justice hoped to deport these “undesirables.” In two days, nearly five thousand persons were arrested in such raids; over the next two weeks, some estimates have it, another thousand were seized. The arrests were conducted without regard for due process of law, and the treatment of those who found themselves under arrest was sometimes barbarous. The raids were the climax to a wave of chauvinism, antiradicalism, and anxiety-ridden intolerance known as the Red Scare of 1919-1920. In 1919, less than half of 1 percent of adults in the United States belonged to the newly formed communist movement, and even this minute element was ridden with dissension, conflict, and ineffectuality. Although U.S. “Reds” caught the full fury of the raids, it was not merely the idea of the presence of communists that had stirred national panic. Emotions that had been building since the turn of the century were brought to a peak of in1527
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law that took place in the Weimar Republic. Includes bibliography and index. Eyck, Erich. A History of the Weimar Republic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962. Critical of the voting system established by the constitution and chides the Social Democrats for being too theoretical, particularly in the case of extending the right to vote. Halperin, S. William. Germany Tried Democracy. 1946. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. Among the best political histories on the Weimar Republic available in English. Analysis of the Weimar Constitution points out that it furthered the trend toward administrative centralization that had begun before 1918. Mommsen, Hans. From Weimar to Auschwitz. Translated by Philip O’Connor. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Collection of essays brilliantly explores various aspects of the Weimar Republic.
Red Scare
Red Scare
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tensity during World War I, and a series of domestic crises after the armistice led to their bursting into overt expressions of xenophobic repression. When President Woodrow Wilson took the steps that led the United States into war in 1917, he dolefully told a friend that war “required illiberalism at home to reinforce the war at the front” and that a “spirit of ruthless brutality would enter into the fiber of American life.” Required or not, illiberalism and brutality appeared. Radicals were a prime target, as they had been since at least 1903, when Congress passed an immigration law discriminating against them, and especially since 1905, when the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a socialist labor organization popularly known as the Wobblies, was formed in Chicago. In September, 1917, federal agents raided the headquarters and meetings of the IWW; for two years, Wobblies remained in jail and in the courts as the government sought their conviction. The armistice in November, 1918, did not end the ideological war at home. The wartime crusade against anything associated with Germany never slackened, but it changed direction and surged into the postwar period as a crusade against things un-American—which, in 1919, meant radical or Red. Postmaster General Albert
A. Mitchell Palmer. (Library of Congress)
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Sidney Burleson, who during the war had censored mail when, in his view, it obstructed the war effort, now censored mail that espoused radical ideas. Conscientious objectors, who had been imprisoned for their refusal to fight during the war, remained in jail because the Wilson administration refused to grant them amnesty. The American Civil Liberties Union, created in wartime to cope with violations of civil rights, now found even more to do. New patriotic societies that advocated “100 percent Americanism” abounded and sought to propagandize through schools and fraternal orders. In the summer of 1918, U.S. troops, along with British, French, and Japanese forces, had entered Russia shortly after that nation’s Bolshevik Revolution, ostensibly to renew the war against Germany that the Bolsheviks had abandoned. Whatever Wilson’s motives, the presence of U.S. troops on Russian soil served to mark American opposition to the new Bolshevik regime— and, indeed, such opposition was well justified by the Bolsheviks’ establishment, in March of 1919, of the Third International, the avowed purpose of which was to foment world revolution in service of the new communist world order. Americans, aware of this and of postwar atrocities perpetrated by Bolshevik revolutionaries against the old aristocratic classes, were vulnerable to the unreasonable fears that soon would be whipped up by politicians at home. Amid this residue of wartime fears, a series of events in 1919 brought on a nationwide demand for action to crush what appeared to be a conspiracy to destroy the United States. First came a strike by city police in Boston, which newspapers promptly labeled Bolshevik. Then came a widespread strike in the steel industry, during which the United States Steel Corporation played on existing anxieties by accusing labor of having Bolshevik affiliations. Labor leaders were trying so desperately to affirm their own “Americanism” that many U.S. communists actually opposed the strike as a futile trade union tactic. Next came a strike in the coal industry. Meanwhile, several public officials had been the targets of crude, homemade bombs either sent through the mail or thrown at them. In early 1919, a congressional investigation into German propaganda activities quickly veered into an anti-Bolshevik investigation. During the summer of 1919, race riots in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Illinois, seemed to
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confirm the suspicions of many that Deporting the “Reds” in addition to threats to U.S. society In a 1920 article, U.S. attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer offered this explafrom labor organizations and radical nation for his insistence on rooting out “Reds” and deporting them from the political associations, African AmerUnited States: icans were to be feared, as they were especially vulnerable to Bolshevik Behind, and underneath, my own determination to drive from our midst the lures given the economic, social, and agents of Bolshevism with increasing vigor and with greater speed, until there political injustice under which they are no more of them left among us, so long as I have the responsible duty of that lived. As early as 1918, the Federal task, I have discovered the hysterical methods of these revolutionary humans Bureau of Investigation, convinced with increasing amazement and suspicion. In the confused information that sometimes reaches the people they are compelled to ask questions which inthat radicals had already made signifvolve the reasons for my acts against the “Reds.” I have been asked, for inicant advances in the African Ameristance, to what extent deportation will check radicalism in this country. Why can community, had hired its first ofnot ask what will become of the United States Government if these alien radificial black informant. Propaganda, cals are permitted to carry out the principles of the Communist Party as embodmuch of it distributed by Ku Klux ied in its so-called laws, aims and regulations? Klan members and other white suThere wouldn’t be any such thing left. In place of the United States Governpremacists, went so far as to suggest ment we should have the horror and terrorism of bolsheviki tyranny such as is that the summer riots were only a destroying Russia now. Every scrap of radical literature demands the overprelude to a Red-sponsored race war. throw of our existing government. All of it demands obedience to the instincts By the fall of 1919, public clamor of criminal minds, that is, to the lower appetites, material and moral. The whole for some kind of government action purpose of communism appears to be a mass formation of the criminals of the world to overthrow the decencies of private life, to usurp property that they against the perceived communist have not earned, to disrupt the present order of life regardless of health, sex or threat was intense. U.S. attorney genreligious rights. By a literature that promises the wildest dreams of such low aseral A. Mitchell Palmer responded to pirations, . . . communism distorts our social law. . . . the swelling chorus demanding the . . . The Department of Justice will pursue the attack of these “Reds” upon arrest and deportation of the alien the Government of the United States with vigilance, and no alien, advocating radicals who supposedly were instithe overthrow of existing law and order in this country, shall escape arrest and gating subversive events. In August, prompt deportation. 1919, Palmer had established the It is my belief that while they have stirred discontent in our midst, while antiradical General Intelligence Dithey have caused irritating strikes, and while they have infected our social vision in his department. At its head ideas with the disease of their own minds and their unclean morals we can get he had placed young J. Edgar Hoover, rid of them! and not until we have done so shall we have removed the menace of Bolshevism for good. who promptly began to assemble an elaborate card index of radical orgaSource: A. Mitchell Palmer, “The Case Against the Reds,” Forum 63 (February, 1920). nizations, publications, and leaders. On November 7, 1919, Hoover’s agents raided the headquarters and Significance branches of a labor society known as the Union of Although the public’s concern over the intentions of the Russian Workers. Throughout the country, state and new Soviet regime may be understandable, in retrospect local officials carried out smaller actions, which came it is difficult to comprehend the hysteria that marked to be known as Palmer raids, on suspected radicals. Americans’ response to small groups of poorly organized Members of Congress began to introduce deportation radicals at home. Social psychologists have explained bills; one senator even proposed that radical native-born the events of 1919-1920 as follows: People who are fearcitizens be expelled to a special penal colony on the isful of losing an established social and economic position land of Guam. On December 21, a group of 249 deportin society may become hostile toward or fearful of anyees set sail from New York aboard the old army transone they see as threatening that equilibrium. They may port ship Buford, informally labeled “the Soviet Ark.” In even be willing to launch a purge to try to ensure that the January, 1920, the last and largest of the Palmer raids were carried out as the Red Scare crested and finally “intruder” cannot harm them. The rapid changes in broke. American life brought about first by industrialization
Red Scare and urbanization and then by World War I may have left many Americans in such a state of disequilibrium that they could not relieve their anxieties and regain their sense of security without taking some sort of action. The postwar drive for “100 percent Americanism” may well have been an attempt to reaffirm traditional beliefs and customs and to enforce conformity by eradicating the “alien” who appeared to be wrecking the traditional society. From the perspective of the present day, the actions that the U.S. government, state and local officials, and others took during the Red Scare may seem despicable. In 1919, however, a few thousand Bolsheviks had suddenly become the masters of more than a hundred million Russians, murdering the czar and his entire family along with thousands of nonconforming Russians. In the light of such an example, many otherwise fair-minded people in the United States were not inclined to allow a few thousand Bolsheviks to repeat the performance in their country. Whatever the origins of the Red Scare, the raids and deportations diminished sharply after January, 1920. This decline in anxiety is even more difficult to explain than its rise. Perhaps the Red Scare never really ended. Amnesty for World War I conscientious objectors and other political prisoners became no easier to obtain under President Warren G. Harding than it had been under Wilson. The U.S. Army conducted antiradical training and seminars during the 1920’s. Restrictions on immigration grew tighter: In 1924, the National Origins Act imposed a quota system that drastically checked the flow of aliens into the United States. Throughout the 1920’s, neopatriotic organizations appropriated the nationalistic rhetoric of the Red Scare to attempt to deny pacifist associations, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, legitimacy as foreign policy interest groups. Antipacifists invested words such as “patriotism” and “internationalism” with meanings that linked the peace movement to un-American ideas and activities. These attacks often forced pacifists to moderate their ideas and actions. In addition, measures such as loyalty oaths, textbook censorship, and an “American plan” for labor unions were characteristics of U.S. society in the 1920’s. Nevertheless, the degree of panic after early 1920 was minimal. The very excess of the Palmer raids aroused opposition and renewed an appreciation for toleration and freedom of expression. U.S. secretary of labor William B. Wilson, who, in his Immigration Bureau, had never condoned the antiradicals, regained control over them. It 1530
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 is possible that the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Russia in 1920 and the failure of communist revolutions in Germany and Central Europe brought about a modicum of reassurance. In June, 1920, federal judge George W. Anderson, in the case of Colver v. Skeffington, found the Justice Department’s methods to have been brutal and unjust, and its raids sordid and disgraceful. Attorney General Palmer, whose actions had been not entirely unrelated to his thirst for a presidential nomination, failed in his bid at the Democratic National Convention in 1920. Persons of more moderate views had begun to regain the initiative. —Burl L. Noggle and Christy Jo Snider Further Reading Craig, John M. “Redbaiting, Pacifism, and Free Speech: Lucia Ames Mead and Her 1926 Lecture Tour in Atlanta and the Southeast.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 71, no. 4 (1987): 601-622. Examines the pervasiveness of Red Scare rhetoric in the attempts of antipacifist, anti-internationalists to discredit women peace activists and deny them legitimacy as a political interest group. Draper, Theodore. The Roots of American Communism. 1957. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2003. A detailed examination of the patterns, characteristic themes, and leaders of U.S. communism in its formative years, during the period from 1919 to 1923. Gengarelly, W. Anthony. Distinguished Dissenters and Opposition to the 1919-1920 Red Scare. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. Describes the efforts of a loosely organized civil liberties movement to counter the repression of rights perpetrated in the United States during the Red Scare. Includes discussion of the work of the American Civil Liberties Union. Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. 25th anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Study of the impact of World War I on U.S. society and culture explores topics of race, gender, and radicalism. Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr. “Black on Black: The FBI’s First Negro Informants and Agents and the Investigation of Black Radicalism During the Red Scare.” Criminal Justice History 8 (1987): 121-136. Discusses the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s hiring of African American operatives during and after World War I as the agency attempted to scrutinize more effectively the large number of black persons it had identified as radical suspects.
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Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery Twenty. 1923. Reprint. Seattle: University Press of the Pacific, 2003. An account by the assistant secretary of labor in 1920, one of the few men in the Wilson administration who showed restraint and concern for due process during the Red Scare. See also: June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World; Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded; May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924; Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation.
September 10, 1919
Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery The Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention called for the suppression of slavery and the slave trade but made no provisions for implementation of its fiat. Locale: Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), British foreign minister Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), prime minister of France, 1906-1909, 1917-1920 Frank Lyon Polk (1871-1943), U.S. undersecretary of state Paul Hymans (1865-1941), Belgian foreign minister Alfred Milner (1854-1925), British secretary of state for the colonies Tommaso Tittoni (1855-1931), Italian foreign minister Afonso Augusto da Costa (1871-1937), Portuguese diplomat Chinda Sutemi (1856-1929), Japanese diplomat Jules Cambon (1845-1935), French diplomat Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian inventor and diplomat Summary of Event The Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was a link in the chain of the international diplomatic assault on slavery. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 began the international reprobation of the slave trade. Viscount Robert Castlereagh of Great Britain had eloquently pleaded for
the end of that age-old abomination. His efforts, however, resulted only in denouncement of the slave trade “as inconsistent with the principles of humanity and universal morality.” The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 also failed to suppress the slave trade. Likewise, the Congress of Verona in 1822 did nothing about the slave trade, despite Britain’s plea. In 1884, the Berlin Conference convened. Fourteen countries had representation: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Norway, and the United States. In the Berlin Act of 1885, passed under British leadership, the participating nations condemned the internal and the maritime slave trade. They also pledged to care for the moral and material improvement of “native tribes” and to help in suppressing slavery itself in the Congo basin. The United States did not ratify the Berlin Act. Moreover, most unfortunately, the Berlin Conference recognized the International Association of the Congo as a sovereign state. That state, popularly known as the Congo Free State, was the creature of King Leopold II of Belgium. He and his minions became known for the atrocities, including forced labor, that occurred there. The European countries’ imperialistic rivalry and opportunism in the partitioning of Africa led to the holding of the Brussels Conference in the winter of 1889-1890. Seventeen countries were represented: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, the Congo, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, Per1531
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Murray, Robert K. The Red Scare: A Study in the National Hysteria, 1919-1920. 1955. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Analyzes the fears of the period, the events they engendered, and the personalities involved. Pfannestiel, Todd J. Rethinking the Red Scare: The Lusk Committee and New York’s Crusade Against Radicalism, 1919-1923. New York: Routledge, 2003. Uses the specific case of the state of New York to discuss the causes and the events of the Red Scare and the impact of those events on later instances of political repression. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Post, Louis F. The Deportations Delirium of Nineteen-
Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery sia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Norway, the United States, and Zanzibar. They proceeded to devise a detailed international code against the slave trade, which had reemerged precisely when the European Age of Exploration had begun in the fifteenth century after a long period of decline throughout Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The Brussels Conference addressed the tremendous problems of the external and internal slave trade in Africa. Concerning the former, the conference’s general act prescribed reciprocal rights of search and capture of vessels under five hundred tons within the “Maritime Zone.” That area comprised the coasts of the Indian Ocean from Baluchistan to Quilimane (at eighteen degrees south latitude), including the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and Madagascar. The general act also placed strict regulations on the use of the flag of a signatory power and the carrying of African passengers in native vessels. The Brussels Conference made detailed provisions to suppress the internal slave trade in Africa. These included the establishment of “strongly occupied stations” as refuges for the native population. Also approved was the use of cruisers, fortified posts, and expeditions to destroy the slave trade. Because the signatories considered the traffic in arms and liquor as adjuncts to the slave trade, they inserted in the conference’s general act restrictions on the zones in which modern arms and distilled liquors could be sold. All of the seventeen countries represented at the Brussels Conference signed its general act. From late 1890 through 1896, three more countries became signatories: Ethiopia, Liberia, and the Orange Free State. By 1900, the work of the Brussels Conference had considerably eliminated large-scale slave raiding in areas under European control. Nevertheless, the slave trade continued into the twentieth century. Slaves continued to be exported to the Middle East. The import and export of slaves and slave raiding in Ethiopia lasted for many years. European contract labor traffic in Africa, a matter ignored by the Brussels Conference, continued to cover slaving operations. Furthermore, the illicit traffic in arms, which often intertwined with the slave trade, survived the strictures of the Brussels general act. Although less important as an international issue, the liquor trade also persisted as a problem in European colonies in Africa. World War I definitely influenced the troika of slavery, the arms traffic, and the liquor trade. The Allies’ victory meant the end of Germany’s colonies. Victorious Belgium, Great Britain, and France considered the acts 1532
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of the Berlin and Brussels conferences to be outmoded. They viewed those acts as giving their World War I enemies (Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Turkey) and the neutrals in that conflagration (Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Persia, Spain, and Sweden) a right of intervention in their colonial dealings. Belgium, Great Britain, and France believed that the commercial clauses of the Berlin and Brussels conferences constituted infringement on their sovereign powers by limiting their right to control their own tariffs. Moreover, Belgium, Great Britain, and France claimed that the Brussels general act had solved neither the arms nor the liquor traffic. Furthermore, those three powers judged the slave trade to be so insignificant that the treaty had become a dead issue. The three countries also recognized, however, the need for caution in jettisoning the Berlin and Brussels acts. The humanitarian principles of those acts, along with the free trade and navigation clauses, had cast a spell over the public, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. Additionally, the acts harmonized with the spirit embodied in the newly created and popular League of Nations. Thus the Belgian, British, and French governments believed that they should not flout the United States, their own electorates, and interested neutral countries. Furthermore, the imperialistic Belgians, British, and French needed to exercise care in treating the Berlin and Brussels acts because they needed international public support in becoming the mandatory powers of the former German colonies. The conclusion of World War I enabled the colonial powers to effect reconsideration of the Berlin and Brussels acts. Plans were made to replace the acts with treaties that would better suit the colonial powers themselves but still retain the model and many principles of the general act of Brussels. These conventions were signed on September 10, 1919, at Saint-Germain-enLaye, France. The first convention dealt with the arms traffic. It was signed by the United States, Belgium, Bolivia, the British Empire, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hedjaz, Italy, Japan, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Serb-CroatSlovene State, Siam, and Czechoslovakia. The convention forbade the export of all modern arms except to signatories for their own use. No arms whatever were to be sent, except with permission, to Africa (excluding Algeria, Libya, and South Africa), the offshore islands of Africa, the Arabian peninsula, Persia, Transcaucasia, Gwadar, or former Ottoman Asiatic territories.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery
Significance High hopes were placed in the Convention of SaintGermain-en-Laye. Indeed, there rose the joyous claim that for the first time in history there was a definite commitment to the complete suppression of slavery and of the slave trade. This claim ignored the fact that although slavery and slave trade had been persistent institutions throughout much of the world, it had largely disappeared under the influence of Christianity during the Middle Ages, only to reemerge with full-blown intensity when European countries began the to colonize the world in the fifteenth century. The words “in all its forms” in the convention conceivably included forced labor, pseudoadoption, forced concubinage, and debt slavery. Moreover, the German and Ottoman empires, viewed in a number of circles as laggards in attempts to eliminate slavery, had ceased to be. The particular convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye dealing with slavery and the slave trade encountered serious problems. Two signatories did not ratify the agreement. One, the United States, refused because of its drift
into isolationism. The other, Italy, manifesting jingoism, regarded the convention as an infringement on its sovereignty. Moreover, certain signatories that did ratify proved lukewarm in application of the convention. Belgium, France, and Portugal showed no eagerness in their colonial empires to eliminate forced labor, a situation that should have been understood as a form of slavery. South Africa, both in its provinces and in its mandate, former German Southwest Africa, displayed no enthusiasm. Furthermore, in several ways the third convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, dealing with slavery and the slave trade, formed a retrogression from the general acts of the conferences of Berlin (1885) and Brussels (1890). Many states that signed or adhered to those acts did not sign or later adhere to this particular convention of SaintGermain-en-Laye. They were Austria, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Hungary, Liberia, the Netherlands, Norway, Persia, the Soviet Union (formerly Russia), Spain, Sweden, Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire), and Zanzibar. Noteworthy, also, was the failure of other successor states to the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires to sign. They included Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Hedjaz, and Iraq. Additionally, the 1919 Convention of Saint-Germainen-Laye contained fundamental errors of omission. Article 22 of the General Act of the Conference of Brussels bound the signatory powers to the reciprocal right of visit, search, and seizure of vessels at sea engaged in the slave trade in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. That provision was not repeated in the Convention of Saint-Germain-Laye. Furthermore, Article 27 of the General Act of the Conference of Brussels provided for an international bureau at Zanzibar for the holding of documents and information on the suppression of the slave trade, which the signatory powers were pledged to forward. No such provision occurred in the Convention of Saint-Germain-Laye. Indeed, the very legality of the Convention of SaintGermain-en-Laye has been questioned. Officially that document styled itself as the “Convention Revising the General Act of Berlin, February 26, 1885, and the General Act and Declaration of Brussels, July 2, 1890.” The General Act of Brussels had no provision authorizing any contracting state to denounce it, thus it could be abrogated only with the consent of all the states that had signed and ratified it. Only some of those states, however, signed the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Consequently, it may be argued that the Brussels Act remains in force. Regardless of legalism, the Convention 1533
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The second convention at Saint-Germain-en-Laye treated the liquor traffic in Africa, with some regions of the continent excluded. The signatories were the United States, Belgium, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, and Portugal. This agreement entirely prohibited “trade spirits,” but left each territory free to define these liquors for itself. Other spirits would be levied customs duties. The third convention at Saint-Germain-en-Laye revised the commercial clauses of the Berlin and Brussels acts. It was signed by the United States, Belgium, the British Empire (the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India), France, Italy, Japan, and Portugal. The leading participants were Arthur James Balfour (Great Britain), Georges Clemenceau and Jules Cambon (France), Frank Lyon Polk (United States), Paul Hymans (Belgium), Alfred Milner (South Africa), Tommaso Tittoni and Guglielmo Marconi (Italy), Afonso Augusto da Costa (Portugal), and Chinda Sutemi (Japan). The agreement allowed Belgium, Great Britain, and France to fix their tariffs and fees for navigation in the basin of the Congo river. The signatory powers disposed of slavery and the slave trade in one sentence: “They will, in particular, endeavor to secure the complete suppression of slavery in all its forms and of the slave trade by land and sea.” Thus the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, like the Congress of Vienna more than a century earlier, treated slavery and the slave trade in a rhetorical manner only.
Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery of Saint-Germain-en-Laye represents a minor event in the attack on slavery and the slave trade. Victims of those monstrous activities benefited very little from the document. — Erving E. Beauregard Further Reading Coupland, Sir Reginald. The British Anti-Slavery Movement. London: Frank Cass, 1964. A brief, popular treatment of the campaign of a group of Britons for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. Their approach represented humanitarian imperialism. Neglects economic factors. One-page bibliography. Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. A detailed, scholarly telling of the “momentous shift from ‘progressive’ enslavement to ‘progressive’ emancipation.” Excellent annotation and a helpful index. Fischer, Hugo. “The Suppression of Slavery in International Law.” Parts 1-2. The International Law Quarterly 3 (January-October, 1950): 28-51, 503-522. Discusses the problem of slavery in international law. Surveys slavery in customary international law, suppression of the West African slave trade, the fight against the East African and Central African slave trade, and the period between the world wars. Greenidge, C. W. W. Slavery. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958. A short, popular description of slavery and the antislavery movement by a longtime secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Advocates invocation of the machinery of the General Act of Brussels. Appendixes include the Brussels Act of 1890, the Slavery Convention of 1926, and the Supplementary Convention of 1956. Harris, John A. A Century of Emancipation. London: J. M. Dent, 1933. Popular, sympathetic narration of the antislavery movement. Stresses the aftermath of
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the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Admirable index. MacMunn, Sir George. Slavery Through the Ages. Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970. A wellwritten, detailed survey of slavery to 1938. Praises the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Has illustrations and an index but no bibliography or annotations. Miers, Suzanne. Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade. New York: Africana, 1975. First-rate account. Questions the significance of the Convention of SaintGermain-en-Laye in regard to attacking the slave trade. Scholarly and objective. Voluminous notes, superb bibliography, fine maps, and a model index. Includes the text of the Brussels Conference. _______. Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Pattern. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2003. Comprehensive discussion of the history of slavery and abolition in the twentieth century. Includes a chapter on the creation of a treaty network to fight the slave trade in the early part of the century. Bibliographic references and index. “Official Documents.” Supplement to the American Journal of International Law (1921): 297-328. Complete text of the three conventions signed at SaintGermain-Laye on September 10, 1919. Inadequate index. Simon, Kathleen. Slavery. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930. Spirited story of slavery in the early twentieth century, by an Englishwoman. Simon shows high regard for the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Well annotated, good print, serviceable index. Contains the text of the International Slavery Convention of 1926. See also: June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions
September 22, 1919-January 8, 1920
Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions
Locale: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; other cities in the United States Categories: Business and labor; civil rights and liberties Key Figures William Z. Foster (1881-1961), secretary-treasurer of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers Elbert Henry Gary (1846-1927), chairman of the board of directors of the United States Steel Corporation John Fitzpatrick (1870-1946), president of the Chicago Federation of Labor and chairman of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), president of the American Federation of Labor Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones; 1830-1930), American labor organizer Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, the American steel industry was dominated by the United States Steel Corporation, the country’s first billion-dollar conglomerate. Together with four or five smaller independent companies, it controlled U.S. production of steel. Profits were enormous and increased substantially during World War I. Elbert Henry Gary, chairman of the board at U.S. Steel, advocated the open shop, believing that labor organization was incompatible with low production costs and should be steadfastly resisted. Gary also adhered to a philosophy of corporate paternalism; he was convinced that company-sponsored programs providing recreational facilities, stock options, safety measures, limited company housing, and periodic wage increases would retain a loyal nonunion workforce. Steelworkers were not satisfied, however. During wartime they increasingly saw themselves as patriotic producers and expected to be rewarded for their efforts. Instead, they found themselves forced to work twelvehour days and six-day workweeks. Every second week, as they changed from day shift to night shift, they worked between eighteen and twenty-four hours without any rest. Increases in the cost of living during World War I in-
tensified dissatisfaction and pressed many workers below the minimum level of subsistence. Without the legal right to engage in collective bargaining, workers felt betrayed and helpless. When the government, in March of 1918, recommended a wartime labor-management program that included the right of workers to organize into trade unions and to bargain with management (through shop committees, not union representatives), labor felt it was about to achieve long-denied rights and benefits. Into this atmosphere came former labor radical William Z. Foster. Fresh from a successful organizing campaign among Chicago packinghouse workers (the first union victory in a mass-production industry during the war), this American Federation of Labor (AFL) organizer hoped to seize the opportunity presented by the wartime demand for workers and the sympathetic ear of government to press immediately for the organization of one-half million steelworkers. With the support of the reform-minded and respected John Fitzpatrick, president of the powerful Chicago Federation of Labor, Foster managed to get the approval of AFL president Samuel Gompers and the national AFL convention to initiate an organizing drive among steelworkers. The National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers was created on August 1, 1918, with Fitzpatrick as chair and Foster as secretary-treasurer and unofficial chief organizer. Foster began the organization drive in the region near Chicago and Gary, Indiana, under the banner of “eight hours and a union.” Early success there encouraged him to move his headquarters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the center of the steel industry. Organizers fanned out through the steel towns of western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia. Foster was optimistic about the organizing efforts, but an influenza epidemic struck the country during October and November of 1918 and forced the cancellation of meetings for weeks, allowing the steel companies time to consider their response. This was followed by the formal end of war in November, which brought into question the future of the entire labor relations program of the federal government. Foster’s biggest problem was the denial of the rights of free speech and assembly that his organizers were forced to confront in the steel regions, especially in the Pittsburgh area. Elected officials repeatedly passed ordinances requiring permits for labor meetings or refused to allow meetings to take place. Individuals who rented 1535
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Steelworkers went on strike in 1919 to gain the right to some collective say on their terms of employment, only to see their strike defeated and their civil liberties suppressed.
Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
(Mary Harris Jones), refused to be intimidated. Workers began to join the In 1919, when the steelworkers’ representatives failed to secure considernew union in ever-increasing numbers. ation of their demands from the United States Steel Corporation, the Steel During the late summer of 1919, the orWorkers’ Organizing Committee issued a leaflet calling for a strike: ganizing committee presented Elbert Gary with a list of twelve demands— Strike September 22, 1919 including the right to collective bargaining, an eight-hour workday, seniorThe workers in the iron and steel mills and blast furnaces, not working ity rights, the reinstatement of workers under union agreements, are requested not to go to work on September 22, and to refuse to resume their employment until such time as the demands of discharged for their unionizing activithe organizations have been conceded by the steel corporations. ties, the abolition of company unions, The union committees have tried to arrange conferences with the heads and wage increases—as the basis for of the steel companies in order that they might present our legitimate denegotiation. Gary rejected the demands. mands for the right of collective bargaining, higher wages, shorter hours and When the steelworkers’ pleas to Presibetter working conditions. But the employers have steadfastly refused to dent Woodrow Wilson for intervention meet them. It therefore becomes our duty to support the committees’ claims, on their behalf failed, the workers voted in accordance with the practically unanimous strike vote, by refusing to to go on strike beginning September 22, work in the mills on or after September 22, until such time as our just de1919. mands have been granted. And in our stoppage of work let there be no vioWinning the support of workers and lence. The American Federation of Labor has won all its great progress by beating back assaults on the rights of peaceful and legal methods. Iron and steel workers! A historic decision confronts us. If we will free speech and assembly were only part but stand together now like men our demands will soon be granted and a of Foster’s problems. The negative pubgolden era of prosperity will open for us in the steel industry. But if we falter lic reaction to the “Red Scare” and the and fail to act this great effort will be lost, and we will sink back into a miserhigh level of strike activity nationally able and hopeless serfdom. The welfare of our wives and children is at stake. allowed steel plant owners to link the Now is the time to insist upon our rights as human beings. organizing drive to “Bolshevism” and to paint Foster as a “Red.” Exaggerated newspaper accounts portrayed the steel districts as seedbeds of revolution. halls to labor organizers were pressured by politicians to Steel company owners added to the paranoia by gencancel the leases. Prolabor speakers were accused of beerating their own propaganda, alleging that steelworkers ing outside agitators, arrested, and held in jail. Such acwere predominantly immigrant radicals. The Departtions were unconstitutional violations of First Amendment of Justice, already combing the country for radiment rights, but seeking legal redress meant costly cals, shifted its attention to the strike centers. Excerpts delays for the organizing effort. from Foster’s own earlier writings (from a time when he Foster responded to the restrictions on free speech by was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World) organizing “flying squadrons” of organizers to target were reprinted, and the charge was made that he was respecific towns. Their meetings were disrupted by the poally a syndicalist advocating the destruction of the capilice, and they were arrested repeatedly. The steel compatalist system. Foster’s refusal to repudiate all of his prior nies kept blacklists of union agitators, discharged workstatements before a special Senate committee investigaters for affiliating with the union, hired detectives to ing the strike in October, 1919, cost him not only the supinfiltrate the organizing campaign, and exerted considerport of AFL president Gompers but also public support able influence over the press, the police, local officials, that was crucial to the success of the strike. and even church leaders. Pleas to the U.S. secretary of laWith the strike call the antiunion campaign became bor and to the governor of Pennsylvania brought promincreasingly repressive. Mounted police rode into crowds ises of investigation but no meaningful response. of workers at outdoor rallies and clubbed participants, arDespite the setbacks, organizers made progress. Orrested organizers and charged them with disorderly conganizing meetings were held in vacant lots outside duct, and denied strikers the right to picket. Police forced towns, workers boycotted local businesses, and agitademonstrators off the streets and clubbed those who resisted, broke up meetings, invaded homes, and even tors, including the eighty-nine-year-old Mother Jones
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Significance The steel strike of 1919 was important on several levels. Immediately following the strike, Foster published The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons (1920), his personal account of the events in which he emphasized the strike’s opponents’ utter disregard for basic human rights. Foster argued that the workers were helpless in defense of their individual freedoms when confronted with an organized opposition of state police, deputy sheriffs, city officials, company police and detectives, and armed strikebreakers. The public, primed to discount the opinions of a labor radical such as Foster, received startling confirmation of his charges from the respected Interchurch World Movement. Formed to represent American Protestantism in secular matters, this organization studied the strike through its own independent commission of inquiry. When the Interchurch World Movement published its findings in the summer of 1920, it not only confirmed Foster’s account but also added new personal testimony of the substandard living and working conditions that had made the steel strike inevitable. The commission found that the arbitrary control exerted by the steel companies inside their plants was extended outside the factories to affect workers as citizens in their communities. Local officials nullified the striking workers’ civil rights of free speech and assembly without just cause, and state police and sheriff’s deputies violated the workers’ per-
sonal rights. The report created a mild sensation, but its immediate impact was only a renewal of the debate over the existing twelve-hour workday. Under continued pressure, the steel industry finally agreed to establish the eight-hour workday in 1923 but continued to bar unions from the industry. The steel strike of 1919 also had impacts on labor relations during the 1930’s. First, the defeat in 1919 proved that some sort of governmental intervention would be necessary to guarantee fairness in the workplace. The expanded role assumed by the federal government during the New Deal made this intervention possible and eventually led to the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. Second, the violations of civil liberties seen in 1919 served as background for the investigation by the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee. This special Senate committee, created in June, 1936, documented corporate violations of civil rights that interfered with the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively. The investigation attracted public attention, suggested that the government was lending further support to labor’s organizing efforts, and contributed to the success of the second organizing campaign in the steel industry, which began that same year. —Steven L. Piott Further Reading Brody, David. Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919. 1965. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Revised and greatly expanded discussion of the 1919 steel strike from that presented previously in Brody’s Steelworkers in America (cited below). Focuses on the tortured process of unionization in the steel industry. _______. Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. A valuable account of how the working lives of steelworkers were shaped during the first decades of the twentieth century. Examines technological and managerial innovations in steel production, life in the mill towns, and factors preventing unionization. Argues that the primary cause of the 1919 strike was the experience of steelworkers during World War I. Brown, Cliff. Racial Conflicts and Violence in the Labor Market: Roots in the 1919 Steel Strike. New York: Garland, 1998. An exploration of the 1919 steel strike that focuses on the divisiveness it fostered between white and black workers. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index. Foster, William Z. The Great Steel Strike and Its Les1537
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robbed strikers. Individuals were held in jail without having any definite charges lodged against them. Foster produced hundreds of sworn statements charging criminal behavior on the part of police, but no one was prosecuted for these acts. The sheriff of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania brazenly deputized loyal employees of the steel companies for strike duty, prohibited any gathering of three or more people, and required that indoor meetings be conducted only in English. When strike leaders lodged complaints of terrorism and suppression of civil liberties with the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer refused to get involved in what he considered to be a local matter. Recourse to the judicial system also failed to halt the repression, and appeals for a public outcry elicited no response outside the steel districts. Finally, after months of organized intimidation and violation of basic human rights, an effective antiunion propaganda campaign, and refusal by the steel plant owners to accept any sort of compromise, the strike was called off on January 8, 1920.
Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions
Black Sox Scandal sons. 1920. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971. Impassioned account of the 1919 steel strike written immediately after the event by someone at the center of the organizing and strike activities. Examines conditions in the steel industry prior to the strike, the timing of the strike, tactics behind union organizing efforts and the strike itself, and internal and external reasons for the strike’s defeat. Includes correspondence from leaders on both sides and details violations of civil rights and personal rights. Lens, Sidney. The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. Includes an excellent account of the organizing drive in the steel industry in 1919, the packinghouse strike that preceded it, and the role of William Z. Foster in both. Places events in the context of the ongoing battles that marked the rise of the American labor movement. McCartin, Joseph A. Labor’s Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Examines the effects of World War I on the lives of workers and struggles between unions and management. Chapter 6 includes discussion of the steel strike of 1919. Includes bibliography and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Olds, Marshall. Analysis of the Interchurch World Movement Report on the Steel Strike. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. Detailed analysis of the investigation of the 1919 steel strike by a neutral organization representing American Protestantism. Highly critical of the steel industry. Includes valuable statistical information regarding working and living standards among workers in the steel industry as well as testimony gathered from strike participants. Details violations of civil liberties. Warne, Colston E., ed. The Steel Strike of 1919. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1963. Includes information on the basic structure of the steel industry, conflicting interpretations of events, the basic philosophies of the parties involved (Gary, Fitzpatrick, and Gompers), samples of the industry’s advertising campaign, testimony from residents of the mill towns, and conclusions from two strike investigation committees. See also: May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established; May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike; May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established.
October 1-9, 1919
Black Sox Scandal Members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team, heavily favored to win the World Series, accepted bribes to lose the championship, shocking their fans and tarnishing the reputation of professional sports at the beginning of the era of national sports spectatorship. Locale: Chicago, Illinois; Cincinnati, Ohio Categories: Sports; crime and scandal Key Figures Charles A. Comiskey (1859-1931), owner of the Chicago White Sox Arnold Rothstein (1882-1928), American gambler and organized crime figure Eddie Cicotte (1884-1969), White Sox pitcher Happy Felsch (1891-1964), White Sox outfielder Chick Gandil (1888-1970), White Sox first baseman Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887-1951), White Sox left fielder 1538
Fred McMullin (1891-1952), White Sox infielder Swede Risberg (1894-1975), White Sox shortstop Buck Weaver (1890-1956), White Sox third baseman Lefty Williams (1893-1959), White Sox pitcher Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), commissioner of baseball Babe Ruth (1895-1948), New York Yankees outfielder Summary of Event The expectancy that grips the American nation with the beginning of baseball’s World Series each year was even more apparent on October 1, 1919, when the great Chicago White Sox, winners of the American League pennant, were to meet the National League winners, the Cincinnati Reds, in the first World Series since World War I had ended. It was to be baseball’s longest and darkest moment. So heavily favored were the Chicago White Sox that if Chicago fans wanted a friendly wager it
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seemed as if they would be unable to find anyone willing throw the games, but also stated that he had played to win to bet against them. each game. Jackson’s confession implicated Gandil and Dramatically and suddenly just before the first game, Williams. Chicago owner Comiskey was criticized for much of what The New York Times called “smart money” paying almost the lowest player salaries despite the brilbegan to be bet on the Cincinnati team. Even more surliant performance of his team and having the highest gate prising was the manner in which Cincinnati’s Reds outreceipts in the league. classed the White Sox in the first game, winning 9 to 1 The new commissioner of baseball, Judge Kenesaw and setting off innumerable rumors. When Cincinnati Mountain Landis, banished the eight White Sox players won the second game 4 to 2, the murmurs of incredulity from the game, insisting that baseball had the right and became louder. On October 9, Cincinnati won the eighth game 10 to 5, thereby winning the World Series by Jackson’s Confession five games to three. The rumors linOn September 28, 1920, Hartley L. Replogle, assistant state’s attorney, quesgered well into 1920 and 1921, when tioned Shoeless Joe Jackson before the Grand Jury of Cook County, Illinois. a Chicago grand jury indicted eight Jackson’s testimony implicated him in the scandal. The following excerpts, members of the White Sox for conhowever, show that he was being bullied and cheated. spiring to “throw” the World Series. The trial was a farce. Evidence Replogle: Did anybody pay you any money to help throw that series in favor of Cincinnati? disappeared, witnesses failed to apJackson: They did. pear, three players recanted signed Replogle: How much did they pay? confessions, and the monthlong trial Jackson: They promised me $20,000, and paid me $5. ended as inconclusively as the World Replogle: Who promised you the twenty thousand? Series itself. All eight players were Jackson: “Chick” Gandil. acquitted, although it was clear that Replogle: Who is Chick Gandil? Arnold Rothstein and his gambling Jackson: He was their first baseman on the White Sox Club. . . . syndicate were deeply involved in Replogle: You think Gandil may have gotten the money and held it from you, the outcome of the series. First baseis that right? man Chick Gandil was depicted as Jackson: That’s what I think, I think he kept the majority of it. the initiator of the “fix,” whereas Replogle: What did you do then? Jackson: I went to him and asked him what was the matter. He said Abe Attel third baseman Buck Weaver—who gave him the jazzing. He said, “Take that or let it alone.” As quick as the sedid not participate in the conspirries was over I left town, I went right on out. . . . acy—was blamed because he had adReplogle: Didn’t you think it was the right thing for you to go and tell [White vance information about the conspirSox owner Charles A.] Comiskey about it? acy that he failed to reveal. Shortstop Jackson: I did tell them once, “I am not going to be in it.” I will just get out of Swede Risberg, infielder Fred Mcthat altogether. Mullin, and outfielder Happy Felsch Replogle: Who did you tell that to? were alleged to be willing particiJackson: Chick Gandil. pants, and pitcher Eddie Cicotte, left Replogle: What did he say? fielder Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Jackson: He said I was into it already and I might as well stay in. I said, “I can pitcher Lefty Williams provided go to the boss and have every damn one of you pulled out of the limelight.” He said, “It wouldn’t be well for me if I did that. . . .” signed confessions, although the Replogle: What did you say? evidence disappeared. Jackson: Well, I told him any time they wanted to have me knocked off, to Jackson later recanted, maintainhave me knocked off. ing his innocence until his death in Replogle: What did he say? 1951, but his confession, which reJackson: Just laughed. . . . appeared during the hearing to reinReplogle: Supposing the White Sox would have won this series, the World’s state his baseball status, was ambigSeries, what would you have done then with the $5,000? uous. He admitted to receiving five Jackson: I guess I would have kept it, that was all I could do. I tried to win all thousand of the twenty thousand the time. dollars promised him for helping to
Black Sox Scandal duty to protect itself and its reputation. In spite of several attempts by the players to be reinstated, Landis upheld his ban, thereby renewing to some extent public confidence in professional baseball—possible in an era when there was less sensitivity to the rights of players. Jackson, whose .356 career batting average places him in fourth place in baseball history, would have been chosen for baseball’s hall of fame long ago were it not for his alleged participation in this scandal. Baseball, and American sports generally, then entered their golden age. The often-disputed introduction of a livelier ball in 1920 may have radically changed the nature of baseball. That year, the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees; Ruth was a pitcher-outfielder who was to revolutionize baseball and transform the nature of spectator sports in the United States during the course of the following three years. With Ruth came the phenomenon of the spectacular home run. As a result of the huge crowds he drew, Yankee Stadium, seating more than seventy thousand spectators, was built in 1923 and called “the house that Ruth built.” In 1919, the Yankees had drawn a mere 619,614 fans, but with the Babe in the outfield in 1920, the figure doubled to 1,289,422. He became an American folk hero, and crowds followed him wherever he went; with the instincts of a great showman, he rarely failed to give a spectacular performance. In 1921, he hit fifty-four home runs, and the memory of the Black Sox scandal faded amid the glamour and drama of a new era for baseball. Perhaps the release of so many people from the rigors of war—combined with a new prosperity, shorter working hours, and the shift of the United States from a predominantly agricultural to an industrialized, urban nation—explains the sudden and spectacular increase in sports attendance in the 1920’s. Although it was feared that radio broadcasts of baseball games would diminish gate receipts, they actually increased them. In addition to baseball, the forward pass in football had the effect of opening up that game. Crowds flocked to new stadiums throughout the country. Both Yale and the University of California built new sports bowls seating eighty thousand fans, and the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, and Ohio State University built stadiums each seating seventy thousand people. Every Saturday during the fall season these stadiums were filled to capacity, and the “bowl games” at the end of the year were second only to the annual World Series in national interest. Boxing also enjoyed popularity for a time as promoter Tex Rickard staged five consecutive million-dollar fights in the 1920’s. The million-dollar “gate” in 1926 at the 1540
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Philadelphia sesquicentennial celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence saw Gene Tunney beat the “invincible” Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight championship. Even this achievement was exceeded at the rematch before 145,000 spectators in Chicago’s Soldiers Field on September 22, 1927. Enthusiastic fans paid a total of $2,650,000 in admission fees. The first ten rows contained more than two hundred millionaires, and twenty-four special trains brought passengers to the event. Tunney repeated his victory and retained his title; when he retired the following year, he had made more than two million dollars in two years. Tennis emerged from its elite status, and stars like Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen became public heroes after 1919-1920. Although fan interest in golf was started by Francis Ouimet’s triumph over the English competitors in 1913, Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones maintained the public’s infatuation with this game in the 1920’s. In horse racing, the exploits of a thoroughbred named Man O’War excited record crowds. In all major sports, heroes assumed gigantic proportions and performed legendary deeds. Red Grange, a football hero at the University of Illinois in 1925, became the first major college player to continue in professional football when he signed a contract with the Chicago Bears. Professional football, which did not come into its own for two more decades, started at that time. Significance All sports suffered during the Great Depression and World War II, but the foundations laid during the spectacular 1920’s were strong enough to ensure the survival of sports in the public mind. As a result, the Black Sox scandal came to mark the end of an era in American sports history and to signal the beginning of the modern epoch of spectator sports on a grand scale. The scandal helped to create stringent ethical rules governing athletes. The insistence on absolute professionalism and the creation of extremely high standards for athletes— although those standards were often not met in practice—paved the way for the transformation of professional sports into a major American industry. —Richard H. Collin and John D. Windhausen Further Reading Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. 1963. Special reprint ed. Introduction by Alan M. Dershowitz. Delanco, N.J.: Notable Trials Library, 2003. The most complete account of the scandal despite the paucity of evidence, much of it lost during the trial. The book became the basis for
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Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. A serious examination of the social effects of baseball on American society in the first part of the twentieth century. Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The Early Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960. A scholarly and comprehensive account of the development of baseball from its amateur start to modern baseball, including economic aspects and the relation of the sport to American life. Voigt, David Quentin. Baseball: An Illustrated History. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Contains a review of the 1919 scandal and the revival of baseball in the 1920’s and 1930’s, by a recognized scholar of the game. See also: Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
November 6, 1919
Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory Measurements made during an eclipse showed that the Sun’s gravitational field bends the path of starlight. Locale: Burlington House, London, England Categories: Science and technology; physics; astronomy Key Figures Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944), English astronomer and physicist Frank Dyson (1868-1939), English Astronomer Royal Willem de Sitter (1872-1934), Dutch astronomer Summary of Event Sir Isaac Newton’s law of gravitation, published in 1687, states that every mass (every object composed of matter) attracts every other mass through gravitation. Gravitation is the tendency of every particle of matter in the universe to be attracted to every other particle. The more massive the bodies, the stronger the gravitational force between them, and the farther apart the bodies, the weaker the force between them.
Although this law was extremely successful, it seemed impossible that one body could exert a force on another body some distance away. To avoid this problem, scientists began to speak of a mass modifying the space around it by establishing a gravitational field. Another mass interacted with the field at its location but not directly with the first mass. How mass could establish a field was not explained. Albert Einstein took gravitational theory a giant step forward. Taking a hint from the well-known result that all objects—no matter how massive—accelerate at the same rate when acted upon by gravity, Einstein deduced that gravitation and acceleration are equivalent in some fashion. He thought about how a beam of light might look to someone moving upward very quickly in an elevator. If the light beam were actually parallel with the floor as it entered the elevator, it would appear to bend downward slightly as the elevator accelerated. If acceleration and gravitation are equivalent, then gravity must also deflect light rays downward. Since light has no mass, as one normally thinks of it, this result was completely unexpected. 1541
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John Sayles’s motion picture of the same title produced by Orion Pictures in 1988. James, Bill. The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York: Villard Books, 1988. This remarkable work contains a wealth of statistical and other unusual information not found elsewhere. Nathan, Daniel A. Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. A study of the stories told about the Black Sox scandal over the eighty years following the trial. Addresses the meanings those stories acquired and circulated and the cultural work they performed. Bibliographic references and index. Rader, Benjamin G. American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990. This standard work features discussion of the expansion of spectator appeal in the 1920’s. Reiss, Steven A. Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progessive Era. West-
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The Curving of Space-Time Perceived position of star because of space-time distortion
Real position of star
Sun
Space-time
Earth observer
The Sun’s gravity causes space-time to curve, which bends the star’s light and makes it appear to be located where it is not.
Einstein was perplexed about why a light beam took a curved path when traversing a gravitational field in an otherwise empty space. After all, the path taken by a light ray in an empty space is the definition of a straight line. Yet when is a straight line also a curved line? The answer is clear when the line is drawn on a curved surface such as a globe. For example, one may travel in a straight line along the earth’s equator and eventually return to the starting point without ever turning around. In 1915 and 1916, Einstein announced his general theory of relativity. This theory interpreted gravitation not as a force but as the result of curved space-time. Einstein’s idea of space-time imagines the universe as being one unified “continuum” made up of four dimensions. These dimensions are length, width, and height—all of which are defined as “space”—and time. Within that space-time continuum, physical events occur and can be precisely located or mapped. A moving mass would produce a ripple in the curvature of space-time that would expand at the speed of light. By contrast, a weak gravitational field corresponds to almost no curvature of spacetime, meaning that space-time is nearly flat. Einstein suggested three effects that could be measured to see if his theory was accurate: the gravitational “redshift” of light, the advancement of the “perihelion” of the planet Mercury (the part of the planet’s orbit that takes it closest to the Sun), and the deflection of starlight by the Sun. Einstein calculated that a ray of starlight just grazing the Sun should be deflected by only about 1.75 seconds of arc. Stars cannot normally be seen when the Sun is out, so Einstein suggested the measurement be made during a total solar eclipse. 1542
Sir Frank Dyson, the British Astronomer Royal, sent out two expeditions to photograph the eclipse of May 29, 1919. Charles Rundle Davidson led one expedition to Sobral in northern Brazil, while Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, an English astronomer and physicist, headed the other expedition to Príncipe Island in the Gulf of Guinea. Eddington’s expedition took sixteen photographs of the eclipse. Comparing one of them with another photograph of the same star field taken six months earlier when the Sun was not present, Eddington was delighted to find the star images shifted by the same amount that Einstein had predicted. On November 6, 1919, Dyson reported on the eclipse expeditions to a joint meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Society and the Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society held at the Burlington House in London. Sir Joseph John Thomson, credited with the discovery of the electron and then president of the Royal Society, called Einstein’s theory “one of the greatest achievements in the history of human thought.” Significance After the confirmation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the public was eager to learn more about him and his theory. Within one year, more than one hundred books on the subject had been published. Leopold Infeld, who cowrote a book with Einstein on relativity, suggested that the intensity of the public reaction was a result of the timing—World War I had just ended. “People were weary of hatred, of killing. . . . Here was something which captured the imagination . . . the mystery of the Sun’s eclipse and of the penetrating power of the human
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Further Reading Bergmann, Peter G. The Riddle of Gravitation. Rev. ed. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1993. A clear, full presentation of gravitation from the ancient Greeks through special and general relativity and the consequences of quantum mechanics. Many illustrations and diagrams. Helpful bibliography, glossary, and index. Clark, Ronald W. Einstein: The Life and Times. 1971. Reprint. New York: Avon Books, 1984. Among the hundreds of books published on the subject, this one remains a classic. Offers a comprehensive story of Einstein’s life interwoven with his scientific theories. Accessible to lay readers. Includes many historical photographs. Eddington, A. S. Space, Time, and Gravitation. 1920. Reprint. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995. This delightful classic has been reprinted numerous times. Eddington was one of the original researchers of general relativity and was one of the
first to understand it. For the well-informed reader, this book gives as much insight into general relativity as can be had without mastery of the mathematics of tensor calculus. Goldsmith, Maurice, Alan Mackay, and James Woudhuysen, eds. Einstein: The First Hundred Years. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1980. Collection of various papers on Einstein by experts. Contributions address Einstein the man as well as his impacts on science, society, world affairs, and the arts. Useful for the general reader. Hoffmann, Banesh, and Helen Dukas. Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel. New York: Viking Press, 1972. Presents “the essential flavor of the man and his science.” Dukas was Einstein’s personal secretary for many years, and she offers some interesting insights. Includes many historical photographs. Pais, Abraham. Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. 1982. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Meticulously referenced biography of Einstein. Features detailed chronology of Einstein’s life, good subject index, and exhaustive name index. Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed. Albert Einstein: PhilosopherScientist. 2 vols. Evanston, Ill.: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949. Collection of essays about Einstein and his work, most of which should be useful to the well-informed layperson. Of special interest are the autobiographical notes by Einstein in volume 1 and the extensive bibliography of Einstein’s works in volume 2. Will, Clifford M. Was Einstein Right? Putting General Relativity to the Test. 2d ed. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Fascinating work, geared for the informed layperson, reviews the classic three tests of relativity. See also: Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity; Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity; 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity.
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mind.” The general theory of relativity was a great achievement in which all of humankind could take pride. Einstein’s theory of gravitation will continue to be tested under any circumstance that can be devised, for that is the nature of science. The general theory of relativity has passed the three tests (gravitational redshift, perihelion advance of Mercury, and bending of starlight) Einstein suggested as well as many more tests using radar, radio telescopes, pulsars, and quasars. Einstein has shown that space is not simply an empty place. Space and time are not independent but must be considered together; furthermore, they are curved by mass. Perhaps most exciting is the picture of the universe that the theory predicts. Ironically, when Einstein’s theory led to the conclusion that the universe was expanding, he rejected it at first, until 1929, when the American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble offered experimental evidence to show that the universe is, in fact, expanding. Although the properties of the universe as a whole are not yet known, there is every reason to suppose that they will be consistent with the general theory of relativity. —Charles W. Rogers
Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 16, 1919
Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary Admiral Miklós Horthy led a right-wing government to power in Hungary amid tremendous civil strife and foreign intervention. He then ruled Hungary for more than twenty years and steered the country into the Axis camp before World War II. Locale: Budapest, Hungary Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Miklós Horthy (1868-1957), Hungarian nobleman, admiral, and political leader Béla Kun (1866-1939), Hungarian revolutionary Summary of Event In 1919, Hungary was a completely new nation-state. It was created only in the wake of World War I with the destruction of the Habsburg Empire, which had absorbed the large and powerful Kingdom of Hungary in 1526. This new state was in the throes of several crises, ranging from the need to recover from the the damage of the long war and gross foreign manipulation to protracted wrangling over its borders and its new system of government. At the end of World War I, Hungary was ruled by Count Mihály Károlyi, who had been appointed to carry out certain reforms by the last emperor, Karl I. Károlyi was deeply disturbed by the victors’ emerging plans greatly to reduce Hungary’s traditional size and population in order to give territory and population to the other new nation-states situated around it. There was also considerable unrest among the country’s peasants, workers, and returning soldiers. Before it could address any of these issues, however, Károlyi’s government gave way in March, 1919, to a group of communists and socialists led by the Moscowtrained revolutionary Béla Kun. The Hungarian Soviet (or Socialist) Republic only lasted 133 days, but it severely damaged the country. From the communist point of view, the Károlyi government had represented the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution, and the time was right to begin nationalizing Hungary’s industry and collectivizing its agricultural resources, as well as engaging in a host of less radical reforms. Conservative Hungarians and the victorious allies were mortified. Kun’s government instituted the “Red Terror,” a program of summary justice aimed at supposed opponents of the communist regime, which alienated many Hungarians and invited an extremist reaction from the right. Furthermore, Kun’s radicalism 1544
and his ties to the Soviets prompted the Allies, still sitting in judgment of Hungary during the long preparations of the Treaty of Trianon, to encourage the forces of neighboring states to destabilize Hungary. The resulting incursions, especially the long Romanian occupation of Budapest, left Hungary further humiliated and plundered. The was the background to the rise to power of Miklós Horthy. Horthy was born on June 18, 1868, into a Calvinist (Protestant) noble family in Kenderes, a small town southeast of the Hungarian capital of Budapest. He had already distinguished himself as an admiral and adviser to Emperor Franz Josef, and upon his return to Hungary, Horthy joined the counterrevolutionary, or “White,” government based in the southern city of Szeged. The forces of this government opposed the Hungarian socialist (or “Red”) government that had seized power in Budapest. Horthy became the Whites’ overall military commander. His forces eventually numbered fifty thousand. After Kun fled to Austria in early August, Horthy occupied much of Hungary, but it took the Allies until November to force the Romanians to leave Budapest and to decide to work with Horthy’s Christian National Unity Party. When Horthy entered Budapest at the head of his army on November 16, 1919, he was riding a white horse. This was a gesture laden with historical symbolism for Hungarians: He was deliberately invoking one thousand years of images of Árpád, the equestrian warrior who had begun the Hungarian state along the Danube River. Two decades later, Horthy and the white horse would again be in evidence when he occupied the territories Adolf Hitler granted to Hungary in the First and Second Vienna Awards. Horthy organized a new government under Károly Huszár and was soon elected “temporary regent” of the country by the new National Assembly in March, 1920. Horthy’s political views were extremely conservative, and he became a stalwart nationalist in independent Hungary, even though he had been a devoted monarchist for the duration of the AustroHungarian Empire. He also straddled the divide between social conservative and right-radical, giving succor and opportunities to fascist movements at home and abroad but not adopting fascism himself. As the Hungarian journalist and historian Paul Lendvai has noted, Horthy’s government was socially conservative, anti-Semitic, anti-intellectual, and autocratic. On June 4, 1920, the Hungarians had to accept the Treaty of Trianon. In addition to the drastic border
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The struggle for power in postwar Hungary led to “red scares” around Europe because of the temporary success of Kun’s revolutionaries. Horthy’s struggle against Kun, however, was significantly blemished by a “White terror,” or persecution of potential opponents and minorities, that took five thousand lives and saw seventy thousand arrests. Horthy’s rule then provided stability to the newly created but war-ravaged state of Hungary after 1920, especially during the ten-year administration of Prime Minister Gábor Bethlen (1921-1931). Indeed, compared with other countries across the continent,
Horthy’s reign was one of the longest in an interwar period marked by great tumult. Nonetheless Horthy also courted trouble in many ways: Hungary instituted the first discriminatory laws against Jews after World War I, the regent became ever more authoritarian, and he moved ever closer to Hitler’s orbit, accepting the latter’s offer of territory from Czechoslovakia and Romania. Horthy eventually steered his country into an alliance with the Axis and helped attack the Soviet Union in 1944. —John K. Cox Further Reading Borsanyi, György. The Life of a Communist Revolutionary, Béla Kun. Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 1993. The most extensive study of the struggle that catapulted Horthy to power. Horthy, Miklos. Memoirs. London: Hutchinson, 1956. Horthy’s own account of his life, orginally written in German during his exile in Portugal. Lendvai, Paul. The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. An engaging and comprehensive history of Hungary by a journalist of considerable standing. Very competent as an overview and well-spiced with anecdotes. Sakmyster, Thomas. Hungary’s Admiral on Horseback: Miklós Horthy, 1918-1944. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1994. The most comprehensive work on Horthy’s life and reign in English, this extensive work draws on many primary sources. Its author is a well-known scholar on Hungary between the two world wars. Sugar, Peter E., ed. A History of Hungary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. The best scholarly history of Hungary, well written and richly documented by a team of mostly Hungarian scholars. Tökés, Rudolf. Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic: The Origins and Role of the Communist Party of Hungary in the Revolutions of 1918-1919. New York: Praeger, 1967. The first major study in English of the power struggle between Horthy and Kun, written by a well-known scholar in Hungarian interwar history. See also: Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia; Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty. 1545
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changes it enacted, this treaty (as the Treaty of Versailles did to Germany) placed restrictions on Hungary’s military, forced the country to pay an indemnity, and skewed its economic structure. Most ominously, Hungary had lost an enormous proportion of its traditional holdings: 70 percent of its territory and 60 percent of its population. The latter figure included 28 percent of the population of native Hungarian speakers. Those speakers now found themselves minorities in Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Austria, separated from their motherland by the borders of the new map of Europe drawn by the British, French, and American victors in World War I. The Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, as the traditional Hungarian territories were known, had always been very multiethnic. As a result of the desire of the Allies to punish Hungary for being on the losing side of the Great War and of their efforts to reward and stabilize Hungary’s neighbors, a “small Hungary” was created. The sense of outrage at being robbed of the right to selfdetermination turned interwar Hungary into a revisionist or revanchist state, eager to regain lost lands (even those in which Hungarians were not a majority of the population) by any means necessary. This general atmosphere made Horthy’s autocracy possible, and it predisposed him to cooperate later with Hitler on foreign policy issues. Meanwhile, in domestic politics, Karl I, who had ruled under the Habsburg system as King Károly IV in Hungary, returned from exile twice in 1921 and attempted to install himself as monarch; both times, Horthy rebuffed him, partly because Allied reaction was vehemently negative and partly to protect his own power. Horthy, over the next twenty-four years as a regent with no king in sight, also held at bay Hungary’s fascists, again partly to avoid being sidelined by them but also because his views were not as extreme as were theirs. The country enjoyed some economic growth under Horthy, but the democratic system eroded severely.
Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary
Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Early 1920’s
Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra Vesto Melvin Slipher pioneered the spectroscopy of galaxies and discovered that most galaxies are receding at high velocities, demonstrating that the universe is composed of many galaxies expanding away from one another. Locale: Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875-1969), American astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916), American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer Milton L. Humason (1891-1972), American astronomer Summary of Event The general view held by astronomers in the first two decades of the twentieth century was that the universe consisted of a single aggregation of stars, the Milky Way galaxy, which was a system of stars estimated to be about 10,000 light-years in diameter. All objects that were visible in the heavens through the largest telescopes were thought to be part of our galaxy; beyond, a trackless, undifferentiated void extended infinitely far. By the early part of the twentieth century, astronomers had compiled extensive catalogs listing the visible constituents of the galaxy, which included numerous stars and various nebulas, misty patches of light in the sky whose complete nature was not understood then but were presumed to consist primarily of gases. Photographs of nebulas showed that some had irregular shapes but that many had a distinctly spiral structure. Percival Lowell was keenly interested in the study of the spiral nebulas. A member of a prominent Boston family, Lowell was able to finance the construction of his own observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, dedicated to the study of planets. Lowell’s interest in the spiral nebulas lay in the notion, held by nearly all astronomers at the beginning of the twentieth century, that they were planetary systems in the process of formation. The study of spiral nebulas, Lowell hoped, would disclose valuable clues to the origin of the solar system. In 1901, Lowell hired Vesto Melvin Slipher as an observer at Lowell Observatory and assigned him to a 1546
project on spiral nebulas. Slipher was to take spectra of the brighter ones and look for Doppler shifts in their light, which would reveal motions taking place within them. Lowell expected the results to support the theory that the spiral nebulas were rotating, contracting clouds of gas that would eventually form a planetary system or a cluster of stars. Slipher thought this was unlikely; he believed the spirals were probably systems of stars outside our own galaxy. By late 1912, and using the 24-inch (61-centimeter) refractor at the Lowell Observatory, Slipher had photographed four separate times the spectrum of the Andromeda nebula, one of the largest and brightest of the spirals. Because of the slowness of the photographic emulsions of the time, Slipher found it necessary to expose each photograph for twenty to forty hours, spread over several nights. When examined, the spectra were found to be similar to those of stars like the Sun, a band of colors from blue to red crossed by dark lines that are characteristic of the elements found in the stars. Slipher had provided the first hint that a spiral nebula was a system of stars rather than a collection of gases. Without knowing the distance to the Andromeda nebula, however, Slipher was not able to demonstrate conclusively that the nebula was external to the Milky Way. Slipher interpreted, as did many other astronomers who learned of his work, the failure to detect individual stars in the spirals as an indication of their large distances. In the spectra of the Andromeda nebula, Slipher noticed that there was a systematic shift of all the dark lines toward the blue end of the spectrum. Such a Doppler shift of all the lines toward either the red or blue was attributed to a systematic motion of the emitting nebula as a whole. If the object is moving toward the observer, the shift is toward the blue end of the optical spectrum and is called a blueshift. If the object is moving away, there is a corresponding redshift. The size of the shift in the position of the dark lines provides a direct measure of the speed with which the object is moving toward or away from the observer. In the case of the Andromeda nebula’s blueshift, Slipher’s data indicated that it was approaching at the speed of 300 kilometers per second, a speed greater than that of any astronomical object measured at the time. Slipher extended the work on spiral nebulas and by 1914 had analyzed the spectra of twelve additional spi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra
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est. Nevertheless, Slipher’s work forcefully showed that rals, making a total of thirteen spirals whose Doppler spirals were probably galaxies in their own right, extershifts had been measured. Two of the spectra displayed a nal to the Milky Way, and that the overwhelming preblueshift (one was that of the Andromeda nebula), but ponderance of redshifts indicated that galaxies were all the other eleven were all redshifts, indicating that these rushing away from one another. nebulas were receding. If the spirals were part of the Slipher’s pioneering work on the redshifts of the spiMilky Way galaxy, astronomers expected that roughly ral nebulas provided the foundation for a coherent pichalf would be approaching and half would be receding. ture of the evolution of the universe. In the late 1920’s, Moreover, the speeds of recession measured by Slipher Slipher’s evidence was juxtaposed, along with the cosranged up to an astounding 1,100 kilometers per second. mological arguments that were being discussed by asA pattern was beginning to emerge, and astronomers betronomers. It provided the impetus for a major new gan to suggest openly that the spirals must be stellar sysproject to determine the distances to the galaxies. tems outside of our galaxy. The speeds of the spiral nebuFollowing the construction of the giant 100-inch las seemed to be too great for them to be gravitationally (254-centimeter) Hooker telescope at the Mount Wilson bound to our galaxy. Slipher’s results helped direct attenObservatory in California, Milton L. Humason and Edtion to the spiral nebulas and to the theory that space is win Powell Hubble were able to study the spiral nebulas populated by visible galaxies. in much greater detail than had been possible for Slipher. Slipher was fastidious, methodical, and careful. AlIn fact, with the new telescope, individual stars could be though his results until 1914 suggested that most spirals discerned in some of the larger spirals, the Andromeda were in recession, he believed it necessary to continue nebula in particular. Now, all doubt was removed regardthis line of inquiry and extend the survey further; a saming the spiral nebulas: They were galaxies, vast systems ple of thirteen Doppler shifts was not convincing. By of stars similar to the Milky Way of which the Sun is a 1923, Slipher had measured Doppler shifts in forty-one part. different nebulas; thirty-six had redshifts, and the reWith individual stars available for study, they could maining five had blueshifts. Meanwhile, other astronobe compared with stars in the Milky Way, and the dismers had added four more to the list; these were all tance to the galaxy could be estimated. The Andromeda redshifts. When it was discovered in 1925 that the Milky galaxy lay at a distance of 750,000 light-years, far outWay galaxy as a whole was rotating and that the Sun, beside the Milky Way. Other spirals had even greater discause of the rotation, was moving with a speed of 250 kitances. Using the redshift data inherited from Slipher, lometers per second in a direction generally toward the Andromeda nebula, the Doppler speeds of the nebulas, as measured by Slipher, were corrected for the roThe Doppler Shift tation of the galaxy. Thus the 300kilometer-per-second approach of the Andromeda nebula is composed of a 250-kilometer-per-second motion of the Sun toward the spiral Observer sees Observer sees and an intrinsic 50-kilometer-per“redshift” “blueshift” second approach of the spiral. When A so corrected, of the total of forty-five nebular Doppler shifts measured, forty-three were redshifts. Slipher had demonstrated clearly Direction of movement that the general trend was for the spiral nebulas to exhibit redshifts in their spectra, indicating that they were receding from the Milky Way In the phenomenon known as the Doppler shift, light waves appear bluer (because galaxy and from one another. The they are shorter) when the source is moving toward the observer and redder (because two exceptions were the largest spithey are longer) when the source is moving away from the observer. Above, “A” is a rals, and therefore probably the nearsource of light, such as the Andromeda nebula.
Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra Hubble combined those results with the distance measurements based on his and Humason’s observations to arrive at a relationship between distance and recessional velocity: The greater the recessional velocity of a galaxy, the greater is its distance. Significance To astronomers of the time, the cause of the recession was now clear. To explain the rush of galaxies away from one another, the universe must be expanding. Such an idea had its roots in the theory of general relativity published by Albert Einstein in 1916. Thereafter, Einstein and other astronomers and physicists examined the consequences of the theory and found that the universe should generally be in a state of either expansion or contraction. Slipher’s redshift measurements and Hubble’s correlation with distance demonstrated that the universe is expanding, an observation of central importance to cosmology. Since as time progresses, the universe expands, it must have been the case that in earlier epochs the galaxies were very close together and, at one time, entirely coalesced. Astronomers reached the startling conclusion that the universe was born in a titanic explosion (now called the big bang) that hurled the material from which the galaxies eventually formed. The highspeed rush of galaxies away from one another is direct evidence of that genesis. Humason extended the redshift work, and by 1935 had added 150 measurements to Slipher’s list. Recessional speeds now were up to 40,000 kilometers per second. When distances were determined for the galaxies, Hubble’s redshift-distance relation still held. By the mid1930’s, astronomers pictured a universe full of galaxies that were rushing apart from one another as a result of a fiery birth in the distant past. This model of the universe has remained fundamentally unchanged to the present. —Anthony J. Nicastro Further Reading Barrow, John D., and Joseph Silk. The Left Hand of Creation: The Origin and Evolution of the Expanding Universe. 1983. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. This book, authored by internationally renowned astronomers, presents an account of the origins and evolution of the universe geared for the general reader. Focuses primarily on developments in cosmology after the 1930’s. Includes an extensive glossary, an index, and suggestions for further reading.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Ferris, Timothy. The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe. Rev. ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. Well-presented volume discusses the history of the major discoveries in astronomy, paying particular attention to the individuals who made these discoveries. A comprehensible, accurate discussion of astronomy written in an engaging style for readers who have no familiarity with modern cosmological ideas. Includes extensive glossary, selected bibliography, and index, as well as a small collection of rare photographs of the personalities involved in the major discoveries of the twentieth century. Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. 1980. Reprint. New York: Random House, 2002. Visually stunning book, based on Sagan’s thirteen-part television series of the same name, includes more than 250 color illustrations. Addresses science in its broadest human context: how science and civilization grew up together. Makes scientific ideas both comprehensible and exciting, often focusing on the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science. Includes index and suggestions for further reading. Silk, Joseph. The Big Bang. 3d ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2000. Presents a sweeping account of the formation and evolution of the universe. Recounts the history of astronomical speculation about the universe and examines evidence for the big bang theory. Includes glossary and index. _______. On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. A history of the universe and the development of humankind’s knowledge about it that is accessible to lay readers. Includes illustrations and index. Wilson, Colin. Starseekers. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980. Charts the history of the discovery of the universe from ancient to modern times, including information on the lives of the seminal thinkers involved. Weaves in elements of history, religion, philosophy, and science. Imaginatively illustrated. Includes bibliography and index. See also: 1904: Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter; Aug., 1905: Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion
1920’s
Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion Coco Chanel adapted British taste in menswear to women’s clothing, creating a couture style that would define the modern woman of elegance throughout the twentieth century. Locale: Paris, France Category: Fashion and design
Summary of Event World War I was an important dividing line between the old and the new in many aspects of social life; it was decisive, for example, in women’s high fashion, or “haute couture.” Corsets, boning, long skirts, and huge hats gave way to simpler, less confining designs, just as upper-class restrictions on women gave way in many other aspects of life. There were some attempts to reinstate old ideas of fashion by modifying them slightly and presenting them as a new look, but these did not take hold. The tone set in the 1920’s thus shaped fashion attitudes across all classes for much of the twentieth century. Coco Chanel has become identified with this change. Although not the first designer to inaugurate each element in the wardrobe of the so-called New Woman, Chanel did create the ensemble epitomizing the new century. By taking many of the same steps that had revolutionized men’s fashions in the early nineteenth century (adapting sporting clothes for general wear, applying lower-class functionality to clothing for the rich, and using limited color across the entire wardrobe) and especially by adapting menswear for women, Chanel offered women clothing that spoke of ease, independence, and elegance. Financially backed and advised by Arthur Capel, who was also her lover, Chanel first found success in the wartime environment of refugees and profiteers in Deauville and Biarritz, France. She sold looser, shorter, more prac-
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Key Figures Coco Chanel (1883-1971), French fashion designer Pierre Wertheimer (1888-1965), French perfumer Arthur Capel (1883-1919), British entrepreneur and diplomat Hugh Grosvenor (1879-1953), second duke of Westminster Misia Sert (1872-1950), Paris salon hostess and arts patron Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French poet, dramatist, and filmmaker
tical dresses of “poor” fabrics, such as woolen jersey, at exorbitant prices. After the war, she concentrated her efforts in Paris, where both she and her fashions captured the look of la garçonne, the French boy-girl known in the United States as the flapper. Chanel designed clothes for young, active women with bobbed hair and athletic, androgynous bodies. Chanel’s simple clothes of knit fabrics, ingeniously cut and precisely tailored, permitted unheard-of freedom of movement. For day and evening wear, simple chemises without waists or busts required few or no undergarments. Suits adapted from British men’s sportswear came with functional pockets in both shirt and jacket. Hems were short for both day and night. At Chanel’s studios, decoration gave way to functional purity, in keeping with Art Deco standards. She rejected ornamentation in favor of cut, and she restricted color to the basics— navy, beige, and, especially, black. In 1925, she introduced “the little black dress” for evening. It was so simple, so pared to essentials, that the editor of Vogue magazine compared it to the Ford automobile—one model, exquisitely crafted as a uniform for all. Elegance was now a matter of cut and, above all, attitude. Chanel’s personal history was so colorful that it has sometimes detracted from the study and appraisal of her professional contributions. What is clear, however, is that Chanel was uniquely positioned to exploit the changes under way in the 1910’s and 1920’s. Of lowerclass origins herself, she took advantage of the economic dislocation that occurred after the war to associate with the rich and the avant-garde. Beginning frankly as an irrégulière, a kept woman, with a preference for British men of wealth, she exploited her supporters financially and socially while borrowing fashion concepts from their closets. Capel started her in the couture business, although an earlier admirer had set her up in her first shop as a milliner. Capel also introduced her to British tailoring. A liaison with a Russian grand duke in the early 1920’s brought with it Chanel’s decision to use embroidery and exotic furs and, perhaps, even her interest in perfumes. Between 1925 and 1931—the years of her well-publicized liaison with the wealthiest man in England, Hugh Grosvenor, the second duke of Westminster—she discovered tweeds, reemphasized menswear cuts, and draped day wear with ropes of real and fake jewels. Each season, her affairs were exposed by the gos-
Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion sip writers; each season, she revealed them herself on the runways. In addition to clothing, jewels and perfumes were two areas developed by Chanel in the 1920’s. The gifts of jewelry that she received from Grosvenor were well known; one account attributes her interest in popularizing costume jewelry to her desire to wear her own wealth without appearing gauche. Chanel opened her jewelry studio in 1924, creating pieces to fill the space between real gems and cheap imitations. Although many of the designs still associated with her name—including long jeweled ropes and heraldic blazons—were designed during this time, it was actually the 1930’s that saw her greatest innovations. Of even greater long-term significance for the Chanel name was the creation of Chanel perfumes, beginning in 1921 with Chanel No. 5. Chanel No. 5 was not the first perfume to take advantage of advances in synthetic chemistry, but it was the first to use an aldehyde base, permitting greater intensity and stability of scent. Chanel played an important part in the design of the fragrance and its packaging but in 1924 turned over production and distribution—and most of the profits—to perfumer Pierre Wertheimer. Chanel was a male-identified woman, and she had few female associates. The exception was Misia Sert. Sert began as a musician and artist’s model; as a result of her advantageous marriages and her irrepressible personality, by the 1920’s she was hostess to the liveliest of Parisian avant-garde circles. Chanel met Misia Sert in 1921 and through her came to associate with the luminaries of the art world: Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Reverdy, and Jean Cocteau. Chanel was frequently very generous to artists in need, opening her home to them for extended periods or quietly bestowing on them the funds needed for their continuing productivity. She collaborated with Cocteau, designing costumes for a production of Antigone in 1923, for Diaghilev’s ballet Le Train Bleu in 1924, and again in 1926 for Cocteau’s Orphée (Orpheus, 1933). Significance Chanel certainly did not invent everything attributed to her during the 1920’s. She was not the first to bob her hair, dispose of her corset, shorten skirts, or design fragrances. She herself owed much to Paul Poiret, and many other designers were moving toward the creation of comfortable, boyish clothes during the decade. Much of Chanel’s overwhelming impact is due to her longevity; she was a major designer in Paris for almost sixty years, from 1915 until her death in 1971. She was enormously 1550
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 successful in financial terms, and she set a style in the 1920’s that other designers—and she herself—returned to for inspiration throughout the century. Furthermore, her designs, stressing simplicity as they did, could easily be copied and translated into ready-to-wear clothes. Thus Chanel’s fashion sense became a signature for women of all classes. Few major designers of the second half of the twentieth century did not, at some time or other, pay homage to Chanel designs. For some, the homage became a principle underlying creativity; for others, it approached complete imitation. The impact Chanel designs had on the ready-to-wear market—and continued to have during the last decades of the twentieth century—was really an enlargement of an earlier phenomenon. Even during the 1920’s and 1930’s, Chanel’s designs encouraged “knockoffs.” Because of their streamlined simplicity and their standardization, they were easy to copy. Chanel was sanguine about this copying, feeling that it was inevitable. Through the ready-to-wear trade, the wardrobes of most women in Europe and the United States came to bear Chanel’s impress, and the elegance of the Parisian woman, her fashionable nonchalance and black, navy, and creamcolored basics set off by one or two remarkable accessories, still represents the elegance of Chanel. Chanel continues to be a major trendsetter even into the twenty-first century in the worlds of fragrance and fashion. —Jean Owens Schaefer Further Reading Charles-Roux, Edmonde. Chanel and Her World: Friends, Fashion, and Fame. Translated by Dan Wheeler. New York: Vendome Press, 2005. A rich and informative compendium of historical photographs of Chanel, her circle, and her society. Annotations provide sufficient information to serve as a visual biography of Chanel. Gives more attention to Chanel’s society than to her work. Too-brief coverage of Chanel after World War II. Index and partial biographical dictionary. _______. Chanel: Her Life, Her World, and the Woman Behind the Legend She Herself Created. Translated by Nancy Amphoux. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Generally considered to be the most reliable of the many biographies of Chanel. Like others, CharlesRoux is more interested in her life in society, including her affairs, than in her contributions as a designer. Good grasp of her personality. De Marly, Diana. The History of Haute Couture, 18501950. London: B. T. Batsford, 1980. History of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard rangement of fashions in Vogue. The century is divided into segments of approximately six to nine years; each segment is introduced in a brief essay, and accounts of the individual years in fashion are given. Useful because so many other works are cavalier about the specific dates of fashion events. Copiously illustrated, but in small black-and-white reprints from the magazine. Richards, Melissa. Chanel Key Collections. New York: Welcome Rain, 2000. An overview, with illustrations, of the major fashion collections developed by Coco Chanel during her career. Provides direct knowledge of Chanel’s work and innovations. Steele, Valerie. Women of Fashion: Twentieth Century Designers. New York: Rizzoli, 1991. History of women in fashion, written from a contemporary feminist perspective, highlighting the major role played by female designers in the period between the two world wars. Attention is also given to an international range of contemporary women designers. Extensive notes and bibliography. Many illustrations, some in color. See also: Spring, 1910: Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage; 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit; Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion.
1920’s
Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard As dean of the Harvard Business School, Wallace B. Donham introduced the case history teaching method to improve students’ management skills and knowledge of the business world. Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Education; business and labor Key Figures Wallace B. Donham (1877-1954), dean of the Harvard Business School, 1919-1942 N. S. B. Gras (1884-1956), professor at the Harvard Business School Henrietta M. Larson (1894-1983), developer of case histories at the Harvard Business School Edwin F. Gay (1867-1946), first editor of the Journal of Economic and Business History
Summary of Event Today, virtually all management-related textbooks for business classes include case histories. There was a time, however, when such books contained nothing but theory. Wallace B. Donham, who was appointed to the position of dean of the Harvard Business School in 1919, changed that. He introduced an innovative element to the teaching of business: the case history. In so doing, he changed the way business subjects were taught at colleges and universities and improved the quality of graduates entering the business world. Both educators and business executives owe Donham a large debt of gratitude as a result. Donham began his business career as a banker. After Harvard appointed him to the position of dean of the business school in 1919, he sought to introduce a major change into the curriculum: the inclusion of actual busi1551
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beginnings of haute couture, with emphasis on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Interesting chapters on the organization and financial aspects of the couture industry and on clients and their wardrobe requirements. Chanel is dealt with primarily in chapter 9. Black-and-white illustrations; brief bibliography. Galante, Pierre. Mademoiselle Chanel. Translated by Eileen Geist and Jessie Wood. Chicago: H. Regnery, 1973. Another biographer seduced by Chanel’s love affairs and the glitter of her circle; some attention to the business side of couture, the method of work in the salon. Strong grasp of the complexities of her personality. Leymarie, Jean, with Catherine Hübschmann. Chanel. Translated by Jean-Marie Clarke. New York: Rizzoli, 1987. Purports to be an overview of the designs of Chanel in relation to the art of her age, although the connections made with pre-twentieth century art are occasionally fanciful. Perhaps more interested in art than in an analysis of Chanel’s oeuvre. Well illustrated. Madsen, Axel. Chanel: A Woman of Her Own. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. An update of the biography by Charles-Roux. With bibliography. Mulvagh, Jane. Vogue History of Twentieth Century Fashion. London: Viking, 1988. Chronological ar-
Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard ness histories to supplement the theory on which teachers relied so heavily. He hired N. S. B. Gras, a professor at the University of Minnesota, to come to Harvard and implement a teaching, research, and writing program designed to introduce the case history method. Gras began at once to develop the case histories Donham so ardently wanted. He enlisted the help of several associates, primarily Henrietta M. Larson, to develop cases for his courses. Gras also teamed with Edwin F. Gay, a professor at Harvard, to publish the Journal of Economic and Business History. Gay edited the publication and Gras acted as the managing editor. The first issue appeared in November, 1928. The Great Depression forced the journal to cease publication in 1932; Gras and Gay had parted ways a year earlier following disagreements over editorial policies. Six years later, the school resumed publication of the journal under a new name, the Bulletin of the Business Historical Society; it was renamed the Business History Review in 1954. The journal kept alive Donham’s idea of the case history approach and provides evidence of the longevity of his ideas. Donham was named dean of the Harvard Business School at a time when people were beginning to look at business as a profession. Owen D. Young, the industrialist largely responsible for the rise of the General Electric Company, discussed the new importance of business in a speech he delivered on June 4, 1927, at the dedication of the George F. Baker Foundation of the Harvard Graduate School. He noted that until then, business largely had been conducted within the community and on a small scale. Consequently, the community disciplined the individual businessperson effectively. As the 1920’s came to a close, however, business was becoming bigger, and its local flavor was fading. Many businesspeople and educators saw a need for a new approach to teaching business. Donham was one of these people. Colleges did not place business education, especially at the graduate level, among their highest priorities in the early part of the twentieth century. For example, only two universities in the United States, Harvard and Stanford, sponsored schools that dedicated themselves entirely to graduate students of business. The Wharton School of Finance, the first collegiate school of business established in the United States, concentrated on undergraduate training. Many businesspeople saw the lack of concentration at the graduate level as a severe deficiency in the educational system, and some business executives sought to remedy that situation. Young’s speech was part of the ceremonies celebrating the donation of a multimillion-dollar gift to business education from the noted New 1552
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York banker George F. Baker. Donham connected the donation with his vision of the new profession of business, which included a social consciousness with the objective of a sound evolutionary progress of civilization. Donham believed that education at the college level is a powerful accelerator of social change. He advocated a balance between scientific and liberal arts education, if for no better reason than to advance the study of business. He believed fervently that business is the main instrument through which science brings social change. Donham emphasized that more college graduates were finding careers in business than in any other field. He also noted that an increasing number of engineering school graduates were becoming business administrators instead of engineers. He concluded therefore that educators should concentrate on providing students with a well-rounded business curriculum. He emphasized that education should not be strictly theoretical and that training should not necessarily be restricted to colleges. In his own experience, Donham had learned that business administration in a technical and immediate sense was often relatively weak in its overall public relations and in its handling of human problems. He determined to correct this deficiency by widening students’ overall knowledge of business theory and its practical application. Donham explained that the mission of the Harvard Business School was not so much to train specialists as it was to develop students’ capacity to examine as many of the constantly changing facts and forces surrounding administrative situations in business as they could bring effectively into their thinking. They would then use these facts imaginatively in determining current policies and action. The method Donham favored as a way of developing students’ capacities was the case history. He suggested that case histories would illustrate how problems actually come to the attention of business managers and show the background material actually used to solve those problems. He argued that the study of case histories would develop students’ essential habits, skills, and abilities, enabling them to form judgments based on diverse factual situations. Significance Donham soon reported that the Harvard Business School had experienced success with the case history method. The results had been so positive, in fact, that he suggested the method be included in substantial parts of the curriculum in general education. He stressed that schools should not, however, place complete reliance on the case
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Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard reporting cases. Everyone involved in the process realized that the quality of supervision could be improved if the professors went through the data-gathering process themselves. This, combined with consulting work performed by the professors, which gave them the opportunity to work directly with businesses, sharpened the professors’ teaching abilities. Donham concluded that the results improved the business school’s status in everyone’s eyes. Students learned more about the realities of business principles, rather than only the perceptions. Professors became more adept at integrating practical application and theory in their presentations. Businesspeople derived benefits from hiring newly graduated students who had a broader knowledge of actual business practices. Donham noted also that the faculty’s teaching became more realistic and satisfactory to students. Professors could imagine themselves in the surroundings of particular cases with sufficient accuracy without making actual site visits. This realistic touch spread to their teaching of cases collected by their assistants. Another virtue of the case history method was that it freed professors from the feeling that they were amateurs looking in from the outside. Their classroom experience and repeated experience of discovering that they could hold their own in business conferences at which business problems and policy were discussed confirmed this. In effect, Donham believed that the case history approach broke down the fence between theory and practice. Donham also was careful to point out that problems remained in using the case history method. He cited the lack of cases to use as teaching materials, the costs of gathering data, heavy teaching loads, and the sense of insecurity that afflicted many teachers when, with their background as specialists, they themselves faced the necessity of formulating policy judgments on the basis of complex and shifting facts. Business administration teachers frequently commented to Donham that they were unable to establish direct contacts with business because of lack of funds or heavy teaching loads. Therefore, they found it difficult to use cases as a teaching tool. Donham encouraged these teachers to overcome the obstacles as best they could, lest they be shown up by students who knew more than they did because of the students’ familiarity with case histories. He advised the teachers that the extra work they had to put in to integrate cases into their classes would be well worth the effort. Not everyone agreed with Donham’s assessment. Some detractors of the case study method expressed fears that it would result in uniformity. Donham argued 1553
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history method. In his view, students still needed to do a large amount of reading in theory if they were to gain the necessary background in their fields of specialization. The case history approach, however, offered a number of benefits to students in a variety of fields. In his 1944 book Education for Responsible Living: The Opportunity for Liberal-Arts Colleges, Donham presented a brief history of the impact of case histories on the curriculum at Harvard. Originally, the business faculty implemented the method on an experimental basis. The professors had seen how well case histories had worked in the law school and wanted to apply the method in business education. They hoped that it would do the same thing it had in the teaching of law, stimulating both student initiative and student interest. From the onset, it accomplished these results so satisfactorily that its use spread rapidly. The implementation process did not go smoothly, however. At first, no books of finished business case histories existed for students to purchase, so Harvard professors had to go out into the field to collect data on which to base their own case histories. This practice was fraught with problems. Donham reported that most of the graduate business professors were economists who had little experience in gathering and analyzing business data of the type needed for general case histories. For example, they often omitted essential facts of cases, leaving students with gaping holes in the data being analyzed. Students were therefore unable to arrive at decisions on general policy. Donham and his associates worked diligently to iron out the kinks in the case history method. In so doing, they made some startling discoveries. For example, many of the generalizations they thought of as established principles did not stand the tests imposed by changing facts, and many established theories did not stand the test of practice. Out of this experience, Donham and his cohorts learned that factual situations, realistically reported, are more than a basis for improved pedagogy. One of the school’s concerns in the early stages of the process was monetary. As the procedure for gathering data for cases became better refined, the case reporting was turned over to young graduates of the school of business who were paid entry-level salaries for their efforts. The process helped these young graduates immeasurably as a part of their education, whether they were going into business or into teaching. In addition, it sharpened the professors’ skills. As Donham explained, the data gatherers needed considerable supervision from the professors under whom they worked and for whom they were
Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard that the exact opposite was true. He recalled that in his experience, the only two uniformities running through instruction by the case method were the greater reliance on discussion in which students took part and the fact that every discussion started, as the students knew, from some honestly reported segment of concrete reality that called for a decision or a judgment. In Donham’s mind, there were no other fixed formulas. Donham concluded that the case system was radically different from the project method used in the extreme progressive schools and from the use of problems as isolated bits of student research. He stressed that emphasis should always be placed on systematic development of a subject. Furthermore, he noted, the choice of what was important to study was always the teacher’s to make. He also pointed out that the case method involved group work, much as true business management does. Donham thus discussed a group philosophy of work and study years before this concept became popular. Donham conceded that the case history method might not please everyone or be useful in all situations. Its use did point out the necessity in any reorganization of general education of preventing the repetition year after year, to unreceptive students, of disassociated unused facts and inert knowledge. Instruction, he said, must tie itself into life and develop the habits and skills required to make imaginative judgments. That message had a major impact on business educators as more schools started adopting the case method. By the end of the twentieth century, almost every business textbook published included several case histories. The case history had become a vital component of business teaching. Decades of experience showed that case problems bring reality to business subjects, improve students’ analytic abilities, and increase their learning. They also stimulate students’ interest in acquiring more knowledge about management. That was exactly the message that Donham succeeded in getting across to business teachers. During his tenure as dean of the Harvard Business School, he revolutionized the teaching of business. —Arthur G. Sharp Further Reading Bursk, Edward C., et al., eds. The World of Business. Vol. 3. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962. A compen-
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dium of essays by major contributors to business history. Includes mentions of Donham and his approach and verifies the significance of the case history method. Cruickshank, Henry M., and Keith Davis. Cases in Management. 3d ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1962. Discusses the use of case histories in education, giving examples to acquaint teachers and readers with the approach. Donham, Wallace B. Business Adrift. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931. Discusses how business had departed from the classical operating style of the past and offers suggestions on how management styles can be improved. Many of the ideas are applicable to business today, despite the book’s age. Also lays out a method of treating complex domestic and worldwide social problems. _______. Education for Responsible Living: The Opportunity for Liberal-Arts Colleges. 1944. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1969. Donham uses his experience as a businessperson and educator to offer suggestions to educators on how they can better prepare students for careers in the business world. Gilbert, Horace N., and Charles I. Gragg. An Introduction to Business: A Case Book. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933. This collection of case histories is a prime example of the contemporary impact Donham’s method had on teaching business courses. The authors acknowledge Donham’s influence in their preface. Gras, N. S. B., and Henrietta M. Larson. Casebook in American Business History. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1939. This collection of case histories was among the first of such volumes to be published (the authors mistakenly claimed that it was the first). Contains forty-three cases taken from American and business history, all excellent examples of the kinds of cases touted by Donham as invaluable teaching tools. See also: Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School; Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive.
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Harlem Renaissance
1920’s
Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African American culture, a celebration of blackness that supported a sense of racial pride that continued to fuel vital works of art, music, and literature into the 1930’s and beyond. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Literature; music; arts
Summary of Event In the years after World War I, the population of the New York City neighborhood of Harlem was almost entirely black; the area constituted the largest center of urban African Americans anywhere. Blacks poured into Harlem from all over the United States and the Caribbean, a migration at once optimistic and confident. During the 1920’s and well into the 1930’s, Harlem produced a cultural richness that made it a mecca for New Yorkers of all colors and creeds. Writers and musicians were the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, helping to make Harlem a social and cultural magnet. Poets such as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Countée Cullen were some of Harlem’s brightest stars. They fostered an ethnic pride that strongly influenced later African American writers. Jamaican-born but having moved to the United States in 1912, Claude McKay glorified blackness. His fame rests on poems such as those that appeared in the first American collection of his work, Harlem Shadows, published in 1922. Although he published three novels, some short stories, and an autobiography, McKay’s best works remain his poems, which celebrate the Harlem proletariat and call for racial militancy. McKay’s poems savor blackness in the midst of white hostility. His most famous poem, “If We Must Die,” is often cited for its militant spirit. In it, McKay calls on black Americans to resist oppression even to the death if necessary.
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Key Figures Claude McKay (1889-1948), American poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967), American poet Countée Cullen (1903-1946), American poet Fletcher “Smack” Henderson (1897-1952), American bandleader Duke Ellington (1899-1974), American bandleader and composer Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), American jazz trumpeter, improviser, and singer
Perhaps the most popular writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes, whose poems and prose focus on the triumphs of the “little people” over adversity, the masses struggling to keep their American Dream alive. His characters suffer defeat and humiliation, but they are survivors. In works such as “The Weary Blues,” “Let America Be America Again,” and “Dreams,” Hughes proclaims the desire and the need to save democracy for all Americans. He evokes universal values, not only black ones. Like McKay and Hughes, Countée Cullen published poems in his youth, and by the early 1920’s, his poetry was highly popular. In 1925, he published his first collection of verse, Color, which revealed a strong sense of racial pride. His anthologies Caroling Dusk, Copper Sun, and The Ballad of the Brown Girl: An Old Ballad Retold were published in 1927, but in these works Cullen generally reduced his references to race. Copper Sun, for example, included only seven “race” poems, a fact that disappointed many readers. Unlike McKay and Hughes, Cullen saw color in mostly negative terms, as in “The Shroud of Color,” which focuses on the burden of being black. Cullen implies that the black is an alien in America, an exile from the African homeland. He portrays the price of being black and striving for full human rights as a crushing weight. With the publication of The Black Christ, and Other Poems in 1929, Cullen clearly moved away from race, presenting himself as a poet, not a black poet. It was his protest poems, however, that earned Cullen lasting fame. African American music was also being accepted and promoted in the American culture at large by the 1920’s. Jazz came of age, helped in large measure by white bandleader Paul Whiteman’s introduction of classical jazz to New York in 1924. Yet it was mainly black bandleaders such as Fletcher “Smack” Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong who popularized jazz in and beyond Harlem. Jazz dates from the post-Civil War era, when it was created out of a mixture of the blues, work songs, and spirituals. In the early 1900’s, New Orleans musicians were the first to employ jazz’s characteristic improvisation. Henderson, Ellington, and Armstrong brought the style—with modifications—to New York’s nightclubs, where both white and black patrons embraced it ardently. Ironically, the first major showplace for these band-
Harlem Renaissance leaders was the Cotton Club, which admitted only white audiences. The growth of jazz was aided by the rise of the recording industry, which brought the music to parts of the United States where live performances were not possible or rare. Some critics, many of them black intellectuals, considered jazz unrefined, too raw, and even denigrating to the African American image. Jazz became a craze, however; it was unstoppable. On March 12, 1926, Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom opened, an architectural and musical phenomenon. Its sheer size and elegant furnishings awed patrons and made it a showplace for music and dancing. Henderson’s orchestra performed there regularly, luring patrons with performer-audience interaction. Henderson has often been called the “father of swing,” although he was strongly influenced by the young solo trumpeter Louis Armstrong. The Savoy was open to people of all classes and colors. Music was a serious business there; in addition to the Henderson and Ellington ensembles, the bands of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong were frequent performers. The Savoy gave opportunities to many musical talents, including such future singing greats as Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald. Duke Ellington expanded the boundaries of jazz as a composer and orchestrator. He was the master of form, a great synthesizer of jazz elements. His band developed a unique collaboration among leader, soloist, and group. Himself a fine pianist, Ellington refined jazz without taking away its spontaneity. Louis Armstrong made his impact primarily as a solo artist. As early as 1923, he was noted for his stylish playing as a solo trumpeter in the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band, and he played with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1924. Armstrong had an intuitive genius that transformed the sound of jazz. He became a popular singer as well, with records selling in the millions. These artists and many others contributed much to the enrichment of black self-awareness and self-confidence. The 1930’s, however, brought the Harlem Renaissance to a halt. The Great Depression hit Harlem hard. African American financial institutions failed, taking with them not only monetary savings but also many symbols of black aspiration. Yet the Harlem Renaissance continued until the riot of March 19, 1935. Responding to rumors of the death by beating of a black youth at the hands of police, thousands of Harlem citizens went on a rampage, destroying not only millions of dollars worth of property but also hopes and dreams. 1556
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance The Harlem Renaissance gave rise to the “New Negro,” proud of black culture yet determined to participate fully in American life. With Harlem in vogue during the 1920’s, white people flocked to the neighborhood’s nightclubs and theaters, attracted by its exotic and lively culture. Many African Americans experienced a new self-consciousness and awareness. Black folktales and music were “discovered” and revitalized, serving as therapy for both white and black. Harlem’s artists—who included sculptors, painters, and dancers as well as writers and musicians—were very image-conscious. They promoted and advanced black talent, searching for black identity and a place within American society. They projected a black image that was respectable and strong, with character triumphing over race. Yet blacks were proud of their distinctive characteristics, too, and did not want to reject their past, although cultural integrity and commercial success were sometimes in conflict. White America courted and cultivated Harlem’s subculture. White patrons gave encouragement and funding to black talent, sometimes serving as guides and judges as well, and provided scholarships, grants, and outlets for black artists, particularly for writers. This dependency of black artists had the potential to subvert black sensibilities and interests, for some patrons had their own agendas. Major publishing companies accepted and sought out black talent. None of the black writers’ works became best sellers, but they sold enough copies to warrant continued support by white publishers and critics. Although discrimination in the publishing industry was not entirely eliminated, post-1920’s black writers found more doors open to them than had earlier generations. Whether later African American writers admired or rejected the works of the Harlem Renaissance, they could not ignore those works. Such writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin carved out careers that were different from and yet built on those of the giants of the 1920’s. Reacting to their predecessors, writers of the new generation were stimulated to examine life for African Americans as it was and as it could be. The Harlem Renaissance reached beyond the borders of the United States. Peter Abrahams, a black South African writer, first read American black literature in a library in Johannesburg. He was enthralled by the poems, stories, and essays he found, and they had a great influence on his life, as he later noted: “I became a nationalist,
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ness and as a source of strength. As alternating expressions of despair and hope, blues songs were also sometimes used to protest societal conditions. Although it produced important works of literature, music, and art, the Harlem Renaissance proved above all to be important for the race-consciousness it fostered, the new sense that black people had a rich culture. To a degree, however, the Harlem Renaissance left a paradoxical gift: the lesson of its failures. Writers such as Countée Cullen and Claude McKay were not as innovative or as fresh as they could have been; they were tied too closely to white norms of art and culture to be true innovators. Heavily dependent on white patrons for approval, many black artists lacked a truly personal vision. The Harlem Renaissance died in the mid-1930’s, mortally wounded by both the Depression and the disillusionment of black artists who failed to find a common ideology to bind them together. Still, the Harlem Renaissance served as a symbol and a reference point. It was a stepping-stone for black writers and artists who followed, more sophisticated and cynical but proclaiming loudly and clearly that blacks must be free to be themselves. —S. Carol Berg Further Reading Bontemps, Arna. The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972. An excellent set of essays on leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Chapter 2 is particularly useful as an overview. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Butcher, Margaret J. The Negro in American Culture. 2d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. A cultural history of blacks throughout American history. Traces folk and formal contributions of blacks to American culture as a whole in historical sequence. Includes index. Davis, Arthur P. From the Dark Tower: Afro-American Writers 1900 to 1960. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974. Divided into two long sections: “The New Negro Renaissance” (1900-1940) and “In the Mainstream” (1940-1960). Quotes extensively from writers’ works and provides biographical details and selective bibliography for each author. Includes index. Floyd, Samuel A. Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. Excellent collection of essays covering varied types of music and major black musicians. One essay discusses activities in England associated with the Harlem Re1557
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a colour nationalist, through the writings of men and women who lived a world away from me. To them I owe a great debt for crystallizing my vague yearnings to write and for showing me the long dream was attainable.” Abrahams spoke for many African and Caribbean blacks who were eager to know that white people did not have a monopoly on the writing of real literature. Black music influenced American culture even more strongly than did black literature. Black music—spirituals, ragtime, and particularly jazz—intrigued white arrangers and composers. White pioneers in jazz such as Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa, and Benny Goodman studied jazz intently, often spending long hours in cabarets listening to black masters. At first merely imitative, these white musicians would go on to rival their teachers and then to dominate commercial jazz. European musicians also became enamored of jazz. Among them, the composers Darius Milhaud and Kurt Weill helped pioneer continental classical jazz. (A wave of enthusiasm for Ellington and Armstrong’s “hot” jazz swept Europe later.) Referring to classical jazz, Leopold Stokowski said of the black musicians of the United States, “They are causing new blood to flow in the veins of music . . . they are path finders into new realms.” This tribute was seconded by such great composers as Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky, who acknowledged the strong links between jazz and much other modern music. Jazz helped to interpret the spirit of the times, bringing joy and vigor to the post-World War I world. Along with it came popular dances such as the turkey trot, the black bottom, and the Lindy. Talented black dancers and singers enabled this music to conquer a broad public and to be recognized as art. Although older than jazz, blues music was mostly a fad among white composers and audiences. The blues became a craze in 1920’s Harlem, however, as an expression of black lives. Much of the popularity stemmed from the work of singers such as Bessie Smith and, earlier, Ma Rainey. Blues songs mingled hope and realism with a weary determination; they were songs of the black masses struggling to be accepted for who they were. Langston Hughes saw the blues as distinctly black, helping to free blacks from American standardization. Many of his poems, such as “The Weary Blues,” reflect the influence of the blues and use the music’s structures, themes, and imagery. Later writers such as Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin used the blues both to express sad-
Harlem Renaissance
Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit naissance. Includes a list of major composers and their works, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Fullinwider, S. P. The Mind and Mood of Black America. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1969. Study covering the period of the 1880’s to the 1960’s examines black myths and the Harlem Renaissance revolt against these myths. Discusses several key figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Includes brief bibliography and index. Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. An analysis of several black artists and their works within the context of American cultural history. Questions and challenges the quality of African American artistic expressions. Includes photographs, notes, chapter bibliographies, and extensive index. Krasner, David. A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Covers a period that begins somewhat earlier than that often delineated for the Harlem Renaissance and focuses on an art form—theater—that is sometimes neglected in discussions of this period. Includes illustrations and index. Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. 1981. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1997. An intellectual and social history covering many aspects of 1920’s Harlem. Focuses primarily on written works and musical events. Lavishly illustrated. Includes chapter bibliographies and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Shaw, Arnold. Black Popular Music in America. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986. A chronological study of black popular music from spirituals to funk. Notes the debt of American popular music to black artists and songwriters and includes a “White Synthesis” in each chapter. Includes illustrations, chapter bibliographies and discographies, and index. Watson, Steven. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of AfricanAmerican Culture, 1920-1930. New York: Pantheon Books, 1995. Highly illustrated volume features many examples of the art, poetry, and prose produced by the Harlem Renaissance and discusses the cultural, economic, and political forces that converged to produce this period in African American life. Includes chronology, bibliography, and index. Wintz, Cary D. Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. 1988. Reprint. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1997. Examines the Harlem Renaissance as a social and intellectual movement within the framework of African American social and intellectual history. Relates the Harlem Renaissance to earlier black literature and its new urban setting and ties black writers to the larger literary community. Includes figures and tables, chapter bibliographies, and index. See also: 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club; 1932-1940: Development of Negritude.
1920’s
Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit A rib-knit elasticized one-piece (maillot) bathing suit devised by Jantzen Knitting Mills in 1913 gained widespread popularity in the 1920’s. Locale: Portland, Oregon Category: Fashion and design Key Figures John Zehntbauer (1884-1969), cofounder of Portland Knitting Company Carl Jantzen (1883-1939), cofounder of Portland Knitting Company Roy Zehntbauer (1886-?), cofounder of Portland Knitting Company Mitch Heinemann (1892-1972), Jantzen executive 1558
Summary of Event In 1913, John Zehntbauer, Roy Zehntbauer, and Carl Jantzen, owners of the Portland (Oregon) Knitting Company, founded in 1909, were asked by a member of the city’s rowing club to create a wool crewing suit for use on the Willamette River on cold days. The company produced a suit made of rib-knit wool. Jantzen had devised a machine that produced a tightly knit rib stitch used to manufacture hosiery and cuffs for woolen sweaters, socks, scarves, mittens, and caps. Jantzen’s revolutionary manufacturing process created a stretchable, springy woolen cloth that retained its shape and did not absorb huge amounts of water. The young business executives used this cloth to manufacture the suit requested. The
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit
1920 A public official concerned with decency measures the distance between knee and bathing suit on women in Washington, D.C., in 1922. (Library of Congress)
rower, satisfied with the garment, then wanted a full suit made of the rib-knit cloth for swimming. The piece of swimwear originally manufactured was exceedingly heavy, weighing two pounds dry and eight pounds wet; its weight was its major drawback. A research team comprising the Zehntbauer brothers, Jantzen, Sam Street, and printer Joe Gerber began to test swimwear made with rib-knit fabric at two sites: the pool at the local Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Willamette River. Before the end of 1913, they had achieved their goal of a lightweight, bodyhugging suit, and other members of the Portland Rowing Club team wanted to purchase the swimwear. The Zehntbauers and Jantzen realized that a large market existed not only for men’s but also for women’s swimwear. In 1915, they began to manufacture for gen-
eral sale elasticized rib-knit swimsuits for both men and women. A high volume of sales at the regional level led them in 1916 to decrease their production of sweaters and accessory items and to concentrate on rib-knit bathing suits. They were also aware that market trends indicated that swimwear for women represented a potential for growth in the garment industry. The swimsuits that the Portland Knitting Company manufactured were referred to as male and female tank suits, or maillots, but the male and female versions differed very little. Both were made of elasticized rib-knit wool in a number of colors with bright horizontal stripes across the chest, hips, and thighs. The maillot was manufactured in one piece, with deep cuts at the armholes, a low, rounded neckline (later, V-necks were added), narrow shoulder straps, and trunks extending to the top of 1559
Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit the thighs. The suit also was distinctive in that it did not have or need a drawstring at the waist. It was sold with the guarantee that it would fit any body type. Customers were amazed that a small, tightly knit suit could expand to fit a large adult. The popularity of the rib-knit suit, especially among women, exceeded the expectations of the Portland Knitting Company’s administrators. In 1917, the company sold approximately six hundred maillots; in 1919, the number rose to forty-one hundred. To meet the demands of the ever-expanding market, the company expanded its operations. It changed its name in 1918 to Jantzen Knitting Mills, which ultimately became Jantzen, Inc. The group that accounted for the largest volume of maillot sales consisted of young women empowered by the women’s rights movement. Their assertion of independence was reflected in their manner of dress. When women entered the workforce during World War I, they often found they needed greater freedom of physical movement, and this supported the growing female demand for less restrictive and confining clothing. The loosening of restrictions on female movement quickly gave rise to women’s rejection of many of the impractical fashions of the past. The creative efforts undertaken by such European couturiers as Paul Poiret to revolutionize women’s fashion and create the straight, slim, Tshaped silhouette was a 1912 cultural crosscurrent that also helped make the female maillot costume acceptable. Significance Young women of the 1920’s were more than ready to set aside the cumbersome bathing costume that was fashionable in the mid-nineteenth century, when bathing was first considered socially acceptable. The costume, designed to cover most of the female form, consisted of a short-sleeved, knee-length dress worn over a pair of knickerbockers, or bloomers. The dress, like the bloomers, was made of a plain, checked, striped, or floral fabric. In one of the more popular versions of this costume, the dress and knickers were made of dark blue or black serge. Accessories consisted of dark stockings and boots that laced to the middle of the calf. A cloth bathing cap also was worn. Such items of apparel were suitable only for low-water wading; they prevented women from engaging in the more vigorous sport of swimming. The Jantzen maillot, designed to fit all body sizes and contours, was most attractive when worn by young people who were tall and slim, male or female. Although the public accepted without controversy the male version of 1560
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the maillot, the first women who appeared at beaches and amusement centers clad in Jantzen suits were accused of indecently exposing their bodies. Many enraged citizens demanded that officials pass ordinances to keep women from appearing in public wearing the suits, and many local governments did so, some even prohibiting women from wearing any type of one-piece swimwear. In 1922, maillot-clad women who appeared on the beaches in the Chicago area were arrested. In 1924, Boston banned the costume. On the East Coast, plainclothes policewomen patrolled many beaches to prevent the use of the facilities by females wearing maillots. Jantzen’s executives undertook an extensive advertising campaign to sell the suit and further increase the already enormous demand for it. Their marketing strategies entailed the creation of a positive image for wearers of the suit, especially women, and the acceptance of swimming as a valued recreational activity. Mitch Heinemann, one of Jantzen’s first salespeople, was selected to direct the advertising campaign, and he proved to be one of the garment industry’s most daring and creative marketing specialists. He convinced Americans that the maillot was manufactured for swimming rather than for bathing. He bombarded the nation with the slogan “The Suit That Changed Bathing to Swimming.” By 1924, champion swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, who later portrayed Tarzan in numerous films, was wearing a Jantzen suit. Another successful advertising device that Heinemann implemented was the production and distribution in 1916 of a sticker for car windshields and store windows. It depicted a woman clad in a red Jantzen swimsuit in a diving position. By the end of the 1920’s, the company had given away ten million of the stickers. Some states attempted to halt the campaign by refusing to give driving licenses to individuals who displayed on their windshields the famous Jantzen logo, the Red Diving Girl or Jantzen Girl. Authorities claimed that the stickers reduced drivers’ field of vision. The Red Diving Girl emblem was the creation of two freelance artists, Florence and Frank Clark. The Clarks submitted two designs for the logo. Both graphically depicted a tall, slim young woman in a red bathing suit, red cap, and midlength red stockings. In one design, the Red Diving Girl was captured in a realistic diving pose. The other design featured a stylized female figure clad in the same costume but captured in a graceful curved diving position. Joe Gerber, Jantzen’s printer, made the selection, choosing the more stylized version of the Red Diving Girl. In addition to providing an image for stickers, the logo, in response to customers’ demands, was
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zen was the largest swimsuit manufacturer in the world. By 1925, the Jantzen maillot was sold in Europe, and soon after in South Africa, South America, and Australia. By the 1940’s, other companies began to compete more aggressively with the Portland-based company for market shares. To retain a favorable sales volume, Jantzen introduced a new sweater line, but the company continued to manufacture bathing suits and to serve as a trendsetter in the field of swimwear. —Loretta E. Zimmerman Further Reading Bigelow, Marybelle S. Fashion in History: Apparel in the Western World. Minneapolis: Burgess, 1970. Well-written and effectively organized volume on fashion from antiquity to recent times. Interesting section on approaches to the design of costumes. Includes brief discussion of swimwear. Illustrated. Boucher, François. Twenty Thousand Years of Fashion: The History of Costume and Personal Adornment. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967. An overview of fashions and accessories from antiquity into the modern era. Discusses the individuals and forces that shaped modern modes of dress. Reproductions of paintings, photographs, and sketches effectively enhance the text. Cleary, David Powers. Great American Brands: The Success Formulas That Made Them Famous. New York: Fairchild, 1981. A history of thirty-four American companies and their trademarked brands. The section on Jantzen provides interesting information on the company’s marketing activities. Includes illustrations. De Marly, Diana. Fashion for Men: An Illustrated History. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985. A short but informative history of men’s fashions, including swimwear, since the medieval period. Ninety-six illustrations, mainly reproductions of paintings and photographs. Includes brief glossary and extensive bibliography. Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Rev. ed. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992. A fine social and intellectual history of fashion in modern times. Examines historical antecedents as well as particular styles and fashion events in a detailed and pleasing manner. Illustrated. Lencek, Lena, and Gideon Bosker. “Making Waves: How Pacific Northwest Swimsuits Undressed America.” Pacific Northwest 23 (July, 1989): 32-33, 87. A concise history of the Jantzen company, its marketing 1561
1920
sewn onto on all swimwear sold by Jantzen. At first, it took the form of a fourteen-inch felt emblem attached to the chest of all suits; later, it was reduced in size to ten inches and was placed on the bottom part of the suit. Within a short time, the Jantzen Girl was among the most recognized company logos in the United States. The image of the female figure would be modernized periodically, but the color of the suit remained, as did the suspended diving position. Notable graphic designers and illustrators aside from the Clarks who gave life to the Red Diving Girl over the years included McClelland Barclay, Coles Phillips, and Alberto Vargas. Barclay, who during the 1920’s and the 1930’s established the image of the ideal American woman, was the illustrator who introduced the Red Diving Girl to readers of the Saturday Evening Post. In 1941, Jantzen called on Vargas to modernize the Red Diving Girl; his initial efforts appeared in an Esquire calendar given to three thousand customers. In order to promote swimming and water sports as major leisure-time pursuits, Heinemann launched in 1926 a national “Learn-to-Swim Week” campaign. Participants competed in swim meets, earned diplomas, and received discounts and merchandise from store tie-ins. Jantzen advertisements made it clear that people could more readily be safe, gain physical fitness, and have fun if they were clad in Jantzen swimsuits. Johnny Weissmuller was one of the live images that Heinemann used to draw attention to this campaign and the Jantzen swimsuit. Heinemann’s use of soon-to-be-discovered sports and film personalities to advertise Jantzen swimsuits was a tactic emulated effectively by his successors. In the 1940’s, Jantzen employed an eighteen-year-old Hollywood High School student, James Garner, and a young woman known as Norma Jean Baker, who had not yet assumed the name of Marilyn Monroe, to promote its swimwear. In the 1947 Jantzen style book, Garner and Monroe were Jantzen’s featured swimsuit models. In 1928, encouraged by Heinemann, Jantzen established an amusement park, the Jantzen Beach Amusement Center. The huge complex was operated by the Hayden Island Development Corporation until July 7, 1970. Billed as the Coney Island of the Pacific Northwest, the Jantzen Beach park, designed by architects Paul H. Huedepohl and Richard Sundeleaf, provided the public with four large swimming pools, poolside fashion shows, a spectacular roller coaster and other rides, a ballroom, and more. Within less than a decade after its introduction, the maillot was considered normative swimwear and Jant-
Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit
Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium strategies, and its impact on fashion. Also includes a short history of another swimwear company, Rose Marie Reid. Nunn, Joan. Fashion in Costume: 1200-2000. 2d ed. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 2000. An overview of fashion history from the medieval period to the end of the twentieth century. Illustrated with
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 black-and-white sketches. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Spring, 1910: Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage; 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion; Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion.
1920’s
Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium Technical, patent, and licensing advances freed radio’s visionaries and performers to cultivate their art by broadcasting news and entertainment to mass audiences. Radio thus developed into a unique art form, even as Americans were organized for the first time into mass audiences for live, broadcast entertainment. Locale: United States Categories: Radio and television; communications and media Key Figures David Sarnoff (1891-1971), general manager of RCA Frank Conrad (1874-1941), American radio engineer and amateur broadcaster Graham McNamee (1888-1942), prominent American announcer and newscaster Harold W. Arlin (1895?-1986), American engineer and radio announcer Charles B. Popenoe (1887-1929), American radiostation manager Thomas H. Cowan (1884?-1969), American radio announcer Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American inventor and manufacturer Summary of Event Before the 1920’s, technological advances in radio engineering, patenting, and production capabilities far exceeded the young industry’s commercial exploitation of a mass listeners’ market. American radio until then was the technical preserve of skillful amateurs, hobbyists, engineers, and scientists. New corporations exploring the field of radio such as Westinghouse, General Electric (GE), Western Electric, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) were interested chiefly in radio’s roles in wire1562
less, radiotelegraphy, and telephone communication and, during World War I, in manufacturing radio equipment for the armed forces. Interest in voice or musical transmissions (radiotelephony) was minimal, and radio’s business leadership considered its devotees eccentrics. Prospects for changes in the radio industry were foreshadowed in 1919 by cross-licensing agreements (affecting patents) between Westinghouse, AT&T, GE, and RCA as well as by the subsequent pooling of functions among the corporations. RCA was permitted a near monopoly of radiotelegraphy and the sale of the other corporations’ equipment, AT&T controlled telephonic communications, and GE and Westinghouse shared the manufacture of radio equipment. Divisive competition within the radio business was thus reduced. One company in particular profited from this arrangement; although Westinghouse’s postwar sales fell sharply, the company’s commercial potential was augmented vastly, first by acquisition of Edwin H. Armstrong’s feedback circuit, then by his still more commercially viable superheterodyne circuits for radio sets. Visionaries such as RCA’s David Sarnoff had unsuccessfully appealed to industry leaders to embark on mass-appeal broadcasting replete with news and entertainment, yet it was a gifted, self-trained amateur employed by Westinghouse, Frank Conrad, who somewhat inadvertently initiated radio’s new era. Experimenting in his garage-laboratory in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1919 and 1920, Conrad not only used his equipment (licensed as 8XK) to talk to other amateurs but for their enjoyment also played phonograph records. Soon, with two sons announcing and a local music store furnishing phonograph records, he started a craze for more radios able to receive 8XK as the number of listeners multiplied. Aware of the Conrad phenomenon—and the real and prospective sales generated by it—Westinghouse vice
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Springfield (Massachusetts). Its competitors—RCA, five smaller companies, and a municipality—swiftly followed. RCA, now listening to Sarnoff, by midsummer that year had scored its own coup by broadcasting the Jack Dempsey-George Carpentier prizefight from New York, an event reportedly heard by 300,000 people, some as distant as Florida. Westinghouse’s WJZ-Newark station, under the direction of Charles B. Popenoe, countered by broadcasting the World Series games between the New York Yankees and the New York Giants three months later. These initial broadcasts were impromptu affairs; the personnel were untrained and unspecialized, and the equipment and facilities on which they relied— microphones, transmitters, receivers, and studios—were unreliable and crude. Still, the experience gained paved the way for the emergence of distinct radio personali-
Radio manufacturer Arthur Atwater Kent (standing) and others listen to the radio in the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., sometime in the 1920’s. (Library of Congress)
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president Harry P. Davis proposed to Conrad that a more powerful transmitter be built atop Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse plant. The station, licensed by federal authorities as KDKA on October 27, 1920, and assigned the 360meter channel, started by broadcasting news: four hours of returns from the Warren G. Harding-James Cox presidential election of November 2, 1920. White and Conrad’s intentions were to continue offering regular broadcasts to listeners day by day, week by week, demonstrating that more radio sets could be sold once the general public perceived that the medium’s offerings— its “art”—could be available to all. It proved a both successful and historic decision. Encouraged by the experience of KDKA, Westinghouse established three new broadcast stations before the end of 1921: WJZ-Newark, KYW-Chicago, and WBZ-
Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium
Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium ties—particularly announcers, sportscasters, and newscasters—as well as regularly featured programs. Typical early broadcasts depended on station personnel and a gamut of unpaid—if often high-quality and well-known—talent. Light variety shows developed to flesh out time. Broadcasts otherwise consisted of recorded and sometimes live concerts, selections from operas and sacred music, an occasional vocal group, soloists, pianists, weather forecasts, time signals, and news. Advertising was limited to touting the stations’ immediate interests, and no funds were solicited from commercial sponsors. As virtual masters of ceremonies, announcers (recruited from a variety of backgrounds) before mid-decade quickly became prominent public figures, among them KDKA’s Harold W. Arlin (who may have been the first); WJZ’s Thomas H. Cowan, Milton Cross, Norman Brokenshire, and Bertha Brainerd; WEAF’s Graham McNamee; and, elsewhere, Don Wilson and Harry von Zell. Although sports and news did not become specialized features of station operations in the early 1920’s, their potentials were still clearly recognized. After broadcasts of major sports events and scores, several announcers, including Major J. Andrew White, Ted Husing, Quin Ryan, Graham McNamee, Edwin Tyson, Lawrence Holland, Bill Munday, and Red Barber, gained notoriety as sportscasters. Similar differentiation occurred in radio news, which was initially the broadcast of relays of telephone, newspaper, or wire-service information to the radio stations. This, too, brought a number of prominent announcers before the public and prepared the field for special radio coverage and commentary by 1930. KDKA’s 1920 breakthrough with the institution of regular broadcasting, and the rapid establishment of similar stations across the nation over the next few years, reflected a youthful industry’s strategic quest for profits, first through sales of sets and equipment, then through the sale of time for purveyance of the products of others. Both interrelated strategies required a continuous enlargement and a persistent cultivation of the real and supposed tastes of mass audiences. Therein lay the matrix for radio’s evolving art. Because of the increasing availability and declining prices of radio sets and the lure of expanding broadcasts, sales of radio sets through the 1920’s were phenomenal: Between 1922 and 1929, sales soared from $60 million to $842.5 million. Radio became a national rage; sets appeared in large stores and small shops, in taverns and schools, and, more notably, in more than a third of American households. Just as railroads had joined the nation’s 1564
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 most remote places by steel links a generation earlier, so radio brought the world’s fourth-largest country into still another reticulation of common daily experiences and values. Even before the appearance of national radio networks in 1926, newscasting was becoming an important regular feature of most broadcasts, although it drew few sponsors. With the creation of major networks, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) abandoned common “rip and read” news formats in 1929. Pointing the route others would follow, CBS replaced such formats with regular, accurately gathered, sponsored newscasts by Lowell Thomas—a colorful figure and a knowledgeable global traveler whom the radio generation came to venerate much as the first television generation would revere Walter Cronkite. With Thomas and his counterparts, newscasting was on its way to becoming an art. By the mid-1920’s, sportscasting was likewise becoming professionalized in the hands of Chicago’s Harold (Hal) Totten and Quin Ryan, Detroit’s Pappy Tyson and Larry Holland, Atlanta’s Bill Munday, and the University of Florida’s Red Barber. In these as in other broadcast specialities, the broadcasters’ voices, and thus personalities, made distinctive contributions to radio art. Graham McNamee epitomized this with his ability to hang listeners on every word, to mount suspense, and— the then-peculiar quality of radio—to lend every sentence immediacy. Heavy from the start with offerings of classical and church music, broadcasts, under the guns of network rivalry as well as the need to preempt air time, soon exploited—and thereby began sanitizing and popularizing—jazz and “race” music, both of which would eventually be recognized as unique American contributions to world culture. New York’s WJZ began the trend with bandleader Paul Whiteman’s jazz concert featuring composer George Gershwin’s specially written Rhapsody in Blue (1924). The program was lent respectability by the sponsorship of outstanding composers and conductors such as Serge Rachmaninoff, Leopold Stokowski, and Walter Damrosch—the latter of whom, through The Music Appreciation Hour of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), brought varieties of music to more than six million schoolchildren. Although the broadcast of classical music along with light and polite orchestral presentations continued to be the rule, latenight radio, encouraged by record companies profiting from sales of “race” records, relentlessly promoted jazz. With the linkage of paying sponsors and advertising agencies to radio stations, scheduled dramas, variety
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Significance By the end of the 1920’s, broadcast programs in considerable variety were available to listeners everywhere for most, if not all, of each day. In its quest for profits, a radio industry devoted to broadcasting had by the end of the 1920’s already explored and experimented with a considerable range of entertainments and attractions, touted by a new breed of public personalities—announcers, sportscasters, newscasters, comedians, orchestra leaders, conductors, composers, jazz musicians, educators, writers, actors, and dramatists. In company with reactive publics, such people established criteria for the judgment of their performances as they became intimate, if invisible, components of Americans’ daily lives. The instantaneous dissemination of music, narrative, and information had become and was to remain a defining aspect of twentieth century culture. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1931. A popular classic reprinted many times, this work places the emergence and impact of radio in the context of a unique and tumultuous decade. Allen is always good as well as insightful reading. Fif-
teen illustrations, brief bibliographical appendix, and index. Balk, Alfred. The Rise of Radio: From Marconi Through the Golden Age. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. A cultural history of radio, focusing on the social and political impact of the new medium. Bibliographic references and index. Barnouw, Erik. A Tower of Babel: To 1933. Vol. 1 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. An authoritative, detailed, and insightful work—a fascinating read for scholars and laymen alike. There are sixteen pages of excellent period photos; serious readers will profit from ample footnotes, a superb bibliography, appendixes, and an extensive double-columned index. First-rate. Chester, Giraud, Garnet R. Garrison, and Edgar E. Willis. Television and Radio. 4th ed. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1971. A readable, scholarly piece that not only provides useful descriptive material on early radio but also raises important questions about what criteria are most fairly applied to judging the art of radio (and television). Topical bibliography; no photos, but an extensive double-columned index. Useful as selective and comparative reading. Douglas, George H. The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1987. Matches Barnouw in authority, if not detail or range, and is also a fascinating read. Twenty pages of interesting old photos, brief chapter notes, an excellent, extensive bibliography, and a useful index. Must reading. Douglas, Susan J. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Discusses the evolution of the American radio audience and of the role of radio in American life. Bibliographic references and index. Schoenbrun, David. On and Off the Air: An Informal History of CBS News. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989. A distinguished newsman of international reputation, Schoenbrun has interesting observations on the early days of radio at CBS in chapter 2. His critical comparisons of television and radio news reporting are valuable. Unfortunately, published memoirs of other early newsmen are hard to find. Eight pages of photos, but no other reader aids. Wertheim, Arthur Frank. Radio Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. A fine background for understanding the place and character of radio comedy in the 1920’s and the early 1930’s. An easy, scholarly read. Twelve pages of photos; no bibliography, 1565
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shows, and comedies and their star personalities swiftly relegated news and sports to lesser portions of the broadcast day. Presented in December, 1923, as the first show with a series title, the Eveready Hour set the pace with its variety of famous talents. By 1925, two of what proved to be radio’s longest-lived as well as more popular shows— WSM-Nashville’s The Grand Ole Opry and WLSChicago’s The National Barn Dance—swelled the trend with their comedy routines and country music. Until the 1930’s, the evening’s prime time was filled with such shows. Many, like The Cities Service Concert or The Palmolive Hour, were orchestral, although these were interlarded by the late 1920’s with a few forerunners of 1930’s soap operas such as WJBO Chicago’s The Smith Family and NBC’s The Rise of the Goldbergs. With stations expanding their broadcast days, mornings, still devoid of “soaps,” became a mixture of “wakeup” shows—Eugene “Cheerio” Field’s was one of the most popular—and a collage of women’s health and homemaking presentations that introduced such personalities as Betty Crocker, Julian Heath, Ida Bailey Allen, Mary Norris, and Royal Copeland. Intermixed with these were more of the light music and chatter shows already familiar to evening listeners.
Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium
Britain Represses Somali Rebellion but detailed chapter notes and a useful index. A valuable work. See also: Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Corporation Is Chartered; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure; Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting; Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds.
Early 1920
Britain Represses Somali Rebellion After twenty years of a religious nationalist rebellion led by Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (the “Mad Mullah”) in British Somaliland, Britain finally repressed one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest colonial uprisings. After the defeat of his rebel forces at Taleh, Mohammed fled to Ethiopia. Locale: Northern Somalia Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (1864-1920), nationalist Somali leader Sir Eric John Eagles Swayne (1863-1929), colonel in the British India Army who organized the first British expedition in 1900 against the Mullah’s rebellion Richard Corfield (d. 1913), commander of a British expeditionary unit that was entirely wiped out by Mohammed Abdullah Hassan’s forces at Dul Madoba in August, 1913 Sir William Henry Manning (1863-1932), British commissioner in Somaliland, 1910-1911 Sir Geoffrey Francis Archer (1882-1964), British governor of Somaliland, 1919-1922 Lij Iyasu (1896-1935), grandson of Emperor Menelik and successor to the Ethiopian throne, deposed in 1916 partly for his pro-Muslim policy and attempted alliance with Mohammed Abdullah Hassan Summary of Event The largely pastoral and clan-based Somali society, which straddles the Horn of Africa and occupies one of the most inhospitable climates in Africa, is legendary for its aversion to centralized political institutions and authoritarian rule. Not surprisingly, the intrusion of European colonial rule into the Somali peninsula in the last 1566
quarter of the nineteenth century caused massive political upheaval that lasted for more than two decades and claimed the lives of more than a third of the population of the British protectorate of Somaliland. No less than four imperial powers participated in the partition of the Somali region in the late nineteenth century. On the forefront of these imperial expansions was Great Britain, which was interested in acquiring the northern region of Somalia to defend strategic interests in the Red Sea. Italy established a protectorate in southern Somalia, and the French claimed the port of Djibouti in hope of penetrating the Ethiopian market in the interior. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik sought to preempt the European threat to his empire by embarking on an unprecedented expansion of his own in all directions including into the Somali-speaking Ogaden region in the east. By the end of the nineteenth century, the exclusively Muslim and largely nomadic Somali communities that had not come under foreign control or submitted to centralized political authority were absorbed by the major Western powers. Somali frustration with this turn of events led to the leadership of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, who raised the banner of revolt in 1900 and maintained a protracted and fierce resistance against British imperial rule in Somaliland. Mohammed (who, as head of a religious order, was given the title of sayyid) was born in 1864 in the eastern part of Somaliland. He belonged to the Dulbahante clan on his mother’s side and the Bah-Gari, a sublineage of the Ogaden, on his father’s side. Mohammed seems to have led an unremarkable life until his 1894 pilgrimage to Mecca, where he stayed for a year. While in Mecca, he joined the Salihiya tariqa (religious order or brotherhood). The Salihiya was a puritanical order influenced by Wahh3bt teachings that propounded radical and austere anti-Western ideology. On his return, Mohammed settled in the port town of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
encirclement. Iyasu extended financial aid and arms to the sayyid and was negotiating to cement the relationship with a marriage alliance. The plan was cut short, however, when Lij Iyasu was overthrown in 1916 by the Ethiopian Christian nobility, who were alarmed by Iyasu’s pro-Muslim policy. The new authorities in Ethiopia launched aggressive campaigns to reverse the sayyid’s advances in the Ogaden region. The end of World War I saw a renewed British effort to address the rebellion with greater vigor. Sir Geoffrey Francis Archer, the newly appointed governor of Somaliland, organized a much larger force that included the air force, navy, and several infantry units assembled from different parts of the British Empire. This force began a highly coordinated offensive in early 1920 and succeeded in completely routing the dervish army. Mohammed fled to Ethiopia, where he died in November of 1920. Significance Mohammed led a ferocious resistance against European colonialism in the Horn of Africa. He remained a thorn in the side of the British administration in Somaliland, and his political and religious movement symbolized the reaction of an African Muslim community to Christian colonization. He attempted to forge political unity on a national basis where no such tradition existed. Today, the sayyid is regarded as the “father of the Somali nation.” —Shumet Sishagne Further Reading Beachey, R. W. The Warrior Mullah: The Horn of Africa Aflame, 1892-1920. London: Bellew, 1990. A brief outline of the series of campaigns carried out by the British to suppress the rebellion of Sayyid Mohammed. Jardine, Douglas J. The Mad Mullah of Somaliland. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1923. A classic biography of Mohammed by a British official who observed the events. Latin, David D., and Said S. Samatar. Somalia: Nation in Search of a State. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987. A concise account of the dominant historical, social, and political experience that shaped twentieth century Somali society. Lewis, I. M. A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988. One of the best standard works on the social and cultural history of Somali society by an author with a profound grasp of Somali pastoralism. Samatar, Said S. Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: 1567
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Berbera and began preaching the new brand of Islam strongly flavored with anti-British agitation. In 1898, he moved further inland, where he was relatively free from immediate British control. There he was able to recruit a cadre of committed followers into his Salihiya order and organize them into an army of Somali dervishes (a Sufi Muslim sect). A gifted poet and orator who possessed a magnetic personality, the sayyid’s message swept the entire Somali peninsula. His call for jihad (holy war) resounded with many rural Somalis, and for the first time in Somali history, Sayyid Mohammed—called the “Mad Mullah” by some—was able to create a pan-Islamic platform that to some degree transcended clan and tribal division. In 1900, he formally declared war against the Christian colonizers, primarily Britain and Ethiopia. Alarmed by the rapid spread of the sayyid’s rebellion, the British hastened to organize an expedition that would counter Somali forces. Despite the heavy losses they inflicted on the dervishes, the first British expedition, launched in 1901 under the command of Sir Eric John Eagles Swayne of the Indian Army, was unable to stem the sayyid’s growing power. The British were forced to withdraw to the coast at Berbera, and subsequent British expeditions in 1902, 1903, and 1904 were also problematic; the 19031904 expeditions alone cost Britain more than five million sterling. When faced with stronger British offensive, Mohammed retreated into the interiors of Somalia, where he regrouped and resumed his attack. In 1910, the British commissioner, William Henry Manning, decided to once again withdraw to the coast, leaving a gaping vacuum of authority in the interior. The arms the British had distributed among loyal tribes in the hinterland had been used to settle old tribal feuds, and this had triggered massive turmoil and violence throughout the region. Mohammed’s punitive raids against reticent tribes that rejected his ascetical version of Islam led to intensified civil strife. About one-third of Somaliland’s population was killed, and ultimately the disorder spread to the coastal areas. The British were forced to restore order in the interior by launching yet another expedition in August of 1913, and the entire expeditionary force under the command of Richard Corfield was wiped out at Dul Madoba. The outbreak of World War I forced the British to scale back their operation against the dervishes. Developments in Ethiopia also favored the sayyid. Lij Iyasu, who succeeded Emperor Menelik, was favorably disposed toward his Muslim subjects and saw Mohammed as a useful ally in Ethiopia’s struggle against European
Britain Represses Somali Rebellion
Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation The Case of Sayid Muhammad Abdille Hasan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Excellent analysis of Mohammad’s poetry and assessment of his nationalist and literary contributions to the Somali heritage. _______, ed. In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa. Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1992. A collection of essays by seven authors detailing the ways in which African Muslims reacted to the challenge of European colonial intervention. Sheik-Abdi, Abdi. Divine Madness: Muhammed Abdulle Hassan. London: Zed Books, 1993. Interesting
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discussion of Sayyid Mohammad’s role as a religious mystic, poet, and warrior leader of a religion-based anticolonial movement. Silberman, Leo. “The ‘Mad’ Mullah: Hero of Somali Nationalism.” History Today 10, no. 8 (August, 1960). A succinct analysis of the sayyid’s role as father of Somali nationalism. See also: Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia; Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland; Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt.
1920
Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation The Batswana attempted to use their advisory councils to shape colonial rule on key issues, but they faced British efforts to use the councils to legitimate tax increases and erode Africans’ rights. Locale: Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) Categories: Indigenous peoples’ rights; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Khama III (c. 1837-1923), chief of the largest Batswana society, the BaNgwato Tshekedi Khama (1905-1959), regent of the BaNgwato, 1925-1950 Sir Charles Rey (1877-1968), British resident commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Jules Ellenberger (1871-1972), British colonial official in the Bechuanaland Protectorate Summary of Event British imperialism in southern Africa in the early twentieth century remained intertwined with the interests of the settler regimes in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe). Colonies such as the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now known as Botswana) received little attention and often faced administrative decisions that inhibited development. The British were reluctant to expend resources in the protectorate because they anticipated no real gain from economic investments. They assumed that the territory would someday be transferred to South Africa. The British sought to normalize their administrative 1568
and political position by instituting a government that was efficient and inexpensive. They intended to provide better communication between “colonized” and “colonizer.” After World War I, the British created the Native Advisory Council (called the African Advisory Council after 1940) and the European Advisory Council as mechanisms to meet these objectives. These councils did not substantially enhance the rights of the indigenous peoples. Perhaps the key issue that led British resident commissioner J. C. Macgregor to suggest the idea of councils related to tax increases. He had established the Bechuanaland Protectorate Native Fund, which taxed residents an additional three shillings. The Native Advisory Council was to aid in collecting, administering, and disbursing this revenue. There was no high commissioner proclamation to give statutory authority to the councils, so the councils’ advice would have no formal standing. The councils did provide a forum for dissent and a basis for cooperation with the colonial administration, but it was not until the 1950’s and the formation of the Joint Advisory Council that genuine collective action occurred. For the Batswana (the people of Botswana), the first session of the Native Advisory Council in 1920 at Gaborones raised fundamental questions about how effectively this new colonial institution would work. In particular, there were serious concerns about its impact on local politics. Khama III, the most influential chief, refused to participate and sent no BaNgwato representatives because he believed that the council would under-
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Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation knowledged these needs but provided minimal assistance. When South Africa limited the colony’s cattle market and embargoed Botswana’s cattle, the Batswana received little support from the administration. In fact, the British sided with the South Africans on the embargo. More general concerns about the protectorate’s development found only marginal British support. Questions concerning exploitation of mineral deposits and other development schemes elicited responses indicating the limited capital funds available. In other words, the administration was unwilling to fund development. The Native Advisory Council made few inroads against the colonial administration. It provided an important forum for presenting issues of concern, although it did not empower the Batswana to alter British policy. It proved most useful in expressing distrust of South Africa. The European Advisory Council was approved in 1920 and had its first meeting in 1921. The council was initially made up of three representatives of the European settlers, although the government had agreed to four members, a farmer and trader each from the North and the South. By the second session, the council had one representative each from the white land blocks of Gaborones, Tati, Tuli, Lobatse, and Ghanzi. By 1948, the council had expanded to eight members. Unlike the African Advisory Council, which initially met inside the protectorate, the European Advisory Council met in Mafikeng, the protectorate’s administrative capital, located within South Africa’s borders. Collaboration with the colonial administration, however, did not prove easy. Probably the most important objective for the European residents was the transfer of the colony to South African control. The European settlers pressured the government well into the 1950’s to make this change. Most of their arguments were based on economic opportunities. Their underlying racial attitudes were always clear and often stated. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, they identified themselves closely with the South African white community. The colonial administration responded to many of the settler demands. Education for white children received government financial support, although the children went to school outside the colony. The European cattle industry suffered from South African restrictions on the colony’s beef, so efforts to use the council to lobby for change did not work well on this issue. In the early 1920’s, the council successfully negotiated some loans for white farmers. The council asked the administration to reduce its allocation to fight lung sickness among dis1569
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mine his authority and the limited autonomy of his people. Other chiefs wondered how the council could function if the largest Tswana group stayed away. Eventually, each of the major Tswana ethnic groups would participate in the council. Initially, the BaKwena, BaNgwaketse, BaKgatla, and BaMalete were joined by the BaTlokwa. By the third session, the BaRolong belonged. The BaTawana joined in 1931, but the BaNgwato waited until 1940 to become official members, although they regularly attended sessions before this. The council considered some important issues and challenged the colonial administration to respond to Batswana needs. The key concerns surfaced quickly in the council deliberations. It became clear that the colonial administration primarily would address its own interests at Botswana’s expense. When the Batswana made demands that conflicted with neighboring South Africa, they encountered British priorities that were most often to South Africa’s advantage. Discussions about transferring the colony to South African control, as a schedule to the 1909 South Africa Act delineated, indicated that the Batswana were united in their opposition to British-South African negotiations without their consent. The council provided an important forum on this issue. It showed that the Batswana had articulate spokespersons who understood South African policies. The debates on this topic seemed to indicate the potential for the council as a mechanism to shape colonial rule. On other issues, Africans on the council were less effective in gaining British cooperation. Funding for the education of African children was limited. The government did not create an education department until 1935. Tribal treasuries were responsible for funding education out of their own scarce resources. African representatives to the council spoke about educational needs at each session, but the government proved unresponsive. Those few Africans who could afford to educate their children sent them to South Africa or Southern Rhodesia. There was no secondary school in Botswana in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Tiger Kloof, a mission school inside South Africa, served as the colony’s best access to education. The council regularly recommended expenditures of their tax revenues to support the school, even though it was in South Africa. The council supported the Batswana’s most important economic concern, their cattle industry. They sought improved markets, expanded veterinary services, access to water, better breeding opportunities, and upgraded transportation links. The colonial administration ac-
Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation eased African-owned cattle. In this period, the European Council remained hostile to African priorities and showed no interest in working with the African Council. The two councils shaped the debate over issues, but usually not the outcome. The European Council demonstrated little interest in cooperating with the Batswana until the 1950’s. By then, the Joint Advisory Council had assumed the lead. In 1960, each of the councils was disbanded and a Legislative Council was created. Significance Although the advisory councils were probably not pivotal in changing the course of events for human rights in Botswana, the councils did provide an important dimension in the political struggles of the colony and created part of a legacy that influences Botswana down to the present day. Tshekedi Khama, who became regent of the BaNgwato in 1925, worked outside the Native Advisory Council to resist British attempts to move toward the transfer of the colony to South Africa. There can be no doubt that his efforts were most effective when the council followed his lead. In this way, that council served as an indispensable mechanism in pressuring the British. That the transfer never took place was largely the result of Tshekedi Khama’s resistance, backed up by the African Advisory Council. The strength of South Africa’s influence over Botswana is indicative of the limitations of the colonial institutions. The European Advisory Council contributed to a closer economic relationship with South Africa. Its initiatives legitimated the colonial administration’s attempts to make Botswana economically dependent on South Africa. The British set up the councils in order to control events in the protectorate. They offered the Batswana and the European settlers a voice in administration, but it was clear that the British wanted to shape cooperation. Jules Ellenberger, a key colonial officer in the 1920’s, had grown up in the midst of Tswana society and used his knowledge of it to weaken traditional institutions rather than to protect indigenous peoples’ rights. Sir Charles Rey, the resident commissioner in the 1930’s, followed a similar course. His aggressiveness in attacking the chiefs and their indigenous institutions in the name of economic development and modernization brought sustained resistance both inside and outside the African Council. It seemed as though Rey wished to restructure Batswana society by centralizing colonial institutions. Although he was unsuccessful in his political objectives, he did weaken local political institutions. His economic devel1570
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opment plans suffered from a lack of resources and thus brought South Africa into a more dominant position. In the 1950’s, the councils offered a conservative model for political and economic development. Traditional chiefs had used the African Council to retain their influence. Settler leaders had shaped policies that maintained private holdings, close relations with South Africa, and race relations that preserved their privilege. The councils’ legacy was preservation of this order for more than a decade past Botswana’s 1966 independence, and it may well have contributed to Botswana’s enjoying an uninterrupted period of democratic elections and government, a record virtually unparalleled in the rest of the African continent. — Jack Bermingham Further Reading Crowder, Michael. The Flogging of Phinehas McIntosh: A Tale of Colonial Folly and Injustice—Bechuanaland, 1933. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988. Excellent account demonstrates the tensions between Tshekedi Khama and those in the British colonial administration, especially Sir Charles Rey. Details the absurd lengths to which the British were willing to go to assert their political control over the Bechuanaland Protectorate in the 1930’s. Successfully shows the effectiveness of Tshekedi Khama’s leadership. Morton, R. F., and J. Ramsay, eds. Birth of Botswana: A History of the Bechuanaland Protectorate from 1910 to 1966. Gaborone, Botswana: Longman, 1987. Collection of essays edited by two scholars who know Botswana well provides an excellent introduction to the country’s history. Emphasizes the role of the Batswana. Parsons, Neil. A New History of Southern Africa. 2d ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1993. One of the best surveys of southern Africa available. Emphasizes indigenous perspectives and places Botswana in the larger context of the region. Ramsay, Jeff, Barry Morton, and Fred Morton. Historical Dictionary of Botswana. 3d ed. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1996. Presents concise descriptions of the individuals, places, institutions, and events that make up Botswana’s history. Rey, Sir Charles. Monarch of All I Survey: The Diaries of Sir Charles Rey. Edited by Neil Parsons and Michael Crowder. London: James Curry, 1988. Provides Rey’s views of events in the 1930’s and reveals his attitudes toward the Batswana. Includes several ac-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 counts of and reflections on the activities of the councils. Schraeder, Peter J. African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation. 2d ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Examines trends in continuity and change in African politics and society since precolonial times. Includes maps, tables, figures, and index. Sillery, Anthony. Botswana: A Short Political History. London: Methuen, 1974. Brief history by a former
British colonial administrator who served as resident commissioner in Botswana, 1946-1950. Reveals hints of paternalism while showing a genuine fondness for the Batswana. See also: Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germainen-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery. 1920
1920 THE
The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot
MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES Introduces Hercule Poirot
Agatha Christie created detective Hercule Poirot, a shrewd and self-confident Belgian who became the symbol of the golden age of the mystery genre. Locale: Great Britain Category: Literature Key Figures Agatha Christie (1890-1976), British writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), British writer Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958), American writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989), Belgian French writer Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970), American writer Summary of Event World literature, including that of England, is rich in the realm of the mysterious. Tales of supernatural heroes date back to ancient times. The literatures of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and most other early civilizations contain such accounts. Early northern European literature contains tales of such heroes as Beowulf and Arrow-Odd. Not until the eighteenth century, however, did the modern mystery novel, built around fear and curiosity for their own sakes, begin to emerge. Horace Walpole, the English author of The Castle of Otranto (1765), is often considered the originator of horror stories in their present form. During the nineteenth century, writers such as Edgar Allan Poe used a combination of reason and madness to raise mystery writing above the realm of entertainment and into the realm of the psyche. The next significant development in mystery fiction was the detective mystery, usually featuring a supremely skilled protagonist whose amazing abilities are equaled
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Agatha Christie. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot
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only by the character’s self-confiMeet Hercule Poirot dence. The first and most famous of Agatha Christie’s narrator, Captain Hastings, provides this vivid description these heroes was Sherlock Holmes, of the master detective Hercule Poirot in the novel that introduced him to the created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle world in 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles: in 1887. As a young man, Doyle was an avid reader. Included in his readPoirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five ing were several early detective stofeet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly ries, but in reading such stories, the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache Doyle felt that the abilities of the was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible, I heroes were often insufficient to hold believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. the reader’s attention. He thought Yet this quaint dandyfied little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. that such early attempts relied more As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs on circumstance than on the clever by unraveling some of the most baffling cases of the day. work of the detective to solve the mystery. Source: Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (London: John Lane, 1920). During his unrewarding career as a medical doctor, Doyle began to write mystery stories of his own. Bechallenge was made during World War I, when Christie ginning with A Study in Scarlet (1887), he turned out a was working as a pharmacist and the war had separated steady stream of mystery stories and novels featuring her from her first husband, Archie Christie. The result Sherlock Holmes. Although Doyle had some initial diffiof her sister’s challenge was The Mysterious Affair at culty in getting the attention of publishers, Sherlock Styles: A Detective Story and the introduction of HerHolmes stories soon became popular both in England cule Poirot. After the manuscript sat on a publisher’s and in the United States. By 1900, the common percepdesk for two years, the novel was published in 1920. It tion of a detective was based on Sherlock Holmes, and was a tremendous success—so much so that when Christhe detective novel was a permanent reality in the literary tie and her husband bought a new home, they named it world. Styles. Following Doyle and Sherlock Holmes came Mary From the beginning of her mystery writing, Christie Roberts Rinehart, an American mystery novelist and concentrated on developing plots that were ordinary but playwright. Known for her clever, well-constructed plots contained surprising twists. She never wanted to write and for her realistic characterizations, Rinehart also had about an unusual crime with an unusual motive. Because the unique ability to combine horror and humor. Her of this, her novels became known for their extremely most popular mystery novels include The Circular Stairclever plots, detailed character descriptions, and intricate case (1908) and The Man in Lower Ten (1909). interpersonal relationships. Perhaps more than any other With the field of mystery fiction well established, writer of mystery fiction, Agatha Christie became a masAgatha Christie and her master detective, Hercule Poirot, ter of the art of misdirection. made their grand appearance. Born and reared in the afChristie’s ingenuity can be clearly seen in her creation fluent middle class of late Victorian England, Christie of Hercule Poirot. In this creation, the historical context seemed ill suited to become immersed in a fictitious world is significant. As a result of World War I, many Belgian of violence, murder, and intrigue. That fictitious world refugees were living in England. Poirot was a retired Beldid have some real-life foundations; with the advent of gian police officer who felt gratitude toward the England World War I in 1914, Christie worked as a wartime pharthat had aided his native land when it was overrun by the macist. In that position, she learned about the poisons German military machine. At the same time, Poirot exthat would become a vital part of her mystery novels. pressed a humorous disregard for the investigative abiliChristie and her entire family were voracious readers, ties of English detectives. Poirot was described as short, reading everything from the classic children’s books of with an egg-shaped head and a luxuriant and generously the day to the latest novels. Their reading included many waxed moustache. He was meticulous to the smallest demystery stories, including Doyle’s early tales of Shertail, even in his private life, and always made the best use lock Holmes’s exploits. Christie’s sister Madge first of his “gray cells,” as he called the human brain. challenged her to write her own detective mystery. The 1572
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The ability of Hercule Poirot to solve the most difficult of mysteries soon placed him on the level of the legendary Sherlock Holmes. In his observance of the smallest detail, he even surpassed his famous predecessor.
nearly as self-confident, Miss Marple solved many crimes in novels such as The Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Still in the early part of her writing career, Christie began to see her stories made into plays and films. In 1928, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was adapted as a play called Alibi. Although it was a success in London, Christie was not pleased with the portrayal of Hercule Poirot. About the same time, one of her short stories, “The Coming of Mr. Quin,” served as the basis for a film that she also found unsatisfactory. She was more pleased with a German film based on The Secret Adversary. In 1929, as the result of her general displeasure over the way in which her books were being adapted as plays and films, Christie began writing her first original play. Black Coffee, involving murder and a formula for deadly weapons, was a success in the summer of 1930. About 1945, Christie wrote a short story titled “Three Blind Mice,” which she expanded in 1952 into her best-known play, The Mousetrap. During the course of her career, Christie published many short stories, some of which featured yet another investigator named Parker Pyne. Among the most interesting of her writings is The Labours of Hercules: Short Stories (1947), a collection of short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. The stories are based on the twelve labors of Hercules of ancient Greek mythology. Hercule Poirot appeared in Agatha Christie novels over a period of fifty-five years. The end of Poirot reached the public only about a year before the death of his creator. Christie had written Curtain several years earlier, but her daughter, Rosalind, delayed its publication until 1975. In Curtain, Poirot and Hastings return to Styles to solve another crime; Poirot then meets his death in an extremely sensational manner. In January, 1976, Agatha Christie joined her master detective in death. An English acquaintance of Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, also became a well-known writer of detective fiction. In 1930 and in 1931, Christie, Sayers, and four other writers of detective stories combined their talents in two unusual series for the British Broadcasting Company. The authors wrote and read over the radio alternating episodes of the same story. The 1931 series, with twelve episodes, was coordinated by Sayers. Christie and Sayers continued their professional relationship for many years. In her own detective novels, Sayers created Lord Peter Wimsey to solve the mysteries. In style and in success, Sayers was Christie’s closest rival in England. Georges Simenon, a Belgian French contemporary of Christie, was obviously influenced by the success of the 1573
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Significance The impact of Christie’s creation of Hercule Poirot on the field of mystery fiction was both immediate and extensive. Within two years, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in England and in the United States and was serialized in the Weekly Times, a leading English magazine of the day. Christie was soon hard at work on her second novel, a spy thriller titled The Secret Adversary. The new book, published in 1922, introduced two new heroes, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. In the person of Tuppence can be seen Agatha Christie herself, especially her experiences during World War I. Following the book’s publication, the demand for Christie’s writings grew still further. She was soon writing a series of Poirot stories for Sketch magazine and was also working on her next fulllength Poirot novel, The Murder on the Links (1923). In her autobiography, Christie admitted that in her early work she was writing in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes. Along with Hercule Poirot, she also created Captain Hastings, Poirot’s assistant and sometime narrator; Hastings’s character had clearly been inspired by Watson, the narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Realizing how close she was to Doyle’s style, however, Christie made some major changes. One was to marry off Hastings in The Murder on the Links; Hastings appeared only rarely in subsequent Poirot novels until Curtain: Hercule Poirot’s Last Case (1975), which is marked by the shocking death of Poirot himself. One of the most popular of Christie’s detective novels, and perhaps the most unusual, is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). The story’s twist, suggested to Christie by Lord Louis Mountbatten, is that the narrator turns out to be the murderer. The book was written during the period when the author’s first marriage was coming to an abrupt end; later, in Unfinished Portrait (1934), Christie gave a glimpse into the frustrations of that period of her life. After her second marriage, to a noted archaeologist, Christie began to write more stories featuring spying and international intrigue. Examples of these books include Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) and Death on the Nile (1937). In 1930, Christie introduced another mystery-solving hero, a quaint and shrewd older woman named Miss Jane Marple. Every bit as clever as Hercule Poirot, but not
The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot
The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot English writers of detective fiction. He created Inspector Maigret, a French detective who was designed to be more of a counterpart to Sherlock Holmes than to Hercule Poirot. Simenon wrote almost one hundred Maigret stories before his death in 1989. Erle Stanley Gardner, an American contemporary of Christie, created Perry Mason, a defense attorney who introduced a new aspect to detective fiction. Perry Mason specialized in accepting clients who were seemingly guilty and then, at their trials, presenting sensational revelations of the real criminals. In the course of her extraordinary writing career, Agatha Christie wrote sixty novels, nineteen volumes of short stories, sixteen plays, and an autobiography. More translations have been made of her work than of that of any other English writer except William Shakespeare. In book sales, Shakespeare and the Bible alone surpass her works. By 2005, more than two billion copies of her books had been sold worldwide. —Glenn L. Swygart Further Reading Christie, Agatha. An Autobiography. 1977. Reprint. New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1996. A personal look into the mind, private life, and work of the author. Gives a good survey of her books and explains how she got the ideas for them. Written over a fifteenyear period and ends eleven years before Christie’s death. Christie’s daughter edited the work, which was published after Christie’s death. Includes photographs. Morgan, Janet. Agatha Christie: A Biography. 1985. Reprint. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. The only au-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 thorized biography of Christie. The author received access to all the subject’s papers and personal effects and was introduced to almost two hundred of Christie’s friends. A valuable resource. Pearsall, Ronald. Conan Doyle: A Biographical Solution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977. An interesting account of the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Discusses Doyle’s interests in spiritualism, the Boer War, and social reform and how these interests influenced his writing. Contains a good pictorial section of Doyle and his family. One chapter is devoted to the rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Rinehart, Mary Roberts. The After House. 1914. Reprint. New York: Kensington, 2001. An exciting example of Rinehart’s mystery fiction. Illustrates the author’s ability to weave an interesting plot through a diverse group of characters and reach a suspenseful climax. Sayers, Dorothy L. Murder Must Advertise. 1933. Reprint. New York: HarperTorch, 1995. An excellent detective novel by an author who worked closely with Christie on at least two occasions. In this book, Sayers introduces her own detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. Simenon, Georges. Maigret and the Man on the Bench. Translated by Eileen Ellenbogen. 1975. Reprint. New York: Harvest Books, 2003. Illustrates the amazing abilities of Simenon’s French detective Inspector Maigret. Well-plotted novel is a good introduction to Simenon’s writing for American readers of mystery fiction. See also: Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930: The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books.
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Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1920
Premiere of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was an artistic and commercial triumph that launched a wave of expressionistic filmmaking. Also known as: Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari Locale: Berlin, Germany Category: Motion pictures
Summary of Event Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) was the product of a unique set of circumstances. First was the upheaval of values in Germany after a series of disillusioning blows. These included defeat in World War I, the Spartacist (1919) and the Kapp (1920) uprisings against the unpopular Weimar Republic government responsible for the crippling Treaty of Versailles, and the great inflation that, by the early 1920’s, had wiped out the savings of Germany’s middle class. In analyzing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, film critics agree that it was the first of many films of the period to reflect the worldview of troubled Germans who questioned the nature of authority. The second element shaping the film’s conception was the mood of rebelliousness in the arts in Germany during the period following World War I. Previous styles were associated with a culture that had bankrupted itself in war. Sigmund Freud had proved the significance of unconscious and dream states as components of reality; early twentieth century artists set themselves somehow to express these facets of reality. German expressionism, defined as the outward representation of inner reality, paralleled Surrealism in France as the artistic approach thought best to represent what was real. Depending on the artist’s approach, this could mean the outward expression of the fundamental inner nature of a thing or, as in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the visual expression of the world as subjectively perceived by a particular character. The film is considered to be the first and best of an
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Key Figures Robert Wiene (1881-1938), film director Hermann Warm (1889-1976), film set designer Walter Röhrig (1897-1945), film set designer Walter Reimann (1887-1936), film set designer Hans Janowitz (1890-1954), film scriptwriter Carl Mayer (1894-1944), film scriptwriter Werner Krauss (1884-1959), film actor Conrad Veidt (1893-1943), film actor
era of great German films influenced by the expressionist style. Third, cinema was still silent and experimental. This film opened the way to the testing of various means of visual expression. Set designers Hermann Warm, Walter Röhrig, and Walter Reimann were affiliated with the expressionist Berlin Sturm Society. Their painted sets reflected the mind of the insane narrator of the story. Using induced perspective and sharp contrasts of light and shadow, they created a medieval-style town with narrow and angular streets and distorted houses, doors, and windows. The acting, especially that of Werner Krauss (Dr. Caligari) and Conrad Veidt (Cesare, his somnambulist), was similarly expressionistic, with inner emotions exaggerated and externalized. Expressionism thus belongs to silent films, where image and set predominate and the use of dialogue—grammar and syntax—would tend to dilute the intended effect, that of immediate comprehension of the subject’s essence. These three conditions help to explain certain features prevalent in German films of the 1920’s: the fantastic or macabre subject matter (the world seen by unbalanced, anguished society), the city street or circus sideshow locales (places on the margins of propriety, symbolic of regression into childhood, anarchy, and sensuality, where the restraints of bourgeois values seemed absent), the theme of authoritarian tyranny versus chaos, and the motif of circular movement (an organ grinder’s arm, Ferris wheel, or revolving door), a symbol of aimless, treadmill life. The story line of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari centers on Francis, who relates a strange experience. The film is his description. In it, Dr. Caligari arrives at the town fair with his sleepwalker act. Caligari is criminally insane; he has hypnotized Cesare to kill at his bidding after predicting the victim’s death in public. Cesare commits several murders, including that of Francis’s friend Alan, and Francis is determined to find Alan’s murderer. Cesare also abducts Jane, Francis’s sweetheart, but then Cesare dies of exhaustion. Francis pursues Caligari to a lunatic asylum and finds that Caligari is the director but that he has become insanely obsessed with totally dominating his hypnotized subjects. Cesare was his great experiment, and when Cesare’s body is brought in, Caligari cracks up and becomes an inmate. With Francis’s story concluded, the camera conveys the viewer back to the frame story and reveals that Francis is actually an inmate
Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari of the asylum. The characters of his narrative—Jane, Alan, and Cesare—are also asylum figures; Francis’s Dr. Caligari is, in fact, the real, although benign, asylum director. Upon seeing Dr. Caligari, Francis becomes violent and must be straitjacketed. Writers Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer objected to the intrusion of the last element of the story. The frame, added by director Robert Wiene, opened the way to the expressionist sets (the figments of Francis’s mad mind), which made the film more compelling. It is interesting to note that in Jane’s boudoir the plush furniture is almost normal. Seen through Francis’s eyes, the room is sensuously round, with many pillows and heart shapes, reflecting his passion for Jane. The room is at once the essence of sexuality and the world as seen through the eyes of one main character. Similarly, a scene set in a jail cell con-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 veys the universal essence of confinement. The prisoner sits attached to a ball and chain on the floor of a dank, narrow cell.
Significance The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was an immediate success. It was perfect in its genre, and imitators often failed by their excesses or obvious artificialities. Wiene himself attempted to capitalize on “Caligarisme” in 1920 with his film Genuine, the name of which was taken from a priestess who seduces and then kills her lovers. The film’s expressionist sets overpowered the acting, and it was a failure. Wiene’s 1923 adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevski’s Prestupleniye i nakazaniye (1866; Crime and Punishment, 1886) was more successful. The expressionist sets intruded more naturally, reflecting the hallucinations of despair in the mind of the protagonist. Also successful in imitating The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was Henrik Galeen’s remake of Der Student von Prag (1926; The Student of Prague), with Veidt as the protagonist Baldwin. Baldwin gives his mirror image to a sorcerer in return for wealth and marriage to a beautiful and aristocratic woman. The image becomes his evil self, and when he finally shoots it, he kills himself. Most of the people connected with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari found success after the film. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari reached the United States in April, 1921. A review in The New York Times described it as creating a new adjective for To view image, please refer to the American filmgoers: “European.” Hailing it as a print edition of this title. perfect harmony of setting, plot, and acting in its expressionist style, the reviewer predicted a slew of poor imitations. Although the imitators were many, the films of Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and other German filmmakers who moved to the United States certainly should not be classified as poor. Many of these films adopted the theme of tyranny or chaos, in particular Lubitsch’s Madame DuBarry (1919), F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922; Nosferatu the Vampire), Lang’s Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (1922; Dr. Mabuse the Gambler), and Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfiguren kabinett (1924; Waxworks). Madame DuBarry, set in the time of Louis XV, appeared at the time of the fall of the German monarchy. The film supports authority and drains the French Revolution of its significance: Its plot involves an unhappy love affair and an angry Cesare (Conrad Veidt) abducts Jane (Lil Dagover) in this scene from lover who persuades the masses to take the BasThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) 1576
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use of distorted mirrors to create images in the mind of a man in trauma after an accident. Many American directors were also inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Aware that realism is often inadequate, Orson Welles used both surrealistic dream sequences and expressionistic distortions to project inner emotion, particularly in his Macbeth (1948). Many of Alfred Hitchcock’s black-and-white thrillers, from Rebecca (1940) to Psycho (1960), have expressionist moments. In Robert Siodmak’s The Spiral Staircase (1945), expressionist effects include the camera stalking the victim as if it were the criminal, deliberate camera distortions, and the symbolism of the spiral stairs. Swedish director Ingmar Bergman must also be named in the context of expressionism. As film historian Lotte Eisner has noted, in 1919 artists were asking “Why depict realism? Everyone can see the real world.” Expressionism was born from the belief that artists must express personal visions of external facts, even (and perhaps especially) if they are colored by emotions. Thus expression’s very nature makes it biased. When it was released in February, 1920, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was reviewed as “the first work of art on the screen.” Opinions of its merits varied, but it was perceived by many critics as a film that liberated a new artistic medium and demonstrated what was formally and psychologically possible in film. The film is significant for both artistic and sociological reasons. After its appearance, German film directors were in demand in Hollywood and elsewhere, and they were admired for their control of the whole creative process, for their integration of plot, lighting, sets, and actors, and for being the first to use completely mobile cameras. Moreover, the film successfully utilized expressionist techniques that would influence the films of Germany and elsewhere. The sociological significance of the film lies in its depiction of many Germans’ neuroses after World War I. The films of a nation—including, of course, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari—often reflect that nation’s collective mentality because they depend on mass appeal for their success. Siegfried Kracauer asserted that the films of Universum Film Aktien Gesellschaft (UFA), the major German film company during the 1920’s and 1930’s, used expressionism to reflect the German people’s deeply rooted desire for strong government control (as the alternative to national chaos). The bizarre atmosphere of unreason and dread conveyed by so many expressionist films led Kracauer to conclude that under Hitler, Germany carried out what had been anticipated by cinema. — Daniel C. Scavone 1577
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tille. Dmitri Buchowetsky’s Danton (1921; All for a Woman) also showed contempt for the French Revolution: The people abandon Georges Danton for Augustin Robespierre’s promise of free food. Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, involves a supposedly insane doctor seeking power. Mabuse symbolized illegitimate authority inciting or hypnotizing others to do evil. Like its predecessors, the film used expressionistic sets. Another Lang film, Metropolis (1927), is rich with imaginative and symbolic sets. The great furnaces that support the futuristic city are seen by the workers as man-devouring Moloch. The dictator of Metropolis employs an evil robot, identical to the saintly Maria, to control the workers. At the end, the workers’ representative shakes hands with the dictator, symbolizing the union of labor and a now-benign management. In the three separate episodes of Waxworks (1924), expressionist sets accompany the animation of the wax figures of tyrants H3rnn al-Rashtd (portrayed by Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt), and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss). Strict expressionist films used painted, stylized set designs and were filmed entirely indoors under lighting that emphasized sharp contrasts and camera angles to produce grotesque images. By 1929, however, these techniques gave way to the New Realism. Dream sequences utilizing new Freudian symbols, such as those in G. W. Pabst’s Geheimnisse einer Seele (1926; Secrets of a Soul), no longer depended on Caligarian designs but were created by camera fades and concave or convex mirrors. Even so, numerous other German movies of the period and long afterward used expressionist devices for the visual projection of the macabre or the fantastic, even if expressionist stylization was used solely to create dramatic atmosphere or reflect a character’s momentary hallucination. Arthur Robison’s Schatten (1922; Warning Shadows) projected the hallucinations of a jealous husband, his amorous wife, and her four lovers. A traveling showman hypnotizes each in turn, creating a series of shadow plays that the subjects perceive as real events. Murnau’s Der letzte Mann (1924; The Last Laugh) stars Emil Jannings as a uniformed doorman at a fine hotel. His age causes his demotion to keeper of the latrine and an attendant loss of esteem, and Murnau uses the expressionist symbol of revolving doors to symbolize the aimless, endless revolutions of life and fortune. The film features a famous dream sequence with multiple exposures, distorting lenses, slow motion, stylized figures, and confused locales. Similarly, Ernö Metzner’s Der Überfall (1928; The Accident) could also be called expressionist for its
Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created Further Reading Barlow, John D. German Expressionist Film. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Excellent survey of expressionism, with detailed summaries of films. Chapter on the heritage of expressionism alerts the reader to films currently available or shown in the media. Contains an extensive filmography. Cooke, Paul. German Expressionist Film. Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England: Pocket Essentials, 2002. Brief, readable introduction to German cinema. An excellent starting point. Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Translated by Roger Greaves. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. The classic treatment of German silent expressionist films. Expressionism as an intellectual movement is set against the background of German cultural tradition. Amply illustrated with stills; extensive filmography. Furness, R. S. Expressionism. London: Methuen, 1973. An extensive discussion of the historical origins and precursors of expressionism in Germany and elsewhere. Evaluates the various definitions of expressionism. Goes beyond films to investigate expressionism in literature and other media. Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler. Princeton,
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N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947. Presents a psychosociological interpretation of German films of the 1920’s and 1930’s that views Germany as a nation in a post-Versailles treaty malaise that borders on neurosis. Asserts that whole films reflected this sense and manifested a desire for a strong leader who would resurrect the nation. Highly recommended, although some analysts believe that Kracauer overinterprets. Manvell, Roger. The German Cinema. New York: Praeger, 1971. General history of German films from its origins to the 1960’s. Devotes two chapters to films of the Nazi period. Scheuneman, Dietrich. Expressionist Film: New Perspectives. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2003. Work by an authority on German film provides some interesting updates to the books by Eisner and Kracauer cited above. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis; Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”; 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror.
1920-1921
Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created After decades of discussion, the British parliament passed legislation granting home rule to Ireland in the form of two separate parliaments that would govern domestic concerns. Also known as: Government of Ireland Act Locale: Ireland; Northern Ireland Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history; independence movements Key Figures David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 James Craig (1871-1940), first prime minister of Northern Ireland Sir Edward Carson (1854-1935), British political leader Eamon de Valera (1882-1975), head of the Sinn Féin republican movement 1578
Bonar Law (1858-1923), leader of the Conservative unionists Summary of Event The duration of British influence in Ireland can be measured in centuries. Anglo-Norman aristocrats settled in Ireland among the native Celts in the twelfth century, and Protestants from England and Scotland were given lands there by British monarchs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was not until 1800, however, that Ireland was fully integrated into the political system of the United Kingdom. Prior to that date, Ireland had its own parliament, although that body was often subject to the influence and control of the British authorities. The Act of Union in 1800 abolished the Irish parliament, leaving a single Parliament for the entire United Kingdom. Many in Ireland were dissatisfied with the union.
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Some wanted full independence, and The British Isles, 1922 this led to rebellions such as the nationalist Fenian movement of the Orkney Islands 1860’s. Other Irish people were willing to remain within the United KingNorth dom but wanted some sort of home Sea rule, with a restored parliament in Dublin, for domestic matters. The North Inverness most famous home rule advocate was Aberdeen Atlantic Charles Stewart Parnell, an aristoScotland cratic Protestant landlord whose supOcean porters were, paradoxically, mostly Edinburgh Paisley Catholic farmers and shopkeepers. Glasgow The religious dimension is signifKilmarnock Northern Great icant in any discussion of Ireland. Dumfries Ireland Britain Approximately three-quarters of the Newcastle upon Tyne population at that time was Catholic, Belfast but the Protestant minority was conIsle England of Man centrated in the north, in the provWakefield a S e Liverpool ince of Ulster, where they formed the Dublin Manchester Irish majority. Home rule tended to be Nottingham Free more popular among Irish Catholics Leicester State than among Irish Protestants: Many of the latter feared that home rule Birmingham Cambridge Northampton would become Rome rule. There Colchester Gloucester Oxford London Canterbury were other issues—Ulster was more Cardiff Swansea industrialized than the agricultural Chatham Bristol Folkestone South, and the majority in Ulster were of it descendants of Scottish and English Stra Exeter Isle of Plymouth immigrants—but religion was at the Wight el c ann core. Truro English Ch an Fr Britain’s Liberal Party twice introduced home rule legislation in the late nineteenth century. It failed to government if necessary in order to stay within the pass both houses of Parliament, and so did not become United Kingdom. Weapons were smuggled into Ulster. law. After the second defeat, the movement for home Some British military officers sympathized with the Ulrule waned. As a result of a parliamentary deadlock in ster position, as did many Conservative politicians, in1910 between the two major political parties, Liberal and cluding Conservative leader Bonar Law and fellow ConConservative, the issue of home rule returned. The Irish servative Sir Edward Carson, who accepted the leadership party supported the Liberals in exchange for Liberal of the Ulster resistance. In the South, reacting to the backing for a new home rule bill. The third home rule bill events in Ulster, supporters of home rule formed their was introduced in 1912, and as a result of legislation limown groups of volunteers to fight for the British governiting the power of the House of Lords, the bill appeared ment and for home rule. By the summer of 1914, it destined to become law in 1914. Parnell’s dream was about to be realized. seemed that civil war might erupt. The outbreak of Many in Protestant Ulster, however, demanded that World War I in August, however, pushed the question of the union be maintained. After the bill was introduced, home rule into the background. Home rule legislation almost one-half million people in Ulster signed a Solemn was passed in 1914, but it would not take effect until the League and Covenant against any home rule. A militia, war was over. The contentious issue of Ulster’s relationthe Ulster Volunteers, was created to fight the British ship to home rule was left unresolved.
Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created Most Irish, Catholics and Protestants alike, loyally supported Britain in the war against Germany. As the war dragged on and actual home rule remained in the future, the Irish home rule party began to lose influence. A violent uprising against British rule occurred on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916. A group of several hundred, inspired by earlier rebellions and committed to an independent republic, not home rule, occupied key locations in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic. The rebellion lasted less than a week, but hundreds died and much of central Dublin was destroyed. The rebels had little support, either during or after what became known as the Easter Rising, until the leaders were executed by the military authorities sent to restore order. As the list of martyrs lengthened, public opinion turned in favor of the rebels. In a series of elections in 1917 and 1918, the Irish home rule party was regularly defeated by a new bloc
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founded by Arthur Griffith that became known as Sinn Féin, meaning “we ourselves” or “ourselves alone.” Sinn Féin demanded not home rule but independence and identified itself with the Easter uprising. The most prominent of its members was Eamon de Valera, one of the leaders in 1916. The movement was not just political. The secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood, which led the 1916 rebels, believed that force would be necessary to get rid of the British. In December, 1918, at the end of World War I, a general election was held throughout the United Kingdom, including Ireland. In Ireland outside Ulster, Sinn Féin candidates swept away the old Irish home rule party, winning almost all the parliamentary elections. The victorious candidates, however, refused to take their seats in Parliament. Instead, they formed their own parliament, the Dáil Éireann, in Dublin. It was outlawed by the British and could do little but issue proclamations and send
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
The Irish delegation at the signing of the treaty between Great Britain and Ireland on December 6, 1921. Seated are (from left) Arthur Griffith, E. J. Duggan, Michael Collins, and Robert Barton, and standing are (from left) Robert Erskine Childers, George Gavan Duffy, and John Chartres. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created time a Catholic nationalist majority might emerge, willing to unite North and South. Even though only four of the six had Protestant majorities, Craig argued that those four counties would form too small a political unit and would not be viable. Ultimately, the cabinet bowed to Craig’s demand for the six counties. The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 easily passed through Parliament and went into effect on May 3, 1921. Ireland had been partitioned, and Northern Ireland had come into existence with its own home rule parliament. Significance The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 did not settle the Irish difficulties. The creation of Northern Ireland, which was two-thirds Protestant and in favor of the union with Britain, seemed to satisfy the majority in that province. In the rest of Ireland, however, troubles continued. Sinn Féin and the IRA refused to accept the act, which created a second home rule parliament, in Dublin. Their goal was complete independence. The violence that had broken out in 1919 was bloody and brutal. The IRA resorted to guerrilla tactics. To fight against the IRA, the British government enlisted former soldiers. Given makeshift uniforms, they became known as the “Black and Tans.” Violence from one side led to reprisals by the other, resulting in incidents that went beyond the rules of war. On November 21, 1920, twelve British officers, members of a counterterrorist squad, were shot dead in Dublin. Later that same day, in retaliation, twelve civilians were killed at a football match. Civilian casualties in the first six months of 1921 numbered more than seven hundred dead and almost eight hundred injured, some by the British, some by the IRA. By early 1921, the British government began to get the upper hand, but at considerable cost and with much criticism. On June 22, 1921, King George V, at the formal opening of the parliament of Northern Ireland, and with the support of Lloyd George, appealed for peace. Lloyd George followed up with a letter to de Valera, who responded in turn. On July 11, 1921, a truce was declared. Formal negotiations began in London in October. The crucial issues were the relation of Ireland to the United Kingdom and of Ulster to Ireland. After hard negotiations, a treaty was agreed to on December 6, 1921. Dominion status was accepted by twenty-six southern counties, which would be known as the Irish Free State. The other six counties formed Northern Ireland. Lloyd George misleadingly intimated that a boundary commission would probably award enough of the territory of Northern Ireland to the Irish Free State to make the north 1581
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delegations to the peace conference at Versailles and to sympathetic countries, particularly the United States, with its large Irish community. Behind the Dáil and its politicians was the military wing of Sinn Féin, which became known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The wartime coalition government was headed by David Lloyd George, a Liberal, but was dominated by Conservatives strongly opposed to home rule, much less an independent republic of Ireland. Before becoming prime minister, Lloyd George had unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate an Irish settlement after the 1916 rebellion. As prime minister, in 1917 he urged the Irish to settle their own disputes. Sinn Féin refused to participate, and the unionists were obstructive. Lloyd George was sympathetic to home rule but more interested in preserving the unity of the United Kingdom. He moved cautiously to solve the Irish problem. In 1919, the Conservatives still supported the Ulster unionist position but with less vehemence than before: As the dominant party in the coalition government, they needed Ulster less. James Craig, a decisive but less abrasive politician than Carson, had taken over Ulster’s defense. Craig’s position was improved because the old home rule party had been replaced by the Sinn Féin republicans, who were unwilling or unable to negotiate with the British enemy. Some were in prison or in hiding, such as de Valera, who had been incarcerated in an English jail until his escape in February, 1919. In June, de Valera left for the United States to garner support. He did not return until December, 1920, a crucial period for Anglo-Irish relations. In October, 1919, a British cabinet committee began to draft a bill to be submitted to Parliament. The assumption was that Ulster had to be treated separately from the rest of Ireland. Some suggested that each of Ireland’s thirty-two counties decide by popular vote whether to accept home rule, but that proposal had no support within the cabinet. A decision was made to establish two home rule parliaments, one for Ulster and one for the rest of Ireland. This surprised the Ulster unionists: They had opposed any home rule parliament, and now they were being asked to have their own. They accepted what they initially did not want, concluding that having their own home rule parliament would in the long run protect them from the vagaries of future British governments that might give their rights away to the southern majority. Most members of the cabinet wished to include all nine Ulster counties in Northern Ireland. Craig was opposed to this; he demanded only six. If the other three with their large Catholic majorities were included, he argued, in
Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created untenable, thus leading to a unified Ireland. De Valera, however, opposed the treaty from Dublin, arguing for an external association with Great Britain instead of dominion status. Amid great controversy, the Dáil approved the treaty in January by the narrow margin of sixty-four votes to fifty-seven. De Valera resigned and Griffith took his place. The result was civil war. The IRA split between proand antitreaty factions. In six months, the Irish Free State government executed seventy-seven antitreaty republicans, more than three times the number executed by the British government in two and one-half years. Griffith died of a heart attack in 1922, and in August of that year, Michael Collins, a major figure of resistance to British rule, was killed in an antitreaty ambush. De Valera was arrested by the Free State authorities and remained in jail for a year. In Northern Ireland, the police were given extensive powers to deal with the continuing violence. A special bill was passed giving the authorities almost unlimited powers. The worst casualty of the civil war was the cause of a united Ireland: The violence between the pro- and antitreaty groups in the Free State confirmed to the majority in Northern Ireland that the South could not be trusted. A partial peace came to the Free State with the defeat of most of the antitreaty forces during 1923. By then, the Protestant unionist majority in Northern Ireland was in control of the province at the expense of the Catholics and Irish nationalists. In the South, Protestants faced less overt discrimination, but the bitterness over the treaty continued to divide Irish nationalists for decades to come. —Eugene Larson Further Reading Buckland, Patrick. A History of Northern Ireland. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1981. Excellent short volume provides more than a history of Northern Ireland. Presents material concerning the rest of Ireland and background to continuing Irish conflicts. Includes select bibliography and index. Coogan, Tim Pat. Eamon de Valera: The Man Who Was Ireland. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Comprehensive biography places de Valera in the context of his times. Includes bibliography and index. _______. Ireland in the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. History of twentieth cen-
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tury Ireland by a respected historian and biographer examines events, attitudes, and cultures. Includes bibliography and index. _______. Michael Collins: A Biography. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1990. Biography of a de Valera ally who differed with him over the 1921 treaty. Argues that Collins was more pragmatic than de Valera and that Collins’s death was a tragedy for Ireland. Includes bibliography and index. Kee, Robert. Ourselves Alone. 1972. Reprint. London: Penguin Books, 1989. Last book in a three-volume series titled “The Green Flag” begins coverage in 1916 and continues through the civil war of 1922-1923. Keeps an impartial tone in portraying the controversial events of those difficult years. Includes bibliography and index. Laffan, Michael. The Partition of Ireland, 1911-1925. Dundalk, Ireland: Dundalgan Press, 1983. Brief volume intended for students and teachers of history, sponsored by the Dublin Historical Association. Provides an excellent introduction to the formation of Northern Ireland. Includes brief bibliography and extensive footnotes. Longford, Frank Pakenham, and Thomas P. O’Neill. Eamon de Valera. London: Hutchinson, 1970. Readable biography of the key southern Irish figure was published before de Valera’s death and is not overly critical. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Rowland, Peter. David Lloyd George: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1976. Excellent biography of the most important British statesman during the crucial years after World War I. Provides good coverage of the Irish imbroglio. Includes bibliography and index. Stewart, A. T. Q. Edward Carson. 1981. Reprint. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1997. Brief biography of a major anti-home rule politician offers a sympathetic portrayal of Carson as pro-United Kingdom but not anti-Irish. Provides an excellent introduction to an important personage. See also: Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded; Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy; Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill; Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion.
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Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement
1920-1922
Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement Mahatma Gandhi organized the noncooperation movement in India in 1920 to transform the freedom movement from an elitist to a mass-based one and to oppose British rule actively and vigorously. Locale: India Categories: Indigenous peoples’ rights; human rights; independence movements; civil rights and liberties
Summary of Event Many Indians supported the British during World War I. These included Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, who organized an ambulance brigade and recruited soldiers for the Indian army. At that time also, many Indians, again including Gandhi, believed that they could work with the British toward the granting of Indian independence, which the British had promised in 1917 as a reward for Indian support during World War I. This feeling of goodwill on the part of Indians turned to distrust and outright hostility and opposition during the years 1918 to 1920. One reason was a 1919 massacre of Indian protesters in Amritsar. The British had passed new regulations that restricted Indian freedom, replacing strict laws passed during World War I that had expired, and the Indians were protesting these new laws. Another source of hostility was the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire by the British and their allies, which upset India’s Muslims. A third was the enactment of a series of new laws just after the end of the war that reduced some of the civil liberties Indians had come to expect. Thus on one hand the British were Mahatma Gandhi in 1925, using a spinning wheel, as he urged other Indians to making liberal constitutional changes, do to produce their own cloth. (Library of Congress)
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Key Figures Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; 1869-1948), leader of the Indian nationalist movement Chittaranjan Das (1870-1925), a leader of the Indian National Congress Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), a leader of the Indian National Congress
as in the Government of India Act of 1919, which gave more Indians the vote and allowed more of them to sit in regional and national legislatures, while on the other hand they were also strengthening their own position through restrictive laws, such as those passed to control demonstrations in the Punjab against British rule, and through violence. The result was that by July, 1920, Gandhi and many other Indian supporters of British rule had changed their minds about the British. They had come to believe that the British would never grant equality, dignity, and freedom to Indians. Gandhi began to talk and write about his disaffection, saying that it was now his moral duty to work for the end of British rule, because it had revealed itself to be evil. More and more Indians joined the movement for independence in the first two decades of the twentieth century and expressed their opposition to British rule, but this was not a mass movement. The Indian National Congress party was run by an elite group of politicians who were mostly Western-trained lawyers. The main activity of the Indian National Congress was an annual conference that met in one of the major cities. It was not a wellfunded organization, it did not have a mass following, and it did not have a local-level base. The British, on the whole, approved of the Congress, its members, and how
Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tage and their traditional way of life, and they began to believe that by folOn March 18, 1922, before he was sentenced to six years in prison for inciting lowing Gandhi they could fight for disaffection toward the British government in India, Mahatma Gandhi made a independence on their own terms and statement to the court that included these words: in their own style. Without prior consultation with I have no personal ill-will against any single administrator, much less can I the leaders of the Congress, Gandhi have any disaffection towards the King’s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to announced on August 1, 1920, that be disaffected towards a Government which in its totality has done more harm the noncooperation movement would to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule begin the following day. He knew than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have that the British ruled India’s millions affection for the system. In fact, I believe I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of an unnatural state in on a day-to-day basis with only a which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-co-operation with evil is as small number of officials and solmuch a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past, non-co-operation has diers, and that they did so with the been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavouring to cooperation of the Indians. If Indians show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiplies evil, and withdrew their cooperation, then the that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil reBritish raj (rule) would fall. Gandhi quires complete abstention from violence. called this technique of nonviolent resistance satyagraha (soul force). Gandhi began the movement by returning the medals he had received they went about conducting political life. Gandhi was from the British government in thanks for his ambulance consciously and deliberately to change all this through work during previous wars. He called for the boycott of the noncooperation movement he organized in 1920. schools, of law courts, and of the forthcoming legislative Gandhi’s aim for the movement was not only to council elections. He asked Indians not to buy Britishchange how the Indian National Congress operated and made goods, and he asked them to surrender any titles how the struggle for independence was being waged but and honorary offices the British had given them. He also to transform the very style of Indian politics. He becalled for the burning of British-made cloth and the lieved that Indians had become too Westernized and that wearing of hand-spun cloth, a call to which Indians rethey were cooperating too much with the British. He sponded in large numbers, so that the wearing of Indianwanted to end British rule but wanted to achieve this made clothes became a symbol of support for Gandhi and peacefully, possibly with the collaboration of the British his followers. themselves. At first, reaction to Gandhi’s call for noncooperation At the same time, Gandhi wanted to turn India away was mixed. He had made his call, mostly through the from the material values of the West and back to the simpress, before the Congress had a chance to meet and displer values of traditional India. He believed that by recuss the issue. Many Indians were unsure how to returning to indigenous daily practices Indians could unspond. Many of them had made careers and livelihoods dermine the British economy and transform their society. for themselves and their families in the service of the He revived the use of the spinning wheel, and the wearBritish. In particular, lawyers such as Congress leader ing of clothes made of hand-spun and hand-woven cloth Motilal Nehru, one of the highest-paid advocates in In(khadi) became a symbol of Congressmen. Gandhi bedia, had a very strong interest in the legal system. They lieved that the crafts of hand spinning and hand weaving did not want to lose their privileged position in society could bring some relief from poverty and help to alleviand the special relationship they had built up with the ate unemployment in the villages. This would result in a British. change in the way Indians saw themselves and how they Indian politicians also had benefited from British acted, and it would also Indianize the nationalist moverule, especially as the legislatures had just been reformed ment. The Indianization of the movement was further evand they were to receive privileges that would enhance their status and their salaries. They had fought long and idenced by the increasing use of Hindustani and other Inhard to get reforms from the British, and although they dian languages rather than English. The end result was certainly wanted independence, many of them believed it that Indians began to have more pride in their Indian heri-
Gandhi on Noncooperation
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Significance Indians responded to the call for noncooperation in many different ways, from wearing Gandhi caps and abstaining from alcohol to committing acts of violence such as murder and arson. In the end, not very many Indians resigned from their positions with the government, boycotted British schools, or gave up their legal careers, and the noncooperation movement petered out after a little more than a year. The psychological impact of the movement, however, was enormous. Indians realized they could oppose British rule on an everyday basis, by refusing to pay rent, by refusing to obey police orders, by demonstrating in the streets, and by refusing to buy Western goods. Even more important, Indians began to
think and talk about the end of British rule in India. From that point onward, the British were on the defensive. When Gandhi started his movement again in 1930, the masses followed him in even larger numbers. Through the noncooperation movement Gandhi became a national figure, and by 1922 his reputation had spread throughout the subcontinent. Many Indians did not understand Gandhi’s teachings, but they followed him. He came increasingly to be known as the Mahatma (Great Soul) and revered as a saint. Gandhi, therefore, had become both political leader to Congress followers and holy man to the illiterate peasants. Both Gandhi and the British were amazed at how popular and renowned he had become not only in the big cities but also in the deepest countryside, where national politics had never before penetrated. On March 10, 1922, Gandhi was arrested and charged with inciting disaffection toward the government. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. Released early, in 1924, because of ill health, he returned to his ashram (a spiritual retreat or commune) and did not take an active part in Indian politics again until 1930. As he went to jail in 1922, not for the first time or for the last, he left real changes behind him. India now had a national leader. Gandhi had increased the Indian sense of nationhood, and the Indian National Congress was increasingly a national political organization. Because of Gandhi, it was difficult for any politician to operate in politics outside the Indian National Congress. The party was seen by many as the only representative of the people of India; it came to be identified with India itself. In addition, Gandhi was a very successful fundraiser. Money flowed in to the party, enabling it to fund a broad range of activities and to hire full-time workers. The party organization spread to the provincial level and was found in all areas of British India. The most important impact of the noncooperation movement was a dramatic increase in the depth of political awareness among Indians. People of all classes were mobilized and willing to engage in political activities. Their depth of consciousness in 1922 was greater than it had been in 1920, and although their levels of political activity would rise and fall depending on national politics and on how strongly they felt about local conditions and local issues, India would never be the same again. The movement not only raised people’s consciousness about nationalism and the nationalist movement but also made them more aware of caste and community differences, especially the difference between Hindus and Muslims. As a result of the raising of political conscious1585
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would come slowly and only through cooperation with the British. They were also afraid that Gandhi’s program would lead to social chaos and violence. The politicians came under pressure to support noncooperation, and they did not want to appear timid in the fight for freedom. The result was that over the next several months Gandhi won many to his cause, even if he did compromise by agreeing to gradual rather than immediate boycotts of schools and courts. Gandhi’s call for noncooperation was heard all over India. People who had not been involved in politics before mobilized, invoked Gandhi’s name, called for noncooperation, and even organized campaigns in the rural areas. The surprise was that the movement was most successful in those parts of India—Sind (now part of Pakistan), Gujarat, Bihar, the United Provinces, and the Punjab—that for the most part had not been politically active in the past. In August, 1920, the Indian National Congress approved the principle of noncooperation. Gandhi had persuaded the regular politicians, including the Congress leaders Motilal Nehru and Chittaranjan Das, to support his movement, however reluctantly. Gandhi, in fact, took over leadership of the Congress when his supporters were elected to all the important positions in the party. The noncooperation movement continued until 1922, when protests got out of hand and twenty-two policemen were trapped inside a police station and burned to death when a mob set fire to the building. Nonviolence was one of Gandhi’s cardinal principles, and when he heard about the murder of the policemen he called off the nationwide movement, to the surprise and dismay of many of his supporters. Nevertheless, through the noncooperation movement the Indian National Congress and the nationalist movement had become Gandhian.
Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement
Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement ness and the increase in passions, people became more willing to fight to redress wrongs. This would eventually lead the Muslims to demand a separate country for themselves, Pakistan. —Roger D. Long Further Reading Brown, Judith M. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990. Judith Brown has dedicated her career to the study of the life and career of Gandhi. The early chapters of this work aid the reader in understanding how Gandhi transformed the Indian political scene through his new idea of a noncooperation movement against British rule. _______. Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian Politics, 19151922. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Excellent study of Gandhi’s rise to prominence and political power in India as well as one of the most detailed studies available of the noncooperation movement of 1920. Provides background to the events of the noncooperation movement and gives almost a day-to-day account of the movement. Copley, Antony. Gandhi: Against the Tide. 1987. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. A good brief introduction to Gandhi’s life and career. Includes information on the noncooperation movement and Gandhi’s technique of nonviolent opposition. Erikson, Erik H. Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. 1969. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Written by a psychoanalyst, this work examines the psychology behind Gandhi’s method of opposition to the British. Describes in detail the inner workings of Gandhi’s mind and how he wanted to change the way Indians saw themselves and the British.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Fox, Richard G. Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. Written by an anthropologist, this work shows how Gandhi used symbols based in traditional Indian culture, such as ahimsa (nonviolence), in his noncooperation movement of 1920. Gandhi, M. K. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. 1929. Reprint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Essential to an understanding of how Gandhi himself saw the issues of his times. Covers Gandhi’s life up to 1920, before the noncooperation movement. Describes campaigns he conducted in South Africa and expounds on the principles of nonviolence that were the backbone of the noncooperation movement of 1920. _______. Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings. Edited by John Dear. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2002. Collection of Gandhi’s writings is organized thematically, with topics including nonviolent resistance, the search for God, and the pursuit of truth. Includes a chronology as well as a list of sources and recommended readings. Wolpert, Stanley. Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Biography of Gandhi and evaluation of his life’s work inspired in part by India’s seeming abandonment of his vision of nonviolence in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Includes bibliography and index. See also: June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion; Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist
1920-1924
Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist Critical, editorial, and biographical initiatives early in the twentieth century revived interest in the writings of Herman Melville and led to recognition of Melville as a major literary artist. Also known as: Melville revival Locale: United States; Great Britain Category: Literature
Summary of Event To appreciate the Herman Melville revival, one needs to know something of the writer’s earlier reputation. Melville burst on the literary scene in his twenties with Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), novels based on his experiences in the Marquesas Islands after he had deserted the whaling ship on which he had been a crew member. The public took greedily to these exotic romances, and Melville quickly became famous. Not content merely to capitalize further on this material, Melville penned a succession of more serious books that disenchanted his early readers. The strangeness of Moby Dick: Or, The Whale (1851) especially alienated the public, and a few years later Melville gave up fiction for poetry. Gradually, Melville fell into literary obscurity. In his mid-forties, he obtained a job as a customs inspector in New York to support his family. He died in 1891, and for several decades thereafter, literary historians ignored him or mentioned him only briefly as the author of Typee and Omoo, often to compare him unfavorably with Robert Louis Stevenson—a writer who, ironically, owed his interest in the South Seas to his reading of Melville. One of the few enthusiastic Melvillians, Carl Van Doren, contributed an essay on Melville to the new Cambridge History of American Literature that was pub-
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Key Figures Herman Melville (1819-1891), American poet and writer of fiction D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), English writer Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. (1868-1953), American art critic Eleanor Melville Metcalf (1882-1964), granddaughter of Herman Melville Carl Van Doren (1885-1950), American literary critic Raymond M. Weaver (1888-1948), American university professor
lished in 1917, and at Van Doren’s suggestion, a young Columbia University professor named Raymond M. Weaver joined in an effort to promote the Melville centennial in 1919. Discovering that no full-length biography of Melville existed, Weaver went to Eleanor Melville Metcalf, the writer’s granddaughter, who supplied him with both recollections and previously unpublished manuscripts. Meanwhile, Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., published the best essay on Melville yet in the August, 1919, edition of a periodical simply called Review. Weaver discovered a nearly finished short novel on which Melville had been working in his retirement. Set in the time of the Napoleonic Wars, it focuses on a young merchant seaman impressed on a British warship who incurs the enmity of the ship’s master-at-arms. The malicious officer accuses the innocent and uncomprehending Billy Budd of planning a mutiny; Billy, a stutterer, cannot defend himself verbally and instead strikes his accuser dead before the captain’s eyes. Although a favorite of the captain and all his shipmates, the young man is tried, convicted, and hanged. The appearance of Weaver’s biography, Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic, in 1921 generated new interest in Melville’s work. The widely read American critic Van Wyck Brooks observed that Melville’s name was suddenly “in everyone’s mouth,” although he conceded that soon Melville might be forgotten again. Still, Brooks pointed out, the publicity would undoubtedly bring Melville to the attention of at least a few readers who would permanently value his books. Meanwhile, other champions of Melville were arising. Melville’s reputation benefited particularly from the efforts of admirers abroad; Augustine Birrell, H. M. Tomlinson, and Viola Meynell were among the English writers heard from early in the Melville revival. The most influential of Melville’s English critics, however, was famed novelist D. H. Lawrence, who in 1923 published a quirky but brilliant book titled Studies in Classic American Literature. Despite its stodgy title, the book dealt wittily and perceptively with such already highly regarded American writers as Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe; it also devoted two chapters to Melville. Lawrence engaged in a certain amount of ridicule of all these American writers, including Melville, but he called Moby Dick “a surpassingly beautiful book.” Indeed, the Melville revival primarily rescued from
Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Lawrence on Melville D. H. Lawrence helped encourage the Melville revival when he included two chapters on Melville’s works in his 1923 book Studies in Classic American Literature. One of those chapters begins as follows: The greatest seer and poet of the sea for me is Melville. His vision is more real than Swinburne’s, because he doesn’t personify the sea, and far sounder than Joseph Conrad’s, because Melville doesn’t sentimentalize the ocean and the sea’s unfortunates. Snivel in a wet hanky like Lord Jim. Melville has the strange, uncanny magic of sea-creatures, and some of their repulsiveness. He isn’t quite a land animal. There is something slithery about him. Something always half-seas-over. In his life they said he was mad—or crazy. He was neither mad nor crazy. But he was over the border. He was half a water animal, like those terrible yellow-bearded Vikings who broke out of the waves in beaked ships. . . . Melville is like a Viking going home to the sea, encumbered with age and memories, and a sort of accomplished despair, almost madness. For he cannot accept humanity. He can’t belong to humanity. Cannot. Source: D. H. Lawrence, “Herman Melville’s Typee and Omoo,” in Studies in Classic American Literature (New York: T. Seltzer, 1923).
oblivion Melville’s tale of Captain Ahab’s chase of the white whale, while the two early novels continued to attract much more notice than any of his other later poetry and fiction. Critics began to praise the suspense in Moby Dick, the author’s use of dramatic dialogue, and even the shifts in point of view that earlier critics had disparaged. Weaver’s subtitle for his biography, Mariner and Mystic, clearly influenced commentators on the novel. No one had doubted Melville’s qualifications as a mariner, but now Moby Dick was viewed (not always approvingly) as “a struggle between realism and mysticism.” Readers continued to be exasperated by the novel, but they began to consider the possibility that the difficulties of Melville’s style justified and even rewarded sustained attention. Questions such as “What does the great white whale represent?” and “Who or what is Captain Ahab?” were increasingly addressed. Between 1922 and 1924, the publication of a sixteenvolume edition of Melville’s complete works began to lead readers to consider not only the novels between Omoo and Moby Dick but also his later published fiction, including the long-neglected Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities (1852), The Piazza Tales (1856), and The Confidence Man: His Masquerade (1857), as well as his poetry. Especially important was the thirteenth volume of this edition, edited by Raymond Weaver and published in 1924, which included the previously unpublished 1588
short novel that Weaver decided to entitle Billy Budd, Foretopman. The manuscript presented editorial problems that Weaver did not handle expertly, but the fact of an important novel from Melville, written thirty years after he had supposedly given up fiction, at the time far outweighed the problems resulting from Weaver’s shortcomings as an editor. Despite its cumbersome style, Billy Budd is an intriguing story of guilt and innocence. In Captain Vere, who chooses to try Billy for murder and thereafter decides to execute him on the spot, Melville paints a classic struggle between professional duty and conscience. In the early years of the Melville revival, this late work claimed little critical attention, but its existence made clear that Melville’s fiction after that great classic could not be dismissed as airily as it had been for decades.
Significance In his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919), T. S. Eliot argues that a new work of art not only adds to the existing tradition but also provokes a readjustment of the whole order of the works making up that tradition. Although Eliot could not have been thinking of Melville’s work when he wrote his essay, the idea certainly applies. In the 1920’s, Melville’s work was not precisely new, just newly acknowledged—although Billy Budd, of course, was just as new to its readers as any recent composition. That its recognition profoundly altered not only estimates of Melville the artist but also the canon of American literature cannot seriously be disputed. Even geographically, the growing acknowledgment of Melville’s greatness is significant. As late as the 1920’s, the notion persisted that the history of American literature amounted chiefly to an account of New England writers, not only the still-revered Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau, but also a host of others no longer seen as of the first rank: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and others less well known. Of course, New Yorkers such as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper had their place, but that place was outside the perceived mainstream. Even the Missourian Mark
Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist
Twain settled in Hartford and could, after a fashion, be accounted the latest of the “Connecticut wits.” The very fact of Twain’s removal to New England suggests the potency of the region’s aura. The recognition of Melville and of his exact contemporary Walt Whitman made it impossible to see New England as the almost exclusive domain of nineteenth century American literature. These men were not only New York-born, but they were also cosmopolitan in ways beyond the scope of the New England literary establishment. Whitman celebrated the length and breadth of the land, and Melville had gone to, and sent his characters to, remote places around the globe. Even when Melville chose an American setting, as in his increasingly popular story “Bartleby the Scrivener,” he hit upon a locale, in this case Wall Street in New York City, far from the ken of the New Englanders. Furthermore, he presented Bartleby as a victim of the new commercial and legal world; even Bartleby’s well-intentioned employer contributes to the impersonal and dislocating forces that swamp the forlorn copier of legal documents. Melville had furnished readers with his fresh vision back in the 1850’s, but only seventy years later did it begin to expand the imaginative horizons of more than a handful of admirers. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the new emphasis on the whole range of Melville works—including his long-neglected poetry—was an important constituent in revealing the long-standing provincialism in American literary criticism. Lewis Mumford’s 1929 Herman Melville, for example, devoted eighteen pages to Melville’s long narrative poem Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876). Willard Thorp, a Princeton University professor, is given major credit for promoting the academic study of Melville. The introduction to his Herman Melville: Representative Selections (1938) made it impossible for responsible critics and literary historians to neglect either Melville or the body of his writings. In the next decade, Melville became a fixture in college surveys of American literature and increasingly the focus of specialized courses. Not only Moby Dick but also all three of the works in Melville’s The Piazza Tales—“Bartleby the Scrivener,” The Encantadas, and Benito Cereno—as well as Billy Budd, Sailor (the title adopted in the corrected edition of Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., in 1962) became staples of American literature courses, and Pierre often joined Moby Dick in courses focusing on longer American novels. The title of the fourth book in Van Wyck Brooks’s American literary history—The Times of Melville and
Whitman (1947)—signifies the extent of Melville’s eminence a quarter of a century after the revival began. The following year, the new Literary History of the United States (1948), of which Thorp was an editor, included Melville among the handful of writers allotted long individual chapters. Melville’s Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) came to be acknowledged as among American literature’s finest war poems. Another measure of the upswing in Melville’s reputation is the quantity of scholarly writing devoted to him. From the late 1920’s to 2005, the number of books and articles on Melville published annually swelled from an average of five to approximately one hundred. Few bookstores today fail to stock a selection of Melville titles, including, interestingly, Typee and Omoo, now considered very minor Melville works. — Robert P. Ellis Further Reading Brooks, Van Wyck. The Times of Melville and Whitman. 1947. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. Brooks is unusual among literary historians for his keen sense of place (his chapter “Melville in the Berkshires” is one example), his engaging narrative style, and his infectious enthusiasm for literary culture. Melville by no means dominates this substantial volume, but Brooks asserts that in Melville and Whitman, the United States “found its voices.” Delbanco, Andrew. Melville: His World and Work. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Places Melville and his work within the context of his times through biographical material and also provides analysis of the important works. Includes illustrations. Howard, Leon. Herman Melville: A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951. Several decades after publication, this book remains one of the best all-around Melville biographies. Provides excellent insights not only into his life and thought but also into the reasons for Americans’ failure to appreciate properly one of the nation’s greatest authors until many years following his death. Matthiessen, F. O. The American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. 1941. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. One of the earliest studies to examine Melville in relation to the sudden outpouring of great American literature in the mid-nineteenth century. Concentrates on five writers, relates Melville closely to his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, and breaks new ground in investigating the Shakespearean influence on Melville. 1589
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Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits Parker, Hershel. Herman Melville: A Biography. 2 vols. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996-2002. Massive, highly detailed biography provides exhaustive exploration of Melville’s life. Includes illustrations, genealogical charts, and index. _______. Reading Billy Budd. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1990. A close reading of the greatest discovery of the Melville revival. Examines the continuing liability of Weaver’s pioneering efforts; despite the availability of the subsequent, and superior, Hayford-Sealts edition of Billy Budd, the refusal by many critics to take full advantage of it has had the effect of perpetuating the errors of this leader in the revival. _______, ed. The Recognition of Herman Melville. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967. A generous selection of Melville criticism often otherwise accessible only with difficulty. Divided into four chronological sections, of which the third, “The Melville Revival: 1917-32,” and the fourth, “Academic Recognition: 1938-1967,” constitute a particularly illu-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 minating account of Melville’s remarkable resurgence. Preface aptly summarizes the movement. Parker, Hershel, and Harrison Hayford, eds. Moby-Dick. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Presents the full text of Melville’s most famous novel as well as an unusually thorough summation, by scores of contributors, of the range of critical reaction to Melville up to and after the revival. As valuable for understanding the inevitable shifts in critical perspective as for understanding Melville. Weaver, Raymond M. Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic. 1921. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1968. Although out of date and misleading in its tendency to use details from Melville’s fiction as part of the biographical record, retains a place of honor as probably the single publication most responsible for the Melville revival. See also: Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published; 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature.
1920-1925
Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits From 1920 to 1925, Great Britain enacted several laws that established a national system of unemployment insurance, laying the groundwork for a program of unemployment relief. Locale: London, England Categories: Business and labor; economics; social issues and reform; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), prime minister of Great Britain, 1923-1924 and 1924-1929 Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), minister of health in Great Britain, 1924-1929 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), president of the Board of Trade in Great Britain David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), prime minister of Great Britain, January-October, 1924 Summary of Event In the post-World War I period, Great Britain’s economic system faltered. Depression engulfed much of the 1590
nation in 1921, and unemployment reached unparalleled proportions. In response, the government expanded prewar social insurance legislation to provide relief for the unemployed. From 1920 to 1925, fifteen acts of Parliament dealt with assistance to the unemployed. The changeover from a Labour Party government to a Conservative Party government did not end the program of social reform. In 1925, when the British Labour Party, led by Ramsay MacDonald, lost power, the new Conservative government attempted to make the unemployment insurance programs affordable and, if feasible, selfsupporting. In the 1880’s, Germany had legislated a much-admired social welfare system. The so-called Bismarckian program, however, had not dealt with unemployment. It was left for Great Britain to take the lead role in that category. The Unemployment Insurance Act of 1925 reflected Great Britain’s prewar attempts to obtain relief for unemployed workers. Great Britain’s modern welfare system began in the early twentieth century. In 1909, the Liberal Party had embarked on a far-reaching program of social reforms. A network of labor exchanges was set up to provide opportunities for employment. Two years later, the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits
1920
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
British foreign secretary Austen Chamberlain (left), Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (center), and Winston Churchill (right) in 1925. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
National Insurance Act Part II initiated unemployment insurance for workers in certain trades. The person most responsible for Part II was Winston Churchill, president of the Board of Trade. Churchill described unemployment as the Achilles’ heel of British labor, and he proposed a national minimum income to combat the problems presented by unemployment. The capstone to the welfare state the Liberals were building was the National Insurance Act Part II. An experimental program, it applied only to select trades in which employment fluctuated the most, including construction, auto manufacture, and shipbuilding. The plan was contributory—employers, workers, and the state contributed modest amounts for every week of insured employment. Approximately two and one-half million workers, including ten thousand women, were covered. Churchill’s plan, however, was delayed three years because of the outbreak of World War I. In 1916, coverage was extended to munitions workers, anticipating the return of peace and those workers’ consequent
unemployment. Unemployment within the covered trades was virtually nonexistent during the war, and the Unemployment Fund amassed a surplus of £15 million. After the armistice in 1918 until March, 1921, the state provided for unemployed civilians and former service members through “Out of Work Donations,” special grants that were not part of the unemployment insurance. Most of the unemployed were entitled to the more generous “donations,” and they preferred them to the insurance. Ironically, while Great Britain spent £62 million through the “donation” system, the Unemployment Fund saved money. The public’s attitude toward the state’s responsibilities in dealing with unemployment in the postwar period was shaped by prewar experiments. The Liberals had established labor exchanges, introduced unemployment insurance, and started public works. The earlier programs were based on contributory insurance principles. Because the wartime prosperity resulted in an Unemployment Fund surplus, Great Britain increased unem1591
Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits ployment benefits without increasing the contributions. The program was further improved when the government passed the Unemployment Act of 1920, linking unemployment insurance with health insurance and extending the coverage nationwide. The Unemployment Act of 1920 became the “parent act” of the national system of unemployment insurance. Nearly all manual workers and all nonmanual workers earning less than £250 per year were included, extending the program to almost twelve million workers. The act provided for “covenanted” benefits, earned through contributions, for a maximum of fifteen weeks. The 1920 unemployment act met little opposition because its basic principles had been set in 1911. This extended coverage came just as the postwar depression hit Great Britain. When the act passed, fewer than one-half million workers were unemployed; in two months, the figure doubled. By the end of June, 1921, there were two million unemployed, apart from the parttime workers also making claims. Parliament responded with a new system of benefits in advance of contributions, called “uncovenanted” benefits, and converted the insurance year to two “special periods” of thirty-five weeks each. The maximum of fifteen weeks of benefits was extended to sixteen weeks in each of the special periods. As the depression worsened, benefits were extended to twenty-two weeks during the special periods, but benefit levels were reduced to those of 1920. Continued economic crises forced Parliament to enact the Unemployed Workers’ Dependents Act. Intended to last only six months, the dependents’ grant program became a permanent attachment to the 1920 parent act. The dual system of benefits enacted in 1922 included a “gap principle,” which provided for fifteen weeks of uncovenanted benefits broken by gaps of five weeks to help extend the relief over a thirty-week period. Covenanted benefits had no gaps. The 1923 Conservative government was forced to extend the uncovenanted benefits to eighteen weeks, subject to a two-week gap; covenanted benefits ran twenty-six weeks. Additional legislation provided for “benefit years” during which twenty-six weeks of uncovenanted benefits could be drawn. The election of 1924 brought the Labour Party, led by Ramsay MacDonald, into power. This first socialist government attempted to rebuild the entire benefits structure. It removed the gap of three weeks, granted covenanted (now “standard”) benefits to all classes, extended benefits from twenty-six to forty-one weeks, and made uncovenanted (now “extended”) benefits a statutory right, just as the standard benefits were. MacDonald, 1592
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 however, claimed that unemployment assistance was “never meant to be a living wage.” MacDonald’s sudden dissolution of Parliament in October, 1924, returned Stanley Baldwin and the Conservative Party to power. The transfer of power, however, did not stop the process of change. The extended benefit ceased to be a statutory right, but to prevent thousands from starving and becoming paupers, the government was forced to waive rules that protected the Insurance Fund. The administrative waiver kept some 200,000 to 300,000 workers on the extended benefit rolls. The urgent need for relief forced the Conservative government to pass the Widows’ and Orphans’ and Old Age Contributory Act in 1925. Neville Chamberlain, the minister of health, requested that Baldwin consider the four basic fears of the breadwinner: unemployment, sickness, old age, and death. Baldwin did so, and, consequently, the 1925 legislation became the most comprehensive unemployment relief program enacted up to that time. Based on the 1920 parent act, the 1925 legislation continued unemployment benefits and the dependents’ grant benefit as well as added relief for widows, orphans, and aged citizens. For seven years, the Unemployment Insurance Act, not public works, provided relief for the jobless. Subsequent legislation enacted in 1927 and future unemployment relief measures of the 1930’s were based on the parent act of 1920 and the other acts passed from 1920 through 1925. Significance Great Britain’s experiment had a number of impacts internationally. The scientific theory of unemployment insurance on which it was based was the first of its kind in the world community. The Bismarckian social reforms of Germany had intentionally avoided unemployment remedies. Parliament saw that Great Britain could no longer ignore the plight of jobless workers, and the government’s acceptance of the nation’s responsibility for its workers served as a model for other nations, many of which followed suit with their own programs. Great Britain became the bellwether in legislating relief benefits for the jobless. By 1920, the principle of unemployment insurance had become nationally recognized in Great Britain as not only beneficial but also necessary. In that year, nearly all British workers were brought under the protection of the program, making the total number eligible for relief about eleven million. Changes made from 1920 through 1925 were mainly technical rather than substantive. In
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Further Reading Aldcroft, Derek H. The Inter-war Economy: Britain, 1919-1939. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. A useful critical survey of the growth of Great Britain’s economy, fluctuations in economic activity, and regional patterns of development. Focuses on the Great Depression at the expense of discussion of the 1920’s, however. Includes index and extensive bibliography. Beveridge, William Henry. Unemployment: A Problem of Industry. 3d ed. London: Longmans, Green, 1912. Still useful although dated, as it presents a contemporary’s view of Great Britain’s economic problems and the legislation enacted to remedy those problems. Includes bibliography. Cohen, Percy. The British System of Social Insurance: History and Description. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932. Looks at each specific event leading to the passage of unemployment insurance in Great Britain. Dated (it was written at the start of the Great Depression) but useful for the light it sheds on the evolution of social reform legislation. Includes bibliography and index. Garraty, John A. Unemployment in History: Economic Thought and Public Policy. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. Examines the development of public policy to cope with unemployment in several industrial nations, including discussion of the opposition faced by proposed social legislation. Includes bibliography and index. Gilbert, Bentley B. British Social Policy, 1914-1939. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970. Comprehensive coverage of the report of Britain’s Unemployment Insurance Committee. A serious in-depth study of British social policy between the world wars, analytic and occasionally critical. Includes bibliography and index. Glynn, Sean, and Alan Booth. Modern Britain: An Economic and Social History. New York: Routledge, 1995. Discusses economic and social developments in Great Britain, focusing on the period between World Wars I and II as well as the period immediately following World War II. Topics include growth, industry, welfare, and unemployment. Features figures, tables, bibliography, and index. Kohler, Peter A., and Hans F. Zacher, eds. The Evolution of Social Insurance, 1881-1981: Studies of Germany, France, Great Britain, Austria, and Switzerland. London: Frances Pinter, 1982. Provides an excellent comparison of the social insurance programs of European 1593
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1921, for example, the power to “contract out,” whereby an industry could exempt itself from contributing to the insurance fund, was suspended; it was abolished in 1927. Aid to dependents of unemployed workers was added to relieve the suffering of families. Waiting periods for assistance were reduced, periods of eligibility were extended, and types of coverage were significantly enlarged to enhance the relief measures. The contributory insurance principle had been designed to cope with seasonal or cyclical unemployment, but the chronic unemployment of the 1920’s prevented the scheme from functioning as planned. The collapse of the postwar boom caused Great Britain’s unemployment rate to rise to 11 percent nationwide, compared with the 6 percent rate in the thirty years before World War I. Regional and industrywide jobless rates varied. The coal mining industry, after the strike of 1921, suffered from 23 percent unemployment, and 36 percent of the workers in shipbuilding and steel, industries that relied heavily on coal, were jobless. Great Britain responded by increasing unemployment benefits and making them available to more unemployed workers. Great Britain abandoned the earlier “tiding over” concept of unemployment assistance to establish a minimum income for each worker. Under the act passed in 1920, weekly benefits were fixed at fifteen shillings for a man and twelve shillings for a woman, with half rates for young people. The Unemployed Workers’ Dependents Act gave a married man eligible for benefits five shillings for his wife and one shilling for each dependent child under age fourteen, and an unmarried man was given a grant of five shillings to pay for a housekeeper. At least one analyst has suggested that an unemployed man and his family possibly were better off during this period than an unskilled laborer with a job. The Unemployment Act and the dependents’ grant program were accompanied by programs for housing, education, and health needs. The total effect was considerable improvement in the standard of living for the jobless. The national insurance scheme provided medical care to nineteen million workers and dependents. Because of the relief measures, many recipients were better fed and clothed than they had previously been, and they also saw improvements in their standards of health as the incidence of infectious diseases dropped. Although these relief measures were often ad hoc and full of inadequacies, for many British citizens they reduced the distress that accompanies illness, old age, and loss of a job. —H. Christian Thorup
Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits
Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays nations. Chapter on Great Britain surveys the evolution of unemployment insurance from England’s 1834 Poor Law up to the late 1970’s. Volume reflects a critical German point of view but succinctly covers the major legislation of the twentieth century. Unusual indexing allows the reader to compare easily all social insurance topics of each nation. Includes bibliography. Pugh, Martin. State and Society: A Social and Political History of Britain 1870-1997. 2d ed. London: Arnold, 2000. Analyzes social policy and political developments in Great Britain from the last part of the nineteenth century onward. Includes discussion of Britain’s implementation of a system of unemployment insurance. Features illustrations, figures, tables, and index. Winch, Donald. Economics and Policy: A Historical
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Study. New York: Walker, 1969. Presents useful discussion of the ever-widening scope of the state’s responsibility for economic affairs. Compares Great Britain’s legislative process with that of the United States, noting the effects of each system on policy formation and its implementation. Includes index. See also: Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party; Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy; July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act.
1920-1930
Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays Robert Andrews Millikan and his colleagues proved that upper-atmospheric radiation was of extraterrestrial origin, named it, and led in its exploration. Locale: United States Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953), American physicist Victor Franz Hess (1883-1964), Austrian physicist Arthur Holly Compton (1892-1962), American physicist Werner Kolhörster (1887-1946), German physicist Summary of Event Cosmic radiation was discovered by the Swiss physicist Albert Gockel in 1910. It was the Austrian physicist Victor Franz Hess, however, who first proposed that the radiation was of extraterrestrial origin. Hess had been working on the problem of air ionization, a phenomenon known since the beginning of the twentieth century. It was initially supposed that this slight ionization was caused by radioactive elements in the earth. This meant that at greater altitudes the radiation should decrease. Yet in 1911, when Hess ascended in a balloon to 5,200 meters (about 17,060 feet), he found that the radiation increased above 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) and that above 3,000 1594
Robert Andrews Millikan. (Library of Congress)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays
Forms of Cosmic Radiation Skin
Metal (0.12 cm aluminum)
Metal (lead)
Alpha rays (charged helium nuclei) Beta rays (charged electrons)
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Gamma rays, X rays (photons) Neutrinos (chargeless, nearly massless subatomic particles)
Different forms of cosmic radiation can penetrate different forms of matter: Alpha rays cannot penetrate skin; beta rays can penetrate skin but not metal; gamma rays can penetrate both but are stopped by lead; and neutrinos—chargeless, nearly massless particles— can penetrate even lead, making them extremely difficult to detect. Although neutrinos interact very little with matter, they are believed to be produced in the nuclear reactions at the core of the Sun and other stars and may constitute a large portion of the “missing mass” of the universe.
meters (9,843 feet) there was an even sharper rise in intensity. Hess concluded that the “penetrating radiation,” as it was then known, entered the atmosphere from above. Hess’s work was confirmed in 1913 by Werner Kolhörster, a German physicist who made a balloon ascent to 9,000 meters (29,528 feet). Not all physicists believed the explanation Hess and Kolhörster gave, however, and even the very existence of the radiation remained in some doubt. The idea that a strong source of radiation existed in outer space was simply unimaginable to some scientists. Some believed that radioactive uranium and thorium in the soil caused the radiation. Others believed that the equipment used by Hess was flawed. Still others sought a compromise position, believing that the radiation was produced somewhere higher up in Earth’s atmosphere, something that Hess admitted was a possibility. Robert Andrews Millikan, an American physicist, decided to try to settle the matter. Millikan’s first experiments were carried out in 19211922 and involved sending a number of sounding balloons into the atmosphere. These experiments were inconclusive. More tests were performed in 1922 and 1923 and were similarly inconclusive. Then, in the summer of
1925, Millikan designed an experiment to determine the penetrating power of the rays, which had not yet been measured. If the rays were of external origin, they would have to have a penetrating power great enough to get through the atmosphere, which was equivalent to penetrating 10 meters (32.8 feet) of water. The strongest rays produced by known radioactive elements could not penetrate more than about 2 meters (6.56 feet) of water. With his assistant, George Harvey Cameron, Millikan took measurements from two California lakes, Muir Lake (elevation 3,650 meters, or 11,975 feet), near Mount Whitney, and Lake Arrowhead (elevation 1,500 meters, or 4,921 feet). At Muir Lake, Millikan and Cameron lowered their electroscopes into the water. They found that the radiation, coming exclusively from above, was eighteen times greater than that of the strongest known gamma ray (gamma rays are the strongest of the three types of radioactive emissions). This radiation was strong enough to penetrate the atmosphere, proving that the radiation certainly could come from space. At Lake Arrowhead, Millikan and Cameron found that the readings were identical to the Muir Lake readings when the difference in lake elevation was taken into account. This proved to Millikan that the atmosphere 1595
Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays played no part in transmitting the rays but acted merely as an absorbing medium. Millikan now believed that the rays came from outer space. In late 1925, at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, Millikan announced his findings, calling the new radiation “cosmic rays.” He believed that, as the strongest radiation previously known was that produced in radioactive transformations, these cosmic rays were the result also of some sort of nuclear charge. The strongest rays on Earth were photons (particles of electromagnetic radiation), which were produced when helium was produced from hydrogen atoms and when an electron was captured by a light nucleus. Millikan inferred, therefore, that cosmic rays were photons produced from some type of atom formation. Millikan next tested his assumption that cosmic rays were composed of high-energy photons. In a 1926 trip to Lake Titicaca in South America, he noticed almost no difference between the findings there and at Muir Lake. If cosmic rays had instead been composed of charged particles, Earth’s magnetic field would have affected the radiation distribution across the globe. Measurements on the return boat trip from Peru to Los Angeles also showed no variation. Significance The notion that photons were the primary constituents of cosmic rays was challenged in 1929. Kolhörster and German physicist Walther Bothe, after a series of experiments with a Geiger-Müller counter, concluded that cosmic rays were, in fact, composed of charged particles. Following this work, many physicists turned to the problem of which model was correct. The decisive experiment was made by Nobel laureate Arthur Holly Compton. He turned again to the question of what effect, if any, Earth’s magnetic field had on the intensity of cosmic rays. Even though Millikan, and later Kolhörster, failed to notice any appreciable difference, a growing body of work, beginning in 1927, pointed toward a “latitude effect.” In 1932, Compton organized a massive survey of the globe, trying to detect such an effect. By September, 1932, the results of the survey showed that there was, indeed, a latitude effect, and thus that cosmic rays were composed at least partly of charged particles, a fact that Millikan was forced to accept. —George R. Ehrhardt Further Reading DeVorkin, David H. Race to the Stratosphere: Manned Scientific Ballooning in America. New York: 1596
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Springer-Verlag, 1989. Excellent history of manned scientific ballooning by the curator of the National Air and Space Museum. Focuses on Auguste and Jean Piccard, with extensive coverage of the cosmic-ray experiments conducted with Millikan and Compton. Scholarly, but very readable. Includes photographs, bibliography, notes, and index. Friedlander, Michael W. Cosmic Rays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989. Popular account by a practicing researcher includes a good bit of history in discussing all aspects of cosmic-ray research. Features photographs, illustrations, bibliography, and index. Grieder, Peter K. F. Cosmic Rays at Earth: Researcher’s Reference Manual and Data Book. New York: Elsevier Science, 2001. Reference manual intended for use by scientists involved in cosmic-ray research includes background material that may be useful to lay readers with some science background. Kargon, Robert H. The Rise of Robert Millikan: Portrait of a Life in American Science. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982. Selective scholarly biography by a historian of science focuses on themes in American science as illuminated by Millikan’s life. Provides much material on the public side of cosmicray research. Includes some photographs, notes, and index. Kevles, Daniel J. The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America. 1977. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Scholarly but accessible work by a historian of science tells the story of the development of the physics community in the United States from its origins through the development of supercolliders. Contains some material on the Millikan-Compton controversy and places the field in its larger context. Includes extensive bibliographic essay, notes, and index. Millikan, Robert Andrews. Electrons (+ and –), Protons, Photons, Neutrons, Mesotrons, and Cosmic Rays. Rev. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947. All but the last five chapters of this edition are largely unrevised from the original 1937 edition. Presents much of what was known about particle physics at the time; however, the sections on cosmic rays are extremely self-justifying and have been recognized as such by other physicists. Should be read in conjunction with the Kargon book cited above. Includes photographs, illustrations, and index. Motz, Lloyd, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Story of Astronomy. New York: Plenum, 1995. Presents the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
opment of physics by a practitioner. Includes some material on cosmic rays. Features photographs, annotated bibliography, and index. Sekido, Yataro, and Harry Elliot, eds. Early History of Cosmic Ray Studies: Personal Reminiscences with Old Photographs. Boston: D. Reidel, 1985. Collection of papers by a number of early cosmic-ray researchers. Especially good on Hess and his predecessors, weak on Millikan. Includes photographs, illustrations, notes, and index. See also: Jan.-Aug., 1909: Millikan Conducts His OilDrop Experiment; Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory; May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon; 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect.
January 3, 1920
New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth The acquisition of Babe Ruth by the New York Yankees coincided with the emergence of the home run as baseball’s new weapon, enormously increasing the sport’s popularity and marking a new approach to franchise operations. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Sports; business and labor Key Figures Babe Ruth (1895-1948), American baseball player Jake Ruppert (1867-1939), American brewery magnate and owner of the New York Yankees Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887-1951), American baseball player Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), first commissioner of baseball Edward Grant Barrow (1868-1953), general manager of the New York Yankees, 1921-1939 Summary of Event The purchase of George Herman “Babe” Ruth’s contract by the New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox in a deal that was finalized on January 3, 1920, was more than a simple baseball business transaction. The appearance of Babe Ruth in a Yankee uniform was significant in the transformation of how baseball was played on the field and, on a different level, had a profound effect on how
owners and managers devised strategies for the overall operation of professional sports franchises. Ruth, the premier home-run hitter of the era, was also the key to the Yankees’ financial success. His contract was available after the 1919 season because Harry Frazee, the owner of the Red Sox, needed cash to handle debts and legal problems. The Red Sox, although financially strapped, were a traditionally strong team that had won four World Series championships in the preceding eight years; in contrast, Yankees owner Jake Ruppert had ample personal monetary resources, but his team had never finished higher than second place in the American League. In an effort to bring fans to the Polo Grounds (the Yankees’ home field until the opening of Yankee Stadium in 1923), Ruppert identified Ruth as a player of immense potential and purchased his contract from the Red Sox for $125,000 and a loan of $300,000—unprecedented amounts in player transactions at the time. By comparison, Ruppert and his partner had paid $450,000 for the entire ball club in 1915. The arrival of Ruth in New York and the rise of the Yankees dynasty came at a time of crisis in professional baseball. Many franchises had heavy financial burdens from the brief but costly rivalry with the upstart Federal Baseball League, which in 1914 and 1915 had signed more than eighty major-league players and had drawn a large number of fans. The settlement with the Federal 1597
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history of astronomy from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 18 includes discussion cosmic rays. Features bibliography and index. Pomerantz, Martin A. Cosmic Rays. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. Semipopular account aimed at college undergraduates with some science or mathematics background. Includes a historical chapter that is more accessible to nonscientists. Covers all aspects of research. Features illustrations, photographs, and index. Rossi, Bruno. Cosmic Rays. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Popular account by a pioneer researcher offers a good introduction to the subject. Includes photographs, illustrations, and index. Segrè, Emilio. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. Impressionistic account of the devel-
New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth
New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth League may have cost American and National League owners as much as five million dollars. In 1918, moreover, more than two hundred major-league ballplayers entered the armed forces to serve in World War I. Fan interest dropped sharply, the playing season ended a month early, and club incomes declined. Finally, the 1919 World Series ended under the shadow of rumors that eventually resulted in open charges that the Chicago White Sox, including star outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson, had accepted bribes from gamblers to lose the contest on purpose. In September, 1920, after several months of owner cover-ups, extensive coverage of the “Black Sox” scandal appeared in the press. This scandal threatened to deepen the game’s financial woes, because skeptical fans were not likely to pay admission to root for teams that may have sold out to gamblers.
Babe Ruth. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Even before the full extent of the 1919 World Series scandal became public knowledge, Babe Ruth and the Yankees set out in a more positive direction. Ruth came to personify changes in batting techniques that, in the space of three years, revolutionized the way the game was played. Ruth’s main weapon was a long, thin-handled bat, and his method was a mighty, body-wrenching swing. One result was a swing and a miss—he struck out often. He was also exceptionally gifted in driving the heavy part of the bat directly into the pitch, however, and the result, for both players and spectators, was nothing less than phenomenal. Ruth’s claim to baseball immortality was the home run—not the typical extra-base hit of the day, which was usually a line drive that skipped between converging outfielders to find the far reaches of a ballpark, but a towering fly ball that traced a huge arc as it went into the stands or, in some cases, entirely out of the park. This style of hitting, based on a powerful swing with both arms fully extended, a slight uppercut motion with the bat, and the violent pivoting of the hitter’s body, was unlike the prevailing style of “punch” or “slap” hitting, in which the batter met the pitch with a short-armed swing. Ruth’s performance in Boston had given an indication of what was to become his forte in New York. In 1918, although he was used primarily as a pitcher and played in less than two-thirds of his team’s games, he tied for the American League leadership in home runs, with eleven. Converted into a full-time everyday player for his final season with the Red Sox, he hit twenty-nine home runs, nineteen more than the second-place player. This record-setting feat stimulated interest among fans, but the 1919 season was only a prelude to what was to become a turning point in baseball history. After a slow start with the Yankees in April, 1920, Ruth found his form. On May 1, he hit a tremendous home run that cleared the right-field stands of the Polo Grounds and landed on a recreation field nearby. Before the end of the month, he had added ten more home runs, and by the end of the season he had a total of fifty-four—approximately five times the number needed for league leadership during the previous two decades. The effect of this extraordinary performance on ticket sales and team income was dramatic. Yankees owner Ruppert was delighted to see his team set attendance records in the Polo Grounds and also in other ballparks in the American League as fans flocked to see Ruth. Although the Yankees
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 finished third in 1920, their home attendance led the league at 1,289,432, a record that stood until 1946. The first-place Cleveland Indians drew the second-largest number at 912,834.
lar 1921 vaudeville act. He also starred in a silent film and joined forces with Christy Walsh, a sportswriter and promoter who supervised a syndicated newspaper column under the byline “Babe Ruth.” As was customary, Ruth did not write the column (several other sports stars, including Rogers Hornsby and Knute Rockne, had similar arrangements), but Walsh was careful to direct the content toward entertainment rather than journalism. Ruth received ample compensation for the use of his name—about $15,000 in 1921, the column’s first full year. This public image tended to obscure the baseball revolution that Ruth led. It was not his revolution alone, however, as he often admitted. Ruth shaped his swing after that of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a pioneer in the development of that style of hitting; ironically, Jackson was banished from baseball in 1920. Baseball statistics, however, do support the notion that Ruth was ahead of other power hitters in the period from 1919 to 1921. In 1920, for example, Ruth’s 54 home runs surpassed secondplace George Sisler’s total by 35. Even more remarkably, Ruth by himself hit more home runs than any entire team (other than his own) in the American League. As the months passed, batters adjusted their swings to follow the Jackson-Ruth form. Although other factors may have played a part, the aggressive blow of the power hitter ushered in an era of high-scoring games. From 1901 to 1918, the average number of home runs per season in the American League was fewer than 200. In 1920, American League hitters accounted for 370. In 1921, they hit 477, and from 1922 to 1941, the average number of home runs per season rose to more than 600. The National League followed a similar pattern. To handle his expanding franchise operations, Yankees owner Ruppert hired Edward Grant Barrow as general manager at the end of the 1920 season. Barrow, an iron-willed, authoritarian type, proceeded to build a baseball dynasty founded on power hitting. Lou Gehrig joined the Yankees organization in 1923, and by the middle of the decade, the Ruppert-Barrow teams began to dominate the American League. Yankee management continued to sign sluggers: Joe DiMaggio roamed the outfield from 1936 to 1951, Yogi Berra was a powerhitting catcher in the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, and Mickey Mantle’s homers of the 1950’s and 1960’s reminded many of the handiwork of Ruth. In 1961, another Yankee slugger, Roger Maris, broke Ruth’s longstanding record for home runs in a single season. The Yankees’ approach spread throughout baseball, but it was most successful in large cities with big stadi1599
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Significance Jake Ruppert found a formula for popular and financial success in baseball. The unprecedented payment for Ruth’s contract, which had appeared to be a substantial risk in early 1920, was clearly a solid investment by the end of the season. Ruth’s home runs inspired respect and fear among other players and awe and excitement among knowledgeable baseball fans. These mighty blasts also attracted the attention of people who rarely had any interest in baseball. Ruth’s appearance at a local ballpark brought a large cross section of the community into the stands. In 1919, he was a superior ballplayer, but by the middle of the 1920 season, he was a national celebrity. The Yankees’ income for 1920 provided Ruppert with a firm financial base to use in signing other talented players and to begin the construction of Yankee Stadium. Babe Ruth also cut a path for himself as an athlete who achieved media celebrity for profit. He rose to national prominence at an opportune moment in the city where the national print media had their headquarters. New York was the hub for the nation’s press associations and had thirteen daily newspapers of its own. The public relations and advertising industries expanded their nationwide operations from their offices along Madison Avenue. Ruth’s fame and fortune rose on a tide of media coverage that he received not only as baseball’s “Sultan of Swat” but also as a colorful, uninhibited, sometimes irresponsible personality who caused excitement off the field as well. Some of Ruth’s non-baseball-related activities brought anxiety to the Yankees’ management and to the new commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had been charged with restoring the public trust in baseball in the wake of the 1919 World Series scandal. Ruth complicated Landis’s job. In spite of Landis’s concerns about the public image of ballplayers, Ruth consumed alcoholic beverages during a time of national prohibition, drove automobiles with reckless abandon, and pursued female companionship with equally reckless disregard for mainstream morality. Despite these foibles, however, Ruth managed to get good publicity. Ruth’s running conflict with Landis became the subject of much press coverage and, in some circles, the source of considerable humor, including in Ruth’s popu-
New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth
New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth ums that could accommodate heavy ticket sales. For example, the Philadelphia Athletics assembled the mighty bats of Mickey Cochrane, Al Simmons, and Jimmy Foxx to challenge the Yankees in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. In smaller cities, this formula did not work as well, probably because limited populations and smaller stadiums did not generate enough revenue. Branch Rickey, an innovative executive, devised another operational strategy for the St. Louis Cardinals. He organized a “farm” system of about thirty minor-league teams that would develop talented young players. This system worked well and lifted St. Louis into the upper echelons of the National League through the 1940’s, providing the Cardinals with the likes of pitching sensation Dizzy Dean and, later, slugger Stan Musial. In spite of their imitators and challengers, however, the Yankees remained baseball’s premier organization from the 1920’s into the 1960’s. Yankee Stadium’s open green field surrounded by massive stands symbolized baseball’s merger of the nation’s rural past with the modern industrial city. Ruth himself seemed to represent a somewhat undisciplined version of heroic individualism while attracting millions of loyal fans for the smoothly run corporate organization headed by Barrow and Ruppert. The Ruth phenomenon of the 1920’s connected an organization’s financial success with the performance of an individual star, a development in professional sports that had rough parallels with Hollywood films and popular music, as film studios and record companies discovered that stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra were necessary to hold public attention and to command large paying audiences. —John A. Britton Further Reading Alexander, Charles. Our Game: An American Baseball History. New York: Henry Holt, 1991. Veteran historian’s skillful summation of baseball history includes two chapters on the revolution in batting. Features a useful annotated bibliography. Creamer, Robert W. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. 1974. Reprint. New York: Fireside, 1992. A lively biography that focuses on Ruth in Boston and his early years in New York. Limited by absence of bibliography and footnotes. Curran, William. Big Sticks: The Batting Revolution of the Twenties. New York: William Morrow, 1990. Highly readable discussion of the spread of the homerun revolution through the major leagues. Gives ap1600
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 propriate emphasis to Ruth but also pays muchneeded attention to lesser-known sluggers. Includes a chapter on the home-run revolution in the minors. Parrish, Michael. Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920-1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. A well-written historical survey that explains the economic, social, and cultural context in which Ruth, Ruppert, and Barrow revolutionized baseball. Lengthy annotated bibliography provides guidance to more specialized historical works on the era. Rader, Benjamin. Baseball: A History of America’s Game. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Outstanding history of baseball. Includes a synthesis of recent research on Ruth’s impact. Uses statistics effectively to support the thesis that the owners did not order the use of a livelier ball. Includes bibliographical essay and index. Robinson, Ray. Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. A competent biography of Ruth’s teammate and sometime rival. Based on interviews of Gehrig’s contemporaries, including Frank Crosetti, Jimmy Reese, and Ben Chapman. Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The Golden Age. 1971. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Comprehensive study of baseball from 1903 to around 1930, with balanced coverage of the game on the field and business operations off the field. Detailed information on the workings of franchises and on league policies and politics. Smelser, Marshall. The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography. 1974. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Well-researched biography pays considerable attention to Ruth’s contracts and other financial arrangements and his ventures into show business and public relations as well as his work on the field. Includes footnotes and bibliography. Tygiel, Jules. Past Time: Baseball as History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Looks at American society from the 1850’s onward through the interplay between baseball, the “national pastime,” and political, cultural, and social events. Includes notes and index. See also: Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Formation of Les Six
January 16, 1920
Formation of Les Six The formation of Les Six, a loose confederation of French composers, diminished the influence of such figures as Richard Wagner and Claude Debussy and inaugurated an era of more direct and accessible music. Locale: Paris, France Category: Music
Summary of Event The young composers who were to be dubbed “Les Six” in 1920 had appeared together on musical programs for several years and four of them—Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, and Arthur Honegger—had known one another for a decade as students at the Paris Conservatory. Although they may have shared some aesthetic principles, it was chance that brought them together and friendship that bound them for a few crucial years in postwar Paris. The single most important event leading to the group’s formation was the premiere of Parade on May 18, 1917, in Paris. This ballet was the creation of writer and impresario Jean Cocteau and featured sets and costumes by painter Pablo Picasso. Its deliberately aimless scenario follows the antics of barkers and acrobats in front of a fair booth. Composer Erik Satie provided a score that was repetitious and disarmingly naïve, qualities that made the use of such “instruments” as roulette wheel, pistol, typewriter, and siren all the more striking. The audience felt itself insulted and erupted into a near riot. Cocteau and his collaborators had clearly intended to be provocative, but they seem to have underestimated the uproar the production would cause. The event solidified the admiration younger musicians felt for Satie. A fifty-one-year-old composer of almost crippling modesty, Satie produced pieces that were brief and droll, in direct contrast to the solemn, massive
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Key Figures Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), French composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), French composer Georges Auric (1899-1983), French composer Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), French composer Louis Durey (1888-1979), French composer Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983), French composer Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961), Swiss writer Erik Satie (1866-1925), French composer Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French writer, artist, and filmmaker
works of German composers such as Richard Wagner. During World War I, works by Germans were suspect in France in any case, but Satie also rejected the colorful, atmospheric compositions of French composers such as his near contemporary Claude Debussy. Both Wagner and Debussy had been revolutionary in their time, but music such as Satie’s constituted a direct challenge to these composers’ continued influence. Another writer who shared both Cocteau’s interest in new art and music and his talent for publicity, Blaise Cendrars, organized a concert on June 6, 1917, in honor of Parade. The scene was the Salle Huyghens in Paris, formerly an art school but subsequently the site of many informal concerts. A number of promising composers were invited to participate, among them Auric and Honegger and another potential member of Les Six, Louis Durey. Satie himself took part, and afterward he proposed an informal grouping of his young admirers, “Les Nouveaux Jeunes,” that in addition to Auric, Durey, and Honegger would eventually include Tailleferre and Milhaud. They appeared frequently in concerts at the Salle Huyghens and at another Paris music hall, the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier. It was there on December 11, 1917, that Francis Poulenc, destined to become the final member of Les Six, appeared with a work called Rapsodie nègre. This series of songs is one of the first works clearly typical of the style associated with Les Six. Scored for baritone voice accompanied by flute, clarinet, piano, and string quartet, the songs took their lyrics from a collection of nonsensical, pseudo-African poems. Like Parade, Rapsodie nègre combined innocence and mockery; appropriately, it was dedicated to Satie. By the beginning of 1918, Les Six existed in all but name. They gathered at Milhaud’s and Tailleferre’s apartments, dined together, went to the circus together, and performed together. Later that year, Cocteau provided them with a kind of manifesto in book form, Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918; Cock and Harlequin, 1921). He praised music halls and jazz bands, attacked Wagner, and called for a music that was purely French. The book was dedicated to Auric and published by Les Éditions de la Sirène, a joint venture of Cocteau and Cendrars. The six became Les Six on January 16, 1920, when critic Henri Collet published an article in the magazine Comoedia titled “Les Cinq russes, les six français et Erik Satie.” Taking the Russian group of composers known as
Formation of Les Six “The Five” as his reference, Collet identified six French composers who had, “by their splendid decision to return to simplicity, brought about a renaissance” in their country’s music. The label caught on, despite the differing temperaments of the figures involved. As Milhaud noted later in talking about the more important members of the group, only Auric and Poulenc were followers of Cocteau. Honegger (whose parents were Swiss) took his inspiration from the German Romantics. Milhaud himself had been born in southern France and traced his musical roots to the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, the group gave “Concerts des Six,” published a set of piano pieces, Album des Six (1920), and collaborated on another of Cocteau’s leg-pulling ballets. Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel was presented on June 18, 1921, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. It concerns a wedding party repeatedly interrupted by such unlikely figures as a bicyclist and an ostrich hunter. The production brought together a number of typical elements: love of technology, from the simple (the bicycle) to the complex (the Eiffel Tower), a rejection of grandiose themes, and a delight in nonsense. The production was significant in another way: Durey chose not to take part. Les Six remained friends but went their own ways artistically. Aside from concerts, there were to be no more joint projects. Durey and Tailleferre did not achieve further prominence. Honegger came to be regarded as a major composer, but his work shows few traces of his early association with the group. Only Poulenc and to a lesser extent Auric and Milhaud were to shape their careers according to the tenets championed by Satie, Cocteau, and Collet. Significance The most important achievement of Les Six was to blur the distinction that had grown up between “serious” and “popular” music. They did this in a number of ways. First, they rejected the examples of composers whose works were, they felt, far removed from the realm of everyday experience. Instead, they borrowed freely from the circus and the music hall, incorporating folk music from as far away as Latin America and—filtered through the medium of jazz—black Africa. Although Poulenc had based his Rapsodie nègre of 1917 on mock-African material, it was Milhaud who made the most creative use of folk and popular elements. The young composer had spent two years in South America as a diplomatic secretary, and he mixed tangos and sambas and similar dances into a bubbly and irreverent orchestral piece called Le Boeuf sur le toit (1920). 1602
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Milhaud’s score to La Création du monde (1923) was to prove far more significant. The idea of dramatizing an African version of the creation belonged to Blaise Cendrars, who had visited Africa and produced L’Anthologie nègre (1921; The African Saga, 1927), celebrating the continent’s art and folklore. Milhaud, on the other hand, had visited Harlem; his orchestration for the piece called for the same seventeen instruments he had heard played in jazz bands there. La Création du monde is generally credited with being the first symphonic use of jazz, and yet the interest in jazz in Europe and the United States was so great that other composers were bound to take it up sooner or later. In the years following, George Gershwin used jazz in his Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Aaron Copland in his Piano Concerto (1927), and Maurice Ravel in his two piano concertos (1931 and 1932). Not only was Milhaud first, however, but his work was also freer in spirit. Whereas most other composers adapted jazz elements to existing musical forms, Milhaud developed his forms to fit his material. Interest in jazz was part of a larger and growing fascination among Americans and Europeans with the culture of black Africa. The German expressionists and the French painters known as the Fauves (wild beasts) were influenced by the African masks and sculpture that had begun to appear in Europe after the turn of the century. Critic Marius de Zayas published African Art: Its Influence on Modern Art in New York in 1916, and Blaise Cendrars published L’Anthologie nègre five years later. The movement culminated in France with the Colonial Exposition of 1931, which highlighted the art of France’s predominantly African and Oceanic empire. Unlike many other artists, composers, and writers, Les Six welcomed the technological developments that were changing the lives of ordinary individuals. In its own lighthearted way, Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel had celebrated the enormous steel structure built for the World’s Fair of 1889. Inspired by a catalog of farm machinery, Milhaud wrote Machines agricoles in 1919. Even Honegger, who often differed with his colleagues, composed a famous musical description of one of the locomotives he loved so well, Pacific 231 (1923). Another technological development of growing popularity was the motion picture. Before Cocteau created a ballet scenario around it, Milhaud had envisioned Le Boeuf sur le toit as an accompaniment to one of Charles Chaplin’s early comedy films. Honegger wrote more than thirty film scores, but it was Auric who embraced the new medium wholeheartedly, eventually producing
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Cocteau, Jean. “Cock and Harlequin.” In Cocteau’s World: An Anthology of Writings by Jean Cocteau. Translated and edited by Margaret Crosland. London: Owen, 1972. A translation of Cocteau’s manifesto for Les Six in its later, 1926, version. Aphoristic and jumpy, and hard to follow for those not in the know. Collaer, Paul. Darius Milhaud. Edited and translated by Jane Hohfeld Galante. San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1988. Detailed yet accessible study of Milhaud’s music includes catalogs of his work arranged chronologically by category, opus number, and title as well as a discography and a brief bibliography. Features many musical examples. Intended for readers with some background in music. Hansen, Peter S. An Introduction to Twentieth Century Music. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1978. Com-
prehensive survey of twentieth century music for the general reader. Chapter titled “Paris After World War I” discusses Cocteau, Satie, and Les Six, and chapter titled “Les Trois” discusses “France’s leading composers of the second quarter of the century”— Milhaud, Honegger, and Poulenc. Includes some musical examples. Harding, James. The Ox on the Roof: Scenes from Musical Life in Paris in the Twenties. 1972. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1986. One of few works in English devoted to discussion of Les Six; includes information on Satie as well as on a number of individuals who were peripheral to the group. Begins with the premiere of Parade and ends in 1929; an “Envoi” brings the story up to 1961. Very readable. Includes photographs, bibliographies, and index. Keck, George R. Francis Poulenc: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. Brief biography is followed by list of works and premiere performances, discography, annotated bibliography, alphabetical and chronological lists of compositions, and index. Good starting point for any extended study of Poulenc. Milhaud, Darius. Notes Without Music: An Autobiography. Translated by Donald Evans, edited by Rollo H. Myers. 1953. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. Amiable autobiography mixes the minutiae of daily life with important cultural events. Ends in 1947, by which time Milhaud had composed most of his important work. Rorem, Ned. “Cocteau and Music.” In Jean Cocteau and the French Scene, edited by Daniel Abadie. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984. An informal but perceptive consideration by a noted contemporary composer. Concludes with a list of works by Cocteau on which Les Six and other composers collaborated. The book containing this essay includes numerous illustrations, a chronology of Cocteau’s life, and a detailed index. Whiting, Steven Moore. Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Places Satie’s work in the context of the bohemian subculture of Montmartre. Includes discussion of Satie’s involvement with Les Six. See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; 1921: Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student; Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York; July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel. 1603
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scores to about one hundred films. His greatest popular triumph was the theme song to Moulin Rouge (1952), a dramatization of the life of painter Henri de ToulouseLautrec. Fascination with technology was in the air, and interest in science and machinery manifested itself in other art forms and in other countries. Painter Robert Delaunay produced vibrantly colored canvases of the Eiffel Tower, and he and his wife Sonia Delaunay-Terk painted enormous abstract works celebrating the principles of motion and dynamism. Fellow artist Raoul Dufy (who had designed the scenery for Le Boeuf sur le toit) went on to assemble one of the world’s largest paintings, a work measuring 60 meters by 10 meters (roughly 197 feet by 33 feet), illustrating the history of electricity, for the Paris World’s Fair of 1937. Commercial artist A. M. Cassandre immortalized locomotives and elegant passenger ships in posters that remain popular in the early twentyfirst century. The artistic movements known as Futurism in Italy and vorticism in Great Britain celebrated motion and technology. The music of Les Six has come to characterize the Paris of the 1920’s. With the end of World War I, many thought a new age had dawned. Old orders of politics and culture seemed to have been swept away, and technology appeared to be transforming the world for the better. The best musical tribute to the period is Poulenc’s only largescale symphonic work, his Sinfonietta. Written in 1947, it is a kind of farewell to youth, mixing the gaiety and impudence of the 1920’s with a melancholy realization that the new age did not last after all. —Grove Koger
Formation of Les Six
Prohibition
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 16, 1920-December 5, 1933
Prohibition Advocates of temperance persuaded Congress and the states to adopt the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning the sale, manufacture, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. The attempt to legislate morality ultimately failed, however, as prohibition created a tremendous black market for banned liquor, providing the mechanism for a substantial rise in organized crime. Also known as: Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Locale: United States Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; social issues and reform; trade and commerce Key Figures Andrew J. Volstead (1860-1947), U.S. representative from Minnesota, 1903-1922
Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (1869-1927), general counsel of the Anti-Saloon League Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 George Woodward Wickersham (1858-1936), U.S. attorney general, 1909-1913, and head of the National Commission on Law Enforcement and Observance, 1929-1931 William Squire Kenyon (1869-1933), U.S. senator from Iowa, 1911-1922 Edwin Yates Webb (1872-1955), U.S. representative from North Carolina, 1903-1920 Mabel Walker Willebrandt (1889-1963), U.S. assistant attorney general in charge of liquor law enforcement, 1921-1929 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Al Capone (1899-1947), Chicago mobster
Government agents with confiscated barrels pour whiskey into a sewer. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Prohibition
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fense to ten thousand dollars or five years in prison for Summary of Event the second, and the dispensing store could be closed for a National prohibition of the sale of alcohol in the United year. The federal government could also impound autoStates had its roots in various temperance movements mobiles or aircraft used to transport liquor. and in local and state laws. As early as 1851, Maine proThe illegal sale of liquor, called bootlegging, became hibited the sale of liquor, and in 1884 it passed a state a growth industry, especially in urban areas such as Deconstitutional amendment banning alcoholic beverages. troit, New York, and Chicago, where the infamous mobAgitation to enact “Maine laws” became strong elsester Al Capone became rich selling illegal alcohol to othwhere, and by 1917 thirty-six states had already become erwise law-abiding citizens. Enforcement, despite the “dry.” National prohibition was not far behind. Behind dedication of some federal agents, became a futile cause. this drive to prohibition lay a belief in human perfectibilSome police officers and law-enforcement officials were ity, the conviction that drunkenness squandered family corrupted by the criminal element; mobsters bribed or income and was therefore evil, and a shrewd political fought the “feds” as well as one another. Casualties recampaign spearheaded by the Woman’s Christian Temsulted on both sides, but organized crime grew into a vast perance Union (WCTU) but propagated more effectively enterprise nonetheless. Many Americans, moreover, be(as women did not yet have the right to vote) by the Antilieved that drinking—at least beer and wine, long part of Saloon League and the Prohibition Party. the traditions of even the oldest immigrant groups—was U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 made the public an innocent, even therapeutic, leisure activity. The social more receptive to austerity measures, such as the conserreform era that had given birth to the temperance movevation of grain (used in making alcohol) for the war efment had given way to the Roaring Twenties, with their fort. Federal precedents existed as well. In 1913, Edwin revolution in social outlooks, manners, and attitudes; Yates Webb and William Squire Kenyon had sponsored such a time was not propitious for the legislation of moa bill to outlaw transporting alcohol from a wet state to a rality. dry state. The easy passage of the Webb-Kenyon Act Accordingly, illegal distillation devices (known as over President William Howard Taft’s veto had been a stills) and do-it-yourself liquor preparation kits became clear indication of the mood of the legislature, if not the commonplace. Ironically, the great success of the “drys” country. A coalition of political forces—rural, South, in making prohibition so restrictive and total proved Southwest, West, Protestant, and women’s groups— to be counterproductive, even an incentive to try the combined with a prevailing suspicion of urban, espe“demon drink.” Women who had never entered a bar cially Catholic and Jewish immigrant, traditions. and some whose temperance-minded sisters had tried to On December 18, 1917, Congress achieved the necessmash saloons with hatchets were now frequenting the sary two-thirds vote to pass what would become the Eighteenth Amendment and submit it to the states for ratification. The required thirtysixth state ratified the proposal on January The Eighteenth Amendment 16, 1919, and the Eighteenth Amendment became law, effective January 16, 1920. The The entire text of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: amendment federalized the regulation of liquor previously under mostly state and local Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the control. The enabling National Prohibition manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the Enforcement Act was passed on October 28, importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United 1919, overriding President Woodrow WilStates and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage son’s veto. Commonly known as the Volpurposes is hereby prohibited. stead Act, the law was drafted by Wayne Section 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurBidwell Wheeler, general counsel of the rent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have Anti-Saloon League, and introduced in Conbeen ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures gress by Congressman Andrew J. Volstead of the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven of Minnesota. The Volstead Act incorpoyears from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Conrated the strictest features of various state gress. laws. Fines would run from one thousand dollars or six months in jail for the first of-
Prohibition illegal underground alcoholic nightclubs called speakeasies. Soon after taking office in 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed an eleven-member commission under former U.S. attorney general George Woodward Wickersham to launch an investigation into law enforcement in general and enforcement of prohibition in particular. While ambiguous enough not to offend President Hoover, the highly divided Wickersham Commission’s final report in 1931 seemed to confirm the breakdown in law enforcement and the disrespect for law in general that had grown up around prohibition, arguing for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. The following year, a Democratic Congress mustered the necessary two-thirds vote to begin the repeal process, which would be completed when ratified by three-quarters of the states. Ratification was to be decided by specially called state conventions, rather than the customary state legislatures, to ensure the amendment’s success. The thirty-six ratifying votes were at hand by December 5, 1933. Section 1 of the resultant Twenty-first Amendment reads, “The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.” Significance Although all the states eventually repealed their own separate prohibition laws—Mississippi not until 1966— most of them returned to the licensing system. Local option laws against liquor remain in effect in many dry towns and counties across the United States. National prohibition nevertheless left its mark on the American psyche. Its cast of characters included the “good guys” and “bad guys” that have become legendary parts of American popular culture, such as federal agents Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables,” “Izzie” Einstein, and “Mo” Smith. Their nemeses included the likes of mobsters Al “Scarface” Capone, Johnnie Torrio, George Remus, George “Bugs” Moran, and Bill McCoy, but even respected middle-class citizens were known to have enriched themselves thanks to national prohibition. Another legacy concerns the larger issue of the advisability, indeed the practicability, of legislating certain kinds of moral behavior. Indeed, the phrase “You can’t legislate morality” has become a truism in American culture. The phrase refers, of course, to private behavior rather than immoral acts that impinge on the rights of others, such as robbery or murder. Prohibition remains in the American imagination as an enduring illustration of the impossibility or inadvisability of legislating morality. It has done little, however, to draw clear lines be1606
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tween public and private behavior in order to set the limits of what counts as “legislating morality”—a debate that continues in the twenty-first century. —Peter B. Heller Further Reading Cashman, Sean D. Prohibition: The Lie of the Land. New York: Free Press, 1981. A cultural historian distinguishes between fact and legend as they relate to prohibition and profiles its heroes and villains. Illustrations, bibliography. Engelmann, Larry. Intemperance: The Lost War Against Liquor. New York: Free Press, 1979. Focusing on Michigan, a key location during prohibition because of its proximity to Canada, this work evidences how every community became an embattled testing ground for the “noble experiment” and why Michigan was the first state to ratify its repeal. Kerr, K. Austin. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Using previously unavailable materials, this work traces the history of the pressure group largely responsible for the Eighteenth Amendment but also its decline for both internal and external reasons. Illustrated. Kyvig, David E., ed. Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. An excellent collection of essays by contributors examining various aspects of national prohibition, such as its constitutional dimensions, crime, enforcement, and history. Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800-1933. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998. Long-term history of the American prohibition movement, from its beginnings through its success to its ultimate failure. Bibliographic references and index. Root, Grace C. Women and Repeal: The Story of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934. Chronicles efforts by the likes of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to continue prohibition. Rumbarger, John J. Profits, Power, and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of America, 1800-1930. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. A scholarly treatment from a class-oriented perspective, using many original sources. Sinclair, Andrew. Era of Excess: A Social History of the Prohibition Movement. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. A comprehensive, highly annotated history
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
hibition movement in the early twentieth century. Argues that moderation in rhetoric and strategy was key to building the popular consensus that led to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. Bibliographic references and index. See also: July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation; June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence; Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions; 1928: Smith-Hoover Campaign; Feb. 14, 1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling.
January 19, 1920
American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded The American Civil Liberties Union was founded to defend equal rights for all, including rights to free speech, due process, and freedom of the press. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Civil rights and liberties; organizations and institutions Key Figures Roger Nash Baldwin (1884-1981), founder and first executive director of the ACLU, 1920-1950 Albert DeSilver (1888-1924), ACLU cofounder and codirector, 1920-1924 Arthur Garfield Hays (1881-1954), general counsel to the ACLU, 1912-1954 Norman Thomas (1884-1968), American pacifist and socialist politican and activist Crystal Eastman (1881-1928), American pacifist and social worker who, with Baldwin, established the Bureau of Conscientious Objectors John Haynes Holmes (1879-1964), American pacifist Unitarian minister Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949), editor of the New York Post and The Nation Summary of Event The violation of civil rights in World War I was common. Those who dissented or protested against the war, including pacifists, labor groups of leftist ideological persuasion, socialists, communists, and those who actively opposed some aspect of the official policy of the war pro-
gram, were all victims. This repression reached its climax, ironically, in the “Red Scare” of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, which arose after the war. It was in 1920, at the height of the Red Scare, that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was founded. The largest group opposed to the war was the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM), founded in 1914 by Lillian Wald and Paul U. Kellogg. Because of his conscientious objection to the war, Roger Nash Baldwin left St. Louis, where he served as a social worker, to join the AUAM in New York in 1917. Baldwin explained his opposition in terms of Christian principles and the liberty of conscience as enshrined in the U.S. Bill of Rights. With Crystal Eastman, he created the Bureau of Conscientious Objectors (BCO). After failing to prevent the passage of the law instituting military conscription, Baldwin appealed to the Woodrow Wilson administration, particularly to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, for tolerant enforcement of the law. He urged on the secretary a policy that would permit noncombatant duty or alternate service without punishment or dishonor for conscientious objectors, whether religious or political (socialists, pacifists, anarchists, and others). The administration adopted a rigid policy against exemptions and in actual practice, at local army camps around the country, often engaged in harassment and punitive actions. With the passage of the Espionage Act in June, 1917, members of the AUAM, especially Wald and Kellogg, became anxious about the organization’s support of civil 1607
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based on primary and secondary sources and describing the evolution of the movement since colonial times. Spinelli, Lawrence. Dry Diplomacy: The United States, Great Britain, and Prohibition. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1989. This well-documented scholarly study focuses on the impact of national prohibition on foreign, especially Anglo-American, relations in the light of rum-running from the British West Indian colonies to the U.S. coast. Szymanski, Ann-Marie E. Pathways to Prohibition: Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003. Close analysis of the strategy and success of the pro-
American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded
American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded liberties and conscientious objectors. To accommodate the internal dissention, a Civil Liberties Committee was created in July, 1917, to create distance between the AUAM and its work in defense of dissent. The separation was completed in October, 1917, when Eastman and Baldwin created the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB). Wald was not prepared to oppose the government, whereas Baldwin was. Publications expressing opposition to the war were barred from the mail, including Norman Thomas’s War’s Heretics (1917) and Baldwin’s The Individual and the State (1918). So too was Thomas’s periodical, The World Tomorrow. An issue of The Nation was also barred because it was critical of Samuel Gompers, the American Federation of Labor leader who strongly cooperated with the war program. Postmaster General Albert Sidney Burleson was especially autocratic and high-handed in his censorship of the mail. Agents of the Wilson administration conducted raids against various groups that were considered suspect or that opposed the war, including, for example, the International Bible Students Association. No group was more the object of assault than was the International Workers of the World (IWW). Without attention to due process, the IWW was raided in September, 1917, resulting in 169 arrests, including that of IWW cofounder Bill Haywood. Raids and arrests of IWW members would continue throughout the Red Scare. Baldwin contended that the IWW’s protests and strikes were economically motivated; the Wilson administration contended they were obstructionist actions against the war. In defending the IWW, the NCLB brought suspicion on itself. The Military Intelligence Division prepared an attack on the NCLB, and in late 1917 the Bureau of Investigation (precursor of the FBI) began spying on the NCLB. The New York office was raided by officers under the direction of Archibald Stevenson, and its files were taken. Those files were later used by the New York Lusk Committee to define all pacifists and war critics as subversives. On October 7, the Justice Department decided against prosecution. Baldwin enlisted the support of Fanny Witherspoon’s Bureau of Legal First Aid, Harry Weinberger’s Legal Defense League, and the Liberty Defense Union in defense of free speech. To win public support, he defined free speech in the context of the best of the American tradition, demanded respect be shown conscientious objectors, and insisted that due process of law be observed. His appeals were without much success, however, either with the public or with the government. In Schenck v. 1608
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 United States (1919), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed limits on free speech in wartime. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., writing for the Court, said that speech could be censored if it was “of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that [it would] bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” In the case of Abrams v. United States (1919), however, Holmes dissented. He offered an impassioned defense of free speech. Defining free speech as “free trade in ideas,” he wrote, “we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.” Probably Holmes’s dissent owed more to legal scholars than to the NCLB, but it did affirm the NCLB’s struggle in behalf of free speech. The NCLB’s members were social workers, Protestant clergymen influenced by the Social Gospel movement, and conservative lawyers. According to Samuel Walker, “Over the next seventy years, this mixture of liberal social reformism and conservative faith in the promises of the Constitution remained the basic ingredient in the ACLU.” NCLB lawyers Walter Nelles, Albert DeSilver, and Harry Weinberger dealt with the legal issues of up to 125 cases a week involving conscientious objectors. When Congress extended the draft age to thirty-five, Baldwin himself was forced to register. At Local Board 129, he indicated his opposition to the war. He refused induction, presented himself for prosecution, and resigned from the NCLB. He was sentenced to one year in jail, from which he was released on July 19, 1919. Another opponent of the war, socialist labor organizer Eugene V. Debs, in court for his sentencing in Cleveland, best defined Baldwin’s position: “While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” After his release from prison, Baldwin toured the West to study the conditions of American labor, joined the steelworkers’ strike in Pittsburgh, and worked as a manual laborer in St. Louis before returning to New York. The year that had passed while he was in jail was marked by an unprecedented wave of strikes, violence, and race riots. Labor radicals, aliens and immigrants— particularly those of Russian origin—socialists, and others considered “un-American” were often arrested without warrants and detained without cause. Unreasonable searches and seizures were made. The Red Scare reached a climax in January, 1920. Under the Alien Act, 249 “undesirable aliens” were deported on the so-called Red Ark. In a separate incident, properly elected Socialist representatives were denied their seats by the New York legislature.
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American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded In its first decade, the ACLU marked few successes and frequent failures. The organization’s leaders maintained faith in democracy and remained steadfast in their belief that the Bill of Rights is the foundation of American liberties, despite the fact that their organization was under siege by the American Legion, by J. Edgar Hoover, who said it got money from Moscow, and by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, who said it was communistic. In the years ahead, however, the ACLU would become involved with many of the most important civil liberties trials of the twentieth century. Over time, the organization established a body of legal precedents that helped safeguard freedom of expression, as well as broadening the definition of such expression to include behaviors such as picketing and demonstrating. Much of the common law interpreting the Bill of Rights in the twentieth century, for better or for worse, is indebted to the ACLU. —Jimmie F. Gross
Significance The ACLU’s immediate work was related to issues that had brought about its existence. The organization issued a document titled Report on the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice, written by twelve prominent lawyers, that denounced the department’s antisocialist activities. The publication provoked a Senate investigation of the so-called Palmer raids, which ultimately documented civil liberties violations but prescribed no punishment or redress. The ACLU struggled to secure amnesty, or at least commutation of sentences for time served, for those who had been imprisoned because of pacifism, political beliefs, opposition to the war, or labor activities. Although as U.S. president both Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge released many such prisoners, including Debs, the citizenship of these individuals was not restored until Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the presidency in 1933. The continuation of the campaign for free speech was seldom successful. Three examples will suffice: the arrest of author Upton Sinclair for attempting to read the First Amendment at an IWW rally, the prohibition on John Haynes Holmes from speaking in a public school in New York City (later all ACLU members were excluded), and the ban on Margaret Sanger’s attempt to speak on birth control in New York City in 1923. In 1922, the ACLU created the Labor Defense Council. Its work included the cause of textile workers in Passaic, New Jersey, steelworkers in Pittsburgh, marine workers at the Port of San Pedro in Los Angeles, and coal miners in the fields of West Virginia, among others.
Further Reading Cottrell, Robert C. Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Lengthy combined biography of Baldwin and history of the ACLU. Bibliographic references and index. Johnson, Donald. The Challenge to American Freedoms: World War I and the Rise of the American Civil Liberties Union. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1963. An excellent work on the background of the ACLU, which links the issues of civil liberties to war mobilization. Baldwin is placed at the center of many of the events of critical importance. Lamson, Peggy. Roger Baldwin, Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. This work is less a biography than an oral history, an interview with Baldwin at the age of ninety. Its value lies in identifying many of the people associated with the ACLU and its exposition of Baldwin’s point of view on many issues. Murphy, Paul L. World War I and the Origins of Civil Liberties in the United States. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. The author maintains that never before had the government intervened so extensively in civil liberties as during the war; never before had there been such a perversion of the rule of law. Discusses the range of repressive measures critical to an understanding of the origins of the ACLU. Reitman, Alan, ed. The Pulse of Freedom: American Liberties, 1920-1970’s. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. A collection of essays by professional historians pro1609
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Baldwin returned to the NCLB intent on taking up the cause of labor. Many members believed the NCLB was too closely identified with the cause of the conscientious objectors, however, so its future was uncertain. Baldwin put forward a plan to reorganize the bureau, which was accepted by the executive committee on January 12, 1920. On January 19, the American Civil Liberties Union was founded. Baldwin and DeSilver were named directors; they were immediately responsible to a local committee that met every Monday to report civil rights violations and ultimately accountable to a larger national board. With only one thousand members at the end of the first year, the ACLU could not support the group’s working budget of $20,000 with its annual dues of $2. Charles Garland, a young Bostonian who had inherited a great deal of wealth, extended a generous grant to the ACLU, establishing the American Fund for Public Service to support social reform and finance legal defense cases.
League of Women Voters Is Founded vides an excellent overview of the first fifty years of the ACLU. Its descriptive accounts include workers in the Great Depression, civil liberties in World War II, McCarthyism, and desegregation in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Foreword by Ramsey Clark. Walker, Samuel. In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU. 2d ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Only a few pages are devoted to the origins of the ACLU, but no general survey of the ACLU provides a greater account of the issues and cases of the ACLU than this work. Excellent research and bibliography.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Whipple, Leon. The Story of Civil Liberty in the United States. New York: Vanguard Press, 1927. Sponsored by the ACLU. Vanguard, the publisher, was funded by the American Fund for Public Service (the Garland grant to the ACLU). See also: Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I; June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial; May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established.
February 14, 1920
League of Women Voters Is Founded On the eve of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the League of Women Voters was formed to carry on the struggle of the suffragists by educating and organizing voting women into an effective, nonpartisan political force. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Organizations and institutions; women’s issues Key Figures Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947), founder and honorary president of the League of Women Voters Maud Wood Park (1871-1955), first president of the League of Women Voters Edna Fischel Gellhorn (1878-1970), first vice president of the League of Women Voters Pattie Ruffner Jacobs (1875-1935), first secretary of the League of Women Voters Marie Stuart Edwards (fl. early twentieth century), first treasurer of the League of Women Voters Summary of Event The idea for the League of Women Voters was first proposed at the Jubilee Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which was held in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 24-29, 1919. The fight for woman suffrage, which had begun in the nineteenth century, was almost over. Nearly thirty states had conceded full or partial voting rights to women, and women in these states had helped elect increasing numbers of suffrage sympathizers to the U.S. Congress. Enough members in favor of woman suffrage had been 1610
elected in 1918 to guarantee that the Sixty-sixth Congress would pass a federal amendment enfranchising all women in 1919. At the suggestion of the president of the NAWSA, Carrie Chapman Catt, the Jubilee Convention voted to create an auxiliary organization, called the League of Women Voters (LWV), to operate in the enfranchised states. In a dramatic speech, Catt outlined three purposes for the LWV: to assist the NAWSA in the last stage of the fight for the federal amendment, to press for the removal of remaining legal discriminations against women, and to work for more honest elections and a better-informed electorate. Stressing that ignorance and corruption are threats to U.S. democracy itself, Catt proposed pursuing the last of these purposes through a nine-point legislative program that became the mandate of the LWV’s first authorized committee, American Citizenship. Its demands included compulsory education laws in every state to wipe out illiteracy and higher qualifications for citizenship and voting to “Americanize” an electorate heavy with immigrants. A second LWV committee, Women in Industry, adopted a legislative program that incorporated demands for protective labor legislation—something that women progressives had been working on for several decades. The LWV authorized six additional committees—Child Welfare, Social Hygiene, Improvements in Election Laws and Methods, Study of Food Problems, Unification of Laws Concerning Women, and Research—without formulating legislative agendas. Initially, the LWV was governed by a council of state NAWSA presidents chaired by Jane M. Brooks of Kansas. At the NAWSA’s final Victory Convention, held
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
elected vice president, Marie Stuart Edwards of Indiana was elected treasurer, and Pattie Ruffner Jacobs of Alabama was elected secretary. Carrie Chapman Catt was made honorary president. The eight standing committees reported legislative agendas numbering more than sixty planks, which the convention endorsed. Resolutions proposed and passed from the floor included support for the League of Nations and defenses of freedom of speech and the press, both of which were under attack as the Red Scare prompted an ongoing government campaign against alleged subversives. From the legislative program endorsed at the Victory Convention, the LWV chose thirteen planks to present at the Republican and Democratic Parties’ nominating conventions, hoping for party endorsement. (A fourteenth demand, for the creation of a Woman’s Bureau in the De-
Members of the National League of Women Voters pose next to the agenda they plan to present to the Democratic Party’s platform committee. (Library of Congress)
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February 12-18, 1920, in Chicago, the LWV ceased to function as an auxiliary and became a permanent organization with a new structure. The Nineteenth Amendment having passed at last, the suffragists voted to dissolve the NAWSA and reconstitute as the National League of Women Voters. It was anticipated that the LWV would preserve the NAWSA’s organizational momentum for the new challenge of training women to become voters and to cast their ballots for constructive social ends. Governance was vested in a ten-member board of directors, with the presidents of the state auxiliaries forming an executive council; the league’s headquarters was to be in Washington, D.C. From the board of directors, the convention elected Maud Wood Park to be the first president of the new organization; Edna Fischel Gellhorn of Missouri was
League of Women Voters Is Founded
League of Women Voters Is Founded
The Nonpartisan League In response to debate about the somewhat controversial idea that the League of Women Voters should be a nonpartisan political organization, Carrie Chapman Catt was insistent:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 duplicate their own efforts in political education and insulate women from political parties.
Significance Although Catt envisioned the LWV as nonThere are two kinds of partisanship: one kind has led the world onward, partisan and all-partisan, she at the same the other kind blinds the sight and paralyzes the judgment. In the time encouraged members to join political League of Women Voters we have an anomaly; we are going to be a parties as individuals and to run for office; semi-political body. We want political things, we want legislation, so women who held prominent offices in the we are going to educate for citizenship. We have to be non-partisan and political parties served on the national- and all-partisan. Democrats from Alabama and Republicans from New Hampshire must work for the same things. state-level LWV boards. This dual vision proved difficult to implement, however, Source: Quoted in Mildred Adams, The Right to Be People (Philadelphia: J. B. and disagreements arose among the memLippincott, 1966). bership as to what the LWV’s primary purpose should be. During the 1920 elections, some local branches of the league mounted partment of Labor, was dropped after Congress passed well-publicized campaigns to defeat politicians who had the necessary legislation in June, 1920.) The league’s opposed suffrage, offending members who interpreted first priority was support for the Sheppard-Towner bill, nonpartisanship to mean not simply refusing to endorse introduced in Congress the previous year, which would candidates but avoiding all kinds of electioneering. Interprovide federal matching funds for state programs to imnal dissension, combined with hostility from the political prove maternal and infant health. The league also put its parties, ultimately led the LWV to embrace a policy of energies into the promotion of a constitutional amendstrict nonpartisanship and to focus on women’s political ment abolishing child labor, increased funding for the education and study of the issues. Children’s Bureau, and new or continued federal aid Controversy likewise developed over the LWV profor three educational objectives: combating illiteracy, gram. Some members argued that the LWV’s extensive improving home economics education, and continuing legislative agenda was too politically controversial, that public education in sex hygiene. Other concerns init duplicated the programs of other women’s voluntary cluded the proposed establishment of a federal departorganizations, and that it detracted from the goal of ment of education, a federal-state employment service women’s pursuing political power. Such criticisms led to that would include women’s departments, federal reguthe appointment of the Committee on the Simplification lation of food marketing, and compulsory civics educaof the Program to clarify goals and policies, but the LWV tion in the public schools. Three planks dealt specifically continued to embrace social reform through legislawith fairness to women: ending sex discrimination in tive lobbying. The Victory Convention had directed the the civil service, independent citizenship for married LWV to take the lead in bringing together women’s orgawomen (who at that time lost their U.S. citizenship if nizations to work for legislation of common interest. they married resident aliens), and independent naturalThat autumn, Maud Wood Park issued a call to which ten ization procedures for foreign-born women (who acorganizations responded. On November 22, 1920, they quired U.S. citizenship when their husbands did). organized the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee The LWV’s agenda thus continued the pursuit of so(WJCC), and Park became its permanent chair. Working cial welfare goals through an active, interventionist govin collaboration with the member organizations of the ernment that women’s voluntary associations had sought WJCC enabled the LWV to realize some of its primary during the Progressive Era. The Republicans endorsed legislative goals: passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act in five of the planks and the Democrats twelve, but the lead1921; passage of the Cable Act, guaranteeing women inership of both parties united in criticizing the LWV’s exdependent citizenship, in 1922; and passage of a new istence as an attempt to create a separate women’s party child labor law in 1924. and divide the electorate along gender lines. Confusion Although the LWV had aimed to preserve NAWSA’s about the LWV’s purpose also led some partisan women membership and momentum, fewer than one hundred to denounce the organization, which they feared would thousand of the NAWSA’s two million members joined 1612
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Adams, Mildred. The Right to Be People. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1966. Reviews the people and events leading to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and provides a critical look at the impact of the vote for women. Credits the League of Women Voters with major pushes toward equality for women beyond the vote. Includes index. Becker, Susan. “International Feminism Between the Wars: The National Woman’s Party Versus the League of Women Voters.” In Decades of Discontent: The Women’s Movement, 1920-1940, edited by Lois Scharf and Joan Jensen. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. Describes the LWV’s efforts on behalf of protective legislation for women workers. Buhle, Mari Jo, and Paul Buhle, eds. The Concise History of Woman Suffrage. 1978. Reprint. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Extremely useful collection of documents from the classic, original six-volume History of Woman Suffrage. Covers primarily the period leading up to the LWV’s forma-
tion. Includes informative introductory material and index. Catt, Carrie Chapman, and Nettie Rogers Shuler. Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923. Firsthand account of the movement, dramatically told yet with intelligent assessments of the pertinent issues. Includes details of the legal machinations on both sides of the suffrage issue. Curiously omits any extensive discussion of the LWV’s postratification role, perhaps because of Catt’s own humility. Includes index. Clift, Eleanor. Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Brief history of the suffrage movement in the United States describes important events and organizations and provides background on the movement’s leaders. Includes bibliography. Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1996. A standard source on the women’s movement through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Includes abundant quotations and anecdotes, photographs, and index. Fowler, Robert Booth. Carrie Catt: Feminist Politician. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986. Thoughtful study of Catt’s life focuses on her leadership skills, organizational theories, and political savvy and how those elements intertwined with her personality. Explains the organizational model behind the League of Women Voters. Includes thorough notes, bibliography, and index. Gordon, Felice D. After Winning: The Legacy of the New Jersey Suffragists, 1920-1947. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986. Chapter 2 offers an in-depth analysis of a state-level LWV. Lemons, Stanley J. The Woman Citizen: Social Feminism in the 1920’s. 1973. Reprint. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990. Classic study of women’s political activism in the first decade after suffrage. Provides a good brief introduction to the League of Women Voters. Peck, Mary Gray. Carrie Chapman Catt: A Biography. 1944. Reprint. New York: Hyperion, 1976. Biography by a close friend of Catt displays personal insights available in very few other works on Catt. Suffers at times precisely because of the proximity of the author to the subject as well as Catt’s clear reluctance to have herself memorialized. Includes index. 1613
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the new organization. Catt had envisioned state and local suffrage associations dissolving and being reborn as leagues, but only Pennsylvania’s suffrage association actually retained its leaders and membership as a statelevel LWV. By the end of 1920, the LWV claimed organizations in forty-six states, but seventeen of them, in predominantly rural states, were weak and struggling. Local leagues were strongest in large cities where municipal reform movements had flourished during the Progressive Era; state leagues were most vigorous in the more heavily populated states east of the Mississippi River. Active city and state leagues in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York developed techniques, such as compiling and distributing candidate records and analyzing pending legislation, that served as models for other states. The LWV grew slowly but steadily in the twentieth century, reaching a peak in membership of 150,000 women and men (with men first admitted in 1974) in the mid-1970’s. In 1976, it began one of its most visible projects aimed at voter education, the sponsorship of televised debates between U.S. presidential candidates. The league also undertook advocacy for the simplification of voter registration and supported passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, the league devoted efforts to the promotion of campaign finance reform. —Judith N. McArthur
League of Women Voters Is Founded
Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands Van Voris, Jacqueline. Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life. New York: Feminist Press, 1987. Solid narrative account of Catt’s public activities. Chapter 4 describes the last conventions of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the beginnings of the League of Women Voters. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Young, Louise M. In the Public Interest: The League of Women Voters, 1920-1970. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. Excellent source of information on the league, well researched and clearly presented. Exten-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sive endnotes are worth reading in their own right. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Sept. 22, 1922: Cable Act; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
February 25, 1920
Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands After ten years of discussion and debate, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, which involved the U.S. government in managing the nation’s mineral resources. Also known as: Mineral Leasing Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history; natural resources Key Figures Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Josephus Daniels (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of the Navy Franklin K. Lane (1864-1921), U.S. secretary of the interior Reed Smoot (1862-1941), U.S. senator from Utah Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), U.S. senator from Wisconsin Irvine Luther Lenroot (1869-1949), U.S. congressman and later senator from Wisconsin Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), former chief of the U.S. Forest Service Thomas J. Walsh (1859-1933), U.S. senator from Montana Albert B. Fall (1861-1944), U.S. senator from New Mexico Summary of Event On February 25, 1920, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Mineral Leasing Act, giving statutory effect to the policy of leasing government lands containing mineral deposits such as coal, gas, oil, oil shale, phosphates, potassium, and sodium to private parties for develop1614
ment. The law did not satisfy all Americans. Many westerners, businesspeople, and conservatives preferred a policy of permanent alienation or sale of government lands to private parties without conditions. Some conservationists and Progressives desired that the government not only own the public lands but also conserve and develop the resources contained within them. After more than a century of uncontrolled development and exploitation, however, the act represented a victory for conservation. Prior to the twentieth century, federal lands were generally sold for nominal fees or given away outright. The General Mining Act of 1872 turned public-land mineral deposits of gold, silver, and copper over to developers at a minimal cost with few restrictions by the federal government. Lands containing coal deposits were treated in much the same way. In the early twentieth century, however, as some observers began to recognize that the exhaustion of the nation’s vast lands and resources was a possibility, a conservation movement emerged during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. The movement did not include all Americans, however. Many people in the West, for example, claimed that conservationists tended to be easterners whose lands were already developed and who were thus enforcing a double standard on the West, denying opportunities to the citizens of those states. Others argued that government conservation policies were a violation of the rights of property and individualism as set forth in the Declaration of Independence; some complained that government conservation was paternalistic and autocratic. In 1906, Roosevelt proposed a coal leasing bill to Congress. In order to protect the public interest and in-
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waterpower sites policy came under attack for lacking sufficient government controls. In 1916, Pinchot called Lane an anticonservationist. Pinchot did not believe that administrators should be narrowly bound by restrictive regulations, but he believed that Lane had acted unwisely. Wilson’s Democrats suffered defeat in the 1918 congressional elections. Losses were particularly severe in the West, and in February, 1919, Wilson, risking the wrath of conservationists, gave his support to a mineral leasing bill that included both leasing and sale provisions. Many conservationists were dismayed. The naval reserves were not protected, and the national forests, Grand Canyon National Park, and Mount Olympus National Monument were opened to prospectors. The bill easily passed the House by a vote of 233 to 109, but La Follette kept the bill from coming to a vote in the Senate, and it died when the congressional session ended in March, 1919. With Republican control of Congress, the long campaign for a leasing bill came to fruition. The Republican leadership needed to appear constructive, particularly after the party’s opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson’s League of Nations. Westerners and conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans, worried that without a leasing bill, government operation might result. Utah’s Reed Smoot, chairman of the Senate Public Lands Committee, preferred no government involvement but recognized the political need to compromise if any development was to occur. With the prodding of the Pinchot bloc from the outside and the actions of Lenroot (who had moved from the House to the Senate in 1917) within the Senate committee, the Smoot bill evolved during the summer of 1919 in a manner pleasing to conservationists. Unlike the previous bill, it was entirely a leasing bill, with no sales or alienation alternatives. The Grand Canyon and Mount Olympus were removed from coal and other mineral exploration. La Follette led the fight on the Senate floor and supported the bill as an improvement over previous bills, although he wished for additional controls over possible monopolies and unfair prices. The bill was passed by the Senate in September, 1919, was passed by the House at the end of October, and was signed into law by Wilson on February 25, 1920. The Mineral Leasing Act applied to oil and gas as well as to coal, sodium, and phosphates. Prospecting was allowed on unproven lands, some preference was given to those with earlier claims, and each state was allocated 37.5 percent of resource royalties from lands within its borders. 1615
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crease government revenues, the government would retain ownership of the land but would lease it to private interests for a royalty. Some critics argued that the proposal was a socialistic violation of states’ rights. Others, such as Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin, wanted tighter legislative controls, fearing that a loose leasing law might result in increased private monopoly of the nation’s resources. No leasing law resulted, but Roosevelt and his successors William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson began withdrawing certain government lands containing mineral deposits from the public domain. By 1916, more than 140 million acres had been set aside, including fifty oil reserves totaling more than 5.5 million acres. To many private interests, leasing became a viable approach for developing the mineral resources on federal lands, both to generate income and to preserve and develop the nation’s resources. It was oil rather than coal, however, that became the focus of the debate. Oil was destined to be the energy source of the future, and part of the oil debate revolved around naval power and U.S. defense policy. In 1912, Taft created two naval oil reserves in California’s San Joaquin Valley: one at Elk Hills and one at Buena Vista Hills. Taft’s successor, Woodrow Wilson, established a third reserve in 1915 in Wyoming, at Teapot Dome. Wilson’s secretary of the interior, Franklin K. Lane, a Progressive from California, supported leasing for oil and other minerals. Lane’s major opponent in the administration, Josephus Daniels, the secretary of the Navy and also a Progressive, was a strong advocate of oil reserves for exclusive naval use and was critical of leasing. Most conservationists, notably Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt’s chief forester, advocated the concept of leasing. Several leasing bills were introduced during the Wilson years. The leasing debate was a regional issue rather than a political one at that time. Scott Ferris, an Oklahoma Democrat, and Irvine Luther Lenroot, a Wisconsin Republican, led the leasing campaign in the House. Daniels was opposed to any leasing bill that would alienate public oil lands, particularly those set aside for the U.S. Navy. Progressives such as Idaho’s Senator William E. Borah argued that natural resources should be maintained and operated by the government for the people. Others, such as William King of Utah, wanted no government conservation program of any kind. Secretary Lane was caught in the middle. He admired the private businesspeople who had built the United States, and he was sympathetic to those who claimed that they had established a stake in the withdrawn oil reserves. He also wished to open Alaska to development, and his
Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands
Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands The secretary of the interior was given considerable responsibility for administering the new law. Significance The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 established the principle that the government would retain ownership of the public lands containing mineral deposits and would lease those lands and their resources to private developers. In so doing, the federal government became permanently involved in managing the mineral resources of the nation. By the 1980’s, more than 100 million acres of public lands were under oil and gas lease, and approximately 70 million tons of coal were mined on federal lands. The people’s interests were to be protected, and preservation and planning would be possible—or at least so it seemed in 1920. In operation, the mineral leasing law proved to be controversial, and within a few years it led to one of the most famous scandals in U.S. history. The early twentieth century Progressives trusted the advice of supposedly apolitical experts. Objective in their assessments, such experts, according to Progressives, would provide the necessary scientific knowledge to elected or appointed administrators, who were given broad leeway to implement the laws. In practice, however, experts’ opinions often differed on specific points, such as whether the naval reserves could intentionally or inadvertently be drained by outside drilling. During debate on the Smoot bill, La Follette proposed an amendment to the bill to exclude the naval reserves from the leasing bill and, citing expert opinion, denied that separate naval reserves would be damaged by nearby drilling. Montana’s Democratic senator Thomas J. Walsh, who favored western development, claimed that his expert, Edward L. Doheny, predicted that the naval reserves would be drained and thus should be developed and the oil stored or sold. La Follette’s amendment failed, but in June, 1920, in an amendment to another bill, the naval reserves were made the responsibility of the secretary of the Navy. Administrators who were given the broad discretion that the Progressives deemed necessary did not always administer the laws as some had anticipated. New Mexico’s Republican senator Albert B. Fall, the archetypal westerner distrustful of federal conservation policies, opposed leasing and any other governmental restrictions on development. Gifford Pinchot hoped to be chosen as the new secretary of the interior after the Republican victory in the 1920 presidential election, but President Warren G. Harding selected Fall for the position. Republican conservationists were concerned, but they hoped for the 1616
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 best. They received the worst. In May, 1921, Fall persuaded Harding’s secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby, to turn the naval reserves over to Fall’s interior department. This was legal but was antithetical to the spirit of the mineral leasing legislation. Fall then surreptitiously but legally leased Elk Hills to the Doheny oil interests and Teapot Dome to Harry F. Sinclair. When Fall went to jail years later, it was not because he had violated provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act but because he had received financial and other compensation from Doheny and Sinclair. There were several paradoxes in the Teapot Dome affair. First, the scandal was misnamed, as the Teapot Dome reserves were less important than those at California’s Elk Hills. Second, the original justification for establishing the reserves was to offset a perceived shortage of oil, a scenario that did not materialize. Third, although La Follette was one of the chief figures in exposing the Teapot Dome scandal, the primary investigator was Senator Walsh, who had been sympathetic to western developers during Wilson’s administration. Senator Lenroot, one of the conservationist architects of the Smoot bill, defended the Harding administration’s conservation decisions. When the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 was passed, it was viewed as a conservation measure; however, the scandal demonstrated that, in the hands of a willful administrator opposed to the spirit of conservation, the act’s outcome could be radically different. The intent of the law, at least as far as conservationists were concerned, was better served by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. New Deal liberals were not the direct political heirs of the earlier Progressives, but conservation was a common concern, and Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, was a former Progressive Republican. Ickes was a committed conservationist, and during his tenure he conscientiously supervised the mineral leasing program through the General Land Office, as well as through the Bureau of Mines, the U.S. Fuel Administration, the Bituminous Coal Commission, the U.S. Coal Commission, and the Federal Oil Conservation Board. The battle between conservationists and developers continued. The Wilderness Act of 1964 established 9.1 million acres as wilderness areas largely exempt from mining and drilling. At the same time, the nation needed additional amounts of oil and other resources, needs that were increasingly met by imports. In the 1970’s, a movement developed in the West to give greater say to states and local areas in the use of federal public lands and resources. Many conservationists reacted by demanding
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Bates, J. Leonard. The Origins of Teapot Dome. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963. Definitive work traces the history of the mineral leasing program and examines the role of the program in the Teapot Dome scandal. Cawley, R. McGreggor. Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Valuable study discusses the history of the West’s frustration with the federal government’s public-land policies, including the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 and the Sagebrush Rebellion. Davis, Charles, ed. Western Public Lands and Environmental Politics. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 2001. Collection of essays examines relationships among political organizations, economic conditions, interest groups, and other factors that influence public-land policy in the western United States. Includes tables, figures, and index. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Seminal work examines the origins of the conservation movement’s wise-land-use philosophy as exemplified by conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot. Miller, Char. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. Washington, D.C.: Shearwater Books, 2004. First full-length biography of Pinchot in forty years draws on previously unavailable materials to illuminate his life and times. Includes notes and index. Noggle, Burl. Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920’s. 1965. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Definitive study of the complexities of the Teapot Dome affair. Briefly discusses the Mineral Leasing Act. Robbins, Roy M. Our Landed Heritage. 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976. Revised edition of a classic work about U.S. public lands. Covers the period from 1776 to 1970. Wyant, William K. Westward in Eden: The Public Lands and the Conservation Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Readable volume relates the story of the American conservation movement from the founding of the nation to the early 1980’s. See also: Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams; Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal.
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revisions in the Mineral Leasing Act that would place a higher priority on environmental considerations. Conservationists warned about the threat of monopoly and price fixing, noting that 70 percent of the coal leases were held by only fifteen corporations. The oil embargoes instituted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), however, added another justification for additional development: The nation’s survival seemed to require it. By the end of the 1970’s, western demands, known popularly as the Sagebrush Rebellion, were paralleling those of the years prior to 1920. “Sagebrush Rebels” claimed that federal government policies were infringing on needed development. Most disputants agreed that the government would retain ownership of the public lands and lease them to private parties for development, but there remained the contentious questions of how much, how fast, by whom, and at what environmental cost such development should be undertaken. These issues would necessarily be fought out in the political arena by each generation. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 established the principle of continued government ownership of mineral lands, but enactment of the law did not end the debate about actual use of those lands. —Eugene Larson
Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands
United States v. United States Steel Corporation
March 1, 1920 UNITED STATES V. UNITED STATES
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
STEEL CORPORATION
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the United States v. United States Steel Corporation case, ruling that the defendant had not committed conduct in violation of antitrust laws despite its large share of the steel industry. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Joseph McKenna (1843-1926), associate justice of the United States, 1898-1925 Joseph Buffington (1855-1938), district judge of the Third Circuit Court, 1906-1938 Elbert Henry Gary (1846-1927), corporate attorney and chief executive officer of the United States Steel Corporation Charles M. Schwab (1862-1939), president of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901-1903 J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), financier and founder of the United States Steel Corporation Summary of Event The United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) was founded in 1901 as the world’s first billion-dollar company. It immediately became the dominant firm in the steel industry. A decade after U.S. Steel’s formation, the U.S. government challenged the firm’s relative size and its leadership in industry pricing as violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. After ten years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case of United States v. United States Steel Corporation on March 1, 1920. The Court’s decision reduced the market power of U.S. Steel by encouraging other mergers within the steel industry. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the iron and steel industry was competitive and decentralized. In the 1870’s, adoption of the Bessemer process of steelmaking, discovered in England, led to large-scale production that gradually changed the development of the structure of the steel industry. In contrast to a rapid increase in steel output, the depression of 1893-1896 resulted in a reduction of demand for steel. Consequently, the price of steel rails dropped from more than one hundred dollars per ton in 1870 to seventeen dollars per ton in 1898. A wave of merger movement took place in the industry as firms attempted to reduce competition. One of the biggest mergers was organized by finan1618
cier J. P. Morgan, who bought three major steel producers: Federal Steel, National Steel, and Carnegie Steel. In 1901, the United States Steel Corporation was formed as a trust, or holding company, of these operating firms in addition to ore mines, railroads, and ore-carrying ships. Charles M. Schwab of Carnegie Steel was made president of the company. The new trust immediately accounted for 44 percent of the nation’s ingot capacity and 66 percent of steel casting production. An economic recession in 1907 reduced the demand for steel. Rather than cutting prices in response to the declining market, U.S. Steel’s chairman of the board, Elbert Henry Gary, attempted to stabilize prices through cooperation with competitors. Through a series of wellpublicized meetings, known as the Gary dinners, with many steel producers between 1907 and 1911, Gary promoted a policy of cooperation rather than competition among companies. Gary developed a new pattern of pricing that was generally followed by other producers, a basing point system known as the Pittsburgh plus system. U.S. Steel began to quote steel product prices in all market areas on the basis of the Pittsburgh price plus the railroad freight rate from Pittsburgh to the market, regardless of where the products were made. U.S. Steel’s policy was disseminated during the Gary dinners, and other steel producers gradually adopted the Pittsburgh plus system. Other firms also followed U.S. Steel’s list of “extras” and price charges quoted to customers. Despite its cooperative practices with other steel producers, U.S. Steel continued to expand, acquiring seven more companies between 1902 and 1908 and constructing the world’s largest steel mill at a city in Indiana named for Gary. The company’s expansionary and cooperative actions soon brought public attention, notably from newspaper journalists and labor unions. In the early 1900’s, following formation of U.S. Steel, the federal government began to prosecute trusts in sugar, oil, and tobacco for illegal monopolization. The relationship between Gary and President Theodore Roosevelt prevented an antitrust suit in 1907, when the president granted advance approval of U.S. Steel’s acquisition of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. In 1911, as a result of extensive investigations of the steel industry conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Corporations and the Stanley Committee of the House of Representatives, the long-expected antitrust suit could not be
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and that the formation of the steel trust was a natural result of the existing industrial technology, which made mass production efficient. Despite its gigantic size, the corporation did not abuse its market power to increase profits by reducing the wages of its employees or by lowering product quality or output. Furthermore, the Court did not find any evidence of unfair practices or trade restraints. The corporation had no power of its own, and its power to fix prices and maintain price stability arose from the cooperation of its competitors. Unlike in the American Tobacco (1911) and Standard Oil (1911) cases, both the district court and the Supreme Court found that the size of U.S. Steel itself was not an offense against the Sherman Antitrust Act, as it was not accompanied by “unreasonable” business practices. The failure of the government in prosecuting U.S. Steel signified the Court’s tolerance of “good trusts.” Significance The U.S. Steel case contributed much to the early development of antitrust laws and the course of American industries. It represents the government’s early efforts to maintain market competition in the face of mergers. Following victories in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco suits, the case accounted for the federal government’s first major failure in prosecuting a big corporation. Both the district court and the Supreme Court decisions in favor of U.S. Steel were based on the “rule of reason” principle established in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco cases. McKenna reinforced the rule of reason that corporate size alone was no offense against the antitrust laws if not accompanied by anticompetitive conduct. The Supreme Court’s confirmation of the rule of reason signified its tolerance of big corporations. Its ruling immediately initiated a new merger movement in the steel industry as well as in other American industries over the next two decades. In addition, the U.S. Steel case set the tone for the government’s defeat in the Alcoa antitrust suit in 1924. After the 1920 case, U.S. Steel ceased its expansion, hoping to avoid another antitrust lawsuit. Its share in steel production continued to decline, while competitors, particularly Bethlehem Steel and Republic Steel, began to grow through mergers. Only two years after U.S. Steel’s victory over the government, several major steel companies (Midvale, Ordnance, Republic, Inland, Bethlehem, and Lackawanna) proposed the formation of the North American Steel Company, which would have been only slightly smaller in size than U.S. Steel. The pro1619
1920
avoided. Attorney General George Woodward Wickersham filed suit against U.S. Steel in October, 1911, and asked for divestiture of the corporation. In the United States v. United States Steel Corporation case, the Department of Justice filed suit against U.S. Steel, charging monopolization through acquisition of competing firms and price fixing with competitors, both of which constituted unreasonable restraints of trade in the steel industry and violations of the Sherman Act. Meanwhile, in the early 1910’s successful prosecutions of other major trusts, including Standard Oil and American Tobacco, for violating antitrust law encouraged the U.S. government to wage a war against more trusts and big corporations. The passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act and the formation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914 further strengthened the enforcement of antitrust laws. The Clayton Act forbade specific “unfair” business practices, including price discrimination and acquisition of competing companies in order to reduce market competition. On June 3, 1915, the U.S. Steel case was dismissed in the District Court of New Jersey in a four-to-three decision. District Judge Joseph Buffington explained the decision, ruling that there was no acceptable evidence of a monopoly, unfair pricing, or monopolization by U.S. Steel in the steel market. In fact, U.S. Steel’s share in the iron and steel markets had declined to about 50 percent between 1901 and 1910, while many competitors, such as Bethlehem Steel, Inland Steel, and LaBelle Steel, had grown rapidly during the period. More than eighty competitive steel manufacturers were active in the industry—hardly evidence of a monopoly. Furthermore, the court did not find any evidence that the defendant attempted to control the supply of iron ore, as its major competitors all had sufficient iron ore supplies. Judge Buffington found the evidence contrary to claims of monopolization and trade restraints. Furthermore, the Gary dinners, which might have constituted evidence of illegal practices as conspiracy to monopolize among firms, were discontinued before the suit was brought. No competitors of U.S. Steel testified against the defendant’s allegedly unreasonable business practices. Nevertheless, the federal government appealed the district court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 1, 1920, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the district court’s decision in a four-to-three vote. Associate Justice Joseph McKenna delivered the majority opinion, which was similar to that of Buffington. McKenna explained that U.S. Steel was not formed with the intent to monopolize or restrain trade or to restrict competition
United States v. United States Steel Corporation
United States v. United States Steel Corporation posed merger eventually was broken into two parts and approved by the Justice Department, which hoped to add to the competitive forces acting on U.S. Steel. The Federal Trade Commission filed complaints against both mergers as constituting unfair competition under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Although the Midvale-Republic-Inland proposed merger was dropped voluntarily, Bethlehem successfully merged with Lackawanna and Midvale when the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the FTC’s charges in 1927. Steel mergers continued successfully without challenge from the government until 1935, when Republic acquired Corrigan, McKinney Steel. A suit filed by the Justice Department against the merger was decided by the Northern Ohio District Court in favor of the industry. In the U.S. Steel antitrust case, the Supreme Court did not find the defendant’s cooperative Pittsburgh plus pricing system to be an illegal type of price fixing. The Clayton Antitrust and Federal Trade Commission Acts, however, explicitly ruled price discrimination illegal. In April, 1921, the FTC filed a complaint that U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh plus pricing practice constituted price discrimination against western consumers and was an unfair business practice. U.S. Steel obeyed the commission’s cease-and-desist order in 1924 and abandoned the pricing policy. Meanwhile, the basing point policy had spread to other industries, such as cement; the FTC unsuccessfully challenged that industry’s use of the policy in 1925. The basing point system continued to be used until it was explicitly banned by the government in 1948. The U.S. Steel victory over the government encouraged mergers and the use of basing point pricing practices, which in turn led to increased efforts on the part of the government to regulate these practices. As for the steel industry, the case marked the end of U.S. Steel’s dominance and the rise of its competitors, setting the tone for the oligopolistic market structure that developed. The case also ended cooperative pricing practices among firms and led to the elimination of the practice of price discrimination. In 1986, U.S. Steel Corporation changed its name to USX Corporation, and its major operating units focused on energy, steel, and other diversified enterprises. In October, 2001, USX Corporation reorganized into United States Steel Corporation, its original name, and Marathon Oil Corporation, which operated the nonsteel parts of USX Corporation. —Jim Lee 1620
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Armentano, Dominick T. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. 2d ed. Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 1990. Covers major antitrust lawsuits since the Sherman Act, discussing their relationship to economic theory and the development of antitrust legislation. Chapter 4 discusses the U.S. Steel case. Includes an appendix of relevant sections of antitrust laws. Hovenkamp, Herbert. Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice. 2d ed. Eagan, Minn.: West, 1999. Covers nearly all aspects of U.S. antitrust policy in a manner understandable to people with no background in economics. Chapter 2 discusses “history and ideology in antitrust policy.” Peritz, Rudolph J. R. Competition Policy in America: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Explores the influences on U.S. public policy of the concept of free competition. Discusses congressional debates, court opinions, and the work of economic, legal, and political scholars in this area. Schroeder, Gertrude. The Growth of Major Steel Companies, 1900-1950. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1952. Detailed historical study of the leading steel companies during the first half of the twentieth century. Written for a general audience. Tarbell, Ida. The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel. 1926. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003. Indepth look at the corporate life of the president of U.S. Steel as well as the early development of the company. Includes discussion of Gary’s relationships with President Theodore Roosevelt and with organized labor. U.S. Steel Corporation. United States Steel Corporation: T.N.E.C. Papers. 3 vols. New York: Author, 1940. Contains economic and statistical studies, charts, and illustrations submitted by U.S. Steel to the Temporary National Economic Committee during court hearings on the steel industry in 1939 and 1940. Weiss, Leonard. Economics and American Industry. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1961. Chapter 7 provides good coverage of the integration in steel production and market concentration in the early years of the industry. Explores pricing policy, including oligopoly and basing point systems, with economic models. Valuable for undergraduate economics students. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Chapter 5 of volume 1 provides historical and legal case studies of the steel
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 industry and U.S. Steel in the first half of the twentieth century. Economic analysis includes changes in market concentration, forms of interindustry competition, and industry performance. Also discusses antitrust laws from an economic perspective and provides a good end-of-chapter summary of historical events. See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Su-
Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement preme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCAto Restructure.
1920
April 26, 1920
Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement Meeting in San Remo, the Allied leaders of Great Britain, France, and Italy divided up the Turkish possessions of the Middle East, with Great Britain and France dividing Middle Eastern oil. Locale: San Remo, Italy Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition; trade and commerce Key Figures David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), French premier, 1906-1909, 1917-1920 Wusayn ibn 4Alt (c. 1854-1931), emir of Mecca, r. 1908-1916, and king of the Hejaz, r. 1916-1924 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Sir Henry McMahon (1862-1949), British high commissioner in Egypt, 1914-1916 Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), British foreign secretary, 1916-1919 Philippe Berthelot (1866-1934), director of the Political and Commercial Department of the French Foreign Office Sir John Cadman (1877-1941), director of the British Petroleum Department, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and the Iraq Petroleum Company Summary of Event The map of the Middle East during much of the twentieth century was the product of political decisions made during World War I (1914-1918). These decisions in their turn were the product of wartime exigencies confirmed in the peace settlement of Versailles, including arrangements made elsewhere and enshrined in the peace trea-
ties among the belligerents, such as the San Remo Agreement. The decisions made by the Allied leaders who met at San Remo in April, 1920, laid out the lines of the political settlement of the Middle East. The San Remo Agreement had several antecedents. First, a commitment made in 1915 by the British high commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, to Wusayn ibn 4Alt, the emir of Mecca, promised British support of a movement for Arab independence from Turkish control. Second, in May of 1916, Great Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Under this agreement, Russian territorial expansion east of the Black Sea, at the expense of Turkey, was recognized. A very large Syria, including Lebanon, was to go to France. Great Britain was to receive southern Mesopotamia in addition to the Mediterranean coastal ports of Haifa and Akka. Both Syria and Mesopotamia were to be made into Arab states, under the control of the two European powers. The Holy Places were to be placed under international control. The contradictions between the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the promises made to Wusayn on behalf of Arab independence were evident, and the British and French tried to keep the Sykes-Picot Agreement secret. When the Russian Communists seized power in November, 1917, however, they found the agreement in the Russian archives and published it in the newspaper Izvestia. The Sykes-Picot Agreement proved to be a difficult obstacle for Great Britain to overcome, and it caused even greater problems for France. The postwar situation in the Middle East was made even more complex by the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, a declaration made by British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to the leaders of Zionism that the British government looked with favor on the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. The declaration 1621
Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement
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Sykes-Picot Agreement. In fact, the British were prepared to modify the Following are the first seven articles of the San Remo Agreement, which comagreement and insisted on some prises twenty-eight articles in all. The term “Mandatory” refers to the British modification to reflect the fact that government. British arms, not French, had liberated the Middle East from the Turks. Article 1. The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of adBritish prime minister David Lloyd ministration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this mandate. George insisted on a modification Article 2. The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country unreflecting this fact when he met with der such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the French premier Georges Clemenceau establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and in London in December of 1918. the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race Matters were further complicated and religion. by the arrival in Paris of the American Article 3. The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourdelegation to the peace conference, age local autonomy. headed by U.S. president Woodrow Article 4. An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public Wilson. Wilson refused to be bound body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of by the Sykes-Picot Agreement and Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the estabdemanded that an investigative comlishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population mission be sent to the Middle East to in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist determine local sentiment. The Britand take part in the development of the country. ish were prepared to cooperate, but The Zionist Organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in France refused; out of a sense of loythe opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty’s Government to alty to France, Great Britain then desecure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment clined to participate. Accordingly, of the Jewish national home. the commission went to the Middle Article 5. The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no PalesEast staffed only by Americans. tine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control Meanwhile, the British and the of, the Government of any foreign Power. French continued negotiating. It was Article 6. The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights at this point that oil entered the picand position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall faciliture. It was strongly suspected that tate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cosubstantial oil deposits existed in the operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by region around Mosul. This area had Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public originally been incorporated in the purposes. Article 7. The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible for enact“greater Syria” promised to France ing a nationality law. There shall be included in this law provisions framed so in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Great as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up Britain, which in 1919 had full militheir permanent residence in Palestine. tary command of the area, demanded that the Mosul area be attached to Mesopotamia and included in the portion of the former Ottoman Emtook the form of a letter to Lord Rothschild, head of the pire assigned to Great Britain. France proved willing to British Zionist Committee, on November 2, 1917. The concede the point provided that France gained some acletter reserved the rights of the indigenous population. cess to the potential oil profits of the area. This proved With the end of World War I clearly imminent, on Nopossible because the exploration rights around Movember 7, 1918, the British and French issued a joint decsul had been granted by the Ottoman government— laration in which they promised freedom to the various although in a somewhat informal matter—to the Turkish peoples subjugated by the Turks, with the right to set up Petroleum Company in the summer of 1914. British ingovernments of their own choosing. The Arabs interterests owned 75 percent of the Turkish Petroleum Company; German interests owned the rest. The German inpreted this statement to mean that the British and French terest had been confiscated at the outbreak of war by did not intend to impose the settlement outlined in the
The San Remo Agreement
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Significance The immediate impact of the San Remo Agreement was to spark a revolt among the Arabs living in interior Syria. The Syrian Arabs had already proclaimed Faisal I as king. The San Remo Agreement was seen as a betrayal of promises made by Great Britain, then seemingly confirmed by France in November of 1918, that the Arabs of the Middle East would be allowed to form an indepen-
dent Arab state (or states) in the Middle East. Although the San Remo Agreement technically provided for Arab states, these were to be under the tutelage of Great Britain or France through the system of mandates. The French, who had substantial forces in western Syria, defeated the Arabs in July, 1920. They dethroned Faisal I, who fled. Although the French were unpopular in Syria and Lebanon, they proceeded to organize the governments of both areas. The French maintained a military presence in Syria and Lebanon that ensured their control. Meanwhile, the British had taken control of Mesopotamia. A revolt of the Arabs followed; it was finally brought under control by October of 1920. The British decided that the best policy was to organize an Arab government and to invite Faisal I to become king of Iraq, subject to approval by the populace. A referendum showed 96 percent approval, and in August of 1921, Faisal I was installed in power. Meanwhile, a constituent assembly, organized by British High Commissioner Sir Percy Cox, had designed a constitution for Iraq. Confirming this state of affairs, Great Britain converted Iraq’s status from a mandate territory, entering into a treaty relationship with the kingdom of Iraq in 1922; at the same time, a special military agreement gave the British a substantial degree of control. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, the British military presence in Iraq was steadily reduced. The most important consequence of the San Remo Agreement was that it opened the Middle East to development of its oil resources. Prior to World War I, only Iranian oil had been developed to any significant extent. The Iranian oil fields had been discovered just after the turn of the century by English interests and had been substantially developed by the outbreak of the war. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was organized in 1908 to exploit a concession originally designed to last sixty years, granted in 1901 to the British exploration group. Anglo-Persian acquired Abadan Island in 1909, then built a pipeline from the oil field to the island and a refinery on the island between 1910 and 1913. Production began in 1912 and rose rapidly to 273,000 tons by 1914. Exploitation of the oil potential in Iraq did not occur until the late 1920’s. The legal situation continued to be murky after the end of World War I. The Turkish Petroleum Company, a British company with a 25 percent French interest, was the owner of the concession made by the Ottoman government in the summer of 1914. The collapse of the Ottoman government and its effective displacement after World War I by the native Turkish gov1623
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Great Britain, where the company was incorporated. Great Britain offered to turn over to France the German interest in the Turkish Petroleum Company. The negotiations over the disposition of the Mosul area and the rights to its oil were formalized in the LongBerenger Agreement of April 18, 1919. With some modifications, the results of the negotiations were also incorporated in the San Remo Agreement of April 26, 1920. The political provisions of the San Remo conference laid down many of the boundary lines that prevailed in the Middle East through the end of the century. Syria and Lebanon were destined for France as mandates under the League of Nations, although the mandate system had yet to be set up by the League. Mesopotamia and Palestine were to go to Great Britain. As a corollary, and as the price Britain had to pay to get the whole of Mesopotamia, including the district around Mosul, the British and French signed the Cadman-Berthelot Agreement on April 24, 1920. It was confirmed the following day by Lloyd George and Alexandre Millerand, Clemenceau’s successor as premier of France. The Cadman-Berthelot Agreement, otherwise known as the San Remo Oil Agreement, was negotiated by Sir John Cadman and Philippe Berthelot. It gave to France the former German interest in the Turkish Petroleum Company. This assured France of 25 percent of the profits from the Mosul oil field and from any other oil found in Mesopotamia. Other provisions assured both signatories equal access to oil resources in Romania and the Soviet Union should these become available for private exploitation. The agreement also looked forward to the construction of a pipeline to the Mediterranean coastline in order to facilitate shipment of Mosul oil to Europe. The parallel construction of railroads from the oil-producing region to the Mediterranean was also foreshadowed in the agreement. France agreed to facilitate these projects so far as they passed through French-controlled territory in Syria. Should pipelines and a railroad be built from the oil-producing regions to the Persian Gulf, Great Britain promised equal facilitation of the projects.
Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement
Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement ernment of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) left the status of the concession uncertain. Until 1922, the Ankara Turks continued to demand the return of the Mosul area to Turkish control, and the issue was finally submitted to the League of Nations. In 1925, the League ruled that the area was properly part of the kingdom of Iraq but that Turkey was to receive 10 percent of any oil revenues derived from the Mosul province. This determination in turn made it possible for the Turkish Petroleum Company to renegotiate the concession for Mosul. The Iraqi government gave the Turkish Petroleum Company permission to explore for oil in the Mosul province, and in 1927 an immense oil field was struck in the vicinity of Kirkuk. Meanwhile, the ownership of the Turkish Petroleum Company was being protested by the Americans, who favored an “open door” policy for the exploration and development of Middle Eastern oil. A compromise was reached in 1925, under which some of the shares of the Turkish Petroleum Company that were owned by Anglo-Persian Oil would be made available to a consortium of American oil companies, provided they accepted a proviso that they would not seek other oil development properties in the area controlled by the Turkish Petroleum Company. Originally, the American consortium consisted of most of the major American oil firms of that time, but by the time the agreement was formalized in 1928, it consisted of only two companies, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Esso) and Socony-Vacuum Oil Company (later Mobil). These two firms formed a new company, the Near East Development Corporation, that became the owner of 23.75 percent of the shares of the old Turkish Petroleum Company, which was now renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company. In addition, there was a special agreement, signed by all the participating firms in the Iraq Petroleum Company, that they would not seek oil concessions elsewhere in the Middle East except with the approval of the British government. This agreement was known as the Red Line Agreement. It was later challenged in court by American oil companies not party to it and was nullified after World War II. The discovery of the major oil field in the vicinity of Kirkuk made the construction of a pipeline essential. The pipeline was constructed in a wishbone shape, with two terminals, one at Tripoli, Lebanon, the other at Haifa, in Palestine. This pipeline construction was foreshadowed in the San Remo Agreement. The pipeline opened in 1935. The decision by the Allied leaders at San Remo that the mandate for Palestine should go to Great Britain was of importance for the pipeline, because one of its ter1624
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 minals on the Mediterranean coast was located at Haifa. The British endeavored to fulfill their commitments to both the Arabs and the Jews by allowing limited immigration into Palestine by Jews and by creating the kingdom of Transjordan (which became Jordan) and placing on its throne a brother of the king of Iraq. During the 1920’s, Ibn Sa4nd secured for himself the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Arabian desert, technically independent but closely linked to the British. He was not bound by the Red Line Agreement and so was able to negotiate oil concessions with American oil companies, notably Standard Oil of California and Texaco. These two companies created Aramco to carry out exploration in Saudi Arabia as well as development of the oil resource. It is clear that although the extent of Middle Eastern oil resources was not known at the time of the San Remo Agreement, experts had a suspicion. This suspicion became reality between the two world wars. Between 1920 and 1940, Middle Eastern oil rose from a mere 1 percent of world oil production to 5.5 percent. The full import of Middle Eastern oil resources was not realized fully, however, until after World War II. —Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading American Association for International Conciliation. International Conciliation. No. 166. New York: Author, 1921. This bulletin, part of a series published by the American Association for International Conciliation in the period immediately after World War I, contains the full text of the San Remo oil agreement. Dockrill, Michael L., and J. Douglas Goold. Peace Without Promise: Britain and the Peace Conferences, 1919-1923. Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1981. A retrospective view of the peace conference, from the perspective of half a century. The book contains one chapter on the Middle East settlement and some useful maps. Fieldhouse, D. K. Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Comprehensive look at European mandates and imperialism in the Middle East, beginning during World War I. Includes separate chapters on British Mesopotamia, French Syria, and French Lebanon, as well as the decline and partition of the Ottoman Empire. Bibliographic references and index. Lenczowski, George. Oil and State in the Middle East. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1960. Although the book is focused on the post-World War II
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this exhaustive account of the Paris peace settlements deals with San Remo. All the intricacies of the negotiations are revealed. Because the book was written immediately after the conclusion of the peace conference, it does not have the benefit of historical perspective. See also: May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans; 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East.
May-November, 1920
Great Iraqi Revolt After Great Britain gained control of the mandate on Iraq, Sunnis and Shias set aside religious differences to rebel against British control. The British civil administrator refused to compromise, and the uprising quickly spread around Baghdad and into the Middle Euphrates. Kurds took advantage of the collapse of central authority to revolt north of Mosul. Only brutal aerial bombardment of Iraqi towns silenced the rebellion. Locale: Baghdad and Basra, Iraq Categories: Colonialism and occupation; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Sir Arnold Wilson (1884-1940), British high commissioner in Iraq, 1918-1920 Muwammad Taqt al-Shtr3zt (d. 1921), Shia grand mujtahid Gerard Leachman (1880-1920), military specialist in the suppression of colonial uprisings Sir Percy Zachariah Cox (1864-1937), British high commissioner in Mesopotamia (Iraq), 1920-1923, and British plenipotentiary for negotiating the Turkish-Iraqi border in 1924 Sir Aylmer Haldane (1862-1950), British commanding officer Faisal I (1885-1933), king of Greater Syria, r. 1920, and king of Iraq, r. 1921-1933 Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), British expert in Middle East politics
Summary of Event Since the sixteenth century, Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra had been administrative districts within the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of World War I, Great Britain contemplated invading these regions in Mesopotamia as a means of protecting its colony in India. When the Ottoman Turks, fearing Russian encroachment on their empire, joined forces with the Central Powers, the British had the justification they needed to land troops in Mesopotamia. Initially, however, they were stopped in their advance at Al-Knt (1916). Great Britain solicited Arab support against the Turks with vague promises to the Grand Sharif 4Alt ibn Wusayn of Mecca, who became the leader of the Great Arab Revolt and later king of the Hejaz (1924-1925). Arab nationalism was further encouraged when U.S. president Woodrow Wilson issued his famous Fourteen Points (1918) promising that after the war, the principle of self-determination would govern territories controlled by the Central Powers. However, Britain had negotiated with France to divide Turkish territories in the Middle East into spheres of influence as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. On March 11, 1917, an AngloIndian army under Major General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude took Baghdad. When Britain was awarded a League of Nations mandate over all of Iraq in April of 1920, some 130,000 Iraqis rose up in a nationwide revolt. The rebellion surprised the British high commissioner, Sir Arnold Wilson, who did not believe that Shia and Sunni Muslims could unite in a common effort or 1625
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period, the introductory chapters contain useful background material in more compressed form than in Longrigg’s book. Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley. Oil in the Middle East: Its Discovery and Development. 3d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Longrigg, himself a participant in many of the events he describes as an employee of Anglo-Persian Oil, has written the ultimate account of the development of Middle Eastern oil. The first hundred pages deal with the period prior to World War II. Temperley, Harold W. V., ed. A History of the Peace Conference of Paris. 6 vols. London: Henry Frowe and Hodder & Stoughton, 1920-1924. Volume 6 of
Great Iraqi Revolt
Great Iraqi Revolt that Iraqis had any sense of national identity. Arabic Shias formed about 50 percent of the Iraqi population, but the Ottoman Turks had governed through their coreligionists, the Sunnis, who made up only 20 percent of the population. These religious sects had been bitterly divided since the second half of the seventh century, when the first fitna (inter-Muslim war) had erupted, eventually leading to the assassination of the fourth caliph 4Alt ibn Abt Z3lib and ultimately to the death of his son Wusayn, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala. Further religious and ethnic divisions, including a significant minority of Christians and Jews and a large minority of Kurds (some 20 percent of the population), convinced the British that a divide-and-rule policy, like that followed in India, would allow direct administrative control of Iraq. Wilson did not appreciate the extent of mounting nationalist opposition, and a policy of direct British administration was instituted over the objections of Arabists such as Gertrude Bell, who advised an independent Iraq under looser British tutelage. Prior to the rebellion, secret nationalist societies such as the League of the Islamic Awakening, the Muslim National League, and the Guardians of Independence had emerged to promote autonomy. In the shrine cities of An Najaf and Karbala, former Sunni military officers of the Ottoman army joined notables, clerics, and tribal sheikhs to protest increased British control. After the murder of a British officer in An Najaf in 1919, punitive arrests and blockade of the city had led Shia leaders to begin discussions with Sunnis about resisting the occupation. In the spring, Shia clerics and sheikhs from the Middle Euphrates joined with Sunni nationalists in An Najaf and Baghdad in mass meetings and protests. The result was an appeal to the Grand Sharif 4Alt ibn Wusayn for one of his sons to become king of an independent state. Suspicion and hostility continued to mount during the following year, as did Iraqi national consciousness. Patronizing suggestions by the British that they would oversee a mandate for Iraq were met with contempt, and clerics were particularly opposed to the British refusal to establish an Islamic government. Tribesmen objected to the tax system and forced labor, while ex-Turkish and Iraqi officials were disappointed by their failure to find jobs in the British civil administration. The legendary Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Leachman was brought from London to end the troubles, and after British officers were slain, he recommended the “wholesale slaughter” of unruly tribes. With the Muslim holiday of Ramadan beginning on May 17, 1920, pilgrims flocked to the shrine cities. Sun1626
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nis came to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muwammad in a ceremony called the mawlud, while Shias commemorated the martyrdom of Imam Wusayn in a passion play known as ta’ziyya. Religious leaders commanded that worshipers attend both Sunni and Shia mosques to unite in these intensely religious and patriotic expressions of devotion. The Guardians of Independence assembled twenty thousand protesters in Baghdad, and when the British deported a young Muslim for reciting a passionate anti-British poem, rioting erupted. When the British mandate was declared in June, an armed revolt erupted in An Najaf and Karbala and spread rapidly to the Middle Euphrates. In Rumaytha, an imprisoned sheikh who had refused to pay British taxes was freed by force, and in As Sam3wah, a British garrison was seized by surprise. Shia and Sunni clerics issued a fatwa approving the rebellion, and for the first time in Iraqi history, there was a period of cooperation between the sects. The grand ayatollah of Karbala, Imam Muwammad Taqt al-Shtr3zt, known as the spiritual leader of the revolt, demanded the establishment of an Islamic government, while his son, Mtrz3 Muwammad Riz3, organized resistance until he was deported. Further demonstrations in Karbala were suppressed by British troops using armored cars, which provoked further revolts in southern Iraq. Meanwhile, as central authority collapsed around Baghdad, northern Kurds took advantage of the power vacuum to rise in rebellion. In August, Lieutenant Colonel Leachman was shot in the back by his host while on a mission to supposed tribal allies in the Middle Euphrates. In some regions, Arab provisional governments emerged with powers to tax and supply materials to the rebels, who derailed trains and attacked British outposts. Turning to a policy of accommodation and co-option, the new high commissioner of Iraq, Sir Percy Zachariah Cox, ended direct military rule by October of 1920 and shifted the battle against the rebellion to an aerial campaign, which would be less costly in money and personnel. Karbala was surrounded and its water was cut off, and An Najaf was threatened with bombardment until both cities surrendered. A constitution was drawn up by local notables headed by 4Abd al-Rawm3n, the Sunni naqib of Baghdad, who had no political experience and was easily manipulated by Cox. By November, much of the insurrection had been suppressed, but only after British bombardment destroyed whole villages. After exiling the most popular candidate for king, Al-Sayyid T3lib al-Naqtb, the British turned to the third son of the sharif of Mecca, Faisal I, who had been expelled from Syria by
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the French. On selection by the Council of State and confirmation by a British-manipulated plebiscite, Faisal I became the first king of Iraq.
Further Reading Davis, Eric. Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Includes a scholarly discussion of the intellectual ferment on national consciousness during the revolt. Haldane, Aylmer. The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, 1920. 1922. Reprint. Nashville: Battery Press, 2005. An account of military engagements by the commanding officer. Simon, Reeva S., and Eleanor H. Tejirian, eds. The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. A collection of essays about the emergence of Iraq under British mandate and similarities facing U.S. forces after the occupation of the country in 2003. Sluglett, Peter. Britain in Iraq, 1914-1932. London: Ithaca Press, 1978. An authoritative account of British occupation of Mesopotamia during World War I and the British mandate. Vinogradov, Amal. “The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Politics.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3, no. 2 (April, 1972): 123-129. An analysis of the socioeconomic and tribal factors underlying the revolt. See also: Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians; Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine.
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Significance Although the rebellion was crushed, its legacy remains an important part of Iraqi political tradition and historical pride. Above all, it stands as an example of urban and tribal cooperation between the Sunni and Shia in opposition to foreign occupation. Widespread insurgency lasted three months, affecting one-third of the countryside and costing approximately one thousand British and Indian lives (with more wounded), as well as forty million pounds. Iraqis suffered nearly ten thousand casualties, and in spite of subsequent treaties with the British, they never forgave the British for this period of colonial repression. Lieutenant General Sir Aylmer Haldane, British military commander, lamented that upon his arrival in Mesopotamia, he had been too occupied with waging the military campaign to consider the political situation properly. Great Britain suppressed the revolt but abandoned direct rule for a moderate Arab Sunni religious official and a council of ministers it could control, and Britain orchestrated the election of the nonIraqi Hashemite king. As had the Turks before them, the British kept Shia influence to a minimum in the new government and ruled indirectly with Sunni Arabs who had been educated in the Ottoman Empire and Kurds who had been culturally Arabized. Patterns of the revolt and British responses to it were repeated during the post-Saddam Hussein occupation of Iraq by U.S. and British troops in the early years of the twenty-first century. — Bland Addison
Great Iraqi Revolt
Group of Seven Exhibition
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 7, 1920
Group of Seven Exhibition Seven Canadian artists joined to unveil their first exhibition of Canadian landscape art at the Art Gallery of Toronto, establishing a unique aesthetic for Canadian art. Locale: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Category: Arts Key Figures Franklin Carmichael (1890-1945), watercolorist, printmaker, and commercial artist Lawren Harris (1885-1970), abstract artist A. Y. Jackson (1882-1974), artist and teacher Frank H. Johnston (Franz Johnston; 1888-1949), artist and art professor Arthur Lismer (1885-1969), painter and educator J. E. H. MacDonald (1873-1932), artist, art editor for Canadian Forum, and director of the Ontario College of Art F. H. Varley (1881-1969), portraitist, artist, and teacher Tom Thomson (1877-1917), painter devoted to depictions of Canada’s northern regions Alfred Joseph Casson (1898-1992), painter and commercial artist LeMoine Fitzgerald (1890-1956), painter Edwin Holgate (1892-1977), painter Summary of Event The group exhibition presented at the Art Gallery of Toronto in 1920 accomplished two important goals: It introduced the Canadian group of artists known as the Group of Seven, and it initiated a new aesthetic with strong nationalist ties to Canada’s landscape and wilderness. The first members of the group were Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank H. Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and F. H. Varley. The group’s membership varied over the years from 1920 through 1931 and included not only the original seven artists who exhibited their work in 1920 but also three other artists: Alfred Joseph Casson, LeMoine Fitzgerald, and Edwin Holgate. The original group would have certainly included Tom Thomson, a colleague whose textured, colorful landscapes had a major influence on the group’s art and philosophy, had Thomson not unexpectedly died in a drowning accident on Canoe Lake in 1917. The tragedy of Thomson’s death and the World War I experiences of 1628
some group members who served as commissioned military artists created a sense of the transcendent and of the importance of communion with nature. Even after 1931, when the group held its last exhibition and disbanded, and after 1933, when some former members formed the Canadian Group of Painters, the Group of Seven had a major influence on the development of the Canadian art scene. By the early 1900’s, Toronto had become Canada’s second largest city (after Montreal), and the country’s industrialization, manufacturing, mining, and other industries began to bring immigrants and technology to the region. As communities became larger and more industrialized, artists, writers, and philosophers noted that much of the world’s natural beauty was being surrendered to industry. In response, they developed a stronger enthusiasm for the wilderness, natural world, and rural settings. The Group of Seven first met at Grip Limited, a commercial design company in Toronto. From 1908 through 1914, J. E. H. MacDonald, Tom Thomson, Arthur Lismer, Fred Varley, Franklin Carmichael, and Frank Johnston all worked at the book and graphic design company and developed strong, supportive relationships. During their tenure there, Tom Thomson introduced the artists working at Grip to the Canadian wilderness, and this influence would form the basis for much of the artists’ work. The artists’ supportive and collegial relationships continued as they began meeting at the Toronto Arts and Letters Club, a club for men interested in debating and discussing the arts and Canadian culture. It was here that the group developed their ideas about the unique nature of Canadian culture and aesthetics and about the best methods for cultivation of authentic Canadian art forms based on the power, spirituality, and majesty of the Arctic landscape. Prior to this time, Canadian artists largely followed the work of the master painters of Europe, and many believed that the bleak, rough Canadian landscape was unfit for portrayal. The Group of Seven disagreed, and they focused on fostering art based on the nationalistic conviction that Canada—and particularly the Canadian wilderness—was not only a fitting subject for great art but also met spiritual and artistic aspirations. In the winter of 1920, the seven artists met to plan a group exhibition that would highlight their artistic similarities. Although the artists tended toward disparate
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Significance The Group of Seven helped to establish a uniquely Canadian aesthetic based on the beauty of the Canadian landscape. This break with the European artistic tradition prefigured the era of modern art in Canada and paralleled the development of nationalist art movements in the United States and Mexico. It should be noted that these artists were not the first to depict the Canadian landscape in art; indigenous peoples in Canada had been doing this for centuries. However, these were the first artists of European descent to build their artistic reputation on depicting the Canadian wilderness. Unfortunately, the artists were also notable for their unwillingness to consider women artists as equals, although later women artists
were strongly influenced by their works. Eventually, Prudence Heward was invited to exhibit with the Group of Seven, and Emily Carr was made a charter member of the Canadian Group of Painters. This shortcoming did not, however, detract from the group’s influence and the inspiration it provided to Canadian artists and the country as a whole. —Georgie Donovan Further Reading Hill, Charles C. The Group of Seven: Art for a Nation. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995. Written as a complement to a touring exhibition at the National Gallery, the illustrated volume provides a historical survey of the group’s work. Murray, Joan. The Best of the Group of Seven. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1993. With an introductory essay by founding member Lawren Harris. Murray has compiled excellent color illustrations with a short introduction to the best of the group’s work. _______. Northern Lights: Masterpieces of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1994. Murray has extensively written about the Group of Seven, including volumes about the artists’ work as individuals. She is also a leading scholar on Tom Thomson. Silcox, David P. The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. Toronto: Firefly Books, 2003. Excellent introduction to the paintings themselves and the style that ties the artists together. Includes four hundred color reproductions. Wistow, David. Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1982. Brief introduction to the painters, the history of the Group of Seven, and the paintings. Includes large, full-color reproductions of the paintings. See also: Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York.
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styles and subjects, each shared beliefs in the need for a truly Canadian art and an emphasis on natural, wildernessbased settings. Before the group’s formation, the artists had worked as individuals to build their careers and participate in exhibitions, but their bold, colorful styles, the dimensions of their canvases, and the ordinary subjects chosen for their work met with criticism and skepticism. After the 1920 exhibition, however, positive reviews celebrated the show’s landscapes, street scenes, and portraits and heralded the advent of the Canadian spirit in painting. Following the show, the members of the group began to exhibit their work outside Canada. Many members became substantially involved in education: Johnston taught at the Winnipeg School of Art, Carmichael began at the Ontario College of Art in 1932, Lismer taught at the Art Gallery of Toronto and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and MacDonald directed the Ontario College of Art. During the 1920’s, the group also invited other Canadian artists to exhibit with the original seven, and the influence of their aesthetic continued to expand as a result. In 1931, the group held its eighth and final exhibition, which included work by group members as well as twenty-four other artists. The group’s subsequent dissolution was the result of several factors: By the time the last exhibition was held, several of the original members had left, and MacDonald’s poor health (and his death in 1932) was the source of particular difficulty. In addition, the Group of Seven wanted to broaden its scope to include new Canadian artists, and at the 1931 exhibition they announced the creation of a new and more inclusive group, the Canadian Group of Painters.
Group of Seven Exhibition
Canonization of Joan of Arc
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 16, 1920
Canonization of Joan of Arc Nearly five hundred years after her execution as a heretic by an ecclesiastical court, Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who was inspired by voices she claimed were emissaries from God, was canonized in an elaborate ceremony that not only paid homage to her heroic virtue but also signaled a diplomatic milestone between the Vatican and France. Also known as: Maid of Orléans Locale: The Vatican, Rome, Italy Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Joan of Arc (1412-1431), French military leader and Catholic mystic Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 1835-1914), Roman Catholic pope, 1903-1914 Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup (1802-1878), theologian and bishop of Orléans, 1849-1878 Calixtus III (Alfonso de Borja; 1378-1458), Roman Catholic pope, 1455-1458 Benedict XV (Giacoma della Chiesa; 1854-1922), Roman Catholic pope, 1914-1922 Charles VII (1403-1461), king of France, r. 1422-1461 Summary of Event During the Hundred Years’ War, a bloody dynastic conflict between England and France that occurred in intermittent phases during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Joan of Arc, a shepherdess in the farm country of Lorraine, began hearing voices she later claimed were divinely directed. These voices commanded her to deliver France from the relentless incursion of marauding English troops. At the time, France was dispirited: Its army was in disarray, most of its northern half was occupied, and its leader was a vacillating dauphin, still in his teens, who struggled against rumors of his illegitimacy. Joan was barely sixteen, but she was convinced of her divine mission and hastened to the dauphin’s court in Chinon, where she convinced him to support her enterprise. In May of 1429, under a banner inscribed “Jesus, Mary,” Joan led ten thousand soldiers in a successful siege of the fortified city of Orléans and then against English camps at Patay. Her courage and moral certainty inspired the men, and Joan stood next to the dauphin at the cathedral at Reims when he was crowned King Charles VII on July 17, 1429. 1630
When Joan pursued English soldiers in order to liberate Paris, however, Charles denied her critical military support, and she was wounded and forced to retire for the winter. During a spring campaign near Compiègne, Joan was captured by French troops sympathetic to the English and subsequently sold to her enemy. Abandoned by Charles, whose throne she had helped secure, Joan was not treated as a military prisoner. Instead, she was turned over to ecclesiastical court at Rouen, the seat of the English occupational government, where she was held on charges of heresy and witchcraft. After a lengthy show trial by a tribunal made up of French clerics sympathetic to the English, Joan, an illiterate, signed a recantation of her claims of divine communication and was condemned to life imprisonment. After sentencing, Joan realized what she had signed, rescinded her recantation, and was summarily condemned as a relapsed heretic. On May 30, 1431, at the age of nineteen, she was burned alive at a stake in the marketplace at Rouen. Almost immediately, a cult grew among the French surrounding the “Maid of Orléans.” Her fidelity to the French monarchy, her brave acceptance of a gruesome death, her love of France, her piety, and her claims of direct communication with God caused her to be embraced as both a mystic and a national hero (her efforts helped expel the English from France, a feat accomplished less than twenty years after her death). In 1455, Charles, his throne now secure, petitioned the Vatican to reexamine the court findings. The rehabilitation trial, convened in Paris, concluded that the first trial had been deeply flawed, that court records had been tampered with, that Joan had been imprisoned in conditions that had caused mental confusion, that jurisdiction between the secular and ecclesiastical courts had not been consistently maintained, that tribunal judges had been threatened, and that Joan’s repeated request to petition the pope had been ignored. On July 7, 1456, Pope Callixtus III annulled the verdict, but he did not endorse Joan’s claims of direct communication with God. With the French monarchy established and the Catholic Church its de facto state religion, Joan remained a French cult figure and was the subject of legends and epic literature. Following the French Revolution, however, Joan’s legacy was eclipsed, and she was dismissed as a monarchist and a religious zealot. Napoleon I recognized the importance of the Church in French life and restored Joan’s place in French military history as a symbol
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Canonization of Joan of Arc
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of national pride whose stand against the Joan of Arc’s Condemnation British was particularly heroic. Given the anticlerical agendas adopted by of a succesThe following are excerpts from Joan of Arc’s trial proceedings: sion of post-Napoleonic governments whose Saturday, March 17, In Prison legislation limited the Church’s traditional privileges, the Vatican saw Joan of Arc’s . . . Asked if she would submit (her deeds and words) to the decision of legacy as a tool that could be used to increase the Church, she answered: “I commit myself to Our Lord Who sent the Church’s popularity and buttress its inme, to Our Lady, and to all the Blessed Saints of Paradise.” And she creasingly precarious position among the thought that our Lord and the Church were all one, and therein they French. ought not to make difficulties for her. “Why do you make difficulties when it is all one?” On May 8, 1869, Bishop Félix-AntoineThen she was told that there is the Church Triumphant, where God Philibert Duplanloup of Orléans petitioned is with the saints and the souls who are already saved; and also the the Vatican to initiate the process of canonChurch Militant, that is, our Holy Father the Pope, vicar of God on izing Joan. The Church had long avoided earth, the Cardinals, the prelates of the Church, and the clergy and all this issue and was made uneasy both by the good Christians and Catholics: and the Church in good assembly Joan’s claim to mystical communication and cannot err and is governed by the Holy Spirit. Therefore she was asked by the implications of canonizing someone if she would submit to the Church Militant, namely the Church on the Church had executed. The process of exearth which is so called. She answered that she came to the King of amining the life of a proposed saint, always France in God’s name, and in the names of the Blessed Virgin and of slow and meticulous, was interrupted by the all the Blessed Saints of Paradise, and of the Church Victorious above, Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Followand at their command; to that Church she submitted all her good deeds and all she had done or should do. And concerning her submission to ing its humiliating defeat, France came unthe Church Militant she would answer nothing more. . . . der the political control of socialists who pursued aggressive anti-Church initiatives: The Trial for Relapse, Monday, May 28 They seized Church property, closed Catholic universities, forbade the public celebra. . . As we her judges had heard from certain people that she had not yet tion of holy days, and subjected the appointcut herself off from her illusions and pretended revelations, which she ment of priests and bishops to secular control. had previously renounced, we asked her whether she had since Thursday (the day of her abjuration) heard the voices of St. Catherine and St. Diplomatic relations with the Holy See were Margaret. She answered yes. severed. The Vatican repaired its relationAsked what they told her, she answered that they told her God had ship with the subsequent republican governsent her word through St. Catherine and St. Margaret of the great pity ment, however, and on January 27, 1894, the of this treason, by which she had consented to abjure and recant in orprocess of Joan’s canonization was reinitider to save her life; that she had damned herself to save her life. . . . She ated. Evidence of four miracles directly tied said that if she declared God had not sent her she would damn herself, to her intercession (a precondition for saintfor in truth she was sent from God. She said that her voices had since hood) was documented, although the Vatitold her that she had done very wrong to say what she did. She said that can waived the fourth, which asserted that what she had recanted on Thursday she had done only for fear of the Joan’s military victories were miraculous. fire. . . . She said she did not deny or intend to deny her visions, that is, On December 13, 1908, Pius X accepted the that they were St. Catherine and St. Margaret; all that she said she said for fear of the fire. endorsement of the committee, and Joan was beatified in April of 1909. Source: The Trial of Jeanne d’Arc: A Complete Translation of the Text of The process toward canonization, howthe Original Documents, translated by Wilfred Phillips Barrett (London: ever, was interrupted by World War I. After G. Routledge & Sons, 1931). that horrific war—which was fought largely on French soil—the old schism between royalists and monarchists seemed unimportant. alism in the wake of the war’s end, the Vatican comGiven the French reacquisition of the disputed Catholic pleted the canonization process as a diplomatic move to provinces of Alsace and Lorraine as part of the war’s setensure rapprochement between the Vatican and the posttlement, the government’s restoration of limited rights to war French socialist government. Canonization of the Catholic hierarchy, and the revival of French nation-
Canonization of Joan of Arc France’s national heroine was pursued as a tool to help normalize diplomatic relations. On May 16, 1920, Joan was canonized by Benedict XV at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Her feast day was designated as May 30, the date of her execution. She was canonized not as a martyr (her initial recantation as well as repeated attempted prison escapes were cited as evidence she did not fully embrace her approaching death), not as a mystic (at the time, her claims had not been officially investigated by the Church), and not as a military hero. Instead, the Church recognized in the perfect integrity of the body an exemplary victory over the pull of the flesh, and Joan was canonized as a virgin. Within two months, France’s socialist government, responding to the national fervor over the canonization, designated May 8 (the date of the fall of Orléans) a national holiday in Joan’s honor. By November, French diplomatic relations with the Vatican were officially resumed. Significance Traditionally, canonization recognizes unimpeachable lives of heroic virtue intended to serve as models for Christian Catholics. Joan of Arc presented an ironic case, however: She was put to death by the medieval Church as a heretic, and her trial records revealed her to be an imperfect model of humility and obedience to the Church. Centuries of devotion by the French, however, evidenced Joan’s profound influence. Joan’s canonization proved an important point: Canonization often deals less with the religious life of a particular person and more with the cultural and political context surrounding the process of canonization. In her case, the Catholic Church wanted to establish a foothold in modern France, which was redefined by its fervent nationalism, its embrace of the atheistic doctrine of socialism, and its deep commitment to the intellectual revolution in science and rationalism. In the face of a deChristianization that dramatically undercut the Church’s
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 long-standing authority and in the wake of World War I’s disheartening effects on spirituality, Joan’s canonization was endorsed by Vatican authorities as a way to reignite Catholicism in France and to ensure the Church’s viability in public life. —Joseph Dewey Further Reading Gies, Frances. Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. A historic look at Joan of Arc by an eminent medievalist. The closing chapters cover her canonization. Gordon, Mary. Joan of Arc. New York: Viking, 2000. Accessible and illuminating account of Joan’s religious import by an important Catholic novelist. Hobbins, Daniel. The Trial of Joan of Arc. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Groundbreaking reappraisal of Joan’s conviction that draws on new translations of court documents and Joan of Arc’s own testimony. Richey, Stephen W. Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Biographical account that reconciles Joan’s military status with her spiritual dimension and its implications on her canonization. Sullivan, Karen. The Interrogation of Joan of Arc. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. An intriguing examination of the trial record itself and its impact on the canonization process. Wheeler, Bonnie, and Ann W. Astell, eds. Joan of Arc and Spirituality. New York: Macmillan, 2003. Essays examine Joan of Arc’s status as a visionary and a model of heroic spirituality. See also: Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous; Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers
July, 1920
Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers By implementing a plan for direct selling to retailers, Procter & Gamble assumed control of its distribution function from jobbers, enabling steady production, quick assessment of marketing efforts, guaranteed employment, and increased market presence.
Key Figures William Cooper Procter (1862-1934), president of Procter & Gamble Richard R. Deupree (1885-1974), general sales manager of Procter & Gamble John J. Burchenal (1861-1926), vice president of Procter & Gamble Ralph F. Rogan (1875-1955), advertising manager of Procter & Gamble Summary of Event Facing industrywide marketing pressures, Procter & Gamble initiated direct selling to retailers in the early 1920’s. This change enabled the company to exert greater control over wholesale grocers, whose actions previously had made it difficult for Procter & Gamble to rationalize production and labor costs. By implementing direct sales, the company stabilized its distribution methods to meet a steady consumer demand rather than satisfying the sporadic purchasing cycles of wholesalers. Focusing on the retail grocer, the company developed a support structure that included economic forecasting, cost-benefit analysis of advertising, and specialized marketing support services geared to the retail trade. Procter & Gamble also devised sophisticated analytic tools to gain a better understanding of its markets, which, in turn, led to the development of consumer marketing, advertising, and research expertise unequaled in the consumer-products industry. Additionally, the production stability that the direct selling plan enabled allowed the company to guarantee full-time employment to its factory workers in 1923. Procter & Gamble’s direct selling strategy was primarily a response to the practices of wholesale grocers. Their large-scale speculative purchasing of consumer goods such as soaps and shortenings wreaked havoc with production schedules. Peak order periods strained the company’s factories and forced it to maintain excess ca-
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Locale: Cincinnati, Ohio Categories: Marketing and advertising; trade and commerce
pacity as well as to pay workers expensive overtime rates. Between the peaks, capital equipment lay idle and employees faced layoffs. Procter & Gamble had no control over when large orders would come in, and these orders were difficult to predict. Company president William Cooper Procter had long recognized that consumer demand for his company’s products remained steady throughout the year. He hoped to devise a means to link production with true demand, as the sporadic purchasing patterns of wholesale grocers infuriated him. Wholesalers often bunched their orders in anticipation of a price change or to entice the company to lower prices. Procter & Gamble first attempted to deal with this issue in 1913, and its experience served as a precursor to the direct selling plan. To achieve fair competition among retailers, the company stipulated in its contracts with wholesalers that they sell the company’s goods to retailers at the list price. If management suspected a wholesale firm of price cutting, it refused to deal with the alleged offender. The Supreme Court in 1913 declared such a contractual arrangement to be an unconstitutional restraint of trade. In response, many wholesaler grocers, led primarily by New York City firms, initiated a price war. When some wholesalers appealed to Procter & Gamble for discounts, the company refused. The company decided in March, 1913, to try direct selling to retailers in the New York City area. To its delight, the company found that retail orders varied little from week to week, giving production managers greater flexibility in scheduling labor and raw material purchases. Additionally, direct selling provided company salespeople with valuable firsthand contact with those most familiar with the buying habits of the company’s ultimate consumers. Point-of-sale contact enabled salespeople to assist retailers with the display of goods and also provided a forum for a crucial exchange of information about the most effective means of selling Procter & Gamble’s products. Management realized that this information was crucial in assessing the impact of advertising and arranged for the systematic collection and analysis of “consumer perceptions.” Although the benefits of direct selling in the New York City area seemed clear, implementing direct sales nationwide proved too great a challenge in 1913. Such a move would require a complete overhaul of the sales
Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers function, including a massive expansion of the sales force, new training programs, and a system of regional warehouses to accommodate the new distribution system. The outbreak of World War I also delayed efforts, forcing Procter & Gamble to focus on supply and production problems instead. After the war, however, the company moved quickly. Procter assigned the task of devising and implementing a nationwide plan to Richard R. Deupree, the general sales manager. In 1919, Deupree reorganized the sales department, expanding the sales force from 150 to more than 800 employees. He also implemented a new training program tailored to the demands of retail sales and service. Formal notice of the nationwide direct sales plan was dispatched to the trade in July, 1920. Company vice president John J. Burchenal was in charge of coordinating production for the plan, and advertising manager Ralph F. Rogan was responsible for devising promotional strategies for direct retail sales. The company expected, and found, significant resistance from wholesalers. They correctly interpreted Procter & Gamble’s direct selling plan as a serious challenge to their economic power. After canceling long-standing orders with the company, wholesale grocers, through their trade association, launched a campaign in the press to rally the industry against Procter & Gamble. Many retail grocers also protested. Accustomed to dealing with wholesalers, they resented company salespeople and resisted the policy of requiring individual stores to purchase larger orders than they had through wholesalers, a necessary step to make direct selling economically feasible. Although initial opposition caused Procter & Gamble great concern, by March, 1921, more than 75 percent of the nation’s grocers had agreed to purchase the company’s products on a direct basis. Many wholesalers, responding to a new pricing structure and unwilling to abandon a popular product line, also returned to the fold. Procter & Gamble remained flexible in implementation of the plan and returned to jobbing arrangements through wholesalers in remote locations where direct selling proved uneconomical. The overall success of the move enabled the company to reduce the cost of selling its products by half during the first five years of the direct selling plan. Significance For Procter & Gamble, marketing expertise was the most significant and enduring benefit of direct selling. By cutting out intermediaries, the company moved closer to its customers and developed formal procedures to assess the effectiveness of its marketing and service functions. Close 1634
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
contact with retailers forced the company to understand the needs and desires of its customers as well as to establish a pattern of mutual cooperation between the company and retail grocers. Salespeople were instructed to value the opinions of retailers regarding company products and to be flexible in devising marketing strategies tailored to the differing economic environments of retail grocers. Point-of-sale contact placed the company in a position to gain valuable insight into consumer preferences, and Procter & Gamble exploited that opportunity through a variety of marketing and advertising plans. Exposed to a wealth of new information about perceptions of its products on the retail level, Procter & Gamble created a formal research department in 1922 in an attempt to understand and predict market behavior. Given that the basic intention of the direct selling plan had been to align production with consumer demand, an accurate assessment of the external influences on demand was essential. The company used economic forecasting for such factors as the market potential of each product line, the effects of industry competition, and the impact of advertising and promotion. Research on general and local business conditions aided the company in estimating demand and scheduling production. Additionally, Procter & Gamble began to analyze marketing effectiveness and market potential for each product line. This foreshadowed the implementation of brand management, a concept that treated each product as produced by an individual company within the company. Eventually, each product would compete against all others for corporate resources and consumer loyalty. The production stability gained as a result of the direct selling plan enabled Procter & Gamble to achieve many economies. With a better understanding of consumer demand, the company exercised greater control over manufacturing costs. Systematic scheduling of raw material purchases, labor requirements, warehouse facilities, and transportation resulted in significant savings. The peaks and troughs of producing for the wholesale trade would never again plague the firm. Procter & Gamble’s confidence in the continued success of direct selling was best reflected in the guarantee of full-time employment to its fifty-five hundred factory employees in 1923, an unprecedented move for a manufacturer of its size. The stabilization of production enabled such a guarantee. It further benefited the company by reducing turnover and increasing production efficiency. Procter & Gamble also received much favorable publicity that in turn increased its reputation among American consumers.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers
Further Reading Applegate, Edd. Personalities and Products: A Historical Perspective on Advertising in America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Brief examination of
the contributions of individuals and companies to the ways products are marketed in the United States. Chapter 7 is devoted to the tactics used by Procter & Gamble in advertising Ivory soap. Includes bibliography and index. Deupree, Richard R. William Cooper Procter (18621934): Industrial Statesman. New York: Newcomen Society, 1951. Pamphlet is a transcription of a speech by Procter & Gamble chairman Deupree. Provides personal recollections about Procter and remembrances of important events in the company’s history. Editors of Advertising Age. Procter & Gamble: The House That Ivory Built. Lincolnwood, Ill.: NTC Business Books, 1988. Corporate history written outside the company. More extensive than the other corporate histories cited here. Grossman, Louis, and Marianne M. Jennings. Building a Business Through Good Times and Bad: Lessons from Fifteen Companies, Each with a Century of Dividends. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 2002. Indepth study examines the histories and characteristics of fifteen successful industrial companies, including Procter & Gamble. Features appendixes containing financial data and index. Lief, Alfred. “It Floats”: The Story of Procter & Gamble. New York: Rinehart, 1958. Well-organized and wellwritten company-sponsored history provides useful information on Procter & Gamble’s corporate strategy and influences on the firm’s decision makers. A good starting point for historical research on the company. Procter & Gamble Company. Into a Second Century with Procter & Gamble. Cincinnati, Ohio: Author, 1944. Brief corporate history produced by the company. Schisgall, Oscar. Eyes on Tomorrow: The Evolution of Procter & Gamble. Chicago: J. G. Ferguson, 1981. Company-sponsored history provides an informal but useful chronicle of Procter & Gamble’s growth. Makes extensive use of anecdotes and remembrances to personalize corporate development. Especially informative on the post-World War II era. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code; 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens; 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research; 1925: Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Mar. 21, 1938: WheelerLea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising. 1635
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The successful implementation of direct selling and the numerous benefits it provided to the company did not go unnoticed by other firms in the consumer-products industry. By 1939, more than 90 percent of soap produced in the United States was distributed directly to retailers as competitors copied Procter & Gamble. Gaining control over the channels of distribution was an important trend in American business during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Firms such as Procter & Gamble mastered continuous-process production technology, which enabled them to produce vast quantities of goods at lower costs. This, in turn, forced firms to devise new techniques for mass distribution. Gradually, they seized control of the distribution function from wholesalers and took responsibility for marketing their products. Sales departments in competing firms grew larger as they assumed responsibility for implementing new methods of distribution. Influencing demand through promotion and advertising, then assessing and predicting the impact of their efforts through research and analysis, became key functions of sales departments. Procter & Gamble itself became one of the largest corporate advertisers in terms of dollars spent. Greater control over marketing also enabled firms to rely on their sales departments to coordinate the flow of goods from production facilities to the ultimate consumers. As Procter & Gamble found, this eliminated the instability involved in producing for wholesalers and resulted in significant savings in all phases of the manufacturing and distribution process. As Procter & Gamble’s primary competitors in the consumer-products industry adopted direct selling plans, they also developed sophisticated marketing techniques and support functions. With the pathway to the consumer more clearly defined, competitive battle lines were drawn. Because demand for most mass-produced consumer goods was inelastic, or unresponsive to price, firms sought to increase market share not by reducing prices but by increasing advertising. Over the years, they became more sophisticated in their techniques and made the industry one of the most effective and influential users of marketing and promotional strategies in the United States and around the world. —Douglas Knerr
Meighen Era in Canada
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 10, 1920-September, 1926
Meighen Era in Canada After nine years of Conservative rule, Canada’s Liberal Party assumed leadership of the nation’s government. Locale: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Category: Government and politics Key Figures Arthur Meighen (1874-1960), prime minister of Canada, 1920-1921, and for three days in 1926 Robert Laird Borden (1854-1937), prime minister of Canada, 1911-1920 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919), prime minister of Canada, 1896-1911, and leader of the Canadian Liberal Party, 1911-1919 Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), prime minister of Canada, 1930-1935 Summary of Event When the respected Canadian prime minister Robert Laird Borden retired in 1920, his successor, Arthur Meighen, thought that, like Borden, he would win general elections and serve as prime minister for many years. In both the 1921 and 1926 national elections, however, Canadian voters expressed their preference for the Liberal leader, William Lyon Mackenzie King, over Meighen. Historians now generally agree that positions taken by Meighen during and just after World War I made him so unacceptable to large segments of Canadian society that his failure in two general elections was almost predictable. Meighen’s background was modest. He was born on an Ontario farm in 1874 to a father who had emigrated from Ireland in 1843. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto and then moved to Manitoba, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1902. Thanks to his successful law practice and wise business investments, he was able to ensure a comfortable life for his wife, Isabel, and their three children. He was elected a Conservative member of the Canadian parliament in 1908. When the Liberal prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, heard Meighen’s maiden speech in the House of Commons in 1908, he recognized Meighen’s oratorical skills and perceptively predicted that he soon 1636
would become an influential adviser to the Conservative leader, Borden. When the Conservatives won a majority in the general election of 1911, Borden became prime minister, a post that he held for nine years. Meighen defended the policies of Prime Minister Borden so vigorously and expressed such contempt for those who disagreed with Conservative policies that he created many political enemies who never forgave him for what they perceived to be his insensitivity and arrogance. When World War I broke out in Europe, Borden and his fellow Conservatives believed that it was the duty of Canada, which still belonged to the British Empire, to fight with Great Britain. Many French Canadians, in contrast, believed strongly that European, not Canadian, interests were involved, and they saw no reason for Canadians to give their lives defending Great Britain. Borden tactfully tried to persuade the Liberal leader, Laurier, who was from
Arthur Meighen. (Library of Congress)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
of Commons. With support from the Progressives, King was temporarily able to govern. When he realized that he was losing the support of the Progressives, King asked Lord Julian Byng, governor-general of Canada, to dissolve Parliament. Lord Byng rejected this request and asked Meighen to try to form a parliamentary majority. Meighen accepted this invitation, but his government lasted exactly three days. Canadian law at that time required the prime minister and the members of the cabinet to resign from Parliament and run for reelection before they could assume their positions. Had they resigned, the Conservatives would not have had enough votes to form a new government. Meighen came up with a creative solution. He resigned his seat in Parliament, but the members of his cabinet became acting ministers and remained in the House of Commons. King argued in the House of Commons that this was a violation of Canadian law. He accused Lord Byng of violating Canadian sovereignty by refusing to dissolve Parliament, and he further claimed that Meighen’s new government was unconstitutional because its ministers had no legal authority. These arguments proved persuasive with enough Progressives, and a vote of no confidence carried by one vote. This time, Lord Byng had no choice but to dissolve Parliament. In the general election of September, 1926, Meighen tried to get Canadian voters to think about the customs scandal, but King focused their attention on the constitutional crisis created by Lord Byng and Meighen, and the Liberals won the election easily. Significance Although Meighen served as prime minister for only seventeen months, during that time he made an important contribution to Canada’s move toward independence from Great Britain. In addition, he had a long and distinguished career in government both before and after his service as prime minister. After his defeat in 1926, Meighen lived for thirty-four more years, but he never again played a leading role in Canadian national politics. He served in the House of Commons until 1930. In 1932, Conservative prime minister Richard Bedford Bennett appointed him to the Canadian Senate, where he served until 1941. He then resigned from the Senate and once again became the Conservative leader, but he lost his race for a seat in Parliament. Meighen then moved to Toronto, where he became an investment banker. He died in Toronto in 1960 at the age of eighty-six. —Edmund J. Campion 1637
1920
Quebec, to support military conscription and to join the Conservatives in a unified government. Borden understood the importance of not offending French-speaking Canadians. Meighen, however, referred to Quebecers as “a backward people” during heated debates in the House of Commons on the conscription bill. He then offended Canadians of German and Austrian descent by questioning their loyalty to Canada. In his position as minister of justice, Meighen argued that it was perfectly legal for the Canadian government to disenfranchise Canadians of German and Austrian birth who had become citizens after 1902. His argument that citizenship did not necessarily grant people the right to vote enraged many ethnic Canadians. In 1919, Meighen angered Canadian union members when he ordered the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to arrest and detain union leaders who had called a legal strike in Winnipeg. Although he admitted that there was no legal justification for these arrests, Meighen had no qualms about abusing his authority in order to end the strike. Because of Meighen’s actions in the 1910’s, Quebecers, union members, and many ethnic Canadians concluded that they should not trust him. Although Meighen did not realize it when he became prime minister in July, 1920, his defeat in the next general election was almost inevitable. During his short term as prime minister, however, Meighen made a significant contribution to Canadian foreign policy. At the June, 1921, Imperial Conference in London, he informed the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, that henceforth Canada would not necessarily accept British control over Canadian foreign policy. Under Meighen, Canada began to become more independent of Great Britain. On the domestic front, Meighen was less successful. In 1920 and 1921, Canada experienced an economic downturn, and Canadian voters decisively rejected the Conservatives in the 1921 election. The Liberals won all 65 seats from Quebec, for a total of 116 seats. The Conservatives won only 50 seats, even fewer than the 65 seats won by the newly created Progressives. The Conservatives went from 153 to 50 seats in the House of Commons. Meighen was defeated for reelection in 1921. Despite this crushing defeat for his party, Meighen remained the Conservative leader. Four years later, a scandal connected with political appointees in the Canadian customs department made King’s government somewhat unpopular. No party obtained a majority in the 1925 election, which produced 116 Conservatives, 99 Liberals, 24 Progressives, and 4 independents in the House
Meighen Era in Canada
Formation of the American Professional Football Association Further Reading Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond, and John English. Canada, 1900-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Contains a clear description of Meighen’s quick rise to political power in the Borden government and explains why he failed to inspire enthusiasm in Canadian voters. Creighton, Donald. Canada’s First Century, 1867-1967. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1976. Presents a positive image of Meighen’s campaigns against King and many harsh judgments concerning King’s actions. Graham, Roger. Arthur Meighen. 3 vols. Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1960-1965. This well-documented biography presents a sympathetic view of Meighen’s lengthy career in public service and argues that his intense shyness caused many Canadian voters to conclude that he was arrogant. Hutchison, Bruce. Macdonald to Pearson: The Prime Ministers of Canada. Don Mills, Ont.: Longmans Canada, 1967. Two chapters on Meighen describe his
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lack of accomplishment during his seventeen months as prime minister and his insensitivity to the aspirations of French Canadians. McMenemy, John. The Language of Canadian Politics: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts. 3d ed. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Collection of more than five hundred brief essays on a wide range of topics related to the Canadian system of government, Canadian political history, Canadian laws and legal history, and more. Owram, Doug, ed. Confederation to the Present. Vol. 2 in Canadian History: A Reader’s Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Contains an excellent annotated bibliography of historical studies on Meighen’s service as minister of justice and prime minister of Canada. See also: 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I; May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada.
August 20-September 17, 1920
Formation of the American Professional Football Association Professional football took a giant stride forward with the formation of the American Professional Football Association. The new league established a set of rules that encouraged fair competition and laid the groundwork for football’s growth as a popular and financially successful American sport. Also known as: National Football League Locale: Canton, Ohio Categories: Sports; organizations and institutions Key Figures Ralph E. Hay (1891-1944), prominent auto dealer and owner of the Canton Bulldogs football team Jim Thorpe (1888-1953), star football player and coach for Canton and first president of the American Professional Football Association George Halas (1895-1983), player and coach for the Decatur Staleys football team Augustus Eugene Staley (1867-1940), owner of the A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company in Decatur and the Decatur Staleys 1638
Joseph F. Carr (1880-1939), second president of the American Professional Football Association Summary of Event Professional football originated in the 1890’s, and the first professional football league was organized in 1902. Many considered the teams in the Ohio League (formed in 1904) to be the center of organized football. The sport continued to spread, but three major problems began to afflict its early teams: rising salaries often led to financial losses; players jumped from one team to another, a practice that contributed to escalating salaries; and college players often used assumed names to moonlight on professional teams. In order to address these problems, seven men associated with the Ohio League met on August 20, 1920, at the Hupmobile auto agency in the Odd Fellows Building in Canton, Ohio. The owner of the agency, Ralph E. Hay, sold the popular, modestly priced automobile built by the Hupp Motor Company, but he also owned the Canton Bulldogs, the strongest team in the league. Hay was joined at the meeting by his star player and coach, Jim
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
National Football League Champions, 1920-1940 From 1920 through 1931, competitors for the NFL playoff games were chosen based on the number of games won. The first championship game was played in 1933, although the Super Bowl did not begin until 1970. 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940
Akron Pros Chicago Staleys Canton Bulldogs Canton Bulldogs Cleveland Bulldogs Chicago Cardinals Frankford Yellow Jackets New York Giants Providence Steam Roller Green Bay Packers Green Bay Packers Green Bay Packers Chicago Bears Chicago Bears New York Giants Detroit Lions Green Bay Packers Washington Redskins New York Giants Green Bay Packers Chicago Bears
1920
Thorpe, who had been an All-American at Carlisle Indian School and had triumphed over his competitors in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics. The other attendees represented teams from Akron, Dayton, and Cleveland. Teams from Buffalo and Rochester, New York, and Hammond, Indiana, also sent letters supporting creation of a new league that would solve the teams’ financial and personnel problems. The league was tentatively called the American Professional Football Conference. At the first meeting, participants agreed that Hay would invite all of the professional teams in the country to attend a second session at which specific organizational rules would be determined. The second meeting occurred at Hay’s Hupmobile agency on September 17. Joining the original participants were representatives from professional teams in Rochester, New York; Hammond and Muncie, Indiana; Rock Island and Decatur, Illinois; and Massillon, Ohio. Also represented were the Racine Cardinals, a Chicago team named after the street on which they played but in some accounts misidentified in the meeting minutes (recorded by Art Ranney of Akron, Ohio) as a team based in Racine, Wisconsin. In addition to Hay and Thorpe, another important figure present at the September gathering was George Halas, who played for and coached the Decatur Staleys. The Staleys were named after Augustus Eugene Staley, who owned the Decatur-based A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company, which pioneered the practice of crushing soybeans to produce oil and meal. Staley had hired Halas to work at his factory and coach his factory team, but in 1921, Staley turned the club over to Halas, who moved it to Chicago and renamed the team the Chicago Bears at the beginning of the 1923 season. The meeting’s participants sat on running boards and automobile fenders while they negotiated the terms of their agreement. To cool off, they drank beer from buckets. Perhaps partly because of the uncomfortable setting, the group produced quick results. A new name was adopted for the league: the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which was changed to the National Football League (NFL) after the 1921 season. Although Hay was the group’s initial choice for president, he declined, and the group settled on Jim Thorpe, whose fame and ability to attract publicity helped the fledgling organization get started. The members of the new league agreed to raise football’s standards, to eliminate bidding against one another for players, and to cooperate in scheduling games. They
Formation of the American Professional Football Association
also agreed not to sign players who were still in college. Thorpe quickly proved to be far more interested in playing than in being an administrator, and after one year a new league president was chosen: Joe Carr, an Ohio journalist who also owned a team, the Columbus Panhandles. Thorpe, however, fulfilled his duties as president, and his presence helped the league increase its visibility. Members were asked to pay a modest $100 entry fee, but apparently the fees were never collected. The immediate result of the organizing efforts was the creation of a league with fourteen teams, not including Massillon, which decided not to join, but including four other teams not present at the September meeting. The entire roster for the inaugural 1920 season consisted of the Akron Professionals, the Buffalo All-Americans, the Canton Bulldogs, the Chicago (previously Racine) Cardinals, the Chicago Tigers, the Cleveland Tigers, the Columbus Panhandles, the Dayton Triangles, the Decatur Staleys, the Detroit Heralds, the Hammond Pros, the 1639
Formation of the American Professional Football Association Muncie Flyers, the Rochester Kodaks, and the Rock Island Independents. The Decatur Staleys had a record of ten wins, one loss, and two ties, but many of their games were against teams not in the league and therefore did not count for the final standings. Consequently, the owners decided to award the league championship to Akron, which won eight and tied three games without a loss. The league’s first season proved difficult. Teams struggled financially, and several disbanded before the year ended. In addition, not every team played by the rules. The Decatur Staleys, for example, recruited the Cardinals’ player-coach, Paddy Driscoll, to help them compete with Akron. The new AFPA president, Joe Carr, brought both managerial and motivational skills to his position and helped the league move forward: Soon, the group had adopted a league constitution, agreed to territorial rights, restricted player movements, and expanded its membership to include new teams such as the Green Bay Packers. Significance The founding of the American Professional Football Association began the development of one of the most popular and lucrative sports in the United States. Renamed the National Football League in 1922, the organization’s popularity steadily grew. Two of the original teams remain members of the NFL today: The Racine Cardinals are now the Arizona Cardinals, and the Decatur Staleys are now the Chicago Bears. George Halas, affectionately known as “Papa Bear,” remained owner of the Bears until his death in 1983. The Packers joined the league in its second season, and under coach Vince Lombardi in the 1960’s they became one of the most successful and legendary sports teams in American history. In 1925, Tim Mara and Billy Gibson purchased a New York team and joined the National Football League as the New York Giants, a team that continued to be run by the Mara family into the twentyfirst century. In that same year, Harold “Red” Grange, a star halfback from the University of Illinois, joined the Chicago Bears and helped to make the NFL an exciting part of the Roaring Twenties. Football’s enormous popularity continued to be evident in the huge numbers of
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 people who watched the Super Bowl each year and in the attendance records—which recorded approximately two hundred thousand visitors per year—at the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. — Edward J. Rielly Further Reading Carroll, Bob, Michael Gershman, David Neft, and John Thorn, eds. Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Includes chapters on the history of the National Football League, team histories, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, along with individual players’ statistics and other information. Cope, Myron. The Game That Was: The Early Days of Pro Football. New York: World, 1970. An insider’s look at the early days and growth of professional football by the longtime broadcaster for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Halas, George, Gwen Morgan, and Arthur Veysey. Halas/by Halas: The Autobiography of George Halas. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979. An autobiography of one of the founding fathers of the American Professional Football Association. MacCambridge, Michael. America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation. New York: Random House, 2004. Examines the development of professional football and its development as an important part of American society. Neft, David S., Richard M. Cohen, and Rick Korch. The Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of Professional Football from 1892 to the Present. Rev. ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. The value of the volume is enhanced by its year-by-year organization and inclusion of every professional game from 1920 to 1990. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; Oct. 113, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Radio Broadcasting Begins
August 20-November 2, 1920
Radio Broadcasting Begins Radio station KDKA transmitted the 1920 presidential election returns to as many receivers as it could reach, thereby engaging in the first major radio “broadcast”—that is, a transmission intended for a broad, or mass, audience.
Key Figures David Sarnoff (1891-1971), president of RCA Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian inventor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932), Canadian colleague of Thomas Edison Frank Conrad (1874-1941), Westinghouse executive Harry P. Davis (fl. early twentieth century), Westinghouse executive Leo H. Rosenberg (1896-1988), American radio announcer and advertising executive Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American inventor Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Summary of Event At 8:00 p.m. on November 2, 1920, the airwaves near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, crackled with sound as the tiny, newly licensed KDKA radio station broadcast the first scheduled public radio program, the presidential election returns. Using only a 100-watt transmitter, Leo H. Rosenberg of Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company’s publicity department, read the returns as they were received by telephone from the offices of the Pittsburgh Post newspaper. Westinghouse, owner of the station, had announced the event in advance, and its success set off a boom of enormous proportions for the new radio industry. The first station to begin radio broadcasting was actually WWJ in Detroit, on August 20, 1920. However, it was KDKA’s successful transmission into American homes of Warren G. Harding’s landslide victory over James M. Cox that signaled the beginning of a new era: Republicans were again in control of the White House, Prohibition was in effect, and scheduled broadcasts of radio programs had begun. The birth of this remarkable cultural innovation was the result of a series of fortuitous circumstances. KDKA’s broadcast was really a desperate move by
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Locale: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Categories: Radio and television; communications and media
Westinghouse. The company had long been a leader in the large vacuum tube and telegraph industry, but the end of World War I brought cancellation of lucrative war contracts, and the company found itself caught in a corporate squeeze. Its great rival General Electric (GE), along with American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and the newly formed Radio Corporation of America (RCA), controlled the profitable field of international communications, as well as the invaluable vacuum tube— a device that had almost unlimited potential. Modern radio technology had begun in 1888 when German physicist Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted in James Clerk Maxwell’s paper for the Royal Society, “A Dynamical Theory of Electro-Magnetic Field” (1864). Guglielmo Marconi of Italy built on Hertz’s work and, by 1895, developed the first wireless telegraph designed to send Morse code signals. Great Britain was the first nation to become interested in Marconi’s discovery and immediately began to explore its military and industrial applications. The next major development in radio technology came when Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, a Canadian who had worked with Thomas Alva Edison, discovered that he could transmit not only Morse code but also the human voice and other sounds. By 1906, he and colleague Ernst F. W. Alexanderson had built an alternator at Brant Rock, Massachusetts, from which, on Christmas Eve, he broadcast to ships’ wireless operators and amateur radio receivers throughout the world an entire program including violin music and poetry. In 1907, Lee de Forest patented a modification of the vacuum tube. By adding a third element, called a grid or “audion,” he increased the efficiency of the device both as an amplifier and as a detector. Considered a giant leap forward in radio technology, the audion tube was only one of many contributions de Forest made to the industry. During his lifetime he was granted more than two hundred patents in the field and devoted his career to developing and promoting radio technology. This flurry of technological activity in the early years of the twentieth century produced a cadre of highly skilled radio technicians. One such was David Sarnoff, an immigrant wireless operator with American Marconi, the company that eventually formed the core of RCA. In 1912, Sarnoff had manned a wireless set that kept in contact with ships in the vicinity of the Titanic as it sank. His
Radio Broadcasting Begins
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tential of the new electronics. When the war ended and restrictions on electronic equipment were lifted, it was merely a matter of time before someone dramatized the possibilities of radio. One who tried was Detroit publisher William E. Scripps, who built a receiver for his son. Using the call letters 8MK, he began broadcasting tests that extended news reports to the airwaves. These tests ended on primary day, August 31, 1920, just months before KDKA made its move. In Pittsburgh, several Westinghouse workers had been experimenting with radio for some time and began to broadcast amateur programs using transmitters built by Frank Conrad, a company executive, in his garage. Harry P. Davis, a Westinghouse vice president, became aware of the commercial possibilities of radio programs when he learned that a local department store was advertising receivers by promoting Conrad’s broadcasts. Davis called a conference with other Westinghouse officials and proposed the idea of offering radio broadcasts on a regular basis to the general public. Westinghouse could then manufacture and sell radio sets intended for home use that consumers could use to receive these broadcasts. He proposed trying to have everything in place to broadcast the upcoming election returns. Westinghouse applied to the U.S. Department of Commerce for a license to begin regular broadcasting and, on October 27, 1920, received notification that the station was to have the call letters KDKA. Others had tried to make radio a commercial venture. Sarnoff, for example, early grasped the potential of a huge market for radios. As early as 1916, he had declared that radio might become as popular in the home as the phonograph. In January, 1920, he tried to persuade officials of the newly formed RCA to market radio “music boxes” at seventy-five dollars each. He predicted that if they did so, the company would be able to realize an income of seventy-five million dollars in only three years. Unconvinced, the company committed only two thousand dollars to research in radios. A young woman of the 1920’s tunes a radio. (Library of Congress)
dramatic effort captured public attention and generated intense interest in the potential of wireless telephony among the world’s giant communications and electrical companies. Radio’s future was still hazy when World War I broke out. The war, however, proved to be a blessing for the radio industry, the promise of which had been dimmed by numerous costly and time-consuming patent disputes. Faced with the emergency of war, the government suspended all such disputes for the duration and pushed forward the full production of vacuum tubes, receivers, transmitters, and a whole range of complex electrical equipment. A giant Alexanderson transmitter at New Brunswick, New Jersey, using the call letters NFF, astounded the world by clearly broadcasting President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points throughout Europe on January 18, 1918. Later in the year, NFF epitomized Wilson’s principles of open diplomacy by publicly demanding the overthrow of the German emperor as a prelude to peace. Many of those involved in radio were aware of the po-
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Further Reading Archer, Gleason L. History of Radio to 1926. New York: The American Historical Society, 1938. Gives details of the early history of radio in the United States. The complete script of the first commercial broadcast is in an appendix. Balk, Alfred. The Rise of Radio: From Marconi Through the Golden Age. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. A cultural history of radio, focusing on the social and political impact of the new medium. Bibliographic references and index. Barnouw, Erik. A Tower in Babel: To 1933. Vol. 1 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. A detailed chronology of the history of broadcasting. Emphasizes the important individuals and their contributions. Later volumes continue the research. An important work. Douglas, George H. The Early Days of Radio Broadcast-
ing. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1987. An informal history of the early years of radio broadcasting, paying particular attention to the 1920’s. Focuses on political, financial, manufacturing, and entertainment developments. Douglas, Susan J. Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Douglas discusses both the technical development of radio and its social and political implications in the United States. Illustrations, notes, index. _______. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Discusses the evolution of the American radio audience and of the role of radio in American life. Bibliographic references and index. Head, Sydney W., and Christopher H. Sterling. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 6th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. The leading text for more than thirty years. Covers the development of American broadcasting thoroughly and with tremendous insight. Keith, Michael C., and Joseph M. Krause. The Radio Station. Boston: Focal Press, 1986. Combines an overview of the history of radio broadcasting with detailed explanations of commercial station operations. Useful primarily as a means of understanding how a contemporary station works. Lewis, Tom. Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. New York: Edward Burlingame, 1991. An overview of the development of commercial radio. Chapter 6 focuses on the quest to broadcast to the general public. Photographs, bibliography, index. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping, comps. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. An anthology of selections relating to the history of radio and television, including some materials not often covered elsewhere. Includes about fifty tables showing economic factors relating to broadcasting. Paley, William S. As It Happened: A Memoir. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1979. An autobiography by one of the most important people in radio and television history. Discusses that history through the perspective of the head of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Smulyan, Susan. Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting, 1920-1934. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. Smulyan 1643
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Significance After KDKA’s groundbreaking broadcast, most people in the industry became convinced of radio’s commercial possibilities. Westinghouse, whose fortunes were reversed, assumed leadership in the field. Members of the industry at first expected to earn profits primarily through the sale of transmitting and receiving equipment. The early programs, which were usually informal, emphasized entertainment, including music and occasionally such dramatic events as the World Series, which was broadcast for the first time in 1921. Broadcasters soon realized, however, that radio could earn profits through the sale of advertising time. The role of radio as an advertising medium began on August 22, 1922, when station WEAF in New York sold a ten-minute “spot” for a commercial message. As the radio mania swept the country, it became apparent that the industry would have to be regulated. Prior to the first commercial broadcasts, the Radio Law of 1912 had assigned licensing responsibilities to the Department of Commerce. That system proved unwieldy, so in 1927 Congress passed new legislation establishing the Federal Radio Commission, the forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Radio remained the primary vehicle of the electronic mass media until the advent of television. It was and is a crucial part of American life and culture, the roots of which can be traced to that initial broadcast from a garage in Pittsburgh. —Richard H. Collin and Jane M. Gilliland
Radio Broadcasting Begins
U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote details how the American radio business evolved from one that was privately financed to one supported by commercial advertising. Notes, illustrations, index. See also: 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Ole Opry; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered; Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts; Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds.
August 26, 1920
U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave American women the right to vote, represented the culmination of several decades of struggle. Also known as: Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Women’s issues; civil rights and liberties; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947), president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1900-1904 and 1915-1920, and founder of the League of Women Voters Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919), president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1904-1915 Alice Paul (1885-1977), founder of the National Woman’s Party Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), first president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), cofounder and president of the National Woman Suffrage Association Lucy Stone (1818-1893), founder of the American Woman Suffrage Association Summary of Event In 1890, the radical and moderate wings of the woman suffrage movement in the United States merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). This organization’s first president was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, longtime women’s rights champion and social activist. Her leadership in the cause of woman suffrage was nearing an end, however, and younger women were beginning to replace the aging stalwarts. 1644
Although not yet generally accepted, woman suffrage was no longer considered a fringe idea. The movement for women’s voting rights had influential friends in the U.S. Congress as well as in state legislatures. This progress is attributable to the efforts of such veterans as Stanton (president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1869 to 1889), her close friend, cofounder and also president of the NWSA, Susan B. Anthony, and older allies such as Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone. A younger generation was ready to advance the movement, confident that a growing social consciousness would aid their cause. The ever-growing numbers of women moving into higher education and into the job market found enlarged horizons and new experiences and contacts. They developed programs for social reform as well as for personal development. The General Federation of Women’s Clubs, formed in 1890, created a network of intelligent, capable women who were able and willing to tackle serious social problems such as low wages, overcrowded tenements, and poor health conditions. Carrie Chapman Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1915 to 1920. She and Anna Howard Shaw, president of the NAWSA from 1904 to 1915, epitomized the new leadership in the movement for women’s rights. They stressed tighter organization, cohesion, and propaganda as tools with which to broaden the movement’s support. Catt, in particular, had a keen eye for detail and was responsible for recruiting and training suffragists. She proposed that suffragists do a systematic study of government, examining existing laws to note the unjust ones and formulate ways to get them changed. Catt also proposed more visibility for the movement, suggesting that members court the press and establish a finance committee to ensure a steady flow of funds.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote
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gle began. Shaw’s successor as president of the NAWSA, Larger and better unified than previous organizations, Catt, concentrated on the federal level, working to win the NAWSA of the early 1900’s shifted the movement’s presidential and congressional support. Differing ideas arguments, putting less stress on equal rights and more of how to get that support sidetracked some of that effort. on the good that women could do for society as a whole. Alice Paul, a political activist with a master’s degree The idea of female benevolence would reach a wider auin sociology and an education in political science and dience, the suffragists argued. They were helped consideconomics, took leadership of the NAWSA’s Congreserably by the fact that their agenda meshed well with the sional Committee in 1912. Its purpose was to lobby for Progressives’ pre-World War I program of reform. The suffrage on the federal level. More so than Catt or Shaw, groups shared the same goals for society—including an Paul was adept at garnering publicity. The charismatic end to poverty, injustice, and corruption—so they coopleader soon gathered a large number of young suffragists erated in pressuring legislators for reforms such as cleanaround her and formed the militant Congressional Union ing up slums and sweatshops, expanding educational opfor Woman Suffrage. portunities, and ousting corrupt political bosses. Many older members of the NAWSA were annoyed Antisuffrage arguments took on new zeal between by these tactics, and in 1916 Paul and her group left the 1890 and 1919, as foes of the movement defended the NAWSA to found the National Woman’s Party. One of status quo by depicting woman suffrage as an attack on traditional values and beliefs. The most basic arguments relied on the notions that the sexes have separate spheres and that the two must complement each other if society is to remain orderly. Foes of suffrage insisted that granting women voting rights would harm family and society by pitting wives against husbands, disturbing the natural order. Also, they asserted, women’s purity and natural moral superiority would suffer from exposure to the battles and tensions of politics. Suffragists responded to critics by shifting their emphasis to the altruism expected of women. The women’s vote, they said, would purify politics and effect reforms nationwide. As one historian has To view image, please refer to the expressed it, the vote would not violate woman’s print edition of this title. sphere but rather “would consummate motherhood.” Capitalizing on the traditional view of women as morally superior to men and on domestic ideals, the suffragists succeeded in broadening their support base. In 1912, the Progressive Party endorsed woman suffrage, although presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt was a lukewarm advocate of this plank in the party’s platform. Another victory came in 1914, when the General Federation of Women’s Clubs passed a resolution supporting woman suffrage, giving the movement mainstream acceptability and respectability. State campaigns were chalking up victories as well, particularly in the West. Anna Shaw, president of the NAWSA, focused the group’s energies and funds on state campaigns with gratifying reA woman in New York City casts her ballot in 1920, in the first elecsults. From 1910 to 1914, seven western states tions after American women won the right to vote. (The Granger Colgave women the vote, and a new stage of the struglection, New York)
U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote their first public acts was to attack Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats, as the party in power, for denying women the vote. Paul and her followers picketed the White House and went on hunger strikes, both moves calculated to win attention and sympathy. Catt and the NAWSA avoided these tactics, not wanting to alienate friends in both political parties. Both the militants and the moderates used World War I to add to the strength of the suffrage movement. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the NAWSA offered endorsement. Members sold war bonds and organized benefits for the troops, as did millions of other women nationwide. Catt argued that the fight for democracy at home was a matter of justice. Women were contributing immensely to the war effort and deserved a “reward.” Catt hoped to get a suffrage amendment through Congress, and her hopes rose after Wilson appeared at the NAWSA convention in June, 1916. While not committing himself, Wilson indicated that he saw success coming if the women persevered. Some of that success came when several states granted women the right to vote in presidential and municipal elections. More pressure was brought on Wilson and Congress by the NAWSA and the Congressional Union’s repeated charge that the United States was not truly a democracy as long as it denied a large percentage of citizens the vote. Embarrassed, Wilson urged the Senate to pass a woman suffrage amendment, calling it “vital” to winning the war. Catt was ecstatic when, on November 6, 1917, New York State passed a suffrage bill. She thought this would force Congress’s hand, but it took several more months before Congress acted. On January 10, 1918, the House of Representatives voted on the suffrage amendment. It was a close call: The amendment passed by a vote of 274 to 134, barely gaining the required two-thirds majority. The Senate would prove to be an even tougher battleground. Despite Wilson’s personal appearance and plea before the Senate on September 30, 1918, the Senate voted down the amendment. On February 10, 1919, another vote was taken and again suffrage failed—by a single vote. Catt was so sure that the next vote would bring victory that she began organizing the group that would become the NAWSA’s successor, the League of Women Voters. She was determined that women should be educated in how to use the vote so that they would be capable of full political participation. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives voted on woman suffrage; the vote was 304 for and 89 against. 1646
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The Senate debate began on June 3, and late on June 4 the vote was taken: 56 for and 25 against. Victory had finally come. Within the next four months, seventeen states ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, almost half the number needed. Catt and the NAWSA executive board were so certain of success that they dissolved the NAWSA in February, 1920. At the final meeting, Catt gave a moving tribute to the pioneers who laid the groundwork for the final victory, naming in particular Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw. On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution. Catt, in Washington, D.C., that day, was received at the White House by President and Mrs. Wilson. In New York the next day, she told a crowd of cheering women that they were no longer “wards of the nation.” Rather, they were now “free and equal citizens.” The long struggle was over. Significance With the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the women’s movement in the United States splintered into a variety of groups, each working toward its own particular goals. The unifying cause of suffrage was won, and no new cause was able to galvanize women nationwide. The amendment had some positive immediate effects; for example, twenty states passed laws enabling women to serve on juries. In addition, Congress seemed eager to please women voters—at least temporarily. In 1921, Congress passed the Sheppard-Towner Act to finance maternal education and child health care programs. In 1924, Congress passed a child labor amendment, although it was never ratified. The Women’s Joint Congressional Committee, which represented several major women’s organizations, including the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the American Association of University Women, lobbied for desired bills. It soon became evident, however, that many women’s expectations were too high: Woman suffrage would not solve all social problems. One assumption that had been common to both suffragists and antisuffragists was that women would vote in a bloc. Suffragists claimed they would thus purify politics and end war, crime, and injustice of all kinds. Opponents foresaw domestic discord, excessive individualism, and even social anarchy. Statistics show that both sides were wrong. Women voted in smaller numbers than men and tended to vote the same way as their male relatives. Part of the problem was a lack of female candidates and officeholders. Women
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Clift, Eleanor. Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Brief history of the suffrage movement in the United States describes important events and organizations and provides background on the movement’s leaders. Includes bibliography. Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War: American
Women in the Nineteenth Century. Rev. ed. New York: Hill & Wang, 1999. A brief but comprehensive chronological look at nineteenth century women. Covers women’s experiences with and contributions to the major social campaigns and reforms of the 1800’s. Alongside the usual “stars,” discusses “forgotten” women: black women, poor women, Native American women, and lesbians. Lays a good foundation for readers interested in more detailed study. Includes bibliographic essay and index. Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. 2d ed. New York: Free Press, 1997. Discusses diversity, race, and class issues among the advocates of women’s rights. Includes list of suggested further reading and index. Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1996. A standard source on the women’s movement through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Includes abundant quotations and anecdotes, photographs, and index. Harper, Ida Husted. History of Woman Suffrage, 19001920. 1922. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1969. Fifth volume in the NAWSA’s official account of the suffrage movement. Very detailed, with reports of the NAWSA’s annual national conventions, many extracts from leading writers and speakers at both state and federal levels, and material collected by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Includes brief supplements for several chapters and a detailed index. Scott, Anne Firor, and Andrew M. Scott. One Half the People: The Fight for Woman Suffrage. 1975. Reprint. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1982. An exhaustive treatment of the persons and organizations involved in the movement to win women’s right to vote. Includes bibliographic essay and index. Van Voris, Jacqueline. Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life. New York: Feminist Press, 1987. Biography focuses on Catt’s work in the suffrage movement from 1900 to 1920. The last four chapters trace her efforts on behalf of international suffrage and world peace. Includes excerpts from many of Catt’s speeches and writings, chapter notes, bibliography, and index. Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience: A Concise History. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. Selective survey of the history of American women focuses on both domestic and public life, with some attention to the impact of class and race. A chapter on woman suffrage examines the movement’s 1647
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simply did not rally to “women’s issues” in large numbers. Catt saw this development as stemming from women’s loss of a unifying cause. For decades, the struggle for suffrage had served to unify and energize women. With the coalition divided, factions split over such issues as protective laws and a newly proposed equal rights amendment (pushed most strongly by Alice Paul). There was no common rallying point or broad consensus for women after 1920. Clearly, the Nineteenth Amendment did not give women much political power. What it did accomplish was a push toward a gradual shift in attitudes: Women were now deemed able to be involved in public affairs, to act as agents of change. Among the varied women’s organizations functioning after 1920, the League of Women Voters had some of the most solid effects. In particular, the league’s state chapters succeeded in decreasing the number of discriminatory marriage and property laws on the books and, perhaps just as important, served to train women who were interested in participating in politics. The league increasingly emphasized education rather than proselytizing for social reform, however, frustrating many former NAWSA members as well as Alice Paul and her fellow activists. Factionalism grew, much of it focusing on the issue of social feminism. Widespread disagreement arose among women’s organizations concerning what the term “feminism” should encompass. To Catt and pre-1920’s suffragists, the new female image was one of women combining marriage and career, cooperating and competing with men in the professions. Many women, however, placed more stress on marriage and motherhood and, thanks in large part to the growing advertising industry, were largely concerned with fashion, beauty, and sex appeal. It is not coincidental that Atlantic City hotel owners promoted a beauty contest in 1920 to select a Miss America. The new heroines of that era were more likely to be movie stars and beauty queens than social activists such as Jane Addams or Alice Paul. —S. Carol Berg
U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote
U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery meaning to the women who participated in it. Includes illustrations, maps, charts, bibliography, and index. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Nov. 7, 1916: First
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
September 8, 1920
U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery The U.S. Post Office Department’s transcontinental airmail service gained widespread public acceptance and led to enhanced congressional support for airmail service in general. Locale: United States Categories: Transportation; space and aviation; economics; organizations and institutions Key Figures Otto Praeger (1871-1948), second assistant U.S. postmaster general Morris Sheppard (1875-1941), U.S. senator from Texas Albert Sidney Burleson (1863-1937), U.S. postmaster general Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Summary of Event Through the efforts of the Post Office Department, primarily the efforts of Otto Praeger, second assistant postmaster general during Woodrow Wilson’s presidential administration, the U.S. Congress in 1917 was persuaded to fund a formal experiment to determine the feasibility of scheduled airmail service. This test, the first since about thirty earlier experiments in 1911-1912, called for U.S. Army pilots and planes to carry mail between New York City and Washington, D.C., with an intermediate stop in Philadelphia. Under Congress’s funding conditions, the Post Office Department would administer the program. Senator Morris “Sam” Sheppard of Texas, who had long argued for airmail service, was to prove instrumental in obtaining airmail appropriations, the first of which were authorized in 1916 from the Post Office Department’s “Steamboat or Other Powerboat Service” line item. The war situation in Europe delayed any chance of experimentation until President Wilson intervened in 1918. Realizing that airmail service might provide some ad1648
vantages to the business sector, Wilson directed the secretary of war to supply army pilots and airplanes for an experimental operation. The experiment began on May 15, 1918, and proved successful enough that on August 12, 1918, the Post Office Department assumed responsibility for the entire operation, including pilots and aircraft. During the airmail service’s first year of operation, 1,208 flights were completed, with 90 others aborted because of weather or mechanical problems. Even with this admirable performance, the Post Office’s primary goal remained to establish an airmail system rather than to earn profits. Moreover, postal officials began at this early date to remind Congress and the public that the Post Office did not consider itself to be an operating agency and that the department had no intention of remaining indefinitely in the transportation business. Under Praeger’s forceful leadership, one year after its inauguration of airmail service the Post Office Department began service between Chicago and Cleveland, the first of its transcontinental route segments. Six weeks later, airmail service was extended eastward from Cleveland to New York City. During 1919, with three routes in operation (including the original route between New York and Washington, D.C.), eight Post Office airplanes were flying nineteen hundred miles daily, with a 95 percent completion rate. The next major transcontinental route segment became operational on May 15, 1920, when service was extended westward from Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska. Four months later, on September 8, 1920, the final link was added, connecting Omaha to San Francisco. The lack of suitable air-to-ground communications and navigation equipment, as well as the rather primitive aircraft instrumentation then available, made night operations impossible. Mail sacks had to be transferred to trains for carriage overnight, a problem that hampered further improvement in service until Congress decided to appropriate funds in fiscal year 1922 to establish an ex-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
coast at daybreak on February 22, 1921. The two westbound flights were grounded in Chicago because of blizzard conditions, causing the airmail to be transferred to a train, much to the chagrin of Burleson and Praeger. The Chicago-area weather also grounded one of the relief pilots for the eastbound planes, who had been en route to Omaha. One of the two eastbound flights crashed near Elko, Nevada, killing the pilot, W. F. Lewis; the other continued on to North Platte, Nebraska, where pilot James H. “Jack” Knight took over. Knight, flying in worsening weather conditions, found no relief pilot waiting in Omaha and immediately departed for Des Moines, where snow accumulation precluded his landing for fuel. He continued to Iowa City, where a night watchman at the airfield, hearing an unexpected airplane, lit a flare that allowed Knight to land. Although he had never flown the route east of Omaha, Knight continued to Chicago, arriving at 8:40 a.m. after
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The first airmail from Chicago to New York is rushed from airplane to truck in September, 1918. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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perimental lighted airway between Chicago and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Urging this appropriation, ironically enough, was President Warren G. Harding, who had publicly proclaimed during the 1920 presidential campaign that airmail service was a waste of money. The candidate’s public pronouncement became especially troubling for the Post Office Department when Harding won the election. Faced with an incoming president who had taken a stance in opposition to airmail service, Praeger and Postmaster General Albert Sidney Burleson decided to rush the development of an overnight airmail service in a bold attempt to capture media attention and public acclaim, in the hope that this might cause Harding to rethink his position. Because of this strategy, the first attempt at overnight service was conducted in February—not an ideal time of year, weatherwise, for a first try at night operations. With considerable fanfare, two mail planes set out from each
U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery
U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery flying 830 miles through dangerous winter weather conditions. The airmail continued on its eastbound journey and arrived late that afternoon in New York City. The mail had been carried 2,660 miles in an elapsed time of 33 hours and 20 minutes; the same distance by train would have taken 108 hours. Overnight, Jack Knight’s heroism captured the public’s imagination. Media coverage and the public’s positive reaction to transcontinental airmail service caused Harding to recant his earlier remarks, and he urged Congress to support the new service. As a result, annual appropriations for both the transcontinental airmail route and its night operations first became available in late 1921, Harding’s first year in office, with $1.3 million to be used to expand airmail service and develop lighting for airways and airports. Over the next six years, these two separate appropriations would average a combined annual total of approximately $2.5 million. The Post Office Department’s first lighted airway was installed between Chicago and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and became fully operational in the spring of 1923. Over the next twelve months, more route miles were equipped with navigational beacon lights until finally, on July 1, 1924, the last segment was lighted. Following a thirtyday test period, true around-the-clock transcontinental airmail service was inaugurated. Significance Although the Post Office had not expected to make a profit from its new service, by the end of the first year of airmail operations postal revenues of $162,000 had been realized, an excess of $19,000 over the operation’s cost of $143,000, or $64.80 per flight hour. The service’s early success led Praeger to concentrate the department’s efforts on developing a transcontinental route that could serve as the foundation for a gradually expanding airmail system with connecting flights extending outward to the north and south. The first of these routes connected St. Louis with Chicago in August, 1920. By the end of 1921, ninety-eight airmail planes were in service, half of which were surplus and virtually obsolete de Havilland DH-4’s that the Post Office had obtained from the army and refurbished at a cost of $2,000 per plane. These were the only airplanes available, because at the time aircraft companies had no incentive to develop commercial planes. A need for larger aircraft capable of carrying a few passengers in addition to mail came about only after passage of the 1925 Air Mail Act (also known as the Kelly Act), which authorized the Post Office to contract with private operators for the carriage of airmail. 1650
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The Post Office Department’s successful airmail operation was publicly recognized in both 1922 and 1923, when the Air Mail Service received the coveted Collier Trophy, awarded annually for the greatest achievement in aviation in the United States. By the end of the first six years of airmail service, Post Office pilots had flown 6.9 million miles and carried 255 million letters. Almost fifteen thousand of the flights were made in fog or storms, and the Post Office proudly pointed to the service’s average operating efficiency of almost 92 percent over the six-year period. Upon completion of navigational beacons on the transcontinental route in July, 1924, around-the-clock crosscountry airmail service became a reality. Westbound airmail took thirty-four hours, and eastbound airmail took twenty-nine hours. One year later, businesses in New York and Chicago were benefiting from overnight airmail service. Airmail postage on the transcontinental route was set at eight cents per ounce for transit in each of three zones: New York-Chicago; Chicago-Rock Springs, Wyoming; and Rock Springs-San Francisco. To support its coast-to-coast operation, the Post Office Department established seventeen weather-reporting stations linked by radio, installed 289 flashing beacons along the route, equipped and lighted emergency landing fields an average of thirty miles apart, and installed radios at all of its main stations. Airmail service needs, especially those of the transcontinental operation, brought about the development of night and instrument flying, federal airways, air-to-ground communications, multiengine aircraft, hard-surface runways, and the National Weather Service. In late 1925, Harry F. Guggenheim, in an address at the newly established School of Aeronautics of New York University, hailed the U.S. Air Mail Service as the only brilliant achievement in American commercial aviation. He stated that with this one notable exception, the United States lagged far behind Europe in commercial aviation. Airmail volume on the transcontinental route grew rapidly with widespread public acceptance of the service and recognition, particularly by the business community, of the distinct advantages that coast-to-coast airmail service offered. During the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 1924, Post Office pilots on the transcontinental route flew slightly more than two million miles, with a completion rate of 96 percent. In the following year, 9.3 million first-class letters were carried, providing the Post Office with revenues that exceeded costs by $600,000. In July, 1925, alone, the profit amounted to $60,434. The actual cost of transporting mail by air was 21 cents per
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
had a box marked “air mail,” transcontinental passenger air service was being offered, and the fledgling airline industry had established a foothold—quite a bargain for the $12.5 million the Post Office Department lost on airmail. —James D. Matthews Further Reading Christy, J., and L. R. Cook. American Aviation: An Illustrated History. 2d ed. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1994. Offers a panoramic view of the evolution of American aviation. Focuses primarily on the military but contains some interesting material on early airmail service and the beginnings of the airline system. Johnson, Robert E. Airway One. Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1974. Interesting corporate narrative authored by a member of top management at United Airlines (1929-1972). Includes a fascinating look at United’s developmental years, together with its predecessors that began operating after passage of the Kelly Act. Kane, Robert M. Air Transportation. 14th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2002. Undergraduate textbook provides a section on history that includes excellent coverage of the early airmail days and the Kelly Act’s ramifications. Material on subsequent aviation legislation nicely supplements earlier coverage. Loening, Grover. Takeoff into Greatness. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968. Fascinating autobiography by one of the Wright brothers’ pupils who established himself as one of the leaders in aircraft design and manufacture during the 1920’s. Interesting recollections of the early airmail operations, with details, some technical, on the first group of private airmail carriers. Wells, Alexander T., and John G. Wensveen. Air Transportation: A Management Perspective. 5th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2003. Textbook aimed at undergraduates includes a brief but thorough discussion of contract airmail service and the original twelve contract airmail routes. See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines; Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel; June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic. 1651
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mile; even with overhead costs included, the cost was only 50 cents per mile. In 1925, Congress passed the Kelly Act in response to urging by the Post Office Department. This act authorized the department to award contracts to private operators for the carriage of airmail. In effect, the Post Office began to phase itself out of airmail transport. By mid1926, private carriers were operating the twelve original routes, all of which were feeders that linked with the transcontinental route still being operated by the Post Office Department. In mid-1927, the transcontinental route was divided at Chicago into two segments, with Boeing Air Transport successfully bidding for the western portion and National Air Transport the eastern segment. Mail volume on the coast-to-coast route continued to grow rapidly, to the point that in February, 1928, Boeing Air Transport carried 32 percent of all airmail in the United States just on its Chicago-San Francisco route. During 1927, the Post Office continued to phase itself out of airmail operations as more and more routes were transferred to private operators. The final Post Office flight was conducted on September 9 of that year, ending one noteworthy era while ushering in another, one that would be dominated by the rapidly developing airline industry. The obvious success of the Post Office’s efforts, particularly on its transcontinental route, led to continued expansion of airmail service as well as the inception of passenger service. More important, it convinced Congress that the time had arrived for private operators to carry the mail. It was from this group of original private carriers that the American airline industry evolved. The Post Office’s achievements, laudable as they were, had costs beyond the department’s annual congressional appropriations. In the nine years and four months of government-operated airmail service, forty-three Post Office pilots were killed and twenty-three suffered serious injury, with most accidents occurring on the transcontinental route segment across the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania, a section that became known in the press as the “Hell Stretch” and the “Graveyard of the Air Mail.” In that same time, twenty-five thousand miles of government-improved airways came into existence, almost 60 percent of which were lighted, and rotating beacons were installed at approximately one thousand airports. The Post Office’s airmail service had cost the government $17.5 million, but partially offsetting this was $5 million in postal revenue. By the end of 1928, all fortyeight states had airmail service, every branch post office
U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery
Formation of Qantas Airlines
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 20, 1920
Formation of Qantas Airlines Qantas was instrumental in the development of the Australian aviation industry. The fledgling airline helped increase confidence in commercial flying and helped make settlement of the Australian Outback possible. The airline also helped deliver critical medical services to the Outback by partnering with the organization that would become the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. Also known as: Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited Locale: Winton, Longreach, Cloncurry, and Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Categories: Space and aviation; transportation; trade and commerce Key Figures Wilmot Hudson Fysh (1895-1974), World War I aviator and cofounder of Qantas Paul McGinness (1896-1952), World War I aviator and cofounder of Qantas Fergus McMaster (1879-1950), Queensland grazier who helped finance Qantas and became its first chairman Arthur Baird (1889-1954), military veteran and mechanical engineer who oversaw the safety and maintenance of the Qantas fleet Alexander Kennedy (1837-1936), one of Qantas’s original shareholders and the airline’s first scheduled and ticketed passenger Summary of Event On November 16, 1920, World War I veterans Wilmot Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness registered Qantas, or Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited, as a company in Brisbane, Queensland. Fysh and McGinness had served together as gunner and pilot in the Royal Australian Flying Corps, where they each earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery. Upon their return to Australia, the pair decided to enter a government-sponsored competition in 1919 to be the first Australians to fly from Great Britain to Australia in twenty days or fewer. Their patron died before the competition took place, however, and they lacked the funding needed to compete. Instead, they agreed to conduct a government survey of the race’s route, an area that covered the territory from Darwin to Longreach in western Queensland. The arduous overland journey convinced 1652
the pair that flying was the only realistic means of traversing the vast Australian Outback. Launching an airline required money, so Fysh and McGinness began to search for financial backers. On separate occasions, they each met with Alexander Kennedy, the owner of a cattle station who promised funds to the venture if he could be its first ticketed passenger, and Fergus McMaster, a grazier who was equally enthusiastic about the veteran pilots’ bold plan. McMaster lured a few other investors to the project, and on November 20, 1920, Qantas was officially registered. McMaster was its first chairman, Fysh and McGinness were pilots and managers, and Kennedy and one other man, Ainslie Templeton, were shareholders. Arthur Baird, another veteran whom Fysh and McGinness had known during the war, came on board as the airline’s engineer. Although the company was registered in Brisbane, its activities actually began in Winton, Queensland, where the first directors’ meeting was held in 1921. Immediately thereafter, Qantas moved its operations to Longreach, where it stayed for several years. Early on, the Qantas founders realized that the company would need regular contract work. In 1921 they sought and were awarded a government-subsidized contract for regular mail delivery between Charleville and Cloncurry. The pair had also spent much of 1921 flying to small Outback settlements, where they generated interest in aviation by offering short rides for a small fee, and as a result they began attracting air-taxi customers. Fysh and McGinness opened their doors to both mail and passenger service, and on November 3, 1922, they fulfilled their promise to Kennedy by making him Qantas’s first ticketed passenger. McGinness, however, had already begun to feel restless and constrained by the regimented nature of company life, and he left Qantas shortly before Kennedy’s inaugural flight as a ticketed passenger. Fysh took on more responsibility and became the airline’s manager in 1923. In spite of their best efforts, the Qantas team members faced several early struggles. Their planes were not particularly suited to the harsh Australian climate, and better equipment was difficult to find. In 1924, they settled on de Havilland aircraft. The new planes were enclosed, which meant that passengers no longer had to wear helmets and goggles, and this factor may have helped win over some of their more reluctant potential customers. Fortunately, Qantas also obtained government contracts
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The fact that Fysh and McGinness were able to attract investors to the risky venture was a testament to their own ambition and enthusiasm, as well as to their partners’ typically Australian spirit of adventure and enterprise. Their pioneering spirit allowed them to overcome the difficulties posed by finding financial backing, purchasing or building aircraft that could withstand the harsh climate, and winning the confidence of both the government and the general population. In its later years, QEA faced particularly difficult times: Nearly all its planes were commandeered by the Australian government during World War II and were subsequently damaged or destroyed. After the war, however, QEA rebuilt, expanded, and went through several more transformations, and it is still widely known throughout the world. It would be difficult to overestimate the impact that Qantas had on the development of Australian aviation and perhaps even on the expansion of European settlers into the country’s interior. Fysh and McGinness were correct when they concluded that ground travel across the vast interior would be impractical for decades, if not
for centuries, and so settlement of this area would be largely dependent on air travel. In addition, Qantas’s participation in the Aerial Medical Service’s flying doctor program undoubtedly helped convince Australians that aviation was the key to the country’s future, because settlement in the dangerous Outback depended on the accessibility of medical services. McGinness’s and Fysh’s contributions to Australia and the British Commonwealth were formally recognized when the men were knighted, the former in 1941 and the latter in 1953. —Amy Sisson Further Reading Brown, John. “Qantas: Birth of an Airline Down Under.” Aviation History 7, no. 6 (July, 1997): 34. Describes the airline’s inaugural passenger flight and early efforts to build Australians’ confidence in aviation as a safe means of travel; summarizes the airline’s history through World War II. Fysh, Wilmot Hudson. Qantas Rising: The Autobiography of the Flying Fysh. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1965. An autobiographical account of Fysh’s life from his military service through Qantas’s founding, expansion, and wartime difficulties. Gunn, John. The Defeat of Distance: Qantas, 19191939. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1985. The first in a three-volume history of Qantas, this book describes the airline’s early years in great detail, including lengthy quotations from the key figures’ personal correspondence. It was followed by Challenging Horizons: Qantas 1939-1954 (1987) and High Corridors: Qantas 1954-1970 (1988), also by Gunn. Stackhouse, John. From the Dawn of Aviation: The Qantas Story from 1920-1995. Double Bay, N.S.W.: Focus, 1995. A history of Qantas specifically commissioned to celebrate the airline’s first seventy-five years. Numerous illustrations include full-color reproductions of posters advertising the airline. See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel. 1653
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for additional mail routes, including one from Cloncurry to Camooweal in 1924 and one from Cloncurry to Normanton in 1927. The airline gave itself yet another boost by signing an initial one-year contract with the Australian Aerial Medical Service, which established its first base in Cloncurry in 1928. In 1929, Qantas established its first direct link to the coast with a route between Charleville and Brisbane. Shortly thereafter, the company moved its operational headquarters to Brisbane. Qantas also introduced several important innovations to commercial aviation. Unusual milestones included Qantas’s construction of its own aircraft, de Havilland DH50’s, which were built under Baird’s supervision at the airline’s Longreach facility from 1926 to 1929. Qantas also spearheaded the construction of the first private airplane hangar in Brisbane and the establishment of a flight school there in 1927. In 1931, Qantas began an important relationship with Britain’s Imperial Airways when it agreed to try using a shared airmail route that ultimately reached from Australia to England. The cargo was first flown by Qantas from Brisbane to Darwin and then on to Burma, where Imperial Airways assumed responsibility for the cargo. In January of 1934, this partnership was made more official when the Qantas and Imperial Airways were combined into Qantas Empire Airways Limited (QEA). Fysh was appointed managing director of the new organization.
Formation of Qantas Airlines
Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 13, 1920
Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star Albert A. Michelson accomplished the first precise measurement of a star other than the Sun. Locale: Mount Wilson Observatory, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), German American physicist Edward Williams Morley (1838-1923), American chemist Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944), English astronomer and physicist Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer George Ellery Hale (1868-1938), American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer Summary of Event Albert A. Michelson ranks as a distinguished scientist who was one of the finest instrument makers and experimental physicists of his time. Over several centuries, a body of scientific experiments had accumulated that demonstrated that light travels in a wave pattern. Because other wave motions, such as sound waves and water waves, travel in particular media, scientists assigned to light a medium called “ether.” One method of proving the existence of ether was to demonstrate the effect produced by the medium. For example, the sound of a train whistle traveling toward an observer has a higher pitch than one moving away from the observer. This happens because the speed of sound added to the speed of the train results in a higher velocity as it is carried toward the observer and a lower velocity while it is moving away. As scientists believed that the earth and all celestial objects move in an ether substance, they concluded that the speed of light traveling in different directions in this ether must have different values. In 1878, Michelson became interested in measuring the speed of light. While working on this problem, he developed an instrument called an interferential refractometer, which he used to measure the effect of the ether. By splitting a beam of light so that two sections traveled at right angles to each other, with the movement of the earth through the ether, one of the two beams would be affected by the ether. Although this instrument 1654
was extremely sensitive, it produced no measurable results. Michelson’s attempts to measure the effect of the ether faced two major problems: first, a debate on whether the ether itself was stationary or moving, hence producing different results; second, the possibility that the instrument itself produced experimental errors. Undaunted by these setbacks, Michelson teamed up with Edward Williams Morley in 1885 to redesign the experiment. In the process of developing instruments for the experiment, Michelson and Morley undertook the challenge of determining the length of the international meter bar in Paris. By providing an exact length of the meter bar in terms of the light wavelength of cadmium, Michelson transformed light into a standard of measurement. As a result of the precise nature of the experiment, Michelson achieved international recognition. During this period, Michelson developed another instrument called an interferometer. This device showed the interference patterns for light waves when light
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Albert A. Michelson. (AP/Wide World Photos)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Although astronomers expected this result, the information brought an immediate reaction from the public. Most people found the idea that a star has a diameter equal to the orbit of Mars almost beyond comprehension. For scientists, this heralded a new era in which an instrument could measure with precision an object 150 lightyears away. Michelson formally announced his findings at a joint meeting of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science on December 29, 1920. Significance When Hale erected the Hooker telescope, it was his intention to foster a revolution in astronomy. Although the science of astronomy extends thousands of years back to the ancient Babylonians, astronomers in the early twentieth century knew little about the evolution of stars, the form and shape of the universe, or the matter within it. Michelson’s measurement of the diameter of a star was one step in the realization of Hale’s vision. In 1928, the members of the Optical Society of America named their annual meeting after Michelson in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of his first paper on the speed of light. In dedicating the meeting to him, the Society said that Michelson had established light as a standard or “measuring rod” of the physical sciences. If light traveled in a medium, then its speed would depend on the relative motion of its source. Therefore, the absolute value of the velocity of light in a vacuum can be used as a device to measure the universe. The task of measuring the universe occupied the talents and activities of astronomers for the first half of the twentieth century. In 1912, while studying a cluster of stars (Cepheids) in the constellation Cepheus, Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered that it is possible to determine distances by comparing the true brightness of the stars. In 1920, while using this Cepheid method, Harlow Shapley used the Hooker telescope and determined the size and shape of our galaxy. As Hale had promised during the construction of the telescope, the revolution in astronomy was about to begin. In 1924, Edwin Powell Hubble led the charge by measuring the distance to the Andromeda nebula (soon to be classified as a galaxy). By 1929, he theorized Hubble’s law, which stated that galaxies recede from Earth in proportion to their distance from Earth. These discoveries ended the notion that had existed for thousands of years that Earth was not only at the center of our galaxy but also at the center of the universe. The Michelson interferometer played an important role in this new age of astronomy. The resolving power 1655
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waves intersect each other. For example, when light waves hit a screen with two small pinholes, the pattern behind the screen shows alternating patterns of light and dark areas. Similarly, light waves that arrive at different times also will show an interference fringe. No such fringe was found, however. In 1905, Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity, which holds that the speed of light is a constant in a vacuum. There was no longer a need for the ether. Over the course of his life, however, Michelson attempted to refine his experiment and prove the existence of the ether. In 1918, at the end of World War I, Michelson was sixty-six years old but still filled with ideas on new experiments and instruments. Even though he was saddled with increasing administrative responsibilities at the University of Chicago, he began to travel to California for the summers. He divided his time between the California Institute of Technology and the nearby Mount Wilson Observatory. One of his experiments was a return to the ether problem; in another project he used the interferometer to measure the size of a star. Earlier, George Ellery Hale had obtained the funds for the building of the Mount Wilson Observatory and had overseen its construction. By 1908, Hale had constructed a 60-inch (152-centimeter) reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson. Not satisfied with this achievement, he constructed the 100-inch (254-centimeter) Hooker telescope, which was the largest telescope in the world until Hale built the Palomar Observatory in 1929. Michelson saw the possibility of using the Hooker telescope, along with a redesigned interferometer, to measure the diameter of a star. He chose Betelgeuse (Orionis) in the constellation of Orion. In 1920, the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington had made a calculation of the size of Betelgeuse based on surface radiation. This figure, however, was based on theoretical deductions rather than direct instrumental measurement. Consequently, Michelson’s measurement served not only to corroborate Eddington’s figure but also to substantiate part of the theoretical foundations of astronomy. For the experiment, Michelson blacked out all of the star except for the extreme edges; his interferometer picked up the light of these edges through slits. On December 13, 1920, while Michelson was in Chicago, his assistant, Francis Gladheim Pease, reported the final readings that Betelgeuse had a diameter of 386 million kilometers (239.8 million miles). This figure turned out to be very close to the one calculated by Eddington.
Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star
Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star of this instrument was limited only by the size of the rigid and vibration-free grid that can be constructed. In addition, during adverse sighting conditions, the instrument can continue to separate the light source distinctly. However, Michelson’s contributions to more precise measurements of the universe did not end a series of debates on the theoretical foundations of astronomy, such as the rate of expansion and the age and formation of the universe. Toward the end of the 1940’s, the “big bang” theory was one resolution of these problems. —Victor W. Chen Further Reading Clark, David H., and Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Relates the stories of the scientists who have contributed to current knowledge about the size, mass, and age of the universe. Chapters 4 and 5 include discussion of the work of Hubble and Leavitt. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Jaffe, Bernard. Michelson and the Speed of Light. 1960. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Solid source of information on a number of Michelson’s experiments, accessible to the general reader. Details the scientific debates involving the speed of light. Livingston, Dorothy Michelson. The Master of Light: A Biography of Albert A. Michelson. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1973. Amusing, gossipy, and highly readable account of Michelson’s life by his daughter. Includes her collection of papers and memorabilia. Millikan, Robert A. “Biographical Memoirs of Albert Abraham Michelson, 1852-1931.” Biographical
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 19 (1938): 120-147. Covers Michelson’s career and offers some observations on his contributions to science. Millikan, a highly respected scientist, was both a student and colleague of Michelson. Swenson, Lloyd S., Jr. The Ethereal Aether: A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-Drift Experiments, 1880-1930. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. Focuses less on Michelson than on the resolve of solid and creative scientists to prove a theory. Includes some technical discussion best suited for readers with science background. Watson, Fred. Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. History of the telescope’s development includes discussion of the impacts on society of the discoveries the instrument has made possible. Presents the stories of the astronomers and other scientists responsible for advances in telescope technology. Wright, Helen. Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale. 1966. Reprint. Melville, N.Y.: American Institute of Physics Press, 1994. Describes the life and activities of one of the pioneers in the development of large-scale, high-technology science. Includes drawings and photographs. See also: 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory; Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity; Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established
December 13, 1920
Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established The Assembly of the League of Nations created the first world court in the hope of securing legal solutions to international disputes. Locale: The Hague, the Netherlands Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event Although ecclesiastical courts existed prior to the emergence of the modern state system, the post-World War I era lacked an international court to which contentious cases could be submitted. As a result, most disputes between and among nations were resolved through diplomacy, conflict, or arbitration. Arbitration’s roots of this method hail back to the classical times, particularly to the ancient Greeks, who developed extensive procedures for settling disputes. However, in modern times, arbitration tended to be ad hoc in nature. In contrast, permanent courts would provide governments with reliable and continuous institutional bodies before which countries could argue their legal disputes and seek binding judgments. Efforts to develop regional machinery for the settlement of legal (as opposed to political) disputes included the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, which proposed the development of a system for the pacific settlement of disputes that eventually resulted in the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (also known as the Hague Tribunal). However, this system was less a court than a list of arbitrators from which disputing states could each choose two individuals, only one of which could be a national of their state, to sit on an arbitral panel. The four selected arbitrators would then select a fifth umpire to make up an arbitral panel of five, which would hear the dispute. This system’s ability to function depended on the development of an elaborate set of bilateral agreements among the signatory states, and only fourteen disputes were re-
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Key Figures Édouard Eugène François Descamps (1847-1933), Belgian statesman and jurist who headed the Advisory Committee of Jurists James Eric Drummond (1876-1951), British statesman and first general secretary of the League of Nations Bernard Cornelis Johannes Loder (1849-1935), Dutch politician and first president of the Permanent Court of International Justice
solved under this system during its 1902-1914 existence. Nonetheless, the practice of arbitration between governments expanded, and a regional effort to go beyond arbitration to judicial settlement by a permanent court was attempted by five Central American governments in 1907, when the Central American Court of Justice was established. This court, however, also proved to be a temporary and largely unsuccessful experiment. The events of World War I ushered in a more determined effort by governments to peacefully resolve disputes. This desire was especially evident in the negotiation of the Covenant of the League of Nations and the establishment of the League of Nations in 1919. Article 14 of the League Covenant contained a provision for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which would be “competent to hear any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it.” Article 14 also provided that such a court could offer advisory opinions to the League Council or Assembly on questions submitted to it by those bodies. Although the proposed PCIJ was given its own legal statute and member states of the League of Nations were not required to submit themselves to its jurisdiction, the PCIJ was still a by-product of the League’s deliberations. The Advisory Council of Jurists, headed by Édouard Eugène François Descamps of Belgium, met in June of 1920 to draft the PCIJ’s constitution. This document was submitted to the chief political bodies of the League and the League Council, which deliberated on the proposal and made amendments. The chief deliberations were undertaken by a subcommittee of the Assembly’s Third Committee, and the revised statute was unanimously approved by the League Assembly on December 13, 1920. However, the assembly believed that its vote was insufficient to establish the PCIJ, and so it directed the League Council to submit the statute to individual League members for ratification. Members began signing the statue on December 16, 1920, and by September of 1921, the majority of League members had ratified the protocol. The League’s secretary-general, James Eric Drummond, compiled a list of eighty-nine prospective judges from nominations by governments. Eleven PCIJ judges and three deputy judges were elected through a complicated process that occurred both independently and concurrently in the League Council and the League Assembly starting in September of 1921. Once the League had
Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established
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elected the judges, the newly formed PCIJ drew up rules of procedure at its first preliminary session, which was held on January 30, 1922, at its headquarters in the Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands. Judge Bernard Cornelis Johannes Loder of the Netherlands presided over the PCIJ’s first session on February 15, 1922. The court could hear cases brought to it by parties to the Statute, or on a voluntary basis by states not party to the PCIJ Statute. Many countries observed the practice in their treaty making to confer jurisdiction on the PCIJ as the legal body designated to hear disputes arising out of bilateral and multilateral treaties. Although there were many points of contact between the PCIJ and the League of Nations, the court was an independent body, and members of the League were not automatically members of the PCIJ Statute.
governments as an important source of clarification on certain aspects of international law, and in some cases, the court’s judgments helped to promote the development of international law. After the outbreak of World War II, the court continued as a largely moribund entity until it was replaced by the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ). The PCIJ met for the last time in October of 1945, and on January 31, 1946, all of the PCIJ judges resigned. In February of 1946, the U.N. General Assembly elected the first ICJ judges. In April of 1946 the PCIJ formally disbanded, and the ICJ met for the first time. Although the ICJ was an integral organ of the United Nations and did not have the PCIJ’s independent status, its statute was nonetheless largely based on the precedent set by the PCIJ, which had developed a solid and workable system. The PCIJ continued to live on in the work of its successor. — Robert F. Gorman
Significance The PCIJ proved to be a useful first modern experiment at developing a permanent international court. It had a formal registry that remained in contact with governments and League bodies. It heard twenty-nine contentious cases from 1922 to 1939, when World War II forced it to move its headquarters from The Hague to Geneva, Switzerland, and for all intents and purposes it ceased to function as an active body during the war years. The PCIJ also delivered twenty-seven advisory opinions concerning matters referred to it by the League of Nations. The cases heard often involved ongoing disputes rooted in the events of World War I, including the status of disputed territories under peace agreements, arguments over interpretation and application of postwar settlements, rights of minority populations, and disputes concerning sovereignty over territories. In its jurisprudence, the PCIJ applied and sometimes clarified customary law and general principles of law, while cleaving closely to conventional obligations incurred by states through treaties. Although the court lacked compulsory jurisdiction, the statute’s Optional Clause allowed member states to accept compulsory jurisdiction for certain kinds of legal disputes with or without reservations, and many governments chose to temporarily bind themselves under the Optional Clause. Governments also availed themselves of the court as a means by which they could settle disputes in a legal setting. In addition to serving as a means for dispute settlement, the PCIJ was regarded by both legal scholars and
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Further Reading Hudson, Manley O. The Permanent Court of International Justice 1920-1942: A Treatise. New York: Macmillan, 1943. A classic history and legal study of the PCIJ. _______, ed. World Court Reports: A Collection of the Judgments, Orders, and Opinions of the Permanent Court of International Justice. Reprint. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2000. A complete collection of PCIJ decisions. Von Glahn, Gerhardt. Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public International Law. New York: Longman, 1996. Includes a chapter on peaceful settlement of disputes, containing a useful summary on the history of arbitration, adjudication, and the role of the PCIJ. See also: Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis; Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure
December 29, 1920
General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure The decentralized, multidivisional organizational structure that Alfred P. Sloan developed for General Motors became a model for large-scale enterprise. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Trade and commerce; business and labor; manufacturing and industry
Summary of Event On December 29, 1920, the board of directors of General Motors (GM) approved the recommendation of Pierre du Pont, the company’s president, that the corporation adopt Alfred P. Sloan’s plan for a decentralized, multidivisional organization. This scheme set up autonomous operating divisions assisted by a corporate advisory staff that provided specialized services. The staff also acted as a liaison between divisions and the central office, which established company policies and coordinated the activities of the various divisions. Du Pont also presided over the installation of financial and statistical controls that enabled the company to monitor the operating divisions, chiefly through short-term and long-term forecasts. These controls enhanced GM’s capacity to respond quickly to market changes. The origins of this structure grew out of the policies of GM’s founder, William Crapo Durant. A successful salesman who turned a carriage-making operation into a national business through an effective distribution network, Durant moved into the infant automobile business in 1904, when he purchased the floundering Buick Motor Company. Excited by the potential in this market, Durant relied on his distribution network to sell the cars produced by his retooled carriage operation. He also purchased companies necessary for manufacturing parts and accessories. On September 8, 1908, Durant brought
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Key Figures Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966), American corporate executive William Crapo Durant (1861-1947), founder of General Motors Pierre du Pont (1870-1954), chairman of the board and president of General Motors Irénée du Pont (1876-1963), president of the Du Pont Corporation, 1911-1926 John Jakob Raskob (1879-1950), treasurer of the Du Pont Corporation and later a member of the General Motors finance committee
these operations together under the legal name General Motors. Durant’s continued success in this new industry depended on a constantly expanding market to justify his company’s increasingly larger capacity. The flourishing sales of GM cars appeared to sustain Durant’s faith in consumer demand and the absence of any sizable cash reserves at GM. The company faced a sharp economic downturn in 1912 without sufficient resources to meet the immediate financial crisis sparked by the brief recession. To meet the cash demands, Durant agreed to a loan of fifteen million dollars from a combination of Boston and New York bankers in exchange for his effective departure from the operations of GM. By 1916, Durant had parlayed the financial strength of the Chevrolet Motor Company, which he formed with Louis Chevrolet in 1911, to take control of more than half of the GM stock. With the reluctant support of Pierre du Pont, chairman of GM’s board of directors since September, 1915, Durant won overwhelming controlling interest in the automaker and forced out the coalition of bankers. From 1916 to 1920, Durant engaged in a massive expansion program. In May, 1916, he acquired the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company and New Departure Manufacturing, both of which he placed under the holding company United Motors Corporation (UMC). Durant appointed Alfred P. Sloan, the capable head of the Hyatt operation, to the position of president of UMC. Durant then added numerous other companies to UMC. Concerned about this costly expansion, du Pont asked John Jakob Raskob, treasurer of the Du Pont Corporation and also du Pont’s confidant, to serve as financial adviser to Durant, insisting that the finance committee come under the control of the Du Pont Corporation so that Durant’s spending could be monitored. Du Pont soon discovered, however, that the finance committee lacked the statistical capacity to restrain Durant’s excessive spending. After the end of World War I, Durant renewed his expansion through vertical integration. With Pierre du Pont’s blessing, Durant bought the Fisher Body Corporation, a longtime supplier without which GM could barely survive. The GM founder also acquired the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco), chiefly to secure the services of owner Charles Franklin Kettering, a leading figure in the industry. Durant made these purchases in part through a loan from du Pont of fifty million
General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure dollars, but his strategy flew in the face of the caution urged by Pierre du Pont. In 1920, a sharp drop in the automobile industry brought GM close to bankruptcy. Durant personally owed creditors almost thirty million dollars, for which he had used GM stock as collateral. The stock’s rapidly shrinking value forced Durant to sell his shares to the du Pont organization and J. P. Morgan & Company to meet his financial obligations. In the wake of Durant’s departure, Pierre du Pont assumed the presidency of GM. In one of his first acts, du Pont adopted Alfred P. Sloan’s plan as the basis of GM’s structure. Sloan had acquired a keen understanding of organizational structure as head of UMC. In that role, he sold to most of GM’s subsidiaries and came to grasp the inherent dangers in the lack of any integrated system of organization in a company of this type. In his scheme, Sloan proposed autonomous divisions independent of executive intrusion but responsible for their financial performance and subject to the general policies of the corporation. Eventually, Sloan created five price brackets in the automobile division, with Cadillac the most expensive and lowest in volume and Chevrolet at the lowest price and highest volume. Through this arrangement, Sloan hoped to end the competition among GM models that had prevailed under Durant. Sloan also brought together the numerous parts and accessory units that had been scattered among GM subsidiaries and placed them in two separate divisions. Sloan’s general office left untouched the model Pierre du Pont had set up in his effort to build controls at GM before Durant’s departure. The general office consisted of the finance and executive committees, both designed to establish companywide policies and explicitly avoid the routine matters left to the divisions. Sloan expected the members of these committees to be generalists. The finance committee’s jurisdiction included salaries of GM’s top executives, dividend rates, and capital requests of more than $300,000. All corporate financial policies came under this committee’s authority. The executive committee concentrated its energies on evaluating GM divisions, determining the prices for company products, and formulating long-term plans. Sloan invested the company president with the authority to enforce policies created by these committees. In this task, the top executive was assisted by his personal staff as well as by the appropriations committee, which was led by du Pont’s trusted adviser John Lee Pratt. One of the chief elements of Sloan’s scheme, the advisory staff, played a crucial role in integrating the constituent parts of the giant enterprise. These consisted of 1660
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 engineering, research, manufacturing, and plant layout sections; the legal and patent offices; and plant engineering, personnel, real estate, purchasing, and sales sections. The staff provided data for the central office to use in evaluating the performance of GM’s divisions. The staff also facilitated the tasks of the divisional managers by supplying them with technical information. Sloan also introduced interdivisional committees, which facilitated contact among GM’s executives. These committees, headed by representatives from the executive committee, relied on their own staffs. The interdivisional committees assumed responsibility for key corporate issues, from developing new products to sales and advertising. Du Pont realized that GM needed some means of monitoring production and market demand. To accomplish this end, he recruited personnel from the Du Pont Corporation to develop a system of forecasting that depended on three-month projections, estimated monthly by each division. These estimates served as the bases for purchases of everything from raw materials to human resources. Reallocations were made every thirty days, depending on current performance and projections. This scheme gave GM a flexible budget system, then unprecedented among large-scale companies, and allowed it to avert any threat comparable to that of 1920. By 1925, GM had achieved notoriety as one of the most innovative and best-organized companies in American industry. Significance The innovations pioneered at GM were implemented throughout American industry from the 1920’s through the 1950’s. The central office, the advisory staff, and the multidivisional structure pioneered at GM slowly acquired a permanence in much of large-scale industry. Word of these changes spread through the business community through the speeches and writings of Sloan and others involved in the GM transition. Companies’ motivations to adopt this scheme varied depending on the markets and products involved as well as the companies’ own internal makeup. Corporations in the chemical and electrical industries provide examples of these variations. The largest chemical operation, Du Pont, developed its new multidivisional structure at the same time GM was implementing Sloan’s decentralized plan. In 1917, Du Pont embraced a strategy of product diversification. The company expanded from explosives to plastics, paints, dyestuffs, and other products. This decision transformed Du Pont into a multiple-industry company and
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1927, Ford had lost out in competition with GM and other auto manufacturers, and its forced retrenchment led to the design and production of the Model A. During that period, competitors made serious inroads into Ford’s 55 percent share of the market. The Ford Motor Company continued to lose ground in the market. Badly managed and poorly organized, it simply lacked the capacity to dominate the auto industry. Only the departure of Henry Ford and the arrival of his grandson, Henry Ford II, brought change to the company. Henry Ford II recognized the problems inherited from his grandfather and set about repairing them. Although he lacked any technical education, he knew the automobile business. He fired ineffective top managers and recruited personnel from GM to introduce the multidivisional structure and uniform accounting system to Ford. By the 1960’s, the company had recovered from near collapse. From 1920 through the 1950’s, much of large-scale American industry underwent a massive reorganization that produced companies with greater flexibility and enhanced capacity to respond to market changes and demands. The motivation for this reorganization varied: Multiple-industry companies needed to use a multidivisional scheme for more effective autonomous production; loosely federated enterprises such as GM demanded better coordination. Flexibility and coordination became the hallmarks of American industry by the 1950’s. —Edward J. Davies II Further Reading Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. “Management Decentralization: An Historical Analysis.” Business History Review 30 (June, 1956): 111-174. A good starting point for understanding the key issues in the process of corporate restructuring. Provides an overview of the spread of the decentralized model of corporate structure throughout key industries and explains variations in the adoption of this scheme. _______. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise. 1962. Reprint. Frederick, Md.: Beard Books, 1996. A key work on the organization of the American corporation. Includes a discussion of centralized structure, product diversification, and decentralization. Chapters include extensive analyses of Du Pont, General Motors, Standard Oil, and Sears, Roebuck and Company. Chapter 7 reviews the spread of the multidivisional structure throughout American industry. 1661
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made obsolete the old centralized structure organized around functions, such as marketing and manufacturing. In 1920, the president of the Du Pont Corporation, Irénée du Pont, decided that the company’s range of products had far outstripped the technical capacity of its executives and introduced a multidivisional structure. This decision accommodated the new strategy and set up autonomous divisions, each handling one product type. The company also established an executive committee free of the daily routine and dedicated to coordinating the activities of the corporation’s divisions and determining corporate policy. The new organizational scheme also included a service department, which acted in an advisory capacity to both the central office and the divisions. Unlike Du Pont, which coped with a multiplicity of new products, Union Carbide confronted the demand for an effective central office, much like the demand facing GM. In 1917, four large companies—Carbide, Prest-olite, Linde, and National Carbon—merged to form the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, commonly known as Union Carbide. During the 1920’s, the new firm purchased smaller chemical companies and created a range of new products through research and development. The company consciously adopted the multidivisional scheme to meet the organizational strain of the merger and expansion. It grouped its more than twenty divisions into four autonomous sections, each under a vice president. It also established a service department, which acted in an advisory capacity. At the same time, the company created an executive committee that assumed overall direction of the company. By the 1950’s, the leading corporations in the electrical industry had moved to the multidivisional structure developed at GM and Du Pont. General Electric (GE) shifted into household appliances during the 1920’s, and by the 1950’s the company had put in place seven groups based on product types, which ranged from appliances to lamps. GE had also set up eleven service divisions that replaced the old staff departments (engineering, manufacturing, research, and sales). The earlier departments actually exercised authority, whereas the new service divisions acted only in an advisory capacity. GE also established a central office comparable to GM’s. Not all companies immediately moved in the direction of GM and Du Pont. Henry Ford, for example, rejected any notion of decentralization and clung to the old centralized system, with its managerial hierarchy and vertical integration. In the early 1920’s, the Ford Motor Company ranked as one of the ten largest corporations in the world, and its Model T remained unchallenged. By
General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure
General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure _______. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1977. Excellent discussion of the evolution of the corporate enterprise and management in the United States from the 1840’s through the early twentieth century. Chapter 14, “The Maturing of the Modern Business Enterprise,” deals with the spread of the multidivisional organization throughout American industry. Includes a discussion of the professionalization of management after 1900. Chandler, Alfred D., Jr., and Stephen Salsbury. Pierre S. du Pont and the Making of the Modern Corporation. 1971. Reprint. Frederick, Md.: Beard Books, 2001. Section 4 includes careful analysis of the role Pierre du Pont played in the adaptation of financial methods from the Du Pont Corporation to General Motors and in the creation of a central office comparable to that developed at Du Pont. Explains Pierre du Pont’s role in adopting Sloan’s decentralized structure at General Motors. Johnson, H. Thomas. “Management Accounting in an Early Multidivisional Organization: General Motors in the 1920s.” In Managing Big Business: Essays from the Business History Review, edited by Richard S. Tedlow and Richard R. John, Jr. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1986. Provides an excellent description of the accounting techniques developed for GM. Analyzes the price study, the yearly company forecast, and the standard volume, an estimate of capacity that played a key role in forecasting and in evaluation of division performance. Also reviews Sloan’s ten-day sales report and the flexible budgets used at GM.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kaysen, Carl, ed. The American Corporation Today. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Collection of essays on all aspects of the American corporation at the end of the twentieth century, including its history and variations in structure. Livesay, Harold C. “Entrepreneurial Persistenc Through the Bureaucratic Age.” In Managing Big Business: Essays from the Business History Review, edited by Richard S. Tedlow and Richard R. John, Jr. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1986. Includes an insightful discussion of Henry Ford II and his direction of Ford Motor Company from near bankruptcy at the end of World War II to recovery and prosperity by 1960. Also examines the extensive overseas activities of Ford under Henry Ford II. Sloan, Alfred P., Jr. My Years with General Motors. 1963. Reprint. New York: Currency, 1990. Clearly expresses Sloan’s ideas on structuring General Motors and the motivation for this move. Describes the many issues involved in operating the central office and instituting financial controls. Indispensable for understanding the changes at General Motors. Also includes good background information on Sloan. See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Rise of the French Communist Party
December 29, 1920
Rise of the French Communist Party At the Tours Congress of the French Socialist Party, a large percentage of the delegates voted to become affiliated with the Communist International (or Comintern), which required the establishment of a French Communist Party (FCP) based on the ideas of Vladimir Ilich Lenin. The founders of the FCP supported and hoped to follow the example of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Key Figures Marcel Cachin (1869-1958), French communist who edited the newspaper L’Humanité Louis-Oscar Frossard (1889-1946), French communist leader Léon Blum (1872-1950), leader of France’s Democratic Socialist Party Fernand Loriot (1870-1932), French Bolshevik who attended the congress Paul Faure (1880-1963), centrist socialist who attended the congress Jean Longuet (1876-1938), centrist socialist who attended the congress Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leading Russian communist theorist and politician Jean Jaurès (1859-1914), French socialist who inspired both sides at the Tours Congress Summary of Event The French Communist Party (FCP) was born on the evening of December 29, 1920, in the Salle de Manège at Tours. The occasion was the Unified Socialist Party’s Eighteenth Congress, in which 285 delegates debated and cast ballots on a motion for the party to join the Communist International, or Comintern. The motion passed, with 3,208 votes for and 1,022 against membership. In order to join the Comintern, the socialists had to accept twenty-one conditions for membership, one of which was that the party change its name from the Unified Socialist Party to the French Communist Party. Although the idea of socialism (the social ownership of the means of production) had long been popular in France, socialist groups disagreed about tactics and other
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Also known as: Tours Congress Locale: Tours, France Categories: Government and politics; organizations and institutions
ideological issues. Moderate socialists were willing to make compromises with capitalists (who believed in individual ownership of private property), and these moderates hoped to gradually achieve socialism through reforms and democratic elections. Radicals, in contrast, disdained reformism, and they usually assumed that a violent revolution was both necessary and desirable. In 1905, most of the socialist groups of France agreed to merge into the Unified Socialist Party, which was also called the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO). This composite party, however, was unable to unify its members’ disparate opinions. After World War I, socialists and other left-wing forces in France were extremely frustrated by a series of reversals. In April of 1919, the French government provided workers with an eight-hour day, and in doing so it prevented a general strike that had been planned for the next month. This was followed by the acquittal of the man who had been accused of murdering the famous socialist leader Jean Jaurès. In the legislative elections of November, the number of socialist deputies declined from 168 to 68 delegates, and some of the best-known socialist leaders were defeated. During the early months of 1920, a large railway strike ended in total failure, and the government imprisoned labor leaders and prominent socialists who had supported the strike. The majority of French socialists were thrilled by triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) in Russia. Discouraged by socialism’s limited success in France, the left wing of the SFIO believed that the Bolsheviks’ success demonstrated the need for a rejection of timidity and reformism. The right wing of the SFIO, in contrast, had serious reservations about the nondemocratic ideas and violent tactics promoted by Vladimir Ilich Lenin and the Bolsheviks. While moderates opposed the French government’s military involvement in the Russian Civil War (1918-1921), they had no intention of forming an alliance with the Bolsheviks. Given the economic problems that emerged during the post-World War I years, many informed observers believed that the triumph of the Russian Revolution might trigger similar revolutions elsewhere in Europe, especially in the industrialized countries. In early 1919, Lenin called for socialist parties around the world to send delegates to Moscow, where they would consider a global organization to support the cause of revolutionary communism. Lenin argued that the earlier Second Inter-
Rise of the French Communist Party national had failed because its leaders had made fatal compromises with capitalism and had supported patriotic regimes during the war. In July, the Communist International (also known as the Comintern or Third International) held its first congress. France’s Unified Socialist Party sent two delegates, Marcel Cachin and Louis-Oscar Frossard, to observe the congress. Both men favored adhesion to the Comintern, but they had no authority to speak for the entire party. Based on Lenin’s theory that a communist party should lead the working classes, the conditions for participation in the Third International were quite stringent. In July of 1920, hopeful that a revolution was imminent in Germany, delegates to the organization’s second congress agreed that all member parties had to agree to twenty-one demands. All member parties were required to prepare for a violent seizure of power, eliminate their moderate and reformist elements, refuse cooperation with moderate socialist organizations, maintain a centralized organizational structure, and support the cause of communism in Russia. Lenin refused to accept any reservations toward or modifications of these demands. The socialist parties of Italy and Norway quickly accepted the conditions. Although parties in France, Germany, and Britain were sympathetic, they were hesitant to join the Comintern. The Tours Congress, which opened on December 25, 1920, had 285 French delegates, who represented eightynine of ninety-five socialist federations. The delegates engaged in a vigorous debate about whether or not to join the Comintern and were largely divided along three lines: The left wing included both authentic Bolsheviks such as Fernand Loriot and pro-Soviet politicians such as Cachin and Frossard. The right wing, which was led by Léon Blum, firmly opposed many of the twenty-one demands. The center, led by Jean Longuet and Paul Faure, favored conditional association with the Comintern but hoped for a liberalization of the twenty-one demands. Loriot, Cachin, and others who favored joining the Comintern denounced reformism and praised Lenin’s model of a well-organized, uncompromising revolutionary party founded on the Marxist-Leninist ideology. In contrast, Blum argued against the abandoning of democratic socialism for the dictatorship of a central committee. Although he accepted the idea of a socialist revolution, he insisted that such a revolution could only come about at the proper stage of capitalist development, when the masses were adequately prepared. Predicting that the Bolsheviks would utilize terror and permanent dictatorship, he insisted that such methods were not a suitable basis for the French republic. 1664
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 After the delegates voted to accept the twenty-one demands, Blum declared that the “old house,” or the SFIO, would continue the struggle for the triumph of democratic socialism. A representative of the Comintern demanded that the party expel all persons advocating compromise and reformism, including Longuet and Faure. The Congress quickly acquiesced, and Blum’s group and the Longuet-Faure minority left the hall together. Significance The vote in favor of joining the Comintern and establishing the French Communist Party produced an enduring schism among French socialists that ended the tenuous unity that had begun in 1905. The left-wing faction that formed the FCP took over the party newspaper, L’Humanité, and Blum assumed leadership of the SFIO. Since three-quarters of the votes at Tours had accepted the Leninist point of view, the future of the SFIO appeared rather bleak. In 1921, the Communist Party had a membership of 120,000, while the SFIO had only 40,000. The SFIO’s less rigid ideas, however, were apparently more compatible with France’s political culture. Within four years, membership in the FCP had declined to 60,000, and the SFIO’s numbers had risen to 73,000. In the election of 1932, the SFIO received almost 2 million votes, while the Communists received fewer than 800,000. In later decades, France’s Communist and Socialist Parties continued to adhere to the basic orientations expressed at the Tours Congress. Until communism began to crumble in the 1980’s, the FCP generally remained faithful to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and took its directions from the Soviet Union. The SFIO, in contrast, increasingly followed the path of reformism, compromise, and participation in coalition governments. —Thomas Tandy Lewis Further Reading Colton, Joel. Léon Blum: Humanist in Politics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. A well-written biography that includes an excellent discussion of the 1920 division between the Democratic Socialists and the advocates of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Lacouture, Jean. Leon Blum. Translated by George Holoch. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. A readable biography that analyzes Blum’s ideas and includes large passages from his speech at the Tours Congress. Lazitch, Branko. Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1973. Provides information that is difficult to find about the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 relatively unknown people who participated in the Third International. Mortimer, Edward. The Rise of the French Communist Party, 1920-1947. London: Faber & Faber, 1984. The most readable treatment of the early history of the French Communist Party, including its leaders and policies. Pipes, Richard. Communism: A History. New York: Random House, 2003. A scholarly account of international Communism, with an emphasis on the history of the Soviet Union. Written from a strongly antiCommunist point of view. Tiersky, Tonald. French Communism, 1920-1972. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974. Although this book is rather sketchy about the early period, it presents an excellent explanation of the differences between France’s Democratic Socialists and the communists.
Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student Wohl, Robert. French Communism in the Making, 19141924. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1966. A detailed monograph that includes a great deal of material about the Tours Congress. See also: Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics; Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences; Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime.
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Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student After winning a scholarship to a prestigious French music school, Aaron Copland reluctantly attended Nadia Boulanger’s class on music theory, thus beginning a relationship that had profound consequences for the development of American music. Locale: Fontainebleau, France Category: Music Key Figures Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), influential French composer, conductor, and teacher of music Aaron Copland (1900-1990), first of Boulanger’s American students and a major American composer Herbert Elwell (1898-1974), composer, critic, and teacher who studied with Boulanger Walter Piston (1894-1976), composer and teacher who studied with Boulanger Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951), conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and ardent supporter of the compositions of Copland and Piston Virgil Thomson (1896-1989), student of Boulanger who wrote highly unusual stage works in collaboration with Gertrude Stein Summary of Event By the age of eleven, Aaron Copland was composing short musical pieces. As a teenager, he tried to attend as
many concerts as he could. He then turned to the study of musical theory, realizing that this was the only way to become a professional composer. Rubin Goldmark became Copland’s teacher of theory from 1917 to the spring of 1921. Goldmark taught Copland the fine points of composition; Copland also studied piano under the tutelage of Leopold Wolfsohn and Victor Wittgenstein. In the magazine Musical America, Copland read of a plan by the French government to establish a summer school for American musicians in Fontainebleau, France. The plan intrigued Copland, who immediately sent in his application. He was readily accepted—in fact, he was the first student to be signed up for the unusual teaching experience. During the four years that he studied with Goldmark, Copland worked hard and conscientiously, never getting more than a glimpse of Goldmark’s other students. At Fontainebleau in the summer of 1921, his musical experience would be changed and enriched. Now he would be studying with other bright musical hopefuls. One such friend was Djina Ostrowska, a harpist who was the only woman in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. After a great deal of urging and encouraging, Ostrowska persuaded Copland to attend one of Nadia Boulanger’s classes. Copland, however, believed that he had already studied enough theory. He later recalled his pivotal discussion with Ostrowska: 1665
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land became the first American student to study with the renowned French instructor, paving the way for other Americans to cross the Atlantic and study at Fontainebleau. When Copland was introduced to Boulanger, she was When Copland succumbed to Ostrowska’s promptalready teaching harmony at the Paris Conservatoire. ings, he was amazed to find a teacher who was able to Music was Boulanger’s life; as well as having a full comshow him new ways of looking at harmony. He later plement of students, she taught organ and counterpoint at wrote, “I suspected that first day that I had found my the École Normale de Musique. During the summer, she composition teacher.” As a result of this meeting, Coptaught twice a week at Fontainebleau. Even though Copland continued to participate in the musical experience at Fontainebleau, it was as a private student that he disBoulanger’s Famous Students covered the musical wealth that BouGiven that neither Boulanger nor her assistant, Annette Dieudonné, kept reclanger represented. There was no forords of students, it is impossible to form a complete list of musicians who studmal examination to be accepted as a ied with Boulanger. Nonetheless, the names below, which are some of the most student of Boulanger. At Copland’s famous in music, provide some sense of Boulanger’s influence. first meeting, he played a piece with a strong jazz idiom. Goldmark had • Burt Bacharach (b. 1928), pianist, composer considered it avant-garde, almost too • Daniel Barenboim (b. 1942), pianist, conductor modern for the time. Boulanger liked • Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), composer, arranger the piece, however, and invited Cop• Lennox Berkeley (1903-1969), composer land to return. Acceptance by a mu• Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), pianist, composer, conductor • Idil Biret (b. 1941), concert pianist sician of such stature assured Cop• Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964), composer land’s success as a composer. During • Elliott Carter (b. 1908), composer the three years he studied with Bou• Paul Chihara (b. 1938), composer langer, Copland’s music matured and • Aaron Copland (1900-1990), composer grew. • Clifford Curzon (1907-1982), pianist Boulanger led what appeared to • David Diamond (1915-2005), composer be a somewhat austere life. She lived • Jean Françaix (1912-1997), composer, pianist, orchestrator contentedly with her mother, who • Sir John Eliot Gardiner (b. 1943), conductor was of Russian aristocratic stock, in • Philip Glass (b. 1937), composer a Paris apartment. Each Wednesday • Roy Harris (1898-1979), composer afternoon, Boulanger and her mother • Quincy Jones (b. 1933), music arranger, record producer • Wojciech Kilar (b. 1932), film music composer entertained many musical greats. • Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911-1984), musicologist, harpsichordist Copland was thus introduced to • Gail Kubik (1914-1984), composer, film scorist, violinist, teacher Boulanger’s inner circle of friends, • Robert D. Levin (b. 1942), pianist, composer which included Igor Stravinsky, Dar• Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), pianist ius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and • Gian Carlo Menotti (b. 1911), composer, librettist Albert Roussel. Copland’s musical • Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), tango composer mentor happened to be Stravinsky, • Walter Piston (1894-1976), composer, music theorist and the opportunity to spend time • Ned Rorem (b. 1923), composer, diarist with a composer of such stature in• Harold Shapero (b. 1920), composer fluenced him greatly. The musical • Robert Sherlaw Johnson (1932-2000), composer, pianist, teacher, liturgist milieu that surrounded the Boulan• Charles Strouse (b. 1928), composer • Henryk Szeryng (1918-1988), violinist gers’ apartment gave the young Cop• Virgil Thomson (1896-1989), composer land all the confidence that any stu• David Ward-Steinman (b. 1936), composer, professor dent could want. • David Wilde (b. 1935), pianist, composer While she was not the most obvious person to lead the development I said to her, “I’ve had three years of harmony. I’m not interested in harmony classes.” But she repeatedly urged, “Just go and see the way she does it.” So I allowed myself to be persuaded.
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Significance Copland was the first of many young American composers who studied with Boulanger; he was followed by, among others, Virgil Thomson, Melville Smith, Herbert Elwell, and Walter Piston. Although Copland was the first of these to study advanced composition, Thomson and Smith came to Paris to study with Boulanger shortly after Copland did. Boulanger had a gift for helping composers explore the richness of musical literature, and time and again her students, particularly Copland, would draw from the lessons he learned from her. Clearly, Boulanger also saw great promise in Copland and his colleagues. During a conversation with Virgil Thomson
at the inauguration of the school for Americans in Fontainebleau, Boulanger mentioned that the United States was on the verge of producing some great music. While many of her European contemporaries shunned American music, Boulanger had the foresight to see it as an increasingly important part of the twentieth century music scene. Because of the devotion Boulanger inspired in her illustrious students, her influence on major American composers is unquestioned. The ways in which that influence manifested itself in the musical mainstream of the United States is less easy to determine, however. One clue may lie in what happened after Copland completed his formal training with Boulanger: She continued to give her opinion on the compositions shown to her as well as to introduce Copland to important musical figures, one of whom was Koussevitzky. In Copland’s discussions with Koussevitzky, the conductor suggested that Copland write an organ concerto. Koussevitzky was soon to take up the post of conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the piece would feature Boulanger as soloist on the organ. The end result was that the 1924 premiere of Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was performed by the New York Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Walter Damrosch. Copland was still a relatively unknown composer, but the concert brought him to the attention of the American music public, which was quick to acknowledge and appreciate the strong American idiom in his music. Damrosch and Koussevitzky continued to premiere Copland’s work as well as that of other Boulanger students. The strong connection that had been formed between the Paris musical community and those of New York and Boston only enhanced the standing of American composers. Just as she had done in Paris, Boulanger continued to influence American music through her connections with influential composers and conductors. Another important student of Boulanger was Walter Piston. While studying with Boulanger, Piston acquired a fine sense of counterpoint and was exposed to a great deal of new music. On returning to the United States, he accepted an academic position at Harvard University. When Edward Hill brought Piston to the attention of Koussevitzky, Piston’s works were premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During Piston’s association with Koussevitzky, eleven of the composer’s works were performed for the first time, and Piston received several prizes and honors. Meanwhile, Piston was also writing. His Harmony (1941) soon became a standard text in music schools and was followed by Counterpoint 1667
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of twentieth century music, Boulanger was indeed in the vanguard of modern musical composition. Copland recalled that he would often see Stravinsky’s latest scores in her apartment; Boulanger also introduced Copland to the work of the innovative Viennese composer Gustav Mahler. In the summer of 1922, Copland and Boulanger studied Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), Mahler’s latest composition. Copland’s early compositions were usually modest in breadth and depth. Although he wrote with a strong jazz idiom, Boulanger’s teaching method caused him to write much longer pieces. Whenever possible, Boulanger arranged to have her pupils’ compositions played at local recitals. The celebrated American tenor Charles Hubbard, for example, sang two of Copland’s songs, “Pastorale” and “Old Poem,” with Boulanger at the piano— such was Boulanger’s enthusiasm for her students. Over the years he spent studying with Boulanger, Copland was encouraged to continue writing longer compositions, and soon he was writing two-page songs and three-page piano pieces. Copland responded to the encouragement and embarked on larger works that included the writing of full-length ballets that lasted as long as thirty minutes. Although it was tempered by her love of music, Boulanger’s strictness (no student of hers ever arrived late for class more than once) became her trademark. Recognizing that his life as a student had to end and that he was ready to earn a living as a composer, Copland concluded his formal studies with Boulanger in 1924. Despite this break, however, Boulanger still remained a strong influence on Copland’s musical life. She introduced Copland to Serge Koussevitzky, the renowned conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Koussevitzky, in turn, introduced many of Copland’s works to the American public and thus was influential in ensuring his success as a composer.
Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student
Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student (1947) and Orchestration (1955). His teaching, although similar to Boulanger’s, was less pedagogic and aimed more at pointing out general principles of music. During his time at Harvard, Piston met some noted composers, among them Leonard Bernstein. Koussevitzky had also had Bernstein as a student, and Copland and Bernstein also became close friends. These relationships formed important links in Boulanger’s vast musical network. Boulanger moved to the United States during World War II and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, and the Juilliard School of Music. Although her teaching methods remained much the same as when she taught at Fontainebleau and the École Normale de Musique, few of her students in the United States went on to become notable composers. Still, Boulanger continued to wield tremendous influence, and her effect on the development of many of America’s most important composers assured her a lasting legacy in American music. —Richard G. Cormack Further Reading Copland, Aaron, and Vivian Perlis. Copland: 1900 Through 1942. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. This is a firsthand account of Copland’s early years, particularly his time in France. Perlis fills in the gaps in Copland’s narrative; originally, Copland had granted Perlis interviews that became the basis of a two-volume set on the composer. _______. Copland: Since 1943. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Completes the work that was begun in Copland: 1900 Through 1942. This extremely wellwritten volume concentrates on the influence Copland had on the musical world. Photographs, while not lavish, are well documented. Kendall, Alan. The Tender Tyrant: Nadia Boulanger; A Life Devoted to Music. Wilton, Conn.: Lyceum Books, 1977. This book tries to portray Boulanger’s life in more personal terms. Boulanger’s many obser-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vations make the book a useful tool for gaining an understanding of French music. Monsaingeon, Bruno. Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger. Translated by Robin Marsack. New York: Carcanet Press, 1985. Monsaingeon taped interviews with Boulanger over a five-year period, during which she provided both her reflections on life and her philosophy of music. Unfortunately, Boulanger, who was never one to praise herself, speaks very little about her own motivations and aspirations. Pollack, Howard. Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. One critic noted that this outstanding biography provides a clearer picture of Copland’s personality in its first twelve pages than do many entire books. Exhaustively researched. Includes a thorough index. Rosenstiel, Leonie. Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. Comprehensive study of Boulanger’s life includes discussion of her relationship with her sister Lili, to whom she dedicated most of her teaching. Draws on many interviews of former students. Somewhat dry, yet informative. Thomson, Virgil. Virgil Thomson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. Thomson did not have as intimate a relationship with Boulanger as did Copland, and this is reflected in Thomson’s book. What is most interesting is how differently Thomson and Copland viewed their musical experiences in France. Many of Copland’s friends were also Thomson’s friends, and some of their shared experiences are given a completely different emphasis by Thomson than by Copland. See also: 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies; Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet; Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament
1921
First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament Edith Dircksey Cowan became the first woman to be elected to any parliament in Australia when she won a Nationalist Party seat in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. Locale: Perth, Western Australia Categories: Women’s issues; government and politics; social issues and reform;
Summary of Event After two decades of efforts throughout Australia by women’s groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, in 1894 South Australia became the first state to enfranchise women. In 1899, Western Australia became the second, although it excluded Aboriginals of either sex (unlike South Australia). By 1908, white women in all the Australian states were able to vote. This change was effected only because the male population had been convinced that women could make valuable contributions to the issues that most directly affected them: The suffragettes had argued that women’s roles as wives and mothers gave them special insights into the needs of women and children. However, Australian women were not expected to become legislators, lawyers, or justices of the peace, much less high-ranking state officials. Ironically, those opportunities were made available to them in large part because of the efforts of Edith Dircksey Cowan, the first woman elected to a state parliament in Australia. Like her pioneer grandparents, Edith Cowan was spirited and tough. Her character was tested early: When Cowan was seven, her mother, Mary Eliza Dircksey Wittenoom Brown, died in childbirth. Afterward, her father, Kenneth Brown, was unable to regain his equilibrium, and when Cowan was fifteen, he was hanged for murdering his second wife. In 1879, Cowan married James
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Key Figures Edith Dircksey Cowan (1861-1932), member of Western Australian Legislative Assembly, 19211924 James Cowan (b. 1848), Edith Cowan’s husband and a magistrate Kenneth Brown (1837-1876), Edith Cowan’s father and a landowner and horse breeder in Western Australia Mary Eliza Dircksey Wittenoom Brown (1839-1868), Edith Cowan’s mother
Cowan, who eventually became a police magistrate in Perth. The pair often discussed James Cowan’s work, and their conversations inspired Edith Cowan to work for social reform. Although by 1891 the Cowans were the parents of five children, James Cowan supported his wife as she became active in new women’s groups, organizations that sought to improve Australians’ lives rather than simply being social entities. In 1898, Cowan was elected to the North Fremantle Education Board, one of the few public offices open to women. She was an officer of the society that saw children’s courts established and was one of the first five women magistrates appointed to the children’s court. She campaigned for legislation that would enable women to become justices of the peace; this legislation was signed into law in 1919, and the following year, Cowan was herself appointed a justice of the peace. As a reward for her volunteer work with the Red Cross during World War I, in 1920 she was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire. That same year, the passage of a new law permitted women to stand for the state parliament; the act was in part a reaction to the general sentiment that women’s contributions to the country’s efforts during World War I should be rewarded. If a woman were to be endorsed for candidacy in the 1921 election, Cowan was the obvious choice. She had worked for worthy causes for thirty years, and her achievements were impressive. She had been instrumental in efforts to build a maternity hospital and in ensuring separate trials for children and adults. However, since such projects were considered a woman’s province, Cowan seemed to pose no threat to an overwhelmingly patriarchal society. Had she been more overtly controversial, the Nationalist Party leaders probably would not have selected her. However, although the Nationalist Party endorsed Cowan for the seat of West Perth, they also endorsed the sitting member, Attorney General T. P. Draper. Party leadership expected Draper to win, and leaders hoped that Cowan’s reputation as a supporter of social reform would draw votes away from the Labor candidate. Cowan herself was more optimistic than her own party’s leaders. She knew that there were more women voters than men voters in West Perth, and she firmly believed that the network of women that she had helped to develop over the last three decades, all of whom knew her or knew of her, would work to ensure her victory.
First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament In her campaign, Cowan did not emphasize the rights of women, although she had always believed passionately in such causes. Instead, she stressed more acceptable ideas, particularly the idea that women could make unique contributions to public life and that they would not compete with men but simply cooperate with them. In accordance with custom, Cowan made personal visits to houses and addressed small gatherings on street corners and larger gatherings in halls. Women were needed in Parliament, she insisted, so that the laws concerning divorce, child custody, and inheritance could be improved and so that child-care centers could be established for working mothers. She also pointed out how important it was for women to be permitted to practice law. In other areas, Cowan did not markedly differ from the other candidates. They all agreed on the need for slum clearance, improved housing, better education, special privileges for veterans, and a more effective civil service. Some men and women took issue with Cowan’s candidacy, urging her to go home and look after her husband and children. Neither her response, which was that her children were all grown, nor the presence of her husband in the crowd quelled such protests. However, when the votes were counted, Cowan had won. Significance During her three-year term, Edith Cowan spearheaded efforts to pass bills that established playgrounds and child health centers, forbade previous convictions to be revealed in children’s courts, and protected women’s inheritance rights. However, her most important achievement was the bill she introduced that became the Women’s Legal Status Act of 1923, which enabled women to practice law and to enter other professions. Despite these accomplishments, Cowan was not reelected either in 1924 or in 1927. There were several reasons for her losses. One was that she lost the support of the party leadership by insisting on voting as she thought best. Another was that she had too often opposed the business interests that were so influential in West Perth by supporting measures introduced by the Labor party. Moreover, because the women’s groups that had brought her victory in 1921 had split over several issues, they could no longer deliver a solid women’s vote. Cowan may also have been the victim of a backlash: Conservative groups saw her election as evidence of moral decline.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 After her death, a memorial clock tower was erected in Perth’s Kings Park, Edith Cowan University was named for her, and her image was placed on the Australian fifty-dollar bill. People throughout Australia and the world acknowledged that Edith Cowan had bettered the lives of innumerable women and children in her native state and helped to lead Australian women toward equal rights and first-class citizenship. —Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman Further Reading Clarke, Francis Gordon. The History of Australia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. A narrative history. Includes a timeline of important events and a bibliographical essay. Cowan, Peter. A Unique Position: A Biography of Edith Dircksey Cowan, 1861-1932. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1978. A well-documented, detailed biography, written by Edith Cowan’s grandson. Notes, illustrations, and index. Crawford, Patricia, and Philippa Maddern, eds. Women as Australian Citizens: Underlying Histories. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2001. Essays on the struggle for women’s rights in Great Britain, in colonial Australia, and in post-Federation Australia. Haines, Janine. “Not for Want of Trying: Women in Australian and New Zealand Politics, 1893-1994.” In A Rising Public Voice: Women in Politics Worldwide, edited by Alida Brill. New York: Feminist Press, 1995. An excellent overview, written by a woman who served as an Australian federal senator in the late 1970’s. Sawer, Marian, and Marian Simms. A Woman’s Place: Women and Politics in Australia. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1984. Thorough study includes a useful appendix that lists the women who served in the various Australian parliaments from 1921 to 1983. See also: June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Sept. 11, 1915: Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph
1921
Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph John A. Larson’s development of the first modern lie detector revolutionized the administration of criminal justice in the United States. Locale: Berkeley, California Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures John A. Larson (1892-1967), American police officer Leonarde Keeler (1887-1949), American police patrolman August Vollmer (1875-1940), American police chief Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), Italian criminologist
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Summary of Event The first attempt to utilize a scientific instrument for the purpose of lie detection occurred in 1895. Cesare Lombroso, a celebrated Italian criminologist, published an account of several experiments he had conducted on criminal suspects whose truthfulness or deception he had sought to determine. Lombroso had recorded fluctuations in the suspects’ blood pressure or pulse rates when they were questioned about the offenses under investigation. The instrument that Lombroso used—the hydrosphygmograph—had been invented and developed by other scientists for medical purposes; it was not originally intended for use in detecting deception. Essentially, the instrument consisted of a small, water-filled tank into which the subject’s fist was placed. The immersed fist was then sealed into the tank by a rubber membrane. Changes in the subject’s pulse pattern and blood pressure were transferred from the fist to the water in the form of changes in water level, and this in turn caused changes in air pressure, which was registered by an air-filled tube leading to a revolving drum. Although Lombroso reported successful results in his experiments, his research ended with the publication of his book in 1895. It was not until 1915 that any other investigator conducted further experiments in lie detection involving blood pressure changes. In that year, William Moulton Marston undertook the study of lie detection. Marston was a student of Hugo Münsterberg, a wellknown pioneer in criminal psychology at Harvard University and author of On the Witness Stand (1908), in which he discussed the effects of emotional changes on blood pressure, respiration, galvanic skin response, and other physiological processes and pointed out the possi-
bility that such reactions might be useful indicators of deception. Marston’s technique consisted essentially of the use of an ordinary sphygmomanometer—the same type of instrument physicians use to measure patients’ blood pressure—to obtain periodic, discontinuous blood pressure readings on a subject during the course of a test. Marston also recorded data on respiration and noted the time of the subject’s verbal responses. In addition, he used a galvanometer to record skin resistance changes and a gripping device to record tension. He initially employed a questioning technique that involved an obscure word-association test, but he eventually abandoned this in favor of narrative-type answers and cross-questioning of the subject regarding his or her statements. Marston reported some very successful results with this technique. In the early 1920’s, three members of the police department in Berkeley, California, conducted further experiments in lie detection: John A. Larson, a police officer; August Vollmer, the founder and chief of the department, which was known for its “scientific” approach; and Leonarde Keeler, a patrolman. While working under Chief Vollmer, Larson began experimenting with measurement of blood pressure and respiratory changes during the questioning of criminal suspects. Encouraged by Vollmer, Larson assembled the first continuous-recording interrogation lie detector, which he named the polygraph. Some of the first practical applications of the device were outstandingly successful. For example, in one case, a female college student had been shoplifting in a local store, but the shop clerk could not identify her; the clerk knew only that the thief lived in a certain dormitory. Larson was able to question all thirty-eight residents of the dormitory (during sixteen hours in one day) using what later came to be known as the relevant/irrelevant, or R/I, technique, in which the subject is asked a mixture of irrelevant and relevant questions. One of the young women responded much more strongly to the relevant questions than did any of the others, and she subsequently made a full confession. Larson’s instrument used pens to record, on a moving strip of graph paper, the changes in a subject’s heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and electrical skin reaction as the individual underwent continuous questioning. The theory behind the polygraph was that a lying subject
Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph would experience emotional and physical stress that would cause the lines on the graph to move above previously established normal levels. After a preliminary interview, the subject was seated in a chair that was specially constructed to permit the attachment of the various measuring devices to the subject’s body. The pneumograph tube was tied to the subject’s chest, the blood pressure cuff was wrapped around the upper arm, and a net of electrodes was attached to the hands. The subject was directed to look straight ahead. The examiner was seated to one side behind a desk containing a set of controls the subject could not see. These instruments began a continuous graphic recording when the examination commenced. The questions asked were based on the results of the preliminary interview along with available facts and circumstances forming the basis of the accusation. They also varied somewhat with each person questioned. Some of the team’s first experiments provoked severe criticism from those who did not comprehend the technique. These critics argued that tension and nervousness resulting from the mere realization that a crucial test was being performed would naturally produce false and misleading indications on the graph. The team was quick to explain, however, that testing always began with a long series of deliberately innocuous questions, or control inquiries. Not until the subject had established a normal level of graphic reactions did the examiner, with no change of voice or facial expression, introduce the crucial question that referred directly to the offense under investigation. Although Larson is credited with the development of the modern lie detector, Keeler later introduced important refinements to Larson’s original equipment. These included, in addition to units for recording changes in blood pressure, pulse, and respiration, a galvanometer for recording galvanic skin response, or electrodermal response. Galvanic skin response is obtained through electrodes fastened to the fingertips, as the fingertips are believed to show evidence of perspiration when a person is under emotional stress. Significance Compared with the overwhelming enthusiasm and extravagant claims of his associates and successors, Larson’s attitude toward the polygraph’s effectiveness in detecting deception remained scientifically skeptical. During the first half century after 1915, when Marston’s “lie detector” was becoming entrenched in American criminology circles, Larson was the only investigator to 1672
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 undertake an objective study of the accuracy of the diagnosis of deception using polygraph recordings obtained from criminal suspects. In a 1938 paper, Larson, who eventually became a forensic psychiatrist and criminologist, reported on a study in which he examined sixty-two suspects whose records were then evaluated independently by nine psychologists. The numbers of records classified by the different judges as indicating deception ranged from five to thirty-three, although sixty-one of the suspects were, in fact, truthful. Larson later said that although he originally hoped that instrumental lie detection would become a legitimate part of professional police science, he believed it was becoming little more than a psychological “third degree” aimed at extorting confessions—not unlike the old method of physical beatings. He even stated that at times he regretted ever participating in the development of the polygraph. It should be emphasized that at least some of Larson’s disillusionment was related to the relevant/irrelevant test format; his statements were made before other interrogation techniques, notably the control-question lie test and the guilty knowledge test, were developed. Until about 1950, the R/I procedure was standard in the field, and for a time after that it continued to be taught in one major school of polygraphy and continued to be used by many older examiners. Although questions about its reliability continued to be raised and debated, by the end of the twentieth century the lie detector was used in criminal investigations and in security applications in Canada, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. In North America, some employers were using the device as part of the screening process undergone by potential employees. Western European police agencies remained skeptical about the value of the polygraph. In the early twenty-first century, experts in the field agreed that no machine can detect lying; a polygraph can only provide certain data when used with a particular form of interview or test, and trained examiners must interpret the data in reaching a diagnosis of truthful or deceptive. Several different types of lie detectors have been developed, and researchers continue to seek the most appropriate methods of interpreting (and demonstrating the reliability and validity of) the data produced by each type. —Genevieve Slomski Further Reading Block, Eugene. Lie Detectors: Their History and Use. New York: David McKay, 1977. Traces the develop-
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ployment screening, and other applications. Examines the theory of how the instrument works as well as the accuracy of the interpretation of polygraph results. Includes extensive appendixes. Reid, John E., and Fred E. Inbau. Lie Detection and Criminal Interrogation. 3d ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1953. A manual not only for criminal investigators but also for those with an interest in the “art” of lie detection and criminal investigation. Discusses the methods used in the detection of deception as well as various techniques law-enforcement officials use to elicit information. Includes numerous graphs, charts, and illustrations. _______. Truth and Deception: The Polygraph (“LieDetector”) Technique. 2d ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1977. One of the best and most detailed sources of information for those interested in learning about the polygraph technique. Provides a general overview of the historical development of the instrument as well as a clear picture of how the test is administered and interpreted. Also discusses legal, moral, and philosophical issues surrounding the polygraph test. Includes graphs, appendixes, and selected bibliography. See also: July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation; Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation.
1921
Man Ray Creates the Rayograph Man Ray created the Rayograph, a cameraless form of photography exploited by Man Ray and others in experimental photography and motion pictures. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Arts; photography; motion pictures Key Figures Man Ray (1890-1976), American photographer and painter Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French poet, playwright, and filmmaker Robert Desnos (1900-1945), French poet Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), French artist Francis Picabia (1879-1953), French painter Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), Romanian poet
Summary of Event Man Ray was an American artist living in Paris during the heady 1920’s, when the City of Light was the cultural capital of the world. A painter as well as a photographer, Man Ray, like many of his artistic colleagues, sought to push the aesthetic conventions of both media. In the process, as a result of an accident that occurred while he was developing photographs, he “discovered” the cameraless Rayograph in 1921. Man Ray’s style as a painter evolved with and through cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Although associated with these important movements, Man Ray is perhaps best described as an iconoclast whose basic pursuits were motivated by devotion to personal as well as artistic freedom. Like his peers, he was intrigued with new technological means of artistic expression, especially photogra1673
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ment of lie detection techniques from ancient times to the late 1970’s. Discusses a variety of legal cases to illustrate the value, dangers, and limitations of lie detectors. Concludes with a look into the future use of the polygraph in criminal and noncriminal settings. Gale, Anthony, ed. The Polygraph Test: Lies, Truth, and Science. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1988. Excellent source of extensive information on the polygraph’s use in three contexts: criminal investigation, security screening, and personnel selection. Based on research conducted in England, but covers polygraph use in the United States and elsewhere. Includes discussion of psychological, legal, and civil rights issues associated with polygraph use. Features an annotated bibliography, a guide for students, and a glossary. Lykken, David T. A Tremor in the Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Lie Detector. 2d ed. New York: Plenum, 1998. Presents a critical appraisal of the history, theory, and practices of polygraphic interrogation. Examines the use of the polygraph from the point of view of the citizen as well as from the perspective of the “lie detector industry.” National Research Council. Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph. The Polygraph and Lie Detection. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003. Reviews research data concerning the use of the polygraph in criminal investigation, em-
Man Ray Creates the Rayograph
Man Ray Creates the Rayograph phy and its kinetic cousin, the motion picture. Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890, at the age of fifteen he was given the name Man Ray by his family after they moved to New York City. As a teenager, he was an aspiring painter who took classes at New York’s Academy of Fine Arts. In 1910, he became associated with New York photographer Alfred Stieglitz and Stieglitz’s 291 gallery, where he absorbed the latest developments in both painting and photography. His earliest photographs were expressive portraits in the Stieglitz manner. In 1915, Man Ray met French artist Marcel Duchamp, who became a decisive influence, a frequent collaborator, a close friend, and a worthy chess opponent (chess was the preferred game of the Dadaists). It was Duchamp who first encouraged Man Ray’s interest in assemblages and collages and who urged the young American to move to Paris. Before he made the move, Man Ray—as well as Duchamp and French painter Francis Picabia—became involved with the New York Dadaist group. During its heyday from 1916 to 1922, the Dadaists—whether in Paris, Berlin, Zurich, or New York—attacked traditional artistic and societal norms, stressing the absurd nature of life and the role of the fortuitous in artistic creation. In part a reaction to the barbarisms perpetrated by the “civilized” nations of Western Europe during World War I, Dadaism also drew inspiration from the groundbreaking psychological ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, especially those dealing with the unconscious and the subconscious. Dadaism’s whimsical faith in the role of chance in artistic creation was to prove pivotal in creating the mind-set that enabled Man Ray to “discover” the Rayograph. In 1921, Man Ray moved to Paris, where he sought his fortune as a painter. Although encouraged in his painting by friends, he was forced by his inability to sell his paintings to rely on portrait and fashion photography to make a living. One night in late 1921, as he was making contact prints of fashion poses shot earlier in the day, he accidentally mixed an unexposed sheet of photographic paper into a group of already exposed prints in a developing tray. As he waited in vain for an image to appear, regretting the waste of paper, he placed some laboratory equipment—a glass funnel, a glass graduate, and a glass thermometer—on top of the unexposed paper. When he turned on the light, an image began to form, “not quite a simple silhouette of the objects as in a straight photograph, but distorted and refracted by the glass more or less in contact with the paper and standing out against a black background, the part directly exposed to the light,” 1674
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Man Ray in Paris, 1934. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection)
he recalled in his 1963 autobiography, Self Portrait. That fated, fortuitous photographic happening reminded him of his boyhood days in Philadelphia, when he had placed leaves in a printing frame with photographic paper and exposed them to the sun, thereby obtaining white negatives of the leaves. It illustrated the same principle that had been employed in the earliest photographic experiments of Thomas Wedgwood and Humphry Davy, who in 1799 also placed objects on sensitized materials, thus provoking the inventive-scientific quest that eventually resulted in practical photography. Man Ray was ecstatic with his spontaneous invention. Grabbing whatever objects were handy—his hotel room key, a handkerchief, pencils, a brush, a candle, and a strand of twine—he churned out a batch of cameraless photographs that he immediately dubbed Rayographs. He quickly discovered that he could place his randomly deployed objects directly onto dry photographic paper. The next day, when noted Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara spotted several of the new creations, Tzara proclaimed them “pure Dada creations,” far superior to similar attempts—simple flat textural prints in black and white—
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that had been made in 1918 by the German Christian Schad, an early Berlin Dadaist.
perimenters, the most significant were Lucia Moholy and László Moholy-Nagy. Using the term “photogram” to describe their investigations, which were carried out in the 1920’s at the Bauhaus in Germany, these cerebral explorers of light believed that a machine-based art such as photography should not involve personal feelings and traditional sentiments. Instead, they saw their photograms as formal light compositions. In contrast, Man Ray and his partisans regarded the Rayographs as Dadaist adventures relying on spontaneity, improvisation, and wit. Also significant was the fact of the Rayograph’s unique singularity. Each cameraless photo was a one-of-a-kind creation for which no template, or negative, existed for precise duplication. At a broader level, the notoriety of the Rayographs triggered a host of other light-graphic experimentations. By the late 1920’s, a debate about the intrinsic nature and functions of photography was raging. The basic issue pitted realism against abstraction. Man Ray offered an approach to abstraction based on the expression of chance effects and intuitive, even unconscious, states of mind and mood. His cameraless images also were provocative in that they called into question traditional lines of demarcation between “fine” and “applied” art. With the collapse of the economies of the Western European and American democracies in the late 1920’s and the subsequent rise of fascism in the 1930’s, the debate over realism versus abstraction was largely deferred as artists, including photographers, turned to documenting the period’s social and political upheavals. In the 1920’s, Man Ray also became a force in the quixotic evolution of the avant-garde or experimental film. His first foray into motion pictures, Le Retour à la raison (1923; Return to Reason), incorporated an animated version of the Rayograph, in which various objects were placed directly onto 35-millimeter film that was then exposed to light. Again, no camera was employed. Using the Rayographic technique to register such common objects as sprinklings of salt and pepper, pins, tacks, and springs, Man Ray intercut these with camera-shot images of some of his Dadaist mobiles and of nude torsos. The rather randomly selected images were hastily assembled at the behest of Tzara, who wanted to include a cinematic experiment for what has now become known as the last Dadaist soiree. Man Ray later described the effect: “It looked like a snowstorm, with the flakes flying in all directions instead of falling, then suddenly becoming a field of daisies as if the snow had crystallized into flowers. This was followed by another sequence of huge white pins crisscrossing and re1675
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Significance The art world’s fascination with Man Ray’s cameraless photos had several major consequences. First, the Rayograph helped make Man Ray a celebrity. With Tzara’s enthusiastic endorsement of the cameraless photos as exemplars of Dadaist ideals, Man Ray’s work was soon embraced by all manner of Parisian painters, writers, and musicians. Man Ray was invited to fashionable parties, concerts, and gallery openings and was embraced by fashionable young women, including Kiki, Paris’s most notorious model. No less a figure than poet Jean Cocteau commissioned a Rayograph for the frontispiece of a deluxe edition of his work. In the United States, Vanity Fair published a November, 1922, piece on Man Ray accompanied by four of his “meaningless masterpieces,” thus launching the photographer onto the international scene. Tzara once again waxed rhapsodic on the subject of the Rayograph in an introduction to the 1922 publication of Les Champs Délicieux (the delicious fields), a portfolio of Man Ray’s cameraless photographs. In 1923, the French poet Robert Desnos extolled the Rayograph’s spontaneous beauty and suggested that it belonged to the realm of poetry, as it was neither completely abstract nor completely realistic. Even when the novelty of the Rayograph began to wane, Man Ray, by virtue of his newly elevated artistic and social status, was increasingly busy as a high-profile portrait and fashion photographer. His now more stable income and enhanced reputation enabled him to pursue his painting and other artistic activities with greater concentration and success. In the wake of the Rayograph’s triumph, his paintings and other artworks were accorded far greater regard and respect. The discovery of the Rayographic principle had first been made by Christian Schad in 1918, but Schad’s cameraless photos, or Schadographs, as they were dubbed by Tzara, faded into the footnotes of the decade’s photographic annals. Given the Rayograph’s greater depth, shading, and variety, Man Ray rightly deserves credit as one of the most significant photographic innovators of the 1920’s. It is also important to note that Man Ray had no knowledge of Schad’s work; indeed, his “discovery” was completely spontaneous and therefore his own. With its notoriety and fashionable cachet, the Rayographic technique was picked up by others. Of these ex-
Man Ray Creates the Rayograph
Man Ray Creates the Rayograph volving in an epileptic dance, then again by a lone thumbtack making desperate efforts to leave the screen.” Although the film was only three minutes long, Man Ray’s Dadaist thwarting of conventional cinematic expectations associated with the making of films led to cries of protest and then of support, and finally to an intense debate. The Dadaists were delighted that the film had been provocative. The soiree was an evening that has lived on in the chronicles of modern art. Man Ray used the same Rayographic process for passages of Emak-Bakia (1926), an experimental film influenced more by Surrealistic principles than by those of the recently deposed Dada movement. More significant, Man Ray’s films—including collaborations with Duchamp, of which only Anemic Cinema (1926) survives— constituted an important aspect of the 1920’s continental avant-garde that offered a clear, indeed radical, alternative to the dominance of the Hollywood story film and to the documentary. By stressing abstract, nonrepresentational imagery and the role of the subconscious and unconscious in accord with the shifting precepts of Dadaism and Surrealism, Man Ray’s films remain central and influential texts in the canon of the avant-garde or experimental cinema. They also demonstrate the clear and continuing relationship between photography and the motion picture. The Rayograph—whether by that name or referred to as Rayogram, Schadograph, or photogram—remains a touchstone in the evolution of photography as a graphic art form in which the basic concerns are aesthetic rather than representational. It also stands as a reminder of cameraless photography’s most prominent and influential exponent, Man Ray. “The poet of the darkroom,” as Jean Cocteau called Man Ray, received the Gold Medal at the Photography Biennale in Venice in 1961 and the German Photographic Society Cultural Award in 1966. —Charles Merrell Berg Further Reading Berg, Charles. “Film and Photography.” In Film and the Arts in Symbiosis: A Resource Guide, edited by Gary R. Edgerton. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988. Provides a concise overview of the intertwined relationship between photography and the motion picture. Discusses Man Ray’s film Return to Reason. Includes bibliography. Hopkins, David. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Concise introduction to these art movements discusses their international nature and the range of 1676
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 media employed. Also addresses the debates surrounding them, including issues of quality and attitudes toward women. Man Ray. Self Portrait. 1963. Reprint. New York: Bulfinch, 1999. Well-drawn chronicle of Man Ray’s amazing life, focusing on his escapades in the avantgarde circles of Paris, New York, and Hollywood with the rich and famous as well as the talented and beautiful, including such eminent compatriots as Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and Alfred Stieglitz. Illustrated. Moholy-Nagy, László. Painting, Photography, Film. Translated by Janet Seligman. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969. Includes an incisive account titled “Photography Without Camera: The ‘Photogram.’” Moholy-Nagy, in addition to being an artist, was a meticulous and visionary theorist whose ideas are as valuable today as they were in 1927. Copious illustrations include several cameraless Rayographs by Man Ray and photograms by Moholy-Nagy. Penrose, Roland. Man Ray. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975. Thorough and balanced overview of Man Ray’s varied accomplishments, reflecting insights based on the author’s long-standing friendship with the artist. An essential and highly readable resource. Comprehensive illustrations include reproductions of Rayographs as well as frames from the film Emak-Bakia. Phillips, Christopher, ed. Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913-1940. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Aperture, 1989. An essential collection of previously out-of-print or untranslated essays and prolegomena, including poetic paeans to Man Ray’s Rayographs by Cocteau and Tzara. Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. 3d ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 1997. Authoritative and lavishly illustrated history of photography presents discussions and examples of the cameraless photography of Man Ray, Christian Schad, Lucia Moholy, and László Moholy-Nagy. Includes bibliography. See also: Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the PhotoSecession; 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York.
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Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings
1921
Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings Emmy Noether’s theory of ideals in rings furthered Richard Dedekind’s studies of polynomic root solutions and laid the foundations for much of abstract algebra. Locale: University of Göttingen, Germany Category: Mathematics Key Figures Emmy Noether (1882-1935), German mathematician and educator Richard Dedekind (1831-1916), German mathematician
1921
Summary of Event It is almost impossible to give a nonesoteric account of certain highly abstract and technical developments in areas of higher mathematics, such as the ring and ideal theory in modern algebra. This is so because many key developments are highly formalized and have few or no equivalents in ordinary mathematics. Thus this treatment focuses instead primarily on the status and impact of these developments. A set of elements for which the binary operations of addition and multiplication are defined, so as to satisfy the basic axioms of commutativity, associativity, and distributivity, is known as a ring. The common integer counting numbers for a ring, as for the polynomials of all degrees N, are defined as f = f(x) = a0 + a1x + a2 x2 + . . . + n an x . The term “ring” derives from the operation of wrapping a segment of the lineal real number line around a circle to obtain a modular mapping. The German mathematician Ernst Eduard Kummer (1810-1893) tried to solve the famous polynomic problem of Pierre de Fermat’s last equation in number theory; that is, to prove xn + yn = zn for all n. Kummer made the unwarranted assumption that a hypothesis called the unique factorization theorem is always true in rings of algebraic integers. A number in the complex field is called an algebraic integer if it satisfies an algebraic equation with rational integer coefficients not greater than 1. The algebraic integers in an algebraic number field are said to form an integral domain. Although Kummer’s unsuccessful effort did not arrive at a proof of Fermat’s theorem, the theory of ideal numbers that arose subsequently (through Richard Dedekind’s efforts) did make it possible to establish the general conditions under which the Fermat equation would be unsolvable by means of integers. Kummer de-
fined what Dedekind later independently termed “ideal” numbers, such that composite numbers made from the new species satisfied Carl Friedrich Gauss’s unique factorization theorem into so-called prime ideal factors. Gauss first applied number theory factorization concepts to the ring of all complex numbers, defined by a + bi. The further development of ideals by Dedekind arose as a result of his subsequent efforts to restore unique factorization in some algebraic domains. Faced with this problem, Dedekind had the insight that, instead of considering the single number 3, for example, one could consider the set A = 3x and B = 2 + √ –5y, where both x and y are in a common set Z. The sets A and B are examples of what Dedekind calls ideals. An integral domain is a ring in which the nonzero ele-
Emmy Noether. (Courtesy, Bryn Mawr College Archives)
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Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings ments constitute a semigroup of the multiplicative semigroup. Any set equipped with an operation (such as multiplication) satisfying the conditions eg = ge = g and –1 g g = e is called a group. The integral domain Z defined by Z = x + y √ –5 does not have the property of factorization into unique prime numbers. Nevertheless, as Dedekind demonstrated, it is possible to develop unique factorizations in some kind of prime quantities for general algebraic fields. If D is an integral domain, a nonempty set of D, K is called an ideal if it satisfies the following conditions: that b1 + b2 is a part of K, that b1 – b2 is a part of K, and that r × b is a part of K, or the equivalent condition that K is a group with respect to addition. An ideal is not itself a number; rather, it is a set of numbers qualifying as a special kind of subring of a ring. If R is a ring, a subring of R is a subset, which is a ring with respect to addition and multiplication in R. Multiplication and other operations with ideals can also be defined. Some mathematicians have ascribed the rather odd choice of the name “ideal” to a prophetic intuition of the future formal axiomatics of David Hilbert. With Emmy Noether, the ideals first invented for use in number theory became a more fundamental tool of wider use in higher algebra and elsewhere. Noether was the daughter of Max Noether, a noted mathematician who played an important role in contributing to the Erlangen school’s development of the theory of algebraic functions. During the 1903-1904 semester, despite official opposition because of her gender, Emmy Noether was permitted to enroll as an auditor in courses at the University of Göttingen taught by Hilbert, Felix Klein, and Hermann Minkowski. Hilbert and Klein recognized her potential, and, after further studies at the University of Erlangen under Paul Gordan, she received her Ph.D. in 1907. Her thesis extended Gordan’s finiteness problem of invariants for two variables. After 1911, Noether turned toward Hilbert’s formal and abstract methodology. In 1915, Hilbert and Klein invited her to work at Göttingen. She stayed there as an untenured associate professor until she was dismissed by the Nazi regime in 1933. In addition to Dedekind’s work, the research of Ernst Steinitz on the theory of abstract fields was also of great importance for Noether’s work, particularly during and following World War I. Beginning with her correspondence in 1917 with German mathematician E. Fischer and through her study of the arithmetic theory of algebraic fields from 1918 to 1919, Noether initially became familiar with Dedekind’s theory of modules and ideals. Noether’s first work in algebra, dating from 1919, culmi1678
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nated in her 1921 publication in the Mathematische Annalen of what many mathematicians consider to be her most significant and most wide-reaching paper: “Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen” (theory of ideals in rings). Noether developed a more general theory of ideals using the formal axiomatic basis of Hilbert to include all prior examples as well as extend the range of ideals. The chief innovation of this work is the so-called ascendingchain axiom, which states that a chain of ideals, a1, a2, a3, . . . an, necessarily comes to an end after a finite number of steps if each term a1 includes the preceding term a1–1 as a so-called proper part. Noether’s ascendingchain condition can be shown to be equivalent to Hilbert’s earlier theorem of the finite ideal basis. More generally, through this and several later papers, Noether showed how it is possible to derive the polynomial ideals of Kummer in the same axiomatic fashion and to retrieve all of Dedekind’s classical results on ideals in algebraic number fields, the latter requiring the condition of the ring to be “integrally closed.” A closed ring is a set of numbers where there is no means to obtain a number outside the set by any means of addition, multiplication, or the like. Many of Noether’s later discoveries were notably furthered by her students of the “Noether school,” including Wolfgang Krull, Gottfried Koethe, and notably Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, whose two-volume text on advanced algebra remained the standard for many decades. The widespread modern tendency of viewing algebraic structures as groups with operators can be traced directly to Noether’s publications and those of her associates. Instead of operating with definite or even formal expressions, the simple properties of the operations, for example, of addition and multiplication to which they lend themselves, were reformulated as initial axioms, forming the basis for further deductions. Noether’s particular strength, acknowledged by many of her contemporaries and students, lay in her uncanny ability to operate abstractly with concepts alone within the framework of her drive toward axiomatic purity. Significance The notion of ideals in other new versions played a decisive role in Noether’s theory of noncommutative algebras and their representation. Although most common operations with numbers in multiplication are commutative (a × b = b × a), in the more general interpretation of multiplication provided by abstract algebra, noncommutative algebra was derived abstractly by Noether between 1924 and 1928. In Noether’s abstract approach,
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nization, methods, and focus of van der Waerden’s theory to modern algebra of 1930 with the pre-Noetherian treatment of algebra. — Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Dick, Auguste. Emmy Noether, 1882-1935. Translated by Heide I. Blocher. 1970. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Birkhäuser Boston, 1981. The earliest biography of Noether in a single volume. Authoritative. Jones, Burton W. An Introduction to Modern Algebra. New York: Macmillan, 1975. Gives a general account of modern ring and ideal theory. Robinson, Abraham. Numbers and Ideals: An Introduction to Some Basic Concepts of Algebra and Number Theory. San Francisco: Holden Day, 1965. A unique introductory text treating ideals with minimum prerequisites. Srinivasan, Bhama, and Judith Sally. Emmy Noether in Bryn Mawr: Proceedings of a Symposium. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983. Presentation of eulogies and studies gives important perspective on Noether’s accomplishments. Weil, André. Number Theory: An Approach Through History from Hammurapi to Legendre. 1984. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Birkhäuser Boston, 2000. A unique presentation of abstract arithmetic by one of the founders of the Bourbaki circle. See also: 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1909: Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra; 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation.
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traditional calculational tools, such as matrices and determinants, used so successfully by her contemporary I. J. Schur in 1926, are discarded entirely in favor of purely abstract concepts. In intensive cooperation with colleagues, Noether carefully investigated the detailed structure of noncommutative algebras and applied this theory further to the ordinary commutative number fields and their arithmetics by means of her so-called crossproduct method. The important influence of many of these later efforts by Noether is clearly visible in the influential textbook by physicist-intuitionist mathematician Hermann Weyl Gruppentheorie und Quantenmechanik (1928; The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics, 1950), who also made notable contributions to the algebraic theory of numbers. The dissemination and development of Noether’s work was ensured by the twelve doctoral students under her directorship as well as by a host of French, German, and Soviet mathematicians with whom she frequently visited and corresponded. By eliminating some of Noether’s original axioms, van der Waerden and Emil Artin later obtained further generalizations of her ideal theory. The most far-reaching generalizations of the Dedekind-Noether theory of ideals were produced by German mathematician, logician, and philosopher Paul Lorenzen. A special subtype of ideals has been named Noetherian in her honor. As the Nicolas Bourbaki group notes in Éléments de mathématique (1939; elements of mathematics), the wider penetration of general algebraic ideas and methods into the diverse network of mathematical and physical subdisciplines became possible only after the publications of Noether. One can judge the effects of Noether’s work on the theory of ring-ideals by comparing the orga-
Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings
Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1921
Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment During a period of democratic reform and minority governments, Sweden’s parliament enacted several human rights reforms, including abolition of the death penalty for peacetime offenses. Also known as: Proposition No. 144 Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; human rights; social issues and reform Key Figures Oscar von Sydow (1873-1936), member of the Swedish parliament chosen by King Gustav V in 1921 to replace De Geer as prime minister J. A. Bouvin (fl. late nineteenth century), politician who introduced the abolition of the death penalty for peacetime offenses in Sweden’s parliament in 1867 Carl Albert Lindhagen (1860-1946), member of the Second Chamber of the Swedish parliament, 18971917, and of the First Chamber, 1919-1940 Gerard Louis De Geer (1854-1935), Liberal who headed a “caretaker” government in Sweden, 19201921 Karl Hjalmar Branting (1860-1925), prime minister of the first Social Democratic government in Sweden Summary of Event As early as 1855, Sweden began to adopt policies aimed at guaranteeing humane treatment of its citizens. Punishments such as caning, whipping, and “church duty” (forcing citizens to sit in special pews at church to be publicly ridiculed) were abolished, and limited religious freedom was granted in 1860. It was within this context that the first attempt was made, in 1867, to abolish the death penalty for peacetime civil offenses and wartime offenses under the military penal code. J. A. Bouvin introduced a motion to abolish the death penalty into the Swedish parliament in that year, but it was defeated. A restructuring of Sweden’s political system was also under way. In 1866, the Swedish parliament began to revise its own structure and processes. The earlier four estates (nobles, clergy, burghers, and landowners and the rural middle class) were replaced by the popularly elected Second Chamber (lower house) and a senatorial upper house. In 1907 the definition of suffrage was broadened (although the vote was not granted to women until 1921) and most property qualifications for voting were abolished. 1680
During World War I, the Young Socialists, also known as Left Socialists, continued to demand liberalization of the government and espoused Marxism. The Young Socialists were able to strengthen their political organization throughout the duration of World War I. When a potato famine in 1917 left Swedish farmers destitute, considerable public unrest threatened the government. Many non-Socialist party leaders, both Conservatives and Liberals, became concerned that the Socialists might lead the nation in a revolution similar to the recent Russian Revolution. Even if the Young Socialists had developed a stronger leadership, however, their power base was too small to cause major disruption. The end of World War I caught the Conservatives unprepared. The Liberal and Socialist Parties, which had both gained strength in the parliament, took advantage of the moment to join forces. The two parties cooperated in order to continue their political reforms, and this collaboration helped bring both the political and the social emancipation of women. When the 1921 Electorate Law went into effect, the number of eligible voters more than doubled, with women clearly in the majority. Numerous other political and humanitarian reforms were enacted, in part because they were a natural evolution of the great period of reform and in part as a means of undermining the growing strength of the Young Socialists by adopting some of their programs. In 1920, Karl Hjalmar Branting became prime minister of Sweden’s first Social Democratic government. As a single-party, minority government, it had little chance for a long tenure. When the election for the Second Chamber took place six months after Branting’s election, the Conservatives made a relatively strong recovery, and Branting was forced to resign. The result of the shift in power, however, was that no party had a clear majority in the chambers, and none of the parties would form a government on a minority basis. The Liberals, the most moderate party, would cooperate with neither the right nor the left. King Gustav V therefore proposed a bureaucratic caretaker ministry under Gerhard Louis De Geer that would not be aligned with any of the parties. Only one member of the parliament served in De Geer’s “professional” ministry. Many reforms were introduced in the parliament during this critical period. Included in those reform measures was Proposition No. 144, which provided for the
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Significance Until the beginning of the twentieth century, most governments accepted the death penalty as an effective and appropriate way to prevent and to punish crime. Executions were made to appear lawful and were justified with the argument that the supreme penalty was necessary, especially for very serious offenses, for the good of society. Since 1867, when Bouvin introduced abolition legislation, there have been intermittent movements throughout Scandinavia and the Western world to abolish the death penalty, even as punishment for murder. Sweden’s 1921 Proposition No. 144 affirmed the value of human life and established a limit on what the state might do to its citizens. Some members of the Swedish parliament based their votes on the measure on political exigencies, attempting to avert further political
crises. Many, however, cast their votes in a principled stand for human rights. As one of the first nations to abolish the death penalty, Sweden exerted pressure on other Scandinavian and Western nations to reevaluate their own statutory punishments. The result was the limiting of the numbers of offenses for which the death penalty may be demanded or the removal of that penalty entirely. Great Britain used Sweden’s abolition of the death penalty and later reforms of alternative punishments as a yardstick to evaluate its own position on incarceration and executions. Great Britain’s 1949-1953 report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment examined the alternative punishments imposed by Sweden and expressed interest in the efficiency and humanity of Stockholm’s Utrecht and Langholmen prisons, where psychiatric clinics worked with both convicted prisoners and suspects awaiting trial. The report concluded that available evidence showed that few released murderers committed further crimes of violence. The prohibition of the death penalty became an integral part of the Instrument of Government of the Swedish Constitution. Chapter 8 states in Article 1 that no law or regulation may imply that a sentence for capital punishment can be pronounced. In 1976, this statement was moved to Chapter 2, which concerns fundamental liberties and rights. Its Article 4 states, “Capital punishment may not occur.” Inclusion of the statement in Chapter 2 means that the abolition of the death penalty applies not only to Swedish citizens but also to alien residents, who are thus protected against extradition to nations where the death penalty is still practiced. Although Norway preceded Sweden by removing the death penalty for peacetime offenses in 1905, that nation did not abolish capital punishment for all offenses until after Sweden had done so. Denmark, in 1933, and Finland, in 1949, also abolished the practice of executing convicted offenders. By the mid-twentieth century, many countries had abolished the death penalty; international public opinion generated pressure to stop executions. International human rights treaties established restrictions and safeguards on the use of the death penalty in countries that had not yet abolished it, and the trend among nations was toward gradual abolition of the death penalty. As of 2005, eighty-five countries had totally abolished the death penalty, with another thirty-five substantially restricting it or not enforcing it, leaving about seventy-six countries or territories where it continued to be legal. —H. Christian Thorup 1681
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abolition of the death penalty for peacetime offenses. The measure was introduced in the First Chamber in 1921. De Geer, with the support of the Conservatives, attempted to block passage of the proposition. At the same time, parliament member Carl Albert Lindhagen put forth a motion to amend Proposition No. 144 to include the abolition of wartime offenses as well. Lindhagen’s motion for amendment was defeated by a vote of 46 to 32. The unamended Proposition No. 144, which exempted peacetime offenses, passed through the First Chamber by a vote of 62 to 23. When First Chamber elections were held in 1921, the Social Democrats gained more seats, although no political party had a clear majority. Once again, the king suggested a coalition government, but the parties would not comply. Largely because of his failure to show strong leadership, De Geer was replaced by Oscar von Sydow, another nonparty legislator. It was during the tenure of Prime Minister von Sydow that both the original Proposition No. 144 and Lindhagen’s amendment were considered and acted upon in the Second Chamber. The motion for complete abolition was defeated, but the original peacetime-only abolition was passed by a vote of 116 to 48. The failure of the parliament to approve Lindhagen’s amendment can be attributed to the lack of a strong majority party and the concerns of the Swedish people about wartime offenses in the aftermath of a world war and a revolution in Russia. The abolition of the death penalty for wartime offenses as well as for peacetime offenses was finally enacted in 1972 by a vote of 266 to 37. Sweden completed abolition of the death penalty for all offenses with the 1972 legislation.
Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment
Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment Further Reading Amnesty International. When the State Kills: The Death Penalty, a Human Rights Issue. New York: Author, 1989. A concise source for the status of capital punishment worldwide. Each nation is listed separately. The work presents a bias toward abolition but discusses arguments for and against capital punishment. The appendix includes extracts from various human rights conventions. No bibliography. Aspelin, Erland, and Sten Hecksher, rapporteurs. A New Penal System: Ideas and Proposals. Stockholm: Kristianstads Boktryckeri, 1978. Report for the National Council for Crime Prevention addresses the underlying principle that treatment should replace punishment. It is an excellent source for details on imprisonment, conditional sentences, probation, “open prisons,” and other aspects of Sweden’s penal system. No bibliography. Indexed. Hadenius, Stig. Swedish Politics During the Twentieth Century. Translated by Victor Kayfetz. 3d rev. ed. Stockholm: Swedish Institute, 1990. Brief scholarly analysis of the Swedish model of parliamentary government. Includes an especially useful bibliographic list of English-language publications. Henningfeld, Diane Andrews. The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Excellent introduction to the issue of capital punishment geared specifically toward younger readers. Part of a series that provides clear and concise examinations of specific issues from conflicting perspectives. Metcalf, Michael F., ed. The Riksdag: A History of the Swedish Parliament. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Presents an unbiased look at the evolution of Sweden’s parliament beginning in the thirteenth century. Includes maps, charts, tables, and index. Extensive topical bibliography is annotated, but many
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sources are available only in the Swedish language. Moberg, Vilhelm. A History of the Swedish People: From Renaissance to Revolution. Vol. 2. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Good general reference includes discussion of human rights issues. One of the best-selling books in Sweden’s literary history. Royal Commission on Capital Punishment. Report. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1953. Provides a detailed examination of the effectiveness of Sweden’s penal system and thorough analysis of the techniques employed. Extensive graphs and charts are useful for making comparisons with other nations’ systems. Includes detailed index. Scott, Franklin D. Sweden: The Nation’s History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977. Comprehensive work discusses the evolution of Sweden’s political parties in depth. Does not specifically address the death penalty, but does outline the political setting for its abolition. Includes index and extensive bibliography listing many sources in the original Swedish. Verney, Douglas V. Parliamentary Reform in Sweden, 1866-1921. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1957. Useful primarily for passages on the parliamentary reforms. Includes excellent biographical notes on many of the chief participants. Extensive bibliography. See also: Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent; Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin; Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germainen-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery; 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention.
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Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed
1921
Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin cultured an avirulent strain of bovine tuberculosis bacilli for use as a vaccine against tuberculosis in humans. Locale: Pasteur Institute, Lille, France Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; biology Key Figures Albert Calmette (1863-1933), French microbiologist Camille Guérin (1872-1961), French veterinarian and microbiologist Robert Koch (1843-1910), German physician and microbiologist
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Summary of Event Tuberculosis, often called consumption, is a deadly contagious disease of humans and other mammals, including primates and cattle. The disease is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, first identified by the eminent German physician Robert Koch in 1882. The bacterium can be transmitted from person to person through physical contact or droplet infection (for example, through sneezing). The bacterium can survive in moist or dried sputum for up to six weeks. Once inside the body, the tuberculosis bacterium, called the tubercle bacillus because of its rod shape, invades lung tissue. Amoeba-like immune system cells called phagocytes attack and engulf the tubercle bacilli, destroying some of the bacteria. Other tubercle bacilli, however, destroy the phagocytes and reproduce to form new bacilli. Bacilli activity eventually damages and inflames large lung regions, causing difficulty in breathing and failure of the body to deliver sufficient oxygen to various tissues. The tubercle bacilli can also spread to other body tissues, where further complications develop. Without treatment, the disease progresses, disabling and eventually killing the victim. Today, tuberculosis normally is treated with a combination of antibiotics and other drugs. During the late 1800’s, microbiologists, principal among them Louis Pasteur and Koch, established the germ theory of disease, which maintains that microorganisms such as bacteria are responsible for infectious diseases. In 1876, Koch became the first scientist to isolate a bacterial cause of disease with Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax in humans and cattle. The approach he developed and used for identifying Bacillus
anthracis is now referred to as Koch’s postulates: Blood samples are taken from animals infected with a particular disease, bacterial species found in the blood of all infected animals are isolated for further study, each individual bacterial species is tested by injection into healthy animals, and the bacterial species that produces the disease in healthy animals—along with new bacteria in the bloodstreams of these animals—is the causative agent of the disease. Koch developed his approach for identifying bacterial pathogens (disease producers) with simple equipment, primarily microscopy. He identified numerous other bacterial agents of disease and classified hundreds of microorganisms (for example, bacteria, protists, fungi), both pathogens and nonpathogens. In 1882, he identified Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the causative agent of tuberculosis in humans from phlegm and lung abscesses of diseased victims. Koch reported his discovery to the Physiological Society of Berlin in March, 1882. In subsequent years, he made additional contributions to microbiology, although he continued to place special emphasis on tuberculosis. In 1890, he discovered that a chemical released from tubercle bacilli elicits a hypersensitive (allergic) reaction in individuals previously exposed to or suffering from tuberculosis. This chemical, called tuberculin, was isolated from culture extracts in which tubercle bacilli were being grown. When small amounts of tuberculin are injected into a person subcutaneously (beneath the skin), a small inflamed patch develops if the person has been exposed to or is suffering from tuberculosis. This occurs because the infected person’s body produces antibodies against foreign objects such as tubercle bacilli and foreign chemicals (for example, tuberculin) released from tubercle bacilli. Injection of tuberculin into an uninfected person yields a negative response (that is, no inflammation) because the person’s immune system has never been stimulated to produce antibodies against any aspect of tuberculosis. Tuberculin does not injure tested patients because it is only an extract derived from tubercle bacilli. It is targeted by the immune systems of infected individuals because it is a foreign object. Therefore, Koch’s discovery of the tuberculin skin test was extremely valuable to medicine because it gave doctors a diagnostic tool for identifying unknowing victims and carriers of the disease, thereby limiting its further spread.
Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed The first vaccine to prevent tuberculosis was developed in 1921 by two French microbiologists, Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin. Calmette was a student of the eminent French microbiologist Louis Pasteur at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Guérin was a veterinarian who joined Calmette’s laboratory in Lille, France, in 1897. Calmette and Guérin focused their research on the microbiology of infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis. In 1906, they discovered that individuals who had been exposed to tuberculosis or who had mild infections developed resistance to the disease. They found that resistance to tuberculosis was caused by the body’s immune response to tubercle bacilli located within the body. They also discovered that tubercle bacilli grown in culture over many generations become progressively weaker and avirulent—that is, they lose their ability to cause disease. From 1906 through 1921, Calmette and Guérin cultured tubercle bacilli from cattle (Mycobacterium bovis). With proper nutrients and temperature, bacteria can reproduce through binary fission (that is, one bacterium splits into two bacteria) in as little time as thirty minutes. Calmette and Guérin cultivated thousands of generations of tubercle bacilli in a bile-derived food medium over fif-
Albert Calmette. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 teen years, periodically testing the bacteria for virulence (their ability to cause disease) by injecting them into cattle. After many generations, the tubercle bacilli lost their virulence. Nevertheless, these avirulent tubercle bacilli still stimulated the production of antibodies by the cow immune system. Calmette and Guérin had successfully bred a strain of avirulent tubercle bacilli that could not cause tuberculosis in cows but could stimulate immunity against the disease, thereby making the cows immune to virulent tubercle bacilli. Cows that had been vaccinated with the avirulent tubercle bacilli did not develop tuberculosis when they later were injected with virulent tubercle bacilli. They had been immunized against tuberculosis. There was considerable concern over whether the avirulent tubercle bacillus strain was harmless to humans. Calmette and Guérin continued cultivating weaker versions of the avirulent tubercle bacillus strain that retained antibody-stimulating capacity. By 1921, they had isolated an avirulent antibody-stimulating tubercle bacillus strain that was harmless to humans, a strain they called Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). In 1922, they began using BCG to vaccinate newborn children against tuberculosis at the Charité Hospital in Paris. The immunized children exhibited no ill effects from the vaccination. Calmette and Guérin’s vaccine was so successful in controlling the spread of tuberculosis in France that it attained widespread use in Europe and Asia beginning in the 1930’s. Furthermore, Calmette devised a skin test for detecting tuberculosis that was very similar to Koch’s tuberculin test. Unfortunately, Calmette did not live long enough to see very widespread use of the BCG vaccine. Most bacterial vaccines involve the use of antitoxin or heat/chemical-treated bacteria. BCG is one of the few vaccines that use specially bred live bacteria. Its use sparked some controversy in the United States and England, where the medical community questioned its effectiveness and postponed BCG immunizations until the late 1950’s. Researchers at the University of Illinois conducted extensive testing of the vaccine, and it was eventually adopted in the United States despite ongoing questions among physicians regarding its effectiveness. Significance Calmette and Guérin’s development of the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis saved thousands of lives across Canada, Europe, and Asia from the 1920’s to the 1940’s and worldwide from the 1950’s onward. Tuberculosis affects primarily newborns, children, and Caucasian males forty
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identified through the tuberculin skin test, which has become a part of most routine physical examinations. Individuals who contract tuberculosis can be treated with a variety of drugs and antibiotics. BCG vaccinations can be given to people in high-risk groups and to health care workers. Together, these approaches have held tuberculosis in check, at least in the developed countries of North America and Europe. —David Wason Hollar, Jr. Further Reading Alberts, Bruce, et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th ed. New York: Garland, 2002. Clearly written introductory molecular biology textbook for undergraduate biology majors provides a thorough survey of the science by several leading molecular biologists and biochemists. Presents extensive coverage of prokaryotes (bacteria) and the human immune system. Includes excellent photographs and diagrams as well as valuable reference lists. Eisen, Herman N. Immunology: An Introduction to Molecular and Cellular Principles of the Immune Responses. 2d ed. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1980. Introductory immunology textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students provides comprehensive, detailed presentation of the cellular biochemistry behind the body’s immune system. Describes antibody production, skin responses (such as hypersensitivity) to certain infections, and how vaccines stimulate the immune system. Gebhardt, Louis P. Microbiology. 5th ed. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1975. Concise introductory microbiology textbook for undergraduates provides an excellent survey of the science and its history and stresses microbiological applications in everyday life. Presents comprehensive coverage of every branch of microbiology in a manner accessible to the layperson. Holt, John G., et al., eds. Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology. 9th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1994. Information-packed manual for microbiologists offers a comprehensive guide for classifying bacteria based on various characteristics. Describes in detail every major group of bacteria, including microscopic shape and appearance, growth patterns, and responses to chemical treatments. Lechevalier, Hubert A., and Morris Solotorovsky. Three Centuries of Microbiology. 1965. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1974. Outstanding detailed history of microbiological research from the 1600’s to the midtwentieth century, including the many famous experi1685
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years of age and above, although non-Caucasians have a higher mortality rate from the disease. The disease is more common among impoverished individuals and alcoholics. BCG played a very important role in saving many such persons. Whereas the BCG vaccine was derived from bovine tuberculosis, it is equally effective in inducing antibody production in humans against human tuberculosis because of the two bacterial species’ structural similarities. The human immune system produces antibodies that attack either species of tubercle bacilli. The two bacterial species are shaped similarly and produce nearly identical proteins on which human antibodies are targeted. Therefore, the BCG vaccine is interspecies-specific. The procedure is somewhat similar to English physician Edward Jenner’s 1796 historic treatment of human smallpox using matter from cowpox sores on infected cattle. A person cannot contract tuberculosis from a BCG injection because this particular bacterial strain cannot damage lung tissue—it is avirulent. Once inside the body, however, its shape and the proteins it produces stimulate human immune system cells called lymphocytes to produce and release special proteins called immunoglobulins (antibodies). The antibodies bind to the BCG bacteria and associated BCG proteins, followed by phagocytic engulfment of the bacteria. Some lymphocytes multiply to become “memory” cells so that the body will have a large supply of anti-BCG antibodies. If the vaccinated person is exposed to virulent tubercle bacilli, then these memory cells will release these antiBCG antibodies to inactivate the bacteria; the exposed person will not contract tuberculosis. The avirulent, antibody-stimulating BCG vaccine was controversial in the United States because of its inadvertent conflict with the tuberculin skin test. The tuberculin skin test is designed to identify people suffering from tuberculosis so that they can be treated. Like somebody with tuberculosis, a BCG-vaccinated person will have a positive tuberculin skin test. If a physician is unaware that a patient has had a BCG vaccination and uses the tuberculin skin test on that patient, the doctor will presume that the patient has tuberculosis. Despite this possible confusion, the BCG vaccine has been invaluable in curbing the worldwide spread of tuberculosis. It has not eradicated the disease, however. With worldwide acceptance of the BCG vaccine in the late 1950’s, medical science obtained a complete set of weapons for battling tuberculosis, a disease that remained prevalent in less developed countries as of the early twenty-first century. Infected individuals can be
Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed
Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher ments of Pasteur, Koch, Calmette and Guérin, and others. Chapter 3 is a lengthy tribute to Koch’s great discoveries, and chapter 6 describes Calmette and Guérin’s work on the BCG vaccine in detail. Mader, Sylvia S. Biology. 8th ed. New York: McGrawHill, 2004. Introductory textbook for undergraduates, both biology majors and others, presents clearly written extensive discussion of viruses, bacteria, and the human immune system. Beautifully illustrated. Tortora, Gerard J., Berdell R. Funke, and Christine L. Case. Microbiology: An Introduction. 8th ed. Redwood City, Calif.: Benjamin/Cummings, 2003. Excellent introductory microbiology textbook for allied
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 health care majors offers a thorough but uncomplicated presentation of the subject. Well written, well organized, and beautifully illustrated. Describes various bacterial, viral, and protozoan pathogens of the respiratory tract, including the Mycobacteria. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States; Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds; 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives.
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Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus introduced the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the twentieth century’s most influential philosophers. Locale: London, England; New York, New York Categories: Philosophy; publishing and journalism Key Figures Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), British philosopher Otto Weininger (1880-1903), Austrian philosopher Summary of Event Published in German in 1921 and translated into English in 1922, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus remains a model of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s spare, elegant prose. Consisting of seven postulates and their logical derivatives, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus represents Wittgenstein’s attempt to create a logical language, and thus a framework, for philosophical investigations. Biographers agree that Wittgenstein’s interest in philosophy began when he was approximately eight or nine years old, when he wondered if one was obliged to be honest at all times. His conclusion that situational honesty has advantages seems at odds with the unrelenting honesty that he customarily displayed when he matured. As a child, Wittgenstein found it necessary to placate the adults in his life. His father, Karl, devoted himself to his extensive business interests, and his mother, Leopoldene, devoted herself to her husband and to music, in that order. Although the youngest of eight children, Ludwig found himself virtually an only child as a result of the fifteen-year gap between him and his next-eldest sibling, 1686
Hermine. Most biographers believe that the Wittgenstein children consisted of two separate generations, but some have argued that in effect there were three generations, by reason of the large age difference between Ludwig and Hermine. Apparently, none of the children met their parents’ exacting standards; in any case, Ludwig’s elder brothers’ suicides testify to a collectively unhappy childhood. Introduced to the writings of philosopher Otto Weininger while still in his teens, Wittgenstein found himself drawn to Weininger’s nihilistic philosophy. Weininger castigated women, denounced sexual love, disparaged Jews, and exalted suicide. Wittgenstein incorporated Weininger’s harsh convictions into his life and, to some extent, his work, as exemplified by his unending search for purity and his personal definition of honesty and perfection. The writing of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus occupied Wittgenstein until 1918; he finished it while detained as a prisoner of war in Italy. In this work, Wittgenstein argued that the world consists of facts and that language pictures, or models, these facts. Thus, in Wittgenstein’s view, language limits thought; as far as possible, therefore, language should be limited to elementary propositions. By “elementary proposition,” Wittgenstein meant a concentration, a nexus, of names. An object can be named, but that name does not constitute the object. Internal properties, such as motion or location, of an object are designated as part of, or as belonging to, that object. One should be able to recognize the truthfulness of a proposition from its symbol—that part
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during his lifetime, but a number of works drawn from his notes and lectures were pubIn the first few paragraphs of the preface to his 1921 work Tractatus lished posthumously, as, of course, was Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein lays out his purpose in Philosophical Investigations. writing the book: In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein maintained his Tractatus LogicoPerhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himPhilosophicus format inasmuch as he numself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it—or at least simibered the paragraphs, but he expanded on, lar thoughts.—So it is not a textbook.—Its purpose would be achieved expounded, and, at times, disagreed with his if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it. original ideas. In the later volume, he porThe book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I betrayed language as a game. He defined a lanlieve, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be guage game as a small portion of an entire summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said language consisting of words and the actions clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. they join. Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather— The language Wittgenstein proposed in not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, consisting to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the only of propositions, had severe limitations. limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be He did not give examples of elementary thought). propositions. His critics maintained that he It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and did not because he could not; elementary what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense. propositions do not exist. I do not wish to judge how far my efforts coincide with those of In Philosophical Investigations, he enother philosophers. Indeed, what I have written here makes no claim to novelty in detail, and the reason why I give no sources is that it is a larged his ideas about names. For example, matter of indifference to me whether the thoughts that I have had have he asserted that language disguises thought been anticipated by someone else. but that a word has no meaning if it has nothing to correspond to it. Source: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (New York: Humanities Press, Wittgenstein did not change his ideas 1961). about the source of misunderstanding and the need for agreement about definitions. In Philosophical Investigations, he proposed that individuals examine their personal beof the proposition that characterizes its sense—alone. liefs, asking, for example, how one learns and knows the Misunderstanding occurs when two people use the same meaning of a word. He stressed the importance of persymbol differently. sonally understanding the underlying assumptions of the In his preface to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, words one speaks. Wittgenstein stated that he had solved the problem of In the later work, Wittgenstein virtually abandoned philosophical language. Wittgenstein’s commitment to the notion of an ideal philosophical language. Context philosophy ruled his life, however, and his definition of assumed major proportions in his mature theory; objects honesty compelled him to rework some of this publicarelated to and depended on their language games. For extion. Philosophische Untersuchungen (Philosophical Inample, the meaning of the word “pain” depends both on vestigations, 1953) published in 1953, two years after his personal conditioning history and on the idiosyncratic death, includes these variations. Publication of this work meaning of the word “pain” in its context. distinguished Wittgenstein as the author of not one but Wittgenstein discarded his central idea in Tractatus two major, but differing, philosophies. Logico-Philosophicus that sentences picture reality. InDuring the years from 1929 to 1951, Wittgenstein stead, in Philosophical Investigations, he asserted that taught at the University of Cambridge; during those idiosyncratic meanings and context dictate the meaning years—and, indeed, for almost all of his lifetime—he of a sentence. “Projecting,” or attributing another’s kept notebooks of his philosophical musings. He liked to meaning to a sentence, constitutes, in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, diseased thinking. work his way through one philosophical problem and Although some have described Wittgenstein as dethen move on to another. He did not publish very much
From TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS
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Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher tached and solitary, it is clear that he entered into several committed relationships, primarily with David Pinsent, Frank Plumpton Ramsey, and Rush Rhees. That he expected others to use his ideas and to go beyond them sums up his general attitude. Significance Credited with divorcing words from what they represent, Wittgenstein inspired a number of thinkers in the twentieth century. Some of these philosophers elaborated on his theory or used it as a springboard for their own ideas in such ways that they might be said to have competed with him. Others devised theories that directly conflicted with his. During his lifetime, Wittgenstein addressed the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers organized by Moritz Schlick that gave birth to the movement known as logical positivism, but he did not consider himself a member of the group. The Vienna Circle met regularly to discuss the philosophy of science; its members included Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap. Influenced by Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the logical positivists credited Wittgenstein with an important aspect of their philosophy, the verifiability principle. They also credited him with substantiating logic and mathematics. The logical positivists believed that Wittgenstein defined a proposition as the sum of experiences that proved a proposition. In doing so, however, they neglected Wittgenstein’s distinctions between tautologies and identities; the two definitions differed widely. Wittgenstein believed he had created a rule of thumb, not the universal application adopted by the logical positivists. Wittgenstein and the logical positivists also differed significantly in their views of the limitations of language. For Wittgenstein, language could not encompass, or make, metaphysical assertions. In Wittgenstein’s opinion, thoughts about mystical subjects occur only to those who view the world as a limited whole. Viewing the world as limitless fosters an expanded view of the range of possibilities. Clearly, Wittgenstein did not consider himself part of the Vienna Circle. In 1933, Alfred Korzybski published Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. In this work, Korzybski drew on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to develop a system of language evaluation that he named “general semantics.” Although Korzybski used Wittgenstein’s notions about words and objects, he departed from Wittgenstein’s thinking when he abandoned Aris1688
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 totelian logic; nevertheless, general semantics, which influenced a number of twentieth century thinkers, owes Wittgenstein’s work a significant debt. Philosophers concerned with the acquisition of knowledge tend to divide along Cartesian and Wittgensteinian lines. The basic differences between the two groups can best be summed up as follows: Cartesian argumentation may be defined as the notion that beliefs reflect natural facts; Wittgensteinian reasoning may be described as the conviction that a belief may reflect only social convention. Wittgenstein’s contribution redirected philosophical attention from certainty to ambiguity. Incorporating ambiguity into philosophy and research tends to maximize answers and can often lead to additional stimulating questions. Some of the interesting questions raised by Wittgenstein’s philosophy merge epistemology with neuroscience. Some researchers study human cognition by seeking to establish and understand the way the brain works. Others try to establish the theory that if a specific neuron structure does not exist, then a specific thought cannot exist. These discussions have generated noteworthy research into memory. Wittgenstein maintained a lively interest in psychology, and at least two therapeutic approaches developed from his work. The “social constructionists,” influenced by Wittgenstein, revised family therapy by using a storytelling approach. They contend that each member of a troubled family has a unique “story” about the family’s problems. Such therapists think of themselves as storytelling experts who can listen to and merge the “stories” of family members into a single version that everyone in the family can agree on as acceptable and workable. “Rational-emotive” therapists base their therapy more on general semantics than on Wittgenstein’s ideas per se. Such therapists actively direct their clients to examine all sides of a question or problem and then to ask Wittgensteinian questions such as “How do I know?” and “How can I prove it?” In addition, Wittgenstein’s emphasis on the contextual has influenced many psychologists to take a more holistic approach to their discipline and has led many physicians to learn how to listen to their patients. It has been reported that when he was dying, Wittgenstein said, “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.” He devoted himself to work that he loved, and he wielded enormous influence in the disciplines that come under the rubric of philosophy. The psychotherapy theories influenced by his work have helped untold numbers of people reconcile their problems. — Maxine S. Theodoulou
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work in historical perspective. The author’s access to previously unpublished letters and writings gives this book a depth that others lack. Discusses Wittgenstein’s sexual orientation frankly and with sensitivity. Savickey, Beth. Wittgenstein’s Art of Investigation. New York: Routledge, 1999. Examines the influences on Wittgenstein and places his work in historical context. Includes bibliography and index. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. Wittgenstein explains in a foreword how he came to this theory and his thoughts about Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Excellent reading for serious students of the philosophy of language as well as those whose interests center on epistemology. _______. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. Rev. ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974. Incorporates Wittgenstein’s own suggestions regarding earlier editions along with comments that can be found in his correspondence with C. K. Ogden. Includes an introduction by philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. See also: 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for Formal Systems.
1921-1922
Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin The work of Frederick G. Banting and Charles Herbert Best in isolating the pancreatic antidiabetic hormone insulin led to lifesaving treatment for countless persons with diabetes. Locale: University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology Key Figures Frederick G. Banting (1891-1941), Canadian physician Charles Herbert Best (1899-1978), graduate student in the University of Toronto’s physiology department James Bertram Collip (1892-1965), Canadian biochemist John J. R. Macleod (1876-1935), Scottish physiologist
Summary of Event Diabetes mellitus has been known since ancient times. The disease in its juvenile form is induced by a deficiency in the “islets of Langerhans,” part of the pancreas, which fail to produce the hormone insulin, a substance that is needed for the utilization of glucose by muscle cells. When deprived of their primary fuel (glucose), the muscle cells produce energy from fat, which results in high blood levels of toxic ketone bodies (acetone). The diabetic has very high levels of glucose in the blood and urine. The patient consumes much fluid, produces much urine, and is always hungry and weak; yet, in spite of eating constantly, the patient loses weight. Once ketone bodies begin to accumulate in the blood, the brain ceases to function and the patient slips into a coma and dies. 1689
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Further Reading Hartnack, Justus. Wittgenstein and Modern Philosophy. 2d ed. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985. Discusses and compares Wittgenstein’s early and mature philosophies. Devotes a chapter to Wittgenstein’s influence on, as well as his differences with, the logical positivists. Another chapter outlines the work of some contemporary philosophers the author views as Wittgenstein’s successors. Kölbel, Max, ed. Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance. New York: Routledge, 2004. Collection of essays by twelve philosophers examines the relevance of Wittgenstein’s work for philosophy in the twentyfirst century. Discussion covers of all of Wittgenstein’s major works, including Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus. Korzybski, Alfred. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. 5th ed. Lakeville, Conn.: Institute of General Semantics, 1994. Introduces a system of evaluating words that is built on Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and also expands it. General semantics retains Wittgenstein’s basic premises about words and what they represent. It also includes Wittgenstein’s mature theory of language games. Monk, Ray. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. New York: Free Press, 1990. Comprehensive biography, written by a philosopher, places Wittgenstein’s
Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin
Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin
Frederick G. Banting. (Arthur S. Goss/Library and Archives Canada)
The German histologist Paul Langerhans discovered, in 1869, some peculiar cells in the pancreas that were later named “islets of Langerhans.” The Swiss anatomist Johann Conrad Brunner, in 1682, showed that if he removed the pancreas, the experimental animals began to drink and urinate continuously. These findings, together with the realization by other scientists that there was a connection between the onset of diabetes and pancreatic lesions, led to a new era: the study of the pancreas as the causative factor of diabetes. Thus researchers in later years were able to produce diabetes in experimental animals by surgical removal of the pancreas. This led to the demonstration that the pancreatic islets of Langerhans are the source of the insulin necessary for the metabolism of glucose. Nevertheless, from 1910 to 1920, attempts to extract the active ingredient from the islets of Langerhans were unsatisfactory. This was the situation when a young Canadian surgeon received an inspiration that would become the turning point in the search for the elusive pancreatic hor1690
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mone. On October 31, 1920, Sir Frederick G. Banting was preparing a lecture on the pancreas for his medical class. After reading an article in the journal Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics that reported the finding that the blockage of the pancreatic duct caused the pancreas to shrivel, leaving the islets of Langerhans untouched, Banting had an idea. He began to see how it might be possible to isolate insulin in the pancreas of a dog. He realized that when one tried to extract the insulin from the islets of Langerhans, the pancreatic digestive juice destroyed the hormone before it could be isolated. By letting the pancreas shrivel first, there would be no digestive juice left and the hormone could be isolated intact. Banting presented his idea to John J. R. Macleod, head of the department of physiology of the University of Toronto, and requested permission to conduct the necessary experimental work in his laboratory. Although Macleod did not believe in the existence of an islet hormone or that Banting would be able to prove otherwise, after long deliberations, he gave permission to Banting to use the facilities and provided him with a graduate student assistant, Charles Herbert Best. Banting and Best began their experiments on dogs on May 17, 1921. On August 3, the two researchers had the first conclusive result showing that their pancreas extract lowered the blood sugar of dogs who became diabetic after their pancreases had been surgically removed. At first, Macleod was skeptical about Banting’s report on the successful isolation of the antidiabetic hormone, and he made the two researchers repeat their experiments several times. After he was satisfied that the results were valid, he invited James Bertram Collip to join the group. On December 12, Collip began working on the purification of the extract to make it injectable into humans. On January 23, 1922, it was tested on a fourteen-year-old boy dying of diabetes. The injection of the extract lowered his blood sugar and cleared his urine of ketone bodies and sugar. The first official paper on the discovery, titled, “Internal Secretion of the Pancreas,” was published in February, 1922, in the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine by Banting and Best. On October 26, 1923, the Swedish Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Banting and Macleod for the discovery of insulin. The two winners, accompanied by Best and Collip, traveled to Stockholm two years later. On September 15, 1925, at the ceremonial presentation of the award, Banting shared his half of the prize with Best and Macleod followed suit by sharing his prize with Collip.
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Further Reading Best, Charles H. Selected Papers of Charles H. Best. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963. Includes a foreword by the Nobel laureate Sir Henry Dale and an introduction by the world-renowned diabetes specialist Eliot P. Joslin. Chapter titled “A Canadian Trail of Medical Research” provides information about Best’s life and his collaboration with Banting in the discovery of insulin. The rest of the book is technical but understandable to a layperson with some science education. Best, Henry B. M. Margaret and Charley: The Personal Story of Dr. Charles Best, the Co-discoverer of Insulin. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2003. Best’s younger son presents the story of both his father’s research and his parents’ lives, drawing on diaries and other personal documents. Includes photographs. Bliss, Michael. Banting: A Biography. 2d ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Good biography
of the main discoverer of insulin, written in a clear, nontechnical style. Covers some controversial issues and notes some negative elements in Banting’s character. Includes extensive endnotes and index. _______. The Discovery of Insulin. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982. Interesting, clearly written attempt to give an objective account of the discovery of insulin by the University of Toronto research team. Claims to set the record straight about the roles played by the different persons involved. Includes illustrations, exhaustive bibliography, extensive endnotes, and index. De Kruif, Paul. “Banting Who Found Insulin.” In Men Against Death. 1932. Reprint. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960. Tells the story of how Banting and Best discovered insulin. Obligatory reading for anyone interested in the history of the battle waged by medical science for the prolongation of life. Stevenson, Lloyd. Sir Frederick Banting. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1946. The first complete biography of Banting based on primary sources, written five years after Banting’s death. Emphasizes mainly Banting’s positive attributes, paying little attention to any controversial issues, but is nevertheless a valuable source of information for any student of the history of medicine in general and the history of diabetes in particular. Includes bibliography and index. Wrenshall, G. A., G. Hetenyi, and W. R. Feasby. The Story of Insulin: Forty Years of Success Against Diabetes. London: The Bodley Head, 1962. A good account for the general reader of the historical development of knowledge about diabetes from the earliest times to 1962. Also discusses the role of insulin in the body and the causes and consequences of diabetes. Features a foreword by R. D. Lawrence, a diabetic who, because of insulin, survived to lead a productive life as a renowned clinical researcher. Includes illustrations and index. See also: Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones; Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin; 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells.
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Significance To appreciate the importance of the discovery of insulin, one need only consider the plight of the millions of diabetics before that discovery was made. The fate of diabetic children was particularly tragic, as, shortly after the onset of the disease, they changed from being healthy and active to weak and drowsy; soon after, they became comatose and died. The parents of such children knew quite well that a diagnosis of diabetes was equivalent to a death sentence. The discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto was one of the most revolutionary events in the history of medicine. Its impact was so great because of the miraculous effect insulin had on diabetic patients. The most dramatic example of its spectacular power was its ability to conquer the diabetic coma. It has been estimated that at the start of twentieth century, more than fifteen million diabetics were living who, without insulin, would have died at an early age. One of these was the American physician George Richards Minot, a juvenile diabetic who had been saved by using insulin. As an adult, he discovered a treatment for pernicious anemia, another disease that in the past had always been lethal. —René R. Roth
Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin
Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1921-1923
Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives Drought following a civil war caused the complete failure of the grain crop in Russia’s Volga region. Of the thirty million people left completely destitute, between three and four million died of starvation. A massive relief effort by the American Relief Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, saved millions. Locale: Volga region, Soviet Union Categories: Disasters; government and politics; humanitarianism and philanthropy Key Figures Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), founder and director of the American Relief Administration Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov (Meier Moiseevich Wallach; 1876-1951), Soviet diplomat and advocate of international cooperation
Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), Norwegian explorer, statesman, and head of the International Red Cross Maxim Gorky (Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov; 18681936), Soviet writer and social activist William N. Haskell (1878-1852), head of American Relief Administration efforts in Russia Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, Russia’s grain-growing provinces along the Volga River were especially vulnerable to disaster. Drought caused regular crop failure, and the population was so dense that even in favorable years productivity barely met subsistence levels. Furthermore, agricultural methods were primitive, and peasant holdings too small to finance improvements. A famine in 1892 killed an estimated 400,000 people despite substantial private and public relief efforts in a country with a
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Some of the many children affected by the famine in Russia. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives
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stable government and functioning Trotsky’s Advice to Lenin infrastructure. In his book My Life, Bolshevik leader and Red Army commander Leon Trotsky A series of events in the early detailed his relationship with Lenin and chronicled the development of War twentieth century made the Soviet Communism, the abandonment of which Trotsky considered crucial. people even more susceptible to famine. During World War I, planted In the fall of 1919, when 60% of our locomotives were “diseased,” it was acreage declined by almost 30 perthought that by the spring of 1920 the figure would inevitably rise to 75%. That cent as men and horses were diverted was the expressed opinion of our best experts. Under such conditions, the railto the front, and the area suffered way traffic was becoming a senseless affair, because the 25% of locomotives in heavily during the Russian Civil War half-health was only enough for the transport needs of the railways, since they (1918-1921). In the early years of depended on bulky wood for fuel. Engineer Lomonosov, who was actually in charge of the transport system during those months, made a diagram of the lothe Bolshevik regime, under a policy comotive epidemic for the government. Indicating a mathematical point in the known as War Communism, governyear 1920, he declared: “Here comes death.” ment demands completely depleted “What is to be done then?” asked Lenin. peasant stores and further discour“There are no such things as miracles,” Lomonosov replied. “Even the aged planting. Refugees from cities Bolsheviks cannot perform miracles.” We looked at each other, all the more swelled the rural population. Finally, depressed because none of us knew the technical workings of the transport sysa dry, cold winter that was followed tem, nor the technical workings of such gloomy calculations. “Still, we’ll try to by a hot, rainless summer nearly deperform the miracle,” Lenin muttered dryly through his teeth. . . . stroyed the already meager crops of But the working masses, who had gone through three years of civil war, wheat and rye throughout the Volga were more and more disinclined to submit to the ways of military rule. With his region. Russia’s other major agriculunerring political instinct, Lenin sensed that the critical moment had arrived. Whereas I was trying to get an ever more intensive effort from the tradestural region, the Ukraine, also expeunions, taking my stand on purely economic considerations on the basis of war rienced a poor harvest that prevented communism, Lenin, guided by political considerations, was moving toward an internal aid on a large scale. easing of the military pressure. On the eve of the tenth congress, our lines In May of 1921, the head of the crossed antagonistically. A discussion flared up in the party; it was actually beSoviet state, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, side the point. The party was considering the rate at which the trades-unions proclaimed a retreat from the disaswere to be converted into a part of the state mechanism, whereas the question at trous policies of War Communism, issue was really one of daily bread, of fuel, of raw material for the industries. and in addition to discontinuing reqThe party was arguing feverishly about “the school of communism,” whereas uisitions he allowed limited private the thing that really mattered was the economic catastrophe hanging over the enterprise under the New Economic country. Policy (NEP). At the same time, the Source: Leon Trotsky, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography (New York: Charles Soviet foreign minister, Maksim Scribner’s Sons, 1930). Maksimovich Litvinov, explored the renewal of diplomatic relations with the West. Both of these trends, which Hoover, secretary of commerce under Warren Harding would eventually reestablish Communist Russia as a and director of the American Relief Administration functioning state and a member of the international com(ARA). The ARA, a government agency founded to promunity, were too new to be of use during the famine in vide relief to children in Belgium, became a private founthe Volga region. dation in 1919. It was the chief source of food relief in In July of 1921, the noted Soviet revolutionary writer postwar Europe, but it had also become a political tool, Maxim Gorky sent an appeal to Fridtjof Nansen, director and it was credited with the downfall of Béla Kun’s of the International Red Cross, detailing the desperate short-lived Communist regime in Hungary. situation in the Volga provinces and asking for internaThe fate of thirty million Russian peasants depended tional aid. Nansen appealed to the League of Nations, on cooperation between Soviet Russia and a private which refused to supply aid to Russia as long as the ComAmerican foundation headed by vocal anti-Communists. munist regime held power. He then informed Gorky that the only other possible source of aid on the scale required In a triumph of humanity and common sense over ideolwas the United States and directed the appeal to Herbert ogy, however, negotiators in Riga (in present-day Lat-
Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives via) worked out an agreement in which the United States would supply grain and supervisors to the stricken region, and Russia would underwrite most of the costs of distribution. The Americans agreed to refrain from interfering in Soviet politics, and the Soviets promised to give Americans and their Russian employees autonomy in conducting relief operations. In December, the U.S. Congress appropriated money to purchase grain. The ARA also received charitable contributions from many sources. Hoover appointed William N. Haskell, a career soldier, to direct operations in Russia, and Haskell staffed the mission with experienced relief personnel. Overall, the system worked efficiently: Corruption was kept to a minimum, and the Soviet government was cooperative. Initially, ARA efforts focused on feeding children, its principal targets in postwar Europe, and relief workers set up kitchens in stricken towns. Although accustomed to the squalor and destitution of war-torn Europe, Americans were ill prepared for what they encountered on the Volga. Thousands of refugees dying of starvation huddled on the outskirts of every major town, and piles of emaciated corpses lay unburied in cemeteries. Authorities gathered abandoned and orphaned children into unheated warehouses, where they lay in rags on bare boards; for many, food meant bread made from straw and acorns. The demands of efficient and effective relief meant that aid workers had to abandon many of those suffering, and as a result numerous relief workers later succumbed to post-traumatic stress disorder. Feeding children was only a temporary solution: Unless adults were also fed, there would be no grain crop in 1922. To forestall such a disaster, the United States agreed to supply large quantities of maize, wheat, and rye seed. Delivering this grain within Russia proved an almost impossible undertaking: The country’s railway network suffered from neglect and the ravages of war, and many draft animals had been eaten. To their credit, however, the Soviets assigned the highest priority to delivery and planting. Weather in the summer of 1922 proved favorable, and the fall harvest was adequate, if not abundant. American relief personnel remained in Russia through the winter, dismantling operations or transferring them to Soviet control. By May of 1923, the last ARA workers had returned to the United States. In addition to famine relief, the ARAoperated a remittance program in which Americans could pay ten dollars to have a parcel of staple foods delivered to a designated recipient in Russia. This program generated revenue for famine relief and helped nearly a million people outside 1694
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the famine’s hardest-hit areas survive years of extreme privation. The practice of designated relief had unpleasant repercussions, however, as people who had not received adequate relief ascribed counterrevolutionary activity to those who had. Their targets were principally people with relatives in the West, and a disproportionate number of them were Jews. Significance The famine in Russia’s Volga region ranks high as a cause of preventable human mortality in the twentieth century. It would probably occupy a more prominent place in the historical record were it not for the even more devastating Ukrainian famine of the 1930’s, which came to be recognized as a linchpin in the catalog of the evils of Stalinism. In 1921, however, the situation had not yet devolved to its 1930’s levels, and so the Soviet government and the American Relief Administration were able to work together. At its height, American aid provided eighteen million Russian peasants with food. Without this aid, mortality would certainly have been much higher, and recovery correspondingly slower. If Hoover hoped that food aid, unaccompanied by explicit indoctrination, would bring about the collapse of Bolshevism, he was surely disappointed. The Soviet government emerged from the famine years more firmly entrenched and with a far more realistic attitude toward the emerging socialist state’s capabilities. As years passed, the story of famine relief was rewritten to downplay the role of the American government, and the humanitarian motives of the ARA were called into question. After the American withdrawal, the Soviets arrested many Russian ARAworkers on charges of counterrevolutionary activities, although it is not clear whether they were targeted specifically for their work with the ARA or for other activities. Famine relief opened Russia to Western journalists and cultural figures, but the contact did not lead to renewed diplomatic relations, and the Soviet and U.S. governments continued to rely on the Red Cross and other nongovernmental bodies for another decade. In the United States, the large grain purchases made for Russian famine relief helped stimulate a flagging agricultural sector and contributed to recovery from the postwar economic slump. A less welcome result, from the point of view of Hoover and the Harding administration, was the stimulus given to domestic radicalism by relief campaigns among American leftists. — Martha A. Sherwood
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Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment
Further Reading Duranty, Walter. Duranty Reports Russia. New York: Viking Press, 1934. First-person coverage from The New York Times. Despite inaccuracies, this and I Write as I Please (1935) provide a vivid, compelling picture of the human dimension of the famine. _______. I Write as I Please. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1935. Gripping treatment of Stalin’s attempts to hide the truth of the famine. Duranty’s work on the issue earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Describes the impact of revolution on the Russian population; highlights the general breakdown of infrastructure. Patenaude, Bertrand. The Big Show in Bololand. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002. Based on firsthand accounts, this publication of Stanford’s Hoover Institution is comprehensive, balanced, and
written to be read. “Bololand” refers to Russia under the Bolsheviks. Robbins, Richard G. Famine in Russia, 1891-1892: The Imperial Government Responds to a Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. Good background on agricultural vulnerability in the Volga region; includes comparisons of the 1891 and 1921 famines. Weissman, Benjamin M. Herbert Hoover and Famine Relief to Soviet Russia, 1921-23. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1974. A scholarly book that emphasizes the diplomatic and administrative aspects of famine relief. See also: 1907: Famine Strikes Russia; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy; Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union. 1921
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Hašek’s THE GOOD SOLDIER ŠVEJK Reflects Postwar Disillusionment As Czechs celebrated the birth of their republic after World War I, Jaroslav Hašek’s novel The Good Soldier Švejk reminded them of human folly in times of crisis. Locale: Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) Category: Literature Key Figure Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923), Czech author Summary of Event Jaroslav Hašek’s Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za svetove války (1921-1923), which was published in English first as The Good Soldier: Schweik in 1930 and in an authoritative translation as The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War in 1973, is the story of a wise fool, Josef Švejk, who refuses to fight for the Austro-Hungarian cause when he is drafted into the army during World War I. Published over a two-year period, the novel was left unfinished when Hašek died suddenly in January, 1923; at that point, barely four volumes of his proposed six-volume story were complete. The novel was already a popular success in the newborn republic of Czechoslovakia, however.
The Good Soldier Švejk is a picaresque tale in substance and structure, and, at first glance, it appears to be artless in execution. Closer inspection reveals the opposite, however; the reader discovers that the fat, balding, middle-aged ex-soldier Švejk is a man of deceptive qualities. Hašek leads Švejk through a series of carefully prepared scenes designed to satirize the officialdom of an empire being gradually torn apart by war. At each step, from Švejk’s arrest for making indiscreet remarks about the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand to his interrogation by civil and military authorities, to his enforced enlistment, to his postings as orderly to various officers, to his wanderings across the Central European landscape, the reader always confronts the same unruffled figure. The meaning of mighty events may elude him, but Švejk always understands the meaninglessness of the petty vanities and stupid decisions that swirl around him. Thus Hašek brilliantly carries off his double purpose as an entertainer and serious novelist. Readers relish seeing Hašek’s little man win out against the bullies who confront him even as they witness the author’s impassioned attack on militarism, religion, politics, and injustice. 1695
Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment The gestation of the novel occurred over at least a decade. In 1912, Hašek published a collection of short stories, some of which concerned a soldier named Švejk. Five years later, there followed a more ample set of tales about Švejk’s adventures as a prisoner of war in Russia. These stories, like the episodes in the novel, were partly autobiographical. Like Švejk, Hašek came to soldiering almost as a last resort after a shiftless life. Born in 1883, he worked as a bank clerk before switching to journalism in Prague. A natural storyteller, he penned scores of anecdotal pieces for newspapers and magazines, all the while honing his skills by entertaining habitués of the city’s taverns over steins of ale. Politically, Hašek was an anarchist, but he was a harmless one, despite his run-ins with the police. After war broke out, he was drafted into the Austrian army in 1915. Hašek joined the Ninety-first Infantry Regiment—the same unit as Švejk—and served in southern Bohemia before moving east to Hungary and then to the front in Galicia. He met few officers he admired; he detested most. In September, 1915, his unit was cut off as the result of a sudden Russian breakthrough; although there was a chance to escape, Hašek surrendered to the Russians. Why he did so is not clear—perhaps it was a political decision, or perhaps he was merely being an opportunist. Imprisoned in camps in the Ukraine and later in the Urals, he always tried to find ways to ingratiate himself with his captors. When news came of the formation of the Czechoslovak Legion—a volunteer force of Czechs and Slovaks in Russia, many of them former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian armies—Hašek applied at once. Soon he was active as a propagandist for the legion and other Czech organizations, but this nationalist phase was eventually succeeded by a communist one; he joined the Red Army and the Russian Bolshevik Party in 1918. Two years later, however, he returned to Prague and nationalist politics. It must have seemed to him then that his long peregrinations were over. Foolishly, however, he alienated sympathizers when he brought back a wife from Russia without having divorced his long-suffering first wife, Jarmila, whom he had married in 1910. Scorned and distrusted on all sides, Hašek had to fall back on his literary talents, and it was not long before the novel about his good soldier began to take shape. Given these facts, it is easy to understand some of the glaring differences between Hašek and Švejk. Clearly, the author’s hard, physical life led to a premature death, but his frequent acts of opportunism—although often performed for reasons of survival—took their toll as 1696
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well. By writing the novel, Hašek may have hoped to create a sympathetic image of himself and thereby justify the vagaries of his existence. On the other hand, Švejk is stolid and predictable; he only appears stupid as he pretends to agree with his superiors and follows their orders to the letter. Thus when Lieutenant Lukáš orders Švejk to take care of Lukáš’s mistress’s needs, no matter what, Švejk willingly obeys as she seduces him. When Švejk assists the drunken chaplain, Katz, in administering the Eucharist, or when he endures Lieutenant Dub’s badgering, his refusal to protest speaks volumes. He is a malingerer, as his enemies say, but this is his way of fighting his private war against the system. Significance The Good Soldier Švejk appeared when antiwar literature about World War I was still in its infancy. Its popular success in Czechoslovakia can be accounted for easily enough: It was written in common Czech; the protagonist was regarded, tolerantly, as a buffoon, imagined more like the caricature figure he is in Josef Lada’s series of cartoons illustrating the novel than as a rounded character; and Hašek’s jeering attitude toward the late empire was readily shared by the citizens of the proud young state. The fact that, initially, the literary establishment ignored or savaged the book and its author can also be explained easily: The book’s language was seen as “low” in style; Švejk was a lowbrow figure, suitable for the semiliterate mass readership of the Sunday supplements but hardly worthy of serious discussion; and Hašek’s devious career and personality discredited him as a representative of the young republic’s literature. In any case, neither the average Czech nor the intellectual, perhaps, thought very much about Hašek’s antiwar theme, nor did people in the rest of the world, it would seem. In the aftermath of the worst war in history to that time, the sense of relief that the carnage was over was too great for people to be very concerned with antiwar writing. (A similar postwar reaction occurred after World War II, when a respite of several years was needed before interest in that war’s fiction arose.) Moreover, people and governments were preoccupied by the inevitable problems of the Versailles treaty, postwar economic recessions, the Red Scare, and the sensations of liberalized entertainments and mores. Still, the antiwar movement had begun during the war. Henri Barbusse published Le Feu: Journal d’une esconade (1916; Under Fire: The Story of a Squad, 1917), a novel that established the tone, theme, and structure of most antiwar literature of the next fifteen years.
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Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment
Now that we have one enemy more, now that we have a new front again, we’ll have to be economical with our munitions. “The more children there are in the family,
the more the rods are used,” as grandpa Chovanec at Motol used to say.
The wisdom of Švejk emerges in passages such as this, but it is also clear that Švejk is not a leader and cannot extricate his hapless society from the mess it creates. Most critics agree that Hašek’s place in the history of Czechoslovakian literature is secure. In fact, Hašek may be regarded as one of the founders of modern Czech writing. For much of European history, the lands of Czechoslovakia have been ruled by other states or ideologies. Only between the world wars of the twentieth century and since late 1989 have the Czechs and Slovaks been independent (in 1993, they formed two separate countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Whatever their political fortunes, however, Czechs have produced a distinctive literary tradition. Hašek helped forward that tradition when, along with his contemporaries Franz Kafka and Karel %apek, he defended personal liberty and decried modern tyranny and conformity. Asimilar vein of protest occurred after 1948, when the country fell behind the Iron Curtain and a new group of writers, including Milan Kundera and Václav Havel, emerged as opponents of the Communist regime. From this perspective, Hašek’s little man has an honorable place. Švejk is not handsome or brilliant, but he is a free man and determined to remain so. —Eric Thompson Further Reading Arden, Stuart. “The Good Soldier Schweik and His American Cartoon Counterparts.” Journal of Popular Culture 9 (Summer, 1975): 26-30. Amusing but finally misleading article seeks to compare Hašek’s character to a host of American cartoon characters, such as the Sad Sack, Willie and Joe, and Beetle Bailey, to which Švejk allegedly gave birth. Touches only briefly on the satiric purpose of Hašek compared with the comedic intent of cartoons. Fiedler, Leslie A. “The Antiwar Novel and the Good Soldier Schweik.” Foreword to The Good Soldier: Schweik, by Jaroslav Hašek, translated by Paul Selver. 1930. Reprint. New York: New American Library, 1963. Outlines the heroic tradition in European literature and shows how Hašek’s novel is one of the pioneering works of the twentieth century antiheroic revolt. Also explores the work’s abundant humor, which makes it unusual among antiwar fiction. Hašek, Jaroslav. The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War. Translated by Cecil Parrott. 1973. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. The 1697
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What is especially significant about Barbusse’s work is that it appears to present direct, personal experience of the war, it seems to provoke a mood of pity and disillusionment in the reader, and it employs a vigorous, realistic style. Like Barbusse, his literary followers were veterans of the war and determined antimilitarists. Among the most representative of these were Ernst Jünger, who wrote In Stahlgewittern (1920; The Storm of Steel, 1929); E. E. Cummings, who wrote The Enormous Room (1922); and Robert Graves, who wrote Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography (1929). The big year for antiwar fiction was 1929, when two of the genre’s most memorable novels appeared: Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929) and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Hašek’s book is not an antiwar novel in the same way the above-noted works are, however. For the most part, The Good Soldier Švejk avoids direct presentation of frontline fighting and destruction, only alluding to the aftermath of battle in sarcastic asides. The prevailing mood is not pity, or even disillusionment, as Hašek’s satiric eye is already predisposed to view people and events in a jaundiced manner. What the novel does instead is focus on the behind-the-front milieu, tracing the experiences of a single soldier. The society of army life is Hašek’s subject, and he is both pitiless and amusing in his portrayal of it. Švejk, at the center of this society, is an eiron, a kind of self-deprecating comic figure known to audiences and readers since ancient times. Because he sees life as it is, he is a mystery and a troublemaker to those who wish to manipulate others to their ends. Those in this latter group are the alazons, the self-important braggarts who are the necessary complement to the eiron. Švejk is a wise fool, knowing more than he lets on and thus appearing ingenuous to his tormentors. The reader knows that Švejk is not a simpleton because of his habit of telling long-winded stories whenever an incident reminds him of something that happened elsewhere. Often these tales befuddle or bore the other characters, but they provide the reader with standards by which to judge the situations at hand. Moreover, although Švejk complies with orders, his very complacency reveals the senselessness of events. For example, when news comes that Austria is at war with Italy (thus beginning a war on two fronts, which every sensible leader in Europe wished to avoid), he says:
Scandals of the Harding Administration most authoritative version of the original novel in English (the 1930 edition, translated by Paul Selver, is a bowdlerized, abridged text only two-thirds of the original’s length). Includes an excellent biographical essay, many of Josef Lada’s original illustrations, and several useful maps of the region. Klein, Holger, ed. The First World War in Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1977. Presents eighteen essays on the work of twenty-two writers of 1920’s war novels, including well-known novelists such as Hašek, Hemingway, and Remarque as well as lesser-known figures. Nimchuk, Michael John. The Good Soldier Schweik. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 1980. A play by a Canadian dramatist based on Hašek’s novel. Produced in Toronto in 1969, it was probably inspired by the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968. One of several theatrical and cinematic adaptations of the story that have appeared since the 1930’s. Sadlon, Zenny K. “Švejk: A Hero for Our Time.” Paper presented at the Second Annual Czech and Slovak History and Culture Conference, “The Czech and Slovak 20th Century in Retrospect: 1918-1938,” March, 2001. National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library (Cedar Rapids, Iowa). http://zenny.com/svejk/ NCSML.html. A reflection on the novel from the point of view of an individual who collaborated in the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 production of a new English translation. Offers several interesting observations on the work’s relevance to the world of the twenty-first century. Škvorecky, Josef. “Czech Writers: Politicians in Spite of Themselves.” The New York Times Book Review, December 10, 1989, 1, 43-45. A reflection on the events of the so-called Velvet Revolution of December, 1989, when the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia fell and was replaced by a democratic government led by dramatist Václav Havel. Offers a sketch of the protest role Czech writers have played during times of autocracy since the Renaissance. Stern, J. P. “War and the Comic Muse: The Good Soldier Schweik and Catch-22.” Comparative Literature 20 (Summer, 1968): 193-216. One of the best short studies of the novel available. Focuses in particular on Hašek’s satire of militarism, arguing that it is often backhanded, coarse, and even unfunny. Offers relevant comparisons between Hašek’s novel and Joseph Heller’s classic of American experience in World War II. See also: 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation; Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation; Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War.
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Scandals of the Harding Administration Warren G. Harding’s presidential administration experienced some of the worst instances of corruption at that level of government in U.S. history. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; crime and scandal Key Figures Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), vice president of the United States, 1921-1923, and president of the United States, 1923-1929 Harry M. Daugherty (1860-1941), U.S. attorney general Edward L. Doheny (1856-1935), owner of the PanAmerican Petroleum and Transport Company 1698
Albert B. Fall (1861-1944), U.S. secretary of the interior Charles R. Forbes (1878?-1952), head of the U.S. Veterans Bureau Harry F. Sinclair (1876-1956), owner of the Mammoth Oil Company Thomas J. Walsh (1859-1933), U.S. senator from Montana Summary of Event On August 2, 1923, the twenty-ninth president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, died in San Francisco. The cause of death was listed as “cerebral embolism,” but perhaps journalist William Allen White, Harding’s friend and biographer, was more correct when he asked, “How could the doctors diagnose an illness that was part terror, part shame, and part utter confusion?” Harding
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eral government, fined $10,000, and sentenced to two years at Leavenworth penitentiary. The Veterans Bureau scandal was merely the beginning. Being an extraordinarily poor judge of men, Harding had surrounded himself with peddlers of corruption. Most of these individuals were members of the “Ohio Gang”—friends from Marion, Ohio, Harding’s home, and from state politics in Columbus. Harding’s attorney general was an Ohio friend, Harry M. Daugherty, who, according to one writer, was “a tinhorn gambler and a cheat.” Harding appointed the former sheriff of Pickaway County, Ohio, to the directorship of the U.S. Mint. His brother-in-law became superintendent of federal prisons. Harding installed as comptroller of the currency and then governor of the Federal Reserve system a Marion friend whose only experience in banking had been a few months as head of a small bank. Jesse Smith, a friend of Daugherty, was the liaison man between the Justice Department and various lawbreakers who were eager to purchase pardons, paroles, government appointments, liquor withdrawal permits, and immunity from prosecution. “My God, how the money rolls in,” Smith was reported to sing. On May 23, 1923, however, when rumors about Smith’s corrupt acts were circulating, he committed suicide in Daugherty’s apartment. It was a non-Ohioan, however, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, who provided the most notorious of the Harding scandals. Conservationists were outraged by the appointment of Fall, who had revealed himself to be an enemy of conservation both as a U.S. senator from New Mexico and as a rancher whose sheep grazed over the range of To view image, please refer to the the Alamo National Forest in violation print edition of this title. of the law. Before becoming a member of Harding’s cabinet, Fall had been almost bankrupt. Soon afterward, however, he began to build a new ranch house and to stock his herd with blooded cattle. That this sudden wealth did not correspond with his yearly salary of $12,000 was obvious. One explanation was uncovered by a subcommittee of the Senate Public Lands Committee chaired by Senator Thomas J. Walsh, a Democrat from Montana. Prodded by Fall, Harding in 1921 had transferred Political cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman depicts the juggernaut of scandal rolling toward the White House after members of the Harding administration were imcontrol of the naval oil reserves at Elk plicated in the Teapot Dome oil scandal. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Hills, California, and Teapot Dome, 1699
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had suspected, even before leaving Washington to journey to the West Coast, that there was widespread corruption in his administration, and that this corruption was the work of his cronies. “My God, this is a hell of a job,” he told White shortly before embarking on his journey. “I have no trouble with my enemies. . . . But my friends, my God-damn friends, White, they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!” Already, graft in the Veterans Bureau had come to light. The head of the bureau, Charles R. Forbes, had millions of dollars in contracts and supplies at his disposal, and he proceeded to use them with a callous disregard for the veterans he was supposed to be helping. He made a fortune by declaring vast quantities of hospital supplies worthless and selling them to friends, who in turn resold them to the bureau at staggering prices. For bribes and other favors, Forbes also awarded contracts for hospital sites and construction. In one instance, John W. Thompson of the privately owned Thompson-Black Company paid Forbes $5,000 for preferential treatment in bidding for government contracts. Upon learning of Forbes’s activities, Harding demanded his resignation. Several days later, the legal adviser to the bureau, Charles F. Cramer, committed suicide. After a nine-week trial in 1924, Forbes was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the fed-
Scandals of the Harding Administration Wyoming, from the U.S. Navy to the Department of the Interior. Then Fall had leased Teapot Dome to the Mammoth Oil Company, owned by Harry F. Sinclair, and Elk Hills to the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company of Edward L. Doheny. The Walsh investigations revealed that Sinclair had given Fall $85,000 in cash, a herd of cattle, and $233,000 in liberty bonds at the time of the secret leasing of Teapot Dome, and Doheny’s son had given Fall $100,000 in “a little black bag” for the Elk Hills lease. Although Fall, Sinclair, and Doheny were acquitted of trying to defraud the government, Sinclair later served a jail term for jury tampering, and Fall, convicted of bribery on October 25, 1929, was fined $100,000 and imprisoned for a year. In addition, Harding’s alien property custodian, Thomas Miller, had received $50,000 for seeing that valuable German chemical patents were sold to private parties. Miller was convicted and imprisoned. Jesse Smith, however, also had received a similar slice of the bribery money. Attorney General Daugherty refused to testify before a Senate committee inquiring into this scandal, contending that he could not do so because of his personal relations with the Hardings. Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge, then forced Smith to resign. Later, Daugherty was tried and acquitted. Significance Seldom if ever has the U.S. federal government witnessed such corruption as took place during the Harding administration. Ironically, however, many Americans were more outraged by the conduct of Senator Walsh and the other men who uncovered the scandals than they were by the conduct of Fall and the Ohio Gang. In the end, the Democrats reaped only meager political fruits from the scandals, because Coolidge, the symbol of Puritan virtue, could by no stretch of the imagination be identified with the crimes of the Harding administration. —William M. Tuttle and Geralyn Strecker Further Reading Bates, J. Leonard. The Origins of Teapot Dome: Progressives, Parties, and Petroleum, 1909-1921. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963. Scholarly examination of the years of conflict among conservationists, oil companies, and politicians that led to the leasing of navy oil reserves during the Harding administration. Asserts that previously existing conditions, not merely poor judgment on Harding’s part, contributed to the Teapot Dome scandal. Dean, John. Warren G. Harding. New York: Times 1700
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Books, 2004. Volume in a series on American presidents focuses on Harding’s years in office and discusses his accomplishments apart from the scandals that plagued his administration. Mee, Charles L. The Ohio Gang: The World of Warren G. Harding. New York: M. Evans, 1981. Discusses the people involved in the Harding administration’s scandals. Sometimes sensationalized but nevertheless informative. Includes numerous illustrations. Murray, Robert K. The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration. 1969. Reprint. Newtown, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 2000. Places Harding’s administration in a larger perspective in relation to previous and following administrations. Shows that the scandals did not occur in isolation, but were, in part, products of their time. Noggle, Burl. Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920’s. 1965. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. The first scholarly study to rely primarily on the involved individuals’ papers rather than on popular information and media accounts. Asserts that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Fall was guilty of everything of which he was accused. Russell, Francis. The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times. New York: McGrawHill, 1968. Popular biography relies heavily on Harding’s own papers. Sinclair, Andrew. The Available Man: The Life Behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding. New York: Macmillan, 1965. One of the first studies to use Harding’s papers (made available in 1964) to explore the man behind the mythic construction. Provides evidence that Harding was not merely a puppet president; rather, he was an active participant in his political career, as both senator and president. Stratton, David H. Tempest over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Biography places the Teapot Dome scandal within the context of Fall’s life and times. Includes illustrations and index. Trani, Eugene P., and David L. Wilson. The Presidency of Warren G. Harding. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977. Puts the scandals of Harding’s administration in context with other events. See also: Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era; Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier; Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal; Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President.
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Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System
1921-1923
Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System With the development of his twelve-tone system, Arnold Schoenberg provided a systematic organization for atonal music and profoundly influenced the direction of music composition. Locale: Vienna, Austria; Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California Category: Music Key Figures Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), Austrian composer Anton von Webern (1883-1945), Austrian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Russian American composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1928), German composer
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Summary of Event From the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century, music—from the simplest melody to the most complex symphony—was tonal. By 1907, however, after arriving at what they considered to be the limits of tonality, composers began to experiment with atonality. In 1923, Arnold Schoenberg premiered his twelve-tone organizational system, or dodecaphony, and thereby provided a bold new alternative for all future music composition. In Western tonal music, one pitch or note out of the twelve chromatic notes is central to the composition and is called the tonal center, or tonic. All other notes seem to gravitate toward the tonal center and are in fact grouped in hierarchical order of importance around it. This organization determines the composition’s key. Each key, or scale, consists of seven notes—the remaining five are peripheral and de-emphasized—and forms the basis from which all melody and harmony is derived. Because notes are at relative intervals from one another, one can transpose a composition into any key by changing the tonic but retaining the same relative distance between remaining pitches. In the 1920’s, after abandoning the tonal center and providing an alternative system of harmonic organization, Schoenberg fundamentally altered the prevailing conviction that music requires tonality. A native of Vienna, Schoenberg was heir to the compelling musical tradition of the nineteenth century, Romanticism. Thoroughly German in nature and in origin and in striking contrast to classicism, which presupposed the universality of emotion, Romanticism emphasized intense individual experience, including even the mysti-
cal realm of the subconscious. In their quest for emotional expression, late Romantic composers, most notably Richard Wagner, strained against the limits of traditional tonality. Emphasizing modulation (changes from one key or tonality to another) and chromaticism (greater use of the secondary notes between the principal notes of any key), Wagner attained the apogee of emotionalism and expression, yet all of Wagner’s compositional techniques functioned within tonality. By the beginning of the twentieth century, many nonGerman composers, aided by a disillusionment with the pitfalls of extreme sentimentality and maudlin emotionalism seemingly inevitable in Romanticism and motivated by turbulent political and economic trends in the two decades before World War I, sought new forms of musical expression. In the post-Romantic era, several new styles emerged. A late nineteenth century resurgence of nationalism encouraged many composers, particularly those from countries without native historical musical traditions, to seek new forms of musical expression. The Russians Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Modest Mussorgsky, the Czech Antonín Dvorák, the Norwegian Edvard Grieg, the Englishman Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the American Charles Ives, for example, incorporated traditional folk songs in their compositions, wooing listeners from German Romanticism. Others, such as Gustav Holst, who was fascinated by Hindu mysticism, experimented with non-Western music. In France, a coterie of composers, most notably Claude Debussy, influenced by the Impressionist painters, developed a French Impressionist tradition of composition, shunning the extreme emotionalism and grandiloquence of German Romanticism and embracing a delicate, evocative sensuality—in a sense, a more discreet French Romanticism. In Germany and Austria, meanwhile, composers who were heir to German Romanticism continued writing in the Romantic style. Led by Schoenberg and influenced by the expressionist painters (including Schoenberg, whose paintings were already selling for high prices), these composers formed the expressionist school of composition. Whereas French Impressionists sought a more discreet Romanticism, expressionism was passionate and unabashedly emotional. Focusing on the inner experiences of human beings, expressionism was also preoccupied with the subconscious world of dreams as described by the Austrian Sigmund Freud in his compar-
Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System atively new psychoanalytic theory. In his early compositions, following in the path forged by Wagner, Schoenberg explored the extreme limits of chromaticism by using large ensembles and lengthy Romantic musical forms. Soon, however, his post-Romantic expressionism became atonal. It appeared that Wagner had carried musical expression to the limits of tonality, and a logical progression from Wagnerian chromaticism was toward atonality. The dissolution of tonality, however, required the abandonment of the traditional rules of composition. To provide an organizational framework for his atonality, therefore, Schoenberg developed his twelve-tone system. It was, he claimed, born of necessity. It took Schoenberg several years of experimentation to systematize atonality. By 1923, in his Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system made its first appearance. For several years, he continued refining the system. His Suite for Piano, Op. 25 (1924), marked the first use of the twelve-tone system as the structural basis for an entire composition, and the Wind Quintet, Op. 26, also from 1924, for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn, was the first atonal composition for several instruments. By the time of his Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, written between 1926 and 1928, Schoenberg had thoroughly explored and mastered his dodecaphonic system. In providing structure for atonal compositions, Schoenberg’s system grants equal emphasis to all twelve chromatic tones, which are presented in a series, or row. The pitches of the “tone row” are uniquely ordered for each composition. The row, with its peculiar sequence of intervals, must be played in sequence; notes can sound in any octave but cannot be repeated until the whole series has been played. Lest the system seem constricting or mechanical, the composer achieves variety by using the row in four forms: original, retrograde, inverted, and retrograde inversion. Additionally, the row can be divided into subgroups. Denoting a method, not a form of composition, dodecaphony can in theory be applied to any style of music. Initially, however, it was associated exclusively with Schoenberg and his pupils. Retrospectively, the twelve-tone system appears a logical progression from the post-Wagnerian dissolution of tonality. In context, however, Schoenberg’s system was revolutionary. It would, Schoenberg claimed prophetically, ensure German dominance in music for another century. Schoenberg’s dodecaphony did, in fact, profoundly influence music composition in the twentieth century. 1702
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Arnold Schoenberg. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Significance In the 1920’s, public acceptance of Schoenberg’s revolutionary new system was woefully lacking. Shouting and booing at his concerts made listening virtually impossible, and fistfights among members of his audiences became common. Essentially a self-taught Viennese musician from a marginally middle-class family, Schoenberg never functioned within the mainstream of the Vienna musical establishment. Audiences and critics alike despised his music. Despite a lack of public support, however, Schoenberg received sanction from some of Vienna’s most influential composers, most notably Gustav Mahler, who acted as his mentor. Mahler’s attendance at Schoenberg’s early concerts lent a modicum of credibility to the young composer’s works. In a bid to make his music more accessible to Viennese audiences, Schoenberg in 1918 conducted ten open rehearsals of his First Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 (1906).
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content merely to identify students’ mistakes, Schoenberg would instantaneously devise possible musical solutions for their edification. Of all Schoenberg’s students, Anton von Webern and Alban Berg became the most famous. Both became accomplished serialist composers whose music differed substantially from each other’s and from their teacher’s. Beginning their instruction with Schoenberg in 1904, they explored with him chromaticism, atonality, and ultimately dodecaphony, progressively embracing each method. While following their teacher in his forays into the twelve-tone system, the two students formed vastly personal styles. Berg applied his master’s methods with great freedom, using tone rows and tonal-sounding chords and thereby retaining vital connections with lyrical Romanticism. His lyric opera Wozzeck (1925), with its nearly tonal rows and forms adapted from classicism, is a perennial favorite. Webern, in contrast, exemplified the more progressive potential of dodecaphony. Writing principally for chamber music ensembles, he used sparse instrumentation that focused on individual melody. Unlike Schoenberg and Berg, however, Webern abandoned the classic forms to write music that was athematic and devoid of tonality. Gathering at the summer composers’ program in Darmstadt, Germany, from 1946 to 1953, a contingent of young composers inspired by Webern perpetuated and refined Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system. Most notable was Karlheinz Stockhausen, who extended the principle of tone rows to incorporate all elements of music, including timbre, rhythm, and dynamics, thus expanding the original twelve-tone system into a comprehensive system that came to be known as serialism. As his influence was spreading in Europe, Schoenberg found his career in Austria and Germany abruptly curtailed by Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and subsequent banning of twelve-tone music. In 1933, Schoenberg, a Jew, emigrated to the United States to escape Hitler’s tyranny. It was through his teaching posts in Boston and at the University of California that Schoenberg’s influence on American composers began. From 1933 to his death in 1951, Schoenberg taught a battery of new composers, including Leon Kirchner and John Cage. His influence on Americans was immense, and his work affected even composers who had never been his pupils (most notably Roger Sessions, who further developed the twelve-tone technique). Unlike Stockhausen, who rigidly adhered to the techniques of serialism, Sessions incorporated dodecaphony into his music, which was a mixture of several influences. 1703
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By providing the public with multiple opportunities to hear the symphony as well as to hear Schoenberg discuss it, the well-attended rehearsals successfully bolstered public approval of the music. Encouraged, Schoenberg organized the Verein für Musikalische Privataufführungen (the Society for Private Musical Performances) to increase the number of performances of his own works and the works of his contemporaries as well as to provide a protected environment for those works in which critics were banned. Slowly, Schoenberg’s work gained greater public acceptance. Although later audiences greeted his work with greater aplomb than did the conservative Viennese of the 1920’s, Schoenberg’s music failed to attain great popularity throughout the twentieth century. The influence of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system on composers, however, was profound. Whereas the dissolution of atonality required the abandonment of traditional rules of composition, the twelve-tone system provided a new harmonic framework within which atonality could function. As an organizational system, twelve-tone serialism fundamentally shaped music in the twentieth century, as all later serialist music evolved from Schoenberg’s original system. Until the 1950’s, however, dodecaphony was overshadowed by another major compositional trend, neoclassicism. During the interim between the two world wars, two major factions evolved. One camp formed around Schoenberg and his atonal dodecaphony, with its roots planted firmly in the Romantic tradition of emotional expressionism. The other surrounded Igor Stravinsky and his ardently primitivistic, anti-Romantic neoclassicism. Dodecaphony was a system sufficiently rich in potential to prevail, however, for, unlike neoclassicism, it is not related to any one style; rather, it is a method that can be applied to any musical form. From the 1950’s onward, dodecaphony flourished as neoclassicism declined—even Stravinsky incorporated the technique in his later compositions. Dodecaphony remained a dynamic compositional technique. Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method was perpetuated and expanded by several talented pupils. A demanding taskmaster, Schoenberg was accorded high regard by his disciples, who jealously defended their teacher even as their own styles evolved in fundamentally different directions. While tutoring his pupils in his own method, Schoenberg nurtured the younger composers’ individuality. Meanwhile, Schoenberg’s acuity and compositional ability became legendary among his students, as he composed rapidly and copiously in their presence. Not
Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System
Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System It has been suggested that Schoenberg was the most influential composer of the twentieth century. Even in the early twenty-first century, Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system remains a dynamic force. With members of each new generation of composers incorporating serialist techniques into their compositions, Schoenberg’s reputation continues to grow. —Mary E. Virginia Further Reading Auner, Joseph. A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of a Life. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. A collection of Schoenberg’s essays, letters, and other writings, as well as paintings and drawings, many previously unpublished or untranslated. Extensive commentary places these materials in context and addresses important themes throughout Schoenberg’s career. Copland, Aaron. The New Music, 1900-1960. Rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. New edition of a work originally written in 1944 includes additional commentary by the author. Readable and informative introduction to new music for the general public written by a major American composer. Includes index. Grout, Donald J., and Claude V. Palisca. “Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in TwentiethCentury Europe.” In A History of Western Music. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Accessible to the nonspecialist, although found within a textbook for college music majors. Covers the full range of Schoenberg’s innovations and offers explanations that are models of clarity. Provides a balanced overview with examples, illustrations, and bibliography. Hansen, Peter S. An Introduction to Twentieth Century Music. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1978. Survey of twentieth century music includes individual chapter bibliographies, index, and numerous musical examples. Useful, readable source for the nonspecialist who is able to read musical notation. Provides detailed discussion of Schoenberg’s music and its context. Leibowitz, Rene. Schoenberg and His School: The Contemporary Stage of the Language of Music. Translated by Dika Newlin. 1949. Reprint. New York: Da
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Capo Press, 1995. An older work in lecture format, but engaging and informative. Requires no extensive specialized knowledge. Describes the development of atonality and includes sections on Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Includes bibliography and index. Rognoni, Luigi. The Second Vienna School: Expressionism and Dodecaphony. Translated by Robert W. Mann. London: John Calder, 1977. Detailed work traces the transition from tonality through atonality to the twelve-tone system. Intended for the specialist with knowledge of harmony and theory but accessible to the nonspecialist as well. Includes illustrations, musical examples, footnotes, and index. Salzman, Eric. Twentieth-Century Music: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Survey of twentieth century music aimed primarily at the specialist but appropriate also for the informed nonspecialist with substantial knowledge of music history and theory. Useful section on the impact of Schoenberg’s music. Includes illustrations, individual chapter bibliographies, and index. Shawn, Allen. Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. A brief introduction to Schoenberg and his music intended for the lay reader. Covers the highlights of Schoenberg’s life and their relation to his major works. The final chapter analyzes Schoenberg’s influence on twentieth century music. Smith, Joan A. Schoenberg and His Circle: A Viennese Portrait. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986. Product of a nontechnical oral history project designed to preserve the memories of several individuals, including pupils, involved in Schoenberg’s “Vienna circle.” A useful introduction to Schoenberg and his music, providing insights into Schoenberg’s character and descriptions of the reception of his music in Vienna. Includes illustrations, footnotes, bibliography, and index. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres; Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin; June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South
1921-1924
Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South In the early 1920’s, the Ku Klux Klan intensified its perpetration of violence in the name of racial, “moral,” and religious purity. Locale: Southern United States Categories: Civil rights and liberties; organizations and institutions; terrorism; crime and scandal Key Figures William Joseph Simmons (1880-1945), founder of the post-World War I Ku Klux Klan Edward Young Clarke (b. 1839), American publicity agent Hiram Wesley Evans (1881-1966), Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, 1922-1939 Rowland Thomas (fl. early twentieth century), American newspaper reporter
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Summary of Event On Thanksgiving night in 1915, William Joseph Simmons led a group of twelve friends up to Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, Georgia, and before a burning cross swore them in as charter members of a secret fraternal organization dedicated to the ideals of racial purity and traditional morality. “The Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc.,” was chartered as a new fraternal order by the state of Georgia on December 4, 1915. Simmons, the organization’s “Imperial Wizard,” had served in the Spanish-American War as a private in an Alabama regiment; he was not trained for any career and was a member of numerous fraternal clubs. Membership in the Klan cost a ten-dollar fee and the price of a white robe. Recruitment coincided with the Atlanta showing of a new film by D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915), which glorified the first Ku Klux Klan in the turbulent Reconstruction era after the American Civil War. That original Klan had risen in the beaten South, and its goal had been to continue to “keep the Negro in his place”—in the fields and subordinate to whites. It was founded in 1866 by a Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who disbanded it in 1871. Conditions in the United States after World War I were conducive to the sort of thinking to which the Klan appealed. Returning veterans were full of the extreme patriotism born of victory. They were greeted by the “Roaring Twenties,” a time of exuberant celebration and a positive attitude about America’s “manifest destiny.” To the Klan, this exuberance seemed to undercut the old
American values of religion and morality. Moreover, African American veterans also returned from the war proud of their own distinguished service and filled with high expectations for peacetime. The hopes of America’s blacks at the time were not very different from the dreams of the newly freed slaves that had given rise to the original Klan. In addition, the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant profile of the U.S. population was changing. Whereas earlier immigrants had come primarily from Protestant northern Europe, early twentieth century immigrants were mostly Italian, Irish, and Polish Catholics, Russian and Slavic Jews, and Asians. The Klan saw its role as that of the guardian of the old moral values in a radically changing American environment. The new Klan objected to Catholics, perceiving their loyalty to a foreign pope as conflicting with their loyalty to the United States. The Klan similarly accused Jews of an un-American devotion to ancient beliefs. Asians, like blacks, suffered from the fault of looking “different.” These groups became the targets of the Klan’s literature of denunciation. Beneath the rule of the Imperial Wizard, the Klan was arranged nationwide in eight “Domains,” each under a “Grand Goblin.” Each state was a “Realm” under a “Grand Dragon.” Realms were divided into “Provinces” under “Great Titans,” and Provinces into local Klans, each under an “Exalted Cyclops.” The Imperial Wizard appointed a cabinet of twelve “Genii” and an assistant called the “Emperor.” For his new Klan, Simmons had borrowed not merely the name but also the titles and secret language of the original Klan. Simmons had decided on these Klan features, as well as the costume, manual (the “Kloran”), ritual, and philosophy, as early as 1911. The Klan’s growth was slow, and Simmons did everything, even mortgaging his house, to keep his effort alive. In 1920, he contracted with Edward Young Clarke’s Southern Publicity Association to build membership. Clarke was given the title of “Imperial Kleagle.” Admittedly motivated only by hope of profit, Clarke and his partner, Elizabeth Tyler, soon discovered that they were most successful in recruiting when they emphasized the racial and religious “threats” to traditional American values posed by Catholics, Jews, blacks, and aliens. A membership sales force employed the concept of “pyramiding,” with each officer receiving a portion of every ten-dollar membership sold by his team. The pair’s plan of making the Klan prominent in the national press re-
Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
sulted in a great increase in Klan Exposing the Klan membership around the country; The articles in the New York World’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series on the by 1924, membership was estimated Klan began with this introduction under the subheadline “What Is the Ku Klux variously from two million to five Klan?” million. The Klan was strongest in the How has it grown from a nucleus of thirty-four charter members to a memberSouth, especially in Alabama, Louiship of more than 500,000 within five years? siana, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, How have its “domains” and “realms” and “Klans” been extended until they Oklahoma, and Georgia; Atlanta was embrace every State in the Union but Montana, Utah and New Hampshire? its “Holy City.” It also had remarkWhat are the possibilities of an order that preaches racial and religious haable numbers of members in Oregon, tred of the Jew and the Roman Catholic, of the negro and the foreign-born citizen? Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, and What are the possibilities of a secret organization that practices censorship Pennsylvania, and was particularly of private conduct behind the midnight anonymity of mask and robe and with strong in Indiana. All strata of white the weapons of whips and tar and feathers? male society could be found among What ought to be done about an order whose members are not initiated but its members, from professionals “naturalized,” whose oaths bind them to obediance to an “Emperor” chosen for and state governors to rural and urlife? ban rowdies. There was much in the What ought to be done about an organization with such objects when the Klan’s program that represented the salesmen of memberships in it work first among officers of the courts and Pofeelings of many Americans in the lice Departments, following then with the officers on the reserve lists of the 1920’s, a fact illustrated by the vimilitary and naval forces? cious, non-Klan-related race riots in At the end of months of inquiry throughout the United States and in the performance of what it sincerely believes to be a public service, The World this Chicago and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, morning begins the publication of a series of articles in which answers to these in 1919, and by the sharp increase in questions will be offered, set out against the vivid background of as extraordilynchings of African Americans in nary a movement as is to be found in recent history. the same year. Source: “Secrets of the Ku Klux Klan Exposed by The World; Menace of This In the beginning, the Klan’s activiGrowing Law-Defying Organization Proved by Its Ritual and the Record of Its ties consisted of nighttime violence Activities,” New York World, September 6, 1921. against individuals or the threat of violence by means of parades as demonstrations of potential force. Actual violence was perpetrated by only a their towns as well as about lynchings, floggings, incismall minority of the millions of members. It is interestdents of people being tarred and feathered, kidnappings, ing to note that most Klan violence was directed not at and more. Most of the reported violence occurred in blacks but at whites whose morals displeased local Klan Texas between February and July, 1921. In addition, the members, such as men alleged to be unfaithful to their New York World published an article revealing that wives, women who allegedly wore short skirts or “petClarke and Tyler, who were known to have reaped great ted” in cars, and any white person who “fraternized” with profits from their Klan activities, had in 1919 been impliblacks or patronized Jewish businesses. cated in a morals scandal, the police records of which had Klan leader Simmons, along with Clarke and Tyler, somehow disappeared. claimed that the twenty-one days of stories about Klan Equally productive of new memberships was the pubviolence published by the New York World and its affililicity surrounding a congressional investigation of the ate newspapers around the nation in September, 1921, Klan in October, 1921. The Klan was thus in the headactually provided the catalyst that caused membership to lines consistently for two months. Rowland Thomas, the burgeon. Indeed, the immediate reaction to the publicity was that more than two hundred applications for local writer of the New York World exposé, reviewed his case chapters poured in, some on facsimile forms reprinted in against the Klan before members of Congress and gave the newspapers. In its series, the New York World enuevidence about the Klan’s religious and racist publicamerated 152 separate Klan outrages. Klan defectors protions. He further presented proof that Simmons had vided information about the Klan’s forcing people to flee boasted that governors, members of Congress, and other 1706
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 government officials were part of the “Invisible Empire” and under his orders. The last witness during the investigation was Simmons himself, who for three days boldly denied that any of the violent acts that had occurred were committed by Klansmen. Still, the New York World noted that in three cases (in Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and Beaumont, Texas) Simmons had suspended or disbanded local chapters that had been accused of flagrant wrongdoing. Simmons charged the New York World with being a stronghold of Jewish opinion. After the investigation, he asserted, “Congress made us.”
on the Klan’s popularity, effectiveness, and viability. When Evans announced in 1928 that Klansmen would no longer wear masks, it was too late to save the “hooded empire.” The Klan’s entry into party politics proved damaging to the organization, as infighting grew among Klansmen seeking nominations. In some cases, however, the Klan could boast of having helped the election of an entire proKlan Republican slate. In 1924, the state of Oregon passed a compulsory public education bill that had been sponsored by the legislature with Klan backing. The measure, which effectively outlawed the existence of parochial schools, was one of the Klan’s most notable successes. In the same year, the Klan helped elect eleven governors and sixteen members of Congress. After exercising great influence in the presidential election of 1924 and helping to defeat Alfred E. Smith in 1928, the Klan’s importance and membership declined precipitously; by 1930, membership was down to between thirty thousand and fifty thousand. Most observers thought the decline was caused by the uninspiring ineptitude of the Klan’s leaders in the open arena of political life. Although Klan literature continued to attack Catholics, Jews, blacks, and foreigners, the Klan in the 1930’s shifted its focus to assaulting communism and keeping blacks from voting. The Klan was never again the force in American life that it had been in the 1920’s. In 1939, Evans sold the Klan to James A. Colescott, a veterinarian from Indiana, and in 1944 the organization was dissolved in lieu of payment of $685,000 in back taxes. The Klan experienced sporadic revivals in later years, but at the beginning of the twenty-first century it remained in splintered ineptitude and disrepute. Ultimately, the vast majority of Americans became disgusted with the Klan as an extremist group that trampled on the freedom and rights of all Americans. Further, the Klan’s false position as defender of the nation’s morals was exposed by the greed and immorality of certain of its leaders. — Daniel C. Scavone Further Reading Alexander, Charles C. The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest. 1965. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. Focuses on the Klan’s motivation of moral authoritarianism rather than racism. Includes glossary of Klan terminology and annotated bibliography. Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s. 1931. Reprint. New York: 1707
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Significance Under Hiram Wesley Evans, who seized the leadership of the Klan in 1922 and forced the departure of Simmons and Clarke in 1924, the Klan renounced violence and worked at gaining power in the open political arena by campaigning and influencing legislation. The relocation of the organization’s offices to Washington, D.C., in 1925 was celebrated by a parade of forty thousand whiterobed men and women down Pennsylvania Avenue. From that point on, the Klan emphasized the less controversial elements of its program and began to campaign for education, donations to Protestant congregations, and morality. Evans’s plan was to distance the Klan from its many atrocities, such as that in August, 1922, when two farmers who had spoken out against the Klan were mutilated and murdered at Mer Rouge, Louisiana. In the period 1921 to 1923, Klan violence against Jews, blacks, and those allegedly involved in “vice” reached a fever pitch in Oklahoma. Finally, Governor John Walton installed martial law in the state, but he was soon removed from office, and the Klan rejoiced. Other events continued to show the Klan in a bad moral light. In March, 1925, D. C. Stephenson, a Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan who had become notoriously rich and powerful through his Klan activities, was convicted of murder when a woman died after he had tortured and raped her. He received a life sentence, of which he served thirty-one years before being released from prison. In 1927, Evans entered a lawsuit against a group of seceding Pennsylvania Klansmen. In the ensuing courtroom battle, the Klan’s “dirty linen” was aired by secessionist witnesses and even by Simmons. One witness described the burning to death of an oil-doused Texan while hundreds of hooded Klansmen watched. These and numerous other Klan outrages dominated headlines for months on end. By the end of the 1920’s, the accumulation of Klan outrages took an inevitable toll
Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South
Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South HarperCollins, 2000. Social history of the 1920’s in the United States places the activities of the Klan in context. Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South. 1941. Reprint. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. General introduction to the intellectual ethos of the American South in the early part of the twentieth century sheds some light on how the programs of the Klan might have resonated with the general thinking of many white southerners. Chalmers, David M. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. 3d ed. New York: F. Watts, 1981. One of the best general works on the Klan. Provides clear insight into the Klan mentality and the motivations that induced people of diverse backgrounds, urban and rural, northern and southern, to join the Klan. Focuses primarily on the Klan of the 1920’s, but includes a chapter on the original Klan of the Reconstruction era and concludes with chapters on the Klan from 1929 through the 1970’s. Fry, Henry P. The Modern Ku Klux Klan. 1922. Reprint. Seattle: University Press of the Pacific, 2003. The author was a Klan defector and a major source of information on the Klan for the New York World 1921 exposé. Devotes much space to the newspaper’s coverage and to quotations from the depositions of witnesses at the congressional investigation that year. Jackson, Kenneth T. The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 19151930. 1967. Reprint. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992. Examines the Klan as an urban phenomenon and, for a time, a political force. Argues that many joined the Klan out of innocent patriotism and dropped out when realities were revealed. Asserts that Klan violence has
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 been overemphasized. Includes excellent annotated bibliography. Lutholtz, William. Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1991. Examines the extraordinary political power wielded by Stephenson and the Klan in Indiana in the 1920’s, when the mayors of Indianapolis and Evansville and the governor of the state allegedly became clients of the Klan. MacLean, Nancy K. Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Presents a comprehensive analysis of the ideas and politics of the Klan of the 1920’s, drawing on internal Klan records. Includes bibliography and index. Newton, Michael. The Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. Examines the activities of all versions of the Klan in Florida from the days of Reconstruction through the new Klan of the 1920’s and up to the end of the twentieth century. Rice, Arnold S. The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics. Rev. ed. New York: Haskell House, 1972. Provides concise historical background on the Klan of the 1920’s, focusing on the Klan’s political activities in local, state, and national elections and issues. See also: Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
King Era in Canada
1921-1948
King Era in Canada The Liberal administration of William Lyon Mackenzie King constituted the longest administration of any Canadian prime minister to that time. Locale: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Category: Government and politics
Summary of Event William Lyon Mackenzie King was a skillful politician who managed to hold together for almost three decades a Canadian political coalition composed of very strong support from Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritime Provinces, and moderate support from the other provinces. Like earlier successful Canadian prime ministers, including John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier, King understood clearly that a party could maintain a majority in the House of Commons for extended periods of time only by satisfying the needs and aspirations of both English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians. Until his death in 1941, Ernest Lapointe from Quebec was King’s most trusted adviser. Numerous other Quebecers served in important positions in King’s governments, which always included a balance of ministers from Quebec and English-speaking provinces. King had an uncanny knack for sensing which policies would be politically acceptable to Canadian voters, and he modified his positions several times during his many years as Canada’s prime minister. Sir Robert Laird Borden, who served as Canada’s prime minister from 1911 to 1920, had become exceedingly unpopular in Quebec during World War I when his government imposed conscription. This move was bitterly opposed throughout Quebec. The parliamentary debates on the proposed conscription law were directed by Arthur Meighen, who was then a member of Borden’s
William Lyon Mackenzie King. (Library of Congress)
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Key Figures William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, 19351948 Robert Laird Borden (1854-1937), prime minister of Canada, 1911-1920 Arthur Meighen (1874-1960), prime minister of Canada, 1920-1921, and briefly in 1926 Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), prime minister of Canada, 1930-1935 Louis St. Laurent (1882-1973), prime minister of Canada, 1948-1957
cabinet and succeeded him as prime minister in 1920. Quebec voters would not forgive Meighen and his Conservatives for what the Quebecers perceived as another attempt by English Canada to mistreat Quebec. In the general election of 1921, the Liberal Party, under King, won all sixty-five seats in Parliament from Quebec; with reasonable support in the other provinces, it was relatively easy for the Liberals to receive a majority in the House of Commons. King also managed to obtain the support of most of the fifty-four members of Parliament from the Progressive Party. During his first five years as prime minister, King made it clear to the British government that Canada would no longer allow Great Britain to determine Canada’s foreign policy. In 1922, he respectfully rejected a request from the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, to send Canadian troops to help British forces
King Era in Canada then fighting in Turkey. As a further indication of Canada’s growing independence from Great Britain, King sent Ernest Lapointe to Washington, D.C., to sign a fishery treaty with the United States that would come to be known as the Halibut Treaty. Until then, it was generally accepted that Great Britain’s overseas dominions would defer to British judgment in matters related to foreign policy. King decided that his government would no longer tolerate such limitations on Canadian independence. In the 1925 general election, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals obtained a majority in the House of Commons. The twenty-four Progressives and the six independent members of Parliament would determine whether Meighen or King would become the prime minister of Canada. Although at first King obtained enough support from the Progressives to form a new government, a scandal in the Canadian customs office caused a decrease in King’s support in Parliament. He requested that GovernorGeneral Julian Byng dissolve Parliament, but this request was not granted, and Lord Byng asked Meighen to form a new government. Within three days after Meighen was sworn in as the new Canadian prime minister, King used an extraordinary parliamentary procedure to bring about the dissolution of Parliament. Canadian law then required the prime minister and members of his cabinet to resign from the House of Commons. (This law was later changed.) Although Meighen resigned from Parliament, he appointed his cabinet members as acting ministers so that they could keep their seats in Parliament and preserve the narrow majority created with support from some Progressives. King accused Meighen’s government of violating Canadian law, and a motion of no confidence was approved by the House of Commons by a vote of ninetysix to ninety-five. Meighen’s second term as prime minister had lasted three days. In the September, 1926, general election, the Liberals won an absolute majority in the House of Commons. The Liberals probably would have remained in power throughout the 1930’s had King not made an incredible blunder in 1930. After the outbreak of the Great Depression in 1929, King was under pressure to do something to relieve the suffering of unemployed Canadians. In his most injudicious comment, he told Parliament that assistance would not be given to any provincial government ruled by Conservatives. Canadian voters did not forgive him for this insensitive remark, and the Conservatives, under the leadership of Richard Bedford Bennett, easily won the general election of 1930. The Canadian econ1710
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 omy, however, did not improve during Bennett’s five years in office, and the Liberals won 173 of the 244 seats in the House of Commons in the 1935 general election. Under the leadership of King, the Liberals also won the general elections of 1940 and 1945. During his last thirteen years as prime minister, King was very involved in foreign affairs, especially with organizing Canadian efforts to help the Allies defeat Germany and Japan in World War II. King cooperated fully with the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, and the U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, throughout the war. British and U.S. forces made extensive use of armaments, airplanes, and boats produced in Canada. The Royal Canadian Air Force was active throughout the war, and many Canadian pilots flew bombing missions over Germany for the British Royal Air Force. Thousands of Canadian soldiers fought and died with British and U.S. troops during the liberation of France in 1944. After the Allied victory over the Axis in 1945, King was seventy-one years of age and in poor health. Nevertheless, he was reelected prime minister in 1945 for the fifth time. Eventually, deteriorating health convinced King that he should end his political career. In 1948, he persuaded Louis St. Laurent, his minister of justice from Quebec, to succeed him as leader of the Liberals and as prime minister. King died on July 22, 1950. Significance William Lyon Mackenzie King dominated Canadian politics between 1921 and 1948. It is exceedingly unlikely that any Canadian prime minister will ever surpass King’s extraordinarily long record of twenty-two years of service as the leader of Canada. Many years after his retirement in 1948 and his death in 1950, historians still find it amazing that King and his Liberal Party managed to remain in power from 1921 until 1957, with only a five-year hiatus between 1930 and 1935. King’s government helped Canadian businesses in the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy. In addition, under King’s guidance, Canada began to play an increasingly influential role in international diplomacy. King and Lester Pearson, who was then the Canadian ambassador to the United States, both participated in the 1945 San Francisco conference that created the United Nations. —Edmund J. Campion Further Reading Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond, and John English. Canada: 1900-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Contains an excellent analysis of Cana-
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says on a wide range of topics related to the Canadian system of government, Canadian political history, Canadian laws and legal history, and more. Owram, Doug, ed. Confederation to the Present. Vol. 2 in Canadian History: A Reader’s Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Contains a wellannotated bibliography of historical studies on Canadian society and politics since 1867. Riendeau, Roger. A Brief History of Canada. 2d rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Concise history includes discussion of King’s government, the Depression, and the World War II years in Canada. See also: 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I; July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty; Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II; Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement.
March, 1921
Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy The New Economic Policy changed the implementation of communism, allowing more private entrepreneurship and giving greater incentives to individual farmers and businesspeople. Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Government and politics; economics Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution and founder of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, 1922-1953 Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin (1888-1938), Soviet theorist and political leader Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky; 1883-1936), Bolshevik leader Mikhail Tomsky (1880-1936), chairman of the Soviet Union’s trade union organization Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), leading associate of Lenin who organized labor battalions to rescue the economy of the Soviet Union in 1920
Summary of Event In early 1921, the Soviet economy was in a deep crisis. Forced collections of grain and centralized control of the economy helped the Red Army fight its enemy, but such tough measures led to widespread discontent among peasants, workers, and soldiers. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin was forced to reject what was known as War Communism. In March, 1921, Lenin persuaded his colleagues Joseph Stalin, Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev, and others to adopt the New Economic Policy (NEP) in an attempt to stabilize the economy and to consolidate the Soviet regime. The NEP represented a retreat from radical policy. It reduced centralized control of the economy and gave farmers and small businesses access to the market. As a result, it helped Soviet economic recovery following the Russian Civil War. The NEP lasted for about seven years. It was finally rejected by Stalin in 1928, when he imposed an authoritarian central planning system. In the early twentieth century, the Russian economy was predominantly agricultural rather than industrial, thus the treatment of peasants was a vital issue for any regime. When the Bolsheviks seized power after the October Revolution (1917), they had few specific plans 1711
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dian political and social history until the end of World War II. _______. Canada Since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. Useful supplement to the book cited above examines economic and political changes in Canada since World War II. Hutchison, Bruce. The Prime Ministers of Canada: Macdonald to Pearson. Don Mills, Ont.: Longmans Canada, 1967. Contains three excellent chapters that deal with King’s twenty-two years of service as Canada’s prime minister. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. 4th ed. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1982. Focuses on the sociological impact of historical events in Canada since the nation’s founding. McMenemy, John. The Language of Canadian Politics: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts. 3d ed. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Collection of more than five hundred brief es-
Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy
Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy concerning direction of the economy. Early economic measures amounted to little more than recognition of de facto developments. Nationalization of the land, the first measure, in effect recognized real peasant possession. Similarly, the decree on workers’ control accepted that many factories had been taken over by workers. In December, 1917, the Supreme Economic Council was created, marking a significant step in establishing central control over the economy. The land decree became law in January, 1918. Under its provisions, land was to be in possession of those who used it. This was not a socialist measure but one that recognized the traditional Russian concept of ownership. The seizure of power in the capital by the Bolsheviks was relatively peaceful, but the consolidation of power was a violent and difficult process. Civil war broke out in 1918 and lasted until 1921. The period of the civil war ushered in a new form of economic organization that became the precedent for a command economy. The demands of war gradually called forth more and more central control. Nationalization was extended to all industrial enterprises, trade was outlawed, and money essentially lost all its value. Market mechanisms were replaced by administrative orders. The main problem was securing food supplies for towns and for the army. Astate grain monopoly had been introduced in February, 1918, but this proved unworkable as the money paid to peasants in return for their produce was virtually useless. In May, 1918, a decree on grain control was issued with urgency. This decree called for compulsory delivery of all surpluses, over and above subsistence needs and seed, to the state. Any concealment could lead to seizure without payment. Specific provision was made in the decree for the use of armed force if necessary. Clearly, the Soviet government was attacking the peasantry, although the attack was nominally only against rich peasants and participants in the black market. Armed workers and political police became involved in the collection of grain. The basis of War Communism was the compulsory seizure of foodstuffs and their distribution without the market mechanism. The policy perhaps helped to win the war by keeping the army fed at least minimally, but it had negative consequences. Peasants reduced their planting to meet only their consumption needs, did their utmost to conceal their reserves from the requisitioning authorities, and occasionally responded to seizures with violent attacks on food collectors. Not only were peasants alienated by this policy, but a sharp decline in production also ensued. 1712
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Agricultural production fell by about 40 percent. Sown area was reduced, in passive response to grain seizure, by 34 percent from 1917 to 1920. Compared with production in 1913, yields of the major grains had fallen by more than 25 percent by 1920. Industrial production fell by 70 percent between 1913 and 1921, and that of heavy industry by nearly 80 percent. Coal extraction fell by 77 percent between 1913 and 1920. The results were serious famine and supply shortages. By the winter of 1920-1921, the civil war had essentially ended, and perhaps for this reason the resentment of the workers and peasants about the standard of living became stronger. The country witnessed a swelling tide of sporadic peasant uprisings; police counted 118 in February of 1921. Revolt was threatened in the countryside and workers rioted in the streets of Petrograd (St. Petersburg’s new name). In March, 1921, sailors at the major naval base in Kronstadt mutinied, calling for economic reform and political change. There was urgent need for reform. In the same month as the Kronstadt rebellion, the Tenth Party Congress approved the ending of War Communism. The economy of the Soviet Union was in ruins. Seven years of war and civil war had produced catastrophe. In 1921, industrial production stood at 13 percent of prewar volume. The grain harvest had fallen from 74 million tons in 1916 to 30 million tons in 1919 and continued to decline. At the Tenth Party Congress in March, 1921, Lenin announced a series of measures that collectively became known as the New Economic Policy. The most important reversal of policy was the abandonment of forced requisitions in favor of a tax in kind that left peasants free to dispose of any surpluses that remained after the tax assessment had been met. The in-kind tax represented a determined effort to win back the favor of the peasantry. In order to persuade peasants to part with their surpluses, incentives had to be provided in the form of increased supplies of consumer goods. This made a revival of industrial production imperative. Over the following months, the regime moved to restore private trade and to permit the establishment of small private industries and industrial cooperatives, in the hope that they could readily increase the flow of consumer goods. New enterprises were promised freedom from nationalization. Small enterprises that had been nationalized were leased to their former owners or industrial producers’ cooperatives for fixed terms, with the provision that rents were to be paid in the form of a definite proportion of the output of the enterprise. In 1922, Lenin further allowed operation of small private farms as a means of adding to food production. Peasants were per-
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code recognized the legal position of the land society, which in nearly all cases was the same as the traditional village commune. The land society was a community of households, usually within the same village, that performed an administrative function, exercised control over land use, and generally governed the farming program. The commune or land society organization became more extensive in the NEP period. Land formerly the property of the czarist state was for the most part taken over by land societies. In 1926, 83.4 percent of such land in the central industrial region and 61.7 percent in the central agricultural region was in land societies. Under the New Economic Policy, private enterprise was encouraged, within Vladimir Ilich Lenin addresses a gathering in Petrograd in 1922. (Library of Conset limitations, in the areas of agriculgress) ture, domestic trade, light industries, and public services. The state, however, retained its monopoly over the so-called mitted to lease land and hire labor, although both the purcommanding heights: banking, heavy industries, transchase and the sale of land were still prohibited. portation and communication, and foreign trade. Small Under the NEP, nearly twenty-five million peasants businesses were granted a measure of economic freewere permitted to farm their holdings on legally nationaldom. Entrepreneurs were permitted to resume manageized land and sell their produce after paying a tax to the ment of smaller concerns, to hire labor, and to trade more state. Small-scale entrepreneurs were given a free hand freely with the goods produced. The new class of small urin light industry and in the service trades. Small traders ban capitalists, however, suffered social pressures from carried on the functions of buying and selling, sometimes which the peasants were exempt. It was difficult for them through private trading concerns of their own, someto obtain credit at banks, the rents on their apartments times concealed as cooperatives, and not infrequently as were often higher than their neighbors’, and their chilofficial agents of the state trading organizations themdren had to pay higher tuition fees at schools. Many of selves. Although the food tax was prompted by basically them expressed their suspicion that their situation was political motives, it initiated the revival of the economy. precarious and temporary by free spending and high livThe law provided that a peasant must pay the governing, taking advantage of liberties while they existed. The ment a tax in kind consisting of a certain percentage, new era of “free enterprise” benefited not only the peasvarying somewhat from region to region, of farm proants and small-business owners but also individual workduction. The peasant could then dispose of the remainder ers. Trade unions, organized under the leadership of on the free market. In 1922, the tax was fixed at a stanMikhail Tomsky, were permitted to strike against the pridard 10 percent. By the Fundamental Law on the Exploivate capitalists. It was thought necessary that they be altation of Land by the Workers, enacted in May, 1922, the lowed to strike against state enterprises as well, even government guaranteed peasants freedom of choice of though they were urged not to do so and were reminded land tenure. Land could be held individually, commuthat by doing so they were by definition striking against nally, or in other ways. Villagers thus were permitted, themselves. within rather broad limits, to manage their own economic lives as they saw fit. Significance Most of the land taken during the revolution was reThe most important impact of the New Economic Policy distributed through peasant communes. The 1922 land was the transformation of state-market and state-society
Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy relations. Specifically, the Soviet state no longer saw all market relations as negative. The main features of the NEP were the abandonment of forced requisitions in agriculture and the substitution for them of a tax in kind, the toleration of private ownership in trade and small-scale industry, and the attempt to entice foreign capitalists into the Soviet Union in order to acquire their badly needed skills and capital. Replacing the policy of forced acquisition of grain with the tax in kind enabled farmers to sell their surplus food, giving a degree of market freedom to farmers. By allowing the operation of small private farms, the Soviet regime sought reconciliation with the peasantry. Many scholars have viewed the period of the NEP (1921-1928) as a relatively free period for agricultural and business activities under the Soviet government. Under the new dispensation, the economy began to revive. Lenin told rank-and-file Communists to “master trade.” State industries and state farms were commanded to show a profit and to operate on commercial principles. Financial stability was slowly recovered. By the end of 1922, a third of government revenue was coming from the food tax, another third from a variety of direct money taxes, and the final third from the issuance of bank notes. The New Economic Policy restored a considerable measure of capitalism to the Soviet economy, particularly in agriculture and trade. Lenin’s idea was that by this strategic retreat the Communist Party could keep control of the country but stimulate its recovery from the destruction and disorganization of the war years. Once the pressing problem of getting the economy functioning again was solved, the party could then resume its advance toward socialism. Internal trade was conducted by state trading organs (which were relatively few), private traders, and cooperatives. Cooperative trading bodies were actively encouraged by the government and became relatively successful in the sale of consumer goods in rural areas. State-controlled trade was confined primarily to wholesale trade in urban areas. In Moscow in 1922, 83 percent of retail trade was in private hands and only 7 percent in state hands, whereas 77 percent of wholesale trade was handled by the state. In the NEP period, agriculture developed along capitalistic lines. The peasants paid taxes that, with the passage of time, became more and more monetary taxes rather than in-kind taxes. The land belonged to the state, but the peasants did what they saw fit with it. In seven years, agriculture reached levels that were unsurpassed in prerevolutionary Russian history. These levels would never again be reached in the Soviet 1714
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 system under the increasingly repressive agricultural policies pursued by Joseph Stalin. —Guoli Liu Further Reading Campbell, Robert. Soviet Economic Power. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966. Provides a concise introduction to the Soviet economy with critical analysis. Carr, E. H. The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923. Vol. 2. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1966. A treatment known for its admiration for Lenin, who is portrayed as always being abreast of developments in the Soviet Union and ready with correct “realistic” action. Davies, R. W. The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-30. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. The authoritative study of the sources, process, and consequences of Soviet agricultural collectivization. Dziewanowski, M. K. “From War Communism to the New Economic Policy.” In A History of Soviet Russia. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989. A basic historical introduction to the background, policies, and impact of NEP on Soviet economics, politics, and culture. Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Alexander Robinowitch, and Richard Stites, eds. Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Examines the social and cultural background of the New Economic Policy. Hosking, Geoffrey. The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. Highlights major events in the history of the Soviet Union. Hough, Jerry F., and Merle Fainsod. How the Soviet Union Is Governed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. This influential text examines the development of the Soviet political and economic system, with an emphasis on the policy process. Hutchings, Raymond. Soviet Economic Development. 2d ed. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell, 1982. A comprehensive introduction to the Soviet economy and the forces that promoted or retarded its development until the late 1960’s. Nove, Alec. An Economic History of the U.S.S.R., 19171991. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. Detailed economic history of the Soviet economy includes several chapters that discuss the NEP. Useful account of the conditions that spawned the NEP and the mounting opposition to the policy after Lenin’s death. Cites many primary sources.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. The Soviet Economic System. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977. An authoritative examination of the origins, nature, and process of the Soviet economic system, by one of the world’s leading experts on the Soviet economy. Pipes, Richard. “NEP: The False Thermidor.” In Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. A critic of the Soviet system, Pipes argues that NEP was a tactical retreat designed to save the Bolshevik government from the chaos of War Communism. Also provides an account of the famine of the early 1920’s and the effect of NEP on Soviet foreign policy of the period. _______, ed. The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
Poland Secures Independence 1999. Provides interpretations of more than one hundred documents from secret Lenin papers never before published in English. Treadgold, Donald W. Twentieth Century Russia. 6th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987. Presents essential historical background for understanding the Soviet economy and society. See also: 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives; Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials.
March 18, 1921 In the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, the Soviet Union attempted to expand westward, using Poland as a stepping-stone to bring communism to eastern and central Europe, while the Poles, in addition to protecting their borders, attempted to win full national sovereignty. Poland was successful, and the Treaty of Riga brought formal recognition of Polish independence. Also known as: Polish-Soviet War; Russo-Polish War; Treaty of Riga; Peace of Riga Locale: Poland Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; independence movements; diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Józef Piusudski (1867-1935), Polish supreme commander Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), chairman of the Council of the People’s Commisars of the Soviet Union, 1917-1924 Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893-1937), Bolshevik supreme commander Semyon Mikhaylovich Budenny (1883-1973), Bolshevik cavalry commander Wuadysuaw Sikorski (1881-1943), Polish general and later prime minister, 1922-1923 Wuadysuaw Grabski (1874-1938), prime minister of Poland, 1920 and 1923-1925
Summary of Event Although some experts argue that the Polish-Soviet War (also known as the Russo-Polish War) of 1919-1921 was avoidable, maintaining peace would have required both parties to demonstrate considerable levels of faith and good will—both of which were in short supply at the time. The Soviet Union in 1919 was in the midst of a civil war that featured a vast array of enemies, many supported by France. France was also aligned with the Poles, and the Bolsheviks were therefore suspicious of Poland’s warlord, Józef Piusudski, believing him to be part of what they saw as a “capitalist cabal” striving for Soviet destruction. The Poles, for their part, had experienced more than one hundred years of domination and repressed revolutions at the hands of Russia. They had no reason to trust Soviet leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin to break with tradition and allow Poland peacefully to regain its independence. The mutual suspicion, growing nationalism, and divergent political and economic systems of Poland and the Soviet Union combined with their territorial disputes to make war all but inevitable. The intensity and scope of the conflict once it began was much greater than all the other border wars of 19181921. This was due mainly to the aspirations of Piusudski. As de facto ruler of Poland in 1918-1919, he shaped his nation’s military and diplomatic strategies in an effort to create a Polish-dominated confederation of anti-Russian states. Success for this plan required an independent Ukraine, which in all probability would mean 1715
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Poland Secures Independence
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ness of concentration, the tactics of surprise—were the dominating factors.” Such movement-centered tactics were significantly different from the tactics employed in the recently concluded World War I. The tactics of the Polish-Soviet War were largely mandated by the theater’s large size and the relatively small armies involved in the conflict. Neither side deployed more than 300,000 troops, and these varied in quality. Some were elite formations, but others were disgruntled conscripts or peasants armed with scythes. Success during the Polish-Soviet War typically went to the side that could smash through a thinly held enemy screen to capture a rail junction or supply center. A perfect example of such tactics can be seen in the March 5, 1919, Polish invasion of the Ukraine. Six weeks into the
the end of the Bolshevik revolution. Claiming that “Poland will be great, or she will not exist,” Piusudski opted for an aggressive posture that soon collided with Lenin’s desire for pro-Communist states in Hungary and Germany. First blood went to the Soviets during their successful assault on Wilno on January 5, 1919. By February, they crossed the Shchara (Szczara) River and captured Pinsk. As all parties discovered in this war, however, rapid victory often led to equally rapid defeat. Piusudski personally directed a Polish counterattack that recaptured Wilno on April 20, 1920. These operations were typical of the entire conflict, which eyewitness Marjan Kukiel described as “a war of movement” in which “swiftness of movement, sudden-
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British-devised border between Poland and Russia. The Curzon line was very unfavorable to Polish interests, but Poland’s pressing need for Western support forced Grabski’s acceptance. The proposal worked out at Spa was then telegraphed to Moscow as part of a general armistice package. Soviet reactions were completely different. With cavalry screens only 170 kilometers from Warsaw, Lenin labeled the deal a “swindle” and convinced the Politburo to reject any peace plans and instead to “probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army.” This response set the stage for the campaign’s decisive battle, which the Poles would later call the “Miracle of the Vistula.” Elements of geography, luck, and genius played important roles in this so-called miracle. The Polesye, the largest swamp in Europe, utterly hindered east-west movement across the Soviet-Polish border. Large military units could not travel there. The swamp resulted in the creation of two separate Soviet armies with two different goals and only the most tenuous of communication links between them. Tukhachevsky’s forces continued moving toward Warsaw, but Budenny’s Cossack units pulled the southern command toward Lwów. Poor direction from Moscow, combined with the commanders’ attitude that the war was almost won, allowed for this dispersal of Soviet strength. The Poles, on the other hand, concentrated their best formations near Warsaw. Both Soviet groupings faced serious problems—their rapid advances outran supply lines, while desertions and casualties eroded the Soviets’ numerical advantage. The Poles, on the other hand, were retreating into their home territory, where they had their own ample supply centers, a superior rail network, and newly raised reinforcements. By August, 1920, each side had about 200,000 troops in the Warsaw sector. Polish forces were ready to counterattack, but they were uncertain as to how and where their resistance should be organized. Everyone in the Polish command had a plan, including General Maxime Weygand, who had been sent by France to save the day. Piusudski, needing munitions much more than advice, disregarded Weygand’s call for a stabilized front followed by a slow buildup and, finally, a renewed offensive. Instead, influenced by his studies of Napoleon I, Piusudski opted to strike the Soviets fast and hard. His target was Tukhachevsky’s weakly defended southern flank. Polish concentrations began on August 6 and centered along the Vistula and Wieprz Rivers near D-blin. Urgent appeals from the capital, by then under attack, caused offensive action against the Soviets to begin on August 16. 1717
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campaign, after the capture of the key rail center of Kalinkovichi, Piusudski pushed a motley collection of Poles, Ukrainians, and Tatars deep into enemy territory. On May 8, Kiev fell, and the Poles halted to regroup. The Poles had outrun their supply lines. Moreover, although their casualties in the May campaign were light— only 450 total—the Polish troops found they were stretched along a one-thousand-kilometer front. In addition, the Ukrainian response to Piusudski’s overtures, asking them to join his federation and, more important, form a combined national army, was lukewarm. The Polish plan began to stall. It was then the Soviet Union’s turn to mount an offensive, which began on May 18 at Zinovievsk (Elisavetgrad; now Kirovohrad). The Konarmiya (cavalry army), a sixteen-thousand-man elite Bolshevik strike force, slashed into Poland’s worn-out infantry. Directed by the flamboyant Semyon Mikhaylovich Budenny and moving at the then-incredible speed of 120 kilometers per day, Soviet horsemen soon threatened to encircle Kiev. General Edward Smigly-Rydz, the local Polish commander, saw retreat as his only option. Thus ended the Ukrainian campaign. As one veteran put it, “We ran all the way to Kiev, and we ran all the way back.” The Bolsheviks acted to capitalize on their victory in the Ukraine. Directed by Mikhail Tukhachevsky, 160,000 Soviet troops assaulted General Stanisuaw Szeptycki’s First, Fourth, and Seventh Armies near Wilno. Piusudski attempted to transfer reserves to support Szeptycki, but Budenny’s sharp attacks completely disrupted the flow of reinforcements. By early July, twenty-three Soviet divisions faced thirteen Polish divisions. On July 2, Tukhachevsky issued his orders of the day, which included the exhortation, “To the West! Our time has come. To Wilno, Minsk, and Warsaw—march.” Tukhachevsky’s July offensive smashed through Polish lines and caused a near rout of the entire front. The Soviets seemed to be, in the words of Piusudski, “advancing like a monstrous storm cloud which nothing can hinder.” Only the huge Ukrainian swamp known as the Polesye, or the Pripet Marshes, prevented a link-up of Tukhachevsky with Budenny. The Red Army’s twin successes—turning back the Polish advance at Kiev and then driving through and collapsing the Polish front—came at the worst possible time for the Poles. In addition to their obvious, grave military repercussions, the Soviet victories complicated the Europe-wide boundary settlements then being discussed at Spa, Belgium. There, on July 10, Prime Minister Wuadysuaw Grabski agreed to accept the Curzon line, a
Poland Secures Independence
Poland Secures Independence Instant success was the result, with Polish divisions advancing thirty kilometers by day’s end. Piusudski could not believe his plans were working this well. “I thought that I was dreaming,” he later wrote, but by August 18 he realized that his “dream” was Tukhachevsky’s nightmare. Hit from the rear as they attacked Warsaw’s defenses, the Soviet forces disintegrated into a mob of columns rapidly fleeing eastward. They left behind 140,000 casualties. In September, Tukhachevsky pulled together reinforcements and escapees from Warsaw and attempted to make a stand on the Neman River. Piusudski’s response was a holding action along the front, followed by flank attacks. Success again went to the Poles, who by September 25 drove off their Soviet opponents. The next day, in the Battle of the Shchara, Poland captured fifty thousand enemy soldiers. News from the south was almost as spectacular. Between August 30 and September 2, 1920, in the hills between Zamok6 and Komarów, General Wuadysuaw Sikorski conducted a series of ambush battles that resulted in the rout of the Konarmiya. Sikorski’s campaign caused the entire southern front to collapse, as Soviet troops ran back to the Ukraine with Polish and Ukrainian forces in close pursuit. By month’s end, Sikorski had elements of his army patrolling the Zbruch River. At this point, both nations were ready for serious peace negotiations. Despite repeated victories, Poland was bankrupt. The Soviets were just as drained and still facing dangerous opposition domestically from the White and Green anti-Bolshevik factions. An armistice was signed on October 12, 1920, and it went into effect on October 18. The peace was finalized in the Treaty of Riga on March 18, 1921. While the provisions of the treaty were far short of Piusudski’s goals, they did give Poland sovereignty over extensive lands east of the Curzon line.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Poland’s defeat of the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War secured the nation’s independence and expanded its territory. It also prevented the Bolsheviks from assisting procommunist forces in Germany and Hungary. Thus, the war altered the balance of power in eastern Europe and established Poland temporarily as a bulwark against the spread of the Communist revolution. It also secured Piusudski’s near-mythical status as Poland’s savior. For the Soviets, failure in the war brought a temporary end to any overt efforts to export the Communist revolution abroad. The Soviet government turned its attention inward, consolidating its power and strengthening the organs of the state. — John P. Dunn Further Reading Babel, Isaac. 1920 Diary. Edited by Carol Avins and translated by H. T. Willetts. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995. Provides a firsthand account of the Polish-Soviet war from the Bolshevik point of view. Davis, Norman. White Eagle, Red Star: The PolishSoviet War, 1919-1920. London: McDonald, 1972. Still the best English account of the war. Drobnicki, John A. “The Russo-Polish War, 1919-1920: A Bibliography of Materials in English.” The Polish Review 42, no. 1 (1997): 95-104. An invaluable research reference, listing all major resources in English available through 1997. See also: Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy; Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany; May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland.
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Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany
March 20, 1921
Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany After World War I ended, the victorious Allies had to redraw Europe’s political map to accommodate the shift in geopolitical power. The designation of Eastern Europe’s boundaries was critical to the endurance of peace. Locale: Germany; Poland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition; government and politics
Summary of Event In the late summer of 1918, both the Allied and German forces fighting on the front lines in northern France were exhausted. The German government appealed to U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to initiate peace negotiations based on his famous Fourteen Points, and an armistice was signed between the warring parties on November 11, 1918. Peace negotiations, however, did not begin until the spring of 1919 in Paris. These negotiations were led by the Allied Powers’ Council of Ten, particularly Woodrow Wilson, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain, and French premier Georges Clemenceau. Lesser roles were played by the leaders of other powers, such as Italy and Japan. At the heart of the negotiations were the various territorial adjustments called for in the fifth and thirteenth of the Fourteen Points. The thirteenth point, which called for the establishment of an independent Polish state that included the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations and had access to the sea, was especially important. (These types of territorial changes came to be
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Key Figures Aristide Briand (1862-1932), premier of France, 19091911, 1913, 1915-1917, 1921-1922, 1925-1926, and 1929 Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), premier of France, 1917-1920 Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), president of Germany, 1919-1925 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Wojciech Korfanty (1873-1939), Polish nationalist politician
grouped together under the concept of national selfdetermination.) Fulfilling the thirteenth point proved to be very difficult, because Eastern Europe’s ethnic distribution was complicated. The Poles, happy to be aligned with the winning side, advanced large territorial claims generally supported by France, which saw Poland as a future ally against a potentially resurgent Germany. The British wanted a fair and lasting peace, and the Americans wanted to fulfill the Fourteen Points. The parties began determining boundaries in February and March of 1919, when the Allies established commissions of experts to study the details and suggest which parts of Germany should be turned over to Poland. The original proposals for the boundary envisaged transferring the entire (formerly German) province of Upper Silesia to Poland, even though the populace of Upper Silesia was about half Polish and half German. Lloyd George and Wilson strongly objected to this recommendation, and so Wilson proposed using a plebiscite to determine the populace’s wishes. This idea was incorporated into Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty of Versailles, which prescribed the western boundary of Poland and the eastern boundary of Germany, except for Upper Silesia, where the treaty provided for a plebiscite. Meanwhile, an Allied force, commanded by a French general, was to occupy the territories designated for the plebiscite. The plebiscite took place on March 20, 1921, and both sides were disappointed by the results. A little more than 700,000 people voted to remain part of Germany; some 433,000 voted to become part of Poland. There were the usual charges of fraud, mostly in the form of accusations that each side had brought in people who were not really residents but could be counted on to vote in a particular way. Germany contended that Upper Silesia had not been part of Poland since the Middle Ages, and because more people in Upper Silesia as a whole had voted to remain German, the entire province should remain in Germany. The Poles countered that the Germans had brought in many more nonresidents than the Poles had. For their part, the Allied position changed from a belief that dividing Upper Silesia between the two contending parties was not viable to one that concluded that such a division was unavoidable. The vote’s results were problematic for other reasons. The vote in urban areas was strongly German, but
Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany
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r
to Poland. On August 12, the Allied leaders adopted Lloyd George’s proposal, which suggested that the issue Kepno Wielu½ Bréslau be turned over to the newly estab(Wrocuaw) lished League of Nations. Entrusted Poland with this problem, the League’s staff Lower Kreuzburg carried out consultations with many (Kluczbork) Czòstochowa Silesia prominent local residents, union ofBrieg (Brzeg) ficials, and industry leaders. As a result, Poland was awarded most of Oppeln (Opole) Upper Silesia’s mineral wealth and a Tarnowskie Upper significant portion of the processing Nysa Rive Góry Beuthen r O Hindenburg (Bytom) de facilities. Fifty-nine of sixty-seven Neisse S i l e s i a (Zabrze) (Nysa) Sosnowiec coal mines went to Poland, and PoGleiwitz land gained control over 97 percent (Gliwice) Katowice of iron ore deposits, 82 percent of the Ratibor (Racibórz) country’s tin, 71 percent of its lead, Krnov and about 50 percent of its sulphur Opava and coke. All thirteen tin- and leadC z e c h o s l o va k i a processing facilities went to Poland, Moravská and Poland also gained control over Ostrava about half of the area’s other industrial plants. To make these decisions more palatable to Germany, the the vote in the countryside was predominantly Polish, League’s experts also drew up a list of guarantees to ensince Poles provided much of the agricultural labor sure that Germany would continue to have access to this throughout many parts of eastern Germany. Furtherindustrial wealth and that no German residents would more, most of Upper Silesia’s mineral wealth lay along face discrimination. its eastern border. Germany relied on Upper Silesia for about one-fifth of the coal used by its industries, and coal Significance was an important part of Germany’s reparations payThe League Council passed its recommendations on to ments (part of which was in-kind). The vote’s relatively the Allied leaders on October 12, 1921, although they inconclusive results led both sides to try to influence the were not immediately made public. The French had outcome by paramilitary action. In early May of 1921, a wanted almost all of Upper Silesia to go to Poland, and Polish invasion led by Wojciech Korfanty, a leading Polthey initially resisted. In the end, however, socialist forish nationalist, sparked a demonstration of Polish alleeign minister Aristide Briand persuaded the French to acgiance. This outburst caused many German veterans to cept the terms, and a vote approving them took place on join paramilitary groups that contested the Polish incurOctober 19, 1921. However, the terms also required both sion. The fighting was largely inconclusive, although it sides to sign a document drafted by the League that made appeared that the Germans were more successful than many of the guarantees against discrimination enforceKorfanty’s followers. Technically, the Allied occupation able by law. troops were not involved, but many demonstrated their Under the League’s guidance, the German and Polish support for the Poles. Although the German government governments began negotiations over what eventually tried to distance itself from the German fighters, the became the Geneva Convention. In addition to the murogue groups were very popular in many parts of Gertual guarantees, the Geneva Convention provided that a many. League commissioner would supervise its application Faced with the unrest on the ground, the Allied leadfor fifteen years. The convention was signed by both ers were unable to agree on a solution to the issue of Upsides on May 15, 1922. In July, Polish troops marched per Silesia. Britain and Italy favored keeping most of the into the areas assigned to Poland. League supervision appeared to have worked well, but the Geneva Convention area in Germany; France favored turning most of it over Ri
ver
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Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres
was not renewed in 1937; by this time, relations between Germany (then ruled by Adolf Hitler) and Poland had substantially deteriorated. Despite the apparent equity of the decision to split Upper Silesia between Poland and Germany, the division fueled German resentment toward the Versailles treaty and contributed to the Nazi’s rise to political power in Germany and ultimately to World War II. It also revealed that trusting large foreign policy issues to democratic referenda did not always provide a long-term solution. —Nancy M. Gordon
See also: June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence; May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland.
May 10, 1921
Pirandello’s SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR Premieres Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author opened to a hostile audience but soon received worldwide attention and became one of the most influential dramas of the modern period. Locale: Rome, Italy Category: Theater Key Figures Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Italian playwright Georges Pitoëff (1886-1939), French theatrical director George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright Max Reinhardt (Max Goldmann; 1873-1943), Austrian theatrical director Summary of Event By 1921, Luigi Pirandello had established himself as an innovative short-story writer and novelist. Some of his
dramas had already dealt with the theme of the relative nature of truth, but during World War I, Pirandello had been stricken with a profound sense of despair that led him to focus on the meaninglessness of existence and the irrationality of human actions. Out of his own personal suffering, he began to create a dramatic form that expressed the sense of alienation that had become a part of the modern age. As early as 1918, Pirandello became obsessed with the notion that six characters were trying to get him to write a novel about them; however, he did not want to write their story, because he did not care about them or about anyone else. He did not write the novel, but his idea evolved into the play Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (pr., pb. 1921; Six Characters in Search of an Author, 1922), in which six characters abandoned by their author barge in on the rehearsal of a play and try to get the actors to let them create their own drama. Their story focuses on 1721
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Further Reading Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. An in-depth analysis of Wilson’s vision and of the concept of national self-determination. Cooper, John Milton, Jr. Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Describes Wilson’s part in the struggle to establish the League of Nations and to gain support for the international body in the United States. Keith, Arthur Berriedale. Speeches and Documents on International Affairs. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1938. Contains the text of the Fourteen Points and the Versailles Treaty. Nelson, Harold T. Land and Power: British and Allied Policy on Germany’s Frontiers, 1916-1919. London: Routledge, 1963. Links the foreign policy decisions to Europe’s power relationships. Reddaway, W. F., J. H. Penson, O. Halecki, R. Dyboski, eds. The Cambridge History of Poland. 2 vols. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Despite the prestige of its sponsor, this work is heavily oriented toward the Polish viewpoint, but it does contain some useful details. Schwabe, Klaus. Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking, 1918-1919. Translated by Robert and Rita Kimber. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Helps to balance the proPolish orientation of much earlier writing on this subject. Also contains some useful details. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. London: Oxford University Press, 1952. An older but still useful history with many details about the League’s involvement in the decision on Upper Silesia.
Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres an eccentric man who encourages his wife to run off with a lover and who later finds himself about to have sex with his stepdaughter, unaware of who she is. The crux of the play, however, comes in the disparity between how the characters see themselves and how the actors portray them. As the stepdaughter and the father try to re-create the scene of their assignation and what led up to it, the truth becomes blurred by various accounts of events. Six Characters in Search of an Author was first produced by Dario Niccodemi at Teatro Valle in Rome. At its premiere on May 10, 1921, audience members were offended when they entered the theater to see that the curtain had already been raised and the stage was set up as if for a rehearsal. When six characters walked toward the stage from the back of the auditorium, the audience booed. Some cried out “madhouse” and “buffoon.” Ariot broke out in the theater, and when Pirandello appeared on the stage, the audience grew more raucous. Pirandello and his daughter hid in the theater for almost an hour and then tried to sneak out through a back alley, but Pirandello’s hecklers pursued them through the streets until they caught a taxi. After Pirandello left, the melee continued into the night. In contrast to the powerful negative reaction it provoked in Rome, Six Characters in Search of an Author was a success when it opened at the Teatro Manzini in Milan, Italy, on September 27, 1921, and the influence of Pirandello began to spread throughout the world. The play sent shock waves across the theatrical worlds of Europe and the United States and was produced as far away as Tokyo and Buenos Aires. From 1922 to 1925, it was translated into twenty-five languages. In England, the Lord Chamberlain prevented all public performances of the play on the grounds that it would be spiritually disturbing to an audience. George Bernard Shaw, England’s foremost playwright of the early twentieth century, arranged a private performance by the Stage Society on February 27, 1922. Shaw later stated, “I have never come across a play so original as Six Characters.” In the United States, the play opened at the Princess Theatre in New York City on October 30, 1922. Jack Crawford of the magazine Drama called it “the most original drama I have ever seen” and awarded it the publication’s first prize among the year’s foreign plays. The greatest impact of Six Characters in Search of an Author came in France. Georges Pitoëff presented the play at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, where it opened on April 10, 1923. Although the audience response was not immediate, the play achieved critical acclaim. Pitoëff added to the play’s effect by having the six 1722
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characters brought down in an elevator, an event that stayed in the memories of many famous French playwrights. The play was also produced in Germany by the famous director Max Reinhardt, who added many expressionistic elements. Reinhardt’s production ran for 131 performances. The cataclysmic reaction to Six Characters in Search of an Author came in large part from the fact that the play used the theater itself as a means of reflecting on the very nature of reality. Pirandello blurred the distinction between theater and life at the same time he questioned the theatrics of everyday life. For Pirandello, the sense of self breaks down into a series of roles. The father in Six Characters in Search of an Author points out that people are not the same today as they were yesterday. Reality itself is in constant flux, and absolute truth is impossible to determine. In a universe where everyone lives in his or her private, illusory world, life itself becomes meaningless, and communication breaks down. In the play, the father even notes the inability of words to communicate. Pirandello posed a paradox that influenced the direction of modern theater. For Pirandello, theater falsifies life, but life itself is no more than theatrics and is just as illusory as theater. Pirandello went beyond the bourgeois theater of realism and opened up a theater that would not try to express reality in all of its details or try to reflect life in the guise of illusion. Instead, he created a theater that questioned the nature of reality and penetrated the illusion of theater. With Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello brought theatricalism to the forefront of modern theater. As one playwright put it, “The entire theater of our era came out of the womb of that play, Six Characters.” Significance When Pirandello wrote Six Characters in Search of an Author, Western civilization was still smoldering from the effects of World War I. Whatever was left of the nineteenth century concept of a harmonious world order held together by a sense of absolute values was blown away by the devastation of mechanized warfare. The old order and the great dynasties of Europe and Russia had crumbled, and no new order was there to take its place. In 1915, during the war, Albert Einstein refined his theory of relativity and, in so doing, dismantled the Newtonian order of the universe, which was held together by the immutable laws of physics. Time and space would no longer be considered fixed entities; rather, they could change depending on the position of an observer. Like Einstein, Pirandello also postulated a theory of relativity.
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Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres
Pirandello’s Vivid Characters Luigi Pirandello’s highly detailed stage directions in Six Characters in Search of an Author describe the six characters of the title at the moment they appear in the theater: The Six Characters enter, and stop by the door at back of stage, so that when the Door-keeper is about to announce their coming to the Manager, they are already on the stage. A tenuous light surrounds them, almost as if irradiated by them—the faint breath of their fantastic reality. This light will disappear when they come forward towards the actors. They preserve, however, something of the dream lightness in which they seem almost suspended; but this does not detract from the essential reality of their forms and expressions. He who is known as The Father is a man of about 50: hair, reddish in colour, thin at the temples; he is not bald, however; thick moustaches, falling over his still fresh mouth, which often opens in an empty and uncertain smile. He is fattish, pale; with an especially wide forehead. He has blue, oval-shaped eyes, very clear and piercing. Wears light trousers and a dark jacket. He is alternatively mellifluous and violent in his manner. The Mother seems crushed and terrified as if by an intolerable weight of shame and abasement. She is dressed in modest black and wears a thick widow’s veil of crêpe. When she lifts this, she reveals a wax-like face. She always keeps her eyes downcast. The Step-Daughter is dashing, almost impudent, beautiful. She wears mourning too, but with great elegance. She shows contempt for the timid half-frightened manner of the wretched Boy (14 years old, and also dressed in black); on the other hand, she displays a lively tenderness for her little sister, The Child (about four), who is dressed in white, with a black silk sash at the waist. The Son (22) tall, severe in his attitude of contempt for The Father, supercilious and indifferent to The Mother. He looks as if he had come on the stage against his will. Source: Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author, in Naked Masks: Five Plays, edited by Eric Bentley (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1952).
of life courageously. For Sartre, humans are always in a state of becoming and cannot be frozen into one role. In Six Characters in Search of an Author, the father refuses to have his whole life judged by one incident, just as Gaston in Sartre’s Huis clos (pr. 1944; In Camera, 1946; better known as No Exit, 1947) refuses to stand condemned for one act of cowardice. Sartre once commented that Pirandello was the most timely of all modern playwrights. Pirandello’s influence also carries over into the Theater of the Absurd. Samuel Beckett’s tramps create illusions, play roles, and act out games in a world where 1723
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The father in Six Characters in Search of an Author continually points out that each person can see the world only through his or her own point of view, thus life is based on illusion. Playwrights in France were influenced by the production of Six Characters in Search of an Author and picked up on Pirandello’s themes and style. Jean Giraudoux created characters who need to maintain illusions in order to survive. In Intermezzo (1933; The Enchanted, 1950), he shows how a young girl’s illusions should not be destroyed outright. In La Folle de Chaillot (1945; The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1947), a group of old women need to hold on to the fantasy of an imaginary dog. Like Pirandello, Giraudoux focused on split and multiple personalities. Jean Anouilh also followed a Pirandellian line in his plays, which deal with characters who try to escape from themselves. In Le Voyageur sans bagage (1937; Traveler Without Luggage, 1959), Gaston, an amnesia victim, tries to escape from Jacques, his past self. In Colombe (pr. 1951; Mademoiselle Colombe, 1954), the young Julien is puzzled by the woman he loves, who is both an innocent young girl and a worldly actress. Anouilh also used the play-within-a-play motif. In La Répétition: Ou, L’Amour puni (1950; The Rehearsal, 1958), a group of actors rehearsing a play discover the similarities between the characters they are playing and the lives they are leading. Anouilh carried the breakdown between theater and life one step further in Le Rendezvous de Senlis (pr. 1941; Dinner with the Family, 1958), in which Robert gets actors to portray his parents, but the actors begin to take their roles seriously and get confused between illusion and reality. Like Pirandello’s father, characters in Anouilh’s play find themselves caught between trying to be what they want to be and accepting roles in which others have cast them. In Becket: Ou, L’Honneur de Dieu (1959; Becket: Or, The Honor of God, 1960), Thomas Becket, a profligate churchman, finds that he has no sense of self and honor, but as soon as he is made archbishop of Canterbury, he takes on the role of archbishop, defending the honor of God and opposing the king who appointed him. Pirandello also influenced writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre’s existentialist heroes seek to slough off their false identities and to free themselves from all illusions in order to accept the meaninglessness
Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres truth is relative and existence has no meaning. They also call attention to the fact that they are acting in a play that they wish would end. Interestingly, Anouilh compared the opening of Beckett’s En attendant Godot (pb. 1952; Waiting for Godot, 1954) with the opening of Six Characters in Search of an Author in Paris. Absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco owes a debt to Pirandello as well. Ionesco saw Pirandello’s drama as a foundation, an archetype for the modern idea of theater. Ionesco’s characters are reduced to purely mechanical roles. They not only live in a world of illusion, but they also forget who they are and fail to recognize the people they supposedly have known all their lives. The father in Six Characters in Search of an Author notes that words cannot communicate his feelings because words cannot penetrate the perceptions others have of him. Similarly, in Ionesco’s drama, language fails to communicate and is reduced to nonsense and cacophony. Absurdist playwright Jean Genet carried Pirandello’s concept of theatricalism to its ultimate conclusion in Le Balcon (pb. 1956; The Balcony, 1957), in which wars, revolutions, and struggles for power are played out through sexual fantasies enacted in a brothel. In the United States, Pirandello’s influence can be seen in the works of Eugene O’Neill that deal with doubles, masks, and the impossibility of living in a world without illusions. In The Iceman Cometh (pr., pb. 1946), the characters withdraw into drunken stupors in a barroom and tacitly agree to accept one another’s illusions. American playwright Edward Albee also used Pirandellian themes of illusion and reality. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (pr., pb. 1962), a husband and wife create a fantasy child and kill it off. In addition to the works of individual playwrights, other forms of theater reflect the influence of the blurring between art and life that is the focus of Pirandello’s work. These include the “happenings” of the 1960’s as well as later performance art. Postmodern drama focuses on the loss of self in an age of media images. Pirandello’s concept of having an audience watch actors watch characters playing roles is relevant in an age in which characters on television soap operas can become more real than one’s neighbors. By the early twenty-first century, in an era of image consultants, “spin merchants,” and media events, Pirandello’s theatrical ideas remained alive and well. —Paul Rosefeldt Further Reading Bassnett-McGuire, Susan. Luigi Pirandello. New York: Grove Press, 1983. Discusses political and personal 1724
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influences on Pirandello’s work and presents detailed analyses of the major plays. Includes photographs of international productions and a bibliography that lists not only plays in translation but also periodicals devoted solely to articles on Pirandello. Bentley, Eric. The Pirandello Commentaries. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1986. Series of articles by an eminent critic and theorist of modern drama spans a lifetime’s worth of penetrating insights into Pirandello’s major dramas. Includes a review of Gaspare Guidice’s biography of Pirandello as well as a short biographical profile of Pirandello. Caesar, Ann Hallamore. Characters and Authors in Luigi Pirandello. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Examines the use of character in all of Pirandello’s work, including novels and short stories as well as plays. Includes bibliography and index. Cambon, Glauco, ed. Pirandello: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967. Diverse collection of critical articles, including an influential analysis of Pirandello’s drama by Adriano Tilgher, discussion of Pirandello’s cubist approach to drama by Wylie Sypher, an essay tracing Pirandello’s influence on French drama by Thomas Bishop, and a dissection of Pirandello’s experimental novels by A. L. de Castris. Features a detailed chronology of Pirandello’s life and a selected bibliography. Dashwood, Julie, ed. Luigi Pirandello: The Theatre of Paradox. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. Collection of essays focuses on the influence of Pirandello’s work on drama in the twentieth century. Contributions address issues of theory, genre, gender, and language. Giudice, Gaspare. Pirandello: A Biography. Translated by Alastair Hamilton. Rev. ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. One of the more comprehensive biographies of Pirandello, even though it is an abridged version of the original. Details much of Pirandello’s personal life, using quotations from personal correspondence and other primary sources. Includes extensive descriptions of Sicilian lifestyles and a good analysis of the political climate in Italy during Pirandello’s lifetime. Oliver, Roger W. Dreams of Passion: The Theater of Luigi Pirandello. New York: New York University Press, 1979. Demonstrates a connection between Pirandello’s theory of humor and his drama. Presents close analyses of five major plays.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard; Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater; Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama; July
Emergency Quota Act 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway.
May 19, 1921
Emergency Quota Act The Emergency Quota Act created a quota system for immigration into the United States that was based on the number of people of each nationality already residing in the country. The system thus favored immigrants from the nations of northern and western Europe and was based largely on racist notions of the inferiority of other nations and races.
Key Figures Albert Johnson (1869-1957), U.S. representative from Washington State, 1913-1932, and chair of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 1919-1930 Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), U.S. representative from Massachusetts, 1887-1893, and senator, 18931924 William Paul Dillingham (1843-1923), U.S. senator from Vermont, 1899-1924 LeBaron Bradford Colt (1846-1924), U.S. senator from Rhode Island, 1913-1924, and chair of the Senate Committee on Immigration, 1919-1924 Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Adolph J. Sabath (1866-1952), U.S. representative from Illinois, 1907-1952 Madison Grant (1865-1937), American author and lawyer Summary of Event Throughout most of the nineteenth century, immigration to the United States was open to anyone. By the 1880’s, however, this unlimited freedom was beginning to disappear. The first law restricting immigration came in 1882, when Chinese were excluded from entering American
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Also known as: Johnson Quota Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; immigration, emigration, and relocation
territory. Hostility to Chinese workers in California sparked Congress to pass the law amid warnings that Chinese worked for lower wages than whites and came from such an inferior civilization that they would never make good Americans. The law became permanent in 1902. Five years later, under the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement with the Japanese government, citizens of that country were added to the excluded list. The only other people barred from entering the United States were prostitutes, insane persons, paupers, polygamists, and anyone suffering from a “loathsome or contagious disease.” Under these categories, between 1890 and 1914, less than thirteen thousand immigrants were turned away annually, out of the more than one million who arrived each year. The small number of immigrants being excluded troubled anti-immigrant groups, such as the American Protective Association, founded in 1887, and the Immigration Restriction League, created in Boston in 1894. Both organizations warned of the “immigrant invasion” that threatened the American way of life. These opponents of open immigration argued that since 1880, most new arrivals had come from different areas of Europe than had pre-1880 immigrants, who came largely from Germany, England, Ireland, and Scandinavia. The “new” immigrants—mainly Slavs, Poles, Italians, and Jews—came from poorer and more culturally “backward” areas of Europe. Many of these immigrants advocated radicalism, anarchism, socialism, or communism and were unfamiliar with ideas of democracy and progress. Furthermore, they preferred to live in ghettoes in cities, where they strengthened the power of political machines and corrupt bosses. Those who considered themselves guardians of traditional American values found support for their position among trade unionists in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), whose president, Samuel Gompers, argued that the new immigrants provided employers with an endless supply of cheap labor, leading to lower wages for everyone. Advocates of restriction found their chief congressio-
Emergency Quota Act nal spokesperson in Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, a member of the Immigration Restriction League, who sponsored a bill calling for a literacy test. Such a law, which called on immigrants to be able to read and write in their native language, was seen as an effective barrier to most “new” immigrants. Congress passed the bill in 1897, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it, arguing that it was unnecessary and discriminatory. Cleveland believed that American borders should remain open to anyone who wanted to enter and that there were enough jobs and opportunities to allow anyone to fulfill a dream of economic success. Advocates of this vision of the American Dream, however, were lessening in number over time. The assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 led to the exclusion of anarchists and those who advocated the violent overthrow of the government of the United States. A more important step toward a quota system, however, came in 1907, when the House and Senate established the U.S. Immigration Commission under the leadership of Senator William Paul Dillingham. The commission issued a forty-two-volume report in 1910, advocating a reduction in immigration because of the “racial inferiority” of new immigrant groups. Studies of immigrant populations, the commission concluded, showed that people from southern and eastern Europe had a higher potential for criminal activity, were more likely to end up poor and sick, and were less intelligent than other Americans. It called for passage of a literacy test to preserve American values. Congress passed legislation in 1912 calling for such a test, but President William Howard Taft vetoed it, saying that illiteracy resulted from lack of educational opportunity and had little to do with native intelligence. Open entrance to the United States was part of American history, and many of the nation’s wealthiest and hardest-working citizens had arrived without knowing how to read and write. If the United States barred such people, Taft argued, the nation would become weaker and less wealthy. In 1915, Woodrow Wilson became the third president to veto a literacy bill, denouncing its violation of the American ideal of an open door. Two years later, in the wake of American entrance into World War I and growing hostility against foreigners, Congress overrode Wilson’s second veto and the literacy test became law. Along with establishing a reading test for anyone over age sixteen, the law also created a “barred zone” that excluded immigrants from most of Asia, including China, India, and Japan, regardless of whether they could read. As it turned out, the test that asked adults to read a few words in any recognized language did little to reduce im1726
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 migration. Between 1918 and 1920, less than 1 percent of those who took it failed. Congressman Albert Johnson, chair of the House Committee on Immigration, had been a longtime advocate of closing the borders of the United States. In 1919, he called for the suspension of all immigration. Johnson’s proposal was defeated in the House of Representatives. In 1920, however, immigration increased dramatically, as did fears that millions of refugees from war-torn Europe were waiting to flood into the United States. Much of the argument for restriction was based on ideas associated with scientific racism. The Republican candidate for the presidency, Warren G. Harding, advocated restriction in several speeches, warning of the dangers inherent in allowing open admission. He called for legislation that would permit entrance to the United States only to people whose background and racial characteristics showed that they could adopt American values and principles. The next year, Vice President Calvin Coolidge authored a magazine article claiming that laws of biology proved that “Nordics,” the preferred type, deteriorated intellectually and physically when allowed to intermarry with other races. These views reflected the growing influence of eugenics, the science of improving the human race by discouraging the birth of the “unfit.” Madison Grant, a lawyer and secretary of the New York Zoological Society, and later an adviser to Albert Johnson’s Immigration Committee, wrote the most influential book advocating this racist way of thinking, The Passing of the Great Race in America (1916). In the book, Grant described human society as a huge snake: Nordic races made up the head, and the inferior races formed the tail. It would be this type of scientific argument, more than any other, that would provide the major rationale for creation of the 1921 quota system. The tail could not be allowed to rule the head. Early in 1921, the House debated and passed Johnson’s bill calling for a two-year suspension of all immigration. The Senate Committee on Immigration, chaired by Senator LeBaron Bradford Colt, held hearings on a similar proposal but refused to support a total ban after hearing arguments from business groups fearful that complete exclusion would stop all access to European laborers. Representatives from the National Association of Manufacturers testified on the need to have access to inexpensive labor, even though some business leaders were beginning to fear that too many in the immigration pool were influenced by communism and socialism, especially after the Communist victory in Russia in 1918.
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Emergency Quota Act cheap agricultural labor available to farmers in Texas and California, Congress refused to place a quota on immigration from these areas of the world. Japan and China were the only countries with a quota of zero, as Congress continued its policy of exclusion for most areas of Asia. The 1921 act provided for “special preferences” for relatives of U.S. citizens, including wives, children under eighteen, parents, brothers, and sisters. The commissioner of immigration was to make it a priority to maintain family unity; however, this was to be the only exception to the strict quota policy. Congress extended the “emergency” law in May, 1922, for two more years. This move, however, did not satisfy Congressman Johnson and others supporting complete restriction. Johnson’s Immigration Committee continued to hold hearings and gather evidence supporting an end to all immigration. Johnson became increasingly interested in eugenics and remained in close contact with Madison Grant. In 1923, Johnson was elected president of the Eugenics Research Association of America, a group devoted to gathering statistics on the hereditary traits of Americans. He seemed especially interested in studies showing a large concentration of “new” immigrants in mental hospitals, prisons, and poorhouses. Such information led him to call for a change in the law. A reduction in the quota for “new” immigrants was necessary, he claimed, to save the United States from even larger numbers of paupers, mental patients, and criminals. The Immigration Committee voted to change the census base from 1910 to 1890, when there were far fewer southern and eastern Europeans in the country, and to reduce the quota from 3 percent to 2 percent. Congress would adopt those ideas in the Immigration Act of 1924. — Leslie V. Tischauser
Significance The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 severely reduced immigration into the United States. In 1922, its first full year of operation, only 309,556 people legally entered the country, compared with 805,228 the previous year. Quotas for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand were generally filled quickly, although economic depressions in England, Ireland, and Germany kept many potential immigrants at home. Less than half the legal number of immigrants from those countries came to the United States the first year; southern and eastern Europe filled almost 99 percent of their limit. No limits existed for Canada, Mexico, and other nations of the Western Hemisphere. To keep an adequate supply of
Further Reading Bennett, Marion T. American Immigration Policies. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1963. Although written from a prorestriction point of view, this book contains useful information on all immigration laws up to 1962 and their effects on the numbers of people entering the United States. There is a brief but useful summary of arguments for and against the 1921 act. Includes an index and bibliography. Divine, Robert. American Immigration Policy, 19241952. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957. An interesting, detailed account of the congressional movement toward restriction. Although mainly concerned with the 1924 law and its aftermath, there 1727
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The possibility of thousands of radical workers with a greater tendency to strike coming into the country seemed too high a price to pay in return for lower wages. Unions, especially the AFL, continued to lobby for strict regulation of immigration. To keep wages high, Samuel Gompers told Congress, foreign workers had to be kept out. By 1921, the only widespread support for free and open immigration came from immigrant groups themselves. Although a few members of Congress supported their position, it was a distinctly minority view. Senator Dillingham, whose report in 1910 had renewed efforts to restrict immigration, offered a quota plan that he hoped would satisfy business and labor. He called for a policy in which each nation would receive a quota of immigrants equal to 5 percent of that country’s total population in the United States according to the 1910 census. Dillingham’s suggestion passed the Senate with little opposition and gained favor in the House. Before its final approval, however, Johnson and his supporters of total suspension reduced the quota to 3 percent and set 350,000 as the maximum number of legal immigrants in any one year. Woodrow Wilson vetoed the bill shortly before leaving office, but it was passed with only one dissenting vote in the Senate during a special session called by President Harding on May 19, 1921. The House approved the Emergency Quota Act the same day without a recorded vote. The only opposition came from representatives with large numbers of immigrants in their districts. Adolph J. Sabath, a Democratic congressman from Chicago, led the dissenters, arguing that the act was based on a “pseudoscientific proposition” that falsely glorified the Nordic nations. His comments had little effect on the result. One of the most important changes in American immigration history went into effect in June of 1921.
Moplah Rebellion is a summary of attitudes in Congress and the rest of the United States that led to the 1921 act. Written from an antirestriction point of view. Contains an extensive and useful bibliography. Garis, Roy. Immigration Restriction. New York: Macmillan, 1928. Written by an economist at Vanderbilt University in support of restriction. An old work but still useful in reflecting the attitudes of members of the Immigration Restriction League. Many charts and graphs. Contains an extensive bibliography prepared by the Library of Congress for the House Immigration Committee. Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. New York: Atheneum, 1975. The classic account of anti-immigrant hostility in the United States from the Civil War to the final victory for restriction in the 1920’s. Presents a full account of the arguments for and against quotas, and contains an extensive discussion of the 1921 bill and the congressional debate on the subject. Includes a bibliography and an index. Lipset, Seymour M., and Earl Raab. The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 17901970. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Although
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mainly focused on bigotry, the book contains a short discussion of restrictionist attitudes in many areas of the nation. The bibliography is helpful in finding sources for anti-immigrant ideas and values. Miller, Nathan. New World Coming: The 1920’s and the Making of Modern America. New York: Scribner, 2003. Comprehensive survey of the changes in and concerns about American culture in the 1920’s. Includes a discussion of immigration policy, immigrants, and American demographics during the decade. Bibliographic references and index. Solomon, Barbara. Ancestors and Immigrants. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956. A study of the Immigration Restriction League of Boston. Asserts that restrictionists perceived their world as crumbling under the influx of vast numbers of immigrants who knew nothing of democracy and liberty and were inferior intellectually and physically. Most of the study looks at attitudes before 1921 that led directly to the passage of the law. See also: Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924; May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol; Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans.
August, 1921
Moplah Rebellion The Moplahs, a Muslim sect descended from Arabs who migrated to India in the ninth century, lived in the extreme south of India on the west coast at Malabar. After briefly being recruited for the Indian army as the Moplah Rifles, they attacked their Hindu neighbors, and British forces restored order by using maximum force, which left a large number of casualties. Locale: Malabar, South India Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Variyankode Kunhahammad Haji (fl. early twentieth century), most influential Moplah Khilafat leader Erikunnan Ali Mussaliar (fl. early twentieth century), religious teacher and Moplah leader who incited the Moplahs to rebel Kattillasseri Muhammad Mussaliar (fl. early twentieth century), Moplah leader who wandered from place to place spreading Moplah propaganda 1728
E. R. Thomas (fl. early twentieth century), district magistrate in Ernad, India Freeman Freeman-Thomas (first marquis of Willingdon; 1866-1941), governor of Madras, 1919-1924 Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of the Indian nationalist movement Annie Besant (1847-1933), English reformer and leader of the Theosophical Society who promoted nationalism in India Summary of Event The Moplahs (mappila in Malayalam) were mostly small agriculturists, landless laborers, and petty traders who were heavily influenced by local Muslim leaders. These leaders were members of groups of Khasis and Maulvis known as Thangals, indigenous to South India, and they became known for their fanaticism. In the fifteenth century, they resisted attempts by the Portuguese to convert them to Christianity, and they developed strong beliefs in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
most entirely composed of Indians from groups such as the Gurkhas, the Garhwalis, Kachins, and other relatively distant communities. The soldiers restored order, but they did so very violently and without mercy. More than 2,226 Moplahs were killed, 1,615 were wounded, 5,688 were captured, and nearly 40,000 surrendered. Of those captured, 150 were locked in a goods wagon in the heat of summer and sent to Madras; by the time the wagon was opened, 66 had suffocated to death, and the rest were in serious condition. The uprising had started as a protest against landlords and British officials, but it quickly became a much larger conflict. Although the rebellion mirrored Moplah agrarian protests of the nineteenth century, the British attributed it to the political agitation against British rule that had been fomented by British activist Annie Besant and Gandhi in the Home Rule League, founded in 1916, and the Indian National Congress, which became increasingly extremist after it was founded in 1885. By 1921, however, the Moplahs had become disillusioned with the noncooperation movement, and their frustration with the lack of change in their desperate conditions erupted in open rebellion. While nineteenth century rebellions were limited in their extent and generally confined to specific, local areas, the 1921 uprising was much more violent and spread over the two districts of Ernad and Walluvarad. The British report documenting the rebellion described how the British had failed to understand the traditional land-revenue system in Malabar. They had created the class of landowners called the jenmis, who ignored local practices and began to regard the land as private property rather than communal land. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that the landowners were Hindu peoples, such as Nairs or Namboodris, who subjected the Moplahs to numerous rules and arbitrary eviction. Only after a great deal of bloodshed did the British realize that they had in fact facilitated the conflict between the Hindus and Moplahs and had put themselves in the middle of the Moplahs’ attempts to create a theocratic state based on Islamic principles. Significance In the early years of the twentieth century, the Arya Samaj (founded in 1875) was increasing its activities of shuddhi (reconversion of non-Hindus), which led to a Muslim reaction and the founding of the Tablighi Jamaat (a missionary society) by Muhammad Ilyas. These groups alienated Hindus from Muslims and helped give the Muslims an increased sense of grievance toward Hindus, a feeling that ultimately fueled Muslim support for 1729
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favor of Islam and against their landlords. In 1792, the British took control of Malabar (in southwest India) when it was ceded by the Muslim ruler Tipu Sultan of Mysore. High-caste Hindu landlords (jenmis) and moneylenders, especially Brahmans and Nairs, became British allies, and this reinforced Muslim and low-caste Hindu resentment toward the upper classes. From 1836 to 1896, the Moplahs led some thirty revolts against the British and Hindus, especially in the southern Malabar taluks (district subdivisions) of Ernad and Walluvarad. By attacking the Hindus—many uprisings pillaged Hindu property and left Hindus murdered—the Moplahs expressed their hatred of British rule. A tenants’ rights movement began in 1916. Later, this movement inspired both the anti-British Khilafat movement (1920-1922) and Mohandas Gandhi (later known as the Mahatma), who began his own noncooperation movement in 1920. When the spokesmen of the Khilafat and noncooperation movements were arrested, the field was left open to more radical and fanatical leaders whose millenarian and egalitarian ideologies struck a chord with the landless, dispossessed, and downtrodden. Although the governor of Madras, Freeman FreemanThomas, first marquis of Willingdon, blamed Gandhi’s movement for fomenting the Moplah uprising, national leaders believed that the rebellion was a result of the mismanagement of district officials and the insensitivity of government officers whose activities offended the Moplahs’ Muslim sensibilities. The uprising began in the village called Pukottar, which was located in a densely populated area in Ernad taluk, where some 60 percent of the people were Muslim Moplahs and most of the land was owned by a rich Hindu landowner, Raja Nilambut. When a local Moplah leader of the Khilafat movement came into personal conflict with the landowner’s local agent, the police and district officials, especially the district magistrate, E. R. Thomas, became alarmed that this conflict might escalate. Expecting that the local conflict would lead to a communal riot, because most Moplahs were Raja Nilambut’s tenants or subtenants, these officials requested that the Madras government send in police reinforcements. The Moplahs became enraged at the influx of police. They drew swords and spears and attacked government officials and government buildings such as police stations, railway stations, and post offices. Some 2,500 nonMuslims were forcibly converted to Islam, and more than 600 Hindus were killed. The Moplahs controlled the area for six months before the British brought in troops and declared martial law in October. The troops were al-
Moplah Rebellion
First Miss America Is Crowned
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
the All-India Muslim League (founded in 1906) and led to the 1940 demand for a separate state for the Muslims of India. This state, Pakistan, was established in 1947, when India was divided in two. The Moplah rebellion, therefore, had national ramifications and became a part of the nationalists’ agitation for independence. The Moplah disturbances helped destroy the HinduMuslim unity that had been created by the Lucknow Pact. This pact had been forged by the “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity,” Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in 1916, when right-wing Hindus came to the defense of their fellow Hindus. One of the few positive consequences to emerge from the rebellion came in 1929, when the British passed the Malabar Tenancy Act, which controlled rents, fixed fair rents, and proscribed the eviction of tenants. —Roger D. Long
the Moplah uprising. An introduction by noted historian Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr., provides a good summary and a good place to begin any study of the Moplah uprising. This book is one of the foremost sources for information about the rebellion. Jones, Kenneth W. Socio-religious Movements in British India. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Places the Moplah rebellion within the context of the political and religious movements of the time. Notes that the Hindu, right-wing Arya Samaj responded to the Moplah uprising by sending missionaries to the south for the reconversion of Muslims to Hinduism and by sending financial assistance to Hindus to help them rebuild destroyed temples. Makes the point that the Moplah rebellion brought to the south of India the intense competition between Hindus and Muslims that characterized the north of India.
Further Reading Dale, Stephen F. Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: The Mappilas of Malabar, 1498-1922. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Comprehensive discussion of Moplah history examines the factors that contributed to the Moplah rebellion and the events of the uprising itself. Hitchcock, R. H. Peasant Revolt in Malabar: A History of the Malabar Rebellion, 1921. New Delhi: Usha, 1983. Reproduces the principal government report on
See also: Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India; Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact; Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables; Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India.
September 8, 1921
First Miss America Is Crowned In the resort community of Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first and most prestigious continuing beauty contest selected a young woman embodying the ideal of an American woman. Her title was Miss America. Also known as: Atlantic City Pageant Locale: Atlantic City, New Jersey Categories: Entertainment; women’s issues Key Figures Margaret Gorman (1905-1995), winner of the first Miss America pageant Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952), illustrator, portraitist, and creator of the “Christy girl” Hudson Maxim (1853-1927), writer and inventor of high-powered explosives John Drew (1853-1927), renowned actor who was famed for his interpretation of Shakespeare 1730
Summary of Event The idea of the first Miss America pageant began in 1920 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when H. Conrad Eckholm, owner of the Monticello Hotel, convinced the Business Men’s League to sponsor a weeklong Fall Frolic in an effort to keep tourists at the beach after Labor Day. Some thought the idea was too frivolous, but the first Fall Frolic, which featured the International Rolling Chair Pageant, was held on September 25, 1920. The parade of wheeled wicker chairs lasted one hour and was led by a beautiful woman, Ernestine Cremora. Although the Fall Frolic was not a resounding financial success, Sam P. Leeds, president of the Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce, appointed a committee to develop another post-Labor Day celebration for the following September. Thomas P. Endicott, who ran a drycleaning business, was named director general of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The title of Miss America would be bestowed on one of the contestants from two other pageants: the Inter-City Contest and the Bathers Review. The Inter-City winners were selected by the individual newspapers: Miss Washington, D.C., Margaret Gorman; Miss Philadelphia, Nellie Orr; Miss Camden, Kathryn M. Gearon; Miss Ocean City, Hazel Harris; Miss Pittsburgh, Thelma Matthews; Miss Harrisburg, Emma Pharo; Miss Newark, Margaret Bates; and Miss New York, Virginia Lee. Ethel Charles, winner of the Atlantic City contest, withdrew from the competition. Winners of the newspaper contests, called the “beauty maids,” arrived in Atlantic City the day after Labor Day, September 6, 1921. The pageant began at 11:00 a.m. on September 7, when Father Neptune arrived at Atlantic City’s Million Dollar Pier. Father Neptune wore a long white beard and purple robe and carried a trident, and he floated in on his seashell barge accompanied by his “mermaids”: the winners of the Inter-City Beauty Contests. Father Neptune was
King Neptune (Hudson Maxim) and Margaret Gorman, the first Miss America. (Library of Congress)
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committee; Harry Latz, whose family ran the Almac Hotel, was appointed vice director general and chairman of the Bathers Review. Harry Godshall, one of eight others named to the committee, was made chairman of a beauty contest. The idea of having a beauty contest as part of the second Fall Frolic is credited to Harry Finley, an Atlantic City newspaperman. Finley proposed that a “photographic popularity contest” be run by newspapers in various cities in the Atlantic City area to increase newspaper circulation. The newspaper would pick a winner from the pictures submitted and buy the winner a wardrobe, and Atlantic City would pay for her transportation and a week at the seashore. Godshell later recalled that Herb Test, a reporter for the Atlantic City Press who had been hired to handle publicity, said that the winner should be called “Miss America.” The Second Annual Atlantic City Pageant, which featured a “national beauty tournament,” took place on September 7 and 8, 1921, and included a variety of activities and events directed toward attracting large audiences.
First Miss America Is Crowned
First Miss America Is Crowned
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Audience applause counted just as much as the judges’ scores, and GorSince the pageant was established in 1921, the Miss America crown has been man was clearly the audience’s faawarded every year except during the period 1928-1932. The first televised vorite. Miss America pageant took place in 1954. Following are the names of all the Following the judging, several acMiss Americas from the pageant’s inception through 1940. tivities entertained the crowd, which numbered between ninety thousand Year Winner Hometown and one hundred thousand people. 1921 Margaret Gorman Washington, D.C. The Night Carnival included a two1922 Mary Katherine Campbell Columbus, Ohio hour vaudeville show in which King Neptune and the contestants were el1923 Mary Katherine Campbell Columbus, Ohio evated on a huge platform in full 1924 Ruth Malcomson Philadelphia, Pennsylvania view of the audience. At the end of 1925 Fay Lanphier Oakland, California the show, the young women were in1926 Norma Smallwood Tulsa, Oklahoma troduced to the crowd, and Gorman 1927 Lois Delander Joliet, Illinois received a resounding ovation. Fol1933 Marian Bergeron West Haven, Connecticut lowing a fireworks display, Neptune 1935 Henrietta Leaver Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and his mermaids traveled on the 1936 Rose Coyle Philadelphia, Pennsylvania seashell float to the Steeplechase Pier 1937 Bette Cooper Bertrand Island, New Jersey Ballroom for Neptune’s Frolic, a cos1938 Marilyn Meseke Marion, Ohio tume ball. 1939 Patricia Donnelly Detroit, Michigan The Bathers Review took place 1940 Frances Burke Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 8, and all public decency laws, including those banning bare knees and skin-tight bathing suits, were suspended for the day. Hudson Maxim, the eighty-year-old inventor of smokeThe Bathers Review was divided into several sections: less gunpowder; he was the star of the pageant. After beorganizations, children, men, and comic. Milton Berle, a ing presented with the key to the city by Mayor Edward contestant in the children’s division, later became a faL. Bader, Maxim and the contestants proceeded to mous comedian. Division number five, the “bathing beauKeith’s Theater on the Garden Pier, where the eight conties,” was divided into categories: “professional beauties” testants were judged by a panel of judges and a capacity (models and actresses), “civic beauties” (amateurs), and crowd. Judges were Howard Chandler Christy, famed the “Inter-City beauties” (those from the newspaper conartist and chairman of the judges; John Drew, an actor; tests). The New York Times reported that one thousand Gustav Tott, manager of the Ritz-Carlton; W. Gordon “bathing girls” strolled in the hour-long parade, many Fox, a Philadelphia artist; New Jersey governor Edward with bare legs and wearing “scandalous” one-piece bathI. Edwards; and James Fox, an artist with the Atlantic ing suits. Neptune wore a swimsuit, as did the members City Press Union. of the city council; firemen wore red suits; and policeContestants were evaluated only on the beauty of their men sported blue suits. The afternoon featured an eightfaces and bodies. Although the judges were allowed to mile rolling chair parade along the boardwalk, in which talk with the contestants, personalities were not supthe beauty contestants and others rode in more than five posed to affect the balloting. Instead, the judges evaluhundred chairs and floats decorated with flowers. ated the construction of each contestant’s head (fifteen That evening prizes were presented during the Goverpoints); eyes, facial expression, torso, legs, arms, hands, nor’s Ball on the Steel Pier. Margaret Gorman, who had and gracefulness (ten points each); and hair, nose, and dressed modestly in dark, knee-high stockings, a chiffon mouth (five points each). Although the judging was combathing costume with tiered skirts that came almost to pleted in an hour, the name of the winner was not anher knees, and a hat, won her division of the Bathers Review. She also was awarded the title of the “Most Beautinounced until the following evening. The New York ful Bathing Girl in America,” based on the previous Times reported that the choice was between Virginia Lee night’s judgment. Runners-up were Kathryn Gearon and of New York and Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C.
Miss America, 1921-1940
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Virginia Lee. Gorman was crowned with a replica of Lady Liberty’s pronged tiara and enveloped with a coronation robe made from a huge American flag. Her prize was the Golden Mermaid trophy, valued at five thousand dollars; her title was later simplified to Miss America.
Further Reading Bivans, Ann-Marie. Miss America: In Pursuit of the Crown. New York: Master-Media, 1991. A detailed history of the Miss America pageant from its beginnings. Deford, Frank. There She Is: The Life and Times of Miss America. New York: Viking, 1971. A history of the pageant by a renowned sports columnist. Latham, Angela J. “Packaging Women: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity.’” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (Winter, 1995): 149-167. A social and cultural slant on beauty pageants. “One Thousand Bathing Girls on View in Pageant.” The New York Times, September 9, 1921. A detailed account of the second day of the pageant. Riverol, A. R. Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992. A history of the 1921 pageant, with events broken down by day. Watson, Elwood, and Martin Darcy. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (June, 2000). A feminist focus on the pageant and female beauty. See also: June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens; 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”; Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion; 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment.
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Significance Gorman, who had turned sixteen the week before she went to Atlantic City, had been selected from fifteen hundred entrants to represent the Washington Herald. She was just over five feet tall and weighed 108 pounds, making her the smallest of the contestants. Although tiny and girlish in figure (her measurements were 30-25-32), the crowd-pleasing Gorman inspired many Americans, who saw her as an embodiment of the virtues of American womanhood. President of the American Federation of Labor Samuel Gompers told The New York Times that Gorman represented the type of woman that America needs: “strong, red-blooded, able to shoulder the responsibilities of homemaking and motherhood.” Others, looking at her petite figure, sweet smile, blue eyes, and long blond ringlets, saw her as a Mary Pickford lookalike. Pickford, a silent-film star known as “America’s Sweetheart,” was then reaching the height of her popularity. What started out as a scheme to make money for the business people of Atlantic City developed into an annual, national tradition. People were drawn to Atlantic City by the variety of events, but the gimmick with the most appeal was the beauty contest. Selecting Miss America became a ritual to determine what made a woman beautiful and promoted the unspoken message that achieving a crown for her beauty should be every woman’s primary goal. —Marcia B. Dinneen
First Miss America Is Crowned
Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 11, 1921
Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier President Warren G. Harding’s funeral speech and the burial of an unidentified U.S. World War I soldier at Arlington National Cemetery highlighted the contributions of the United States to that war and provided Americans with a symbol of the war’s casualties. Locale: Arlington, Virginia Categories: Monuments; World War I; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Hamilton Fish (1888-1991), U.S. representative from New York, 1920-1945 John J. Pershing (1860-1948), U.S. army general and commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, 1917-1918 Edward F. Younger (c. 1898-1942), American veteran of World War I Summary of Event Soon after Arlington National Cemetery was established, U.S. government officials approved a tomb for unknown Civil War soldiers, and in 1905 leaders created a monument honoring unknown soldiers from the War of 1812. U.S. leaders were aware of the Allies’ efforts after the World War I armistice to honor their troops’ and civilians’ wartime sacrifices: On November 11, 1920, French leaders oversaw the burial of an unknown French soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, and English authorities transferred an unidentified English soldier from a French cemetery for interment in Westminster Abbey. In December of 1920, Congressman Hamilton Fish introduced legislation calling for the decoration (with highest honors) and burial of an unknown U.S. soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. The modern warfare introduced during World War I—including airplanes, machine guns, and gas—had cost the United States thousands of casualties during the year it fought. Politicians felt that the country had been profoundly affected in the process of supporting its allies, and they wanted international recognition of Americans’ contributions to the war. Fish’s proposal was approved, and President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill on March 4, 1921, the day be1734
fore Warren G. Harding’s inauguration. Although many people wanted the ceremony honoring the Unknown Soldier to occur on Memorial Day, leaders delayed the event. U.S. officials wanted the Unknown Soldier to be someone who could be mourned by all surviving relatives and friends of soldiers who had not returned, and so they were careful to ensure the soldier’s anonymity. Ultimately, an unidentified American who had fought and died with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was selected. Approximately four million American soldiers had served in the AEF during World War I. An estimated 118,516 American soldiers died, and 42,453 bodies were returned to the U.S. for burial. The remaining bodies were buried in cemeteries created near the front at AisneMarne, Meuse-Argonne, Saint-Mihiel, and Somme. Personnel from the U.S. Graves Registration division analyzed corpses and any items related to them in an attempt to identify them, but they were unable to identify 1,647 soldiers. On October 22, military personnel exhumed bodies from four cemeteries and placed them in similar coffins, all of which were transported to the Hotel de Ville at Châlons-sur-Marne. Guards shifted the coffins during the night to prevent the identification of any specific coffin, and they burned all records associated with these soldiers. Initially, officials asked General John J. Pershing to decide which of the bodies would become the Unknown Soldier, but he declined, saying that the selection was best made by a peer. Officers selected U.S. Army Sergeant Edward F. Younger from a group of World War I veterans who had served in occupied Germany and asked him to select the Unknown Soldier on October 24. Younger accepted, and after a period of contemplation, he placed white roses on one of the coffins. The chosen coffin was placed inside a larger casket and transported on the USS Olympia from Le Havre, France, to Washington, D.C. When the Unknown Soldier arrived at Washington Navy Yard on November 9, Pershing met the ship and accompanied the body to the Capitol. A military guard transferred the body to the Capitol’s rotunda, where Harding placed a U.S. shield and a wreath of roses on the coffin. The Washington Post estimated that two hundred thousand people viewed the Unknown Soldier’s casket as it lay in state on November 10, 1921. Abugler announced the ceremony’s beginning at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. Harding had designated Armi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier
1921 The coffin of the Unknown Soldier is brought down the steps of the U.S. Capitol to be carried by horse-drawn wagon to Arlington National Cemetary. (Library of Congress)
stice Day as a national holiday and requested that all flags at U.S. government buildings fly at half-staff to express respect and patriotism for all U.S. war casualties. Eight World War I Congressional Medal of Honor winners flanked the Unknown Soldier’s flag-covered caisson from the Capitol to Arlington National Cemetery, and both Harding and Pershing walked with the procession. Crowds cheered for Wilson, who had recently had a stroke and rode in a carriage (this proved to be his last public appearance). Veterans, politicians, and military leaders paraded to the cemetery with members of patriotic, service, and philanthropic groups. After arriving at Arlington’s Memorial Amphitheater, Harding and dignitaries assembled onstage heard Reverend John Axton lead a prayer and observed two minutes of silence. Five thousand people had tickets that allowed them to observe the ceremony inside the amphitheater, and at least one hundred thousand mourners
stood throughout the cemetery’s grounds, listening to the ceremony through loudspeakers. Communications technology, including amplifiers and repeaters to achieve distance, enabled people around the nation to participate in the service. Telephone lines transmitted Harding’s speech to Chicago, San Francisco, and Madison Square Garden in New York, and the eulogy’s text was sent around the world by wire. Harding solemnly expressed Americans’ devotion, appreciation, and reverence for the Unknown Soldier as a symbol of the sacrifices Americans had made on the battlefields and the home front. He spoke of the horrors of war and expressed his gratitude to the Unknown Soldier for giving his life in the effort to preserve people’s freedom. Although the soldier’s origins were unknown, Harding remarked, his commitment to the United States and his sacrifices were understood by many. Harding told those who had lost family members in 1735
Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier the war that paying tribute to the Unknown Soldier might give families comfort, and he vowed to secure peace. He expressed hope that the Great War would end all wars and urged listeners to pray for healing and peace before placing the Congressional Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross on the Unknown Soldier’s coffin. Foreign leaders presented their country’s highest military awards to the Unknown Soldier, and military personnel buried the Unknown Soldier on the amphitheater’s terrace in a grave lined with French soil. The response to Harding’s words was enthusiastic. Americans were receptive to Harding’s hope that the Great War would be the last war; they supported U.S. efforts limiting weaponry and promoting global peace. On the day after Harding spoke at the Unknown Soldier ceremony, an international disarmament and peace conference began, and many of those attending had been in Washington, D.C., during the Armistice Day holiday. Touched by the ceremony for the Unknown Soldier and by Americans’ sincere response to the war, empathetic allies were more willing to cooperate to plan disarmament strategies. Significance Harding’s eulogy united Americans still reeling from the catastrophic destruction caused by World War I, and the Unknown Soldier’s burial was a welcome symbol whose importance only intensified as time passed and wars continued to affect Americans. Most people identified with the Unknown Soldier and valued principles for which he and other U.S. combatants had fought in Europe. Americans claimed the Unknown Soldier as their own and viewed him as the personification of soldierly traits such as courage, dedication, and loyalty. Americans embraced the ideas about war casualties that Harding and politicians had expressed, and they recognized that the Unknown Soldier represented all unknown combatants either interred or missing in France. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier provided grieving relatives a place to visit and mourn when they lacked a known gravesite and was a source of solace and closure for those who waited but never knew their soldier’s fate. During the decades that followed, Congress approved enhancements to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and military guards developed a strict protocol to protect the tomb from vandals. Additional unknown soldiers from
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 other twentieth century wars were entombed nearby until advances in DNA testing made anonymity virtually impossible. The Unknown Soldier’s tomb became a shrine visited by many world leaders and millions of tourists each year. —Elizabeth D. Schafer Further Reading Andrews, Peter. In Honored Glory: The Story of Arlington. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1966. The best chronicle of post-World War I efforts to recognize unknown soldiers in Europe and of the U.S. selection and burial of an unknown World War I soldier. Dean, John W. Warren G. Harding. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2004. Discusses Harding’s speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the context of the subsequent disarmament conference in Washington, D.C. Also includes discussion of Harding’s policies regarding veterans. Peters, James Edward. Arlington National Cemetery, Shrine to America’s Heroes. 2d ed. Bethesda, Md.: Woodbine House, 2000. Text and photographs depict the 1921 ceremony and show where Pershing, Younger, and others relevant to the 1921 selection and ceremony are buried in Arlington. Reynolds, Quentin. Known but to God: The Story of the Unknown Soldier. New York: Dell, 1963. Most factual account of events related to choosing the Unknown Soldier in French and U.S. ceremonies. Speculates about the Unknown Soldier’s geographic home and the unit in which he might have served based on statistical and demographic data on American troops in World War I. See also: June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne; Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers; Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I; Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I; Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference; Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control
November 11-13, 1921, and March 25-31, 1925
Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control Margaret Sanger brought European ideas on and methods of birth control to the United States, increasing the respectability of the topic as part of the public health debate. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Women’s issues; health and medicine Key Figures Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), American nurse and birth control advocate Patrick J. Hayes (1867-1938), Roman Catholic archbishop of New York Harold Cox (1859-1936), former member of the British parliament and editor of the Edinburgh Review
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Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, social reform advocates in the United States and Europe voiced great concern over the condition of working-class women and children. Reformers worked to introduce changes such as protective labor legislation for women and children to alleviate negative conditions, but Margaret Sanger attempted more radical reform through a single issue: birth control. At that time, both contraceptives and abortion were illegal in the United States, and most women had no access to reliable contraception. The so-called Comstock law of 1873 forbade as obscene the dissemination of birth control information through the mail. Birth control was associated with licentiousness and immorality. It was argued that because the use of contraceptives would eliminate the threat of pregnancy, it would lead to an increase in premarital sex. Others viewed the use of birth control devices as unnatural—an unholy effort to meddle with the will of God. Even among feminists there was debate, as some feared that if they supported women’s right to birth control, unrestricted sexuality would follow, and this might lead to the further oppression of women rather than their liberation. In the 1880’s, most members of the largely male and middle-class medical community attacked the practices of birth control and abortion on the grounds that they were immoral and they challenged the perception of motherhood as the proper role of women. Doctors saw women, especially middle-class women, who sought contraception as selfish, immoral, and threatening. As a profession, they opposed the study of contraceptive
methods, although they did try to help infertile women to conceive. Without access to birth control measures, many women, burdened by too many children and weakened by frequent pregnancy, turned to illegal abortionists who practiced in unhygienic conditions. The resulting deaths provided further ammunition for those who attacked abortion as unsafe. Sanger was introduced to the harsh impact of these views on poor women while she was working as a visiting nurse in the neighborhoods of New York City’s lower East Side. Women with large families and repeated pregnancies begged for some means to avoid having additional children. When doctors refused them, Sanger took the matter into her own hands, embarking on a series of confrontational attempts to bring the pressing need for birth control to the attention of society. Sanger traveled to Europe, where she learned the most effective methods of birth control available at the time. In 1914, after her return to the United States, she published and distributed a pamphlet titled Family Limitation, which provided practical instructions on how to prevent pregnancy. In 1916, she opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, in direct violation of New York State obscenity statutes. The clinic was quickly closed, and Sanger was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to thirty days in prison. Although the final ruling of the courts allowed an exception to the obscenity rule for physicians, Sanger’s conviction stood. Sanger’s strategy was to raise the level of debate over birth control to a scientific plane, where the value of contraception to public health could be demonstrated. She based her ideas on the model of Europe, where attitudes toward birth control were advanced compared with those in the United States. Although contraception had not yet been accepted fully by all European governments or all European physicians, the idea of birth control enjoyed a more tolerated position in Europe. The first organization devoted to the promotion of birth control practices, the Malthusian League, was formed in England in 1877. Its platform, based on the economic theories of Thomas Robert Malthus, held that controlling the population of the poor would lead to economic stability. The world’s first birth control clinic was opened in Amsterdam in 1882 by Aletta Jacobs, the first female doctor licensed in the Netherlands. Birth control devices such as the pessary, invented by Wilhelm Mensinga of Germany in the early 1880’s, were popular
Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control as contraceptives in Europe, but it was illegal to import them into the United States. Sanger wanted to present the European ideas and methods to Americans in 1921, despite the fact that it was illegal to discuss birth control publicly. In seeking to have birth control treated with the same degree of respect and importance that it was accorded in much of Europe, Sanger needed the support of physicians, scientists, and other respected members of American society. Her strategy was to create a public forum to demonstrate effective techniques of contraception to physicians, and in this way to disassociate birth control from the stain of immorality. Her vehicle was a professional conference. The First American Birth Control Conference was held at New York City’s Plaza Hotel on November 1113, 1921, and was attended by doctors, academics, and scientists. Participants presented papers on various as-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pects of the birth control debate, including health issues, social problems, the relationship of overpopulation to war, and the legality of birth control. The sessions that Sanger viewed as most successful were those in which the latest European ideas and contraceptive techniques were demonstrated to American physicians. Sanger believed that once doctors could be convinced of the reliability and safety of birth control, they would disseminate that knowledge to their patients. Although this public discussion of birth control was couched in scientific terms, it did not slip past the notice of Sanger’s powerful opponents. On November 13, 1921, the last day of the conference, Sanger was to introduce Harold Cox, a former member of the British parliament, who would lead a mass meeting at Town Hall titled “Birth Control: Is It Moral?” The event had been widely publicized and a large crowd was expected, but when
The Case for Birth Control Margaret Sanger’s essay “The Case for Birth Control” first appeared on February 23, 1924, in Woman Citizen. In it, she argued for the need for birth control: Everywhere we look, we see poverty and large families going hand in hand. We see hordes of children whose parents cannot feed, clothe, or educate even one half of the number born to them. We see sick, harassed, broken mothers whose health and nerves cannot bear the strain of further childbearing. We see fathers growing despondent and desperate, because their labor cannot bring the necessary wage to keep their growing families. We see that those parents who are least fit to reproduce the race are having the largest number of children; while people of wealth, leisure, and education are having small families. It is generally conceded by sociologists and scientists that a nation cannot go on indefinitely multiplying without eventually reaching the point when population presses upon means of subsistence. While in this country there is perhaps no need for immediate alarm on this account, there are many other reasons for demanding birth control. At present, for the poor mother, there is only one alternative to the necessity of bearing children year after year, regardless of her health, of the welfare of the children she already has, and of the income of the family. This alternative is abortion, which is so common as to be almost universal, especially where there are rigid laws against imparting information for the prevention of conception. It has been estimated that there are about one million abortions in the United States each year. To force poor mothers to resort to this dangerous and healthdestroying method of curtailing their families is
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cruel, wicked, and heartless, and it is often the mothers who care most about the welfare of their children who are willing to undergo any pain or risk to prevent the coming of infants for whom they cannot properly care. There are definite reasons when and why parents should not have children, which will be conceded by most thoughtful people. First—Children should not be born when either parent has an inheritable disease, such as insanity, feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, or syphilis. Second—When the mother is suffering from tuberculosis, kidney disease, heart disease, or pelvic deformity. Third—When either parent has gonorrhea. This disease in the mother is the cause of 90 percent of blindness in newborn babies. Fourth—When children already born are not normal, even though both parents are in good physical and mental condition. Fifth—Not until the woman is twenty-three years old and the man twenty-five. Sixth—Not until the previous baby is at least three years old. This gives a year to recover from the physical ordeal of the birth of the baby, a year to rest, be normal and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sanger and Cox arrived at the meeting hall, they found their way barred by police. On the orders of New York Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, Captain Thomas Donohue marshaled police to break up the meeting before any law had been broken. Sanger telephoned police headquarters and discovered that no warrant or order had been issued for the action, so she defied the officers, made her way inside the hall, and insisted on speaking until she and suffragist Mary Winsor were arrested. Released the next day and eventually acquitted of all charges, Sanger publicly condemned the attack on her right to free speech as well as church interference in public affairs. The incident provided a groundswell of public support for Sanger and her cause. Many wealthy women publicly declared support for Sanger, as did members of the press and the legal profession, who defended her right to free speech. Sanger had effectively turned the
Seventh—Children should not be born to parents whose economic circumstances do not guarantee enough to provide the children with the necessities of life. A couple who can take care of two children and bring them up decently in health and comfort, give them an education and start them fairly in life, do more for their country and for mankind than the couple who recklessly reproduce ten or twelve children, some of them to die in infancy, others to survive but to enter the mill or factory at an early age, and all to sink to that level of degradation where charity, either state or private, is necessary to keep them alive. The man who cannot support three children should not have ten, notwithstanding all pleas of the militarists for numbers. Eighth—A woman should not bear children when exhausted from labor. This especially applies to women who marry after spending several years in industrial or commercial life. Conception should not take place until she is in good health and has overcome her fatigue. Ninth—Not for two years after marriage should a couple undertake the great responsibility of becoming parents.
archbishop’s attempt to suppress her speech into a powerful publicity vehicle. The mass meeting was rescheduled for November 18, 1921, at the Park Theatre, and a far larger crowd turned out for it than had been expected for the original meeting. Only a few years after this event, Sanger organized another conference in New York City: the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference (INMBC), held at the Hotel McAlpin on March 25-31, 1925. This event, one of several neo-Malthusian conferences convened sporadically since 1900, was the first of its type to be held in the United States. Its success effectively demonstrated Sanger’s talent for mobilizing American support for birth control. The Sixth INMBC was larger and more internationally diverse than previous conferences, with more than a thousand attendees from sixteen countries, including influential birth
Thousands of young people enter marriage without the faintest idea of what marriage involves. They do not know its spiritual responsibilities. If children are born quickly and plentifully, people consider that the marriage is justified. I claim that this is barbaric and wrong. It is wrong for the wife, for the man, for the children. It is impossible for two young people to really know each other until they have lived together in marriage. After the closeness and intimacy of that relation there often comes to the woman a rude awakening; the devoted lover becomes careless and dissatisfied. If she becomes pregnant immediately, she becomes physically disturbed, nervous, and irritable. The girl has changed, and the boy who knew her as a happy smiling sweetheart finds her disagreeable and disgruntled. Of course thousands of people learn to adjust themselves. Nevertheless, I maintain that young people should marry early and wait at least two years to adjust their own lives, to play and read together and to build up a cultural and spiritual friendship. Then will come the intense desire to call into being a little child to share their love and happiness. When children are conceived in love and born into an atmosphere of happiness, then will parenthood be a glorious privilege, and the children will grow to resemble gods. This can only be obtained through the knowledge and practice of Birth Control. P.S.—The American Birth Control League desires that the instruction in birth control should be given by the medical profession. Only through individual care and treatment can a woman be given the best and safest means of controlling her offspring. We do not favor the indiscriminate diffusion of unreliable and unsafe birth control advice.
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enjoy her motherhood, and another year to prepare for the coming of the next. We want mothers to be fit. We want them to conceive in joy and gladness. We want them to carry their babies during the nine months in a sound and healthy body and with a happy, joyous, hopeful mind. It is almost impossible to imagine the suffering caused to women, the mental agony they endure, when their days and nights are haunted by the fear of undesired pregnancy.
Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control
Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control control advocates, neo-Malthusians, physicians, and eugenicists. Among those who participated were Dr. Charles Vickery Drysdale, president of the British NeoMalthusian League; Dr. Aletta Jacobs of Holland; and Gabriel Giroud, president of the French Malthusian League. In addition to medical papers on contraceptive techniques, health workers, eugenicists, physicians, and social workers presented papers on the state of birth control in various nations. Unlike the 1921 American conference, the 1925 international conference was not marred by censorship efforts. Its success became the impetus for greater American involvement in the international birth control movement. Significance At both the 1921 and the 1925 birth control conferences, American physicians were exposed to the most advanced European theories and methods of birth control. These conferences established birth control as a scientific concern and an issue of public health, overriding perceptions of it as an obscene and illegal practice. As wealthy and influential Americans began to support Sanger, the United States emerged as a leader in the international birth control movement. The day before the first American conference, Sanger officially formed the American Birth Control League (ABCL), the first truly nationwide birth control organization in the United States. The ABCL provided a broad program of education, publicity, organization, and service, promoting scientific inquiry into and the legalization of birth control and establishing a nationwide network of birth control clinics. The controversy over the Roman Catholic Church’s attempt to suppress the 1921 Town Hall meeting demonstrated American respect for the right to free speech, even in the case of an “immoral” subject. This incident drew protests even from those who did not support birth control but believed that Cox and Sanger had the right to speak. In the end, the archbishop’s actions generated tremendous publicity for Sanger and the fledgling ABCL, most of it favorable. Many physicians who participated in the conference retained ties with the ABCL, serving on medical advisory boards and conducting scientific research. Upper-class women became actively involved in the organization of birth control clinics all over the country. Sanger utilized the conferences themselves to counter opposition to birth control among doctors and to bring physicians into the movement. To ensure their support, 1740
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 she vigorously pursued federal legislation for a “doctorsonly bill” that would limit the dispensing of birth control devices to physicians. Nevertheless, widespread acceptance of birth control as a health issue followed slowly, as did the removal of many legal obstacles. Sanger was able to open the first legal, doctor-staffed birth control clinic in the United States in 1923. It was the first of many such clinics. It was through Sanger’s efforts, using vehicles such as the 1921 and 1925 conferences, that medical staffs were able to gain the skills necessary to operate the clinics and conduct the contraceptive research that would affect the lives of women and their families the world over. Because of Sanger’s work, ordinary women eventually were able to limit the size of their families without stigma, without risking their health, and without violating the law. The 1925 Sixth INMBC conference also dramatically underscored the changes that had taken place in American thought and attitudes since 1921. No police or church activity barred the smooth progression of the second, more widely attended conference, which paved the way for the growth of a strong international movement. Birth control advocates continued to meet and to share ideas and techniques. Among the immediate results of the 1925 conference were the formation of the International Federation of Birth Control Leagues and the convening of the 1927 World Population Conference in Geneva, which Sanger also organized. In later years, as interest in population control swelled after World War II, these early advocates, joined by younger allies, formed the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952. —Cathy Moran Hajo Further Reading Chesler, Ellen. Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Biography of Sanger presents previously unpublished information gathered from interviews and archives. Addresses Sanger’s personal life as well as her role as leader of the movement for women’s reproductive rights. Gordon, Linda. Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. A feminist reading of the American birth control movement. Does not cover the conferences but provides a critical look at Margaret Sanger and the professionalization of the birth control movement by doctors and eugenicists. Includes footnotes, references, and index.
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Words. Fort Lee, N.J.: Barricade Books, 2003. Collection of Sanger’s writings includes materials presenting her views on socialism, prison reform, and pacifism in addition to birth control and sex education. Chronological order shows the progression of Sanger’s thinking as well as the impact her activism had over time. Sanger, Margaret. The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger. 1938. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2004. Sanger discusses her personal life and the birth control movement, including both conferences. Includes index. _______. International Birth Control Conference. 4 vols. New York: American Birth Control League, 1925-1926. Presents abstracts of the papers given at the 1925 Sixth INMBC conference and also identifies the participants. See also: 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms; Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens; Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception.
November 12, 1921-February 6, 1922
Washington Disarmament Conference In the aftermath of a naval arms race and World War I, the world’s major powers agreed to reduce their numbers of battleships. Locale: Washington, D.C. Category: Diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), former prime minister of Great Britain Aristide Briand (1862-1932), prime minister of France, 1921-1922 Auckland C. Geddes (1879-1954), British ambassador to the United States Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of state Katf Tomosaburf (1861-1923), head of the Japanese delegation to the Washington Disarmament Conference Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), U.S. senator from Massachusetts
Elihu Root (1845-1937), former U.S. secretary of state and former U.S. secretary of war Shidehara Kijnrf (1872-1951), Japanese ambassador to the United States Oscar Underwood (1862-1929), U.S. senator from Alabama René Viviani (1863-1925), French politician Summary of Event Rejection by the United States of membership in the League of Nations did not imply a lack of U.S. interest in many parts of the world or in certain international problems during the 1920’s. U.S. leaders, including those within the Republican administration of President Warren G. Harding, recognized that decisions must be made regarding the limitation of armaments and the critical situation in the Far East, and that the United States must take a leading role in making such decisions. Otherwise, an armaments race among the three great naval powers— the United States, Great Britain, and Japan—was certain. In the tense Far East situation, the United States might be drawn into a disastrous war with Japan and Great Britain 1741
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Katz, Esther, ed. “The Woman Rebel,” 1900-1928. Vol. 1 in The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Sanger’s collected diaries, journals, speeches, personal correspondence, and more are assembled to tell the story of her tumultuous life and place her within the context of her times. Includes an introduction by the editor, chronology, substantial notes, bibliography, and index. Ledbetter, Rosanna. A History of the Malthusian League, 1877-1927. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976. Provides background on the birth control movement in Europe, explaining the early work of the neo-Malthusians and their impact. Includes footnotes, references, and index. Reed, James. From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830. New York: Basic Books, 1978. Provides background on the American birth control movement. Especially useful for coverage of the relationship between the medical profession and the birth control movement. Includes footnotes, references, and index. Reed, Miriam, ed. Margaret Sanger: Her Life in Her
Washington Disarmament Conference
Washington Disarmament Conference
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The “big nine” delegates to the Washington Disarmament Conference, including Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes (center). (Library of Congress)
because of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese alliance, which had been renewed to run through 1921. The experience of World War I supported the belief that competition in armaments caused wars. The initiative for an international conference to consider these problems was introduced by Senator William E. Borah, with a resolution in the Senate calling for a three-power disarmament conference even before President Harding and his secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, took office in March, 1921. Passed in May, 1921, the Borah Resolution received immediate and overwhelming endorsement from the press and the general public. Harding had to deal with not only agitation by Borah but also difficulties from other former Republican colleagues in 1742
the Senate. Harding decided, as part of the party’s postwar “return to normalcy,” to seize the initiative and propose a conference to limit armaments and forestall renewal of the alliance between Britain and Japan. He directed Secretary of State Hughes to propose real cuts backed by the industrial power of the United States and insisted that if diplomacy failed, the United States would be a serious competitor in any ensuing arms race. The British government had been contemplating a similar conference, but it yielded the honor to the United States and proposed that with the addition of discussions on the Far East, all countries with interests in the Pacific be invited. Accepting the British recommendations, Secretary Hughes on July 8, 1921, dispatched informal in-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
cific and to refer any future disputes over the area to a joint conference. They also agreed to hold disarmament discussions with one another to decide what measures should be taken if any nation threatened the status quo in the Far East. The Nine-Power Treaty, signed on February 6, 1922, provided additional guarantees for the status quo. It bound all the members to respect the sovereignty and independence of China, to renounce any desire to exploit the unsettled conditions in China to gain special advantages, and to respect the “open door.” The United States and Great Britain insisted on this pact; Japan agreed to it only after strong pressure was exerted. Although this treaty was to be the only formal multilateral affirmation of the open door policy ever agreed to, it proved completely ineffectual because the American and British peoples were unwilling to sanction the use of force to aid China. Significance The major accomplishment of the Washington Disarmament Conference was the Five-Power Treaty, signed by Great Britain, the United States, Japan, Italy, and France on February 6, 1922. This pact called for a ten-year moratorium on the construction of capital ships. It largely confirmed Hughes’s proposals for limiting existing battleship tonnages. The ratio for the five leading naval powers was 5 (United States) to 5 (Great Britain) to 3 (Japan) to 1.75 (France) to 1.75 (Italy). Japan was unhappy with the agreement but was somewhat mollified by the promise of the United States and Great Britain not to fortify any of their Pacific possessions. The French delegation, outraged by its relegation to third-class status, finally accepted the agreement on capital ships and parity with its Mediterranean rival, Italy. No limitations were placed on lesser warships—cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. As a result, international naval competition shifted to cruisers in the 1920’s, and that ship type was the subject of the failed Geneva Conference of 1927. It was not until the London Naval Treaty of 1930 that the approximate limits of the Five-Power Treaty were extended to other warship types, although the Japanese pushed for and received a 10:10:7 cruiser ratio. The U.S. Senate approved the Washington treaties with only one dissenting vote. The agreements were received with great enthusiasm in the United States but less warmly elsewhere. They did halt a potentially disastrous competition in the construction of battleships, although the United States was allowed to complete three of the superdreadnoughts from its 1916 program, and Britain was allowed to build two new battleships to offset the 1743
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quiries about the idea to interested powers. A suspicion of the motives behind the Western powers’ invitation and a dislike for the vague terms of the proposed agenda caused the Japanese to be reluctant to take part in such a meeting. Nevertheless, on August 11, 1921, Hughes issued formal invitations to Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, China, the Netherlands, and Portugal to a conference in Washington the following November. After a solemn observance of Armistice Day on November 11 by the delegates and the U.S. people, the Washington Disarmament Conference convened. An impressive group of statesmen assembled in Memorial Continental Hall. Secretary Hughes led the distinguished U.S. delegation, which included Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs; Elihu Root, former secretary of state and former secretary of war; and Senator Oscar Underwood, probably the most powerful Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Former prime minister Arthur Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration, which favored limited Jewish settlement in Palestine, and Ambassador Auckland C. Geddes represented Great Britain. Prime Minister Aristide Briand headed the French delegation, later to be replaced by René Viviani. Baron Katf Tomosaburf and Ambassador Shidehara Kijnrf were the principal spokesmen for Japan. In the first session, Hughes demonstrated the determination of the United States to secure immediate and effective agreement on naval armaments. “The way to disarm is to disarm,” Hughes proclaimed, as admirals stiffened with shock. He made two general proposals: a ten-year moratorium on the construction of warships displacing more than ten thousand tons and the scuttling of existing battleships and vessels under construction, so as to reduce U.S. and British tonnage in capital ships to approximately one-half million tons each, and total Japanese tonnage to three hundred thousand. This proposed ratio of 5:5:3 conformed approximately to existing naval strength. Over the following four months, representatives struggled to work out agreements on naval armaments and security arrangements in the Pacific that would meet Hughes’s stringent demands without upsetting the strategic balance of power. The resulting treaties dealt mostly with the Far East. On December 13, 1921, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan signed the FourPower Treaty, which terminated the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance that had bound Great Britain legally to come to the aid of Japan in any conflict. Instead, the four powers agreed to respect one another’s rights in the Pa-
Washington Disarmament Conference
Washington Disarmament Conference qualitative superiority of the latest U.S. ships. Total aircraft carrier tonnage was limited (the United States and Great Britain each were allowed 135,000 tons, Japan 81,000 tons, and Italy and France 60,000 tons each); maximum aircraft carrier displacement was restricted to 27,000 tons, but the United States was allowed to convert two unfinished 33,000-ton battle cruisers (the Lexington and Saratoga) into aircraft carriers. Limits on aviation per se were deemed too complex, given the overlap between civilian and military aviation, and were to be the subject of a future conference, which was never held. As a result of the Washington Disarmament Conference, the Great Powers promised to support the maintenance of peace and the status quo in the Far East, an encouraging step at the time, and the public regarded the conference as a tremendous accomplishment. However, along with other efforts to control arms and the likelihood of war, such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, it failed to prevent the outbreak of the second, and far more deadly, world war less than two decades later. — Theodore A. Wilson and William M. McBride Further Reading Dingman, Roger. Power in the Pacific: The Origins of Naval Arms Limitation, 1914-1922. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. Extremely competent study of geopolitical relations, naval policy, and the Washington Disarmament Conference. Dukes, Paul. The USA in the Making of the USSR: The Washington Conference, 1921-1922, and “Uninvited Russia.” New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Examines the Washington conference from the perspective of its impact on Russia, which was not invited to participate. Includes bibliography and index.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Glad, Betty. Charles Evans Hughes and the Illusions of Innocence. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966. Emphasizes Hughes’s agreement with the activist Republican senators and minimizes the friction that existed between the Senate and the Department of State regarding the Washington Conference. Hall, Christopher. Britain, America, and Arms Control, 1921-1937. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Excellent account of British and U.S. relations and naval arms reductions between the world wars. Nish, Ian. Japanese Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period. New York: Praeger, 2002. Discussion of Japanese foreign policy devotes a chapter to the 19211922 Washington conference. Includes bibliography and index. O’Connell, Robert. Sacred Vessels: The Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the U.S. Navy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991. Cautionary account of naval strategic weapons, including the Washington Disarmament Conference, and the profession in which these weapons evolved. Vinson, John Chalmers. The Parchment Peace: The United States Senate and the Washington Conference, 1921-1922. 1955. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. Argues for a shift in U.S. foreign policy making from the executive to the Senate in the years immediately following World War I. See also: Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier; Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sheppard-Towner Act
November 23, 1921-June 30, 1929
Sheppard-Towner Act The first federal social welfare legislation in the United States authorized matching funds to the states for programs related to maternal and child hygiene. The act, which was passed largely as a result of the efforts of women’s groups, also set a new precedent by providing financial aid to mothers regardless of their ability to pay for services. Also known as: Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Health and medicine; laws, acts, and legal history; social issues and reform; women’s issues
Summary of Event The Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921, commonly known as the Sheppard-Towner Act, linked a chain of ideas and actions about the proper role of government in the economy and society from the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The link began with the White House Conference on Child Welfare Standards in 1909 and ended with the Social Security Act of 1935. The Children’s Bureau, the establishment of which developed out of the White House Conference of 1909, was the first organization to investigate the causes of infant and maternal mortality in the United States. Children’s Bureau studies revealed that the United States had high rates, showing, for example, that the nation ranked seventeenth in maternal and eleventh in infant mortality among world nations in 1918. Studies also linked poverty and mortality rates, revealing that 80 percent of expectant mothers in the United States received no advice or trained care. To remedy this situation, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to
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Key Figures Florence Kelley (1859-1932), executive secretary of the National Consumers League Julia C. Lathrop (1858-1932), chief of the Children’s Bureau Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), Republican representative from Montana and the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress Morris Sheppard (1875-1941), Democratic senator from Texas Horace Towner (1855-1937), Republican representative from Iowa
serve in Congress, introduced in 1918 a measure to provide public protection of maternity and infancy. Julia C. Lathrop, chief of the Children’s Bureau, sponsored the measure, and Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas and Representative Horace Towner of Iowa reintroduced the bill in the Sixty-sixth Congress. The bill made little progress until the full enfranchisement of women in 1920. The League of Women Voters urged the national parties to endorse the maternity bill in their 1920 platforms. The Democratic, Socialist, Prohibition, and FarmerLabor Parties did, but the Republican Party ignored it. President Warren G. Harding, however, supported the bill in his Social Justice Day speech on October 1, 1920. Sheppard and Towner resubmitted the bill in April, 1921, and it passed the Senate on July 22 by a vote of 63 to 7. Samuel Winslow, chair of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, which oversaw the bill, refused to hold hearings for months. President Harding prodded Winslow only after influential women such as Republican National Committee vice chair Harriet Upton warned him that the delay was alienating many women. The House finally passed the measure by a vote of 279 to 39; antisuffragist Alice Robertson, by then the only woman in Congress, voted against it. Harding signed the bill on November 23, 1921. At the time of debate and passage, the inclinations of women voters were an unknown quantity. Suffragists had promised to clean house when they got the vote, and many politicians feared that women voters would vote en bloc or remain aloof from the main parties. Passage of the maternity bill was a goal of newly enfranchised women and took precedence over all other efforts. In 1920, the League of Women Voters helped to create the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee (WJCC), which coordinated the lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., for nearly two dozen women’s organizations. Florence Kelley, executive secretary of the National Consumers League, chaired the WJCC subcommittee responsible for enactment of the measure. Kelley’s successful lobbying efforts overcame powerful opponents who assailed the measure as a threat to the moral foundation of the nation. Such organizations as the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and the Woman Patriots equated feminism and woman suffrage with socialism and communism. Mary Kilbreth, a leading antisuffragist, wrote to Harding to tell him that many believed the bill was inspired by communism and
Sheppard-Towner Act backed by American radicals, and that it was a strike at the heart of American civilization. Organizations such as the Woman’s Municipal League of Boston, the American Constitutional League, the Constitutional Liberty League of Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Public Interest League concurred. Fearing the imposition of a nationalized health care system, the American Medical Association (AMA) also targeted the Sheppard-Towner Act. State medical societies in Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana spearheaded the opposition. The Illinois Medical Journal, official organ of the Illinois State Medical Society, attacked the act as a product of Bolshevist forces that sought to set up bureaucratic autocracy in the nation’s capital. The Journal of the American Medical Association campaigned against the Sheppard-Towner Act from February 5, 1921, until its repeal in June of 1929. In 1922, the AMA’s house of delegates condemned the legislation as a socialistic machination. Many women physicians, such as Josephine Baker, a constant ally of the National Consumers League and the League of Women Voters and president of the Medical Woman’s National Association in the early 1930’s, supported the SheppardTowner Act. The act authorized an appropriation of $1.48 million for the fiscal year 1921-1922 and $1.24 million for the next five years (a period that ended on June 30, 1927). Of this sum, $5,000 would go to each state outright, $5,000 more would go to each state if matching funds were provided, and the remainder would be allocated on a population percentage and matching basis. The Children’s Bureau would channel the money through state child welfare or health divisions. States retained the right to reject aid. The act provided for instruction in hygiene of maternity and infancy through public health nurses, visiting nurses, consultation centers, child-care conferences, and literature distribution. Forty-one states joined the program in 1922, whereas until the act’s repeal in 1929, only Connecticut, Illinois, and Massachusetts rejected Sheppard-Towner money. The attorney general of Massachusetts issued an opinion that the act would misuse the state’s tax money and that it was unconstitutional because it violated the rights of the states. Massachusetts filed a suit with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of its taxpayers to enjoin the law. Harriet Frothingham, president of the Woman Patriots, filed another suit in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in the event that states were deemed ineligible to file a taxpayer’s suit. The District of Columbia court dismissed Frothingham’s case and the U.S. Court of 1746
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Appeals concurred. She then appealed to the Supreme Court. In the interim, Solicitor General James Beck, who considered the Sheppard-Towner Act to be unconstitutional, encouraged Massachusetts to pursue its case. These suits threatened the range of federal programs that provided either direct aid or matching grants to states. On June 5, 1923, the Supreme Court dismissed both suits for want of jurisdiction; the Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the act. Although the Sheppard-Towner Act was considered a permanent law, federal appropriations under the act’s provisions were scheduled to cease automatically on June 30, 1927. In 1926, proponents moved to have the authorization extended. The House of Representatives quickly approved a two-year extension by a vote of 218 to 44. The AMA, Woman Patriots, Daughters of the American Revolution, and other opponents, however, mobilized to stop the bill in the Senate. Opponents iterated many of the same themes that in 1921 had been less persuasive. Foremost among these was the notion that the Sheppard-Towner Act was part of a feminist-socialist-communist plot to Sovietize the United States. In the end, proponents accepted a compromise that extended the appropriations for two more years but repealed the law automatically on June 30, 1929. Restoration came, however, with the Social Security Act of 1935. Title V of the 1935 act authorized appropriations for the Children’s Bureau of $5.82 million for maternity and infancy protection, in addition to $3.87 million for crippled children and $34.75 million for aid to dependent children. Significance The Sheppard-Towner Act was in many ways the first federal welfare legislation. It authorized matching funds to the states for programs in maternal and child hygiene. The act also broke with the legacy of mothers’ aid by providing assistance regardless of the applicant’s financial status, although it allowed for the continuation of certain now-controversial trends: for example, visiting nurses offered advice and help according to the Children’s Bureau’s norms of good child care (which counseled against breast-feeding and cuddling babies on demand), even if these norms went against a client’s customs. The Sheppard-Towner Act also represented the first major dividend of women’s national enfranchisement. The act’s passage was at least partially attributable to the efforts of the newly enfranchised suffragists. Women’s groups united and formed persuasive congressional lobbying groups, although their work was made more difficult by the vocal antisuffragist groups that equated
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sheppard-Towner Act supporters with extreme leftism. Still, the act passed, and most states participated in its programs. The initial attempt to extend the act succeeded, but it was eventually doomed by the anticommunist and antisocialist sentiments that prevailed at the time. Although progressive women lobbied hard for the bill, President Herbert Hoover refused to press the matter and allowed the first federal social security law to lapse. The Great Depression precluded any revival of national provisions in the early 1930’s, and the loss of federal funds severely restricted many of the forty-five state programs that had continued to provide maternity and infancy aid on their own. As a result, the act was resurrected by the Social Security Act of 1935. —Richard K. Caputo
and the History of Welfare, 1890-1935. New York: Free Press, 1994. Shows the influence of women on the development of social welfare legislation. Gathered notes, appendix, index. Graetz, Michael, and Jerry Mashaw. True Security: Rethinking American Social Insurance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. The authors, professors at Yale Law School, discuss the overlapping roles that Social Security, various forms of insurance, and the child welfare system play. Unsurprisingly, they find many flaws, but several of the solutions they propose are interesting. Harvey, Anna L., and Randall Calvert. Votes Without Leverage: Women in American Electoral Politics, 1920-1970. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Carefully researched volume begins with the Sheppard-Towner Act and other legislation of the 1920’s in order to analyze the success and failures of women’s lobbying groups. Lemons, J. Stanley. “The Sheppard-Towner Act: Progressivism in the 1920’s.” Journal of American History 55 (March, 1969): 776-786. A definitive history of the act as seen in the context of the Progressive Era in the United States. Includes extensive notes documenting original source material. See also: Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded; 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment.
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Further Reading Bremner, Robert H., ed. 1866-1932. Vol. 2 in Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Contains excerpts from original source material including provisions of the Sheppard-Towner Act, congressional debates, published opposition, and the 1923 Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the act. Chronology of significant child-related legislation; topical bibliography; index. Caputo, Richard K., ed. Federal Responses to People in Need. Vol. 1 in Welfare and Freedom American Style I: The Role of the Federal Government, 1900-1940. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991. Discusses the legislative history of the SheppardTowner Act of 1921 in the context of the federal government’s role in promoting social welfare. Notes, bibliography, index. Gordon, Linda. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers
Sheppard-Towner Act
Eliot Publishes The Waste Land
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1922
Eliot Publishes THE WASTE LAND T. S. Eliot, in collaboration with fellow American poet and editor Ezra Pound, published a new kind of collage poem composed of fragments from many languages and mythologies. Locale: London, England Category: Literature Key Figures T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972), American literary activist, poet, and editor Summary of Event Between the end of the nineteenth century, when Edwardian style dominated English cultural life, and the end of World War I, after millions of young Englishmen had died in the horribly bloody conflicts of no-man’s land, a radically new artistic style emerged. Generally known as modernism, this new direction in the arts took its cue from such artists as the Italian Futurists (a group that embraced the new technology) and the French Symbolists (especially Paul Valéry and Jules Laforgue). Modernism also drew inspiration from such sources as the new architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States and the new technology as represented by the American entrepreneur Henry Ford. Skyscrapers were going up in New York, jazz was being played in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, and Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were inventing cubism in their Parisian studios. The world was suddenly moving to new rhythms and seeing itself in terms of new imagery. Literary practitioners were among the last to absorb this radically new way of making art, perhaps owing to the innately conservative nature of language itself. Literary change occurred quickly during this period, however, as English writers in particular began to discover the French Symbolists and Asian poetry, especially the haiku of the Japanese. Out of this preoccupation with imagery of the kind favored in much Asian poetry, a literary school known as Imagism emerged in and around London. The most important Imagist was a young American poet named Ezra Pound, who had taken upon himself the formidable task of changing the whole direction of poetry in the English language. A brilliant linguist and radical thinker, Pound drew on all his cultural resources, as well as his irrepressible energy, to put the Imagist move1748
ment at the center of the literary map. He became the foreign editor for a number of American literary magazines, most important of which was Poetry, founded in Chicago in 1912. It was at Pound’s insistence, for example, that the first American publication of poems by Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot occurred. Had Pound not been on the scene, the literary life of London—and all of the Englishspeaking world—would have been vastly different. T. S. Eliot had arrived in London in the summer of 1914 after his attempts to study at Marburg, Germany, had been cut short by the outbreak of World War I. Eliot had already studied languages and philosophy at Harvard University and at the Sorbonne. A remarkably gifted student, Eliot was the scion of a distinguished American family. His grandfather had founded Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri (where Eliot grew up), and the family traced its line all the way back to the Mayflower. Eliot had been reading and translating French poetry on his own and had been translating the works of Dante and the classical Greek and Roman poets. At that point in his life, however, Eliot imagined himself having a career as a professional philosopher. Poetry was only a sideline for him, although an important one. Once in London, Eliot quickly joined a literary circle that included the Bloomsbury Group of Leonard and Virginia Woolf as well as such writers as Stephen Spender, Richard Aldington, Wyndham Lewis, William Butler Yeats, and the ubiquitous Pound. Eliot also fell under the spell of Vivien Haigh-Wood, a vivacious, high-strung, and outspoken young woman who was strikingly different from the socialites and debutantes Eliot had known in Boston and Cambridge. Eliot married Vivien in 1915, the same year that his first important poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” appeared in the pages of Poetry. Within months of their marriage, Eliot realized that he had made a tragic mistake. Vivien had an affair with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, and her physical condition, aggravated by bouts of neuralgia and painful menstrual cycles, deteriorated steadily. The couple’s married life, carried on in a series of cramped and dingy London flats and drafty country cottages, took its toll on both partners. Eliot and his wife were dependent on a whole stable of London specialists, and the young poet was forced to moonlight at various teaching and editorial jobs to supplement his meager salary as a clerk in the Foreign Correspondence Department of Lloyd’s Bank.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Although some critics have dismissed any claims of autobiographical details in The Waste Land, it stretches credibility to assume that Eliot’s relationship with Vivien does not account, in some way, for the many frustrating and doomed relationships featured in the poem. When Eliot began working on The Waste Land in late January or early February of 1921, his own health and that of Vivien were seriously impaired. In addition to help from London doctors and a strict dietary regimen, Vivien had recourse to a French clinic outside Paris. Eliot continued writing during the whole period, although the emerging poem, which he called “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” was a sprawling affair with many quotations from the London music halls and offcolor snippets from World War I songs. In November, 1921, Eliot’s health had deteriorated to the point that he entered a psychiatric clinic in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he gained momentary peace. He completed whole sections of the poem in Lausanne. Eliot returned to London in the early months of 1922, and the tragic pattern of his life continued in full force. By this time, he had no idea what to do with the poem, which had grown in length to more than one thousand lines. In sheer desperation, he turned the typescript over to Ezra Pound, who instantly recognized its brilliance— and its purple passages. Pound proceeded to remove all
Eliot Publishes The Waste Land the extraneous material, preserving only those passages in which he heard Eliot’s distinctive voice and the passages in which Eliot had borrowed lines or phrases from foreign texts (in Greek, Latin, French, German, or Sanskrit). Eliot agreed completely with Pound’s emendations, dedicated the poem to him, and first published it in the pages of a new literary magazine he was editing, Criterion, in October of 1922. In November, the poem made its first American appearance in the pages of The Dial magazine, and in December, The Waste Land was published in book form by Liveright Publishers in New York. Finally, in September, 1923, Hogarth Press, owned by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, brought out a separate English edition of the work.
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Significance T. S. Eliot was certainly conversant with the intrinsic difficulties of his masterwork. In fact, for the Liveright and Hogarth editions, he prepared a special set of scholarly notes to help guide perplexed readers and curious critics. Those notes, by themselves, have accounted for the spilling of oceans of critical ink, as scholars have struggled to offer a coherent theory of this five-part poem numbering 434 lines. It is no exaggeration to say that the shelves of an impressive library could easily be filled with materials written about Eliot and The Waste Land. Major critics have depended on this work to make their mark in From THE WASTE LAND the world of academe, as even a curThe third part of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, titled “The Fire Sermon,” opens sory glance at the bibliography of with images that support one of the poem’s main themes: the destruction of civEliot and The Waste Land would sugilization. Eliot wrote the poem shortly after the end of World War I—the “Great gest. A few notable titles in this conWar,” which devastated both the physical and psychic landscapes of Europe. nection include such books as F. R. Leavis’s New Bearings in English The river’s tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf Poetry (1932), F. O. Matthiessen’s Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind The Achievement of T. S. Eliot (1935), Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Northrop Frye’s T. S. Eliot (1963), Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. George Williamson’s A Reader’s The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Guide to T. S. Eliot (1966), and Gover Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. Smith’s T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors; (1974) and The Waste Land (1984). Departed, have left no addresses. The point here is that The Waste By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Land has functioned as a kind of critSweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song, ical benchmark for all modern poSweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. etry and for the criticism that poetry But at my back in a cold blast I hear engendered. The Waste Land simply The rattle of bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. occupies a unique and privileged Source: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), in Collected Poems, 1909-1962 (New place in the landscape of twentieth York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963). century poetry. The so-called New
Eliot Publishes The Waste Land Criticism—with its emphases on irony, allusion, and formalism—would be unthinkable without Eliot and The Waste Land, the poem that most perfectly justifies and exemplifies the New Criticism’s ideals. Of course, when the poem first appeared, it rocked the literary establishment. Absolutely no one was prepared for the linguistic and thematic complexity of the poem. Its themes of sexual boredom, sterility, loss of faith, and the destruction of civilization, however, appealed instantly to a generation that had seen the virtual bankruptcy of European civilization and the horrors of World War I. With its collage of bits and pieces on the printed page, the poem spoke eloquently and convincingly about the nature of loss and pain in twentieth century life. College undergraduates memorized the poem, and literary people quoted it constantly, a detail recorded by the novelist Evelyn Waugh in his fictional chronicle of the period, Brideshead Revisited (1945). In the United States, The Waste Land had a profound and immediate effect on the literary imaginations of the most important writers of the period. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s pivotal novel The Great Gatsby (1925) depended significantly on the presence of a wasteland of ashes that defined and enclosed the metropolis of New York. Like Eliot, Fitzgerald delineated a world where true love was inevitably frustrated and sexual corruption was commonplace. Other Americans, including the poet Hart Crane, reacted violently against Eliot and tried to write optimistic poetry. In fact, Crane’s The Bridge (1930) failed precisely because he could not find a myth to justify America, even though he tried valiantly and, interestingly, adopted Eliot’s trademark techniques of literary collage and allusion. Eliot did, however, succeed in planting the idea of the long poem in the minds of American poets. In addition to Crane’s The Bridge, The Waste Land undoubtedly helped to inspire William Carlos Williams’s four-volume epic Paterson (1946-1958) and Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems (1960). A long work by British poet W. H. Auden, For the Time Being (1944), with its depiction of a bleak and distorted landscape and its unremittingly ironic posture, also owed something to Eliot’s work. This same kind of wasteland, perhaps the dominant archetype of twentieth century literature, provided the backdrop for Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot (pb. 1952; Waiting for Godot, 1954). Beckett’s famous characters, Vladimir and Estragon, would have been absolutely at home in the zombie-world Eliot created in The Waste Land. In like manner, Eliot’s vision of London as a place where sexual corruption provided a clue to larger and more pervasive 1750
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 spiritual breakdowns can be detected rather obviously in a novel such as Martin Amis’s London Fields (1989), in which love, art, money, and sex are transmuted into a complicated calculus of betrayal. The Waste Land touched imaginations and sensibilities precisely because its symbolic meaning provided a significant way to encode a world that, largely, had failed to make much sense. There is great irony in the fact that one of the most pessimistic works of the century may have preserved a small measure of the optimism that Eliot’s audience desperately needed. Knowledge is indeed power, and The Waste Land, for all its darkness, clearly empowered its readers in a way that set it apart from all other poems of the century. — Daniel L. Guillory Further Reading Ackroyd, Peter. T. S. Eliot: A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Lucid and articulate account of Eliot’s life reads like a well-crafted novel. Offers fine analysis of Eliot’s complex sexual attitudes and his relationships with women, especially Vivien. Appropriate for Eliot specialists and nonspecialists alike. Brooker, H. Ralph, and Mary Ann Bentley. Reading “The Waste Land”: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. Uniquely successful scholarly collaboration offers a part-by-part analysis of the poem and places it within the context of modernism and its inherent difficulties. Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land. Edited by Michael North. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Presents the text of the poem as it appeared in its first American edition, followed by Eliot’s notes. Also includes information on the work’s publication history and reprints reviews and essays on the poem by a wide variety of authors. Features a chronology and select bibliography. Kenner, Hugh, ed. T. S. Eliot: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962. Includes essays by R. P. Blackmur, Allen Tate, William Empson, and Denis Donoghue, but readers will want to focus on F. R. Leavis’s “The Waste Land ” and George Morris’s “Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight.” Knoll, Robert E., ed. Storm over “The Waste Land.” Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1964. A collection of some of the famous articles that have damned or praised The Waste Land. The included essays force the reader to grapple with the important aesthetic issues raised by the poem, especially the question of its fragmen-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tary structure. Contains notable essays by Delmore Schwartz and Karl Shapiro. Miller, James E., Jr. T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Examines the early years of Eliot’s life—through 1922, when The Waste Land was published—and argues that Eliot’s poetry reflects his personal experiences, despite his own statements to the contrary. Emphasizes Eliot’s American roots. Rainey, Lawrence. Revisiting “The Waste Land.” New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. Seeks to shed new light on the poem by exploring how Eliot composed it and by challenging long-prevailing interpretations of the work.
First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens Williamson, George. A Reader’s Guide to T. S. Eliot: A Poem-by-Poem Analysis. 1953. Reprint. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Brings invaluable clarity and common sense to Eliot’s intrinsically difficult work, especially in The Waste Land, without oversimplifying. The essential point of departure for any study of the poet. See also: Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement; Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge; Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation.
1922
First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens The development of shopping centers provided customers with ease of access to consumer goods and retailers with growth opportunities. Locale: Kansas City, Missouri Categories: Trade and commerce; architecture
Summary of Event The development of the shopping center concept in the United States from the 1920’s through the mid-twentieth century came about because of lifestyle and environmental changes taking place in the country. Increasingly widespread ownership of automobiles allowed growing numbers of city workers to live in the suburbs. Increased automobile traffic in turn led to congestion on city streets, making it difficult for customers to shop along those streets comfortably and at their leisure. Developments in aviation and the introduction of bus lines also promoted the trend toward the building of shopping centers in suburban areas, as did the rise of housing developments, large apartment complexes, family hotels, and restaurants on the perimeters of cities. In addition, professionals such as doctors and accountants gradually began establishing practices in the suburbs. As more and more Americans made their homes in the suburbs, they
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Key Figures J. C. Nichols (1880-1950), American real estate developer Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), American architect
demanded shopping facilities that were conveniently located. The developers of the earliest shopping centers in the United States based their ideas on the concept of making a variety of products available in one location. The underlying concept was supported by the models of the early American trading post and the general store, which were forerunners of the shopping center. The bazaars of the Middle East and the arcades that rose up in the United States in the nineteenth century were also based on this concept, and developers gained insights into retailing from these examples. The first U.S. shopping centers were built as early as 1907, when Roland Park Shopping Center was established outside Baltimore, Maryland, but centers that were carefully planned in advance came a little later. In the first decade of the twentieth century, solo ventures into suburbia by retailers were the general rule. According to federal historic records, the first planned shopping center in the United States was Market Square in Lake Forest, Illinois, which was built in 1916. Designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, the center featured a landscaped plaza, stores behind an arcade walkway, apartments on the second floor, and a commuter train station across the street. Integrated shopping centers, with a variety of large and small tenants under one landlord and with affordable off-street parking, did not exist until 1922. In that year, real estate developer J. C. Nichols built the Country Club Plaza, the first planned, fully integrated shopping center
First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens in the United States. The center was located on a fortyacre site five miles south of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the extensive plans accounted for the pattern of traffic flow and road width, parking arrangements for customers and employees, delivery systems, pedestrian walkways, display window locations and control of other advertisement forms, interior and exterior building design, store locations according to merchandise lines, landscaped plazas, and proximity of other shopping facilities. The buildings featured Spanish-style architecture with detailed ornamental corners and towers. The uniform height of the buildings, lack of overhead wires, and attention paid to architectural details provided the shopping center with a distinctive and harmonious appearance. The development of shopping centers in the United States was further influenced by a survey of female shoppers in New York and Chicago that was undertaken by the Beeler Organization in 1926. The widely publicized results of this survey revealed both the changing habits of shoppers and the need for retailers to give more attention to the planning of shopping centers. Shoppers were reducing the numbers of shopping trips they made, were shopping more hurriedly, and preferred shopping nearer their homes and using their own automobiles instead of public mass-transit facilities, although they often were forced to take public transportation because of traffic congestion. Based on these findings, Harold Dunn, an engineer for the Beeler Organization, suggested that offstreet or garage parking should be included in shopping center planning and should be featured in advertisements for shopping centers. By the end of the 1920’s, city planners and shopping center developers recognized the need to plan integrated shopping centers. In July, 1929, an article in American City magazine noted that planners should include allowances for growth when planning a shopping center and that choices regarding the location and type of center to be built should be based on market research in the target area. In addition, the article suggested that city planners and developers should pay attention to both the general layout of a center and its architectural details and controls. In the same edition of American City, the Country Club Plaza, the first major shopping center in the United States, was recognized as a model of shopping center development. Significance One of the most important effects of the advent of the shopping center was that consumers could purchase 1752
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 goods nearer to their homes and away from business and manufacturing districts. Americans began to see shopping as a pleasurable and social event, and not only as a necessity. At the close of World War II, mushrooming housing developments throughout the United States created a tremendous stimulus for the development of shopping centers. Shopping centers are generally considered to be of three types: neighborhood, community, and regional. The type that is built in a particular locale depends on the size of the area’s population and the available space. Neighborhood shopping centers—or strip centers, as they are sometimes called—feature stores that carry limited lines of convenience merchandise and serve trading populations of up to 40,000. Community shopping centers, which serve approximately 10,000 families and occupy ten to twenty acres, are located close to heavily populated suburban towns and villages. Together, the stores in such centers carry fairly complete lines of goods. Regional shopping centers, the largest of the three types, serve trading populations of 150,000, are typically located in high-traffic areas, and offer a wide variety of goods and services. A good example of the complexity of a regional shopping center is the River Park Regional Shopping Center, which was built in the early 1950’s on ninety acres near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The center included more than seventy retail shops and eating facilities; a twelve-story, three-building apartment complex with more than seven hundred units; a twelve-story hotel; a twelve-story office building; a medical center, including a drugstore; and a fifteen-acre parking area. The evolution of shopping center design has had a great deal of influence on where, when, and how American consumers shop. The shopping centers of the 1940’s and 1950’s, designed as neighborhood or strip centers where each store had an outdoor entrance, were seen as the ultimate answer to the needs of consumers living in the suburbs. These centers fostered the growth of small department and specialty stores as well as supermarkets and convenience stores. Discount stores such as Kmart and Wal-Mart have always done business in strip centers. In 1956, the first enclosed shopping center, commonly referred to as a mall, was built in Edina, Minnesota. Necessity was the force behind this design. Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, typically has more than one hundred days each year of subfreezing temperatures. Enclosed malls attracted medium- to higher-scaled department and specialty stores; few discounters located in enclosed malls. Hypermarkets, or superstores, and outlet malls sprang up in the 1980’s and 1990’s. These are oper-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
change in the 1980’s and 1990’s. As demand for retail space dropped as a result of slowed population growth and overbuilding (the 1980’s saw 10 percent growth in population and 50 percent growth in leasable area in shopping centers), existing centers began to be put to innovative uses, with some converted to museums, schools, office space, and town houses with accompanying parking facilities. During the same period, many inner-city areas were refurbished as part of urban renewal enterprises that often included shopping centers for the convenience of city workers and residents, as well as to entice people to come to the city from the suburbs to shop. Trump Towers, housing some of the most prestigious fashion stores in the world built around a six-floor atrium, is an excellent example of such a development. The original purpose of shopping centers was thus reversed as centers were designed to bring people into cities, while in the suburbs the emergence of strip malls offered shoppers a degree of variety in their neighborhoods that allowed them to avoid trips to larger and overcrowded malls. —Sue Bailey Further Reading Bohlinger, Maryanne Smith. Merchandise Buying. 5th ed. New York: Fairchild Books, 2001. Includes discussion of the evolution of retailing. Emphasizes the tremendous growth in shopping malls throughout the United States and Canada over the course of the twentieth century. Bowlby, Rachel. Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Mixes sociology, cultural criticism, and literary scholarship to examine how Americans (as well as the French and the British) have come to view shopping. Includes discussion of the advent of the shopping center. Dickerson, Kitty G. Inside the Fashion Business. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002. Textbook includes readings on shopping centers as retailers of fashion. Discusses the circumstances and the period of the origin of shopping centers, the part such centers have played in the business of fashion, and how they are changing. Larson, Carl, Robert Weigand, and John Wright. Basic Retailing. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976. Provides an excellent review of the retailer response to change through store locations and thorough coverage of shopping centers. Includes a line drawing of a regional shopping center. 1753
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ated by some of the major discounters, grocery chains, and manufacturers and are similar to enclosed malls except that the facilities, merchandise, services, and operations at a given center are controlled by one company. Innovations were introduced in the designs of enclosed malls as more of them were built throughout the United States. In the 1960’s, the Thomas Mall in Phoenix, Arizona, featured the first usage of utilities and duct work on the roof. This design feature, shielded from view by decorative screens and accessible via special stairs, saved space for merchants inside the mall while allowing for ease of service and relocation of utilities without disrupting business. Another 1960’s innovation in mall design was the elimination of street display windows. Because the entrances to the businesses were all located on an interior walkway, the display windows were moved to inside the mall. Also around this period mall designers began including areas for displays, live shows, demonstrations, and community meetings. The expansion of goods and services that appeared within the shopping center from the 1950’s on seemed limitless. The early neighborhood shopping center provided a broad mix of merchandise and perhaps a film theater. Sometimes a professional service business, such as a dry cleaner or optometrist, would also be featured. Often grocery stores and convenience stores would be built near existing centers. With the enclosed mall came an even greater variety of services, beginning with food courts and eventually including elegant dining facilities, banks, child-care centers, multiplex cinemas, garden centers, and more—even full-scale amusement parks, as at the Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota, which opened in 1992. Shopping centers have great impacts on their surrounding communities. In the 1920’s, city planners and shopping center developers were concerned about the appearance of centers and customer facilities such as parking. In the 1950’s, city planners advocated a “look before you leap” philosophy in the construction of centers, suggesting that they should be built only after thorough studies by market analysts, traffic and land planning engineers, real estate brokers, merchandising consultants, architects, landscape artists, and community planners. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, environmental regulations made it more difficult to build centers. Because of this and other concerns, such as a decrease in markets and rising costs, the emphasis in shopping center development turned to smaller regional centers loaded with amenities. The use of existing shopping centers also underwent a
First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens
First Meeting of the Vienna Circle Mason, J. Barry, Morris L. Mayer, and J. B. Wilkinson. Modern Retailing: Theory and Practice. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1993. Discusses retailing in the late twentieth century in detail. Good coverage of site evaluation for centers. An interesting retailing capsule is titled “Shopping Malls: The Unlikely Battleground for Free Speech.” Morgenstein, Melvin, and Harriet Strongin. Modern Retailing. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992. Excellent coverage of store location and types of shopping centers. Suggests sales promotions
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and public relations ideas for retailing, including shopping centers. See also: 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1925: Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet; 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines; Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles.
1922
First Meeting of the Vienna Circle The members of the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers and scientists, formulated principles for a genuinely scientific philosophy. The result, logical positivism, became one of the most important and influential philosophical movements of the twentieth century. Also known as: Ernst Mach Association; Schlick Circle Locale: Vienna, Austria Category: Philosophy Key Figures Moritz Schlick (1882-1936), German physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838-1916), Austrian physicist and philosopher who developed positivism Philipp Frank (1884-1966), Austrian physicist Hans Hahn (1879-1934), Austrian mathematician Otto Neurath (1882-1945), Austrian economist and sociologist Herbert Feigl (1902-1988), Austrian philosopher Friedrich Waismann (1896-1959), Austrian philosopher Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970), German logician and philosopher Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), Austrian mathematician and logician Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian philosopher Summary of Event By the late nineteenth century, the University of Vienna had established itself as a stronghold of empiricism and 1754
positivism, and in 1895, the acclaimed physicist and positivist philosopher Ernst Mach was appointed to a chair in philosophy of inductive science. According to Mach’s antimetaphysical positivism, the goal of science is to formulate laws to describe and predict experience, and any attempt to explain experience in terms of imperceptible realities is merely speculative metaphysics. In 1908, a group of academics in Vienna, including Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, and Otto Neurath, began meeting in order to promote Mach’s positivistic conception of science. When Mach’s chair became vacant in the early 1920’s, his fellow philosophers urged that it should be filled by someone who would continue Mach’s legacy. These thinkers came to champion the candidacy of Moritz Schlick, a German physicist and philosopher who had been one of the first to argue that Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity supported Mach’s positivism. When Schlick arrived in Vienna in 1922, a discussion group of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians quickly formed around him, and under his leadership the group began meeting on Thursday evenings in the department of mathematics. In addition to Frank, Hahn, and Neurath, the group included Herbert Feigl and Friedrich Waismann. A few years later Rudolf Carnap joined, as did mathematician Kurt Gödel. The group was known for a time as the Ernst Mach Association and later as the Schlick Circle, but in the late 1920’s the members began calling themselves the Vienna Circle. Membership was by invitation only; at its peak, the organization included about three dozen members. In addition to Mach’s positivist philosophy, one of the primary influences on the circle was the British empiricism
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ernst Mach. (Library of Congress)
eral, then, propositions that are not verifiable are declared meaningless or nonsensical. Although Vienna Circle members disagreed about whether verification had to be conclusive or whether weaker degrees of verification would suffice, all members accepted some version of the verifiability criterion. One consequence of their acceptance of the criterion was that, since traditional metaphysical philosophy does not satisfy the criterion, they came to the conclusion that traditional philosophical doctrines are worthless and should be abandoned. If metaphysics is conceived to be an a priori and nonempirical inquiry into the nature of the world, an inquiry that by its nature must transcend the limits of experience, then such an inquiry can produce only nonsense. Furthermore, if metaphysics produces only nonsense, the role of philosophy should be restricted to the logical clarification of scientific propositions. Not surprisingly, these ideas were greeted with hostility by many moretraditional philosophers. Some of the other distinctive doctrines of the Vienna Circle emerge when other types of propositions that do not satisfy the verifiability criterion are considered. Ethical propositions are obviously not empirically verifiable (for example, what experiences would verify that torturing animals is wrong?), but clearly ethical propositions play too central a role in human life to be declared nonsensical and abandoned. One of the ways the Vienna Circle dealt with this problem was by interpreting ethical propositions not as assertions but as exclamations that express attitudes toward actions or persons. Thus, for example, to say that torturing animals is wrong is to express one’s disapproval of that sort of action. Similarly, the propositions of logic and mathematics cannot simply be given up just because they cannot be explained through empirical verification. Logical and mathematical propositions are necessarily true and are knowable a priori—that is, without recourse to any kind of empirical investigation. The positivists solved this problem by holding that logical and mathematical propositions are tautologies, propositions that are true in virtue of certain linguistic conventions and thus true in virtue of meaning alone. The Vienna Circle reached the height of its influence in the early 1930’s. In 1930, the circle took editorial control of the journal Erkenntnis (the German word for “knowledge”), which then began to publish articles sympathetic to logical positivism. Schlick and Neurath were the general editors of a series of monographs issued under the title International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, which promoted the ideas of the Vienna Circle. 1755
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propounded by David Hume and John Stuart Mill. (Empiricism is the epistemological theory that holds that all knowledge is ultimately based on perception or sensory experience.) Another influence came from the advances made in the field of logic by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, who proposed that mathematics is reducible to logic. The circle was also strongly influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922; English translation, 1961). Schlick immediately recognized the book’s importance and invited Wittgenstein to attend the circle’s meetings. Although Wittgenstein never became a member, his thought had a profound impact on the development of the Vienna Circle’s logical positivism. The verifiability criterion of meaning is the central thesis of logical positivism and is the basis of many of its other doctrines. The basic idea is that a proposition is meaningful only if it is empirically verifiable—that is, only if it is possible to specify which experiences would show that the proposition is either true or false. In gen-
First Meeting of the Vienna Circle
First Meeting of the Vienna Circle During this period, the Vienna Circle organized a series of conferences in major European cities that accelerated the spread of logical positivism. The group’s rise, however, was brought to an end by the rise of Nazism in Germany and Austria. Because many logical positivists were Jewish, socialist, or both, most were forced to flee continental Europe: Waismann and Neurath went to Great Britain, where Wittgenstein had been since 1929, and Carnap, Feigl, Frank, and Gödel emigrated to the United States, where they did much to establish logical positivism in North America. Hahn died in 1934 in Vienna, and Schlick was murdered on the steps of a University of Vienna lecture hall by a deranged student with Nazi sympathies in 1936. By 1938, the Vienna Circle had effectively ceased to exist. Significance It is ironic that while the rise of Nazism ultimately destroyed the Vienna Circle, the fact that most of its members had to flee to other countries only accelerated the spread of logical positivism and transformed it into an international movement. Logical positivism flourished in Great Britain, North America, and Scandinavia until the 1950’s and 1960’s, when it was supplanted by other philosophical movements. It fell out of favor partly because it was never able to formulate an adequate version of the verifiability criterion of meaning, and partly because its account of the inherent truths of logic and mathematics turned out not to be defensible. Although the age of logical positivism ended, the ideas of the Vienna Circle continued to influence philosophy. The members’ commitment to clarity and rigorous argumentation continues to inspire philosophers in the analytic tradition, and their view that it is empirical science, rather than mathematics or philosophical speculation, that provides a paradigm of human knowledge came to be widely accepted. For those who deplore contemporary, “postmodern” forms of relativism and irrationalism, the Vienna Circle’s embodiment of the Enlightenment ideals of rationality and the unbiased search for truth remains a shining example of human inquiry at its best. — David Haugen
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Ayer, A. J. Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover, 1952. First published in 1936, this was the first full-length presentation in English of the ideas of the Vienna Circle. A clear and trenchant introduction to logical positivism. _______. Logical Positivism. New York: Free Press, 1959. A valuable collection of key papers by members of the Vienna Circle and other logical positivists. Carnap, Rudolf, Hans Hahn, and Otto Neurath. “The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle.” In Empiricism and Sociology, edited by M. Neurath and R. S. Cohen. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1973. Originally issued as a pamphlet in 1929, when it was published in Schlick’s honor after he refused an attractive offer from the University of Bonn and stayed in Vienna. Written in the style of a political manifesto, it provides a nontechnical account of the central tenets of the Vienna Circle. Friedman, Michael. Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999. A collection of essays focusing on the central figures of the Vienna Circle by a noted expert in the history of early analytic philosophy. Jørgensen, Jørgen. The Development of Logical Empiricism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951. An account of the circle written by a Danish philosopher who participated in some of their meetings. Stadler, Friedrich. The Vienna Circle: Studies in the Origins, Development, and the Influence of Logical Empiricism. New York: Springer, 2000. In-depth study of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle draws on previously unavailable archival material. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism; 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education; 1919: Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability; 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets
1922
McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets Elmer Verner McCollum and his collaborators established the existence of vitamin D, named it, and contributed to its use in the eradication of rickets. Locale: The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology Key Figures Elmer Verner McCollum (1879-1967), American biochemist and nutritionist Thomas Burr Osborne (1859-1929), American nutritionist John Howland (1873-1926), American physician
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Summary of Event Rickets (or rachitis) is a disease that causes abnormal bone formation, particularly in the long bones and the ribs. First described in the second century c.e. by Galen of Pergamum and Soranus of Ephesus, rickets was a widespread health problem until discovery and dissemination of the antirachitic factor, vitamin D. Elmer Verner McCollum and coworkers pioneered this effort in 1922, showing that the antirachitic factor was a distinctive substance. They named this substance vitamin D because it was the fourth vitamin to be discovered. The occurrence of rachitis is now rare—except in underdeveloped countries—as a result of the vitamin D fortification of food (especially milk) in the industrialized nations of the world. Rickets, which usually begins before age three, is caused by the improper and incomplete uptake of calcium into the fast-growing bones of children. The resultant insufficient calcification of these bones prevents them from hardening properly. Therefore, the bones of a rachitic child are so soft that they bend and twist into abnormal shapes. Furthermore, they will fracture easily. Fortunately, as afflicted children grow up, their bones harden, but the abnormal shapes are retained. Rickets is rarely fatal, but it produces several cosmetically unappealing conditions, including curvature of the spine, bow legs, knock-knee, and chicken breast. Rickets sufferers are also unusually susceptible to the common cold, to bronchitis, and to pneumonia. As may be expected, vitamin D is utilized in preventive chemotherapy, not in the correction of rickets. The
two most common forms of the vitamin used in humans are calciferol (vitamin D2 ) and cholecalciferol (vitamin D3 ). These fatlike substances are derived from the steroids ergosterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DC), respectively. The human body converts 7-DC to cholecalciferol at the surface of the skin in a process that is energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun. Exposure of adults to normal amounts of sunlight causes enough vitamin D3 production in the skin to make it unnecessary to add any vitamin D to their diet. Children, however, require about 0.02 milligram of vitamin D per day in the diet if rickets is to be avoided. One way to administer the vitamin is as the cholecalciferol in cod-liver oil, a rich natural source of the vitamin. Fortification of milk with vitamin D2 is more widespread today. It is important to note, however, that excess dietary vitamin D should be avoided. The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine has set the tolerable upper intake level for vitamin D at 25 micrograms (1,000 international units) for those up to 12 months old and 50 micrograms (2,000 international units) for children, adults, and pregnant or lactating women. McCollum, who first identified vitamin D and named it, carried out many of the early important studies on this vitamin. McCollum’s interest in biochemistry and vitamins began when he worked at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station under Thomas Burr Osborne. This employment occurred during McCollum’s doctoral training in organic chemistry at Yale University, and ended when he was awarded the Ph.D. in 1906. In 1907, McCollum was employed by the Wisconsin College of Agriculture, where he was assigned to investigate the chemical makeup of the food and excrement of dairy cattle. There he developed the first white rat colony in the United States devoted to use in the study of nutrition. Utilization of rats as experimental subjects allowed McCollum and his coworkers the opportunity to circumvent the complicated and tedious methodology that was required to study cattle and other large animals. This revolutionary concept of nutritional research was so successful that other scientists all over the world soon began to emulate McCollum’s efforts. In six years, McCollum passed through the academic ranks from instructor to full professor. In 1913, McCollum reported that rats fed “certain fat-
McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets
Rickets on the Rise? Rickets became rare in the United States after vitamin D supplementation of milk began in the mid-twentieth century. However, rates of incidence began to climb by the end of the century. Case studies of infants and toddlers with rickets found that all were exclusively breast-fed for at least the first six months of life and that few, if any, had received vitamin D supplementation. It has been recognized for some time that the vitamin D content of human milk from healthy lactating women is low, approximately 22 international units per liter. The 1998 edition of the Pediatric Nutrition Handbook of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended 400 international units of vitamin D per day for breast-fed infants but indicated that only breast-fed babies with deeply pigmented skin needed vitamin D supplementation. Studies have shown that lactating women, regardless of skin color, who are deficient in vitamin D themselves produce milk with even lower concentrations of vitamin D. In October, 2001, a meeting in Atlanta was sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to examine the issue. Although many attendees of this meeting believed that universal vitamin D supplementation for all breast-fed babies might be a good idea, others took the view that supplementation should be targeted toward specific groups. Some attendees worried that formula manufacturers would use supplement recommendations as a tool to encourage women to abandon breast-feeding. However, it was also made clear that in Canada, where vitamin D supplementation of all breast-fed children is advocated regardless of skin pigmentation, the number of women electing to breast-feed had increased. By 2003, the American Cancer Society, the CDC, and the AAP had united in a campaign to cut the risk of skin cancer by cutting exposure to direct sunlight. The AAP now maintains that the recommended adequate intake of vitamin D cannot be met with human milk as the sole source of vitamin D for the breast-feeding infant and that some form of supplementation is needed.
deficient” diets exhibited a growth retardation that was reversed by feeding rats with “either extract of egg or of butter.” By 1915, McCollum’s research group had demonstrated that several trace substances, which McCollum called vitamins A and B, were necessary for normal health and growth in rats. Thus McCollum helped to initiate the alphabetical names used in vitamin nomenclature. In 1917, McCollum became the chair of the department of chemistry and professor of biochemistry at the School of Hygiene and Public Health of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He continued his efforts to understand the vitamins and pioneered the study of vitamin D, for which he is best known, again using rats for his experiments. 1758
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 McCollum’s pioneering identification of the existence of vitamin D in 1922 was accompanied by development of the line test for its measurement in foods. The line test begins with removal of bone sections (pieces of bone) from rats that have been fed normal, vitamin Ddeficient, or vitamin D-supplemented diets. These bone sections are soaked in dilute solutions of light-sensitive silver nitrate. This treatment causes a silver compound to become a bone component wherever recent bone calcification has occurred. Exposure to light converts the silver compound to black, metallic silver in a process similar to that seen in photography. With normal bone, a very distinct black line is produced at the bone ends. No such line is seen is severe rickets, and indistinct lines are observed in healing cases of the disease. The test is “expressed with a scale of one to four, using plus and minus signs.” It is viewed as both sensitive and accurate.
Significance In 1922, rickets was a worldwide disorder that affected many children. Today, it has essentially been eradicated in developed nations despite fluctuations in its incidence. The successful treatment of the disease began when McCollum and coworkers produced evidence in 1922 that cod-liver oil contained a specific antirachitic chemical (vitamin D). As McCollum stated in From Kansas Farm Boy to Scientist (1964): “The demonstration of the existence of a vitamin which exerts a profound influence in directing the growth of bones proved to be of great publichealth value.” McCollum’s research findings stimulated great interest among many investigators. Furthermore, the discovery, coupled with the participation of prominent pediatricians in the effort, such as John Howland at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, led to rapid general acceptance by physicians of the efficacy of using cod-liver oil to prevent rickets. From that time on, the medical profession passed from haphazard use of the oil—in a skeptical fashion—to its routine use. As a result, rickets soon became rare. Actualization of the existence of the antirachitic substance quickly led to isolation and characterization of vitamins D2 and D3. Subsequently, in the hands of other researchers, study of the pure vitamin began to show
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets
promise. First, it became possible to add vitamin D2 to milk to ensure almost universal dissemination of the vitamin among the population of the industrialized countries. Next, it was shown that vitamin D2 (or D3) functioned after conversion as another chemical that was actually a hormone (hormone D). The form of hormone D made by the body from vitamin D3 is called 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol. Hormone D acts by stimulating rapid intestinal reabsorption of calcium via a protein. This calcium resorption minimizes calcium loss in the feces and prevents the bone decalcification that results in rickets. Additional examination of the action of vitamin D has led to better understanding of the processes of bone deposition and resorption as well as to explanation of the interrelationships between hormone D and other calcium-controlling substances (such as calcitonin and parathyroid hormone) made by the body. Such investigations have also led to the realization that bone is not simply a “dead,” body-support matrix. Rather, bone is a vital, live tissue that can produce dissolved calcium in the blood to serve many purposes.
The Effect of Rickets
This realization has had further ramifications, and it is clear that calcium serves as a biological signal in life processes that include control of the blood pressure, blood clotting, nerve impulse transmission, and muscle contraction. Therefore, the acorn of McCollum’s efforts had produced a mighty oak tree of intertwined information about life. This information now promises eventual answers to many elusive but fundamental problems of life science that are clearly associated with calcium. — Sanford S. Singer
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Further Reading Carpenter, Kenneth J. “A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 3 (1912-1944).” Journal of Nutrition 133 (October, 2003): 3023-3032. Third part of a fourpart series includes discussion of McCollum’s research on vitamin D. Places McCollum’s work in the context of the history of nutritional science in general. Feldman, David, J. Wesley Pike, and Francis H. Glorieux, eds. Vitamin D. 2d ed. 2 vols. New York: Academic Press, 2004. Comprehensive reference set geared toward professionals working in endocrinology, osteology, cancer research, and related fields. First chapter provides a historical overview. Includes illustrations and index. Funk, Casimir. The Vitamines. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1922. Covers many aspects of vitamin research of the time. A source of extensive developmental information on nutrition, containing about sixteen hundred references on basic research on the vitamins and vitamin deficiency diseases. The many references to McCollum’s research indicate McCollum’s influence and research versatility in nutrition. McCollum, Elmer V. From Kansas Farm Boy to Scientist. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1964. A charming autobiography that describes McCollum’s life and his research efforts in the study of vitamins, trace minerals, and other aspects of nutrition. Reveals the inner thoughts of a brilliant, sensitive man who was a great scientist. _______. A History of Nutrition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. An interesting book on the development of nutrition science covering the period from the mideighteenth century to 1940. Especially valuable for readers who wish to trace the evolution of the science and those who are interested in details on the development of the understanding of the nature and roles of vitamins. _______. The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1922. Covers many aspects
Izaak Walton League Is Formed of nutrition around 1920. Discusses vitamins, foods, appropriate diets, analysis of foods, vitamin deficiency diseases, and many other topics. Contains many references to the contributions of McCollum’s group, but also provides full, fair coverage of the efforts of others. Smith, Emil L., et al. Principles of Biochemistry. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983. Excellent biochemistry textbook includes details on many aspects of the roles of calcium, vitamin D, and other calcium-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 regulating substances on biological processes. Provides many references for those who wish more technical information. See also: 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi; 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins; 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food; 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
January, 1922
Izaak Walton League Is Formed The Izaak Walton League of America was one of the first national conservation organizations to promote the preservation of wildlife habitat, wilderness, and water quality. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions; natural resources Key Figures Will H. Dilg (1869-1926), American advertising executive, sportsman, and conservationist Kenneth A. Reid (1895-1956), American conservationist Emerson Hough (1857-1923), American author and conservationist Summary of Event In January, 1922, Will H. Dilg, a Chicago advertising executive and avid sportsman, founded the Izaak Walton League of America (IWL), one of the first national conservation organizations concerned with wildlife protection and water pollution. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the IWL pressed for state and federal legislation to create wildlife refuges, fishing and hunting bag limits, and pollution control statutes. The performance of the IWL during this period served as a model for environmental groups for the remainder of the twentieth century. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the purpose of hunting and fishing in the United States shifted from primarily food-gathering activities to outdoor recreation, especially for the growing populations in large cities. Between 1910 and 1920, for example, the number of licensed sportsmen doubled, from six to twelve million. This expansion reflected the growing affluence of 1760
Americans, the beginning of shorter workweeks and paid vacations, the personal mobility provided by automobiles, and the yearnings of individuals living in urban environments to experience more natural settings and ways of life. The rise of outdoor recreation, however, caused a rapid decline in wildlife populations and put pressure on existing recreation areas. In addition, the nation’s growing population and industry produced high volumes of pollution that degraded water quality and killed wildlife. Dilg founded the IWL to address such environmental concerns and to promote the protection of the nation’s natural heritage, to preserve it for Americans’ enjoyment of outdoor recreation. The organization was named for Sir Izaak Walton, a seventeenth century English philosopher and writer. Walton’s The Compleat Angler: Or, The Contemplative Man’s Recreation (1653) is considered one of the great books on the philosophical value of fishing and human beings’ relationship with nature. The IWL’s first chapters were located primarily in the central United States. By 1927, the organization consisted of nearly three thousand chapters in forty-three states, with a total of approximately one hundred thousand members. Local chapters served as clubs—gathering spots where sportsmen could discuss hunting, fishing, and related issues. Represented in the IWL’s membership were people from most walks of life, including politicians, professionals, and business leaders. Individual chapters planned outings, presented films and other entertainment, sponsored speakers, and also involved members in conservation activities, such as fish stocking, stream maintenance, and landscape improvement. The organization’s magazine, Outdoor America, kept the members informed of their shared efforts as “De-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
vast membership, the organization monitored local stream conditions and pressed for improved water quality within individual states. On the national level, the IWL pressured agencies such as the U.S. Public Health Service and the Army Corps of Engineers for action. In Congress, the league lobbied for the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1924, the first federal legislation designed to prevent the use of an industrial pollutant. In the 1930’s, IWL executive director Kenneth A. Reid became one of the country’s leading advocates of the prevention of stream pollution. He wrote numerous essays, delivered speeches, and lobbied Congress and state legislatures. Reid’s efforts helped to secure water laws in several states and served to encourage the federal government to expand its involvement in pollution issues. Federally conducted surveys of water quality in the 1930’s and 1940’s, such as Water Pollution in the United States (1939) and the Ohio River Pollution Control Survey (1944), and other federal studies resulted in part from Reid’s efforts and the influence of the IWL. These surveys provided the rationale for projects financed by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s Works Progress Administration. Federal programs constructed hundreds of sewer systems and sealed thousands of pollution-producing mines in the Appalachian coal regions. After World War II, the IWL pushed Congress to pass the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, the first pollution legislation designed to promote a working relationship between the federal and state governments. The IWL also pressured businesses to manage water pollution created by industrial processes, but in this effort it met with limited success. Many IWL members were prominent business leaders, however, so the league’s antipollution efforts did have some influence on the disposition of industry toward the issue of responsibility for water quality. Significance Outdoor recreation and conservation groups existed in the United States before the IWL. For example, the Boone and Crockett Club, the “club of American hunting riflemen” founded by Theodore Roosevelt, and the Sierra Club, cofounded by John Muir, called attention to the nation’s wildlife and natural landscape in the late nineteenth century. These groups, however, directed their influence toward select issues, such as hunting or the protection of the Sierra Nevada in California. Often, too, these groups had conflicting philosophical approaches, with some advocating “multiple use” of the nation’s woodlands and streams and others favoring the 1761
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fenders of Woods, Waters, and Wildlife.” In its first issue (August, 1922), editor Emerson Hough cited water pollution as the most urgent problem threatening the American people and exhorted members to stop the destruction taking place in the nation’s streams. Outdoor America articles sought to educate IWL members on subjects relevant to outdoor recreation, wildlife, and water pollution. Articles concerning water pollution discussed such topics as effects of pollutants, damage to wildlife habitat, and legal and political aspects of pollution control. Through Outdoor America, the IWL marshaled members into a politically active force. Under Dilg’s leadership, the organization attained enough national influence to persuade the U.S. Congress to create the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge in 1924. This action protected marshes and wetlands in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The Upper Mississippi refuge was among the first of many wildlife areas across the country secured in part through the efforts of the IWL and other conservation organizations. Another early IWL-supported wilderness area, the Superior Roadless Area, covered nearly 1.3 million acres in the Superior National Forest. When it was created in 1930, it was one of the first and largest primitive areas designated by an act of Congress. In the 1920’s, the IWL and other conservation organizations promoted the establishment of bag limits on waterfowl. These efforts were made primarily at the state level, but they also affected hunting on federal lands. In many areas of the country, duck and geese populations had been reduced dramatically because no limits existed on the number of animals any given hunter could take. In a fight that required considerable effort, outdoor conservation and recreation groups successfully pressured state governments to establish limits—usually ten a day—on the number of birds that one hunter could legally kill, thus helping to maintain populations for future hunting. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the IWL supported the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC recruited young, unemployed men to build trails, roads, and campgrounds, to clean streams, and, in general, to improve the conditions of the nation’s woodlands and waterways. The program proved to be beneficial as a work-relief measure and as a means of improving access to the country’s outdoor recreation areas. The CCC introduced thousands of urbanites to the pleasures of the American landscape and the value of conservation. The IWL also promoted the adoption of clean-streams programs on both state and federal levels. Through its
Izaak Walton League Is Formed
Izaak Walton League Is Formed preservation of wild areas, keeping them free from development but open for recreation. The IWL was different in that it brought outdoor enthusiasts and conservationists together into one organization that addressed environmental questions both on a national scale and locally. While the league championed the protection of wilderness areas, its leadership also realized that development was necessary for the economic prosperity of the country. The IWL proposed managed conservation that included pollution abatement and a wilderness system that would protect significant watersheds for fish and waterfowl. This approach reflected the individual concerns of the group’s members, but with an eye toward overarching environmental issues. The IWL educated outdoor enthusiasts about problems concerning wildlife, landscape degradation, and pollution. In doing so, the league involved a wide variety of citizens in conservation questions. Many early members joined the organization to share recreational interests and then discovered the connection between those activities and clean water and a healthy landscape. The IWL’s ability to organize a vast membership in nearly every state gave it considerable power to influence state and federal government policy. Environmental organizations that emerged in the 1960’s and later followed the model created by the IWL in the 1920’s and 1930’s, building large grassroots followings that could be marshaled into strong political forces. The preservation of wilderness lands is an important example of the IWL conservation legacy. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the value of preserving large sections of the landscape has been a topic of government policy debate in the United States, producing conflicts over the economic importance of resource extraction and over the rights of state governments versus federal authority. The IWL came into existence at the beginnings of the wilderness debate and has remained a force in efforts to preserve pristine domains. In the mid1950’s, the IWL, in association with the Wilderness Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Sierra Club, promoted the creation of a national wilderness system. These actions led to the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which withdrew from development 9.1 million primitive acres of U.S. Forest Service lands. Another important function of the IWL, both in its early years and as it continues to operate in the twentyfirst century, has been conservation education. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Outdoor America targeted members of the local chapters whose primary interests centered on protecting fishing and hunting grounds; this publication 1762
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 continues to provide information on league activities concerning the environment. In 1968, the IWL established the Save Our Streams (SOS) program, which educates elementary and high school students about issues concerning water quality. In 1994, SOS involved nearly ten thousand individuals in various educational activities across the United States. As of 2005, the IWL’s membership stood at approximately fifty thousand. The original members of the IWL joined because they enjoyed outdoor recreational activities, and as they became involved in issues of conservation and protection of water quality, they produced significant changes in American attitudes and policies concerning the natural environment. The Izaak Walton League was one of the first important conservation groups to attract a large membership that worked to protect the quality of the American wilderness. — Nicholas A. Casner Further Reading Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Follows the creation of the U.S. wilderness system up to the 1980’s. Presents political arguments and shows how conservation groups have often disagreed about the meaning and value of “wilderness.” A good account of the motivations of those involved and the political compromises made. Dunlap, Thomas R. Saving America’s Wildlife. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Discussion of wildlife and the beginning of wildlife policy from the late nineteenth century to the 1980’s. Illustrates how myths associated with animal life in the United States served as a force for social and political change. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Classic historic assessment of the Progressive conservation movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Hornaday, William T. Thirty Years War for Wild Life. 1931. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1970. An early work on wildlife conservation from a noted enthusiast. Describes the destruction of game animals and the efforts by sportsmen’s groups to persuade Congress to develop progressive policies. Provides valuable insight into the temperament of the era as well as information on the founding of the Izaak Walton League, bag limits, establishment of game refuges, and government policies. Huth, Hans. Nature and the American: Three Centuries
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of Changing Attitudes. Rev. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Examines perceptions of the American landscape from the colonial era to the mid-twentieth century. Discusses culture, science, and public policy in ways that reveal the American public’s attitudes toward and relationship with nature. Suggests that American conservation ideals have been exported around the world. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness. Begins with the earliest days of European contact. Reiger, John F. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. 3d ed. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2000. Argues that sportsmen initiated the conservation movement by establishing a code of conduct that protected landscape and wildlife habitat. Offers a particularly good assessment of the emergence of nineteenth century hunting and fishing periodicals. Includes an extensive bibliography. Scarpino, Philip V. Great River: An Environmental History of the Upper Mississippi, 1890-1950. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985. Examines the history of the headwaters of the Mississippi and the im-
pact of industrialization on the river. Discusses the work of federal agencies such as the Bureau of Fisheries as well as the Izaak Walton League and the struggle for wildlife refuges. Reviews conservationists’ efforts to involve the federal government in water-pollution abatement. Trefethen, James B. An American Crusade for Wildlife. New York: Winchester Press, 1975. Published in association with the Boone and Crockett Club. Presents the history of American wildlife from the perspective of a prominent conservation activist. Describes the growth of outdoor recreation and its consequences as well as the rise of conservation groups such as the Izaak Walton League. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park.
1922
February, 1922 READER’S DIGEST
Reader’s Digest Is Founded
Is Founded
By condensing high-quality articles and information from a variety of sources, Reader’s Digest carved a niche in the highly competitive media market and became the world’s most widely read periodical. Locale: New York, New York Category: Publishing and journalism Key Figures DeWitt Wallace (1889-1981), American editor and publisher Lila Bell Acheson (1889-1984), American editor and publisher Summary of Event Several high-quality magazines and newspapers were published in the United States prior to World War I, but the majority of Americans lacked the time to read and the money to purchase the wide variety of publications available to them each month. In addition, a number of maga-
zines were unavailable to the general public, as they were obtainable only in libraries. Believing that American readers could benefit from access to scaled-down versions of such publications, DeWitt Wallace and his wife, Lila Bell Acheson, founded Reader’s Digest, a magazine that grew to become the world’s most widely read publication. Wallace began a hobby of clipping and editing (or “digesting”) articles from magazines while in college. He read through numerous publications looking for interesting articles and then edited the material down to highlight the main points. He found that he could retain the theme or main point of an article while eliminating many of the details. After college, Wallace entered the publishing business, going to work at the Webb Publishing Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. World War I cut short any plans Wallace had for pursuing his career, however. Later, while recovering from shrapnel wounds incurred in combat in France, he dove into his dream. He wanted to start a monthly magazine designed to high1763
Reader’s Digest Is Founded light, in condensed, digested form, the wealth of information available to readers. He used his time in the hospital to select and edit articles from numerous publications, aided by the fact that many publishers provided free copies of magazines to soldiers. He looked for articles with inspirational and constructive content, reflecting his Presbyterian background, and selected those that contained elements of “lasting interest.” Upon his return to the United States, Wallace devoted himself to finding a publisher for his digest, hoping that when he did, the publisher would keep him on as editor. He created a dummy issue of Reader’s Digest dated January, 1920, that included articles from Woman’s Home Companion, The New Republic, and Vanity Fair and then canvassed the publishing industry. He received only one positive comment, that the magazine might make a profit of five thousand dollars per year. No publisher, however, would back his efforts. Undaunted by this lack of support, Wallace continued to digest articles and look for means to get his idea out to the public. He compiled numerous mailing lists and sent circulars to friends as well as to teachers, nurses, and others, hoping to sell charter subscriptions for his time-saving and economical magazine. He targeted working women because he believed they would appreciate the timesaving quality of the magazine. On October 15, 1921, Wallace married Lila Bell Acheson. In one last effort to launch the magazine, the couple mailed more than one thousand circulars on their wedding day. They returned from their honeymoon to find fifteen hundred charter subscriptions at three dollars each. Reader’s Digest was born. Volume 1, number 1, of Reader’s Digest was dated February, 1922. It opened with “How to Keep Young Mentally” and contained, as it stated, “An article a day from leading magazines in condensed, permanent booklet form.” Printed on cheap paper, it had no color, no illustrations, and no advertisements. Subscription holders became charter members of the Reader’s Digest Association, with the magazine provided as a “service” to them. Wallace and Acheson headed the publication as cofounders, coeditors, and co-owners. Acheson kept her maiden name on the masthead until 1938. The magazine’s subscription base grew dramatically. Continued mailings of circulars and word-of-mouth publicity increased the demand for the magazine throughout its early years. Wallace worked at the New York Public Library to save money on the magazines that provided material. The couple lived and worked in a small apartment over a garage in Greenwich Village. By the end of 1922, their work on the magazine had become too big for 1764
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 their apartment, and they moved to Pleasantville, about forty miles north of New York City. Wallace remained aware that his magazine relied on material that was produced in other publications. He wrote to publishers and editors, asking for permission to reprint from their magazines. Many publishers saw the publicity benefits of this use of their material and gladly gave their permission. One reluctant voice came from George Horace Lorimer of the Saturday Evening Post, which had a standing order that reprint permission was not given for article excerpts of more than five hundred words. Wallace, undaunted by the challenge, made a personal visit to Lorimer and so impressed him that Lorimer made an exception to the rule. Reader’s Digest was able to grow and profit because of the generosity of the editors and publishers who allowed Wallace to condense their works free of charge. He never forgot that generosity. By the 1930’s, as the magazine began to show a profit, he started sending money to surprised editors for the articles he used. This friendly relationship with other publications stemmed from the fact that Reader’s Digest was available only through subscriptions sold as a service to members; the source magazines were not in direct newsstand competition with it. Increased competition in the industry, however, led Wallace to arrange for S-M News Company to sell single copies of Reader’s Digest at retail outlets beginning in 1929. This led some magazine publishers to resist having their contents reprinted. Wallace quickly turned the situation around by emphasizing the publicity the source magazines received. His efforts resulted in exclusive reprint rights from thirty-five leading American magazines. Significance Following World War I, numerous new publications began disseminating a flood of information across the United States. Magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and Fortune, for example, started soon after the war. It was during this period of growth that Reader’s Digest was founded. By the 1930’s, the digest was well established, with circulation reaching almost 2.5 million by 1937. The early editorial staff of Reader’s Digest came from a variety of disciplines. It was not until 1930 that the first professional editors came on board. After that time, editors included Ivy League graduates and former editors of such publications as American Mercury and The New Republic. Original articles, rather than only condensed versions of previously published articles, began to appear in 1933. At the same time, special departments, which later became regular features, developed from reader materi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and a short motion picture was made concerning highway safety. A comic strip geared toward young drivers appeared, and reprints of the article were given to motorists at tollbooths and at driver licensing bureaus. Most important, transportation agencies established task forces and committees to work for improved highway conditions. How Americans drove was brought to their attention; one study concluded that accidents fell by 13 percent soon after the article appeared in Reader’s Digest. Within three months, the article went through more than four million reprints. This article began the magazine’s reputation for public service. Later articles on medical and employment issues, among others, also called for action. Taking the American success of Reader’s Digest to other countries and into other languages proved to be another important move for the publication. Barclay Acheson, Lila’s brother, guided Reader’s Digest as head of the international editions until his death in 1957. He helped move the magazine beyond American borders as foreign editions developed. In 1938, a British version became the first foreign edition. In 1940, a Spanishlanguage edition was published, and others followed in French, German, Italian, Arabic, and Chinese. By the 1980’s, more than 160 countries and sixteen languages were represented by various editions. These editions stimulated the economies of the countries in which they were published, through the business they provided editorial and printing facilities, while they also served as interpreters of American life. Through its pages, Reader’s Digest displayed the morality, hopes, and concerns of the American public to the rest of the world as an unofficial ambassador. In addition, Braille editions (the first in 1928) and talking records opened the magazine’s pages to the blind and visually impaired. Despite their successes, the Wallaces worked within the publishing industry and so were subject to its problems. During the 1940’s, circulation of Reader’s Digest had climbed to more than nine million, with the cover price still at twenty-five cents, the 1922 cost. Paper, printing, and postal expenses, however, had skyrocketed. In 1954, the magazine faced a deficit of more than a million dollars. The options were to increase the cover price or to accept advertising. Wallace took the debate to his “members,” the readers, and more than 81 percent favored the acceptance of advertising. In April, 1955, Reader’s Digest began including thirty-two pages of advertising in each issue, with strict rules against ads for liquor, tobacco, and medical remedies. Charging $31,000 for a full-color page, the highest ad rate of any magazine, the Wallaces expected marginal sales. Instead, they sold 1765
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als. These included “Life in These United States” and “Drama in Everyday Life.” The Wallaces expanded the magazine to 128 pages and added condensed books to their publications a year later. By 1939, the magazine’s staff had grown to fill a new $1.5 million office building in Chappaqua, New York. The successful digest format used by the Wallaces was imitated throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. Titles such as Negro Digest, Catholic Digest, and Children’s Digest appeared. Reader’s Digest set the standard for editing, and these other magazines found success by targeting their articles to specific groups. In addition to setting a standard within the publishing industry, Reader’s Digest also set standards as an employer. Writers received a monthly stipend to keep them on retainer, and editors were consulted about the future of the magazine. Employees were paid well and received good benefits, such as vacation time, profit sharing, and medical insurance. Retirement programs were a key benefit. Added compensation in these forms was unusual in a country facing the Great Depression. The Wallaces, however, sought to create a positive working environment in terms of both benefits and aesthetics. Lila Wallace decorated the grounds of the office building to be soothing to the eye, and the corporate offices featured artworks by the masters. The editorial policy that Wallace established for himself when he was first choosing articles remained intact as the magazine grew. Articles for consideration should be quotable, applicable, and “of lasting interest” to readers. Material was edited with the average reader, not a specialized audience, in mind. Jokes, at first used only as filler, became an integral part of the publication. Although Reader’s Digest contained no editorial pages, within its covers attacks were waged on expansive government, big business, and advertising. Wallace, although an avid smoker himself, recognized the importance of public awareness concerning the dangers of cigarette smoking. Reader’s Digest therefore spoke against the practice. The magazine also had the power to persuade positively—an article about a Connecticut housewife and her baking helped Pepperidge Farms to enter the food market. Perhaps the most phenomenal effect ever brought about by a magazine occurred with the August, 1935, issue of Reader’s Digest, which included an original piece by J. C. Furnas titled “—And Sudden Death.” This graphic and realistic depiction of highway accidents spoke to American readers. The article was reprinted in whole or in part in virtually every large U.S. newspaper. Radio programs and civic groups devoted entire events to the topic,
Reader’s Digest Is Founded
Reader’s Digest Is Founded several million dollars’ worth of ad space, proving that the magazine could maintain its integrity concerning certain practices. As a result, the magazine expanded to 216 glossy pages with full-color illustrations. The Wallaces were not content to work solely on the monthly publication, and they expanded their business throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, even as other publications such as Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post succumbed to competition. In 1950, they began the Condensed Book Club, drawing more than five million subscribers. Records, textbooks, and school readers as well as dictionaries and almanacs with the Reader’s Digest name also appeared in the 1950’s. A complete history and geography, These United States, came out in 1968 after the Reader’s Digest Association purchased Funk & Wagnalls in 1965. The 1960’s also saw the introduction of the successful Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes. Other publications made money by selling their subscription lists to outside businesses for promotions, but the Wallaces maintained strict control over their lists and used them only for internal purposes and promotions. This practice stemmed from their initial stance that subscribers were members of their association and the magazine was a service to them. By the 1960’s, the Wallaces turned their attention to the coming decades. Advancing age left them with the task of finding a successor to oversee their successful publication. In 1964, Hobart D. Lewis filled the newly created position of president; he later became the magazine’s first editor in chief, in 1969. The Wallaces left the publication in the early 1970’s, turning it over to Lewis’s direction. They maintained their ties to Reader’s Digest throughout their later years, however, as they continued their philanthropic work in support of education and the arts, especially New York City’s Metropolitan Museum. Reader’s Digest maintained its position as the mostread magazine in the world throughout the twentieth century. By the early 1990’s, more than nineteen million copies were coming off the presses each month. International editions increased the total to more than twenty-eight million. Only TV Guide and Parade, two weekly publications, had monthly totals that were higher. Readers remained loyal, with a subscription renewal rate that fluctuated from 64 to 80 percent, almost double the industry average. Although in subsequent years readership in the United States declined, to about twelve to thirteen million copies per month in the early 2000’s, Reader’s Digest remained the most popular general magazine published in the United States. Unlike the majority of American magazines, which rely on specific readership 1766
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 bases, Reader’s Digest cut across socioeconomic boundaries for its success. Historians have referred to Reader’s Digest as the “common denominator” of American life. —Jennifer Davis Further Reading Abrahamson, David. Magazine-Made America: The Cultural Transformation of the Postwar Periodical. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 1996. Focuses on changes in the American magazine industry since World War II, particularly the 1960’s. Examines the reasons for the decline of general-interest publications and the rise of specialized periodicals aimed at narrow audiences. Bainbridge, John. Little Wonder: Or, The Reader’s Digest and How It Grew. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946. Expanded version of a 1945 article that appeared in The New Yorker discusses the history of Reader’s Digest during its first twenty-three years. Amusing account analyzes the magazine’s methods, subject matter, and format and concludes that its stupendous success resulted from the optimism and dogmatism of Wallace himself. Cheever, Benjamin H. “Bad Days in Pleasantville.” The Nation 250 (May 7, 1990): 628-631. Laments the change in Reader’s Digest since 1984, when the original owners died and the organization was taken over by George Grune, who slashed worker benefits and gave himself an enormous salary, all in the name of running a profitable business in the savage style of the 1980’s. Peterson, Theodore. Magazines in the Twentieth Century. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964. The standard history of U.S. magazines. A wellresearched and detailed look at the popular magazines on the market. An excellent reference work. Rovit, Earl. “Modernism and Three Magazines: An Editorial Revolution.” Sewanee Review 93 (Fall, 1985): 540-553. A study of Wallace and Reader’s Digest, Henry R. Luce and Time, and Harold Ross and The New Yorker. Argues that all three magazines sprang from a common 1920’s impulse that contradicts the notion that the “lost generation” writers were emblematic of the period. Schreiner, Samuel, Jr. The Condensed World of the “Reader’s Digest.” New York: Stein & Day, 1977. Former Reader’s Digest editor labels the magazine’s optimism excessive and its style bland. Asserts that Wallace ran the magazine in a paternalistic manner and criticizes some of the magazine’s practices, such as the ghostwriting of articles for famous people. Also
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 praises the magazine for its professionalism and commitment to accuracy and the Wallaces for their philanthropic endeavors. Sharp, Joanne P. Condensing the Cold War: “Reader’s Digest” and American Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Examines how Reader’s Digest, with its vast readership, influenced the thinking of the American public in regard to the threat of communism during the Cold War period. Taft, William H. American Magazines for the 1980s. New York: Hastings House, 1982. A well-researched look at the magazine industry as it entered the 1980’s and faced increased competition from other media. Categorizes magazine titles by interest and genre and discusses the entire industry’s advertising, publishing, and distribution networks. Tebbel, John, and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. The Magazine in America, 1741-1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Provides a good understanding of the effect the magazine industry has had on the American public. Discusses how magazines have changed with the times and why some have succeeded while others have failed.
Wood, James Playsted. Magazines in the United States. 3d ed. New York: Ronald Press, 1971. Considered to be one of the definitive studies of the magazine industry. Provides social and economic information on magazines and follows the industry’s leaders. Chapter 18, “Common Denominator,” presents a detailed history of Reader’s Digest. _______. Of Lasting Interest: The Story of “Reader’s Digest.” Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967. An outgrowth of forty articles in the Christian Science Monitor written with the full support of Reader’s Digest. Highly laudatory and colorful account examines many different facets of the magazine, including its founding, original articles, editorial research and process, subject matter, international editions, advertising, and circulation. Includes photographs. See also: Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
Redefines Modern Fiction
Criteria of fictional form, orthodoxies of fictional content, and conventions of literary taste were revolutionized by the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, one of the twentieth century’s most controversial literary works. Locale: Paris, France Category: Literature Key Figures James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish writer Sylvia Beach (1887-1962), American publisher and owner of a Paris bookstore Ezra Pound (1885-1972), American poet and cultural entrepreneur Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876-1961), English philanthropist Summary of Event Not only does the conception of the twentieth century’s most influential work of prose fiction owe a good deal to tales of mythological wanderings—it is based in part on
Homer’s Odyssey (c. 725 b.c.e.; English translation, 1614)—but the story of its execution has also acquired semimythological trappings. These, too, have to do with origins and survival, with wartime dislocations and the travail of exile, with steadfastness and luck. Such is the status of James Joyce as an embodiment of the artist that it seems almost natural that he should, as he said, have felt attracted to the character of Odysseus while still a schoolboy and that he should have used the title “Ulysses” in the first place for a short story that he planned to add to his collection Dubliners (1914). That story drew on the author’s experience and memory of his native city and pivoted (as the novel Ulysses would if it possessed anything so conventional as a plot) around a cuckold and his unfaithful wife. Morever, because Ulysses includes the autobiographical protagonist Stephen Dedalus from Joyce’s first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), a case can be made that Ulysses represents to some degree a thematic coalition and an artistic transcendence of Joyce’s early works. The peculiar degree of integrity with which both Joyce’s life and writ1767
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February 2, 1922 Joyce’s ULYSSES
Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction
Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction ings are invested can make it seem that the whole of his life was a rehearsal for the publication of Ulysses. Perhaps something of Joyce’s own awareness of this book’s status in his life is reflected on his superstitious insistence that Ulysses be published on his fortieth birthday. Bringing the book to publication was an epic feat carried out on various levels by a number of people. Joyce began writing Ulysses in 1914 in Trieste, a city that was then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and is now in Italy), where he was employed as a teacher of English. The onset of World War I, however, required the writer and his family to flee to neutral territory, which brought them to Zurich, Switzerland. It was there that the conception of Ulysses matured and that substantial amounts of the manuscript initially took shape. Joyce’s work on the book was greatly facilitated by the financial support of Harriet Shaw Weaver, an English philanthropist on whose generosity Joyce continued to rely for the rest of his life. Encouragement also came from the sustained attentions of the American poet Ezra Pound, who had already been instrumental in arranging the serialization of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1914-1915. The Zurich Ulysses began serialization in The Little Review.
James Joyce. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 It is necessary to distinguish between what appeared in The Little Review and the Ulysses published in book form. Part of the drama of the publication of Ulysses, and the source of the many controversies surrounding the state and status of the work’s various manuscripts and typescripts, arises from the fact that Joyce composed much of the text when it was in the galley-proof stage. Part of the novel’s notoriety, in terms of both its difficulty and its alleged obscenity, was the result of its serialization, which was eventually discontinued by court order—the first of the work’s numerous encounters with the law. In view of its reputation for complexity and poor taste, and given Joyce’s early history of difficulty with publishers, finding a publisher for Ulysses was no easy task, and the decision to issue the work in book form remains notable as one that required courage and enlightenment. This decision was made by Sylvia Beach, an American who owned and operated a bookstore in Paris, named Shakespeare and Company, that provided a focus for both the artistic avant-garde and the expatriate literary community. Not a publisher as such, Beach showed a good deal of enterprise in ensuring the eventual completion of the text, the location of a printer, and the delivery of the book in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. Delivery was complicated by the fact that the printer was located in Lyons, in central France, and publication was to some extent hampered by the fact that none of the printer’s typesetters knew English—although this may have been an advantage, given the work’s verbal innovations. The combination of energy, dedication, good fortune, perseverance, and enterprise—along with the somewhat unlikely international community that provided these qualities—makes the story of the making of Ulysses a peculiarly human one. Such an emphasis is consistent with the work’s significance. Composed while Europe was engaged in a war that would have profound repercussions for the continent’s culture and heritage, Joyce’s work represents an alternative set of engagements. These denote an attempt to rehabilitate the European tradition by restructuring a story that is one of its keystones, Homer’s Odyssey, in such a way as to speak to contemporary civilization. Homer’s story has its origin in war, but it much more crucially confronts issues of aftermath and reconstitution. Joyce’s adaptation subtly, persistently, and skeptically addresses similar issues. In addition, the distinctive presence of Joyce himself has an exemplary force in the saga that produced Ulysses. Joyce overcame critical neglect, artistic isolation,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and periods of abject poverty, uncertainty, and ill health, and his achievement is rather more than the sum of the parts that compose the seven years’ effort that went into the work. As though to exemplify the Odyssean qualities of “silence, exile and cunning” with which Joyce’s fictional alter ego Stephen Dedalus identified, the author’s dedication to his art has become synonymous not only with individual integrity but also with the resources of the imagination in the face of the dislocations of historical reality. Such an example, articulated with rare imaginative freedom and critical intelligence, makes the publication of Ulysses a landmark in the development of a distinctively twentieth century sensibility.
A Letter to the Editor In Ulysses, Joyce represented scenes from ordinary and intimate conjugal life, leading to the novel’s censorship. Not until 1933 did a U.S. court rule that the book was not obscene and could be published in the United States. Instrumental in that process was Random House publisher Bennett A. Cerf, to whom Joyce addressed this letter in April, 1932: Dear Mr. Cerf: I thank you very much for your message conveyed to me by Mr. Robert Kastor. You ask me for the details of the story of the publication of Ulysses and since you are determined to fight for its legalisation in the United States . . . I think it just as well to tell you the history of its publication. . . . You are surely well aware of the difficulties I found in publishing anything I wrote from the very first volume of prose I attempted to publish: Dubliners. Publishers and printers alike seemed to agree among themselves, no matter how divergent their points of view were in other matters, not to publish anything of mine as I wrote it. No less than twenty-two publishers and printers read the manuscript of Dubliners and when at last it was printed some very kind person bought out the entire edition and had it burnt in Dublin—a new and private auto-da-fé. Without the collaboration of the Egoist Press Ltd. London, conducted by Miss Harriet Weaver, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man might still be in manuscript. You can well imagine that when I came to Paris in the summer of 1920 with the voluminous manuscript of Ulysses I stood even slenderer chances of finding a publisher on account of its suppression after the publication of the eleventh episode in the Little Review. . . . My friend Ezra Pound and good luck brought me into contact with a very clever and energetic person Miss Sylvia Beach who had been running for some years previously a small English bookshop and lending library in Paris under the name of Shakespeare and Co. This brave woman risked what professional publishers did not wish to, she took the manuscript and handed it to the printers . . . and the first printed copy was sent to me for my fortieth birthday on the second of February 1922. . . . The continental publication of Ulysses proved however to be merely the beginning of complications in the United Kingdom and the United States [where] all copies were seized and burnt by the Custom authorities of New York and Folkstone. This created a very peculiar situation. On the one hand I was unable to acquire the copyright in the United States since I could not comply with the requirements of the American copyright law which demands the republication in the United States of any English book published elsewhere . . . and on the other hand the demand for Ulysses . . . gave the opportunity for any unscrupulous person to have it printed and sold clandestinely. . . . Personally I will be very gratified if your enterprise is successful as it will permit American readers . . . to obtain the authenticated text of my book without running the risk of helping some unscrupulous person in his purpose of making profit for himself alone out of the work of another. . . . Source: Reprinted in Ulysses, 2d ed. (New York: Random House, 1934).
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Significance The publication of Ulysses in 1922 decisively influenced the conception of what literature might represent and achieve. In that sense, the novel is a work that is at the heart of the aesthetic revolution that occurred in the West between 1880 and 1930, a revolution that affected every area of artistic endeavor. More for the sake of convenience than for reasons of accuracy or clarity, this revolution is known as modernism. Its cultural, historical, and philosophical origins and consequences continue to be analyzed and assessed, and its achievements in literature, painting, and music constitute an ongoing critical challenge. Ulysses is central to any consideration of what modernism, which is neither a school nor a program, might be thought to signify. The most obvious reason for the work’s status is its formal daring. The idea of a single piece of fiction being written not only in different styles but also in different forms, and of these differences being both valid and distinctive in their own right as well as, at another level, lending themselves to eventual coordination, was a radical departure from previous conceptions of fiction. Even Ezra Pound, commenting on the work’s complex later sequences, remarked brusquely, “New style per chapter not necessary.”
Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction
Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction Moreover, as though to reinforce the shock of the new that the form of Ulysses produced, Joyce also represented scenes from ordinary life that had previously been considered beneath the novelist’s gaze. These scenes basically deal with the intimacies of personal and conjugal life. So rarely had such realities been addressed in literature that the scenes in question were responsible for the novel’s reputation as a salacious production, dangerous to morals and good taste. That view of the work began to be reconsidered only after a U.S. district court ruled in 1933 that the book was not obscene and could be freely published in the United States, thereby guaranteeing the work access to a wide audience. While the notorious reputation may have earned Ulysses an unexpected audience, it also may have delayed reaction to the book’s intellectual achievements. The most obvious of these, consistent with the work’s overall daring, is its use of Homeric correspondences. Not only are events in Homer’s original adapted—the one-eyed cyclopean giant of the Odyssey becomes a monster of ideological single-mindedness in Ulysses—but also the spirit of the original is recommissioned, however eliptically and despite a marked degree of skepticism. The protagonist, Leopold Bloom, as Odysseus, is heroic not because of his extraordinary skills or exotic adventures but because of his persistence, integrity, and openness. Nothing human is alien to Bloom. Thus, in a paradox typical of Joyce’s vision, Bloom embodies the largeness of the little man, and his wanderings around Dublin exemplify the presence of universal tropes of experience within what appear to be strictly local and personal circumstances. Joyce, however, takes care not to patronize or sentimentalize his hero by making him of Jewish ancestry, thereby ensuring, among other things, that he will be perceived as an outsider, detached, vulnerable, and singular. Bloom thus may be perceived as modern man, sustained by nothing more than his own slightly comic doggedness and fragile yet resilient self-respect. In his treatment of the other major characters, Stephen Dedalus and Bloom’s wife, Molly, Joyce is equally unsparing—notoriously so in the case of Molly, who is portrayed with a degree of unromanticized earthiness unseen before Ulysses. One important reason the Blooms make such an impact is that more of them is made available to readers than is common in novels. Through Joyce’s development of the technique of stream of consciousness, the thoughts and thought structures of Leopold and Molly, and also to a lesser degree of Stephen Dedalus, are represented in all their uncensored unpredictability. The unmediated im1770
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mediacy with which these characters’ mental landscapes impinge on the reader creates an impression that Ulysses is not so much “about” something as it is a discrete entity in its own right. Joyce made of the text a world, and of the world a text. This world is present not merely in the work’s superficially forbidding frame of encyclopedic reference but also in the reader’s experience of its variety and scope. Equally radical is Joyce’s treatment of time in Ulysses. The fictional duration of Homer’s original work is condensed from ten years to less than twenty-four hours. The substitution of one sequence of waking hours for an epic span implicitly raises questions about the relative nature of the experience and perception of time. These questions receive detailed subtextual attention in the course of the work and also relate to more general cultural shifts introduced by a growing acceptance of the notion of relativity. Joyce’s conception of narrative time had a particularly enduring impact on some of the most significant of his literary successors in Europe and the United States, foremost among whom are William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, and Claude Simon. In addition, the condensation of epic time to what might be termed civic time expresses the mundane and constricted nature of the characters’ existence. The view in Ulysses of fragmented consciousness and humankind in the face of it hapless and impoverished is both acknowledged and redeemed. Despite their various constraints, the characters are not belittled. Against the odds, it seems, they constitute a fundamentally informal polity. Given this, and given the understanding that Joyce considered the work to be a comedy, Ulysses becomes what Stephen Dedalus terms, in a celebrated phrase, “the uncreated conscience of my race.” — George O’Brien Further Reading Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. 1959. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. Anecdotal autobiography of the original publisher of Ulysses devotes much attention to the author’s ownership of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris and to the literary luminaries who crossed her path there. The material on Joyce is fascinating, and the work as a whole will please the general reader. Budgen, Frank. James Joyce and the Making of “Ulysses.” 1933. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. Written in an accessible and unpretentious style by an English painter who first made Joyce’s acquaintance in Zurich when Ulysses was in
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Hart, Clive, and David Hayman, eds. James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: Critical Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Collection of eighteen essays, each by an eminent Joyce scholar and each devoted to one of the eighteen episodes in Ulysses. No overall or unified conception of Joyce’s work emerges, but a good number of the essays raise issues larger than their immediate occasion. Kenner, Hugh. Ulysses. Rev. ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Particularly helpful, as well as impressive, short study of Ulysses. Includes a brief but telling essay on Ulysses criticism and an annotated bibliography. Litz, A. Walton. The Art of James Joyce: Method and Design in “Ulysses” and “Finnegans Wake.” 1961. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Sophisticated introduction to some of the textual problems associated with Joyce’s masterpieces. In view of developments since this book’s original publication, the discussion of some of the different versions of Ulysses is particularly relevant. Provides fascinating insight into the evolution of an extremely complicated text. Intended for the serious student. Pound, Ezra. Pound/Joyce. Edited by Forrest Read. London: Faber, 1968. Collects in one volume both Ezra Pound’s numerous essays on Joyce’s works, which economically sketch one of the most influential acquaintanceships in the history of modernism, and the extensive correspondence between the two writers. Many of the letters have a direct bearing on the gestation, progress, and publication of Ulysses. See also: Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement; Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation; Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism.
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the making. Dwells largely on Joyce’s Zurich years, offering many rewarding insights into Joyce’s mind, art, and personal circumstances. Devlin, Kimberly J., and Marilyn Reizbaum, eds. “Ulysses”: En-gendered Perspectives—Eighteen New Essays on the Episodes. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999. Collection of critical essays written in the late twentieth century focuses on the concept and treatment of gender in each of the novel’s eighteen episodes. Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Revised edition raises to a further level of excellence a work (first published in 1959) that is not only the definitive Joyce biography but also a model of modern biographical scholarship. Draws directly on the words of many members of Joyce’s family and personal circle. Exhaustive in scope and judiciously sympathetic in tone. _______. Ulysses on the Liffey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. An intellectually elaborate discussion of Joyce’s various conceptions of form in Ulysses. Develops an overview based on “three propositions” that underwrite Ulysses. Concludes with charts delineating the organization of the book’s last six episodes; reproduces and compares Joyce’s two conceptual schemes for Ulysses. French, Marilyn. The Book as World: James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976. A sophisticated academic anatomy of Ulysses. Focuses primarily on the proliferation of narrative styles in Ulysses, but offers a wide-ranging discussion that deals with much more than stylistic concerns. Gibson, Andrew. Joyce’s Revenge: History, Politics, and Aesthetics in “Ulysses.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Examines the novel from a historical point of view, placing it in the context of AngloIrish relations—both cultural and political—in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction
Treaty of Rapallo
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 16, 1922
Treaty of Rapallo Germany and the Soviet Union, two countries isolated by the Western powers victorious in World War I, entered into a treaty that settled a number of postwar issues and signaled that both countries were willing to alter the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Also known as: German-Soviet alliance Locale: Rapallo, Italy Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures Joseph Wirth (1879-1956), chancellor of Germany, 1921-1922 Walther Rathenau (1867-1922), German foreign minister, 1922 Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin (1872-1936), Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, 1918-1930 Hans von Seeckt (1866-1936), commanding general of the Germany army’s Reichswehr, 1920-1926 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Summary of Event In 1919 the government of the newly formed Weimar Republic in Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I. Germany was required to pay significant reparations for war damages to the Allies; the governments of Britain, France, Italy, and the United States wanted to be sure that Germany would never be able to recover its military might and pose another threat to peace in Europe. At the same time, the Allies were systematically working to isolate the new Communist regime in Russia, whose draconian moves to nationalize industries and eliminate internal opposition had met with international opprobrium. The stage was set for the Soviet Union and Germany, once enemies, to seek some form of mutual cooperation as a means of returning to prominence in world affairs. That opportunity arose three years later. In late 1921, the Germans found themselves unable to meet their obligations, and they informed the Allies that they would be defaulting on scheduled payments. While the French government wished to exercise immediate reprisals against Germany, British prime minister David Lloyd George convinced the Allies to hold a conference in Genoa, Italy, beginning on April 10, 1922. Previous 1772
meetings to discuss Germany’s obligations had been held without that nation’s active participation; however, despite the strong reservations of French premier Raymond Poincaré, the Allies invited both Germany and Russia to be full participants in what was called the European Economic Conference. Lloyd George hoped that his attempt to reach out would improve political relations among European nations and promote more lasting economic stability on the Continent. The invitations surprised leaders in both Germany and Russia, whose political and military strategists had been discussing the feasibility of signing a bilateral agreement that would benefit both nations. Not convinced that the Allies would ever temper their harsh treatment of Germany, Chancellor Joseph Wirth allowed subordinates to convince him that a treaty with Germany’s traditional enemy to the east was necessary if his country were to recover from economic ruin. Nothing had been concluded between the two countries, however, when the German delegation left for Genoa. Wirth headed the delegation, which included Walther Rathenau, Germany’s foreign minister. During the first week at the conference, while Germany was treated with polite neglect, representatives of the Allies held secret meetings with Russia’s commissar for foreign affairs, Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin, to discuss a potential treaty between the Soviet government and the Allies that would exclude the Germans. Chicherin informed the Germans of the Allies’ offer and signaled his country’s willingness to enter into an agreement with Germany rather than sign a pact with the Allies. Armed with this information, on Easter Sunday of 1922, Rathenau met with the Soviets at the Italian city of Rapallo, near Genoa, to sign a treaty binding the two countries in a pact that stressed economic cooperation. By the terms of the Treaty of Rapallo, both countries renounced each other’s wartime reparations requirements and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918). Germany also agreed not to seek reparations from Russia for losses suffered by German citizens when the Communist government nationalized or expropriated a number of private industries after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This agreement was contingent on the Soviet government’s agreement to refuse to make such payments to citizens of other nations. Each country named the other a most favored nation for all commercial and trade relations. Most important, however, the treaty assured the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 resumption of diplomatic relations, a move that was especially important for the Communist government of Russia. German-Soviet relations had been severely strained in 1918, when the German ambassador was murdered in Moscow. The Allies were less alarmed by the public provisions of the treaty than by the rumors that the two countries had secretly agreed to engage in joint military operations. Even though both Chicherin and Wirth denied the existence of any secret agreements, the Allies were certain that such provisions existed. Technically, the two statesmen were accurate; there were no military codicils in the treaty signed at Rapallo. The truth, however, was that a separate secret agreement covering military cooperation had been drafted, and that document, known as the Provisional Trade Agreement, was signed in July of 1922. The chief advocate of this pact was General Hans von Seeckt, commander of the German army, who felt that Germany’s return to international prominence depended on
Treaty of Rapallo his country’s ability to reconstitute its military forces. Under the terms of this agreement, the Soviets began to help Germany in two important ways: by providing clandestine assistance as Germany rebuilt its army beyond the limits established by the Treaty of Versailles and by assisting the Germans as they re-created their air force, which had been eliminated by the treaty. The Allies were furious when they learned of the Treaty of Rapallo. Lloyd George felt he had been betrayed by the Soviets, and Poincaré immediately launched a tirade against the Germans, warning that France was ready to impose the terms of the Treaty of Versailles unilaterally if necessary. Poincaré followed through on his threat a year later, when he ordered French troops to occupy the Rhineland (in western Germany) after the Germans defaulted on payments for the second time. For their part, German politicians were pleased with their ability to stand up to the Allies, but German distrust for Russia ran strong in the country, and the populace ex-
Germany and the Soviet Union Reach an Accord The Treaty of Rapallo was a clear indication that Germany and the Soviet Union were frustrated by the West’s attempts at diplomatic isolation. Following are the treaty’s first three articles.
Article 2 Germany waives all claims against Russia which may have arisen through the application, up to the present, of the laws and measures of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic to German nationals or their private rights and the rights of the German Reich and states, and also claims which may have arisen owing to any other measures taken by the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic or by their agents against German nationals or the private rights, on condition that the government of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic does not satisfy claims for compensation of a similar nature made by a third Party. Article 3 Diplomatic and consular relations between the German Reich and the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic shall be resumed immediately. The conditions for the admission of the Consuls of both Parties shall be determined by means of a special agreement.
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Article 1 The two Governments are agreed that the arrangements arrived at between the German Reich and the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, with regard to questions dating from the period of war between Germany and Russia, shall be definitely settled upon the following basis: [a] The German Reich and the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic mutually agree to waive their claims for compensation for expenditure incurred on account of the war, and also for war damages, that is to say, any damages which may have been suffered by them and by their nationals in war zones on account of military measures, including all requisitions in enemy country. Both Parties likewise agree to forego compensation for any civilian damages, which may have been suffered by the nationals of the one Party on account of so-called exceptional war measures or on account of emergency measures carried out by the other Party. [b] Legal relations in public and private matters arising out of the state of war, including the question of the treatment of trading vessels which have fallen into the hands of either Party, shall be settled on a basis of reciprocity. [c] Germany and Russia mutually agree to waive their
claims for compensation for expenditure incurred by either party on behalf of prisoners of war. Furthermore the German Government agrees to forego compensation within regard to the expenditure incurred by it on behalf of members of the Red Army interned in Germany. The Russian Government agrees to forego the restitution of the proceeds of the sale carried out in Germany of the army stores brought into Germany by the interned members of the Red Army mentioned above.
Treaty of Rapallo pressed dismay at their government’s actions. Within months, a group of right-wing extremists used the treaty as an excuse to assassinate Rathenau, who was portrayed as the principal figure behind this rapprochement. Significance The immediate significance of the Treaty of Rapallo was the further strain it caused in relationships between the Germans and the Allies (who were already distrustful of the Weimar government). Officials in France were particularly bitter; they had felt all along that Germany was making excuses for not paying reparations agreed to under the terms of the Versailles treaty. For the signatories of the treaty, the new pact gave both a chance to show the world that they could conduct international relations in defiance of the Allies, which Germany and Russia viewed as the sources of draconian, isolating measures. The most important long-term impact of this treaty was to permit the two countries to operate as allies on commercial and military levels; without the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany would not have been able to sign the secret military agreements with Russia that allowed it to begin to rebuild its armed forces. That buildup continued steadily, if somewhat modestly, for a decade until Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Under his leadership, rearmament became a public matter. —Laurence W. Mazzeno Further Reading Eyck, Erich. A History of the Weimar Republic. Vol. 1. Translated by Harlan P. Hanson and Robert G. L. Waite. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Extensive discussion of the events that drove Germany to enter into a bilateral treaty with Russia; analyzes motives of German politicians and military leaders influential in approving the document. Feuchtwanger, E. J. From Weimar to Hitler: Germany, 1918-33. 2d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Stresses the economic reasons behind Germany’s decision to sign the treaty and the treaty’s impact on the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 German economy after Western retaliation against the pact between Russia and Germany. Heiber, Helmut. The Weimar Republic. Translated by W. E. Yuill. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1993. Concentrates on political maneuverings of the countries involved in settling issues related to Germany’s postwar reparations and on motives of British and French politicians who wished to keep Germany isolated and weak. Jacobson, Jon. When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Examines the treaty from the Soviet perspective, citing advantages Lenin gained at home and on the international stage through this bilateral agreement. London, Kurt, ed. The Soviet Union: A Half Century of Communism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965. Offers different assessments of the short- and long-term significance of the treaty for German-Soviet relations. Mommsen, Hans. The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Translated by Elborg Forster and Larry Eugene Jones. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Examines the political and economic background that led Germany and Russia to enter into the treaty and briefly examines its impact on world politics in the 1920’s. Nicholls, A. J. Weimar and the Rise of Hitler. 4th ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Surveys events leading up to the signing of the treaty and offers extensive analysis of its impact in Germany. See also: 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution; 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation; Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933; Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated
June, 1922
New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated The inauguration of a new large stadium at Wimbledon, England, allowed more spectators to enjoy tennis tournaments and helped to popularize tennis worldwide. Also known as: All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club Locale: Wimbledon, England Category: Sports Key Figures George V (1865-1936), king of England, r. 1910-1936 Suzanne Lenglen (1899-1938), French tennis player Gerald Patterson (1895-1967), Australian tennis player
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Summary of Event The largest-capacity tennis facility in the world was opened in Wimbledon, England, in 1922, in the culmination of what had already been a long history of tennis tournaments at Wimbledon. The All England Croquet Club was established in 1868 on Worple Road in Wimbledon, a community near London. In 1875, because the club was losing members, lawn tennis was added to the club’s offerings. Tennis became so popular that the name of the club was changed in 1877 to the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. To celebrate the name change, a tennis tournament was held. In that initial men’s singles tournament, Spencer Gore overcame twenty-one other entrants. Approximately two hundred spectators paid a shilling each to watch the tournament finale, producing more income than the club had hoped to raise to purchase a new roller to maintain its lawns. Tennis had become so popular at the club by 1882 that the word “croquet” was dropped from the name. However, it was restored in 1899, primarily for reasons of maintaining tradition; the organization then became known as the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The tournament, which became an annual event, expanded in 1879 with the addition of men’s doubles, and again in 1884 with the addition of a separate tournament for ladies’ singles competition; the first woman singles winner was Maud Watson. Women’s doubles competition was added in 1913, as was a tournament for mixed doubles. The tournament truly became international in 1905, when May Sutton of the United States became the first champion from overseas when she won the ladies’ singles tournament. The first man from overseas
to win was Australian Norman Brookes, who took the men’s singles title in 1907. Because of the popularity of the tournament, the club improved and enlarged its spectator accommodations over the years. Prior to the onset of World War I, the club had a plan to move its tennis facility to a new location, but this was not achieved until 1922, when it opened a new concrete stadium on Church Road in Wimbledon, not far from the center of London. The club had purchased the grounds in 1920 after its attempts to purchase land adjoining the old tennis facility had failed. King George V and Queen Mary attended the inaugural event at the new forty-two-acre expanded facility, where they were seated in the Royal Box at the south end of the stadium. Royal support ensured that tennis would become the national sport of Great Britain and that Wimbledon would be recognized as an international sporting institution. The new stadium, which took two years to build, seated fourteen thousand people at Centre Court—by far the largest-capacity tennis facility in the world. The new club grounds were financed partially by the accumulated reserves of the tennis club and through the issuance of debenture bonds. Although the club built the enormous stadium in large part because of public pressure from the large numbers of fans who could not be accommodated at the old grounds, many who lived in the vicinity of the stadium initially thought it was larger than needed. They were soon proven wrong, however, when there were so many applications for tickets to the first year’s tournament, the tickets had to be sold through a lottery system. The continued popularity of the annual event ensured that the lottery system remained in use. In the period immediately after 1922, the Wimbledon tournament experienced its greatest growth and became the most important tennis event in the world. By 1932, annual attendance exceeded two hundred thousand. The gates at the main entrance to the facility, the Doherty Memorial Gates, were donated in 1931 by William Doherty in memory of his two younger brothers, who dominated the Wimbledon tournaments early in the twentieth century with nine singles championships and eight doubles championships. The tournament’s move to the new stadium on Church Road coincided with a change in how the finalists were selected. Prior to 1922, the previous year’s winner was automatically eligible for the next year’s championship
New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated match. In 1922, however, the format was changed so that the reigning champion had to play through every round. Gerald Patterson of Australia and Suzanne Lenglen of France were the first singles champions in the new stadium. Both won later Wimbledon championships as well, and Lenglen, a beautiful and graceful woman, sometimes known as the diva or prima donna of tennis, went on to become the first female international sports celebrity. The courts at the old grounds had been arranged in such a way that the main court was situated in the middle and so was named Centre Court. With the move to Church Road in 1922, the Centre Court name was kept for the main court, where the championship matches were played, although the court was not located in the center of the facility. In 1980, with the building of four additional courts on the north side of the grounds, Centre Court was again truly in the center. Wimbledon’s Centre Court is never used other than during the two weeks of the annual tournament. During World War II, Wimbledon’s annual tournaments were canceled, and the premises were used for military functions, with troops stationed on the grounds. In October, 1940, a huge German bomb struck Centre Court and wiped out twelve hundred of the stadium’s seats. The tournaments resumed in 1946. Significance The building of the Wimbledon tennis stadium with such a large seating capacity has been credited with doing more to popularize the game of tennis worldwide than anything else before or since. The name Wimbledon quickly became synonymous with tennis. Although by the end of the twentieth century the seating capacity at Wimbledon’s Centre Court was smaller than that at the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 newer stadiums where tennis’s other “grand slam” tournaments (the U.S. Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open) were played, in 1922 it served as the model for all future tennis tournament facilities. The Wimbledon tournament became the most prestigious event in tennis, typically hosting players from more than sixty countries each year and watched by millions of television viewers in addition to the many spectators at the stadium. —Dale L. Flesher Further Reading Barrett, John. Wimbledon: The Official History of the Championships. New York: HarperCollins Willow, 2001. Written by a tennis journalist and former Davis Cup captain, this book chronicles the history of the Wimbledon tournament. Includes many photos. Max, Robert. Wimbledon: Centre Court of the Game. London: BBC, 1981. Covers the history of Wimbledon. Includes many statistical appendixes that illustrate how the tournament has grown over the years. Medlycott, James. One Hundred Years of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. London: Hamlyn, 1977. An illustrated history of the Wimbledon championships. Robyns, Gwen. Wimbledon: The Hidden Drama. London: Purnell Books, 1973. Explains much about the history of the Wimbledon tournament and why the Wimbledon championship is the most coveted tennis title in the world. See also: Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games; Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine
July 24, 1922
League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine After the League of Nations granted Great Britain the authority to administer the mandate over Palestine, conflicting expectations of Jews and Arabs about what had been promised them by the British erupted into enduring hostility. Locale: Geneva, Switzerland; Palestine; Great Britain Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), prime minister of Great Britain, 1902-1905, and foreign secretary, 1916-1919 Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), president of the World Zionist Organization and first president of Israel, 1949-1952 Faisal I (1885-1933), king of Syria, r. 1920, and king of Iraq, r. 1921-1933 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), prime minister of Great Britain, 1916-1922 Amtn al-Wusaynt (c. 1895-1974), founding member of the Arab Club, grand mufti of Jerusalem, and proNazi anti-Zionist
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Summary of Event At the conclusion of World War I, the victorious Allies met in Paris in 1919 to decide the fate of the defeated Central Powers. The year before, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had proclaimed in his Fourteen Points that the principle of self-determination would be used to determine future territorial boundaries, including for Arabic peoples under Ottoman rule. Great Britain had further encouraged nationalist hopes during the war by enticing 4Alt ibn Wusayn, grand sharif of Mecca and king of the Hijaz, to lead a revolt against the Turks. However, in 1916, Britain had also negotiated with France to divide Ottoman territories in the Middle East into spheres of influence. Furthermore, Britain had publicly suggested that it would look favorably on the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration (1917) . The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 established both the League of Nations and a mandatory system by which the major world powers were to oversee the political development toward independence of formerly subjugated peoples. The French had ambitions to receive the mandate on greater Syria, which included the region of Palestine to
the south, an area supposedly agreed upon in 1916 by the British and French foreign officials Sir Mark Sykes and François-Georges Picot. However, after the British army had secured the Suez Canal against Turkey, they advanced into Palestine. In 1917, faced with the imminent possibility that revolution would force Russia to withdraw from the war, the War Cabinet publicized British sympathies toward the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, hoping in vain that Russian Jews would persuade the Bolsheviks to continue fighting the Turks. However, British ambitions were still served by the fact that Zionists much preferred a Palestine controlled by Great Britain to one controlled by France. Chaim Weizmann, a Russian immigrant and British citizen after 1910, championed the idea of creating a national home for the Jews. Weizmann had earned official favor by discovering an industrial fermentation process to produce acetone, a key ingredient in cordite-explosive propellants. In October of 1917, the War Cabinet approved the issuance of a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild declaring that the British government would look favorably on the “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” providing that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. . . .” In November, the Balfour Declaration was made public by the Zionist Federation. While there was considerable intended ambiguity in the use of the term “national home,” newspapers took it to mean the eventual emergence of a Jewish state, as did Weizmann and most Zionists. Later, Great Britain repeatedly denied that the government had intended to create an actual Jewish state or a state under Jewish domination. The question of who would receive the mandate for Palestine remained open, as both the French and the Italians had interests in protecting the Holy Land. On the other hand, the British cabinet was divided about the merits of accepting the responsibilities inherent in a mandate. While Balfour had become a firm Zionist, he believed British interests would not be served in receiving the trust for such a problematic enterprise. Others thought the mandate should be internationalized, and some believed the United States should accept the task, although it had never declared war against Turkey and was otherwise opposed to annexationist European ambitions. The American King-Crane Commission (1919) re-
League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine
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ported great Arab sympathy toward an American mandate, but the idea died when the United States refused to join the League of Nations. Neither the British, the Zionists, nor the Arabs were inclined to see the title awarded to France, and the British prime minister David Lloyd George, whose strict Baptist upbringing made him sympathetic to Zionism, believed strongly that English colonial interests in Egypt necessitated control of Palestine. On the eve of World War I, some eighty-five thousand Jews lived in Palestine among approximately six hundred thousand Arabs, a small number of whom were Christians. Approximately thirty-five thousand Jews had arrived since the 1880’s, and many of them cleaved to the Zionist position that immigration should be promoted as much as possible, so that the region would be undeniably Jewish. Mounting Arabic hostility to the implications of such an immigration policy resulted in negotiations between Weizmann and Faisal I, future king of greater Syria. Apparently, Faisal did not consider the Palestin1778
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ians to be true Arabs, and he was persuaded that he could use Zionist support in his claims against the French in Damascus. As a result, he agreed to accept continued Jewish immigration as long as other promises to Arabs were fulfilled. The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, signed on January 3, 1919, became part of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Faisal signed for the Arab kingdom of Hijaz, and Weizmann signed for the World Zionist Organization. The parties agreed to conduct all relations in the most cordial goodwill and understanding, to permit the immigration of Jews while protecting the rights of Arab peasants and tenant farmers, and to safeguard the practice of all religious observances. Muslim holy places were to be under Muslim control. The kingdom of Hijaz agreed to support the Balfour Declaration, while Zionists pledged to assist the region’s efforts to develop natural resources and a strong economy. However, the General Syrian Congress, held in Damascus in July of 1919, completely rejected any idea of a Jewish commonwealth or further Jewish immigration. In Jerusalem, where Palestinian Arabs had not been consulted in negotiations, the Wusaynt clan enhanced its political power by becoming increasingly anti-British and adamantly opposing any conciliation with Zionists. In March of 1920, a confrontation broke out between bedouins and an isolated Jewish settlement in Tel Hai, and people on both sides were killed. In April of 1920, three days of rioting during the Nebi Musa celebration led to further casualties. British military officials were sympathetic to Arab discontent and blamed Jews for the trouble, and London achieved a more explicit recognition of the Balfour pledge by establishing a civilian administration under the High Commissioner Sir Herbert Louis Samuel, a Jew who pardoned the notorious anti-Zionist Amtn al-Wusaynt for his role in the attacks of 1920 and made him grand mufti of Jerusalem. In the spring of 1920, at the London and San Remo conferences, Great Britain gained rights to the Palestine mandate, and on June 24, 1922, at the League of Nations meeting in Geneva, the mandate was officially instituted. Eastern borders of the mandate were drawn with an eye toward facilitating the building of a British oil pipeline from its mandate in Iraq through Transjordan (now Jordan) to seaports in Palestine. In September, the eastern portion of the mandate (then known as the Emirate of Transjordan and now known as Jordan), an autonomous political division under 4Abd All3 ibn al-Wusayn, elder son of the sharif of Mecca, was excluded from all provisions concerning Jewish settlement, while the territory west of the Jordan River became known as Palestine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Although some British officials, such as George Nathaniel Curzon, former viceroy of India, expressed serious reservations about British support of Zionism, many others naïvely believed that Arabs and Jews could live in harmony in Palestine. Since the Balfour Declaration only referred to a national home for the Jews, the Turkish millet system, which allowed for semiautonomous confessional communities, was thought a possible solution to the conflicting promises arising from British policy. Nevertheless, shortly after the mandate was established, the Fifth Palestine Arab Congress, held in Nabulus in August of 1922, adamantly rejected any efforts to establish a Jewish homeland through immigration, and the congress adopted a covenant to resist such a policy. After some 200,000 deaths in Arab-Israeli wars, thousands of additional Jewish and Palestinian civilian deaths as the result of assassinations and terrorism, and related global hostilities between Islamic societies and the Christian West, a peaceful resolution to the mandate’s inherent contradictions remained elusive. —Bland Addison Further Reading Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. A comprehensive history of the battles and negotia-
Cable Act tions that ended World War I in the Middle East. Sanders, Ronald. The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983. A detailed account of events during World War I leading to the Balfour Declaration and the British mandate. Segev, Tom. One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Translated by Haim Watzman. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Passionate stories of Jews and Arabs in Palestine who experienced the events that led to the creation of the mandate. Sicker, Martin. Reshaping Palestine: From Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831-1922. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999. A history of the emergence of Zionism and its role in the creation of Palestine. Stein, Leonard. The Balfour Declaration. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. Detailed description of the events and statesmen associated with the Balfour Declaration by a friend of the leading Zionists. See also: 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine; Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots; Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine. 1922
September 22, 1922
Cable Act The Cable Act revoked the principle that a woman automatically assumed the citizenship of her husband in the United States. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Civil rights and liberties; women’s issues; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures John Levi Cable (1884-1971), U.S. congressman from Ohio Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Maud Wood Park (1871-1955), president of the National League of Women Voters Lenna Lowe Yost (1878-1972), president of the West Virginia’s Women’s Temperance Union
Summary of Event National laws regulating the acquisition and loss of citizenship fall fully within the sovereign prerogatives of national governments. Various countries have adopted certain common rules and procedures, but considerable variation remains over time and across nations. This is especially true in regard to the determination of the citizenship status of women who marry foreigners. In many countries, a woman automatically loses her original citizenship when she marries and assumes that of her husband. In other countries, a woman who marries an alien retains her original citizenship unless she specifically renounces it. In the United States, the Cable Act of 1922, following closely on the heels of the woman suffrage movement and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote, attempted to rectify the negative effects of 1779
Cable Act earlier legislation that had hampered women’s independence in choosing their citizenship status upon marriage to aliens. To understand exactly what the Cable Act did, some knowledge of the historical setting in which it was promulgated is useful. A time-honored tradition of English customary law affirmed the practice of not depriving a female citizen of her citizenship in the event of her marriage to a foreigner. This old English practice was originally followed in U.S. law, but this Anglo-American tradition ran counter to the practices of most countries as late as the end of the nineteenth century. In most other nations, when a woman married an alien, her citizenship automatically followed that of her husband. Both the United States and Great Britain eventually abandoned the tradition of preserving a woman’s citizenship upon marriage to an alien, and by 1908, women marrying aliens automatically assumed the citizenship of their husbands in all the major countries of Europe and Latin America. In the United States, the shift in the law was gradual. As early as 1855, for example, Congress passed legislation that automatically conferred U.S. citizenship on any alien woman who married a U.S. citizen. In the Expatriation Act of 1907, Congress went a step further, providing that “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” With the passage of this act, the United States fell into line with standard international practice of the time. Although this new U.S. law was in general accordance with the practices of other countries, it had illogical domestic consequences. Many American women married to aliens continued to live with their husbands in the United States but were deprived of their U.S. citizenship, whereas alien women who married American men automatically received U.S. citizenship. The Expatriation Act arbitrarily deprived American women of their citizenship and reduced their independence in choosing their nationality upon marriage. Public opinion put pressure on Congress to rectify the disorderly and arbitrary features of the new legislation. During the national political campaign of 1920, both the Republicans and the Democrats incorporated language into their party platforms calling for the independent citizenship of married women. The largest international women’s rights organization of the day, the International Council of Women, at its 1920 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, called on national legislatures to acknowledge the right of women to choose their nationality upon marriage. When Representative John Levi Cable of Ohio intro1780
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 duced his bill addressing this issue, he noted that “the laws of our country should grant independent citizenship to women.” Just prior to the vote in Congress on the Cable Act, a number of prominent women leaders, including Maud Wood Park, president of the National League of Women Voters, and Lenna Lowe Yost, president of the West Virginia Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, called on Congress to adopt the legislation. The Carnegie Foundation undertook an influential study of judicial opinion on the subject and found that two-thirds of the judges surveyed were in favor of women’s independence in determining their citizenship upon marriage. Upon passage of the bill and its imminent signing into law by President Warren G. Harding, Cable spoke even more eloquently to the law’s design: The purpose of the law is to place citizenship on the highest plane possible. It is a privilege and not a right. It should be acquired upon an independent basis; justice and common sense dictate that the woman should have the same right as the man to choose the country of her allegiance. Participation in our Government and the protection by our country should not be determined solely by wedding ceremonies.
The Cable Act of 1922, which is chapter 411 of the National Defense Act, in effect amended the 1855 law that automatically granted U.S. citizenship to alien women who married U.S. citizens and the 1907 Expatriation Act, which had deprived U.S. women of their U.S. citizenship when they married foreigners. Although the act reaffirmed the right of any woman to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, without prejudice to her sex or because she was a married woman, it explicitly revoked the notion that a woman would automatically become a U.S. citizen because of marriage to a U.S. citizen or because her husband had been naturalized. Women were to be treated as individuals and, if otherwise eligible for naturalization, could seek U.S. citizenship through regular compliance with naturalization laws. Alien women who married U.S. citizens or whose husbands became naturalized could choose whether or not to seek U.S. citizenship. The Cable Act did not disturb or invalidate the citizenship of women who had achieved automatic citizenship prior to its passage. Section 3 of the Cable Act addressed the predicament of American women who had previously married aliens and, under the provisions of the 1907 Expatriation Act, thereby lost their U.S. citizenship. The act acknowledged that each woman has a right to acquire a new nationality,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 including that of her husband, and otherwise retain the right to expatriate herself, but that this should be a matter of deliberate choice rather than an automatic effect of the law. The Cable Act states that “a woman citizen of the United States shall not cease to be a citizen of the United States by reason of her marriage after the passage of this Act, unless she makes a formal renunciation of her citizenship before a court having jurisdiction over naturalization of aliens.” Although some advocates for immigrant communities have criticized the Cable Act as an attempt to restrict immigration, it actually was adopted for the purpose of increasing the independence of married women. The Cable Act was later amended to streamline naturalization procedures even more.
Further Reading Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882. New York: Hill & Wang, 2004. Examines trends in and influences on U.S. immigration policy from late in the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 addresses the period of the 1920’s and the Cable Act. Includes tables and charts, bibliography, and index. Kansas, Sidney. Citizenship of the United States of America. New York: Washington, 1936. Dated but useful study contains a copy of the Cable Act, with commentary. Kettner, James H. The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978. Traces the development of the idea of citizenship in the formative stages of the American republic. LeMay, Michael, and Elliott Robert Barkan. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Presents the history of American immigration and naturalization policy and associated legal and public debates through the texts of more than one hundred primary documents, including the Cable Act. Von Glahn, Gerhard. Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public International Law. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1995. Standard text on international law provides a succinct history of the Cable Act. See also: Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Aug. 29, 1930: Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded.
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Significance The Cable Act is an important example of reform in citizenship laws. The new rules it enunciated drew international attention, and, in 1926, the League of Nations prepared a new draft convention on the status of married women. This was followed in 1933 by the adoption of the Convention on the Nationality of Women by the Montevideo Conference of American States. However, this effort to internationalize the new U.S. principles for dealing with the citizenship of married women did not enjoy immediate or widespread success. The United States and certain Latin American countries ratified the convention, but most other countries failed to do so. As of the end of the twentieth century, the determination of the citizenship of married women remained a matter of national prerogative. —Robert F. Gorman
Cable Act
Mussolini’s “March on Rome”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
October 24-30, 1922
Mussolini’s “March on Rome” Benito Mussolini became the Fascist premier of Italy by threatening the application of force. Locale: Rome, Italy Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), leader of the Fascists in Italy Italo Balbo (1896-1940), Italian Fascist politician Michele Bianchi (1883-1930), Italian Fascist politician Emilio De Bono (1866-1944), Italian general and Fascist politician Cesare Maria De Vecchi (1884-1959), Italian Fascist politician Luigi Facta (1861-1930), premier of Italy, 1922 Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947), king of Italy, r. 1900-1946 Summary of Event Weary of the apparent chaos into which Italy had fallen at the end of World War I, an increasing number of Italians turned to the dynamic leader of the Fascist Party, Benito Mussolini, for a solution. Elements among the populace who were attracted to Fascism included wealthy landowners and industrialists who were afraid that the recent Bolshevik Revolution in Russia might be repeated in Italy, ardent nationalists who were frustrated by the government’s failure to secure significant territorial concessions from the Allies following World War I, discharged servicemen who found it difficult to adjust to civilian life and who were repelled by Communist insults hurled against anyone who had served in the military, and former Socialists who, like Mussolini, had shifted to the radical right during the war, as well as other groups ranging from frightened bourgeoisie to a few members of the royal family of Italy. Many of these elements strengthened their support of Mussolini after he modified his views. In 1919, Mussolini violently denounced all social classes and institutions. By late 1920, however, he had dropped his attacks against the landed proprietors, the industrialists, and the middle class, and thereafter attacked only the parliamentary system, the Socialists, the labor unions, and cowardly politicians of all parties. If many were attracted to Fascism because of the social strife in Italy, they overlooked the fact that most of 1782
the violence was caused by the very group they were supporting. From the beginning of the movement and especially after 1920, the Fascists terrorized much of Italy. Fascist squads invaded cities, intimidating, bludgeoning, and occasionally murdering known opponents. Forcing castor oil down the throats of opposition leaders was one popular technique. After removing governmentappointed prefects from their offices, members of the Fascist squads took over the positions themselves; they burned down headquarters of the Socialists and local Chambers of Labor, destroyed opposition newspapers, and invaded and took command of local post offices, railway depots, and radio stations. Mussolini was aided in his quest for power by a lack of resolve and foresight, caused by pettiness and factionalism, among his political rivals. After the Communists withdrew from the Socialist Party in September, 1921, the Socialists were still divided into factions. As a result, measures taken by the Socialists to combat Fascism were either too late or too mild to be effective. A general strike called at the end of July, 1922, failed miserably. The Socialist Party resisted uniting with the Christian Democrat Party until it was too late. Within other groups, veteran political leaders such as Francesco Nitti, Giovanni Giolitti, and Antonio Salandra were not able to cope with Mussolini because of personal rivalries and because they failed to comprehend Mussolini’s driving force. Most of these men believed that a taste of political power would soften Mussolini’s extreme views, that he would learn to function within the existing political structure. Mussolini’s actions from the time when he and thirtyfive other Fascists were elected to the Chamber of Deputies in May, 1921, did little to discourage this opinion; up to this time, he had shown himself to be a cautious revolutionary. If he threatened, bullied, and terrorized, he also negotiated. In the late summer and early autumn of 1922, he negotiated with nearly all the prominent political figures from the center and the right. On October 16, 1922, Mussolini and his cohorts— Italo Balbo, Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono, and Cesare Maria De Vecchi—agreed in principle on the March on Rome. Bianchi was to be in charge of political matters, and the other three were to take charge of the military operations, leaving Mussolini free of responsibility. According to the plan, the Fascists were to seize control of certain key towns near Rome, after which Fascist columns would converge on Rome itself. By their use of
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Benito Mussolini (second from left, with sash over shirt) during the March on Rome. (AP/Wide World Photos)
force, they intended to place Mussolini at the head of a Fascist government. Mussolini issued a call for the march on October 24 at a Fascist assembly in Naples and then went immediately to Milan to await developments. Despite his call, Mussolini was still unwilling to commit himself entirely to violent means for gaining power, and he continued to talk with other political figures in an effort to gain power legally. As the time for the March on Rome grew near, the premier of Italy, Luigi Facta, at last decided that strong action was necessary to repel the threat. On the morning of October 28, the Italian cabinet prepared a declaration of martial law to take effect at noon. It committed the military to resist the attempted Fascist takeover of the government. The proclamation was distributed, but it could not be enforced legally until it had been signed by the king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III. The king was torn by conflicting advice, and he hesitated, afraid for his own position and
uncertain of the loyalty of the army. Finally, he refused to sign the declaration, and Facta was forced to resign. Significance The day after Facta resigned, the king sent a telegram to Mussolini and invited him to form a cabinet. It was in this way that Mussolini came to power, through only the threat of force and not by the use of it. Fascist columns eventually entered Rome, but only after Mussolini had been proclaimed premier of Italy. He arrived in Rome on October 30 in a railroad sleeping car instead of at the head of Fascist columns, and after he had been proclaimed premier of Italy. He presented himself to the king by announcing, “Majesty, I come from the battlefield—fortunately bloodless.” Although technically this transfer of power was legal under Italy’s constitution, it led to the Fascist dictatorship that Mussolini would later impose. —Harold A. Schofield and John Quinn Imholte 1783
Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen Further Reading Carsten, Francis L. The Rise of Fascism. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Provides an introduction to European fascism. Argues that the rise of fascism in Europe in the interwar period had little to do with doctrine and was rather the result of World War I. Includes discussion of neofascism. De Grand, Alexander J. Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development. 3d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Overview of Italian fascism stresses the Fascist Party’s purposes and policies. _______. “The March on Rome. ” In The Italian Nationalist Association and the Rise of Fascism in Italy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978. Provides a brief description of the rise of the Fascist Party in Italy from April to August, 1922. Hoyt, Edwin P. Mussolini’s Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Fascist Vision. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. Focuses on psychological insights into Mussolini and suggests that his flaws were political rather than moral. Kirkpatrick, Ivone. Mussolini: A Study in Power. New
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 York: Hawthorne Books, 1964. A British diplomat’s detailed account of the man and his personality. Lyttelton, Adrian. The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919-1929. Rev. ed. London: Frank Cass, 2003. Stresses the Fascist Party’s changing relationship with the state. Examines its origin and growth as well as the contributions made by different social groups to its ideology and action. Mack Smith, Denis. Mussolini. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Argues that Italian fascism lacked a coherent ideology and that Mussolini used fascism primarily as a technique for seizing power. See also: Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis; 19251926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy; Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty; Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland.
November 4, 1922
Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen Howard Carter’s discovery of the relatively unspoiled tomb of a pharaoh provided an unprecedented glimpse into the splendor of ancient Egypt. Locale: Valley of the Kings, Egypt Categories: Archaeology; prehistory and ancient cultures Key Figures Howard Carter (1873-1939), English archaeologist and draftsman Tutankhamen (c. 1341-1323 b.c.e.), king of Egypt, r. c. 1333-1323 b.c.e. George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert (fifth earl of Carnarvon; 1866-1923), English nobleman and amateur archaeologist Summary of Event Howard Carter began his Egyptological career as a draftsman for the Egypt Exploration Fund. In 1899, he was appointed inspector in chief of the monuments of Upper Egypt and Nubia by the Egyptian government. During his three-year tenure, Carter supervised a number 1784
of major restoration projects, including work in the Valley of the Kings, a rich but improperly explored area of royal tombs on the west bank of the Nile River, across from modern Luxor (ancient Thebes). Although there had been despoilers and treasure hunters in this valley in periods throughout its long history, Carter was among the first modern archaeologists to delve into its secrets. He cooperated with others in preparing several of the tombs for tourists by installing electric lights and constructing a system of pathways inside the tombs. In January, 1903, under the sponsorship of Theodore M. Davis, a retired American businessman, Carter discovered the royal tomb of Thutmose IV. Although forgotten now because of Carter’s more spectacular success with Tutankhamen in later years, Carter’s discovery and excavation of the royal tomb caused a sensation. Carter and his colleagues painstakingly cleared the tomb of its contents and published a lengthy, meticulous account of their work. In February, 1903, Carter and his assistants found the longest and deepest tomb in Egypt. It belonged to Queen Hatshepsut, a unique woman in the history of ancient
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Egypt, given her twenty-year reign as sovereign. Her exposed what appeared to be a rectangular pit cut out of a tomb has been called the most individual and extraordirock. By the next day, a stairway and sealed door proved nary one in the Valley of the Kings. Also, Carter worked to be yet another previously undiscovered tomb. Unlike to clear and illuminate the previously discovered tombs other tombs, however, this door was still sealed, meanof Merneptah (son of Ramses II and perhaps the pharaoh ing, perhaps, that no one had entered it since ancient from whom the Israelites escaped) and Seti I. The latter times. tomb, with its famous ceiling painting of the constellaSummoned by a telegram from Carter, Carnarvon tions, became one of the most visited tombs in Egypt. hurried to Luxor. In Carnarvon’s presence, the sealed Following a disagreement with his superior, Carter doorway of the tomb was opened. Then, in one of archae(by then recognized as one of the most prestigious ology’s most dramatic moments, Carter looked through a Egyptologists in the world) resigned from his governsmall opening in the last door to see the interior of the ment post and spent five years selling his own paintings tomb for the first time and was rendered speechless with of the monuments and dealing in antiquities. From 1907 amazement. Carter had, in the culmination of his career, to 1923, however, he returned to archaeology under the glimpsed the greatest archaeological treasure trove of sponsorship of George Edward Stanhope Molyneux modern times. Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, an English nobleThe tomb consisted of six parts. The first two, both man who was an amateur archaeologist in his own right, less than 2 meters (about 6.6 feet) wide, included a although he was often in poor health. Carter assisted sixteen-step staircase entrance and a descending passage Carnarvon in expanding his unusually fine private colof 7.6 meters (24.9 feet) beyond. Both the staircase and lection of Egyptian antiquities and directed his excavations. In 1914, Carnarvon and Carter Valley of the Kings were granted a ten-year permit to Tu r k e y excavate in the Valley of the Kings. Although it had been customary through much of the New Kingdom Cyprus period in Egypt to bury pharaohs Nicosia Syria M there, many of the tombs had never ed Lebanon ite Beirut rra been located. Through an antiquities nean Damascus Sea transaction, Carter not only acquired Israel some relics of Amenhotep I but also Tel Aviv Suez Nile Delta Canal was led eventually to the pharaoh’s Amman Gaza Alexandria previously unknown tomb. Carter later found additional tombs while Jordan Giza Saqqara Cairo Suez continuing to investigate and restore Siwa Sinai others. Peninsula Pyramids Delayed by World War I, CarnarBeni Suef Libya von’s valley excavations did not beSaudi El-Minya Arabia gin until December, 1917. (With so R much excavation, the site began to iv Egypt er look like a battlefield.) After several Valley of the Kings Luxor years of relatively unsuccessful effort, Carnarvon became less willing Tutankhamen’s to fund the expensive work. NeverAswan tomb theless, one promising area reToshka Abu Lake Simbel mained. Carter successfully perAlexandria Nasser Halaib suaded his patron to invest the necessary monetary support. Luck Sudan was with them thereafter, because on November 4, 1922, Carter’s workers
Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen
Tutankhamen’s Wonderful Things Howard Carter describes his first glimpse of the treasures of Tutankhamen’s tomb in one of the most famous passages in the literature of archaeology: Slowly, desperately slowly it seemed to us as we watched, the remains of passage debris that encumbered the lower part of the doorway were removed, until at last we had the whole door clear before us. The decisive moment had arrived. With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner. Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage we had just cleared. Candle tests were applied as a precaution against possible foul gases, and then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in. . . . At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment—an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by—I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, “Can you see anything?” it was all I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things.” Source: Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tutankhamen (New York: George H. Doran, 1923).
the passage ended in sealed doors. On November 26, 1922, Carter looked through the second door into the tomb’s largest room (8 meters by 3.6 meters, or 26.3 feet by 11.8 feet), which he would call the antechamber. It was the first of the four rooms to be opened and the last to be sealed. A preliminary inspection of the antechamber by Carter and Carnarvon on November 27, 1922, confirmed that many of the objects within the tomb were inscribed with Tutankhamen’s name, thus establishing the identity of the tomb. Carter and his staff spent seven weeks clearing, sorting, and preserving the more than six hundred artifacts found jumbled together in the antechamber. These objects ranged from still intact funerary bouquets, rush and papyrus sandals, royal robes covered with beads and sequins, and various alabaster cups and jars to a masterfully painted wooden casket, two life-size wooden statues of Tutankhamen, three couches, four disassembled chariots, and a spectacular golden throne. On February 17, 1923, having completed his work in the antechamber, Carter opened another sealed door. Be1786
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 yond it lay the smaller burial chamber (6.4 meters by 4 meters, or about 21 feet by 13.1 feet), which was almost entirely filled with four nested golden shrines (5 meters by 3.3 meters, or 16.4 feet by 10.8 feet). After much effort, Carter removed each of the four shrines in turn, but in order to get them out, he had to demolish the partition wall between the antechamber and the burial chamber, which clearly had been constructed after the shrines were in place. On February 3, 1924, the magnificent quartzite sarcophagus of the king was exposed to view for the first time. Nine days later, and after some complicated operations, its granite lid was raised on pulleys, revealing the outermost of three finely decorated nested coffins. Within the innermost coffin, which proved to be of solid gold, the royal mummy of Tutankhamen lay, with a spectacular gold mask covering its head and shoulders. Although badly damaged by funerary ointments, the mummy was sufficiently intact to allow experts to determine that Tutankhamen was approximately eighteen years of age when he died. The other two rooms, a storeroom adjacent to the burial chamber and an annex entered from the antechamber, were cleared from 1927 to 1929, after work in the burial chamber had been completed. Both rooms contained important collections of smaller artifacts, but except for a large canopied shrine in the storeroom, none of the more famous pieces was found there. Further laboratory work at the site was required before the last finds could be transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Carter’s years of work in the tomb concluded in 1932. Significance Carter’s splendidly disciplined archaeological work set a new standard for others to follow. His discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings was not only the greatest event in the history of archaeological discovery there but also very nearly the last. Although some work has continued in the Valley of the Kings, most of it has been concerned primarily with the preservation of previously discovered tombs. The Valley of the Kings appeared to be exhausted, so archaeologists moved elsewhere—concerned, for example, with the more humble tomb builders as much as with the illustrious dead. As Carter soon realized, Tutankhamen’s tomb was originally not royal. Atypical in both design and decoration, it was, by all indications, originally the tomb of a
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Further Reading Bierbrier, M. L. The Tomb-Builders of the Pharaohs. London: British Museum, 1982. Provides a brief, in-
formative, and well-illustrated account of how the tombs were built and by whom. Carter, Howard. The Tomb of Tutankhamen. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1972. Abridged edition of Carter’s original three-volume work includes a fine selection of photographs, many in color. Carter’s account of his work includes some clumsy writing, but it is nevertheless occasionally powerful. David, Rosalie. The Ancient Egyptians: Beliefs and Practices. Rev. ed. Portland, Oreg.: Sussex Academic Press, 1998. Discusses the influence of religious and cultural beliefs on ancient Egyptian society, including funerary practices. _______. Cult of the Sun: Myth and Magic in Ancient Egypt. London: J. M. Dent, 1980. A stimulating and somewhat controversial account of Egyptian solar religion, particularly as practiced by the radical reformer Akhenaton. Several passages discuss the return to orthodoxy under Tutankhamen. El Mahdy, Christine. Tutankhamen: The Life and Death of the Boy-King. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. Interesting work, accessible to general readers, is divided into sections on the archaeological, the historical, and the real Tutankhamen. Includes list of suggested reading and index. Mertz, Barbara. Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978. Engrossing evocation of periods and customs makes the ancient Egyptians come alive. Describes a number of archaeological objects, including several from the tomb of Tutankhamen. Romer, John. Valley of the Kings. 1981. Reprint. London: Phoenix Press, 2001. Superb history of treasure hunting and responsible excavation in the Valley of the Kings by a historically minded archaeologist who also worked in the area. Surveys Carter’s entire career and provides an account of his work on Tutankhamen’s tomb that is suitable for a wide audience. See also: Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code; July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu; 1923: Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs; Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
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noble. Because the young king’s death was unexpected, no royal tomb was ready for him, so this lesser one was converted hastily for his use. Moreover, some of the goods that stocked the grave were intended originally for other people as well. How so many fine objects of art, including the gold coffin and masks, were made ready in such a relatively short time is a subject of speculation and wonder to this day. The discovery of the tomb made a great impact in the history of art. One has only to open any book dealing with ancient Egypt of the Eighteenth Dynasty to find numerous objects depicted from the grave of Tutankhamen. Although one may be attracted to the gold, as Carter was, the wooden objects found in the tomb are more precious, in some respects, because they are no less unique and even more perishable. More than one-half of all surviving ancient Egyptian furniture, for example, was found in this tomb. Other objects discovered in the tomb had previously been known, if at all, from paintings. Because of these fine museum pieces and the gripping drama of their discovery after years of effort, “King Tut,” as headline writers have long preferred to call him, is the best known of all Egyptian pharaohs. He is, as Carter declared, “the king whose name the whole world knows.” Despite his youth and premature demise, Tutankhamen also had some historical importance. In particular, he discarded the solar religion of his predecessor (and perhaps father-in-law), Akhenaton, changing his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamen in the process, so as to reaffirm his loyalty to the traditional deity, Amon-Re. With similar intentions, he erected a row of sphinxes and a statue of himself within the great temple of Karnak, on the eastern side of the Nile. The intrigues that preceded and succeeded his reign are among the most written about in the history of ancient Egypt. Theories as to the cause of his death are numerous. The overall result of the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb, then, was to place this pharaoh’s era firmly within the modern mind by illustrating it with a breathtaking richness of art and undying historical enigma. Brief though it was, the reign of Tutankhamen seems a golden moment in the history of civilization that will never be forgotten. —Dennis R. Dean
Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen
Ozawa v. United States
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 13, 1922 OZAWA V. UNITED STATES In Ozawa v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Japanese aliens did not qualify as “white” and therefore could not be naturalized as citizens. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; civil rights and liberties; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures Takao Ozawa (fl. early twentieth century), Japanese immigrant who sought U.S. citizenship George Sutherland (1862-1942), associate justice of the United States, 1922-1938 Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, naturalization in the United States was under the effective control of local and state authorities. In California and other Pacific states, fears of the “yellow peril” or “silent invasion” of Asian immigrants were deeply entrenched and politically exploited. In these states, citizenship had been repeatedly denied to both Chinese and more recent Japanese settlers, although there were some rare exceptions. The prevailing belief among the nativist majority was that such settlers should be ineligible for U.S. citizenship. Partly to test the Alien Land Act—a California law passed in 1913 that barred noncitizens from owning land in that state—Japanese immigrant Takao Ozawa sought U.S. citizenship in defiance of a 1906 law that limited naturalization to “free white persons,” “aliens of African nativity,” and “persons of African descent.” Although he was born in Japan, Ozawa had been educated in the United States. He had graduated from high school in Berkeley and attended the University of California for three years. He was aware that some Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) had been naturalized, even in California. Specifically, Ozawa may have known of Iwao Yoshikawa, the first Japanese immigrant to be naturalized in California. Yoshikawa had arrived in San Francisco from Japan in 1887. A law clerk in his homeland, he had studied U.S. law and served as a court translator in his adopted country. In 1889 he began the naturalization process, which, presumably, was completed five years later, although there is no extant record of his naturalization. His case was publicized because it broached such 1788
issues as mandatory citizenship renunciation and the legality of dual citizenship. Regardless of Ozawa’s knowledge of Yoshikawa, on October 16, 1914, Ozawa applied for U.S. citizenship before the district court for the territory of Hawaii. He argued that he had resided in the United States and its territory of Hawaii for a total of twenty years, had adopted the culture and language of his host country, had reared his children as Americans in heart and mind, and was, by character and education, wholly qualified for naturalization. The district court ruled against Ozawa on the grounds that his Japanese ethnicity denied him access to naturalization. Ozawa then took his case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which passed it to the U.S. Supreme Court for instruction. In turn, the Supreme Court upheld the laws that in effect declared Ozawa ineligible for citizenship. Rather than questioning the justice of the racial restrictions on naturalization, the Court’s opinion, written by Associate Justice George Sutherland, focused on clarifying the meaning of the term “white persons” and distinguishing between “Caucasian” and “white person.” The Court determined that the latter term, although more inclusive than the former, is not so inclusive as to encompass persons of Asian extraction. The opinion concluded that “a person of the Japanese race” is not a “free white person” within the meaning of the 1906 law, and therefore is not eligible for naturalization as a U.S. citizen. In tracing the history of the naturalization laws, the Court attempted to demonstrate that all statutes preceding the 1906 act contested by Ozawa had the same intent: the selective admission to citizenship based on the interpretation of “white,” not as a racial appellation but as a reflection of character. It argued that the words “free white persons” do not indicate persons of a particular race or origin, but rather describe individuals who are fit for citizenship under the policy of the United States. According to that doctrine, any non-African alien, if desired by Congress, might be deemed “white.” Regardless of this race disclaimer, however, the Court, in reasoning through its arguments, distinguished between “whites” (all Europeans, for example) and “nonwhites” (such as the Chinese) on ethnic grounds pure and simple. In addition, the decision clearly sanctioned the seriously flawed assumption that character and racial heritage are inextricably interrelated.
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Further Reading Curran, Thomas J. Xenophobia and Immigration, 18201930. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Traces the origins of anti-immigrant movements in the United States and relates the xenophobic tradition to exclusionist laws and practices. Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882. New
York: Hill & Wang, 2004. Examines trends in and influences on U.S. immigration policy from late in the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Includes tables and charts, bibliography, and index. Hosokawa, Bill. Nisei: The Quiet Americans. Rev. ed. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002. A good general study of Japanese Americans and their struggle against legal and social discrimination. Includes photographs. O’Brien, David J., and Stephen Fugita. The Japanese American Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Scholarly study focuses on the legal and social problems that confronted Japanese Americans before World War II and the rapid acculturation this group experienced after the war. Takaki, Ronald. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Provides insight into the origins of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and its connection to legislation such as the alien land laws. _______. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Rev. ed. Boston: Back Bay Books, 1998. Excellent and sensitive overview of Asian American history. Includes extensive notes and photographs. Wilson, Robert Arden, and Bill Hosokawa. East to America: A History of the Japanese in the United States. New York: William Morrow, 1980. General history of Japanese migration to North America. Appendixes provide census statistics, the text of an exclusionist law, and a letter to President Woodrow Wilson pleading the Issei cause. Yuji, Ichioka. “The Early Japanese Immigrant Quest for Citizenship: The Background of the 1922 Ozawa Case.” Amerasia 4, no. 2 (1977): 12. Brief account of the reasons for Ozawa’s legal action and his desire for citizenship. See also: Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools; Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement; May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law; Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917.
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Significance The Supreme Court’s ruling in Ozawa v. United States reflected the prevailing nativist bias against Asian immigrants, an attitude that was reflected in both law and policy throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In fact, no more formidable barriers to citizenship were erected than those devised to prevent the naturalization of Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian immigrants. In 1924, an isolationist Congress enacted an immigration law that placed numerical restrictions on immigrants allowed into the United States based on national origin. One provision of the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson Act, excluded immigrants who were ineligible for naturalization. The law’s obvious aim—to bar entry of Japanese aliens—quickly led to the deterioration of diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. The plight of Japanese already in the United States also worsened in this anti-Asian climate. In separate rulings, the Supreme Court went so far as to revoke citizenship that had been granted to some Issei. In 1925, the Court even ruled that service in the U.S. armed forces did not make Issei eligible for naturalization, overturning a policy that had previously been in effect. Not only were Issei barred from naturalization, but also in many states “alien land laws” prohibited them from owning land and even from entering some professions. This sort of codified prejudice partly accounts for the terrible treatment Japanese Americans were subjected to during World War II, when 112,000 of them, including 70,000 Nisei (persons of Japanese descent born in the United States), were rounded up and incarcerated in detention centers that bore some grim similarities to the concentration camps of Europe. It was not until the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952 that the long-standing racial barriers to naturalization finally came down. —John W. Fiero
Ozawa v. United States
Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 10, 1922
Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize Fridtjof Nansen won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, including arranging prisoner-ofwar repatriation after World War I and assisting famine victims and refugees in the early 1920’s. Locale: Oslo, Norway Categories: Human rights; social issues and reform; humanitarianism and philanthropy Key Figures Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), Norwegian polar explorer and scientist Philip J. Noel-Baker (1889-1982), British official at the Secretariat of the League of Nations Thomas Frank Johnson (1887-1972), official in the refugee agencies of the League of Nations Summary of Event On December 10, 1922, Fridtjof Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for humanitarian work that included organizing prisoner-of-war repatriation and aiding victims of the Russian famine. At the time of the award, Nansen held the post of high commissioner for refugees at the League of Nations. In this role, he helped thousands of uprooted people rebuild their lives and also laid the legal and institutional foundations for future international refugee assistance efforts. Nansen can be described as both a doer and a thinker. After earning a doctorate in zoology, he initially achieved fame as a polar explorer. In 1888, he led the first expedition to cross Greenland successfully. Five years later, Nansen organized an even more adventurous project. In a specially built ship, the Fram (meaning “forward”), he and his companions set out across the frozen north. Soon the Fram became locked in the polar ice cap. The ship and its crew returned home three years later. Nansen’s observations during this time confirmed his ideas about Arctic drift. During this journey, Nansen left the ship and attempted to reach the North Pole. Even though the effort failed, Nansen traveled farther north than had any other explorer before him. He received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Norway. Although Nansen always thought of himself as a scientist, his sense of duty and patriotism led him toward new challenges. In 1906 and 1907, he served as the first Norwegian ambassador to Great Britain. In 1917, Nansen interrupted his experiments once again to head a Norwegian commission charged with negotiating a food 1790
import agreement with the United States. Nansen’s commitment to public service increased during World War I, as the death and destruction accompanying the conflict profoundly affected him. He believed that fundamental corruption in European civilization had caused the war, and that traditional methods of solving international problems needed to be changed. Nansen became a strong advocate for the League of Nations and served as the Norwegian delegate to it throughout the 1920’s. In 1920, the Council of the League of Nations called on Nansen to investigate the possibilities for prisoner-ofwar repatriation in Europe. At that time, thousands of prisoners were stranded in the former Russian Empire and in Central Europe. Nansen persuaded governments to contribute funds and supplies, arranged for shipping, and coordinated the efforts of private agencies. He even negotiated with the Soviet Union at a time when mutual hostility existed between it and the members of the League. By the time Nansen finished his task, he had supervised the repatriation of about 425,000 prisoners at a cost of less than five dollars per person.
Fridtjof Nansen. (The Nobel Foundation)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize
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Nansen had then planned to retire, Nansen on Understanding but he changed his mind in response The following is an excerpt from Fridtjof Nansen’s Nobel lecture, presented in to a series of tragic events. In the sumOslo, Norway, nine days after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. mer of 1921, it became obvious that a catastrophic famine was sweeping What is the basic feeling of people all over Europe? There is no doubt that for a parts of Russia and Ukraine. In Augreat many it is one of despair or distrust of everything and everyone, supgust, the International Committee of ported by hate and envy. This hatred is each day disseminated among nations the Red Cross and other voluntary and classes. agencies asked Nansen to take charge No future, however, can be built on despair, distrust, hatred, and envy. of relief operations. He accepted this The first prerequisite, surely, is understanding—first of all, an understandchallenge and immediately set up ofing of the cause and the nature of the disease itself, an understanding of the trends that mark our times and of what is happening among the mass of the popfices of the Nansen Mission in Berlin ulation. In short, an understanding of the psychology of every characteristic of and in Moscow. At the Assembly of our apparently confused and confounded European society. the League of Nations in September, Such an understanding is certainly not attainable in a day. But the first con1921, Nansen, speaking as the deledition for its final establishment is the sincere will to understand; this is a great gate from Norway, made an impasstep in the right direction. The continuous mutual abuse of groups holding difsioned plea on behalf of the famine fering views, which we witness in the newspapers, will certainly never lead to victims. The government represenprogress. Abuse convinces no one; it only degrades and brutalizes the abuser. tatives, however, refused to grant ofLies and unjust accusations achieve still less; they often finally boomerang on ficial sanction to relief operations those who originate them. because the operations might inadIt must also always be remembered that there is hardly a trend or movement vertently help the Soviet government. in the community which does not in some degree possess a reason and right of its own, be it socialism or capitalism, be it fascism or even the hated bolUndaunted, Nansen began raising shevism. But it is because of blind fanaticism for and against—especially funds from private sources. Although against—that conflicts come to a head and lead to heartrending struggles and the assistance operations he directed destruction; whereas discussion, understanding, and tolerance might have are less well known than those conturned this energy into valuable progress. ducted under the supervision of HerSource: Fridtjof Nansen, “The Suffering People of Europe,” in Nobel Lectures, Peace bert Hoover, they helped to save 1901-1925, edited by Frederick W. Haberman (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1972). thousands of lives. In the autumn of 1921, the Council of the League of Nations asked Nansen to take on one more humanithousand dollars for refugee assistance). Nansen began tarian project. At the time, approximately one million by recruiting a small staff, including Philip J. Noel-Baker White Russian refugees were scattered around the peand Thomas Frank Johnson, to run the Geneva office and riphery of the former Czarist empire. These refugees to keep in contact with donor governments. He also aplacked food, clothing, and shelter; many lived in desperpointed delegates in host countries and created an adviate poverty. Moreover, they could not easily return to sory committee of voluntary agencies. Through these their home country because of the Russian Revolution, varied sources, the Nansen organization benefited from civil war, and famine, and legally they could not travel to the input of government officials in host and donor counanother country. At the urging of officials in the League tries, refugees in host countries, and volunteers engaged of Nations Secretariat, Nansen gave up his retirement to in refugee aid. become the League’s high commissioner for refugees. In Shortly after assuming his post as high commissioner, doing so, he became the first international civil servant to be charged with refugee assistance. Nansen faced a major refugee crisis in Constantinople As high commissioner, Nansen was responsible for (now Istanbul). This city, then under Allied control, had providing legal protection for and arranging either the rebecome a dumping ground for the defeated White Ruspatriation or the employment of the refugees. His first sian forces and the civilians under their protection. In task was to establish an organization capable of assisting September, 1921, almost thirty-five thousand refugees, one million refugees without exceeding tight budgetary many on the brink of starvation, had been left there. Alconstraints (the League of Nations allocated only twenty though the League of Nations had not authorized Nansen
Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize to provide material assistance to refugees, he decided that it would be useless to find jobs for the refugees while they still needed food and shelter. Using his skills as a fundraiser, Nansen secured enough money from governments and private organizations to evacuate more than twenty thousand refugees to forty-four different countries. Almost a year later, in October, 1922, Nansen responded to the refugee crisis produced by the Greco-Turkish war. In this case, Nansen helped to coordinate relief efforts for more than one million refugees in Greece and Turkey. Nansen was concerned not only with the emergency needs of refugees but also with their long-term problems. Paramount among these was their lack of passports and other documents that would provide them with a secure legal position in host countries. In July, 1922, Nansen called an intergovernmental conference to examine the legal status of Russian refugees. As a result of this conference, a special certificate of identity for refugees, commonly called a “Nansen passport,” came into being. Although this document was not an official passport, it gave refugees a legal identity and made it easier for them to travel internationally in order to join friends or accept jobs. Eventually, more than fifty countries accepted this system. Its provisions expanded to cover other refugee groups, including Armenians (1924), Assyrians, AssyroChaldeans, and Turkish refugees (1928), and Saarlanders (1935). After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in December, 1922, Nansen focused his efforts on helping Russian and other refugees to find permanent homes. Until 1924, he retained hope that many Russian refugees would return to their home country, even though many émigré organizations opposed repatriation. Despite his efforts to arrange repatriation, only about six thousand refugees returned to the Soviet Union before a deterioration in relations with the government ended negotiations. After the Greco-Turkish war, Nansen proposed that an international loan be used to help Greece deal with the more than one million refugees who had recently arrived on its shores. This suggestion became the embryo that eventually grew into the Greek Refugee Settlement Commission, a joint venture between the Greek government and the League of Nations. By the time it had concluded its work in 1930, about six hundred thousand rural and urban refugees had been given new homes. During the last years of his life, Nansen attempted to arrange a major settlement project for Armenian refugees in Erivan (Soviet Armenia). In this case, Western opposition to any projects inside the Soviet Union rendered Nansen’s pleas on behalf of the Armenian cause useless. 1792
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In May, 1930, Nansen died while reading a newspaper at his home in Norway. The League of Nations created the Nansen International Office and charged it with carrying on his work. Although this organization won the Nobel Prize in 1938 for its refugee assistance programs, it did not provide the world with Nansen’s moral leadership or his creative approach to problem solving. In the words of Lord Robert Cecil, Nansen’s friend and a British delegate to the League of Nations, “It was a bad day for Peace, Humanity and the League when he died at a comparatively early age. He has left no successor.” Significance Nansen’s humanitarian career had both immediate and lasting impacts on the cause of human rights. First and foremost, his work was of a practical nature, aimed at improving the lives of people who were in prison, homeless, starving, insecure, or poor. As a leader who organized several international assistance efforts, he saved and improved the lives of thousands of people. Nansen’s contributions to human rights, however, go beyond the immediate impact he had in the 1920’s. Nansen’s work for the League of Nations showed that an international organization could be effective in carrying out humanitarian work. Although this may be taken for granted in the twenty-first century, at that time many believed that the League should confine itself to military and political issues and leave “charity” to private groups. The success of prisoner-of-war repatriation and refugee assistance programs helped to change attitudes about what constituted the proper scope of international cooperation. As high commissioner for refugees, Nansen established an institutional structure that would later be adopted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The UNHCR also has a high commissioner in Geneva, delegates in host countries, and close relations with international nongovernmental organizations. From a human rights perspective, the delegates in host countries are especially important: They help to ensure that the human rights of refugees actually are protected at the local level. Many of Nansen’s delegates were familiar with the languages and cultures of the people they helped because they were refugees themselves. Unfortunately, this opportunity for refugee participation in decision making was lost after Nansen’s death. In 1938, the League of Nations fired all refugee employees in response to pressure from the Soviet Union. In addition to establishing institutions, Nansen is known as the founder of international refugee law. Al-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 though the tradition of asylum has a long history in international law, it was not until the 1920’s that governments reached formal agreements about the legal status of refugees. Although the Nansen passport system initially was not binding, it became codified in the 1933 Refugee Convention, the first comprehensive treaty dealing with refugees. This document, in turn, served as the basis for the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Fridtjof Nansen left a legacy as well in the personal example he set for all leaders in the humanitarian field. Nansen never accepted any salary as high commissioner; he shunned the frills associated with public life. Characteristically, he donated the monetary award from the Nobel Prize to Greek refugees and to an agricultural research station in the Soviet Union. His approach to helping refugees resembled his approach to life. Instead of seeing problems, he saw opportunities for the improvement of the world. Nansen’s idealism sometimes led him to underestimate the political obstacles to particular projects; the Armenian settlement scheme is a case in point. More often than not, however, his creative approach to providing durable solutions for refugees met with positive results. Consequently, Nansen made a lasting contribution to the cause of human rights. —Claudena M. Skran
1938. Johnson’s own account of his fifteen-year career with the refugee agencies of the League of Nations. Provides personal insights about Nansen and the League of Nations not available elsewhere. Marrus, Michael R. The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. Comprehensive summary of the plight of European refugees from the early twentieth century through the Cold War era. Discusses Nansen and others who contributed to the refugee work of the League of Nations. Excellent resource for historical information, although based largely on secondary rather than primary sources. Nansen, Fridtjof. Adventure, and Other Papers. London: Hogarth Press, 1927. Collection of several of Nansen’s most famous speeches, including the one he gave on acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. Provides important insights into Nansen’s views on human nature and on the issue of war and peace. _______. Russia and Peace. London: Allen & Unwin, 1923. Presents Nansen’s controversial ideas about the role of the Soviet Union in the post-World War I era. Argues that the newly formed country should be encouraged to become an integral part of Europe. Simpson, John Hope. The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey. London: Oxford University Press, 1939. Presents the results of an extensive survey undertaken by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, on the refugee problem in Europe. Includes valuable information about Nansen as high commissioner and the institutions that carried on his work after his death. Also presents comprehensive statistical data on the major refugee groups of the period. Skran, Claudena M. “Profiles of the First Two High Commissioners.” Journal of Refugee Studies 1, nos. 3/4 (1988): 277-296. Focuses on Nansen’s role as high commissioner and evaluates his contributions to the development of international refugee assistance programs. Based on archival and other primary sources of information. Sörensen, Jon. The Saga of Fridtjof Nansen. Translated by J. B. C. Watkins. London: Allen & Unwin, 1932. One of the best biographies of Nansen available. Includes information on his career as an explorer and on his humanitarian work. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives.
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Further Reading Holborn, Louise W. Refugees, a Problem of Our Time: The Work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1951-1972. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975. History of the UNHCR covers Nansen’s role as high commissioner and the early days of refugee assistance at the League of Nations. Assesses both the strengths and the weaknesses of the League’s refugee programs and evaluates the contribution of Nansen and the League of Nations to the refugee work of the United Nations. Hoyer, Liv Nansen. Nansen: A Family Portrait. Translated by Maurice Michael. London: Longmans, Green, 1957. Very personal account of Nansen’s life, written by his daughter. Huntford, Roland. Nansen: The Explorer as Hero. London: Duckworth, 1997. Biography focuses primarily on Nansen’s life and importance as an explorer but also addresses his many other interests and pursuits, including his humanitarian work. Johnson, Thomas F. International Tramps: From Chaos to Permanent World Peace. London: Hutchinson,
Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize
Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela
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December 14, 1922
Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela Discovery of a large oil field near Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela altered the world energy market and eventually changed the nature of Venezuela’s economy, propelling Venezuela into a leading position among oil-producing and -exporting states. Locale: Near Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela Categories: Trade and commerce; energy; natural resources Key Figures Rómulo Betancourt (1908-1981), president of Venezuela, 1945-1948 period Juan Vincente Gómez (1857-1935), dictator of Venezuela, 1908-1935 Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo (1903-1979), Venezuelan government’s central spokesman for oil Wallace E. Pratt (1885-1981), American petroleum geologist George B. Reynolds (fl. early twentieth century), manager for the Royal Dutch/Shell Corporation Summary of Event By any measurement, Venezuela has been an oil-producing area for a long time. Spanish explorers returned to Europe in precolonial days with tales of its oil being used by primitive tribes. Significant foreign exploration and development ventures, however, did not begin there until after World War I, when Western security needs arising from the conversion of fleets to oil, growing consumer needs for oil, and fears of shortages in the market produced a sharp, general increase in exploratory efforts abroad. By 1918, several sources of oil had been identified, and Venezuela was already exporting limited amounts of the substance. Still, as late as the early 1920’s, the richness of the nation’s oil resources was in dispute, and oil exploration in Venezuela did not appear to be particularly promising. The discovery of oil at Lake Maracaibo in 1922 changed that picture abruptly. By the end of the decade, oil had become Venezuela’s principal export, and Venezuela had become the world’s largest exporter of oil and a major voice in the world’s oil business, a role it would retain for the next half century. Petroleum exploration and development ventures in Latin America initially concentrated on Mexico. Had the Mexican government not become politically unreliable by declaring in its 1917 constitution that the mineral resources of Mexico belonged to the Mexican people 1794
rather than those who developed them, exploratory interest in Venezuela would probably have come about much later. As a result of the Mexican Revolution, however, Venezuela appeared to be a particularly promising haven for the foreign capital rapidly fleeing the petroleum business in Mexico. Perversely, although typically for Latin America, Venezuela’s primary appeal had its source in the nation’s repressive regime, which was more stable than other, less repressive governments. Venezuela’s supreme dictator, General Juan Vincente Gómez, coveted the wealth that oil operations in Venezuela could bring him. To lure foreign investment, Gómez was willing to accept a series of administrative arrangements that proferred grantees of petroleum concessions in his country a high level of stability in enjoying those concessions. Several foreign companies responded to the incentives. From the outset, the most important of these companies was the Royal Dutch/Shell Corporation. Its initial geological tests were encouraging, and it began exploratory drilling in the Lake Maracaibo area as early as 1913. By the time World War I had ended, it had been joined there by Standard Oil of New Jersey, the industry leader in the Latin American market. For all, however, the exploratory conditions were difficult. Jungles had to be breached; disease, contaminated water, and poisonous snakes all posed problems; and many of the more promising areas were under water rather than on land. Nevertheless, at the insistence of George Reynolds, its local manager and a man with a major reputation in the field, Royal Dutch/Shell persevered with its operations in the La Rosa area of the Lake Maracaibo basin. On December 14, 1922, a major gusher rewarded this tenacity. Venezuela’s petroleum industry was off and running, much of it based on fixed drilling platforms located on the lake itself. Additional companies applied for concessions, and the drilling ventures quickly multiplied. By 1929, Venezuela was producing more oil than any country in the world except the United States, drawing half of its revenue and three-fourths of its export earnings from oil. The global depression of 1929-1933 caused a collapse in the demand for oil. At approximately the same time, major finds in Oklahoma and Texas combined with improvements in the efficiency of petroleum refining to curtail America’s import needs. For the Venezuelan petroleum industry, these developments proved to be ex-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 traordinarily costly. Of all the countries then exporting oil, Venezuela was the hardest hit during the depression. Its rate of unemployment soared, as nearly half the nation’s oil workers had to be dismissed. Government income was sliced by two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, as the price of oil dropped from $1.05 to $0.24 per barrel. Full and rapid recovery from this collapse was unlikely. Venezuela had been sending more than half of its total production to the United States throughout the 1920’s, but in 1932 the United States enacted a tariff system in order to protect its domestic industry. The system drastically dampened U.S. demand for imported oil and, as a result, Venezuela was forced to reorient its industry to a broader, world market. It would eventually manage this feat so successfully that by the eve of World War II, it would be supplying 40 percent of British petroleum needs. However, the prolonged adjustment process left a growing number of nationalists in Venezuela with a profound—and soon to be important—distrust of outside consumers, particularly those from the United States.
governments going by the easier means of creating clients and purchasing the support necessary to remain in power. — Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr. Further Reading Choucri, Nazli. Energy and Development in Latin America: Perspectives for Public Policy. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1982. A comprehensive study of the relationship between energy and development in the oil-producing states of Latin America. The relationship between governments and the state petroleum companies is extensively discussed. Coronel, Gustavo. The Nationalization of the Venezuelan Oil Industry from Technocratic Success to Political Failure. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983. Basically a historical account of the development of the Venezuelan oil industry between 1878 and 1970 and of the declining power of the international oil cartel to control that industry. Ewell, Judith. Venezuela and the United States: From Monroe’s Hemisphere to Petroleum’s Empire. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. History of U.S.Venezuelan interactions from 1790 through the early 1990’s; provides both the background and the consequences of the discovery of oil in Venezuela. The fifth chapter, “Oil and the Democratic Caesar, 1912-1935,” covers Gómez and the oil industry directly. Gibb, George S., and E. H. Knowlton. The Resurgent Years, 1911-1927. Vol. 2 in History of Standard Oil. New York: Harper, 1956. For details on the history of the twentieth century’s largest and most important oil company, nothing surpasses the Business History Foundation series. This book, the second in the series, covers the period of the company’s emergence as the leader of the international oil industry. Klapp, Merrie Gilbert. The Sovereign Entrepreneur: Oil Policies in Advanced and Less Developed Capitalist Countries. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987. A scholarly treatment of the conflict over time among host countries, multinational corporations, and domestic oil companies. Discusses policy options open to the states and oil companies in these conflicts. Lax, Howard L. States and Companies: Political Risks in the International Oil Industry. New York: Praeger, 1988. Lax focuses on the relationship between host countries and multinational corporations and on the tension resulting from the different goals of the two. Especially good in discussing the companies’ decreasing bargaining position over time. 1795
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Significance The discovery of substantial petroleum reserves in Venezuela ultimately had a significant impact on the development of relationships between the oil industry and host countries throughout the oil-producing world, as well as on the global evolution of the international petroleum industry and the social, economic, and political development of Venezuela in particular. General Gómez’s death in 1935 ignited considerable jockeying for influence among various factions in the country. Many of these, including the Accion Democrática party, were spurred by their recent memory of the unreliability of foreign oil buyers and what they saw as the scandalous failure of the petroleum wealth of their country to improve the standard of living of most Venezuelans. As these factions acquired political influence, Venezuela’s political agenda shifted dramatically away from that of the wealth- and power-hungry days of General Gómez. The story of the impact of the oil industry on Venezuela lacks a tidy, happy ending, however. There is no doubt that the production of oil in Venezuela generated tremendous wealth and led to a general modernization of the country. On the other hand, evidence suggests that in modernizing the country, the petroleum industry also left Venezuela’s economy excessively dependent on oil. At crucial moments when its governments might have otherwise restructured and diversified Venezuela’s economy, the vast profits from the petroleum industry provided an alternative, a lubricant capable of keeping those
Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela
A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research Philip, George D. E. Oil and Politics in Latin America: Nationalist Movements and State Companies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Good background reading on the development of the oil industry in the oil-producing states of Latin America from 1890 to the oil shocks of the 1970’s as well as on the industry’s impact on the politics of these states. Salazar-Carrillo, Jorge, and Bernadette West. Oil and Development in Venezuela During the Twentieth Century. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. A study of the effect of the petroleum industry on the government, politics, and economy of Venezuela in the twentieth century. Bibliographic references and index. Tugwell, Franklin. The Politics of Oil in Venezuela. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975. Chronologically organized, Tugwell’s study of Venezuela’s relationship with the major multinational oil companies contains numerous insights on such topics as the distorting effect the petroleum industry can have on a developing country’s economy. The emphasis is on the 1958-1973 period. Willrich, Mason, et al. Energy and World Politics. New
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York: Free Press, 1975. Basic introductory reading for anyone working in the area of energy politics. Published after the first energy crisis, this volume provides an exceedingly solid and readable overview of energy and international politics. Wirth, John D., ed. Latin American Oil Companies and the Politics of Energy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. An excellent analysis of the development of state oil companies in Latin America, with particular attention to events in the key states of Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. The emphasis is on the formative years. Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. A massive study of the development of the international oil industry, with as much attention to the personalities and politics involved as to historical events. Several excellent sections on Venezuela’s role in the story. See also: Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop; May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy.
1923
A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research With its pioneering techniques, the A. C. Nielsen Company became a leader in the field of market research and had significant technical and financial effects on commerce, advertising, and media research worldwide. Locale: United States Categories: Marketing and advertising; communications and media Key Figures A. C. Nielsen, Sr. (1897-1980), founder of the A. C. Nielsen Company A. C. Nielsen, Jr. (b. 1919), president of the A. C. Nielsen Company, 1957-1959 Summary of Event In 1923, A. C. Nielsen, Sr., founded the A. C. Nielsen Company as a firm of engineering consultants who measured product movement and market size for industrial machinery and equipment. By 1933, the company had abandoned this service and replaced it with a marketing 1796
information service known as the Nielsen Drug Index. This service used a standing panel of drugstores to measure sales of products distributed through retail drugstores and attempted to identify factors that influenced sales. Seven months later, Nielsen established a similar service for the food industry known as the Retail Index Services. With the establishment of these services, the A. C. Nielsen Company grew to be the leading market research company in the world. By the early 1960’s, many U.S. companies had begun to expand their operations abroad. In 1959, A. C. Nielsen, Jr., then president of the company, explained the research approach to marketing and set down a number of guidelines to successful marketing, particularly overseas. He stressed adapting the product to the market, gauging the impact of customs and traditions of prospective consumers, studying differences in advertising, identifying the product with the local scene, knowing the trade channels, and understanding consumers’ views of price and quality. The Nielsen name is best known to the general public
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A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research tracked local television audiences (in use since 1954); the Nielsen Syndication Service (NSS), which tracked audiences for syndicated programming (in use since 1985); the Nielsen Home Video Index (NHI), which tracked audiences for cable, videocassette recorders, and other new television technologies (in use since 1980); and Nielsen New Media Services, which provided custom research and start-up services for measurement of nontraditional markets, such as Hispanic viewers (in use since 1992). Significance The A. C. Nielsen Company introduced and formalized the concept of products holding percentage shares of their market. This concept can be said to have brought the overlapping disciplines of advertising and marketing closer together. Nielsen tracked what stores were selling, and advertisers tracked what people were buying and how they made their purchase decisions. Nielsen’s quantitative statistics on product movement, its categorization of products moved, and its demographic statistics on buyers provided valuable information to producers, marketers, and advertisers. In 1959, Nielsen Marketing Research was operating in eleven countries. By 1991, that figure had grown to twenty-seven, and the company reported worldwide revenues of $1.2 billion. Nielsen became synonymous with U.S. television audience measurement and expanded television audience research worldwide. By 1990, Nielsen’s metered research covered twenty-eight U.S. markets that included half of the country’s population. Despite questions raised by some observers concerning Nielsen’s methods of data collection, and despite criticism of the practice of basing programming decisions on ratings, Nielsen ratings continued to be the currency of negotiation in the multibillion-dollar business of buying and selling airtime. Programming decision makers in the television industry continued to rely on Nielsen Media Research statistics to determine which programs to air. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Nielsen Media Research expanded its coverage to more than seventy countries, representing 85 percent of global advertising spending in 2005. The A. C. Nielsen Company moved beyond research concerning traditional television broadcasting into research on viewers of cable television, regional cable systems, and satellite television as it adjusted to changes in the broadcasting industry. —Christina Ashton 1797
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in the United States for the television rating system established by the company’s Nielsen Media Research division. Nielsen began radio audience research in 1936 as a service offered to advertisers, advertising agencies, and radio station business managers who looked to the medium as a means of selling products. The idea was to identify links between the kinds of programs people listened to and the products they were buying or were likely to buy. The company used a device known as the Audimeter, which was attached to a radio and connected to a moving roll of paper; the machine created a permanent record of the stations tuned in. Audimeters were placed in the homes of a sample population of about one thousand consumers. This replaced the slower and less accurate method of using telephone surveys to find out what people were listening to at a given time. During the 1950’s, Nielsen began measuring and indexing the audiences of network and local television stations and assigning ratings points according to how many people in a sample audience were watching a given program at a given time. To select a sample of four thousand households with television sets, Nielsen used the U.S. Census Bureau’s decennial census counts of all housing units in the country and randomly selected about five thousand blocks in urban areas and correspondingly small geographic units in rural areas, then selected one household from each. Field researchers then collected data on the demographics of the households and individual information on persons in each home. Even this relatively small sample of households was statistically reliable, and Nielsen used the sample results to project ratings for the entire American television audience. If 15 percent of the sample watched a particular show, Nielsen awarded the show 15 ratings points. At first, Nielsen relied on telephone surveys and diary reports to collect data from “Nielsen families,” but later the company developed mechanized means of data collection on television viewing. By 1964, Nielsen had discontinued its radio audience measurement to concentrate entirely on television viewership. By the late 1980’s, the company had streamlined its techniques of measuring the audience, collecting and computing data, and reporting to marketers, advertisers, and programmers who used the information, and television ratings could be reported overnight. As of 1993, Nielsen provided five basic services to its customers: the Nielsen Television Index (NTI), which tracked national network television audiences (in use since 1950); the Nielsen Station Index (NSI), which
Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs Further Reading Clark, Eric. The Want Makers. New York: Viking, 1989. Traces the advertising process from research and creation to the worldwide impact of electronic methods of marketing research. Nielsen, Arthur C., Jr. “Do’s and Don’ts in Selling Abroad.” In International Handbook of Advertising, edited by S. Watson Dunn. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Contribution to a collection of essays by experts in the fields of international marketing and advertising discusses how to advertise in specific foreign markets and how international advertising is organized. Nielsen Media Research. The Quality Behind the Numbers. New York: Author, 1992. Outlines the history of the A. C. Nielsen Company in general and its media research in particular, including detailed information on Nielsen’s marketing philosophy, methods, services, and technology. Norback, Craig T., and Peter G. Norback. “Audience Research: A. C. Nielsen Company.” In TV Guide Almanac, edited by Craig T. Norback and Peter G. Norback. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980. Overview of all factors of television programming and production. Details the history, purpose, and methods of audience research used by Nielsen and other research companies as of the 1970’s.
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Roman, James. Love, Light, and a Dream: Television’s Past, Present, and Future. New York: Praeger, 1996. Discussion of the cultural significance of television includes coverage of the influence of the Nielsen rating system. Features bibliography and index. Schwerin, Horace S., and Henry H. Newell. Persuasion in Marketing. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981. Comprehensive discussion of consumer research and how its results are used in the formulation of advertising campaigns. Includes information on A. C. Nielsen’s research techniques. Webster, James G., Patricia F. Phalen, and Lawrence W. Lichty. Ratings Analysis: The Theory and Practice of Audience Research. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. In-depth, scholarly discussion of mass-media audience research aimed at readers with background in advertising and related fields. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1926-1927: MailOrder Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising.
1923
Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs The expeditions that led to the discovery of the first fossilized dinosaur eggs contributed to the progress of paleontology. Locale: Flaming Cliffs, Shabarakh Usu, Gobi Desert, Outer Mongolia Categories: Prehistory and ancient cultures; science and technology Key Figures Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960), American zoologist and explorer Walter Granger (1872-1941), American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. (1857-1935), American vertebrate paleontologist George Olsen (fl. early twentieth century), American paleontologist 1798
Summary of Event The purpose of a series of expensive scientific expeditions to the Gobi Desert from 1921 to 1930 was to investigate Henry Fairfield Osborn’s theory that central Asia had been the site of the evolutionary origin of humans and other mammals. As president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, Osborn was in a position to promote the explorations. Although he believed that supporting hominid fossil evidence would be found, Osborn was interested also in building the museum’s collections. He especially promoted educational displays of taxidermy specimens, artifacts, and fossils found on expeditions. Launching the Central Asiatic Expeditions into the Gobi (the desert’s name means, literally, the “sandy waste”) was not a casual matter. Poor roads, great dis-
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Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Roy Chapman Andrews examines fossilized dinosaur eggs discovered in Outer Mongolia. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
ceratops. The area was so rich that by the end of the first day, each worker was busy carefully applying glue and cloth to strengthen his own fragile specimen as it was removed. On the second day, George Olsen reported that he was sure he had found fossil eggs. At first the others were incredulous, and they teased him. Then, however, they tried seriously to account for the eggs. No birds were known from the lower Cretaceous period. All the Jurassic and upper Cretaceous birds were much too small to have laid eggs of the size Olsen found. Birds’ eggs are usually ovate, a shape that prevents their rolling out of a nest; reptile eggs, which are buried in the ground, are usually elongate. The specimens were ovate. The fact that they were found in beds where only dinosaur fossils were discovered implied that they were dinosaur eggs. The researchers were finding more than one type of dinosaur fossil, but only one was large enough to lay the eggs. Therefore, they concluded, Protoceratops andrewsi must have laid the eggs. 1799
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tances, few people, high winds, sandstorms, and severe climate were all factors to overcome. During the winter, the temperature was lower than –40 degrees Celsius. Because of these conditions, scientific work was limited to April through October. In addition, explorers might face conflicts with bandits, warlords, and local government officials. Food and gasoline had to be brought in by camel caravan. Fortunately, the water table in the Gobi is not deep, and occasional wells allowed caravan travel. Nevertheless, the services of an expert who could thoroughly plan and wisely lead the expeditions were required. Roy Chapman Andrews, who had studied and collected whale specimens for the museum, was chosen to lead the expeditions. Andrews first thought of using airplanes, but the Chinese authorities would not give permission. He then chose to use motor vehicles—two Fulton one-ton trucks and three Dodge cars, all unmodified, to travel into the wilderness of the Gobi Desert. He believed that the vehicles would save time and thus increase the amount of exploration possible. Andrews’s plan also included 150 camels to bring in advance supplies to depots, and a staff of forty men was hired to support about fifteen scientists, experts from various fields. When discoveries were made, all enjoyed the interaction of scientists who were experts in geology, paleontology, zoology, topography, and botany. Andrews also included J. B. Shackleford in the group to document discoveries with both still photographs and motion pictures. Shackleford did excellent work, but chance allowed him to play a larger role. During the first year in the field, he discovered an interesting fossil at a place the group had named Flaming Cliffs. He had wandered off to do some exploring while the others waited for word from a scout car, and at an outcropping of upper Cretaceous rock, he found a skull that was 20 centimeters (7.87 inches) long. Walter Granger, the expedition’s chief paleontologist, recognized the skull as that of an unknown dinosaur. The skull and some bits of eggshells that Granger found at the cliffs were sent to the museum. When the specimens arrived in New York, William K. Gregory determined that the unknown dinosaur was a predecessor of the well-known three-horned American dinosaur Triceratops. This new Mongolian species, however, had yet to evolve its horns and was smaller. Gregory called it Protoceratops andrewsi and strongly suggested that the members of the expedition should find more specimens. They returned to Flaming Cliffs in 1923 and spent two months searching the area. Immediately on their arrival, they discovered more Proto-
Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs Three of the eggs were in a cluster and evidently had remained in the exact spot where they had been deposited by the dinosaur. The broken shells of several others were partially embedded in the rock. Each egg was about the size and shape of a large baked potato, about 22 centimeters (8.66 inches) long. The shells were hard but wrinkled. Several eggs had been broken in half. In these, the scientists were sure they could detect the small bones of embryonic dinosaurs. Now there was no doubt that the eggs were from a dinosaur. During the weeks of study at Flaming Cliffs, the scientists collected a complete developmental series of Protoceratops at all stages. Specimens included eggs, just-hatched youngsters, and juveniles of various ages through 3-meter (9.8-foot) adults. Olsen found a different birdlike dinosaur among the fossils and suspected it of being a predator. Because of the circumstances, the dinosaur was named Oviraptor philoceratops: “thief with love for ceratopsian eggs.” Because the specimens were found at different levels, Andrews concluded that they were not all buried at the same time. The presence of so many fossils of the same species in one area indicated to him that the region must have been a feeding ground or perhaps a source of water. The area was a Protoceratops breeding ground. Andrews thought that perhaps the location had the right type of sand to provide the proper amounts of heat and air for incubation. In the 1923 season, the expedition sent back several skeletons, more than fifty skulls of Protoceratops andrewsi, and fifty eggs, some still in nests. The scientists shipped sixty cases of fossils packed in handy camel hair with the belief that the Flaming Cliffs were still not exhausted. In 1925, an even larger group of researchers returned to the cliffs to find additional fossils. Olsen continued to find most of the eggs. One of his nests, which had eggs fastened to the underside of a rock, can be found in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Eggs of two smaller dinosaurs were found also during later visits. Most of these specimens were sent to the museum in New York. In 1925, one of the expedition’s motor vehicle experts, Norman Lovell, happened upon the best Protoceratops nest. Interested in capturing a young eagle for a pet, he had approached a cliff with a 60-meter (197-foot) drop. Reaching over the side from the top, he scratched his hand on a sharp object that turned out to be a broken dinosaur eggshell that was part of a nest. He reported his find, and Granger removed the eggs while reaching over the cliff, braving high winds. A section of sandstone with 1800
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the eggs in it, weighing half a metric ton, was removed and sent to the museum. The nest held eighteen eggs standing on end in an irregular circle. Originally, more eggs might have been in the nest, but parts had crumbled away with erosion of the cliff. Expeditions returned to the Gobi in 1928 and 1930 to make other discoveries. Andrews, Granger, and Osborn published popular articles and books that described their adventures. Significance At the time when Andrews and his colleagues published the stories of their expeditions, people were just becoming accustomed to the idea of the dinosaurs. Fossils of the forgotten beasts were first found in the nineteenth century, and restorations created from the bones were still rare. The large eggs that the Gobi explorers found made dinosaurs seem more real to the public at large. The amount of interest shown in the eggs surprised Andrews. He believed that the tiny skulls of the earliest known mammals that lived during the age of the dinosaurs were far more important scientifically. Also, his 1925 discovery of artifacts from ancient “dune dwellers” at Flaming Cliffs was more in line with the goals of the expedition. Moreover, there was the finding of the bones of the giant Baluchitherium, a type of rhinoceros. The 95million-year-old dinosaur egg discovery had been a fortunate accident, and Andrews regarded it as important, but not to the extent the public perceived it to be. Before the discovery, scientists had guessed that dinosaurs, like modern reptiles, must have laid eggs, but no clear evidence of that had ever been found. Eggs are fragile structures, and fossils were assumed to be unlikely. Fossils of eggs and juvenile dinosaurs have continued to be rare. John Horner (the paleontologist who discovered the eggs, nests, and fossils of babies of Maiasaura in 1981) has called the discovery in the Gobi “spectacular” and has referred to the absence of further eggs and juveniles as “a major scientific puzzle.” After Horner found dinosaur embryos in Montana, he carefully studied a Protoceratops egg from Flaming Cliffs and stated that the supposed bones were only calcite crystals in odd shapes. Expectations can affect observation. Andrews’s staff had seen a bit more than was actually there, but the eggs were still eggs. The excitement and romance of the expeditions firmly established the reputation of the American Museum of Natural History. With the expeditions, the museum built and still boasts the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the world. Furthermore, the museum was
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Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs
able to develop outstanding exhibits and also to function as a continuing resource of specimens for further scientific study. The expeditions did not find evidence to support Osborn’s theory about Asia being the center of human evolution. In fact, they did not uncover a single early human bone. Andrews, however, proposed that the relationship of Protoceratops to Triceratops supported the idea of a land bridge to North America by which life spread. He wrote in his journal that “the theory upon which we organized the expedition might be true; that Asia is the mother of the life of North America.” Scientists believe that it certainly was a center of some sort, but not for humankind. Research concerning the origins of humans is now centered on Africa. Science changes and is influenced by many ideas. Scientists have continued to reinterpret the findings at Flaming Cliffs to fit new and better theories. Nevertheless, the expeditions remain a landmark in that they contributed much to the progress of paleontology. The science of dinosaurs has undergone major changes, but the eggs and other fossils from the Flaming Cliffs continue to rank as outstanding discoveries in human beings’ efforts to understand the past. —Paul R. Boehlke
See also: Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton; Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift; Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil.
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Further Reading Andrews, Roy Chapman. “Explorations in the Gobi Desert.” National Geographic 63 (June, 1933): 653716. Provides a feeling for the time when the discovery was made. Features many photographs by Shackleford, including one that shows the cliff on which Lovell and Granger found the best nest. _______. On the Trail of Ancient Man: A Narrative of the Field Work of the Central Asiatic Expeditions. 1926. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004. Andrews’s own account, written in the first person for the lay reader, still conveys the excitement of the discoveries and the adventure of exploring the unknown. Describes sandstorms, finding fossils, dealing with danger, and finding the dinosaur eggs. Gould, Stephen Jay. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Addresses the nature of interpreting the fossil record, skillfully using the details of the Burgess Shale of British Columbia to reveal the human side of science, showing how different interpretations of evidence can tell different stories. Written in elegant and witty style.
Horner, John R., and James Gorman. Digging Dinosaurs. New York: Workman, 1988. Relates the exciting story of Horner and Robert Makela’s discoveries and interpretations of hadrosaur nests found in Montana late in the twentieth century. Horner is among those who hold that various dinosaurs were birdlike and performed social behaviors such as protecting and feeding their young. Johanson, Donald, and James Shreeve. “The Antiquity of Man.” In Lucy’s Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor. New York: William Morrow, 1989. Presents the history of how the search for the site of the evolution of humans shifted over the years from Africa to Asia and back to Africa. Discusses the influence of culture on scientific endeavor. Lambert, David. The Dinosaur Data Book: The Definitive, Fully Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. New York: Avon Books, 1990. Comprehensive, lavishly illustrated volume shows how ideas about dinosaurs have changed considerably since the time of the Andrews expedition. Includes information on major fossil sites. Lessem, Don. “Secrets of the Gobi Desert.” Discover 10 (June, 1989): 40-46. Relates the efforts of Canadian and Chinese scientists to retrace the steps of Andrews’s expedition and notes that fossil bones found late in the twentieth century continued to indicate that the dinosaurs may have spread to one another’s continents. Martin, Anthony J. Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs. 2d ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Science, 2006. Comprehensive college-level textbook aimed at both science students and non-science majors includes discussion of the history of dinosaur studies. Features end-of-chapter references, glossary, and index. Norell, Mark, Lowell Dingus, and Eugene Gaffney. Discovering Dinosaurs: Evolution, Extinction, and the Lessons of Prehistory. Expanded ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Focuses on what the fossil record reveals about dinosaurs’ evolution and extinction. Includes maps and illustrations.
Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy
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1923
Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy Martin Buber’s I and Thou won attention for its attempt to connect religion to everyday life. In this work, Buber argued that spirituality came from opening oneself to true relationships with other human beings. Also known as: I and Thou; Ich und Du Locale: Germany Categories: Publishing and journalism; religion, theology, and ethics; philosophy Key Figures Martin Buber (1878-1965), German Jewish philosopher Ba4al Shem Tov (c. 1700-1760), leader of the Hasidic movement Paul Tillich (1886-1965), Christian theologian Summary of Event In Ich und Du (1923; I and Thou, 1937), the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber sought to prove that religion is required for the modern world to function properly. Although he was not writing from within the Jewish tradition, Buber’s scholarship, teaching, and political involvement led to the publication of a work that influenced not only Jewish but also Christian and secular thinkers. Educated at universities in Vienna, Leipzig, and Zurich, Buber was exposed to the teachings of such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the early existentialist Søren Kierkegaard. He also became involved in Zionism, the political movement promoting the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In the early years of the twentieth century, however, Buber discovered the writings of the Ba4al Shem Tov, the leader of the eighteenth century Jewish popular mystical movement known as Hasidism. For five years, Buber withdrew from politics to study Hasidic lore, and at the end of that period he published several books about Hasidism, including Die Legende des Baalschem (1908; The Legend of the Baal-Shem, 1955). Buber began drafting I and Thou in 1916. In his writing, he drew on his studies of Hasidism, Daoism, Christian mysticism, and other traditions. He also used the manuscript as an outlet for his response to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. After working on I and Thou off and on for several years, Buber presented some of his ideas in lectures given in the early 1920’s at the Free Jew1802
ish Academy in Frankfurt, a school run by his friend and intellectual collaborator Franz Rosenzweig. The heart of I and Thou lies in its discussion of relationship and dialogue. In examining these two concepts, Buber distinguished between ways of approaching the world. The first is the “I-It” way, in which the world, work, politics, fellow human beings, and even God are treated as objects. This approach involves the use, experience, and analysis of things but does not involve any relationship to them. To relate to people, nature, the world, or God, to enter into dialogue with them, and to open oneself and seek a sort of reciprocity with them required a tactic that Buber called Ich-Du, a phrase hard to translate into English because it uses the familiar, intimate form of the German word “you,” a form that no longer exists in English except for the archaic “thou.” This second approach, which belongs to the “I-Thou” or “I-You” realm, is one ruled by the spirit rather than reason. It is the realm of artistic inspiration, of communion with nature, and of true relationship to one’s fellow human beings. Although such true relationships can be perilous, unpredictable, and difficult, they are the only way in which one can truly experience the presence of others and, through them, the presence of something spiritual. Although he came from a mystical tradition, Buber did not believe that a withdrawal from the world is required to connect to God. On the contrary, he said that God can be found only in the world and that this discovery requires that the seeker be open to all forms of experience. Drawing on the Hasidic tradition, Buber urged people to make the everyday world holy. He recognized, however, that people must use certain objects, analyze situations, resort to reason—that is, they must function in the realm of I-It—some of the time, but he asserted that these types of experiences should be balanced by time spent in the I-You realm. If society becomes only a collection of objects, and if people relate to each other only in a transactional way, society will become ill and devoid of spirit. Christian thinker Paul Tillich was very impressed by I and Thou and said that in modern civilization Buber’s teaching was an important corrective to the emphasis on the I-It realm. Other Christian writers also saw something important in Buber’s emphasis on spirit and its opposition to the technology and materialism of modern life. Some commentators saw I and Thou, which is gen-
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Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy
Significance Although Buber might be pleased to know that his book continues to provoke dialogue, he would no doubt point out that to attempt to analyze
Through the graciousness of its comings and the solemn sadness of its goings it leads you away to the Thou in which the parallel lines of relations meet. It does not help to sustain you in life, it only helps you to glimpse eternity. Source: Martin Buber, I and Thou, translated by Walter Kaufman (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).
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his message is to move it into the realm of I-It instead of erally viewed as Buber’s masterpiece, as being nonthe realm in which the spirit of a work inspires its reader. Jewish and universal, and these assertions prompted othBuber did not deny the need for analysis and the realm of ers to write lengthy works aimed at demonstrating the I-It, but he hoped his readers would place a higher priorbook’s exclusively Jewish qualities. There are, however, ity on the spiritual realm and its emphasis on reaching out few overt references in I and Thou to Judaism or Jewish to things and people. I and Thou played an important role figures, whereas Buber devotes two short sections to Jein giving expression to the feelings of those who were sus and to the Buddha’s teachings. Even more challenging to Jewish orthodoxy is the lack of importance Buber gives to Jewish law and the teachings of the rabbis. The Power of the “I-Thou” For Buber, spirituality is an issue of In this passage from I and Thou (1923), Martin Buber compares the “I-It” addressing and relating to God, not realm with the “I-Thou” realm and explains that only the latter state allows huobserving commandments, and in a mans to forge a link with God. later work Buber wrote that he believed the Hebrew Bible to be less a To man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. He perset of laws than the story of God ceives what exists round about him—simply things, and beings as things; and speaking to His people. what happens round about him—simply events, and actions as events; things Jewish commentators have asconsisting of qualifies, events of moments; things entered in the graph of place, serted that the notion of addressing events in that of time; things and events bounded by other things and events, God, or of God addressing man, is measured by them, comparable with them: he perceives an ordered and detached world. It is to some extent a reliable world, having density and duration. a Jewish idea that can be traced in Its organization can be surveyed and brought out again and again; gone over the biblical dialogues of Abraham with closed eyes, and verified with open eyes. It is always there, next to your or Moses. They have also pointed skin, if you look on it that way, cowering in your soul, if you prefer it so. It is out that Buber’s treatment of Jesus your object, remains it as long as you wish, and remains a total stranger, within is not a traditional Christian one, you and without. You perceive it, take it to yourself as the “truth,” and it lets itbecause he focuses on the human self be taken; but it does not give itself to you. Only concerning it may you Jesus—Jesus as the Son relating to make yourself “understood” with others; it is ready, though attached to evthe Father—and sees this relationeryone in a different way, to be an object common to you all. But you cannot ship as the quintessential relationship meet others in it. You cannot hold on to life without it, its reliability sustains between human beings and God. In you; but should you die in it, your grave would be in nothingness. other words, Buber treats Jesus as an Or on the other hand, man meets what exists and becomes as what is over against him, always simply a single being and each thing simply as being. example of what human beings can What exists is opened to him in happenings, and what happens affects him as be in relation to God rather than as an what is. Nothing is present for him except this one being, but it implicates the aspect of God himself. More imporwhole world. Measure and comparison have disappeared; it lies with yourself tant, however, is the general nature of how much of the immeasurable becomes reality for you. These meetings are Buber’s approach, which challenges not organized to make the world, but each is a sign of the world-order. They are all orthodox religion by emphasizing not linked up with one another, but each assures you of your solidarity with the that personal relationships in everyworld. The world which appears to you in this way is unreliable, for it takes on day life form a key component of a continually new appearance; you cannot hold it to its word. It has no density, spirituality. Buber has little use for for everything in it penetrates everything else; no duration, for it comes even setting aside a time or a place for reliwhen it is not summoned, and vanishes even when it is tightly held. It cannot be gious worship, and in a later work he surveyed, and if you wish to make it capable of survey you lose it. . . . You cannot make yourself understood with others concerning it, you are alone with it. said that true religions should work But it teaches you to meet others, and to hold your ground when you meet them. for their own obliteration.
De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light
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disturbed by the world’s increasing materialism, and this feeling contributed to movements such as some Westerners’ turn toward Eastern philosophies in the 1960’s. Buber’s book also challenged supporters of conventional religions by asking them to renew—and perhaps to test—their faith by bringing it into the modern world, and he hoped that people would go beyond old texts and come to see them in new ways. To those who had abandoned religion, Buber suggested that if they made the choice to relate openly and truly to the world, then in a sense they had not abandoned religion after all. —Sheldon Goldfarb
to Martin Buber’s “I and Thou.” Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press, 1983. Discusses Buber’s intellectual development before I and Thou and provides a detailed examination of I and Thou. Manheim, Werner. Martin Buber. New York: Twayne, 1974. Discusses Buber’s life and works. Traces his influences. Mayhall, C. Wayne, and Timothy B. Mayhall. On Buber. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth-Thomson, 2004. Brief survey of Buber’s works, including a chapter on I and Thou. Smith, Ronald Gregor. Martin Buber. London: Carey Kingsgate, 1967. Brief introduction to Buber’s life and work. Ends by arguing against his view of Christianity. Vermes, Pamela. Buber. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. Short survey of Buber’s works and influences, including a chapter on I and Thou.
Further Reading Breslauer, S. Daniel. The Chrysalis of Religion: A Guide to the Jewishness of Buber’s “I and Thou.” Nashville: Abingdon, 1980. Argues that I and Thou belongs to a tradition of Jewish writing. Buber, Martin. I and Thou. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Scribner’s, 1970. Except for the title, uses “you” for Buber’s “du.” Kaufmann provides some useful background information in his prologue. Friedman, Maurice S. Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue. 1955. 4th ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Detailed discussion of Buber’s philosophy, including his relationship to Christianity and Judaism. Geering, Lloyd. The World of Relation: An Introduction
See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education; 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought.
1923
De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light Louis de Broglie provided a mechanical explanation for the wave-particle duality of light. Locale: University of Paris, France Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), French prince, historian, and physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), Austrian physicist Summary of Event In the early years of the twentieth century, scientists were having difficulty describing the nature of light. For a long time, light had been regarded as acting like a particle. In the late nineteenth century, the wavelike nature of light had been demonstrated. Early in the twentieth century, 1804
however, this belief was shifted again by experiments that confirmed the particle nature of light. The waveparticle duality of light was an experimental phenomenon in search of a theory. At the beginning of the twentieth century, German physicist Max Planck had used the concept of the wave nature of light to explain blackbody radiation (radiation from a theoretical celestial body capable of completely absorbing all radiation falling on it). As a wave, light has a wavelength (the distance between crests) and a corresponding frequency (the number of crests passing a point in a given amount of time). Planck had shown that light of a particular frequency had a definite amount of energy; that is, energy is quantized. This seemed to favor the belief that light was wavelike in nature. Nevertheless, five years later, in 1905, American physicist Albert Einstein reasoned that light behaved like
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Parts of a Wave Wavelength
Direction of propagation
Amplitude
De Broglie noticed that the momentum of the electron orbitals proposed by Bohr were whole number units of a fundamental quantity, Planck’s constant. He knew that standing waves had unit changes in their momenta also. A standing wave can be thought of as a string, fixed at both ends, that is plucked. The string will oscillate back and forth, yet some points will remain at rest. The number of rest points will increase as the frequency of the vibration increases. De Broglie reasoned that Bohr’s orbitals could therefore be seen as a circular string, a snake swallowing its own tail. Moreover, de Broglie discovered that the matter waves he had proposed fit Bohr’s electron orbits exactly. He also found that the momenta and wavelengths of his matter waves were related, like those of light. He had succeeded in explaining Bohr’s orbits: Each orbit was a steady wave pattern, and these orbits had determined and fixed sizes so that these distinct “quantized” wave patterns could exist. When de Broglie somewhat reluctantly submitted his dissertation, the faculty at the University of Paris was unsure of the use of strings to explain Bohr’s orbits and asked Einstein to judge the acceptability of the dissertation. Einstein confirmed that it was sound. The thesis was accepted, and later de Broglie was awarded the Nobel Prize. Significance De Broglie’s waves had offered a picture of what was occurring inside an atom. A way to visualize the shifting patterns of the wave was needed when the atom changed energy and produced light. Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist, found a mathematical equation that explained the changing wave patterns inside an atom. Schrödinger’s equation provides a continuous mathe1805
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particles. Einstein used Planck’s theory of quantized light to explain why light striking the surface of certain metals resulted in the ejection of electrons from that metal (the photoelectric effect), but only when this involved certain frequencies of light. He pictured the light striking the metal surface as particles of light, or photons, with sufficient energy to knock off electrons. Motion of The wave-particle nature of light source was constantly debated and seemed dependent upon the experiment being performed. For example, the dispersion of white light into its component colors by a prism is a result of the wave nature of light. By contrast, the ability of a stream of photons to eject electrons from a metal surface points to the particle nature of light. Einstein had shown by his relativity theory that light could behave like both waves and particles and that the physical properties of each nature were related. He showed that the momentum of the photon (a particle property) was related to the wavelength of the light (a wave property). Einstein’s results demonstrated that light has wave and particle duality. Louis de Broglie had been studying Planck’s theories of quantized light and Einstein’s wave-particle concept of light. He wrote several papers calling attention to the dual behavior of light. De Broglie wished to provide a mechanical explanation for the wave-particle duality. Thus he needed to find a mechanical reason for a particle—the photon—to have an energy that was determined by a wave, or rather by the frequency of that wave. While he was thinking about light, de Broglie had the idea that matter (a particle) might have a wave nature also. At about this time, Niels Bohr had revealed a theory for the electronic structure of atoms. Bohr’s theory was that the electrons in an atom were restricted to particular energy levels and positions called “orbitals.” Only by exact additions of unit amounts of energy could the energy and orbital of an electron be changed. De Broglie was struck by the analogy of Bohr’s orbital energies to standing waves. As a result, de Broglie discovered an example of wave-particle duality in matter. De Broglie used his explanations of the wave-particle duality of matter in writing his doctoral dissertation in physics, which he presented before the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Paris in 1923. His theory demonstrated that matter, like light, has a wavelike nature.
De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light
De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light
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matical description of the wave-particle duality of matter. He viewed the atom as analogous to de Broglie’s vibrating string. The movement of the electron from one orbit to another was a simple change in the frequency of the standing waves of the string. In a musical string, this occurs as the harmony of two wave patterns, the result being the differences in the frequency of the two waves. The understanding of the wave-particle duality of matter, as modeled by Schrödinger’s equation, was instrumental in the founding of quantum physics. Quantum physics has been responsible for many of the technological advances in the twentieth century. These advances are traceable to de Broglie’s pronouncement of the waveparticle duality of matter. —Scott A. Davis
2d ed. New York: Dover, 1959. Nontechnical guide to the development of quantum mechanics for the general reader provides a treasure of insight into the persons, places, and pitfalls encountered in the early history of quantum physics. Highly recommended for those interested in the development of quantum physics. Jammer, Max. The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974. Addresses the analysis of the concepts, philosophy, and interrelation of the mechanics and ideas of the new physics and provides a guide to the literature of the subject. McQuarrie, Donald A. Quantum Chemistry. Mill Valley, Calif.: University Science Books, 1983. Textbook traces the beginnings of quantum mechanics and utilizes the results in discussion of molecules. Provides background and conclusions based on the earliest works in quantum physics. Includes brief biographies of the principal characters in the development of the field. Excellent treatment of the historical beginnings of quantum mechanics on a technical level. Wolf, Fred Alan. Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Outstanding book traces the earliest debates and experiments concerning the philosophy and practice of quantum physics. Presents science from a humanized perspective that is accurate, historical, and conceptual, leading the reader to a solid, nontechnical grasp and beyond. Highly recommended for anyone interested in quantum physics.
Further Reading Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Chapter 19 is devoted to Schrödinger and de Broglie. Includes glossary and index. Ford, Kenneth W. The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. Explains the concepts of quantum physics in nontechnical language for lay readers. Illustrated. Guillemin, Victor. The Story of Quantum Mechanics. 1968. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003. Conveys for the general reader factual information and insight into the ways professional scientists think and work. Presents the historical background of quantum mechanics as well as the theories and models of atomic and subatomic particles. Concludes with consideration of the philosophical implications of quantum physics. Hoffmann, Banesh. The Strange Story of the Quantum.
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See also: Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect; Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling.
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Discovery of the Compton Effect
1923
Discovery of the Compton Effect Arthur Holly Compton’s explanation for the change in wavelength of X rays scattered from matter provided an important confirmation of the quantum theory of radiation. Locale: St. Louis, Missouri Categories: Science and technology; physics; chemistry Key Figures Arthur Holly Compton (1892-1962), American physicist, educator, and philosopher Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940), English physicist Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959), English physicist Charles Glover Barkla (1877-1944), English physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), English physicist
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Summary of Event The importance of the phenomenon known as the Compton effect to the fields of chemistry and physics can be appreciated only within the context of early twentieth century science. By the end of the nineteenth century, physical scientists were experiencing a general feeling of complacency. All material substances were known to be composed of molecules, which were understood to be specific combinations of atoms of the ninety or so elemental substances found in nature. The research of Joseph John Thomson indicated clearly that the negatively charged electron is a constituent of all atoms, which, because they are all neutral, had to have some type of positive particle also. Ernest Rutherford’s famous experiment in which he scattered alpha particles from a thin film of gold provided evidence for his theory of atomic structure. Rutherford’s atom was composed of a tiny, but massive, positive nucleus surrounded by space occupied by tiny electrons. Chemists and atomic physicists believed that they had a fairly clear picture of the structure of the material world. Physicists were enamored of the laws of motion of Sir Isaac Newton, which had explained successfully the motion of objects varying in size from the near microscopic to the planets in the solar system. Equally well accepted were the laws of James Clerk Maxwell, which described the behavior of electromagnetic radiation. Set in this theory, light was seen as a type of electromagnetic wave phenomenon. The attitude of physicists was that the basic laws of nature had been discovered and that it was
necessary only to continue their application in explaining natural phenomena. One of the clear distinctions made by scientists by the end of the nineteenth century was the classification of natural phenomena as either particle or wave phenomena. Particles were thought of as bundles of matter possessing mass, which determines the way in which the particles respond to applied force. In addition to mass, two fundamental properties were associated with particles because of their motion. These are momentum and kinetic energy, both of which are conserved in the absence of interaction with some outside force. A particle of mass m and velocity v has kinetic energy equal to mv2/ 2 and momentum equal to mv. During a collision (any interaction in which the particles exert forces on one another) between two particles, momentum is always conserved. In some collisions, known as elastic collisions, kinetic energy is conserved also. Conservation of kinetic energy and momentum requires only that the total of each quantity is the same after the collision as before. The particles involved may exchange all or some of their momentum and kinetic energy with one another. Moving particles, then, may be seen as a means of transporting energy from one place to another. Another means of transporting energy is the wave; familiar examples are water waves, sound waves, and electromagnetic waves such as light. All waves are characterized by wavelength lambda (distance between two identical points on adjacent waves) and frequency v (number of waves per unit time). Waves can be unambiguously identified by their ability to interfere with each other. Whenever two harmonic waves of equal amplitude intersect at some point in a medium, the net effect is the sum of the two waves. If the waves are always in phase at the intersection point, the net wave is twice that of either wave; but, if they are out of phase, they cancel. Two wave systems interfering in a medium give a pattern of amplitudes that is constant in time. Whenever a wave moves around some object or passes through a small opening, an interference pattern between waves coming from different points near the edge of the barrier is set up. This is known as a diffraction pattern. Observation of interference and diffraction patterns is regarded as a confirming test of the wave nature of a phenomenon. There was no doubt in the minds of early twentieth century physicists that light was a wave phenomenon. Diffraction and interference patterns had been observed and
Discovery of the Compton Effect
Arthur Holly Compton. (The Nobel Foundation)
used in wavelength measurements. X rays were discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in the mid-1890’s, and Max von Laue demonstrated the diffraction of X rays by crystals in 1912. It was determined quickly that X rays (electromagnetic waves of wavelength much shorter than that of light) provided a powerful new tool for the investigation of matter. Thomson studied the scattering of X rays by matter using the theory that the X rays interacted with bound electrons, causing them to oscillate at the same frequency as the incident radiation. The oscillating electrons, in turn, reradiated the energy at the same frequency as the incident radiation. Charles Glover Barkla investigated this phenomenon and found that the scattered X rays were of two kinds: One type had the same wavelength as the incident radiation and the second type had a longer wavelength. It was at this point that Arthur Holly Compton investigated this secondary type of scattered radiation. His explanation helped to change the direction of physics. Compton’s career as a research physicist began in 1919 when, as a Fellow of the National Research Council, he 1808
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 studied at Rutherford’s laboratory in Cambridge. He studied the scattering and absorption of gamma rays and observed that the scattered radiation was more absorbable than the primary. This observation led eventually to his discovery of the Compton effect. He thought that the increased absorption indicated a change in the wavelength of the scattered rays and, if light could be described as having particle-like behavior, a decrease in its momentum. Compton did not think that the accuracy of the gamma-ray data was enough to allow him to defend a photonic interpretation with confidence. After his year at Cambridge, Compton moved to Washington University, where he intended to extend his gamma-scattering experiments into the X-ray region. Using a Bragg crystal spectrometer, he was able to analyze the scattered and primary radiation with great precision. Compton used monochromatic X rays from a molybdenum source, scattered from a target of graphite (a form of carbon), and found that the scattered rays contained radiation that had the same wavelength as the incident radiation as well as radiation of a longer wavelength. The wavelength of this second type of scattered radiation varied in a systematic way with the scattering angle. This change in wavelength could not be explained in terms of the classical theories of electrodynamics. In 1922, after all attempts to use classical explanations had failed, Compton arrived at his revolutionary quantum theory for the interaction. He treated the process as a collision between a free electron and an X-ray quantum having kinetic energy and momentum. Applying the laws of conservation to the collision, Compton was able to derive the equations for the Compton effect in the form in which they are used today and found exact agreement with his data. The kinetic energy and the momentum of the scattered photon were decreased by an amount equal exactly to that acquired by the electron, which then recoiled. When Compton first proposed his explanation, there was no experimental evidence for the recoil electron, but this evidence was provided shortly afterward by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, who observed tracks in the cloud chamber, which could be explained in terms of Compton’s theory. Significance The Compton effect holds a position of primary importance in the development of modern physics. From the time of its first discovery and explanation, it has stimulated the development of quantum mechanics by providing experimental evidence that classical mechanics and electrodynamics were powerless to explain. During the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tion of the electrons toward or away from the photon either adds to or subtracts from the Compton shift. Extensive study of the line broadening because of this Doppler shift has provided physicists and chemists information about the momenta of electrons in matter. —Grace A. Banks Further Reading Boorse, Henry A., and Lloyd Motz. “The Compton Effect.” In The World of the Atom. New York: Basic Books, 1966. Brief description of the Compton effect and its importance to the development of physics. Also features reprints of a 1962 essay on Compton by S. K. Allison originally published in Science and two of Compton’s early papers. Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Follows the development of physics from its nineteenth century roots to the enigmatic mysteries of the late twentieth century. Examines characters and personalities as well as the issues of physics. Includes brief discussion of the Compton effect. Ford, Kenneth W. The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. Explains the concepts of quantum physics in nontechnical language for lay readers. Illustrated. Heathcote, Niels H. de V. Nobel Prize Winners in Physics, 1901-1950. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. The chapter on Compton contains a clear, nonmathematical description of the Compton effect. Quotes extensively from Compton’s Nobel lecture. Suitable for readers with little background in physics. Hendry, John. The Creation of Quantum Mechanics and the Bohr-Pauli Dialogue. Boston: D. Reidel, 1984. History of quantum mechanics intended for readers who have had at least an introduction to quantum mechanics at the beginning college level. Includes discussion of the Compton effect and its importance to American physicists. Massey, Sir Harrie. The New Age in Physics. 2d ed. New York: Harper, 1967. Provides a clear and interesting account of the development of twentieth century physics. Discusses the wave-particle question in the first two chapters, as well as other topics important to an understanding of the Compton effect. Stuewer, Roger H. The Compton Effect: Turning Point in Physics. New York: Science History Publications, 1975. Detailed analysis of the theoretical and experi1809
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entire early period of quantum theory (from 1920 to 1930), the Compton effect was a central phenomenon against which the theory could be tested. It provided conclusive proof that Albert Einstein’s concept of the photon (introduced early in the 1900’s to explain the photoelectric emission of electrons) as having both energy and momentum was correct. It also indicated that material particles have a wave nature and show interference effects. This wave-particle duality found in both radiation and matter lies at the heart of modern quantum theory. This remarkable discovery had consequences that went far beyond the photon concept; it became the basis for Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, one of the most important developments in quantum theory. For an electron to be located, it must be irradiated with photons of high energy, because errors in position are minimized by radiation of short wavelength. To be seen, the photon must enter the objective of the observing microscope, which gives a range of directions because of the finite width of the opening. As only the approximate direction of the photon is known after the collision, the recoil of the electron may be known only approximately. Attempts to increase accuracy of the position measurement increase uncertainty in the recoil momentum, because even shorter wavelengths must be used. The net result of this is that the more information is gained about one of these variables, the less is known about the other variable. This forms the essence of the uncertainty principle. The Compton effect has played an important role in many diverse areas of science. For example, it has affected radiation shielding in nuclear physics. A beam of radiation is attenuated as it passes through matter as the photons are absorbed or scattered by the material. One of the experimental facts that Compton found was that the relative intensities of the primary and secondary radiation depend on the wavelength of the exciting radiation. The importance of the processes involved in attenuating the beam depends on the photon energies. Information of this type is useful for the design of radiation shielding. The Compton effect has been used directly in the early diagnosis of osteoporosis, a disease indicated by changes in bone density. The Compton scattering of gamma rays from bone has an intensity that depends on the number of scattering centers. This, in turn, is related to the density of the bone material. Similar techniques have been developed for the diagnosis of lung diseases that affect tissue density. Scientists have also obtained information about the electronic structure of molecules and crystals from the Compton effect. A Doppler shift resulting from the mo-
Discovery of the Compton Effect
Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams mental work in the field of radiation physics related to the background, discovery, and impact of the Compton effect. Accessible to readers with a general background in college-level physics.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 19201930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays.
1923
Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams The Federal Power Commission rejected the San Joaquin Light and Power Company’s application for a permit to build hydroelectric plants in Kings Canyon in the Sierra Nevada. The decision demonstrated that the fledgling commission had the will and the power to stand up to the energy industry, and it helped safeguard Kings Canyon from development until 1940, when it became a national park. Locale: Kings Canyon, California Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; government and politics; energy Key Figures Oscar C. Merrill (fl. early twentieth century), chief engineer of the U.S. Forest Service and later executive secretary of the Federal Power Commission William Kelly (fl. early twentieth century), chief engineer for the Federal Power Commission John Muir (1838-1914), American naturalist and wilderness advocate Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), American conservationist Summary of Event Kings Canyon National Park is located in California’s Sierra Nevada. Established in 1940, the park is noted for its spectacular mountain scenery, as well as for its groves of sequoias, or giant redwoods. The park’s pristine beauty was almost lost to future generations in the 1920’s, however, when speculators made plans to develop a series of dams and powerhouses on the forks of the Kings River. Only the timely intervention of the Federal Power Commission (FPC) in 1923 prevented an industrial development from occurring in what has since been recognized as one of North America’s most scenic wilderness areas. When the FPC rejected the San Joaquin Light and Power Company’s application for a permit for hydropower development on the Kings River, the agency 1810
was barely three years old. Congress had created the Federal Power Commission in 1920 following nearly forty years of lobbying and debate. The first hydropower development in the United States occurred in 1882, but despite the advantages noted by conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot—that hydroelectric power was a clean and a continually self-renewing resource—hydropower construction in general lagged well behind construction of steam-powered generating plants. For many years, the typical hydropower facility was a small run-of-the-river plant employing a simple diversion dam. Industrialists were reluctant to rely on hydropower, as its availability was often subject to seasonal fluctuations. As the scale of power plants increased, moreover, steam plants also presented fewer legal complications. Many of the early hydropower plants were constructed on privately owned lands, and the electricity was generated within a single state. The legal questions that arose initially regarding permits and licenses did not seem too different from the concerns revolving around steam plants, such as ownership of the land on which the plant was to be built and rights-of-way for transmission lines. Federal jurisdiction came into play in only a few situations, for example if the waters involved were subject to international treaties or if the waters were located on federal reserves. The Federal Dam Act of 1906 added a third area of federal jurisdiction—navigable waters—and these three separate areas became the basis of federal authority over waterpower. Riparian rights for the early developers of hydropower were also relatively simple. Because a hydroelectric plant does not permanently remove water from a river, downstream users and landowners in most states had little say in upstream development. A developer had only to purchase the land for the proposed dam and powerhouse, along with any area to be flooded by the reservoir the dam would create. As advances in both civil and electrical engineering led to increases in the scale of projects—from small diversion dams impounding a few acre-feet of water to large gravity and arch dams im-
Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams
pounding reservoirs several miles in length and from transmission lines reaching five or ten miles to transmission lines stretching for hundreds of miles—the legal situation became more complicated. By 1900, both conservationists and industrialists were citing the lack of a coherent federal water policy as a reason for the lack of development of hydropower. Despite the general agreement that definite policies were necessary, however, Congress accomplished nothing concrete until the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. Following the entry of the United States into World War I, with both conservationists and industrialists urging Congress to pass a comprehensive waterpower bill to help cope with a potential power shortage brought on by a scarcity of fuel oil, the legislative deadlock was finally broken. Still, it was not until late in 1918 that a compromise bill was introduced. Written by Oscar C. Merrill, chief engineer for the U.S. Forest Service, the bill proposed creating a commission that would consist of the
three departments already involved in waterpower regulation—the Departments of War, Interior, and Agriculture—and that would oversee waterpower on navigable streams, public lands, and national forests. Legislative inertia following the end of the war slowed the bill’s passage, so it was not until June 10, 1920, that the Federal Water Power Act was signed into law. Developers almost immediately swamped the newly created Federal Power Commission with applications for power development projects, including development on the Kings River. The application by the San Joaquin Light and Power Company called for three storage reservoirs, eight diversion dams, thirty-five miles of power tunnels and ditches, and seven powerhouses. The development, designed with a capacity of 266,000 horsepower, would have covered fourteen thousand acres in the Kings Canyon region. Two of the plants would have operated with effective heads of more than two thousand feet. (“Head” refers to the difference in elevation between the point at a dam where water enters the power tunnel leading to the hydroelectric turbines and the point where the water exits the turbine.) The pristine natural beauty of Kings Canyon had already been recognized for decades by the time San Joaquin Light and Power applied to the FPC to build there. John Muir, one of the founders of the Sierra Club, was an early advocate of the creation of Kings Canyon National Park. Many preservationists, including Muir, had been urging that a national park be created south of Yosemite, a park that would include Kings Canyon, even before Yosemite was officially designated a national park in 1890. As early as 1891, in an article published in The Century magazine, Muir had described the region as even grander than the already famous Yosemite Valley. Muir made numerous trips into the Kings River area, often accompanied by other preservationists, but he died in 1914, before his goal of preserving all of the High Sierra could be accomplished. The chronically understaffed FPC i c o was able to act on only a handful of
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Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams the applications it received (more than two hundred by 1924). While Secretary Merrill pleaded for additional staff to handle the backlog, other engineers began to question the merits of many of the applications. William Kelly, chief engineer for the Federal Power Commission, toured the western states in 1922. Kelly reportedly noted that many of the conditions following World War I that had led to the passage of the Federal Water Power Act in 1920—scarcity of fuel oil, for example—were no longer valid. Kelly observed that the rapid development of hydroelectric sites seemed in some cases to be outpacing justification for their development. The combination of an overwhelming backlog of applications and the perception that additional development was unnecessary may have led to Merrill’s decision to reject multiple pending applications. Trade publications such as Power reported that the FPC had decided to clear its record of applications for preliminary permits for a number of sites around the country. The proposed Kings River project was one such project, and the San Joaquin Light and Power Company was informed that they would not receive a permit. Before the company could reapply, the demand for hydropower development abated. As Kelly had noted, fuel oil was no longer in short supply. The pressure to develop hydroelectric sites as an alternative to fossil fuels eased, and the project no longer seemed as lucrative an investment. Significance The Federal Power Commission’s action proved significant for two very different reasons. First, Merrill’s decision to reject so many applications at once had the seemingly contradictory effect of both helping to establish the authority of the FPC in regulating hydroelectric development and highlighting the young agency’s many structural weaknesses. As authorized under the Federal Water Power Act of 1920, the FPC had only one employee, its executive secretary, Oscar Merrill. Congress had failed to allocate funding for even one clerk-typist for the FPC; all support staff had to be borrowed from the component departments, as the FPC could not hire anyone independently. For example, William Kelly, who in 1922 had recommended against approving many of the applications on file, had been borrowed from the War Department and the Army Corps of Engineers. Prior to being assigned to the FPC, Colonel Kelly had worked on fortification construction for most of his engineering career. He was not an electrical engineer by training, but few military engineers at that time were. Merrill’s reli1812
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ance on Kelly’s advice showed how limited the personnel resources of the Federal Power Commission actually were. In addition, conservationists who had lobbied for the creation of the FPC noticed the often cursory reviews given to permit applications. Rather than weighing the merits of each application in terms of the best use of natural resources, as Gifford Pinchot and others had hoped the FPC would do, the young commission was quickly accused of too often considering only engineering design criteria. Merrill’s action in rejecting so many applications out of hand emphasized that the FPC was so understaffed that it was unable to fulfill its mission properly. At the same time, until the FPC acted in 1923 to reject dubious applications, such as that for the Kings Canyon project, many observers in both the hydroelectric industry and the conservation movement may have doubted the commission’s willingness to stand up to industry. Chronically shorthanded and hounded by would-be developers, the FPC might easily have become little more than a licensing bureau that passively collected permit fees and gave rubber-stamped approvals to all applications. Rejecting applications such as the one proposed by San Joaquin Light and Power for development on the Kings River demonstrated to the hydroelectric industry that the FPC was willing to turn down a developer. Despite the doubts of conservationists, the days of wildcat speculation in hydroelectric development on federal lands had ended. Second, rejection of the application for development on the Kings River preserved the essential wilderness character of the region. A few years earlier, wilderness preservationists had lost the battle to prevent construction of the O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley. The timely intervention of the FPC, although motivated by nonaesthetic concerns, meant that Kings Canyon would not be similarly modified. Even though the canyon did suffer depredations from logging, its river was not dammed, nor were any of its canyons inundated by reservoirs. If not a totally virgin wilderness, Kings Canyon is still far more unspoiled than many national parks. Visitors to Kings Canyon can still enjoy a mountain wilderness little different from that visited by John Muir in the late nineteenth century. Muir believed that, like Yosemite, Kings Canyon’s depth, width, and flat valley floor were the result of glacial action. The notebooks Muir filled with his impressions of the High Sierra contain numerous sketches of Kings Canyon rock formations and the evidence they displayed of extensive glaciation. Because the FPC
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 seemingly saved Kings Canyon almost by accident rather than by acting deliberately to preserve the region, it is hard to say if Muir’s many years of drawing attention to the beauty of the High Sierra played any role in Merrill’s decision to reject the San Joaquin Light and Power application. While lobbying for passage of the Federal Water Power Act, Merrill had voiced strong preservationist sentiments regarding unique natural areas such as the Grand Canyon, so it is possible that he based his decision on more than simple economic analyses of the projected need for electricity in California. In any case, whether initially saved deliberately or by accident, Kings Canyon was designated as a national park in 1940. It remains natural and unspoiled, a uniquely beautiful national treasure. —Nancy Farm Mannikko Further Reading Baum, Robert David. The Federal Power Commission and State Utility Regulation. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Public Affairs, 1942. Hard to find, but one of the few books to examine the history of the Federal Power Commission. Blehm, Eric. The Last Season. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Story of the disappearance of a ranger who spent twenty-eight years working in the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Although focused on the tragic life of one man, it contains a wealth of information about the parks, their history, and the day-to-day routine of the people who work to preserve them. Includes maps and illustrations. Despain, Joel. Hidden Beneath the Mountains: The Caves of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Dayton, Ohio: Cave Books, 2003. Useful guide to one
Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams of the least-known but most breathtaking resources of Kings Canyon National Park. Grunsky, Frederic R., ed. South of Yosemite: Selected Writings by John Muir. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press, 1968. Vivid descriptions of the Sierra Nevada range and Kings Canyon. Illustrated with Muir’s sketches and black-and-white photographs. Gulliver, John S., and Roger E. A. Arndt. Hydropower Engineering Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. While much of the mathematics may be comprehensible only to civil engineers, the lucid explanations of the different factors involved in hydroelectric development and the numerous accompanying illustrations make this book an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the topic. Hughes, Thomas P. Networks of Power. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Fascinating history of electrification in the United States and Europe. Lavishly illustrated. A classic in the history of technology. Jones, Holway R. John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1965. Excellent history of the early years of the Sierra Club and one of its first preservation battles, the attempt to prevent the construction of the dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Lavishly illustrated with excellent photographs. See also: Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon; June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act.
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Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1923
Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation When inflation made the German mark virtually worthless, Germans resorted to barter as a replacement for currency transactions. Locale: Germany Categories: Trade and commerce; government and politics; economics Key Figures Charles G. Dawes (1865-1951), American attorney, politician, and financier Hans Luther (1879-1962), German minister of finance, 1923-1925 Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), chancellor of the Weimar Republic Benjamin Strong (1872-1928), governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1914-1928 Summary of Event In 1923, inflation of the German mark, begun during World War I, reached such proportions that Germans resorted to barter for many of their economic transactions. Stores closed every day at noon so that clerks could change prices on products. Prices often rose during the morning hours to double what they were at opening time. Germans who were paid wages or salaries rushed to buy things with the money, because within hours it would lose half its value. Farmers refused to sell their produce, for the money received had no value except to pay taxes and to pay off any mortgages they had. Businesspeople rushed to take out loans at banks and then hastened to spend the money, buying virtually anything, because by the next day it could be sold for far more than the amount of the loan. People with mortgages on their property paid them off in money that was scarcely worth the paper on which it was printed. Debtors reaped a bonanza, and creditors were impoverished. The roots of the German hyperinflation go back to World War I. Like all major nations in 1914, Germany was on the gold standard. Any citizen could turn in bank notes and receive gold coins of equivalent value. The first measure to pass the German Reichstag in August of 1914 relieved the Reichsbank, the German central bank, of this requirement. It was the passage of this act that represented Germany’s commitment to go to war to aid its Austrian ally. Relieved of the need to redeem bank notes in gold, the Reichsbank financed the war on credit. Semiannual war-bond drives were held (the bonds were per1814
petual, meaning that the principal would never be repaid, and carried a low rate of interest), and special loan banks were created to handle the sale of war bonds. Many of the war bonds were discounted (used as collateral for loans) at the banks, which in turn rediscounted them at the Central bank. These bonds provided the “reserves” behind the increasing amount of bank notes issued by the central bank. By the end of World War I, the amount of money in circulation was about five times what it had been in 1914. In neutral markets, where gold redemption still prevailed, the mark was worth no more than half what it had been before the war. The domestic price index rose 100 percent in four years. Once stable government was restored following the German Revolution of 1918-1919, the new republic that emerged found itself faced with a formidable financial problem. It had lost 10 percent of its territory and more than 10 percent of its tax base, as many of the lands it was forced to cede to its neighbors were among the most productive economically. It owed 98 billion marks, in the form of war bonds, to its citizens. In the first years of the republic, paying the interest on this obligation absorbed most of the central government’s revenue. In addition, it owed immense sums in gold to the victorious Allies in the form of reparations. Where reparations were demanded in the form of goods and equipment, it had to compensate the private owners of those goods. Between 1919 and 1923, governmental revenues never exceeded 35 percent of outlays, and a formidable debt accumulated. One major source of financial problems were the reparations demanded by the Allies, on the grounds that Germany had caused the war. The German government had to make the payments, but it could get the money to do so only by taxing its citizens or by borrowing. Because a large portion of the economic base of Germany was decimated, either through territorial losses or reparations in kind, the nation’s resources to generate taxes were reduced. The German government was required to make cash reparations payments in gold. Because Germany had negligible gold deposits of its own, this gold could be acquired only through a massive excess of exports over imports. Even then, the government somehow had to acquire the gold earned by private firms and individuals through their exporting activities. The German government resorted to printing money to pay obligations that could be met with marks. The result was inflation of prices and a tremendous increase in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
A new bank called the Rentenbank was created and authorized to issue up to 3.2 billion Rentenmark notes. Of this sum, 1.2 billion were to be made available to the government for the payment of salaries and other obligations. The remainder was available for loans to business, in an effort to get the economy started again. Over the succeeding six months, Rentenmarks gradually replaced the old paper currency in circulation. As the government reformed taxes, it began to receive revenue in the new, stable currency to carry on its affairs. The entire system was made possible by a moratorium on reparations payments while the issue was studied by an international committee headed by Charles G. Dawes, an attorney and financier who later became vice president of the United States. Eventually, in what is known as the Dawes Plan, a scaled-down version of reparations was put in place, and the economic situation in Germany returned to relative normalcy. Significance Assessing the impact of the German hyperinflation involves determining who were the winners and who were the losers. Generally, debtors were the winners. These included both public debtors and private debtors. Public debtors included both the central government, the Reich, and state and local governments. Old obligations could be paid off with paper marks worth a fraction of the old marks that were convertible to gold. As a result, the central government, which owed its citizens 98 billion marks in war debt in 1918, reduced its debt to almost nothing. Many states and municipalities also paid off old debts. Many private debts were also paid off at a fraction of their former worth. Many mortgages contracted in an earlier era were paid off. When debts were bills for purchased goods, late in the inflation the courts began to hold that the constitutional requirement of equity meant that a sum more nearly equal to the current value of the goods in question had to be paid. Large businesses in particular profited from the inflation. Banks had been accustomed to financing much business activity, and the time spread between the date of a loan to buy raw materials or machinery and the time when those raw materials were converted into salable items enormously magnified their value in paper marks. In effect, the interest rate on revalued debts was adjusted to compensate lenders for inflation. Even the banks made money, thanks to the inveterate Reichsbank policy of keeping interest rates low. Commercial banks could make loans to businesses at relatively high interest rates, then discount the bills at the 1815
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borrowing. Private individuals borrowed money to buy things they wanted or needed, knowing that when they had to pay the money back it would be worth far less. Governments at the federal, state, and local levels borrowed money both to finance ongoing operations and to pay off old debt. Any old debt that could be paid off made money for the debtor. Debts expressed in marks required only to be paid off in the same number of paper marks, even though they were worth, in terms of purchasing power, only a fraction of the original indebtedness. Lenders had failed to provide for inflation in setting the terms of their loans. As all these new debt instruments were presented at banks for discount, the banks needed currency to pay them off. They turned to the Reichsbank, which began printing more and more bank notes. In the early fall of 1923, the need for new bank notes became so great that although 30 paper mills and 150 printing plants were devoted exclusively to printing money, they could not keep up with the demand. As the German mark steadily became less meaningful as a way of expressing value, everyone began valuing everything in dollars, based on the exchange rate of the moment. In January, 1923, the French and Belgians, alleging minor defaults in reparations payments, marched into the Ruhr Valley, Germany’s industrial heartland. The object was to seize the industrial plants of the Ruhr and force these to produce directly for the Allies. The German response was “passive resistance,” as both labor and management refused to operate the plants. Eventually, the French and Belgians brought in operators of their own, but in the meantime the German government assumed responsibility for paying support to all those engaged in passive resistance. Money was being paid out by the government, even though no salable goods were being produced. Passive resistance and the cost shouldered by the government in connection with it caused inflation to spin out of control. By September, it was clear that something would have to be done. The existing government resigned and was replaced by one headed by Gustav Stresemann. Passive resistance was ended. At the suggestion of Hans Luther, the German finance minister, the government decided to issue a new currency, to be called the Rentenmark, which would be backed by the agricultural and industrial real estate of Germany. The decree authorizing the Rentenmark was issued on October 15, 1923. One month later, paper marks were declared worthless and exchanged at the rate of one trillion Reichsmarks for one Rentenmark, declared to be the equivalent of one gold mark.
Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation
Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation Reichsbank at a much lower rate. The spread represented a substantial profit. Losers from the inflation included savers and creditors. Those who had invested their money in mortgages found the mortgages paid off in worthless paper marks. Somewhere between one-fourth and one-half of the German electorate had savings that disappeared in the inflation, and the Germans have never forgotten this. Almost 10 percent of the German population had lived off income from savings and investments prior to World War I. These people were reduced to abject poverty. After the stabilization plan was put in place, a bitter battle ensued concerning the revaluation of old debts. Initially, many government officials favored a ban on revaluation, but as the outcry of the dispossessed increased, politicians changed their position. Moreover, Stresemann, who became chancellor in August of 1923, opposed a ban. Furthermore, courts were increasingly responding to pleas from creditors that the repayment of debts in worthless paper marks did not accord with equity. Several court decisions in late 1922 and early 1923 required the renegotiation of contracts as a result of the inflation. By November, 1923, the courts were stating unequivocally that creditors were entitled to relief. The difficulty with revaluation was that the stabilization of the currency would be vitiated if revaluation amounted to any significant percentage of debts. New money would have to be printed to pay the higher debts, and inflation would return. The original proposal called for 10 percent revaluation, but this meager amount resulted in protests forcing upward revision of the percentage. In February of 1924, the government issued the Tax Decree, in which guidelines for revaluation were laid down. The level of revaluation was raised from 10 percent to 15 percent and would include municipal bonds that had been issued for income-producing activities such as gas works. Under pressure from the Social Democratic Party, the government agreed that savings deposits in banks and life insurance policies would also be revalued. This proposal won the support of the banking, industrial, and commercial interests of Germany. Nevertheless, there was sufficient opposition to these terms in the Reichstag that the government decided to call for a new election, to take place in May of 1924. New claims for revaluation began to be heard from savings banks, the portfolios of which were full of government bonds. They began to demand revaluation of government bonds, given that they were going to have to revalue the savings accounts of their depositors. Churches, especially the Catholic Church, called for substantial revalua1816
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion. Many of their charitable activities were financed by endowments, especially mortgages. Moreover, some courts were responding to individual pleas for revaluation and setting their own rates. It was clear that a new mandate from the populace, to be followed by legislation by the new Reichstag, was the only answer. Unfortunately, the election of May, 1924, yielded no solid majority for any political party or grouping of parties. A weak minority government was formed. It decided to appoint a Committee on Revaluation to draft legislation on the subject. It was now recognized that government bonds would have to be revalued; however, as Finance Minister Luther pointed out, any significant revaluation would reduce the interest rate to a negligible amount. It was now also agreed that mortgages would have to be revalued, with a revaluation rate of 25 percent finding general favor. At the same time that creditors were pressing for upward revision of the revaluation percentages, the U.S. government was working in the opposite direction. Benjamin Strong, governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, stated explicitly that any major upward revision of revaluation would cause American loans to German firms to dry up, as Americans would believe that the added debt burden would prevent German firms from earning enough to repay their foreign loans. The final compromise on revaluation was reached in a law passed on July 15, 1925. The legislation specified different percentages of revaluation for various kinds of financial assets. Mortgages were to be revalued at 25 percent and industrial obligation bonds at 15 percent (with an additional 10 percent in special cases). Government bonds were revalued at 12.5 percent provided that the holder had purchased the bond before July 1, 1920; bonds purchased after that date were revalued at 2.5 percent. All government bonds were required to be surrendered for new redemption bonds. Repayment of these would not take place until at least 1932. One-thirtieth of the bonds would be repaid each year, with a lottery determining which bonds those would be. Commercial bank accounts were not revalued. Savings bank accounts were subjected to revaluation according to a complex formula that pooled claims and then divided the repayments according to the size of the claim. The interest rate for private debt was set at 1.2 percent in 1925, with incremental additions until it reached 5 percent in 1928. Employee savings accounts with employers were revalued at varying amounts resulting from individual negotiation. Although most creditors received something from the revaluation, many remained deeply embittered. More-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 over, the burden of repayment falling on the government, the restrictions imposed by the Allies on the operations of the Reichsbank, and the fear of a repetition of the inflationary debacle forced all levels of government to balance their budgets. When the Great Depression hit Germany in 1930, with greater impact in 1931 and 1932, the central government found it impossible to respond with fiscal stimulus. Throughout the twentieth century, German governments remained hampered in their fiscal and monetary policies because of deep-rooted fears of a repetition of the hyperinflation of the 1920’s. —Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Feldman, Gerald D. The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 19141924. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Indepth examination of the economic crisis in Germany includes discussion of the Dawes Plan. Features illustrations, tables, bibliography, and index. Guttmann, William, and Patricia Meehan. The Great Inflation: Germany, 1919-1923. Farnborough, England: Saxon House, 1975. Account of Germany’s financial crisis written in nontechnical language. Holtfrerich, Carl-Ludwig. The German Inflation, 19141923. Translated by Theo Balderston. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986. Economist’s account of the German crisis. Highly technical; includes many statistics.
Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test Hughes, Michael L. Paying for the German Inflation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Focuses on the struggle over revaluation and presents many details that illuminate who won and who lost as a result of the inflation. Ringer, Fritz, ed. The German Inflation of 1923. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Collection of materials from other sources provides a handy resource for readers interested in a variety of interpretations of the inflation. Concludes with a section on the contribution of the inflation to Adolf Hitler’s rise. Stolper, Gustav. German Economy, 1870-1940. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1940. Provides a wealth of details and a broad perspective on Germany’s financial history. Wueschner, Silvano A. Charting Twentieth-Century Monetary Policy: Herbert Hoover and Benjamin Strong, 1917-1927. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Examination of the influence of Hoover, as secretary of commerce, and Strong, as governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on U.S. monetary policy, both domestic and international, in the period when the Dawes Plan was formulated. Chapters 2 and 3 include discussion of the Dawes Plan. See also: Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan.
1923
Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test
Locale: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Reuben Leon Kahn (1887-1974), Soviet-born American serologist and immunologist August von Wassermann (1866-1925), German physician and bacteriologist Summary of Event Syphilis is one of the chief venereal diseases, a group of diseases whose name derives from that of Venus, the
Roman goddess of love. The term “venereal” arose from the idea that the diseases were transmitted solely through sexual contact with infected individuals. Although syphilis is almost always contracted in this way, it occasionally arises after contact with objects used by syphilisinfected people in highly unhygienic surroundings, particularly in the underdeveloped countries of the world. Many believe that syphilis was first introduced in Europe by the members of Christopher Columbus’s crew, supposedly after they were infected by sexual contact with West Indian women during their voyages of exploration. Columbus is reported to have died of heart and brain problems very similar to symptoms produced by advanced syphilis. According to many historians, syphilis spread rapidly throughout sixteenth century Europe. New diseases are always devastating, partly because 1817
1923
Reuben Leon Kahn’s development of a simplified test for detection of the venereal disease syphilis made better control of syphilis possible and also led eventually to Kahn’s development of the universal serologic test, an advance in immunology.
Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test of lack of immunity, and early syphilis was no exception. Regrettably, the limited medicine of the time was of little help, and the early death rate from the disease was high. Every country blamed the high incidence of syphilis on some other nation (for example, the French called syphilis the Spanish disease, and vice versa). It was not until 1530 that the Italian physician and poet Fracastor coined the name “syphilis” in an epic poem. The origin of syphilis in the Western Hemisphere is supported by the reported paleontological evidence of its existence in pre-Columbian skeletons throughout North, South, and Central America. In contrast, no such evidence has been obtained—according to proponents of this theory—in the pre-Columbian remains found in Europe or Asia. Another group of researchers has argued that this theory of the origin of syphilis is not correct, and controversy over the issue continues in the twenty-first century. Modern syphilis is much milder than the original disease, and relatively uncommon, but if it is not identified and treated appropriately, it can be devastating and even fatal. When syphilis is passed from a pregnant woman to her unborn child, the results are often serious health problems for the child that can include paralysis, insanity, and heart disease. Given the potential negative effects of the disease, the detection and cure of syphilis are important worldwide. Syphilis is caused by a spiral-shaped germ, called a spirochete, Treponema pallidum. Spirochetes enter the body through breaks in the skin or through the mucous membranes, regardless of how they are transmitted. Once spirochetes enter the body, they spread rapidly. During the first four to six weeks after infection—that is, in its primary phase—syphilis is very contagious. During this time, it is identified by the appearance of a sore, or chancre, at the entry site of the infecting spirochetes. The chancre disappears quickly, and within six to twentyfour weeks, the disease shows itself as a skin rash, feelings of malaise, and other flulike symptoms (secondary syphilis). These problems also disappear quickly in most cases, and latent syphilis begins. In latent syphilis, the individual has no symptoms, but spirochetes are spreading through the body. If they localize in the brain or the heart, they produce paralysis, mental derangement, and/or death. A person in this stage of syphilis can still infect sexual partners. Today, the cure for syphilis is simple, consisting of treatment with penicillin or other types of antibiotics. Very frequently, such treatment is carried out in a venereal disease clinic or in the office of a family physician. 1818
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Because one of the most serious results of syphilis is infection of unborn children, Americans who apply for marriage licenses are required to prove that they are free of the disease, and obstetricians routinely test their pregnant patients for the disease. The early detection of syphilis remains very important because no vaccine is yet available against the disease. The first viable test for syphilis was originated by August von Wassermann in 1906. In this test, blood samples are taken and treated in a medical laboratory. The treatment of the samples is based on the fact that the blood of afflicted persons has formed antibodies to fight Treponema pallidum, and these antibodies can react with other substances (an extract of lipid—fatlike—body chemicals) that cause changes in the blood component called complement. When this reaction occurs, complement is said to be “fixed” and the test is positive. After syphilis is cured, the antibodies disappear and complement is no longer fixed, so the Wassermann test becomes negative. The Wassermann test is a useful indicator of syphilis in 95 percent of all infected persons, but it is also very time-consuming (requiring a two-day incubation period), complex, and somewhat lacking in sensitivity. In 1923, serologist and immunologist Reuben Leon Kahn developed a modified syphilis test, the “standard Kahn test,” that was simpler, faster, and more sensitive. This test, which is based on the reaction of serum from the tested individual with an extract of certain lipid components of beef heart, is complete after a few minutes. By 1925, Kahn’s test had become the standard syphilis test used by the U.S. Navy and later was employed worldwide for the detection of the disease. Significance Kahn soon realized that his test for syphilis was not perfect, however. For example, in some cases, related to other diseases, false positive reactions and false negative reactions occurred. This led him to a broader study of the immune reactions that produced the Kahn test. He investigated the role of various tissues in immunity, as differentiated from the role of blood antibodies and white blood cells. Kahn showed, for example, that different tissues of immunized and nonimmunized animals possessed differing immunologic capabilities. Furthermore, the immunologic capabilities of test animals varied with their ages, being very limited in newborns and increasing as they matured. By 1951, this effort led to Kahn’s development of the “universal serological reaction,” a precipitation reaction
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 in which blood serum is tested against reagent composed of tissue lipids. Kahn viewed the reaction as a “potential serologic indicator of various situations in health and in different diseases.” This effort constitutes an important landmark in the development of the science of immunology. As W. Montague Cobb has noted, Kahn’s scientific contributions represent three investigative careers: The first was the development of his practical, rapid precipitation test for syphilis and special procedures that helped to clarify reactions with lipid antigens (1920 to 1928), the second was a study of tissue immunity that identified differences of tissue localization of bacteria and foreign proteins in test animals of different ages and immune states (1930 to 1957), and the third was a study of radiation effects on this tissue localization (1957 to 1973). Kahn is most widely known, however, for his efforts in the serological testing for syphilis. His endeavors also served to stimulate other developments in the field of immunology, including the VDRL test (originated by the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory), which replaced the Kahn test as one of the most often used screening tests for syphilis. —Sanford S. Singer
a detailed discussion of the technical use of the Kahn test. Meant as a guide for laboratory workers, includes information on apparatus, reagents, standardization of the antigen, use of the test, procedure, and special aspects. _______. “Rapid Precipitation Phase of the Kahn Test for Syphilis, with New Method for Indicating Results.” Journal of the American Medical Association 81 (July 14, 1923): 88-92. The original report of the Kahn test. Details the methodology and equipment utilized and indicates the advantages of the test over older methods and over Kahn’s own earlier efforts. _______. Universal Serologic Reaction in Health and Disease. New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1951. Presents data to support Kahn’s contention that serologic reactions with lipid antigen are widely applicable as indicators of health and disease. Parran, Thomas. Shadow on the Land: Syphilis. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1937. Describes the impact of syphilis on U.S. public health and society in the early twentieth century. Includes a history of syphilis and discussion of its occurrence in North America and elsewhere. Stansfield, William D. Serology and Immunology: A Clinical Approach. New York: Macmillan, 1981. Contains a comprehensive chapter on the etiology and serology of syphilis. Highly technical, rewarding information source for readers seeking details about methodology. U.S. Public Health Service. Syphilis: A Synopsis. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2001. Brief text designed as a primer for physicians explains the tools of diagnosis and management of syphilis, the course of the disease, problems associated with congenital syphilis, and other topics. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer; Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds; 19321935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives; May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic.
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Further Reading Allen, Peter Lewis. The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Discusses societal attitudes toward the victims of disease, especially sexually transmitted diseases, from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Chapter 3 looks specifically at responses to syphilis sufferers in early modern Europe. Includes bibliography and index. Cobb, W. Montague. “Reuben Leon Kahn, D.Sc, LL.D., M.D., Ph.D.—1887.” Journal of the National Medical Association 63 (September, 1971): 388-394. One of the few available sources of biographical material on Kahn. Describes Kahn as both scientist and person, providing insight into his youth, education, and highlights of his life. Includes a complete list of Kahn’s publications. Kahn, Reuben L. The Kahn Test: A Practical Guide. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1928. Presents a summary of the precipitation phenomenon in syphilis and
Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test
The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle
1923 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Advances American Film Spectacle
Cecil B. DeMille became Hollywood’s preeminent producer-director of motion-picture spectacle with the critical and box-office success of The Ten Commandments in 1923. Locale: United States Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959), American film directorproducer Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974), American film producer Jesse L. Lasky (1880-1958), American show business entrepreneur Jeanie Macpherson (1884-1946), American screenwriter Adolph Zukor (1873-1976), American film producer Summary of Event When Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments opened in Los Angeles and New York in December, 1923, its enthusiastic reception immediately solidified DeMille’s reputation as Hollywood’s preeminent showman. Fans, critics, and Hollywood itself, with only a few exceptions, were dazzled. Completed at a cost of slightly less than $1.5 million, DeMille’s silent-era spectacle rang up a box-office take of more than $4 million. James R. Quirk, the influential editor of Photoplay magazine, called it “the best photoplay ever made” and “the greatest theatrical spectacle in history.” Hollywood’s moguls rejoiced as well, because the film’s epochal retelling of the story of Moses leading the Children of Israel out of bondage from Egypt to the Promised Land helped to defuse the efforts of conservative activists seeking to control the content of films through various forms of censorship. Produced by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and released through its Paramount Pictures distribution arm, The Ten Commandments consolidated DeMille’s reputation as the foremost American director of movie spectacles. Although esteemed for having codirected one of Hollywood’s first feature-length films, The Squaw Man (1914), and for such popular and critically acclaimed productions as The Cheat (1915) and Male and Female (1919), in 1923 DeMille needed a hit to counter a recent downward spiral of such lackluster releases as Adam’s Rib (1923), which had received only tepid boxoffice and critical support. DeMille knew as well as any1820
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
one that in Hollywood he was considered only as good as his last picture. With the rousing success of The Ten Commandments, DeMille was again atop the short list of bankable and therefore elite Hollywood directors. Also, the epic was the first in a long line of lavish and successful extravaganzas—including his last directorial assignment, a second rendition of The Ten Commandments (1956)—that forever would be linked to the name of Cecil B. DeMille. The Ten Commandments consists of two parts. The first, the spectacle, depicts biblical stories taken from the book of Exodus, including the persecution of the Jews by the Egyptians, the flight of the Israelites through the parted waters of the Red Sea, the giving to Moses of the Ten Commandments, and Moses’ defiant breaking of the tablets upon his discovery of the Israelites’ worship of the golden calf. The film’s second part, a contemporary family melodrama set in San Francisco, centers on the moral conflicts between two brothers, one who is good and keeps the commandments, the other who is bad and breaks them. In essence, the second story is an allegory designed by DeMille and his dependable scenarist Jeanie Macpherson as a warning to modern society to heed God’s injunctions. Therefore, when critics and historians refer to The Ten Commandments as a spectacle, they generally have in mind the film’s sumptuously mounted prologue. The larger-than-life dimensions of The Ten Commandments can be gauged in several ways. In 1923, a film budget of $1.5 million was staggering, especially given that the expense of a typical feature production of the period was about $100,000. Indeed, the film’s epic budget, while making for headline-grabbing publicity, exacerbated already strained relations between DeMille and his partners, Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky, Famous Players-Lasky’s president and vice president in charge of production, respectively. At one point in the midst of shooting, DeMille, fatigued by the constant carping from New York on such matters as an invoice for $2,500 for a pair of magnificent coal-black horses to draw a chariot, offered to buy the film outright for $1 million. DeMille’s bold demonstration of faith in his project shocked Zukor and Lasky, who wisely decided to relent. Although each of the New York-based executives sent warm congratulatory telegrams to DeMille on the film’s successful debut, the animosity created by the incessant budgetary wrangling during production eventually re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Actor Theodore Roberts as Moses in a scene from The Ten Commandments. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
DeMille’s special-effects expert, Roy Pomeroy, played a pivotal role in the film’s success by achieving such still-convincing miracles as the parting of the Red Sea, the drowning of the Egyptians, and Moses’ reception of the Ten Commandments from the incendiary heavens. Indeed, most film historians have judged Pomeroy’s effects of 1923 more convincing than those he created for DeMille’s 1956 version of The Ten Commandments. The element of spectacle in the 1923 production was heightened even further by DeMille’s decision to shoot parts of the prologue in an early and then experimental version of the Technicolor process (in contrast to the conventional black-and-white treatment given the modern story). Audiences and critics alike were impressed by the enhanced sense of realism. Significance The Ten Commandments emphatically confirmed DeMille’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s most astute judges of public taste. Sensing that the vogue for Jazz Age depictions of fast living had begun to alienate a 1821
1923
sulted in DeMille’s painful resignation from Famous Players-Lasky in 1925. Budgets aside, what most impressed moviegoers of 1923 and 1924 was the film’s on-screen display of spectacle. Although thwarted by the cost-conscious Zukor from shooting on location in Egypt, DeMille bolted the confines of Hollywood for Guadalupe, an arid desert area near Santa Maria in central California, where a construction gang of more than one thousand carpenters, electricians, painters, and landscape gardeners erected a still-amazing facsimile of the ancient Egyptian city of Per-Ramses. As construction progressed, DeMille commuted to Los Angeles in order to shoot some of the film’s interior scenes. Eventually, twenty-five hundred actors and forty-five hundred animals, including two hundred camels, were settled in Camp DeMille, itself a virtual replica of an army camp. For added authenticity, DeMille, in part reflecting the influence of David Belasco, the great theatrical realist with whom he had worked as a young man, hired a contingent of Orthodox Jews to play the Children of Israel.
The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle
DeMille’s Filmography Cecil B. DeMille directed an exceptionally large number of motion pictures and became one of the most recognized names in American film. Release Date Title
Release Date Title
1913
The Squaw Man
1921
1914
The Virginian The Call of the North What’s-His-Name The Man from Home
Forbidden Fruit The Affairs of Anatol
1922
Fool’s Paradise Saturday Night Manslaughter
1923
Adam’s Rib The Ten Commandments
1924
Triumph Feet of Clay
1925
The Golden Bed The Road to Yesterday
1926
The Volga Boatman
1927
The King of Kings
1928
The Godless Girl
1929
Dynamite
1930
Madam Satan
1931
The Squaw Man
1932
The Sign of the Cross
1933
This Day and Age
1934
Four Frightened People Cleopatra
1935
The Crusades
1937
The Plainsman
1938
The Buccaneer
1939
Union Pacific
The Whispering Chorus Old Wives for New We Can’t Have Everything Till I Come Back to You The Squaw Man
1940
North West Mounted Police
1942
Reap the Wild Wind
1944
The Story of Dr. Wassell
Don’t Change Your Husband For Better, for Worse Male and Female
1947
Unconquered
1949
Samson and Delilah
1952
The Greatest Show on Earth
1956
The Ten Commandments
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1822
The Rose of the Rancho The Girl of the Golden West The Warrens of Virginia The Unafraid The Captive The Wild Goose Chase The Arab Chimmie Fadden Kindling Maria Rosa Carmen Temptation Chimmie Fadden out West The Cheat The Golden Chance The Trail of the Lonesome Pine The Heart of Nora Flynn The Dream Girl Joan the Woman A Romance of the Redwoods The Little American The Woman God Forgot The Devil Stone
Why Change Your Wife? Something to Think About
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 growing number of Americans—a shift in public attitude hastened by the day’s lurid headlines screaming the latest off-screen Hollywood scandals—DeMille devised a narrative dramatic formula that offered both gaudy titillation and moral rectitude. Given the approval The Ten Commandments received from all segments of the public, including the clergy, a high moral tone became a basic thematic component of DeMille’s subsequent films. In his condemnations of wrongdoing, however, DeMille felt it dramatically and commercially necessary to portray sin and sexuality with lingering, graphic detail. It was a solution that helped to ensure not only DeMille’s own future but that of the industry as well. Indeed, when Hollywood was again threatened by censorious pressures in the early days of synchronized sound, DeMille’s “have your cake and eat it too” strategy was institutionalized in the canons set forth by the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (the Hays Code). An extensive press campaign during the production of The Ten Commandments kept the director’s image before the public. With his drooping pipe, puttees, pistols, riding boots, and silver whistle, DeMille became the public’s flesh-and-blood embodiment of the archetypal Hollywood director. DeMille loved the attention and the perks his meticulously choreographed image helped secure. He even appeared in cameo roles, most notably in Hollywood (1923) and Sunset Boulevard (1950), playing himself. Perhaps most significant, “DeMille” was a name the public knew and responded to with the kind of devotion otherwise given only to stars such as Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. Another consequence of the suc-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Birchard, Robert S. Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Study of DeMille’s life and work and of the effects of his work on the history of American filmmaking. Bibliographic references and index. Brownlow, Kevin. “Cecil B. DeMille.” In The Parade’s Gone By. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. Brownlow’s incisive assessment of DeMille’s silent film career includes telling and balanced quotations from
actors Gloria Swanson, Leatrice Joy, Bessie Love, Adela Rogers St. Johns, and Gary Cooper, director William Wellman, producer David O. Selznick, and historian William Everson. DeMille, Cecil B. The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille. Edited by Donald Hayne. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959. A thorough and personal accounting of DeMille’s life, times, and career with important insights on the rise of Hollywood, DeMille’s switch from theater to motion pictures, and the controversies swirling about his larger-than-life epic films. Essoe, Gabe, and Raymond Lee. DeMille: The Man and His Pictures. New York: Castle Books, 1970. A valuable if flawed source. Includes useful appreciations by Charlton Heston, Henry Wilcoxon, and Elmer Bernstein, an impressive collection of production stills and photos, a filmography, and a listing of DeMille’s various honors. Higham, Charles. Cecil B. DeMille: A Biography of the Most Successful Film Maker of Them All. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973. A lively and indispensable account of DeMille as an initially great director contented, finally, to be a great showman. Higham’s penetrating insights are grounded in DeMille’s voluminous correspondence and notebooks and extensive interviews with more than two hundred of DeMille’s colleagues. Includes a filmography. Jacobs, Lewis. The Rise of the American Film: A Critical History. 1939. Reprint. New York: Teachers College Press, 1968. Jacobs’s masterful history includes a candid essay on DeMille’s social-cultural impact and, in Jacobs’s view, DeMille’s severe limitations as a director. Koszarski, Richard. “Cecil B. DeMille.” In An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990. Koszarski provides an overview of DeMille’s artistic and cultural importance set against the evolution of the American silent feature film. Orrison, Katherine. Written in Stone: Making Cecil B. DeMille’s Epic, “The Ten Commandments.” Lanham, Md.: Vestal Press, 1999. In-depth study of the making of the film, including photographs taken on location during production. Pratt, George C. “Cecil B. DeMille.” In Spellbound in Darkness: A History of the Silent Film. Rev. ed. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973. Includes Pratt’s brief yet trenchant assessment of DeMille’s silent-era career as well as reprints of contemporary reviews of several of DeMille’s films. 1823
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cess achieved by The Ten Commandments was the typecasting of its director as a maestro of the film spectacle. Indeed, DeMille’s name remains inextricably linked to the genre of the spectacular epic, conjuring up images not only of the director’s two versions of The Ten Commandments but also of a succession of mammoth epics that included The King of Kings (1927), The Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934), The Crusades (1935), The Plainsman (1937), The Buccaneer (1938), Union Pacific (1939), Samson and Delilah (1949), and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). In assessing DeMille’s overall impact, the director’s crucial role as a founding partner of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in 1913 should not be forgotten. As the fledgling firm’s director-general, it was DeMille who was responsible for deciding to make its first production, The Squaw Man, a six-reel “feature” film. Subsequent features directed and produced by DeMille and employing such well-known personalities as Metropolitan Opera diva Geraldine Farrar and silent-film star Mary Pickford solidified the Lasky Company’s leadership in the growing feature-film market. Consequently, DeMille is justly regarded as one of the individuals who established Hollywood as the film capital of the world. DeMille’s unique role as a master showman with tremendous ability to anticipate and play to the shifting tastes of the public should also not be discounted. Indeed, his sexual melodramas such as Old Wives for New (1918) and Male and Female accurately gauged the public’s appetite for vicariously sampling the lifestyles of the era’s rich and famous, a natural enough manifestation of human curiosity that had been made urgent by the deprivations and sacrifices required by the U.S. involvement in World War I. In the process, DeMille’s parade of high fashion, his elevation of bathing to an art form, and his detailed depictions of the rules of etiquette required by high society for getting on in life educated and titillated Americans and influenced their behavior. —Charles Merrell Berg
The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle
Cambridge Ancient History Appears Rotha, Paul. The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema. Rev. ed. London: Spring Books, 1967. Classic work, first published in 1930, is one of the first attempts to survey the international film. Conveys the British author’s candid assessments of the most prominent American directors, including DeMille. Zukor, Adolph. The Public Is Never Wrong: The Autobiography of Adolph Zukor. Edited by Dale Kramer. London: Cassell, 1954. Zukor’s recollections are gentlemanly yet candid and are especially useful in cor-
1923-1939 CAMBRIDGE
roborating and expanding on DeMille’s pivotal role in the formation and evolving fortunes of Paramount Pictures. See also: Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 19251927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking.
ANCIENT HISTORY Appears
Cambridge University Press published the Cambridge Ancient History with the goal of creating a comprehensive English-language, multiauthored compilation of scholarship in the field of ancient history. Edited by the British historian J. B. Bury, the premiere edition of the Cambridge Ancient History set the standard for historical studies. Revised and expanded since its original edition, it remains the world’s most comprehensive collection of scholarship regarding the ancient world. Also known as: CAH Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Publishing and journalism; historiography; archaeology Key Figures J. B. Bury (1861-1927), British historian Lord Acton (1834-1902), British historian Eugénie Sellers Strong (1860-1943), British archaeologist and art historian Summary of Event The Cambridge Ancient History (1923-1939; also known as CAH) was published in the context of a profound change in historical thinking and archaeological practices. The study of the ancient world, which had previously been the realm of wealthy aristocrats and amteur archaeologists, had developed into a group of specialized academic disciplines. Early archaeological efforts, consisting mainly of hunts for valuable artworks for private collections, matured into a more scientific endeavor with added attention paid to the accurate recording of stratigraphy and an increased interest in the cultural context of recovered artifacts. 1824
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These developments arose out of the heady archaeological climate of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which had witnessed the discovery of spectacular archaeological remains, among them the fabled Homeric site of Troy in Asia Minor (now Turkey), the legendary citadel of Agamemnon at Mycenae on mainland Greece, and the palace of the mythological King Minos at Knossos on Crete. News of these exciting finds captured the interest not only of classicists and antiquarians but also of the general public. The study of the ancient world, which had previously been the domain of solely the rich and privileged, became available to virtually any young man. Departments of classics, history, and archaeology expanded as a result of the increased interest in classical education, and new departments were founded. The increased interest in the study of history and archaeology, along with the growth of academic departments specializing in those fields, created a need for more scholarly and dependable publications than the somewhat sporadic and often inaccurate site reports that had been published previously. At the forefront of this new development in academic historical publication was Cambridge University Press, the oldest publisher in the world, which had received its charter from Henry VIII in 1534. Aware that German, Italian, and Greek publishers were producing scholarly encyclopedias and historical journals in their native languages, the Cambridge University Press began planning a series of historical publications in the English language. In 1896, the syndics of Cambridge University Press decided to produce a Cambridge Modern History (19021912; also known as CMH). They invited Lord Acton to plan and edit the new series. Acton held the position of Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge Uni-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Prolegomena and Prehistory Early History of the Middle East History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region, c. 1800-1380 B.C. History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region, 1380-1000 B.C. The Prehistory of the Balkans: The Middle East and the Aegean World, Tenth to Eighth Centuries B.C. The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and other States of the Near East from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C.
The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C. Persia, Greece, and the Western Mediterranean c. 525479 B.C. The Fifth Century B.C. The Fourth Century B.C. The Hellenistic World The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C. Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 B.C. The Last Age of the Roman Republic, 146-43 B.C. The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.-A.D. 69 The High Empire, A.D. 70-192 The Imperial Crisis and Recovery, A.D. 193-324
Even though the new series was to be published in English, the goal of the CAH was to present an overview of ancient history that was not wholly English in focus. As the series developed, the authorship expanded to include non-English authors such as Robert Armstrong Stewart Macalister of Dublin and William Scott Ferguson of Harvard. As publication progressed further, authors from numerous countries were invited to contribute. The first edition had only one female contributor, Eugénie Sellers Strong, who contributed a section on Roman art. Although it was unusual at the time for a woman to contribute to a premier scholarly publication such as the CAH, Strong was well qualified for the task. Strong was a graduate of Cambridge University, one of the very first women in England to acquire a university education. Strong was a professional archaeologist; she served as the assistant director of the British School at Rome, and she was a noted author in the field of art and archaeology. Other women were permitted to contribute to the first edition of the CAH by making English translations of articles contributed by men writing in other languages. As a testimony to the popularity of the new CAH series, many of the first editions went into second editions by the year following that of their initial publication. Still, not all scholars were pleased with the new CAH. Some complained that it was too academic for the general public, while others complained that it was not academic enough for professional scholars. Because the CAH was a compendium of chapters written by different authors, some subjects were repeated in different chapters, while other subjects were omitted altogether. Disconcerting to many readers was the fact that in various sections some authors actually disagreed with one another. Probably the most sharp criticism of the original CAH was that the coverage had too heavy an emphasis on political and military history. Through careful editorial oversight, these weaknesses were rectified in later editions. 1825
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versity, and he was widely regarded as one of the foremost political historians of his time. Acton’s planning for the CMH established the guidelines for later Cambridge publications, including the Cambridge Ancient History. For the new CMH, Acton envisioned a multiauthored compendium of modern history, entirely in the English language but without any national bias. In addition, Acton wanted the CMH to be accessible to scholars and interested laypersons alike, which meant that notes of any kind and all foreign-language quotations would be omitted. Acton hoped that a multiauthored publication, with separate specialists writing separate chapters, would avoid the myopic pitfalls that were found in the single-author historical studies available at the time. Acton died before the CMH was published, but his guidelines for the publication remained intact and the resulting volumes, appearing between 1902 and 1912, met with scholarly and public approval. Following Acton’s vision and guidelines for an English-language, multiauthored compendium with broad reader appeal, Cambridge University Press published the Cambridge Medieval History (1911-1936) under the guidance of J. B. Bury. A noted British historian and Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, Bury had written on subjects as widely diverse as ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire. Bury’s wide range of interests made his writings accessible to a broad audience, from academics to the general public, which made Bury well suited to follow his predecessor Acton’s vision. Published between 1911 and 1936, the Cambridge Medieval History garnered praise from scholars and laypersons alike. When, in 1923, it was decided to create a similar historical compendium on the ancient world, Bury was invited to oversee its production. At first conception, the Cambridge Ancient History was intended to be eight volumes, however by the time of its final publication, the series had expanded to twelve volumes of text and five volumes of plates. Between 1923 and 1939, volumes were published with the following titles:
Cambridge Ancient History Appears
France Occupies the Ruhr Significance The concept of a multiauthored compendium of historical scholarship revolutionized academic publishing. Within the covers of a single volume, readers could compare the theories of multiple specialists and witness how those specialists grappled with historical evidence, argued their points, and even disagreed with one another. By examining the various editions, students of history experienced the process by which historians construct history. The CAH reflects the evolution of historical thinking, and it contains the combined scholarship of the finest historians of the ancient world. One of the greatest strengths of the CAH is its adaptability to change. For the later editions of the CAH, authors were permitted to add scholarly notes to their texts, which provided academics with the depth they demanded, and the weighty emphasis on political and military history of the earlier volumes gave way to a more complete and balanced coverage of the various areas of ancient studies. In response to other perceived weaknesses in the early editions, later editors exercised more oversight on the continuity of the narrative throughout the volumes, thereby eliminating many lacunae in the information provided and avoiding much of the repetition contained in the original texts. The original edition dealt with the ancient world up to the year 324 c.e., whereas later editions were expanded to cover history through 600 c.e. In keeping with accepted historical practice, the editors continued to allow contributing authors to express opposing opinions. Careful and substantive changes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 have kept the CAH abreast of current historical thinking without jeopardizing its high academic standards. In its broad scope, sound scholarship, and wide appeal, the CAH remains the definitive publication on the history of the ancient world. — Sonia Sorrell Further Reading Cambridge Ancient History. 1st-3d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1923-2001. The individual volume introductions, the selection and scope of coverage of the text, and the organization of the chapters provide a good overview of the development of the discipline of ancient history through the decades. Chadwick, Owen. Acton and History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Compilation of the writings on Lord Acton’s contributions to the fields of history and historiography by the foremost expert on the subject. Bibliographic references and index. Rhodes, P. J. “The Cambridge Ancient History.” http:// www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1999/rhodes.html. In this lecture summary, Rhodes presents an overview of the origins and development of the Cambridge Ancient History, and he discusses the shift in scholarly emphases from the time of the original publication through the intervening editions. See also: 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History; Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography; 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate.
January 11, 1923-August 16, 1924
France Occupies the Ruhr French and Belgian troops occupied Germany’s industrial center in response to the German government’s failure to make prompt reparations for the consequences of World War I. The occupation devastated Germany’s economy and stimulated the growth of extreme nationalism. Locale: Ruhr Valley, Germany Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; economics; military history
Wilhelm Cuno (1876-1933), chancellor of Germany, 1922-1933 Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), chancellor of Germany, 1923, foreign minister, 1923-1929 Édouard Herriot (1872-1957), premier of France, 1924-1925 Charles G. Dawes (1865-1951), American attorney and financier, later vice president of the United States, 1925-1929 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Nazi leader who attempted to seize power in November, 1923
Key Figures Raymond Poincaré (1860-1934), premier of France and foreign minister, 1922-1924
Summary of Event The Ruhr industrial district, which spans some two thousand square miles, lies between the Ruhr and the Lippe
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France Occupies the Ruhr
The Ruhr Valley
h
were horrified by these and other conditions included in the Treaty of Versailles. e R From the election of 1919 until p p iv Li er the elections of 1924, the French parliament was dominated by conservaHamm tives and nationalists who supported e v i r R r he R a hard-line position toward reparac s Em tions. In March of 1921, even before Dortmund Bochum the final amount of reparations had Essen Ruhr Rive been decided, the French government r asserted that the Germans were beDuisburg hind in their coal deliveries and sent troops to occupy Dusseldorf and two other Ruhr cities. The following year, Düsseldorf Wuppertal Raymond Poincaré, who had served as president during the war, became prime minister. Poincaré was firmly committed to a legalistic interpretaP tion of the Versailles treaty, and he made it clear that he would not hesiN eth tate to use military force if Germany B Germany fell behind in its payments. Cologne CzechoIn April of 1922, the Reparations slovakia Commission decided that Germany had to pay a total figure of thirtyFrance three billion dollars, a huge amount Bonn Austria Switzerland that dwarfed the reparations charged after previous European conflicts. Even though many economists argued that the amount exceeded GerRivers, extending from the Dutch frontier on the west to many’s capacity, French public opinion vehemently opHamm in the east. After the middle of the nineteenth cenposed making any concessions. The people of Germany, tury, it became one of the world’s most important indusin contrast, viewed the reparations as exorbitant and entrial concentrations, primarily because of its huge coal tirely unjust. German chancellor Wilhelm Cuno, who deposits. In the 1920’s, the area produced more than 80 headed a nonpartisan, conservative ministry, failed in his percent of Germany’s coal as well as 80 percent of its attempts to secure a moratorium on the payments. iron and steel. Most of the iron ore processed in the reDuring the latter part of 1922, all European nations were faced with serious economic problems. The German gion came from Sweden and the French province of government informed the Allies that it could not meet its Lorraine. schedule of cash payments but that it would continue to The French occupation of the Ruhr district was a conmake deliveries of coal and natural resources. With the sequence of the French government’s unrealistically United States pressuring France and other countries to high demands for German reparations. At the Paris Peace repay their war debts, Poincaré became increasingly inConference of 1919, the delegates had been unable to sistent that Germany make full and prompt payments. agree on an amount of reparations, and so they estabWhen Germany’s coal shipments fell 10 percent short of lished a Reparations Commission to determine the total the promised amount, Poincaré decided—against the adbill. In the meantime, the Allies demanded that Germany vice of the British government—to use military force. begin making preliminary payments, which included deOn January 11, 1923, Poincaré dispatched a technical liveries of coal to France as compensation for the French mission and two army divisions to Essen, the headquarmines flooded by retreating German troops. Germans n ei
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France Occupies the Ruhr
Raymond Poincaré. (Library of Congress)
ters of the German Coal Syndicate. The Belgian government assisted the operation with a token number of troops. The stated purpose of the mission was to ensure that coal and timber deliveries were made according to schedule. Internationally, the occupation, which was inconsistent with the principles of the League of Nations, was unpopular and provoked much sympathy for Germany. In response to the occupation, Chancellor Cuno decided to pursue a policy of passive resistance, and he ordered Ruhr residents not to work in the coal mines or to cooperate with occupying forces. The French received their coal, but Cuno’s policy made the coal extremely expensive. Angry Ruhr residents committed numerous acts of sabotage, and their demonstrations sometimes developed into violent confrontations. In one of these clashes, thirteen people were killed. In order to keep the shipments flowing, Poincaré was forced to send five army divisions (amounting to seventy-five thousand troops), as well as thousands of administrators, engineers, and railway workers. The occupation of the Ruhr greatly exacerbated Germany’s problem of postwar inflation, which had already 1828
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 become serious. In order to pursue its policy of passive resistence, Germany had printed large amounts of money to pay companies and workers for nonactivity. As a result, German money lost almost all of its value: In 1919, fourteen German marks were worth one U.S. dollar, but by January of 1923 it took eighteen thousand marks to purchase a dollar, and by November of 1923 it took more than four trillion marks. A significant number of Germans became too poor to buy basic items, and many lost their life savings. The Ruhr occupation also did serious damage to the French economy. It greatly increased the size of France’s budget deficit and further debilitated the already weak French franc. Since the occupation was an economic failure, informed observers realized that France would not be able to rely on regular reparations payments. Then, in August of 1923, just as Germany appeared to be threatened with chaos, all the moderate political parties in the country united to form a Great Coalition to deal with the emergency. Gustav Stresemann, the leader of the conservative Peoples’ Party, served as chancellor during the next hundred days, a period usually considered one of the more successful periods of German history. Stresemann ordered an end to passive resistance, took steps to reach an understanding with France, dealt with inflation by issuing a new German currency, and helped suppress communist and Nazi uprisings. Poincaré finally acknowledged that the size and schedule of German payments would have to be modified. In November of 1923, he agreed to the appointment of an international commission to examine the practical question of Germany’s ability to pay. By June of 1924, the new French premier, Édouard Herriot, was firmly committed to reaching a settlement and withdrawing troops from the Ruhr district as soon as possible. On August 16, 1924, the commission, which was headed by American financier Charles G. Dawes, reached agreements on a more realistic schedule of German payments and a reduction of the French debt to the United States. As part of the Dawes Plan, the French government agreed to evacuate the Ruhr. The signing of the agreements on September 1, 1924, alleviated FrancoGerman tensions and helped prepare the way for the Locarno Agreements of 1925, which included France’s renunciation of another military intervention in Germany. Significance The occupation of the Ruhr produced a great deal of political instability and economic dislocation, which in turn
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 led to a great deal of anger and bitterness, especially in Germany. One of the manifestations of this anger was a growth in political extremism. On the left, the German Communist Party attracted large numbers of new followers. On the extreme right, Adolf Hitler attempted a November, 1923, takeover of the Bavarian government in his unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. The withdrawal of French troops from the Ruhr, combined with the accommodating policies of Chancellor Stresemann, helped to bring about the conciliatory climate in European diplomatic relations that prevailed from 1924 until the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929. However, in many sectors of German society, bitter resentments about the Ruhr occupation continued to exist, and these unpleasant memories were skillfully exploited by Hitler and the Nazis. —Thomas Tandy Lewis Further Reading Balderston, Theo. Economics and Politics in the Weimar Republic. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Informative survey emphasizes the German economy during the period. Bassel, Richard. Germany After the First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A good discussion of the legacies of the war and the ways in which the Weimar government dealt with overwhelming financial and political challenges. Fischer, Conan. Ruhr Crisis, 1923-1924. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. The most complete work devoted to the occupation; particularly valuable for its depiction of daily life in the Ruhr region.
France Occupies the Ruhr Keiger, John F. Raymond Poincaré. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. The most scholarly and readable political biography available on Poincaré. McDougall, Walter. France’s Rhineland Diplomacy, 1914-1924. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. A scholarly and readable account of French policies toward postwar Germany. Paxton, Robert. Europe in the Twentieth Century. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2004. Highly recommended as an excellent introduction to the crisis within the broader context of European history and international conflict. Schmidt, Royal J. Versailles and the Ruhr: Seedbed of World War II. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968. Useful account of the economy of the Ruhr Valley, the diplomacy of German reparations, and the impact of France’s military occupation. Wright, Jonathan. Gustav Stresemann: Weimar’s Greatest Statesman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. The most scholarly of several political biographies devoted to Stresemann. See also: Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; 19191933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution; 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation; Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty; 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France.
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Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 15, 1923
Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues” The results of a modest recording session in 1923 helped make Bessie Smith the most celebrated blues singer in history. Locale: New York, New York Category: Music Key Figures Bessie Smith (1894-1937), American blues singer Mamie Smith (1883-1946), American blues singer Ma Rainey (1886-1939), American blues singer Clarence Williams (1898-1965), American jazz pianist Summary of Event Long before her first recording session in 1923, Bessie Smith had sung for audiences in cities throughout the American Southeast and Midwest. She began to sing publicly in 1903, when, at age nine, she stood on street corners in her hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and shouted out Baptist hymns she learned from her father, a part-time preacher. In 1912, she joined a traveling vaudeville show, where she met Ma Rainey, a singer whose powerful, lusty voice influenced the style of singing Smith eventually followed. Moving from city to city appealed to Smith, because Chattanooga had become for her a virtual prison of poverty. She suffered indignities as part of the traveling show, however: She was considered too fat, too tall, and too black for featured roles. Smith greatly resented the preferential treatment that lightskinned black female performers received, but she channeled her hostility toward a positive goal—she was determined to succeed. By 1921, Smith had her own show, and black audiences considered her a star. She had an arresting presence on stage that some likened to that of an evangelist, and the way she delivered her songs reflected her innermost hurts. She sang the blues as no one had heard them sung before. Smith’s rise to prominence coincided with growing recognition by recording companies that there was a market for black music. The OKeh Record Company first recorded a black singer, Mamie Smith, in 1920. Her recording of “Crazy Blues” sold enough copies to convince executives that there was a future for the blues on records. Ma Rainey recorded more than ninety songs in the early 1920’s. Bessie Smith had two auditions with OKeh, but she was turned down each time because her voice was judged too rough to have general appeal. Black Swan Records, 1830
founded by blues composer W. C. Handy, also turned her down, choosing instead to promote the less strident singing of Ethel Waters, Smith’s principal competitor in the 1920’s. Smith’s chance finally came when Frank Walker, a producer of “race records” for Columbia Records, decided to give her an opportunity. Walker dispatched pianist Clarence Williams to Philadelphia to bring Smith to New York City for a recording session that began on February 15, 1923. It took two days, under the patient guidance of Williams, for the nervous Smith to record “Downhearted Blues” and “Gulf Coast Blues.” Whatever doubts there were about Smith’s rough manner, her voice and phrasing proved to be explosive on record. “Downhearted Blues” sold more than 750,000 copies. After that modest recording session in 1923, Bessie Smith quickly became known as the “Empress of the Blues.” By 1924, her record sales passed the two million mark, and she made featured appearances on Milton Stan’s black vaudeville circuit. In January, 1925, Smith made what some critics believe to be her best recordings when she teamed for one memorable session with Louis Armstrong, who was then a member of Fletcher “Smack” Henderson’s orchestra.
Bessie Smith. (Library of Congress)
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her recordings did not sell particularly well. Although her voice remained powerful, numerous comeback efforts between 1933 and 1937 failed. She died in an automobile accident near Clarksdale, Mississippi, while traveling to a singing engagement on September 26, 1937. Stories at the time said she might have lived if she had been admitted to a white hospital that turned her away, but such stories were not accurate. Significance More than any other black artist, Bessie Smith opened the door for black musicians to the commercial market. She sang “country blues,” as opposed to the “urban blues” of Ma Rainey and Mamie Smith. She sang with a passion, pain, and verve that rang true to black listeners throughout the United States. Her audience appreciated her complete defiance of the white world; she refused to yield to white conventions in her music or in her personal life. In her singing, she refused to surrender blandly to lyrics or melody; therefore, her songs usually bore her personal stamp. This was an attribute that not only endeared her to her faithful followers but also left its mark on other entertainers. British jazz musician and critic Humphrey Lyttelton has argued that Smith was one of only three 1920’s musicians (Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet were the other two) who had the talent and confidence to change the “rhythmic conventions of the day.” Smith was able to move away from the legacy of ragtime rhythm by adjusting lyrics (dropping or adding words and syllables) to suit her personal interpretation of a song. Many artists of the 1930’s, including some of the highly popular “crooners” of the time, were much influenced by Smith’s molding of lyrics to give proper emphasis to a phrase. Armstrong’s recording session with Smith in 1925 no doubt also encouraged his departure from standard phrasing. It is difficult to gauge Smith’s influence on other artists in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. She was not forgotten, but the recorded music of the war and postwar eras was scarcely of the same brilliance as that of the 1920’s. In the late 1950’s, however, the mix of blues and gospel music began to inspire a new era for black artists. Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, while rejecting Bessie Smith’s rather seamy way of life, essentially emulated her stage presence and style of singing to gain considerable popularity. In addition to Jackson, Dinah Washington and Linda Hopkins were the 1950’s singers most obviously in the Bessie Smith mold. Washington studied Smith closely. In many ways, Washington’s life, with its evangelical 1831
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Smith was reluctant to record with Armstrong, but her favorite accompanist, cornetist Joe Smith, was not in New York at the time. As it happened, Smith and Armstrong had an instant rapport, and from this session came the version of “St. Louis Blues” that became the standard. In that song and others that she recorded with Armstrong, Smith diverged markedly from a literal reading of the lyrics and, in so doing, created something new and exciting. As her singing career continued to gain momentum in the second half of the 1920’s, however, Smith’s personal life collapsed. Wrangling over the distribution of her royalties as well as her excessive drinking, boorish behavior at parties and social gatherings, and unhappy marriage to a Philadelphia policeman brought her considerable public disfavor and misery. While she was blossoming as a professional, such problems remained of secondary importance, but when her career started to slide after 1929, they became open wounds. The beginning of the end for Smith came from a combination of factors, some of which were out of her control. A failed Broadway show left her depressed, and her appearance in the 1929 film St. Louis Blues, in which she sang the title song, made it clear that she had little acting talent. In 1929, the sale of blues records declined, and promoters demanded that Smith and other black stars fill their music with double entendres. With the United States in the midst of the Great Depression, such efforts did not help sales very much. Also working against Smith in the early 1930’s were the expansion of radio and the development of new recording technology. She had difficulty adapting to the new technology, which demanded a softer, more intimate sound to appeal to nationwide audiences listening in their living rooms. The new technology tended to favor the styles of singing displayed by performers such as Ethel Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong. Smith’s last great recording session was in 1929, when she recorded “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” To each of these songs, Smith imparted an air of hovering tragedy, a reflection of the circumstances in her life at the time. These recordings reveal her to be as much a jazz singer as a blues singer. “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” became the song with which Smith would be most associated over the years, even more than “St. Louis Blues.” Smith’s career went steadily downhill in the 1930’s. She no longer received top dollar for appearances, and
Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”
Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”
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roots, poverty, and sorrowful personal problems, paralleled Smith’s. Washington, like Smith, had begun by singing hymns; also like Smith, she developed a powerful, expressive, pain-ridden style marked by immaculate phrasing and diction. To hear Washington’s version of “This Bitter Earth” is to experience the same emotional reaction evoked by Smith’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” It was appropriate that Washington recorded an album titled Dinah Washington Sings Bessie Smith shortly before her death in 1963. Linda Hopkins proved to be the most thorough student of Bessie Smith’s life and the most exacting emulator of her style. In 1936, when Hopkins was only eleven years old, she heard Smith sing in New Orleans; the experience left an indelible impression. One year later, Mahalia Jackson “discovered” Hopkins, and her career as a blues singer ascended. In 1959, Hopkins began to portray Bessie Smith in her performances, and in 1974 she developed a one-woman show in which she played Smith. That show became the musical Bessie and Me in 1976. More than fifty years after Smith’s first recording session in 1923, Hopkins had revived a great interest in Smith’s life. In the 1970’s, rhythm-and-blues star Aretha Franklin built substantially on the foundation laid by Bessie Smith. To a great extent, Franklin learned of Smith through Hopkins. By helping to introduce the world to modern soul music, Franklin became the most influential female singer since Smith’s era of the 1920’s. Bessie Smith’s black successors enjoyed something that she never experienced—enthusiastic approval and acceptance from white audiences. Ironically, Smith’s own recordings, rereleased in 1958 and then reissued in their entirety by Columbia Records in 1970, gained wide popularity and sold more than half a million copies. It is no exaggeration to say that the music of Smith and her later counterparts communicated to white listeners the fact that the black experience in the United States was not adequately expressed by the lighthearted sounds of much popular black music. —Ronald K. Huch
Feinstein, Elaine. Bessie Smith. New York: Viking Press, 1985. Brief and highly impressionistic look at Smith’s life includes little about her music but does carefully analyze the controversial events surrounding her death. Suitable for readers seeking an introduction to Smith’s life. Features photographs, select discography, brief bibliography, and index. Jones, LeRoi. Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America. 1963. Reprint. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Interesting volume discusses how blues and jazz evolved in white America. Filled with insights about how blacks survived and how their music flourished in difficult circumstances. Places Bessie Smith’s work in historical context. Includes index. Lyttelton, Humphrey. The Best of Jazz: Basin Street to Harlem. New York: Taplinger, 1978. Outstanding collection of essays on the great names in jazz from the 1920’s and 1930’s by a well-known British jazz musician and critic. Includes an essential essay on Smith. Features select bibliography, discography, and index. Priestley, Brian. Jazz on Record: A History. London: Elm Tree Books, 1988. Impressive history of jazz recordings from the 1920’s to the 1980’s contains much of interest regarding Bessie Smith. Features a record guide, photographs, brief bibliography, and index. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Excellent scholarly account of the subject provides both background and important detail. Includes a splendid critical bibliography and discography as well as numerous selections from scores and an extensive index. Wardlow, Gayle Dean. Chasin’ That Devil Music: Searching for the Blues. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998. Describes the author’s search for early recordings and documentation of the stories and songs of blues artists (many of which appear on an accompanying CD). Focuses on Delta blues singers of the early twentieth century.
Further Reading Albertson, Chris. Bessie. Rev. ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. A solid biography with, perhaps, a little too much emphasis on the rough side of Smith’s life. A good portion of the book is based on interviews with Smith’s niece, Ruby Walker. Includes many photographs, discography, and index.
See also: 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States; 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career.
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Luce Founds Time Magazine
March 3, 1923
Luce Founds TIME Magazine Henry R. Luce revolutionized American journalism by introducing, with his partner Briton Hadden, the first newsmagazine. He then went on to build one of the most influential publishing empires in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; organizations and institutions Key Figures Henry R. Luce (1898-1967), cofounder of Time magazine Briton Hadden (1898-1929), cofounder of Time magazine John Stuart Martin (1900-1977), managing editor of Time magazine, 1929-1937 Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), American playwright and wife of Henry R. Luce Roy E. Larsen (1899-1979), first circulation manager of Time magazine, later president of Time Inc., 1939-1960
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Summary of Event Henry R. Luce was born on April 3, 1898, in Tengchow, China, where his father was a Presbyterian missionary. He attended the British-run Chefoo School from 1908 to 1913 before attending the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. There he became interested in journalism and began his friendship with fellow student and aspiring journalist Briton Hadden. Hadden edited the Hotchkiss school newspaper, the Weekly Record, while Luce was the editor of the Literary Monthly. The two went on to Yale University in 1916, where they joined the staff of the Yale Daily News, Hadden becoming its chairman and Luce its managing editor. Despite service in the army in 1918-1919, both received their bachelor of arts degrees in 1920. After spending a year studying history at the University of Oxford, Luce became a reporter for the Chicago Daily News before rejoining Hadden at the Baltimore News. By the fall of 1922, Luce and Hadden had succeeded in raising almost eighty-six thousand dollars in capital to start Time: The Weekly News-Magazine. The first issue appeared in late February, 1923, with a cover date of March 3, 1923. Hadden appears to have been the source of many of the ideas behind the magazine, but Luce supplied the organizational talents required to implement
Hadden’s ideas. The magazine’s purpose, Hadden and Luce’s prospectus explained, was to fill the informational gap that existed “because no publication has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able to spend on simply keeping informed.” Major emphasis was placed on conciseness; initially, no entry was to be more than four hundred words. Perhaps most important, the young publishers did not even pay lip service to reportorial objectivity. “Time gives both sides,” they declared, “but clearly indicates which side it believes to have the stronger position.” Through a preferred-stock arrangement, Luce and Hadden retained full control of Time Incorporated. Hadden was president from 1923 to 1925, when Luce assumed that title. Hadden largely handled the editorial side for four years while Luce was business manager; they then traded roles. The basic subscription rate was five dollars per year, with a cover price of fifteen cents an issue. Time started with nine thousand subscribers recruited on a three-week trial basis through a mail campaign. The first years were financially difficult, but by the end of 1927, Time was on its way to success. Circulation had risen to 175,000, annual advertising revenue was almost half a million dollars, and the magazine showed a profit. After Hadden’s death in late February, 1929, from a streptococcus infection, Luce acquired majority control of the undertaking. Roy E. Larsen, a Harvard graduate who joined Time during the planning stage and was its first circulation manager, became Luce’s second in command as president of Time Inc. from 1939 to 1960. The cover of the first issue featured a picture of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Joseph G. Cannon, on the occasion of his retirement from Congress. Thereafter, the cover almost invariably featured a portrait of an individual. Time’s news coverage similarly focused on personalities. Along with conciseness, Time boasted of its comprehensive coverage of “all available information on all subjects of importance and general interest.” Entries were arranged by subject matter into departments. Departments in the first issue that became permanent features were “National Affairs” (later shortened to “The Nation”), “Foreign News” (later retitled “The World”), “Books,” “Art,” “The Theatre” (expanded in 1958 to include television and renamed “Show Business”), “Cinema,” “Music,” “Education,” “Religion,” “Medicine,” “Finance” (later divided into “U.S.
Luce Founds Time Magazine Business” and “World Business”), “Sport,” “The Press” (newspapers and magazines), and “Milestones” (a column of brief paragraphs recording births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of well-known personalities). A “Letters” department was added in Time’s second year and became one of the magazine’s most popular features. After Hadden’s death, his cousin John Stuart Martin became managing editor, acting in that position until 1937. By that date, circulation had passed the 750,000 mark. Martin was largely responsible for Time’s distinctive style: an aura of omniscience coupled with what one historian of American magazines has termed “use of word coinages, blends, puns, inverted syntax, esoteric words, tropes and epithets of various kinds.” Time’s contributions to the American language include the popularization of the words “tycoon,” “pundit,” and “kudos.” Another feature of Time was its proclivity for the “upended sentence,” the most famous example of which is its often-repeated introduction to death notices, “As it must to all men, death came last week to . . .” Occasional full-color covers began as early as 1929, but use of color in the body of the magazine did not come until 1945. At first, Time relied for copy largely on rewriting newspaper clippings, particularly from The New York Times. Contemporary newspapers adhered to a rigid structure developed by the national wire services, such as the Associated Press, whereby all the important facts were jammed into the first paragraph, or “lead.” Time rewrote the stories in dramatic narrative form, with a beginning, middle, and end. Another favorite Time technique to make old news appear fresh was to lace accounts with colorful but mostly insignificant details such as the appearance, ages, or middle names of persons in the news. Only in the late 1930’s did Time begin to build up its own staff of reporters and stringers. Even then, the final product followed a standardized formula. Reporters’ stories were heavily edited, writers had little autonomy, and no authors’ names, or bylines, were attached to entries. Even while Time was still in shaky financial condition, Luce was looking to expand. In 1924, he and Hadden became publishers of the new Saturday Review of Literature, but they withdrew from involvement two years later. In 1928, Time Inc. launched an advertising trade journal titled Tide, which the company sold in 1930. Luce’s willingness to take risks was shown by his decision to launch a new monthly business magazine, Fortune, in February, 1930, when the economy was reeling from the shock of the stock market crash. Covering far more than business and finance, Fortune included 1834
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 first-rate, in-depth analysis of national politics, foreign affairs, and developments in art and culture. Luce also acquired Architectural Forum in the early 1930’s. Roy E. Larsen was responsible for introducing, in 1931, a weekly radio program called The March of Time broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting System. The program, modeled on Time magazine, reenacted the more important news stories of the week. A monthly newsreel version produced by Twentieth Century-Fox was begun in 1935. The March of Time continued on the radio until 1945, and the newsreel lasted for another six years before transfer to television. The television show was terminated in 1954. Next to Time, Luce’s most important innovation was the introduction of the weekly picture magazine Life in November, 1936. Life was made possible by technological advances in photography and photoengraving that had been made independent of Luce. Luce’s contribution lay in recognizing the mass-audience appeal of photographs. That potential had first been exploited in Germany, and the German photographers Luce brought over to advise him were responsible for what became Life’s most distinctive feature—the grouping together of photographs into “photoessays” in which pictures largely substituted for words. Life was an immediate sales success. Circulation reached 500,000 within four weeks and 1.7 million by late in 1937. Financially, however, Life was a money loser during its first years, and it almost bankrupted Time Inc. Life did not begin to make money until early in 1939, when circulation passed the 2 million mark. Significance Time’s most direct antecedent was the Literary Digest, the pages of which were largely filled with quotations from newspapers. The Literary Digest focused on the conflict of editorial opinion, not on presenting a comprehensive summary of the news. Time’s success stimulated a host of imitators. Only two, however, survived to remain long-term competitors. News-week (the hyphen was later dropped) was started in February, 1933, by former Time staffer Thomas S. Martyn. Its continuing financial losses led to Martyn’s ouster and Newsweek’s merger in February, 1937, with Today, another would-be Time rival edited by former New Deal Brain Truster Raymond Moley. Generous financial infusions from its chief backer, Vincent Astor, kept Newsweek afloat until its purchase in the 1960’s by The Washington Post placed the magazine on a more solid competitive footing vis-àvis Time. Time’s second major competitor was United
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Luce Founds Time Magazine
with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, blaming its hostility toward business for prolonging the Depression. Also pulling him into politics was his second marriage. Luce had married Lila Hotz in 1923; they had two children. He was divorced from her and in 1935 married Clare Boothe Brokaw, a playwright and former editor of Vanity Fair. She went on to become active in Republican Party affairs and was a member of the House of Representatives from Connecticut from 1943 to 1947. Thinking that the Republican Old Guard was hopelessly out of touch with the electorate, Luce aspired to formulate a moderate Republicanism that could offer a viable alternative to the New Deal. Foreign policy became the major focus of Luce’s political activism. By 1939, he had become convinced that Germany’s Adolf Hitler represented a threat not only to the United States but also to Western civilization as a whole. He personally favored U.S. intervention after the outbreak of the war in Europe. He worked through his magazines to alert the country to the dangers that would result from a Hitler triumph, and he played a leading role in the capture of the 1940 Republican presidential nomination by the proAllied Wendell Willkie. In an influential article, “The American Century,” published in the February 17, 1941, issue of Life under his own name, he set forth his vision of the future role of the United States in spreading throughout the world the benefits of democratic capitalism. Sometime between late 1943 and To view image, please refer to the 1944, Luce became alarmed over the print edition of this title. potential threat of the Soviet Union. Much to the unhappiness of many members of his staff, Luce had his magazines take an increasingly antiSoviet line. By the late 1940’s, he was attacking the containment policy of President Harry S. Truman as too defensive. The transformation of Luce into a hard-line Cold Warrior was reinforced by his longtime support for China’s Chiang Kai-shek. Like most other members of what might be termed the missionary lobby, Luce had embraced Chiang as the instrument for the AmericanizaBriton Hadden (left) and Henry R. Luce (center) in 1925 with Cleveland, Ohio, city tion of China and blamed the Trumanager William R. Hopkins, who is reading an article in Time magazine. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) man administration’s lack of support
States News (later U.S. News & World Report), begun in early 1933 by conservative syndicated columnist David Lawrence. Like Time, Life had its rivals. The most successful was Look, launched in early 1937. Luce’s innovations had an impact reaching beyond the magazine realm. Time’s demonstration of the existence of a large middleclass audience for synthesis led many newspapers to introduce news analysis in their own pages, in the form of weekly reviews and daily commentaries. Life gave a major boost to the new way of reporting events known as photojournalism, whereby visual images became the primary carriers of stories. At first, Time was largely apolitical, lacking even an editorial page. Its attitude toward politics and politicians was basically irreverent and skeptical. By the late 1930’s, however, Luce was moving to a more highly politicized stance. The potential influence represented by the circulation of his magazines inflated his sense of selfimportance, and he had grown increasingly disillusioned
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Luce Founds Time Magazine for Chiang’s defeat by the Chinese Communists. In 1952, Life openly and Time more subtly supported Republican presidential nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Republican platform’s call for an aggressive policy to roll back Communism. Eisenhower named Clare Boothe Luce to the post of U.S. ambassador to Italy, but Henry Luce did not have much influence in the new administration. Although his magazines refrained from open criticism, he was privately disappointed at the administration’s failure to carry through on its promise of a more aggressive foreign policy. As an alternative way of combating Communism, Luce took up championship of the glories of the Western European cultural tradition. Starting in the late 1940’s, he required that each issue of Life carry at least one “serious offering” on the great art, religions, and ideas of Western civilization. Luce strongly backed U.S. involvement in Vietnam; Time even edited its own Vietnam correspondent’s dispatches to accord with Luce’s interventionist position. Luce retired as editor in chief of Time Inc. in 1964. He died of a heart attack on February 28, 1967. Even before Luce stepped down, cracks had begun to appear in his empire. The consistently money-losing Architectural Forum was given as a gift to the American Planning and Civic Association in 1964. Faced with the competition of more narrowly focused business news periodicals, Luce in the 1940’s directed Fortune to limit its coverage exclusively to business matters. Its shift from monthly to biweekly publication in 1982 undercut what had been its forte of in-depth analysis. The rise of television hit all magazines hard. Life continued to prosper because of its color pictures and advertising displays as long as television remained black-and-white. By the 1960’s, however, Life began to slide in both circulation and advertising. Its end came with the issue of December 29, 1972. Life was resurrected in October, 1978, as a monthly publication focusing on feature articles rather than news, but the new Life never came near the circulation of its namesake. During Luce’s last years, Time came under increasing attack for its politically motivated slanting of the news. Under his successors, the magazine drifted toward a bland middle-of-the-roadism politically. Deeper problems remained: oversimplification of complex issues, masses of trivial and insignificant details, and exaggeration of the role of the individual “newsmaker.” Much of Time’s remaining reputation was shredded by a libel suit brought by Israeli general Ariel Sharon in 1985. Although Time was saved from paying damages by a constitutional technicality, the trial exposed the shoddiness 1836
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of Time’s reportorial and editorial practices. Worse, circulation remained stagnant, at approximately 4.5 million, from the mid-1960’s through the 1980’s, despite the vast expansion of the magazine’s target audience of college graduates. In a bid to boost sales, Time underwent an extensive format revamping in 1988 (including the addition of bylines) that was accompanied by a shift from “hard” to more “soft” news. By the 1980’s, Time Inc. had become a gigantic conglomerate with a primary business of entertainment rather than journalism. Its magazines division had become one of four separately incorporated subsidiaries. The other three were Home Box Office (HBO), a leading cable television programmer; the American Television and Communication Corporation, the second-largest cable television system; and Time Books. Within the magazine division, the stars were Sports Illustrated and People. Sports Illustrated had been launched in 1954 to appeal to the growing market of young and affluent sports fans. First appearing in 1974, People jumped within two years to a circulation of 2.5 million thanks to its photograph-laden focus on celebrities. The shift was personified by J. Richard Munro, the chief executive officer of Time Inc. from 1980 to 1990. Munro had come to the top spot after first serving as publisher of Sports Illustrated and group vice president for video. He was a moving force behind the controversial merger in 1990 with rival entertainment conglomerate Warner Communications to form Time Warner, which became one of the leading global information technology, media, and entertainment companies. —John Braeman Further Reading Baughman, James L. Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media. 1987. Reprint. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Essentially favorable biography sets its subject in the broader context of twentieth century news media. Explains how Luce’s innovative summary and synthesis of the news using a short-story format and visual images changed American journalism. Portrays Luce as a proponent of Republican Party politics and middleclass American values. Includes bibliography and index. Busch, Noel F. Briton Hadden: A Biography of the Cofounder of “Time.” 1949. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975. Thorough account of Hadden’s role in creating Time and developing its style. Written by Hadden’s cousin, who wrote for the maga-
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editor of the Saturday Evening Post and first published as a series of articles in that magazine. Includes photographs of key individuals, reproductions of covers of publications, cartoons, and bibliography. Luce, Henry. The Ideas of Henry Luce. Edited by John K. Jessup. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Collection of Luce’s speeches, article excerpts, and other statements on journalism, politics, law and order, business, art and architecture, Christianity, the New Deal, communism, China, American presidents, and many other subjects. Useful for understanding Luce’s biases, which influenced his publications and provoked much controversy. Includes a brief insightful biographical introduction by a former aide to Luce. Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines. 5 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938-1968. Massive work by a leading historian of American magazines. The account of Time up to the early 1960’s in volume 5 provides especially interesting information on matters of physical format and style. Swanberg, W. A. Luce and His Empire: A Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. Polemical biography, based on substantial research, castigates Luce’s motives, commitments, and achievements. Argues primarily that Luce was a megalomaniac who used Time and its sister publications to try to shape U.S. policies. Engaging and entertaining, but lacks subtlety and balance, often ignores historical contexts, and presents some trivial information. Includes a splendid collection of photographs, endnotes, and index. Tebbel, John, and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. The Magazine in America, 1741-1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. History draws on scholarly and popular examinations of the periodical press, primarily in the post-1918 years. See also: Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
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zine in its early years. Very valuable for understanding the origins of Time, but does little to illuminate Hadden’s character. Clurman, Richard M. To the End of Time: The Seduction and Conquest of a Media Empire. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. A detailed account of the wheeling and dealing involved in Time Inc.’s merger with Warner Communications. Sharply indicts Time’s top management. Donovan, Hedley. Right Places, Right Times: Forty Years in Journalism, Not Counting My Paper Route. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. An insider’s look at the workings of the Luce empire during the post-World War II years by a man who rose to be editorial director of Time Inc. from 1960 to 1964 and succeeded Luce as editor in chief from 1964 to 1979. Elson, Robert T. Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise. 3 vols. New York: Atheneum, 1968-1986. Official company history uses oral histories and records in the Time Inc. archives not available to outside researchers. First volume covers 1923 to 1940: the founding of Time and Life, Time’s approach to journalism and the development of its style, and the personalities of the individuals involved. Remarkably candid for an official history, but nevertheless portrays Time Inc. very favorably. Includes photographs and index. Griffith, Thomas. Harry and Teddy: The Turbulent Friendship of Press Lord Henry R. Luce and His Favorite Reporter, Theodore H. White. New York: Random House, 1995. Describes the friendship and working relationship between Luce and White, with particular focus on White’s reporting on China. Includes photographs. Herzstein, Robert E. Henry R. Luce, “Time,” and the American Crusade in Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Focuses on Luce’s publishing activities aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Asian nations. Includes illustrations, endnotes, and index. Kobler, John. Luce: His Time, Life, and Fortune. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. Lively and balanced account of Luce’s founding of and control over Time Inc., its internal feuds, its influence in foreign affairs, and Luce’s skill as a businessman. Written by a senior
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Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions
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March 5, 1923
Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions Before Nevada and Montana approved old-age pensions in 1923, the United States trailed far behind the rest of the industrialized world in providing relief for older citizens. Locale: Nevada; Montana Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor Key Figures Joseph M. Dixon (1867-1934), governor of Montana, 1921-1925 James G. Scrugham (1880-1945), governor of Nevada, 1923-1927 Abraham Epstein (1892-1942), American crusader for old-age pensions and founder of the American Association for Old Age Security Summary of Event At the same hour and on the same day, March 5, 1923, Montana governor Joseph M. Dixon and Nevada governor James G. Scrugham signed the first old-age pension legislation in the United States. The issue of providing pensions for older Americans had become prominent in the years after World War I. Proponents of old-age pensions, propelled to a great extent by the politics of Progressivism, pointed to the fact that the United States stood alone among industrialized nations in failing to provide assistance to those considered too old to hold regular jobs. The United States continued to apply the nineteenth century doctrine of laissez-faire at a time when circumstances cried out for assistance to retired wage earners. It was no longer realistic to expect that lifelong wage earners could set aside enough money to live comfortably in their retirement years. Supporters of old-age pensions had statistics on their side, and they used them effectively. In 1880, 3 percent of the U.S. population was age sixty-five or older, but by 1920 the proportion in this age group had risen to 5 percent. In addition, more people than ever before worked for wages, the average life span was increasing rapidly, businesses were tending to retire workers forcibly, and industrialization had brought about greater dispersal of family members. Given these facts, there could be little doubt that the need for old-age pensions was going to increase in the future. This led Abraham Epstein, a prominent advocate of old-age relief, to ask in the 1920’s, “If the sunset of life is to continue unproductive, wretched 1838
and humiliating, is it worth prolonging?” Much of the information that pension advocates used to expose the problems of retired American workers came from a study conducted by a legislative commission created in Pennsylvania in 1917. It was not in Pennsylvania, however, or in any other highly industrialized northeastern state, that an old-age pension bill was first enacted. Instead, the underpopulated and far less industrialized states of Montana and Nevada led the way. The circumstances under which these two states first provided old-age assistance included staggering local economies, progressive politics, and inadequate care facilities for the destitute elderly. Like many other states, Montana and Nevada had a certain number of county homes that housed the old and poor. These were modeled roughly on the poorhouses prescribed by the 1834 New Poor Law in England. Although some of the more onerous aspects of the poorhouses had been eliminated, the county homes were scarcely desirable residences. Moreover, with physician fees and food costs, they were expensive to maintain, and the numbers of persons seeking refuge continued to increase. It was evident that these homes would soon be incapable of handling the demands placed on them. Those who supported the creation of old-age allowances made compelling economic and humanitarian arguments against housing the destitute elderly in county homes. They pointed out that the homes were becoming too expensive to maintain and that, because of the notorious conditions in many of the homes, people feared living in them more than they feared starving. Early in 1923, the state legislatures in Montana and Nevada began to consider another kind of relief for the retired and poor. In each state, the presence of a governor who favored social reform contributed to the momentum for new measures. In Montana, Governor Dixon, a longtime Republican progressive who had served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1903-1907) and the U.S. Senate (1907-1913) and managed Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential campaign, gave his support to a pension plan that would allow individual counties to provide relief for persons seventy years of age and older who had incomes of less than three hundred dollars per year. Each person given a pension had to have been a citizen of the United States and a resident of Montana for at least fifteen years. The maximum that any person could receive was twenty-five dollars each month. The Montana law
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 placed the burden of administering and financing the pension in the hands of county officials. County commissioners were to decide who qualified for the old-age pension and how much each pensioner would receive. There was no state authority to oversee the pension plan, and the state would not reimburse counties for the pensions they paid. In Nevada, the old-age pension bill gained the support of Democrats and progressive Republicans. The Democratic governor, James Scrugham, gave his approval to the measure as it proceeded through the state legislature. The Nevada law provided for a form of administration much different from that approved in Montana. In Nevada, the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general were established as the State Old Age Pension Commission. The governor then appointed three residents from each county to serve on county pension boards. These boards received applications for relief from eligible persons and then made recommendations to the state commission. Pensions could be granted to individuals sixty years of age or older who had been U.S. citizens for at least fifteen years and residents of Nevada for at least ten years. No one could be given an old-age allowance in excess of one dollar per day. Applicants who owned property valued at three thousand dollars or more were automatically disqualified. The money to support the Nevada system came from a special tax on property within each county.
Statistics gathered from the Associated Industries of Montana and the U.S. Department of Labor showed that each citizen of the participating counties paid about twenty-eight cents per year to support the pension plan and that money spent on old-age relief was less than a quarter of that spent to maintain the county homes. The Nevada old-age pension law was so ineffective that the state legislature repealed it early in 1925. In March of that year, a new bill was passed that adopted the Montana system of putting all decisions in the hands of county officials; the state no longer supervised the granting of old-age allowances. The 1925 Nevada legislation also raised the eligible age for assistance to sixty-five. A survey undertaken in 1926 found only one person in the entire state who had been granted an old-age pension. In both Montana and Nevada, as well as in other states, private insurance interests tried to discourage implementation of the pension laws. The Montana and Nevada laws did not have much impact within the respective populations of those states, but on a national level the legislation gave momentum to the old-age pension cause. Legislators in highly populated industrial states were embarrassed that sparsely populated Montana and Nevada had taken the first steps to provide relief for the aged poor. Ultimately, it took the Great Depression, when many well-to-do elderly lost their savings, to force the U.S. government to devise a federally funded program to ensure income for the elderly. The result was the national Social Security Act, passed during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. This legislation did not abandon the notion that individuals should provide as much as possible for their own retirement through personal savings, but it added a safety net to ensure that the elderly would have a degree of financial security in retirement. —Ronald K. Huch Further Reading Axinn, June, and Mark J. Stern. Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need. 6th ed. Newton, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 2004. History of welfare programs and legislation in America from the colonial period to the present includes discussion of the introduction of old-age pensions in the 1920’s. Douglas, Paul H. Social Security in the United States. 1936. Reprint. New York: Beard Books, 2000. A comprehensive, if somewhat thin, look at efforts to provide relief for the nonworking aged. Explains why employers in every state opposed pension legislation on the basis of cost. Includes index. 1839
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Significance Although it remained to be seen whether the centralized Nevada system or the decentralized Montana system would work more efficiently, supporters of old-age pensions from around the nation were buoyed by the legislation. Beginning with Pennsylvania in May, 1923, many other states took similar action. In the specific cases of Montana and Nevada, however, the impacts of the 1923 old-age pension measures appear to have been slight. A survey of Montana counties undertaken by Abraham Epstein in 1926 is quite revealing in this regard. Epstein received information from fifty-one of the state’s fifty-six counties. Fourteen counties did not participate in the system because they had either no applications or no money to provide pensions. The largest county, which included the city of Butte, fell into the latter category. Epstein further found that, in the counties responding, only 2.6 out of every 1,000 eligible inhabitants applied for old-age pensions. At the end of 1926, there were only 448 pensioners in the thirty-two counties reporting that they had granted any pensions.
Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions
American Management Association Is Established Elliott, Russell R. History of Nevada. 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. Splendid general history of Nevada includes thorough annotated bibliography and index. Epstein, Abraham. The Challenge of the Aged. 1928. Reprint. New York: Ayer, 1976. One of the most useful and significant works on the plight of the aged in the United States through 1927 by a leader in the campaign for old-age relief. Provides substantial, wellorganized information and statistics that illuminate the subject. Includes notes, appendix, and index. Karlin, Jules A. Joseph M. Dixon of Montana. 2 vols. Missoula: University of Montana Press, 1974. Wellresearched and inclusive biography of one of Montana’s most important politicians. Does not discuss old-age pension laws, but describes convincingly the circumstances in Montana from which such laws
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 emerged. Includes excellent bibliography and index. Katz, Michael B. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America. Rev. ed. New York: Basic Books, 1996. History of the development of social programs aimed at relieving the plight of the poor in the United States. Chapter 8 discusses the period in which the Nevada and Montana legislation was passed. Includes notes and indexes. Spense, Clark C. Montana: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978. Limited state history provides a very good introduction to Montana’s politics and society. Includes suggestions for further reading and index. See also: Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act.
March 14, 1923
American Management Association Is Established The founding of the American Management Association was a milestone in efforts to professionalize management and in the ascendancy of a conservative position on personnel relations. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures Meyer Bloomfield (1878-1938), American social worker Clarence J. Hicks (1863-1944), American welfare worker Sam A. Lewisohn (1884-1951), American industrialist and publicist Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966), American automobile executive Summary of Event On March 14, 1923, the members of the National Personnel Association convened in New York City to discuss broadening that organization’s membership. The board of directors recognized that managers outside personnel departments were coping with personnel issues on a daily basis and clearly were qualified to join personnel managers in an expanded national association. At the same time, the establishment of such an organization would mark an 1840
important step in the development of a professional reputation for managers. The American Management Association (AMA) grew out of this decision. The roots of the AMA stretch back to a series of organizational efforts by groups concerned with personnel issues and dedicated to achieving a recognized standing in the business community. The National Association of Corporate Training (NACT), the Industrial Relations Association of America (IRAA), and the Special Conference Committee (SCC) played central roles in the events leading to the formation of the AMA. The NACT and the IRAA each traced its origins to some aspect of personnel matters. The NACT arose out of the dissatisfaction of many in the corporate world over the lack of appropriate training in public schools, which no longer provided industry with workers who were able to meet the demands of a competitive society. In response, corporations initiated their own educational programs and called for more market-oriented training in the public schools. The vocational movement grew directly from this dissatisfaction with inadequately trained workers. It concentrated on testing and counseling workers in an effort to identify their abilities and then match these with appropriate jobs in industry. By 1915, proponents of manual training had established the National Vocational Conference (NVC), which was headed by Meyer Bloom-
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The AMA’s journal, the American Management Review, energetically promoted human relations as an essential ingredient in industrial success. First published in April, 1923, the journal gained increasing notoriety by featuring individual and industry opinions on the issues affecting employee relations. It raised important topics ranging from declining productivity to the fragility of the work ethic. The American Management Review also continued the debate on educational training of workers to improve their productivity and ensure their loyalty to their companies. The AMA reinforced its professional orientation by cosponsoring, with the educational director of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, a series of conferences on engineering education. The AMA hoped to promote management instruction in the country’s leading engineering schools. Scores of universities introduced courses and full-scale programs in business administration during the 1920’s, a definite sign of the maturing of management as a professional career. The AMA also maintained relations with the American Council on Higher Education, which was founded during World War I to handle wartime activities in four-year institutions and continued as a permanent body determined to make institutions of higher education more amenable to cooperation with industry. Business leaders in the 1920’s also contributed to this increasingly professional image of personnel management. Many had performed years of public service before joining the ranks of business, an experience that gave them a self-perception as professionals. Other figures in the business community, including Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors, actually had participated in educational training in management skills as they prepared for careers in business. They argued that managers must broaden their concerns from satisfying investors to cooperating with workers, the public, and customers. Few considered themselves to be solely managers of private enterprises; most believed that their positions made them trustees of the public welfare. By the 1930’s, the AMA, its journal, and the efforts of managers had imbued management with the professional character it had so desperately sought. Significance The formation of the AMA marked the ascendancy of the conservative philosophy of personnel management. The founders of the AMA and their allies among those in personnel management refused to endorse the independent position that personnel departments had achieved during 1841
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field, a social worker with a law degree who had long participated in the personnel movement. In his capacity as president of the NVC, Bloomfield sponsored a major conference on personnel management in 1917, during which participants established a committee charged with setting up a national organization of employment managers. In 1918, a subsequent national conference launched the National Association of Employment Managers. It brought together local organizations such as the Boston Employment Association, founded by Bloomfield, and gave the field of personnel management an increasingly professional cast. In 1919, this group renamed itself the Industrial Relations Association of America. Members of the SCC engineered the merger of the IRAA and the NACT. The SCC also had grown out of personnel issues. Its founder, Clarence J. Hicks, had created the employee representation plan for John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel. That plan established a mechanism through which employees could express their grievances and simultaneously gave personnel managers some sense of the workers’ daily concerns. Hicks also developed one of the most expansive benefits programs of the time and a personnel department with substantial powers for Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of New Jersey. He designed the department specifically to improve and sustain productive employer-employee relationships. He brought these notions to the SCC, the members of which considered company unions and welfare work to be fundamental in their promotion of personnel management. SCC members served on the boards of the IRAA and the NACT, and thus assumed critical roles in the founding of the National Personnel Association. The members of this organization hoped to gain the authority in employee relations that engineers and line managers had achieved over production workers, both skilled and unskilled. The SCC’s influence persisted in the AMA. For the most part, those who joined the AMA came from large companies (such as Standard Oil, Westinghouse, and Du Pont) that had the resources to sustain personnel departments. Adopting the SCC philosophy, the AMA pinpointed human relations as its main area of concern. Sam A. Lewisohn, the AMA’s president, noted that labor relations among company officials had generated little attention from the business community, a neglect the AMA intended to remedy. The AMA united the various strands of the personnel movement, from company union and welfare work to vocational training.
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American Management Association Is Established World War I. They urged the restriction of the capacity of personnel departments to interfere with line organizations. The AMAstated that production workers remained well outside the authority of the personnel department, which had only the capacity to serve in a consulting, rather than an active, role in matters relating to the line. World War I had created labor market conditions that encouraged the promotion of personnel departments. Labor shortages and government demands for nonstop production forced company officials to seek the aid of personnel managers in confronting an increasingly aggressive workforce. Absences, tardiness, and other signs of worker unrest had become far more common. The threat of strikes and demands for collective bargaining punctuated negotiations between capital and labor. The federal government in fact endorsed collective bargaining to prevent work stoppages that could endanger the production of materials needed for the war effort. Personnel departments flourished in this new environment, because their skills accommodated the needs of both employers and employees. This newfound opportunity enabled personnel managers and their departments to carve out an independent niche in corporate enterprise and achieve a standing on a par with the line organization. Proponents of personnel management established highly centralized personnel departments that seized the powers of line supervisors in the area of employee relations. The federal government contributed to this development by ordering all companies with which it carried on extensive business operations to adopt many of the personnel measures that had proven effective in stabilizing workforces. In an unexpected move, supporters of the late Frederick Winslow Taylor, the best-known advocate of scientific management, acknowledged the importance of worker morale, a point stressed by personnel managers. Taylor saw workers as cogs in the production process and rarely discussed the wants and needs of the individual employee. The war nurtured the personnel movement, but the end of hostilities presaged a series of setbacks to personnel department enthusiasts. The inevitable labor surplus and an economic depression in 1921-1922 reduced the overflow of jobs typical of the wartime years. In the face of this reversal, enhanced by the intense mechanization of the 1920’s, companies sought a return to prewar labor conditions. Control over wages and decisions to hire and fire, among other powers, returned to the shop floor. Individual supervisors in these decentralized systems were freed from interference in their daily management of workers by those in the personnel department. A declara1842
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion presented at the first meeting of the AMA expressed the view that personnel managers could only advise those in line departments. Supervisors had regained their lost autonomy. Members of the AMA declared that in the past, personnel departments had vastly overstepped their limits by interfering in line organizations on matters such as disciplining workers. The antipathy of the SCC toward trade unions and their negotiators also carried over into the AMA. Giants in the SCC such as Standard Oil of New Jersey had long harbored strident opposition to trade unions and collective bargaining, opposition that the war had forced them to suspend. The traditional negative view of such activities reemerged with a vengeance as corporations backed off from their cooperative position. This view clashed with the position of liberals among personnel managers who advocated strict neutrality on the issue of union organizing and urged this perspective on the national association. The position of the conservative, practical manager dovetailed with the widespread probusiness attitude of American society during the 1920’s. Despite this position, the legacy of SCC attitudes toward company unions and welfare work, in addition to notions inherited from vocational guidance groups that joined the AMA, blunted the worst characteristics of line autonomy. Training programs designed to make line supervisors more sensitive to employees’ interests appeared throughout the decade. Company unions also placed restraints on authority by providing grievance outlets for workers. The pro-union laws of the New Deal and the resurgence of independent worker organizations forced a sudden shift in these positions. Strikes, labor unrest, and government intrusion revived many of the labor market conditions that had been pervasive during World War I. Companies turned to dynamic personnel managers for solutions in dealing with a defiant workforce, and personnel departments began to recover their independence and to exercise authority equal to that held by the line and other departments in the corporation. Personnel managers also engineered the return of standardized employment procedures, which replaced the idiosyncratic and unpredictable methods of line supervisors. This shift in authority significantly enhanced the power of the personnel department over employees in production while correspondingly diminishing that of the line supervisors. Line forepersons reluctantly surrendered their voice in employee evaluation, wage determination, recruiting procedures, and even employee dismissal as personnel departments eagerly assumed control over these matters.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 These trends intensified during World War II, when worker shortages and government intrusion reminiscent of the 1917-1919 period reappeared in the labor markets. In the midst of this turbulence, the AMA continued to serve as an outlet for managers’ discussion of the renewed threat of unions and the constant battle for control of the workplace. By the 1940’s, the more pragmatic and conservative element in the AMA, after years of interaction with the liberal wing, had adopted many of the liberals’ sophisticated methods of personnel management to deal with a more independent and hostile workforce. The association, through its journal and other publications, provided effective indicators of the diversity of thought and attitudes among corporate managers during these decades. — Edward J. Davies II
Relies on AMA publications and the American Management Review for source material and reveals much about management attitudes. Heald, Morrell. The Social Responsibilities of Business: Company and Community, 1900-1960. 1970. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2005. Chapter 3 focuses on managerial leadership and includes descriptions of the American Management Association and the debates in the American Management Review. Also contains a discussion of professionalism and business education. Jacoby, Sanford. Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the Twentieth Century. Rev. ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004. Comprehensive and insightful discussion of the personnel movement and the place of the AMA in its development. Covers a number of key themes, including welfare work, vocational guidance, and attitudes toward personnel management. Provides illuminating analysis of the tensions among personnel managers concerning their place in the corporation. Nelson, Daniel. “The Company Union Movement, 1900-1937: A Reexamination.” Business History Review 56 (Autumn, 1982): 335-357. Offers effective analysis of the growth and expansion of company unions and explanation of why these organizations prosper or fail. Provides particularly useful information on the role of Clarence J. Hicks in this movement. Noble, David F. America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Critical and provocative account of the impact of corporations uses science as a centerpiece in production. Includes a discussion of corporate educational efforts, the impact of World War I, and ties between management and higher education. Pusateri, C. Joseph. A History of American Business. 2d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1988. Chapter 13 contains a broad and important discussion of the rise of corporate administration in the twentieth century. Places the AMA and the efforts to professionalize management in this broader context. Stone, Florence. “AMA: Building Management Excellence for Eighty Years.” MWorld (Fall, 2003): 74-81. History of the AMA from the organization’s own viewpoint and in one of its own publications. Includes illustrations and time line. Wood, Norman J. “Industrial Relations Policies of American Management, 1900-1933.” Business His1843
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Further Reading Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. 1960. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1983. Chapter 3 contains an effective discussion of key issues such as company unions and welfare capitalism. Includes an insightful discussion of the personnel management movement during the 1920’s and the relative lack of experience company officials had in dealing with personnel issues. Examines the motivation of managers to reduce the power of the foreperson in the workplace. Commons, John R., ed. History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932. Vol. 3 in History of Labor in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Chapter 16 briefly describes scientific management and rationalization. Chapter 17 focuses on personnel management, including the AMA and the attitudes of those involved in the association. Eilbert, Henry. “The Development of Personnel Management in the United States.” Business History Review 33 (Autumn, 1959): 345-364. Reviews the beginnings of personnel management in the early twentieth century. Explains the roles of welfare work, vocational guidance, and scientific management in the evolution of personnel management. Discusses the importance of World War I in shaping personnel management and the relationship between personnel managers and line supervisors. Harris, Howell John. The Right to Manage: Industrial Relations Policies of American Business in the 1940s. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Opening chapter provides a concise description of the personnel movement from its inception through 1940.
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U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws tory Review 34 (Winter, 1960): 403-420. Discusses the characteristics of three periods: 1900-1916, 19171919, and 1920-1933. Themes include scientific management, industrial safety, and welfare work in the first time frame, the professionalization of personnel management in the second, and the expansion of the personnel department’s responsibilities into areas such as employee health programs in the third.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School; Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management; 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive.
April 9, 1923
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws By ruling that minimum wage legislation was unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court declared its support of laissez-faire policy and upheld the doctrine of freedom of contract. Also known as: Adkins v. Children’s Hospital Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor Key Figures George Sutherland (1862-1942), associate justice of the United States, 1922-1938 William Howard Taft (1857-1930), chief justice of the United States, 1921-1930 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), associate justice of the United States, 1902-1932 Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), American attorney Summary of Event On April 9, 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five to three in the case of Adkins v. Children’s Hospital that minimum wage laws violated the freedom of contract between employers and workers as well as the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court’s decision, surprising to many, was consistent with established laissez-faire economic policies of the time as well as the Court’s own doctrine of freedom of contract, which it had been developing since the late 1890’s but would eventually repudiate in its 1937 decision in West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish. This doctrine held that private parties to a contract were to be free from state intervention except in those limited cases in which public health, welfare, or the morals of the community were involved. Massachusetts had adopted a minimum wage law in 1912, which was quickly followed by similar laws in 1844
several other states. The Adkins case stemmed from a 1918 federal law that created the Minimum Wage Board within the District of Columbia. The board’s function was to inspect working conditions and then establish a legal minimum wage after negotiating with representatives of employers and employees. Moreover, the board was given the power to enforce its standards of minimum wages in order to protect female and teenage workers within the District of Columbia from economic conditions detrimental to their “health and morals.” Failure of an employer to abide by the act was classified as a misdemeanor and carried a possible fine and imprisonment. In 1920, the Minimum Wage Board determined that the cost of the “necessaries of life” had risen to a minimum of $16.50 a week and that many of the women working in the district’s hotels, restaurants, and hospitals were being paid less, often much less, than the estimated living wage. The Children’s Hospital, which employed a large proportion of women, refused to pay the wage set by the board. The hospital, along with others, brought suit to challenge the authority of the board to set wages. The case was argued before the Court by Harvard Law School professor Felix Frankfurter in collaboration with the National Consumers League (Frankfurter would later take a seat on the Court as an associate justice in 1939). In his argument, Frankfurter stressed that the law had not harmed local industry or reduced the level of employment and in fact had improved the welfare of the district’s women and children. He and his supporters submitted a large volume of documentary evidence in support of their arguments, but they ultimately failed to convince the Court that minimum wage legislation was valid. The opponents of the legislation held to a basic conservative argument of the need to protect private property and stressed the importance of freedom of contract. Writing for the majority, Associate Justice George
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of contract would not be accepted by a majority of the Court for some years, but in his dissent he expressed the differences in approach among the justices concerning economic issues and labor relations. In Holmes’s view, an appointed board could be held to reasonably determine a standard for a living minimum wage. Such a standard need not come from the operations of a free market. Significance The Court’s decision in Adkins demonstrates the impact that laissez-faire policies had on judicial temperaments, the economy, and the citizens of the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The decision reflected popular, although not universal, attitudes toward labor relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A direct impact of the Adkins decision was its use throughout the 1920’s and early 1930’s to overturn several states’ minimum wage laws and other early New Deal legislation. The times and opinions were changing, however, and the Court’s earnest endorsement of freedom of contract in Adkins would be overturned in 1937. Initial reactions to the Court’s ruling in Adkins were mixed. Those who favored a free and open market hailed it as an important and necessary endorsement of private property and the protection of freedom of contract under the due process clause. Those who favored direct regulation of economic and social conditions attacked it as a shameful example of inhumanity. The New Republic, for example, ran an editorial stating that the Court had in effect endorsed the legal right to starve. Regardless of whether one agrees with the Court’s ruling in Adkins, the case makes it clear that wages and prices are central to the operation of an economy. For that reason, various groups followed the case very closely. Groups opposed to minimum wage legislation had long stressed that such laws were potentially harmful not only to industry but also to labor itself, as unemployment would rise in response to higher legislated wages. Rising labor costs would be imposed on business and passed along to consumers, and labor groups themselves would have diminished ability to bargain. Those in favor of minimum wage legislation attempted to refute these claims. They argued that such laws protect the weak, raise standards of living, improve the general health and welfare, improve workers’ bargaining power, and provide benefits to employers by increasing morale and worker efficiency. Others debated the significance of an absolute power to fix wages. Did, for example, the right to set a minimum wage then also imply the ability to set a maximum wage? 1845
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Sutherland held that the 1918 law not only disrupted the right of a private contract but also violated the right of property protected by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. He asserted that the right of private contracts could be restrained only in exceptional cases and that in the view of the Court, at least for the time being, labor relations were largely beyond the police powers and regulatory powers of the states, Congress, and the courts. Because in earlier rulings the Court had given mixed signals about when and where it was appropriate to set maximum work hours, the opinion in Adkins drew a sharp distinction between minimum wage laws and maximum hour laws. In Adkins, the Court held that contractual wages are appropriately set by the value of labor in the free market and that any attempt to fix wages places a burden on private employers concerning what in fact is a social issue. In the 1908 case of Muller v. Oregon, the Court had ruled that because of the state’s interest in women’s health it could, because of gender, legitimately set maximum hours. Because the decision in Adkins was handed down after the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in August of 1920, the Court’s opinion also held that gender differences did not constitute a valid reason to ignore freedom of contract. Chief Justice William Howard Taft, normally fairly conservative, issued a rare written dissent to the Court’s decision in Adkins. Taft contended that laws could, in certain situations, be enacted to limit freedom of contract. It was, for example, within the police powers of the states, or Congress, to set maximum hours as well as to establish minimum wages. His dissent questioned the majority’s distinction between wages and hours as a test of the liberty of contract, noting that one was as important as the other. Taft went on to note that although the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment provided women with some political power, it did nothing to alter the physical distinctions between women and men. Constitutional issues therefore did not need to be recast simply because of its adoption. Also dissenting in the Adkins decision was Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who accepted the notion that Congress had the power to establish minimum wage rates for women in the District of Columbia but then questioned the constitutionality of liberty of contract. As Holmes noted, laws exist to forbid people from doing things they want to do. He questioned why labor contracts should be singled out for exemption, and he listed several cases in which liberty of contract had been limited by statute with validation by the Court. Holmes’s attempt to get the Court to abandon its doctrine of liberty
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws Was it feasible to determine and then fix a workable wage or a living wage? How would work performed at home be legislated? How would the enforcement of a minimum wage be handled? Because of the importance it placed on freedom of contract, the Court’s decision in Adkins was a major setback to the progressive labor movement. During the early decades of the twentieth century, progressive groups sought legislative remedies for many of the inequities and other problems they believed existed in labor relations. The gains made by these groups were, at least for the time being, stalled by this ruling. The Court had ruled in essence that the free marketplace and not mandated regulation would guide the decisions of society. Because minimum wage legislation was seen as a means to regulate as well as to prohibit certain labor practices, progressive groups had hoped that the Court would rule to uphold the minimum wage as a means of protecting the health and welfare of women and children. Conservatives saw minimum wage legislation simply as an unconstitutional intrusion into private affairs between employers and employees. The Court’s ruling in this case, among others, provides a good deal of insight into the role of women and children in the American economy during the early years of the twentieth century. Minimum wage legislation often specified that the health and welfare of women and children were to be protected by a minimum living wage. This emphasis can be explained by the fact that genderand age-specific legislation was more likely to be accepted, or, alternatively, that women and children were employed in less productive industries, had lower wages, and had less bargaining power in the market, thus legislation on their behalf was necessary. By ruling minimum wage legislation unconstitutional, the Court demonstrated a belief in the merits of a marketplace free from government intervention. The decision in Adkins affirmed the Court’s belief that the freedom of contract doctrine remained, at least for the time, paramount to the operation of the free market. Moreover, if the freedom of contract doctrine were broadly applied, the nation, the economy, and labor relations would remain dominated by laissez-faire policies. The significance of this was made obvious in the West Coast Hotel v. Parrish decision, which upheld a Washington State minimum wage law and overturned Adkins. In that decision, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes dismissed the primacy of freedom of contract and instead argued that due process was of paramount importance to the interests of the community. 1846
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 With the repudiation of the Adkins decision and abandonment of a laissez-faire approach to social and economic problems, the roles of federal, state, and local governments clearly changed. The relative impact of the legislation that followed in the wake of the Court’s later ruling remains a matter of considerable debate in the early twenty-first century. —Timothy E. Sullivan Further Reading Brandeis, Louis D., and Josephine Goldmark. Women in Industry. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1969. A summary of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the ten-hour workday. Helps to place labor issues and the debate on gender and the workplace in the context of the early twentieth century. Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. A useful guide to the history of the Court, its major decisions, every justice who has served on the Court, and doctrines that have guided and influenced the Court since its founding in 1789. Concise yet detailed entries help to make landmark cases and legal terms accessible to a variety of users. _______. The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Collection of essays on more than four hundred significant Court decisions, with supporting glossary and other aids. Levin-Waldman, Oren M. The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Discusses the evolution of minimum wage policy and law in the United States, focusing on how the nature of arguments concerning a minimum wage has changed over time as the strength of organized labor has declined. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index. Nichols, Egbert Ray, and Joseph H. Baccus, eds. Selected Articles on Minimum Wages and Maximum Hours. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1936. Outlines and defines the debate on whether Congress has the power to fix minimum wages and maximum hours for workers. Reprints of editorials and other commentary offer a variety of legal, political, and economic interpretations. Nordlund, Willis J. The Quest for a Living Wage: The History of the Federal Minimum Wage Program. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Traces the process through which the U.S. government has at-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tempted to develop a fair method of ensuring that workers receive a living wage. Discusses the theories behind minimum wage programs and gives an overview of the first fifty years of the operation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index. Stigler, George J. “The Economics of Minimum Wage Legislation.” American Economic Review 36 (June, 1946): 358-365. Concise and nontechnical discussion of the relative efficiencies of minimum wage legislation. Provides and uses evidence on employment and wages in Minnesota in the late 1930’s.
Zdansky Discovers Peking Man Welch, Finis. Minimum Wages: Issues and Evidence. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1978. A reexamination of the issues forty years after the enactment of the federal minimum wage law. See also: Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law; June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme CourtPacking Fight; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
Summer, 1923
Zdansky Discovers Peking Man Otto Zdansky discovered a tooth that provided the first evidence that Homo erectus had existed outside Java. Also known as: Beijing man Locale: Zhoukoudian, China Categories: Anthropology; prehistory and ancient cultures Key Figures Otto Zdansky (fl. 1920’s), Austrian paleontologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874-1960), Swedish mining expert Davidson Black (1884-1934), Canadian professor of anatomy Franz Weidenreich (1873-1948), German anotomist and anthropologist Pei Wenzhong (W. C. Pei; 1904-1982), Chinese paleontologist
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Summary of Event The story of the discovery (and subsequent loss) of Peking man is one of the most engrossing in the history of anthropology. It began in 1899 when K. A. Haberer, physician to the German legation at China’s capital city of Beijing (then known in the West as Peking), found his movements seriously restricted by the violent Boxer Rebellion and wisely limited his avocation of fossil hunting to urban drugstores. (It had long been traditional in China to grind up vertebrate mammalian fossils and use them for medicine.) Haberer then sent his voluminous collection of fossils in several shipments to Munich, where his friend Max Schlosser described them in a monograph ti-
tled Die fossilen Säugethiere Chinas (1903; Fossil Primates of China, 1924). All the fossils in the collection were mammalian—it included no fossils of reptiles or birds—and one particularly distinctive tooth seemed to be either apelike or human. Eventually, it proved to be that of a prehistoric ape, but as a significant body of evidence from a previously little known locality the collection as a whole, and the enigmatic tooth especially, aroused interest throughout the West, in large part because Schlosser boldly predicted that some new form of prehistoric fossil would soon be found in China. Nothing further took place, however, until 1918, when Johan Gunnar Andersson turned to professional fossil collecting in China on behalf of Swedish institutions. When his discoveries proved to be not only abundant but also interesting, the Swedish Paleontological Institute of Uppsala sent Otto Zdansky, a professionally trained paleontologist, to China to improve the scientific quality of Andersson’s work. Zdansky arrived in the summer of 1921 and began operations of his own at an abandoned limestone quarry approximately thirty miles (roughly forty-eight kilometers) southwest of Beijing near the village of Zhoukoudian. Andersson had already described the site two years before and recommended it to Zdansky. The site was known locally as Chicken Bone Hill. After excavations began, however, Zdansky’s workmen told him of a richer site, called Dragon Bone Hill, adjacent to another abandoned quarry on the other side of the village. On his first visit to the site, Zdansky was accompanied by Andersson, who immediately noticed a number of incongruous quartz fragments and identified them as chipped tools.
Zdansky Discovers Peking Man Zdansky, however, did not agree that the fragments were tools. Later, while excavating by himself in 1923, Zdansky found a single molar tooth at Dragon Bone Hill, the first fossil evidence of Peking man. Curiously, however, he did not inform Andersson of his find (relations between the two men were somewhat strained), and he made no mention of it in his publications until 1926, when he had returned to Sweden. By that time, Zdansky’s longtime patron (as chairman of the Swedish China Research Committee), Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, was scheduled to visit China. Asked to contribute finds, Zdansky informed Andersson of the two teeth he had earlier discovered (a second example having turned up before he left China). At a reception in Beijing on October 22, 1926, Andersson, in turn, informed the prince and the world. The news caused a sensation everywhere in the educated world, as the fossil remains now called Peking man were thought to represent the oldest form of humanity known. Among those present at the Beijing meeting was Davidson Black, a professor of anatomy who had long been interested in the biological history of humankind. Without having seen Zdansky’s actual specimens (which were still in Sweden), Black wrote two short papers proclaiming that “the actual presence of early man in Eastern Asia is no longer a matter of conjecture” and concluding that the hypothesis that humans had originated in Asia was now considerably substantiated. In a more cautious paper of his own, Zdansky pointedly failed to endorse either assertion, regarding the teeth as only probably human and the evidence too scant to support any farreaching conclusions. With support from Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, the Geological Survey of China, and the Rockefeller Foundation, Black now undertook a further round of excavations at Zhoukoudian. Having accepted an appointment at Cairo University, Zdansky declined to head the project and was replaced by Birger Bohlin, another Swedish paleontologist. Only three days before the end of the first season’s work, on October 16, 1927, Bohlin found a beautifully preserved left lower molar tooth. On the basis of only three teeth, two of which he had never seen, Black confidently proposed a new hominid genus called Sinanthropus pekinensis. Despite extensive efforts, further excavations yielded nothing of fundamental importance until December, 1929, when Black’s Chinese assistant Pei Wenzhong found an almost complete skull of Peking man partially embedded in a cave. Black (and several coauthors) described this skull, jawbone fragments found earlier, vari1848
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ous teeth, and a large collection of nonhuman fossils from the site in 1933 in the well-known publication Fossil Man in China. After Black’s premature death in 1934, however, a comparison of the skull that Pei had found with fragments discovered by Eugène Dubois in Java (known as Java man) revealed them to be so nearly identical that separate designations for the two finds seemed inappropriate. The name Sinanthropus was therefore discarded in favor of Homo erectus, which applied to both examples. From 1934 to 1937, when military conditions forced a halt, continuing excavations at Zhoukoudian revealed a wonderful collection of skulls, jaws, teeth, and even some limb bones. Anthropologist Franz Weidenreich then studied, described, and made casts of these specimens, publishing his findings in a series of admirably competent monographs. In April, 1941, he brought the casts, photographs, and his notes with him to the United States. In December, 1941, an attempt was made to evacuate the specimens from Beijing to a waiting American ship. Unfortunately, war between Japan and the United States broke out, forcing the interruption of the shipment, and the precious fossils disappeared. Significance The most immediate consequence of the discovery of Peking man was that it appeared to confirm—with fossil evidence for the first time—a long-prevalent belief that humankind originated in Asia. Earlier work in archaeology (the discovery of the Sumerians by Sir Leonard Woolley in particular) had already established Asia as the home of human civilization. It seemed logical, then, to assume that Asia had also been the original habitat for uncivilized humankind. It is believed today that humankind originated in Africa, as Charles Darwin suggested. The first significant fossil evidence in support of this hypothesis was the discovery of Australopithecus (the Taung child) by Raymond Arthur Dart in 1924. Australopithecus was still not fully human, and some assert that it was never part of human ancestry at all. The more obviously human Sinanthropus distracted attention from Australopithecus and the African-origin hypothesis, thereby delaying its acceptance. As a result, early African discoverers such as Robert Bloom and L. S. B. Leakey found it somewhat more difficult to obtain a hearing for their beliefs. Prior to its identification as Homo erectus, moreover, Peking man further complicated human genealogy by appearing to be a separate genus. Leakey cleverly utilized this perception in his book Adam’s Ancestors
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 (1934), in which he argued that the known diversity of prehistoric human types (Java man, Peking man, the since-discredited Piltdown man, and the since-redated Kanam man) was evidence of an extremely long period of prior evolution and therefore pushed human origins back into the Miocene epoch. Eventually, further discoveries by the Leakeys and others would indeed place Homo erectus closer to the end of human evolution than to the beginning. The fact that Homo erectus had been found both in Java and China attested to the migratory diversity of early humans and tended to affirm their unity. Finally, discoveries in the cave and quarry deposits of Zhoukoudian were revolutionary in that they offered more information regarding the daily living of human ancestors than was available from any previous fossil evidence. Peking man, for example, had used fire, but perhaps without knowing how to make it. He was, moreover, a cannibal and a primitive toolmaker. Many speculations followed as to what life in the caves must have been like. Whatever his merits, Peking man represented the first opportunity that reputable scientists had to study not only early humans but also the society they created. —Dennis R. Dean
Search for Human Origins. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Aonetime close associate of the Leakeys, Lewin is primarily concerned with the history of discovery in Africa and how researchers’ finds struggled for acceptance in the learned world. He has little to say about the discovery of Peking man, as such, beyond emphasizing its originally negative impact on researchers studying possible African origins of humankind. Oosterzee, Penny van. Dragon Bones: The Story of Peking Man. New York: Perseus Books, 2000. Historical account for lay readers describes the activities that led to the discovery of Peking man and the events that followed. The author is an Australian ecologist and science writer. Reader, John. Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man. 1981. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1994. Focuses primarily on Africa, but surveys the entire topic of early man in chronological order, with the first five chapters (of twelve) dealing with Neanderthal man, Java man, Piltdown man, Australopithecus, and Peking man. Provides excellent discussion of the context in which Peking man emerged. Includes excellent photographs and a very helpful bibliography. Wendt, Herbert. In Search of Adam: The Story of Man’s Quest for the Truth About His Earliest Ancestors. Translated by James Cleugh. 1955. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973. Although dated, this popular account is comprehensive and well illustrated. Provides an adequate section on Peking man, given the book’s brevity. See also: Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil; Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
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Further Reading Black, Davidson, et al. Fossil Man in China: The Choukoutien Cave Deposits, with a Synopsis of Our Present Knowledge of the Late Cenozoic in China. Peiping: Geological Survey of China, 1933. Although intended for specialists, this classic account is necessary to any serious consideration of Black’s work. Includes a useful bibliography of Black’s early papers. Day, Michael H. Guide to Fossil Man. 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Excellent source of information regarding any type of fossil, although readers should bear in mind that all books in this fastmoving field quickly become out of date. Lewin, Roger. Bones of Contention: Controversies in the
Zdansky Discovers Peking Man
Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
June 26, 1923
Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence Oklahoma governor Jack Walton’s declaration of martial law in response to Ku Klux Klan terrorism led to a controversy that resulted in his impeachment and removal from office. Locale: Oklahoma Categories: Civil rights and liberties; terrorism; government and politics Key Figures Jack Walton (1881-1949), governor of Oklahoma, January-November, 1923 Edwin DeBarr (1859-1950), vice president of Oklahoma University and Grand Dragon of the Oklahoma Ku Klux Klan N. Clay Jewett (fl. early twentieth century), Oklahoma City businessman and Grand Dragon of the Oklahoma Ku Klux Klan Martin E. Trapp (1877-1951), lieutenant governor of Oklahoma Summary of Event The original Ku Klux Klan began in Tennessee in late 1865, shortly after the Civil War. A secret organization whose members wore masks, hoods, and robes, it spread throughout the South, using threats, beatings, and murder to prevent recently freed slaves from exercising their newly won political and civil rights. In the early 1870’s the federal government forcibly suppressed the first Klan movement, yet racial violence continued. By the turn of the century, southern blacks had lost virtually all of the rights supposedly guaranteed under the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment (equal citizenship) and the 1870 Fifteenth Amendment (suffrage) to the U.S. Constitution. In 1915, William Joseph Simmons organized a second Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta, Georgia. By 1920, this organization had spread beyond the old Confederacy and found varying degrees of support throughout the United States. The Klan’s targets included not only African Americans but also Catholics, Jews, and aliens as well as nativeborn Americans who violated the moral code of rural, Protestant America. By the mid-1920’s, the Klan had attained a membership of several million and exercised political influence in a number of states and communities. The Klan became a visible presence in Oklahoma in 1921. This former Indian territory, admitted to statehood in 1907, had a tradition of frontier vigilantism, lynch1850
ings, labor tensions, and mistreatment of its large Native American population, which was systematically cheated of its land. Blacks in 1920 formed about 7 percent of Oklahoma’s two million residents and had been subjected to disfranchisement and racial segregation well before the Klan’s arrival. In the spring of 1921, lynching rumors triggered a Tulsa race riot in which nearly eighty people, mostly blacks, perished. Catholics, Jews, and aliens were few in number and were regarded with some suspicion by the white Protestant majority. Under the leadership of its first Grand Dragon, Edwin DeBarr, a chemistry professor and vice president of the University of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Klan by the spring of 1922 reached a membership of seventy thousand. Unlike many of its sister organizations in other states, it focused little attention on Catholics, Jews, and aliens and generally refrained from initiating economic boycotts against these groups. Although the Klan played no clear role in the Tulsa riot, it occasionally targeted blacks. In El Reno, a black hotel porter was whipped for being insufficiently deferential toward white guests, and in Enid the Klan drove out more than twenty blacks whom its members viewed as posing a criminal threat. In 1922, a prominent Tulsa black was whipped and mutilated for attempting to register blacks to vote. The primary targets of Klan violence, however, were native-born whites. The oil boom of the early twentieth century had generated rowdy boomtowns accompanied by an upsurge of crime, vice, and labor strife. State “dry laws” and national Prohibition were flagrantly violated. Oklahoma was thus fertile ground for Klan recruiters who pledged to restore order and reaffirm traditional values. Local whipping squads formed, and alleged adulterers, loose women, wife beaters, bootleggers, and criminals were abducted and beaten. The first evidence of the Klan in Oklahoma was the July, 1921, abduction and whipping of a Muskogee dishwasher accused of criminal behavior. Later that year, a shoot-out in Wilson between Klan members and suspected bootleggers left three of the latter dead. Although hundreds of floggings occurred, victims feared reporting the incidents because many officials and police had Klan affiliations. Indeed, by 1922 the Klan had become a significant political force in Oklahoma, locally and on the state level. Klansmen dominated the state legislature.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence the entire state under martial law if his order were disobeyed. Jewett shrewdly complied and exhorted his followers to refrain from vigilante action. On September 15, just as a grand jury was to convene to investigate the governor’s misuse of power, Walton placed all of Oklahoma under martial law. Labeling Klansmen enemies of the state, he called up six thousand additional National Guard troops and forcibly prevented the grand jury from proceeding with its investigation. Testimony given before an Oklahoma City military court revealed that high local officials had joined the Klan. The general sentiment, however, was that the governor had gone too far. By now, a determined effort to impeach Walton was under way. The governor used threats, military force, and legal action in a desperate attempt to prevent such action, but on October 2 Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative proposal permitting a special legislative session in which the issue of impeachment and removal could be considered. On October 8, the governor terminated military rule in Oklahoma. Three days later, he convened the legislature to consider anti-Klan proposals, but when the lower house met, it made impeachment proceedings its first priority and adopted twenty-two charges against Walton. In November, the state senate upheld eleven of the charges by the twothirds majority needed for conviction and removal from office. The charges included the suspension of habeas corpus, use of the National Guard to prevent a grand jury from convening, misuse of state funds, excessive use of pardons, and incompetence. Significance Governor Walton’s decision to invoke martial law provoked considerable controversy. Oklahomans had been sharply divided on the Klan issue, with the organization receiving its greatest support in the central, northern, and eastern sections of the state. Among followers of the Reconstruction League, with its strongest base in southern Oklahoma, there was deep opposition to the hooded order. The league condemned the Klan as antilabor and denounced its violence and bigotry, and at least initially supported Walton’s war on the Klan. Most Oklahomans, however, recoiled at the governor’s decision to invoke martial law. Tulsans, for example, found it insulting to have troops patrolling their streets and to be subjected to sundown curfews. On the eve of the October 2 initiative election that ultimately paved the way for Walton’s ouster, the governor proclaimed a postponement of the balloting and threatened that National Guard troops and police were prepared to shoot those who went to the 1851
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At first, there was little open opposition to the Klan, but this would change under the administration of Governor Jack Walton. As mayor of Oklahoma City, Walton had earlier expressed opposition to the Klan. He had warned police that he would not tolerate their membership in the order, and he had launched an investigation of Klan use of the local fairgrounds. Following his successful 1922 gubernatorial election campaign, backed by the Democratic party and the new Farmer-Labor Reconstruction League, Walton made an effort to conciliate the diverse elements of his constituency, which included not only the reformist Reconstruction Leaguers who were anti-Klan but also a significant proportion of Klansmen. Walton opportunistically appointed Klansmen to state positions and even secretly joined the order. He used patronage ineptly and caused an outrage when he appointed a poorly qualified Reconstruction League leader as president of the Agricultural and Mining College. Walton’s efforts to please all sides backfired. Rumors circulated that Walton had taken money from the oil interests and had misappropriated state funds. By the spring of 1923, there was considerable talk of impeachment. At the same time, there was a new outbreak of masked attacks. Walton announced that if local law officers failed to correct the problem, he would employ the National Guard. On June 26, he briefly imposed martial law in Okmulgee County. In August, six unmasked men kidnapped and severely whipped Nate Hantaman, a Jewish boardinghouse operator in Tulsa suspected of dealing in narcotics and liquor. There was evidence of possible police collusion with the kidnapping. After officials failed to apprehend Hantaman’s assailants, Walton on August 13 placed Tulsa under martial law, sending in National Guard troops and then establishing a court of inquiry that indicted several floggers. Such actions won praise from both the Oklahoma press and the national press, but then Walton seemed to abandon all restraint. On August 30, in violation of the state constitution, he announced a suspension of habeas corpus for the entire county and sent in two hundred more troops. When the Tulsa Tribune protested, Walton briefly placed the paper’s editorial page under military censorship. He advised citizens to shoot any masked men who attempted to assault them, promising to grant them pardons. Open warfare ensued between Walton and the Klan. The Oklahoma City businessman who had recently replaced DeBarr as Grand Dragon, N. Clay Jewett, declared that Walton would never break the Klan’s power in Oklahoma. Walton then ordered a statewide ban on Klan parades and demonstrations, threatening to place
Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence polls. Nevertheless, more than half of the eligible voters defied the threat and voted 209,452 to 70,638 in favor of the proposal. Many Oklahomans, including members of the Reconstruction League, concluded that Walton posed a greater menace than did the Klan, and they rallied around the cry that they wanted “neither Klan nor king.” Historians generally agree that Walton used his war on the Klan to divert attention from his own corruption and incompetence. Tactics nominally directed against the Klan in actuality posed threats to the constitutional rights of all Oklahoma citizens. Moreover, at the time of Walton’s ouster, politically and numerically the Oklahoma Klan was stronger than ever: In 1924 its membership hit a peak of more than 100,000, placing the state near the nation’s top in terms of its percentage of Klansmen. The unpopularity of Walton’s actions may well have bolstered the Oklahoma Klan, which had seemed to be waning prior to his declaration of martial law. At the same time, however, Klan abuses clearly warranted corrective action. Oklahoma’s Klan reputedly was the most violent in the nation, and local authorities were ineffective in controlling it, sometimes even collaborating with the hooded order. Oklahoma military court hearings admittedly yielded few convictions, but the several floggers who were indicted and convicted were probably the first Klansmen whose guilt was clearly demonstrated by a court of law. Under Walton’s successor, Martin E. Trapp, the legislature in late 1923 adopted a moderate bill that regulated the wearing of masks and slightly increased the penalties for masked offenses. Furthermore, as most Oklahomans came to reject the excesses of vigilantism, Klan leaders like Jewett attempted to discourage such activities, and the Klan wave of terror ceased. The Klan’s political success also proved fleeting. The majority of Oklahoma Klansmen were Democrats who took offense when Jewett, a Republican, engaged in machinations designed to benefit his own party. Klansmen also tired of the order’s internal bickering, its authoritarian structure, and the continual financial burdens of dues and “taxes.” As in other states, the Klan failed to deliver politically despite its nominal control over the legislature. As the decade ended, the Oklahoma Klan was a virtually powerless force claiming only two thousand members. Oklahoma’s black population continued to hold a subordinate social and political position until the Civil Rights revolution of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s. A third Klan movement, with a penchant toward violence, developed in reaction to these human rights advances, 1852
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but it never came close to approaching the Klan of the 1920’s either in scale or in political influence. —Allen Safianow Further Reading Alexander, Charles C. The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest. 1965. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. Contends that the Klan’s appeal in southwestern states rested primarily on its attempts to enforce crumbling Victorian moral values, and asserts that Walton’s war on the Klan was in reality an attempt to cloak the ineptness and corruption of his own administration. Includes glossary of Klan terminology and annotated bibliography. Chalmers, David M. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. 3d ed. New York: F. Watts, 1981. Comprehensive history of the Klan. Chapter titled “Mayhem and Martial Law in Oklahoma” offers a brief introduction to the events but not much in the way of analysis. Includes bibliography and index. Morgan, H. Wayne, and Anne Hodges Morgan. Oklahoma: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. Presents a clear, concise consideration of the Klan’s rise in Oklahoma and Walton’s crusade against the organization. Argues that Walton lacked the experience and intelligence necessary to govern the state and that the alliance formed to remove him from office served to fortify the Klan politically, at least temporarily. Includes references and index. Neuringer, Sheldon. “Governor Walton’s War on the Ku Klux Klan: An Episode in Oklahoma History, 1923 to 1924.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 45 (Summer, 1967): 153-179. Provides a detailed and balanced assessment of Walton’s political struggle against the Klan. Suggests that initially there was some justification for establishing military courts, but Walton resorted to measures that were clearly unconstitutional, unwarranted, and counterproductive. Includes references. Scales, James R., and Danney Goble. Oklahoma Politics: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. Presents an informative analysis of Oklahoma politics of the 1920’s and portrays Walton’s war on the Klan as a largely ineffective political maneuver. Argues that “the Klan richly deserved punishment, but not subversion of civil liberties with unparalleled ruthlessness.” Includes illustrations, references, and index. Schrems, Suzanne H. Who’s Rocking the Cradle? Women Pioneers of Oklahoma Politics from Socialism to the KKK, 1900-1930. Norman, Okla.: Horse
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Creek, 2004. Surveys the political activities of women in Oklahoma during the period covered. Chapter 6 is devoted to women’s involvement in the Oklahoma Ku Klux Klan. Includes index. Tucker, Howard A. History of Governor Walton’s War on Ku Klux Klan, the Invisible Empire. Oklahoma City: Southwest, 1923. Brief work written by an Oklahoma journalist shortly before Walton’s impeachment provides a vivid if disjointed depiction of
Corfu Crisis Klan violence, often through the testimony of its victims. Presents Walton’s behavior in a more sympathetic light than most later sources. Marred by some inaccuracies and dubious claims. See also: Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South.
August 27-September 29, 1923
Corfu Crisis Italian leader Benito Mussolini bombarded and occupied the Greek island of Corfu after the murder of an Italian envoy and his party. Reluctant to come to Greece’s aid, the League of Nations deferred to the Conference of Ambassadors, which forced Greece to issue an apology and pay compensation. Locale: Corfu, Greece; Italy; Geneva, Switzerland; Paris, France Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; colonialism and occupation
Summary of Event On August 27, 1923, five Italians—members of an international-boundary commission charged with defining the border between Greece and Albania—were murdered on Greek territory. Italian leader Benito Mussolini, who had been waiting for such a provocation, held Greece responsible for the murders and issued an ultimatum consisting of a series of largely unreasonable demands. When the Greek government rejected some of these demands, Mussolini ordered the Italian fleet to occupy the Greek island of Corfu, a step widely interpreted as a prelude to the permanent Italian annexation of Corfu
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Key Figures Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), prime minister and dictator of Italy, 1922-1943 Enrico Tellini (d. 1923), Italian general Emilio Solari (1864-1954), Italian admiral Petros Euripéos (fl. early twentieth century), prefect of Corfu Jules Cambon (1845-1935), president of the Conference of Ambassadors Nikolaos Sokrates Politis (1872-1942), Greek delegate to the League of Nations
and the rest of the Ionian Islands. A bombardment preceding the occupation led to casualties among a group of Armenian refugees, and Greece turned to the newly formed League of Nations for help. Corfu (sometimes referred to as Kerkyra), the northernmost of the Ionian Islands, lies in a strategic position between the Adriatic and Ionian seas: It is opposite the large Italian Gulf of Taranto and within sight of the present-day border between Greece and Albania. Ceded to Greece in 1864 by Great Britain, the Ionian Islands were coveted by Italy, which hoped to establish control over not only the eastern Adriatic but also the entire Mediterranean region. Albania had secured its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, and in the years following World War I, Great Britain, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Greece asked the League of Nations to delimit Albania’s boundaries. The League referred the matter to the Conference of Ambassadors, which had been created to oversee the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles (which had concluded World War I), and the conference set up a Commission of Delimitation to study the borders. The group working on the issue of the Greco-Albanian border included five Italian members, including General Enrico Tellini. On the morning of August 27, 1923, Tellini, his Italian colleagues, and an Albanian interpreter were ambushed and murdered on the Greek side of the border near Janina. Within two days, Mussolini, who had come to power late in the preceding year, issued an ultimatum to the Greek government. Among other demands, Mussolini insisted that Greece pay Italy an indemnity of fifty million lire, and that it fully agree to all of Italy’s demands within twenty-four hours. There was no evidence that Greeks had been responsible, and in fact there was good reason to believe that Al-
Corfu Crisis banians were to blame, as Albanian bandits had been active in the area as early as 1921. Since the crime had taken place on its soil, however, Greece was willing to accede to some of Italy’s demands. It rejected other demands as unreasonable, however, and Mussolini probably expected this. The Italian leader then dispatched a fleet under the command of Admiral Emilio Solari to occupy Corfu and hold it until the Italian demands were met. When Corfu’s prefect, Petros Euripéos, was hesitant to surrender to Solari, the admiral quickly ordered that the island be bombarded—apparently against Mussolini’s instructions—to avoid the use of unnecessary force. The bombardment began shortly after 5:00 p.m. on August 31, and was concentrated on the forts overlooking the capital of the island (a town also known as Corfu) and its harbor. At this time, the forts held no artillery, and in fact one contained a hospital and had been converted into a temporary shelter for refugees from Armenia. Sixteen people (mostly Armenians) were killed, and more than fifty were wounded in the bombardment. The prefect surrendered after about twenty minutes, and Italian troops then occupied the town. The following day, September 1, Greek delegate Nikolaos Sokrates Politis (who was born in Corfu) presented an official appeal to the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Although Italy had been one of the first countries to endorse the League, it now rejected the organization’s jurisdiction and threatened to withdraw. In the ensuing flurry of diplomatic activity, it became clear that the members of the League Council (which at this time included the four permanent members of France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan, as well as four nonpermanent members) were for the most part intent on advancing their own strategic interests. In particular, French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré was anxious to retain Italy’s support on other issues. While Great Britain initially favored League action, the country was eventually persuaded to side with France. As a result, the Council deferred once again to the Conference of Ambassadors, which had after all overseen the initial border delimitation. Even Greece fell into line with this decision, and Politis lost whatever chance he and his country had of forcing the issue in the League. The Conference of Ambassadors sat in Paris, and its president at the time was French diplomat Jules Cambon. After intense and complicated negotiations, Italy agreed in mid-September to withdraw its forces from Corfu, although the evacuation was not completed until September 27. When a commission of inquiry charged with investigating the murders of the Italians failed to identify the cul1854
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 prits within the allotted time, the conference insisted that Greece apologize to Italy and pay the indemnity of fifty million lire. Delays in arranging the payment led Mussolini to order his warships back to Corfu, and it was only on September 29 that the ships left Greek waters for good. Significance Although Italy evacuated Corfu under the agreement arbitrated by the Conference of Ambassadors, the affair was Mussolini’s first foreign policy success, and it made him a hero in his own country. He quickly went on to increase Italy’s power at the expense of its neighbors, wresting the Fiume region at the northern end of the Adriatic from Yugoslavia, redoubling Italian pacification efforts in its North African colonies of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, and consolidating Italian influence over Albania. Even though further military confrontation had been avoided, the actions of the League of Nations and the Conference of Ambassadors during the crisis amounted to a capitulation to Italy and its belligerent new leader, and helped pave the way for another world war. The affair highlighted the League’s reluctance to enforce its own covenant and undermined its authority in dealing with future disputes. An inquiry subsequently commissioned by the League’s secretary-general, British diplomat Sir James Eric Drummond, concluded that the League did indeed have the authority to act in such situations, but in Corfu’s case it no longer mattered. — Grove Koger Further Reading Barros, James. The Corfu Incident of 1923: Mussolini and the League of Nations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. Argues that the League was not designed to deal with situations such as the Corfu crisis. The single best work on the subject in English. Supplemented by an excellent chronology. Boatswain, Timothy, and Colin Nicolson. A Traveller’s History of Greece. 2d ed. London: Phoenix, 2003. Sees the incident as one of a series of debilitating events in modern Greek history. Kallis, Aristotle A. Fascist Ideology: Expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922-1945. New York: Routledge, 2000. Considers the crisis and the occupation of Corfu as emblematic of fascist leadership and expansionist philosophy. Neville, Peter. Mussolini. New York: Routledge, 2004. Popular biography that considers the Corfu crisis as a step in Mussolini’s rise to international power. Ostrower, Gary B. The League of Nations: From 1919 to 1929. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery, 1996. Includes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a thorough account of the affair and its implications for the new organization. Woodhouse, C. M. Modern Greece: A Short History. 5th ed. London: Faber & Faber, 1998. Treats the incident as an element in the modern nation’s first national crisis and an early prelude to World War II.
Earthquake Rocks Japan See also: Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome”; 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy; Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania.
September 1, 1923
Earthquake Rocks Japan After Japan experienced one of the most destructive earthquakes in history, building codes were improved and modern architectural standards were established. Also known as: Great Kanto earthquake Locale: Yokohama and Tokyo, Japan Categories: Disasters; earth science; urban planning Key Figure Gotf Shimpei (1857-1929), mayor of Tokyo
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Summary of Event On September 1, 1923, an earthquake that would have registered a magnitude 8.3 on the modern Richter scale shook the heavily populated Japanese cities of Yokohama and Tokyo on the island of Honshn. Often called the great Kanto earthquake because it affected cities on the Kanto Plain, the quake is remembered as among the most costly natural disasters in history. Scientists have estimated that it created a shock wave three hundred times more powerful than that produced by the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945. The Japanese archipelago is located within the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a narrow zone of tectonic activity and volcanoes surrounding the Pacific Ocean. About 80 percent of the world’s earthquakes take place within this area. Japan experiences about three thousand tremors each day and averages one large earthquake every seventy years. Before 1923, the most serious Japanese quakes were the Hizen earthquake on February 10, 1792, which resulted in the deaths of fifteen thousand people, and the Sinano earthquake on May 8, 1844, which killed twelve thousand. The morning of September 1, 1923, was warm, with wind gusts followed by rain. When the quake struck at 11:58 a.m., many residents of Yokohama and Tokyo were busy preparing their midday meals. The quake’s epicenter was located about fifty miles southwest of Tokyo Bay in an area called the Sagami Trough. Within this
region, the northeastern edge of the Philippine Sea plate converges with the southeastern edge of the Eurasian plate. The ground shaking associated with the initial shock lasted five minutes. The quake was registered in Hawaii, Washington, D.C., and northern Great Britain. It has been estimated that more than fifteen thousand people were killed in the first two minutes of the quake, as buildings toppled and loose debris fell. In Yokohama’s harbor, the shaking caused liquefaction of soil material, damaging buildings and other structures. Elsewhere, shock waves produced hundreds of landslides and mudflows, especially along the Boso and Miura Peninsulas. One mudflow buried the entire village of Nebukawa. The entire Boso Peninsula was tilted toward the northeast and uplifted, in some places as much as six feet. In addition to collapsing homes and office buildings, the force of the quake displaced roads and railroad tracks. In Kamakura the quake tore the Great Buddha statue from its foundation. In addition to damage caused by shaking, shock waves produced a tsunami wave thirty-nine feet high that struck the north shore of Oshima and was felt as far away as Ecuador in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of smaller tremors were felt in the hours after the initial quake. After the quake, numerous fires, many ignited by overturned cooking ranges, burned uncontrollably in Tokyo and Yokohama. In Yokohama more than eighty separate fires swept through areas with tightly packed wood and paper houses. The wind, which was blowing at speeds up to eighteen miles per hour, became a major obstacle to containing the flames. More than thirty thousand people fleeing the firestorm in Tokyo’s Fukagawa and Honjo neighborhoods were forced into open areas that offered little refuge from the flames and heat. Many perished in wind-spawned cyclones. Emergency responders seeking to extinguish fires could do little because the quake had broken water mains. In Yokohama Harbor, leaking oil caught fire the morning after the
Earthquake Rocks Japan quake. Many fires continued to burn until September 3, and afterward it was difficult to distinguish regions devastated by the quake from those destroyed by fire. Thousands died while trapped inside collapsed structures. More than forty thousand persons who fled to the Military Clothing Depot died when a firestorm devastated the building. Survivors described the flames as sounding like heavy surf with occasional thunderous crashes. The total number of dead has been estimated at more than one hundred thousand, with forty thousand others missing. Even in rural areas, where fewer buildings were destroyed than in the cities, more than twelve thousand people died. Panic in the aftermath of the quake led to rumors that Koreans living in the region had set fires, poisoned water sources, and looted homes. As a result, civilian militias killed thousands of Koreans. On September 8, Tokyo was placed under martial law and the army was given responsibility for distributing food, seizing property, and taking other actions needed to maintain order. Engineering corps worked night and day to repair roads, bridges, and communications facilities. Seven prefectures were affected by the quake: Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Ibaraki, Shizuoka, Chiba, and Yamanashi. Most people in these areas were without information about the magnitude of destruction or the status of friends and relatives. Damaged telephone and telegraph lines isolated survivors from the outside world. The first news reports about the quake were transmitted by radio from ships anchored in Yokohama and Tokyo Bays. In the absence of functioning newspapers, signs were posted to coordinate relief efforts and share information about missing persons. Nearly seven hundred thousand homes were completely or partially destroyed in the affected areas, leaving almost two million persons homeless. In addition to severe damage to buildings, many other structures— such as tunnels, storage tanks, canals, sewers, and dams—were destroyed or damaged by the quake and subsequent fires. Twisted train tracks and rubble left in the streets made road travel nearly impossible. A few buildings did escape damage, however. The Royal Palace was spared because of its thick walls and water-filled moat. Concrete and steel-reinforced structures, such as the headquarters of the Mitsubishi Corporation and the Nippon Kogyo Building, experienced only minor damage. In the weeks after the quake, severe damage to businesses—including facilities in Yokohama’s port— caused the unemployment rate to soar. Damage to farms 1856
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and warehouses brought requests for immediate international assistance. Gotf Shimpei, Tokyo’s mayor, organized the rebuilding of the city. An emergency requisition ordinance was implemented to allow government officials to obtain any goods needed in the relief effort. The Japanese government set aside ten million yen to assist with the relief effort, and monetary support for rebuilding damaged areas came from countries around the world. Significance The devastation of the Kanto earthquake served as a catalyst for the development of improved engineering to minimize future earthquake-related damage. In 1929, the World Engineering Congress held a conference in Tokyo with earthquake construction as a central topic. Attendees introduced designs for buildings that would be resistant to wind forces but remain flexible during seismic events. Basic building codes were substantially changed in Japan following the quake. Many one- and two-story buildings made out of wood or brick were replaced with modern five- and six-story structures of concrete and steel. New parks and open areas were planned throughout Tokyo as places where citizens could take refuge in the event of an earthquake. The process of rebuilding began slowly, but it built momentum significantly after 1926. An underground rail system was introduced in 1927 and a new airport in 1931. By 1932, Yokohama and Tokyo were again bustling urban areas, and by 1935 the population of Tokyo was larger than it had been before the quake. The new emphasis on designing structures to withstand severe earthquakes did not carry over into a concern for preventing fire damage, however, and many of the structures built in Tokyo and Yokohama after the quake were made with flammable materials. As a result, a large number of structures in these areas were burned in Allied bombing raids during World War II. Although the Kanto earthquake was not the largest ever to strike Japan, its proximity to cities with combined populations of more than two million made it among the most costly natural disasters in history. The earthquake was responsible for one of the two largest peacetime fires in modern history, the other being the fire caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Few buildings that stood in Yokohama and Tokyo before the 1923 quake remain today. Among its long-term impacts, the earthquake raised awareness throughout Japan and the world about the importance of disaster management. Since 1960,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 September 1 has been designated Disaster Prevention Day in Japan, and each year on that date private and public organizations sponsor disaster preparation drills. —Thomas A. Wikle Further Reading Busch, Noel F. Two Minutes to Noon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962. Presents a historical account of the 1923 quake based on extensive research conducted in Japan. Clancey, Gregory. Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Focuses on social issues tied to earthquakes in Japanese life. Ryang, S. “The Great Kanto Earthquake and the Massacre of Koreans in 1923: Notes on Japan’s Modern Na-
Teapot Dome Scandal tional Sovereignty.” Anthropological Quarterly 76, no. 4 (2003): 731-748. Examines issues associated with the deaths of nearly six thousand Koreans as a result of the earthquake, fires, and subsequent killings. Utsu, T. “Japanese Earthquakes 1885-1925.” Bulletin of the Earthquake Research Institute 57 (1982): 111117. A technical look at the large earthquakes that affected Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake; Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength.
October, 1923
Teapot Dome Scandal The Teapot Dome scandal resulted in the establishment of the Federal Oil Conservation Board and increased federal regulation of the U.S. petroleum industry. Also known as: Oil Reserves scandal; Elk Hills scandal Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Crime and scandal; trade and commerce; government and politics
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Key Figures Albert B. Fall (1861-1944), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1921-1923 Josephus Daniels (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of the Navy, 1913-1921 Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), U.S. senator from Wisconsin Thomas J. Walsh (1859-1933), U.S. senator from Montana Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), president of the United States, 1923-1929 Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), former chief of the Division of Forestry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Harry F. Sinclair (1876-1956), president of the Mammoth Oil Company Edward L. Doheny (1856-1935), president of the PanAmerican Petroleum and Transport Company
Summary of Event In 1921 and 1922, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, after transferring U.S. federal lands designated for naval oil reserves from the secretary of the Navy’s jurisdiction to his own department, awarded leases on the Teapot Dome area in Wyoming and Elk Hills, California, to the Mammoth Oil Company and the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company. Senate investigations of Fall’s actions, conducted in October, 1923, revealed that Fall had accepted $400,000 in loans from executives of those companies. The resulting political scandal forced Fall to resign and heightened public concerns over federal regulation of petroleum resources. On December 18, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge, under pressure from the American public, conservationists, and a number of leaders of the petroleum industry, created the Federal Oil Conservation Board (FOCB), which was composed of the secretaries of war, navy, interior, and commerce. The FOCB was to bring greater federal involvement in petroleum conservation regulation, but it also provided a forum for the industry to voice its concerns to the federal government. The idea of reserving petroleum-bearing lands for exclusive federal use, especially for the military, went back to the early twentieth century. The U.S. Navy had changed its coal-burning engines to petroleum-based internal combustion engines in 1904, and the army would increasingly use trucks and automobiles. Thus the U.S. military was becoming dependent on petroleum prod-
Teapot Dome Scandal ucts. On September 27, 1909, President William Howard Taft issued an executive order that withdrew from private use 3,041,000 acres of land in California and Wyoming for exclusive federal use. From late 1909 through 1910, the federal government withdrew lands in western states for the maintenance of petroleum reserves. The issue of federal petroleum reserves came to the forefront during World War I. American oil played a crucial part in the war effort, and thus petroleum was established as a commodity of strategic importance. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, seeking to ensure that the Navy had an adequate supply of oil during and after the war, in 1917 planned to have lands set aside for exclusive federal petroleum reserves. In 1920, as the Navy faced a shortage of oil and as pressure from private interests to open up federal lands for oil production intensified, Daniels drafted an amendment to the general Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowing the secretary of the interior to grant leases to private companies to produce crude oil on federal lands, thus making petroleum supplies available to the Navy. High production levels during the war, fed by rising prices and endless federal demand, heightened concerns over waste, exhaustion of oil reserves, price, and industrial stability. Production across the nation rose from 265 million barrels of oil in 1914 to 355 million in 1918. Oil production continued to increase, at an even greater rate, after the war, rising from 472 million barrels in 1921 to 732 million in 1923. Oil prices fell from $3.08 per barrel in 1920 to $1.78 in 1921, then to $1.34 in 1923. The price remained around $1.30 for the rest of the decade before declining precipitously with the economic depression of the 1930’s. Leaders of the oil industry feared an immediate and severe price deflation and consequent economic collapse in the industry. In addition, with production levels reaching new highs each year, conservationists, government officials, and a number of oil executives began to fear exhaustion of domestic petroleum reserves in the near future. During the early 1920’s, fears of an oil shortage were overshadowed by concerns of oversupply, price deflation, and economic chaos for the petroleum industry. Conservation of petroleum increasingly came to be seen as an answer to each of these problems. It was in this context that pressure from the Teapot Dome scandal led to creation of the FOCB. When Albert B. Fall became secretary of the interior under President Warren G. Harding, he faced immediate suspicion from conservationists. Fall, a former U.S. senator from New Mexico, represented southwestern interests that advocated unrestrained development of natural 1858
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 resources by the private sector. In May, 1921, using the amendment that Daniels wrote to the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, Fall had authority over federal reserves transferred from the secretary of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. In July, 1921, Fall leased federal lands in Elk Hills, California, to Edward L. Doheny of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company. In April, 1922, Fall leased the Teapot Dome tract in Wyoming to Harry F. Sinclair, president of the Mammoth Oil Company. The transfer of naval reserves to private interests not only further enraged Fall’s critics but also gave them something to focus on. Fall already had been branded as anticonservationist by critics such as Senator Robert M. La Follette (a Republican from Wisconsin) and Gifford Pinchot, former chief forester under Theodore Roosevelt. Daniels, who had drafted the amendment allowing the secretary of the interior to oversee the naval supply, distrusted Fall’s intentions. With Daniels’s support, in 1923 Pinchot and La Follette investigated Fall’s actions. Ultimately, La Follette persuaded Senator Thomas J. Walsh, a Democrat from Montana and a member of the Senate Public Lands Committee, to open Senate hearings on the matter. A rising tide of protest against Fall forced him to resign even before the hearings began in October, 1923. The Senate investigation revealed that Fall had accepted $400,000 in loans from Sinclair and Doheny in return for the public land leases. Historians have noted that had Fall truly desired to profit by exploiting his office, he could have obtained much larger loans from oil interests. Both Doheny and Sinclair were acquitted of bribery, but Sinclair spent several months in jail in 1929 for contempt of the Senate and of court. Fall was later found guilty of accepting a bribe while secretary of the interior and was sentenced to a year in jail. The Teapot Dome scandal, coming to attention during the presidential election campaign of 1924, occurred in the context of a public arena of heightened political rhetoric. The scandal resulted in much more focus being placed on federal regulation of the petroleum industry. Calvin Coolidge, who became president after Harding’s death in 1923, created a Naval Petroleum Reserve office in the Department of the Navy in March, 1924. He attempted to shift federal policy from private exploitation back to federal conservation. Coolidge also came under pressure from public opinion, conservationists, and a number of leaders from the petroleum industry to increase federal regulation of the oil industry. On December 18, 1924, Coolidge created the Federal
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Teapot Dome Scandal
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Key figures in the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills oil scandals stand outside a Washington, D.C., courthouse in 1929 (from left): Albert B. Fall and Edward L. Doheny, and defense lawyers Frank J. Hogan and Mark Thompson. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Significance In 1926, the FOCB held hearings and attempted to build consensus among the representatives of various concerns within the petroleum industry on the conservation issue. The FOCB encountered an industry divided on the issue of production controls but united against federal intervention. Larger integrated companies traditionally supported production controls, and smaller companies opposed restrictions. Representatives from the API stated to the FOCB during these hearings that there was no danger of exhausting petroleum reserves, that waste was negligible, and that the government should let the oil industry determine its own prices. The hearings and subsequent actions of the FOCB focused on technical problems of petroleum production. The API’s assertions of the industry’s ability to regulate itself were undermined by continued heavy production 1859
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Oil Conservation Board (FOCB). The purpose of the FOCB was to study the government’s responsibilities, with cooperation from representatives of the oil industry. The FOCB was to focus on the three main industry concerns: the size of crude oil reserves, the technical conditions of production, and the economic disruption caused by overproduction. Coolidge commented on the direct relationship between oil conservation and economic stability, stating that overproduction encourages low prices, which in turn led to wastefulness. The FOCB would also advise the president on the best policy to ensure the future supply of fuel oil for the U.S. Navy and to safeguard national security through conservation of oil. From its inception the FOCB was cooperative with and even deferential to the petroleum industry, especially to the American Petroleum Institute (API), the major trade association for the industry.
Teapot Dome Scandal in the mid-1920’s. Nevertheless, there were no significant federal production controls imposed in the 1920’s. As production levels increased across the nation in the 1920’s, oil prices continued to fluctuate but primarily fell. The industry and the API abandoned the policy of relying solely on the market to determine prices, realizing that more stringent cooperative private efforts at production control were needed. In early January, 1929, the API announced a policy of voluntary production controls to limit production for the next three or four years, based on 1928 levels. The FOCB approved a version of this code on May 28, 1930. In December, 1928, industry leaders and members of the API set out to institute an industrywide code of ethics designed to eliminate price and nonprice competition in an attempt to bring stability. In July, 1929, the Federal Trade Commission approved this code, with deletions of restrictions on price cutting and extension of credit. The FOCB still refused to implement federal production controls, stating that voluntary efforts would have to be the largest part of any production control program. In March, 1930, the FOCB initiated a program of demand forecasts to help the petroleum industry project market need and produce accordingly. In 1932, the FOCB worked out a system of voluntary informal restrictions with the leading oil importers in the United States. In all these actions, the FOCB helped the petroleum industry to regulate itself. These efforts at industrial self-regulation and production control were swamped by new and even more productive fields in Oklahoma City in late 1929 and East Texas in late 1930. President Herbert Hoover, formerly a member of the FOCB as secretary of commerce under Coolidge, took an even stronger laissez-faire approach, stating that the FOCB had no legal power to control production. Hoover believed that responsibility for such actions lay with the Congress, not the executive branch. The FOCB ultimately urged various forms of self-regulation and left the industry to solve its own problems. The problem of oil conservation regulation was left to the industry itself and to state governments until Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933. The Teapot Dome scandal returned federal policy on naval reserves back toward conservation and preservation. Ironically, despite the political scandal Fall created, his policy may have been the more correct one. Within a decade after the scandal, planners for the Navy realized that some of their reserves had been depleted as a result of drainage. This occurred when production crews drilled on private property adjacent to the federal lands and drained the neighboring petroleum reservoirs. 1860
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 With the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the federal government generally increased its regulatory role. The Petroleum Administration Board (PAB) continued in the manner that the FOCB had established. The PAB replaced the FOCB, assuming its duties and taking over its files. The PAB came to an end in May, 1935, when the Supreme Court ruled the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional. The PAB had been created under that act. The Bureau of Mines then began forecasting demand for the oil industry. In response to continuing problems of overproduction, Congress passed the “Hot” Oil Act of 1935, restricting interstate shipment of oil. It also set up, under the Department of the Interior, the Federal Petroleum Board (FPB), which enforced the prohibition against “hot” oil. This federal regulatory agency, like the ones before it, worked closely with the industry and with the state regulatory commissions. The concept of maintaining strategic petroleum reserves was renewed during World War II and the Korean War, when concerns again arose over exhaustion. President Roosevelt created the Petroleum Reserves Corporation (PRC), a government corporation that would exploit Saudi Arabian oil reserves, to conserve petroleum in the United States and counteract British influence in that region. The PRC was short-lived, however, because of opposition from U.S. oil companies, which did not want federal interference in their private efforts to produce oil in the Middle East. During the Korean War, Congress passed the Defense Production Act of 1950, which enabled President Harry Truman to establish the Petroleum Administration for Defense (PAD), which, like the FOCB, made demand forecasts for the industry. The PAD facilitated collective voluntary efforts from nineteen of the largest oil companies to coordinate petroleum supplies. The PAD was dissolved after the war, but in 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower began to implement a policy of maintaining reserves equal to 20 percent of domestic annual production. Also in 1954, Eisenhower created the Committee on Energy Supplies. Composed of the secretaries of state, treasury, interior, and commerce, this committee studied the extent of available domestic petroleum resources as well as the growing problem of U.S. dependence on oil imports from the Middle East. As the United States grew increasingly dependent on oil imports from the Middle East in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the idea of national strategic petroleum reserves was again revived. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was begun in 1973; as of 2005, it continued to operate, with
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a capacity of 727 million barrels and an actual inventory of about 700 million barrels. —Bruce Andre Beaubouef Further Reading Bates, J. Leonard. The Origins of Teapot Dome: Progressives, Parties, and Petroleum, 1909-1921. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963. Focuses primarily on the political events that led up to the Teapot Dome scandal rather than on the actions and policies of the Federal Oil Conservation Board. Useful for its thorough account of the development of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, the political debates over federal lands policy, the naval reserves issue, and pressures for legislation during this period. Davis, Margaret Leslie. Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Biography of one of the leading figures in the Teapot Dome scandal. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Melosi, Martin V. Coping with Abundance: Energy and Environment in Industrial America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. Excellent overview of the growth of the major energy industries in the United States includes a concise yet detailed account of the Teapot Dome scandal and the formation and actions of the Federal Oil Conservation Board. Nash, Gerald D. “After Teapot Dome: Calvin Coolidge and the Management of Petroleum Resources, 19241929.” In United States Oil Policy, 1890-1964. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968. Excellent source for an introduction to the development of the U.S. petroleum industry and the growth of federal and state regulations. Deals especially well with the relationship between the industry and the federal government. Includes thorough discussion of the Teapot
Teapot Dome Scandal Dome scandal and the Federal Oil Conservation Board. Noggle, Burl. Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920’s. 1965. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Deals with the politics of petroleum and the U.S. government. Focuses mostly on the Teapot Dome scandal, but includes brief discussion of the Federal Oil Conservation Board and the concerns of the petroleum industry in oil conservation regulation. Stratton, David H. Tempest over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Biography places the Teapot Dome scandal within the context of Fall’s life and times. Includes illustrations and index. Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Deals only briefly with Teapot Dome and the Federal Oil Conservation Board but provides a useful, informative, and readable account of the growth of the oil industry in the United States and in the international arena. Zimmerman, Erich W. Conservation in the Production of Petroleum. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957. Excellent monograph on the development of petroleum conservation policies in the United States. Deals at some length with the Federal Oil Conservation Board. Intended for readers who have some familiarity with conservation issues. See also: June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era; 19211923: Scandals of the Harding Administration; Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President; Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation. 1923
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Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
October 1, 1923
Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia had been administered by the British South Africa Company, founded by Cecil Rhodes, but by the early 1920’s this arrangement was no longer satisfactory to the company or the white settlers. An elected assembly chose internal selfgovernment as the way forward, and the British parliament accepted this decision. Locale: Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Africa Categories: Colonialism and occupation; government and politics; indigenous peoples’ rights Key Figures Sir Charles Patrick John Coghlan (1863-1927), first premier of Southern Rhodesia, 1923-1927, and cofounder of the Responsible Government Association Ethel Tawse Jollie (1876-1950), cofounder of the Responsible Government Association and the first woman parliamentarian in the British Empire Jan Christian Smuts (1870-1950), prime minister of South Africa, 1919-1924, who drafted the South African constitution to allow Southern Rhodesia to enter as a fifth province Alfred Milner (Viscount Milner; 1854-1925), high commissioner of South Africa, 1897-1901, and colonial secretary, 1919-1921, the British minister who agreed to self-government for Southern Rhodesia Winston Churchill (1874-1965), colonial secretary, 1921-1922, the British minister who oversaw the latter stages the implementation of self-government in Southern Rhodesia First Earl Buxton (Sydney Charles Buxton; 18531934), colonial undersecretary, 1892-1895, and later governor-general of South Africa Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), diamond magnate and prime minister of the Cape Colony, 1890-1896 Summary of Event The interior of southern Africa was not settled or developed until the late nineteenth century, when Cecil Rhodes pioneered the exploitation of the area’s resources by setting up the British South Africa Company. In 1889 the company received a charter that enabled it to administer large areas of land north of the Transvaal on behalf of the British crown and gave it rights over the use 1862
of land and exploitation of minerals. The company built railways and settled towns. Particularly notable were Bulawayo, the commercial center, and Salisbury, which later became the territory’s capital. In this process, however, the British expropriated large areas of land and significant numbers of cattle belonging the indigenous African population. Not surprisingly, this led to revolts, especially by the Ndebele (1896) and Shona (1897). In response to these insurrections and other factors, the British government established a direct presence in the area in the form of a resident commissioner who reported to the high commissioner in South Africa. The British-controlled area was at first called Rhodesia, but in 1898 a government order-in-council divided it into three sections: Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. Today these regions are independent states: Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. At the time the order was issued, however, the Boer War (1899-1902) was beginning in South Africa. When the war ended, South Africa was unified under British rule, and the independent Boer (Dutch settler) states were made provinces under the South Africa Act (1909). The company encouraged colonization by white farmers and miners. The climate in the highlands was pleasant, and some of the land could sustain cattle, tobacco, and corn. By 1901, the white population had reached approximately eleven thousand. In contrast, the indigenous African population numbered approximately eight hundred thousand. Local government established a ten-member legislative council, and though the majority of this group’s seats were initially appointed by the British South Africa Company, the addition of seats gave the elected members a small majority by 1907. The electoral role was officially color-blind, but so few Africans met the requirements for registration that it was effectively a white electorate. A separate Department of Native Affairs was set up to look after the tribal reserves and other native matters, but this department was always mindful of the British South Africa Company’s need for a steady source of African labor in its mines, which were primarily devoted to gold extraction. Although both the gold and tobacco markets were unpredictable, the two sectors generally brought prosperity to the province. By 1899, 15.8 million acres of land were controlled by whites, although much of it was still un-
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used. White farmers began to move north from South Africa, and by 1904 there were some 545 farmers. Seven years later, this number had increased to 1,324. In that year, 1911, these farmers began to exercise their political influence by refusing to pay a labor tax imposed by the company. In 1908, Charles Patrick John Coghlan, a Bulawayo lawyer of Irish extraction, was elected to the legislative council. His political and rhetorical skills soon made him a leader in the growing movement concerned with maintaining white settler privileges and opposed to the British South Africa Company’s hold on power. In 1908 and 1909, Southern Rhodesia sent delegates to a national convention was held in South Africa. At the convention, part of the discussion concerned the future of the province, since the leaders of the British South Africa Company had realized that serving as the area’s administrator was beyond both their ability and their desire. Several possibilities were considered: Southern Rhodesia could become South Africa’s fifth province some time after 1910, it could become a Crown Colony and be administered from London, it could remain part of the company under a modified charter, or it could become its own self-governing area. The option of becoming a
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Crown Colony was sometimes tied in with the concept of a Central African Federation, which would reunite the three provinces. In 1917, a new political party, the Responsible Government Association (RGA), was formed out of the Rhodesia Agricultural Union. Its cofounder was Ethel Tawse Jollie, the wife of a white farmer, and its first president was John McChlery. In 1919, Coghlan joined the party, which wanted Southern Rhodesia to retain its connection to Great Britain and opposed both the Afrikaaners (as the Dutch-speaking South Africans were called) and the British South Africa Company. In the meantime, the company had lost a significant legal battle in the British Privy Council, the highest court in the British Empire. The court ruled that the company did not have rights to any “unalienated” land—land not already assigned to blacks or whites—and that all such land belonged to the British crown. The company’s possession of the area’s railways and mines was affirmed, however. After the Privy Council’s decision, the British government established a commission to look into the cost of purchasing the company’s administrative role in Southern Rhodesia, but the commission’s report was not released until February of 1921, after elections in Southern Rhodesia had already taken place. The 1920 election in Southern Southern Rhodesia Rhodesia proved crucial. Coghlan led the RGA’s efforts, and the party won N o r t h e r n mbezi River a resounding majority over the Rhoa Z desia Unionist Association, which R h o d e s i a had just been founded on a platform a ib Kariba ar promoting unity with South Africa. German K Southwest The unionists were supported by Africa many businesses, while the RGA was Salisbury primarily supported by the farmers R h o d e e r n s i a u t h and clerks. By this time, the white o S Victoria Hwange Kadoma population had grown to 33,000, apFalls proximately 20 percent of whom were ethnic Afrikaners (South AfriGweru cans of European, usually Dutch, descent). In the 1920 election, there Bulawayo were 11,000 electors, 6,765 of whom actually voted. The legislative counBechunaland cil felt it had a mandate to request of Protectorate Alfred Milner, head of the Colonial Beitbridge Office in London and a former high commissioner to South Africa, that Union of the country become self-governing. South Africa Milner agreed to follow the British a
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Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia practice of allowing self-government in parts of southern Africa in which whites were capable of defending themselves, and he promised self-government by October, 1924. Although Milner resigned in February of 1921, his successor, Winston Churchill, felt obliged to continue the process. He appointed a committee to advise him on the establishment of self-government in Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, although the committee was not given the option of unifying the two areas. The First Earl Buxton, another former high commissioner of South Africa (1916-1920), was appointed its chairman. The Buxton Committee, set up March 7, 1922, had reported on Southern Rhodesia by April 12, and on Northern Rhodesia by April 29. It advised that a referendum be held on a constitution, which would be drafted by the Colonial Office on the model created by the constitution of South Africa. This constitution, the committee said, should be shown first to the Southern Rhodesian delegates in London. However, Jan Christian Smuts, prime minister of South Africa, and the British South Africa Company both wanted Rhodesia to be unified with South Africa. Smuts and the company pressured the British government to include this option in the referendum, which the British refused to hold until Smuts issued his terms for joining the regions. A petition signed by more than eight thousand Rhodesian voters who supported the union helped promote Smuts’s goal, and his terms, issued on July 30, 1922, were generous to both the Rhodesians and the company. Among other rules, Smuts required that the South African policy of bilingualism be imposed and that white labor have freedom of movement. Coghlan campaigned against Smuts and his supporters under the slogan “Rhodesia for the Rhodesians, Rhodesia for the Empire.” Although the region’s most powerful groups were against the RGA, the party was still able to secure a majority. The white population had increased slightly, to 35,000, some 20,000 of whom were entitled to vote. By contrast, the native African population now numbered near 900,000, but only 60 were entitled to vote. The election’s results were announced November 6, 1922, at the Bulawayo courthouse: The RGA received 8,774 votes, while the unionists received 5,989. The union vote was higher than might have been expected, especially in the light of political upheavals caused by the trades unions in South Africa. The British South Africa Company accepted the terms offered by the Colonial Office, and they ceased rule on October 1, 1923. In the 1864
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1923 elections, the RGA, which had since been renamed the Rhodesia Party, was opposed by only four independent candidates in a thirty-seat legislature. The party’s new hold on power made Coghlan the first premier of Southern Rhodesia, and he held this post (with the help of five cabinet ministers) until his death in 1927. Significance Southern Rhodesia’s successful bid for self-government brought Cecil Rhodes’s and Jan Smuts’s dream for a greater South Africa to an end. Although the new legislature in Southern Rhodesia could only legislate for white affairs and the British government was allowed a veto over many areas, in practice the new council, its cabinet, and the new governor were allowed as much independence as any of the dominions. The adoption of selfgovernment entrenched white minority rule in the country and kept both land and capital firmly in white hands. The British South Africa Company continued to operate, although it gradually sold its railways and mineral rights. For nearly a half century, self-government appeared to have been a successful solution. The country’s tobacco, cattle, and corn industries prospered, white settlers continued to emigrate to Southern Rhodesia, and the region was able to avoid the harsh apartheid system that was to disfigure South African politics. The desire for white supremacy, however, pushed politicians toward total independence from Britain, and then the weight of the inequality between the races led to a bitter civil war and a shaky transition to power by a black-led government unused to democracy. Later, an insatiable desire for the reapportionment of land from the white farmers led to economic collapse. — David Barratt Further Reading Banana, Canaan S., ed. Turmoil and Tenacity: Zimbabwe, 1890-1990. Harare, Zimbabwe: College Press, 1989. A collection of essays by modern African scholars, edited by a noted academic. Birmingham, D., and P. M. Martin, eds. History of Central Africa. 1983. Rev. ed. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1998. One of the most recent British contributions to Rhodesian history. A series of separate essays. Blake, Robert. A History of Rhodesia. London: Eyre Methuen, 1977. Part 2 deals with Rhodesia as a selfgoverning colony. Asound if somewhat dated history. Kennedy, Dane. Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987. A detailed study from the Duke University Center for International
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Studies. Compares two white minority cultures and governments in Africa. Mazrui, Ali, ed. Africa Since 1935. Vol. 8 in The UNESCO General History of Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. This volume deals with the 1920’s and sets the Rhodesian question in a wider context. Mutambirwa, James A. Chamunorwa. The Rise of Settler Power in Southern Rhodesia, 1898-1923. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981. An account from the perspective of an African historian. Summers, Carol. From Civilisation to Segregation and Social Control in Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1934. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994. A critical study of the growth of white minority rule, focusing on the interaction of the settlers, company officials, missionaries, societies in the United Kingdom, and the most vocal of the African groups. Wallis, J. P. R. One Man’s Hand: The Story of Sir Charles Coghlan and the Liberation of Southern Rho-
Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet desia. New York: Longmans, Green, 1950. The only biography of the main figure in the self-government of the country. Willis, A. J. An Introduction to the History of Central Africa: Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. 4th ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985. Sets the history of Southern Rhodesia in the context of British Central Africa and the British South Africa Company. See also: Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the MombasaLake Victoria Railway; Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts; Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria; Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo; Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets; Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion.
October 18, 1923
Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet Igor Stravinsky’s Octet was one of the most critical compositions that defined a post-World War I musical aesthetic based on objective rather than emotive elements. It exemplified not only Stravinsky’s personal neoclassical period but also the neoclassical movement in music generally. Also known as: Octet for Wind Instruments Locale: Paris, France Category: Music
Summary of Event Following the success of his score for the 1910 ballet L’Oiseau de feu (The Firebird), Igor Stravinsky lived in
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Key Figures Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Russian-born composer Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian impresario Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951), Russian-born conductor Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), French music instructor Vera de Bosset (1888-1982), private dedicatee of the Octet and later Stravinsky’s second wife Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French poet, dramatist, and filmmaker
Paris for several years. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 cut him off from his native Russia, and he took refuge in Switzerland. Compelled to write for reduced instrumental resources rather than the large orchestras he had used for the ballet Le Sacre du printemps (1913; The Rite of Spring) and the opera Le Rossignol (1914; The Nightingale), he experimented with limited scorings, often for unusual instrumental combinations: L’Histoire du soldat (1918; The Soldier’s Tale) was scored for violin, string bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, and percussion, and the final scoring for Les Noces (1923; The Wedding) called for four pianos and six percussion players to accompany the vocal soloists and chorus. The Russian Revolution of October, 1917, further cut Stravinsky off from his native land, to which he would not return until 1962. His Russian works composed in Switzerland, such as the burlesque Renard (1916), featured limited orchestration and use of Russian folktales. Other popular materials in Stravinsky’s works of this period include the Spanish paso doble (a souvenir of a visit to Spain with Sergei Diaghilev) and American ragtime; both appear in The Soldier’s Tale. Stravinsky’s aesthetic began to evolve from an expressive to an objective and austere one. Denied the ex-
Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet pressive resources of the large orchestra for economic reasons, he came to eschew this sound in his reaction against the overblown sonorities of older composers such as Gustav Mahler in Austria and Aleksandr Scriabin in Russia. Reducing the number of strings, and finally eliminating them altogether, was one way of getting away from the soaring, lush emotionalism that he particularly detested in Scriabin’s music; Stravinsky sought to achieve a more objective sound. The relatively cool and objective strains of the eighteenth century were a final attraction. During World War I, many composers sought an antidote to the heavily Germanic post-Romantic sound, resulting in such works as Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin (1919; Couperin’s tomb) and Sergei Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony (1917), works with piquant modern harmonies but classical orchestration, balance, and restraint. After the war, Diaghilev reorganized his Ballets Russes and commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet using music purporting to be by the eighteenth century Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi; Stravinsky did not change the melodies or basses but made subtle modifications to the harmony and scored Pulcinella (1920) for classical orchestra. The strands of Stravinsky’s new developments came together for the first time in the Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920), written as a memorial to Claude Debussy, who had died in 1918. The musical materials were Russian, and the harmonies and counterpoint were reminiscent of The Rite of Spring, but the form was very advanced (the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen took it as a model for his works), and the sonorities, written for the wind section of a large symphony orchestra but without the strings or percussion, are astringent and biting. With the Octet of 1923, Stravinsky abandoned Russian musical materials, and the classical ethos of balance and restraint became paramount. The scoring is for flute, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets, and two trombones, and each instrument is directed to play solo. This scoring differs from the standard wind octet of the classical period, which consisted of two each of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns. The work is in three movements. The first movement, “Sinfonia,” consists of a slow introduction followed by a fast movement in a modified sonata form; the key center of E-flat major is clearly recognizable. A theme and variations form the second movement; the theme undergoes various transformations, first in a recurring trombonecentered variation, then as a march. After the trombone 1866
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 variation comes a waltz in which the theme is embedded, then a gallop (the music used for bareback riders in the circus) as a counterpoint to the theme. The trombone variation returns, followed by a fugato wherein the counterpoint grows increasingly denser and more dissonant; after it thins out, the solo flute plays material similar to that which linked the slow introduction to the allegro moderato of the first movement. This linkage, however, is to a finale that pays homage to Johann Sebastian Bach, in the manner of one of Bach’s two-part inventions. This movement is in sonata form, with a very free reprise and a coda that incorporates ragtime elements. At the work’s first performance at the Paris Opera on October 18, 1923, Stravinsky made his debut as a conductor in the place of Serge Koussevitzky, who had commissioned the work for one of his concerts. Koussevitzky conducted the other two works on the program. Although the published score of the Octet bears no dedication, Stravinsky privately dedicated it to Vera de Bosset, who became his wife seventeen years later. In an article written the following year for The Arts (January, 1924), Stravinsky stated that his Octet was “a
Igor Stravinsky. (Library of Congress)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 musical object” with a form “influenced by the musical matter with which it is composed.” He added that the work was “not an ‘emotive’ work but a musical composition based on objective elements which are sufficient in themselves.” The form of his music, he maintained, was derived from counterpoint, and he remarked that his music “has no other aim than to be sufficient in itself . . . the play of the musical elements is the thing.” The Octet sums up the contrapuntal devices of Bach, the structural ideas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and elements of musical culture associated with popular entertainments such as the circus.
the Symphony of Psalms of 1930, commissioned for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by Koussevitzky, its new conductor. The work’s texts were portions of psalms from the Latin (Vulgate) Bible. Its form was not that of the conventional symphony, and some of its techniques had been used in Bach’s church cantatas. The scoring was for mixed chorus and large orchestra, without violins or violas. Stravinsky had returned to the Orthodox Church in 1926, and the work reflected better than any his newly restored faith. After the Octet, Stravinsky decided to become more active as a conductor and pianist, allowing him less time for composition but facilitating the more frequent performance and wider dissemination of his music. For this purpose, he wrote the spiky Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1924), the Serenade in A Major (1925), a 1924 sonata for solo piano, and Capriccio (1929), a three-movement piano concerto in all but name, one of his most popular works of the period. Stravinsky did not have any pupils, but he found the French music pedagogue Nadia Boulanger a person who communicated his ideas on music effectively. Boulanger’s advocacy in addition to Stravinsky’s own performances helped to spread the composer’s influence. Boulanger’s pupils included Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, Sir Lennox Berkeley, Elliott Carter, and Karel Husa. Although Stravinsky became a French citizen in 1934, thus protecting some of his copyrights, he was not thoroughly accepted as a French composer (he was denied election to the French Academy to succeed Paul Dukas), and he felt the pressure of events leading to World War II. He did not tour foreign countries as frequently, his music was condemned in the Soviet Union as bourgeois formalism and in Nazi Germany as degenerate, and his oldest daughter, mother, and wife died in the late 1930’s while Stravinsky himself was suffering from tuberculosis. His music at the time became more practical: The Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (1935) was written for him and his son Soulima to play in smaller cities that lacked a professional orchestra, and his 1938 chamber concerto in E-flat known as Dumbarton Oaks (from the estate near Washington where Stravinsky’s patron commissioned the work) contains very specific markings for the conductor. These two works are among Stravinsky’s most accessible neoclassic works, and both show the strong influence of Bach. Stravinsky began his Symphony in C Major in 1938 as a commission for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Two movements were written in France but interrupted by the composer’s trip to the 1867
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Significance The Octet determined the future shape of musical neoclassicism. Its atmosphere was one of musical detachment rather than of the intense involvement of such expressionists as Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils. Although the name of the movement suggests an imitation of the works of Mozart, in reality neoclassicism embraced nearly all the musically remembered past, principally the works of the composers of the eighteenth century and some early Romantics. Elements from popular musical cultures were employed in neoclassicism, much as they had been in the eighteenth century. Excluded, however, were the highly emotive musical devices of the late Romantic and post-Romantic composers such as Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, and Aleksandr Scriabin. Thus the neoclassicists differed from such composers as Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Carl Nielsen, whose music represented an evolution of the late Romantic musical tradition. By 1923, Stravinsky had become fully converted to the neoclassical idiom; his last Russian work of the postwar period, the chamber opera Mavra (1922), paid homage to Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Glinka, and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky rather than to the “uncultured” folk music of The Wedding. The internationalism of Stravinsky’s neoclassicism is best seen in his largest-scale 1920’s work, the 1927 opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex for narrator, soloists, male chorus, and large orchestra. The text, based on Sophocles’ drama, was written by Jean Cocteau and then (except for the narrator’s summaries) translated into Ciceronian Latin to provide an atmosphere of timelessness. The music was in the AngloItalian style of George Frideric Handel’s oratorios of the early eighteenth century. Despite the detachment of both librettist and composer from the often-violent plot, the work was highly moving. An equally monumental (but shorter) counterpart was
Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet
Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet United States, where he was to occupy a chair at Harvard University and deliver the lectures later published as The Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons (1947). Stravinsky had been very favorably impressed by the vigor of American musical life, and he welcomed the idea of moving to the United States. The third movement was finished in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the city where he married Vera de Bosset (the marriage endured until the composer’s death in 1971); the fourth in Beverly Hills, California. He admitted that he had studied symphonies by Franz Joseph Haydn, Beethoven, and even Tchaikovsky as models. The work is in quite standard symphonic form, but with the instruments often treated in concerto fashion. With this work, one of Stravinsky’s masterpieces and a capstone of his neoclassic style, his French period concluded and his American period began. —R. M. Longyear Further Reading Adorno, Theodor W. Philosophy of New Music. Translated and edited by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. A comparison of Stravinsky and Schoenberg by one of the leaders of the Frankfurt School of social theory and aesthetic philosophy. Bibliographic references and index. Asafyev, Boris. A Book About Stravinsky. Translated by Richard F. French. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982. Completed in 1929, Asafyev’s volume is the main study by a Soviet-era musicologist. It contains a perceptive analysis of the Octet, but the author deprecates many of Stravinsky’s neoclassic works. Austin, William W. Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966. A thorough treatment of Stravinsky’s neoclassic period within the context of twentieth century music, in a volume that is still the best study of the period. Dushkin, Samuel. “Working with Stravinsky.” In Igor Stravinsky, edited by Edwin Corle. Freeport, N.Y.:
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Books for Libraries Press, 1969. A vivid account of Stravinsky as a musical collaborator. Also contains a firsthand account of Stravinsky’s personal and family life during the 1930’s. Lubaroff, Scott. An Examination of the Neo-classical Wind Works of Igor Stravinsky: The Octet for Winds and Concerto for Piano and Winds. Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 2004. Close reading of two of Stravinsky’s most important neoclassical pieces. Bibliographic references and index. Stravinsky, Igor. Stravinsky: An Autobiography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1962. Originally published in 1936, this volume contains the composer’s firsthand account of his work on the Octet and other neoclassical compositions during his French years. Unfortunately, the translation is poor. Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. Dialogues and a Diary. London: Faber & Faber, 1968. When Stravinsky was in his eighties, Robert Craft had him reminisce about his early days and give his current opinions about music. This volume covers the Paris years and the genesis of the Octet. Stravinsky, Vera. Dearest Bubushkin. Edited by Robert Craft. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985. The correspondence of Vera and Igor Stravinsky, with excerpts from Vera’s diary from 1922 on. The text is illustrated with numerous photographs. White, Eric Walter. Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. The standard English biography of the composer. Includes detailed analyses of his compositions as well as a chronicle of his life. See also: June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; Mar. 15, 1911: Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System; 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Beer Hall Putsch
November 8, 1923
Beer Hall Putsch Adolf Hitler, a disaffected German nationalist and disgruntled ideologue, attempted a local uprising but ended up under arrest. Although his effort to seize power failed and he was convicted of treason, he emerged as a national hero, and the event became a celebrated moment in the history of the Nazi Party. Locale: Munich, Germany Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of the Nazi party and chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), one of Hitler’s earliest followers Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), leader of Hitler’s paramilitary organization, the Sturm Abteilung (SA) Hermann Göring (1893-1946), famous World War I fighter pilot who took over the leadership of the SA from Ernst Röhm in early 1923 Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), World War I German general and one of Hitler’s earliest supporters Gustav Ritter von Kahr (1862-1934), prime minister of Bavaria, 1920-1921, Staats Komissav (state commissioner), 1923-1924 Julius Streicher (1885-1946), one of Hitler’s chief ideologues who founded the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer
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Summary of Event Inspired by Benito Mussolini’s fascist March on Rome of October 28, 1922, which resulted in Mussolini’s appointment as Italy’s prime minister, Adolf Hitler and his followers believed that they too could stage a putsch (the sudden overthrow of a government) and establish rule by a führer, the German equivalent of duce, the Italian term for the leader of the Fascist Party. Mussolini had been able to take charge of Italian cities using paramilitary groups: The threat of force intimidated the Italian king and the country’s governing class, which capitulated to the fascists and acceded to Mussolini’s assumption of one-man rule. Collaborating with Ernst Röhm, Hitler began organizing a group of approximately eight hundred men. Hitler saw this group as the core of a larger force that would be loyal to him alone and would provide the momentum he needed to overthrow the weakening
Weimar government that had been established in the wake of Germany’s defeat in World War I. Like other right-wing German groups, Hitler’s Nazis attacked the Weimar government’s inability to deal with the aftermath of World War I, especially with France’s demand that Germany pay reparations for the destruction caused by invading German armies. Hitler’s speeches denounced the Weimar government’s failure to repudiate the very idea of reparations, and like other extremist groups on the left and the right, the Nazis believed that the Weimar government would soon be pushed from power. The only question was who would have the will and the support to engineer a successful putsch. Röhm, acting independently of Hitler, organized his paramilitary groups in Bavaria in preparation for a sudden seizure of power. Meanwhile, Hermann Göring used discipline to shape the Sturm Abteilung (SA) into a militant cadre. Hitler, suspecting that he would lose control of his own movement if he did not act quickly, set November 9 as the putsch’s date; he chose the anniversary of William II’s 1918 deposition as the German emperor in the belief that his cohort would rally around the anniversary. On the evening of November 8, Hitler, escorted by his faithful aide Rudolf Hess and Nazi storm troopers, disrupted a meeting of about three thousand people held by Gustav Ritter von Kahr, head of the Bavarian government. Firing a shot into the ceiling, Hitler took charge of the meeting room, a large beer hall just outside Munich’s center. Announcing that his men had surrounded the building, Hitler declared that Kahr’s Bavarian government had been deposed. Leaving Göring in charge of the crowded room, Hitler informed the shaken but recalcitrant Kahr that he was about to march on Berlin and form a new national government. Not until General Erich Ludendorff arrived at his side, however, was Hitler able to force Kahr to announce to the meeting that he recognized the new government. “The national revolution has begun!” Hitler shouted. Ludendorff seconded the claim by calling the putsch a watershed event, and Rudolf Hess took Kahr and his entourage into custody. At the same time, Röhm captured the German army’s headquarters in Munich, and other fascist paramilitaries took over the police headquarters. Nevertheless, Hitler had not secured all elements of the army and police, and he had no plans to extend his power. Julius Streicher
Beer Hall Putsch
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
able surroundings in Landsberg am Lech, an ancient fortress west of Munich, where he The sixteen Nazi supporters listed below died in the Beer Hall served only part of his sentence and began Putsch. Adolf Hitler considered them martyrs and praised them in writing Mein Kampf (1925-1926; English the foreword to his book Mein Kampf (1925-1926; English translatranslation, 1939). tion, 1939). Ultranationalists considered Hitler a hero because he took complete responsibility for • Felix Alfarth • Karl Laforce • Andreas Bauriedl • Kurt Neubauer the putsch. His self-confidence buoyed his • Theodor Casella • Klaus von Pape followers, and by shielding figures such as • William Ehrlich • Theodor von der Pfordten Ludendorff, Hitler actually enhanced his role • Martin Faust • Johann Rickmers as the leader of a movement dedicated to Ger• Anton Hechenberger • Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter many’s rebirth. Concealing the facts of his • Oskar Körner • Lorenz Ritter von Stransky own vacillation during the putsch, Hitler • Karl Kuhn • Wilhelm Wolf played the decisive leader, and he treated his failure to overthrow a despised government as just the first step in his rightful path to power. Although German law dictated that, as an urged Hitler to capitalize on his initiative by organizing a Austrian, Hitler should have been deported, the court mass rally, but Hitler began to sense that he was not in ruled that Hitler could serve his sentence in Germany, a control of events, and, according to Hitler biographer decision that delighted the trial’s audience. Joachim C. Fest, the Nazi leader suffered a nervous colThe failed putsch convinced Hitler that he would have lapse. to acquire power by legal means: He needed to use the With other reports suggesting that the public favored very institutions of the state to subvert the state. The the putsch, Hitler momentarily revived and began planputsch also became part of Nazi ideology, and it was rening several large rallies. He was stymied, however, by membered as the moment in history when Nazis were the fact that he had prepared for use of force but not for an martyred for a cause (sixteen Nazis were killed in conactual violent revolution. Since his followers had not sefrontations with the police on November 9). The event cured the support of the police and army, Hitler was not was commemorated each year in a celebration that Hitler in a position to mount an attack against significant resiscalled the “real birthday” of his party. tance. General Ludendorff made matters worse by re— Carl Rollyson leasing Kahr from custody, and Kahr and his associates immediately regrouped. By the time Hitler and his cohort Further Reading marched toward the Ministry of War in Munich, armed Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. police were there to meet them. Shots were fired: Göring New York: Hill & Wang, 2000. Informative, but not was hit in the leg, and Hitler was shoved to the ground as accessible to the general reader as the other three and dislocated his shoulder. Ludendorff, Streicher, Hitworks cited here. Addresses the Beer Hall Putsch only ler, and others were arrested. Göring managed to escape, briefly, but thoroughly examines this event’s role in but the Nazi bid for power had become a debacle. the rise of Nazism. Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. A work of impressive Significance and engaging scholarship. Includes a perceptive Even though the Beer Hall Putsch was a failure, the event chapter on the Beer Hall Putsch. itself made Hitler a national figure. His trial became poFest, Joachim C. Hitler. New York: Harcourt Brace litical theater: Hitler attacked the Weimar government Jovanovich, 1973. One of the best single-volume biand portrayed himself as a patriot who hoped to revive ographies of Hitler available. Includes a detailed Germany’s spirits and its sense of greatness. His efforts chapter on the Beer Hall Putsch. were bolstered by the knowledge that elements of the BaShirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: varian government had colluded with his attempted takeA History of Nazi Germany. 30th anniversary ed. New over, and so it would be difficult to treat him harshly. The York: Ballantine, 1991. Classic work is still one of the sentence for treason was life imprisonment, but Hitler most readable and informative histories of the Third received only a five-year prison term in rather comfort-
Casualties of the Beer Hall Putsch
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Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment
Reich. Although Shirer’s research has been superseded in some respects, this remains one of the best introductions to the Nazi era. Chapter on the Beer Hall Putsch presents lively details that amount to one of the most thorough explanations of the role this event played in Hitler’s biography and in the rise of Nazism.
See also: July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht.
December 10, 1923
Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment was intended to ensure women’s right to equal treatment under the law in the United States. Passage of the amendment succeeded suffrage as a major goal of the American women’s movement. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform; women’s issues Key Figure Alice Paul (1885-1977), American social reformer
This difference justifies a difference in legislation, and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which rest upon her.
Summary of Event After the passage in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote, many women who had worked for the amendment’s ratification disengaged from political activity. However, some realized that although women could vote, they still faced many obstacles to real freedom. Among other things, women did not have the same educational opportunities as men, economic independence, or access to information about family planning. As people began to address these concerns, issues that had been put aside during the push for suffrage started to come to the surface. Some women, mainly members of the National Woman’s Party (NWP), believed in complete equality between women and men; others, primarily those associated with the NaText of the Equal Rights Amendment tional American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), believed that there were some areas The Equal Rights Amendment as proposed in 1923 and as finally in which women needed special protective legdefeated in 1982 was simple, brief, and comprehensive: islation. In the 1908 case of Muller v. Oregon, Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied the U.S. Supreme Court had stated: The two sexes differ in structure of body, in the functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor, particularly when done standing. . . .
or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
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Although this decision protected some women, it proved discriminatory in many cases. Because of the assumption that women were weaker and more vulnerable than men, women were prohibited from practicing certain professions, such as law, even when they were fully qualified to do so. They were forbidden to lift weights, even those no heavier than an eighteen-month-old child. Women were forbidden to serve in bars at night, although they were able to work as cleaners or entertainers at the same hour. These issues, which had been submerged while the women’s movement focused on suffrage, now became increasingly important. The women’s movement, which had been so united before 1920, began to show factions among its members, dividing into groups such as pacifists, social feminists, and professional women. It was into this dilemma that Alice Paul stepped. Born in 1885 of Quaker parents in Moorestown, New Jersey, she had graduated from Swarthmore College in 1905. She went as a student to England, where she had been an active participant in the British woman suffrage movement. A woman of strong will and ambition, Paul
Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment adopted the militant techniques of the British suffragists. In 1913, she broke with the NAWSA, which had always lobbied state legislatures, and founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage to work with the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. This group eventually became known as the National Woman’s Party. In 1917, Paul and the NWP organized around-the-clock picketing of the White House, and, as a result, Paul was arrested and jailed. Such actions received international press coverage and were ultimately good for the cause of woman suffrage, but they also left Paul thousands of dollars in debt and without the physical stamina to continue. However, many women realized that the time was ripe for further action, and they also realized they needed Paul’s leadership. A ceremony was planned at the U.S. Capitol Building on February 15, 1921, Susan B. Anthony’s birthday, both to celebrate women’s right to vote and to launch a campaign for the removal of legal disabilities of women. Representatives of more than one hundred women’s organizations attended the ceremony; the only group noticeably absent was the NAWSA, which complained that the NWP was unconcerned about the problems of working women (the NAWSA believed that factory women, for example, still required special legislation). The idea of the Equal Rights Amendment was conceived during this convention. Paul took a leave of absence from the NWP to earn a law degree. She received an LL.B. from Washington College of Law in 1922, an LL.M. in 1927, and a DC.L. in 1928 from American University in Washington. In 1923, the NWP again held a convention, this time in Seneca Falls, New York, where the first Women’s Rights Convention had been held in 1848. In memory of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, Paul presented a proposal, originally called the Lucretia Mott Amendment: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction.” The proposal was not unanimously accepted. As before, there was a concern that it would invalidate all protective legislation for women, especially laws regarding labor. Paul, however, believed that most protective legislation only furthered discrimination against women. If the women had been able to compromise on these issues, perhaps they could have strengthened their ranks and consolidated their new power, but such was not to be. Although the majority of women supported the protectionists, the proposed text of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was introduced in Congress on December 10, 1923. It read simply: 1872
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Paul decided that the next step for the National Woman’s Party would be to elicit the support of other women’s groups. The NWP conducted studies to determine the legal positions of women in individual states in relation to divorce, marriage, child custody, work, education, family planning, and career opportunities. The party also planned to reveal the fundamental inadequacy of protectionist legislation. The members lobbied to get representation on an investigative panel of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Woman’s Bureau, which met in January, 1926. However, the gap between the goals of the NWP and the attitudes of the rest of the country widened, and antagonisms prevented any progress. In November, 1928, the Woman’s Bureau panel found that legislative protection was good for women. Significance Despite the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the decade of the 1920’s was in many ways antifeminist. Women were not considered capable of combining marriage and career. Feminists were attacked as unfeminine and asexual. Freudian theories, which saw women as either temptresses or slaves, were popular. Feminism did not appeal to many women of the younger generation, who rebelled against the repressive, Victorian culture identified with the older generation, which had given birth to the ERA. Despite this milieu, in 1928 the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs expressed its support of the ERA. Gradually, more groups promoted it. The ERA was publicly championed by the Republican Party in 1940, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1943, and the Democratic Party in 1944. Not until 1959, however, did the NAWSA, which by then had become the League of Women Voters, support the amendment. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, feminist activity was rekindled, and in 1972, the ERA passed the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. According to law, it then had seven years to be ratified by threefourths of the states. In her later years, Alice Paul dedicated all her time to passage of the ERA. She died in 1977, still hoping for its passage. Although Congress extended the deadline to 1982, and many states did ratify the amendment, time ran out, and the ERA did not become law. — Winifred O. Whelan
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. New York: Hill & Wang, 2005. Discusses the lives and work of the five most prominent activists in the U.S. suffrage movement: Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, and Alice Paul. Blends personal information on the subjects with political and historical analysis. Includes index. Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1996. Sound standard account of the American women’s rights movement. Includes illustrations and index. Hammer, Roger A. American Woman: Hidden in History, Forging the Future. 2d ed. Golden Valley, Minn.: Place in the Woods, 1993. A concise collection of stories about women, both contemporary and historical, including Alice Paul. Illustrations. Lunardini, Christine A. From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, 1910-1928. 1986. Reprint. Lincoln, Nebr.: iUniverse, 2000. Focuses on Paul’s role in the suffrage move-
Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television ment and examines the importance of the NWP in continuing the fight for gender equality after American women had won the right to vote. Pole, J. R. The Pursuit of Equality in American History. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Includes discussion of the divisions that arose among American women after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Woodward, Carolyn. “The Growth of the Modern Women’s Movement.” In Changing Our Power: An Introduction to Women’s Studies, edited by Jo Whitehorse Cochran, Donna Lengston, and Carolyn Woodward. 2d ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1991. Describes what happened to the ERA and how it was defeated. See also: Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote.
December 29, 1923
Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television Zworykin’s concept of an all-electronic television receiver foreshadowed the development of modern television systems. His initial prototype was lackluster at best, but his later invention of the kinescope, or picture tube, provided the basis for mass-produced consumer-operated television sets.
Key Figures Vladimir Zworykin (1889-1982), Soviet electronic engineer and director of the medical electronics center of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research Paul Gottlieb Nipkow (1860-1940), German engineer and inventor Alan A. Campbell Swinton (1863-1930), Scottish engineer Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian physicist and inventor
Summary of Event Although Vladimir Zworykin is popularly known as the father of television, his work in the 1920’s actually built on the contributions of numerous scientists and electrical engineers who began theorizing about possible applications of electricity as early as the 1830’s. Antecedents of all-electronic television can be found in several different but related areas in electrical engineering. The invention of the telegraph in the 1830’s demonstrated the possibility of modulating an electrical current to transmit coded signals; the invention of the telephone in 1876 showed that sound waves could be converted into electrical impulses and back again. Heinrich Hertz’s measurements of electromagnetic waves in the late 1880’s provided empirical evidence of earlier theoretical speculations about the nature of electricity. According to Orrin E. Dunlap, Jr., Guglielmo Marconi’s work with radio was a direct 1873
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Locale: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Categories: Inventions; science and technology; radio and television; communications and media
Charles Francis Jenkins (1867-1934), American physicist, engineer, and inventor Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist
Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television response to Marconi’s reading of Hertz’s paper. In any event, engineers and scientists who had been working on the electrical transmission of images by wire responded to the challenge of achieving the wireless projection of visual images almost simultaneously with the development of radio. In 1894, an American inventor, Charles Francis Jenkins, described a scheme for electrically transmitting moving pictures. Jenkins’s idea, however, was only one of an already long tradition in electrical engineering of theoretical television systems. Even before invention of the telephone or detection of electromagnetic waves, scientists had begun to consider how images might be transmitted with electricity. American and European scientists began attempting to transmit still images over telegraph wires in the 1840’s. In 1842, for example, the English physicist Alexander Bain invented an automatic copying telegraph for sending still pictures. Although Bain’s system scanned images line by line, many early attempts assumed the simultaneous transmission of every portion of an image was necessary and so involved multiple wires—that is, a separate electrical current for each point on the image. By the 1870’s, wide recognition of persistence of vision—retention of a visual image by the eye for a short period of time after the removal of the stimulus that produced it—led to experiments with systems in which the image to be projected was scanned line by line but required one wire only. Rapid scanning of images became the underlying principle of all television
Phosphor Screen
Electron Gun
Electron Beam
Deflection and Focus Coils Glass Envelope Schematic of a television picture tube.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 systems, both electromechanical and all-electronic. Although almost sixty years were to pass between the emergence of the concept of scanning and the development of working all-electronic systems, electromechanical systems began to appear in the 1880’s. In 1884, a German inventor, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, patented a complete television system that utilized a mechanical sequential scanning system and a photoelectric cell sensitized with selenium for transmission. The selenium photoelectric cell converted the light values of the image being scanned into electrical impulses to be transmitted to a receiver where the process would be reversed: The electrical impulses led to light of varying brightnesses being produced and projected onto a rotating disk that was scanned to reproduce the original image. If the system—that is, the transmitter and the receiver—were in perfect synchronization and if the disk rotated quickly enough, persistence of vision enabled the viewer to see a complete image rather than a series of moving points of light. As attempts to refine mechanical systems progressed, it became clear that all possessed a major handicap: Because the image to be projected was mechanically scanned, a barrier existed regarding potential improvements in sensitivity. Edward W. Constant II, a historian of technology, has referred to such barriers or perceived theoretical limitations as “presumptive anomalies” that could lead to revolutionary changes within a technology. For a television image to be projected onto a screen of reasonable size and retain good quality and high resolution, any system employing only thirty to one hundred lines, as early mechanical systems did, would clearly be inadequate. A few systems were developed that utilized two hundred or more lines, but the difficulties these presented made the possibility of an allelectronic system increasingly attractive. These difficulties were not generally recognized until the early 1930’s, when television began to move out of the laboratory and into commercial production. John Swift has noted that although inventors such as John Logie Baird in England, who had developed a mechanical system based on the Nipkow principle, and Jenkins in the United States were aware of Zworykin’s all-electronic
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
inghouse had by then resumed research in television, but Zworykin was not part of the team. After he returned from a trip to France in 1928, during which he had witnessed an exciting demonstration of an electrostatic tube, Westinghouse indicated it was not interested. This lack of corporate support in Pittsburgh led Zworykin to approach RCA. Zworykin reportedly demonstrated his system to the Institute of Radio Engineers at Rochester, New York, on November 18, 1929, claiming to have developed a working picture tube, a tube that would revolutionize television development; RCA recognized the potential. Significance The picture tube, or kinescope, developed by Zworykin changed the history of television. Abramson noted that the kinescope made it possible to have a practical receiver in the home of the viewer, a device that the average person could operate, that required no technical knowledge to use, and that could be viewed under normal lighting conditions. Within a few years, mechanical systems disappeared and television technology began to utilize systems similar to Zworykin’s by use of cathoderay tubes at both ends of the system. At the transmitter, in Zworykin’s system, the image is focused on a mosaic screen composed of light-sensitive cells. A stream of electrons sweeps the image and each cell sends off an electric current impulse as it is hit by the electrons, the light and shade of the focused image regulating the amount of current. This string of electrical impulses, after amplification and modification into ultrahigh-frequency wavelengths, is broadcast by antenna to be picked up by any attuned receiver, where it is retransformed into a moving picture in the cathode-ray tube receiver. The cathode-ray tubes contain no moving parts, as the electron stream is guided entirely by electric attraction. Although both the iconoscope and the kinescope were far from perfect when Zworykin initially demonstrated them, they set the stage for all future television development. This television development had impacts far beyond mere popular entertainment systems. As influential as television broadcasting may be on everyday lives, cathode-ray tubes also have had many other important applications. Although Zworykin developed the cathoderay tube to serve as part of a broadcasting system and saw television as analogous to radio, it definitely has not been limited to this one use. Military radar systems, for example, display information on cathode-ray tubes, as do numerous other information display systems. Cathode-ray 1875
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work for Westinghouse Electric Corporation and RCA (Radio Corporation of America), they continued to refine mechanical systems until the government intervened. Many Americans witnessed television for the first time in the form of electromechanical television during the 1930’s demonstrations of Jenkins’s motor-driven mechanical scanners. The receiver had a large glass bull’s-eye-like screen, and Baird’s system had been adopted for initial television broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was not until the English government set broadcast standards mandating highdefinition television that Baird’s development work on those mechanical systems ceased. Interest in all-electronic television paralleled interest in mechanical systems, but solutions to technical problems proved harder to achieve. In 1908, a Scottish engineer, Alan A. Campbell Swinton, proposed what was essentially an all-electronic television system. Swinton theorized that the use of magnetically deflected cathoderay tubes for both the transmitter and receiver in a system was possible. In 1911, Swinton formally presented his idea to the Röntgen Society in London, but the technology available did not allow for practical experiments. On December 29, 1923, Zworykin filed a patent application for the iconoscope, or television transmission tube. His interest in all-electronic television dated back to his days in the Soviet Union as a student of Boris L. Rosing, in prerevolutionary St. Petersburg. Zworykin credited Rosing’s work with cathode-ray tubes as a major influence on his own ideas. Zworykin’s patent application for a camera tube differed from Swinton’s 1911 plan, in that rather than disclosing a mosaic of rubidium cubes, Zworykin disclosed a layer of photoelectric material. On March 17, 1924, Zworykin applied for a patent for a two-way system. The first cathode-ray tube receiver had a cathode, a modulating grid, an anode, and a fluorescent screen. Condenser plates produced electrostatic horizontal deflection, and coils produced magnetic vertical deflection. According to Albert Abramson, Zworykin later admitted the results were very poor and the system, as shown, was still far removed from a practical television system. Zworykin’s employers were so unimpressed that they admonished him to forget television and work on something more useful. Zworykin’s interest in television was thereafter confined to his nonworking hours, as he spent the next year working on phonographic sound recording. It was not until the late 1920’s that he was able to devote his full attention to television. Ironically, West-
Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television
Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television tubes have proved to be especially valuable in electronics applications, as the use of computers has become more widespread. Computer terminals were routinely paired with monitors—that is, CRTs or cathode-ray tubes—so that the operators would have immediate access to a visual display for both input and output data. Cathode-ray technology was adapted to produce a whole new range of high-definition television screens, gel screen monitors, flat-screen televisions, and laptop and desktop computer monitors. Cathode-ray tubes have been used also in experimental communications systems similar to telephones, by including visual images along with sound, and in security systems in a variety of settings. What Zworykin may have envisioned as a simple entertainment device available for home use has spread far beyond its limited, originally intended, application. The cathode-ray tube has uses that range from supermarket cash registers to closed-circuit television security systems to large-screen color television sets, now equipped with the capability of providing sound in stereo. Zworykin’s developments served as the beginning of modern television. —Nancy Farm Mannikko Further Reading Abramson, Albert. The History of Television, 18801941. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1987. Comprehensive history of television in the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union. Includes endnotes, glossary, and bibliography. _______. Zworykin: Pioneer of Television. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Detailed biography focusing on Zworykin’s work on televisual apparatuses. Bibliographic references and index. Constant, Edward W., II. Origins of the Turbojet Revolution. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. Constant utilizes a case study of the development of the turbojet to speculate about the origins of technological change. Although the work does not deal directly with television, it provides interesting insights into the processes of invention and innovation, which are applicable in any field. De Forest, Lee. Television: Today and Tomorrow. New York: Dial Press, 1942. This book provides a thorough explanation of the technical principles of television.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Written for the layperson by an electrical engineer who was responsible for many of the innovations that made television possible. Dunlap, Orrin E., Jr. Radio’s One Hundred Men of Science. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944. This book provides brief biographies of one hundred scientists and engineers associated with the history of electricity, radio, and television, including Luigi Galvani, Oliver Heaviside, Nipkow, Zworykin, and Philo T. Farnsworth. Excellent reference work. Hubbell, Richard W. Four Thousand Years of Television: The Story of Seeing at a Distance. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1942. Hubbell traces the history of television back to the invention of papyrus paper in ancient Egypt. Provides lucid explanations of the technical aspects of television and its ancestors. McMahon, Morgan E. A Flick of the Switch, 1930-1950. Palos Verdes Peninsula, Calif.: Vintage Radio, 1975. Although this book primarily contains a pictorial history of radio and television, it also provides clear illustrations of the underlying concepts of both electromechanical and all-electronic television systems. Shiers, George, ed. Technical Development of Television. New York: Arno Press, 1977. This book includes both histories of television and reprints of original articles by Zworykin, Jenkins, and others. The evaluations by observers of competing television systems in the 1920’s and 1930’s are particularly enlightening. Swift, John. Adventure in Vision: The First Twenty-five Years of Television. London: John Lehmann, 1950. Details the history of television in England, the work of John L. Baird, and the demise of low-definition mechanical systems. Lavishly illustrated, with both line drawings and photographs. Webb, Richard C. Tele-Visionaries: The People Behind the Invention of Television. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Details the contributions of each of television’s major inventors. Bibliographic references and index. See also: Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program; Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair; Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula
1924
Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula Edwin Powell Hubble used the Cepheid variables to determine the distance to the Andromeda galaxy, a finding that eventually led to the development of the big bang theory. Locale: Mount Wilson Observatory, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer and director of Harvard College Observatory Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer Willem de Sitter (1872-1934), Dutch astronomer
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Summary of Event The question of how the cosmos began has always fascinated humanity. The Babylonians measured the positions of stars and the planets and concluded that those bodies affected human lives. Their answer was based on myths and therefore was not scientific. The ancient Greeks were the first to explain the cosmos in a scientific manner: They saw the cosmos as a series of spheres, with the stars attached to the outer sphere. They considered the entire universe to be a few million kilometers in diameter. This work culminated with Ptolemy and his theory of the geocentric cosmos, in which everything—the Moon, the planets, the Sun—moves around Earth. His theory, which accounted for all the known motions of the objects in the sky, was so successful that scientists, astronomers, philosophers, and religious leaders alike accepted it as valid for almost fifteen hundred years. This consensus changed gradually starting in the early sixteenth century with the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who quietly asserted the case for heliocentricity—that is, that Earth is not the center of the universe but merely a planet that moves around the Sun. The edge of the universe was as far away as the planet Saturn. In the seventeenth century, Galileo championed this cause, leading to the famous controversy over cosmological understanding and its theological implications. In time, although Galileo’s specific arguments were found to be inaccurate, the principle of heliocentricity was proved as a fact. As technology improved, the importance of the universe continued to diminish. In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel measured the angular movement (stellar parallax)
of star 61 Cygnus against its background stars and determined that it was six light-years away from Earth. The inability to measure this stellar parallax was one of the reasons the ancients concluded from their observations that Earth was not moving, and, therefore, the geocentric theory was correct. The stars were simply too far away for them to measure the parallax. From 1915 to 1920, Harlow Shapley used the 100inch (254-centimeter) telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory to study globular clusters. These densely packed assemblies of gravitationally bound stars are, in turn, bound to Earth’s galaxy, the Milky Way. Shapley noted that the clusters are not evenly distributed in the sky. He knew also that certain stars, the Cepheid variables, have an interesting property: Their average luminosity correlates with the period of their variability. Luminosity is the amount of energy a star gives off per second and determines the star’s absolute brightness. If two stars have the same luminosity, the one closer to Earth will appear brighter. The brightness of a star as viewed from Earth is termed its apparent brightness. A star’s apparent brightness is dependent on its absolute brightness and its distance from Earth, and astronomers developed an equation to show that relationship. For the Cepheids, the luminosity varies in a predictable manner and is in concert with the period of oscillation. Henrietta Swan Leavitt established this relationship in 1904, when she cataloged a large number of variable stars. She saw that for the Cepheids, the longer the period of light variation, the greater the average brightness of the star. If a variable’s distance could be determined to calibrate the relationship, this would establish the star’s absolute brightness. Astronomers could then reverse the process and use the period-luminosity relationship to measure the distances of other Cepheid variables and objects associated with them. The method to determine the distance works in the following manner. An astronomer measures a Cepheid’s apparent brightness and period. The period-luminosity curve yields the star’s absolute brightness, and the two brightnesses are entered into the distance-brightness equation. The calculation yields the Cepheid’s distance from Earth. Because globular clusters contain Cepheids, Shapley was able to measure the distance to the clusters. Knowing the distances and the direction of the clusters, Shapley plotted their location relative to the location of Earth in the Milky Way. Because the number of clusters
Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula increased toward the portion of the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius, Shapley concluded that Earth’s location is about two-thirds the distance from the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius and that the Milky Way is shaped like a disk about 100,000 light-years in diameter. With the realization that the Milky Way is a grouping of billions of stars came the question of whether there are more of these groupings. Up to this point, astronomers did not have telescopes powerful enough to find out, but in 1919, Edwin Powell Hubble gained access to what was then the world’s most powerful telescope: the Mount Wilson 100-inch telescope. By 1924, he was able to resolve the fuzzy patches of light that Charles Messier had cataloged into individual stars a century and a half before. These “nebulas” were not clouds of glowing gas like those found within our galaxy; rather, they were galaxies similar to the Milky Way. Hubble was able to detect Cepheid variables in the Andromeda nebula, and, after determining the apparent brightness and period of oscillation for several Cepheids, he was able to calculate the distance to the nebula at roughly 800,000 light-years. This is more than eight times the distance to the most distant stars in our galaxy. Hubble’s work proved that the light patches are separate, gravitationally bound groups of stars and independent of our own galaxy. Hubble went on to measure the distances to other nearby galaxies. Two decades later, Walter Baade determined that the Andromeda nebula is actually 2 million light-years from Earth. He discovered that there are two types of Cepheid variables: the classic variety and another set with a different brightness-period relationship. These other Cepheids are brighter for a given period of oscillation than the classic Cepheids. Hubble assumed that his Cepheids were fainter than they were, and therefore closer than they were. Once Hubble determined that the nebulas were other galaxies, he gathered information about them. This led to their classification and the plotting of their possible evolution. With improvement in photography and other techniques, astronomers were able to analyze the light spectra of galaxies. The spectrum of a galaxy looks like a rainbow with dark lines through it and is the total of all frequencies of light coming from the galaxy. The lines are caused by the absorption of certain light frequencies by cooler gases in the galaxy. If there is relative motion between the light’s source and the detector, the spectrum is shifted; this is known as the Doppler effect. If a galaxy is moving toward Earth, the entire spectrum shifts toward the blue end of the spectrum. If the galaxy is mov1878
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Edwin Powell Hubble at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California. (NASA/GSFC)
ing away, the shift is toward the red end of the spectrum. The amount of shift is proportional to the velocity of the galaxy. With this method, Hubble determined that the farther the galaxy is from Earth, the faster it is receding. This suggests that the galaxies are moving away from one another and leads to the conclusion that the universe is expanding, as maintained by Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter. Significance In order to answer the question of the origin of the cosmos, one must determine its characteristics. The universe could be small or large. It may have a boundary or it may continue forever. It may be static or dynamic. Therefore, astronomers devote much of their time to determining the distances of various objects—such as planets, stars, nebulas, and galaxies—from Earth and how those distances change over time. Such distances obviously cannot be measured directly, so astronomers have developed ingenious methods of indirect measurement, such as the use of trigonometry. As larger telescopes have been built, astronomers have devised new methods that utilize the data these instruments allow them to gather, as Hubble did in using the Mount Wilson telescope to locate the Cepheid variables in the Andromeda nebula.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Astronomers continued the work that Hubble began, establishing the distances and the velocities of nearby galaxies. This permitted them to measure the more distant galaxies through such methods as the comparison of image sizes. Linking this information with the galaxies’ velocities—found using the Doppler effect—scientists have determined that the universe is from 13 to 18 billion years old and is expanding. Two theories have been put forward to explain the age and expansion of the universe: the big bang theory of Georges Lemaître and George Gamow and the steady state theory of Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle. The steady state theory proposes that the universe is expanding but remains the same because new matter is created to take the place of the galaxies that are moving away from Earth. Astronomers are uncomfortable with the assertion that the matter appears from nowhere—something that is very difficult to verify. Most astronomers now accept the big bang theory as the best explanation of how the universe began. According to this theory, at some time between 13 and 18 billion years ago, a very hot, very dense “object” exploded. As the temperature dropped, matter as it is now known came into existence: electrons, protons, neutrons, and other particles. As the universe cooled, hydrogen formed, along with a small amount of helium. The matter formed into the first stars and galaxies. There were no planets, because the elements—such as silicon, oxygen, and iron—necessary for planets’ formation did not exist. Before planets could form, stars had to undergo supernova explosions that would cause the formation of these elements and others. Although astronomers continue to gather information and form theories, the eventual likely fate of the universe remains unknown. It may continue to expand forever. It could “die” as its stars use up their hydrogen fuel and become white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes. Or, if the universe has enough mass, its expansion will stop because of the gravitational attraction of that mass, and it will then collapse into its original condition. It may then start to expand again to produce another universe, one that may be completely different from our present universe, with physical laws we cannot even imagine. —Stephen J. Shulik
and resulted in the doubling of the estimated distance to the Andromeda nebula to 2 million light-years. Compiled from a series of lectures Baade gave in the fall of 1958. Clark, David H., and Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Relates the stories of the scientists who have contributed to current knowledge about the size, mass, and age of the universe. Chapters 4 and 5 include discussion of the work of Hubble and Leavitt. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Ferris, Timothy. The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe. Rev. ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. Well-presented volume discusses the history of the major discoveries in astronomy, paying particular attention to the individuals who made these discoveries. A comprehensible, accurate discussion of astronomy written in an engaging style for readers who have no familiarity with modern cosmological ideas. Includes extensive glossary, selected bibliography, and index. Kaufmann, William J., III. Galaxies and Quasars. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1979. Explains in nontechnical language the implications of Hubble’s discoveries. Discusses the Cepheid variable luminosity-period relationship, the Doppler effect, and the geometry of the universe. Includes many figures and photographs. Silk, Joseph. The Big Bang. 3d ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2000. Presents a sweeping account of the formation and evolution of the universe. Recounts the history of astronomical speculation about the universe and examines evidence for the big bang theory. Includes glossary and index. _______. On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. A history of the universe and the development of humankind’s knowledge about it that is accessible to lay readers. Includes illustrations and index. See also: 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star; Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe. 1879
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Further Reading Baade, Walter. Evolution of Stars and Galaxies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. Baade’s work on stellar populations led to the discovery that there are two varieties of Cepheid variables
Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula
Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis
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Mann’s THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN Reflects European Crisis The debate concerning the condition of the European soul in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain reflected the sense of crisis that prevailed in Europe between World Wars I and II. Locale: Germany Category: Literature Key Figure Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German novelist Summary of Event As with any literary text, the significance of Thomas Mann’s most powerful novel, Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain, 1927), should first be understood in the context of the author’s life and creative output. Mann was born June 6, 1875, in the city of Lübeck, Germany, to a wealthy merchant family. After the death of his father, the family business was closed, and Mann’s mother moved to Munich. Mann worked for a brief time with an insurance company but embarked on a full-time writing career after publishing a short story in a prestigious literary magazine. During this period, he became immersed in the writings of the philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as in the music of composer Richard Wagner. In 1905, Mann married Katja Pringsheim, the daughter of a wealthy Munich family, and they had a total of six children over the ensuing years. Mann’s first literary success was the huge novel Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie (1901; English translation, 1924), the story of four generations of a Lübeck merchant family. The novel begins in 1835 with the founding of the family firm by the hardy Johann Buddenbrooks and ends with the premature death of Johann’s great-grandson, the young and frail Hanno. In this first novel, Mann established one of his most prominent themes: that spirit, or self-consciousness, is essentially a disease and is inimical to the vitality of existence. In this view, strongly influenced by the ideas of Schopenhauer, the artistic or reflective temperament appears as a perennial outsider, a kind of parasite that sucks the very blood of life. Each succeeding generation of the family becomes more introspective and consequently physically weaker. Mann developed similar themes in his well-known novella Tonio Kröger (1903; English translation, 1914). In Buddenbrooks, Mann also employed the technique 1880
of the leitmotif, which he adapted from the music of Wagner. In this technique, a certain phrase or image is associated with a theme or character and is later repeated, with slight variations, to evoke that particular figure or idea. Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice, 1925) is Mann’s most famous novella. It is the story of the writer Gustav von Aschenbach, a rigid and highly disciplined man who travels to the decaying city of Venice. On the beach there, he sees a handsome young Polish boy, Tadzio, and gradually becomes erotically obsessed with him. Thus begins Aschenbach’s slow decline, both physical and moral, and he finally dies of the plague when his obsession prohibits him from leaving the city. Mann sounds here again his theme of the artist and intellectual as an outsider, a decadent and diseased individual. The outbreak of World War I saw Mann as a conservative champion of traditional German values. This led him into a bitter conflict with his brother Heinrich, a prominent liberal and democratic author. During the postwar Weimar period, however, Mann became a staunch defender of democracy. His well-known 1929 short story “Mario und der Zauberer” (“Mario and the Magician”), which was written as a result of his experiences in Benito Mussolini’s Italy, is a veiled condemnation of fascism; ironically, the story predicted what would later happen in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. In 1926, Mann began work on an enormous tetralogy of novels devoted to the Joseph story of the Old Testament. He finally completed it in 1943 while in exile. He had left Germany in 1933 for a lecture tour, but his reputation with the Nazi Party was so bad that his children warned him not to return. He stayed for a while in France and Switzerland and then moved to the United States in 1938. He worked on his writing and taught for a time at Princeton University and finally moved to Southern California, home to many prominent German exiles, in 1940. He became an American citizen in 1944. During this time, Mann wrote one of his most ambitious novels, Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde (1947; Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Told by a Friend, 1948), the story of the tragic fate of a composer as narrated by the bourgeois intellectual Serenus Zeitblom. The novel is a parable of the succumbing of middle-class Germany, with its long tradition of humanism and spiritual values,
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to the demoniac forces of Hitler’s racist ideology. As the title suggests, Leverkühn is a Faustian individual who sells his soul to the devil in order to produce a new kind of music. Here, Mann was influenced by the work of Arnold Schoenberg, the modernist composer who also was residing in exile in California. Mann suggested that the romantic German spirit, in its quest for ever-new experiences and its exploration of self-consciousness, had flirted with an abyss of subjectivity and irrationalism that had dangerous consequences. Elements of Nietzsche’s biography also figure in the Leverkühn character. In 1952, Mann moved to Switzerland, where he remained until his death on August 12, 1955. His last novel, Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull: Der Memoiren erster Teil (1954; Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years, 1955), again dealt with the theme of the artist, here a con artist who fools himself and the public through a series of poses. Throughout his writings, Mann maintained a sense of ambivalence toward his art, a feeling that he often mediated through a subtle sense of irony.
The plot of The Magic Mountain begins in 1907, when the young Hans Castorp from northern Germany goes to the elegant and international tuberculosis sanatorium Berghof in Davos, Switzerland, to visit his ailing cousin. Although he participates in the daily routine of the patients, which involves long periods of rest in the thin Alpine air as well as opulent meals, Castorp is not really ill, and at first he remains merely an observer. He stays, however, for a period of seven years, even after the death of his cousin. His own condition worsens and then improves. His stay becomes a period of education for Castorp, as he is exposed to a variety of experiences, both sensual and intellectual. Indeed, Mann imitates and parodies the nineteenth century genre of the Bildungsroman, or novel of education. Castorp falls in love with an elegant and beautiful Russian woman, Clawdia Chauchat, and has a passionate, and at times rather morbid, affair. He reads numerous books on topics ranging from the medical and natural sciences to Freudian psychology and the occult. He goes skiing and almost dies in a snowstorm, during which he has a frightening vision. Most important, he meets two older intellectuals who become his mentors. The first is Settembrini, an Italian humanist who upholds the values of European liberalism and rationalism. The other is Naphta, a dogmatic, formerly Jewish, and charismatic Jesuit priest who speaks for a blind and irrational faith. These two ideologues engage in a battle of minds for the prize of Castorp’s intellectual spirit. The contest climaxes in a pistol duel in which the enraged Naphta commits suicide when Settembrini refuses to fire at him. When Clawdia Chauchat leaves Berghof after their brief affair, Castorp pines for her. He is both disappointed and impressed when she returns accompanied by her lover, the robust and completely unintellectual businessman Mynheer Peeperkorn, whose unbridled vitality serves as a counterpoint to the sterile intellectuality of Settembrini and Naphta. Here Mann’s view of the artist and intellectual as fundamentally alienated from the vital forces of life is again apparent. Castorp leaves the sanatorium after his seven-year stay, presumably to join the army at the outbreak of the war.
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Thomas Mann. (The Nobel Foundation)
Significance Mann himself regarded The Magic Mountain as a statement about the constitution of the European soul and the intellectual and spiritual impasse it confronted during the first part of the twentieth century. Hans Castorp is to be understood as a kind of Everyman, the average bourgeois European. The Berghof sanatorium, with its interna-
Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis
The Jesuit and the Humanist In The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann uses the characters of Naphta and Settembrini to represent opposite poles in European thought. In this excerpt from one of the characters’ arguments, Naphta asserts the importance of faith: “Permit me to remark that any system of pains and penalties which is not based upon belief in a hereafter is simply a bestial stupidity. And as for the degradation of humanity, the history of its course is precisely synchronous with the growth of the bourgeois spirit. Renaissance, age of enlightenment, the natural sciences and economics of the nineteenth century, have left nothing undone or untaught which could forward this degradation. Modern astronomy, for example, has converted the earth, the centre of the All, the lofty theatre of the struggle between God and the Devil for the possession of a creature burningly coveted by each, into an indifferent little planet, and thus—at least for the present—put an end to the majestic cosmic position of man—upon which, moreover, all astrology bases itself.” “For the present?” Herr Settembrini asked, threateningly. His own manner of speaking had something in it of the inquisitor waiting to pounce upon the witness so soon as he shall have involved himself in an admission of guilt. “Certainly. For a few hundred years, that is,” assented Naphta, coldly. “A vindication, in this respect, of scholasticism is on the way, is even well under way, unless all signs fail. Copernicus will go down before Ptolemy. The heliocentric thesis is meeting by degrees with an intellectual opposition which will end by achieving its purpose. Science will see itself philosophically enforced to put back the earth in the position of supremacy in which she was installed by the dogma of the Church.” “What? What? Intellectual opposition? Science philosophically enforced? What sort of voluntarism is this you are giving vent to? And what about pure knowledge, what about science? What about the unfettered quest for truth? Truth, my dear sir, so indissolubly bound up with freedom, the martyrs in whose cause you would like us to regard as criminals upon this planet but who are rather the brightest jewels in her crown?” Herr Settembrini’s question, and its delivery, were prodigious. He sat very erect, his righteous words rolled down upon little Naphta, and he let his voice swell out at the end, so that one could tell how sure he was his opponent could only reply with shamefaced silence. . . . Naphta responded, with disagreeable composure: “My good sir, there is no such thing as pure knowledge. The validity of the Church’s teaching on the subject of science, which can be summed up in the phrase of Saint Augustine: Credo, ut intellegam: I believe, in order that I may understand, is absolutely incontrovertible. Faith is the vehicle of knowledge, intellect secondary. Your pure science is a myth.” Source: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, translated by H. T. LowePorter (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tional clientele, becomes a microcosm of European society, and with its high altitude, thin air, and febrile atmosphere, it produces a hermetic intensification of all aspects of the individual’s sensual and intellectual life. The dilemma of European intellectuals as posited in Mann’s novel can be approached first through an examination of the horrible vision that Castorp sees during the snowstorm. Initially, he perceives an idyllic landscape, sunny and populated by a seemingly healthy and happy people. In the dark interior of a temple, however, he comes upon a group of ugly and frightening old women who are dismembering a child. Here Mann echoes some of the ideas of Nietzsche concerning the origins of Greek tragic art and culture. Given that the Greco-Roman tradition is central to Western culture, he is suggesting that at the heart of the European spirit there is a conflict of light and dark, of an enlightened, civilized, Apollonian world and a Dionysian one of utter barbarism and cruelty. Prior to World War I, Europeans had regarded themselves as a highly cultured and refined people who had produced the likes of William Shakespeare, Voltaire, Leo Tolstoy, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The years 1914 to 1918, however, saw the advent of modern warfare and terrible and unprecedented human destruction. Among European intellectuals, there was a profound sense of shock at the depths to which European culture had sunk. Culture had revealed itself to be nothing more than a thin veneer that masked a mindless, raging beast. A feeling of crisis gradually emerged in which the powers of the critical intellect and reason were devalued. Mann gives more in-depth explanation of the dialectical forces that seemed to tear at the European spirit in the long conversations between Castorp and his two ideological mentors that take up much of the latter half of the novel. Indeed, much of the novel is taken up by conversation; it includes little overt action. Settembrini, the ailing but elegant man from the land in which the Renaissance began, is presented as the champion of the eighteenth century Enlightenment spirit, the dualistic belief that the use of reason can bring about progress and lead humanity out of its spiritual darkness into a more
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humane world. He stands in the European tradition of rationalistic philosophers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, Denis Diderot, and Voltaire. During the course of the Weimar era in the 1920’s, Germany became more and more polarized between conflicting political and social ideologies. Settembrini is the spokesman for a liberal democracy in which the educated masses can be trusted to exercise their critical judgment and elect the most suitable representatives. His character echoes the political stance of Mann’s brother, the liberal democrat Heinrich. If Settembrini represents one cultural and ideological pole of the European scene, then the volatile and cynical Jesuit priest Naphta (whose character Mann modeled, in part, on the Marxist literary critic György Lukács) speaks for its opposite. Whereas Settembrini lauds the rationality of the eighteenth century, Naphta praises the Middle Ages, the era of blind (or irrational) faith in forces that are far more powerful than the mere intellect of humankind. Where the former speaks of the free exercise of the critical intellect, the latter advocates nonrational belief and a fanatical discipline of the body. Naphta eschews the critical debate of the liberal democrats and urges the extremist rhetoric of the demagogues. His political views touch on those of the radical socialist who sees only violent political change in the terrorist mass movements of ideological zealots. The Magic Mountain captured the spirit of Mann’s age: the dialectical forces of rationalism and irrationalism, intellect and emotion, that seemed to tear at the fabric of the European soul in the years following World War I. In the figures of Settembrini and Naphta, this conflict is presented in the form of ideological debate. It is the great irony of the novel that although Naphta dies, his ideological position lived on in the fanatical yet mesmerizing ravings of Adolf Hitler and in the racist and fascist programs of the Nazis. —Thomas F. Barry
Hatfield, Henry, ed. Thomas Mann: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. A fine collection of academic essays on Mann’s work by leading American and European scholars, some of which have been translated from the German. Includes notes and chronology. Heller, Erich. The Ironic German: A Study of Thomas Mann. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958. An early but still important study of Mann’s major texts and themes by a leading American scholar. Includes notes and bibliography. Kurzke, Hermann. Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. Translated by Leslie Willson. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. In-depth biography of Mann translated from the German examines Mann’s works to show how his art and his life influenced each other. Includes forty photographs. Prater, Donald. Thomas Mann: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. One of few full-scale biographies of Mann available in English. Focuses on the events of his life rather than on his writings, drawing on diaries, correspondence, and other documents to place Mann in the context of his times. Includes photographs. Stern, J. P. Thomas Mann. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. A brief but first-rate introduction to Mann’s life and major writings. Includes a selected bibliography of Mann’s works as well as of important critical texts. Winston, Richard. Thomas Mann: The Making of an Artist, 1875-1911. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. An excellent biography that focuses on Mann’s formative years. Includes notes and bibliography. Ziolkowski, Theodore. “Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain.” In Dimensions of the Modern Novel: German Texts and European Contexts. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. Stimulating essay situates Mann’s novel within the thematic contexts of European fiction. Includes notes.
Further Reading Feuerlicht, Ignace. Thomas Mann. 1968. Reprint. New York: Macmillan, 1983. A thorough critical introduction to the author’s life and writings. Recommended for beginning students. Includes notes and bibliography.
See also: 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation; 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government; 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes. 1924
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Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature
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Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature Volunteer organizations were established in the Soviet republics to serve as public information agencies to assist in the protection of nature. Also known as: All-Russian Society for the Protection of Nature Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions; natural resources Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Russian Communist Party and chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of Soviet Russia, 1917-1924 Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933), Soviet minister of education and culture, 1917-1929 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and leader of the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 Summary of Event After the Russian Revolution of November, 1917, which brought the Communist Party to power, the Russians paid little attention to environmental concerns. The leaders of Soviet Russia had expected their revolution to be a stimulus to turn World War I into a class war, bringing into existence an international socialist state in Europe. When this did not occur, the Communists were faced with the prospect of building socialism not in an industrialist state, as Marxist theory envisioned, but in a backward, rural state. The emphasis of the new regime would thus have to be on economic development—the antithesis of environmental protection. Ecological themes were not entirely neglected in Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. Although it is difficult to find references to the natural environment in the writings of Karl Marx, a few writings do express concern that the land, which would be the legacy of the working class, or proletariat, not be despoiled or destroyed. Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels, was more direct in stating that the human community is not the possessor of the earth but its custodian for future generations. Indeed, under Vladimir Ilich Lenin’s leadership between 1917 and 1922, the Soviets passed a number of environmental laws, although whether Lenin ordered these or they originated from lower levels of the Soviet bureaucracy is difficult to say. One of the most important such 1884
laws was the nationalization law of November 8, 1917, enacted the day after the revolt, which made all land in the Soviet Union the property of the state. In 1918, the new Soviet government enacted laws concerning irrigation, forests, hunting, and fishing. In 1919, the government established the Astrakhan National Forest Preserve and passed legislation regarding hunting and natural resources, particularly the protection of water resources. Laws affected irrigation and drainage, established water conservancy districts, registered water services, and established sanitary districts. These laws, however—with a few exceptions, such as the forest preserve—were little more than sanitation regulations, concerned with daily living. Environmental issues remained subordinate to the major political and economic problems confronting Soviet society in its first years. From 1917 to 1922, Lenin’s government concluded the war with Germany, fought a civil war against the Soviet government’s Russian opponents, and battled an Allied invasion after World War I ended. Moscow, which became the seat of the government in 1918, established a policy called War Communism, a euphemism for centralized economic and social control. All resources were put into the war effort. Because most environmental concerns were of a local or regional nature, these issues received little attention during this period. In 1922, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP), which represented a partial return to a market economy. Again, Soviet emphasis was on production rather than on ecological preservation, especially after the destruction wreaked by World War I and the Russian Civil War. The NEP reintroduced a measure of decentralization that allowed local concerns, where they existed, to be heard. Yet part of the NEP was to invite foreign entrepreneurs into the country to exploit its resources in exchange for technology and necessary foreign currency. Soviet environmentalists reported that Lenin personally stopped a work crew from cutting down trees in a Moscow park. Under the NEP, however, Lenin approved the destruction of whole forests in order to achieve his economic goals. The NEP was accompanied by a loosening of restrictions on Soviet society, with considerable freedom granted to ordinary Soviet citizens, including the ability to organize in various associations. In those first years of Soviet rule, many idealists organized clubs and associ-
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ations for various purposes. The Soviet minister of education and culture, Anatoly Lunacharsky, especially encouraged the preservation of traditional Russian education, historical monuments, and national heritage. It was in this context that public opinion brought about the formation in 1924 of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Nature. In 1922, after the victory in the civil war, the Soviet government restructured itself into the Soviet Union, which encompassed several Soviet republics, eventually growing to a union of fifteen. Volunteer organizations similar to the 1924 Russian society were formed in all the republics. By the 1970’s, the All-Russian Society alone comprised more than twenty-two million members. The purposes of the society were to teach love and respect for nature and to involve the Soviet people in the conservation, proper use, and replenishment of natural resources. One of the society’s tangible goals was the planting of parks and gardens in cities, towns, villages, and rural areas. The society used its resources to promote natural conservation and educational activities for children and adults. Councils of the society were established in autonomous republics, in regions and districts, and in cities and neighborhoods. The local and central organizations worked with factories, collective farms, schools, and various other organizations to encourage the protection of the natural environment.
as serious as those in the high-technology regions of Western Europe and North America. Stalin believed in the manipulation of nature and had some concerns for its preservation, so long as such preservation was compatible with his modernization program. The local and regional societies for the protection of nature thus remained active during the Stalinist period and beyond and were organized by the vast Communist Party apparatus. The societies spread information on conservation through the press and published and disseminated posters and pamphlets. They also used motion pictures, radio, and, later, television to disseminate their messages. The societies helped organize exhibits and displays in schools and factories, and they planted trees, shrubs, and flowers throughout the Soviet Union. They stressed the conservation of natural resources and helped organize programs to protect air and water quality, especially in heavily populated areas. The societies also worked to protect recreation areas from industrial and domestic pollution, and they were responsible for organizing national environmental celebrations such as Bird Day, Forest Week, and Nature Month. In cooperation with local soviets (cities, towns, and village councils), they organized conservation inspections as well as environmentrelated competitions and contests. The first All-Union Congress on Conservation convened in 1933. Its resolutions emphasized the protection of natural resources and their regeneration. In 1956, the Soviet Union joined the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. In addition to the supposedly volunteer public organizations, the State Committee for Conservation in the Russian Republic and similar groups in the other republics were also active. These groups came under the jurisdiction of the Commissariat for Education, Lunacharsky’s ministry, which was charged with coordinating all conservation activities. In 1930, the Committee for Conservation was changed to the Interdepartmental State Committee for Promoting the Development and Protection of Natural Resources, still under the authority of the Commissariat for Education. In 1933 and 1938, the committee underwent further reorganization, eventually becoming the Central Board for Preserves, which was charged with overseeing the rational use of natural resources. This board was directly responsible to the Russian cabinet. Similar evolution took place in conservation agencies in the other republics. In the post-World War II Soviet Union, many different agencies and ministries had responsibilities concerning the environment, including the State Committee for
Significance In 1929, Joseph Stalin emerged as the supreme dictator of the Soviet Union. Defeating his rivals and eventually having them executed, he not only succeeded to Lenin’s mantle but in fact outdid the former Soviet leader in the scope of his supreme power as well. Stalin brought the NEP to an end and introduced a program of rapid industrialization. This was accompanied in Soviet society by the creation of a modern totalitarian system through which the Soviet government attempted to regulate almost all aspects of the lives of individual citizens. From 1941 to 1945, the Soviet Union engaged in World War II, which on the Eastern European front was fought mainly on Soviet territory; vast areas of the country were devastated. Then began a process of rebuilding and reindustrialization. Under the circumstances, the Soviets paid little more than lip service to environmental concerns. With a few exceptions, the Soviet Union engaged in very little serious environmental activity until the 1960’s. Given the rudimentary industrial development of the Soviet Union and its low standard of living, however, the nation’s environmental problems were not
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Science and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water-Use Management, and the State Committee of Forest Economy. In general, however, those agencies in charge of protecting the environment were also in charge of its use and exploitation. The Soviet authorities ignored this conflict of interest. In the late 1960’s and the 1970’s, environmental degradation in the Soviet Union became too serious to ignore. The Soviet government passed many laws, but these did not stem the increasing tide of pollution. The attitude that nature was to be mastered permeated the thinking of Soviet authorities, as it did that of the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe, where environmental problems were equally bad. For example, Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev’s virgin lands campaign, which introduced monoculture agriculture into marginal soils despite warnings against the practice, was an environmental disaster. Furthermore, pervasive government censorship prevented any widespread Soviet conservation campaign. Growing danger to the Soviet Union’s water resources brought ecological concerns to the forefront as fresh water became dangerously scarce. Poor harvests in the 1960’s compelled the Soviets to import grain and stimulated massive irrigation plans, leading to grandiose schemes to divert Siberian waters. Despite damage to the environment in many different areas, plans for the use of Siberian water for Soviet industry increased. Bodies of water such as the Caspian Sea and the unique Lake Baikal in Siberia were destroyed by loss of water and contamination by sewage and industrial pollutants. The valuable Caspian sturgeon catch was devastated. Rivers turned into sewers as untreated water was pumped into them, and agricultural chemicals produced water pollution by way of drainage and air-blown particles that filtered into the water supply. Criticism concerning environmental problems proved to be one of the most powerful means of dissent within the Soviet Union. The first significant issue of public debate in this regard was the pollution of Lake Baikal, the deepest and hence the largest (by volume) lake in the world. The damage to the water and the fish it contained, including unique species, as well as to the lake’s formerly pristine surroundings, aroused the ire of private citizens and public officials alike. The protesters forced the government to recommit itself to the protection of nature, particularly in Siberia. Even with such government concessions, environmental protests continued in the Soviet Union and eventually contributed to the formulation of the policy of
glasnost, or openness, in the late 1980’s. Soviet citizens called for a government committee for the protection of nature that would have more power than the volunteer committee and would be free of the conflicts of interest that undermined the effectiveness of the existing groups. When further liberalization occurred under Mikhail Gorbachev, environmental issues became an important factor in the unraveling of the Soviet Union in 1991. —Frederick B. Chary
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Further Reading Goldman, Marshal I. The Spoils of Progress: Environmental Pollution in the Soviet Union. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972. A classic American work on Soviet environmental problems. Discusses the history of the conservation movement, particularly in the years since World War II. An appendix lists major Soviet conservation laws. Komarov, Boris. The Destruction of Nature in the Soviet Union. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1980. This dissident essay protesting the despoliation of nature in the Soviet Union was influential in the organization of the Green movement in the last years of the Soviet Union. Pavlínek, Petr, and John Pickles. Environmental Transitions: Transformation and Ecological Defence in Central and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, 2000. Discusses the environmental changes that have taken place in Central and Eastern Europe with the transition away from state socialism after the fall of the Soviet Union. Includes maps, tables, figures, bibliography, and index. Pelloso, Andrew J. Saving the Blue Heart of Siberia: The Environmental Movement in Russia and Lake Baikal. Bloomington: Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, 1993. Presents two aspects of conservation activity in Siberia after World War II. Analyzes the efforts of both official and dissident environmental groups. Shaposhnikov, L. K. “Societies for the Conservation of Nature.” In Great Soviet Encyclopedia, edited by A. M. Prokhorov. New York: Macmillan, 1983. One of the best English-language accounts available of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Nature. Treadgold, Donald W., and Herbert J. Ellison. Twentieth Century Russia. 9th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000. Comprehensive history of Russia in the twentieth century provides excellent coverage of the political background of the Soviet period. Includes maps and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Völgyes, Iván, ed. Environmental Deterioration in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. New York: Praeger, 1974. Collection of scholarly essays about pollution problems provides an excellent survey of the state of the environment in the Soviet Union in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food See also: Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere; Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created.
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Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food With his discovery that the ultraviolet component of sunlight increases vitamin D in food, Harry Steenbock stimulated extensive research on vitamins. Locale: Madison, Wisconsin Categories: Science and technology; biology Key Figures Harry Steenbock (1886-1967), American biochemist Adolf Windaus (1876-1959), German chemist Christiaan Eijkman (1858-1930), Dutch physician Frederick Hopkins (1861-1947), British biochemist Elmer Verner McCollum (1879-1967), American biochemist
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Summary of Event The discovery that exposure to sunlight increases the amount of vitamin D in food arose from two separate areas of research involving biochemistry and medicine. The first part of the investigation involved sterol, specifically cholesterol. In 1901, the importance of this substance was not yet known, and a number of able chemists had attempted to unravel the components of the substance without success. Cholesterol is one of a large group of related compounds called sterols that are found in animal and vegetable cells. In Germany, Adolf Windaus began by comparing this group of substances and found that they have a common feature in a tetracyclic carbon skeleton. He was convinced that other natural products would share in this basic skeleton. By 1919, he had demonstrated that cholesterol could be transformed into cholanic acid. By 1932, the work of Heinrich Wieland and Windaus had paid off, and the correct structure of the sterol ring was discovered. The story of vitamins began in 1906, when Christiaan Eijkman was seeking a cure for the tropical disease beriberi. He observed that chickens fed on polished rice exhibited symptoms similar to the disease in humans. When the chickens were fed rice with the hulls intact,
however, the disease disappeared. Consequently, Eijkman demonstrated that the disease is caused by a dietary deficiency, which was later found to be a substance called thiamine, or vitamin B. In the same year, Sir Frederick Hopkins proposed that several substances are essential for the maintenance of health and, with his colleague, Casimir Funk, named these substances “vitamins.” In 1907, Elmer Verner McCollum was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, where Harry Steenbock was an undergraduate student. McCollum, who was involved in dietary and nutritional research, learned of Eijkman’s work and became convinced that a small quantity of a substance called vitamin is as essential to life as all the nutritional value of food. In 1913, he discovered a substance similar to vitamin B, except that it was found in fats; this turned out to be vitamin A. Nine years later, he contributed to the identification of vitamin D. By the 1920’s, vitamin research was being pursued in a number of laboratories in England, Germany, and the United States. One area of research involved the disease rickets, which scientists knew could be prevented through the ingestion of fish liver oil. By the early 1920’s, it was discovered that the active agent in the fish liver oil was vitamin D. Although vitamin D could effect a cure for rickets, exposure to sunlight also proved to be effective. Scientists thus began to examine whether there were several paths toward a cure or these paths were all part of a single therapeutic process. Steenbock brought together the two strands of medical and biochemical research in his work, in which he concentrated on the chemical analysis of livestock nutrition. He had participated in an experiment in which components of a plant were mixed in such a way that they were chemically identical but produced different nutritional results. The influence of McCollum’s experimental methods, which included the use of white mice, and Steenbock’s livestock experiment led to the beginning of
Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
the inclusion of live animal subjects in nutritional studies. Steenbock continued his research activities in nutrition through the field of vitamin studies. In 1920, he isolated a compound called carotene, which is associated with yellow foods and contains vitamin A. By 1924, Alfred F. Hess and Steenbock had independently exposed certain foods to sunlight and found that these foods were also effective in the cure of rickets. Somehow, light converted chemicals in the food into vitamin D. The precise mechanism for this conversion was not resolved for some time. In 1925, Hess invited Windaus to take part in the work on vitamin D. Windaus began a collaborative effort on the study of vitamin D and continued his work on the photochemical nature of sterol. Over the years, he identified a number of other compounds with similar characteristics. Windaus believed that cholesterol was the source of vitamin D, as cholesterol exhibits similar properties when exposed to ultraviolet light. Working in Germany, Robert Pohl had identified an impurity in cholesterol, called ergosterol, that Hess and Windaus later proved could convert to vitamin D. Thus, by 1927, the major features of both the chemistry and the structure of sterol and vitamin D had become clear. Through further research, Windaus found several variations of vitamin D and eventually isolated one form that was identical to the one purified from tuna fish liver oil; this was confirmed by Hans Brockman in Windaus’s laboratory. After Windaus received the 1928 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work, the April, 1929, issue of the Scientific Monthly published an article that analyzed why the work on rickets conducted by several noteworthy American and English scientists had been overlooked. The article expressed the opinion that Hess and Steenbock should have been given greater credit for discovering the effects of exposure to ultraviolet light on vitamin D in food and living animals.
extensive period of research on vitamins. The culmination of Eijkman’s initial identification of vitamin B came in 1926 with the further refinement of the vitamin. The work of B. C. P. Jansen and W. F. Donath resulted in the isolation of a component called vitamin B1 (thiamine). These researchers began with more than 300 kilograms (about 661 pounds) of rice polishings (husks removed from rice grains) and produced less than 100 milligrams (about 0.004 ounce) of thiamine crystal. Another resolution of an existing vitamin problem involved Steenbock’s initial observation of a relationship between vitamin D and carotene, which was later solved by Thomas Moore and Hans von Euler-Chelpin. In 1928, the final piece in the vitamin alphabet was provided by Albert Szent-Györgyi, who isolated vitamin C from oranges and cabbage. The next stage in vitamin research was the discovery of the functions of these substances. It had been demonstrated already that vitamins could cure diseases and function as growth factors. Research suggested that vitamins act on enzyme systems to regulate the respiration of cells and metabolism. In a series of experiments involving pigeons and thiamine, it was demonstrated that pigeons lacking this vitamin suffered from spasms. Thiamine is essential in the process of glucose metabolism, and without this vitamin, the mechanism for the breakdown of glucose is impaired. It became clear that thiamine directly influences five metabolic reactions that, in turn, regulate the energy flow necessary for the maintenance of the cells. These experiments thus showed the relationship between vitamin B and beriberi. Subsequent explorations on more than twenty vitamins provided a complex picture of the roles of these substances as regulators of various mechanisms at the cellular level. Vitamins, in very small amounts, are indispensable components of food and organic life. —Victor W. Chen
Significance Long before the discovery of vitamins, scientists had observed the effects of restricted diets on both human and animal populations. Diseases that had resulted from dietary deficiencies had been described in detail. For example, the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables during long sea voyages produced scurvy, a disease caused by the absence of vitamin C. Although it was well known that scurvy could be remedied through the ingestion of fruits and vegetables, little was known about why this was so. Steenbock’s discovery of the effects of ultraviolet light on the production of vitamin D coincided with an
Further Reading Bailey, Herbert. The Vitamin Pioneers. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Books, 1968. Discusses the history of the development of medical and biochemical knowledge about vitamins. The sections on vitamins B and D are comprehensive and suitable for the general reader. Carpenter, Kenneth J. “A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 3 (1912-1944).” Journal of Nutrition 133 (October, 2003): 3023-3032. Third part of a fourpart series includes discussion of the research on vitamin D, placing this work in the context of the history of nutritional science in general.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Feldman, David, J. Wesley Pike, and Francis H. Glorieux, eds. Vitamin D. 2d ed. 2 vols. New York: Academic Press, 2004. Comprehensive reference set geared toward professionals working in endocrinology, osteology, cancer research, and related fields. First chapter provides a historical overview. Includes illustrations and index. Ihde, Aaron J. The Development of Modern Chemistry. 1964. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1984. Comprehensive history of the different areas of chemistry. Chapter 24 covers the developments in biochemistry that led directly to Steenbock’s research. Topics discussed include nutrition, the search for vitamins, and metabolism.
Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge Leicester, Henry M. Development of Biochemical Concepts from Ancient to Modern Times. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. Provides a valuable overview of biochemical concepts. Chapters 15, 16, and 17 cover enzymes and cell constituents, energy production and biological oxidation, and intermediary metabolism. See also: 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi; 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan; 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins; 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets; 1928-1932: SzentGyörgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
1924
Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge Theodor Svedberg’s development of the ultracentrifuge enabled scientists to separate colloidal particles, including proteins, carbohydrates, cell organelles, and viruses. Locale: Uppsala, Sweden Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; biology Key Figures Theodor Svedberg (1884-1971), Swedish physical chemist John B. Nichols (fl. early twentieth century), American chemist Herman Rinde (fl. early twentieth century), Swedish chemist
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Summary of Event Many essential aspects of modern knowledge in the fields of chemistry, biochemistry, and biology are indebted to Theodor Svedberg’s development of the machine he called the ultracentrifuge. By definition, an ultracentrifuge is a fast centrifuge that produces a convection-free centrifugal field. Such a device is useful for the study of the properties of dissolved solutes, including the measurement of their molecular weights through sedimentation velocity and sedimentation equilibrium techniques, the identification of both their molecular sizes and their shapes, and the characterization of synthetic and natural macromolecules on the basis of the property called buoyant density. A centrifuge is a ma-
chine in which a compartment (rotor) is spun around a central axis to develop centrifugal force, which is measured in gravities and can be used to separate colloid particles and materials of different densities. Svedberg was a Swedish physical chemist with a great interest in biology. Svedberg’s decision to become a physical chemist is said to have been based in part on his belief that numerous unsolved biological problems could be explained as chemical phenomena that could be studied best with the techniques of physical chemistry. He received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1905 and 1907, respectively, from the University of Uppsala. In 1912, the university appointed him to the first Swedish chair of physical chemistry. One of Svedberg’s main lifelong interests was an understanding of the chemistry of colloids. It was this interest that led him to develop the ultracentrifuge. A colloid is a mixture in which tiny particles of one or several substances are dispersed in another substance (very often water). Colloid particles are much larger than crystalloidal molecules (for example, sugar) or crystalloidal ions (for example, sodium and chloride ions). They are usually too small to settle out under the force of gravity or to be seen with light microscopes. The size of colloid particles ranges from 5 to 200 nanometers. Examples of very important biological colloid particles are proteins, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and the viruses. In his thesis, Svedberg described an electrical method for producing very pure colloidal suspensions of metals. Through continued efforts, he identified many other im-
Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge
Theodor Svedberg. (The Nobel Foundation)
portant aspects of the physical chemistry of colloids. A particularly frustrating aspect of carrying out these studies was that it was very important to identify the exact sizes of the colloid particles. This was difficult to do because the available methodology involved examining the rate of their settling out (sedimentation), and only the very largest colloid particles sedimented at rates that were useful. Svedberg believed that sedimentation of colloid particles could be hastened to a point where their study would be practical if they could be subjected to the increased gravitational fields produced in a high-speed centrifuge. He proposed to design such a centrifuge in a fashion that would allow the sedimentation of the particles to be followed photographically. Svedberg began his work on this “optical” centrifuge while he was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1923. The centrifuge he developed there, in collaboration with John B. Nichols, was not entirely successful because, although the user could follow the sedimentation of colloid particles, convection problems prevented the unequivocal identification of their sizes. 1890
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 After returning to Sweden, Svedberg continued his efforts and aimed to develop convection-free centrifugal sedimentation. In 1924, he and his colleague Herman Rinde succeeded in doing so. At first, Svedberg and Rinde studied inorganic colloids. They soon discovered, however, that the very important, poorly understood biological macromolecules called proteins would also sediment in their centrifugal fields. The researchers then quickly made important discoveries in fundamental protein chemistry. First, they demonstrated that all the molecules of any particular protein are of one size (monodisperse particles). These data contrasted greatly with those obtained with metal colloids, which are composed of particles of many sizes (polydisperse), and flew in the face of the established belief that proteins were also polydisperse. The Svedberg centrifuge, which he named the ultracentrifuge, allowed scientists to measure the sizes and the shapes of proteins, making it an invaluable research tool for biology, biochemistry, and medicine. Svedberg received the 1926 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on disperse systems. The Nobel Committee stated that these endeavors “proved the real existence of molecules and atoms.” In his Nobel acceptance lecture, Svedberg described the great potential he foresaw for the use of the ultracentrifuge in chemistry, medicine, physics, and biology. Over the next sixteen years, he improved the device’s design and function, and by 1936 he had produced an ultracentrifuge capable of spinning a centrifuge rotor at 120,000 revolutions per minute and of producing a centrifugal force of 525,000 times the force of gravity. Using the improved ultracentrifuge, Svedberg and his coworkers examined hundreds of proteins from many different kinds of plants and animals. They found that the molecular weights of different proteins vary greatly, and they learned that proteins are round, monodisperse molecules possessed of high molecular weights. They also discovered that the same proteins from different species have similar or identical molecular weights. Svedberg and his colleagues also studied the properties of carbohydrates (for example, cellulose and starch) in the ultracentrifuge and learned that these biomolecules are very long, thin, polydisperse molecules. This work, much of which is described in Svedberg’s coauthored book The Ultracentrifuge (1940), was essential to the development of modern life science. In addition to his work with the ultracentrifuge, Svedberg made many other important scientific contributions, including a seminal study of radioactivity and important participation in the development of the Swed-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ish synthetic rubber industry. Svedberg’s scientific endeavors were reported in more than two hundred publications. He received many honors and awards for his efforts, including the Nobel Prize, the Berzelius Medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute, and honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Oxford University, the Sorbonne, and the University of Delaware.
twenty ultracentrifuges were in operation worldwide. By 1959, three hundred sophisticated ultracentrifuges were available to the world scientific community. By the early 2000’s, thousands of these instruments were in service, and they had become routine tools—viewed as necessities—for most life science endeavors. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, scientists can make measurements that were not even conceptualized by the most advanced early researchers in the field of ultracentrifugation. Many new techniques have been added to supplement the classical methodology, and many new aspects of ultracentrifugation have been developed. One outstanding example is the design of zonal rotors that allow large-scale use of ultracentrifugal technique suitable for industrial application. —Sanford S. Singer Further Reading Bloomfield, Victor A. “Ultracentrifuge.” McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Brief summary presents a diagram of an ultracentrifuge, an explanation of the instrument’s design, diagrams of common rotors, and an explanation of usage in molecular weight determination by sedimentation equilibrium or sedimentation velocity. Includes suggestions for further reading. Chervenka, C. H., and L. H. Elrod. A Manual of Methods for Large Scale Zonal Centrifugation. Palo Alto, Calif.: Spinco Division of Beckman Instruments, 1972. Practical text describes operating principles, equipment needed, and procedures used in large-scale zonal centrifugation. Also discusses methods used for industrial-scale isolation of viruses, subcellular organelles, proteins, and nucleic acids. Includes useful diagrams. Claesson, Stig, and Kai O. Pederson. “The (Theodor) Svedberg.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. Brief biographical article provides an excellent picture of Svedberg and his contributions to science. Discusses his early study of colloid chemistry and his development of the ultracentrifuge as well as other contributions. Includes references. Koehler, Christopher S. W. “Developing the Ultracentrifuge.” Today’s Chemist at Work, February, 2003, 6366. Brief article describes Svedberg’s work as well as that of other scientists who contributed to the development of modern ultracentrifuges. 1891
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Significance Svedberg’s development of the ultracentrifuge had significant impacts on many aspects of chemistry and physics, but nowhere has this device been more generally valuable than in life science research. In fact, most life scientists view the advent of the general availability of ultracentrifuges as one of the outstanding technological events in the field. The great credit given to Svedberg is emphasized by the fact that the sizes of many biological particles, determined by ultracentrifugation, are denoted in “svedberg” units (s units). The impact of ultracentrifugation in the field of biology is made evident by scientists’ use of such “s values” to describe many important components of living cells that mediate or participate in life processes. For example, bacterial ribosomes (which mediate the synthesis of proteins) are described as being composed of 30 and 50 s subunits. Other examples of such usage abound throughout the literature of life science. Furthermore, the ultracentrifuge enabled biologists, biochemists, physicians, and other life scientists to shift the focus of their endeavors from taxonomic and morphologic study of whole organisms to examination of smaller and smaller parts of such organisms. Examples of such research include the isolation of viruses and identification of the basis for their method of attacking cells, the separation of the subcellular organelles (for example, cell nuclei) and the elucidation of their biological functions, the development of understanding of the molecular basis for storage and utilization of hereditary information, the visualization and description of individual protein and nucleic acid molecules, and the discovery of the methodology for carrying out genetic engineering. Truly, the ultracentrifuge hastened the development of life science into molecular biology. As Howard K. Schachman points out in Ultracentrifugation in Biochemistry (1959), the utilization of the ultracentrifuge as a research tool has evolved continually, leading to changes “almost as dramatic as the era beginning in 1923 when Svedberg and his collaborators first began to exploit centrifugal fields for the study of macromolecules and colloid particles.” In 1947, fewer than
Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge
U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa Schachman, Howard K. Ultracentrifugation in Biochemistry. New York: Academic Press, 1959. Classical, highly technical treatise on ultracentrifugation describes many aspects of the construction and biochemical use of ultracentrifuges. Thoroughly covers sedimentation velocity, sedimentation equilibrium, and data interpretation. Recommended for readers seeking in-depth coverage of the topic. Svedberg, Theodor, and Kai O. Pederson. The Ultracentrifuge. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1940. Describes the development of the ultracentrifuge by Svedberg and his colleagues’ group. Covers most of the theory and methodology of ultracentrifuges of the time and describes the ultracentrifugation of natural
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and synthetic colloids. Provides a vivid picture of Svedberg and his work. Tiselius, Arne, and Stig Claesson. “The Svedberg and Fifty Years of Physical Chemistry in Sweden.” Annual Review of Physical Chemistry 18 (1967): 1-8. Discusses Svedberg’s impact on physical chemistry in Sweden. Concisely covers many aspects of his contributions to the chemistry of colloids, from the development of the ultracentrifuge to his overall role in academic science and technology. See also: 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope; Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin.
1924
U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa A circuit court dismissed charges against Aluminum Company of America for acquisition of the Cleveland Products Company’s stock, showing that not all monopolies would be prosecuted. Also known as: Alcoa v. Federal Trade Commission Locale: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Alfred Hunt (1855-1899), American metallurgist and president of the Pittsburgh Reduction Company and later Aluminum Company of America Andrew Mellon (1855-1937), founder of Mellon National Bank and U.S. secretary of the treasury Pierce Butler (1866-1939), justice of the Third Circuit Court Charles Martin Hall (1863-1914), American chemist Summary of Event Founded in 1902, Aluminum Company of America (commonly known as Alcoa) immediately attained monopoly power in the aluminum industry. After signing a consent decree with the government in 1912, the company was charged by the Federal Trade Commission in 1918, under section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, for acquiring stocks of the Cleveland Products Company. Alcoa v. Federal Trade Commission was dismissed in 1924, leaving Alcoa with monopoly status until it was prosecuted again in 1945. 1892
The formation of Alcoa was a result of a patent for processing aluminum alloys by electrolysis, a process discovered by Charles Martin Hall in 1886. Despite the abundance of bauxite ore, until the discovery of the Hall process, aluminum had been difficult to extract and was used only in expensive costume jewelry. In 1888, a group of Pittsburgh investors including Alfred Hunt, Arthur Vining Davis, and Andrew and Richard B. Mellon formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company and acquired the right to the Hall patent. Meanwhile, Alfred and Eugene Cowles of Cowles Electric Smelting Company of Lockport also began using the Hall process to make aluminum alloys. After winning a patent infringement suit against the Cowles brothers in 1893, Pittsburgh Reduction became the sole producer of virgin aluminum by the Hall process until 1906. The Cowles brothers acquired rights to a process similar to Hall’s that was patented in 1892 by Charles Schenck Bradley. By 1891, Pittsburgh Reduction had been recapitalized as a million-dollar company. In 1907, after Hall’s patent expired, the company changed its name to Aluminum Company of America to reflect the nature and national scope of its business. Between 1907 and 1910, Alcoa became the sole aluminum producer by purchasing the exclusive right to the Bradley patent from the Cowles brothers. The Hall and Bradley processes dramatically reduced the cost of aluminum production. A few years after its formation, Pittsburgh Reduction was able to undercut
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Through its Canadian subsidiary, the Northern Aluminum Company, Alcoa joined European cartels between 1901 and 1912 in order to control its domestic markets. The United States contains only a small amount of the world’s bauxite reserves. By the end of the 1920’s, through the purchase of bauxite reserves in South America, waterpower plants on waterfalls in eastern Canada, and various aluminum smelting and fabricating companies, Alcoa controlled thirty-two operations in eleven countries. Even after Hall’s patent expired, Alcoa proved successful in maintaining its monopoly position in the aluminum industry. Attempts to enter the industry of primary aluminum failed to challenge Alcoa’s dominant position. In 1912, for example, a group of French financiers representing the central sales agency of the French aluminum industry, L’Aluminum Français, organized the Southern Aluminum Company and began constructing aluminum reduction facilities in North Carolina. The company planned to use French imported bauxite ore, which was cheaper than the American counterpart. The outbreak of World War I in August, 1914, however, terminated the French financing and ended construction of the plant. A year later, Alcoa bought the Southern Aluminum Company. The Uihlein family, known for its Schlitz breweries, acquired some bauxite ore in Guyana but soon decided to quit aluminum production. The Guyana ore eventually was sold to Alcoa. Passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 had begun intense public scrutiny of “trusts,” or holding companies, and monopolies in the U.S. market. Even though the prosperity of Alcoa was the result of a patent, the legality of the company’s monopoly status was no longer warranted after 1907, when Hall’s patent expired. Throughout the 1910’s and 1920’s, Alcoa was able to continue expanding its operation by acquiring aluminum reduction plants, mines, and power-generating facilities not only in the United States but also in Canada, Western Europe, and Scandinavia. Meanwhile, major victories over big trusts in the early 1910’s encouraged the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute other big corporations for violation of antitrust law. Alcoa was an obvious candidate for such action. In May, 1912, the Justice Department charged Alcoa with violating section 2 of the Sherman Act by monopolizing and restraining trade in the aluminum industry. The next month, the District Court of Western Pennsylvania ruled Alcoa guilty and ordered a consent decree in which Alcoa agreed to drop its participation in the international cartels through its Canadian subsidiary and to end its pol1893
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most other smelting companies in aluminum price. By the beginning of the twentieth century, aluminum’s price had fallen enough to make commercial aluminum production and use practical for the first time. Immediately after its formation, Pittsburgh Reduction began the process of vertical integration to ensure the company’s position against potential competition once Hall’s patent expired. First, it integrated backward by acquiring bauxite mines to secure its own ore supply, aluminum refineries in Illinois, fabricating facilities in New Kensington, and a number of waterpower electricitygenerating sites in New York State and Canada. By the late 1890’s, Pittsburgh Reduction had purchased about 90 percent of bauxite reserves in the United States. Even after Hunt died during the Spanish-American War, the integration process continued under Richard B. Mellon and later under Arthur Davis, who became the presidents of Alcoa in 1899 and 1910, respectively. With the increased production of and the creation of a potential market for aluminum, the Pittsburgh company began to make efforts to expand its demand. First, it began to integrate forward, acquiring consumers of its product. In 1901, it formed its own cookware subsidiary, Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company, to promote the use of aluminum cooking utensils. Through its efforts, aluminum came to be used in many household products ranging from cooking utensils and heat conductors to electric wire and cables, gradually replacing other metals, particularly steel. In the 1910’s, mass production of automobiles by the Ford Motor Company, the beginning of the aircraft industry, and the outbreak of World War I increased the demand for aluminum. By 1915, more than half of all aluminum production was devoted to automobile parts. Three years later, Alcoa’s annual production reached 150 million pounds, much of the increase a result of military applications of aluminum during World War I. As a result of increased demand for aluminum and economies of scale achieved through increased production, Alcoa expanded its production at an annual rate of 10 percent throughout the first two decades after its formation. Declining aluminum prices accompanied expanded production. During the 1910’s, Alcoa had operations across most of the United States east of the Mississippi, including mining, reduction, fabricating, and electric power sites. It produced about 90 percent of primary aluminum alloy and mill-fabricated products used in the United States, with the other 10 percent accounted for by imports, mostly from Switzerland, France, and Great Britain.
U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa
U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa icy of restricting bauxite companies from supplying competing aluminum manufacturers. Alcoa denied the charges that it had controlled the price of aluminum and discriminated in price or service of primary aluminum against competing fabricators and in favor of its own subsidiary. Largely because of abolition of the international agreement, aluminum imports to the United States increased sharply following the decree in 1912. Even though the decree signified a victory for the government and temporarily reduced public hostility against monopoly, it had little effect on Alcoa’s industry position. Alcoa remained the dominant firm in the aluminum industry. In 1914, new major antitrust legislation was passed in the form of the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. The new laws resulted in a new government agency, the Federal Trade Commission, which was responsible for enforcing the modified antitrust law. Because the 1912 consent decree had not resulted in dissolution of Alcoa, the government continued to press charges. Between 1912 and 1940, Alcoa was subject to five major antitrust charges and three Federal Trade Commission complaints. In 1915, the Cleveland Products Company’s aluminum rolling mill in Ohio went bankrupt, largely because of the federal government’s price control over aluminum sheet during World War I. Alcoa agreed to invest in the plant in return for a controlling stock interest. In 1922, the Federal Trade Commission challenged this transaction for violating section 7 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits both acquisitions of competing firms and interlocking directorates that may potentially lessen competition. In February, 1923, in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the prosecution was sustained by a vote of two to one. Alcoa sold Cleveland Products’ stock interest to avoid further charges. Later, Cleveland Products found itself in debt again. Alcoa purchased the company’s ingot supply in a government auction, and the Federal Trade Commission filed against the transaction. In 1924, the same judges in the Third Circuit Court, headed by Pierce Butler, unanimously ruled in favor of Alcoa. The court decision demonstrated the judiciary’s tendency to be tolerant of monopolies if they were “well behaved.” The government temporarily halted its actions against Alcoa. Significance Alcoa’s history provides many interesting legal as well as economic lessons. The decision in the 1924 case, together with that in the U.S. Steel case in 1920, reflected 1894
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the government’s attitude toward existing monopolies. It reaffirmed the courts’ principle of “rule of reason,” established in the Standard Oil antitrust suit in 1911. It also reflected pressure from the administration favoring Alcoa, in which Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon was a major stockholder. The court’s interpretation that not all monopolies are offenses against the antitrust laws extended the era of the rule of reason as the basis of enforcing the antitrust laws. The rule of reason stated that large firms were legal as long as their size was not accompanied by “unreasonable” conduct. After its victory over the government, Alcoa continued to expand. From 1925 to 1928, it acquired waterpower sites and expanded its reduction capacity in Canada. Alcoa’s victory also initiated a new merger movement in many American industries over the next two decades. The president of Alcoa, Arthur Davis, began to refocus the company’s attention on domestic operations. In 1928, he divested Alcoa of all overseas operations except for bauxite mines in South America. The assets were sold to Davis’s brother, Edward, who operated Aluminum Limited in Montreal, Canada. The Canadian company, which was renamed Alcan Aluminum Limited in 1966, grew to become the dominant aluminum company in Canada. After its early defeat, the Department of Justice did not give up on Alcoa. Before the second major antitrust suit, which began in 1937, the government made nearly 140 individual charges against Alcoa, including conspiracy with foreign aluminum manufacturers and monopolization of bauxite reserves, waterpower sites, alumina and ingot aluminum, and aluminum castings. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission continued to file charges against Alcoa for violating the 1912 consent decree by delaying shipment of ore supply to competitors and by discriminating in prices. In 1930, all these complaints were dismissed. Alcoa also successfully defended itself against charges by the Baush Company in 1935 and the Sheet Aluminum Corporation in 1934 that it had monopolized the industry through price discrimination. The second major antitrust suit against Alcoa lasted for eight years, ending with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1945 that held Alcoa had monopolized virgin ingot aluminum. That court decision reversed the interpretation in the 1924 case and stressed that the sheer existence of a monopoly can be an offense against antitrust law. Alcoa provides a classic example of monopoly in the United States. The company was able to maintain its monopoly power in the aluminum industry beyond that
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 warranted by the government patent through the skilled management of full (forward and backward) integration in the aluminum business as well as by maintaining continued expansion of the demand for aluminum. Amid the government hostility against monopoly in the early 1900’s, the court ruling in favor of Alcoa reversed more than two decades of rulings against big corporations, notably Standard Oil and American Tobacco. The new judicial attitude toward big corporations led to the rise of many large companies and to mergers in the next few decades. As for the aluminum industry, Alcoa maintained its monopoly status until the second major antitrust suit ended in 1945. The period following that defeat saw the rise of two competitors, Reynolds Metals and Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation. —Jim Lee
Peritz, Rudolph J. R. Competition Policy in America: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Explores the influences on U.S. public policy of the concept of free competition. Discusses congressional debates, court opinions, and the work of economic, legal, and political scholars in this area. Smith, George David. From Monopoly to Competition: The Transformation of Alcoa, 1888-1986. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Provides interesting discussion of the changing dynamic structure of the aluminum industry over the course of the twentieth century. Wallace, Donald H. Market Control in the Aluminum Industry. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937. A thorough study of the early development of the aluminum industry in the United States as well as in Europe before World War II. Includes an appendix that presents a record of the 1924 legal case. Weiss, Leonard. Economics and American Industry. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1961. Chapter 5 provides good coverage of the evolution of the structure of the aluminum industry. Offers a useful illustration of the industry’s pricing behavior with economic models. Valuable for undergraduate economics students. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. Chapter 2 of volume 2 contains succinct discussions of the antitrust cases in the aluminum industry in the first half of the twentieth century and a good end-of-chapter survey of events. Other chapters provide case studies of other major industries. Appendix contains critiques of the studies by economists and government officials. See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure.
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Further Reading Armentano, Dominick T. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. 2d ed. Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 1990. Covers major antitrust lawsuits since the Sherman Act. Discusses their relationship to economic theory and the development of antitrust legislation. Chapter 4 addresses the Alcoa case. Includes an appendix of relevant sections of antitrust laws. Written for an undergraduate audience. Carr, Charles C. Alcoa: An American Enterprise. New York: Rinehart, 1952. Covers the birth of the modern aluminum industry and the history of Alcoa until the end of World War II. Also discusses Alcoa’s labor relations and antitrust cases. Hovenkamp, Herbert. Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice. 2d ed. Eagan, Minn.: West, 1999. Covers nearly all aspects of U.S. antitrust policy in a manner understandable to people with no background in economics. Chapter 2 discusses “history and ideology in antitrust policy.” Parry, Charles W. Alcoa: A Retrospection. New York: Newcomen Society of the United States, 1985. A pamphlet containing Parry’s speech on the history of Alcoa, beginning with the life of Charles Martin Hall. Peck, Merton J. Competition in the Aluminum Industry, 1945-1958. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961. An industry study of supply and demand conditions and of pricing behavior in the industry. Includes a chapter on economic theory and public policy.
U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa
Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1924-1932
Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity The Hawthorne studies, which constituted one of the first major scientific efforts to examine human productivity and motivation, led to the development of the field of industrial sociology. Also known as: Hawthorne effect Locale: Cicero, Illinois Categories: Business and labor; sociology Key Figures George Elton Mayo (1880-1949), American psychologist and professor of industrial research George A. Pennock (fl. twentieth century), superintendent of inspection at the Hawthorne plant T. North Whitehead (1891-1969), American statistician Fritz Jules Roethlisberger (1898-1974), American professor of industrial research William Lloyd Warner (1898-1970), American professor of social anthropology Summary of Event The Hawthorne studies were a series of experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932 by Harvard University professors and employees of the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Manufacturing Company in Cicero, Illinois. The initial purpose of the experiments was to investigate determinants of worker output. Among the results of the studies, however, were the emergence of the field of industrial sociology and recognition of the importance of social factors in worker behavior. Three sets of experiments were conducted at the Hawthorne plant: the illumination studies, the relay assembly experiments, and the bank wiring experiments. The illumination studies were conducted between November, 1924, and April, 1927. The primary investigator in these experiments was George A. Pennock, superintendent of inspection at the Hawthorne plant. In cooperation with the National Research Council, Western Electric studied the relationship between worker efficiency and the quality and quantity of illumination in the workplace. The experimental design included a control group and an experimental group. The first test examined whether efficiency in the experimental group would be increased with increased illumination. The efficiency of the experimental group did increase when the lighting in the group’s work area was improved, but the efficiency of 1896
the control group simultaneously improved in similar magnitude. When the reverse hypothesis was tested, with lighting reduced in the experimental group’s workplace, the efficiency of both groups again improved. This was contrary to all expectations. Despite continued reductions in illumination, efficiency continued to improve until workers in the experimental group were scarcely able to see what they were doing. Pennock concluded that light was only one of many variables that might affect the rate of production. He further concluded that researchers must control other variables effectively in testing the impact of a given factor postulated to influence productivity. Pennock’s report on the illumination studies, published in Personnel Journal in 1930, was the first description of the studies at the Hawthorne plant to appear in the management literature. In 1927, Pennock met George Elton Mayo at a meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board in New York. Pennock noted the parallels between his work at the Hawthorne plant and the experimental work that Mayo presented at the meeting. Ultimately, he convinced Mayo to travel to Illinois and look into the possible reasons for the results documented in the illumination experiments. Mayo did not take on the Hawthorne project alone. He was accompanied by a well-recognized group of his colleagues from Harvard University that included Fritz Jules Roethlisberger, another professor of industrial research; William Lloyd Warner, a social anthropologist; and T. North Whitehead, a statistician. Along with this group of academicians, other leaders from Western Electric became involved in the studies, including the directors of employee relations and personnel research. The second set of experiments accepted Pennock’s earlier conclusions. These new experiments were designed to determine the environmental factors influencing efficiency, using an experimental design that, in the estimation of the research team, adequately controlled all the variables believed to be critical. The researchers hoped that the greater rigidity of control in this set of experiments would overcome the problems of the earlier attempt. They did everything that was within their power to minimize the number of variables involved in determination of the efficiency in question and to control those variables as strictly as possible. They chose to work with a small group and endeavored to observe and record all the changes that took place on an individual basis. Fur-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
prior to placing the study group under observation. Six months of observation then ensued. Individual potential for productivity was measured through dexterity and intelligence tests, among others. The conclusions of the bank wiring experiment underscored the importance of informal group controls on productivity. The researchers noted that the group controls had greater influences on behavior than did piece-rate incentives or management expectations, that the group itself actually set the rate of production informally, along with many other norms, and that group controls had greater influences on behavior than did individual capacities. Significance The field of industrial sociology was created during the Hawthorne experiments. The recognition of the importance of social systems to worker behavior is clearly the one greatest impact of the years of effort put forth at the Hawthorne plant by the researchers from Harvard University and Western Electric. Industrial sociology later became one of the key scientific foundations supporting an understanding of labor productivity. Without the contributions of this field, the development of management thought would have been vastly different in the remainder of the twentieth century. The “Hawthorne effect” is the common name given to the result that Pennock observed in the first set of experiments at the Hawthorne plant. The Hawthorne effect is the change that takes place in individuals’ behavior when they perceive that they are being treated differently from others. This explains why efficiency improved no matter how the illumination was varied: The workers perceived that they were receiving special treatment. Contrary to popular belief, however, the discovery of the Hawthorne effect was not the most important finding of the Hawthorne studies. The Hawthorne effect is only one manifestation of the experiments’ greater contribution, which was the discovery of the general influence of social systems on worker behavior. The practice of management was significantly altered as a result of the experiments’ demonstration of the impact of social systems on workers. It is generally recognized that the era of scientific management came to an end following the Hawthorne studies. Traditional managerial beliefs and assumptions of the day, such as the Machiavellian and laissez-faire assumption that individuals act primarily out of enlightened self-interest, were rejected as a result of the studies. Scientifically designing work for the individual and scientifically selecting the ideal individual to perform the work, as advocated by 1897
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ther, there would be no changes in type of work, the work waiting for each operator would be kept constant, no inexperienced operators would be used, no personnel would be shifted, all operators would be involved in the same task, the job would be of short duration, the work would be enduring enough to keep the operators employed throughout the experimental period, the work pace would not be influenced by mechanical equipment, and the subjects would participate voluntarily. Because of these and other considerations, the experimenters chose the relay assembly operation to test their hypotheses. A separate test room was established in which a workbench for the operators faced the observers’ stations. The subjects were selected with the aid of the guidance of two experienced operators who were friendly toward each other and would themselves be subjects. When the experiments were completed, Whitehead had an enormous volume of data for analysis. Despite several years of analysis by Whitehead and his staff, the researchers found no statistically significant correlations between variations in physical circumstances and variations in the output of workers in the relay assembly test room. It is fair to say that the second experiment at the Hawthorne plant failed to achieve its stated objectives, but it would be unfair to suggest that the researchers failed to learn. They discovered that the six individuals in the experiment became a team, developed a team spirit, and, as a team, cooperated with the experimenters. Further, the close supervision they received seemed to have positive effects, and, as a result, Western Electric began an interviewing program to improve the supervision of its workers. This interviewing program yielded many fruitful insights into employee morale, particularly the benefits of eliminating employee fears of authority. Further, the program documented the impacts of outside concerns on employee morale and led to the belief that satisfaction or dissatisfaction with work is in part a function of an individual’s position or status within both the organization and society. The influences of the worker’s social environments within the plant and outside the plant were thus recognized as key determinants of worker behavior. The third set of experiments at the Hawthorne plant sought to use nonintrusive observation and interview processes to explore informal social influences on worker behavior. This set of studies used a bank wiring observation room, selected by the researchers specifically to allow effective study of group influences. The researchers collected baseline data on worker behavior
Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity
Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity Frederick Winslow Taylor, were no longer viewed as adequate to ensure efficient production. As old ideas were rejected, new ideas were endorsed. The Hawthorne studies ushered in a “human relations” or “social man” era in the workplace. Industrial sociology provided a new and different way of looking at motivation and productivity, changing the nature of management-labor relations. The focus of theoretical attention was shifted from the individual to the group and from determinants of worker productivity to determinants of worker motivation. The Hawthorne studies made clear the importance of human and social skills to effective management. Workers no longer were believed to be motivated solely by wages, and managers came to recognize that antagonistic labor relations practices could have detrimental long-term effects on productivity. Managerial practices and patterns of workplace supervision certainly changed as a result of the Hawthorne studies. It also can be argued that the studies changed industrial engineering and its applications of time-andmotion studies, industrial psychology and physiology, with their emphasis on the individual, and even economic theory. Mayo, in fact, endeavored to draw conclusions from the Hawthorne studies that extended well beyond managerial issues to societal processes. In his view, rapid industrial growth and rapid technological innovation in manufacturing, use of large-scale mass-production systems, and impersonal relations within the workplace had disturbed the “communal integrity” of the United States. Cultural and societal social development had not kept pace with technological progress, and these factors required attention. These broad conclusions regarding society were not validated by the Hawthorne studies, but as principal investigator in the studies, Mayo gained prominence and a platform to advance his theories. Some have described the relay assembly experiment performed at the Hawthorne plant as the first great scientific experiment in industry. The Hawthorne studies verified the value of applying the scientific process and experimentation in the development of management theory. As a consequence, the development of management theory since that time has required a basis in valid scientific experimental projects. Dogmatic prescriptions such as Lillian Gilbreth’s The Psychology of Management (1914) no longer suffice. The Hawthorne studies were not minor investigations of esoteric topics: Their impact on all managerial disciplines is widely recognized to be immense. — Mark D. Hanna 1898
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Faunce, William A., ed. Readings in Industrial Sociology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. Collection contains the landmark works in the field of industrial sociology, including early and modern writings. George, Claude S., Jr. The History of Management Thought. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968. Comprehensive treatment of the history of management thought from prehistoric times through the 1960’s. Provides an outstanding description of the ancient history of managerial thought and developments in the twentieth century. Includes a time line of critical events. Korman, Abraham K. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. A thorough review, geared toward college students of the subject, of the psychological theory and research relating to industrial and organizational psychology. Introductory chapter presents a succinct yet complete description of the development of industrial and organizational psychology. Miller, Delbert C., and William H. Form. Industrial Sociology. 3d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. An outstanding and thorough treatment of industrial sociology and its development. Includes many figures and foldouts. Miner, John B. Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Comprehensive discussion of organizational behavior includes background on early research in the field. Chapter 2 addresses Mayo’s work and the Hawthorne studies. Includes bibliographic references and index. Rose, Michael. Industrial Behaviour: Theoretical Development Since Taylor. London: Allen Lane, 1975. Divided chronologically into five parts: “Taylorism,” “Human Factor Industrial Psychology,” “Human Relations,” “Some Methodological and Theoretical Consequences of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations,” and “Action Approaches.” Focuses on the development of theories regarding management of the human element of organizations. Trahair, Richard C. S. The Humanist Temper. 1984. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2005. Exhaustive personal biography of George Elton Mayo. Reprint edition features a foreword by leadership expert Abraham Zaleznik. Wren, Daniel A. The Evolution of Management Thought. 5th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. Provides definitive treatment of the development of early
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 management thought, the scientific management era, the “social man” era, and the modern era. Includes an extensive bibliography. See also: Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; July, 1916: Fayol Publishes
Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire General and Industrial Management; Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed; 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive.
1924-1976
Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire A young aviation hero and one of the wealthiest men in the United States, Howard Hughes drew on his fortune to create a business and political empire. Locale: United States Categories: Business and labor; trade and commerce; government and politics Key Figures Howard Hughes (1905-1976), billionaire who created a controversial business empire Howard Hughes, Sr. (1869-1924), founder of the Hughes Tool Company Robert Aime Maheu (b. 1917), Central Intelligence Agency operative and a longtime Hughes influence peddler Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978), vice president of the United States and presidential candidate who received secret campaign funds from Maheu and Hughes Richard Nixon (1913-1994), president of the United States, 1969-1974 Frank William Gay (b. 1920), executive who worked for Hughes
1899
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Summary of Event The Hughes cone bit, an ingeniously engineered rock drill patented in 1909 by Howard Hughes, Sr., established the Hughes Tool Company of Houston, Texas, as the sole supplier of a tool essential to the world’s petroleum industry. Described as one of the greatest inventions affecting that industry, the cone bit was the basis for the Hughes fortune. Howard Hughes, Jr., inherited the Hughes Tool Company in 1924 and subsequently controlled it until its sale in 1972. The company provided the profits, credit, financial leverage, and basis of influence that made possible the assemblage and maintenance of his business empire. Young Hughes worshiped his father and enjoyed a sheltered upbringing. From his early years, he was shy
and awkward, obsessed with the state of his health, and indifferent to his educational opportunities. He dropped out of college, showing few signs of independence or indications of purpose. Howard Hughes, Jr., was an apparently unpromising, although good-looking, eighteenyear-old millionaire at the time of his inheritance. Within a few years, however, Hughes’s growing (if carefully disguised) egomania, his ruthless instrumentalism, and his iron will brought him national attention because of his attempts to conquer Hollywood. Beginning in the 1920’s and continuing into the 1940’s, he produced a series of controversial films, including Hell’s Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), and more than a dozen other films with which his name and those of stars he ostensibly created were identified. In 1947, he bought a controlling interest in Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), then later sold it and founded his own studio. His playboy activities as well as his reserved manner, which eventually devolved into phobias and reclusiveness, further ensured public fascination with his exploits and the mystique that soon surrounded him. It was as a flyer that Hughes joined the ranks of the nation’s heroes. Although his father had wanted Hughes to become an engineer, young Hughes’s maiden flight in a Curtiss seaplane in 1921 revealed what became his sole undying passions: flying and aviation. By 1932, having acquired an Army Boeing pursuit plane from the Department of Commerce and work space in Burbank, California, leased from Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Hughes established the Hughes Aircraft Company. He modified the plane into his H-1, eventually the most advanced aircraft of its time. Decades later, Hughes Aircraft was one of the country’s leading defense contractors. The 1920’s and 1930’s were marked by the public’s infatuation with Hollywood and captivation by the accomplishments of fliers and aircraft designers, Hughes included. Hughes, and indirectly his aircraft company, earned his earliest aviation encomiums by setting speed and distance records. In 1934 and 1935, for example, fly-
Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire ing his H-1, he garnered first place in various air meets and established new short-distance “flight over land” speed records. In 1935 and 1936, he broke records for transcontinental flights and won the coveted Harmon Trophy. These accomplishments paled in 1938 when, piloting a twin-engine Lockheed, Hughes circled the world in less than four days, eclipsing the record set for that feat by veteran flyer Wiley Post. All these flights and the tests that preceded them were dangerous, and Hughes experienced three serious crashes. Like his wartime construction of the world’s largest airplane, the Spruce Goose, all were immensely expensive. All these efforts and achievements, as Hughes then acknowledged, were made possible by the expert teams of designers and mechanics that his tool company fortune allowed him to enlist. Hughes also displayed a more important, if less apparent, ability to sell. His capacity to wheel and deal, to
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 marshal and manipulate the hopes, ambitions, and loyalties of a wide range of people, and to invoke his public image to influence the curiosity of the media gave him tremendous power in his business affairs. The Hughes Tool Company, the operations of which he largely ignored, reliably supplied his capital; his personal talents helped bring together a remarkable array of enterprises. By the early 1950’s, in addition to his control over the economically invaluable tool company, Hughes owned Hollywood’s Hughes Production Company and Hughes Aircraft. By 1944, he had acquired 45 percent of the stock in Trans World Airlines (TWA), a major international carrier with exclusive foreign and domestic routes. TWA became his favorite possession, one to which he made significant initial contributions. He helped conceive the Lockheed-built Constellation, the fastest longrange piston-driven passenger aircraft in the United States when it entered service in 1946. He selected other
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Howard Hughes (center, in hat and facing camera) is greeted by a crowd at Floyd Bennett Airport in New York in July, 1938, after setting a new speed record for an around-the-world flight. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 outstanding aircraft for the TWA fleet, and his salesmanship, publicity, and governmental influence were exploited on TWA’s behalf. During the 1960’s, Hughes increased his holdings. Through stock ownership in the Atlas Corporation, for example, he gained control in 1961 of Northeast Airlines, a regional carrier. After moving to Las Vegas in 1966, he spent $65 million in one year acquiring four of the Nevada city’s larger hotel-casinos and hundreds of acres of valuable real estate that were available for more casinos and housing subdivisions as well as an air charter service (Alamo Airlines), North Las Vegas Airport and its ancillary motel and dining facilities, the KLAS television station, several luxury ranches, and two hundred Nevada mining claims. Such acquisitions made Hughes Nevada’s biggest private landowner. He reputedly was the nation’s wealthiest individual.
Hughes and Hollywood In addition to his other business interests, Howard Hughes produced these Hollywood films: Release Date 1926 1927 1928 1930 1931 1932
1943 1947 1950 1951
1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957
Title Everybody’s Acting Swell Hogan Two Arabian Knights The Mating Call The Racket Hell’s Angels The Age for Love The Front Page Cock of the Air Scarface Sky Devils Behind the Rising Sun The Outlaw The Sin of Harold Diddlebock The Tattooed Stranger Vendetta His Kind of Woman Two Tickets to Broadway The Whip Hand The Las Vegas Story Macao Louisiana Territory Second Chance The French Line Son of Sinbad Underwater! The Conqueror Jet Pilot
Hughes operated under the assumption that anyone could be bought. Friendless and egocentric, he authorized—or, out of negligence, permitted—lavish salaries and perquisites for his immediate aides and even for a number of associates with whom he never deigned to meet. In exchange, such persons were expected to behave as if their lives and loyalties were fully under his control. They might be called on to minister to his whims, to suborn politicians, or to conduct clandestine negotiations on his behalf. Through the years, he fortuitously attracted people of genuine talent to his organizations, few of whom stayed for long. He was less interested in utilizing engineering skills, scientific training, or executive abilities than he was in manipulating subjects. Accordingly, by the end of the 1960’s, Hughes’s im1901
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Significance The Hughes empire, from its inception until its founder’s death in 1976, bore the imprint and suffered the consequences of Hughes’s increasingly distorted perceptions and priorities. Hughes paid scant attention to the chief personnel or to the fundamental operations of most of his enterprises. Few of his top executives or his chief aides ever met or spoke to him directly; other key figures may have done so only once or twice in a quarter of a century. This was true even for the Hughes Tool Company in Houston, the principal source of his wealth and operating capital. He never visited the company after 1938. Fortunately, the firm for years was under the capable direction of Noah Dietrich. Hughes owned or controlled what at best was a mixed collection of enterprises. The Hughes Tool Company pumped out capital almost in complete isolation from Hughes’s other ventures. The general affairs and accountings of the other business interests were recorded for Hughes by Frank William Gay, a Mormon whom Hughes dissuaded from an academic career when he recruited him in 1947. Gay’s job was to reorganize and manage Hughes’s inconspicuous Romaine Street operational base in Los Angeles. Gay and his Romaine Street staff specialized in catering to Hughes’s personal eccentricities, including his phobia about germs, his passion for starlets, and his drug addiction. The staff also handled the paperwork generated by Hughes’s complex business adventures, legal battles, secret political dealings, and ongoing business and governmental negotiations. Like the tool company, Gay’s Romaine Street operations were rarely visited by Hughes.
Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire
Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire mediate aides and those with whom he did business were largely an unsavory lot. They included Las Vegas’s Mafia casino owners, corrupt judges, cash-hungry politicians, sycophantic newspaper publishers, purveyors of worthless mining claims, quack doctors who plied Hughes with codeine and other narcotics (and were presumably culpable for his death), and pliable public officials, including a Nicaraguan dictator, a Bahamian president, U.S. attorney general John Mitchell, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, and President Richard Nixon. Robert Aime Maheu symbolized much that was characteristic of all these men, namely, an addiction to influence, power, and wealth. Maheu was an intelligence agent for the United States during World War II, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, for which he had been detailed to mastermind the assassination of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. He was familiar with organized crime figures and enjoyed a large number of legal, business, and governmental contacts that were deployed on behalf of Hughes’s firms. Although he never met Hughes and eventually would sue him, Maheu was nevertheless an important front man and dealer for Hughes during the 1960’s. He was one of Hughes’s chosen instruments in the Northeast Airlines buyout. For a time, Maheu directed Hughes’s fight against the multimillion-dollar lawsuit TWA had filed against Hughes, and he negotiated with crime-syndicate acquaintances for Hughes in his Las Vegas ventures. It was Maheu who arranged for influence money to be supplied to Hubert Humphrey and, through Bebe Robozo, to Nixon’s presidential campaign. With such dubious figures on salary, Hughes the hustler was himself hustled. He increasingly took to self-imposed, almost hermetic seclusion. His lust for unquestioning loyalty and control actually cost him tens of millions of dollars that unaccountable associates bled from him. Nearly all of Hughes’s acquisitions lost money while he was in nominal control. All of Hughes’s wartime ventures, for example, were expensive failures. Even the fabulous Spruce Goose proved too large to qualify as a museum piece. Similarly, while its electronic missile teams performed well, Hughes Aircraft consistently incurred heavy losses until Hughes sold it, after which it recovered sensationally. RKO and TWA also lost money, as did other constituents of Hughes’s empire. In addition, in his quest for influence Hughes badly tainted the nation’s political process. The aviation hero ended life as a
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 rich but largely unloved man whom few admired other than for his wealth. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Ambrose, Stephen. Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. The best portrait of Nixon and those around him. Good for context on the political world with which Hughes interacted. Chapters 26 and 27 deal with Hughes’s money and influence. An excellent historical account. Barlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele. Empire: The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. Detailed, authoritative, and objective. Contains photos, a chronology, appendixes, chapter notes, and an unusually fine index. Brown, Peter Harry, and Pat H. Broeske. Howard Hughes: The Untold Story. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2004. The authors focus on Hughes’s personal life, particularly on his romantic entanglements and his more hedonistic exploits. Dean, John W. Blind Ambition: The White House Years. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976. An insider’s sketch of the character of those in government. Chapter 3 treats specifics of Hughes’s involvement in the Nixon administration. No notes or bibliography. Useful index. Drosnin, Michael. Citizen Hughes: The Power, the Money, and the Madness. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. Covers less ground than Barlett and Steele’s book but was the first to use thousands of documents stolen from Hughes’s headquarters as well as a thief’s testimonial. More information on personal relations between Hughes and Maheu. Good essays, photos of documents, and a useful index. Lukas, J. Anthony. Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years. New York: Viking Press, 1976. Lukas was the first journalist to explore Hughes’s involvement in the Watergate scandal and the extent of Hughes’s influence with the CIA, administrative agencies, and politicians. Very valuable and an easy read. See also: Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop; 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Winter Olympic Games
January 25-February 5, 1924
First Winter Olympic Games The International Winter Sports Week, sponsored by the International Olympic Committee, brought together athletes from sixteen nations to compete in sixteen events. It was so successful that two years later it was declared to have been the First Winter Olympic Games. Also known as: International Winter Sports Week Locale: Chamonix, France Categories: Sports; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Sonja Henie (1912-1969), Norwegian figure skater and later a Hollywood movie star Thorleif Haug (1894-1934), Norwegian cross-country skier Gillis Grafström (1893-1938), Swedish figure skater Jacob Tullin Thams (1898-1954), Norwegian ski jumper Clas Thunberg (1893-1973), Finnish speed skater Julius Skutnabb (1889-1965), Finnish speed skater Anders Haugen (1888-1984), American ski jumper Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937), French politician who was the driving force behind the revival of the Olympic Games
1903
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Summary of Event Although Pierre de Coubertin’s vision for the Olympics was rooted in the sports of the ancient Greek Olympic Games, organizers of the first modern Olympic Games wanted to hold Winter Games as well as Summer Games. Most of the nations that would have participated in the Winter Games, however, already held similar events. The success of the Nordic Games, held in Stockholm, meant that the Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns resisted the organization of a competing event. France sponsored a Winter Sports Week at Chamonix in 1908 that drew two thousand spectators, and another in 1912 brought twelve thousand people to Chamonix. As a result of the appeal generated by France’s Winter Sports Week, in 1922 the International Olympic Committee voted in favor of an International Winter Sports Week, which would be held in Chamonix in 1924 to correspond with the Summer Games being held that year in Paris. The Scandinavians continued to resist, but when the Games finally began on January 25, 1924, the Norwegians, Finns, and Swedes were there. Although the
Scandinavians were expected to dominate the Games, the very first event was won by an American, speed skater Charles Jewtraw, who upset the powerful Finnish speed skater Clas Thunberg and Norwegian Oskar Olsen in the 500-meter race. Overall, however, the Scandinavians did dominate the Games. Norway and Finland won twenty-eight of the forty-three medals available, and Norway alone won eleven of the twelve total medals in the four Nordic events. Finland won the other, a bronze, and together the two nations won fifteen of the sixteen speed skating races (one of which ended in a tie). Among the medal winners were some of the most impressive individual performances of the Chamonix Olympic Games. Finnish speed skater Thunberg won three gold medals, one silver medal, and two bronze medals, and one of his gold medals was for the combination of all four events. His teammate, Julius Skutnabb, won a gold, a silver, and a bronze (in the combined event), in spite of the fact that he was thirty-four years old and that his career had been interrupted by World War I. Norwegian Jacob Tullin Thams became the first Olympic ski-jump champion, and the Norwegian team dominated this event. Thams’s teammate, Thorleif Haug, was Norway’s biggest winner: He earned gold medals in the 50-kilometer cross-country, the 18-kilometer crosscountry, and the combined cross-country and ski jump. He also won a bronze medal in the ski jump. Although the Norwegians and Finns won many of the medals, the single most impressive display of athletic ability was offered by the Canadian ice-hockey team. In their first game, the Canadians beat Switzerland 33-0, and followed that win with a 30-0 triumph over Czechoslovakia, a 22-0 victory over Sweden, and a 19-2 victory over Great Britain. In the finals, they defeated the team from the United States 6-1 and won the tournament with a 110-3 scoring advantage over their opponents. The most celebrated participant to emerge from the Chamonix Games did not win any medals. Sonja Henie, an eleven-year-old Norwegian figure skater, was such a novice that she frequently paused in her freestyle routine to skate to the sidelines and ask her coach a question. By 1927, however, she had begun a series of ten consecutive World Championships that was punctuated by gold medals at the Winter Olympic Games of 1928, 1932, and 1936. Her fame soared: By the early 1930’s, she needed a police escort during appearances in Europe and the United States. After her skating career ended, she be-
First Winter Olympic Games
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
came a Hollywood movie star and toured with ice shows, inspiring generations of figure skaters from the United States and establishing figure skating as one of the most popular sports of the Winter Olympic Games. At the Chamonix Games, the standard in figure skating was set by an innovative Swede named Gillis Grafström. Grafström changed the nature of figure skating from a series of gliding dance routines to an athletic sport by inventing jumps and spins—the spiral, the change-sit spin, the flyingTo view image, please refer to the sit spin—that altered the routines in print edition of this title. dramatic ways. After winning gold at Antwerp, when figure skating was an event in the Summer Games, Grafström won again at Chamonix. He would subsequently take gold medals at St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Lake Placid, New York, making him the most successful figure skater in Olympic history. The medal ceremony for all events was held at the closing of the Games. Since many of the medal winners had already left Chamonix, at the ceremony their medals were presented to other members from their delegations. At the same event, Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Competitors Sonja Henie and Gillis Grafström at the Olympic Games in Chamonix, Olympic movement and winner of France. (AP/Wide World Photos) an Olympic literary prize at the 1912 Summer Games, presented a prize for alpinism to Charles Bruce, who had Significance led a 1922 expedition that tried to climb Mount Everest. The International Winter Sports Week was so successful It was 1974 before the final medal was awarded for that in 1926 the event was designated the First Winter the Chamonix Games. During the ski-jumping competiOlympic Games. The success ultimately proved to be tion, an American named Anders Haugen had finished significantly broader, however, as the first Winter Olymfourth, behind three Norwegians, after losing style points pics (and its predecessors) showcased skills that had long on an extraordinary jump. When the Norwegian team been developed by Scandinavian armies and residents of met in 1974 on the fiftieth anniversary of their victory, cold-weather climates. Because the competitions were they discovered a calculation error that showed Haugen held exclusively on ice or snow, for many years particihad actually finished in third place. In a remarkable dempation in the quadrennial Games was largely confined to onstration of the Olympic sprit, the widow of the bronze countries with long, cold winters. As the Winter Games medal winner, Nordic champion Thorleif Haug, insisted grew more popular, however, nations began to adapt lothat Haugen be brought to Norway at age eighty-six and cal conditions or build facilities in which athletes could awarded the bronze medal (still in her possession) for his jump fifty years earlier. train for Winter Olympic events. As a result, the 1928 1904
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Games in St. Moritz saw an 84 percent increase in participants, and the numbers of athletes competing continued to grow in the years to follow. — Devon Boan Further Reading Greenspan, Bud. Frozen in Time: The Greatest Moments at the Winter Olympics. Toronto: Stoddart, 1997. More than fifty-five brief but dramatic accounts of memorable events during the Winter Olympics by the Olympic movement’s most famous film historian and documentarian. Includes the story of Anders Haugen. Strait, Raymond. Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie. Bath, England: Scarborough House, 1990. A candid and inspiring, although sometimes dark and disturbing, biography of Henie. Focuses on the effect of early fame and her father’s expectations on her personal development. Wallechinsky, David. The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics, 2006 Edition: Turin. Toronto: Sport-
IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line Classic Books, 2005. An exhaustive reference work with complete descriptions and histories of the events of the Winter Olympics, including lists of winners for each event throughout Olympic history. Wukovits, John. The Encyclopedia of the Winter Olympics. Princeton, N.J.: Franklin Watts, 2002. A concise introduction to the history of the Winter Games, its events, and its most celebrated participants, including Sonja Henie. See also: July 1, 1903: First Tour de France; Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Dec. 26, 1908: First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion; May 5-July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics; June, 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated; Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game; Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics; Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis.
February, 1924
IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line The conglomerate Computing-Tabulating-Recording signaled a new corporate direction when it discarded its old name and became International Business Machines. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Computers and computer science; science and technology; organizations and institutions
Summary of Event In 1910, Charles Ranlett Flint created ComputingTabulating-Recording (CTR). Flint was a colorful pro-
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Key Figures Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874-1956), general manager of the company that became IBM Thomas J. Watson, Jr. (1914-1993), general manager who took over from his father and led IBM into the computer age Charles Ranlett Flint (1850-1934), promoter who organized CTR and selected Watson to be its leader Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), inventor of census tabulating machines, which became CTR’s most important product George Fairchild (1854-1924), first chairman of CTR, who left most of the real work to Watson
moter who had earlier created American Woolen, United States Rubber, and American Chicle; he was also a founder of the Automobile Club of America. Today CTR would be called a conglomerate, given that its divisions were largely unrelated to one another. International Time Recording manufactured workplace time clocks and time cards onto which workers punched their hours of arrival and departure. The Computing Scale Company of America’s primary product was a scale that came equipped with a chart enabling a clerk to calculate the price of an item from its weight and price per pound. Tabulating Machine Company produced machines used to tabulate results from the 1890 census and the cards on which information was punched. The last of these companies was to prove the key element of CTR’s success. Its founder, inventor Herman Hollerith, worked at the U.S. Census Bureau, where difficulties had developed in the tabulation of the 1880 census. It seemed clear that unless some mechanical way could be invented to speed calculations, the 1890 counting would take more than ten years to complete and would thus continue into the 1900 census year. Hollerith developed a machine that punched census information such as race, sex, age, and address onto cards. The cards could be fed into a sorter that would group them accord-
IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line ing to any desired set of data that had been punched. An operator could then count them, thus completing the task. The machines were a huge success, but the government insisted on leasing them rather than buying them outright. Hollerith agreed to this arrangement, noting later that although the machines eventually turned a profit, the real returns came from the sale of the punch cards on which data were recorded. Flint considered International Time to be the most promising of the CTR divisions, so that division’s executives dominated the first CTR board of directors. Hollerith was given the job of chief engineer and was not consulted when the company’s officers were chosen. Flint arranged for a $7 million loan to get the company started. The loan had a term of thirty years at an interest rate of 6 percent, high by the standards of the time. Lenders apparently considered the company a relatively high-risk venture. As the former president of International Time, George Fairchild was a logical choice for CTR’s first chairman. Fairchild had been elected to the House of Representatives in 1906 and had just been named by President William Howard Taft to a ministerial post in Mexico. Fairchild thus became the firm’s nominal leader, but Frank Kondolf, the former chief operating officer at International Time, performed the dayto-day management. Kondolf did not impress Flint, who embarked on a search for another leader. Flint discovered Thomas J. Watson, today considered to be one of America’s premier businessmen. Watson came from the small town of Painted Post, near Corning, in Upper New York. After holding several jobs in sales, in 1895 Watson accepted a trainee position at National Cash Register (NCR), where the chief executive officer, John Patterson, was a pioneering figure in the fledgling business-machine industry. Patterson extolled the role of salesperson, which he considered to be the key role in the firm. At a time when salespeople were considered to be somewhat disreputable, NCR trained its sales force to be straightforward, prompt, and solicitous of customers’ interests. Watson learned well and quickly rose through the ranks to become NCR’s star salesman in upper New York. In 1903, Watson was summoned to NCR’s Dayton, Ohio, headquarters and told of a plan to smash the company’s competition. He would establish a company, to be known as Watson’s Cash Register & Second-Hand Exchange, that would undersell competitors and force them out of the business. He began operating in New York City and then went on to Philadelphia and Chicago. The company was quite successful, but its secret ties with NCR constituted a violation of antitrust laws. 1906
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In 1910, American Cash Register filed antitrust complaints against NCR. Two years later, the federal government joined in the case, charging Patterson, Watson, and others with criminal violations. They were found guilty in 1913 and sentenced to fines and prison terms. Appeals followed, and in 1915 the courts found deficiencies and unfairness in the original trial, ordering a new one. The matter was eventually dropped, but in the process Patterson and Watson had quarreled. Patterson had fired Watson, who now was available to Flint and CTR. Flint offered Watson the post of general manager at a salary of $25,000 per year until the criminal charges were settled. He accepted and began work in May, 1914. After an examination of the CTR businesses, Watson decided that Tabulating Machine Company had the most promising line of products. In addition to the general managership of CTR, he assumed the presidency of that company. After the antitrust suit against him was dropped, he became president of CTR as well. Watson placed his own men in positions of leadership and devised new markets for tabulating machines. The Hollerith model was employed by corporations to keep inventories and by railroads to maintain schedules. The machines were leased, and the cards used to operate them were sold outright. As with the census machines, the leases provided a steady cash flow and sales of the cards supplied large profits. By 1918, CTR was producing thirty million cards monthly for the Midwest alone. All the while, sales of time clocks and scales stagnated. Fairchild died in December, 1924, and Watson assumed the title of chairman along with the position of chief executive officer. Earlier in the year, he had decided to change the company’s name to reflect its new business concentration. In 1917, he had christened the company’s Canadian subsidiary International Business Machines. In February, 1924, he replaced CTR’s corporate designation with the same name. Significance The alteration of a company’s name is hardly a major event in itself, but CTR’s change signaled a change in corporate direction. In time, scales and clocks would be discarded from the company’s product lines, and Watson would concentrate on business machines. Under Watson’s leadership, IBM’s engineers designed accounting and other machines, breaking through into new areas. IBM purchased a small company that manufactured electric typewriters and made it the leader in a growing field. Columbia University professors conceived a plan to develop multiple-choice tests that could
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the IBM products quickly enough to earn a profit before IBM introduced a new product that made the old copies unsalable. Watson retired in 1971 and was succeeded in turn by Vincent Learson, Frank Cary, John Opel, and John Akers. IBM remained the industry leader into the 1970’s. Although rivals complained that their machines delivered more power for the buyer’s dollar, IBM’s support system was such that users of equipment still preferred IBM, which was affectionately called “Big Blue.” Change was coming, however, and this time IBM faltered. In the mid-1970’s, few people had heard of the small desktop computers fashioned from parts by enthusiasts. Soon, however, desktop computers were on sale to office managers. Sales to individuals followed shortly thereafter. The first buyers used their word-processing capacities as replacements for typewriters. As more programs were written and marketed, the small machines were used for other functions, many of which had previously required much larger computers. Each company had its own software, and these programs rarely worked on competitors’ machines. IBM entered the personal computer market in 1981 and announced that its architecture—the basic structure of its machines—would be available to competitors. Programs could be written to be compatible with machines produced by more than one company. This move was hailed by the industry but may have been an error. Using basic operating software from Microsoft and computer chips from Intel, IBM made it possible for many rivals to enter the field by purchasing components rather than seeking permission to use IBM patents. Small computers became increasingly powerful, cutting into IBM’s sales and leases of larger units. They became “commodity” products, ones for which brand name was relatively unimportant to buyers. They knew what a personal computer was supposed to do, and almost all the machines on the market performed those tasks with approximately the same proficiency and speed. IBM had a difficult time marketing its products as superior. The company responded by purchasing ROLM, a manufacturer of sophisticated telephonic equipment, and by taking an interest in MCI Communications, a rival to American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) in long-line telephonics. Clearly, IBM intended to branch out into areas related to data transmission. Both forays failed, and IBM abandoned the fields. Although IBM made a promising start in the personal computer (PC) field, the company soon stumbled. Its small PC Jr. was a flop, and the company did not have a 1907
1924
be taken on standard forms and graded by machine. Watson provided the researchers with materials and machines, and out of this came standardized tests graded by machines—IBM machines. The company also produced millions of forms to be used with various machines. IBM produced large calculators capable of performing computations in minutes that previously had taken hours. It developed machines to process payrolls, with the payroll checks created on IBM cards. During World War II, IBM created machines for the military. By the war’s end, IBM had annual revenues of $142 million and earnings of $10.9 million. Remington Rand, a competitor in some fields, had sales of $133 million but earnings of only $5.3 million. Remington Rand then purchased UNIVAC, a small entity attempting to develop the first computer, from American Totalizator. Remington Rand and its large electromechanical computers won the contract for the 1950 census from a stunned IBM. Thomas J. Watson, Jr., who had come into contact with military computers during the war, urged his father to develop an interest in them. The elder Watson demurred. Research indicated that at best only a dozen or so computers might be sold. Besides, IBM was the master in large calculators, which really were computers without programs or memories. He wondered about the wisdom of giving up a leadership position to devote more energy to an untested technology. The younger Watson persisted, and IBM entered the computer arena. With superior research and salesmanship, IBM drew close to UNIVAC and then surpassed it. In 1953, UNIVAC had most of the computer market; by 1955, IBM had the greatest share of placements. Other firms soon entered the field, including Burroughs, NCR, Honeywell, General Electric, and RCA. There were also some new companies to contend with, led by Control Data, Digital Equipment, and Scientific Data Systems (soon to be acquired by Xerox). In the mid-1960’s, IBM created a new line of dataprocessing equipment known as the 360 series. Based on integrated circuits, these machines would make obsolete many highly successful machines then in production. Tom Watson, Jr., was taking the same kind of gamble as general manager of IBM that he had when entering the computer market. The line was a success, and it increased IBM’s lead over its rivals. Several left the field or sold off their computer operations, but this prompted the appearance of new companies that attempted to emulate IBM machines and sell them at lower prices. In response, IBM accelerated the introduction of new mainframe computers, and the upstarts faltered. They could not copy
IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line
IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line plausible entry in the laptop and notebook markets until the early 1990’s, far behind competitors. By then, Akers had embarked on a series of restructurings, and it was clear that the company was foundering. In late 1992, Akers announced further cutbacks and a $6 billion charge against restructuring, hinting that more was to come, including a dividend cut. In 1993, IBM hired its first chairman and CEO from the outside, Louis V. Gerstner, who quickly stabilized the company, resisted calls to split it, and aggressively exploited strategies and markets in the newly emerging Internet and network computing arenas. Acquisitions of profitable businesses, such as Lotus Development Corporation and Tivoli Systems, added to its growth. A major public relations event in 1997 was IBM’s unveiling of its Deep Blue supercomputer that defeated World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. IBM was a major innovator in the development of e-business, but with the collapse of the dot-com industry in the late 1990’s, its fortunes waned. The economic downturn of 2002 saw a slight drop in revenue and net earnings, but IBM quickly recovered, and by 2006 the company employed about 329,000 people and earned $96 billion in revenue and $8.4 billion in net earnings. —Robert Sobel Further Reading Belden, Thomas. The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962. The first biography of Watson, written with IBM’s support. Unduly flattering but useful in showing the kind of image the company hoped establish. Maisonrouge, Jacques. Inside IBM: A Personal Story. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. Maisonrouge was a senior officer at IBM who worked closely with both the Watsons. Maney, Kevin. The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM. New York: John
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wiley & Sons, 2003. Maney takes a penetrating look at Watson’s life: his ruthless business strategies, his self-absorption, and his inability to differentiate himself from his company. Highly recommended. Pugh, Emerson W. Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995. Useful history, both as a case study of IBM and as an overview of the computer industry generally. Contains an extensive bibliography and an index. Rodgers, William. Think: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM. New York: Stein & Day, 1969. An early history and biography. Valuable for its point of view on the company during the early years of the computer. Sobel, Robert. I.B.M.: Colossus in Transition. New York: Times Books, 1981. A standard history of the company during its period of growth and power. Watson, Thomas J., Jr. A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM. Rev. ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. First published in 1963 and delivered as part of the McKinsey Foundation Lecture Series, sponsored by Columbia University. This is the clearest statement of the IBM philosophy available. Watson, Thomas J., Jr., and Peter Petre. Father, Son, and Company: My Life at IBM and Beyond. New York: Bantam, 2000. Describes Watson’s relations with his father, with some material on the early history of IBM. Watson, Thomas J., Sr. Men-Minutes-Money. New York: IBM, 1934. Watson’s interpretation of IBM’s philosophy and policies. Indicates how money was spent on research and production. See also: 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws; 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the HeartLung Machine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York
February 12, 1924
Gershwin’s RHAPSODY IN BLUE Premieres in New York George Gershwin’s composition and performance of Rhapsody in Blue combined elements of American popular music with the European classical tradition. Locale: New York, New York Category: Music Key Figures George Gershwin (1898-1937), American composer Paul Whiteman (1890-1967), American bandleader Ferde Grofé (1892-1972), American pianist and music orchestrator
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Summary of Event While visiting Great Britain with his dance orchestra in 1923, New York bandleader Paul Whiteman began thinking of performing a concert of American popular music in a major concert hall. When a rival bandleader announced similar plans, Whiteman—goaded into action—developed a program to show that popular music had moved from simple dance music to a true art form. He booked New York City’s Aeolian Hall for a performance to take place on February 12, 1924. Whiteman had worked with composer George Gershwin in the Broadway show George White’s Scandals of 1922 and had suggested a future collaboration. Gershwin, however, did not learn about his role in Whiteman’s upcoming concert until the New York Herald Tribune announced on January 4, 1924, that Gershwin was writing a jazz concerto for the program. By that time, the twenty-five-year-old Gershwin had acquired a considerable reputation as a writer of Broadway songs, but his composition of a movement for string quartet in 1919 and a one-act “jazz opera” in 1922 indicated greater ambitions. Drawing on his notebooks, where he found the opening clarinet passage, Gershwin began composing a work he called American Rhapsody on January 7. He later stated that he had no real plan for the piece, but rather only the object of showing that jazz did not need to be written or performed in strict time. While traveling by train to Boston, he developed a structure for the composition, calling it “a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America.” After he returned to New York, he conceived the middle theme of the piece while improvising on a piano at a party. Gershwin wrote the orchestra accompaniment as a second piano part to be scored by Ferde Grofé, Whiteman’s arranger. Apparently completing his composition
by January 29, Gershwin left a blank section for improvisation on which he noted “wait for nod.” Grofé’s orchestration is dated February 4, 1924. Gershwin’s brother Ira, meanwhile, suggested a new title, Rhapsody in Blue. Whiteman added nine musicians to his fourteenmember orchestra and held rehearsals for five days at the Palais Royal nightclub, to which he invited critics and writers. During one of these rehearsals, clarinetist Ross Gorman, for a joke, played the opening passage of Rhapsody in Blue as a wailing glissando. Taken with the sound, Gershwin asked Gorman to play it that way at the concert. Despite Whiteman’s fears, the Aeolian Hall was filled on February 12. Titled “An Experiment in Modern Music,” the concert began with an address by Whiteman’s manager, Hugh Ernst, who stated that the program was educational and was meant to show the development of jazz (an ill-defined term at the time) from discordance to sophistication. An expensive printed program, with notes by Ernst and writer Gilbert Seldes, provided additional information, organizing the concert around such themes as “True Form of Jazz” and “Contrast—Legitimate Scoring vs. Jazzing.” The music ranged from “Livery Stable Blues” to “Pomp and Circumstance” and serenades by Victor Herbert. The audience included luminaries from the New York social and artistic scenes as well as people from vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley. They were receptive, but after twenty-three selections, they had become noticeably restless by the time Gershwin walked to the piano to perform Rhapsody in Blue. The opening glissando brought everyone to attention, however, and soon they recognized that this loosely constructed Lisztian rhapsody, with its blues-tinged harmonies and jazzlike rhythms, was a truly new sound. At the work’s close they broke into tumultuous applause and called Gershwin back for several bows. The critical reaction to Rhapsody in Blue was mixed, with most writers noting both the technical immaturity of the composer and the freshness of his approach. Deems Taylor wrote for the New York World, “It was crude, but it hinted at something new, something that has not hitherto been said in music.” Whiteman repeated the concert at Aeolian Hall on March 7 and then performed the program at New York’s Carnegie Hall in April and November. He then took it to Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and St.
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York Louis, after which Gershwin left the program. In June, 1924, Gershwin and Whiteman recorded Rhapsody in Blue for the Victor Blue label; the recording sold more than a million copies. Later that same year, T. B. Harms and Company published the sheet music for Rhapsody in Blue. Grofé reorchestrated the piece for symphony orchestra in 1926 and 1942, the latter being the version most familiar today. In 1925, the Symphony Society of New York commissioned Gershwin to write a concerto to be performed with the New York Symphony Orchestra in December. Like Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F did not adhere to textbook formalities and drew on jazz and popular music, but it had greater structural integrity than the earlier work and was orchestrated by the composer. Continuing to write hit musicals for the theater, Gershwin also pursued his “serious” composing. His first performance of Preludes for Piano took place in 1926, and in 1928 the New York Philharmonic presented his orchestral tone poem An American in Paris. After the relatively unsuccessful Second Rhapsody of 1931, Gershwin concentrated on his opera Porgy and Bess, a story about poor southern blacks first performed in 1935. Although criticized for being merely a succession of hit songs and scorned by many African Americans as a white interpretation of black music and life, the opera survived because of its songs. After a revival in New York in 1942, Porgy and Bess grew in both popularity and critical reputation. Gershwin, however, did not live to see this success; he died from a brain tumor on July 11, 1937. Significance Before Rhapsody in Blue, various composers had attempted to draw on elements of American popular music. Antonín Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony (1893) reflected the spirituals of the African American, but the more specific influence of commercial popular music appeared in Igor Stravinsky’s Ragtime (1918) and Piano Rag-Music (1919) and Darius Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le toit (1919) and La Création du monde (1923). Other works revealing this influence included Erik Satie’s Parade (1917) and John Alden Carpenter’s Piano Concertino (1915) and Krazy Kat (1921). In the mid-nineteenth century, the American composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk wrote a number of piano pieces reflecting the musical idioms of the American South. Later, Scott Joplin, the “Ragtime King,” used ragtime idioms for some of the songs in his opera Treemonisha (1911), and Charles Ives incorporated ragtime elements into his compositions. 1910
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 None of these works, however, gained the attention for combining “jazz” and the European tradition the way Gershwin’s did. The division between classical music and American popular music remained, for the most part, wide. Paul Whiteman’s attempt to lift American popular music to an art form also had its predecessors. In 1914, James Reese Europe’s black Clef Club Symphony Orchestra had appeared at Carnegie Hall, and on February 10, 1924, only a few days before the Aeolian Hall concert, bandleader Vincent Lopez held a lecture-concert at the Anderson Art Galleries in New York. The announcement of Lopez’s planned performance was the factor that had provoked Whiteman into action. At the program, Harvard University professor and composer Edward Burlington Hill discussed the history of jazz and Lopez’s band provided musical illustrations. Although these efforts had relatively little impact, they suggested that the attempt to combine the elite European tradition with American popular culture was more than Whiteman’s individual concern. Furthermore, writers such as Gilbert Seldes, the author of The Seven Lively Arts (1924), were arguing for the aesthetic validity and importance of American popular culture. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue opened the door to further experimentation, particularly because of Whiteman’s carefully developed publicity campaign for his concert. Furthermore, Henry O. Osgood, one of the music critics who attended the Aeolian Hall program, was inspired to write So This Is Jazz (1926), perhaps the first serious examination of the subject. There now appeared to be a market for compositions drawing on jazz elements, and “serious” American composers responded. Aaron Copland used jazz idioms in his Music for the Theater (1925) and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1926), as did John Alden Carpenter in his ballet Skyscrapers (1926). Other composers incorporated the term “jazz” into the very titles of their works: Louis Gruenberg’s Daniel Jazz (1923, antedating Gershwin’s Rhapsody) and Jazz Suite (1925), George Antheil’s Jazz Symphony (1925), Werner Janssen’s Chorale and Fugue in Jazz (1929), and—changing the terminology slightly—Morton Gould’s Swing Sinfonietta (1936). More popularly oriented composers pursued similar goals. Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofé wrote The Mississippi Suite in 1924, drawing on jazz colors and idioms, and in 1931 made subtler use of these elements in his now-famous Grand Canyon Suite. Another orchestrator, Robert Russell Bennett, drew as Gershwin had on his
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Further Reading Alpert, Hollis. The Life and Times of “Porgy and Bess”: The Story of an American Classic. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Examines the development of the
opera from its beginnings in DuBose Heyward’s novel to performances in 1987. Relates the opera to Gershwin’s earlier work and also presents the opera’s history as a mirror of American social change. Includes synopsis, photographs, bibliography, and index. Ewen, David. George Gershwin: His Journey to Greatness. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977. A rewritten version of the author’s earlier work George Gershwin: A Journey to Greatness (1956). Although sometimes inaccurate, important as the first major biography of Gershwin. Particularly useful for its discussion of the development of Gershwin’s reputation. Appendixes list Gershwin’s works and various stage and motion-picture adaptations and productions. Includes photographs and index. Goldberg, Isaac. George Gershwin: A Study in American Music. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1931. The first serious examination of Gershwin’s music. Interesting for quotations from contemporaries, particularly reviewers of the Aeolian Hall concert, and for analysis of specific musical examples. Includes photographs, selected discography with critical discussion, and index. Hyland, William G. George Gershwin: A New Biography. New York: Praeger, 2003. Comprehensive, indepth biography examines both Gershwin’s life and his music, placing the composer’s work in the context of the times. Chapter 4 is devoted to Rhapsody in Blue. Includes photo essay, select bibliography, and index. Jablonski, Edward. Gershwin. 1988. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. Careful biography, generally regarded as definitive, concentrates largely on Gershwin’s career and social relationships rather than on probing his mind or his music. Includes numerous quotations from those who knew Gershwin. Reprint edition features a revised critical discography. Also includes photographs, bibliography, list of compositions by George and Ira Gershwin, and index. Kimball, Robert, and Alfred Simon. The Gershwins. New York: Atheneum, 1973. Published on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Gershwin’s birth. Contains tributes from family, friends, and admirers. Most significant for memoirs from Gershwin show participants. Includes photographs, chronology, discography, and bibliography. Rosenberg, Deena. Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration of George and Ira Gershwin. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1991. Concentrates on Gershwin’s songs and 1911
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experience in musical stage works to write Charleston Rhapsody (1926) and Concerto Grosso (1932) for jazz band and orchestra. James P. Johnson, the black ragtime and stride piano composer, wrote Yamekraw: A Rhapsody in Black and White (1925), which was scored by William Grant Still, who in turn composed Africa (1930) and Afro-American Symphony (1930). European composers, some specifically influenced by Gershwin, were also drawn to this American music. Among the more significant efforts were Ernst Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf (1927), Paul Hindemith’s Neues vom Tage (1928-1929), Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D Major for Left Hand (1931) and Piano Concerto in G Major (1931)—both of which have been described as “Gershwinesque”—and Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny Songspiel (1927) and Die Dreigroschenoper (1928). Alban Berg, whom Gershwin met in 1928, included a clarinet glissando in the second song of Der Wein (1929) that is clearly reminiscent of Rhapsody in Blue’s opening. Drawn to such elements as syncopation and polyrhythm, the relationship of soloists to accompanying instruments, and special instrumental techniques and sonorities, these composers did not write “jazz”; rather, they produced music in the classical tradition with a distinctively modern sound, one that sometimes reached a wide audience. As Ravel stated in 1928, “These popular forms are but the materials of construction, and the work of art appears only on mature conception where no detail has been left to chance.” The cross-fertilization of musical worlds popularized by George Gershwin brought recognition to American music and American composers, contributing greatly to the eclecticism of twentieth century “serious” music. When composers draw on rock music for inspiration, as Leonard Bernstein did in his Mass (1971), or when jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington or Dave Brubeck seek to work with classical forms, they are further exploring the path blazed by Gershwin in 1924. Indeed, interest in emphasizing the influence of popular idioms led to the effort to move beyond the familiar 1942 orchestral arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue and restore the jazzier sound of Gershwin’s original performance, most notably in 1984 with Maurice Peress’s re-creation of the entire Aeolian Hall concert. — Gary Land
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York
Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars includes excerpts from both music and lyrics. Features reference notes, chronology of works, alphabetical list of Gershwin and Gershwin songs, photographs, bibliography, discography, and index. Schwartz, Charles. Gershwin: His Life and Music. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973. A thorough but sometimes inaccurate discussion of both Gershwin’s life and his music. Notable for attention to Gershwin’s vanity and self-absorption. Includes photographs, catalog of Gershwin compositions and films based on Gershwin’s works, discography, bibliography, and index. Whiteman, Paul, and Mary Margaret McBride. Jazz. 1926. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974. Chapter 4 presents Whiteman’s own account of the Aeolian Hall concert. Includes photographs.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wyatt, Robert, and John Andrew Johnson, eds. The George Gershwin Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Collection of more than eighty writings by and about Gershwin sheds light on the composer’s work. Pieces by musicians such as Irving Berlin and Leonard Bernstein and by critics such as Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott are accompanied by excerpts from Gershwin’s personal correspondence. Includes chronology of Gershwin’s life. See also: 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six; July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel; Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club; Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York.
March, 1924
Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars Arthur Stanley Eddington’s demonstration of the relationship between a star’s mass and its luminosity led to an understanding of how stars evolve. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944), English astronomer, mathematician, and physicist Jacob Karl Ernst Halm (1866-1944), German astronomer William Wallace Campbell (1862-1938), American astronomer and educator Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), Danish astronomer Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957), American astronomer and astrophysicist Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, astronomy was changing. Until that time, astronomers had concerned themselves chiefly with the motions of heavenly objects and the laws and forces that describe those motions. With the advent of the analysis of starlight (spectrography) and the use of photography, the science of astrophysics began to take shape. Scientists could now learn more about the properties of stars other than their motions and could begin the task of understanding what stars are like internally, how they form, and what fuels their existence. New data were 1912
becoming available that scientists could use to discover patterns or relationships among different properties of stars, as revealed by their light. The interpretation of these patterns and relationships was to be one of the first tasks of the science of astrophysics. One type of new data concerned the luminosities (brightnesses) and spectral types of stars. A star’s spectral type is a classification assigned to it after a study of its light, as spread out by a prism or a grating (its spectrum). A program at Harvard College Observatory and other research provided astronomers with catalogs of spectral type and luminosity for many stars. In 1905, Ejnar Hertzsprung, a Danish astronomer, revealed a relationship between a star’s brightness and its type. This relationship was demonstrated in the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram, developed by Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell in the United States. Its discovery raised issues regarding the meaning of this relationship and its implications for why stars are of differing colors and brightnesses. Another type of new data concerned the masses of stars. When studying double-star systems, astronomers can use one of the laws formulated by Johannes Kepler in the seventeenth century to determine the sum of the masses of the two stars in the system. In some cases, a ratio of the masses of the two stars can also be obtained, and this information can be used to determine the mass of each individual star. This can be done either with stars
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was surprised to discover that the relationship held for stars on the main sequence too. This was in conflict with the prevailing assumption that main-sequence stars were too dense for the perfect gas laws to apply to them and their relatively low luminosities (relative to the giants) were accounted for by their high densities. Eddington’s discovery indicated that their low luminosities could be accounted for simply by their low masses. He explained that the perfect gas laws applied at higher densities than expected for stars, because the material of which the stars were composed was highly ionized; that is, the individual atoms were missing some of their electrons because of the presence of high temperatures. This ionization reduced the bulk of the atoms, and the net result was that the perfect gas laws “worked” for much higher densities than could otherwise have been expected. An interesting feature of the mass-luminosity diagram is the relatively broad range of luminosities and much smaller range of masses. The most massive star then known was estimated to be about one hundred times the mass of the Sun; the least massive was about one-
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that are visibly pairs of stars (visual doubles) or with stars that look like a single star to the eye but have spectra that reveal that two stars are actually present. Jacob Karl Ernst Halm, at the Cape Observatory in South Africa, reviewed research conducted by William Wallace Campbell and by Russell with these double-star masses and postulated a relationship between a star’s mass and its spectral class. Halm then combined these two relationships in 1911 (spectral type-brightness and mass-spectral type) and suggested that there is a relationship between a star’s mass and its brightness. This possible relationship was also discussed by Russell in 1913 and by Hertzsprung in 1918. In 1924, Arthur Stanley Eddington was a professor of astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England and director of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. He analyzed mass and luminosity data for many stars and plotted a diagram of mass versus luminosity. The diagram showed a relationship between the two that generally indicated that the brighter a star is, the more massive it is. Stars range from dim low-mass stars to bright highmass stars along a diagonal line stretching across the plot. Eddington not only demonstrated this relationship but also began the discussion of its cause and implications. Eddington’s theoretical explanation for the massluminosity relationship was based on the law of perfect gases. This law describes the relationship between the pressure, volume, and temperature of a gas. The temperature of a star is related to its luminosity, which is actually a measure of the amount of energy radiated away from the star in a given amount of time (“brightness” is commonly used as an equivalent term for luminosity, given that energy is seen in the form of visible light). At the time, H-R diagrams of spectral type versus luminosity for groups of stars showed that there are two types of stars: those recognized by Hertzsprung as being larger (the giants) and the main-sequence stars, or dwarf stars. The giant stars occupy one place on the diagram, with fairly constant luminosity and varying spectral types. The dwarf stars demonstrate Hertzsprung’s color-luminosity relationship: Blue stars are brighter than yellow stars, which, in turn, are brighter than red stars. At the time when Eddington formulated this explanation, it was thought that only giant stars were composed of gases that would follow the perfect gas laws (which applied only under certain conditions), thus the mass-luminosity relationship should apply only to giant stars. Eddington tested the idea that only giants should exhibit the relationship between their masses and their luminosities and
Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars
Arthur Stanley Eddington. (Library of Congress)
1913
Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars sixth the mass of the Sun. Eddington had also considered the problem of radiation pressure in a star, and he used radiation pressure to explain the relatively small range of stellar masses. He showed that there is a condition of equilibrium in a star, with gravitational pressure inward balanced by gas pressure and radiation pressure outward. Beyond a certain mass, the radiation pressure becomes so great that a star would be blown apart by it; therefore, mass is the upper limit to stellar masses. (Today, the most massive star known has been estimated to be only about sixty-five times the mass of the Sun.) Eddington developed an equation to describe equilibrium in a star that is still used today. This equation involved the assumption of perfect gas conditions and therefore at first he thought it should apply only to giant stars. The discovery that perfect gas conditions are also maintained in dwarf or mainsequence stars extended the applicability of this equation and the model of a star’s interior that resulted. The demonstration of the mass-luminosity relationship for stars gave astronomers new areas to investigate and revealed something about the conditions in mainsequence stars that had not been known before. It was an important step in the development of the current understanding of what makes stars shine and how they change over time. Significance After documenting the mass-luminosity relationship, Eddington began sorting out problems of the structure of stars and their energy sources. The fact that the perfect gas law can be applied to both main-sequence and giant stars was a great help to scientists studying stellar structure. The basic problem of stellar structure is that of producing a model star, that is, a description of the physical properties of a star at various depths below the star’s surface, such as the temperature and density. In order to know these properties, one must know the degree to which the gas prevents the free outward flow of radiation. The perfect gas law gives astronomers a tool for calculating this quantity, calculating the temperature and density at various depths in the star, and producing stellar models that are compared with actual stars. Eddington’s calculations assumed an average particle mass (for the particles of gas in stars) that today is known to be too high. This resulted from the fact that at the time the proportions of the various gases composing the stars were not known. It was not until Russell’s discovery that the Sun is almost entirely hydrogen that astronomers could use a particle weight more closely corresponding to reality. 1914
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The discovery of the mass-luminosity relation was important to theories of how stars change with time. In 1913, Russell had presented a scheme of stellar evolution in which all the stars on the main sequence were of different ages. The main sequence represented the path a star took throughout its lifetime, beginning as a bright blue star and cooling down to a dim red star as its energy source (heat from contraction under gravitational force) ran out. With Eddington’s discovery, however, astronomers realized that stars on the main sequence had differing masses (because mass and luminosity are related and they have different luminosities): The stars on the dim red end of the main sequence were less massive than stars at the bright blue end. If the main sequence is an evolutionary path that stars follow, then mass loss must occur as stars age. This was difficult to explain; it was not until later discoveries on stellar evolution that astronomers realized that the main sequence is not an evolutionary path. The questions of how stars evolve and what their energy source is were solved in the 1930’s with the discovery of atomic fusion and the realization that fusion is occurring in stars. When two atoms fuse in the interior of a star, energy is released, and it is this energy that is seen as starlight and other types of radiation. Scientists now know that the mass of a star determines how quickly the fusion reactions take place inside it (how long it lives) and its place on the main sequence. A more massive star is brighter, hotter, and bluer, and when it comes to the end of its fuel supply, it has a more spectacular ending to its life than do less massive, cooler stars. — Mary Hrovat Further Reading Abell, George O. Realm of the Universe. 5th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing, 1994. Introductory college textbook explains various stellar properties and introduces the mass-luminosity relation and the diagram of this relation. Explains how data are gathered on masses of binary stars and discusses the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and its relevance to stellar masses and evolutions. Includes illustrations, diagrams, glossary, and annotated bibliography. Degani, Meir H. Astronomy Made Simple. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976. Explains the massluminosity law in the context of the sequences of stars on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Discussion of stellar evolution emphasizes the importance of a star’s mass in determining how it will change with time. Includes line diagrams and glossary. Eddington, A. S. Stars and Atoms. New Haven, Conn.:
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Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting
Yale University Press, 1927. Collection of a series of lectures given in 1926. Describes the then-current knowledge of stellar structure in a manner intended for the amateur willing to apply new ideas. First section concerns stellar interiors and the massluminosity relation. Dated, but valuable for Eddington’s own view of the work he performed and for his clear, engaging style. Motz, Lloyd, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Story of Astronomy. New York: Plenum, 1995. Presents the history of astronomy from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 15 is devoted to the origin and development of the field of astrophysics. Features bibliography and index. Pannekoek, A. A History of Astronomy. 1961. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1989. Scholarly classic work includes a chapter titled “Common Stars” that discusses the mass-luminosity relation in the context of the development of astrophysics in the early twentieth century, the development of the H-R diagram, and theories of stellar evolution. Includes some line drawings and black-and-white photographs.
Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Discusses the work on stellar properties that culminated in Eddington’s discovery of the mass-luminosity law, including mass determination for binary stars. Also gives background on stellar evolution and H-R diagrams. Cowritten by an astronomer who participated in some of the astronomical history he describes. Includes drawings, diagrams, black-and-white photographs, glossary, and bibliography. Zeilik, Michael, and Stephen A. Gregory. Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics. 4th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. Provides a useful overview of general astronomy, including basic spectral issues and the use of H-R diagrams. See also: Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star; July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars; 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass.
March 31, 1924
Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting When four leading abstract painters in Germany formed a partnership to promote their work, they made a significant contribution to the worldwide revolution in modern art. Also known as: Die Blaue Vier Locale: Europe; United States; Mexico Category: Arts Key Figures Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian painter Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss painter Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), American cartoonist and painter Alexey von Jawlensky (1864-1941), Russian painter Emmy Scheyer (1889-1945), German art student J. B. Neumann (1887-1961), American art dealer
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Summary of Event Emmy Scheyer was born in Braunschweig, Germany. As a young student, she discovered the paintings of Russian immigrant Alexey von Jawlensky and was so impressed by the new art form they represented that she decided to
devote her life to publicizing Jawlensky’s work. Through Jawlensky, she met many other avant-garde painters, including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Lyonel Feininger, who were teaching at the Bauhaus school of design. Because their art was revolutionary and as yet unpopular, all four men were chronically in need of money. This was especially true after Germany’s defeat in World War I and during the period of devastating inflation that followed. In 1924, Scheyer (who was given the nickname “Galka”—Russian for “black bird”—by Jawlensky) volunteered to promote their paintings in the affluent United States, which was famous for its receptivity to new ideas. On March 31, 1924, an agreement was signed designating Scheyer as the artists’ American representative. For publicity purposes they christened their group Die Blaue Vier (the Blue Four), a reference to Der Blaue Reiter (the blue rider), a group of painters who had been inspired and led by the mystical Kandinsky. In May of 1924, the aggressive, charismatic Scheyer went to New York and began sending out thousands of pamphlets to universities, museums, and art associa-
Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting
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tions, offering them exhibits and her services as a lecturer. In New York, she met and collaborated with J. B. Neumann, another ardent admirer of the new German avant-garde art who eventually became a wealthy Manhattan art dealer. The first Blue Four exhibition was arranged by Scheyer at the Daniel Gallery, New York, in 1925. Sales were disappointing. Hoping for a better reception in the West, Scheyer traveled to California, lecturing about her artists along the way. Over the next three years, she gave lectures and arranged Blue Four exhibitions in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and Spokane, Washington. Scheyer returned to Europe several times before World War II in order to collect new paintings. In 1929, the Oakland Art Gallery across the bay from San Francisco opened a traveling Blue Four exhibition under the sponsorship of the Western Association of Art Museums. A big show was held in Hollywood at the Braxton Gallery in 1930. In 1931, the prestigious Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco held a Blue Four exhibition under Scheyer’s direction. That same year, Scheyer was invited by the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera to arrange an exhibition at the national library in Mexico City. By that time, Scheyer was a resident of Hollywood. She became a social celebrity and sold modern German paintings to members of the affluent film colony. The deepening worldwide depression of the 1930’s created havoc in the international art market, and Scheyer was forced to earn her living mainly by giving art lessons to children. She never stopped devoting the bulk of her boundless energies to promoting the works of her Blue Four friends, however. The American public was slow to accept avant-garde German art, both because the new art was revolutionary in nature and because Germany had only recently been an enemy in World War I. Although Americans had become attuned to French Impressionism, they were not ready to accept the radical notions embodied in the new German works. In fact, many critics and connoisseurs regarded the new art as little more than a hoax, calling the works crude, primitive, childish, incompetent, vulgar, or deliberately ugly and offensive. A few, however, like Scheyer, immediately understood and responded to what the Blue Four were trying to do. These perceptive individuals, mostly artists themselves, were delighted with the possibility of being liberated from the tradition that held that the artist should copy nature.
An important factor in the appeal of the Blue Four was the rapid development of photography. Just as live performers were being threatened by cinematic photography, painters were being threatened by still photography. Why pay a high price for a painting or drawing when a camera could produce an even better likeness for a much cheaper price? The artists’ defense of painting held that it was the element of human emotion that made the difference between painting and photography, which led to various experiments to capture the essential human emotion while either distorting the subject or doing without a subject altogether. The Blue Four lasted for only one decade. The group broke up in the face of the growing repression of the Nazi government under Adolf Hitler, who hated what he called “degenerate art” and who favored art that served to promote patriotism, militarism, and totalitarianism. Klee returned to Switzerland in 1933; Kandinsky emigrated to France in 1933 and never returned to Germany. Feininger returned to the United States in 1936. Jawlensky remained in Nazi Germany until his death in 1941, but from 1933 on he was forbidden to exhibit his works. During its brief life span, the Blue Four spread the message—particularly to the United States—that pictorial art had a potential that exceeded the mere copying of people, places, and things or the creation of attractive pictures to adorn the walls of wealthy patrons. Instead, they demonstrated, art could be used to explore the depths of human consciousness and communicate a vast range of ideas and feelings in a universal language.
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Significance It is hard to overestimate the impact of German expressionist art. It had not only an unmistakable direct influence on oil painting and watercolors but also a far more important influence on the public at large through such things as package design, newspaper and magazine advertising, textile design, and the design of record covers, book jackets, greeting cards, wallpaper, stage scenery, billboards, posters, comic strips, animated cartoons, and television commercials. The masses have come to accept the concepts of German expressionist art without for the most part realizing where such concepts originated. In the Walt Disney film Fantasia, which was a bold experiment in filmmaking at the time of its release in 1940, there are many examples of the influence of German expressionism to be seen. One of the most striking is the sequence in which abstract shapes of assorted colors are generated and modified to correspond to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting
In this instance, the main influence is probably that of Kandinsky. In the 1930’s, when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced against stylized backdrops representing the skyscrapers of Manhattan and other modernistic settings, most of the members of the motion-picture audience were appreciating artistic concepts first introduced by Feininger, although they would not have recognized his name. For many years, the covers of The New Yorker magazine also reflected the influence of all four members of the Blue Four and other German expressionist artists. The most notable example is the work of William Steig. The influence of both Klee and Jawlensky, moreover, is evident in the phenomenally popular comic strip Peanuts. The impact of German expressionists on other painters has also been tremendous. Visitors to any major art museum are likely to wander through many rooms full of pictures of fat cherubs and portraits of men and women in lace and suddenly to feel as if they have entered a different universe when they find their way into exhibits marked “modern art.” Even if such viewers do not fully understand abstract painting, they are likely to feel refreshed by the vivid colors and the whole sense of creative liberation represented by such canvases. The influence of such artists as Kandinsky and Klee is unmistakable. So dramatic has been the influence of such artists that many members of the art world have come to regard artists working in the traditional vein with contempt, calling them “illusionists,” “illustrators,” or, perhaps worst of all, “bourgeois painters.” Such attitudes are clearly unfair to sincere and gifted traditional artists. The impact of German expressionism and related movements has not been an unmitigated good; expressionism has spawned myriad untalented imitators whose main attraction to nonrepresentational art is in being freed from the need to develop technical expertise, the need to work long, hard hours to perfect a piece of art, and the need to have anything in particular to communicate. Many poseurs have capitalized on the sacrifices of true artists such as Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger, and Jawlensky, and some have made substantial money and seen their works displayed in the best museums. The Blue Four artists and their colleagues had a definite political impact, too. Both the German dictator Adolf Hitler and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin hated the new expressionist art. Both recognized it for what it was: the proclamation of the freedom of the individual. —Bill Delaney
Further Reading Beale, Penny. “J. B. Neumann and the Introduction of Modern German Art to New York, 1923-1933.” Archives of American Art Journal 29, nos. 1 and 2 (1989): 3-15. Interesting profile of a colorful character who was influential in introducing modern German art to the United States. Droste, Magdalena. Bauhaus, 1919-1933. Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1998. Focuses on the collection of the Bauhaus Archiv Museum of Design in Berlin in examining the progression of the Bauhaus movement. Extensively illustrated. Includes artist and architect biographies, bibliography, and index. Joachimides, Christos M., Norman Rosenthal, and Wieland Schmied, eds. German Art in the Twentieth Century: Painting and Sculpture, 1905-1985. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1985. Comprehensive collection of essays on all aspects of twentieth century German art, including its historical background and its international influence, by many different authorities in the field. Features hundreds of full-color and blackand-white illustrations. Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger, and Jawlensky are all discussed and represented with many color reproductions. Includes biographies of all important twentieth century German artists, with bibliographic references for each individual. Kentgens-Craig, Margret. The Bauhaus and America: First Contacts, 1919-1936. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Scholarly examination of the reception of the Bauhaus in the United States and the reasons for American reactions to the movement’s concepts. Includes bibliography and index. Roters, Eberhard. Painters of the Bauhaus. Translated by Anna Rose Cooper. New York: Praeger, 1969. A history of Bauhaus painters and art instruction, with considerable attention given to the methods and personalities of Klee, Kandinsky, and Feininger. Illustrated. Sandback, Amy Baker. “Blue Heights Drive.” Artforum 28 (March, 1990): 123-127. A rare profile of Emmy Scheyer, the colorful woman who devoted much of her life to publicizing the Blue Four. Contains photographs of her in her modernistic home in the Hollywood Hills, where she entertained such film figures as Charles Laughton, Edward G. Robinson, and Greta Garbo. Tolstoy, Leo. What Is Art? Translated by Almyer Maude. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960. Neglected masterpiece by one of the world’s greatest writers of1917
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Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct fers a simple definition of art, summarizes the history of aesthetics, and voices a conservative reaction to the modernistic art theories that were emerging at the beginning of the twentieth century. Whitford, Frank. Bauhaus. London: Thames and Hudson, 1984. Complete history of the most celebrated and influential art school of modern times. Useful for understanding the relationship between Bauhaus ideas about architecture and fine art. Includes many illustrations, mostly photographs of historical interest.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wolfe, Tom. The Painted Word. 1975. Reprint. New York: Bantam Books, 1999. Funny, irreverent history of abstract art in the United States illustrates the ways in which the principles behind abstract art have been exploited, abused, and misunderstood. See also: Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art.
May 21, 1924
Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct Farmers in California’s Owens Valley, angered by the drainage of their lands by the Los Angeles Aqueduct, resorted to the use of explosives when legal negotiations failed to achieve their goals in one of California’s early battles over water. Locale: Owens Valley, California Categories: Agriculture; business and labor; trade and commerce Key Figures William Mulholland (1855-1935), superintendent of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 1902-1928 Joseph Barlow Lippincott (1864-1942), California supervisor for the Federal Reclamation Service who concurrently contracted with the city of Los Angeles Fred Eaton (1855-1934), city engineer who first envisioned an aqueduct from Owens Valley to Los Angeles Mark Watterson (1876?-1948), Owens Valley banker who led opposition to the Los Angeles Aqueduct Wilfred Watterson (1869?-1943), Owens Valley banker and Mark Watterson’s brother and partner Summary of Event Owens Valley, located in central California, is one hundred miles long and ten miles wide, bordered on the west by the Sierra Nevada and on the east by the White Mountains and Inyo Range. This region was long well supplied with water from the Owens River, which ran the length of the valley from its headwaters in the High Sierras to alkaline Owens Lake. In 1913, however, the Los Angeles Aqueduct tapped this river and transported the valley’s 1918
water 240 miles south to meet the growing needs of the city of Los Angeles. This was accomplished at the expense of Owens Valley farmers, ranchers, and townspeople, who found their livelihoods threatened. Embittered by repeated attempts to come to terms with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) and its chief engineer, William Mulholland, and frustrated by court decisions against them, these citizens finally resorted to violent destruction to call the public’s attention to their plight. On the morning of May 21, 1924, a group of forty men dynamited the aqueduct near Lone Pine. The damage was minimal and the action was largely symbolic, but this was only one battle in the twenty-year war waged over Owens Valley water. The Los Angeles Aqueduct’s impact on valley commerce demonstrated the connection between business and natural resource utilization. By the late 1800’s, the Owens Valley was populated by miners, pioneers, Chinese laborers, and dislocated Paiute Indians. Homesteaders used the irrigation method previously practiced by the Paiutes. Canals and ditches diverted water from the Owens River, creating rich farmland from barren stretches of sagebrush. By the turn of the century, the Owens Valley was a prosperous agricultural region supporting farmers, ranchers, and the towns of Bishop, Independence, Lone Pine, and Big Pine. In 1903, the U.S. Reclamation Service studied the feasibility of a water system project in Owens Valley. Under the supervision of Joseph Barlow Lippincott, the project was designed to irrigate an additional 100,000 acres. Local citizens supported this plan and made potential reservoir sites readily available. Lippincott, however, also worked for Los Angeles during his employment with the Reclamation Service. According to William Chalfant, editor
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tations. Angered by their coercive tactics, the farmers responded with violence. The blast of May 21, 1924, began an alternating pattern of destruction and negotiation. Over the next three years, and despite the presence of armed guards, the aqueduct was blown up eleven times. City wells were also dynamited. On November 16, 1924, a group of men led by Mark Watterson took over the Alabama Gates. They opened the spillway, causing aqueduct water to pour into the dry riverbed. During the next four days, an estimated five hundred to eight hundred valley residents picnicked and camped at the gates. To the protesters’ disappointment, the state militia was not called out, but the occupation received national sympathy. Despite favorable attention from the press, the controversy continued for several years. The Owens Valley Property Owners Protective Association, led by the Wattersons, advertised grievances in state newspapers. It fought for financial restitution in the state’s courts, where it won, and in the Senate Committee on Conservation, where a resolution died without a hearing. The final blow to the resistance movement occurred on August 4, 1927, when the state superintendent of banks discovered a shortage of funds at the Inyo County Bank. All five branches closed at noon, virtually wiping out the savings of Owens Valley residents. The Wattersons were tried and sentenced to ten years in San Quentin State Penitentiary. Significance By the early 1930’s, Los Angeles owned 85 percent of the Owens Valley. Although ranchers leased some city lands, their water rights were not guaranteed and could be revoked at any time. The towns of Laws and Big Pine were abandoned. Bishop lost 35 percent of its 1920 population. Agricultural production dropped 84 percent between 1920 and 1930. Orchards were bulldozed, and fields of alfalfa gave way to sagebrush. The Owens Valley, once irrigated into agricultural fertility, reverted to its naturally barren state. Initially, the aqueduct provided Los Angeles with a surplus of water. Adjacent communities were permitted to use the extra water in exchange for their annexation by the city. Businesspeople supported this plan because it increased real estate values and encouraged development. From 1915 through 1917, the city expanded from 108 to 350 square miles. The population increased from 200,000 in 1905 to 1,192,000 in 1925. To Mulholland’s surprise, Los Angeles soon needed to look for another source of water. 1919
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of the Inyo Register, Lippincott received five thousand dollars for providing the city with government maps and data. In 1905, he was accompanied on a valley survey by Fred Eaton, a Los Angeles city engineer. Eaton first realized the potential for a gravitypowered aqueduct during a trip through the Owens Valley in 1892. His alliance with Lippincott enabled him to buy up about one million dollars’ worth of land along the Owens River; he took advantage of the popular misconception that this property would be used for the reclamation project. The Reclamation Service decided not to pursue the project in view of the conflicting interests shown by Los Angeles city officials and businesspeople. Mulholland had known for years about Eaton’s plan to bring Owens River water south, and by 1905 he was ready to initiate the aqueduct’s construction. Southern California was suffering through the tenth year of a drought. Los Angeles’s population had grown to 200,000 and was increasing rapidly. In July, the Los Angeles Times publicized the project for the first time. Angelenos were delighted. Owens Valley residents felt uneasy because the city failed to state a definite water development policy for the valley. Negotiations with the city met with resistance or bogged down in legal technicalities. The aqueduct was built with neither adequate storage facilities for excess floodwaters nor any guaranteed water supply for Owens Valley. The Los Angeles Aqueduct’s gates opened on November 15, 1913. As the water rushed into the northern San Fernando Valley, Mulholland said to the crowd, “There it is—take it.” To the delight of real estate speculators who had purchased land at two dollars per acre, this transported water turned the arid San Fernando Valley into an agricultural gold mine. The “unlimited” water also accelerated the pace of industrial and individual relocation to sunny Southern California. For the next decade, Owens Valley residents attempted to coexist with the aqueduct, but another drought in 1921 caused the DWP to increase groundwater pumping in the valley. The water table fell, drying out farmlands adjacent to city-owned properties. Farmers tried to consolidate their position by forming irrigation districts. Their efforts were encouraged by Mark and Wilfred Watterson, owners of the Inyo County Bank. While other banks and institutions refused to deal with residents because of the valley’s uncertain future, the Wattersons’ bank took land mortgages and offered financial assistance. Owens Valley residents’ attempts to unify were broken up by city agents, who often resorted to misrepresen-
Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct
Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct The 1920’s water war collapsed the economy of the Owens Valley, but the following fifty years saw the development of new business in tourism, recreation, and government employment. In 1941, the Long Valley dam granted Owens Valley a new lease on life. Crowley Lake, the reservoir created by the dam, became a recreational center for fishing and boating. Hikers, hunters, and skiers flocked to the Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains. Tourist dollars revitalized the valley towns’ economies. City land no longer suitable for farming was consolidated into five-thousand-acre cattle ranches. Economic recovery, aided by jobs brought in by state and federal agencies, aided in tripling the valley’s population between 1930 and 1990. When the Los Angeles Aqueduct was constructed, no laws prevented the transportation of water from one region to another. The Owens Valley controversy made the public aware that legislation applicable to water-rich states spelled disaster in California. In 1931, the state passed the “county of origin” law, which set guidelines for jurisdiction of water development, guaranteeing that local needs would be considered. No longer could those with money and power appropriate this vital resource. The law was not retroactive, and so it affected neither the situation in the Owens Valley nor the Mono extension. As early as 1920, Mulholland considered adding sixty miles to the aqueduct to tap several streams feeding Mono Lake. This lake, although saline and with no outlet, was a unique biosphere supporting a network of insects and birds. Following in the footsteps of their neighbors to the south, residents formed the Mono Basin Land Owners’ Protective Association in 1931. Their protests fell on deaf ears, and in 1941 the city completed the extension. The lake level dropped slowly from 1941 to 1970, when a second aqueduct was constructed alongside the original one. The amount of water exported doubled within a few years. By 1981, the lake had fallen forty-six feet, and its surface area had receded from ninety to sixty square miles. In 1974, the environmental crisis at Mono Lake received public attention through the efforts of David Gaines, a biologist from the University of California, Davis. He formed the Mono Lake Committee in 1978 to inform the public and legally challenge the DWP. Although primarily an environmental group, the Mono Lake Committee empathized with the Owens Valley struggle and based its philosophy on the same principle of citizens protecting their natural resources. Simultaneously, the environmental movement as a whole developed into a powerful force influencing business and political decisions. U.S. government policies 1920
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 began to reflect the public’s concern with natural resources. Beginning in 1969, with creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passage of the National Environmental Policy Act, federal agencies took a larger role in setting guidelines and influencing state and local decisions regarding the development and allocation of resources. National policy had come a long way since 1906, when Theodore Roosevelt, pressured by Los Angeles businesspeople, put through a bill granting the city free access to federal lands along the aqueduct route. The 1920’s water war culminated in the economic upheaval of Owens Valley. Los Angeles drained water from the land without considering citizens’ needs. Farms and ranches were sold or dried up. The towns depended on farmers for their economic livelihood and so lost much of their business. The valley managed to survive by making the transition from agricultural production to a service-oriented economy dependent on tourist dollars. The Owens Valley conflict became a California legend, and the story has been retold with varying accuracy in books and films. It showed how the exploitation of natural resources can devastate a region’s commerce. The DWP’s lack of forethought demonstrated the necessity of careful evaluation of present and future demands as well as environmental impact. Finally, almost one hundred years after the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, an agreement was reached to return water to the Owens River, and water began to flow in December of 2006. A new era of revitalized ecology and recreational tourism was predicted, although the option to divert water back through the aqueduct to Los Angeles remained in place. —Susan Frischer Further Reading Arrandale, Tom. The Battle for Natural Resources. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1983. Easy-to-read discussion of government management of natural resources. Concentrates on post-1950’s legislature and Bureau of Land Management decisions. One chapter is devoted to water resources, but it does not mention the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Includes tables, maps, photos, and selected bibliography. California Division of Engineering and Irrigation. Letter of Transmittal and Report of W. F. McClure, State Engineer: Concerning the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Controversy. Bishop, Calif.: Chalfant Press, 1974. The California state engineer’s official report to Governor Friend William Richardson after the Alabama
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gates takeover in 1924. Informal and sympathetic to valley residents. This report facilitated the Reparations Act of May, 1925. Includes reprints of letters and many newspaper articles. Cooper, Erwin. Aqueduct Empire. Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1968. Overview of California water resources, legislation, and projects written during the emergence of environmental awareness. Informal and conjectural in style. Devotes one chapter to the Owens Valley water war. Presents extensive information, although the author’s pronuclear, protechnological attitude is dated. Includes photographs, bibliography, and time line. Hoffman, Abraham. Vision or Villainy: Origins of the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Water Controversy. 1981. Reprint. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992. Lengthy history of the Los Angeles Aqueduct focuses primarily on the personalities involved, especially Joseph Lippincott and William Mulholland. Photos. Extensive bibliography includes archival material and dissertations. Hundley, Norris. The Great Thirst: Californians and Water; A History. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Excellent historical treatment of California’s water issues that also provides discussion of how these issues continue to shape the state’s development. Interesting analysis of the Owens Valley conflict and its consequences. Kahrl, William L. Water and Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Lengthy historical account of the Owens Valley buyout, similar in style and scope to the Hoffman volume cited above. Includes maps of the aqueduct in Owens Valley and watersupply systems for Los Angeles and other parts of California. Extensive bibliography.
Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct Mulholland, Catherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Written by Mulholland’s granddaughter, this biography sympathizes (unsurprisingly) with its subject, but it is also a good, scholarly treatment of Mulholland’s vision for Los Angeles. Persuasively argues that Mulholland was not at fault—although he was blamed—for the 1928 catastrophe at the St. Francis Dam. Walton, John. Western Times and Water Wars. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Complete history of the Owens Valley, from the days of the Paiute Indians to publication. Emphasis on collective action in a broad historical and sociological context. Well researched, informative, and objective, although esoteric and theoretically dense. Includes interesting photos, statistical tables, graphics showing the layouts of early towns, and comprehensive bibliography. Wood, R. Coke. The Owens Valley and the Los Angeles Water Controversy: Owens Valley as I Knew It. Stockton, Calif.: University of the Pacific, 1973. Written in 1934 as a master’s thesis. Wood’s viewpoint is surprisingly objective for someone reared in the Owens Valley during the water war. His personal experiences and remarks, although limited to the first chapter and footnotes, are possibly of greatest interest to the general reader. Includes photos and bibliography as well as several poems. See also: Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins; Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles.
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Immigration Act of 1924
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 26, 1924
Immigration Act of 1924 The Immigration Act of 1924, which reflected widespread restrictionist sentiment in the United States after World War I, severely limited the numbers of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe permitted to enter the country each year. Also known as: Johnson-Reid Act; National Origins Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures Albert Johnson (1869-1957), U.S. congressman from Washington David A. Reed (1880-1953), U.S. senator from Pennsylvania William Paul Dillingham (1843-1923), U.S. senator from Vermont Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of state, 1921-1925 A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936), attorney general of the United States, 1919-1921 Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), leader of the American Federation of Labor Summary of Event The Immigration Act of 1924 provided for a system of quotas for immigration into the United States, drastically limiting the numbers of people from southern and eastern Europe who could enter the country, especially in comparison with more “favored” national groups from northern and western Europe. As a result of strong pressure from American employers dependent on Latin American laborers, the measure included few restrictions on immigrants from nations in the Western Hemisphere. Otherwise, it severely curtailed the immigration of groups deemed by restrictionists to be not “American” enough. The U.S. Congress had passed immigration legislation, after contentious debate, on several occasions prior to 1924. A quota system instituted in 1921 provided that people of each European nationality could enter the United States based on the percentage of their group’s population in the United States in 1910. The Immigration Act of 1921 allowed only about 350,000 immigrants from Europe per year, most of them from the “preferred” national groups in northern and western Europe. It had several loopholes, however. By 1924, few voices were 1922
raised against the further restriction of immigration, and some individuals called for a complete shutdown. The Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act for its congressional sponsors, Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington and Senator David A. Reed of Pennsylvania, set national quotas based on estimates of the national origins of residents in the United States at the 1890 census. That the Senate Immigration Committee, headed by Senator William Paul Dillingham, chose 1890 as the date from which to calculate national origins was significant. That year was prior to the most extensive immigration from southern and eastern Europe, particularly Italy and the Balkan countries. Immigration to the United States from all areas rose tremendously in the late nineteenth century, but after 1896 most European immigrants came from areas different from those of previous immigrants. A large proportion of immigrants in the mid-1800’s had been from western Europe, particularly the British Isles and Germany. Pressures such as the Irish potato famine of the 1840’s and the Franco-German conflicts in the third quarter of the century created these immigrant flows. The “new” immigrants, as they were called to distinguish them from immigrant groups already established in the United States by the 1890’s, stood out in part simply because they came from other parts of Europe and the world, not only southern and eastern Europe but also, in significant numbers, Japan and the Far East. The new immigrants could be differentiated from native-born residents of the United States and earlier immigrant groups on grounds other than their national origins. They were often physically distinguishable, with darker skin or non-“white” color (such as olive-skinned Italians or the Asian peoples), or smaller stature. They were different religiously from earlier groups, with many southern Europeans being Catholic and Asian immigrants being non-Christians, in contrast to the Protestantism (excepting the Irish) of earlier immigrant groups. The new immigrants settled in unprecedented patterns as well. Generally, they were not as drawn to farms in the Midwest as to urban and industrial communities and mining areas in the Northeast. Restriction of immigration through legislation had broad support in 1924. A few efforts to moderate the provisions of the Johnson-Reed Act, such as the attempt by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to make the act comport with earlier diplomatic agreements allowing
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Immigration Act of 1924
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residency for certain Japanese aliens, were rebuffed by Congress. The reasons advanced for limiting or stopping new immigrant groups from coming to the United States included humanitarian concerns about urban overcrowding, arguments about preserving the purity of a supposed “Nordic” race, scientific and pseudoscientific concerns about racial characteristics, pleas to limit the labor supply, and arguments about the alleged links between the new immigrants and radical political movements. Afew groups, including organizations representing business such as the National Organization of U.S. Health Service officers inspect Japanese immigrants as they arrive on the West Manufacturers, consistently argued Coast of the United States several months before Congress passed the restrictive Imagainst limitations on immigration, migration Act of 1924. (NARA) hoping that immigration would provide continued flows of inexpensive (and often nonunion) factory and unwho believed that the “Nordic” northern Europeans were skilled labor. Their desires were drowned out in the calls engaged in a battle for species survival. Among highly for restriction. educated people in the United States, an acceptance of Labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers, who in the tenets of eugenicism and social Darwinism was wide1910’s had been uncomfortable with the tone of restricspread. Many offered it as an explanation for the success tionist proposals, became convinced of the need to ensure of their own well-established families. To even more exthe “Americanism” of the labor force after World War I. treme groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which was at its The hiring of immigrant laborers as strikebreakers in sevheight in influence in the postwar years, eugenics proeral incidents increased organized labor’s fear that the vided a “scientific” explanation for the most vicious new immigrants were too tractable in the hands of emforms of xenophobia and racism. ployers and would undercut existing pay rates. The inflaNativism had been given powerful impetus by several tion and massive unemployment of the early 1920’s made high-profile governmental officials in the wake of World the labor movement even more desperate to eliminate War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. Attorney General “foreign” (that is, new immigrant) competition for jobs. A. Mitchell Palmer launched a series of actions against The supporters of immigration restrictions in the radical groups and rounded up foreign agitators for deyears prior to passage of the 1924 act found justifications portation from the United States in 1920. Although these for their ideas among authors who wrote about the physi“Palmer raids” netted only a small number of people who cal classification of human beings. Such writers on race finally were forced to leave the country and Palmer’s ranged from trained biologists, geologists, and geneti“Red Scare” helped discredit its instigator, a number of cists such as Francis Galton of England to amateur scienpolitical leaders, including the young J. Edgar Hoover, tists and historians such as the widely read Madison who had been appointed head of the new General IntelliGrant of New York City. Many of the restrictionists begence Division in the Department of Justice, remained lieved that they were practicing the science of “eugenconvinced that radicalism, disloyalty to the United ics,” or “good breeding,” when they recommended that States, and new immigrants were intimately linked. The “inferior” national groups such as southern Europeans assumption that Italians, for example, were prone to anshould not be allowed to “water down” the primarily archism and violence pervaded the internationally fawhiter, Protestant, and “Nordic” groups that had arrived mous trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in in the United States earlier. Such arguments found acthe mid-1920’s. ceptance among some supporters of social Darwinism,
Immigration Act of 1924 Significance The strong provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924 cut immigration to levels much lower than prior to the beginning of the new immigration, especially as supplemented by stepped-up enforcement in the late 1920’s and 1930’s, when fears about unemployment were even more pressing. Because some countries (such as Great Britain, a “preferred” nation to the restrictionists) never filled their yearly quotas, actual annual immigration under the act was much lower than the total of 150,000 persons allowed. In contrast, 1,285,000 immigrants entered the United States in 1907, the year in which immigration was highest. Nonetheless, despite the restrictive features of the 1921 and 1924 congressional immigration actions, more than 4 million people immigrated to the United States during the 1920’s, compared with about 5.7 million in the previous decade. The years of the Great Depression saw a precipitous decline in immigration, with only about 528,000 immigrants. Although migration from Mexico had not been formally regulated by the 1924 act, enough small farmers began complaining about immigrants serving as cheap labor for large-scale cotton producers to pressure diplomats into restricting Mexican immigration through much stricter enforcement of visa regulations. The fervor of restrictionist arguments moderated somewhat by the 1930’s, especially as eugenics fell into disfavor because of its increasing association with fascism in Europe and as scandals smeared the reputation of the Ku Klux Klan. Ironically, however, despite Americans’ mounting dismay at arguments about racial purity being advanced by Adolf Hitler, immigration restrictions (motivated in some instances by anti-Semitism) served as a powerful method for limiting immigration by Europeans seeking refuge from Nazi persecution. President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to press for changes in immigration regulations and in the law of political asylum that would have granted admission to the United States to thousands of individuals, including children. Immigration restriction as a national policy was severely tested by refugees from several areas of the world in the late 1940’s, including people fleeing from new communist governments. The Cold War saw renewed fears within the United States that foreigners, especially from certain areas, might be spies or anti-American. Despite some administrative sympathy for refugees, notably in the administration of Harry S. Truman, legislation such as the Internal Security Act of 1950 and the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 (both passed over presidential veto) contained strict regulation of potential 1924
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 subversives, strengthened the authority of government agencies to enforce immigration legislation, and kept the quota system in place. The quota system remained as a guiding principle in U.S. immigration policy until 1965, when new grounds for establishing a person’s suitability for entry into the country as a resident were established. Incremental changes in immigration law in the 1950’s and early 1960’s had provided for the reuniting of some immigrant families, but sweeping reforms of the quota system were blocked for a time by key members of Congress who still advocated restriction. Wholesale reform of immigration law was urged by organized labor, which long since had absorbed “new” immigrants as members, and by religious and intellectual groups that viewed the quota system as needlessly discriminatory. The authors of the Immigration Act of 1965 allowed for a “brain drain” of skilled and professional immigrants from the rest of the world into the United States, in part as a compromise with congressional restrictionists, to assure them that immigrants would be productive additions to American society. With the passage of the 1965 act, national origin was no longer the primary determinant of an individual’s ability to enter the United States. Quotas by regions of the world were retained, and a 20,000-person cap per country was applied to immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and later applied to those from Western Hemisphere nations. The usefulness of an individual’s occupation, which first was provided as a consideration in the McCarran-Walter Act, and the necessity for political asylum could count in favor of a potential immigrant. Despite the worry that U.S. immigration policy is overly restrictive, actual levels of immigration increased steadily after World War II. The war years of the 1940’s saw immigration rise to more than a million, to 2.5 million in the 1950’s, 3.3 million in the 1960’s, and nearly 4.5 million in the 1970’s. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, immigration increased even more dramatically, to 71.3 million in the 1980’s and more than 9 million in the 1990’s, as Congress raised legal limits. — Elisabeth A. Cawthon Further Reading American Council of Learned Societies. “Report of the Committee on Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States.” In Annual Report of the American Historical Association by the American Historical Society. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1932. Presents the findings of the
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Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. 2d ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988. Classic account of anti-immigrant hostility in the United States from the Civil War to the imposition of the national-origins system. Gives a complete account of the congressional struggle for immigration restriction and presents a detailed analysis of the 1924 legislative victory. Includes bibliography and index. Hutchinson, E. P. Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798-1965. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981. Encyclopedic discussion of all major pieces of immigration legislation considered and passed by Congress. Chronicles changes in the forms of various bills as they passed through committees and floor discussions. Kessner, Thomas. The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York City, 1880-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Uses a variety of local records, including census materials, to argue that “new” Italian and Jewish immigrants in New York City were upwardly mobile, despite the fears of nativists. LeMay, Michael, and Elliott Robert Barkan, eds. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Collection of primary documents on immigration history. Includes bibliographical references and index. Taylor, Philip. The Distant Magnet: European Emigration to the U.S.A. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Vivid and readable account of the motivations for and experience of immigration to the United States, drawn from diverse source materials. Captures the pathos and richness of a variety of cultures and the venom of restrictionist arguments. Includes photographs. Tichenor, Daniel J. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Examines the history of immigration policy in the United States since the nation’s founding, focusing on the factors that have influenced attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Includes tables, figures, and index. See also: Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act; Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States; May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol; Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans.
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committee assigned to determine the national origins of the population of the United States. Useful for information on the methods used by social scientists to circumvent problems resulting from gaps in early census data. Bolino, August C. The Ellis Island Source Book. Washington, D.C.: Kensington Historical Press, 1985. Volume intended as a resource for families researching immigrant history includes a history of Ellis Island and U.S. immigration restriction. Calavita, Kitty. U.S. Immigration Law and the Control of Labor, 1820-1924. London: Academic Press, 1984. Theoretical discussion of U.S. immigration policy is heavily informed by neo-Marxist analysis of the role of the state in promoting capitalism. Argues that pressure for the 1924 act was widespread and not attributable to any single group or set of interests. Curran, Thomas J. Xenophobia and Immigration, 18201930. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Basic overview of the reasons for immigration restriction throughout U.S. history, focusing on nativism and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882. New York: Hill & Wang, 2004. Examines trends in and influences on U.S. immigration policy from late in the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 addresses the period of the 1920’s. Includes tables and charts, bibliography, and index. Divine, Robert A. American Immigration Policy, 19241952. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. One of the most comprehensive treatments available of the history of immigration restriction from the 1924 act through the mid-1950’s. Provides a detailed summary of the attitudes of both restrictionists and their opponents and describes the reasons behind the move to a national-origins system. Includes bibliography and index. Garis, Roy. Immigration Restriction. New York: Macmillan, 1927. Work by a Vanderbilt University economist who supported restriction and the nationalorigins system demonstrates the prorestrictionist perspective of the time. Senate and House committees used some of the charts and graphs in this book to support a change from the 1921 method of using the census. Includes an index and a bibliography prepared by the Library of Congress for Congress.
Immigration Act of 1924
U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 28, 1924
U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol The U.S. Congress established the U.S. Border Patrol to prevent undocumented immigrants from Latin America and Canada from entering the United States. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; civil rights and liberties; business and labor; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures John Box (1871-1941), U.S. congressman from Texas James J. Davis (1873-1947), U.S. secretary of labor, 1921-1929 William Green (1873-1952), president of the American Federation of Labor Claude Hudspeth (1877-1941), U.S. congressman from Texas Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of state, 1921-1925 Summary of Event The United States Border Patrol was created in 1924 to curtail illegal immigration from Latin America and Canada. Previously, a force of fewer than forty mounted inspectors rode the borders looking for Chinese migrants attempting to enter the country in violation of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Mexican workers were so valuable to the economy of the American Southwest that little effort was made to prevent them from crossing the Rio Grande to work as agricultural laborers for cotton and sugar beet growers. The addition of a literacy test to immigration requirements in 1917, during World War I, made it more difficult for farmhands to enter, but they could easily avoid the test by sneaking into the country at night. Enforcement was lax because farm owners depended on a cheap labor supply for their economic livelihood. In the early 1920’s, illegal immigration from Mexico far exceeded the average of fifty thousand legitimate immigrants per year. In 1921, the U.S. Congress adopted a restrictive immigration policy based on a national quota system. Some legislators asserted that the peoples of the Western Hemisphere should be included in the limitations, but their argument did not succeed because of opposition from the State Department and from agricultural interests in Texas, Arizona, and California. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes told Congress that limiting immigration from Latin America would harm U.S. at1926
tempts to improve diplomatic relations with that part of the world, and farmers and growers claimed that they needed a steady supply of migrant labor from south of the border to stay in business. For these reasons, both the Senate and the House agreed to put no immigration restrictions on New World peoples. When Congress passed a law in 1924 establishing a system of immigration quotas based on national origins, it again excluded people from the Western Hemisphere. A proposal to include Latin Americans and Canadians under this more restrictive policy failed by large margins in both the House and the Senate. Hughes once again testified in opposition to the amendment and repeated his statement that the foreign policy of the United States demanded favorable treatment for migrants from Western nations. A new element entered this debate in Congress, however, as several legislators, led by Representative John Box of Texas, emphasized what they perceived as the racial and cultural inferiority of the Mexican population. The discussion in Congress focused on Mexicans because they made up the largest portion of immigrants from nations in the Western Hemisphere. Almost one hundred thousand had crossed the border legally in 1924, and thousands more had entered illegally to avoid paying the eighteen-dollar visa fee required of all immigrants under the new law. Fewer than five thousand Central and South Americans came into the United States that year, and they were not perceived as a threat. Advocates of ending both legal and illegal immigration argued that Mexicans were taking away American jobs and working for starvation wages. The American Federation of Labor, under its new president, William Green, and the American Legion were major proponents of this viewpoint. “Scientific racists,” who believed that white America was disappearing, argued about the dangers of “colored blood” polluting the population and contaminating the American way of life. Most Mexicans had some Indian blood in their ancestry, and, according to racial theorists of the time, Indians were inferior to Nordic types in intelligence and physical ability. The 1924 law was aimed at keeping the “inferior” races of southern and eastern Europe out of the country. It made no sense, therefore, to allow free access to inferiors from other parts of the world. These arguments had been successful in winning approval of the 1921 quota system, whereby each nationality group in the United States was limited in immigration each year to 3 percent of its total number in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
to the establishment of the U.S. Border Patrol on May 28, 1924. Congressman Claude Hudspeth, who owned a large farm in East Texas but was not dependent on Mexican labor, proposed the agency’s creation and got Congress to provide one million dollars for this new branch of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization in the Department of Labor. The Border Patrol initially had 450 officers whose main job was to ride the Mexican border on horseback to seek out smugglers and the hiding places of illegal aliens. Patrol officers were told to expel any alien who could not prove that he or she had paid the visa fee. Opposition to the Border Patrol proved to be considerable. Ranchers and farmers protested and interfered with the arrests of their laborers. The growers bitterly assailed the increasingly difficult requirements for legal immigration. The 1924 law mandated not only a ten-dollar visa fee, which had to be paid to an American consul in the nation of origin, but also a six-dollar head tax for each applicant. Few Mexicans could afford these fees, given that their average wage was twelve cents for a ten-hour day in their homeland, thus illegal entry and the smuggling of laborers increased. By paying a small sum to a smuggler, a Mexican peasant could avoid the fees and the literacy test and easily find jobs paying more than a dollar per day in Texas, Arizona, and California. In its first year of operation, the small Border Patrol staff reported turning back fifteen thousand aliens seeking illegal entry, but an estimated one hundred thousand farmworkers successfully evaded the border guards. In an attempt to improve the Border Patrol’s success rate, in 1926 Congress doubled the number of officers and made the agency a permanent part of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization. Significance During its first three years of operation, the Border Patrol turned back an annual average of fifteen thousand Mexicans seeking illegal entry. It did not have enough personnel to end all illegal entry, and Mexican workers were too valuable to the economy of the Southwest to eliminate completely. Ranchers and farmers who benefited greatly by using Mexican labor continued to oppose the patrol’s efforts to pick up and deport field hands who preferred to deal with smugglers rather than pay the visa fee and head tax. In 1926, the Immigration Service backed away from strict enforcement of the law and entered into a “gentlemen’s agreement” with agricultural interests in California and Texas that called for registration of all Mexican 1927
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the United States according to the 1910 census. The 1924 law reduced the total to 2 percent of the population according to the census base of 1890. Congress decided to remove Latin America and Canada from these restrictions principally because of the belief that cheap Mexican labor was necessary to keep American farmers prosperous. Labor unions had frequently challenged that view. During the 1921-1922 depression in the United States, unions began a campaign to include Latin Americans under the immigration quota system. They had a strong ally in Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, a former union president. In 1922, Davis ordered all unemployed Mexicans to leave the United States. Resentment and violence mounted because of the economic hard times, and in some Texas towns starving Mexicans were physically expelled. When the short depression ended and job opportunities opened up, agricultural interests petitioned Congress to reopen the borders. Mexican labor was too valuable to the economy to exclude completely, because Mexicans did the jobs Americans simply would not do, and for wages that Americans would not accept. The Spanish-speaking aliens would not become permanent residents, Congress was reassured, and they offered no political threat because the poll tax still in effect in Texas and other southern states prevented them from voting. Sugar beet growers and cotton farmers tried to appease the labor unions by arguing that the aliens were unskilled laborers and therefore not a threat to American workers. The same reasoning kept Canadians from inclusion in the new immigration system. These immigrants were mostly from French-speaking Quebec and worked in New England textile mills for very low wages. Most of the congressional debate centered on Mexicans, with little discussion of immigration from the north. The major fear in Congress seemed to be that large numbers of “peons” from south of the border were entering the United States illegally and that they posed a threat to American values and customs because they were Catholics and spoke a foreign language. Something had to be done to stop the flood, but the economic interests of southwestern farmers would also have to be protected. If, for foreign policy and economic reasons, Latin Americans could not be in the quota system, the reasoning went, perhaps the borders of the United States could be secured from illegal immigration by tighter controls. The smuggling of impoverished workers from south of the border was a major problem, and no agency of the American government existed to control it. Concern over the flow of laborers from the south led
U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol
U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol workers in the states. Each worker would receive an identification card that allowed him or her to work in exchange for an eighteen-dollar fee payable at three dollars per week. When Congressman John Box of Texas heard about this “immigration on the installment plan,” he was outraged and called for an end to the “outlaw’s agreement.” He denounced Mexicans as racially inferior to white Europeans and warned that their illegal influx had been so large that it threatened to reverse the results of the Mexican War of 1846-1848. After that conflict, the United States had acquired California, Arizona, and much of the rest of the Southwest, but now, according to Box, “blood-thirsty, ignorant” bandits from Mexico were becoming the largest population in those areas and retaking them. In part because of such fears, in 1929 Congress voted to double the size of the Border Patrol and demanded a crackdown on illegal entry. Congress was also responding to union demands for increased border security. Steel corporations had recently begun to recruit Mexicans from the Southwest to work in places such as Chicago and Gary, Indiana, where they were paid less than AngloAmericans. As the pool of European immigrant labor became more restricted because of requirements concerning national origins, northern industrialists began to see Mexico and Latin America as new sources of cheap labor, much to the annoyance of labor unions. For many impoverished Mexican agricultural workers, the economic rewards seemed worth the risk, and many moved north to Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. In response, the Texas state legislature passed a law that required labor recruiters to pay a fee of one thousand dollars before they could begin operating in the state. The growers and farmers did not want all their cheap labor to move north. Congress also passed a new law, suggested by the State Department, according to which anyone caught entering the United States after having been deported previously could be charged with a felony and be liable for up to two years’ imprisonment. This legislation greatly decreased illegal entry into North America. The Border Patrol was also authorized to cover the borders of Florida and Canada. The gentlemen’s agreement was ended, and full immediate payment of fees was again required of all immigrants. These measures, plus the economic insecurity brought about by the worldwide depression that began in 1929, temporarily ended the conflict over illegal immigration from Mexico and other nations of the Western Hemisphere. The issue did not reemerge as an important problem until after World War II. The most significant impact of the creation of the U.S. 1928
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Border Patrol was that it made illegal entry into the United States much more difficult than it ever had been before. A government agency now had the authority to arrest and deport illegal aliens. — Leslie V. Tischauser Further Reading Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882. New York: Hill & Wang, 2004. Examines trends in and influences on U.S. immigration policy from late in the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Includes tables and charts, bibliography, and index. Divine, Robert. American Immigration Policy, 19241952. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957. Detailed history of immigration policy, the debate about the national-origins system, and attempts to include the Western Hemisphere under immigration law provisions. Good background material on the most significant immigration laws and their enforcement. Includes bibliography and index. Fogel, Walter. Mexican Illegal Alien Workers in the United States. Los Angeles: University of California, Institute of Industrial Relations, 1979. Provides brief description of the history, activities, and purposes of the Border Patrol. Contains useful information on the attitudes of Mexican workers and their reasons for illegally entering the United States as well as statistics concerning apprehensions and deportations. Focuses mainly on California. Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. 2d ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988. Classic account of anti-immigrant hostility in the United States describes the attitudes of Texans and Californians toward their neighbors south of the border. Offers extensive discussion of anti-Catholic motivations for immigration restriction. Includes bibliography and index. Perkins, Clifford A. Border Patrol: With the U.S. Immigration Service on the Mexican Boundary, 19101954. El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1978. Presents the recollections and adventures of a former Border Patrol district officer. Discusses the founding, staffing, and organization of the Border Patrol and the contributions of some of its early members. Provides useful information on the education, attitudes, and responsibilities of officers and relates many anecdotes concerning the methods they use.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Reisler, Mark. By the Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United States, 1900-1940. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976. Detailed, well-written history of Mexican immigration and the problem of illegal aliens. Discusses the organization and purpose of the Border Patrol and summarizes its accomplishments and problems. Presents an excellent discussion of the motivations of agricultural interests and restrictionists and provides complete statistics on the impact of enforcement on the movement of people across the border. Includes extensive bibliography and index.
Indian Citizenship Act Tichenor, Daniel J. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Examines the history of immigration policy in the United States since the nation’s founding, focusing on the factors that have influenced attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Includes tables, figures, and index. See also: Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act; May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924; Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans.
June 2, 1924
Indian Citizenship Act The Indian Citizenship Act conferred U.S. citizenship on all Native Americans born within territorial limits of the United States, thus encouraging the dissolution of tribal nations. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; indigenous peoples’ rights Key Figures Henry Laurens Dawes (1816-1903), U.S. senator from Massachusetts James Rood Doolittle (1815-1897), U.S. senator from Wisconsin John Elk (fl. early twentieth century), American Indian who voluntarily separated from his tribe but was denied the right to vote in Nebraska Homer P. Snyder (1863-1937), U.S. congressman from New York
1929
1924
Summary of Event American Indians hold a unique position in U.S. society and law, so the question of their citizenship has been complicated. By the time of the Revolutionary War, it was established practice for European colonial powers to negotiate treaties with American Indian tribes, as they were considered to be independent nations, and this policy was continued by the United States. The U.S. Constitution regards tribes as distinct political units, separate and apart from the United States, although not foreign nations, so as long as American Indians were members of tribes or nations that negotiated treaties with the U.S. government as semi-independent political units, they
could not be considered U.S. citizens. Two significant court rulings made it clear that an act of Congress would be required to grant citizenship to American Indians. The issue of whether American Indians were citizens came into question when the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1868. The amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized within the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the State wherein they reside.” This amendment was intended to grant citizenship to newly emancipated slaves; however, there was a question as to whether it covered American Indians as well. In 1868, Senator James Rood Doolittle of Wisconsin led the opposition to the extension of citizenship to American Indians under the Fourteenth Amendment. Many tribes were not yet settled on reservations and tribal wars were taking place in the Great Plains, and Doolittle felt strongly that Indians were not yet prepared for citizenship. There was considerable confusion in the Senate as to whether Indians living with tribal connections were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It was decided that Fourteenth Amendment rights did not extend to American Indians when the Senate Committee on the Judiciary ruled, in 1870, that tribal Indians were not granted citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment because they were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in the sense meant by the amendment. Once this matter was settled, issues arose over the status of American Indians who voluntarily severed relationships with their tribes. John Elk, an American Indian who had terminated relations with his tribe and lived and worked in Omaha, Nebraska, sought to register to vote in
Indian Citizenship Act a local election. Elk met all the requirements to vote in the state of Nebraska, but he was refused the right to vote because election officials, and later the courts, ruled that as an American Indian, he was not a U.S. citizen. In 1884, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court decisions, ruling in Elk v. Wilkins that an Indian born as a member of a tribe, although he disassociated himself from that tribe and lived among whites, was not a citizen and therefore was ineligible to vote. This ruling indicated it would take a specific act of Congress to naturalize American Indians. By the 1880’s, many persons in the United States sought to end tribal sovereignty, individualize Indians (end their status as tribal members), and grant citizenship to them so they eventually would be amalgamated into the general population. As a means toward this end, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts, a leader in reform legislation for American Indian issues, sponsored the General Allotment Act, which became law in 1887. This act carried provisions for citizenship as a reward for Indians who would leave their tribes and adopt “the habits of civilized life.” In part, this meant that American Indians had to accept small plots of land, successfully farm their land, and learn the English language. Provisions in the General Allotment Act meant that eventually every American Indian could become a citizen, except for members of tribes specifically excluded in legislation. Indians in Oklahoma were originally excluded from these provisions, but in 1901, a congressional act granted Indians in Oklahoma Territory citizenship. By 1917, through a variety of federal statutes, as many as twothirds of all Native Americans were U.S. citizens. However, U.S. involvement in World War I reopened the debate about citizenship for American Indians as a whole. American Indians actively supported the war effort by working to increase food production, by purchasing war bonds, by contributing to the Red Cross, and, most dramatically, by enlisting in the armed forces. Between 6,000 and 10,000 Indians, many of whom were not citizens, enlisted for military service. In return for their service to the country, Representative Homer P. Snyder of New York authored the Veterans Citizenship Bill, which became law on November 6, 1919. This law granted any American Indian who had received an honorable discharge from U.S. military service during World War I the right to apply for citizenship with no restrictions on the right to tribal property. Still, by 1920, some 125,000 American Indians were not citizens. Many people in the United States believed that all Indians should be rewarded for their patriotism during World War I, and 1930
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Snyder introduced a bill in Congress that would make U.S. citizens of all remaining noncitizen Indians born in the United States. Political maneuvering began at once. Many people favored citizenship for Indians as a way to sever the legal relationship between the tribes and the federal government, and many American Indians were aware that citizenship could alter their tribal governments and possibly dissolve the reservation land base. In particular, full-blooded members of many tribes were fearful that citizenship would end tribal sovereignty, bring them under state jurisdiction, and ultimately destroy tribal life and values. Compromise was required to resolve these conflicting views. In January, 1924, Congressman Snyder introduced House Resolution 6355, authorizing the secretary of the interior to grant citizenship to all American Indians but ensuring that “the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.” The bill was approved by Congress, and the Indian Citizenship Act, signed into law on June 2, 1924, by President Calvin Coolidge, made Native Americans both citizens of the United States and persons with tribal relations. Significance Ultimately, citizenship had little impact on the lives of most American Indians. The Bureau of Indian Affairs continued its policy of treating tribal members as wards of the government and administering affairs for American Indian citizens. The right to vote was denied to many American Indians until the 1960’s, because the states had the power to determine voter eligibility and many did not consider tribal members living on reservations to reside in the states. Since that time, federal protections such as those embodied in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have ensured that American Indians have the right to vote in federal, state, and local elections, and, as members of tribes, they also can vote in tribal elections. —Carole A. Barrett Further Reading Debo, Angie. A History of the Indians in the United States. 1970. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Comprehensive, in-depth historical survey of the Indians of the United States emphasizes tribal relations with the U.S. government. Includes index. Hauptman, Laurence M. Tribes and Tribulations: Misconceptions About American Indians and Their Histories. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995. Collection of essays seeks to set straight
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a number of common misunderstandings about American Indians. Includes discussion of the topic of Indians’ U.S. citizenship. Newton, Nell Jessup, ed. Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Rev. ed. New York: Matthew Bender, 2005. The most complete sourcebook on American Indian legal issues available. Olson, James S., and Raymond Wilson. Native Americans in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Interprets major trends, events, and attitudes affecting American Indian peoples, including the myriad issues involved in the citizenship debate. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Semi-
Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated nal work addresses federal-tribal relationships and the development of American Indian policy. Traces the controversies surrounding citizenship for Indians. Smith, Michael T. “The History of Indian Citizenship.” In The American Indian Past and Present. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981. Traces the major factors that made it difficult for American Indians to obtain citizenship. Washburn, Wilcomb E. Red Man’s Land/White Man’s Law. 2d ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. Discusses the American Indian in the complex federal-tribal context, including information on citizenship. Features footnotes and index. See also: Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock; Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians; June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act.
June 3, 1924
Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated Aldo Leopold’s success in having approximately 755,000 acres of the Gila National Forest preserved as wilderness marked the beginning of formal wilderness preservation in the United States. Locale: Gila National Forest, New Mexico Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics; natural resources Key Figures Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), American wildlife biologist, ecologist, and author Arthur H. Carhart (1892-1978), American landscape architect and conservation writer Frank C. W. Pooler (b. 1882), head of the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona and New Mexico William B. Greeley (1879-1955), chief of the U.S. Forest Service, 1920-1928 Stephen T. Mather (1867-1930), first director of the National Park Service Henry C. Wallace (1866-1924), U.S. secretary of agriculture, 1921-1924
1931
1924
Summary of Event On June 3, 1924, District Forester Frank C. W. Pooler approved a recreation plan for the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. The plan incorporated Aldo Leopold’s proposal for a Gila Wilderness Area of approximately 755,000 acres. This decision is widely regarded as the
first formal designation of an area to be managed as wilderness in the national forests of the United States. In the first decades after its establishment in 1905, the U.S. Forest Service was militantly utilitarian, committed to using the resources of the national forests to foster the economic development of the nation. Timber harvesting, mining, grazing, and the development of roads, resorts, and communities were encouraged. Recreation was tolerated as a secondary use, but wilderness preservation was resisted. Despite calls for wilderness preservation from organizations such as the Ecological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the idea of prohibiting economic development in any part of the national forests was alien to most in the Forest Service. Not every forester shared this view. Two who did not were Arthur H. Carhart and Aldo Leopold. Carhart was a landscape architect working for the Forest Service in Colorado as a recreation engineer. Carhart accepted appointment to the Forest Service in April, 1919, and before the year was out, he had made three major contributions to national forest wilderness preservation. First, he was asked to survey the Trappers Lake area of Colorado’s White River National Forest for home sites and a road. He completed the survey but argued that neither the road nor the homes should be built. He contended that the area was best left undeveloped. Carhart’s superiors agreed, and his proposal to preserve the Trap-
Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated pers Lake area was incorporated in a district recreation plan. The 118,000-acre Flat Tops Primitive Area, protecting a part of the Trappers Lake region, was eventually set aside by the Forest Service. In 1975, the U.S. Congress designated the 235,000-acre Flat Tops Wilderness. Second, Carhart traveled the Superior National Forest of Minnesota by canoe and prepared a preliminary report recommending protection of natural features and exclusion of roads. A revised report and proposal for a Superior Roadless Area was approved by Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace in April, 1923, a year before the Gila reservation. For forty years, the Superior Roadless Area enjoyed varying levels of protection from Congress and the Forest Service. Congress gave the area statutory protection in the Wilderness Act of 1964 and enlarged the area in 1978. As of 2006, nearly 800,000 acres were being managed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Third, Carhart attracted the attention of Leopold, who traveled to Denver to meet Carhart in December, 1919. After a day of conversation, Leopold asked Carhart to put his thoughts in writing. The resulting memorandum to Leopold described the kinds of areas Carhart believed should be protected from development and predicted that, in time, the protected areas would be among the most cherished in the national forests. Environmental historian Donald N. Baldwin argues persuasively that Carhart is the true father of the wilderness concept, but the Forest Service and most conservationists have bestowed that title on Aldo Leopold, who, above all others, gave voice to the growing movement for wilderness preservation. Leopold was a gifted and frequently published writer. Where others spoke of limiting development of or providing opportunities for primitive recreation, Leopold used the term “wilderness” and argued that its preservation was consistent with the utilitarian mission of the Forest Service. Indeed, Leopold’s initial interest in wilderness preservation was itself utilitarian. His advocacy predated by decades the ecological consciousness for which he would eventually be well known. Whereas Carhart was a landscape architect concerned with aesthetics, Leopold was an avid hunter and was preoccupied with wildlife of every description. To Leopold, wilderness meant game and public recreational space. Wilderness preservation meant preservation of the hunt. Writing in the Journal of Forestry in 1921, Leopold defined wilderness as “a continuous stretch of country preserved in its natural state, open to lawful hunting and fishing, big enough to absorb a two weeks’ pack trip, and kept devoid of roads, artificial trails, 1932
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cottages, or other works of man.” He asked whether the Forest Service’s “principle of highest use does not itself demand that representative portions of some forests be preserved as wilderness,” and he proposed protection of nearly half a million acres encompassing the headwaters of the Gila River in the Gila National Forest. Leopold toured the Gila area during the summer of 1920. His inspection report, completed in July, contained a wilderness area recommendation. Leopold’s supervisor, Pooler, approved the report in August and invited Leopold to prepare a more formal wilderness area proposal for discussion at the winter meeting of district foresters. The proposal was completed in October, discussed in nearby communities, mislaid for some time in the district office, and eventually approved by Pooler on June 3, 1924, five days after Leopold had left the Southwest for a new assignment as assistant director of a forest-products laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. Historians are not unanimous on this point, but the U.S. Forest Service recognizes June 3, 1924, as the birth date of the national forest wilderness system.
Leopold on Development In an article published a little more than a year after official designation of the Gila Wilderness Area, Aldo Leopold continued to argue for the need to protect wilderness lands against development: If in a city we had six vacant lots available to the youngsters of a certain neighborhood for playing ball, it might be “development” to build houses on the first, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and even the fifth, but when we build houses on the last one, we forget what houses are for. The sixth house would not be development at all, but rather it would be mere short-sighted stupidity. “Development” is like Shakespeare’s virtue, “which grown into a pleurisy, dies of its own too-much.” In objection to the dedication of the Gila as a permanent wilderness hunting ground, it has been truly said that a part of the area which would be “locked up” bears valuable stands of timber. I admit that this is true. Likewise, might our sixth lot be a corner lot, and hence very valuable for a grocery store or a filling station. I still insist it is the last lot for a needed playground, and this being the case, I am not interested in grocery stores or filling stations, of which we have a fair to middling supply elsewhere. Source: Aldo Leopold, “A Plea for Wilderness Hunting Grounds,” Outdoor Life, November, 1925.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park to be pushed over the cliff into the valley below. These activities were popular with the traveling public but left the Park Service vulnerable to the charge that it was insufficiently sensitive to its preservation mission. For Chief Forester William B. Greeley and his Washington staff, the wilderness proposals of Carhart and Leopold provided a possible means of defense against bureaucratic aggression from the National Park Service. If the national parks were to be turned into playgrounds, perhaps the Forest Service could champion real wilderness preservation. This was not an easy choice for an agency that contemplated trees primarily in terms of board feet of lumber. Greeley moved slowly, but gradually he embraced wilderness preservation. He canceled highly publicized plans for scenic highways in California and a cable car to the summit of Mount Hood, and he ordered foresters in the West to safeguard areas appropriate for preservation as wilderness. At the same time, Greeley publicly criticized the National Park Service for its policy of encouraging the construction of roads and hotels and the use of buses. The national forests, he wrote, would “provide some sizeable areas of real wilderness.” Greeley’s use of wilderness preservation as a shield against national park expansion was remarkably successful. Between 1920 and 1928, the National Park Service proposed removing 2.3 million acres from the national forests for new or expanded national parks. It received fewer than 600,000 acres. In the course of saving the remaining 1.7 million acres, the Forest Service created 5 million acres of designated primitive areas. These areas were not as well protected as modern wilderness areas, and the designations might have been withdrawn at any time by the Forest Service. Still, the primitive areas set aside by the Forest Service in the 1920’s constituted the nation’s first wilderness preservation system. The Forest Service primitive areas, inspired by Carhart and Leopold and motivated by fear of national park expansion, have been critical to the subsequent development of the wilderness system in the United States. The Forest Service institutionalized its primitive area system through the promulgation of Regulation L-20 in 1929. The regulation stipulated maintenance of primitive conditions for public education and recreation, but it nevertheless allowed limited development of timber, forage, and water resources. By 1937, the primitive area system had grown to seventy-two units and more than 13 million acres. In 1939, a new set of regulations went into effect. 1933
1924
Significance The Gila Wilderness was the first large tract officially designated as a wilderness area by a federal land-management agency. Its initial size was approximately 755,000 acres. Under changing Forest Service regulations, the Gila reservation was designated a Primitive Area in 1933, and about 438,000 acres of it were designated a Wilderness Area in 1953. The Gila Wilderness Area received statutory protection with the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, and in 1980, Congress created the Aldo Leopold Wilderness to the east of the Gila Wilderness. The Gila Wilderness is composed of 558,000 acres, and the Aldo Leopold is made up of an additional 202,000 acres. The total acreage protected as wilderness is approximately the size that Leopold proposed, but the acreage is in two units divided by a road, the construction of which Leopold had tried to prevent. Despite Leopold’s initial success with the Gila reservation, the nation was far from having a wilderness system in the 1920’s. During the next several years, Leopold wrote extensively. He targeted different audiences in different journals, but always he sought to build a political constituency for wilderness preservation. Nevertheless, most of the Forest Service leadership remained committed to a narrower view of utility. A catalyst was required to awaken the Forest Service to the value of wilderness preservation that catalyst was provided by the National Park Service. The National Park Service had been established in 1916, and it was aggressively led by Stephen T. Mather. Mather saw his own agency as the only legitimate keeper of the nation’s scenic and recreational space and the only legitimate recipient of federal recreational dollars. He envisioned a multitude of new national parks protecting scenic areas in the American West. Most of the areas Mather envisioned as future national parks were already national forests. Growth of the national park system would come at the expense of the national forests. This was an unhappy prospect for policy makers in the national headquarters of the Forest Service. Both agencies recognized a growing public interest in outdoor recreation, and both agencies attempted to exploit it. Under Mather’s leadership, the National Park Service emphasized development, spectacle, and public enjoyment over nature preservation. The service built miles of roads, developed numerous campgrounds, and encouraged the construction of railroads and hotels. It organized ranger walks, held public bear feedings, tunneled a road through a standing sequoia tree, and perpetuated the “firefall,” a bonfire built each evening on
Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated
Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated The primitive areas were to be reclassified as “wilderness,” “wild,” or “roadless/canoe,” and boundary revisions were to be made. The reclassified areas were subject to more restrictive wilderness management, and their preserved status was understood to be permanent. Even the Wilderness Act of 1964 and its administrative aftermath have been significantly shaped by the decisions to create primitive areas in the 1920’s. When Congress established a statutory wilderness system in 1964, areas classified wilderness, wild, or roadless/canoe became charter members. Primitive areas that had not yet been reclassified by the Forest Service were protected by the law but not formally classified as wilderness. Instead, the secretary of agriculture was ordered to study the areas’ wilderness potential and make recommendations to Congress. The 1964 Wilderness Act designated 9 million acres as wilderness exempt from most forms of development, all of it in the national forests. By the early 2000’s, the statutory wilderness system in the United States had grown to more than 106 million acres of public lands, in 663 wilderness areas, with units managed by the Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Most Americans accept Aldo Leopold’s Gila recommendation as the first significant step on the path to wilderness preservation in the United States. —Craig W. Allin Further Reading Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Political history of the movement to preserve wilderness areas in the United States includes discussion of the establishment of national parks and national forests in the nineteenth century, the creation of the Forest Service and the National Park Service, and the rivalry between them regarding wilderness preservation. Baldwin, Donald N. The Quiet Revolution: Grass Roots of Today’s Wilderness Preservation Movement. Boulder, Colo.: Pruett, 1972. Examines the history of wilderness preservation and argues that Carhart deserves recognition at least equal to that of Leopold as an early and successful champion of wilderness preservation in the U.S. national forests. Flader, Susan L. Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude Toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests. 1974. Reprint. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. Excellent biography emphasizes the development of 1934
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Leopold’s conservation philosophy. Chapter 3 examines “the Gila experience.” Knight, Richard L., and Susanne Riedel, eds. Aldo Leopold and the Ecological Conscience. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Collection of essays on Leopold’s contributions to the environmental movement by ecologists, wildlife biologists, and conservationists who knew Leopold personally. Includes index. Leopold, Aldo. Aldo Leopold’s Wilderness. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1990. Collection of many of Leopold’s early wilderness advocacy articles is a much-needed addition to the Leopold literature. Meine, Curt. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. Definitive traditional biography places Leopold’s wilderness preservation work in the context of his overall life and times. Includes bibliography and index. Meine, Curt, and Richard L. Knight, eds. The Essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. Unique collection joins quotations from Leopold’s writings with commentaries on his work and ideas from historians, conservationists, philosophers, and biologists. Murray, John A. The Gila Wilderness Area: A Hiking Guide. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988. Volume aimed at hikers includes informative chapters on the natural and human history of the Gila area. Features an excellent bibliography. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. One of the best single sources on the role of wilderness in American intellectual history. Chapter 11, titled “Aldo Leopold: Prophet,” presents an excellent synopsis of Leopold’s role in the wilderness movement. Tanner, Thomas, ed. Aldo Leopold: The Man and His Legacy. Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1987. Collection resulting from an Aldo Leopold centennial celebration at Iowa State University. Brings together work by most of the nation’s leading Leopold scholars and reminiscences by members of the Leopold family. See also: May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests; Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters
June 7, 1924
Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 was the first U.S. law to establish civil and criminal penalties for the grossly negligent or intentional discharge of oil from a vessel into U.S. waters. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history; natural resources Key Figures Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), president of the United States, 1923-1929 Frank B. Willis (1871-1928), U.S. senator from Delaware Walter F. Lineberger (1883-1943), U.S. congressman from California
1935
1924
Summary of Event On June 7, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Oil Pollution Act, the first U.S. law to deal specifically with oil pollution of the navigable waters of the United States and its shorelines. The law imposed civil and criminal penalties for grossly negligent or willful discharge of oil into the sea from U.S. and foreign ships. It made exceptions for unavoidable accidents and for cases in which oil was discharged to avoid danger to life or property. In the context of the law, “oil” is defined as petroleum hydrocarbons that are obtained from underground deposits and that may exist in the form of crude oil, fuel oil, heavy diesel oil, and lubricating oil. The scope of the law was limited to offshore pollution within fifty nautical miles of land. In 1924, preventing the deliberate discharge of oil by transport tankers was impeded by the technical inability of ships to separate residue oil, called “clingage,” from water in their ballast tanks (ballast is the water used in a ship to balance it on heavy and stormy seas, especially when the ship is empty of cargo, as on a return voyage to its home port). A ship’s oily ballast water had to be discharged before the ship reached port in order to avoid polluting the harbor. The process of cleaning the tank required pumping the entire contents overboard; the tank was then refilled with seawater. If the journey was long enough and the seas were not too heavy, the oil in the ballast tanks would float to the top. This small amount of oil from each ship—0.3 percent of a tank—could have been saved, but a practical method to do so was not generally available. (Some British ports had barges in their harbors
for pumping clingage oil off the top layer of ballast.) Upon nearing their home ports, most ships simply dumped their oily ballast water over the side and refilled their tanks with water. The oil pumped out this way, however, eventually washed to shore along all the tanker routes of the world. In addition, harbors became intolerably polluted, because some oil was dumped from engines and pipelines in harbors and at docks. One of the worst examples of such pollution was in New York Harbor, where in 1921 it was reported that the wharves and pilings on the harbor front were saturated with oil and the water was coated with a layer of oil. This oil saturation devastated marine life and posed a fire hazard. Various organizations such as the Audubon Society and the National Coast Anti-Pollution League, as well as newspaper editors speaking for local groups, began to urge congressional action to address the problem of oil pollution. The Audubon Society reported that thousands of waterfowl were dying annually as a result of their plumage being covered with oil. The fishing industry was also being affected to a serious extent. In 1880, the coastal waters of the United States produced 600,000 barrels of salt mackerel in one year; by 1921, the catch had dropped to 43,000 barrels, in large part because of the destruction of spawning fish from the effects of oil pollution. It was also estimated that between 1918 and 1923 oil pollution caused an 80 percent decrease in oyster production off the coast of Connecticut. In 1923, Los Angeles had become the world’s largest oil market. There, the editor of the newspaper the Express reported that oil-pollution damage to ships, port, fishermen’s income, and residents had become a paramount issue. The problem of oil dumping was reaching dramatic levels: The number of oil-burning and oil-carrying ships rose from 364 in 1911 to 2,536 in 1921. In 1924, the United States exported more than 4 billion gallons of petroleum products. If 0.3 percent of this amount was clingage, then nearly 13 million gallons of oil products were dumped from that source alone. Prior to passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1924, the only law that could be applied to tanker dumping was the Refuse Act of 1899, under which it was illegal to discard any detrimental substance into the sea in territorial waters to a three-mile limit. That law also applied to dumping from land locations. Those found guilty of violating the law were required to pay fines and removal costs, and the law also provided for rewards for informants. In
Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters 1868, the Canadian government prohibited the discharge of ballast, coal, chemicals, and other polluting substances into waters where fishing was practiced, although the law did not mention oil specifically. In 1918, the United States and Canada signed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect migratory birds, but that act did not recognize damage to birds by oil pollution until 1948, when an addendum was written. Although it is one of the few treaties in North America that acknowledges that valuable resources cross political boundaries, it has not been consistently applied. The debate in Congress that produced two bills leading to the Oil Pollution Act elicited strong opinions from the oil industry. The Willis Bill, written by Senator Frank B. Willis of Delaware on January 8, 1924, proposed to make it unlawful to dump any kind of oil product, crude or refined, from either ships or land-based refineries. The law would have been administered by the War Department, because the issue it sought to address concerned navigable waters. The Willis Bill also imposed fines and imprisonment at the option of the courts. The oil industry objected to the provisions of this bill and wanted to exempt land operations from controls. The Lineberger Bill, proposed by Walter F. Lineberger, a House representative from Long Beach, California, was different from the Willis Bill in several respects: It included regulation of oil from ships only, it imposed no prison penalties, and the law would be administered by the Department of Commerce. The Lineberger Bill also provided for investigations of land industry. The oil industry, the secretary of the interior, and the deputy commissioner of fisheries supported this bill. The two houses of Congress reached a compromise on the two bills in order to protect the interests of the public and industry as quickly as possible. The law limited liability to vessels in coastal navigable waters. Violation of the act could result in fines and prison terms, and the Coast Guard was given authority to revoke the licenses of ship captains who broke the law. Administration of the law was the responsibility of the War Department until 1966, when it was transferred to the Department of the Interior. Significance Public concern over conservation problems associated with oil pollution began to surface after World War I, when the shipping industry began using oil rather than coal to power ships. This shift added to the oil-pollution problem, which was further exacerbated by vessel accidents, nonmarine accidents, and operations that dumped 1936
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 automobile waste oil into water systems. About 70 percent of the world’s oil traveled by sea. The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 was a starting point for the regulation of an industry that was growing so quickly technology could not keep up with safety and pollution standards. Shipbuilders constructed tankers of such enormous size that, at first, the ships’ engines were not powerful enough to stop the giant ships in time to avert accidents. At the request of Congress, President Coolidge called an International Conference on Oil Pollution, which was held June 8-17, 1926. The conference was attended by representatives of thirteen maritime nations that recognized coastal oil pollution as a problem. The recommendations that came out of the conference included extending the prohibition on dumping from 50 to 150 nautical miles in order to protect marine life and encouraging ships to install oil separators to conserve oil and protect natural resources. Traditionally, international laws concerning liability for accidents on the open sea have focused on damage to the beneficial uses of the sea, and prosecution has been vested in the governments of origin of the ships involved. When enforcement has conflicted with economic concerns, it has often been lax. To the extent that oil pollution resulted in public protest and damage of domestic resources, the laws that were passed in each country called attention to the need for international action. This was the case with the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. In practice, the law proved difficult to enforce, because the high seas of international territory constitute a vast region. Adherence to a law that depended on international commitment to an honor code was difficult to verify. The 1924 law relied primarily on the Coast Guard to discipline domestic vessels polluting territorial waters and to control foreign ships that acted with negligence. Unless a ship was caught in the act of committing a violation, however, there was no way to prove responsibility for an infraction. The deficiencies in the 1924 law eventually set in motion legislation that culminated in the 1970 Water Quality Improvement Act, which amended the 1924 act. The 1970 law prohibited discharges of oil from offshore and onshore facilities and empowered the president to order measures to prevent damage to the environment and to remove spilled oil. The 1970 law removed the need for criminal prosecution when a violation is reported by the ship owner. Any other domestic or foreign ship owned by a person operating a violating ship can be denied permission to gain access to a domestic port. Responsibility was thus placed on ship owners to keep all their ships in good operating condition. In this way, Congress at-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tempted to focus attention on prevention of oil spills rather than on after-the-fact punishment. The establishment of oil-pollution laws motivated the oil industry to develop the technology to prevent excess discharge of oil in the cleaning of tanks and in the handling of dirty ballast water. The new methods included load-on-top systems, by which oil and water are separated and the water is drawn out. The new load of oil is added on top of the remaining oil, and all of it is discharged at the port of destination. Another method, called crude-oil washing, uses the oil itself to disperse and clean the tank residues. Ballast water is taken onboard after the cleaning. These methods are cleaner than the methods of tank washing used in the 1920’s. The load-on-top method discharges only 25 percent of the oil of older methods, and the crude-oil washing method discharges only 10 percent of the oil of the load-on-top method. The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 set a precedent for action on a federal level to control oil pollution from domestic and foreign vessels. The deficiencies of the law encouraged stronger laws and public action, which eventually required industry to develop technology to prevent spills. —Laura R. Broyles Further Reading Abbott, Lawrence F. “Oil on Troubled Waters.” Outlook 136 (April 16, 1924): 638. Editorial expresses the public’s sense of urgency in calling for congressional action on oil pollution. Describes the House and Senate bills in detail and emphasizes the need for a bill to save the environment, not to serve the special interests of government organizations or industry. _______. “To Clean the Ocean of Oil.” Outlook 143 (May 5, 1926): 16. Editorial discusses the progress made in controlling oil pollution since the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. Advocates more cooperation among nations to curb pollution. Edwards, Max N. “Oil Pollution and the Law.” In Oil Pollution: Problems and Policies, edited by Stanley E. Degler. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1969. Provides a good background review on laws related to oil pollution. Includes a full copy of the Oil Pollution Act of 1924.
Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters Mitchell, Ronald B. Intentional Oil Pollution at Sea: Environmental Policy and Treaty Compliance. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994. Focuses on the issue of how to ensure that nations comply with the terms of international treaties aimed at reducing oil pollution. Combines theoretical analysis with an evaluation of changes in compliance over time. Ross, William M. Oil Pollution as an International Problem. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973. Excellent legal resource contains a review of state and national jurisdictions, forms of liability used in courts that cover oil-pollution claims, and information on the historical development of oil-pollution laws. Explains the weaknesses in international laws regarding oil pollution. Tan, Alan Khee-Jin. Vessel-Source Marine Pollution: The Law and Politics of International Regulation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Examines the history of international oil-pollution regulation and discusses how political, economic, and social forces affect antipollution treaties. Wagnalls, Adam W. “The Oil Trouble on the Waters.” Literary Digest 79 (November 10, 1923): 14. Editorial details environmental damage caused by oil pollution in every coastal region of the United States. Explains the seriousness of the problem and asserts that legislation that includes international action can solve the problem. Wardley-Smith, J., ed. The Control of Oil Pollution. London: Graham & Trotman, 1983. Provides detailed discussion of shipping methods for transportation, loading, and unloading of oil as well as chapters on the environmental effects of oil pollution on birds, fisheries, and plankton. Good resource for the general reader. See also: June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
1924
1937
Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Summer, 1924
Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil Raymond Arthur Dart discovered the first australopithecine, or link between ape and man, cast in limestone recovered from a quarry in Taung, South Africa. Locale: University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Categories: Anthropology; prehistory and ancient cultures Key Figures Raymond Arthur Dart (1893-1988), Australian anatomist Robert Broom (1866-1951), Scottish physician Summary of Event In 1871, Charles Darwin suggested in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex that it was quite likely that Africa would prove to be the continent where humankind first appeared. Darwin’s suggestion was to become the center of a debate that greatly influenced the field of paleoanthropology. He made his suggestion despite the fact that the only human fossils known at the time had been found in Europe; for example, the first paleontological human remains were those of Neander-
Raymond Arthur Dart.
1938
thal man, found in Germany in 1856. Indeed, the first hominid remains discovered outside Europe were those from Java found in 1891 by Eugène Dubois, which prompted Western scientists to believe that humans first appeared in Asia, not Africa. Dubois’s find, better known as Java man, has since been reclassified into the genus and species Homo erectus. In 1907, a fossil known as the Heidelberg man was discovered in Germany. The next hominid remains believed to be of major significance were those found by Charles Dawson in 1911 in Sussex in southern England. This fossil was placed into a new genus and species known as Eoanthropus dawsoni, meaning “Dawson’s dawn man.” The fossil is perhaps best known as Piltdown man. Although fossil discoveries that are given a new name create controversy, this was not true of Dawson’s find, because it looked the way most anthropologists of the time thought it should. In other words, the cranium was large and modern-looking, and the face was primitive and apelike. At the time, it was widely believed that intellect was an important step in the evolution between humans and apes, an idea supported by the large cranium. Additionally, as a human ancestor would need to possess some primitive traits, these might be found in the face and lower jaw. In 1924, Raymond Arthur Dart was a young professor of anatomy in his second year of teaching in the Medical School at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Early during that summer, a fossil was brought to him from the Taung quarry by a student, Josephine Salmons. Dart determined that the fossil was that of a previously found extinct form of baboon, but it prompted his interest in the limestone quarry at Taung. He made arrangements to receive any other fossils the workers might find in the quarry, and he later received some boxes from Taung that contained more fossils. In one box was an unusual endocast, or fossilized cast, representing the interior of a cranium, notable for its size and unique structure. Dart recognized the anatomy as that of a higher primate, but unlike that of any living ape by virtue of its increased size. Also included was a single large fragment of a fossilized facial skeleton. The endocast and face were portions of the same animal. To Dart, the remains revealed a never-before-seen combination of traits, suggesting an anthropoid halfway between man and ape. In February, 1925, Dart introduced his find to the scientific community with a brief article in the British journal
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Dart and the Fossilized Brain On a Saturday afternoon in 1924, Raymond Dart was dressing for a wedding reception when he received a shipment of fossils from Taung and decided to take a peek before leaving: A thrill of excitement shot through me. On the very top of the rock heap was what was undoubtedly an endocranial cast or mold of the interior of the skull. Had it been only the fossilised brain cast of any species of ape it would have ranked as a great discovery, for such a thing had never before been reported. But I knew at a glance that what lay in my hands was no ordinary anthropoidal brain. Here in lime-consolidated sand was the replica of a brain three times as large as that of a baboon and considerably bigger than that of an adult chimpanzee. The startling image of the convolutions and furrows of the brain and the blood vessels of the skull were plainly visible. It was not big enough for primitive man, but even for an ape it was a big bulging brain and, most important, the forebrain was so big and had grown so far backward that it completely covered the hindbrain. But was there anywhere among this pile of rocks, a face to fit the brain? I ransacked feverishly through the boxes. My search was rewarded, for I found a large stone with a depression into which the cast fitted perfectly. I stood in the shade holding the brain as greedily as any miser hugs his gold, my mind racing ahead. Here I was certain was one of the most significant finds ever made in the history of anthropology. Source: Raymond A. Dart, Adventures with the Missing Link (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959).
names should not be based on juvenile specimens because dramatic differences between juveniles and adults of the same species might exist. Some argued that Dart may have simply found a juvenile member of an already documented fossil primate. Criticisms also were based on the fact that the discovery was made in South Africa and not Asia, where the world’s attention had become focused since Dubois’s discovery in 1891. Additionally, Dart’s discovery possessed a small brain and a relatively modern-looking face and dentition, unlike Dawson’s Piltdown man. By the mid-1950’s, however, the discoveries of adult forms of Australopithecus and other intermediate forms in the same area compelled many of Dart’s critics to accept his 1924 discovery. Many critics were converted to Dart’s ideas as a result of the 1947 Pan-African Congress of Prehistory held in Nairobi, Kenya. The congress, organized by L. S. B. Leakey, allowed several widely respected physical anthropologists to examine some of the early African hominids firsthand. The last barrier to acceptance was torn down in the early 1950’s. In 1953, Kenneth Page Oakley and others began a reexamination of Eoanthropus dawsoni. Fluorine dating, a new technique, revealed that the cranium was from the late Pleistocene epoch and the mandible belonged to a modern orangutan. Both portions had been modified and stained in order to appear as though they had come from the same animal. Piltdown man was thus exposed as a fraud, and its existence could no longer hinder the acceptance of the South African australopithecines as the link between modern Homo sapiens and living apes. Significance Although the limestone and sedimentary contexts from which the South African fossils were recovered did not lend themselves to accurate geological dating, one could suggest that the fossils were from the lower Pleistocene epoch, approximately one million years ago. Moreover, the South African discoveries led paleoanthropologists to conclude that early hominids first appeared in a grassland or savanna environment, as opposed to the tropical forests others were suggesting. In addition, Australopithecus africanus and the remaining australopithecines provided clear evidence that human ancestors possessed more or less modern jaws and were walking upright before the expansion of the brain. This idea con1939
1924
Nature. He described the fossil as a juvenile member of a new genus, Australopithecus, and new species, africanus. Australo means “of the Southern Hemisphere,” pithecus means “simian” or “apelike,” and africanus means “of Africa.” Thus Australopithecus africanus literally means “the South African ape.” Except for Robert Broom, a Scottish physician who had become a well-known paleontologist as a result of his South African discoveries bridging the gap between reptiles and mammals, the scientific community immediately opposed the acceptance of Dart’s discovery. A major criticism was related to Dart’s introduction of the new name based on a juvenile specimen. There was no question that the fossil was that of a juvenile, because the specimen retained some of its deciduous, or baby, teeth. As a result, Dart’s discovery has frequently been called Taung child, Taung baby, or Taung boy. Some critics seized this issue and argued that new
Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil
Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil tradicted the previous notions about the significance of increased cranial capacity during human evolution. Some have called Dart’s discovery of the first Australopithecus one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth century. Although such claims are debatable, there can be little question that the discovery must rank near the top of any list of important events in the fields of anthropology, paleontology, and prehistory. —Turhon A. Murad Further Reading Campbell, Bernard G. Human Evolution. 4th ed. Chicago: Aldine, 1998. Presents the major findings concerning the evolution of human beings, including discussion of the work of Dart and others in the early twentieth century as well as more recent developments in the field. Includes illustrations, glossary, bibliography, and index. Campbell, Bernard G., and James D. Loy. Humankind Emerging. 8th ed. Newton, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. Comprehensive introduction to the field of physical anthropology. Chapter 6 discusses Dart’s and Broom’s work. Includes glossary, selected bibliography, and index. Individual chapters feature lists of suggested further reading. Dart, Raymond A. Adventures with the Missing Link. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959. A firsthand retrospective view of the discovery of Australopithecus africanus and the controversies that followed. _______. “Australopithecus Africanus: The Man-Ape of South Africa.” Nature 115 (February, 1925): 195199. The publication that announced the discovery of the first australopithecine ever recovered. Presents details about the limestone quarry site at Taung, South Africa, and the circumstances of the fossil’s
1940
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 discovery and describes the fossil cranium and accompanying endocast. Concludes that the remains are those of a juvenile member of a new genus and species, Australopithecus africanus. Johanson, Donald C., and Maitland A. Edey. Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. 1981. Reprint. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Coauthored by a prominent figure in the field of paleoanthropology, this volume offers a popular account of hominid discoveries from the Pleistocene of East Africa. Addresses the financial problems encountered in such research and describes the various strong personalities and controversies that have influenced attempts to document the human fossil record. Leakey, Richard E., and Roger Lewin. Origins. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977. Draws, in part, on the work of Leakey’s parents, but also discusses paleontological discoveries at Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Suggests that three or more species of hominids may have existed as contemporaries in East Africa approximately two million years ago. Emphasizes the question of why the lineage of Homo survived and the others did not. Pfeiffer, John E. The Emergence of Humankind. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1985. Although not written in the style of most textbooks, this volume is used frequently as a textbook in introductory physical anthropology courses. Addresses the various lines of research often employed by paleoanthropologists in their attempts to learn about the hominid fossil record. See also: Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton; Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Dawes Plan
September 1, 1924
Dawes Plan The United States developed a plan to assist Germany in recovering from World War I. Locale: Washington, D.C.; London, England; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; economics Key Figures Charles G. Dawes (1865-1951), American lawyer, politician, and financier Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of state, 1921-1925 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), former prime minister of Great Britain Henry M. Robinson (1868-1937), American financial expert Owen D. Young (1874-1962), American financial expert Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), German foreign minister
1941
1924
Summary of Event In the aftermath of World War I, it appeared that the Treaty of Versailles had raised more problems than it solved. Among the more pressing and complicated issues were the interrelated problems of German reparations and Allied war debts. The terms of the peace treaty had forced Germany to accept blame for the war and to promise to pay damages suffered by the Allies. A special Reparations Commission fixed the sum owed by Germany at 132 million gold marks, about $33 million in gold. Even some members of the commission recognized that Germany would be unable to pay this staggering sum. The Allied governments, especially those of Great Britain and France, expressed a willingness to scale down German reparations if the United States would forgo war debts owed to it by the Allies. The U.S. government had lent more than $10 billion to twenty nations before and after the armistice, and it refused to forget these debts or to link them with the problem of German reparations. Moreover, while European countries could repay their debts only by selling goods and services in the United States, the latter embarked in the immediate postwar period on a tariff program that represented aggressive economic nationalism and crushed any hope that European goods would be able to compete in the U.S. market. Consequently, the Allies had
to press Germany for reparations in order to repay their own debts. The German government made a few token payments, but when faced with catastrophic inflation, it defaulted. In 1923, France occupied the Ruhr, Germany’s principal industrial region, and took other steps to coerce the Weimar Republic into resuming payments. The Germans replied with a policy of passive resistance. The crisis was so serious that Europe appeared to be on the verge of financial and political disintegration. It was to avoid economic disaster in Europe that the United States intervened. Although most people in the United States supported the government’s insistence on repayment of the Allied war debts and refused to accept the Anglo-French argument that reparations and war debts were interdependent, some also saw that European trade was essential to U.S. prosperity. Something had to be done to ensure that trade and financial intercourse returned to normal channels. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes was one of those deeply concerned about the problem, even though he was a tariff protectionist. He could not propose direct U.S. involvement in European financial affairs because of congressional and public opposition; however, he might be able to help Europe through unofficial action while avoiding serious objections at home. In a speech before the American Historical Association in December, 1922, Secretary Hughes proposed the creation of a commission of financial experts to investigate Germany’s financial situation and to make recommendations concerning how and to what extent reparations should be paid. He did not say that the United States would participate directly in these negotiations, although he did admit, “I have no doubt that distinguished Americans would be willing to serve in such a commission.” Hughes apparently hoped this public proposal would cause the French to postpone occupation of the Ruhr, but the French went ahead with this act in January, 1923, and it appeared that Secretary Hughes’s scheme was dead. In the fall of 1923, however, after it had become clear that the Ruhr operation was a failure, David Lloyd George, former prime minister of Great Britain, urged the French government to reconsider the U.S. secretary of state’s idea. After further discussion, France agreed to a restricted version of the Hughes proposal. The Reparations Commission in late November created two special commissions: one to attempt to balance the budget and stabilize the currency of Germany and the other to deal with
Dawes Plan German holdings abroad. The next step was to appoint a battery of experts. Not surprisingly, the Reparations Commission wanted several U.S. representatives to participate in this work. Apparently, the U.S. State Department was asked unofficially to recommend candidates. The names of Charles G. Dawes, Owen D. Young, and Henry M. Robinson, all noted financial experts, were put forward. Dawes was appointed chairman of the first committee, and subsequent agreements were called the Dawes Plan. Credit must have gone equally to Hughes. After several months of deliberation, Dawes announced the committee’s recommendations on April 9, 1924. The report recognized two distinct problems: the need for Germany to return to economic solvency and the need for an acceptable method of transferring surplus revenue to the Allies. The Dawes Committee proposed the reorganization of the Reichsbank under Allied supervision, a loan of $200 million in gold, and the creation of a new monetary unit, the Reichsmark. No precise figure was set for total reparations, but the Dawes Plan posited a sliding scale of payments based on expected German financial prospects. For 1924-1925, the payment was set at $250 million, and it was to rise over a period of five years to $625 million. The German government was committed to making these payments, but provisions were made to ensure that the payments would not threaten the stability of the German currency. One such provision was the appointment of an agent general for reparations payments to supervise and coordinate financial relations. The Dawes Plan went into effect on September 1, 1924. Gustav Stresemann, the German foreign minister, persuaded his government that the Dawes Plan presented Germany with an opportunity to rebuild its economy. Despite criticism from extreme nationalists, he convinced the German people that the plan offered Germany many advantages, freeing the nation from French occupation of the Ruhr and attracting needed foreign investments. Significance In terms of its limited goals, the Dawes Plan worked amazingly well. The international loan was oversubscribed, mostly by U.S. investors. An officer of the banking House of Morgan was appointed agent general. From 1925 to 1927, all went well, and the revival of the German economy seemed assured; only later was the Dawes Plan seen to be a stopgap measure. Germany able to meet its obligatory reparations only by borrowing from outside. U.S. loans to Germany under the Dawes Plan and 1942
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Charles G. Dawes. (Library of Congress)
the subsequent Young Plan exceeded $3 billion, while a total of only $2.6 billion was paid by the Allies to the United States during the same period. Despite the obvious connection between German reparations and Allied war debts, the United States continued to repudiate such a relationship. —Theodore A. Wilson and Leslie V. Tischauser Further Reading Adler, Selig. The Uncertain Giant, 1921-1941: American Foreign Policy Between the Wars. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. A popular survey of the role of the United States in Europe between World Wars I and II. Craig, Gordon. Germany: 1866-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Presents a useful discus-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sion of Germany’s economic and social problems in the 1920’s and an assessment of the impact of the Dawes Plan. Dawes, Charles Gates. A Journal of Reparations. London: Macmillan, 1939. Dawes reviews his role in the investigation of Germany’s financial fight. Feldman, Gerald D. The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 19141924. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Indepth examination of the economic crisis in Germany during and after World War I. Includes discussion of the Dawes Plan. Features illustrations, tables, bibliography, and index. Hoff, Joan. American Business and Foreign Policy, 1920-1933. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1971. Describes the role of the Dawes Plan in the economic rebuilding of Germany. Schuker, Stephen A. The End of French Predominance in Europe: The Financial Crisis of 1924 and the
Surrealism Is Born Adoption of the Dawes Plan. 1976. Reprint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. An interpretation of the writing of the plan, with a useful discussion of the role of the United States in the negotiations. Wueschner, Silvano A. Charting Twentieth-Century Monetary Policy: Herbert Hoover and Benjamin Strong, 1917-1927. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Examination of the influence of Hoover, as secretary of commerce, and Strong, as governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on U.S. monetary policy, both domestic and international, in the period when the Dawes Plan was formulated. Chapters 2 and 3 include discussion of the Dawes Plan. See also: 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation; Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty.
October, 1924
Surrealism Is Born After the publication of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism, avant-garde artists used the new term “Surrealism” to define their artistic movement. Also known as: Manifeste du surréalisme; Manifesto of Surrealism Locale: Paris, France Categories: Arts; literature Key Figures André Breton (1896-1966), French writer and critic Max Ernst (1891-1976), German painter Joan Miró (1893-1983), Spanish painter Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Spanish painter René Magritte (1898-1967), Belgian painter Yves Tanguy (1900-1955), American painter
1943
1924
Summary of Event When the young French writer and critic André Breton published his first Manifeste du surréalisme (Manifesto of Surrealism, 1969) in October, 1924, he did not merely provide a friendly group of writers and artists with a new theory for their new art, he also gave this art its name and thus fostered the birth of Surrealism. The painters Max Ernst, André Masson, and Joan Miró readily accepted the theories outlined in Breton’s manifesto, and so did many
of Breton’s writer friends, among whom Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, and Philippe Soupault were very influential. As Breton’s manifesto defined it, Surrealism sought to break down the boundary between dream and reality and to unite, in one picture or one text, the unconscious and the conscious. “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of associations hitherto neglected, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought,” Breton explained. To capture this new “surreality,” Breton and his friends strongly recommended “automatic,” instead of premeditated, painting and writing. Surrealist theory thus emphasized a revolution in both the form and content of art. In the fall of 1924, a distinctive body of new art already existed for which Breton created his theory. The early works of Max Ernst, for example, exhibit many of the Surrealists’ ideas. By inviting the viewer to see an elephant in the form of a huge steel cauldron to which the artist has given legs and tusks, Ernst’s painting The Elephant of the Celebes (1921) traces how dreams create irrational analogies between different objects. Ernst’s depiction of a sky filled with fish shows in action the Surrealist principle of “conscious incongruous combination”: By placing objects in an impossible context, the picture encourages the viewer to transcend the limits re-
Surrealism Is Born ality imposes on relationships between objects. Similar in theory, but quite different in its style, Joan Miró’s Catalan Landscape (The Hunter) (1923-1924) invites a viewer to follow dream logic and see the hills of Catalonia in the painter’s mere outline of pencil-thin, wavy lines; the hunter’s head can be discovered in a mustachioed, one-eyed triangle at the top left of the picture. In literature, the field of Breton’s own experiments, 1924 saw the publication of two major Surrealist texts. Breton’s Les Pas perdus (the lost steps) reflects in its antinovelistic form and apparently random content the antirational convictions of its author. In Louis Aragon’s Une Vague de r0ves (a wave of dreams), form and content focus on dreams and “automatic” unmediated writing. Although the Surrealists initially defined it, their art had deep roots in earlier experiments with “antiart.” Like the Dadaists, they rebelled against artistic tradition and conventional values. Both Dadaists and Surrealists were committed to experimenting with art. Surrealists, however, wanted art to have meaning and were ready for a theory to give coherence to their divergent goals. Breton’s manifesto filled this void. It was only with its publication, then, that Surrealism was truly born as a forceful movement with a clear sense of artistic identity. Breton admitted freely that the term “Surrealism” was the invention of his deceased friend Guillaume Apolli-
Breton’s Definition of Surrealism In his Manifesto of Surrealism, André Breton provides this definition: surrealism, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictation of thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. encycl. Philos. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life. Source: André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism (1924), in Manifestoes of Surrealism, translated by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 naire. Breton, however, insisted on his exclusive rights to the new word. Indeed, rival claims to the term literally died out: The three French magazines that used the word independently ceased publication by the spring of 1925. This left only the new review La Révolution Surréaliste, of which Breton quickly became the editor. Until 1929, when it was retitled, the journal served as an influential vehicle for disseminating Surrealist literature and theory. Beginning with its first issue—the cover of which was graced by an anonymous drawing of a fish bearing the word “SURRÉALISME” on its side—the magazine also carried illustrations by important Surrealists such as Max Ernst and André Masson. Because of Breton’s forceful promotion of their work, more painters felt drawn to the movement, which had originally favored writers and poets. After a one-man show of Masson’s work in the Galérie Simon in Paris in 1924, the Surrealists staged their first major collective exhibition in the Galérie Pierre in Paris in 1925. At the exhibition, a wide audience reviewed works by the founding members of the Surrealist group, including Ernst, Masson, Miró, and Man Ray, and by such relative newcomers as Pierre Roy and Hans Arp. Also included were works by Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, who were not strictly Surrealists. Giorgio De Chirico’s early work was shown because of its initial influence on Surrealist painters, even though the Surrealists despised his current art. A steady stream of exhibitions followed. The acquisition of the Surrealist Gallery, which opened on March 26, 1926, gave Surrealist painting a permanent exhibition space. Increasingly, international artists such as the Spaniard Salvador Dalí and the Belgian René Magritte joined the Surrealists, whose influence spread throughout Europe, the United States, and Japan. With Dalí and his fellow Spaniard Luis Buñuel, Surrealists turned to film; Dalí and Buñuel’s Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog) became the first of several internationally acclaimed Surrealist films. The painters’ frequent exhibitions, together with the flourishing review La Révolution Surréaliste and the energetic mentorship of Breton, contributed to the strong and quick growth of Surrealism after its well-tended birth in 1924. Significance The energy and creativity of its founders helped to make Surrealism the most influential artistic movement between 1924 and World War II. In the field of the visual arts, the Surrealists’ fascination with the unconscious yielded a rather unexpected result, for even though they
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André Breton.
abandoned despite such isolated successes as Miró’s The Gentleman (1924), the major features of which appeared in the artist’s mind at the moment of painting. Overall, the Surrealists created many techniques that entered the repertoire of contemporary art. Among these lasting inventions are Ernst’s collages, which, as in his The Hundred-Headed Woman (1929), create strange bird-people out of mixed-up illustrations cut from the pages of nineteenth century novels. Other innovations included Ernst’s frottage (the rubbing of canvas over natural objects) and grattage (the scraping of the canvas). Oscar Dominguez’s discovery of “decalcomania” (the spreading of black ink between two sheets of paper), first exhibited in the new Surrealist magazine Minotaure in 1936, quickly inspired other Surrealist painters. Together, the goal of these techniques was to create accidental structures that the artist invests with a subjective meaning. For Masson’s Battle of Fishes (1927), the artist spread glue randomly on his canvas. After pouring sand on the glue, he was left with a sandscape created by accident, which he turned into an ocean floor, the battle zone of his fish. The invitation of the unplanned became an important Surrealist legacy. It directly influenced the action painting of the American Jackson Pollock, who personally observed Max Ernst in the 1940’s. Just as influential were the methods of Surrealist painters, such as Magritte, who painted their objects with 1945
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strove to discard realist modes of representation, they desired to convey the new meaning that their dream logic gave familiar objects. Consequently, despite techniques that pointed in a different direction, Surrealist painting reemphasized the object, and the idea of meaning, in art. These divergent artistic aspirations, which would ultimately separate and lead to both abstract expressionism and neorealism, were powerfully unified in such Surrealist paintings as Yves Tanguy’s Genesis (1926). In Tanguy’s painting, the background openly defies any notion of realist presentation: Painted in virtually the same pastel tones, sky and ground are separated only by a hovering, blue-black fog. In the midst of this dreamscape, however, grows a distinctly fernlike tree of knowledge, beyond which is a tightrope on which walks Eve, a naturalistically drawn woman. To uncover the meaning that Tanguy invests in his objects, one must look at Freudian psychology, which Surrealism greatly helped to popularize. With Sigmund Freud, the Surrealists shared a keen interest in the unconscious and the erotic. Tanguy and other Surrealists readily accepted the sexual connotations Freud saw in everyday objects and incorporated such ideas into their own art. Eve’s passage on the tightrope—a walk into adolescent sexuality—thus will lead her to a phallic tower of fog, out of which rises an outstretched palm holding a long nail (vagina and phallus); her route continues beneath the vaginal leaves of the tree to its terminus, the top of the phallic obelisk. A green snake and a black triangle complete the Freudian imagery on the fog-infested ground. Whereas Freud used psychoanalysis to heal patients, however, the Surrealists were interested in the method alone. At the extreme, Dalí became fascinated with psychopathology and the sickness of the soul and developed his own branch of Surrealism. The famous melting watches of Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (1931) seek to capture the frame of mind of the individual paranoiac. His frightening Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War (1936) reveals the collective horror of a nation, Spain, which was killing itself in civil war. Here, a violently deformed female torso is split in two, and while one hand squeezes an inflamed breast, a calcified leg presses bulging buttocks against spinal bones. In the quest for the unconscious, Breton exhorted the Surrealists to experiment continuously with new techniques. Ironically, the idea of “automatic” writing and painting, which the Manifesto of Surrealism had called the key to Surrealism, soon proved a dead end. It was
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Surrealism Is Born often photographic precision but placed them in impossible contexts. Magritte’s The Human Condition, I (1943) offers a view of a window that is partially blocked by a painting that shows exactly the part of the landscape outside the window that the painting obscures. Magritte’s style, Verism, became widely popular among the pop artists of the 1960’s; its appeal even reached the point that Magritte’s motifs were used for advertising posters. Despite its powerful impact, Surrealism was persistently plagued by internal strife. Because Breton looked at the movement as an all-encompassing lifestyle, he took a personal interest in guarding its purity and expelled many offenders. His continuous development of Surrealist theory is linked to this control over the movement. Breton’s discussion of the visual arts, Le Surréalisme et la peinture (1928; Surrealism and painting), which appeared in the same year as his novel Nadja (English translation, 1960), was written to refute a rival’s idea that there was no Surrealist painting. Similarly, Breton’s Second Manifeste du surréalisme (1930; Second Manifesto of Surrealism, 1969) came on the heels of mass expulsions, including Masson’s. The Surrealists’ relationship with the French communists was characterized by the former’s tenacious fight for artistic freedom. In Légitime Défense (1926; legitimate defense), Breton defended the Surrealists’ interest in dreams. Even though he would briefly join the communists—at one point, he renamed his magazine Le Surréalisme au service de la Révolution (Surrealism in the service of the revolution)—from 1930 on, he knew that Surrealist art remained incompatible with the dogma of Socialist Realism. Pierre Roy’s painting Rural Electrification (1930) illustrates this difference. The work’s electric poles are relegated to the background, where they are literally dwarfed by four bamboo sticks and small scraps of paper, the artist’s childhood toys. By placing the subjective and personal over the communal and objective, Roy provided artists with an alternative to communist art. After World War II, which caused most European Surrealists to flee to the United States after the Nazis occupied France in 1940, Surrealism, although still productive, lost its initial influence. The last great international Surrealist exhibitions were held in Chicago and Paris in 1947. After the deaths of many Surrealist artists in the 1960’s and 1970’s, however, major retrospectives of their works opened in Europe and the United States. Since then, interest in their art has remained strong, and in 1992, a Magritte retrospective received a warm welcome upon opening in London. Arrival of the exhibition 1946
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was also greeted eagerly in the United States, where European Surrealists had flourished late but had left strong traces. — R. C. Lutz Further Reading Hopkins, David. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Concise introduction to these art movements discusses their international nature and the range of media employed. Also addresses the debates surrounding them, including issues of quality and attitudes toward women. Jean, Marcel, ed. The Autobiography of Surrealism. New York: Viking Press, 1980. Anthology of writings by Surrealist painters and writers presents primary texts that shaped Surrealist art theory, which the artists took very seriously. Most selections are fine translations of crucial French texts. Richly illustrated with photos of the artists and their works. Includes bibliography. _______. The History of Surrealist Painting. Translated by Simon Watson Taylor. New York: Grove Press, 1960. Definitive history of Surrealism up to the date of its publication. Includes reproductions of the most important Surrealist artworks (most in black and white, however) and photos of the artists themselves. Readable and extremely informative. McShane, Megan. Genesis of a Revolution from Dada to Surrealism. New York: Parkstone Press, 2006. Describes the emergence of Surrealism and its relation to Dadaism, focusing on the common goals of the two movements. Includes more than one hundred illustrations. Picon, Gaetan. Surrealists and Surrealism, 1919-1939. Translated by James Emmons. 1983. Reprint. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1996. Richly illustrated, detailed look at the development and growth of Surrealist art. Discusses many major Surrealist works and celebrates Surrealism’s impact on art and artists all over the world. Includes chronological survey, bibliography, and “dictionary-index” with a brief entry for each major surrealist artist. Polizzotti, Mark. Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995. First full-length biography of Breton in English places the man and his work in the context of his times. Includes photographs, notes, and index. Read, Herbert Edward. Surrealism. 1936. Reprint. New York: Praeger, 1971. The first serious academic dis-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cussion of Surrealism in English, written at the height of Surrealism’s artistic influence on modern art. Aimed at readers with some familiarity with art history. Intelligent, informative, and valuable for anyone interested in the origins and reception of the Surrealist movement. Russell, John. Max Ernst. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967. One of the most comprehensive surveys of Ernst’s work available for the general reader. Draws on interviews with Ernst to recount Ernst’s impact on the birth of Surrealism and his later conflict with Breton. Includes reproductions of most of Ernst’s major works, chronological survey of Ernst’s works, biographical notes, and useful bibliography. Schneede, Uwe M. Surrealism. Translated by Maria Pelikan. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1974. Intro-
Halibut Treaty ductory survey aimed at a general audience. Presents forty-one discussions of individual Surrealist paintings (reproduced in color) and a concise but brief introductory text with black-and-white reproductions. Includes short chronology (1924-1971) and limited bibliography. See also: 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers; 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House; 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art; 1928: Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog; Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion; 1940: García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published; 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images.
October 21, 1924
Halibut Treaty After five years of negotiation, the United States and Canada reached an agreement to save the fisheries of the North Pacific. Locale: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Julian Byng (1862-1935), British governor-general of Canada Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of state William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948
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Summary of Event On March 21, 1919, a Canadian-American Fisheries Conference called for a closed season on halibut fishing in the North Pacific every year for the next ten years. The commission, made up of scientists and fisheries experts, reported that halibut would totally disappear from the seas unless fishing could be prohibited for at least this period. In October of the same year, the Canadian government sent a draft treaty to the U.S. secretary of state calling for an end to halibut fishing from November 15, 1920, to February 15, 1921, and similar dates each year until 1930. According to the terms of the treaty, boats vi-
olating this season would be seized by either country’s navy and their owners suitably punished. The treaty also contained provisions concerning regulations on lobster fishing, tariffs on fish traded between the two nations, rules for port privileges for fishing boats, and a call for a scientific investigation into the life history of the Pacific halibut. The United States took no immediate action on the proposal. In February, 1921, however, another commission of fisheries experts issued another report predicting disaster unless halibut received protection. This conference report likened the troubles of the halibut industry to the terrible conditions faced by salmon fishermen on the Pacific coast. The value of salmon shipped from U.S. and Canadian canneries had dropped by more than 90 percent since 1913 (from $30 million to $3 million) and was heading quickly toward zero. The halibut industry faced similarly depressed conditions unless something could be done quickly to save the fish. In the United States, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover recognized the need for action on the treaty. President Warren G. Harding sent the document to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification, a procedure requiring a two-thirds vote of approval. Senators began debating the various sections of the proposal but refused to give consent after objections from the governor and fisheries authorities in Washington State as well as members of Con-
Halibut Treaty gress. These objections were based on the claim that the halibut question properly belonged in the hands of state officials, not the federal authorities; thus the province of British Columbia should be discussing limits with the state of Washington. Canadian authorities argued in turn that the provinces had no jurisdiction over such international questions as fisheries, so direct negotiations with the state of Washington were not permitted. Another problem had to do with punishing violators of the closed season. Canada suggested that ships caught with halibut during the closed season could be tried in both countries if authorities desired. Several senators argued that this would constitute double jeopardy, a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Anyone suspected of breaking the law should be tried only once and in only one court for the same crime. Because of these objections, the treaty was withdrawn from Senate consideration in late August. It seemed to have no chance of ratification. Canadian fisheries experts expressed outrage at the U.S. Senate’s failure to ratify the treaty and asked Secretary Hughes whether any modifications would change the results. He replied that he knew of no modifications that would change the minds of those senators who were opposed, but he did suggest a meeting between Washington State officials and Canadian experts in the Pacific Northwest, and both sides agreed to that proposal. In February, 1922, representatives from the Canadian Marine and Fisheries Department met with the Fisheries Board of the state of Washington. They reached no agreement on protecting halibut, but they did decide to stop sockeye salmon fishing totally for five years, so desperately low was the population of that species. Washington State officials refused to give any assurances that they would help control halibut fishing. In August, 1922, the Canadian government, tired of waiting for action by the United States, sent a new draft of a treaty proposal to Washington, D.C., asking for immediate action. On December 14, the United States agreed in principle to the new treaty, although it still needed Senate approval. The new treaty provided for a closed season on halibut. Violators would be turned over either to the U.S. Department of Commerce or to the Canadian Ministry of Marine and Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada, but not to both agencies. Representatives of the United States suggested that halibut taken accidentally during the closed season be used only to feed the crew of the detained vessel but not be sold. This provision was added to the final draft of the treaty. Anew complication arose when the revised treaty was 1948
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sent back to Canada. In February, 1923, the British Colonial Office in London demanded that the treaty’s title be changed before it could be given final approval by the English government. Canada, at this time, was still officially part of the British Empire, and the British authorities insisted that the title be changed from “A Convention for the Regulation of Halibut Fisheries on the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States” to “A Convention for the Regulation of Halibut Fisheries on the Pacific Coast of His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Dominions Beyond the Seas, Emperor of India and the United States.” The first version of the titled would have signified that Canada had the right to negotiate its own treaties, something that had never happened before and that the British wished to ensure never would. Governor-General Julian Byng of Canada suggested that, because the treaty concerned only the United States and Canada, the signature of a Canadian minister should be enough to make it official. The British government extended plenipotentiary powers to Canada’s representative, Ernest Lapointe, minister of marine and fisheries, to sign the treaty on behalf of His Majesty the king. The proposed treaty established the closed season for each year as November 16 to February 15; halibut taken during this season could be used only for food for the crew of the boat that took the fish. Violators would have their boats seized and would be tried in the courts in the nation from which they came. The treaty also established the four-member International Fisheries Commission to study the life and environment of halibut and present recommendations for future regulations needed to save the fish. The treaty and ban would be in effect for five years and then be renewed if both parties agreed. The Senate began debate on the treaty in March and gave consent to ratification with only one change: It added a provision stating that none of the nationals and inhabitants of any other part of Great Britain should engage in halibut fishing. This prohibition included people from all parts of the British Empire. Canadian officials raised an objection to this change, because it put the Canadians in an embarrassing position. It seemed to champion the British cause at the expense of Canada, by insisting that Canada had to secure the consent of the entire British Empire before agreeing to the treaty. Canada could not accept this demand; the document would not be presented to the Parliament in Ottawa because it would face certain defeat. The government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King wanted to make the point that it could sign treaties without British consent, and it
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 would block passage of the Halibut Treaty if necessary. In October, the Harding administration agreed to resubmit the treaty without the offensive reservation. The Senate, however, was not scheduled to meet again until December, too late to approve a closed season for 19231924. Canada asked if the president could impose a ban on halibut fishing but was told that such action was beyond the powers of the chief executive of the United States. Halibut fishing had suffered greatly reduced supplies of fish since the first draft treaty had been proposed, more than four years earlier. Still, both sides reluctantly had to announce there would be no closed season that winter either. By January, 1924, Canadian authorities declared that as the waters off Washington State and southern British Columbia had almost been depleted of halibut, fishing vessels would have to move north to the coast of Alaska, where supplies were more abundant. Still, the halibut industry faced serious trouble and possible bankruptcy if the catching of fish could not be halted quickly. Both sides eventually backed down from their positions. President Calvin Coolidge ratified the treaty on June 4, 1924. The British king, George V, ratified the Halibut Treaty on July 21, and the formal exchange of ratifications took place in Washington, D.C., on October 21, 1924. A closed season began in November, 1924, and persisted into the twenty-first century.
Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President Significance The Halibut Treaty was important in part because it was the first treaty ever promulgated to address the conservation of a badly depleted deep-sea fishery. In addition, in negotiating the treaty with the United States, Canada took a significant step toward its eventual independence from Great Britain. Historians have also noted that this occasion of cooperation between Canada and the United States marks the point at which British influence in Canada began to decline and American influence began to increase. — Leslie V. Tischauser Further Reading Clark, Lovell C., ed. 1919-1925. Vol. 3 in Documents on Canadian External Relations. Ottawa: Department of External Affairs, 1970. Official information on the Halibut Treaty from the Canadian government. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. 4th ed. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1982. Includes a brief discussion of the treaty. See also: 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution; Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act; Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement.
November 4, 1924
Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President Calvin Coolidge’s business-friendly presidential administration helped to trigger the Roaring Twenties. Locale: United States Categories: Government and politics; economics; business and labor
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Key Figures Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), president of the United States, 1923-1929 Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), U.S. secretary of commerce and later president of the United States, 1929-1933 Andrew Mellon (1855-1937), U.S. secretary of the treasury
Summary of Event Calvin Coolidge’s famous statement “The chief business of the American people is business” and Warren G. Harding’s “Less government in business, more business in government” captured the spirit of the United States after World War I. A nation weary of Woodrow Wilson’s idealistic crusade to “make the world safe for democracy” and of Progressive attempts to regulate business and individual life elected three consecutive Republican administrations in the 1920’s and continued Republican dominance of the Oval Office for all but sixteen years of the period 1860 to 1932. During the decade of the 1920’s, the United States reached unparalleled levels of prosperity and sustained a decade without a war. Technological changes, including the automobile, radio, and widespread use of electrical energy, gave U.S. industry the capability to produce goods and provide em-
Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President
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Calvin Coolidge (left), with his wife and Senator Charles Curtis, rides to the Capitol to be sworn in as president of the United States. (Library of Congress)
ployment at unprecedented levels. More than technology accounted for the Roaring Twenties, however: Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon created dramatic tax cuts that unleashed productivity, paid off one-third of the national debt, and resulted in federal budget surpluses for most years in the decade. During the 1920’s, unemployment levels dropped to the unequaled level of 1 percent, and confidence in business drove stock prices to new heights. Harding had won the presidency with the promise to Americans of a “return to normalcy,” by which he meant an end to wartime constraints and high levels of taxation. Railroads, telephone, and telegraph systems were returned to private ownership, and government-built and -owned merchant vessels to the private maritime industry. Harding’s administration suffered, however, 1950
from scandals such as Teapot Dome and accusations that the president had a mistress. When Harding died in office in June, 1923, his vice president, New Englander Calvin Coolidge, assumed the presidency. In November, 1924, Coolidge was elected to the office, defeating Democratic candidate John W. Davis and Progressive candidate Robert La Follette. Coolidge aptly characterized wealth as the product of industry, ambition, character, and untiring effort. He put people before industry, as when he observed that the country needed a business government, by which he meant not “a government by business, not government for business, but . . . a government that will understand business.” Critics, however, maintained that Coolidge merely granted easier access to government for business, and that he ignored antitrust laws and other regulatory
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 efforts that business disliked. Although Coolidge had no control over the Federal Reserve Board, critics contended that his administration encouraged loose credit policies by the board that resulted in a “speculative bubble” in the stock market.
Coolidge’s Inaugural Address Best remembered for his conservative and business-friendly administration, interwar president Calvin Coolidge occupied a period in American history when the nation was evolving from a young, isolationist country still forming its identity to a burgeoning superpower. On Wednesday, March 4, 1925—six years after the end of World War I and four years before the start of the Great Depression—Coolidge delivered his inaugural address. In it, he articulated the need to balance the nation’s new world role and a reluctant stance toward war—an ideal that stood for the remainder of the twentieth century: No one can contemplate current conditions without finding much that is satisfying and still more that is encouraging. Our own country is leading the world in the general readjustment to the results of the great conflict. . . . Realizing that we cannot live unto ourselves alone, we have contributed of our resources and our counsel to the relief of the suffering and the settlement of the disputes among the European nations. Because of what America is and what America has done, a firmer courage, a higher hope, inspires the heart of all humanity. . . . . . . In the defense of our own ideals and in the general cause of liberty we entered the Great War. When victory had been fully secured, we withdrew to our own shores unrecompensed save in the consciousness of duty done. . . . This Nation believes thoroughly in an honorable peace under which the rights of its citizens are to be everywhere protected. It has never found that the necessary enjoyment of such a peace could be maintained only by a great and threatening array of arms. In common with other nations, it is now more determined than ever to promote peace through friendliness and good will, through mutual understandings and mutual forbearance. We have never practiced the policy of competitive armaments. We have recently committed ourselves by covenants with the other great nations to a limitation of our sea power. As one result of this, our Navy ranks larger, in comparison, than it ever did before. Removing the burden of expense and jealousy, which must always accrue from a keen rivalry, is one of the most effective methods of diminishing that unreasonable hysteria and misunderstanding which are the most potent means of fomenting war. This policy represents a new departure in the world. It is a thought, an ideal, which has led to an entirely new line of action. It will not be easy to maintain. Some never moved from their old positions, some are constantly slipping back to the old ways of thought and the old action of seizing a musket and relying on force. America has taken the lead in this new direction, and that lead America must continue to hold. If we expect others to rely on our fairness and justice we must show that we rely on their fairness and justice. . . . Some of the best thought of mankind has long been seeking for a formula for permanent peace. . . . But all these plans and preparations, these treaties and covenants, will not of themselves be adequate. . . . Peace will come when there is realization that only under a reign of law, based on righteousness and supported by the religious conviction of the brotherhood of man, can there be any hope of a complete and satisfying life. Parchment will fail, the sword will fail, it is only the spiritual nature of man that can be triumphant.
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Significance Coolidge may have represented the era, but it began with the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920 and was characterized by Harding’s appointment of Andrew Mellon as treasury secretary. Mellon observed that the rich had avoided paying taxes under the high rates, mainly by finding tax shelters. To boost government revenue, Mellon reduced tax rates, especially on the rich, making it less profitable for them to engage in accounting or investment manipulations to avoid taxation. As a result, the rich paid more in taxes than at any previous time in history, both in total dollar amounts and as a share of all taxes paid. Revenues rose as well, with the amount collected from those earning more than $100,000 per year rising from $194 million to $361 million. Mellon’s tax cuts benefited the poorest groups the most, as their share of total taxes paid declined from $155 million to $32 million in 1926. Mellon’s cuts increased government revenues to such an extent that the government reduced the national debt—not annual deficits—by one-third. “Coolidge prosperity” bathed the nation. Families bought radios, electrical appliances, and other conveniences. Henry Ford’s automobile company, manufacturing Model T’s with mass-production methods, cut prices to the extent that an average U.S. family could acquire a car for a year’s wages. Increases in automobile sales and the expansion of electrical energy made transportation and commerce cheaper and more widely available, reducing prices on virtually all manufactured goods. Some did not participate in the Coolidge prosperity, however. Wealth inequality increased during the 1920’s, largely because the number of millionaires grew rapidly. Stock manipulations during the “great bull
Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President
Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President market” involved more than a few shady characters: Samuel Insull, for example, created a pyramid of utilities that collapsed. Margin buying—seen as contributing to the speculation in the stock market—rose from $1 billion in 1920 to $8 billion in 1929. Many analysts, including the famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith, have argued that the inequities in wealth, stock speculation, and unsustainable consumer demand of the 1920’s led directly to the Great Depression. The fantastic rise in stock prices, however, may have only reflected the real growth of new industries, and, not surprisingly, utility, radio, automobile, and steel stocks witnessed some of the most rapid gains. The manufacturing boom also stimulated the stock market, even without assistance from the Federal Reserve or margin buying. Securities pioneers such as Charles E. Merrill developed sales plans to place securities in the hands of ordinary families, who found that they could own pieces of major corporations at low cost. The incentive to purchase such stocks was not necessarily brokers’ loans, but the fact that share prices did not fall for more than five years. The stock market was, many people thought, a sure thing. Coolidge was eligible to run for reelection in 1928, but he stepped down. In his place came Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who had a reputation as a planner who would merge the best parts of government and business. Rather than continuing the Coolidge policies, however, Hoover was a throwback to Wilson—a Progressive who sought to encourage the formation of voluntary trade associations in various industries that would establish quality standards, develop joint advertising campaigns, and force businesses into a net of cooperative efforts at a time when competition had led to the highest standard of living in the world. Nevertheless, business had few reservations about such a policy and welcomed an administration that would return to the World War I era of restricted competition. For example, the large population of small, unit banks supported passage of the McFadden Act of 1927, which essentially stymied the expansion of nationwide branch banking, out of concern that large banks would compete with them in local markets. Hoover had experience in agriculture and hoped to help the struggling farm economy recover. His administration established the Federal Farm Board to make low-interest loans to farm cooperatives and to absorb surpluses, thus raising prices. Farm income recovered in some areas, but the low-interest loans increased production, lowering prices and contributing to the general business decline by keeping the farm sector in distress. 1952
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In other ways, Hoover—who has been criticized as “probusiness”—represented a break from Coolidge and Harding by championing planning as the solution to save the economy, especially after the 1929 stock market crash. The Federal Reserve Board had made a number of critical errors in the management of the nation’s banking and monetary system. In 1928, misled into thinking that the stock market boom fueled inflation, the board tightened the money supply, curtailing production and sending international markets further into a tailspin. Congress passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act in 1930, but key deliberations occurred just days before “Black Thursday,” leading many persons to conclude that concern over the ruinous tariff rates (increases up to 34 percent on most goods) prompted the Great Crash. Foreign markets, already in depression, could no longer export to the United States or import U.S. goods; U.S. companies, sensing that their foreign markets were about to clamp shut, laid off workers and liquidated stock to gain capital. Hoover instituted other policies that represented sharp breaks with the Harding-Coolidge approach to the economy, especially his creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which gave loans to troubled banks and businesses. However, the RFC published the names of loan recipients, and the public response was to withdraw money from banks or cease to conduct business with firms on the list. Bank runs accelerated. The policies of the Federal Reserve Board, Hoover, and Congress, combined with adherence to the gold standard long after other nations had abandoned gold, effectively ended the Coolidge prosperity. One of Hoover’s first attempts to remedy the situation was to raise taxes, marking the final separation from Coolidge and Harding as the Roaring Twenties crashed to an end. —Larry Schweikart Further Reading Atack, Jeremy, and Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History. 2d ed. Boston: W. W. Norton, 1994. Historiographic look at economists’ findings regarding the key economic events of U.S. history. In regard to the Great Depression, suggests that the monetarist views of Milton Friedman and the case against the gold standard have risen to high levels of acceptability among scholars. Ferrell, Robert H. The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. Comprehensive account of Coolidge’s years in office draws on materials unavailable previously. Includes bibliographic essay and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Folsom, Burton, Jr. The Myth of the Robber Barons. Herndon, Va.: Young America’s Foundation, 1991. Contains an insightful chapter on Mellon and the effects of his tax policies in the 1920’s. Includes a criticism of contentions that significant wealth disparities existed during the decade. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Crisis of the Old Order. 1957. Reprint. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Influential book details the 1920’s from a liberal perspective. Relies heavily on descriptions of Coolidge supplied by William White, whose accounts have not stood the test of time. White, for example, ignored substantial evidence that Coolidge viewed the economy as an integrated force of employees, capitalists, and consumers. Silver, Thomas B. Coolidge and the Historians. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1982. Well-balanced book addresses historical misinformation about Coolidge’s policies and words. Provides full texts of Coolidge’s speeches, unlike many other volumes. Sobel, Robert. Coolidge: An American Enigma. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1998. Biography attempts to
Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems balance previous views of Coolidge as uninteresting and cold. Addresses Coolidge’s views on big business and emphasizes his personal and political integrity. Includes selected bibliography and index. White, William Allen. Calvin Coolidge: The Man Who Is President. New York: Macmillan, 1925. The earliest, and most flawed, interpretation of Coolidge, followed by White’s 1938 book, A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge (New York: Macmillan). Wilson, Joan Hoff. Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive. 1975. Reprint. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1992. A liberal revisionist portrays Hoover as consistent with the Progressive movement earlier in the century and argues that Hoover had sharp differences with Coolidge and Harding. See also: Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era; 19211923: Scandals of the Harding Administration; Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters; Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation.
December, 1924
Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems Hubble demonstrated that the Milky Way galaxy is only one of many in the universe and founded the astronomical study of galaxies external to the Milky Way. Locale: Mount Wilson Observatory, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer Heber Doust Curtis (1872-1942), American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), American astronomer Adriaan van Maanen (1884-1946), Dutch astronomer
1953
1924
Summary of Event At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two theories about spiral nebulas—groups of stars that appear as spiraling streams flowing outward from a central core. One theory held that such nebulas were part of the Milky Way galaxy. The other held that they were “island
universes,” large, distant, independent systems. To resolve this question, it was important to measure the distances of the nebulas. The island universe theory held that the nebulas were remote from the Milky Way; the other theory held that they were closer. In 1914, the American astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher announced that the spiral nebulas were moving away from the Milky Way at high speeds. He had drawn his conclusions from his spectral analysis of Doppler shifts in these star groups. His announcement was taken as evidence that these nebulas could not possibly be part of the Milky Way. Slipher had not conclusively solved the problem, however, because he had not determined the distances of these nebulas. Distance has always been a difficult question for astronomers. By the early twentieth century, astronomers had measured distances to some nearby stars using the parallax method, which compares the different angles of nearby stars in relation to Earth and the Sun as Earth moves around the Sun. Unfortunately, spiral nebulas are too far away for parallax to be useful.
Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 size and shape of the galaxy were substantially correct. Yet the island universe hypothesis was strongly supported by evidence presented by Edwin Powell Hubble to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in December, 1924. In 1923, Hubble was working at Mount Wilson Observatory, studying photographs taken with the 100-inch (254-centimeter) Hooker telescope. He was the first to isolate Cepheid variables in the Andromeda nebula. Cepheid variables are stars whose brightnesses varies periodically and whose period of variation is related to their actual brightness. Once a star’s actual brightness is known and its apparent brightness as seen from Earth is measured, its distance can be determined. This was the same method used by Shapley to determine the size of the Milky Way galaxy. Hubble used the Cepheids to calculate that the nebulas are, in fact, at great distances and must be huge, independent systems. The distance Hubble found for the Andromeda nebula is about 900,000 light-years and the diameter almost 33,000 light-years (a light-year is the distance light travels in a vacuum in one year, approximately 5.88 trillion miles, or 9.46 trillion kilometers). These results later required correction, as it was found that there are two types of Cepheid variables, and the ones that Hubble studied had a different period-luminosity relationship; the distance is closer to 2 million light-
Working at the Mount Wilson Observatory, the Dutch astronomer Adriaan van Maanen compared the positions of bright spots within spiral nebulas in photographs taken at different times in order to observe the motions of the spots. In 1916, he published his results, which suggested that the spirals were rotating and that the rotation was rapid. If large distances and sizes were assumed for the nebulas, the nebulas would have to be rotating at immensely fast speeds, in some cases exceeding the speed of light. As this was known to be impossible, van Maanen’s results were taken as evidence that the spiral nebulas must be nearby parts of the Milky Way. In April, 1920, Harlow Shapley and Heber Doust Curtis debated their differing views before the National Academy of Sciences. Using a new distance determination method involving a type of star, a Cepheid variable, Shapley had arrived at a much larger size for our galaxy than had been previously deduced. Because of van Maanen’s studies, Shapley argued that the spiral nebulas were part of this large Milky Way. Curtis agreed with previous studies that indicated a smaller Milky Way. He also believed in the “island universe” theory—that the spiral nebulas were other galaxies similar to and outside the Milky Way. As evidence, Curtis used Slipher’s measurements of the speed at which the nebulas were moving away from the Milky Way. Today it is recognized that Shapley’s results for the
Hubble’s Morphological Classification of Galaxies Normal spiral galaxies
Lenticular galaxies
Sa
Sb
Sc
Elliptical galaxies S0 E0
E3
E7
Irregular galaxies Barred spiral galaxies
Note: E refers to elliptical galaxies; S to spiral
1954
SBa
SBb
SBc
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 years. Yet Hubble’s results changed scientists’ idea of the scale of the universe and of Earth’s place in it. Hubble was at first reluctant to publish his results, because he could not explain why van Maanen’s results would be incorrect. Although many influential astronomers were immediately convinced by Hubble’s results, controversy lingered for some years after these results were presented. Van Maanen’s results could not be duplicated by others, and all other evidence indicated that the galaxies were distant and separate from the Milky Way; therefore, his work was gradually forgotten.
Further Reading Berendzen, Richard, Richard Hart, and Daniel Seeley. Man Discovers the Galaxies. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1984. Excellent history of early twentieth century work in studying the Milky Way and external galaxies, including much information on the process by which these galaxies were determined to be independent systems. Accessible to the nonscientist. Presents archival materials, including correspondence, and includes many photographs, charts, and graphs. Gribbin, John. In Search of the Big Bang: The Life and Death of the Universe. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. History of modern cosmology presents the story of the discovery of the nature of external galaxies. Puts Hubble’s work into the fuller context of the development of cosmological thought. Intended for the general reader. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Hetherington, Norriss S. “The Purported Rotation of Spiral Nebulas.” In Science and Objectivity: Episodes in the History of Astronomy. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1988. Investigates the possible sources of van Maanen’s error when he measured rapid rotation in the spiral nebulas, with emphasis on how preconceptions and subjective ideas may have influenced the gathering of data. Discusses the influence of van Maanen’s work on Hubble. Hubble, Edwin. The Realm of the Nebulae. 1936. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1991. Text of lectures given by Hubble at Yale in 1935 on spiral nebulas. Chapters 1 and 4 deal with the discovery of the nebulas’ distances; the remainder of the book describes then-current knowledge on types of galaxies, their distribution, and the overall view of the universe. Dated, but valuable for Hubble’s view of his studies. Rowan-Robinson, Michael. Cosmology. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Comprehensive volume discusses advances in technology that have allowed scientists to gain increasing understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe. Topics include the formation and aging of various types of stars and galaxies, the big bang theory, quasars, and black holes. Also examines a number of controversies in the field. Includes illustrations and index. Shapley, Harlow. Through Rugged Ways to the Stars. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Autobiography contains a chapter on the Shapley-Curtis debate (chapter 6) and one that contains descriptions of Hubble and van Maanen (chapter 4). Written in a conversational style. Includes photographs. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. “Galaxies.” In Astron1955
1924
Significance The philosophical consequences of Hubble’s conclusions were immense. The great sizes and distances of the spirals meant not only that the Sun was only one of many in a huge galaxy but also that the Milky Way was merely one of many independent systems. This realization shifted humankind’s place in the cosmos, a shift that could be said to be equal to that which the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus inaugurated when he suggested that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the solar system. Hubble’s work led to the beginning of the classification and study of galaxies. Once galaxies were identified as separate units of the cosmos, their shapes and sizes, their distances, and their distribution in space were studied. During the 1920’s, Hubble presented a classification scheme for galaxies that is still in use. There were important follow-ups to Hubble’s work. Once Cepheids were found in other spirals and distances were known, Hubble was able to work out a plot of distance versus velocity; he found that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from Earth. This means that the universe is expanding. By using this plot to extrapolate backward in time to the socalled big bang, astronomers could estimate the age of the universe. Studies are still being conducted to determine the exact age, but data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have pinpointed it with incredible accuracy at 13.7 billion years. Hence the discoveries surrounding Cepheid variables created a drastically different picture of the universe: a universe in motion, rushing way from an energetic beginning, rather than the static and stable universe that scientists had previously assumed. —Mary Hrovat
Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems
Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres omy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Cowritten by an astronomer who lived through some of the advances in astronomy described. Tells the story of the discovery of galaxies as independent systems and of the resulting work in classifying and understanding galaxies. Includes photographs, drawings, and a time line of twentieth century astronomy. Whitney, Charles A. The Discovery of Our Galaxy. 1971. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1988. Presents the history of cosmological thought. Part 3 discusses the discovery and study of external galaxies as well as the study of our own galaxy. De-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 scribes actual observations and telescopes used to make discoveries. Includes photographs, drawings, glossary, and bibliography. See also: 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe.
December 4, 1924
Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece GREED Premieres Erich von Stroheim probed beneath the surface of life and human behavior to create a triumph of cinematic naturalism in his motion picture Greed. Locale: United States Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957), American film director Gibson Gowland (1872-1951), British-born film actor ZaSu Pitts (1898-1963), American film actor Jean Hersholt (1886-1956), Danish-born film actor Summary of Event Motion picture director Erich von Stroheim began production of Greed, his film adaptation of Frank Norris’s naturalistic 1899 novel McTeague, in the spring of 1923. Von Stroheim intended to present Norris’s story of avarice and human degradation in authentic detail. His film begins by showing McTeague (played by Gibson Gowland) as a burly young miner at the Big Dipper gold mine in Placer County, California. McTeague, the son of an alcoholic father who dies of delirium tremens in a saloon at the mine, is a giant man with supreme strength and slow wits. He appears to be gentle and good-natured, but the brute within him lies just beneath the surface. McTeague is shown as a victim of circumstance, environment, and heredity, unable to control his own destiny. His mother, an overworked drudge in the camp’s kitchen, desperately wants her son to leave the mine to seek a profession. When a traveling dentist stops at the camp, Mother 1956
McTeague persuades the dentist to take her son with him as an apprentice. Several years later, after having learned the basic skills of dentistry, McTeague has opened a dental parlor on Polk Street in San Francisco. His practice is going well and his life seems comfortable when he meets Marcus Schouler (played by Jean Hersholt). Marcus is an arrogant, vulgar blowhard who works as an attendant at a nearby dog hospital, but McTeague finds him a likable, colorful character, and they soon become good friends. Marcus introduces McTeague to his fiancé, Trina (played by ZaSu Pitts), the shy daughter of German immigrant parents. Trina has a broken tooth, and Marcus has brought her to McTeague to have it fixed. McTeague develops a passion for Trina and finally confesses his love for her to Marcus, who, with a false sense of generosity, gives up Trina to his friend. After a few months, McTeague and Trina marry. On the eve of their wedding, Trina learns that she has won five thousand dollars in a lottery drawing. The lottery win marks the film’s descent into tragedy. Marcus feels cheated in having given up the newly rich Trina and, in a moment of anger and self-pity, throws a knife at McTeague. The former friend is now an enemy, and Marcus begins to plot his revenge on the newlyweds. Marcus informs the state medical board that McTeague is practicing without a license, and McTeague is forced to curtail his practice. Trina then becomes a miser, unwilling to spend a cent of her lottery winnings. With the loss of income, the McTeagues slowly sink into poverty. McTeague, once again a victim of circumstance, takes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
heim, who felt his most creative work had been ruined, refused even to look at the final product. Significance Erich von Stroheim’s Greed is now considered a silent film classic. Von Stroheim was a disciple of the legendary D. W. Griffith and had worked for several years under his tutelage. Von Stroheim’s uses of close-ups, camera angles, lighting, composition, and symbolism show the influences of Griffith’s work, but von Stroheim’s films in general, and Greed in particular, go beyond Griffith’s in their stark, realistic analysis and in their attention to authentic detail. Von Stroheim was one of the first directors to struggle with the problem of how to adapt a work of written fiction to the screen realistically. Just as Frank Norris had rebelled against the popular fiction of the 1890’s, von Stroheim rebelled against the sentimental Hollywood products of the 1920’s. Critics attacked both artists for the vulgarity and sordidness of their “realism,” and both defended themselves as having merely presented life in a truthful manner. They noted that individuals can be good, kind, noble, and idealistic, but they can also be selfish, mean, jealous, and greedy. Norris’s and von Stroheim’s uncompromising portrayals of life and human behavior are more accurately described as “naturalism.” Both men believed that heredity and environment control human actions and that individuals are at the mercy of irresistible natural forces. Both were concerned about psychological and sociological nuances outside the accepted cultural definition of what should be openly displayed as art. Von Stroheim relied entirely on actual locations to add force and meaning to the more grotesque aspects of his story. For the scenes that took place in the Placer County mining area, von Stroheim had the Goldwyn Company lease and restore to operation the actual mine described in Norris’s novel. When the story shifted to San Francisco, von Stroheim moved shooting there as well. Because the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 had destroyed the seedy Polk Street area described in Norris’s novel, von Stroheim had to improvise. He rented a house at the corner of Hayes and Laguna Streets, furnished the rooms exactly as Norris’s novel describes them, and then had the actors actually live in the rooms to get the feel of their surroundings. Von Stroheim filled each scene with interesting and important details. He believed that objects could be used to create atmosphere and that an emphasis on detail would both enrich the scene and accentuate the dramatic importance of the film. He kept the backgrounds of his 1957
1924
to drinking, and Trina is forced to work as a carver of wooden toys. McTeague begins to act more and more like a brute, and he torments his wife in an unsuccessful attempt to get her money. Eventually, he abandons her. Trina’s only comfort (more accurately, her passion) is her money, which she continues to hoard in the form of gold coins. Finally, the beast in McTeague rises to full force. He breaks into his wife’s room, murders her, and flees with the coins. McTeague, now on the run, briefly returns to his mountain home. Before long, however, he senses pursuit and sets off across the Mojave Desert. At this juncture, Marcus reappears in the film to join the posse in pursuit of McTeague. The posse turns back when the chase reaches Death Valley, but Marcus continues to pursue McTeague on his own. Driven onward by greed, Marcus overtakes McTeague on the salt flats of Death Valley. There, miles from water and in 130-degree heat, they fight to the death. McTeague manages to kill Marcus but finds himself handcuffed to a corpse. McTeague dies in the desert with the gold coins scattered around him. Von Stroheim completed production of Greed in October, 1923. The shooting had lasted 198 days at a cost of roughly half a million dollars. Von Stroheim immediately began editing, and on January 12, 1924, he presented a forty-two-reel, nine-and-a-half-hour preview to a small group of associates. The studio demanded that further cuts be made, and von Stroheim complied, producing a twenty-four-reel version. While von Stroheim struggled to cut his film to a marketable length, his parent company (Goldwyn) merged with the Metro Pictures Corporation. Louis B. Mayer took over as head of production, and Irving Thalberg became von Stroheim’s new production manager. Both executives foresaw a financial disaster in Greed, with its excessive length and pessimistic message, and demanded further cuts. Von Stroheim then sent the film to one of his closest friends, director Rex Ingram, who edited the film to eighteen reels. Von Stroheim took this version to Mayer, who insisted that it be cut to ten reels. Von Stroheim protested that the artistic qualities of the film would be destroyed in the process, but he was powerless to prevent further cutting. Von Stroheim had broken the rules in his pursuit of artistic integrity, and he paid the price. Greed was given to an outside “cutter” for final editing. The studio first showed this truncated version of the film on December 4, 1924, at William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Theatre in New York City. The film was shown twice daily and ran for six weeks to mixed reviews. Von Stro-
Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres
Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres scenes in deep focus, so that details were not lost on the viewer and so that contrasting themes and symbols, plots and subplots, could be ironically juxtaposed. Von Stroheim’s obsession with realistic detail was also evident in the scenes shot in Death Valley. The director rejected the studio’s advice that he film the desert scenes on the sand dunes near Los Angeles; instead, he took a film crew consisting of forty-one men and one woman to Death Valley. There, again for the sake of realism and to stay true to the novel, von Stroheim filmed the final scenes in 130-degree heat. He claimed that the combination of intense heat, hellish surroundings, and physical strain gave the film its proper nightmarish conclusion. In the end, von Stroheim created a film that was ahead of its time and a commercial disaster. Studio executives (Mayer and Thalberg), ever conscious of box-office realities, demanded that severe cuts be made to reduce the film’s length. They also found the film lacking in star quality. Von Stroheim, unlike most Hollywood directors, rejected the star system then in vogue. Instead, he chose his actors primarily from screen comedies. He reasoned that such actors would not be burdened with artificial dramatic mannerisms that would detract from their human qualities. Critics found the film to be unsparingly intense (because of the severe editing, one dramatic scene follows another almost without respite) and too pessimistic (major and minor characters appear helpless against larger forces). Viewers found the contrast between innocence and degeneracy repellent and the emphasis on the tragic state of human existence too bleak. In short, the film was out of touch with the marketing realities of Hollywood and out of step with the popular culture of the 1920’s and 1930’s. To the post-World War II generation of film critics and film viewers, however, the film’s reception appeared to indicate the public’s and the critics’ failure to confront the ugly side of life and to recognize the directional genius of von Stroheim. More contemporary observers have come to realize the tremendous impact Greed had and continues to have on the overall development of realism on the screen during the era of sound. Most modern critical viewers marvel at von Stroheim’s authenticity, his sophisticated development of character, his innovative production techniques, and his visionary direction. —Steven L. Piott Further Reading Curtiss, Thomas Quinn. Von Stroheim. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971. Biography written 1958
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 by a close friend of von Stroheim records events much as von Stroheim would have wanted. Includes a long chapter on Greed as well as Idwal Jones’s account of the original screening of the film. Jones, the drama critic for the San Francisco Daily News, was one of perhaps only a dozen individuals ever to see the original, nine-hour-plus version of Greed. Finler, Joel W. Stroheim. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Brief volume focuses primarily on Greed. Valuable for its comparisons of Norris’s novel with von Stroheim’s film. _______, ed. “Greed”: A Film by Erich von Stroheim. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. Contains von Stroheim’s original shooting script for Greed and includes brief but useful articles from Finler and from Herman G. Weinberg. Also included are valuable recollections concerning the making of Greed from actor Jean Hersholt, cameraman William Daniels, and von Stroheim himself. Henry, Nora. Ethics and Social Criticism in the Hollywood Films of Erich von Stroheim, Ernst Lubitsch, and Billy Wilder. New York: Praeger, 2000. Examines how these three directors commented on and influenced American culture through their filmmaking. Includes brief biographies of the directors, bibliography, and index. Koszarski, Richard. Von: The Life and Films of Erich Von Stroheim. Rev. ed. Portland, Oreg.: Amadeus Press, 2001. Expanded and heavily revised version of an earlier biography titled The Man You Loved to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood, which was published in 1983. Provides one of the most useful syntheses available on von Stroheim’s life. Includes a long chapter on Greed. Noble, Peter. Hollywood Scapegoat: The Biography of Erich von Stroheim. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1972. This biography, first published in 1950, was written with the cooperation of von Stroheim. The short chapter on Greed is composed largely of excerpts from correspondence between the author and the director. Includes a lengthy appendix that contains a selection of critical essays. Weinberg, Herman G. The Complete “Greed.” New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973. An attempt to reconstruct the complete Greed with more than four hundred photos that remain from the original production. Scenes cut from the final film are marked, and a description or a fragment of dialogue accompanies each photo. Includes a brief but informative introduction. Whittemore, Don, and Philip Alan Cecchettini, eds.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation
Passport to Hollywood: Film Immigrants. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. An anthology of works about important film directors, including von Stroheim. Several essays about the director describe his career and his major films. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Mar. 3, 1915: Grif-
fith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis.
December 10, 1924
Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover transformed an ineffective and inefficient government bureau into the best-known national crime-fighting organization. Among his other accomplishments, Hoover oversaw agents’ rigorous training and established scientific procedures and laboratories. Also known as: Federal Bureau of Investigation Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Crime and scandal; government and politics; organizations and institutions Key Figures J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1924-1972 William J. Burns (1861-1932), Hoover’s predecessor as head of the Bureau of Investigation, 1921-1924 Harry M. Daugherty (1860-1941), U.S. attorney general, 1921-1924 Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), president of the United States, 1923-1929 Harlan Fiske Stone (1872-1946), U.S. attorney general, 1924-1925 A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936), U.S. attorney general, 1919-1921
1959
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Summary of Event When J. Edgar Hoover became director of the Bureau of Investigation (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, on July 1, 1935), the organization was recovering from inefficiency and scandal. Hoover had been an assistant director under President Warren G. Harding’s administration, and he was appointed by Harry M. Daugherty, who chose legendary detective William J. Burns as director. Burns was the personification of the independent crime-fighter romanticized in western and detective novels and films: He had first
gained national attention as a Secret Service detective before he established the Burns International Detective Agency. After he accepted Daugherty’s invitation to return to government work, Burns was caught in the scandals that became known after Harding’s death in 1923. In particular, the Teapot Dome scandal—which involved the leasing of oil fields not subject to rules of competitive bidding—gave further credence to charges that had been leveled since Daugherty’s appointment as attorney general. Daugherty was accused of corruption, and investigators specifically questioned his hiring of unsuitable personnel for the Justice Department and his inappropriate involvement in enforcement of Prohibition-related regulations. President Calvin Coolidge fired Daugherty in March of 1924, and Burns was forced to resign. Coolidge and his new attorney general, Harlan Fiske Stone, later chief justice of the Supreme Court, were committed to restoring public faith in the integrity of government. To that end, J. Edgar Hoover seemed a logical appointment. Unlike Burns, Hoover was highly educated; he had received both his B.A. and law degrees from George Washington University while working at the Library of Congress. Hoover’s family had a history of government service, and, like many Americans, Hoover feared the new waves of immigrants and growing political dissent in the country, sentiments he would zealously maintain long after the culture around him had changed. Hoover, unlike Burns, had excellent organizational abilities; until he became director of the Bureau of Investigation, his greatest source of pride was his leadership of a high school military cadet unit at the elite Central High School in Washington, D.C. Hoover joined the U.S. Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, and quickly became known for his efficient, detail-oriented style of leadership. By the end of World War I, when the communist revolution in Russia had suc-
Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation ceeded and communists worldwide believed that revolution was at hand, Hoover shared the sense of horror expressed by many middle-class Americans. As director of the Radical Division (created by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer on August 1, 1919, and renamed the General Intelligence Division in 1920), Hoover was responsible for organizing the arrest and attempting the deportation of thousands of alleged subversives. The sweeping arrests—which were often based on little or no evidence—and the brutal conditions under which many were housed produced a backlash that ruined Palmer’s political career. Hoover, however, was not blamed; most people believed that he had simply been obeying orders. Hoover was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation on May 10, 1924, and after a brief probationary period he was named director on December 10, 1924. In an attempt to terminate the bureau’s surveillance of both political radicals and the violations of “conventional morality” described in the White-Slave Traffic Act (1910), Stone had ordered that the bureau’s personnel be reduced and that investigations be limited to actual violations of law. Hoover used Stone’s call as an opportunity to remove the bureau from the influence of party politics and the taint of corruption. Political appointees were terminated, and a merit system was established. Hoover wanted to choose future employees from candidates who had been trained either in law or accounting, although he was forced to make some exceptions for a few applicants who were better versed than their collegeeducated counterparts in practical matters of investigation. During Prohibition, the bureau had been significantly hampered by its loose organization and by the lack of surveillance over Prohibition agents, and corruption had become widespread at all levels. In response, Hoover began to reorganize the bureau at its most fundamental levels. He strengthened the chain of command from Washington, from the commanders of field offices (special agents in charge, or SACs) down to individual agents. Efficiency became the sole criterion for promotion, and Hoover graded SAC performances himself using a strict system of merits and demerits. An inspection team ensured that this system was implemented. Hoover quickly standardized reporting so that federal prosecutors could quickly ascertain whether a case could be taken to court. This was an especially important change in policy because in the past many cases could not be prosecuted because of inadequate reporting. To avoid even the appearance of corruption, Hoover attempted to standardize every aspect of an agent’s life by 1960
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J. Edgar Hoover. (Library of Congress)
creating rules about dress and conduct. During Prohibition, for example, an agent’s consumption of alcohol, even off duty, could result in immediate dismissal. In 1927, Hoover began to distribute loose-leaf notebooks that explicitly described procedures for investigation and reporting, and other strict rules followed. Later, these rules demoralized many agents and handicapped others in their work, but they were initially necessary to change the public’s perception of federal law enforcement as corrupt. A believer in the value of science and education, Hoover also wanted to make the Bureau of Investigation into a law-enforcement agency that would provide models, services, and education for police departments across the country. The invention of the automobile and the freedom it gave criminals who wanted to cross state lines pointed to the need for centralizing certain activities and regularizing police training and procedures. The trend toward centralization had begun long before Hoover became director, however: In 1904, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) had realized the value of the fingerprint system of identification, and in 1923, Attorney General Daugherty ordered the federal finger-
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Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation
print system at Leavenworth and the IACP system to be housed and administered by the Bureau of Investigation. Hoover was in charge of implementing this change, which would allow local and state police to identify criminals from other parts of the country. The IACP had begun to collect crime statistics in 1922, and both the organization of these statistics and police training programs were also centralized. In 1925, Hoover established a training school for agents in New York, but funding eventually became a problem for the relatively small New York office.
See also: July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation; June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded; May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde; May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established.
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Significance Hoover’s centralization projects required time and congressional appropriations. To enhance the image of police professionalism in the United States, Hoover moved the officers’ training school to Washington in 1928; in 1972, it became the FBI Academy located in Quantico, Virginia. In 1935, police training was expanded to include local and state police officers, and the Police Training School was renamed the FBI National Police Academy in 1937 and the FBI National Academy in 1945. In June of 1930, Congress authorized the FBI’s establishment of the Division of Identification and Information, which housed fingerprinting and similar functions. On November 24, 1932, Hoover established a Technical Lab, and this office became the preeminent crime laboratory in the United States. Eventually, it housed forensic scientists, handwriting analysts, and other specialists. Hoover made sure that national crime statistics were reported and available through the Uniform Crime Reports, which were first published in 1930. To counteract the widespread demoralization caused by the Depression, he courted publicity as the FBI pursued and captured or killed high-profile criminals such as John Dillinger. Hoover also worked with writers and Hollywood filmmakers to publicize these cases, creating the image of the FBI as an effective, efficient, and incorruptible force that led the country’s fight against crime and provided facilities and training beyond the scope of any individual police force. As such, the agency was popularly perceived as a force for social stability in a time of national danger. Despite continual criticism by civil libertarians and by social activists, the image would remain relatively intact long after Hoover’s death. —Betty Richardson
Further Reading Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Contrasts actual events with their portrayals by the FBI and popular media. Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991. Extensively uses interviews, research materials, and previously classified government documents to show how Hoover created the image of an uncorrupted FBI while abusing his power. Hack, Richard. Puppetmaster: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Beverly Hills, Calif.: New Millennium Press, 2004. Readable personal biography. Hunt, Willam R. Front-Page Detective: William J. Burns and the Detective Profession, 1880-1930. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990. Serious study of the legendary detective’s strengths and weaknesses. Kessler, Ronald. The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. A readable study of the FBI from the beginning; an epilogue for the 2003 paperback edition covers the investigations that followed the terrorist attacks of 2001. Powers, Richard Gid. Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI. New York: Free Press, 2004. Focuses on procedures and problems in the past that led to failure of the FBI to anticipate the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States. _______. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: Free Press, 1987. Balanced, welldocumented study emphasizing the social and historical forces that shaped Hoover’s thought and actions. Theoharis, Athan. The FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Readable, short history of the FBI from the formation of the Secret Service through the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., in 2001.
The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology
1925 THE
CITY Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology
The City, one of the most important urban studies of its time, helped propel the Chicago school of sociology to national prominence. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Sociology; publishing and journalism; anthropology Key Figures Robert E. Park (1864-1944), American sociologist Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1966), American sociologist Roderick D. McKenzie (1885-1940), American sociologist Georg Simmel (1858-1918), German sociologist John Dewey (1859-1952), American philosopher and educator George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), American social psychologist and philosopher Homer Hoyt (c. 1895-1984), American real estate economist Chauncy D. Harris (1914-2003), American geographer Summary of Event The U.S. Census Bureau’s 1925 revelation that the United States had become predominantly urban coincided with publication of The City by sociologist Robert E. Park, with contributions by Ernest W. Burgess and Roderick D. McKenzie. Park and Burgess had already written An Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1921), which proved to be the first truly influential sociology text published in the United States. That volume and The City helped to propel the Chicago school of sociology—that is, the University of Chicago’s sociology department—to national prominence during the 1920’s and 1930’s, principally because of the school’s novel emphasis on urban ecology. As the university’s leading urban ecologists, Park, Burgess, and McKenzie theorized that urban environments are shaped chiefly by two forms of human behavior: dominance and competition. Typically, according to Park, people with similar interests tend to congregate in particular portions of a city and eventually to dominate those areas. The city center, or downtown, in an American city was invariably dominated by principal businesses and government offices: banks, the leading shops or department stores, hotels, the main post office, courts, and other federal, state, and county offices. Immediately beyond downtown, a ring of wholesale firms or light manufacturing establishments 1962
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dominated, which in turn were ringed by working-class residential districts. Beyond these lower-class neighborhoods there developed rings of middle-class residences that gave way farther out to upper-class residences. Farther yet from the center, heavy manufacturing industries could be found that gave way to outlying business districts, residential suburbs, industrial suburbs, and finally commuter zones. Thus, in Park’s analysis, the spatial and functional structure of an average American city could be diagrammed as a series of concentric circles. Dominance within these circles over time was not necessarily static. Competition of the lower classes, for example, for middleclass housing, or of middle-class residents for upperclass residences, or the expansion of manufacturing districts into residential or into business districts could change the dominant elements within the circles. The general pattern, however, remained the same, because social status and social class, in Park’s view, are closely related to the population’s spatial distribution. Park’s concentric-circle theory was not formulated as an exercise in geography. Rather, it was an effort to comprehend the drama of community and the human interactions within it. To Park, the city, most particularly Chicago, was a collection of closely interacting organisms forming a community. Consequently, Park adapted to his own investigative purposes concepts that were already employed by plant and animal ecologists in order to explain the processes by which plant and animal communities develop and change. Although other explanations of urban life emerged to rival or supplant Park’s theory by 1940—notably those of Homer Hoyt and of Chauncy D. Harris and Edward Ullman—Park’s own ecological approach to urban community life and its interrelationships served as the chief theoretical framework for the research of his own numerous students as well as for other urban ecologists in the United States for another decade. His influence left a permanent impression on sociology. One of the most significant of all urban ecologists, Park possessed a background different from that of most academic sociologists. Born in Harleyville, Pennsylvania, in 1864, he attended the University of Michigan, where he was influenced by philosopher John Dewey. Like Dewey, Park had a lifelong passion for social reform. He started his career as a journalist, observing and writing about city life in vivid detail. When journalism proved an insufficient challenge, he enrolled in Harvard
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Human Nature and the City Robert E. Park’s opening chapter in The City introduces the concept of human ecology: The city . . . is something more than a congeries of individual men and of social conveniences—streets, buildings, electric lights, tramways, and telephones, etc.; something more, also, than a mere constellation of institutions and administrative devices—courts, hospitals, schools, police, and civil functionaries of various sorts. The city is, rather, a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions, and of the organized attitudes and sentiments that inhere in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition. The city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial construction. It is involved in the vital processes of the people who compose it; it is a product of nature, and particularly of human nature. . . . The city has been studied, in recent times, from the point of view of its geography, and still more recently from the point of view of its ecology. There are forces at work within the limits of the urban community—within the limits of any natural area of human habitation, in fact—which tend to bring about an orderly and typical grouping of its population and institutions. The science which seeks to isolate these factors and to describe the typical constellations of persons and institutions which the co-operation of these forces produce, is what we call human, as distinguished from plant and animal, ecology. Source: Robert E. Park and Edward W. Burgess, with R. D. McKenzie, The City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925).
the Congo Reform Association and then, later, joining Booker T. Washington to help African Americans, especially through the activities of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute. He remained devoted to minority education throughout his life. By the early 1920’s, Park had become president of the American Sociological Society and had secured a fulltime faculty appointment at the University of Chicago, a post he held for more than twenty years. During these years, his dedication to social reform, particularly to race relations, his conversion of his beloved Chicago into a laboratory for sociological research, and his interest in symbolic interactionism left an indelible mark on Chicago sociology. Significance Robert Park, in company with Ernest Burgess, Roderick McKenzie, Albion Small, and William I. Thomas and their students, swiftly created a sociology department at the University of Chicago that for a time was the most significant one in the country: the Chicago school. As a department, its chief characteristics were its strong religious convictions—Small has been quoted as declaring that “sociology must be essentially Christian”—and its collective view that sociological research must be conducted both scientifically and with an interest in social reform, first and foremost in Chicago. Park’s career reflected all these characteristics. Aside from his intellectual contributions, which were considerable even though he was not a prolific writer, Park was a leading sociologist for several reasons. He became the salient figure in his own department, and his department, in turn, became the most significant one in the nation, a position it held into the 1930’s. In addition, Park’s European studies—his association with Simmel, for example—allowed him to introduce the theories of famous European sociologists to his Chicago colleagues. Simmel’s ideas, notably his theory of symbolic interactionism, helped shape the Chicago school’s own theoretical bent. Of equal importance, Park had become aware of the critical nature of urban problems firsthand as a journalist, and he was convinced that sociological research and the data underpinning it had to be collected in the field—primarily in Chicago—through personal observations. It was this perspective that gave rise to the Chicago school’s dedication to urban ecology, to the city as a social laboratory. The insights that Park, among others, drew from symbolic social interactionism were initially rooted in American pragmatism, aspects of which Park had first imbibed 1963
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University’s philosophy department, but he remained only for a year. He then moved to Germany, which at the time was regarded as a principal center of world intellectual life. In Berlin, he met Georg Simmel, a Jewish sociologist of broad interests who was making a brilliant, if precarious, career on the margins of the German academic establishment. Eventually, Simmel would become best known for his small-group research as well as for his theories of symbolic interactionism and exchange. Simmel’s lectures provided Park with his only formal training in sociology and exerted a profound influence over both Park and another later notable Chicago colleague, Albion Small. Completing his doctorate at the University of Heidelberg in 1904, Park refused a job at the University of Chicago, opting instead to work for
The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology
The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology from John Dewey at the University of Michigan. To this were added other influences from the psychological behaviorism often identified with the radical-behaviorist studies of John B. Watson, whose disciples at Chicago included Park’s philosophical and sociological colleagues George Herbert Mead, Charles Horton Cooley, and William I. Thomas. The basic theory of symbolic interactionism states that human beings are endowed with thought, the capacity for which is shaped by social interaction. Through social interaction, people acquire an understanding of meanings and symbols that in turn allow them to conduct distinctive human relationships. These meanings and symbols can be modified or changed on the basis of people’s individual interpretations of situations, much as pragmatists suggested was true of the real world. Such changes or alterations occur because individuals cannot interact with themselves. Social interaction allows the individual to examine the advantages or disadvantages of particular courses of social action and to choose among them. Taken together, all these patterns of interactions make up groups and whole societies. The meanings, symbols, and interactions that went into composing specific Chicago groups and societies were the principal objects of the research conducted by Park, his colleagues, and their students. The effect of Park’s work was the initiation of a fresh research process that sought to unravel the meanings, symbols, and interactions that distinguished the peoples of urban communities. Park’s efforts in making the city a focus of research had greater long-term significance than did his concentric-circle theory. In this regard, other scholars swiftly discovered that not every city displayed Chicago’s peculiar characteristics. In the late 1930’s, for example, Homer Hoyt, on the basis of investigations of San Francisco and Minneapolis, developed the sector theory to explain the spatial and functional configurations of these cities. Hoyt agreed with Park that cities grow outward from distinguishable centers, but in Hoyt’s view, they could be diagrammed as evolving in wedge-shaped sectors that grew, among other ways, by ribbon development along railroads, main thoroughfares, or highways. These sectors had somewhat different social connotations in regard to where the rich and the poor lived or where businesses or industries were located. Similarly, by the 1940’s, both the concentric-circle theory and the sector theory had again been modified by the studies of Harris and Ullman. Unlike either Park or Hoyt, Harris and Ullman rejected the notion that cities 1964
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 had all grown outward from a single discernible center. On the contrary, their evidence indicated that some communities had developed around a number of discrete centers, or multiple nuclei. Nearly all these scholars agreed, however, that their theories applied only to American cities, for the social evolution of European cities, among others, clearly had been quite different. Although specific aspects of Park’s work have been modified or rejected, his pioneering role in helping to found urban ecology as a major sociological field of inquiry has had lasting influence. He was largely instrumental in directing sociologists and social psychologists to the organic groups and societies of cities as vital areas of scholarly investigation. He and his students, for example, published a series of studies on such topics as urban gangs, racial and ethnic groups, neighborhoods, ghettos, criminals and marginal populations, the urban moral order, urban social mobility, and the urban temperament and environment. Park stands as a classic example of a scholar who raised questions of enduring social and professional relevance. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Harris, Chauncy D., and Edward Ullman. “The Nature of Cities.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 242 (1945): 7-17. Introduces the multiple-nuclei theory of urban development in nontechnical language. Provides an interesting comparison with Park’s theory. Includes footnotes and select bibliography. Hoyt, Homer. The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939. Report on a federal study presents Hoyt’s sector theory, which represented the initial challenge to Park’s theory, with particular application to San Francisco and Minneapolis. Not easy reading, but rewarding for serious scholars. Includes graphs and bibliographic notes. Lindner, Rolf. The Reportage of Urban Culture: Robert Park and the Chicago School. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Unique study relates Park’s research methods to those of urban journalism in the early twentieth century. Includes bibliography and indexes. Mumford, Lewis. The Culture of Cities. 1938. Reprint. New York: Harvest Books, 1970. Brilliant exercise in urban ecology with deep as well as comprehensive historical range. The author shares many of Park’s views, including that the city is a vital but neglected
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tensive analysis of Park’s ideas along with valuable biographical information. Includes photographs, biographical sketches, references, and indexes. Sennett, Richard, ed. Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Collection of essays lives up to its title. Features ten thought-provoking essays by seven distinguished sociologists, an anthropologist, and Sennett, a major urban scholar. Fine introductory essay briefly reviews the development of urban sociology, including urban ecology. See also: 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms; 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education; July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed.
1925
Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement Although the Cranbrook Academy was founded as a model nineteenth century Arts and Crafts movement educational community, its faculty and students had major influence in shaping twentieth century design. Locale: Cranbrook, Michigan Categories: Fashion and design; organizations and institutions Key Figures George Booth (1864-1949), American newspaper publisher and patron of the arts Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), Finnish architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), student at the Cranbrook Academy who became an influential American architect and designer Charles Eames (1907-1978), student at the Cranbrook Academy who became an influential American designer Summary of Event In a style typical of upwardly mobile and upper-class Victorian businessmen, George Booth became something of a patron of the arts after his marriage to Ellen Warren Scripps in 1887 and upon his assumption of a managerial position at the Detroit Evening News, the
flagship of his father-in-law’s publishing empire. Between 1900 and 1920, Booth was actively involved in the promotion of arts and crafts at the local, state, and national levels. His interest in the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century may be traced to his roots: Both his great-grandfather and his grandfather had been English coppersmiths. The importance of the Arts and Crafts movement to the quality of life in his own community was of particular importance to Booth. As the automobile industry in Detroit began to expand and dominate the local economy, Booth felt that he might make real contributions to the city by emphasizing the importance of good design and art education. He was a significant patron of the Detroit Museum of Art, acted as president of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, and helped to found the Detroit School of Design. By the early 1920’s, however, Booth was dissatisfied with the results of his yeoman efforts. He began to consider projects over which he could have more personal and complete control. Booth spent several years traveling and researching museums and art academies in Europe, and he decided to create his own experimental art education community on his suburban farm estate, twenty miles from Detroit. In 1924, he asked the Finnish 1965
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area of research and that the correct approach to cities is an ecological one. Focuses on New York City. Includes many photographs, extensive annotated bibliography, and index. Park, Robert E. Human Communities. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1952. Scholarly volume deals with the city and human ecology. Clearly written and straightforward. Includes notes and indexes. Park, Robert E., and Edward W. Burgess, with R. D. McKenzie. The City. 1925. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. Presents Park’s principles, his objectives, and his major sociological theory. Although Burgess and McKenzie contributed chapters, the major essays and chief influence are Park’s. Ritzer, George, and Douglas J. Goodman. Sociological Theory. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Superb nontechnical survey of the subject. Provides an excellent treatment of the Chicago school and an ex-
Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement
Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement architect Eliel Saarinen, who was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan at the time, to create a master building plan for the site and to act as a consultant for the proposed academy’s educational program. The Cranbrook Foundation was organized in 1927, although the Cranbrook Academy of Art, with Saarinen as its first president, was not formally established until 1932. Booth believed the community’s physical plant should be given first priority, and Saarinen immediately began to plan the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Building was dependent on the availability of funding and so took place over a fairly extended period. The first academy building was begun in 1925. Designed by George Booth and J. Robert F. Swanson, it housed an architectural office, library, and museum. The first Arts and Crafts building was finished in 1929. The Academy of Art projects, constructed between 1925 and 1963, include seven studio buildings, seven residences (including the Saarinen House), three dormitories, a foundry, a garage, and a museum and library. The Cranbrook School for Boys was built on the site of the original farm and is made up of twenty-five structures constructed between 1925 and 1979, including several remodeled farm buildings, a hockey rink, and a fire station. The Cranbrook Institute of Science is a complex of five buildings, including a revised version of George Booth’s original 1930 design, a planetarium, and a nature center. Kingswood School Cranbrook, for girls, is made up of seven buildings constructed between 1930 and 1973. Brookside School Cranbrook is housed in the meetinghouse that George Booth designed in 1918 to provide his father with a pulpit. Several additions, a gymnasium, and two residences complete the Brookside facilities. The original estate, including Cranbrook House (designed in 1907 by Albert Kahn to contain Booth’s sizable Arts and Crafts collection and library), a Greek-style theater built in 1915, a greenhouse, and a number of cottages, has also been preserved. The architectural development of the community was seen as a symbolic and practical emblem of the educational program and goals of the academy. Following the model of the American Academy of Art in Rome, Cranbrook’s educational plan was loosely organized. Ideally, there was to be no formal curriculum, and students and scholars would be encouraged to interact informally. Originally, Booth wanted to invite “master artists” to Cranbrook with the understanding that, in addition to working on their own projects, they would contribute to the physical and educational environment of the academy. Residences, studios, and honoraria 1966
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 would be provided, and each “master” would supervise a select group of “fellows,” who would also receive payment for work done in cooperation with their teachers. In this spirit, and because costs were high, in 1930 Booth established a gradual self-sufficiency plan for the craft studios. For Saarinen, this organizational scheme was uncomfortably reminiscent of medieval guilds, and he attempted, not altogether successfully, to guide the school toward a more organic model of the relationship between art and life. Despite a fuzzy theoretical orientation and administrative difficulties (the school did not grant degrees until 1942), beginning in the 1930’s, Cranbrook was able to provide a unique educational setting in which students were expected to learn by doing. Personal projects, individual interests, and experimentation were the norm, and the diversity of the professional experiences and backgrounds of both students and faculty made Cranbrook a rich laboratory of design ideas and practices. As a center for advanced study in nine areas— architecture, design, metalwork, photography, sculpture, printmaking, painting, textiles, and ceramics—the Cranbrook Academy of Art made major contributions to the forms, practice, and production of arts and crafts around the world. Significance George Booth founded the Cranbrook Academy in the early 1920’s as a utopian community that would focus its energies on returning art and craftsmanship to a primary place in the commercial and industrial arenas of American design. For Booth, the development of social utopia was dependent on aesthetic reform. Booth’s ideas for Cranbrook place art and craftsmanship squarely in the center of a number of “reform” movements of importance to American culture: the ideal of the dedicated community that has influenced Americans since the time of the Puritans; the Arts and Crafts movement, which reached its peak in the United States between 1890 and 1910; and later attempts to define an aesthetic that would unite new technologies with moral values and social purposes. Cranbrook was meant to be a special place, devoted to the integration of labor and leisure, life and art. Contentious British philosophers and artists such as John Ruskin and William Morris argued that industrialization debased both design and production and, by extension, culture itself; redemption, they claimed, lay in a return to “arts and crafts.” In the United States, reformers in the nineteenth century Arts and Crafts movement were disil-
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tel interiors from the 1940’s to the 1960’s. Along with her husband, Hans, in 1951 she formed Knoll Associates, a company that drew on the best talent in Europe and the United States to design furniture, textiles, and graphics. The worlds of modern architecture, furniture, and interior design were not the only beneficiaries of the Cranbrook Academy. Booth’s interest in traditional craftsmanship remained a steady influence on study and practice at Cranbrook. Although the Cranbrook Press, which he founded in 1900, was a short-lived experiment, his efforts on behalf of metalworking, textiles, and ceramics continue to be central to Cranbrook’s importance as an American educational institution. In the early twenty-first century, Cranbrook is one of the few U.S. institutions to offer instruction in fine metalworking in an educational environment. Eliel Saarinen was very active in metalworking, and a number of his designs grace the Cranbrook campus. Harry Bertoia revived the metal shop in the late 1930’s, first as a student and then as an instructor, and his work there in jewelry, precious and nonprecious metals, and sculpture was a remarkable mixture of technique and technology. After World War II, Richard Thomas began the first teaching department in metalwork at Cranbrook. Cranbrook’s contributions to the crafts of textiles and ceramics also began in the 1920’s. In the early years, Eliel Saarinen’s wife, Loja, established her weaving studio at Cranbrook, and a weaving department and shops soon followed. Many of the carpets, curtains, wall hangings, and decorative textiles for community buildings were produced under Loja Saarinen’s supervision. The best known of Cranbrook’s textiles students is, no doubt, Jack Lenor Larsen, a practicing weaver whose international corporation gained fame in the mid-twentieth century for mass-produced fabrics with handwoven characteristics. Booth intended that ceramics be one of the first arts taught at Cranbrook, although the ceramics department was small and undistinguished until the late 1930’s, when Maija Grotell joined the faculty. Under her guidance, the department became a center of individual creative activity at Cranbrook, and Grotell’s students have made significant contributions to modern American ceramics. In attempting to create a community that illustrated the positive relationship between aesthetics and social life, George Booth laid a foundation for the transformation of education and production. Such a spirit characterized the modernist agenda of the twentieth century, and it remains at the heart of Cranbrook’s impact on American 1967
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lusioned with urban society. In response, they attempted to revive handcraftsmanship, to promote simplicity and traditionalism of design and lifestyle through unification of the applied and fine arts, and to celebrate nativist culture. Eliel Saarinen, Cranbrook’s master planner and guiding hand until his resignation in 1946, embodied both the social and aesthetic components of Booth’s vision of reform. Like his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright, Saarinen was interested in an expansive universe of creative design, from city planning to carpets. His architectural works influenced the stream of modernism that focused on the importance of the environment as a physical and emotional center of meaning. Saarinen’s presence as an instructor made Cranbrook a central testing site for early experiments in American modernism, particularly in the decorative arts. By the late 1930’s, the interaction of Cranbrook’s first generation of European teachers with a second, younger generation of American instructors and students produced works that had a tremendous influence on post-World War II design. Much of the work of Cranbrook students and faculty from the 1920’s on reveals how an ideal of the Arts and Crafts movement—the elevation of the applied arts to the level of fine arts—affected the ways modern designers searched for an integration of artistic style and lifestyle. Under Saarinen’s direction, faculty and students were encouraged to experiment and collaborate. As the academy had no established curriculum, national and international competitions often provided the impetus for exploration of new concepts. For example, four designs by Cranbrook students won prizes at the “Organic Design for Home Furnishings Competition” sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in 1940 and 1941. Students Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen (Eliel Saarinen’s son), both of whom had backgrounds in architecture, collaborated to create a group of chairs, modular storage units, tables, and a sectional sofa that won two first prizes. Benjamin Baldwin and Harry Weese also won prizes in multiple categories of the competition; their most significant entries were for outdoor furniture and lighting fixtures. The competition generated designs that were influential in shaping American furniture between 1950 and 1975 and helped to establish Eames and Saarinen as leaders of American design. Florence Knoll, who had attended Kingswood School Cranbrook, gained a reputation as an important interior designer and entrepreneur. She domesticated the European International Style for American homes and offices and designed elegant hospital, bank, university, and ho-
Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement
Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques design. Despite the passage of time and changes in technology, society, and aesthetics, this spirit continues to influence the work of the graduates, faculty, and students of the Cranbrook Academy of Art. — J. R. Donath Further Reading Becker, Howard. “Arts and Crafts.” American Journal of Sociology 83 (January, 1978): 862-868. An information-packed introduction to the crafts revival movement by an insightful sociologist of art. Clark, Robert Judson, et al. Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision, 1925-1950. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983. Profuse and beautiful illustrations characterize this excellent volume of essays, which served as the catalog for an exhibition organized by the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts. Includes biographies of artists, chronology, notes, and index. Design Quarterly 98 (1975). Special issue titled “Nelson/Eames/Gerard/Propst: The Design Process at Herman Miller” discusses the work of four important American designers. Excellent introduction to postwar American design. Well illustrated. Kaplan, Wendy. “The Art That Is Life”: The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1875-1920. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987. Well-illustrated, articulate cata-
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log, with fine introductory essays, created to accompany an exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Includes index. Lecuyer, Annette. “Cranbrook Continuum.” Architectural Review, November, 1997, 76-77. Article focuses on architectural and other design projects completed at the Cranbrook Academy from the late 1980’s to 1997, connecting this work to the institution’s tradition of excellence. Noyes, Eliot F. Organic Design in Home Furnishings. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1941. Monograph designed to accompany an exhibit illustrates various entries and winners. Includes black-andwhite photographs. Sparke, Penny. An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. History of the development of modern design includes discussion of the work of many people associated with the Cranbrook Academy. Features illustrations, bibliography, and index. See also: 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States; 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea.
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Eisenstein’s POTEMKIN Introduces New Film Editing Techniques Sergei Eisenstein created his masterpiece by splicing segments of film shot at many locations, an approach that many film directors subsequently adopted. Locale: Soviet Union Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), Soviet film director Éduard Tissé (1897-1961), Russian motion-picture cameraman Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Soviet Union Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (1899-1970), Soviet film director Summary of Event After the successful Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the leaders of the Communist Party (especially Vladimir 1968
Ilich Lenin) launched a massive propaganda effort to win support for their new government from all segments of Soviet society. Lenin saw motion pictures as potentially the most effective tool not only for gaining public acceptance for Communist rule but also for convincing citizens to make the sacrifices necessary to build a socialist economic system. Accordingly, he authorized the creation of a government bureau to commission the making of “agitprop” (agitational propaganda) films to elicit the desired responses from the public. Lenin’s action set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to the production of a motion picture titled Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925; Potemkin) that revolutionized filmmaking around the world. Early in 1925, the Soviet government issued an order for the production of an agitprop film commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the unsuccessful Revolution
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Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques
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of 1905. To direct the film, government officials chose twenty-six-year-old Sergei Eisenstein, who had already directed several very effective films. Eisenstein, educated as a civil engineer, had joined the Communist Party early and had worked diligently for its success during the revolution. After the revolution, he became interested in theater and joined the Prolitkult Theater (an official government agency, as were all groups involved in the arts). He rapidly became disenchanted with theater because small stages limited his ideas of dramatic productions, and he subsequently turned to the relatively new medium of motion pictures. After working with Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (who had been involved in filmmaking since its introduction in czarist Russia) for several years, in 1924 Eisenstein received permission to direct an agitprop film titled Stracha (1925; Strike), which enjoyed great success. The effectiveness of his first project resulted in his being chosen to direct the commemorative film, which was tentatively titled 1905. The government apparently envisioned a film that would re-create the entire yearlong revolt against the czarist government in 1904 and 1905. Eisenstein, in collaboration with several writers, created a hundred-page script for the film, detailing dozens of events to be filmed at more than thirty locations from Leningrad to the Black Sea. He and his crew began filming in Leningrad on March 31, 1925. When, in August, cloudy weather made filming in Leningrad difficult, Eisenstein and his crew moved to the Black Sea port of Odessa. Even before the move, Eisenstein had concluded that the original script was much too ambitious in scope. When he saw the massive marble steps leading from Odessa down to the seashore, he resolved to discard the film already shot and to concentrate instead on one event that would epitomize the entire revolution: the mutiny of the sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin. In making the film, Eisenstein introduced two innovations that have profoundly influenced the making of motion pictures ever since. The first was the use of “typage” in choosing actors, and the second was the use of montage editing techniques to heighten the emotional impact of the film. According to Eisenstein’s theory of typage, a director
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Sergei Eisenstein. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
should study each character in the script and determine what physical and mental traits might be found in the character’s “type.” The director should then employ a person who exhibits those traits to play the character rather than depend on professional actors. The character of an Orthodox priest who figures prominently in Potemkin was in reality a gardener whom Eisenstein concluded displayed all the traits usually associated with a priest. The montage editing techniques that Eisenstein perfected for his motion picture undoubtedly became his most important contribution to the evolution of filmmaking. “Montage” refers to the splicing together of segments of film to heighten dramatic effect. One of the most powerful scenes in Potemkin occurs during the massacre on the marble steps (arguably the most famous sequence in motion-picture history), when an old woman wearing pince-nez asks the Cossacks to stop the slaughter. Eisenstein shows a close-up of the Cossack swinging his sword, followed by another close-up of the woman 1969
Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques with her glasses broken, blood spurting from her eye. The film never shows the sword striking the woman, but because of the placement of the shots, the audience is left in no doubt as to what has happened. In several scenes, Eisenstein introduced a technique subsequently adopted by many directors called “breaking from real time.” In one particular sequence, the audience sees a sailor, disgusted with the food he is forced to eat, break the plate of one of his officers. In real time, this action would have taken only a second. Eisenstein filmed the breaking of the plate from nine different angles, spliced the shots together, and created a four-second sequence that produced a greatly enhanced effect on the audience. Finally, Eisenstein also introduced several innovative camera techniques during the making of Potemkin that were widely copied by most subsequent filmmakers. In collaboration with cameraman Éduard Tissé, he constructed a trolley for the camera that enabled the cameraman to descend the Odessa steps with the actors. He ordered another camera to be strapped to the waist of a circus acrobat to capture the movement as the acrobat ran, jumped, and fell down the steps. The film that ultimately emerged from Eisenstein’s tremendous burst of creativity did not entirely please the Communist leadership, although its propaganda effect was undeniable. Outside the Soviet Union, however, motion-picture critics hailed Potemkin as a masterpiece. Significance When Potemkin debuted in Moscow in January, 1926, it stirred immediate controversy in the ranks of the Communist Party and the Soviet artistic community. Many of Eisenstein’s rivals in cinematic production accused him of putting art before propaganda. Some of his enemies in the party hierarchy dismissed the film as a decadent bourgeois documentary. Eisenstein’s relationship with the Soviet bureaucracy became strained, and his reputation never fully recovered. Although he continued to direct films in the Soviet Union, the government declined to distribute many of them. In Western Europe and the United States, Potemkin won instant acclaim. American film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford traveled to Moscow in July, 1926, to view the film. Fairbanks, in a widely quoted interview after seeing the film, declared that Eisenstein’s film had at last mastered the science of motion. Some months later, Fairbanks, along with German actor Emil Jannings and producer Max Reinhardt, endorsed Potemkin as the greatest motion picture made to that time. 1970
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Fairbanks’s praise heightened American audiences’ anticipation of the film, which finally premiered in New York City at the Biltmore Theater on December 5, 1926. Film viewers in the United States were enthusiastic about Eisenstein’s film, and American film critics even more so. One critic writing for the Christian Science Monitor correctly predicted that Potemkin would make motion-picture history as a model of how films should be made. The National Board of Review of the motionpicture industry chose the film as the best of the year and identified it as a perfect re-creation of a historical event. Ironically, this last bit of praise was totally undeserved. No slaughter of innocents occurred on the Odessa steps in 1905, as depicted in the film’s most famous scene; the director fabricated the entire event. The mutiny aboard the Potemkin was not an expression of revolutionary ideology, as Eisenstein portrayed it; rather, it was a protest against deplorable conditions. Eisenstein continued a trend that has only rarely been reversed in filmmaking, that of creating history rather than re-creating it. Potemkin’s reception in the West somewhat rejuvenated Eisenstein’s standing with Soviet officials. They allowed him to direct the agitprop films Octyabr (1927; October: Or, Ten Days That Shook the World ) and Generalnaya Linya (1929; The General Line), both of which employed many of the techniques pioneered in Potemkin. In 1929, Paramount Pictures brought Eisenstein to Hollywood but ultimately rejected the scripts he submitted for two proposed films, Sutter’s Gold and An American Tragedy. American novelist Upton Sinclair then arranged for Eisenstein to make an epic motion picture about the Mexican revolution, but Soviet officials recalled him to Moscow before he completed the film. An American studio released some of the footage from the Mexican venture as Thunder over Mexico in 1933. This film also employed many of the techniques pioneered in Potemkin and, judging from the wide adoption of such techniques by American directors, heavily influenced the evolution of U.S. cinema. Eisenstein’s masterpiece confirmed motion-picture making as a true art form. Although Eisenstein never received the acclaim in the Soviet Union that his work merited, Potemkin vindicated Lenin’s view of motion pictures as potentially the most effective medium for molding a particular point of view among the masses. The film evokes powerful emotions even among modern viewers: revulsion at the deplorable conditions among the lower classes depicted in the film’s scenes; disgust with the arrogant and ruthless officers, czarist officials, and priests; moral outrage at the massacre of civilians on
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Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques
Further Reading Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Identifies Potemkin as an epochal event in motion-picture history. Describes Eisenstein’s innovative techniques in language lay readers can understand and locates the film in its proper place from the perspective of world cinema history. Eisenstein, Sergei M. “The Composition of Potemkin.” In The Emergence of Film Art, edited by Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1969. Eisenstein’s explanation in his own words of the thought process and chance happenings that resulted in his masterpiece. Invaluable to those who wish to understand Potemkin. _______. Potemkin. Translated by Gillon R. Aitken. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968. The complete script of the film, annotated by Eisenstein himself. Difficult reading, but worthwhile to those seeking indepth knowledge about the famous film. Fabe, Marilyn. Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Presents analytic tools for understanding the narrative structure of films. Chapter 2 is devoted to examination of Eisenstein’s use of montage in Potemkin. Includes illustrations, glossary, bibliography, and index. Kauffman, Stanley. “Potemkin.” In Great Film Directors: A Critical Anthology, edited by Leo Braudy and Morris Dickstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Identifies Eisenstein as perhaps the most important director of his era because of his perfection of montage in Potemkin. Provides informative explanations of Eisenstein’s techniques. Lawder, Standish D. “Eisenstein and Constructivism.” In Great Film Directors: A Critical Anthology, edited by Leo Braudy and Morris Dickstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Attempts to show that
Eisenstein’s films, especially Potemkin, were heavily influenced by a banned artistic movement in the Soviet Union called constructivism. Leyda, Jay. Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. 3d ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Shows that Eisenstein’s genius did not appear out of a vacuum but instead drew heavily on the work of Russian filmmakers who preceded him, especially his mentor, Kuleshov. Also clearly demonstrates the influence that Eisenstein had on subsequent Soviet directors. Macdonald, Dwight. “Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Others.” In The Emergence of Film Art, edited by Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1969. Portrays Eisenstein as an important member of a trend in Soviet filmmaking, but not as an epochal genius, as many other critics have seen him. Murray, Edward. Ten Film Classics: A Re-Viewing. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978. Maintains that the true greatness of a film lies in its ability to communicate with audiences far removed from its original place and time. Concludes that Potemkin possesses that rare quality and thus must be considered a true masterpiece of cinematic art. Nizhny, Vladimir. Lessons with Eisenstein. Edited and translated by Ivor Montagu and Jay Leyda. 1962. Reprint. New York: Hill & Wang, 2000. Extremely thorough examination of the innovations that appeared in Eisenstein’s films, especially Potemkin. Some readers may be put off by the overt Marxist-Leninist philosophy expounded by the author. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis.
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the Odessa steps. Eisenstein achieved this tremendous emotional impact by pioneering techniques that continue to dominate filmmaking. —Paul Madden
Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes
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Gide’s THE COUNTERFEITERS Questions Moral Absolutes André Gide’s questioning of absolutes paralleled societal doubts about the validity of established authorities and reflected the increasing importance of individual conscience in determining ethics and selfauthenticity. Locale: France Category: Literature Key Figure André Gide (1869-1951), French writer Summary of Event André Gide’s questioning of absolutes reflected the trends and temper of early twentieth century cultural and intellectual life. As the French celebrated the arrival of a new century, inventions such as the electric light, the automobile, and film enriched life; however, France’s defeat by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 undermined the French public’s confidence in traditional beliefs and recognized institutions. For Gide, the ideals and truths that had shaped principles and practices conflicted with individual aspirations and differing perspectives. In his works, human beings confront confusion and crisis. Gide presented in Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925; The Counterfeiters, 1927) an anguish that results from the tensions between the ineffectiveness of authoritative institutions and the significance of individual responsibility. The novel reworks an incident recorded in 1906. Like the historical counterfeiters on which the story is based, the characters Léon Ghéridanisol, Georges Molinier, and Philippe Adamanti pass illegal coins and, although discovered, escape prosecution. Recalling the images of specious currency, they project, along with other characters, appearances that reflect reality but do not disclose all its aspects. Uncertain and ambiguous knowledge forms the basis of actions that, derived from illusions, weaken credibility, induce individualism, and end in conflicts. Nevertheless, personal perspectives determined by relative circumstances can combine to reveal truth. By juxtaposing opposing views, Gide, through the character of Édouard, examines the ambivalence of illusion and enables the reader to reconcile varying visions into a coherent concept. Such a privileged position, however, is more apparent than real, and Gide’s characters experience misunderstanding, frustration, disappointment, and dejection. 1972
In the novel, human perception of reality assumes a truth that, ultimately invalid, controls behavior and influences subsequent artistic and literary representations. Bernard, the illegitimate son of Édouard, the book’s narrator, leaves home to seek freedom and authenticity. By responding to individual impulses, he enjoys independence and thereby defeats inner disturbances and social repression. In replacing his family with other communities, however, Bernard recognizes the contradictions between the incontrovertibility of biological fact and the shifting perceptions of self-identity. Incapable of achieving total detachment, he acknowledges the necessity of participating in society; upon returning home, he attempts to forge the illegitimacy of birthright with the legitimacy of human interaction. Like Bernard and other characters in the novel, Boris, a schoolboy, suffers an entrapment that fuses fiction and truth, morality and immorality, autonomy and interdependence. His self-identification proceeds from interaction with others; winning acceptance among his schoolmates requires that he play the dangerous game of Russian roulette, and Boris shoots himself. Man teeters between the futilities of human endeavor and the nothingness of death; however, the certainty of human persistence and pain remains. Like the specious coins that are tangible but worthless, human beings are biologically real but spiritually counterfeit. Gide develops in his novel themes presented in earlier writings. Like such Symbolist poets as Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé, he reacted initially against the realistic and naturalistic objectivities of Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola. Through the use of archetypes and myths, he dramatized the contentions between realities of fragmentation and ideals of integration. In Gide’s Les Cahiers d’André Walter (1891; The Notebooks of André Walter, 1968), Angel, or spiritual aspiration, contests for the human soul against Beast, or earthly attractions. Revolt against societal values leads to impotence and, in Paludes (1895; Marshlands, 1953), to self-destruction. Man is imprisoned in a cosmic game, which in Le Prométhée mal enchainé (1899; Prometheus Misbound, 1953) Gide narratively conveys as a battle between Zeus’s erratic and amoral purposes and Prometheus’s resolute and useless yearnings. When endorsing these views in subsequent works, Gide emphasized ethical implications. His artistry
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André Gide. (The Nobel Foundation)
pulses, protagonists in La Porte étroite (1909; Strait Is the Gate, 1924) and La Symphonie pastorale (1919; The Pastoral Symphony, 1931) reject Protestant ethics, but changes of circumstances rob them of the opportunity to reconcile internal consciousness with external realities. Contradictions persist, and characters experience delusion, displacement, and dejection. By situating personal perplexities and individual dilemmas within the framework of a social drama, in The Counterfeiters Gide adapted previous philosophical and psychological themes to objective reality. Like Flaubert, he entrapped his characters in tangles of amorous relationships. Love requires interpretation and interaction, and personal perceptions deceive but direct destiny, culminating, in Flaubert’s work, in Emma Bovary’s suicide and, in The Counterfeiters, in Boris’s self-destruction. Moreover, Gide, like Marcel Proust, expanded the scope of social realism and, in depicting the dynamics of bourgeois life, described the difficulties of man’s search for self-understanding and meaningful values. Moral questions elicited by the Dreyfus affair and World War I compelled thinkers and artists to examine external realities in order to reform society. Like Anatole France and Romain Rolland, Gide attacked social and political practices; however, in constructing numerous credible, interrelated episodes that detail man’s futile search for absolutes in a relative, changing world, he universalized the historical and particular. Inner crises characterize a social setting where varying, limited perspectives evolve into the single certainty of despair and death. Authenticity and dignity are based on absolutes. Yet in questioning authorities and values, Gidean characters become imprisoned by doubt and frustration. As Bernard returns home, the novel concludes at the beginning, and the new story of Caloub Molinier continues the circular narrative of man’s disappointments and displacements in a delusionary world. Significance In his journal, Gide described The Counterfeiters as a failure. His stress on concision and his abandonment of accepted narrative structures made the book a departure from the engaging novels of Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy. In 1952, one year after Gide’s death, the Roman Catholic Church prohibited the reading of his works on moral grounds. Nevertheless, this reserved reception of his fiction contrasts with the important impact of his ethical thought and novelistic theory on contemporary and subsequent writers. As founding editor of the highly regarded peri1973
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moved from a description of images and self-imaginings to accounts of actions and character portrayals. In shifting from personal confession to fictional narrative, he described the anguish of dilemmas and the ambivalent interpretation of actions. Gidean personages strive to reconcile oppositions through conscious and self-determined acts. Like their Nietzschean and Dostoevskian counterparts, they demonstrate an individualism that attacks and denies moral certainties. Yet the exuberance evolving from questioning and rebellion is transitory and elusive and results in the substitution of one authority for another. Michel in L’Immoraliste (1902; The Immoralist, 1930) and Lafcadio in Les Caves du Vatican (1914; The Vatican Swindle, 1925; better known as Lafcadio’s Adventures, 1925) pursue deliverance from moral responsibilities. Michel’s defiance of ethical codes and Lafcadio’s murder without motive, however, lead, respectively, to the sadness of solitude and the necessity of human interaction. Through submission to inner im-
Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes
Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes odical La Nouvelle Revue française, moreover, Gide welcomed and advanced innovative and controversial ideas on ideology and style. The Counterfeiters reflected much of his thinking and novelistic practice, and it shaped the direction of attitudes toward later developments in ethics and aesthetics. Like Gide, proponents of Surrealism and its precursor Dadaism reacted against the values and authorities that had brought about the atrocities of World War I. Dadaism, initiated in Zurich in 1916, denounced arbitrary absolutes that denied individual thought and reduced human worth. The nihilism expressed in verse by poets such as André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Louis Aragon reflected an empty and disturbing vision of the human situation. Humanity, according to Breton, confronts the conflicts of opposing absolutes; however, through internal images derived from observed realities, humans translate physical phenomena into inner truths that, in Breton’s novel Nadja (1928; English translation, 1960), become indicators of external beauty. Gide did not participate in the Surrealist movement, but his themes of human aspirations, anxieties, exuberance, and futility reinforced the Surrealist call to reject established values. During the 1930’s, the failure of the League of Nations, the economic deprivations of global depression, and the rise of totalitarian governments shattered illusions of humanity’s ability to reform ethics and to attain economic security and social equality within existing orders. Like Bernard, the characters created by Georges Bernanos contend against falsity; but, instead of enjoying momentary exhilarations, they discover, through moral and physical torments, an inner redemption and spiritual nobility. Gide’s skepticism of moral absolutes also assumed the form of revolution in André Malraux’s La Condition humaine (1933; Man’s Fate, 1934), in which images of war reflect the need to destroy existing authorities. In Malraux’s work, however, unlike in The Counterfeiters, a fraternity among the revolutionaries permits an integration of spiritual affiliations. After the defeat of France in 1940, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus addressed the validity of absolutes. Sartre saw humans as defined by external realities and inner recognitions; in assuming imposed values, Sartre asserted, humans falsify their true nature and suffer anguish. Rather, Sartre argued, humankind must resist artificial restrictions and assert self-authenticity. Camus, in L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger, 1946), reaffirms Gide’s vision of man who, guided by impulses and checked by absolutes, endures the confusions of absur1974
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dity. The hero of Camus’s work, Meursault, like Gide’s Bernard, finds freedom through rebellion and, in declaring his self-worth, experiences a deliverance. Stylistically and structurally, The Counterfeiters advanced and foreshadowed later developments in novelistic techniques. Gide’s use of a direct, classical simplicity paralleled styles adopted by François Mauriac, Camus, and T. S. Eliot. The portrayal of diverse characters, moreover, necessitated the use of multiple perspectives. Édouard’s journal and comments synthesize views, recalling the scattered but unified perceptions recorded by omniscient narrators in the novels of Marcel Proust or Virginia Woolf. Further, like Roger Martin du Gard, John Galsworthy, and Thomas Mann, Gide presented a social panorama. Yet his emphasis on individual perspectives also suggests techniques characterizing the French New Novel. Michel Butor and Alain RobbeGrillet, in particular, similarly combined conflicting images that, individually observed, denoted the apparent chaos of existence and the uselessness of human aspirations. Indeed, the close relationship between denial of absolutes and the emergence of brutal absolutist regimes that in turn denied traditional ethical restraints produced a century of horrific murder on a scale previously unknown, an unattractive fruit of the philosophical nihilism of the age. Gide’s moral skepticism led to an individualism shared by subsequent thinkers and fiction writers. In assuming a detached, reportorial stance, however, Gide contented himself with describing situations and thereby resisted personal commentary. Through doubts and disappointments, his characters mature in self-understanding and suffer the frustrations of human existence. In fact, by foreshadowing Samuel Beckett’s representations of misunderstanding and Jean Genet’s dramatizations of meaninglessness, Gide depicted the painful paradox of ideals that inevitably end in misinterpretation, disintegration, and death. —Donald Gilman Further Reading Brée, Germaine. Gide. 1963. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. An enlarged revision of a French study published in 1953, this intelligent, insightful analysis of Gide’s works emphasizes novelistic techniques that facilitate the expression of intellectual and ethical themes. Brennan, Joseph G. Three Philosophical Novelists: James Joyce, André Gide, Thomas Mann. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Places Gide’s works within the
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theory and techniques. Examines Gide’s creative works in the light of his journal, suggesting parallels between Gide’s style and structure and those of earlier novelists. Hytier, Jean. André Gide. Translated by Richard Howard. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962. Originally published as a series of lectures (1938), this first aesthetic survey of Gide’s works includes a detailed plot summary of The Counterfeiters and offers interesting insights into the themes of doubt and reform. Ireland, G. W. André Gide: A Study of His Creative Writings. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1970. Although lacking in defined methodology and single focus, presents intelligent, perceptive readings that provide a useful commentary on Gide’s works. Rossi, Vinio. André Gide: The Evolution of an Aesthetic. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1967. Traces Gide’s transition from the use of image to the development of narrative in describing the novelist’s artistic growth. Sheridan, Alan. André Gide: A Life in the Present. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Literary biography places Gide’s works within the context of the time in which he lived and relates them to the events of his life. Includes family trees, bibliography, and index. See also: 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; 19131927: Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past; Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet; 1924: Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis.
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contexts of Nietzschean and Bergsonian philosophies to demonstrate Gide’s interpretation of intellectual currents. Conner, Tom, ed. André Gide’s Politics: Rebellion and Ambivalence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Collection of essays focuses on Gide’s growing commitment to a number of literary and social issues from the 1920’s to 1936. Includes index. Cordle, Thomas. André Gide. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1992. A superb reading of Gide’s attempts to resolve oppositions that reflect Symbolist expression, Romantic idealism, and realistic objectivity. Includes annotated bibliography. Falk, Eugene H. Types of Thematic Structure: The Nature and Function of Motifs in Gide, Camus, and Sartre. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. Systematically and rigorously elucidates Gide’s uses of plot, characterization, and imagery through a reading of Gide’s The Pastoral Symphony. Contrasts Gide’s themes and techniques with those employed in Camus’s The Stranger and Sartre’s La Nausée (1938; Nausea, 1949). Guerard, Albert J. André Gide. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969. Reading of Gide’s works explores personal tensions between ascetic and amorous impulses, spiritual self-accounts, novelistic techniques, and possible influences. Slightly dated, this intelligent, perceptive study nevertheless provides an indispensable introduction to Gide’s works. Holdheim, W. Wolfgang. Theory and Practice of the Novel: A Study on André Gide. Geneva: Droz, 1968. A comprehensive, meticulous study of Gide’s novelistic
Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes
Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1925
Hamilton Publishes INDUSTRIAL POISONS IN THE UNITED STATES In Industrial Poisons in the United States, Alice Hamilton summarized decades of research and opened the way to later legislation to control health hazards in the workplace. Locale: United States Categories: Environmental issues; business and labor; publishing and journalism Key Figures Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), American physician Jane Addams (1860-1935), American social reformer Florence Kelley (1859-1932), American social worker Julia C. Lathrop (1858-1932), American social reformer Summary of Event Alice Hamilton’s Industrial Poisons in the United States (1925) was the summation of research that she began in the 1890’s at Hull House, a Chicago settlement house opened in 1889 by Jane Addams. At its peak, the Hull House complex hosted activities for nine thousand nearby residents each week. Rooms were available for professional men and women who, while earning their living at other occupations, were committed to life and volunteer work among the immigrants who made up approximately three-quarters of Chicago’s population. The lives of many of these immigrants were marked by unsanitary and unsafe housing and working conditions, a high child mortality rate, and a death rate from contagious diseases disproportionate to the rate among the general population. Hamilton earned her medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1893. After postgraduate years at The Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere (she studied bacteriology and pathology at the Universities of Leipzig and Munich), in 1897 she was appointed professor of pathology at the Women’s Medical School of Northwestern University in Chicago. When the school closed in 1902, she became a bacteriologist at the New Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases. Living at Hull House, she joined a group of women who shared intellectual companionship and emotional support to a degree rarely experienced by educated women at that time. With no formal training in social work available to them, they created a methodology based on scrupulous accuracy and shared successful techniques. Hamilton credited Florence Kelley with her political education; she learned from Julia C. Lathrop her highly successful, nonconfrontational techniques for eliciting in1976
formation and cooperation in hostile environments. Together, these women became a significant force for change. They exercised considerable political influence, even though women in the United States did not receive the vote until 1920. Addams, for example, seconded Theodore Roosevelt’s nomination for president at the 1912 convention of the Progressive Party, and Hull House reformers had developed many of the principles of that party’s platform. Addams, who in 1931 became the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, remained at the center of most Hull House activities, which usually originated as group projects. Lathrop became a specialist in institutional care, and in 1899, she joined with Kelley in the National Consumers League to fight industrial abuses. Kelley led investigations of sweatshop conditions. Hamilton discovered her own specialization in 1902, when Addams encouraged her to investigate a typhoid epidemic. The Hull House area had the highest death rate in the city. Although her conclusions were wrong (she did not discover a leakage of raw sewage into the water supply), she developed the methodology she would use later, directly examining tenement buildings with illegal
Alice Hamilton. (Library of Congress)
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Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States
A Doctor’s Interest in Industrial Disease
It was . . . my experience at Hull-House that aroused my interest in industrial diseases. Living in a working-class quarter, coming in contact with laborers and their wives, I could not fail to hear tales of the dangers that workingmen faced, of cases of carbon-monoxide gassing in the great steel mills, of painters disabled by lead palsy, of pneumonia and rheumatism among the men in the stockyards. Illinois then had no legislation providing compensation for accident or disease caused by occupation. (There is something strange in speaking of “accident and sickness compensation.” What could “compensate” anyone for an amputated leg or a paralyzed arm, or even an attack of lead colic, to say nothing of the loss of a husband or son?) There was a striking occurrence about this time in Chicago which brought vividly before me the unprotected, helpless state of workingmen who were held responsible for their own safety. A group of men were sent out in a tug to one of Chicago’s pumping stations in Lake Michigan and left there while the tug returned to shore. A fire broke out on the tiny island and could not be controlled, the men had the choice between burning to death and drowning, and before rescue could arrive most of them were drowned. The contracting company, which employed them, generously paid the funeral expenses, and nobody expected them to do more. Widows and orphans must turn to the County Agent or private charity—
outdoor toilets, inadequate indoor facilities, and yards overflowing with rainwater and sewage; later, she would walk narrow catwalks over dangerous machinery and explore the depths of mines. In 1903, she began to examine the relationship between the unsanitary conditions of work among the poor, the long and irregular hours, and the prevalence of tuberculosis in the Hull House area; Addams and Hamilton presented a paper on the subject at the International Congress of Tuberculosis in 1908. Her reading of Sir Thomas Oliver’s Dangerous Trades (1907) introduced her to a large body of European literature on occupational diseases. Germany and England, in fact, had instituted factory inspection. She found no similar research in the United States. In 1908, Hamilton was appointed to an Illinois commission on occupational diseases. The commission’s 1911 report included Hamilton’s research into the dangers of painting, smelting, refining, and the manufacture of storage batteries, among other subjects. She discov-
that was the accepted way, back in the dark ages of the early twentieth century. William Hard, then a young college graduate living at Northwestern Settlement, wrote of this incident with a fiery pen, contrasting the treatment of the wives and children of these men whose death was caused by negligence with the treatment they would have received in Germany. His article and a copy of Sir Thomas Oliver’s Dangerous Trades, which came into my hands just then, sent me to the Crerar Library to read everything I could find on the dangers to industrial workers, and what could be done to protect them. But it was all German, or British, Austrian, Dutch, Swiss, even Italian or Spanish—everything but American. In those countries industrial medicine was a recognized branch of the medical sciences; in my own country it did not exist. When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on this subject in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor. The American Medical Association had never had a meeting devoted to this subject, and except for a few surgeons attached to large companies operating steel mills, or railways, or coal mines, there were no medical men in Illinois who specialized in the field of industrial medicine. Source: Alice Hamilton, Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943).
ered seventy-seven industrial processes that exposed workers to lead poisoning and identified 358 unquestionable cases of workplace-related lead poisoning; her research was among the first to correlate hospital and pharmacy records with particular occupations. In 1912, she published Plumbism in the Industries of the Middle West. In 1911, Hamilton was asked to undertake a national investigation for the U.S. Bureau of Labor (later the Department of Labor). Visiting all but three of the twentyfive white lead factories in the United States, she found that the United States had higher rates of lead poisoning than did European industry. She had no power to obtain admission into factories, and the U.S. government had no power of enforcement, but she persuaded owners and managers to allow her access, interviewed workers at their homes or saloons when she suspected illnesses were being hidden, and concluded that, next to tuberculosis, lead poisoning was the principal danger to the U.S. working classes. In 1914, she published Lead Poisoning in the 1977
1925
In her 1943 autobiography, Alice Hamilton related why she started investigating the medical hazards of the workplace:
Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States Smelting and Refining of Lead, a bulletin for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. She was so effective in communicating with hostile industry owners and managers that she was often asked back to inspect workplaces after reforms were put in place as a result of her recommendations. By 1915, Hamilton had become the foremost U.S. authority on industrial diseases. In 1919, she accepted a part-time appointment as professor of industrial medicine at the Harvard Medical School (after 1925, in the School of Public Health). She was the first woman professor there in any discipline; at that time, Harvard did not even admit women into its medical program. Significance Industrial Poisons in the United States was a textbook primarily addressed to physicians, who in the early twentieth century had little training or interest in the diagnosis of occupation-related diseases. In the book, Hamilton explained, in terms comprehensible to a layperson, the connection between occupation and disease, especially lead poisoning, and refuted the common argument that such diseases were caused by the unhygienic habits of ignorant immigrants. She was among the first to observe the effect of lead poisoning on the reproductive capabilities of both sexes. The publication not only firmly established Hamilton as the authority in the field but also opened the way to systematic academic and medical study of the subject. She followed the book with Industrial Toxicology in 1934, which was revised with Harriet L. Hardy and reissued in 1949. Hamilton became a member of or consultant to many organizations, including labor organizations. In 1924, she was appointed to the Health Committee of the League of Nations, the forerunner of the World Health Organization of the United Nations. Her appointment was in part the result of her work, with Addams, to publicize the disease and starvation she found in Europe after World War I. By then, Hamilton had long been a consultant to General Electric. Working with that corporation from the 1920’s to the 1930’s, she investigated less direct hazards than those she had studied earlier, opening the way to later research into the effect on workers of improper seating, poor lighting, and excessive fatigue. She persuaded the U.S. surgeon general to call two national conferences on industrial health hazards, one on tetraethyl lead in 1925 and the other on radium in 1928. Working with labor groups, Hamilton was instrumental in obtaining the first labor contracts that prohibited the use of benzene in certain occupations. Largely because of her leadership, by 1935 fifteen states had legis1978
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lated workers’ compensation for industrial diseases. Such legislation made the improvement of working conditions inevitable. Employers insured against claims that might be made against them under the new legislation; insurance companies protected themselves by insisting that the causes of claims be removed. A controversial figure from the beginning, Hamilton provided a model for future reformers who might face similar condemnation and even censorship. As the Progressive Era gave way to conservative backlash after World War I, she was criticized as a socialist or communist, although, like most other Hull House workers, she favored improving the existing system rather than replacing it. Known for her outspoken defense of freedom of speech, she also worked extensively in the postwar years through organizations then considered controversial, including the League of Women Voters, the Women’s Trade Union League, and the National Consumers League; she also assisted the Worker’s Health Bureau, a group founded by radical women, during the 1920’s. She visited the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and was alarmed by their repression of individual freedom, but she continued to criticize the United States for failing to join other nations in outlawing poison gas and germ warfare. Her advocacy of birth control also brought criticism. In a 1909 study of working-class families, immigrant and native-born, she had shown a relationship between the number of children and child health and mortality; she joined various committees to discuss the subject and spoke in 1925 at the Sixth International NeoMalthusian and Birth Control Conference, organized by birth control advocate Margaret Sanger. In 1932, Hamilton withstood efforts to censor Industrial Poisons in the United States. Five companies manufacturing fire extinguishers brought pressure on her publisher to remove the book from circulation and recall known copies, on the grounds that the book contained false material damaging to those marketing fire extinguishers of the carbon tetrachloride type. Hamilton stood her ground and the censorship failed, but her outspokenness and the controversy that swirled around her placed her on various lists of subversives until the 1960’s. The Federal Bureau of Investigation continued to keep records on her when she was in her nineties. Asked to retire from Harvard in 1935, apparently because of age, she became a medical consultant to the Division of Labor Standards, formed the previous year by working-class advocate Frances Perkins, the secretary of labor and the first woman to hold a U.S. cabinet post. Hamilton continued her investigations until 1940, when
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Further Reading Addams, Jane. My Friend Julia Lathrop. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Primarily a discussion of Lathrop’s public service. Revised by Hamilton after Addams’s death, describes the work and background of several Hull House reformers and shows the obstacles they faced in seeking environmental reform. _______. Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan, 1910. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. The classic work about the most famous U.S. settlement house. Contains little about any specific reformer, but chapters 10-16 and chapter 18 provide essential background for an understanding of working-class conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century and of Hull House and its pioneering social and reform work. Gottlieb, Robert. “Urban and Industrial Roots.” In Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005. General history presents an exceptionally complete discussion of women’s contributions. Includes a summary of Hamilton’s research and an excellent, if brief, discussion of the political forces that enabled the work of the Hull House reformers to gain national importance. Grant, Madeleine P. Alice Hamilton: Pioneer Doctor in Industrial Medicine. London: Abelard-Schuman, 1967. A good, simply written summary of Hamilton’s work, completed before Hamilton’s death, although it is heavily dependent on Hamilton’s autobiography (cited below) and adds little to it.
Hamilton, Alice. Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D. Boston: Little, Brown, 1943. Reprint. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985. Presents a readable, sometimes anecdotal, account of the obstacles and adventures Hamilton encountered in pursuing her research. Includes little serious discussion of her research or publications and practically nothing about her personal life or the difficulties she encountered as a pioneering woman scientist. Rosner, David, and Gerald Markowitz, eds. Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in TwentiethCentury America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Of particular interest are the editors’ introduction and their essay “Safety and Health as a Class Issue: The Workers’ Health Bureau of America During the 1920s.” Also helpful for an understanding of Hamilton’s work is Ruth Heifetz’s “Women, Lead, and Reproductive Hazards: Defining a New Risk.” Sellers, Christopher C. Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Study of the development of industrial medicine includes discussion of Alice Hamilton’s contributions. Features notes and index. Sicherman, Barbara. Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters. 1984. Reprint. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2003. Excellent study of Hamilton and her work combines scholarly understanding with fluent writing. Makes excellent use of family letters and records not accessible to earlier writers. Wertheimer, Barbara Mayer. We Were There: The Story of Working Women in America. New York: Pantheon, 1977. Includes little discussion of the Hull House reformers but much about the groups through which they worked, such as the National Consumers League. One of the best studies available concerning the conditions that gave rise to the Hull House reformers and their work. See also: 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution.
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her final report was published as a bulletin titled Occupational Poisoning in the Viscose Rayon Industry. She regularly lectured at colleges and universities, including Bryn Mawr, Tufts, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Connecticut College for Women. In 1944, she became president of the National Consumers League. She died at her Connecticut home on September 22, 1970, at the age of 101. Three months later, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), which first gave the government power to enforce safe conditions in the workplace. The law authorized on-site inspection, regulation, and enforcement; the related National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health established standards for chemical, dust, and toxic exposure. Unquestionably, Hamilton’s work had led the way to that legislation. —Betty Richardson
Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States
McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1925
McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm James Oscar McKinsey, a noted certified public accountant in Chicago, established in 1925 what was to become the world’s largest management consulting firm. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures James Oscar McKinsey (1889-1937), American certified public accountant, university professor, and management consultant George E. Frazer (1889-1972), American university professor Summary of Event James Oscar McKinsey was a certified public accountant (CPA) and professor of accounting at the University of Chicago when, in 1925, he established a CPA firm that was to become McKinsey & Company, the largest management consulting firm in the world. Management accounting intrigued McKinsey. He wrote the first textbook on management accounting (Managerial Accounting, 1924) and the first book on the subject of budgeting (Budgetary Control, 1922). Both were the products of early consulting engagements. Before McKinsey, educators in accounting largely neglected the users of accounting information. Only through years of experience could an accountant master the knowledge needed to use accounting information profitably. McKinsey was born near Mexico, Missouri, in 1889. In 1912 he received a bachelor of pedagogy degree from the State Teacher’s College in Warrensburg, Missouri, and a year later he received a law degree from the University of Arkansas. McKinsey’s penchant for business education was noted even by his law student colleagues at Arkansas, whose “class prophecy” predicted that McKinsey would someday buy out Draughon’s Business College (a large chain of proprietary business schools) and change the name to McKinsey’s Business College. McKinsey’s accounting career began in 1914 at St. Louis University, where he studied and taught bookkeeping. Although he already had a bachelor’s degree and a law degree, he decided to enter the School of Commerce at the University of Chicago, where he subsequently earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He received his master’s degree in 1919, the same year he 1980
passed the CPA examination. Before he had finished his degree at Chicago, he was asked to join the accounting faculty. This was a typical experience for McKinsey: He claimed that he was hired to teach in every school he attended even before he had attained his degree there. It was during 1919 that McKinsey began his prolific writing career, which led to his being viewed as having the expertise to be a management consultant. Although much of his work was of a pragmatic nature for management use, he also wrote for accounting students. McKinsey applied a pioneering philosophy to accounting education through his emphasis on principles over techniques. Unlike other authors of the time, he required students to view accounting from the position of a manager rather than from that of a bookkeeper. Consequently, he emphasized the uses of accounting data. He believed that most firms had adequate accounting systems, partly as a result of requirements of the 1913 income tax law; the only problem that many firms faced was how to use the accounting information that was available. Perhaps the real root of McKinsey & Company was the publication of McKinsey’s Budgetary Control in 1922. This book provided impetus for the spread of industrial budgeting. World War I and the resultant emphasis on efficiency provided stimulus for acceptance of McKinsey’s work, which summarized all experimentation to date in a complete budgetary program. McKinsey’s was the first book on budgeting and the first attempt to cover the entire budgetary program. Before Budgetary Control was published, budgeting was not even considered applicable to business operations; only government units used it. The book was a compilation of several articles that McKinsey had published over the two preceding years. Although these articles had appeared primarily in Administration magazine, some were also published in such journals as American Fertilizer and Cost Accountant. The book was heavily based on McKinsey’s early consulting work and included numerous illustrations of real situations. McKinsey noted in the preface of Budgetary Control that he was indebted to his mentor at the University of Chicago, George E. Frazer, for counsel and assistance. As McKinsey’s professor, his department chairman at Chicago, and later his CPA firm partner, Frazer was the source of many of the ideas published in McKinsey’s book. Frazer was reportedly pleased with Budgetary
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If the accountant is to be of most service to the business executive, he must understand the latter’s point of view, and be able to present data of such nature and in such form that the executive can use it in the solution of his daily problems. Unfortunately the accountant and the business executive often do not appreciate each other’s point of view or understand each other’s problem.
McKinsey pioneered an approach that emphasized teaching students how to use accounting data. Even the problems at the end of each chapter of his textbook were unusual, in that a student could not answer them by memorizing the text material. Instead, the problems required the application of the material in the text to new situations. Unfortunately, McKinsey’s philosophy did not catch on soon enough for him to sell many books—a second edition never appeared. Another of his books was very successful, however. In 1929, South-Western Publishing Company published McKinsey’s Accounting Principles, which became one of the best-selling books in the field of accounting for decades. The year 1924 marked a turning point in McKinsey’s career, as his interest began to shift from accounting and budgeting to managerial accounting. He was later to move further away from accounting as he developed his interest in management. After 1927, he taught only business policy courses and devoted the remainder of his time to his consulting work, to the exclusion of research and other faculty activities.
McKinsey is best remembered as the founder of what was to become the largest management consulting firm in the world. In 1925, he started his own accounting and consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. One of his former students later recalled how impressed students were with McKinsey’s success. McKinsey would have his chauffeur drive him to class and carry his briefcase into the classroom. Following the class, the chauffeur would reappear to erase the blackboard and take McKinsey downtown to his office. The success of McKinsey’s firm was as much attributable to perspiration as to inspiration. McKinsey worked seven days a week and expected his staff to do the same. Staff members could never accept social engagements or even promise their wives that they would be home at night, because McKinsey might decide on the spur of the moment that they were needed in some distant city. He even made his secretary work on Christmas Day, because the client always had to come first. Significance McKinsey’s contributions can still be found in accounting and business education in the fields of budgeting, managerial accounting, accounting principles, business policy, managerial finance, and management consulting. McKinsey was fortunate to be affiliated with the School of Commerce and Administration at the University of Chicago at a time when that school was experimenting with a comprehensive approach to business education. He worked within the confines of that experiment and developed programs for both industry and education that are still in use today. McKinsey’s consulting firm was immediately successful. Even in the 1920’s he charged $500 per day for his services, and he still received more requests than he could handle. McKinsey’s consulting philosophy hinged on three elements: unquestioned respectability, a reputation for expertise in an area of some concern to top management, and professional exposure. He established the element of respectability through his academic connections, used his writings to establish his expertise, and gained professional exposure through his officer roles in such professional organizations as the American Accounting Association and the American Management Association, both of which he served as president. He was also active in community organizations such as the Red Cross and various charities because he wanted to be known as a good citizen. He gave speeches to various groups most nights. McKinsey claimed that he ate more than half of his 1981
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Control because it followed outlines used in his seminar at the University of Chicago in 1917 and 1918. In the book, McKinsey stressed the fact that budgeting is a dynamic field in which all the answers are not known. Despite the fact that the book was a pioneering effort, it covered most of the budgeting aspects used today. In 1945, Budgetary Control was included on a list of twelve indispensable books in the field of management. The author of that 1945 critique apologized for including such an old book on the list but argued that McKinsey’s work had lost none of its value with the passage of time. Although McKinsey’s first managerial accounting textbook was not published until 1924, he publicly espoused his philosophy of managerial accounting education in a 1919 article that appeared in the Journal of Political Economy. McKinsey’s philosophy was that accounting was something that should serve as a basis of functional control in a business. In the preface of Managerial Accounting, he stated that it was time to organize the business curriculum into one coherent whole:
McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm
McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm meals, including breakfasts, with potential clients. At such a meal, McKinsey would probe the mind of his guest to learn what problems the individual was facing. He would then either offer a solution or return to his office and enlist his staff in coming up with the solution. McKinsey would then write the guest a letter full of free advice. Consequently, the guest would think of McKinsey as a person who could help solve problems; many such guests became clients. McKinsey’s affiliation with the University of Chicago provided status to his consulting firm, but his educational background helped in another way as well. McKinsey’s teaching experience contributed to the success of the firm in that he was always teaching younger staff members. Even within the firm, he thought of himself as a teacher. Staff members never went out on a job without the proper training and the shared expertise of their leader. McKinsey’s emphasis on individual coaching did have its downside, in that he did not hesitate to point out a person’s mistakes and frequently suggested to staff members and partners how they could improve themselves. This style meant that McKinsey was never really loved by his coworkers, but he was always respected. Another element of the firm’s success was McKinsey’s interpersonal style with clients. McKinsey would begin by establishing rapport with interviewees and then start asking questions rather than giving answers. After listening to an individual, he would diagnose the problem. Finally, he would make suggestions as to how the problem could be solved. In 1935, McKinsey’s firm was hired to conduct a study of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago department store. The company’s directors were so impressed that they offered McKinsey the position of chairman of the board. Because Marshall Field was still hurting from the Great Depression, McKinsey thought the job would be a challenge. He had long been telling others how to manage their businesses; now he would have a chance to prove himself. In addition, a position as chairman of the board and chief operating officer at the largest store in the world would fulfill McKinsey’s desire for prestige and status. McKinsey severed his ties with the University of Chicago and decided to take a temporary leave from his consulting firm. He soon turned Marshall Field’s red ink into profit by making drastic cuts in departments and personnel; in fact, he received several death threats as a result of the personnel cuts. The job of cleaning up Marshall Field was accomplished at the cost of his health, however. McKinsey died of pneumonia on November 30, 1937. 1982
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 At the time he became chairman of Marshall Field, McKinsey was approached by about a dozen firms that wanted to acquire his consulting firm. Although he planned to return to consulting as soon as he had solved Marshall Field’s problems, he agreed to merge his firm. A merger was accomplished with the CPA firm of Scovell, Wellington & Company to form McKinsey, Wellington & Company. Following McKinsey’s death, the firm split into two separate consulting firms, with McKinsey & Company having offices in New York and Boston, and McKinsey, Kearney & Company keeping the Chicago office. Subsequently, McKinsey, Kearney & Company changed its name to A. T. Kearney & Company because McKinsey & Company grew into a national firm and moved into Chicago. Under later leaders, McKinsey & Company became the largest management consulting firm in the world. In addition, the American Management Association, a professional organization that McKinsey helped found and served as second president, became the world’s largest professional management organization. James Oscar McKinsey operated at the frontiers of business research. To some, it might be surprising that the author of the first managerial accounting book and the first budgeting book is best remembered as a management consultant, but perhaps that is appropriate. McKinsey always stressed how information could be used by managers. —Dale L. Flesher Further Reading Flesher, Tonya K., and Dale L. Flesher. “James O. McKinsey.” Accounting Historians Journal 12 (Fall, 1985): 117-128. Summarizes McKinsey’s contributions to managerial accounting and accountancy education. Includes analyses of several books authored by McKinsey. Hopf, H. A. “Soundings in the Literature of Management: Some Classic Contributions to Professional Management.” In Historical Perspectives. Vol. 2. New York: General Electric, 1956. Describes McKinsey’s contributions to the profession of management. McKinsey, James O. Budgetary Control. New York: Ronald Press, 1922. The first book on business budgeting, containing virtually everything on the subject of budgeting, is still useful today. In 1945, this book was ranked as one of the twelve greatest business books ever written. _______. Managerial Accounting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924. Reprint. New York: Ayer,
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University, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, 1978. Excellent work includes not only a biography of McKinsey but also an analysis of his perspectives and strategies. Describes McKinsey’s diagnostic approach to business problems, including his general survey outline. See also: 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using CostPlus Contracts; Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded; Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax; 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors.
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New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced New Objectivity, an artistic and literary trend in Germany that repudiated abstraction, succeeded expressionism in the 1920’s and lasted until 1932. Its artists often produced bleak, satirical works that reflected the tensions of the times. Also known as: Neue Sachlichkeit Locale: Mannheim, Germany Category: Arts Key Figures Otto Dix (1891-1969), painter and graphic artist who was one of the leading exponents of the veristic wing of New Objectivity George Grosz (1893-1959), painter and graphic artist whose socially conscious pictures exemplified the work of the veristic wing of New Objectivity Max Beckmann (1884-1950), painter and graphic artist whose work has some affinities with New Objectivity Georg Scholz (1890-1945), socially committed artist whose work was included in the 1925 Mannheim exhibition Georg Schrimpf (1889-1938), painter in New Objectivity’s magic realist wing whose work reveals many neoclassical influences Alexander Kanoldt (1881-1939), painter known mainly for his clearly rendered, airless still lifes and landscapes Summary of Event In 1923, Gustav Hartlaub, the newly appointed director of the Mannheim museum, planned an exhibition to chart the realistic trend in postwar painting. The exhibition, ti-
tled New Objectivity: German Painting Since Expressionism, however, did not take place until 1925. Hartlaub used the term Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) to differentiate this style from the subjective and abstract tendencies of expressionism. His aim was to exhibit the works of “those artists who have remained—or who have once more become—avowedly faithful to positive, tangible reality.” Among the artists most fully represented in the 1925 Mannheim show were Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Alexander Kanoldt, Georg Scholz, and Georg Schrimpf. The art historian Franz Roh also noted the return to representational painting in his influential book Nach-Expressionismus, magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten Europäischen Malerei (1925; postexpressionism, magic realism: problems of the newest European painting). Roh used the term “magic realism” to distinguish the new realism from the earlier, nineteenth century style of realism exhibited by the artists Hans Thoma and Wilhelm Leibl. For Roh, magic realism also suggested a connection with French Surrealism and with the work of the Italian artist Giorgio De Chirico, whose precisely rendered paintings of vacuous mannequins in ambiguous spatial settings evoked a sense of mystery. Hartlaub noted that there were two different aspects of the realist trend and divided the movement into two wings. He assigned the artists Dix, Grosz, Beckmann, and Scholz to a socially critical wing that he called verism, and the Italianate-inspired German artists such as Kanoldt and Schrimpf to a neoclassical wing. Although Hartlaub included some of Scholz’s work in the verist wing, the artist’s work is more often representative of magic realism. The phrases “New Objectivity” and 1983
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1980. The first book on the subject of managerial accounting. Although not a big seller, its legacy can be traced to the most popular managerial accounting books of the present. Wendt, Lloyd, and Herman Kogan. Give the Lady What She Wants! The Story of Marshall Field and Company. 1952. Reprint. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1997. Discusses McKinsey’s role at the Chicago department store. Wolf, William B. Management and Consulting: An Introduction to James O. McKinsey. Ithaca: Cornell
New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced
New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced “magic realism” essentially denoted the same thing: After expressionism, artists moved away from abstraction to realism. Although these terms were initially interchangeable, “New Objectivity” became more commonly used. Both wings of New Objectivity shared some common characteristics. The artists all emphasized visual clarity, sobriety, and unemotional detachment in their work. They concentrated on depicting ordinary people and seemingly insignificant scenes from everyday life, and they painted in rigid, tightly compressed compositions. Their preference for static compositions and fidelity to the outlines of objects differed from the dynamic and generalizing manner of the expressionists. Some of the New Objectivity artists did, however, retain expressionistic devices such as distortion, exaggeration of detail, and alteration of reality in their work. The New Objectivity artists eschewed utopian illusions, and they scrutinized the cold, hard, often ugly facts of life as Germany struggled to recover from the harsh effects of World War I. During the 1920’s, Germans faced economic hardships, runaway inflation, political unrest, uncertainty, and fear; shattered, insecure, corrupt, empty, and banal lives became common subjects for several leading exponents of the movement, especially Dix, Grosz, and Beckmann. Dix volunteered for military service during World War I and later became a staunch opponent of war. In his paintings and graphics, he became a satirist and exposed the indecencies of postwar life. Motivated by ethical issues, his work was devoted to depictions of people, especially representations of dismembered ex-soldiers, repulsive, greedy prostitutes, and suffering victims. He frequently employed collagelike elements in his paintings to emphasize the fragmented, irrational, inhumane atmosphere of postwar Germany. Dix used these devices in his painting Streichholzhändler (1920; The Matchseller), which portrays a mutilated male victim of the war as mere rubbish sitting on an urban street. As the blind, quadriplegic matchseller attempts to sell his wares to people hurrying by, a dog lifts its leg and urinates on him. Much of Dix’s work centered on the lack of human values and protests against social injustices. Grosz volunteered for military service in 1914, but he later became disillusioned with the war and became a pacifist. His style was initially influenced by expressionism, and before his association with New Objectivity, he was a member of the most radical and politicized faction of Berlin Dada. In the 1920’s, Grosz was frequently charged with blasphemy for his irreverent depictions of German militarism. Harboring a deep hatred for both 1984
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 militarism and bourgeois complacency, he developed a grim, satirical style that portrayed society as morally bankrupt. Grosz unleashed his anger against the social decay in the Weimar Republic and produced numerous images of grisly sex murderers, fat bureaucrats, and power-hungry, duplicitous generals. Many of his paintings, such as Sonnenfirsternis (1926; Eclipse of the Sun), lampoon wealthy, empty-headed bureaucrats who conspire with generals. For Grosz, these despised figures epitomized corruption, power, and cruelty. A consummate social critic, Grosz used his analytic and detached style to develop De Chirico’s Surrealist mannequin figures into dehumanized, mutilated, robotlike representations of people reveling in their own banality. Grosz’s precisely rendered painting Republikanische Automaten (1920; Republican Automatons) depicts faceless, maimed mannequins as symbols of people’s lost identities in postwar German society. Beckmann, along with Dix and Grosz, was perceived to be one of the most important representatives of the verist wing of New Objectivity. Beckmann’s work, however, is difficult to assign to a particular style. Although he eschewed abstraction and remained aloof from expressionism, his style had many affinities with the artists of the movement know as Die Brücke (the bridge), especially the use of distortion and exaggeration of detail. During World War I, Beckmann volunteered for military duty and briefly served as a medical orderly on the front. His horrific war experiences resulted in a nervous breakdown, and he was discharged from the military in 1915. He was permanently affected by the war: His style was transformed, and humanity’s inhumanity became its general theme. Beckmann’s painting The Night (1919) shows a family being robbed and physically violated in their garret by a gang of thugs. In the center of this spatially compressed composition, a woman, naked and splayed, is about to be raped. Beckmann’s stark, heavily outlined figures retain the expressionist device of distortion, but the somber mood and theme of social injustice anticipates New Objectivity. In this matter-of-fact portrayal of mutilation and physical and mental torture, Beckmann’s angular use of line and exaggeration of detail heighten the effect of polar opposites: weak against strong, good against evil. Much of his work centered on the themes of temptation and cruelty, human exploitation and degradation, and Beckmann sought to show that goodness does not always triumph over evil. Dix, Grosz, and Beckmann, unlike the members of the magic realist wing of New Objectivity, all shared the common aesthetic of disillusionment.
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Significance When Adolf Hitler came to power in the early 1930’s, the New Objectivity movement quickly dissipated. By 1933, Hitler had initiated cultural purges to cleanse the nation of modernism. Museums and galleries were emptied of offending examples of modern art. Hitler outlawed modernism and imposed an official style, a realistic naturalism; Dix, Grosz, Beckmann, Scholz, Schrimpf, and Kanoldt were forbidden to paint, and their works were defamed. For the next twelve years, Nazi policy dominated the arts in Germany, and illusionistic painting prevailed. After World War II, German artists who survived the war and Nazi defamation resumed their work. At first, postwar painting in Germany continued to be largely illusionistic, but gradually abstract art and semiabstract painting became popular. The impact of New Objectivity remained a chiefly German phenomenon. In the 1960’s, a new group of German artists known as critical realists merged the stylistic characteristics of New Objectivity with the formal elements of pop art and Socialist Realism in an attempt to revive the critical social commentary of Dix and Grosz. In the late 1970’s, a group of German artists sharing some unified stylistic affinities exhibited together in a Berlin show focusing on “ugly realism”; artists featured in the exhibit included Salomé (Wolfgang Cilarz), Helmut Middendorf, Rainer Fetting, and Bernd Zimmer. Their raw, abrasive images of sexual and political brutal-
ity were stylistic and thematic mixtures of the verist wing of New Objectivity and the brashness of American pop art. Yet, unlike the New Objectivity artists, who primarily depicted social outcasts (prostitutes, beggars, mutilated individuals) as the victims of society, these Berlin artists demonstrate in their work their conviction that everyone is a political victim in modern society. — Carmen Stonge Further Reading Barton, Brigid S. Otto Dix and Die Neue Sachlichkeit, 1918-1925. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1981. One of the few good studies in English on Dix. Provides an excellent overview of the artist and discusses his role in the emergence of the New Objectivity movement. Well researched and thoroughly documented. Contains good bibliography and numerous reproductions of Dix’s work. Beckmann, Max. Max Beckmann: Retrospective. Edited by Carla Schultz-Hoffmann and Judith C. Weiss. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1984. Compilation of essays provides a solid overview of Beckmann’s work, style, and career, but, unfortunately, does not discuss his role in the New Objectivity movement. Profusely illustrated with excellent color reproductions of the artist’s paintings and numerous examples of his graphics. Good bibliography. Eberle, Matthias. World War I and the Weimar Artists: Dix, Grosz, Beckmann, Schlemmer. Translated by John Gabriel. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Small book discussing the work and biographical backgrounds of four artists whose styles were fundamentally formed by their experiences during World War I. Specifically focuses on how these artists, except for Oskar Schlemmer, were actively involved in political events that they assimilated into their art. Useful source for the general public and students. Grosz, George. George Grosz: An Autobiography. Translated by Nora Hodges. New York: Macmillan, 1983. The artist’s lively and provocative account of his life in the 1920’s as well as of the art of the period. Presents a fusion of Grosz’s art and politics during the Weimar Republic. Contains numerous illustrations, including thirty-seven reproductions of Grosz’s major artworks. Hayward Gallery. Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism in the Twenties. Translated by David Britt and John Whitford. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1978. Contains two excellent essays defining and 1985
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Scholz, Kanoldt, and Schrimpf were minor artists in comparison to Dix, Grosz, and Beckmann, whose verist works epitomized and dominated New Objectivity. Hartlaub included some of Scholz’s work in the veristic wing of the 1925 Mannheim exhibition, but though Scholz painted some socially critical works in the style of Grosz, he is better known for his disquieting still lifes and landscapes that juxtapose industrialized technology with nature or idealized objects from the past. Kanoldt and Schrimpf initially worked in Munich, the center of the magic realist wing of New Objectivity, and they looked toward Italy, not contemporary Germany, for inspiration. They assimilated aspects of De Chirico’s metaphysical paintings, which presented a timeless, inanimate, and disquieting world, and they incorporated these qualities into their own clearly rendered, tightly ordered compositions. The magic realists created gentle, neoclassic images of simple, monumental forms that were smoothly painted and carefully modeled. Their rigid reconstructions of reality were far removed from the concerns of the veristic wing of New Objectivity.
New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced
New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced examining this artistic phenomenon during the Weimar Republic. Discusses both New Objectivity’s painters and its photographers. One of the best sources in English on the topic. Includes a good, annotated bibliography and many illustrations. Joachimides, Christos M., Norman Rosenthal, and Wieland Schmied, eds. German Art in the Twentieth Century: Painting and Sculpture, 1905-1985. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1985. Presents a broad survey of German art with a compilation of excellent essays, including two on Dix and Beckmann. Profusely illustrated with numerous color reproductions and an extensive, useful bibliography. Contains short biographical annotations on the major German artists. Recommended for both students and the general reader. Laqueur, Walter. Weimar: A Cultural History, 19181933. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974. An insightful survey of Weimar culture that explores the rise and decline of the avant-garde in Germany. Highly readable and interesting. Contains some photographs and a few illustrations of artists’ works. Good bibliography. Lewis, Beth Irwin. George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971. In-depth study of Grosz examining his relationship between art and politics. Provides an excellent understanding of the artist as well as insight into the Weimar Republic. Includes many black-andwhite reproductions of the artist’s line drawings. Lloyd, Jill, and Michael Peppiatt. Christian Schad and the Neue Sachlichkeit. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. An important but little-known artist, Schad has been associated with both realists and Dadists. This volume includes 140 full-color images and an in-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 depth discussion of the general nature of the New Objectivity movement. McGreevy, Linda F. The Life and Works of Otto Dix: German Critical Realist. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1981. Scholarly endeavor that focuses on Dix as a social critic by examining his graphic work of the 1920’s. Only one chapter on Dix’s work and his role in New Objectivity in Germany. Some black-and-white reproductions and an extensive bibliography. Good source for Dix’s biography. Michalski, Sergiusz. New Objectivity. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2001. A meticulously researched history of the movement. Essential reading for any art student, this book places New Objectivity in its historical and political contexts, examines the movement’s general philosophy, and then studies its influence in specific regions in and outside Germany. Schrader, Bärbel, and Jürgen Schebera. The Golden Twenties: Art and Literature in the Weimar Republic. Translated by Katherin Vanovitch. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990. A good, broad survey of Weimar culture. The authors examine the opera, street entertainment, popular music, films, literature, art, and architecture to demonstrate that the Weimar Republic’s cultural life was as troubled as its politics. Numerous photographs and illustrations. See also: Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel; 1928: Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog; 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity; July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet
1925
Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet
Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Trade and commerce; organizations and institutions Key Figures Richard W. Sears (1863-1914), founder of Sears Alvah C. Roebuck (1864-1948), American watchmaker who became the partner of Richard W. Sears Robert E. Wood (1879-1969), vice president of Sears when the first retail outlet opened Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932), partner of Richard W. Sears under whom Sears became a catalog empire Summary of Event In 1925, Robert E. Wood, then vice president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, was responsible for the company’s entering retailing. In 1906, Richard W. Sears wrote that his company did little business in cities and that he believed that cities were not the company’s territory. Nineteen years later, Wood proved that cities were part of Sears territory. In the 1800’s, the population of the United States was widely scattered, with many living in isolated areas. When Sears established his mail-order business, agriculture was a principal source of wealth and income. Sears’s success was based largely on his understanding of the American farmer. In the 1920’s, the complexion of the United States was changing. With cars and modern roads, rural customers were no longer limited to shopping by catalog, as they had with Sears. They could drive to towns, where growing retail chains offered more and better merchandise. In 1914, about 24,000 chain stores were operating in the United States; by 1920, more than 150,000 were in business. In 1900, the rural population outnumbered the urban population; by 1920, the situation was reversed. Wood believed that city people were not good catalog customers, as they shopped in city stores. Unless Sears opened stores, it faced a shrinking market. Wood experimented with one store, located in the company’s Chicago mail-order plant, and it was an immediate success. The principal credit for the stature and growth of Sears goes to three executives: founder Richard W. Sears, Julius Rosenwald, and Robert E. Wood. Sears was born in Minnesota in 1863. He was working for the Minneapolis and
St. Louis Railroad when the turning point in his life came, in 1886. A local jeweler refused to accept a shipment of watches, and Sears made a deal with the shipper for the watches. In six months, Sears made enough money selling the watches to start the R. W. Sears Watch Company. He advertised for a watchmaker and hired Alvah C. Roebuck, a tall, thin, nonaggressive man. Sears expanded into jewelry sales and published the first Sears catalog in 1887, offering his famous money-back guarantee. Sears was adept at describing the shape of a young nation’s material dreams; it was said that he could sell a breath of air. In 1895, Julius Rosenwald, a clothing supplier for Sears, invested in the company. He was to become known as the architect of Sears. Rosenwald was convinced that the mail-order business could have a profitable future only if Sears would refrain from using daring promotional campaigns and operate in a more businesslike manner. In 1924, Rosenwald hired Wood, who was then the merchandising vice president at Montgomery Ward and had been a brigadier general in World War I. In 1928, Wood became president of Sears. Under Wood’s leadership, the company entered a prolonged period of growth and profitability. As early as 1920, Wood realized that the only way to reach a broader mass market in rapidly urbanizing America was through a system of retail stores. Within several months of joining Sears, he used the mail-order business as a base for retailing and opened the first Sears retail store in the company’s Chicago mail-order plant. Before the year was out, he opened 7 more outlets. By the end of 1927, he had 27 stores in operation, and by 1932 there were 324. In 1931, the volume of retail store sales surpassed that of catalog sales. All but one of the first stores were in relatively large cities but situated outside established downtown shopping areas to take advantage of lower land values, taxes, and rents. Each store also had ample parking. Eventually Sears moved into smaller towns that could not support full-line stores, prompting the question of which departments to stock. Gradually a classification system of A, B, and C stores emerged as Sears balanced stock with town size and clearly defined the stores’ public image. As a town’s population grew, service at its Sears store was upgraded to the next level. Sears buying began to change in the late 1920’s. Some mail-order merchandise already was being sold under Sears trade names. With the opening of retail stores, vol1987
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The opening of retail stores catapulted Sears into the position of the largest retail chain in the United States.
Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet ume increased in these lines, which included the labels of Kenmore and Craftsman. Catalog sales desks were installed in retail stores, allowing customers to purchase items not on display. In the 1930’s, telephone sales offices were established. Eventually, catalog sales offices were opened in towns too small to support retail stores. The integration of mail-order and retail operations was not always smooth. Wood believed that only by combining the two operations would the company realize economies of scale, and therefore savings. Mail-order branches served jobbing functions for the retail stores, receiving bulk shipments and distributing goods to stores. Mail-order branches ran the stores in their area, using them to unload unsold merchandise. As mail-order buyers were not accustomed to buying for city populations, which differed from the largely rural catalog customers, many buying mistakes occurred. Retail executives wanted separation from mail-order departments. In time, retail stores were given more autonomy to meet the individual needs of their territories. Stores were allowed to have their own buyers and department managers, people who had the management and product expertise needed for the urban retail environment. This began the decentralization of Sears. Store planning also emerged. Early stores were built as quickly as possible. In 1932, Sears established a store planning and display department. Previously, merchandise had been fit into buildings; now, buildings were built around merchandise. The Glendale, California, store, which opened in 1935, used this concept. Space requirements for different product lines, customer flow, and width of aisles were considered in the planning of store space. Promotion of personnel from within became common practice at Sears. This was considered the best way to serve the company’s needs and essential for long-term survival. Although Wood had begun with little experience in retailing, by 1935 his vision and learning experience from the catalog business had solidly established Sears in meeting the needs of a changing United States. By the time of his retirement in 1954, sales had risen from $200 million in 1924 to $3 billion. Sears had become the largest general merchandise distributor in the world and one of the nation’s largest employers. Significance The establishment of Sears retail stores is important not only because of the company’s size but also because of 1988
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 its methods. For years, the firm was the most successful retailer in the United States. One immediate impact of the opening of Sears retail stores was the opening of Montgomery Ward stores. Although initially opposed to the idea, Ward’s president in 1926 established “display stores” to exhibit goods carried in Montgomery Ward catalogs. Customers quickly insisted on buying the goods immediately rather than waiting for delivery. Ward opened stores across the country in response. In comparison with Sears, Montgomery Ward opened smaller stores in smaller towns but opened more of them. The orientation of Sears to larger cities and Ward to smaller ones continued. The longer-term impacts of the Sears venture into retail stores came from the type of organization built by Wood and its influences on communities and other retailers. Sears provided merchandise for a rapidly urbanizing mass market. It developed a buying strategy that integrated mass production with mass distribution. Finally, it fashioned a uniquely effective body of policies in organization (such as decentralization), personnel and employee relations (such as promotion from within and excellent benefits), and public responsibility. By the 1960’s, Sears was a superpower referred to as the “colossus of American retailing.” During the time of the early store openings, national demographic shifts were dramatic. People were moving from farms to cities; they had rising personal incomes, increased education, increased leisure, and increased rates of home ownership, and many were moving up the social scale. Information was transferred more quickly and new ideas were accepted more readily. Advertising was increasingly important in generating consumer preferences. All of these factors resulted in changing needs and diversified tastes. Wood was one of the first to see clearly the changes in American life symbolized by the completion of highways and the increasing numbers of automobiles. The Sears practice of locating stores outside major downtown shopping areas was based on the ease of transportation the automobile represented. Other retailers, including large department stores, rushed to establish branches outside downtown areas. After World War II, the rapid development of suburban shopping centers radically changed urban America. The automobile also spurred growth areas for Sears. Wood drew up specifications for an improved tire and contracted with Goodyear to make it. The tire was marketed under the Allstate brand, which Sears subsequently applied to other automobile supplies and automobile insurance.
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the agriculture of the area suffered, Sears encouraged its suppliers to expand to the South, to strengthen the region’s economy. In addition, Sears supported 4-H clubs and contests to encourage agricultural efforts beyond the problematic one-crop formula in the South. The company tailored similar agriculture programs to the needs of different parts of the country, including the needs of future homemakers as well as future farmers. Sears also created a scholarship program that became an important component of the company’s public activities. Such social programs left a lasting imprint on American life and earned Sears a unique place among American businesses. Wood’s legacy to Sears and to business as a whole was his demonstration that human and economic values are not necessarily in conflict. He created a corporate policy based on human and democratic values that may well be unique in American business history. —Nancy J. Rabolt Further Reading Asher, Louise E., and Edith Heal. Send No Money. Chicago: Argus Books, 1942. Asher worked with Richard Sears as general manager in a period that witnessed the transition of Sears, Roebuck into a firmly established catalog business. This book is Asher’s attempt to set the record straight regarding the early days of Sears. Includes prophecies of changes to come. Cohen, David L. The Good Old Days. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1940. A history of American home life, morals, and manners as seen through Sears, Roebuck catalogs from 1905 to 1935. Discusses the “largest store in the world” and includes copies of letters from customers. Emmet, Boris, and John E. Jeuck. Catalogues and Counters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. Indepth work presents the history of Sears in great detail, describing how the company’s managers met internal problems and adjusted their business approach to meet the demands raised by external developments. Katz, Donald R. The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears. New York: Viking Penguin, 1987. Analysis of the Sears corporation in the late twentieth century against the background of the glory years of Sears. Mahoney, Tom, and Leonard Sloane. The Great Merchants. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Detailed accounts of twenty-six American retail institutions and the merchants who built them. Includes discussion of the largest department store, specialty 1989
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The merchandise mix at Sears stores was different from that of the typical department store of the times, which carried food, clothing, household necessities, and some luxuries, with women as the prime customers. The Sears mail-order business served the needs of farms and farm families, as did the Sears retail stores. Sears promoted shopping as a family affair. Merchandise reflected the trend toward families owning their own homes. Home maintenance and repairs increased, generating a need for paint, building materials, and other supplies that Sears met through its stock. Wood fashioned Sears to respond to the changes occurring in the United States. The necessities of life as well as luxuries were brought to the mass population instead of only to the elite, strengthening local economies. Wood was one of the first business leaders to think of social responsibility in terms of customers, employees, stockholders, and sources of merchandise supply. As Sears grew, the importance of the company’s ability to influence public policy became evident, as small business attempted to restrict the growth of large chains. Sears strengthened its markets, made influential friends, and gained a broad base of public support. One example involves the banking industry, which was affected by the presence of Sears stores. Initially, Sears used local banks only for short-term deposit of daily receipts, which were then transferred to a central location. This transfer of business angered local banks. Sears could see that goodwill, especially from the banking industry, an influential political force, was important in combating the antichain movements under way in the 1920’s. Instead of borrowing from a few large banks, Sears began sharing loan activity with local small banks. Sears managers became integral parts of their communities, unlike the “absentee owners” of the other chains. As they sat on boards and became community leaders, it was hard for local businessmen to turn against them in the fight against the chains. A Sears outlet often was the largest store in a community. It could attract customers from a wide trading area, benefiting other nearby merchants. This lessened hostility toward the growing company. From the beginning, Sears supported activities to improve local economies and the national economy. Rosenwald helped strengthen the agricultural economy, for example, by offering grants to train farmers in efficient practices. Sears grants became an integral part of national agriculture policy. In 1927, Sears established a public relations department that became involved in addressing social needs. As the population of the American South expanded and
Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet
Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells shop, mail-order house, variety chain, apparel chain, and drugstore. Martinez, Arthur C. The Hard Road to the Softer Side: Lessons from the Transformation of Sears. New York: Crown Business Books, 2001. Account of a troubled period in Sears history near the end of the twentieth century, as related by the executive who is credited with saving the company. Michman, Ronald D., and Alan J. Greco. Retailing Triumphs and Blunders. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1995. Describes how retailers of various kinds have responded to changes in U.S. society and the marketplace. Includes discussion of Sears and other department stores. Werner, Morris R. Julius Rosenwald: The Life of a Practical Humanitarian. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939. Describes Rosenwald’s philanthropic activities in an era of laissez-faire economics, when social con-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sciousness was new. Presents an account of the changes occurring at Sears and Rosenwald’s ability to lead the company profitably into the future. Worthy, James. Shaping an American Institution: Robert E. Wood and Sears, Roebuck. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. History of Sears under the leadership of Wood and others, written by a former employee of the company. Presents analyses of policies and strategies, including decentralization and reliance on individual initiative. Many accounts of events come from observation and personal documentation. See also: 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens; 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines.
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Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells George Hoyt Whipple discovered that liver/meat diets are effective treatments for anemia and that iron is an essential dietary ingredient. Locale: School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, New York Categories: Science and technology; biology; health and medicine Key Figures George Hoyt Whipple (1878-1976), American surgeon and pathologist Frieda S. Robscheit-Robbins (b. 1895), American pathologist George Richards Minot (1885-1950), American physician William Parry Murphy (1892-1987), American physician Summary of Event Pernicious anemia is one of several forms of anemia in which there is a severe reduction in the number of red blood cells (erythrocytes) in the affected individual’s bloodstream. Accompanying this severe reduction of red blood cells is a decreased level of blood hemoglobin, the most important protein found in blood cells and blood plasma. Hemoglobin is a tetrameric (that is, four-sub1990
unit) protein that transports oxygen from an individual’s lungs throughout the bloodstream to every cell in the body, where it is used to drive the production of energy molecules (that is, adenosine triphosphate—ATP) via the Krebs cycle. Hemoglobin carries waste carbon dioxide back to the lungs via the bloodstream for exhalation. If a person has a low red blood cell count (anemia), then his or her body will not be producing enough hemoglobin to transport oxygen to all the cells in the body. Consequently, these cells will be incapable of producing enough energy for the chemical reactions needed to survive. Many cells will die, and often the affected individual will die as well. In 1905, George Hoyt Whipple received his medical degree from The Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland, and continued researching blood and liver disorders. He and a colleague, John H. King, studied liver necrosis (decay) in dogs exposed to chloroform and discovered that the dogs’ livers regenerated rapidly after being damaged by this chemical. Whipple became very interested in the interrelationship between the liver and the bloodstream. He and King subsequently concentrated on the disease obstructive jaundice (icterus), where liver damage results in the release of yellowish bile pigments that concentrate in the victim’s skin. They demonstrated that obstructive jaundice was caused by
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cially anemic dogs. In 1918, Hooper was the first physician to administer a liver extract to human victims of pernicious anemia. The three anemic patients’ conditions improved considerably. Nevertheless, various clinical doctors ridiculed Hooper and his treatment. As a result, Hooper discontinued his research. Seven years would pass before the Harvard University physicians George Richards Minot and William Parry Murphy would use virtually the same treatment, save many lives, and subsequently receive a Nobel Prize. Whipple continued his liver extract work with Frieda S. Robscheit-Robbins at the new School of Medicine and Dentistry at Rochester University in New York. From 1923 to 1929, they performed an extensive and elaborate series of dietary administration experiments on artificially anemic dogs. During these years, Whipple and Robscheit-Robbins defined the necessary dietary constraints for treating pernicious anemia. They tested various substances isolated from liver and muscle extracts of cow, pig, and chicken. They developed new extracts
George Hoyt Whipple. (The Nobel Foundation)
1991
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the escape of bile pigments into the bloodstream and not into the lymphatic system. The liver, the largest organ in the body, has numerous functions essential for survival, including bile production, hemoglobin recycling, sugar storage (as the carbohydrate glycogen), protein and carbohydrate metabolism, blood filtering and detoxification, and storage of essential vitamins and minerals. All these functions are closely interrelated, and the liver’s storage of vitamins and minerals is of special importance. Many of the body’s enzymes—proteins that control the rate of cellular chemical reactions—require the assistance of minerals (for example, iron, copper, molybdenum) and vitamins (for example, vitamins A, B12, C, D, niacin). For example, hemoglobin requires iron in order to transport oxygen. In 1914, Whipple continued his studies of icterus with Charles W. Hooper at the University of California in San Francisco. After they discovered that the liver filters hemoglobin from the blood and recycles the protein as a bile pigment called bilirubin, Whipple and Hooper considered the possibility that the liver may be involved in certain types of anemia, including pernicious anemia. Their experiments were performed on dogs obtained from local pounds and involved changing diets as well as periodic bleeding to induce anemia. The goal of their experiments was to determine how the dogs’ bodies responded to conditions of artificially induced anemia. Despite the fact that these experiments were performed humanely and the dogs usually survived, Whipple and his colleagues were criticized heavily by the general public, politicians, and animal rights groups, and they were forced to battle these groups legislatively for several years to defend their research. Whipple and Hooper periodically bled dogs to maintain artificially induced anemia. These dogs had low red blood cell and hemoglobin counts as a result. Whipple and Hooper attempted several techniques at rapidly increasing hemoglobin production in these animals—rates faster than the body would normally recover on its own. They varied the dogs’ diets and found different degrees of success. A diet composed of carbohydrates (for example, bread and milk) was ineffective, requiring one to five months for hemoglobin regeneration. A diet of rice and potatoes was somewhat more effective; meat-rich diets were very effective. Diets composed of liver, lean scrap meat, and beef heart stimulated complete hemoglobin regeneration within two to four weeks. Whipple and Hooper developed liver and meat extracts that produced the same dramatic results in artifi-
Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells
Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells that, in conjunction with products from Minot’s group at Harvard University and the Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, became effective treatments for human patients suffering from pernicious anemia. Thousands of lives were saved by these extracts. In 1925, Whipple and Robscheit-Robbins discovered that the most effective mineral found in beef and liver extract that would stimulate hemoglobin regeneration was iron. They reported their results in an article titled “Blood Regeneration in Severe Anemia: III. Iron Reaction Favorable—Arsenic and Germanium Dioxide Almost Inert,” which appeared with three additional articles in volume 72 of the American Journal of Physiology. They found that iron by itself is a very effective hemoglobin regenerator, which is not surprising given that iron is the central active portion of each hemoglobin protein subunit. They also discovered that beef liver was the most effective dietary treatment, causing hemoglobin and red blood cell regeneration from one-third of normal to normal in as little time as two weeks. Other effective dietary supplements included chicken gizzard smooth muscle, pig kidney, and beef kidney. They also discovered that the liver recycles hemoglobin into bile pigments (for example, bilirubin) and bile pigments into hemoglobin. Whipple and Robscheit-Robbins continued this research into the 1930’s and 1940’s. Although iron is an essential component of the pernicious anemia meat/liver extracts, vitamin B12 was later shown to be equally as important. In 1949, vitamin B12 was isolated from liver extracts by the American biochemist Karl Folkers and the English biochemist Alexander Todd. Diets of iron and vitamin B12 are modern treatments for individuals suffering from pernicious anemia. Whipple shared the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Minot and Murphy. Minot and Murphy had applied Whipple’s beef/liver extracts to treating human pernicious anemia patients beginning in 1925. Significance George Hoyt Whipple’s contributions to medicine and to biology are multifold: First, Whipple discovered a treatment for pernicious anemia, thereby saving countless thousands of lives. Second, he discovered that the mineral iron, stored in the liver, is essential for hemoglobin regeneration. Third, he unraveled several basic recycling enzymatic pathways within the mammalian body, including the recycling of hemoglobin and bile pigments. Finally, he improved the understanding of human liver and blood physiology, breaking new ground in the study 1992
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of blood disorders. The 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with other awards, demonstrated the importance of his lifesaving work. The use of liver extracts to treat human victims of pernicious anemia saved countless individuals from a disease that many scientists had thought to be untreatable. It is regrettable that Whipple and Hooper’s 1918 treatment of patients had been ridiculed; many lives might have been spared during the seven-year interval between this event and its ultimate acceptance by the medical community. The liver extracts led eventually to the isolation of the important active ingredients for hemoglobin regeneration, including the mineral iron and vitamin B12. Iron is one of many minerals stored by the liver for later use in the body’s cells. Iron serves as a cofactor, or helper substance, in the active centers of protein enzymes—the cellular molecules that control essential life chemical reactions in cells. Iron is essential for proper functioning of the protein hemoglobin, a molecule that is mass produced by red blood cells for the transport of oxygen to the cells of the body to drive cellular energy production reactions. Hemoglobin is nonfunctional without iron. The phrase “iron-poor blood” indicates a semianemic physical state. Whipple showed that iron can regenerate hemoglobin rapidly in only a few weeks. Hemoglobin is regenerated in the liver, one of the few body tissues capable of regeneration when it is not too severely damaged. This regenerative capacity of liver could be caused somehow by the fact that the liver is a storage center for virtually every type of material needed by the body. The liver controls the buildup and breakdown of the body’s food reserves according to the body’s needs. The liver can split hemoglobin into two sections: a heme component, which is iron, and the precursor of a bile pigment, bilirubin. The second section is a globin component, which is protein. The globin is recycled back into the body’s protein metabolism; the heme is used to construct bile, a substance released from the liver into the small intestine to emulsify fat, thereby allowing the body to absorb the essential fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Bile pigments can be reabsorbed back into the blood, returned to the liver, and used to construct the heme component of hemoglobin or more bile. Whipple’s achievements greatly improved the understanding of organisms as intricately interconnected organ systems. His work demonstrated the interplay between the liver, blood, and digestive systems. His studies would pioneer later research into other types of anemia, including the inherited thalassemia and sickle-cell anemia. —David Wason Hollar, Jr.
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dously informative source on anatomy, physiology, pathology, hematology, and more. Features detailed graphs, tables, and diagrams as well as an extensive reference list. Provides considerable information on all types of anemia. Nobelstiftelsen. Nobel: The Man and His Prizes. 3d ed. New York: Elsevier, 1972. An excellent history of the Nobel Prize, beginning with Alfred Nobel and including the Nobel laureates in all fields up through the 1960’s. Discusses each laureate’s work within the context of the history of his or her own field. Whipple, George H. “Autobiographical Sketch.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 2 (Spring, 1959): 253-289. Brief autobiography presents a personal summary of Whipple’s life and his thoughts about science, academia, and his colleagues. Emphasizes his undergraduate and medical school days as well as his experiences in supervising two medical schools and makes clear his love for teaching and research. See also: 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups; Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion; 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney; 1921-1922: Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine.
1925
Woolf’s MRS. DALLOWAY Explores Women’s Consciousness Virginia Woolf, already recognized as having made a stylistic break with the past, made a powerful statement about how women perceive themselves and society in her 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway. Locale: London, England Category: Literature Key Figures Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), English novelist Leonard S. Woolf (1880-1969), English writer and Virginia Woolf’s husband George Duckworth (1868-1934), Virginia Woolf’s half brother Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), Virginia Woolf’s sister Summary of Event Virginia Woolf was born into a family noted for its literary achievements. Her father, Leslie Stephen, is best
known as the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, the standard against which biographical dictionaries have long been measured. The Stephens have often been cited as the model Victorian family, with the loving if gruff father and the doting mother providing a supportive home environment. The appearance of such a family situation was almost entirely a facade. Leslie Stephen not only disassociated himself from the problems of his children (his parental concern was mostly expressed in letters to his wife) but also demanded an exaggerated level of attention for himself. Virginia’s mother was Leslie’s second wife, Julia (née Jackson) Duckworth. They were married March 26, 1878, and had between them five children from their former marriages. They were to have four of their own as well, of which Virginia was the third. By the time Virginia was old enough to be aware of her surroundings, Laura, Leslie’s daughter from his first marriage, had 1993
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Further Reading Alberts, Bruce, et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th ed. New York: Garland, 2002. Comprehensive introductory molecular biology textbook for undergraduate biology majors offers a theoretical survey of cell biology by several leading scientists. Features excellent photographs, diagrams, and reference lists. Includes a good discussion of liver function and its regenerative capacity. Corner, George W. George Hoyt Whipple and His Friends: The Life of a Nobel Prize Pathologist. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1963. A touching portrait of not only a great scientist and physician but also a wonderful man by a close friend and colleague. Provides a detailed and enjoyable summary of both the scientific and private sides of Whipple’s life. Garrison, Fielding H. An Introduction to the History of Medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1963. Comprehensive history of medical research from ancient times up to 1928. Includes a year-byyear chronology and extensive references. Notes the contributions of Whipple, Minot, Murphy, and other twentieth century pathologists. Goldman, Lee, and Dennis Ausiello, eds. Cecil Textbook of Medicine. 22d ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 2003. Enormous medical reference work is a tremen-
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness been confined to a separate section of the house because of her emotional problems. Although Laura may have been of less-than-normal intelligence, it appears that her real crime was willfulness—completely unacceptable in a Victorian daughter and to be curbed by virtually any level of force needed. Laura’s fate was a powerful message about the importance of conformity for the other daughters in the Stephen family. Worse emotional traumas were to follow. Virginia’s half sister Stella Duckworth was not protected from the exuberant courtship of J. W. “Jack” Hills, and although the young woman was certainly frightened and possibly raped, Hills was not excluded from the house. No child could feel protected. Further, after the death of Julia Stephen in 1895, Stella was forced into the role of wife and mother and was expected to run the house and tend to the needs of Leslie and the children. There are hints, although no hard evidence, that her wifely functions included sex with her stepfather. She eventually married Hills in 1897 only to die of peritonitis shortly after returning from her honeymoon. It is quite possible that her illness was the result of an injury that occurred during sexual intercourse. Nor were Leslie and Julia’s own children safe and secure. Both Virginia and her elder sister Vanessa were sexually abused by their half brothers George and Herbert Duckworth. In an autobiographical fragment, Virginia recalls the first incident: She was about six, and George Duckworth put her up on a shelf outside the family’s dining room and felt her genitalia. The abuse expanded in nature and continued through her teenage years. It is not surprising, then, that Virginia never found much pleasure in heterosexual activity or that she suffered from bouts of depression throughout her life. During her teenage years, these resulted in periods of reduced activity and reductions—which she resented bitterly—in the already limited education the daughter of a Victorian was allowed. After the death of Leslie Stephen early in 1904, the Stephen children were left to fend for themselves. They eventually settled in the Bloomsbury section of London, where a literary circle formed around the family. This loose association, often called the Bloomsbury Group, included Clive Bell (eventually Vanessa’s husband), Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster, and Saxon Sydney-Turner. Bloomsbury, which came to include a number of other intellectuals such as Roger Fry and John Maynard Keynes, was known for a bohemian lifestyle and 1994
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sexual freedom. It was as part of this group that Virginia began to write—she needed money—and met her husband, Leonard S. Woolf, who had spent a number of years as a colonial administrator in India. The wedding occurred in 1912. Virginia Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out, did not appear until 1915. Although she had already begun to make a name for herself as a critic and reviewer, the tension of waiting for reviews and the desire for success took an emotional toll. Her husband, who had not been prepared for the intensity of his bride’s emotional storms, got her the necessary medical help and saw to it that she had several months of rest until she recovered her equilibrium. This sort of breakdown, although not always as serious, accompanied the publication of most of her novels. Clarissa Dalloway, the protagonist of Woolf’s 1925 novel, makes a brief appearance in The Voyage Out.
A Woman’s Consciousness In the opening paragraphs of Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf immediately places the reader within the stream of thoughts going through the title character’s mind: Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach. What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”—was that it?—“I prefer men to cauliflowers”—was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace—Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished—how strange it was!—a few sayings like this about cabbages. Source: Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (London: Hogarth Press, 1925).
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Significance Mrs. Dalloway was met with significant critical approval when it was published. Although the book was not as widely regarded as a work of genius as To the Lighthouse (1927) and especially A Room of One’s Own (1929) would later be, it left few serious critics with doubt that Virginia Woolf was a major figure in modern literature. It was also, for a serious novel, a popular success as measured by sales. It further marked, perhaps coincidentally, the beginning of one of the longest periods of stability and happiness in Woolf’s life. Superficially, the novel is the story of a day in Clarissa Dalloway’s life. She is planning one of her famous parties—giving parties is her only talent—and preparations bring her into contact with a number of friends and acquaintances. The unexpected arrival of an old flame, Peter Walsh, brings some complications and memories of youth. Woolf is brilliant in her ability to weave past and present into a seamless picture. Other than Mrs. Dal-
loway and her friends, the only significant character is Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked World War I veteran who is slipping into madness because of what he describes as an inability to feel, though his plight might be better described as feeling too much and too intensely. Smith’s friend Evans was killed at the end of the war, and in confusion and pain Smith married in search of comfort and support. He is unable to satisfy his wife’s demands for love and children, he is haunted by visions of Evans, and he feels guilt for being alive when his friend is dead. Ultimately, Smith kills himself. On first reading, there might seem to be little comment about feminism in the novel. Clarissa, however, has found a way to escape some of the limitations placed on women in her society. In her parties, she brings together people from a variety of walks of life, even across class lines. Clarissa’s parties are experiments in communication, much as Virginia Woolf’s novels were for her. Clarissa has a consciousness of the potential for a unity in life in which divisions created by gender, class, and wealth disappear. Freedom, as far as Woolf was concerned, came from successfully coping with the barriers one faced and from finding a vision such as Clarissa Dalloway’s. Miss Kilman, the teacher of Clarissa’s daughter, is the novel’s representative modern woman. She has a profession and much integrity—she lost her standing by refusing to condemn German friends as monsters during the war. Her consciousness of facts and logic leaves her, however, narrow and unfulfilled. Unlike Clarissa, she has no sense of transcendence. She is unhappy and unloved. Clearly, Woolf did not see the triumph of women as simply a matter of moving into the sphere that in the 1920’s was still regarded as that of the male; women could and had to be more than that. Regrettably, but hardly surprisingly given her experiences, Woolf’s male characters do not fare particularly well. With one exception, they are inept at life and love. Richard Dalloway, Clarissa’s husband, upon hearing that Peter Walsh has returned, resolves to take his wife some flowers and tell her that he loves her. He manages only the flowers. Walsh, who has had trouble with women all of his life, is so governed by his passions that, although he follows a pretty girl around the city, he can never bring himself to approach her; he must be satisfied with his fantasies. The only admirable male character, Septimus Smith, is mad. He has a sense of transcendence, but unlike Clarissa, who remembers with longing the time another woman kissed her on the lips, he cannot cope with his homoerotic feelings. Ultimately, only 1995
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The success of her first book started Woolf on a career as a novelist. She began to develop a new style of novel that rejected the past, which she saw as represented by the works of Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, and H. G. Wells. Her novels were about everyday life, but they added layer after layer of symbolism and meaning. She wrote the essay “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” (1924) to set forth her ideas about what fiction should be. Meanwhile, in 1922 she had decided to write two books at the same time—a novel and a book of criticism. These became The Common Reader: First Series (1925) and Mrs. Dalloway. She hoped that this approach would help ameliorate the emotional disturbance that publishing a novel produced. Her expectation of critical comment about Jacob’s Room (1922) had caused her significant difficulty. Although the projects were not connected, her reading of Greek classics for an essay titled “Not Knowing Greek”—she resented the lack of education for girls—clearly influenced the psychological symbolism in Mrs. Dalloway. The character Clarissa Dalloway has been associated with Kitty Maxse, whose death in a fall in 1922 Woolf attributed to suicide. Woolf intended to write of the realities of English life: “I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticise the social system and to show it at work, at its most intense.” As is always the case in Virginia Woolf’s fiction, many symbols and meanings can be found in Mrs. Dalloway, but one theme in the book is Clarissa Dalloway’s effort to give her life meaning.
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness Clarissa—who does not regret her almost total lack of education or her lack of productive employment and who has only the gift of party giving—has a sense of completeness. It is easy to see in Virginia Woolf’s background the elements of life portrayed in Mrs. Dalloway. The sexual abuse had to leave her with a jaundiced view of men and heterosexual activity and must have produced feelings much like those described by Septimus. Woolf, unmoved by heterosexuality, found lesbian relations more fulfilling. Just as she was writing Mrs. Dalloway, she was developing a relationship with Vita Sackville-West that seems to have been the most sexually fulfilling of her life. Woolf never escaped the traumas of her childhood, and if, like Clarissa, she knew transcendence, like Septimus, she found it hurt too much to survive. In 1941, Virginia Woolf put a stone in her pocket and walked into the River Ouse to drown. —Fred R. van Hartesveldt Further Reading Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Written by Woolf’s nephew, this book is filled with facts, some probably known only to the family. It should be noted that Bell tends to dismiss the traumas of Woolf’s childhood as of little importance. An important source, but should not be used without consulting the work of Louise DeSalvo (see below). Bloom, Harold, ed. Clarissa Dalloway. New York: Chelsea House, 1990. A collection of critical writings focusing on the character of Clarissa Dalloway. Brings together a variety of critical commentary from seven decades. DeSalvo, Louise. Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. Depends on inference and comparison of Woolf’s comments about her life and prob-
1996
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lems with those of women who have chosen to speak openly of their experience of sexual abuse, but presents a powerful and convincing logic. No student of Woolf or her fiction can reasonably avoid reading this volume. Kelley, Alice van Buren. The Novels of Virginia Woolf: Fact and Vision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. Focuses on Woolf’s recurrent theme of transcendence versus logic as a defining characteristic of personality. Well-written work of criticism provides important insights into Woolf’s understanding of consciousness. Includes a chapter about Mrs. Dalloway. Rosenfeld, Natania. Outsiders Together: Virginia and Leonard Woolf. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. Examines Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s life together and its influence on the writings of both partners. Includes notes and index. Woolf, Virginia. The “Mrs. Dalloway” Reader. Edited by Francine Prose. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2003. Includes the complete text of Mrs. Dalloway as well as the earlier short work Mrs. Dalloway’s Party, copies of journal entries and letters written by Woolf related to Mrs. Dalloway, and essays and commentary on the novel by critics and other authors. _______. Three Guineas. 1938. Reprint (annotated). New York: Harvest Books, 2006. This work, written less than three years before the author’s suicide, is a statement of her views and anger about the mistreatment of women. One of the book’s working titles gives a sense of Woolf’s feelings: “On Being Despised.” Useful for anyone seeking to understand Woolf’s ideas about women and life. See also: Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes.
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Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy
1925-1926
Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy
Locale: Italy Categories: Government and politics; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), founder and leader of the National Fascist Party Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947), king of Italy, r. 1900-1946 Giacomo Matteotti (1885-1924), attorney and Socialist representative in the Italian parliament Summary of Event Italy made slow but notable progress in human rights during the first decades of the twentieth century. Under a constitutional monarchy, Italians shaped a limited parliamentary democracy similar to those of other Western European nations. By the early 1900’s, the working class had won the right to organize and strike. Socialist labor unions vigorously advanced both economic and political goals. A lively, diverse press gave voice to a wide range of political opinion, although the more radical publications were often restrained by government censorship and the moral condemnation of the Roman Catholic Church. Universal male suffrage, enacted in 1913, underscored the nation’s political progress. Women, although denied the vote, acquired important legal and property rights in 1919. The emergence of mass political parties after World War I heralded the prospects for democratic reform. The post-World War I years offered new opportunities to create a more equitable, democratic society. The war also jeopardized Italy’s progress by creating grave economic and political instability. Conservative government leaders, businesspeople, and landowners feared a communist revolution similar to the one that took place in Russia in 1917. Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party compounded the political crisis with its revolutionary program and its violence against political opponents. Mussolini, a former Socialist Party leader and newspaper editor, had founded the Fascist movement immediately after the war. His virulent nationalism, anticommunism, antidemocratic politics, and appeal to violence attracted
a large following of war veterans and political malcontents. Fascist paramilitary units, known as squadristi, carried out “punitive expeditions” against their rivals, primarily the Socialist Party and labor unions. Their brutal assaults and destruction of property, often unopposed by local government authorities, brought the country to the brink of civil war in the early 1920’s. The political crisis in Italy culminated in October, 1922, with the “March on Rome.” Benito Mussolini orchestrated this threat to occupy the nation’s capital with his party’s paramilitary forces. While threatening armed conflict, he negotiated with influential business and political leaders and pressured King Victor Emmanuel III to invite him to form a new government. Mussolini assumed the position of prime minister and organized a coalition cabinet, filling the ministerial posts with members of his own and other conservative parties. Although the Fascists were a minority party, they achieved political dominance in the parliament following the elections of April, 1924. Under a new election law, the party receiving the most votes was given two-thirds of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Mussolini’s new government contended with a large, but divided, parliamentary opposition on the political left—democrats, socialists, and communists. One of his most persistent and outspoken adversaries was Giacomo Matteotti, leader of the reformist Socialist Party and a member of parliament. Matteotti gained a reputation as Mussolini’s most dangerous critic by carefully documenting specific cases of abuse and corruption in the government. His report on the 1924 elections revealed widespread election fraud and violence by the Fascist Party. Despite personal threats from Fascist leaders, including Mussolini, Matteotti continued to denounce the government from his seat in parliament and to collect information about financial improprieties of government officials. Matteotti’s disappearance on June 10 immediately raised allegations of government involvement, and several witnesses later verified his kidnapping by Fascist squadristi. Although Matteotti’s body was not discovered until mid-August, most of the public assumed that his abduction and murder had been sanctioned at the highest level of Fascist Party leadership, perhaps by Mussolini himself. The Matteotti affair provoked a spontaneous outpouring of popular protest against the government. Labor unions organized political strikes and 1997
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Benito Mussolini’s seizure of power in the 1920’s led to a dictatorship that destroyed political freedom in Italy and threatened international peace and stability during the 1930’s.
Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy
Benito Mussolini. (NARA)
public demonstrations. More than one hundred deputies from opposition parties refused to participate in parliamentary proceedings, declaring that Mussolini had lost all moral and political right to govern. The “Aventine Secession”—alluding to similar protests during the ancient Roman Republic—gave the outward appearance of solidarity on the political left. Even leading conservatives, who had previously supported Mussolini’s government, now called for his resignation. The overwhelming protest initially paralyzed Mussolini, belying his reputation as a man of action. He attempted to mollify the political right—the king, influential businesspeople, and senators—by reshuffling his cabinet and replacing Fascist ministers with wellrespected conservatives. This compromising outraged Fascist militants, especially the local party leaders, who demanded a “second wave” of violence to destroy the remnants of political opposition and the pretense of par1998
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 liamentary government. They confronted Musolini and threatened him personally in several heated party meetings. Defiance to his authority within the Fascist Party as well as in the government compelled him to take action. On January 3, 1925, Mussolini made a dramatic speech in the Chamber of Deputies in which he assumed complete responsibility for the violence committed by the Fascists, including the murder of Matteotti. He challenged the members of the parliament to impeach him, and with a threatening overtone he announced that the situation would be “cleared up all along the line” in the following forty-eight hours. This speech marked the beginning of Mussolini’s dictatorship. Within hours, local authorities began closing down the meeting halls of opposition groups and suppressing antigovernment publications. More than one hundred political dissidents were arrested. The squadristi unleashed a “second wave” of violence, destroying opposition presses and using intimidation and physical assaults to silence protest. The antiFascist opposition, contentious, divided, and unable to agree on a course of action, offered little effective resistance to Mussolini’s seizure of power. Mussolini’s personal dictatorship gradually took shape over the next two years. He established his authoritarian rule through rigorous enforcement of existing laws, new restrictive legislation, and special executive decrees. After several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Mussolini in 1925 and 1926, the government passed a series of “exceptional decrees” that formally outlawed all political parties, banned anti-Fascist organizations and publications, and canceled all passports. The participants in the Aventine Secession were stripped of their parliamentary immunity and barred from taking their seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Local elected governments were eliminated and replaced by state-appointed administrators. The exceptional decrees created the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State, a military court that functioned outside the normal judicial process and allowed the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of more than five thousand government opponents. The death penalty, which had been abolished in 1890, was reintroduced. Giovanni Amendola, Piero Gobetti, Antonio Gramsci, and several other prominent anti-Fascists died as a result of street beatings or lengthy prison terms. Hundreds of others fled the country in order to escape the squadristi violence or imprisonment. The government decrees sanctioned the operations of a secret state police, identified by the sinister, but apparently meaningless, acronym OVRA. Under the efficient
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Significance Mussolini’s seizure of power marked a disturbing political development in the modern world. It repudiated more than a century of European progress toward greater political democracy and individual liberty and introduced the term “totalitarian” into modern political vocabulary. Although Mussolini’s regime never achieved the totalitarianism of Adolf Hitler’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, the results of Mussolini’s dictatorial rule proved devastating to a free society. The ban on political parties and elections destroyed democratic politics, the abolition of labor organizations stripped workers of their right to seek economic redress, and the purging of the state bureaucracy and the courts ensured total government acquiescence to Mussolini’s authority. The establishment of the Special Tribunal allowed the regime to bypass regular judicial procedures and arrest, imprison, or exile thousands. Many Italians defied the government by leaving the country on their own accord. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Italy lost some of its most talented citizens to emigration, including the nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi and the renowned orchestral conductor Arturo Toscanini. The elimination of a free press, strict control of the media and education, and the use of secret police to stifle political dissent further eroded individual freedoms. The goal of creating a totalitarian state represented an unprecedented degree of government intrusion into the daily lives of citizens. Even organized sports, recreational programs, youth groups, artistic activities, and professional associations fell under government supervision. Only the conservative institutions that lent timely support to Mussolini in his first years—the military, the monarchy, and the Roman Catholic Church—retained a large degree of autonomy under the Fascist regime. Mussolini’s success in Italy inspired similar “fascist”
movements in several European countries. Each had its own identity, but they all shared an affinity for political violence and an abiding contempt for democracy and individual civil rights. In Germany, the Nazis imitated and refined the methods of the Italian Fascists. Their success brought Adolf Hitler to power in 1933 and marked the beginning of an unparalleled disaster for human rights and international peace. Mussolini’s belligerent foreign policy effectively destabilized international relations at a time when most nations were seeking ways to ensure peace. In the years following World War I, European diplomats had worked diligently to limit armed conflict through the newly founded League of Nations, naval disarmament treaties, and collective security agreements. With his invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, Mussolini challenged the League of Nations and revealed its impotence against military aggression. He defied the Geneva Convention’s ban on poison gas and used it with devastating results against Ethiopian troops. His military assistance to Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War helped destroy democratic government in Spain and install a dictatorial regime that remained in power for more than thirty-five years. Mussolini’s military success in Africa encouraged Hitler’s ambitious plans for German territorial expansion. With the Pact of Steel in 1939, the two men cemented a military alliance that brought on the greatest human catastrophe in modern history, World War II. —Michael F. Hembree Further Reading Bosworth, R. J. B. The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism. New York: Arnold, 1998. Places fascism within the broader context of the social and cultural times in which it developed. Written by an authority on Italy’s history. _______. Mussolini. New York: Arnold, 2002. Lauded as a definitive new biography of the life of the infamous leader. Detailed, exhaustive study includes footnotes and bibliography. Cannistraro, Philip V., ed. Historical Dictionary of Fascist Italy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. The standard reference for individuals, institutions, and events in Italy under Fascist rule. Includes informative entries on the anti-Fascist movement. Features an appendix that contains a complete listing of government ministers who served in the Fascist government. Lyttelton, Adrian. The Seizure of Power in Italy, 19191999
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direction of Arturo Bocchini, the police monitored antigovernment activity and used their authority to place individuals under house arrest or send them into “internal exile” in remote villages or on coastal islands. Mandatory identity cards allowed the police to control personal movement, employment, and access to public services. By 1927, Mussolini’s regime had eliminated most vestiges of political freedom in Italy. Discarding the parliamentary designation of prime minister, he referred to his position as “head of state” and adopted the title Il Duce— the Leader. Through his dictatorship, he sought to fulfill his own maxim: “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy
Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy 1929. 2d ed. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. Brilliant study is one of the best works available in any language on Mussolini’s seizure of power. Focuses on the intricate personal and institutional relationships that brought Mussolini to power and maintained his dictatorship for almost twenty years. Mack Smith, Denis. Mussolini. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. One of the best of several modern biographies available in English. Thoroughly researched from a wide range of archival and secondary sources. The author’s highly critical, even derisive, assessment of Mussolini strips away the mythology of Il Duce and Fascist revolution to reveal a corrupt, unscrupulous, and often inept political leader. Matteotti, Giacomo. The Fascisti Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination. New York: Howard Fertig, 1969. First published clandestinely in 1923, this report documents in detail the terrorism of the squadristi, the complicity of government authorities in the Fascist violence, and the political corruption during Mussolini’s first year in power. This impressive exposé established Matteotti’s reputation as Mussolini’s most dangerous critic and eventually led to his murder by Fascist agents. Salvemini, Gaetano. The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy. New York: Howard Fertig, 1967. First published in 1927 by one of the most important anti-Fascist historians. Weaves pointed commentary with extracts from contemporary documents (some taken from Matteotti’s exposé) to underscore the criminality of the Fascist movement and its leadership.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. The Origins of Fascism in Italy. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Written in 1942 and based on Salvemini’s lectures at Harvard University, this book remained unpublished until after the author’s death. Goes beyond the author’s earlier polemic against the Fascist regime and explores the conditions in Italy that made Fascism possible. Chapter 26 provides a good summary of the political infringements that resulted from the creation of Mussolini’s totalitarian state. Seton-Watson, Christopher. Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1870-1925. London: Methuen, 1967. Although somewhat dated, this remains among the best surveys of modern Italy up to the Fascist period. Traces the triumph of Fascism to the failure of liberalism during the post-World War I political crisis. Includes an annotated bibliography and a helpful listing of the many Italian governments and their cabinet ministers during the years 1871-1925. See also: Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome”; Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis; Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty; Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute; Oct. 11, 1935July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland.
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Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques
1925-1927
Gance’s NAPOLÉON Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques
Locale: France Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Abel Gance (1889-1981), French filmmaker André Debrie (1891-1967), French inventor and manufacturer of film equipment Léonce-Henry Burel (1892-1977), French cameraman Ricciotto Canudo (1879-1923), French journalist and editor Élie Faure (1873-1937), French art critic and historian Jean Epstein (1897-1953), Russian French filmmaker Kevin Brownlow (b. 1938), English film archivist, historian, and film editor Summary of Event By the early 1920’s, Abel Gance had made twenty-three films, including J’Accuse! (1919) and La Roue (1923), and had established himself as France’s most innovative avant-garde filmmaker, particularly in his rapid editing technique and camera movement in the melodrama La Roue. By 1923, he had started the screenplay for his monumental French epic Napoléon, a project that would take four years to complete. Gance completed the script in 1925, originally intending to make six massive films to capture the epic sweep of the life of Emperor Napoleon I. Each film was intended to run about ninety minutes, but in June, 1925, Gance’s major financier for the series withdrew his support. Eventually, Gance found new backers, but they were willing to fund only the first film of the series, which Gance then expanded to include as much of the original project as possible. What Gance produced became a monument of the silent cinema and surely one of the most impressive and innovative biographical features ever made. The completed version, which premiered at the Paris Opera House on April 7, 1927, was epic in scope and length and traced Napoleon’s life from his childhood in Corsica through the turmoil of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and concluded with Napoleon’s Italian campaign and his rise to power. The film was released about the time the new technology of talking pictures came into prominence and fell into obscurity during the
sound period. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of film historian and archivist Kevin Brownlow, who collected whatever materials he could locate, the film was eventually restored during the 1970’s and 1980’s, partly under Gance’s supervision, to a version that ran to nearly six hours. The achievement of the film is partly a matter of technical innovation but is mainly a consequence of Gance’s personal vision of what the cinema might become. Gance’s ideas in this regard were influenced by a number of artists and intellectuals with whom he was associated, particularly the journalist and editor Ricciotto Canudo. Other artists in this circle included the novelist Blaise Cendrars, who would eventually write more than twenty books; the avant-garde filmmaker Jean Epstein, who employed inventive visual techniques; and the art critic and historian Élie Faure, who influenced Gance’s belief in the power of the cinema as a collective and unifying art form that could create “visual symphonies.” Canudo and the others helped to shape Gance’s belief that the primary function of the cinema was to create dazzling spectacles, “cathedrals of light,” that would surprise, stun, and elevate the consciousness of the spectator as no other art form could do. In Napoléon, Gance attempted to put those notions to the test; his challenge was to find technicians who could help him to realize the vision. A key talent who assisted Gance in expanding the horizons of the cinema was the inventor André Debrie, who, over his lifetime, personally patented nearly fifty cinema-related inventions, including the Parvo camera, the Matipo printer, an ultrahigh-speed camera developed during the mid-1920’s, and, perhaps most important for the achievement of Napoléon, the means of interlocking three synchronized cameras to create a panoramic triplescreen projection through the use of three projectors. The approach was both creative and innovative, permitting a cinema spectacle unlike any ever seen before, but it was also complicated and expensive, given that specially equipped theaters were needed to demonstrate the effect. The Gance-Debrie creation was in fact a precursor of what was later called Cinerama, but it represented the invention of a technology that proved to be ahead of its time. Sound was the novelty of choice at the time Gance’s film was released. Most of Gance’s film, apart from location footage shot at Nice, Toulon, and Corsica, was made at the Billancourt Studio outside Paris. Gance recruited an 2001
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Filmmaker Abel Gance revolutionized the epic motion picture and expanded the horizons of world cinema by employing new techniques for his innovative treatment of the French national hero Napoleon Bonaparte.
Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques army of technicians for the project, including seven cameramen, led by Léonce-Henry Burel and Jules Kruger, and six gifted assistant directors: Alexandre Volkoff, Victor Tourjansky, Henry Krauss, Henri Andréani, Marius Nalpas, and Anatole Litvak. According to the French critic Léon Moussinac, Gance’s original ideas “enlarged the resources of cinematography” and the release of Napoléon marked a significant date “in the history of the technological development of the cinema.” Gance’s assistant director Alexandre Volkoff later remembered Gance as being obsessed by the idea of “surpassing himself and all others.” Gance was determined to liberate the camera in ways that had never been tried before with a demonstration of visual pyrotechnics that would astonish the viewer. A sequence concerning the young hero’s time at school experimented with camera movement for subjective effect. Gance, for example, instructed cameraman Jules Kruger to use a camera strapped to his chest, enabling the cameraman to run into the action of a snowball fight in which the young Napoleon marshals his forces to win the day. Kruger also mounted the camera on a sled that could be pushed into the fray. In a later sequence that begins with Napoleon’s escape from Corsica in a small boat, the camera was mounted on the boat to capture the turbulence at sea. In the chase to the sea, it was mounted on horseback. Intercut with Napoleon’s escape at sea are dramatized scenes of turmoil at the Convention Hall in Paris as the revolution takes a violent turn. Here, Gance mounted the camera on a pendulum that could be swung down and over the crowd. The film became famous for its multiplication, manipulation, and orchestration of images. Gance had already experimented effectively with the use of rapid montage for emotional effect in La Roue; in Napoléon, Gance carried this sort of experimentation to new levels of achievement. In places, the editing is so rapid that the effect is nearly subliminal. In addition to using this highly subjective montage technique, Gance experimented with layered, superimposed images, piling one image on top of another with up to sixteen overlays. Gance later remarked in Nelly Kaplan’s documentary film Abel Gance: Yesterday and Tomorrow (1964) that, as no single viewer could sort out all the images of a single, multilayered frame, no two people would “see” exactly the same action when viewing these overlays. Gance also experimented with a split-screen technique that divided the screen into four panels, then into six, then into nine, and superimposed full-frame images over the split screen. Used to show the young Napoleon en2002
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gaged in a pillow fight, the technique created a perfect emblem of boyhood frenzy. The film’s most impressive innovation, however, was its use of the triple-screen effect (in the drastically cut version of the film that was originally released in the United States, this effect was largely lost). The triplescreen projection is sometimes used to create a panoramic effect as Napoleon moves his army into Italy; at other times, three separate images are projected, the center screen carrying the main action and the outside screens framing it with ancillary action. In a final burst of patriotism, the three screens are tinted to present the image of the French tricolor flag over images of Napoleon at the height of his authority. The conclusion of Napoléon has not been surpassed in visual effect by any other film. Significance Few films in the history of cinema have had the impact of Napoléon. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) first served to make the cinema an art form to be taken seriously. Gance’s achievements came a few years after Griffith’s epic landmark and a few years before Sergei Eisenstein’s groundbreaking work in the Soviet Union. Gance’s vision was perhaps even larger than Griffith’s (the two men did meet in the early 1920’s in New York); Gance’s intellectual sophistication surpassed Griffith’s, and his film techniques tended to advance rather than duplicate those of the American master. In the Soviet Union, Eisenstein had studied Gance’s earlier montage techniques, which influenced Eisenstein’s montage work in Strike (1925) and Potemkin (1925). When Napoléon was released in 1927, however, it served to demonstrate as no other film had done the full potential of a thoroughly cinematic spectacle. When it was rediscovered and revived fifty years later, Napoléon still had the power to astonish spectators in London, Paris, Washington, and New York. Cinema historians invariably would mention the film as an important technological landmark, but the original film was eclipsed by the novelty of sound and was unseen for decades. It is surprising, however, that Napoléon, despite its achievements, was destined to lie dormant for more than half a century and become a nearly lost and forgotten masterpiece. This was partly a consequence of economics and popular taste. Gance’s film made demands on audiences because of its length, and it was also costly to mount properly in theaters, which had to be specially equipped to handle its triple-screen spectacle. The film also tended to be overlooked because of the craze for talking pictures.
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tions and financial considerations, the film was compromised, as the Radio City presentation was not to exceed four hours in running time. Among purists, this abridgment of the Coppola version raised questions about exactly whose Napoléon was being shown. Despite Coppola’s shortening of the film, the Radio City premiere was a huge critical and financial success, playing to a packed house of six thousand people. The original screenings set for January 23 through January 25 quickly sold out, and additional performances were scheduled during the following weeks. The initial showing at Radio City was the first premiere of a silent film in New York City in more than fifty years, and it was treated as an unusual, spectacular, and newsworthy event, covered by network television news shows, by Time and Newsweek magazines, and by major newspapers in cities as distant as Toronto and Washington. Napoléon was destined to become the media event of the year. The film then went on a national tour, playing other major American cities from coast to coast. The immediate impact of the film was that other talents imitated its inventions and technology. The ultimate impact was to come some fifty years after its original release, as Napoléon became recognized as the ultimate demonstration of the power and achievement of the silent cinema. —James M. Welsh Further Reading Abel, Richard. The French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Meticulously researched survey of French silent cinema covers Gance’s career through the period and includes a substantial treatment of Napoléon. Brownlow, Kevin. “Napoleon”: Abel Gance’s Classic Film. 1983. Reprint. London: British Film Institute, 2005. Invaluable, definitive treatment of the film, written by the filmmaker and archivist responsible for its later reconstruction and revival, in collaboration with Gance himself. Expands on Brownlow’s earlier published research on the film. _______. The Parade’s Gone By. . . . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. Beautifully produced book on the silent cinema, dedicated to Gance. Offers a substantial chapter on Napoléon based on interviews with Gance and other research culled from French sources; one of the best brief introductions to the film. Brownlow writes from the perspective of an informed enthusiast and collector who went on to become a filmmaker and cinema historian. 2003
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Gance, however, was also a pioneer in developing sound film technology in France. In 1929, he patented his Perspective Sound technique, and he directed the first French talking feature, La Fin du monde (1931). In 1934, he completed a shortened, synchronized sound version of his masterpiece titled Napoléon Bonaparte. In later life, he would return repeatedly to the Napoleon project, reworking its content and its technology. In 1956, he developed an experimental program called “Magirama,” which used sequences from his earlier films. Gance’s Magirama spectacle in Paris paralleled the Cinemascope craze in the United States and was intended to demonstrate the potential of what Gance called “Polyvision.” In his later years, Gance set about remaking Napoléon in collaboration with filmmaker Claude Lelouch. The result of their work was released in 1972 under the title Bonaparte et la révolution and was grandly billed as “the masterpiece of masterpieces, the greatest film of the history of the cinema, four hours and thirty-five minutes in length, forty-five years in the making.” In fact, however, the Gance-Lelouch version is inferior in every way to the original masterpiece of 1927, which was being quietly restored by the British historian, archivist, and filmmaker Kevin Brownlow, who had devoted a lifetime to restoring Napoléon to an approximation of its original length. In 1973, the Brownlow reconstruction, running to nearly five hours, was screened with the triple-screen triptych finale at the American Film Institute Theater in Washington, D.C., but the Brownlow reconstruction was blocked from wider distribution because of the GanceLelouch remake. Six years later, an expanded Brownlow version was screened at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in August of 1979. Gance himself, more than ninety years old and in failing health, flew to Colorado to accept an award for his achievements on August 31. The film was also screened the next year at the London Film Festival of 1980 at the Empire Cinema, accompanied by music arranged by Carl Davis and played by a fortythree-piece orchestra. By that point, it had also been screened at the Pacific Film Archive and at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis. In the United States, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola joined forces with film distributor Robert A. Harris to organize a Napoléon revival at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The film was well presented, accompanied by the sixty-piece American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Carmine Coppola, who composed more than three and a half hours of original music for the premiere on January 23, 1981. Because of union regula-
Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques
Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change
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Gance, Abel. Napoleon. Translated by Moya Hassan, edited by Bambi Ballard. London: Faber, 1990. Presents Gance’s script, started in 1923, painstakingly edited to indicate scenes cut from extant prints of the film. Includes Gance’s comments to spectators written when the film was released in 1927, a list of cast and credits, and an introduction by Kevin Brownlow. King, Norman. Abel Gance: A Politics of Spectacle. London: British Film Institute, 1984. Follows the response of left-wing critics who objected to Napoléon’s alleged “fascistic representation of Bonaparte as restorer of order in the midst of chaos.” Aims “to reinsert the political” into the discussion of Gance’s aesthetic and finds a polarity between “progressive form” and “reactionary content.” Includes filmography. _______. “History and Actuality: Abel Gance’s Napoléon vu par Abel Gance.” In French Film: Texts and Contexts, edited by Susan Hayward and Ginette Vincendeau. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1990. Aptly calls Napoléon a “filmic chanson de geste” and asserts that it is a film “of and for its own time.” Admits that the film is innovative but argues that it is also authoritarian.
Kramer, Steven Philip, and James Michael Welsh. Abel Gance. Boston: Twayne, 1978. First book-length study of Gance’s life and career published in English attempts to place Gance within his cultural context. Includes a chapter on Napoléon as well as a reprint of an interview with Gance. Features chronology, selected bibliography, and filmography. Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. New York: Continuum International, 2002. History of French filmmaking places Gance’s work within its larger social and cultural context. Includes photographs. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis.
1925-1935
Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change During the period 1925-1935, the status of women in traditional Indian society underwent substantial change as a result of specific legislative measures as well as growing social consciousness. Locale: India Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; social issues and reform; human rights; women’s issues Key Figures Ram Mohun Roy (1772-1833), Indian social reformer William Bentinck (1774-1839), governor-general of India, 1833-1835 Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of the Indian nationalist movement and social reformer Summary of Event Before the twentieth century, the status of women in India traditionally had been defined by the patrilineal structure of society. Religion and custom provided the guidelines for restricting women’s rights and prescribing their 2004
conduct. Hindu and Muslim women were equally affected by these factors, although in somewhat different ways. Muslim women were subject to many strictures, the most visible being segregation of female children and adults and the practice of purdah (curtain), which required Muslim women to be veiled when in public. This custom eventually spread to upper-class Hindu women in northern India. Hindu women were governed by the tenets of their religion, which restricted their rights regarding inheritance, possession of property, and divorce, among others. By the nineteenth century, the cruel suppression of women’s fundamental rights was accepted as a norm of society in India rather than a cause for concern. The vast majority of women had no control over their destinies. Women had no choice in selecting their husbands; this was done by their families or their communities, often at birth. Child marriage was widely practiced, and polygamy was prevalent among several groups. Marriages were governed by caste and community restrictions, and
Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change
intercaste marriages were not recognized. A particularly abused custom was that of dowry and its attendant assumption that the bride’s family would pay for a lavish wedding. The birth of several daughters was a financial liability, and female infanticide was not unknown. Many tragic incidents resulted from the inability of some families to meet these often unreasonable expenses. The practices of dowry payment and extravagant weddings drew public attention and protest when the press reported an incident in 1914 in which a young Bengali girl committed suicide. Upon learning that her father had mortgaged his home in order to provide for her dowry, the young woman set fire to herself. The popular indignation aroused by this story led to a short-lived trend of refusing dowries; however, in the absence of specific legislation to outlaw the practice, the custom continued as before. The practice of sati (widow burning) continued in many northern communities despite the 1829 legislation declaring it to be illegal. The condition of widows in society reflected the inhumanity of custom. Even if a widow was allowed to survive her husband’s death, she was treated as a menial in the household and denied adequate food and simple pleasures such as new clothing, ornaments, and entertainment. The practice of shaving off a widow’s hair was part of this denial of life. A widow thus had the choice of literally dying with her spouse or enduring a living death. This was the logical outcome of a system in which the wife’s dependence on her husband was so complete that his death left her no alternative means of survival. Efforts to change this state of affairs intensified during the nineteenth century, when the spirit of social reform gained momentum along with a rise in public consciousness. During this period, the energies of several individuals and organizations were directed toward the improvement of conditions of society in general and the lot of women in particular. Many significant changes occurred during this period, partly as a result of the promotion of social causes by various reform organizations and partly as a result of the passage of specific legislation that made some of the inhumane practices illegal and punishable. The change in public opinion toward women’s rights far outpaced the actual legislation that was passed. The growing involvement of women of all social classes in the freedom struggle also gave impetus to the forces of reform in Indian society. Many of the legislative measures that were proposed failed to pass or were postponed for later consideration, but enough legislation did pass to set a trend in equalizing the status of women with that of men. Even the un-
successful measures reflected a variety and scope that ranged from Viththalbhai Patel’s bill to recognize intercaste marriage (1918) to the civil marriage legislation (1911, 1922) that was eventually passed in modified form in 1923. Monogamy and divorce bills introduced at this time also failed initially, with opposition to reform coming from conservative elements of society. The cause of women’s education had been greatly enhanced by the government’s resolution on educational policy in 1904. Commenting on the lack of encouragement and limited opportunities for educational and professional training of girls, the report cited the noticeably small proportion of females—less than 10 percent of enrollment—in public schools. The pace of change in this area was slow. The percentage of girls attending educational institutions had risen only slightly, from 1.58 percent in 1886 to 2.49 percent in 1901. The founding of Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi and the Women’s University in Poona in 1916 initiated a new phase in the opportunities available to women. A number of other progressive measures contributed to the currents of change. These included a law restricting dowries (1916), the establishment of several children’s homes following the lead taken by the Indian Women’s Association (1923), and the founding of the Birth Control League (1924) to address issues of population control. Equally important was a 1925 measure aimed at curbing the prostitution that flourished under the shelter of Devadasi, the traditional institution of temple service. Muslim women took a decisive step when they decided to abolish purdah by a resolution adopted at the All India Women’s Congress in 1928. Two acts of legislative reform stand out in the decade of change from 1925 to 1935. The first was the Sarda Act of 1929, which tackled the issue of child marriage. It applied equally to all religious and caste groups and expressly forbade the marriage of girls under the age of fourteen and boys under the age of eighteen. Child marriage was made an offense punishable by imprisonment, a substantial fine, or sometimes both. Anyone identified as performing, directing, or in any way encouraging child marriage was subject to severe penalties. This included parents and any male over the age of twenty-one who was a party to the marriage. This represented a tremendous achievement in the struggle for women’s emancipation. The Government of India Act of 1935 was the second measure that resulted in significant gains for Indian women. Several provisions of the act served to extend the political rights of women. A number of seats were al2005
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Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change
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located specifically for women in the federal and provincial assemblies and the Federal Council of State. A total of forty-one seats were set aside in the assemblies of eleven provinces. In addition, nine seats were allocated for women in the Federal Assembly and six seats in the Federal Council of State. These numbers may not appear to be large, but their symbolic value was substantial, as an acknowledgment of women’s right to represent others and to be represented in government. Women could at last participate in the decision-making process themselves rather than rely on the efforts of male legislators. A further gain was achieved through the amendment of qualifications for exercising the franchise. This enabled more than six million women to exercise their political prerogatives.
system over time. Even the “untouchables” could look to the position taken by women as precedent for change. The groups that benefited the most were the educated, the urban dwellers, and the upper classes. The poor, the rural inhabitants, and the uneducated continued to lag behind. The success of the reforms cannot therefore be stated in easily measurable terms. Public attitudes and practices far outweighed the specific acts of legislation that were passed. This explains the persistence of some customs despite statutes declaring them to be illegal, and it also explains why women could play an active role in the freedom struggle despite the presence of traditional barriers. Attitudes varied according to social class and education. While the upper and middle classes pressed ahead with reforms, many of the less advantaged required the inspired leadership of individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi. The seeds had already been sown by earlier reformers such as Ram Mohun Roy, founder of the reformist organization the Brahmo Samaj, and Sir William Bentinck, whose anguish at the practice of customs such as sati set them apart from their contemporaries. The decade of change saw the realization of their efforts. As a result, some Indian women could aspire to be educators, physicians, scientists, and even prime ministers. Women could reasonably aspire to equal rights in society, but an occasional instance of sati was still possible. Social reforms continued to be an important concern. — Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel
Significance The immediate impact of these changes was to free women from the confines of religious codes and traditional custom. Through a process of steady consolidation, some of the objectives of the social reformers of the nineteenth century were finally realized. The decade of change represented one significant phase in an ongoing process of social change. The most valuable gain was a recognition that a new social order could not be established while a large proportion of the population continued to occupy a subordinate status. The value of women as a human resource was being acknowledged by enlightened individuals, both British and Indian. Women themselves, through their organizations and through their active participation in the civil disobedience movement for independence, demonstrated their ability to help their own cause. Women of all social classes and religious persuasions set aside their traditional roles to participate in the freedom struggle alongside men, endured imprisonment, and simultaneously continued to organize themselves to deal with women’s issues. The role of women in the freedom struggle was both a consequence of and an impetus for social change. In order to achieve equality, women had to challenge some of the fundamental assumptions underlying the social order as it had functioned for centuries. The patrilineal structure and caste system had drawn their legitimacy from ascribed status. This created closed groups that were ranked in a specific hierarchy and maintained through rules for permissible marriages. Most of these assumptions were challenged by the reforms relating to the position of women in society, as these reforms introduced the validity of achieved status in a traditional culture. This, in turn, presaged the weakening of the caste 2006
Further Reading Brown, Judith M. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. 2d ed. Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 1994. Astute analysis of the foundations of Indian society is helpful in illuminating the background of social reform. Valuable general source. Forbes, Geraldine. Women in Modern India. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Examines the history of women in India from the nineteenth century to after Indian independence. Shows the effects of changes through the accounts of Indian women. Includes illustrations, bibliographic essay, and index. Majumdar, R. C., ed. Struggle for Freedom. Vol. 11 in The History and Culture of the Indian People. Mumbai, India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1978. One of the most detailed sources available on the history of the freedom struggle from the Indian perspective. Provides comprehensive coverage of social reform in general and women’s issues in particular. An invaluable resource for the specialist as well as the general reader.
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York: Macmillan, 2002. History of India includes coverage of changes in women’s status. Spear, Percival. The Oxford History of Modern India, 1740-1947. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1978. A fully revised and rewritten version of part 3 of the third edition of the Oxford History of India (1958). Concentrates on the process of social change in a modernizing nation. Brilliantly traces the interaction of Western influences and Indian forces as they transformed Indian society. See also: Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact.
1925-1979
Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran The numerous social and economic reforms instituted by the modernizing Pahlavi shahs over a period of more than forty years were imposed at the expense of political freedom and social justice. Locale: Iran Categories: Civil rights and liberties; human rights; social issues and reform; government and politics Key Figures Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-1944), first ruler of the Pahlavi Dynasty in Iran, r. 1926-1941 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919-1980), shah of Iran, r. 1941-1979 John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), president of the United States, 1961-1963 Summary of Event On February 21, 1921, General Reza Khan led a coup d’état in Iran, effectively ending the rule of the Q3j3r Dynasty. By the time of his coronation, in 1926, as the first ruler of the Pahlavi Dynasty, his reform program was well under way. Both Reza Shah Pahlavi (he gave himself the title of shah) and his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who succeeded him in 1941, believed that Iran should become part of the modern world as quickly as possible. Although Reza Shah repeatedly emphasized
the need for Iran to be rid of foreign influence, even rejecting foreign loans, the Pahlavi shahs were convinced that modernization meant Westernization. The challenges of modernization were great. Iran had experienced little economic development before 1925, and the country was on the verge of bankruptcy when Reza Khan ascended to the throne. There was little centralization of services; a small, ineffective army was trying to keep order; the Muslim clergy’s influence was pervasive; and only slightly more than half of the population was educated. The Pahlavi shahs turned Iran around through their policies of nationalism, industrialization, centralization, secularization, and emancipation of women. One of Reza Shah’s first reforms was to establish a centralized bureaucracy. This centralization was further expanded under Mohammad Reza, so that by the mid1970’s, Iran had nineteen ministries with 560,000 civil servants whose authority reached out to all aspects of Iranian life. Until 1920, there was no national army in Iran. To keep internal order and fend off foreign invasion, Reza Shah created a large army equipped with modern weapons. Mohammad Reza was even more obsessed than his father with having a large, well-equipped army. The Iranian army grew from a force of 23,000 in 1920 to 2007
1925
Majumdar, R. C., H. C. Raychaudhuri, and Kalikinkar Datta. An Advanced History of India. London: Macmillan, 1951. One of the best general histories of India, with a level of detail not often found in works of this breadth. Written from the indigenous perspective. Panikkar, K. M. The Foundations of New India. London: Allen & Unwin, 1963. An eminently readable account of the course of modernization in India. Written for the general reader. Philips, C. H., ed. The Evolution of India and Pakistan, 1858 to 1947. Vol. 4 in Select Documents on the History of India and Pakistan. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. A well-chosen collection of source materials relating to the formative period in the history of the modern nations of India and Pakistan. A useful reference source for both specialists and interested general readers. Sarkar, Sumit. Modern India, 1885-1947. 8th ed. New
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Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran 410,000 in 1977. Mohammad Reza built his regime around the army and used the army to suppress opposition to his regime. In order to accomplish his goal of creating a unified state, Reza Shah emphasized the importance of the Persian language. Non-Persian languages were forbidden, and schools and printing presses using other languages were closed. Ethnic differences were to be eradicated through the creation of a genuine Iranian identity (modeled on the West). Consequently, the Iranian parliament (Majles) passed the Uniform Dress Law, which made the wearing of Western clothes compulsory. In 1928, Reza Shah ordered every adult male in Iran, with the exception of the clergy, to wear the rounded, peaked Pahlavi cap. Eight years later, he decreed that all men must replace their Pahlavi caps with European felt hats. This law created great opposition among devout Muslims, who found it impossible to pray with the European-style hats on their heads. When Muslims defied the order, troops were dispatched to make sure they obeyed. Closely related to nationalism were Reza Shah’s policies toward the tribes. He considered nomadic tribes, a key group in rural Iran, to be a serious impediment to the creation of a modern state. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Iran’s nomadic tribes accounted for almost one-fourth of the total population. Tribal leaders were very powerful and posed a threat to the shah’s one-man rule. Consequently, in 1933, Reza Shah embarked on a policy of settling the nomadic tribes in order to bring them under control of the central government. This policy was continued under Mohammad Reza, so that by 1979, the tribal population had dwindled to 1 percent of the total population. Under the policy of forced sedentarization, grazing lands were confiscated, so that tribes were deprived of a means of support, and tribal leaders were often imprisoned and executed. Reza Shah opened up society to Iranian women. Traditionally, women had been confined to the home, married off at an early age, and rarely given an education. Both shahs are credited with increasing women’s opportunities for education, although the benefits of higher education accrued most often to middle- and upper-middleclass urban women. In 1936, Reza Shah banned women’s wearing of the chador (a head-to-foot black cloth covering everything but the face). This law was often implemented mercilessly. Women wearing the chador were not permitted in movie theaters or in public baths, and taxi and bus drivers could be fined for transporting veiled women in their conveyances. After 1935, government officials who re2008
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 fused to bring their wives, unveiled, to office parties could be dismissed from their positions. There were even recorded instances of police forcibly ripping off the chadors of women who defied the order. In 1963, women were permitted to vote and to hold public office, and in 1967 important reforms were made in marriage and divorce law under the Family Protection Law. These changes were violently opposed by the clergy. The reigns of both shahs were weakened and strained by their relations with the Muslim clergy. Both shahs endeavored to break the power of the religious hierarchy, which often resisted their reforms. From the onset, Reza Shah’s policies emphasized creating an Iranian nationalism distinct from Islam. From 1925 to 1928, he replaced sharia (the religious law of Islam) with civil codes modeled on French law. State courts were created, weakening the power of religious courts. The educational system and registration of documents, formerly the province of the clergy, were turned over to secular authorities, depriving many clerics of jobs. General restrictions on religious observance were instituted. Public demonstrations on certain religious holidays were forbidden. Exit visas were denied for those wishing to make religious pilgrimages. The economic strength of the clergy was weakened when the government seized control over the administration of the vaqfs (large religious endowments). When the secular reforms were greeted with violent opposition by the clergy, the shah’s army units did not hesitate to use force. Reza Shah himself once entered the shrine at Qom without removing his boots and personally flogged the mujtahid (religious leader), who had dared to criticize the queen for removing her veil. Mohammad Reza continued the antagonization of religious authorities begun by his father, seizing control of virtually all religious education, cutting subsidies to the clergy, and replacing the Islamic calendar with a royal calendar. The bazaars (clusters of small shops, sometimes numbering in the thousands, in particular sections of urban areas, where merchants, moneylenders, and commodity producers do business) played a crucial role in Iran’s economy, but Mohammad Reza claimed the bazaars were relics of the past and obstacles to modernization. In actuality, he felt threatened by their independence from the state and their close alliance with the religious elements. With the creation of new companies, the proliferation of modern financial institutions, and the invasion of foreign consumer goods sold in modern supermarkets, the monopoly the bazaars had over the economy was gradually weakened.
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Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran
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Bazaar merchants began to speak out against rapid for his regime among the peasants and the working class. modernization, infuriating the shah. He embarked on an Before land reform, less than 1 percent of the total antiprofiteering campaign to scapegoat bazaars for inflapopulation owned close to 60 percent of the land under tion, and the government planned to build a superhighcultivation, and the vast majority of tenants lived at subway right through the Tehran bazaar. To weaken bazaar sistence level. Under the land reform policy, landlords’ wholesalers and retailers further, the government created holdings were cut to a single village. All other holdings state purchasing corporations for such essentials as were to be sold to farmers who were already tilling the wheat, meat, and sugar. Many neighborhood shops were soil. Approximately eight thousand villages, or onereplaced with supermarkets that received cheap bank seventh of the total number, were affected by the recredit. When economic pressures on the bazaars failed to forms. Under later phases, farmers were given leasing eliminate them, the government took more drastic steps. options and agricultural corporations were established to During the antiprofiteering campaign of 1975, forty improve farming methods. thousand shops were closed and more than eighty thousand bazaar shopkeepers were imprisoned or exiled. Significance With the creation of new industries, growth exceeded The Pahlavi shahs’ reforms radically transformed Iran expectations. From 1925 to 1976, Iran’s gross national within a relatively short time from a backward Middle product multiplied seven hundred times, per-capita inEastern outpost into a thriving modern country. Alcome two hundred times, and imports almost one thouthough the oil flowed, bringing great wealth, and statesand times. Although industrial development was imporof-the-art weapons poured in, the impact of too-rapid tant to Iran’s modernization, it often led to exploitation modernization eventually tore Iranian society apart and of workers under both shahs. Under Mohammad Reza, was partially responsible for the revolution in 1979 that the state supported workers’ demands for higher wages overthrew the Pahlavi regime and established an Islamic but kept them from creating independent unions. republic. Workers were allowed to enter only state-created labor The land reform program was a dismal failure. The unions. Savak, an intelligence agency, set up branches in best land in the country was chopped up into inefficient factories to harass workers and suppress strikes, using vismall pieces, and productivity declined. In the end, only olence if necessary. Although Reza Shah pursued a vigorous industrialization policy, his agricultural policy continued traditional practice. Large landlords were allowed to remain in possession of their lands and wealth. By 1941, Reza Shah, who did not have any property before coming to power, possessed 2,670 villages. At the end of his reign, Iran remained basically a semifeudal agricultural system. It fell to Mohammad Reza to break up the traditional landholding system. In 1963, acting under pressure from U.S. president John F. Kennedy, the shah issued an ambitious program of reforms known as the White Revolution. Particularly noteworthy was the land reform program, through which Mohammad Reza hoped to destroy the influence of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (left) with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943. the landlords, improve agricultural (Library of Congress) output, and create a base of support
Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran a small group of peasants benefited from land distribution. Two-thirds of the peasants did not acquire land or received minuscule plots. The majority of the peasants who gained land later lost it because they could not obtain enough credit or because they could not keep up with the rising cost of agricultural production. Peasants were forced to join cooperatives in which they were excluded from making decisions by government bureaucrats who had in fact assumed the role of the former landlords. Richer peasants were soon buying out poorer peasants and creating a new small landlord class. Millions of peasants left the farms and flocked to the cities to become discontented laborers for the new agribusinesses, often living in shantytowns of cheap houses lacking electricity, water, and gas. Although economic growth was impressive, the political apparatus of the state continued to be underdeveloped and unable to serve the needs of a modern society. The drive for modernization lacked a wide base of support and a prominent ideology. The newly emancipated modern middle class demanded political rights and institutions to channel its views. The shahs refused to grant these, and those who were foolish enough to speak out against the shahs’ reforms were brutally suppressed. As alienation to the regime increased, Mohammad Reza began to rely more and more on repression and foreign support. Like his father, Mohammad Reza instituted reforms under a dictatorship backed up by the army and Savak. The shah’s internal policies widened the existing cleavages in society. As some scholars have pointed out, the rapid modernization from above and secularization created two cultures. The upper class and new middle classes became increasingly Westernized and unwilling to understand the traditional and religious values of the peasants and traders in the bazaars. As the pace of social change accelerated and traditional values were frowned upon, the family and ethical values began to disintegrate. The campaign against the religious authorities begun under the first shah intensified during the latter part of his son’s reign. The increasing Westernization and secularization of society, along with suppression of the clerical class and expropriation of clerics’ lands, increased the hostility of this group toward the regime and resulted in its alliance with other alienated groups in society to undermine the shah’s rule. The shah had failed to realize that the majority of Iranians were attached to the Islamic part of Iranian culture. The shahs’ emphasis on nationalism was contradicted by their dependence on Western values and advisers. As more and more of Western culture was imported, Irani2010
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ans became increasingly alienated from their roots. Resentment built against the shahs’ foreign consultants, who took away jobs, caused rents to soar, and often displayed an acute insensitivity to traditional Iranian cultural mores and religious beliefs. Demands on the government intensified. In the end, by resorting to political repression and overly rapid modernization, Mohammad Reza could not deliver the better life he had promised. He succumbed to a revolution headed by Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini and fled Iran in 1979. —Renée Taft Further Reading Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. Analysis of the social bases of politics in Iran focuses on how socioeconomic development gradually transformed the shape of Iranian politics from the late nineteenth century to 1979. Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Provides an excellent chronology of significant events in Iranian history. Chapters deal with the rise of the modern state, constitutional revolution, formation of a modern bureaucratic state, and the Islamic Revolution. Excellent appendix including tables and charts showing Iranian institutions and economic sectors before and after reforms. Banani, Amin. The Modernization of Iran, 1921-1941. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961. Examines the reforms instituted by Reza Shah and evaluates the consequences of Westernization in Iran in general. Based primarily on Persian sources. Cronin, Stephanie, ed. The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society Under Riza Shah, 1921-1941. New York: Routledge, 2003. Collection of essays by various scholars reflects the recent revival of interest in the years of Pahlavi rule in Iran. Includes illustrations. Keddie, Nikki R. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Updated and revised version of Roots of Revolution (1981) provides an in-depth study of the tensions in Iran between the secularized middle and upper classes and the religiously oriented bazaar class as well as coverage of the aftermath of the revolution. Includes illustrations, select bibliography, and index. Lenczowski, George, ed. Iran Under the Pahlavis. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1978. Compilation of articles by a team of international scholars describes and evaluates the changes that occurred in Iran
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issues such as land reform, education, the role of women, and modernization. See also: Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907: Persia Adopts a Constitution; May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement.
January 1, 1925
Bell Labs Is Formed The American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s consolidation of the research and development arms of its telephone companies created one of the world’s most important and successful industrial laboratories. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Organizations and institutions; science and technology Key Figures Theodore Newton Vail (1845-1920), American businessman John J. Carty (1861-1932), American electrical engineer Harold D. Arnold (1883-1933), American physicist Frank B. Jewett (1879-1949), American engineer and first president of Bell Labs Edward B. Craft (1881-1929), American engineer Summary of Event The Bell Telephone Company, which was established in July, 1877, was formed around Alexander Graham Bell’s valuable patents and was intended to finance his experiments. The company’s emphasis on research and development began as soon as the first spoken words were transmitted along a wire. It was clear that telephone transmission could be significantly improved and would have to be improved if it was to become a commercial proposition. The large number of inventors who entered the field of telephonic communication brought instant competition. The industry was dependent on technological innovation. The telephone business was soon divided between local operating companies and companies that manufactured equipment. The latter usually had the facilities to experiment and test. The first individual to be given the right to make telephones was Charles Williams, in whose machine shop Bell had constructed his first experimental
telephones with the assistance of Thomas A. Watson, who was a machinist employed by Williams. As demand for telephones grew, Bell Telephone looked for a larger and better-organized manufacturing arm to replace the several individual manufacturers licensed to make telephones. It approached the Western Electric Manufacturing Company of Chicago, which was formed in 1872 as a manufacturer of telegraphs and had become a major supplier of telephones to competing companies. In 1881, the Bell company bought controlling interest in Western Electric, creating a partnership that was to last for much of the twentieth century. Bell operated the service, and Western Electric made the equipment. By 1900, Western Electric was carrying out much of the technical development of telephone service. It had departments that carried out testing and tried to solve problems that arose in operations. It had a department devoted to designing new equipment and improving old machines. This still did not constitute industrial research, as defined by pioneers such as General Electric and the Du Pont companies, which set out to investigate new technologies in the hope of finding new products. The forces that pushed the telephone companies into industrial research were primarily competitive. Although telecommunications is a natural monopoly—that is, service provision is most efficient when there is only one system—there was no hope of this happening in the United States until one system was so technically superior to all the others that it dominated communications. When Bell’s central patents began to expire after the turn of the century, competitors entered the telephone business. The strategy adopted to overcome the independent companies was for the Bell organization to dominate the long-distance telephone networks. This goal could be achieved only through a massive influx of capital and the development of a new technology of amplifying and switching telephone messages. 2011
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after the Pahlavi Dynasty came to power. The authors are generally favorable to the shahs and conclude that the Pahlavis brought a real revolution. Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mission for My Country. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961. Autobiography includes the shah’s life story and discussion of Iran’s social and political problems as well as his views on various
Bell Labs Is Formed
Bell Labs Is Formed American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) was the vehicle for this grand plan. It began as a subsidiary of the original Bell company, but in 1889 the latter transferred all of its assets to AT&T to provide a better base to raise capital. With the support of financier J. P. Morgan, AT&T pursued the policies of experimenting to improve service while buying out independent telephone companies. Theodore Newton Vail was made president of the company in 1907. He energetically pursued the twin goals of universal service and a coast-to-coast telephone network. Vail was committed to research and development, and his tenure as president marked a significant increase in the resources devoted to industrial research. AT&T had its own research organization, the Engineering Department, which looked into problems connected with telephone transmission, such as sound quality and interference from power lines. Western Electric’s Engineering Department was charged with improving the equipment used in the telephone system. Vail consolidated many of these functions at one large Western Electric laboratory in New York City. He placed the facility under the command of chief engineer John J. Carty, whose major task was to find a method of extending the distance of telephone communications. The Western Electric Engineering Department was provided with the scientists and funds to develop a transcontinental telephone system in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which was scheduled for 1914. After examining magnetic and electromagnetic devices, the Western Electric laboratory decided to investigate the potential of the newly invented vacuum tube as a means of amplifying telephone messages. AT&T had purchased the rights to Lee de Forest’s “audion” vacuum tube, which was the basis of the experiments. A team of about twenty-five researchers, under the direction of physicist Harold D. Arnold, produced a vastly improved “triode” vacuum tube, which was responsible for the success of the transcontinental telephone service introduced in January, 1915. This work put AT&T on the leading edge of electronic technology and gave it a dominant position in the later exploitation of the many uses of vacuum tubes, including radio receivers and control devices. On the eve of World War I, the Western Electric Engineering Department was one of the largest industrial research organizations in the world. It had a staff of more than one hundred formally trained scientists and engineers. Its policy of recruiting graduates from the leading universities and technical institutes brought it some of the finest young minds in the country. This policy also represented an investment in basic scientific knowledge 2012
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that was to pay dividends in the years to come. In 1925, AT&T consolidated its research activities through an amalgamation of Western Electric’s and AT&T’s engineering departments into Bell Telephone Laboratories, commonly known as Bell Labs. Frank B. Jewett, who had worked for Carty on the transcontinental telephone project, was made president of the laboratories. As the name implies, Bell Labs was never concentrated in one place but consisted of several research laboratories working in different parts of the country. Significance The creation of Bell Labs did not change the research activities undertaken by its two parts, nor did it change the location or function of its principal personnel. The research teams stayed in the same laboratories and continued with the projects assigned to them. Several elements of AT&T’s Development and Research Laboratory were not incorporated into Bell Labs until the 1930’s. AT&T and Western Electric shared ownership of the new organization. What the founding of 1925 achieved was a consolidation of research and development, making it more responsive to corporate control. Formation of a single research entity also provided a greater public profile to this activity. AT&T exploited this profile in advertising and public relations; Bell Labs was soon known around the world as the epitome of industrial research. More than any other laboratory, Bell Labs represented the application of pure science to commercial ends. Every triumph of innovation and Nobel Prize awarded to a researcher served to underline the importance of basic research to the business community. Bell Labs did not confine its attention to telephone service; it also exploited technological opportunities in other areas. In 1925, it introduced a system of electrical recording of sounds, a technology that was successfully diffused to record companies and to motion-picture studios. This proved that the modern industrial laboratory was a means to develop entirely new products and create new industries. Bell Labs had undertaken a study of the characteristics of human speech to provide a basis for its research on telephony. Its scientists needed a method to save sound as part of their recording of experiments. Telephone engineers also needed samples of messages for testing. The existing system of sound recording was the acoustical method invented by Thomas Edison in 1877, the phonograph. A team of experimenters under the direction of Joseph Maxfield worked to devise an electrical version of this system, using a microphone invented by another Bell
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was again the work of teams of scientists and the consequence of pathbreaking basic research. John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain had begun their research into semiconductors as part of a larger project to find a better method of amplification that might replace the fragile and expensive vacuum tube. Their invention of the first point-contact transistor in 1947 was the first step in a long process of forming semiconductors into the switches, amplifiers, and receivers later at the heart of most electronic equipment. Bardeen and Brattain were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work, along with William Shockley, who led the team and produced the first junction transistor in 1951. Much of the groundwork for these famous inventions had been done in the 1930’s and early 1940’s. The same could be said for the digital revolution of the 1980’s: Bell Labs was a pioneer in the transformation of electrical information into digital codes. The goal was to increase the carrying capacity of telephone wires and reduce crosstalk between messages along the wires, but the applications spread to many other functions and produced many important new products. The combination of basic scientific research and practical engineering produced technology with wide commercial applications and gave the telephone companies an important competitive edge in a new field. Bell Labs continued to work on the frontiers of scientific knowledge with the goal of improving telephone communications. — Andre Millard Further Reading Bell Telephone Laboratories. Facts About Bell Laboratories. 12th ed. Murray Hill, N.J.: Author, 1982. Brief volume describes the variety of work undertaken by Bell Labs. An essential reference source for any study of the laboratories. Intended for general readers. Bernstein, Jeremy. Three Degrees Above Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984. Brief account by a leading science writer provides a clear and easily understood picture of the work of Bell Labs and describes some of its most important research projects. Brooks, John. Telephone: The First Hundred Years. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Excellent singlevolume history of the telephone provides an introduction to the technological development of telephone systems. Mabon, Prescott C. Mission Communications: The Story of Bell Laboratories. Murray Hill, N.J.: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975. Provides a good overview 2013
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Labs scientist, E. C. Wente, and the amplification units developed by Arnold. Maxfield’s system of electrical recording was successfully demonstrated to representatives of the record and talking machine industry and soon became standard in recording studios. The project had been initiated by Edward B. Craft, who was second in command under Jewett. Craft persuaded the upper management of AT&T that this technology had applications in the motionpicture industry and received permission to develop a system of talking pictures. Another research team was assigned the task of synchronizing the electrical recording machine with a film camera. The results were first shown to the public in 1926. The opening of The Jazz Singer in 1927 marked not only the beginning of the “talkies” but also the entry of the telephone company into the vastly profitable film business. The Western Electric logo seen on numerous old films is a testament to the universal use of this sound recording system. During the 1930’s, Bell Labs undertook a wide range of research in telephone and radio communications, sound recording, electronic switching, amplification, and a host of other subjects. Some of this research had immediate practical applications; some had potential for future use, such as the system of stereo sound recording demonstrated in 1933; and some was basic scientific research with no commercial application, such as the investigation of the conducting properties of certain types of silicon materials. That project was the foundation of the transistor research of the 1940’s. The focus of Bell Labs was widened to cover all aspects of communications. It investigated the possibilities of transmitting images as well as telephone messages, including the transmission of photographs along the wires. It was also one of the first laboratories to experiment with television pictures. This was part of AT&T’s strategy to provide video telephone service, through which customers could see as well as hear one another. During World War II, Bell Labs was devoted to war work, including the development of radar, the pioneer guidance systems for guns and missiles, and synthetic substances to replace strategic materials, such as the rubber substitute polymer microgel. The staff of Bell Labs had grown to about six thousand, all of whom were exempt from military service because of the importance of their contribution to the war effort. In 1941, the Murray Hill, New Jersey, facility was opened; this would become the headquarters of Bell Laboratories. The postwar years saw Bell Labs’ greatest and most publicized success—the invention of the transistor. This
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First Female Governor in the United States of the work of Bell Labs. Written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Bell Labs, and has a self-congratulatory tone throughout. McMaster, Susan E. The Telecommunications Industry. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. History of the rise of telecommunications in the United States includes discussion of the roles played by AT&T and Bell Labs. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Reich, Leonard S. The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876-1926. 1985. Reprint. New York: Cambridge
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 University Press, 2002. Scholarly and meticulous account of the early research carried out by the telephone companies. Covers the period up to the formation of Bell Labs. Provides an understanding of the motivation and style of industrial research in the communications industry. See also: 1902: Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings; Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry.
January 5, 1925
First Female Governor in the United States With Nellie Tayloe Ross’s inauguration, Wyoming became the first U.S. state to have a female governor. Locale: Wyoming Categories: Government and politics; women’s issues Key Figures Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977), governor of Wyoming, 1925-1927 William Bradford Ross (1873-1924), governor of Wyoming, 1922-1924 Eugene J. Sullivan (fl. early twentieth century), American attorney and politician Summary of Event The unexpected death of Governor William Bradford Ross on October 2, 1924, provided the opportunity for his wife, Nellie Tayloe Ross, to establish her place in the history of Wyoming and the United States. William Ross, a Democrat, had been elected to a four-year term as governor of Wyoming in November, 1922. His victory resulted from a split in the state’s dominant Republican Party between liberals and conservatives. The liberal Republicans decided to support Ross, and thus a Democrat was elected governor of a state where nearly 70 percent of the voters considered themselves to be Republicans. Ross saw himself as a political progressive, but he focused heavily on such traditional Wyoming interests as farm policies and law and order. Although he confronted a solidly Republican state legislature, Ross was a popular governor when he was stricken with appendicitis in late September, 1924. Surgeons removed his appendix, but the surgery brought about a secondary infection that 2014
caused his death on October 2, 1924. Ross’s death came as a shock to Wyoming citizens, who poured out their sympathy to Ross’s widow. It was primarily this sympathy, and the Democratic Party’s wish to take advantage of it, that brought Nellie Tayloe Ross to the nation’s attention. Within days of her husband’s funeral, Nellie Ross was beseeched by state Democratic leaders to consider
Nellie Tayloe Ross. (Library of Congress)
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male suffragists had convinced the tiny legislature that providing rights for women would attract more females to the West.) Ross’s supporters also used the slogan “Beat Texas to It,” a reference to the campaign of Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson, who was expected to win the election for governor in Texas. Ferguson was elected in Texas (she was also campaigning for an office left vacant by her husband’s death), but the inauguration there was scheduled for three weeks later than Wyoming’s. In the last days of the campaign, it was apparent that Ross held the advantage. The Republicans were hurt by Sullivan’s association with big business and by the continuing sympathy for Ross generated by her husband’s death. Many Republicans joined with Democrats in placing newspaper advertisements supporting Ross. On the eve of the election, an editorial in the Wyoming Labor Journal noted that tea parties in the state capitol certainly would be preferable to “Teapot Dome” parties. The results of the election showed Nellie Tayloe Ross winning handily. She reacted to her victory by pointing out that a peculiarly tragic turn of events had made her governor. Ross reiterated that she would never have sought the governor’s office of her own volition. She had taken on the challenge because so many friends had told her that only she could guarantee the attainment of her husband’s legislative programs. Nellie Tayloe Ross served out the remaining two years of William Ross’s term and then was defeated in an attempt to gain reelection. Her two years as governor were undistinguished. She found it nearly impossible to work with the Republican-dominated legislature. During the course of the 1926 campaign, in which Ross did take to the stump, she discovered that the sympathy votes she had had in 1924 were no longer there. Women’s rights advocates complained that while she was governor Ross had shown no interest in advancing their cause, a charge that Ross did not deny. Republicans who had supported her during her first campaign now gave their votes to their own party’s candidate. Her defeat in 1926 did not end Ross’s involvement in politics. The two years in the state capitol had convinced her to become an activist on behalf of the Democratic Party. In 1928, she was vice chair of the Democratic National Convention and seconded the nomination of Alfred Smith for president. In that same year, she moved to Washington, D.C., and directed the national efforts of Democratic women. She was especially prominent in the campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. As a reward for her efforts, Roosevelt appointed her the first female director of the U.S. Mint, a post she held until 1953. 2015
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fulfilling the remainder of her husband’s term. The state’s attorney general had ruled that a new governor would need to be elected at the next scheduled general election, which was less than five weeks away. Although she expressed doubts about her ability to carry out the duties of a governor, Ross made no attempt to stop her nomination by the state Democratic convention on October 14. Nellie Davis Tayloe was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, to parents of considerable wealth and station. She was educated as a kindergarten teacher and taught for a brief time in Omaha, Nebraska, before meeting William Bradford Ross while on a visit to her father’s family in Tennessee. A romance quickly developed, and they were married in Omaha in 1902. The new Mrs. Ross then surrendered her teaching position and moved to Wyoming with her politically ambitious husband. As William Ross’s career moved forward, Nellie Ross devoted herself to rearing three children (a fourth child died at the age of ten months). She once said that until her husband died the thought of a vocation outside the home never entered her mind. What Nellie Ross knew about politics came through years of observing her husband’s political career. She admitted that she was bereft of political experience, but she believed that she had “unconsciously absorbed” knowledge of what it meant to be chief executive of a state government. Nevertheless, Ross was reluctant to test her understanding of politics in the crucible of an election campaign. She chose instead to remain at home during the days prior to the November 4 election. She was confident that the voters of Wyoming would pay tribute to her husband’s memory by electing her. It was left to other Democratic Party leaders to explain that Ross intended to follow the policies initiated by her husband. The Republican nominee, Eugene J. Sullivan, was a New Hampshire-born attorney. He found it very difficult to campaign against a candidate who was in mourning and who refused to leave her house. Sullivan had close ties with major oil companies, and Democrats repeatedly suggested that whereas Ross would continue her husband’s practice of fighting for the “little fellow,” Sullivan would support big business interests. During the three-week campaign, Democrats worked to capitalize on the fact that Wyoming could make history by being the first state to have a female governor. This, they argued, would be in keeping with Wyoming’s reputation for granting political rights to women. In 1869, the first legislature of the Wyoming Territory had given women the right to vote and to hold office. (Two
First Female Governor in the United States
First Female Governor in the United States When her duties permitted, Ross wrote political articles for a variety of women’s magazines and supervised a large tobacco farm she had purchased in Maryland. Although she had much success as a businesswoman and as a government officeholder, Ross never spoke out forcefully for more opportunities for women. Significance The election of Ross, along with that of Ferguson in Texas, created a stir in the nation’s press. Most of the commentary was far from positive. It was widely reported that Ross had achieved election on the basis of sentiment and that she had no political expertise in her own right. There were doubts that Ross or Ferguson would ever carry out anything more constructive than baking a pie or making a bed. A writer for the Consolidated Press Association hoped that Ross would “keep house” for the state by following the “homely virtues of rigid economy, neatness, orderliness, and efficiency.” On the other hand, some observers noted that both women had been freely elected and that this had to mean an improved image for women in politics. Wyoming citizens seemed proud of the fact that the first female governor had been inaugurated in their state; they especially enjoyed the attention Wyoming received in the eastern press. It seemed to confirm that Wyoming really was the “Equality State,” an appellation given to Wyoming as a result of the women’s suffrage bill passed by the territory’s first legislature in 1869. That bill, in fact, gained more favorable interest from feminists across the country than did Ross’s election. The long-range impact of Ross’s election on the course of the women’s rights movement appears to have been negligible. As T. A. Larson notes in his bicentennial history of Wyoming, the state consistently lagged behind even neighboring states in granting opportunities to women. In the 1970’s, the federal government pressured Wyoming to move more swiftly to diminish sexual discrimination. Ross’s election to the governor’s office did not change basic attitudes toward women in maledominated Wyoming. On a national level, there is no way to gauge the effect of Ross’s election. Surely her victory showed that in very special circumstances women could be elected to high office. This may well have encouraged other women to pursue political ambitions. The fact remained, however, that even at the end of the twentieth century it was still considered unusual for a woman to be voted into high political office in the United States. —Ronald K. Huch 2016
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Brown, Dorothy M. Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920s. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Comprehensive study by a professor of history at Georgetown University discusses the wide variety of experience among American women in the 1920’s, including in the areas of church, politics, education, and work. Features endnotes and index. Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1996. Breakthrough book in the study of women’s history in the United States recounts the efforts of women to extend their rights and opportunities and especially to gain the franchise. Includes discussion of the considerable achievement of black women under adverse circumstances and gives some attention to Wyoming’s role in opening the door to female voters while placing this event in perspective. Includes bibliographical summary, notes, and index. Gillmore, Inez Haynes. Angels and Amazons: A Hundred Years of American Women. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1934. A pioneering study, written in a lively style, of the progress of women in the United States from 1833 to 1933. Discusses the struggle for opportunities for women in education, politics, and the workplace, with especially strong coverage of the many organizations formed to advance the cause of women. Perhaps places more importance on Wyoming’s extension of suffrage to females in 1869 than is justified. Includes appendix and index. Gould, Lewis J. Wyoming: A Political History, 18681896. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. Well-researched and well-written account of early politics in Wyoming. Discusses the territorial legislature that startled the country by allowing women to vote and to hold office. Larson, T. A. Wyoming: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. One of the best general histories of Wyoming’s politics and culture available. Puts into perspective Wyoming’s claim to be the “Equality State.” Includes brief but useful discussion of Ross’s election. Marshall, Brenda DeVore, and Molly A. Mayhead, eds. Navigating Boundaries: The Rhetoric of Women Governors. New York: Praeger, 2000. Collection of essays examines how women governors in the United States have used discourse to navigate political boundaries. Chapter 3 is devoted to discussion of Ross.
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See also: June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the
U.S. Congress; 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor.
February 2, 1925
U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail By authorizing the awarding of contracts to private operators for airmail carriage, the Kelly Act and its amendments provided the impetus for development of the airline industry in the United States. Also known as: Air Mail Act; Kelly Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; transportation; trade and commerce; space and aviation Key Figures M. Clyde Kelly (1883-1935), U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania Harry S. New (1858-1937), U.S. postmaster general during Calvin Coolidge’s presidential administration Otto Praeger (1871-1948), second assistant U.S. postmaster general during Woodrow Wilson’s presidential administration Paul Henderson (1884-1951), second assistant U.S. postmaster general during Calvin Coolidge’s presidential administration Summary of Event From the inception of airmail service in the United States in 1918 until the Air Mail Act of 1925, all aspects of the service, including pilots, airplanes, and facilities, were solely the responsibility of the U.S. Post Office Department, in accordance with that agency’s historical support of improvements in the carriage of mail. Even then, the Post Office Department publicly acknowledged that at some point this responsibility should be shifted to the private sector. Postal officials repeatedly stated that the government was not an operating agency and that there never had been any intention on the part of the department to remain in the transportation business. The success of the Post Office Department’s airmail
operation created an environment that made it possible for Congress, responding to a strong recommendation from the Post Office Department, to consider the feasibility of relinquishing operational control of airmail service to private carriers. Congressman M. Clyde Kelly, a Republican from Pennsylvania, became convinced that contract service would provide advantages over continued Post Office Department operation. In late 1924, Kelly introduced legislation that called for private bidding for existing airmail routes then being operated by the department. Kelly’s original legislation, the Air Mail Act of 1925, also known as the Kelly Act, authorized the postmaster general to contract with any individual, firm, or corporation for the carriage of airmail by aircraft between points designated by the postmaster general at a rate not to exceed four-fifths of the postage revenues derived. Kelly included this 80 percent provision as a compromise to offset resistance to what some members of Congress perceived as government subsidization. Following the act’s passage, Paul Henderson, then second assistant U.S. postmaster general, indicated that funds would be made available on July 1, at the beginning of the new fiscal year. He added that only those routes that could be operated without loss to the contractors would be awarded. Bids were advertised in mid-1925, and within three months seventeen bids from ten companies had been received for eight specified routes. Three of the original bidders were removed from consideration because of lack of proof of adequate financial resources. Only five routes were awarded immediately, but by early 1926 the number of awards had risen to twelve. All were feeder routes that linked with the Post Office Department’s own transcontinental route. Ford Air Transport, Henry Ford’s venture into aviation, became the first private carrier to begin operating when it initiated service on the route be2017
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Scheer, Teva J. Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005. Biography places Ross’s political life in the context of her times. Includes bibliography and index.
U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail
U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail tween Detroit and Chicago on February 15, 1926. By mid-June, seven more routes were being flown by the new contract carriers, but it was not until April 21 of the following year that the last of the original twelve route awards was activated. During the first year of contract service, the basis for payment to carriers created recurring operational problems. Because the private operators were paid a percentage of the postal revenues that were derived from the mail they actually carried, the pieces of mail had to be counted individually at each mail bag’s point of origination so that the postage totals could be determined and the correct apportionment of funds made to the operators. The Air Mail Act’s first amendment, made in June, 1926, eliminated this problem by revising the payment rate to a per-pound basis. Even more important, the amendment’s provisions ended the requirement to relate the carriers’ rates of payment to actual postage revenues from mail carried. In essence, Congress no longer required the Post Office Department to guarantee that the service operate on at least a break-even basis. As a result, compensation to private operators could legally exceed postage amounts, and the fledgling industry very quietly began to be subsidized by the government in much the same manner as railroads and steamship lines. The second amendment, in June, 1928, permitted periodic renegotiation of each carrier’s right to operate over its prescribed routes for a period not to exceed ten years. More important, the amendment lowered the airmail postage rate from ten cents per half ounce to five cents per ounce. This rate reduction served to increase significantly not only the total volume of airmail but also the number of users of the service. The primary goal of the Post Office Department in seeking a lower rate was to increase the number of users. The critical first stage of development of commercial air transportation in the United States was now complete. The airline industry had been born and was ready to begin moving out of its infancy. Significance Although the Kelly Act and its two amendments created conditions that enabled commercial air transportation to take hold and develop, it was the Post Office Department that, in 1918, initially set in motion the original attempt at scheduled airmail service, using army pilots and airplanes to fly mail from and to New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Airmail service’s subsequent development was made possible by Post Office Department efforts and congressional support through 2018
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 continuing appropriations. Development of airmail service was in keeping with the department’s philosophy of providing assistance to new modes of transportation that could be expected to improve the nation’s mail service. At a 1926 Senate subcommittee hearing on postal rate changes, Paul Henderson, who had resigned his position as second assistant postmaster general in 1925 to head the newly formed National Air Transport, one of the original group of Kelly Act contract recipients, suggested that as the government had encouraged railroad building and maintenance of the nation’s waterways, it should extend like assistance to aviation. Given this history, it was not surprising that the Post Office Department decided to pioneer the development of airmail service. Otto Praeger, second assistant postmaster general during Woodrow Wilson’s presidential administration, was the guiding force behind the development and growth of the Post Office Department’s airmail service. As airmail routes gradually were expanded under Praeger’s leadership, Congress became interested enough in the benefits and potential that airmail service offered to provide an annual appropriation to support the developing service. Two separate appropriation line items, to support both transcontinental airmail service and expanding night operations, were contained in the Post Office Department’s annual budget in the years 1921 to 1927, averaging a combined annual total of approximately $2.5 million. Although surplus U.S. Army airplanes were made available to the Post Office Department for use in the airmail service, their use was restricted because of virtual obsolescence. Needs of the airmail service began to dictate that aircraft manufacturers, particularly after the Kelly Act’s first amendment, begin concentrating their efforts on developing airplanes that could carry a few passengers in addition to mail. This, too, was in keeping with the expressed view of Postmaster General Harry S. New that the contract carriers should begin emphasizing passenger service in order to improve their financial outlook. Virtually overnight, the Kelly Act created a new industry, that of private airmail operators. Most of the carriers involved in the original twelve route awards, through mergers and acquisitions, eventually formed some of the larger airlines. Colonial Airlines, recipient of Contract Air Mail Route One (CAM 1, New York to Boston), merged with Robertson Aircraft to become the foundation of what would one day be American Airlines. National Air Transport, Varney Air Lines, and Pacific Air Transport eventually joined forces and became
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ing subsidization of the new industry. This ultimately made possible the financing of larger aircraft, which in turn hastened the growth of passenger service. It was during this period that aircraft design and performance technology caught up with the new airlines’ needs, with each seeming to spur the other’s rapid development. Both Congress and the Post Office Department believed that further action, including a reduction in the airmail postage rate, could be expected to increase airmail volume even more rapidly, thereby improving the new industry’s overall financial outlook. Calvin Coolidge’s postmaster general, Harry S. New, already was on record as advocating increased emphasis on passenger service so that marginal operators could become profitable, but this added dimension would require a heavy financial outlay by the private carriers for a new generation of aircraft. The amendment’s changing of payments to a weight basis led to some enterprising activities by some of the carriers. For example, equipment and spare parts, normally shipped by carriers on their own aircraft when space was available and airplanes could take the extra weight, now were mailed to their destinations. The airlines were being paid to carry their own freight. The second amendment did not change the basis for payment, but it did allow for periodic renegotiation of contracted rates and the extension of route authorities for up to ten years. Neither of these provisions was as important to the air carriers as the airmail postage rate reduction. Airmail had become a bargain, and public use of the service grew rapidly, so much so that some carriers were forced to curtail passenger service temporarily to accommodate burgeoning airmail loads. In the first month of operation under the lower rate, airmail volume increased 95 percent. Through 1926 and 1927, the Post Office Department continued the orderly and gradual process of relinquishing its remaining airmail routes, the last of which was flown by the department on September 9, 1927. The purpose of the Kelly Act had been fulfilled. —James D. Matthews Further Reading Christy, J., and L. R. Cook. American Aviation: An Illustrated History. 2d ed. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1994. Offers a panoramic view of the evolution of American aviation. Focuses primarily on the military but contains some interesting material on early airmail service and the beginnings of the airline system. Includes many photographs. 2019
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United Air Lines. Western Air Express, recipient of two of the original twelve routes, eventually merged with Transcontinental Air Transport and Maddux Air Lines to form Transcontinental and Western, the forerunner of Trans World Airlines. Florida Airways Corporation grew into Eastern Airlines, and the beginnings of Northwest Airlines can be traced to Charles Dickenson’s threeplane operation between Minneapolis and Chicago. The need for larger and more reliable airplanes stimulated the manufacturing segment of the industry, and it was during this time that first Boeing and later Douglas began to take the lead in aircraft design and manufacture. Within two years after the Kelly Act took effect, a few contract operators were using airplanes capable of carrying two passengers in addition to mail. One year later, three aircraft manufacturers, responding to the increased demand for passenger capacity, were producing trimotor transports capable of carrying eight to ten passengers. The Post Office Department encouraged passenger service growth, the rationale being that more passenger revenue would translate into less subsidization. Compensation for the contract carrier began to increase markedly as more routes were relinquished by the Post Office Department. For fiscal year 1926-1927, Congress appropriated $2 million for the transport of airmail by contract carriers. For the following year, during which there was major divestment of routes by the Post Office Department, the appropriation jumped to $13.3 million, attributable directly to the provision in the Kelly Act’s first amendment that changed the basis of payment to weight rather than number of items and eliminated the requirement of relating compensation payments to actual postage revenues. Annual payments to air carriers continued to increase over the next few years as the public’s use of airmail became more commonplace. This increased use resulted directly from the lower postage rate approved by Congress as part of the Kelly Act’s second amendment in 1928. Together, the two amendments accelerated the developmental pace of the new industry. The Kelly Act’s first amendment provided that airmail compensation payments be set at a rate not to exceed three dollars per pound of airmail for the first one thousand miles and thirty cents per pound for each one hundred miles beyond the first thousand. Given that the weight of mail carried was now the basis for payment, it followed that the private operators would seek larger aircraft in which to carry the anticipated heavier mail loads. The other important provision of the first amendment eliminated the relationship between compensation and postage, allow-
U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail
Ross Founds The New Yorker Johnson, Robert E. Airway One. Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1974. Interesting corporate narrative authored by a member of top management at United Airlines (1929-1972). Includes a fascinating look at United’s developmental years, together with its predecessors that began operating after passage of the Kelly Act. Kane, Robert M. Air Transportation. 14th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2002. Undergraduate textbook provides a section on history that includes excellent coverage of the early airmail days and the Kelly Act’s ramifications. Material on subsequent aviation legislation nicely supplements earlier coverage. Loening, Grover. Takeoff into Greatness. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968. Fascinating autobiography by one of the Wright brothers’ pupils, who established himself as one of the leaders in aircraft design and manufacture during the 1920’s. Includes interesting recollections of early airmail operations, with details, some
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 technical, on the first group of private airmail carriers. Wells, Alexander T., and John G. Wensveen. Air Transportation: A Management Perspective. 5th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2003. Textbook aimed at undergraduates includes a brief but thorough discussion of contract airmail service and the original twelve contract airmail routes. Presents interesting information on the competition in the early 1930’s between Douglas, with its DC-2, and Boeing, with its B-247. See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel; June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic.
February 21, 1925
Ross Founds THE NEW YORKER The New Yorker set standards of style for other literary magazines, helped to advance the careers of many significant American authors, and powerfully affected American literature in the twentieth century. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; literature Key Figures Harold W. Ross (1892-1951), American journalist and editor Jane Grant (1895-1972), American journalist and wife of Harold W. Ross Peter Arno (1904-1968), American cartoonist E. B. White (1899-1985), American essayist James Thurber (1894-1961), American cartoonist and writer Katharine Sergeant White (1892-1977), literary editor and later managing editor of The New Yorker Summary of Event On February 21, 1925, a new magazine of reporting, humor, fiction, and criticism hit the newsstands of New York. Initially unimpressive, The New Yorker seemed destined to be stillborn. Few could have guessed that it would soon attract a large, sophisticated readership, publish the work of some of the most talented authors in the 2020
United States, and significantly influence the nation’s literary standards and tastes. The eventual success of The New Yorker was in large part the result of the work of its founder and first editor, Harold W. Ross. Ross was born in 1892 in Aspen, Colorado, and moved with his parents to Salt Lake City when he was seven years old. After quitting high school to take a job with the Salt Lake City Tribune, Ross worked for newspapers in Sacramento, Atlanta, Panama City, New Orleans, and San Francisco. During World War I, he edited Stars and Stripes, a newspaper published in Paris for American servicemen. After the war ended, Ross successively edited three different magazines in New York City: Home Sector (a stateside version of Stars and Stripes), the house organ of the American Legion, and the humor magazine Judge. In 1920, Ross married journalist Jane Grant, and during the early years of their marriage they frequently discussed ideas for various kinds of new magazines. The publication of Yank Talk, a collection of jokes from Stars and Stripes, had provided the Rosses with twenty-five thousand dollars to invest in a new magazine. Believing that such a venture would require at least fifty thousand dollars, Harold Ross appealed to Raoul Fleischmann, the heir to a yeast and baking fortune whom Ross knew from their mutual association with the
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the article was poorly written, its thesis was rather shocking: New York debutantes went to cabarets to meet men who interested them because the men they met at highsociety functions were boring. Discussed by The New York Times, the article stirred considerable controversy and brought The New Yorker to the attention of the Park Avenue set. By the end of 1925, both the advertising revenues and circulation of the magazine had risen substantially. Although The New Yorker did not earn a profit until 1928, its survival had been assured. Although hundreds of artists, writers, and editors passed through the magazine’s editorial offices during its early years, several individuals played key roles. The artwork, primarily because of the direction of Rea Irvin and the drawings of Peter Arno, was superior to the writing in the magazine. The most important writers to join The New Yorker in its formative period were E. B. White and James Thurber. Through his clear, precise, graceful prose, White helped to establish the style of the magazine, and he wrote two of its major departments, “The Talk of the Town” and “News and Comments.” Thurber’s comic writing and his cartoons (filled with strange dogs, amused seals, frustrated men, and predatory women) set a new standard for magazine humor. As a literary editor and then as managing editor, Katharine Sergeant White did much to promote staff harmony and to produce a well-written magazine. Significance The New Yorker emerged after 1930 as the leading American magazine of literature, humor, and cultural analysis. Its refined, literate style of writing was widely applauded, admired, and imitated. Many prominent American authors and artists furthered their careers through the magazine’s pages. The New Yorker elevated the character of American humor, developed a new approach to magazine biography, and followed high standards of investigative reporting. The style of The New Yorker was especially evident in its compelling short stories and beautifully polished essays. In all these ways, the magazine significantly influenced American journalism. The New Yorker owed its success primarily to Harold Ross’s outstanding editorial ability and leadership. Ross did not seem to possess either the background or the personality needed to create or direct an urbane, witty, sophisticated literary magazine intended for New York’s upper crust. Lacking formal education, ignorant about many important facts, an explosive man who frequently lost his temper and used profanity, Ross was arrogant, aloof, tactless, and rude. Moreover, he could not write 2021
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so-called Algonquin Round Table, a group of prominent New York literati. Arguing that the older humor magazines attempted to reach too broad an audience, Ross proposed to create a magazine for a sophisticated and educated urban elite, primarily in New York City. Looking for a creative outlet, Fleischmann agreed to help finance the project, an investment that by 1928 grew to more than half a million dollars. Ross’s prospectus explained that the magazine would be “a reflection in word and picture of metropolitan life” that would not appeal to “the old lady in Dubuque.” To be characterized by “wit and satire,” The New Yorker would be “entertaining and informative.” The magazine would cover contemporary events, people of interest, amusements, and arts. It would include reviews of books, films, and plays, prose and verse, editorials, caricatures, sketches, cartoons, and humorous drawings. Ross planned to employ the best features of earlier “smart” magazines such as Smart Set and Vanity Fair and of the humor weeklies, but he resolved to avoid their weaknesses, such as stale jokes and dreary visual formats. Although this prospectus was an accurate description of what The New Yorker would soon become, the issues produced during the first year were not of high quality. Fifteen thousand readers paid fifteen cents per copy to read the original issue, which appeared on February 21, 1925. Its thirty-six pages included six pages of ads; two pages of short news items about life in New York; brief analyses of music, books, and films; a profile of an opera impresario; sketches; satirical drawings; and cartoons. By April of 1925, the magazine’s circulation had dropped to eight thousand an issue, and the enterprise was losing eight thousand dollars a week. Some ridiculed the magazine; most simply ignored it. Contrary to Ross’s expectations, his friends from the Algonquin Round Table initially provided little material, and Ross, who could not write original copy, struggled to attract publishable work and to develop a winning formula. He scoured the city for talent, placing notices on bulletin boards, examining other publications, and calling everyone he knew. In May, Ross, Fleischmann, and two advisers met at the Princeton Club. Discouraged by the magazine’s lack of success and his financial losses, Fleischmann almost decided to pull the plug on the venture, but at the last moment he relented. By the fall of 1925, advertising revenues had increased slightly, but the magazine’s existence was still precarious. An article titled “Why We Go to Cabarets,” by Ellin Mackay, appeared in the November 28, 1925, issue and helped The New Yorker turn the corner. Although
Ross Founds The New Yorker
Ross Founds The New Yorker
Thurber on Ross In his memoir about his years working with Harold W. Ross at The New Yorker, James Thurber discusses the editor’s famous concern for accuracy: The carelessness and confusion of the first two years . . . are undoubtedly responsible for Ross’s later intense dedication to precision, order, and system. He studied the New York Telephone Company’s system of verifying names and numbers in its directories, and used to say that, despite the company’s careful checking, it had never got out a phone book with fewer than three mistakes. He found out about the Saturday Evening Post’s checking department, which he said consisted of seven women who checked in turn every fact, name, and date. He must have set up a dozen different systems, during my years with him, for keeping track of manuscripts and verifying facts. If the slightest thing went wrong, he would bawl, “The system’s fallen down!” He lived always in the wistful hope of getting out a magazine each week without a single mistake. His checking department became famous, in the trade, for a precision that sometimes leaned over backward. A checker once said to me, “If you mention the Empire State Building in a Talk piece, Ross isn’t satisfied it’s still there until we call up and verify it.” When Robert Coates, in a book review, said that [William] Faulkner sometimes seemed to write about the woodland of Weir instead of the American South, checkers ransacked postal guides, maps, and other sources looking for the Weir that existed only in the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Source: James Thurber, The Years with Ross (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959).
copy, but he shaped the character of The New Yorker, established its basic policies and principles, assembled a talented team of writers, artists, and contributors, guided the magazine through its formative years, and meticulously edited it for twenty-seven years. Ross also continually experimented with the magazine’s format until he found the best blend of layout, fiction, commentary, reviews, and art. The centerpiece of the magazine became its regular departments, especially “Goings on About Town,” a thorough guide to the city’s sports, films, shows, concerts, museums, and nightclubs; “On and Off the Avenue,” a shopper’s guide; and “The Talk of the Town,” a collection of narratives, anecdotes, essays, and quips. Profiles also became an important aspect of The New Yorker. Over the years, these biographical sketches of industrial leaders, writers, actors, politicians, and other interesting personalities featured people 2022
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 as diverse as Nicholas Murray Butler, W. C. Fields, Henry R. Luce, Cecil B. DeMille, Jimmy Walker, and Carl Sandburg. Another of Ross’s contributions was his recognition that the best way to attract advertising dollars was to have a well-defined audience that could be easily targeted. The New Yorker gained large revenues from advertising and pioneered in advertising craftsmanship. The magazine’s advertisements have often been read with as much care and pleasure as have its commentaries and articles. In addition, Ross’s painstaking editorial method helped to produce The New Yorker’s lucid, suave, informative, and humorous prose style. He meticulously edited all the contents of each issue, demanding factual accuracy and complete clarity. Ross’s passion for precision led him to organize a checking system that closely examined all facts printed in the magazine. Often his notes, complaints, questions, and directions were as long as the printer’s galleys themselves. William Shawn, Ross’s successor, who served as editor of the magazine from 1952 until 1987, has written that Ross’s editorial queries “influenced writers and other editors, set technical and literary standards, established a canon of taste, and laid the basis for a tradition of good writing.” Ross’s editorial style was somewhat overbearing, but he knew how to sift wheat from chaff, and he was willing to give way when he knew that others were better informed than he was. Many of the best American writers, humorists, and artists have worked for The New Yorker since its founding. Among the literary greats who have written for the publication are Sherwood Anderson, James Baldwin, Rachel Carson, John Cheever, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Lewis Mumford, Irwin Shaw, John Updike, Rebecca West, and Edmund Wilson. Truman Capote, John O’Hara, and J. D. Salinger each had more than one hundred pieces published in the magazine. By the 1930’s, most of the leading humorists in the United States were contributing to The New Yorker, including Ring Lardner, Robert Benchley, Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker, Frank Sullivan, Clarence Day, and H. L. Mencken. The magazine also originated the one-line cartoon. Drawn by such artists as Gardner Rea, Gluyas Williams, Helen Hokinson, Whitey Darrow, Jr., and Charles Addams, these witty cartoons focused on business, the sexes, politics, and the pretensions of the upper middle class.
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Further Reading Bryan, J., III. Merry Gentlemen (and One Lady). New York: Atheneum, 1985. Memoir presents humorous profiles of fourteen writers who were connected in one way or another with the Algonquin Round Table and with The New Yorker in its early years. Among those profiled are Robert Benchley, Finis Farr, Dorothy Parker, and S. J. Perelman. Douglas, George H. The Smart Magazines. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1991. Analysis of various magazines of literature, culture, and humor, including Vanity Fair, Smart Set, Life, and Judge. Provides an excellent brief account of the early history of The New Yorker; describes the context in which the magazine arose, matured, and achieved greatness as well as the personality, style, and contribution of its founder. Gill, Brendan. Here at “The New Yorker.” 1975. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997. Illuminating account of the magazine by a writer who had spent almost forty years on its staff at the time this book was first published. Insider’s view of colleagues, artists, and contributors discusses their idiosyncrasies and their attitudes about fame, literature, money, and one another. Filled with funny stories. Compares and contrasts the long-running regimes of the magazine’s two most influential editors, Harold Ross and William Shawn.
Grant, Jane. Ross, “The New Yorker,” and Me. New York: Reynal, 1968. Memoir by Ross’s wife provides more information on New York literati and the flavor of the 1920’s than it does on Ross’s editorship of The New Yorker. Kramer, Dale. Ross and “The New Yorker.” Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1951. One of the best sources of information about Ross’s founding and editing of the magazine. Presents a detailed and at times entertaining account of the history and policies of The New Yorker, filled with amusing anecdotes and interesting facts. Kunkel, Thomas. Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of “The New Yorker.” New York: Random House, 1995. Comprehensive biography of Ross also describes the history of The New Yorker. Includes photographs, selected bibliography, and index. _______, ed. Letters from the Editor: “The New Yorker”’s Harold Ross. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Collection of Ross’s letters reveals his personality while providing information unavailable elsewhere regarding the founding and nurturing of The New Yorker. Includes index. Mahon, Gigi. The Last Days of “The New Yorker.” New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. An account of events leading to the sale of the magazine to S. I. Newhouse in 1985. Concludes that the sale represented the triumph of business interests over editorial integrity. Focuses primarily on events of the 1980’s but includes a brief description of the magazine’s founding and early days. Thurber, James. The Years with Ross. 1959. Reprint. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Personal, highly anecdotal account of Ross’s character and editorial style based on Thurber’s own memory, letters, and contributions from colleagues at The New Yorker. Discusses the tensions and feuds between Ross and his staff. See also: Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
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Since the mid-1930’s, The New Yorker has been, in the words of George H. Douglas, “the quintessential American smart magazine, the one against which, today, all the others are judged.” Skillful editing, careful planning, and graceful writing combined to make The New Yorker instructive, amusing, and entertaining. In 1985, the Fleischmann family, which had owned The New Yorker since its inception, sold it to the Newhouse media empire, but the magazine continued to serve as the nation’s leading arbiter of literary taste. In the early twentyfirst century, American college students are taught to emulate the writing style of The New Yorker; aspiring writers look to it for inspiration. As Douglas notes, the magazine “has enjoyed a long and enviable history and an enduring popularity and mystique that are probably unequaled among American magazines.” —Gary Scott Smith
Ross Founds The New Yorker
Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions
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February 28, 1925
Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions The Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 served a symbolic purpose but proved to be inadequate in regulating political financing in the United States. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history; government and politics Key Figures Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Marcus A. Hanna (1837-1904), American industrial and political leader Boies Penrose (1860-1921), American politician Henry Ford (1863-1947), American industrial leader Truman Handy Newberry (1864-1945), American politician Carl A. Hatch (1889-1963), U.S. senator from New Mexico Summary of Event Political parties are generally credited with making the U.S. democracy work. Democracy entails parties’ competition for an ever-increasing number of offices by selecting candidates and then aiding their campaigns. At no time in the American past, however, has the general electorate been prepared to pay for the privilege of nominally belonging to or voting for a political party. The competition for political offices, however, almost year by year has become more expensive for parties and their candidates. Consequently, combinations of ingenuity and loosely defined corruption persistently marked attempts by parties and politicians to pay for the very party mechanisms that made democracy a viable form of governance. One price paid for this has been widespread public cynicism and periodic public condemnations of party and campaign financing. Until after the Civil War, political candidates usually were men of sufficient means to contribute in one fashion or another to their own and to their party’s struggles at the polls. By the 1930’s, as the “spoils system” began to characterize office seeking, officeholders, whether elected or appointed, were expected to have their salaries “taxed” by party leaders to finance party operations. America’s spectacular leap to world preeminence in industry in the half century after 1865 was marked by the rise of the corporation. Corporate influence quickly penetrated the realm of politics, where it served its interests 2024
by funding candidates and parties. On the local level, men such as New York City politician William Marcy “Boss” Tweed not only looted the treasuries with an entrepreneurial panache entirely their own but also allied themselves with business interests. The phenomenon was national. Pennsylvania’s Boies Penrose, the state’s political boss for years, was famed for encouraging business and corporate leaders to pay the toll for his party’s candidates and elections. Businessmen who did not cooperate faced “sandbag” legislation that would cost them heavily. Inevitably, the crude couplings of politics and business emerged as a factor in congressional and presidential elections. Ohio’s Marcus A. Hanna, a wealthy industrialist in his own right, converted much of the corporate world into a money machine for an always money-hungry Republican Party. His fund-raising in William McKinley’s presidential campaign against William Jennings Bryan was a landmark in American political financing. A few years later, although it ran contrary to his principles, President Theodore Roosevelt was accurately accused of receiving secret corporate funds to aid his election. By way of mitigation, Roosevelt called for the public funding of elections. In 1907, Congress passed the Tillman Act, which had been under consideration since 1902. The act made it unlawful for corporations or national banks to make political contributions to candidates for any federal office. With Progressive reformism in full flood, Congress enacted the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, requiring every political committee that in two or more states attempted to influence or influenced the results of elections to the House of Representatives to file names of contributors and recipients with the clerk of the House. In 1911, similar legislation was extended to Senate elections, and candidates for all congressional seats were obliged to file financial reports. In addition, limitations were placed on candidates’ spending for House and Senate seats. The scandals tainting the administration of President Warren G. Harding, Teapot Dome prominent among them, encouraged Congress to enact the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 (FCPA). Until passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, the FCPA operated as the country’s basic statute on political financing. Seeking to regulate campaign spending and calling for disclosures of receipts and expenditures by congres-
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Significance Experts commenting on the FCPA have consistently drawn attention to its numerous deficiencies. On its face, the FCPA was a sop to public opinion rather than a serious attempt to reform party and campaign election spending. It was riddled with loopholes and contained no enforcement provisions. It also left reportage of spending by candidates and by parties incomplete and indicative only. Finance reports did not have to be presented publicly, and the act included no mandates for reviewing them for accuracy. Contributions or expenditures in the critical instances of presidential and congressional primary campaigns, as well as spending intended to fuel presidential nominations, did not fall within the act. Excluded by the act as well was money contributed to or spent by political committees whose activities were confined solely to one state and committees that were not literal affiliates of parties. Thus political committees were free to solicit and spend campaign contributions at will. These committees were relatively innocuous during the 1920’s and 1930’s, but after the 1940’s, in the form of political action committees (PACs), they became extremely important, even integral, parts of election financing. The activities of PACs allowed candidates to disavow “knowledge and consent” of committees’ fundraising machinations in their behalf. Candidates evaded spending limitations imposed by the FCPA by having PACs spend for them.
Because of the importance of primary elections, particularly after passage of the Seventeenth Amendment (1913), which called for popular election of U.S. senators, the exclusion of primaries from the FCPA proved to be a major deficiency. In this regard, the defect was attributable not to Congress but to the U.S. Supreme Court. The matter had come to issue in 1921 as the result of an election contest between one of America’s folk heroes and leading industrialists, Henry Ford, and Truman Handy Newberry. Ford lost to Republican Newberry in the general election for U.S. senator in 1918. Newberry proceeded to take his Senate seat. Ford, however, charged Newberry with having exceeded the $10,000 spending limit set by 1911 amendments to the Tillman Act. Initially, Newberry was convicted, but in 1921, on appeal, a divided Supreme Court ruled the primaries were not “elections” as construed by the Tillman Act. The decision obscured Congress’s right to regulate primary nominations and in fact was one of the factors that motivated Congress to enact the FCPA in 1925. Nevertheless, with the Court ruling in mind, Congress shied away from the regulation of primary financing by not requiring accounts either of receipts or of expenditures. In many states, however, a candidate’s victory in the primary was tantamount to election. Not surprisingly, no House or Senate candidate was ever prosecuted for violations of the FCPA, despite, as experts have noted, general knowledge that campaign contributions and expenditures wildly exceeded legal limits. After a special Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections reviewed the campaign finances of two senators-elect in 1927, the men were refused their Senate seats. In one instance, the Senate Committee discovered that proponents of Philadelphia’s Republican political boss, William Vare, in seeking to win a Republican factional fight for nomination to a Senate seat, had spent $785,000, or $760,000 over the legal limit. In the other case, Republican William B. McKinley had expended $500,000 in a primary renomination effort, while his ultimately successful challenger, Republican Frank L. Smith, had spent $450,000 to win. Smith’s democratic opponent, on the other hand, had not exceeded the $25,000 limit. Smith was not prosecuted, but his Democratic opponent was not declared a victor. The Vare and Smith cases were distinguished only in that they revealed the commonplace. Politicians faced rising campaign costs in all quadrants, and their hunger for funds was endless. Veteran political reporters such as Frank R. Kent of the Baltimore Sun recorded that no law effectively regulating campaign fund-raising or expendi2025
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sional candidates, the FCPA also revised existing ceilings on expenditures. Bans on political contributions by national banks and by corporations, a major feature of the 1907 Tillman Act, were also embodied in the new legislation. So, too, were prohibitions against candidates or parties soliciting campaign funds from federal employees. Barring states prescribing lower ceilings, Senate candidates were allowed to spend $10,000 and House candidates $5,000 on their campaigns. Reports on campaign financing were required in addition, and giving or taking money for anyone’s vote was made illegal. Such restrictions were limited to general election campaigns, as congressional power to regulate the fairly new practice of primary elections had not yet been tested in the courts. Few historians, even of the 1920’s, mentioned the 1925 act, for good reason. As campaign costs were rising rapidly at all levels and just as the new medium of radio presented candidates with novel opportunities for campaigning, the costs of running parties and political campaigns had begun to soar. Law and political reality were thus starkly juxtaposed.
Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions
Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions tures “has been enacted through which politicians cannot drive a four-horse team.” Implicit was the belief that such a law never would be enacted. Wealthy contributors along with Prohibition-enriched gangsters such as Al Capone ignored the FCPA. So, too, did special interests such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Methodistbacked Southern Anti-Smith Democrats, in company with hundreds of other cause-oriented groups. Several changes, some observers believed for the better, occurred during the 1930’s and 1940’s. The Supreme Court ruled in January, 1934, in Burroughs and Cannon v. United States, that the FCPA did apply to elections of presidential electors, thereby implicitly acknowledging that federal regulation of the financing of congressional elections was also permissible. To that degree, the Court had overruled its 1927 decision in Newberry v. United States. Furthermore, in 1939, the Clean Politics Act sponsored by New Mexico’s Senator Carl A. Hatch (frequently known as the Hatch Act) amended campaign finance laws with several new restrictions. The Hatch Act barred federal employees from participation in national politics and further prohibited the collection of political contributions from anyone receiving federal (Depression-related) relief funds. Amendments to the Hatch Act in 1940 further barred federal contractors, whether individuals or companies, from contributing to any political committees, including PACs, or to any candidates. In addition, the amended act asserted Congress’s authority over regulation of primary elections of candidates for federal office, limiting financial contributions to federal candidates or political committees to $5,000 per year. A ceiling of $3 million, moreover, was placed over the annual expenditures of political committees operating in two or more states. Well-intentioned law, however, effected little positive change. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, his own political career revealing countless examples of dubious and unlawful campaign financing, described the FCPA, the Hatch Act, and similar legislation as inadequate in scope, obsolete from the outset, and more loophole than law. Only in 1971, with congressional passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act, were serious attempts renewed to rectify the endemic and epidemic illegalities associated with political financing. As experts noted, although money did not invariably win elections, the costs of democracy were high and the morality involved was low. New legislation, however, breeds new means of controverting the spirit of the law, and the growth of soft-money contributions by political groups led to the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform 2026
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act). This act actually did little to stop the resurgence of soft money, given the loophole created for 527 organizations, such as unions, which could continue to raise large sums for issue-oriented advertising by groups technically unconnected to any party or to any candidate’s official campaign. Another reform measure bowed before the logic of expensive and often bitter political contests. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Alexander, Herbert E. Money in Politics. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1972. Clear, authoritative account by a former director of the Citizens’ Research Foundation and executive director of President John F. Kennedy’s committee on campaign costs. Chapter 12 deals with reform efforts. Drew, Elizabeth. Politics and Money. New York: Macmillan, 1983. Briefly and incisively traces the road to corruption paved by political financing. Drawn from the author’s pithy columns on the Washington scene in The New Yorker. Keen, accurate, impressionistic reporting. Gierzynski, Anthony. Money Rules: Financing Elections in America. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000. Provides a brief history of attempts to regulate campaign financing in the United States and discusses the long-term impacts of the failure of lawmakers to establish any real limits on campaign spending. Includes glossary, references, and index. Heard, Alexander. The Costs of Democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960. Classic work provides a reminder of the price Americans pay for political spectacle. Malbin, Michael J., ed. Parties, Interest Groups, and Campaign Finance Laws. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1980. Collection of symposium essays and discussion by many experts in the field of political financing. Updates materials on the FCPA. Valuable source of information on PACs since the 1940’s. Mutch, Robert E. Campaigns, Congress, and Courts. New York: Praeger, 1988. One of the best works in the field; informed and clearly presented. Provides fresh perspectives and reflections not only on the FCPA but also on American experiences with political financing. Smith, Bradley. Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. Argues for repeal of all campaign
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Thayer, George. Who Shakes the Money Tree? New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. A breezy, enjoyable review of American campaign financing practices from 1789 to the early 1970’s. Provides colorful details while maintaining a high standard of accuracy. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike; Aug.-Dec., 1905: Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry; Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era.
Spring, 1925
Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle Wolfgang Pauli significantly advanced the understanding of the structure of the atom by establishing the principle that electrons are elementary particles of the “antisocial” type. Locale: Hamburg, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), Austrian theoretical physicist Pieter Zeeman (1865-1943), Dutch physicist Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951), German theoretical physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish theoretical physicist Johannes Robert Rydberg (1854-1919), Swedish physicist Alfred Landé (1888-1975), German American physicist Edmund C. Stoner (1899-1968), English physicist Summary of Event Niels Bohr’s pioneering quantum model of the atom explained the spectral systems of the hydrogen atom. Logically, physicists, including Bohr, directed their efforts toward extending the theoretical success to more complex atoms. From chemical study, it was concluded that every chemical element corresponds to one type of atom, and all the elements display their chemical properties regularly in the periodic table, beginning with the lightest and simplest: the hydrogen atom. Therefore, one task of atomic physicists of the 1910’s and 1920’s was to explain the periodic table of elements—the orderly array and the increasing complexity of the atoms. Another task
was to explain the phenomena of atomic spectra. Bohr’s quantum postulates were found inadequate for more complex atoms or for atoms in an external force field such as a magnetic field. Between about 1915 and 1925, European physicists searched intently for new principles and guidelines for the construction of atomic models that would consistently account for chemical phenomena: the periodic table, physical phenomena, and spectral data. That these phenomena would come together to reveal the structure of the atom became increasingly clear for a number of scientists, although it also became clear that the phenomena would be difficult to solve. In this regard, Wolfgang Pauli stated that it was the famous Swedish spectroscopist Johannes Robert Rydberg who noticed that the lengths of the periods in the periodic table—2, 8, 18, 32, and so on—can be expressed simply as “two times n squared” if n takes on all integer values. Atomic physicists were fascinated by these integers and incorporated them into their atomic models. When Pauli was beginning his serious study of atomic structure, Bohr had already published his explanation of the periodic table with the Aufbauprinzip, which included two important ideas: The state of an electron in an atom is specified by three quantum numbers (the principal, the angular, and the magnetic), and atomic electrons form “shells” that are filled up and closed with specific numbers of electrons. In a sense, the idea of electron shells and their closing anticipated the Pauli exclusion principle. Bohr was applying a basic axiom without much awareness about it. In doing so, among other things, he left a fundamental physical problem unanswered: why all electrons of an atom in its ground state are not bound in the innermost shell. (A physical princi2027
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finance regulations, asserting that they violate freespeech rights and are in any case doomed to failure. Chapter 2 presents a brief discussion of the history of attempts to regulate campaign financing. Includes bibliography and index. Sorauf, Frank J. Money in American Elections. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown College Division, 1988. Excellent, clearly written work by a political scientist. The approach is historical, with emphasis on the period after the 1960’s. Covers state as well as federal law.
Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle
Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle ple believed to be universally true is that a stable physical system tends to stay in the state of minimum potential energy.) Bohr wrote in his paper, “Going from Neon to Sodium, we must expect that the eleventh electron goes into the third shell.” Pauli, however, was very conscious of the necessity of logic and evidence. He wrote in the margin of Bohr’s paper near the quoted passage: “How do you know this? You only get it from the very spectra you want to explain!” Pauli was on the verge of explaining the difficult spectral phenomena, especially the so-called anomalous Zeeman effect, which was the magnetic splitting of the spectral lines discovered by Pieter Zeeman. Alfred Landé had already succeeded in summarizing the spectroscopic data of the anomalous Zeeman effect into simple laws. His true innovation was the introduction of half integers as quantum numbers to explain the doublet spectra of the alkali metals. Although Pauli generalized Landé’s result to account for the so-called Paschen-Back effect—a special case of the anomalous Zeeman effect discovered by Ernst Back and Friedrich Paschen—Pauli was still very puzzled by the “problem of the closing of the electronic shells.” In order to explain the doublet structure of the alkali spectra, Bohr and others hypothesized that the atomic core had an “angular momentum”—that is, it rotated. Now, after much hard thinking, Pauli realized that he had to eliminate this hypothesis and attribute a new quantum theoretic property to the electron. At that time, he called it a “two-valuedness not describable classically.” This would be the electron’s fourth degree of freedom, requiring a fourth quantum number to specify it. This question of the physical meaning of this “two-valuedness” was answered in 1925 by George Eugene Uhlenbeck and Samuel A. Goudsmit, who realized the idea of the spin of the electron. According to them, the electron has an intrinsic angular momentum that can assume two values that are of the same magnitude but opposite directions. In October, 1924, an English physicist, Edmund C. Stoner, published “The Distribution of Electrons Among Atomic Levels.” Whenever Pauli talked about the history of the exclusion principle, he would state that it was Stoner’s paper that finally helped him to solve the problem of the closing of the electronic shells. Pauli particularly liked to quote an essential remark made by Stoner: “The number of energy levels of a single electron in the alkali metal spectra for a given value of the principle quantum number in an external magnetic field is the same as the number of electrons in the closed shells of the rare gases which corresponds to this principal quantum number.” In the periodic table, the alkali metals are 2028
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Wolfgang Pauli. (The Nobel Foundation)
neighbors of the rare gases. The former are chemically active, whereas the latter are completely inactive. Essentially, Stoner was solving this causal problem: The rare gases have their electron shells closed, whereas each of the alkalis has one electron in an otherwise empty shell; thus this electron is “chemically active.” Finally showing true loyalty to physical phenomena, Pauli made a trip to Tubingen to use the spectroscopic data assembled there. He was obliged to verify some conclusions of the exclusion principle concerning the anomalous Zeeman effect of more complicated atoms. In the spring of 1925, Pauli published the exclusion principle, which can be formulated as follows: The state of every electron in an atom is specified by four quantum numbers; no two or more electrons in an atom can be at the same time in the same state—in other words, they can never assume simultaneously identical sets of the values of the four quantum numbers. The formulation of the exclusion principle was made
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Significance With the foundation of quantum mechanics laid, it was concluded that quantum mechanics implies a statistical (probabilistic or indeterministic) nature for microcosmic configurations and processes. Combining such understanding with the Pauli exclusion principle, Heisenberg, in 1926, pointed out that in comparison with classical physics, quantum mechanics leads to conclusions for particles of the same kind (for example, for electrons, protons, neutrons, or others) that are qualitatively different from conclusions for particles of different kinds (for example, mixed systems of electrons and other particles). In fact, to reflect the fundamental distinction, quantum mechanics needs an independent principle, which can be called the principle of absolute identity. In both classical and quantum physics, particles of the same kind are supposed to be physically indistinguishable, but classical and quantum physics differ in that the principle of absolute identity does not apply to the former. In classical physics, one can always assume that each of the particles of the same kind is given a (nonphysical) sign—a number or a name—and, from then on, these particles are distinguishable by their signs. Quantum particles of the same kind, however, are absolutely indistinguishable from one another; they cannot even be assigned numbers or any other nonphysical signs. Assigning numbers to particles of the same kind is a meaningful act in “classical” physics because the trajectory of every particle is traceable, at least in principle. Assigning numbers to particles of the same kind is a meaningless act in “quantum” physics because particles are not exactly particles; they do not follow trajectories. The numbers assigned to particles at any moment automatically “drop” at any subsequent moment. From this principle, it was easily derived that quantum systems of the same kind of particles are either “symmetrical” or “antisymmetrical.” The antisymmet-
rical particles, called fermions, obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Like electrons, these particles are “antisocial”; they can never stay in the same quantum state described by the same set of quantum numbers. In contrast, the symmetrical particles, called bosons, are “sociable.” In fact, these particles tend to gather in the same quantum state. The behavior of a system of the same fermions is decided by the so-called Fermi-Dirac statistics; the behavior of a system of the same bosons is decided by the so-called Bose-Einstein statistics. After his discovery of the exclusion principle, Pauli was still dissatisfied with its theoretical understanding. In 1940, he succeeded in developing a relativistic quantum theory with which he could prove a necessary connection between spin and statistics: Particles with halfinteger spin must be fermions (or fulfill the exclusion principle); those with integer spin must be bosons. When Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac pioneered in developing “quantum electrodynamics,” he applied the exclusion principle to predict the existence of the positrons. Later, in 1932, Dirac’s prediction was verified by Carl David Anderson, who found positrons, the first particles of antimatter. Because the inside of metals is actually an electron gas, and the inside of the atomic nuclei is an assembly of the fermionic nucleons, the Pauli exclusion principle plays an important role in both solid-state physics and nuclear physics. —Wen-yuan Qian Further Reading Boorse, Henry A., and Lloyd Motz, eds. The World of the Atom. Vol. 2. New York: Basic Books, 1966. Collection of clear and informative essays on the nature of atoms. Chapter 59, “The Exclusion Principle,” includes three parts: the editors’ introductory commentary, Edward U. Condon and J. E. Mack’s paper “An Interpretation of Pauli’s Exclusion Principle” (originally published in 1930), and Pauli’s Nobel lecture. Born, Max. “Quantum Mechanics.” In My Life: Recollections of a Nobel Laureate. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. In the founding of quantum mechanics, Pauli’s contribution was great, but not vital. This chapter describes Pauli’s early, somehow misguided attitude toward the physical interpretation and mathematical formalisms of quantum mechanics. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced 2029
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at the same time other fundamental principles of quantum mechanics were being established: Louis de Broglie’s paper was published in 1925, Werner Heisenberg’s in 1925, and Erwin Schrödinger’s in 1926. In pursuing the structure of the atom, like his mentor Arnold Sommerfeld, Pauli adhered to physical phenomena closely. De Broglie, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger were more fascinated by classic quantum correspondence in terms of mathematical formalism. It is an inexplicable historical irony that they became the true founders of quantum mechanics, whereas Pauli, then a “true” physicist, did not.
Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle
German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge one another with their work. Chapter 17 is devoted to Wolfgang Pauli. Includes glossary and index. Gamow, George. Biography of Physics. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Informative, interesting history of mostly modern physics. Discusses the Pauli exclusion principle as well as the so-called second Pauli principle in the context of Dirac’s developing relativistic quantum mechanics. _______. Matter, Earth, and Sky. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965. Excellent popular science volume explains electron shells and period systems as well as Pauli’s exclusion principle in chapter 13. Gamow, George, and Russell Stannard. The New World of Mr. Tompkins. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Revised and updated (by Stannard) edition of Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, a 1965 volume that combined Gamow’s two classic
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 popular science books, Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland (1940) and Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom (1945). Provides an excellent introduction to many scientific concepts for lay readers, including Pauli’s exclusion principle. Polkinghorne, John. Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Aims to make quantum theory accessible to the general reader. Among the concepts discussed are uncertainty, probabilistic physics, and the exclusion principle. Includes mathematical appendix and index. See also: 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation; Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay.
April, 1925-May, 1927
German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge Using a newly developed echo sounder, the Meteor, a refitted German gunboat, made the first transoceanic crossing with closely spaced soundings, leading to the discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Locale: Southern and equatorial Atlantic Ocean Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geography Key Figures Alfred Merz (1880-1925), German geographer Fritz Haber (1868-1934), German chemist Georg Wüst (1890-1977), German oceanographer and student of Merz Summary of Event The initial purpose of the German Meteor expedition was economic. In 1872, E. Sonstadt reported that the oceans contained a gold concentration of 65 milligrams per metric ton of seawater. The Treaty of Versailles (1919), which ended World War I, required that Germany repay its enormous war debt in gold, and Fritz Haber, a German chemist, proposed that gold extracted from the international seas might solve the problem. The Treaty of Versailles prohibited the German navy from sending ships to foreign ports; however, in 1919, a member of the German admiralty, Captain Nippe, per2030
suaded authorities to allow a German vessel to be outfitted and sent on a major peacetime oceanographic expedition. The Meteor, a class C gunboat, was selected for the study. Alfred Merz, an adviser to the German navy, was named the chief scientist of the Meteor. After Merz’s death, Georg Wüst took over leadership of the oceanographic data and study, which was to take place in the Atlantic Ocean. The Meteor was to be equipped with the newly developed echo sounder, a device used to find the distance and direction of objects under or partially under the water. An echo sounder works by measuring the time it takes a sonic or ultrasonic pulse emitted by the sounder to reach the object below and then return to the sounder. The time intervals and other data are then converted into numerical reference points of distance and direction. The navies of the world use echo sounding to chart the positions of foreign ships and submarines. During peacetime, echo sounders are used to locate sunken ships, find schools of fish, and map the profile of the seafloor. The Meteor expedition marked the first use of echo sounders to map the profile of the deep seafloor. With the exception of the Meteor, no such detailed maps were available before World War II. The profiles aboard the Meteor were closely spaced echo soundings taken by extremely diligent workers, which only made the record-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Significance The Meteor expedition’s discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was a significant event. Unfortunately, this finding was not recognized widely at the time as being enough to support the theory of continental drift. That theory had continued to generate controversy and debate among scientists ever since 1912, the year it was first proposed by the German geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener. Wegener’s theory stated that the earth was once made up of one large ocean and one large landmass. Gradually, this supercontinent split into two parts. Additional separations and “drift” continued to occur across many millions of years, eventually resulting in the seven continents as they have come to be known. As modern science now recognizes, these massive continental “plates” tend to drift apart at divergent boundaries. These boundaries may be seen as the midoceanic ridges such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Such rending of the earth’s crust brings with it great earthquakes and great flows of volcanic materials that, as they pile up in the “cracks,” slowly create ridges.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge Mid-Atlantic Ridge North American Continent
European Continent
Rift
O c ea n i c C r u s t
O ce a ni c C r u s t
Asthenosphere
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a major site of seafloor spreading, where the North American and European plates pull apart.
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floor.) This in turn led to the discovery of the MidAtlantic Ridge. It runs along the north-south axis of the Atlantic and is basically a long, curving zone of mountains, volcanoes, and fractured plateaus. This ridge’s now-familiar herringbone pattern was first suggested in 1935 by Wüst and Theodor Stocks.
ings that much more accurate and detailed. Moreover, a new anchor system had been developed that enabled the ship to anchor in deep waters. On April 26, 1925, the Meteor left for Buenos Aires, Argentina, to start work on the planned sections in the South Atlantic. Actual surveys began on June 3, 1925. Merz was in charge in spite of his illness; however, by the time the vessel arrived at the fifth hydrographic station, his condition had worsened to the point that the captain ordered the ship to return to Buenos Aires so that Merz could receive medical attention. Merz then turned the leadership of the scientific part of the expedition over to the captain. In reviewing the work along the first section, the captain found that the acoustic depth sounder had revealed that much of the bottom had been incorrectly charted. After completing the thirteenth traverse in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, the Meteor sailed for Germany, arriving home on May 29, 1927. In two years, the Meteor had traveled more than 41,943 miles (67,500 kilometers), had collected data at 310 hydrographic stations, had anchored ten times in deep ocean, and had made approximately 70,000 soundings of ocean depths. As a result, the expedition was the first to reveal the true ruggedness of the ocean floor. The significant discovery of the Meteor was that a continuous ridge (the Walvis Ridge) runs in a southwesterly direction from the vicinity of Walvis Bay, southwest Africa. (A ridge is a long, narrow elevation on the sea-
German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge In the 1950’s, a new generation of equipment and instruments was introduced that led to an explosion of data supporting the theory of continental drift, or “plate tectonics,” as it is now called. Continuously recording echo sounders, magnetometers, temperature probes, explosion seismometers, piston corers, dredgers, and deep-sea submersibles were used not only to discover additional evidence to support the theory of continental movement but also to add to the sum of knowledge about deep-sea activity. The Meteor’s discovery was a midpoint during the development of the proposed theory of continental drift in 1912 and the concept of plate tectonics that became widely accepted in 1968. Earth scientists realize now that the positions of landmasses are not fixed. The separation of continental plates has resulted in the formation of new ocean basins, and older segments of the seafloor are being recycled continually in areas where deep-ocean trenches are found. This profound reversal of scientific opinion has been described as a scientific revolution, one in which the Meteor expedition played a pioneering role. —Earl G. Hoover Further Reading Idyll, C. P. Exploring the Ocean World: A History of Oceanography. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1969. Comprehensive overview for high school and college students. Includes photographs, graphs, charts, a chronology of oceanographic developments, and individual chapter bibliographies. Medwin, Herman, et al. Sounds in the Sea: From Ocean Acoustics to Acoustical Oceanography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Textbook aimed at students in oceanography, engineering, and physics
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 describes the tools scientists use to examine the characteristics of physical and biological bodies in the oceans. Menard, H. W. The Ocean of Truth: A Personal History of Global Tectonics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. A volume ideally suited for high school and college readers who would like an overall view of the topic without technical language. Very informative. Pickard, George L. Descriptive Physical Oceanography: An Introduction. 5th ed. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1990. A nontechnical introduction to oceanography for undergraduates in the sciences and advanced high school students who wish to learn something of the aims and achievements of this field of study. Includes bibliography and index. Sears, M., and D. Merriman, eds. Oceanography: The Past. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1980. Collection of papers from the Third International Congress on the History of Oceanography. An excellent reference source for graduate students and researchers, as most chapters include numerous notes and references. Few illustrations. Thurman, Harold V., and Alan P. Trujillo. Introductory Oceanography. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. College-level introductory text is extensively illustrated and provides a very good general survey of the topic. Each chapter concludes with a glossary and references. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift; Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby
April 10, 1925
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald both reflected the glitter of the Roaring Twenties and warned of the potential destructiveness of pursuing the American Dream at any cost. Locale: United States Category: Literature Key Figures F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), American writer Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-1948), American writer and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), American writer Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), American literary editor Summary of Event By the time The Great Gatsby was published on April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald had established himself with a string of impressive moneymaking stories and had gained some attention from critics who pointed to his occasional flashes of literary genius. He had already published the novels This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922), collections of short stories including Flappers and Philosophers (1920) and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), and a play, The Vegetable: Or, From President to Postman (1923). Fitzgerald was successful because he wrote with great gusto about the young post-World War I generation—its bashing of traditional values, its search for wealth, its rebelliousness, and its unorthodox behavior. His stories embodied a high degree of wish fulfillment for readers, pitching them into living vicariously among the smart set of the 1920’s, with their wild parties, sporty automobiles, and pleasure-seeking adventures. Fitzgerald—whether in France, New York, or Hollywood—always used his own personal experiences and observations as the basis for his stories. So it was with The Great Gatsby, which presented fictional versions of his painful social rejections, his thwarted loves, his excesses with drink, and his search for success and money. Moreover, his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, served as the model for the novel’s Daisy Buchanan, a quicksilver beauty representing the unattainable. For The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald drew on the lavish Long Island parties he had attended, populating his story with a mix of intellectuals, frauds, bootleggers, gangsters, madcap flappers, and sad, naïve young men such as
Nick Carraway, the book’s narrator. Carraway retrospectively narrates the events of the summer of 1922 that led up to the death of Jay Gatsby. Visiting his distant cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom, in West Egg, Long Island, New York, Nick learns that the Buchanans are unhappily married and that Tom is unfaithful and having an affair with plump Myrtle Wilson, the wife of a local garage owner. Through a series of dinner parties, lunches, and drinking sprees, Nick becomes acquainted with the mysterious, wealthy Jay Gatsby, who lives on a nearby estate where he throws fabulous parties for speakeasy society. Nick is alternately repelled and fascinated by Gatsby, a thirty-year-old with adolescent romantic dreams, fictitious upper-class parentage to hide the reality of his impoverished farm background, and bad taste in whatever he buys. Nick learns that Gatsby is a self-made man. Years before, a poor Gatsby had fallen hard for the dazzling Daisy before he went overseas to fight in World War I. She, however, spurned him for the arrogant Tom Buchanan, a rich and eligible socialite. Four years later, Gatsby, still pursuing his idealistic love for Daisy, has made a fortune partly from bootlegging liquor, has purchased a garish mansion across the harbor from the Buchanans, and yearns to reclaim his lost love. Because Nick is related to Daisy, Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a tea at Nick’s house for the purpose of staging a reunion between Gatsby and Daisy. The reunion results in the Buchanans’ inviting Gatsby, Nick, and friends to a party at a New York hotel. Events turn ugly when a drunken Tom accuses Gatsby of being a swindler and of trying to steal Daisy. An angry Daisy leaves with Gatsby for the return drive home. During Tom and Nick’s return car trip to West Egg, they stop to investigate a fatal accident and discover that Myrtle Wilson (Tom’s mistress) has been killed by a hitand-run driver in a car similar to one owned by Gatsby. Nick learns later that Daisy, not Gatsby, was driving the car. Gatsby, however, gallantly offers to shoulder the blame. Through the connivance of Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson’s husband becomes convinced that Gatsby is the cause of his wife’s death. A few hours later, an enraged Wilson shoots Gatsby in an act of revenge and then turns 2033
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Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in THE GREAT GATSBY
Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby the gun on himself. Nick arranges for Gatsby’s funeral, but no one comes except for one former guest and Gatsby’s father, who believes his son to have been a great man. At the end, Nick breaks off his friendship with the corrupt Buchanans and returns to the Midwest. The novel’s plot outline sounds like material fit for sensational tabloids and pulp magazines. As scholars and critics have observed, plots were never Fitzgerald’s forte. What elevates The Great Gatsby and makes it memorable is Fitzgerald’s handling of these melodramatic events. At the time the book was published, reactions among critics were generally favorable. Many praised the spare style of the short (fifty-thousand-word) novel. Commentators were especially impressed by Fitzgerald’s compressed details that make scenes blaze with life, his po-
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
etic imagery, his framing of complex characters and universal themes in ironic terms, and his use of a sophisticated first-person narrative. Unhappily, the book’s sales were modest. Only about twenty-four thousand copies were printed, and it was not reprinted by Fitzgerald’s publisher during his lifetime. The reading public seemed put off by the unpleasant characters—each a moral failure—the downbeat ending, and the sophisticated writing techniques so highly praised by critics. Although Fitzgerald made little money from sales of the book, he did earn close to thirty thousand dollars from stage and film rights. One result of the lukewarm popular reception of The Great Gatsby was that Fitzgerald turned to writing profitable short stories and Hollywood scripts. He faced financial crises caused by his family’s expensive living style. Zelda’s increasing mental problems required her institutionalization, and Fitzgerald’s own increasing alcohol problems, self-doubts, declining health, and inability to write a new novel commensurate with the quality of The Great Gatsby made his life a troubled one. Even his good friend Ernest Hemingway took Fitzgerald to task for betraying his craft and writing for easy money. The two had been on intimate terms since The Great Gatsby appeared, with Fitzgerald— then at the top of his powers—championing the fledgling Hemingway. Over the next few years, the two authors counseled each other, but as Hemingway’s star rose and Fitzgerald’s declined, they drifted apart by the 1930’s. Hemingway wanted Fitzgerald to discipline his art and to write simply, but Fitzgerald would not.
F. Scott Fitzgerald with his wife, Zelda, and their daughter, Scottie, in their apartment in Paris in 1925. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Significance The Great Gatsby was the watershed of Fitzgerald’s own rise and decline as a writer. Both his career and his life paralleled America’s fortunes, riding the crest of the prosperity wave of the 1920’s and tailing off during the Depression years of the 1930’s. Fitzgerald died in obscurity in 1940 as a Hollywood hack writer. Fitzgerald’s novels were largely ignored and unread from the 1930’s until the 1950’s. Two factors led to the revival of the novelist’s reputation: renewed interest
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby
Gatsby’s First Appearance In The Great Gatsby, the reader gets a first glimpse of the mysterious title character through the eyes of the novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway: Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone— fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens. I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness. Source: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925).
part of the British vision in T. S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land. Both authors described intense disillusionments, the results of radical changes in the postwar era. The rich, the middle class, and the lower class were equally portrayed as culturally empty, entrapped in sterile, purposeless lives. Both Fitzgerald and Eliot conceived of the world as coming apart because no moral principle was holding it together. In addition, the New Critics scrutinized the novel’s use of color images (especially greens), eye and vision cues, careening speedboats and cars, and the changing seasons. They also paid tribute to the animated phrasing and sentence structures Fitzgerald used to achieve the novel’s rhetorical brilliance and lyric energy. 2035
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in the personal and artistic tragedy of Fitzgerald himself and academic interest in the unique way Fitzgerald structured his art. The interest in Fitzgerald’s life and its excesses began with Edmund Wilson, the author’s longtime confidant. Wilson edited The Crack-Up (1945), a collection of Fitzgerald’s essays, notebooks, and letters revealing the emotional bankruptcy and disillusionments in Fitzgerald’s life. The essays not only detailed the extravagant lifestyle of the Fitzgeralds but also chronicled the devastating effects of the Great Depression on their lives and on his art. Interest in Fitzgerald’s life intensified with the popular success of Budd Schulberg’s The Disenchanted (1950), a fictionalized account of Fitzgerald’s drunken sprees, his fistfights with and insults of friends, and his declining ability to write during his Hollywood years. Arthur Mizener fueled further interest with The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1951). The academic community also helped revive interest in Fitzgerald. The New Criticism, a method of scrutinizing the form and texture of literary works, was in vogue during the 1950’s, and The Great Gatsby was made for such close textual analysis. A spate of academic commentary poured forth, focusing in particular on Fitzgerald’s brilliant handling of the novel’s first-person retrospective point of view. Nick Carraway does not merely narrate the tale; he observes, participates, and evaluates. The narrative structure thus allows Fitzgerald to work simultaneously within and outside the scenes and to be both immersed immediately in and psychologically distanced from the action. Not since Joseph Conrad had an author been able to pull off such a double-vision feat as Fitzgerald did in The Great Gatsby. In addition, the New Critics wrestled with the ambiguities of Nick Carraway as a reliable narrator and the probability of his moral and ethical development. They disagreed in their interpretations of the shadowy character of Gatsby: Was he a tragic, noble figure in the Shakespearean sense? Was he a Christlike martyr, an Antichrist figure, or perhaps a knight-errant seeking the Grail and idealizing his lady? Or was Gatsby just an unlucky racketeer gunned down in a bizarre twist of fate? In addition, the New Critics charted the complex chronology of the novel, with its sudden shifts of past and present, and traced the imagery clusters found in it, such as the ironic contrasts between the stately mansions of Long Island and the nearby valley of ashes where the poor live. A number of critics found the scenes of the valley of ashes in The Great Gatsby to be the American counter-
Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby Later literary criticism focused on Fitzgerald as a social commentator, as the issues and values clashes of the 1920’s depicted in the novel were confronted by succeeding generations pursuing the American Dream. Fitzgerald thus was seen as more than a keen-eyed chronicler of the Roaring Twenties; he became a prophet warning oncoming generations of the terrible price to be paid for pursuing illusive dreams. Aside from being a cultural and historical allegory, the novel presented universal themes of human yearnings. An example is the book’s theme of social class: Fitzgerald shows the careless rich victimizing their lessers because of the empty values of the upper class. The initiation theme shows a naïve Nick Carraway learning that wealth and power do not necessarily beget happiness; the book’s frontier theme implies that the Midwest is morally superior to the corrupt, materialistic East Coast. In essence, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby goes beyond capturing the frantic atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties. It is a novel for all ages. Gertrude Stein, writing, ironically, in the early 1930’s, when Fitzgerald’s reputation was fading, prophesied that “Fitzgerald will be read when many of his well-known contemporaries are forgotten.” Time has proven Stein’s judgment correct. —Richard Whitworth Further Reading Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. 2d rev. ed. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002. Comprehensive, detailed biography covers all of Fitzgerald’s life and career. Includes illustrations, chronology, and index. _______, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”: A Literary Reference. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Companion to the novel provides information on Fitzgerald’s writing process as well as on celebrities, events, crazes, and other aspects of the times in which the book is set to aid contemporary readers’ understanding. Includes a brief biography of Fitzgerald, illustrations, chronology, and index.
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Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Jackson R. Bryer, eds. F. Scott Fitzgerald in His Own Times: A Miscellany. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1971. A delightful potpourri, ranging from early writings of Fitzgerald to his obituary notices. Provides glimpses of his acerbic wit and astute perceptions along with original reviews of The Great Gatsby. Eble, Kenneth E., ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Criticism. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973. Highly readable commentary by critics who share their insights on the craft and art of Fitzgerald. The essays on The Great Gatsby are a must for potential writers. Lehan, Richard. “The Great Gatsby”: The Limits of Wonder. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Useful historical background about Fitzgerald and the novel, including a chronology of Fitzgerald’s life and works. Also provides a series of critical interpretations of the major characters in the novel. Mellow, James R. Invented Lives: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. Presents fascinating details of the Fitzgeralds’ glamorous lives and their stormy relationships with well-known contemporaries. Basic theme is that the Fitzgeralds actually created their own legend, “acting out their stories in real life.” Somewhat moralistic in tone. Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951. Chronicles the rise and fall of F. Scott Fitzgerald as a person and literary artist in dramatic terms. Includes photos of Fitzgerald at various stages of his career and appendixes on his method of revision. See also: Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons; 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco
May-June, 1925
Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco
Locale: Paris, France Categories: Fashion and design; architecture Key Figures Pierre Patout (1879-1965), French architect Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879-1933), French cabinetmaker Louis Süe (1875-1968), French interior designer André Mare (1885-1932), French interior designer Summary of Event Art Deco was a major decorative arts style of the 1920’s that survived in altered forms through the 1930’s and into the early 1940’s. During those decades, it also was called Art Moderne. It was in part a compromised modern style, but its association with the modern style caused much confusion in the reassessments made at the end of the twentieth century. The now nearly universal term “Art Deco” did not appear until the late 1960’s, when a revival of interest in 1920’s and 1930’s interior design and decorative arts occurred. That revival gained tremendous momentum for at least the next twenty years. The term “Art Deco” is derived from the name of an invitational exhibition of decorative and industrial arts that was held in Paris, France, in 1925. The goal of the style was to adapt design to the needs of mass production. Items thus incorporated straight lines instead of curves and symmetry rather than asymmetry, as forms of this type were easier to produce with machines. Art Deco also attempted to incorporate manufactured, rather than natural, materials. The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes occupied the same central Parisian site as the World’s Fair of 1900, a fair that introduced Art Nouveau to an international audience. The area of the Esplanade des Invalides was smaller than the area used twenty-five years earlier, reflecting the 1925 exhibition’s major focus on just the decorative arts. The Grand Palais, immediately adjacent, was serviceable and quickly was transformed for display use. Approximately seventy-five pavilions and other structures graced the grounds. As in past fairs, most were intended to be temporary. Individual pavilions were composed of wood frames covered with plaster, a style similar to the so-called staff architecture of the “White
City” of the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Temporary construction or not, the exterior surfaces of the pliable structures seemed to encourage widespread decorative relief sculpture, often a hallmark of Art Deco design. Otherwise, all the pavilions respected established ordinances for low heights and gardenlike settings, taking care to utilize existing trees. Altogether there were about 130 buildings and thirteen entrances, four of which were major, in addition to a good number of intervening gardens and fountains. Architecturally speaking, the fair buildings ranged from neoclassical constraints to bold cubist experimentations and novelties. Said to be among the best designs were the pavilions of the department stores Au Printemps, Au Bon Marche, Grands Magasins du Louvre, and Galéries Lafayette. Collectively they embodied grandiosity, with faceted planes, rich decorative surfaces, and prominent use of metal and glass. Another structure that has been singled out for the excellence of its design was the Pavilion of a Rich Collector, by architect Pierre Patout. This closely resembled a home Patout had produced for Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, a gifted furniture designer in the Art Deco style. In turn, Ruhlmann and his design team were responsible for most of the interior design and contents of Patout’s pavilion, which was also known as the Ruhlmann Townhouse. Regardless of building styles, the buildings’ interiors received the most attention, as they promoted changes in contemporary lifestyles and sought to showcase the best of the new decorative arts. Redesigned family spaces included living rooms, dining rooms, specialized bedrooms for gentlemen and ladies, libraries, smoking rooms, and studies, in addition to accommodations for live plants and flowers in volume. The decorative appointments for these rooms suggested high ideals, as unrestricted patronage was the rule. That resulted in items of high craftsmanship but occasionally of dubious practicality. For example, furniture was generally sumptuous and surface-oriented, with a preference for rare and imported woods. It was often large or exhibition-oriented, even pompous and overly finished. When less hybrid in style, however, it was civilized, striking, and comfortable. Legs on Art Deco furniture at this fair were often tapered or minimized by a platform for a chair or chaise, adding a sense of importance. Key designers in 1925 included Ruhlmann, André Groult, Pierre Chareau, and partners Louis Süe and André Mare. Lighting in the interiors was more scientific, at least in 2037
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When Paris hosted a large invitational applied arts exhibition seeking the best in contemporary design, designers came to terms with modernism.
Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco theory, than it was at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair. Illumination was more logical than the Tiffany lamps used twenty-five years earlier. Indirect lighting diffused and softened the glow of electric lamps, which had become affordable. Table lamps and chandeliers, however, often incorporated the French passion for exotic materials, forms, and surface treatment. The Paris fair of 1925 was a study in contrasts, contradictions, and crosscurrents. Rising architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) observed that the fair was a turning point away from antiques and handcraft and toward machined solutions, as well as an expression of a keen interest in newness and experimentation. Caught in the middle of this flux was a major ornamental design style, Art Deco. Significance Europe seemed to be more affected by the decorative arts of the 1925 Paris fair than by the fair’s architecture. The exhibition focused almost exclusively on applied art, and almost all the exhibitors were Europeans. Careers were launched immediately for some designers, and the reputations of others were solidified. The furniture design partnership of Süe and Mare, critically successful at the fair, continued in a firm called the French Art Company until it was purchased in the late 1920’s by the Maison Fontaine. The exposure of Süe and Mare’s work at the 1925 exhibition surely helped the partners land major commissions for the luxury-class cabins of the steamship Paris and decorative schemes for the grand salon of the ocean liner Ile de France. The success of Süe and Mare, whose workshop was relatively large, was repeated by smaller design studios, although Art Deco furniture was popularized by aggressive Parisian department stores more than by designers’ showrooms or the annual salons. For example, the Grands Magasins du Louvre produced designs for a wide variety of household items in the Art Deco style without extravagant decoration, manufactured them, and subsequently introduced a large public to an affordable range of Art Deco items. In the fields of art glass and utilitarian glass, René Lalique’s fortunes following the 1925 exhibition are legendary. By 1900, he was the leading Art Nouveau jewelry designer in Europe and could have rested comfortably on that reputation and retired. Instead, he embarked on a serious exploration of both art and production glass and mastered them by the 1925 exhibition. By then, he was well past sixty years of age. Within a few years of the fair, his production had become exceptionally varied. 2038
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 His company was prolific, producing items ranging from ashtrays to clock cases, from decanters to perfume vaporizers. Lalique became the leading Art Deco glass designer of the 1920’s and 1930’s. His firm survived the German occupation of World War II and was perpetuated by a son and grandson. To the examples of Süe and Mare and of Lalique can be added dozens more in the media of metalwork, graphic design, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, painting, and silver. The designers of Art Deco responded to changes in life and society, both of which had become more urban and faster paced. Products reflecting this new life, including automobiles, cigarette cases, cocktail shakers, radios, electric lamps, and posters, were created in Art Deco style. In addition, those items were produced in new ways, often incorporating new materials or experimental combinations of existing ones. Likewise, themes and imagery reflecting a changing society were explored well into the 1930’s in the media of sculpture, glass, painting, and lighting. These themes included flight, the emancipation of women, the machine, modern art movements, non-Western cultures, dance, and jazz. The 1925 Paris fair was influential in introducing Art Deco to a broad public. One wish or dream of the fair organizers, however, was not realized. The 1925 Paris fair showcased both decorative and industrial arts, as the full title of the exhibition stated. Its organizers hoped that artists, designers, manufacturers, and capitalists would collaborate in the design, production, and marketing of domestic items of high design but realistic prices. The hoped-for collaboration saw few projects by the fair’s opening or even after it closed, as manufacturers generally were wary of expensive-sounding proposals of doubtful financial success. Collaboration did occur between designers and teams of designers for complete interiors, both at the fair and elsewhere, but that was a different development. The creation of a more affordable or more popular Art Deco occurred primarily in the United States, with its much larger middle class and its advanced marketing, advertising, and capitalist potential. Thousands of visitors from the United States traveled to the 1925 exhibition. Many may have wanted to visit an American pavilion, but there was none, as President Herbert Hoover had declined the invitation to have the United States represented. Among the throngs of Americans in attendance were members of numerous professional design organizations who provided detailed reports on the pavilions and their contents to their respective design groups back home. These reports translated
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Further Reading Arwas, Victor. Art Deco. Rev. ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998. Introduction to Art Deco in its original
European setting; includes information on sources, major designers, and their seminal works. Devotes a chapter to the 1925 exposition, with special emphasis on pavilions and their contents’ designers. Bouillon, Jean-Paul. Art Deco, 1900-1940. Translated by Michael Heron. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Tracks avant-garde design and ornament from 1900 to the eve of World War II, weaving in a subtheme of sumptuous materials and anthropomorphic decorative motifs versus taut abstract patterns. Includes perceptive commentary on relationships between major art movements and corresponding developments in interior design and decorative art. Duncan, Alastair. American Art Deco. 1986. Reprint. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999. Discusses architecture, interiors, and decorative arts created in the United States by both European immigrants and American-born designers. Stresses two formative international design tendencies: the German-Austrian emphasis on logic, geometry, and function applicable to mass production, and the colorful, ornamental, and playful French tendencies. Hillier, Bevis, and Stephen Escritt. Art Deco Style. London: Phaidon Press, 1997. Opens with a chapter on the 1925 Paris exhibition and then traces manifestations of Art Deco design around the world. Includes many illustrations, brief biographies of notable designers, and bibliography. McClinton, Katherine M. Art Deco: A Guide for Collectors. New York: C. N. Potter, 1972. Important, informative work by a knowledgeable professional who visited the 1925 exposition. Preface and first two chapters offer helpful descriptions of major emblematic features of the style. Morgan, Sarah. Art Deco: The European Style. Greenwich, Conn.: Dorset Press, 1990. A general study aimed at collectors and connoisseurs of the style. Presents a dutiful account of the 1925 Paris exhibition followed by fourteen chapters showcasing major divisions of decorative arts. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis; May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens; May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed.
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into a major impact on architecture and design in the United States for the next fifteen years. Within a year of the 1925 Paris fair, selections from the exhibition toured the United States, being placed on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and at other major sites. Two years later, the fashionable New York City store Lord and Taylor hosted an exhibition of furniture by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Francis Jourdain. Their strain of Art Deco design, combining a respectful classicism with ornamentally elegant surfaces, found favor among Americans as something both old and contemporary. That kind of thinking in turn encouraged the rise of a major architectural style, American Art Deco. The result was a compromised modernism. It was both decorative and functional, new but not shocking, and it appealed to corporate image makers and real estate developers who were somewhat frightened by the international style of modernism. The 1925 Paris exhibition’s most noticeable impact on the United States took the form of Art Deco architecture. The movement was primarily surface-oriented, with design motifs or relief sculpture at the cresting and at the bases of buildings and their lobbies. New York City saw the construction of the largest number of Art Deco buildings in a single urban space, including the highly emblematic and even spectacular Chrysler Building, designed by William Van Alen; the Empire State Building, by the firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon; and the Fuller Building, by A. Stewart Walker and Leon Gillette. World War II interrupted the Art Deco episode in architecture and the decorative arts. People seemed ready to forget it during the 1950’s, but from the 1970’s onward an amazing revival occurred. Museum-quality decorative arts items began to fetch tremendous prices in galleries devoted to Art Deco and at auction. Since that time, many major Art Deco buildings have been restored. In Miami, Florida, four hundred or so “Tropical Deco” buildings have been protected as the largest architectural historic district in the United States, and many have been renovated and restored. Postmodern architecture of the 1980’s and 1990’s, reflecting a hunger for ornamentation and inclusion of past styles, incorporated aspects of Art Deco, as did the fine-art media of painting and sculpture. — Tom Dewey II
Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco
Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony
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May 1, 1925
Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony Originally leased by the British from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 and annexed in 1914, Cyprus was granted Crown Colony status in 1925. Locale: Cyprus; London, England Categories: Colonialism and occupation; government and politics; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Sir Malcolm Stevenson (1878-1927), high commissioner and subsequently governor of Cyprus L. S. Amery (1873-1955), British secretary of state for colonies Cyril III (d. 1933), Greek Orthodox archbishop of Cyprus Summary of Event Great Britain proclaimed the island of Cyprus a Crown Colony on May 1, 1925. Britain had directly administered the island for a number of years, but the proclamation formalized and regularized British rule there. However, since the change in legal status failed to lead to any immediate reforms in British administration and did not solve any of the island’s long-term problems, most Cypriots regarded the change as unimportant. At 3,572 square miles (9,251 square kilometers) Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and lies only forty miles south of the great Turkish peninsula historically known as Asia Minor. Cyprus’s strategic location led to its invasion and rule by a succession of powers, including the Ottoman Empire, which came to power in 1571. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Russia was attempting to increase its influence in the eastern Mediterranean at the expense of the languishing Ottoman Empire, which was widely regarded as the “sick man of Europe.” After agreeing to protect the Ottomans from Russian aggression, Great Britain leased Cyprus on June 4, 1878, under the terms of the Cyprus Convention. At the time of the lease, the Britain Empire stretched around the world, and as a territory, Cyprus was at first something of an anomaly in Britain’s vast assemblage of possessions. As a result, the British were uncertain about how to treat the colony; for example, an early plan to use the island as a site for a large military base never came to fruition. The leased territory was initially administered by the British Foreign Office but passed to the supervision of the Colonial Office on December 6, 1880. 2040
According to a British census taken soon after the Cyprus Convention, more than three-fourths of the island’s residents were Greek and Christian, while most of the remainder were Turkish and Muslim. After years of Ottoman corruption, both groups welcomed British rule, particularly the Greeks, who hoped that the British would give them control of the island. Since the Cypriots remained Ottoman subjects under the terms of the convention, however, it was more convenient for Britain to ignore the Cypriots’ larger political aspirations. This pattern would persist despite changes in the island’s status. The most dramatic change in Cyprus’s status took place during the opening phases of World War I, when the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany against Great Britain. On November 5, 1914, the British announced that the Ottomans’ actions annulled the Cyprus Convention and that Great Britain was adopting the island as a colony. Questions about the legality of this move would be resolved on July 24, 1923, when the new nation of Turkey, created from the core of the dismembered Ottoman Empire, signed the Treaty of Lausanne, recognizing Britain’s actions. With the island’s annexation by the British, the attitudes of the citizens of Cyprus intensified. Greek Cypriots saw the move as yet another prelude to unification with Greece, a step referred to as “enosis” and routinely supported by the archbishops of the Cypriot Orthodox Church. Most Turkish Cypriots were receptive toward the idea of annexation, but they were mindful of the reprisals taken against the Turkish population of Crete when that island became part of Greece in 1908. As a result, Turkish Cypriots came to favor taksim, the partition of Cyprus between the two ethnic and religious groups. Britain actually offered to cede Cyprus to Greece in 1915 as a reward for entering the war on the side of the Allies, but Greece remained neutral and Britain retained the island. Compared to the annexation of 1914, Britain’s conferral of Crown Colony status on Cyprus in 1925 was anticlimactic. To the British, a Crown Colony was simply an overseas possession under its direct control. A Crown Colony’s primary administrator was British and was appointed by the British monarch on the recommendation of the secretary of state for colonies. Depending on the colony’s level of development, it might have a legislative council of elected and appointed members (usually civil servants), from which the administrator could choose an
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advisory executive council. Cyprus had essentially been ruled in this manner from its earliest years as a leased territory. The changes enacted on May 1, 1925, were almost all formal in nature. High Commissioner Sir Malcolm Stevenson became governor, and the number of members of the legislative assembly was increased from twenty-one to twenty-four. As before, however, the seats were divided among Greeks, Turks, and appointees in such a way that votes routinely ended in a tie, which allowed the governor to cast the deciding vote (a power he had often similarly exercised as high commissioner). When the Cypriots appealed for greater control over their affairs, Secretary of State for Colonies L. S. Amery turned down the request, asserting that Cyprus had not yet reached an appropriate level of political development. Predictably, the 1925 conferral provided Cyril III, Cyprus’s orthodox archbishop, with another occasion to lobby publicly and emphatically for enosis. Turkish Cypriot leaders pressed the case against enosis, and Secretary Amery rejected the idea. The conferral of Crown Colony status also failed to remedy the issue of the tax known as the Cyprus tribute. Under the terms of the Cyprus Convention, the British had been obligated to turn over excess taxes collected on Cyprus to the Ottoman Empire, but in practice they kept the money and applied
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Significance Great Britain’s designation of Cyprus as a Crown Colony was more significant for what it did not do than for what it did. The step formalized a legal and constitutional situation that had existed for years, but Syria Britain’s reluctance to address the issue of tax reform and its autocratic Damascus refusal to grant a greater degree of freedom to its Cypriot subjects undermined the goodwill that the Cypriots once felt toward the colonial power. Britain did gradually undertake improvements in health and sanitation, education, forest conservation, and the preservation of antiquities, but British parsimony led observers to call Cyprus the “Cinderella colony,” a reference to the ill-treated fairy-tale character. Most seriously of all, conferral of Crown Colony status did nothing to mollify the contradictory but deeply held attitudes of Cyprus’s divided citizenry. Greek Cypriots saw, or at least pretended to see, the move as another prelude to enosis, which Turkish Cypriots feared as emphatically as Greek Cypriots supported. Admittedly, there was no easy solution to this situation, but Britain’s reluctance to disturb the status quo would lead to increasingly serious outbreaks of violence in the decades ahead. — Grove Koger Further Reading Boatswain, Tim. A Traveler’s History of Cyprus. New York: Interlink, 2005. Readable survey with a chapter devoted to the years of British rule, a chronology, and a list of British governors. Hill, George Francis. The Ottoman Province, the British Colony, 1571-1948. Vol. 4 in A History of Cyprus. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. This volume of the standard history discusses the period in considerable detail. Lists of orthodox archbishops, British high commissioners, and British governors. 2041
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it to war loans on which the Ottomans had defaulted during the Crimean War (1853-1856). This situation that did not change with annexation, and it was a constant source of frustration to the Cypriots.
Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men Holland, R. F., and Diana Weston Markides. Britain and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1850-1960. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006. Chapter 7, “The Peculiarity of Cyprus, 1878-1931,” deals with Cyprus during the periods leading up to and following the conferral of Crown Colony status. McHenry, James A. The Uneasy Partnership on Cyprus, 1919-1939: The Political and Diplomatic Interaction Between Great Britain, Turkey, and the Turkish Cypriot Community. New York: Garland, 1987. Emphasizes Britain’s interactions with Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot minority. Includes guides to key British and Turkish figures. Purcell, Hugh Dominic. Cyprus. New York: Praeger,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1969. Chapter 6, “The British Period,” covers all aspects of British control. Solsten, Eric, ed. Cyprus: A Country Study. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1993. Authoritative volume in the Area Handbook series; includes a balanced discussion of British rule. See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans; Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins; May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
May 5, 1925
Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men The extension of suffrage to all males over the age of twenty-five was a significant aspect of democratic development during the Taisho period in Japan. Also known as: Universal Manhood Suffrage Act Locale: Tokyo, Japan Categories: Civil rights and liberties; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Kiyoura Keigo (1850-1942), nonparty Japanese prime minister, January-May, 1924 Yamamoto Gonnohyfe (1852-1933), nonparty Japanese prime minister, September, 1923-January, 1924 Katf Tomosaburf (1861-1923), nonparty Japanese prime minister, June, 1922-August, 1923 Hara Takashi (1856-1921), Seiyukai party leader and Japanese prime minister, 1918-1921 Katf Takaaki (1860-1926), Kenseikai party leader and Japanese prime minister, 1924-1926 Takahashi Korekiyo (1854-1936), Seikukai party leader, 1921-1925 Summary of Event Universal male suffrage was established in Japan in 1925, at the end of the Taisho period (1912-1926). It stands as one of the high points of an expansion of freedoms often called the Taisho democracy. Democratic government in Japan began under the Meiji constitution 2042
of 1889, which created an elected House of Representatives. Initially, only males over the age of twenty-five who paid annual national taxes of fifteen yen or more could vote for their representatives, but this meant that voting rights were held by only approximately 1 percent of the population. Over time, the tax qualification was gradually lowered—to ten yen in 1900 and to three yen in 1919—so that in 1919 the number of eligible voters had risen to include slightly more than 5 percent of the national population. The idea of extending voting rights to all male voters was first introduced in the House of Representatives in 1902, and a bill to accomplish this was actually passed in that body in 1911, only to be unanimously defeated the same year in the House of Peers, the upper, nonelected legislative body. The issue was temporarily set aside in the often volatile political climate of the period that followed, and the major parties during those years made the question a matter of party loyalty: Members were prohibited from voting for any bill that was not officially sanctioned by the party. The topic did not surface again until 1919, when legislators began to debate lowering the tax qualification. The Seiyukai Party, the majority party led by the country’s prime minister, Hara Takashi, supported the bill (requiring that voters pay at least three yen in taxes) that was eventually enacted. The Seiyukai were opposed by the Kenseikai, who supported lowering the requirement to two yen. In response to public demonstrations arguing
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1924, resignation created another hurdle in the move toward suffrage. Ironically, it was the third of the nonparty governments that contributed the most—albeit unintentionally—to the growth of the suffrage movement. The Kiyoura government offered the strongest support of any of the nonparty cabinets for expanding voting rights. In fact, a bill supporting universal male suffrage was approved by cabinet members in January of 1924. From its inception, however, the government encountered strong opposition from the parties of the lower house. The administration’s close connections to the nonelected House of Peers caused it to be viewed by many as a throwback to an earlier era of privilege and hereditary control. As a result, a united, anti-Kiyoura movement began to emerge, and it eventually included both the Seiyukai and the Kenseikai. The question of universal male suffrage presented the greatest stumbling block as the two parties formed a united front, but in the end, opposition to the Kiyoura government overrode differences over suffrage. In an election held on May 10, 1924, the Kiyoura cabinet was defeated by an alliance of the Seiyukai, the Kenseikai, and a group known as the Reform Club. A coalition government was formed with Kenseikai leader Katf Takaaki as its head, and universal male suffrage became one of the new movement’s primary goals. With both of the major parties now supporting the issue, acceptance by the House of Peers and the Privy Council (the more formal advisory group to the emperor) remained the final steps to enactment. The inclusion of an independent-living clause in the bill became a sticking point: This idea, which would give the vote only to males over the age of twenty-five who were financially selfsufficient, actually dated back to the bill approved by the Kenseikai in December of 1919. The provision had been removed from later Kenseikai versions of the bill, but it was now reinserted, with slightly different wording, by both the upper house and the Privy Council. The matter was hotly debated, but in the end a compromise led to the bill’s acceptance with some rewording of the independent-living clause. The bill passed both houses at the end of March, was approved by the Privy Council a month later, and was officially promulgated in the name of the emperor on May 5, 1925. On May 7, the Katf government took steps to ensure that local officials would interpret the law in such a way that much of the independent-living requirement was lost. For all practical purposes, universal male suffrage had been fully implemented in Japan. 2043
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for the complete elimination of the tax qualification, some members of the Kenseikai and some independent members reintroduced the question of universal male suffrage. Among this group of Kenseikai was Kurosu Ryutaro, who introduced a proposal to this end in October of 1918. He was joined by Imai Yoshiyuki, who was not affiliated with either party but was sometimes called “Mister Universal Suffrage” because he published a magazine article supporting the idea in January of 1919. Some members of the Seiyukai Party also argued for the policy change, most notably Saito Takao, who sought ways to extend the vote beyond the official position taken by his party even though he did not support full male suffrage. Following passage of the 1919 bill, the debate over universal male suffrage continued, particularly within the Kenseikai Party. The issue carried a great deal of political risk. On the positive side, support for the motion would strengthen the party’s position among urban voters, who had benefited less from the 1919 bill than had their rural counterparts. Politicians also believed that passage might mitigate growing political unrest in the country. On the negative side, however, was the fear that universal suffrage might alienate conservative interests both inside and outside the party and could even lead to a split within the party. After some initial uncertainty, Katf Takaaki, the Kenseikai leader, eventually gave his support to the idea, and the party gave formal approval to a proposal favoring universal male suffrage at a meeting held in December of 1919. In the meantime, the party in power, the Seikukai, stuck with the newly enacted three-yen tax-qualification bill; Hara saw universal male suffrage as a matter for later consideration. Things remained in this state until Hara’s assassination by a student with right-wing ties in November, 1921. Following Hara’s assassination, his successor, Takahashi Korekiyo, lost control of the party (although he continued as its leader until 1925). A series of nonparty governments were appointed by the genro, the powerful behind-the-scenes group that advised the emperor. These included the governments of Admiral Katf Tomosaburf, Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyfe, and Viscount Kiyoura Keigo. The first two took some modest steps toward suffrage. Admiral Katf established a committee to study the question, and in June of 1923 the committee issued a report in favor of further lowering of the tax qualification. After Katf’s death in August of that year, his successor, Admiral Yamamoto, came out in support of universal male suffrage. Unfortunately, Yamamoto’s January,
Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men
Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized Significance Both the establishment of universal male suffrage and the active roles political parties played in its passage offer clear evidence of a growth of democracy in Japan. Unfortunately, 1925 also saw the passage of the Peace Preservation Law, which gave the government power to limit political dissent and helped set the stage for the militarism of the 1930’s. This period undercut the development of democracy and led Japan along the road to territorial expansion and war. Nevertheless, from a long-term perspective, the democratic developments of the Taisho period provided a foundation for Japan’s postwar move toward democracy and led to the establishment of suffrage for Japanese women in 1945. —Scott Wright Further Reading Duus, Peter. Party Rivalry and Political Change in Taisho Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. A good source of information about the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 movement relationship to the larger Taisho political background. Griffith, Edward G. “The Universal Suffrage Issue in Japanese Politics, 1918-25.” Journal of Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (February, 1972): 275-290. The most detailed treatment of the subject in English. Sims, Richard. Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation, 1868-2000. New York: Palgrave, 2001. For the broader historical and political context. Wray, Harry, and Hilary Conroy, eds. Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. Scholarly essays by Stephen S. Large, David A. Titus, and Henry D. Smith II on the subject of Taisho democracy. See also: Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
May 17, 1925
Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized After waiving the fifty-year waiting period required by canon law, Pope Pius XI proclaimed Thérèse Martin a saint of the Roman Catholic Church less than twentyeight years after her death. Also known as: Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face; Little Flower of Jesus Locale: The Vatican, Rome, Italy Category: Religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Thérèse Martin (1873-1897), French Carmelite nun who became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti; 18571939), Roman Catholic pope, 1922-1939, who canonized Thérèse Benedict XV (Giacomo della Chiesa; 1854-1922), Roman Catholic pope, 1914-1922, who declared Thérèse Martin’s practice of virtue “heroic” Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 1835-1914), Roman Catholic pope, 1903-1914, who formally began Thérèse Martin’s beatification process Pauline Martin (1861-1951), also known as Mother Agnes of Jesus, the first of the Martin sisters to become a Carmelite nun 2044
Marie de Gonzague (1834-1904), Mother Agnes’s successor as prioress Marie Martin (1860-1940), Thérèse Martin’s godmother and a Carmelite nun and who later testified for her sister’s canonization as Marie of the Sacred Heart Summary of Event The abbreviated life of Thérèse Martin is marked by one pivotal paradox: Somehow, this obscure Carmelite nun, who did nothing extraordinary in her Normandy convent, became, according to popes, bishops, and millions of Catholics, the greatest saint of the modern world. In an attempt to explain this paradox, some scholars have offered a concomitance of fortuitous events, such as the exemplarily devout family in which she, as the youngest of five daughters, was treated as the favorite. Others have pointed to her special linguistic gift: In her spiritual autobiography, she was able to express her religious insights in a naïve simplicity that eventually touched the lives of millions in many countries. Through what she called her “little way,” she helped to revive Jesus Christ’s ideal of holiness, in which a person becomes a saint not through great words or deeds but through faithfulness to the will of God in one’s vocation, however humble. Particularly
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In response to the requests of many bishops and religious superiors, Pius X signed a decree initiating the process of Thérèse’s beatification in June of 1914. This process was entrusted to the postulator-general of the Discalced Carmelites. Consultors and theological experts in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints began to assess the accumulated evidence, especially the miracles attributed to the Venerable Thérèse’s intercession. By August of 1921, Benedict XV, convinced that Thérèse had exhibited extraordinary valor in her practice of the theological and cardinal virtues, gave an address on her “way of spiritual childhood.” On March 6, 1923, Cardinal Vico, the prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, formally declared (with the unanimous agreement of the doctors who had examined the cures) that two of the miracles attributed to Thérèse’s intercession were genuine and that her beatification could be safely undertaken. Pope Pius XI then issued a brief for the ceremony, which took place at St. Peter’s Basilica on April 29, 1923. The papal mass and beatification ritual were very well attended. On July 27, 1923, the pope commissioned the Sacred Congregation of Rites to continue the investigations that would lead to Thérèse’s canonization. The promoter of the faith, popularly known as the “devil’s advocate,” raised objections against Thérèse’s cause, including her emphasis on God’s mercy to the neglect of justice. Medical doctors were appointed to examine miraculous cures, and theologians studied Thérèse’s writings, which were much more extensive than generally recognized. In addition to her spiritual autobiography, she wrote 266 letters and 54 poems, many of which concerned the mystery of God’s love in her life and in the lives of others. She also composed prayers and little plays. Contained in these writings were more than a thousand biblical quotations. On March 17, 1925, after hearing from Cardinal Vico and other cardinals and consultors, Pius XI solemnly proclaimed that the two new cures attributed to Thérèse’s intercession were “certainly miraculous.” Thérèse’s canonization could therefore proceed, and the pope convoked a secret consistory of cardinals on March 30, 1925, to seek their advice on the question of this canonization, which met with their unanimous and enthusiastic approval. At a public consistory held on April 2, all the cardinals present encouraged the pope to decide in favor of Thérèse’s sanctity. The pope then sought the opinions of patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops from around the world, and he found that they also were united in favor of this canonization, which the pope decided to celebrate on May 17 in St. Peter’s. In a canonization ceremony, a person previously beat2045
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during her final eighteen months, when tuberculosis caused her a great deal of suffering, she was able, despite occasional thoughts of suicide, to achieve the self-renunciation that led to her ultimate liberation. One writer compared her journey to that of a “perfected butterfly” emerging from the chrysalis of her torturned soul. Thérèse’s fellow nuns were deeply affected by Thérèse’s death and by her promise to do good on earth from heaven. Pauline Martin, who was both Thérèse’s biological sister and the prioress of Thérèse’s convent (where she was known as Mother Agnes of Jesus) began the process of canonization by circulating Thérèse’s writings to Carmelite convents. Twenty-one months before she died, Thérèse, at the request of Mother Agnes, began writing down her childhood memories in a notebook. In 1896, at the request of her godmother, Marie of the Sacred Heart, Thérèse analyzed her vocation, and a few months before her death, Thérèse complied with a request from Marie de Gonzague (Mother Agnes’s successor as prioress) that Thérèse complete the recollections of her life at Carmel. The unification of these notebooks with other material was largely the work of Mother Agnes, although Marie de Gonzague insisted on having Thérèse’s reminiscences directed to her. On September 30, 1898, a year after Thérèse’s death, two thousand copies of Thérèse’s L’Histoire d’une âme (1898; The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, 1952) were printed. During the early decades of the twentieth century, the demand for this book increased so quickly that by the time of Thérèse’s canonization, more than a million copies of the French edition had been sold. Within three years of the book’s publication, the convent was receiving reports of cures in Thérèse’s name, and by the date of her canonization, the convent’s collection of cures, answered prayers, and other favors contained more than three thousand pages. The formal process of making a saint usually begins at the diocesan level, and early in the twentieth century evidence of Thérèse’s holiness was collected and tested. Testimonials to her sanctity were also given. For example, Thérèse’s sister Pauline’s testimonial recounted Thérèse’s courage during her final illness, and Pauline also stated that most of the nuns who entered Carmel after 1897 did so because of Thérèse. Thérèse’s sister Marie provided letters received by the convent, as many as a hundred a day, thanking Thérèse for favors, cures, and conversions. By 1910, church officials had become convinced that Thérèse had lived a heroically virtuous life, and they bestowed on her the traditional title of venerable.
Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized
Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized ified is publicly recognized as a saint who has entered into eternal glory. Vatican officials received more than 200,000 applications for the 50,000 available seats in St. Peter’s. When the day of Thérèse’s canonization arrived, more than half a million people celebrated the event in Rome, and millions more celebrated in other countries. In the papal mass, Pius XI, who considered Thérèse “the star of his pontificate,” chose as the theme of his homily Jesus Christ’s admonition that “unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” In his bull of canonization, the pope noted that Thérèse had achieved sanctity “without going beyond the common order of things.” Her “little way” was one of trust and total surrender to God’s will. She believed that the chief architect of her perfection was not herself but God. Like her, Pius said, Christians must abandon themselves, like infants, to the arms of a caring God—an appropriate sentiment for a nun who chose to call herself “Thérèse of the Child Jesus.” Significance In the years after her canonization, Thérèse’s influence in and outside of the Catholic Church expanded and deepened. Her writings were translated into more than fifty languages, and hundreds of biographies were published. To accommodate the many pilgrims visiting Lisieux, a large basilica was erected in her honor in the 1920’s. In 1927, Pius XI, in response to the requests of many bishops, proclaimed Thérèse copatron of missions with St. Francis Xavier. She was later named copatron of France, along with St. Joan of Arc, whom Thérèse had deeply admired. She was also named patron saint of florists, aviators, and those suffering from AIDS. Thérèse was contemplative—her struggles with atheism touched on issues that concerned the French existentialists—but her message also appealed to such social activists as Dorothy Day, who was converted from atheism to Catholicism by reading The Story of a Soul. Surprisingly, Thérèse also influenced several modern writers. In his Journal d’un curé de campagne (1936; The Diary of a Country Priest, 1937), Georges Bernanos placed several of Thérèse’s sayings in the mouth of his anguished curé. In Graham Greene’s How Father Quixote Became a Monsignor (1980), Thérèse is the “Dulcinea” of the quixotic priest. Jack Kerouac, the quintessential Beat generation writer, was fascinated by this nun’s poems, prayers, and passion for holiness. Jewish philosopher Henri Bergson beieved that Thérèse was a greater mystic than Saint Teresa of Avila, and Mother Teresa of 2046
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Calcutta joyfully informed people that she had taken her religious name not from the great Teresa of Avila but from the “Little Flower,” Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse was also beloved by important churchmen. While he was nuncio in Paris, Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, often visited Lisieux. When Pope John Paul II, on the hundredth anniversary of Thérèse’s death, named her a doctor of the universal church, she joined the ranks of such spiritual giants as Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Augustine, and Saint Thomas Aquinas. — Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Two Sisters in the Spirit: Thérèse of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. The famous Swiss theologian has reworked spiritual biographies published on these two holy Carmelites in 1950 and 1953 to emphasize their comparable mission to “open up the treasures of God’s Word to ordinary believers.” Chronologies, but no index. Goerres, Ida Friedericke. The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. New York: Pantheon, 1959. This English translation of the eighth revised edition of a very successful book originally published in German represents the author’s attempt to discover the “true Thérèse” based on her writings (before they were edited). Selected bibliography and index. Harrison, Kathryn. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: A Penguin Life. New York: Viking Press, 2003. This brief account by a novelist emphasizes psychological analysis rather than the saint’s rootedness in scripture and the truths of the Catholic faith. Martin, Thérèse. Autobiography of a Saint. London: Fount, 1960. This translation by Ronald Knox from the facsimile of Thérèse Martin’s manuscripts made the unedited versions of her notebooks available to English readers for the first time. Ulanov, Barry. The Making of a Modern Saint: A Biographical Study of Thérèse of Lisieux. 1966. Reprint. Springfield, Ill.: Templegate, 2004. An astute analysis of Thérèse’s oeuvre by a writer who had published more than forty books by the time of his death in 2000. He admired this saint’s ability to find dignity in the smallness and pain of everyday life. See also: May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous; Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska.
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Geneva Protocol Is Signed
June 17, 1925
Geneva Protocol Is Signed
Locale: Geneva, Switzerland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; health and medicine Key Figures Theodore E. Burton (1851-1929), U.S. congressman from Ohio and representative of the United States at Geneva Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), president of the United States, 1923-1929 Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006), president of the United States, 1974-1977 Summary of Event On June 17, 1925, representatives from several nations met in Geneva, Switzerland, and signed a protocol to prohibit “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices,” and further consented to extend this prohibition to bacteriological methods of warfare as well. This relatively brief document acknowledged that gas warfare had been condemned by civilized opinion and expressed the hope that the accord would one day become an accepted part of international law. The swiftness with which the agreement was reached was a tribute to the negotiating skills of the U.S. representative in Geneva, Theodore E. Burton, and also to the strong support that President Calvin Coolidge gave to the project. The protocol was a response to the widespread use of poison gas in World War I. Poison gas was first used at the Battle of Ypres in April, 1915, when the Germans released clouds of chlorine gas against French positions. Other nations, including Great Britain, France, and eventually the United States, either conducted extensive research or actually used poison gas in battle. Each year of the war witnessed an increase in use of this nefarious weapon. There is no consensus on the actual number of people affected, but after the war, the figures of one million casualties and 100,000 deaths were frequently cited. Although these numbers were undoubtedly an exaggeration, they were readily accepted by the general public. When these statistics were combined with graphic accounts of gas attacks in antiwar poems and novels and with photographs depicting pathetic columns of soldiers
with bandages covering their eyes or hideous blisters marring their bodies, the effect on public opinion was dramatic. A significant body of opinion soon began to call for an end to gas warfare. By the time the delegates gathered in Geneva in 1925, there were already three international agreements on the subject. Even before World War I, several nations had signed the 1899 Hague Declaration, promising to abstain from using “projectiles” to deliver poison gas. Advances in technology, however, later made it possible to disperse gas from cylinders or from aerial bombs. After the war, the victorious Allied governments inserted Clause 171 into the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Germany from possessing, manufacturing, or importing chemical weapons. A more extensive agreement was reached at the Washington Disarmament Conference in 1921 and 1922, when the Five Powers (the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, and France) adopted Article 5, which banned the use of poison gas in war. All five countries signed the agreement, but it never came into force because France subsequently refused to ratify it over a dispute concerning submarines. The Geneva Protocol was in many respects an unexpected and unplanned success. Originally, the delegates had a rather narrow mandate: to regulate the international arms trade. Although the issue was not on the agenda, Burton suggested that chemical weapons be included in the discussions. Smaller nations did not like the idea of a ban on the export of chemical weapons, because such a ban would help to perpetuate the substantial gap that already existed between the arsenals of the Great Powers and those of the lesser ones. Moreover, enforcement of such a law would have been complicated by the difficulty of distinguishing between chemicals destined for legitimate use and those intended to be converted into poison gas; such uses often overlapped. Finally, some delegates feared that regulating the trade in poison gas would in effect legitimate gas as a weapon by placing it on the same level with conventional weapons. Responding to these concerns, Burton therefore proposed a total ban on the use of chemical weapons in war, not simply a ban on trade. About the same time, President Coolidge stated that if the delegates in Geneva failed to agree to a ban on use, he would invite them to Washington for a conference in order to achieve that objective. Burton’s proposal was warmly received, however, and the U.S. delegation readily accepted a friendly amend2047
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Representatives from several nations, including most of the Great Powers, signed a protocol banning the use of poison gas and bacteriological weapons in war.
Geneva Protocol Is Signed ment from the Polish delegate that the prohibition be extended to bacteriological warfare. Initially, some two dozen nations signed the protocol, but several nations, including the United States, had to have their national legislatures ratify it to give it the force of law. Ironically, the United States, the nation given credit for negotiating the agreement, failed to ratify it. Because the protocol was a treaty, it needed to be approved by a two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate. The protocol had the support of Coolidge, the U.S. Navy, and the War Department and the personal backing of General John J. Pershing, who had been commander in chief of the U.S. forces in World War I. Nevertheless, the military establishments in many countries, including the United States, did not wish to give up the new weapon. Moreover, there were powerful voices that asserted that chemical weapons designed to incapacitate or immobilize were less horrible than other weaponry designed to kill or maim. A particularly telling statistic often quoted by opponents of the protocol was that 25 percent of the soldiers hit by artillery shells died, compared with only 3 percent of gas casualties. In addition, influential organizations such as the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Association of Military Surgeons, and the prestigious American Chemical Society were opposed to ratification. The protocol was deliberated for only one day on the Senate floor before being withdrawn by its supporters, who feared certain defeat. Despite this failure, the protocol came into force in 1928. By the outbreak of World War II, more than thirty countries had ratified it, including all of the Great Powers save the United States and Japan. Significance Over the decades, there has been a tendency for the public to expect too much of the Geneva Protocol, mainly as a result of several misunderstandings. The agreement did not ban further research, manufacture, or importation of chemical weapons, only their use in war. Significantly, it included neither provisions for verification nor penalties for noncompliance. The wording of the protocol obligated the signees only with respect to those nations that also signed the pact; in other words, it was permissible for a signee to use poison gas against an enemy that was not a signatory. Furthermore, many nations that ratified the protocol did so with the reservation that they would be at liberty to retaliate if an enemy first employed chemical methods of warfare. Many observers have pointed out that this meant the protocol was tantamount to an agreement renouncing first use of chemical weapons, nothing more. 2048
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Moreover, diplomats, scholars, and jurists skilled in international law have found some disturbing ambiguities in the agreement. It was unclear whether the protocol banned all chemical agents or only those that were clearly intended to kill, wound, or seriously maim. It was also unclear whether the agreement applied only to international wars or to all wars, including civil wars and undeclared wars such as the U.S. conflict in Vietnam. Some scientists wondered whether references to bacteria should be interpreted narrowly or broadly, as some highly toxic substances exist (for example, among viruses and fungi) that technically are not bacteria. The Geneva Protocol did not stop the practice of chemical warfare. The first nation to breach the agreement was Italy, which unleashed poison gas against Ethiopia in 1935 and 1936. Japan used gas against China beginning in the late 1930’s. After World War II, the United Arab Republic employed chemical weapons in Yemen’s civil war in 1967; the United States used nonlethal chemicals, such as riot-control agents, herbicides, and defoliants, in the Vietnam conflict during the late 1960’s; and Iraq employed both mustard and nerve gas in the Gulf War with Iran in 1983. During the 1980’s, the Soviet Union was suspected of using chemical weapons in Afghanistan, and Vietnam was alleged to have used chemical agents in Laos and Kampuchea. These allegations, although widely believed, were never authenticated. Such a list of violations may appear formidable, but in the context of a century that produced literally hundreds of wars and atrocities, the use of poison gas and chemical warfare has been remarkably restrained. Most notably, chemical weapons were not employed in World War II. Most scholars believe that a universal fear of retaliation prevented such use. Nazi Germany was alarmed by the prospect of chemical warfare, fearing that its enemies were much better prepared defensively and offensively. German chancellor Adolf Hitler, who was himself gassed in World War I, reportedly believed this form of warfare to be especially barbaric. In turn, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union had a healthy respect for Germany’s chemical industry and its scientists and confidently believed that Germany would retaliate with full fury and effectiveness if so attacked. Japan never used gas against European troops in the Asian theater, assuming that U.S. industrial might and technical genius would wreak a terrible vengeance with similar weapons against Japan’s crowded cities. Most of the belligerents in the war were not adequately prepared, offensively or defensively, for chemical warfare. Stocks of chemical weapons were insuffi-
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Most diplomatic activity since 1975 has revolved around this newer instrument. The Geneva Protocol has had a mixed history. It did not prevent the use of chemical agents in some conflicts, nor did it prevent research into and production of such weapons. It was, however, taken seriously by most nations. Countries cited the protocol when other nations violated the letter or the spirit of the agreement, and it proved a useful tool with which to embarrass other powers in the propaganda battles of the Cold War. Smaller nations believed that the protocol afforded some modest legal protection against weapons that they neither had nor wished to develop. It became, in the words of Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic senator and vice president, “the basic building block for all efforts to control chemical and biological warfare.” As of 2006, the treaty had 133 signatories, attesting to its vitality and endurance. —David C. Lukowitz Further Reading Adams, Valerie. Chemical Warfare, Chemical Disarmament. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Brief and readable survey of the subject includes little discussion of the protocol but addresses its impact on later developments. Features extensive bibliography. Brown, Frederick J. Chemical Warfare: A Study in Restraints. 1968. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2005. Account of the history of the use of chemical weapons and attempts to restrain use by legal measures. Also discusses the “humanity” of chemical warfare. Includes important material about chemical warfare and chemical arms control that is difficult to find elsewhere. Coleman, Kim. A History of Chemical Warfare. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Describes the development and use of chemical weapons from 700 b.c.e. to the beginning of the twenty-first century, with extensive discussion of World War I. Also assesses current attempts to control the use and proliferation of such weapons and analyzes their potential use by terrorist groups. Croddy, Eric, with Clarisa Perez-Armendariz and John Hart. Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Comprehensive Survey for the Concerned Citizen. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2002. Provides in-depth information on all aspects of chemical and biological warfare and weapons. Chapter 6 includes discussion of the Geneva Protocol. Features selected bibliography and index. Friedman, Leon, ed. The Law of War: A Documentary History. Vol. 1. New York: Random House, 1972. A 2049
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cient for continuous and effective use, and there had been little training of elite military units in the techniques of delivering gas attacks. Finally, much of the war saw the application of blitzkrieg tactics. In a war of mobility, the effectiveness of poison gas was limited, because it worked best on a stable front. After World War II, fears of chemical warfare partially receded. The atomic bomb replaced poison gas as the “doomsday” weapon. In addition, the major powers shrouded much of their research into new biological and toxic agents in secrecy, thus temporarily allaying the public’s apprehension. The protocol, however, was not forgotten. In 1966, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to observe the principles and objectives of the Geneva Protocol. By 1970, the number of signatories to the treaty had reached eighty-four; the United States remained a significant exception. On November 25, 1969, however, President Richard Nixon reaffirmed U.S. support for the Geneva Protocol and renounced first use of lethal chemical weapons. Nixon also renounced the use of all biological weapons, even in retaliation, and stated that the Department of Defense had been ordered to dispose of existing stocks of such weapons. The following year, Nixon submitted the Geneva Protocol to the Senate for consent to ratification, where it ran into opposition from liberal senators. The Republican Nixon administration made it clear that it believed the protocol did not prohibit the use of nonlethal chemical agents. Democrats, however, were upset that the United States was using nonlethal herbicides, defoliants, and riot-control agents in Vietnam; many liberal senators argued that the protocol banned all chemical weapons, not only lethal chemicals. The stalemate was finally resolved during the presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Senate opposition was stilled when Fred Icke, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, promised that nonlethal chemicals would be used in the future only under stringent limitations. The Senate gave its consent to the protocol by a vote of ninety to zero, and on January 22, 1975, President Ford signed the agreement, fifty years after it had been negotiated. On the day the Senate approved the protocol, it also unanimously approved the Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons (1972). This agreement, negotiated principally by the Soviet Union and the United States but open to other countries, was an attempt to update the Geneva Protocol by including scientific advances made over the years and providing for some measure of verification and compliance— two essential components missing from the protocol.
Geneva Protocol Is Signed
Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush respected collection of the original texts of treaties dealing with the origins, development, and enforcement of the laws of war, including the names of original signatories. Haber, L. F. The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1986. Excellent work on how poison gas affected soldiers, governments, military doctrine, and the chemical industry during and after World War I. Meticulously documented, with an excellent bibliography. Spiers, Edward. Chemical Warfare. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Excellent historical survey of the topic by an authority in the field. Focuses on how nations have simultaneously relied on deterrence and disarmament negotiations in order to avoid chemical
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 warfare. Includes copious footnotes and a fine bibliography. Thomas, Ann Van Wynen, and A. J. Thomas, Jr. Legal Limits on the Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1970. Impressive study of the development and status of international law as it relates to chemical and biological warfare. Contains a brief but excellent section on the ambiguities and limitations of the protocol. For the advanced student. See also: Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops; Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women; 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy.
June 26, 1925
Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece THE GOLD RUSH With its characteristic combination of humor and pathos, The Gold Rush became a landmark film both for Charles Chaplin’s career and for the history of motion-picture comedy. Locale: United States Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Charles Chaplin (1889-1977), English film actor and filmmaker Georgia Hale (1906-1985), American film actor Mack Swain (1876-1935), American film actor Lita Grey Chaplin (1908-1995), American film actor Summary of Event Charles Chaplin’s place in film history was already assured long before the release of The Gold Rush in 1925. Within two years of his film debut in the two-reel comedy Making a Living (1914), Chaplin had become the most popular performer in motion pictures. His “Little Tramp” character was an internationally recognized figure, well on its way to becoming a cinematic icon so powerful that it remains one of the few images capable by itself of evoking the idea of Hollywood moviemaking. Charlie Chaplin’s career began while he was still a child. Abandoned by his father, who died when Chaplin was twelve, and with his mother often a patient in mental 2050
asylums, Chaplin, along with his older brother Sydney, was forced to make his own way in the world from the age of nine. He gained experience as an actor, dancer, and comedian on England’s music-hall stages, finally joining the popular Fred Karno Company—which also included a young Stan Laurel—in 1908. At the close of an American tour by the group in 1913, Chaplin chose to remain in the United States to embark on a career in motion pictures. Under contract to Keystone Studios, he made thirty-five comedy shorts during the next year; his Tramp character appeared for the first time in his second film, Kid Auto Races in Venice (1914). Chaplin described the character’s creation in his 1964 autobiography: I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. . . . I added a small mustache . . . the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.
Before the year was through, Chaplin was directing as well as starring in his films, and he had already begun to achieve a remarkable degree of popularity among motion-picture audiences across the country. The character of the Tramp—down on his luck but always resourceful, agile, and quick-witted—struck a chord with audiences and soon emerged as a creation of such com-
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arrive for a dinner he has prepared—an invitation she has forgotten. Chaplin always worked slowly on features, and The Gold Rush was a year and a half in the making. The period would prove to be a tumultuous one in Chaplin’s life. His original costar was to be a fifteen-year-old girl named Lita Grey, who had appeared briefly in two earlier Chaplin films. By the fall of 1924, however, Lita was expecting Chaplin’s child, and their subsequent marriage—and divorce two years later—was the source of a scandal that haunted Chaplin for many years to come. Lita was replaced in the film by Georgia Hale, and shooting resumed in early 1925. The Gold Rush opened to tremendous critical acclaim, with The New York Times terming it “the outstanding gem of all Chaplin’s pictures” and the New York Daily News calling it “the funniest and saddest of all comedies.” The film is a masterpiece of silent comedy,
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Charles Chaplin in character as the Little Tramp. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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plexity and durability that Chaplin would continue to develop and refine him for more than two decades. After leaving Keystone for the Essanay Studios, Chaplin began to explore the character’s potential in more depth, experimenting for the first time in The Tramp (1915) with the combination of comedy and pathos that would become his trademark. The film ends with the Tramp losing the girl he loves and setting off down the road alone, his back to the camera. The introduction of pathos into Chaplin’s films gave the Tramp a vulnerability that marked him as more than merely a comic figure, and it won for Chaplin a measure of artistic respect beyond that already accorded him as a comedian. In films such as The Vagabond (1916), The Immigrant (1917), and A Dog’s Life (1918), Chaplin demonstrated a style of comic filmmaking that combines both slapstick and subtlety while at the same time incorporating a potent measure of heartfelt human emotion. Chaplin’s decision to allow his essentially comic character to experience pain, loss, and disappointment—and to end some of his films on that note—is almost unique in the annals of film comedy. That he did so at a time when the medium was still in its infancy is especially remarkable. In 1920, Chaplin released his first feature-length film featuring the Tramp. The Kid costarred Jackie Coogan as the abandoned boy the Tramp adopts and then nearly loses, and the film demonstrated Chaplin’s ability to sustain his character’s appeal in a format longer than the short comedies in which he had previously appeared. The film was a great success, and although Chaplin would make two more short films and one four-reel comedy in the years that followed, The Kid marked the beginning of his career as a feature filmmaker. In 1924, Chaplin began work on The Gold Rush. Inspired by his interest in the tragedy of the Donner Party, a group of settlers who resorted to cannibalism while snowbound in the Sierras, the film is the story of the Tramp’s adventures as a gold prospector in turn-of-thecentury Alaska: his run-ins with the villainous Black Larson (portrayed by Tom Murray), his near starvation in a snowbound cabin with his partner, Big Jim (Henry Bergman), and his love for Georgia (Georgia Hale), a beautiful dance-hall girl. The film contains two of Chaplin’s best-known comic scenes: his attempts to cook and eat his boot and the famous “Oceana Roll” sequence, in which he manipulates a pair of bread rolls on forks as if they are dancing feet. The Gold Rush also features scenes of great poignancy, particularly the sequence in which the Tramp waits forlornly for Georgia and her friends to
Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush
Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush drawing on all of Chaplin’s skills in pantomime, comic timing, and the careful construction of sight gags. Its story is tailor-made for the Tramp’s particular blend of plucky resourcefulness and vulnerability, and Chaplin succeeds behind the camera in telling an engaging story that brilliantly showcases his talents onscreen. After The Gold Rush, Chaplin devoted himself exclusively to feature-length productions. He would make only eight more films during the next fifty years, with City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) joining The Gold Rush in the ranks of his acclaimed masterpieces and The Circus (1928) winning for its creator a special Oscar at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. Significance Comedy has been an important component of theater since its earliest incarnation, with Aristophanes’ work surviving into the modern age alongside that of Euripides and Aeschylus. The strong link between theater and film, therefore, led quite naturally to a position of similar importance for comedy in the medium of film. That early films were silent made them particularly well suited to visual comedy, in which a minimum of dialogue is needed to convey the story; as the medium grew in popularity, its comedians quickly emerged as favorites with audiences. Founded in 1912, the Keystone Studios produced one split-reel comedy a week and introduced Mabel Normand, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, director Mack Sennett and his Bathing Beauties, and the Keystone Kops to the screen. When Chaplin joined their ranks two years later, the studio had already established itself as a leading force in Hollywood by tapping into the universal language of laughter and adapting it to the new technology of film. Chaplin’s training in the acrobatic style of English music-hall comedy had prepared him well for the physical nature of silent film comedy. The early shorts produced by the Keystone Studios relied primarily on sight gags and actors’ talent for comic pantomime. Chaplin excelled at the physical agility needed for such routines, and his skill at mimicry and wordless self-expression remains unsurpassed. The specific nature of silent comedy would also lend itself brilliantly to the deadpan comedy of Buster Keaton and the boyish enthusiasm of Harold Lloyd, both of whom successfully tailored their talent for physical comedy to the requirements of the screen. One of those requirements arose from the camera’s ability to bring a viewer closer to the action taking place than is possible for a stage theater audience. That factor, coupled with the exaggerated size that figures projected 2052
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on a screen assume, made it necessary for film comedians to master subtle gestures and expressions in addition to slapstick. The best silent comedians soon learned that a laugh could be achieved not only through a pratfall or a well-aimed pie but also with a raised eyebrow or deadpan stare. Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd all excelled at combining slapstick with subtlety, but only Chaplin used this skill to move his screen persona into the realm of pathos. With his expressive dark eyes and mobile face, the Tramp could evoke sorrow as readily as humor with a shrug or a glance. Chaplin’s extraordinary combination of popular and critical acclaim made him the yardstick against which other comedians were measured, often to their detriment. So great was Chaplin’s fame during the years of silent comedy that he in many ways unfairly overshadowed the work of his contemporaries. Indeed, both Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd have grown in critical stature in the years since their best work was done. Keaton, in particular, has achieved well-deserved cult status among silent comedy aficionados—a welcome development that does not detract from Chaplin’s own mastery of the field, but rather enhances the field itself by recognizing the depth of talent it contained. The era that produced The Gold Rush also produced such comic masterpieces as Keaton’s The Navigator (1924) and The General (1927) and Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923) and The Freshman (1925). Ironically, however, the release of these films marked not only the pinnacle of silent film comedy but also the beginning of the end of the silent era. In 1927, two years after The Gold Rush—and the same year as The General—The Jazz Singer introduced sound to motion pictures and changed the medium forever. Chaplin resisted the change longer than his contemporaries; City Lights, released in 1931, contains sound effects but no spoken dialogue, and Modern Times (1936) confines its spoken lines to a character using a loudspeaker and a nonsense song sung by the Tramp near the film’s close. Despite these few concessions, both remain silent films in spirit. Although the introduction of sound changed filmmaking irrevocably, the techniques perfected by Chaplin and his contemporaries continued to influence film comedy. The screwball comedies of the 1930’s and the films of Preston Sturges in the 1940’s effectively combined physical comedy with witty dialogue. In films such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and The Lady Eve (1941) slapstick is an integral part of the humor, and the actors in these films, such as Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, and Barbara Stanwyck, rely on the same pratfalls and elaborate sight gags that were the highlights
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Further Reading Brownlow, Kevin. The Parade’s Gone By. . . . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. One of the best books available on the history of silent film, thoughtfully conceived and exceptionally well written and researched. Offers an engrossing look at Hollywood’s early years, drawing extensively on interviews that bring the material to life. A highly recommended source for anyone with an interest in film history. Chaplin, Charles. My Autobiography. 1964. Reprint. New York: Plume Books, 1992. Chaplin’s life and career in his own words. Early portions relate in vivid detail Chaplin’s harrowing, Dickensian childhood in the slums of Victorian London. Also interesting for behind-the-scenes reminiscences on Chaplin’s life and films and his assessments of his own work. Hayes, Kevin J., ed. Charlie Chaplin: Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. Collection of interviews Chaplin gave to various reporters and others from 1915 to 1967 provides insights into his
views on filmmaking and comedy. Includes chronology, filmography, and index. Huff, Theodore. Charlie Chaplin. New York: Henry Schuman, 1951. The first, and for many years the only, in-depth study of Chaplin and his work. Contains the first complete (up to that time) Chaplin filmography. Weakest where Chaplin’s autobiography is at its best—his childhood years—devoting only five pages to the first twenty-four years of Chaplin’s life. McCabe, John. Charlie Chaplin. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978. Thorough, well-researched biography includes an extensive bibliography and a filmography with credits. Draws on many interviews with Stan Laurel for unique insights into Chaplin’s career. Informative and well written. McCaffrey, Donald W., ed. Focus on Chaplin. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Excellent compilation of essays and reviews of Chaplin’s work. Contributors include George Jean Nathan, Louis Delluc, Gerald Mast, Walter Kerr, Winston Churchill, and Chaplin himself. Also features scenario extracts from three of Chaplin’s films: Shoulder Arms (1918), The Kid, and Modern Times. McDonald, Gerald D., Michael Conway, and Mark Ricci, eds. The Complete Films of Charlie Chaplin. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1988. Brief introductory essays followed by chronologically ordered entries on all of Chaplin’s films. Each entry contains credits, plot synopsis, photographs, and excerpts from reviews of the film in question. A useful reference, although the credits do not include character names. Manvell, Roger. Chaplin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Well-written, well-researched biography offers an absorbing account of Chaplin’s life and work. One of the better entries in the vast array of literature on the comedian. Includes a limited bibliography and suggestions for further reading. Mast, Gerald. A Short History of the Movies. 3d ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1981. One of the best comprehensive overviews of film history offers a context for Chaplin’s work. In addition to a general outline of Chaplin’s career, provides a comparison of The Gold Rush and Keaton’s The General. A valuable addition to any film library. Robinson, David. Chaplin: His Life and Art. 1985. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994. Excellent comprehensive examination of Chaplin’s life and work is vividly written, exhaustively researched, and thoroughly annotated. Offers not only a detailed retelling of Chaplin’s life but also a look at his work that 2053
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of silent comedies. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, French director Jacques Tati drew heavily on the silent comedy tradition in such films as Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, 1953) and Playtime (1968), in which he created a screen persona who rarely spoke in films that relied almost entirely on visual humor. The work of filmmakers Mel Brooks and Woody Allen also owes a debt to Chaplin and silent comedy. Allen’s earlier films, in particular, combine verbal and physical humor and feature central characters who are outsiders and hapless “little guys” thrust into situations larger than themselves. Brooks’s films have long made use of slapstick humor, a debt he acknowledged in the film Silent Movie (1976), which contains only one word of dialogue. Indeed, physical comedy in any visual medium, whether it be film, television, or live theater, continues to draw on the brilliant comic technique of Chaplin and his contemporaries. Yet Chaplin’s contribution to motion pictures does not end with comedy. In his hands, comedy was transformed into art at a time when the relatively new medium of film was struggling to gain credibility as more than simple entertainment. Chaplin’s role in achieving this was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the special Oscar he received in 1971. The award was presented to the eighty-three-year-old Chaplin for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of the century.” — Janet Lorenz
Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush
Scopes Trial includes numerous interviews with colleagues and contemporaries. Contains a useful chronology of the major events in Chaplin’s life, appendixes chronicling his early theatrical career, scenarios from three Keystone shorts, an excellent filmography, and a “who’s who” of people who figured prominently in Chaplin’s life and career. Vance, Jeffrey. Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. Comprehensive biography uses some five hundred photographs, many never before published, to illustrate Chaplin’s life and his creative process.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”; Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; Dec., 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released.
July 10-21, 1925
Scopes Trial The Scopes trial constituted a legal test of one U.S. state’s prohibition of the teaching of the theory of evolution in the public schools, underscoring the concept of the separation of church and state. Also known as: Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes; monkey trial Locale: Dayton, Tennessee Categories: Education; civil rights and liberties; publishing and journalism; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures John T. Scopes (1900-1970), American schoolteacher William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American attorney and politician Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), American attorney Arthur Garfield Hays (1881-1954), American attorney Dudley Field Malone (1882-1950), American attorney H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist John T. Raulston (1868-1956), American jurist A. T. Stewart (1892-1972), district attorney for the Eighteenth Circuit Summary of Event In July, 1925, one of the most widely publicized and bizarre legal cases in U.S. history, Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, better known as the “monkey trial,” was tried in Dayton, Tennessee. Scopes, a football coach and science teacher at Dayton’s Rhea County High School, was charged with violating the Butler Act, a state law passed in January, 1925, that made it illegal to teach in public schools any theories that denied the story of cre2054
ation as found in the Bible’s book of Genesis. The Butler Act was a reaction to the increasing alarm of many fundamentalist Christians who feared the challenge that science and evolutionary theory presented to a literal interpretation of the Bible. From 1921 through 1929, thirty-seven similar bills opposing the teaching of evolution were introduced in twenty U.S. states. Shortly after the passage of the Butler Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to provide legal services to any teacher in Tennessee who would test the constitutionality of the act. George Rappleyea, a local mining engineer, learned of the ACLU’s offer and discussed the possibility of a test case with Scopes, even though Scopes himself was not teaching biology that year. Because the principal of the school, who actually taught the class, had a family who stood to suffer from the attention that such a trial would invite, Scopes volunteered to be the defendant. With the reluctant consent of the chairman of the school board and the county superintendent of schools, Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in his biology class and bound over to the grand jury. The ACLU was immediately notified. Within a few days, William Jennings Bryan, threetime Democratic presidential candidate and a wellknown religious fundamentalist, announced that he would aid District Attorney A. T. Stewart in the prosecution of the case. Bryan, a populist who had been one of the nation’s most progressive politicians, advocating woman suffrage, railroad regulation, campaign fund disclosure, and abolition of the death penalty, was obsessed with the social implications of the theory of evolution. He was especially outraged by social Darwinism, an un-
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Scopes Trial
1925 Defendant John T. Scopes (seated behind table, in white shirt, with arms folded) and his defense team, including Clarence Darrow (leaning on table), during the trial proceedings. (Library of Congress)
scientific extension of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection that some used to rationalize neglect of society’s poor and weak members. Darwin had never intended his theory to be used as justification for such attitudes, but social Darwinism had become popularized along with the theory of biological evolution. The idea of “survival of the fittest” went against Bryan’s populism and smacked of an elitism he had been fighting all his life. The lawyers for the defense in the Scopes trial were led by Clarence Darrow, a well-known agnostic and the most famous trial lawyer in the United States. Darrow had not been interested in the case until he learned that Bryan was to be part of the prosecution. The journalist H. L. Mencken happened to be in Richmond with Darrow when word came about Bryan’s participation, and Mencken persuaded his friend to join the defense. Both Darrow and Mencken considered the trial an opportunity to confront obscurantism, which they saw incarnate in Bryan and the South. Darrow later said of his par-
ticipation: “For the first, the last, and the only time in my life, I volunteered my services in a case. I did it because I really wanted to take part in it.” Other noteworthy attorneys on the defense team were Dudley Field Malone, a well-known divorce lawyer, and Arthur Garfield Hays, perhaps the most outstanding civil liberties attorney of the time. Because of the dramatic nature of the trial and the fame of the opposing attorneys, Dayton became the center of national and even international attention. Mencken was the most prominent journalist present, but many others were also there; the country’s major newspapers flooded the small town with reporters. All the wire services had reporters there, and millions of readers followed the case daily in both the United States and Europe. Telegraph wires were run into the courthouse, and the Chicago Tribune installed radio equipment; the trial was the first to be broadcast in American history. The town of Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere as the local inhabitants began to prepare for the expected crush 2055
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Day 7 of the Scopes Trial Prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan made the mistake of allowing defense attorney Clarence Darrow to get him on the stand. Darrow relentlessly grilled Bryan on his beliefs, making Bryan look like a fool. Many have speculated on whether this episode contributed to the death of the “Great Commoner” a mere five days later. Darrow: You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven’t you, Mr. Bryan? Bryan: Yes, sir, I have tried to. . . . Darrow: You claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted? Bryan: I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there: some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: “Ye are the salt of the earth.” I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God’s people. . . . Darrow: Now, Mr. Bryan, have you ever pondered what would have happened to the earth if it had stood still? Bryan: No. Darrow: You have not? Bryan: No; the God I believe in could have taken care of that, Mr. Darrow. Darrow: I see. Have you ever pondered what would naturally happen to the earth if it stood still suddenly? Bryan: No. Darrow: Don’t you know it would have been converted into molten mass of matter? Bryan: You testify to that when you get on the stand, I will give you a chance. Darrow: Don’t you believe it? Bryan: I would want to hear expert testimony on that. Darrow: You have never investigated that subject?
of visitors. Stands were built to sell soft drinks and sandwiches; hotels and boardinghouses were quickly filled. One Daytonian later described the scene: “One was hard put to it on the tenth of July to know whether Dayton was holding a camp meeting, a Chautauqua, a street fair, a carnival or belated Fourth of July celebration. Literally it was drunk with religious excitement.” On Friday, July 10, Judge John T. Raulston had the trial opened with a prayer, to which Darrow objected and was overruled. The jury was selected and the trial began. The state’s case as it was presented was simple: Three schoolboys testified that Scopes had taught evolution in the science class and the prosecution rested. From the beginning it was the defense’s goal to put the Butler Act, rather than Scopes, on trial. Darrow wanted to prove that the theory of evolution was neither contrary 2056
Bryan: I don’t think I have ever had the question asked. Darrow: Or ever thought of it? Bryan: I have been too busy on things that I thought were of more importance than that. Darrow: You believe the story of the flood to be a literal interpretation? Bryan: Yes, sir. Darrow: When was that Flood? Bryan: I would not attempt to fix the date. The date is fixed, as suggested this morning. Darrow: About 4004 B.C.? Bryan: That has been the estimate of a man that is accepted today. I would not say it is accurate. Darrow: That estimate is printed in the Bible? Bryan: Everybody knows, at least, I think most of the people know, that was the estimate given. Darrow: But what do you think that the Bible, itself says? Don’t you know how it was arrived at? Bryan: I never made a calculation. Darrow: A calculation from what? Bryan: I could not say. Darrow: From the generations of man? Bryan: I would not want to say that. Darrow: What do you think? Bryan: I do not think about things I don’t think about. Darrow: Do you think about things you do think about? Bryan: Well, sometimes.
to the Bible nor nonreligious, and therefore the Butler Act was unconstitutional and violated the civil rights of all Tennessee teachers. The first controversy surrounded the question of admitting the testimony of “experts” (scientists) who had been assembled by Darrow and Malone for the defense. Each of the experts was both an evolutionist and a Christian whose testimony was intended to prove that there is no conflict between science and religion. When the first expert was called, Stewart objected on the grounds that any interpretation of evolution or the Bible, whether by an expert or not, would be opinion rather than fact and should therefore not be admissible as evidence. Further, said Stewart, such testimony would have nothing to do with the case at hand, which was to ascertain whether or not Scopes had taught material that conflicted with the law. At this point, the judge excused
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Significance By throwing out Scopes’s conviction, the Tennessee Court of Appeals effectively destroyed Darrow’s case. His whole plan had been to take the issue all the way to the federal courts in order to get the Butler Act declared unconstitutional. The case never made it to the federal courts, and the law remained on the books until 1967.
Initially, many journalists and educators assumed that the spectacle of the Scopes trial had dealt a death blow to the influence of religious fundamentalism in the public schools. On the contrary, however, many school boards across the United States reacted by taking evolution out of their high school curricula. Textbooks were revised quietly to avoid controversy. Tennessee, for example, stopped using high school biology textbooks that included discussion of evolution. Like dozens of other states, Tennessee allowed no such textbooks to be used until several decades later. It was only in the late 1950’s, with the Soviet Union’s launch of the first human-made satellite, Sputnik, that American school boards made a concerted attempt to strengthen science textbooks, which included reinstating information on evolution. Debates concerning how American public schools should approach the teaching of the theory of evolution and the subject of creationism did not end there, however; they continued into the twenty-first century, further complicated by the introduction of the concept of “intelligent design.” —John H. DeBerry and Daniel Brown Further Reading Bird, Wendell. The Origin of Species Revisited: The Theories of Evolution and of Abrupt Appearance. New York: Philosophical Library, 1989. Idiosyncratic study of the legal and religious issues involved in the debate about evolution. Ginger, Ray. Six Days or Forever: Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969. A highly readable, accurate account of the trial. Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Offers analysis of the trial and its impacts from cultural, historical, and legal perspectives. Draws on previously unavailable archival materials. _______. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution. 3d ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003. Provides a careful assessment of the legal, cultural, and religious issues involved in the debate. Olasky, Marvin, and John Perry. Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005. Argues that slanted newspaper coverage of the trial and later accounts of the trial by historians failed to depict the events and their importance accurately. Examines the trial from a creationist viewpoint. 2057
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the jury until he could rule on whether or not scientific testimony was admissible. He admonished the jurors not to stand around in the courthouse grounds, where they might hear the trial in progress over the public-address system that was broadcasting to the crowd outside. On Friday, July 17, Judge Raulston, agreeing with the prosecution, refused to permit the scientists to testify, declaring that the only relevant question for the court to decide was whether Scopes had actually taught the theory of evolution. This ruling destroyed the defense’s case because it prevented the testing of the questions of the constitutionality of the law and the violation of the defendant’s civil liberties, as well as the truthfulness of the doctrine of evolution. The trial probably would have ended there, for the defense did not deny that Scopes had taught evolution, had not Bryan made the mistake of allowing Darrow to get him on the stand as an “expert” on the Bible. Darrow bore down hard on Bryan’s fundamentalist beliefs, and in a grueling and sarcastic hour and a half of cross-examination made a shambles of the man often called the “Great Commoner,” eliciting an admission from Bryan that he did not really believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. This admission shocked many of Bryan’s fundamentalist followers. Darrow’s cross-examination had a shattering effect on Bryan himself as well, and many think that it caused his death, which occurred five days later in Dayton. Bryan had prepared a long oration to deliver when he summed up the prosecution’s case. He hoped to regain his lost stature by overwhelming the crowd with his oratory, but he never got the chance. Darrow and Malone did not make a final summation for the defense; therefore, none was allowed for the prosecution. Indeed, the defense attorneys asked the jury to find their client guilty so that they could appeal the verdict to a higher court. On July 21, Scopes was found guilty and fined one hundred dollars. The defense appealed the verdict to the Tennessee State Court of Appeals, and in 1927 Scopes was cleared on a technicality—the appeals court found that the lower court had exceeded its authority in fining Scopes.
Scopes Trial
Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought
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Scopes, John Thomas, and James Pressley. Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. Reminiscences about the trial from the central figure after a long passage of time. Wills, Garry. Under God: Religion and American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Presents a
July 18, 1925-December 11, 1926 MEIN KAMPF Outlines Nazi
penetrating examination and analysis of American religious history. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 address the issues raised in the Scopes trial. See also: 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded; 1928: Smith-Hoover Campaign.
Thought
Adolf Hitler, the future Nazi dictator of Germany, published a heavily edited and ponderous political statement that was slow to sell until Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, when sales figures jumped significantly. The racist and militaristic nature of the work provided a chilling window into Nazi thought.
gave it the shorter title of Mein Kampf. From 1924 to 1927, the German government banned Hitler from speaking, and so after the publication of the first volume on July 18, 1925, Hitler quickly set to work on a second volume, which was published on December 11, 1926.
Locale: Bavaria, Germany Categories: Government and politics; publishing and journalism Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), dictator of Germany, 19331945 Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), Hitler’s secretary and later deputy Max Amman (1891-1957), head of the Nazi Party’s publishing house Summary of Event In the so-called Beer Hall Putsch of November, 1923, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to seize power in Munich, the capital of Bavaria. After the movement’s failure, Hitler was tried and found guilty of high treason, and he spent a year in Landsberg Prison. While there, he began writing the first volume of his political manifesto, Mein Kampf (1925-1926; English translation, 1939). Hitler used the book, the title of which means “my struggle,” to set down his life story and political views. During his year of enforced idleness, Hitler dictated a mass of thoughts and reminiscences, much of which was taken down by his close companion Rudolf Hess. After his release from prison, Hitler turned the manuscript over to Max Amman, the Nazi Party’s publisher, who found it in need of major editing. With the help of Hess and a few others, Amman put the work into publishable form. Hitler had wanted to title it Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice, but Amman 2058
Dust jacket that appeared on Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. (Library of Congress)
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Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought
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Although Hitler believed that world From MEIN KAMPF events occur not by writing but by Mein Kampf describes Adolf Hitler’s racist beliefs in alarming detail, as this speaking, he seemed to have had litexcerpt illustrates. tle trouble becoming a writer. Mein Kampf is a mixture of autoThe Jewish domination in the State seems now so fully assured that not only biography and political ideology that can he now afford to call himself a Jew once again, but he even acknowledges both reveals and hides a great deal freely and openly what his ideas are on racial and political questions. A section about Hitler. The author described of the Jews avows itself quite openly as an alien people, but even here there is himself as a seeker of truth who spent another falsehood. When the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe a pleasant childhood in his native that the new national consciousness of the Jews will be satisfied by the estabAustria despite his father’s harsh dislishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, the Jews thereby adopt another means to dupe the simple-minded Gentile. They have not the slightest intention of cipline. His mother’s death in 1907 building up a Jewish State in Palestine so as to live in it. What they really are came as a crushing blow, and Hitler aiming at is to establish a central organization for their international swindling moved to Vienna, where he had his and cheating. As a sovereign State, this cannot be controlled by any of the other first real exposure to Jews and to States. Therefore it can serve as a refuge for swindlers who have been found anti-Semitic doctrine. Life in Vienna out and at the same time a high-school for the training of other swindlers. intensified his dislike for the AustroAs a sign of their growing presumption and sense of security, a certain secHungarian Empire, and Hitler came tion of them openly and impudently proclaim their Jewish nationality while to believe that Germany was the only another section hypocritically pretend that they are German, French or English true home of German culture. In as the case may be. Their blatant behaviour in their relations with other people 1912, Hitler moved to Munich, a city shows how clearly they envisage their day of triumph in the near future. he found truly German, and in 1914 The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, satanically glaring at and spying on the unsuspicious girl whom he plans to seduce, adulthe coming of World War I allowed terating her blood and removing her from the bosom of her own people. The him to experience the life of a solJew uses every possible means to undermine the racial foundations of a subjudier. For Hitler, military service was gated people. In his systematic efforts to ruin girls and women he strives to a crowning educational achievement break down the last barriers of discrimination between him and other peoples. and the inspiration for his career as a The Jews were responsible for bringing negroes into the Rhineland, with the speaker. Recalling the heroic deeds ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering of the German army, Hitler blamed its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate. For as long as a the Jews and Marxists for the counpeople remain racially pure and are conscious of the treasure of their blood, try’s collapse at war’s end, the estabthey can never be overcome by the Jew. Never in this world can the Jew belishment of a weak democratic govcome master of any people except a bastardized people. ernment, and the punitive treatment That is why the Jew systematically endeavours to lower the racial quality of a people by permanently adulterating the blood of the individuals who make of Germany by its enemies. He promup that people. ised readers that Germany would rearm and assume its rightful role as a Source: Adolf Hitler, My Struggle, translated by James Murphy (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939). world power. Race dominates the ideology on display in Mein Kampf. Hitler was convinced that every race should prestate was the means to a more important end: racial selfserve its purity or face decline, and he was especially dispreservation. He saw Germany’s mission as one that traught that the Aryan race (whose nature he never prewould secure the land required by future Aryan populacisely defined), especially German Aryans, seemed to tions, which Hitler believed would number 250 million have failed in this effort. He believed that if the German in a hundred years. The only alternative plan, as Hitler race could be kept pure—that is, if its most Aryan elesaw it, was to secure “living space” (Lebensraum) for ments could be increased through careful breeding— Germans in Russia. Germany could achieve world domination. The greatest Hitler saw himself as Germany’s political savior and threat to Germany in Hitler’s eyes were the Jews, whom the Nazi Party as the source of the force necessary to prehe compared to parasites, and he promised that the score vail in a racial and political struggle against Jews and against the Jews would soon be settled. To Hitler, the
Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought Marxists. One man, he insisted, had to step forward to lead, and he clearly saw himself in that role: Mein Kampf referred to the “strong man” who is “mightiest alone” and whose ideas are so revolutionary that they may not be accepted in his lifetime. Hitler was known to be a great admirer of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator who had ruled Italy since 1919, but he mentioned Mussolini by name only once in Mein Kampf, leaving the implication that he wanted to avoid sharing history’s heroic role. Given that Hitler had served as propaganda chief of the Nazi Party, it is not surprising that Mein Kampf offered a lengthy commentary on propaganda. In an early chapter on war propaganda, Hitler wrote scornfully of Germany’s weak and ineffective efforts during World War I. In Hitler’s view, war propaganda was a means to German victory, and to accomplish this the government needed to appeal to the psychology of the masses. In Hitler’s view, British and American propaganda succeeded, especially in their portrayals of Germans as barbarians and in their observation of the principle that propaganda must be simple and repetitious. Hitler also stressed the superiority of oratory to the written word. He took pride in his own prowess as a speaker and asserted that speaking was the most effective way to capitalize on the emotions (rather than the intellect), which would propel audience members to action. In a later chapter, Hitler described the distinct roles played by propaganda and organization, saying that propaganda was best used as a tool to recruit a movement’s core members and that organization was needed to ensure that only the most valuable followers were made members. The publication of Mein Kampf yielded Hitler a steady income, one that was initially modest but tripled after the Nazis made gains in the 1930 elections. The book’s royalties became truly significant after Hitler became chancellor in 1933, and it also sold well in Italy, where Mussolini took a personal interest in having it published. By 1945, sales had reached ten million in Germany alone, and the book had been translated into sixteen foreign languages. After World War II, its sale was banned in Germany, but it continued to sell in many parts of the world. In the Middle East, a former Nazi functionary translated it into Arabic, and in Latin America an Argentine publisher put out German and Spanish editions. Many of Hitler’s imitators have attributed their conversion to Nazism to reading Mein Kampf, including George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. 2060
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Mein Kampf has little to offer connoisseurs of literature, and as political science it is too full of crackpot ideas to be taken seriously. Still, Nazism without Mein Kampf would be like Marxism without Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848; The Communist Manifesto, 1850). Beyond offering Hitler’s version of the events that preceded his rise to power, the book provided an outline of the Nazi Party’s goals, and it became obligatory reading material for many Germans. It also sounded a warning to the world that went largely unheeded. Historical events such as the German invasion of Russia in 1941 and the forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of Germans are clearly predicted in its pages, and even the Nazi slaughter of millions is not surprising given the unbridled hatred that Hitler expressed toward Jews and others whom he considered unworthy. The most lasting legacy of Mein Kampf, however, is that it preserved Hitler’s ideas beyond his own lifetime. —Lawrence W. Haapanen Further Reading Bracher, Karl Dietrich. The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism. New York: Praeger, 1970. Definitive work on Nazi Germany contains chapters concerning the origins of Hitler’s ideology, the writing of and meaning of the ideas expressed in Mein Kampf, and the effects of those ideas in practice. Offers insights into the nature of Nazism and into Hitler’s personality not available in other works. Includes extensive bibliography. Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Focuses on Hitler’s years in Vienna and how his experiences there influenced him. Includes photographs, select bibliography, and index. Hauner, Milan. Hitler: A Chronology of His Life and Time. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983. Very detailed chronology of the major events in Hitler’s life and the rise and fall of Nazism in Germany. Quotes extensively from Mein Kampf and from Hitler’s speeches to illuminate the ideological underpinnings of many of the otherwise enigmatic policies adopted by Hitler and the Nazis. Includes bibliography (with mostly German-language sources) and index. Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. 3d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Comprehensive account of the Nazi treatment of the Jews of Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. Graphically illustrates how the ideas Hitler expressed in
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of some of the ideas expressed there. Includes bibliography (with mostly German-language sources) and index. Pulzer, Peter G. The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988. Examines the origins and evolution of anti-Jewish feeling in Germany immediately before and during Hitler’s formative years. Shows that the ideas concerning Jews in Mein Kampf were by no means unique to Hitler, and in fact were widely shared, and analyzes the reasons judeophobia became so widespread in Germany and Austria. Includes bibliography and index. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Ballantine, 1991. Classic work recounts Hitler’s career from the perspective of a journalist who spent years reporting from Germany. Stuadinger, Hans. The Inner Nazi: A Critical Analysis of “Mein Kampf.” Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. A study by a scholar who fled Germany in 1933. Toland, John. Adolf Hitler. 1976. Reprint. New York: Anchor Books, 1992. One of the most accurate, most comprehensive, and most objective biographies of Hitler available. Devotes many pages to analyzing the ideas Hitler expressed in Mein Kampf and echoed in his speeches. Includes exhaustive bibliography and excellent index. See also: 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact; Feb. 12Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland.
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Mein Kampf led directly to unspeakable suffering for millions of people. Includes excellent bibliography and index. Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939. This is the first complete and unabridged English translation. It includes copious annotations. _______. Mein Kampf. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Reprint. New York: Mariner Books, 1998. No commentary can illustrate Hitler’s ideas as well as Mein Kampf itself. Hitler’s clumsy and often pompous prose does not prevent the reader from understanding that his program called for the destruction of many basic human rights, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of association, free enterprise, and sexual freedom. Manheim’s translation is among the best available. _______. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922August 1939. Edited by Norman H. Baynes. New York: H. Fertig, 1969. Includes translations of all Hitler’s important speeches from 1922 to the outbreak of World War II. The various speeches, many of them very long, elaborate and expand on the topics emphasized in Mein Kampf in language often much more graphic than the turgid prose of the book. Editor’s commentary is perceptive and illuminating. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. A comprehensive and welldocumented examination of Hitler’s rise to power. Lee, Martin A. The Beast Reawakens. Boston: Little, Brown, 1997. Reviews Hitler’s legacy after World War II. Lukacs, John. The Hitler of History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Critical survey of the historical and biographical works on Hitler. Maser, Werner. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”: An Analysis. London: Heinemann, 1974. Shows that many of the autobiographical details in Hitler’s account of his early life are inaccurate and misleading. Tries (often unconvincingly) to explain many of the obscure references in Hitler’s book and to extrapolate the sources
Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought
West African Student Union Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 7, 1925
West African Student Union Is Founded In response to racial discrimination, West African students living in the United Kingdom formed the community-based West African Student Union (WASU) to provide support and information for Africans and to promote anticolonial activism in their quest for an independent homeland. WASU members also participated in the larger pan-African movement and Pan-African Congresses, which trained future African leaders. Locale: London, England; Africa Categories: Civil rights and liberties; colonialism and occupation; indigenous peoples’ rights; organizations and institutions Key Figures Lapido Solanke (1884-1958), creator of the Nigerian Progress Union in 1924 and cofounder of the West African Student Union Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), Jamaican activist who organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), early proponent of pan-Africanism and prime minister of Ghana, 1957-1966 Joseph Emmanuel Appiah (1918-1990), early proponent of pan-Africanism Summary of Event In the 1920’s, many West African students living in London and in other large British cities gathered to address numerous grievances, such as constant racial discrimination, and to draft an agenda for political change in the British colonies in Africa. As a result of these meetings, on August 7, 1925, twenty-one West African law students studying in Britain formed the West African Student Union (WASU) at the University of London. The word wasu means “to preach” in the Yoruba language, although the term is often mistaken for a direct acronym of the name West African Student Union. The organization provided room and board for West Africans in London, but it also served as a space for political discussion and action. Led by Lapido Solanke, a Nigerian (Yoruba) law student, and Herbert Bankole Bright, a doctor from Sierra Leone, WASU opened a hostel for West Africans in Camden Town (part of London) in 1933. The hostel also served as an information and resource center on Africa for all who needed it. Gradually, 2062
WASU spread throughout West Africa, and as it did the link between Great Britain and the African continent became essential to anticolonial activism. Much of the funding for WASU’s activities was raised by Solanke on trips to West Africa and elsewhere. WASU sought to raise awareness about the plight of African people, to educate and mobilize Africans on civil rights issues, and to work against the colonial regime when necessary. To accomplish these tasks, WASU members traveled in Africa and Europe to garner support for their efforts. They also formed youth organizations all over Africa, and these groups held regular meetings that provided opportunities for community discussions and consultations with British political officials. WASU members also utilized various media to inform people about their activities, and they created a regularly published magazine called WASU in 1926. The magazine included articles by prominent union members and supporters from the United States such as the noted scholar Alain Locke; it also featured news, information, and fund-raising appeals from the branches of WASU in Great Britain, West Africa, and the Caribbean. The periodical was essentially a public relations tool used to establish the movement’s voice and to spread the gospel of liberation. Despite the communication barrier created by the diversity of African languages, WASU members organized and inspired followers, rallying them around their shared goals: a vision of an independent Africa and a feeling of urgency about addressing colonial Africa’s problems. During the 1920’s, students such as Lapido Solanke, Kusimo Soluanda, Olatunde Vincent, Ekuudayo Williams, M. A. Sorinola Siffre, W. Davidson Carrol, B. J. Farreira (from Nigeria), J. B. Danquah (from Ghana), Otto Oyekan-During (from Sierra Leone), and Kushida Roberts (from Gambia) wanted to create the United States of Africa. Like these students, many West Africans, particularly those from the British colonies of Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast), Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Gambia, had been living in the United Kingdom, and the numbers of promising young (and typically male) students arriving from West Africa grew significantly during the late nineteenth century. Wealthy West African families sent their children to Britain to be educated, but the limited number of scholarship opportunities meant that few Africans were admitted to British universities. Those admitted
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He collaborated with Joseph Appiah, a WASU member from the Gold Coast. Appiah served as the union’s president for a time, and like Nkrumah, he was a key player in nation-building efforts after Ghanaian independence. For both Appiah and Nkrumah, WASU was a crucial training ground for future work. Significance Although ethnic and religious differences within WASU became increasingly salient and the group found it difficult to speak with one voice, WASU’s efforts effected significant social change by influencing a shift in the British political climate toward colonial Africa. Once independence for the British colonies seemed inevitable, the political work of WASU lost its urgency. As a direct result of the group’s work, however, West African governments appointed officials to protect the interests of their students in Britain. At the same time, the achievement of Ghanaian independence in 1957 and the subsequent independence of other West African colonies meant that many of WASU’s initial goals had been fulfilled. While the organization continued to exist, it evolved into a minor group for foreign students rather than a major source of continued support and political action for West Africans. Nonetheless, its history serves as a model for leadership, unity, and organization in the face of huge geographic, economic, and linguistic challenges. — Kathleen M. Bartlett Further Reading Adi, Hakim. West Africans in Britain, 1900-1960: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1998. Traces the history of the movement and identifies leaders and issues. Olusanya, G. O. The West African Students’ Union and the Politics of Decolonisation, 1925-1958. Ibadan, Nigeria: Daystar Press, 1982. Explores the influence of WASU in colonial and postcolonial Africa. Sherwood, Marike. Kwame Nkrumah: The Years Abroad, 1935-1947. Legon, Ghana: Freedom, 1996. Provides the biographical chronology of this militant member of WASU’s work in London and Europe. See also: 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets; May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter.
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were courted by the British Colonial Office, which hoped to obtain the sympathies of these future agitators and leaders. Ironically, the students’ stay in London only facilitated their development as activists. WASU’s cause was furthered when Lapido Solanke and Marcus Garvey met in London in 1928, when Garvey was working with the local branch of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey (who would later be deported) offered financial support for WASU, and he and Solanke began a lengthy correspondence. Garvey allowed WASU to locate its original headquarters in a recently vacated UNIA building, and this house became a base for WASU’s expanding intellectual and militant activities. Between 1928 and 1930, WASU’s branches in Africa included eleven in Nigeria, five in Ghana, and two in Sierra Leone, all of which were founded while Solanke was on a fund-raising trip in West Africa. Because many of the educated West African elite, such as Kwame Nkrumah, future president of Ghana, were active in WASU, economic support for the organization was relatively easy to find. During World War II, WASU continued its anticolonial activities and consulted with the British government on its colonial policies. WASU supported the Allied Powers in the belief that British colonial rule was better than German or Italian. Meanwhile, however, the organization remained focused on achieving independence and on promoting Africans’ self-determination. Toward that end, in 1945 WASU played a significant role in the Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, England. Following the war, a Labour government came to power in Britain, and it was much more sympathetic to WASU. As a result, WASU enjoyed greater access to political officials and more influence on the policy-making process. Also important to the organization was the work of Nkrumah, who was active in WASU from his arrival in London in 1945. He participated in study groups on key issues and in discussions with prominent Labour politicians, including Clement Attlee (who would later become prime minister in the United Kingdom). Nkrumah also founded the Circle, a revolutionary subgroup within WASU that agitated for political independence. While he remained closely connected with WASU, Nkrumah also formed connections with other organizations such as the Pan-African Federation and the World Federation of Trade Unions. Nkrumah was also closely involved with the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England.
West African Student Union Is Founded
Norway Annexes Svalbard
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 14, 1925
Norway Annexes Svalbard After years of international indecision, Norway was allowed to annex the distant northern archipelago of Svalbard under the terms of a unique and far-reaching agreement. Also known as: Svalbard Act Locale: Oslo, Norway; Svalbard Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures Fredrik Hartvig Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg (18551942), Norwegian diplomat Robert Lansing (1864-1928), American statesman Fredrik Stang (1867-1941), Norwegian professor Paal Berg (1873-1978), Norwegian jurist Johannes Gerckens Bassøe (1878-1962), Norwegian civil servant Summary of Event Under provisions of the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, Norway took possession of the Svalbard archipelago on August 14, 1925. The treaty had been signed at the Paris Peace Conference by representatives of nine nations— Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States—and represented an unusual but practical solution to a complex and long-standing international problem. While Norway assumed control of the archipelago, the economic right of citizens of other nations to operate within the islands was recognized and guaranteed. Mountainous and forbidding Svalbard, the northernmost territory in Europe, lies in the Arctic Ocean about halfway between Norway’s North Cape and the North Pole. Its area is 23,951 square miles (62,033 square kilometers), nearly two-thirds of which is occupied by the island of Spitsbergen, a name sometimes applied to the entire group. The archipelago had no permanent inhabitants until the early twentieth century and had been legally regarded as terra nullius (Latin for “no-man’sland”). However, the pressure of commercial and scientific attention from a range of nations made this status increasingly difficult to maintain as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Svalbard’s position far above the Arctic Circle means that the area has a harsh climate, but its commercial potential has been recognized for centuries. Whale and 2064
seal hunters from Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway were active in the group as early as the seventeenth century, while the Pomor peoples of Russia established several short-lived settlements during the early eighteenth century. Early hunters had discovered coal, but it was only in 1899 that a Norwegian entrepreneur made the first commercial coal mining venture. Several other Norwegians followed suit, and within a few years companies representing American, English, Soviet, and Swedish interests also established claims. Scientific expeditions from several countries had also begun a series of visits in the late eighteenth century; in Svalbard they found a living laboratory in which to study extreme geological and meteorological conditions. In the early years of the twentieth century, several conferences were held to settle Svalbard’s status, but none of them was successful. At the end of World War I, Norway again raised the issue by submitting the question to the Paris Peace Conference, which had been established to negotiate treaties ending the war. On July 7, 1919, the conference created the Spitsbergen Commission, which consisted of representatives from France, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States. This commission considered three choices: declaring the islands an international territory with a multinational administration, giving Norway a mandate over the islands under the supervision of the newly created League of Nations, or simply conferring sovereignty on Norway. In the past, Norway had advocated preservation of Svalbard’s terra nullius status, but it had recently come to regard that solution as unworkable. Now the country campaigned for Norwegian sovereignty, a position advanced by the influential Norwegian ambassador to France, Baron Fredrik Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg. In addition, the Norwegian coal company Store Norske had appointed a committee, headed by Fredrik Stang, to draft a treaty that reflected Norwegian commercial interests. Wedel-Jarlsberg presented this document to the commission on July 24, 1919. The United States also favored Norwegian control, a solution prompted in part by the sale of American mines to a Norwegian banking syndicate in 1916 and publicly espoused by American secretary of state Robert Lansing the following year. The eventual decision of the Spitsbergen Commission, ratified on February 9, 1920, as the Svalbard Treaty, favored Norway’s annexation with sev-
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Significance Norway’s annexation of Svalbard represented the first expansion of Norwegian territory in centuries, and the step led to a surge of national pride, strengthened, perhaps, by the fact that Norway had separated from a union with Sweden only in 1905. It also meant that for the first time, Norway had within its own borders a plentiful supply of coal, the lack of which had become a matter of serious national concern during World War I. On the international scene, the grant of Norwegian sovereignty avoided the inherent complications of an international administration. At the same time, retention of aspects of Svalbard’s terra nullius status and the guarantee of its demilitarization relieved international pressures that might well have led to armed conflict. Although American mining interests had sold their operations to their Norwegian counterparts in 1916, the Soviet Union (which signed the Svalbard Treaty in 1935) had maintained active coal mines since the early years of the twentieth century. Svalbard’s strategic location between the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans would become increasingly significant as the Soviet Union developed an enormous concentration of naval power near the Kola Peninsula. — Grove Koger Further Reading Derry, Thomas Kingston. A Short History of Norway: 1814-1972. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957. First authoritative survey by an English author, supplemented with a chronology and an excellent bibliography of works in English. Humlum, Ole. “Svalbard.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, edited by Mark Nuttall. New York: Routledge, 2005. Excellent summary covering all aspects of the archipelago’s geography, history, and development. Peters, Jochen. “Svalbard Treaty.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, edited by Mark Nuttall. New York: Routledge, 2005. Summary of the treaty, its background, and its structure. Singh, Elen C. The Spitsbergen (Svalbard) Question: United States Foreign Policy, 1907-1935. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1980. Survey of American policies and attitudes toward Svalbard in light of the country’s changing commercial interests. Includes maps, a substantial bibliography, and the text of the 1920 treaty. Ulfstein, Geir. The Svalbard Treaty: From Terra Nullius to Norwegian Sovereignty. Oslo, Norway: Scandinavian University Press, 1995. Extremely detailed con2065
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eral reservations, some of which had been anticipated by Stang’s committee. The groundwork for Svalbard’s incorporation into Norway was laid in a piece of internal Norwegian legislation, the Svalbard Act of July 17, 1925, and Norway assumed actual sovereignty over the archipelago on August 14, 1925. Norwegian minister of justice Paal Berg traveled to the Svalbard settlement of Longyearbyen (whose name means “long year city”) to make the official declaration. His country thus became responsible for defending Svalbard, for maintaining its relations with the rest of the world, and for overseeing legislation and administration within the archipelago. A sysselmann, or governor, who also functioned as chief of police and judge when necessary, headed the archipelago’s minuscule government. Edvard Lassen acted briefly in this position until an official sysselmann, Johannes Gerckens Bassøe, was appointed on September 4, 1925. Although Svalbard had become an integral part of Norway, several provisions of the Svalbard Act placed limitations on the country’s administration. The first of these required Norway to grant full economic and commercial rights to citizens of the signatory countries. Norway was also required to establish a code to regulate mining activities, and this code was subject to the approval of all the treaty’s signatories. Should any nation object, the matter was to be referred to a committee made up of representatives of the signatories. In order to facilitate the process, Norway worked closely and quickly with the other nations to develop this code, and it was adopted as part of Norwegian law on August 7, 1925. Under terms of the treaty, Norway was forbidden to tax the export of minerals at more than 1 percent, which ensured that mining activities of other countries could continue unhindered. In general, Norway was not to levy taxes in excess of what was needed for direct administration of the archipelago. Another important provision of the treaty stipulated that although Norway bore responsibility for the archipelago’s defense, the area was to remain demilitarized: The construction of naval bases and fortifications was forbidden, as was the commencement of war on or from the archipelago. Initially, Norwegian annexation made little difference in the slow and difficult pace of life in Svalbard, because Norway was inclined to take a laissez-faire approach to almost all affairs in the islands. So little construction had taken place at the time of annexation that Bassøe had to spend his first uneventful winter as sysselmann living at a radio station in the tiny settlement of Green Harbour.
Norway Annexes Svalbard
Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity sideration of Norwegian administration, nondiscriminatory requirements, military prohibitions, and mining regulations. Includes maps and the text of the treaty. Umbreit, Andreas. Spitsbergen: Svalbard—Franz Josef Land—Jan Mayen. 3d ed. Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, England: Bradt Travel Guides, 2004. One of the few publications devoted to the archipel-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ago and its island neighbors written for the general reader. Maps, color illustrations. See also: Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent; Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway.
September 30, 1925
Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity Responding to secular biological, anthropological, economic, and historical explanations for human existence and behavior, G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man reaffirmed arguments for humanity’s sacred, nontemporal origins. Divided into two parts, the book featured the sudden appearance of humanity on earth and the equally sudden birth of Christ as unique events outside the normal or predictable progression of time. Also known as: The Everlasting Man Locale: New York, New York; England Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; philosophy; publishing and journalism Key Figures G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English journalist, novelist, and Christian apologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English theorist of biological evolution Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian founder of psychoanalysis Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English philosopher Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941), Scottish founder of modern anthropology H. G. Wells (1866-1946), English novelist and social critic Summary of Event The Everlasting Man (1925) was G. K. Chesterton’s attempt to refute the cultural authority of modernist thought. He criticized the modernist conception of humanity, which saw humans as creatures beholden to animal instincts that would always be determined by natural forces beyond understanding or control. Chesterton was especially aware of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preser2066
vation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), books about evolution that had an enormous impact on the modernist understanding of humanity’s animal origins. Chesterton also knew that modernist thought endorsed Sigmund Freud’s challenge to human dignity and his studies of human will, which theorized the existence of unconscious influences that governed individual actions. In addition, Chesterton did not ignore Herbert Spencer’s evolution-based explanation of the most advanced social developments in human civilization (including the formation of organized churches) or the findings of Sir James George Frazer. Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890, 1911-1915) undercut the cultural status of Christianity and other religions by positioning Christianity’s foundations in ancient social or religious myths. In The Everlasting Man, Chesterton referred to these findings, particularly in relation to H. G. Wells’s bestselling The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (1920), which Chesterton targeted as a compendium of mistaken modernist concepts. In Wells’s thoroughly secular version of history, people were fundamentally defined and limited by their biological makeup. Moreover, according to Wells, in the course of humanity’s messy but steady advancement, progress toward higher modes of self-understanding and social organization was hampered by various political and religious powers. Human salvation, Wells contended, would be possible only after an intellectual liberation from these detrimental authorities, which would allow for the creation of a paradise on earth rather than an imaginary heaven outside of time. Chesterton wanted to counter this modernist rejection of Christianity’s authority, but first he had to contest Wells’s materialist definition of humanity as an organ-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity
From THE EVERLASTING MAN
G. K. Chesterton. (Library of Congress)
ism limited to its biology. He reminded Wells and other modernists that their fashionable emphasis on scientific rationalism misrepresented the full range of human experience, and that the modernist point of view particularly ignored the long history of humanity’s mystical perception. Modernists, Chesterton insisted, had lost touch with their innate sense of wonder. This intuitive sense, stirred by creation’s fundamentally mysterious nature, could not be satisfied by exclusively scientific or fact-based explanations of life because these explanations failed to dispel the sense that humans were less the kin of animals than strangers from somewhere other than earth. Chesterton highlighted the appearance of the human race and the birth of Christ as two especially inexplicable events. These two occasions were not, as modernists asserted, merely logical historical developments; humanity did not evolve from animals, Chesterton continued, and Christianity did not evolve from pagan myths. On the contrary, the creation of humanity and the birth of Christ were amazing interruptions of history. As unique events, Chesterton contended, they revealed a sacred history more plausible than modernist versions of secular history. To argue his case, Chesterton pointed to art and laughter as exclusively human characteristics that demonstrated an extraordinary difference between hu-
The point of this book . . . is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a particular point of it is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling. Thus they make current and anti-clerical cant as a sort of small-talk. They will complain of parsons dressing like parsons; as if we should be any more free if all the police who shadowed or collared us were plain clothes detectives. Or they will complain that a sermon cannot be interrupted, and call a pulpit a coward’s castle; though they do not call an editor’s office a coward’s castle. It would be unjust both to journalists and priests; but it would be much truer of journalists. The clergyman appears in person and could easily be kicked as he came out of church; the journalist conceals even his name so that nobody can kick him. They write wild and pointless articles and letters in the press about why the churches are empty, without even going there to find out if they are empty, or which of them are empty. Their suggestions are more vapid and vacant than the most insipid curate in a three-act farce, and move us to comfort him after the manner of the curate in the Bab Ballads; “Your mind is not so blank as that of Hopley Porter.” So we may truly say to the very feeblest cleric: “Your mind is not so blank as that of Indignant Layman or Plain Man or Man in the Street, or any of your critics in the newspapers; for they have not the most shadowy notion of what they want themselves. Let alone of what you ought to give them.” They will suddenly turn round and revile the Church for not having prevented the War, which they themselves did not want to prevent; and which nobody had ever professed to be able to prevent, except some of that very school of progressive and cosmopolitan sceptics who are the chief enemies of the Church. It was the anti-clerical and agnostic world that was always prophesying the advent of universal peace; it is that world that was, or should have been, abashed and confounded by the advent of universal war. As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War—they might as well say that the Ark was discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do. Source: G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925).
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As this excerpt from the book’s introduction illustrates, G. K. Chesterton’s great wit is evident throughout The Everlasting Man.
Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity mans and animals. Since art and laughter were without animal precedent but had been present since the beginning of the human race, these faculties could not be the result of evolution. Their lack of evolutionary antecedent, then, suggested that humanity could not have derived from animals. Instead, Chesterton argued, the ability to laugh and appreciate art implied that human existence stemmed from a source outside the material world. Chesterton valued art as a sign of humanity’s exceptional distinction from the rest of nature, and much of his argument in The Everlasting Man was advanced through the art of rhetoric. His favorite rhetorical device was the analogy, and his were effortlessly constructed, humorous, and based in common sense. For example, in response to the modernist claim that economic pressures explain the emergence of moral standards, Chesterton replied that such a notion was akin to saying that because we walk on two legs, we walk only for the purpose of purchasing shoes. In addition to his pointed analogies, Chesterton employed clever rhetorical inversions of modernist contentions. He observed, for instance, that the modernists’ trust in their own rational objectivity was undercut by their philosophical conviction that personal points of view determined individual beliefs. Given this conviction about the relativity of perspective, Chesterton argued, the materialist accounts of humanity cannot be understood as anything other than a subjective interpretation. Modernists were half right about human subjectivity, Chesterton maintained, but they needed to appreciate and value the emotions informing subjectivity. He continued, saying that humans’ deepest emotions—such as a sense of wonder—surpass reason’s way of knowing; emotional truths trump rational thought as a source for understanding the history of the sacred. Chesterton pointed to the appeal of myth and fiction, which can paradoxically be truer than materialist histories like Wells’s, and he also discussed art, which he saw as a unique and mysterious creation that further demonstrated the modernists’ error in relying on objective material facts to explain human existence. Chesterton extended his investigation of art by asserting that its appeal to the imagination pointed to the superiority of imagination over reason as a tool for understanding being: Only imagination could be capable of intuiting an explanation for such unlikely events as the origin of humanity and the birth of Christ. Chesterton compared this intuitive knowing to a child’s way of seeing, an idea inherited from nineteenth century Roman2068
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tics. This idea proposed that children know more than they can say and feel more of the subtle texture of being than they can understand; in short, they have a keener sense of the sacred and magical. Chesterton urged the recovery of this intuitive sense of wonder as an antidote to the modernists’ dehumanizing scientific rationalism. This sense of wonder was a crucial part of Chesterton’s argument in the second half of The Everlasting Man. There he spoke of Christ’s birth as a true story that read like a myth. The coming of Christ into the world seemed strange, Chesterton acknowledged, because it involved a paradox beyond reason’s historical understanding: Christ was not merely a physical man but a paradoxical union of the divine and the human. By reversing the implications of materialist interpretations of Christ that required him to be either a historical or imaginary figure, Chesterton avoided taking a stand on Christ’s divine nature. Instead, he was able to argue that the sheer plentitude of modern interpretations of Christ resulted from the wonder and profound mystery that this figure engendered. Christ’s miraculous birth was as extraordinary and unique as humanity’s own peculiar appearance on Earth, and the church founded on Christ’s teachings, Chesterton insisted, did not evolve from the decay of the Roman Empire any more than humanity descended from animals. Significance Like Wells’s Outline of History, The Everlasting Man affected readers across the social spectrum. Some readers considered it Chesterton’s masterpiece, whereas others saw it as second to Orthodoxy (1908), Chesterton’s autobiographical account of his conversion to Christianity. If The Everlasting Man was less influential than Orthodoxy, its alternative version of history—particularly of the rise of Christianity—had a significant impact on many people. Detective-fiction writer Dorothy L. Sayers, for example, thought The Everlasting Man was an act of Christian liberation, and C. S. Lewis, author of the seven popular novels comprising The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956), converted to Christianity after reading Chesterton’s book. For those not predisposed to Chesterton’s point of view, his argument seemed more a matter of style than of substance. They found his commonsense humor and rhetorical artistry to be entertaining but finally unconvincing compared to the methods used by modernist science and history. Some critics complained that Chesterton needed to know more about what he was critiquing. In marked contrast to Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man re-
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Further Reading Corrin, Jay P. G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc: The Battle Against Modernity. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981. Considers The Everlasting Man only briefly but is a useful guide to modernist issues addressed by Chesterton throughout his career. Dale, Alzina Stone. The Outline of Sanity: A Life of G. K. Chesterton. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William F. Eerd-
mans, 1982. A sympathetic biography with part of a chapter devoted to The Everlasting Man. Sheed, Wilford. “On Chesterton.” In G. K. Chesterton: A Half Century of Views, edited by D. J. Conlon. 1958. Reprint. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1987. Provides an insightful, succinct review of Chesterton’s strengths and weakness as a critic of modernism. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought; Oct., 1937: The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers.
October, 1925
Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty Germany initiated the Locarno Conference to reduce the German debt, offering reassurances of security for France in exchange. Locale: Locarno, Switzerland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; economics; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), foreign minister of Germany Aristide Briand (1862-1932), foreign minister of France Charles G. Dawes (1865-1951), vice president of the United States, 1925-1929 Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937), British foreign secretary Summary of Event The Treaty of Versailles, which concluded World War I, left Europe in an uneasy state. France and Great Britain had, with American backing, imposed on Germany an immense war indemnity. The German people felt grievously and unjustly persecuted, and the French dreaded Germany’s recovery and possible vengeance. This was the situation addressed when delegates from Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia met in Locarno, Switzerland, on October 5, 1925. On October 16, seven treaties were signed. The principal document was the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee signed by France, Great Britain, Belgium,
Italy, and Germany. Also called the Rhineland Security Pact, it guaranteed that the fifty-kilometer zone in Germany east of the Rhine would remain demilitarized and that Germany would honor its Belgian and French frontiers. By two separate treaties, Germany pledged not to make war on Belgium or France except in legitimate defense or in a League of Nations action and to settle disputes by arbitration. In the east, however, German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann refused to pledge the same boundary guarantees as in the west. Rather, Germany signed treaties of arbitration with Poland and with Czechoslovakia. France also signed treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia against the possibility of German aggression. The treaties were formally signed in London on December 1, 1925, effective as soon as Germany entered the League of Nations (September 8, 1926). For the first time since World War I, Germany was treated as a friendly nation. In order to appreciate fully the meaning of the Locarno Treaties of 1925, it is necessary to understand the events that led to World War I and the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. According to one interpretation, the major impetus to war was the aggressive posture of Germany, unified as a nation only in 1870 and impatient to gain respect and territory on a par with its well-established and prestigious neighbors, Great Britain and France. This interpretation, which became operative after the victory of Britain and France in World War I, is not by any means clear and unambiguous fact. Animosities between England and Germany did play 2069
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ceived more bad reviews than good ones, and it sold poorly. Even so, the book has remained in print, and Chesterton devotees continue to celebrate it as a cogent reply to agnostic and materialist interpretations of human existence. — William J. Scheick
Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty
Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty their part in establishing a general war mood. Eager to catch up, Germany embarked at the turn of the century on a program of rapid naval construction, including thirtyeight battleships. This was perceived in world opinion as a challenge to traditional British supremacy on the high seas, but in Germany it was seen as a security measure appropriate for a full-fledged nation. Another area of Anglo-German rivalry was Germany’s expansion as a colonial power in Africa, the South Pacific, and especially the Middle East. The contract of the Deutsche Bank with the Turkish government (November 27, 1898) to construct a railroad from Istanbul to Baghdad was initially favored by Great Britain, which hoped to use Germany as a foil to Russian expansionism in Turkey. British public opinion discouraged British banks
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 from accepting a German request to finance the project jointly. As the railway subsequently resulted in a nearly monopolistic German influence in the economic and political life of Turkey, Great Britain came to view it as a threat to its lifelines in Egypt and India. Franco-German relations had long been strained. Since the humiliation of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the French nationalist press had demanded a war of revenge. A spirit of resentment toward Germany persisted in France. At the same time, the French felt alarmed and threatened by Germany’s already superior numbers and the rapid growth of its naval power. The June 28, 1914, assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the throne of Habsburg Austria, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, by a Serbian citizen, Gavrilo Princip,
Representatives of European nations gather in London to sign the Locarno Treaties on December 1, 1925. (Library of Congress)
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producing Saar basin to France and return other disputed lands won by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Article 119 of the Versailles treaty took away all of Germany’s overseas possessions. After the war, Emperor William II of Germany had fled to Holland. The Weimar regime’s acquiescence to the stipulations of the Versailles treaty exposed it to criticism. No doubt the new republican government anticipated actual reparations to be lenient, given that it had had no part in Germany’s role in the war. That was not the case, however. Much discussion has been devoted to the question of whether the Allies’ lack of consideration for the Weimar democracy promoted the German nationalism of the 1930’s. In the years that followed the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies sensed the extent to which it had been excessively harsh and that the Germans must in time seek satisfaction. British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour announced in 1922 that if the United States, which had claimed no part of Germany’s reparations payments, would cancel European debts, then Great Britain would discontinue demanding German payments. The United States, however, viewed reparations and inter-Allied debts as entirely separate problems. Britain then offered a unilateral cessation of its claims. France, with a debt to Britain much less than its anticipated reparations from Germany, refused to grant a moratorium. British goodwill toward Germany left the French government feeling increasingly isolated and insecure. The solution of French prime minister Raymond Poincaré was to maintain and even increase the obstacles to German growth. Thus in 1923 France occupied Germany’s mineral-rich Ruhr basin on the pretext that Germany had become delinquent in deliveries of timber. The response of the Weimar government, now even more profoundly prevented from generating the wealth with which to make payment, was “passive resistance.” This took the form of issuing worthless paper marks for the purpose of making the requisite payments. The French, British, and American governments, banks, and private speculators worsened the situation by purchasing German marks at current low exchange rates, planning to sell them back when the mark stabilized at its normal higher value. Instead, the resultant flood of marks into the money market led to the collapse of the German monetary system in 1923. By then, the mark was worth as little as 4.2 trillion to the dollar, less than the paper it was printed on. A disastrous general European inflation had set in, and a worldwide financial collapse seemed imminent. 2071
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was only the trigger that set in motion a series of responses culminating in the war. Princip’s deed was the final event in a history of small Eastern European wars and of a dangerous animosity between Serbia and Austria. The South Slavic peoples residing in the AustroHungarian Empire in the nineteenth century had long agitated for independence, with moral support from czarist Russia. In 1867, Hungary had satisfied its nationalist aims through the creation of a new national entity, Austria-Hungary. Both Serbia and Montenegro achieved a landlocked independence from Turkey at the 1878 Congress of Berlin, but concurrently the South Slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed by Austria. Serbia claimed a right to rule these formerly Turkish provinces based on their ethnic relationship and, in anticipation of Russian support, gradually prepared for a possible war with Austria. In deference to a German demand, however, Russia officially, at least, ceased support of Serbia and recognized Austria’s possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1909. The two Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 added fuel to Serbia’s animosity toward Austria-Hungary. Victorious in the second of these wars, Serbia gained parts of Macedonia, but Austria-Hungary fiercely opposed acquisition of lands bordering on the Adriatic that would allow Serbian access to the sea. That corridor was filled by Albania, newly created by the Great Powers by means of the 1913 Treaty of London. Opinions differ about the rush of events after the assassination of the Habsburg heir. One question was whether Serbian leadership sponsored the assassination, or knew of it in advance. Austria demanded satisfaction, as if there had been official Serbian complicity. Although involvement of the Serbian leaders remains questionable, Serbia acceded to nearly all the Austrian demands. Austria rejected the Serbian response as unsatisfactory. Russia was committed to defense of Serbia. Germany, it was clear to all, would support fellow Germans in Austria. Germany was thus, by some accounts, no more guilty as a cause of World War I than any other European state. Nevertheless, Article 231 of the Versailles treaty proclaimed that defeated Germany accepted guilt for the war. Other articles outlined the exorbitantly high indemnity that the new Weimar government of Germany acknowledged it must pay. Aggravating this not clearly deserved war debt, Germany was deprived of a nation’s normal means of generating revenue, natural energy resources and overseas possessions as markets and sources of raw materials. Germany had to cede the rich coal-
Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty
Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty The 1923-1925 period saw massive efforts to rectify matters. Stresemann designed a plan to convert old German marks into strongly backed Rentenmarks at a rate of a trillion to one. This was the major step in alleviating the world’s general inflation. In 1924, the Dawes Plan, proposed by Charles G. Dawes, who subsequently became the U.S. vice president, provided for a large Allied loan to help stabilize the mark and regulate the amounts of reparations required. Finally, a British-sponsored Geneva Protocol attempted to define aggression and provide for peaceful settlement of international disputes. Although never implemented, it established a spirit for Locarno. France sought to contain Germany by preponderant force while Britain worked at conciliation, removing the causes of German dissatisfaction. Britain constantly tried to keep France from provoking Germany. The French could charge that Germany’s resentment was the result of Britain destroying Germany as a world power, taking its colonies, dismantling its navy, and seizing its capital holdings abroad. It was unfair, said the French, of Britain to ask France, Poland, and other continental powers to make concessions while Britain made none. Significance In February, 1925, Stresemann had expressed to France his government’s desire to guarantee the Franco-German Rhine frontiers as established by the Versailles treaty. The Germans regarded as great sacrifices their acknowledgment of French possession of Alsace-Lorraine and their promise not to use force in Eastern Europe. Perhaps these sacrifices would alleviate France’s fear of its more populous neighbor, assure France of Germany’s peaceful stance, and thereby meet the French need for security. If successful, Germany could hope in return for a reduction of its war indemnity and possibly, in time, even a dismantling of other provisions of the Versailles treaty. Locarno was regarded as marking the start of an era of goodwill and as the reconciliation of former enemies of World War I. The high hopes of the moment were reflected in the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Aristide Briand of France, Austen Chamberlain of Great Britain, and Gustav Stresemann of Germany. One assessment regards Locarno as the true end of World War I. What precisely did the Locarno Conference do, and how did it affect the sense of security of the peoples of Europe and the world? After a war that had surpassed all fears, and after an inflation that had destroyed the savings and economic security of countless middle-class families, the world was sorely in need of good news. The 2072
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Locarno Treaties offered hope of a peaceful future. The Locarno Treaties have also received a negative interpretation, which to some extent may reflect the true state of affairs. Such an interpretation came only after the treaties were known to have failed to bring permanent peace and after Stresemann’s private papers had been published. Was Locarno a screen behind which Stresemann actually supervised German rearmament? Did Stresemann’s trade and nonaggression pacts with the Soviet Union after Locarno prove Germany’s hypocrisy? Disillusionment exists even regarding the motivations of the Allies. It is argued that Locarno reflected Great Britain’s desire to keep continental commitments at a minimum. Great Britain’s unwillingness to concern itself with Eastern Europe seemed to be a portent of its attitude in 1938, and was so assessed by Adolf Hitler. The West, through the Locarno Treaties, may simply have been protecting itself by turning German ambitions eastward against the Bolsheviks. The Soviet Union did in fact see the treaties as a hostile scheme against it, as Germany’s eastern frontiers were not guaranteed. Finally, in both Germany and France nationalists attacked the treaties. For ten years, Locarno represented a ray of hope. Hope proved illusory, however, when Hitler violated the pacts in March, 1936. A week later, the other powers voted to condemn Germany but took no punitive action. — Daniel C. Scavone Further Reading Borsody, C. Stephen. The Triumph of Tyranny. New York: Macmillan, 1960. Argues that the Allied purpose at Locarno was to keep Germany and the Soviet Union apart and that, perceiving this, the Soviets viewed it as portentous of a new European war. Eyck, Erich. A History of the Weimar Republic. 2 vols. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967. One of the best general histories of the Weimar period available. Volume 2 includes extensive and incisive detailed material on Locarno. Jacobson, Jon. Locarno Diplomacy: Germany and the West, 1925-1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972. Explores the personalities and diplomacy of the Locarno era and offers an interpretation by means of newly released American, British, and German state documents and contemporary private documents, including Stresemann’s private papers. Jacobson views Locarno as a sinister diplomatic duel between Briand and Stresemann. Includes an extensive bibliography.
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Stresemann and Briton Ramsay MacDonald for their peacekeeping roles between the wars. Stresemann’s posthumous papers prove that he wanted to destroy the Versailles treaty. It had to be revised, by peace or war; Stresemann sought peace. Wolfers, Arnold. Britain and France Between Two Wars. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940. Good general introduction to the diplomacy of the period after World War I. Points up the high level of friction that developed between the two allies with reference to Germany. See also: Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Apr. 16, 1922: Treaty of Rapallo; Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss.
October-December, 1925
Baker Dances in LA REVUE NÈGRE Parisian café society was spellbound by exotic dancer Josephine Baker, who would soon change how Europe viewed modern dance. Locale: Paris, France Category: Dance Key Figures Josephine Baker (1906-1975), American dancer who became a symbol of expressive, exotic performing in Europe during the 1920’s André Daven (fl. early twentieth century), director of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées during the showing of La Revue nègre Rolf de Mare (1888-1964), manager of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées during the showing of La Revue nègre Paul Colin (1892-1985), amateur painter responsible for designing the cover of the program and the poster for La Revue nègre Caroline Dudley (fl. early twentieth century), chief organizer in New York City of the black song-anddance show that sailed to Paris to perform at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Jacques Charles (fl. early twentieth century), producer at the Moulin Rouge who helped with the production of La Revue nègre
Summary of Event By the age of nineteen, Josephine Baker had risen from her poverty-stricken background in East St. Louis to the endless possibilities of New York City show business. In 1921, she first made her name known in Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake’s show Shuffle Along. She later appeared in their show Chocolate Dandies. Both of these all-black Broadway shows are remembered for their role in helping to introduce black entertainment to the stages of New York City. Baker’s clowning, comical style helped to get her noticed during rehearsals and auditions, but she appeared in these productions only briefly, as a dancer or a “walk-on.” Her well-known ragamuffin period was labeled as such because of her popular cross-eyed and knees-turned-in dance position that eventually helped her break into entertainment. However, Baker’s stage appearances were not due to her dancing ability or beautiful body. On the contrary, Baker was perceived as an ugly tomboy and was clad in big shoes and tattered clothes. In the summer of 1925, show coordinator Caroline Dudley organized a black song-and-dance troupe at the request of the French theater director André Daven. Dudley and Daven believed that if anything would help save Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées from hard economic postwar times, it would be a real African American show. The theater was very large for such a small 2073
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Marks, Sally. The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918-1933. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Views the period as extremely unstable and inevitably explosive because the Versailles treaty was so unfair to Germany. Provides a useful chronology of important events from 1915 to 1937. Nicholls, A. J. Weimar and the Rise of Hitler. 4th ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Analysis of the failure of the Weimar government. Regarding Locarno, presents Stresemann’s argument that the eastern arrangements left Germany free to resort to war there. Stresemann believed Locarno would forestall a bilateral Anglo-French treaty and saw it as the beginning of the dismantling of the whole Versailles treaty. Includes chronological table, bibliography, and index. Taylor, A. J. P. The Origins of the Second World War. 1961. Reprint. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Praises
Baker Dances in La Revue nègre
Baker Dances in La Revue nègre production, but the directors hoped to move the show into smaller dance halls later. Baker was one of the twenty-four musicians, singers, and dancers to travel across the Atlantic Ocean and perform in what is one of the best-known American productions of the 1920’s, La Revue nègre (the black revue). Baker arrived in Paris dumbfounded and ready to return to the United States immediately after the show was completed. Her attitude would soon change, however. La Revue nègre was developed to give the European audience an idea of how black Americans danced. When the opening night of La Revue nègre finally came, Paris was caught by surprise. A popular comment from the audience was that the show had the most black people they had ever seen on a stage at one time. To Parisian café society, the popular class of people involved in the city life of downtown Paris, this was a part of the world they knew little about. Before La Revue nègre was ready for its preview showing at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, director Daven and producer Rolf de Mare had to make significant changes to the format and content of the show, which had been presented in Britain and across Europe as Blackbirds. They thought the show was too noisy, too long, inelegant, and not black enough. Jacques Charles, a producer at the well-known Moulin Rouge, rearranged the dancers and put more focus on Baker. She was given the spotlight in one particularly exotic dance, the “Danse sauvage,” which was strategically placed at the end of the show to create a shocking finale. Baker and her partner appeared in bare skin and feathers, and they raced around the stage to upbeat African music. Baker’s part in the “Danse sauvage” was the foundation of her exotic dance period. Interestingly, Baker was not originally scheduled to star in the show. When Maud de Forrest, the original lead singer, could no longer handle the pressure of performing in La Revue nègre, she was dismissed from the show. Baker took her place as the leading lady, and a star was born. When the show was ready for opening night, journalists and celebrities were given an exclusive preview showing. An enormous amount of publicity appeared in the French tabloids and newspapers. What mattered was not whether the reviews were good or bad, but that the show had become the most talked-about production in Paris. Almost immediately after opening night, Baker became a well-known success. Surrounded by handsome men, publicity people, and artists, her impression of Paris quickly changed, and she became accustomed to the European lifestyle. France would soon become her new home, and she became part of France’s growing 2074
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 obsession with black entertainment. An artist by the name of Paul Colin was partly responsible for Baker’s fame in La Revue nègre. Colin was called in to draw the publicity program cover and poster. As the posters covered walls throughout Paris, positive reviews continued to flourish, and more and more Parisians came to see the show. La Revue nègre had created a celebrity and proved to Paris that black is beautiful. Artists soon drowned Baker with requests to photograph or paint her in the nude. She was at first too modest but soon realized that nude portrayals were going to become common. Although Baker was said not to have liked La Revue nègre, she would not have become a dance celebrity without it. Colin’s posters made her recognizable long before the public knew her by name. La Revue nègre played for three months, from October to December of 1925. As the directors of the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées had predicted, La Revue nègre was able to continue its run by moving into smaller theaters. The show traveled from Paris to Brussels and then to the Nelson Theatre in Berlin. Although it was not a long-running show, by the end of 1925 it had made Baker one of the most famous dancers in Europe. From Baker and La Revue nègre, European society gained a knowledge and understanding of a dance culture that was previously all but unknown to it. Credit for this discovery must be given not only to Charles, Daven, de Mare, and the other show organizers, but to Baker and her unique talent. Her dance was not regarded immediately as artistically valuable. On the opening night of La Revue nègre, Baker was pleased to hear what she thought were whistles of approval coming from the audience. She soon found out, however, that in Paris whistling signaled rejection and dislike. Baker was in disbelief. In the weeks after opening night, the whistling came to be drowned out by chants of “Josephine” and calls for more wonderful dance. Parties were thrown for the singers and dancers night after night. La Revue nègre certainly left an impression on Jacques-Émile Blanche, a renowned French portrait painter. He had been searching for a “manifestation of the modern spirit” in the Art Deco Show but found it instead in La Revue nègre. This led other people to look at the show in that manner. The numerous reviews became Baker’s texts for learning the French language. Whether good or bad, the critiques of La Revue nègre educated Baker and the public. One critic compared the dance movements in the show to St. Vitus’s Dance, a nervous disorder that makes the body tremble. Another labeled Baker a “Black Venus.”
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Significance When La Revue nègre opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the French had no idea what impact Baker would have on the history of dance. European audiences were enchanted immediately when Baker stepped out on stage and became a beautiful, flowing piece of art. Because so little was known about African dance, Baker became even more of a celebrated creature. When she danced, her somewhat-disproportionate body became unexplicably beautiful and perfect, moving in ways no one knew were possible. Baker danced so exotically that the audience was mesmerized just by watching her move. Her dancing was said to have been on the verge of being obscene. Many different events illustrate how African dance was regarded after the popularity of La Revue nègre. According to the average Parisian audience member, black dancers were instinctive and incapable of discipline. When on stage, they were thought of as indecent, primitive, and savage. Because Baker’s dance moves were so unconventional and so different from those of Caucasian dancers, it was easy to understand why these thoughts were prevalent. La Revue nègre came to symbolize postwar modernism, bringing to Europe the spirit of Americanized Africa. The dance culture was left refreshed and more dynamic, with unconventional forms more accepted. Baker helped introduce popular American dances to Europe, including the Charleston and the Black Bottom. Her dancing also helped to popularize the jazz music that accompanied it. Critic Andre Levinson wrote about jazz, “The music is born from the dance, and what a dance!” The impact Baker had on the European culture was strong, and Baker’s style became an institution in French society. Restaurateurs and club owners named their establishments after her. Fashion designers followed the advice of Baker and eventually designed dresses in her name, such as Robe Josephine. — David Francis Further Reading Baker, Josephine, and Jo Boullion. Josephine. Translated by Mariana Fitzpatrick. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. Biography written by Baker and her former husband, with many interviews with her associates. Because of Boullion’s relationship to Baker, the information is very accurate. Baker reveals personal thoughts and stories that do not appear in other biographies. Portions of the book tend to include Boullion excessively, but the reader can overlook these excerpts. Good index and small section of photographs. 2075
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A particularly harsh critic of Baker was distinguished dance critic Andre Levinson. He referred at first to black dance as primitive and prehuman, saying that black dancers turned their bodies into percussion instruments. He gave La Revue nègre a favorable although somewhat condescending review and later was persuaded of the validity of black dance and jazz music. Librettist and playwright Robert de Flers referred to La Revue nègre as “the most direct assault ever perpetrated against French taste.” It is difficult to assess the widely differing opinions of Baker and the show. Unfortunately, there are no film recordings of La Revue nègre, only photographs and stories told by Baker’s friends and family. The fame Baker received from La Revue nègre was only a fraction of what was to come. In 1926, she was asked to join productions of the Folies-Bergère, a major tourist attraction in the Paris theater district. In 1927, she performed at the Folies-Bergère with two live cheetahs, wearing nothing but a short skirt made of imitation bananas. Ironically, Baker was not received as well when she returned to the United States to appear in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. After that, it would be fifteen years before she would return to her native country again. Baker joined the French Women’s Air Force at the outbreak of World War II and later joined the French Resistance; for this work she was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm, among other decorations. When she did return to the United States in 1951, she refused to appear in clubs that did not allow black patrons. Her stand convinced the Copa City Club in Miami, Florida, to change its discriminatory policies, and other clubs began to follow the trend. Baker’s performances included singing as well as dancing, but it was her dancing that made her famous. She performed all over the world in various shows and eventually went on a solo world tour. Baker visited the United States on her tours and, in later years, said that she thought of it once again as her home. With the stamina of a twenty-year-old, Baker performed into the final days of her life, appearing in Josephine, a show commemorating her fifty years in show business, five days before she died on April 12, 1975, in Paris. Her funeral was publicized throughout the country. Starting at the church of the Madeleine, the procession went by the theaters at which she had performed. Eulogies recognized her civil and military achievements as well as her artistic ability. Baker is remembered as one of the most famous female performers, responsible in large part for bringing new dance forms to Europe, beginning with her performance in La Revue nègre.
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Greece Invades Bulgaria Bennetta, Jules Rosette. Two Loves: Josephine Baker in Art and Life. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. A thorough and carefully researched biography that provides a particularly interesting discussion of Baker’s experiences as an African American. Bibliography and index. Hammond, Bryan. Josephine Baker. London: Jonathan Cape, 1988. Complete photographic biography of Baker’s performing life. Extraordinary photographs of Baker on stage, at home, and in various publicity pieces. Complete discography and index. The text is very brief, but this book is a good visual aid to other Baker biographies. Haney, Lynn. Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981. A good basic reference concerning Baker’s dance career. Haney is thorough and accurate in her accounts of which theaters, directors, and other celebrities were involved at each stage of Baker’s performing life. A large part of the book is devoted to Baker’s problems with her husbands and children. Lahs-Gonzales, Olivia, Bennetta Jules Rosette, and Tyler Stovall. Josephine Baker: Image and Icon. St. Louis, Mo.: Reedy Press, 2006. This generously illustrated volume was created to commemorate the one
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 hundredth anniversary of Baker’s birth. In addition to its many images, it contains two substantial biographical essays. Rose, Phyllis. Jazz Cleopatra. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Excellent biography in a story format. The book is separated into three sections, of which the first, covering 1925 and 1926, is the most complete. Only one chapter on La Revue nègre, but the “Danse sauvage” is covered extensively. Numerous photographs show Baker’s diverse phases. Wiser, William. “Josephine Baker, 1906-1975.” In The Great Good Place: American Expatriate Women in Paris. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991. Wiser offers a succinct but lively account of the dancer’s life. He paints a picture of a 1920’s Paris so jaded that almost nothing could shock it—except Baker’s energetic, seminude dancing. See also: Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut; May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; May 29, 1912: L’Aprèsmidi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens; July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres.
October 23, 1925
Greece Invades Bulgaria A frontier incident between Greece and Bulgaria resulted in a brief invasion of southwestern Bulgaria by Greece. The League of Nations intervened to resolve the conflict. Locale: Bulgaria; Greece; Geneva, Switzerland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Aristide Briand (1862-1932), French diplomat and politician and president of the Council of the League of Nations in 1925 Theodoros Pangalos (1878-1952), Greek military and authoritarian political figure and initiator of the 1925 invasion Summary of Event In October of 1925, a violent but minor frontier incident between Bulgaria and Greece caused the Greek govern2076
ment to respond with a medium-sized military action against Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government in Sofia appealed to the League of Nations for support in the conflict, and the League engineered a cease-fire, conducted an investigation, and had issued its findings by December of 1925. The lion’s share of blame for the violations of sovereignty, deaths, and material destruction belonged to Greece, which was then forced to pay a hefty fine. The roots of this conflict lay in the tangled domestic political situations in both Greece and Bulgaria. To some degree, however, the incidents also reflected the unresolved national question that had plagued GrecoBulgarian relations for more than a decade. The cause of the conflict was not, it should be noted, related to any of the so-called ancient ethnic hatreds between the Balkan peoples. In the period 1912-1913, a Balkan League—consisting of Montenegro, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece—had, with Russian backing, overrun most of the Ottoman Em-
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1925, the Bulgarian border forces killed one Greek offipire’s remaining (and ethnically diverse) territories in Europe. This First Balkan War (October, 1912-May, cer and one soldier near Demir Hissár, and Greek out1913), was a forerunner of World War I, which began in rage was immediate and thunderous, particularly because 1914; it was also a cruel variety of intra-European impesome Greeks had also recently been killed in Bulgaria. rialism, practiced not by the major world powers like Bulgaria’s neighbors also feared that the komitadjis, as Britain and France overseas but closer to home, by four the Bulgarian underground fighters were called, were bestates that claimed to be “liberating” their own historical ing supported by the Soviet Union in order to advance a or ethnic territories. The feeding frenzy among the four communist agenda. brought them into conflict with each other and with the The ensuing conflict became front-page news around diverse populations they now ruled. The Second Balkan the world. Before resorting to military means, the Greeks War (1913) ensued, and in it Bulgaria was humiliated by first demanded satisfaction within forty-eight hours in a number of states whose leaders thought Bulgaria had the form of an indemnity of two million gold francs seized an unacceptable amount of land in Macedonia and (more than eighty thousand dollars), an official apology, Thrace. and the punishment of the responsible Bulgarian parties. A final key element behind the Greek invasion of BulWhen these demands were not met, more than a thousand garia was the revolutionary nationalist organization Greek troops, accompanied by air and artillery units, known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Orgacrossed the border and moved toward the city of Petric. nization (IMRO), which had originally been founded The incursion began on October 23, and Bulgaria conin the 1890’s and then split into several factions. The tacted the League of Nations in Geneva on the same day. Mihailovists, an IMRO fraction, wanted to annex the large Led by the French foreign minister Aristide Briand, the region of Macedonia bordering Bulgaria. In 1925, both League Council, a subgroup of both permanent and nonSerbia (which became part of Yugoslavia in 1918) and permanent members, agreed to meet on October 26 to Greece held large portions of Macedonia, so their govconsider the issue. The League quickly demanded that ernments and populations were targeted by IMRO opthe two countries agree to accept its decision and that the eratives. The Bulgarian government was unable to dismantle the terrorist group, much to the anger of its neighBulgaria, 1925 bors. Meanwhile, in Greece, nationm a n i a alist sentiments were also running R o Bucharest high, and the irresponsible military leader, General Theodoros Pangalos, was presented with a tempting opportunity to both mobilize the public B l a c k and satisfy his urge for personal Sofia glory. The area around the southern Bulgaria S e a Bulgarian border town of Petric became a center of operations for the Macedonia Mihailovists’ aims within Bulgaria. Petrich Thrace B They also used Petric as a base from M EL O U AS Istanbul Demir Hissár NT IT AI S A which to launch attacks into the disNS Thessaloniki puted border areas of nearby Greece and Yugoslavia. Several such forays into Greece had already been made. A It was in the exceedingly tense atGreece e T mosphere of this cross-border terroru r k e y ism—which Athens accused Sofia of being unwilling to stop—that the frontier incident that triggered the invasion occurred between Greek and Bulgarian troops. On October 19,
Greece Invades Bulgaria fighting cease and troops returned to their respective territories before any adjudication would take place, and Greece and Bulgaria agreed to these conditions. Over a period of two days, the Greeks advanced about eight kilometers inside Bulgaria along a front that was roughly thirty kilometers wide. A number of Bulgarian homes and fields were destroyed or plundered, and refugees fled. Some accounts give the number of Bulgarian soldiers and civilians killed as fifty, and many others were wounded. Greek casualty figures are not available, but Bulgarian resistance had stiffened as the invaders approached Petric, and there were reports of Bulgarian sniper activity. When the Greeks heard of President Briand’s demand, attacks ceased, and Greek troops quickly withdrew. The League first sent the military attachés from nearby British, French, and Italian legations to conduct a preliminary report, which was followed by a commission of inquiry. This special commission presented its findings in a report on December 3, 1925. It found that Bulgaria had been at fault for the original incident, but that Greece’s culpability in using aggression instead of the good offices of the League was much greater; the penalty to be paid by Greece, adjusted downward for the indemnity owed by Bulgaria, was set at £45,000, or about $219,000. Greece paid the sanction in February of 1926. Bulgaria had based its appeal for the League to safeguard the peace on Article 11 of the Covenant, the constitution-like founding document of the League’s principles and procedures. The League considered economic sanctions or a military show of force under Article 16, but these were not necessary. Bulgaria was predisposed to rely on the League to help resolve this dispute because of a number of dealings that already linked Sofia and Geneva. The League had helped raise reconstruction loans for Bulgaria to repair damage from World War I. Bulgaria’s appeal to the League makes sense, then, given its functional relationship with that body as a defeated belligerent attempting to regain international acceptance. Greece’s grudging acceptance of the League’s intervention—penalties imposed on it by its former allies in the recent world war— indicates the momentum of the Locarno Pact of 1925, which prepared a rehabilitated Germany for a new international role, had given the League considerable authority. When the League was not hindered by internal bickering or budget constraints, it could be quite effective. Significance One of the most important outcomes of the 1925 GrecoBulgarian conflict was the demonstration of the effec2078
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tiveness of the League of Nations. Diplomats within the League came to view Article 11 as justification for earlier intervention in nascent conflicts than previously allowed by an emphasis on Article 16, which referred to fullblown cases of war. A second key result was that the importance of irredenta (an area culturally connected to one nation but politically controlled by another) in the Balkans was still important. Elite and popular preoccupation with these “unredeemed lands”—one country’s territory claimed by another on the basis of historical or strategic rights or of current national or ethnic composition— served to skew the domestic political scene of Greece, Bulgaria, and their neighbors. Perceived foreign threats to conationals or to a culture’s place of origin allowed more constructive, concrete agendas to be relegated to the political sidelines. With the military, intelligence and secret police services, and underground political groups playing key roles in the framing of political discourse, common developmental needs and historical similarities among the Balkan peoples were minimized; similarly, state budgets for education, the health system, industrial investment in nonmilitary branches, and the all-important agricultural industry were kept anemic. In addition, the continued cultivation of these frontier disputes helped make the Balkan states vulnerable to manipulation at the hands of the Nazis and, to a lesser degree, the Italian fascists. A final effect was pressure from inside Greece for the ouster of General Pangalos, who had initiated the assault on Bulgaria. As one of Greece’s many antimonarchical but decidedly militaristic strongmen of the period 19241935, he held power for fourteen months, and his failed foreign policy adventurism helped bring his government’s downfall. This shift in power was an echo of the tumultuous time in which King George II had abdicated after losing the Greek regions of Asia Minor to the new Turkish state in 1923. —John K. Cox Further Reading Clogg, Richard. A Concise History of Greece. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. An excellent concise history of the country that emphasizes the political instability of the interwar years. Crampton, R. J. A Concise History of Bulgaria. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. A model of historical scholarship for narrative histories of small countries. Full of salient comparisons of Bulgarian policies and ideas with those of Europe in general. Stavrianos, Leften. The Balkans Since 1453. New York:
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jor diplomats and blow-by-blow accounts, based on diplomatic and newspaper sources, of conflicts and developmental problems that garnered the League’s attention. See also: Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia; Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established; Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis.
November, 1925
Armstrong Records with the Hot Five Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five recording sessions between 1925 and 1928 led to recognition of Armstrong as the father of modern jazz music. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Category: Music Key Figures Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), American jazz musician Fletcher “Smack” Henderson (1897-1952), American bandleader Bessie Smith (1894-1937), American blues singer Fatha Hines (1905-1983), American jazz pianist King Oliver (1885-1938), American jazz musician and bandleader Summary of Event On November 12, 1925, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five band recorded three songs for the OKeh Record Company in Chicago. These were the first of more than fifty records made by the group that changed the course of jazz music. In addition to Armstrong, the original Hot Five included Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Kid Ory on trombone, Lillian Hardin Armstrong (Armstrong’s second wife) on piano, and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo. Except for one or two isolated public appearances, these musicians performed together only in the OKeh studios. From 1925 to 1928, the Hot Five, also known by a variety of other names during this period, recorded on twenty-two occasions; those sessions reflect a musical growth that has caused music critics to conclude that the Hot Five, and especially Armstrong, had a major influence on the evolution of twentieth century American popular music. Armstrong had established himself as a popular
showman and musician prior to the Chicago recording session in 1925. He performed as a soloist in cabarets, as an accompanist for other jazz musicians, and in various jazz bands. Audiences already knew him as the “World’s Greatest Trumpet Player,” and they came by the hundreds to hear him. Reared in New Orleans from his birth until he left in 1922, Armstrong naturally adopted the loose ensemble style of music common in that city. Between 1922, when he first arrived in Chicago, and 1925, Armstrong was a member of King Oliver’s band and also a member of Fletcher “Smack” Henderson’s East Coast-based jazz band. Oliver established a dominant relationship with Armstrong, and, although Armstrong did not learn much about the cornet from Oliver, he did learn something about responsibility. Henderson’s band was easily the best jazz band of the early 1920’s, and Armstrong profited from his years (19221924) in Henderson’s group. During these years, Armstrong gradually broke away from the New Orleans ensemble style. When not playing with a band, he made public appearances that emphasized his singular virtuosity with the horn. In some ways, the Hot Five recordings, especially the early ones, were a return for Armstrong to the more relaxed New Orleans music. Armstrong and others in the Hot Five group viewed the Chicago recording sessions as a holiday in their rigorous schedule of performances. Many critics argue that this informal attitude is what made the sessions so successful. The composition of Armstrong’s group changed frequently between 1925 and 1928, and with each change, Armstrong advanced his improvisation without disrupting the casual New Orleans rhythm. The group’s 1927 recording of “Potato 2079
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New York University Press, 2000. The magisterial work on nearly all aspects of Balkan history by touching on its political, diplomatic, intellectual, and economic, and even to some degree military and social histories. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. A well-documented source for information on and analysis of individual League projects that lays to rest stereotypes about the League’s supposedly universal ineffectiveness. Also contains biographical information on ma-
Armstrong Records with the Hot Five
Armstrong Records with the Hot Five
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
The original Hot Five in 1925 (from left): Louis Armstrong, Johnny St. Cyr, Johnny Dodds, Kid Ory, and Lillian Hardin Armstrong. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Head Blues” is generally considered a breakthrough for Armstrong and for jazz music in general. In the recording, Armstrong improvised two solos that set a standard for future musicians. Earlier, in 1925, he had revealed his potential for improvisation in a remarkable recording session with the great blues singer Bessie Smith. By the time he left Chicago in 1929, Armstrong was just short of star status. His recordings brought him thousands of new followers, and his personal appearances attracted both musicians and the general public. Near the end of the Hot Five sessions in 1928, Armstrong began to sing regularly on the recordings, and singing gradually became a more important part of Armstrong’s music. He began by singing in a tenor voice similar to the “crooners” of his time, but he soon developed the gravelly, rasping style for which he became famous. The Depression years were rough for Armstrong. His record sales and bookings declined, his second marriage ended, and he was arrested for smoking marijuana in California. Things soon turned around for him, however, 2080
and he extended his horizons as a popular and commercial performer in the 1930’s and 1940’s. He began to tour Europe on a regular basis, and he acquired a hard-driving, well-connected agent, Joe Glaser, who demanded that he smile as broadly as possible and use facial expressions to endear himself to audiences. Some black musicians and critics objected to this “jolly darky” routine, but most who knew Armstrong agreed that his onstage antics were merely extensions of his joyous personality. He was now often referred to as “Satchmo,” an appellation of uncertain origins. As his commercial star ascended, Armstrong’s cornet playing declined. A recording contract with Decca in 1935 required him to play and sing innocuous popular songs, songs that were suitable for radio listeners in the comfort of their living rooms. The big bands were all the rage, and Armstrong fell into line by leading a number of mediocre groups during this era. There was also a serious problem with Armstrong’s lips. Throughout his career, he suffered from split lips, which forced him to rest for
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Significance Biographer James Lincoln Collier has written that Armstrong “struck the first two generations of jazz musicians with the force of a sledgehammer.” This is not an exaggeration. Most jazz writers and musicians without hesitation cite Armstrong as the father of modern jazz or as the “Bach of Jazz.” He was truly a creator, for there was almost no musician who influenced him. He learned something from King Oliver, but what he learned was related more to presentation than to the music itself. Armstrong displayed technical and imaginative talent that astounded and inspired Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Humphrey Lyttelton, and a legion of other jazz musicians. The clarity of Armstrong’s horn, his sharp attacks, and his ability to play effectively in the highest register startled those who heard him for the first time in the 1920’s. His imagination appeared boundless in those early days; he could create melodies of grace and power almost instantly. The most cherished of Armstrong’s attributes, however, and the one that had the greatest impact on future musicians, was his ability to lift all around him, musicians and audiences alike, by the sheer joy and energy he brought to his music. He taught American musicians how to “swing,” how to give even simple music verve and excitement. It certainly helped if one had the virtuosity possessed by Armstrong, but lesser musicians could at least emulate his enthusiasm. The Hot Five recordings, particularly “Potato Head Blues” and “Weather Bird,” convinced musicians to be more independent and to eschew jazz orchestras, in
which they sat in sections and played notes, for the delight of improvisation, the opportunity to soar. Armstrong had, in effect, given all musicians the opportunity to use their creative talent to the fullest. Whether a musician played the clarinet, the piano, the bass, or the cornet, Armstrong was the model. His 1928 recording of “Weather Bird” (which he and King Oliver wrote in 1923) with pianist Fatha Hines was so spectacularly successful that such collaborations became standard for jazz musicians from that time onward. Although Armstrong’s major contribution was to the future of jazz, Armstrong’s influence can also be traced in rhythm and blues, rock and roll, country music, and all forms of popular singing. Even when he ceased to produce great creative music after the early 1930’s, his impact persisted. The Beatles, Collier points out, played as an “extra” for a jazz band in England that emulated the Hot Five numbers. Jimmie Rodgers, one of the original country singers, had Armstrong as an accompanist on his recording of “Blue Yodel No. 9,” and Rodgers’s singing always had a jazz flavor. Bing Crosby, a regular at Armstrong’s Chicago appearances, undoubtedly profited from observing Armstrong’s impeccable understanding of lyrics. Crosby once said he learned to swing from watching Armstrong. No summary of Armstrong’s impact can be complete without some mention of his effect on those who listened to his recordings, watched him in movies, or saw him in person. There was the Armstrong who influenced musicians, and there was the Armstrong who taught the general public how to enjoy the music. Although his impact was greatest with black audiences early in his career, in the later years, most in his audiences were white. White crowds found joy in his very appearance on stage, but not all the reasons for this were positive. As the Civil Rights movement in the United States intensified in the 1960’s, many blacks found Armstrong’s wide smile, rolling eyes, and general mugging increasingly grating. To some, he seemed to be pushing the happy-go-lucky image a little far. Many whites, however, found comfort in Armstrong, especially in an era of racial stress. By his rise from abject poverty and rejection to the heights of success, he seemed to prove that the American Dream did apply to blacks. In a time of growing anger and strident demands, Armstrong continued to play and sing and look happy. He offered marvelous reassurance, and the popularity of his 1964 hit record “Hello, Dolly!” said as much about the political and social circumstances in the United States as it did about Armstrong’s singing. The reaction to Armstrong was the same throughout 2081
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long periods of time. The scar tissue hampered his ability to play with clarity. His singing, however, was not affected. One of his 1930’s songs, “A Kiss to Build a Dream On,” clearly demonstrates his brilliant application of jazz phrasing to an otherwise ordinary lyric. Armstrong reached the peak of his popularity in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Although he had been almost completely deserted by jazz enthusiasts, the general public responded to his many film appearances and to his singing. His hit records included “Blueberry Hill,” “Mack the Knife,” and “Hello, Dolly!” The latter song was such a smash that it became number one on the charts in May, 1964. It also led to a much-heralded appearance in the movie of the same name and to many television bookings. This success marked a high point in Armstrong’s show business career. Shortly thereafter, his health began to fail, and he died on July 7, 1971. Armstrong had fulfilled the promise of the Hot Five sessions, but not quite in the way jazz musicians had expected or would have preferred.
Armstrong Records with the Hot Five
WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry the world. When he first appeared on screen in the 1969 film Hello, Dolly! the huge gathering in a London cinema burst into sustained cheering and applause. The response was not so much for Armstrong’s great musical contributions since the Hot Five days, but rather a recognition of the warmth that emanated from his horn, his voice, and his entire being. — Ronald K. Huch Further Reading Bradbury, David. Armstrong. London: Haus, 2003. Brief biography serves as an introduction to Armstrong’s life and his music. Includes notes, chronology, and index. Collier, James Lincoln. Louis Armstrong: An American Genius. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Superb biography, filled with insights, provides strong coverage on all phases of Armstrong’s life and music. Highly recommended for both casual and serious students of Armstrong. Includes notes, photographs, discography, and index. Jones, LeRoi. Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America. 1963. Reprint. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Examines how blues and jazz evolved in white America, including valuable discussion of Armstrong’s work. Generally an important and useful study. Includes index. Jones, Max, and John Chilton. The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Written by two British critics, this biography was rushed into print shortly after Armstrong’s death. Anecdotal and filled with reminiscences. Lyttelton, Humphrey. The Best of Jazz: Basin Street to Harlem. New York: Taplinger, 1978. Excellent collection of essays on the great names in jazz history by a well-known British jazz musician. Two essays dealing with Armstrong contain explanations for his musical influence. Strongly recommended. Includes select bibliography, discography, and index. Priestley, Brian. Jazz on Record: A History. London: Elm Tree Books, 1988. Impressive history of jazz recordings from the 1920’s to the 1980’s features a useful record guide. Includes photographs, brief bibliography, and index. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Excellent scholarly account of the subject provides both background and important detail. Includes critical bibliography and discography as well as numerous selections from scores and an extensive index. See also: 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”; Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club; 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career.
November 28, 1925
WSM Launches THE GRAND OLE OPRY With the start of its barn dance show, soon to be known as The Grand Ole Opry, radio station WSM brought country music to millions and helped to build Nashville into a major recording center. Locale: Nashville, Tennessee Categories: Music; entertainment; radio and television Key Figures George D. Hay (1895-1968), American radio personality and first master of ceremonies for The Grand Ole Opry Uncle Jimmy Thompson (1848-1931), American fiddle player Uncle Dave Macon (1870-1952), American singer and banjo player Roy Acuff (1903-1992), American singer 2082
Summary of Event On November 28, 1925, WSM, a Nashville, Tennessee, radio station that was barely a month old, launched a music show that would help to revolutionize American tastes, mold a huge industry, and stimulate a sleepy southern city to become a national center for the recording of popular music. WSM had hired nationally famous radio announcer George D. Hay as program director; Hay had been successful on radio in Memphis and with WLS-Chicago’s The National Barn Dance old-time music program, which had been inaugurated in 1924. Lured to Nashville, Hay wanted to set up a show similar to the one at WLS so that WSM, broadcast throughout the South, could tap the region’s rich tradition of folk song. Hay did not have to look far for talent for that first night. The Nashville region was rich in performers of old-time and folk music: fiddlers, banjo players, har-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry
1925
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
A large group of country musicians pose on the stage from which The Grand Ole Opry was broadcast in the early 1930’s. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
monica players, and an assortment of string bands made up of part-time musicians eager to be heard over the airwaves, although they were paid nothing. Hay seized on a seventy-seven-year-old champion fiddler named Uncle Jimmy Thompson. After setting Thompson down before a single microphone, Hay let him play some of the hundreds of tunes he knew for two hours. The response was swift; phone calls and telegrams poured in, and Uncle Jimmy was back the next week. By December, Hay had decided to expand the program with more old-time and folk musicians. The National Barn Dance had already been successful with this kind of music, although it favored some pop music in the mix. Other radio stations, such as WSB in Atlanta, had experimented with broadcasting old-time tunes and had succeeded. Old-time music—also to be called “hillbilly” and, later, “country” music—had first drawn the attention of recording company executives in 1923 and now was selling well in rural areas. New radio stations (the first had opened only in 1920) were eager to give their audiences what they liked. Although Hay wanted to develop a full-scale show with all kinds of performers, many executives at WSM remained skeptical. The National Life and Accident In-
surance Company, which owned the station, had sophisticated leaders who largely did not know this kind of music, and an insurance company putting down roots in the “Athens of the South” could hardly afford to appear too backwoodsy. After all, Nashville had an upper class that was proud of the city’s historic origins and of its many schools, colleges, churches, and financial institutions. Indeed, even late into the twentieth century, the city’s social and cultural leaders remained aloof from, and often disdainful of, its most famous product—country music. Hay persisted, however, and the response continued to grow. People even came to the studio, in the fifth floor of the majestic stone building that housed National Life, to gaze at the performers through the broadcast booth’s window. Nothing succeeds like success; even the skeptics reconsidered. By 1928, National Life decided that by offering low-cost insurance policies to the rural poor and by having its salesmen introduce themselves as from the station that broadcast The Grand Ole Opry, they had a gold mine. In 1925 and 1926, however, Hay still had a long way to go before the show would achieve an identity and workable format. By early 1926, with the program still known as The WSM Barn Dance, Hay started to add the 2083
WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry variety of performers with which The National Barn Dance had succeeded. The talent was easy to find locally. Next to Uncle Jimmy Thompson in popularity were Uncle Dave Macon and the harmonica player DeFord Bailey. Although Thompson died in 1931, Bailey stayed on until the late 1930’s, and Macon remained a favorite until his death in 1952. Hay started to format the show into fifteen- and thirtyminute segments, and it was expanded from two hours to three and, eventually, four hours each Saturday night. The curious who flocked to the building were soon better accommodated in a larger studio. Soon the show would have to respond to the crowds by moving to several theaters in Nashville, where the program would be done as a remote broadcast. The show moved to its most famous home, the downtown Ryman Auditorium, around 1941. There it generally hosted crowds of several thousand until its move to Opryland in 1974. In 1927, the station hooked up with the new National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio network. On Saturday nights immediately before the barn dance show, WSM carried a program of classical and grand opera music from New York. On one such Saturday, Hay got a bright idea for a catchy name for the barn dance. As the listeners had just heard an hour of grand opera music, now they could hear music of the “Grand Ole Opry.” The name stuck. In the early years and on into the 1930’s, The National Barn Dance from Chicago dominated among radio’s barn dance formats. Starting in 1924, it held the edge until the late 1930’s, when The Grand Ole Opry caught and surpassed it. Several explanations for the Opry’s eventual leadership have been suggested. Certainly, Hay’s ability to spot talent in a region rich in it was one factor in the show’s success. Chicago did not have so rich a talent pool of folk musicians in the area; in addition, The National Barn Dance tended to mix more pop music into its format than the Opry did. Yet with stars such as Gene Autry, The National Barn Dance gave the Opry stiff competition in the early 1930’s. Significance During the Great Depression, The Grand Ole Opry changed from its initial studio-bound format to a combination radio and live-audience entertainment variety show. Show business values began to alter things. Hay costumed his performers for visual excitement; pseudorustic wear became a norm. Rustic comedians were added to provide visual humor suited to the crowds in attendance. An artists’ bureau was instituted to help Opry 2084
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 acts tour the region and to travel into other regions where the clear-channel WSM could reach. WSM expanded from 1,000 to 50,000 watts in 1932, giving it an enormous reach across most of the country. The greatest change in the Opry’s direction, however, was the shift to a singing star system. Roy Acuff’s arrival as a member of the Opry cast in 1938 signaled the change dramatically. With his intense and piercing East Tennessee mountain voice, Acuff quickly took over as the Opry’s greatest favorite. His repertoire of love songs, old ballads, and hymns was delivered with great emotion and sincerity. Still performing on the Opry as he neared ninety, Acuff became known as the “king of country music.” He was joined in 1939 by another seminal figure, Bill Monroe from Kentucky. Monroe also sang with great intensity and, like Acuff, wrote songs and arranged old folk songs. In addition, he was an accomplished mandolin player, and he developed a style of hard-driven string-band music later to be called bluegrass. With bands such as Pee Wee King’s western-flavored group also added to the Opry, a new era opened. By the time of World War II, recordings began to dominate musical performers’ careers. Nashville became a recording and publishing center in its own right, in large part because of The Grand Ole Opry’s contingent of singers, musicians, and support personnel. In the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s, Nashville became the center of the growing country music industry. With the arrival of Texan Ernest Tubb on the Opry in 1943, another historic shift occurred. Tubb became the leading exponent of “honky-tonk,” or hard country, music. Songs of failed love and marriages, adultery, divorce, and hard times soon became the norm for country music. Tubb’s use of an electric lead guitar in his band— and his later use of a steel guitar with prominent string bass and drums—set the pattern for modern country music. When Hank Williams joined the Opry in 1949, the show in a sense reached its artistic peak. This enormously talented singer and songwriter was a member of the Opry only until late 1952, and he died at the age of thirty in January, 1953, but his legacy of songs still haunts country music. No one has ever rivaled his intense style, inspired by Acuff and Tubb but influenced by his rural roots in the pinewoods of south Alabama. After Williams’s death, the Opry took on honky-tonk singers who began to put the older styles in the shadows. Rock and roll offered a threat, too. By the early 1960’s, the Opry started to feel the pinch, and audiences declined. With the new interstates and touring buses, stars
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rate owner changed the network’s programming and its name in the early 2000’s. —Frederick E. Danker Further Reading Daniel, Wayne W. Pickin’ on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. A good introduction to country radio and its relation to local talent and tradition. Evans, James F. Prairie Farmer and WLS: The Burridge D. Butler Years. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1969. Study of the context for barn dance shows explains well the commercial and business aspects of these programs. Includes discussion of The National Barn Dance as well as of its different focus in comparison with The Grand Ole Opry. Hagan, Chet. Grand Ole Opry. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. A full history of the show, generously illustrated with informative captions. Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Excellent history puts the barn dance shows in context succinctly and accurately. Includes a few illustrations, bibliography, and indexes. Malone, Bill C., and Judith McCulloh, eds. Stars of Country Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975. Collection of essays on early country music pioneers includes discussion of several key members of the Opry cast. Features individual chapter bibliographies and index. Wolfe, Charles K. A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of “The Grand Ole Opry.” Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999. Comprehensive history covers all the program’s ups and downs and offers interesting portraits of many cast members. Includes many photographs, discography, and index. See also: 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; 1939-1949: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music.
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could make more money touring than by playing the Opry, with its minimum pay scale and its rule that performers appear twenty-six Saturday nights in a year. Those performers who could succeed on the basis of record sales, concert dates, and syndicated country shows on television either quit the Opry after a short membership or found they could bypass it entirely. New female superstars such as Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton were members of the Opry cast for a time in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but the field had grown so large and diverse that the Opry simply ceased being the “only show in town.” Furthermore, the recording studios in Nashville met the challenge of rock and roll by developing the “Nashville sound,” which reached out toward pop music audiences with smooth choral and string arrangements and by eschewing fiddles and steel guitars. It was a manufactured sound, and the Opry as a live show could hardly duplicate it. The Opry had to move from the increasingly archaic Ryman to more modern and technically sophisticated quarters. In 1974, the program moved to the Opryland complex twenty miles outside downtown Nashville. The new Opry House, which seats 4,400, was a marvel of modern entertainment technology, and its location on the same site as the Opryland theme park gave the show access to tourists who might have avoided the old downtown location of the show, which was in an increasingly seedy area of Nashville. In one sense, the Opry had indeed gone “uptown” to the suburbs. It took a while for it all to come together, but in the 1980’s The Grand Ole Opry witnessed a rebirth. Young, fresh performers, male and female, managed by the early 1990’s to put country music on the popular music charts in an unprecedented way. The Opry was quick to make many of these singers cast members. Perhaps just as significant in the revitalization of the Opry was the formation of The Nashville Network (TNN) cable television operation in 1983. Located on the grounds of Opryland, the network began broadcasting half an hour of the Saturday night Opry show live and featured Opry stars on its other live shows. TNN and the Opry showcased live country music through various channels of communication, including the Internet and the always-popular radio vehicles, until TNN’s corpo-
WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry
Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin
December 14, 1925 Berg’s WOZZECK
Premieres in Berlin
Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck demonstrated that it was possible to write an effective opera that utilized both a modern story and nontraditional compositional techniques. Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Music; theater Key Figures Alban Berg (1885-1935), Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Austrian-born American composer Georg Büchner (1813-1837), German dramatist Summary of Event The beginning of the twentieth century was a time of tremendous upheaval in politics, science, technology, philosophy, and the arts. The first two decades of the century would see, among many dramatic events, the horrifying carnage of World War I; the fall of the Russian czars and the birth of the Soviet Union; Albert Einstein’s development of the special theory of relativity, which would change the way humanity viewed the universe; and the work of Sigmund Freud, which would change the way humanity viewed itself. In the arts, the work of such masters as Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Franz Kafka, and Sergei Diaghilev was challenging artistic traditions. Not even Vienna, a city that had long been known both as a center of the arts and as a bastion of conservatism, was immune to the changes sweeping the world. Indeed, it was a brilliant, self-taught Viennese composer, Arnold Schoenberg, who would develop a compositional approach that would change music forever. Schoenberg’s primary contribution to composition was his championship of atonality, a compositional style that does not adhere to a single musical key, or tonal center. (The commonly used term “atonality” implies the rejection of tonality, but Schoenberg actually preferred the term “pantonality,” which implies the acceptance of all tonalities.) Ultimately, Schoenberg developed the “twelve-tone system,” also called serialism, which involved using all twelve tones of the chromatic scale (that is, all the notes in the Western system of music) in a single predetermined order as the basis for composition. It is ironic that, although Schoenberg was the architect of a new style of composition, his compositions in 2086
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that style would never be as artistically successful as those of his two greatest students, the Viennese composers Anton von Webern and Alban Berg. Both Webern and Berg developed their remarkable musical gifts rapidly under the stern tutelage of Schoenberg, who was intolerant of those who did not agree with him in all things. To his credit, however, he insisted from the very beginning that his pupils express their own personalities in their music, and their later achievements testify to his ability as a teacher. In spite of the ability of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, the infrequent performances of their works in Vienna met with little success; in fact, whenever their works were performed, they met with furious reactions from conservative musicians, critics, and listeners who could not understand or appreciate what they were doing musically. It was not until 1925, when Berg’s opera Wozzeck premiered, that an atonal work met with a significant measure of acceptance and success. On May 5, 1914, Berg attended the premiere in Vienna of Woyzeck, a play written in 1836 by Georg Büchner, a German dramatist who had died in 1837. (Because Büchner’s manuscript was extremely difficult to decipher, the name Woyzeck was misread by the compiler of Büchner’s collected works, and the play was first published as Wozzeck, the title that Berg gave to his opera.) In spite of the fact that the play had been written more than seventy years earlier, its undiluted, bitter realism had a powerful effect on the audiences of Berg’s time. Woyzeck, which was based on an actual event, tells the story of a soldier who is destroyed by his times and by his station in life. Taunted by his superior officer and victimized by a sadistic doctor who pays him a small amount of money to adhere to a series of extreme and unhealthy diets, Woyzeck, the protagonist, drifts further and further into madness. Ultimately, he murders his mistress, Marie, after she is seduced by a drum major, and then drowns while trying to wash off the blood in which he imagines he is covered. The unrelenting horror of the story and the work’s condemnation of an unjust society were a tonic to audiences who were accustomed to stylized, genteel works. Berg was overwhelmed by the power of the play, and he determined at once to use it as the basis for an opera. Although he was ultimately rejected as unfit for active military duty because of his chronic asthma and general
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compositional techniques, Wozzeck won over audiences and critics with its emotional power and with the effective way in which the music not only reflected but also enhanced the physical and psychological action of the play. Subsequent performances of the opera in Prague and Leningrad were also extremely successful, although they, too, were marked by attacks on the modern style of Wozzeck. With the success of his atonal opera, Berg achieved international renown. Significance It is remarkable that Berg broke completely with the traditional approach to opera—both dramatically, in his choice of story, and musically, in his use of atonality— and still produced an effective dramatic work that has been accepted as part of the operatic tradition. Wozzeck is regularly performed as part of the operatic repertoire, in spite of its avant-garde nature, and it is one of the few twentieth century operas that are regularly performed. It is interesting to note that other modern operas, such as Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron (begun in 1930 but never completed), are rarely staged. Berg’s Wozzeck is simply a particularly effective work that has found favor with musicians, audiences, and critics alike. Structurally, Wozzeck is unlike any opera that preceded it. After Berg had settled on the dramatic structure of his work—three acts of five scenes each—he sought
Berg on WOZZECK Although Alban Berg sometimes questioned his achievement in composing Wozzeck, two years after the opera’s premiere he wrote an article about it for a music journal in which he concluded: What I do consider my particular accomplishment is this. No one in the audience, no matter how aware he may be of the musical forms contained in the framework of the opera, of the precision and logic with which it has been worked out, no one, from the moment the curtain parts until it closes for the last time, pays any attention to the various fugues, inventions, suites, sonata movements, variations, and passacaglias about which so much has been written. No one gives heed to anything but the vast social implications of the work which by far transcend the personal destiny of Wozzeck. This, I believe, is my achievement. Source: Alban Berg, “A Word About Wozzeck,” Modern Music (November/December, 1927).
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poor health, Berg was called into military service in 1914, when World War I broke out, and it was not until 1922 that he completed Wozzeck. Berg not only wrote the music but also composed the libretto, which was quite faithful to Büchner’s play. Berg took the twenty-six scenes in Büchner’s play and reduced them to fifteen. He was able to use much of the material in the deleted scenes in the scenes that he retained. In that way, he was able to use most of Büchner’s material without producing a dramatic structure that would have been too long to function as an effective opera. The final form of Wozzeck consisted of three acts of five scenes each. Although Wozzeck is an atonal work, Berg was extremely conscious of tradition—particularly the musical tradition of his beloved Vienna—and it is characteristic of Berg’s approach to composition that he used traditional musical structures as vehicles for his extremely modern music. In addition, Berg sometimes used atonality in ways that suggested tonality, which occasionally led Schoenberg to criticize him but also enabled him to combine the best aspects of tonality and atonality in a way that Schoenberg himself was never able to achieve. Wozzeck was not performed immediately after Berg completed it, but one of Berg’s friends suggested that Berg take selections from the opera and create a concert cycle that could be performed more easily than could the entire opera. Berg did so, and on June 15, 1924, the Wozzeck cycle was performed at a festival in Frankfurt, Germany. Berg was pleased with the performance, and the cycle became the hit of the festival. Meanwhile, Berg had asked a pianist he knew to play the score of the opera for Erich Kleiber, who was the conductor of the Berlin State Opera. Kleiber was impressed by the work, and he is reported to have said: “It’s settled! I am going to do the opera in Berlin, even if it costs me my job!” Kleiber’s willingness to perform the opera was a stroke of luck for Berg, particularly because Kleiber made every effort to ensure that the work would be exhaustively rehearsed and well performed. In fact, the rehearsal schedule consisted of an unheard-of thirty-four full orchestral rehearsals and fourteen ensemble rehearsals—far more rehearsals than are customary for even the longest and most complicated works. When Wozzeck received its premiere performance on December 14, 1925, it became an immediate sensation. Although, as everyone had expected, some critics attacked the exceedingly modern opera in the most virulent way, many others recognized the work for the tremendous achievement that it was. In spite of its unusual
Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin
Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin out particular musical forms that he believed would best express the essence of each scene. He found the forms he needed in the traditional forms of music, but the forms he chose were not, traditionally, part of opera. The first act of Wozzeck consists of five scenes that introduce the opera’s primary characters and indicate the kind of relationship that Wozzeck has with each of them. Berg selected musical forms that would serve those functions for each scene: a suite (a form made up of a number of separate movements), a rhapsody (a kind of fantasy), a military march and a lullaby, a passacaglia (a baroque form in a triple, or waltz, meter), and an andante affetuoso (a slow form played warmly, or affectionately). The second act is, strangely enough, cast in the form of a symphony in five movements. The first scene is in the classic sonata form, the second scene consists of a fantasia (fantasy) and fugue (a form in which a theme is played at different times by different instruments), the third scene is a largo (slow) movement, the fourth scene is a scherzo (a fast, rhythmic movement), and the fifth scene utilizes a rondo (a strictly organized form often used to end symphonies). The third act is made up of five inventions, which consist of creative explorations of counterpoint (counterpoint consists of multiple melodic lines played simultaneously). These five are an invention on a melodic theme, an invention on a note, an invention on a rhythm, an invention on a chord, and an invention on a movement in eighth notes. It is interesting that, between the fourth and fifth inventions in this atonal piece, Berg inserted an orchestral interlude that is an invention on a tonality. It should also be mentioned that Berg provided, in all three acts, connecting music that heightened the drama of the opera and united the individual scenes into a coherent whole. Berg also ended all three acts on the same chord, thereby enhancing the unity of the three acts. The structure of the opera is noted both to demonstrate its complexity and to emphasize the care that Berg took in selecting the forms that he thought would best express the nature of the action that took place in each scene. The danger of using such a complex structure is that it is difficult to write moving music in so many forms. In the hands of a lesser artist, this structure might have been nothing more than a fascinating exercise. The fact that the complex and unusual musical structure of the opera is not apparent when Wozzeck is performed but is instead seamlessly merged with the dramatic action is evidence of Berg’s tremendous talent and skill. It is even more significant that the music of Wozzeck explores the psychological aspect of the action that takes 2088
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 place on the stage. The music not only supports the action that takes place but also extends the range of meaning of that action. It is the combined effect of the drama and the music that gives the opera its undeniable power. At a time when Sigmund Freud was becoming famous for opening up the field of psychology, Berg—like Freud, a Viennese—scored an unprecedented success for atonal music by demonstrating the power of music to explore the psychological realm of operatic drama. Berg was, to some extent, gratified by the success of Wozzeck, particularly because it earned for him a measure of respect throughout the world that was never extended to him in his native Vienna. He was never quite comfortable with the acclaim, however, because he doubted the good judgment of the listening public. In fact, he wondered at times whether he had failed in composing Wozzeck, whether he had unconsciously pandered to the public in his most accepted work. Berg went on to compose another superb opera, Lulu (1937), which used the twelve-tone system devised by Schoenberg, and a violin concerto that is one of the most beautiful works composed in the twentieth century. Berg’s primary goal was to create music of great beauty, and he demonstrated conclusively that atonality could be used to achieve that goal. —Shawn Woodyard Further Reading Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. London: Duckworth, 1975. An excellent examination of Berg’s life and music. Perhaps the best place to begin a study of Berg. Headlam, Dave. The Music of Alban Berg. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996. Examines the development of Berg’s music from late Romantic tonality to atonality. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Jarman, Douglas. Alban Berg: “Wozzeck.” Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989. In-depth analysis of Berg’s first opera includes background information about Büchner and his play Woyzeck, musical analysis, information about the opera’s premiere and subsequent performances, reviews (both favorable and unfavorable), and writings by Berg himself. Perle, George. Wozzeck. Vol. 1 in The Operas of Alban Berg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Excellent, detailed study includes much useful background information. Also presents a careful musical analysis intended for readers with background in music.
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Simms, Bryan R., ed. Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Examines the works of these composers in the context of earlier Viennese musical developments and compares the modernism in their music with that in the nonmusical arts in Vienna during the same period. Includes bibliography and index. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System; June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich.
1926
Vernadsky Publishes THE BIOSPHERE Vladimir Vernadsky’s publication of The Biosphere inspired imaginative investigations and speculations about humankind’s role in shaping the world’s environment. Also known as: La Biosphère Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Environmental issues; biology; earth science; publishing and journalism Key Figures Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945), Russian professor of mineralogy, crystallography, and biogeochemistry George Vernadsky (1887-1973), Russian American historian A. E. Fersman (1883-1945), student of Vladimir Vernadsky Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchayev (1846-1903), Russian pioneer of landscape geochemistry Alfred Lotka (1880-1949), American biologist V. M. Goldschmidt (1888-1947), German mineralogist James Lovelock (b. 1919), British American biologist and inventor G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1903-1991), British limnologist and ecologist Summary of Event A pioneer in the field of biogeochemistry, Vladimir Vernadsky was given professional direction early in his life. An older cousin who was a retired army officer and an independent man of extensive reading remarked to
Vernadsky that “the world is a living organism.” Profoundly impressed with this concept, Vernadsky within a few years began his scholarly studies of the earth’s physiology—the ways in which its matter and biota, including humankind, interact and affect one another and their common planetary environment. Vernadsky graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1885 and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Moscow in 1897. He was professor of crystallography and mineralogy at Moscow University from 1890 until 1911. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, he spent three years at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he wrote extensively on the subjects of geochemistry and biochemistry, crystallography and mineralogy, geochemical activity, marine chemistry, the evolution of life, and futurology, displaying all the signs of a polymath. From 1926 until 1938, he directed the State Radium Institute in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg); he was among the earliest scientists to recognize the tremendous importance of radioactivity as a source of thermal energy. He established the first Soviet national scientific academy, the Ukrainian Academy of Science, in 1928, serving simultaneously as its president and as the director of the Academy of Science’s Leningrad biogeochemistry laboratory. Vernadsky founded the field of biogeochemistry, and it was the principal one in which he gradually gained international distinction. Aman of broad scholarly talents and mastery of several scientific specialties, Vernadsky became best known outside the Soviet Union for his publication of La Biosphère 2089
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Redlich, H. F. Alban Berg: The Man and His Music. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1957. Fine volume on Berg is divided into four parts: The first discusses the Second Viennese School and “the problem of tonality,” the second examines Berg’s music in detail, the third presents a brief biography of Berg, and the fourth consists of appendixes that include Berg’s lecture on Wozzeck and Schoenberg’s brief reminiscences of Berg. Reich, Willi. Alban Berg. 1965. Reprint. New York: Vienna House, 1974. An insightful biographical and musical study that is all the more interesting for having been written by a man who knew Berg well. Personal reminiscences and insights make this book extremely useful.
Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere
Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere in 1926 (The Biosphere, 1929), a study in which he elaborated on his theory of the biosphere. Vernadsky borrowed the term “biosphere” from Eduard Suess (18311914), a Viennese professor of structural geology and eminent scholar who suggested the existence of an ancient supercontinent. Suess—who had first used the word at the end of a monograph about the Alps—and Vernadsky used the word “biosphere” to refer to the total mass of living organisms that process and recycle the energy and nutrients available in the earth’s environment. This activity occurs inside a thin veneer of life that circles the globe. Vernadsky was concerned that the importance of life in the entire structure of the earth’s crust had been underestimated—when it was not ignored altogether—by his scientific colleagues. For most scientists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the investigation of possible interactions between living organisms—human beings included—and the “dead” earth lay beyond the pale of narrow specializations. Biologists studied live organisms, for example, and geologists studied inert rocks; there was little inquiry into interrelationships between the “live” and the “dead.” Vernadsky, however, had measured both the distribution and the migration of chemical elements and isotopes in the earth’s crust, and he became convinced that the earth exists within a crustal layer permeated with life—life that continuously interacts chemically with dead matter in reshaping a common environment. Vernadsky did not accept the loose, generalized notions of his day that suggested that the earth itself is a living organism—a proposition he found to be overstated. He elaborated on an imaginative theory that, like the lithosphere, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the sphere of fire—the earth’s reliance on the Sun—the biosphere forms another of the concentric circles enveloping the earth. Vernadsky pursued his curiosities relentlessly, a pursuit enhanced by his enormous capacity for work. In the early 1940’s, toward the end of his life, having fixed the word “biosphere” in the scientific lexicon, he added another word and therefore still another concept: that of the “noosphere.” Noös is the Greek word for “mind”; Vernadsky believed that the “sphere of the mind” represented a new power altering the face of the earth. Defined precisely in the manner of science, the noosphere is neither a sphere, like the atmosphere or lithosphere, nor a physical phenomenon, yet it has physical consequences, for the human mind, in Vernadsky’s words, had become, for the first time, “a large-scale geological force” that was reshaping the planet. 2090
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Vernadsky enjoyed a lofty reputation in the Soviet Union and in Europe well before American scientists became familiar with his work. Just as the United States was emerging as a center of international scientific thought during the 1940’s, Vernadsky’s data and interpretations were introduced to the U.S. scientific community. Vernadsky’s son, George Vernadsky, had emigrated to the United States to join the Yale University faculty as a historian, and he and another member of the Yale faculty, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, a well-respected English-born limnologist and ecologist, arranged for the elder Vernadsky’s major studies to be published in English. The first of these translations, a seminal work on biogeochemistry, appeared in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences in 1944. A second contribution, summarizing Vernadsky’s conceptions of the biosphere and noosphere, was published in the American Scientist in 1945. As scholars familiar with Vernadsky’s scientific achievements have noted, Vernadsky’s imaginative conceptions of the biosphere and noosphere predated James Lovelock’s inspired Gaia hypothesis and paralleled some fundamental ideas integral to it. Late in his life, for example, Vernadsky, like later Gaia theorists, contradicted prevailing scientific perspectives on the relationships between human beings and nature. According to Vernadsky, all but a few historians, students of the humanities, and even biologists had failed to comprehend the laws of the biosphere, “the only terrestrial envelope in which life can exist.” Although human beings spoke confidently about individual freedom and had amassed a history independent of natural laws, the fate of the human race, Vernadsky observed, is inseparable from the natural laws of the biosphere. Humankind is geologically tied to these laws and to their material and energetic structures. As a consequence, none of the earth’s organisms can live in a state of freedom. All organisms are connected “indissolubly and uninterruptedly” through nutrition and respiration as well as through their surrounding material and its energetic medium. For Vernadsky, life of every kind, preeminently human life, constitutes a geological force within a global web that links all of nature. Thus Vernadsky’s studies and the intellectual constructs that flowed from them—the concepts of the biosphere and the noosphere—are closely related to later conceptions of an ecosystem. One general characteristic of an ecosystem, for example, is that every natural zone composes a regular, natural complex in which living organisms and nonliving matter are inextricably bound together by their interactions.
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many scientific specialists in the United States. Vernadsky, in fact, was snubbed by Soviet officialdom. It was not until many years after Vernadsky’s death that Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev revived the scientist’s reputation in the Soviet Union by quoting him—and then made his own contribution to The Gaia Peace Atlas (1988). Vernadsky’s explanations of the interplay between the environment and living organisms at a time when such concepts were unfamiliar to all but a few Western scientists also encouraged subsequent reevaluations of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian ideas about the nature of evolution. Darwinian and neo-Darwinian thought, although accurate about many fundamental aspects of evolution, emphasized competition among and between organisms as the principal mechanism of selection for survival. Because Darwinians tended to ignore chemical interactions between living organisms and their environments, however, a number of leading scientists after the 1970’s believed that Darwinian explanations of evolution were significantly incomplete. Theorists such as Lovelock and Margulis insisted that, as a result of “academic apartheid,” many scientists were largely ignorant of discoveries such as those of Vernadsky in biogeochemistry, geology, and ecology. They argued that Darwinians were consequently unable to account for the impacts that the evolution of life has had on planet Earth. Placed in historical context, Vernadsky’s research and his detailed conceptualization of the biosphere and the noosphere were perceived by the close of the twentieth century to constitute important additions to scientific understanding of the environment as well as to add important components to ecological studies. In these respects, Vernadsky joined the ranks of Gaia theorists and others such as the paleontologist-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and author-philosopher Édouard Le Roy. The writings of these two Frenchmen not only acknowledged the reality of Vernadsky’s biosphere and noosphere but also emphasized that humankind, as the planet’s dominant geological force, had introduced a new geological era that could be described as “psychozoic,” “anthropozoic,” or “mental.” A few worried that this might be the planet’s last geological era. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Balandin, Rudolf K. Vladimir Vernadsky: Outstanding Soviet Scientist. Moscow: Mir Publishing, 1982. Presents a clear, competent, and balanced discussion 2091
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Vernadsky, enticed by the specifics of his research, was not alone in grasping the realities informing this perception. Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchayev, the founder of landscape geochemistry and a pioneer in the Soviet school of soil science, for example, shared this view, even though the substance of his research differed from Vernadsky’s. V. M. Goldschmidt, a German mineralogist, stressed the interrelationships of geochemical cycles. Similar conclusions emerged from the work of Vernadsky’s student A. E. Fersman, who devised methods for mapping geochemical provinces, thereby providing a spatial component to his mentor’s studies. Analogous investigations were also being pursued during the 1930’s and 1940’s by such figures as the biologist Alfred Lotka, a pioneer in physical chemistry who viewed the earth as a single system driven by solar energy, and the limnologist, biomineralogist, and biogeochemist G. Evelyn Hutchinson. As students of the meteorological, biological, mineralogical, chemical, and other processes interacting in freshwater lakes, limnologists, like biochemists, often appeared in the forefront of ecological theorizing after the 1930’s. The American “discovery” of Vernadsky’s work was recognized soon after his death as having contributed both a partial history of and an intellectual foundation for the development of the Gaia hypothesis. The Englishborn American James Lovelock, who first expounded the Gaia hypothesis in 1972 and published further specifics during the 1980’s, fully acknowledged Vernadsky’s importance to his work. Lovelock, indeed, described Vernadsky as “our most illustrious predecessor.” Lovelock, moreover, was the first to publish a review of The Biosphere in an American scientific journal. Praise for Vernadsky’s work also came from Lynn Margulis, another major scholarly contributor to Gaia studies. Although Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideology was antithetical to most Americans during much of the twentieth century, recognition of the significance of Vernadsky’s work facilitated the further recognition that Soviet scientific thought, whatever its limitations in some areas, nevertheless offered Western science fresh perspectives. Although great advances had accrued to Western, particularly American, science through the development of specializations and subspecializations, these advances were accompanied by a loss of communication and understanding among many specialists, which tended to discourage the creation of syntheses and of comprehensive, or holistic, perspectives. The formulation of holistic theory was no more appealing to Soviet authorities, chiefly because it smacked of religion, than it was to
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Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales of Vernadsky’s life and scientific career. Includes endnotes and index. Golley, Frank Benjamin. A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More than the Sum of the Parts. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. A fine and lucid history, chronologically arranged, on the evolution of a little-understood seminal idea. Chapter 3 places Vernadsky in historical context. Includes extensive bibliography and index. Grinevald, J. “A History of the Idea of a Biosphere.” In Gaia: The Thesis, the Mechanisms, and the Implications: Proceedings of the First Annual Camelford Convention on the Implications of the Gaia Thesis, edited by P. Bunyard and B. Goldsmith. Wadebridge, Cornwall, England: Quintrell, 1988. Invaluable survey of the concept of the biosphere, clearly presented and well documented. Includes notes and references. Joseph, Lawrence. Gaia: The Growth of an Idea. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Nontechnical survey of the subject includes discussion of Vernadsky’s importance, particularly in chapter 10. Includes index. Lovelock, James E. “Geophysiology: The Science of Gaia.” In Scientists on Gaia, edited by Stephen H. Schneider and Penelope J. Boston. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. Brilliant and clearly presented exposition of the Gaia hypothesis by its chief theorist. Pays tribute to Vernadsky’s work at the outset. Includes graphs and bibliographic notes. Margulis, Lynn, and Gregory Hinkle. “The Biota and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gaia.” In Scientists on Gaia, edited by Stephen H. Schneider and Penelope J. Boston. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. Aims at securing financial support for Gaia scientists, but much of the substance is an exposition of the science behind Gaia (Margulis was almost a cocreator of the Gaia theory along with Lovelock). Explains Vernadsky’s work favorably. Includes graphs and bibliographic notes. Schneider, Stephen H., James R. Miller, Eileen Crist, and Penelope J. Boston, eds. Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004. Collection of essays reexamines the Gaia hypothesis from the perspectives of numerous scientific disciplines. Vernadsky, Vladimir I. The Biosphere. Translated by David B. Langmuir. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998. First translation into English of the entire text of Vernadsky’s original work, with extremely helpful annotation by Mark A. A. McMenamin. Includes a foreword by Lynn Margulis, bibliography, and index. Weiner, Jonathan. The Next One Hundred Years. New York: Bantam Books, 1990. Clearly written and at times fascinating account of forces shaping the face of the earth. Cites Vernadsky’s biosphere and noosphere as significant concepts. Includes notes and index. See also: Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature.
1926-1927
Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales Sales strategies used by the Book-of-the-Month Club and Literary Guild of America revolutionized the publishing, sales, distribution, and reading of books in the United States. Also known as: Book-of-the-Month Club; Literary Guild of America Locale: United States Categories: Publishing and journalism; organizations and institutions; marketing and advertising Key Figures Harry Scherman (1887-1969), force behind the founding and success of the Book-of-the-Month Club Maxwell Sackheim (1890-1982), advertising 2092
copywriter specializing in mail-order sales and cofounder of the Book-of-the-Month Club Robert K. Haas (1890?-1964), founding partner of the Book-of-the-Month Club and its first president Henry Seidel Canby (1878-1961), well-known literary critic and first chair of the board of judges that chose Book-of-the-Month Club selections Samuel W. Craig (1874-1960), cofounder of the Literary Guild of America Harold Kleinert Guinzburg (1900-1961), cofounder of Viking Press, Craig’s partner in founding the Literary Guild Nelson Doubleday (1889-1949), publishing executive who brought the Literary Guild into the Doubleday publishing empire in 1934
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Scherman and Sackheim each put up $10,000. The BOMC founders recognized that the key to a successful mail-order business was finding a gimmick to generate repeat sales. They applied the magazine subscription model to book sales: Subscribers would agree to buy one new book per month for a year at full retail price (plus postage). The most important innovation was the BOMC selection committee, or editorial board, composed of experts and celebrities who chose club selections. The board was promised a free hand in choosing the “book of the month” without any interference by management; the only limitation was that the price could not exceed three dollars. The first selection, Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes: Or, The Loving Huntsman (1926), was sent out to 4,750 members in April, 1926. By the end of the year, club membership had climbed above 46,000. The BOMC’s main source of competition was the Literary Guild of America, which began operation early in 1927. The Literary Guild was the brainchild of Samuel W. Craig, who claimed that he envisioned the plan for his club as early as 1922 but could not attract the required capital to begin it as a business. Heartened by reports of the success of German book guilds, Craig revived his plan. He joined with the cofounder of Viking Press, Harold Kleinert Guinzburg, and incorporated the Literary Guild of America late in 1926. Like Scherman, Craig arranged for a jury of experts to make selections for the club. Guild subscribers, like BOMC subscribers, would receive twelve books a year. The Literary Guild offered lower cost, at $18 per year (later raised to $21 a year, including delivery). The guild’s first selection, sent in March, 1927, was Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech’s Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord (1927), a biography critical of the antivice crusader. The turning point in the guild’s fortunes was its June, 1927, selection of what became a runaway best-seller, Trader Horn (1927), by Alfred Aloysius Horn. The guild’s monthly sales reached nearly twenty thousand copies by September, 1927. Significance At the beginning, the BOMC sent out its monthly selection to each subscriber along with a report on the book written by one of the editorial board members. The BOMC adopted a variant of the return guarantee that had been adopted by big mail-order firms to deal with customers who were unhappy with a selection. Subscribers could return an unwanted book in a carton provided for that purpose and choose another from a list of supple2093
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Summary of Event The antecedents of book clubs can be traced to the subscription library that Benjamin Franklin organized in 1731. Before the Civil War, the American Tract Society introduced a “tract-of-the-month” plan, which described its publications and sold them in a monthly magazine. Book guilds established in post-World War I Germany, which sold low-priced reprints of classic works, were more immediate forerunners. Modern book clubs emerged in the United States during the 1920’s, when prosperity favored leisure activities and the businesses that supported them. The shortened workweek gave at least some segments of the population more leisure time. Even more important was the dramatic increase in the size of the reading public, which resulted from the rapid expansion of high school and college enrollments. At the same time, there were few bookstores outside large metropolitan centers. Growth in the number of titles published meant that readers needed, or at least wanted, guidance in choosing books to read. Readers who did not have ready access to bookstores became a large new market for both books and advice on selecting them. Harry Scherman is generally acknowledged as the father of the modern book club. After a stint as a newspaperman, in 1913 Scherman took a job with the newly established advertising agency Ruthrauff and Ryan, writing copy for direct-mail sales campaigns. The following year, he was hired by the direct-mail department of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. In 1916, he joined with brothers Charles and Albert Boni in launching the Little Leather Library, a series of lowpriced reprints of classic books. The Bonis later sold their interest to Scherman and Maxwell Sackheim, an advertising copywriter who had worked with Scherman at J. Walter Thompson. When sales through retail stores began to fall off, Scherman and Sackheim decided to shift the focus of their sales effort to mail order. Thanks to the aggressive promotion campaign of Robert K. Haas, another alumnus of J. Walter Thompson’s mail-order department, sales of the Little Leather Library books reached forty-eight million copies by 1925. Scherman predicted that the market for classics would become saturated. He reasoned that as millions of Americans had been persuaded to buy classics through the mail, they could be persuaded to buy current books the same way. The Book-of-the-Month Club (BOMC) tested this reasoning. It was founded in February, 1926, with an initial investment of $40,000. Haas put up half this amount and was president of the new corporation;
Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales
Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales mentary books in the monthly newsletter. In 1929, the Literary Guild adopted a similar exchange policy: Selections could be returned and the charge canceled or used as a credit against any book in print. Subscribers paid the difference between $1.75 (one-twelfth of the $21 yearly subscription) and the price of the new book. As returns began to mount up, the BOMC replaced the exchange policy with the practice of allowing subscribers to refuse a selection or order an alternate selection in advance of the shipping date. The monthly selection was sent to members who did not reply by a deadline. This prenotification or automatic shipment plan became the standard method of operation for book clubs. The BOMC began by purchasing regular edition copies of its selections from publishers at a discount. The Literary Guild similarly had the publisher do the manufacturing, but with special binding and title page. The pressure of competition—first from the Literary Guild, then from new low-priced publishers’ lines spawned by the Great Depression—led the BOMC to make policy changes in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s that became standard for book clubs. The subscription contract was modified to require the purchase of only four books a year. A free book was given as an introductory offer to attract new members. At first occasionally, then more regularly, the prices of selections were reduced below list. To cut its costs, in 1930 the BOMC instituted the practice of giving publishers flat payments for the printing plates to run off its own editions of books. The savings from large print runs were so great that the BOMC in 1931 started a book dividend plan for distribution of special editions of books free to members as a reward for making purchases. As of 1945, the BOMC was giving away seventy-five cents in free books for every dollar taken in but still made a handsome profit. Although the lures of free introductory books, book dividends, and discounted prices contributed to the BOMC’s success, BOMC advertising placed its heaviest emphasis on the expertise of its board of judges in culling out the best titles from the hundreds that were published. As a contemporary reporter perceptively observed, the BOMC’s board “carried the stamp of culture without being too frighteningly high brow.” Its first chairman, the most influential member until his retirement in 1955, was the founder-editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, Henry Seidel Canby. Second to Canby in influence on selection decisions was popular novelist Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who served until 1950. The others making up the board were novelist Christopher Morley (who would become best known for his 1939 novel Kitty 2094
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman) and two of the most famous journalists in the United States, Heywood Broun and William Allen White. The BOMC’s target audience was the relatively well-off college-educated segment of the population, or at least members of that segment living in smaller cities and towns having few or no retail bookstores.The BOMC promised to deliver conveniently the important current books that a knowledgeable person would choose. Its advertising simultaneously underlined the social benefits that members would gain by staying up to date with the latest in the world of culture. In 1928, Sackheim sold his quarter interest in the BOMC to Scherman for $150,000 and left publishing to become vice president of a wire and fence company that sold directly to farmers through mail order. He later returned to advertising in New York and was responsible for the Literary Guild’s advertising from 1944 to 1960, during its period of most rapid growth. In 1931, Haas left the BOMC to study economics at Columbia University; he would later return to publishing as a partner in Random House. Scherman took over as BOMC president, retaining that position until he became chairman of the board in 1950. He was succeeded as president by his longtime associate Meredith Wood. The BOMC went public with its stock in 1946, but Scherman and members of his family continued to hold a majority of the shares. This continuity in top management was matched by continuity in the membership of the board of judges. Broun died in 1939 but was not immediately replaced. Only after White died in 1944 were novelist John P. Marquand and literary critic and anthologizer Clifton Fadiman named to fill the two openings. Later replacements included drama critic John Mason Brown, Columbia University classics professor Gilbert Highet, and Basil Davenport. The Literary Guild made its major selling point the financial savings received by members. Craig left the guild shortly after its founding because of a dispute over policy, leaving Guinzburg in full charge. Seeing that its members were attracted more by the low price of its books than by the jury method of selection, in 1929, the guild began to deemphasize the jury selection feature in its advertising. That same year, Nelson Doubleday, the president of Doubleday, Doran, and Company, bought a 49 percent interest in the Literary Guild with the idea of taking advantage of its mailing list for the Doubleday firm’s mail-sales subsidiary. In 1934, he bought the rest of the stock and began to screen publishers’ submissions for the jury. Three years later, the guild abandoned the
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lumbia Broadcasting System launched the Columbia Record Club, and the success of that venture forced RCA Victor to follow with its own club. Other “of the month” undertakings included Barton’s Sweet-of-the-Month Club; Beer-of-the-Month Club, Inc.; Cheese-of-theMonth; Dessert-of-the-Month; Fad-of-the-Month Club; Flowers-of-the-Month; Plant-of-the-Month Club; Toyof-the-Month; and even Kosher Salami-of-the-Month Club. — John Braeman Further Reading Epstein, Jason. Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Epstein, a giant in the publishing industry, gives a lively account of publishing’s recent history and discusses the trend toward corporatization, which in many respects began with the BOMC. Lee, Charles. The Hidden Public: The Story of the Bookof-the-Month Club. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958. A gushingly admiring account written in cooperation with BOMC officials. Indispensable because of its information about the inner operations of the BOMC. Lupoff, Richard A. The Great American Paperback: An Illustrated Tribute to the Legends of the Book. Portland, Oreg.: Collectors Press, 2001. A more general history of paperback books that focuses more on their seamy side. Valuable for understanding the degree to which Penguin broadened the notion of the paperback book and its readership. Madison, Charles A. Book Publishing in America. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. A handy brief survey that deals only sketchily with the book clubs but that shows the larger context of the commercialization of literature. Radway, Janice. “The Scandal of the Middlebrow: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Class Fracture, and Cultural Authority.” South Atlantic Quarterly 89 (Fall, 1990): 707-736. An illuminating examination of the attacks on the BOMC by intellectuals for its supposed pandering to “common” tastes. Rubin, Joan Shelley. The Making of Middlebrow Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Includes an examination of the role played by the BOMC in the emergence of what has been termed American “middlebrow” culture. Features analyses of the themes emphasized by BOMC advertising and the standards and values influencing book selection by BOMC judges. 2095
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jury method of selection. Under Doubleday’s control, the guild specialized in the mass marketing of light, escapist fiction. Although the BOMC continued to grow even through the Depression, its most rapid expansion occurred during and after World War II. The Literary Guild, which appealed to what appeared to be a less sophisticated audience, surpassed the BOMC in membership. By 1946, the two boasted a combined membership of 3.5 million. That year, they distributed approximately 75 million books, paid copies, dividends, and bonuses, or one book for every two Americans. In 1948, the Federal Trade Commission charged that the book clubs’ use of the word “free” in their advertising was “false, misleading, and deceptive.” The BOMC challenged the ruling in federal court, but no final decision was handed down before the FTC reversed itself in 1953 and dropped its complaint. The success of the BOMC and the Literary Guild stimulated imitation. By mid-1928, there were nine active clubs, including such long-lived survivors as the Religious Book Club, the Catholic Book Club, and the Crime Club. The most successful of the new entrants were those directed to specialized niches in the market. In response, the general-audience book clubs—the largest of which remained the BOMC and Literary Guild— were driven to multiply the number of their alternate selections to appeal to broader ranges of interests and tastes. At first, most booksellers and some publishers were hostile to the clubs and accused them of unfair competition. Publishers could not, however, resist the financial rewards of selection by a club. Booksellers came to accept that selection by a major book club boosted a title’s sales through retail stores. By the early 1970’s, book clubs had an estimated membership of 7 million and accounted for approximately 8.5 percent of total book sales in the United States. The general-audience clubs faced difficulties because of the paperback revolution, the expansion of retail book outlets, rising postal rates, and the heavy expense of the advertising required to attract new members. Member turnover remained high. With the rise of Internet technology, online book clubs started forming in the 1990’s, and they gave members the opportunity to enter into discussions with others of similar reading tastes from all over the globe. The formula pioneered by the book clubs was eventually extended to the sale of many other kinds of goods. The most successful extension was to phonograph records. In 1955, the Columbia Records Division of the Co-
Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales
Chinese Civil War Sackheim, Maxwell. My First Sixty Years in Advertising. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Autobiographical recollections combined with suggestions about techniques of mail-order advertising by one of the founders of the BOMC. Tebbel, John. A History of Book Publishing in the United States. 4 vols. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1972-1981. Intended as the authoritative history, these volumes have much information not readily available in other accounts. Unfortunately, the work is also a nearly unreadable mass of ill-digested facts. Treatment of the founding and later history of the book clubs is found
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 in volume 3 (covering 1920-1940) and volume 4 (covering 1940 to 1980). See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens; June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
1926-1949
Chinese Civil War In 1926, the Chinese Nationalist Party (also called the Kuomintang) broke with the Chinese Communist Party. The nationalists pushed the Communists into remote sanctuaries until Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 forced an uneasy truce in the civil war. After Japan’s surrender in August of 1945, hopes for a Chinese coalition government were dashed when the Kuomintang and the Communists resumed their conflict. Fighting ended in late 1949, when the Communists conquered mainland China and the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan. Also known as: Fall of the Kuomintang Locale: China Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics Key Figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), leader of the Kuomintang, president of China, 1948-1949, and president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), 1950-1975 Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung; 1893-1976), chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, 1949-1976 Lin Biao (Lin Piao; 1907-1971), Communist general who captured Manchuria Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai; 1888-1976), Communist leader Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsüeh-liang; 1901-2001), Manchurian warlord George C. Marshall (1880-1959), American general who was largely responsible for the success of the U.S. Army during World War II 2096
Summary of Event The Chinese revolution of 1912 established the Republic of China, but it did not give rise to a stable government. To unify China, in early 1923 the revolutionary leader Sun Yixian (also known as Sun Yat-sen) allied his Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, with the Soviet Union and the tiny Chinese Communist Party. In September of 1924, Sun’s Soviet-advised forces defeated northern Chinese warlords. However, Sun died of liver cancer in Beijing on March 12, 1925. Without Sun, the Communist-Kuomintang alliance began to break under the weight of different ideological positions. On March 20, 1926, the new Kuomintang leader, Chiang Kai-shek, suspected that the captain of a Communist gunboat planned to kidnap him, and Chiang had him arrested. He and the Soviets agreed to limit Communist influence and continued their military alliance. After capturing Shanghai from a warlord in March of 1927, Chiang Kai-shek moved against the Communists. On April 12, Kuomintang-controlled gangsters attacked the city’s union members, killing and arresting many, and the next day, Kuomintang troops fired on protestors, killing about one hundred. Chiang Kai-shek set up a rival Nationalist government in Nanjing on April 18 and purged it of all Communists. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin instructed the Chinese Communists to fight Chiang’s government. On August 1, 1927, Communist troops under Zhou Enlai seized Nanchang in Jiangxi Province, but they were defeated and fled east to the coast and then into the mountains. Mao Zedong proposed a Communist uprising in Hunan, but it failed. A Communist uprising in Guangzhou, in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chinese Civil War
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December of 1927, was suppressed Chinese Civil War with equal brutality. By 1928, the Communists were surviving in reUSSR mote rural sanctuaries while Chiang destroyed the warlord’s powers either through military victory or political Harbin alliance. His Kuomintang formed a Mongolia new national government on OctoChangchun Jilin ber 10, 1928. Shenyang Zhangjiakou Dahushan Chiang Kai-shek’s efforts to anniXinbao-an Jinzhou Dunhuang Sea of Beijing hilate the Communists were thwarted Tainjin Ja p a n by two forces: the Japanese army and the Kuomintang’s unstable alliances Jap Luoyang Kaifeng Ye l l o w with warlords. In September of 1931, China Xuzhou S e a Shuangduiji the Japanese moved into Manchuria r e v Shanghai R i Hankow Nanjing and annexed Chinese land to form tze Langxi Hangzhou ang Y the country of Manchukuo in FebruEast a di ary of 1932. Chiang’s policy was to China In Guangzhou avoid fighting Japan while trying to Sea destroy Communist strongholds such Taiwan Hong Kong Burma as Mao’s Jiangxi Soviet area, a tactic French that alienated many Chinese. Indoa il and China Chiang launched an attack on the Jiangxi Soviet in late 1934. Mao engineered a prominent role for himFor a time, the Japanese held on to the territory they had self on the Communists’ Long March to northern Yan’an conquered in China, and the Kuomintang and Commuin Shaanxi Province, and he was officially recognized as nists avoided fighting each other. A major clash, howchairman of the Chinese Communist Party in 1935. He ever, occurred in January of 1941, when the Kuomintang firmly established his rule once the surviving Commudestroyed a Communist force south of the Chang (also nists reached Yan’an in late October of 1935. called the Yangtze) River. Chinese people protested the The Communists appealed to the Kuomintang in hopes Kuomintang’s attack, and the shaky alliance between of forming a common front against the Japanese. On a Kuomintang and Communists survived. visit to troops designated to attack the Communists, on When Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June December 12, 1936, Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by 22, 1941, the Chinese Communists lost an important Manchurian warlord Zhang Xueliang, who wanted to source of support; the Soviets were too distracted with resurrect the Communist alliance. The Chinese public defending their own nation to help China. Japan’s attack and Joseph Stalin objected to killing Chiang, and he was on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, however, brought released on December 25 after promising to establish a the Western Allies into the war in China. Western suptruce. Zhang accompanied Chiang to his jail cell in port generally went to Chiang, who faced the Japanese in Nanjing. a long stalemate. While Mao consolidated his power Negotiations dragged on between the Kuomintang through terror and permitted the use of guerrilla tactics and the Communists until incidents in Beijing on July 7, against the Japanese, the Kuomintang faced severe eco1937, and Shanghai on August 13 provoked a Japanese nomic difficulties. In the meantime, in 1944 Japan’s Ichiattack. On August 21, China and the Soviet Union signed Go offensive destroyed vast Kuomintang armies and a treaty allying their nations, and Stalin sent military supgave some Americans the feeling that the Communists plies, piloted aircraft, and advisers. As Chiang’s best arwere worth supporting. mies were destroyed in late 1937 and 1938, the CommuBefore Japan gave its unconditional surrender on Sepnists held back most of their troops. tember 2, 1945, the United States tried to produce a Chiang Kai-shek moved the Nationalist government Kuomintang-Communist coalition, but the desire for to Chongqing, in Sichuan Province, in October of 1938. ur
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Chinese Civil War unity could not overcome the two Chinese factions’ mutual hatred. Instead of joining sides, both the Kuomintang and the Communists raced to occupy as much territory as possible. While the Americans transported Kuomintang troops into Manchuria to prevent a Communist takeover in late 1945, American General George Marshall desperately tried to negotiate a compromise. By early 1946, however, it was clear that both Chinese parties preferred civil war. General Marshall asked Chiang Kai-shek on May 31 to stop warfare in Manchuria, and Chiang, dependent on American support, agreed to a temporary truce. After the truce, Kuomintang troops advanced in Manchuria but could not defeat the Communists led by Lin Biao. The United States grew weary of the Kuomintang and objected to its intensely corrupt adminstration. When the Kuomintang promulgated a new constitution for China on January 1, 1947, the Communists ended negotiations. Lin Biao continued guerrilla warfare in Manchuria, and the Communists brutally enforced land reform in their areas. Meanwhile, the Kuomintang faced severe inflation and a loss of public trust. The Communists had several major victories in 1948. Leadership by the Kuomintang’s generals was so bad that some historians suggested that some of their generals were Communist moles. In northeastern China, Communist armies solidified their position, won major battles, and captured Jinan, in Shandong Province, on September 24. Lin Biao’s army triumphed in Manchuria, where it encircled Kuomintang troops in the key cities it had been ordered to hold and won decisive defeats. On October 17, Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, fell after a brutal siege, and Changchun followed on October 20. After terrible civilian losses, Communist control over Manchuria was finally secured. On January 10, 1949, Mao’s general Zhu De won the Battle of Xuzhou, and on January 21, Chiang Kai-shek resigned as president of China. Although he was succeeded by Li Zongren, Chiang still wielded considerable power. On February 23, Beijing surrendered to the Communists, who controlled China north of the Chang River. Communist terms for peace proved too harsh for the Kuomintang to accept, but the United States had decided on a policy of neutrality. In April, the Communists launched their final offensive, and they captured Nanjing on April 24 and Shanghai on May 25. In Beijing, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China. Remaining Kuomintang forces were in disarray and were easily defeated, and the Communists took the last cities in mainland China in October and November. On December 10, 1949, Chiang Kai-shek flew 2098
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 from Chengdu to Taiwan, ending organized Kuomintang presence on mainland China. Significance The Communist victory in China’s civil war effectively placed the people of mainland China under Mao Zedong’s power and added the world’s most populous nation to the Communist camp. China was exhausted and suffering by the end of the civil war, and the Communists used the people’s desire for peace and stability to erect an iron rule. Because of their decisive military victory, the Communists enjoyed virtually unlimited power in mainland China, and they were able to unify the area, which had been divided since 1912. By using propaganda to glorify the Communists’ role in the civil war and by maintaining complete control over Chinese society, Mao and the Communists had virtually free rein, although their actions often had catastrophic consequences. Victory in the civil war, however, ensured the Communist Party’s political dominance into the twenty-first century, even as the economy was liberalized. Stunned Westerners realized that the Communists blamed them for their earlier support of the Kuomintang, and the People’s Republic of China conducted a strong anti-Western foreign policy until 1972. In the United States, Americans laid the blame for the loss of China on politicians who had supported neutrality toward Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist victory in China further hardened Western resolve in the Cold War. Chiang Kai-shek and his successors managed to hold on to the Taiwan-based Republic of China, which prevented China’s complete reunification. Increased democratization in Taiwan continued to be viewed with utter suspicion by the People’s Republic, as was any attempt to establish a Taiwan formally independent from China. —R. C. Lutz Further Reading Chang, Jung, and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Stunning historical deconstruction of Mao’s Communist propaganda that proposes a radical new look at the history of the event. Controversial but based on thorough research, this book has opened fresh historical debate about the facts of the event. Illustrated, maps, notes, bibliography, index (generally uses Pinyin to romanize text). Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. Rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Detailed, accessible and generally balanced presentation of the event. Maps, illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, index (uses Pinyin).
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Westad, Odd Arne. Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003. Covers the final years of the civil war with references to its origin and earlier development. Strong focus on Communist side. Maps, bibliography, index, notes.
Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket See also: 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms; Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty; May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement; Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; Dec., 1937Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing.
March 16, 1926
Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket
Locale: Auburn, Massachusetts Categories: Science and technology; physics; space and aviation Key Figures Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945), American physicist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), Russian scientist Summary of Event On a cold winter day in March, 1926, three men and a woman in heavy coats gathered around a small launching stand built of pipes that had been set up in the snow in a field near Auburn, Massachusetts. Held in place on the stand, which resembled a large metal ladder, was a tenfoot-long rocket. It consisted of a two-foot-long motor at the front, connected by long, slender tubes to two tanks in the rear that contained gasoline and liquid oxygen. The individuals gathered in the field were Robert H. Goddard, a physics professor at Clark University who had designed and built the rocket; his wife, Esther Kisk Goddard; P. M. Roope, also of Clark’s physics department; and Henry Sachs, the university’s instrument maker. The rocket they were about to launch was the product of nearly ten years of research in Goddard’s shop and laboratory. Its most unusual feature was its propellant—a combination of gasoline and liquid oxygen fed into the combustion chamber by separate tubes. Up to that time, rockets usually had been fueled with black powder that was stored and ignited in the combustion chamber. In a few minutes, all was in readiness to begin the test. Esther Goddard started her motion-picture camera, and Robert Goddard touched a blowtorch to an opening near the top of the rocket. There was a steady roar, and a few seconds later, the rocket rose slowly from the launch frame and then shot into the air. It flew 184 feet at a maxi-
mum altitude of 41 feet while achieving a speed of 60 miles an hour. Then it curved sharply to the left and descended, plowing into the ice and snow as it hit the ground at high speed. The flight had lasted less than three seconds. There were no speeches and no interviews, and no newspaper reported the event, yet the rocket’s brief flight marked a giant advance toward the exploration of space. Goddard had received a bachelor of science degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908 and a master of arts and a doctorate from Clark University in 1910 and 1911, respectively. He had a lifelong interest in rocketry, and despite a lack of government support, he had continued the research he began in the basement of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1907 when he fired a powder-fueled rocket. Goddard’s early work came out of his interest in highaltitude weather research. The limitations on balloons led him to the development of mathematical theories of rocketry as well as to two patents, one for a liquid-fueled rocket and the other for a multistage rocket. To prove that rockets could function in the vacuum of space, Goddard had to overcome popular misconceptions of Newton’s third law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. His research proved that a rocket engine could deliver propulsion in the vacuum of space. After initial experiments with solid fuels, in 1921, Goddard switched to the more efficient and cheaper liquid hydrogen and oxygen rocket propellants. By 1924, he had a working engine. Until that year, Goddard had not flown a rocket. Problems with pumps and the size of the combustion chamber needed to be overcome before a flight would be feasible. His work also focused on separating the combustion chamber from fuel storage and changing the exhaust nozzles to increase the velocity. At the time Goddard performed his experiment, rockets had been known for several centuries. They were mentioned in Chinese writings as far back as the eleventh 2099
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The development of a liquid propellant made rocketry, and thus space exploration, possible.
Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket century, and they had been used as artillery weapons by European armies at various times between the fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries, until they finally became outmoded with the advent of modern long-range artillery. Then, in 1918, Goddard developed and tested the bazooka. Even though it came too late for use then, he continued his work, and the bazooka became an important weapon during World War II. Until that time, however, the chief use of rockets seems to have been in staging elaborate fireworks displays. When interest in space travel first began early in the seventeenth century, few people thought of the rocket
Robert H. Goddard with a 1926 rocket. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 as the most suitable vehicle for the purpose. In Jules Verne’s celebrated 1865 novel De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1873), space explorers reach the Moon by riding inside a projectile shot out of a gigantic cannon on Earth. In 1903, however, a littleknown Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, conclusively demonstrated in a series of articles that the rocket would have to be the vehicle of space exploration. As Tsiolkovsky saw it, the rocket had several peculiar properties that made it the only vehicle capable of carrying a payload into outer space. First, a rocket engine could develop more thrust, or push, than any other engine of the same weight; second, because a rocket is a selfcontained system carrying its own oxygen supply, it could operate anywhere, even in airless space; and third, because a rocket gradually loses weight as its fuel supply is exhausted, its maximum speed comes at the end of its powered flight. While Tsiolkovsky was developing his ideas, Goddard, unaware of the Russian scientist’s work, was reaching the same conclusions. Goddard was interested in designing a vehicle that could be used to carry instruments high into the upper atmosphere for purposes of research. In January, 1920, he published a paper in the Smithsonian Institution Reports titled “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” in which he summed up the conclusions he had reached in the previous ten years regarding the unique suitability of rockets for high-altitude research. In this paper, Goddard demonstrated that it was theoretically possible to design a rocket that would weigh less than ten tons and attain a great enough velocity to reach the Moon. The paper would have gone unnoticed had it not been for Goddard’s suggestion that a rocket fired at the Moon should contain flash powder that would ignite on impact, thus marking the landing site for observers on Earth and proving that the rocket actually had reached its destination. Goddard was not only a theoretician; he actually designed and built several rockets. At the time of his experiments, the only rockets he could obtain used the same type of propellant used in the Chinese rockets of the eleventh century, which was black powder. This kind of rocket clearly was unsuitable for the high-altitude flights Goddard had in mind. A high-altitude rocket had to accelerate slowly and at a fairly uniform rate, so that its maximum speed would be reached when it was several miles above Earth, where there is less air resistance. A black-powder rocket exerted its greatest thrust immediately after ignition and then slowed down as its fuel was exhausted.
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Significance Having demonstrated the feasibility of the liquid-fueled rocket as a high-altitude vehicle with the Auburn test firing, Goddard went on to conduct successful experiments with other liquid-fueled rockets during the next twenty years. One of his rockets eventually reached a height of seventy-five hundred feet. With another, Goddard achieved the first successful controlled flight of a rocket. His tiny 1926 rocket and the larger ones he built during the 1930’s are the direct ancestors of the German V-2’s, which in turn were the precursors to the U.S. and Russian rockets that carried the first payloads into Earth orbit. Despite his many accomplishments, including the first U.S. patent for a multiple-stage rocket and the development of vanes for guidance and gyro control devices, Goddard’s work went unrecognized during his lifetime. He published little for two reasons: First, he was an intensely shy individual, and second, he feared the German scientists, with their emphasis on race superiority, and did not want to encourage their work. Today, however, Goddard is recognized as the father of modern rocket technology. In his early work, he theorized the means of landing humans on other celestial bodies. This ability to combine practical research with a vision of spaceflight and rocketry represents his great contribution. — Ronald N. Spector and Duncan R. Jamieson Further Reading Arnold, H. J. P., ed. Man in Space: An Illustrated History of Space Flight. New York: Smithmark, 1993. Examines humankind’s progress in space travel. Focuses more on the results of Goddard’s pioneering work than on the work itself. Braun, Wernher von, and Frederick I. Ordway III. Space Travel: A History. 4th ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. One of the best single-volume histories on human beings’ conquest of space. Chapter titled “The
Pioneers of Space Travel” provides thorough discussion of the scientific and technical contributions of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, and Goddard. Includes many remarkable photographs, an extensive time line, and an excellent bibliography. Clary, David A. Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age. New York: Hyperion, 2003. First full-scale biography of Goddard in more than forty years places his accomplishments within the context of the times and reveals more about his personality and private life than previous works. Includes chronology, bibliography, and index. Goddard, Robert H. The Papers of Robert H. Goddard. Edited by Esther C. Goddard. 3 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. Invaluable resource for any serious student of Goddard and the history of rocketry. Edited papers contain summaries of Goddard’s diary entries, reprints of noteworthy technical papers, and relevant correspondence among important members within the scientific community. Provides an intimate glimpse into the world of the distinguished scientist, clearly and chronologically outlining the evolution of his ideas and techniques. _______. Rocket Development. New York: PrenticeHall, 1948. A selection of Goddard’s research notes from 1929-1941, published posthumously. _______. Rockets. New York: American Rocket Society, 1946. Includes Goddard’s two most important published papers, “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” and “Liquid-Propellant Rocket Development.” Gruntman, Mike. Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry. Reston, Va.: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2004. Relates the events that paved the way for human beings to begin exploring space. Describes the early work in rocketry science of Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, and others. Hacker, Barton C. “Robert H. Goddard and the Origins of Space Flight.” In Technology in America: A History of Individuals and Ideas, edited by Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. Brief essay traces Goddard’s career and characterizes the institutional context within which he worked. Despite popular notions of Goddard as a solitary, persevering scientific figure, the Smithsonian Institution, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the U.S. military played crucial roles in his ultimate success. Lehman, Milton. This High Man: The Life of Robert H. Goddard. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1963. Readable biography exhaustively covers God2101
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Some means needed to be found to feed the fuel into the rocket’s combustion chamber at a constant and predictable rate, so that the rocket’s acceleration would be constant and predetermined. As this was impractical with solid (powder) fuels, Goddard hit upon the idea of using liquid fuels, such as ether or gasoline, which also would give the rocket a greater exhaust velocity. Because gasoline and similar liquid fuels do not contain oxygen, the rocket also would have to carry its own oxygen supply. Goddard’s Auburn rocket contained two separate tanks, one for the gasoline and another for the liquid oxygen. Fuels from both tanks were piped into the combustion chamber.
Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket
Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy dard’s life from youth to World War II. Includes many details, but Goddard’s personality and social relationships remain somewhat unexplored. Pendray, G. Edward. “Pioneer Rocket Development in the United States.” In The History of Rocket Technology: Essays on Research, Development, and Utility, edited by Eugene M. Emme. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964. Essay by a pioneer in the development of rockets in the United States who had intimate knowledge of Goddard’s scientific and technical work succinctly sketches Goddard’s ma-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 jor accomplishments in astronautics. Williams, Beryl, and Samuel Epstein. The Rocket Pioneers: On the Road to Space. New York: Julian Messner, 1958. Historical study includes chapters on Sir William Congreve, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, and Goddard. Clearly describes Goddard’s key technological innovations within the context of his lengthy scientific career. Well researched and well written. See also: 1903: Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel.
May, 1926
Durant Publishes THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy was one in a series of publications written to make materials that had previously been available only through collegelevel texts available to the wider public. Durant sought to bring the field of philosophical inquiry to the increasing numbers of people who had not had the opportunity for higher education but wanted to educate themselves for personal and cultural reasons. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Philosophy; publishing and journalism Key Figures Will Durant (1885-1981), author, public speaker, and scholar Richard L. Simon (1899-1960), businessman and publisher Max Lincoln Schuster (1897-1970), publisher Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1889-1951), publisher of Little Blue Books and the series Life and Letters Summary of Event The publication of Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy was the result of several events, one of which was the popular realization that owning certain books gave the impression of belonging to the culturally elite. In the autobiographical work that he coauthored with his wife Ariel Durant, A Dual Autobiography (1977), Durant reflected on the unprecedented demand for The Story of Philosophy, stating, “My book became a social necessity; every proper family felt obliged to display it on the table or the shelf.” Another, more significant reason was the increasing public desire for education beyond that provided in secondary schools, which led to the popular2102
ity of “outlines” of particular subjects. As Durant stated, “The ‘outlines’ came because a million voices called for them.” Durant’s book drew on the success of H. G. Wells’s The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (1920), a summary of world history that contained many volumes on a variety of subjects and was written in a readable, unpretentious style that clearly summarized important ideas. Hendrik Willem Van Loon’s The Story of Mankind (1921) had been second in nonfiction sales to Wells’s history, but The Story of Philosophy sold 100,000 copies in its first year. The public was eager to understand philosophical concepts that had been hidden from them by languages such as Greek and German, the complexity of ideas developed by the philosophers, and in some instances, the desire of academics to protect their territory. Will Durant made it his life’s work to disseminate Western culture to those unable to attend university. An academic who earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia in 1917, Durant wished to make knowledge accessible to all. Consequently, he began to lecture to adult workers at New York’s Labor Temple. His initial course in 1914 was on the history of philosophy from Socrates to French philosopher Henri Bergson. Soon, in addition to teaching at the Labor Temple and taking courses for his degree at Columbia, Durant started a career as a public lecturer outside of New York City. He also began producing a series of guides to philosophy for the publisher Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. From 1922 to 1925, Durant wrote eleven essays on philosophers from Plato to John Dewey. Some of these were first printed in Haldeman-Julius’s Life and Letters series, and all were issued as Little Blue Books. These small books
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lieved was beyond their understanding: the great philos(which, at roughly fifteen hundred words each, were acophers and their ideas. The subtitle of the book, The Lives tually more like pamphlets) were designed to make culand Opinions of the Greater Philosophers, made the ture “seem both manageable and disposable.” They were book more human by focusing on a biographical apbought to be read, rather than displayed, and cost five proach and putting the difficult concepts into language cents each. Haldeman-Julius also changed the titles from people could understand. Durant made it clear that the “guides” to “stories,” making them appear more accessibook was not a complete history, and he interjected himble. Durant’s “little books” sold an average of twentyself (using the first person plural) as a congenial guide seven thousand copies annually. through the stories of philosophers Plato, Aristotle, FranThe success of Durant’s books led Haldeman-Julius cis Bacon, Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, to propose that the pamphlets be bound together and sold Arthur Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Nietzas a single volume. The firm asked Durant to provide sche, Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce, Bertrand Russell, some text that would unify the different books and sugGeorge Santayana, William James, and John Dewey. gested that Durant offer the publication to the new pubThe style and tone of the volume helped Durant show lishing house of Simon & Schuster. The new firm was that the study of philosophy could be a source of pleatouting itself as a democratized publisher, and as such it sure: He included chatty speculations, witty asides, and was in tune with Durant’s desire to popularize knowllively anecdotes to keep the reader engaged. By directly edge. Richard L. Simon and Max Lincoln Schuster beaddressing the reader as well as asking rhetorical queslieved that their mission as publishers was to widen the tions, Durant forced the reader to become engaged with readership for fine literature, and they planned to publish the book. The book was selected as a Book-of-the-Month “better books for more and more people, at lower prices.” Consequently, they embarked on a vigorous advertising campaign that depicted Durant’s book as a painFrom THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY less form of liberal education. The In his introduction to The Story of Philosophy, Durant defines the difference campaign included special incentives between science and philosophy: for bookstores that sold more than their sales quotas, direct-mail soliciScience is analytical description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation. Scitation of Labor Temple students, and ence wishes to resolve the whole into parts, the organism into organs, the obeventually a money-back guarantee. scure into the known. It does not inquire into the values and ideal possibilities Advertisements, which at first were of things, nor into their total and final significance; it is content to show their relatively small in size, grew into present actuality and operation, it narrows its gaze resolutely to the nature and one- and two-page spreads that process of things as they are. The scientist is as impartial as Nature in Turquoted from prepublication reviews. genev’s poem: he is as interested in the leg of a flea as in the creative throes of a genius. But the philosopher is not content to describe the fact; he wishes to asA full-page advertisement on the certain its relation to experience in general, and thereby to get at its meaning back cover of Saturday Review exand its worth; he combines things in interpretive synthesis; he tries to put totolled the book as “the outstanding gether, better than before, that great universe-watch which the inquisitive scibest seller that discriminating people entist has analytically taken apart. Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; are talking about” and focused on it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only people’s desire to become one of the wisdom—desire coordinated in the light of all experience—can tell us when to cultural elite. heal and when to kill. To observe processes and to construct means is science; When The Story of Philosophy to criticize and coordinate ends is philosophy: and because in these days our was published in May of 1926, it was means and instruments have multiplied beyond our interpretation and synthepriced at five dollars. It was almost sis of ideals and ends, our life is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. For a six hundred pages long, and the chapfact is nothing except in relation to desire; it is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science without philosophy, facts without perspecters were basically copies of the vertive and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us sions published in the Little Blue knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom. Books. By the end of the year, the work was the best-selling nonfiction Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1926). book in the United States. Durant offered access to what most people be-
Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy choice, which was the ultimate stamp of approval for many readers. Although the public loved the book, many critics did not. Academics found fault with Durant’s failure to include selection principles, and others did not like his chatty approach to such a serious subject. Mortimer Adler, in a September 29, 1926, review in The Nation titled “Sleight of Hand,” began by stating that the book “is probably no worse than its fellow outlines,” but then goes on to deplore the “vaudevillian character” in which Durant handles the “ponderous problems” inherent in philosophy. “The worst sin of all,” according to Durant himself, “was the omission of Chinese and Hindu philosophy.” Significance Durant’s former professor at Columbia and philosopher John Dewey hailed the book as “thoroughly scholarly, thoroughly useful, human, and readable.” In his foreword to the book, Dewey stated that Durant had “humanized rather than merely popularized the story of philosophy.” The review in The New York Times, titled “Even Philosophy May Now Be Comprehended,” praised the book, stating that Durant presented knowledge, “even the most abstruse, in a manner and with a lucidity that conveys to ordinary mortals the convictions that it originates with human beings.” Sales of the Modern Library’s philosophy titles in 1926 increased, suggesting that Durant’s summaries motivated readers to read the work of the philosophers discussed in The Story of Philosophy. The sales of philosophical classics increased 200 percent, and a librarian at the New York Public Library reported that since the publication of The Story of Philosophy there had been “a wide and increasing demand” for the philosophical classics. Publications such as The Story of Philosophy made self-education possible for those who yearned for more education, but were unable to attend a university. Durant’s book, written in accessible language and focused on key concepts, amazed readers who discovered relevance in the thinking of the philosophers to issues in their own life, and the American Philosophical Association noted that many people chose to become philosophers after reading the book. —Marcia B. Dinneen
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Adler, Mortimer J. “Sleight of Hand.” The Nation, September 29, 1926, 298-299. In his lengthy, negative review of The Story of Philosophy, Adler deplores Durant’s “chatty” style. Benton, Megan. “‘Too Many Books’: Book Ownership and Cultural Identity in the 1920’s.” American Quarterly 49, no. 2 (1997): 268-297. A discussion of book ownership as an indication of belonging to the “cultural elite.” Cotkin, George. “Middle-Ground Pragmatists: The Popularization of Philosophy in American Culture.” Journal of the History of Ideas 55, no. 2 (April, 1994): 283-302. Cotkin discusses how philosophy was “popularized” and integrated into American intellectual and culture life during the interwar period. Durant, Will. Preface to The Story of Philosophy. 2d ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. Durant defends his outlines as a viable way to learn and responds to his critics. His describes his book as “an introduction and an invitation” to the world of philosophy. Durant, Will, and Ariel Durant. A Dual Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977. Durant and his wife reflect on their lives and provide background information on The Story of Philosophy. Forman, Henry James. “Even Philosophy May Now Be Comprehended.” The New York Times, June 20, 1926. A lengthy and positive review of The Story of Philosophy. Rubin, Joan Shelley. The Making of Middlebrow Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. A detailed study covering the impact of Durant’s book. Sherman, Stuart. “Philosophy and the Average Man’s Adult Education.” New York Herald Tribune, June 20, 1926. Positive review of Durant’s book shows how it provides a response to people’s hunger for education. See also: June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism; 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books.
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British Workers Launch General Strike
May 3-12, 1926
British Workers Launch General Strike Despite the support of most major labor unions, the General Strike failed to win concessions for miners in their dispute with mine owners. Locale: Great Britain Categories: Business and labor; government and politics; social issues and reform
Summary of Event The General Strike of 1926 in Great Britain was the largest effort up until that time to win more favorable contract terms for workers through the support of sympathy strikes. Its object was to put pressure on the government to support the wage demands of the miners against the owners, if necessary by the promise of a government subsidy for the industry. Failure of the strike ensured that collective bargaining would take place only between management and labor, with government providing mediation services at most. It led ultimately, however, to the nationalization of the mining industry when the Labour Party won political dominance after World War II. Prior to World War I, the British coal mining industry had experienced steady growth in output and profitability. The island nation produced nearly as much coal as did the United States, but much of the market for the coal lay outside Great Britain. There was a widespread tendency throughout Europe to regard the conditions prevailing before the war as “normalcy.” It was believed that once the fighting came to an end, things would return to normal and the British coal mining industry would continue on its upward trend of profits and wages. Many of these expectations were reinforced by the war. The pressing need for coal, as bunker fuel for cargo and naval vessels and as power for the munitions industry, led the government to support nearly all the wage demands made by miners through their union, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The justification
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Key Figures Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), prime minister of Great Britain, 1923-1929 and 1935-1937 Herbert Smith (1862-1938), president of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, 1921-1938 Ernest Bevin (1881-1951), British labor leader and member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, 1921-1940 Herbert Samuel (1870-1963), chair of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, 1925-1926
advanced for a steady increase in wages was the inflation that occurred during the war, with the cost of living doubling between 1914 and 1918. In 1917, in order to avert continued wage conflicts, the government took control of the industry, guaranteeing the owners a minimum level of profits. During this period, the government subsidized the industry in order to keep the domestic price of coal down for the benefit of consumers. After the war, the government decided that it wished to withdraw from the operation of the coal mining industry and return the management, including responsibility for profits and wages, to the owners. In the immediate postwar period, this posed no great problem, because the British industry was able to export large quantities of coal to Europe, and profits remained substantial. Beginning with the postwar depression of 1920, however, the export market for British coal began to decline. It continued on a downward path, with brief intermissions when political developments interrupted European coal production, throughout the interwar period. Profits declined dramatically, and owners of the mines maintained that only with a sharp reduction in wages could costs be brought sufficiently under control that the industry as a whole could operate at a profit. Meanwhile, the British organized labor movement had won increasing support from workers, so that by the 1920’s the unions were a force to be reckoned with. The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain had grown from about 600,000 members in 1910 to nearly a million in 1920. It had long since won the right to negotiate wage agreements with the mine owners and during the war had won a long-sought goal, the right to negotiate national minimum wages. Most wage agreements took the form of a specified percentage above the minimum wage. By 1921, the market for British coal in Europe had declined drastically. The government wished to withdraw definitively from control of the industry. The owners’ position was that, in view of the weak export market, the industry could be profitable only if a drastic reduction in wages took place. Meanwhile, the miners’ union, the MFGB, had concluded a “triple alliance” with the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU). The three unions agreed to strike together should one of them be faced with a refusal of management to concede to labor’s terms. When the government announced that it would termi-
British Workers Launch General Strike
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
An armored car escorts a convoy of bee wagons through Aldgate on its way from the docks of London to Hyde Park depot during the General Strike. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
nate its control of the coal mining industry on March 31, 1921, mine owners and miners began their battle. The owners offered wages drastically below the level the miners had been earning, in some cases as much as 50 percent lower. They insisted that henceforth wage agreements be negotiated on a regional basis. The MFGB refused these terms, insisting on a national minimum wage. The owners announced that unless an agreement was reached, they would lock out the miners on April 1, 1921. The miners called for help from their allies in the triple alliance, and the two other unions promised to strike in sympathy. Intervention by the government, offering a limited renewal of the subsidy, was used as justification by the two other unions, the NUR and the TGWU, to withdraw their strike threat. The withdrawal occurred on Friday, April 15, a day that came to be remembered with much bitterness in labor ranks as Black Friday. The miners continued their strike until July, when 2106
they were forced to settle. A limited government subsidy was provided, profits from the sale of coal were pooled so as to provide support for unprofitable mines, and a relatively short-lived recovery in the European coal market brought relative peace back to the mining districts. By 1925, however, conditions in the European export market had worsened again. A threat of a strike in the summer of 1925, and the renewed possibility of a sympathy strike, led to another government intervention. The government promised a temporary subsidy until May 1, 1926, and in the meantime to sponsor another investigation into conditions in the industry. The miners viewed the government concession as a victory. It was announced on Friday, July 31, which became known as Red Friday. The investigation was headed by Sir Herbert Samuel, and its report was known as the Samuel Report. The Samuel Report acknowledged the need for some wage reductions but in addition urged extensive consoli-
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council agreed to call off the strike on May 12 if the government would force the owners to negotiate on the terms provided in the Samuel Report. By withdrawing the support of the other unions, the General Council in effect forced the miners to negotiate on the basis of the Samuel Report. Although workers in other fields returned to their jobs, the miners continued to strike. They did not return to work until November, 1926, and then substantially on the owners’ terms. Significance A general strike had always been the threat the labor movement held in reserve, to be applied only when conditions of work became intolerable. The concept came out of the syndicalist movement, which saw a general strike as the revolutionary event that would overthrow capitalism because if all workers refused to work, society would come to a halt. The General Strike as applied in Great Britain in 1926, however, differed in important respects from the syndicalist notion. First of all, the General Strike was not truly a general strike. The General Council referred to it as the “national strike,” and it involved only a portion of the organized labor movement. The motives of the General Council in organizing the strike were several. The experience of Red Friday, when the mere threat of a general strike had forced the government to renew the subsidy to the coal mining industry, gave the General Council hope for a quick victory. The council also feared reproach from the workers on the line if it gave in, as had happened in 1921 on Black Friday. The council was certainly pushed by the intransigence of Herbert Smith, leader of the miners, who continued to maintain that any reduction would bring miners’ wages down to a level at which no man could live. Nevertheless, the men who made up the General Council, the leaders of the trade union movement, had serious doubts about the potential of the General Strike as it developed. First, it depended entirely on feelings of solidarity with the miners. No other worker had anything at stake in the disagreement between the miners and mine owners. Second, resources were simply not at hand to support a prolonged strike. If the strike did not achieve its aims within a week, it was unlikely to achieve them at all. In fact, after a week, men were beginning to drift back to work. Even though the miners were protected from legal action by the mine owners—they had, after all, been locked out for refusing to agree to reduced wages on May 1—the other unions had no such excuse and were 2107
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dation of the large number of firms in the industry as a means of reducing costs. The owners as well as the miners rejected the Samuel Report. The owners refused to consider consolidation, especially if forced by governmental action; the miners refused to accept any wage reduction, on the grounds that the existing wage was not a “living wage.” The owners announced that if there were no wage agreements in place on May 1, they would institute a lockout. Meanwhile, anticipating a deadlock, the miners’ leaders had turned to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, the executive organ of the federation of almost all the unions of Great Britain. Organization of a sympathy strike fell to the General Council and to various working groups within it. Ernest Bevin, general secretary of the TGWU, was the chief organizer. The miners, maintaining that they would never consent to a wage reduction or enter into negotiations based on the Samuel Report, which envisaged some reduction, began their strike on May 1. Although Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made repeated efforts to find some basis for negotiation before the lockout and strike began, he failed. On May 3, the General Strike itself began. Railway workers and transport workers went out on strike. The General Council believed that the cessation of transport would be a weapon that would compel the government to intervene and jump-start negotiations, if necessary with a renewal of the subsidy. Successively, other unions were called on to join the strike. Electrical workers, engineers, and printers followed transport workers. Streetcars, railroads, and heavy truck traffic were affected. The greatest concern of the government was that food shipments should not be so curtailed that anyone went hungry. Although initially the strike appeared to be a success, as time wore on it became apparent that it was likely to fail in its objective, which was to force the government once again to intervene, as it had done in 1925. Sir Herbert Samuel attempted to mediate, but with little effect. The miners steadfastly refused even to negotiate unless their prime demand was conceded at the outset, namely, that there would be no reduction in wages. Meanwhile, an emergency effort by the government kept basic supplies moving. The government astutely had begun planning for such an emergency in 1925. Prime Minister Baldwin effectively used radio broadcasts to ensure that the public remained calm. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress, realizing that neither government nor the mine owners would concede the miners’ condition for negotiation of no reduction in wages, desperately sought a way out. The
British Workers Launch General Strike
British Workers Launch General Strike therefore at risk for suits for breach of their own contracts. As the terms of settlement were worked out, one of the main concerns of the union leaders was to avoid retribution from the government or from management. In an important sense, the concept behind the General Strike of 1926 was flawed. It assumed that society would not be able to function if the railways did not run and if shipments of food at the docks were not unloaded, and that these things would happen if the existing work forces in those industries refused to work. The government, however, had been anticipating just such a stoppage as occurred. Since the Conservatives had returned to power in 1925, they had been organizing emergency response teams to keep essential services going. Most trains did not run, but some did. The electrical power stations continued to operate with emergency personnel. An army of trucks was enlisted so that goods that could not move by rail could move by road. The existence of a substantial number of unemployed workers enabled the government to recruit unskilled labor for the movement of supplies. The determination of the government not to be blackmailed in 1926 as it had been in 1925 was a major factor in the defeat of the strike. Although there were some clashes between picketers and those who came in to fill the places of the striking workers, on the whole violence was kept to a minimum. The miners’ strike was eventually settled largely along the lines of the Samuel Report. The structural problem of the industry, overproduction, was gradually addressed in the years following the strike as uneconomic mines were closed. Unfortunately for the miners, however, they were working in an industry that was to a substantial degree obsolete. Gas and oil were gradually replacing coal as the fuel of choice. Nevertheless, the General Strike left a residue of bitter feeling on both sides that was to have long-range effects. The miners and leaders of the trade union movement realized that collective action in pursuit of purely industrial ends would not work. What would work, they realized, was political organization, with labor eventually strong enough politically to take over the government. The result of this realization was the extensive nationalization of industry when the Labour Party achieved victory at the polls in 1945. Although the mine owners believed that they had defended capitalism and the right of management to operate without government interference, it was a Pyrrhic victory. The inescapable consequences of worldwide overproduction of coal forced many mines to close in the years following the General Strike; many that did not 2108
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 close voluntarily were forced to do so under government pressure. Instead of competition, mine owners tried cooperation, in the form of a variety of cooperative marketing schemes. The decline of coal as a source of power in the end defeated the owners. —Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Boyce, Robert. British Capitalism at the Crossroads, 1919-1932. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Provides excellent background on the economic policies leading up to and following the General Strike, along with a perceptive analysis of the strike itself. Farman, Christopher. The General Strike, May 1926. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1972. Straightforward and readable account of the strike attempts to tell the story without ideological bias. Focuses on personalities and the political conflict involved. Includes illustrations. Florey, R. A. The General Strike of 1926: The Economic, Political, and Social Causes of That Class War. New York: Riverrun Press, 1987. Presents in-depth analysis of the strike from the perspective of the working class. Graves, Robert, and Alan Hodge. The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-1939. 1940. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Fascinating account of daily social life in Great Britain between the world wars. Focuses on fads, controversies of the day, fashions, entertainment, sports, and other activities that ordinary people think important but that historians sometimes miss. Chapter on the General Strike emphasizes how the events affected people’s daily lives. Kirby, M. W. The British Coalmining Industry, 18701946. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1977. Scholarly and impartial account is essential background to an understanding of the industry and why the problems of the miners were so intractable. Morris, Margaret. The General Strike. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1976. Comprehensive treatment of the General Strike examines its causes, main events, and significance and provides numerous details of the strike’s local effects. Written with much sympathy for the striking workers. Noel, Gerard. The Great Lock-Out of 1926. London: Constable, 1976. Account focuses on the social issues underlying the strike. Phillips, G. A. The General Strike. London: Weidenfeld
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May 12-15, 1926 PiUsudski Seizes
context of the history of coal mining. Includes a chronology of events and a comprehensive and useful bibliography. Symons, Julian. The General Strike: A Historical Portrait. 1957. Reprint. Thirsk, North Yorkshire, England: House of Stratus, 2001. Landmark study, written as narrative history, captures the spirit of the strike. Taylor, A. J. P. English History, 1914-1945. 1965. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Indispensable source of background information on the period in which the General Strike took place. Deals with social and economic developments as well as with political history. Includes bibliography, list of cabinets, and maps. See also: Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party; Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism.
Power in Poland
Incapable of sharing power, Polish political parties fought bitter campaigns from 1919 until 1926, when a coup orchestrated by Józef Piusudski ended right-left conflicts, instituted the “sanacja regime,” and shaped Poland until the nation’s second partition at the start of World War II. Also known as: Piusudski’s coup d’état; May Coup Locale: Warsaw, Poland Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Józef Piusudski (1867-1935), Polish revolutionary, politician, and military leader Roman Dmowski (1864-1939), Polish nationalist and politician Wincenty Witos (1874-1945), prime minister of Poland, 1920-1921, 1923, 1926 Summary of Event “Turmoil” might serve as a good one-word synonym for interwar Poland. Starting in 1914 as a critical theater of World War I and continuing through the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921; also known as the Russo-Polish War),
the nation suffered tremendous human and financial losses. Although foreign conflict ended in 1921, the newly created Second Republic did not enjoy peace. Rather, five years of intense political struggles split Poles into contentious factions that were unwilling to compromise on any issue. The end result was the May Coup of 1926, which ended this turmoil and shaped Polish politics for the next thirteen years. The coup’s antecedents date back to the early twentieth century, when stateless Poles argued how best to regain their independence. Of the many who raised their voices, two shouted louder than the rest: Józef Piusudski and Roman Dmowski. These men were polar opposites. The former, a charismatic revolutionary, admired Poland’s past as a multiethnic federation and socialism as a political force to unite his people. The latter dismissed Polish history for role models and advanced modern nationalism, with its undercurrent of racism, as the proper tool for building a new Poland. Piusudski and Dmowski could avoid each other during the war years of 19141921, when the possibility of any kind of Polish state was very much in the balance. When the fighting ended, however, and both were viewed as key players in the rebirth of Poland, they initiated a bitter political struggle. 2109
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& Nicolson, 1976. Broad-based and impartial account provides a wealth of details. Includes a list of the important figures in the strike as well as a brief bibliography. Pugh, Martin. The Making of Modern British Politics, 1867-1945. 3d ed. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 2002. Sophisticated account of British political history from the 1860’s to the outbreak of World War II. Includes discussion of the General Strike and its impacts on British politics. _______. State and Society: A Social and Political History of Britain 1870-1997. 2d ed. London: Arnold, 2000. Analyzes social policy and political developments in Great Britain from the last part of the nineteenth century onward. Features illustrations, figures, tables, and index. Renshaw, Patrick. Nine Days That Shook Britain: The 1926 General Strike. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1976. Readable survey of the General Strike’s background, course, and consequences, placed in the
Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland
Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland Piusudski, promoted to marshal for his success in creating a Polish army and leading it to victory over Soviet invaders at the Battle of Warsaw (1920), at first seemed the more powerful. His revolutionary past, however, was centered more in conspiracy than in politics, and he was unable to dominate the constituent Sejm (parliament) that designed the constitution of March 17, 1921. Dmowski, a consummate politician, influenced the Sejm through his National Democrats. Often referred to as Endecs (an acronym derived from the group’s Polish name, Narodowa Demokracja), they were Polish chauvinists, very Catholic, and often fascistic. National Democrats tended to distrust Piusudski for his previous support of socialism and his willingness to work with minority groups. Piusudski dismissed Endecs as smallminded bigots who were incapable of protecting Poland’s newly gained independence. Piusudski had already shown a strong interest in becoming Poland’s president. He intended to use that position to direct a transformation of the Polish army and prepare the nation for future conflicts. Fearing his already powerful hold over Polish soldiers, Endecs and other anti-Piusudski forces tailored the new constitution to make this unlikely. Article 46 of the constitution prohibited the president from serving as commander in chief
Józef Piusudski (center). (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the armed forces during wartime. Given Piusudski’s strong interest in military affairs, this was seen as a means of keeping him out of the government. As expected, Piusudski refused to run for office. Instead, he supported the campaign of an old friend, Gabriel Narutowicz, who managed to win election by a very small margin in December, 1921. As Narutowicz gained office with the support of Piusudski and minority political parties, Endec extremists claimed he was “president of the Jews.” This started a campaign of lies and slander that culminated in Narutowicz’s assassination in January, 1922. Saddened by the death of his friend, Piusudski blamed Endec leaders but maintained his position as Poland’s leading military man and worked to reorganize the armed forces. He believed that a future war with the Soviet Union or Germany was very likely, and Poland’s military needed the ability to make rapid decisions in case of friction with these powerful neighbors. Neither Piusudski nor his army reorganization was ever accepted by the right-center coalitions that governed Poland in the early 1920’s. When Endecs combined with the Peasant Party to form yet another cabinet in 1923, Piusudski refused to serve the men he held responsible for the murder of Narutowicz, and he resigned. Control of the military went to his old rivals, mainly veterans of the Austrian army such as General Stanisuaw Szeptycki and General Józef Haller de Hallenburg—dull men with lackluster records, but politically acceptable to the right. With Piusudski went his reorganization scheme, which opponents claimed was a vehicle through which he intended to dominate the government. This was countered by his allies, who argued that he was the only logical choice as Poland’s military leader, and as such should be allowed to establish a personally acceptable command structure. Although unable to implement his plans, Piusudski had enough political influence to keep any alternative system in limbo. He maintained his military and political contacts, and through newspaper articles and his own publications, he skirmished with what he called the “Viennese War Academy”—men
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the rail system. This critical delay convinced Witos and Wojciechowski that they could not prevail, and both resigned. The fighting ended on May 15. In all, 390 had died and another 900 had been wounded. Significance The May Coup allowed Piusudski to create his “sanacja regime,” which would rule Poland until October 1939. Sanacja was defined as a “return to political health”— thus reminding everyone of the venal officials who had controlled government agencies before the coup. Piusudski’s political opponents countered that sanacja “blended the philosophies of Nietzsche and Kant”; in Warsovian slang, nietzsche implied rubbish and kant meant swindle. Although a new government formed under Prime Minister Kazimierz Bartel, with Piusudski as minister of military affairs, the divisive nature of Polish politics continued, and what Piusudski himself first saw as a corrective effort for better government soon evolved into an authoritarian regime. After Piusudski’s death in 1935, sanacja perpetuated itself through his lieutenants—the triumvirate of Ignacy Mokcicki as president, Józef Beck as foreign minister, and Edward Rydz-Smiguy as commander of the armed forces. The Polish armed forces were directly affected by the May Coup. Piusudski pushed rapidly for the re-creation of the military committees he had established before 1923. Adding refinements to the old ideas, he introduced the complex “two-track system” of command and control. His reorganization of the Polish high command brought much-needed stability to the army. Hand in hand with the creation of the new command system, however, came a purge of army officers who had sided with the government during the May Coup. These men were either removed from the military (zmajowany, or “Mayed”) or not considered for promotions. This reduced the talent pool from which the armed forces could draw and helped to continue political divisions right up to the time of the Nazi invasion of September 1, 1939, which ended Poland’s Second Republic. —John P. Dunn Further Reading Garlicki, Andrej. Jozef Piusudski, 1867-1935. London: Scolar Press, 1995. Important biography of a complex man. Condensed translation from the original Polish. Jachymek, Jan, and Waldemar Paruch. More than Independence: Polish Political Thought, 1918-1939. Lublin, Poland: Marie Curie-Sklodowska University Press, 2003. Useful look at the ideologies, methods, 2111
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like Szeptycki and Haller de Hallenburg—claiming that it was mismanaging Poland’s defenses. To a public very aware of Piusudski’s considerable qualifications for making such claims, these were unsettling accusations. Poles also worried about their struggling republic. From 1921 to 1926, unstable coalitions created ten different cabinets. In addition to a rapid turnover of ministers, these governments produced scandals that easily rivaled the early 1920’s Teapot Dome scandal in the United States. Simultaneously, Poland went through a period of hyperinflation during which its currency, the mark, which exchanged nine to one U.S. dollar in 1919, reached an all-time low of fifteen million to one U.S. dollar in 1923. Many Poles viewed the government as incapable of defending the new nation, managing the economy, or creating much-needed stability. Piusudski watched from the sidelines, publishing arguments for change, maintaining contact with an extensive network of serving military officers, and reconnecting with some of his old leftwing political allies of pre-World War I days. He made no secret of his complete disgust with Polish politics, referring to the Sejm as a “house of prostitutes” and as a “locomotive pulling a pin.” Ashowdown started on May 10, 1926, with a new alliance between Endecs and the Peasant Party. Their combined strength made Wincenty Witos prime minister and allowed for the appointment of General Juliusz Malezewski as minister of war. An archrival of Piusudski, the general made it clear that he would purge the army of all officers supporting the marshal. On the same day, Piusudski told newspaper reporters he was ready to fight the new government. On May 11, the Warsaw garrison was placed on alert as surrounding military units began an unauthorized concentration near the suburb of Rembertow. There, under the direction of Piusudski, Polish soldiers were preparing to overthrow the government. Piusudski’s coup started on May 12 as rebel forces captured bridges across the Vistula River and Witos declared a state of emergency. A last-minute meeting between Piusudski and President Stanisuaw Wojciechowski brought no concessions from either side, and fighting started that evening. It continued for two days and included artillery and even aerial bombardment. Although Piusudski was in command of some of the best local forces, government reinforcements could have tipped the balance. This became less likely after May 14, however, when socialists came out in favor of the coup and ordered a general strike, effectively shutting down
Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland
Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System and goals of the political right, center, and left in interwar Poland. Rothschild, Joseph. Piusudski’s Coup d’État. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966. One of the best scholarly works on the May Coup in any language.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence; Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence; Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence; Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany.
May 20, 1926
Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System Through the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the U.S. government moved to develop air commerce, giving a mandate to operate and maintain the airways system and related aids to air navigation. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Space and aviation; transportation; trade and commerce Key Figures Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), founder of the American postal service Orville Wright (1871-1948), American aviation pioneer Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), president of the United States, 1953-1961 Summary of Event The U.S. Post Office Department, through its development of an airmail distribution system, was directly responsible for the development of commercial air transportation and, subsequently, the airline industry. Many credit the Post Office Department with being the progenitor of the American commercial air transportation system. Benjamin Franklin, by establishing the postal service at the birth of the nation, recognized the importance of such postal service and communication systems at large. His policy for the postal service focused on its role in assisting and developing all new forms of transportation, which would in turn provide better mail delivery. Early subsidies were paid to stagecoach lines, and the Pony Express was established solely because of the lucrative mail payments given to the contractors involved. Likewise, federal policy provided government assistance to early railroads, including loans for equipment and land grants. Such a policy thrust also involved the Post Office Department in airmail service development. By 1925, the Post Office Department had conducted airmail service long enough to prove the practicality of 2112
this commercial nonmilitary use of the airplane. Throughout the initial period of the department’s support for airmail operations, it was firmly understood that government investment and control would be temporary, with a move by the mid-1920’s to involve private industry in airmail operations. Through the involvement of private firms in airmail, attention was given to the growth of the commercial airline industry. The last direct flight of the Post Office Department operation took place on September 9, 1927. Beginning in June of that year, department pilots were released as newly formed airlines took over various airmail routes. There had been more than forty pilots involved in the postal airmail service and more than six hundred employees in ground jobs. These employees had contributed to the more than twelve million airmail miles flown. From the beginning of U.S. government airmail service in 1918 until the last flight in 1927, the entire cost totaled $17.5 million, with more than $5 million in airmail postage sold. The balance cannot be counted as a loss, given that it led to the establishment of commercial air transportation and the entirety of the U.S. airline industry. It should instead be counted as an investment. Civilian air transportation largely began in the United States with the passage of the Air Mail Act, also known as the Kelly Act, on February 2, 1925. The act made possible the awarding of contracts to private contractors for the transport of airmail and, hence, led to the development of private airmail contractors. The act held that the amount of compensation paid to an air carrier would not be more than 80 percent of the revenue derived from the sale of airmail postage for such mail. In the middle of 1925, the postmaster general advertised for bids on eight airmail routes. Only five routes were immediately awarded, but by the beginning of 1926 twelve contract airmail routes had been awarded. The awards went to entrepreneurs of various backgrounds, many of them pioneers in commercial operations in the United States. The routes all focused on feeder lines
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ment of Commerce. The Air Commerce Act of 1926, along with the Kelly Act, provided a firm foundation for the development of civilian air transportation in the United States. Significance The Air Commerce Act of 1926 had several impacts. First, it reinforced the movement of aviation into the civilian or private sector, beginning with the handling of airmail operations. Second, it brought the firm recognition of a new and different role for the government by virtue of government provision of support for infrastructure development and operating assistance in that industry. From the act grew considerable investment in the development of a usable and progressive air traffic control system (largely federally funded and developed), considerable investment in airport expansion and maintenance, and subsidies for airlines. Finally, it established the precursors of regulation in the industry by focusing federal attention on safety mandates for craft and pilots. The act of 1926 can be viewed as a foundation of government promotion of industry. In its reaction to transportation systems, government normally gives attention to regulation and promotion. Regulation targets itself to monitoring the safety and economic performance of regulated carriers. Statutes mandate inspections and provide guidelines for the acquisition of operating rights and the provision of published fares or rates. Promotion, on the other hand, recognizes the opportunity and responsibility of government to support the development and maintenance of large-scale transport systems. Government can promote transportation through the provision of infrastructure such as highways, airports, and ocean ports; through regulation that adds stability and limits destructive competition; through the allocation of government business that becomes a solid base of financial support; and through assistance in the areas of both military and nonmilitary research and development, the offshoots of which may be advances in the commercial sector of the industry. The 1926 act established solid directions in these areas. From the act have grown the intricate system of air traffic control as well as myriad standards for the use of air and ground transportation systems. Just as traffic controls, signals, and patrols govern the operation of surface transport systems, an intricate air transportation control system governs the maintenance of the nation’s airways. This system continues to be a marvel in terms of the number and variety of aircraft handled. Despite new threats posed by congestion around major hub cities, the system 2113
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branching off into the main transcontinental routes. Bids were accepted on main routes beginning in 1927, and contracts were written for major as well as feeder routes throughout that year. Subsequent amendments to the Kelly Act abandoned difficult methods of apportioning payments for letters carried and, over time, reduced airmail postage, leading to a substantial increase in airmail traffic. The young airlines, entrepreneurs, and inventors involved in airline service benefited through the adjustments and the growth in the market, which led to substantial progress in the establishment of commercial aviation. Although the Kelly Act and Post Office Department policy provided that airlines could carry airmail, it became clear that airlines were not financially stable or large enough to provide for the maintenance and operation of the airways system organized for the postal service’s operation. Therefore, the U.S. Congress passed another major piece of legislation known as the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the purpose of which was to promote air commerce. The law charged the federal government with the development, operation, and maintenance of the airways system and all aids to air navigation. It also charged the federal government with providing safety in air commerce generally through a system of regulation. Air transportation presented new and serious safety issues for the federal government to consider. Unlike many forms of surface transportation, it involved such speed and distance from the surface of the earth that it pointed to potentially hazardous safety situations. Any failures in maintenance, construction, or operation could lead to serious problems of efficiency and safety. The initiative of the 1926 act gave rise also to a complex, continuing structure of safety regulation. The 1926 act was unlike other legislation dealing with airmail, leaving no hesitancy or reluctance in the belief that the federal government was strongly in the picture of growth and development of aviation by way of its aid and encouragement. The function of safety regulation was to be carried out by the Department of Commerce, and that agency established a department of air commerce. Among the earliest safety regulations provided were requirements of registration and licensing of aircraft and the certification and medical examination of pilots. Civil penalties were allowed in the enforcement of these regulations. This structure was the foundation of what later became the Civil Aeronautics Administration (in 1940) and still later the Federal Aviation Administration (in 1966), when the new Department of Transportation was established and the FAA moved to it from the Depart-
Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System
Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System continues to perform amazingly well. Such development has fostered the growth of the world’s most far-flung and significant air cargo and passenger system. It also has given rise to further interest in the expansion of transportation resources. Orville Wright gave testimony in 1925 before the House of Representatives, arguing that the greatest drawback to the use of aircraft for civilian purposes was the lack of suitable airports. The provision of such airports became a continuing concern of the federal government. Passage of the act of 1926 spurred the development of commercial civil aviation, putting new stress on expanding the outreach of the nation’s airways. Such expansion could not be encouraged solely by expanding the revenue base of the airlines, requiring in addition considerable infrastructure improvements. Subsequent acts provided for considerable investment in the development of airports in the continental United States. The country continues to enjoy the availability of one of the world’s finest airport and air traffic control systems. Prior to 1946, airports were operated by state, county, or municipal governments, and because of this, development of the system was slow. The Federal Airport Act of 1946 brought about a comprehensive national system of airports, administered by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Congress appropriated $520 million over a seven-year period to aid in the development of airport systems. During the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the act was extended and expanded to encompass operational facilities such as runways as well as public buildings or terminals related to the operational facilities. The administration of funds gave rise to the development of a national airport plan and to extensive local and regional planning in airport design. Funds devoted to the program continued to be expanded throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, leading to massive construction of airport facilities. The Airport and Airway Development Act passed in 1970 furthered the development of related facilities for airports. It further enhanced the move, as well, to national planning for airports. In the same time frame, various devices were instituted by way of taxes and charges to ensure that users and beneficiaries of the airport system paid, at least in part, for governmental investment in development and maintenance of the system. The regulatory activities initiated by the act of 1926 gave rise in 1966 to the work of the Federal Aviation Administration in evaluating the equipment operating characteristics and the personnel involved in commercial aviation. Considerable concern was focused on the safe 2114
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 operation of the transportation system and on participants in such operation. The FAA continued to be actively involved in safety issues in the field. Although the agency expanded and altered certain of its techniques and structures, it maintained concern for adequate testing and certification of operators and for construction and operating standards for the nation’s airways. The FAA underwent several reorganizations over the decades, culminating in the formation by Congress, after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, of the Transportation Security Administration, which succeeded the FAA as the principal body responsible for civil aviation security, although the FAA continued to function in all its other capacities. The Air Commerce Act of 1926 recognized the essential movement of air carrier operations from a government-sponsored airmail focus to general passenger and freight, at first built around airmail contracts. With the act came incentives for the expansion of the nation’s commercial aviation system. The system saw heavy military use in World War II, following which domestic airways were freed for considerable expansion. Airways came to pose a considerable threat to surface forms of passenger and freight transportation. By 1950, the airlines were a permanent fixture and the carrier of choice in a number of long-haul markets. This role continued to grow. Expansion of air transport would likely not have occurred at such speed or depth in the absence of government provision of infrastructure development as called for in the Air Commerce Act of 1926. —Theodore O. Wallin Further Reading Davis, Grant M. Transportation Regulation: A Pragmatic Assessment. Danville, Ill.: Interstate Printers & Publishers, 1976. Examines the U.S. government’s efforts to regulate various transportation industries. Dilger, Robert Jay. American Transportation Policy. New York: Praeger, 2002. Examines the development of transportation policy in the United States since the nation’s founding, including regulation of the civilian air transport system. Features bibliography and index. Fair, Marvin L., and John Guandolo. Transportation Regulation. 8th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown, 1979. Comprehensive basic text on transportation regulation provides some details on the state of transportation in the early twentieth century. Harper, Donald V. Transportation in America: Users, Carriers, Government. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
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Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1972. Introductory textbook provides background on the regulation of air transportation. See also: July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines; 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire; Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; June 25, 1936: The DC3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel; June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic.
May 20, 1926
Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes The 1926 Railway Labor Act set up mechanisms for mediating labor disputes acceptable both to organized labor and to the railroad companies, in the process guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining for workers. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), president of the United States, 1923-1929 Harry M. Daugherty (1860-1941), U.S. attorney general, 1921-1924 Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), president of the United States, 1921-1923 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), U.S. secretary of commerce, 1921-1929 Donald Randall Richberg (1881-1960), American attorney Summary of Event The 1926 Railway Labor Act brought peace to an industry plagued by strikes and violence. It created machinery acceptable to the railroad carriers and labor to mediate their disputes while guaranteeing labor’s long-sought goal of collective bargaining. The carriers submitted to these terms in exchange for excluding specific bargaining agents (unions) for labor from the act. This enabled
the railroads to maintain their company unions, despite the intent of the act. The origins of the Railway Labor Act lie in a fiercely contested strike in 1922. That action stemmed from wage cuts ordered by the Railroad Labor Board (RLB), an agency charged by the 1920 Transportation Act with monitoring and regulating wages and rates in the railroad industry. Staffed by appointees of President Warren G. Harding, who held strong antilabor views, the RLB rescinded wage increases granted in 1920. This action hit hardest the shopcraft and other workers not directly included in operating the railroads. At the same time, the RLB tolerated the Pennsylvania Railroad’s defiance of the RLB’s orders that carriers restore union contracts that they had unilaterally abrogated and that the carriers also dismantle recently established company unions. Fearing for their long-term survival, the shopcraft and nonoperating unions struck the railroad carriers on July 1, 1922, primarily over the issues of wages and hours. Hurt least by the reductions and conciliated by the RLB’s promise of no further wage cuts, the operating employees remained on the job. Soon the strike took a new turn, as the carriers demanded an end to seniority rights, the very heart of union strength. In order to sustain operations, the companies recruited scores of strikebreakers to fill the positions held by striking workers. By eliminating seniority, the carriers eased their task of rehiring strikers and, as the unions asserted, created a massive surplus of railroad workers. 2115
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Prentice-Hall, 1982. Discusses provision of transportation services and markets for those services, along with government regulation of transportation markets. Hazard, John L. Transportation: Management, Economics, Policy. Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1977. Discusses the foundations of the economics of transportation and provides references to a whole panorama of regulatory actions in this area. Kane, Robert M., and Allan D. Vose. Air Transportation. 14th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2002. Comprehensive coverage of the history of air transportation and its regulation. A good reference for readers interested in the development of the aviation industry. Locklin, D. Philip. Economics of Transportation. 7th ed.
Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes
Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes By this measure, the railroad companies had raised the stakes from mere wages to union survival. The unions complained bitterly about the RLB’s decision to urge the carriers to try to break the strike and to allow the companies to broach the seniority issue. Working behind the scenes, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover proved unable to persuade the carriers to negotiate. The refusal angered Harding. By the fall of 1922, Harding had reversed his earlier stand. Frustrated by the unions’ continued rejection of the RLB demands for wage cuts, the president placed the blame for the prolonged strike squarely on the shoulders of organized labor. By the late summer, he had embraced Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty’s position of the strike’s illegality and agreed that only drastic action could prevent the country’s transportation system from grinding to a halt. With presidential backing, Daugherty used a sweeping injunction to end the strike action, forcing compliance with the RLB wage cuts. The injunction, issued by Judge James Wilkerson of the District Court of Chicago on September 1, 1922, exceeded past judicial orders by prohibiting picketing and even minimal communications among the strikers and their supporters. The measure outraged many moderate Republicans such as Hoover, who had advocated a cooperative rather than confrontational solution to the strike. Faced with a hostile government and determined carriers, the unions had no choice but to return to work. Most unions followed the Baltimore & Ohio plan suggested by Hoover ally Daniel Willard, president of that railroad. The plan entailed negotiating with the companies on a separate basis in exchange for salvaging their seniority rights. In the wake of this massive confrontation, union members and moderate Republicans agreed that the industry needed a new mechanism to cope with grievances and disputes. The Special Committee Representing Railroad Labor Organizations prepared an initial report that outlined labor’s objectives in its relationships with the carriers. Union representatives turned this document over to Donald Randall Richberg, who had earned a reputation as the leading labor attorney for his work in the 1922 strike. Charged with resolving the problems inherent in the carrier-union relationship, Richberg integrated these recommendations into his proposed legislation aimed at establishing new negotiating procedures. Richberg’s early drafts inevitably sparked controversy. The original proposal, known as the HowellBarkley Bill, contained a provision that the carriers found particularly objectionable. It designated sixteen railroad labor organizations as specific bargaining 2116
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 agents for the rail employees. Acceptance of this condition would acknowledge carrier recognition of the unions, a position the railroad companies fiercely resisted. The two parties worked out a compromise, which President Calvin Coolidge signed on May 20, 1926. The final version of the act disbanded the RLB and substituted new procedures for settling disputes. As a first step, these included conferences between the two parties to iron out differences on wages, hours, and other items in the contract. If the parties remained deadlocked, an adjustment board, which would handle disputes over interpretation of the terms of a contract, assumed jurisdiction. The act was vague as to whether a national board (favoring the unions) or a systemwide board (implicitly allowing for company unions) would hear the grievances. The carriers seized on the ambiguity of the act to maintain their employee representation schemes and bring grievances to systemwide boards. As late as 1933, 147 of the 233 largest carriers still maintained company unions that predated the 1926 law. The law included neither the means to enforce decisions nor the power to inflict penalties on guilty parties, therefore emboldening the railroad carriers. The weaker shopcraft and nonoperating workers proved most vulnerable to the company union strategy. The National Mediation Board was to intervene in disputes involving changes in a contract. The act required either party to provide a thirty-day prior notice before such changes went into effect. Once that period elapsed, the board would step in to negotiate a settlement. Arbitration stood as the absolute last choice of the board and occurred only if both parties agreed. If the mediation board perceived that the dispute endangered the transportation system, it could so inform the president, who could appoint an emergency board to deal with the crisis. The emergency board lacked enforcement power. The National Mediation Board’s course of moderation and accommodation contrasted sharply with the aggressive and hostile character of the RLB. The Railway Labor Act of 1926 established industrial peace throughout the railroad industry and acted as a model for other industries seeking accommodation between company owners and union advocates. Its recognition of collective bargaining as an employee right opened alternatives for workers throughout the economy who had no access to any form of bargaining procedure. Significance The 1926 Railway Labor Act marked an important turning point in organized labor’s drive for recognition and the right to collective bargaining. It drew on earlier legis-
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Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes Erdman Act and pursued through World War I. It revived collective bargaining and ended yellow-dog contracts in the rail industry while guaranteeing the long-term survival of unions. Its success provided a model that greatly influenced subsequent legislation regarding labor relations through the mid-1930’s and acted as a beacon for pro-union forces in the economy. The revision of the 1890 Bankruptcy Law in June of 1933 demonstrated the continued influence of the Railway Labor Act. The Great Depression forced many railroads to the brink of ruin. Bankruptcy offered one alternative for troubled companies. It also opened the possibility of companies’ suspension of all union contracts. To prevent such an action, the unions insisted on amendments that enabled the terms of the Railway Labor Act to prevail despite economic contingencies and secured the right to self-organization free from carrier intrusion. The Emergency Railroad Transportation Act of 1933, with a one-year life, reiterated these provisions. Designed to promote efficiencies and reduce waste in the industry, that act ensured that no workers would lose their jobs as a result of measures enacted under this law. In 1934, the unions sought permanent legislation to create a more stable workplace. Specifically, they intended to change the conditions that allowed company unions to persist in more than half the carriers. The 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act guaranteed employees the right to organize independent of carrier influence. The act also established the National Board of Adjustment, which acknowledged the unions as bargaining agents for the workers and created a new board of national mediation. The act gave the president the power to appoint members to this board, subject to congressional confirmation. The mediation board also exercised the authority to certify representatives from either side, a measure that preserved the autonomy of the unions. Equally as important, workers had the right to select their representatives through secret ballots, which isolated them from company pressures. The success of the rail workers was illustrated most prominently in the formulation of the Wagner Act of 1935, which was the culmination of a drive for collective bargaining throughout the economy. Already the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) had incorporated boards of mediation and arbitration that had assumed a central role in the rail industry. Donald Richberg, who oversaw the writing of the Railway Labor Act, also participated in the preparation of the NIRA, so it is not surprising that there are similarities between the 1926 measure and the NIRA. 2117
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lation such as the Erdman and Newlands Acts and played a critical role in the formulation of the 1933 Bankruptcy Act, the 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act, and the 1935 Wagner Act. The Erdman Act of 1898 attempted to restore equality to the bargaining process between the railroad carriers and organized labor. The act applied only to operating employees—specifically, engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen—yet it moved toward establishing mediation procedures that dealt fairly with unions. It banned the “yellow-dog contract,” which threatened workers engaged in union activity with dismissal. The act also outlawed blacklisting, which permanently barred union supporters from employment through a system of files that carriers maintained on dissidents. A court test struck down these last two provisions. The 1913 Newlands Act sought to keep alive the negotiation process by setting up the U.S. Board of Mediation and Conciliation, which again dealt only with the operating workers. World War I created an atmosphere more favorable to union demands. The urgency of continued production, the need for industrial peace, and the government’s desire to placate unions sparked administrative and legislative decisions that favored organized labor. Even before the declaration of war, the railroad unions had won the eight-hour day with the passage of the Adamson Act in 1916. During the conflict, the federal government assumed control of the nation’s rail system. The government promoted standard wages and hours, long favored by the rail unions, and ensured that union members remained free of discriminatory practices by the carriers. The unions found federal control far more in tune with their interests than was private ownership. The end of the war and the specter of company interests reclaiming control worried the unions. Quickly, their representatives brought forth the Plumb Plan, which outlined a scenario in which the unions, the bondholders, and the shippers exercised administrative control of the industry. Organized labor clearly wished to hold on to the gains made during the war and to sustain what the workers perceived as favorable conditions. The war’s end proved disappointing to organized labor. Collective bargaining faced a sustained assault by carriers. Railroads pushed for open shops, in which workers did not have to belong to unions, and workers saw a resurgence of yellow-dog contracts. The passage of the Railway Labor Act transformed the hostile environment that menaced the very existence of unions. The act salvaged the union goals first articulated in the
Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes The Wagner Act, or National Labor Relations Act, replaced the NIRA, which was found to be unconstitutional. It repeated many of the staples of the Railway Labor Act and its 1934 revisions. Company unions and yellow-dog contracts fell by the wayside, and the law recognized the right of workers to organize, free of company interference, throughout all industries. Collective bargaining assumed a central role in labor-company relations. The Wagner Act, unlike the Railway Labor Act, acknowledged closed shops, in which workers had to belong to the union before beginning work, but these were subsequently outlawed in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. By the mid-1930’s, the unions had achieved their longsought autonomy. —Edward J. Davies II Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. 1960. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1983. One of the most thorough accounts of labor’s activities in the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Provides a complete account of the railway union-carrier relationship and explains the positions of the participants in the 1926 legislation. Contains one of the best and most detailed descriptions available of the various parts of the Railway Labor Act. _______. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Chapters 5 and 7 discuss the amendments to the Railway Labor Act and the Wagner Act, pinpointing the influence of the original legislation in the formulation of national labor policy. One of the most thorough accounts available on the labor-company debates of the 1930’s. Breen, W. J. Labor Market Politics and the Great War: The Department of Labor, the States, and the First U.S. Employment Service, 1907-1933. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997. History of the federal government’s involvement in labor issues through the critical period from before World War I through the early years of the Great Depression. Includes lengthy bibliography and index. Fleming, R. W. “The Significance of the Wagner Act.” In Labor and the New Deal, edited by Milton Derber and Edwin Young. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. Pro2118
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vides a concise description of the various influences on preparation of the NIRAand the Wagner Act. Serves as a useful introduction to the debates of the era. Foner, Philip S. On the Eve of America’s Entrance into World War I, 1915-1916. Vol. 6 in History of the Labor Movement in the United States. New York: International Publishers, 1982. Provides a systematic description of labor conditions in the United States just prior to the nation’s participation in World War I. Includes a succinct description of the legislative history of labor relations in the rail industry from the Erdman Act of 1898 through the Adamson Act of 1916. Jacoby, Daniel. Laboring for Freedom: A New Look at the History of Labor in America. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. Examines opposed ideas concerning freedom as manifested in labor history in the United States. Includes bibliography and index. Keller, Morton. Regulating a New Economy: Public and Economic Change in America, 1900-1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. Chapter 3 contains a brief discussion of the development of the federal government’s transportation policies from the beginning of the twentieth century through the 1920’s. Stresses the complexity of the rail industry, which is subject to multiple influences. Indispensable source for readers seeking to understand the importance of regulation throughout society. Locklin, D. Philip. Economics of Transportation. 3d ed. Chicago: Richard D. Irwin, 1947. Chapter 12 lists all the relevant railroad legislation for the period, outlining each act in a concise fashion and providing a clear guide to its legal history. The description of the Railway Labor Act does not address the ambiguity of the law that enabled carriers to maintain their company unions. Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. One of the most analytic and detailed descriptions available of labor relations in general. Includes much information on the rail industry, particularly the activities of the operating unions and their role in the debates on national transportation policy both before and after World War I. Tomlins, Christopher L. The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1889-1930. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Chapter 4 traces the legal origins of collective bargaining, including brief descriptions of legislation in the rail industry.
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ward the rail unions under President Harding and Attorney General Daugherty to the cooperative spirit promoted by Herbert Hoover under President Coolidge and embodied in the Railway Labor Act. See also: Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor; Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations; July 5, 1935: Wagner Act.
July, 1926
Eddington Publishes THE INTERNAL CONSTITUTION OF THE STARS Arthur Stanley Eddington’s pioneering contribution to astronomy and astrophysics, set forth in The Internal Constitution of the Stars, spanned the most important aspects of stellar structure constitution and evolution. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944), English astronomer and physicist Walter Sydney Adams (1876-1956), an American astronomer Ralph H. Fowler (1889-1944), English astrophysicist Francis Gladheim Pease (1881-1938), American astronomer John August Anderson (1876-1959), American astronomer Hendrik Anthony Kramers (1894-1952), Dutch physicist Hans Albrecht Bethe (1906-2005), German American physicist and astrophysicist Summary of Event At the beginning of the twentieth century, astrophysical knowledge was at best only rudimentary. The source of stellar energy had not yet been discovered. Although scientists understood the proper motions of the stars—that is, the sum of radial and transverse velocities—William Herschel’s assumption of their randomness relative to the Sun had been abandoned by Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn on the basis of his pioneering study of the subject. At this stage, Karl Schwarzschild attempted to rep-
resent the radial velocity vectors of the stars as forming an ellipsoid. Kapteyn, however, noted that they formed, instead, a double-lobed curve. In 1906, Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, investigating proper motions of stars, was able to isolate two star streams, or drifts. He confirmed the above-mentioned facts through a statistical analysis of the proper motion data. During these early years, Eddington studied problems associated with the distribution of stars of different spectral class, planetary nebulas, open clusters, and the dynamics of globular clusters. Eddington’s pioneering work in astrophysics began in 1916. A decade earlier, Ralph Allen Sampson had pointed out the importance of radiation pressure in the physics of stars, and Schwarzschild later developed a theory of radiative equilibrium for the stellar atmospheres. Eddington, realizing the important role the radiation pressure played in maintaining the equilibrium in massive stars, extended Schwarzschild’s theory all the way to the stellar core. Utilizing Robert Emden’s differential equation for a polytropic sphere with index n = 3, assuming that the materials of a giant star behave like a perfect gas, and accounting for gravitational force, gas pressure, and radiation pressure, he developed the wellknown equation of radiative equilibrium. Known as Eddington’s model of a star, it was found to be applicable to white dwarfs as well. It was known that matter inside a star would be highly ionized because of extreme temperature. Incorporating this fact into his theory of stellar equilibrium, Eddington showed that high ionization reduced the molecular weight of a gas by two for all elements except hydrogen. 2119
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Vadney, Thomas E. The Wayward Liberal: A Political Biography of Donald Richberg. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970. Chapter 3 explains in detail Richberg’s role in the formation of pro-union railroad legislation. Provides a thorough account of Richberg’s motivations. Zieger, Robert H. Republicans and Labor, 1919-1929. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1969. Excellent analysis of the influence of the Republican Party in shaping labor’s position in its relationship with the carriers. Particularly effective in explaining the reversal of the Republican Party from hostility to-
Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars
Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars Radiation pressure was found to increase rapidly with rising stellar mass, resulting in instabilities; hence Eddington concluded that the number of stars in excess of ten solar masses would be rare. The derivation of mass-luminosity relation of a star requires knowledge of fundamental processes contributing to stellar opacity. After the photoelectric absorption process, regarded as dominant, met with criticism, Eddington, employing Hendrik Anthony Kramers’s theory of absorption coefficients and introducing his so-called guillotine factor, obtained the important mass-luminosity relationship. Moreover, having realized that electron scattering is the major source of stellar opacity, he was able to derive an upper limit to luminosity for a given mass—“Eddington’s limit”—which plays an important role in the investigation of X-ray sources and accretion discs around black holes. Based on the fact that the observed luminosity data fit well with his theoretical computation, Eddington concluded that both giant and dwarf stars were gaseous, even though the latter had exceedingly high density. Eddington’s computation on the basis of his theory of stellar constitution of angular diameters of several giant stars—including Betelgeuse, Antares, and Aldebaran— was confirmed observationally by Francis Gladheim Pease and John August Anderson at Mount Wilson Observatory in California. Applying his theory to the dwarf star Sirius B, Eddington noted to his astonishment that the mass density of the star was 50 million kilograms (approximately 55,116 tons) per cubic meter. He realized that such a dense star should exhibit measurable gravitational redshift in accordance with Einstein’s relativity theory, and he had Walter Sydney Adams at Mount Wilson successfully verify this effect. Having established the diameter of Sirius B to be 38 million meters (about 23,612 miles), comparable to that of Earth, Eddington found its density to be 53 million kilograms (58,422 tons) per cubic meter. Ralph H. Fowler, employing Erwin Schrödinger’s wave mechanics, formulated the theory of degenerate dense matter found in stars such as Sirius B. A problem of great complexity that resulted in Eddington’s interest in the internal constitution of stars and occupied his attention for a long time is associated with the Cepheid variable. Luminosities of these bright F and G stars vary with a periodicity ranging from a day to several weeks. After generalizing Johann Wilhelm Ritter’s analysis of the adiabatic pulsation of a gaseous star in convective equilibrium to the case of a star in radiative equilibrium, Eddington was able to combine the result with the mass-luminosity formulism, so as generally to 2120
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 obtain period-luminosity relations of Cepheids. Although these earlier attempts did not agree with correct phase relations among the observed variables such as brightness and temperature, Eddington realized that one had to examine the problem of energy transfer more thoroughly and returned to it several times. He was able to establish that the longer the periodicity of a star, the lower its surface temperature. With his pulsation theory, Eddington laid the foundation for future work on the Cepheids. In addition to covering his research for a time span of ten years, beginning in 1916, Eddington’s The Internal Constitution of the Stars also contains chapters devoted to stellar surface, chromosphere, atmosphere, and abundance of elements. His speculative prediction about the source of stellar energy appears in one of his papers. Twenty years later, Hans Albrecht Bethe showed that within the dense, hot core of a star, four protons would combine to form a helium atom via the carbon-nitrogencarbon cycle so that a small fraction of the mass would be converted into radiant energy. This is one of the possible sources of stellar energy. Eddington was keenly aware that the source of the star’s energy must be deep within the core. While involved with the major projects, Eddington investigated the problem of cosmic abundance of hydrogen and the central temperature and density of stars. His theory of absorption lines of stellar atmosphere made it possible to interpret many observed spectral line intensities. His theory concerning the temperature, density, and composition of interstellar matter and its emission and absorption properties of light provided an independent rough measurement of distances. Significance Eddington wrote more than 150 scientific articles and more than a dozen books. His profound knowledge of mathematics, deep intuitive insight into natural problems, and unrelenting drive enabled him to delve into a wide range of topics. His pioneering contributions to astronomy and astrophysics are distilled in his classic masterpiece The Internal Constitution of the Stars. It would not be an overstatement to say that the publication of his work opened up a new and exciting vista of astronomy and astrophysics. Even while Eddington’s research work was being published, the stimulus it provided was evident from the immediate and long-lived controversy it generated among leading researchers in the field of astrophysics, such as James Hopwood Jeans and Edward Arthur Milne. The publication of The Internal Constitution of the
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Further Reading Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan. Eddington: The Most Distinguished Astrophysicist of His Time. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Presents two Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington Centenary Lectures delivered by Chandrasekhar at Trinity College, the University of Cambridge, in late 1982. Valuable source offers a cameo view of the life and achievements of Eddington by a great astrophysicist of modern times. Douglas, A. Vibert. The Life of Arthur Stanley Eddington. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1957. This bi-
ography includes a complete list of Eddington’s scientific papers and books, in addition to a genealogical table. The volume reads like a novel and is comprehensive in every respect, embodying all aspects of Eddington’s life and scientific achievements. The text may serve even as an excellent primer for stellar structure, relativity, and the philosophy of science. Eddington, Arthur Stanley. The Internal Constitution of the Stars. 1926. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1959. Eddington’s celebrated work is written in a style accessible to general readers. Many of the arguments presented are easy to understand; readers with some college-level background in astronomy should be able to absorb the work in its entirety. Includes references. _______. Stellar Movements and the Structure of the Universe. London: Macmillan, 1914. Presents Eddington’s statistical analysis of data on the proper motion of stars, distribution of stars based on their spectral class, planetary nebulas, and star clusters, published in about fifteen papers, in addition to the cosmological knowledge of the period. Aimed at general readers of scientific literature. Provides a background for understanding Eddington’s later work on stellar structure. Miller, Arthur I. Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Provides background on the history of the idea of black holes and describes the debate between Chandrasekhar and Eddington concerning the nature of black holes as well as the implications of that debate for twentieth century science. Motz, Lloyd, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Story of Astronomy. New York: Plenum, 1995. Presents the history of astronomy from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 15 discusses Eddington’s work in the context of the beginnings of astrophysics. Includes bibliography and index. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Excellent survey for the general reader includes discussion of stellar properties and mass determination for binary stars. Features drawings, black-and-white photographs, and diagrams as well as glossary and bibliography. See also: Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star; Mar., 1924: Eddington Formulates the Mass-Luminosity Law for Stars. 2121
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Stars established Eddington firmly as the founder of modern theoretical astrophysics and provided pathways to the study of structure, constitution, and evolution of stars. Several aspects of investigations of stellar structure—pioneered by Eddington and treated in his book—were pursued by others, leading to successful conclusions. Eddington’s search for a theory to explain the periodicity of Cepheid variables, one of his earliest research interests, occupied him for a substantial period of his life. The problem of the Cepheids was ultimately solved by Martin Schwarzschild, Paul Ledoux, and Robert Frederick Christy. His speculations and predictions in regard to stellar energy turned out to be an important initial step, leading Bethe and others to elegant solutions. Eddington’s study of the effects of reflection in binaries for determining their masses served later as a prototype solution to problems of diffuse reflection and transmission of light. Eddington’s investigation of interstellar absorption of lines led to dual results: determination of relative abundance of elements by the method of the “curve of growth,” developed by Albrecht Otto, Johannes Unsold, and Marcel Gilles Minnaert, as well as prediction of radial velocities and, hence, approximation of distances, confirmed by Otto Struve and John Stanley Plaskett. Eddington’s deduction of the size and ultrahigh density of dwarf stars, followed by Fowler’s theory of degenerate matter, later led Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar to deduce an upper limit to masses of such stars, which is known as the Chandrasekhar limit. Eddington’s contributions to astrophysics thus spanned the most important aspects of stellar structure. As Milne noted in 1945, Eddington “brought it all to life, infusing it with his sense of real physics and endowing it with aspects of splendid beauty. . . . Eddington will always be our incomparable pioneer.” —V. L. Madhyastha
Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars
Treaty of Ankara
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 18, 1926
Treaty of Ankara The contentious Mosul question involved the issue of whether the oil-rich region of northern Iraq should return to Turkish sovereignty or be transferred permanently to British-mandated Iraq after World War I. Locale: Mosul, Iraq; Ankara, Turkey Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Tevfik Rültü Aras (1883-1972), Turkish foreign minister, 1925-1937, ambassador to Great Britain, 1939-1942, and Turkish representative to the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission, 19501952 Mawmnd Barzanjt (1881-1956), alternately Britishappointed governor of Mosul and self-proclaimed king of Kurdistan Sir Percy Zachariah Cox (1864-1937), British high commissioner in Iraq, 1920-1923, and British plenipotentiary for negotiating the Turkish-Iraqi border in 1924 Sir Ronald Charles Lindsay (1877-1945), Britain’s ambassador to Turkey Nnrt al-Sa4td (1888-1958), acting Iraqi minister of national defense Summary of Event Following the victorious Allies’ armistice agreement with the defeated Ottoman Empire at Moudros on October 30, 1918, and the stillborn Treaty of Sèvres of August 10, 1920, the amending Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, with the Turkish Republic failed to set a definitive, internationally agreed-upon border between Turkey and the new, League of Nations-approved, British-mandated territory of Iraq. The latter was created from three former Ottoman provinces in Mesopotamia, including the northern province of Mosul. However, when the Treaty of Lausanne was ratified on August 6, 1924, it left open the possibility of referring the border issue to the League of Nations if Britain and Turkey could not find an amicable settlement to the matter within nine months. The two parties were unable to agree on the border’s placement at Lausanne because the Turkish representatives repeatedly claimed sovereignty over Mosul from 1923 through 1926. They based their claims on geographic, demographic, ethnographic, historic, economic, and other issues, including the alleged political wishes of 2122
the province’s Turkish and Kurdish speakers, whose numbers and ethnicities could not be accurately determined. The Turks demanded that the border (and thus the sovereignty) issue be settled by plebiscite among the approximately 700,000 inhabitants of the province, who were anchored primarily around the cities of Mosul, Kirkuk, Arbtl, and as-Sulaym3ntyah and the surrounding countryside. For its part, Britain claimed priority for the right of conquest, which the Turks characterized as an outdated principle of international law and mandatory power that they refused to recognize. Following an inconclusive conference in Constantinople in May of 1924, an armed clash between the two confronting armies in Mosul became a real possibility. The British submitted the issue to the Council of the League of Nations in September of 1924, and the League established a commission of inquiry composed of Af de Wirsén of Sweden (a neutral country), the committee’s chairman; Count Paul Teleki of Hungary, previously aligned with the Central Powers and the Ottoman Empire; and Colonel A. Paulis of Belgium (an Allied country). After visiting London and Ankara, the commission went to Baghdad and Mosul, where members conducted numerous interviews and surveys. The three-member commission then presented its report to the League of Nations. Although the report was ambiguous in many respects—it often wavered between favoring Turkish sovereignty and favoring British sovereignty—the Commission finally awarded control to British-mandated Iraq. Accordingly, the League of Nations Council granted Mosul Province to Iraq on October 29, 1924. The Turks, however, challenged the binding nature of the League Council’s determination of the so-called Brussels line, the provisional border that awarded Mosul to Iraq. In response, the Council sought the advice of the Permanent Court of International Justice, which opined that the award was indeed arbitral rather than mediational or recommendatory so long as the League Council’s decision, ignoring the self-interested British and Turkish votes, was unanimous. The League Council thus endorsed the award of Mosul to Iraq on December 16, 1925. Turkey reluctantly assented to the decision on June 5, 1926, through the Treaty of Ankara, which was ratified on July 18, 1926. As a sop to Turkish nationalist sensitivities, the British-advised Iraqi government committed itself to paying Turkey 10 percent of all royalties from the Turkish Petroleum Company (which had obtained the conces-
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sion for all oil operations in Mosul on March 14, 1925) for a period of twenty-five years. On that basis, Turkey eventually collected 3,685,536 Iraqi dinars between 1931 and 1951, when the provision expired. Meanwhile, as the Turkish-British dispute was unfolding, a heated rivalry grew among various Kurdish tribal leaders for ascendancy and power. These Kurds came to oppose the British presence, and one of them, Sheikh Mawmnd Barzanjt, alternated between supporting the British and opposing them after declaring himself king of Kurdistan. The reluctant Turks accepted the League Council’s decision without engaging in battle for several reasons. First, the new Turkish Republic wished to consolidate its internal power after termination of the Ottoman sultanate and caliphate. Second, the Turks were weary following their bloody 1919-1923 war with Greece, in which the Greeks invaded Anatolia in the hope of collecting the reward promised to them by the Allies during World War I. At the time, there was uncertainty about promised Soviet aid to Turkey. Finally, and perhaps most important, Turkish diplomats such as Foreign Minister Tevfik Rültü Aras realized that the balance of power in the League Council lay with the victorious Allied members,
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who were broadly represented, in contrast to the defeated ones (such as Turkey), who were not. The British, encouraged by Sir Percy Zachariah Cox, a senior British negotiator, were not about to give up their controlling interest in much of the oil discovered in Mosul. Accordingly, when the Treaty of Ankara was signed by Sir Ronald Charles Lindsay, Britain’s ambassador to Turkey; Colonel Nnrt al-Sa4td, acting Iraqi minister of national defense; and Tevfik Rültü Aras, the signatories confirmed the border adopted by the League of Nations at its session of October 29, 1924—the Brussels line—with minor modifications to be recommended by a boundary commission to be established soon after the treaty’s signature. Significance Long after the “definitive” settlement of the Mosul question by the Treaty of Ankara of June 5, 1926, the delineation of Mosul’s border with Turkey—like Iraq’s other artificial borders, which were remnants of its colonial rule—continued to cause conflict. The League’s neglect of Kurdish aspirations to national self-determination (which the Kurds had expected to achieve under U.S. 2123
Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures president Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points) resurfaced after the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Kurds in Mosul, who lived in semiautonomy after the defeat of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s central government in 1991, started to infiltrate the porous Turkish border to support their Kurdish brethren’s insurgency against the Ankara government. Some thirty-five thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq in hot pursuit of the Kurdish fighters of the militant Kurdish Workers Party—the PKK—in May of 1995. On that occasion, Turkish president Süleyman Demirel and some of the media suggested that the border between the two countries should be redrawn. While the subsequent outcry muted those demands, the Kurds in Iraq, fearing strong Turkish opposition to the creation of an independent Kurdistan in Mosul, started to consider the possibility of a Kurdish-Turkish federation. Possibilities for this type of federation increased as some Kurds questioned whether they could find a niche within the new Iraqi regime after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Under this scenario, Mosul would revert to Turkey, giving the Turks a strong bargaining chip—namely, non-Arab Mosul oil— in seeking admission into the European Union. — Peter B. Heller Further Reading Hurewitz, J. C., ed. The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record. 2d ed. Vol. 2. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979. In-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cludes the texts of the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 and the Treaty of Ankara of 1926. Contains introductory blurbs. Pipes, Daniel. “Hot Spot: Turkey, Iraq, and Mosul.” Middle East Quarterly 2, no. 3 (September, 1995): 65-68. Highlights how the contentious post-World War I delineation of the northern Iraqi border with Turkey had repercussions following Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and the loosening of Baghdad’s control over the Kurds. Polk, William R. Understanding Iraq. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. In his sweep of Iraqi history, this former American official and scholar evidences the ill-advised, imperialistically driven post-World War I settlements involving Iraq. Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Of particular interest is the section headed “The Mosul Question: Territory and Oil” in the extensive chapter titled “The British Mandate.” See also: July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire; Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt; Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians.
August, 1926-September, 1928
Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures Warner Bros. innovated talkies, films with sound, giving rise to the Golden Age of the Hollywood film. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; communications and media; entertainment; science and technology; inventions Key Figures Harry Warner (1881-1958), American motion-picture executive Albert Warner (1884-1967), American motion-picture executive Sam Warner (1887-1927), American motion-picture executive Jack Warner (1892-1978), American motion-picture executive 2124
Summary of Event When shown in theaters, silent films were accompanied by live sound, featuring music and sound effects. Fivehundred-seat neighborhood theaters made do with a piano and violin; four-thousand-seat picture palaces in New York and Chicago maintained resident orchestras with more than seventy members. What the silent cinema lacked was prerecorded, synchronized sound. During the late 1920’s, the Warner Bros. studio led the American film industry first to motion pictures with sounds recorded on synchronized records and added on the film beside the images. The ideas that led to the coming of sound were the products of corporate-sponsored research by American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Both improved
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1925, Warner Bros. purchased Vitagraph, a pioneer film producer and distributor, an action that doubled the company’s production capacity and provided a worldwide network to market its films. Thus, in 1925, before Warner Bros. even considered the new sound technology, astute film industry watchers began to notice the rise of the company. As part of this initial wave of expansion, Warner Bros. acquired a Los Angeles radio station in order to publicize its films. Through this deal, the four Warner brothers—Harry, Sam, Albert, and Jack—learned of the new technology the radio and telephone industries had developed to record sound. During the spring of 1925, the brothers devised a plan to use the new recording technology to help with their corporate expansion. Warner Bros. could record the most popular musical artists on film and then offer these short films as added attractions
Crowds outside Warners’ Theatre in New York for the 1926 opening of Don Juan, a silent film with recorded synchronized musical accompaniment. (NARA)
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sound recording and playback to help their design of long-distance telephone equipment and improvement of radio sets. Neither company could or would enter filmmaking, however. It took Warner Bros. to prove to the predecessors of today’s Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Universal Pictures, and Columbia Pictures that motion pictures with synchronized sound should be made standard in the film industry. Warner Bros. pioneered sound in motion pictures with a plan formulated by brothers Harry and Sam Warner. In 1924, Warner Bros. (the studio’s official spelling, to cut the cost of printing “Brothers”) was a prosperous, albeit small, corporation that produced films needing financing. That year, Harry Warner approached the important Wall Street investment banking house of Goldman, Sachs and secured the help he needed. In
Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures
Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures
Promoting Vitaphone The following is an excerpt from an “open letter” signed by Harry Warner that appeared on the front page of the July 24, 1926, issue of the film exhibitors’ newsletter Brass Tacks, published by Warner Bros.: A new era in motion picture presentation has arrived. It will thrill and startle the world. The marvelous Vitaphone process, which will have its first public presentation at the Warner Theater on August 6, will revolutionize the industry. It will make it possible for small town theaters to have the same musical accompaniment as that enjoyed in the biggest theaters the world over. Small town exhibitors will become big time showmen. They can rent music and they can rent film. . . . The greatest artists of the operatic and musical field can be heard in the smallest theaters as well as the largest. Millions of people will be educated to a finer appreciation of the best music that has ever been written by the foremost composers. Imagine! The wonderful New York Philharmonic Orchestra . . . 107 pieces . . . Henry Hadley, the great musical director, directing. . . . In a small town! The synchronization of music and motion pictures is an established fact, and on August 6 the great invention will be heard by the public. . . . Spread the great message, and deliver it to the exhibitors of the world!
to theaters that booked its features. (Albert Warner was instrumental in getting Warner Bros. films into theaters.) As a bonus, Warner Bros. could add recorded orchestral music to the studio’s feature films and offer it to those theaters that relied on small musical ensembles. Brothers Sam and Jack Warner would handle the actual filmmaking. The innovation of sound did not come easily for Warner Bros. For example, it contracted for necessary equipment from AT&T. The telephone company would have rather dealt with a more important Hollywood corporation, but Paramount and the other major Hollywood companies of the day did not want to risk their sizable profit positions by junking silent films. The giants of the film industry were doing fine with what they had; they did not want to switch to something that had not been proved. On August 6, 1926, Warner Bros. premiered its new technology, which it labeled Vitaphone. The first package consisted of a traditional silent film (Don Juan) with 2126
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 a recorded musical accompaniment, plus six recordings of musical talent that were highlighted by the most famous opera tenor of the day, Giovanni Martinelli, doing his specialty from I Pagliacci. These recordings were made in New York, before almost all filmmaking moved to Hollywood in 1927. From the fall of 1926 through the spring of 1927— during the prime moviegoing season in those days, before theaters had air-conditioning—Warner Bros. developed several packages consisting of a silent film with recorded orchestral music plus six shorts of noted musical talent. As this policy evolved, the shorts became more “pop” and less classical. Al Jolson, for example, appeared before the Warner cameras and recorded two of his most famous hits. Warner Bros. concentrated on these so-called vaudeville shorts. By April, 1927, the company had recorded all the popular stars of the day. Warner Bros. soon ran out of musical stars to record and had to devise something new. The company began to add Vitaphone segments to feature films. The reasoning was that if Jolson did so well in a short subject, a feature film designed and written especially for him would likely be even more successful. The film would be silent as the necessary narrative moved along, but as soon as the Jolson character was required to break into song, the sound technology would be utilized. This strategy, merging the new with the old, was designed to avoid offending dedicated silent filmgoers while attracting new patrons to theaters throughout the United States. The first such Vitaphone feature was The Jazz Singer, which premiered early in the fall of 1927. Over the summer months, Warner Bros. had convinced enough theater owners to install the required sound equipment to make the investment in the part-talkie feature film a financial success. During the summer of 1927, Warner salespersons performed a masterful job of selling skeptical exhibitors on the idea, and the Vitaphone projection equipment began to appear in picture palaces throughout the United States. The Jazz Singer premiered as scheduled in October, 1927. From the opening it was a hit. (Sadly, Sam Warner did not live to see and hear it; he died shortly before the premiere.) The Jazz Singer package (including its accompanying shorts with sound) forced theaters in cities that rarely held films over for more than a single week to ask to have the package stay for two, three, and sometimes four straight weeks. (One week was considered normal in the 1920’s; two weeks’ duration usually set a house record.) The Jazz Singer did well at the box office, but it failed
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Significance The coming of sound transformed filmmaking in its day as did other later changes in motion-picture technology, such as the coming of color, wide-screen images, and stereo sound. Indeed, film history is segmented by this monumental change. The addition of sound led to major shifts in the economic, aesthetic, and social power of films. Through its innovation with sound, Warner Bros. changed the American film industry in a fundamental manner. Hollywood was transformed from a competitive environment to a tight oligopoly of eight companies. Those eight companies (except for Radio Keith Orpheum—RKO—which dropped out in the 1950’s, and MGM and United Artists, which merged) remained dominant in the industry for decades. As a single company, Warner Bros. was the sole small competitor of the early 1920’s to succeed in the Hollywood elite, producing films for consumption throughout the world and for presentation in the more than eight hundred theaters the company owned throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This transformation led to what is known as the Golden Age of Hollywood, the period of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Hollywood, with its images of multimillion-dollar deals, film stars,
and press agents, became a symbol of the film as a popular cultural force throughout the world. By 1930, for example, more reporters were stationed in the filmmaking capital of the world reporting on the images and sounds of the new talkies than were found in any capital of Europe or Asia. In particular, through The Singing Fool, Warner Bros. taught the film industry how to spill over into other popular entertainment markets through what came to be called spin-offs. Warner Bros. created the first talkie sequel: Say It with Songs, released at the beginning of the 19291930 movie season. (Like many a future sequel, Say It with Songs failed to match the box-office take of its predecessor.) Two tunes from the film, “Sonny Boy” and “There’s a Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder,” went on to make up the first million-selling phonograph record of the talkie era. Thereafter, popular films would prove to be a gold mine for creating new hit tunes. Filmmakers had a new standard by which to fashion future classics of the cinematic art. No longer were films presented with different sounds from theater to theater. The sound track became one of the features controlled by the filmmaker. Indeed, sound became a vital part of the filmmaker’s art. A musical score, in particular, could make or break a film. Finally, the coming of sound made films the dominant medium of mass culture in the United States and throughout the world, increasing their influence on fashion, design, and slang. Many cultural observers had not viewed the silent cinema as important, but with the coming of the talkies there was no longer any question of the power of films. The talkies gave birth to a means of expression that affected all aspects of society. This is reflected in the fact that soon after the coming of sound, the notorious Hays Code of prior restraint on film content went into effect. Talking films were so powerful it was deemed necessary to prevent filmmakers from presenting many realistic images and sounds. —Douglas Gomery Further Reading Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Massive tome includes analysis of the implications of the coming of sound for the making of films and the Hollywood production process. Argues, surprisingly, that the addition of sound changed little in the look and style of the Hollywood film. 2127
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to better records set by such silent film blockbusters as Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Ben-Hur (1925), and The Big Parade (1925). Skeptics questioned the staying power of talkies. If sound was so great, they wondered why The Jazz Singer did not move to the top of the all-time box-office list. That would come a year later with The Singing Fool, also starring Al Jolson. From that film’s opening day (September 20, 1928), reviewers from The New York Times to the cynics writing for Variety tracked the greatest motion-picture hit of its day. The Singing Fool cost an estimated $200,000 to make and returned $5 million. By Thanksgiving Day of 1928, the Warner brothers knew that The Singing Fool was inexorably climbing to become the new Hollywood box-office champion. In New York City, The Singing Fool registered the heaviest business in Broadway history, with an advance sale that exceeded more than $100,000. Warner Bros. pioneered the use of sound in motion pictures and thus functioned as the innovator of this important new feature. The Fox Film Corporation (predecessor of the later Twentieth Century-Fox) came second. Once it was shown that talkies could make money, the other major Hollywood movie corporations soon followed.
Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures
Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Comprehensive history of the period in Hollywood filmmaking when silents gave way to sound. Includes photographs and index. Geduld, Harry M. The Birth of the Talkies: From Edison to Jolson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Pioneering study details the creation of the inventions that were necessary to make talkies technologically possible. Includes substantial material on the film industry’s relations with the phonograph and radio industries. Gomery, Douglas. “The Coming of Sound: Technological Change in the American Film Industry.” In The American Film Industry: A History Anthology of Readings, edited by Tino Balio. Rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Discusses the coming of sound and the important role this technological change played in the transformation and development of the American film industry. _______. “Warner Bros. Innovates Sound: A Business History.” In The Movies in Our Midst, edited by Gerald Mast. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. A history, based on corporate files, of the rise of a major movie company through its success in innovating sound films. Argues that the innovation was based on business, not artistic, factors. _______. “The Warner-Vitaphone Peril: The American Film Industry Reacts to the Innovation of Sound.” In The American Movie Industry: A Case Study Approach, edited by Gorham Kindem. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982. Previous film historians argued that the film industry happened
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 into sound in a chaotic manner. Gomery argues, based on company records, that Warner Bros. slowly and systematically innovated talkies. Higham, Charles. Warner Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. Examines the history of the family and the company that pioneered the coming of sound and operated a major studio into the 1950’s. Sarris, Andrew. “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet”: The American Talking Film—History and Memory, 19271949. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Comprehensive history of American cinema since The Jazz Singer by one of the most respected American writers on film. Opens with a chapter on the Hollywood studios that includes discussion of Warner Bros. Features an index of films and an index of names. Shindler, Colin. Hollywood in Crisis: Cinema and American Society, 1929-1939. New York: Routledge, 1996. Describes the state of American cinema in the decade immediately following the advent of sound, the years of the Great Depression, during which Warner Bros. produced a number of radical films. Includes filmography, bibliography, and index. Walker, Alexander. The Shattered Silents: How the Talkies Came to Stay. New York: William Morrow, 1979. History of the innovation of sound in films, by Warner Bros. and others, based solely on a close reading of the trade paper Variety. Interesting but limited. See also: 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures; Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ederle Swims the English Channel
August 6, 1926
Ederle Swims the English Channel Gertrude Ederle’s athletic achievement made it clear that women were capable of the vigorous, extended physical activities often associated only with males despite public opinion and media reports that often dismissed women’s athletic potential and were disapproving of females who participated in sports.
Key Figures Gertrude Ederle (1906-2003), American distance swimmer Charlotte Epstein (1884-1938), founder of the Women’s Swimming Association of New York and U.S. Olympic coach Jabez Wolffe (c. 1877-1943), English distance swimmer and trainer
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Gertrude Ederle on a Long Island, New York, beach in 1923. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Summary of Event As a child, Gertrude Ederle learned to swim in the Shrewsbury River near her family’s vacation home in New Jersey and in the Atlantic Ocean, experiences that prepared her for distance swimming in open water. When she was thirteen, Ederle joined the Women’s Swimming Association of New York, where she took lessons and used a pool to master her stroke techniques. There she met Charlotte Epstein, who became her mentor and encouraged her to develop her natural talent, build her stamina, and compete in races. Sixteen-year-old Ederle swam the seventeen miles between Manhattan, New York, and Sandy Hook, New Jersey, in slightly more than seven hours, setting a time record and becoming the first female to achieve that feat. Ederle stunned swimming enthusiasts when she consistently defeated acclaimed international swimmers in races: She earned three medals at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, and her times at swimming competitions set twenty-nine American and international records by 1925. Although Ederle valued her competitive achievements, her longtime goal was to swim across the English Channel, a goal for long-distance swimmers since the nineteenth century. Prior to Ederle’s first attempt, five male swimmers had survived the twenty-one-mile feat, which usually took place in the Dover Strait between France and England. Initially, the Women’s Swimming Association of New York decided to sponsor Helen Wainright, a fellow Olympian, to swim the Channel. When Wainright became injured, association leaders asked Ederle to attempt the crossing and offered to pay her expenses. Despite her many athletic achievements, Ederle encountered criticism, particularly from journalists, that women were physically unable to cross the Channel. Eager for the challenge, she ignored negative comments and trained in the ocean, where she conditioned her body 2129
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Locale: Cape Gris-Nez, France; English Channel; Kingsdown, England Categories: Sports; women’s issues
Thomas William Burgess (1872-1957), English distance swimmer and trainer Clare Belle Barrett (b. 1891), American distance swimmer and high school swimming coach Amelia Gade Corson (c. 1899), Danish American distance swimmer Ernst Vierkoetter (c. 1901-1967), German distance swimmer
Ederle Swims the English Channel
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
pelted, and wind caused waves to surge and drag her to withstand cold temperatures and became accustomed backward. She ignored Burgess’s demands that she stop. to the tug of waves and tides. Ederle had competition, During the evening, the storm intensified, and Ederle however: Other American female swimmers, including was temporarily separated from the two boats. When her Clare Belle Barrett and Amelia Gade Corson, also asleft leg cramped, she saw the tugboat but vowed to conpired to cross the Channel. tinue swimming despite Burgess’s continued pleas. DeAt dawn on August 18, 1925, Ederle began swimming termined, she surged forward, and eventually she saw at Cape Gris-Nez, France. She was accompanied by a boats signaling with flares and a massing of torches and boat that carried her trainer, Jabez Wolffe, who had atsearchlights on the horizon as she approached the beach tempted swimming across the Channel approximately at Kingsdown, England. twenty times, and other helpers. She withstood the chilly, Ederle neared the shore at approximately 9:40 p.m. turbulent water for nine hours. Seven miles from the EnMany people went into the sea to celebrate and walk beglish coast, Ederle was dragged into the boat by an assisside her in the darkness: Her swim had lasted fourteen tant; Wolffe mistakenly thought that Ederle was choking hours and thirty-one minutes. Since the strong currents on seawater, and his physical contact eliminated her. added distance to her swim, Ederle had probably swum Ederle located another trainer, Thomas William Buras much as 35 miles (56 kilometers). She set a new recgess, who in 1911 had become the second man to cross ord, completing the swim two hours faster than the male the Channel, and prepared for another attempt. She record holder. Ederle returned by tugboat to France, enraised money, secured media sponsorships, and trained joyed celebrations in that country, and then visited her near Cape Gris-Nez. grandmother in Germany. By August 6, 1926, Ederle prepared to swim to England from Cape Gris-Nez. Greased to keep the icy water away from direct contact with her skin, she wore a The English Channel silk two-piece bathing suit of her own design that would not impede her movement and enabled her to E n g l a n d North glide through water with minimal resistance. Aware that extreme sea conSea ditions had halted steamboat traffic, Ederle placed goggles over her eyes London to protect them from saltwater, covT ha er ered her hair with a swimming cap, mes Riv and began swimming toward EnDeal Kingsdown gland just after 7:00 a.m. Her father, Dover over her sister Margaret, Burgess, and sevf D o Calais it eral swimmers rode beside her in ra t the tugboat Alsace. They guided her S Cape through fog, diverted her from threats Gris-Nez such as jellyfish, and encouraged her. Journalists traveled nearby in another boat. Ederle’s entourage sang patriEnglish otic songs and extended chicken, chocolate, and other sustenance to Channel her on a pole. Burgess urged Ederle to pace herself in smooth water durF r a n c e ing the morning, but she continued her steady crawl and made quick progress. That afternoon, a storm threatened to end Ederle’s attempt. Rain 2130
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Significance Although Ederle insisted that her desire to swim the English Channel was not part of a larger agenda to become a heroine or promote feminist agendas, her accomplishment inspired women worldwide and affected public views on women’s athletic abilities. Her success also represented a victory for promoters of women’s rights. Ederle had endured extreme, dangerous conditions to achieve her goal, and she proved that strength and perseverance were traits that women could display without risking permanent public ostracism for being unfeminine. Ederle also demonstrated that women were physiologically capable of competing with men in many sports without harming their health. Her accomplishment showed that physical activity was acceptable for women, although many people still criticized women’s swimming attire as too provocative. As a result of Ederle’s success, many women were inspired to participate in ath-
letics for fun and competition, and swimming became a popular recreational sport. Thousands of American women subsequently earned Red Cross certificates for swimming. Ederle’s mastery of modern strokes—especially the crawl—helped her cross the Channel much more efficiently than her predecessors, who had mostly floated or paddled to cross. Ederle’s success encouraged coaches and officials in several ways: Her swim promoted research into techniques to improve strokes and training as well as consultation of data on time, direction, and strength of tides. It also encouraged the holding of longdistance swims between prominent geographic sites adjacent to large bodies of water. —Elizabeth D. Schafer Further Reading Colwin, Cecil M. Breakthrough Swimming. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2002. Internationally renowned swimming coach discusses the pioneering roles in women’s competitive swimming played by Ederle and her coaches. Smith, Lissa, ed. Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Includes a chapter on swimming that comments on the public response to distance swimmers and on Ederle’s celebrity. Unwin, Peter. The Narrow Sea: Barrier, Bridge, and Gateway to the World—The History of the Channel. London: Review, 2003. Examines historic events relevant to the English Channel. Discusses swimmers’ attempts to cross the Channel since the 1870’s. Wennerberg, Conrad A. Wind, Waves, and Sunburn. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1974. History of marathon swimming devotes a chapter to the English Channel that discusses Ederle and other swimmers. Addresses the physiology of swims across the Channel and provides a table of tides. Woolum, Janet. Outstanding Women Athletes: Who They Are and How They Influenced Sports in America. 2d ed. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1998. Includes a profile of Ederle. Discusses how female swimmers contributed to improved public perception of women’s roles in athletics. See also: July 1, 1903: First Tour de France; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman. 2131
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Many newspapers around the world bore headlines cheering Ederle’s accomplishment accompanied by stories stating that she had proved that females are capable athletes. The London Daily News, however, suggested she was an anomaly and emphasized that women are weaker than men. Others dismissed Ederle’s endeavor as a stunt. Ederle traveled on the SS Berengaria to New York, where she rode in a parade attended by a crowd of approximately two million. Both U.S. president Calvin Coolidge and New York City mayor Jimmy Walker lauded Ederle’s achievement. Later that August, two other swimmers also successfully swam the Channel. Corson completed the swim with quicker times than her male predecessors, but she did not beat Ederle’s record. Frustrated that she was the second woman to achieve the feat, Corson emphasized her special status as the first mother to swim across the English Channel. Two men who swam with Corson quit mid-Channel, but later Ernst Vierkoetter beat Ederle’s record by almost two hours. Ederle’s celebrity equaled and even surpassed that of many male sports stars. After her swim, polls ranked her as more popular than Babe Ruth, and she considered offers from companies that wanted her to endorse their products. She starred in the 1927 silent film Swim Girl, Swim, had dance steps and a song named for her, and swam for vaudeville performances. She was uncomfortable with publicity, however, and did not encourage fame. She gradually faded into obscurity, especially after such feats as Charles A. Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic captured media attention.
Ederle Swims the English Channel
National Broadcasting Company Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 9, 1926
National Broadcasting Company Is Founded With the founding of the National Broadcasting Company in 1926, the first permanent radio network was created. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Radio and television; communications and media; organizations and institutions Key Figures David Sarnoff (1891-1971), founder of the National Broadcasting Company William S. Paley (1901-1990), founder of the Columbia Broadcasting System Summary of Event The successful use of radio by the U.S. Navy in World War I and an emerging view that the national interest of the United States required the development of this new technology by strictly American hands led to the formation of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919. The new company, formed by a combination of the industrial giants General Electric (GE), American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), Western Electric, and Westinghouse, was not without its problems. Patent conflicts and disagreements over commercial boundaries did much to impede the early progress of radio. In fact, forward movement was achieved only after an agreement that clearly delineated the spheres of industrial influence for each member of the new conglomerate. Under the accord, AT&T gained control over both wire and wireless telephone communications, and GE and Westinghouse received RCA patents to manufacture equipment. Fortunately for RCA and the development of radio broadcasting, the narrow operating purview adopted early on by RCA leadership was widened through the insistent efforts and vision of David Sarnoff. Sarnoff, a commercial manager for RCA and an early intimate of Guglielmo Marconi, a pioneer in radio development, foresaw both the cultural and commercial possibilities of radio. His argument that radio sets would in time be common household items like phonographs was so persuasive that in less than a decade he would orchestrate the founding of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) as a subsidiary of RCA. Sarnoff’s case, it should also be noted, was greatly assisted by successful radio broadcasting ventures by Westinghouse and AT&T. The Westinghouse radio enterprise was inaugurated 2132
in 1920 when scientist and radio enthusiast Frank Conrad began broadcasting from his home on a regular basis. Conrad’s programming, although limited in entertainment richness, caught on with a number of amateur radio operators. In time, these individuals and a growing number of new listeners required equipment—radios built by Westinghouse and distributed by the Joseph Horne department store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Executives from both of these organizations quickly recognized that for the radio phenomenon to grow and prosper, more professional and varied programming would be required. This was accomplished when station KDKA signed on the air. The station’s broadcast of the 1920 presidential election results did much to spur the sale of sets. From 1920 to 1921, only nine radio stations came into existence, but 1922 was a banner year for this new medium. Scores of department stores, colleges and universities, churches and religious organizations, and municipalities sought and received broadcast licenses. This flurry of activity did not go unnoticed by executives at AT&T. They theorized that significant long-term financial gains would accrue to holders of broadcast licenses. More important, short-run financial rewards were possible if broadcasts were paid by toll, just like telephone calls. Thus AT&T’s radio station WEAF was open to anyone who wished to buy time and perform over the airwaves. Over time, however, toll broadcasting, unlike telephone calling, found only limited success. A most positive approach to financing radio involved connecting radio stations in a web of broadcasting activity. A primitive technology of network transmission was available as early as 1920. A “pickup” network was tried successfully at KDKA, which broadcast remote programs such as religious, sporting, and political events by running telephone wires from the place of the event with a central transmitter and receivers. A crude distribution network with two radio stations linked by telephone wires was initiated in 1922. The linkage of WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, to WGY in Schenectady, New York, to broadcast the World Series not only attracted the attention of many sports fans but also convinced executives at the technologically superior WEAF that network broadcasting was the future for radio. The AT&T foray into a network arrangement occurred in June, 1923, when four stations were connected to broadcast the National Electric Light Association meeting from Carnegie Hall in New York City. An effort
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National Broadcasting Company Is Founded
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networks broadcast many individual programs and special events. Programming similarities aside, however, the two networks enjoyed distinct broadcasting philosophies and unique technology. Rivalry between the networks extended to animosities among their respective staff members and performers. It is with this background that one To view image, please refer to the can imagine the dismay of WEAF employees upon learning that AT&T print edition of this title. had decided to bow out of the radio broadcasting arena. They learned that, after negotiations with David Sarnoff, the telephone company had sold its network to RCA for one million dollars. AT&T would now do what it did most efficiently—enjoy exclusive rights to wire telephone and two-way wireless telegraphy. In turn, RCA would lease radio relay facilities from AT&T and cease using Western Union lines. With two fiercely independent and competitive networks under its David Sarnoff (left), the founder of NBC, in 1938 with Arturo Toscanini, a worldcontrol, RCA formed the National famous conductor and the leader of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. (AP/Wide World Broadcasting Company (NBC) as a Photos) subsidiary on September 9, 1926, to organize and take control over network broadcasting. Although senior one month later to connect WEAF to WNAC in Boston managers from both organizations were integrated to through the use of two long-distance circuits, technologirun NBC, there was no easy way to combine the stacally advanced amplifiers, and special filters attracted an tions. Thus WJZ would operate as the leader of the Blue audience of one hundred thousand listeners and caused Network and the stronger WEAF would operate as the the press to become ecstatic over the possibilities for this lead station for the Red Network. This bifurcated operanew mode of communication. The WEAF broadcast of a tion would exist for nearly two decades, until the Blue speech by President Warren G. Harding from the St. Network was sold to the American Broadcasting ComLouis Coliseum shortly thereafter raised press and popupany (ABC) after a court ruling ordering divestment lar excitement over radio to new heights. by NBC. WEAF successes galvanized executives at Westinghouse, RCA, and GE to attempt a similar venture. AlSignificance though prohibited from using telephone company lines, Network broadcasting at NBC was sporadic until early the competitors successfully forged a fourteen-station 1927, when the “national” in the company name became network broadcasting from Aeolian Hall in New York a reality with the addition of a number of West Coast City. Despite the poor quality of transmission, stations in stations to the network. What began in 1926 as a network New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington, of 19 station outlets grew until 1940, when the network D.C. were linked. was composed of 214 stations. By 1925, two rival networks had formed. Although The early history of NBC is tied to the founding of continuing to present locally oriented programs, the its rival, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), by
National Broadcasting Company Is Founded William S. Paley in 1928. Although lacking in radio experience, this young entrepreneur took control over two struggling networks and in time forged them into one of the world’s premier entertainment corporations. By attempting to appeal to large audiences with jazz and comedy offerings, in contrast to NBC’s more staid classical music and educational programming, CBS grew to seventy-six stations less than a decade after its founding. Shortly thereafter, it would surpass its older competitor in popular appeal. The formation of NBC in 1926 as a network of independent radio stations linked by agreement and common interest had a dramatic effect on the way Americans are informed and entertained. The development of radio programs, the economics of broadcasting, and overarching effects on American culture can be traced to the founding of NBC and its main early rival, CBS. During the 1920’s, as radio technology advanced, commercial managers explored new ways of paying for this new medium. Radio executives discovered early in the history of radio that broadcasting public events via telephone lines was an expensive undertaking. Artists, in addition, wanted to be paid according to their talents and accomplishments. Entertainers who in the nascent days of radio would accept first-class transportation to a radio studio as payment for their performance now wanted more tangible rewards in the form of a paycheck. Creators of shows and songs wanted royalties for their copyrighted material, which radio station managers and announcers previously had used liberally. The network concept went a long way toward providing the financial wherewithal to rectify these problems. When the networks were formed, almost all programs were developed and produced by the network or by individual stations. In the 1930’s, broadcasting became a big business. By 1931, virtually all sponsored network programs were developed by advertising agencies. Sponsors typically paid two hundred to five hundred thousand dollars to produce a popular program and an additional ten thousand dollars per week to be hooked up to NBC’s coast-to-coast network of about fifty stations. “Commercial sales talks” dominated early radio broadcasting, but throughout the early years networks expanded their schedules. Sponsored programs began to share airtime with unsponsored ones and with special events, thus providing greater diversity in the broadcast schedule. In 1931, for example, the NBC network featured hundreds of special events and international programs from around the world. It broadcast twenty-eight 2134
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 appearances by the president, thirty-seven by cabinet members, and seventy-one by U.S. senators and representatives. It also earned a net income of more than two million dollars. The founding of NBC as a powerful national broadcasting network brought intensified efforts to improve radio transmission and reception. Competition between the WEAF network, controlled by AT&T, and the WJZ network, operated by RCA, had hampered the technological enrichment of radio. With conflicting crosslicensing agreements mostly resolved, network listeners could enjoy broadcasts of popular programs free of static and other local interference. Moreover, in an effort to ensure that radio technology would always stay on the cutting edge, NBC appointed a board of consulting engineers under Alfred N. Goldsmith of RCA. The board included Ernst F. W. Alexanderson of General Electric and Frank Conrad of Westinghouse. Although radio had its early detractors, the National Broadcasting Company and its major competitors— CBS, Mutual, and the American Broadcasting Company—had a dramatic impact on American culture. The broadcast of a sporting event, a political speech, a religious talk, or a program of wide popular appeal crossed not only geographic boundaries but also cultural ones. A diverse population was connected as never before, and a national identity was forged in ways few of the pioneers of radio could have envisioned. — S. A. Marino Further Reading Barnouw, Erik. A Tower in Babel. Vol. 1 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. Offers important insights into the social, commercial, and technological factors that influenced the development of early radio broadcasting. Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Biography written by a longtime associate of Sarnoff benefits from both the author’s conversations with the visionary broadcasting leader and his own extensive research while at the Harvard Business School. An invaluable resource for those interested in learning how leaders such as Sarnoff and Paley helped shape the broadcasting industry. Douglas, George H. The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting. 1987. Reprint. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Authoritative and highly enjoyable study provides important information on such topics as news report-
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into the formation of NBC and Sarnoff’s contribution to the growth and development of the television medium. An informative and entertaining work. Sarnoff, David. Looking Ahead: The Papers of David Sarnoff. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Presents extensive excerpts from more than one hundred documents covering Sarnoff’s entire professional life, including speeches, public statements, and letters. Captures Sarnoff’s passion for broadcasting, courageous leadership under adversity, and vision of the future in his own words. Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. The standard one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. A good beginning point. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair.
September 25, 1926
League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention The 1926 International Slavery Convention was part of an effort begun by colonial nations a century earlier to suppress slavery in all its forms. Locale: Geneva, Switzerland Categories: Civil rights and liberties; human rights; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Paul Hymans (1865-1941), Belgian delegate to the League of Nations Sir Frederick Lugard (1858-1945), British delegate on the Temporary Slavery Commission Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), British writer and explorer Summary of Event Slavery has been one of the most persistent institutions of human society, existing from the dawn of history into
modern times. During the Middle Ages, under the influence of Christianity in Western Europe, there were notable periods when the practice of slavery and slave trade diminished substantially, but throughout most of the world and most of human history, slavery has been regarded as either a necessary evil or an ineradicable one. The reappearance of slavery in colonial lands discovered by Europeans saw a resurgence of the slave trade by European countries starting in the 1400’s. Although opposed officially by the Church, which issued proclamations of excommunication against those engaged in slave trade, the practice continued to gain momentum in subsequent centuries. The philosophers of the American and French revolutions did much to discredit slavery by condemning it for destroying the natural liberty of human beings, although the U.S. Constitution fell short of the ideal by treating slaves for purposes of taxation and representation as only three-fifths of a person, a flaw left 2135
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ing, sportscasting, classical and popular music programming, and educational stations in the nascent stage of radio. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Lewis, Thomas. Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Exceptionally well-written and thoroughly researched chronicle of the pioneering contributions to the development of radio. Written for both the serious scholar and the general reader. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping, comps. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. Presents the history of broadcasting in a series of articles written by scholars, journalists, and broadcasting executives who reflected on events in the industry as they occurred. Provides extensive coverage of networks and broadcast economics. Includes statistical tables. Lyons, Eugene. David Sarnoff. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Biography provides important insights
League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention
League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention unremedied until the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments in the wake of the American Civil War. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, at the Congress of Vienna on February 8, 1815, the victorious nations declared their intention to suppress the slave trade. The powers with colonial possessions were advised of their obligation and duty to abolish the slave trade. However, the institution of slavery itself, in the form of plantation slavery in the British possessions and in the United States, was virtually untouched. None of the nations at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was willing to trespass on the sovereignty of other states to end any form of domestic slavery. Nevertheless, the Congress of Vienna was a major step toward engendering an agreement among European nations to work to abolish the international traffic in slaves, especially the transatlantic trade. Colonialism could be justified, according to Sir Frederick Lugard, who had served for many years in Africa as a colonial administrator, only if it provided mutual advantages for the colonized “natives” and for the world. Colonialism was a “school” to Christianize and civilize “savage” peoples. In return, the colony would provide European capitalists with raw materials for their industries and markets for their manufacturers. In 1884-1885, European nations held the African Conference at Berlin. That conference called for the suppression of slavery and specifically of “the Negro slave trade,” but the act passed by the conference applied only to the Congo basin. It was, however, an important development in creating a body of international law that was militantly opposed to slavery. Explorers such as Henry Morton Stanley had discovered and publicized the existence of a vast area in Africa that was controlled by Arab slave raiders. Arab traders such as Tippu Tib actually posed a military threat to the tribes of the region and even to the Belgian military. Strong military operations were necessary in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa to defeat combative slave traders. The parties to the African Conference, in an 1886 decree, provided for penal servitude for slave traders. Slave caravans penetrated the interior of Africa from the shores of the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean. The traffic in slaves encompassed the modern countries of Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Burundi, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, among others. Slaves brought to trading centers in northern and eastern Africa were sold for local use or, as was more often the case, were sent to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other eastern countries. Another 2136
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 decree in 1888 regarding labor contracts prohibited the enslavement of natives by nonnatives. The colonial powers were trying to abolish slavery indirectly by abolishing the slave trade. There were difficulties connected with the outright abolition of domestic slavery (that is, slavery within a colony) and forced labor, and an international consensus did not yet exist for a frontal attack on slavery and its analogous forms. An impressive step was taken to suppress slavery at the Second Brussels Conference of 1890. The General Act of Brussels, signed on July 2, 1890, as a result of that conference, had more signatories than earlier international conventions on the suppression of slavery; it also had more enforcement requirements in its articles than did preceding conventions. The nations meeting at Brussels included all of the major European nations, as well as the United States, Turkey, Iran, and Zanzibar. The General Act of Brussels prescribed specific measures for the acceding nations to take against slave raiding and trading in the territory under European control. The measures enacted by the antislavery alliance were designed to spur the parties to organize the administrative, judicial, and military services of government in their territories of Africa so that they could more effectively regulate the slave traffic. The General Act of Brussels required the establishment of military posts in the interior, where slave raiders collected slaves for overland transit to the coasts for shipment to eastern countries; an increase in the use of steamships manned by soldiers on navigable waterways and lakes, thus expanding the presence of the central government throughout the region; more operations by “flying columns” of soldiers to maintain contact between various military posts; and the installation of telegraphs as a means of linking isolated areas to the provincial capital to monitor movements of slave traders and to allow for a more rapid deployment of military forces. The articles of the General Act of Brussels were meaningful in setting the foundation for more expansive efforts toward suppressing the slave trade, domestic slavery, and many of the forms of forced labor. Belgium employed military force against slave raiders to gain control of the interior and to suppress slavery. In time, with the use of native troops and modern weapons, the Belgians secured the interior from large-scale raids from outside the Congo basin, at a cost of considerable losses of Belgian soldiers. The problem of domestic slavery was left to languish. It was difficult to differentiate between slavery, according to many European apologists,
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The report of the Temporary Slavery Commission stated the objectives of the commission. It defined “enslavement,” made proposals for regulating and punishing persons engaged in slave raiding and the slave trade, and addressed “slave dealing” and the more controversial domestic slavery issue. In an auxiliary category, the report discussed the acquisition of girls by purchase, disguised as payment of dowry, and adoption of children “with a view to their virtual enslavement or the ultimate disposal of their persons.” The Temporary Slavery Commission was shrewdly cautious on the question of forced labor: Its abolition was desirable but not achievable given the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which prohibited intervention by member states into the domestic affairs of any state. In addition, the commission recognized a need for compulsory native labor in an environment that was inhospitable to white workers. According to the Convention on Slavery adopted on September 25, 1926, signatories recognized the need for governments to use compulsory or forced labor for public projects but noted that such use should be transitional and should end as soon as possible. Signatories were allowed to accept all or only some of the provisions of the convention, which significantly weakened its impact. It was more moral suasion than enforceable law, but it represented a goal to be striven for by many members of the League of Nations. Significance The 1926 Slavery Convention defined slavery as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” The convention required the former colonies of Germany and the Ottoman Empire, now mandates of the League of Nations, to suppress slavery and to prepare the people of the mandates for active participation in their own political affairs. Ethiopia was denied entry into the League of Nations until it formulated a definite plan to eliminate all forms of slavery, which it finally accomplished to a limited extent in the official abolition of slavery in 1942. Liberia, the other recalcitrant slave state, was pressured by the League of Nations to outlaw intertribal slavery and to abolish some other forms of servitude. The most significant impacts of the 1926 Slavery Convention were on slave raiding and the de jure abolition of slavery in Ethiopia and Liberia. The mandate system also gave the League of Nations moral clout and some circumscribed political leverage in suppressing domestic slavery and specific forms of forced labor. 2137
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as an acceptable social institution and slavery as a barbaric and cruel method of employment of individuals against their will. Domestic slavery was seen as inevitable but susceptible to gradual elimination through the “civilizing” of native peoples by European colonizers. Europeans considered the enslavement of natives by natives to be beyond the realm of their control, whereas slavery imposed by nonnatives on natives was strictly prohibited as odious to all civilized people and was punishable by law. World War I interrupted the international efforts to stop slavery and the continuing endeavor at enforcement of the precepts of the General Act of Brussels. The victorious allies—Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the United States—signed a new compact at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 10, 1919. The new convention was formulated to complete the work started by the General Act of Brussels. The Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention was shortlived. It was superseded by antislavery activities of the newly founded League of Nations. The League of Nations confirmed the previous antislavery declarations and proclaimed its own intent to achieve the complete suppression of slavery “in all of its forms and of the slave trade by land and sea.” In 1924, the League of Nations appointed a Temporary Slavery Commission of eight experts to compile information on slavery, so-called domestic slavery, slave raiding, serfdom, purchase of girls as brides, simulated adoption of children for purposes of sexual exploitation, varied forms of indenture, and compulsory labor by state and private employers. Lugard, perhaps the most influential and respected member of the Temporary Slavery Commission, helped to craft the commission’s report to the Council of the League of Nations. His broad experience and practical approach to the suppression of slavery assured the report’s adoption by most of the member states of the League of Nations. His suggestions moved the members to moderate positions while retaining the goal of the eventual end of de facto slavery through a process of transition and the development of new modes of employment. Paul Hymans, the Belgian delegate to the League of Nations in 1926, personified the efforts by Belgium to establish an unambiguous posture toward the suppression of the slave trade and nonnative enslavement of natives. He was reluctant, as were most members, to grapple with the question of forced labor and domestic slavery. The Belgians were, to a good extent, successful in suppressing the slave trade in the Congo basin.
League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention
League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention It was the transition from slavery to certain forms of servile labor, including debt bondage and contract labor, that undermined the effects of emancipation of slaves around the world. Two strategies emerged to replace de facto slavery. One was to entice new labor from other areas by means of indentures, or contracts to work for specific periods of time. This system often involved the accumulation of debts by the laborer. The other form, emerging in the aftermath of emancipation, was peasant bondage, which used former slaves on small landholdings and on large projects, such as road building and railroad construction. Peasant bondage was a form of virtual slavery in which workers were “paid” in the form of training or provisions. Both systems, in many variations, are indirect forms of slavery, or servitude. In the United States, servile labor took the form of sharecropping and share tenancy, in which workers paid part of their harvest as rent. In the Caribbean, it took the form of contracted labor from India and the Middle East. The 1926 International Slavery Convention had an important impact in that it laid the foundation for continuing struggle against de jure slavery and international opposition to all forms of slavery. It did not, however, immediately end all forms of exploitative labor arrangements. —Claude Hargrove Further Reading Barnes, Anthony J. Captain Charles Stuart: AngloAmerican Abolitionist. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986. Solid biography of a relatively obscure militant abolitionist. Stuart’s attack on gradualists in the movement convinced people such as William Lloyd Garrison to take a more militant stance. Drescher, Seymour. Capitalism and Antislavery: British Mobilization in Comparative Perspective. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Convincing account of black slav-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ery in the Americas and in Africa. Presents a broad and powerfully written assessment of the historiography of slavery. Explains English law concerning slavery. Drescher, Seymour, and Stanley L. Engerman, eds. A Historical Guide to World Slavery. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Collection of essays by noted scholars presents information on the institution of slavery from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Includes index. Ennew, Judith. Debt Bondage. London: Anti-Slavery Society, 1981. Survey of debt bondage throughout the world in the late twentieth century shows graphically the persistence of contract labor and how little progress has been made to end it. Koger, Larry. Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Of the several works written on free blacks owning slaves in the antebellum South, this is the first to show that free black masters behaved similarly to white slave owners, in that both exploited slaves for profit. Ostrower, Gary B. The League of Nations from 1919 to 1929. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery, 1996. Interesting and readable volume covers the first ten years of the League of Nations. Includes illustrations, chronology, bibliography, and index. Watson, Alan. Roman Slave Law. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Argues that in a strict sense there was scarcely any such thing as “Roman slave law”; rather, every category of the law was affected by the fact of an individual’s being a slave. See also: May 18, 1904: International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germainen-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery.
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Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation
October 22, 1926
Hemingway’s THE SUN ALSO RISES Speaks for the Lost Generation The novel changed forever when Ernest Hemingway evoked the lives of disillusioned “lost generation” expatriates in a novel of brilliant dialogue and understated style. Locale: New York, New York; Paris, France Category: Literature
Summary of Event By October of 1925, Ernest Hemingway was identified as a rising literary star with the publication of his unified short-story collection In Our Time. Hemingway’s collection alternated autobiographically derived stories of the Michigan woods and war-torn Europe with miniature pieces that seemed the distillation of prose fiction under the influence of the principles of the Imagist poets, who preached attention to the moment of perception and the presentation of poetic images in a minimum of words. The collection’s title was taken from a line in the Book of Common Prayer: “Oh Lord, give us peace in our time.” It was an impressive beginning to Hemingway’s career as a popular but artistic writer, yet cementing his reputation required that he write in that most commercial but also most difficult of forms, the novel. This would not be so easy. Hemingway had begun his literary efforts by burlesquing the sports fiction of Ring Lardner for his high school newspaper and had moved on to work as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. After being seriously wounded during a stint with the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps on the Italian front during World War I, he had written fiction unsuccessfully and then turned to journalism, becoming a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star by the age of twenty-three. In the atmosphere of literary Paris, he had continued his efforts in fiction, internalizing the influences of such literary expatriates as Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Ford Madox Ford. Yet his pieces seemed more like sketches than stories to many editors to whom he submitted them at the time, despite the fact that he was working with Stein’s emphasis on psychological insight
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Key Figures Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), American journalist and novelist Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), American author Maxwell Perkins (1884-1947), American literary editor
and the economy of language urged by the Imagist Pound. The subtlety of his achievements began to be realized in In Our Time, which also owed a considerable debt to American regionalist Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Vacation trips from Paris to the religious and bullfighting fiesta in Pamplona, in the Basque Navarre region of northern Spain, provided the setting (and some of the characters) for The Sun Also Rises, which Hemingway began writing on or about his twenty-sixth birthday, July 21, 1925. For his participating narrator, he was indebted to the example of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose classic short novel The Great Gatsby had appeared on April 10 of that year. He also would be indebted to Fitzgerald for his influential new editor, Maxwell Perkins of Scribner’s, who at Fitzgerald’s insistence lured Hemingway away from the publisher of In Our Time, Horace Liveright. Both Perkins and Fitzgerald would contribute valuable advice on the polishing of The Sun Also Rises. In particular, Fitzgerald counseled against a rambling, discursive introduction that attempted to explain rather than directly to present the characters and their situation; Perkins curbed Hemingway’s satiric tendencies. Like Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s journalist-narrator Jake Barnes was a fairly ordinary person out of place among the fast-living set in which he traveled. Jake’s sensational war wound (he has had his genitals shot away) and his thus doomed love affair with the alcoholic Lady Brett Ashley helped to assure the novel’s notoriety and popular success, as did the sensational aspects of Brett’s successive sexual alliances with a Jewish American novelist, a bankrupt Scottish war veteran, and a young Spanish matador, affairs that Jake Barnes witnesses and sometimes abets. That many of these characters were based on real people from Paris’s colony of literary expatriates increased interest in what some critics saw as a story of meaningless drinking and fornication. An epigraph to the novel taken from Gertrude Stein, “You are all a lost generation,” seemed to sum up the meaninglessness of it all. The epigraph certainly did name the rising young writers of the 1920’s; they became known as the lost generation, wounded forever. Still, the work struck a chord with readers who had experienced the war or its aftermath. It was for a time a
Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Ernest Hemingway. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
campus fad in the United States, with young men adopting Jake Barnes’s stoic persona, if not his sexual incapacity, the young women copying Brett Ashley’s brilliant, tense conversation. More important, attentive readers and critics recognized that there was more to the novel than a crude summary might indicate. It was not a popular potboiler but a literary work of art. Read perceptively, it was in many ways like a prose version of T. S. Eliot’s resonant long poem The Waste Land (1922). In Eliot’s modernist poem, meaning is sought in an exploration of civilization and history, both of the East and of the West. Similarly, The Sun Also Rises is a quest for meaning in which the novel’s main characters leave behind the modern world, broken by the world war, to travel to a seemingly more innocent, rural Spain. To these pilgrims, such sports as fishing and bullfighting marked a return to pre-Christian rituals of control and unity with the natural world. A parallel control is seen in Hemingway’s prose style, in which dialogue is precisely rendered and in which de2140
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scription is designed not only to set a scene but also to evoke an emotional response on the part of the reader. A major theme of the novel involves “knowing the values.” At first, this seems merely a matter of knowing how much things cost. As the novel progresses, however, it becomes clear that the characters ultimately may be judged by how well they know real values, values that might have some hope of enduring even in a modern world in which all traditional, received values have lost their force. Such a view of the novel balances the Stein epigraph with the novel’s second epigraph, taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which emphasizes the cyclical renewal of the earth’s promise: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever. . . . The sun also ariseth. . . .” Significance The Sun Also Rises launched Hemingway’s subsequent career as novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and public personage. That career took him to fame as the author of such American literary classics as A Farewell to Arms (1929), “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936), “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” (1936), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952). As a public figure, he was often somewhat misidentified as a macho man: World War I veteran, biggame hunter and deep-sea fisherman, amateur boxer, war correspondent in the Spanish Civil War and World War II, connoisseur of fine food and drink, world traveler. He was all these things, but unlike the reputation that sometimes seemed to imprison him personally as he grew older, his fiction often made clear the psychic cost of such roles to twentieth century man. His protagonists, including Jake Barnes, usually are vulnerable men, wounded psychically if not physically. Their plight is often seen as existential in nature, a matter of discovering how to live day to day when conventional structures of meaning have lost their power to compel belief. They also are usually American innocents meeting the far from innocent world and finding they have lost the ability to return to the innocent America in which they were nurtured. Yet, over time, Hemingway continues to chart his heroes’ search for meaning. Jake Barnes finds it in work. The hero of A Farewell to Arms, a World War I deserter, places all his belief in the woman he loves—and loses her, ending the novel wandering the streets alone. The protagonist of For Whom the Bell Tolls begins as a loner, a saboteur in the Spanish Civil War, yet finds by novel’s end that “no man is an island” and sacrifices himself in the cause of humanity. Santiago, the impoverished
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Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation
Fine Philosophies In The Sun Also Rises, the novel’s main characters, broken by World War I, leave behind the modern world to travel to a seemingly more innocent, rural Spain. However, they are unable to escape a postwar world in which all traditional values seem abandoned. Hemingway’s protagonist and alter ego Jake Barnes finds himself caught between his cynicism and his struggle to make sense of it all: I thought I had paid for everything. Not like a woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchanged of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money’s worth. The world was a good place to guy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I’ve had. Perhaps that wasn’t true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from what it was all about. Source: Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926).
Barnes and his friends. Indeed, Hemingway’s influence on modern writers, particularly in style, is so ingrained and nearly ubiquitous as to seem invisible, save to literary scholars comparing the mainstream writing that went before and that followed his work. His emphasis on the value of the ordinary person and ordinary experiences— a part of a line of influence passing through Mark Twain and Gertrude Stein—continues to have its effect as well. —Frederic Svoboda Further Reading Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. The standard full-length biography of Hemingway remains one of the best introductions to his life. Bruccoli, Matthew J. Scott and Ernest: The Fitzgerald/ Hemingway Friendship. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Pays primary attention to the personal aspects of the famous friendship, but also discusses Hemingway’s literary debts to Fitzgerald, who read and commented on The Sun Also Rises before publication. Includes lengthy excerpts from a number of the authors’ letters to each other. Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Judith S. Baughman, eds. The Sons of Maxwell Perkins: Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Their Editor. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. Collection of more than two hundred letters written by Perkins and his three famous authors to one another, in which they often discuss one another’s work. Offers insight into the personalities of all four men. Includes chronology and index. Griffin, Peter. Less than a Treason: Hemingway in Paris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Imaginative re-creation of Hemingway’s life in Paris evokes the spirit of creation in the 1920’s, but, unfortunately, sometimes blurs the distinction between Hemingway’s life and his writings. Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner’s, 1964. Published posthumously, this highly fictionalized memoir of the life of Hemingway as a young artist in 1920’s Paris makes clear the dedication that he felt to his art. Accounts of his relationships with Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others are best taken with a grain of salt so far as the facts are concerned, but their emotional resonances are revealing. Hemingway Review 6, no. 1 (Fall, 1986). Special issue devoted to The Sun Also Rises includes articles addressing questions of religion, the treatment of women, and bullfighting in a reader’s understanding 2141
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Cuban fisherman of The Old Man and the Sea, suffers months without a catch yet survives his greatest defeat with dignity and optimism. In Hemingway’s work, some meaning finally is found. In addition to describing the modern dilemma, Hemingway influenced and reshaped Americans’ way of writing. Hemingway’s skill in dialogue and narration (for which he admitted a debt to Mark Twain’s 1884 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and his artistic integrity made him a hero and model to American writers ranging from Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer, who wished to tell the truth without hiding behind conventional literary devices and values. Hemingway’s apparently simple sentences and clarity of style influenced writers for magazines as diverse as The New Yorker and the pulps; hardboiled detective fiction owes him a considerable debt for its manner and subject matter. The Beat generation writers of the 1950’s who went “on the road” in America and abroad in a sense were following in the footsteps of Jake
Keaton’s The General Is Released of the novel. Also gives accounts of the novel’s composition, Hemingway’s use of language, and the reactions of a more traditional writer, Western novelist Owen Wister, to the book’s subject matter. Reynolds, Michael. Hemingway: The Paris Years. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Meticulous re-creation of Hemingway’s life in Europe during the composition of In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises. Includes detailed maps and chronology. _______. “The Sun Also Rises”: A Novel of the Twenties. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Evaluation and close reading of the novel in the context of its time. Explains particularly well how to avoid common misreadings and examines many of the subtleties involved in coming to a full understanding of the novel. Sarason, Bertram. Hemingway and the Sun Set. Washington, D.C.: NCR Microcard, 1972. A good guide to The Sun Also Rises as roman à clef. Discusses the novel’s many sources among the real people of Paris whose characteristics Hemingway adapted in constructing his fictional characters. Svoboda, Frederic. Hemingway and “The Sun Also Rises”: The Crafting of a Style. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1983. Analyzes the composition of the novel and the development of Hemingway’s prose
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 style through the examination of manuscript drafts and revisions. Includes a number of facsimiles of manuscript pages as well as the text of the first chapters cut from the novel at Fitzgerald’s urging. Tyler, Lisa. Student Companion to Ernest Hemingway. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Presents a brief biography of the author and then addresses individual works, discussing plot, character, theme, literary devices, and social and historical context. Intended to introduce Hemingway to high school students and college undergraduates. Wagner-Martin, Linda, ed. New Essays on “The Sun Also Rises.” Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Useful collection of commentary tends to discount the macho Hemingway reputation in favor of discovering what in his work will withstand rigorous literary scrutiny. See also: Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons; 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism.
December, 1926
Keaton’s THE GENERAL Is Released At the apogee of an arc of creativity that produced ten films between 1923 and 1928, Buster Keaton directed and acted the principal role in the great silent comedy The General. Locale: United States Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Buster Keaton (1895-1966), American film actor and director Joseph M. Schenck (1878-1961), American film producer Summary of Event Although Buster Keaton’s career as a filmmaker began with a kind of apprenticeship to Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle in 1917 and continued into the 1960’s, the work Keaton did as an actor and director in the mid-1920’s is at the core of his achievement as a film artist. Beginning 2142
with the moderately amusing Three Ages in 1923, Keaton made a series of silent comedies that demonstrated the range of possibility of the medium. Our Hospitality (1923), Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), Go West (1925), Battling Butler (1926), and The General (1926) are the heart of a body of work (including College in 1927 and Steamboat Bill Jr. in 1928) that exhibits a style, philosophy, and technical proficiency achieved by only the greatest masters in any area of artistic achievement. When Keaton began work on The General, he had developed his skills as a director and actor in his previous films and was at a peak of energy and enthusiasm; he was also in his prime as an athlete. In addition, his relationship with his brother-in-law, producer Joseph M. Schenck, enabled him to work on a scale equal to his ambitions, and the striking authenticity of the period settings and decor of The General reflect Keaton’s access to a production budget sufficient to his needs.
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Schenck had formed a connection with the recently established United Artists distributing organization, a company designed to release the independently produced films of such notables as Charles Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and Douglas Fairbanks, and Schenck became the company’s president in 1926. The organization needed films to release, and Schenck made a commitment to Keaton to distribute his next film, guaranteeing Keaton the kind of lavish budget to which Chaplin and Fairbanks were accustomed. Keaton had completed Battling Butler and was considering other projects when the writer Clyde Bruckman showed him a book titled The Great Locomotive Chase (1868) by William Pittenger, an eyewitness account of a Civil War incident in which a small squad of Union raiders operating behind Confederate lines tried to steal a steam locomotive. The narrative had no comic qualities, but Bruckman knew the comic potential of any kind of chase, and Keaton was captivated by the idea of re-creating the appearance of the Civil War era. He was also intrigued by the chance to place a man in conjunction with a gigantic piece of machinery, one of Keaton’s basic comic preoccupations. He asked Bruckman to be his assistant director and told him that he planned to spare no pains to make the film seem authentic. Keaton and Bruckman originally intended to stage the film on its original location along the Alabama-Tennessee border, but they found no suitable railroad track left in the region and were refused permission to use the original locomotive, which was in a Chattanooga museum. Keaton then decided to make his film in Oregon, because, he later recalled, “the whole state is honeycombed with narrow-gauge railways for all the lumber mills.” Keaton’s chief technical assistant, Fred Gabourie, found sufficient rolling equipment to provide three locomotives and many freight cars. Keaton hired five hundred men from the Oregon National Guard to play soldiers, and seventeen railway carloads of equipment were shipped from Los Angeles. The crew was housed in tourist cars rented from the Union Pacific railroad, and the film was shot during June and July of 1926. Typically, Keaton was directly in charge of almost every aspect of the production. “Now this was my own story, my own continuity,” he later commented. “I directed it, I cut it and titled it. So actually it was a pet.” Pittenger’s original story was told from the Union point of view, but Keaton knew that, to make a comedy, he had to make the main character a sympathetic underdog. Keaton remarked that “you can always make villains out of the Northerners, but you cannot make a vil-
Keaton’s The General Is Released
Buster Keaton. (Library of Congress)
lain out of the South.” His story was centered on an engineer named Johnnie Gray—an almost generic name for an American southerner—who tries to enlist when war breaks out but is turned down because his skills are needed to operate trains during the conflict. In the midst of typical comic confusion, his prospective bride, Annabelle Lee—whose name echoes Edgar Allan Poe’s poetic vision of romantic innocence—rejects him as a coward. Gray is then involved in the double tasks of trying to win her back and trying to recapture his engine, the General, after Union spies seize them both. The first half of the picture involves Gray’s pursuit of the Union troops on another locomotive, the Texas; in a symmetrical turn, the second half depicts Gray and Annabelle fleeing from the Union forces on the General while the Texas gives chase. The visual climax of the film occurs when the Union commander orders the Texas to cross a burning bridge to prevent Gray’s escape. The bridge does not support the locomotive, and in one of the most expensive 2143
Keaton’s The General Is Released single takes to that point in film history (Schenck estimated the cost at $42,000), the locomotive falls into the river below, sending steam and debris across the screen. This stunning and still-effective moment is given a dramatic emphasis by Keaton’s cut to the stunned expression on the face of the commander. The film moves from beginning to end with almost no breaks in time and uses only fifty subtitles, primarily in the earlier parts of the narrative; most eight-reel silent features used more than three hundred. Keaton was very pleased with his work, and he discussed the film enthusiastically for the rest of his life. Significance In 1977, the American Film Institute asked its members to submit lists of the fifty greatest films produced in the United States. Only five films from the silent era were chosen—D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) and The Birth of a Nation (1915), Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931), and Keaton’s The General. Yet acclaim for Keaton’s achievement was hardly immediate. The film was released during Christmas week in 1926 in Los Angeles and then put into general release in February, 1927. Initial critical response was almost uniformly negative. Of the eleven New York newspapers that reviewed the film, eight were actively hostile, and only the Brooklyn Daily Eagle critic Martin Dickstein acknowledged Keaton’s accomplishment. Even he felt it necessary to point out that the film would not seem funny for “lots of people,” and The New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall found it “by no means as good as Mr. Keaton’s previous efforts.” Another reviewer judged it “the least funny thing Keaton has ever done,” and still another called it “a pretty trite and stodgy piece of screenfare” and observed that the audience responded with “occasionally a laugh, and occasionally a yawn.” Such an assessment of viewer reaction was generally accurate, given that the film grossed $474,264, more than $300,000 less than the receipts for Battling Butler. The basic production costs of The General had exceeded $400,000, and United Artists took a considerable loss, as 1920’s films did not become profitable until receipts totaled about twice the production cost. Keaton never publicly acknowledged his disappointment or even admitted that the film lost money, but he knew the figures and was under some pressure to succeed financially with his next effort. His creative freedom was curtailed by the experience, and Schenck essentially was responsible for the decision to make College, a film that resembled Harold Lloyd’s very successful The Freshman, one of the most 2144
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 popular films of 1925. For the first time since The Saphead (1920), Keaton was not listed as director or codirector, and the words “Supervised by Harry Brand” in the credits meant that there was someone present to watch the budget during production. When Keaton signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1928, a proviso to the agreement indicated that although Keaton would “be consulted as to story and direction,” the decision of the producer would be final. This effectively ended the brief era in which Keaton made some of the finest comic films in motionpicture history. Yet while Keaton’s career continued on a downward curve through the next three decades, reaching a nadir of sorts with cameo appearances in American International films such as How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), his reputation gradually began to move in the opposite direction. In 1953, The General was selected to share a place of honor with Chaplin’s new film Limelight (1952) at the coronation of Elizabeth II of England. When the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented an exhibition of United Artists films, The General was the only film that had to be shown more than once because of demand for tickets. By the 1960’s, serious full-length academic studies of Keaton were appearing, especially in Europe. The turning point in the appreciation of Keaton’s work can be traced to the famous essay “Comedy’s Greatest Era,” by James Agee, which appeared in the September 5, 1949, issue of Life magazine. Agee discussed Keaton, Lloyd, Chaplin, and Harry Langdon, and although he devoted only a few pages to Keaton’s work, his perceptions were so accurate and his prose so compelling and lucid that no one who read the article could look at a Keaton film afterward without being struck by the truth of Agee’s observations. What Agee understood and described was that Keaton’s finest films were not only great comic statements but also great filmmaking and, perhaps more crucially, great American art. The striking authenticity of The General‘s sets, props, costumes, and milieu were as instrumental as Mathew Brady’s photographs in projecting a sense of reality about the Civil War. Keaton’s rare combination of almost Lincolnesque nobility, daunting handsomeness, and appealing friendliness is at the heart of his visual conception of Johnnie Gray, the film’s underdog hero. Gray’s struggle to serve his country, win the hand of the woman he loves, overcome the forces of darkness, and amuse the audience is so engrossing that it is hard to understand how contemporary audiences in Keaton’s time were not captivated. As some critics have observed,
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Further Reading Agee, James. “Comedy’s Greatest Era.” In Film Theory and Criticism, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Landmark essay about film comedians, including Keaton, originally published in Life magazine in 1949, is generally credited with marking a turning point in appreciation of Keaton’s work. Benayoun, Robert. The Look of Buster Keaton. Translated by Randall Conrad. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Glossy book combines somewhat esoteric, theoretical analysis with a wonderful collection of stills from Keaton films. Includes an excellent filmography with a biographical outline. Blesh, Rudi. Keaton. New York: Collier Books, 1966. Affectionate biography by one of Keaton’s friends presents considerable inside information, many anecdotes, and some critical analysis.
Dardis, Tom. Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn’t Lie Down. 1979. Reprint. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. A good complement to the Blesh biography (cited above), written from a more distant perspective and utilizing additional information and interviews with some of Keaton’s contemporaries. Includes a detailed filmography and some photographs. Keaton, Eleanor, and Jeffrey Vance. Buster Keaton Remembered. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001. Celebration of Keaton’s work begun by his third wife and completed after her death by a respected film historian. Features more than two hundred photographs, filmography, bibliography, and index. McPherson, Edward. Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat. Winchester, Mass.: Faber & Faber, 2004. Discusses Keaton’s life and career, focusing on the ways in which the actor and director presented comedy on the screen. Includes photographs. Moews, Daniel. Keaton: The Silent Features Close Up. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. Contains a lucid, extremely detailed analytic chapter on The General as well as a useful survey of Keaton scholarship. Rubinstein, Elliot. Filmguide to “The General.” Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1973. Attempts to be descriptive as well as explanatory while concentrating on the qualities that made Keaton a screen presence and a cinematic genius. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush.
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however, the film was so rich—such a mixture of comedy, adventure, suspense, and serious commentary about war—that its fusion of categories overwhelmed audiences unprepared by anything they had seen previously. Keaton had to instruct the filmgoers of the 1920’s in the art of vision, and The General was part of a process that formed a film-literate public capable of appreciating Keaton’s masterpiece. The General displays Keaton’s endless invention, his ability to link comic bits in a remarkably tight structure, his extraordinary capabilities as a physical performer, his feeling for the fascination and perplexity men and women experience in the presence of gigantic machines, his sensitivity to such cultural values as decency, modesty, resoluteness, quick wit, and courage, and ultimately, the generosity of spirit and humane qualities that are the essence of comic art. Because Keaton worked in celluloid rather than print or canvas, his accomplishments were undervalued at the time of their creation. In time, however, his genius was recognized, and his place among the giants of film history is secure. — Leon Lewis
Keaton’s The General Is Released
Heidegger Publishes Being and Time
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Heidegger Publishes BEING AND TIME Martin Heidegger established himself as a major philosophical figure with the publication of Being and Time, his most important and influential work, in which he applied Edmund Husserl’s principles of phenomenology to the field of ontology. Also known as: Sein und Zeit Locale: Marburg, Gemany Categories: Philosophy; publishing and journalism Key Figures Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), German philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941), French philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish theologian Summary of Event In 1927, Martin Heidegger, an associate professor of philosophy at the German University of Marburg, published a long, difficult book titled Sein und Zeit (1927; Being and Time, 1962). In it he proposed to ask and answer a question that he argued had been forgotten or obscured in the Western philosophical tradition since the time of the ancient Greeks: the question of the meaning of Being. Being and Time is Heidegger’s most important work, and its publication established him as one of the twentieth century’s major philosophers. The approach that Heidegger took to his great question was strongly influenced by the thinking of philosophers Edmund Husserl, with whom Heidegger had worked closely at Marburg, and Wilhelm Dilthey. Husserl’s phenomenology focused on examination of the nature of pure human consciousness. To pursue his inquiry, Husserl found it necessary to abstract from or to bracket off the real world. It was precisely this real world, however, that Dilthey emphasized in his philosophy, stressing the historical character of human life and the lived experience that all individuals have in their social and cultural worlds. Dilthey’s work embodied a critique of Husserlian phenomenology. The inquiry that Heidegger pursued was in a way a synthesis of the positions of these two thinkers. While Husserl and Dilthey were two of the primary influences on Heidegger’s thinking, Heidegger himself situated his work in the long tradition of Western philosophy stretching back to Plato and Aristotle. From the 2146
time of the great Greek thinkers, Heidegger argued, philosopher after philosopher had asked about the nature of Being, but over time the importance of the question of the meaning of Being had been obscured. Heidegger promised to restore the original power and mystery of that question. That was an extraordinary undertaking: to rethink and subvert the whole tradition of Western philosophical thinking, an audacious aim perhaps comparable only to that of the late-nineteenth century German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. In Being and Time, when Heidegger confronts the question of the meaning of Being, he argues that answering it must begin with the consideration of some particular being, since Being is always the being of something. He chooses to focus on human being, what he calls Dasein (being there). Heidegger devotes the whole of his great work to the phenomenological analysis of Dasein in all its human complexity. It is this philosophical analysis of human being that he pursues en route to the question of the meaning of Being itself. Heidegger pursues a particular type of philosophical inquiry in Being and Time, which he calls ontological inquiry, as opposed to ontical inquiry. The latter would produce external descriptions of the distinctive characteristics of Dasein, whereas the former, Heidegger’s way, seeks to enter into Dasein’s understanding of being to interpret it rather than to describe it. Heidegger calls this interpretive ontological inquiry “existential.” What, then, does Heidegger’s inquiry reveal about Dasein? It reveals that Dasein is always involved in relations with other entities, what Heidegger characterizes as “being-in-the-world.” Further, it reveals that Dasein is never alone in the world; rather, it is always with others, what he calls “being-with-others.” The everyday world of Dasein is constituted within these complexes of relationships, and it is unavoidable, for Dasein is always embedded within them, is thrown there, to use Heidegger’s evocative term. Heidegger makes a distinction between two possible ways of being-in-the-world: ready-to-hand and presentto-hand. In the former, things are available for practical use; in the latter, they are encountered in a detached, observational way. (An example of this detached mode would be the modern scientific viewpoint, which for Heidegger was classically embodied in the thinking of the seventeenth century French philosopher René Descartes.) Both are ways in which Dasein encounters enti-
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Martin Heidegger. (AP/Wide World Photos)
ture; for Heidegger, Dasein is always in time. (Husserl’s ideas on the meaning and experience of time, as well as those of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, guided Heidegger’s thinking about the human experience of time-embeddedness.) Since there is always a future, Dasein is incomplete until the final moment of existence, which is death. Dasein is therefore always a beingtoward-death. Dasein’s Thrownness produces a deep disquiet that Heidegger, taking inspiration from the nineteenth century Danish religious thinker Søren Kierkegaard, calls angst (anxiety), a mood that can easily precipitate Dasein into absorption in the Fallenness of the present. To remain fixed in the present and to ignore being-towarddeath is all too easy, but such an existence Heidegger calls inauthentic. For Heidegger, only living in all three temporalities—Thrownness, Fallenness, and Projection—with the recognition that Dasein is being-towarddeath would constitute an authentic existence. Heidegger intended a further section of Being and Time to move from the analysis of the being of Dasein to the question of Being itself and its meaning (his original question), but he did not produce that section. Nor did he ever write an intended second part, in which he had said he would critique the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, and Aristotle. Heidegger continued to lecture and write extensively until his death in 1976, turning increasingly to the study of art and poetry, but Being and Time was his greatest work. Significance For many, Being and Time became a twentieth century classic of philosophy, one that placed its author in the pantheon of Western philosophical greats from Plato to Nietzsche. For others, the book’s forbidding language was impenetrable, not philosophy but obscurantism. Heidegger’s reputation was tarnished by his close association with (and brief membership in) the Nazi Party in the 1930’s, an association he never repudiated after World War II. However, his influence on twentieth century intellectual history was enormous. The critique of mass society by thinkers such as Karl Jaspers, the political philosophy of Heidegger’s student Hannah Arendt, the existentialist philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, the deconstructionist program of Jacques Derrida, the structuralist psychoanalyis of Jacques Lacan, and many other of the century’s most important intellectual developments bear the imprint of Heidegger’s thinking in Being and Time. —Michael W. Messmer 2147
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ties in the world, but Heidegger valorizes the ready-tohand mode. Like being-in-the-world, being-with-others is fraught with difficulties. Dasein is unique, but each is immersed in relationships with that larger complex of human social and cultural relations that Heidegger called das Man (“the One” or “They”), his term for mass society. Thus, for Heidegger, Dasein’s everyday life is necessarily characterized by its absorption in the world and with das Man; this condition he calls Fallenness. Dasein, however, does not choose to be in the world, to be born. It is thrown into the world at some point in the past. Thrownness is Dasein’s inheritance from the past; Fallenness is Dasein’s absorption in the present. Dasein can and must, however, project different possibilities into the future. Every Dasein is thrown into the world at some past time, is fallen into the world of the present, but is oriented toward the future. In short, Dasein is historical, temporal. Dasein always lives in three modes of experiencing time, past, present, and fu-
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Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking Further Reading Guignon, Charles, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Contains a wide-ranging selection of essays on all aspects of Heidegger’s thought. Inwood, Michael. Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000. Excellent short introduction to Heidegger that focuses on Being and Time. Ree, Jonathan. Heidegger. New York: Routledge, 1999. Very brief but stimulating analysis of the argument of Being and Time. Safranski, Rudiger. Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Very probing intellectual biography of Heidegger; especially helpful in situating his thinking among that of his contemporaries. Sluga, Hans. Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 University Press, 1933. Provocative analysis of Heidegger’s relationship with both Nazism and with broader contemporary currents of cultural critique in his era. Steiner, George. Heidegger. Rev. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Stylish introduction to the breadth of Heidegger’s thought by a major contemporary literary critic. Good place to begin reading about Heidegger. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism; 1913: Husserl Advances Phenomenology; 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher; 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle; 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought.
1927
Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov and his pupil Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin, through their experimental work, theoretical writings, and films, brought Soviet cinema to a high level of achievement. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (1899-1970), Soviet film theoretician and director Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin (1893-1953), Soviet actor, director, and film theoretician Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), Soviet director and film theoretician Dziga Vertov (1896-1954), Soviet newsreel and documentary film pioneer Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Russian revolutionary leader and first Soviet premier Summary of Event By 1927, the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet cinema had reached the pinnacle of international success. Filmmakers formulated basic doctrines and theories, guiding the young film industry with the 2148
support and approval of the government. Cinema, thus encouraged, developed as a singular art form, with its own principles and aesthetics, different from other art. Filmmakers rose to the challenge by creating films that were both politically pleasing and invigorated with artistic dynamism. Ten years earlier, in March, 1917, the czar was replaced by a provisional government headed by Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky. The government moved to abolish film censorship and even permitted production of anticzarist pictures. In October of that same year, the Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Ilich Lenin, overthrew the government, and the Soviet era began. Lenin was acutely aware of the importance of cinema in spreading the development of Communism and consolidating his power among the vast population. He declared, “Of all the arts for us the cinema is the most important.” He created a formula that came to be known as “Lenin’s proportion,” which established a ratio of entertainment films to such educational motion pictures as travelogues, studies of cultures, and anticapitalist statements that could be played at Soviet theaters. Although Lenin had in mind a cinema specializing in agitation and propaganda, two individuals emerged who changed the projected course of Soviet cinema. The first
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Boris Barnet, Mikhail Kalatzov, and Yakov Protazanov. The brilliant Eisenstein, in particular, although he studied only briefly with Kuleshov (and also worked briefly with Vertov), launched a remarkable film career based on montage. Kuleshov’s special disciple, however, and the one most associated with and influenced by his work, was Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin, who collaborated with his teacher on a number of experimental film projects. Pudovkin was six years older than his professor and had originally studied to be a chemist. His primary goal was to become an actor, but Kuleshov expected his students to learn all aspects of cinema. Pudovkin was an eager pupil and quickly assimilated Kuleshov’s important concepts. He was particularly fascinated by the way a film performance could be manipulated via skillful editing. Pudovkin’s scientific training and his dramatic visual sense prompted him to become a director. He gained experience working on Kuleshov’s films before embarking on his own. Pudovkin created three silent masterpieces of the 1920’s, Mother (1926), The End of St. Petersburg (1927), and The Heir to Ghengis Khan (1928). His appeal in all three was directly to the audience’s emotions, and he kept his story lines simple and powerful, in contrast to his fellow filmmaker Eisenstein, whose work seemed detached and intellectual. Kuleshov remained proud of both his pupils and found much to admire in their creative work. Significance In 1926, Kuleshov abandoned his workshop to become involved with a project that became his most important film, By the Law. The film was adapted from a short story by Jack London titled “The Unexpected” and was made on one of the smallest budgets in Soviet cinema history. It was set in a one-room cabin in a desolate part of the Yukon. The story line concerns justice and how two people must try, condemn, and execute a third person who murdered their friends. By the Law is economical and polished in style; artistically, it implies social criticism. Kuleshov cleverly used montage to create a remarkable film that achieved international success when released in December of 1926. The same year, Pudovkin was emerging as a selfconfident artist and began the first of his three revolutionary films, Mother, based on a Maxim Gorky novel that takes place during the 1905 revolution. The story is about a family consisting of a poor peasant woman, her husband, a brutal drunkard, and the couple’s son. Father and son come to blows over differing political views, and 2149
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was Dziga Vertov, now hailed as the father of Soviet newsreel and documentary film. Born Denis Kaufman (brother of noted filmmakers Boris and Mikhail Kaufman), he took the name of Dziga Vertov, which in Russian means “spinning top,” a reference to the action of winding film. His success came through clever editing and camera manipulation. Vertov gathered together and inspired a number of documentarists who believed life should be filmed as it really is, not staged with a narrative format. The group called itself Kinoki (cinema eyes). They believed fictional films were unimportant, opium for the masses. The other seminal individual in Soviet motion pictures was Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov. Heavily influenced and inspired by American film-editing techniques, particularly the work of D. W. Griffith, Kuleshov realized that film was a plastic art form that could be manipulated by a filmmaker. He used experiments to prove that film must be edited and constructed frame by frame. Taking Griffith’s epic 1916 masterpiece Intolerance, with its four interlocking stories, he completely reedited the footage into very different combinations. In one of Kuleshov’s best-known film experiments, two people—a man and a woman in two separate shots— are seen walking in different districts of Moscow. In a third shot, they meet, shake hands, and look off in the distance as the man points. The fourth shot shows the American White House followed by the final shot, the couple climbing the steps of a famous Moscow cathedral. Through five different shots taken at different times and places, Kuleshov created a cinematic illusion of spatial and temporal unity. In another example, he photographed various parts of different women, then cut the film in such a way as to synthesize a new entity. Perhaps his most famous experiment involved using the expressionless face of matinee idol Ivan Mozhukin. Kuleshov intercut it with shots of a bowl of borscht, a dead woman in a coffin, and a girl playing with a toy bear. In each case, the audience raved about the power of Mozhukin’s acting. He was seen as pensive in the first, sorrowful in the second, and smiling in the third. Through such experiments, Kuleshov slowly formulated the concept that became known as the Kuleshov effect. Kuleshov argued that a film shot has two values: its own photographic image of reality and what it acquires when spliced next to another shot. To Kuleshov, editing, or “montage,” was the key to cinema, because it subordinated time and space and could also be used symbolically on a nonliteral level. Kuleshov gathered into his workshop some of the Soviet cinema’s brightest filmmakers: Sergei Eisenstein,
Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking
Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking the father is killed. The mother naïvely betrays her son to the authorities, and he is sentenced in a rigged trial. The mother helps him to escape jail, and later the two unite and both are killed at a workers’ demonstration held on May Day. Pudovkin edited the film brilliantly, creating breathtaking montage effects; the film always stays in touch with the human drama unfolding underneath the great moments of history. Pudovkin also found time in 1926 to write two books on filmmaking that helped to clarify the KuleshovPudovkin concept of montage. He restated Kuleshov’s basic premise that films are not “shot” but are artistically “built” from separate strips. Both artists discovered that individual film clips become part of a larger form with intrinsic structural unity and effectiveness. Pudovkin stated that the key process was actually one of a cognitive “linkage” of frames. In his films, he intercut images in exciting new ways, arranging them on a metaphysical as well as narrative level, clearly showing his indebtedness to Kuleshov. Pudovkin stressed the story, keeping it simple and clear; his attitude was personal and emotional. He used fluid narrative editing and used shock montage effects sparingly. His handling of actors was brilliant, and his films are memorable for their performances. He excelled in using montage to contrast the horrible brutality of wars with the idealism that fuels them. By 1927, both Kuleshov and Pudovkin, through their experiments, writings, and films employing the principle of montage, had made a decided impact on Soviet and world cinema. Their editorial concepts opened up the artistic possibilities of film. Filmmakers could now manipulate what the audience experienced, enabling them to elicit certain emotions, associations, and thoughts. Kuleshov and Pudovkin not only demonstrated theoretically their concepts of montage but also created masterpieces of early Soviet cinema. In 1927, Pudovkin made the film that won him an international reputation, The End of St. Petersburg, which had the distinction of being the first Soviet film to play in New York City at Broadway’s largest theater, the Roxy. Through the eyes of a peasant, the film shows the historic events that rocked Russia from 1912 to 1917, when it was transformed from czarist to Soviet rule. Pudovkin graphically showed how his hero radically changes from a bumbling youth to a mature man aware of his country’s suffering. The director intercut the hysteria of the czarist stock market exchange with the hysteria found on the battlefield. When the peasant enters Leningrad, he is viewed from above the building, as though he is an ant, but by picture’s end, the camera is on the ground looking 2150
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 up at him. One breathtaking sequence shows a midlevel bureaucrat in an elevator with a tycoon promising a great promotion. As the elevator rises, the light changes, and the toady’s smile grows as he rises to the top; the scene stands as a brilliant testament to the montage theories of Kuleshov and Pudovkin. By the end of 1927, the first decade of the Soviet Union was over. There was much to celebrate in the film industry. Soviet filmmakers, inspired by Kuleshov, were producing exciting and celebrated films. Montage was being employed in new and innovative ways. Important theoretical developments in the cinema had been established and encouraged because they played an important role in promoting the revolution. The aim was to build a glorious Communist future. Pudovkin wrote that when “the old and familiar artistic methods crumbled and collapsed. . . . Lev Kuleshov forced us to acquire visual taste and taught us the ABC of montage.” The honeymoon of state and art would not last. Joseph Stalin had assumed complete power after Lenin’s death, and by the end of 1927, he was moving to consolidate his hold over the Communist Party. Stalin grew increasingly suspicious of criticism, particularly from the cinema, which was forced to eschew artistic concerns and was pressured into creating pictures for the working classes. It is no wonder, then, that neither Kuleshov nor Pudovkin ever again achieved his original level of critical success and even, along with Eisenstein, fell into political disfavor. During the mid-1920’s, however, these filmmakers created a vital cinematic language that invigorated the screen and made the Soviet cinema the envy of the world. — Terry Theodore Further Reading Birkos, Alexander S. Soviet Cinema: Directors and Films. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1976. Divided into two comprehensive sections focusing on Soviet cinema from 1918 to 1975. The first part examines the creative lives of the important directors; the second concerns the important films released during the period. Encyclopedic approach, with a good short introduction to the subject. Dickinson, Thorold, and Catherine De La Roche. Soviet Cinema. New York: Arno Press, 1972. Brief volume pairs two essays by different critics, one on silent film and the other on film with sound. Illustrated with many photographs. Feldman, Seth R. Evolution of Style in the Early Work of Dziga Vertov. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Dissertation on Vertov’s pioneering work and his important
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Excellent collection of twelve essays by the leading Soviet filmmakers, including Kuleshov, Vertov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Alexander Dovzhenko. Taylor, Richard. Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Rev. ed. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998. Demonstrates the significance of propaganda in twentieth century politics and the controlled way cinema has been used. Offers only a limited look at Soviet film achievement. Vertov, Dziga. Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Edited by Annette Michelson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Valuable collection of Vertov’s work, gathered from his articles, public addresses, notebooks, diaries, creative projects, and proposals. Good introductory section includes Vertov’s filmography. Vorontsov, Iu, and Igor Rachuk. The Phenomenon of the Soviet Cinema. Translated by Doris Bradbury. Moscow: Progress, 1980. Politically correct Soviet interpretation of cinema from its origins through the 1970’s. Includes chapters on Soviet audiences, films shown abroad, and a good filmography. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis.
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place in Soviet cinema. Examines political, historic, and aesthetic concerns as they relate to Vertov’s theories. Kenez, Peter. Cinema and Soviet Society: From the Revolution to the Death of Stalin. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2001. History of Soviet film includes discussion of changes in cinematic content and style from before the revolution and the constraints of Socialist Realism. Features illustrations, glossary, filmography, bibliography, and index. Kuleshov, Lev. Kuleshov on Film: Writings by Lev Kuleshov. Edited and translated by Ronald Levaco. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Kuleshov’s essays reveal him to be cinema’s first aesthetic theorist. Levaco, through his essay selection, translation, and editing of Kuleshov’s writings, transforms Kuleshov from a shadowy figure to a director with a unique place in Soviet cinema. Leyda, Jay. Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. 3d ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Classic study of Russian/Soviet cinema gives a marvelous overview, including the screening of films in 1896 through the revolution, the great achievements in the 1920’s, the repressive Stalinist era, and the resurgence following Stalin’s death. Pudovkin, V. I. Film Technique and Film Acting. Translated by Ivor Montagu. London: Vision Press, 1954. Pudovkin’s two studies on cinema are as important as any of his films and are considered classics by both filmmakers and scholars. He openly acknowledges Kuleshov as his mentor. Schnitzer, Luda, Jean Schnitzer, and Marcel Martin, eds. Cinema in Revolution: The Heroic Era of the Soviet Film. 1973. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1987.
Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking
Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis
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Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with METROPOLIS In Metropolis, Fritz Lang used boldly innovative cinematic techniques to tell a story that blended futuristic science fiction with nineteenth century melodrama and prophetic social criticism. Locale: Berlin, Germany Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Fritz Lang (1890-1976), Austrian filmmaker Thea von Harbou (1888-1954), German novelist and screenwriter Eugen Schüfftan (1893-1977), German American special-effects artist Otto Hunte (1881-1960), German film set designer Summary of Event In 1924, Fritz Lang journeyed from Germany to the United States with the intention of touring American film studios in New York and Hollywood. Lang had already achieved critical acclaim as an innovative filmmaker with such films as the spy thriller Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (1922; Dr. Mabuse the Gambler) and the lavish, two-part Die Nibelungen (1924), a retelling of the Siegfried legend. Upon reaching New York, Lang was immediately struck by the city’s glittering skyline of concrete, glass, and neon, a sight responsible for the germ of an idea for a new film. Lang envisioned a futuristic world where machines and efficiency are worshiped and where human compassion and sacrifice are things of the ancient past. When he returned to Germany, Lang discussed this basic concept with his wife, screenwriter and novelist Thea von Harbou, who turned the idea into a novel. Over the next two years, Lang labored to bring his vision of the world in the year 2000 to the screen. Because of his earlier successes, Universium Film, Germany’s premier film studio, agreed to finance the project. Two years later, the studio was nearly bankrupt, largely because of Lang’s project. Lang shot nearly two million feet of film during a shooting schedule consisting of 310 days and 60 nights. He employed a cast of more than thirty-five thousand, built elaborate full-scale sets and intricate miniatures, developed innovative specialeffects techniques, and spent close to two million dollars, making his film the most expensive European production up to that time. The result was Metropolis, a dazzling, sixteen-reel extravaganza, cut down to nine reels for its American premiere. The film was described in a 2152
contemporary review as “an extraordinary motion picture, in some ways the most extraordinary ever made,” and in another review by American film critic and playwright Robert E. Sherwood as “too much scenery, too many people, too much plot and too many platitudinous ideas.” Like Sherwood, many who first saw Metropolis were overwhelmed by its scope, its amazing visual richness, and its strange blending of the ultramodern and the mystically medieval. Many were awed by the film’s innovative special effects, which showed masses of humans scurrying through towering landscapes made up of thousands of Art Deco and gothic skyscrapers and monstrous, steam-belching machines. Although contemporary reviewers praised the film for its dazzling look and innovative cinematic techniques, they also condemned its story as a confusing mishmash of politics, social commentary, Christian symbolism, and futuristic prophecy. Although the film was a commercial success, it never made enough money to save the studio that financed it. Over the years, the film suffered more reeditings, further muddling its already confusing story line. It was not until 1984, when music producer Giorgio Moroder put together a restored version of the film based on all existing film fragments and using key stills to fill in gaps in the story line, that the public was finally able to experience Metropolis as Lang and his collaborators had first envisioned it. Although the restored version is still missing footage, Moroder’s version clarifies the story line, making the film a much more strongly cohesive blending of astounding imagery and thought-provoking storytelling. The film itself deals with the story of a mastermind builder, Fredersen, who has designed and now lords over a glittering city, Metropolis. Fredersen and his elite followers live in luxury far above ground while the workers who built and run the machines that power the city slave below, living in drab communal structures underground. The workers who operate the machines move in pistonlike formation, as if their prolonged exposure to the giant machines has turned them, too, into soulless automatons. When Fredersen’s son, Freder, encounters the spiritual leader of the workers, Maria, he begins to question the reasons for maintaining the brutal division between the slave workers and the decadent elite. Freder eventually joins the ranks of the workers and falls in love with Maria, who believes Freder can help act as a mediator—
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Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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Fritz Lang (center) prepares an actor for a scene with the Maria robot in Metropolis. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
as the heart needed to mend the rift between the head that designed Metropolis and the hands that built it. When Fredersen learns of Maria’s existence and her powerful influence over the workers, however, he persuades a mad inventor, Rotwang, to fashion the likeness of Maria onto one of Rotwang’s inventions, a robot, so that Fredersen can use the Maria robot to keep the workers in line. After Rotwang kidnaps Maria and empowers his robot with her likeness, the false Maria develops an evil mind of its own and leads the workers on a rampage that destroys the city. The film’s climax has Freder and Rotwang battling for the real Maria on the top of a gothic cathedral, as Fredersen and the workers watch horrified from below amid the wreckage of the city. In the end, Rotwang falls to his death, and Freder acts as the city’s heart, joining its head and hands, presumably to build a more compassionate future. Significance Even in its restored version, Metropolis features an extremely melodramatic story line and is marred by over-
acting, principally by Gustav Frölich, who plays the Christlike mediator Freder. What has endured and continues to awe those who see the film, however, is its overwhelmingly dazzling imagery. Lang, who studied architecture, art, and painting before becoming a filmmaker, confessed many times to his strong preference for using visual imagery to express his personal philosophical insights. In all of his films, and especially in Metropolis, Lang used the visual to express his ideas regarding the conflict between the divine and demonic sides of human beings. The entire film is an amazing, swirling dance of opposites, of humans acting as machines and machines acting as humans, of scientists using advanced technology and black magic to create a robotic thing that represents a perverted image of perfection, of gorgeously glittering superstructures powered by ugly, massive, soul-killing machines. In one amazing scene, the machines transform into a likeness of the cannibal god Moloch, which begins to devour the workers who march willingly into its gaping mouth. Lang, who had been the first choice to direct another 2153
Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis visually innovative landmark German film, Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and Otto Hunte, head set designer for Metropolis, used the earlier film’s creative yet cinematically static set designs as a model for the Metropolis sets, but Lang then went far beyond the look of the earlier film by combining moody, expressionistic lighting with fluid camera movements. The most dynamic example of this innovative combination of lighting and camera movement occurs in the scene in which the real Maria is stalked by the scientist Rotwang through underground catacombs. As Rotwang pursues Maria, he uses a strong beam of light from an electric torch to “capture” her, propelling her forward through the catacombs. At one point, the beam crawls up Maria’s body like a snake. In other scenes depicting the city’s intricate skyline, complete with towering skyscrapers, flashing neon lights, scurrying masses of people, and quaint flying machines circling above the structures, Lang and his special-effects master, Eugen Schüfftan, pioneered the “Schüfftan process,” in which two cameras are used simultaneously to create the effect of live-action figures cavorting through miniature sets. Still another innovative touch was Lang’s use of the robot in the scene showing Rotwang empowering his creation with the likeness of Maria. Although the concept of the robot had been created earlier, Lang took the concept to a most elaborate extreme, using dynamic lighting, electrical effects, and expressive staging to overwhelm the viewer. At the time the film was made, Lang was interested in mysticism, and he wanted to play up the contrast between the world of soulless technological efficiency and the mysterious world of spirits and powers from beyond. Although he ultimately toned down this aspect of the film, he still managed to include an amazing scene of statues representing the seven deadly sins coming alive and dancing around a cathedral while the false Maria dances provocatively amid a leering group of rich admirers and a delirious Freder twists in bed, gripped by vivid, decadent dreams. In another scene, Lang sought to parallel the fate of Metropolis with the fate of the Tower of Babel. To do so, he created an intricate miniature tower and surrounded it with thousands of worker-extras shown to be struggling to build the decadent structure and finally rebelling against the tower’s spiritually bankrupt architects. Such scenes, elaborately (and expensively) staged, visually dynamic, cinematically innovative, yet at the same time expressing the filmmaker’s personal view of the world, made Metropolis an enduring classic and an 2154
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 inspiration for a legion of filmmakers who followed. Such big-budget film spectaculars as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), George Lucas’s Star Wars trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983), Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the ExtraTerrestrial (1982), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), and James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) all owe a debt to Metropolis and to Lang’s megalomaniacal attention to detail, innovative cinematic techniques, and personal, dynamic vision. Although Lang went on to create several more film masterpieces expressing his ideas on the spiritual and moral conflicts within each individual, Metropolis remains the most spectacular example of his personal vision of the soul of man. —Jim Kline Further Reading Armour, Robert A. Fritz Lang. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Presents an overview of Lang’s life, the factors that influenced his unique vision of the world, and the films he wrote and directed. Includes detailed descriptions of Lang’s complete film output. Bogdanovich, Peter. Fritz Lang in America. London: Studio Vista, 1968. Focuses primarily on Lang’s American film period, but also includes information about his early German period, with many comments about the making of Metropolis. Interview format vividly captures Lang’s opinionated and humorous character. Eisner, Lotte. Fritz Lang. Translated by Gertrud Mander. 1976. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1986. Detailed analysis of Lang’s entire film career, with many insightful comments by Lang himself, presented by a respected film critic and personal friend of Lang. Includes the text of a fragmented autobiography left uncompleted by Lang. Gunning, Tom. The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity. London: British Film Institute, 2000. An examination of all of Lang’s films by a historian and theorist of early cinema. Chapter 3 is devoted to discussion of Metropolis. Jenkins, Stephen, ed. Fritz Lang: The Image and the Look. London: British Film Institute, 1981. Collection of essays by film authorities on various aspects of Lang’s approach to filmmaking, including analyses of his cinematic themes and his methods of expressing his personal views with visual imagery. Jensen, Paul M. The Cinema of Fritz Lang. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1969. Presents a concise overview of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lang’s life and a film-by-film examination of his artistic output. Includes photographs from each production. Minden, Michael, and Holger Bachmann, eds. Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”: Cinematic Views of Technology and Fear. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 2000. Collection of previously published and new essays on Metropolis, commentary by Lang, and other materials related to the film. Editors’ introduction examines the production of the film and its reception in 1927 as well as the views of later critics. Ott, Frederick. The Films of Fritz Lang. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1979. Profusely illustrated volume begins with a long, detailed introduction that examines
Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory Lang’s life and influences. Includes a plot synopsis of each film, some of Lang’s own set and scene drawings, and insightful information on Lang’s film output. See also: Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques.
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Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory
Locale: United States Categories: Science and technology; astronomy; physics Key Figure Georges Lemaître (1894-1966), Belgian cleric and astronomy and mathematics hobbyist Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, astronomers and physicists were eager for new discoveries about the macrocosm of universal life. Although these sciences often worked together, an individual did not need to have a full understanding of one field in order to contribute successfully to research or theory in the other. Often, astronomers would observe the physical world and puzzle about unknown or unexplained phenomena, and then physicists would resolve the issues raised in terms of their theories and equations. Conversely, physicists might develop new theories about the nature of the universe without having any observational data. In such cases, astronomers would proceed to seek out the projected physical realities the physicists proposed from their equations. The big bang theory is an example of this discovery method: equation first, observation second. Georges Lemaître’s formal training was theological and clerical, leading him to a career in the Catholic Church as a monsignor. Similar to other religious men
who pursued interests in science as a hobby (such as Gregor Mendel in genetics), Lemaître’s interests included theoretical mathematics and astronomy. In 1923, Lemaître left Belgium for an extended time of study and travel in the United States. During this visit, Lemaître pursued his own interest in science and math instead of formal church-related matters. Lemaître stayed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Harvard University, where he studied astronomy as a research student. Albert Einstein’s theory of gravitation, now accepted over Sir Isaac Newton’s, had been confirmed four years prior to Lemaître’s visit to Harvard. Edwin Powell Hubble’s discovery of independent galaxies was still a year away. The following year, 1924, Lemaître, on an official trip for Harvard, went to the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California to observe the work in which Hubble and others were engaged. During that year, Hubble would confirm that independent galaxies did indeed exist; however, the full ramifications of that discovery and the accompanying data were not fully developed at the time of Lemaître’s visit. Lemaître was therefore unable to call on these data when he first proposed the big bang theory. During his visit to the United States, Lemaître began exploring Einstein’s equations of gravitation. When Lemaître solved these equations in the simplest manner, he discovered that they described an expanding universe. The long-held view of the universe prior to Lemaître’s discovery was that it was homogeneous, isotropic, and static. Although Lemaître still believed the universe to be 2155
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Georges Lemaître proposed that the universe was once a giant atom that exploded and continues to expand.
Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory homogeneous and isotropic, he now discarded the static view of the universe for a view of the universe as expanding. In 1927, Lemaître’s first paper on the homogeneous but expanding universe was published. He affirmed his belief in a universe that is the same in all directions in terms of its physical makeup and the physical laws by which it is governed; however, he denied that it is a fixed universe. He argued that the simplest solution to Einstein’s theory of gravitation demanded that the universe be expanding. At that time, there were no observational data to support Lemaître’s claim. Einstein was reluctant to endorse the proposed theory until he had investigated Lemaître’s solutions to the gravity equations. Unknown to most of the scientific community of the Western world, a Soviet meteorologist, Aleksandr Friedmann, had discovered the same solutions to the gravity equations and proposed the same view of an expanding universe in 1922. Both men came to the same conclusion independently and without any experimental data. At Mount Wilson Observatory in 1929, Hubble discovered that the galaxies he was observing were moving away from Earth at incredible speeds; furthermore, those galaxies farther out in the universe were moving more rapidly than those galaxies that were closer. Hubble made his discovery unaware of Lemaître’s theory of an expanding universe and rejection of the traditional static view. There now existed observational data to support Lemaître’s view of expansion. In papers published in 1931 and 1933, Lemaître used Hubble’s discovery to support his theory. Lemaître’s argument was simple: Hubble had discovered that the galaxies in the universe are hurling themselves away from some central point at incredible speeds; therefore, if one were to “reverse the film,” one would see these galaxies rushing in toward one another at some central point. Furthermore, the wellestablished law of entropy (an organized unit becomes more disordered as time passes) suggested that the universe, which was becoming more disorderly, must at some point have been very orderly. These two arguments led Lemaître to suggest the existence in history of some large primordial atom that contained all the matter of the universe. Lemaître’s view of the universe is well described as follows: Imagine a deflated balloon covered in spots. As the balloon inflates, the spots move away from one another but continue to be the same relative distance apart. Dots far apart, such as two dots on opposite sides of the balloon, would be moving away from each other at a greater speed during the inflating than would two dots that are adjacent to each other. When the balloon is deflated, the dots rush back to a central point. 2156
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hubble’s research provided Lemaître with the observational data to support his theory, and Einstein agreed that Lemaître’s solutions were indeed the best solutions to the gravitational equations. As a result of this support, scientists began to investigate Lemaître’s theory, which the scientific community would label the big bang theory. For a short time, Lemaître continued to develop his ideas about the theory and its effects. He made some predictions about the effects of the big bang that should be evident if indeed that was how the universe began. These proposals suggested areas that scientists could investigate in an effort to confirm the theory. The idea most pursued was the existence of some type of background radiation that must have been given off by the primordial atom when it exploded. Lemaître was confident that some type of background radiation would be discovered. After the theory became the property of the scientific community and several research projects were undertaken to examine it, Lemaître faded from the field to pursue other studies and problems of science that intrigued him. Until his death in 1966, he was still lecturing on the theory of the origins of the universe, although he did not actively engage in the current investigations. Significance Lemaître’s bold new insight into an expanding universe sent astronomers and physicists delving into their observations and calculations, hoping to unravel the mysteries of the origin of the universe. The big bang theory brought physics and astronomy together to create a joint science known as astrophysics, which investigates the credibility of the theory and seeks an explanation of the first few minutes of universal history. Although Lemaître explained how the universe started, his theory and calculations told little about the nature of that early universe, aside from the idea of the primordial atom. The nature of that atom, the particles that constituted the atom, and the reaction of those particles in the first few minutes after the explosion were questions unanswered by Lemaître or his theory. Also unanswered were the cause and nature of the explosion that sent matter hurling through space. The big bang theory required the examination of both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Astronomers and many physicists, focusing on the macrocosm, began to study the current universe in the light of the big bang in an effort to gather data about the first few minutes of history. Using Lemaître’s idea of running the film backward from where the universe currently is to where it was, these scientists searched for clues. This search included scanning the heavens for the background radiation; such
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Further Reading Abell, G. O., and G. Chincarini, eds. Early Evolution of the Universe and Its Present Structure. Boston: D. Reidel, 1983. Collection of papers presented at a symposium of the International Astronomical Union in Kolymbari, Crete. Topics include cosmology, early history of the universe, and conjecture as to where the universe could be heading. Presents a detailed discussion of the current structure of the universe and how this informs the science of the past. Includes bibliographies and indexes. Berger, A., ed. Big Bang and Georges Lemaître. Boston: D. Reidel, 1984. Compilation of papers delivered at the International Symposium on Georges Lemaître represents an excellent source of biographical information, information on the development of Lemaître’s theory, and an overview of work in cosmology
up to 1984. Includes many equations, illustrations, and bibliographies. Contopoulos, G., and D. Kotsakis. Cosmology: The Structure and Evolution of the Universe. Translated by M. Petrou and P. L. Palmer. 2d ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1987. Presents various explanations of the big bang theory and the implications of the differing interpretations of the theory. Includes some equations and technical diagrams, but is written for the beginning student of cosmology and provides excellent explanations of some complicated issues. Gribbin, John. In Search of the Big Bang: The Life and Death of the Universe. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. History of modern cosmology presents the story of the discovery of the nature of external galaxies. Intended for the general reader. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Silk, Joseph. The Big Bang. 3d ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2000. Excellent historical account of the big bang theory from Lemaître and Friedmann through Hubble’s discoveries to the end of the twentieth century. Explains how the discoveries were made, their implications, and the reactions of the scientific community. Also traces the history of the universe using the big bang model. Includes glossary and index. _______. On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. A history of the universe and the development of humankind’s knowledge about it that is accessible to lay readers. Includes illustrations and index. Trefil, James S. The Moment of Creation. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983. Begins with the premise that the big bang theory is correct, so does not mention Lemaître or attempt to defend the theory. Explains how science has come to an understanding of the first few minutes of history, using examples of discovery such as Hubble’s work at Mount Wilson. Also proposes what the universe might have looked like in the first few milliseconds after the explosion. Includes illustrations and bibliography. See also: 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory; 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems; 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe. 2157
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discoveries as cosmic rays and other forms of radiation resulted. In the microcosm particle, physicists began to explore the inside of the atom hoping to discover clues there that might lead back to the first few minutes of history. Their search required the building of particle accelerators in an effort to duplicate the energy of the initial explosion, which brought the scientific community into the subatomic world full of unknown particles. Lemaître’s theory required scientists to fit antimatter, quarks, and other new forms of matter being discovered into the picture of early universal history. Although Lemaître’s theory is a theory of science, it had many philosophical ramifications. If it is possible to run the film backward and understand the cause-andeffect beginning of the universe, would it then be possible to project forward with certainty where the universe would be in any number of years? Did this theory then support a deterministic view of reality? How did creatures with free will fit into the picture? Another philosophical and scientific question centers on the cause of the explosion and time. Einstein proved that time is relative to space and speed, but if the universe was once contained in one large atom taking up nothing defined as space and traveling at no speed, what was the cause of the explosion? The explosion could not be the result of changing circumstances over time, because time did not exist. The search for all the answers of the early history of the universe has been successful back to the first few thousandths of a second after the explosion. What nature was like in those fractions of a second and before requires a grand theory that unifies all of physics. —Charles Murphy
Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory
Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four
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Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four The consolidation of the U.S. auto industry into three large firms began in the 1920’s and demonstrated that only large and efficient producers could survive. Locale: United States Categories: Trade and commerce; organizations and institutions; transportation; manufacturing and industry Key Figures William Crapo Durant (1861-1947), founder of General Motors and its president, 1915-1920 Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966), president of General Motors, 1923-1937, and chair of the board, 19371956 Walter P. Chrysler (1875-1940), founder of the Chrysler Corporation and its president, 1925-1940 Henry Ford (1863-1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company Charles E. Duryea (1861-1938), cofounder of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company J. Frank Duryea (1869-1967), cofounder of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company Benjamin Briscoe (1869-1945), organizer of the United States Motor Company and its president, 1910-1912 Summary of Event In 1921, the number of firms actively producing automobiles in the United States was eighty-eight; by 1927, the number had declined to forty-four. Consolidation of the American automobile industry continued for decades after 1927 as a result of basic economic factors associated with motor vehicle production. Brothers Charles E. Duryea and J. Frank Duryea built the first gasoline-powered automobile in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1893. In 1896, they organized the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, the first American company to make automobiles powered by gasoline internal combustion engines. During the next thirty years, more than fifteen hundred firms entered the industry. These firms included builders producing automobiles powered by steam, electricity, and gasoline. The fortyfour firms surviving by 1927 almost exclusively produced gasoline-powered vehicles. Early automobile factories consisted of buildings with little machinery and were devoted mostly to the final assembly of vehicles. In 1908, the Ford Motor Company, founded by Henry Ford in 1903, began output of 2158
the Model T, which used standardized, interchangeable parts, most produced by Ford itself. These factors allowed production on a modern assembly line. In 1901, Olds Motor Works (founded in 1897 as the Olds Motor Vehicle Company) used the first crude assembly line, consisting of cars supported by rolling coasters moving along wooden platforms. Ford, however, employed a more sophisticated assembly line on a conveyor system, with complex systems to handle materials and highly specialized labor. Mass-production techniques reduced the cost of building an automobile and therefore cut the retail price. The 1907 Ford Model K had a retail price of $2,750. The mass-produced Ford Model T retailed for a base price of $850 in 1908; by the early 1920’s, the base price had fallen to $265. The growth of Ford’s production to two million cars per year by 1923 was generated internally, except for the purchase of the Lincoln Motor Company in 1922. The success of Ford indicated to other auto manufacturers that mass-production techniques were needed. To become large and compete, most firms had to undertake mergers and consolidations. The creation of General Motors and the United States Motor Company in the early 1900’s established a pattern for auto industry consolidation. In 1904, William Crapo Durant, a wagon and carriage builder from Flint, Michigan, organized a recapitalization of the Buick Motor Company, founded in 1902. Benjamin Briscoe of Maxwell-Briscoe, organized in 1904, met with Durant in early 1908 to discuss combining about twenty manufacturers. Durant rejected the idea because too many divergent interests would be involved. Briscoe persisted in his automotive consolidation efforts and founded the United States Motor Company in 1910. It included more than 150 affiliated companies, with the Maxwell-Briscoe Company, Columbia Motor Car Company, Dayton Motor Car Company, and Brush Runabout Company forming the nucleus. The company went into receivership in 1912; the liquidation created the Maxwell Motor Company, which later reorganized as the Chrysler Motors Corporation. In September, 1908, Durant incorporated General Motors (GM). Within one year, GM acquired Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac Automobile Company (founded 1902), Oakland Motor Car Company (founded 1907), Reliance Motor Truck Company (founded 1903), and the
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Nash (founded as the Thomas B. Jeffrey Company in 1902), Hudson (founded 1909), and Willys-Overland (founded 1903). Significance The major impact of the consolidation of the U.S. auto industry to forty-four firms by 1927 was the recognition that the production of motor vehicles requires large volumes for efficient operation and survival because of the high fixed costs of developing new vehicles and equipping plants. As of the 1980’s, achieving minimum costs per unit required an annual output of about 200,000 units in auto assembly and 500,000 units in engine plants. These levels of output for efficient operation were consistent with the experience of Japanese producers—including Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, and Mitsubishi—that had built plants in the United States after 1980. The thirty-two auto assembly plants in operation in the United States in 1993 had capacity levels consistent with these estimates. The number of auto assembly plants nearly doubled in the late 1990’s as non-U.S. companies built additional plants. Consolidation of the auto industry continued from the late 1920’s through the 1980’s. The Great Depression of the 1930’s caused the failure of several firms. U.S. auto production declined from 4.5 million in 1929 to 1.1 million in 1932, and output did not recover to the 1929 level until 1949. Industry volume was insufficient to support the number of producers in existence. Once-prominent firms such as Chandler-Cleveland, Marmon, Peerless, Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg, Hupmobile, Graham, and Pierce-Arrow exited the industry in the 1929-1941 period. Following World War II, a series of mergers occurred among independent automobile manufacturers. In 1954, the Studebaker Corporation was purchased by the Packard Motor Car Company. The combined car and truck output of Studebaker and Packard was nearly 400,000 units in 1950. Studebaker-Packard Corporation was unable to generate sufficient sales to be efficient, however, even after consolidating automobile production into one U.S. assembly plant in 1957 from three in 1954. Output was 164,000 vehicles in 1959, but by the final year of the company’s production in 1966, Studebaker-Packard built only 2,000 cars in a small Canadian plant. In 1953, the Kaiser-Fraser Corporation, founded in 1947, merged with Willys-Overland. Kaiser-Willys ended its passenger car output in 1955 and concentrated on production of the Jeep. In 1969, Kaiser-Jeep Corporation was purchased by American Motors Corporation (AMC), which was formed in 1954 through the merger 2159
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Rapid Truck Company (founded 1902). The rapid expansion of GM caused a cash shortage. Bankers agreed to lend GM fifteen million dollars on the condition that they could name a new board of directors. As a result, Durant remained a director but was excluded from management. He continued his interest in automobiles, however, and founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with former race driver Louis Chevrolet. Meanwhile, Durant continued to acquire General Motors stock. He was able to reassume control of GM in 1916, when Chevrolet Motor Company bought controlling shares of General Motors. In 1916, Durant also created United Motors Corporation, a combination of five parts manufacturers including Perlman Rim corporation, Dayton Engineering Laboratories, Remy Electric, New Departure Manufacturing, and Hyatt Roller Bearing Company. In 1918, United Motors became part of General Motors. The 1920 recession caused financial problems at General Motors. After a series of moves to raise the market value of GM stock, Durant sold his GM stock to the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company, which assumed control of 36 percent of the common stock of GM. Durant resigned as president of GM by the end of 1920. In 1921, Maxwell went into receivership. Walter P. Chrysler, who began his automotive career at Buick in 1911 and headed the Buick division of GM until 1920, was brought in to reorganize Maxwell. In 1924, Maxwell produced a car bearing the Chrysler name. In 1925, Chrysler completed a takeover of Maxwell and incorporated the firm as Chrysler Motors Corporation. Chrysler needed an efficient manufacturing facility to compete with GM and Ford. In 1928, Chrysler purchased Dodge Brothers, Inc. (founded in 1914), which had a modern assembly, forge, and foundry plant and was then the third largest U.S. automobile producer. Chrysler thus became the successor to a series of consolidations that began in 1910 with the founding of United States Motor Company. The consolidations included bringing the Everitt-Metzger-Flanders Company and Chalmers Motor Company into Maxwell and the purchase of Dodge. With modern facilities available, Chrysler introduced a low-priced car called the Plymouth to compete with Ford and Chevrolet and a medium-priced car called the De Soto. During the 1920’s, the U.S. automobile industry evolved into a structure with three dominant firms— General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. A number of important independent firms also existed, including Studebaker (founded as a wagon maker in 1852, with auto production beginning in 1904), Packard (founded 1899),
Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four
Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four of Nash and Hudson. American Motors produced more than 400,000 cars in 1962 and 1963 but was unable to maintain sales at that level even after combining with Jeep. Renault of France bought control of AMC in the early 1980’s but was unable to generate sufficient sales to achieve efficient low-cost production in the AMC facilities. Combined AMC and Jeep production in 1986 was 280,000 units. During the 1980’s, Chrysler Corporation emerged from a decade of financial problems during which it nearly entered receivership. Lee Iacocca, a former Ford executive, became president and board chair of Chrysler in 1978 and reorganized the firm to be more efficient in production and marketing strategies. In 1987, Chrysler purchased American Motors to obtain the Jeep line of vehicles, to strengthen the Chrysler product line, and to increase Chrysler volume to achieve more efficient levels of production. A consolidation beginning in 1910 with the emergence of Maxwell as a survivor of the United States Motor Company had thus led to the development of Chrysler, which now included the remnants of Hudson, Nash, Willys-Overland, and Kaiser-Fraser. The consolidation of the U.S. auto industry into three major producers demonstrated that auto producers must be large to have the capital resources necessary to adopt lean production techniques and to gain the full advantages of large-scale production. Lean production utilizes multiskilled workers with flexible machinery to produce large numbers of vehicles efficiently. The major Japanese producers pioneered the use of lean production processes in the 1970’s. In the early 1980’s, Ford and Chrysler invested the capital to become lean producers. General Motors began to adopt lean production practices in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In order to generate the production volume necessary to be an efficient producer, an automaker must offer the public a substantial product line. At General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan recognized the importance of a full line of vehicles. Sloan joined General Motors in 1918, when United Motors, which he headed, was acquired by GM. In 1923, he became president of GM and created a management and production system that became a model for industry in general. Under Sloan’s leadership, GM became the largest U.S. automobile manufacturer. Sloan’s product policy was that GM should produce a full line of cars covering every price field, from low-priced basic transportation to high-priced luxury cars. GM’s commitment to a full-line philosophy—lowpriced Chevrolets, medium-priced Pontiacs (formerly Oaklands), Oldsmobiles, and Buicks, and high-priced 2160
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Cadillacs—combined with the success of the production and financial controls instituted by Sloan, set a pattern for the industry. Chrysler recognized this trend in the industry when the Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, and Chrysler lines were offered in the late 1920’s. Chrysler achieved refinement of the full-line concept in 1987, when the acquisition of American Motors enabled the company to add the Jeep utility vehicle to its product line. Ford initially maintained a limited product offering of low-priced Fords and a few luxury Lincolns. Introduction of the medium-priced Mercury in the late 1930’s indicated that Ford now recognized the need to offer a full line of vehicles to remain competitive. By 1927, the U.S. automobile industry had three major producers. The development of production, design, and marketing techniques over the subsequent years evolved an industry in which only those three firms became large enough to survive as U.S.-based automobile producers. Foreign firms, however, made increasingly substantial incursions into the market and established U.S. plants to augment their home production. — Robert R. Ebert Further Reading American Automobile Manufacturers Association. Automobiles of America. 5th ed. Lakeland, Fla.: Cars & Parts, 1997. Excellent chronicle of the development of the U.S. automobile industry and the major persons involved. Features an appendix that lists all the makers of automobiles in the United States since 1893. Edwards, Charles E. Dynamics of the United States Automobile Industry. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1965. Provides excellent analysis of consolidation in the American auto industry following World War II. Discusses manufacturing, marketing, and management problems of independent automobile manufacturers in depth. Includes tables and graphs. Farber, David. Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Biographical work focuses on Sloan’s years at GM. Sheds light on Sloan’s personality, his politics, and his motivations as a manager. Includes photographs and index. Moritz, Michael, and Barrett Seaman. Going for Broke: The Chrysler Story. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981. Presents an analysis of the problems at Chrysler Corporation in the late 1970’s. Excellent, readable history of the early years of Chrysler Corporation and its predecessor firms.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Seltzer, Lawrence H. A Financial History of the American Automobile Industry. 1928. Reprint. New York: A. M. Kelley, 1973. Excellent comprehensive examination of the early years of the industry. Provides insight into the consolidation of the auto industry from the perspective of an analyst writing in the 1920’s. Includes useful statistical information. Sloan, Alfred P., Jr. My Years with General Motors. 1963. Reprint. New York: Doubleday, 1990. Definitive, readable biographical work on Sloan, the person primarily responsible for management decisions at GM during a critical thirty-year period. Includes his analysis of policy and product development at the company. White, Lawrence J. The Automobile Industry Since 1945. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Presents a thorough analysis of economic trends in the American auto industry following World War II. Invaluable for readers interested in the fundamental
Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way economic forces that have determined the structure of the U.S. auto industry. Includes excellent footnotes and bibliography. Womack, James P., Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos. The Machine That Changed the World. New York: Rawson Associates, 1990. Definitive work on the concept of lean production presents the results of a five-year study of the global automobile industry conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Includes graphs, tables, footnotes, and bibliography. See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts; 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday; Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure. 1927
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Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way Jan Hendrik Oort provided convincing evidence of the correctness of Bertil Lindblad’s proposal that the Milky Way is a rotating spiral like many of the exterior galaxies. Locale: Leiden, the Netherlands Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Jan Hendrik Oort (1900-1992), Dutch astronomer Bertil Lindblad (1895-1965), Swedish astronomer John Stanley Plaskett (1865-1941), Canadian astronomer Summary of Event In 1927, Jan Hendrik Oort published data that provided dynamical proof of the proper motion of the stars near Earth. This evidence established that the observed effects were the result of differential velocities that could best be explained as the result of movement in the spiral arm of a large galaxy. He found the galactic center in the direction of Sagittarius in opposition to the direction Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn had found, but in accord with the findings of Harlow Shapley. Oort came to this study quite naturally, as he had been a student of Kapteyn, the famous Dutch astronomer who was active in the study of
the structure of the Milky Way. At the age of seventeen, Oort went to the University of Gröningen to study with Kapteyn. In his elementary lectures, Kapteyn emphasized deriving interpretation from observation rather than hypotheses or conjectures; in many ways, Oort’s career followed this dictum. After earning a degree at Gröningen, Oort studied at Yale University in the United States. He began work in 1924 at the Leiden Observatory, becoming a professor in 1935 and director of the observatory in 1945. Oort was always fascinated by the conflict between Kapteyn’s star counts and Shapley’s studies of the globular clusters. Oort hoped to resolve this conflict and applauded Bertil Lindblad’s rather bold proposal of the solution to the problem. Lindblad was a Swedish astronomer who had suggested that a rotating model of our galaxy could explain most of the observed phenomena. Oort was aware that no globular clusters appeared near the galactic plane and surmised that gas and dust were obscuring them. It did not occur to him until 1925 that the same obscuration was causing Kapteyn to propose a much too small stellar system as well, because his assumption of uniform luminosity was not valid. This was the key to unraveling the conflict between the two systems. Prior to Lindblad and Oort’s work with the motion of 2161
Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way the Milky Way, dynamical astronomy was almost solely the province of the solar system specialists. Oort recognized from Kapteyn’s discovery of the star streams, and Karl Schwarzschild’s interpretation of them as an ellipsoidal distribution of stellar motions, that there was potential for the dynamical study of our galaxy. He was also influenced by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington and Sir James Jeans. This interest in dynamics led to his 1927 presentation and was a consistent theme throughout his varied career, extending to the dynamics of star clusters, stellar systems, galactic clusters, and finally superclusters. Oort consistently emphasized the lack of homogeneity in the distribution of galaxies, whereas Edwin Powell Hubble and others emphasized the large-scale homogeneity of the distribution of galaxies. Oort began his research in the middle of the 1920’s with a study of high-velocity stars. Other astronomers had already found a strange phenomenon, namely, that stars with radial velocities of 150 kilometers (93.2 miles) per second or higher tended toward one direction in galactic longitude. Oort studied somewhat lower-velocity stars and found a surprisingly sharp limit at 65 kilometers (40.4 miles) per second, above which all the stars were on the same side of Earth and below which the stars were uniformly distributed over all longitudes. Oort’s 1926 doctoral dissertation contained a full description of the effect but an inadequate explanation, for he was still attempting to explain the phenomenon on the basis of the dynamics of a local system within Kapteyn’s perception of the shape and size of the Milky Way. He noted, however, the concentration of globular clusters in the galactic plane and in only one direction. He further noted other objects with the same kind of concentration. He stated that the globular clusters had the same type of motion as the high-velocity stars and that their average velocity was about 92 kilometers (57.2 miles) per second, well above the 65-kilometer-per-second limit. The data pointed toward the strength of Shapley’s contention that the universe was larger than Kapteyn perceived and that Earth was far from the center. Within a year, however, rather than proposing a collection of swarms drifting in the large system of globular clusters—which had been Kapteyn’s compromise with Shapley’s evidence—Lindblad suggested that the Milky Way consisted of concentric subsystems at various velocities, with the high velocities the consequence of the faster rotation of inner stars around the galactic center far from the Sun in that direction. Oort then provided the evidence from his studies of the differential rotation of the galaxy, which conformed to Lindblad’s model. He dem2162
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 onstrated that Kapteyn’s streaming effect was caused by the inner stars catching up with the Sun while the outer stars lagged behind. This initial research could have implied concentric rings of a circular or elliptical galaxy, and his research continued seeking firmer evidence for the spiral nature of the Milky Way. He established in 1930 (allowing for Robert Julius Trumpler’s discovery of dust clouds that absorbed light and made distant star clouds appear fainter and more distant than they were) that Earth’s orbit of rotation was 30,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy, which was a reduction of Shapley’s 50,000 light-year estimate. He found the Sun to be following a fairly circular orbit at a rate of approximately 220 kilometers (136.7 miles) per second, a velocity that would lead to orbiting the galactic center in approximately 230 million years. Next, Oort investigated the relationship between his previous velocity distribution studies and the decrease in density of star numbers with increasing distance from the galactic center and increasing distance from the galactic plane. He determined the density of matter in the vicinity of the Sun and made estimates of density at other points toward the center for the purpose of computing the gravitational forces and reaching a comprehensive dynamical model of the distribution of the mass. He noted that the high-velocity globular clusters could not be held by a system unless it was at least two hundred times more massive than Kapteyn’s universe. By 1932, Oort had established that only about twothirds of the mass of the Milky Way could be accounted for from the known stars and gas; he thus implied a considerable unseen mass in the galactic plane that was hidden by gas and dust. The distribution of the mass also implied the spiral nature of the galaxy. The desire to penetrate the unseen core led Oort into radio astronomy. During World War II, while the Netherlands was occupied and observation was denied, Oort turned to theoretical work on the structure of the Milky Way and encouraged his student Hendrik Christoffell van de Hulst to study the hydrogen atom emission in radio wavelengths. In 1944, van de Hulst announced that hydrogen ought to emit at the 21-centimeter (8.3-inch) wavelength. After the war, Oort and C. A. Muller built a 21-centimeter receiver and hooked it to an 8-meter (26.2foot) antenna owned by the Dutch Post and Telegraph Service. An unfortunate fire destroyed their experiment and before they could rebuild, Edward Mills Purcell and Harold Ewen announced observations of hydrogen emissions. Oort duplicated their effort six weeks later. Oort and Muller then mapped a halo of hydrogen around
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the galaxy; in the following years, they went on to study the galactic structure in the optically obscured center, mapping the distribution of gas in the galactic disk. This gas distribution, as well as the earlier research on mass distribution, supported the spiral nature of the galaxy. These studies verified rotation rates near the center and found a concentrated mass. The variety of Oort’s career interests led him to propose the existence of a comet cloud outside the planetary orbits as an explanation for the origin of comets and to conclude that the Crab nebula was the supernova of 1054 c.e. recorded by Chinese astronomers. He studied the origin and evaporation of solid particles in interstellar space with van de Hulst. His wide-ranging interests contributed to his remarkably long, active career in astronomy.
results focused renewed efforts to resolve the problem of the distance scale. The problem of identifying the nature and magnitude of absorption of light by gas and dust continued into the 1930’s. Trumpler’s work provided the first definitive proof of an absorbing medium that Oort had insisted was present. Those who followed Trumpler were able to use the absorption he found to resolve the issues among Kapteyn’s, Oort’s, and Shapley’s models of the galaxy and the conflict between Oort’s and Shapley’s distances. Oort’s extremely long career allowed him to follow up his own work by moving into radio astronomy in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, when his research resulted in more complete confirmation of the spiral structure of the galaxy. Later studies have demonstrated that Trumpler’s uniform absorbing medium is really small clouds with irregular patterns of absorption in different parts of the sky. Oort’s early work stimulated the development of better photography, faster films, shorter focal lengths, and the use of radio astronomy. Oort’s many honors were well deserved, and the fertility of his astronomical efforts can only be admired. His long career spans the full development of a comprehensive view of the nature, structure, and size of our galaxy. —Ivan L. Zabilka Further Reading Berendzen, Richard, Richard Hart, and Daniel Seeley. Man Discovers the Galaxies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Excellent cosmological history includes a somewhat technical description of Lindblad’s and Oort’s efforts to comprehend the dynamics of the Milky Way. Notes the importance of Oort’s evidence for later cosmological studies. Ferguson, Kitty. Measuring the Universe: Our Historic Quest to Chart the Horizons of Space and Time. New York: Walker, 1999. Examines the history of humankind’s efforts to measure and understand the size and structure of the universe. Chapter 7 includes discussion of research concerning the Milky Way, including Oort’s work. Features glossary and index. Motz, Lloyd, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Story of Astronomy. New York: Plenum, 1995. Presents the history of astronomy from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 17 includes discussion of Oort’s work and galactic research in general. Features bibliography and index. Oort, Jan Hendrik. “The Development of Our Insight into the Structure of the Galaxy Between 1920 and 1940.” In Education in and History of Modern Astron2163
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Significance Jan Hendrik Oort’s work in seeking to resolve the issue of size, shape, and motion of the Milky Way was a natural consequence of his studies under Kapteyn. His primary concern was to resolve the conflict between the size of Kapteyn’s “universe” and that of Shapley, which was several times larger. Significantly, he was able to blend physics, mathematics, and astronomy into a dynamical interpretation of the observed phenomena that took into account gaseous absorption of light in the galactic plane and toward the center of the galaxy. He was able to provide evidence for a rotating spiral galaxy that resolved many issues and made Shapley’s view with modifications more acceptable than in its previous form. Oort’s published observational confirmation of differential galactic rotation, built on the mathematical theoretical work of Lindblad, encouraged other astronomers to search for further evidence and to continue efforts to resolve the remaining problems of scale, which were not finally completed until Walter Baade’s work on the two stellar populations appeared in 1952. Oort had a great effect on John Stanley Plaskett, who spent much time studying hot blue stars (types O and B) at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia. Plaskett applied Oort’s analysis to the radial velocities of faint B-type stars, which, because they are extremely bright, can be detected at great distances. His analysis reduced the relative error of their radial velocities. His independent method produced results close to Oort’s value for distance and direction of the galactic center. Oort established that Kapteyn’s galaxy was too small and Shapley’s too large. Plaskett’s verification of Oort’s
Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established omy, edited by Richard Berendzen. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1972. Historical lecture delivered at the New York Academy in September, 1971, in which Oort discussed his work and its relation to that of several others active in this field. _______. “Some Notes on My Life as an Astronomer.” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 19 (1981): 1-5. Brief survey of some of Oort’s early accomplishments, focusing especially on his galactic studies. Indicates the influences that led him into galactic studies. Stromgren, Bengt. “An Appreciation of Jan Hendrik Oort.” In Galaxies and the Universe, edited by Lodewijk Woltjer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Tribute to Oort by an eminent Danish astronomer provides excellent commentary on Oort’s career to that point. Whitney, Charles A. The Discovery of Our Galaxy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1971. Reprint. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1988. Includes concise and clear exposition of Oort’s work. Also discusses the issue of whether the Milky Way’s spiral arms lead or trail as they rotate, which was an issue between Lindblad and Hubble, with Hubble eventually able to demonstrate that they trail. Includes illustrations, glossary, and bibliography. See also: 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars; Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson; Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra.
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established With the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. government undertook the task of protecting consumers. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Agriculture; health and medicine; organizations and institutions Key Figures Walter Gilbert Campbell (1877-1963), head of the Food and Drug Administration, 1927-1944 George P. Larrick (1901-1968), commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 1954-1965 Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930), first head of the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry Summary of Event The establishment of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grew out of a need to enforce regulations intended to protect the nation’s food and drug supplies. The push for regulating food and drugs began soon after the United States was founded, when Massachusetts enacted a general food law in 1785. The first federal protection legislation came in 1848, when Congress passed the Drug Importation Act, which enabled U.S. customs inspectors to stop adulterated drugs from entering the country. During the second half of the nineteenth cen2164
tury, many new drugs appeared on the market containing unknown and questionable substances, including highly addicting ones such as morphine, heroin, and cocaine. Congress tried, unsuccessfully, to respond to the problem by introducing more than 190 bills between 1879 and 1906 to regulate food and drugs. At the turn of the century, however, came renewed public interest in the conditions under which food was produced. As a result of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906), which exposed conditions in the meatpacking industry, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act in June, 1906. Enforced by the Bureau of Chemistry within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the act made the interstate commerce of mislabeled or adulterated food, drinks, and drugs a federal crime. The act defined food as all substances used for food, drink, or seasoning for human or animal consumption; adulteration was defined as adding substances to reduce the quality or strength, hiding damaged conditions, or using filthy or diseased animals in production. Harvey W. Wiley, the USDA chief chemist who was also known as the father of the pure food movement, led the Bureau of Chemistry’s efforts to enforce the 1906 act, although the act gave him no power to invoke fines or penalties. Frustrated with the limitations of the 1906 act, Wiley retired from the Bureau of Chemistry in 1912 and was
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In 1940, the FDA moved from the Department of Agriculture to the Federal Security Agency, and Walter Campbell was named the first commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA made two other moves over the next thirty years—to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953 and to the Public Health Service under the Department of Health and Human Services in 1968. By the early 2000’s, the agency had nine thousand employees working at offices or inspection posts in nearly 170 cities. FDA personnel conducted about sixteen thousand visits annually to facilities under its oversight. In 1988, the Food and Drug Administration Act officially established the FDA as an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, with a commissioner appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. This act also broadly listed the responsibilities for the commissioner in four major areas: research, enforcement, education, and information. All responsibilities were related to the primary goal of protecting the country’s food and drug supplies. Significance The FDA’s multitude of responsibilities were geared toward protecting the food, drugs, and cosmetics available to U.S. consumers. By establishing quality standards and conducting periodic inspections, the agency helped companies comply with the complicated regulations governing food, drug, and cosmetic production. Every substance that went into a product—from pesticides used to control insect problems in the food industry to color additives in cosmetics—came under FDA control. The FDA also worked to ensure that foreign products sold in the United States were produced under sanitary conditions. In addition, the FDA served as an information resource for American consumers regarding the quality of thousands of products. Through consumer consultants and publications such as FDA Consumer and FDA Drug Bulletin, the agency brought information as well as warnings to the public’s attention. The FDA also used the media to prevent illness from widespread contaminations such as those that often follow natural disasters. Even after the 1938 law provided increased options for the FDA, the agency continued to be hampered by limitations. FDA regulation applied only to interstate commerce; food prices, advertising, and mailed food products did not fall under FDA control, and meat and poultry were controlled by another agency. After 1938, once a violation was determined to have been committed, several options were available to the agency, includ2165
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succeeded by Carl Alsberg. During the 1910’s, the bureau struggled to enforce the law. Several cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court, including one in 1914 in which the Court ruled that the government needed merely to show that a substance might affect public health in order to declare it illegal. In 1921, attorney Walter Gilbert Campbell, who had been chief inspector of the Bureau of Chemistry since 1907, took over as the bureau’s head. Aware of the bureau’s struggles to enforce the 1906 law, Congress began to consider creating a separate lawenforcement agency charged with administering the country’s food and drug laws. With the creation of the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (FDIA) in 1927, the country had its first regulatory agency dedicated to enforcing public health laws specifically related to food and drugs. Established as a separate agency under the Department of Agriculture, the FDIA became the Food and Drug Administration in 1930. Under Campbell’s direction, the agency addressed many problems in the food and drug industries and began to educate the public on nutrition and health. In 1933, the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the FDA to recommend a complete revision of the 1906 law. Roosevelt demanded consumer protection for the millions of Americans struggling during the Depression and looked to the FDA to end questionable practices within the food and drug industries. Unfortunately, it took a major public health threat to prompt Congress to enact a revised food and drug law. In 1937, the S. E. Massengill Company manufactured, without proper testing, a product called Elixir of Sulfanilamide for the treatment of sore throats. Almost twelve gallons were distributed before the FDA received notice of deaths attributed to the elixir. Upon testing, the FDA found the product to contain a highly toxic solvent related to radiator antifreeze. Under the 1906 law, the FDA could do little, and more than one hundred people, mostly children, died. This incident dramatized the desperate need for change, and strong prompting by the FDA led Congress to pass the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938. With more than forty provisions, this act served as the nation’s basic food law and as the basis for the FDA’s actions. The law set food standards, placed cosmetics under regulation for the first time, and required that all new drugs be tested for safety. Moreover, the law gave the FDA the power to inspect factories and to seek the penalty of court injunctions. (The power to inspect without prior consent was added in 1953.) It was on the basis of this law and future amendments that the FDA established firm regulations to protect the country’s consumers.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established ing recalls, seizures, fines, and injunctions. Until 1985, the maximum fine was $1,000 for misdemeanor violations and $10,000 for felony violations. After federal revisions, the maximum fine was raised to $100,000 per offense and $250,000 for a felonious offense or one that resulted in death. Corporations faced fines twice as high. Noting an increase in criminal violations in the late 1980’s, the FDA opened the Office of Criminal Investigations to deal with criminal offenses. Passage of the 1938 Food and Drug Act received little public attention. After World War II brought several technological advances that companies wanted to carry over into consumer use, however, many products and substances needed FDA approval. Under Commissioner George P. Larrick, the FDA worked to set strict regulations and research guidelines to protect consumers. In the 1950’s, the agency increased its regulation of food production. In 1954, Congress passed the Pesticide Amendment, which gave the FDA the power to set and enforce pesticide tolerances in foods. (The newly created Environmental Protection Agency took over this area in 1970.) The Food Additives Amendment in 1958 charged the FDA with establishing the proven safety of all chemical additives before they were used in food. One year later, the “Generally Recognized as Safe,” or GRAS, list appeared, which included the most common substances used in food production—including salt, pepper, sugar, and vinegar—that were permissible and excluded from testing. That same year, the Delaney Clause to the 1938 act prohibited the use of substances if they were proven to be carcinogenic in animals. With the addition of the Color Additives Amendment in 1960, no substance could be put into the U.S. food supply without first being determined safe. The responsibility to prove safety fell on the producers, and the responsibility for policing the producers fell on the FDA. During the 1960’s, several problems with the manufacture of baby food and infant formula showed that companies could not be relied upon to police themselves. As a result of these problems, the FDA pushed for the 1980 Infant Formula Act and its 1986 amendment, which strengthened quality standards and established recall procedures. In addition to developing strict guidelines for approving substances for use in food, the FDA also recalled some products after they had been approved. In response to new medical information regarding cancer, the FDA removed such products as cyclamates and saccharin from the food supply. When necessary, the agency also responded to concerns about contaminated seafood and other products. 2166
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The FDA also worked to educate the public about good nutrition. The labeling of food proved to be an integral part of raising public awareness. Food labels had been under federal control since 1906, but they became more important in the 1980’s. Increased public attention to fitness caused the FDA to lower the recommended diet to 2,000 calories per day in 1980. In addition, the FDA and the Department of Agriculture revised the recommended diet from the “basic four” food groups to the “food pyramid” of the 1990’s. The 1990’s also brought new FDA guidelines that required uniform labels on all food products and defined such food-related terms as “lower,” “light,” and “free.” The FDA provided consumers and doctors with the security that drugs were safe and uniform. With the emergence of a number of chemicals during World War II, pharmacology became a vital field of medicine and one that relied on the resources of the FDA. Antibiotics appeared as a direct result of World War II, and the FDA responded by requiring the certification of five different antibiotics by 1949, including penicillin and streptomycin. Manufacturers were required to test for efficacy and to keep distribution records so that entire batches could be recalled if necessary. Soon after, companies were required to keep distribution records of all drugs. The importance of this policy was demonstrated in 1982, when the pain reliever Tylenol was linked to several poisoning cases and had to be recalled. Safety also came into play in the early 1960’s when the drug thalidomide, which had been widely used in Europe throughout the 1950’s as a supposedly safe sedative and antinausea treatment for pregnant women, came to the FDA for approval. Frances Kelsey, who was assigned to review the drug, learned of an association between the use of thalidomide and deformed babies and was instrumental in keeping the drug off the U.S. market. The FDA also controlled the distribution of drugs by determining which products would be available by prescription only—after 1952, these carried the warning “Caution: Federal law prohibits dispensing without prescription”—and which would be available over the counter. Several drugs previously available only by prescription started appearing in over-the-counter versions when the FDA established new guidelines in the 1970’s. The 1980’s also saw a dramatic increase in the availability of generic drugs, for which the FDA provided strict guidelines. Despite all the FDA’s efforts to monitor the drug industry, problems throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s pointed to a loophole in the 1938 law. Although manu-
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Further Reading Hawthorne, Fran. Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Examines the inner workings of the powerful agency, including how it makes decisions while under pressure from industry, agriculture, politicians, and consumers. Features notes, bibliography, and index. Hilts, Philip J. Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Documents the history of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from its establishment during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Emphasizes the FDA’s regulatory role and its battles against entrenched business interests. Mintz, Morton. By Prescription Only. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967. Covers the role of the FDA in regulating the drug industry. Discusses the problems of drug testing and regulation as well as the role of advertising and the media in promoting new drugs. Patrick, Bill. The Food and Drug Administration. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Covers the history and influence of the FDA on the food and drug industries. Also discusses the societal impact of the agency’s work. Young, James Harvey. American Health Quackery: Collected Essays. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. Discusses the scams that have pervaded medical practice in the United States and how the FDA has responded to false claims and misinformation. See also: Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truthin-Advertising Code; 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
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facturers were required to prove safety, they were not required to prove effectiveness. Many “safe” products were consequently approved even though they were not effective. Congress investigated the issue in the early 1960’s, and in 1962, reforms were passed that required all new drugs to prove both safety and effectiveness. The reforms also called for manufacturers to report the benefits and risks of their products to the FDA and medical professionals, and the FDA was charged with evaluating the drugs approved between 1938 and 1962 for effectiveness. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s, two unrelated issues, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and breast implants, brought increased pressures on the FDA. Throughout the 1980’s, critics and AIDS activists charged the FDA with being too slow to test and release drugs. The FDA did not approve an AIDS test for blood until 1985. Frustrated with the delayed approvals, AIDS sufferers often turned to fraudulent “cures” and highly unpredictable experimental procedures available in other countries. The FDA also came under fire for problems with silicone breast implants. The Medical Device Amendments of 1976 had provided the same guidelines for these devices as for drugs; another measure in 1990 compelled hospitals and other medical facilities to report any problems with medical devices that resulted in serious illness, injury, or death. These amendments came under heavy criticism when silicone breast implants were found to be dangerous in the early 1990’s. Many again thought that the FDAhad moved too slowly in response to the issue. The FDA has unquestionably had a tremendous effect on American life. Protecting the products that account for more than 25 percent of a consumer’s budget, the FDA has worked to ensure that those products are safe and of the highest quality. Once it had been given power to enforce the country’s food and drug laws, the agency made significant advances in ending questionable practices that could harm public health. —Jennifer Davis
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established
British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 1, 1927
British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered The British Broadcasting Corporation, a public institution rather than a privately owned company, set the world’s standards for quality production in radio and television. Locale: London, England Categories: Radio and television; communications and media; organizations and institutions Key Figures John Charles Walsham Reith (1889-1971), first director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), prime minister of Great Britain, 1923-1924, 1924-1929, and 1935-1937 Godfrey Isaacs (1867-1925), managing director of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company Peter Eckersley (1892-1963), chief engineer of the British Broadcasting Corporation Joseph Albert Pease (First Baron Gainford; 18601943), first chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation Summary of Event After several years of evolution and development, the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., a private company, was rechartered in late 1926 as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). On January 1, 1927, the new entity officially came into being. The new BBC, however, was not a radical departure from what had previously existed. Rather, the new public corporation was a logical outcome of various social, cultural, institutional, and political developments established long before the founding of the private company in 1922. The development of the transmission of sound by “wireless” broadcasting instead of through telegraphic wire methods began in the nineteenth century. Numerous scientists and inventors, particularly Guglielmo Marconi, provided the theory and the technology. Electronic wave transmission also coincided with other fundamental changes in media communication. In Great Britain, Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) revolutionized print journalism with his newspaper the Daily Mail, a development paralleled by the accomplishments of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in the United States, and motion pictures started to affect society as early as the 1890’s. Even the possibility of television was 2168
predicted before the end of the century. Wireless development was not unique. World War I added to the interest and application of wireless technology. When the war ended in 1918, however, the wireless, or radio, was still primarily a technology pursued on an amateur level. In Great Britain, the General Post Office had been given responsibility for transmitting telegrams in 1869 and for licensing various wireless stations in 1904. Unlike in the United States, where government involvement in influencing the direction and content of radio broadcasting was initially minimal, in the United Kingdom the government played a much larger role. The leading British radio company was the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, headed by its managing director, Godfrey Isaacs, who was not alone in seeing the possibilities inherent in radio. On June 15, 1920, Lord Northcliffe’s Daily Mail sponsored a radio concert by the famous singer Dame Nellie Melba, and the concert was heard all over Europe. Nothing in radio history up to that time had so captured the public’s attention. The Marconi Company was the largest but not the only private radio company in Great Britain. In many quarters, however, there was a fear of excessive competition and chaotic rivalry, and in May, 1922, the General Post Office took the lead in bringing together the Marconi Company and the other wireless companies in an attempt to bring order and comprehensiveness to radio service in Great Britain. The Marconi Company probably could have provided adequate service itself, but both its business rivals and most politicians, fearful of a private monopoly, were opposed to such a development. On the other hand, Post Office officials were reluctant to assume day-to-day operational control of the new technology. The result, after long negotiations, was the establishment of the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., in October, 1922. The new company represented two potentially conflicting aspects of radio broadcasting: The interests of private business were essentially economic, but it was also argued that there was a broader public interest that had to be served. The company’s shares were owned by the British manufacturers of wireless equipment. No advertising would be accepted as a means of financing radio; instead, a small fee would be collected by the Post Office from each individual owning a wireless receiver, or radio. Half of such fees would then be given to the company. There were issues other than advertising that had to be resolved. Newspaper proprietors feared the wireless as a
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cial capacity, he gave the BBC both the substance and image of quality and public service, a reputation that continued long after he left the BBC. The company grew rapidly. When the BBC was founded, it had only four employees; by December, 1923, the staff numbered almost four hundred. By the end of 1923, there were more than half a million privately owned receiver sets, and a year later the number had increased to more than a million. Such growth would undoubtedly have occurred even if Reith had not been the driving force of the BBC, but it was Reith more than anyone else who transformed the private company operating through a Post Office license into a public corporation. Of course, he was not the only figure committed to the public possibilities of the wireless, but it was his vision and leadership that led the way. In May, 1925, Great Britain’s postmaster general announced the appointment of a committee to examine the status of the BBC. Chaired by Lord Crawford, the committee ultimately accepted Reith’s argument that broadcasting must be for public service and should not merely be the province of private
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
John Charles Walsham Reith (front row, center) with staff outside the BBC’s headquarters in London in 1924. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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news competitor; thus, initially, the BBC was forbidden to have its own news service. Also, despite discussion of a second broadcasting company during the negotiations, the decision in 1922 was to give the British Broadcasting Company a monopoly. Finally, there was a concern that the BBC might present shows that were too controversial, particularly in regard to political, social, and economic issues such as birth control and socialism. The first chairman of the BBC was Joseph Albert Pease, First Baron Gainford, who remained on the BBC’s board until 1932. The key figure in the years that followed was John Charles Walsham Reith, a Scotsman who had been injured and disfigured in the war; Reith had had business experience, but he had not worked in radio. Nevertheless, in late 1922 he applied for the position of the BBC’s general manager and was accepted. By the following November, he had become managing director, and by the end of 1923, he was the recognized head of the BBC. Reith, whose father was a Presbyterian minister, believed that the function of the BBC should be primarily to educate rather than to entertain the public. In his offi-
British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered
British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered business interests. In Reith’s opinion, the British Broadcasting Company was a threat to the fulfillment of what the wireless could and should accomplish for the betterment of society. The Post Office had already arrived at a similar conclusion. In July, 1926, the postmaster general accepted the recommendations of the Crawford Committee and announced that a public corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, established by royal charter, would supersede the private British Broadcasting Company. In spite of dire predictions of socialism, bureaucracy, and monopoly, on January 1, 1927, the era of the British Broadcasting Corporation officially began. Significance The first chairman of the newly constituted BBC was Lord Clarendon, whose selection did not meet with Reith’s approval; he preferred Gainford. Reith was given a knighthood and named director-general. The corporation was chartered for ten years, and the chairman and the other four governors, including Gainford, served fiveyear terms. During Reith’s reign, his influence was paramount; he generally got his way with the chairman and the other governors, and it was his vision of the BBC that continued to govern the direction of radio broadcasting in Great Britain. Wireless in the United Kingdom had been strongly influenced by the development of radio in the United States in the years after World War I. In 1919, the private Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was created under the leadership of David Sarnoff. A competitor, Westinghouse, led the way in regular broadcasting beginning in 1921. By 1924, there were more than five hundred radio stations in the United States, and in spite of opposition to the practice, the American stations accepted advertising. British observers, including Godfrey Isaacs and Frank James Brown, an assistant secretary at the Post Office, although impressed by the business acuity of the American radio industry, predicted chaos in Great Britain if the same unregulated growth transpired. There was also agreement that advertising had no place on British radio. Monopoly rather than competition and licensing fees instead of advertising had been adopted when the British Broadcasting Company was founded in 1922, and the policy continued after the British Broadcasting Corporation began operation in 1927. Because licensing fees were paid through the General Post Office, the British government retained its ultimate hold on the BBC. Governmental oversight of, and possible interference with, radio broadcasts thus always existed. The early restrictions on discussing controversial is2170
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sues on the radio and on the BBC’s having its own news service were only gradually relaxed. Reith attempted to have the BBC provide live coverage of parliamentary debates, but he was rebuffed by the politicians of the day. The company did, however, broadcast a speech by King George V in April, 1924, that was heard by ten million people. Reith’s emphasis on public service saw him establish a number of advisory committees on religion, music, and education in order to give the proper tone and substance to radio programs. When newspaper publishers threatened to charge the BBC a fee for printing program announcements, Reith established Radio Times, which provided information on programs and developments. Founded in 1923, by the end of 1927 Radio Times was selling more than a million copies an issue; by the eve of World War II in 1939, it had a circulation of three million. By 1935, 98 percent of the British population had access to the programs of the BBC. One of the challenges for the BBC both before and after the creation of the public corporation in 1927 was the difficulty of being relevant and significant and yet at the same time noncontroversial. Reith hoped to have political issues seriously discussed on the radio by major politicians, but most only very reluctantly made use of the new technology. The 1920’s leaders of both the Liberal and Labour Parties, David Lloyd George and Ramsay MacDonald, were failures in the use of radio. The most successful politician to use the wireless in the 1920’s was Stanley Baldwin, prime minister in 1923 and then again from 1924 to 1929. Baldwin’s relaxed and conversational style in his 1924 campaign address anticipated the “fireside chats” of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930’s. Baldwin was the central figure in the most severe challenge to the BBC’s educative objectivity during the interwar years. In May, 1926, a general strike broke out in Great Britain, and the subsequent walkout by most British union workers seemed to some to threaten both representative government and the capitalist economic system. Winston Churchill, Baldwin’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, wished the BBC to become a mouthpiece for the government, but Reith refused, arguing that the BBC should remain objective in its reporting of events. A number of leading politicians spoke on the radio during the days of the strike, but none more effectively than Baldwin, whose calming words were widely credited with keeping the strike both peaceful and short. Years later, during World War II, Churchill’s own oratory, often carried on the BBC, inspired Great Britain and the world against the evils of Nazism.
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British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985. Excellent introduction to the BBC by a distinguished British scholar. Includes useful list of significant dates and a fine bibliography. _______. The Birth of Broadcasting, 1896-1927. Vol. 1 in The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom. 1961. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Presents the story of the beginnings of the BBC, up to its transformation into a public corporation in 1927. Features illustrations and index. Cain, John. The BBC: Seventy Years of Broadcasting. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1996. Lively, entertaining, and informative volume provides an ideal introduction to the history of BBC radio and television. Includes numerous photographs, including some depicting early television sets and transmitting apparatus. Crisell, Andrew. An Introductory History of British Broadcasting. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Comprehensive history of British radio and television discusses the beginnings of BBC television in chapter 4. Includes time line, bibliography, and index. Middlemas, Keith, and John Barnes. Baldwin: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Excellent study of Baldwin and his times. Includes an informative discussion of the General Strike of 1926 and provides insights into why Baldwin was so successful at communicating on the radio. Paulu, Burton. Television and Radio in the United Kingdom. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981. Scholarly work by a noted authority on European television details the structure of the BBC, including finances, personnel, programming, and legal status. Smith, Anthony, ed. Television: An International History. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Collection of essays on the history of television around the world includes discussion of the BBC and its impacts. Features a list of television museums and archives.
Further Reading Boyle, Andrew. Only the Wind Will Listen: Reith of the BBC. London: Hutchinson, 1972. Unconventional biography focuses only on Reith’s years at the BBC. Adopts a psychological approach, emphasizing the puritanical and depressive side of Reith’s personality. Fascinating reading.
See also: 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting; Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program.
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Reith and the BBC’s attempt to uplift, to educate, and to be objective was generally, but not universally, approved. Churchill was not the only dissenter from Reith’s approach to broadcasting. From the founding of the company through the establishment of the corporation and beyond, many listeners desired more entertainment and less education, more popular and dance music and less classical music, more humor and less serious discussion. Some objected to the domination of the BBC by London, demanding more programs reflecting the various regions of Great Britain. Although compromises were made and more entertainment programs were presented, the belief and practice that the BBC should level society up rather than down predominated. Both speech and dress standards were imposed on announcers, who were not identifiable personalities, as in American radio, but simply gentlemen of culture. The BBC’s standard speaking style, sometimes called “BBC English,” perhaps did help break down some of the regional and class divisions among the British. Announcers were required to wear formal dress, including dinner jackets, when speaking over the radio. Moral uplift was even carried over to the private lives of BBC employees; Peter Eckersley, an important radio figure even before the company was founded in 1922 and the BBC’s chief engineer from 1923 until 1929, was forced to resign because of his involvement in a divorce. Nevertheless, the path established by the early founders of the BBC continued even after Reith’s own resignation in 1938. Pure entertainment was secondary to education and societal improvement, quality was paramount, and the primary goal remained public service. The BBC retained its monopoly position in British broadcasting until long after World War II ended, still financed by licensing fees rather than through advertising. The precedents set during the early radio era were carried over when the BBC began television transmission in 1936. The monument created in the 1920’s by Reith and others continued to cast its influential shadow over Great Britain and the world decades later. — Eugene Larson
Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February-March, 1927
Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle With his uncertainty principle, Werner Heisenberg asserted that there are definite limits to precise knowledge of atomic processes, a theory that has become a cornerstone of modern physics. Locale: Copenhagen, Denmark Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), German physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist Summary of Event At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of physics, first published in 1687, were enjoying such enormous success, particularly regarding their power to predict the movements of heavenly bodies, that thinkers such as the French mathematician and astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace began to extend these laws to the universe as a whole. Laplace argued that complete knowledge of the locations and speeds of the Sun and planets at one point in time would allow scientists, using Newton’s laws, to determine the state of the solar system at any other time. Therefore, if a superhuman intelligence could once know fully the state of every bit of matter and the forces acting on them, such an intelligence could determine precisely the state of the universe at any past or future time. The universe and everything in it was thought to function with the precision and regularity of clockwork—the state of the mechanism at one moment determining completely the future course of events. The notion of universal determinism—the idea that the present and future are totally bound by the past—was the guiding spirit of much scientific inquiry throughout the nineteenth century. Many scientists rejected the idea, saying that it left no room for the elements of chance, choice, and creativity. Certain philosophers, such as Charles Sanders Peirce, argued that strict determinism cannot account for the phenomena of growth and evolution. Nevertheless, determinism continued to reign supreme within the scientific community, particularly in physics, which was considered the most basic example of a precise, predictable science. It is against this background of classical physics that the significance of Werner Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty, or indeterminacy, is most easily seen. In attempting to predict the exact future state of any sort of 2172
physical system—from solar to subatomic—it is necessary that one be able to measure precisely the qualities and coordinates of the parts of the system at a given point in time. The belief in universal determinism and absolute predictability held by many nineteenth century physicists was based largely on the assumption that such precision of measurement is theoretically unlimited. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle dealt a fatal blow to this assumption and shook the supremacy of strict causality, or determinism. Heisenberg stated simply that it is impossible to measure simultaneously both the exact position and the exact momentum of a subatomic particle. Heisenberg used the example of the gamma-ray microscope to demonstrate the validity of the uncertainty principle, proposing that concepts such as position and momentum can have meaning only if one specifies how they are to be measured. In this hypothetical experiment, one measures the location and speed of a particle such as an electron by shining a tiny ray of light, as little as one photon, on the particle. This light will be scattered by the particle and will then enter the microscope and make a mark on a photographic plate; the particle’s position and momentum can be calculated from this mark. The accuracy of the calculations, however, depends on the distance between the crests in the light waves used to make the observation. To obtain an exact measurement of the particle’s position, one would need to use light of very short wavelength. Such high-frequency light, however, contains much energy, and when the light is directed toward the particle, it will alter the particle’s momentum. By using light of longer wavelength and lower energy, on the other hand, one could obtain a precise measure of the particle’s speed, but uncertainty would then creep in with regard to its location. Therefore, the more one closes in on the position, the less accurately one can know the momentum, and vice versa. In the realm of microphysics, as the exact state of an atomic system can apparently never be fully open to view, physical processes at this level cannot be precisely predicted. Heisenberg formulated his uncertainty principle early in 1927, the year after he became an assistant to Niels Bohr at Bohr’s research institute in Copenhagen. The two scientists engaged in almost daily dialogue on the foundations of quantum theory and the nature of physical reality. Near the end of February, 1927, there was a brief, but rather deliberate break when Bohr left to take a skiing vacation in Norway. During this time, Heisenberg con-
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ceptualized the gamma-ray microscope experiment and decided that the indeterminacy evident in the measurement of subatomic particles had to be considered a fundamental principle of quantum theory. When Bohr returned to Copenhagen, he realized that Heisenberg’s thinking was at variance with the ideas he had been pursuing. Bohr, who was also searching for basic principles, had been trying to understand the fact, established in part by Albert Einstein’s study of the photoelectric effect, that light, as well as matter, displays wavelike properties under some conditions and particle-like properties under other conditions. Physicists had been trying to understand the nature of the wave-particle duality for years. Bohr realized that, as the property that appears depends on the type of experiment or observing apparatus one is using, one simply cannot describe microphysical phenomena as either particle-like or wavelike without also referring to the method of observation. The observer does not merely observe these properties, they are
evoked. Bohr formulated the principle of complementarity as a way of understanding the wave-particle paradox: that the wave aspect and the particle aspect are mutually exclusive but complementary, and emphasizing that both aspects must be included in any complete picture of microphysical phenomena. Bohr was convinced that the principle of complementarity revealed a basic fact about the possibilities and limitations of the knowledge of microphysics. Heisenberg believed that the principle of uncertainty expressed a similarly fundamental fact. The apparent disparity between these two principles was the focus of long and sometimes heated discussions between Bohr and Heisenberg. In the end, however, they were able to agree that uncertainty and complementarity were compatible, with Heisenberg’s principle understood as a particular mathematical formulation of the more general principle of complementarity. These two principles, together with Max Born’s probabilistic interpretation of electron waves, combined to form what has become known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. The basic issue at stake in the interface between the different but related principles of Heisenberg and Bohr concerns the appropriateness of using concepts familiar to classical physics and everyday life in understanding the realm of the atom. Heisenberg believed that concepts such as position and momentum, or particle and wave, are of limited applicability in this domain because of the limitations involved in their measurement. He thought that a clear and consistent theory could be expressed only in abstract mathematical terms. Bohr, on the other hand, maintained his strong conviction that concepts rooted in the everyday world of objects and events can, and indeed must, be used to describe microphysical phenomena, but that only one aspect of a complementary pair of concepts will be appropriate in a given experimental situation. Heisenberg recognized the great philosophical importance of Bohr’s approach and added to his famous 1927 paper enunciating the uncertainty principle a postscript in which he said that Bohr would present a related principle that would deepen and extend the meaning of the uncertainty principle. Bohr introduced the principle of complementarity in September of 1927, likewise acknowledging Heisenberg’s groundbreaking work. Significance In the new brand of physics ushered in by Heisenberg, abstract mathematics played a much greater role than in any previous form of physics. Quantum physics thus became a very powerful and influential mathematical tool 2173
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Werner Heisenberg. (The Nobel Foundation)
Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle that has been used to forge new theoretical developments in other fields of science such as chemistry and biology and to fashion a variety of technological innovations such as transistors, lasers, and microchips. All of this scientific and technological activity can be carried out with little concern for the profound philosophical questions posed by the uncertainty principle. Many scientists who, like Einstein, have been deeply concerned with the meaning of science for human life as a whole have given much thought to these issues. Soon after Heisenberg and Bohr presented their principles of uncertainty and complementarity in 1927, the Copenhagen interpretation became established as the generally accepted foundation for quantum theory. A number of major physicists, including Einstein, challenged the conceptual cornerstones on which this version of the theory was built. The debate centered on the questions of objectivity and indeterminism. If the principle of uncertainty is taken as truly fundamental, then the state of a particle when it is not being observed should be considered. One would have to conclude that an unobserved particle has no definite characteristics. Actually, it could not be called a particle, or a wave, nor does it have any real position or momentum. As Heisenberg stated, “What we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” Einstein believed that any theory of physics that does not include physical reality cannot be considered a complete theory of nature. From 1927 to 1935, Einstein formulated a number of hypothetical experiments designed to discredit the uncertainty principle, but Bohr was able to refute each of these arguments. The Copenhagen interpretation maintained its sovereignty in the theoretical and practical work of the majority of physicists. The controversy sparked by the uncertainty principle did not diminish. During the 1980’s, it emerged again as a lively topic of discussion, partially as a result of new experimental findings. Certain physicists and philosophers, notably David Bohm, continued in the spirit of Einstein to explore the possibility of formulating an expanded interpretation of quantum theory. It is important to understand that although the uncertainty principle revolutionized microphysics and led indirectly to numerous technological developments, it had little impact on the physics of familiar objects. In the realm of everyday, easily perceived and measured objects and events, the determinism of classical physics still provides quite satisfactory predictions and explanations. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle has been quite effective in shaking the assumptions and assurances of 2174
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 universal determinism that had guided the thinking of many people—scientists and nonscientists alike—since Laplace proposed the idea in the early nineteenth century. Something that both advocates and opponents of the Copenhagen interpretation would certainly agree on is that the uncertainty principle has helped to reveal the perhaps unsuspected richness of reality, a wealth of patterns and potentialities too great to be grasped in a single observation or to be exhausted by a given experimental or conceptual structure. Heisenberg helped to push the search for an understanding of nature to a new level, to the point where matter meets mind and physics meets philosophy. —Gordon L. Miller Further Reading Bohm, David. Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. 1957. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 1997. Reprint edition features a preface that refers to developments in Bohm’s sustained efforts to formulate an interpretation of quantum theory capable of encompassing both classical determinism and the indeterminism of the Copenhagen interpretation in a broader understanding of the laws of nature. A clearly articulated, searching, and sophisticated philosophical inquiry by a contemporary physicist. Bohr, Niels. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1958. A collection of mostly short essays exploring the implications of research in atomic physics for various other fields, such as biology, anthropology, and philosophy. Cline, Barbara Lovett. Men Who Made a New Physics. 1965. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. An interesting narrative, written for a general audience, of the lives, theories, and interrelationships of the physicists, primarily Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, but also the earlier Ernest Rutherford and Max Planck, who between 1900 and 1930 created quantum theory. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Readable volume follows the development of physics from its nineteenth century roots to the mysteries of the late twentieth century. Examines characters and personalities as well as the issues of physics. Includes discussion of Heisenberg’s work. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Haw-
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Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act metheus Books, 1999. Discusses in largely nontechnical terms a variety of topics, including the history of quantum theory, the Copenhagen interpretation and some of its critics, and the role of modern physics. Pagels, Heinz R. The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. A theoretical physicist’s popular, readable, and reliable account of the development of relativity and quantum theory, research into elementary particles, and the nature of the scientific investigation of the physical world. Provides interesting insights into the personalities involved and includes many illuminating examples and illustrations of the major issues. Includes bibliography and detailed index. See also: 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect; Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; Sept., 1932: Anderson Discovers the Positron; Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons.
February 21, 1927
Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act In one of many antitrust suits brought against the Eastman Kodak Company, the U.S. Supreme Court found the firm guilty of enforcing exclusive contracts. Locale: Washington, D.C.; Rochester, New York Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures George Eastman (1854-1932), American inventor, industrialist, and philanthropist Hannibal W. Goodwin (1822-1900), American clergyman and inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor Summary of Event Passage of the federal Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 coincided with American industry’s increasing resort to combination, that is, to organization as mergers, amalgamations, conglomerates, and trusts. The structuring of businesses along these lines was most notable among firms with capitalizations in excess of one million dol-
lars. Of the roughly 220 such combinations effected between 1890 and 1900, an important minority were trusts. A trust puts the stocks of various companies into a central pool, to be controlled by a board of trustees. The companies then act in concert for their mutual benefit rather than competing. The rate of trust formation slackened after 1900, but this type of combination continued on a large scale until 1904. Trusts were epitomized by United States Steel (the world’s first billion-dollar corporation) as well as by the original trust, Standard Oil, in company with American Tobacco, Du Pont, Northern Securities, and International Harvester. Their names translated as “monopolies” in public and in political parlance. These were also chief among the organizations whose sheer size or practices gave impetus to the first serious Sherman Act prosecutions, which were begun during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt and increased through the administrations of William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. There were some modestly capitalized trusts that 2175
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king. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Chapter 18 is devoted to Heisenberg. Includes glossary and index. Guillemin, Victor. The Story of Quantum Mechanics. 1968. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003. Places quantum theory in the context of the history of physics and discusses the philosophical and religious implications of the new physics. Includes glossary of scientific terms, annotated bibliography, and index. Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Beyond. Translated by Arnold J. Pomerans. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Writing for a wide audience, Heisenberg demonstrates his belief that “science is rooted in conversations.” Gives a firsthand account of some of the conversations that have shaped modern physics and, in important ways, the modern world. Chapter 6 details the events surrounding the creation of the uncertainty principle. _______. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. 1958. Reprint. Amherst, N.Y.: Pro-
Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act seemed less menacing in the eyes of reformers, muckrakers, and the public. Their degrees of market power nevertheless often equaled or exceeded those of their more prominent and notorious counterparts. Reorganized as a trust in 1901 with a capitalization of about twenty-seven million dollars, the Eastman Kodak Company was one of these smaller trusts. The astuteness of its leader, its innovative edge, its control over patents, and its exclusionary marketing strategies allowed it to control nearly 90 percent of its market, a higher proportion than U.S. Steel, American Tobacco, or International Harvester controlled of their respective markets and about equal to the market power exercised by Du Pont, Pullman, and Singer. Moreover, the Eastman Kodak Company attained this measure of power within just a few years after its restructuring as a trust. A conjunction of inventiveness, scientific curiosity, artistic imagination, risk taking, business acumen, public interest, and ready markets contributed to making this ascendancy over the photographic industry possible. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, photography had evolved in many of its dimensions beyond the seminal contributions made earlier by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, William Henry Fox Talbot, and scores of ingenious chemists, opticians, physicists, and amateur photographers. Because of the weight, bulk, awkwardness, and fragility of the glass plates on which photography relied as a base for its light-sensitive materials, the international search for improvements from the 1860’s onward centered on contriving an unbreakable, lightweight, flexible, and still sensitive film. Experimentation in the United States and Western Europe initially involved various wet collodion processes as well as the gelatinous silver bromide dry process. Uses of celluloid soon showed great promise, thanks to the work of John Hyatt in the late 1860’s and, two decades later, to discoveries by John Carbutt and Hannibal W. Goodwin. Goodwin, a Newark, New Jersey, Episcopal clergyman and amateur photographer, was in 1887 the first American to apply for a patent for the production of flexible, transparent film, in the form of light-sensitive, celluloid-like, collodion strips. The patent was not granted until 1898. It covered an area in which George Eastman, who was also working assiduously on the manufacture of films and roll films, was to be credited with pioneering advances. Eastman was born in a small town in northern New York in 1854 and at the age of six moved with his family to Rochester, where his father established a commercial school. His father’s death forced fourteen-year-old George to leave school to help his mother. At the age of 2176
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twenty, believing he had been cheated out of a promotion, he left a well-paying bank job to devote himself to photography, formerly a hobby. After several years of experiments informed by his studies of photography advances reported in American, British, and European journals and by later consultative journeys to England, he began manufacturing dry plates, first at home and then in a small factory. By 1879, he had devised a dependable formula for producing emulsions for coating glass plates. He soon patented a machine that performed this task. Having solicited the financial backing of investor Henry A. Strong and the camera-making expertise of William H. Walker, Eastman founded the Rochester-based Dry Plate & Film Company in 1884 for the manufacturer of a hand camera with roll film. Eastman heavily advertised his handy box camera, featuring a roll holder and stripping film combined within it. He trademarked his product “Kodak,” a nonsense word, in 1888. Improvements in the quality and varieties of film as well as in the camera itself thereafter were patented swiftly by Eastman and his chemist, Henry Reichenbach. Low price and simplicity paved the way for the Kodak’s immense commercial success. Eastman guarded his firm’s novelties and quality in many ways. He helped block the patent application filed by Goodwin, securing similar patents under his and Reichenbach’s names. Goodwin subsequently sued after his own film and camera company came under control of the Ansco Company. Years later, the courts ordered Eastman to pay millions of dollars in damages to Ansco, thus acknowledging Goodwin’s invention of the celluloid base for roll films. Eastman also licensed important patents and eventually bought some of them outright. Eastman produced Thomas Alva Edison’s “first motionpicture camera” and manufactured most projection film then used by the rapidly growing motion-picture industry. Eastman joined leaders of that fledgling industry in crowding out competitors. By 1913, the Eastman Kodak Company had fallen foul of the Sherman Act. Federal courts alleged that it enjoyed a monopoly of the manufacture, sale, and distribution of photographic supplies, that it had bought out a score of competitors, and that it had acquired sole rights to sell domestic and foreign-made paper suitable for photography. Further, the government contended that Eastman had engaged in price fixing and had entered exclusive dealings arrangements. All of these activities were deemed harmful to competition. The company was ordered to dissolve its monopoly. The litigious affair of consents and decrees dragged on until 1935.
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Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act
Significance For nearly half a century following its initial conviction under the Sherman Act in 1913, and for more than twenty years after its 1927 conviction by the Supreme Court, the Eastman Kodak Company maintained an estimated 90 percent share of its market, with no measurable change. It remained America’s largest manufacturer of cameras, photographic and motion-picture film, and supplies. Its branches were international. If antitrust prosecutions had any effect on it, they were most discernible in what experts defined as the medium ease of entry by others into Eastman’s fields of enterprise. By most criteria, Eastman’s advantages were enormous, muted only by litigation. Irrespective of its business practices, Eastman Kodak in major respects ranked as one of the world’s most enlightened and progressive firms, exactly as George Eastman intended. His employees were made shareholders in the company and were recipients of generous welfare, benefit, promotion, and pension plans. Eastman, who never married, treated Rochester and other communities as beneficiaries of his wealth, favoring education, the arts, and propagation of the music he loved. Before his unusual suicide in 1932—it was simply the rational decision of a satisfied man—he disposed of nearly all his wealth, contributing to philanthropies almost one billion dollars as measured in 1990 purchasing power.
Carl Ackerman, Eastman’s definitive biographer, notes that Eastman was disciplined and temperate. He was deservedly liked and was accorded respect by his associates, scientists, employees, and the communities with which he dealt. Before his retirement in 1929, he had stamped his organization with his own admirable personality. Neither Eastman nor his organization conformed with the popular stereotypes of his day of “robber barons,” tycoons, or captains of industry. From the perspective of the 1990’s, business consultant Peter F. Drucker cited Eastman Kodak as one of a handful of “long-pull performers,” successful because of its concentration on a single market and single technology. Whatever the internal organizational excellence of Eastman Kodak and the wisdom of its business strategies, the company again found itself challenged when its performance was assessed by federal authorities. In the 1950’s, depicted as an aggressive near monopoly in its dealings with competitors, inventors, and consumers alike, it was again charged by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice with violations of sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Sherman Act. Eastman Kodak, according to the complaint, had sold its Kodachrome and Kodacolor films on the understanding that it obtain all processing business connected with the films. It therefore marketed Kodachrome and Kodacolor at prices that included Eastman’s subsequent processing charges. In so doing, Eastman foreclosed competitive processing. Moreover, as consumers generally expected the film developer to develop at least one set of prints, Eastman was charged further with illegally tying its sale of film to the making of Kodacolor prints. In addition, it was alleged that Eastman illegally fixed the resale price of these films beyond “fair trade” price exemptions to the Sherman Act as set by other federal statutes. The consent judgment entered against Eastman Kodak required the company to cancel its fair trade contracts relative to the resale price maintenance (setting a minimum price that all sellers would charge) of Kodachrome and Kodacolor products and to abstain from entering into similar contracts for controlling the price of its color films. Amateur users of Eastman’s color film were also freed thereafter to obtain the benefits of open competition for the film’s processing. Federal authority further compelled Eastman Kodak to grant reasonable royalty licenses for numerous related patents and to distribute manuals describing its commercial color film processing technology, with annual supplements for seven years. The company was also ordered 2177
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In the meantime, a small Georgia wholesaler that had dealt in Eastman products for many years, Southern Photo Materials, won its case against Kodak before the U.S. Supreme Court, which handed down its decision on February 21, 1927. The case arose when Kodak sought to purchase all competing wholesalers in Georgia, Southern Photo Materials included. That company refused the offer. Eastman then cut off sales to it except at retail prices. At the time, Kodak manufactured more than ninetenths of American motion-picture film. By entering agreements with its customers through an association of laboratories making motion-picture prints, it also prevented firms such as Southern Photo Materials from purchasing imported film. Having already been deemed an illegal combination in 1916, and under federal decrees to present plans for its dissolution in 1916, 1921, and 1926, Eastman Kodak in 1927 was found guilty before the U.S. Supreme Court of exclusionary practices, discrimination, and the “forward integration” of competitors, or buying up customers of its products to avoid having to compete to sell to them and to final customers for its products.
Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act to provide the services of a technical representative to any recipient of these manuals who needed further instruction. If necessary, Eastman Kodak’s major eastern processing plants were to be opened to these recipients to observe and learn the technology employed. Finally, within seven years the company was to divest itself of any facilities in excess of 50 percent of the current domestic capacity for processing its color film. Operating in a legally complex field, Eastman Kodak and the U.S. attorney general agreed, immediately upon filing of the government’s consent judgment, to negotiate a settlement. The parties resolved their difficulties over the bargaining table rather than in court. Unlike its previous experiences in bringing an end to antitrust proceedings against Eastman Kodak, federal authorities, at modest expense, procured what they described as an equitable judgment achieved by reasonable cooperation between business and government. Dominating much of the technology of its industry, Eastman Kodak traditionally had wielded its edge in the market until competitors’ or consumers’ complaints snarled it in the often illusory web of antitrust technicalities. Many American businesses had pursued similar courses. Beginning in 1947, Edwin H. Land, inventor of the Polaroid instant camera, had also seized and maintained his market advantage while he could, exclusive of competition. Polaroid, Eastman Kodak, and other manufacturers understood that when antitrust laws were invoked against them they faced a Justice Department that was politically vulnerable, understaffed, and otherwise short of the resources for lengthy legal battles. Rational settlements with which all parties could live, that opened the marketplace somewhat and arguably redounded to the public good, were justifications enough for America’s singular antitrust tradition. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Ackerman, Carl W. George Eastman. London: Constable, 1930. Well-written and exhaustive biography places both Eastman and his firm in specific context. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Coe, Brian. George Eastman and the Early Photographers. London: Priory Press, 1973. Essay with excellent photos places Eastman in the tradition of his hobby and craft. Focuses on his work, not on his busi-
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ness practices. Includes chronology, glossary, bibliography, and index. Eder, Josef Maria. History of Photography. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945. Massive, scholarly history includes discussion of Eastman’s interests, career, and contributions in chapters 47 through 49. Dense but invaluable. Includes notes and index. Gernsheim, Helmut, and Alison Gernsheim. The History of Photography. 2d ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969. Less exhaustive and more readable than Eder’s book (cited above) and a supplement to it for the post1945 period. A fine work with good perspective on Eastman’s main contributions. Includes interesting photos, notes, bibliography, and index. Peritz, Rudolph J., Jr. Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992: History, Rhetoric, Law. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. A history of federal government policies relating to antitrust issues. Includes a substantial bibliography and index. Sandler, Martin W. Photography: An Illustrated History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Presents a chronological overview of the major figures in the history of photography and their artistic and technical contributions. Includes many photographs as well as a chronology, a bibliography, and a list of photography museums around the world and Web sites devoted to photography. Shepherd, William G. The Treatment of Market Power: Antitrust, Regulation, and Public Enterprise. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. Written by a former U.S. Justice Department antitrust expert, this is a novel clinical diagnosis of market power into which Eastman Kodak has been fit. Excellent discussion of the difficulties of applying antitrust policies. Includes notes, graphs, charts, tables, appendixes, and index. See also: Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason”; May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa; Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure.
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McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking
February 25, 1927
McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking The McFadden Act granted national banks in the United States the right to open branches in their head-office cities in order to reduce the comparative disadvantages they had suffered and to retain government control over banking and monetary policies. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Banking and finance; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event The main provisions of the McFadden Act, which became law on February 25, 1927, permitted branch banking by federally chartered banks (national banks) that were located in states in which laws granted such authority to state-chartered banks (state banks). The act was intended to remove some of the handicaps under which national banks had been competing with state banks. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 prohibited national banks from branching; each could operate from only one full-service office. State banks, however, were often allowed to branch within their head-office cities or counties, or even statewide. The purpose of this differential regulation was to protect small (state) banks from competition from branches of large (national) banks. This disadvantage to national banks in competing with state banks caused many banks to convert to state charters. During the 1920’s, 127 large national banks (with total assets of five million dollars or more at that time) converted to state charters. Unlike national banks, state banks were not required to be members of the Federal Reserve system and were not subject to the reserve requirements set by the Federal Reserve, under which banks had to keep certain percentages of deposits available as reserves to meet demands for withdrawals. Therefore, the Federal Reserve’s ability
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Key Figures Louis Thomas McFadden (1876-1936), chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1920-1931 Daniel Richard Crissinger (1860-1942), chairman of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1920-1923, and a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, 1923-1927 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933
to maintain direct control over banking policies and the money supply was weakened as national banks converted to state charters. To alleviate this problem, Daniel Richard Crissinger, chairman of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in 1921 authorized national banks (in states that permitted state banks to branch) to open teller windows that would accept only deposits and cash checks. These acted as limited-service branches. The problem of conversion to state charters nevertheless continued. Between 1924 and 1927, the issue of branch banking was extensively debated in the banking industry, in state governments, and in Congress. The McFadden Act allowed national banks to open full-service branches. Under the McFadden Act, national banks were allowed to branch within the cities or towns in which they were located, provided that state banks had the same privilege. State banks were permitted to retain all branches established prior to the McFadden Act but were forbidden to establish new branches outside their head-office cities. The purpose of the McFadden Act was to reduce the comparative disadvantage suffered by national banks thereby reducing the incentive to abandon federal charters in favor of state charters. The bill was designed to slow defections from the national banking system. The disadvantage to national banks remained, however, in states in which state banks had already established branches outside their head-office cities, because the branching of national banks was limited to the cities in which they were located. According to Louis Thomas McFadden, it was not the purpose of his act to encourage branch banking in the broadest sense. The act was in fact an “anti-branch banking bill” that cut the number of bank branches per capita by about half between 1920 and 1930. The reduction came about because of the restrictions on branching by state banks. On June 16, 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act was passed, amending the McFadden Act by extending the branching privilege of national banks to outside their head-office cities if state law permitted state banks this freedom. Under this bill, national banks and state banks had the same branching rights. Branching authority for both national and state banks was subject to state branching laws. Bank branching can be classified into three categories. First, unit-banking states permitted only single-office banks.
McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking Second, limited-branching states allowed state banks to branch within a city, county, or portion of the state. Third, statewide-branching states allowed banks to open branches anywhere within the state. Branch banking began on a large scale after passage of the Glass-Steagall Act. National banks took advantage of the right to branch outside their head-office cities. For example, the number of branches of Bank of America increased to five hundred by 1946 and to more than a thousand by 1976, with at least one branch in every county in California. During the period from 1933 to 1951, threefourths of new branches created were outside head-office cities. Although banks were granted more freedom to branch intrastate, neither national nor state banks were allowed to branch across state lines. The purpose of this interstate branching restriction was to prevent monopolistic tendencies in the banking system. That is, the restriction was intended to prevent development of a monopolistic bank that would have control over loan and deposit markets in the entire nation. In addition, the interstate branching restriction was believed to prevent banks from draining funds from one state to lend in another state. Local banks were believed to be more likely to commit to serving local businesses and investments within the state. In supporting this argument, President Herbert Hoover stated in 1929 that the American credit system should be subject to the restraint of local interest. Some banks were interested in branching beyond their intrastate branching rights. These banks evaded the interstate branching restriction by setting up holding company organizations to acquire banks in other states. Up until the 1950’s, the multibank holding company was frequently used as a mechanism to expand across state lines. Forty-seven bank holding companies existed in 1960. This loophole in the McFadden Act was closed on May 9, 1956, by the Douglas Amendment to the Bank Holding Company Act, which prohibited bank holding companies from acquiring banks in other states. Those bank holding companies that had already acquired bank subsidiaries in other states were allowed to keep them and operate them. The Douglas Amendment effectively prohibited banks from branching across state lines unless specifically authorized to do so by state authorities. The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 was amended in 1970 to define a bank as an institution that accepts deposits that can be withdrawn on demand and also makes commercial loans. A branch office that did not provide one of these services would not satisfy the 2180
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 definition of a full-service bank. These branch offices were called “nonbank banks” and were not regulated by the Federal Reserve system. Some banks evaded the interstate branching restriction by opening nonbank banks in other states as a way to expand across state lines. The Competitive Banking Equality Act of 1987 closed this loophole by defining a bank as any institution insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), but it exempted nonbank banks established before March 5, 1986. Branch liberalization within states (intrastate branching) continued as more and more states converted from unit banking to statewide banking. For example, New Jersey and New York converted to statewide branching in 1973 and 1975, respectively. Florida converted from unit banking to countywide branching in 1977, and then to statewide branching in 1980. By the end of 1990, forty-two states had statewide branching, and Colorado was the only unit-banking state in the nation. Significance More important than allowing national banks to branch within their head-office cities, the McFadden Act imposed interstate branching restrictions for both national and state banks, one of the most important restrictions on the nation’s banking industry. All banks were prohibited from branching across state lines in order to prevent monopolistic tendencies in the banking system. This interstate branching law had an unintended effect. In addition to tampering with the degree of competition in the banking industry, the law imposed restrictions on banks’ ability to diversify geographically, as banks were not able to open branches in other states to diversify their loan and investment portfolios. The limitation on geographic diversification increased bank risks. An economic downturn in a state could have a disastrous effect on banks with business concentrated in the state and cause a chain of bank failures in that state. For example, First Republic Bank of Texas, the fourteenth largest bank in the nation at the time, went bankrupt in the late 1980’s, as did several other Texas banks. Problems in the oil industry and real estate in Texas caused the failures, which used up a large part of the FDIC insurance fund. As the number of bank failures increased dramatically in the 1980’s, the FDIC attempted to minimize depositor losses and resulting communitywide or nationwide disruption by arranging for troubled banks to be merged with healthy ones, with FDIC financial assistance. This policy was applied particularly to large banks, which
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Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, banks are allowed to acquire existing banks in other states and operate them as bank subsidiaries. This improves the geographic diversification of bank holding companies, but it may not significantly reduce the rate of bank failures if profits and losses are not pooled among bank subsidiaries. That is, diversified bank holding companies may choose to let their troubled bank subsidiaries fail and continue to impose potential liabilities on the FDIC insurance fund. In 1994, passage of the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act gave banks much greater ability to operate interstate branches. The impacts of this change in banking law are still being debated. — Julapa Jagtiani Further Reading Burns, Helen M. The American Banking Community and New Deal Banking Reforms, 1933-1935. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. Discusses the development of banking reforms and presents interesting statistics on bank branching by both state and national banks during the period 1900-1935. Unlike many books on regulatory reforms in the 1930’s era, this one was written long after the events, allowing the author to relate important issues in the 1930’s to more recent regulatory development. Calomiris, Charles W. U.S. Bank Deregulation in Historical Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Offers historical background on U.S. banking laws to explain the changes in the banking industry in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Briefly discusses the McFadden Act. Chapman, John M., and Ray Westerfield. Branch Banking. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942. Useful for information on the history and theory of branch banking, both in the United States and abroad. Provides statistics about branch banking. Frieder, Larry A. Commercial Banking and Interstate Expansion: Issues, Prospects, and Strategies. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1985. Provides detailed arguments for and against interstate banking. Discusses issues such as geographic diversification, cost efficiency, effects on competition, and the safety and soundness of the banking system. Examines Florida’s regulation of interstate banking in detail. Well written, but perhaps too technical for readers with no special background in finance or economics. Johnson, Richard B., ed. The Bank Holding Company, 2181
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regulators considered to be too big to be allowed to fail because of the disruptions that would result from failure. The FDIC sometimes had a difficult time finding a healthy bank within the same state to acquire a troubled bank, as problems in a state tended to affect all the state’s banks. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was passed on October 15, 1982, to affirm the power of the FDIC to arrange interstate mergers if an acquirer from the same state was not found. For example, First Republic Bank of Texas was acquired by the North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) in July, 1988, under an FDIC emergency rescue program. The FDIC emergency rescue program helped to promote nationwide banking and improve geographic diversification in the U.S. banking system. In addition, starting in the early 1980’s, states began to pass laws that would allow out-of-state banks to enter under specified circumstances. Some states required a reciprocal arrangement that allowed banks and bank holding companies from other states to enter by acquiring existing banks within their borders only if the home state of an entering bank granted similar privileges to banks headquartered in the state being entered. By the end of 1992, the only four states that did not allow out-ofstate banks to enter were Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, and North Dakota. The trend appeared to be toward nationwide banking, which would help to reduce banks’ vulnerability to regional economic downturns. Aside from the issue of geographic diversification, it has also been argued that the interstate branching restriction imposed by the McFadden Act reduced cost efficiencies in the banking system. Small banks are generally likely to be handicapped by higher costs relative to large banks. Banks could obtain economics of scale by expanding nationwide. Some analysts argued that banks did not necessarily have to expand across state lines to be large enough to realize economies of scale. Whether U.S. banks could become more efficient by branching across state lines remains an issue that will have to be decided by experience. Cost efficiency studies for commercial banks have provided mixed results. The fact that branching was being allowed on a larger scale showed that regulators were swayed by cost considerations and were less concerned with potential monopoly power. Nationwide banking as opposed to branching has also been a topic for debate since the late 1980’s. Under state branching laws, such as reciprocal arrangements, and the FDIC emergency rescue program under the
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Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park 1973. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1973. Collection of conference papers devoted to issues related to bank holding companies, with a focus on regulatory issues. Intended for readers with background in banking and finance. Klebaner, Benjamin J. American Commercial Banking: A History. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Well organized history, easy to understand even for readers without background in finance and economics. Provides a chronology of important events from 1781 to 1989. Matasar, Ann B., and Joseph N. Heiney. The Impact of Geographic Deregulation on the American Banking Industry. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 2002. Addresses the changes in American banking since the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933. Intended for readers with some background in banking and fi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nance. Includes an appendix containing the text of the McFadden Act, bibliography, and index. Ostrolenk, Bernhard. The Economics of Branch Banking. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930. Discusses the development of and reasons for branch and chain banking. Chapters 8-10 examine the history of branch banking in the United Kingdom, Canada, and California. See also: Apr. 5, 1910: First Morris Plan Bank Opens; Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
May, 1927
Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park The struggle to preserve the unique Indiana Dunes landscape, which provides a classic model for ecological studies, spanned decades and presented formidable challenges for environmentalists. Locale: Northwestern Indiana Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics; natural resources Key Figures Henry C. Cowles (1869-1939), American botanist and university professor Stephen T. Mather (1867-1930), founder and first director of the U.S. National Park Service Paul H. Douglas (1892-1976), U.S. senator from Illinois Dorothy Buell (1886-1977), founder of the Save the Dunes Council Summary of Event The Indiana Dunes State Park has long been recognized for its unique landscape and for the five plant communities that inhabit it. The area contains several dune types in various stages of development as well as bogs, marshes, prairies, and forests. Nearly fifteen hundred species of plants populate the dunes. Among major parks in the United States, only the Great Smokies and the Grand Canyon have more native species, and yet the Indiana Dunes park encompasses only fourteen thousand acres, 2182
far less than either of the other two. Preservation of the dunelands is critical, not only for the survival of the distinctive plant life but also for the benefit of the many people who wish to study and explore the area. Preservation of the Indiana Dunes has been a struggle since the early part of the twentieth century. The urbanization and growth of industry around the southern shore of Lake Michigan provided a formidable challenge to conservation efforts, but the spirit of local and regional environmentally minded citizens and politicians has prevailed. Little by little, parts of the Indiana Dunes have been acquired for preservation, first as an Indiana state park and much later as an expanded national park. Preservation of the dunes was greatly enhanced by the efforts of Henry C. Cowles, whose studies of dune plant communities made the Indiana Dunes internationally famous. The dry hills and wet lowlands of the Indiana Dunes were unsuitable for settlement. Native Americans used the area for hunting grounds and for gathering berries and the abundant wild rice that grew in the wetlands. French and British fur traders inhabited the area in the mid- to late 1700’s. A few homesteads were built in the 1800’s, but no successful settlement was established until railroads reached the area in the 1850’s. In the late 1800’s, serious development of the southern Lake Michigan shoreline began. Pine and cedar trees in the dunes area were cut to supply expanding Chicago with lumber
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and firewood. In 1869, George Hammond built a meatpacking plant on the Grand Calumet River, and by 1887, East Chicago was being promoted as a choice industrial site. Many large dunes were mined away by the trainload to supply sand for fill so that Chicago could expand into Lake Michigan; the dunes also supplied sand for construction projects and glass industries. By 1920, the dunes area contained the world’s largest power plant as well as a steel mill, a chemical plant, a cement plant, and an oil refinery. At the same time, scientific studies were being conducted by Cowles, a professor at the University of Chicago. Cowles came to Chicago with a fellowship in 1895 to study geology. He visited the dunes for the first time in 1896 and became enthralled with the vegetation distributions there. He began a systematic study of the vegetation and its relationship with the dune environment and promoted the idea of a relationship between vegetation patterns and changing dune environments. Cowles’s work marked the first application of the principles of ecology in the United States. He patterned his work after that of Eugenius Warming, who had conducted studies of dune vegetation in coastal Denmark. Cowles published three classic articles that declared the Indiana Dunes to be the ideal model for the study of changing landforms and the response of vegetation to those changes. He pointed out the importance of climatic influences on the cycles he was observing, and he noted that the area’s vegetation was unique because the region was a meeting point of northern and southern species as well as of eastern forests and western prairies. After he presented his third paper at a conference in Europe, Cowles organized the 1913 International Phytogeography Excursion. He polled the European scientists who participated and found that they were most interested in visiting four American natural landmarks: the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Indiana Dunes. Cowles and others often used this expression of international interest in the dunes to illustrate the value of the area; Cowles’s work thus formed the cornerstone of the dunes preservation movement. In the early 1900’s, local conservationists became increasingly alarmed by the encroaching industrial development. In response, the Playground Association of Chicago began a successful program of Saturday afternoon walks in the dunes area to encourage local interest. By 1911, this group had evolved into the famed Prairie Club of Chicago, headed by Cowles and industrialist Stephen T. Mather. By 1913, the Prairie Club was fully engaged in major efforts to save the dunes from further de-
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velopment, and the idea of creating a national park evolved. In 1916, Cowles organized the National Dunes Park Association specifically to fight for the establishment of a national park to preserve the dunes. Trainloads of people attended meetings at the dunes. Supporters coordinated attempts to purchase parcels of the dune land for the purpose of turning the land over to the federal government for a national park; in 1917, the Prairie Club of Chicago staged an elaborate historical pageant to promote the idea. Moreover, Mather, who had become the founder and first director of the National Park Service, tried to convince Congress to set the area aside as a national park. Many local people, however, were more interested in the jobs and the tax revenue that industry would bring to the area than they were in saving the dunes. With the onset of World War I, plans for a national park were suspended. After the war, the booming economy fostered a frenzy of industrial growth. Conservationists realized that the dunes would be con2183
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National Park Service director Stephen T. Mather (front left) and others on a visit to the Indiana Dunes in October, 1916. (National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection)
sumed by encroaching industry in the years that it would take to form a national park; they thus decided to seek state park status for the dunes, a process that would take less time. In 1923, U.S. Highway 12, the “Dunes Highway” that ran directly through the area, was completed, threatening further deterioration of the dunes area. Increased pressure was applied to obtain the state park status, and later that year, the Indiana legislature provided for special tax money to be used to purchase three miles of Lake Michigan shoreline for a state park. The tax, along with contributions from Elbert Gary of U.S. Steel and Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck and Company, provided enough funding to purchase the park land in 1927. Preservation of the dunes had finally begun. Significance The formation of the Indiana Dunes State Park represented a dramatic victory for preservationists in their 2184
struggle against industry and development interests in northern Illinois and Indiana. Cowles’s scientific work was one of the keys to this success. The formation of the state park and the scientific studies in the dunes area resulted in a continuing fight for the preservation of even more land and the eventual establishment of a national park in the area. Moreover, the fight over the dunes had implications for the continued development of scientific thought about ecology. The Great Depression and World War II caused a lull in land acquisition for the dunes, but the booming economy after the war once again created industrial development pressures for the area. Indiana’s economic and political climate was not amenable to land conservation. On the contrary, there was broad support for development, and the main focus was Indiana’s long-held desire for a deep-water port on its small stretch of dune-filled shoreline. In 1952, Dorothy Buell organized the Save the Dunes Council, originally a women’s movement de-
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Shortly after Cowles demonstrated his ideas of plant ecology, Victor Shelford and, later, W. Clyde Allee applied Cowles’s principles to animals, developing ideas about animal ecology. In the mid-1940’s, Jerry Olson performed a sophisticated updating of Cowles’s original work that led to similar work in many areas. Cowles’s work on the dunes helped to lay the groundwork for incorporation of his ideas into evolving thoughts on “ecology,” a term that began to encompass not only a scientific field but also a broad social viewpoint. For example, Allee continued to develop ecological ideas of interdependence to include not only biological systems but also social and religious systems. Cowles’s ideas thus carried on through the decades, reaching fruition in 1969 with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act. — Diann S. Kiesel Further Reading Cockrell, Ron. A Signature of Time and Eternity: The Administrative History of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana. Omaha, Nebr.: National Park Service, 1988. An account of the history of the Indiana Dunes from the perspective of the National Park Service. Cook, Sarah G. Cowles Bog, Indiana, and Henry Chandler Cowles. Chicago: Great Lakes Heritage, 1980. A well-researched biographical account of Cowles and his work in the Indiana Dunes. Includes a useful bibliography. Engel, J. Ronald. Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the Indiana Dunes. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1983. Extremely thorough historical account of the Indiana Dunes. Excellent bibliography. Engel, Joan Gibb, ed. The Indiana Dunes Story: How Nature and People Made a Park. 2d rev. ed. Michigan City, Ind.: Shirley Heinze Land Trust, 1997. Collection of ten essays relates the history of the Indiana Dunes preservation movement. Includes bibliography. Franklin, Kay, and Norma Schaeffer. Duel for the Dunes: Land Use Conflict on the Shores of Lake Michigan. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. Detailed history of land use in the Indiana Dunes area and the struggle to preserve the dunes. Sellars, Richard West. Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Critical examination of the history of resource management in the United States by a historian for the National Park Service. Includes notes and index. 2185
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signed to educate the public, organize grassroots support, and coordinate fund-raising efforts to buy up tracts of land for preservation. The council was unable to sway Indiana legislators to its cause, however, so it approached Senator Paul H. Douglas from Illinois, who took the matter to the federal government and proposed the dune area be designated a national monument. He was unsuccessful at the time, but he continued his fight for a national park. The John F. Kennedy administration remained neutral, supporting both a port and a park. In 1961, the purchase of the Cape Cod National Lakeshore set a precedent for the federal government to purchase natural lands for national parks. Cape Cod was one of Kennedy’s favorite spots, so Douglas drew attention to the similarities between it and the Indiana Dunes in order to secure Kennedy’s favor for the dunes. Kennedy’s death, however, postponed further action on the park issue. Because the Lyndon B. Johnson administration was enthusiastic about developing urban parks, interest in an Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was revived. Finally, in 1966, authorization for an eight-thousand-acre Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was approved. It became the first urban national park in the country, but it was a park only “on paper,” for lawmakers had not appropriated any funds for additional land acquisition, staffing, or maintenance. The area could still be threatened with development. Senator Douglas’s influence in Congress ended when he lost his bid for reelection, and the Save the Dunes Council assumed a custodial role in park matters. In the late 1960’s there was a feeble attempt to deauthorize the park, and in the early 1970’s Indiana again tried to oppose expansion of the park. The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was dedicated in 1972, however, and laws in 1976, 1980, and 1986 provided for additional land purchases. By the 1990’s, the park consisted of nine units and covered approximately fourteen thousand acres. Interest in park expansion would continue with the Save the Dunes Council and the Izaak Walton League acting as vigilant watchdogs of the dunes. Another effect of early dune preservation lay in the blossoming of the principles of ecology advanced by Henry Cowles. Cowles’s importance to the dunes lies in three contributions: He clearly demonstrated the principles of ecology through his studies of plant succession on the Indiana Dunes and in its associated wetlands; he contributed significantly to the preservation of the dunes; and he influenced the thinking of hundreds of students, scientists, and teachers who continued his work and eventually improved it.
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Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie Waldron, Larry. The Indiana Dunes. New York: Eastern Acorn Press, 1983. Brief overview of the Indiana Dunes discusses Lake Michigan, formation of the dunes, and the area’s vegetation. Provides a good summary of historical land use and ecological studies. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon.
May 17, 1927
Monet’s WATER LILIES Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie Painter Claude Monet’s canvases depicting the water lilies of his residence at Giverny were unveiled to the public five months after Monet’s death. Locale: Musée de l’Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, France Category: Arts Key Figures Claude Monet (1840-1926), French painter Eugène Boudin (1824-1898), French painter Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), French statesman Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian artist Summary of Event The patriarch of Impressionism, Claude Monet, who pioneered techniques of converting observations of the effects of light and cloud clusters on textured foliage and water into lyrical brushwork, did not live to see his transient, iridescent images hung in the two specially designed galleries on the ground floor of the Musée de l’Orangerie set aside to honor his artistic vision. Five months after his death, the focal point of the exhibit—his Décorations des Nymphéas, the ephemeral, liquid impressions of the water lilies in the pond on the grounds of his rural home near Vernon, northwest of Paris—drew record crowds of admirers. Unaccustomed to contemporary scenes depicted under the dappled, shimmering light and indistinct leafy patterns reflected in shallow water, patrons of the arts absorbed the rich, evocative canvases and lauded the painter as one of the world’s most creative and innovative artists. The oldest son of a wealthy, iron-willed wholesaler, Monet, who was drawn to the subtleties of color and light during long hours spent on the shore at the seaport of Le Havre, began drawing in childhood. He incurred the displeasure of his father yet persevered in the development 2186
of his talent. Influenced by the work of Johan Jongkind and his mentor, Eugène Boudin, he chose Paris as the place to study. At the age of nineteen, surrounded by other young rebels defying the stuffy, proprietary conventions of academic art, he joined the admiring coterie that formed around Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Along with his peers, Monet rejected the emphasis on religious and historical representations and established a working relationship with the outdoors, where he studied the optic phenomena that allow the eye to separate segments of objects into patches of light. Under the influence of photography, which was still in its infancy, Monet duplicated lifelike moments in ordinary life by breaking down each scene into a free-form chiaroscuro of light and component hues, thereby freeing perception from traditional limitations. Working from a floating deck near Argenteuil, he concentrated on riverside activities along the Seine and re-created typical scenes of strollers and boaters eating, drinking, and enjoying the outdoors. Later, through travels to the Riviera, Rouen, Normandy, Venice, Norway, and London, he expanded his repertoire to a variety of subjects, most of which emphasized the interplay of sky and water. The first public acclaim for Monet’s canvases came in 1874, at what came to be known as the First Impressionist Exhibition. This was a decade after Manet’s humiliation by protests against his Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863; luncheon on the grass), capped by the Emperor Napoleon III’s description of the work as offensive to public sensibilities. Reacting with similar vitriol to Monet’s departure from the static guidelines of the École des Beaux-Arts, scoffing critics, preferring the hard outlines of realistic art, evolved the pejorative term “Impressionism” to refer to the softer, less well-defined images in his work. The term, which came from the title of Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872), indicated the rise of an avant-garde ap-
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Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie tion, Monet lost heart with his work yet continued painting. On April 12, 1922, pressed by Clemenceau for a formal agreement, Monet signed papers donating Water Lilies to France. The notarized statement pledged two salons in the Orangerie, where nineteen panels would be arranged in an oval. Monet did most of the work on these panels during World War I but continued to rework them. On his death in 1926, Monet was attended by Clemenceau, his longtime friend and supporter. The Water Lilies cycle at the Orangerie was dedicated on May 17, 1927. Significance A profound influence on the field of art, Monet’s unrestrained experimentation with chromatic abstraction led to an irrevocable break with the old order, which had been dominated by gallery critics. Most significant of his influence was the emergence of abstract art, a direct outgrowth of his limpid reflecting pools, which distorted the shapes of objects and allowed the imagination full play in viewing hard realities. Applying intense study of the complex relationship between light and object, Monet’s followers evolved their own reality, which often required a leap of faith from the viewing public. Splinter movements associated with Impressionism included pointillism, the use of minute, controlled points of color to create images. Pointillist works often are unclear when viewed up close and take shape only when viewed at a distance. Pointillism is exemplified in Georges Seurat’s Un Dimanche d’eté à la Grande Jatte (1884-1886; Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte). Moving in the opposite direction, Vincent van Gogh’s swirling, emotional, distorted expressionism, as represented in The Starry Night (1889), brought an ecstasy to the canvas never before seen in European art. Similarly, Paul Gauguin’s Symbolist canvases—among them Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897) and The Yellow Christ (1889)— evolved from his sojourn in Tahiti and shocked European sensibilities with his frank assessment of island settings, nude Polynesians, and juxtaposition of Christian and pagan religious symbols. During this same era, Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne returned to a closer identity with solid form. Renoir, one of Impressionism’s most skilled craftsmen, extended Monet’s use of patchy light with a pearly glow exuding a harmony and beneficence on his graceful subjects. In his best-loved paintings, he imparts a mature, dignified beauty to middle-class Europeans engaged in lighthearted pastimes. 2187
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proach to perception that centered on the elusive optical effects of shifting flecks of light on outdoor settings. Applying a matrix of short, precise brushstrokes, Monet utilized bright colors to emulate natural scenes, often painting sequential groupings representing the same object viewed at different times of day and under varying weather conditions. The best of Monet’s serial works depict haystacks, poplar trees, the Gare Saint-Lazare, and the stone facade of Rouen Cathedral. In contrast to the vibrant, cheery subject matter of his paintings, Monet survived a somber period of poverty and public disparagement, during which his wife and chief model, Camille, the mother of his two sons, suffered from tuberculosis. After Camille’s death, Monet married Alice Raingo Hoschedé, the widow of his agent, in 1879 and entered a more promising era as public response to his innovations began to mellow. As his prospects improved, Alice, an uplifting companion, helped establish local and familial ties that provided necessary emotional support for his endeavors. Moving in 1883 from oppressive rented quarters in Poissy, the Monets settled at Giverny in the Seine Valley near the Epte River. Monet expanded the original grounds, the Clos Normand, to include a fern-edged pond, overhanging willows, footpaths, wisteria trellises, clumps of bamboo, and a gently arched Oriental bridge. To expedite his work, he erected a photographic lab, a garage, and the first of three studios. After the death of his wife in 1911 and his son Jean’s death three years later, he grew more reclusive and intensified his work. For the remaining years of his life, he battled double cataracts and underwent two eye operations that were only marginally successful. Still attuned to his earlier philosophies despite impaired vision, Monet concentrated his remaining artistic output on the lilies rising from the waters behind the flowerbeds and produced his massive Water Lilies cycle, which the French government commissioned in 1914. To accommodate his oversized canvases, Monet built a larger studio. He then immersed himself in the beauties of his garden while Blanche Hoschedé, his widowed stepdaughter, tended the house and kept him company. Painting primarily from memory as his eyesight deteriorated, he retreated in despair and grew discouraged with his paintings; he reworked some and burned others. By 1920, critics drawn to Monet’s unique style agreed with politician Georges Clemenceau’s support for a permanent collection at the Hôtel Biron and initiated a more thorough study of his technique and point of view. Plagued by increasing bouts of depression and exhaus-
Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie An even greater departure from realism, the Fauvism of Henry Matisse, Maurice Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, and André Derain, carried Impressionism into the realm of flat planes of exotic colors. Likewise, the cubism of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso took similar liberties with geometric forms, often viewing subjects simultaneously from several blended points of view by breaking the whole into planes and cubes. The resulting geometric treatments created greater demands on a bewildered viewing public, which was, on first exposure, repulsed by both artistic styles. Delving deeper into the elements of perception, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, influenced by a viewing of Monet’s haystack paintings early in his career, wrote an incisive theoretical commentary, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular (1912). Kandinsky’s paintings, energized by swirls of color, demonstrated an intensity of geometric interest similar to the abstractions of the cubists. His disciples Paul Klee, Franz Marc, and August Macke formed the Blaue Reiter group, which exhibited at the German Bauhaus until the Bauhaus was suppressed by the Nazis in 1933. Still viable and influential a century later, Monet’s art, with its free splashes of color and emphasis on ordinary activities, undergirded a burst of enthusiasm from publishers, who met the public’s demand for art with affordable photographic reproductions, prints, and art books. Completely trouncing the tyranny of elitism, followers of Monet created a market for galleries, museums, and open-air markets. To the average patron of the arts, the post-Monet era proved baffling, as artists including painters, musicians, dancers, sculptors, writers, and architects moved further away from finite, hard-edged objectivity toward the dreamy, indistinct Impressionism of Monet’s water lilies. The presentation of Monet’s artistry unleashed a drive for self-expression, experimentation, and rebellion against the values inherent in the Edwardian era. Some artists, particularly Picasso, abandoned controlled brushstrokes for dots, swirls, and dollops of paint on canvas. Sculptors used found objects such as gears and tangles of wire to create free-form art, sometimes creating pictorial collages that were textural blends of painting and sculpture. Minimalism, a direct outgrowth of Impressionism that sprouted in the 1950’s, saw painting develop into colorful geometric shapes—circles, squares, chevrons, nested boxes, and grids—on oversized canvases. Like Monet, the minimalists often serialized their work, concentrating on a single theme, often producing diptychs and triptychs that critics labeled “systematic.” Huge, 2188
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austere sculptures, equally pared down to modular shapes, appeared in public plazas, courtyards, and modern galleries such as New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Offshoots of minimalism produced a burst of energy in optical art and pop art, as demonstrated by the intensity of Andy Warhol’s experimental canvases, including his notorious Campbell’s Soup cans and Brillo boxes. Likewise, poets, dramatists, and novelists strove for the focus and freedom of the Impressionists by shutting out needless detail and concentrating on the stream of consciousness of a single character, as with the speakers in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (1930) and the absurdist dramas of Eugène Ionesco, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, Jean Genet, and Samuel Beckett, whose En attendant Godot (pb. 1952; Waiting for Godot, 1954) served as the high-water mark of Surrealist drama. Equally unfettered were the atonal musical compositions of Charles Ives and Paul Hindemith, the daring twelve-tone works of Arnold Schoenberg, the whimsical, unpredictable tunes of Erik Satie, and the modern dance forms of Martha Graham. Another important adjunct to Monet’s twentieth century audience was the restoration of his deteriorating house and garden, which he willed to his second son, Michel. Underwritten by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the project, begun in 1966, reestablished the public’s admiration for Impressionism by providing a spot of natural beauty for recreation and relaxation. An inviting outdoor retreat and museum, Monet’s Giverny ranks as one of France’s most beloved tourist attractions. Its popularity inspired a review of turn-of-the-century art at a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit titled Monet’s Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism, which featured eightyone of his canvases dating from 1883 to 1926. — Mary Ellen Snodgrass Further Reading Burchell, S. C. The Age of Progress. Rev. ed. New York: Time-Life Books, 1979. A compelling overview of the guiding philosophy that steered nineteenth century artists into new realms, particularly in art, music, and literature. Covers the era that gave birth to Monet and his fellow Impressionists. Clay, Jean. Impressionism. New York: Putnam, 1973. Well-organized text includes an essay on prices, concise essays about each artist, and bibliography. Herbert, Robert L. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988. A grand, complete study of Impressionism, including ample color plates, a list of the muse-
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ums that house the paintings, notes, lengthy bibliography, and index. Kemp, Gerald van der. A Visit to Giverny. Translated by Bronia Fuchs. Versailles, France: Éditions d’Art Lyc, 1980. Useful brief guide to Monet’s home contrasts photographs of the original residence and grounds with later paintings and pictures after the estate’s restoration. Provides a detailed grounding in Monet’s Giverny period, backed by sufficient fact and commentary. Monet, Claude. Monet’s Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978. Lavish book of Monet’s art features photographs of the artist in his studio and country home, a chronology, incisive essays about his work and influence, and a selected bibliography. More than the standard coffee-table book it appears to be; closer examination proves its use to the student and art historian. Picon, Gäeton. “Impressionism.” In Modern Painting: From 1800 to the Present. New York: Newsweek Books, 1974. Useful guide for the general reader. Contains a satisfying balance of text and illustration to define art philosophy of the late nineteenth century. Especially helpful are writings by the principal artists (including an interview with Claude Monet concerning his early training) as well as a detailed chronology and thorough index.
Sagner-Duchting, K., ed. Monet and Modernism. New York: Prestel, 2002. Discusses the influence of Monet’s work on the artists who came after him. Beautifully illustrated, juxtaposing paintings by Monet with those of twenty-five modern artists. Time-Life Books. Seven Centuries of Art. New York: Author, 1970. A useful overview of art history, setting Impressionism within its time frame, with brief commentary about its offshoots. Although too shallow for art scholars, provides an appropriate beginning for students. Tucker, Paul Hayes, with George T. M. Shackelford and MaryAnne Stevens. Monet in the Twentieth Century. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Catalog for a 1998 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston focuses on Monet’s work after 1900. Includes useful essays that place the artist within the context of the time. Features chronology, selected bibliography, and index. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne; 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show.
May 20, 1927
Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight The first nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris heralded a new era of air transportation and global commerce. Locale: From New York, New York, to Paris, France Categories: Science and technology; space and aviation; transportation Key Figures Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-1974), American aviator Harold Bixby (1890-1965), American banker Summary of Event Charles A. Lindbergh, born in Michigan in 1902, was an adventurous child who did not like school. After barely graduating from high school, he made a failed attempt to study at the University of Wisconsin and ended up as a flying cadet in the U.S. Army. After completing the
training and joining the Missouri National Guard instead of choosing active duty, Lindbergh was appointed chief pilot of a new airmail route linking the Midwest with New York City. Aviation in the 1920’s was fairly dangerous, especially flying the mail. Pilots had to fly with little ground support and unreliable weather reports, often with visual ground contact as their only guide. Most aircraft were still unsafe in their own right as well. Because of these problems, Lindbergh and other airmail pilots were continually pushing the U.S. Post Office Department to improve the quality of air facilities. The government did begin providing ground facilities, such as beacons and emergency fields, along contract airmail routes, but it would not provide airplanes, money for their purchase, or funding for private aeronautical research. This perpetuated a fundamental problem: Few contractors could af2189
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ford to provide safe aircraft for their pilots, and few lenders provided money to do so. Lindbergh himself knew that safer planes could be built, but he also felt that before money would be made available, aviation had to become a less adventurous way to travel and a more normal, accepted means of transport. He had often considered how this might be accomplished, and he was intrigued when he read of a transatlantic flying contest sponsored by millionaire Raymond Orteig. Orteig had for several years offered a prize of twentyfive thousand dollars to anyone who could complete a nonstop flight linking New York and Paris. René Fonck, a well-known French pilot, had already tried and failed, his plane crashing at the end of his reserved New York runway before takeoff, killing several crew members. Attempting the trip in reverse, two French pilots had departed from Paris but disappeared over the Atlantic. Another group of pilots were caught in a legal entanglement and were forbidden to take off at all. Lindbergh felt that the contest was the perfect way to get aviation into the public eye, and he began preparing for an attempt. Whereas the other pilots had placed their faith in multiengine biplanes, Lindbergh envisioned a singleengine monoplane. He also wanted to fly alone. Although Lindbergh hated soliciting for support, his plane would cost an estimated ten thousand dollars, so he had
to make the effort. He finally got help from a group of businessmen led by St. Louis banker Harold Bixby. The group produced fifteen thousand dollars to finance Lindbergh’s flight, which would be billed as a St. Louisto-Paris flight, with a stop in New York. Ryan Airlines, Inc., of California was contracted to work with Lindbergh on an aircraft meeting his own specifications. Because Bixby was from St. Louis, he suggested the plane be named The Spirit of St. Louis. The Spirit of St. Louis made its maiden test flight in April, 1927, in California, but the plane would never be fully tested. Lindbergh learned that several other pilots were set to take off from New York on their transatlantic voyages. Lindbergh feared he would be too late if he waited, so despite the lack of test flights, the plane was readied. Lindbergh flew from San Diego to St. Louis and then on to Long Island, New York, where he landed on May 12, 1927. Upon arriving on Long Island, Lindbergh had his first extensive contact with the press. The Orteig contest was current news, and reporters began calling Lindbergh the “flying fool” because he planned to use a single-engine aircraft and fly solo. He also would not carry a parachute; he needed as much fuel as the plane could carry, and he thought that if he had to bail out over the Atlantic Ocean, he would in any case perish before he could be rescued. Despite disliking the press and considering their attention distracting, the aviator did not want to ignore the media, because he wanted public attention to focus on aviation. Another problem was that, because Lindbergh had not expected to be in New York so soon, he had not yet cleared all of the eligibility requirements for the contest. Afraid that if he waited he would be beaten across the ocean, Lindbergh contacted his sponsors, who agreed that the flight itself was more important than the prize money. The aviator was given the green light to embark when ready. Bad weather kept Lindbergh from departing immediately, but he finally took off on Friday, May 20, despite not having slept for twenty-three straight hours. During his solo transatlantic flight, Lindbergh’s greatest danger was not inclement weather, fog, low clouds, or even a sizable storm around which he had to detour. The aviator’s biggest problem was his desire for sleep. In his later writings, Lindbergh described his experience in surreal terms, with phantoms and other apparitions appearing as he drifted in and out of a state of half
Landing at Le Bourget On the evening of May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean when he landed at Paris’s Le Bourget Field at 10:22 P.M. He was mobbed by the waiting crowd of thousands and instantly became a hero. The feat was no less than that of a man stepping on the Moon. Lindbergh later related that landing in his book We (1927): The sun went down shortly after passing Cherbourg and soon the beacons along the Paris-London airway became visible. I first saw the lights of Paris a little before 10 p.m., or 5 p.m., New York time, and a few minutes later I was circling the Eiffel Tower at an attitude of about four thousand feet. The lights of Le Bourget were plainly visible, but appeared to be very close to Paris. I had understood that the field was farther from the city, so continued out to the northeast into the country for four or five miles to make sure that there was not another field farther out which might be Le Bourget. Then I returned and spiralled down closer to the lights. Presently I could make out long lines of hangars, and the roads appeared to be jammed with cars. I flew low over the field once, then circled around into the wind and landed.
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sleep. Lindbergh was able to nap briefly, for as he nodded off, the plane, which did not fly particularly smoothly, would jerk him back awake. After sixteen hours of flying, Lindbergh crossed the southwest coast of Ireland, then passed over Cornwall, England, two hours ahead of schedule and landed at Le Bourget aerodrome outside Paris after thirty-three and one-half hours in the air. Lindbergh had been so efficient in his flying that there was still enough fuel in the tanks for a flight to Rome.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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Significance Later, in his autobiographical works, Lindbergh admitted that nothing could have prepared him for the commotion that followed his successful flight. He had expected to land and spend the day talking to and trading experiences with French pilots. Instead, he was suddenly the world’s greatest celebrity. After nearly running over crowds of people who swarmed onto the runway, Lindbergh was literally carried off and welcomed by all manner of people, showered with awards and honors, toasted and praised. There were ceremonies, dinners, parades, meetings with French and U.S. officials, and audiences with royalty. He was no longer the “flying fool” but rather “Lucky Lindy,” and he was flooded with telegrams, invitations, and business proposals. He received a similar welcome when he flew on to England, after repairing the parts of his plane that people had torn off as souvenirs. Lindbergh was taken back to the United States by the U.S. Navy, and when he arrived in Washington, D.C., and as he traveled from there to New York City, he was busy with dinners, speeches, and receptions. At a dinner with President Calvin Coolidge, the aviator met Dwight W. Morrow, an ambitious but capable politician, and Morrow’s three daughters. Lindbergh paid the daughters little attention, but one of them, Anne, would later become his wife. The aviator also was given a huge parade in New York, receiving the city’s biggest welcome ever. More than four million people lined the streets, and eighteen hundred tons of ticker tape rained down on the cavalcade bearing Lindbergh. On June 16, Lindbergh was given the Orteig Prize of twenty-five thousand dollars, despite the fact that he had never been technically eligible for the contest. Along with more than two million pieces of mail and all manner of business endorsements, Lindbergh was awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted to the rank of colonel. His later life and career would be filled with all manner of accomplishments, in and out of aviation, but he also met with considerable controversy surrounding his view of Hitler’s Luftwaffe just before World War II.
Charles A. Lindbergh poses with The Spirit of St. Louis before taking off on his solo transatlantic flight. (AP/Wide World Photos)
The first solo transatlantic flight was clearly a boost for aviation. Lindbergh’s success made flying seem slightly more routine and also showed that a singleengine craft could make such a journey. The flight was also important as a watershed date in U.S. history. During the 1920’s, many Americans still did not want to accept that the United States was part of a growing global community; the flight forced them to accept that fact, and it encouraged them to begin to look toward the future. —Wayne Ackerson Further Reading Bilstein, Roger E. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts. 3d ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. A thorough history of aviation in the United States by a leading historian in the field. Chapter 2 places Lindbergh’s flight in the context of its era. Dick, Ron, and Patterson, Dan. The Early Years. Vol. 1 in Aviation Century. Erin, Ont.: Boston Mills Press, 2191
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2003. Highly illustrated history details the progress of aviation from 1900 to 1939, analyzing why developments in flight took the directions they did and presenting information on the individuals who created the world’s aviation industry, including Lindbergh. Features bibliography and index. Fife, George Buchanan. Lindbergh, the Lone Eagle: His Life and Achievements. New York: World Syndicate, 1927. Representative of a literary genre on Lindbergh that appeared within a year of his successful New York to Paris flight. Not only captures the phenomenal public response to the achievement but also describes with excellent detail the layout and instrumentation aboard The Spirit of St. Louis. Gill, Brendan. Lindbergh Alone. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. Extremely well-written short biography of Lindbergh concludes with the years immediately after the 1927 transoceanic flight. Traces the “lone eagle’s” life, his development as a pilot during the early 1920’s, and the events that led to his transatlantic achievement. Especially of interest for its analyses of Lindbergh’s claims to have seen phantoms or ghosts during the flight. Lindbergh, Charles A. Autobiography of Values. 1976. Reprint. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Written near the end of his life and published posthumously, this autobiography provides a second look at Lindbergh’s 1927 flight, supplementing his award-winning 1953 The Spirit of St. Louis. Also sheds light on Lindbergh’s personality, including his concern with environmental issues and his perceptions of the dynamic relationships among science, technology, and society. _______. The Spirit of St. Louis. 1953. Reprint. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998. Beautifully written account of Lindbergh’s New York-Paris flight written some twenty-five years after the event. Remains the most important source for the details of Lindbergh’s momentous achievement. Uses flashbacks and free association in describing the exhilaration and hazards of the flight, the scenery observed, and navigational methods employed to maintain the airplane’s course. Milton, Joyce. Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Introduction to the lives of the Lindberghs focuses on the couple’s relationship, not on specific historical events.
Mosley, Leonard. Lindbergh: A Biography. 1976. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2000. Examines Lindbergh’s long career, paying special attention to the aviator’s efforts in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s to prevent the United States from entering World War II. Addresses the controversial aspects of Lindbergh’s life with a journalistic flair, but also perhaps with a degree of simplicity in matters of scholarship that fails to deal with the subject adequately and with total fairness. Parfit, Michael. “Retracing Lindy’s Victorious Trip Across the Country.” Smithsonian 18 (October, 1987): 200-220. Informative article describes Lindbergh’s forty-eight-state tour of 1927, following his historic flight. Asserts that Lindbergh not only kept the excitement of his achievement alive among the public but also did more in a short time to promote civil aeronautics than previous federal government attempts. Argues that Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight and his subsequent tour convinced the public that flying was no longer a sport for daredevils, but that it was safe, reliable, and could be used to move precious cargo. Ross, Walter S. The Last Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. A balanced account of Lindbergh’s life; more objective than many other works on the aviator. Ward, John William. “Charles A. Lindbergh: His Flight and the American Ideal.” In Technology in America: A History of Individuals and Ideas, edited by Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981. Insightful article focuses on the consequences of Lindbergh’s flight. Argues that the hero worship directed at Lindbergh was the result of Americans’ need to celebrate both the individual in an increasingly bureaucratic age and, paradoxically, the modern mechanical technology that made The Spirit of St. Louis possible. Lindbergh represented the individual pioneer, rooted in the past and untainted by the modern institutions of a new industrial order that emerged in early twentieth century America.
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See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire; May 2021, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel.
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Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel
July 17, 1927
Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the MAHAGONNY SONGSPIEL Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill collaborated in the first manifestation of “epic theater” in the Mahagonny Songspiel; their use of Gebrauchsmusik in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and in The Threepenny Opera introduced “cheap” music into opera and theater. Locale: Baden-Baden, Germany Categories: Music; theater Key Figures Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German playwright Kurt Weill (1900-1950), German composer Lotte Lenya (1898-1981), German singer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), German composer Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Italian German composer and teacher of music composition
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Summary of Event The meeting in 1927 between the avant-garde composer Kurt Weill and the revolutionary playwright Bertolt Brecht and their ensuing collaboration was significant for the development of both men’s careers. When Weill heard a radio production of Brecht’s Mann ist Mann (pr. 1926; A Man’s a Man, 1961), he responded with a highly complimentary review and subsequently asked Brecht whether he could use some of Brecht’s poems for a song cycle he was preparing for the festival of new music in Baden-Baden. Brecht was interested in Weill’s ideas about “gestic” music, as they corresponded to attempts he was making to popularize drama through the use of popular culture motifs from cinema and the cabaret. According to Weill, gestic music, a concept that also relates to Paul Hindemith’s notion of Gebrauchsmusik, or functional music, instead of processing the text for purely musical ends focuses on the manner through which the words of a song communicate the gest, or social attitude, through rhythmic means, including pauses. The object was to extend the communicative quality of music in order to make social statements. Composers such as Weill sought corresponding texts with simplicity of diction and clarity of sense. Similarly, Brecht was attempting to strip drama of figurative language in order to bring out the “epic,” or communicative, nature of his texts. He did this by concentrating on the message rather than the subtext in order to foreground the social rather than the psychological situations of his plays.
Brecht and Weill were not alone at this time in considering the traditional theater and opera to be out of step with an egalitarian modern society, for these were notions central to Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity, in the arts. In particular, Hindemith was influential in exploring applied music. He and the composers in his group rejected the purely aesthetic explorations of atonality represented by Arnold Schoenberg and others. The new music was to project an ease of execution and accessibility to the unsophisticated ear. For that reason, Hindemith and Weill, as well as composers such as Igor Stravinsky and the group known as Les Six, established a kinship with the dynamic rhythms and unsnobbish popular appeal of jazz and cabaret songs. From the outset, Brecht’s songs, initially with simple tunes of his own, were central to his attempts to popularize theater. At the same time, Weill, one of the most prominent of Ferruccio Busoni’s students, was the first German composer of any consequence to show an interest in setting to music texts by contemporary German writers such as Iwan Goll, Georg Kaiser, and ultimately Brecht. For that reason, the collaboration between Brecht and Weill was particularly fruitful. It gave both the opportunity to explore similar concerns regarding the relationship between popular culture and the arts. Weill and Brecht’s collaboration began with the Mahagonny Songspiel, sometimes known as The Little Mahagonny, which consisted of six songs with orchestral interludes, lasting about forty-five minutes in all. Brecht and Weill chose the English word “song” as part of the title as an obvious gesture to disassociate it from the German word Lied, which to them seemed to relate too strongly to the classical Lieder tradition. The Mahagonny Songspiel was produced at the Deutsche Kammermusik festival in Baden-Baden on July 17, 1927. The work can be described as a chamber opera that thematically represents the degeneration of life in a mythical American city and is set to music with a jazzy accent. Caspar Nehar, Brecht’s scenic designer, produced a series of sketches for the setting with themes relating to the greed and corruption of capitalism in the symbolic American city of Mahagonny, with a location kept intentionally vague in order to project the allegorical universality of social conditions. In addition, a small boxing ring, as a metaphor for the fighting inherent in capitalistic competition, became the platform for the performance. Weill requested that his wife, Lotte Lenya, sing
Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel the leading role. Her obviously untrained, gravelly voice, with its grotesque mispronunciations of the English words of the “Alabama Song,” symbolized the rejection on the part of the Brecht/Weill duo of the accepted standards of high culture. In addition, Weill, having caught Brecht’s eagerness to tweak the pretensions of high culture, made good musical capital out of the glottal catch between “Ma” and “hagonny,” imbuing the setting of the six poems with a musical accompaniment that brought out its comic quality and an aggressive provocative edge as well. The audience reaction was divided: There was booing, whistling, cheering, and stomping. The singers participated, pulling whistles out of their pockets. Later that evening in the bars throughout town, however, everyone seemed to be singing lyrics from the opera. The Mahagonny Songspiel brought Weill popular success and also projected him into a striking new area of emphasis on “song,” a development that was to endure for the remainder of his career, both in his collaboration with Brecht and later in his Broadway musicals. Significance The immediate consequence of the attention that Weill and Brecht received in Baden-Baden was the continuation of their collaboration in Die Dreigroschenoper (pr. 1928; The Threepenny Opera, 1949), Happy End (pr. 1929; English translation, 1972), Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (pb. 1929; Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, 1957), the ballet Die Sieben Todsünden der Kleinbürger (pr. 1933; The Seven Deadly Sins, 1961), and songs for a revival of A Man’s a Man. In particular, The Threepenny Opera became the rage of the season and immediately was translated into many languages, bringing Weill a reputation in the United States even before he arrived in 1935. The text for The Threepenny Opera was based on the eighteenth century play by John Gay called The Beggar’s Opera. Its plot concerns Macheath, a thief of thieves, who marries Polly, daughter of his fellow crook, the entrepreneur Peachum. Peachum plans Macheath’s arrest, and, although Macheath flees, he is caught through the treachery of Jenny and other whores. He is sentenced to be executed but is reprieved in a deliberately artificial happy ending. Brecht’s text was cobbled together quickly from a translation of Gay’s work, and Weill composed the music virtually overnight. The Threepenny Opera opened in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin on August 31, 1928. Lenya had one of the leading roles, that of the whore Jenny, and once again Weill’s score infected 2194
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the public. The audience would barely allow the song “Mack the Knife” to finish before demanding an encore. Theatergoers left humming and whistling such tunes as the “Cannon Song” and “Mack the Knife.” It is no exaggeration to say that the play swept across Europe. Within its first year, it was performed more than four thousand times. In addition, it was recorded by seven companies. Overnight, Weill was transformed from a serious composer to a commercial success. A year after the premiere of The Threepenny Opera, its producer, hoping to capitalize on its phenomenal success, persuaded Brecht and Weill to write another play with songs. Happy End, which opened in Berlin in September of 1929, did not, however, justify its title and was both a critical and a popular flop. Brecht was later to repudiate writing it, but several of Weill’s songs for the play, in particular “Surabaya-Johnny,” belong to the general repertory of famous Weill songs. At the same time, Brecht and Weill continued working on the full-length opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, first produced in Leipzig in March, 1930, then in Berlin in December, 1931, with Lenya once again singing the leading role. The political content of that opera became a source of conflict between Brecht and Weill. Brecht saw the opera as a parable of capitalism and wanted members of the cast to sing and march about the stage carrying placards as Mahagonny goes up in flames. Weill became less interested in the political view and saw the opera as a parable of greed. With the rise of Nazism, the opera was met with resistance from the public, although critics noted Weill’s musical accomplishment of blending the teachings of Busoni with his popularized version of jazz. In addition to his collaboration with Brecht, Weill also composed songs, choral numbers, and instrumental movements for Georg Kaiser’s Silbersee, which unfortunately opened as Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January of 1933. Immediately after the burning of the Reichstag, Brecht emigrated to Prague, and performances of Weill’s music were prohibited until 1945. In addition, as both Weill and Lenya were Jewish, they left Germany in March of 1933, escaping across the border to France. Upon his arrival in the United States in September of 1935, Weill began a second career, composing for Broadway. Although his compositions were not generally known by the American public, his work was known to a number of important musicians and theater directors, and he soon was presented with a number of projects. One of the first was Knickerbocker Holiday, based
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Further Reading Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Edited and translated by John Willett. 1964. Reprint. New York: Methuen, 2003. Comprehensive collection of Brecht’s writings on theater. Significant essays for an understanding of the collaboration between Brecht and Weill include “The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre,” “The Literarization of the Theatre” (notes to The Threepenny Opera), “On the Use of Music in Epic Theatre,” and “On Gestic Music.” Includes photographs and index. Hirsch, Foster. Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Biography draws on Weill’s journals and personal correspondence as well as on interviews with individuals who knew him. Includes discussion of his collaboration with Brecht and his work with other writers. Features notes, bibliography, and index.
Jarman, Douglas. Kurt Weill: An Illustrated Biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Wellresearched, balanced, and informative text provides a two-part discussion focusing on Weill’s life and analysis of his musical style. Assesses Weill’s early instrumental and vocal music, the music that characterizes his collaboration with Brecht, and the American period of his popular Broadway productions. Includes numerous photographs, chronological list of works, discography, bibliography, notes, and index. Kowalke, Kim. Kurt Weill in Europe. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1979. Scholarly analysis of Weill’s career provides a context for the development of Weill’s musical style, acknowledging the influence of Ferruccio Busoni and the relevance of his period of experimentation. Illustrated by examples from Weill’s scores. Intended for readers with strong background in musicology. Includes appendix with catalog of Weill’s compositions (1900-1935) and annotated translations of Weill’s essays, notes, bibliography, and index. _______, ed. A New Orpheus: Essays on Kurt Weill. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986. Collection of a wide range of essays by Weill scholars covering the full spectrum of his musical career. Several contributions focus on Weill’s collaboration with Brecht in creating “epic opera”; others focus on Weill in the United States and his influence on the Broadway musical. Includes illustrations, chronology of Weill’s life and works, and index. Leach, Robert. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2004. Examines the lives and work of four individuals who had significant influence on theater in the twentieth century. Chapter 4 is devoted to Brecht. Includes illustrations, notes, and index. Sanders, Ronald. The Days Grow Short: The Life and Music of Kurt Weill. 1980. Reprint. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1991. Comprehensive biography and analysis of Weill’s musical career, accessible to the general reader. Skillfully relates the effects of Weill’s personality on his individual musical style. Includes source notes, list of Weill’s principal compositions, discography, and illustrations. Willett, John. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht. 1959. Reprint. New York: Methuen, 2003. Invaluable, concise introduction to Brecht’s work. Brief chronology and analysis of Brecht’s plays are followed by a discussion of individual aspects of Brecht’s theatri2195
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on Washington Irving’s book, which met with considerable success when it opened in October of 1938. It was not until Lady in the Dark (1941), however, that Weill achieved his first Broadway hit. After its premiere on January 23, 1941, the show ran for two seasons. In 1944, Paramount bought the rights to make its film version, starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. One Touch of Venus, Weill’s greatest Broadway success, followed, opening on October 7, 1943. Another popular hit was the folk opera Street Scene, composed in 1946. In his adjustment to Broadway, Weill abandoned the bold and disillusioned bitterness of his musical style from the Mahagonny Songspiel and The Threepenny Opera in favor of sophisticated love songs, barbershop ballads, and mock patriotic songs. Contemporary critics point out that Weill’s contributions to American music are as significant as those of his European period, because in this transition he consciously attempted to create an indigenous American operatic tradition based on the classic American themes. The impact of Weill’s popularization of serious composition is apparent in the many versions of “Mack the Knife” recorded by popular singers and the recording of the “Alabama Song” by the Doors. At the same time, serious interpretations of Weill’s music continue. Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny belongs to the repertoire of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and opera singer Teresa Stratas has recorded Weill’s collected songs. — Christine Kiebuzinska
Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel
Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor cal style, including subject matter, use of language, theatrical influences, music, theatrical practice, theory, and politics. Of particular interest concerning the collaboration between Brecht and Weill is the discussion on music. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater; Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York; 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced; July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition.
August 4, 1927
Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor Commercial country music was in its infancy when Jimmie Rodgers cut his first record for RCA Victor; he would soon become famous and influential in country and blues music. Locale: Bristol, Tennessee Category: Music Key Figures Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933), American singer, guitarist, and composer Ralph S. Peer (1892-1960), American music recording industry pioneer Summary of Event In the early 1920’s, the recording industry in the United States became interested in the rural market and therefore in rural music and performers, particularly in the South. “Old-time music” and “mountain music” were two of the terms often used to describe what the industry wanted, and the phrase “hillbilly music” was also coined at the time. In addition, new interest was growing in rural blues as performed by African Americans. One of the pioneers in recording such music was Ralph S. Peer, at one time with OKeh Records but by 1927 under contract with the RCA Victor company. (It was Peer who first applied the term “hillbilly” to white country tunes.) A staunch believer in field expeditions, he set out to find and record new talent from among performers already known in their native locales. In July, 1927, Peer brought his wife, two engineers, and some new electrical recording equipment to Bristol, Tennessee. He already knew, or knew of, some of the people he planned to record, but he also welcomed walk-in performers. One of them was Jimmie Rodgers. James Charles Rodgers was born on September 9, 1897, in Pine Springs, near Meridian, Mississippi, the son of Aaron and Eliza Rodgers. Like his father, Rodgers became a railroad worker—he would one day be billed as 2196
the “Singing Brakeman”—but from childhood on he was fascinated by show business, and he managed to combine some professional musical performances with his railroading and other jobs. By 1925, however, ill health ruled out further railroad work; Rodgers had been suffering from tuberculosis for some time, so he committed himself entirely to the entertainment industry. He worked in vaudeville, performed dance music, and, briefly, worked for a radio show, poverty always dogging his steps, especially as he now had a small family to support. He had already become connected with a small string band, renamed the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, when he heard about Ralph Peer’s expedition to Bristol. The Entertainers auditioned for Peer, but the band broke up the night before their recording date. The band members’ musical styles and personalities had never matched very well, and Rodgers had earlier announced his intention to leave the band, so a quarrel arose over whether they should keep the name “Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers” for recording purposes. As a result, the other band members recorded for Peer under their original name, the Tenneva Ramblers, while Rodgers showed up alone with only his guitar. It was a fortuitous development, one apparently encouraged by Peer himself. Thus it was that Rodgers cut his first record for RCA Victor on August 4, 1927. By that time, Rodgers had absorbed influences from so many sources that it is difficult to trace them and equally difficult to categorize the result. He had been singing and playing guitar, banjo, and other instruments in a number of styles. Sometimes he sang popular music, sometimes African American blues—fragments of which he remembered from railroad and vaudeville days—and sometimes he did “old-time” sentimental tunes. He also yodeled. This was nothing new; there had long been Swiss-style and other yodeling, and even the new, commercial country music field had at least a nodding acquaintance with that genre. Rodgers’s yodeling,
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Significance The Bristol sessions are justly famous in the history of country music, not only because of Jimmie Rodgers but also for the other talented performers who recorded there, especially the Carter Family. The importance of those sessions could scarcely have been imagined at the time, however. In Rodgers’s case, many months would pass before his recordings caught on with the public. It was his first blue yodel, “T for Texas,” that made him a star when it was released in 1928. There would be thirteen blue yodels in all, plus other songs that featured yodeling and bluesy lyrics or tunes. Before long, Rodgers was hard-pressed for new material, and he accepted songs from various sources, in particular from his sister-in-law, Elsie McWilliams. True to his heritage, he recorded in many different styles. In ad-
dition to the blues, with their often somewhat bawdy lyrics, he composed or accepted sentimental songs, songs of unrequited love, prison songs, quasi-cowboy songs, lullabies, a pseudo-Hawaiian tune, novelty songs, and even some semiautobiographical songs such as “T. B. Blues.” Often he recorded alone with his guitar, often with side men, and sometimes with jazz orchestras; Louis Armstrong joined him on “Blue Yodel No. 9.” He also did some comedy skits with the Carter Family. One type of music he hardly touched was gospel, in contrast to the practice of most hillbilly musicians such as the Carters; Rodgers was not a religious man. Much of this product has been regarded as outstanding. Most of the blue yodels were stunningly good, as were many of his other recordings, such as “Waiting for a Train.” On the other hand, a number of his records were flawed, either because he had run out of good material or because he gave indifferent performances. Some of these sides were released, it seems, only because Rodgers’s death prevented the recording of better material. Much of what he produced must have sounded trite even then— such as his recording of “Desert Blues,” which features a tuba—but trite lyrics and “cornball” productions in most cases simply added to his music’s charm. If one sets out to produce a novelty tune such as “Desert Blues,” why not go all the way and use a tuba? As for performance problems, Rodgers had scant musical training, and sometimes his guitar work was, to put it mildly, unorthodox. Again, however, the primitive nature of some of his singing and playing made him all the more authenticsounding and therefore appealing. Rather than merely rising above his limitations, he carried them with him, making his unorthodox style part of his greatness. In considering the impact of Rodgers’s work, one must first note the lasting fame of his recordings. Although Rodgers’s sales declined in the final year or so of his career, this was not a reflection of his work’s true worth but a result of the deepening Great Depression in the early 1930’s, which cut into sales everywhere. It was also a reflection of his own declining health. Rodgers died in New York City on May 26, 1933, shortly after exhausting himself in his final recording session, but his records continued to sell. Of his career total of some 110 sides, 25 were released after his death. Many of his songs were later reissued in 78 and 45 RPM formats, and the entire corpus of Rodgers’s work was rereleased on albums in the 1950’s and early 1960’s; a complete edition appeared in Japan in 1973. On November 3, 1961, Rodgers was installed as the first member of the new Country Music Hall of Fame. 2197
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however, was something special; it was “blue yodeling,” a type unique at that time to Rodgers himself, incorporated into his white man’s version of the blues. Which of these types of music would Rodgers choose for his recording debut? Peer was anxious to record something new in the way of country music, new in the sense that it would catch the public’s attention, but also new in the sense that it could be copyrighted. Rodgers, however, apparently did not feel that his blue yodeling was ready for recording; moreover, Peer was insisting on “hillbilly,” or something like hillbilly—whatever that was. Rodgers may also have wanted to prove that he could sing any sort of music. In any case, he chose an old song he had reworked called “The Soldier’s Sweetheart,” a ballad about a World War I soldier (as Rodgers’s version would have it) who died in battle, leaving his sweetheart to live a single life forever in his memory. These sentimental lyrics were put to an old Irish melody, “Where the River Shannon Flows,” but the final product was new enough for copyright purposes. The second cut was another old song, a lullaby called “Sleep, Baby, Sleep.” Rodgers’s version included some of his soon-to-be-famous yodeling, fine work, although it, and the whole performance, seem a bit loud for a lullaby. Still, his voice in song and yodel had a loving sound that was appropriate. Although Rodgers had apparently intended the first cut to be his showpiece, “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” has been preferred by many over the years. Peer was somewhat disappointed that “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” was uncopyrightable, but Rodgers simply did not have much else ready to go. Both songs were good enough to lead to later recording sessions and instant fame for Rodgers in 1928.
Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor
Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor
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His influence on country music in the short run is obvious. Many artists of the 1930’s copied his style of singing and yodeling, new songs were written in his manner, and many of his own songs were performed by other artists in the 1930’s and after. “Mule Skinner Blues,” for instance, has been sung by Bill Monroe, Dolly Parton, and many other performers; “In the Jailhouse Now” is another example. One of the later giants of country music, Hank Snow, named his son after Rodgers. In the longer term, much of what Rodgers did has not remained standard. Few modern country artists have continued the practice of recording with only an acoustic guitar for accompaniment, and the records Rodgers made with jazz orchestras did not set much of a precedent. Few white country artists have continued to sing the blues in his style since World War II, and fewer still have carried his yodeling tradition into the postwar era. Rodgers’s brief career raised a number of unanswered questions: Would much of what he made famous have caught on even without his help? “Cowboy” music, for example, predated Rodgers’s career and probably did not require his work to guarantee its subsequent popularity. To what extent did Rodgers inspire young artists? To what extent did he make country music acceptable to urbanites? Such questions are perhaps unanswerable, but it is nevertheless clear that Rodgers deserves the title of “father of country music.” — Karl G. Larew
_______. Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. History of American country music focuses on the relation of the music and its performers to working-class culture in the South. Includes notes and index. Paris, Mike, and Chris Comber. Jimmie the Kid. London: Eddison Press, 1977. First full-length study of Rodgers’s work remains a useful source. Includes a detailed discography. Porterfield, Nolan. Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of America’s Blue Yodeler. 1979. Reprint. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Indispensable, balanced examination of Rodgers’s life and music. Based to a large extent on original sources and interviews. Rodgers, Carrie Cecil Williamson. Jimmie Rodgers’ Life Story (Complete). Nashville: Ernest Tubb Publications, 1935. Personal and somewhat romanticized account by Rodgers’s widow. Valuable for insights and anecdotes. Sanjek, Russell, and David Sanjek. American Popular Music Business in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Comprehensive and exhaustively detailed history of the subject cowritten by an insider who was there through much of the period. Includes numerous references to Rodgers and Peer.
Further Reading Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Excellent history puts Rodgers’s music in context. Includes a few illustrations, bibliography, and indexes.
See also: Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; 1939-1949: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music.
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Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed
August 23, 1927
Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed Anti-immigrant sentiment contributed to the sentencing and eventual execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder. The two men’s guilt remained in doubt for decades after their deaths. Locale: Dedham, Massachusetts Categories: Crime and scandal; social issues and reform
Summary of Event Although Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927, the arrest and trial of these Italian immigrants took place amid the paranoia that characterized much of American politics immediately after the end of World War I. In the war’s aftermath, Europe had undergone a political shuffling that culminated in a communist revolution in Russia. As European immigrants began flooding into the United States, there was fear that this communist ideology and anarchy—the belief that compulsory government should be replaced by voluntary, self-governing groups—would also be imported. Many native-born citizens worried about secret plots to undermine the democratic structure of the country, and often anyone who appeared different or foreign was branded as a “Red.” The two events, which may or may not have been connected, that culminated in the arrest of Sacco and
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Key Figures Nicola Sacco (1891-1927), Italian immigrant and anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), Italian immigrant and anarchist Webster Thayer (1857-1933), presiding trial judge Fred H. Moore (fl. early twentieth century), chief defense counsel from November, 1920, to November, 1924 William G. Thompson (fl. early twentieth century), chief defense counsel from November, 1924, to August, 1927 Alvan T. Fuller (1878-1958), governor of Massachusetts Celestino Madeiros (1902-1927), convicted bank robber and murderer Mike Boda (fl. early twentieth century), Italian anarchist Feruccio Coacci (fl. early twentieth century), Italian anarchist
Vanzetti began on December 24, 1919. It was payday at the L. Q. White Shoe Company of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and a truck carrying approximately thirty-three thousand dollars in company payroll was unsuccessfully attacked. Pinkerton Agency detectives investigated the incident, and during interviews with eyewitnesses they determined that one of the suspects appeared to be an immigrant with a dark complexion and a mustache and that he fled in a large vehicle that was probably a Hudson. The identified license plate had been stolen a few days earlier in Needham, Massachusetts, as had a Buick touring car. Thus, despite witnesses’ testimony to the contrary, the detectives concluded that the Buick had likely been used in the robbery. No suspects were arrested, although tips emerged connecting the getaway car to a group of Italian anarchists. On April 15, 1920, in nearby South Braintree, the payroll for the Slater and Morrill Shoe Factory was being escorted, on foot, from the office to the factory by two security guards, Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli. En route, the guards were attacked, robbed, and murdered by two men who escaped in a waiting vehicle. At the inquest, twenty-three eyewitnesses testified that the assailants appeared to be Italian, but few could positively identify the men. Police Chief Michael E. Stewart traced the lead to Feruccio Coacci, an Italian citizen scheduled for deportation, after recalling the tip about Italian anarchists storing a car in Bridgewater. Coacci revealed that the car belonged to his housemate, Mike Boda, a known anarchist, and that it was currently being repaired in a garage in West Bridgewater. A police guard was planted outside the garage to wait for Boda. Meanwhile, as a result of the prevalent U.S. attitude against radicals and in the wake of a national roundup and arrest of aliens, Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had decided it would be wise to destroy their anarchist literature. The abundance of material required transportation, and they arranged to borrow Boda’s vehicle. Although the trap was laid for Boda, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested as they attempted to claim the car. Neither man had a police record, but both were armed. Because the men were not informed of the reason for their arrest, they assumed they were being held as anarchists. Although they were read their rights, the language barrier may have obstructed their complete understand-
Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed ing. They were fingerprinted, their weapons were confiscated but not tagged, and they were questioned for seven days without being charged. There was no lineup; the two were paraded in front of witnesses who were asked if they were the men involved in the holdup. On May 12, 1920, Vanzetti was charged with attempted murder and robbery at Bridgewater. His trial began on June 22, 1920, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with Judge Webster Thayer presiding. The initial interviews by the Pinkerton detectives were not admitted, and all witnesses for the defense were of Italian origin. After only five hours of deliberation, the jury found Vanzetti guilty of assault with intent to rob and murder. Six weeks later, he was sentenced to twelve to fifteen years in prison for intent to rob, though the attempted murder charge was dropped after it was discovered that one of the jurors had brought his own shell casings for comparison. In September, 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with the murder of Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter during the South Braintree robbery. Both pleaded not guilty. A committee for their defense raised enough money to hire the radical California attorney Fred H. Moore, who cited the case as an establishment attempt to victimize the working man. The trial began on May 31, 1921, in Dedham, Massachusetts. As the presiding judge in Vanzetti’s first trial, Judge Thayer should have been disqualified, but instead he oversaw the second trial’s administration. On June 4, the all-male jury was sworn in, and on June 6, Sacco and Vanzetti were marched, handcuffed, into the courtroom. Throughout the trial, the prosecution presented a bounty of circumstantial evidence: testimony from witnesses whose status as eyewitnesses was questionable; a cap from the scene that was alleged to be Vanzetti’s but was too small for his head; expert testimony qualified with “I am inclined to believe”; no positive identification on the getaway car; ballistic evidence that was technical and confusing; and the accusation of “consciousness of guilt,” based on false statements made by the two when they thought they were being held for anarchy. Judge Thayer instructed the jury to be “true soldiers,” who would display the “highest and noblest type of true American citizenship,” while referring to the defendants as slackers. On July 14, after another five-hour deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. The standard penalty in Massachusetts at the time was death by electric chair. Sacco and Vanzetti remained incarcerated for six years while motions were filed for them. The presiding 2200
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 judge heard all appeals, and each was weighed and denied by Judge Thayer. One motion stated Judge Thayer himself had demonstrated out-of-court prejudice against the two. However, despite growing doubts about the men’s guilt, Thayer remained adamant, and his animosity toward Moore grew. On November 8, the defense committee forced Moore to resign and hired William G. Thompson. While Thompson continued to encounter roadblocks, Sacco was slipped a note from another prisoner, Celestino Madeiros, who confessed to the crime. From the note, Thompson traced a link to the Morelli Gang, a group of Italian immigrants from Providence, Rhode Island, led by Joe Morelli and his brothers. This group had attacked the shoe factory in the past, and one member of the gang bore a resemblance to Sacco. Based on the new evidence, Thompson filed a motion for retrial, which was
Sacco and Vanzetti on Trial Many of Sacco and Vanzetti’s supporters argued that neither man spoke fluent English and that the defendants’ inability to understand the questions asked during the trial placed them at an unfair disadvantage. This excerpt from the 1926 trial proceedings gives an indication of Nicola Sacco’s familiarity with English. The testimony of the defendant Sacco to which the remarks of the district attorney . . . referred was as follows: He was shown exhibit 43 and was asked if he knew whose cap it was. He answered, “It looks like my cap.” He then was asked, “Did you have such a cap as that in your house at the time of your arrest?” and answered, “Yes, sir, something like. . . . I think it is my cap, yes.” Asked to “look at it carefully,” he reiterated, “Yes,” and in answer to the question, “There isn’t any question but what that is your cap, is there?” he answered, “No, I think it is my cap.” He then was asked to try it on, and stated, “A. I don’t know. That cap looks too dirty to me because I never wear dirty cap. I think I always have fifty cents to buy a cap, and I don’t work with a cap on my head when I work. I always keep clean cap. Right when I go to the factory, take all my clothes off and put overalls and jump. It look to me pretty dirty and too dark. Mine I think was little more light, little more gray.” He then was asked, “Is it your cap?” and stated, “I think it is. It look like, but it is probably dirt—probably dirty after.” Source: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Commonwealth v. Nicola Sacco & Another, 255 Mass. 369; 151 N.E. 839 (1926).
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Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed
1927 Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left) and Nicola Sacco, manacled together and surrounded by guards and onlookers, as they approach the Massachusetts courthouse where they will be sentenced to death. (Library of Congress)
denied, and in April of 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to die during the week of July 10. Public outcry caused the date to be moved to August 10, and Vanzetti wrote a plea for clemency to Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller. In the letter, he asked not for pardon but for a complete review of the case. On June 1, the governor appointed a committee to review the case, but after examination of the findings, he denied a new trial. On August 10, Sacco and Vanzetti were prepared for execution. Thirty-six minutes before the execution, the governor issued a postponement pending the results of an appeal to the Supreme Court. On August 19, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, citing a lack of authority. In Europe and South America, mobs rioted and marched on U.S. embassies. In France, Italy, and the United States, workers went on strike to protest. Five hundred extra policemen, armed with machine guns and tear gas, barricaded the crowd of thousands outside the jail. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed just after midnight on August 23, 1927.
Significance The robbery and murder case against Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, one of the most famous U.S. trials of the twentieth century, generated worldwide protests, strikes, and riots as it focused the international spotlight on the small town of Dedham, Massachusetts in 1927. Controversy over the trial and its verdict continued long after the two men were executed. Some maintained that both men were innocent and were the targets of ethnic and political discrimination, whereas others insisted that only Vanzetti was innocent. However, most scholars agreed that Sacco and Vanzetti should have been granted a second trial, and in 1977 Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis released an official state document asserting that the men’s guilt had not been proven. — Joyce Duncan Further Reading Bortman, Eli C. Sacco and Vanzetti. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions, 2005. A brief, dramatic, 2201
The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie” and evenhanded account of the trial and its circumstances. Dickinson, Alice. The Sacco-Vanzetti Case. New York: Franklin Watts, 1972. An abbreviated overview of the case, including chronology and photos. Ehrmann, Herbert. The Case That Will Not Die: Commonwealth vs. Sacco and Vanzetti. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969. Liberally illustrated account by the case’s assistant defense attorney during the period 1926-1927. Maps, time tables, and bibliography. Frankfurter, Marion Denman, and Gardner Jackson, eds. The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: Penguin Classics, 1997. Collection of correspondence by both men written from prison, including Vanzetti’s letter to the governor. Joughin, G. L., and E. M. Morgan. The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948.
October 6, 1927 THE JAZZ SINGER
Early work provides masterful analysis of the case. Russell, Francis. Tragedy in Dedham. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. Illustrated chronological recitation of events, including a discussion of public temperament. Topp, Michael M. The Sacco and Vanzetti Case: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. A good resource for those interested in primary-source material. See also: June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded; May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924; Feb. 14, 1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre; May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde.
Premieres as the First “Talkie”
The commercial success of The Jazz Singer began the era of talking pictures and led to a restructuring of the film industry. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Al Jolson (1886-1950), American entertainer Harry Warner (1881-1958), American motion-picture executive Jack Warner (1892-1978), American motion-picture executive Sam Warner (1887-1927), American motion-picture executive Edward B. Craft (1881-1929), American engineer Summary of Event The opening of the film The Jazz Singer in New York City on October 6, 1927, represented the culmination of one in a long series of attempts to bring synchronized sound to motion pictures. Thomas Alva Edison had invented the motion-picture camera in 1891, not because he saw a great commercial future in film but because he wanted a visual accompaniment to another of his inventions, the phonograph. Edison’s idea was that sight and sound should combine in one home entertainment machine. Thirty-five years later, he had failed to accomplish 2202
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that goal, as had numerous inventors who saw commercial potential in talking films. When the introduction of storefront film theaters, called nickelodeons, created a boom in the film industry beginning in 1905, more attention was devoted to improving the technology of motion pictures. Nobody, however, could solve the problem of synchronizing sound with the moving image. The solution to this tricky technological problem was finally found in the laboratories of Western Electric, the research and manufacturing subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). Western Electric’s scientists had invented a system of electrical recording based on vacuum tube amplifiers, which had been perfected in their laboratories. The sound was picked up on microphones, amplified, and recorded onto disks. Loudspeakers were developed to complement the system. The first commercial application of this technology was the public-address system, introduced in 1920, which could fill a large auditorium with amplified sound. The chief engineer of the Western Electric laboratories, Edward B. Craft, saw many potential applications for this technology, and in 1922 he obtained permission from his superiors at AT&T to perfect it and begin its commercial application. Craft demonstrated electrical recording to film producers and record companies in 1924, but without success. Both groups had large investments in existing tech-
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role in the planned film. As one of the most popular vaudeville stars in the United States, Jolson was a major attraction, and his presence ensured that the film would not go unnoticed. The Jazz Singer tells the story of a young Jewish man who abandons his family and the traditional music of his religion to become a star in the world of popular entertainment, a plot that reflected Jolson’s own career. It was to be another silent film with short musical interludes until Jolson ad-libbed his famous line, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet!” during a rehearsal. It was therefore by accident that The Jazz Singer introduced synchronized speech to films. The finished film contained only a few scenes with speech and Jolson singing; the rest was silent, with the usual titles interjected to display dialogue for the audience to read. The Jazz Singer premiered in New York City at Warner’s Theater on October 6, 1927. It was not an immediate success. The audience was thrilled when Jolson spoke from the screen, but neither critics nor leading filmmakers were very impressed. In the weeks that followed the premiere, Warner Bros. mounted a national press campaign to attract attention to the innovation of sound. Despite lukewarm reviews, attendance for the film grew rapidly as it opened in theaters across the United States. In 1928, The Jazz Singer began to set records for the length of run, and it finally grossed the unprecedented sum of three million dollars. By the end of the year, the returns from The Jazz Singer and other sound films convinced Warner Bros. to shift all of its film production into “talkies.” The other major filmmakers soon followed. Western Electric pressed Warner Bros. to return its initial exclusive license and then formed Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI) to market the technology to the film industry. Several large film companies took out licenses from ERPI in 1928, and by the end of the year every major film producer was making talking pictures. The process of wiring up film theaters for sound moved ahead rapidly, and in a very short time about fifteen hundred of the largest theaters in the United States were equipped to show talking pictures. In the same year that Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, William Fox demonstrated his Movietone system, which recorded sound directly onto film. There were now two competing technologies for synchronized sound. Sound on film had the advantage of being easier to operate because there were no disks to be mixed up or broken. Filmmakers could also edit talking pictures by cutting and rejoining lengths of film, a task impossible 2203
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nology, and the film industry had not forgotten the string of failures of talking-picture technology, not the least of which was Edison’s disastrous and highly publicized kinetophone of 1913, which was booed off the stage in many theaters. It was therefore left to a smaller company to see the advantages of Western Electric’s system and manage its commercial introduction. The Warner brothers had started in the nickelodeon business in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, at the turn of the century. Sam ran the projection machine, Jack sang in the pit, and the oldest brother, Harry, ran the business. From these small beginnings, they moved to Hollywood and produced their first feature film in 1918, repeating a process by which many film exhibitors had moved into the production of motion pictures. The Warner Bros. film company grew steadily in the 1920’s, and by 1925 it was attempting to build a distribution network of film rental services and theaters to market its growing output. The Warner brothers’ initiation into the new technology of vacuum tubes and amplification of sound came when they built a radio station to enter the broadcasting business. They recognized that this was an important new form of entertainment and that it could be used to advertise their films. Sam Warner, who managed this operation, heard about Western Electric’s new technology from radio experts he consulted. His brothers saw that electrical recording could be married to Western Electric’s public-address equipment of amplifiers and loudspeakers to fill theaters with recorded sound. Their business strategy was to replace the professional musicians in theaters, enabling smaller exhibitors to provide the kind of musical accompaniment that was heard in the big picture palaces. It was never the Warner brothers’ intention to make synchronized sound tracks for motion pictures; all they wanted was background music of recorded sound. Warner Bros. entered into an agreement with Western Electric in 1925 to introduce the sound-on-disk system. The brothers formed a joint company, the Vitaphone Corporation, and set about recording an orchestral accompaniment to a silent picture. Their first attempt was Don Juan, which was released with several Vitaphone short features in 1926. Critical and audience reaction was favorable, but none of the major film producers saw any reason to convert to sound. The Warner brothers were convinced that the future was in the “talkies,” however, and they acquired a Broadway play to turn into an elaborate, full-length picture. The studio convinced Al Jolson to play the leading
The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”
The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The five largest film studios—Loew’s/ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Universal, Paramount, First National, and United Artists—prudently waited until The Jazz Singer was a proven commercial success before they moved into sound. By that time, the Warner and Fox companies had taken the lead in applying the new technology to filmmaking. Warner Bros. followed the success of The Jazz Singer in 1928 with The Singing Fool, which also starred Al Jolson and commanded the recTo view image, please refer to the ord admission price of eleven dollars for print edition of this title. its premiere. The Singing Fool was a great success and one of the highest-grossing Hollywood features of the 1930’s and 1940’s. The enormous enthusiasm for talking pictures generated record levels of profits for the film industry. Warner Bros. and Fox took the lion’s share of the early rewards. From 1928 to 1929, profits at Fox increased by $3.5 million, and those at Warner Bros. increased by an astounding $12 million. Both studios began to acquire theaters and other film producers at a rapid rate. Warner Bros. took over First National, and Fox temporarily took control of Loew’s/MGM. The two pioneers Al Jolson performs in blackface makeup in The Jazz Singer. (Hulton Archive/ of sound quickly became major forces in Getty Images) the film industry. In 1930, the major film producers were Paramount, Loew’s/MGM, Warner Bros., with sound on disk. Another system of sound on film was Fox, and RKO. The Big Five, as they were known, developed by the Radio Corporation of America, which went on a buying spree, acquiring film theaters, buying organized Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) to make and out smaller competitors, and purchasing music publishshow sound pictures. By 1930, all the major filmmakers ers and record companies. Each company controlled a had graduated to sound on film, and the technology made network of film theaters to exhibit its films. Warner Bros. famous by The Jazz Singer was obsolete. became the first integrated entertainment empire, with holdings in film, radio, music publishing, and records. As one example of integration, The Singing Fool proSignificance moted Al Jolson’s songs, which were recorded on the The Jazz Singer began a transition to a new form of Brunswick record label, controlled by the Warners, and motion-picture technology that completely changed film were owned by music publishing companies under production and restructured the film industry. In only Warner control. Two songs from the film, “Sonny Boy” three years, sound recording was incorporated into filmand “There’s a Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder,” were the making, sound equipment was installed in theaters, and best-selling records of 1928. silent films had all but vanished. Thousands of actors and Talking pictures ushered in a period of great profits musicians lost their jobs, and only one major star of silent for exhibitors as well. The novelty of sound captivated films, Charles Chaplin, managed to survive in the new audiences, and the five years after the premiere of The order of the “talkies.” 2204
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Further Reading Bandy, Mary Lea, ed. The Dawn of Sound. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1989. Published in conjunction with an exhibition and series of films commemorating the introduction of sound to film. Contains several excellent short essays that describe the technology and its history. Includes many rare photographs. Cameron, Evan W., ed. Sound and the Cinema. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Redgrave, 1980. Collection of essays by scholars and technicians on the transition to sound in film and its development as an important feature in motion pictures. Crafton, Donald. The Talkies: American Cinema’s Tran-
sition to Sound, 1926-1931. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997. Discusses all aspects of the shift from silent films to films with sound, including the public’s reaction to talking pictures and the effects of sound on the aesthetics of filmmaking. Includes bibliography and indexes. Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Comprehensive history of the period in Hollywood filmmaking when silents gave way to sound. Includes photographs and index. Freedland, Michael. Jolson. New York: Stein & Day, 1972. Entertaining, concise biography is short on detail in some respects, but still a first-rate telling of Jolson’s story. Includes photographs. Geduld, Harry M. The Birth of the Talkies: From Edison to Jolson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Excellent discussion of the development of sound in films. Highlights the roles of the pioneers who developed sound technology. Goldman, Herbert G. Jolson: The Legend Comes to Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Classic biography, well written and detailed. Includes numerous photographs from all aspects of Jolson’s life and an extensive listing of Jolson’s appearances on stage, in films, and on records. Gomery, Douglas. Movie History: A Survey. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1991. History of the American film industry written by the leading authority on the conversion to sound. Provides a good introduction to the transformation of the industry following the introduction of sound. Illustrated. Lyman, Darryl. Great Jews on Stage and Screen. Middle Village, N.Y.: Jonathan David, 1987. Includes a section on Al Jolson that provides an overview of the entertainer’s career, including brief discussion of The Jazz Singer. Sarris, Andrew. “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet”: The American Talking Film—History and Memory, 19271949. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Comprehensive history of American cinema since The Jazz Singer by one of the most respected American writers on film. Features an index of films and an index of names. Shipman, David. The Story of Cinema. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Well-written history includes a chapter on the development of sound films. Features numerous photographs. Warner, Jack, with Dean Jennings. My First Hundred Years. New York: Random House, 1964. Personal ac2205
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Jazz Singer saw unprecedented levels of enthusiasm for motion pictures. It has been estimated that on average every person in the United States over the age of six went to a film theater once a week during this period. The onset of the Great Depression severely damaged other entertainment industries, but the motion-picture industry appeared to be immune to depression. The popularity of film musicals, which provided the best showcase for the new technology, made film producers the leading consumers of music in the entertainment business. They acquired the rights to numerous Broadway musicals, and a stream of songwriters and artists made their way west to work in Hollywood. The average cost of a motion picture began to rise as filmmakers indulged themselves in ambitious musical productions involving large casts and highly paid stars. Musicals such as The King of Jazz, made by Paramount for about $2 million in 1930, overshadowed the great epics of the silent era in terms of spectacle and set a precedent for the Hollywood musicals of the 1930’s. The transition to sound favored larger film companies, for only they could raise the money to pay for it. The complex process of putting sound on film required great amounts of capital and considerable technical expertise. Adopting the technologies of synchronized sound required a massive construction program, because new film studios had to be built to accommodate sound recording and all theaters had to be converted to reproduce film sound. Sound was an important factor in the consolidation of the film industry. A small number of fully integrated companies came to dominate both film production and theatrical exhibition. The corporate structure that emerged in reaction to the advent of sound was to define Hollywood in its Golden Age of the 1930’s and 1940’s. —Andre Millard
The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”
Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club count of the making and impact of The Jazz Singer by one of the Warner brothers; entertaining and full of important insights. Presents a firsthand look at the trials and tribulations of introducing a new technology into the motion-picture industry. Weis, Elisabeth, and John Belton, eds. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Collection of scholarly articles addresses
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 every aspect of the conversion to sound and shows its effects on filmmaking and the film industry. See also: 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures; Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age.
December 4, 1927
Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club When Duke Ellington began a three-year engagement at Harlem’s Cotton Club, he launched his career as the most important composer-arranger-leader in jazz history. Locale: New York, New York Category: Music Key Figures Duke Ellington (1899-1974), American pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Bubber Miley (James Miley; 1903-1932), American trumpeter Tricky Sam Nanton (Joseph Nanton; 1904-1946), American trombonist Irving Mills (1894-1985), American song publisher and promoter Johnny Hodges (1907-1970), American alto saxophonist Summary of Event With Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington (Edward Kennedy Ellington) is one of the greatest figures in jazz and twentieth century American music. His importance rests on his achievements as a composer, orchestrator, and pianist-leader of the remarkable orchestra he headed for almost half a century. When he and his band made their debut at New York City’s Cotton Club in 1927, Ellington was still a musician with a modest if growing reputation. He already had acquired the nickname that reflected his suave good looks and courtly manner when he emerged as the leader of a small black cooperative dance band that had moved to New York City from Washington, D.C., in 1923. Ellington’s debut at the Cotton Club on December 4, 1927, is now recognized as one of the most important openings in jazz history even though the unprepared 2206
band’s first few performances there were unimpressive. The band soon mastered the demanding fifteen-act program and also played for dancing and radio broadcast. It quickly became a major attraction in itself, as Ellington used the opportunity to transform his dance-show band into a collaborative vehicle for superior artistic expression. The Cotton Club was one of the best-known and most successful of more than a dozen Harlem establishments that catered exclusively or mainly to a white clientele. Ellington’s white manager, Irving Mills, had arranged for the job at the club. Its success was based mainly on its exotic and relatively sophisticated ambience, the quality of its all-black entertainment, and the sale of illegal alcohol. The elaborate shows, which usually featured comedians, dancers, vocalists, a chorus line, and the house band, were staged by experienced Broadway show people with original music by Jimmy McHugh. The engagement at the Cotton Club enabled Ellington to build and consolidate his all-star band. It also spurred him to create a body of distinctive compositions and orchestral arrangements that drew on the African American tradition and expanded and elevated the vocabulary of jazz. Many of the club’s acts appealed to white fantasies of exotic and primitive Africa, and the muted brass growls that the Ellington band had developed were labeled and marketed as “jungle style.” Compositions such as “Echoes of the Jungle” served a functional purpose at the Cotton Club; they also transcended that context and, together with other original works, made an impact when heard on records and radio. Nationwide radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club on the fledgling Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network made Ellington’s name and music familiar to millions. Records by Duke Ellington and His Famous Cotton Club Orchestra sold widely and were heard in
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Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club
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orchestral pieces, extended works designed mainly for Europe, where Ellington became a celebrity before his concerts, film music, television themes, ballet and opera first visit there in 1933. In 1929, Mills arranged for scores, and religious music for his “sacred concerts.” Ellington to lead his band in Florenz Ziegfeld’s theater Ellington’s abiding inspiration was the black American production of George Gershwin’s Show Girl. The band community and its culture, which he sought to portray in performed with Maurice Chevalier, then traveled to Holcompositions such as “Black Beauty,” Black, Brown, lywood to make the film Check and Double Check and Beige, “Harlem Airshaft,” and “My People.” (1930). Ellington was included in a group of important One of Ellington’s greatest achievements was the creAfrican Americans invited to the White House in 1931. ation of an orchestra unrivaled for its stability, longevity, In addition to writing arrangements in the jungle and number of influential musicians who stayed within style, Ellington mastered the sectional formula developed by Fletcher “Smack” Henderson for his own much-admired orchestra. Henderson’s model became the basis for many big band arrangers. Ellington frequently departed from the formula, mixing instrumental voices from across the trumpet, trombone, and reed sections to produce unique and sometimes haunting blends, as in the muted trumpet, muted trombone, and clarinet sound of “Mood Indigo” (1930). Ellington often borrowed or developed the ideas of his musicians in creating music for his band. The frequent use of unwritten “head arrangeTo view image, please refer to the ments,” which gradually evolved as print edition of this title. suggestions were incorporated, contributed to the collaborative expression of the band but sometimes made the question of authorship difficult, even though the organizing intelligence was clearly Ellington’s. In his more formal and personal arrangements, Ellington sometimes used sound in much the same way as the pointillists used paint. His impressionistic compositions, skillful use of dissonance, and unusual textures led to comparisons with such modern European composers as Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius, and Maurice Ravel, of whom Ellington probably had little knowledge. In his career of more than fifty years, Ellington wrote approximately twelve hundred compositions of an amazing variety, including simple blues, popDuke Ellington (at the piano) and his band perform at the Cotton Club. (Hulton Arular hit songs, dance tunes, showchive/Getty Images) cases for individual musicians, short
Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club its ranks for prolonged periods. Throughout his life Ellington was in an almost constant state of exploration, reevaluation, and development; his music is so various that it defies classification. He kept the band together, sometimes at great personal expense, because he needed to hear his compositions and arrangements played on the instrument for which they were intended: his orchestra. Significance The Ellington orchestra’s success was in part a result of the talent of its individual members, many of whom became models for thousands of other artists. Johnny Hodges was one of the preeminent alto saxophonists in jazz, influencing almost all who came after him, even tenor saxophonists such as bandmate Ben Webster and modernist John Coltrane. Harry Carney, who was with the band from 1927 until Ellington’s death in 1974, is known as the father of the baritone saxophone, which he established as an important ensemble and solo voice. Trumpeter Bubber Miley and trombonist Tricky Sam Nanton developed the plunger-mute techniques on their respective instruments that created the “jungle sounds” that were an important characteristic of the Ellington orchestral style. These expressive techniques sprang from the roots of the jazz instrumental tradition and subsequently were used by brass players everywhere. Miley’s successor with Ellington, Charles “Cootie” Williams, became an influence in his own right, as did trombonist Lawrence Brown, trumpeter Clark Terry, and saxophonist Ben Webster. In his short life, Jimmy Blanton established the path followed by most jazz bass players since 1940. Ellington himself was a competent if not outstanding pianist who began by playing mainly in the “stride” style that had developed out of ragtime. He also developed an effective accompaniment style and ways of voicing chords that are widely imitated. Imitations of Ellington’s influence can be heard in the work of the modernist pianist/composer Thelonious Monk, who made a piano-trio recording of Ellington compositions. Ellington’s appeal to jazz musicians has transcended periods and styles and proved timeless; there are few who have not acknowledged his influence in one way or another. Ellington’s life and musical interests spanned the first seventy-five years of jazz history. He recorded and sounded comfortable with the greatest artists of every period, including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane. Because they seem so quintessentially to belong to his orchestra, Ellington’s longer compositions are seldom 2208
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 heard performed except on his own recordings. They are demonstrations that the American dance band can be an extremely flexible vehicle, both for popular entertainment and for high artistic expression. Although the Ellington spirit and influence permeate big band music, few arrangers (aside from his collaborator and musical alter ego, Billy Strayhorn) have been able to duplicate Ellington’s unique orchestral sound. The bands of Charlie Barnet and Woody Herman at times provided rough approximations, aided by the fact that both leaders were saxophonists in the style of Johnny Hodges. The persistence of Ellington’s influence as a composer and orchestrator can be heard in the modern works of Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, and Oliver Nelson. Ellington’s compositions have been played by groups large and small since the 1930’s, and his legacy is perhaps most alive in the thirty or so short compositions that are still part of the working repertoire of most jazz musicians around the world. Melodies such as “Satin Doll,” “In a Mellow Tone,” “Solitude,” and “In a Sentimental Mood”—works on a par with those of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Irvin Berlin—can be heard wherever jazz is played. Ellington’s compositions have been recorded thousands of times by musicians ranging from traditionalists to the avant-garde and have been reinterpreted as they have been discovered by each succeeding generation. In his many tours abroad, some under the aegis of the U.S. government, Ellington took his music and the American ideals of individuality and freedom of expression within a cooperative group context to thousands of people. In addition to his influence on musicians and leaders such as Ted Heath of Britain and Francy Boland of Belgium, Ellington absorbed and later (often with Strayhorn) transformed foreign musical influences in such works as Far East Suite, Virgin Islands Suite, and Latin American Suite. Wynton Marsalis, one of the most impressive and influential musicians to appear in the 1980’s, has stated that “Duke Ellington is what jazz is, he is the greatest jazz musician . . . because he addressed most comprehensively what jazz music actually is . . . the fundamentals of group improvisation, vocalization, and a swinging optimism.” Marsalis has devoted much of his considerable talent to educating young musicians in the value of Ellington’s music and in performing the composer’s works with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, as on the recording Portraits by Ellington. Ellington’s musical achievement elevated jazz as an African American art form and brought increased accep-
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Further Reading Collier, James Lincoln. Duke Ellington. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Well-written, scholarly, and sometimes controversial biography of Ellington sets his work within its historical, social, and musical contexts. Examines the importance and role of Ellington’s musicians, both as instrumentalists and as contributors to compositions generally ascribed to their leader. Includes musical analysis, photographs, discographical note, and index. Dance, Stanley. The World of Duke Ellington. 1970. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 2000. Collection of articles, interviews, memorabilia, sketches of musicians, and diary entries written mainly in the 1960’s by a longtime Ellington associate and observer. The whole adds up to a fascinating picture of the personalities and interrelationships of many of the most important members of the Ellington musical family. Includes photographs, selective discography, index, and chronology from 1899 to 1970 highlighting the major events in Ellington’s life, band personnel changes, important compositions, and performances. Ellington, Edward Kennedy. Music Is My Mistress. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. Ellington’s autobiography reflects his lively and at times eccentric mind, his sophistication, and his ironic sense of hu-
mor. A potpourri of straight memoir, flights of imagination, sketches of more than one hundred musicians and other associates, anecdotes, religious meditations, poems, prose poems, a libretto, and journals of various foreign tours. Rich in personal commentary but of uneven literary quality, this work reveals Ellington’s love of life and passion for music, but, as always, he guards his privacy and the essential man remains elusive. Includes photographs, lists of honors and awards, list of compositions, and bibliography. Ellington, Mercer, with Stanley Dance. Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978. Written after Ellington’s death to supplement the autobiography and the Dance book cited above. Reveals the darker side of Ellington’s personality, his love-hate relationship with his son, his amorous liaisons, and his professional and artistic struggles. Includes photographs, copyright and discographic information, and index. Haskins, James. The Cotton Club. 1977. Reprint. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994. The story of the nightclub that, between 1923 and 1940, brought Broadway-type entertainment to Harlem, although for white audiences only. The club introduced and served as a showplace for many of America’s greatest black artists. Despite some inaccuracies, a good introduction to an important chapter in entertainment history. Includes photographs, notes, and bibliography. Lawrence, A. H. Duke Ellington and His World: A Biography. New York: Routledge, 2001. First Ellington biography written by a jazz musician draws heavily on interviews with the composer’s colleagues, friends, and family members, including his son Mercer. Features list of compositions, bibliography, and index. Schuller, Gunther. “Duke Ellington, Master Composer.” In The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 19301945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Examines Ellington’s music into the 1940’s. Successfully combines historical detail with a systematic analysis of the music in terms best understood by trained musicians. Features many transcribed musical illustrations and select discography. _______. “The Ellington Style: Its Origins and Early Development.” In Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. 1968. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Focuses on Ellington’s music as recorded from 1926 through the Cotton Club period to 1931. 2209
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tance and respect to its practitioners. His personal sophistication and dignity made him an important representative of the black community. Ellington’s hundreds of honors and awards, including many honorary doctorates, also served to acknowledge the contributions of black people to American society and culture. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, a celebration was held at the White House during which President Richard Nixon presented Ellington with the highest civilian award of the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. During the height of big band popularity in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, Ellington’s band was not as commercially successful as many white bands, but his organization was often the standard against which other bands were measured, especially by musicians. Through courage, hard work, and artistry, Ellington was able to sustain his band after all but a handful of others had disappeared. When Ellington died in 1974, the leadership of his stillfunctioning band was taken up by his son Mercer, who continued to present his father’s music to the world until his own death in 1996. —Douglas Rollins
Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club
Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot Vail, Ken. Duke’s Diary, Part I: The Life of Duke Ellington, 1927-1950. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 2002. First of two volumes covers the period in Ellington’s life when his career began to take off. Illustrates the progress of his success through photographs, newspaper articles, advertisements, reviews, and other documents from that time.
December 27, 1927 SHOW BOAT Is the
See also: Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”; Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career.
First American Musical to Emphasize Plot
Show Boat was the first major musical theater production to make use of a strong, plotted story line. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Theater; music; entertainment Key Figures Jerome Kern (1885-1945), American composer Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), American librettist Florenz Ziegfeld (1869-1932), American impresario Edna Ferber (1885-1968), American author Summary of Event By 1927, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Florenz Ziegfeld already had made significant contributions to the world of musical theater. Ziegfeld was known primarily as an impresario whose yearly editions of the Ziegfeld Follies introduced New York City audiences to such performing talents as Fanny Brice and Bert Williams and such writing talents as Irving Berlin and the team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The Ziegfeld Follies were revues that featured skits, stand-up comedy, specialty acts, individual songs, and many beautiful women. Ziegfeld had made the decision to branch out into the more conventional musical comedy. He also had decided, in 1927, to open a new theater that bore his name; it was built on Sixth Avenue and Fifty-Third Street. He promised Kern and Hammerstein that their new musical would be the first production in the new theater. Hammerstein and Kern, along with Otto Harbach, had written an earlier musical for Ziegfeld. Sunny, produced in 1925, featured Marilyn Miller. Hammerstein came from a theatrical family. His grandfather was an opera impresario, his father ran a vaudeville house, and his uncle produced shows on Broadway. Hammerstein had studied law at Columbia University but was soon drawn into theater. With Harbach, he teamed on the book and 2210
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lyrics (the libretto) for several musicals with a variety of composers. Kern was impressed with Hammerstein’s work on Sunny and approached him to create the libretto for Show Boat. Turning Edna Ferber’s 1926 novel Show Boat into a musical was Kern’s idea. This was not the first time Kern was involved in groundbreaking musical theater. In 1915, Kern, along with librettist Guy Bolton, wrote a musical called Nobody Home. This was the first of a series of musicals that have become known as the Princess Theater shows. The name comes from the theater where the shows were first performed. In an era of operetta with the libretto serving as a showcase for songs and set pieces by featured comics, usually in the setting of a lush European fantasy, the Princess Theater shows were marked by smaller productions (usually two sets), smaller casts (eight chorus members or fewer), and smaller orchestras (ten instruments or fewer). Although the physical production of the Princess Theater shows might have been smaller, the ambitions and talents involved were quite large. The Princess Theater shows used American situations, and the songs and comedy grew out of these situations. Other musicals in the series included Very Good Eddie (1915), Oh, Boy! (1917), and Oh, Lady! Lady!! (1918). The last two had the added feature of the British wit of P. G. Wodehouse. Work on Show Boat began during the intermission of another Kern musical, Criss Cross (1926). Kern had read the Ferber novel and was determined to meet with the author to discuss its musical possibilities. He approached his friend Alexander Woollcott to ask for an introduction. Conveniently, Ferber was Woollcott’s guest that evening at the theater. In the lobby, during intermission, Kern broached his idea to the novelist. Ferber was no stranger to the theater. She had written a play with George S. Kaufman. In fact, it was a casual comment from Kaufman that sparked the idea for the novel Show
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Significance When Show Boat opened in 1927, musical theater fare was divided among revues such as Ziegfeld’s Follies and George White’s Scandals, European operettas, and American musical comedies such as the Princess Theater shows. Although these musical comedies represented a distinct departure in style and subject matter from the operetta, the music and comedy were the focus. This often meant that character-driven plots were sacrificed for comic situations and catchy tunes. It would be misleading to suggest that one show, even Show Boat, could change all that. Such is not the nature
of art. Show Boat did, however, point the way for such artists as Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim. This happened because of the promise Jerome Kern made to Edna Ferber. Instead of using the outline of Ferber’s novel as a skeleton for songs and comic routines, Kern and Hammerstein were concerned with telling the story. This was an ambitious task. Show Boat tells the story of Magnolia Hawkes, the daughter of Cap’n Andy, proprietor of the Cotton Blossom, a showboat. Magnolia meets and falls in love with Gaylord Ravenal, a suave riverboat gambler. They marry and have a daughter named Kim. Ravenal leaves his wife and child. Another performer with the Cotton Blossom company, Julie, is found to be a mulatto, and, because she is married to a Caucasian, she is charged with miscegenation and forced to leave the boat. She later turns up as an alcoholic saloon singer in Chicago. Magnolia and Kim also are in Chicago during the World’s Fair, and they have a brief reunion with Ravenal. Show Boat is a sprawling tale that covers several decades and locales. Alcoholism, racism, and broken families are some of the issues that drive the plot. This was not the usual material for musical comedy. Show Boat demonstrated that, if handled with skill and taste, such issues could be material for musical theater. Carousel (1945), by Rodgers and Hammerstein, deals with spousal abuse and dysfunctional families. South Pacific (1949), by the same team, uses interracial marriage as a key element. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe told the story of King Arthur in Camelot (1960); several adulterous affairs are central to that story. Kern and Hammerstein first demonstrated that the American musical could deal with serious issues, breaking the ground for these later shows. Serious issues alone did not make Show Boat great, however. The source material, although successful as a novel, did not guarantee a successful musical. Kern and Hammerstein had to combine their experience, their talents, and their ideas for innovation to create Show Boat. Many of the songs they wrote have become standards. The score includes “Only Make Believe,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man of Mine,” and “Why Do I Love You?” Each of these shows Kern’s considerable melodic gifts. They also demonstrate Hammerstein’s unique lyrical turn with love songs. Instead of writing the commonplace “I love you,” Hammerstein suggested that the characters “make believe” they love each other. There is a love song in Show Boat with lyrics not written by Hammerstein. The song “Bill,” sung by Julie, was written by Kern and P. G. Wodehouse. It was intended for Oh, Lady! Lady!! but had been cut. When Helen Mor2211
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Boat. When the novel was published, it quickly became a best seller. This only added to Ferber’s fame, as she had won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1924 novel So Big. The idea of turning Show Boat into a musical at first did not appeal to Ferber. Her experience with musicals had been shows such as Criss Cross that featured comic routines, tap dancing, and lines of chorus girls. Kern had a different vision and was able to convince the novelist that Show Boat would not be a conventional musical comedy but rather a musical play. Having won her consent, Kern approached Hammerstein to write the libretto and Ziegfeld to produce the show. Kern and Hammerstein went to work, secure with the promise from Ziegfeld that Show Boat would open the new Ziegfeld Theater. What they did not know was that Ziegfeld had made the same commitment to Guy Bolton and Harry Tierney, who were writing Rio Rita. On February 2, 1927, the theater was ready and so was Rio Rita. Ziegfeld was a man of business and opened his theater with a likely hit. With Rio Rita opening the Ziegfeld Theater, any sense of time pressure on Kern and Hammerstein to finish Show Boat was removed, allowing them to fine-tune their work and to introduce innovations. Show Boat tried out in Washington, D.C., in November of 1927. The show was too long, but the audience responded well. Kern and Hammerstein continued to refine their work. The production then moved to Philadelphia, where refinements continued. On December 27, 1927, Show Boat opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City. Although the show was still long, the response from the critics and the audience was very positive. Show Boat ran for two years in New York, went on a national tour, returned to New York for another run, opened a production in London, generated three film versions, and became the first Broadway musical to be part of the repertory of the New York City Opera.
Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot
Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot gan was cast as Julie, Kern thought that the song “Bill” would lend itself perfectly to Morgan’s trademark of sitting on a piano to sing a torch song. Hammerstein was given credit so often for this song that he took pains to include a program note giving due praise to Wodehouse. Another song, “Ol’ Man River,” also had a lasting effect on the musical theater. With such a sprawling story to tell, Hammerstein thought it necessary to use a song to tie the work together. Using a slowed down, inverted version of the Cotton Blossom theme, Hammerstein fashioned a ballad of pain, despair, and some hope based on the unceasing flow of the Mississippi River that binds all these lives together. Oddly enough, this song, which is the theme of the show, is sung by Joe, a relatively minor character. The idea of a concept or theme tying a musical together has been used in some of the most enduring productions. In Fiddler on the Roof (1964), the idea of tradition, both in the family and in society, is the theme that ties the plot together. Stephen Sondheim, a protégé of Hammerstein, wrote a musical, Company (1970), that all but dispenses with plot and relies heavily on the themes of marriage and New York City to unite the production. Company has often been called the first “concept” musical. Summer theaters and opera companies make sure that Show Boat itself, in so many ways a pioneering show, endures. —William B. Kennedy Further Reading Engel, Lehman. The American Musical Theater. New York: Macmillan, 1975. Evaluation of trends in musical theater history by an experienced conductor and theorist. Excellent source for any serious study of the musical theater. Chapter titled “Breakaway” includes discussion of Show Boat. Contains several useful appendixes. Ewen, David. The World of Jerome Kern. New York: Henry Holt, 1960. Highly readable biography aimed
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 at general readers. Kern is clearly the hero, so scholars should be wary of a lack of objectivity. Presents anecdotes and direct quotes from Kern on Show Boat, but only sketchy information on his work with Hammerstein. Includes photographs. Green, Stanley. The World of Musical Comedy. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1962. One of the first major histories of the musical takes the form of a cross between chronology and studies of the writers. Includes a very good section on Kern, with valuable notes on getting Show Boat to the stage. Kislan, Richard. The Musical: A Look at the American Musical Theater. Rev. ed. New York: Applause Books, 1995. Textbook for a general course in musical theater includes a brief but thorough history and a study of the various crafts and artists in the musical theater. Features a chapter on Kern and goes into some depth on Ziegfeld and the Princess Theater. Includes excellent photographs. Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. History of the genre focuses on how themes in American musical theater productions relate to how Americans view themselves. Chapter 8 addresses Show Boat within the context of a discussion of race and ethnicity. Includes useful appendixes, notes, bibliography, and index. Smith, Cecil, and Glenn Litton. Musical Comedy in America. 1981. Reprint. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1991. Excellent overall history of the musical theater provides photographs and thorough and literate text. Goes beyond the expected chronology and discusses technique. Particularly skillful at creating a sense of what the musical theater was like in the early twentieth century. See also: Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres; Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York.
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Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog
1928
Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in AN ANDALUSIAN DOG The Surrealist film An Andalusian Dog launched the directing career of Luis Buñuel and gave him a vehicle for expressing his deeply felt indignation at the moral failures of church and society. Locale: Paris, France Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), Spanish filmmaker and moralist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Spanish Surrealist painter André Breton (1896-1966), French writer and critic
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Summary of Event The intellectual movement that dominated the careers of both Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and that drove them to produce Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog) was Surrealism. Along with Dadaism and expressionism, Surrealism was a revolt against representational art. Led by founder André Breton, the Surrealist movement had its first exhibition in Paris in 1925. Surrealists believed that the contents of the unconscious mind are as real as the concrete world; therefore, artistic rules that govern merely the physical world, such as those of perspective, are not sufficient as an expression of reality. Surrealist art attempted to depict objects in incongruous juxtapositions, as they might occur in a dream. Dalí and Buñuel met in 1920 at the University of Madrid. Dalí called his friends there a “strident and revolutionary group.” The first one-man exhibition of Dalí’s paintings came in 1925 in Barcelona. Dalí held JeanAuguste-Dominique Ingres and Jacques-Louis David, realist painters from the nineteenth century, in high esteem. In arguing for tradition and classical form, Dalí shocked his Spanish contemporaries, most of whom were absorbed in the post-Impressionist rejection of academic rules and traditions. Dalí’s Surrealism would permit him his realism, but with unrelated objects depicted in dreamlike, infinitely receding landscapes. In 1927, he dedicated to Buñuel an essay suggesting that film could promote a new way of seeing. After an apprenticeship from 1925 to 1928 at Jean Epstein’s Académie du Cinéma in Paris, Buñuel joined Dalí in making a Surrealist film. The script was written in three days, and filming was completed in less than two weeks. The resulting short film, An Andalusian Dog, was shown to Breton and other Paris Surrealists, who enthu-
siastically received it and accepted the pair into their ranks. Dalí described the aim of the film as jolting viewers. He and Buñuel wanted to make a film that “would carry . . . the audience back to the secret depths of adolescence, to the sources of dreams, destiny, and the secret of life and death, a work that would scratch away at all received ideas.” Buñuel wrote that in working out the plot, every idea of a rational, aesthetic, or other preoccupation with technical matters was rejected as irrelevant. He described the aim of the film as producing instinctive reactions of attraction and repulsion. Despite the fact that both artists insisted that nothing in the film symbolizes anything, others have interpreted the film as having various meanings. Analysts agree that the opening sequence of the twenty-minute film, in which a razor slices a human eye, was intended as a typical, if horrifying, Surrealist attack on the viewer’s (and the world’s) complacency in the midst of worldwide atrocities. What follows is a series of intentionally unrelated scenes that has been called “a catalog of Freudian metaphors.” A male bicyclist, dressed as a nurse and thus sexually ambiguous, arrives at a woman’s apartment. To recordings of Argentine tangos alternating with Richard Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, the script calls for a close-up of a hand full of crawling ants. This dissolves into a close-up of the hairy armpit of a woman who is sunbathing and then to a close-up of the spines of a sea urchin. From a window, the man and woman observe a girl being run over in the street. This sexually excites the cyclist. The woman allows his fondling but then becomes frigid. Protecting herself with a tennis racket, she too manifests a certain androgyny. Desperately trying to reach her, the man must drag two grand pianos, on which are dead and putrefying donkeys, and two priests. This grotesque comic relief may symbolize, as one critic has suggested, “the dead weight of a decaying society chaining the free expression of man’s desire.” A more assertive man, the alter ego of the bicyclist, enters. The bicyclist shoots him dead, possibly symbolizing the murder of the man he might have been. Later, the woman is walking on a beach with another man, possibly another alter ego. He appears mature and confident but still unhappy. At the end, they are seen buried up to their chests in sand and being eaten alive by swarms of
Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog insects. The scene is enigmatically titled “In the Spring.” Buñuel and Dalí’s collaboration ended during work on the 1930 Surrealist masterpiece L’Âge d’or (The Golden Age), Buñuel’s first feature-length film at sixtythree minutes. Dalí called that film a caricature of his ideas. Perhaps Buñuel was too strident in his assault on religion and conventional morality as constraints on human freedom. This frontal attack, first signaled in An Andalusian Dog and powerfully extended in this film, caused The Golden Age to be banned widely. In the film, a documentary-like prologue shows two scorpions killing a rat. Scenes follow in Surrealist juxtaposition. Prosperous colonists arrive on an island. They recall Spain’s voyages of discovery and Christianization. In a famous sequence, four lavishly attired bishops turn into skeletons. Next, a couple making love in public are arrested by scandalized society. The colonists then dedicate a stone to their new colony. A small pile of soft cement on the stone looks like excrement.
Salvador Dalí. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection)
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Polite socialites at a party barely notice an oxcart filled with drunken peasants crossing the hall, a kitchen fire, and a murder, but they are horrified at an insult and a slap in their midst. Later, at a concert, they seem oblivious to the passionate groping of the reunited lovers and unmoved by the surging crescendos of the Liebestod. Finally, in a sadistic orgy in a medieval castle, a duke is depicted as Christ and a cross is decorated with the heads of religiously exploited women. Buñuel’s message appears to be that respectability requires society to repress its sexuality and spontaneity. A culture that does this is not alive but a fossil (the bishop/skeletons). Not only does institutional religion not serve, but it is also harmful and degrading. Such attitudes were a harbinger of the anticlerical spirit of the Spanish Civil War, which produced considerable persecution of clergy. Significance Buñuel’s next silent film had to be funded privately, but his 1932 documentary Las Hurdes ranks among the best ever made. Miserable in a Spanish region hostile to life in any form, the people of Las Hurdes eat only potatoes and beans, and they incestuously produce retarded children. In school, barefoot, ragged children are taught bourgeois values. Here documentary becomes editorial, indicting a morality that ignores human degradation, surrealistically juxtaposing peasant hovels and ornate churches and surveying the people’s animal existence against the inspiring strains of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. From 1932 to 1959, Buñuel learned to moderate his fervor, making sound films in the United States, France, Spain, and Mexico. His seventeen Mexican films, at first dismissed as commercial, were later recognized to be rich in veiled satire on the hypocrisy of conventional morality. The period saw his 1950 masterpiece, Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned). Pedro, refused love by his prostitute mother, is taught to steal by Jaibo. In a Surrealist dream sequence, Pedro appeals for love, and his mother responds erotically. Jaibo comes out from under the bed. Reality and dreams are skillfully and inextricably confused. Pedro is murdered by Jaibo and, ironically, the mother becomes the lover of her son’s killer. Buñuel’s pessimism was even more pronounced in Nazarin (1959) and Viridiana (1961). Both won prizes at the Cannes film festival; both are criticisms of the church, whose most sincere ministers do more harm than good in the world. The priest Nazarin symbolizes Christ’s return being rejected in the modern world. Viridiana, Buñuel’s first film shot in Spain in thirty years, was banned for its criticism of Francisco Franco.
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Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog intentions of the innocent, who themselves become compromised. Opposites, even good and evil, do not exist but are fictions of the conscious mind. Physical beauty is no better than ugliness. Buñuel’s camera sees “objects and men without blinking at deformity and without winking at a superior viewer.” Poor and deformed people do not generate pity, as he depicts them as vicious and greedy. Buñuel’s audiences, conditioned to seeing morality triumph, are left bothered by the apparent moral ambiguity of a filmmaker who has been called one of the great moralists of the twentieth century. Henry Miller, who considered Buñuel a genius, wrote in 1932 that Buñuel portrays “the lunacy of civilization, the record of man’s achievement after ten thousand years of refinement.” In achieving this goal, however, Buñuel falsified the Surrealist denial of intentionality. After he reached the age of seventy, he produced a series of films—Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), and Cet obscur objet du desir (1977)—that are among the greatest masterpieces of Surrealism in any medium. Buñuel’s influence probably has been less over the films of other directors than over audiences and film critics, who gradually have come to better understand his art, insights, and bite. — Daniel C. Scavone Further Reading Ades, Dawn. Dalí and Surrealism. New York: Harper and Row, 1982. Fine biography with special reference to Dalí’s attachment to the Surrealist movement and chapters on his role in Surrealist cinema. Durgnat, Raymond. Luis Buñuel. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. Excellent filmography examines individual films from a moderate Marxist point of view. Copiously illustrated with stills of key scenes. Higginbotham, Virginia. Luis Buñuel. Boston: Twayne, 1979. Excellent introductory biography and filmography of Buñuel. Modestly illustrated. Hopkins, David. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Concise introduction to these art movements discusses their international nature and the range of media employed. Also addresses the debates surrounding them, including issues of quality and attitudes toward women. Nadeau, Maurice. The History of Surrealism. Translated by Richard Howard. 1965. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1989. Extremely detailed history of Surrealism in literature, art, and film. Contains 2215
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A religious novice, Viridiana unintentionally destroys those who helped her and is nearly raped by blind and poor beggars she has helped. Values are reversed as the ungrateful poor destroy her house and eat everything, in a parody of the Last Supper. She renounces her vocation. In 1962, Buñuel produced El Angel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel), a Surrealist masterpiece. The elegant guests at a dinner party find that, unaccountably, they cannot leave the dining room. Somehow they must adapt to their curious situation. An older man dies and frustrated lovers commit suicide. The bodies are stuffed in one closet while another closet serves as a bathroom. The prisoners engage in a variety of superstitious rituals and vices. Finally extricated, on Sunday they appear at church. Again they find themselves unable to leave. Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) was a commentary on the social changes in France after World War I. The chambermaid Celestine openly despises her Royalist employers. Their neighbor is an insulting republican who pitches his garbage into their yard. Their gamekeeper is a fascist triumphantly demonstrating in the streets of Paris for the moral rebirth of France, but he brutally rapes and murders a child and gets away with it. Celestine marries the old republican but cruelly turns him into her servant. Buñuel again provides a coldly dispassionate, even documentary, view of decadent class privilege, gross injustice, the failure of idealism, and the reversal of values. In 1965 came Simon of the Desert. A fifth century hermit, Simon Stylites, spent his life atop a sixty-foot column. Buñuel shows him preaching, healing, and overcoming sometimes bizarre temptations. Later, conveyed to twentieth century New York City, he learns that for all of his virtue and self-negation, people have remained morally unchanged. In his own time he was significant, but in the modern age he has no lasting impact. In Belle de Jour (1967), Buñuel so smoothly moves between fantasy or dreams and actuality that the audience often cannot tell them apart. His Surrealist message is that both realms are equally real. In The Milky Way (1969), Buñuel again assaulted the church. The title refers to the pilgrimage to the Spanish shrine of Santiago Campostella. The film is an allegorical journey through church history. Along the way, ordinary people discuss important theological mysteries. Nearing the shrine, two vagrant pilgrims are diverted from their quest by a prostitute. Here, as in Simon of the Desert, the imposing doctrines of the church appear sterile and irrelevant. Buñuel’s Surrealism overturns conventional values. Evil triumphs over good and often results from the good
Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer translations of André Breton’s three Surrealist manifestos and other documents of the movement. Read, Herbert. “Introduction.” In Surrealism. 1936. Reprint. New York: Praeger, 1971. Offers a sophisticated and clearly written definition of every nuance of Surrealism, using historical, artistic, and Freudian points of departure. Richardson, Michael. Surrealism and Cinema. Oxford, England: Berg, 2006. Presents an introduction to surrealist film as well as an examination of the works of Luis Buñuel and other surrealist filmmakers from the 1920’s to the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Schillaci, Peter P. “Luis Buñuel and the Death of God.” In Three European Directors, edited by James M. Wall. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1973. Interpretation of Buñuel is rich in insights into the director’s mind and vivid descriptions of his major films. Highly recommended. See also: Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born; 19301935: Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar; Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion.
1928
Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer The differential analyzer developed by Vannevar Bush and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first modern analog computer. Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Science and technology; inventions; mathematics; engineering; computers and computer science Key Figures Vannevar Bush (1890-1974), American electrical engineer Baron Kelvin (William Thomson; 1824-1907), English physicist and engineer Charles Babbage (1791-1871), English mathematician and inventor Summary of Event Calculating equipment has developed along two distinct lines: one is digital computation and the other is analog computation. Analog machines, of which the mechanical differential analyzer is an example, operate on quantities that are capable of continuous variation. These quantities—shaft rotation, electrical voltage, and so on—are physical analogues of the problem under consideration, and the use of analog machines to simulate the behavior of actual equipment can be an important engineering tool. In addition to serving as simulators of actual physical situations such as electrical power networks, analog machines are used as equation solvers. One type of analog machine was both easily portable and in common use—the slide rule—but was replaced by electronic calculators in the 1970’s. Another type, the differential ana2216
lyzer, was developed to provide solutions for differential equations through a process of successive integration in a closed-loop configuration. Early mechanical differential analyzers were extremely large, composed of many different parts, and often weighed thousands of tons. In addition, these early analyzers required several days of setup before a problem or series of problems could be run. Calculating devices are as old as humanity, but most have relied on treating variables as being counted as discrete entities. The abacus and its modern counterpart, the digital computer, both embody this assumption of counting discrete units; the analog computer does not. Instead, the analog computer measures variables along a continuous range of values in much the same way that a thermometer can measure temperature at any point or an odometer measures miles. Further, whereas digital calculators have an ancestry reaching back to antiquity, analog computers are a comparatively recent development. Because digital computers are based on counting, simple machines to aid humanity in establishing the presence or absence of discrete units were developed in a variety of places and cultures. The abacus dates from at least five thousand years ago and is still used in many countries. In 1642, Blaise Pascal, the noted French philosopher-scientist, constructed a calculating machine to assist him in computing business accounts. A few years later, a German mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, built a machine that he called a “stepped reckoner.” Not until 1820, however, did a reliable calculating machine capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division become commercially available. It was not
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Vannevar Bush. (Library of Congress)
integraph, in 1926. It was constructed to evaluate integrals that contained a product but was limited to the solution of first-order differentials. Having obtained both accurate and useful results from the continuous integraph, Bush and his students added a second integrating unit to the first computer. They discovered, however, that they could not use another electrical meter. Bush turned to the Kelvin device as a possible solution, as the rotation of the meter appeared ideally suited to rotate the disk of a mechanical integrator. Unfortunately, as soon as a load was placed on the moving parts of the machine, its accuracy dropped. Connecting the two integrators with a servomotor solved the problem, and a Kelvin device capable of solving for second-order derivatives became a reality. It still had limitations, however: It could not solve higher-order differential equations or systems of simultaneous differential equations. Bush decided to try to build a true differential analyzer, a machine that would connect integrator after integrator. When he attempted to build the larger machine, Bush discovered that the servomotor provided only a partial solution. It proved difficult to set properly and oscillated 2217
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until 1835, when Charles Babbage designed his “Analytical Engine,” that a computer in the modern sense appeared, at least on paper. Had it been built, it would have been the first digital computer to incorporate the principles of sequential control. The first mechanical analog computers also appeared in the nineteenth century. Baron Kelvin (Sir William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin), an English physicist, attempted to build one of the earliest known analog computers in 1872 to serve as a tide predictor. The first modern working analog computer, however, was designed and built by a team headed by Vannevar Bush at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1920’s. The machine was a forerunner of the specialized type of analog computers known as differential analyzers and was designed to solve a specific form of differential equation. When completed in 1928, the device could perform eighteen different functions. When Bush joined the MIT faculty in 1919, his research focused on electrical power transmission. Calculating precisely the distribution of power within a network entailed solving large problems of simultaneous linear equations. This was a difficult and time-consuming procedure because the calculations frequently involved differential equations that were particularly intractable. Lord Kelvin had attempted to build a machine to solve such equations almost fifty years earlier but had been unsuccessful in going beyond second-order differential equations. Lord Kelvin showed that coupling together two of the integrators described by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1873 paper “Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” would work to solve for second-order derivatives. In principle, Lord Kelvin also contended that combining Maxwell’s integrators in various configurations also should allow solutions for higher-order differential equations to be found. Simple integrators, such as the one described by Maxwell, have become common in a variety of settings. Perhaps the most familiar example is household electrical meters, which measure current and voltage and integrate their product, power or kilowatts, with respect to time. When Bush began working on a differential analyzer, he used an electrical meter as the core of the machine. Working under Bush’s supervision, a graduate student completed the first simple computer, a continuous
Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer
Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer wildly at times when transmitting large magnifications of turning force, or torque. In 1927, a new device appeared: the torque amplifier. Use of torque amplifiers meant there was no longer a limit to the number of integrators that could be interconnected and a true differential analyzer could be built. The first had six integrators and could be used to solve most of the differential equations engineers were likely to encounter, including systems of two or three simultaneous second-order equations. The increase in scale and the addition of torque amplifiers required that a large room be used to house the differential analyzer with its complex mass of interconnected metal axles, gears, disks, handles, and electric motors. The six integrators consisted of glass disks on movable tables. One set of measurements determined the movement of the table, another determined the rotation of the disk, and a metal wheel on the glass disk measured a third variable by its distance from the disk. The torque amplifiers controlled all of this by permitting the wheels and shafts running the differential analyzer to move easily without slippage. In an analog computer, the physical movement of parts performs the actual computation, so all parts must move precisely. A collection of shafts and straps connected to servomotors through the torque amplifiers moved the integrators, but the differential analyzer itself was purely mechanical. Electricity was used only for powering the amplifiers, the shafts, and the printers. Significance The differential analyzer was the first serious attempt to build a computer for use by scientists. When Bush described the differential analyzer in a paper published in 1931, other scientists and engineers immediately began to build similar machines. The differential analyzer quickly found a variety of applications in civilian and military settings, as it could be used both to simulate complex systems, such as electrical power grids, and to solve the difficult equations posed by ballistics problems. As political conditions in Europe and the Far East deteriorated during the 1930’s, the U.S. War Department became involved increasingly in both computer research and the use of computers. The U.S. Navy was particularly interested in applying the differential analyzer to solving ballistics problems and funded such research actively. This research support soon was extended to include work on digital computers, and mathematicians such as Grace Hopper, who later became known as the 2218
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 inventor of COBOL, were recruited to work as programmers on these projects. In addition to spin-offs such as an increased interest in digital computers, the successful development of an analog computer meant that scientists and engineers could perform simulations of complex technical systems at a considerable savings over the expense of actual tests of those systems. The analog computer proved to be an invaluable tool in the development of aircraft, guided missiles, automobiles, and the like. By using simulator studies, researchers could obtain large databases before trial flights or test drives commenced, and those studies also could suggest how a limited number of physical trials could be most efficiently utilized. The development of the analog computer corresponded to a number of other significant developments within the history of technology, such as research in nuclear power and the development of jet aircraft, and contributed significantly to them. It would have been impossible to build actual working prototypes of some large technological systems, such as nuclear power plants, and to construct preliminary design models for jet aircraft, which would be prohibitively expensive if done for every proposed design change or modification. Analog computers allowed engineers and scientists to progress in the development of new technological devices and systems more economically and more quickly than they could have otherwise. Bush’s successful work with the differential analyzer may have helped to shape future science policy in the United States. Although his own research interests moved away from analog computing in the 1930’s, the interest the differential analyzer aroused in the scientific community contributed to Bush’s personal influence and success. As chairman of the National Research Committee and director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, Bush helped to forge connections among the federal government, universities, and private industry that led to the priorities that were set for basic research in the physical sciences for generations. Bush’s personal influence on the American scientific community will persist long after the mechanical differential analyzer has been relegated to the status of a historical curiosity. —Nancy Farm Mannikko Further Reading Ashurst, F. Gareth. Pioneers of Computing. London: Frederick Muller, 1983. Explains differences between digital and analog computers in addition to providing biographies of John Napier, Pascal, and others.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and William Aspray. Computer: A History of the Information Machine. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004. Comprehensive history begins with the work of mathematicians in the nineteenth century and covers developments through the beginning of the twenty-first century. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Hartley, M. G. An Introduction to Electronic Analogue Computers. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1962. Provides a brief history of computers and explains the difference between analog and digital computers. Heyn, Ernest V. A Century of Wonders: One Hundred Years of Popular Science. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. Presents easy-to-understand explanations of the evolution of a variety of technologies, including electronic computers. Excellent illustrations.
Smith-Hoover Campaign Shurkin, Joel. Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors. Updated ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. General history of computers attempts to explain priority disputes without taking sides. Focuses more on the social history of computer development and the personalities of the persons involved than on the technical aspects of computing. Williams, Raymond Wilson. Analogue Computation: Techniques and Components. New York: Academic Press, 1961. Provides background in both the history and theory of analog computers. See also: Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line; 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine.
1928
Smith-Hoover Campaign A presidential election marked the emergence of northeastern, urban, first-generation Americans in a powerful new Democratic Party. Locale: United States Category: Government and politics
Summary of Event During the 1920’s, the United States became an urban nation. The Bureau of the Census reported that for the first time in the nation’s history, most of the population resided in areas defined as urban. Statistics cannot convey the disruption that took place as the nation shifted on
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Key Figures Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944), Democratic presidential candidate in 1928 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), Republican presidential candidate in 1928 H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), literary critic and satirist of American mores during the 1920’s James Cannon (1864-1944), influential bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church South and defender of Prohibition John Jakob Raskob (1879-1950), wealthy industrialist and campaign manager for Alfred E. Smith Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), Democratic candidate for governor of New York in 1928 and president of the United States, 1933-1945
its cultural axis, however. There was nothing quiet or secret about this “revolt from the village.” Indeed, some of the major literary figures of the period took delight in emphasizing how out of touch with the realities of an increasingly urban nation the rural United States was becoming. Critics such as H. L. Mencken, editor of the American Mercury, assailed Puritanism and haughtily proclaimed the superiority of the city dwellers over the “hicks” and the fundamentalists. The New Yorker magazine was founded in 1925 as a weekly periodical for urban sophisticates. On the other side, rural voices cried out against the evil influences of the city. From rural newspapers and from conservative, fundamentalist religious leaders—such as Methodist bishop James Cannon, Jr., of Virginia—came warnings about the decadence of urban life. To many, the city offered a challenge to Anglo-Saxon dominance in U.S. affairs. In 1928, these tensions permeated the presidential campaign, primarily because the Democratic candidate, Alfred E. Smith, personified the new urban forces. Al Smith had spent his entire life within the shadow of New York City’s skyscrapers. Although he quit school at the age of fifteen, he became a powerful and vigorous leader because of his abilities and hard work. He was elected governor of New York four times, and in 1928 he was nominated by the Democrats to run for the presidency. In the eyes of his followers, Smith was the urban version of
Smith-Hoover Campaign
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Alfred E. Smith waves to a crowd during his presidential campaign tour. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Abraham Lincoln; he represented the fulfillment of the American Dream. The son of an immigrant was aspiring to the highest office in the land. With his derby hat, his big cigar, his opposition to Prohibition, and his devotion to Roman Catholicism, Smith jauntily and proudly bore his urban label. The career of Herbert Hoover, the Republican candidate, also resembled a Horatio Alger story. Hoover was born in a small town in Iowa. Initially projected into national prominence through his work as food administrator during World War I and later as a leader of postwar relief work in Europe, he served during the 1920’s as secretary of commerce under two U.S. presidents, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. When Coolidge uttered his cryptic statement about choosing not to run in 1928, Hoover was the most outstanding figure in the Republican Party, and he easily captured the nomination. Because the substantive issues that might have distinguished the two candidates on rational grounds became blurred, the campaign soon began to focus on emotional factors. Smith’s anti-Prohibition stand and his religion, both of which gained support for him in urban areas of the Northeast, were bitterly criticized in the West and 2220
South. To some, such as Kansas editor William Allen White, Smith’s candidacy presented a threat to the longestablished political forces dominant in the United States. Undue emphasis, however, should not be given to Smith’s political disadvantages. Probably more decisive in the campaign were Hoover’s advantages. The Republican candidate had a distinguished record in public service and was able to project the image of efficiency and industry. Furthermore, he had the overwhelming advantage of Republican prosperity behind him. Although many farmers were suffering financially in 1928, Smith failed to garner the farm vote. The election count gave Hoover twenty-one million popular and 444 electoral votes. Smith won fifteen million popular votes and only 87 electoral votes. The total popular vote in 1928 was much higher than in 1924. Smith made substantial gains in the nation’s large urban centers. This “revolt of the cities” was important in the development of a Democratic majority in 1932. Significance As the campaign of 1928 unfolded, a number of vexing problems faced a seemingly prosperous nation. Ameri-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Smith-Hoover Campaign
can farmers had been suffering from unfavorable profit margins since 1921. The nation’s policy toward Latin America had generated considerable antagonism south of the border. The excessive speculation on Wall Street was gradually becoming a source of increasing concern. Some Democrats held that Smith, who had a progressive record as governor of New York, should attack the farm program of the Republicans and promise more positive federal action in general. The more conservative elements warned that radicalism during a period of prosperity would cause the average voter to turn away from the Democratic Party. Smith decided to adopt a cautious platform. Symbolic of this decision was the appointment of John Jackob Raskob, a General Motors executive, as Democratic campaign manager. Immediately after the election, many Catholics and Democrats complained that Smith had been the victim of a bigoted whispering campaign. Violent anti-Catholicism was exhibited in the election. In retrospect, however, factors other than religion clearly estranged many voters. Smith was a capable statesman and a spokesman
for the northeastern urban areas, but for a majority of the voters he was not an acceptable national symbol. His most significant contribution in 1928 was to arouse the latent political potential of many first-generation Americans in eastern cities. It remained for Franklin D. Roosevelt to combine this element with a disenchanted farm vote—in addition to the discontent engendered by the Depression—to produce a winning Democratic coalition in 1932. —George Q. Flynn and Michael Witkoski Further Reading Anderson, Kristi. The Creation of a Democratic Majority, 1928-1936. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Examines how the election of 1928 was a turning point in American political life, one that transformed the Democratic Party into the majority party for almost half a century and had a lasting impact on the nation. Finan, Christopher M. Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior. New York: Hill & Wang, 2001. Although clearly
U.S. Electoral Vote, 1928 WA 7
ID 4
NV 3
WY 3 UT 4
CA 13 AZ 3
VT 4
ND 5
MN 12 WI 13
SD 5 IA 13
NE 8 CO 6
OK 10
NM 3 TX 20
PA 38 IL 29
KS 10
NY 45
MI 15 OH 24
IN 15
MO 18
KY 13
MS 10
AL 12
NH 4 MA 18 RI 5 CT 7 NJ 14 DE 3 MD 8
NC 12
TN 12
AR 9
WV VA 8 12
ME 6
1928
OR 5
MT 4
GA 14
SC 9
LA 10 FL 6
= Hoover (Republican) = Smith (Democrat)
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Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C biased in Smith’s favor, Finan’s biography nonetheless provides a careful examination of the politician’s career and Smith’s subsequent absence from the pages of American history books. Maisel, L. Sandy, ed. Political Parties and Elections in the United States. New York: Garland, 1991. An interesting and valuable review of the 1928 campaign and of the nature of Smith’s candidacy. Reveals how the campaign, along with contemporary political trends, helped send the Democrats toward longlasting victory in American electoral politics. Reichley, A. James. The Life of the Parties: A History of American Political Parties. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Helpful review of the role of the party machinery as it first comprehended and then articulated the public mood in the 1928 election. Asserts that Al Smith’s candidacy was not an isolated phenomenon but a watershed event in American political history. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., ed. 1928-1940. Vol. 7 in History of American Presidential Elections. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. The Democratic Party platform, Smith’s speeches, and the relevant speeches and remarks of other figures of the time help make the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 specific circumstances of the election alive and relevant for the reader. Slayton, Robert A. Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith. New York: Free Press, 2001. This highly acclaimed biography provides a number of new and important details about Smith’s life and delves into the difficult issue of determining what makes a “true” American. Ward, Geoffrey C. A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. The relationship between two of the greatest Democratic politicians of the twentieth century was often stormy and ultimately tragic. This biography reveals how Smith’s defeat in 1928 was, in many ways, essential for Roosevelt’s victory in 1932 and the emergence of the New Deal as the shaping force in modern U.S. history. See also: Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President; Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President; 1921-1923: Scandals of the Harding Administration; Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President.
1928-1932
Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C Albert Szent-Györgyi isolated “hexuronic acid” in England, and four years later, in Hungary, he and Joseph L. Svirbely proved that this substance was vitamin C. Locale: Cambridge, England; Szeged, Hungary; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Categories: Science and technology; biology; chemistry; health and medicine Key Figures Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893-1986), Hungarian biochemist Charles Glen King (1896-1988), American biochemist and nutritionist Joseph L. Svirbely (b. 1906), American chemist Summary of Event Vitamin C is both a complex chemical substance and the physiological linchpin in the deficiency disease scurvy. Physicians in the Middle Ages had recognized some as2222
pects of this disease, which was characterized by weakness, swollen joints, a tendency to bruise easily, bleeding from the gums, and the loss of teeth. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that the Scottish physician James Lind recognized that these symptoms constitute a disorder caused by defective nutrition. His experiments on sailors during long ocean voyages showed that the ingestion of certain fruits and vegetables could cure the disease. The most significant step toward the discovery of vitamin C was made in 1907, when Axel Holst, a bacteriologist, and Theodor Frölich, a pediatrician, published their discovery that, through dietary manipulations, a disease analogous to human scurvy could be generated in guinea pigs. (Like humans and unlike most animals, guinea pigs do not manufacture their own vitamin C.) When Holst and Frölich fed hay and oats (foods deficient in vitamin C) to guinea pigs, the animals developed scurvy, but when they were fed fresh fruits and vegetables, they remained healthy. In this way, Holst and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Albert Szent-Györgyi. (The Nobel Foundation)
student, arrived at Szeged, Hungary, where SzentGyörgyi had gone to continue his studies of vitamin C. Svirbely had done his doctoral studies on vitamin C under Charles Glen King at the University of Pennsylvania. King was trying, with limited success, to isolate vitamin C from lemon juice. He was testing his results with timeconsuming experiments using animals. Svirbely provided a bridge between King’s work and Szent-Györgyi’s. Szent-Györgyi had not previously tried to prove that hexuronic acid was identical to vitamin C because he did not enjoy working with animals. Furthermore, he was against vitamin research (he once said that vitamins were problems for the chef, not the scientist). Nevertheless, when Svirbely mentioned that he could tell if something contained vitamin C or not, SzentGyörgyi gave him some of his hexuronic acid for experimentation. In a fifty-six-day test using guinea pigs, Svirbely established, in the fall of 1931, that the animals without hexuronic acid in their diets died with symptoms of scurvy, whereas the animals receiving hexuronic acid were healthy and free from scurvy. Further experiments 2223
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Frölich were able to measure a food’s ability to prevent scurvy. While other scientists were trying to isolate vitamin C directly, Albert Szent-Györgyi actually found the substance in the course of searching for something else. In the 1920’s, his research centered on biological oxidation, that is, on how cells oxidize various foodstuffs. He was particularly entranced by the observation that some plants (apples and potatoes) turn brown after being cut and exposed to air, whereas others (oranges and lemons) experience no color change. Szent-Györgyi suspected that a certain substance was controlling these color-change reactions, and he looked for it not only in fruits and vegetables but also in the adrenal cortex of mammals. He believed that the color change to a bronzelike skin in patients with Addison’s disease (a disorder of the adrenal gland) was associated somehow with the color changes in plants. He hoped to isolate this substance, a powerful reducing agent, from the adrenal glands. Unfortunately, his research was plagued with problems until he met the English biochemist Frederick Hopkins at a conference in Sweden in 1926. Hopkins was interested in vitamins and biological oxidation, and he invited Szent-Györgyi to the University of Cambridge to continue his research. Using many glands from oxen, Szent-Györgyi was able to separate a reducing agent from all other substances present. He also was able to obtain the same substance from orange juice and cabbage extracts, a result that his colleagues found most surprising. Through chemical analysis, Szent-Györgyi determined that the substance contained six carbon atoms and eight hydrogen atoms and that it was a carbohydrate related to the sugars. He initially wanted to name the substance “Ignose” (from the Latin ignosco, meaning “I don’t know,” and ose, the designating suffix for sugars). The editor of the Biochemical Journal thought that the name was too flippant, however, whereupon SzentGyörgyi suggested “Godnose,” which was similarly rejected. Because the substance contained six carbon atoms and was acidic, he and his editor agreed on the name “hexuronic acid.” News of the discovery of this acid was published in 1928. At the time, scientists recognized five distinct vitamins. They had failed, however, to isolate any of them successfully. For this reason, it was not clear that SzentGyörgyi’s hexuronic acid and vitamin C were the same substance. In the fall of 1931, Joseph L. Svirbely, a postdoctoral
Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C
Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C in 1931-1932 proved once and for all that hexuronic acid and vitamin C are identical. Significance The isolation of vitamin C generated widespread comment and convinced most scientists that the long-sought vitamin had been found. Vitamin C’s impact was deepened and extended by Szent-Györgyi’s discovery in 1933 that Hungarian red peppers contained large amounts of the vitamin. Whereas previously biochemists could make only minuscule amounts of the material with great difficulty, Szent-Györgyi now could produce the substance in great quantities. In his lectures about his work, he liked to hold up a bottle containing several kilograms of the vitamin. To scientists accustomed to thinking of vitamins solely in extremely minute amounts, this was a surprising and enlightening experience. In the 1930’s, the League of Nations set up a committee to establish international standards for the vitamin, and the committee recommended that individuals ingest at least 30 milligrams each day to prevent scurvy. The vitamin came to be known as “ascorbic acid” for its property of combating scurvy. In the period during and after World War II, some scientists suggested that dosages larger than the recommended 30 milligrams would help keep humans in the best possible health. Many people, convinced that modern food processing was destroying vitamins, began to supplement their diets with vitamin pills, and some industries began to fortify their products with vitamins. Beginning in 1965, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling became interested in the megavitamin theory popularized by industrial chemist Irwin Stone in 1960. Pauling suggested that many maladies, from schizophrenia to cancer to the common cold, could be treated and prevented by large doses of vitamins. Pauling’s books and articles created an ongoing controversy, guaranteeing that this fascinating substance, discovered through the efforts of Szent-Györgyi and others, will continue to provide subjects for rewarding scientific research well into the future. —Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Carpenter, Kenneth J. The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986. The story of scurvy told by a professor of nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley. Makes occasional use of chemical formulas, but most of the discussions are accessible to the general reader. Illustrated with many photographs and line drawings. 2224
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Includes tables, extensive references, and detailed index. _______. “A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 3 (1912-1944).” Journal of Nutrition 133 (October, 2003): 3023-3032. Third part of a four-part series includes brief discussion of the discovery of vitamin C. Places Szent-Györgyi’s work in the context of the history of nutritional science in general. Friedrich, Wilhelm. Vitamins. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988. A systematic presentation of the historical, chemical, biological, and medical aspects of the most important vitamins. Valuable research tool for scientists as well as for students synthesizes a massive amount of material, as is particularly evident in the chapter on vitamin C. Concludes with literature supplement and extensive index. Goldblith, Samuel A., and Maynard A. Joslyn, eds. Milestones in Nutrition. Westport, Conn.: AVI, 1964. Anthology of important papers in nutrition (part of a series), intended to “inspire and encourage” students to learn the chief ideas of food science through the foundational classics of the discipline. Ample section on vitamin C includes the principal papers of SzentGyörgyi, King, and others. Leicester, Henry M. Development of Biochemical Concepts from Ancient to Modern Times. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. History of biochemistry written by a biochemist with a strong interest in the history of science. Chapter on vitamins discusses the history of ascorbic acid. Includes endnotes and indexes. Moss, Ralph W. Free Radical: Albert Szent-Györgyi and the Battle over Vitamin C. New York: Paragon House, 1988. Depicts Szent-Györgyi as a romantic scientist, ruled by intuition in his personal, political, and scientific lives. Takes Szent-Györgyi’s side in the controversy with King over the discovery of vitamin C, and presents new information to bolster Szent-Györgyi’s claim. Includes endnotes and index. Packer, Lester, and Jürgen Fuchs, eds. Vitamin C in Health and Disease. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1997. Collection of scholarly papers begins with a chapter on the history of vitamin C. Includes index. Pauling, Linus. Vitamin C, the Common Cold, and the Flu. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976. Updated version of Vitamin C and the Common Cold (1970), which was dedicated to Szent-Györgyi for his discovery of the vitamin. Argues that a proper understanding of previous research leads to the conclusion that most people would benefit from larger amounts of vitamin
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer
C in their diets. Award-winning book, aimed at a general audience; initiated a controversy about the effectiveness of megadoses of vitamin C in preventing colds and alleviating their symptoms. Includes references and index. Waugh, William A. “Unlocking Another Door to Nature’s Secrets: Vitamin C.” Journal of Chemical Education 11 (February, 1934): 69-72. A review of studies on the isolation and characterization of vitamin C
written by one of King’s principal associates. Presents the story from King’s point of view, but is objective in tone. Includes references. See also: 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi; 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins; 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets; 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food.
January, 1928
Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer George N. Papanicolaou developed a cytological technique called the Papanicolaou smear (Pap test) for diagnosing uterine cancer, the second most common type of fatal cancer in American woman. Locale: Cornell Medical College, New York Category: Health and medicine
Summary of Event Cancer, first named by the Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460-c. 370 b.c.e.), is one of the most painful and dreaded forms of human disease. It is known now to occur when body cells run wild and interfere with the normal activities of the body. The early diagnosis of cancer is extremely important because early detection often makes it possible to effect successful cures. The modern detection of cancer is usually done through the microscopic examination of the appearance of cells using the techniques of the area of biology called cytology. Development of cancer cytology began in 1867, after L. S. Beale reported tumor cells in the saliva from a patient who was afflicted with cancer of the pharynx. Beale recommended the use in cancer detection of microscopic examination of cells shed or removed (exfoliated) from organs, including the digestive, urinary, and reproductive tracts. Soon, other scientists identified numerous
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Key Figures George N. Papanicolaou (1883-1962), Greek American physician and anatomist Charles Stockard (1879-1939), American anatomist and chairman of Cornell Medical School’s anatomy department Herbert Traut (1894-1972), American gynecologist
striking differences between normal cells from various tissues and cancers of those tissues. These differences include cell size and shape, the size of cell nuclei, and the complexity of cell nuclei. Modern cytological detection of cancer evolved from the work of George N. Papanicolaou, a Greek physician who trained at the University of Athens Medical School. In 1913, he emigrated to the United States and began his American career as an assistant in the pathology department of New York Hospital. Papanicolaou entered the arena of cytological examination of cells when he began working, in 1917, with Charles Stockard at New York’s Cornell Medical College. Stockard, chairman of the anatomy department, allowed Papanicolaou to study sex determination in guinea pigs. Papanicolaou’s efforts required him to obtain ova at a precise period in their maturation cycle, a process that required an indicator of the time at which the animals ovulated. In search of this indicator, Papanicolaou designed a method that involved microscopic examination of the vaginal discharges from female guinea pigs. Initially, he sought traces of blood, such as those seen in the menstrual discharges of both primates and humans, but he found no blood in the guinea pig vaginal discharges. Instead, he saw temporal changes in the size and shape of the uterine cells shed in the discharges. The changes he noted recurred in a fifteen- to sixteen-day cycle. This cycle correlated well with associated changes of uterus and ovaries during the fifteen- to sixteen-day guinea pig menstrual cycle. The findings of Papanicolaou’s research, published in 1917 in the American Journal of Anatomy, laid the basis for the study of the sexual cycle in laboratory animals. It also became a standard method
Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer for the identification of the effects of sex hormones in these animal species. Its use was instrumental in the first isolation of sex hormones (estrogens) by Edgar Allen and E. A. Doisy in 1923. Papanicolaou next extended his efforts to the study of humans. His original intent was to identify whether comparable changes in the exfoliated cells of the human vagina occurred in women. His end goal was to gain an understanding of the human menstrual cycle similar to that he had obtained in the animal studies. In the course of this work, Papanicolaou observed distinctive abnormal cells in the vaginal fluid from a woman afflicted with cancer of the cervix. This led him to begin to attempt to develop a cytological method for the detection of uterine cancer, the second most common type of fatal cancer in American women of the time. In 1928, Papanicolaou published his cytological method of cancer detection in the Proceedings of the Third Race Betterment Conference, held in Battle Creek, Michigan. The work was received well by the news media (for example, the January 5, 1928, New York World credited him with a “new cancer detection method”). Nevertheless, the publication—and others he produced over the next ten years—were not very interesting to gynecologists of the time. Rather, they preferred use of the standard methodology of uterine cancer diagnosis (cervical biopsy and curettage). As Papanicolaou said, “I failed to convince my colleagues of the practicability of the procedure.” Consequently, in 1932, Papanicolaou turned his energy toward studying human reproductive endocrinology problems related to the effects of hormones on cells of the reproductive system. One example of this work was published in the American Journal of Anatomy (1933), where he described “the sexual cycle in the human female.” Other such efforts resulted in better understanding of reproductive problems that include amenorrhea and menopause. It was not until Papanicolaou’s collaboration with gynecologist Herbert Traut (beginning in 1939), which led to the publication of Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear (1943), that clinical acceptance of the method began to develop. Their monograph documented an impressive, irrefutable group of studies of both normal and disease states that included nearly two hundred cases of cancer of the uterus. Soon, many other researchers began to confirm their findings; by 1948, the newly named American Cancer Society noted that the “Pap” smear seemed to be a very valuable tool for detecting vaginal cancer. Wide acceptance of the Pap test followed and, beginning in 1947, hundreds of physicians from all 2226
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
over the world flocked to Papanicolaou’s course on the subject. They learned his smear/diagnosis techniques and disseminated them around the world. With widespread use of the Pap test came many honors for Dr. Papanicolaou. Some of them included the Cross of a Grand Commander of the Greek Royal Order of the Phoenix, the Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association, the Honor Medal of the American Cancer Society, the Bordon Award of the American Association of Medical Colleges, and the Amory Award of the American Association of Arts and Sciences. In time, Papanicolaou became one of the best-known members of the American medical profession. At the end of 1961, he became the director of the Papanicolaou Cancer Research Institute in Miami, Florida. Unfortunately, he died shortly thereafter; however, he has not been forgotten: At the posthumous dedication of the Papanicolaou Cancer Research Institute, he was eulogized as “a giver of life—one of the elect men of earth who stand for eternity like solitary towers along the way to human betterment.” This sentiment remains throughout the biomedical community. Significance Many physicians have cited the Pap test as the most significant and useful modern discovery in the field of cancer research. One reason for its impact is that the test allows the identification of uterine cancer in a presymptomatic stage, long before any other methodology can be used. With such early diagnosis, the disease can be cured in more than 80 percent of all cases identified by Pap test. In addition, Pap testing allows the identification of cancer of the uterine cervix so early that its cure rate can be nearly 100 percent. Another measure of the efficacy of the Pap test comes from actuarial examination of the consequences of its widespread utilization in routine cancer screening technique, beginning in the early 1950’s. For example, several insurance companies reported that the 1951 death rate from uterine cancer of insured thirty-five- to fortyfour-year-old women (160 per million) was halved by 1961 (80 per million). In contrast, the reduction in the death rate from cancer of all types was only about 11 percent in that time period. Papanicolaou extended the use of the smear technique from examination of vaginal exudates to diagnosis of cancer in many other organs from which scrapings, washings, and exudates can be obtained. These tissues include the colon, the kidney, the bladder, the prostate, the lung, the breast, and the sinuses. In most cases, such
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer
examination of these tissues has made it possible to diagnose cancer much sooner than is possible by other existing methods. The smear method has thus become a keystone of cancer control in voluntary and required national health programs throughout the world. The principal use of Pap testing has traditionally been in cancer screening. The test is utilized successfully in evaluation of the effectiveness of both cancer radiotherapy and cancer chemotherapy, and in the early detection of recurrence of cancer after surgery. Papanicolaou’s 1928 prediction has come to pass: “A better understanding and more accurate analysis of the cancer problem is bound to result from use of this method. It is possible that analogous methods will be developed for the recognition of cancer in other organs.” —Sanford S. Singer
See also: 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses; 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney; 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed; 1923: Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test; 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram; July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator.
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Further Reading Berkow, Samuel G. “After Office Hours: A Visit with Dr. George N. Papanicolaou.” Obstetrics and Gynecology 16 (1960): 248-252. Personal interview with Papanicolaou shows him both as a man and as a medical scientist. Provides insight into Papanicolaou’s great contributions to endocrinology in general and to cancer research in particular. Describes the overall value of the Pap test. Carmichael, D. Erskine. The Pap Smear: Life of George N. Papanicolaou. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1973. Brief but thorough biography describes the life and career of Papanicolaou and chronicles his development as a man and as a scientist. Contains excellent documentation of his research efforts. Papanicolaou, George N. “New Cancer Diagnosis.” In Proceedings of the Third Race Betterment Conference. Battle Creek, Mich.: Race Betterment Foundation, 1928. Describes Papanicolaou’s study of the existence of distinctive cells in the vaginal fluid of humans with cancer and describes a new method for diagnosing cancer of the genital tract. Suggests that a
better understanding of the cancer problem will come from the use of this method. _______. “The Sexual Cycle in the Human Female as Revealed by Vaginal Smear.” American Journal of Anatomy 52 (1933): 519-637. Lengthy article presents a compendium of normal cytological changes seen in human vaginal discharges. Describes the use of the smear test to identify normal cytological changes in the human reproductive cycle. This report established human cytology on a firm basis. Papanicolaou, George N., and Charles Stockard. “The Existence of a Typical Estrus Cycle in the Guinea Pig: With a Study of Its Histological and Physiological Changes.” American Journal of Anatomy 22 (1917): 225-283. Describes a study of the vaginal fluid of guinea pigs and sets down the sequence of cytological patterns of shed cells occurring in fifteen- to sixteen-day cycles correlatable with changes in the reproductive system of the guinea pig. Establishes the technique used for the study of the sexual cycle in laboratory rodents. Papanicolaou, George N., and Herbert F. Traut. Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by Vaginal Smear. New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1943. Describes the exfoliate cytology of many normal and disease states, including the menstrual cycle, abortion, ectopic pregnancy, menopause, several vaginal and cervical infections, and cases of cancer of the uterus. This monograph was instrumental in clinicians’ acceptance of the Pap test as a means for cancer diagnosis.
Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March, 1928
Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt The Muslim Brotherhood was the first Islamist movement of the twentieth century, and its influence spread across the Arab world. The movement originated as a Muslim social service and educational movement, and it reflected the anticolonialism of midcentury Egypt. Its ideology survived and became a major component of the later global jihad movement. Also known as: Society of the Muslim Brothers Locale: Ismailia, Egypt Categories: Organizations and institutions; religion, theology, and ethics; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Wasan al-Bann3$ (1906-1949), Egyptian schoolteacher and intellectual who founded the Muslim Brotherhood Farouk I (1920-1965), son of Fu$3d I and king of Egypt, r. 1936-1952 Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), prime minister of Egypt, 1954-1956, and president of Egypt, 19561970 Sayyid Qu. tb (1906-1966), Egyptian educator and Islamist theoretician, dominant figure in the Brotherhood after Wasan al-Bann3$’s death Ism34tl :idqi (1875-1950), prime minister of Egypt, 1930-1933, 1946 Mawmnd Fahmt al-Nuqr3sht (1888-1948), prime minister of Egypt, 1945-1946, 1946-1948 Summary of Event The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher named Wasan al-Bann3$, who was motivated by a sense of disarray in the Muslim world: He saw the dissolution of the caliphate in 1923 by Turkey’s secular reformer Atatürk and the occupation of the Islamic heartlands by France and Britain as disastrous events. Stressing anti-imperialism and Islamic renewal, Wasan al-Bann3$ and six followers, employees of the Suez Canal Company, founded the Society of the Muslim Brothers in Ismailia, a commercial city on the canal and the epicenter of British occupation and foreign influence. Taking an old house as headquarters, the Brotherhood then raised money to build mosques and schools. Early on, the Brothers focused on service facilities, schools, workshops, and mosques that served their lower-middleclass base. The organizational pattern that developed at Ismailia spread to other centers throughout the country. 2228
In 1932, Wasan al-Bann3$ moved the Brotherhood’s headquarters to Cairo. He used the organization’s charitable and service activities to recruit from a variety of social groups, including civil servants, students, urban laborers, and rural peasants. At first, he stayed aloof from politics, rejecting an offer of government aid from Prime Minister Ism34tl :idqi in exchange for Wasan al-Bann3$’s help in countering the influence of the nationalist Wafd Party. In 1933, the Brotherhood held its first general conference and established a weekly magazine as a vehicle for Wasan al-Bann3$’s writings. The Brotherhood offered the idea of Islamic modernity as an alternative to European modernity, arguing that Islam is a complete blend of society, state, culture, and religion. Wasan al-Bann3$’s solution to the political problems that beset Muslims at the time was an Islamic state ruled by a caliph and the implementation of Islamic law (sharia). The Brothers’ ideology had three core features: a sense of Islam as a total system complete unto itself, one that did not need Western values; a sense of Islam based on the original texts, the Qur$3n and the Hadith; and an understanding of Islam’s universality, which made it applicable to all times and places. Wasan al-Bann3$ distinguished between Westernization and modernization, however. Modern science, technology, even certain political ideas could be accepted if they were separated from corrupting Western values. Wasan al-Bann3$ also believed that Islam had been heavily corrupted by Western values and ideologies and was in need of violent redemption. Unlike mainstream scholars, he did not hesitate to characterize as hypocrites those Muslims who professed Islam but did not adhere to its principles. He called for a purge in the ranks of Muslims in advance of a global battle against Christians and Jews. In fact, he was among the first to introduce a corrosive hatred of the Jews into modern Islamic discourse. He saw both Jews and Christians as peoples who sought to pollute Muslim values and beliefs. In 1936, the Brotherhood became openly political. That year, Wasan al-Bann3$ addressed a letter to Egypt’s newly crowned King Farouk I, urging the king to lend his support to the Brotherhood’s anti-imperialist and pro-Islamic political agenda. The Brothers were especially notable for their support of the Arab revolt in Palestine (1936-1939). While most Egyptian political organizations stayed away from this issue, the Brothers raised money and sent organizers to help the Palestinians in
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rival for power. After an attempt on Nasser’s life in 1954 was blamed on the Brothers, the Nasser regime had the excuse it needed to crush the Brotherhood. Many of the organization’s leaders were arrested, and some were hanged. The Brotherhood went into eclipse until the 1970’s. Significance The significance of the Muslim Brotherhood lies in the affiliated organizations that sprang up in neighboring Arab countries, in the teachings of its influential spokesman of the post-Wasan al-Bann3$ period, Sayyid Qu. tb, as well as in its role in contemporary Egyptian society. Branches of the Brotherhood sprang up in Lebanon (1936), Syria (1937), and Palestine (1946). They were founded by students from these countries who had studied and worked with the Brothers in Egypt. After these branches were formed, the Brotherhood tried to play the role of an international organization whose international representatives met in Cairo. The society’s international appeal was enhanced by the radical writings of educator and theoretician Sayyid Qu. tb, who joined the Brotherhood in 1951 after returning from the United States, where he had completed a masters degree in education. Arrested in Nasser’s 1954 crackdown, Qu. tb wrote two major works while in prison (from 1954 to 1965) that laid out the principles of the modern Islamist agenda, including rejection of “Zionist” and “Crusader” values and subversions, denunciation of Arab “hypocrite” regimes, and glorification of the cult of martyrdom. Released from prison briefly in 1965, then rearrested and hanged the following year, Qu. tb became the greatest single ideological influence on the contemporary Islamist movement. However, although Qu. tb’s teachings went on to animate the global jihad movement, the Muslim Brotherhood generally represented a more moderate Islamist strain. The Brotherhood became Egypt’s largest political opposition group, and the organization clung to its service and charitable functions, while expanding its political base and its influence in civil society and retaining its emphasis on the imposition of Islamic law. —Stephen A. Harmon Further Reading Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Gives one of the best accounts in English of the life and teachings of Sayyid Qu. tb. Campagna, Joel. “From Accommodation to Confrontation: The Muslim Brotherhood in the Mubarak Years. Journal of International Affairs 50, no. 1 (1996): 278304. Very good depiction of the contemporary Broth2229
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their struggle against Jewish settlement and British occupation. Wasan al-Bann3$ appealed to King Farouk for government help in this endeavor, and the Brotherhood’s support for the Arab revolt renewed the association between Islam and social justice, one that earned moral capital and would later pay dividends for the Brotherhood. By the time World War II began, the Brotherhood had become thoroughly politicized, taking the lead in antiBritish and anti-Jewish protests. Wasan al-Bann3$ openly courted King Farouk’s entourage and was granted an audience, and by the interwar period, the Brotherhood had become a powerful source of opposition to the leftleaning, proindependence Wafd Party, and Farouk’s government found the Brothers increasingly useful in deflecting the Wafd’s influence. In 1946, King Farouk consulted Wasan al-Bann3$ before reappointing Ism34tl :idqi as prime minister. As he had done in the 1930’s, :idqi courted the Brothers as an instrument to use against the nationalist Wafds and the Communists. This time, however, Wasan al-Bann3$ accepted government financial support in exchange for his political influence. By the late 1940’s, Farouk was using the Brotherhood as a counterweight to the rising power of the secular nationalists. Politics proved a dangerous arena in the volatile postwar years, however; this period saw the Israeli declaration of independence and the humiliating First Palestine War as well as the steady rise in influence of Egypt’s secular nationalists. From 1947 through 1949, violence shook the Egyptian regime, much of which was perpetrated by the Brotherhood through their secret military wing called the Specialists. After the murder of the Cairo police chief (an attack allegedly carried out by a Brother), Prime Minister Mawmnd Fahmt al-Nuqr3sht dissolved and disbanded the Brotherhood in June of 1948. When Nuqr3sht was himself assassinated a few months later, again reportedly by a Brother, the government took more definitive action; Wasan al-Bann3$ was murdered by suspected palace agents in February of 1949. After the overthrow of King Farouk by the 1952 secular-nationalist Egyptian Revolution and the subsequent rise to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Brotherhood offered to support the new, independent government. At first the Brothers embraced Nasser’s movement because of its stance against imperialism and Zionism and its promise of Egyptian renewal. However, Nasser and the Brothers were divided over issues like secularism (as opposed to an Islamic state) and nationalism (as opposed to the caliphal ideal). Nasser found the Brothers’ narrow vision of Islam threatening to his pluralist policies and saw their populist mass organization as a possible
Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt
Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air erhood and its role in politics and civil society. Esposito, John L. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Gives an extensive account of the origins and ideology of the Brotherhood, including its nineteenth century antecedents and influences. Kepel, Gilles. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Particularly strong on the ideological formation of the Brotherhood and on its organizational structure and base. _______. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: Prophet and Pharaoh. 1993. Reprint. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. An excellent account of the long and complex relationship between the Brotherhood and various Egyptian governments. Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. 1963. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press,
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1993. The best single-volume treatment of the origins and history of the Brotherhood up to the Nasser era. Relies heavily on the writings of Wasan al-Bann3$ as well as on British and Egyptian archival sources. Walsh, John. “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: Understanding Centrist Islam.” Harvard International Review 24, no. 4 (2003): 32-36. Provides a good comparison of the Brotherhood’s contemporary ideology with the agendas of more radical Islamists. See also: 1912-1929: Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia; May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians; Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine; May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations.
Radio Show Goes on the Air
Amos ’n’ Andy, a pioneering radio network comedy show, greatly influenced the direction of national commercial radio and became a controversial yet integral part of American popular culture. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Radio and television; entertainment Key Figures Charles Correll (1890-1972), American radio writer and actor Freeman Fisher Gosden (1899-1982), American radio writer and actor Walter White (1893-1955), executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Summary of Event At ten o’clock on the evening of March 19, 1928, radio station WMAQ, broadcasting from its studio in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, aired the first episode of the Amos ’n’ Andy comedy series, primarily for Chicagoarea listeners but also for a number of smaller stations elsewhere by means of recordings. The show immediately proved to be successful and was quickly bought by the National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC) Blue Network. NBC began broadcasting the show nationwide beginning on August 19, 1929. Thereafter, Amos ’n’ Andy 2230
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was destined to become a radio legend. The program’s share of the radio audience has probably never been equaled by any other serial broadcast. It became a national mania. Estimates made between 1931 and 1932 placed the fifteen-minute show’s audience at forty million, or one-third of the American population. Officials of all ranks, including presidents, made it known that they were listeners, work schedules were altered so that employers and their employees could tune in, and national conventions and local gatherings alike characteristically interrupted their proceedings so that followers among the attendees would not miss a single episode. Although the show’s character and content increasingly provoked racial controversy, especially after the television adaptation began airing in 1951, its audience appeal was nearly universal, cutting across political, regional, social, ethnic, and color lines. By the time Amos ’n’ Andy left the air on November 20, 1960, after 4,090 broadcasts, it had become an integral part of American popular culture as well as an abiding reminder of unresolved conflicts in national life. Amos ’n’ Andy was the creation of Freeman Fisher Gosden and Charles Correll. They not only conceived the comedy but also through most of the show’s history wrote each of its scripts themselves and, unrehearsed, furnished the voices of its principal characters. Both men had southern backgrounds. Gosden was born in Rich-
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mond, Virginia, the son of a man who had served with environment, thus resembling millions of his fellow the famed Confederate raider Colonel John Singleton Americans of all colors. Ostensibly more intelligent than Mosby. He was reared with African Americans as memAmos, Andy was pretentious, pompous, lazy, equally bers of his household. Correll, although born the son of a uneducated, and invariably engaged in using and abusing skilled stonemason and construction foreman in Peoria, his long-suffering companion as the two tried their hands Illinois, also shared a strong southern heritage through at enterprise, running their shoestring Fresh-Air Taxicab his maternal grandmother. Both men pursued careers as Company. In dramatic contrast to this pair, the real vilperformers, chiefly in minstrel shows and blackface lain (such as anyone was) was the Kingfish (George comedy—entertainment traditions that predated the Stevens), who slyly and crookedly presided over a fraterCivil War—before and after joining Joe Bren’s Chicago nal lodge known as the Mystic Knights of the Sea and theatrical company, where they met. Gosden and Corcontinually sought to exploit everyone. rell’s southern antecedents and their blackface comedy The show’s characters, in short, were not intended careers were vital to the creation of Amos ’n’ Andy, for overtly to be racially demeaning. Rather, they reflected its featured characters, as well as nearly all others, were Gosden and Correll’s prior show business experience black. with and mastery of a plausible black dialect. Otherwise, Amos ’n’ Andy sprang from an earlier comedy broadtheir characters and story lines could equally well have cast, Sam ’n’ Henry, that also was the brainchild of been applied (as they were by other writers and performGosden and Correll. Aired initially on January 12, 1926, ers) to immigrant Poles, Italians, or Germans, or for that by the Chicago Tribune’s station, WGN, Sam ’n’ Henry matter to any befuddled and unlettered country bumpwas radio’s first serialized situation comedy. Its name kins. Similar stories and characters were common in earderived from its two main characters, two African Amerlier American comedy and vaudeville productions and in icans who left Birmingham, Alabama, for Chicago. Like other comedy shows during the early days of radio. millions of real black migrants, they had joined what Gosden and Correll’s version put the elements together historians have since labeled the Great Migration to in a way the public particularly enjoyed, and after two denorthern cities that began in the 1920’s, seeking opporcades of effectively uncontroverted success, Amos ’n’ tunity denied them in the South. Because WGN owned Andy became a part of national folklore and an identifiSam ’n’ Henry, Gosden and Correll were obliged to able contribution to American culture. change the show’s name to Amos ’n’ Andy when, after 586 episodes of Sam ’n’ Henry, their services were purchased by station WMAQ and NBC in 1928. Other changes were minor. Instead of having left Birmingham, for example, Amos Jones and Andy Brown had left Atlanta for Chicago’s increasingly black, and To view image, please refer to the generally poor, South Side. print edition of this title. Although their speech was identifiably a southern black dialect, replete with mispronunciations and other linguistic distortions, the characters of the Amos ’n’ Andy show depended less for appeal on their blackness—and the humor attending their speech—than they did on their manifest humanity. Amos was recognizably a decent, hardworking, amiable, and lovable, if uneducated, Charles Correll (left) and Freeman Fisher Gosden perform in blackface makeup as poor man surviving in a depressiontheir popular characters Amos and Andy. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) ridden and altogether strange urban
Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air Significance Amid the initial chaos of radio’s early development, with more than six hundred stations vying for both audiences and sponsors, and without guidelines or precedents to indicate to broadcasters what either group wanted, the Amos ’n’ Andy show was, in many significant ways, a pioneering experiment. As much as any other single nontechnical factor, the show was responsible for the explosive success of commercial radio. The broad human appeal of Amos, Andy, and Gosden and Correll’s other characters, along with the common denominator of the easily understood troubles they encountered, drew audiences of unimagined magnitude. Sponsors previously had been reluctant to trust the repute of their products to the relatively untried advertising forum of radio. After noting Pepsodent’s ballooning sales, attributable in part to its sponsorship of Amos ’n’ Andy, they scrambled to identify themselves with any of the host of subsequent radio comedies and dramas that the show helped spawn. The Great Depression virtually mandated that entertainment be provided at low cost, preferably within the home. Sales of radio sets increased by geometric leaps, as they provided virtually unlimited free entertainment after the initial purchase of a set. With a mass market beckoning, cheaper radios (the earlier models had been expensive console sets) were soon on the market. By 1933, one authority estimated that three-fourths of all radio sales were inexpensive table models that cost between twelve and twenty dollars. Amos ’n’ Andy was a major contributor to this aberrant prosperity for an industry. Amos ’n’ Andy provided powerful impetus to the success of commercial radio, and also, in less quantifiable but doubtless equally significant ways, steadied the morale of millions of its listeners by supplying nightly laughter in the face of adversity. Audiences could easily identify with the plight of the show’s principals. The common sense and down-home candor of the two struggling urban African Americans cut through the welter of official nostrums, pontifications, predictions, exhortations, and superficial idealism about the state of the economy, the stock market, unemployment, and the trials of disadvantaged rural folk seeking a living in an urban environment. Even their additions to the American vernacular were unpretentious, to the point, and funny. The show offered bits of wisdom, as in this remark by Andy to the members of the Mystic Knights of the Sea: “I might talk about de repression an’ good times bein’ around de corneh, soon as I check up wid somebody an’ find out whut corneh ’tis.” Although Amos and Andy sometimes voiced dour expectations about the length 2232
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and seriousness of the Depression, they, as marginal entrepreneurs, exuded optimism and by implication reaffirmed the cult of individual success and the work ethic— for which both President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin D. Roosevelt thanked the show’s creators. Although Amos ’n’ Andy’s immense audience was drawn from all classes and races, protests against the show were raised by African Americans almost from its inception. Theresa Kennedy of St. Louis was among the first to voice complaints publicly. She admitted that she and her black neighbors were entertained by Amos ’n’ Andy and that the show’s characterizations were true to life, but, she complained, the obvious ignorance and shiftlessness of many of its characters gave a false impression of African Americans. Black newspapers during the early years of the show were divided, a majority praising it enthusiastically, as did most of the black organizations contacted by Gosden and Correll. A few were ambivalent about the show or were frankly hostile. A Chicago bishop, W. J. Walls, fell into the former category, whereas editor Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier from the show’s start denounced Gosden and Correll’s “exploitation” of certain types of American blacks for their own gain, with a result of undermining black self-respect. In support of his position, Vann claimed to have 740,000 signatures on petitions against the show by the fall of 1931. Some black trade unionists and business organizations likewise protested that Amos, Andy, and their cohorts reflected adversely on the integrity of African American enterprise. Over ensuing years, divisions in opinions of the show within black communities mirrored varying degrees of African American security, self-respect, and personal identity. Concerns over long-standing racial injustices and a resurgent national Civil Rights movement came to the fore in national life during the later years of the show. Amos ’n’ Andy was launched as a television comedy in 1951, its major roles played by black actors. Leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), some of whom, such as Roy Wilkins, had earlier either enjoyed the radio show or tolerated it, became more vigorously opposed to it, in company with some white liberals. During Walter White’s tenure as executive secretary of the NAACP, the organization made strenuous efforts first to alter the show’s characters and content, and then to abolish it as a continuing harm to African Americans and a caricature of their race. No one ever accused Gosden or Correll, however, of stooping to pointed racial language, and many critics conceded that the race of the show’s characters was
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Further Reading Barnouw, Erik. A Tower in Babel. Vol. 1 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. The finest history of its kind—comprehensive, authoritative, detailed, and well written. Gives great credit to Amos ’n’ Andy for launching successful commercial radio, but is more critical of the show’s racial content than many other analyses. Includes photographs, superb bibliography, detailed chronology, appendix of relevant laws, and index. Douglas, George H. The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting. 1987. Reprint. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Provides a good summary of Amos ’n’ Andy’s influ-
ence as well as useful background and context. Includes photographs, splendid bibliography, notes, and excellent index. Ely, Melvin Patrick. The Adventures of Amos ’n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Free Press, 2001. The definitive study of the show, its context, and its influences. Detailed and scholarly, but accessible to lay readers as well as specialists. Several chapters deal with the show’s racial content, problems of race, and racial opposition. Includes notes, bibliographical essay, and index. Harmon, Jim. The Great Radio Comedians. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970. Breezy, knowledgeable survey of forty prominent radio comedy programs, including Amos ’n’ Andy. Deals with the content of the shows rather than their place in the radio industry or history. Allows comparison of Gosden and Correll’s comedy with the work of other writers. Ably researched, with humorous excerpts that afford the reader a feel for these programs. Includes photographs and index. McLeod, Elizabeth. The Original Amos ’n’ Andy: Freeman Gosden, Charles Correll and the 1928-1943 Radio Serial. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005. Presents the history of the radio program in balanced fashion, discussing the innovations of its creators as well as the charges of racism against it. Examines scripts from the show’s earliest version. Includes script excerpts, cast and crew information, photographs, bibliography, and index. Wertheim, Arthur Frank. Radio Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Authoritatively traces the evolution of radio comedy (Sam ’n’ Henry and Amos ’n’ Andy included) and its impact on American values and society through the Great Depression and World War II. Also ties the content and character of comedy shows to traditional vernacular humor manifested earlier in vaudeville and stage comedy, highlighting radio comedy’s innovations. Features many funny quotations from shows’ scripts. Includes excellent photos, ample source notes, and index. See also: Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment.
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largely incidental to their unfolding stories. The radio show left the air in 1960. The television version was broadcast in first-run episodes from 1951 to 1953, then rerun widely on local stations. The television show remained popular in reruns and even was sold to broadcasters in Kenya and western Nigeria. After an official of Kenya’s government announced that the program would be banned in his country, controversy over the show reemerged. The program was withdrawn from sale in 1966. Gosden and Correll also created an animated television show with animal characters, titled Calvin and the Colonel, that aired in 1961 and 1962. The animal characters had origins in the Deep South and had migrated to a large northern city; the show had obvious similarities to Amos ’n’ Andy but avoided racial controversy through its use of animated animal characters. Amos ’n’ Andy left legacies of several types. It is remembered as the most popular radio serial of its time, and as such it was important in the development of radio as an entertainment medium. It was a pioneering effort in the emergence of serialized stories that were broadcast, both on radio and on television. More important, it indicated the effects that entertainment presentations can have on the popular consciousness and showed that art and entertainment often reflect reality and can bring attention to existing problems and conflicts. The controversy about racial presentations endured past the end of Amos ’n’ Andy, and creators of the television shows that followed learned to evaluate their plots and characters carefully to avoid obvious insults or slurs against any group. This contributed to what some observers have called the relatively homogenized entertainment fare of the late twentieth century. —Clifton K. Yearley
Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air
Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 11, 1928
Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry When Hollywood’s major film studios signed an agreement with American Telephone and Telegraph to use AT&T technology to produce films with sound, the result was an explosion in the popularity of motion pictures. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; science and technology; inventions Key Figures Harry Warner (1881-1958), American motion-picture executive Albert Warner (1884-1967), American motion-picture executive Sam Warner (1887-1927), American motion-picture executive William Fox (1879-1952), American motion-picture executive Summary of Event When Hollywood’s major studios agreed in May, 1928, to incorporate sound into their films, the decision transformed the American film industry almost overnight. Attendance at theaters doubled, new talent poured into Hollywood, and “talkies” became the rage around the world. The introduction of sound to motion pictures created America’s favorite midcentury leisure-time activity. The production of the first sound films required several stages of innovation. First, scientists had to develop apparatus to record and synchronize sounds and images, complete with a quality and tone that would permit the resulting product to be shown before large audiences. Moreover, companies had to learn how to market sound films to the public, knowing the inherent risk in trying to sell something many critics said would not work. Finally, the major film companies had to decide to accept the new technology and to substitute it for the standardized silent film. Such a transformation took place between 1926 and 1930. The silent-film era ended; Hollywood switched completely to the making of talkies. In 1925, silent filmmaking stood as the standard; a mere five years later, Hollywood produced only films with sound. The speed of the transition surprised almost everyone. Within the space of half a decade, formerly perplexing technical problems were resolved, marketing and distribution 2234
strategies were reworked, soundproof studios were constructed, and fifteen thousand theaters were wired for sound. Given that Hollywood dominated the film business throughout the world, foreign film industries were forced to follow suit, and by 1935, sound films had become the world standard. The transformation to sound films did not begin in Hollywood. It took one of the world’s largest corporations, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), to overcome the frustrating technological problems involved. During the silent era, mammoth picture palaces used seventy-five-piece orchestras to provide live sound for silent films. Every two-hundred-seat neighborhood house had a hardworking piano player plunking out a musical accompaniment. Inventors, however, had long sought to develop a mechanical sound system to supply needed music and even dialogue. In the early years of the twentieth century, single inventors (including Thomas Alva Edison) failed to link phonograph technology to the silent film; they could not solve the problem of synchronizing sounds from a speaker with film of speaking actors. During the 1910’s, AT&T’s scientists, working in a corporate unit that would later become known as Bell Labs, perfected an electronic sound-on-disk recording and reproducing system in order to test AT&T’s thennew long-distance telephone network. As a spin-off of this telephone research, AT&T scientists invented the first true loudspeaker and sound amplifier. Combining these inventions with film technology produced a system that could record and project clear, vibrant sounds to audiences even in huge picture palaces. In 1922, AT&T had begun trying to sell its new sound technology. Despite AT&T’s formidable technical reputation and financial muscle, however, the barons of the American film industry, fully cognizant of the multitude of embarrassing failures of talkies a decade earlier, passed when initially offered the new AT&T equipment. A minor Hollywood company, Warner Bros., took up the challenge. The brothers Warner (led by the eldest, Harry, who was assisted by his younger brothers Albert and Sam) had come a long way from their nickelodeon days in Ohio, but their company was still tiny in comparison to giants such as Famous Players-Lasky, then Hollywood’s largest company. Warner Bros. sought a means
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thus were conceived as short recordings of the acts of top musical, comic, and variety talent. In September, 1925, Warner Bros. set in motion its strategy of using vaudeville shorts to innovate sound films. It took a year to work out the technical problems, but by August, 1926, Warner Bros. was ready to premiere the marvel it called “Vitaphone.” The premiere held that August allowed audiences to see and hear operatic favorites sung on film by such stars as Metropolitan Opera tenor Giovanni Martinelli. The presentation of the silent film Don Juan (1926), with music on a sound track replacing the usual live orchestra, followed. As Warner Bros. developed more silent feature films with orchestral music on disk and more sound vaudeville shorts, the Warner brothers quickly realized that the public preferred recordings of popular musical acts to recordings of opera stars. Al Jolson and Elsie Janis, two of the biggest names in the pop music business during the 1920’s, became the first stars of Vitaphone vaudeville shorts. Warner Bros. soon began to insert vaudeville numbers into its features, beginning with Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer, which premiered in October, 1927. The enormous success of The Jazz Singer forced rival studios to take notice of the new sound technology. Motion-picture camera surrounded by soundproofing to prevent the camDuring 1927 and the early part of 1928, era noise from being picked up by early sound recording equipment. (LiWarner Bros. had only one competitor, the brary of Congress) Fox Film Corporation, in the production of sound films. Fox had adapted a version of AT&T’s pioneering technology to make by which to grow, and so in 1924, the brothers expanded newsreels with sound. Like the brothers Warner, Wilinto more expensive feature-film production, added ofliam Fox, head of the Fox Film Corporation, did not see a fices for worldwide distribution, and bought a chain of future for feature-length talkies, but he reasoned that the picture palaces. public might prefer newsreels with sound to current siDuring this phase of corporate growth, Sam Warner lent offerings. learned of AT&T’s inventions. He was immediately William Fox never made a better business decision in smitten, but he somehow had to trick the head of the famhis career. Fox Film engineers labored to integrate sound ily, Harry, into approving a deal. Harry saw a demonstrawith accepted newsreel techniques. On the final day of tion, and soon the brothers were working up a strategy to April, 1927, five months before the opening of The Jazz use sound to further build up their company. The Warner Singer, Fox Film presented its first sound newsreels. brothers decided to make sound films of vaudeville acts Less than a month later, Fox stumbled across the publicand offer them as novelties to exhibitors along with ity coup of the decade when it tendered the only sound Warner Bros. feature-length (still silent) films. The footage of the takeoff and triumphant return of aviator Warner sales pitch stressed that these vaudeville sound Charles A. Lindbergh. The enormous popularity of shorts could substitute for the then-omnipresent stage Lindbergh’s hop across the Atlantic undoubtedly contributed heavily to Fox’s success with sound newsreels. shows offered by picture palaces. The very first talkies
Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry Fox newsreel cameramen soon spread to all parts of the globe in search of stories “with a voice.” Theater owners queued up to wire their houses simply to be able to show Fox Movietone newsreels. To fans of the day, Movietone newsreels offered as much an attraction as any featurelength film. The major film companies, led by Paramount, did not want to be left behind. For more than a year, a committee of experts from Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), First National, and United Artists met secretly to study their options. They examined AT&T’s sound film technology and drew up plans to anticipate all attendant problems. After nearly six months of haggling over terms, on May 11, 1928, at AT&T’s headquarters in Manhattan, these four major companies signed up with AT&T, and the rush to make talkies was on. Significance Once the necessary contracts were signed, the diffusion of sound proceeded logically. First, Paramount, MGM, and the other major studios came out with “scored features,” existing silent films with recorded music added. Theater owners immediately let go resident orchestras, freeing funds to help pay for the necessary wiring. Musicians’ unions protested, but by 1930, only a handful of theaters in the largest U.S. cities still maintained house orchestras and organists. By January, 1929, less than a year after Paramount, MGM, First National, and United Artists had signed their original contracts, the majors began to distribute “100 percent talking” features, and the silent film became a thing of the past. The widespread adoption of sound took place within the space of two years; the major Hollywood companies had too much at stake to procrastinate. Few unanticipated difficulties arose. Within the framework of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the major studios cooperated to resolve any remaining problems as quickly as possible. In short, the big studios continued to prosper. Smaller producers—save for pioneering Warner Bros. and Fox— could not afford the transition and either went out of business or were taken over by larger concerns. The Hollywood studios experienced a building boom, doubling studio space in less than two years. Several companies reopened studios near New York City to accommodate Broadway stage talent unwilling to trek to California. Paramount’s Long Island City complex, a simple commute across the East River, was the largest of these. The greatest construction, however, came in California, as the modern studios came to life as filmmaking centers. 2236
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Fox had adapted a version of AT&T’s pioneering technology that recorded sound on film itself. Warner’s original sound-on-disk system proved ever more cumbersome, and by 1930 sound on film became the industry standard. Theaters owned by Hollywood companies received their sound film installations first; smaller, independently owned houses had to sign up and wait, sometimes for more than a year. The major Hollywood companies could hardly keep track of the millions they were making. Warner Bros. and Fox moved to the top of the industry, and a new major company, Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), was formed. In a rush to compete with AT&T, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) developed its own version of sound on film, but RCA could not convince the major Hollywood companies to use its product, the “Photophone.” To make the best of this situation, RCA founder and president David Sarnoff turned to a friend, financier Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy political family. At the time, the elder Kennedy owned a small Hollywood studio, the Film Booking Office (FBO). During the last six months of 1928, Sarnoff and Kennedy merged RCA’s sound equipment with the FBO studio and added the theaters from the Keith-AlbeeOrpheum vaudeville theater empire to create RKO. The public’s infatuation with talkies set off the greatest rush to the box office in American history. At its peak in the months before the Great Depression, on average, every person over the age of six in the United States went to the movies once a week. Profits for the major Hollywood companies soared. Mergers and takeovers became the order of the day. By 1930, there were only five major studios in Hollywood (Paramount, Loew’s/MGM, Warner Bros., Fox, and RKO) and three minor studios (Columbia, Universal, and United Artists). Unlike their larger cousins, the minor studios owned no theaters. The coming of sound had set in place a corporate structure that would define the studio era of the 1930’s and 1940’s—the Golden Age of Hollywood. By controlling picture palaces in all of America’s downtowns, the major studios took in three-quarters of the average box-office take. Naturally, they granted their own theaters first-run privileges for top films and only then permitted smaller, independently owned theaters (found, by and large, outside downtown areas and in thousands of small towns) to scramble for remaining bookings, sometimes months, or even years, after films premiered. The major studios’ regulation of the distribution and exhibition of films provided them with the
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Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry
power base from which they dominated American filmmaking for the next three decades. —Douglas Gomery
See also: 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures; Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures; Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age.
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Further Reading Balio, Tino, ed. The American Film Industry: A History Anthology of Readings. Rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Collection of essays analyzes the history and development of the American film industry, including the coming of sound. Aimed at a scholarly audience. Crafton, Donald. The Talkies: American Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1926-1931. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997. Discusses all aspects of the transition from silent films to films with sound, including the public’s reaction to talking pictures and the effects of sound on the aesthetics of filmmaking. Part of a ten-volume series on the history of the film industry in the United States. Includes bibliography and indexes. Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Comprehensive history of the period in filmmaking when silents gave way to sound. Includes photographs and index. Geduld, Harry M. The Birth of the Talkies: From Edison to Jolson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Pioneering study details the creation of the inventions that were necessary to make talkies technologically possible. Includes substantial material on the film industry’s relations with the phonograph and radio industries.
Mast, Gerald, ed. The Movies in Our Midst. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Collection of essays presents a social history of the American cinema; generally readable and lively. Includes a useful introduction by the editor and comprehensive bibliography. Sarris, Andrew. “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet”: The American Talking Film—History and Memory, 19271949. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Comprehensive history of American cinema since The Jazz Singer by one of the most respected American writers on film. Opens with a chapter on the Hollywood studios. Features an index of films and an index of names. Walker, Alexander. The Shattered Silents: How the Talkies Came to Stay. New York: William Morrow, 1979. Survey of the history of the coming of sound to motion pictures based on a close reading of the trade paper Variety. Interesting but limited. Weis, Elisabeth, and John Belton, eds. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Collection of essays discusses the place of sound in the cinema. The first two essays address the film industry’s transition to sound. Includes annotated bibliography and index.
Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 15, 1928
Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service The advent of the first flying doctor service in Australia in 1928 opened the doors for further settlement and development of the nation’s vast interior. Previously, Outback settlers rarely had access to medical treatment, and minor injuries could quickly turn deadly. Eventually armed with radios as well as airplanes, members of the flying doctor service changed the face of Australian medicine, providing what became known as a “mantle of safety” for the Outback’s pioneers. Also known as: Royal Flying Doctor Service; Australian Aerial Medical Service Locale: Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia Categories: Health and medicine; transportation; space and aviation Key Figures John Flynn (1880-1951), Presbyterian minister and founder of the Australia Inland Mission Clifford Peel (1899-1918), Australian medical student and soldier during World War I Alfred Traeger (1895-1980), Australian radio engineer Jimmy Darcy (1895-1917), Western Australian stockman Summary of Event In May of 1928, the tiny Outback settlement of Cloncurry in Queensland, Australia, witnessed the birth of the country’s first flying doctor service. In March of that year, the fledgling Australian airline Qantas had signed a one-year contract with the Presbyterian Church’s Australian Inland Mission to carry a doctor to patients in remote Outback locations. On May 15, the Aerial Medical Service was officially established at Cloncurry, and on May 17, the Qantas airplane Victory made the first historic flight, taking Dr. Kenyon St. Vincent Welch from Cloncurry to Julia Creek. This marked the beginning of a yearlong experiment in which the “flying doctor” would travel more than 30,000 kilometers (18,641 miles) and treat more than 250 patients. The program’s success led to a larger national cooperative effort in 1932 called the Australian Aerial Medical Service (AAMS), to which the Presbyterian Church ultimately transferred its flying doctor services in 1934. The AAMS was renamed the Flying Doctor Service in 1942, and it received a Royal Charter in 1955 that added the honorific “Royal” in front of its name. The establishment of the flying doctor service was the realization of a dream held by the Reverend John Flynn. 2238
Flynn was the first superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission, an organization that he created in 1912 with the help of the Australian Presbyterian Church. The purpose of the mission was to provide spiritual service, health care, education, and other assistance to the pioneering settlers who were attempting to establish a foothold in the vast Australian interior. During his work with the mission, Flynn had traveled great distances and had become familiar with the harsh and primitive conditions that Outback settlers endured. Before long, wherever Flynn went, he lobbied for the establishment of a medical-assistance network, but he had not yet figured out exactly how such a service would operate. In 1917, the death of Jimmy Darcy, a young stockman, made national news and drew attention to the lack of medical attention in the Outback. According to the official history of the Royal Doctor Flying Service, Darcy was badly injured in a fall in rural Western Australia and was carried 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) to the nearest town, Halls Creek. The town’s postmaster, Fred Tuckett, eventually reached a doctor by telegraph, but the doctor was so far away that he had to guide Tuckett through an emergency operation procedure using Morse code. Although the operation itself appeared to be successful, Darcy later died due to unrelated complications—a death that the doctor might have been able to prevent if he had been there in person. Darcy’s death motivated Flynn to press on with his efforts, and it also inspired a young Australian soldier named Clifford Peel, who was serving in Europe. Peel wrote a lengthy letter to Flynn, who reprinted it in the October, 1918, issue of the Australian Inland Mission’s publication the Inlander. Peel, who had been a medical student before going to war, had provided cost estimates and specific suggestions for a flying doctor service. Unfortunately, Peel was killed in action in France in1918, a full decade before his ideas would be put into practice. It took several years of lobbying, fund-raising, and research before the flying doctor service could be started. Flynn felt strongly that connecting the inhabitants of the coastal areas and the inland was critical to Australia’s future, and he eloquently argued his case. In addition, the continuing tensions in Europe contributed to a nationalistic desire to populate the country’s interior. Recognizing that the success of a flying doctor service was dependent on communication, Flynn persuaded radio
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Significance Robert Gordon Menzies, who served as the prime minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966, was widely quoted as saying that the Flying Doctor Service may have been the single most important factor in the effective settlement of the Australian Outback. Before the service was established, lack of medical treatment meant that the most minor injury could develop into a lethal condition. As the program grew, the Australia population came to revere the brave pilots and doctors who worked hard to save lives, and the organization’s founder, John
Flynn, was eventually honored by having his portrait on the Australian $20 note and on a postage stamp. The Royal Flying Doctor Service also had far-reaching implications outside the medical realm; for instance, its radio network was utilized for the School of the Air, which provided long-distance school lessons for children in the Outback. In addition, the network provided an important source of social contact for lonely settlers. —Amy Sisson Further Reading Batstone, Kay. Outback Heroes: Seventy-Five Years of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. Melbourne, Vic.: Lothian Books, 2003. Commemorative volume that examines the origins and development of the Royal Flying Doctor Service; contains archival photographs and detailed accounts of life-saving rescue missions. Hains, Brigid. “Antipodean Alchemist: ‘Flying Doctor’ Pioneer John Flynn Thought That a Vital Society Was a Humane One.” Meanjin 63 (March, 2004): 27. In this essay, historian Hains examines some of the philosophies behind Flynn’s vision, including his dislike and distrust of cities, his thoughts on race, and his belief that accessible transportation between Australia’s interior and coastal areas would address not only medical needs but also the nation’s mental and social health in general. Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. “Our History.” http://www.flyingdoctor.net/default.htm. Extensive history section on the organization’s official Web site includes a time line showing when each geographic base was added to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Rudolph, Ivan. John Flynn: Of Flying Doctors and Frontier Faith. 2d ed. Rockhampton: Central Queensland University Press, 2000. Biographical account focusing on Flynn’s pioneering role in founding the organization that would become the Royal Flying Doctor Service. See also: Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel. 2239
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engineer Alfred Traeger to join him in Cloncurry to begin working on the communication issues. In the meantime, Flynn drafted the organization’s guidelines and constitution. In doing so, he deliberately avoided limiting the organization’s services to medical treatment. Finally, in May of 1928, the Aerial Medical Service was ready to launch the inaugural flight that carried Qantas pilot Arthur Affleck and Dr. Kenyon St. Vincent Welch from Cloncurry to Julia Creek. Because Traeger’s radio system was not yet ready, during its first year the service depended on telephone links that existed between towns and settlements and on the ability of individuals to travel to places where they could relay requests for assistance. In addition, pilots had to rely on landmarks for navigation, which was difficult considering that long stretches of Outback territory could not easily be distinguished from other parts of the region. The situation was much improved when Traeger unveiled the system he had developed: a pedal-operated radio set with a Morse typewriter keyboard that could be used by those who did not know Morse code. In 1932, Traeger further improved the organization’s communications by distributing transistorized voice sets that allowed doctors to diagnose from a distance and created a continuous communication network among Outback stations separated by wide distances. In 1942, coded medical chests for the Outback stations were introduced, and 1952 saw the development of a detailed chart of the human body that patients could use to tell doctors precisely where their injuries or pains were located. All of these innovations greatly improved the effectiveness of long-distance diagnosis and medical treatment. Gradually, the Flying Doctor Service added base stations at various locations throughout Australia so that it could reach a growing population. It continued to improve its equipment and training for personnel, which shortened the response time needed to get to any location in Australia for a medical emergency.
Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service
Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 18, 1928
Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow In a prelude to the Great Terror, a group of engineers working in the Donbas area of Ukraine were accused of sabotage and publicly tried. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union Categories: Civil rights and liberties; government and politics; human rights Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party in Russia and dictator in the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (1883-1954), presiding judge during the Shakhty trials Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko (1885-1938), prosecutor during the Shakhty trials Summary of Event During the First Five-Year Plan, in which the Soviet Union’s entire economy was geared toward transforming itself into a modern industrial nation, the country encountered various difficulties. These ranged from small errors, such as mismatched gauges in pipes, to major catastrophes, such as the failures of boilers and furnaces, which killed thousands and put whole factories out of commission. All of these mistakes were likely caused by the huge rush toward industrialization and exacerbated
by the central planning committees, and the result was that industrial growth occurred in fits and lurches rather than through an organic evolution. No one was allowed to admit, however, that Stalin’s plan could be at fault. Instead, fear of Stalin’s harsh tactics caused the Soviet government to argue that its difficulties were due to the nefarious work of saboteurs sent by the capitalist nations of the West to destroy the dream of building the perfect socialist society. An opportunity to convince the Soviet people of this scheme came from a region in the North Caucasus, near Rostov-na-Donu, where a secret police informer, Yevgeny Yevdokimov, reported a supposed conspiracy to commit sabotage in the town of Shakhty. The tip was soon spun into an elaborate scenario in which Soviet and foreign engineers were accused of taking orders from Paris and attempting to bomb and destroy mining equipment throughout the Donbass region. Fifty-three defendants—an unprecedented number—were named. The sheer size of the planned trial led Stalin to revive the Special Judicial Presence, a judicial body whose powers and jurisdictions were not specified by any legal document. To head it, Stalin chose the rector of Moscow University, Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, a man of international stature whose reputation added further luster to both the trial and its verdict. The fact that Stalin had shared a cell in a czarist prison with Vyshinsky during
Idealized painting shows Joseph Stalin (center) leading a Central Committee meeting. (Library of Congress)
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dicts and death sentences. Only eleven of the eighteen originally marked as guilty were actually sentenced to death. Of those, only five sentences actually were carried out, a reduction that occurred largely as the result of international outcry against the obvious injustice. Significance The show trials that Stalin held in 1928 were in some sense a dress rehearsal for the later, more famous Moscow show trials of 1935 and 1936, in which Stalin publicly discredited and destroyed the last of the Bolshevik leaders who had carried out the October Revolution and could have moved against him. All the major elements and themes of the later trials are evident in the Shakhty case, including the intimidation and ultimate destruction of the very people the Soviet Union most needed to lead its move toward progress and industrialization. By 1935, Stalin’s government had perfected its methods and techniques to ensure that it would not again experience the embarrassment of having defendants who refused to confess or who repeatedly changed their pleas and retracted confessions (only to later offer further confessions). If it was clear that certain defendants were likely to cause trouble in court, they were tried in secret sessions, and the public saw nothing but newspaper reports. Most notably, this method was used in the destruction of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other notable officers of the Red Army, men of great physical courage unlikely to be cowed into submission by torture. However, Vyshinsky would not reprise his role as the presiding judge when it came time for the Moscow show trials. Instead, he would replace Krylenko, whose performance Stalin had found crude and unsatisfactory, at the prosecutor’s table. Vyshinsky’s oratory would become famous, and he was especially well known for the imaginative abuse he was able to heap on defendants. Even as prosecutor, Vyshinsky continued to have a major role in the operations of the Moscow show trials, as the military judge chosen to preside over them was a lackluster figure with no real legal training—the judge was useful primarily because he could be depended upon to hand down guilty verdicts and death sentences. Krylenko would ultimately vanish into an unmarked grave, but Vyshinsky would survive the Great Terror with his reputation intact and move into diplomacy. —Leigh Husband Kimmel Further Reading Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1990. A postglasnost reissue of the most authoritative volume 2241
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their revolutionary days only helped solidify Stalin’s confidence in Vyshinsky’s willingness to follow Stalin’s orders. Stalin assigned the role of chief prosecutor to Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko, Vyshinsky’s old rival. In order to make sure that there would be plenty of room for observers, including foreign correspondents, the trial was held in the famous Hall of Columns in the Trade Union House, which had been the Moscow Club of the Nobility. Even before the trial opened, Stalin had made a speech in which he publicly declared that the defendants were guilty of sabotage. The fact that not one of the members of the Central Committee spoke up behalf of the accused was a mark of how thoroughly Stalin had already cowed Communist Party’s most senior members. Even Bolshevik leader Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin loudly called for the execution of the Shakhty engineers, perhaps because Bukharin himself was now pleading for his own life in the face of Stalin’s increasing threats to have him destroyed. The trial was noteworthy for its lack of interest in using evidence in arguments. Instead, Vyshinsky emphasized the power of wringing confessions from the accused, a theory of jurisprudence that he had been personally involved in developing. However, things did not always go smoothly. During the course of the trial, defendants repeatedly retracted their previous confessions, and several indicated that their confessions had been extracted by blackmail or by outright brutality. As a result, the confessions were often confusing and could change several times during the course of the trial. As the trial progressed, the rivalry between Vyshinsky and Krylenko became increasingly obvious. While Krylenko taunted and ridiculed the defendants and often came across as ham-handed or boorish, Vyshinsky relied on relentless, logic-based arguments, which he delivered in a level, scholarly tone. As a result, Vyshinsky was remembered with respect, if not actual admiration, and this respect intensified when he used his authority as presiding judge to discipline Krylenko when the latter became carried away with his attacks on the defendants. It was fairly obvious, however, that Vyshinsky enjoyed the opportunity to embarrass a long-time rival at least as much as he cared about keeping the trial on track. Over the trial’s six weeks, its various problems made it the target of a fair amount of mockery in the foreign press. There were simply too many signs that the trial was a sham and that the supposed confessions were actually meaningless products of state terror. Vyshinsky gradually realized that there was no way to carry out Stalin’s grand scheme without looking absurd, and so he gained permission to reduce the number of guilty ver-
Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow
Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling on the era. Includes discussion of the Shakhty trials and other preludes to the actual terror. Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. Translated by George Shriver. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. A glasnost-era edition of the study of Stalinism by one of the former Soviet Union’s leading historians. Includes material on the Shakhty case and treats it as a prelude to the Moscow show trials. Montefore, Simon Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Includes information on Stalin’s use of henchmen (including Vyshinsky) to prepare and run the terror while deflecting attention from himself. Rayfield, Donald. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him. New York: Random House, 2004. Study of the relationship between Stalin
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and his chief lieutenants reveals Stalin’s preference for staying in the background during repressions so that others could take the blame, a tactic that allowed him to preserve his image as fatherly leader. Vaksberg, Arkady. Stalin’s Prosecutor: The Life of Andrei Vyshinsky. New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1990. One of the few biographies of Vyshinsky available. Includes extensive information on the Shakhty trials. See also: 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; 1918-1921: Russian Civil War; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives; Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning; Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile; Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials.
Summer, 1928
Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling George Gamow used the newly established quantum mechanics to explain the puzzling phenomenon of radioactive alpha decay. Locale: Leningrad, Soviet Union (now St. Petersburg, Russia); Göttingen, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures George Gamow (1904-1968), Soviet American physicist Edward U. Condon (1902-1974), American physicist Ronald Wilfred Gurney (1898-1953), British American physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), British physicist Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), French physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), German physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), Austrian British physicist Max Born (1882-1970), German physicist Hans Geiger (1882-1945), German physicist John Mitchell Nuttall (1890-1958), British physicist Summary of Event In 1928, George Gamow provided a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon of radioactive alpha decay. The newly established quantum mechanics served as the the2242
oretical basis for his explanation. Beginning from 1898, Ernest Rutherford and his assistants studied radioactivity most successfully. They classified the phenomenon and clarified many important phenomenological regularities. The alpha particles, the heaviest of all three types of radioactive emissions, are positively charged; in fact, they are the atomic nuclei of the inert gas helium. All atomic nuclei are not alpha radioactive, however. Only the heavy ones can emit alpha particles, which are usually of uniform kinetic energy characteristic of the parent species of nuclei. The kinetic energy of alpha particles ranges from 4 to 9.5 MeV (millions of electronvolts). Radioactivity is a probabilistic phenomenon. All radioactive nuclei change as a result of one or more of the three types of disintegration, but when disintegration occurs to one particular nucleus, it is unpredictable. It may happen instantly, or it may occur in the remote future. Some nuclei (isotopes) disintegrate rapidly, whereas others disintegrate slowly. The probabilistic character of the phenomenon required physicists to use statistical concepts such as the “half-life” to describe and discuss them. The half-life of an isotope is the time for one-half of any given quantity of the nuclei to disintegrate. Half-lives vary vastly from one species of nuclei to another. Some isotopes are very radioactive; in one-trillionth of a sec-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling
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He suggested that, starting from the nucleus, each alpha ond, a half of this type of atom could change its identity. particle is accompanied by two electrons that neutralize Some isotopes are radioactively very stable; it may take its positive charge. For this neutralized alpha particle, the one trillion years for half of this type of atom to change. potential barrier is no longer a barrier, and it has no diffiIn 1911, two physicists in Rutherford’s group, Hans culty passing the barrier zone. After sending off the alpha Geiger and John Mitchell Nuttall, derived from experiparticle, the two electrons somehow separate from it and mental data a remarkable law that relates the half-life of a return into the nucleus. Gamow, however, thought this species of nuclei to the energy of the alpha particles emittheory was too ingenious; he believed that the phenometed from them: the parent nuclei. The Geiger-Nuttall law non was another quantum event inexplicable to classical was, in fact, a set of succinct equations. The theoretical physics. understanding of these empirical equations, however, Louis de Broglie’s first step in 1925 toward the estabhad to wait for the establishment of quantum mechanics, lishment of quantum mechanics was a startling suggesa milestone that was reached sixteen years later. tion. He argued, on the basis of analogy with classical In 1927, Rutherford published his discovery of the physics, that every elementary particle is associated with phenomenon of alpha decay. Gamow conceived his quana “matter wave.” One year later, following de Broglie’s tum theory of tunneling from this publication. From the standpoint of classical physics, the phenomena were simply paradoxical. First, the experiment of atomic George Gamow: scattering made it clear that every Physicist, Cosmologist, Geneticist atom has a positively charged, small, Born March 4, 1904, in Odessa, Russia, George Gamow started his scienand heavy nucleus. As alpha partitific career as a boy, when his father gave him a telescope for his thirteenth cles are also positively charged when birthday. Little did his father know that his son would one day become one of they approach a nucleus, because of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century. the mutual repulsion between elecAfter graduating from the University of Leningrad in 1926, Gamow went to tricity of the same sign, they are reGöttingen, a center for the study of the new quantum mechanics. At this time, jected and scattered by the nuclei. natural radioactivity was the focus of research of many of the great physicists Thus, for positive charges, including of the day, from the Curies to Lord Rutherford, and Gamow was particularly alpha particles, the atomic nucleus is interested in its relationship to the atomic nucleus. In 1928, he made his first surrounded with a barrier of potengreat contribution when he described quantum tunneling of alpha particles to tial energy. explain the radioactive process of alpha decay. His investigation of the atomic By shooting alpha particles of difnucleus would take him to Copenhagen, where he worked under Niels Bohr laying the theoretical groundwork for nuclear fusion and fission. ferent kinetic energy at various speDuring the 1930’s, Gamow taught at universities in Copenhagen, Lenincies of nuclei, Rutherford assessed grad, Cambridge, Paris, and the United States. In Washington, D.C., he and Edthe height of the potential barrier ward Teller worked on the theory of beta decay. He also turned his attention to around a nucleus, which could be as astrophysics and the origin of the elements. This work led to his 1948 proposal high as 25 to 35 MeV, several times of the “big bang” theory of the universe, for which he is best known. the kinetic energy of alpha particles. Gamow was more than a theoretical physicist, however: Known for his For example, uranium 238 is a radiosense of humor and revered by his students, he was also devoted to education. active species that emits alpha partiHis “Mr. Tompkins” series used science fiction to explain difficult science in a cles of 4.2 MeV. The scattering exway that anyone—including Tompkins, whose attention span was notoriously periment showed that the potential short—could understand. In 1954, inspired by the Watson-Crick DNA model, barrier around the uranium 238 nuhe theorized that the order of the DNA molecules determined protein structure. The problem, as he saw it, was to determine how the four-letter “alphabet” of cleus might be as high as 25 MeV, nucleic acid bases could be formed into “words.” His “diamond code” paved more than five times the kinetic enthe way for Marshall W. Nirenberg to crack the genetic code in 1961. ergy of the alpha particle that the In 1956, Gamow settled in Boulder to teach at the University of Colorado. same nucleus sometimes emits. It That year, he received UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for his popularization of sciwas not known how a 4.2 MeV alpha ence, and two years later he was married (a second time) to Barbara “Perky” particle could escape a 25 MeV barPerkins, who initiated the George Gamow Lecture Series after his death, in 1968. rier. Rutherford proposed an ingenious classical solution to the puzzle.
Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling lead, Erwin Schrödinger introduced a general “wave equation.” He stated that his differential equation should solve microcosmic problems in general—such as Sir Isaac Newton’s equation, the second law of motion, in classical mechanics. Werner Heisenberg formulated his version of microcosmic mechanics in 1925. Atomic spectra are sharp lines representing radiations with definite frequencies, intensities, and polarizations. One of Niels Bohr’s basic ideas was that spectral lines were transitions between quantum states. As the easiest way to specify a quantum state is to assign an integer to it, the transition between two quantum states could be specified by a pair of integers. Heisenberg pursued this line of thinking and concluded that every microcosmic “observable” should be specified the same way: by a pair of integers. Consequently, Heisenberg’s mechanics was formulated with matrices—that is, square arrays of numbers. This was the origin of matrix mechanics, accomplished by Heisenberg, Pascual Jordan, and Max Born. After introducing his basic equation, Schrödinger proved the mathematical equivalence between matrix mechanics and wave mechanics. In 1927, Heisenberg and Born succeeded in arriving at important results that would clarify the physical meaning of the new quantum mechanics: Heisenberg formulated the “uncertainty principle” and Born propounded the statistical interpretation of the quantum wave function. According to Heisenberg, it is impossible, even in principle, to determine at the same time the exact position and exact velocity of a particle. Born understood that the square of the amplitude of the wave function—the solution of the Schrödinger equation—represented an opportunity of finding a microcosmic particle. In the summer of 1928, Gamow applied these empirical and theoretical results to solve a long-standing paradox in the phenomenon of radioactivity. He followed de Broglie in using an analogue from classical physics, the relation between geometrical and wave optics, especially with regard to the issue of total reflection, which is a logical consequence of geometrical optics. According to the wave optics, however, no total reflection is total. Gamow pointed out that, according to wave mechanics, penetration into a potential barrier of a microcosmic particle, although with insufficient kinetic energy, is not impossible. Gamow solved the Schrödinger equation of this problem and showed that the wave function beyond the barrier did not vanish. Thus, according to Born’s statistical interpretation of the wave function, the probability for the particle to tunnel through the barrier is not nil. Probability should depend on how large the barrier is. 2244
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The new quantum mechanics could calculate the exact dependence of the probability on the height and the width of the barrier: The higher and wider the barrier is, the smaller the probability becomes. The theory also shows that, for an ordinary baseball or tennis ball, for example, the chance of penetration, let alone tunneling through, is practically zero. Significance It soon became evident that the quantum effect of “tunneling” also could be derived directly from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, more specifically, from its energy-time format. This was a satisfying step that further demonstrated the inherent consistency of quantum mechanics. Following the initial theoretical success, Gamow discussed the tunneling of potential barriers with John Douglas Cockcroft and encouraged him to bombard light nuclei with moderately accelerated protons. (Their goal was to explore the possibility of inducing artificial nuclear transmutation. Before the theory of quantum tunneling was evinced, the suggestion of using protons with insufficient kinetic energy would be rejected offhandedly.) Cockcroft performed such experiments. In the early 1930’s, this preliminary achievement commenced a new stage for particle acceleration as well as artificial transmutation. The empirical equations of alpha decay—the GeigerNuttall law—together with the conspicuous fact that radioactive half-lives vary in a vast range (from a trillionth of a second to trillions of years) were now given a unified quantum theoretical explanation. The great success of the new theory in a new realm of physical phenomena, and on the difficult issues of the probabilistic nature of the microcosm and the statistical character of its theory, left an immediate and dramatic impact in scientific circles. The founding of quantum mechanics between 1925 and 1927 represented a denouement of prolonged and collective effort in explaining physical and chemical phenomena pertaining to the structure of the atom. To the practicing physicists of the time, the denouement was also a propitious beginning. The significant development showed that microcosmic phenomena needed a new type of mechanics, intrinsically different from the classical Newtonian mechanics so that it could be used to extend and refine the original crude theories of atomic and molecular structures. The timely appearance of publications by Gamow, Ronald Wilfred Gurney, and Edward U. Condon sig-
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Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling
naled the beginning of the theoretical study of the atomic nucleus. More significant, their theory of quantum tunneling dramatically furthered the success of quantum mechanics and strengthened confidence in this new and strange theory. Quantum tunneling is not trajectory, but wavelike; it is not exact, but statistical; or, as physicists and philosophers believe, it is not deterministic, but indeterministic. The theory has to be statistical because microcosmic phenomena themselves are probabilistic. Scientists such as Albert Einstein did not accept the statistical interpretation of the wave function. To a lesser extent, de Broglie and Schrödinger, cofounders of quantum mechanics, shared Einstein’s viewpoint. The majority, however, disagreed with Einstein, de Broglie, and Schrödinger. Most theoretical and experimental physicists were won over by the indeterminism of the new microcosmic mechanics. In this serious academic debate, the theoretical success achieved by Gamow, Gurney, and Condon played a significant role. Long before any theory was proposed, radioactive phenomena had been recognized as statistical. It is very satisfying for most physicists that such phenomena are explained by a theory that is intrinsically statistical. —Wen-yuan Qian
See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed.
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Further Reading Boorse, Henry A., and Lloyd Motz, eds. The World of the Atom. Vol. 2. New York: Basic Books, 1966. Chapter 67, “The Barrier Around the Nucleus,” includes two parts: an explanatory essay by the editors and an English translation of Gamow’s “Quantum Theory of the Atomic Nucleus,” originally published in German in 1928. The first part is accessible to readers with little scientific background. Born, Max. My Life: Recollection of a Nobel Laureate. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978. A substantial volume valuable for its historical scholarship. Several chapters discuss the history of quantum mechanics. Careful readers will gain a clear picture of Born’s contribution to the founding of quantum mechanics.
_______. Physics in My Generation. 2d rev. ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1969. An important work for anyone seeking to understand the history of quantum mechanics. Suitable for the general reader. Ford, Kenneth W. The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. Explains the concepts of quantum physics in nontechnical language for lay readers. Illustrated. Gamow, George. Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory. 1966. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1985. Very interesting anecdotal history of quantum mechanics. Discusses the evolution of the quantum theory of the nucleus in chapter 2. Gamow, George, and Russell Stannard. The New World of Mr. Tompkins. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Revised and updated (by Stannard) edition of Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, a 1965 volume that combined Gamow’s two classic popular science books, Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland (1940) and Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom (1945). Provides an excellent introduction to many scientific concepts for lay readers. Heisenberg, Werner. Nuclear Physics. New York: Methuen, 1953. Discusses radioactive phenomena in chapter 3, and clearly explains the tunneling theory in chapter 6. Accessible to interested lay readers. Rutherford, Lord Ernest. The Newer Alchemy. 1937. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003. A brief discussion of nuclear physics by a great authority. Probably still the best introduction to radioactivity for the general reader, although somewhat dated.
Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 2, 1928
Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women The 1928 Representation of the People Act lowered the age at which British women could vote from thirty to twenty-one, thereby granting them suffrage at the same age as male voters. Also known as: Representation of the People Act Locale: London, England Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; women’s issues; social issues and reform; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Nancy Astor (1879-1964), first female member of the House of Commons Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), prime minister of Great Britain, 1923-1924 and 1924-1929 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain Eleanor Rathbone (1872-1946), president of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship Margaret Rhondda (1883-1958), leader of the Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee Summary of Event In 1918, Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act, which gave men in Great Britain the right to vote at age twenty-one but restricted suffrage for women to those qualified to vote in local elections and age thirty and over. This step was welcomed by women’s suffrage organizations because it conceded the principle of women’s suffrage, but as women remained second-class citizens, it did not fulfill their objective of equal suffrage rights. Therefore, almost immediately after celebrating their partial victory, women’s suffrage organizations began preparing for a new campaign to obtain the vote on the same terms as men. Women sought equal suffrage for a variety of reasons. Many viewed it as an insult that they should not be trusted with the vote until they reached the age of thirty, whereas men could vote at the age of twenty-one. Unequal suffrage was seen as a symbol of the wider pattern of sex-differentiated policies that hampered women’s opportunities in employment and in public life in general. Jobs were generally segregated by gender, with higher-status and higher-paying positions reserved for men. Even in the few areas, such as teaching and the civil service, in which women did the same work as men, they received lower pay. In many areas, employers imposed a 2246
marriage bar that forced female employees to resign from their positions if they married. In addition, the government refused to allow doctors at public health clinics to provide married women with birth control information. Women hoped that the additional political power they would gain from equal suffrage rights would enable them to change these discriminatory policies. The postwar campaign for equal suffrage was conducted primarily by women’s organizations that had fought for woman suffrage before the war. The largest and most important of these was the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC), which was known as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies until 1918. Led by Eleanor Rathbone, NUSEC worked for reform by quietly lobbying political leaders rather than by using the more militant, and more public, methods associated with the prewar suffragists. NUSEC’s efforts to get a commitment from the Conservative Party to act on the issue benefited from the assistance of the first female member of the House of Commons, Lady Nancy Astor. An American who had married the wealthy British member of Parliament David Astor, Lady Astor was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative in 1919. She viewed herself as a spokesperson for women and was taken seriously in this role by politicians seeking support from female voters. Those who find it curious that equal suffrage was eventually enacted by a Conservative government should bear in mind Lady Astor’s persistent lobbying for that reform within her own party. During the 1924 election campaign, under prodding from NUSEC and other women’s groups, the Conservative Party leader, Stanley Baldwin, pledged that if his party were returned to office, it would sponsor a special parliamentary conference on the issue of equal suffrage. Many women understood this as a commitment to introduce legislation for equal suffrage, although some Conservatives who opposed that reform thought it a clever way of attracting female votes without promising to do anything more than hold a conference to discuss the issue. The Conservative government thus did not become unequivocally committed to proceed with equal suffrage until 1925, when a cabinet minister, William Joynson Hicks, pledged that the government would act on the matter before the end of the current Parliament. When the government failed to take action during the next two years, women’s groups began to fear that they
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Nancy Astor. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Churchill, feared that granting the vote to women at age twenty-one would be a political disaster for the Conservative Party, as he anticipated that most of the newly enfranchised women would vote for the rival Labour Party. Other Conservatives opposed reform on the ground that it meant enfranchising “flappers,” a pejorative term implying immature, empty-headed females who knew nothing about politics or life and who would likely cast their votes for the most attractive male candidate. Underlying the various arguments opposing equal suffrage was an awareness that it would make women the majority of the electorate; some Conservatives feared that women would be less willing than men to vote for policies running the risk of war to protect the British Empire. Despite the strong resistance within his party, Baldwin insisted that the government proceed with legislation. He was aware that if the Conservatives did not act, the Labour Party would make an issue of it at the next general election and might gain enough female votes to defeat the Conservatives. As a Labour government would then almost certainly introduce equal suffrage, Baldwin believed that reform was inevitable and that inaction by the Conservative government would only improve the Labour Party’s election prospects. He was also convinced that a majority of the newly enfranchised women would become Conservative voters, given the party’s special interest in promoting home and family life. As a result of Baldwin’s support, the government finally introduced its equal-franchise bill in 1928. It granted women the right to vote at age twenty-one on the same terms as men. Once the bill was introduced in Parliament, the outcome was never in doubt, in part because opponents feared that speaking against the bill could antagonize existing female voters. The bill was supported by the Labour and Liberal Parties, and thus the only opposition came from a handful of diehard Conservatives. The antisuffragists’ dire predictions of the consequences that would follow if the bill passed seemed so outdated that they provoked laughter rather than serious discussion from the members supporting the measure. Late in March, 1928, the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly for the bill: 387 endorsed it with only 10 opposing. When a majority of the House of Lords also voted for it, 2247
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had been deceived. NUSEC joined with more than forty other women’s organizations on July 3, 1926, in sponsoring a march through London to Hyde Park to demonstrate the degree of support among women for equal suffrage. Although some speakers warned that there could be a revival of suffragist tactics if the government did not proceed with reform, Lady Astor privately discouraged militant action. She claimed that suffragist violence would make it impossible for the government to proceed with legislation, as it would appear that the politicians were giving in to force. Reluctantly, Lady Margaret Rhondda accepted this advice, but her dissatisfaction with NUSEC’s backstage lobbying tactics led her to form a new group, the Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee, to increase pressure on the government. The suffrage reformers were correct in believing that prominent members of the cabinet were seeking a way to avoid honoring the government’s pledge on equal suffrage. The cabinet committee appointed by Baldwin to draft a bill devoted most of its time to trying to find some reason for not proceeding with it. One of the cabinet ministers most adamantly opposed to legislation, Winston
Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women
Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women the Representation of the People Act, also known as the Equal Suffrage Act, became law on July 2, 1928. Significance The Equal Suffrage Act removed one of the most important remaining symbols of women’s inferior position under British law. Baldwin described the act as the final step in granting women equal rights. Many women accepted this claim and withdrew from women’s reform organizations to devote themselves to their families and private lives. Women viewed the act as the culmination of a movement for political rights begun nearly sixty years earlier. Some activists, such as Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, had devoted most of their adult lives to the suffrage campaign. It should not be surprising, therefore, that for many women the sense of elation was mixed with a feeling of relief that the struggle was finally over. Although antisuffragists had predicted that equal suffrage would bring radical change to British political life, this expectation proved mistaken. About five and onehalf million women gained the right to vote as a result of the act. Although the act is usually described as having granted the vote to women between the ages of twentyone and thirty, nearly one-third of those who gained the franchise were over thirty and had been prevented from voting by the property-owning requirements of the previous electoral law. As a result of the act, women became a majority of the electorate; at the next general election, held in 1929, 52.7 percent of the voters were female. Nevertheless, only 14 women were elected to the House of Commons in 1929, compared with 601 men. The new women members were absorbed into the existing political parties and voted as the male members of their parties did; they did not form a distinct women’s group in Parliament. Women voters did not vote as a bloc but divided their votes among the three major parties much as men did. Although some claimed that the new female voters were responsible for Labour’s victory in the 1929 election, this has not been proven. Most studies have shown, on the contrary, that women were slightly more likely than men to vote Conservative. In the short term, women gained few direct benefits from equal suffrage. The newly elected Labour government was surprisingly indifferent, if not openly hostile, to women’s issues. It took no steps to protect women’s rights to work when rising male unemployment stimulated public criticism of women workers. Although Minister of Labour Margaret Bonfield was the first female cabinet minister, she was directly responsible for legislation that deprived many married women of their right to 2248
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 unemployment benefits. The Labour government did nothing to assist the campaign for family allowances that had been so important to Labour Party women in the 1920’s. Finally, the Labour government resisted women’s demand that public health clinics be allowed to provide birth control information to married women and permitted this change to be introduced only when Labour-controlled city councils joined in the campaign. One of the most important consequences of equal suffrage was women’s withdrawal from active campaigning for sex equality. After 1928, the membership of the largest feminist organization in Great Britain, the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, declined rapidly. By the early 1930’s, it had become a much smaller and much less influential organization. — Harold L. Smith Further Reading Adam, Ruth. A Woman’s Place, 1910-1975. 1975. Reprint. London: Persephone Books, 2000. Well-written, lively history of British women for the general reader. Presents a good summary of developments affecting women in the 1920’s and relates the suffrage campaign to other women’s issues. Includes bibliographic endnotes and index. Alberti, Johanna. Beyond Suffrage: Feminists in War and Peace, 1914-1928. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Well-informed study of British feminists in the 1920’s. Makes extensive use of manuscript material to add to the understanding of the women involved in the campaign. Includes an appendix with useful biographical information on the major feminists. Harrison, Brian. Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists Between the Wars. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1987. Collection of excellent biographical studies of many of the women involved in the campaign for equal suffrage. Presents much information not previously published, especially on the women’s personal lives. Includes valuable bibliographical essay and outstanding index. Mayhall, Laura E. Nym. The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain, 18601930. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Discusses the use of militant tactics by the woman suffrage movement in Great Britain. Presents material from participants’ private papers as well as pamphlets and newspaper articles of the time to place the suffragists’ actions in context. Includes bibliography and index. Middlemas, Keith, and John Barnes. Baldwin: A Biogra-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 phy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969. One of the fullest biographies available of the prime minister responsible for the 1928 suffrage act. Includes discussion of the conflict within the Conservative Party on the issue and Baldwin’s reasons for proceeding with it against the strong opposition of prominent members of his own party. Features references and index. Smith, Harold L., ed. British Feminism in the Twentieth Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. Collection of original essays on various aspects of British feminism. Chapters on feminism in the 1920’s and on Eleanor Rathbone provide the context for the 1920’s suffrage campaign. Includes brief bibliography and index. Strachey, Ray. “The Cause”: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain. 1928. Reprint. London: Virago, 1978. Important study by a prominent figure in the largest women’s suffrage organiza-
Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa tion, although rather bland and not as revealing as it could have been. Useful as a detailed narrative of what happened and how the women involved perceived the events. Includes brief bibliography (now badly dated) and index. Vickery, Amanda, ed. Women, Privilege, and Power: British Politics, 1750 to the Present. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. Collection of essays addresses the various ways in which British women have exercised political power in Great Britain since the mid-eighteenth century. Includes discussion of the woman suffrage movement. See also: June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage; Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote.
August, 1928
Mead Publishes COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA With the publication of the very successful Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead popularized the field of cultural anthropology.
Key Figures Margaret Mead (1901-1978), American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942), German American anthropologist Summary of Event In 1911, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead’s mentor, published his landmark book The Mind of Primitive Man, which freed anthropology from the stigma of racism. Before that time, “higher” and “lower” races were considered to exist, rated on a scale of intellectual capacity. Boas’s book was the cornerstone of a new view of humans and led to the controversy between two schools of thought in anthropology that is sometimes dubbed the “nature versus nurture” debate. Those on the side of “nature” contended that innate racial differences account for differences in individual intellectual abilities, whereas those on the side of “nurture” (Boas’s followers) argued that the abilities of members of the human species often
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Locale: New York, New York Categories: Anthropology; publishing and journalism
differ because of cultural differences in their upbringing as well as differences in their heredity. Boas believed that researchers needed to study this problem so as to determine the relationship between hereditary factors and environmental factors. Margaret Mead was only twenty-three years old when she set out on her great adventure to the South Seas, where she hoped to study what remained of primitive cultures before they disappeared forever. In her autobiography, Mead later described her thoughts as she left for Samoa—thoughts of urgency to study and record the ways of life in remote parts of the world. She had a sense that such ways of life were vanishing before the onslaught of modern civilization. She believed that she must be one of the scientists to record these unknown ways before they were lost forever. Mead had been married to Luther Cressman, a theological student, in September, 1923. She retained her maiden name for professional purposes, a relatively uncommon practice in those days. Two years later, however, she and Cressman agreed to go off on separate paths of study—he to Europe and she to Samoa. She had many misgivings about what she was setting out to do, because she really did not know much about fieldwork. Her course on methods with Boas was not about fieldwork, but about theory, how to organize material so as to refute
Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa
Margaret Mead. (Library of Congress)
or support some theoretical point. She had consented to Boas’s suggestion that she study the adolescent girl, but she persisted in her determination to do the study in the South Seas, against Boas’s recommendation that the study be made in some safer location, such as among a group of American Indians. On arrival in Samoa, Mead’s first problem was to learn the language. She had been warned that the reports others had made were “contaminated by the ideas of European grammar,” and even the recorded descriptions supposed to have been given by local chiefs were weighted by European notions about rank and status inserted by the researchers doing the recording. Therefore, she moved into the household of a “chief who enjoyed entertaining visitors.” She slept with the chief’s daughter on a pile of sleeping mats on a sleeping porch. Mead learned much from the family about Samoan habits and etiquette. She even had to bathe in public, in full view of crowds of children and passing adults, under the village shower. She learned to wear a saronglike garment, which she could slip off before a shower and exchange for a dry one afterward. Mead learned enough of the Samoan language in her first six weeks to give her the confidence to look for a place to stay among the natives of the island of Tau, about 240 kilometers (149 miles) east of Pago Pago in 2250
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 American Samoa. The western half of the Samoan Islands, which contains by far the greater part of the land area, is a United Nations Trust Territory, administered by New Zealand. She moved into the household of the only American family on Tau, a pharmacist’s mate in the U.S. Navy, Edward Holt, his wife, and children. From November, 1925, to June, 1926, Mead lived with the Holts while she conducted interviews with a group of about fifty teenage girls and kept notes on her findings. By entertaining crowds of adolescent girls on her porch day after day, she gradually built up a census of the whole village and worked out the background of each of the girls she was studying. In June, 1926, Mead ended her Samoan sojourn and boarded a small ship in Pago Pago bound for home by way of Sydney, Australia, and then through Ceylon, Aden, Sicily, and Marseilles, where her husband met her. They traveled to New York, where she worked as assistant curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, where she was to remain the rest of her professional life. Mead soon completed all but the last two chapters of Coming of Age in Samoa, which she subtitled A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. In the foreword she asked Boas to write for the book, he described the difficulties that beset the individual in civilization, difficulties likely to be ascribed to fundamental human traits. Boas noted his doubt about the correctness of this assumption, but said that hardly anyone had yet set out to identify him- or herself with a primitive population in sufficient depth to obtain insight into these problems. Mead had confirmed, he believed, the suspicion long held by anthropologists that “much of what we ascribe to human nature is no more than a reaction to the restraints put upon us by our civilisation.” Coming of Age in Samoa was published in August, 1928. When Mead returned from Samoa, she was asked to give lectures about her work. Audience members often asked her what the meaning was of what she had found in Samoa. She then wrote the last two chapters of her book, one comparing the lives of Samoan girls with their American counterparts and the other titled “Education for Choice.” Mead soon left for the Admiralty Islands to conduct a new study, and it was months before she
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 learned that her book had become a best seller. Mead would write many more books, but none brought her the phenomenal success of Coming of Age in Samoa. By 1968, the book had gone through a new edition and at least five more printings. In the early twenty-first century, Coming of Age in Samoa remains among the most frequently sought books in many libraries, despite some ongoing controversy about its contents.
Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa own, and debates about her work continue in anthropological circles. — Joseph A. Schufle Further Reading Freeman, Derek. The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998. Detailed analysis of Mead’s training and her research in Samoa, written after the uproar caused among anthropologists by the author’s earlier work on Mead (cited below). Argues that Mead’s findings in Samoa resulted from a hoax perpetrated by some of her informants. _______. Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and
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Significance The publication of Coming of Age in Samoa broke new ground in anthropology, making Mead one of the most famous American scientists and bringing recognition to the science of anthropology. In 1970, Mead was honored with one of the most prestigious offices in American science, the presidency of the American Association for AdvanceMead Describes a Samoan Morning ment of Science. The New York Times Margaret Mead opens Coming of Age in Samoa with a vivid summary of a was moved to editorialize on anthropolday in the life of a Samoan village. She begins with the morning: ogy shortly after the book came out, in its June 4, 1929, edition, under the headThe life of the day begins at dawn, or if the moon has shown until daylight, line “American Race Types.” the shouts of the young men may be heard before dawn from the hillside. Although the book’s reception was Uneasy in the night, populous with ghosts, they shout lustily to one another favorable for the most part, some have as they hasten with their work. As the dawn begins to fall among the soft questioned Mead’s clear support for the brown roofs and the slender palm trees stand out against a colourless, “nurture” side in the “nature versus nurgleaming sea, lovers slip home from trysts beneath the palm trees or in the ture” controversy in anthropology. In shadow of beached canoes, that the light may find each sleeper in his appointed place. Cocks crow, negligently, and a shrill-voiced bird cries from 1983, Derek Freeman, an emeritus prothe breadfruit trees. The insistent roar of the reef seems muted to an underfessor of anthropology at the Australian tone for the sounds of a waking village. Babies cry, a few short wails before National University, criticized Mead in sleepy mothers give them the breast. Restless little children roll out of their an unabashedly polemical book, Margasheets and wander drowsily down to the beach to freshen their faces in the ret Mead and Samoa: The Making and sea. Boys, bent upon an early fishing, start collecting their tackle and go to Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. rouse their more laggard companions. Fires are lit, here and there, the white The debate over Freeman’s book began smoke hardly visible against the paleness of the dawn. The whole village, two months before its publication, when sheeted and frowsy, stirs, rubs its eyes, and stumbles toward the beach. a copy of the text brought on an editorial “Talofa!” “Talofa!” “Will the journey start today?” “Is it bonito fishing in The New York Times in January, 1983, your lordship is going?” Girls stop to giggle over some young ne’er-doheadlined “New Samoan Book Chalwell who escaped during the night from an angry father’s pursuit and to venture a shrewd guess that the daughter knew more about his presence lenges Margaret Mead’s Conclusions.” than she told. The boy who is taunted by another, who has succeeded him in The controversy even made the cover his sweetheart’s favour, grapples with his rival, his foot slipping in the wet of Time magazine. More recently, ansand. From the other end of the village comes a long drawn-out, piercing thropological work among several New wail. A messenger has just brought word of the death of some relative in Guinea tribes has suggested that Mead another village. Half-clad, unhurried women, with babies at their breasts, inaccurately portrayed these groups as or astride their hips, pause in their tale of Losa’s outraged departure from pacifistic in her book Sex and Temperaher father’s house to the greater kindness in the home of her uncle, to wonment in Three Primitive Societies (1935), der who is dead. raising again the question of the reliabilSource: Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of ity of her data and her descriptions of traPrimitive Youth for Western Civilisation (New York: William Morrow, 1928). ditional societies. Supporters of Mead have responded with publications of their
Kellogg-Briand Pact Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Controversial book sets out its purpose in the first paragraph: the refutation of Mead’s Samoan work and her defense of cultural determinism. Written in a polemical tone. Holmes, Lowell D. The Quest for the Real Samoa: The Mead/Freeman Controversy and Beyond. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey, 1987. Written in response to Freeman’s 1983 book, cited above, by an anthropologist who began fieldwork in Samoa in 1954. Presents conclusions that, for the most part, corroborate Mead’s. Howard, Jane. Margaret Mead: A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Definitive Mead biography is complimentary for the most part but addresses some of the criticisms of her work as well. Discussion of her private life includes information about her three marriages—the first to an American clergyman, the second to a New Zealand psychologist, and the third to the father of her only daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, who became an eminent English anthropologist. McGee, R. Jon, and Richard L. Warms. Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. 3d ed. New York:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 McGraw-Hill, 2003. Presents classic and contemporary readings in anthropology along with introductions and commentary to help students understand the history of theory in the field. Includes bibliography and index. Mead, Margaret. Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years. New York: William Morrow, 1972. Autobiography vividly describes Mead’s fieldwork in Samoa, New Guinea, and Bali and the opposition she met and overcame as a young woman in a profession dominated by men. Mead describes herself as a child, student, wife, mother, and grandmother. Illustrated. _______. Coming of Age in Samoa. 1928. Reprint. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. The book that “put anthropology on the map.” In addition to the original text, reprint edition includes a brief introductory piece by Mead’s daughter and the preface to the 1973 edition. See also: 1911: Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; 1934: Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture.
August 27, 1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact Signatories to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a multilateral treaty, pledged to renounce war as an instrument of national policy and to maintain peace by common action. Also known as: Pact of Paris; General Pact for the Renunciation of War Locale: Paris, France Category: Diplomacy and international relations Key Figures William E. Borah (1865-1940), U.S. senator from Idaho Aristide Briand (1862-1932), French foreign minister Frank B. Kellogg (1856-1937), U.S. secretary of state Salmon O. Levinson (1865-1941), American attorney Summary of Event The multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris, held out the promise of a new era of international harmony when it was signed on August 27, 1928. The chief architects of the treaty, Aristide Briand and 2252
Frank B. Kellogg, and the other member signatories took a formal pledge “not to have recourse to war as an instrument of national policy, and to settle all disputes arising between them by peaceful means.” The treaty was signed originally by fifteen countries, and by 1934 it embraced the participation of sixty-four nations, the exceptions being Argentina, Brazil, and the tiny countries of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino. The movement to outlaw war was initiated by Salmon O. Levinson in the United States in the aftermath of the first global war and became a worldwide movement in a few years. This movement was of great importance in bringing about the negotiation and general ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Briand proposed the idea of a definitive treaty on April 6, 1927, when he suggested the conclusion of a bilateral Pact of Perpetual Friendship between France and the United States for the renunciation of war. Briand’s aim was to bind the United States— which still remained outside existing international accords, such as the League of Nations Covenant and the Locarno Treaties—to France through a separate bilateral
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Kellogg-Briand Pact
1928 President Calvin Coolidge (seated at table, left) and U.S. secretary of state Frank B. Kellogg (at table, right) sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact. (Library of Congress)
pact in an effort to reinforce the international movement toward world peace. At the beginning, the French proposal was ignored completely by Kellogg and the Department of State. It was Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University, and Professors J. T. Shotwell and Joseph P. Chamberlain who developed the implications of Briand’s offer by drawing up a draft treaty celebrated as the “American Locarno.” The idea had an overwhelming impact on both educated and common Americans, creating widespread support for the antiwar idea. Encouraged by these developments, Briand formally presented a “Draft Pact of Perpetual Friendship between France and the U.S.” to the Department of State on June 20, 1927. Levinson’s untiring campaign to make the United States the champion of the movement to outlaw war bore
fruit. He persuaded William E. Borah, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to introduce a resolution in the Senate on December 27, 1927, calling for the outlawing of war. Kellogg, now responding to public enthusiasm, made a new proposition to the French minister: that “the two governments would make a more signal contribution to world peace by joining in an effort to obtain the adherence of all of the principal powers of the world to a declaration renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.” There ensued a long period of complex negotiations among France, the United States, the other Great Powers except Russia, and some lesser powers. The French did not immediately endorse the suggested alterations to their original proposal. They feared that a new multilateral agreement would conflict with the obli2253
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General Pact for the Renunciation of War The President of the German Reich, the President of the United States of America, His Majesty the King of the Belgians, the President of the French Republic, His Majesty the King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, His Majesty the King of Italy, His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, the President of the Republic of Poland, the President of the Czechoslovak Republic Deeply sensible of their solemn duty to promote the welfare of mankind; Persuaded that the time has come when a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made to the end that the peaceful and friendly relations now existing between their peoples may be perpetuated Convinced that all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means and be the result of a peaceful and orderly process and that any signatory power which shall hereafter seek to promote its national interests by resort to war should be denied the benefits furnished by this treaty Hopeful that, encouraged by their example, all the other nations of the world will join in this humane endeavor and by adhering to the present treaty as soon as it comes into force bring their peoples within the scope of its beneficent provisions, thus uniting the civilized nations of the world in a common renunciation of war as an instrument of their national policy; Have decided to conclude a treaty and for that purpose have appointed as their respective plenipotentiaries [list of names] . . . who, having communicated to one another their full powers found in good and due form have agreed upon the following articles: Article 1 The high contracting parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn re-
gations and machinery of sanctions embodied in the League Covenant and the Locarno Treaties. Because the United States was not a signatory to those international accords, France desired only a bilateral pact with the United States. In his reply of February 27, 1928, Kellogg allayed French fears by assuring that the multilateral pact would neither conflict with nor violate the specific obligations of the Covenant and the Locarno Treaties. Rather, it would act as an effective instrument for strengthening the foundations of world peace. On March 30, 1928, the French accepted the revised United States proposal to universalize the treaty. It is historically accurate to say 2254
course to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. Article 2 The high Contracting parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means. Article 3 The present treaty shall be ratified by the high contracting parties named in the preamble in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements, and shall take effect as between them as soon as all their several instruments of ratification shall have been deposited at Washington. This treaty shall, when it has come into effect as prescribed in the preceding paragraph, remain open as long as may be necessary for adherence by all the other powers of the world. Every instrument evidencing the adherence of a power shall be deposited at Washington and the treaty shall immediately upon such deposit become effective as between the power thus adhering and the other powers parties hereto. It shall be the duty of the Government of the United States to furnish each government named in the preamble and every government subsequently adhering to this treaty with a certified copy of the treaty and of every instrument of ratification or adherence. It shall also be the duty of the Government of the United States telegraphically to notify such governments immediately upon the deposit with it of each instrument of ratification or adherence. In faith whereof the respective plenipotentiaries have signed this treaty in the French and English languages, both texts having equal force, and hereunto affix their seals. Done at Paris, the twenty-seventh day of August in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight.
that the Briand offer formed the basis of the multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact, and its wording, with slight modifications, became the wording of the final treaty. On April 7, 1928, Kellogg secured an understanding with the French ambassador that both France and the United States would separately address the other four Great Powers—Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Japan—inviting their opinions and participation. According to The New York Times of April 14, 1928, a copy of the U.S. draft treaty and a note were sent to those powers and to France. The note stated that the U.S. government “desires to see the institution of war abolished and stands
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Significance The most important aim of the Kellogg-Briand Pact was to prevent war. The treaty linked the United States to the League of Nations as a guardian of world peace and in turn strengthened the sanctions of the Covenant. It simultaneously enhanced the feeling of security in Europe and in the rest of the world, and abetted the motive for general disarmament. The practical influence of the pact lay in
the mobilization of the moral and legal conscience of humankind against aggressive militarism. The treaty remained permanently flawed, however. Although it outlawed war, it did not codify this into a principle or rule of international law. Hence breaches of the resolution—many of which happened in subsequent years—were not tantamount to crimes or violations of international law. Italy’s attack on Ethiopia in 1935 and Japanese imperialism in China in the 1930’s could not be prevented, as the pact included neither moral sanctions nor any tribunals to enforce its provisions. Moreover, the blanket interpretation of self-defense allowed many nations to justify their wars of aggression. Nevertheless, the pact, although violated many times, was never officially repealed. It served as the legal basis for the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials after World War II. —Sudipta Das Further Reading Ferrell, Robert H. Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. Essential source provides superb analyses of the U.S. State Department’s stratagems with French diplomats and domestic peace activists in the shaping of the pact. Marks, Sally. The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918-1933. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Presents general, scholarly coverage of European diplomatic events, with critical analysis of the Kellogg-Briand Pact and its ramifications. Includes chronological table, bibliography, and index. Miller, D. H. The Peace Pact of Paris: A Study of the Briand-Kellogg Treaty. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928. Detailed and objective study of the shaping and writing of the pact from both French and American perspectives. Research based on official documents and firsthand information. Shotwell, J. T. War as an Instrument of National Policy and Its Renunciation in the Pact of Paris. 1928. Reprint. New York: Garland, 1974. An essential, firsthand source on the peace pact. Explains the perspective of the U.S. peace seekers. Steiner, Zara. The Lights That Failed: European International History 1919-1933. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Comprehensive, scholarly work examines efforts to reestablish equilibrium in Europe after World War I through peace treaties and other means. Includes maps, tables, and bibliography. Vinson, John C. William E. Borah and the Outlawry of 2255
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ready to conclude with the French, British, German, Italian, and Japanese governments a single multilateral treaty open to subsequent adherence by any and all other governments binding the parties thereto not to resort to war with one another.” The draft treaty contained two articles calling for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy and peaceful settlement of all international disputes. The French sent their draft on April 20. The French draft contained six articles, adding other clauses concerning matters such as self-defense, violation and release of obligation by others, and ratification by all before the treaty would be enforced. The responses of the four Great Powers to both drafts were more than favorable. The only concern, expressed by the British minister, Sir Austen Chamberlain, was the restrictions that the treaty would place on British freedom of action over its far-flung empire. This fear was lessened by the sovereign right of self-defense implicit in the pact. Every sovereign state, Kellogg emphasized, possessed the inherent right to defend its territory, and wars fought to repulse aggression would be entirely legal and not a violation of the pact. On the suggestion of the British, other signatories of the Locarno Treaties— Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia—were included among the principal signatories, along with India and the five British dominions of Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, and South Africa. The U.S. interpretation of the treaty was sent to fourteen governments. The vital element in the fourteen replies received in July was that all the governments had agreed to sign the treaty as proposed by Kellogg. The diplomatic exchanges thus came to a successful conclusion. This represented a personal triumph for Kellogg, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929. Since December 28, 1927, he had unremittingly pursued the aim of a global multilateral treaty for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy, and he had achieved his goal. The other great hero and the original inspiration, Briand, also was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He had accomplished everything that he deemed essential for France.
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1957. A major contribution to an understanding of the U.S. commitment to promote world peace. Portrays Borah as the spokesperson for the United States and highlights his role in effecting peace plans, especially the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference; Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine.
September, 1928
Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds Alexander Fleming’s discovery of the antibiotic penicillin led to the development of a wonder drug that saved millions of lives. Locale: London, England Categories: Health and medicine; science and technology; chemistry Key Figures Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), English bacteriologist Ernst Boris Chain (1906-1979), German English biochemist Baron Florey (1898-1968), Australian pathologist Almroth Edward Wright (1861-1947), British bacteriologist Summary of Event During the early twentieth century, scientists became increasingly interested in bacteriology, or the study of infectious disease. This field has since come to be called microbiology and includes the study of viruses, protozoa, fungi, and bacteria. Early bacteriologists were able to identify the sources of diseases such as pneumonia, syphilis, meningitis, gas gangrene, and tonsillitis. Prior to the discovery of antibiotics, exposure to bacteria such as streptococci, staphylococci, pneumococci, and tubercle bacilli resulted in serious and often fatal illness. Penicillin was the first of a series of twentieth century “wonder drugs” used to treat bacterial infections. This powerful antibiotic altered the lives of millions of patients who would otherwise have fallen prey to diseases caused by bacteria. Sir Alexander Fleming began his scientific career in 1901, when he inherited a small legacy that enabled him to enter St. Mary’s Medical School in London. Fleming was a prizewinning student and a superb technician. He qualified as a doctor in 1906 and remained at St. Mary’s as a junior assistant to Sir Almroth Edward Wright, a prominent pathologist and well-known proponent of in2256
oculation. In 1909, Fleming was one of the first to use Paul Ehrlich’s new arsenical compound, Salvarsan, for treatment of syphilis. He became renowned for his skilled administration of Salvarsan. During World War I, Wright and Fleming joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and conducted wound research at a laboratory in Boulogne. Fleming was in charge of identifying the infecting bacteria by taking swabs from wounds before, during, and after surgery. His results showed that 90 percent of the samples contained Clostridium welchii, the anaerobic bacteria that cause gas gangrene. Although scientists could isolate the bacteria, they were uncertain as to the best method for combating diseases. Antiseptics were a known means for killing bacteria but were not always effective, especially when used in deep wounds. Wright and Fleming showed that white blood cells found in pus discharged from wounds had ingested bacteria. Fleming also demonstrated that contrary to popular opinion, when antiseptics were packed into a wound, bacteria survived in the crevasses. Antiseptics destroyed the body’s own defenses (white blood cells), allowing the remaining bacteria to create serious infection unimpeded. The horrors of bacterial infection during World War I had a lasting impact on Fleming, who decided to focus his postwar research on antibiotic substances. Fleming was convinced that the ideal antiseptic or bacteria-fighting agent should be highly active against microorganisms but harmless to the body’s own white blood cell defenses. In 1921, Fleming observed the dissolving effect that a sample of his own nasal mucus had on bacteria growing in a petri dish. He isolated the antibiotic component of the mucus and named it “lysozyme.” Further research showed that lysozyme was also present in human blood serum, tears, saliva, pus, and milk. Fleming had discovered a universal biological protective mechanism that kills and dissolves most of the airborne bacteria that invade exposed areas of the body. He also found that
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 lysozyme does not interfere with the body’s white blood cells. Surprisingly, the discovery of lysozyme, subsequently recognized as fundamentally important, received little attention from the scientific community. Ronald Hare, Fleming’s associate and biographer, attributes the neglect of lysozyme to “Fleming’s inability to express himself clearly and lucidly in either words or print.” The significance of lysozyme continued to be overlooked until researchers discovered its presence in white blood cells. Despite the neglect of lysozyme, Fleming continued to focus his research on antibiotics. In September, 1928, Fleming noticed that a mold was growing in a petri dish containing strains of staphylococci and that bacteria surrounding the mold were being destroyed. It is likely that the source of the mold spores was the laboratory below Fleming’s, where mycologist C. J. La Touche was growing molds for research on allergies. Because of his interest in antibiotics, Fleming was conditioned to recognize immediately that an agent capable of dissolving staphylococci could be of great biological significance. He preserved the original culture plate and made a subculture of the mold in a tube of broth. Fleming’s mold was later identified as Penicillium notatum. Further experiments showed that the “mould
juice” could be produced by several strains of Penicillium but not by other molds. The substance was nontoxic and did not interfere with the action of white blood cells. Fleming described his findings in a paper titled “On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to Their Use in the Isolation of B. Influenzae,” which appeared in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in 1929. The unusual title refers to Fleming’s use of penicillin to isolate bacteria that were not vulnerable to penicillin. In his paper, Fleming described the mold extract and listed the sensitive bacteria. Most important, Fleming suggested that penicillin might be used in the treatment of infection. In addition to describing his experiments, Fleming also stated that the name “penicillin” would be used to refer to the mold broth filtrate. This article on penicillin came to be regarded as one of the most important medical papers ever written. Fleming’s petri dish elicited little interest from colleagues at St. Mary’s, who were familiar with his previous work and assumed that this was an example of lysozyme being produced by a mold. Fleming knew this to be untrue, as lysozyme was incapable of destroying a pathogenic organism such as staphylococcus. Once again, Fleming’s limited ability as a writer and speaker left his audience content to shelve his latest discovery along with lysozyme. Even Ernst Boris Chain, who discovered Fleming’s paper during a literature search in 1936, “thought that Fleming had discovered a sort of mould lysozyme which, in contrast to egg white lysozyme, acted on a wide range of . . . pathogenic bacteria.” During 1929, Fleming continued to investigate the antibiotic properties of penicillin, collecting data that clearly established the chemotherapeutic potential of penicillin. Fleming was unable to purify and concentrate penicillin adequately, and, hence, did not conduct clinical tests that could prove the effectiveness of the antibiotic in vivo. The significance of Fleming’s discovery was not recognized until 1940, when Baron Florey and Chain discovered the enormous therapeutic power of penicillin. Significance Fleming’s discovery of penicillin had no immediate impact on twentieth century medicine. By 1931, Fleming had discontinued work on the antibiotic and turned to the study of sulfa drugs. In 1940, Florey and Chain succeeded in concentrating and clinically testing penicillin, after which Fleming’s discovery gained enormous notoriety and he was showered with accolades and honors. In 2257
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Alexander Fleming. (The Nobel Foundation)
Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds
Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds 1943, he was elected to fellowship in the Royal Society; in 1944, he was knighted; and in 1945, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Florey and Chain. Penicillin achieved particular notoriety because of World War II and the demand for an antibiotic that could halt diseases such as gas gangrene, which infected the wounds of numerous soldiers during World War I. With the help of Florey and Chain’s Oxford group, scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northern Regional Research Laboratory developed a highly efficient method for producing penicillin using fermentation. An excellent cornstarch medium was developed for both surface and submerged culture of penicillium molds. After an extended search, scientists also were able to isolate a more productive penicillium strain (Penicillium chrysogenum). By 1945, a strain was developed that produced five hundred times more penicillin than Fleming’s original mold. During World War II, the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development’s Committee on Medical Research conducted large-scale clinical tests of penicillin on 10,838 patients. Their results provided doctors with effective methods and dosages for use of penicillin in treatment of many diseases. American pharmaceutical companies were galvanized by the development of an efficient production technique and positive clinical tests. Corporations such as Merck, Pfizer, Squibb, and many others built large factories to mass-produce penicillin for use by the U.S. armed forces. The War Production Board increased production by allocating supplies and equipment to twenty-two U.S. chemical companies engaged in the production of the antibiotic. Penicillin prevented many of the horrendous casualties that Fleming witnessed during World War I. Penicillin is regarded as among the greatest medical discoveries of the twentieth century. Almost every organ in the body is vulnerable to bacteria. Before penicillin, the only antimicrobial drugs available were quinine, arsenic, and sulfa drugs. Of these, only the sulfa drugs were useful for treatment of bacterial infection, but high toxicity precluded their use in many cases. With this limited arsenal, doctors were helpless as thousands died in epidemics caused by bacteria. Diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, and syphilis are now treated with penicillin all over the world. Penicillin and other antibiotics also had a broad impact on medicine as major procedures such as heart surgery, organ transplants, and management of severe burns became possible once the threat of bacterial infection 2258
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was minimized. Fleming’s discovery brought about a revolution in medical treatment by offering an extremely effective solution to the enormous problem of infectious disease. —Peter Neushul Further Reading Epstein, Samuel, and Beryl Williams. Miracles from Microbes. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1946. Presents the background of the development of several antibiotics, including penicillin and streptomycin. Fleming, Alexander. “On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to Their Use in the Isolation of B. Influenzae.” British Journal of Experimental Pathology 10 (1929): 226236. Fleming’s first description of his discovery gives valuable insight into his experimental technique and understanding of the antibiotic potential of penicillin. Hare, Ronald. The Birth of Penicillin, and the Disarming of Microbes. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970. Provides a firsthand description of Fleming’s work by a scientist who worked at St. Mary’s at the time of Fleming’s discovery and was among those who witnessed Fleming’s early work with penicillin. Presents an interesting perspective on penicillin research before 1940. Hobby, Gladys L. Penicillin: Meeting the Challenge. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Presents a good overall description of the roles played by Fleming, Florey, Chain, and numerous other scientists in the discovery, development, and eventual mass production of penicillin. Includes extensive footnotes. Lax, Eric. The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Relates the story of the discovery of penicillin and its development into a useful drug. Sheds light on the personalities of the scientists involved—Florey and Chain as well as Fleming. Includes bibliography and index. Ludovici, L. J. Fleming: Discoverer of Penicillin. London: Andrew Dakers, 1952. Contemporary biography of Fleming reflects the fact that he was revered both by the author and by the general public. Macfarlane, Gwyn. Alexander Fleming: The Man and the Myth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. Authoritative biography of Fleming draws on interviews as well as Fleming’s own notes to dispel somewhat the “Fleming myth” that abounds in earlier biographies.
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Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East
Mateles, Richard I., ed. Penicillin: A Paradigm for Biotechnology. Chicago: Canadida Corporation, 1998. Volume reprints The History of Penicillin Production, a classic work first published in 1970, along with new chapters that address advances in penicillin research since that time. Also discusses the status of penicillin and its derivatives at the end of the twentieth century. Maurois, André. The Life of Alexander Fleming. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1959. Authorized biography of Fleming includes two chapters on his penicillin research. Ryan, Frank. The Forgotten Plague: How the Battle Against Tuberculosis Was Won—and Lost. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Written for nontechnical read-
ers, a significant portion of this volume discusses the methodology behind the discovery and testing of many major antibiotics. Sheehan, John C. The Enchanted Ring: The Untold Story of Penicillin. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982. Definitive history of the discovery, development, and marketing of penicillin, accessible to general readers. See also: Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research; Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed; 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established; May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic.
September 17, 1928
Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East To curtail competition, American, British, and European petroleum industry executives formed an international cartel controlling production, markets, and Middle East oil exploration.
Key Figures Walter Clark Teagle (1878-1962), president of Jersey Standard Henri W. A. Deterding (1866-1939), Royal Dutch/ Shell executive Sir John Cadman (1877-1941), leader of British Petroleum Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), international investor powerful in the Turkish Petroleum Company John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), founder and leader of Standard Oil Company Summary of Event At the opening of the 1920’s, the position of major U.S. petroleum companies appeared unassailable in many regards, both at home and abroad. Their ability to furnish the Allied Powers with huge supplies of American oil—
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Also known as: Achnacarry Agreement Locale: Ostend, Belgium; Achnacarry Castle, Inverness, Scotland Categories: Trade and commerce; energy; natural resources
80 percent of their requirements—had helped immeasurably in World War I. Profits tended to be high. Consumption, despite plateaus between peaks, grew rapidly with industry’s increased mechanization, with new lifestyles dependent on oil, and with the massive influence of the automotive age. American production of crude oil from domestic fields accounted for 70 percent of the world’s total, and new American oil fields were being discovered with comforting frequency. Customarily, only surpluses of domestic petroleum were marketed abroad. Led by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and, after the dissolution of Standard Oil in 1911 for federal antitrust violations, by Jersey Standard (Exxon) and Standard affiliates, American oil companies nevertheless held seemingly impregnable positions in Canada and in Central and Latin America, as well as in much of the Far East. With Russia’s crude oil production curtailed by the 1917 revolution, by ensuing civil war, and then by the Soviets’ impaired diplomatic relations, American oilmen seriously challenged many of their European rivals in their own domestic markets. The American companies had won these international marketing positions without the direct support of the federal government and without direct linkages to the nation’s military or diplomatic objectives. The Allied Powers’ territorial division immediately following World War I and the U.S. State Department’s affirmation of “open door” diplomacy on behalf of
Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East American oil interests abroad set the stage for further international expansion. The private negotiations of four oil company executives were primarily responsible for American companies, by the late 1920’s, joining in the exploration and exploitation of Middle Eastern oil concessions. Three of these oilmen each guided one of the seven leading international oil companies: Henri W. A. Deterding directed Royal Dutch/Shell, Sir John Cadman led British Petroleum as well as Anglo-Persian, and Walter Clark Teagle presided over Jersey Standard. A fourth figure, Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, an Armenian investor in the strategically and politically well placed but much smaller Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), was instrumental in persuading British, French, and Turkish interests to accept American participation in Middle East concessions. Several factors explain why Deterding, Cadman, and Teagle, who had long battled one another for shares of mutually attractive markets, united to divide and cartelize the oil resources of the Middle East. Teagle, who became Jersey Standard’s president at the age of thirtythree and who soon led the Rockefeller firm to unprecedented profitability, was snarled in a price war that during the 1920’s threw Jersey Standard and Standard Oil of New York (Mobil) on the defensive. Profits fell, and the added threat of an oil glut loomed. Jersey Standard was the largest of these international giants. Teagle was laboring to make it a fully integrated concern. Despite marketing 23 percent of the world’s refined oil outside the United States (against 16 percent for Royal Dutch/Shell and 11.5 percent for Anglo-Persian, with most of the rest coming from other companies based in the United States), Jersey Standard, unlike its competitors, enjoyed access to few overseas sources of crude oil. Its crude supplies were drawn overwhelmingly from American fields that were heavily pumped. World War I had proven a serious drain on known reserves. Domestic consumption had reached astronomical proportions, and oilmen and government officials labeled the domestic industry’s future prospects as precarious. The British government, sensitive to its navy’s role in imperial defense and thus to the oil requirements of that navy, lent strong diplomatic support to Deterding (Shell) and to Cadman (Anglo-Persian) against foreign oil interests. Encouraged by such diplomatic backing, Deterding, with characteristic boldness, subsequently sought control over a substantial proportion of the world’s remaining crude oil resources in Mexico, Venezuela, the Soviet Union, and even California. Standard of New York’s access to Soviet supplies and its subsequent effort 2260
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to underprice Shell in India had provoked an “oil war” that spread worldwide and into the domestic markets of each company. Like all cutthroat competitions, the “war” was costly to both sides. With State Department backing, Teagle’s Jersey Standard and several other American companies began protracted negotiations with Deterding’s Shell, Cadman’s Anglo-Persian, France’s Compagnie Française des Petroles (CFP), and Gulbenkian’s Turkish Petroleum. After Turkish Petroleum struck oil in northern Persia (now Iran) in 1927, agreement among the parties came swiftly. The American companies as a group, Anglo-Persian, Shell, and CFP received equal 23.75 percent interests in Turkish Petroleum. Gulbenkian retained the remaining 5 percent. On July 31, 1928, the Americans placed all of their holdings in the Near East Development Corporation (NEDC), 25 percent of which was owned by Jersey Standard and 25 percent by Standard of New York, with equal one-sixth interests belonging individually to Atlantic, Gulf, and Doheny interests. (By 1934, these last three firms had sold their NEDC interests to Standard.) Acting in concert, these companies consented to operate solely through Turkish Petroleum, renamed Iraq Petroleum. Their territory, delineated at a meeting in Ostend, Belgium, by a “red line” drawn by Gulbenkian, encompassed most of the Ottoman Empire before its dismemberment by the victorious Allies after 1918. To resolve the competing giants’ more discrete problems, Teagle initiated a series of discussions with Cadman and Deterding that led to a meeting of the three at Achnacarry Castle in Scotland during August of 1928. The outcome, which was kept secret until 1952, was the Achnacarry Agreement (or the “As Is” Agreement), finalized on September 17, 1928. The agreement’s seven principles sought to preclude further competition—and its costly disturbances—among their three companies by freezing market shares “as is” and by providing for sharing of existing facilities (at cost), cooperation on extensions of new facilities, and mutual actions to stabilize production. In order to maintain mutually acceptable prices, a “Gulf plus system” was adopted, under which prices were set at the level for oil delivered from the Gulf of Mexico, no matter what the true source of the oil. This consensus was intended to guide the future operations of local cartels. Significance The “red line” and the Achnacarry Agreement among Jersey Standard, Royal Dutch/Shell, and Anglo-Persian were only the first of several subsequent arrangements
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Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East obvious chaos and monumental wastefulness that had been concomitants of the petroleum industry’s rapid development. Frenetic, disorganized drilling in American oil fields had prematurely exhausted some U.S. reserves and had led to the creation of the Federal Oil Conservation Board in 1924. The fact that the board had proved to be ineffectual did not deter the official drive toward some form of governmental regulation of oil production, despite critics’ assertions that regulation was synonymous with keeping oil prices high. Before 1930, while denying oil companies the right to regulate production and essentially abnegating any responsibility to do so itself, the federal government left the drafting of regulatory measures to whatever compacts could be drawn by the oilproducing states. These actions on the American scene lent credibility to the self-disciplinary activities that the NEDC instituted to regulate the cartelization of Middle East concessions. By 1930, other American oil companies, with strong support from the U.S. State Department, had made ventures of their own in Middle East oil concessions outside the NEDC’s red line. Standard Oil of California (SoCal) bought Gulf Oil’s options in Bahrein. After arranging to do business as a British (Canadian) subsidiary, it began operations in the Persian Gulf as the Bahrein Petroleum Company, Limited. Similarly, Gulf Oil, pending British approval, entered negotiations for concessions in Kuwait. Taken together, these initial Middle East oil concessions laid the foundations for immense future American investments throughout this vast area. Although no oil was shipped from American wells inside NEDC territory until completion of pipeline facilities in 1934, American interests nevertheless had established a continuing presence there. The monopoly previously enjoyed by British, French, and Dutch oil companies had been broken. Moreover, of the world’s seven great international oil companies—the “Seven Sisters”—five were American: Jersey Standard (Exxon), Standard Oil Company of New York (Mobil), Standard Oil of California (SoCal), Texaco, and Gulf Oil. Furthermore, regardless of where their concessions lay, the companies adhered to the NEDC’s principles and procedures in evolving their own cartels. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Blair, John M. The Control of Oil. New York: Pantheon Books, 1976. Offers clearly written and informative coverage of the topic. Chapters 2 and 3 dis2261
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by these dominant international oil companies. Later in 1928, for example, the giants drafted a Memorandum for European Markets (MEM) whereby quotas were allotted to each for petroleum products sold in each country. Each company could fulfill its quota and even increase it, but only at the expense of oil companies not party to the MEM. To ensure compliance, monthly meetings were to be convened for exchange of trade figures. A Draft Memorandum of Principles and its subsequent amendments instituted specific penalties for noncompliance and outlined procedures that were to be invoked when companies retired from the cartel, when they purchased new companies, or when they dealt with newer petroleum products that replaced older ones. Some interpreted the last provision as discouraging innovations. In all these agreements and statements of principles and procedures, stress was laid on the companies’ cooperation. Rules attempted to prevent members of the cartel from profiting at the expense of the others through unilateral adjustments of quotas and prices in the form of selling more than allowed by quota or at a different price from that charged by the other companies. Increasingly elaborate schemes evolved to ensure that such issues were exposed to frank discussion and that a common front was presented to independent or “outside” oil companies. Governance of the cartel was by vote, the voting power of each member being determined in proportion to its allotted quota. Dominance within the cartel therefore went to those members with the largest quotas, and it was they who set the prices that other participants were obliged to observe. Cooperation within its ranks, stability within the oil industry and its markets, and moderation in profits were the goals by which the cartel set its course. In language reflective of American antitrust decisions, the cartel agreed that prices in all markets were to be maintained on a basis that yielded fair returns on reasonable investments. Critics at once dismissed such declarations of intent as a mask for profiteering. Nothing in cartel principles or procedures, however, suggested that the giant oil companies had issued themselves a license to gouge the consumers to whom they supplied their products. On the contrary, the cartel’s agreements specifically recognized the consuming public’s interests by explicitly warning cartel members against allowing prices to rise “to a point where the buying public is exploited.” Furthermore, leaders of the cartel—and, in the background, Rockefeller—were applauded by conservationists in government positions, in the ranks of the general public, and inside the oil industry for acting to curtail the
Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East cuss American penetration of Middle East oil fields. Stronger on companies’ competition than on diplomatic efforts. Includes tables and charts, notes, and index. Chester, Edward W. United States Oil Policy and Diplomacy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. Chapter 1 provides a helpful historical overview. Includes useful chronology, notes, fine bibliographical essay, and index. Avaluable work for keeping track of companies’ name changes over the years. Jacoby, Neil H. Multinational Oil: A Study in Industrial Dynamics. New York: Macmillan, 1974. One of the first of many books on the phenomenon of multinationals. Includes individual chapter notes, bibliography, and many tables, graphs, and charts. Nash, Gerald D. United States Oil Policy, 1890-1964. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968. Scholarly work traces a theme of the U.S. government’s continuous cooperation with oil companies. Chapters 2 and 3 are relevant to American penetration of the Middle East. Includes splendid bibliographical essay. Pelletière, Stephen. Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf. New York: Praeger, 2001. As background to a discussion of American motives for waging war in the Persian Gulf, Chapters 1 and 2 present the history of the U.S. oil industry and its role in the 1928 formation of a cartel with European oil interests. Sampson, Anthony. The Seven Sisters: The Giant Oil Companies and the World They Shaped. New York:
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Viking Press, 1975. Excellent introduction to the subject for the layperson. Offers good sources, interesting reading, and balanced perspectives. Includes a map, brief page notes, and a splendid index. Shwadran, Benjamin. The Middle East, Oil, and the Great Powers. 3d rev. ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973. Scholarly work focuses on what happened to Middle Eastern countries after oil development. Includes a good introduction and a useful discussion of the phasing out of the “red line” agreement. Features many tables and charts, a map, notes, and an excellent bibliography. Venn, Fiona. Oil Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Good source for background. Chapter 4, on the Anglo-American “oil war,” is excellent. Includes ample notes, tables, and select bibliography. Wilkins, Mira. The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad, 1914-1970. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. Authoritative, scholarly work is invaluable for placing the oil business in context. Chapters 1 and 2 are most relevant to the topic of oil and the Middle East. Includes many tables, notes, bibliography, and index. See also: May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela; Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia; Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Stalin Introduces Central Planning
October 1, 1928
Stalin Introduces Central Planning By initiating the First Five-Year Plan, Stalin rejected the New Economic Policy and started large-scale industrialization and forced agricultural collectivization. Also known as: Five-Year Plan Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Social issues and reform; trade and commerce; government and politics
Summary of Event The year 1929 was one of tremendous tumult in the Soviet Union. After consolidating his power, Joseph Stalin introduced authoritarian central planning in the Soviet Union and rejected the private profits and market mechanisms allowed by Vladimir Ilich Lenin’s New Economic Policy. Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan was implemented on October 1, 1928. Its major goals included developing heavy industry and national defense, efforts that would be funded by extracting profits from agriculture to invest in industry. To do this, Stalin called for rapid agricultural collectivization. As a result, the end of the 1920’s saw both the liquidation of the New Economic Policy and the
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Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), Soviet leader who established a centrally planned economy Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), leader of the Bolsheviks and founder of the Soviet Union Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), radical Bolshevik leader who opposed Stalin but emphasized the role of industrialization Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin (1888-1938), Bolshevik leader, economist, and theorist who defended the New Economic Policy and was purged by Stalin Yevgeny Preobrazhensky (1886-1937), leading Bolshevik economist who called for massive development of heavy industry Lev Borisovich Kamenev (1883-1936), Bolshevik leader who led the opposition against Stalin Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky; 1883-1936), Bolshevik leader who opposed Stalin Mikhail Tomsky (1880-1936), Communist and trade union leader who opposed Stalin
initiation of a radically new phase in the development of the Soviet system. When Lenin died in 1924, he left no designated political heir. One of his last messages, however, urged the Communist Party to reject Stalin as “too rude.” Stalin, however, was general secretary, and he used his position to gain control of the party’s structure. He handpicked supporters for leading party positions and defeated opponents, including Lev Borisovich Kamenev, Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev, and Leon Trotsky by 1926. Another Stalin opponent, Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, attempted to continue working within the framework of the New Economic Policy. Stalin, however, was able to prevail over opposition led by Bukharin and Mikhail Tomsky in the course of a protracted struggle between July, 1928, and April, 1929. At the struggle’s end, Stalin had gained firm control of both domestic and foreign policy. In 1924, a debate had begun among Soviet economists. One of these thinkers, Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, sharpened his criticism against the slow pace of industrialization, arguing for “primitive socialist accumulation.” In other words, Preobrazhensky thought that industrialization should be financed using the funds left over from exchanges of agricultural produce and consumer goods and machinery. He insisted that setting artificially low agricultural prices and/or artificially high industrialgoods prices was the politically advantageous method of accomplishing this accumulation. Preobrazhensky was opposed by Bukharin, who was strongly against treating the peasantry as an enemy. Instead, Bukharin argued for a policy that would encourage the peasants to enrich themselves. When agriculture developed, according to Bukharin, there would be more funding for industrialization. Stalin supported the idea of rapid industrialization and forced agricultural collectivization, and he tried to justify his position by emphasizing the external threat facing the Soviet Union. He said that the country was between fifty and one hundred years behind advanced nations like Great Britain, and that if it did not catch up with these countries in about ten years, it would be crushed by foreign aggressors. The success of Stalin’s argument led to the First FiveYear Plan’s focus on defense and heavy industry. In the projections, sources of energy (coal and electric power), steel, and heavy engineering were emphasized. Increases in agricultural production were expected but failed to materialize. Output of consumer goods fell below pro-
Stalin Introduces Central Planning jections, and much of the small-scale handicraft industry, which had served local consumer markets, was closed. The First Five-Year Plan went into operation in October, 1928, although its formal adoption did not take place until April, 1929. The objectives were stunning: Total industrial output was to increase by 250 percent, and coal’s output was to jump more than 330 percent. Output of pig iron was to be nearly tripled, and electric power’s output was to be more than quadrupled. Agricultural production was scheduled to increase 150 percent, and 20 percent of the peasants were to be collectivized. At first, optimism was rampant. In July, 1930, the party adopted a slogan: The Five-Year Plan in Four Years. During 1928 and 1929, however, dramatic shifts in policy took place. At the beginning of 1928, Stalin was already committed to the continued use of coercion to secure essential supplies of grain and to an accelerated but still protracted program of voluntary collectivization. In the summer of 1929, the party launched a drive to collect more grain more rapidly than in any previous year. In November, the Soviet government called for the comprehensive collectivization of the main grain surplus areas
Joseph Stalin. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 within five months. The new collective enterprises took two basic forms: the state farm and the collective farm. The state farm was the full property of the Soviet government; its manager used hired labor in accordance with the directives put forth by the Ministry of State Farms or by any other ministry to which the farm reported. In contrast, the collective farm was supposed to be a selfgoverning cooperative made up of peasants who voluntarily pooled their means of production and divided the proceeds. The plan’s administrators had no blueprint to follow, and the nature and principles of planning were worked out by trial and error. Stalin personally and openly identified himself with the need for harsh emergency action, and the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan marked a return to the military traditions of War Communism (1918-1921), a Bolshevik policy that tried to keep towns supplied with weapons and food. The party and government approved the plan, and it became law. Businesses that contravened any element of the plan were considered guilty of a criminal offense. The overall Five-Year Plan gave grand targets, and their detailed application was contained in annual or quarterly operative plans. This enabled administrators to make regular revisions to the plan, which typically involved raising production quotas. Planned output was expressed in physical units, and the plan’s fulfillment was achieved by producing the requisite number, size, weight, or volume of production. Compulsory procurement, which echoed War Communism, had been initiated in 1928; this policy essentially amounted to confiscation. Gradually, a system emerged: Fixed deliveries were made by collectives (and others) in return for fixed prices. The forced collectivization of agriculture was one of the major causes for the breakdown of market relations between the regime and the peasantry in the winter of 1927-1928. When the state had difficulty obtaining enough grain from peasants in the autumn of 1927, its use of coercive measures resulted in an expedient resolution of the grain crisis. The party quickly became committed to using force against the peasants when doing so helped achieve its ambitious goals. In this way, the Soviets launched a program of rapid industrialization that would have been unachievable within the framework of the New Economic Policy. Significance The 1917 revolution had transformed the Russian political and economic system, but the Stalinist revolution was
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To ensure that grain would be collected and delivered to the state, machine tractor stations were established in 1933. Because grain was the most easily mechanized form of work, the state was able to solve the grain procurement problem simply by retaining the necessary grain harvested by the machine tractor stations and by paying whatever price it desired. This practice was largely effective, and by July of 1934, 71.4 percent of households were officially collectivized. By 1937, private agriculture was virtually eliminated. These achievements, however, came at significant human cost: Historians have concluded that nearly 300,000 families (averaging four members each) were exiled to distant regions during the collectivization drive, and several million people died. Soviet figures for growth in industrial production show 19 percent growth per year in the First Five-Year Plan. Although this figure is grossly exaggerated, industrial growth during the period was impressive: From 1928 to 1932, coal production increased from 35.4 million tons to 64.4 million tons and oil from 11.7 million tons to 21.4 million tons. Consumer goods and agricultural output, however, fell far short of their targets. The extraordinary rates of growth projected in the First Five-Year Plan period were not achieved, but industry did grow rapidly. For example, the amount of oil produced rose from 11.7 million tons in 1928 to 31.1 million tons in 1940 to 70.8 million tons in 1955; coal production rose from 35.4 million tons in 1928 to 165.0 million in 1955; steel production rose from 4.3 million tons in 1928 to 18.3 million tons in 1955; and electrical energy production rose from 5.0 billion kilowatt-hours in 1928 to 48.3 billion in 1940 to 170.2 billion in 1955. In the 1930’s, the foundation of the Soviet’s centralized, administrative command economy was established, and this bureau oversaw many of the plan’s campaigns. Results, however, were conflicted: Growth was uneven and unbalanced, and living standards were sacrificed. By 1937, 53.1 percent of national income (by the Soviet definition) was produced by industry, compared with 41.7 percent in 1929. Industry accounted for 77.4 percent of aggregate production and laid the foundation for defense and military production. The agricultural sector remained large and inefficient; in 1937, 54 percent of the labor force still worked in agriculture. Terror was employed as an economic weapon: Forced labor was used in some areas for particular projects, but the appeared more often as general coercion backed up by the real threat of imprisonment or death. This system was so highly centralized that a small error 2265
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more fundamental and far-reaching in its socioeconomic and political impact, and it dramatically transformed state-market relations. Late in 1929, the Communist Party called for the mobilization of twenty-five thousand urban workers to spearhead the agricultural collectivization drive. The kulaks (rich peasants) were to be liquidated as a class, and the expropriation of their property was sanctioned. The introduction of this policy was one of the most important additions to the legacy of authoritarian central planning, whose tightening of state control on all major aspects of the Soviet economy had profound impacts on the country’s economic development. Under central planning, heavy industry and the defense industry expanded at the cost of agriculture and consumer industry. The establishment of the Stalinist system involved not only material costs but also enormous human sacrifices. The will of the Communist Party permeated the machinery of the state, and the state controlled many aspects of citizens’ lives. The party, through the state, took charge of all public affairs. The state was the only employer; all independent sources of income were eliminated. Even peasants were now subject to state supervision of production; they were allowed to retain only their garden plots. At the end of 1932, the First Five-Year Plan was declared to have been fulfilled, but the claim had a hollow ring. Stalin contended that production of machinery and electrical equipment had risen 157 percent, but many admitted that output in heavy metallurgy had increased only 67 percent, coal output 89 percent, and consumer goods 73 percent. Even these figures are questionable. Under the impetus of the First Five-Year Plan and the industrialization drive of the 1930’s, the Soviet Union imported massive quantities of advanced foreign technology, skilled workers, technicians, and engineering consultants. The Soviets went on to combine borrowing with heavy investment in their own research and training programs in science and technology. Forced collectivization of agriculture was met with significant peasant resistance. Armed peasant uprisings against the Soviet government were ruthlessly suppressed, and many peasants chose to kill their animals rather than join collective farms. In 1933, the number of horses in the Soviet Union was less than half the 1928 figure; during the period from 1929 to 1931 alone, the number of cattle fell by 30 percent, and the number of sheep and goats fell by 50 percent. Peasants slaughtered their animals on such a scale that cattle and sheep numbers and total meat production did not reach their 1929 levels again until after World War II.
Stalin Introduces Central Planning
Stalin Introduces Central Planning could result in huge problems, and the balancing mechanisms that exist in most market economies were absent from the Soviet model. No real prices existed to indicate surpluses or shortages, and only terror and coercion could control the crises created by the demands put on the economy. — Guoli Liu Further Reading Cohen, Stephen F. Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. An influential revisionist study of Soviet history with emphases on change and continuity. Examines possible alternatives to the Stalinist system. Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Critically examines the collectivization of agriculture. Reveals terrible human suffering and sacrifice during Stalin’s rule. Davies, R. W. The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. The authoritative study of the collectivization of Soviet agriculture in connection with the industrialization program. Highly informative and analytic. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Apioneering work on collectivization from the point of view of the peasants. Based on previously secret Soviet archives. _______, ed. Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Collection of essays examines sociopolitical and cultural aspects of the dramatic transformation initiated by Stalin in 1928. Hosking, Geoffrey. The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. A comprehensive and interesting introduction to the history of the Soviet Union with excellent analysis of the Stalin period. Hough, Jerry F., and Merle Fainsod. How the Soviet Union Is Governed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. A good explanation of the development of the Soviet system and its policy process. Explores how Stalin consolidated his power and established the highly centralized system.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jasny, Naum. Soviet Industrialization: 1928-1952. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961. A close examination of the origins, process, and characteristics of Soviet industrialization. Supported by quantitative data, although dated. Kuromiya, Hiroaki. Stalin’s Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928-1932. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Studies the implementation of rapid industrialization during the First Five-Year Plan and analyzes support and resistance among industrial workers. Lewin, Moshe. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. Translated by Irene Nove with the assistance of John Biggart. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. Focuses on debates over economic policy within the Communist Party during the 1920’s and the pivotal grain procurement crisis of 1928. Scott, John. Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel. Enlarged ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. These memoirs by an American who worked in Magnitogorsk, a steelproducing city founded during the First Five-Year Plan, vividly describe working and living conditions. Tucker, Robert C. Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Argues that Stalin forged a new autocracy modeled on Russia’s Muscovite and czarist past to carry out his revolutionary policy of state-sponsored industrial development. Viola, Lynne. The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. An excellent study of the campaign of the twenty-five thousand members of the Soviet industrial proletariat who were recruited to participate in agricultural collectivization. Wolfe, Bertram. Three Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. 1964. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. One of the best histories of the Bolshevik Revolution available, a masterpiece of research and writing. The author was acquainted with several original Bolsheviks and lived for a time in Moscow. See also: May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow; Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials; Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature
December 10, 1928
Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature
Summary of Event Although she was thirty-eight when the first volume of her first epic novel appeared, from the time of her birth Sigrid Undset had been accumulating the knowledge and the experience that would enable her to write the books for which her Nobel Prize was awarded. Undset was born in Denmark, but her family moved to her father’s native Norway when she was two. During her childhood, Undset learned Scandinavian folktales from her mother. However, she said later that it was the influence of her father, Ingvald Undset, and his archaeological work that dominated her imagination. At the museum of antiquities, Undset was allowed to handle medieval artifacts, and she made up stories to go with the objects. She might well have become an archaeologist, as her father hoped she would, had his relatives in Trondheim not turned her attention to the saga. Her best-known works would be her prose sagas, which were set in Norway during the Middle Ages. Undset’s life experiences also prepared her to write novels that recognized women’s psychological stresses while at the same time emphasizing the importance of the family and the need for moral responsibility. When Undset was eleven, her father died, leaving the family in financial difficulties. For the next ten years Undset worked in an office, painting and writing in her spare time. After she was making enough from her writing so that she could leave her secretarial job, she quit and married the painter Anders Svarstad. In 1913, they had a son,
Sigrid Undset. (The Nobel Foundation)
Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Category: Literature
1928
Key Figures Sigrid Undset (1882-1949), Norwegian author Ingvald Undset (1853-1893), Undset’s father, an archaeologist Anders Svarstad (1913-1940), Undset’s elder son Maren Charlotte Svarstad (1915-1940), Undset’s mentally challenged daughter Hans Benedict Svarstad (b. 1919), Undset’s younger son
Anders; two years later, their daughter Maren Charlotte was born, but she was severely retarded. The couple removed Svarstad’s other three children from the institution where they had been living and added them to their household; one of these children also had brain damage. Undset had to find time for her writing while she managed a household of seven and took care of five children. In 1919, she and Svarstad separated, but she was already pregnant; a son, Hans, was born later that year. The marriage was later annulled. Undset had already created a sensation with her contemporary novel Jenny (1911; English translation, 1921), the story of a young woman who has an affair with her fiancé’s father, bears an illegitimate child, suffers through the child’s death, becomes convinced that she is a failure as an artist, and commits suicide. Undset explored the same conflicts between passion and sexual fidelity and be-
Sigrid Undset was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her contributions to that area, notably for her multivolume historical novels set in medieval Norway. She was the first Norwegian woman to receive the award as well as only the third woman of any nationality to be so honored.
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Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature tween motherhood and the creative impulse in her trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1929), which comprised Kransen (1920; The Bridal Wreath, 1923), Husfrue (1921; The Mistress of Husaby, 1925), and Korset (1922; The Cross, 1927). However, in these novels the conflicts were played out against a medieval setting, brilliantly and accurately re-created by the author. The fact that the trilogy ends with the title character’s entrance into a cloister, where just before her death she acknowledges the sovereignty of God, is another indication of the close correlation between Undset’s experiences and those of her characters: In 1924, the author, who for many years had classified herself as an agnostic, converted to Catholicism. Sin, guilt, faith, and redemption are also important themes in the tetralogy that followed, Olav Audunssøn i Hestviken and Olav Audunssøn og hans børn (1925-1927; The Master of Hestviken, 1928-1930), published in English as The Axe (1928), The Snake Pit (1929), In the Wil-
Undset’s Homage to Sweden In her Nobel acceptance speech, Undset chose to focus on Sweden’s beauty and on the cultural and geographical links it shared with Norway: The preceding speakers have far better expressed our gratitude for the Prizes awarded to us than I could have done, and I subscribe to their words. I write more readily than I speak and I am especially reluctant to talk about myself. Instead, I wish to offer a salute to Sweden. Before I left for Sweden, a party was given for me—that is to say, not strictly speaking for me but because I was going to leave for Sweden—and everybody, the President of the Council of Ministers of Norway as well as my personal friends, asked me to give regards to Sweden. After all, the people of our peninsula form a distinct part of the world. Our forests and our mountains run into each other and our rivers carry their waters from one country to the other. Our houses in Norway resemble those in Sweden. God be praised! We have always lived in a great number of small, private dwellings spread all over our countries. Modern technology has not yet completely intruded on the humanity of the North. But what I wished to say here is that I have been asked to give regards to Sweden, the country we think of with joy, and to Stockholm, which we Norwegians consider the most beautiful city in the world. Source: Sigrid Undset, “Banquet Speech,” in Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, edited by Horst Frenz (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1969).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 derness (1929), and The Son Avenger (1930). Again, these works were praised by critics as medieval epics that were both brilliant re-creations of the past and masterpieces of psychological insight. The general public was just as enthusiastic: As soon as they were translated into other languages, her novels became international best sellers. While Undset had been mentioned in previous years as a possible Nobel laureate, her reading public was limited as long as her works were available only in Norwegian, and so the Nobel Committee was hesitant to award her the prize. Her worldwide popularity meant that almost no one could object to Undset’s being selected. In the presentation speech delivered on December 10, 1928, Per Hallström, chairman of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, indicated that the award was made principally for Undset’s epic novels about medieval Norway. The effectiveness of those works, he suggested, derived from the fact that by moving from contemporary settings to the distant past, Undset had been able to create characters who were motivated by abstract principles such as honor and faith even though they had the same need for erotic expression as their distant descendants. Hallström spoke of the profound vision exhibited both in Kristin Lavransdatter and in the Olav Audunssøn stories and concluded by calling Undset a genius whose works reflected her own greatness of spirit. At the Nobel banquet held that night at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, Sweden, Professor Gösta Forssell compared Undset to Homer, saying that the Norwegian writer also dramatized the values on which a long-standing culture was based. Undset responded with a graceful acknowledgment of the kinship between Norway and Sweden. She concluded by bringing regards from her own people to Sweden and commenting on the beauty of Stockholm. With her usual generosity, Undset gave most of her prize money to her favorite causes, which included the Norwegian Authors’ Union, aid for parents of mentally disabled children, and financial help for students at Catholic schools. In 1940, she donated her gold medal to aid the Finnish war effort. Significance Sigrid Undset’s selection as a Nobel laureate marked a change in literary taste from the sentimental romanticism of the nineteenth century to uncompromising realism. As the author herself commented, seen at a distance, a murder can appear interesting, even exciting, and so Undset chose to show violence close up, as the Icelandic sagas on which she modeled her own novels had done. Thus she did much to transform the genre of the historical
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 novel. After Undset, such books were no longer mere masquerades, with cardboard characters posing in front of colorful settings, certain that they were in no real danger. Instead, books in the tradition Undset established were inhabited by real people, who sinned, agonized, dreamed, and were disappointed, fell into despair, and often died unpleasant deaths. Undset also insisted on presenting realistic depictions of women. Some readers were shocked by her insistence on the strength of the female’s biological drive, but feminists could accept that idea. What enraged the very feminists who applauded a woman’s being chosen as a Nobel laureate was Undset’s stated belief that motherhood was a woman’s highest duty. In her emphasis on the tragic consequences that ensue when a human being denies moral responsibility, Undset was simply attempting to show life as she had experienced it. Later writers did not necessarily agree with all of Undset’s ideas, but they had to recognize her importance as a writer who remained faithful to her deepest conviction: that above all, a writer must tell the truth. —Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman Further Reading Bayerschmidt, Carl. Sigrid Undset. New York: Twayne, 1970. A standard study of the life and works. Discusses Undset’s conversion at length. Brunsdale, Mitzi. Sigrid Undset, Chronicler of Norway. Oxford, England: Berg, 1988. A volume in the Berg
Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care Women’s Series. Includes an outline of Norwegian history and literature and a useful chronology. Illustrated. Dunn, Margaret, Sister. Paradigms and Paradoxes in the Life and Letters of Sigrid Undset. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994. Relates the paradigms of St. Benedict, St. John of the Cross, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to Undset’s paradoxical views. Lytle, Andrew. Kristin: A Reading. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992. An analysis of the saga by a highly respected author and critic. Maman, Marie. Sigrid Undset in America: An Annotated Bibliography and Research Guide. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2000. Contains a useful chapter on autobiographical elements of Undset’s works. Page, Tim, ed. The Unknown Sigrid Undset. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 2001. Features a new translation of Jenny and English versions of important letters. Whitehouse, J. C. Vertical Man: The Human Being in the Catholic Novels of Graham Greene, Sigrid Undset, and Georges Bernanos. London: Saint Austin Press, 1999. Shows how three major twentieth century Catholic novelists challenged prevailing attitudes. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded; 1925: Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness; Dec. 10, 1938: Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1929
Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care
Locale: Baylor University Hospital, Dallas, Texas Categories: Health and medicine; organizations and institutions; economics Key Figures Justin Ford Kimball (1872-1956), American lawyer, educator, and executive vice president of Baylor University Clarence Rufus Rorem (1894-1988), American accountant and economics professor who was the first president of the Blue Cross Association
E. A. van Steenwyk (1905-1962), executive secretary of the St. Paul prepayment plan Summary of Event The plan for prepaid hospital care established in 1929 at Baylor University Hospital played a key role in the evolution of the Blue Cross Association and of voluntary health insurance in the United States. The Baylor Plan itself was a response to the financial problems resulting from the changing role of the nonprofit hospital. For much of the nineteenth century, hospitals played the role of shelters for the sick poor. Charitable donations paid the bills. Late in the century, however, the forces that were to change that role began gathering strength. The development of anesthesia in the 1840’s and the triumph of the germ theory of disease in the 1870’s made surgery 2269
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By offering a solution to the problem of high medical bills, the Baylor Plan contributed to the evolution of a unique financing scheme that preserved a medical care system based on technically advanced nonprofit hospitals.
Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care safer and laid the groundwork for medical laboratories. Medical technology became capital-intensive, nursing became a respected profession, and workers inched into the middle class. Hospital administrators started applying the principles of scientific management to the operation of hospitals. By 1920, hospital administrators no longer saw themselves as guardians of the sick poor; rather, they viewed themselves as managers of social capital placed in the community to protect the health of all members. To pay for the operating costs of this social capital, administrators depended less on charity and more on charges. This created problems both for families unable to pay hospital bills and for hospitals unable to collect. Insurance companies seemed unable to solve this problem by selling policies against medical expenses. Insurance theorists considered medical expenses to be uninsurable because there was no way to set premiums. The mathematics of probability can set premiums for events beyond the control of the insured such as hurricanes, fires, and even loss of income resulting from illness. Medical expenses, however, lie somewhat within the control of the insured, who can buy a larger quantity of, or more costly, services than they would choose if they had no insurance. Insurance creates a “moral hazard” in that those who have it lose the incentive to control their expenditures. Because of this “moral hazard,” insurance companies held back from issuing medical insurance. Hospital administrators and local entrepreneurs devised their own schemes. Many failed, but a few succeeded. One that succeeded, the plan created by Baylor University in Dallas, Texas—known as the Baylor Plan—is considered to be the forerunner of the Blue Cross prepayment plans. In 1929, Justin Ford Kimball, Baylor University’s executive vice president, examined the accounts of the university hospital and noticed that teachers owed many of the bad debts. Kimball divided total hospital expenses by the number of teachers in Dallas to generate an average monthly cost of fifteen cents. He concluded that the hospital could remain solvent and the teachers could remain financially secure if the hospital offered twenty-one days of free care to anyone making a regular monthly payment of fifty cents. More than one thousand teachers enrolled in the plan. The evolution from the Baylor Plan to a national association of regional plans started with discussions of Kimball’s plan at the 1931 and 1932 meetings of the American Hospital Association. Hospital administrators were eager for new ideas. The Great Depression had cut hospital revenues by 75 percent, and investigations by 2270
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care (a privately funded task force) had heightened interest in broader issues. This committee had started a massive investigation of the American medical care system in 1927. Its final report, issued in 1933, advocated voluntary health insurance as a solution to the problem of financing health care for Americans. The Baylor Plan offered a successful example of such insurance, but it restricted its benefits to a single hospital, limiting the free choice of physician. In 1932 and 1933, hospitals in Sacramento, California; Essex County, New Jersey; and St. Paul, Minnesota, organized prepayment plans that would provide free care in any community hospital that patients and their physicians might choose. The executive secretary of the St. Paul plan, E. A. van Steenwyk, embellished his letterhead stationery with a blue cross, and people began referring to “St. Paul Blue Cross.” Significance By the end of 1935, fifteen hospital prepayment plans were operating, and they were facing their first challenges. State insurance laws imposed capital reserve requirements on traditional insurance companies because they paid cash indemnities. The managers of the prepayment plans believed that because they offered service benefits, their true reserves rested in the capacities of the hospitals. They believed, therefore, that they did not need to maintain cash reserves. When challenged by insurance commissioners in New York and Ohio, the plans successfully lobbied legislatures for laws that would exempt them from the capital reserve requirements. Such challenges highlighted the need for national coordination of responses to common challenges. The driving force behind such coordination was Clarence Rufus Rorem, a research associate with the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care. The Julius Rosenwald Fund had financed Rorem’s position. In 1936, the fund’s directors decided to end their support for the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care but granted Rorem $100,000 per year for the next four years to use in any way he chose. Rorem chose to organize a national association of prepayment plans. He persuaded the leaders of the American Hospital Association to sponsor the Hospital Service Association. Rorem was the executive secretary. In 1938, the Hospital Service Association promulgated seven characteristics required for certification of a regional prepayment plan: There could be no stockholders or investments or profits for any individual; the board of directors should have representatives from hospitals,
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cation as well as high costs and limited access. Noting the success of the prepayment plans, traditional insurance companies began offering group health insurance on a wide basis in 1934. During World War II, health insurance of all types grew rapidly. Between 1947 and 1949, decisions by the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Supreme Court established health insurance as a legitimate subject for collective bargaining. Unions and employers extended health insurance until most of the middle class was covered. The Hospital Reconstruction Act of 1946 made it illegal for hospitals to refuse care to people unable to pay. This made free care available to the poor. Hospitals could shift the cost of free care by raising charges to the Blue Cross plans and the insurance companies. Cost shifting was consistent with the nonprofit belief that a hospital is a community resource, but it was not consistent with the free market philosophy of the insurance companies. In the clash of philosophies, the Blue Cross system began to unravel. The Blue Cross plans set their premiums through a system called “community rating,” charging all community members the same premium. Traditional insurance companies set their premiums through “experience rating,” charging higher premiums to people using more services and lower premiums to people using fewer. As insurance theorists viewed it, community rating was unfair because it forced low-risk people to subsidize high-risk people. A plan using community rating cannot compete with one using experience rating. Experience raters can lure a low-risk group away from a community rater by offering rebates to employers or by offering favorable rates to low-risk groups. The community raters, forced to spread the costs of a riskier remnant over a smaller population, must raise their premiums. This gives the experience raters an opening to break off a new group less risky than the average. The process continues until the community raters serve only the high-risk, high-cost part of the market. Competition forced most Blue Cross plans to abandon community rating. Blue Cross plans in some northeastern states continued to use community rating, but with subsidies from state governments. With experience rating the rule, however, premiums rose beyond the reach of many high-risk groups, particularly the elderly. The inability of the elderly to buy insurance at affordable rates prompted the creation of Medicare, a system of government insurance for the elderly and for people with end-stage kidney disease. Following the precedent of the 1960 Federal Employees Benefit Bill, Medicare and Medicaid allowed 2271
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physicians, and the public; state insurance departments should supervise the plans; plans should hold low cash reserves, because their true reserves lay in the capacities of the hospitals; plans should provide service benefits, not cash indemnities; plans should not compete with one another; and all employees would be salaried, with no one working on commission. In 1941, the grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund ended. The Hospital Service Association became the Council on Hospital Service Plans of the American Hospital Association, supported by dues from the member plans. Rorem remained secretary. Two events during World War II influenced the evolution of Blue Cross. A War Labor Board decision allowed employers to increase fringe benefits at the rate of 5 percent per year, and the Emergency Maternity and Infant Care Program provided maternity and child-care benefits to the families of military personnel. The War Labor Board decision enabled employers to compete for scarce workers by offering benefits such as group health insurance. Many large employers had plants in the jurisdictions of different prepayment plans. These employers wanted single-package plans including hospital and physician services and applicable to all of their plants. In 1937, a group of California physicians had organized a nonprofit indemnity insurance plan. Similar plans, under the control of local medical societies, grew into the Blue Shield organizations. Links between the organizations did not arise immediately, but the pressure for such links started from this demand for a single comprehensive package. The Maternity and Infant Care Program operated through private providers. Its government administrators developed a reimbursement system based on the concept of “reasonable cost.” Previously, plans had reimbursed hospitals on a rough per diem basis. “Reasonable cost” committed them to pay more to hospitals that provided more services. At the end of 1946, Rorem resigned. The Blue Cross Council officially replaced the Hospital Service Council. In 1960, the Blue Cross Association would replace the Blue Cross Council, but the essential characteristics of Blue Cross were in place by 1946. It was a national organization of nonprofit, noncompeting, regional prepayment plans, offering service benefits to consumers and reimbursing hospitals on the basis of reasonable cost. Blue Cross saved the nonprofit hospital system from bankruptcy during the Great Depression and pioneered medical care insurance. It contributed to the development of the unique health care system in the United States, which brought flexibility and technical sophisti-
Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care
Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care hospitals to choose to deal either directly with the government or through an intermediary. Most hospitals preferred to deal through Blue Cross, again expanding the role of the national Blue Cross Association. Shortly after the passage of Medicare and Medicaid, public attention became focused on the increasing cost of health care. In 1933, the United States spent only 4 percent of its gross national product (GNP) on health care, and the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care argued that it should spend more. Beginning in 1950, that percentage began an inexorable march upward, and by the 1980’s health spending had surpassed 10 percent of GNP. Many people argued that the nation should spend less. Blue Cross and the traditional insurance companies shared the blame for rising costs. Complete coverage for hospital care, some argued, created an incentive for people to use costly hospital care when it was not really needed. Reimbursement for all reasonable costs destroyed some incentives for efficiency and cost control. Moral hazard—the tendency for insured people to seek more costly care—was mentioned again. The emphasis on cost control strengthened alternative forms of organization. Some large companies chose to self-insure, bypassing all intermediaries. The Social Security amendments of 1972 actively encouraged the formation of health maintenance organizations. Health maintenance organizations began expanding their coverage at the expense both of traditional insurance companies and of the Blue Cross system. The Blue Cross Association remained the major administrative intermediary of the Medicare program. It sponsored major initiatives in health care research and remained a major proponent of the position that the nonprofit hospital is a form of social capital. —John Dennis Chasse Further Reading Anderson, Odin W. Blue Cross Since 1929: Accountability and the Public Trust. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1975. A historical treatment of the origins of the Blue Cross Association based both on interviews with the founders and on the author’s wide experience as a social scientist and researcher. This work is, in part, a response to the highly critical treatment by Sylvia Law, cited below. Cunningham, Robert, III, and Robert M. Cunningham, Jr. The Blues: A History of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield System. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997. First complete history of the oldest health insurance companies in the United States sheds light
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on the development of the American system of health care. Includes glossary and index. Law, Sylvia. Blue Cross: What Went Wrong? New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974. Wellresearched and highly critical analysis of the role of the Blue Cross Association in the U.S. health care field. Includes a brief history of Blue Cross through the period when it became a major intermediary for the Medicare and Medicaid programs. MacIntyre, Duncan. Voluntary Health Insurance and Rate Making. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962. A very readable introduction to insurance theory and to the differences between the Blue Cross Association and traditional stock and mutual insurance companies. Includes evenhanded treatment of the experience rating versus community rating controversies. Reagan, Michael D. The Accidental System: Health Care Policy in America. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Examines how American health care policy has been formed over the years. Chapter 2 offers brief discussion of the origins of Blue Cross. Includes index. Rorem, C. Rufus. A Quest for Certainty: Essays on Health Care Economics, 1930-1970. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Health Administration Press, 1982. Collection of articles by one of the major architects of the Blue Cross Association includes Rorem’s influential 1933 article on hospital prepayment plans, a key excerpt from the report of the American Hospital Association outlining the characteristics of an acceptable plan, and a number of other articles that clarify the philosophy that grounded the actions of founders of the Blue Cross Association. Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books, 1982. An influential interpretive history of medical care in the United States. Focuses in particular on the methods by which the American Medical Association maintained professional control over medical care decision making until late in the twentieth century, when control shifted to professional managers and financial analysts. Places the evolution of Blue Cross and of stock and mutual health insurance within this context. See also: Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established; Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act; Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established.
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1929 HALLELUJAH
Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film
Is the First Important Black Musical Film
King Vidor sacrificed salary to direct the first serious all-black musical motion picture, successfully blending music and drama to depict southern farm life and its tragedies. Locale: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, Culver City, California Category: Motion pictures Key Figures King Vidor (1894-1982), American film director Daniel L. Haynes (1894-1954), American actor and minister Nina Mae McKinney (1913-1967), American actor
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Summary of Event When Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer in 1927, the era of silent films came to an end, but some studio heads believed sound to be a fad. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) did not release a sound film until 1928; its first musical was 1929’s The Broadway Melody, a backstage story full of young women in abbreviated costumes. The studio intended to follow this film with similar moneymakers, and it turned down King Vidor’s proposal of an all-black musical tragedy set among impoverished farmers. By then, however, Vidor had achieved a considerable reputation. A Galveston, Texas, native who as a boy had taught himself film techniques by watching silents, Vidor had come to California in 1915 and had taken every studio job he could get in order to learn his profession. He made his reputation with The Turn in the Road (1919); it was characteristic of Vidor that he convinced a group of physicians to back the film, which had a Christian Science theme. The Turn in the Road depicted a man’s search for his personal truths, a theme that was to dominate Vidor’s films. D. W. Griffith’s films taught Vidor the relationship of films to musical forms, and from Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) he learned the dramatic value of everyday experience. His two most important silent films foreshadowed Hallelujah in evidencing both interests. In The Big Parade (1925), starring John Gilbert, he showed a common soldier, neither a hero nor a coward. In The Crowd (1928), Vidor showed a common office worker whose struggles were everyman’s: marriage, parenthood, dead-end work, unemployment, the loss of a child, alcoholism, and periods of happiness.
Vidor used music to spectacular effect in the background for The Big Parade. He conceptualized the film in terms of musical movements, pacing off the troops’ steps with a metronome and speeding up the beat as tension mounted. As troops marched toward the battlefront and death, the musical score ceased, and the soldiers moved only to the cadence of an ominous bass drum. Although critics attacked Vidor’s use of music in Hallelujah as a racist depiction of black music and attacked the hero’s sordid story and emotionalism, these themes were in fact set in Vidor’s work before he came to Hallelujah. The film’s hero, Zeke, is searching for his true life. He is caught between two women who represent the extremes of his own psychological needs. Music represents this conflict. Gospel songs and traditional spirituals are associated with the order and family harmony of Zeke’s family’s farm, whereas syncopated jazz represents the world that tempts him. (Until the end of his life, Vidor was disturbed by the studio’s insistence on adding such elements as two Irving Berlin songs, “At the End of the Road” and “Swanee Shuffle,” that gave the film a Tin Pan Alley air he wanted to avoid.) Vidor’s was not the first all-black musical. Earlier in 1929, Fox (later Twentieth Century-Fox) released Hearts in Dixie, which featured the talented actor Clarence Muse and provided the first major role for comedian Stepin Fetchit. Hearts in Dixie, however, focused on the happy-go-lucky life of a fictional plantation. Later in 1929, St. Louis Blues, released by Warner Bros., provided singer Bessie Smith her only film role, but it was not a full-length feature; it ran only seventeen minutes. Vidor took a bigger risk. He wanted to treat his black hero as seriously as he had treated the white soldier in The Big Parade and the white office worker in The Crowd. Vidor’s operational problems were staggering, with sound techniques still in their infancy, and MGM refused to make the film until Vidor donated the money due him under his MGM contract to the production. For his cast, Vidor went to Chicago, New York, and Memphis, visiting black churches to hire his singers. For Zeke, he first wanted Paul Robeson, who was unavailable. Instead, he hired Daniel L. Haynes, the understudy for Jules Bledsoe, who sang “Ol’ Man River” in the 1927 Broadway production of Show Boat. Nina Mae McKinney was hired from the chorus of a Broadway show. Three child musicians were hired when Vidor saw them dancing for quarters in a Memphis hotel. Vidor ap-
Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film proached Harry Gray, who had been born into slavery, to play the father of the family. Musician Victoria Spivey played Missy Rose, William Fountaine played the gambler Hot Shot, and Fannie Bell McKnight was cast as the mother. All were relatively unknown. The mood of Hallelujah was as somber as that of The Crowd. Zeke, the eldest son of a hardworking farm family, goes to town with his brother and is fascinated by Chick (McKinney), who plays a tempting Eve. He is cheated by Hot Shot; in a brawl, he accidentally shoots his brother. In atonement, he becomes a preacher, but, still fascinated by Chick, he leaves the ministry. Vidor explicitly shows Zeke’s religious fervor to be an unsuccessful attempt to sublimate a sexual drive that finally conquers him. Zeke and Chick flee. Zeke ultimately kills Chick’s lover, Hot Shot, and Chick dies in a symbolic fall. Zeke serves time in prison, then returns to the order and stability of his father’s farm, where Missy Rose, the good girl, waits for him. They return to harvesting the earth and to the cycles of the seasons. Significance By the end of Vidor’s long life, the significance of Hallelujah was recognized, but its immediate reception was mixed. As Vidor recalled, the film may never have shown a profit. For the actors in the film, it was virtually a dead end, and no one at the time understood that Vidor had created a new film genre. His technical accomplishment, however, was immediately apparent. Vidor shot the film on location near Memphis, Tennessee, and in Arkansas. Sound equipment, large and difficult to move, did not arrive, so much of the film was shot as a silent and then matched with sound tracks recorded in Hollywood, a feat so difficult that it literally drove one film cutter to a nervous breakdown. For the scenes shot as silents, Vidor used impressionistic special effects. Perhaps the most dramatic scene shows Zeke chasing Hot Shot through a swamp. In his autobiographical A Tree Is a Tree (1953), Vidor recalled that “when someone stepped on a broken branch, we made it sound as if bones were breaking,” and that when Hot Shot drew his foot from the sticky mud, “we made the vacuum sound strong enough to pull him down into hell.” Recording a group of dock workers, Vidor for the first time used synchronous sound recording in the studio. The final print had flaws, but remarkable effects were readily evident. Controversy, however, arose about the film’s content. Although accused of racism, Vidor was unquestionably sincere; he had not intended to portray the black race as a 2274
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 whole but simply to show the harsh lives of the black people he had known in Galveston, where his father’s lumber company had employed mostly black men and where he was taken to witness river baptisms. Although reviews in the white East Coast press were generally favorable, the black press reacted against the gambling and emotionalism of the black characters depicted in the film. Controversy even surrounded the film’s showing. In New York, the film was given dual premieres, one at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem and one downtown. Black journalists were indignant, assuming this meant that white audiences were willing to see blacks on film but were unwilling to sit next to them in audiences. In Chicago, two major theaters, the Balaban and Katz, refused to book the film for fear the black audiences would drive off white patrons. Vidor had to visit Chicago, show the film to critics, and wait for the positive reviews. Once these appeared, it was possible to convince a small independent theater to book the film. Its success at that theater forced major Chicago theaters to show it. In an attempt to get southern bookings, Vidor talked a Jacksonville, Florida, theater owner into booking the film by promising him a personal check for one thousand dollars if Hallelujah did not bring in more profit than whatever was currently showing. It did, and the man booked it into his theaters, but there were few other southern showings. Even in Paris, where black entertainers had received a warmer welcome than in the United States, the film’s showings were restricted. In a 1932 essay in Le Crapouillot, Pierre Bost recalled, perhaps with some exaggeration, that he could see the film only in the early hours of the morning and in a cellar, although it was the talk of the city. The minor actors of Hallelujah are virtually lost to time. Of the stars, McKinney was signed to an MGM contract, but few roles were available for black women. Her portrait of Chick, however, is said to have created the figure of the feisty vamp later acted by such stars as Dorothy Dandridge and Jean Harlow. McKinney is said to have dubbed Harlow’s songs in Reckless (1935). She appeared in a number of major studio films and in films made by independent black companies; in England, she appeared opposite Paul Robeson in Alexander Korda’s Sanders of the River (1935). Her final film appearance was in Pinky (1949). There were also few roles for black men in American films after Hallelujah. Haynes played in Marc Connelly’s The Green Pastures (1930) for five years on Broadway and for almost two thousand performances on tour; he played the major figure of De Lawd
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Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2001. Extremely important book on black films and stereotypes contains a lengthy and moderately sympathetic analysis of Hallelujah as well as a discussion of McKinney’s influence on the figure of the vamp in film. Dowd, Nancy, and David Shepard. King Vidor. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988. Lengthy interview is essential reading not only for anyone interested in Vidor and Hallelujah but also for students of silent and early sound films. Knight, Arthur. Disintegrating the Musical: Black Performance and American Musical Film. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002. Scholarly study examines the history of film musical representations of African Americans, focusing on early musicals with all-black casts. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Mordden, Ethan. The Hollywood Musical. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. Readable, witty, and opinionated book contains several pages about Hallelujah. An excellent starting place for students of film musicals. Vidor, King. A Tree Is a Tree. 1953. Reprint. New York: Garland, 1977. Autobiography offers fascinating insights into how the founders of film learned their trade by trial and error. Focuses on Vidor’s professional life rather than his personal life, and includes much information about the direction of silent films. Features filmography from 1918 to 1952.
Further Reading Altman, Rick. “The Folk Musical.” In The American Film Musical. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Provides an analysis of Hallelujah that is essential reading for anyone interested in the folk musical form and its development. Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and
See also: Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres.
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in a later revival. Haynes also played secondary roles in a number of films and achieved a distinguished career as pastor of New York churches. Vidor went on to make a series of distinguished films. Street Scene (1931) and Our Daily Bread (1934) were in many ways reminiscent of his earlier films, with their emphasis on the overlooked dramas of everyday life. Other Vidor films included Billy the Kid (1930), Stella Dallas (1937), The Citadel (1938), Northwest Passage (1940), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Fountainhead (1949), Ruby Gentry (1952), and the Italian-American production of War and Peace (1956). He directed the “Over the Rainbow” scene and other Kansas scenes for The Wizard of Oz (1939) when director Victor Fleming was called away. In 1979, Vidor received a special Academy Award for career achievement. By that time, he was, among other things, recognized to have been the originator of the American folk musical film, a genre in which stories tend to be set in a mythic American past and tend to focus on domestic and traditional values. The genre’s peculiar synthesis of these elements can be traced to the stage performance of Show Boat, which opened on Broadway in 1927, but it was in Hallelujah that it came to first fruition in film. After Hallelujah were to come such folk musicals as Cabin in the Sky (1942), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and The Harvey Girls (1946) as well as the film versions of Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), but Vidor’s seriousness of tone and fervor of purpose in Hallelujah were to distinguish it from all the rest. —Betty Richardson
Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1929
Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe Edwin Powell Hubble established that distant galaxies are moving away from the Milky Way galaxy at speeds that are determined by their distance from the Milky Way. Locale: Mount Wilson, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875-1969), American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer Georges Lemaître (1894-1966), Belgian cosmologist Walter Baade (1893-1960), German American astronomer Summary of Event In 1929, Edwin Powell Hubble announced that the greater the distance to a given galaxy, the faster it is traveling away from the Milky Way galaxy. This discovery was of major importance because it implied that the universe was expanding; the discovery, in turn, supported a theory proposed by Georges Lemaître in 1927 that would be developed into the “big bang” theory of the creation of the universe by the American physicist George Gamow in 1948. Hubble made his discovery by studying photographs of stellar spectra that Vesto Melvin Slipher had taken as a way of measuring the distances to those stars. The initial key in measuring the distances to the galaxies was the work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt. In 1911 and 1912, Leavitt analyzed Cepheid variables, which are stars that change their brightness according to a predictable cycle. Leavitt arranged the stars in order according to the periods (durations) of their cycles. She noticed that arranging them by period placed them in order of actual, or absolute, brightness. She developed what became known as the “periodluminosity scale,” by means of which, once the period of a Cepheid was measured, the star’s actual brightness could be determined and compared to its apparent brightness, which in turn would reveal its distance. The “redshift” measurements that Slipher had begun in 1913 suggested that the farther away a galaxy was, the faster it was receding. (The phenomenon is called “redshift” because, as the galaxy moves away, the light it 2276
emits has longer wavelengths; that is, its light moves, or shifts, toward the red end of the spectrum of visible light.) Slipher had no reliable way of measuring distances, however, and thus no means of proving the relationship. It was left to Hubble to put together the redshift results with the measurements of distance, leading to what is now called “Hubble’s law.” Hubble began work in 1919 with the 60-inch (152centimeter) telescope on Mount Wilson, near Pasadena, California, when he returned from service in World War I; he then moved to the 100-inch (254-centimeter) Hooker telescope at the same location. He studied objects within the Milky Way, such as novas (exploding stars), stars associated with gaseous nebulas, and variable stars. By 1922, he had published a paper noting the differences between the gaseous nebulae and those that were suspected of being more remote. By 1928, using Leavitt’s period-luminosity scale, Hubble estimated that the Andromeda nebula was more than 900,000 light-years away (a light-year is the distance that light, moving in a vacuum, travels in one year—at the rate of 299,000 kilometers, or 185,790 miles, per second). This figure was far higher than both the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn’s 50,000 light-year diameter for the Milky Way and the American astronomer Harlow Shapley’s estimate of 200,000 light-years. Hubble later adjusted his estimate to 750,000 light-years. It is now known that Hubble’s estimates were too small, because, in 1952, Walter Baade was able to demonstrate that there are two types of Cepheid variables with different absolute brightnesses. As a consequence, modern estimates of the distance to the Andromeda nebula are more than 2 million light-years. Hubble had, however, established that Andromeda is outside the Milky Way. Later, using the Hooker telescope, Hubble was able to resolve some of the fringes of nebulae into stars. By 1929, he had measured twenty-three galaxies out to a distance of about 20 million light-years. By 1931, Hubble and Milton L. Humason had measured some forty new galactic velocities out to a distance of 100 million lightyears. Their major contribution to reliable measurement had to do with the fact that twenty-six of these velocities occurred within eight clusters. Because stars in the same cluster are assumed to be moving at the same speed, measuring redshifts for different stars within the same cluster is a good way to check the accuracy of their results.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hubble found the speed of recession to be directly proportional to distance by a factor that came to be called the “Hubble constant,” which he estimated to be 170 kilometers (roughly 106 miles) per second for each million light-years of distance. The modern value is 15 kilometers (9.32 miles) per second per million light-years. His original value for the constant indicated an age for the universe of only 2 billion years, much less than the 3 or 4
Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe billion years that geologists had derived for the age of the earth. His figure created an anomaly that persisted until Walter Baade’s discovery of two stellar populations, which reduced the size of the constant and increased the estimated age of the universe. (Today, through measurements taken by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe the age of the universe has been measured at 13.7 billion years.)
Leavitt, Shapley, and the Period-Luminosity Scale In 1902, Henrietta Swan Leavitt became a permanent staff member at Harvard College Observatory. She studied variable stars, stars that change their luminosity (brightness) in a fairly predictable pattern over time. During her tenure at Harvard, Leavitt observed and photographed nearly 2,500 variable stars, measuring their luminosities over time. She was equipped with photographs of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds collected from Harvard’s Peruvian observatory. The Magellanic Clouds are very small galaxies visible in the Southern Hemisphere and close to the Milky Way. The Small Magellanic Cloud contained seventeen Cepheid variables having very predictable periods ranging from 1.25 days to 127 days. Leavitt carefully measured the brightening and dimming of the seventeen Cepheids during their respective periods. She collected photographs of other Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds and made additional period-luminosity studies. In a circular dated March 3, 1912, she stated:
Ejnar Hertzsprung of the Leiden University in the Netherlands and Henry Norris Russell of the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California, had independently discovered a relationship between a star’s luminosity and
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The measurement and discussion of these objects present problems of unusual difficulty, on account of the large area covered by the two regions, the extremely crowded distribution of the stars contained in them, the faintness of the variables, and the shortness of their periods. As many of them never become brighter than the fifteenth magnitude, while very few exceed the thirteenth magnitude at maximum, long exposures are necessary, and the number of available photographs is small. The determination of absolute magnitudes for widely separated sequences of comparison stars of this degree of faintness may not be satisfactorily completed for some time to come. With the adoption of an absolute scale of magnitudes for stars in the North Polar Sequence, however, the way is open for such a determination.
its spectral class (that is, color and temperature). Together, their experimental results produced the HertzsprungRussell diagram of stellar luminosities, the astronomical equivalent of chemistry’s periodic table. According to their classification scheme, most stars lie along the “main sequence,” which ranges from extremely bright blue stars ten thousand times brighter than the Sun to very dim red stars one hundred times dimmer than the Sun. Cepheid variables fell toward the cooler, red end of the main sequence. Leavitt carefully measured the luminosities and cyclic periods of changing luminosity for each of many Cepheid variables from the Magellanic Clouds. From her careful measurements, she graphically plotted Cepheid luminosity against Cepheid period. She noticed “a remarkable relation between the brightness of these variables and the length of their periods . . . the brighter variables have the longer periods.” She had discovered that a Cepheid’s apparent luminosity is directly proportional to the length of its period, or the time it takes to complete one cycle of brightening and dimming. Harlow Shapley, an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory, measured the distances of moving star clusters containing Cepheids, then related the Cepheid distances to Cepheid period-luminosity data. From these experiments, Shapley constructed a Cepheid period-absolute luminosity curve, which made it possible to plot a Cepheid variable having a specific measured period and obtain its absolute luminosity. Knowing the Cepheid’s apparent and absolute luminosities, one can instantly calculate its distance and, therefore, the distances of all the stars in the star cluster containing that particular Cepheid variable. The distances to Cepheid variables in the Milky Way and other galaxies were soon determined. Shapley used Cepheid distances to demonstrate that the center of the Milky Way is directed toward the constellation Sagittarius and that the Sun is located approximately thirty thousand light-years from the galactic center. Edwin Powell Hubble applied the technique to obtain estimates of the distances between our galaxy and others, which led to his monumental astronomical discovery that the universe is expanding.
Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe Significance The establishment of the expansion of the universe is one of the most significant achievements of twentieth century astronomy. Establishing the scale of distance was a key to understanding the nature of the universe, which has led to Hubble’s being considered the founder of extragalactic astronomy. Hubble was not the first to presume that there were objects of interest beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Many astronomers had suspected that Sir William Herschel was correct in his opinion that “nebulae,” those faint patches of light scattered throughout space, were “island universes” of stars, located outside the bounds of the Milky Way. In the mid-1920’s, Lemaître theorized that the universe originated from an original superdense “cosmic egg” that had expanded into the present universe; two decades later, his idea would expand into the big bang theory. —Ivan L. Zabilka Further Reading Adams, Walter S. “Obituary: Dr. Edwin P. Hubble.” Observatory 74 (February, 1954): 32-35. A short biographical sketch in which the main emphasis is the distance-redshift relationship. Reliable and interesting account of Hubble’s life (although the chronology surrounding his doctoral degree and service in World War I is somewhat confusing). Clark, David H., and Matthew D. H. Clark. Measuring the Cosmos: How Scientists Discovered the Dimensions of the Universe. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Relates the stories of the scientists who have contributed to current knowledge about the size, mass, and age of the universe. Chapters 4 and 5 include discussion of the work of Hubble, Slipher, and Leavitt. Features glossary, bibliography, and index. Gribbin, John. In Search of the Big Bang: The Life and Death of the Universe. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Accurate and comprehensive statement of the currently accepted cosmology presents an excellent summary of Hubble’s contribution. One of the most readable books on the subject for a general audience. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hetherington, N. “Edwin Hubble: Legal Eagle.” Nature 39 (January 16, 1986): 189-190. A fascinating short analysis of the influence of Hubble’s legal training on the manner in which he presented his astronomical evidence. Also considers the way in which he conducted his conflicts with other scientists. Presents a perspective different from that found in most other sources. Hubble, Edwin. “The Exploration of Space.” In Theories of the Universe, edited by Milton Karl Munitz. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957. Short discussion excerpted from Hubble’s 1936 book The Realm of the Nebulae and from an article that appeared in Proceedings of the American Philosophy Society. An attractive summary and retrospect of his work that pays attention to the contributions of other astronomers working on related topics. _______. The Realm of the Nebulae. 1936. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1991. Presents a comprehensive summary of Hubble’s work concerning the distant galaxies. Chapters 4 and 5 contain a statement of his discovery of Hubble’s law and the procedures used for determining Hubble’s constant. Mayall, N. U. “Edwin Powell Hubble.” Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 41 (1970): 175-214. An extensive laudatory biography that describes each of Hubble’s major accomplishments. Contains some interesting anecdotal material not found in other sources. An abbreviated version of this article appeared in Sky and Telescope in January, 1954. Struve, Otto, and Velta Zebergs. Astronomy of the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Offers an excellent nontechnical summary of Hubble’s work. See also: 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra; Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design
1929
Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design With his redesign of the Gestetner duplicating machine in 1929, Raymond Fernand Loewy became a pioneer in the new profession of industrial product design in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Fashion and design; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Raymond Fernand Loewy (1893-1986), American industrial designer Sigmund Gestetner (1898-1956), British manufacturer Walter Dorwin Teague (1883-1960), American industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958), American theatrical stage designer and industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972), American industrial designer William T. Snaith (1908-1974), American industrial designer
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Summary of Event Raymond Fernand Loewy was born in Paris, France, on November 5, 1893, into an economically secure family. From childhood, he was fascinated with train locomotives and automobiles. While still a schoolboy, he invented a prizewinning model airplane powered by an elastic band. He studied engineering and, during World War I, served in the French army, rising from private to captain. In 1919, after finishing his engineering degree, he left France for New York City, where he became a freelance illustrator for fashion magazines and a window designer for stores. In 1929, Loewy launched his own design firm. His first major commission came from Sigmund Gestetner, the head of a British company that manufactured stencilduplicating machines. As Loewy later recalled, Gestetner came one day unexpectedly to Loewy’s apartment after having read a promotional card that Loewy had written about how improving product appearance would boost sales. Gestetner reportedly insisted that the redesign of his machine would have to be done in three days, before he returned to England. Loewy agreed to do the job for two thousand dollars if Gestetner liked the result and for five hundred dollars if he did not. Loewy’s solution was brilliant in its simplicity. He covered the machine in clay, shaped the clay into a shell that concealed all the mechanical parts except for the operating controls,
and mounted the whole thing on a cabinet-like base to get rid of its protruding legs. Gestetner was so pleased that he kept the Loewy design in production for forty years. Despite his success with Gestetner, Loewy had a difficult time traveling around the country trying to sell his services to manufacturers during the Great Depression. The turning point came in 1934, when he introduced three landmark designs—the GG-1 diesel locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Hupmobile for the Hupp Automobile Company, and the remodeled Coldspot refrigerator for Sears, Roebuck and Company. The GG-1 locomotive marked the beginning of a long and productive relationship between Loewy and the Pennsylvania Railroad, including his design of the S-1 steam locomotive (1938) and (with University of Pennsylvania architect Paul Cret) the interior of a train for the Pennsylvania Railroad (1938). The whalelike deck shape of the ferryboat Princess Anne that he designed for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s affiliate, the Virginia Ferry Company, was so admired that commissions from other shipping lines followed. Perhaps most important, the spectacular increase in the sales of the new Coldspot refrigerator convinced American business leaders of the importance of design as a sales tool. Those successes led to the rapid growth of the firm. By 1938, Loewy had 18 designers working for him; by 1941, he had 56. During the firm’s peak years, from 1947 through the mid-1960’s, it had more than 150 regular employees, with more temporarily added for special projects. When the firm was reorganized in 1944 under the name Raymond Loewy Associates, Loewy made five key associates partners with a share in the profits. The business remained wholly owned by Loewy, however, and all the finished designs were signed with his name, regardless of who had done the work. In its early years, the firm had three divisions—transportation, product design, and packaging. Later, a corporate identity division was added. What became the largest and most profitable division, however, was the firm’s Department of Architecture and Interior Design, established in 1937 under William T. Snaith (and renamed in 1944 the Department of Specialized Architecture) to handle the design and planning of retail stores. In his autobiography, Loewy recalled that “a whole new world opened up for my design organization the first day we convinced a client that a store was an implement for merchandising and not a building raised around a series of pushcarts.”
Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design The New York World’s Fair that opened in 1939 transformed Loewy from a designer for corporate America into a household name. His commissions for the fair included the design of the House of Jewels, the Railroad Building, and, most important, the focal exhibit for the fair’s “Transportation Zone,” the Chrysler Motors Building. Loewy’s imaginative animated diorama for the Chrysler Motors Building, titled “Rocketport,” depicted the possibilities of space travel and became one of the fair’s most popular attractions. Other major commissions included Loewy’s 1941 design of a new red-and-white package for Lucky Strike cigarettes, a corporate identity program for the International Harvester Company, and work for the Greyhound Bus Company that culminated in the 1954 creation of the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus. Loewy’s most visible role during the post-World War II years was his work for the Studebaker automobile company. The three Loewydesigned Studebaker cars—the 1947 Champion, the 1953 Starliner, and the 1962 Avanti sports car—were praised at the time, and have been even more admired since, for their innovative, compact lines. Significance Interest in industrial product design first appeared in Europe, climaxing in the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, yet industrial design emerged as a profession first in the United States because the rise of a consumer culture occurred earlier there than in Europe. The major impetus was the pressure during the 1920’s to mass-market consumer durables such as automobiles, sewing machines, refrigerators, radios, and other electric appliances. At the suggestion of their advertising agencies, manufacturers began to give more attention to the appearance of their products. No single event did more to alert business leaders to the importance of style than Henry Ford’s decision in 1927 to meet the competition from General Motors by replacing the Ford Model T automobile with the new Model A. The Great Depression reinforced the attraction to product design as a merchandising tool. Loewy became popularly identified as the founder of the new profession of industrial design. That identification was not fully accurate; he had contemporaries who were equally important. The oldest of the group was Walter Dorwin Teague. Born in 1883 in Decatur, Illinois, Teague had a successful career as an advertising illustrator before he began his second career as an industrial designer by creating, around 1930, several cameras for Eastman Kodak. He would count among his clients 2280
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 such other corporate giants as the Ford Motor Company, Texaco, and Du Pont. Another midwesterner (from small-town Michigan), Norman Bel Geddes—born the same year as Loewy—moved from advertising illustration to theater stage design before going on to industrial design. His 1932 book Horizons did much to popularize what became known as “streamlining,” and his “Futurama” exhibit for the General Motors Building at the New York World’s Fair pictured a utopian future built around the automobile and the high-speed highway. The fourth of the founders of American industrial design, Henry Dreyfuss, born in New York City in 1904, moved from theatrical design to industrial design in the late 1920’s. His most famous designs were Bell Telephone’s standard desk telephone (1937) and the Grand Central Railroad’s Twentieth-Century Limited train (1938). Loewy did make a major—perhaps crucial—contribution to the establishment of the new discipline, however. A total of approximately five hundred designers worked for Loewy, many of whom went on to set up their own offices. In 1944, Loewy was one of the organizers of what became the Industrial Designer Society of America. In 1946, he was president of the group and was responsible for drawing up a code of professional ethics for its members. Loewy probably did more than any other person to sell industrial design through a genius for self-promotion; he seized every opportunity for media exposure. Loewy did not share the technocratic utopianism of Teague or Geddes, who envisaged industrial design transforming the world. His major criteria for a successful design were simplicity, convenience, economy, durability, and ease of maintenance and repair. He was, however, as interested in an aesthetically pleasing result as he was with the product’s utilitarian functioning. Once, when asked why he had included a particular detail in one of his designs, he bluntly replied, “Because I liked it that way.” His artistic creed was “Good design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended.” Most important, he had what one of his partners termed “an unerring vulgar taste”—“vulgar” in the literal sense of appealing to large numbers of people. In broad terms, Loewy’s work belongs to the style known as “streamlining.” The key to streamlining was the separation of the outer shell of a product from its internal mechanism. That outer shell typically had a smooth and flowing surface with rounded edges. Streamlining owed much to aerodynamics—the science of eliminating the friction of air resistance to a moving vehicle. Aerodynamics researchers had concluded that the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 teardrop was the ideal shape for a moving vehicle, and industrial designers in the 1930’s extended the teardrop shape from its use in locomotives and automobiles to the design of stationary objects. Psychologists have hypothesized that the popularity of streamlining lay in its appeal to the 1930’s yearning to overcome the frictions of the Great Depression. In the post-World War II years, Loewy consciously adapted to the “planned obsolescence” approach of the corporate world. His most popular designs of the time were conceived with the potential for minor future changes in the basic models. When critics complained about the practice of annual model changes, Loewy replied pragmatically, “There is no curve so beautiful as a rising sales graph.” Perhaps Loewy’s most important long-term impact on the American environment came from his collaboration with William T. Snaith in transforming retail merchandising. The Loewy-Snaith team was responsible for the first suburban branch store of a major downtown retailer, the Lord & Taylor branch at Manhasset on Long Island, outside New York City, which opened in the spring of 1941. The firm’s 1945 Lucky store in San Leandro, California, became the model for the postWorld War II grocery supermarket, and its new building for the Foley Brothers store in Houston, Texas, in 1947 revolutionized conventional department store operations by rearranging selling and stock areas in accord with a profit-per-square-foot calculus. In 1956, Loewy withdrew from active management of the firm, with Snaith taking over as managing partner and, from 1961, as president of the successor business, Raymond Loewy/William Snaith, Inc. When Loewy died on July 14, 1986, he was the last of the pioneer generation of American industrial designers. —John Braeman
Loewy, Raymond. Industrial Design. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1979. Includes an introductory chapter, “My Life in Design,” in which Loewy answers questions from an interviewer. The bulk of the volume is a collection of photographs and drawings of designs, with Loewy’s accompanying explanatory commentary. _______. Never Leave Well Enough Alone. 1951. Reprint. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Autobiography provides one of the fullest accounts of Loewy’s career available. Entertainingly written and highly readable. The 1951 French version appeared, appropriately, under the title La Laideur se vend mal (ugliness sells badly). Meikle, Jeffrey L. Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. Excellent account of the formative years in the professionalization of industrial design. Focuses on Loewy, Walter Teague, Norman Bel Geddes, and Henry Dreyfuss and provides illuminating analyses of the concepts and values shaping their work. Pulos, Arthur J. The American Design Adventure, 19401975. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988. Takes up the history of American industrial design from where Pulos’s 1983 book (cited below) leaves off, with the same first-rate results. _______. American Design Ethic: A History of Industrial Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. A pathbreaking and indispensable survey of American product design from the colonial period through the 1930’s. The last third of the text deals with the 1920’s on, when Loewy played a major role. Includes extensive illustrations and fine bibliography. Schönberger, Angela, ed. Raymond Loewy: Pioneer of American Industrial Design. Translated by Ian Robson and Eileen Martin. Munich: Prestel, 1990. This by-product of a major exhibition honoring Loewy includes excellent essays on his work and its place in the history of industrial design. Extensively illustrated. Includes a bibliography listing contemporary commentary on Loewy’s work and relevant secondary works. See also: 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States; 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; 1937: Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone. 2281
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Further Reading Bush, Donald J. The Streamlined Decade. New York: George Braziller, 1975. Excellent survey of the application of streamlining during the 1930’s to locomotives, automobiles, ships, airplanes, household appliances, and even buildings. Extensively illustrated. Johnson, J. Stewart. American Modern, 1925-1940: Design for a New Age. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000. Essay on design of the period accompanies 170 photographs of items designed by Loewy, Geddes, and others. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index.
Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design
The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater
1929-1930 THE BEDBUG
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and THE BATHHOUSE Exemplify Revolutionary
Theater Vladimir Mayakovsky created a theater of spectacle in The Bedbug and The Bathhouse, which laid down the principles for revolutionary theater but were banned by Soviet authorities. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Category: Theater Key Figures Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), Russian playwright and poet Vsevolod Yemilyevich Meyerhold (1874-1940), Russian stage director Aleksandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko (1891-1956), Soviet artist and designer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Russian composer Summary of Event Vladimir Mayakovsky had won accolades from Vladimir Ilich Lenin and had become the foremost poet of the Russian Revolution, but after the revolution, aspects of Western capitalism had been introduced into the Soviet Union under the New Economic Policy (NEP). This plan fell into disfavor, and Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, began to introduce his plan for industrializing the Soviet Union. As postrevolutionary society began to set up rigid guidelines for all forms of culture, Mayakovsky came under attack from the Soviet authorities charged with overseeing the artistic community, who advocated Socialist Realism as the proper form for theater. Socialist Realism promoted theatrical works that reflected realistic situations and emphasized psychologically rounded characters. Mayakovsky was opposed to this movement, and he joined forces with antirealist director Vsevolod Yemilyevich Meyerhold to produce two theatrical spectacles: Klop (1929; The Bedbug, 1931) and Banya (1930; The Bathhouse, 1963). On December 28, 1928, Mayakovsky read The Bedbug in the Meyerhold Theater. Meyerhold felt that the play would not only hold a special place in Soviet theater but would also become part of the repertoire of world theater. The Bedbug, which opened at the Meyerhold Theater on February 13, 1929, satirized those Communist backsliders who had reverted to the crude and vulgar lifestyle of the bourgeois. Prisypkin, a worker with calluses on his hands and a union card in his pocket, is seduced into guzzling vodka, playing sentimental songs, dancing the fox2282
trot, and following other reactionary bourgeois pursuits. Changing his name to Pierre Skripkin and jilting his proletariat girlfriend, Zoya Berezkina, Prisypkin marries Elsevira Renaissance, a grotesque sex symbol with affected French mannerisms. Their wedding at the Renaissance beauty salon is a mixture of maudlin sentimentality, conspicuous consumption, and all-out drunken debauchery, ending in a brawl and a fire that reduces the beauty salon and everyone in it to ashes. Prisypkin’s unscathed body, buried under the ice, is then discovered in the futuristic world of 1979. The power structure in this highly organized, completely sanitized society resurrects Prisypkin, only to find that he infects their society with such bad habits as drinking vodka, engaging in modern dances, and falling in love. Finally, he is captured and put in a zoo. In desperation, Prisypkin urges the audience to join him, but his plea is dismissed as an attack of lunacy. Mayakovsky’s use of grotesque characters to satirize socialist evils set up the theater of lampooning and burlesque as a model for democratic theater. In Oleg Bayan, the effete, self-indulgent poet who teaches Prisypkin how to wiggle his behind correctly and scratch his back discreetly, Mayakovsky caricatures reactionary poets. The tawdry decor of the Renaissance beauty salon created a dismal picture of life under the NEP. No less dismal was Mayakovsky’s futuristic world. It is a sterile, automated world with mechanical voting arms, mass meetings, and elaborate cleansing paraphernalia. Even worse, it is an emotionless world where love is defined as a pathological condition. Mayakovsky even had to assure the authorities that his play was not a satire on the socialist future. The production of The Bedbug was a true theater spectacle. In Meyerhold’s production, actors marched through the audience hawking bras and ran in all directions when the police came. Three artists who called themselves Kukrynisky designed the first half. Using clothes from Soviet shops, they designed a pop art decor with various kinds of kitsch items. The actor playing Prisypkin walked in broad strides, swaying his pot belly and bulging rear. Prisypkin came across as a thicklipped, slit-eyed, pigeon-toed grunter and screecher. The wedding scene consisted of grotesque pantomimes and slapstick antics in which characters beat each other with fish. The futuristic scenes were designed by artist
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The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater Mayakovsky attacked the realistic school of the Moscow Art Theater as well as the Russian ballet theater, which tried to poeticize life. He also reduced the objects of his satire to grotesque types, broke with fourth-wall realism, and tried to jar his audience into action. Again, he wanted to create a theater of spectacle so that he could “transform the boards of the stage into a rostrum.” The Bathhouse, however, was Mayakovsky’s theatrical downfall. It not only flopped, closing after three performances, but also outraged Mayakovsky’s enemies, who accused him of writing abstract dramas for coterie audiences and of failing to create heroic workers who would overcome the bureaucracy. Shortly after the failure of The Bathhouse, on April 14, 1930, Mayakovsky shot himself. In his suicide note, he expressed regret at having given in to the critic Ermilov. Significance Mayakovsky’s plays were banned in the Soviet Union, and their impact was not immediately felt, but Mayakovsky set the tone for revolutionary theater not only in Russia but also throughout the West. Mayakovsky broke with bourgeois realism to fight for a democratic art that would allow the free word of the creative personality to be “written on the walls, fences, and streets of our cities.” He eschewed notions of absolute value and eternal beauty and created a theater for the masses—a theater that produced poetic and scenic devices that were based on their ability to propagandize. Mayakovsky, along with Meyerhold, wanted to create utopian art that “would not only pose the problems of today but would project decades into the future.” Mayakovsky also tried to move theater away from dreary slice-of-life realism. Realizing that the stage was “only one-third of the auditorium,” Mayakovsky brought the action of drama into the audience. Instead of creating believable characters hidden behind a proscenium arch and seen against a background of decorative scenery, he created grotesque figures—slapstick clowns bouncing across constructivist sets composed of ropes, grids, and platforms. Mayakovsky turned the stage into a soapbox and used satire to effect political change. As Stalinist repression started to ease off, the time was right for the return of Mayakovsky to the Soviet theater. In December, 1953, Victor Pluchek, a disciple of Meyerhold, successfully produced The Bathhouse at the Moscow Theater of Satire. Pluchek followed this production with The Bedbug and other Mayakovsky plays, and he toured Mayakovsky’s plays from Leningrad to the Urals. By 1958, the Theater of Satire had performed The Bathhouse two hundred times and The Bedbug five hun2283
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Aleksandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko, who used large utilitarian objects, modern glasslike structures (including a glass bell-like prison for Prisypkin), and posterlike costumes in rose and light blue to add to the futuristic tone. Scientists were dressed in sterile white garb, and their scenes were bathed in a white glow. Dmitri Shostakovich wrote an original score for the production. For the wedding scene, he took a foxtrot theme and built it into a cacophonous fantasia. Bells, flashing lights, and motionpicture screens all added to the overall effect of the production. Mayakovsky had created a futuristic spectacle for the masses. Mayakovsky’s critics, however, attacked the play for creating posterlike caricatures without psychological depth. They found that his attack on bourgeois socialists allowed him to pick an easy target and to avoid criticizing more menacing enemies of socialism. In The Bathhouse, Mayakovsky and Meyerhold fought back and again created a futuristic spectacle. From the start, the play created controversy. First, Mayakovsky was unable to get the script approved by censors without making changes. When he finally got approval, he was attacked in the press before the play opened. Vladimir Ermilov, an important member of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, criticized Mayakovsky for his exaggerated art. Ermilov’s criticism was reprinted in Pravda on March 9, 1930. When the play opened on March 16, Mayakovsky attacked Ermilov in one of the banners in the theater. Ermilov demanded that the banner be removed, and Mayakovsky complied. The Bathhouse is a vicious attack on Soviet bureaucracy. Pobedonosikov, a paper-shuffling, cliché-mouthing, indifferent bureaucrat surrounded by bootlickers and incompetents, is too busy to deal with the problems of ordinary people. So when Chudakov, an inventor, gets caught in red tape and bureaucratic shuffles while trying to get a patent for his time machine, he sneaks the machine into Pobedonosikov’s apartment. The machine is accidentally triggered into action, producing the Phosphorescent Woman, a Communist prototype from the year 2030. She paints a picture of a glorious Communist future and promises to take all qualified Communists there. Only Pobedonosikov and his cohorts are left behind, because they are “not needed for communism.” In The Bathhouse, Mayakovsky again attacks the theater of his day. In a Pirandelloesque third act, Pobedonosikov becomes a character watching a play about himself. He complains that he has been presented in a bad light and that the caricature of him is unnatural and not lifelike. He and his cohorts demand a drama of “poeticized reality.” In this clever piece of metatheater,
The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater dred times. In 1957, the Theater of Satire took first prize at the All Union Festival of Drama for its productions of Mayakovsky’s plays. Soon, Mayakovsky’s works were being produced throughout the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. In the 1960’s, Mayakovsky’s brand of theatricalism returned to the Soviet theater. Dissident playwright Andrei Remezov’s Yest-li zhizn na Marse? (1961; Is there life on Mars?) begins with spectators who come to witness life on Mars. The Martian society is an antiutopian world reminiscent of the futuristic automatons in The Bedbug. Robotlike characters live in a nightmarish world where one government minister has to look up the word “principle” because he does not know its meaning. Remezov’s play falls directly in line with Mayakovsky’s brand of fantastic satire. Basing his views partially on Mayakovsky, writer Andrei Sinyavsky called for the end of Socialist Realism and wanted a “phantasmagoric art” in which writers could “teach us to be truthful with the aid of the absurd and the fantastic.” Yuri Lyubimov took up the banner of Mayakovsky and Meyerhold. Serving as the director of the Taganka Theater from 1964 to 1984, he rebelled against the sterile realism of the Moscow Art Theater. Like Mayakovsky, he tried to create a theater of imagination and metaphor. His productions were epic and carnivalesque. He combined the sublime and the ridiculous and mixed social commentary with theatrical art. He even did a production based on Mayakovsky’s poetry. Mayakovsky’s influence soon began to be felt in revolutionary theater outside the Soviet Union. Italian theater artist Dario Fo was especially influenced by Mayakovsky. Fo’s leftist dramas combine mime, circus antics, and brutal satire in an attempt to arouse the working class. Fo’s L’operaio conosce trecento parole, il padrone mille: Per questo lui è il padrone (pr. 1969; The Worker Knows Three Hundred Words, the Boss Knows a Thousand: That’s Why He’s the Boss, 1983) is a mixture of the fantastic and the grotesque. The play features a self-important bureaucrat styled right out of The Bathhouse and has Mayakovsky’s girlfriend present a futuristic ballet incorporating Mayakovsky’s own techniques of mime and dance to convey a political message. Mayakovsky is seen, like Fo himself, as a man outside of the party, playing directly to the people. In the 1960’s, the Mayakovsky/Meyerhold brand of theatricalism became prevalent in American avant-garde theater. Politically oriented theater groups such as the Living Theatre and the Performance Group used visible lighting, performed with house lights on, and featured 2284
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acrobatics, clowning, and choral chants. They made extensive use of mime and extended the action of the drama into the audience. In dramas such as Frankenstein (1965), the Living Theatre presented futuristic spectacles on raised platforms. In Prometheus (1978), Julian Beck, the founder of the Living Theatre, like Fo, introduced Mayakovsky as a character. In Prometheus, a scene from a Mayakovsky play is enacted in gymnastic style before Mayakovsky commits suicide. Many of the radical popular theaters that arose in the 1960’s, such as the San Francisco Mime Troupe, employed Mayakovsky’s methods. They appealed directly to working people, played in noise-filled rooms and open areas, used clowning and popular music, encouraged contact between actors and audience, and tried to raise political awareness through satire. Like Mayakovsky, these groups used satire not to amuse but to arouse anger. Their dramas, like his, did not offer comic resolutions; rather, they left open endings or produced fantastic resolutions. Although his impacts were somewhat delayed, Mayakovsky helped to set down the techniques that became the framework for revolutionary theater in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Many of these techniques have now been incorporated into mainstream theater. — Paul Rosefeldt Further Reading Brown, Edward J. Mayakovsky: A Poet in the Revolution. 1973. Reprint. New York: Paragon House, 1988. The first major critical biography of Mayakovsky in English. Shows a close connection between Mayakovsky’s life and his works. Provides close readings of Mayakovsky’s major and minor works and even addresses his didactic verse. Leach, Robert. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2004. Examines the lives and work of four individuals who had significant influence on theater in the twentieth century. Chapter 2, which is devoted to Meyerhold’s work, includes discussion of Mayakovsky. Features illustrations, notes, and index. Mayakovsky, Vladimir. Mayakovsky: Plays. Translated by Guy Daniels. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1995. Collection includes The Bedbug and The Bathhouse as well as two other works. Shklovskii, Viktor Borisovich. Mayakovsky and His Circle. Edited and translated by Lily Feiler. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972. A tribute to Mayakovsky by a close associate and intimate friend. Covers not only the relationship between Shklovskii and Mayakovsky
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 but also other figures in the Futurist movement in Russia. Promotes Shklovskii’s formalist bias, but is nevertheless a good firsthand account of Mayakovsky’s development as a poet as well as a history of the artistic revolutions in Russia from 1910 to 1930. Terras, Victor. Vladimir Mayakovsky. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Excellent critical introduction to Mayakovsky provides a well-organized biographical sketch of Mayakovsky’s life followed by a close analysis of his major works. Defines critical terms, traces the history of artistic movements, and provides a clear critical assessment of Mayakovsky’s works. Woroszylski, Wiktor. The Life of Mayakovsky. Trans-
Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram lated by Boleslav Taborski. New York: Orion Press, 1970. Translation of a 1966 work by a Polish poet is an encyclopedic compendium of documentary sources on Mayakovsky’s life and work. A good reference work for primary source material, but does not present a clear perspective for readers who are unfamiliar with Mayakovsky’s work. See also: Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama; Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature.
1929-1938
Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram Hans Berger devised a system of electrodes, the electroencephalograph, to produce an electroencephalogram—a chart measuring brainwave patterns—of the human brain. The EEG heralded an entirely new era of neurophysiology. Locale: Jena, Weimar Republic (now in Germany) Categories: Inventions; health and medicine; science and technology
Summary of Event By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the field of psychophysiology had fallen into disrepute among neurologists and psychiatrists. Two new approaches had become fashionable: the neoanatomical approach of Bernhard Friedrich A. Gudden, Theodor H. Meynert, Paul E. Flechsig, Auguste Henri Forel, and Constantin von Monakow and the functional approach exemplified by the work of Emil Kraepelin, Eugen Bleuler, Sigmund Freud, Max Adler, and Carl Jung. Hans Berger, however, was not attracted by either of these two avenues of research. The former was not functional enough to satisfy
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Key Figures Hans Berger (1873-1941), German psychiatrist and research scientist Richard Caton (1842-1926), English physiologist and surgeon Edgar Douglas Adrian (1889-1977), English neurophysiologist Brian Harold Cabot Matthews (1906-1986), English neurophysiologist
his psychophysiological interests, and the latter, in his opinion, lacked a firm foundation in the natural sciences, which he regarded as indispensable to the understanding of brain function and its relation to mental processes. From the outset of his career, Berger chose the difficult position of the outsider, a position in which he was to remain. As a scientist, Berger’s search for the human electroencephalogram, or EEG (English physiologist Richard Caton described the electroencephalogram, or “brain wave,” in rabbits and monkeys in 1875), was motivated by his desire to find a physiological method that might be applied successfully to the study of the long-standing problem of the relationship between the mind and the brain. His scientific career, therefore, was directed toward the elucidation of the psychophysical relationship in terms of principles that would be rooted firmly in the natural sciences and would not have to rely on vague philosophical or mystical ideas. During his early career, Berger attempted to study psychophysical relationships by plethysmographic measurements of changes in the brain circulation of patients with skull defects. In plethysmography, an instrument is used to indicate and record by tracings the variations in size of a part of the body. Later, Berger investigated temperature changes occurring in the human brain during mental activity and the action of psychoactive drugs. He became disillusioned, however, by his inability to generate meaningful psychophysical understanding through these investigations. Next, Berger studied the electrical activity of the
Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram brain and, in the 1920’s, set out to search for the human electroencephalogram. He believed that the EEG would finally provide him with a physiological method capable of furnishing insight into mental functions and their disturbances. In 1920, Berger made his first unsuccessful attempt at recording the electrical activity of the brain from the scalp of a bald medical student. At that time, he modified his methods of research and attempted to stimulate the cortex of patients with skull defects by applying an electrical current to the skin covering the defect. The main purpose of these stimulation experiments was to elicit subjective sensations. Berger hoped that eliciting these sensations might give him some clue about the nature of the relationship between the physiochemical events produced by the electrical stimulus and the mental processes revealed by the patients’ subjective experience. According to his diaries, the availability of many patients with skull defects—in whom the pulsating surface of the brain was separated from the stimulating electrodes by only a few millimeters of tissue—reactivated Berger’s interest in recording the brain’s electrical activity. At the time of these experiments, Berger had very little electrophysiological experience, and his knowledge of physics and instrumentation was limited. In addition, the instruments available to him were not well suited to the research he was contemplating. Nevertheless, he conducted his first electrical recordings from skull defects in 1924 by using the large Edelmann string galvanometer, an instrument that had been designed to record electrocardiograms, or electrical charts measuring heart activity. In 1926, he acquired the new Siemens coil galvanometer, an apparatus that also was used in electrocardiography. In 1932, the Siemens Company constructed an oscillograph with an amplifier for Berger. This instrument had adequate gain and, in contrast to the earlier galvanometers, was a voltage-measuring, rather than a currentmeasuring, device. All of these instruments were used in conjunction with an optical recording system in which electrical oscillations caused a mirror to deflect a projected beam of light beam. The deflections of the light beam were proportional to the magnitude of the electrical signals. The movement of the spot of the light beam was recorded on photographic paper moving at a speed of three centimeters per second; occasionally, slower speeds were used. The paper width was twelve centimeters, and the lengths of the records varied between about three and eight meters. During his investigations, Berger remained faithful to his old recording instruments, even when better methods 2286
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and equipment—such as cathode-ray oscillography or Tönnies’s ink-writing oscillograph—became available. In the 1930’s, Berger hoped that Siemens would provide him with a multiple oscillograph system, but this hope remained unfulfilled. Thus, to the end of his career, whenever he wished to record with more than one channel at a time, he was forced to use the Siemens oscillograph and the coil galvanometer simultaneously. A major problem with this method, however, was that the gains of the two instruments were very different; thus it was difficult to place the light spots of the two systems in precise vertical alignment. Therefore, many of Berger’s double recordings appear rather idiosyncratic and unsatisfactory from a technical point of view, a fact of which he was well aware. In July, 1924, Berger observed small, tremulous movements of the galvanometer string while recording from the skin overlying a bone defect in a seventeen-year-old patient (who had been a subject for his earlier cortical stimulation experiments and who had been operated on earlier because he was suspected of having a brain tumor). In his first paper on the electroencephalogram, Berger briefly described this case as his first successful recording of an EEG. Nevertheless, from his experimental protocol, it is known that he did not fully trust this observation, although he was greatly encouraged by it. At the time of these early studies, Berger already had used the term “electroencephalogram” in his diary, yet for several years he had doubts about the cerebral origin of the electrical oscillations he recorded. As late as 1928, he almost abandoned his electrical recording studies. Berger’s first paper on the human encephalogram was published in 1929 as “Über das Elektrenkephalogramm des Menschen” (“On the Electroencephalograph of Man,” 1969) in the Journal für Psychologie und Neurologie, but it had little immediate impact on the scientific world. Indeed, the paper was either ignored or regarded with open disbelief. Even Berger himself was not yet completely free of doubts about the validity of his findings, but he continued his work. He published additional contributions to the study of the electroencephalogram in a series of fourteen papers. As his research progressed, Berger became increasingly confident and convinced of the significance of his discovery. In his studies on the human encephalogram, Berger repeatedly touched on basic neurophysiological and neuropharmacological problems; he also commented on the characteristics and importance of EEG changes in a variety of pathological states. He approached these questions exclusively from the point of view of his own per-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sonal interest in psychophysiology, and it is clear that he was not interested primarily in the basic neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, or clinical pathology of the EEG. Nevertheless, he was the first to make many perceptive observations in these areas and to develop some theoretical concepts about the origin and the regulation of the EEG in normal and pathological states. There were many reasons for Berger’s lack of immediate recognition and the widespread initial skepticism regarding his work on the EEG of humans. One source of the resistance was to be found among neurophysiologists. Those who conducted research on the axons and their action potentials simply could not believe that regular oscillations of quasi-sinusoidal form could represent the electrical activity of an organ as complex as the human brain and that such activity could be recorded from the scalp. The situation changed in 1934, when Edgar Douglas Adrian and Brian Harold Cabot Matthews published a paper on the “Berger rhythm.” The two neurophysiologists admitted that, initially, they had been skeptical about the validity of Berger’s work. This skepticism was reinforced by the common assumption that Berger, a psychiatrist, was an unlikely person to make such a striking discovery. However, Adrian, whose competence as a neurophysiologist could not be questioned, fully confirmed Berger’s observations and thus put the seal of scientific respectability on Berger’s work. Soon, interest in the EEG spread throughout all the countries of the Western world—except for Germany. Ironically, soon after the international scientific community finally had accepted Berger into their ranks, he was removed from his post by the Nazis in 1937. Shortly thereafter, his laboratory was dismantled.
ognition. Many of those who undertook the study of the electroencephalogram were able to bring a far greater technical knowledge of neurophysiology to bear on the problems of the electrical activity of the brain than Berger was ever able to, yet the community of neurological scientists has not ceased to look with respect to the founder of electroencephalography. Despite overwhelming odds and isolation, Berger initiated a new era of neurophysiology. —Genevieve Slomski Further Reading Berger, Hans. “Hans Berger on the EEG of Man.” Translated by Pierre Gloor. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, supp. 28 (1969). An excellent translation of Berger’s fourteen reports (1929 to 1939) on the electroencephalograph of humans. The introduction is the most useful and thorough piece of writing on the history and development of Berger’s work on the EEG. Places Berger’s work in a historical context; provides firsthand documentation on the discovery from Berger’s own diaries. Includes graphs, charts, extensive notes, and an index. Cooper, R., et al. EEG Technology. 3d ed. Boston: Butterworths, 1980. In the first chapter, titled “Origins of the Encephalogram,” Berger’s work is cited in its historical context. Although aimed at the EEG technician, the book gives a useful overview of the advances in EEG technology since its inception. Contains appendixes; references follow each chapter. Gale, Anthony, and John A. Edwards. Physiological Correlates of Human Behavior. Vol. 2 in Attention and Performance. New York: Academic Press, 1983. A section devoted to the EEG and human behavior describes the pioneers and popularizers of electrical brain-wave recording devices—Caton and Berger in particular. Describes advances in the understanding of brain function from these pioneers to the 1980’s. Contains extensive references and an index. Kooi, Kenneth A., et al. Fundamentals of Electroencephalography. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. A compact source of information about human electroencephalography aimed at both the student and technician. Discusses the basic concepts, principles, and clinical information necessary to evaluate EEGs; gives a brief history of the development of the phenomenon. Contains graphs, illustrations, and extensive references after each chapter. Nunez, Paul L., and Ramesh Srinivasan. Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of EEG. 2d ed. New 2287
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Significance The long-range impact of Berger’s work is incontestable. When Berger published his last paper on the human encephalogram in 1938, the new approach to the study of brain function that he inaugurated in 1929 had already gathered momentum in many centers, both in Europe and in the United States. As a result of his pioneering work, a new diagnostic method had been introduced into medicine; physiology had acquired a new investigative tool. Clinical neurophysiology had been liberated from its exclusive dependence on the functional anatomical approach, and electrophysiological exploration of complex functions of the central nervous system in the neurophysiological laboratories had received major impetus. Berger’s work had finally received its well-deserved rec-
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Maginot Line Is Built York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Detailed study of the electrophysiology of the brain, the science of electroencephalography (the recording and analysis of the brain’s electrical activity), and the applications of that science. Bibliographic references and index. Scott, Donald. Understanding the EEG. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1975. Explains, in simple language, what an EEG is, what diagnostic information it can provide, and what deductions can be made from it. Appeals to those interested in brain activity and its significance—students and practitioners alike. Discusses Berger’s work in a brief historical section. Contains a glossary of terms, bibliography, and an index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Zani, Alberto, and Alice Mado Proverbio, eds. The Cognitive Electrophysiology of Mind and Brain. Boston: Academic Press, 2003. An analysis of the relationship between the brain and the mind, using electrophysiological studies of cognitition to bridge the gap. Bibliographic references and index. See also: 1905: Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography; 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney; July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine.
1929-1940
Maginot Line Is Built The Maginot line was built to defend France from a German invasion. The line itself was effective, but the French strategy failed as a result of the German Blitzkrieg strategy, which allowed the Germans to advance through Belgium and outflank the wall before the French forces could stop them. Locale: French-German border Categories: Engineering; military history; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures André Maginot (1877-1932), French minister of war, 1922-1924, 1929-1932 Paul Painlevé (1863-1933), French minister of war, 1925-1929 Édouard Daladier (1884-1970), premier of France, 1933, 1934, 1938-1940 Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), French undersecretary of state for national defense, 1940, and leader of the Free French government, 1940-1945 Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), commander in chief of the French armies after World War I and minister of war, 1934-1935 Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre (1852-1931), commander in chief of the French armies during World War I Summary of Event The Maginot line was created in the aftermath of the carnage of World War I, but its designers failed to take into account the technical advances of 1918 that had made it 2288
obsolete long before construction began. After November 11, 1918, France began to explore different means of defense against a possibly resurgent Germany. Having lost more young men per capita than any other nation in the war just ended, the French were convinced that without an adequate system of security, they would lose to Germany if war should break out again. The French based their plan on three aims. First, they sought a defensive alliance with Great Britain against Germany. England, however, perceived France as the strongest nation in Western Europe and therefore refused to commit to a Continental ally in the interest of a balance of power. Second, France concluded treaties with nations on Germany’s eastern border including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and—in 1934— the Soviet Union, in order to replace the security of the prewar Franco-Russian alliance. Finally, as a deterrent to Germany, the French signed a defensive alliance with Belgium and then began to construct a system of fortifications along their border with Germany that became known as the Maginot line. The construction of the Maginot line had its genesis in the experience of World War I. Following their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the French had sought as their national goal the reconquest of Alsace and Lorraine from the German Empire. The country’s only strategy for success in 1914 depended on a sustained offensive. As Allied casualties mounted, both British and French trenches were designed to be as uncomfortable as possible to encourage troops to attack. By contrast, the Germans attempted to create both strong and relatively
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attack France. The suggestions were taken up by the two men who served Netherlands el as ministers of war in the 1920’s, gi u André Maginot and Paul Painlevé. Lille m English A sergeant who was wounded in Channel World War I and who served as a Luxembourg Le member of the National Assembly, Luxembourg Rouen Havre Maginot was primarily concerned Se in e with helping veterans obtain beneCaen Paris fits. After he oversaw the occupation Ri of the Ruhr in 1923, however, MagiMaginot Line Strasbourg not became convinced that a fortified Le Mans Orleans line was needed to protect France. During the last nine years of his life, Loire River he worked to convince the French Dijon Bern legislature to vote funds for its conFrance struction using the double themes of Switzerland jobs and patriotism. After Maginot’s Poitiers Geneva death, successive ministers of war Clermontcontinued his work and had the fortiFerrand Lyon fications named in his honor in recI ta ly ognition of his interest and determiPo R i v e r Grenoble nation. Turin Bordeaux In 1930, the Chamber of Deputies Genoa Ga approved the expenditure of 2.9 bilro n lion francs over four years for frontier Avignon defenses, but the undertaking proved Nice Monaco so immense that by 1940 its cost had Toulouse Marseille doubled. Finished shortly before the start of World War II, the Maginot line was a continuous system of advance posts, casemates, and ourages, comfortable positions that could be easily held. After holding between two hundred and twelve hundred men, French mutinies in 1917, the French military commandrunning from Switzerland to Belgium along the entire ers, Marshal Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre and Marshal length of the Franco-German border. Vast underground Philippe Pétain, drew the conclusion that switching to bunkers, cannons that could be raised automatically, and a defensive posture would significantly reduce losses. the most modern equipment were installed. The governThey failed, however, to take into consideration the fact ment made public the existence of the Maginot line, but that new offensive techniques using tanks and mobile innot the details of its armaments, in the hope of convincfantry ultimately overcame Germany’s well-constructed ing the Germans that it would be folly to assault it. defenses. Instead, the French concluded that a future war As a result of the advertisement of its presence, a myth should find France maintaining a defensive position was established about the Maginot line. Most citizens of against an offensive Germany; only then would the odds the republic believed that it ran the entire length of be in France’s favor. France’s eastern border, passing through Belgium to the After World War I, Joffre was appointed head of a English Channel. At the time of the fortification’s conspecial commission to plan the military defense of struction, Belgium was a friendly nation with its own deFrance. Both he and Pétain suggested that a system of fenses on the German border. Pétain foresaw that in the fortifications be constructed along the Franco-German event of war with Germany, the French troops stationed border. These fortresses would be so impenetrable that on the Maginot line would be able to hold the border, while the bulk of the mobile French forces would move the Germans would face great losses if they attempted to B
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Workers plow the earth in preparation for the construction of the Maginot line along France’s eastern border with Germany. (NARA)
into Belgium to help that country hold its lines against the Germans. In 1914, the British had joined France to protect Belgium, and the French believed that the need to do so again might be the only means to gain England’s support in the future. The Maginot line’s strength, it was believed, would invite such a German attack on Belgium. When Belgium signed a pact with Germany in 1939, France’s northern flank became exposed, but few foresaw the weakness that a static defense now posed. In 1940, the Germans both outflanked the Maginot line and split the Allied forces by launching a mobile attack through the Ardennes Forest. Although many Germans marched through France as their fathers had done in 1914, dramatic penetrations were made by Panzer tank units. The success of such an attack had been envisioned as early as 1922 by Major General J. F. C. Fuller and Captain Basil Liddell Hart of Great Britain and warned against by Charles de Gaulle. Much to de Gaulle’s frustration and the country’s detriment, the General Staff failed to take his arguments seriously. After the French garrisons surrendered on June 25, 2290
1940, the Germans made an in-depth study of the Maginot line. Impressed by the small amount of damage wrought by their aerial bombardment, the army used French construction techniques and many of the guns it had seized in the construction of the Atlantic Wall. The Germans converted much of the Maginot line to storage or factory space until the Allied liberation of Europe in June, 1944. At this stage, part of the fortifications at Faulquemont and Wittring were rearmed and successfully slowed the advance of General George S. Patton’s Third U.S. Army. Following the war, the French military began a reconstruction of the line that continued until 1964, when the fortifications were abandoned for defense and parts were opened to tourists and historians. Significance The Maginot line has entered popular lore—along with the Trojan Horse and the invasions of Russia by Napoleon I and Adolf Hitler—as one of the great blunders of military history. The line itself, however, did not fail, nor were the French wrong in predicting that the Germans
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 would storm Belgium and attack France through its Belgian border. The strategy broke down simply because the French had not foreseen the ability of the Germans to advance their tanks so quickly through the Ardennes Forest, which most cartographers and military strategists believed to form a natural defense. The German Blitzkrieg (literally, lightning war) strategy, in which armored divisions advanced as quickly as possible, seizing territory before defenders could forestall them, proved effective: It enabled the German army to get around the line before the French could stop them. Once in the country, moreover, the German troops had a clear path to Paris. Most of France’s mobile forces were in Belgium or on the Belgian border, without an opportunity to place themselves between the invaders and the French capital. — José M. Sánchez and Edmund Dickenson Potter
Hughes addresses how the debate between peace and security created an atmosphere from which the Maginot line was born. Joseph-Maginot, Marguerite. Maginot: He Might Have Saved France. Translated by Allan Updegraff. New York: Doubleday, 1941. This work not only provides a contemporary biography of Maginot but also includes not-so-subtle recriminations for the fall of France shortly after it took place. Kaufmann, J. E., and H. W. Kaufmann. Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2006. Study of the state of French defenses at the beginning of World War II and their failure to defend against the German invasion. Bibliographic references and index. Kemp, Anthony. The Maginot Line: Myth and Reality. New York: Stein & Day, 1982. Kemp provides not only the history of the fortifications construction but also diagrams and photographs that illustrate the immense nature of the project. Further, he follows the history of the Maginot line through the German occupation into the Cold War when France and her neighbor became allies. Rowe, Vivian. The Great Wall of France. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1961. Provides detailed accounts of the battles around the Maginot line and suggests that it was the best defense for France at the time. Weinberg, Gerald L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. This comprehensive work addresses the world war chronologically rather than thematically. See also: Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway; May 10June 22, 1940: Collapse of France.
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Further Reading Chapman, Guy. Why France Fell: The Defeat of the French Army in 1940. New York: Henry Holt, 1968. Chapman examines the fall of France by first studying the victory of 1918 and the mistakes that were made outside the political front involving the military. De Gaulle, Charles. War Memoirs, Vol. I: The Call to Honour, 1940-1942. Translated by Jonathan Griffin. London: Collins, 1955. As the champion of mobile warfare in France before 1940, de Gaulle uses his autobiography to contradict the notion that the Maginot line and a policy of defense were created without protest. Fuller, General J. F. C. The Second World War, 19391945. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948. As an early theorist on mobile warfare and the use of the tank, Fuller brings a unique perspective to the study of the war. Hughes, Judith M. To the Maginot Line: The Politics of French Military Preparation in the 1920’s. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Maginot Line Is Built
All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War
January, 1929 ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN
FRONT Stresses the Futility of War
Written by a participant in World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front, with its vivid descriptions of the horror and waste of armed conflict as well as of the humanity and comradeship of the combatants, became a powerful antiwar statement. Locale: Berlin, Germany Category: Literature Key Figures Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), German author Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), chief propagandist for the Nazi Party in Germany Cyrill Soschka (fl. early twentieth century), German publishing company production manager Jutta Ilse Zambona (1901-1975), German actor and Remarque’s wife Summary of Event In August, 1914, after the longest period of uninterrupted peace in European history up to that time (forty-three years), Germany plunged the world into war. Four years of slaughter brought unheard-of human and material loss. Of all the nations involved, Germany, with 1.8 million dead, suffered the greatest number of casualties. After the war’s end, two general currents of thought emerged in German life and literature. The first promoted militaristic, belligerent, authoritarian beliefs. The second, profoundly pacifistic, denounced militarism and war. A full decade after World War I ended, Erich Maria Remarque, who was destined to become a leading figure of pacifism, published an influential, controversial, and successful novel about trench warfare, written from a German perspective. Im Westen nichts Neues (1929; All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929) is semiautobiographical, recounting many of the author’s experiences as a World War I infantryman. Although christened Erich Paul Remark in 1898, the author changed his name over the years, first substituting his mother’s middle name for his own a year after her death in 1917. In 1920, he published a novel so poorly received that the embarrassment caused him to adopt his great-grandfather’s spelling of the family name. In 1916, when Remarque was an eighteen-year-old student at a teacher’s college, he was drafted; he received military training at the Westerberg barracks in Osnabrück (the “Klosterberg” of All Quiet on the Western Front). In June, 1917, he was assigned to a trench unit 2292
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near the western front and was devastated when a friend whom he had rescued on the battlefield died of head wounds (an incident reflected in the death of the character named Stanislaus Katczinsky in the novel). After another daring rescue, Remarque himself was severely injured by grenade splinters and spent almost a year recuperating. The war changed Remarque forever. He gained an appreciation for the value and fragility of life, saw the futility and destructiveness of war, and became disillusioned with patriotism and the glorification of battle. Against the background of the horrors of combat, civilian life seemed trivial. These attitudes and beliefs were translated into the messages of All Quiet on the Western Front. For the next few years following the war (amid shortages, inflation, unemployment, and extremist politics), Remarque had a difficult time, as did many. He ridiculed the war, wandered from job to job, married, became a
Erich Maria Remarque. (Library of Congress)
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regular in Berlin society, and finally From ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT took a job as an associate editor of a sports magazine. In 1927, Remarque The narrator expresses the relentlessness of battle in this excerpt from Erich began to publish a number of pieces Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front: that reflected his love of cars and Is it nothing that regiment after regiment returns again and again to the ever motor racing. During the latter part more hopeless struggle, that attack follows attack along the weakening, retreatof that year, over a six-week period, ing, crumbling line? All Quiet on the Western Front was From a mockery the tanks have become a terrible weapon. Armoured they written. The manuscript, however, come rolling on in long lines, and more than anything else embody for us the remained in Remarque’s desk for six horror of war. months before he submitted it for We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy inpublication. fantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars At first, publishers were not interrun on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smokeested. Finally, Cyrill Soschka, manbelching armour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and the ager of the production department of wounded—we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal Ullstein Publishers, read the book weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand-grenades matches. and believed that it would be sucShells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks—shattering, starvation, death. cessful. In fact, Soschka threatened Dysentery, influenza, typhus—murder, burning, death. to establish his own firm just to pubTrenches, hospitals, the common grave—there are no other possibilities. lish Remarque’s novel if no one else Source: Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, translated by A. W. would. Wheen (Boston: Little, Brown, 1929). The new war novel was first serialized in a German newspaper owned by Ullstein, Vossische Zeitung, between November 10 and December course of action. To the Nazis, the novel seemed to sym9, 1928. The novel appeared in book form in January, bolize the beliefs of men who had stabbed Germany in 1929, and was translated into English that same year. The the back by conceding defeat in a war the Nazis claimed overnight success of the book astonished everyone, intheir country should have won. cluding Remarque himself, and irrevocably altered the The Nazis tried to undermine Remarque’s popularity course of his life. The previously unknown journalist beby spreading rumors about his credibility, claiming that he came a wealthy, world-famous author. was, among other things, a French Jew (apparently the Remarque claimed that he had not set out to write a worst combination of traits the Nazis could imagine) or an best seller but had written instead to rid himself of the old man who had never seen battle. Leading the attack was bleak moods that he and his friends were still experiencJoseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party’s chief propagandist. ing as a result of the war. He said that the shadow of war In 1931, Remarque published a sequel to All Quiet on had continued to hang over them, especially when they the Western Front based on his and his friends’ experitried to shut their minds to it. Thus, as a kind of cathartic ences after they returned from the front. Titled Der Weg enterprise, the novel tells the story of a generation of zurück (The Road Back, 1931), it further angered the Nayoung men who were destroyed by World War I—even zis. During this period, the author and his first wife, Jutta if they survived the fighting. Remarque narrates the tale Ilse Zambona, a young actor, lived in Berlin. After Nazi through the main character, Paul Bäumer. persecution forced Remarque to leave in 1931, the couAlthough the book was instantly popular, it generated ple divorced in 1932. (They later remarried, but they disuch tremendous controversy in some circles that Revorced again in 1951.) Remarque emigrated to Switzermarque was accused of writing solely to shock and to land, bought a villa at Porto Ronco on Lake Maggiore, sell. Others believed the book was nothing more than and began filling it with valuable antiques; he also spent sentimentalism or pacifistic drivel. a great deal of time in France and the United States, both Ignoring it as a work of literature, the Nazis regarded before and after World War II. the book as an insult to and an attack on the greatness of Remarque’s fame spread as he pursued a glamorthe Germany they wanted to control. Remarque’s ideas ous lifestyle. He hobnobbed with Hollywood stars and were antithetical to the Nazis’ ideology and intended
All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War American authors, enjoyed fine food and expensive clothes, received awards and honors, became an American citizen, married another actor (Paulette Goddard), and even acted in A Time to Love and a Time to Die, the 1958 film version of one of his novels. Through it all, he continued to write, producing eleven novels altogether. Each was written in German but simultaneously translated and published in English, and each developed themes first introduced in All Quiet on the Western Front. Significance The significance of All Quiet on the Western Front lies, first, in the influence it had on European and American thought and, second, in the reaction it generated among the new Nazi leaders of Germany. The novel deeply moved people on both sides of the Atlantic. It was, and still is, a powerful condemnation of war. It touched the hearts and minds of readers, not so much through its literary quality as through the force of its conviction that war is unmitigated waste—a conviction that grew out of Remarque’s experience as a witness to horrible suffering. In the United States, for example, magazine and newspaper reviews immediately hailed Remarque’s work as an updated version of Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War (1895). All Quiet on the Western Front taught its readers that World War I was one of the most terrible catastrophes of all time. At best, World War I reduced the lives of its participants to the level of simple survival. At worst, it reduced human beings to the level of animals. Although some decried the book’s scenes as horrible, it was precisely this graphic realism that made the novel sell. In the first year of publication, German readers alone bought more than one million copies. British, French, and American audiences purchased many hundreds of thousands more. By 1932, the book had been translated into twenty-nine languages. The edition in Afrikaans inspired a flood of “war diaries” about the Second Boer War. The new war novel also made an important impact on the world when it was made into an American motion picture starring Lew Ayres and Lew Wolheim. One of the first films produced after the introduction of sound technology, it became a classic. In 1930, however, the film was banned by the Nazis in Berlin, and that event signaled the start of intense persecution directed at Remarque. Remarque was not the only member of his family to suffer at the hands of the Nazis. All Quiet on the Western 2294
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Front had so poisoned the Nazis against anyone or anything associated with Remarque that in 1943, the author’s younger sister, Elfriede Scholz, was beheaded for spreading subversive propaganda. Reference was made to Remarque during his sister’s trial, and Remarque himself acknowledged that the mere fact that Scholz was his sister had something to do with the verdict. Twenty-five years after Scholz’s death, a street on the outskirts of Osnabrück was named after her. In 1971, one year after the author died, authorities of Osnabrück named a section of road along the town walls the Erich Maria Remarque Ring. In 1933, when the Nazis had taken full control of Germany, both All Quiet on the Western Front and its sequel, The Road Back, were burned by the new regime in the notorious book-burning ceremony in Berlin. (Even before that episode, the two works had been placed on the Nazi index of prohibited literature.) The two novels continued to arouse the ire of totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century; Remarque’s works were banned by the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations in 1949. Soviet authorities feared that the antiwar sentiment of the books might adversely affect Communist youth. Although the Eastern Bloc countries removed the ban on the books in 1962, Remarque’s works were still seen as a powerful argument against the assertion that unquestioned service to the state is the highest aim in life. Latent disapproval of All Quiet on the Western Front by some in Germany finally manifested itself after Remarque’s death in 1970. The weekly journal Der Spiegel published an obituary that managed to omit any mention of Remarque as ever having written a profoundly influential World War I novel. Nevertheless, the public had not forgotten Remarque’s work. By the time of his death, millions of copies of All Quiet on the Western Front had been sold, and many more have been sold since. The continuing widespread popularity of the novel testifies to the timelessness of its message, and the book’s depiction of the horror and futility of war has continued to exert a powerful impact on readers. —Andrew C. Skinner Further Reading Barker, Christine R., and R. W. Last. Erich Maria Remarque. London: Oswald Wolff, 1979. Offers a thorough yet concise history of the man and his work. Places his novels in historical context and devotes special attention to Remarque’s first major success. Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. 25th anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 2000. Prizewinning book explores the literary sources and means by which the British experience on the western front has been remembered. Contains only a few explicit references to Remarque’s work, but helps to place it in the context of the whole literary culture that centered on World War I and allows readers to compare the experiences of different nationalities in the trenches. O’Neill, Terry, ed. Readings on “All Quiet on the Western Front.” San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Collection of essays by various authors provides a number of different perspectives on Remarque’s novel. Intended to help students understand the work more fully. Owen, C. R. Erich Maria Remarque: A Critical BioBibliography. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984. Each chapter of this informative biography is accompanied by an annotated bibliography of books and articles about Remarque and all of his published writings. Represents one of the most complete bibliographies available. Most titles are in German, but the annotations are in English. An essential tool for scholarly research.
Trotsky Is Sent into Exile Schwarz, Wilhelm J. War and the Mind of Germany. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1975. A collection of five short scholarly essays, three of which discuss the life and work of Remarque. Presents comparisons between Remarque’s World War I novel and the writings of German authors Ernst Junger and Theodor Plievier. One essay discusses Remarque’s World War II novels. Tims, Hilton. Erich Maria Remarque: The Last Romantic. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. Biography details Remarque’s literary career but in large part focuses on his life in the United States after 1939, when he was romantically involved with a number of film stars. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Wagener, Hans. Understanding Erich Maria Remarque. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991. Useful introduction to Remarque’s works includes analyses of his major novels, a chronology of his life, and an annotated bibliography. See also: June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I; Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne; 1921-1923: Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment.
January, 1929
Trotsky Is Sent into Exile Leon Trotsky was sent into exile, putting an end to significant opposition within the Soviet Communist Party to Joseph Stalin’s personal rule and his establishment of a totalitarian state. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Category: Government and politics
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Key Figures Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), Russian revolutionary leader and Soviet politician Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), Russian revolutionary leader and creator and first leader of the Communist Party Lev Borisovich Kamenev (Lev Borisovich Rosenfeld; 1883-1936), Bolshevik leader Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky; 1883-1936), Bolshevik leader
Summary of Event Both Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Ilich Lenin played important parts in the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. Like Lenin, Trotsky may have been indispensable. No one agitated more effectively among the working classes to bring them to the side of the Bolsheviks and no one showed more skill and determination in organizing them into a military force capable of winning power in Petrograd in 1917. No one stood more steadfastly beside Lenin in the crucial days of October, when several of the leading Bolsheviks opposed the leader’s decision to try to seize power. In the summer and fall of 1917, the special talents that Trotsky possessed—energy, determination, ruthlessness, and flaming oratory—found a situation in which they could be most effective. In the hard days of the civil war (1918-1921), Trotsky’s abilities and courage once again served the Bolsheviks well. It was he who, as people’s commissar of war, organized and directed the Red Army. In less than one year, by the force of his will and intelligence, he transformed an undisciplined group of youthful enthusi-
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a traitor to the revolution rather than one of its principal leaders. In a 1932 speech delivered from exile in Copenhagen, “In Defense of OctoAfter the death of Lenin in 1924, ber,” Trotsky reached a visionary conclusion: Trotsky lost the struggle for power in a personality clash with Stalin in which Only a powerful increase in productive force and a sound, planned, that is, fateful aspects of Soviet Communist socialist organisation of production and distribution can assure humanity— policy were thrashed out. Should the all humanity—of a decent standard of life and at the same time give it the party continue the semicapitalistic New precious feeling of freedom with respect to its own economy. Economic Policy (NEP) within the SoFreedom in two senses—first of all man will no longer be compelled to viet Union? Should it govern democratdevote the greater part of his life to physical toil. Second, he will no longer ically or dictatorially? Should it stake be dependent on the laws of the market, that is, on the blind and obscure forces which work behind his back. . . . all on the victory of world revolution, or Man calls himself the crown of creation. He has a certain right to that should it try to consolidate “socialism” aim. But who has asserted that present day man is the last and highest reprein the Soviet Union? These were the sentative of the species Homo Sapiens? No, physically as well as spiritually policy questions intertwined with the he is very far from perfection, prematurely born biologically, with feeble struggle for personal power. Between thought, and has not produced any new organic equilibrium. 1923 and 1925, Trotsky tried to turn the It is true that humanity has more than once brought forth giants of party away from the NEP to a policy of thought and action, who tower over their contemporaries like summits in a collectivization of the peasants and maschain of mountains. The human race has a right to be proud of its Aristotle, sive industrialization. Stalin, with the Shakespeare, Darwin, Beethoven, Goethe, Marx, Edison and Lenin. But help of important Bolsheviks, such as why are they so rare? Lev Borisovich Kamenev and Grigory Above all, because almost without exception they came out of the middle and upper classes. Apart from rare exceptions, the sparks of genius in the Yevseyevich Zinovyev, and with oversuppressed depths of the people are choked before they can burst into flame. whelming support among the mass of But also because the processes of creating, developing and educating a party members, brought about Trotshuman being have been and remain essentially a matter of chance, not illuky’s defeat on this issue in the Party minated by theory and practice, not subjected to consciousness and will. . . . Congresses of 1923 and 1924. FeelOnce he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society man will set ing against Trotsky ran so high that to work on himself, in the pestle and retort of the chemist. For the first time Kamenev and Zinovyev at a Central mankind will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psyCommittee meeting in January, 1925, chic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of demanded his expulsion from the party, necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, but Stalin, still unsure of himself, rewith all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new jected their proposal. Trotsky was and happier race. merely forced to give up his post as people’s commissar of war. By mid-1925, however, Kamenev asts into an organized, disciplined army. He also tireand Zinovyev became alarmed at Stalin’s demonstrated lessly and ruthlessly directed that army in its struggle to strength in the rank and file. They now saw him as a the death against both the White Russians’ counterrevogreater threat to their positions in the party than Trotsky, lution and foreign intervention. The Bolsheviks might whom they, like many others, had suspected of a dictatonot have survived the civil war and the Red regime might rial tendency. Moreover, they had come to believe that it have been merely a passing phenomenon in world hiswas time to abandon the NEP. Accordingly, they joined tory without Trotsky, but only ten short years later he forces with Trotsky as he once again called for a rapid bebecame an outcast, exiled from his native land by the ginning of collectivization and industrialization. They Communist Party he had done so much to defend and also fought for the restoration of democracy in the party, perpetuate. His victorious rival, Joseph Stalin, rewrote which Stalin—as head of the Orgburo, which made party history to conceal Trotsky’s important role in the personnel decisions, and of the Secretariat, which conBolshevik seizure of power and victory in the civil war. trolled the party’s records and conducted all correspondence between Moscow and local party organizations— Trotsky virtually became an “unperson” in the Soviet had transformed into a centrally directed, bureaucratic Union, remembered only for the false charge that he was
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 machine. They also fought for an active Communist role in international affairs against Stalin’s doctrine of “Socialism in one country.” At the Party Congress in December, 1925, Stalin and his supporters easily overcame this opposition group. Defeated in the higher echelons of the party, Trotsky returned to the fray in 1926 and 1927, but in a different way. He tried to reach the rank and file by speeches, articles, and pamphlets and by the surreptitious organization of an opposition faction. Such oppositional activity had been banned by the Tenth Party Congress in March, 1921. Trotsky’s violation of the rule against factions led in October, 1926, to Trotsky’s expulsion from the Politburo, the leading policy-making organ of the party, the last bastion of his strength after his defeats in the Party Congresses of 1923-1925. His acts ran counter to the party’s deep need and desire for unity and eroded rather than increased his strength. Trotsky’s last attempt to regain power came in October, 1927, on the anniversary of the revolution. He mounted public parades and demonstrations against Stalin and the party leadership. These pathetic efforts were easily crushed by Stalin’s loyal followers, and in December, 1927, at the Fifteenth Party Congress, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinovyev, and seventy-five of their most
prominent followers were expelled from the party. In a prophetic act, Stalin allowed the “guilty” to return to the womb of the party if they would publicly recant their errors. Kamenev, Zinovyev, and numerous others did so. Trotsky refused, and he was exiled, first to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan, and then—in January of 1929—out of the Soviet Union altogether. Significance Trotsky lived on in exile, the center of forces opposing Stalin in world Communism, and the source of many polemical writings against the regime. Not content with the physical expulsion of Trotsky from the Soviet Union, Stalin sought to erase all memory of Trotsky’s vital role in the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War. Soviet history books were rewritten to misrepresent the roles of both Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky was falsely accused of opposing Lenin in 1917 and of secretly working for the defeat of Communism in the civil war, while Stalin was given credit for Trotsky’s achievements. This falsification of history reached its height in Stalin’s Great Purge of 1936-1938, when thousands of Stalin’s former opponents, including Zinovyev and Kamenev, were imprisoned or executed on trumped-up charges of trying to sabotage the building of socialism in Russia in collaboration with Trotsky. The exiled Trotsky was hounded by Soviet agents until 1940, when Stalin’s assassins killed him. —George F. Putnam and Richard D. King Further Reading Carr, E. H. Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926. 3 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1958-1964. A detailed investigation of the personal and policy struggles in the period following Lenin’s death. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 19211929. New York: Verso, 2003. The second volume of a sympathetic three-volume biography, this book recounts the power struggles of the 1920’s. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. An introduction to the first two decades of Soviet history that effectively brings out Stalin’s and Trotsky’s different programs for building socialism. Knei-Paz, Baruch. The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1978. A comprehensive analysis of Trotsky’s writings, with particular emphasis on Trotsky’s interpretation of Stalinism. Renton, Dave. Trotsky. London: Haus, 2004. Short monograph on the life, work, and politics of Trotsky and his effects on Soviet history. 2297
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Leon Trotsky. (NARA)
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Lateran Treaty Trotsky, Leon. My Life: An Attempt at Autobiography. Magnolia, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1930. Trotsky wrote this autobiography, which has been reissued several times, immediately after his exile from the Soviet Union in 1929. Tucker, Robert C. Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929: A Study in History and Personality. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973. This study of Stalin’s rise to power offers a psychological interpretation of his rivalry with Trotsky. Volkogonov, Dmitri. Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. Translated and edited by Harold Shukman. New York: Free Press, 1996. Written by a retired Soviet
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 general who has also published books on Lenin and Stalin, this is the first biography of Trotsky based on access to Soviet as well as Western archives. See also: Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; Oct. 3, 1908: First Issue of Pravda Appears; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution; Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials.
February 11, 1929
Lateran Treaty The Lateran Treaty settled the question of the relationship between the Vatican and the government of Italy, which had seized the formerly independent Papal States in 1870. The treaty made Vatican City a sovereign state separate from Italy, and it instituted Roman Catholicism as the Italian state religion. Also known as: Lateran treaties; Lateran Pact of 1929; Lateran Pacts of 1929; Lateran Accords Locale: Rome, Italy Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition; religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Fascist premier of Italy, 1922-1943 Pietro Gasparri (1852-1934), Roman Catholic cardinal, 1907-1934, and papal secretary of state, 1914-1930 Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti; 18571939), Roman Catholic pope, 1922-1939 Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947), king of Italy, r. 1900-1946 Domenico Barone (fl. early twentieth century), Italian diplomat Francesco Pacelli (fl. early twentieth century), papal diplomat Summary of Event When the army of the new Italian state took the city of Rome from the papacy in 1870, Pope Pius IX retreated to 2298
the Vatican palace and proclaimed himself “prisoner of the Vatican.” Alleging that the Italian government had usurped lands that were the heritage of the Roman Catholic Church, he condemned the government and refused to have anything to do with it. The pope hoped that his condemnation would rally pro-papal forces to overthrow the Italian state and restore him to his temporal possessions. He furthermore prohibited Catholics, by threat of excommunication, from running or holding office in the national government or voting in state parliamentary elections, hoping that their abstention would also weaken the government. Instead, the Italian government flourished and, in the absence of Catholic deputies, passed anticlerical legislation. Successive governments, however, respected papal possession of the Vatican palace and Saint Peter’s Basilica and offered the papacy a Law of Guarantees, guaranteeing the pope residence at the Vatican and a large sum of money. The pope rejected this offer because acceptance would mean the Vatican would exist as charity of the state and imply that the pope served under allegiance to the state. After 1870, despite official unwillingness on both sides to solve the so-called Roman Question—an expression referring to the politico-religious conflict between the papacy and the kingdom of Italy—a tacit understanding was worked out between the papacy and the state. Neither interfered in the other’s affairs, but the underlying conflict between church and state still existed as a constant strain to the whole country in a time that witnessed political unrest throughout the world and the
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win them over to his side. He maintained the monarchy, assuring King Austria Switzerland Victor Emmanuel III that he had no Hungary intention of overthrowing the Italian a i n ve royal house. In order to gain the supo Ser Sl port of both the papacy and the CathCroatia Milan olics, he announced his desire to setVenice Turin tle the Roman Question. Mussolini’s Genoa Bosniaseizure of power coincided with the Bologna Ravenna Herzegovina ce election of Pius XI as pope. When San Pisa Marino Mussolini made public his desire Leghorn Florence to work with the papacy, Pius cauMonterian Sea tiously proceeded to cooperate with u negro g Italy Adriatic Li Mussolini in an effort to ward off a Sea Corsica mutual foe of the Vatican and Mus(france) Rome solini: communism. In 1926, the two leaders made seVatican cret preliminary contacts for negotiCity Bari Naples ation of the problem. The pope selected Francesco Pacelli, brother of Ty r r h e n i a n the future Pope Pius XII, as his envoy, and Mussolini directed the ItalSea ian diplomat Domenico Barone to represent him in the talks. Early in 1929, agreement was reached, and Ionian Palermo the Lateran Treaty was officially Stra signed on February 11, 1929, by Sea it Algeria of Sicily Mussolini and the papal secretary of Si ci state, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri. ly Tunisia The Lateran Treaty contained three separate sections (and is therefore sometimes referred to as the Lateran treaties, or the Lateran Pacts): threat of communism at Italy’s border. With the excepa treaty, a financial agreement, and a concordat. The tion of extreme clericals, both sides wanted to effect a first was an agreement between the Italian state and the compromise settlement of the Roman Question, but it was Vatican. By its terms, Italy recognized the Vatican as a a matter of prestige that neither side be the first to give in. separate and sovereign state with all the attributes of an Early in the twentieth century, the papacy began to lift independent nation. Italy, furthermore, recognized its the ban on Catholic participation in national political life. usurpation of papal lands in 1870 by compensating the In 1919, it was completely removed to allow the formapapacy for its loss of temporal possessions. A cash settletion of the Catholic-oriented Popular Party, led by Sicilment of forty million dollars was paid to the pope along ian priest Don Luigi Sturzo. The Popular Party origiwith another fifty-two million dollars of interest-bearing nated with the hope of propagating faith in the Church Italian government bonds. In return, the Vatican recogamong the Italian people, for the pope knew that no annized the Italian government. swer to the Roman Question could be settled by treaty Under the terms of the concordat between the Italian alone. state and the Holy See, the anticlerical laws were forIn 1922, Benito Mussolini, leader of the Fascist Party, mally revoked. The Catholic religion was to be taught in was named prime minister, and he set out to establish a all state schools, and Catholicism was proclaimed the ofdictatorship. In the process, Mussolini was anxious to ficial religion of the state. The clergy were given a generally favorable position in civil law. In return, the Italian reconcile with conservative groups and institutions to F r an
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1939, Pius was considerably disenchanted with the Fascist regime. Not even all initial reactions to the signing of the treaty were positive. Anti-Laterans were as strongly opposed to the treaty as supporters highly exalted Pius and Mussolini. The issue of equality between the pope and the state was called into question by Americans and Europeans who viewed the treaty as an opportunistic maneuver by Mussolini and believed that the pope lost prestige for the Church by compromising with a political power whose beliefs were opposed to human rights and religious devotion. Opponents of the Benito Mussolini (center) and other Italian government officials pay their first state Lateran agreements, then, hated the visit to Vatican City after the signing of the Lateran Treaty. (NARA) implied surrender to Fascism that the treaty invoked rather than the settlement itself. government obtained the privilege of nominating candiAlthough the Lateran Treaty dealt primarily with the dates for the higher clerical positions in Italy. sovereign relations of the Holy See with the government of Italy, it was consistent with an effort by the Church to restore its rights to minister to the faithful through a seSignificance ries of agreements and concordats with the anticlerical The announcement of the signing of the treaty immedigovernments of European countries that had been hostile ately raised Mussolini’s prestige both in Italy and to Roman Catholicism. The Lateran Treaty was essenthroughout the Catholic world. Hailed for having solved tially respected by the various governments of the Italian one of the world’s outstanding diplomatic problems, state throughout the confusion of the war years: In 1948, Mussolini transformed his international image from that it was officially incorporated into the constitution of the of a violent Blackshirt to a wise and compassionate new Italian Republic and remained in force until 1984, statesman. Pius also garnered prestige for recognizing when Catholicism ceased to be the state religion of Italy. that the necessity of papal temporal possessions did not With regard to peace and mutual understanding, howrequire large amounts of territory: Vatican City was one ever, the treaty barely survived its birth in 1929. of the smallest nations in history. — José M. Sánchez and Diane Lise Hendrix The Lateran Treaty was, however, the prelude to further disagreement between the pope and Mussolini. The Further Reading concordat had specifically guaranteed Catholic lay orgaBrendon, Piers. “The Duce and the Pope.” In The Dark nizations freedom to function in Italy. One of these sociValley: A Panorama of the 1930’s. London: Jonathan eties, the Italian Catholic Action, soon became a refuge Cape, 2000. Discussion of the Lateran Treaty and the for anti-Fascist elements, who used the organization to relationship between Mussolini and Pius XI; part of a criticize the regime. Mussolini sent his Blackshirts to massive volume surveying the international sociobreak up Catholic Action meetings, and the pope reeconomic and political situation and developments of sponded in 1931 by condemning Fascism in the encyclical the 1930’s. Bibliographic references and index. Non abbiamo bisogno. After threats and counterthreats, DeGrand, Alexander J. “Cracks in the Facade: The Failure the state and the papacy reached a tacit agreement: Cathof Fascist Totalitarianism in Italy 1935-1939.” Euroolic Action would no longer criticize the regime, and in pean History Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1991): 515-535. Dereturn it would be allowed full freedom to operate outscribes weaknesses in Benito Mussolini’s Fascist reign side this restriction. The pope thereafter maintained a that made it impossible for totalitarianism to survive. discreet caution toward Mussolini, and when he died in 2300
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Drake, Richard. “Julius Evola, Radical Fascism, and the Lateran Accords.” Catholic Historical Review 74, no. 3 (1988): 403-419. A profile of anti-Lateran Julius Evola that critiques the Catholic Church and discusses the complexity of Fascism. Knee, Stuart E. “The Strange Alliance: Mussolini, Pope Pius XI, and the Lateran Treaty.” Mediterranean Historical Review 5, no. 2 (1990): 183-206. The Lateran Accords sought to end antagonism between the Italian state and the papacy. Optimism following the agreement did not last long. Discussion of Fascist and papal motivations behind the Vatican Treaty. O’Brien, Albert C. “Italian Youth in Conflict: Catholic Action and Fascist Italy, 1929-1931.” Catholic Historical Review 68, no. 4 (1982): 624-635. Discusses
Valentine’s Day Massacre the conflict and competition between the Catholic Church and Italian Fascists for control of Italian youth. Rhodes, Anthony. The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. An in-depth look at the motivations behind initiation of the Vatican Treaty and the consequences for church and state after signing the treaty. See also: Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope; Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914: Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia; May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope.
February 14, 1929
Valentine’s Day Massacre When George “Bugs” Moran’s gang was executed by a group of men dressed as police officers in a garage in North Chicago, Al Capone was believed to be behind the hit, and the event marked the beginning of the end of Capone’s reign as Chicago crime czar. The massacre sparked a wave of reforms that helped to dismantle Capone’s empire. Also known as: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Crime and scandal; social issues and reform
Summary of Event During Prohibition, Chicago’s Beer Wars were at the forefront of the national imagination. For years the city had been turned into a battleground. Dean O’Banion ruled the North Side, and Al “Scarface” Capone and Johnny Torrio had the South Side. O’Banion was killed in 1924 by Frankie Yale, John Scalise, and Albert Anselmi, gunners for Capone, and Torrio was killed the following year by North Siders Earl “Hymie” Weiss, Vincent “The Schemer” Drucci, and George “Bugs” Moran. Soon after, Weiss, Drucci, and Moran made an attempt on Capone’s life. They failed, and Weiss later died at the hands of two Capone gunmen; Drucci was killed by a young cop. Eventually, Moran was the only one of O’Banion’s men left, and he took over the North Side operation. Moran swore an eternal vendetta against Capone, who had long been desperate to have control of the North Side as well as the South Side. While on vacation at his home in Palm Island, Florida, in early 1929, Capone received word that Moran’s gunners had killed several of his top lieutenants. What happened next would become the source of a great deal of speculation. Capone was the logical person 2301
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Key Figures Al Capone (1899-1947), leader of Chicago’s South Side gang George Moran (1893-1957), leader of Chicago’s North Side gang Jack McGurn (1905-1936), Chicago gangster and lieutenant to Moran Frank Gusenberg (1893-1929), Chicago gangster and lieutenant to Moran Pete Gusenberg (1889-1929), Chicago gangster and lieutenant to Moran Adam Heyer (1889-1929), Chicago gangster and lieutenant to Moran John May (1894-1929), Chicago gangster and lieutenant to Moran Al Weinshank (1893-1929), Chicago gangster and lieutenant to Moran
Albert Kachellek (1890-1929), Chicago gangster and Moran’s brother-in-law Dean O’Banion (1892-1924), leader of Chicago’s North Side gang Abe Bernstein (d. 1968), leader of Detroit’s Purple Gang
Valentine’s Day Massacre on whom to pin any attack against the North Siders, and many believed that he had ordered a hit on Moran’s entire gang. According to this theory, Capone made contact from Florida with Abe Bernstein, leader of Detroit’s Purple Gang. Capone and Bernstein concocted an elaborate scheme that involved placing a call to Bugs Moran. Bernstein probably placed the call—according to reports, he had somehow worked his way into Moran’s good graces—and reported that a recently hijacked shipment of bonded whiskey was being sold at a cheap price. Moran jumped at the chance to get hold of the whiskey and told the caller to have the shipment delivered to his headquarters—a garage on Chicago’s North Side—the next day. On the morning of February 14, 1929, the day after the alleged call was placed to Moran, Moran’s gangsters assembled at his headquarters. The garage, which was located at 2122 North Clark Street and owned by Moran stooge Adam “Frank” Heyer, was a front and had a phony sign in the window that said “S.M.C. Cartage Company.” There were seven men present at the garage: Heyer; Frank and Pete Gusenberg, Moran’s top gunners; safe blower John May; speakeasy owner Albert Wein-
Al Capone. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 shank; bank robber Albert Kachellek (also known as James Clarke); and Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer, an optometrist who liked to hang around with gangsters for excitement and probably used his business as a cover for criminal activities. The men were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Bugs Moran, who was traveling with two other members of the gang, Willie Marks and Ted Newbury, and was late. When Moran, Marks, and Newbury arrived at the garage, they saw a black Cadillac—the type that detectives used at the time—pulled up to the curb. Figuring that the cops had been tipped to the shipment of whiskey, Moran, Marks, and Newbury retreated to a nearby coffee shop. Inside the garage, men dressed as police officers lined the seven members of Moran’s gang up against the wall and shot them to death. Neighbors heard the racket, but minutes later those who had come outside to see what was happening witnessed two cops putting two men in plainclothes into the back of the Cadillac. Relieved because they believed the police were already there, none of the neighbors called the police. What they did not realize, of course, was that the men they had seen were not real cops. John May’s dog had been left howling in the garage, and a landlady from a nearby building, annoyed by the dog’s whining, sent one of her boarders to investigate. The boarder found the dead men and called the police, who were surprised to find the dead men’s large rolls of cash intact. The motive, then, was clearly slaughter. All but one of the men—Frank Gusenberg—died on the spot. Gusenberg was taken to a nearby hospital, where he obeyed the gangster’s code of silence and refused to say who had shot him. Different reports indicate that his dying words were either “Nobody shot me” or “I’m not gonna talk.” It was assumed that Capone had ordered the hit in retaliation for Moran’s strike against his gang. Moran, disobeying the same code of silence that Frank Gusenberg had upheld, openly pinned the massacre on Capone. Outof-town gunman Fred “Killer” Burke and John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, and Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, top Capone hit men, were popularly regarded as part of the extermination posse but were never convicted of the crime. Capone denied any involvement in the hit and played on Moran’s comments, suggesting that only Moran himself would commit those types of murders. Reports varied widely, but certain versions of the story recount that two of the killers were identified by a teenager walking past Moran’s headquarters on the morning of the shooting. Supposedly, the teen identified
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 McGurn and Burke, but no one was convicted. In any case, after all the attention that the slaughter had drawn to Capone and his gang, McGurn faded from the public eye. Capone insisted that he stay out of sight, and McGurn was killed in 1936, on the eve of the anniversary of the Valentine’s Day Massacre. He was shot to death with machine guns in a bowling alley by two men who, legend has it, were all that was left of Bugs Moran’s gang. Of course, much of the information surrounding the Valentine’s Day Massacre was speculative, and conjecture about the issues often became legend. Later information, however, suggested that Capone’s gang may not have committed the carnage. In their 2004 book titled The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone, William J. Helmer and Arthur J. Bilek assert that much of the evidence points to a crew from St. Louis, known to Capone’s Italian mob as the American Boys, as the perpetrators of the massacre.
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Scarface and Free Enterprise Al Capone once proudly said, I make my money by supplying a public demand. If I break the law, my customers, who number hundreds of the best people in Chicago, are as guilty as I am. The only difference is that I sell and they buy. Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself a businessman. In 1930, British journalist Claud Cockburn interviewed Capone. Cockburn asked what Capone would have done if he had not become a gangster and related Capone’s reply: “[S]elling newspapers barefoot on the street in Brooklyn.” He stood up as he spoke, cooling his finger-tips in the rose bowl in front of him. He sat down again, brooding and sighing. Despite the ham-and-corn, what he said was quite probably true and I said so, sympathetically. A little bit too sympathetically, as immediately emerged, for as I spoke I saw him looking at me suspiciously, not to say censoriously. My remarks about the harsh way the world treats barefoot boys in Brooklyn were interrupted by an urgent angry waggle of his podgy hand. “Listen,” he said, “don’t get the idea I’m one of these goddam radicals. Don’t get the idea I’m knocking the American system. The American system. . . .” As though an invisible chairman had called upon him for a few words, he broke into an oration upon the theme. He praised freedom, enterprise, and the pioneers. He spoke of “our heritage.” He referred with contemptuous disgust to Socialism and Anarchism. “My rackets,” he repeated several times, “are run on strictly American lines and they’re going to stay that way.” His vision of the American system began to excite him profoundly and now he was on his feet again, leaning across the desk like the chairman of a board meeting, his fingers plunged in the rose bowls. “This American system of ours,” he shouted, “call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.” He held out his hand towards me, the fingers dripping a little, and stared at me sternly for a few seconds before reseating himself.
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Significance It is believed that Al Capone ordered Source: Claud Cockburn, In Time of Trouble: An Autobiography (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956). the death of five hundred men in Chicago and that more than a thousand people died in his bootleg wars, but there was never enough evidence to ushered in a wave of violence in the Midwest that carried convince authorities that he was behind the Valentine’s on well into the years of the Great Depression. UltiDay Massacre. In 1934, Capone went to prison for tax mately, the popular image of the public enemy was evasion; the public, convinced that he had been responsilargely drawn from Capone, and the massacre at Moran’s ble for the massacre, had long called for his imprisonNorth Side headquarters clearly showed how gangsters ment. Paroled in 1939, Capone lived out his final years dealt with one another. Like so many gangster stories, the at his Palm Island estate off the coast of Miami, altale of what happened at the garage on Clark Street conthough by this time he was a mental and physical wreck. tinued to capture the public imagination. His body was ravaged by syphilis, which he had con—William Boyle tracted years before, and he died in 1947 at the age of forty-eight. No matter who was behind it, the Valentine’s Day Further Reading Massacre certainly signaled the beginning of the end of Helmer, William J., and Arthur J. Bilek. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the GangCapone’s reign as Chicago’s crime czar. The event also
League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded land Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2004. Challenges the assumption that Al Capone ordered the annihilation of Moran’s gang. Keefe, Rose. The Man Who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story—A Biography. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2005. In-depth look at the life of North Side gang leader Moran. Tells about the decline of Moran’s gangland power after his top men were killed in the Valentine’s Day Massacre. Ruth, David E. Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918-1934. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Looks at Al Capone and other “invented” gangsters of the 1920’s and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1930’s and explores the role that they play in the American imagination. Schoenberg, Robert J. Mr. Capone. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Biography of Al Capone that traces his life from his boyhood in Brooklyn, New York, through his years as leader of the Chicago underworld, his imprisonment on charges of tax evasion, and his early death from syphilis. See also: Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition; Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde.
February 17, 1929
League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded One of the oldest Hispanic advocacy organizations joined different Latino groups in a cohesive front, creating the League of United Latin American Citizens. The group stressed acculturation and working to gain acceptance for Hispanics in the United States, and it worked especially hard to raise the level of education of the Hispanic community. Also known as: LULAC Locale: Corpus Christi, Texas Categories: Civil rights and liberties; education; organizations and institutions Key Figures Ben Garza (1892-1937), leader of the Sons of America Alonso S. Perales (1899-1960), leader of the League of Latin American Citizens José de la Luz Sáenz (1888-1953), delegate to the first LULAC convention Juan B. Lozano (fl. early twentieth century), delegate to the first LULAC convention José Tomás Canales (1877-1976), member of the League of Latin American Citizens Summary of Event The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was formed in order to unite all Latin American organizations in the United States under one title. In 1927, the main Latin American groups were the Sons of America, the Knights of America, and the League of Latin American Citizens; other, less well known, groups existed as 2304
well. The Sons of America had councils in Sommerset, Pearsall, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio, Texas; the Knights of America had a council in San Antonio; the League of Latin American Citizens had councils in Harlingen, Brownsville, Laredo, Peñitas, La Grulla, McAllen, and Gulf, Texas. As more Anglo-Americans moved into Texas, persons of Spanish or Mexican descent experienced open discrimination and segregation that placed them in the position of second-class citizens. They had been under the rule of six different countries before Texas entered the Union. Most had continued to live and work as they always had, without being assertive about their rights. As time progressed, however, many Hispanics found that prejudice and discrimination were becoming less tolerable. Groups began to form to give more weight to requests that these practices cease. The Sons of America Council No. 4 in Corpus Christi, led by Ben Garza, originated a unification plan, believing that if all Hispanic organizations would regroup into one strong, unified, and vocal organization, more attention would be brought to the plight of those who were being discriminated against. On August 14, 1927, delegates from the Sons of America, the Knights of America, and smaller groups met in Harlingen, Texas, to form LULAC. The resolution that was presented was adopted by those in the meeting. It was expected that the leaders of the major groups—Alonso S. Perales, José de la Luz Sáenz, José Tomás Canales, and Juan B. Lozano of the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas—would be invited by the presi-
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surer general. George Washington’s prayer was adopted from the ritual of the Sons of America, and the U.S. flag was adopted as the group’s official flag. Significance The new group set about working to remove injustices that had been building for many years. LULAC was chartered in 1931 under the laws of the state of Texas and later in New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado, as other councils were formed. LULAC began issuing LULAC Notes, but in August, 1931, the first issue of LULAC News was published. In the formative years, auxiliaries were started by women whose husbands were active LULAC members. Between 1937 and 1938, junior LULAC councils were formed under the sponsorship of adult councils. In 1940, LULAC councils peaked, but with the beginning of World War II, the councils weakened with the departure of the men to military service. In 1945 and 1946, LULAC began to make great strides, as educated, trained men returned from service. Prestigious positions were filled by Hispanics, and discrimination lessened. Non-Hispanics joined as well, and LULAC moved toward achieving its objectives. When the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s began, other Hispanic groups with a more militant response to discrimination began to form. Leaders such as the charismatic preacher Reies López Tijerina in New Mexico and Rodolfo Gonzalez in Denver marched in protest of the treatment Hispanics were receiving. César Chávez led farmworker groups in California on peaceful marches that frequently erupted into violent confrontations as the numbers of militant members rose. LULAC did not totally support all these movements. Its members preferred mediation to resolve serious disagreements and education for all Hispanics as better ways of blending peacefully into the U.S. mainstream. LULAC evolved to stress education especially. Parents were encouraged to prepare their children well to enter school. English was encouraged as the primary language, Spanish as the second language. As students matured, they were encouraged to finish high school and enter college. For those who aspired to higher learning, LULAC sponsored many scholarships; it also offered other forms of financial aid and counseling. LULAC Education Centers, located in urban centers, provided this help. With corporate and federal aid, these centers made it possible for disadvantaged Hispanic American youth to become productive members of their American communities. —Norma Crews 2305
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dent general of the Sons of America to begin the unification process. In response to concerns about the merger expressed by some members, Council No. 4 of the Sons of America drafted an agreement between itself and the Knights of America to unite. These two groups waited a year for the merger to be completed. Perales, president general of the Latin American League, stayed in close contact with Garza to maintain interest in the merger among the three main groups. However, the president general of the Sons of America never called the convention. After a long wait, Council No. 4 withdrew from the Sons of America on February 7, 1929. Participants at this meeting again voted to have a general convention for the purpose of unification. Invitations were sent to all the groups to meet in Corpus Christi, Texas, to vote on the merger on February 17, 1929. Along with interested members of the Hispanic groups, Douglas Weeks, a professor at the University of Texas, attended not only to study the merger but also to open the convention as a nonaligned attendee. Ben Garza was elected chairman pro tem. His popularity as an energetic and fair civic leader made him a good spokesperson for the new group. The assembly had to choose a chairman, plan a single constitution, and select a name that would encompass the goals of the previously separate groups. The committee chosen to select a name included Juan Solis and Mauro Machado of the Knights of America, Perales and Canales of the Latin American League, E. N. Marin and A. de Luna of Corpus Christi, and Fortunio Treviño of Alice, Texas. Machado, of the Knights of America, proposed “United Latin American Citizens.” This was amended to read “League of United Latin American Citizens,” which was seconded by Canales. On February 17, 1929, LULAC formally came into being at Corpus Christi, Texas. The naming committee undertook other proposals before coming back to the general convention. Canales proposed the motto “All for one and one for all” as a reminder of the purpose of the groups in uniting and as a basis for their future activities. The committee also set some basic rules to guide the league until a constitutional convention could be held. This convention was called for May 18 and 19, 1929, with an executive committee made up of Garza, M. C. Gonzales as secretary, and Canales and Sáenz as members at large. On May 18, the first meeting under the new title was called. The constitution proposed by Canales was adopted, and new officers were elected. The officers were Garza, president general; Gonzales, vice president general; de Luna, secretarygeneral; and Louis C. Wilmot of Corpus Christi, trea-
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First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement Further Reading De la Garza, Rodolfo O., ed. Ignored Voices: Public Opinion Polls and the Latino Community. Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin Press, 1987. Argues that the opinions of Hispanic people were virtually ignored, politically and otherwise, except in heavily Hispanic communities. Garcia, F. Chris, ed. Latinos and the Political System. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Discusses some of the political problems that prompted the formation of organizations such as LULAC. Garcia, Mario T. Mexican-Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930-1960. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989. A thorough treatise on Hispanic assimilation into the mainstream of U.S. business and community. Kaplowitz, Craig A. LULAC, Mexican Americans, and National Policy. College Station: Texas A&M Uni-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 versity Press, 2005. A study of the history of LULAC in relation to the larger history of Mexian American advocacy and activism in the twentieth century. Bibliographic references and index. Mirande, Alfredo. The Chicano Experience: An Alternative Perspective. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985. A view into the life of the less accepted Hispanic, the Chicano. Gives information on La Raza, a more militant group representing Hispanics of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Shorris, Earl. Latinos: A Biography of the People. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. A collection of information on Hispanics in the United States, and a general overview of those Hispanics who immigrated and settled during the 1900’s. See also: May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act; May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol; Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy.
May 16, 1929
First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement The first Academy Awards celebration was an anticlimactic if gala affair, as the winners in the twelve categories had been announced three months earlier. Over time, however, the event expanded, the winners were kept secret in advance, and the awards themselves became the most prestigious honors in Hollywood. Also known as: Oscars Locale: Hollywood, California Categories: Motion pictures; organizations and institutions Key Figures Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (1883-1939), American actor and founding president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1927-1929 Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957), American studio owner Conrad Nagel (1897-1970), American actor and Academy president, 1932-1933 Fred Niblo (1874-1948), American director and Academy founding vice president Fred Beetson (1879-1953), American film producer William C. deMille (1878-1955), American writer, producer, director, and Academy president, 19291931 2306
M. C. Levee (1891-1972), American film producer, Academy founding treasurer, and later Academy president, 1931-1932 Frank Woods (c. 1860-1939), American screenwriter and Academy founding secretary Summary of Event On May 16, 1929, the first Academy Awards presentation was held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, California. From a simple banquet affair, the tribute would grow to gigantic proportions. The annual Academy Awards ceremony, sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has become an important international event. Millions of people worldwide watch the televised event each spring. To many, the Academy Award, or Oscar, symbolizes the highest achievement in film and is seen as the film industry’s most important honor. The presentation of awards for artistic merit was largely an afterthought by the founding members of the Academy. The originally stated goals of the Academy, published in 1927, were mostly idealistic and self-serving. The Academy planned to take aggressive action in meeting outside attacks that were unjust and to promote harmony and solidarity among its membership and among
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contestants. Lastly, the Central Board of Judges, comprising five individuals representing each of the five divisions of the Academy—producers, actors, directors, writers, and technicians—would select the winners in twelve achievement categories. The winners of the first awards were selected at an Academy gathering on Friday, February 15, 1929, six months after the submission deadline. The press and the winners quickly were notified. Three months later, the awards were officially presented at a glittering black-tie dinner dance. Chairman of the evening William C. deMille welcomed the assembled guests and introduced Fairbanks, who then explained the voting rules, suggested that acceptance speeches be kept short, and called up the winners to receive their trophies. The first Academy Awards could be given for a single achievement, multiple achievements, or a body of work. Twenty additional certificates of honorable mention were given to runners-up. The winners that first evening were as follows: most outstanding production, Wings (1927); most unique or artistic production, Sunrise (1927); achievement by an actor, Emil Jannings; achievement by an actress, Janet Gaynor; achievement in dramatic directing, Frank Borzage; achievement in comedy directing, Lewis Milestone; achievement in cinematography, Charles Rosher and Karl Struss; achievement in art directing, William Cameron Menzies; achievement in engineering effects, Roy Pomeroy; achievement in original story writing, Ben Hecht; achievement in writing adaptation, Benjamin Glazer; and achievement in title writing, Joseph Farnham. The categories were revised the following year: Awards for most artistic or unique production and achievement in engineering effects were dropped, and the dramatic and comedy directing awards were combined, as were those for achievement in original story writing, writing adaptation, and title writing. Each winner at the first Academy Awards ceremony received a solid bronze statuette slightly more than a foot high. It had been designed by Cedric Gibbons, art director at MGM, and sculpted by George Stanley. The same model of statuette was given in subsequent years, but its composition was changed from bronze to plaster and later from plaster to gold-plated britannium. The figure is of a knight holding a crusader’s sword, standing on a reel of film. The statuette got its nickname of Oscar in the 1930’s, possibly following a comment by Academy librarian Margaret Herrick that the figure reminded her of her uncle Oscar. Special Academy Awards were also presented to Charles Chaplin for his work acting in, writing, produc2307
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the different branches, reconciling internal differences that might exist or arise. It intended to further the welfare and protect the honor and good repute of the profession of filmmaking and to encourage the improvement and advancement of the arts and sciences of professional filmmakers, through exchange of constructive ideas and by awards of merit for distinctive achievements. The Academy thus intended to do for the motion-picture professions what other national and international bodies had done for other arts, sciences, and industries. In order better to understand the background and beginnings of the first Academy Awards ceremony, it is necessary to examine the formation of the Academy itself. Its genesis occurred in early January, 1927. Louis B. Mayer, powerful studio boss of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), invited four of his studio personnel to a Sunday dinner. They were Conrad Nagel, Fred Niblo, Fred Beetson, and William C. deMille. Mayer wanted to form an organization that could speak for the film industry, arbitrate labor disputes, help solve technological problems, and police screen content. The five men planned a dinner to be attended by representatives of the various creative professions involved in film production to discuss membership in the proposed organization. On January 11, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, thirty-six people heard the proposals and enthusiastically supported the idea. The International (this word was later dropped) Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., was named as president, Fred Niblo as vice president, M. C. Levee as treasurer, and Frank Woods as secretary. On May 4, 1927, the Academy was granted a charter by the state of California as a nonprofit corporation. One week later, an organizational banquet took place at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, with more than 300 guests in attendance. Speaking to the gathered assembly, Fairbanks convinced 231 of them to join and pay $100 each for membership. In his comments, Fairbanks mentioned that the new organization would bestow certain awards of merit for distinctive achievement. Days later, the Committee for the Awards of Merit was formed. The following year, in July, 1928, the awards committee developed a voting system. Each member of the Academy would cast one vote in his or her branch. Nominees for awards would be selected from films released in the Los Angeles area between April 1, 1927, and July 31, 1928. The deadline for selection was set as August 15, 1928. A board of judges would tabulate the results, determine the top ten nominees, and narrow the field to three
First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement
First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement
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Best Picture Awards, 1928-1940 The early winners of the most coveted of the Academy’s awards, “Best Picture” (known as “Best Production” until 1931) are listed below. Year
Film
Production Company (Producer)
1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940
Wings The Broadway Melody All Quiet on the Western Front Cimarron Grand Hotel Cavalcade It Happened One Night Mutiny on the Bounty The Great Ziegfeld The Life of Emile Zola You Can’t Take It with You Gone with the Wind Rebecca
Paramount Famous Lasky (Lucien Hubbard) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Harry Rapt) Universal (Carl Laemmle, Jr.) RKO Radio (William LeBaron) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Irving Thalberg) Fox (Winfield Sheehan) Columbia (Harry Cohn) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Irving Thalberg with Albert Lewin) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Hunt Stromberg) Warner Bros. (Henry Blanke) Columbia (Frank Capra) Selznick, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (David O. Selznick) Selznick, United Artists (David O. Selznick)
ing, and directing The Circus (1928) and to Warner Bros. for producing The Jazz Singer (1927). Only Jannings and Chaplin were not present to accept their statuettes. Speeches by Hollywood celebrities—including Mary Pickford, Louis B. Mayer, and Cecil B. DeMille—followed the awards. Entertainer Al Jolson, star of the justhonored The Jazz Singer, brought the festivities to a close. The first Academy Awards presentation was a quiet success. Significance None of the founding members of the Academy could have foreseen the impact the first Academy Awards would have not only on the Hollywood community but also on the world. The awards, at the beginning, were a secondary consideration. Concern about the myriad changes taking place within the motion picture industry was the main reason for formation of the Academy. Hollywood’s financial success had led to calls by spiritual leaders and government figures to control the film industry unless it could police itself. The founding of the Academy was meant to do that, and the Academy Awards were to be used to promote the organization and deflect public criticism by focusing on and showcasing Hollywood’s past achievements. Without realizing it, the first Academy members established one of the earliest, and certainly the most coveted, prizes in cinema. The tradition begun in 1929 continued uninterrupted. 2308
During the 1920’s, a series of technological and cultural breakthroughs occurred, particularly in the area of mass communication. The second Academy Awards ceremony thus took on greater importance to the media. There was full newspaper coverage, and Los Angeles radio station KNX broadcast the entire event. The Academy Awards had arrived as a media event and would never again have the intimacy of the first presentation. Over the years, especially after the awards ceremony began to be televised in 1953, the audience grew to more than one billion viewers worldwide. Over time, the award ceremony and its importance changed. The number of nominees for each regular merit award became standardized to five, and nominations were for single achievements. From its humble origins in 1929, the reputation of the Academy Award rivaled that of awards given in other fields, such as the Emmy, the Tony, and the Grammy. An Oscar is considered to represent a higher level of recognition than are awards bestowed by critics and trade associations. Internationally, the Oscar is considered to be one of the most important film prizes, surpassing prizes offered by other countries. It is accepted as cinema’s most prestigious award. —Terry Theodore Further Reading Levy, Emmanuel. All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards. New York: Continuum, 2003. Excellent study dealing less with winners and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 losers than with the preeminence of the Academy Award, its meaning, the nomination system, the voting process, and the place occupied by the Oscar in American culture. Likeness, George C. The Oscar People: From “Wings” to “My Fair Lady.” Mendota, Ill.: Wayside Press, 1965. Good introductory work. Detailed biographies of performers as well as film summaries give an indepth look at Oscar winners. Includes chapters on the supporting players and craftsmen. Osborne, Robert. Seventy-five Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards. New York: Abbeville Press, 2003. An official history of the Oscars, licensed by the Academy to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the awards. Index. Pond, Steve. The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards. New York: Faber & Faber, 2005. Behind-the-scenes look at fifteen years of Oscar history, encompassing the 1990’s and the early twenty-first century, including analysis of the function of the Oscars in American culture and
Tacna-Arica Compromise of what they can tell us about American culture as a whole. Index. Shale, Richard. Academy Awards: An Ungar Reference Index. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978. An excellent fact book about the Academy and its origins, purpose, and activities. Details the first fifty years of films by various categories and features a short introduction, useful appendixes, select bibliography, and index. The study is well organized. See also: June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930-1935: Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar; 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy; Feb. 27, 1935: Temple Receives a Special Academy Award; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team; Dec. 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres.
June 3-August 28, 1929
Tacna-Arica Compromise The end of the War of the Pacific, involving Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, left unsettled the final disposition of the provinces of Tacna and Arica. Dispute over these regions led to ongoing feuding that was ultimately resolved after mediation by the United States. Also known as: Treaty of Santiago; Treaty of 1929 Locale: United States; Chile; Peru; Bolivia Category: Diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event As the result of a long-lasting border dispute with Peru and Bolivia and competition over nitrate and other natural resources, port access, and tax issues, Chile declared
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Key Figures Frank B. Kellogg (1856-1937), U.S. secretary of state, 1925-1929, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (1877-1960), president of Chile, 1927-1931 and 1952-1958 Augusto Bernardino Leguía y Salcedo (1863-1932), president of Peru, 1908-1912 and 1919-1930 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933
war on the two countries in April, 1879. The War of the Pacific featured many bloody battles, including one in Tacna in 1880 that left five thousand casualties. The Treaty of Ancón ended the war on October 23, 1883, and resulted in temporary Chilean control over the regions of Tacna and Arica. The treaty gave Chile ownership over the region of Tarapacá, which included sections of the Pacific coastline known as Tacna and Arica. The treaty held that the ownership was to last ten years, after which a plebiscite would be held to decide which nation would permanently retain the territories. The plebiscite was not held, however. Meanwhile, the territories provided the stimulus for much of Chile’s economic growth: The annexation increased Chilean land by more than a third and significantly benefited the country’s economic status by providing increased port space on the Pacific. More important, however, the territories held significant amounts of sodium nitrate, a resource used to make ammunition and building materials, which were especially valuable commodities during World War I. The United States made many concerted but unsuccessful efforts to assist in arbitration over the territory’s final ownership. Finally, in 1928, with help from the ad-
Tacna-Arica Compromise ministration of President Calvin Coolidge, diplomatic relations between Chile and Peru resumed, and in 1929, President Herbert Hoover was able to help broker a compromise. Chile grew substantially during the time in which the Tacna-Arica region was in dispute. More factories were founded in the decade of the 1880’s than had existed in the entire country before the War of the Pacific. Tax revenues from nitrate companies, which ballooned after the beginning of World War I, helped bring industrialization, built the Chilean military, and allowed Chile to take a larger role in global politics and trade. As a result, Chile was reluctant to hold the planned plebiscite, in which residents of the regions would decide whether to remain Chilean or return to Peruvian control. Despite repeated attempts by the United States, especially under the administrations of presidents Coolidge and Hoover (whose efforts were led by Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg), Peru, Bolivia, and Chile remained at odds for more than forty years. Peru and Bolivia faced civil war and unrest during this time, and their leaders and people remained bitter about the war, which had resulted in the annexation of the two regions and had deprived Bolivia of its access to the Pacific Ocean. Resolution was made even more difficult by the reluctance of the United States to become involved in the dispute until commercial relations among the three nations became so difficult that the countries themselves requested increased U.S. involvement. In 1928, the Sixth Inter-American Conference was held in Havana, Cuba. During this conference, Chile proposed a settlement. Secretary of State Kellogg seized this opportunity to begin talks; he was eager to resolve the issue, which had been a source of great concern during his entire term in office. By early December of 1928, Chile had agreed to major concessions, including the surrender of Tacna and abandonment of its investments there. When Hoover took office as president of the United States in 1929, he asked Kellogg to stay on as secretary of state until the Tacna-Arica dispute was resolved. Kellogg worked even harder to help the countries find a solution. His efforts resulted in negotiations among the Chilean president, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, the Peruvian president, Augusto Bernardino Leguía y Salcedo, and Kellogg, out of which came the text of the Treaty of Santiago (also known as the Treaty of 1929), which featured thirteen articles that delineated concessions. This agreement stipulated that Chile would retain Arica and that the region of Tacna, north of the Arica-La Paz railroad, and all its Chilean-owned real estate would return to Peruvian control, a division that remained into the 2310
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 twenty-first century. The treaty also established that Chile would pay six million dollars to Peru and that Chile would construct a landing pier in Arica (including a customs agency and railway station) where Peru could maintain a free port. In order to facilitate the acceptance of this agreement, the presidents of Peru and Chile presented the plan as the recommendation for settlement of President Hoover. On May 15 and 16, Peru and Chile accepted the proposals made by Hoover, and the solution was announced. The treaty was signed in Lima on June 3, 1929, by Chilean ambassador Emiliano Figueroa Larraín and Peruvian chancellor Pedro José Rada y Gamio. Final ratifications to the agreement were made in Santiago, Chile, on July 28, and the resolution of the controversy culminated on August 28, 1929, when Peruvian civil administrators assumed the business of the town and province of Tacna. Significance While the Tacna-Arica region remained in dispute, Chile’s wealth and influence skyrocketed. The area’s nitrate-rich soil largely sustained the Chilean economy and propelled the nation into the age of industrialization. Although the Great Depression and the discovery of synthetic substitutes that could replace nitrate in ammunition brought a downturn to Chile’s economy, nitrate mining remained an important element in Chile’s economy. (Later, copper mining and the export of wine and fruit became major industries.) The dispute’s settlement presented the greatest challenge to Bolivia, whose status as a landlocked country became permanent. For the United States, mediation in the dispute stood out in an era of isolationist policies and foreshadowed the nation’s increasing involvement in Latin American politics and economic affairs. —Georgie Donovan Further Reading Coller, Simon, and William F. Sater. A History of Chile, 1808-1994. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Traces politics, economics, social development, and culture, with special attention to its growth into an industrialized nation. Dennis, William Jefferson. Documentary History of the Tacna-Arica Dispute. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. A series of documents related to the causes of the War of the Pacific, postwar proposals for peace, and the consequences of the Treaty of Ancón. Includes maps, memoranda, newspaper editorials, reports, and letters. _______. Tacna and Arica: An Account of the Chile-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Peru Boundary Dispute and of the Arbitrations by the United States. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1931. Written directly after the settlement of the boundary dispute. Tells the story of the settlement attempts with special attention to the efforts of the United States. Granier, Jorge Gumicio. United States and the Bolivian Seacoast. La Paz, Bolivia: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, 1988. Excellent overview of the settlement attempts and final treaty to resolve the Tacna-Arica dispute. Written from a Bolivian perspective; considers Bolivia’s attempts to secure a seacoast. Loveman, Brian. Chile: The Legacy of Hispanic Capital-
Agricultural Marketing Act ism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Noted as an excellent primer to Chilean history, the book covers the development of Chile’s economy and of Hispanic capitalism and then focuses on unique aspects of politics and democracy in the country. Wilson, Joe F. The United States, Chile, and Peru in the Tacna and Arica Plebiscite. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979. Chronological development and settlement of the Tacna-Arica question. See also: Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy; Feb. 17, 1936: Corporatism Comes to Paraguay; Dec., 1936: InterAmerican Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.
June 15, 1929
Agricultural Marketing Act The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 established the Federal Farm Board to make loans to farm cooperatives and to control surpluses of farm commodities. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; agriculture; trade and commerce
Summary of Event In order to understand the impact of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, it is necessary to understand what happened to the American farm sector early in the twentieth century. The second decade of the twentieth century was a good one for farmers. The world had experienced rapid industrial expansion, causing incomes and spending to rise. Demand for agricultural commodities had expanded, giving farmers high prices for their crops. Farmers in the United States were producing large crops
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Key Figures Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Alexander Legge (1866-1933), American businessman and first chairman of the Federal Farm Board Arthur M. Hyde (1877-1947), U.S. secretary of agriculture Charles L. McNary (1874-1944), U.S. senator from Oregon Gilbert N. Haugen (1859-1933), U.S. congressman from Iowa
and exporting large parts of them to foreign markets. A fixed quantity of good agricultural land caused land prices to go up, making farmers feel wealthier. It appeared that this prosperity would continue indefinitely. Things began to change in 1919, however. European farmers were producing more as they recovered from World War I, and prices started to fall. In 1921, wheat and cotton were selling for half their 1920 prices, and American farmers realized that hard times had returned. By 1923, agricultural commodity prices had started to rise slowly, and farm conditions began to improve. Things were getting better, but conditions for farmers still were unfavorable. Mechanization of farm work promised to help farmers by cutting production costs but was soon to contribute to problems of overproduction. Agriculture was an important sector in the U.S. economy in the early 1920’s, and Congress believed that help was needed for farmers, even though farm prices were edging up after the drastic drop in the early 1920’s. A major attempt to help was embodied in the five bills introduced in Congress from 1924 to 1928 by Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon and Congressman Gilbert N. Haugen of Iowa. The McNary-Haugen bills called for an export corporation that would purchase agricultural crops in amounts large enough to keep their prices at acceptably high levels. These purchases were not to be sold domestically but were to be sold in foreign markets. The bills also called for an import tariff to discourage foreign farmers from sending agricultural goods to the United States to compete with domestic products. The first three
Agricultural Marketing Act McNary-Haugen bills did not pass Congress. The last two bills passed Congress but were vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge. Herbert Hoover, Coolidge’s secretary of commerce, was influential in advising Coolidge to veto the bills. The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 differed from these bills in that it focused on improved marketing as a means of aiding farmers. The government, under this act, would encourage formation of national cooperative marketing organizations but would not run them. As director of the Food Administration and as secretary of commerce, Hoover had participated in the many agricultural policy debates of the late 1910’s and the 1920’s. In 1928, he campaigned for president, promising to call a special session of Congress to deal with farm problems. Hoover had grown up on an Iowa farm and believed that an improved marketing process was the solution to the farm problem. Despite his strong feelings about the issue, once in the office of president he sent no specific legislation of his own to Congress, not wanting to interfere with Congress’s legislative prerogative. Even so, Congress had a good idea what Hoover wanted. It passed the Agricultural Marketing Act, which became law on June 15, 1929. The overall goal of the act was to put agriculture on an equal footing with other business sectors in the country. The objectives specified to carry this out were to decrease agricultural surpluses, stabilize prices for agricultural commodities and thereby cut down on speculation, and provide help in marketing of agricultural commodities. The act called for the establishment of the Federal Farm Board, which was to have a budget of $500 million. The Federal Farm Board was directed to set up national farmer cooperatives as a means of achieving its goals. These cooperatives were to be controlled by farmers and were to be used primarily to improve the marketing of crops. It was believed that the coming together of farmers into a comprehensive organization that could bargain on behalf of farmers would give farmers the power to prevent drastic price declines. The Federal Farm Board was authorized to make loans to the cooperatives to increase their size and efficiency. These loans could be used to build new facilities or for expenses of marketing agricultural crops. Farmers could obtain loans at low rates of interest. President Hoover persuaded Alexander Legge to leave his $100,000-per-year job as chairman of International Harvester to become the first chairman of the Federal Farm Board. Seven other board members were appointed, representing the major farm commodities. 2312
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Arthur M. Hyde, as Hoover’s secretary of agriculture, was an ex officio member. By October of 1929, the Federal Farm Board had succeeded in setting up the Farmers National Grain Associations, which were stock companies in each of the major commodities. Stock in the associations was owned by the larger local grain cooperatives. The goal of each of these corporations was to become a large, centralized organization to facilitate marketing for the particular commodity it represented. It was hoped that their sheer size and the coordination of the marketing process they offered would increase the efficiency of marketing agricultural crops, thus stabilizing prices at the desired high levels. The National Grain Associations were also supposed to control agricultural surpluses. Unfortunately, the government also had in place county extension agents, whose job was to help increase production. Getting farmers to control production was difficult, and the Federal Farm Board never succeeded in this task. The government thus, to some extent, operated at cross-purposes, trying to keep prices high while also encouraging production. Significance In 1930, the Federal Farm Board decided that its efforts were not succeeding. A surplus of major commodities kept agricultural prices low. Several factors contributed to the surpluses. The United States and Europe had had a few years of abundant harvests, and other countries were restricting imports from the United States and imposing tariffs in retaliation for the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930. Farmers were particularly hurt by these retaliatory tariffs because they had long used exports as a means for eliminating agricultural surpluses. Finally, the Great Depression caused everyone to suffer. Low incomes meant that people were buying less of everything, including farm products. The surplus in wheat was particularly troubling. Wheat prices fell dramatically, and in response the Federal Farm Board set up Grain Stabilization Boards in February of 1930. These boards hoped to control grain prices by encouraging farmers to reduce their output. Chairman Legge of the Federal Farm Board and Secretary of Agriculture Hyde toured the country trying to get farmers to participate in the production control process. They were unsuccessful in getting farmers to cooperate with these programs, so the Grain Stabilization Boards started buying surplus wheat. The purchase program was intended to be temporary, as no one recognized that the Great Depression was going to last for many years. Grain prices continued to fall, and by 1931 farm incomes were
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plans, however, and even if they had, the low budgets available to the Federal Farm Board doomed the stabilization plans to failure. Congress became disenchanted with the Federal Farm Board and cut its 1932-1933 budget by 60 percent. Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had his own ideas about what should happen in the farm sector. Roosevelt abolished the Federal Farm Board in 1933, effectively ending the influence of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929. In 1933, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was the New Deal’s attempt to help farmers. By 1935, farm income was 50 percent higher than it had been in 1932. Key elements of the 1933 act were declared unconstitutional in January, 1936, and later that year, new farm legislation was passed. As was suggested by the Federal Farm Board, production controls were a key element in the new plans. — Eric Elder Further Reading Benedict, Murray. Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1953. Provides a detailed discussion of American farm policy, starting during the period when the United States was primarily an agricultural country. Davis, Joseph S. On Agricultural Policy, 1926-1938. Stanford, Calif.: Food Research Institute, 1939. Acollection of presentations and articles written during this time period. Not a systematic presentation, but interesting because of when it was written and because Davis was a Federal Farm Board economist. Hamilton, David. From New Day to New Deal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Focuses on the farm policies of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations. Attributes the failure of Hoover’s policies to the Depression as well as to misconceptions about the nature of the farm problem. Kirkendall, Richard. Social Scientists and Farm Politics in the Age of Roosevelt. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1982. Shows how the events of the 1920’s, including the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, led to the farm policies of the Roosevelt administration. Nourse, Edwin G. Marketing Agreements Under the AAA. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1935. Provides a short summary of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 and goes on to show how the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the legislation that replaced the 1929 act, resembled legislation of the early 1920’s. Rasmussen, Wayne, and Gladys Baker. “A Short History 2313
1929
at the lowest levels of the century. The Federal Farm Board decided that it could no longer afford to buy grain or to store the grain it had already purchased. Fearing that the grain already purchased would rot in storage, the Federal Farm Board began to sell the grain it owned. This had a further dampening effect on prices and enraged farmers. The public outcry against the sale was so large that Legge resigned as chair of the Federal Farm Board. The national cooperatives never emerged as the force that Hoover had hoped they would be. They were poorly managed and suffered from the same inefficiencies as the rest of the agricultural sector. They had little lasting effect on American agriculture, and most of them did not survive to the end of the 1930’s. The price stabilization portion of the Federal Farm Board’s efforts fared no better than did the national cooperatives. The Federal Farm Board found that it could not stop the slide in agricultural prices by buying surplus grains, as illustrated by the case of wheat. Not only did it fail to keep prices from going down, it spent $400 million in taxpayers’ money and disrupted commodity markets. Stabilization was a relatively new idea that was to be used in later legislation; some credit needs to be given to the Federal Farm Board for innovative thinking. Production controls similarly failed. Hoover thought that if farmers voluntarily cut back on production, surpluses could be eliminated. Legge and Hyde toured the country to try to get farmers to cooperate with this plan. Primarily because the plan was voluntary, farmers did not participate in it. The Federal Farm Board made a special report to Congress in late 1932 in which it stressed that farm policy should include a system that would control the acreage planted. Future farm legislation made this recommendation part of production control programs. Hoover did not recognize immediately that his farm plans were not working, so no adjustments to the plans were made during his presidential administration. His top farm advisers, Legge and Hyde, shared Hoover’s vision of how to help the farmers and so did not offer alternative plans. In Hoover’s defense, it is likely that the McNaryHaugen plans introduced in the 1920’s would not have fared much better. The onset of the Great Depression, coinciding with increased production made possible by the mechanization of farm production, made the Federal Farm Board’s goals nearly impossible to achieve. Hoover had high hopes for solving farm problems with voluntary participation by farmers. He had seen what had happened to farmers in the Soviet Union and did not want the government to intervene on such a large scale. Farmers did not choose to participate in Hoover’s
Agricultural Marketing Act
Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator of Price Support and Adjustment Legislation and Programs for Agriculture, 1933-65.” Agriculture Economics Research 18 (1966): 68-79. Brief, insightful, nontechnical discussion of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 and the agriculture programs that followed it. Tweeten, Luther. Foundations of Farm Policy. 2d rev. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. Ba-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sic introduction to farm policy includes only brief discussion of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 but places the act in the context of agricultural policy in general. See also: Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation.
July, 1929
Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw developed the mechanical respirator known as the iron lung, a lifesaving device for victims of poliomyelitis that led to the development of other lifesaving respiratory care. Also known as: Iron lung Locale: Harvard University, Massachusetts Categories: Health and medicine; inventions Key Figures Philip Drinker (1894-1972), American engineer Louis Shaw (1886-1940), American respiratory physiologist Summary of Event Poliomyelitis (polio, or infantile paralysis) is an infectious viral disease that damages the central nervous system, causing paralysis in many serious cases. Its effects result from the destruction of neurons (nerve cells) in the spinal cord. In many cases, the disease produces crippled limbs and the wasting of muscles. In others, “anterior” polio results in the fatal paralysis of the respiratory muscles. Since the 1950’s, use of the Salk and Sabin vaccines has virtually eradicated polio, but in the 1920’s, it was a terrifying disease. Its most feared, untreatable outcome was the paralysis of the respiratory muscles, which caused rapid death by suffocation, often only a few hours after the first signs of respiratory distress appeared. In 1929, Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw, both of Harvard University, published an article in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in which they reported on their development of a mechanical respirator that would keep those afflicted with the disease alive for indefinite periods of time. This device, soon nicknamed the “iron lung,” provided essential life support for thousands of people who suffered from respiratory paralysis as a result of polio or other diseases. It was used for many years, but 2314
as John A. Meyer, a thoracic surgeon, noted in a 1990 article, iron lungs are now primarily “fascinating relics, reminders of high tech medicine of an earlier day.” This comment is corroborated by the fact that as of 1986, a survey found that only three hundred iron lungs remained in use in the United States. Development of the iron lung arose after Drinker, then an assistant professor in Harvard’s Department of Industrial Hygiene, was appointed to a Rockefeller Institute commission formed to develop improved methods for resuscitating victims of electric shock and illuminating gas poisoning. The best-known use of the iron lung— treatment of polio—was a result of numerous epidemics of the disease that occurred from 1898 until the 1920’s, each leaving thousands of Americans paralyzed. The concept of the mechanical respirator reportedly arose from Drinker’s observation of physiological experiments carried out by Shaw and Drinker’s brother, Cecil. Those experiments were components of an effort to design artificial respiration methods that would enhance a patient’s survival after surgery. The experiments involved the placement of a cat inside an airtight box—a body plethysmograph—with the cat’s head protruding from an airtight collar. Shaw and Cecil Drinker then measured the volume changes in the plethysmograph to identify normal breathing parameters. Philip Drinker placed cats paralyzed by curare inside plethysmographs and showed that they could be kept breathing artificially by use of air from a hypodermic syringe connected to the device. Next, they proceeded to build a human-sized plethysmograph-like machine, using a five-hundred-dollar grant from the New York Consolidated Gas Company. The device’s construction was carried out by a tinsmith and the Harvard Medical School machine shop. The prototype machine was tested on Drinker and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Shaw, and after they made several modifications, a workable iron lung was available for clinical use. It consisted of a metal cylinder large enough to accommodate a patient. One end of the cylinder, which contained a rubber collar, slid out on casters along with a stretcher on which the patient reclined. Once the patient was in position and the collar was fitted around the patient’s neck, the stretcher was pushed back into the cylinder and louvers were secured to make the iron lung airtight. The iron lung then “breathed” for the patient by using an electric blower to remove and replace air alternately. In the human chest, inhalation occurs when the diaphragm contracts and powerful muscles expand the rib cage. This lowers the air pressure in the lungs and allows inhalation to occur. In exhalation, the diaphragm and chest muscles relax, and air is expelled as the chest cavity reduces again in size. In a case of respiratory paralysis treated with an iron lung, intake of air into and expulsion of air from the iron lung alternately compress the patient’s chest, producing artificial exhalation, and allow it to expand so that it can fill with air. In this way, the iron lung “breathes” for the patient. Careful examination of each patient was required to allow optimum adjustment of the rate of operation
Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator of the machine. The device also included a cooling system and ports for drainage lines, intravenous lines, and other apparatus needed to maintain a wide variety of patients. The first person treated in an iron lung was an eightyear-old girl afflicted with respiratory paralysis resulting from polio. The iron lung kept her alive for five days. Unfortunately, she died from cardiac failure as a result of pneumonia. The next iron lung patient, a Harvard University student, was confined to the machine for several weeks and later recovered enough to resume a normal life. Use of the iron lung thereafter rapidly entered hospital practice. As Meyer described in 1990, “Treatment facilities tended to concentrate at university and citycounty hospitals, each with its Respirator Center, where long lines of Drinker tank respirators were lined up side by side.” As James H. Maxwell pointed out in a 1986 article, one problem that limited maximum use of the iron lung came from physicians’ fears that their patients would be “forever tethered to the lung.” Such fears often led to inappropriate delays before patients were placed in the respirators, although in fact only a small percentage of patients became chronically dependent on the machines.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title. 1929
A patient lies in an iron lung in 1938. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator Significance Soon after the iron lung, also known as the Drinker respirator, came into use in 1929, the device came to be considered indispensable. Until the Salk vaccine became available in the 1950’s, iron lungs saved the lives of countless victims of polio as well as other diseases. As Meyer noted in 1990, “no satisfactory mechanical respirator existed before” the iron lung, and for a quarter of a century it was the sole reliable machine of its kind, “a lifeline for thousands of patients afflicted with respiratory failure caused by poliomyelitis.” Drinker received a number of honors for his development of the iron lung, including Philadelphia’s John Scott Medal (shared with Louis Shaw, in 1931), the Charles Chapin Memorial Award (1948), and the Cummings Memorial Award of the American Industrial Hygiene Association in 1950. He was also made an honorary member of England’s Royal Society of Health and the Finnish Industrial Medical Society. He was elected president of the American Industrial Hygiene Association in 1942, and he also became chairman of Harvard’s Department of Industrial Hygiene. It is generally acknowledged that the medical community’s acceptance and use of the iron lung played a critical role in the development of modern respiratory care. For one thing, as Maxwell has noted, “use of the iron lung proved that large numbers of patients could actually be kept alive with mechanical support.” Not all assessments are in agreement as to the device’s importance, however. For example, H. H. Bendixen, an anesthesiologist, suggested in a 1982 article that the iron lung “must be called a technological detour, despite the fact that it has had life-saving clinical use.” He also asserted that although the iron lung “became the mainstay of poliomyelitis treatment” until the 1950’s, “the mortality rate remained high and was not significantly reduced” until combined intermittent positive pressure breathing was combined with the use of the iron lung. —Sanford S. Singer Further Reading Bendixen, H. H. “Respirators and Respiratory Care.” Acta Anaesthesia Scandinavica 102 (1982): 279-286. Review article by an anesthesiologist traces “intellectual and technical roots of respirators and respiratory care,” identifies the role of polio in these developments, and addresses the roles of respirators and anesthesiology in modern respiratory care. Black, Kathryn. In the Shadow of Polio: A Personal and
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Social History. New York: Perseus Books, 1996. Memoir relates the author’s mother’s two-year battle with polio, much of which she spent confined to an iron lung. Also provides information on efforts to combat the disease before a vaccine was available. Drinker, Philip, and Charles F. McKhann, III. “The Iron Lung, First Practical Means of Respiratory Support.” Journal of the American Medical Association 255 (1986): 1476-1480. Article written by the son of Philip Drinker and one of his major medical collaborators summarizes Drinker’s development of the machine, comments on earlier respiratory devices, describes use of the iron lung in polio epidemics, and identifies later evolution of respiratory care. Provides useful insight into Drinker’s life. Includes photographs of activated iron lungs. Drinker, Philip, and Louis Shaw. “An Apparatus for the Prolonged Administration of Artificial Respiration.” Journal of Clinical Investigation 7 (1929): 229-247. Describes in depth the development and first uses of the iron lung. Enumerates the theoretical and practical aspects of the respirator’s design as well as the developers’ hopes for its future use. Maxwell, James H. “The Iron Lung: Halfway Technology or Necessary Step?” Milbank Quarterly 64 (1986): 3-28. Describes the history and development of the iron lung, examines its clinical utility and cost, the strengths and weaknesses of its use, and its role in the evolution of respirators and respiratory care. Includes references. Meyer, John A. “A Practical Mechanical Respirator, 1929: The ‘Iron Lung.’” Annals of Thoracic Surgery 50 (1990): 490-493. Describes the iron lung and discusses its development as a valuable therapeutic possibility and its use in polio epidemics. Concludes that, although the iron lung was cumbersome, “it supported patients over the long term with fewer complications than do the respirators of today.” “Philip Drinker.” In The National Cyclopedia of American Biography. Vol. 57. Clifton, N.J.: James T. White, 1977. Brief biographical sketch is one of the only readily available sources of information on Drinker’s life and work. Includes aspects of his early life as well as his education, career, and accomplishments. See also: 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney; Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems
July, 1929-July, 1931
Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems Kurt Gödel derived incompleteness-inconsistency theorems for any formal system strong enough to include the laws of arithmetic. Locale: University of Vienna, Austria Category: Mathematics Key Figure Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), Austrian mathematician and logician
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Summary of Event Partly in response to the appearance of logical and set theoretic contradictions following David Hilbert’s Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899; The Foundations of Geometry, 1902), a number of redoubled efforts focused on extending or reducing mathematics and logic to remove or resolve these difficulties. First published in 1899, Georg Cantor’s paradox states that if S is the set of all sets and T is the set of all subsets of S, then because T corresponds one-by-one to itself as a subset of S, it cannot have a greater cardinal than S, yet, by Cantor’s theorem, it must. In addition to Cantor’s paradox, and Bertrand Russell’s proof that Gottlob Frege’s system was contradictory, several other paradoxes with impacts on both mathematics and logic arose during this period. These include Burali-Forti’s paradox of the greatest ordinal number, Berry’s paradox of the least integer not nameable in less than nineteen syllables, Richard’s paradox of the class of all decimal numbers definable in a finite number of words, and symbolic forms of the CretanLiar conundrum. The varying approaches of Russell and Hilbert called for the axiomatization, and then formalization, of a suitable portion of existing logic and/or mathematics, including “ideal” statements that did not have identifiable elementary intuitive meanings, to include the new system of (paradox-free) mathematics. In a formal system, all combinatory methods of constructing formulas to express mathematical propositions, and all mathematical assumptions and principles of logic used in proving theorems, are to be governed by a finite set of stated rules. An essential requirement of Hilbert’s original (finitistic) program was that all demonstrations of the formal consistency of a mathematical system involve only procedures that make no reference to an infinite number of properties or operations with mathematical formulas.
Second, these proofs were to be undertaken only by “safe” methods such that the resulting formal system of axioms be entirely consistent, interpreted by Hilbert to mean that no two configurations should exist that constitute proofs in the system of a formula A and its negation –A. In his 1904 lecture on the foundations of logic and arithmetic at the University of Heidelberg, Hilbert for the first time observed that, although it is possible to prove the consistency of geometry by an arithmetic interpretation, for the consistency of arithmetic itself, the appeal to some other more fundamental discipline seems illegitimate. Hilbert, for example, required use of the principle of mathematical induction to justify his definitions of whole numbers, yet had no proof of the consistency of this principle or its resulting definitions. Hilbert, nevertheless, initially suggested building up logic and arithmetic simultaneously, as well as translating these proofs completely into the language of symbolic logic to turn the proof of consistency into a problem of elementary manipulations in arithmetic. Hilbert did not return to foundational studies until his 1917 Zurich lecture on axiomatic thinking, in which he praised the axiomatization of logic by Russell and Alfred North Whitehead as the crowning of all work in efforts at completely translating all of mathematics into a self-contained symbolic language. It was only after 1920 that Hilbert, in collaboration with Paul Bernays and in opposition to Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, began to focus explicitly on proof theory. In this approach, description of a formal axiomatic system must enable clear decision as to whether any given formula is an axiom and is a permissible inference from other axioms. This is considered a decision procedure for whether a given finite list of formulas constitutes a proof in any given system, yet a decision procedure is not provided as to whether a given formula is itself provable. The problem of finding a decision procedure has been called the decision problem for formal systems, first recognized as a problem for logic by Ernst Schröder in 1895, and in mathematics by Leopold Löwenheim in 1917 and Thoralf Albert Skolem in 1922. A decision procedure for a formal system embracing a segment of mathematics such as arithmetic would, in principle, make automatic the solution to any problem in that segment. Because of historically intractable problems such
Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems as whether Pierre de Fermat’s last theorem is true, pointed out by Brouwer and others, a decision procedure in this case would mean that the infinitely many arithmetical problems require only a finite number of solutions. By 1928, it was widely believed that the consistency of number theory and arithmetic had finally been nearly achieved by the finitist method of Hilbert and Bernays. As reported in Hilbert’s September, 1928, lecture “On the Problems of the Foundations of Mathematics” in Bologna, Italy, Hilbert announced that his students Wilhelm Ackermann and John von Neumann had completed consistency proofs for almost the entire field of arithmetic. Hilbert then listed four of twenty-eight as-yet unresolved problems: a finite consistency proof of mathematical analysis, an extension of this proof to higher-order analysis and functional calculus, the completeness of the axiom systems for number theory and analysis, and the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
completeness of the system of logical rules (first-order logic). From the Austrian philosopher and logician Rudolf Carnap’s diaries and letters to associates, it can be determined that Kurt Gödel was first stimulated to foundational problems by his reading of the text of Hilbert’s lecture and by his attendance at Brouwer’s Vienna lecture in March, 1928, on mathematics, science, and language. From Gödel’s collected papers, it is clear that he was strongly impressed by the intuitionist claim that all of mathematics would never be completely formalizable or preplanned a priori. In 1928, Gödel read the first edition of Hilbert and Ackermann’s Grundzüge der theoretischen Logik (foundations of theoretical logic), in which the completeness of the restricted form of Hilbert’s operational first-level predicate calculus was formulated and posed as an open problem for further study.
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Albert Einstein (left) presents the first Albert Einstein Award for achievement in the natural sciences to Kurt Gödel (second from right) and Julian Seymour Schwinger (right) in 1951. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems Peano’s symbolic system) and that satisfies certain minimal consistency conditions is necessarily incomplete in Hilbert’s sense. Gödel, therefore, proceeded to draw the conclusion that in suitably strong systems such as that of Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (19101913) and Ernst Zennelo’s set theory, there are formally undecidable propositions. This means that for number and set theory, there can be no absolute consistency proof of any of these systems formalizable within these systems. Using Hilbert’s own methods and formalism, Gödel showed that in any formal system with arithmetic, there exist elementary arithmetic propositions that are “intuitively” obvious, yet undeducible, within the system, and that any proof expressing the consistency of the formal system is not deducible within the system. Hence Gödel had not only settled Hilbert’s first three problems in the negative but also refuted Hilbert’s underlying general belief in there always being a finitist consistency proof. In Gödel’s interpretation, this meant that the formal axiomatization of systems of formal mathematics cannot simplify only these systems through logical combinatorics, but introduces inescapable and insoluble problems. Gödel hinted further that the limits of mathematical formalization operate such that every concept in a mathematical theory is meaningful and legitimate, except for certain “singular” points or regions, beyond which the set- and logical-theory paradoxes appear, as something analogous to division by zero. In Weyl’s view, Gödel established that what is provable by intuition and what is provable by deduction, respectively, overlap but are not mutually reducible or expressible. Significance Whereas Brouwer’s verbally expressed intuitionist convictions on the inexhaustibility and unprovability of mathematics were impressive predominantly to those of affine philosophic outlook, Gödel’s precise formal arguments were more convincing (if less accessible) to mathematicians and logicians of all outlooks. Gödel’s famous first paper was written as part one of a double publication; he planned to give full background and details of his second theorem’s proof in his concluding paper. Unfortunately, this second exposition was never published because, as Gödel admitted, his introductory proof sketch was generally accepted even by those antagonized by his results. As noted by several authors, although many reexaminations have been attempted, no simpler proofs other than Gödel’s originals have, as yet, been developed. Gödel continued to pursue what he saw as the underlying problems of mathematical evidence and intuition. 2319
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A major obstacle to the general solution of Hilbert’s formal decision problem was the lack of a clear and accepted concept of decidability and computability. By decision procedure or decidability for a given formalized theory is meant a method permitting one to decide in any given case whether a specific proposition formulated in the theory’s symbolism can be proven exclusively by means of the axioms and techniques available to the theory itself. Gödel decided to focus explicitly on this problem and wrote the results as his doctoral dissertation in September, 1929, proving the completeness of firstorder logic. In the summer of 1930, however, Gödel began to study the problem of proving the consistency of formal analysis itself (including higher arithmetic, logical analysis, and set theory), doubting the feasibility of Hilbert’s wish to prove consistency directly by finitist methods Gödel instead believed that the difficulties encountered by Ackermann and von Neumann could be lessened by dividing the total problem into different stages or levels. In this case, he sought to prove the consistency of number theory by finitist number theory and then to prove the consistency of analysis by number theory, assuming the latter’s truth as well as consistency. The technical details of Gödel’s proofs are practically impossible to recapitulate in nontechnical nonmathematical language. In terms of mathematical technique, Gödel’s proof employed what has since been known as the arithmetizing of a formalism, in terms of a one-to-one mapping between every proposition in a given theory and the natural numbers of arithmetic. Gödel then extended to general mathematical expressions, such as variables, formulas, propositions, and logical axioms and operations, a similar higher-order arithmetical representation using various recursive functions. (A set of relations is recursive if there is a mechanical method or algorithm permitting one to decide automatically in a particular set whether a given relation does or does not belong to that set.) Gödel ran into several of the paradoxes connected with truth and definability. He realized that “truth” in number theory cannot be defined within number theory itself and that, therefore, his original plan of proving the relative consistency of analysis could not work. Although Gödel realized that these paradoxes did not, strictly speaking, apply to the precisely specified formal analysis of axiomatic systems, he realized that analogous nonlogical analogues could be carried out by substituting the notion of provability for truth. Pursuing this approach, Gödel concluded that any formal system in which a certain amount of theoretical arithmetic can be developed (according to Giuseppe
Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems In 1941, Gödel found an interpretation of Brouwer’s intuitionist number theory using primitive recursive functions of his own origination. This result was jointly regarded as an extension of both Hilbert’s formalism and Brouwer’s intuitionism. The further development of recursive function theory by, for example, Alonzo Church and Alan Mathison Turing, in the context of other problems that could not be decided formally with axiomatic systems, made possible a large number of results about general decision procedures. There are as many philosophical reactions to and interpretations of Gödel’s recondite conclusions as there are philosophers, including those of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Russell, and Jean Cavaillès. Both Russell and Wittgenstein, using differing arguments like Brouwer, basically acknowledged the correctness of Gödel’s result as part of formal axiomatic arithmetic, but denied any wider application of Gödel’s theorems to cases of “uncertainty” and “incompleteness” in mathematics, science, and language at large. Diametrically opposed responses were published by Cavaillès in Sur la logique et la théorie de la science (1947; on the theory of science). In his own essay on Russell’s mathematical logic, Gödel wrote that he did not consider the incompletability of formal systems (such as Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica) as encompassing a final argument against a neoplatonistic conceptually realistic interpretation of mathematics, but rather as indicating an essential limitation on the expressive power of abstract formal symbolisms considered apart from their field of application. For Gödel, the unexceptional everyday agreement in accepting a mathematical proof reveals a kind of universality and objectivity in mathematics that goes beyond the intersubjective agreement envisioned by Brouwer. Conceptual realism, according to Gödel, requires not only objective concepts but also that to which mathematical concepts are applied, that is, mathematical objects. In his largely unpublished manuscripts, Gödel speaks in a unique idiom about the “perception” and “intuition” of mathematical objects as the common denominator in learning and applying mathematics within mathematics, as well as in the physical and engineering sciences. These are still areas of much continuing debate. —Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Bulloff, J. J., T. C. Holyoke, and S. W. Hahn. Foundations of Mathematics: Symposium Papers Commemorating the Sixtieth Birthday of Kurt Gödel. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1969. Collection includes several 2320
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valuable essays by both mathematicians and philosophers that underscore and examine the philosophical assumptions that Gödel held but never fully published. Feferman, S., J. W. Dawson, and S. C. Kleene, eds. Kurt Gödel: Collected Works. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986-1990. Presents English translations of unpublished notes as well as technical journal and conference publications by Gödel. Includes a complete bibliography on Gödel. Goldstein, Rebecca. Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Examines the philosophy of Gödel’s mathematics and discusses his theorem of incompleteness as well as various misinterpretations of the theorem. Includes list of suggested reading and index. Nagel, Ernest, and James R. Newman. Gödel’s Proof. Rev. ed. New York: New York University Press, 2002. Reasonably accessible and complete semitechnical account of the recursive functional symbolism and its motivations in a simplified reconstruction of Gödel’s incompleteness proof. Shanker, S. G., ed. Gödel’s Theorem in Focus. New York: Croom Helm, 1988. Valuable collection of interpretations, principally by philosophers of mathematics, about the conceptual origins and implications of Gödel’s theorems. Written in readable style. Van Heijenoort, Jean, comp. From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book on Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931. 1967. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Underscores the historical progression of the “problem of mathematical foundations.” Includes bibliography. Wang, Hao. Reflections on Kurt Gödel. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987. Offers very extensive and detailed biographical information and a painstakingly constructed detailed chronology of Gödel’s readings, course work, lectures, and associations, from his diaries, collected and unpublished letters and manuscripts, and original and untranslated publications. See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Western Wall Riots
August 23, 1929
Western Wall Riots Following a decade of relative calm under the British mandate, a religious dispute concerning prayers at the Western Wall of the ancient Jerusalem temple turned political. A yearlong disagreement over use of religious space brought demonstrations and counterdemonstrations, diplomatic intervention, and failed opportunities for negotiation. The chaos finally erupted in a day of violence that left several hundred Jews and Arabs dead, and the British were forced to begin reevaluating their policies toward the two peoples. Also known as: Wailing Wall riots Locale: Jerusalem, Hebron (now in Jordan), Zefat (now in Israel), and Jaffa (now in Israel), Palestine Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; civil rights and liberties; religion, theology, and ethics; colonialism and occupation
Summary of Event On Yom Kippur in September, 1928, Jews erected a portable screen to separate the men and women who prayed at the Western Wall. The narrow, eleven-foot passageway between Muslim houses and the two-thousand-year-old retaining wall for Jerusalem’s ancient temple had become increasingly crowded as new waves of Jewish immigrants arrived under the British mandate. The wall was also sacred to Muslims: The site was the foundation for Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Muslims believed that Muwammad had tethered his horse to the wall on his night journey to paradise. Muslims protested the screen’s installment, and the Brit-
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Key Figures Sir John Chancellor (1870-1952), British high commissioner Sir Harry Charles Luke (1884-1969), senior British official, acting high commissioner Douglas Duff (1901-1978), police constable of Jerusalem Amtn al-Wusaynt (c. 1895-1974), mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Muslim Council Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), head of the Zionist Revisionist Party Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), chief rabbi of Jerusalem Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), head of the World Zionist Congress Sir Walter Shaw (1864-1937), head of the 1929-1930 Shaw Commission
ish responded, but an overzealous constable, Douglas Duff, roughed up a number of Jews while removing the screen. As a result, both Jews and Arabs found themselves offended by a seemingly minor incident, and they became increasingly sensitive to threats about their own safety. Over the next months, both sides engaged in a war of words. Jewish leaders raised the issue of purchasing the Western Wall, some called for the building of a new temple, and Chaim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Conference, wrote a public letter stating that the only solution was for European Jews to pour into Palestine. Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of the Zionist Revolutionary Party, took a more extreme position: He helped organize a group of young men to confront Arabs in demonstrations. The group’s name, Betar, was a reference to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 c.e.), in which the Romans defeated the Jews, whose army withdrew to the fortress at Betar. Jerusalem mufti Amtn al-Wusaynt established a committee to defend the wall and appealed for limits on Jewish immigration. British high commissioner Sir John Chancellor was aware of the dispute and met with representatives of both sides, but tempers rose again in July of 1929, when the Arabs began a building project near the wall. On the evening of August 14, the ninth of Ab in the Jewish calendar (the day commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple in 70 c.e.), crowds of Jews gathered at the wall, and they were joined the following day by Betar youth. The two groups turned a religious commemoration into a political rally, raising the Zionist flag and singing the “Hatikva,” the Zionist national anthem. On the next day, a Friday, a group of Muslims left their prayers to march to the wall, where they beat Jews and burned prayer notes left in the wall. The following Wednesday, a young Jewish teen, Avraham Mizrahi, was murdered while chasing a stray soccer ball. In retaliation, a young Arab was clubbed in the head. The Mizrahi funeral turned into a demonstration in which Constable Duff and the British police tried to keep control, but their actions resulted in charges of police brutality. On August 22, with Chancellor out of the country, his deputy Sir Harry Charles Luke tried to use dialogue to defuse the situation. Meeting first with the mufti and then with Abraham Isaac Kook, Luke appealed for calm. Later, he invited three Muslim community representatives and three Jewish community representatives to his home for a long afternoon of dialogue. Eventually, the group came
Western Wall Riots up with a statement recognizing the shared nature of the wall, but they were hesitant to release the statement until after the weekend. By then, unfortunately, it was too late. On Friday, August 23, the situation escalated out of control. Rumors spread that Jewish groups planned to attack Al-Aqsa Mosque. In response, al-Wusaynt appealed to Muslims to defend the holy places. Since it was a Friday, the day for Muslim prayers, crowds of worshippers poured into Jerusalem from outlying areas, but this time they came with sticks and knives. At 11:00 a.m., before prayers began, shots rang out from the area around AlAqsa Mosque. The mufti called for peace, but other speakers riled up the crowds. A Muslim mob left the platform area and flooded into the streets to attack passing Jews. At the same time, reports from the Jewish neighborhood of Mea She’arim stated that several Arabs had been murdered there. The British police were unable to control the violence. Years of relative calm had created the attitude that a small police force was sufficient, and so there were only 150 British police officers and 1,500 local forces for the whole country. Jewish immigrants had organized the Haganah defensive force, and by nightfall, eight Jews and five Arabs had been killed, and several dozen people were injured on both sides of the conflict. Jewish residents of outlying areas such as Talpiot were evacuated. The worst of the violence occurred not in Jerusalem but in Hebron, where Orthodox Jews were unarmed and the police force was small. Jews were outnumbered in the city: There were approximately six hundred Jews and approximately twenty thousand Arabs. Word had reached Hebron of the troubles in Jerusalem, but the situation in Hebron had remained calm throughout most of the day. However, at 4:00 p.m., Arabs gathered near the Jewish yeshiva and began throwing stones. When the only student present attempted to leave, he was stabbed to death. It was not until Saturday morning that things got out of hand in Hebron. At first it seemed as though this southern town might be spared, as carloads of young men left to join the fray in Jerusalem. However, groups of Arabs began to gather outside Jewish homes. At the Heichal residence, two young men were killed while running toward a policeman for safety. Because it was the Sabbath, some had gathered at their rabbi’s house for prayers, but rioters broke down the doors with hatchets and proceeded to slaughter nearly everyone inside. In a matter of two hours, sixty-four Jews had been killed. Reports of atrocities were gruesome—for instance, two elderly rabbis were castrated, and a young child was decapitated. The situation would have been much worse if many of 2322
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hebron’s Muslim families had not sheltered Jews in their own homes. As it was, the rioters dispersed only when the previously unarmed police retreated to arm themselves with rifles and began shooting into the crowds. Jerusalem remained a focal point throughout the riots, and violence continued that day until reinforcements could arrive from Amman and Cairo. Jews in Safed suffered a fate similar to those in Hebron, and in Jaffa, Zionist forces attacked a mosque, where they killed a religious leader and six others. In the end, there were 249 fatalities—133 Jewish and 116 Arab—and 600 wounded. Significance The British responded to the riots with a commission, headed by Sir Walter Shaw, that investigated the riots’ causes and made recommendations on ways to avoid such problems. While public opinion had condemned alWusaynt for inciting the riots, the commission cleared him of direct responsibility. Instead, it focused on more general issues, such as the creation of a landless class of Palestinian peasants following increased Jewish immigration and land purchases. It also recommended that Jewish immigration be limited, that restrictions be placed on land purchases, and that the Balfour Declaration—Britain’s 1917 promise for the creation of a Jewish homeland—be removed as a justification for the mandate. British high commissioner Chancellor agreed with the findings of the Shaw Commission, but lobbying efforts in London convinced British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald to ignore the findings. The riots inspired Palestinian leaders to increase efforts to create political unity within the generally fragmented Arab population. Al-Wusaynt began to seek the support of other Arab leaders of the Middle East, and he invested his own money in building the new Palace Hotel outside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem so that foreign dignitaries could gather to discuss the Palestinian cause. A change in strategy soon emerged, however, as Arabs began to focus their energies on the British rather than on the Jews. For Zionist leaders, the immediate need was to expand the Haganah as a defense force. They also resolved to continue land purchases and to increase Jewish immigration, especially after the Jews of Hebron had to be evacuated, an act that left that city without a Jewish community. —Fred Strickert Further Reading Morris, Benni. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. A reevaluation of the history of the period using original sources.
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The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel
Pappe, Ilan. A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Concerned that Israelis and Palestinians have separate histories shaped by their own ideologies, Pappe writes an interwoven story that focuses on the lives of the victims, not the powerful. Segev, Tom. One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Translated by Haim Watzman. New York: Metropolitan, 1999. The author, a columnist for Ha’aretz newspaper, compiles a comprehensive journal of the three decades of the British mandate. Drawing upon personal letters and diaries as well as official reports, he presents a thorough report of the 1929 riots.
September, 1929-January, 1930 THE MALTESE FALCON Introduces
Sherman, A. J. Mandate Days: British Lives in Palestine, 1918-1948. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Looks at the period from a British perspective. Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 2d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Designed as a textbook for undergraduate college classes; gives a balanced introduction to the conflict. See also: 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine; Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine.
the Hard-Boiled
Detective Novel Dashiell Hammett’s masterpiece of detective fiction, The Maltese Falcon, established a distinctively American alternative to the classic British mystery and raised the genre to the level of literature. Locale: United States Category: Literature Key Figures Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), American author Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), American playwright, screenwriter, and essayist
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Summary of Event Dashiell Hammett brought a new realism to detective fiction and introduced the tough, cynical private eye into American popular mythology. His best-known work, The Maltese Falcon, was first published in five serial installments from September, 1929, to January, 1930, with publication in book form in February, 1930. The book was an immediate popular success and was reprinted seven times in its first year. Critics were equally impressed, acclaiming it as an important novel and not simply another mystery story. Three film versions were made in the next decade; in the third, the John Huston film of 1941, Humphrey Bogart crystallized the image of Sam Spade for American audiences. Hammett left school at the age of fourteen, and he held several different jobs for short periods of time until 1915, when he became an operative for the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency. His experience with Pinkerton provided him with the background for the writing of his realistic detective fiction. When pulmonary tuberculosis ended his career as a detective in 1921, Hammett began publishing short fiction in Black Mask, the pulp magazine that would publish his first four novels in serial form. The appearance of his first two novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, in book form in 1929 made him a successful writer, and the next two, The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key (1931), made him internationally famous. It was then, at the height of his fame, that he met Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a close relationship until his death. Hellman was near the beginning of her distinguished career as a writer, which would be aided considerably by Hammett’s expertise as an editor and critic; Hammett, however, would publish only one more novel, The Thin Man, in 1934. Although he stopped writing, he still received royalties from his books and from a series of sixteen popular films, three weekly radio shows, and a daily comic strip based on his characters and stories. In 1954, his income from these various sources was more than eighty thousand dollars, an enormous sum for the time and an indication of how popular his work had become. The reasons that Hammett suddenly stopped writing are unknown, but speculation has centered on his involvement in left-wing politics, a dangerous commitment given the national temper of that time. In 1951, Hammett
The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel
Introducing Sam Spade In the opening paragraphs of The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett immediately sets the novel’s distinctive tone: Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down—from high flat temples—in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan. He said to Effie Perine: “Yes, sweetheart?” She was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin woolen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness. Her eyes were brown and playful in a shiny boyish face. She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it, and said: “There’s a girl wants to see you. Her name’s Wonderly.” “A customer?” “I guess so. You’ll want to see her anyway: she’s a knockout.” “Shoo her in, darling,” said Spade. “Shoo her in.” Source: Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930).
received a six-month sentence in federal prison for refusing to answer questions about a civil rights group. As a result, he was branded a Communist, his books went out of print, his radio shows were taken off the air, and his income was attached by the Internal Revenue Service. In a word, he was blacklisted, and the year before his death his reported income was thirty dollars. Ironically, Hammett, as a veteran of two wars, was buried as a hero in Arlington National Cemetery. Red Harvest, Hammett’s first novel, is now generally regarded as one of his best, although also one of his darkest and most violent. The corruption that permeates the book eventually contaminates even the nameless protagonist, the Continental Op (an operative for the Continental Detective Agency). Hammett creates suspense by developing a technique of severely restricted first-person narration to tell the story; the reader sees and hears only as much as the Op does, and knows far less, as the protagonist seldom reveals his thoughts. At the book’s close, most of the major characters have been murdered, and the ending suggests that things will continue relatively unchanged; corruption is the norm, not the aberration. Many critics have found early evidence of Hammett’s Marxist views in this implicit critique of capitalist society. After a second Op novel, The Dain Curse, Hammett turned to a rigorously objective third-person narration for The Maltese Falcon 2324
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and The Glass Key, describing details of gesture and expression from the outside, as from a cameraeye point of view, but never revealing characters’ thoughts or motives. This shift removes even the few traces of interpretation that had been provided by the taciturn Op and makes the analysis of the character of the detective himself a central concern. The question that readers of The Maltese Falcon must resolve is not Who committed the crime? but What sort of man is Sam Spade? The story begins when a woman hires Spade and his partner, Miles Archer, to follow a man named Floyd Thursby. Archer and Thursby are both murdered that night, and the woman, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, turns out to be involved in a plot to steal a priceless jeweled statue of a falcon; Thursby is revealed to have been her accomplice. Other parties pursuing the falcon include Joel Cairo, one of the first homosexual characters portrayed in an American novel, and Caspar Gutman, the “Fat Man” who is the mastermind behind the quest. Unlike Hammett’s first two novels, The Maltese Falcon contains little violence; the emphasis is on Spade’s gradual uncovering of the complex relations among the various criminals and on the efforts of the criminals and police to determine Spade’s own motives and intentions. Hammett’s objective narration limits the reader’s own knowledge to the same set of lies and half-truths that the characters must sift through. In the novel’s dramatic conclusion, Spade turns Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who has become his lover, over to the police as Archer’s murderer. The reasoning that leads Spade to solve the crime is based on clues available from the start, suggesting that he may have known of her guilt all along. The question remains open as to whether he has really fallen in love but is forced by his rigid personal code of ethics to turn her in or whether he has been cold-bloodedly manipulating her throughout in order to solve the case. Both hypotheses may be partially true, and ultimately the mystery of the novel resides more in understanding the character of the protagonist than in resolving the plot. As Ross Macdonald put it, “Hammett was the first American writer to use the detective-story for the purposes of a major novelist.” This interest in exploring character is extended in Hammett’s fourth novel, The Glass Key, which is as much a psychological novel as a mystery. Hammett’s fifth and final novel, The Thin Man, is unique in its light comic tone, which fitted it for popular adaptation in a series of films. The centerpiece of the book is the relationship between the worldly and
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jaded detective Nick Charles and his young and enthusiastic wife, Nora. The Charles’s happy marriage, one of the few depicted in modern fiction, is clearly based on the relationship between Hammett and Lillian Hellman, to whom the book is dedicated. Significance Before Hammett laid the foundation of the modern realistic detective novel, virtually all detective fiction had been designed on the pattern established by Edgar Allan Poe in three short stories written between 1841 and 1844: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” and “The Purloined Letter.” The basic ingredients of the formula were simple: a brilliant but eccentric amateur detective, his loyal but somewhat pedestrian companion and chronicler, an even more pedestrian police force, and a bizarre crime. The solution of the mystery called for a complex series of logical deductions drawn by the scientific detective on the basis of an equally complex series of subtle clues. These clues were generally available to the detective’s companion, who was also the narrator, and through him to the reader, who would derive interest and pleasure from the attempt to beat the detective to the solution. The canonical popular version of
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Dashiell Hammett. (Library of Congress)
this classical tradition of the mystery as a puzzle to be solved is of course the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, the success of which paved the way for similar work by other British writers such as Agatha Christie. Although this classical model was invented by the American Poe and practiced by several American mystery writers, its popularity with British writers has led to its being labeled the English school, in opposition to a more realistic type of mystery being written in the 1920’s by a small group of American writers. Hammett proved to be the master of the new kind of detective story written in reaction against the English model. Raymond Chandler made the point that “Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish.” Rather than serving as the vehicle for a bewildering set of clues and an often implausible solution, the realistic story of detection emphasized characterization, action, and rapid-fire and colloquial dialogue—as opposed to the often flat characters, slow pace, and stilted set speeches of the classical school. The essentials of the realistic model are found complete in Hammett’s earliest work, almost from the first of his thirty-five stories featuring the Continental Op, just as the entire classical formula was complete in Poe’s earliest stories. Hammett’s familiarity with the classical paradigm is established in the seventy-three reviews of detective novels he wrote for the Saturday Review of Literature and the New York Evening Post between 1927 and 1930, and his rejection of it is thorough. He specifically contrasted his theory of the detective with that of Doyle in describing Sam Spade: “For your private detective does not . . . want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes manner; he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander, or client.” Hammett underscored the difference in methods in a 1924 short story, “The Tenth Clew,” which parodies the classical detective plot with a set of nine bewildering clues, including a victim missing his left shoe and collar buttons, a mysterious list of names, a bizarre murder weapon (the victim was beaten to death with a typewriter), and so on. The solution, of course, the “tenth clue,” is to ignore all nine of the earlier clues and to use standard methods such as the surveillance of suspects to find the killer. Just as the detective is different in Hammett’s work, so are the crimes and criminals. The world of the traditional mystery is one of regularity disrupted temporarily by the
The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel aberrant event of the crime. Once the detective solves the crime through the application of reason, normalcy is restored. The worldview implicit in this plot was comforting for a largely middle-class English readership at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it was remote from the experience of the generation of American readers who had just survived World War I. The world of the hardboiled detective, as conceived by an author who had been through the horrors of that war, is one in which criminal behavior is the norm rather than the exception. There are usually several crimes and several criminals, and the society is not an orderly one temporarily disrupted but a deeply corrupt one that will not be redeemed after the particular set of crimes being investigated is solved. Raymond Chandler observed that Dashiell Hammett “took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley.” The two main ingredients of his breakthrough are the creation of the hard-boiled detective, a ruthless and often violent man who is bound only by his own rigid and private code of ethics, and the perfection of an almost entirely objective narrative style, restricted to terse descriptions and crisp, idiomatic dialogue, revealing the characters’ thoughts and emotions only between the lines. Hammett’s objective technique laid the foundations for similar stylistic experiments by Ernest Hemingway and, later, the French New Novelists of the 1950’s. Moreover, his creation of the hard-boiled detective provided the inspiration for his most noteworthy successors in the mystery field, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, and introduced the tough, cynical private eye into American popular mythology. —William Nelles Further Reading Chandler, Raymond. “The Simple Art of Murder.” The Atlantic Monthly, December, 1944, 53-59. Important essay by one of Hammett’s most distinguished successors analyzes Hammett’s decisive role in the development of detective fiction. Dooley, Dennis. Dashiell Hammett. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984. A survey of Hammett’s work for the general reader. Considers some of the better-known short fiction in more detail than do many such surveys. Includes bibliography and index. Gregory, Sinda. Private Investigations: The Novels of Dashiell Hammett. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985. Full-length study of Hammett’s major novels provides insightful close readings of individual passages but breaks little new interpretive ground. Includes bibliography and index. 2326
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Hammett, Jo. Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers. Edited by Richard Layman with Julie M. Rivett. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001. Memoir by Hammett’s daughter focuses on the personal side of Hammett’s life. Includes many photographs. Layman, Richard. Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. One of the most scholarly and reliable Hammett biographies available; objective, readable, and carefully researched and documented. An indispensable source. Contains the full text of the testimony that sent Hammett to prison. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Marling, William. Dashiell Hammett. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Concise and well-informed survey combines a biographical framework with a unified overview of Hammett’s short fiction and novels. Includes lightly annotated bibliography and index. Nolan, William F. Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook. Santa Barbara, Calif.: McNally & Loftin, 1969. First book-length study of Hammett’s life and work, now somewhat dated, features an extensive listing of Hammett’s work in various fields, including newspapers and radio. Includes bibliography and index. _______. Hammett: A Life at the Edge. New York: Congdon & Weed, 1983. Thoroughly researched work, but often subjective and personal, offering detailed interpretations of the information covered rather than letting the data speak for themselves. Includes photographs, select bibliography, and index. Panek, Leroy Lad. Reading Early Hammett: A Critical Study of the Fiction Prior to “The Maltese Falcon.” Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Examines Hammett’s early works and the development of his technique leading up to The Maltese Falcon. Includes chronology of works, bibliography, and index. Symons, Julian. Dashiell Hammett. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. General survey of Hammett’s life and work aimed at a popular audience. Includes excellent photographs, bibliography, and index. Wolfe, Peter. Beams Falling: The Art of Dashiell Hammett. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1980. Presents close critical analyses of Hammett’s novels and short fiction. Provides some valuable information, although the readings are not always convincing. See also: 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books.
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October 7, 1929 THE SOUND AND THE
The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career
FURY Launches Faulkner’s Career
Although not widely appreciated at the time of its publication, The Sound and the Fury was William Faulkner’s breakthrough novel, launching both his own career and modernist fiction in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Category: Literature Key Figures William Faulkner (1897-1962), American author Harrison Smith (1888-1971), American book editor and publisher
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Summary of Event In 1928, when he completed The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner was a struggling, relatively unsuccessful writer working at odd jobs in Oxford, Mississippi, his hometown. Although his first novels, Soldiers’ Pay (1926) and Mosquitoes (1927), had been well received in literary circles, they had not sold well, and Faulkner was unable to support himself by writing, as he wished to do. Publishers continued to reject his short stories and what he believed his best novel, Flags in the Dust, the manuscript title for what became Sartoris (1929). Flags in the Dust was finally published uncut in 1973. Faulkner later stated in interviews that he had composed The Sound and the Fury in a mood of despair. Doubting that he would have a successful publishing career, he felt freed to write what was closest to his heart in the way that seemed best to him. He often said this novel was his favorite, calling it his “most splendid failure.” In the book, he tried to capture those things that were most important to him personally, culturally, and artistically. In a 1933 introduction to the novel, Faulkner indicated that being able to write without the objects of publishing and selling led him to discover what became fundamental to him in storytelling and led to his thinking himself worthy to be among the writers he considered great: “The writing of it as it now stands taught me both how to write and how to read, and even more: It taught me what I had already read, because on completing it I discovered, in a series of repercussions like summer thunder, the Flauberts and Conrads and Turgenievs which as much as ten years before I had consumed whole and without assimilating at all, as a moth or a goat might.” When The Sound and the Fury was completed, Faulkner was complexly involved with two publishers, Horace Liveright and Harcourt Brace. Faulkner’s friend Harri-
son Smith was an editor for Harcourt Brace and had offered the manuscript to that publishing house, which was bringing out Sartoris. Harcourt Brace showed little interest in this strange, almost incomprehensible book, however. Although there are hints in Faulkner’s earlier work of what he would do in The Sound and the Fury, it breaks decisively with the readability of his previous novels. Sartoris was the first novel to make full use of Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional version of northwest Mississippi, the “postage stamp of native soil” that became the setting of Faulkner’s great series of novels. The Sound and the Fury, set in Jefferson, a fictionalized Oxford, Mississippi, presents a composite portrait of a decayed aristocratic family in the latter stages of its destruction, of a southern culture in the painful throes of transition from the Victorian era to the modern age, and of an American society undergoing a parallel, if more diffused, transition. What makes the novel seem unreadable is the unusual mode of representation that most visibly identifies Faulkner as a modernist writer. The novel developed as a series of experiments to capture in a moving way the reaction of the family of Caddy Compson, a daughter, sister, and mother who makes a modern woman’s choices at the beginning of the twentieth century. Caddy struggles to liberate herself from family and male domination. In doing so, she removes herself from a family so heavily dependent on her that the suffering proves unbearable. Her pregnancy leads to a forced marriage that ends in divorce. Unable to make her way easily, she abandons her daughter to her family’s care. Faulkner finally chose to tell the story mainly from the points of view of Caddy’s brothers, who feel abandoned and betrayed by her. One brother, Benjy, is developmentally disabled, his mental growth arrested before he learned speech. His section of “narration” opens the novel, plunging the reader into perceptions of a character who cannot make judgments, who can feel but who cannot comprehend or explain the loss of the one person who has mothered him. Nearly as difficult to read as Benjy’s section, the next part shows brother Quentin’s activities and thoughts on the day he commits suicide. Quentin is a sensitive and disturbed young man who finds that the values he wants to use to order his world and keep Caddy with him—values inherited from his family—repeatedly betray him into paradox and helplessness. The third section presents the internal monologue of Jason, a violently angry materialist who be-
The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career lieves his sister’s divorce has ruined his chances for wealth and power. The final section tells about Dilsey, the black servant who becomes mother to the family after Caddy departs. This section and Jason’s give indirect expression to the point of view of Caddy’s daughter, also named Quentin, who has been abandoned to a painful life in the suffering and vindictive family. Although the story is comprehensible with patience and considerable rereading, it clearly was not, in 1929, the sort of novel to be accepted easily by a commercial publisher. Harcourt Brace was glad to be able to turn it over to Cape and Smith Publishers. Upon the book’s publication, the initial reviews were very positive, especially among academics and intellectuals. During the two decades after its publication, a fairly steady trickle of highly laudatory reviews identified The Sound and the Fury as a great novel. During this period, Faulkner produced the series of novels that extended his literary experimentation and his presentation of Yoknapatawpha
William Faulkner. (The Nobel Foundation)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 County as a microcosm of the modern world. Among his great novels of this period are As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), and Go Down, Moses (1942). This series, which begins with The Sound and the Fury, constitutes the accomplishment for which Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Significance The immediate impact of the publication of The Sound and the Fury is difficult to measure. For the general reading public, the novel was not accessible and thus not widely read; the book sold fewer than two thousand copies in the first two years after it appeared. Sales were not helped by the stock market crash that occurred two weeks after publication and the Great Depression that followed. For general readers, the more significant event was Faulkner’s 1931 publication of Sanctuary, with its treatment of the sensational subjects of flappers, rape, and gangsters. Sanctuary tended to define the general view of Faulkner until after his Nobel Prize, bringing him the notoriety that allowed him to earn a living writing Hollywood screenplays. The more important immediate impacts of The Sound and the Fury were on Faulkner’s own conception of his writing career and on the literary and artistic intelligentsia who became his admirers and who followed his career. These readers tended to ensure that Faulkner’s works would continue to be published, that he would receive prizes and honors, that his works would be translated, especially into French, and that they would be studied and read in colleges and universities. In this way, Faulkner’s literary reputation was sustained until a complex series of events, beginning perhaps with Malcolm Cowley’s publication of The Viking Portable Faulkner (1946) and the Nobel Prize, established Faulkner as a world author. Faulkner’s career can be seen as one flowering of the literary tradition of modernism. Modernism may be defined as the Western world’s attempt to create a culture viable in the face of almost universal disbelief in traditional Christianity among intellectuals and a parallel secular, commercial materialism in popular culture. Faulkner’s novels embody many of the problems and conflicts that result from this attempt to re-create culture in an age of religious doubt. That he was aware of himself as involved in this project is clear in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in which he affirms that humanity as a whole possesses a soul, as evidenced by the human capacity for love, compassion, sacrifice, endurance, and
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community of humanity that he sees in the struggles of the human heart The first section of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is narrated by for communion and love. The central Benjy, the developmentally disabled brother of the central character, Caddy theme of the novel is loss, and alCompson. As this excerpt from the novel’s first few pages shows, the reader is though it centers on family breakup quickly plunged into a confusion of perceptions through a character who canas a cause of loss, larger causes of the not comprehend the meanings of the actions of others and whose thoughts skip family’s disintegration are shown in around in time. the shift from the Old South, with its emphasis on traditional, Christian We went along the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows values, to a New South, with an emwere. My shadow was higher than Luster’s on the fence. We came to the brophasis on secular and commercial ken place and went through it. “Wait a minute.” Luster said. “You snagged on that nail again. Cant you values. The novel’s attitude toward never crawl through here without snagging on that nail.” this shift is ambivalent; much of good Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through. Uncle Maury said not to let and evil is lost, and much is gained. A anybody see us, so we better stoop over, Caddy said. Stoop over, Benjy. Like meaningful and moral life is not easy this, see. We stooped over and crossed the garden, where the flowers rasped in either world. In worldview, techand rattled against us. The ground was hard. We climbed the fence, where the nique, and theme, Faulkner illustrates pigs were grunting and snuffing. I expect they’re sorry because one of them got a modernist point of view, bringing to killed today, Caddy said. The ground was hard, churned and knotted. completion in American fiction the Keep your hands in your pockets, Caddy said. Or they’ll get froze. You dont influences of his great precursors and want your hands froze on Christmas, do you. contemporaries in Europe, including “Its too cold out there.” Versh said. “You dont want to go out doors.” Joyce and Marcel Proust. “What is it now.” Mother said. “He want to go out doors.” Versh said. The influence of The Sound and “Let him go.” Uncle Maury said. the Fury and of Faulkner’s whole ca“It’s too cold.” Mother said. “He’d better stay in. Benjamin. Stop that now.” reer pervades modern culture, not “It wont hurt him.” Uncle Maury said. only in the English-speaking world “You, Benjamin.” Mother said. “If you dont be good, you’ll have to go to but also in Europe, Japan, and Latin the kitchen.” America. Like Mark Twain, Willa Source: William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (New York: Random House, Cather, and other important Ameri1929). can writers, Faulkner made a microcosm of his home region and wrote to a world audience from that base. Thus he helped to inspire writers such as other “universal truths of the heart.” He also asserts that Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Flannery O’Connor. literature is among the activities that can fill some of the Jean-Paul Sartre was among the European writers to exformer roles of religion, by lifting people’s hearts and by press admiration for Faulkner. Among Latin American reminding them about the soul’s needs and yearnings, so writers in Spanish, Gabriel García Márquez is only one that “the poet’s voice . . . can be one of the props, the pilof many to name Faulkner as an important influence. The lars” to help humanity “endure and prevail.” continued study of Faulkner in colleges helps to prepare Modernism appears in almost every aspect of The readers for difficult modernist and postmodernist fiction Sound and the Fury. The worldview of The Sound and and helps them to develop the intellectual and emotional the Fury echoes, sometimes in direct paraphrase, T. S. tools for understanding and dealing with the complexity Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922), with its vision of the of contemporary Western culture. modern West as a spiritual desert. Faulkner follows —Terry Heller Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and James Joyce in the use of complex subjective points of view and stream-ofFurther Reading consciousness techniques to render the sense of being Bassett, John Earl. William Faulkner: An Annotated imprisoned in a culture no longer able to believe in an obChecklist of Criticism. New York: David Lewis, 1972. jective reality that possesses absolute truth. Faulkner’s Excellent tool for surveying published responses to main answer to this sense of isolation is his belief in the Faulkner’s work and career, arranged by subject and
From THE SOUND AND THE FURY
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The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career then chronologically within subjects. Includes brief summaries of and quotations from most of what was written about The Sound and the Fury from 1929 to 1971. _______. William Faulkner: An Annotated Checklist of Recent Criticism. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1983. Supplement to Bassett’s earlier volume, cited above. Bleikasten, André. The Most Splendid Failure: Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. Provocative study of the novel examines Faulkner’s writing before The Sound and the Fury and discusses each character and each section of the novel in detail, offering structuralist and psychoanalytic interpretations of Caddy, Benjy, Quentin, Jason, and Dilsey. Includes bibliography and index. _______, ed. William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury”: A Critical Casebook. New York: Garland, 1982. Gathers selections from Faulkner’s own commentary on the novel and adds eight interpretive essays on subjects such as Faulkner’s composition process and the structure of the novel. Special emphasis on recent literary theory. Includes bibliography. Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography. 2 vols. New York: Random House, 1974. Massive, highly detailed account of Faulkner’s life and works. Somewhat reticent about the less savory aspects of Faulkner’s life out of deference to Faulkner’s family; presents the facts but does not interpret them. Includes many photographs, chronology of Faulkner’s life, genealogical chart, and index. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. Norton Critical Editions. Edited by David Minter. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. “Authoritative text” presents the full novel along with background materials (including Faulkner correspondence), essays that pro-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vide cultural and historical context, and critical essays on the novel from a wide variety of authors. Kinney, Arthur, ed. Critical Essays on William Faulkner: The Compson Family. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. Contains twenty-three critical essays, selections from early reviews, and related materials by Faulkner. Deals with all of Faulkner’s fiction about the Compson family, and so sheds light on The Sound and the Fury from several interesting directions. Matthews, John T. “The Sound and the Fury”: Faulkner and the Lost Cause. Boston: Twayne, 1991. A solid and useful interpretation for those familiar with the novel. Includes a brief presentation of the literary and historical context followed by careful studies of the main characters, the setting, the technical aspects of the novel, and the various commentaries, including the appendix, that Faulkner constructed for the book. Also includes annotated bibliography and index. Minter, David. William Faulkner: His Life and Work. 2d ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Biography useful for general readers wishing to examine how Faulkner’s life is reflected in his work, especially his major novels. Provides especially good analyses of the novels. Includes genealogy, chronology, map of Yoknapatawpha County, and index. Parini, Jay. One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Draws on materials unavailable to earlier biographers and on interviews with Faulkner’s daughter and some of his lovers to place Faulkner’s work in the context of his life and times. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. See also: Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published; 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature; Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction.
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U.S. Stock Market Crashes
October 24-29, 1929
U.S. Stock Market Crashes The economic boom of the 1920’s ended in a dramatic crash of the stock market that was partly caused and exacerbated by the practice of buying stock “on margin” (that is, with other people’s money). The crash signaled the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Also known as: Black Tuesday Locale: New York, New York Categories: Banking and finance; trade and commerce; economics Key Figures Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Roger W. Babson (1875-1967), American economist Irving Fisher (1867-1947), American economics professor Charles E. Mitchell (1877-1955), president of the National City Bank Thomas William Lamont (1870-1948), senior partner at J. P. Morgan & Company Richard Whitney (1888-1974), vice president of the New York Stock Exchange Charles E. Merrill (1885-1956), founder of Merrill Lynch & Company securities brokerage
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Summary of Event October 29, 1929, “Black Tuesday,” is remembered as the most devastating day in American stock market history. Stock prices fell in a selling frenzy that began the moment the opening bell sounded. When the trading day was over, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped more than thirty points, with some leading stocks plummeting $30-$60 a share. Billions of dollars of fortunes and the life savings of many small investors were wiped out as the decline of the market, which had begun in September, culminated on Black Tuesday. Few people had foreseen the coming of the Great Crash. The country had been riding on the boom of the 1920’s. The decade of the 1920’s is often called the “Roaring Twenties.” The American economy remained strong after World War I. Technological advances and mass production brought conveniences and a sense of prosperity to the average American family. With the advent of a new financial arrangement called the “installment plan,” the public could easily buy on credit such luxury items as automobiles, radios, vacuum cleaners, and electric ice-
boxes, all of which were just coming into widespread use. In his presidential campaign in 1928, Herbert Hoover promised “a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage” and won the election in a landslide. Growing optimism and a sense of prosperity were reflected in the stock market. The 1920’s saw a growth in the participation of ordinary people in the stock market. As the glamorous lives of some successful stock speculators were publicized, many people became infected with the desire to make a quick fortune. Buying stocks was made easy by brokerage firms, which allowed customers to buy stocks “on margin,” paying a fraction of the total value in cash and borrowing the rest from the broker. As long as the stock price rose, this speculation was safe. If the price fell, however, an investor could get a “margin call,” meaning that more cash had to be put up to cover any further losses. If the money was not paid, the broker would sell the stock at the prevailing market price. Because stock prices were rising steadily in the 1920’s, many investors thought that buying stocks on margin was safe speculation. Many ordinary people who had little knowledge about investments became investors in the stock market. Overall, however, the stock market of the 1920’s was dominated by a few powerful, wealthy investors. Some of them engaged in manipulation of stock prices, often using inside information. They would first artificially inflate the price of a target stock, then, when other unsuspecting investors hopped on the bandwagon, sell the stock at a profit. Michael J. Meehan, for example, successfully manipulated the stock of Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in March, 1929, making $100 million in a week. In many cases, the surge in stock prices had to do with speculative momentum rather than with company profits. In fact, there were ominous signs in the American economy in 1929. The credit burden on consumers was heavy. Automobile sales were down. Steel production was falling. Few people were worried about these signs amid the increasing optimism, although some were concerned about the nation’s inflated stock investment. Economist Roger W. Babson, for example, predicted the coming of a crash in the stock market. Stock prices reached a record high on September 3, 1929, following a decade of steady increase. There was no sign of pessimism in the air. Few investors suspected that the day marked the peak of the bull market and that from then on stock prices would steadily decline, col-
U.S. Stock Market Crashes lapsing in October. The market began a long slide. Stock prices fell slowly but relatively steadily during the month of September. Tumbles in prices were often followed by small rallies. By the end of the month, the stock index hit its lowest mark for the year up to that point. This decline continued through the month of October. Fear and apprehension began to mount among both large and small investors, amid confusion and uncertainty. As margin calls went out, more and more investors had to scramble to cover their losses, often drawing from their life savings. Sales of stock when margin calls could not be met put further downward pressure on prices. Still, investors were consoled by sporadic upward movements in stock prices. There were some optimistic analysts as well. For example, Irving Fisher, a respected economics professor, dismissed the selling trend of the market as a “shaking out of the lunatic fringe.” He implied that eliminating marginal speculators would bring stability to the market. Stock prices, however, continued to decline. The stock market began to crash in heavy liquidation beginning on October 23. The price of General Electric stock, for example, fell $20 from the previous day, and Auburn Auto’s stock lost $77. By now, brokers and investors began openly to express their pessimism. Fear and anxiety prevailed. Few had any idea of what the next day, “Black Thursday,” would bring. Prices began to plummet at the opening bell on October 24. Thousands of investors had received margin calls the night before and had no choice but to sell their shares to cover their debts. The stock ticker carrying current stock price information began to run behind as the frenzied selling continued. Furthermore, price quotations printed on the ticker were confusing, as prices were tumbling in the double digits, while the ticker tape showed only one-digit changes. Frustrated brokers scrambled to carry out their clients’ sell orders but were often unable to find buyers. At lunchtime, Thomas William Lamont, the acting head of J. P. Morgan & Company, called several bankers in an attempt to control the situation. This so-called bankers’ pool met and agreed to pour a large sum of money into the market to support stock prices in an attempt to avoid catastrophe. In the early afternoon, Richard Whitney, the vice president of the New York Stock Exchange, walked onto the exchange floor and in a loud voice began to place buy orders at prices higher than actual selling prices. He and other brokers representing the bankers continued this, going from post to post. The prices of major stocks immediately began to recover. In fact, by the time the market closed, many stocks had recouped some of their earlier losses. RCA stock, for ex2332
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ample, closed at 58 1 4, well above the lowest level of the day, recorded at 44 1 2. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6.3 points on a record trading volume of more than twelve million shares. The situation could have been much worse if the bankers had not supported stock prices. The market remained relatively calm on Friday and Saturday. Some prices rose slightly on Friday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down only a few points in Saturday morning’s trading. Over the weekend, however, fear and anxiety built again among investors. When the market opened on Monday, October 28, prices began to drop at an accelerating speed. This time, there was no support from the bankers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 38 points on a trading volume of more than nine million shares. The panic continued the next day, Black Tuesday, when the bottom fell out of the market. The great bull market of the 1920’s had crashed. The crash would continue until mid-November of 1929. For the next two and a half years, stock prices would continue to slide. Significance The stock market crash of 1929 was followed by the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Investors suffered massive losses. Many businesses and banks that had invested heavily in the stock market failed as a result of losses. The collapse in stock prices was followed by the banking panic of 1931. The crash was a harbinger of economic malaise that lasted through the 1930’s. National output plunged by 30 percent between 1929 and 1933, and the nation’s unemployment rate climbed to more than 24 percent. Although some have argued that the crash was a prime cause of the Depression, that claim is widely disputed. The Great Crash and the Great Depression may be only tangentially related. It is generally accepted, however, that the crash was caused in part by various abusive practices in the securities markets in the 1920’s, including manipulation of securities prices, extensive speculation made possible by purchases on margin, trading by company officials using inside information, and the selling of risky securities while withholding important information about them. The crash triggered a series of reforms in securities markets. At first, the Hoover administration was reluctant to add federal regulations to the already existing state rules for the securities exchanges. Some people, particularly in the financial circle, feared that such measures would jeopardize the capitalistic mechanism in the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 financial markets. President Hoover hoped that Wall Street would reform itself in order to prevent future disasters. Many people argued, however, that strict measures to safeguard investors were necessary. In late 1931, the Senate voted to begin a major investigation of the securities markets in an attempt to unearth the manipulative practices in securities trading that were believed to have caused the crash. The hearings conducted by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency lasted for two years and produced thousands of pages of testimony. The inquiry gave an impetus for Congress to pass several legislative measures to regulate the securities market on the federal level. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, he closed the banks in an attempt to restore order in banking. The Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, declared a bank holiday, and a program to reopen the banks was initiated. As part of the bank holiday, the New York Stock Exchange was closed from March 6 to March 14. The Securities Act of 1933 was based on the idea that the securities markets needed to be regulated by the fed-
U.S. Stock Market Crashes eral government in order to protect investors. Underwriters of various securities were required to register new issues with the Federal Trade Commission before they could be offered to the public. The Banking Act of 1933, also called the Glass-Steagall Act, gave more power to the Federal Reserve in controlling member banks’ speculative activities. Furthermore, the act mandated that commercial banks separate themselves from investment functions in order to prevent them from using depositors’ funds for speculation. As a result, commercial banks were detached from the stock market by the mid-1930’s. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was established to safeguard depositors and to avoid widespread bank failures. In 1934, Congress went one step further to regulate the securities markets. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 established a federal agency called the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to oversee the securities markets and to enforce provisions designed to guard against manipulations and fraud. This legislation was much broader in scope than was the Securities Act of
1929
Crowds fill Wall Street after the crash of the stock market. (NARA)
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U.S. Stock Market Crashes 1933, in that the Securities and Exchange Act regulated securities trading at any time, even after initial distribution, whereas the Securities Act dealt only with stocks and bonds at their initial offering stages. Every aspect of securities trading was addressed. The SEC began to enforce the margin rules set by the Federal Reserve in order to regulate the buying of securities on credit. Broad provisions were established for the collection and transmission of information and for investigation of securities. Penalties for violators were also established. These new legislative measures brought sweeping changes in Wall Street practices, ensuring better market safeguards and procedures. Regulations prohibited stock manipulation using pool operations, or the combined powers of two or more operators. More stringent requirements were established for buying stock on margin. Underwriters of securities were obliged to disclose all important information about their issues. Limits were placed on the amount of speculation allowed by insiders in the stocks and bonds of their own companies. These and other measures helped the securities markets to recover in the years to come. —Daniel Y. Lee Further Reading Beaudreau, Bernard. Mass Production, the Stock Market Crash, and the Great Depression: The Macroeconomics of Electrification. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Deals with the unintended consequences of electrification, arguing that the Great Crash and the Great Depression were two of them. Bierman, Harold, Jr. The Causes of the 1929 Stock Market Crash: A Speculative Orgy or a New Era? Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Reconsiders the causes and effects of the Great Crash, arguing that it marked the advent of a new kind of investing. Bibliographic references and index. Eichengreen, Barry. Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Although primarily concerned with the role of the gold standard in causing the international recessions that started in 1928, the author also asserts that Federal Reserve policy caused abrupt changes in purchases of commodities that would have been reflected on Wall Street. Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. A seminal work that identifies Federal Reserve Board mistakes
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 as causing both the stock market crash and the banking crisis of 1930-1933. Galbraith, John K. The Great Crash, 1929. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955. An engaging book that interprets the stock market crash as resulting from speculation, market flaws, and criminal behavior. Hiebert, Ray, and Roselyn Hiebert. The Stock Market Crash, 1929: Panic on Wall Street Ends the Jazz Age. New York: Franklin Watts, 1970. This book recounts events of September through November, 1929, in and around the New York Stock Exchange. Accessible to a general audience. Patterson, Robert T. The Great Boom and Panic, 19211929. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965. This book describes various aspects of the boom of the 1920’s and the stock market collapse. Human aspects of the crash and the Great Depression are also discussed. Accessible to a general audience. White, Eugene N. The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900-1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Significant sections on banks and their securities affliates. Shows that those banks involved in stock market lending were less likely to fail than banks not involved in such activities. _______. “When the Ticker Ran Late: The Stock Market Boom and Crash of 1929.” In Crashes and Panics: The Lessons from History. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1990. Relates the bull market to the expectation that companies would continue paying high dividends; asserts, therefore, that the stock market crash was related to changing expectations, not to Federal Reserve Board policy. Wigmore, Barrie A. The Crash and Its Aftermath: A History of Securities Markets in the United States, 19291933. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. A detailed history of the stock and bond markets between 1929 and 1933. Political and economic influences on the securities markets are analyzed. Accessible to a general audience. See also: Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Great Depression
October 29, 1929-1939
Great Depression The years of the Great Depression marked the worst period of poverty and hardship in the twentieth century, both in North America and abroad. Locale: North America Categories: Business and labor; economics; trade and commerce; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. congressman and senator from Tennessee, later U.S. secretary of state Hugh S. Johnson (1882-1942), head of the National Recovery Administration Frances Perkins (1880-1965), U.S. secretary of labor Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Francis E. Townsend (1867-1960), California physician who led a movement to give a monthly pension to retired elderly persons Walter W. Waters (1898-?), World War I veteran and head of the Bonus Army
The proposals of our opponents will endanger or destroy our system. . . . I especially emphasize that promise to promote “employment for all surplus labor at all times.” . . . At first I could not believe that anyone would
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1929
Summary of Event Beginning in the summer of 1929, the U.S. economy began a contraction that continued, with minor interruptions, until March of 1933 and from which the nation did not fully recover until 1939. The value of the nation’s output of goods and services, or gross national product (GNP), fell from $104 billion in 1929 to $55 billion in 1933, causing a 30 percent decline in the quantity of output and interrupting for more than a decade the historical trend toward increase in per capita production. Industrial production declined 51 percent before reviving slightly in 1932. Unemployment statistics poignantly revealed the impact of the Great Depression on Americans. In 1929, the Labor Department reported 1,499,000 jobless persons, or 3.1 percent of all employables. After the stock market crash, the figure soared. At its peak in 1933, unemployment stood at 12,634,000, more than 1 of every 4 people in the labor force. Some estimates placed unemployment as high as 16 million. By 1933, the annual national income had shrunk from $87.8 billion to $40.2 billion. Farmers, perhaps the hardest-hit economic group, saw their income decline from $11.9 billion to $5.3 billion. The Depression resulted from a severe decline in ag-
gregate demand. One contributing factor was a massive wave of bank failures. As banks failed, the public withdrew large sums of currency, forcing the banks to call in loans and reducing the money supply. Decreased spending drove down prices and wages. Farmers, home buyers, and many business firms found the burden of their debts greatly increased, so bankruptcies and property foreclosures were widespread. The Depression was not limited to North America: It spread across the world, each country buying less from the others. In Germany, for example, the Depression struck sooner and went deeper than it did in the United States. Political pressures to relieve distress and promote recovery were strong everywhere. For the first two years of the Depression, President Herbert Hoover relied on the voluntary cooperation of business and labor to maintain payrolls and production. In 1929, the government created the Federal Farm Board and gave it authority to make crop loans, which helped keep products off the market and thereby limit price declines. In 1930, Congress adopted the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, which drastically increased U.S. import restrictions, dragging other countries further into the deflationary process. As the crisis deepened, Hoover took positive steps to stop the spread of economic collapse. In 1932, the government established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a loan agency designed to aid distressed firms such as banks, insurance companies, and railroads. This approach to economic recovery was based on Hoover’s belief that such government loans would halt deflation, ultimately restoring industry’s ability to create jobs, increase the number of wage earners, and thereby increase consumption. On the relief issue, the president and Congress fought a running battle for months. The Democrats wanted the federal government to assume responsibility for direct relief and to spend heavily on public works. Hoover was willing to see public works spending increase, but he insisted on a massive tax increase in 1932 to pay for it. He argued that unemployment relief was properly the province of local resources, not an appropriate federal activity:
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be so cruel as to hold out a hope so absolutely impossible of realization. . . . And I protest against such frivolous promises being held out to a suffering people. If it were possible to give this employment to 10,000,000 people by the Government, it would cost upwards of $9,000,000,000 a year. . . . It would pull down the employment of those who are still at work by the high taxes and the demoralization of credit upon which their employment is dependent.
After a partisan fight, Hoover did, however, sign the Relief and Construction Act, which expanded the RFC’s power to extend loans to states and for the creation of public works projects. Other bills passed in 1932 include the Glass-Steagall Act, which expanded credit to industry and business, and the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, which was designed to limit foreclosures by establishing a series of banks capitalized at $125 million to provide for home construction and long-term mortgages payable in installments.
Despite these efforts, by the end of Hoover’s term, the nation’s banking system had virtually collapsed, and the economic machinery of the nation was grinding to a halt. Tired and haggard, Hoover left office with a reputation as a do-nothing president, although he had gone far beyond his predecessors in supporting expanded federal responsibilities—even paving the way for the New Deal. His profound belief that promoting government jobs for the unemployed would break the backs of taxpayers, however, had not allowed him to do enough. What happened to the economy after 1929 left most people baffled and bewildered. The physical structure of business was still intact, undamaged by war or natural disaster. People wanted to go to work, but plants stood dark and idle. Prolonged unemployment created a new class of superfluous people. The jobless sold apples on street corners. They queued up in breadlines and outside soup kitchens. Many lived in “Hoovervilles,” shantytowns on the outskirts of large cities. Thousands of unemployed men and boys took to the road in search of work, and the
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Unemployed people line up in subzero weather for a meal at a New York City relief kitchen in January, 1934. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Administration (WPA). On the business side, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was established in 1933 under General Hugh S. Johnson. The NRA attempted to promote industrial recovery by encouraging firms in individual industries and trade groups to get together to formulate “codes of fair competition,” which usually tended to reduce competition. For farmers, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), also created in 1933, provided a system of production restrictions and price supports for agricultural products that became a permanent part of national policy. The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 enabled Secretary of State Cordell Hull to begin negotiations with other countries to agree on measures to liberalize international trade, beginning another permanent element of national policy. Finally, several measures promoted the establishment and power of labor unions, notably the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Federal regulation of wages and hours began in 1938, with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Roosevelt appointed the first woman cabinet member in U.S. history when he chose Frances Perkins to head the Department of Labor. Federal government intervention in the economy soared with these measures. For a time, this trend was resisted by the U.S. Supreme Court, which on May 27, 1935, rejected the AAA and the NRA as unconstitutional; the date of the ruling became known as Black Monday. However, after Roosevelt’s landslide reelection in 1936, the Court ceased most of its opposition. The New Deal programs brought a rapid increase in government spending. Although tax rates were frequently increased, toleration of federal deficits became a normal financial policy. In 1935, Francis E. Townsend, a California physician, popularized a proposal to help needy aged persons and stimulate economic recovery by having the government pay a pension of two hundred dollars per month to each person over sixty years of age who agreed to retire. In response, the government developed a comprehensive program of social insurance, adopted in August, 1935, as the Social Security Act. It included a program of unemployment compensation, a separate program of old-age pensions, and a third program of means-tested relief for needy aged, blind, and families with dependent children. With this, the U.S. welfare system of transfer payments came into existence. Significance The Great Depression was a crisis of the American mind as much as it was an economic disaster. Many people be2337
1929
gas station became a meeting place for men “on the bum.” In 1932, a crowd of fifty men fought over a barrel of garbage outside the back door of a Chicago restaurant. In northern Alabama, poor families exchanged a dozen eggs, which they sorely needed, for a box of matches. Despite such mass suffering, there was little violence or support for radical political movements. Farmers suffering from drastic price declines tried to reduce the flow of products to market. In August, 1932, for example, Iowa farmers began dumping milk bound for Sioux City. To dramatize their plight, Milo Reno, former president of the Iowa Farmers Union, organized a strike on the northern plains and cut off all agricultural products from urban markets until prices rose. Several farm states passed moratorium laws preventing the foreclosure of farms for debt. Drought aggravated the problems of farm families in the plains states, where the Dust Bowl made life so difficult that whole families packed up and left for the West Coast. Such “Okies” (named for the state where many originated) flooded into California to take jobs as migrant farm workers, as John Steinbeck vividly depicted in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. In the summer of 1932, twenty-five thousand World War I veterans, known as the Bonus Army, led by former sergeant Walter W. Waters, staged an organized protest by marching on Washington, D.C., to demand immediate payment of a bonus that was not due until 1945. Congress refused, and Hoover sent troops to disperse the riot that ensued at Anacostia Flats, where the veterans were encamped. Hoover was resoundingly defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the presidential election of 1932, as the political pendulum swung strongly toward the Democratic Party. Roosevelt’s New Deal drastically increased the economic role of the federal government. Roosevelt instituted several major policy innovations. For example, the dollar was devalued internationally when the price of gold was raised from $20.67 to $35 per ounce. This measure opened the way for a large flow of gold from Europe to the United States, raising bank reserves and increasing the money supply. In addition, a “bank holiday” in March, 1933, closed all banks for a few days, then reopened most of them under conditions that restored public confidence in the banking system. Federal insurance of bank deposits was established. Roosevelt also instituted a series of relief programs that provided direct transfer payments to the needy. The system evolved from direct handouts under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to work relief under the Civil Works Administration and the Works Progress
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Great Depression
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Roosevelt Reassures the Nation FDR was elected to an unprecedented four terms as U.S. president, serving during two of the nation’s greatest crises, the Great Depression and World War II. In his first inaugural address, delivered on Saturday, March 4, 1933, he immediately addressed the first order of business: to bolster a people breaking under the burdens of the Depression: I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. . . . The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. . . . Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. . . .
lieved that the country had reached all its frontiers and faced a future of limited opportunity. A slowdown in rates of marriages and births expressed this pessimism. The Depression smashed the old verities of the value of rugged individualism, the sanctity of business, and the American preference for limited government. Utopian 2338
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land. . . . Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency. There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States. . . . If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife. With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems. . . . We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it. In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
movements found eager followings. In addition to Townsend’s call for an old-age pension system, Father Charles Coughlin, a priest and radio personality in Royal Oak, Michigan, advocated the nationalization of banks, utilities, and natural resources. Senator Huey Long of Louisiana led a movement advocating a redistribution of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 wealth. All these movements tapped a broad vein of discontent among those who felt that they had been left out of the New Deal. Slowly, however, Americans regained their sense of optimism. The New Deal revived the old faith that the nation could meet any challenge and control its own destiny. Even many intellectuals who had debunked American life in the 1920’s began to revise their opinions. By 1936, there were signs of recovery, and by 1937, business indexes were up, some near 1929 levels. The New Deal had eased much of the acute distress, although unemployment remained at around 7.5 million. Although in 1938 the economy again went into a sharp recession, conditions improved by mid-1938. Still, the Depression did not end until the government launched the massive defense spending prompted by World War II. —Donald Holley and Paul B. Trescott Further Reading Allen, Frederick Lewis. Since Yesterday: The NineteenThirties in America, September 3, 1929-September 3, 1939. 1940. Reprint. New York: Harper Perennial, 1986. Classic social history provides a vivid picture of Americans’ lives in the 1930’s. Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1966. _______. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. These two volumes provide readable and dramatic accounts of employment conditions and the transformation of the labor union movement during the Depression. Chandler, Lester V. America’s Greatest Depression, 1929-1941. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. A professional economist explains the quantitative dimensions of the Depression.
Great Depression Journal of Economic Perspectives 7, no. 2 (Spring, 1993). Symposium on the Great Depression presents articles by four economic historians. Each includes analysis and bibliography. Kyvig, David E. Daily Life in the United States, 19201940: How Americans Lived During the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. Shows how the day-to-day experiences of average Americans changed from the 1920’s through the decade of the Depression. Includes photographs. Mitchell, Broadus. Depression Decade: From New Era Through New Deal, 1929-1941. 1947. Reprint. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1989. Economic history blends data with description of the human dimension of the events of the Depression. Shannon, David A., ed. The Great Depression. 1960. Reprint. Lexington, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1980. Collection of descriptive materials about the impact of the Depression reprinted from newspaper and magazine accounts of the time. Watkins, T. H. The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America. New York: Henry Holt, 1999. Draws on oral histories as well as memoirs and other documents of the time to present a picture of the lives of Americans during the Depression. Includes index. See also: Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans; 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President. 1929
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New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 8, 1929
New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public The scholarship and passion of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., backed by Rockefeller money and prestige, put previously despised radical art at the center of American culture. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Arts; organizations and institutions Key Figures Alfred H. Barr, Jr. (1902-1981), American art historian Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874-1948), American heiress, philanthropist, and art collector Conger Goodyear (1877-1964), American industrialist and art collector Paul Sachs (1878-1965), American professor of art history Summary of Event Americans were first exposed to radical art, from postImpressionism to cubism to expressionism, at the famous independent exhibition held in New York’s Sixtyninth Street Armory in 1913 (known as the Armory Show). Only a few independent collectors appreciated the new styles, however, and American artists who adopted them had next to no support. In the 1920’s, American museums and the American rich collected European old-master art as a counterweight of “culture” to the disturbing forces that were transforming American society. European art after Impressionism was almost impossible to find in the United States, and only a few zealots collected the most innovative work being done in Europe. Even Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso were dismissed as frauds or madmen. The idea for the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) came from three women who collected post-Impressionist art and who wished to spread appreciation for it in the United States. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was concerned that American interest in art after 1880 was entirely private and that her children’s generation would have no chance to experience an art appropriate to their own time. Lizzie P. Bliss, heiress to a textile fortune, had been guided to modern art by Arthur B. Davies, one of the organizers of the Armory Show. Mary Sullivan was a former design teacher and a collector of work by such avant-garde figurative artists as Picasso, van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and Georges Braque. The women knew that in Europe, such state-run museums as the Tate Gallery in London and the Luxem2340
bourg in Paris showed advanced art of the recent past and the present, from which the best works might be chosen for official government collections. The position of modern art in the United States, they believed, would be much more secure if an American museum existed to give modern art the imprimatur of accepted taste. Rockefeller, Bliss, and Sullivan began to discuss backing a museum devoted to such art in the winter of 1928-1929. They would lend the museum art until its director could set a firm course and begin a collection. In May, 1929, they asked wealthy industrialist and art collector Conger Goodyear to chair a committee to establish the museum. Goodyear had recently been forced out of the presidency of the Albright Gallery in Buffalo because he had spent five thousand dollars of the museum’s money on a painting by Picasso. He quickly assembled a panel of art patrons and historians. In June, on the advice of committee member Paul Sachs, a professor of art history at Harvard University, the backers approached Sachs’s former Harvard student Alfred H. Barr, Jr., to direct the museum. Barr was the most brilliant and impassioned of the museum professionals whom Sachs steered toward modern art. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Barr studied art history at Princeton University and Harvard University. He was one of the first American historians to visit the Bauhaus in Germany and the Soviet Union’s art academies. Believing in a liberal, forward-looking idea of historical evolution, he was convinced that the greatest radical art of his day was as inevitable an expression of the modern world as the Gothic cathedral had been of the Middle Ages. Sachs made Barr view modernism in the art historian’s usual terms of value: connoisseurship, the description of how particular artists made their works beautiful, and the evolutionary idea that styles were created along a time line of direct influences. This view put Barr in line with the conservative, art-appreciation outlook of Rockefeller and her friends. Barr, however, loved much more radical art than Sachs did and was willing to look for examples of the creative spirit outside painting (in architecture, product design, and films). He became convinced that his real mission was to make modernism popular among tomorrow’s millionaire art buyers—the students Barr taught at Harvard and at Wellesley College. Only in that way could modernism get its full due as a cultural expression.
New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public
Barr’s ambition of making modernism popular matched the hopes of Rockefeller, Bliss, and Sullivan that their own tastes could be shared with the public. Despite Barr’s youth and scholarly unworldliness, Rockefeller accepted him as the new museum’s director in July, 1929. His first exhibition for the museum, titled Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and van Gogh, was made up of paintings loaned by the founders and other supporters. None of the shown work was abstract—indeed, all the artists had died before the emergence of cubism—and such works were already being collected by Francophiles in the American upper class. The works displayed, however, broke sharply with old-master definitions of art prevalent in the United States. Although conservative by Barr’s standards, the display of works by “the founders of modern painting” would be a springboard from which he could launch shows of the more demanding art that followed them. The museum’s exhibitions would serve as an education in the development of modernism. When the Museum of Modern Art opened in rented space in a New York office building on November 8, 1929, it marked a milestone in respectability for avantgarde art. Forty-seven thousand people visited the exhibition during its month on display. Newspapers and art journals announced that the paintings shown had “converted” antimodernists by their beauty. The social exclusiveness of the museum’s backers reassured viewers that a taste for the modern was an acceptable thing. Most important, the works of artists whose place in art history was beyond question but who had been kept from American audiences by museums’ reactionary attitudes were finally presented to a starved public.
cally modern headquarters on former Rockefeller property in 1939. Barr intended his museum to be a teaching institution first and foremost. The erudite catalogs that accompanied his shows explained how the radical works on display had developed naturally from the art that had preceded them. Even a form as incomprehensible as abstraction had a pedigree, and its artists were as accountable to the connoisseur’s taste as any old master. Such an approach reassured viewers without making the art itself any less revolutionary. Barr’s personal charisma attracted young, well-placed academics and art lovers, including Philip Johnson, Edward Warburg, Dorothy Miller, and Beaumont Newhall, to the museum’s staff. The publicity department’s handling of exhibitions of van Gogh’s paintings and of James McNeill Whistler’s “Mother” added to the museum’s reputation for shocking, brilliant innovation. Because of the high social status of MOMA’s backers, affiliation with the museum could be a strategy of social advancement. A taste for avant-garde art became fashionable in New York, and MOMA’s shows of modern architecture and design changed the upper class’s idea of what its homes were supposed to look like. Barr himself was instrumental in helping the radical German architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe find teaching posts in the United States after Adolf Hitler came to power. By the 1940’s, for MOMA’s audience, radical style became what Barr believed modern art itself was: a sign of liberal (but not destructive) historical progress. The museum’s impact on artists themselves, and thus on the nature of art, was more ambiguous. American painters were offended that the first show had featured French art. Barr himself always tried to show American work, but he was constrained by the trustees’ preferences and by his own feeling that the future lay with European abstraction. Barr’s background in art history, which led him to judge art based on stylistic development and formal beauty, tended to discourage him from looking at art as a means of social change. The uproar that occurred when the museum showed politically radical murals in 1932 (some pillorying MOMA’s own backers as capitalist oppressors) made it act more cautiously. Moreover, the institution could always be faulted for conservatism when it showed potentially subversive art, such as Soviet films or Bauhaus product designs, as works of beauty without regard to their social import. The new audience for modernism created by MOMA led to new dealerships and galleries for avant-garde art, a
Significance Barr and Rockefeller’s new museum quickly developed along the lines both had hoped. Barr went to Europe and convinced museums, collectors, and artists to lend to the institution. He mounted shows of increasing scope and artistic daringness, notably Vincent van Gogh (1935), Cubism and Abstract Art and Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism (both 1936), and Picasso: Forty Years of His Art (1939). Lizzie Bliss’s bequest of her collection and other trustee gifts in 1931 made possible Rockefeller’s ambition to build a permanent public collection of the work she loved best. At the same time, Barr mounted shows devoted to, and began collections of, aspects of art in genres other than painting. These included modern architecture (1932), industrial design (1934), classic films (1935), and photography (1940). The museum moved into its own building in 1934 and acquired a new, radi-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
development that exposed American painters to new inspiration and gave them more outlets for their works. The museum’s importance in the art world, however, led to fears that MOMA, its backers, and the dealers were colluding to push certain styles on the art market. MOMA, after all, set itself up as the halfway house where modern art would be judged for its lasting merit and consequently its sale value. While doing so, MOMA was often dependent on the personal purchases of the trustees, who were building up the museum’s small permanent collection. Accordingly, American artists of all stylistic persuasions distrusted the museum as much as they learned from it. Alfred Barr’s museum was transformed by the success he brought to it. By 1939, Barr had created a complex bureaucracy of scholars, publicists, and business administrators. His painstaking scholarship (which put him behind schedule and over budget) and roving interest in all the modern arts came to be seen as a hindrance to the museum’s mission and stability, and, in 1943, Barr was removed as director of the institution. After an interim period, he was given the new, less powerful post of director of collections. Although his influence on MOMA’s taste remained great, his idea of a free-ranging educational museum was slowed by institutional realities. Although the Museum of Modern Art became a museum in the more conventional sense, conserving the aesthetic values of a particular institution, its example forced other museums to take contemporary art seriously. New York’s Metropolitan Museum itself began buying newer art (some from MOMA’s overstock) and eventually joined the bidding war for new talent that hit museums after World War II. The scholarship of Barr and his MOMA staff showed historians and curators how to write about radical art responsibly. The great role that museums came to play in the creation of art would not have been possible without the Museum of Modern Art. —M. David Samson
torical photographs and documents, many of which have never been published before, to tell the story of the establishment of the museum and its growth since that time. Published on the occasion of the museum’s seventy-fifth anniversary. Includes a chronology. Chase, Mary Ellen. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. New York: Macmillan, 1950. Biography of the woman who led the effort to create the Museum of Modern Art. Respectful and conventional treatment discusses the museum in the context of Rockefeller’s philanthropy and love of art. Includes index. Kantor, Sybil Gordon. Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: The Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Combines biography with institutional history in examining Barr’s career and his vision for the museum. Draws on interviews as well as Barr’s personal correspondence. Lynes, Russell. Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art. New York: Atheneum, 1973. One of the best accounts of the museum up to 1970, solidly based on research and interviews. Emphasizes social status as an aspect of the museum’s appeal. Discursive style makes timing of events somewhat hard to follow, but includes a chronology of museum exhibitions as well as an index. Marquis, Alice Goldfarb. Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: Missionary for the Modern. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. Accounts for Barr’s devotion to modernism and traces his relations with museum backers and staff more fully than does Lynes’s account (cited above), but otherwise follows Lynes’s interpretation closely. Overworks the idea that Barr followed in his father’s footsteps as a kind of preacher. Includes endnotes and index. Meyer, Karl E. The Art Museum: Power, Money, Ethics. New York: William Morrow, 1979. Provides valuable background on the kinds of institutional pressures faced by MOMA in its maturing years, although dated as investigative reporting. Includes bibliography and index.
Further Reading Barr, Alfred. Defining Modern Art. Edited by Irving Sandler and Amy Newman. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1978. A collection of Barr’s catalog prefaces and other Museum of Modern Art publications. Together, these pieces make a laconic, somewhat repetitive argument for the historical inevitability and aesthetic merit of most branches of modern art. Includes chronology and index. Bee, Harriet S., and Michelle Elligott, eds. Art in Our Time: A Chronicle of the Museum of Modern Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2004. Presents his2342
See also: Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art; Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York; July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created
November 19, 1929
Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created The Tanganyika government proclaimed part of the Serengeti Plains a game reserve to save one of Africa’s finest wildlife herds from extinction. Twenty-two years later, the reserve would become a national park. Locale: Serengeti Plains, Tanganyika (now in Tanzania) Categories: Environmental issues; government and politics Key Figures Donald Cameron (fl. early twentieth century), governor of Tanganyika, 1924-1931 Marcuswell Maxwell (fl. early twentieth century), British professional photographer Edward F. Twining (fl. early twentieth century), governor of Tanganyika, 1949-1958
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Summary of Event The 1929 establishment by the government of Tanganyika (modern Tanzania) of a game reserve in the Serengeti Plains was the first important step in creating the world-famous wildlife sanctuary Serengeti National Park. This 5,600-square-mile park now in north-central Tanzania extends east from the shores of Lake Victoria. Within its borders there exists the greatest and most spectacular concentration of game animals found anywhere in the world. Most of the park comprises vast grassland plains that support huge herds of wildebeests, zebras, and gazelles. The Serengeti National Park is also renowned for its lion and leopard populations, as well as for its wealth of bird life. Tanganyika officially came under British rule on July 22, 1922, when the League of Nations agreed that this territory in equatorial Africa, formerly known as German East Africa, would be administered by the British crown. In 1926, a critical period of Tanganyikan political development began, when Donald Cameron, the territorial governor, introduced the concept of “indirect rule.” Under this system, the major internal and external affairs of the territory were controlled by the colonial administrative staff in conjunction with the British home government, and local administration was placed in the hands of traditional native rulers. The Serengeti Plains covered a large area in the northeast of Tanganyika Territory adjoining the Kenya border. There were very few inhabitants, either African or European, but the plains abounded in game of many
kinds, including zebras, wildebeests, gazelles, buffalos, impalas, and lions. Zoologists estimate that the plains support more than half a million large animals, the most remarkable concentration of big game in Africa or anywhere else on earth. Indeed, the biological productivity of the Serengeti’s perennial grasslands is displayed in the seemingly infinite number and variety of wild animals that they support. Most of the Serengeti is grassy savanna, an open plain that provides the perfect niche for the great grazing herds, the stalking cats that prey on them, and the ravenous dogs and vultures that perform scavenging tasks. The plains are broken at places by rocky outcrops, acacia and savanna woodlands, forested rivers, and occasional swamps and lakes that add character to the landscape. In altitude, the Serengeti varies from three thousand to six thousand feet, which gives it a moderate subtropical climate despite its equatorial location. The vegetation of the savanna, known as sward, is a palatable mixture of grasses and herbs, of which red oat grass predominates. The knee-high grass is the main food of the grazing herds, of which the most abundant are of wildebeests, zebras, hartebeests, and Thompson’s gazelles. To reduce competition and increase the utilization of food resources, the grazing animals have evolved a sequential feeding strategy. Zebras eat the coarse top of the herb layer, wildebeests eat the leafy center, and gazelles eat the seeds and young shoots at ground level. Less numerous grazers and browsers include such species as topi, oribi, and warthog (which also roots in the ground for bulbs and tubers), African elephant, buffalo, Grant’s gazelle, impala, steinbok, eland, giraffe, and black rhinoceros. All the major African predators are found on the Serengeti grasslands, as well as many of the smaller predators such as the serval, bat-eared fox, civet, and mongoose. It is not unusual for a visitor to the current Serengeti National Park to see forty or more lions in a single day. Many scavengers—chiefly hyena, jackal, and several species of vulture—are in constant attendance with the predators. By the late 1920’s, unchecked poaching by African gangs and indiscriminate shooting of animals from motorized vehicles threatened the big-game populations of the Serengeti. Parties in automobiles entered the plains, usually crossing the border from Kenya, and slaughtered the big game from their vehicles. This practice, although strictly forbidden by the existing game laws of Tanganyika, had continued because the territory had only a few
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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also strengthened the game laws by amendments intended to provide closer control over the use of motorized vehicles and rifles. The provisions included the confiscation of vehicles owned by those convicted of unauthorized shooting of game.
Significance The creation of the Serengeti Game jumbura Reserve began the process of ending Mombasa O c e a n poaching and the senseless killing of Tanga Tabora ika gany n game in the Serengeti. The process Ta Kalemi would continue two decades later, Dar-es-Salaam under the leadership of Governor Edward Twining. The entire SerMbeya engeti Game Reserve was made a closed preserve in 1950, and in 1951, Kasama it was chartered as the first national park under the National Park Board Moroni Lubumbashi of Tanganyika. Serengeti National Park was one of the first thirty naMozambique r tional parks to be formed anywhere Chipata e = Serengeti Lilongwe th Game Reserve in the world, and it is the world’s r d No Nampula Lusaka twelfth largest. The park originally included the large areas surrounding Ngorongoro game wardens. As a result of the indiscriminate killing of Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and the Salei Plains. In 1959, wildlife, in July, 1929, a game warden was sent by the when Sir Richard Turnbull was governor, these three arTanganyikan authorities to Serengeti specifically to proeas, which constituted approximately half of the original tect the wild animals. area of the park, were removed from the park despite the Worldwide pressure from conservationists and scienobjections of prominent zoologists, who claimed that the tists, spurred by editorials and dramatic photographs in areas encompassed essential migration routes of game The Times of London, focused attention on this jeoparherds. The eliminated areas were replaced by areas of dized resource. Numerous articles condemned the innearly equal size on the Togoro Plains and the headwaters of the Duma River; these areas, however, were less discriminate shooting of animals, and books of African important to animal migration. big-game photographs were published by Marcuswell In 1961, full internal self-government was granted to Maxwell. These publications testified to the worldwide Tanganyika, and Julius Nyerere was selected as the first interest in the preservation of the Serengeti’s fauna. A prime minister. In 1962, Tanganyika became a republic, common theme of the articles was that animals were so with Nyerere as its president. Two years later, it united “tame” that parties in automobiles could approach lions, with Zanzibar to form the nation of Tanzania. During rhinoceroses, and antelope to within a few yards and that Nyerere’s tenure in office, which continued after the unipeople intent on preservation rather than destruction fication, the trustees of the National Parks Board in 1966 could obtain remarkable photographs of wild animals in established the Serengeti Research Institute at Seronera. their natural state. In 1929, the Tanganyika Executive The institute, formed to conserve wildlife, is considered Council and Governor Cameron supported the formation the most advanced center for the study of ecology in Afof a game reserve in the central part of Serengeti Plains in rica. what is now Serengeti National Park. The park is the only place in Africa where visitors can On November 19, 1929, the Tanganyika government see vast animal migrations. At the start of the dry season created the Serengeti Game Reserve. The government Bukavu
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Further Reading Austen, Ralph A. Northwest Tanzania Under German and British Rule: Colonial Policy and Tribal Politics, 1889-1939. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. This readable monograph discusses the governorship of Sir Donald Cameron and the political
climate of Tanganyika in the late 1920’s that made the creation of a game reserve on the Serengeti Plains possible. Cameron’s policy of “indirect rule,” in which native institutions controlled local affairs, is explained. Grzimek, Bernhard, and Michael Grzimek. Serengeti Shall Not Die. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961. With magnificent illustrations and firsthand accounts that trace the migration of wild herds in the Serengeti, the authors provide a significant contribution to the knowledge surrounding big game in Africa. The controversy surrounding the coexistence of wildlife and Masai tribesmen is explored. Contains a census of big-game populations.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
1929
(May or early June), a mass migration of the park’s wildlife takes place along a corridor leading west that follows the rivers that feed Lake Victoria. The migration, chiefly of zebra and wildebeest, is away from the herds’ usual haunts on the central plains and into the corridor. The animals converge and then move westward, six to ten abreast, in winding columns several miles long. This movement has its following of carnivorous animals (lions, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas) ready to dispose of stragglers and weaklings. Serengeti National Park is perhaps the most famous game preserve in the world. The dedicated game wardens, park administrators, and wildlife scientists, through their antipoaching and antisettlement campaigns, have allowed the park to continue as one of the few natural sanctuaries for African wildlife. The management of this park has served as an inspiration and model for game reserves in other African countries. The Serengeti Research Institute has contributed greatly to knowledge of Africa’s animals. The theme of studies at the institute is ecology, particularly the interactions of big game animals with their environment. Scientists have examined the veterinary problems affecting the coexistence of humans, wild animals, and domestic stock and the productivity of soils and vegetation over long periods of time. Host-parasite relationships between certain wild animals and the transmission of diseases have been determined. The creation of Serengeti National Park has thus contributed to general biological knowledge, in addition to preserving large numbers of wild animals for future generations. —Charles E. Herdendorf
A topi, a type of antelope, leaps across a grassy plain watched by a hyena in a Kenyan game reserve on the Serengeti Plains. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created Hayes, Harold T. P. The Last Place on Earth. New York: Stein & Day, 1977. This book discusses the natural history of the Serengeti Plains in a readable, nontechnical narrative. The research contributions of Bernhard Grzimek are treated in a lively fashion. Huxley, Julian, ed. The Atlas of World Wildlife. London: Portland House, 1988. Provides a comprehensive review of the world’s animals from an ecological perspective. Contains a section on national parks and reserves, with location maps for more than seven hundred sites. The grassland of Serengeti National Park is given special attention. Kurtz, Laura S. Historical Dictionary of Tanzania. London: Scarecrow Press, 1978. Documents the historical setting and the political climate in Tanganyika during the creation of the early game reserves in the 1920’s and the establishment of national parks in the 1950’s. This book’s encyclopedic format and extensive bibliography make it particularly useful for historical and anthropological research. Leakey, Louis S. B. The Wild Realm: Animals of East Africa. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1969. Depicts the wild animals of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda with lucid text and startling color illustrations. Presents a table of average sizes and weights for all the animals in the book. The animals of the Serengeti National Park are prominently discussed and illustrated. Linblad, Lisa, and Sven-Olof Linblad. The Serengeti: Land of Endless Space. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. This lavishly illustrated book carried on the early photographic work of Marcuswell Maxwell, whose work is now difficult to find in libraries. The large-size color photographs are excellent, but the descriptive text is limited. Mari, Carlo, and Harvey Croze. The Serengeti’s Great
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Migration. New York: Abbeville Press, 2000. Photographic essay on the migration of animals in the Serengeti, filled with stunning photographs of the creatures and their habitat. Includes a map of the region. Martin, David. Serengeti: Land, People, History. Harare, Zimbabwe: African Publishing Group, 1997. Brief overview of the Serengeti region, including its human and nonhuman inhabitants and the environment they share. Bibliographic references and index. Shetler, Jan Bender, ed. Telling Our Own Stories: Local Histories from South Mara, Tanzania. Boston: Brill, 2003. Oral histories of the Serengeti region collected from the area’s traditional native African inhabitants. Bibliography and index. Turner, Myles. My Serengeti Years: The Memoirs of an African Game Warden. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987. Traces the evolution of Serengeti National Park from a largely untouched and unexplored wilderness to Africa’s finest wildlife sanctuary. Discusses the poaching problem that once threatened to destroy the animals the park was created to protect. Noteworthy researchers, scientists, filmmakers, and celebrities who have enhanced the reputation of the park are documented. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve; May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded; June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope
Winter, 1929-1930
Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope Bernhard Voldemar Schmidt extended both astronomy and astrophotography when he designed a special lens to correct a fundamental defect in images formed by spherical mirrors. Locale: Bergedorf, Germany Categories: Science and technology; astronomy; inventions Key Figures Bernhard Voldemar Schmidt (1879-1935), Estonian optical instrument maker Richard Schorr (1867-1951), German astronomer Walter Baade (1893-1960), German-born American astronomer Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916), German astronomer and theoretical physicist
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Summary of Event The first telescope, invented by a Dutch spectacle maker in the early seventeenth century, was a simple combination of two lenses in a tube. Because this type of telescope employs refraction, in which light obliquely entering glass from air undergoes a change in direction, it is often termed a refractor. Although Galileo did not invent the telescope, he pioneered its astronomical use, discovering sunspots, craters on Earth’s moon, the phases of Venus, and the four large moons of Jupiter, now called the Galilean moons in his honor. Even today, many amateur astronomers use refractors; however, inescapable technical difficulties with such telescopes became evident as astronomy progressed. A lens, for example, can be supported only around its rim without obscuring the light path; therefore, large lenses may sag under their own weight and distort the image produced. Furthermore, a lens focuses red and blue lights at different places, a fault called chromatic aberration, causing colored rings around the images. By 1897, when the Yerkes Observatory (the site of the world’s largest refractor) was completed on the shores of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, it was clear that the future of giant telescopes lay along a different path. This involved a completely new optical system called the reflector, in which the primary light gatherer is a mirror rather than a lens. In 1668, Sir Isaac Newton constructed the first working reflector: a concave mirror that was supported from behind and reflected all colors similarly, eliminat-
ing chromatic aberration. Although Newton’s mirror was made from metal, subsequent telescope makers preferred to form the mirror from glass covered with a thin reflective layer of metal. Glass of high optical quality was not necessary, because light never entered it. In addition, lens makers needed to grind, or “figure,” only one side of the glass, obviously saving time and cost over figuring the two sides of a lens of the same diameter. Reflectors, on the other hand, are not without their own problems, and by the early twentieth century, one of the most troublesome of these problems was still unresolved: Would the optimum shape of the concave mirror be spherical or parabolic? A spherical one is easier to construct, but inherent in all such mirrors is a flaw called spherical aberration, in which light that does not strike the surface of the mirror along its axis of symmetry is not brought to an exact focus. Similarly, parabolic mirrors produce sharp images only for light entering from or nearly from the center of the telescope’s field of view. The image formed by all other light suffers from “coma,” in which fuzziness and cometlike tails appear. Stopping the aperture of either type of mirror to admit less light will sharpen the image but, unfortunately, prolongs photographic exposure times. In any case, the largest reflectors of the early twentieth century afforded a very narrow field of view, and a photographic survey of the entire sky with any of them would have required millions of separate pictures of small segments of the heavens. The resolution to this impasse came from Bernhard Voldemar Schmidt, a highly skilled optical instrument maker. Born on the Estonian island of Naissaar in the Gulf of Finland, he was fascinated with scientific investigation in general and stars in particular. Despite the loss of much of his right arm to a boyhood experiment with gunpowder, Schmidt taught himself to grind lenses and mirrors. Hoping for better astronomical and astrophotographic equipment than he could afford, he wrote a letter in 1904 to Karl Schwarzschild, director of the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory in Germany, offering to make a large mirror. Thus began ten years of successful cooperation in which Schmidt ground precise mirrors for Schwarzschild. The outbreak of World War I disrupted this collaboration; in addition, Schwarzschild’s brilliant career was aborted in 1916 by his death from service in the war.
Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope In 1916, Schmidt contacted Richard Schorr, director of the Hamburg Observatory in Bergedorf. Even though Schorr was impressed with Schmidt’s photographs, postwar financial constraints unfortunately prevented Schorr from hiring Schmidt. Depressed with the state of his career, Schmidt wrote in 1925, “I’m ready to turn my whole stock into junk and sell it for old iron and charcoal, and then take up something new.” The following year, Schorr was at last able to offer Schmidt a position at the Hamburg Observatory. Schorr supplied the reclusive Schmidt with housing, unfettered use of a basement workshop, and a salary; for once, Schmidt enjoyed financial stability, access to the facilities of a large observatory, and steady encouragement. In this fertile environment grew the idea for what subsequent generations now call the Schmidt telescope and the Schmidt camera. At Hamburg Observatory, Schmidt met Walter Baade, a staff astronomer who reached prominence at Mount Wilson Observatory and Palomar Observatory. In 1929, Schmidt confided to Baade that he was confident he could produce a telescope with both a wide field of view and a large aperture for increased light collecting. From the details he gave Baade at the time, Schmidt apparently had been pondering this approach for some time, but he characteristically left no documentation of the process whereby he had attained the breakthrough. Schmidt’s great contribution to optics was a marriage of lenses and mirrors, the prototype of catadioptric telescope designs, which include Schmidt-Cassegrain and Maksutov telescopes. In addition to a spherical mirror, Schmidt used a “corrector plate,” a lens thickest in the center, not so thick near the edges, and thinnest in between. It succeeded at its primary purpose: to correct almost completely the mirror’s spherical aberration by refracting the incoming light before it struck the mirror. (Strictly, the lens can exactly correct spherical aberration for only one wavelength of light.) The corrector also afforded several incidental benefits, one of which would be evident to anyone who has ever cleaned eyeglasses or contact lenses. Any optical surface open to the air will collect dust and require cleaning. Cleaning a large reflector, however, may jeopardize the thin metal coating on the mirror. By sealing the telescope tube, Schmidt’s corrector plate extended vastly the operational lifetime of its associated mirror. On the other hand, there were drawbacks to Schmidt’s design. Although none has proved a serious obstacle to worldwide implementation of his idea, four might be mentioned. First, the corrector lens will introduce some small chromatic aberration (as the corrector plate is actu2348
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ally almost flat, this is relatively insignificant). Second, optical considerations dictate that a Schmidt telescope be longer than a comparable simple reflector. Third, the corrector plate is difficult to grind properly. Fourth, a photograph made by film inside a Schmidt telescope, thus functioning as a Schmidt camera, will be distorted unless the film itself is spherical. With the encouragement of Baade and Schorr, Schmidt built the original Schmidt telescope in 1930; the Hamburg Observatory placed the first Schmidt camera in operation the following year. Revolutionary photographs quickly followed, but the skepticism of prospective customers, combined with international politicoeconomic considerations—including Adolf Hitler’s rise to power— prevented Schmidt from selling even one Schmidt camera outside of Hamburg before his death in 1935. Significance The Schmidt telescope, as historian of science Barbara Land has noted, “sees far and wide at the same time.” Furthermore, it sees quickly. To appreciate why in each case, one must understand the concepts of angular size and f-number. The width of a fist at the end of an extended arm covers about 10 degrees of the observer’s sky. In order to see faint objects, astronomers need large telescopes for their large light-gathering power. On the other hand, the field of view of the largest reflectors is minuscule. As Richard Learner has observed, the 100inch (254-centimeter) Hooker telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory would take at least fifty plates to photograph the full Moon, which is about half a degree across but “covers an area that is only a few millionths of the whole sky. A complete survey with such a telescope would take about 10,000 years.” In contrast, the first Schmidt telescope had a field of view more than 15 degrees wide. The focal length of a lens or mirror is the distance from the component to the point where incoming parallel light is focused. A stronger component thus has a smaller focal length. The f-number of a lens or mirror is its focal length divided by its diameter; the smaller the f-number, the shorter the time required for a given amount of light to be collected, as for a photograph. Schmidt’s work can be viewed as inventing a succession of lower and lower f-numbers, culminating in f/1.75 for the 1931 Schmidt telescope. The Schmidt telescope is therefore well suited for either visual or photographic sky surveys, because it produces a wide and sensitive view of the sky with minimal distortion even out to the edges of the image or photograph.
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Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope
Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Eyes on the Universe: A History of the Telescope. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975. Provides helpful informal background on observational astronomy, starting in prehistory. Briefly discusses Schmidt and his telescopes. Capaccioli, Massimo, ed. Astronomy with Schmidt-Type Telescopes. Boston: D. Reidel, 1984. Presents the proceedings of a colloquium of the International Astronomical Union. Many contributions are highly
technical, but interested readers will find this a useful overview of the diversity of applications of Schmidt’s work by major-league astronomers. King, Henry C. The History of the Telescope. 1955. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003. Presents drawings, diagrams, and technical details on the mounting and optics of various kinds of telescopes. Includes photographs. Land, Barbara. The Telescope Makers: From Galileo to the Space Age. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968. Simple and lucid account of the history of astrophotography up to Schmidt’s time. Chapter 8 is devoted to Schmidt. Miczaika, G. R., and William M. Sinton. Tools of the Astronomer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961. Presents a moderately technical discussion of telescope optics. Serves as an excellent primer for most general readers. Silverman, Milton. “The Eye That Exposes Secrets.” Saturday Evening Post 222 (April 22, 1950): 28-29. Article on the Big Schmidt at the outset of its sky survey presents a delightful interview with Baade and tantalizing views of other applications of Schmidt’s corrector plate. Highlights Schmidt’s personality. Wachmann, A. A. “From the Life of Bernhard Schmidt.” Sky and Telescope 15 (November, 1955): 4-9. Excellent source of primary information on Schmidt and his work, written by a colleague of Schmidt on the occasion of the installation of a new Schmidt telescope at the Hamburg Observatory. Provides priceless glimpses of Schmidt in both prose and photographs. Watson, Fred. Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. History of the telescope’s development includes discussion of the impacts on society of the discoveries the instrument has made possible. Presents the stories of the astronomers and other scientists responsible for advances in telescope technology, including Schmidt. Zirker, J. B. An Acre of Glass: A History and Forecast of the Telescope. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Describes the building of telescopes in the past and present and speculates about how they will be built in the future. Includes glossary and index. See also: 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory; Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson.
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During his life, Schmidt had jealously guarded details of the corrector plate and the curved film. In 1936, the year after Schmidt’s death, Schorr revealed these details to the world. In only six years, more than twenty Schmidt telescopes with mirror diameters of more than 24 centimeters (about 9.5 inches) were produced. A mere three years after Schmidt’s death, Baade and others persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to fund an instrument that became known as the “Big Schmidt.” Delayed by World War II, this telescope with a 72-inch (180-centimeter) mirror and a 48-inch (120-centimeter) corrector plate was put into operation in 1948 as an indispensable companion for the giant 200-inch (508-centimeter) Hale telescope located at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California. The Big Schmidt telescope remained in use through the early twenty-first century, operated robotically. In 1987, it was named the Samuel Oschin telescope. With a field of view of more than three hundred times that of the Hale telescope, the Big Schmidt became the ultimate “spotter scope.” Far more important, however, is its epochal survey of the northern two thirds of the sky during the 1950’s, capturing objects down to one-halfmillionth as bright as the dimmest naked-eye star. Each photographic plate covers an area approximately 6 degrees square and may show up to a million stars. Some two decades later, two Schmidt cameras (at the United Kingdom Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and the European Southern Observatory in Chile) cooperatively surveyed the southern third of the heavens. Astronomical progress is ongoing, and better surveys are certain to be completed as technology improves. With these pioneering surveys, however, Schmidt cameras have already provided invaluable information in recording conditions at the time of the survey, furnishing an inventory of objects surveyed, and allowing better identification of previously observed objects. —Clyde J. Smith
Mass Deportations of Mexicans
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Early 1930’s
Mass Deportations of Mexicans Massive unemployment in the United States during the Great Depression prompted the deportation of immigrant workers. Locale: Los Angeles, California Categories: Business and labor; economics; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures William N. Doak (1882-1933), U.S. secretary of labor, 1930-1933 Charles P. Visel (fl. 1930’s), chairman of the Los Angeles Citizens Committee on Coordination of Unemployment Relief Summary of Event In the early decades of the twentieth century, immigration of Mexican nationals into the United States was a growing phenomenon. It was not viewed as a problem, however, because cheap labor was welcomed, particularly on farms and ranches. U.S. immigration laws generally were enforced selectively with regard to Mexicans. During World War I (1914-1918), at the request of U.S. businesses, the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1917 that required immigrants to pay an eight-dollar “head tax” and prove literacy were waived for Mexican laborers. This special departmental order legitimated U.S. dependence on cheap Mexican labor and institutionalized Mexico’s special status. At the end of World War I, the order was not rescinded; in fact, U.S. companies intensified their recruitment of Mexican farmworkers. Industrial companies in the Northeast and Midwest, such as steel mills and automobile manufacturers, also began recruiting Mexicans from the Southwest, resulting in an expanding migration in terms of both numbers of immigrants and their geographic spread. The Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act (Immigration Act of 1924) had each limited immigration from Europe, but no restrictions were imposed on the number of immigrants from countries in the Western Hemisphere. A large and growing population of Mexican immigrants was thus established in the United States in the first decades of the twentieth century. In the 1920’s, the U.S. government’s attitude toward Mexican immigrants gradually changed from lax enforcement to severe restrictions. As social and economic conditions deteriorated on a global scale, the great pool 2350
of cheap Mexican labor was increasingly resented by unemployed U.S. citizens. Despite pressure from businesses, laws restricting entry—that is, the head tax and literacy test—began to be strictly enforced against Mexicans by immigration authorities. Two new laws also were passed that had a further chilling effect on Mexican immigration to the United States: the Deportation Act of March 4, 1929, which made entering the United States illegally a misdemeanor punishable by a year in prison or a fine of as much as one thousand dollars, followed by a May 4, 1929, law making it a felony for a deported alien to reenter the United States illegally. These laws, followed within months by the stock market crash that marked the onset of the Great Depression, set the stage for a period of repressive measures against Mexican nationals in the United States. As the Depression caused more unemployment, the caseloads of social welfare agencies increased. By 1931, as the pool of unemployed immigrants requiring assistance grew, local agencies intensified their efforts to force repatriation; on the federal level, calls to deport immigrants increased also. President Herbert Hoover endorsed the aggressive efforts to expel aliens, restrict legal immigration, and curtail illegal entry. William N. Doak, who took office as Hoover’s secretary of labor in December, 1930, proposed that any alien holding a job be deported. The Bureau of Immigration, at that time a part of the Department of Labor, began an aggressive campaign of rooting out illegal aliens, with the objective of reducing unemployment and thus hastening the end of the Great Depression. Many of the aliens deported under this program, however, were already unemployed. Significance Although Mexicans were not specifically targeted by the immigration authorities, they were the group most affected numerically. The responses of the Mexican government to the problem varied. At times, land reform programs were established for repatriating Mexican citizens; at other times, Mexico feared the addition of more unemployed citizens to its labor surplus. Opportunities for Mexican Americans to obtain land in Mexico usually required money to be invested, although occasionally programs offered land to destitute repatriates. In the southwestern U.S. states, particularly, immigration officials aggressively sought deportable Mexicans, and social service agencies encouraged Mexicans
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Mexicans would find employment in the United States, welfare officials were beginning to put pressure on alien relief recipients to return to Mexico, at times leading them to believe that if they did not leave voluntarily, they would be cut off from aid immediately. Frank Shaw, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, was the first area official to propose paying the cost of transporting families back to Mexico by train. Three hundred fifty Mexicans signed up for the first trip, in March, 1931. Many more trips were made, but statistics concerning repatriation under the county program are clouded by the fact that the same trains that carried county-aided Mexicans also carried deportees and Mexicans who had made their own arrangements to leave, and accurate records were not kept. Overall, the various efforts to reduce the number of immigrants in Southern California in the early 1930’s caused a noticeable, but temporary, reduction of the Mexican population in the area. Mexican immigration to the United States continued to be driven in subsequent decades by economic factors and employment trends. For instance, during World War II, when Texas and other southwestern states saw a reduction in the male workforce owing to enlistment in the armed forces, the bracero program was initiated to encourage Mexican immigration. When the soldiers came home after the war, the situation reversed. Throughout the twentieth century, as job realities shifted and changed, the United States relied on Mexican and other immigrant populations, whether legal or illegal in status, as a labor pool. — Irene Struthers Further Reading Cardoso, Lawrence A. “The Great Depression: Emigration Halts and Repatriation Begins.” In Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1897-1931. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980. Brief discussion of federal deportation efforts and local repatriation efforts in the early 1930’s. Includes the lyrics of corridos (ballads) written by returning Mexicans lamenting their plight. Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. 2d ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Chapters 11 and 12 discuss immigration from Mexico before, during, and after the Depression. Includes tables, maps, and charts. Ehrlich, Paul R., Loy Bilderback, and Anne H. Ehrlich. The Golden Door: International Migration, Mexico, and the United States. New York: Ballantine, 1978. Introductory chapters cover migration in general and 2351
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to volunteer for repatriation. The most ambitious of these programs was undertaken in Los Angeles County, California, but cities such as Chicago and Detroit, where Mexicans had been recruited by industry in the early 1920’s, also were actively attempting to get even legal Mexican residents to leave in the 1930’s. The Los Angeles Citizens Committee on Coordination of Unemployment Relief, headed by Charles P. Visel, had been charged with assisting the unemployed residents of the city, especially through creation of jobs, for which longtime local residents would be given preference. Inspired by Labor Secretary Doak’s earlier pronouncements that some four hundred thousand deportable aliens were believed to be in the country, Visel set out to identify and deport as many illegal aliens from the city of Los Angeles as possible. Visel contacted Doak and requested that a sufficient number of immigration agents be deployed in Los Angeles to create a hostile environment, from which he hoped aliens would flee voluntarily. Visel planned to open his campaign with press releases and a few well-publicized arrests. Although the plan was not aimed specifically at Mexicans, some statements made by Visel did mention Mexicans as a group to be targeted. The Spanish-language newspapers in Southern California stirred up the Mexican community, both in Los Angeles and in Mexico, by publishing inaccurate stories that virtually all Mexicans were being targeted for deportation. In the first three weeks of February, 1931, immigration agents had investigated several thousand people, of whom only about two hundred were determined to be subject to deportation. Figures released by Visel’s committee in March, 1931, indicated that 70 percent of the persons deported up to that time in the Los Angeles campaign were Mexicans. According to the Mexican Chamber of Commerce, which estimated that ten thousand of the more than two hundred thousand Mexicans thought to be living in Los Angeles prior to 1931 had left, many of the repatriates owned businesses and homes in Southern California. It should be noted, however, that the Chamber of Commerce would be more likely to have contact with the more prosperous members of the population than with the unemployed or laborers. Concurrent with the federal and local campaigns to deport illegal aliens, Los Angeles County officials began attempting to repatriate destitute Mexicans. Many Mexican nationals had entered the United States at a time when penalties for illegal entry were nonexistent or seldom enforced against Mexicans, so their legal status was uncertain. Because it was unlikely that unemployed
Mass Deportations of Mexicans
Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment European and Asian immigration into the United States. Remaining chapters cover Mexican immigration into the United States until the 1970’s. Includes notes, list of recommended readings, and index. Hoffman, Abraham. Unwanted Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974. Wellresearched, comprehensive look at the deportation and repatriation of Mexicans, particularly from Los Angeles County, in the 1930’s. Includes notes, extensive bibliography, and index. Meier, Matt S., and Feliciano Ribera. Mexican Americans and American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos. Rev. ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993. Comprehensive history of the Mexican presence in the United States includes discussion of deportation and repatriation in the 1930’s. Features glossary, suggestions for further reading, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Samora, Julian. “Los Mojados”: The Wetback Story. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971. Discusses illegal immigration from Mexico in the twentieth century, including a chapter by an individual who attempted to enter the country illegally. Features bibliography and index. Tichenor, Daniel J. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Examines the history of immigration policy in the United States since the nation’s founding, focusing on the factors that have influenced attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Includes tables, figures, and index. See also: Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917; May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act; May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924; May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol.
1930’s
Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment In the 1930’s, radio broadcasts of music, comedy, drama, news, and sports came to pervade Americans’ daily lives. Locale: United States Categories: Radio and television; entertainment Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Rudy Vallee (1901-1986), American singer Fred Allen (1894-1956), American comic actor George Burns (1896-1996), American comedian who teamed with his wife, Gracie Allen Eddie Cantor (1892-1964), American comic actor Bob Hope (1903-2003), American comedian and actor Bing Crosby (1903-1977), American singer and actor Summary of Event The inauguration of radio networking and broadcasting after 1926 and the increasing sale of airtime for advertisements by the close of the 1920’s further opened the door for the radio industry’s exploration of entertainments capable of attracting and holding mass audiences. The remarkable profits earned from such efforts were a powerful underpinning to radio’s phenomenally successful insertion of its messages, programs, and person2352
alities into American life. Radio held sway as the reigning entertainment medium until the 1950’s, when its regency was in some respects usurped by the dissemination and public embrace of television. The “golden age” of radio was a result of outside events as much as it was a bonus from the scramble for profits. The onslaught of the Great Depression, the most massive peacetime crisis in American history, forced the leisure of tens of millions of ordinary folk, through economic necessity, back into the home. The manifestations of the Depression, including unemployment, debt, evaporating profits, a collapse of effective government, folk migrations, labor strife, and, by the late 1930’s, the awareness of a distintegrating international order and impending war, created a popular hunger for morale boosting, optimism, diversion, escapism, and a sense of brotherhood and belonging. Confirmation of the extent to which radio met these wants and needs came in many ways. Social workers noted in the mid-1930’s that needy families surrendered nearly all of their possessions when necessary but insisted on retaining their radios, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first chief executive to use radio effectively, tried to encourage optimism and weld the nation together, beginning in March, 1933, with his series of broadcast “fireside chats.” The vastness of radio’s potential audience was re-
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show could keep up. More serious, novel, and educational were the spontaneous interviews of notable personalities offered eventually by The Mary Margaret McBride Show on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Early afternoons posed difficulties for network broadcasters, who aired a few soap operas during those hours. A number of what proved to be long-running “kids’ shows” successfully blocked out late afternoons. WOR-New York’s Uncle Don, one of the most beloved of these shows, featured original stories, personal announcements, words of caution and advice, and piano tunes and songs. Other shows that became household favorites were The Singing Story Lady, Let’s Pretend, and, especially for school-age boys, Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy. For The first U.S. president to understand the power of radio communication, Frankyounger children, there were numerous lin D. Roosevelt won public support for his New Deal programs through a series “uncle and aunt” broadcasts such as of “fireside chats” broadcast over the radio networks. (FDR Library) WLS-Chicago’s Lullaby Twins. Also important but hardly central to network broadcasting were educational shows vealed by the reception of Freeman Fisher Gosden and such as conductor Walter Damrosch’s Music AppreciaCharles Correll’s series Amos ’n’ Andy, eventually a tion Hour, a precursor of Leonard Bernstein’s later, simiclaimant to having been the most popular show ever prelar, and justly famed television music series for children sented by any of the media. Lesser, but still substantial, that reportedly reached millions of schoolchildren. success attended broadcast of The Rudy Vallee Show. By the mid-1930’s, the evening hours had become The program, hosted by crooner Vallee, established a “prime time.” Sponsors discovered the large potential format for variety shows and introduced dozens of audiences available during these hours and competed for vaudeville’s greatest talents, including Eddie Cantor, Althese audiences with shows featuring constellations of stars, many of whom survived as household names into ice Faye, Milton Berle, Joe Penner, Bob Burns, and Bing the television era. Radio’s stellar personalities, who inCrosby, among others who were soon to host their own cluded Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen, Ed Wynn, Edgar shows. Bergen (and Charlie McCarthy), Bing Crosby, George Programming hours were filled quickly. Morning Burns and Gracie Allen, Jim and Marion Jordan (Fibber broadcasts continued, as they had in the 1920’s, with McGee and Molly), Will Rogers, Major Edward Bowes, “wake-up” shows and home, health, and happiness preFanny Brice, Bob Hope, and Al Jolson, often accompasentations aimed primarily at female audiences. In rural nied by almost equally notable announcers and bandareas, morning shows were sometimes augmented with leaders, preempted Americans’ prime leisure time with livestock prices. Soap operas—so named because soap their own buoyant styles of music, wisecracks, nonsense, companies were early sponsors—appeared by 1932. silliness, humor, and wit. Radio personalities became the Some of these had been “evening light” romances of the intimates of nearly every family in the country, with poplate 1920’s, including The Smith Family, The Rise of the ularity matching that of Hollywood’s film stars. Goldbergs, and True Story Hour. To these were added Although serious drama played a modest role in the Ma Perkins, The Romance of Helen Trent, and Myrt and broadcast day and was almost nonexistent in prime time, Marge, all serials that aired for years and had audiences a niche for it was carved out after the mid-1930’s. so caught up that some newspapers printed synopses of Writers, poets, and dramatists such as Archibald Maceach day’s adventures so that listeners forced to miss a
Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment
Calls for Socialism During the 1930’s, the radio was the Internet of its day, dominating the media and commanding the attention of Americans like nothing before. Its rise coincided with the years of the Great Depression, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first administration, when he used it to deliver his reassuring “fireside chats.” Radio also attracted charismatic (some thought dangerous) activists such as priest and radio personality Charles Coughlin. Speaking for those who felt left out of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Father Coughlin advocated the nationalization of banks, utilities, and natural resources, listing his tenets in a broadcast on November 11, 1934: 1. I believe in liberty of conscience and liberty of education, not permitting the state to dictate either my worship to my God or my chosen avocation in life. 2. I believe that every citizen willing to work and capable of working shall receive a just, living, annual wage which will enable him both to maintain and educate his family according to the standards of American decency. 3. I believe in nationalizing those public resources which by their very nature are too important to be held in the control of private individuals. 4. I believe in private ownership of all other property. 5. I believe in upholding the right to private property but in controlling it for the public good. 6. I believe in the abolition of the privately owned Federal Reserve Banking system and in the establishment of a Government owned Central Bank. 7. I believe in rescuing from the hands of private owners the right to coin and regulate the value of money, which right must be restored to Congress, where it belongs. 8. I believe that one of the chief duties of this government owned Central Bank is to maintain the cost of living on an even keel, and arrange for the repayment of dollar debts with equal value dollars. 9. I believe in the cost of production plus a fair profit for the farmer. 10. I believe not only in the right of the laboring man to organize in unions but also in the duty of the Government, which that laboring man supports, to protect these organizations against the vested interests of wealth and of intellect. 11. I believe in the recall of all non-productive bonds and therefore in the alleviation of taxation. 12. I believe in the abolition of tax-exempt bonds. 13. I believe in broadening the base of taxation according to the principles of ownership and the capacity to pay. 14. I believe in the simplification of government and the further lifting of crushing taxation from the slender revenues of the laboring class. 15. I believe that, in the event of a war for the defense of our nation and its liberties, there shall be a conscription of wealth as well as a conscription of men. 16. I believe in preferring the sanctity of human rights to the sanctity of property rights; for the chief concern of government shall be for the poor because, as it is witnessed, the rich have ample means of their own to care for themselves.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Leish, Arthur Miller, Norman Rosten, Norman Corwin, Arch Obler, and Orson Welles, in company with notable actors such as John Houseman, Agnes Moorehead, Maurice Evans, John Barrymore, and Welles, created stirring dramas. Welles became famous for his terrifying adaptation of H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel The War of the Worlds in 1938. Another niche was found for news, despite a dearth of sponsors and low ratings. News programs gained popularity after the mid1930’s, as dictatorial regimes in Europe and Asia dismantled the peace. American listeners wanted current news of these events. CBS’s William S. Paley pioneered radio news, building a superior cadre of newsmen, among them Edward R. Murrow, William L. Shirer, David Schoenbrun, Richard Hottelet, and, a bit later, Charles Collingwood and Howard K. Smith. Several of them gained fame as news reporters in their own right. Significance During the 1930’s, radio network broadcasting dominated the leisure and preempted the daily attention of Americans as no other communications medium ever had. Its myriad sounds, music, and voices, heard in homes, factories, shops, and cars, became an integral part of the daily environment. Franklin D. Roosevelt, along with lesser politicians, embraced radio as a prime instrument of communication. New York’s mayor, Fiorello Henry La Guardia, read the newspaper comics pages to his constituents over the radio; demagogues such as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin used radio’s power to broadcast their values. Leaders in all types of fields, including the arts, politics, education, and religion, were dazzled by radio’s possibilities and dismayed by the purported abuses of the medium. The pervasive influences of radio on daily life during the 1930’s were measurable in a narrow sense; audience samplings produced estimates of programs’ comparative popularity. The radio indus-
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picture industry, changed that, making jazz respectable and giving it a wider audience. The same effect occurred with transmission of traditional country music. Because of the immediacy of radio, with programming decisions made on a daily basis, innovations could be disseminated far more swiftly and flexibly than in other media. Although radio created a national culture, it also allowed cultural elements to spread more quickly from local roots. Before the close of the 1930’s, radio broadcasting had become one of the most formidable informal educational forces in American life. The uniquely intimate medium of broadcast radio influenced American speech, manners, forms of humor, and opinions on virtually every topic. The accessibility of educational programs, popular culture, discussions of personal problems, and, increasingly by the end of the decade, floods of hard information on an unprecedented scale about the state of the country and the world helped move Americans into a more urbane, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated state. Radio programming continued its strong influence on American culture throughout the 1940’s before beginning to wane with the advent of television. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Barnouw, Erik. The Golden Web: 1933 to 1953. Vol. 2 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Part of one of the most comprehensive and authoritative scholarly histories of American broadcasting; clearly written, spare, and fascinating. Covers network battles as well as shows and radio personalities. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Buxton, Frank, and Bill Owen. Radio’s Golden Age: The Programs and the Personalities. Ansonia Station, N.Y.: Easton Valley Press, 1966. Presents many anecdotes about radio shows and personalities and provides glimpses of the early transitions of vaudevillians to radio. Includes photographs. Douglas, George H. The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting. 1987. Reprint. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Provides excellent coverage of the start of networking and the rise of announcers, news, and sportscasting. An admiring and sympathetic although not uncritical view of the subjects. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Douglas, Susan J. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. New York: Crown, 1999. Focuses on the effects of radio listening on Americans’ social, political, and economic attitudes and beliefs. Covers the 2355
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try’s influence on the business world could be measured by profits, which were almost invariably high. The losses that occurred usually were on a relatively small scale, pertaining to specific sponsorships, shows, or stations. Radio’s more massive and profound influences, although certain, remain less precisely calculable. One of these, ephemeral as it may have been, was radio’s provision of solace, diversion, escape, and the perceived companionship of a vast audible support group to those who were the actual or prospective economic casualties of the Great Depression. Radio thus helped keep a healthy edge on national morale and made valuable contributions to a sense of national unity, a fact on which political, business, and military leaders were able to capitalize. Leaders from all fields, but particularly politicians, quickly discovered that radio had the dual capacity to exalt and enhance them, as it did with Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, or to leave the public disenchanted, as it did with the twangings of President Calvin Coolidge and the nervous deliveries of President Herbert Hoover. For more ordinary folk, the medium, by virtue of announcers and performers whose American English was soon divested of regionalisms and dialects, set new standards of clarity for speech, a judgment already being made by educators by the mid-1930’s. Coast-to-coast broadcasting, while doing little to banish dialects within their home territories, further eroded the country’s historic localism and sectionalism, something that the automobile and films were also accomplishing along other lines. Americans were becoming aware of wider worlds through their exposure to film and radio, and they could more readily travel to those worlds with automobiles. Radio reinforced the power of the spoken word. It likewise introduced a measure of intimacy unmatched by any other medium either in its availability or in its pervasiveness. Radio invited performers directly into listeners’ homes and lives, and radio listeners worldwide learned to be entertained by outsiders on a daily basis rather than finding pastimes that were more active and in their own communities. Radio helped create a unified national culture in the United States. This was particularly true for music. Radio could introduce new music and songs to the nation as a whole. Jazz and “race music” became available to the general public in the 1930’s through radio. Presentations of jazz musicians, most of them black, as well as the songs of black singers, such as the legendary Bessie Smith, were still confined largely to nightclubs in large cities and to controlled recordings and sales by record companies. Radio, far more than the more timid motion-
Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment
Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States period from radio’s golden age in the 1930’s to the end of the twentieth century. Ely, Melvin Patrick. The Adventures of Amos ’n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Free Press, 2001. Scholarly, readable detailed account of the radio show that was at one time the nation’s most popular. Discusses the program’s racial content and impact. Includes many photographs, bibliographical essay, and index. Harmon, Jim. The Great Radio Comedians. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970. Insider’s view of 1930’s comedians provides interesting insights and anecdotes. Includes photographs and index. Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. The standard one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. A good beginning point.
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Wertheim, Arthur Frank. Radio Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Authoritative work, written with obvious joy, provides excellent coverage of radio’s “golden age.” Chapters on the war years and on radio comics’ sometimes sad transition to television are particularly interesting. Includes many photographs and index. See also: 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered; Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air; Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts; Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds.
1930’s
Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States An authentic frontier balladeer, Woody Guthrie expanded the appeal of traditional American folk music by writing protest songs about poverty and social injustice. He inspired generations of politically informed folk and rock musicians, including the Weavers, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and U2. Locale: United States Categories: Music; social issues and reform Key Figures Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), American folksinger, songwriter, and poet of social protest Alan Lomax (1915-2002), American folklorist and recorder for the Library of Congress Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter; 1885?-1949), American folk and blues muscian Pete Seeger (b. 1919), American folk and protest singer and composer Summary of Event Before the Great Depression, the diverse regions composing the American South lagged far behind the rest of the United States in nearly every regard. From the close of the Civil War through Reconstruction and into the 2356
1950’s, the South remained distinctively and overwhelmingly rural. Its economy was tied to a few staples, principally cotton, tobacco, corn, and sugar beets. Farms tended to be small and tenant run; worse, they were enmeshed in the perpetual indebtedness characterizing the sharecrop and crop-lien systems. Labor was cheap and drew subsistence wages. Unions were considered anathema. Internal racial relations steadily, if legally, deteriorated after the close of the nineteenth century, and southerners remained under the dominance of a conservative Democratic Party. The South’s generally decrepit educational institutions were only one manifestation of the region’s backward social structure. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration that one-third of Americans in the 1930’s were ill clad, ill housed, and ill fed perfectly described the American South—which, Roosevelt added, constituted the nation’s number-one economic problem. Such was the cultural plight of Okemah, Oklahoma, where Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie was born, and of Pampa, Texas, where he was reared. Guthrie’s upbringing, like his region, was sad. His mother steadily declined under the inroads of Huntington’s chorea, an incurable, inherited degenerative dis-
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Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States appreciation of him that he persistently sought a place in the public domain, using his untrained but authentic folk voice to carry his populist messages. Guthrie first gained prominence with his “old-time hill-country songs” on the Los Angeles radio station KFVD in 1936 before an audience largely composed of Dust Bowl migrants. He augmented his reputation when he moved to New York City—in the 1930’s the nation’s radical capital—joining union, Communist, and Popular Front political causes and accepting welcome as a folk hero. There, in 1940, he began writing his Columbia River and Grand Coulee Dam songs—“Roll on Columbia,” “Pastures of Plenty,” “Jack Hammer John,” “Hard Traveling,” and, in a different context, “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You,” “Those Oklahoma Hills,” and “This Land Is Your Land.” Typically, Guthrie attempted to use his music as a vehicle in the class struggle. While Guthrie was in New York, Pete Seeger persuaded him to join the Almanac Singers, whose political purposes appeared identical to Guthrie’s and with whom he wrote and sang many more songs. Thanks to the genius of folklorist Alan Lomax (later a close friend), Guthrie was interviewed and recorded for the Library of Congress on March 21, 22, and 27, 1940.
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ease that would eventually claim Woody and other members of his family as well. His father, although at times on the make as a small-town political worthy, seldom managed to match his luck and competencies with his dreams. It appears likely that Woody’s mother set fire to and killed Woody’s sister and later attempted the same thing with her husband. The family lived poorly, at times being thrown individually or collectively on the sufferance of relatives. Woody wandered away from all of them as soon as he could. A small, wiry man with fine features and a distinguishing mop of unruly hair, Guthrie was humorous, optimistic, gregarious, generous, infectiously engaging, and immensely talented. He was an omnivorous reader with wide-ranging interests. He was also a self-taught cartoonist, versifier, poet, cornball humorist, and explosively undisciplined writer. He had an amazingly eclectic bent, heedlessly putting his own words to tunes written by others, notably those of famed hymnists and of the great Virginia folksinging Carter Family. Unlike his later friends Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter and the musically well-trained Pete Seeger, Guthrie was a mediocre guitarist. His nasal voice was untrained except by experience. Although he married three times and had many children, he was lovingly lazy, feckless, adulterous, frequently drunken, and an irresponsible family man. He was the quintessential free spirit—the “ramblin’ man” of song and story. From his early days in Pampa, Guthrie’s real family was made up of the marginally employed and the dispossessed: oil-field roughnecks and roustabouts, Okies—southwestern farmers of the nation’s Dust Bowl who were evicted from their lands and who migrated to California by the tens of thousands—railroad tramps, hoboes, dockers, seamen, the remaining Wobblies (members of the Industrial Workers of the World), “Reds,” migratory workers, and unskilled laborers. It was for audiences of these people that Guthrie began singing and songwriting with hillbilly bands in Texas and thereafter on radio and in public appearances from Los Angeles to New York City. He sought to give the beleaguered masses relief and to shore up their dignity and sense of purpose. It was through their
Woody Guthrie in 1943. (Library of Congress)
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Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States In the recordings, he presented his landmark protest songs, among them “Tom Joad,” “Dust Can’t Kill Me,” “I Ain’t Got No Home,” “Talking Dust Bowl Blues,” “Do Re Mi,” “Blowin’ Down This Road,” and “Dust Pneumonia Blues.” In the meantime, he continued writing and singing union songs at picket lines, rallies, and fund-raisers. His compositions included prolabor songs such as “Union Maid” and others equally political in nature such as “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee).” Guthrie, fully at home with the American proletariat and already a folk hero by the close of the 1930’s, believed that the oppressed, individually and collectively, had both the right and the responsibility to sing their protests in the face of injustice. Unlike some intellectuals and academicians of his day, he was a populist by tradition and a communist of a sort by experience. He was a utopian, largely uninterested in accumulating money and even less interested in power or political position for himself. Rather, Guthrie used his heartfelt folk renditions to ensure himself a place in the public memory. It was fame that he sought—and managed to achieve. Significance Philosophically, Guthrie identified the spirit and content of his songs and writings with those of Robert Burns, Walt Whitman, and Alexander Pushkin (just as he identified his politics with those of Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Karl Marx), all of whom spread their messages by speaking, writing, and rhyming in the vernacular. The immediate tradition on which Guthrie drew, however—the tradition that he would elaborate and help to expand—was nourished by his southern environment. Protest songs were commonplace in the repertoires of southern blues and country (or “hillbilly”) singers, as well as among some of the region’s gospel singers, by the 1920’s. Union organizing efforts among southern laborers and tenant farmers, successions of strikes in the Piedmont textile towns, and lockouts, strikes, and open warfare between capital and labor in the eastern Kentucky and Cumberland coalfields from the late 1920’s through the mid-1930’s yielded substantial crops of revolutionary lyrics. These were partly inspired and augmented by the Communist-led National Miners’ Union, National Textile Workers’ Union, and Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, but they also grew from the almost endless erosions of hard times. Songs written by a young Gastonia, North Carolina, mother and textile worker, Ella May Wiggins, who was murdered in 1929 by antiunion thugs, 2358
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not only lifted the morale of her fellow workers but also advertised their cause. Similarly, in Kentucky’s coal mining Harlan County, Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?” aimed at brutal company-paid deputy sheriffs and became one of labor’s most beloved ballads. Elsewhere in Kentucky, similar anticapitalist balladeers sprang forth, including Aunt Molly Jackson (“I Am a Union Woman”), Sara Ogan (“I Hate the Capitalist System”), and Jim Garland (“I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister”). Scores of other southern protest singers and their songs have been described by such folkloristhistorians as R. Serge Denisoff, John Greenway, Archie Green, and Lawrence Gellert. Guthrie’s reputation and influence surmounted them all by the close of the 1930’s. Ironically, too, like his fellow southern protesters, his songs and character became as well known in northern liberal circles as they were generally throughout the South. In New York, particularly, Guthrie became a rallying point for other expatriate southern musicians such as Lee Hays, Sonny Terry, Josh White, Brownie McGhee, Aunt Molly Jackson, Sis Cunningham, and the inimitable Leadbelly; many of these performers sang or appeared with the Almanac Singers or with Seeger’s legendary folk band, the Weavers. Within a national context, however, even in the 1930’s, Guthrie and his fellow protest singers enjoyed only limited visibility, and the significance of their music went largely unnoticed. Even so, Guthrie’s songs and social messages directly influenced many country singers and songwriters in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and many of these musicians won national celebrity during the protests of civil rights advocates, college and university students, feminists, and peace activists during the late 1950’s and the 1960’s. Among the most prominent was Seeger, a responsible, cultivated, musically trained, and disciplined Harvard University dropout who not only worked closely with Guthrie—and regarded him as a mentor—but also continued Guthrie’s commitment to folk protest songs as weapons against social injustice. With the commercialization of folk music in the late 1950’s and the 1960’s, the Guthrie cult that Seeger stimulated placed Seeger himself in the forefront of the urban folk music revival. Other Guthrie disciples who gained prominence just before and immediately after Guthrie’s death were his devoted imitator Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Guthrie’s dear friend Cisco Houston. Guthrie’s work began to receive renewed attention in the late 1950’s, when such folk-oriented bands as the Kingston Trio attained national prominence. Soon, pop-
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Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States
ular folk groups including the Limelighters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, the Brothers Four, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, in company with solo artists such as Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Odetta, and Judy Collins, were playing and recording Guthrie material and giving added currency to his work. It was Robert Zimmerman, a fanatical devotee of Guthrie’s music, who, as Bob Dylan, caught the wave of radical folk music in the early 1960’s and carried Guthrie’s style to new aesthetic and popular heights. Much of the best of the material on his first album, Bob Dylan, both in substance and style is classic Guthrie. Although the immensely creative and productive Dylan subsequently moved through at least half a dozen stylistic phases, it was in the person of a Guthrie-style balladeer that he became a popular national folk-protest phenomenon. In so doing, he ensured the longevity of Guthrie’s strain of music in the nation’s popular culture. —Clifton K. Yearley
See also: 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies; 1904-1905: Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs; 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains.
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Further Reading Cray, Ed. Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie. New York : W. W. Norton, 2004. Comprehensive biography of Guthrie, beginning with his Oklahoma ancestors and concluding with his children. Bibliographic references, discography, and index. Denisoff, R. Serge. Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971. An excellent discussion of southern protest singers, including Guthrie, their connections with northern radicals, and the effects of this affiliation on the development of urban folk music. Notes, good bibliography, and index. Guthrie, Woody. Art Works. Edited by Nora Guthrie and Steven Brower, with contributions from Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy. New York: Rizzoli, 2005. When Guthrie first set out for California, he planned to make his living as an artist and cartoonist, not a singer. This first-ever comprehensive collection of his art, journals, and sketchbooks provides a vital glimpse into the young Guthrie and the lesser-known visual side of his talents. Bibliographic references. _______. Born to Win. Edited by Robert Shelton. New York: Macmillan, 1965. A collection of Guthrie’s essays, poems, notes, lyrics, and letters. Conveys the spirit of a man whose often sad life might have made him a loser, but did not. Filled with Guthrie’s wonderfully humorous, sometimes biting, cartoons and
sketches, as well as with verses, lyrics, and rhymes. Hampton, Wayne. Guerilla Minstrels. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986. A fine study of the protest tradition through analysis of four individuals: Joe Hill, John Lennon, Guthrie, and Dylan. Engagingly written. Although sympathetic to each of these protest singers, the author maintains critical objectivity. Very informative on Guthrie-Dylan linkages. There are a few photos, page notes, a splendid select bibliography for each singer, discographies, and an excellent double-columned index. Essential reading. Klein, Joe. Woody Guthrie: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. An important nonacademic study of Guthrie’s character rather than an analysis of his music or its impact. A comprehensive, easy to read, matterof-fact, and objective biography. Among the several biographies of Guthrie, this is in many ways the best. Many photos, annotated chapter notes in place of bibliography, and excellent double-columned index. Must reading. Malone, Bill C. Southern Music, American Music. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1979. A wellwritten, scholarly survey of the subject. Excellent for placing Guthrie in a broad context, and more important for underlining the powerful influences of varieties of southern music on the national musical culture. No illustrations, but an outstanding bibliographical essay, and a useful index. A very informative work. Marsh, Dave, and Harold Leventhal, eds. Pastures of Plenty: A Self-Portrait, Woody Guthrie. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Posthumous editing of Guthrie’s scrapbooks and other personal sources recapitulates Guthrie’s life in his own words. Provides an intimate chronological view of his life until illness overwhelmed him in 1952. Includes explanatory introductions by the editors, many photos, and many of Guthrie’s wonderful cartoons and sketches. Partridge, Elizabeth. This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie. New York: Viking, 2002. Biography of Guthrie and analysis of his songs. Bibliographic references and index.
Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1930’s
Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity Paul Hindemith emphasized a new trend toward music as a social activity through his concepts of Gebrauchsmusik (music for use) and Hausmusik (music to be performed at home). Also known as: Gebrauchsmusik; Hausmusik Locale: Germany Category: Music Key Figures Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), German composer Carl Orff (1895-1982), German composer Matthias Grünewald (c. 1475-1528), German painter Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954), German conductor Summary of Event Paul Hindemith began his composing career as an expressionist, exploring musical territory opened up by Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók. His 1919 setting of dramatist Oskar Kokoschka’s Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (pr. 1909; Murderer, the Women’s Hope, pb. 1963) is an example of his use of dissonance with an extremely shocking text. Hindemith’s early creative years coincided with the Weimar Republic, which governed Germany in the wake of World War I after Emperor William II abdicated in defeat and was replaced by a democratic regime. The culture of the Weimar Republic was the first selfconsciously modern one and saw striking advances in literature, drama, art, architecture, and film as well as in music. Although the republic’s early years were characterized by foreign occupation, strikes, attempted putsches (including one by Adolf Hitler in 1923), and drastic inflation, Germany after 1924 settled into a period of stability and economic growth that was abruptly terminated by the Great Depression that began in 1929. The high levels of support for the arts were curtailed by the economic stringencies, which also resulted in the polarization of the German population between Nazis and Communists. When Hitler was voted into power early in 1933, the Weimar Republic was over, and many of its leading figures emigrated. Beginning in 1922 and for most of the remainder of the decade, Hindemith associated with a movement known as New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), a repudiation of both Romanticism and expressionism. In literature, New Objectivists sought to be detached and unemotionally matter-of-fact and to focus on objective reality 2360
and ordinary people. The movement’s music renounced the nineteenth century past by being unemotional and concentrating on everyday life. Elements of popular music and even jazz were included in New Objectivist music, but such elements were treated with satire and parody. Hindemith’s piano suite of 1922 clearly shows elements of both expressionism and New Objectivity. The harmonic texture is extremely dissonant, but the individual movements have parodistic subtitles: The opening march is a circus, not a military march, and is treated parodically. Such popular dances as the shimmy and the Boston (a kind of waltz) and even ragtime are included in the suite. The ragtime movement bears directions that tell the performer to forget skills learned in piano lessons and to treat the piano as an interesting kind of percussion instrument. The opera Neues vom Tage (news of the day), which Hindemith completed in 1929, is an excellent example of New Objectivity. The opera, which focuses on the marital problems of a couple, includes offices, a hotel room, a jail cell, and a nightclub in its stage settings and contains many elements of popular music, which are often used in a parodic style. The opera mocks the legal system, bureaucracy, the commercialization of daily life, and the power of the news media, especially tabloid journalism. Musical effects include a chorus of typists, an operatic aria sung in a bathtub, and a cabaret revue featuring a chorus line. Hindemith’s rise in the 1920’s was meteoric. He developed a style that, in its spare lines and linear writing, can be compared to the contemporaneous architecture of the German Bauhaus school. In 1927, he was appointed professor of composition at the Berlin Staatliche Hochschule für Musik despite his lack of formal academic training and his activity as a practical musician, writing music for his own performances (he was one of the world’s foremost violists) as well as concertos and solo pieces for others. He received prestigious commissions, including one to produce concert music for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony in 1930. He felt, however, that much modern music was becoming too isolated from its audience; in 1929, he wrote an article in which he stated that the old music public was dying out and that a new one would have to be created. Here lay the roots of a musical philosophy called, for want of a better name, Gebrauchsmusik, or “music for use.” The term itself derived from the work of musical historians who wrote about the dance suite of the early sev-
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Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Paul Hindemith conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in a rehearsal in 1949. (AP/Wide World Photos)
written in the late fifteenth century, and various collections of ensemble pieces by German composers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Franz Joseph Haydn’s early string quartets, for example, were written for mostly amateur performers. A good example of Hindemith’s community music is the Plöner Musiktag (day of music at Plon), written in 1932 for a daylong music festival at a boarding school that culminated in a concert in which all the students were participants. Another notable work is the children’s operetta Wir bauen eine Stadt (we build a city), written, as Hindemith explained, for the instruction and practice of children rather than for the entertainment of adult observers. In both works, the style is simple without being naïve, dissonances are employed sparingly, and the children are treated with respect; as Hindemith explained, there should be some difficulties to be solved by the performers, even if they are children. 2361
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enteenth century; these scholars made distinctions between music written to accompany actual dancing and dancelike music written for artistic performances. In its strictest sense, Gebrauchsmusik has no independent value in itself but serves a special use, especially for radio or film, and is the opposite of art or concert music. Hindemith was later to repudiate this term, saying that it sounds as ugly in German as it does in English. His goal, rather, was the creation of community music (Gemeinschaftsmusik), with the idea that the young public he was striving to educate should be making music themselves rather than listening to compositions in a concert hall or on records. Hindemith’s model in this effort was Hausmusik, works of music from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries that were written for performances in the home. Examples are the Glogauer Liederbuch, a set of vocal and instrumental pieces by mostly unnamed composers
Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity At the same time, Hindemith was changing his musical style. Characteristic of much Weimar culture during the early 1930’s was an artistic conservatism marked by the use of older forms and structures; Hindemith followed this trend by reviving older musical forms, such as the sonata, the fugue, and the passacaglia (a repeated melodic pattern in the bass over which new and increasingly elaborate designs are contrived). Significance When the Nazi Party took power in Germany in the 1930’s, the party’s leaders stressed the need for community—but in a restricted ethnic and racist sense that was unlike the universal community Hindemith had in mind for his music. When the Nazis attacked Hindemith’s music as degenerate, it was for the music of his New Objectivity period, his parodies of marches, and his association with Jewish musicians such as Kurt Weill and Otto Klemperer. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels attacked Neues vom Tage as obscene and sensational. Hindemith’s major work of these years was his opera Mathis der Maler (1934), based on the life and career of the medieval painter Matthias Grünewald. The concert symphony taken from the opera, one of Hindemith’s most enduring compositions, reveals the basic features of his mature musical style: finely arched melodies harmonized by sturdy chords in a carefully arranged system of tension and release; energetic rhythms; dramatic climaxes reinforced with powerful chords; and the idea of a musical continuity from the Middle Ages to the present emphasized by the use of musical techniques and even quotations from earlier periods. Mathis der Maler received its long-delayed premiere under the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1938. Furtwängler had championed Hindemith’s music; he had conducted the premiere of the symphony drawn from the opera in 1934 and had gotten in trouble with the Nazis for doing so. Hindemith had been given an extended leave of absence from the Berlin Hochschule, during which he toured and even advised the Turkish government on music education. He visited the United States for the first time in 1937, and he gladly accepted a position on the faculty at Yale University in 1940. At Yale, he taught theory and composition for thirteen years and also organized and directed the Collegium Musicum, a group organized to perform early music from the Middle Ages through the time of Johann Sebastian Bach. A strict teacher who granted only twelve graduate degrees in composition during this period, he 2362
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 influenced a number of musicians and, despite a heavy teaching load, continued to compose. His attitude toward community music and music for use revealed itself in a variety of ways. Foremost are the sonatas he wrote for virtually every instrument, not only those with a substantial repertoire but also those, such as the English horn, tuba, double bass, trombone, or viola, for which there were few worthwhile compositions. His trumpet sonata particularly set the standard for all subsequent extended compositions for the instrument. Despite their difficult and sometimes thickly written piano parts, these sonatas remain Hindemith’s most frequently performed compositions. Second are his orchestral showpieces, beginning with the 1930 concert music written for the Boston Symphony. Among the most popular of his orchestral works are his Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943), arrangements of piano pieces originally intended as a ballet. His numerous concertos for various instruments are scored counterparts to his sonatas. His Symphony in B-flat, written in 1951 for the U.S. Army band, set a high standard for concert-band music. Hindemith’s most American work, the Requiem: For Those We Love of 1946, is a setting for soloists, chorus, and orchestra of Walt Whitman’s 1865 poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Whitman’s poem was written as an elegy for Abraham Lincoln and the dead of the Civil War; Hindemith regarded it as a fitting text for his work, which was written to commemorate Franklin D. Roosevelt and the dead of World War II. The piece was composed for performance by a high-quality amateur chorus and professional orchestra, but since 1946 it has been presented by many university music schools. Finally, Hindemith codified his musical ideas and techniques in a series of treatises. His Unterweisung im Tonsatz (1937-1939; The Craft of Musical Composition, 1941) consisted of a theoretical explanation followed by various exercises in part writing. In his book A Composer’s World: Horizons and Limitations (1952), a collection of lectures originally delivered at Harvard University, Hindemith stated his musical philosophy for the general reader, reaffirmed the importance of tonality (which he compared with gravity and artistic perspective) and the continuity of musical tradition, and proclaimed the moral imperative of music, arguing that it is a form of communication between author and listener. Practical music, he claimed, should be the basis of musical instruction (he expected his composition students in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Berlin to learn the instruments for which they were writing). Although he favored open admission to schools of music instruction, he believed that such a policy should be complemented by a well-functioning weeding system to remove the presumptuous and the untalented. His enthusiasm for community music did not wane; he felt that composers should write music that amateurs could play and sing. Hindemith’s musical style was so individual that he could not develop a school of composers. His idea of educational music was effectively continued by Carl Orff, whose Schulwerk was written for children to perform and featured drums and tuned percussion as the principal instruments. Orff’s methods were brought to North America early in the 1960’s and have since become a favored way of introducing children to music. Hindemith resigned from Yale in 1953 to accept an appointment at the University of Zurich, from which he retired two years later. He had been actively teaching for more than twenty-five years and wanted to devote himself to conducting. His interests had also turned to vocal music; his last composition, finished two months before his death, was a setting of the Mass written for a virtuoso choir. An octet Hindemith wrote in 1958 is an excellent illustration of his post-American style, combining lyricism with humor, Baroque contrapuntal techniques with old-fashioned dances such as the waltz, polka, and galop. Igor Stravinsky’s and Hindemith’s octets can very well serve as the framing works for a neoclassical style in twentieth century music. —R. M. Longyear Further Reading Austin, William. Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966. Discussion of twentieth century music includes a chapter on Hindemith that provides an excellent capsule introduction to his music and musical philosophy. Burns, Rob, ed. German Cultural Studies: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Col-
Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity lection of scholarly essays on German culture and society since 1871 includes a chapter on the “birth of modernism” in the Weimar Republic. Cook, Susan C. Opera for a New Republic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988. Study of German opera during the 1920’s emphasizes works by Hindemith. Also includes chapters on New Objectivity and on the effect of jazz on European music. Hindemith, Paul. A Composer’s World: Horizons and Limitations. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952. Collection of the lectures that Hindemith gave at Harvard during the 1949-1950 academic year. States his musical philosophy for the general reader and emphasizes his moral and ethical view of the art. Hinton, Stephen. The Idea of Gebrauchsmusik. New York: Garland, 1989. Useful source of information on the origins and cultural background of the concept of Gebrauchsmusik. The musical information provided is directed toward specialists. Kater, Michael H. Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Examines the careers of eight German composers who were working, whether in Germany or as exiles, during the time the Nazis were in power. Chapter 2 is devoted to Hindemith. Includes endnotes and index. Laqueur, Walter. Weimar: 1918-1933. 1974. Reprint. London: Phoenix Press, 2002. One of the best studies available in English of the Weimar Republic and its variegated cultural life. Discusses both art and music. Noss, Luther. Paul Hindemith in the United States. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989. Describes the composer’s life and activities in the United States, mostly between 1937 and 1953, with brief discussion of his later years. Includes bibliography and indexes. See also: Mar. 15, 1911: Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York; July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel.
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Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age
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Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age Over the course of the 1930’s, the motion-picture studios—already extremely successful commercial and artistic enterprises—developed the new medium of the “talking picture” into a popular art form at least equal to its silent forebear. By the end of the decade, Hollywood had reached the height of its powers, creating films of lasting cultural and artistic power, featuring movie stars as famous as world leaders. Locale: Hollywood, California Categories: Motion pictures; manufacturing and industry; trade and commerce Key Figures Frank Capra (1897-1991), American film director Claudette Colbert (1903-1996), French-born American film actor Clark Gable (1901-1960), American film actor Greta Garbo (1905-1990), Swedish film actor Chico Marx (1887-1961), American comedic film actor Groucho Marx (1890-1977), American comedic film actor Harpo Marx (1888-1964), American comedic film actor Zeppo Marx (1901-1979), American comedic film actor Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957), American film studio owner Summary of Event In the same decade that the Great Depression wracked the world’s economy, the film industry of the United States enjoyed its golden age. The Hollywood studios achieved an extremely efficient level of organization, employing actors, writers, directors, and technical crew members under exclusive contracts that resulted in each studio enjoying continuous access to a specific pool of talent from which to assemble the crews of specific motion pictures. This talent realized technical innovations that captivated audiences at the same time that individual stars such as Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, and the Marx Brothers achieved a public following that was the envy of political and business leaders. The introduction of synchronized sound to motion pictures was one of the most revolutionary changes in the history of the film industry, and, like most revolutions, it was accompanied by uncertainty, confusion, and excite2364
ment. The Warner Bros. studio was pleased by the enthusiastic response to the 1927 premiere of The Jazz Singer, the first full-length film with synchronized sound, but the technology of “talking movies” remained experimental for several years. In The Jazz Singer, vaudevillian Al Jolson was shown speaking and singing a few words through the use of a recorded disc system that was synchronized with his image on the screen. This disc system and its rivals had their flaws; silent-screen stars faced the challenge of speaking into equipment that was often unmerciful to the human voice. By the early 1930’s, however, this technology had improved considerably, as sound came to be encoded optically on a track that was part of the film itself. By 1932, nearly all Hollywood productions were “all talking”; the era of the silent screen had passed. Although improved sound systems became common in motion pictures during the decade, high-quality special effects were rare. King Kong (1933), therefore, was a remarkable film. An adventure tale in which a greedy entrepreneur captured a giant ape became a vehicle for the creative genius of a team of directors and technicians. The real stars were neither human nor ape; the film’s miniature animal figures, made from latex rubber over metal skeletons, the huge mechanized face and upper torso of the ape, and the painstaking stop-motion and rear-projection photography instead stole the show. Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) directors Merian Cooper and Ernest B. Schoesdack turned to Willis O’Brien for special effects and Marcel Delgado for the construction of the animated models. In addition to the giant ape, dinosaurs inhabited the screen and held audiences in awe with displays of savage combat. The use of color also reached a critical phase in the 1930’s. The Technicolor Corporation devised a system of color photography and projection as early as 1915, but its complexity and expense delayed its successful commercial exploitation. The Technicolor system evolved into the “three-strip” process, in which chemical treatment added color to the film. In 1935, director Rouben Mamoulian’s Becky Sharp appeared in vibrant—perhaps overdone—color. By 1939, this problem had disappeared, and producer David O. Selznick and director Victor Fleming brought Gone with the Wind to the screen with an improved Technicolor process. The attraction of Hollywood films went far beyond innovations in technology. The most powerful phenome-
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Frank Capra, a young, relatively unknown director for non, stardom, was also the most nebulous. Film stars had financially embattled Columbia, emerged in the 1930’s a national and even international status that rivaled that as one of Hollywood’s major filmmakers. Working with of political and business leaders of the day. Although nua small budget and barely a month to complete shooting, merous stars had large and devoted followings, two Capra brought together Claudette Colbert and Clark Gastood out: the tall, dark, mustachioed Clark Gable and the ble (on loan from MGM to Columbia as punishment for svelte, blond, stunning Greta Garbo. Both achieved acstanding up to MGM boss Louis B. Mayer) to form one claim at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where perof the screen’s most electric duos in 1934’s It Happened formers had to submit to the rules and expectations of One Night. Colbert played a New York socialite opposite powerful studio bosses, yet both projected qualities into Gable’s pushy journalist. At first on the trail of a news their screen appearances that went beyond what execustory about the idle rich, Gable took a personal interest tives and directors could control. Gable’s and Garbo’s in Colbert and, after some brisk exchanges in risque individual films came to mean less than did their persituations, the two forgot their class differences to besonal appeal to the mass audience. come enamored of each other. This unlikely matching of Gable and Garbo manifested different qualities on the a daughter of the social elite and a hardworking journalist screen. Gable was the rough, sometimes brash American bridged the barriers of status and, during the Great Demale who generally had his way with women and with pression, represented an unorthodox reconciliation belife. Garbo was often the victim of circumstances, the tween haves and have-nots. This prototypical “screwball fallen woman or the self-sacrificing lover who somehow comedy” set a much-imitated formula and made Capra suffered through her anguish with subdued resolve. Gaan influential director. ble’s image was that of the pragmatic, bullish, deterGable and Colbert’s characters had broken the barrimined American hero; Garbo’s was that of the disdainers between great wealth and middling income, but such ful, worldly cosmopolitan. Fan magazines and gossip differences were not always so gracefully overcome. In columnists relished tidbits of information from their prithe early 1930’s, Warner Bros. released a series of gangvate lives but seldom grasped their personal responses to ster films in which the protagonists were hard-bitten, vistardom. Gable was surprised and even amused by his celebrity, but Garbo, whose reclusive nature created an air of mystery, rarely revealed her inner feelings. The Marx Brothers achieved another type of stardom as they cavorted through a series of uproarious, chaotic comedies. Their quick minds and lack of inhibition pushed comedy beyond traditional boundaries. Veterans of vaudeville and the To view image, please refer to the stage who broke into films when print edition of this title. sound allowed for the spoken joke, Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo used the new medium to improvise and improve on old tricks. Double entendres, painful puns, manic chases, and risible pantomimes conveyed their sometimes whimsical, often cynical views of institutions ranging from real estate brokerage to university administrations to the national government. Their wild antics matched spoken humor with visual Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in a scene from the 1934 film It Happened One comedy in a balance suited for talkNight. (AP/Wide World Photos) ing pictures.
Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age olent products of urban mean streets. Edward G. Robinson’s “Rico” was gunned down at the end of 1931’s Little Caesar, but he left an unforgettable impression as to how an aggressive, unscrupulous individual could grab wealth and power, at least for a short time. Reflecting headlines in the daily press, gangster films such as Little Caesar, The Public Enemy (1931) with James Cagney, and Paul Muni’s evocation of Chicago’s Al Capone in Scarface (1932) remain as a lasting legacy of a turbulent era in which criminal activity took on disturbing proportions. Social structure and cultural values were unstable in many films of the 1930’s, but only rarely did studio executives allow their motion pictures to slash respected institutions to the core. The Marx Brothers, however, did just that. In five films made for Paramount between 1929 and 1933, they called into question the rationality and legitimacy of some of the basic components of American national life. The Cocoanuts (1929) ridiculed the Florida real estate industry at a time when the country was beginning to skid into depression. The culmination of their anarchistic comedy was Duck Soup (1933), which portrayed political leaders as demagogues, government as their pernicious plaything, and war as a result of scoundreldominated diplomacy. The biting humor of the Marx Brothers was at times too much for 1930’s film audiences, who often sought relief from the bleak reality of Depression life. Audiences found escape in films of glamour and excitement that featured stars who approximated a kind of royalty in the public mind. Although the lustre of her image would fade over the years following her unexpected retirement in 1941, Garbo’s presence in motion pictures went far beyond sex appeal and skillful acting to construct a persona that held fascination for the public. She combined an air of sophistication with a tinge of sadness at lost opportunities; in many of her films, Garbo did not live happily every after. Anna Christie (1930), Anna Karenina (1935), and Camille (1937) defined the image of this reclusive and enigmatic star. Entangled in a contract with MGM’s autocratic Louis B. Mayer, Garbo played redundant roles for the sake of the box office. Only in Ninotchka (1939), a comedic tour de force that starred Garbo as a bland, low-key Soviet agent whose personal liberation offered commentary on the pretensions of ideological purity, was Garbo able to break loose from such typecasting. Ironically, the adoring public that found escape in her films ensured her entrapment in roles that limited her development as an actor. Whereas Garbo’s magnetism stemmed from her 2366
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 aloofness and subtlety, Clark Gable built his star image by projecting an aggressive directness. He and Garbo costarred in Susan Lenox, a 1931 MGM production for Mayer. Garbo, the fallen woman, pursued engineer Gable as her last hope for the good life. Many female fans, too, pursued Gable throughout the decade. His work in It Happened One Night confirmed his position at the top of Hollywood’s list of stars, and Gone with the Wind gave him the quintessential male role of the decade as the charming Rhett Butler, a cool realist who used his wits to survive the Civil War but who never found happiness with the mercurial Scarlett O’Hara. His parting thrust at her—“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”—remains one of the best-known lines in film history. Unlike Garbo, Gable remained active in films all of his life, but the roots of his public persona and much of his film legacy are contained in his work of the 1930’s. Significance The launching of new technologies and the luster of the stars helped the Hollywood studios weather the storms of the Great Depression. Indeed, the output of Hollywood during the Depression has come to symbolize escapist entertainment at its best. The term “escapist” is often used in a pejorative sense, but the image of downtrodden masses enjoying momentary respites from their problems in the darkness of the nation’s movie theaters has been used to counteract the term’s negative connotations. The image has been used by Hollywood itself, in fact: It represents the climax of Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels (1941), in which the title character discovers that it may do greater good to produce an escapist comedy for the enjoyment of the poor and suffering than it would be to produce a weighty social tragedy dramatizing their plight. MGM, Warner Bros., and RKO led the way during the Depression years, but Fox, Paramount, Universal, Columbia, and United Artists also survived the nation’s worst economic crisis. Established as the world’s center of commercial film production, Hollywood was a major contributor to popular culture, an occasional contributor to high culture, and a dynamic, if unsteady, force in the nation’s economy. The essential vocabulary and conventions particular to mainstream Hollywood filmmaking had been well established even before the advent of sound. Over the course of the 1930’s, the studios incorporated the new technology into their films, as they learned how best to modify the conventions of the silent era to accomodate synchronized speech and sound tracks. By the end of the decade, Hollywood’s version of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the cinematic art had reached its apex, as most later critics would list the years from 1939 to 1941 as the greatest in the history of classical Hollywood cinema. —John A. Britton Further Reading Balio, Tino, ed. Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Comprehensive survey of all aspects of Hollywood’s output during the 1930’s. Part of a decade-by-decade series on the history of American cinema. Bibliographic references and index. Bergman, Andrew. We’re in the Money: Depression America and Its Films. New York: New York University Press, 1971. General overview of film and society in the 1930’s, with brief but insightful discussions of the Marx Brothers, women’s roles in film, and Frank Capra’s contributions to the screwball comedy and political dramas. Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Lengthy, detailed, unusually frank autobiography that covers Capra’s life, from his beginnings among Sicilian peasantry through his ascension to the top of Hollywood’s motion-picture elite in the 1930’s to his decline after World War II. Fastpaced writing, with numerous quotations from reviews. Currell, Susan. The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Detailed study of leisure-time activities during the Depression, including a chapter on motion pictures and music halls. Places Hollywood’s role in Depression-era culture in the context of other cultural activities and products of the same period. Dooley, Roger. From Scarface to Scarlett: American Films in the 1930’s. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Discusses a wide selection of films, organized in thematic sections. For example, “Continental Style” places Garbo and several of her films in the context of Hollywood’s image of European history and culture. Gabler, Neal. An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. New York: Crown, 1988. Interest-
Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age ing biographical sketches of studio executives. The author is more sympathetic to Louis B. Mayer than are most students of the era. Gronowicz, Antoni. Garbo: Her Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Fascinating but controversial perspective on Garbo’s life, ostensibly from Garbo’s point of view. Too valuable to ignore in any study of her career, but readers should use with awareness of its subjectivity. Richard Schickel’s afterword is a model of carefully considered judgment on the strengths and weaknesses of Garbo’s work in Hollywood. Marx, Groucho. Groucho and Me. New York: Bernard Geis, 1959. Rambling, autobiographical reminiscence replete with anecdotes, wisecracks, and some valuable observations on the Marx Brothers’ rise from vaudeville to Hollywood stardom. Tornabene, Lyn. Long Live the King: A Biography of Clark Gable. New York: Putnam, 1976. Traces Gable’s rise to stardom, with more attention to his personal life than to his screen performances. Emphasizes the insecurities of stardom, Gable’s combative personality, and his troubled relationship with Louis B. Mayer. Weales, Gerald. Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedy of the 1930’s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. A critical analysis of a dozen comedies, including a challenging critique of Duck Soup. See also: May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals; 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense; 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team; 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres. 1930
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Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines
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1930’s
Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines With the invention of the slug rejector, it became much more difficult to “fool” vending machines into dispensing products for free. As a result, the machines became more widely deployed, were used to sell a wider array of goods and services, and became important tools in the marketing and distribution of commodities. Locale: United States Categories: Inventions; trade and commerce; science and technology; marketing and advertising Key Figures Thomas Adams, Jr. (1846-1926), founder of the Adams Gum Company Frederick C. Lynde (fl. early twentieth century), English inventor Nathaniel Leverone (1884-1969), cofounder of the Automatic Canteen Company of America Louis E. Leverone (1880-1957), Nathaniel’s brother and cofounder of the Automatic Canteen Company of America Summary of Event Following World War II, vending machines became a significant factor in the U.S. economy. The growth in the popularity of these machines among product manufacturers and distributors was driven largely by the invention in the 1930’s of the slug rejector, which made them a more reliable source of income than they had been previously. Indeed, following the invention and perfection of the slug rejector, vending machines became commonplace as a means of marketing gum and candy. By the 1960’s, almost every building had machines that sold soft drinks and coffee. Street corners featured machines that dispensed newspapers, and post offices even used vending machines to sell stamps. Occasionally, someone fishing in the back woods could find a vending machine next to a favorite fishing hole that dispensed cans of fishing worms. The primary advantage offered by vending machines was their convenience. Unlike people, machines could provide goods and services around the clock, with no charge for labor. Before World War II, the major products stocked by vending machines were cigarettes, candy, gum, and soft drinks. Beginning in the 1950’s, the inventory of commodities available in such machines expanded significantly. 2368
The first recognized vending machine in history was invented in the third century b.c.e. by the mathematician Hero. This first machine was a coin-activated device that dispensed sacrificial water in an Egyptian temple. It was not until 1615 c.e. that another vending machine was recorded. In that year, snuff and tobacco vending boxes began appearing in English pubs and taverns. These tobacco boxes were less sophisticated machines than was Hero’s, as they left much to the honesty of the customer. Insertion of a coin opened the box; once it was open, the customer could take out as much tobacco as desired. One of the first U.S. patents on a vending machine was issued in 1886 to Frederick C. Lynde, an English-born inventor. That machine was used to sell postcards. If any one person can be considered the father of vending machines in the United States, however, it would probably be Thomas Adams, Jr., the founder of the Adams Gum Company. Adams began the first successful vending operation in the United States in 1888, when he placed gum machines on train platforms in New York City. Other early vending machines included scales (which sold a service rather than a product), photograph machines, strength testers, beer machines, and hot water vendors (to supply poor people who had no other source of hot water). These were followed, around 1900, by complete automatic restaurants in Germany, cigar vending machines in Chicago, perfume machines in Paris, and an automatic divorce machine in Utah. Soft drink vending machines got their start just prior to the beginning of the twentieth century. By 1906, improved models of these machines could dispense up to ten different flavors of soda pop. The drinks were dispensed into a drinking glass or tin cup that was placed near the machine (there was usually only one glass or cup to a machine, as paper cups had not yet been invented). Public health officials became concerned that everyone was drinking from the same cup. At that point, someone came up with the idea of setting a bucket of water next to the machine so that each customer could rinse off the cup before drinking from it. The year 1909 witnessed one of the monumental inventions in the history of vending machines, the pay toilet. Also around 1900 came the introduction of coinoperated gambling machines. These “slot machines” were typically differentiated from normal vending ma-
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Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines
chines. The vending machine industry did not consider gambling machines to be a part of the vending industry, because they did not vend merchandise. Neverthless, it was the gambling machines and the dishonesty of some of their clientele that induced the industry to research slug rejection. Early machines could be cheated by the simple ploy of tying a string to a coin and pulling the coin back out of the machine once it had dispensed its product or service. They could also be tricked into accepting crude counterfeit coins called “slugs.” In the 1930’s, the slug rejector was perfected, allowing machines to test the coins inserted into them to make sure they were genuine currency. The invention of this slug rejection device gave vendors more confidence that they would receive payment for products or services sold by vending machine.
Further Reading Amann, Fred. “Automated Cashless Services: A Trilogy.” Vend (March 15, 1970): 19-20. Discusses the 2369
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Significance Slug rejectors were the most important improvement to vending machines in the 1930’s, but they were not the only such improvement. Change-making machines were also instituted, and a few machines would even say “thank you” after a coin was deposited. These improved machines led many marketers to experiment with automatic vending. Coin-operated washing machines were one of the new applications of the 1930’s. During the Great Depression, many appliance dealers attached coin metering devices to washing machines, allowing the user to accumulate money to make monthly payments to the dealer by using the appliance. This was a form of forced saving. It was not long before some enterprising appliance dealer got the idea of placing washing machines in apartment house basements. This idea was soon followed by stores full of coin-operated laundry machines, giving rise to a new kind of automatic vending business. Following World War II, there was a surge of innovation in the vending machine industry. Much of that surge resulted from the discovery of vending machines by industrial management. Prior to the war, the managements of most factories had been tolerant of vending machines. Following the war, managers discovered that the machines could be an inexpensive means of keeping workers happy. They became aware that worker productivity could be increased by access to candy bars or soft drinks. As a result, the demand for machines increased, exceeding the supply offered by the industry during the late 1940’s. Vending machines have had a surprising effect on the total retail sales of the U.S. economy. In 1946, sales through vending machines totaled $600 million. By
1960, that figure had increased to $2.5 billion. The 1950’s began with isolated individual machines that would dispense cigarettes, candy, gum, coffee, and soft drinks. By the end of that decade, it was much more common to see vending machines in groups. The combination of machines in a group could, in many cases, meet the requirements to assemble a complete meal. There are limitations to the use of vending machines. Primary among these are mechanical failure and vandalism of machines. Another limitation often mentioned is that not every product can be sold by machine. There are several factors that make some goods more vendable than others. National advertising and wide consumer acceptance help. A product must have a high turnover in order to justify the cost of a machine and the cost of servicing it. A third factor in measuring the potential success of an item is where it will be consumed or used. The most successful products are used within a short distance of the machine; consumers must be made willing to pay the usually higher prices of machine-bought products by the convenience of machine location. Merchandise is the most commonly sold type of commodity dispensed by vending machines, but the vending of services is also an important part of the industry. The largest percentage of service vending comes from coin laundries. Other types of services are vended by weighing machines, parcel lockers, and pay toilets. There are also shoe-shine machines, and some motels feature coinoperated massaging beds. Even the ubiquitous parking meter is an example of a vending machine that dispenses a service. Coin-operated photocopy machines also account for a large portion of service vending. Vending machines have become a permanent fixture of capitalist society, and they have only scratched the surface of the potential markets. Although the machines have a long history, their popularization resulted most directly from innovations of the 1930’s, particularly the slug rejector. Once they could rely on receiving payments in exchange for goods or services, marketing managers came to recognize that vending machine sales were more than a mere sideline. Increasingly, firms established separate departments to handle sales through vending machines, as vending machines became such an important marketing channel that failing to deploy them could damage a company’s bottom line. —Dale L. Flesher
Jung Develops Analytical Psychology role of ITT Canteen Corporation in popularizing vending machines that accepted credit cards in 1967. Diehl, Lorraine B., and Marianne Hardart. The Automat. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. A study of the most famous automated restaurant in the United States, which became an icon of New York City in the early twentieth century. Bibliographic references and index. Latimer, Bob. “A New Breed of Bulk Vending.” Vend (May 1, 1968): 27-28. Discusses the role of vending service companies in the proliferation of vending machines in the late 1960’s. “Machines Are Selling Everything from Peanuts to Panties.” Sales Management 84 (June 3, 1960): 3842, 116-118. Gives highlights in the history of vending machines and includes an extensive discussion of products being sold through vending machines in the late 1950’s. Manning, W. J., Jr. “Automatic Selling: A Business in Billions.” The Management Review 49 (October, 1960): 14-22. A good history of the vending machine
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 industry dating back to 1886. Emphasizes the technological breakthroughs of the 1930’s. Molinari, Gianfranco. “Latest Developments in Automatic Retailing in Europe.” Journal of Marketing 28 (October, 1964): 5-9. Describes developments of the early 1960’s in European vending operations. Emphasizes the technical, marketing, and psychological factors that influence the success of a vending operation. Schreiber, G. R. Automatic Selling. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1954. An earlier and longer version of the book listed below. Focuses on vending machines as a sales tool. _______. A Concise History of Vending in the U.S.A. Chicago: Vend, 1961. Very brief history of vending machines, published by the leading journal in the industry. See also: 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers.
1930’s
Jung Develops Analytical Psychology The psychiatrist Carl Jung established in the early twentieth century a very influential school of psychological analysis, now known as analytical psychology, that contrasted in many respects with Sigmund Freud’s program. Not least among the differences was Jung’s stress on the spiritual or religious dimension in the treatment of mental illness. Locale: Switzerland Categories: Psychology and psychiatry; health and medicine; religion, theology, and ethics; publishing and journalism Key Figures Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler (1870-1937), Austrian psychologist Summary of Event In 1900, psychiatry—a branch of medicine that specialized in the examination and treatment of mental illness— was still in its infancy. Most physicians still regarded psychiatry as a kind of stepchild of the medical profession, suspect largely because its focus on the human 2370
mind seemed inherently too subjective to fit within the parameters of the objective scientific method. Early in the twentieth century, however, three brilliant young psychiatrists appeared in Europe, and their work would change this situation dramatically. Of the three, the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud was already making the biggest mark in the field. However, two younger colleagues, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, would soon rival him in their creative contributions to psychiatric theory and practice. Carl Jung was born near Zurich, Switzerland, in 1875. As the son of a clergyman, Jung was expected eventually to take up the profession. He was a lonely child and was given to private fantasies, especially because he found his parents emotionally distant and unhappy. Later, during his undergraduate years at the University of Basel, Jung read widely, especially in science, philosophy, theology, and mythology. He decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps and instead chose a career in medicine; he completed his M.D. in 1900. By then he had decided to specialize in the new discipline of psychiatric medicine because of its exciting potential. After seeing some of Jung’s early research conducted
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The appearance of Modern Man in Search of a Soul in 1933 proved that Jung had fully recovered. This slender volume, written in a clear, nontechnical style for a larger lay audience, set forth virtually all the main themes and methods that constituted Jung’s analytic psychology, some of which had benefited his understanding of his own mental illness. Not least among the themes was the idea of a midlife crisis, which Jung found afflicted many (including himself) as they approached middle age. He also described in detail the techniques of dream analysis essential to a patient’s diagnosis and therapy. Next, in his theory of psychological types, Jung divided the human race into two basic, biologically determined orientations: an other-directed extrovert and an inner-directed introvert. Each person had one of these orientations dominant in the conscious self, while the other was recessive in the unconscious. If not consciously confronted, Jung believed, the suppressed element could acquire a destructive power. In order to achieve psychic harmony, some reconciliation or adjustment of the extrovert-introvert opposition had to occur within the individual. A cornerstone of Jung’s psychiatric system was his novel theory regarding the “archetypes of the collective unconscious.” The idea of a collective unconscious, distinct from the conventional personal unconscious unique to each individual, was Jung’s construct to explain the striking similarity of mental patterns and images (archetypes) evident in the dreams and fantasies of the world’s cultures and expressed in myths, folklore, and art. Through his clinical work, reading, and wide travels, Jung had discovered many common recurring images and symbols in various cultures, and he noted that certain innate images were shared by all humans. Among the most frequent archetypal images included the masculine and feminine figures, “the wise old man” or guru figure, and the “shadow figure of the dark side,” often used to signify evil. The “shadow” within the unconscious had to be consciously acknowledged in order to neutralize its baneful opposition. Such archetypes needed to be identified in a patient by a therapist to bring about a healing of the tensions between the conscious and unconscious sides of the self. Finally, in his essay on the relationship of psychology and religion, Jung related how his extensive work with the mentally ill had convinced him that the feelings of despair and anguish he so often encountered were invariably associated with a loss of religious faith or a lack of any spiritual meaning to life. Whereas Sigmund Freud regarded religion as a superstitious abomination that 2371
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in his medical practice at a Zurich mental hospital, Sigmund Freud invited him to Vienna to collaborate in Freud’s prestigious psychoanalysis program. From 1907 to 1912, Jung assisted Freud in a number of his psychoanalytic investigations. Freud regarded Jung as his eventual successor in the program, and he managed to have Jung elected as the first president of the newly formed International Psychoanalysis Association. Jung, however, was becoming increasingly alarmed at Freud’s unshakable conviction that a repressed sexual instinct was the sole explanation for human neuroses. To Jung, such a doctrinaire position contradicted the very concept of psychiatry as a science. Meanwhile, Alfred Adler, the other luminary in the new psychology movement, had determined that the basic source of mental illness lay in a misguided will to power. Jung concluded that both Freud and Adler were wrong to reduce so complex a problem as mental illness to any single factor. His extensive reading and clinical experience in Zurich prompted him to consider a much broader range of causes for mental pathologies, including a spiritual dimension ignored by his more rationalist and material-minded colleagues. Relations between Freud and Jung cooled, and then the publication of Jung’s Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (1912; The Psychology of the Unconscious, 1915) made the breach permanent. In the book, which was later revised as Symbole der Wandlung (1952; Symbols of Transformation, 1967), Jung directly challenged Freud’s contention that repressed sexual desires could be the sole explanation for the disturbed dreams and fantasies of the mentally ill. Instead, Jung maintained that these phenomena could be better explained by a number of nonsexual factors. Each thinker went his separate way, although Jung was devastated. He felt professionally isolated and scorned, especially since many saw his book as a deliberate betrayal of Freud’s trust. Jung had to resign both as president of the psychiatric association and as editor of the foremost journal in the field. In the meantime, his marriage was also in serious difficulty. Jung continued his private practice in Zurich but produced very little from 1913 to 1919. During these troubled years, he continually grappled with a deep psychological depression and a sense of hopeless alienation. At times, he felt on the verge of madness. In final desperation, he applied several of his own psychiatric theories and techniques to his condition and gradually found his way out of the abyss, as evidenced by the publication of his major book Psychologische Typen (1921; Psychological Types, 1923).
Jung Develops Analytical Psychology
Jung Develops Analytical Psychology should be eliminated from society, Jung concluded that a psychiatrist had to respond to human experience in all its aspects, including the spiritual. According to Jung, who was himself a pantheist, religious belief could confer an essential purpose and dignity to human life. The addition of a transcendent spiritual dimension lifted the human race beyond the level of mere biological necessity. Modern Man in Search of a Soul made Jung renowned far beyond the limited circle of his fellow psychiatrists. For the rest of his life, Jung continued to elaborate the main elements of his psychic model, and his popularity seemed at times to overshadow that of Freud himself. Just before his death in 1961, Jung professed himself at peace with himself and with the world. Significance Carl Jung’s school of psychological analysis came to have a major impact on the psychiatric profession in the twentieth century. In contrast to his rival Sigmund Freud’s essentially mechanistic and rationalist approach to mental illness, Jung sought to dramatically widen the purview of psychiatric theory and practice. To better understand the patient’s plight, Jung adapted whatever sources or perspectives promised to illuminate the problem. In addition to his own clinical observations, Jung drew freely from the annals of mythology, folklore, art, religion, and even the occult. In his view, psychiatrists needed to be proficient in the humanities and the esoteric arts as well as in medical science. Further, Jung believed that the psyche was as real as any physical matter that existed in time or space. Convinced that science and its methodology could not penetrate the mysterious inner realms of the human mind, Jung advocated a “psychology of the spirit” that included a significant role for religion not found in the work of Freud and Alder. Jung had observed that religious belief could, among other things, give a sense of meaning and
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 purpose to life, and not only for the despairing and the alienated. Finally, Jung challenged his profession by devising a number of intriguing hypotheses to account for the great variety and complexity of psychic phenomena. Prime among these ideas were his “archetypes of the collective unconscious,” the “midlife crisis,” and his psychological types. Jung’s message and methods continue to be heard and practiced in centers of Jungian analysis across Europe and North America. —Donald Sullivan Further Reading Jung, C. G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and Selected by Aniela Jaffe. Rev. ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963. A fascinating, highly revealing autobiographical account unlike anything Jung had previously done. _______. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. 1933. Reprint. Translated by W. S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes. London: Routledge, 2001. The lectures here collected demonstrate the remarkable range of Jung’s thought and point forward to his research agenda over the nearly three decades to come. McLynn, Frank. Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. A controversial but thoroughly researched examination of Jung’s analytical psychology. Quite critical of Jung’s personal life. Stevens, Anthony. Jung. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. The best brief introduction in English to Jungian psychology. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method; 1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious; Apr., 1938: Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems
1930’s
Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems Abel Wolman’s scientific investigations exposed the dangers of municipal water and sewage pollution and contributed significantly to modernizing water management, both throughout the United States and globally. Locale: Eastern United States Categories: Environmental issues; health and medicine Key Figures Abel Wolman (1892-1989), American sanitary engineer George C. Whipple (fl. early twentieth century), American authority on municipal water supplies William Thompson Sedgwick (1855-1921), American bacteriologist and Massachusetts public health official Ira Remsen (1846-1927), American chemist William Henry Welch (1850-1934), American pathologist and educator
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Summary of Event Prior to his death in 1989, Abel Wolman had long been recognized as one of the most distinguished sanitary engineers in the United States and an authority on water standards, water pollution, and water management. His major contributions to these fields of expertise—the introduction of scientific methods of chlorination, the fluoridation of water supplies, the design of improved waterand sewage-treatment facilities, the scientific analysis of water resources, and the initiation of research into national water resources—were nearly all introduced or refined between the 1930’s and the late 1950’s. Because of the profound changes affecting the nation’s infrastructure during these years, sanitary engineers— quite aside from effects of the Great Depression, the massive industrialization of World War II, and the unprecedented affluence that marked the country’s growth beginning in the 1950’s—were presented with a sequence of novel problems. Principal among these challenges were the enormous growth in the U.S. population, the shift from a predominantly rural to an overwhelmingly urban society, the physical expansion of cities through rapid suburbanization, the wastage of water resources, and increases in the amounts and kinds of water pollution. These problems had arisen despite the progress made
by Wolman’s predecessors. Wolman, indeed, was foremost in acknowledging the strides taken by engineers and sanitarians, particularly during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, in improving the quality of water supplies and the treatment of sewage. Still earlier, a general recognition of water’s critical role in “public health” (an expression coined in the nineteenth century) and in economic growth had been broadened dramatically when deadly epidemics of cholera, typhoid, and malaria were directly correlated with impure water. Behind this discovery lay sanitation movements initiated primarily in London and Paris between 1832 and the 1880’s by such people as Edwin Chadwick, John Simon, John Snow, Florence Nightingale, A. J. B. Parent Du Chatelet, and Eugene Belgrand. Wolman took more immediate instruction, however, from men who, as he entered his profession, dominated the fields of water quality and sewage treatment and the applications of those fields to public health. The distinguished bacteriologist William Thompson Sedgwick, who modernized the public health services of Massachusetts, was one of Wolman’s mentors. George C. Whipple, who had closely studied the taste and odors of the municipal water supplies of Boston and New York City, was another, as was Ira Remsen, a world-class chemist who likewise made contributions to water analysis. Sedgwick, Whipple, and Remsen, in company with William Henry Welch, were associated at one time with The Johns Hopkins University, Wolman’s alma mater. These men were among the influences that led to the founding of the American Water Works Association, an organization that Wolman would lead beginning in 1942. Wolman’s career commenced with his studies of stream pollution in 1913. Thereafter, he combined research with practical applications of his knowledge until the early 1970’s, when advancing age curtailed— although it did not end—his commitments. Even before the peak of his activities from the 1930’s until the mid1960’s, he effected significant changes in several important areas of concern to the sanitary engineer. For example, in 1917 he introduced the rational loading of water-filter plants to improve the removal of bacteria. The following year, his studies on chlorine absoption provided the basis for subsequent chlorination practice in municipal filtration plants, a procedure that until then had been haphazard and unscientific. Experts noted that this accomplishment alone had a more profound effect
Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems on public health than any other single improvement in water management. Although Wolman’s professional operations took him variously to Boston, New York City, Richmond, Kansas City, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., his base of operations was in Baltimore. As a Johns Hopkins graduate, he spent more than forty years, first as lecturer, then as professor, in the university’s School of Public Health and Hygiene, but in no sense was he narrowly academic. During the 1920’s and early 1930’s, for example, he assumed the editorships of three of his profession’s leading journals: the Journal of the American Waterworks Association, the American Journal of Public Health, and the Manual of Water Works Practice. Almost simultaneously, he chaired the Public Health Engineering Section of the American Public Health Association, the Potomac River Flood Control Committee, the Conference of State Sanitary Engineers, and the Maryland State Planning Commissions. In addition, he served privately as consulting engineer to the Baltimore County Metropolitan District, the state of New Jersey (in regard to a U.S. Supreme Court case), and the city of Baltimore (in regard to water supply, sewerage, and refuse disposal). By 1934, Wolman officially directed ten major state and national commissions or committees engaged in resolving water-supply problems. In the 1930’s, Wolman continued to do excellent work in a broad range of areas, among them water resources, water quality and treatment, water planning and policy, and comprehensive planning for improvements to the human environment. Specific examples of his contributions across these fields are legion. From 1931 until 1970, as consulting engineer to the Baltimore City Department of Works, he helped make that city’s water supply one of the purest and most palatable in the country, and the Montebello Waterworks became an international showpiece. In addition, from 1940 to 1964, Wolman was called to serve the Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s huge Sparrows Point steelworks and shipbuilding facilities, given their immense capacities for polluting the lower Baltimore Harbor, the Patapsco River, and the Chesapeake Bay. For industrial and domestic purposes—Bethlehem employed thirty thousand people, many of whom lived in a company community—the corporation used 185 million gallons of water per day, much of it drawn through wells from underground aquifers. With increasing use by Baltimore’s growing population and by its expanding industries, these aquifers were becoming dangerously depleted, as well as polluted. Because Bethlehem, like most industrial water 2374
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 users, had no easily defined standards for the water it used, Wolman undertook to determine such standards while searching for new sources of supply. Wolman’s analysis indicated that both local and distant underground substitutes were inadequate for Bethlehem’s requirements, as were Baltimore’s own potable and raw water supplies. In the circumstances, his solution was a novel one. He ascertained that Baltimore’s Back Bay Sewage Treatment plant yielded effluent of between 85 and 165 million gallons a day. The effluent, moreover, served no useful purposes and produced no revenue. Not least, it was inexpensive and was within easy transmission distance of Bethlehem’s facilities. On Wolman’s recommendation, therefore, Bethlehem contracted with the city of Baltimore to receive a maximum of 50 million gallons daily (subsequently raised to 100 million gallons daily) of the city’s treated effluent. Bethlehem likewise absorbed all the costs of building, maintaining, and operating the works essential to handling this supply. The solution of this one problem led Wolman into investigations of related problems. The treated sewage effluent being provided by the city of Baltimore to Bethlehem Steel contained a high—and, for Bethlehem’s purposes, harmful—chloride concentration. Consequently, an additional year of study was focused on the entire Baltimore sewer system in order to locate the sources of chloride pollution, a subject about which little was known in the early 1940’s. Wolman’s investigations finally traced the infusions of chloride to Baltimore’s industrial sections, where there were firms engaged in meat pickling, meat packing, and the salt pickling of hides. Additional pollutants were traced to saltwater discharges from water-softening plants and, not least, to the infiltration of harbor waters into sewer breaks in lowlying areas. Having previously upgraded Baltimore’s own water supply to conditions of excellence, Wolman thus had further instigated a review of the city’s sewer system and had established an effective, early method for locating sources of pollution. As a participant in the first meetings of the Federation of Sewage Works Association in 1940, Wolman alerted this constituency to the increasing dangers of pollution, particularly in the nation’s rivers and streams, and to the wide and dangerous variations in the application of water standards that seemed justified both by science and by law. To address this problem, he proposed a search for answers to a series of questions about the quantitative bases for water standards promulgated in the United States, about what principles should dominate policy in regard to these standards, about whether universal stan-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dards for effluents were desirable, about the results of the installation of sewage-treatment plants on stream cleanliness, and about the epidemiological aspects of sewage treatment. In large part because of Wolman, all these questions would occupy the agendas of thousands of communities—including a dozen major American cities that he would help directly—over the next decades. These questions would also later inform Wolman’s influential 1962 Report to the National Academy of Sciences: Water Resources, as well as water planning and policy decisions in numerous countries where he served as a consultant, among them Israel, Ceylon, and many Latin American cities and states. Significance Wolman’s engineering tasks, research, and accomplishments encompassed nearly every aspect of water management. He revised standards for the performance of mechanical filtration plants, improved water-quality tests, made analyses of the degree and nature of bacterial removal in filtration plants, evaluated the effects of water storage in open reservoirs, applied statistical methods to the evaluation of water-supply quality, suggested improvements for sandbed filtration, eradicated unpleasant tastes and odors from water in various districts, defined sewage pollution in several bays and rivers, warned of the continuing menace of typhoid in water, and constantly urged funding for water research and the training of sanitary and hydraulic engineers. A dozen cities, half a dozen states, and several major agencies of the federal government drew heavily on his expertise from the Great Depression and World War II through the 1970’s. He published continuously, in reports and papers usually readable by laypersons as well as by professionals. Much as Gifford Pinchot popularized the cause of conservation in the United States, Wolman educated public leaders in the vital and manifold importance of water and environmental sanitation to life and good health. —Clifton K. Yearley
hensive handbook detailing the history of water management policy. Bibliographic references and index. Duffy, John. A History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-1866. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1968. A splendid scholarly study that is rich in essential nineteenth century background on urban sanitary conditions and their relationship to health. Wolman’s immediate predecessors, as well as Wolman himself, were still trying to alleviate many of the generic sanitary-public health problems relating to water supply. Clearly written and essential for comprehending both specific and general problems that were still mounting a century later. Ample notes and useful bibliography and index. Melosi, Martin V. Garbage in the Cities: Refuse and Reform, 1880-1980. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1981. Although the concentration in this study is on the politics of cleansing cities, there are ample discussions of sanitary engineers such as Wolman. Useful for covering much background of the period during which Wolman was active. Chapter notes, bibliography, and index. _______. Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. A well-written analysis of the subject. Substantially updates Duffy’s work in regard to relevant waterpollution problems that Wolman was to encounter when he worked in many U.S. cities. Good chapter notes, bibliography, and index. Nesson, Fern L. Great Waters: A History of Boston’s Water Supply. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for Brandeis University, 1983. An excellent analysis of the importance of engineers in devising politically acceptable solutions to complex water problems. Good notes, bibliography, and index. Nobile, Philip, and John Deedy, eds. The Complete Ecology Handbook. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. Clearly written and useful as an introduction to general pollution problems. Chapter 2 deals with water pollution in rivers, lakes, and streams. Useful bibliographies, glossary, and index. Weidner, Charles H. Water for the City. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1974. An extensive history of New York City’s water problems from the city’s origins until the 1940’s. Wolman was an important influence on many aspects of the city’s water quality and water planning problems, so this book illuminates interesting aspects of his career. White, Gilbert, ed. Water, Health, and Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969. An extensive 2375
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Further Reading Briggs, Peter. Water: The Vital Essence. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. A clear survey that provides sound background for understanding the importance of coping with water pollution. Emphasis is on the United States, but Briggs also deals with the condition of the worldwide water supply. Chapter notes and index. Cech, Thomas V. Principles of Water Resources: History, Development, Management, and Policy. 2d ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Compre-
Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems
Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking collection of Wolman’s papers that covers his life and work through 1969. Provides a detailed summary of Wolman’s busy career as well as a chronological list of his published works. Indispensable for grasping Wolman’s intellectual abilities and his influences. Wolman, Abel. “The Metabolism of Cities.” In Cities. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. Part of a collection of Scientific American articles, this is an excellent summation of Wolman’s views on urban pollution, including water and sewage problems. Charts and graphs.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process; June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins; 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms; 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct; Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins.
1930’s-1940’s
Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking Motion-picture production changed profoundly during the Great Depression and World War II, as studio executives exercised control over much of the creative process of filmmaking. Locale: Hollywood, California Categories: Motion pictures; trade and commerce Key Figures Frank Capra (1897-1991), American film director Carl Laemmle (1867-1939), American film studio executive Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959), American film producer and director Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957), American film studio executive Irving Thalberg (1899-1936), American film studio executive Jack Warner (1892-1978), American film studio executive Summary of Event Motion-picture fans often fail to appreciate that Hollywood film production began as a form of private enterprise. Vigorously competitive since the early years of the twentieth century, the companies that made Hollywood famous were locked in intense competition during the Depression-ridden 1930’s and the war-torn 1940’s. These trying times witnessed the emergence of the studio system, which consisted of five major corporations— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount, RadioKeith-Orpheum (RKO), Warner Bros., and Twentieth Century-Fox—and the three smaller organizations Universal, Columbia, and United Artists. Studio executives consolidated their operations through “vertical integra2376
tion,” which gave them control of the entire process from film production to exhibition in theaters. These eight studios accounted for 95 percent of U.S. film rentals by the late 1930’s. Internal centralization of studio operations meant that executives often personally supervised actual film production. For many screenwriters, directors, and performers, this extension of executive authority was an intrusion into the creative process. For management, it was a necessary means to reduce costs and increase production. In spite of this and other conflicts, the studio system left a lasting imprint on American popular culture. Not only did the studios confront rivals in Hollywood, they also faced other challenges, such as the growth of modern home entertainment with the rise of radio in the 1930’s and the advent of television in the 1940’s. The catastrophe of the period, however, was the Great Depression. By 1932, the unemployment rate in the United States was at least 25 percent. Public attendance at movie theaters declined sharply from 1930 to 1933, and studio profits plummeted. The prosperity of the 1920’s had encouraged heavy investments in new theaters, sound equipment for talking pictures, and new studios. In the 1930’s, Hollywood staggered under the burden of these debts and became increasingly dependent on New York bankers. MGM rode out the Depression with the least difficulty, but the reasons for its success are difficult to pinpoint. The paternalistic, flamboyant studio boss Louis B. Mayer was certainly no model of efficient management. One obvious MGM strength, however, was the brief but brilliant tenure of executive producer Irving Thalberg, whose sickly physique contained a dynamo of energy. He pushed the studio while he drove himself to an early
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World War II provided relief from financial troubles, but only temporarily. Hollywood turned out a series of morale-boosting films that pleased politicians in Washington, bankers in New York, and theater audiences across the country. The basic problems, however, were uncertain income and rising production costs. Shortages of lumber made set construction more expensive. Technicians, writers, and performers commanded higher salaries. The most devastating blow, however, came from the courts in the Paramount case (1940-1949). Federal judges ordered Paramount to sell its theater chain on the grounds that control of both production and exhibition facilities constituted unfair competition against local theaters. This decision eventually changed the structure of the film industry. Pressed by the expansion of television and rising costs, the studios faced a dim future. Significance Economic problems shifted the artistic force behind motion pictures from the individual director—the focus of film production before 1930—to the studios themselves and to the producers and directors entrusted with the task of converting budgets directly to screen images. Each studio emphasized certain popular themes to find formulas for success at the box office. Although restricted budgets, tight schedules, and intrusive bosses generally suffocated the creative impulses in filmmaking, some strong-willed producers and directors managed to achieve high-quality productions. Studio heads, whether the autocratic Louis B. Mayer or short-term executives chosen by East Coast bankers, were quick to identify themselves and their corporations with the style and success of producers and directors who could attract large audiences and occasionally please the critics. Two of the most solvent studios offered a striking contrast in the types of films that brought them profits. MGM used elegance and glamour to provide audiences with escapism, whereas Warner Bros. turned to films of social and political relevance. Hyperkinetic Irving Thalberg left his personal imprint on many of MGM’s expensive productions, including the South Seas saga Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and the Victorian romance The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). After Thalberg’s death in 1936, MGM continued to attract large audiences. Director Victor Fleming worked with independent producer David O. Selznick on 1939’s immensely popular Gone with the Wind. The studio shared in the profits, and, in 1944, MGM purchased sole rights to the long-term moneymaker. Warner Bros. did not attempt to match MGM’s gran2377
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death. Thalberg supervised production, from the hiring of screenwriters to the final editing of the film. At a time when other studios cut their budgets, MGM maintained an expensive payroll. The results were impressive, and the studio provided audiences with relief from the doldrums of the Depression through its popular, lavish productions. In contrast to MGM, both Paramount and RKO stumbled through the 1930’s in financial disarray. Paramount’s legendary chief, Adolph Zukor, lost control of his company’s finances as box-office receipts declined. Banks and investment companies removed Zukor as Paramount slipped into bankruptcy. An extensive housecleaning followed. Paramount survived under new management, with a trimmed-down structure that could support only a few major productions each year. RKO fared little better. Frequent changes in management and a few box-office successes such as 1933’s King Kong were not enough to solve basic financial weaknesses. In the 1940’s, both Paramount and RKO continued to struggle and were backed by increasingly skeptical investors. Warner Bros. was closest to MGM’s profit levels. Jack Warner, a somewhat heavy-handed version of Irving Thalberg, assumed control of studio operations and intervened at various stages of production. Unlike Thalberg, who was concerned with quality, Warner pressed for quick, efficient production. He held down costs to the point of personally switching off lights in studio bathrooms. Although Warner was the subject of surreptitious humor among writers, directors, and actors, his notorious cost-control methods seemed to work. The studio clung to a respectable prosperity in the 1930’s. Twentieth Century-Fox gambled on new sound equipment and a large theater chain in the late 1920’s, but the studio’s timing was disastrous. Studio head William Fox borrowed heavily just before the initial shocks of the Depression hit. Rights to the Fox sound system became entangled in a legal battle, and the payments on the studio’s immense debt overwhelmed its income. Corporate restructuring removed Fox, and the studio survived on a narrow margin. The “little three” of the Hollywood studios also experienced rough times. Universal was an industry leader in the 1920’s under founder and patriarch Carl Laemmle, but he was forced to sell his interests in 1936. Like Columbia and United Artists, Universal struggled through the Depression. All three small studios enjoyed momentary box-office successes with the work of certain directors or stars, but the general trends were reduced income and corporate retrenchment.
Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking
Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking deur, but Jack Warner used his limited resources well. Organized in 1923 by four brothers who were outcasts in Hollywood’s movie-mogul society, the studio took a large risk on sound films in the 1920’s and vaulted to the forefront in the 1930’s. Warner Bros. pushed directors for fast-paced, low-cost productions. Mervyn LeRoy responded by pioneering the gangster film; he directed a strong performance from Edward G. Robinson in the title role of Little Caesar (1931) and then worked with Paul Muni as the victim of a corrupt judicial system in the powerful I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932). William Wellman directed James Cagney to stardom in The Public Enemy, a 1931 gangster film. Director John Huston’s 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon created a grim world of ambiguity and betrayal, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) dramatized moral degeneration through greed. World War II elicited the studio’s patriotism, as reflected in Casablanca (1942), a potent combination of romance, character study, and propaganda. The production methods employed by Warner Bros. were exemplified in Casablanca, as director Michael Curtiz made the most of inexpensive sets and screenwriters completed the sharp, literate script while the film was being shot. Hard-pressed RKO had a remarkable string of muchadmired films. King Kong astounded audiences with its innovative special effects, and in 1937 the studio began to distribute the inventive products of cartoon genius Walt Disney, bringing adults and children alike into theaters. Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) was a powerful and controversial film but drew small audiences. Val Lewton produced eleven low-budget, highly impressive horror classics, led by Cat People (1942). Producer Adrian Scott, director Edward Dmytryk, and screenwriter John Paxton collaborated on Murder, My Sweet (1944), a dark, moody detective story punctuated by witty dialogue adapted from Raymond Chandler’s novel. This film and the work of Welles and Lewton were typical of RKO’s stylish, literate productions that, somehow, never solved the company’s financial woes. Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox also floundered financially but, thanks to skillful directors, both studios produced some superior films. Veteran producer-director Cecil B. DeMille brought out a series of historical dramas, including Cleopatra (1934) and Union Pacific (1939). Billy Wilder directed and cowrote two taut stories about contemporary life: Double Indemnity (1944) featured murder, and The Lost Weekend (1945) took a somber look at alcoholism. Twentieth Century-Fox survived with help from John Ford’s 1940 2378
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 film version of John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, which was perhaps the epitome of topicality as it sympathetically portrayed the migration of a dispossessed farm family from Oklahoma to California. The commercial mainstay of Fox, however, was child star Shirley Temple, who acted, sang, and danced her way through a series of box-office hits. Carl Laemmle turned over Universal to his twentyone-year-old son, Carl, Jr., in 1929. The younger Laemmle supervised the production of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), a provocative antiwar film, and then innovated in the horror genre with Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (1931) and Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein (1931). These creative thrusts fell victim to bad timing, however. Audiences were too small in the Depression years, and Universal soon faced a fiscal crisis. The Laemmles sold their interest in the studio, which worked its way back to solvency through B-pictures, serials, and the popularity of teen star Deanna Durbin. By the 1940’s, Universal had achieved a modest prosperity. The two remaining minor studios relied heavily on talented directors. Frank Capra carried Columbia with films of social and political relevance, including It Happened One Night (1934), in which romance overcame class barriers, and highly charged populist films such as Meet John Doe (1941). Robert Rossen’s 1949 exposé of the perils of demagoguery, All the King’s Men, marked Columbia’s return to solvency. United Artists turned to the legendary comic actor Charles Chaplin, who poked fun at industrial society in Modern Times (1936) and ridiculed authoritarian leaders in The Great Dictator (1940). Director John Ford brought maturity to the Western in his popular United Artists release Stagecoach (1939). This colorful, turbulent era contained major contradictions. The period’s forceful, profit-seeking executives undercut the creative process but left an impressive list of popular, critically acclaimed films, including The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind. The drive to boost profits, however, ultimately failed. The growth of television, rising production costs, and adverse court decisions meant the decline and ultimate demise of the studio system in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The Hollywood film industry, for all its power, notoriety, and many contributions to American popular culture, had a short life span. — John A. Britton Further Reading Bergman, Andrew. We’re in the Money: Depression America and Its Films. 1971. Reprint. Chicago: Ivan
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 R. Dee, 1992. Brief interpretive study of the connection between films and American society in the 1930’s. Offers especially interesting discussion of gangster and “shyster” lawyer films of the early part of the decade. Includes bibliography and index. Dick, Bernard. The Star-Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film. 1985. Reprint. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. Presents wide-ranging analysis that includes film content and historical accuracy. Features bibliographical essay, film index, and subject index. Dooley, Roger. From Scarface to Scarlett: American Films in the 1930’s. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Provides extensive coverage of Hollywood films, organized by thematic chapters. Useful for thematic discussions and as a reference on individual films. Gabler, Neal. An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. New York: Anchor, 1988. Social history enlivened by biographical portraits of the generation of studio executives who led the motionpicture industry through the 1930’s and 1940’s. Includes discussion of Laemmle, Mayer, and Jack and Harry Warner. Kindem, Gorham, ed. The American Movie Industry: The Business of Motion Pictures. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982. Collection of eighteen specialized essays on business aspects of film, including the rise of the studio system and competition with television. Koppes, Clayton R., and Gregory D. Black. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies. New York: Free Press, 1987. Carefully researched account of the film industry and its relations with the government and the war effort in general. Focuses on the Office of War Infor-
Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking mation and its influence on the propagandistic content of Hollywood’s World War II films. McElvaine, Robert. The Great Depression. New York: Times Books, 1984. Social, economic, and political history of the United States in the 1930’s focuses on the causes and consequences of the Depression. Discusses Hollywood films as a reflection of culture and values of the era, especially the public’s ambivalence toward individualism and collectivism. Shindler, Colin. Hollywood in Crisis: Cinema and American Society, 1929-1939. New York: Routledge, 1996. Describes the state of the American motionpicture industry during the years of the Great Depression. Includes filmography, bibliography, and index. Sklar, Robert. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. Rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Historical survey connects trends in Hollywood motion pictures with broad economic and social forces in the United States. Chapters covering the 1930’s and 1940’s include much useful information on the rise and fall of the studio system. Stanley, Robert. The Celluloid Empire. New York: Hastings House, 1978. Readable study on the business side of the film industry. Provides succinct analysis of the eight studios that dominated Hollywood from the Depression to the end of the 1940’s. See also: Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry; May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; Feb. 27, 1935: Temple Receives a Special Academy Award; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres.
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Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States When Dutch elm disease was introduced into the United States by wood imported from Europe, the devastating infestation stripped city streets and parks across the nation. Locale: Eastern United States Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources Key Figures William Middleton (fl. early twentieth century), American entomologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964), American environmentalist, marine biologist, and author William D. Ruckelshaus (b. 1932), first head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Summary of Event Dutch elm disease has been the most destructive shadetree disease ever seen in the United States. The infection was first described by Marie Beatrice Schwartz in the Netherlands in 1921 and thus became known as Dutch elm disease; there is no tree called the Dutch elm. In 1930, the disease was brought into the United States in elm logs imported from Europe for making veneer. At least four ports of entry were involved; initially, the infestation was limited to areas near New York City. The logs were being shipped in partial payment of World War I debts. These particular logs were valued because they had burls—hard, woody growths on the sides of trees that are usually the results of entwined clusters of buds. Burls produce unusual and often attractive grain patterns that are considered valuable in wood used to make furniture. Wooden crates containing dishes from Europe were also found to contain the disease. The range of the American elm (Ulmus americana) is the largest of any tree in North America. It includes the eastern United States and southern Canada and extends as far west as central Texas, North Dakota, and eastern Saskatchewan. Other elms are found in smaller ranges within the same area. Most elms, including the slippery or red elm (Ulmus rubra) and the rock elm (Ulmus masii), are susceptible to the disease. The Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) and the Japanese elm (Ulmus davidiana japonica) show resistance to Dutch elm disease. A major factor in the spread of the disease in the United States was that the American elm had been planted both in large numbers and close together. Urban planners in the early 1900’s lined city streets with them. 2380
New neighborhoods were often crowded with houses, and streets were narrow; with the American elm’s graceful shape, the mature trees arched across the streets to form a cathedral-like roof. The result was beautiful and redeeming in the cramped neighborhoods but devastating to the elms; their proximity to one another rendered them more vulnerable to the spread of the disease. The Dutch elm infection, which had previously infested Europe, spread in the United States and killed millions of elm trees, stripping city streets and parks of their shade trees. Every year, local governments and individuals spent many millions of dollars cutting down dead and dying trees. The disease is caused by the fungus Ceratocystis ulmi. Technically, the fungus is a parasite while the tree is alive and continues as a saprophyte after the tree dies. In both cases, the fungus releases enzymes that digest the cells of the tree. This digestion occurs outside the cells of the fungus, and the degraded material is then absorbed as food by the fungus. The fungus is a member of the sac fungi, so named because they produce a sac (ascus) containing reproductive cells called spores. The spores allow the fungus to spread from tree to tree. Agents that carry the spores and transmit the infection are called vectors. The principal vectors for Dutch elm disease are the elm bark beetles that tunnel under the bark. When the beetles are under the bark, the spores from the fungus stick to them. When the beetles fly to healthy trees to feed on tender twigs, they carry spores. In 1934, U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist William Middleton was the first to report that spores are deposited on the feeding wounds as the beetles eat. The spores germinate and grow into the conductive tissues of the tree. Birds, water, and wind can also act as vectors. Bark beetles, however, are the main culprits. Two species of small bark beetles act as vectors. The European elm bark beetle (Scolytus multistriatus) is another immigrant from Europe. In 1904, this insect was found and identified near Boston. It was not considered a problem until the subsequent arrival of the fungus, for which the beetle became the major vector. A native species (Hylurgopinus rufipes) also helps in spreading the disease. Without the beetles, the fungus would not present much of a threat. The growing fungus not only kills and digests tree cells but also plugs the vital conductive tissues (especially the xylem) and cuts off areas of living sapwood.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The conductive tissues form a ring of vertical tubing just under the bark. The center of a tree does not conduct water; two types of tissue allow water to travel: Xylem takes water up to the leaves, and phloem takes water and the products of photosynthesis down. The first sign of trouble in the conductive tissue is when the upper branches of the elm wilt and curl because they are not getting enough water. Leaves then yellow and fall as the chlorophyll breaks down, and branches die. The conductive tissue may also carry spores internally to start new infections in other parts of the tree. Trees may take several years to die or may die in the same season in which they are infected. Bark beetles generally produce two broods of young each year in large numbers. As many as twenty-five thousand beetles can emerge from one square foot of bark. The first brood spreads more of the fungus than the second. When they leave a tree with fungus in order to feed on new growth, the beetles are likely to carry spores. After feeding, they fly to dead or dying elms to find
Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States breeding places for the next brood, which emerges in August. The closely planted trees helped the beetles to multiply rapidly. The federal government limited its response to Dutch elm disease to research and did not involve itself in direct efforts to stop the spread of the disease; hence programs to save elms were local and uncoordinated. Some communities concluded that the loss of the elm was inevitable and decided to do nothing. Some control measures were undertaken, but they met with limited success. The treatment of plant disease is usually focused on the survival of the crop, or the whole species or genus. Only occasionally is an attempt made to save older or especially valued trees. Control efforts included the cutting and quick burning of infected trees to prevent spread of the fungus. Not only did the beetle take the fungus from tree to tree, but the fungus also was found to spread when roots of an infected tree touched another tree’s roots. In such a case, a root graft is formed, allowing the spores to cross over.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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A dead elm tree shows the ravages of Dutch elm disease. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States For a time, it seemed that the spread of the disease might be stopped by the use of dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), an insecticide that proved effective against the beetles. It soon became clear, however, that widespread DDT use had unacceptable side effects. For example, Rachel Carson’s classic book Silent Spring (1962) argued that if the spraying of DDT continued, the price would be the devastation of bird populations, with damaging effects on entire ecosystems. She also cited cases in which spraying lost its effectiveness as a result of weather conditions that favored the beetles. In 1972, out of concern for the wider effects of DDT, William D. Ruckelshaus, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced a ban on the domestic use of the chemical. A less effective insecticide, methoxychlor, was substituted in many communities. Numerous research efforts using chemotherapy (injection of chemicals) were unsuccessful and costly. Individual prized trees were drilled at the base, and fungicides were introduced into the conductive tissue; nevertheless, many such trees were eventually lost. Some success was reported with the use of the fungicide benomyl. The infestation that was introduced in the 1930’s became an epidemic in the 1950’s and peaked by the 1970’s. Many cities that had planted only elms were left barren. Significance The Dutch elm infestation stripped the city and park landscapes in thirty-one U.S. states. No tree had a wider range across the nation. Whole cities and neighborhoods that had invested in massive elm plantings were changed. Often, every elm on a street was lost. Nevertheless, none of the affected elm species went extinct as a result of the disease, because the reproductive rate of these species is high. The major impact of the infestation was the realization that careful planning was required to create and protect urban forests. Scientists warn that the practice of monoculturing, the extensive cultivation of a single crop, is hazardous. What happened to the elm populations in the United States is a lesson in how overplanting one species or related species allows infestations to spread quickly and prosper. Some planners responded only by switching from the use of elms to the use of another species, such as ash, but any species planted in high concentration is more vulnerable to infestation than are more diverse groupings. Moreover, the epidemic vividly illustrated the dangers involved in the importation of exotic plants, animals, and even fungi. Such introduced species may have 2382
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 no natural enemies. Under new conditions, they may be able to prosper at the expense of native species and displace them. The case of the Dutch elm infestation demonstrates how a previously harmless exotic such as the European bark beetle may become harmful when it is combined with another species. Another issue that surfaced during the infestation was the tendency to rely solely on modern technology as a solution. Rachel Carson convincingly argued that chemical spraying was not the answer to Dutch elm disease; nevertheless, chemical use continued. The relative amounts of chemicals sprayed on household lawns in the 1990’s to maintain monocultures exceeded that used to produce food. Golf courses tend to use even more chemicals, averaging seven times the amount that farmers use on each acre. Such use requires care and understanding that are often lacking. Any widespread loss of trees is cause for regret. Trees restore the air by making oxygen. By taking carbon dioxide out of the air, they reduce the greenhouse effect. Trees hold large amounts of water and prevent erosion and flooding. They slow the wind; they shade and cool homes. Trees are required as hosts for much animal life. The beauty of trees restores the spirit and makes the land livable. Nevertheless, they do not need to be monocultured to be beautiful, nor do they need to be planted closely in rows. One of the effects of the loss of the elm monocultures was to call into question the nature of beauty in horticulture. Hundreds of thousands of elms were lost each year when the infestation was at its peak. Now that many of the elms are gone, the beetles and fungus have also been reduced in number. The trend has been to replant about one tree for every four that were lost in the cities. The Dutch elm infestation showed that such replanting requires careful planning. Researchers continue to study resistant strains and genetically engineered varieties of elm for urban use. Most important to the recovery of affected areas, however, is the recognition that the problems of the past can be avoided through careful planning, the use of native species, and the preservation of diversity. —Paul R. Boehlke Further Reading Carson, Rachel. “And No Birds Sing.” In Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Chapter in Carson’s classic attack on chemical spraying deals with efforts to save the elms. The individual cases that Carson cites to support her argument are fascinating. Lucas, George B., C. Lee Campbell, and Leon T. Lucas.
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Introduction to Plant Diseases: Identification and Management. 2d ed. New York: Springer, 1998. General reference on plant infestations presents thorough information on identification of diseases and the fundamentals of disease management. Good for gardeners or anyone interested in plants. Includes glossary, list of suggested readings, and index. Strobel, Gary A., and Gerald N. Lanier. “Dutch Elm Disease.” Scientific American 245 (August, 1981): 5666. Presents good illustrations of the infestation and the bark beetles. Includes a map with dates showing the progress of the epidemic. Tippo, Oswald, and William Louis Stern. Humanistic Botany. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. Unique
book focuses on the interactions of plants and humankind. The chapter on fungi includes a useful section on plant pathology. Wilson, Edward O. The Diversity of Life. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1999. Outstanding book for the general reader. Does not directly address the problem of Dutch elm disease but presents eloquent arguments regarding the value of each species and explains why the reduction of biodiversity should be avoided. Includes glossary and index. See also: 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT.
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Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere When Bernard Lyot created the coronagraphic telescope, he enabled the first extended observations of the Sun’s outer atmosphere without the necessity of a natural solar eclipse. Locale: Meudon (Paris), France Categories: Science and technology; astronomy; inventions Key Figure Bernard Lyot (1897-1952), French astronomer
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Summary of Event Although the chromosphere and corona represent only a very small part of the Sun’s total atmosphere, they have long been astronomically interesting yet difficult to access. The subdivisions of the chromosphere and corona together encompass the Sun’s outer atmosphere as inferred from both visual and telescopic observation, photometrically showing only 0.5 × 10–6 the brightness of the total Sun. During the total stage of a solar eclipse, the Sun’s corona appears as an asymmetric halo, the apparent brightness of which generally decreases from the Sun’s limb (outer edge of the disk) outward. With an overall increase in solar activity every eleven years, additional radial streamers, or rays, can appear outward from the corona. In a period of minimal solar activity, there is simply a diffuse distribution of visible radiation, with minimum intensity at the solar poles and maximum intensity at the equator. The corona’s shape also shows
minimum ellipticity every three years prior to a sunspot cycle maximum. Normally, the much greater intensity of the halo, or aureole, of scattered light surrounding the Sun’s disk hides the corona. Observed visually at sea level, the average sky further scatters coronal light to about one one-thousandth of this amount. Only rare locations, such as high mountaintops, offer the chance to observe the corona unaided even during an eclipse. Research questions concerning the origins and behavior of the corona are important for stellar as well as solar astrophysics. From a planetary solar system perspective, the corona is effectively a transition zone between the solar surface and the interplanetary medium (for example, solar wind). From an astrophysical viewpoint, the conditions that exist in the solar corona are of great interest in determining the laws governing magnetohydrodynamic gases, spectral emissions from highly ionized atoms, and the like. Some of the important questions about the corona concern the temperature implications of the greatly increased spectral emissions above the solar limb and whether the chromosphere and corona are wholly or partly a collection of turbulent gas streams or a more uniform atmosphere. Until about 1930, the solar corona had been observed astronomically only during total eclipses of the Sun, meaning only a few minutes per year of measurements, often under hurried and less than optimum conditions, with a total observation time from 1630 to 1930 of less than one hour. Spectroheliographs are special solar tele-
Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere scopes that can make observations at any wavelength, but they are slow and unsuited to accurate observations of short-lived eclipse and flare phenomena. Various attempts by astronomers such as Alexander Hale to take spectroheliographs to mountaintops for coronal observation were failures. The first recorded spectrum of the corona was recorded by Georges Rayet in 1868. Since the late 1890’s, many (unsuccessful) attempts were made at telescopically detecting the Sun’s corona outside eclipse conditions, including George Ellery Hale’s single absorption-line spectroscopy in 1900 and Henri-Alexandre Deslandres’s use of infrared band radiation in 1904. In 1906, Karl Schwarzschild recorded the first simultaneous spectra from both the Sun’s center and inner corona, using a neutral diffusing filter and spectrophotometer. In 1931, W. Grotrian published results from the 1926 eclipse, recorded by modifying Schwarzschild’s instrument. As scientists eventually realized, ordinary reflector or refractor telescopes further scattered solar light from the already weakened and scattered visual appearance. The details of designing and building a special lens and some kind of shielding disk for noneclipse coronal observation required reduction of unwanted scattered light by a factor of more than 100,000. In response to these requirements, Bernard Lyot of the Meudon Observatory conceived, and in 1930 designed and constructed, a new optical telescope in which the diffusion of light inside the lens and telescope tube was minimized to these standards. In Lyot’s original coronagraph, the Sun’s disk is eclipsed artificially, or occulted, by a polished metal cone. The direct image of the remaining (corona) Sun is formed on a black screen slightly larger than the disk’s image. The shiny cone also reflects back the Sun’s light to the side, preventing it from falling back on the main objective lens. Nevertheless, it was further necessary to prevent the solar light diffracted by the main objective from getting into the second, middle objective lens. Lyot accomplished this by placing an aperture stop at the point where the light from the main lens is imaged by the final field lens. A further refinement was to place another opaque disk at the center of the second objective to catch and multiply reflected light from the primary lens and from the occulting cone. In this chromatically aberrant design, the occulting disk is in focus only for single wavelengths. It is possible to compensate for the overcorrection of the secondary lens so that the final image is aberration-free. To minimize scattering from even microscopic defects of the tube and dust particles, all inner surfaces were smeared 2384
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with thick oil, thus reducing thermal air currents. The coronagraph requires special care and environmental conditions. All lenses must be kept as clean as possible at all times from dust and aerosol particles. Atmospheric scattering, as noted, is a severe limit, but this is reduced notably for altitudes above a few kilometers, thus most coronal observatories have been constructed at heights above 1,800 meters (about 5,900 feet) and generally above 3,000 meters (9,840 feet) if possible. Winter frequently provides the best observing times; Lyot discovered optimal conditions immediately after heavy snowfalls had cleared the air of atmospheric dust particles. Significance Wider use of the coronagraph, from 1932 on, provided vastly increased opportunities for coronal observation. Because it is not limited by the brevity of a solar eclipse, Lyot’s coronagraph permitted far more precise measurements of the comparative intensities of different spectral lines vital to astrophysical theories of stellar composition and dynamics. Observations using Lyot’s coronagraph—supplementing observations made during eclipses between 1893 and 1936—showed that the maximum equatorial elongation of the corona occurs 0.7 year before the minimum of solar prominences at higher solar latitudes. Coronal “rays” were shown also to be gas bodies of higher temperature forming above solar faculae, analogous to auroral polar lights insofar as both take the shape of the prevailing magnetic lines of force. Coronagraphic measurements permitted the first rigorous estimates of the temperature, lifetime, luminosity, and characteristic length and height of solar prominences. On the basis of coronagraph and eclipse data, Bengt Edlén in 1939 first identified the coronal lines of highly ionized atoms associated with electron temperatures of 106 Kelvins. Lyot showed that corona emission lines are very wide, confirming hypotheses by Edlén and others that Doppler broadening because of extremely high kinematic temperature is a common solar feature. Despite his success, Lyot was not satisfied with his coronagraph’s performance, suspecting that there was a need to reduce further or compensate for residual thermal diffusion within the coronagraph itself. Continuing his experiments, Lyot combined his coronagraph with a spectroheliograph, minimizing the heat leak problem. With this combination, in 1937 he succeeded in photographing the two brightest spectral lines in the green and red regions of the corona’s spectrum over the entire solar disk. Lyot and other solar astronomers wanted to be able to observe simultaneously solar prominences over the
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Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere
chromosphere as well as the corona. Lyot’s original dissertation research, from 1923 to 1930, concerned polarization of light reflected from planetary surfaces. In 1938, Lyot devised his quartz-polaroid monochromatic interference filter system. The principle of this filter is the passage of solar light through a series of polarizing layers having their planes of polarization parallel to one another. These filters are separated by thin plates of quartz glass whose thicknesses are calculated to produce optical interference fringes. The combination of the appropriate number and thickness of polarizers permitted a transmission band of only one angstrom in width, allowing rapid observations over the entire Sun using the wellknown hydrogen alpha spectral line. In 1940, Lyot added to his filter another special optical arrangement, which permitted him to isolate different wavelengths and take 16-millimeter moving films of them. Lyot’s final innovation was the coronagraphic photometer, which enabled tracing of weak spectral lines even with ordinary refractor telescopes at sea level. Because of the technical difficulties in making the main lens and meeting all environmental conditions, coronagraphs typically are not large instruments. Among the largest are the 40-centimeter (15.7-inch) coronagraphs of the Sacramento Peak Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, and the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado. Other coronagraphs are located at Pic du Midi, France; Mt. Norikura, Japan; Freiburg, Germany; and Capri, Italy. As of 2004, the largest coronagraph to date was installed at the Maui Space Surveillance System, an observatory on Mount Haleakala in Hawaii. To avoid atmospheric scatter, brightness, and fluctuations, from May, 1973, to January, 1974, the Apollo Telescope on the Skylab space station included a special white-light coronagraph. From the thermospheric altitudes of an orbiting spacecraft, the sky is completely black overhead, and coronagraphic observations nearly match those of a total eclipse. Skylab recorded more than one thousand hours of coronagraph data, leading to the discovery of the phenomenon of coronal transients: huge
shock waves of ionized gas following a flare or prominence that propagate outward through the corona. Many researchers consider the period from 1930 to 1947 the watershed between the era of fortuitous uncalibrated coronal observations of opportunity and detailed controlled observations. Bernard Lyot succeeded in accomplishing what many predecessors had tried but failed to do: observe coronal details without an eclipse. — Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Beer, Arthur, ed. Vistas in Astronomy. New York: Pergamon Press, 1955. Technical but accessible volume presents valuable information on spectroheliograph and coronagraph technologies and results. Dyson, Frank, and Richard van der Riet Woolley. Eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1937. Reports noncoronagraphic observing methods and results. Evans, John W., ed. The Solar Corona. New York: Academic Press, 1963. Intermediate advanced-level text gives important summaries of empirical and theoretical understanding of the Sun’s corona. Golub, Leon, and Jay M. Pasachoff. The Solar Corona. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Reviews the information gleaned from observations of the solar corona since the mid-twentieth century. Chapter 5 includes discussion of the coronagraph. Intended for advanced students and researchers. King, Henry C. The History of the Telescope. 1955. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003. Excellent overall history of telescopes and attachments presents some material on the coronagraph. Includes photographs. Stix, Michael. The Sun: An Introduction. 2d ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2002. Introductory technical treatment of solar observations and structure. Includes illustrations. See also: 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory; June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1930
Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus Hans Zinsser demonstrated clinical differences in forms of typhus and developed an effective vaccine against the disease. Locale: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Science and technology; biology; health and medicine Key Figures Hans Zinsser (1878-1940), American bacteriologist and immunologist Howard T. Ricketts (1871-1910), American bacteriologist John Franklin Enders (1897-1985), American immunologist Summary of Event As a bacteriologist and immunologist, Hans Zinsser was interested in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. During an outbreak of typhus in Serbia in 1915, he traveled with a Red Cross team in order to study the clinical and pathological aspects of the disease. He made subsequent trips to the Soviet Union in 1923, Mexico in 1931, and China in 1938. His observations supported the commonly held belief that typhus was caused by an organism, the rickettsia, isolated and named by Henrique da Rocha-Lima in 1916 for Howard T. Ricketts. The organism was known to be borne by a louse or a rat flea and transmitted to humans by way of a bite. The unsanitary living conditions resulting from poverty and overcrowding provided an atmosphere conducive for the spread of the disease. The rickettsia are microorganisms whose shapes range from rod to sphere. Within the carrier’s body, the rickettsia stimulate the cells of endothelial tissue to use phagocytosis (that is, to eat) so that the microorganism can enter and live in the cytoplasm of the endothelial cells, which line the gut of the insect. The rickettsia multiply within the tissue and pass from the insect body with the feces. Because the internal cells of the insect are destroyed, the insect dies within three weeks of becoming infected with the microorganisms. As the flea or louse feeds on a human, it causes an itch; scratching of the itch may result in a break in the skin. This, in turn, provides an opportunity for the rickettsialaden feces to enter the body. Dried, airborne feces can be inhaled. Once within the human host, the rickettsia in2386
vades endothelial cells associated with blood vessels and causes an inflammation of the blood vessels. The resulting cell death leads to tissue death. In a few days, the infected host exhibits symptoms such as a rash, severe and sudden headache, rise in temperature, photophobia (visual intolerance to light), vertigo, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), deafness, and an altered mental state, which gives the disease its name, typhus (from the Greek meaning cloudy or misty). Left untreated, the patient dies within nine to eighteen days. Typhus was first described in Europe in the fifteenth century. It is among the oldest diseases known to be caused by the rickettsia. Medical science now recognizes three clinical forms: the epidemic louse-borne form, the Brill-Zinsser form, and the murine, or rodent-related, form. The epidemic louse-borne or classical form is the severest manifestation of the disease. Rickettsia prowazekii is the causative agent and is carried by the human body louse Pediculus humanus. The Brill-Zinsser form
Hans Zinsser. (National Academy of Sciences)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus
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presents symptoms similar to but milder Pity the Poor Louse than the epidemic type. It involves the reIn his book Rats, Lice, and History, Hans Zinsser tells the story of his work activation of the organism within the host against typhus. This excerpt illustrates why the book is considered a clascells, indicating that the host had ensic of popular science writing. countered the epidemic form earlier. The murine form is caused by Rickettsia typhi The louse is foremost among the many important and dignified things that (previously called Rickettsia mooseri), are made the subjects of raucous humor by the ribald. Despite the imwhich is borne by a rat flea. This variety mense influence of this not unattractive insect upon the history of manalso presents symptoms that are milder kind, it is given in the Encyclopædia Britannica two thirds of a column— than the epidemic type. The pathology of half as much as is devoted to “Louth, a maritime county in the province of murine typhus closely resembles that of Loinster,” one fifth as much as is allowed for Louisville, Kentucky. This creature, which has carried the pestilence that has devastated cities, driven Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is populations into exile, turned conquering armies into panic-stricken rabcaused by Rickettsia rickettsii. bles is briefly dismissed as “a wingless insect, parasitic upon birds and When Zinsser began his work on tymammals, and belonging, strictly speaking, to the order of Anoplura.” phus, the information that existed conThe louse shares with us the misfortune of being prey to the typhus vicerning the disease was in a chaotic state. rus. If lice can dread, the nightmare of their lives is the fear of someday inZinsser sought to organize the informahabiting an infected rat or human being. For the host may survive; but the tion and bring order to the study of the ill-starred louse that sticks his haustellum through an infected skin, and disease. Zinsser and his colleagues, inimbibes the loathsome virus with his nourishment, is doomed beyond succluding John Franklin Enders, Hermann cor. In eight days, he sickens, in ten days he is in extremis, on the eleventh Mooser, and M. Ruiz Castañeda, sought or twelfth his tiny body turns red with blood extravasated from his bowel, to establish the relation of one form of tyand he gives up his little ghost. Man is too prone to look upon all nature through his egocentric eyes. phus to the others. In 1898, an endemic To the louse, we are the dreaded emissaries of death. He leads a relatively form of typhus prevalent among immiharmless life—the result of centuries of adaptations; then, out of the blue, grants in New York City had been dean epidemic occurs; his host sickens, and the only world he has ever scribed. The endemic form was called known becomes pestilential and deadly; and if, as a result of circumBrill’s disease. Mooser, in the late 1920’s, stances not under his control, his stricken body is transferred to another proved that the causative agent of Brill’s host whom he, in turn, infects, he does so without guile, from the uncondisease was Rickettsia mooseri and that trollable need for nourishment, with death already in his own entrails. If the organism was carried by the rat flea. only for his fellowship with us in suffering, he should command a degree The endemic form became known as the of sympathetic consideration. murine form, and the causative agent was The louse was not always the dependent, parasitic creature that cannot later renamed as Rickettsia typhi. live away from its host. There were once free and liberty-loving lice, who could look other insects in their multifaceted eyes and bid them smile In the 1930’s, Zinsser suggested that when they called them “louse.” But this was even longer ago than the Decthere were actually two forms of the dislaration of Independence, for it took the louse many centuries to yield up ease being described by Brill: one that its individualism. was associated with rodents (murine Source: Hans Zinsser, Rats, Lice, and History (Boston: Little, Brown, 1935). form) and another that had its own causative agent and was a reactivation of an organism picked up at an earlier time when the patient was exposed to the epiaware that the disease-causing organism had an antidemic disease present in many European countries at that genic component, most likely a polysaccharide. In 1932, time. He demonstrated that Rickettsia prowazekii was Zinsser and Castañeda identified agglutinins, or antibodthe agent involved in both the European epidemic veries, in the blood serum of typhus-infected patients with sion and the reactivated version, which was known as the murine and the classical forms. Although earlier atBrill’s disease. As a result of Zinsser’s effort to distintempts at preventing typhus by means of passive immuguish the two types of typhus disease, it was renamed Brill-Zinsser disease. nity were not satisfactory, Zinsser saw immunity as a viBecause he had analyzed the mechanism of the Weilable solution to the problem of typhus. He determined Feliz diagnostic test for rickettsial diseases, Zinsser was that a large number of dead microorganisms was neces-
Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus sary to induce an immunity that would be effective. He and his colleagues set out to develop a method of growing organisms in large quantities by using tissue culture. The method started by infecting chick embryo yolk sac tissue with rickettsia. The infected tissue was used to inoculate large quantities of normal chick tissue. The infected tissue was then grown on the surface of agar in flasks. This provided Zinsser and his team with the quantities of microorganisms needed to produce the desired vaccine. The type of immunization Zinsser was proposing is known as passive immunity. The infecting organisms have markers on their cell surfaces known as antigens. The antigens are capable of eliciting an immune reaction regardless of whether the cell is living, weakened, or dead. The reaction involves recognition of the antigen by cells called macrophages and cells called B cells. The B cells produce antibodies that are capable of destroying the invading organism directly or attracting more macrophages to the area so that they can destroy the organism. B cells also produce “memory cells,” which remain in the blood in order to trigger a rapid second response if there is a subsequent infection. Because the vaccine contains weakened or dead organisms, the person experiences a mild reaction to the vaccine but is not at risk of contracting the disease. Significance Typhus is still prevalent in many areas of the world. Where it does persist, the disease is nurtured by poverty and overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions. Many countries that have experienced severe drought report high incidences of typhus. Epidemic typhus has not been reported in many countries for some time. The last report of the epidemic in the United States was in 1921. Endemic or murine typhus occurs more frequently. The incidence in the United States is low, with about fifty cases per year being reported. Because the organism is susceptible to antibiotics, such as tetracycline and chloramphenicol, reported cases can be treated; therefore, the mortality rate is low. Zinsser’s work on the treatment and prevention of the disease had important impacts. By creating an orderly classification of the typhus diseases and identifying causative agents and vectors, Zinsser and his coworkers contributed significantly to the understanding of the disease, which in turn enabled attempts to discover a cure and establish preventive measures. Louse and rodent control and improved sanitation helped to prevent the spread of the disease. Zinsser’s idea to grow large quantities of the rickettsia 2388
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to make a vaccine led him to investigate tissue culture as a quick and reliable method of securing a good yield of the desired microorganism. The attention focused on the tissue culture method and inspired researchers to modify and improve the technique so that now the use of tissue culture is a standard effective laboratory procedure. Zinsser’s greatest contribution to medicine was the development of a vaccine for typhus. This disease has a place not only in the history of medicine but also in the history of the world. Battles and wars were lost because louse-infected armies fell victim to typhus. Invading armies carried the disease across national boundaries; Europe witnessed an uninterrupted series of epidemics throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The vaccine that Zinsser and his team developed ensured that even if wars continued and armies were subjected to undesirable living conditions, the possibility of contracting typhus would be greatly reduced. The vaccine also provided a safeguard for the poor in crowded cities. People who were forced by financial circumstances to live in densely packed housing, where they might easily become infected by lice or rat fleas, gained protection against typhus once the vaccine became available. Because Zinsser looked to immunology for protection against typhus, he also had an impact on the growing science of immunology and its application to medicine. Vaccines have been developed against many pathogenic organisms, and their use has obliterated many diseases that were once commonplace. Zinsser was one of the pioneers in applying the principles of immunity to health care. Zinsser was also an inspiring teacher whose students and associates appreciated his approach to science and his concern for the human condition. Unfortunately, he died before he had a chance to see all the benefits that accrued from the production of his vaccine against typhus. Today, the incidence of typhus is negligible, although small outbreaks of Q fever have been reported in the United States and Australia, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever has been reported in the United States. —Rosemary Scheirer Further Reading Duma, Richard J., et al. “Epidemic Typhus in the United States Associated with Flying Squirrels.” Journal of the American Medical Association 245 (June 12, 1981): 2318-2323. Flying squirrels have been added to the list of rickettsia vectors. Suggests that most cases of typhus in the United States involve contact with squirrels.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Joklik, Wolfgang K., Hilda P. Willet, and D. Bernard Amos, eds. Zinsser’s Microbiology. 20th ed. East Norwalk, Conn.: Appleton & Lange, 1995. Presents excellent descriptions of the rickettsia organism and typhus disease. Highlights Zinsser’s contributions to the immunology of the disease. Olitsky, Peter K. “Hans Zinsser and His Studies on Typhus Fever.” Journal of the American Medical Association 116 (January 8, 1941): 907-912. Comprehensive recitation of the highlights of Zinsser’s life and career. Describes Zinsser as a humanist and philosopher as well as a scientist. Includes a summary of the typhus research available when Zinsser began his work in 1930. Strong, Richard P. “Obituary: Hans Zinsser.” Science 92 (September 27, 1940): 276-279. Written by a great admirer of Zinsser. Lauds the nonscientist side of Zinsser’s life, including his publication of poetry and other literary works under a pseudonym. Reveals the deep feelings of admiration many of Zinsser’s students and colleagues had for him. Zinsser, Hans. Rats, Lice, and History. 1935. Reprint.
Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 1996. Classic volume presents what Zinsser calls a biography of a disease. Begins with his views on science and its relation to art and then provides a detailed account of epidemics and their influence on history. The last five chapters address the history of typhus. Highly readable; a must for anyone interested in history as well as science. Zinsser, Hans, Harry Plotz, and John F. Enders. “Scientific Apparatus and Laboratory Methods: Mass Production of Vaccine Against Typhus Fever of the European Type.” Science 91 (January 12, 1940): 51-52. A firsthand account of the problems encountered and the modifications made in the development of a method to grow organisms in large quantities. Clearly written and accessible to nonscientists. See also: 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins; 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria; 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed; June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever; 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT.
1930-1931
Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond Through his ingenious use of quantum mechanics, Linus Pauling developed a theory of the chemical bond that strongly influenced the fields of chemistry, physics, biology, and mineralogy. Locale: Pasadena, California Categories: Chemistry; physics Key Figures Linus Pauling (1901-1994), American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis (1875-1946), American chemist John C. Slater (1900-1976), American physicist Walter Heinrich Heitler (1904-1981), German theoretical physicist Fritz Wolfgang London (1900-1954), German physicist
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Summary of Event When interviewers asked Linus Pauling to name what he considered to be his most important discovery, he often responded that he was extremely pleased by his work on the nature of the chemical bond. His series of papers on this topic in the early 1930’s and his book The Nature of
the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals (1939) clarified large areas of chemistry and contributed to important advances in such fields as biochemistry, mineralogy, and medicine. Pauling’s work grew out of the contributions of his predecessors, and in several ways he was able to recapitulate the thinking of scientists who had lived many years before him. The idea of an atom’s definite combining power had been developed in the nineteenth century, and it formed the theoretical backbone of a dynamic structural theory that was able, under the insightful tutelage of the Dutch physical chemist Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff (1852-1911), to reveal how the four valence bonds of certain carbon compounds are directed toward the corners of a regular tetrahedron, thus accounting for the right- and left-handed forms of particular organic molecules. With the discovery of the electron by Sir Joseph John Thomson in 1897 and the discovery of the nucleus by Ernest Rutherford in 1911, theories about how atoms are linked together in compounds became more dependent on a physical model of the atom, especially how electrons are arranged around the nucleus. Pauling became
Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond fascinated by the ideas of Gilbert N. Lewis, who had proposed a theory of the inner structure of the atom. In Lewis’s model, electrons occupy the space around the nucleus in certain patterns that are responsible for an element’s specific properties, including its bonding properties. Lewis pictured the atom as a series of concentric cubes whose corners could be occupied by electrons. He used this “cubical atom” to explain the formation of chemical bonds by the transfer of electrons from one atom to another. Lewis proposed that electrons could be shared between atoms in forming a covalent bond. The idea of this covalent (or shared electron-pair) bond had a great impact on Pauling. As a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, Pauling made use of Niels Bohr’s quantum theory of the atom in his own theoretical speculations. Bohr had been successful in applying the quantum idea to the hydrogen atom, showing how its lone electron could exist solely in specific orbits (or quantized states) around its nuclear proton. Bohr’s theory, however, was not very successful in accounting for the electronic structures of complex atoms or for the combinations of atoms in molecules. Pauling tried to use Arnold Sommerfeld’s version (with elliptical rather than circular orbits) of Bohr’s atomic model to explain the structure and properties of benzene, a ring compound of six carbon atoms, but the old quantum theory was simply too weak to enable Pauling or any other scientist to develop a satisfactory theory of chemical structures. With the development of quantum mechanics in the mid-1920’s, a tool was now available to resolve many of the deficiencies of the old theory. Pauling was influenced principally by Erwin Schrödinger’s formulation of wave mechanics and was able to use the new quantum mechanics to predict the properties of various ions and to develop a perspicacious picture of the ionic bond (an interatomic link in which one of the atoms has a disproportionate share of the electronic charge). One of the ideas on which wave mechanics was built is the wave nature of the electron. Using his wave equation, Schrödinger was able to reveal many advantages in treating the electron as a wave rather than as a particle in a strictly defined orbit. In one interpretation of Schrödinger’s equation, electrons occupy orbitals, often represented by such shaded geometric figures as spheres or somewhat distorted dumbbells, the intensity of the shading corresponding to the relative probability of finding an electron in this particular region. Although Schrödinger’s treatment made it difficult to speak of atoms as rigid mechanical structures, it permitted a new view of chemical bond2390
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing, particularly in the hands of Walter Heinrich Heitler and Fritz Wolfgang London. While in Munich, Pauling met Heitler, who was working toward his doctoral degree. In the summer of 1927, Pauling discussed quantum mechanics with Heitler and met London, who had a Rockefeller Foundation grant to work with Schrödinger. After Pauling returned to the United States, Heitler and London published a paper on the quantum mechanics of the chemical bond that Pauling once called “the greatest single contribution to the clarification of the chemist’s concept of valence.” In the paper, Heitler and London made use of the idea of resonance, which had been introduced by Werner Heisenberg in 1926, to explain how two hydrogen atoms could bond when brought near to each other. In the resonance phenomenon, an interchange in position of the two electrons reduces the system’s energy and causes the formation of a bond. Heitler and London supplied a quantum mechanical justification for Lewis’s electron-pair idea. Their quantum mechanical method allowed them to calculate approximate values for various properties of the hydrogen molecule, for example, how much energy it would take to split the molecule into its component atoms. In the fall of 1927, Pauling began a period of intense scientific creativity. He developed a theory for predicting the structures of crystals. He refined his wave mechanical treatment of the hydrogen molecule-ion (a hydrogen molecule with one rather than two electrons). Most important, he enunciated for the first time what later came to be called the hybridization of atomic orbitals. The idea of hybrid orbitals grew out of his chemical intuition. To physicists, it seemed strange that carbon, with two different types of orbitals (the spherical 2s and the dumbbell-shaped 2p), should generate, in its chemical compounds, four identical bonds that were directed to the corners of a tetrahedron. To Pauling, it seemed strange that such tetrahedral compounds of carbon as methane (CH4) could not be explained by atomic orbitals. A physicist would regard it as a very serious error to mix s and p orbitals, but Pauling recognized that the energy separation between the two orbital states was small, compared with the energy of the bond formed. For him, the ability to make the best possible bond was the most important consideration. In 1928, he published a short paper in which he reported that he had used quantum mechanical resonance to derive the four equivalent orbitals used in bonding by the carbon atom. Furthermore, these orbitals, which he also referred to as hybrid orbitals, are directed toward the corners of a regular tetrahedron.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Linus Pauling. (The Nobel Foundation)
Slater’s work stimulated Pauling to return to the problem he had set aside in 1928. In December, 1930, while he was doing some calculations, he had an idea about making an assumption to simplify the quantum mechanical equations describing the bonding orbitals of carbon so that they could be solved in an approximate way. The quantum mechanical equations describing the orbitals with which he was concerned have radial and angular parts, and given that the radial part of the 2s wave function of the carbon atom (from which the orbital can be readily derived) is not very different from the radial part of the three 2p functions, Pauling concluded that little error would be introduced if he ignored the radial factor in the p function. This facilitated his calculations of various hybrid orbitals, for example, the tetrahedral hybrids, called sp3 because they involve a combination of the 2s and the three 2p orbitals. His semiquantitative approach to the chemical bond proved so successful that he went on to develop the implications of his ideas. He was able to give explanations from the kinked structure of the water molecule to the transition from covalent to ionic bonding. In January and February, 1931, Pauling continued to make refinements and extend their application. His most famous paper, titled “The Nature of the Chemical Bond: Applications of Results Obtained from the Quantum Mechanics and from a Theory of Paramagnetic Susceptibility to the Structure of Molecules,” appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on April 6, 1931. With this work Pauling established a framework for understanding the electronic and geometric structures of molecules and ions in terms of hybrid bond orbitals. Also, the framework permitted him to use the magnetic properties of molecules to distinguish between ionic and covalent bonding. Pauling explained how the energy barrier between s and p orbitals can be broken when strong bonds are formed. Because a large orbital overlap is associated with the formation of a strong bond, he was able to relate bond strength to the nature of the orbitals from which the bond is formed. He used the ideas of resonance and hybridization to explain the tetrahedral, square, and octahedral configurations of certain molecules. From 1931 to 1933, Pauling published a series of papers on the nature of the chemical bond, in which he used the concepts of hybridization of bond orbitals and the resonance of molecules among two or more alternative structures to elucidate many basic chemical phenomena. For example, he was able to use hybrid orbitals and resonance to explain the properties of the benzene molecule, the carbon-to-carbon bond lengths, planar structure, hex2391
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Pauling had difficulties in translating his insight into a mathematical treatment that would be convincing to most scientists. When he was unable to solve the complex mathematical expressions, he set the matter aside. Meanwhile, in 1929, John C. Slater became interested in the quantum mechanics of the chemical bond. He had developed a method for interpreting the complex spectra of certain atoms, and when he applied his methods to molecules, he derived information about the valence and directional properties of these molecules. He first described his results in an informal talk at the Washington meeting of the American Physical Society in April, 1930. He published a paper in 1931 in the Physical Review, suggesting that the dumbbell-shaped charge clouds of certain orbitals were responsible for the directional properties of many chemical compounds. He also introduced the criterion of maximum overlapping of orbitals for bond strength, and he made extensive use of resonance. Further, he discussed the directional bonds formed in molecules with many atoms, and he even attempted to explain why the four valences of carbon have tetrahedral symmetry.
Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond
Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond agonal symmetry, and great stability of which had puzzled chemists for generations. He was able to formulate an electronegativity scale of the elements, which proved to be extremely useful to chemists. Electronegativity is the tendency of an element in a compound to attract electrons to itself, and Pauling found a way to assign numbers to the elements to represent this power of attracting electrons. Pauling’s papers were so successful that, by 1935, he believed that he had a complete understanding of the nature of the chemical bond. He was able to give form to this understanding in the late 1930’s, when he served as a professor of chemistry at Cornell University. Out of his lectures came a book, The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals, the first edition of which was published in 1939. The book was received enthusiastically, with one reviewer calling it “epochmaking.” It was an excellent summation of Pauling’s decade of studies on the nature of the chemical bond. Significance Pauling’s theory of the chemical bond was a milestone in the development of modern chemistry. Chemists were deeply impressed by the power of Pauling’s methods to unify a vast amount of previously unintegrated data. They were also impressed by the large amount of experimental data Pauling had collected, tabulated, and rationalized. Pauling’s papers and book on the chemical bond accumulated thousands of citations in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Physicists, biochemists, molecular biologists, and mineralogists used his data and ideas to solve many problems in their disciplines. It is interesting to note that James D. Watson and Francis Crick made extensive use of Pauling’s book while they were trying to figure out the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Despite the great success of Pauling’s work on the chemical bond, it shared the contingencies of all scientific achievement. Because of the many approximations involved in his approach, it had a number of limitations, which critics soon pointed out. Charles A. Coulson, for example, asserted that although Pauling’s comparison of bond length and orbital overlap is very useful in a qualitative sense, it is not adequate for the quantitative determination of bond energies for certain hybrid orbitals. Nevil Sidgwick also argued that Pauling’s theory of the chemical bond should be “received with a certain reserve” because of its lack of mathematical rigor. Other scientists developed a theory—often called the molecular orbital (MO) method or theory—that rivaled Pauling’s. Pauling and Slater’s method was a natural outgrowth of the work of Heitler and London; therefore, this 2392
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 approach, which viewed the chemical bond from the perspective of two separate atoms coming together, was sometimes called the Heitler-London-Slater-Pauling (HLSP) method, but it is known most often as the valence bond (VB) method or theory. Other names given to the theory, the “method of localized pairs” and the “method of the directed valence bond,” are not used often. In the molecular orbital method, the problem of the chemical bond is attacked from the viewpoint of the single molecule produced by the coalescence of the atoms. During the late 1940’s and through the 1950’s, the MO method began to find favor with a number of chemists, and Pauling’s VB theory came increasingly under attack. Some European and American scientists pointed out that the VB theory was encountering difficulties in explaining the excited states of molecules, whereas the MO method was successful in its quantitative discussions of these excited states. During this same period, Pauling’s theory came under attack on ideological grounds. Certain Soviet critics found Pauling’s notion of resonance irrational, because it went against some of the basic tenets of dialectical materialism. Essentially, certain Soviet chemists criticized Pauling, whom they called a “decadent bourgeois scientist,” for his attributing reality to his formal equations and models (for these Soviet critics, resonance structures were human-made, not real). In place of Pauling’s theory, the Soviet chemists preferred to turn to the Soviet chemist Aleksandr Mikhailovich Butlerov, whose theory of the mutual influence of atoms in molecules they found both scientifically and ideologically acceptable. It is ironic that Pauling, who shared with many Soviet philosophers and scientists a deterministic and realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, should have encountered such animosity toward his theory of resonance, especially given that he admitted that his resonance descriptions bore a close resemblance to the actual molecular structures. A further irony is that at the same time Soviet chemists were attacking him for his resonance theory, American politicians were criticizing him for his attitude toward the Soviet Union. Despite these criticisms from the East and the West, Pauling’s theory of the chemical bond proved to be useful for scientists for three decades. When the VB theory began to be replaced by the MO theory in the 1960’s, Pauling continued to retain a deep loyalty to his views of the chemical bond. This was characteristic of his approach to science. When he was convinced of the value of a scientific idea, he clung to it tenaciously and used it boldly. Resonance was such an idea. Early in his career, Pauling became convinced of its power and efficacy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Continued success in applying this idea to a great variety of chemical problems confirmed this attitude. Because of the strength of the resonance concept, he was less attracted to the new ideas about chemical bonding that came on the scene. Confronted with new problems, he tended to solve them in terms that he understood. This tenacity, which had a negative side, was also a part of his genius. Without his championing of the VB theory, modern structural chemistry’s great successes, such as the determinations of the structures of DNA and proteins, would have been significantly delayed. It is thus impossible to understand the evolution of modern structural chemistry without taking account of Pauling’s theories. — Robert J. Paradowski
ist. Includes photographs, reproductions of original Pauling manuscripts, and a bibliography of Pauling’s works. Palmer, William G. A History of the Concept of Valency to 1930. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Uses the theme of the increasingly fertile cooperation between physics and chemistry to explain how the idea of chemical valence was established and how the modern theory of the chemical bond evolved from it. Valuable source of information on both the early history of valence theories and the later development of electronic theories. Pauling, Linus. The Architecture of Molecules. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1964. Demonstrates Pauling’s excellent ability to communicate clearly his understanding of molecules. Illustrator Roger Hayward captures Pauling’s structural imagination in beautifully drawn and colored plates. Intended for young people who are beginning to develop an interest in science, but valuable for anyone with a curiosity about the natural world. Includes a periodic table of the elements and some tables of atomic radii. _______. The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals: An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry. 3d ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1960. Pauling’s magnum opus. Because his approach is structural rather than mathematical, the book is accessible to readers with modest backgrounds in chemistry, physics, and mathematics. More difficult material appears in twelve appendixes. Includes author and subject indexes. Russell, C. A. The History of Valency. Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, 1971. Detailed, coherently organized study of the history of physical and chemical bonding ideas. Treats controversial material in a balanced and insightful way. Includes indexes. Servos, John W. Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling: The Making of a Science in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. Explores the evolution of physical chemistry in the United States through an analysis of the key institutions and scientists who made the discipline into a fertile source of innovative ideas. Includes endnotes and index. See also: 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs; May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded; 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
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Further Reading Coulson, Charles A. Valence. 3d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1985. Volume by an Oxford professor of mathematics who became a distinguished theoretical chemist discusses how wave mechanics transformed valence theory. Includes some use of mathematical formulas, but the treatment is mostly qualitative. Intended for “the novice chemist with few mathematical attainments.” Features author, substance, and subject indexes. Hager, Thomas. Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Indepth biography places Pauling’s scientific work within the context of his long life and many wideranging interests. Lagowski, J. J. The Chemical Bond. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966. Uses the words of scientists to re-create for students the exciting process of discovery. Approach is historical and accessible to both students of science and readers taking chemistry for the first time. Contains several helpful tables and diagrams and includes lists of suggested readings. Lewis, Gilbert Newton. Valence and the Structure of Atoms and Molecules. 1923. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1966. Although written before the development of quantum mechanics, this interesting account is still valuable for the light it sheds on the ideas of Lewis and other scientists. Includes an introduction by Kenneth Pitzer, illustrations, references, and index. Mead, Clifford, and Thomas Hager, eds. Linus Pauling: Scientist and Peacemaker. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001. Collection of essays both by Pauling and about him is divided into sections on the man, the science, and Pauling’s work as a peace activ-
Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond
Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1930-1932
Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy An antenna set up to determine the causes of interference with radio transmission detected the first radio signals recognized as coming from outside the solar system. Locale: Cliffwood, New Jersey Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Karl G. Jansky (1905-1950), American radio engineer Albert Melvin Skellett (b. 1901), American radio technician and astronomer Grote Reber (1911-2002), American radio engineer Summary of Event In 1928, Karl G. Jansky was hired as a radio engineer by Bell Telephone Laboratories. His first assignment was to investigate the causes of interference with transatlantic radiotelephone transmissions. This investigation required a sensitive antenna whose frequency response and sensitivity were very stable—ideal characteristics of any radio telescope. The device Jansky built, which was called a “Bruce array,” consisted of two parallel frameworks of brass tubing; one frame was connected to a receiver, and the other acted as a signal reflector. The antenna was mounted on four wheels from a Model T Ford and rotated every twenty minutes on a circular track. The antenna, which was about 66 feet (20 meters) long and 13 feet (4 meters) in width and height, was nicknamed the “merry-go-round.” Jansky discovered that his instrument could detect three kinds of signals. Nearby thunderstorms created infrequent but powerful radio bursts. Distant thunderstorms created weak but steady signals as their radio signals were reflected off the ionosphere, an electrically conducting layer in the upper atmosphere. The third signal, which created a steady hiss in receivers, was at first a mystery. Even though this signal was not a serious problem for radio reception, Jansky continued his efforts to identify the source. The signal varied in intensity in a daily cycle, and Jansky initially suspected that it might originate with the Sun. The problem with this theory was that the signals reached their highest point a few minutes earlier each day. Jansky, who was unfamiliar with astronomy, did not appreciate the significance of this observation, but a friend of his, Albert Melvin Skellett, did. The planet Earth takes 23 hours and 56 minutes to complete one rotation with 2394
respect to the stars. Because Earth moves in its orbit by about one degree per day, it takes an extra 4 minutes to complete a rotation with respect to the Sun. The signals were following sidereal (star) time; that is, they came from a source that was fixed with respect to the stars. In 1933, after a full year of observations, Jansky published his estimate of the source’s location: in the southern part of the Milky Way galaxy in the direction of Sagittarius. In 1935, after additional analysis, Jansky reported that signals originated from all along the Milky Way. Once Jansky understood the nature of the cosmic signals, he found that he was completely unable to detect the Sun, which he found quite puzzling. Jansky happened to be observing at a time of minimal sunspot activity. If he had observed at a time of great sunspot activity (at “sunspot maximum”), his equipment should have detected solar radio emissions. Had he observed at sunspot maximum, however, the upper atmosphere would have been nearly opaque at the wavelengths he studied, and he probably would not have detected radio waves from the Milky Way. Jansky realized that if he could not detect the Sun, the signals from the Milky Way were not likely to originate in the stars. He suggested that the radio signals originated from interstellar dust and gas instead, a suspicion that has proved to be correct. Jansky’s observations were described in a front-page article in The New York Times on May 5, 1933, and a national radio program broadcast a few seconds of cosmic radio noise. Nevertheless, the discovery had little significance for practical communications. Jansky proposed the construction of a 98-foot (30-meter) dish antenna to study the cosmic signals in greater detail, but his employers, believing that such investigations were more appropriate for academic researchers, turned down the proposal. Jansky went on to other areas of communications research and received a commendation for his work on radio direction finders during World War II. He had always been in poor health, and he died in 1950 at the age of fortyfour, just as radio astronomy was beginning to flourish. One of the few people who had sufficient knowledge of both astronomy and radio to take advantage of Jansky’s work was Grote Reber, who realized that investigating celestial radio sources would require completely different equipment from that Jansky had used. In 1937, Reber built a parabolic reflecting antenna with a diameter of 32.8 feet (10 meters), which was used to make maps of the sky by aiming the parabolic dish at different
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 elevations and letting Earth’s rotation sweep the antenna across the field of view. Significance The discovery of cosmic radio signals led to the field of radio astronomy—the first time astronomers used any part of the electromagnetic spectrum other than the range of frequencies containing visible and infrared light. This new tool allowed astronomers for the first time to investigate the universe without having to depend on optical telescopes: Because radio waves penetrate cosmic dust and gas clouds, which block visible light, these radio waves could be used to map the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. In the years after Jansky and Reber’s work, radio astronomy discovered great explosive bursts in other galaxies, some of which emitted so much energy that their causes became the focus of scientific investigation. Radio astronomy also discovered pulsars as well as the faint background radiation that most astronomers
Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy consider to be the echo of the big bang. Astronomers were unprepared for the discovery that the universe could look so different at radio wavelengths. Perhaps the most important effect of radio astronomy was to teach astronomers that every part of the electromagnetic spectrum reveals new phenomena and new types of celestial objects. The result was the opening up of new areas of investigation, including X-ray and ultraviolet astronomy. — Steven I. Dutch Further Reading Burke, Bernard F., and Francis Graham-Smith. An Introduction to Radio Astronomy. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Authoritative graduatelevel text provides an introduction to radio telescopes as well as an overview of radio astronomy. Includes references, index, and an appendix on the origins of radio astronomy.
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The Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex in the Mojave Desert of California, one of three complexes that make up the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN provides radio communications for all of NASA’s interplanetary spacecraft and is also utilized for radio astronomy and radar observations of the solar system and the universe. (NASA)
Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar Hey, J. S. The Evolution of Radio Astronomy. New York: Science History Publications, 1973. History of radio astronomy concentrates mostly on the period after World War II but also provides some details regarding Jansky’s work. Reber, Grote. “Radio Astronomy.” Scientific American 181 (September, 1949): 34-41. Written by the first radio astronomer at the dawn of radio astronomy, this article shows some of the first published radio maps of the heavens and makes a number of conjectures (later proven correct) about the causes of some cosmic radio signals. Spradley, Joseph L. “The First True Radio Telescope.” Sky and Telescope 76 (July, 1988): 28-30. An account of the telescope of Grote Reber, who for more than a decade was the only scientist to pursue Jansky’s discoveries. Clearly describes Reber’s construction and early attempts to detect cosmic radio signals and reproduces some of his first radio maps of the heavens. Sullivan, Woodruff T., III. “A New Look at Karl Jansky’s Original Data.” Sky and Telescope 56 (August, 1978): 101-105. Summarizes the events that led to Jansky’s discovery of extraterrestrial radio sources. Includes a reproduction of Jansky’s original chart data and a reexamination of his data in the light of modern discoveries. The language is moderately technical, appropriate to an introductory college science course.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. “Radio Astronomy’s Golden Anniversary.” Sky and Telescope 64 (December, 1982): 544-550. A pictorial review of early radio astronomy from Jansky’s initial discovery through 1967. Illustrations include photos of major historical figures as well as depictions of equipment and significant data recordings. _______, ed. The Early Years of Radio Astronomy: Reflections Fifty Years After Jansky’s Discovery. 1984. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Collected recollections of many of the pioneers in the field place the birth and early era of radio astronomy in societal and scientific context. Includes many historical photographs. Verschuur, Gerrit L. The Invisible Universe Revealed: The Story of Radio Astronomy. 2d ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1987. Written by a leading radio astronomer, this book summarizes the history of radio astronomy and surveys the major types of celestial radio phenomena. See also: Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way; 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed; 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes; June-Sept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope.
1930-1935
Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar In a series of seven films from 1930 to 1935, film director Josef von Sternberg created a hauntingly ambiguous myth of womanhood, using Marlene Dietrich as Galatea to his Pygmalion. Locale: Hollywood, California Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969), Austrian American film director and cameraman Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), German American film and theater actor and singer Travis Banton (1894-1958), American film costume designer Lee Garmes (1898-1978), American cinematographer 2396
Summary of Event In the fall of 1929, Josef von Sternberg was in Germany to film Der blaue Engel (1930; The Blue Angel). His involvement in this project, which was under the aegis of the famous Universarium Film studios in Berlin, derived from his earlier collaboration in the United States with the famous German actor Emil Jannings. He had directed Jannings in the 1928 film The Last Command, and Jannings was sufficiently impressed to ask for von Sternberg to direct the first German sound film to be made for Universarium with Eric Pommer as producer. Von Sternberg agreed, as his career in Hollywood was on the slide; as usual, however, he insisted on having complete control of the project. That control extended to the selection of the female lead to play opposite Jannings. Both Jannings and Pommer supported the casting of either
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Marlene Dietrich. (AP/Wide World Photos)
as von Sternberg’s camera and lighting played over it with effective shadows. As she had in The Blue Angel, Dietrich played a cabaret singer. In Morocco, she is Amy Jolly, a woman with a past who has traveled to Morocco, the end of the line for her, it seems. Two men seek her affections, the rangy legionnaire Tom Brown (Gary Cooper) and the suave and wealthy Frenchman LeBressiere (Adolphe Menjou). The plot is simple, even melodramatic: Offered wealth and security by LeBressiere, Amy Jolly turns her back on community and follows her soldier into the desert. More important than the melodramatic plot are the play of light and shadow on the screen and the ambiguous sexuality of Dietrich. In her first appearance in the cabaret, she wears a man’s top hat and tails; in one famous scene, she leans over and plants a kiss on the lips of a giggling girl in the audience. Dietrich and von Sternberg followed Morocco with a spy thriller, Dishonored (1931), in which Dietrich plays a prostitute turned spy known as “X-27.” The story is von Sternberg’s. As Amy Jolly sacrifices a life of leisure and comfort for her man, so too does X-27 sacrifice her life for her lover, Lieutenant Kranau (Victor McLaglen). In this film, von Sternberg extended the range of Dietrich’s character portrayal and her costumes. Cinematographer 2397
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Trude Hesterberg or Lucie Mannheim for the part, but von Sternberg had a specific idea of character, and neither of those women fit his idea. The woman he wanted was someone akin to the woman who comes to the poet in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Alastor as he sleeps. She is the vision of his own soul, her voice speaking “knowledge and truth and virtue.” Von Sternberg found this woman in Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich became for von Sternberg a summation of the Romantic beauty, the fatal woman whose effect on men is simultaneously liberating and imprisoning. Richly complex, this woman exists as metaphor for the male desire forever frustrated, yet she also represents the woman as Other, as necessarily lonely because the world cannot accommodate such independence and erotic power. She is a fetish, the object of the male gaze and the objectification of his desire. Even Dietrich’s name, “Marlene”— a contraction of her given names Maria and Magdalene—indicates her ambiguity. In his memoir, Fun in a Chinese Laundry (1965), von Sternberg indicated his interest in this fatal woman, especially in her decadent, late nineteenth century form, when he noted that the specifications for the woman he wanted for his film “had been drawn up by Felicien Rops,” a Belgian artist who was popular in the late 1880’s. In Rops’s work, the woman is polymorphously erotic; in her, innocence and experience come together. While attending the theater one night, von Sternberg found the woman he had imagined. Dietrich, it seems, was reluctant to play the character, Lola-Lola; she thought she was not attractive enough for the part. Indeed, she was, in the words of Herman Weinberg, a “plump, pretty dumpling,” and she conducted herself lethargically at the first interview she had with the film’s director. Von Sternberg, however, persevered, and soon “she behaved as if she were there as my servant. . . . Not the slightest resistance was offered to my domination of her performance.” In her autobiography, Marlene (1989), Dietrich substantiated this, noting that von Sternberg set out to “Pygmalionize” her; she credited him with having “breathed life into this nothingness. . . . I was nothing but pliable material on the infinitely rich palette of his ideas and imaginative faculties.” Before The Blue Angel was released in the United States, American audiences saw Dietrich in Morocco (1930). For that film, she had shed thirty pounds, and her face had begun to take on a mysteriously contoured look,
Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar
Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar Lee Garmes made her look like Greta Garbo, like a country maid, and like the Dietrich who would become legendary. Costume designer Travis Banton arrayed her in all sorts of outfits. The film reaches its high point as X-27 faces the firing squad. She takes a blindfold from the young officer who offers it to her, wipes a tear from his eye, then adjusts her makeup and straightens her stockings. Before the sound of the guns, von Sternberg cuts quickly to a close-up of X-27’s enigmatic smile. America’s Depression-era audiences loved it. After Dishonored, however, Von Sternberg felt that further collaboration would be harmful to both himself and his star. Dietrich disagreed. She refused to work with another director, and Paramount brought the two of them together for Shanghai Express (1932). The opening of this film is remarkable for von Sternberg’s masterful recreation of Beijing (then known in the West as Peking), the claustrophobia of its streets echoed in the claustrophobia of train compartments and corridors. Again, Dietrich appears as a woman of questionable behavior. She is Shanghai Lily: “It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily,” she tells Donald Harvey (Clive Brook). Unlike Lola-Lola but like the characters in her American films with von Sternberg, the Dietrich character in Shanghai Express may be fallen, but she is not without honor and loyalty. She appears ready to sacrifice herself for her lover, although here von Sternberg is less forthright than in the earlier films. Perhaps more than any other of the von Sternberg-Dietrich films, Shanghai Express captures the mysterious beauty of Dietrich. Garmes won an Oscar for the film’s cinematography, and both the film itself and its director received Academy Award nominations. As much as von Sternberg’s visual style captures the viewer, especially as it affects the appearance of Dietrich, his use of sound is equally significant. Unlike many in Hollywood who feared the coming of sound to the film industry, von Sternberg welcomed it as another element in the aesthetic effect of film. He avoided the use of background music; instead, he incorporated natural sound into the filmic effect. For example, in Morocco he used no music; instead, the drums of the legionnaires punctuate the action and intensify the emotional effect of the scene in which Amy hears them approach and realizes she must seek out her true lover. In The Blue Angel, sound articulates place: the classroom, the cabaret, the dressing room. The guns that fire to execute X-27 in Dishonored reverberate in the airplane hangar von Sternberg used to film the sequence. In Shanghai Express, the actors speak in monotone to complement the sound of the 2398
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 train. Similarly, the thudding tempo of Dietrich’s “Hot Voodoo” number in Blonde Venus (1932) accentuates the soap-opera emotionalism of the story. Blonde Venus is generally taken to be the most autobiographical of von Sternberg’s films with Dietrich. Once again, however, the surface is the thing to catch the eye and interest of the audience. The film shimmers with light right from the opening sequence, in which Dietrich bathes nude in a glittering forest lake. The subtleties of light and shade are once again a cue to the film’s interest in style, and the conventional ending with Dietrich—the film’s Venus—returning to her son and husband is a perfunctory addition. Von Sternberg’s great strength is to present on film both reality and the fantasy world lying deep within his audience. Much of the play with light and shade and enclosed space evokes a dreamworld, but not the dreamworld of Hollywood musicals or comedies. Von Sternberg’s dreamworld is that of the unconscious. He was fascinated with mental aberration, the depths of desire, anxiety, fear, and the urge to violence. All of this comes together in a baroque manner in the penultimate film von Sternberg made with Dietrich, The Scarlet Empress (1934). Ostensibly the story of Catherine the Great of Russia, The Scarlet Empress shows von Sternberg at his most excessive: Camera angles, sets, costumes, cutting, and other film techniques draw attention to themselves in every frame. Much of the film offers a shot-by-shot rhythm of frames that alternate between light and dark. The sets are large in scale; gargoyles and grotesque sculptures leer at the viewer from the screen. Dietrich herself is nearly lost in furs or amid sculptures, candles, fog, or smoke. Von Sternberg called the film “a relentless excursion into style.” After The Scarlet Empress, one film remained in the pair’s collaboration; von Sternberg had done all he could with his Galatea. He would complete only seven films in the next thirty-five years of his life. For her part, Dietrich was also ready to move on. An intelligent and gifted actor and performer, she would have a brilliant career in film and on stage. First, however, the two consummated their artistic relationship with The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Once again the costumes were varied and chic. Parades, festivals, confetti, and balloons decorated the screen. Aluminum paint was sprayed onto dresses and backgrounds to give von Sternberg complete control over light. The film is a fitting conclusion to the years of collaboration between von Sternberg and Dietrich. She called the film their “crowning achievement” and “the most beautiful film that was ever made.”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance It is easy to see the influence of von Sternberg’s silent gangster film Underworld (1927); what is less clear is the influence of the seven films he made with Dietrich. Indeed, these films are strange genre pieces. Later films continued to exploit these familiar genres: the Foreign Legion film, the spy thriller, the journey through dangerous territory, the domestic tragedy, the historical romance. No one else who made such films, however, dismissed plot with such insistence as von Sternberg. Luis Buñuel comes to mind as a director who used formula plots for ideological purposes, but his art was more directly social than von Sternberg’s. For von Sternberg, emotion was style. Perhaps the closest parallel of the time was Busby Berkeley, whose 1930’s musicals dispensed with plot in order to present a choreography of camera, costume, and design. Von Sternberg’s high-key lighting shows up in many films of the 1930’s, including Rouben Mamoulian’s The Song of Songs (1933), with Dietrich; John Ford’s Mary of Scotland (1936), with Katharine Hepburn; and Howard Hawks’s Barbary Coast (1935), with Miriam Hopkins. In the 1940’s, the lighting effects von Sternberg used were seen in such Michael Curtiz films as Casablanca (1942), with Ingrid Bergman, and Mildred Pierce (1945), with Joan Crawford; in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), with Bergman; and in Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai (1948), with Rita Hayworth. Bob Fosse’s Cabaret (1972), with Liza Minnelli, also echoes the costumes and ambience of The Blue Angel. On a more technical level, von Sternberg’s tendency to avoid cutting within scenes, his use of lighting and angles to create mood, and his use of natural sound anticipated the work of Michelangelo Antonioni. The woman fashioned by von Sternberg continued to serve Dietrich well in many roles, from Frank Borzage’s Desire (1936) to Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Many echoes of her beauty have appeared on the screen, from Joan Crawford to Anouk Aimee. —Roderick McGillis
Baxter, Peter, ed. Sternberg. London: British Film Institute, 1980. Collection of seventeen articles on von Sternberg’s work dating from 1930 to 1980. Includes the famous essay by Aeneas MacKenzie, “Leonardo of the Lenses,” and essays by Rudolph Arnheim, Siegfried Kracauer, Barry Salt, and von Sternberg himself. The essay on Morocco by the editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinema offers a detailed analysis of the film’s social milieu. Dietrich, Marlene. Marlene. Translated by Salvator Attanasio. New York: Grove Press, 1989. Covers much of the same ground as von Sternberg’s Fun in a Chinese Laundry (cited below). Dietrich’s admiration for von Sternberg is unbounded, and she has perceptive things to say about lighting and camera work. Opinionated, idiosyncratic, and delightfully candid. Sarris, Andrew. The Films of Josef von Sternberg. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Brief, readable survey of von Sternberg’s films includes interesting observations regarding Dietrich’s performances. Accepts von Sternberg’s evaluation of himself as a poet and addresses these films as dream poems to be appreciated for their visual delights. Spoto, Donald. Falling in Love Again: Marlene Dietrich. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. Presents a brief and useful survey of the years of collaboration between von Sternberg and Dietrich. Includes many exquisite photographs. Von Sternberg, Josef. Fun in a Chinese Laundry. New York: Collier Books, 1965. Meandering, eccentric, and fascinating account of the author’s life and theory of filmmaking. Not always accurate, but always provocative. With regard to Dietrich, he notes: “I gave her nothing that she did not already have.” Weinberg, Herman G. Josef von Sternberg: A Critical Study. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1967. Valuable for an interview with von Sternberg, a few excerpts from his correspondence, passages from the shooting scripts of Shanghai Express and The Saga of Anatahan (1953), and a good selection of early reviews of von Sternberg’s work. Includes filmography and bibliography. See also: 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart”; Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the MotionPicture Industry; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking.
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Further Reading Baxter, John. The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1971. Provides cogent readings of all von Sternberg’s films. Shows how the stylish aspects of the films make sense thematically. Nicely points out the irony of von Sternberg’s obsession: The woman he fashioned becomes his undoing. Includes select bibliography and filmography.
Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar
Crane Publishes The Bridge
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February, 1930
Crane Publishes THE BRIDGE Hart Crane’s dauntingly ambitious and difficult modernist poem The Bridge was characteristic of the author’s effort to see modern urban America in mythological terms. Locale: New York, New York Category: Literature Key Figures Hart Crane (1899-1932), American poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), American poet James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American poet Summary of Event Hart Crane began work on his long poem The Bridge in 1923. He conceived this epic work as a rejoinder to the pessimism and sense of apocalyptic decline expressed in T. S. Eliot’s epochal poem The Waste Land, which had been published in 1922. Although Crane much admired Eliot, he felt The Waste Land, with its representation of the sterility of civilization after World War I, had not done justice to the energy and excitement of the modern urban and industrial era. Hence Crane began, slowly and methodically, to put together an idiomatically American synthesis of the twentieth century machine age. Crane’s work on the poem through the 1920’s was fitful and was interrupted by bouts of alcoholism, depression, and foreign travel, as well as by numerous homosexual affairs. His most productive period came in 1926, the year that also saw the publication of White Buildings, a collection of his shorter lyric pieces. During the late 1920’s, Crane’s epic endeavor attracted the private sponsorship of Otto H. Kahn, a wealthy banker, and it was Kahn’s support that helped Crane to complete the poem. The Bridge finally appeared in a special edition printed by the Black Sun Press in February, 1930, before being published in the United States by Liveright in April of the same year. The Bridge is made up of nine sections. It starts with the introductory “Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge,” set in 1920’s Manhattan, which hails Brooklyn Bridge as a modern-day deity mysteriously empowered to “lend a myth” to the capitalist affairs of Wall Street. This is followed by “Ave Maria,” which features Christopher Columbus in mid-Atlantic narrating the story of his discovery of America as he returns home to Spain. Section 2 of The Bridge is titled “Powhatan’s Daughter” and encom2400
passes five distinct shorter poems that recount the history of Native American life. With section 3, “Cutty Sark,” the reader returns to a saloon in lower Manhattan, where old sailors recall their seafaring adventures; section 4, “Cape Hatteras,” then focuses on epic exploits of the air, notably the aviation experiments conducted in 1903 by Wilbur and Orville Wright off the coast of North Carolina. Section 5, “Three Songs,” again brings the reader back to the world of twentieth century New York; one of the section’s three shorter poems, “National Winter Garden,” takes its title from a burlesque theater in Greenwich Village that Crane had frequented. Section 6, “Quaker Hill,” proceeds to cast a jaundiced eye at golf courses in suburban Connecticut. Section 7, “The Tunnel,” describes an infernal and nightmarish subway ride from Manhattan to Flatbush, passing under the East River and so beneath the Brooklyn Bridge; the final section, “Atlantis,” circles back to the poem’s first image of the deified bridge, a construction now found to be illuminated with an intense mythological splendor.
Hart Crane. (Library of Congress)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
shot through with moments of black humor in which its visionary idyll seems knowingly to collapse into selfparodic or burlesque forms. There is in Crane’s poem an element of deliberate buffoonery, a dark self-mockery that does not altogether cancel the poem’s mythological idealism but that holds it in an ambiguous suspension. It was not by chance that Crane fixed upon the image of a suspension bridge to convey his sense of how mythological transformation might (or might not) operate within the hardheaded business world of Manhattan. Significance Immediate reaction to publication of The Bridge was disappointing. Crane’s poem finally appeared only a few months after the Wall Street crash, and the literary climate of the early 1930’s was no longer favorable to the poem’s dense and cryptic style of high modernism. The Bridge materialized at the moment when American writing was developing methods of journalistic realism that had more direct social and political relevance to the Great Depression era; within that context, Crane’s ornate rhetoric appeared uncomfortably inward-looking and self-indulgent. Even intellectuals such as Allen Tate and Yvor Winters, who had both encouraged Crane when he was writing the poem, were lukewarm in their response to the final product. In part, this happened because Crane’s idiosyncratic brand of hyperbolic wordplay did not conform to any definition of “myth” sanctioned by the classical learning Tate and Winters admired. Crane was depressed at these responses, but he spent time in Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship during 1931 and 1932, and he began to plan another epic poem, this one centered on Hernán Cortés’s conquest of Mexico. He completed only a few fragments of that work, however; gray-haired and exhausted by his emotional traumas and intellectual travails, Crane took his own life on April 27, 1932, by jumping into the Caribbean Sea from the SS Orizaba as he was returning home from Mexico to New York. The most obvious long-term effect of The Bridge was its validation of American urban life as a fit subject for poetry. As Crane wrote in his “Modern Poetry,” his intention was to ensure that the environment of the machine could form “as spontaneous a terminology of poetic reference as the bucolic world of pasture, plow, and barn.” The Beat poets of the 1950’s were to build on this idea of a visionary quality implicit within everyday urban life, as was another Manhattan poet of that period, Frank O’Hara. In fact, The Bridge helped to redress a long-standing imbalance in the American poetic tradi2401
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No simple narrative description of The Bridge, however, can capture the full extent of Crane’s artistic ambitions in this work. He aspired to invent an aesthetic design of multiple interlocking strands, so as to bring to light—and into an idealistic harmony—suppressed analogies between different geographic areas and historical eras in American life. Crane’s goal was indeed to evoke a series of conceptual bridges: the railway bridging the American continent, the Wright brothers’ bridging of land and air, bridges between the white man and the Indian, between childhood and adulthood, between fifteenth century Christopher Columbus and twentieth century Columbus Circle in New York City. Thus each section of The Bridge anticipates and echoes all the other sections. As Crane himself said in a 1926 letter, his poetic technique can be seen as “symphonic in including the convergence of all the strands” introduced separately within the narrative structure of the poem. On one level, then, Crane was reinventing the kind of mythic version of the United States that Walt Whitman had promulgated during the nineteenth century. Indeed, Crane explicitly pays tribute to Whitman in “Cape Hatteras,” saluting the great “Saunterer” as a pioneer who sought to impose a mythic form on the most unpromising and inchoate American materials. Crane’s own style, however, should be understood as Whitman crossed with Eliot and James Joyce, for Crane believed Whitman’s language of bluff, colloquial Romanticism to be no longer adequate to address the complexities and dislocations of modern life. Instead, Crane, like Eliot and Joyce, used a dense and complicated mixture of verbal allusion and wordplay to convey his sense of the fragmented and radically unstable landscape of technological society. Crane was very interested in the first installments of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939)—then known as “Work in Progress”—which were being published during the late 1920’s in the Parisian magazine transition, and Joyce’s elaboration of punning as a narrative principle in that work was something Crane also chose to pursue, working with the idea of the pun as a bridge between disparate meanings. Crane himself visited Paris in 1929 while putting the final touches to The Bridge. At the time, the French capital was home not only to Joyce but also to the Surrealist movement in art and literature, and throughout his career, Crane was conversant with the self-reflexive strategies of Surrealists such as Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, whose perception of art as an ingenious but ultimately nihilistic game also came to influence certain aspects of the American poet’s work. The Bridge, in fact, is
Crane Publishes The Bridge
Crane Publishes The Bridge tion, which up until Crane’s time had been weighted heavily toward the rural and pastoral mode. For thirty years after Crane’s death, however, the most common reaction to The Bridge was that the poem represented a heroic but ultimately pathetic failure. It was held to be a frustrated attempt to invent a grandiose myth of America, a myth that could not be sustained either by the mundane, lapsed environment of the twentieth century or by the erratic lyric gifts at Crane’s disposal. Philip Horton’s 1937 biography of Crane characterized the poet as a lost romantic soul, helping to reinforce this image of noble self-immolation, which lasted for more than a quarter of a century. During the 1950’s, for example, Allen Ginsberg in several poems invoked Crane as a doomed victim of corporate America, a homosexual iconoclast and visionary whose genius had been crushed by the impersonal weight of the nation’s unfeeling commercial culture. Robert Lowell’s poem “Words for Hart Crane,” published in his 1959 collection Life Studies, paints a similar picture of Crane as a tortured poet, “the Shelley of my age.” At this time, the legend of Crane’s short and robustious life was still overshadowing the legacy of his poetic achievement, and it was not until the 1960’s that critics began paying more attention to the intricacies and achievements of Crane’s texts themselves. Gradually, however, the aesthetic impact of The Bridge began to be felt. Several fine close readings during the 1960’s and 1970’s were supported by the publication of John Unterecker’s massive biography, Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane, in 1969. After that time, interest in Crane’s work continued to grow. In the 1980’s, a new generation of critics such as Lee Edelman and Thomas E. Yingling wrote of Crane as having developed a radical style of gay poetics, an elliptical series of rhetorical tropes that in failing to acquiesce to the orthodox conventions of language could be seen as mirroring Crane’s own ambivalent stance toward the dominant ideologies of American society. It is also significant that postmodernist writers of long poems such as Richard Howard and Alfred Corn acknowledged a greater debt to Crane than to the “concrete” poets of midcentury such as Charles Olson. Whereas Olson’s style of clear-eyed realism could be seen as antithetical to Crane’s thrusting rhetoric, Corn’s narrative poem Notes from a Child of Paradise (1984) conjoins epic and mock epic in a way very reminiscent of Crane’s edgy tone in The Bridge. Corn wrote an admiring critical essay on The Bridge, and these two long poems also resemble each other in their uneasy juxtaposition of public concerns with private identities, 2402
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 their teasing affiliation between objective myth and subjective romance, and their knowing interrogation of how precisely one side of this equation depends on the other. For many years, The Bridge was seen as something of a white elephant in American literary history: an ambitious and impressive work, but also a strange, puzzling, and ultimately perturbing one. Yet what in the 1930’s was generally perceived as a weakness—Crane’s refusal to adopt any standard intellectual formula for his mythic endeavor—was later viewed by many critics as an unexpected source of strength. Because the poet enjoyed an oblique relationship with the aesthetic conventions of American modernism, The Bridge managed subsequently to keep its distance from the various large-scale theories about a misplaced mythopoeic idealism that is sometimes said to constitute the “failure of modernism.” Crane was never emotionally or intellectually wedded to utopian ideals in the manner of T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound; rather, the ubiquitous element of mythic gamesmanship in The Bridge distinguishes it as a work touched more by the Surrealist mode. From this perspective, the poem’s quirky humor and self-mocking wordplay lend it an elusive quality that the more solemn epic works of Eliot and Pound tend to lack. With its wry mixture of romanticism and subversive comedy, its delicate balance between sentimentalism and irony, The Bridge is a poem that continues to offer challenges and surprises to the reader. —Paul Giles Further Reading Corn, Alfred. The Metamorphoses of Metaphor: Essays in Poetry and Fiction. New York: Viking Press, 1987. Considers the final section of The Bridge in relation to Crane’s revision of utopian legends. Notes connections with Dante and T. S. Eliot. Of special interest in the light of artistic parallels between The Bridge and Corn’s own poetry. Crane, Hart. The Complete Poems of Hart Crane. Edited by Marc Simon. New York: Liveright, 2001. One of the most complete editions of Crane’s poetry. Includes The Bridge and all other published works, plus unpublished poems, incomplete works, and fragments. _______. Letters, 1916-1932. Edited by Brom Weber. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965. Excellent collection of Crane’s letters to his friends, relatives, and publishers. Provides a sense of the range of Crane’s interests. Marred by some editorial bowdlerizing. Edelman, Lee. Transmemberment of Song: Hart Crane’s Anatomies of Rhetoric and Desire. Stanford, Calif.:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Stanford University Press, 1987. Presents a general discussion of stylistic issues in Crane’s work followed by close attention to particular poems, including The Bridge. Provides especially perceptive psychoanalytic readings of Crane’s poetry. Fisher, Clive. Hart Crane: A Life. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002. Biography examines Crane’s personal life in greater detail than earlier works on the author and places his work in the context of his life and times. Includes photographs. Giles, Paul. Hart Crane: The Contexts of “The Bridge.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Relates The Bridge to a series of historical and conceptual contexts, such as relativity, capitalism, burlesque theater, and European Surrealism. Places The Bridge within a particular historical framework, showing links between Crane’s work and that of his artistic contemporaries. Unterecker, John. Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane. 1969.
Luce Founds Fortune Magazine Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987. Comprehensive biography includes anything about Crane that the author thought might possibly be of significance. Difficult to read from cover to cover, but indispensable for tracing particular aspects of Crane’s life. Yingling, Thomas E. Hart Crane and the Homosexual Text: New Thresholds, New Anatomies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Concentrates on the development of Crane’s poetic style in terms of a specifically homosexual aesthetic. Connects some of the alleged obscurity in Crane’s work with a general reluctance on the part of critics to engage with Crane’s radical subject matter. Somewhat narrow in approach but presents many perceptive readings. See also: Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born.
February, 1930
Luce Founds FORTUNE Magazine Fortune magazine provided the elite in the 1930’s with a chronicle of American business and keen insights about the close connections among business, society, and government. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; organizations and institutions Key Figures Henry R. Luce (1898-1967), American founder of a magazine empire that included Time, Life, and Fortune Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982), American writer and critic Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), American poet Eric Hodgins (1899-1971), managing editor of Fortune in the early 1930’s and later publisher of Fortune, 1937-1941
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Summary of Event The first issue of Fortune came out in February, 1930, seven years after the founding of the increasingly successful Time magazine, owned by the same corporation. The first issue was impressive, with a black-and-bronze cover depicting a wheel of fortune. Fortune was con-
ceived and designed by Henry R. Luce, cofounder of Time, who reportedly thought of the name while on a New York City subway. Luce believed that Time and other general newsmagazines devoted less space to business information than its importance warranted. The leading business magazines of the period—Dun’s Review, Barron’s, and Forbes—all concentrated on corporate finance and investment securities, and none was either stylish or well written. Luce considered the other, more broadly based, business magazines to be banal or worse, full of blatant puffery of individual businesspeople and corporations. Luce believed that the exciting panorama of American business in the late 1920’s offered more than enough promising material for a well-written and lavishly produced monthly. The prepublication advertising prospectus for Fortune stated that no other magazine “succeeds in conveying a sustained sense of the challenging personalities, significant trends and high excitements of this vastly stirring Civilization of Business.” The prospectus promised that Fortune would do this, a commitment that Luce kept. The first issue, in February, 1930, included about a dozen articles on such disparate but business-related subjects as freezing foods, glass in manufacturing, commercial orchid growing, hog farming, the Rothschilds, and
Luce Founds Fortune Magazine the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). The RCA article was an early example of the “corporation story,” a distinct Fortune innovation in business journalism. Such stories included detailed analysis of the policies, problems, structure, finances, and key people of a single corporation. Later, similar articles would become a feature of such business magazines as Forbes and BusinessWeek. Although the articles during Fortune’s first two years were confined largely to business, by the mid-1930’s Fortune included thoughtful examinations of government and social issues in general, with an eye to their effect on business. The July, 1935, issue of Fortune contained, for example, seven feature articles. Only two could be described as corporate stories, one a richly illustrated feature on Anheuser-Busch and the other on U.S. Smelting and Refining. Fortune pointed out that each of these companies had been helped by policies of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration: Anheuser-Busch by the end of Prohibition, and U.S. Smelting and Refining by the June, 1934, Purchase of Silver Act. The remaining five articles included a piece on cotton that heavily emphasized the effect of Henry A. Wallace’s government-funded cropreduction program; a fifteen-thousand-word portrait of Harry Hopkins, a close adviser to Roosevelt and administrator of the controversial Federal Emergency Relief Act; a lengthy article, including a number of specially commissioned paintings by a noted artist, on the restoration of colonial Williamsburg; and the first of a groundbreaking series of three articles on “women of business” that discussed in detail what was described as the “feminization of the American office.” This account of the women’s movement was remarkably prescient, reading much like something that could have been written decades later. It was also in the July, 1935, issue that Fortune introduced what is generally credited as being the first published public opinion poll. Fortune’s managing editor, Eric Hodgins, decided that the use of surveys to discover consumer preferences could be extended to help illuminate public opinion on political, social, and general economic matters. The first publication of Elmo Roper’s Fortune Survey was touted as a “journalistic service” to business. The first survey issue examined public opinion concerning Senator Huey Long’s “Share the Wealth” program, various kinds of cigarette and automobile preferences, and beliefs about proposed new utility taxes. When Luce and his associates planned Fortune in 1928, they could not know that the economy would soon be sliding into a deep depression. Otherwise, Briton 2404
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hadden, Luce’s chief partner in Time Inc., may not have agreed to put up $160,000 in seed money from Time Inc.’s treasury. By the summer of 1929, a dummy copy had been prepared. It was used, along with a money-back guarantee, to entice quality advertisers for the first issue. Fortune was not inexpensive for advertisers or subscribers. Its newsstand price was one dollar, compared with five or ten cents for typical magazines of the 1930’s. Its advertising space rate was also high. A dollar’s worth of advertising in Fortune reached about 90 readers, fewer than the 140 reached with a dollar of advertising in The New Yorker or more than 280 for advertisements in Time. Nevertheless, selling advertising space in Fortune proved to be relatively easy in spite of the Depression. Some 779 pages of advertising were sold during 1930, with this figure rising to 1,253 pages by 1934. The exceptional composition of Fortune’s readership accounted for its commercial success. As a 1934 advertising sales brochure pointed out, Fortune’s ninety thousand subscribers included more than half of the Americans with family incomes above $25,000. The combined income of its subscribers was said to surpass the total for all the income earned by taxpayers in thirty-three of the fortyeight states. Because Fortune reached the nation’s business elite, it attracted two types of advertising. Its primary subscribers represented a key industrial market for machinery, advertising agencies, and office equipment. Business leaders also took the beautiful magazine issues home, as indicated by one estimate that each issue was read by ten people. The families of Fortune subscribers provided a top market for luxurious consumer goods and services. Ads for fine jewelry, Packard and Pierce-Arrow automobiles, expensive liquors, and yachts filled each issue. Fortune’s artistic magnificence as a periodical was unparalleled and obviously appealed to America’s elite. Striking photographs, portraits, maps, and drawings richly illustrated the text. Its cover, printed on boldly textured paper stock, was so heavy that the first issue weighed almost two pounds. Among the famous artists commissioned to provide paintings and etchings for Fortune’s covers and inside pages were Rockwell Kent, Edward Wilson, and Diego Rivera, who illustrated a feature story in the October, 1938, issue on the ongoing Mexican revolution. Fortune also became famous for its innovative photography. Margaret Bourke-White, a wellknown industrial photographer, and Erich Solomon, who coined the phrase “candid camera,” provided actionoriented pictures of industrial enterprise, from assembly lines to boardrooms.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Fortune also achieved its promise of high literary standards. In assembling the writing staff of Fortune, Luce decided to hire, as at Time, young writers fresh from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Luce believed that broadly educated and talented writers made better business journalists than did those trained in commerce. The senior writing and editorial staff of the 1930’s included such literary luminaries as Archibald MacLeish, Dwight Macdonald, James Gould Cozzens, James Agee, and poet Russell Davenport. Fortune also broke ground by hiring top women’s college graduates for its staff research positions. This extraordinary publication enjoyed great success, with both its circulation and its advertising revenues rising during the 1930’s. During its first year of publication, Fortune averaged 34,000 subscribers and had ad revenue of $354,000. It was operating at a profit by the end of 1930. By 1937, the average circulation was 143,000, with more than $1,726,000 in ad revenue. Moreover, with profits from Time going into the development of the new mass-circulation Life, the earnings from Fortune in the late 1930’s probably saved Luce’s empire from going into the red.
to the changing times and the New Deal. Articles during Fortune’s first two years were confined largely to business operations and products and to individual corporations, businesspeople, and prominent families. Fortune’s contents after 1932 shifted to a much heavier emphasis on social and political movements and to the New Deal. Most issues in the middle and late 1930’s included stories on the personalities of Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust” and the new agencies, public works projects, and other features of the New Deal. Given the well-documented liberal or even radical bias of many of Fortune’s writers, such features were often pro-New Deal. Luce was, at best, lukewarm to Roosevelt, but he gave his writers latitude in expressing their own opinions. An important and enduring symbol of Fortune’s recognition of the increasingly close relationships among business, society, and government is the Fortune Survey. The first Fortune surveys of public opinion in 1935 indicated general public support for the New Deal socioeconomic changes taking place. A large majority of respondents, for example, believed that the government should guarantee that every man who wanted to work had a job. President Roosevelt became a regular follower of the Roper Fortune Survey and always tried to obtain the results in advance of their publication. Fortune not only claimed to understand the new impacts of government on business but also, in some cases, welcomed it. In a notable 1938 series about the struggle between business and government, the consistent theme was “reconciliation, an end to the sterile and unnecessary warfare between American business and the New Deal.” These editorials were widely reprinted and commented on nationwide. Some corporate leaders, such as Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., chairman of General Motors, found much to commend in the series. The highly influential Fortune generally supported rapprochement between the Roosevelt administration and big business in the late 1930’s. Perhaps the most valuable legacy of its influence would be the cooperation that took place between government and business during World War II. As a senior Fortune staffer wrote, the business and government series did much to pave the way for the collaboration soon to be required by the war effort. During World War II, Fortune did its part by scaling back on its lavish graphics and increasing its coverage of military-related industries beginning in 1940. Fortune in the 1930’s not only was beautiful and profitable but also became increasingly influential in the highest levels of American society and government. It was, as Archibald MacLeish wrote in a book of recollec2405
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Significance Fortune represented, in many ways, an entirely new kind of business periodical. In depicting what it called the “business civilization” of the United States, Fortune pioneered the “corporation story,” which provided a story, illustrations, and in-depth analysis of an individual corporation, with emphasis on the human drama inevitably involved. Sometimes such stories resulted in much more being publicly revealed than management wanted to be known about corporate matters. Fortune generally kept its prepublication promise not to flatter important individuals or defend business in all matters. Luce believed that the public interest was invested in large corporations. As a result, Fortune’s editorial policies successfully challenged the business journalistic tradition that a public corporation’s internal workings were private. Even when subjecting its corporate subjects to a critical eye, Fortune was relatively sympathetic to the purposes of American business. Castigated by some corporate chiefs as well as by certain radical spokesmen, Fortune managed to occupy a middle ground between the banal business puffery of much business journalism and the radical publications whose antibusiness voices were increasingly shrill. In marked contrast to most business journalism during the difficult Depression years, Fortune adjusted well
Luce Founds Fortune Magazine
Luce Founds Fortune Magazine tions of Fortune staffers published in 1980, “a paradox from the start. Its first issue appeared in the worst depression of modern history, and the magazine was saved from disaster only by altering its fundamental assumption about the world.” John A. Davenport, another Fortune writer from the period, also recalled in the 1980 book that “Henry Luce’s boldest assumption in founding Fortune was that American business was more fascinating than stock and bond quotations and carloading statistics, the stock in trade of most previous financial journalism.” —Anthony D. Branch Further Reading Augspurger, Michael. An Economy of Abundant Beauty: “Fortune” Magazine and Depression America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004. Discusses the philosophy behind Fortune in its early years and the magazine’s influence on American culture. Includes endnotes and index. Baughman, James L. Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media. 1987. Reprint. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Provides an excellent review and analysis of the unique roles of Time, Fortune, and later Life within American society and Luce’s marked influence on these publications. Includes bibliography and index. Elson, Robert T. Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise. 3 vols. New York: Atheneum, 1968-1986. Outstanding institutional history of Time Inc. In volume 1, chapter 12 presents a perceptive view of the founding and first years of Fortune. Lubar, Robert, et al. Writing for “Fortune”: Nineteen Authors Remember Life on the Staff of a Remarkable Magazine. New York: Time Inc., 1980. Collection of
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 brief essays by former Fortune staff researchers, writers, and editors addresses subjects ranging from concern about political ideology to typography and the staff’s penchant for Scotch. Provides a nostalgic view of Fortune’s first decade. Macdonald, Dwight. “Fortune Magazine.” The Nation 144 (May 8, 1937): 528-532. After his widely publicized resignation in 1936 as a senior writer for Fortune, Macdonald wrote a three-part series in The Nation about Time Inc. In this article he concludes that despite its apparent objectivity, Fortune was dominated by capitalist ideology. Okren, Daniel, ed. “Fortune”: The Art of Covering Business. New York: Gibbs Smith, 1999. Presents reproductions of every Fortune cover from the first issue in February, 1930, to December, 1950, when the magazine changed its approach to cover art. Includes a brief introductory essay. Whitfield, Stephen J. A Critical American: The Politics of Dwight Macdonald. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1984. Fascinating account of Macdonald’s political changeability. In Archibald MacLeish’s opinion, Macdonald was Fortune’s most valuable writer, but Luce began to doubt Macdonald’s value as the writer tried to record his increasing radicalism in the pages of Fortune. Excellent description of the complicated interaction between Luce and his writers. See also: Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Tombaugh Discovers Pluto
February 18, 1930
Tombaugh Discovers Pluto Clyde William Tombaugh, a self-educated astronomer, discovered Pluto, which was then regarded as the ninth planet in Earth’s solar system. Locale: Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Clyde William Tombaugh (1906-1997), American amateur astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916), American astronomer
1930
Summary of Event In 1920, Clyde William Tombaugh purchased a 2.2-inch (5.7-centimeter) telescope through the mail from the Sears, Roebuck catalog and taught himself the science of astronomy by reading everything he could on the subject. In 1924, he was impressed with Latimer Wilson’s article “The Drift of Jupiter’s Markings” in Popular Astronomy. Wilson’s article included drawings he had made after observing the planet Jupiter with a homemade telescope. Tombaugh learned how to make telescopes through correspondence with Wilson. After Tombaugh built his telescope, he observed Jupiter and Mars, and in 1928 he recorded these observations in drawings. Fascinated with drawings of Mars released by the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and published in Popular Astronomy, Tombaugh sent his 1928 drawings to the observatory’s director, Vesto Melvin Slipher, for some advice. The Lowell Observatory was founded by Percival Lowell in 1894. Lowell was fascinated with the maps of the “canals” of Mars made popular by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli from 1877 to 1888. Lowell’s observations extended the few dozen canals mapped by Schiaparelli to several hundred. He later popularized his speculations on Mars and alien civilizations in several books: Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906), The Evolution of Worlds (1909), and Mars as the Abode of Life (1908). Although Lowell’s theories excited the public and inspired science-fiction writers, astronomers were not convinced. In an attempt to improve his credibility, Lowell initiated a search for a ninth planet in Earth’s solar system. Neptune, the eighth planet, had been discovered in 1846 based on the gravitational effect it was having on the orbit of its neighbor, Uranus. In the same way, the orbit of Neptune was different from what had been predicted, and this led astronomers Lowell and William
Pickering to suspect a yet more distant planet. Lowell called this object “Planet X”; Pickering called it “Planet O.” Lowell reasoned that if he could predict the orbit of a ninth planet beyond Neptune and then find the planet, the discovery would enhance his professional status and thereby gain respect for his theory of Martian canals. Lowell began searching with a special camera in 1905, confident of the planet’s location and brightness. In 1911, he obtained a new research tool, a Zeiss blinkmicroscope comparator, to examine the photographic plates. With this device, two photographic plates of the same star region taken at different times are alternately seen or “blinked” in the viewer. Stellar objects, at their great distances, do not appear to move in the time between exposures. Closer objects, such as planets or asteroids, shift on the photographic plate and appear to “blink.” After ten years of searching, Lowell became discouraged. Ironically, Planet X appeared on two separate pho-
Clyde William Tombaugh. (NARA)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
blinking tedious and was often distracted by other objects in the photographs. In many ways, Clyde Tombaugh was like his astronomer hero Frustrated with this Herculean task, TomWilliam Herschel, who discovered Uranus unexpectedly during a baugh devised a technique for photographing a routine sky survey in 1781. Both were dedicated amateur astronoregion of the zodiac when it was “at opposimers and skilled telescope makers who devoted hours to tedious tion”—that is, on the side of Earth opposite the observations. Tombaugh, however, was only twenty-four years Sun. Having done so, he noticed several things. old when he discovered Pluto, whereas Herschel was in his early At opposition, asteroids shifted about 0.28 inch forties when he made his discovery. Furthermore, Tombaugh’s (7 millimeters) per day. Neptune, being farther yearlong search for Planet X lasted much longer than that of either from Earth and from the asteroid belt, shifted Herschel or Johann Galle, who discovered Neptune in 1846 on the less, about 0.08 inch (2 millimeters) per day. first night he looked for it, lying less than 1 degree from its preTombaugh then reasoned that any undiscovered dicted position. planet beyond Neptune ought to shift less than The search for Pluto was complicated by the fact that its orbit is highly eccentric—sometimes even passing inside the orbit of Neptune. If he could find such a planet, it would Neptune—and has a large inclination of about 17 degrees from the truly be Planet X. mean plane of the other planets. It is now known that Percival In early 1930, Tombaugh resumed plate blinkLowell’s predictions for the position of Pluto were based on faulty ing, but the proximity to the Milky Way slowed calculations, and its discovery within 6 degrees of the predicted his progress. It was then that Tombaugh realized location was only a coincidence. Fortunately, Tombaugh did not that the Sliphers had blinked through the 1929 limit his observations to the predicted area of the sky or to the reGemini plates in only about a week. He suspected gion close to the mean orbital plane of the planets. that the Sliphers, in rushing the job, had missed When James Christy discovered Pluto’s moon, Charon, in something. Therefore, on the basis of his earlier 1978, it was conclusively demonstrated that the mass of Pluto was theory, he decided to rephotograph the region, far too small to cause observable deviations in the orbits of Uranus this time near opposition. The first exposure of and Neptune; thus the two larger planets’ orbits could not be used to predict Pluto’s position. In the 1990’s, several icy objects much the Gemini region on January 21, 1930, was dissmaller than Pluto were discovered just beyond Pluto’s orbit in the turbed by wind gusts that shook the observatory, Kuiper comet belt with periods of about 300 years, compared to disturbing the telescope and blurring the image. Pluto’s 248-year period. He rephotographed this region on January 23 and 29 and began the tedious blink procedure. Tombaugh retrieved the poor January 21 plate, compared it with the January 23 plate, and tographic plates taken before his death in 1916. The planet found Planet X exactly where it should be. Using a hand was camouflaged by the Milky Way background between magnifier, he then compared the plates with another taken the constellations Taurus and Gemini. In 1919, Pickering, by a smaller camera. The object was in the same correat the Mount Wilson Observatory, captured the planet on sponding position on all three plates. Tombaugh then four different photographic plates yet failed to identify it. called Carl O. Lampland and Slipher to the blink comparaIn February, 1929, the Lowell Observatory resumed tor to confirm his find. Both agreed that the object could the quest for Planet X with the completion of a 13-inch be Planet X, and Slipher asked Tombaugh to rephotograph (33-centimeter) telescope-camera. Tombaugh’s letter the region as soon as possible. Based on photographs and drawings of 1928 could not have arrived at a better shot on February 18, 1930, Lampland, Slipher, and Tomtime. His observations and drawings caught the attention baugh were able to confirm the presence of Planet X. of Slipher, who was looking for a talented amateur to operate the new photographic telescope. When Slipher ofSignificance fered Tombaugh the job, he accepted. Slipher was aware of the impact of the discovery and Initially, Slipher told Tombaugh to search the Gemini carefully prepared for the public announcement and the region. It took about a week for Slipher and his brother, questions that would result. The observatory’s reputaEdward, to blink the Gemini plates, without result. Distion was in question over the Martian canal research, and appointed, Slipher directed the research eastward through the researchers had to be very sure not only of their data the zodiac and in June of 1929 asked Tombaugh to take but also of the protocol involved in the announcement. over the task of plate blinking. Tombaugh found plate When the discovery became known, thousands of let-
Searching for Planet X
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ters arrived suggesting names for the planet. Because planets were usually named after mythological deities, three names headed the list: Minerva, Pluto, and Cronus. The first person to propose the name Pluto outside the Lowell group seems to have been Venetia Burney, an eleven-year-old child living in Oxford, England. Pickering, who had predicted a trans-Neptunian planet in 1908, also suggested Pluto, the name of the Greek god of darkness, who was able at times to render himself invisible. Without doubt, all involved in the search would agree this quality of invisibility was appropriate for the new planet. The Lowell group proposed the name Pluto to the American Astronomical Society and the Royal Society, and both societies accepted it unanimously in 1930. In 1931, the Associated Press declared the discovery of the planet Pluto to be one of the top news stories in the world for 1930. From the mid-1990’s onward, new discoveries made possible by improvements in technology led to debates among astronomers concerning whether particular bodies in our solar system should be classified as planets. In 2006, the members of the International Astronomical Union voted to reclassify Pluto as a “dwarf planet,” reducing to eight the official number of bodies in the solar system defined as true planets. The decision was itself the source of controversy, and the debate concerning Pluto’s status continued. —Richard C. Jones Further Reading Freedman, David H. “When Is a Planet Not a Planet? Arguments for and Against Demoting Pluto.” Atlantic
Tombaugh Discovers Pluto Monthly, February, 1998. Reviews the debate that arose in the mid-1990’s regarding the status of Pluto as a major planet, given new discoveries. Hoyt, William G. Planet X and Pluto. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980. Comprehensive volume documents the transition between Lowell’s work and Tombaugh’s. Agood source for the interested reader. Tombaugh, Clyde William. “The Discovery of Pluto: Some Generally Unknown Aspects of the Story.” Mercury 15, no. 3 (1986): 66-72; 15, no. 4 (1986): 98102. Tombaugh describes his experiences on becoming an astronomer and the events leading to the discovery. _______. “Reminiscences of the Discovery of Pluto.” Sky and Telescope 19 (1960): 264-270. Tombaugh’s own summary of the people and events surrounding the discovery. Tombaugh, Clyde William, and Patrick Moore. Out of Darkness: The Planet Pluto. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1980. Provides a good review of all aspects of the search for planets and the personalities surrounding the events of the Pluto discovery. Accessible to the general reader. Whyte, A. J. The Planet Pluto. New York: Pergamon Press, 1980. A relatively technical work for readers who wish to dig into the details of the discovery of Pluto. Provides an objective view of the process. Includes a historical review. See also: Aug., 1905: Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto; 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy; Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra.
1930
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Gandhi Leads the Salt March
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 12-April 5, 1930
Gandhi Leads the Salt March Mahatma Gandhi organized the Salt March in 1930 to protest British actions in India and to start a mass campaign of noncooperation that would inspire many future leaders, including American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Locale: India Categories: Civil rights and liberties; colonialism and occupation; indigenous peoples’ rights; social issues and reform; independence movements Key Figures Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Hindu leader of the Indian nationalist movement Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945), radical member of the Indian National Congress who saw that opposition to Gandhi was impossible Lord Halifax (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood; 18811959), viceroy of India, 1926-1931 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), Indian socialist and believer in Western science and technology Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), founder of the Nehru dynasty who gave up his moderate politics to join Gandhi in the Salt March Summary of Event Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was released from prison in 1924 after having been incarcerated for nearly two years for his part in the illegal activities of the noncooperation movement, which he started in 1920 in a successful attempt to arouse opposition to British rule. Gandhi (known as Mahatma, or “Great Soul”) retired from politics upon his release and returned to his ashram (a spiritual retreat or commune) to devote himself to spinning khadi (homespun cloth) and to fostering Hindu-Muslim unity and the moral and economic uplift of village life. As a result, politics in India entered a lull and the Indian nationalist movement, which had gathered strength during the last part of the nineteenth century and became strong during the early twentieth century, was left without an active national leader. Nevertheless, all members of the Indian National Congress, the most important political party in India, knew that Gandhi was the most widely accepted leader in the country. Even during his period of retirement, political leaders constantly kept in touch with him and exchanged a voluminous correspondence. Party officials urged him to return to active politics and to resume leadership of the nationalist move2410
ment. New leadership was taking control of the Congress party: Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose wanted to start a new noncooperation movement, but Gandhi was the only person who could lead such a movement. The nationalist movement had not been very vigorous since Gandhi’s retirement from politics, and many Indians had cooperated with the British and now served in government legislatures and agencies. As a result of this lack of active opposition by Indian politicians, the British continued to ignore Indian rights. Indians did not, for example, have control of the legislative councils that the British had introduced in 1923; instead, the councils were dominated by the British and their appointees. British judges controlled the legal system, and all the senior police and army officers were British. On a daily basis, the British continued to show disrespect to Indians by barring them from almost all British social clubs and by shunning their company except on special occasions. In short, Indians were treated as foreigners in their own land and kept down by a British raj (rule) that was backed up by a strong police force and army that Indians had to finance through taxes. The situation would change only if Indians actively opposed it. The occasion for the resurgence in the nationalist movement came with the appointment of the Simon Commission in 1928. The commission was made up entirely of British politicians who had been sent to India to assess how the constitution of 1919 was working and to decide how the next step of reforms should take place. The British had sparked Indian anger by not appointing a single Indian to the commission, an action that was perceived as a racist slight. To show their disapproval, members of the Indian National Congress refused to attend the first session of the Round Table Conference, which was held in 1930 in London in order to allow Indians of various religious and other interest groups to discuss with the British how a new constitution should be written. In the meantime, the Congress party had, in fact, produced its own draft of a constitution (Motilal Nehru’s Nehru Report of 1928) and threatened that if the British did not give India dominion status—which would have made India as free as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand— India would demand complete independence. These developments were on many Indians’ minds when Gandhi resumed active participation at the end of 1928. The Congress party and Gandhi met in December,
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Gandhi Leads the Salt March
Route of the Salt March, 1930 = Route of Gandhi’s Salt March
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(also known as Lord Halifax), that he proposed to start a civil disobedience campaign based on the issue of the salt laws, and on March 12, he and seventy-nine followers began their trek to the sea. They made the 240-mile trip in twenty-five days, arriving at Dandi, on the Indian Ocean, on April 5, 1930. Early the following morning, they went to the beach and picked up some salt-encrusted mud and boiled it to make salt, thus breaking the salt laws. Salt had now become the symbol of India’s fight for freedom. The salt campaign that began with Gandhi’s monthlong march lasted another two months, until the beginning of the monsoon season. At first the British did not respond to Gandhi’s breach of the law, but when he wrote to the viceroy and informed him of plans to raid the nearby Dharsana Salt Works, Gandhi and all the Congress leaders were arrested on May 5. Gandhi was incarcerated under an 1827 regulation that did not require a trial or a fixed sentence. He was held in prison until January 26, 1931. The Salt March and the noncooperation movement that followed coincided with the commencement of a 2411
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1929, and decided to start a civil disobedience campaign similar to the noncooperation movement of 1920. This campaign would, they hoped, force the British to take notice of Indian demands for rights and freedom. It was left to Gandhi to decide how and when the campaign would start, and he decided that the central issue would be salt. Many were amazed that Gandhi chose this as the issue over which to oppose imperial rule, but salt was a heavily taxed government monopoly, and therefore all Indians would understand protests against its taxing. Before Gandhi began the movement, he offered peace to the government through his Eleven Points, a series of demands that included social reforms and economic reforms such as reduction of military expenditures. The British rejected these demands. On March 5, Gandhi announced to his ashram that he and a group of his followers would march to the coast carrying copies of the Bhagavad Gita (a Hindu holy book). Once they arrived at the sea, they would break the law by making salt, deliberately undermining British rule in India. Gandhi informed the viceroy, Lord Irwin
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Salt was the symbol of the campaign, but it was not the only part of the civil disobedience movement. The salt campaign was localized along the coast, but the boycott of foreign cloth gathered steam across the entire country. Protesters pressured vendors and buyers by sealing foreign cloth stocks and by using their bodies to block merchants who To view image, please refer to the attempted to move them. The major centers of India’s foreign cloth trade print edition of this title. came to a virtual halt for most of the year, and there was a dramatic drop in imports. The salt movement catalyzed a number of smaller campaigns, which varied from province to province and were related to local grievances. In the west of India, in Gujarat, people refused to pay their land-revenue tax and started a social boycott of government workers. Many of those workers resigned from their positions. In the central provinces, peoMahatma Gandhi with some of his followers during the Salt March in 1930. (Hulton ple burned trees and cut grass in defiArchive/Getty Images) ance of forestry regulations, and in Bihar people broke liquor laws. In the city of Bombay, the Congress worldwide depression. Importers could not sell their party practically took control of the city. As the governstocks, tenant farmers could not earn enough from their ment official responsible for domestic affairs noted, crops to pay their rents, landlords and cultivating owners “The numbers, the discipline, the organization and the could not cover their land revenue, and even the governbrushing aside of the ordinary functions of police control ment had to cut back staff and reduce salaries. The Salt of traffic have combined to produce a vivid impression of March inspired a civil disobedience movement that was the power and the success of the Congress movement.” joined by large numbers of these disaffected people. The British administration hovered on the brink of colThe Salt March, also known as the salt satyagraha lapse for months. (nonviolent civil disobedience campaign), affected almost every province in the country. People even went to Significance local rivers to boil the water in a symbolic gesture of soliGandhi had inspired and started a mass movement in a darity with Gandhi. The government was put on the demanner never before seen in India. The British imprisfensive; volunteers surrounded the people making salt so oned sixty thousand people, but millions more heard of that it became impossible to arrest the lawbreakers withthe campaign, avoided buying foreign cloth, made donaout resorting to great violence, and the Congress party tions to the Congress party, or attended one of innumerapublicized any violent event in great detail. As a result, a ble meetings. Some soldiers in the army refused to obey tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the movement and orders to fire on unarmed demonstrators. The governcontempt for the government were generated through ment was concerned that, for the first time, protest had this campaign. Gandhi had once again seized the politibecome a rural movement as well as an urban one. They cal initiative for the Congress party, and all of India was also saw great significance in the fact that Gandhi’s cammotivated to fight for freedom. paign had inspired upper-class and educated women to 2412
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the sole representative of the Congress party. Although Gandhi ultimately considered the conference a failure, the Government of India Act of 1935 (which emerged from the meeting) gave virtual independence to the provinces and foreshadowed the arrival of national independence. The British still ruled India, but Gandhi had mobilized the Indians to such an extent that the days of foreign dominance over this vast land were clearly numbered. Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance would live on in other major human rights and civil rights campaigns. It was perhaps most successful in the American Civil Rights movement, in which Martin Luther King, Jr., employed Gandhi’s tactics in the 1960’s. These tactics were less successful, however, in the 1989 Tianamen Square protest in China, which was brutally repressed. —Roger D. Long Further Reading Brown, Judith M. Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics, 1928-1934. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977. For the most detailed account of the Salt March available, this is the book to read. It is an almost week-by-week chronicle of Gandhi’s activities during the period 1928-1934. _______. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989. This is not a detailed account of the Salt March, but it does discuss the period and places it in broader context. Brown has dedicated her academic career to studying Gandhi, and her book is an authoritative and fundamental work on his life. Copley, Antony. Gandhi: Against the Tide. London: Basil Blackwell, 1987. To place the accounts of the Salt March in context and within an understanding of Gandhi’s life work, this is a short and handy reference. Erikson, Erik. Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. Gandhi’s aim during the Salt March was not only to mobilize Indians against the British but also to raise the people’s level of consciousness and to give them a psychological lift. Erikson is a psychoanalyst who describes Gandhi’s attempts during the Salt March to change the psychology of Indians and to make them less passive. Fox, Richard G. Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. Gandhi was aiming not only at freedom for Indians; he also wanted to influence India’s cultural and social life. 2413
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participate in politics for the first time in history. Women continued the work of husbands or male members of the family who went to prison. Some of them even went to prison themselves. This reflected an incredible change in attitude: Before Gandhi led the nationalist movement, going to prison would have been a mark of terrible shame, but now people were willingly defying the police and committing crimes in the name of freedom. Further, the movement involved people of all ages, including children, who became active participants in the movement. With the involvement of so many people of all classes and ages, the prestige of the Indian National Congress grew immensely, and people proudly called themselves followers of Gandhi. The public began to sense that independence was near, and Indians began to talk about what would happen after the British left. Those politicians who had not supported the movement and who were cooperating with the British to reform the constitution were embarrassed to be seen as collaborators and were pushed—often against their will—into opposition to the British. At this juncture, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, one of the most important Muslim leaders in the country and one who had always opposed Gandhi’s tactics, left India and settled in England. The Salt March and the movement it started were an enormous success. The British government increasingly had to use force to maintain law and order, and this use of force put it more and more in the wrong with the Indian people. Slowly, the British lost all moral authority in the land. The Congress party increasingly came to be identified as the nation’s most representative political body. The Salt March also had a major impact on the nation’s psychology. Indians of all classes and ages became willing to stand up for their rights. Large numbers of women were involved in a political movement for the first time in history. The whole nation had been mobilized, and the image of Gandhi marching to the sea in defiance of the British Empire became front-page news in all the major newspapers of the world. Gandhi became a hero to nationalists everywhere; even in England, he received the admiration of many people. By 1931, the movement had exhausted both the British and the Indians. After Gandhi and the leaders of the Congress party had been released from prison, Gandhi wrote to the viceroy, asking for a meeting and a truce. Lord Irwin agreed, and the result was the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (also known as the Delhi Pact) of March 5, 1931. As a result of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhi was invited to attend the Second Round Table Conference. He did so as
Gandhi Leads the Salt March
Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster Fox is an anthropologist who discusses the cultural dimensions of Gandhi’s work during the Salt March. Gandhi, M. K. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957. Gandhi stops his autobiography when he reaches the year 1920, but this book is essential to understanding Gandhi’s ideas as he developed them in his early life. Haksar, Vinit. Rights, Communities, and Disobedience: Liberalism and Gandhi. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. A discussion of Gandhi’s influence on modern philosophy. Focuses on the relevance of the Salt March and other events as models for resolution of conflicts between individual and group rights and between the rights of competing groups. Nehru, Jawaharlal. Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru. 1941. Reprint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963. Nehru, an internationalist who was considered a radical, was very different from Gandhi, yet for a variety of reasons he became one of Gandhi’s most devoted followers. This autobiography reveals the remarkable power Gandhi had over
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Indians and how modernists such as Nehru were flabbergasted when Gandhi came up with the idea of the Salt March. Later, however, they conceded that Gandhi had chosen the exact symbol with which to arouse opposition to the British. This is a classic, firsthand account. Wolpert, Stanley. Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. More of a history of the anticolonial and independence movements in India than a biography. Wolpert places special emphasis on exploring Gandhi’s interest in nonviolent resistance. See also: June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion; Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle; Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion; 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact; Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables.
March 31, 1930-1931
Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster The construction of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel to supply water to a hydroelectric complex led to the nation’s deadliest industrial accident, in which hundreds of workers died from acute silicosis. Locale: Gauley Bridge, West Virginia Categories: Health and medicine; environmental issues; business and labor Key Figures O. M. Jones (fl. early twentieth century), chief engineer for the New Kanawha Power Company Robert M. Lambie (fl. early twentieth century), director of the West Virginia Department of Mines Cora Jones (fl. early twentieth century), West Virginia homemaker and wife of a tunnel worker Leroy Harless (fl. early twentieth century), West Virginia physician Summary of Event On March 31, 1930, ground was broken for the threemile-long Hawk’s Nest Tunnel. The tunnel was planned to divert water from the New River to a dam and hydro2414
electric plant that would supply electricity to the metallurgical works at Glen Ferris, West Virginia. From the first, the project was clouded by a disregard for the law and for human safety. The tunnel was constructed through a mountain formed of sandstone and silica rock; the silica mined from the mountain was said to be more than 90 percent pure. During the drilling, blasting, and cleaning of rock debris out of the tunnel, safety precautions were not followed, and many men were stricken with acute silicosis, the filling up and scarring of the lungs with silica dust nodes. The companies involved covered up the facts of the industrial disaster. The passivity of the federal government and the negligence of the companies involved in the construction of the tunnel resulted in the slow and painful deaths of several hundred workers. The exploitation of hydroelectric resources in the Gauley Bridge area dates back to 1899, when the Wilson Aluminum Company had received permission from the secretary of war to construct a temporary timber dam at Kanawha Falls, just downstream from Gauley Bridge. By 1901, the company had completed the dam, which ex-
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coal company, but such concerns were not brought to the attention of the Corps of Engineers. The State Public Service Commission dismissed the complaint. Even though Union Carbide openly admitted that New Kanawha Power was a wholly owned subsidiary and that the power it produced was meant solely for use by Union Carbide, permission was granted. The need for a water-driven power supply increased in 1929 with the collapse of the U.S. economy in the Great Depression: Many West Virginia coal mines closed, and coal production dropped as a result. A new, cheap energy source was needed. Electric power, dubbed “white coal” by some, was a potential replacement for coal-based power; indeed, it would become the focus of many of the New Deal’s public works projects. Union Carbide’s project went forward. The Rinehart and Dennis Company of Charlottesville, Virginia, a company well known for its experience in building dams and other waterworks projects, was the low bidder on the tunnel construction contract, which it was awarded on March 13, 1930. Eighteen days later, ground was broken for the tunnel. The tunnel was bored from different directions: There was a main intake where the New River would enter the tunnel and a tunnel exit where the water would enter the river again. There was also an adit to the surge basin within the tunnel, for an excess or overflow of water to enter. Drilling commenced at all these openings. From the beginning, the Rinehart and Dennis Company used questionable practices. Many local white people who were laid off from the mines were hired, but African American migrant workers from the South were encouraged to travel north to work inside the tunnel. White workers were given better—and often safer— jobs, whereas black workers were usually hired as common laborers at the face of the tunnel. The African American workers were paid lower wages than the white workers, and their company-provided living quarters were inadequate, with as many as ten or twelve people sharing one four-room shack. White workers were paid in cash, but black workers were paid in company scrip, with deductions taken out for coal, linens, food, and other essentials that they could purchase only at the company stores. The African American workers were expected to do the most grueling jobs. The foreman and assistant foreman positions were held by white workers, and much of the work outside the tunnel was performed by white employees. A few of the white workers worked inside the tunnel, but only a few worked the face of the tunnel. When drilling or blasting, the workers were not provided 2415
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ploited the eight-foot natural falls to drive the first hydroelectric plant in the state. Six years later, the ElectroMetallurgical Company absorbed Wilson Aluminum and expanded the temporary dam without seeking the necessary permission. Early operations were only moderately successful, as local industrial markets were limited. In 1917, the Electro-Metallurgical Company merged with other companies to form the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation (commonly known as Union Carbide). One of the first acts of this corporation was to increase the size of the dam at Kanawha Falls again. This plan met resistance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which in 1913 told Congress that the enlarged dam would block navigation on the New River. As early as 1812, inland rivers were seen as transportation routes, and control of them, including the New River, therefore belonged to the federal government. Union Carbide found a way to circumvent this problem: Company officials simply did not inform the Corps of Engineers about construction that was under way. One year later, two hundred feet of concrete on the dam and a new powerhouse had been constructed at Glen Ferris. Later, Union Carbide informed the corps of the improvements and asked for an extension of the dam permits. Although permission was denied, no action was taken to remove the structures, and Union Carbide’s exploitation of waterpower on the New River did not end. A new metallurgical works was proposed five miles below Glen Ferris, at Boncar. It was to be larger than the one at Kanawha Falls and would require greater resources of power. The New Kanawha Power Company was chartered in 1927 with the purpose of constructing public utilities in West Virginia. New Kanawha Power was formed by Union Carbide as a dummy company, set up to develop and produce power for general public sales and commercial use. During the company’s brief history, it had only one customer, Union Carbide. Later in 1927, the New Kanawha Power Company filed a declaration of intent to develop the New River with two dams, two tunnels, and two power stations in addition to the complex at Boncar. The site chosen for one of the tunnels and dams was at Hawk’s Nest. Upstream, the New River was more than one thousand feet wide, but it narrowed to less than one hundred feet wide as it began its descent to Gauley Bridge. A three-milelong tunnel with a 162-foot descent would divert the New River through the mountain and create a rapid river flow. The State Public Service Commission gave its approval to the project in 1928. Effects on river navigation were questioned by a local
Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster
Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster with respirators or masks to shield their faces from the silica dust. The laborers were not supposed to be in the mine while the blasting occurred, but the foremen would allow the workers to retreat only a few feet from the blasting site and would direct them to start clearing the debris as soon as the blasting was completed. These practices were unorthodox and unnecessarily dangerous even by the standards of the time, especially by international standards. Wet drilling, a process in which fluids are used to help control airborne debris, was introduced in England in 1897. Dry drilling had been strictly forbidden by 1911 in many European, South American, and African countries. In the United States, silicosis and its causes were widely known before 1930. The U.S. Public Health Service had published an official bulletin in 1917 describing silicosis studies performed on zinc miners in Joplin, Missouri. In 1915, the first workers’ compensation laws provided implicit regulations regarding silicosis. Nevertheless, many Hawk’s Nest tunnellers used dry drills, raising clouds of dangerous silica dust. In the United States, the control of occupational diseases had proceeded more slowly than it had in Western Europe. The delay was a result of limited enforcement rather than a failure to recognize occupational diseases. Federal agencies were restricted in their involvement in occupational disease control, and state regulations were relatively toothless. Inspectors from the West Virginia Department of Mines, which was run by Robert M. Lambie, wrote citations for the infractions they witnessed. The Rinehart and Dennis Company simply ignored the citations and continued business as usual. It posted lookouts to warn of the arrival of inspectors and stopped work or detained the inspectors while conditions were improved in the tunnel. Men working in the tunnel complained that they could see only a few feet in front of them, and they collided with parked machinery in the thick dust. Instead of drilling with water to suppress the dust, they were required to drill dry because it was faster. Sixteen drills were operating at one time, and fewer than half of them used water to hold down the dust. Normally, battery-powered locomotives would run cars to the face of a tunnel to remove blasted rock and silica. The Rinehart and Dennis Company, however, brought gasoline-powered machinery to the tunnel site, and the gasoline engines caused a carbon monoxide buildup. Workers who complained that they could not breathe or who became sick or sleepy from the dust and fumes were beaten and run off the job. If they could not work, they could not stay in company housing. 2416
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Many workers were carried from the tunnel and left to die. Many men lasted a maximum of two months, and only 2 percent worked from the beginning of the project to its completion. When a worker could no longer work, he was fired. There are many reasons that the events at Hawk’s Nest Tunnel were allowed to continue, and legislation was created at the state and federal levels as a result of lawsuits and investigations that followed. The fact that the disaster happened in a rural setting helped to conceal it. The disease that killed so many workers was not well understood at the time. Silicosis was believed to be a disease that took from twenty to thirty years to kill its victim. The men in the tunnel, however, breathed pure silica in great quantities, so their deaths were comparatively fast and painful; many died in a matter of months from acute silicosis. Many doctors labeled the cause of death “tunnel pneumonia” or “tunnelitis.” They knew it was a lung disease, but they were unaware, for the most part, of its true nature. Only after Dr. Leroy Harless did autopsies on several victims did he realize that the scarring in the lungs was killing their laborers. Construction on the tunnel was completed in 1931. Cora Jones filed suit in circuit court in 1932 against the Rinehart and Dennis Company after her three sons, all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four, died as a result of their work on the tunnel; her husband was also stricken. Harless saved the fibrous lungs of Jones’s youngest son as evidence of what happened to workers who were subjected to pure silica dust. Compensation was awarded after the company was found to be at fault. Significance The companies running the Hawk’s Nest project acknowledged 109 deaths of workers on the tunnel, but the actual total was much higher. A congressional investigation determined that 476 people died; in his 1986 book The Hawk’s Nest Incident, Martin Cherniack set the figure at 764 deaths and estimated that 1,500 surviving workers suffered from silicosis. It was difficult to keep track of the deaths because many men had been buried in unmarked graves, different causes of death had been recorded, and many migrant workers had left the area, making it virtually impossible to account for their fates. The U.S. House of Representatives conducted an investigation into the conditions of workers employed in the construction of public utilities in January and February of 1936. Many people associated with the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel were called to testify before the committee about events that took place during construction of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tunnel. Several positive steps were taken as a result of the hearings. The authority of the Bureau of Mines was expanded to give the agency jurisdiction over a broad range of underground work. The Bureau of Mines was not believed to have authority at Hawk’s Nest because the tunnel was a construction project, not a mine. The Bureau of Mines also expanded its dust investigation practices; dust sampling was expanded to include analysis of the composition, particle size, and concentration of airborne dusts. Surveys were conducted to determine the exposure of industrial workers to various dust conditions and the effect of such conditions on the workers. New methods of dust control were developed, and studies in removing dust from work areas were conducted. Other cooperative ventures with the Public Health Service involving dust and its effect on workers were launched. In the decades following the Hawk’s Nest incident, many state and federal agencies were created to ensure that workers in the United States would not be subjected to the kind of work environment that existed at Gauley Bridge between 1930 and 1931. Agencies at both the state and federal levels would check and recheck working conditions above and below ground to ensure provision of safe workplaces for all ranks of workers. Although hundreds of people died as a consequence of their work on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel, their deaths helped prompt the creation of a bureaucracy that has protected generations of laborers. —Larry N. Sypolt Further Reading Cherniack, Martin. The Hawk’s Nest Incident. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986. An investigation into the cover-up of working conditions at Hawk’s Nest. Cherniack asserts that the death toll from the project was substantially higher than earlier estimates. Comstock, Jim. “476 Graves: The Story of Hawk’s
Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster Nest Tunnel.” In West Virginia Heritage. Vol. 7. Richwood: West Virginia Heritage Foundation, 1972. Provides a transcript of the House of Representatives hearings regarding the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel tragedy. Fishback, Price V. “Workplace Safety During the Progressive Era: Fatal Accidents in Bituminous Coal Mining, 1912-1923.” Explorations in Economic History 23, no. 3 (1986): 269-298. A look at the mining industry’s safety record in the period leading up to the Hawk’s Nest disaster. Useful historical perspective. Serrin, William. “The Wages of Work.” The Nation 252, no. 3 (January 28, 1991): 80-82. A jarring look at contemporary worker safety. Serrin reports that, despite regulatory and other improvements, about three hundred Americans die every day from work-related injuries or diseases. He views the scant attention paid such incidents as a consequence of class bias. Skidmore, Hubert. Hawk’s Nest: A Novel. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. Fictionalized account of the tragedy based on detailed research and including bibliographic references to nonfiction sources. Wallace, Michael. “Dying for Coal: The Struggle for Health and Safety Conditions in American Coal Mining, 1930-82.” Social Forces 66, no. 2 (1987): 336-364. Suggests that labor activism and market factors have had more to do with safety improvements than have government regulations. Somewhat technical. Williams, John Alexander. West Virginia: A History. 2d ed. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2001. Includes a chapter on the Hawk’s Next incident and its effects on West Virginia and the United States. Bibliographic references and index. See also: Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains.
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Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April, 1930
Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas Thomas Midgley, Jr., introduced dichlorodifluoromethane as a safe refrigerant gas for domestic refrigerators, leading to rapid growth in the acceptance of refrigerators in homes. Locale: Dayton, Ohio Categories: Science and technology; chemistry Key Figures Thomas Midgley, Jr. (1889-1944), American engineer and chemist Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958), American engineer and inventor Albert Leon Henne (1901-1967), American chemist Frédéric Swarts (1866-1940), Belgian chemist Summary of Event The growing availability of reliable refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners had major impacts on the way Americans lived and worked as the twentieth century progressed. People could live more comfortably in hot and humid areas. Greater varieties of perishable foods could be transported and stored for extended periods. As recently as the early nineteenth century, the foods most regularly available to most Americans were salted meats and bread. Vegetables, fruits, and dairy products—items now considered essential to a balanced diet—were produced, purchased, and consumed only in small amounts. Commercial refrigeration became a necessity and a reality in the United States during the nineteenth century, when the population became concentrated in towns and cities. Through the early part of the twentieth century, the pattern of food storage and distribution evolved to make perishable foods more available. Farmers shipped dairy products and frozen meats in mechanically refrigerated railroad cars or in refrigerated ships. Wholesalers had large mechanically refrigerated warehouses. Smaller stores and most American households used iceboxes to keep perishable foods fresh. The iceman, who delivered large blocks of ice regularly, was a familiar figure on the streets of American towns. In 1930, domestic mechanical refrigerators were still relatively uncommon, although they were being produced in increasing numbers. Most of them were vapor compression machines, in which a gas was compressed in a closed system of pipes outside the refrigerator by a mechanical pump and condensed to a liquid. The liquid 2418
was pumped into a sealed chamber in the refrigerator and allowed to evaporate to a gas. This evaporation cooled the interior of the refrigerator. The major mechanical problems in designing an efficient home refrigerator had been solved by 1930; small and quite efficient electric motors had been developed to power the compression cycle, and compact and reliable automatic temperature controllers had become available. The remaining source of difficulty was the material constituting the working gas of the refrigerator. This gas had to have particular properties: It had to boil at a fairly low temperature, preferably between about –1.1 degrees Celsius and 4.4 degrees Celsius, and had to have an appropriate heat of vaporization—meaning that, in its evaporation from liquid to gas inside the sealed chamber of the refrigerator, it had to abstract a reasonable amount of heat energy from the inside of the refrigerator. The gases in use in domestic refrigerators in 1930 included ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and methyl chloride. These gases were acceptable if the refrigerator’s gas pipes never sprang a leak. In actual operation of refrigerators, however, leaks sometimes occur; at such times, these refrigerant gases posed serious problems because all were toxic. Ammonia and sulfur dioxide both had unpleasant odors; if they leaked, at least they would be detected rapidly. Methyl chloride could form a dangerously explosive mixture with air, and it had only a very faint, and not unpleasant, odor. In a hospital in Cleveland during the 1920’s, a refrigerator with methyl chloride leaked, resulting in a disastrous explosion of the methyl chloride/ air mixture. After that, methyl chloride for use in refrigerators was mixed with a small amount of a powerfully unpleasant-smelling compound to make leaks detectable. (The same method is used today with natural gas.) General Motors, through its Frigidaire division, had a substantial interest in the domestic refrigerator market. Frigidaire refrigerators used sulfur dioxide as the refrigerant gas. Charles Franklin Kettering, director of research for General Motors, was an engineer and inventor with an impressive record of solving problems. Among his major successes had been his collaboration with Thomas Midgley, Jr., a mechanical engineer and selftaught chemist, in discovering that tetraethyl lead is an effective antiknocking agent for gasoline. Kettering decided that Frigidaire needed a new refrigerant gas for its
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas
household refrigerators, a material that would have the good thermal properties of methyl chloride or sulfur dioxide, but that would be nontoxic and nonexplosive. In early 1930, he sent Lester S. Keilholtz, chief engineer of the General Motors Frigidaire division, to Midgley, who was working at Dayton, Ohio, with the challenge to develop such a new gas. Midgley’s chemist associates Albert Leon Henne and Robert McNary researched what types of compounds might have been reported already that fit Kettering’s specifications. Apparently, an inaccuracy in a reference source made them think about compounds containing fluorine as possible refrigerants. The reference listed the boiling point of carbon tetrafluoride as –15 degrees Celsius, in the acceptable range for a refrigerant. When they checked other research articles, they found that the reference was incorrect; the actual boiling point was -127.8 degrees Celsius, far too low for the compound to be useful. That library search suggested, however, that the right compound might be found among carbon compounds containing both fluorine and chlorine. Only a few such compounds had been reported; the Belgian chemist Frédéric Swarts had done pioneering basic research on them in the late nineteenth and early
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Thomas Midgley, Jr. (Library of Congress)
twentieth centuries, but no applications had resulted. Midgley, Henne, and McNary worked with Swarts’s data and concluded from their calculations that dichlorodifluoromethane, a compound whose molecules each contain one carbon atom, two chlorine atoms, and two fluorine atoms, should have ideal thermal properties and the right boiling point for a refrigerant gas. The great unknown was the toxicity of such a compound; they would have to prepare it in order to test it. Preparation of the compound involved reaction between carbon tetrachloride (a common solvent used, at that time, in the dry-cleaning industry) and antimony trifluoride. The chemists prepared a few grams of dichlorodifluoromethane and put it, along with a guinea pig, into a closed chamber. They were delighted to see that the animal seemed to suffer no ill effects at all and was able to breathe and move normally. They were briefly puzzled when a second batch of the compound, made with another sample of antimony trifluoride, killed a second guinea pig almost instantly, but soon they discovered that an impurity in the antimony trifluoride had produced a potent poison in the refrigerant gas. A simple washing procedure completely removed the poisonous contaminant. Experiments confirmed their calculations: Dichlorodifluoromethane was ideally suited to be a refrigerant gas, being nontoxic, nonflammable, and possessing excellent thermal properties. Its boiling point of –5.6 degrees Celsius was in the required range. This astonishingly successful research project was completed in three days. A few months later, Midgley announced the discovery at a meeting of the American Chemical Society held in Atlanta, Georgia, in April, 1930. When Midgley was awarded the Perkin Medal for industrial chemistry in 1937, he gave the audience a graphic demonstration of the properties of dichlorodifluoromethane. He inhaled deeply of its vapors and exhaled gently into a jar containing a burning candle. The candle flame promptly went out. This provided visual evidence that dichlorodifluoromethane was not poisonous and would not burn. In order to produce the new refrigerant in commercial quantities, General Motors arranged to form a new company with Du Pont, which was the established supplier of sulfur dioxide to Frigidaire. The new product, dichlorodifluoromethane, was given the shorter trademarked name of Freon. The Du Pont laboratories undertook extensive toxicity testing, the results of which confirmed the safety of Freon, and Kinetic Chemicals arranged with the Interstate Commerce Commission to allow interstate transport of Freon and anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, which was needed to make Freon in large quantities.
Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas Within a year of the original discovery by Midgley and his associates, Freon was being manufactured and shipped not only to Frigidaire but also to most other major manufacturers of refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment. Significance Because of its desirable properties, Freon quickly became the preferred refrigerant gas for refrigerators and air conditioners. The availability of this safe refrigerant gas gave a major impetus to the production and sale of small and medium-sized refrigerators and freezers; it led to the patterns of food production, distribution, and consumption that became standard in the late twentieth century. Air-conditioning was developed early in the twentieth century for industries such as printing and pharmaceutical companies that needed climate control in factories. By 1930, a few theaters, motion-picture houses, and hospitals were air-conditioned. Freon made small, safe air conditioners practical for houses and automobiles. By the late 1970’s, most American cars and residences were equipped with air-conditioning, and automakers and housing designers in other countries with hot climates followed suit. Consequently, major relocations of populations and businesses became possible. After World War II, the U.S. population experienced steady migration to the Sun Belt—the states spanning the United States from southeast to southwest—because these areas became much more livable with air-conditioning. Dichlorodifluoromethane was later designated “Freon 12” to distinguish it from other chlorofluorocarbons. During World War II, when U.S. servicemen were fighting in areas where diseases such as malaria were endemic, there was a need for an easy way to spray insecticides. The aerosol can was invented for this purpose, and the propellant chosen was a Freon, because of its volatility and inertness. After the war, aerosols became popular, and spray cans were used to deliver paints, shaving cream, and many other products. A new product developed at the same time was foamed plastic—Styrofoam is a familiar example. Plastic foams are good insulators, especially when they are made with a Freon blowing agent; they are used in insulation for buildings, beverage cups, and other insulated containers. As a result of these novel applications, worldwide production of chlorofluorocarbons increased during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Production of Freon 12, for example, peaked at 473,000 tons in 1974. In 1974, scientists began to ask whether there might 2420
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
be a serious effect on the environment from the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the air. They speculated that, because these compounds were so unreactive, they would persist and slowly migrate into the stratosphere, where they might be decomposed by the intense ultraviolet light from the Sun, which does not reach Earth’s surface because it is absorbed by a thin, but vital, layer of ozone in the stratosphere. The decomposition products of the chlorofluorocarbons would include reactive free chlorine atoms, which are known to have the capability of destroying large amounts of ozone. Thus, in the judgment of the scientists who raised these questions, continued release of chlorofluorocarbons into the air could greatly reduce the ozone layer, permitting more ultraviolet radiation from the Sun to reach Earth’s surface. In addition to possible adverse climatic effects, this would raise the incidence of skin cancers, which can be initiated by overexposure of the skin to ultraviolet radiation. Impressed by the plausibility of these arguments, the Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons as aerosol propellants in the United States in 1978. They are being used still as refrigerant gases and as blowing agents for foamed plastics. International conferences on the environmental effects of chlorofluorocarbons have been held, and the major industrial nations have agreed to stop producing chlorofluorocarbons that are believed to affect the ozone layer. Chemical manufacturers have worked to develop alternative refrigerant gases that are slightly broken down by sunlight in the lower portions of the atmosphere so that they will not survive to interfere with ozone in the stratosphere. —Harold Goldwhite Further Reading Anderson, Oscar Edward. Refrigeration in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1953. Valuable survey of the history of refrigeration in the United States devotes eight chapters to changes between the pre- and post-Freon eras. Benarde, Melvin A. Our Precarious Habitat: Fifteen Years Later. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989. Assesses environmental risk factors, including chlorofluorocarbons, and their potential impact on human health. Presents a reasonably balanced, nontechnical discussion. Christie, Maureen. The Ozone Layer: A Philosophy of Science Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Presents the history of human knowledge about stratospheric ozone in a manner accessible
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to lay readers. Includes brief discussion of the impact of refrigerants on the ozone layer. Haynes, Williams. “Thomas Midgley, Jr.” In Great Chemists, edited by Eduard Farber. New York: Interscience, 1961. Detailed biography of Midgley by a major contributor to the history of industrial chemistry in the United States. Includes accounts of Midgley’s life and of his major discoveries. Parson, Edward A. Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Comprehensive technical discussion of efforts to protect the ozone layer undertaken through international cooperation. Includes information about refrigerants. Schufle, Joseph A. “Thomas Midgley, Jr.” In American Chemists and Chemical Engineers, edited by Wyndham D. Miles. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1976. Brief biography of Midgley
Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia focuses on his chemical discoveries and training. Spiro, Thomas G., and William M. Stigliani. Environmental Issues in Chemical Perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980. Presents a moderately technical, balanced view of the chlorofluorocarbon problem. Thevenot, Roger. A History of Refrigeration Throughout the World. Translated by J. C. Fidler. Paris: International Institute of Refrigeration, 1979. Broad overview of refrigeration worldwide, with major sections on the changes brought about by the introduction of Freons. See also: Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner; 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced; May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex; 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods.
April 2, 1930
Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie (born Tafari Makonnen) emerged as the undisputed ruler of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, beginning a forty-four-year reign interrupted by war and exile that ended in a Marxist coup. Haile Selassie’s ascension to the Ethiopian throne marked the end of feudal decentralization and the emergence of a relatively modern and centralized national government dominated by an absolute monarch. Locale: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Category: Government and politics
Summary of Event On November 2, 1930, Tafari Makonnen was formally crowned emperor of Ethiopia. Following the tradition in which Ethiopian monarchs take a new name following their coronation, Makonnen adopted a new name, Haile Selassie (which means “power of the trinity”). Affixed to this name was the customary title for Ethiopian emperors: king of kings, conquering lion of Judah and the elect of God. Although an ascension to the Solomonic throne had always been an occasion of great celebration, the pomp and weeklong extravaganza that followed Haile Selassie’s coronation was probably the most splendid in Ethiopian history. In a way, this event was skillfully staged by Haile Selassie to help him achieve several political objectives. First and foremost, the new emperor used the occasion to send a clear message to his own people that the old feudal order, in which power was shared among a number of competing grandees, had been replaced by a new centralized bureaucratic system under the authority of a strong monarch. The ceremony provided Haile Selassie an opportunity to demonstrate his 2421
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Key Figures Haile Selassie I (Tafari Makonnen; 1892-1975), emperor of Ethiopia, r. 1930-1974 Zauditu (Zawditu; 1876-1930), empress of Ethiopia, r. 1916-1930, under whom Tafari served as regent and heir apparent Menelik II (1844-1913), the architect of modern Ethiopia, r. 1889-1913 Lij Iyasu (1896-1935), grandson of Emperor Menelik and successor to the Ethiopian throne, deposed in 1916 Ras Makonnen (1852-1906), father of Tafari and governor of Harar province Fitawrari Habte Giorgis (d. 1926), Ethiopian minister of war and a staunch supporter of the old order
Ras Gugsa Welle (1887-1930), Empress Zauditu’s husband and governor of Begemdir who continued to resist Tafari’s power until his death in battle in March of 1930
Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
own elevated position and the diminished status of the traditional nobility, who were required to attend the event literally at the feet of the emperor. Haile Selassie also used the occasion to win recognition and respect for the “new” Ethiopia that he had labored to create during the first two decades of the twentieth century, when he was still a regent. Although Ethiopia had successfully fended off European imperialism, its survival as the only independent African state was continuously challenged. Britain, France, and Italy, whose empires completely surrounded Ethiopia and had completely cut the country off from the sea, were not fully reconciled to the idea of Ethiopian independence. The coronation pageantry was designed to maximize international publicity for Ethiopia and its new ruler, and the ceremony was delayed for seven months after the death of the previous ruler, Empress Zauditu, to ensure the largest possible number of foreign representatives. Meticulous preparations were carried out to impress foreign dignitaries and the hundreds of journalists who came to Addis Ababa from all over the world. Several of the leading nations of Europe and North America sent representatives to the coronation. Haile Selassie had been patiently preparing for this
Ethiopia, 1930 Saudi Arabia
Red Sea Massawa Asmara
Khartoum
Er i Adowa t r
Mekele
ea
AngloEgyptian Sudan
French Somaliland
Djibouti British Somaliland
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Asela
So Ita ma li lil an an d
Goba
day ever since he was chosen as regent and heir apparent in 1917, when the youthful but reckless Lij Iyasu was overthrown and Empress Zauditu was placed on the throne. A grandnephew of Emperor Menelik II and the son of Ras Makonnen, Tafari was perhaps the most progressive and agile politician in the capital when he was appointed regent. He made himself the power behind the throne by effectively isolating the empress and moving shrewdly and decisively against the bulwarks of the old system. The death of the minister of war and powerful lord Fitawrari Habte Giorgis in 1926 and the removal of Dejazmach Balcha Saffo from power in 1928 brought Tafari close to the pinnacle of power. The defeat and death in March of 1930 of Ras Gugsa Welle, Empress Zauditu’s husband and the last paragon of the old guards, removed the last obstacle to the consolidation of Tafari’s personal power. The empress died two days later, leaving Tafari as the undisputed master of the Ethiopian throne on April 2, 1930. Once he secured the throne, Haile Selassie continued to push his program to create a unitary state—the dream of all Ethiopian emperors since the mid-nineteenth century. Haile Selassie placed loyal supporters in key government positions and provincial posts, and he banned the regional lords from importing arms or maintaining armies outside the central government’s command. As a result, the central government monopolized key sources of revenue. These efforts to centralize the state and consolidate Haile Selassie’s autocratic control were greatly assisted by the selected program of modernization, and new schools opened to produce the next generation of state cadres. A new constitution providing a legal framework for the consolidation of the emperor’s absolute power was proclaimed in 1931. These reforms were, however, interrupted by the Italian invasion of the country in 1935. After the disastrous defeat of his army at the Battle of Maichew in April of 1936, the emperor fled into exile in England, where he remained until the end of Indian 1940. The outbreak of World War II provided Haile Selassie with a fresh Ocean opportunity to win British military support and to join his warriors, who
Uganda (brit.)
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Kenya (brit.)
Mogadishu
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 had continued the resistance against fascist Italy. Haile Selassie regained his throne on May 5, 1941, and once again resumed his attempts to modernize the country and aggrandize his personal power. Despite his apparent success in changing the country’s traditional institutions and his enormous international standing, these changes were not fundamental enough to transform the country. The emperor lacked the commitment to meet the growing expectations that his own reforms had engendered.
Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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Significance The coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie was one of the most pivotal events in the history of modern Ethiopia. It heralded the political demise of the hereditary nobility that had hithEmperor Haile Selassie I (right) with an interpreter in February, 1941, during his exerto limited the power of the monarile. (AP/Wide World Photos) chy. Haile Selassie transformed Ethiopia from an antiquated feudal polity into a relatively modern and centralemperor’s autobiography is particularly interesting ized bureaucratic state. He carried out a series of reforms for its vivid description of the coronation ceremony. that gave the country the facade of modernity. UnfortuHenze, Paul. Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia. New nately for Ethiopia, most of these reforms were carried York: Palgrave, 2000. A readable general work that out selectively, with the view of aggrandizing the emhas utilized some of the most important contemporary peror’s personal power and prestige both at home and accounts to provide an interesting description of the abroad. As time passed, the emperor grew more isolated rise of Haile Selassie and the transformation of the and detached from the many complex problems that beEthiopian polity in the twentieth century. set the country in the second half of the twentieth cenMarcus, Harold. A History of Ethiopia. Berkeley: Unitury. Few were surprised when, in 1974, the emperor versity of California Press, 1994. One of the best stanwho had wielded absolute power for half a century was dard works on Ethiopia by an author with a profound overthrown by a military coup led by junior officers. grasp of Ethiopian history. Haile Selassie died in detention on August 27, 1975; Spencer, John H. Ethiopia at Bay: A Personal Account of some said he was killed by a military junta. the Haile Sellassie Years. Algonac, Mich.: Reference —Shumet Sishagne Publications, 1987. An intimate account of Haile Further Reading Selassie’s personality and style of rule by an AmeriBahru Zewde. A History of Modern Ethiopia. London: can adviser who worked with the emperor and his James Currey, 1991. One of the most authoritative ministers beginning in the 1930’s. works on modern Ethiopia. Provides succinct analySee also: Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebelsis of the development of the absolutist state under lion; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Emperor Haile Selassie. Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Aug. 3, Haile Selassie. My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress, 18921940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland; 1937. Edited and translated by Edward Ullendorff. Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1976. The
Canadian National Parks Act
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 30, 1930
Canadian National Parks Act The Canadian National Parks Act of 1930 removed the nation’s national parks from the authority of the Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act and stated that the parks should be used but preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. Locale: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; environmental issues Key Figures James Bernard Harkin (1875-1955), first Canadian commissioner of national parks William Wallace Cory (1865-1943), Canadian deputy minister of the interior John Edward Brownlee (1884-1961), premier of Alberta, 1925-1934 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Summary of Event The National Parks Act of 1930 changed the purpose of Canada’s existing national parks. Previously, the parks had been areas in which resource exploitation was encouraged; after the act, the parks became places to be preserved for future generations. Between 1887 and the passage of the legislation in 1930, fourteen national parks had been established. In addition to removing the parks from the authority of the Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act, the National Parks Act also stated that only an act of Parliament could establish a new park or change the boundaries of existing parks. The act resulted from compromise among national ministries and the provinces. It was passed concurrently with the Manitoba Natural Resources Act, the Saskatchewan National Resources Act, the Alberta Natural Resources Act, and the Railway Belt and Peace River Block Act. These acts transferred natural resources within the boundaries of their respective provinces from the national government to the provinces themselves. With this legislation, land, including valuable resources that had been contained within some already existing national parks, was given to the provinces, and new national park boundaries were drawn. Canada’s first national park had been established in 1887 in Banff, Alberta, as Rocky Mountains Park. The park owed its origins to transcontinental railroad work2424
ers who discovered hot springs in the area in 1883. The area and the springs were recognized as a natural treasure, valuable for sanitary purposes (the mineral baths) and as a potential tourist attraction, and therefore worthy of protection for all Canadians. The Canadian government officially preserved the springs and the surrounding land in a series of steps that led to the Rocky Mountains Park Act of June 23, 1887, establishing this first national park. Although the park’s primary purpose was to promote tourism and recreation, another major objective was to use the wilderness for economic development. Mining, grazing, and lumbering were allowed with permission from the minister of the interior, but preservation was encouraged by prohibiting activities that would inhibit public enjoyment and recreation. The establishment of Rocky Mountains Park encouraged members of Parliament and officials of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the builder of the transcontinental railroad, to act to preserve other lands of western Canada. The five preservations established from 1887 to 1895 would later become the national parks of Yoho, Kootenay, Glacier, Waterton Lakes, and Mount Revelstoke. The development of these early reserves and parks was intertwined with legislation passed by the Canadian parliament, including the Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act of 1911. This law provided for the administration of forest reserves and dominion (national) parks and allowed dominion parks to be established from forest reserves. The Dominion Parks Service, created as a new branch in the Department of the Interior, became the first distinct bureau of national parks in the world. James Bernard Harkin served as the organization’s commissioner from its inception in 1911 until 1936. Harkin worked not only to separate the administration of the parks from that of the forests but also to emphasize resource preservation. Deputy Minister of the Interior William Wallace Cory called for the drafting of legislation changing the administration of the parks. The legislation included giving the proposed new park branch exclusive control of all waters in the parks. The debate over water control continued through the 1920’s. The proposed national parks bill required the permission of Parliament to dispose of any resources within the parks. Because the Canadian government was planning to transfer to the provinces natural resources found within the provinces but outside the national parks, the bound-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 aries of the parks became critical. The premier of Alberta, John Edward Brownlee, suggested that the parks be surveyed to identify natural resources necessary for the industrial development of the province. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King agreed. In the summers of 1927 and 1928, Deputy Minister of the Interior R. W. Cautley traveled through Rocky Mountains Park and Jasper Park, and he suggested removing valuable commercial areas from the parks and giving them to the province. In its final form, the National Parks Act of 1930 dedicated the parks to the benefit, education, and enjoyment of the people of Canada and stated that the parks should be maintained to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The act also changed the name of Rocky Mountains Park to Banff National Park. Its boundaries and those of Jasper National Park were changed, removing economically valuable waterbeds, grazing lands, and other resources, including coal. The act stated that the lands and minerals within the boundaries of the parks belonged to and would be administered by the federal government. Animals, plants, and minerals were to be protected, and violators would be subject to legal action, but the rights of holders of existing mineral grants were not rescinded. Provincial taxes would apply within the parks. The act permitted, under government regulation, the granting of leases in town sites for lots for residence and
Canadian National Parks Act trade, as well as for the provision of public works and utilities. The national parks were to be places where plants and animals could be protected but also places where human beings could live and work. The act expanded the role of the national parks by permitting the establishment of national historic parks to commemorate historic events and to preserve historic landmarks or any object deemed to be of national importance. The act also abolished three national parks—Fort Howe, Mennissawok, and Vidal’s Point—which were considered unworthy of national park status and were returned to their local governments.
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Significance The full impact of the National Parks Act of 1930 was limited until the 1960’s. Federal appropriations for the national parks declined sharply with the Great Depression and World War II. Federal funds were, however, used for unemployment relief projects, including highway, building, and campground construction in the western parks. From 1930 to 1969, four parks were established: Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia in 1936, Prince Edward Island in 1937, Fundy in New Brunswick in 1948, and Terra Nova in Newfoundland in 1957. The legislation that had been passed concurrently with the National Parks Act allowing transfer of natural resource ownership to the provinces led to new policies in park formation in the western provinces. It slowed establishment of new national parks because the provincial governments had to agree to all transfers of control and administration to the federal government, and the provinces and the national government did not always To view image, please refer to the have the same needs or goals. The print edition of this title. change in transfer policy did, however, lead to the development of provincial park systems in the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Prior to passage of the act, only the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia had provincial parks. With land set aside as national parks, natural resources outside the parks could be extracted, thus helping the economic development of the A campsite near Banff, Alberta, in the 1940’s. Canada’s first national park was estabcountry. The resources inside the lished in 1887 in Banff as Rocky Mountains Park. (AP/Wide World Photos) parks remained attractive, however,
Canadian National Parks Act perpetuating decades of conflict over the relative values of preservation and exploitation of natural resources. Many of the national parks operated more as recreation areas than as areas of natural conservation, however, and the law was modified in later years to address the concerns of preservationists. Since the act of 1930, Canada has formed more than twenty new national parks or national park reserves, spanning all ten provinces and the two northern territories. Conflicts in management and long-range planning remain. Although the lands within the parks are protected from development, many parks contain towns and the concomitant human activities and natural disruptions. Many parks have highways running through them. The highways bring visitors and serve as vital components of major transportation routes. In the northern parks, indigenous peoples are permitted to use resources as part of their traditional ways of life. Regardless of what activities are prohibited within the parks, the lands outside are sometimes areas of resource development. Activities such as logging and mining affect wildlife and contribute to air and water pollution within and around the parks. Since its passage, the act has been responsible not only for the creation of more federal parks but also for the growth of provincial parks and preserves. National parks cover more than 220,000 square kilometers of Canada. The act’s emphasis on resource preservation over resource use continued and expanded after 1930. As wilderness in the parks became threatened, the act was amended to permit the designation of wilderness areas within national parks. Within these areas, visitor activities and facilities were designed to be compatible with wilderness and thus were fairly primitive. Motor access was not allowed. In reflection of the need to save wilderness, four mountain national parks—Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, and Yoho—merged to compose the Rocky Mountain World Heritage Site, one of several areas around the world affording special natural protection. Without the National Parks Act, much of Canada’s natural beauty would not have been protected from development or preserved for future generations. Its influence continues, both in Canada and around the world. —Margaret F. Boorstein Further Reading Bella, Leslie. “John A. Macdonald’s Realism Saved Banff.” Canadian Geographic 97 (October, 1978): 20-27. Traces the history of Banff from its origins to the late 1970’s. Traces the effects of the National Parks Act of 1930 and of government actions during 2426
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the 1960’s and 1970’s on the entire national park system. Discusses how the doctrine of usefulness has been involved in national park policy. Eidsvik, Harold K., and William D. Henwood. “Canada.” In International Handbook of National Parks and Nature Preserves, edited by Craig W. Allin. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. An excellent review of the history of national parks in Canada. Discusses the impact of the National Parks Act of 1930 on the evolution of the park system and examines issues facing the parks. Lothian, William Fergus. A Brief History of Canada’s National Parks. Ottawa, Ont.: Parks Canada, 1987. Provides fascinating details about the evolution and growth of the Canadian national parks. The book discusses the history of individual parks and contains tremendous amounts of information, including many noteworthy names and dates. Photographs illustrating the early days of the parks enhance the book. _________. History of Canada’s National Parks. Vol. 2. Ottawa, Ont.: Parks Canada, 1977. One part of a fourvolume series providing a detailed account of the history of Canadian national parks. Extremely useful in providing information not easily available elsewhere. Nicol, John I. “The National Parks Movement in Canada.” In Canadian Parks in Perspective, edited by J. G. Nelson. Montreal: Harvest House, 1969. Provides a succinct history of the national parks movement and of national parks in Canada from 1867 to 1968. Discusses the situation and problems in the parks in the 1960’s and suggests new policy for Canadian parks and outdoor recreation as a whole. Searle, Rick. Phantom Parks: The Struggle to Save Canada’s National Parks. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2000. Details the status of Canada’s national parks at the turn of the twenty-first century, including threats to the parks and measures designed to preserve them. Bibliographic references and index. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve; Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created; Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Manned Bathysphere Dives
June 6, 1930-August 27, 1934
First Manned Bathysphere Dives William Beebe and Otis Barton pioneered the exploration of the ocean depths, contributed to the knowledge of deep-sea life, and provided a model for the further development of deep-sea diving vehicles and for the scientific observation of the seas. Locale: Atlantic Ocean, near Bermuda Categories: Science and technology; earth science; exploration and discovery Key Figures William Beebe (1877-1962), American naturalist and curator of ornithology Otis Barton (b. 1899), American engineer John Tee-Van (1897-1967), general associate with the New York Zoological Society Gloria Hollister Anable (c. 1901-1988), research associate with the New York Zoological Society Jocelyn Crane Griffin (1909-1988), technical associate with the New York Zoological Society Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor (1875-1966), National Geographic Society director, 1899-1966, president, 1920-1954, and chairman, 1954-1966
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Summary of Event The first half of the twentieth century was an age of exploration. On land, both the North and South Poles were conquered, and the most remote portions of Africa, Asia, and South America were revealed to explorers, paleontologists, and archaeologists. In the air, humans traveled in airplanes and dirigibles and assaulted the heights of the atmosphere in balloons. Until the 1930’s, however, the vast depths of the oceans remained largely unexplored. People did know something of the oceans’ depths. Soundings and nettings of the ocean bottom had been made many times since the 1870’s. Diving helmets had allowed humans to descend more than 90 meters below the surface, and the submarine allowed them to reach a depth of nearly 120 meters. There was no firsthand knowledge, however, of the deepest reaches of the submarine world. The person who gave the world the first account of life at the great depths was William Beebe. When he announced in 1926 that he was attempting to build a craft to explore the ocean, he was already a well-known naturalist. Although his only advanced degrees were honorary doctorates, Beebe had graduated as a special student in
the Department of Zoology of Columbia University in 1898. He had begun his lifelong association with the New York Zoological Society in 1899. His first specialty had been in ornithology, and he had made his name in that field through a four-volume monograph on pheasants, which he studied in the field for many years. The events of his many trips and expeditions were recounted in a number of popular books and articles. It was during a trip to the Galápagos Islands that Beebe turned his attention to oceanography. He became the first scientist to use a diving helmet in fieldwork, swimming in the shallow waters. He continued this shallow-water work at the new station he established in 1928, with the permission of English authorities, on the tiny island of Nonesuch in the Bermudas. Beebe realized, however, that he had reached the limits of the current technology and that studying the animal life of the ocean depths would require a new approach. While he was considering various cylindrical designs for a new deep-sea exploratory craft, Beebe was introduced to Otis Barton. Barton, a young New Englander who had been trained as an engineer at Harvard University, had turned to the problems of ocean diving while doing postgraduate work at Columbia University. Although he had begun designing a spherical diving device as early as 1926, the reports of Beebe’s forthcoming attempts temporarily dissuaded Barton from pursuing its development. By December, 1928, however, Barton had heard nothing further of Beebe’s work, so he brought his blueprints to Beebe. Beebe immediately saw that Barton’s design was what he was looking for, and the two went ahead with its construction. The bathysphere, as Beebe named the device, weighed 5,000 pounds, with a diameter of 1.45 meters and steel walls 3.8 centimeters thick. The door, weighing 400 pounds, would be fastened over a manhole with ten bolts. Four windows, made of fused quartz at the suggestion of Edwin Elway Free, a New York physicist and lecturer, were ordered from the General Electric Company at a cost of five hundred dollars each. A 250-watt water spotlight, loaned by the Westinghouse Company, provided exterior illumination, and a telephone, loaned from the Bell Telephone Laboratory, provided the means for communicating with the surface. The breathing apparatus consisted of two oxygen tanks that allowed two liters of oxygen per minute to escape into the sphere. During the dive, carbon dioxide and moisture were removed from
First Manned Bathysphere Dives the interior by a tray containing, respectively, soda lime and calcium chloride. A winch using steel cable would lower the bathysphere. On June 3, 1930, Beebe and Barton tested the completed bathysphere. They lowered the unmanned craft to a depth of 610 meters. When the craft was raised, the communications line was tangled around the cable. An unperceived twisting had occurred in transferring the cable from its original spool onto the winch, and this twisting undid itself under water. Three days later, a second unmanned test dive was made. This time, all went well, and only about a quart of water had seeped into the sphere when it returned from a depth of 457 meters. Thus, at 1:00 p.m. on June 6, the first manned dive commenced. Beebe and Barton descended to a depth of 244 meters. A small leak had started through the door at 91 meters, but it was no worse than during the test dive. A short circuit in one of the switches showered them with sparks momentarily, but the descent was largely a success. Beebe and Barton had descended farther than had any human before. Two more days of diving yielded more minor inconveniences and a final dive record of 435 meters below sea level. On these dives, Beebe and the other members of his staff (ichthyologist John Tee-Van and zoologist Gloria Hollister Anable) saw many species of fish and other marine life that previously had been seen only after being caught in nets. These first dives proved that an undersea exploratory craft had potential value, at least for deep water. Beebe’s group, joined by a new associate, Jocelyn Crane Griffin, set out once again with the bathysphere in the fall of 1932. Two unmanned test dives initially yielded only a bathysphere full of cold seawater: A new window had been improperly installed. After draining the craft and fixing the window, the group prepared for another round of manned dives. The most dramatic of the dives came on September 22. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) had arranged to do a live broadcast on a Sunday afternoon. The first attempts had to be postponed because of weather and other technical problems, but on that afternoon, even though the seas would normally have been too rough, Beebe and Barton made a descent. The last several hundred meters of the descent were carried live, and a large audience heard Beebe’s conversation with Anable. Several new species of fish were tentatively identified. A new depth record was set at 671 meters; Beebe decided to come up at that point because of the buffeting the bathysphere was taking as the mother ship was tossed by waves. After the 1932 dives, the 2428
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 bathysphere went on display at the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago. In late 1933, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society, offered to sponsor another series of dives. Although a new record was not a stipulation of sponsorship, Beebe was determined to set one. Beebe still considered the primary purpose of the dives to be scientific. He had thought to include cosmic ray analysis experiments on the dives, but Robert Andrews Millikan, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, responded to his queries by saying that the bathysphere would not be submerged long enough for any useful data to be obtained. Similarly, spectrographic data could not be gathered because the smallest spectroscope could not fit through the door of the bathysphere. The bathysphere was completely refitted before the new dives. Again, many companies donated the equipment Beebe needed. Notable was a more modern breathing apparatus donated by the Air Reduction Company. The outer sphere also was altered. An unmanned test dive to 920 meters was made on August 7, 1934, once again off Nonesuch Island. Minor adjustments were made, and on the morning of August 11, the first manned dive commenced, attaining a depth of 765 meters and recording a number of new scientific observations. Several days later, on August 15, the weather was again right for a dive. This dive also paid rich dividends in the number of species of deep-sea life observed. Finally, with only a few turns of cable left on the winch spool, a record depth of 923 meters—almost a kilometer below the ocean’s surface—was attained. The ascent was marred by the breaking of a guy rope used to spool the incoming cable, but this was scarcely noticed by Beebe and Barton. Later dives included the other members of the group. Anable descended to a depth of 368 meters, a record for a woman. Griffin reached a depth of 351 meters. Tee-Van descended to 457 meters on August 27, 1934. After these dives, Beebe turned his focus to shallow-water dives in the Pacific Ocean. Significance The work of Beebe and Barton with the bathysphere marked both an end and a beginning. It marked an end in the sense that although it showed that undersea exploration was a scientifically profitable enterprise, it also pointed out the limitations of the bathysphere in pursuing that enterprise. Beebe had originally sought to build a new exploration craft because he saw the limitations of what was then the best method of exploration: the
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First Manned Bathysphere Dives
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rigid diving suit or diving helmet. Although the bathysphere solved the immediate problems of diver mobility and depth limitations, it did not cut the “umbilical cord”—the bathysphere was still dependent on a surface vessel. Further, there were inherent problems with the basic design. The bathysphere had no fail-safe conTo view image, please refer to the tingency should the sphere become print edition of this title. separated from the cable. The danger of such a catastrophic failure was always a possibility. Technologically, the bathysphere was near its design limits: The deeper one went, the more steel cable was needed; the more cable that was needed, the heavier the combined weight of the cable and bathysphere, thus calling for larger and larger winches and mother ships and raising the cost of the expedition. The inability to maneuver horizontally also limited the bathysphere’s William Beebe (left) and John Tee-Van in November, 1934, with the bathysphere in scientific effectiveness. which Beebe plunged to record ocean depths. (AP/Wide World Photos) Barton continued to work on the bathysphere design for some years. It was not until 1948, however, that cabin was attached beneath a large float filled with gasohis new design, the benthoscope, was finally constructed. line for buoyancy. Several tons of iron pellets held by It was similar in basic design to the bathysphere, but electromagnets acted as ballast. The bathyscaphe would the walls were strengthened to withstand greater pressink slowly to the bottom of the ocean, and when its passures. Other improvements were made, but the essential sengers wished to return to the surface, the ballast would strengths and weaknesses of the original bathysphere rebe dumped. Although bathyscaphes were constructed bemained. On August 16, 1949, Barton, diving alone, fore the benthoscope in 1948, early tests were partial failbroke the record he and Beebe had set fifteen years earures. In 1953, however, both the French navy’s FNRS-3 lier, reaching a depth of 1,372 meters off Santa Cruz Isunder the command of Georges Houot and Pierre-Henri land in Southern California. Willm and the Trieste under the command of Piccard and The bathysphere effectively marked the end of the his son Jacques set new records. On August 14, Houot tethered exploration of the deep, but it pointed the way to and Willm dove to 2,099 meters without touching botother possibilities: In 1943, Jacques Cousteau and Émile tom off Provençal. The Piccards touched bottom off Gagnan developed the Aqualung underwater breathing Capri on September 30, some 3,000 meters below the apparatus, allowing unfettered and largely unencumsurface. bered exploration down to about 60 meters. This was by Finally, spheres of any kind were surpassed by imno means deep-sea diving, but the development of true proved submarines designed for deep-sea exploration. A shallow-water mobility was clearly a step along the lines craft that existed when Beebe began his deep-sea rethat Beebe had envisioned for underwater research. search became the design that would ultimately conquer A further step came in the development of the bathythe ocean’s depths. It cannot be denied, however, that all scaphe by Auguste Piccard, the renowned Swiss physiof these further attempts owed something to the couracist who, in the 1930’s, conquered the stratosphere in geous and scientific spirit of Beebe and Barton. high-altitude balloons. The bathyscaphe itself was a bal— George R. Ehrhardt loon but operated in reverse. A spherical steel passenger
Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act Further Reading Barton, Otis. The World Beneath the Sea. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1953. Barton tells the story of his life from shortly before his first meeting with Beebe up to the period after his record-setting dive. The account is heavy with anecdotes and opinions and should be used only to supplement Beebe’s account (cited below). Photographs. Beebe, William. Half Mile Down. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934. Beebe’s definitive popular account of the dives, some of which had been published earlier in National Geographic and other popular magazines. Includes technical appendixes by Barton, Tee-Van, Anable, and Griffin, as well as photographs, illustrations, and an index. Gould, Carol Grant. The Remarkable Life of William Beebe: Explorer and Naturalist. Washington, D.C.: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2004. Exhaustive study of the life and career of Beebe, from his early work as a naturalist, through his deep-sea explorations, to his later jungle expeditions. Bibliographic references and index. Guberlet, Muriel L. Explorers of the Sea: Famous Oceanographic Expeditions. New York: Ronald Press, 1964. Popular, episodic account of a number of ocean explorers, loosely defined. A bit too enthusiastic, but a good story. Bibliography and an index. Matsen, Brad. Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. Recounts
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the design, construction, and expeditions of Beebe and Barton’s bathysphere. Bibliographic references and index. Piccard, Jacques, and Robert S. Dietz. Seven Miles Down: The Story of the Bathyscaph Trieste. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1961. Piccard, pilot on all dives of the Trieste and son of its inventor, and Dietz, the first American to make a dive in the bathyscaphe, tell the story of the dives made from 1948 to 1960. Useful for comparisons between the crafts and their descents. Photographs and an index. Soule, Gardner. The Greatest Depths: Probing the Seas to Twenty Thousand Feet and Below. Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1970. A popular account, written by a reporter, that covers all aspects of deep-sea study. Quotes freely from many other works and includes a few interesting comments from Beebe’s second wife. Photographs, bibliography, and an index. Welker, Robert Henry. Natural Man: The Life of William Beebe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. An unconventional biography of Beebe that delves into critical analysis. Indispensable for understanding Beebe. Scholarly, but very readable. Photographs, notes, and an index. See also: Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched; 1907: Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers; Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare; Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar.
June 17, 1930
Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act raised protectionist tariffs in the United States. It sparked foreign retaliation against American products and helped bring on a temporary collapse of the international trading system, exacerbating the financial troubles caused by the onset of the Great Depression. Also known as: Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; trade and commerce Key Figures Willis C. Hawley (1864-1941), U.S. representative from Oregon, 1907-1932, and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, 1927-1930 2430
Reed Smoot (1862-1941), U.S. senator from Utah, 1903-1932, and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, 1923-1932 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, 19351948 Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), Canadian leader of the Conservative Party, 1927-1938, and prime minister, 1930-1935 Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), prime minister of Great Britain, 1924, 1929-1935 Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), prime minister of Great Britain, 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937
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formally as the Hawley-Smoot bill after its two congressional sponsors, Willis C. Hawley of Oregon—the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee— and Reed Smoot of Utah, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Hawley’s name came first in the bill’s formal name because he was the first to introduce it, but given Smoot’s greater political prominence, the measure was more popularly known as the SmootHawley bill. Despite Smoot’s sponsorship of the bill, the Senate was much slower to act on it than the House had been, and the special session of Congress concluded in November without the passage of a new tariff law. When Congress reconvened in April, 1930, a compromise was worked out. The final version of the bill passed in Congress on June 14. The final version of the bill achieved passage in the House fairly easily, by a vote of 222 to 153. It was largely a party-line vote, with 208 Republicans voting for the bill and only 20 against it; 133 Democrats voted against the bill, and only 14 voted for it. The vote in the Senate was much closer—44 to 42 for passage—as a group of eleven so-called Republican Insurgents led by Senators William E. Borah, George W. Norris, and Robert M. La Follette voted against the bill. Because the increase in tariff rates embodied in the bill went well beyond Hoover’s initial call for an increase in agricultural duties, there was some hope among the bill’s opponents that the president might veto it. Among those arguing in favor of a veto were prominent members of the banking and financial community, some leading industrialists (including Henry Ford), the editors of many prominent newspapers (including The New York Times), and, perhaps most famously, a group of more than one thousand economists who signed a petition urging a veto. Prominent among those arguing in favor of signing the bill were most farm organizations and the American Federation of Labor. Hoover’s decision to sign the bill was probably most dependent on three considerations. First, as his statements during the 1928 presidential campaign had made clear, he had a strongly protectionist philosophy. Second, he doubted that a better bill could be procured from Congress, and he believed that the failure to pass any tariff bill would be seen, particularly by farmers, as a failure to carry through on an important campaign promise. Finally, he managed to get included in the bill a provision allowing the U.S. Tariff Commission to modify tariff duties in the future. Hoover expected that this provision would put an effective end to congressional tariff making. Hoover signed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act into 2431
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Summary of Event The Hawley-Smoot Tariff raised average U.S. tariff rates by approximately 18 percent. The largest increases were on agricultural products, on which average tariff rates increased by about 57 percent. President Herbert Hoover’s signing of the tariff bill on June 17, 1930, climaxed a political struggle that had lasted more than a year. Proponents of higher tariff rates had hoped in particular to give relief to farmers, whose incomes generally had lagged during the prosperity of the 1920’s. More generally, they hoped that protection from foreign competition would allow U.S. producers to avoid production cutbacks and layoffs as the Great Depression began to unfold. Opponents of higher tariffs had three main concerns. First, they feared that higher tariffs would end up protecting inefficient domestic producers and thereby result in higher prices for consumers. Second, they were afraid that an increase in U.S. tariffs would spark foreign retaliation, hurting the U.S. export sector. Finally, opponents were afraid that if the United States reduced its purchases of goods from other countries (particularly in Europe) that were heavily indebted to the United States, then it would become difficult for those countries to continue to make payments on their debt. The result might be the undermining of the international financial system. While serving as secretary of commerce during the Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge administrations, Hoover had become known as a strong proponent of protective tariffs. The 1928 Republican Party platform called for increased duties on agricultural products, and Hoover made this promise a central part of his presidential campaign. Although Hoover himself did not come out in favor of a general increase in tariff rates, he did state during the campaign that the United States should confine its imports largely to those products that could not be produced domestically. This position makes more understandable Hoover’s eventual willingness to accept a general increase in tariff rates. Shortly after assuming office, Hoover called a special session of Congress to convene on April 15, 1929, for the express purpose of raising tariff duties on agricultural products. Because it was a measure dealing with revenue, the bill the president required was constitutionally required to originate in the House of Representatives. The House quickly passed a tariff bill raising agricultural duties as the president wished. As a result of political trading during the legislative process, the bill contained substantial increases in duties on nonagricultural products as well. The bill was known
Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act
Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act law on June 17, and the law went into effect with the new fiscal year that began on July 1, 1930. Hoover, Smoot, Hawley, and their proponents hoped that the tariff act would lead to increased income and employment in the United States. This hope was dependent on other nations failing to respond to the measure in kind, and as a result it was not realized. At the time Hoover took office, the Canadian government, under Liberal prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, was committed to lower tariffs. There is some reason to believe that King might have planned to include tariff reductions in his budget announcement of March, 1929, but this possibility was foreclosed by anticipation of Hoover’s announcement of the special session of Congress to consider tariff increases. As time passed and the likelihood of general tariff increases in the United States increased, King came under increasing pressure from Conservative Party leader Richard Bedford Bennett. Bennett argued in favor of using tariffs to shift Canada’s economic relations away from the United States and toward the British Empire. In a widely publicized speech in November, 1929, King warned that if tariff increases adversely affecting Canada were passed by the U.S. Congress, some reaction would surely follow. King still hoped either that no new tariff bill would make it through Congress or that if one did pass, Hoover would somehow manage to shield Canada from its worst effects. By the spring of 1930, King felt obliged to include in his budget tariff adjustments that reflected the changing political realities. The duties on 270 goods imported from within the British Empire were reduced, and there were small increases in duties on certain imports from the United States. The budget included countervailing duties on 16 products, under which the Canadian duty would be raised to match any increase in duties on those products levied by other countries. Perhaps buoyed by the initially favorable domestic response to the new budget, King announced that a general election would be held in July. Most observers believed the key issue in the campaign to be the proper Canadian response to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. Bennett accused the United States of attempting to steal the jobs of Canadian workers through tariff increases and reiterated his view that Canada should adjust its tariff structure so as to encourage trade with other countries in the British Empire at the expense of the United States. On the defensive, King attempted to play up what he claimed was the alarm in the United States over the mild tariff increases enacted by Canada in May. 2432
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Although many expected the election to be close, the Conservatives won a large victory, securing their only majority in the Canadian parliament in any election between 1911 and 1958. The key to the size of the Conservatives’ victory was their unexpectedly strong showing in Quebec, where resentment against increased U.S. duties on dairy products was very strong, and in the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, where increased U.S. duties on wheat led to a strong political reaction. Once in power, Bennett fulfilled his promise to increase duties on U.S. products and reorient Canadian trade toward the British Empire. The reaction of the British government and public to Hawley-Smoot is somewhat difficult to disentangle from general developments in British politics at the time. From the middle of the nineteenth century, Britain had been strongly committed to free trade. As the Great Depression began, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s Labor government attempted to maintain this commitment to free trade. Rising unemployment, however, helped reinforce calls for a turn toward protectionism. The passage of Hawley-Smoot further undermined support for free trade, particularly within the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party had been home to a substantial protectionist wing dating back at least to Joseph Chamberlain’s 1903 campaign to raise British tariffs and to negotiate reciprocal tariff preferences with members of the British Empire. However, the majority view within the party, probably reflecting the majority view of the British public, remained in favor of free trade. The Conservative defeat in the 1929 general election was attributed by some to the party’s failure to adopt an aggressive protectionist policy as an offset to the Labor Party’s natural appeal during a time of rising unemployment. It was only following the passage of the Hawley-Smoot Act and increases in tariffs in several British dominions, notably Canada, that Stanley Baldwin, the leader of the Conservative Party, came out in favor of increased British tariffs. Baldwin said that although he remained opposed to protectionism, he had become convinced that only by raising its own tariffs would Britain obtain the bargaining power necessary to negotiate successfully a multilateral reduction in tariff rates. In September, 1931, Ramsay MacDonald, having lost much of the support of his own party, formed a coalition government, relying heavily on Conservative support. Running on a platform that included pledges of higher tariffs, the coalition won a large victory in October, 1931. A general increase in tariffs was then passed by the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 House of Commons in February, 1932. This was followed by further tariff increases following the Ottawa Conference of July, 1932, at which Britain and its dominions and colonies agreed to further tariff increases on non-Empire imports and reductions in tariffs on imports from within the British Empire. Significance It is not possible to determine with certainty whether the passage of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act led directly to an increase in tariffs in other nations. For example, the situation in Britain might well have led to increased tariffs regardless. On the other hand, given Prime Minister King’s general philosophy, it is almost certain that Canadian tariffs would at worst have remained the same and might have decreased had not the American law been passed. The tariff war with Canada cost U.S. exporters dearly. In 1929, 18 percent of U.S. merchandise exports had gone to Canada, and the United States had enjoyed a $445 million merchandise trade surplus with Canada. By 1933, only 13 percent of U.S. merchandise exports were going to Canada, and the United States ran a surplus of only $26 million with Canada. Overall, the net negative impact on the U.S. economy from the unraveling of the world trade system in the face of retaliatory tariff increases was considerable. Measured in constant 1982 dollars, the United States had a trade surplus in goods and services of $4.7 billion in 1929. By 1933, it had a trade deficit of $1.4 billion. The League of Nations estimated that the volume of world trade declined in real terms by more than 65 percent between 1929 and 1933. Not until the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was successfully negotiated in 1947 was the world trading system restored to a sound footing. Willis C. Hawley, Reed Smoot, and Herbert Hoover were all defeated in the 1932 elections. —Anthony Patrick O’Brien
of foreign retaliation and for arguing that HawleySmoot may actually have mitigated the impact of the Depression on the United States. Hoover, Herbert. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920-1933. New York: Macmillan, 1952. Chapter 41 contains Hoover’s discussion of the background to Hawley-Smoot and his reasons for signing the bill. Irwin, Douglas A. “From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Trade Agreements: Changing the Course of U.S. Trade Policy in the 1930’s.” In The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, edited by Michael D. Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Originally published as a pamphlet by the National Bureau of Economic Research, this essay traces the evolution of the U.S. government’s attitude toward tariffs and trade during the 1930’s. Bibliographic references and index. Jones, Joseph M., Jr. Tariff Retaliation: Repercussions of the Hawley-Smoot Bill. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934. Classic discussion of foreign retaliation against Hawley-Smoot. The largely nontechnical discussion goes into too much detail for most readers but remains the best available account. Chapter 6 discusses Canada, and chapter 7 discusses Great Britain. Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 1929-1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Discussion of the contribution of problems in the world trade and financial systems to the deepening of the Depression. Overbeek, Johannes, ed. Free Trade Versus Protectionism: A Source Book of Essays and Readings. Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 1999. Anthology of primary documents in the debate between protectionism and free trade; includes selections from Smoot and Hawley. Bibliographic references and indexes. Pastor, Robert A. Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1929-1976. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Argues that the passage of Hawley-Smoot can be explained by Republican predilections to turn to tariffs during times of economic stress. Provides a good, nontechnical discussion of evolution of tariffs after Hawley-Smoot. Schattschneider, E. E. Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1935. Classic and very influential argument that the final version of the 2433
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Further Reading Ball, Stuart. Baldwin and the Conservative Party: The Crisis of 1929-1931. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988. Includes a discussion of the debates within the British Conservative Party between protectionists and free traders. Eichengreen, Barry. “The Political Economy of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.” In Research in Economic History, edited by Roger Ransom. Vol. 12. Westport, Conn.: JAI Press, 1989. The most complete recent discussion of the passage of the bill and its economic implications. Notable for being skeptical of the extent
Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act
Nation of Islam Is Founded Hawley-Smoot bill was the result of the influence of special interests and lobbyists. Long and rather heavy going for the general reader, but worthwhile for those interested in a still-relevant inside look at the legislative process.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission; June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements.
Summer, 1930
Nation of Islam Is Founded The Nation of Islam, a religious organization, worked to inculcate black pride and help elevate African Americans’ social and economic status. Also known as: Black Muslim movement Locale: Detroit, Michigan Categories: Organizations and institutions; religion, theology, and ethics Key Figures Wallace D. Fard (c. 1877-1934), first prophet of the Nation of Islam Malcolm X (1925-1965), Nation of Islam minister and spokesperson Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975), founder and spiritual leader of the Nation of Islam Summary of Event The Nation of Islam (NOI), also known as the Black Muslim movement and the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of North America, is a religious organization that has successfully melded orthodox Islam, black nationalism, and a set of social and economic principles to produce a highly structured way of life for its African American membership. A religious sect founded in 1930 in Detroit, Michigan, the NOI borrowed from earlier movements as it crystallized around three leaders: Wallace D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X. Orthodox Islam was started in the city of Mecca, in what is now Saudi Arabia, by the Prophet Muwammad (570-632 c.e.). A major world religion, Islam may have arrived in the Americas with the Spanish explorers. In 1888, Alexander Russell Webb established an Islamic community in the United States. Members of the Islamic religion are known as Muslims. To distinguish between orthodox Muslims and members of the Nation of Islam sect, theologian C. Eric Lincoln coined the term Black Muslims. Although the NOI considers itself a branch of orthodox Islam, the majority of the organization’s earliest members were affiliated with Christianity. 2434
The Nation of Islam embraces the essential teachings of orthodox Islam: prayer five times daily; belief in one God, named Allah; acceptance of the sacred Islamic book, the Qur$3n; the coming of the “guided one,” known as Mahdt; and pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Both groups stress cleanliness and a strict moral code, and both shun alcohol, drug abuse, and the eating of pork. Early NOI leaders, however, expanded orthodox Islam because of the historic oppression of African Americans. The Nation of Islam is orthodox Islam customized for the African American experience, with membership solidarity and racial pride being key added features. Black Muslims are required to drop their European last names, which are associated with enslavement, and adopt the “X” until they earn an Islamic surname. Additional elements, such as advocating a separate nation for its members and teaching about the racist deeds of the “white man,” were the source of much outside criticism and prevented the NOI’s acceptance into the official fold of orthodox Islam. During the first half of the twentieth century, African Americans were treated as second-class citizens in the United States. Institutionalized racism made it difficult for many African Americans to rise above poverty and oppression. In the midst of Great Depression woes and the past specter of slavery, many African Americans were disillusioned and susceptible to philosophies and leaders who promised improvements. Consequently, a number of black nationalistic and religious movements developed during this period. The Nation of Islam includes principles that were embedded in two of these movements: Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple, founded in 1913, and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Timothy Drew, known as Noble Drew Ali, introduced Islam to African Americans. He and his followers adopted the Qur$3n and called themselves Moors, after an ancient North African people. Ali’s church had thousands of members in northern U.S. cities before his unexplained
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Who Was Wallace D. Fard? The first prophet of the Nation of Islam is shrouded in mystery: His national origins, his real name, and the circumstances of his 1934 disappearance are not fully known, but an FBI memorandum from Special Agent Edwin O. Raudsep, dated March 8, 1965 (approximately three decades after Fard’s death), rehearses the known facts about Fard at that time. [Wallace] Dodd arrived in the United States from New Zealand in 1913, settled briefly in Portland, Oregon. He married but abandoned his wife and infant son. He lingered in the Seattle Area as Fred Dodd for a few months, then moved to Los Angeles and opened a restaurant at 803 W. Third Street as Wallace D. Ford. He was arrested for bootlegging in January, 1926; served a brief jail sentence (also as Wallace D. Ford)— identified on record as white. On June 12, 1926, also as Ford, was sentenced to San Quentin for sale of narcotics at his restaurant; got 6-months to 6-years sentence—released from San Quentin May 27, 1929. Prison record lists him as Caucasian. After release, went to Chicago, then to Detroit as a silk peddler. His customers were mostly Negro and he himself posed as a Negro. He prided himself as a biblical authority and mathematician. When Elijah Muhammad (Poole) met him, he was passing himself off as a savior and claiming that he was born in Mecca and had arrived in the U.S. on July 4, 1930. In 1933 there was a scandal revolving about the sect involving a “human sacrifice” which may or may not have been trumped up. At any rate, the leader was arrested May 25, 1933, under the name Fard with 8 other listed aliases (W. D. Farrad, Wallace Farad, Walt Farrad, Prof. Ford, etc.). The official report says Dodd admitted that his teachings were “strictly a racket” and he was “getting all the money out of it he could.” He was ordered out of Detroit. [In a] newspaper article which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner and the Los Angeles Examiner on July 28, 1963, reporter Ed Montgomery . . . claimed to have contacted Dodd’s former common law wife. . . . According to this account, Dodd went to Chicago after leaving Detroit and became a traveling suit salesman for a mail order tailer [sic]. In this position he worked himself across the midwest and ultimately arrived in Los Angeles in the spring of 1934 in a new car and wearing flowing white robes. He tried to work out a reconciliation with the woman, but she would not agree to one. . . . He stayed in Los Angeles for two weeks, frequently visiting his son. Then he sold his car and boarded a ship bound for New Zealand where he said he would visit relatives. On Sunday, February 28, 1965, Ed Montgomery wrote a rehash of the above in which he said the Muslims claim “police and San Quentin Prison records dating back to the early 1920’s had been altered and that fingerprints identifying Farad as Dodd had been doctored.” Elijah Mohummad [sic] said he would have posted $100,000 reward “for any person who could prove Farad and Dodd were one and the same person.” Ten days later Muhammad’s office in Chicago was advised Farad’s common law wife and a blood relative were prepared to establish the truth of Farad’s identity. The $100,000 never was placed in escrow and the matter was dropped forthwith.
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death in 1929. Subsequently, many of Ali’s followers joined Wallace D. Fard’s group, which emerged a year later. The Nation of Islam espoused the political nationalism of Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, who amassed thousands of followers in the United States from 1916 until his imprisonment in 1923 and subsequent deportation. Garvey advocated a separate African American nation, economic and political solidarity, and racial pride. When Fard appeared on the American scene during the summer of 1930, the conditions that fostered the acceptance of the ideas of Garvey and Ali were still present, although the original founders were not. Consequently, Fard soon filled a void that, after setbacks, developed into a viable religious sect. The Nation of Islam grew out of informal visits Fard paid to the homes of African Americans in Detroit, where he peddled silk products and discussed orthodox Islam, the African heritage, and the misdeeds of the “white man.” The first prophet of the Nation of Islam is shrouded in mystery. Although he is believed to be from Mecca, his national origins, his real name, and the circumstances of his 1934 disappearance are not known. In addition to being known as W. D. Fard, Wallace D. Fard, and Wallace Fard Muhammad, he is referred to as Wali Farrad, F. Mohammad, and other names. Fard’s achievements, however, are well documented. In four years during the Great Depression, he established the church’s basic philosophy, created a security force known as the Fruit of Islam, opened the University of Islam, built its first temple, and amassed about eight thousand followers. Many of his followers, including Elijah Muhammad, thought Fard to be Allah reincarnated as well as the promised Mahdt. After Fard’s sudden disappearance, Elijah Muhammad became the group’s leader. Elijah Muhammad, born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, was respectfully known as the Honorable Elijah Muham-
Nation of Islam Is Founded
Nation of Islam Is Founded
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
operated a major printing press; and had a membership of more than 100,000. Much of Muhammad’s success, however, can be attributed to one of his ministers, Malcolm X. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Earle and Louise Little, were organizers for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Because of their views, the Littles were forced to move away from Omaha. To view image, please refer to the They eventually settled in East Lanprint edition of this title. sing, Michigan, where Earle apparently was murdered and Louise had a breakdown. Malcolm then lived with his sister and foster families. Later, he wandered between odd jobs and engaged in petty crime. He was imprisoned from 1946 to 1952, and he married Betty Shabazz in 1958. In prison, Malcolm became selfeducated and converted to Islam. After his release, he met Elijah Muhammad, received his X, and trained for Elijah Muhammad addresses the national convention of the Nation of Islam in 1966. the NOI ministry. He headed temples (AP/Wide World Photos) in several cities before becoming the primary spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. His frank speeches and numad, the Messenger of Allah. His parents had been merous public appearances catapulted the NOI into the slaves and sharecroppers. His father was a Baptist minisnational forefront. Membership swelled because of Malter. While a teenager, Muhammad moved to Atlanta. He colm’s visibility, but the number of his enemies inmarried Clara Evans in 1919, and during the 1920’s he creased as well. For unauthorized remarks he made about and his family migrated to Detroit. It was in Detroit that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Malcolm Muhammad met Fard and became one of his most dewas suspended from the NOI. Around that time, he voted converts. He was rewarded by being chosen as changed his name to El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. He left Fard’s successor, and he transformed Fard’s sincere the NOI in March, 1964, and formed two new organizaproject into a thriving organization. tions, the success of which was curtailed by his murder on February 21, 1965. After Elijah Muhammad’s death, his son, Warith, also Significance known as Wallace, became the NOI leader. Warith’s After Fard’s disappearance, rivalry caused some factionchanges forced another NOI split, spearheaded by Louis alism and a sharp decrease in NOI membership. MuhamFarrakhan. The NOI expanded under Farrakhan, a conmad, often the victim of harassment and death threats, troversial figure in part because of his adamant and was imprisoned. Consequently, Muhammad moved the at times incendiary statements. In October, 1995, the NOI headquarters from Detroit to Chicago. Although nondenominational NOI-sponsored Million Man March still confronted with adversities, Muhammad was able to in Washington, D.C., added immensely to Farrakhan’s rebuild and strengthen the organization. When Muhamvisibility and to some extent mitigated his controversial mad died in 1975, the Nation of Islam had temples and image. schools from coast to coast; owned a string of restau—Linda Rochell Lane rants, apartments, and other businesses and real estate; 2436
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Carson, Clayborne. Malcolm X: The FBI Files. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1991. Extracts data from Federal Bureau of Investigation files and provides information on Malcolm X, his family, and the Nation of Islam from 1919 to 1980. Arranged in time-line format. Clark, John Henrick, ed. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Trenton, N.J.: African World Press, 1990. Collection of essays by scholars as well as personal acquaintances of Malcolm X and a chapter in his own words. Includes documents in an appendix. Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Church in America. 1963. Reprint. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. Reprint volume also includes Eric C. Lincoln’s The Black Church Since Frazier. Together, these works provide critical background on African American religion. Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America. 3d ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994. Revised and updated edition of a classic work, the first complete academic analysis of the Nation of Islam, which was published in 1961. Lippman, Thomas W. Understanding Islam: An Intro-
Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception duction to the Muslim World. 2d rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Useful introduction to orthodox Islam. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Malcolm X with Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. 1965. Reprint. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992. Classic work tells the story of the African American revolutionary and Black Muslim leader. Muhammad, Elijah. The Supreme Wisdom. 2 vols. Brooklyn: Temple of Islam, 1957. The Nation of Islam’s founder explains the organization’s tenets. Walker, Dennis. Islam and the Search for African American Nationhood: Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam. Atlanta, Ga.: Clarity Press, 2005. Examines the history of the Nation of Islam and the organization’s standing among African Americans. Written by an expert on Muslim minorities. See also: July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement; 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; 1932-1940: Development of Negritude.
August, 1930
Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception Reversing past ecclesiastical pronouncements that condemned birth control, Anglican bishops declared that Christians might sometimes legitimately use methods of “conception control” other than abstinence. Locale: London, England Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; social issues and reform; women’s issues
Summary of Event From the beginning of history, some members of every society have sought to control childbearing through con-
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Key Figures William Cosmo Gordon Lang (1864-1945), archbishop of Canterbury, 1928-1942 Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti; 18571939), Roman Catholic pope, 1922-1939 Marie Stopes (1880-1958), British leader of a movement to promote birth control
traceptive methods. The acceptability of such methods to religious and moral authorities has varied over time. Saint Augustine, the fifth century bishop of Hippo, set the rationale for the official Christian position, which opposed contraception under all circumstances. This position prevailed in Christianity throughout the medieval and early modern periods. How much the rule influenced ordinary people’s lives is unknown, but as long as the birthrate stayed high, few questioned it openly. When the rate of births in Western Europe began to drop at the end of the eighteenth century, religious and political leaders tried to limit the availability of contraceptives. Eventually, restrictive measures such as the socalled Comstock law in the United States (an 1873 measure forbidding the mailing of advertising or information about contraceptives) were enacted in several countries. They had little effect, however, on either birthrates or average family size, both of which continued to decline during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Meanwhile, a rationale for birth control was advanced by
Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception philosophers Jeremy Bentham and James Mills, who saw it as a way to ensure that families would have the resources to support every child born to them—an argument that surely paralleled many parents’ own concerns. The religious objection to contraception was based on the Catholic Church’s model of marriage, which considered procreation to be marriage’s primary purpose. Any “artificial” interference with this purpose was held to be wrong. Protestant reformers, including Martin Luther and John Wesley, followed the same model of moral theology, as did the Church of England. In 1908 and 1920, the Lambeth Conferences (meetings of all the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion, convened approximately every ten years since 1867 by the archbishop of Canterbury) reaffirmed the Church of England’s opposition to birth control. By the twentieth century, however, a new ideal of marriage—as a partnership for mutual support and companionship between spouses—was coming to replace the procreative-only rationale in much of Western society. Birth control advocates such as Margaret Sanger in the United States and Marie Stopes in England opened clinics, held lecture tours, and publicized the plights of women who wrote to them, desperate for help in limiting their childbearing. Sanger and Stopes framed their appeals in terms of families’ emotional as well as material well-being. They argued that the relationship at the heart
Resolution 15 Among the twelve resolutions concerning marriage issued by the Lambeth Conference of 1930, Resolution 15 attracted the greatest attention because of its groundbreaking stance on contraception. The full resolution reads as follows: Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of family life, that between husband and wife, cannot flourish if the wife lives in constant fear of unwelcome pregnancies. This argument carried additional weight in an era when divorce was viewed as a burgeoning threat to the family. Stopes, in fact, deliberately launched a major press campaign for contraception in advance of the upcoming 1930 Lambeth Conference. By 1930, with the worldwide Great Depression taking a toll on family life, the old arguments against contraception were inoperative even for many Christians. The agendas of the Lambeth Conferences cover a wide range of topics, although at each conference one issue is often “hot” enough to draw the lion’s share of news coverage. The 1930 conference, for example, issued seventy-five resolutions on subjects ranging from “the unity of the church” to “the ministry of women.” The resolutions issued by the Lambeth Conferences take the form of statements that represent the consensus of the bishops’ thought and are meant to provide guidance for Christians. At the time of the 1930 Lambeth Conference, William Cosmo Gordon Lang was the archbishop of Canterbury. A Scot, Lang had been a “slum priest” in his youth and had served twenty years as archbishop of York before moving to Canterbury in 1928. The 1930 conference was his first opportunity to preside over the gathering of bishops, each of whom brought his own experience and national and cultural preoccupations to the deliberations. One of Lang’s important aims was the achievement of agreement among the conference participants. Unlike the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury does not have the power to rule on theological or moral matters by fiat. The 1930 Lambeth Conference put forth twelve resolutions concerning marriage. These were accompanied by a background paper that acknowledged the strong tradition that had made contraception unlawful for Christians. It went on to note that this tradition was not based on anything in the New Testament or on any ruling by an ecumenical council. The paper reaffirmed that the first obligation of married people is to parenthood, but it added that when a birth would cause a mother’s health, or the whole family, to suffer unduly, the use of contraceptives is an allowable choice. The conference adopted Resolution 15, which reflected these points, by a vote of 193 to 67, with 46 participants abstaining. The tone of the resolution was extremely moderate—it confirmed abstinence as the primary option for limiting births and emphasized the need for married partners to make all decisions concerning contraception in the light of Christian conscience.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nonetheless, the statement met with a burst of outrage and shock from many religious quarters. This was the first time a Christian group had publicly spoken in favor of contraception. In actuality, world reaction was mixed, but the protests gained more press coverage than did reactions of approval. On December 31, 1930, the Roman Catholic pontiff, Pope Pius XI, released the encyclical Casti Connubii. This papal statement was at least in part a reply to the Lambeth resolution. It restated the traditional Catholic condemnation of “artificial” birth control, calling it a “sin against God,” regardless of the couple’s circumstances. The terms were thus set for a divide that would continue within Christianity indefinitely, stemming as it did from incompatible basic principles. Why did the Lambeth resolution come in 1930, when the conference of a decade before still supported the opposite view? Some chance factors may have contributed; for example, most of the bishops attending in 1930 were married men, whereas a decade earlier most attendees were bachelors. The presence of William Inge, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, an influential churchman, and an enthusiastic supporter of Margaret Sanger, may have helped. However, compassion and sincere conviction surely also played a part. In addition, Anglican and other Protestant clergy were quite aware that, as the conference’s background paper said, contraception methods were by then widely used in every class of society. The conference participants likely reasoned that they would look ridiculous if they continued to fulminate against a practice that most parishioners—including the clergy— were going to continue in any case. It is worth noting that only the Roman Catholic Church had a workable mechanism for enforcing a ban on contraception, in the requirement of confession to a priest before communion.
homosexuality were among the most problematic of these. The Anglican Communion was not always foremost in dealing with new social mores. Indeed, it came late to the recognition of both divorce and women priests, and not all member national churches accepted these. However, because of the Lambeth Conference’s pioneering role in the controversy concerning contraception as well as the Anglican Church’s historic position as a church with both Protestant and Catholic heritage, when an Anglican council addressed such issues, the rest of Christianity took note. —Emily Alward Further Reading McKibbin, Ross. Classes and Culture: England, 19181951. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Topical treatment of British customs and attitudes notes variations among the upper, middle, and working classes. Points out that as the state church, the Church of England had to reflect the basically Protestant outlook of the majority, despite the AngloCatholic sentiments of many of its clergy. McLaren, Angus. A History of Contraception. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Wide-ranging study by a historian, based largely on documentary evidence. Recognizes the existence of women’s networks and folk methods of contraception, but only glancingly. Includes copious source citations. Maguire, Daniel C., ed. Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Collection of essays by specialists on contraception in various cultures. Especially valuable for its coverage of nonAbrahamic points of view; includes discussion of Hindu, Buddhist, and American Indian traditions. Tobin, Kathleen A. The American Debate over Birth Control, 1907-1937. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Readable scholarly study documents the shift from disapproval to grudging acceptance of birth control in Protestantism over three decades. Asserts that Roman Catholic outspokenness against birth control worked in reformers’ favor by mobilizing latent antiimmigrant and antipapal fears. See also: 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms; Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens; Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control.
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Significance As the first statement by a Christian body in support of contraception, the Lambeth Conference’s 1930 resolution gave moral support to couples who might have been troubled about using birth control. The resolution showed that Christian teachings, even in the highly charged arena of social and sexual behavior, might be reevaluated under some circumstances. By doing so, it opened the way for further discussion within Christianity on other controversial social issues. Such discussion was not long in coming. As the century went on, new issues kept challenging traditional church teachings. Divorce, female clergy, abortion, and
Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception
Bennett Era in Canada
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August, 1930-1935
Bennett Era in Canada Canadians elected a Conservative government after nine years of Liberal rule, but the government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett, proved unpopular, damaging the reputation of the party and condemning it to another twenty-two years in the minority from 1935 to 1957. Locale: Canada Category: Government and politics Key Figures Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), prime minister of Canada, 1930-1935 Robert Laird Borden (1854-1937), prime minister of Canada, 1911-1920 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Arthur Meighen (1874-1960), prime minister of Canada, 1920-1921 and 1926 Summary of Event Although Richard Bedford Bennett played an active role in Canadian politics throughout the first third of the twentieth century, historians generally believe that he was an uninspired politician who accomplished little during his five years of service as prime minister of Canada. His ineffectiveness as prime minister made his Conservative Party so unpopular with Canadian voters that the Conservatives would not win another general election in Canada until 1957, when the Conservative John Diefenbaker succeeded the Liberal Louis St. Laurent as prime minister. Bennett was born in the small town of Hopewell, New Brunswick, in 1870, the son of farmers. He studied law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After his admission to the bar, he moved to Calgary, Alberta, where he became a successful lawyer, and his investments in real estate and various Calgary companies made him a millionaire by the first decade of the twentieth century. Like his principal political rival, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Bennett never married: Law, business, and politics were Bennett’s sole interests. After having served for thirteen years, first in the legislature of the Northwest Territories and then in the legislature in Al2440
berta, Bennett was elected in a Calgary district as a Conservative member of Canada’s national parliament. He earned the nickname Bonfire Bennett because he often spoke in public at more than two hundred words per minute. Prime ministers Sir Robert Laird Borden and Arthur Meighen both recognized his adminstrative and legal skills. In Borden’s government, Bennett served as the director-general of National Service, responsible for encouraging enlistment in the Canadian armed forces during World War I. In 1921, Meighen named Bennett his minister of justice. Bennett was an ethical and effective public servant, which led the Conservatives to conclude that he would lead their party to victory in the general election of 1930. When the Great Depression began with the U.S. stock market crash on October 29, 1929, the Canadian economy suffered greatly. Businesses failed throughout Canada, and unemployment exceeded 25 percent in many provinces. Canadian voters expected Prime Minister King to do something about this economic and social crisis, but, like U.S. president Herbert Hoover, King believed that the Depression would not last long. Both leaders also felt that the Depression would worsen if their governments increased spending on social programs. Just before the July, 1930, general election, King made an incredible blunder. During debate in the House of Commons, he stated his unwillingness to send even “a five-cent piece” in unemployment assistance to provincial governments controlled by the Conservative Party. During the election campaign of 1930, Conservative candidates repeatedly referred to King’s injudicious remark and suggested that a Conservative prime minister such as Bennett, who already had created many jobs through his Calgary companies, would be more successful than the Liberals in dealing with Canada’s economic problems. This argument proved persuasive with Canadian voters, who gave the Conservatives a solid majority in the House of Commons. Once Bennett assumed power in August, it became clear that he did not intend to share it, even with fellow Conservatives. In addition to his responsibilities as prime minister, he assigned to himself the posts of secretary of state for foreign affairs and minister of finance. Canadian political commentators of the day drew cartoons depicting Bennett alone and suggested that he was holding a cabinet meeting with himself. His unwillingness to listen to advice from such respected Conservative
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 leaders as former prime ministers Borden and Meighen caused a precipitous decline in the standing of his party in the minds of Canadian voters. His one solution to the economic depression was to impose stiff tariffs on foreign products imported into Canada in an attempt to protect Canadian companies from foreign competition. Other countries retaliated, and the export of Canadian products decreased significantly. The resulting loss of jobs worsened an already alarming unemployment problem throughout Canada. During his five years as prime minister, the wealthy Bennett lived in an elegant suite in the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa’s finest hotel. He spoke repeatedly of the need for personal initiative and hard work in order to solve Canada’s economic problem. A strong work ethic had helped Bennett to become a millionaire, and he firmly believed that it sufficed to cure Canada’s economic and social problems. He was opposed philosophically to increased
spending on social programs because he believed that the main responsibility of the federal government in Ottawa was to avoid deficits. Although Canadians admired Bennett’s integrity and his personal generosity—as shown by his large contributions to charitable organizations— they came to believe that he had no practical ideas for solving Canada’s economic and social problems. Starting in 1932, Bennett spent less time on domestic issues and more on international concerns. At the 1932 Imperial Conference in Ottawa, he persuaded the British government to modify the British North America Act of 1867, which had created Canada as a British dominion, in order to increase Canada’s political independence from Great Britain. This was a major accomplishment, but in the minds of Canadian voters, it did not make up for Bennett’s unwillingness to recognize the extreme seriousness of the Great Depression. The Liberals, under the leadership of King, argued for the need for increased federal spending to deal with homelessness and unemployment, but such proposals were consistently rejected by the Conservative majority in the House of Commons. Just before the general election of 1935, Bennett suddenly changed his position and argued in favor of increased federal spending on social programs. He presented his new proposals as a Canadian version of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, but Canadian voters were suspicious of this sudden change in the domestic program of Bennett’s Conservative government. The Liberals, under King, won 173 of the 244 seats in the House of Commons, bringing the Bennett era to an end. Significance Bennett reacted bitterly to his defeat. In 1938, he left Canada permanently for England and transferred his allegiance to Great Britain. Thanks to the help of his friend Lord Beaverbrook, Bennett was appointed to the British House of Lords. When he died in 1947, he had been almost forgotten by Canadians, who never understood why a former prime minister of their country would emigrate from Canada. Canadian historians often have compared Bennett to Herbert Hoover, but the comparison is unfair. Neither Bennett nor Hoover succeeded in ending the economic depression, but Hoover was never considered arrogant, and he remained in the United States after his term in office and continued to serve his country as a respected adviser to both Democratic and Republican presidents. 2441
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Canadian prime minister Richard Bedford Bennett (left) with U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.S. secretary of state Cordell Hull in 1933. (Library of Congress)
Bennett Era in Canada
Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded If Bennett was forgotten, however, his effect on his party was not. As party leader for eleven years, five of which he spent as prime minister, Bennett helped to define the image of the Conservative Party for a generation. The nation’s reaction to that image is to be seen most clearly in its refusal to elect another Conservative government for more than two decades after Bennett’s defeat. —Edmund J. Campion Further Reading Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond, and John English. Canada, 1900-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. A well-documented history of the Great Depression in Canada and Bennett’s problems in dealing with economic issues. Bothwell, Robert, and J. L. Granatstein. Our Century: The Canadian Journey in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: McArthur, 2000. Places Bennett’s ministry in the context of twentieth century Canadian history. Bibliographic references. Creighton, Donald. Canada’s First Century, 1867-1967. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970. Describes the terrible effects of the Depression in Canada, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan, which experienced both high unemployment in private industry and drought conditions in farming regions.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Glassford, Larry. Reaction and Reform: The Politics of the Conservative Party Under R. B. Bennett, 19271938. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Contains a thoughtful analysis of the reasons for Bennett’s popularity within the Conservative Party during his six years as leader of the opposition and five years as prime minister. Hutchison, Bruce. Macdonald to Pearson: The Prime Ministers of Canada. Don Mills, Ont.: Longmans Canada, 1967. The chapter on Bennett describes his successful career in business and discusses his inability to understand that Canadians wanted him to spend more money on social programs during the Great Depression. Taylor, M. Brook, and Doug Owram, eds. Canadian History: A Reader’s Guide. 2 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Contains an annotated bibliography of important studies on the domestic and foreign policies of Bennett. See also: July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements.
August 29, 1930
Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded The Japanese American Citizens League was founded to advocate for the acceptance of Japanese Americans by portraying the members of this population as loyal mainstream Americans. Despite early legislative victories, the league’s cooperation with World War II internment and its promotion of assimilation and Americanization rendered it controversial within the Japanese American community. Locale: Seattle, Washington Categories: Organizations and institutions; social issues and reform Key Figures Clarence Takeya Arai (1901-1964), lawyer who convened the first national meeting of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Thomas T. Yatabe (1897-1945), cofounder of the San Francisco American Loyalty League and the JACL James Y. Sakamoto (1903-1955), newspaper publisher 2442
and early supporter of the JACL Tokie Slocum (b. 1895), JACL lobbyist for the NyeLea Bill granting citizenship to Issei veterans of World War I Suma Sugi (b. 1906), first Nisei lobbyist and JACL lobbyist for amendment of the Cable Act Mike Masaru Masaoka (1915-1991), JACL official and lobbyist who promoted Nisei patriotism Dillon S. Myer (1891-1982), director of War Relocation Authority during World War II Wayne Mortimer Collins (1899 or 1900-1974), attorney who defended Japanese American civil rights during and after World War II Summary of Event In the words of its own historian, Bill Hosokawa, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) originated as “a civic and patriotic organization concerned with the wellbeing and political and economic progress of American
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
group in 1928, proposed a national meeting of delegates. He envisioned the formation of a national council of Japanese American citizens’ leagues that would present a positive public profile. This four-day meeting, called to order by Arai on August 29, 1930, in Seattle, Washington, became the founding convention of the JACL, the first national political organization of Japanese Americans. The Nisei leadership at the convention represented a special group of college-educated professionals with economically secure, middle-class, urban backgrounds. Mostly in their late twenties and early thirties, they were strikingly unlike the majority of Nisei in the United States at that time, who were younger (with an average age of seventeen) and from rural, working-class backgrounds. Moreover, they were distinctly different from the Issei, who still held political, economic, and social power in local Japanese American communities through the Japanese Associations, which provided legal aid and other services for immigrants. The Issei usually chose (or were forced by racism) to remain within their own communities; their English skills often were minimal, and their direct interactions with outsiders were limited. Through the Japanese Associations and other local organizations—such as prefectural associations, merchants’ and farmers’ mutual-aid societies, vernacular newspapers, and Japanese-language schools—the Issei maintained their communities as best they could within the larger American society. The Nisei leadership of the JACL, however, insisted on a completely different approach to finding a secure place for Japanese Americans in the United States. Above all, they stressed assimilation, not ethnicity, underscoring their American aspirations rather than their Japanese heritage. Therefore, one of the first items of business at the founding convention was to remove the hyphen from “Japanese-American,” on the basis that any Japanese aspect of Nisei identity had to be subordinated to the group’s American destiny. More than one hundred delegates from five states (Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, and New York) and the territory of Hawaii approved resolutions asking that Congress address two timely issues: the constitutionality of the 1922 Cable Act and the eligibility of Issei veterans of World War I for citizenship. Suma Sugi became their lobbyist for amendment of the Cable Act, which stripped citizenship from any American woman who married an “alien ineligible to citizenship”; through Sugi’s efforts and those of the League of Women Voters, Congress changed the law in 1931, so that citizenship could not be revoked by marriage. Tokie Slocum became the JACL lobbyist for vet2443
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citizens of Japanese ancestry.” Responding to widespread anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, the JACL promoted assimilation and Americanization as the most effective way for the Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) to gain the approval of the general public. Initially a loose federation of loyalty leagues, the JACL had minimal influence until 1941, when it cooperated with the federal government in carrying out President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered the internment of Japanese Americans in restricted camps during World War II. Because of that cooperation, the league lost the respect of many Japanese Americans. After World War II, the JACL achieved a positive public profile as it lobbied for civil rights legislation; however, it remained controversial for its insistence on accommodation rather than confrontation in the political arena. Now the largest and most influential Japanese American political organization, the JACL must deal with conflicts within its own ranks regarding its basic goals. The roots of the JACL can be traced to 1918 in San Francisco, when Thomas T. Yatabe and a small group of his college-educated friends met to discuss the future of the Nisei in the United States. Calling themselves the American Loyalty League, they were well aware of the racism blocking the economic progress of Asian immigrants and their families at that time. The Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) hoped their children, the Nisei, would have opportunities for economic and social advancement. However, as scholar Ronald Takaki has documented, widespread discrimination made it very difficult for them to find employment other than manual or menial labor. Yatabe and his friends were among the fortunate few who had achieved professional success; a recent dental school graduate, Yatabe drew into his circle another dentist, a doctor, and an attorney. They realized that Nisei in general still faced an uncertain future. In their view, the best way to gain acceptance by the general public was to define themselves first and foremost as loyal Americans dedicated to advancement of democratic ideals. Individual enterprise, fair play, and respect for law and order were cornerstones of this philosophy. In 1922, James Y. Sakamoto founded a similar group, the Seattle Progressive Citizens League. In 1923, Yatabe established the Fresno American Loyalty League, the first statewide league. In 1928, he and Saburo Kido founded the San Francisco New American Citizens League. All of these groups shared a commitment to being “100 percent American” in their outlook. Realizing how much more effective they would be if they joined together, Clarence Takeya Arai, who was elected president of the Seattle
Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded
Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded eran citizenship, which finally was secured by the NyeLea Bill in 1935. Significance The Japanese American Citizens League helped pass two important pieces of legislation within five years of its foundation. These laws prevented American women from losing their citizenship if they married Japanese men and allowed Japanese men who had fought for the United States to become U.S. citizens. Despite these accomplishments, however, the JACL had little direct effect on the Japanese American community at large during the first decade of the group’s existence. This situation changed dramatically in 1941, when President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Under Roosevelt’s order, the federal government imprisoned virtually all Issei leaders of businesses, schools, and churches on the West Coast. The JACL then took over, directing Japanese Americans not to resist relocation. In fact, the JACL cooperated with the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in identifying community members who might be subversives. Dillon S. Myer, WRA director, worked closely with JACL official Mike Masaru Masaoka in administering the camps—a relationship intensely resented by the majority of Japanese Americans. Attorney Wayne Mortimer Collins, who stood against popular opinion to defend Japanese American civil rights during and after World War II, went so far as to blame the JACL for much of the suffering that internees endured. The JACL succeeded in building a positive public profile after the war by lobbying for civil rights legislation such as amendment of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952, thereby guaranteeing the right of all Issei to naturalized citizenship. To this day, however, the JACL has remained a controversial organization, especially because of its conservative political stance. The JACL now must deal with interfactional conflicts between its “old guard” and younger members who question the league’s basic goals. —Mary Louise Buley-Meissner Further Reading Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Carefully researched investigation of Asian American socioeconomic, political, educational, and cultural realities. Provides contexts for assessing JACL achievements. Extensive bibliography, index, and black-and-white illustrations. Drinnon, Richard. Keeper of Concentration Camps: Dillon S. Myer and American Racism. Berkeley: Uni2444
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 versity of California Press, 1987. Painstakingly researched revisionist history of Myer’s administration of the War Location Authority, including his collaboration with Mike Masaoka and the JACL. Extensive bibliography, index, and black-and-white illustrations. Hosokawa, Bill. JACL in Quest of Justice. New York: William Morrow, 1982. History book commissioned by the JACL to record its accomplishments. Mainly covers the 1930’s and 1940’s, emphasizing the organization’s patriotic nature. Index, black-and-white illustrations. Ichioka, Yuji. Before Internment: Essays in Prewar Japanese American History. Edited by Gordon H. Chang and Eiichiro Azuma. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. Detailed study of Japanese Americans in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Bibliographic references and index. Niiya, Brian, ed. Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present. New York: Japanese American National Museum and Facts On File, 1993. Invaluable resource including narrative historical overview, chronology of Japanese American history, and dictionary entries for that history. Scholarly research accessible to general audience. Index. Spickard, Paul R. “The Nisei Assume Power: The Japanese Citizens League, 1941-1942.” Pacific Historical Review 52, no. 2 (May, 1983): 147-174. Argues that early JACL leadership represented Nisei who seized the historical moment to wrest political, economic, and social power from Issei. Takahasi, Jere. “Japanese American Responses to Race Relations: The Formation of Nisei Perspectives.” Amerasia Journal 9, no. 1 (Spring/Summer, 1982): 29-57. Analyzes three major self- and group-concepts developed between 1920 and World War II: cultural bridge, American ideal, and progressive. Discusses JACL history in that context. Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. Groundbreaking investigation of Asian American contributions to socioeconomic and political development in the United States. Provides contexts for assessing JACL achievements. Index, black-andwhite illustrations. See also: Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement; May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law; Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States.
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Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation
September, 1930
Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation The publication of W. H. Auden’s Poems in 1930 immediately established him as the spokesman for the interwar generation in Great Britain. Locale: London, England Category: Literature Key Figures W. H. Auden (1907-1973), English poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), American poet and essayist Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), American writer C. Day Lewis (1904-1972), Irish poet Louis MacNeice (1907-1963), Anglo-Irish poet Stephen Spender (1909-1995), English poet
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Summary of Event The University of Oxford in the late 1920’s was a breeding ground for poets. When W. H. Auden entered Christ Church College in 1925, he soon met John Betjeman, C. Day Lewis, and Rex Warner, all of whom would make their marks as poets—and all of whom were impressed by the intelligence and talent of this eighteen-year-old from York. Subsequently, Auden and Day Lewis jointly edited the 1927 edition of Oxford Poetry. A year after Auden entered, Louis MacNeice enrolled at Merton College; although he and Auden were not close friends at Oxford, the two would be viewed as confederates a few years later. Also in 1927, Auden submitted his first book of poems to Faber & Gwyer (later Faber & Faber), the London publisher whose poetry editor, T. S. Eliot, had leaped into prominence a decade before with the publication of his Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) and had attained the status of a major modern poet with The Waste Land (1922). Eliot rejected the book but, as Auden judged, offered encouragement. Following his graduation in 1928, Auden issued a book of poems that was privately printed by another Oxford friend, Stephen Spender, then an undergraduate at University College. Thereafter, Auden left England to spend a year in Berlin, where he continued to read and write and incidentally witnessed the profound German unrest of the time. Violence between Communists and the police erupted on May Day, 1929, not far from where Auden lived. “All this time was anxiety at night,/ Shooting and barricade in street,” he wrote. Both the violence and the anxiety would become characteristic Auden themes. Returning to England two months later, Auden
found employment in London as a tutor; the following year, he secured a position teaching English and French in a private boys’ school in Scotland. Around this time, Faber accepted for publication Auden’s Poems (1930), a collection totally different from the 1927 submission, although containing some poems from the 1928 effort. By 1930, the errors of the World War I settlement were becoming obvious. A worldwide economic depression had set in, and “communism,” “fascism,” and “Nazism” were becoming household words. It was a time when young artists and intellectuals could hardly have escaped preoccupation with social and governmental ills, and Auden’s early poetry, despite its obscurity, ushered in a period in which young poets expressed the bitterness and frustration of a failed economic order and— as became increasingly clearer—a failed peace. According to Spender, Auden did not think of himself as the leader of a movement or as a public figure. In his poetry, he was trying to apply the techniques he had learned from such older poets as Eliot and William Butler Yeats to the composition of poems that spoke to a generation embittered by the economic breakdown, by the drift toward dictatorial regimes in some European countries, and by the complicity of free nations. A number of the poetic movements of recent generations, such as French Symbolism, “art for art’s sake,” and Imagism, had produced a private poetry of interest mainly to sophisticated coteries; Auden and his companions—particularly Spender, Day Lewis, and MacNeice—wanted to bring poetry within the orbit of people distressed by the political and social evils of the time. Insofar as Auden and his contemporaries had a literary hero, it was Eliot; despite the older poet’s bold new voice, however, he seemed too conservative to be a model. The year of Auden’s first commercially published book was also the year of Ash Wednesday (1930), the first of Eliot’s religious poems signaling his growing Church of England sympathies. Although Auden saw that wasteland imagery effectively symbolized aspects of the modern world, Eliot seemed too detached, too much a part of the older generation that had inflicted that world on those in the new century. To Eliot, the modern city was “unreal”; to Auden (in a poem that came to be called “Family Ghosts”), it was “assaulted.” The Waste Land is populated by merchants, habitués of pubs, and bored lovers; Auden’s 1930 poems are populated by spies, secret agents, and vengeful proletarians. Eliot had
Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation heaped scorn on decadents; Auden now warned against enemies. The 1930 volume contained thirty-nine poems bearing roman numerals rather than titles, a feature that encouraged readers to regard them collectively as a kind of sequence rather than as an assortment from which one might pick and choose favorites. The first lines of the poems often projected urgency, even alarm: “Control of the passes was, he saw, the key” (VIII), “Consider this and in our time” (XXX), “Get there if you can and see the land you once were proud to own” (XXXI), “Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle” (XXXVII). Auden’s voice differed distinctly from any heard before in English poetry. Significance It would be a mistake to assume that Auden’s book, despite its publisher, made a large impact on the literary establishment of 1930. The Times Literary Supplement found the poems “eccentric,” and The Listener professed an inability to understand them at all. The favorable reviews came from Auden’s Oxford friends Spender, MacNeice, and Day Lewis, more or less obscure young men who would, in time, be recognized as among the most important writers of their generation. The impact on young activists in England, however, was immediate and profound. They took such lines as “Get there if you can and see the land you once were proud to own” as signifying the necessity of transforming a failed society. Auden had articulated in Poems what such activists had been feeling all along. Some joined the New Party, formed by a few parliamentary dissidents in February of 1931 in opposition to the Labour Party, which had had little success in dealing with the massive unemployment caused by the 1929 stock market crash. Later that year, Action, a weekly radical newspaper, began publication. Auden did not contribute to the paper, but his friend Christopher Isherwood did. Hopes of engineering change by political means faded, however, when the New Party, some of whose spokesmen clearly frightened voters with assorted fascist and communist sentiments, won no seats in the general election of October, 1931. The young people motivated by Auden were attempting not just political but also social reform. Formal education, seen as denying students the chance of developing free personalities, came under attack. Young radicals scorned marriage as an unnatural and immoral institution; they urged sexual freedom, including homosexual and bisexual relationships. 2446
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Auden’s second book, The Orators, issued by Faber in 1932, created more of a stir in the literary establishment. Almost impossible to describe, the book is a mélange: hortatory prose, poems, diagrams, and journal entries. The first part, heavily indebted to the thought of the recently deceased D. H. Lawrence, consists of four diverse “orations” united by a theme Auden referred to as “the failure of the romantic conception of personality.” The second part, which critics found most interesting, expresses the plans of a dedicated but mentally disordered revolutionary leader. The third part consists of six odes that dramatize, ambiguously and often parodically, the sentiment for a leader who can “save” England. As often happens with the second book of a previously neglected author, the new work drew attention back to the earlier one. Although few critics professed any great understanding of Auden’s poetry, they agreed on the brilliance with which he had caught the perspective of his generation. He spoke for an embittered, confused, and worried generation with no settled views but with a sense of the need for action to remedy a civilization sinking deeper into a mire. Faith in democracy, capitalism, and traditional religion were all fast waning; the most committed people were either communists or fas-
W. H. Auden. (© Jill Krementz)
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preserve, and the same editor’s The English Auden: Poems, Essays, and Dramatic Writings, 1927-1939 (1977) demonstrates how many early poems Auden later rejected, including some of the incendiary ones that had excited his early champions. Whether dissatisfied with these poems or afraid that they distorted the body of his work by implying a Marxist outlook to which he never committed himself (although he was for a time in the 1930’s taken up enthusiastically by Marxist critics), Auden did much throughout the 1930’s to modify the impression that his poems of the late 1920’s and very early 1930’s had made on the reading public. Finally, in a celebrated 1939 poem, Auden repudiated a conviction that, rightly or wrongly, both friendly and unfriendly critics had widely attributed to him. “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” following within weeks of the death of the great Irish poet, asserts that “poetry makes nothing happen.” His point was not that poetry has no effect on people—quite the contrary—but that poetry is a celebration of its subject matter and of language itself. It is not propaganda, not a blueprint for a program. Like Eliot before him, Auden turned religious, disappointing followers who, for the most part, continued to admire him immensely. He continued to write forcefully for more than three decades, until his death in 1973, but by 1940 he seemed less the leader of a poetic generation than the imposing individual he had always been. Auden settled in the United States in 1939 and acquired U.S. citizenship in 1946, although he served as professor of poetry at Oxford from 1956 to 1961. — Robert P. Ellis Further Reading Auden, W. H. The English Auden: Poems, Essays, and Dramatic Writings, 1927-1939. Edited by Edward Mendelson. New York: Random House, 1977. The works that established Auden in their complete and original versions as edited by Auden’s literary executor. Meticulously re-creates a body of work, some of which Auden, from the perspective of his maturity, sought to suppress. Bozorth, Richard R. Auden’s Games of Knowledge: Poetry and the Meanings of Homosexuality. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Argues that Auden’s work was directly influenced by his homosexuality and his efforts to understand how to be a homosexual poet. Carpenter, Humphrey. W. H. Auden: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Comprehensive and extensively documented life of the poet. Does a thor2447
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cists. Neither the obscurity of the book nor the apparent incoherence of its author’s philosophy were regarded as flaws. Not only did reviewers for Criterion and The Times Literary Supplement praise the book, but influential men of letters on both sides of the Atlantic also took notice. Edmund Wilson began advising his literary friends to read The Orators, Poems, and Auden’s 1933 play The Dance of Death. The influential editor of Scrutiny, F. R. Leavis, chose to attack Auden’s work, a sure sign of Auden’s growing importance. In retrospect, much of the criticism both pro and con looks imperceptive or even irrelevant, but it made Auden a very famous man while he was still in his twenties. Auden was essentially a private man much more interested in doing his own work than in leading a movement, but by force of his intellectual interests he was leading one anyway. No other poet could match his command of Freudian psychology, Marxist political theory, and general scientific knowledge. His formidable poetic vocabulary and the exceptionally wide range of his allusions confounded efforts to interpret individual poems, but collectively, they communicated an indelible impression of a poet fully engaged with the world and society of his time. Isherwood pointed out in 1937 that when Auden contemplated a ruin, it was not that of an ancient abbey such as Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, or even Eliot might celebrate, but of an abandoned factory or mill. Auden’s poetry accommodated subject matter outside the ken of other poets. Many of the young Auden enthusiasts rushed off to support the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War against General Francisco Franco, and some lost their lives there. Auden himself went to Spain for a few weeks early in 1937, presumably with the intention of driving an ambulance. He attributed the fact of his finding little to do there to his having failed to join the Communist Party. When, later that year, Auden accepted the King’s Medal for Poetry for his 1936 collection of poems Look, Stranger! some of his support among young radicals fell away, but his general readership had increased greatly. Also in 1937, Geoffrey Grigson devoted one issue of his New Verse (which had been featuring Auden’s poetry since its inception in 1932) entirely to articles about Auden. An assessment of the impact of Auden’s early poetry must take into account its effect on the poet. A comparison of Edward Mendelson’s edition of Collected Poems (1976), including only those poems that Auden wished to
Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation
Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation ough job of tracing reviews of, and reactions to, Auden’s early poems. Chronological narrative features considerable information about Auden’s literary friends. Includes many photographs and a good bibliography. Fuller, John. W. H. Auden: A Commentary. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. Designed to help readers understand Auden’s poetry and other works by placing them in the context of the times in which they were written, explaining allusions, paraphrasing passages, and providing information on sources, publication history, and so on. Hynes, Samuel. The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930’s. New York: Viking Press, 1976. Scrupulously scholarly and nonpartisan work (in contrast to the Spender and Symons books cited below) with a firm and balanced sense of historical context. Illuminates the often neglected subject of the influences of Auden’s contemporaries on his own development. Spears, Monroe K., ed. Auden: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. Excellent essays include Christopher Isherwood’s “Some Notes on Auden’s Early Poetry” and G. S. Fraser’s “The Career of W. H. Auden.” Isherwood’s essay, originally printed in Geoffrey Grigson’s 1937
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Auden issue of New Verse, represents the best in 1930’s criticism of Auden. Spender, Stephen. The Thirties and After: Poetry, Politics, People, 1933-1970. New York: Random House, 1978. Collection of Spender’s essays includes reminiscences of Auden and Louis MacNeice as well as somewhat edited versions of Spender’s early pronouncements on the relationship between poetry and revolutionary thought and on his espousal of communism. The final essay is the memorial address delivered at Oxford in 1973. Symons, Julian. The Thirties: A Dream Revolved. 1960. Reprint. North Yorkshire, England: House of Stratus, 2001. Quotes from a variety of literary and journalistic sources, many of them leftist, and comments on them to convey a sense of the intellectual, social, and political background of a decade in which the author himself was young, leftist, and thoroughly imbued with Auden’s poetry. Deftly evokes the period with well-chosen photographs of social, artistic, and theatrical subjects. See also: 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics; Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine; 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge.
September 8, 1930
Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation The Canadian government sought relief from the Great Depression by implementing new policies aimed at improving the economy and putting people back to work. Locale: Canada Categories: Trade and commerce; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), prime minister of Canada, 1930-1935 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Edward Beatty (1877-1943), president of the Canadian Pacific Railroad 2448
Summary of Event On September 8, 1930, the Canadian parliament passed new tariff laws designed to help Canada weather what became the Great Depression. The laws were designed to exclude the importation into Canada of types of articles already being produced domestically, as well as products that Canadians might produce in the future. The 1930 laws by themselves were not critical; they were merely the first in a series of tariff laws passed between 1930 and 1932. The cumulative effect of these laws mitigated the Depression somewhat. For the most part, however, it was not until the onset of World War II that Canada recovered from the Depression. Virtually every aspect of the Canadian economy went into a long-term tailspin starting in 1929. The worldwide economic downturn had a particularly adverse effect on the country’s balance of trade, because Canada was highly dependent on exports to fuel its economy. In fact,
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Bennett, a self-made multimillionaire and member of the Conservative Party, was a New Brunswick native who had made his fortune as a lawyer and businessman, first in western Canada and later in the central section of the country. He became prime minister in 1930. Backed by worried eastern Canadian industrialists, Bennett campaigned on the promise that he would provide tariff protection for industry and badly needed jobs for workers. He also promised farmers that he would help Canada blast its way into the markets of the world. Once elected, he made good on his first promise, raising protective tariffs. Bennett moved partly to combat similar tariffs instituted in the United States, in particular the HawleySmoot Tariff Act of 1930, which imposed the highest tariffs in U.S. history. That tariff made the devaluation of foreign currencies almost inevitable and made it impossible for European nations to earn the dollars they needed to continue making payments on their World War I debts to the United States. These conditions helped bring on financial collapse in Europe in 1931. As Canada was inextricably tied to England as a member of the British Empire, the U.S. actions had a major impact on the Canadian economy. Economists had pointed out to President Herbert Hoover all the drawbacks of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. They suggested that the act would cause higher prices for consumers, destroy international trade, and make it difficult, it not impossible, for other countries to sell their goods to the United States. Additionally, they claimed, it would not help U.S. farmers, who were producing great surpluses at the time. Hoover ignored a petition, signed by a thousand economists, that asked him to refuse to sign the act. Hoover believed that he could use the flexible provision the Hawley-Smoot Act contained to raise or lower rates up to 50 percent, on advice of the Tariff Commission. Other countries saw no alternative but to implement high tariffs of their own, the route Bennett chose. Bennett based his 1930 campaign for prime minister in part on the need for new tariffs. The Canadian Conservative Party argued that higher levels of protection were needed to preserve the Canadian market for Canadian businesses until other countries, primarily the United States, lowered their tariffs. The incumbent Liberals, on the other hand, led by longtime prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, advocated tariff adjustments designed to reduce duties on a few items while raising them on others. The difference in the two parties’ approaches to protectionism had a major impact on the outcome of the election. 2449
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prior to the stock market crash in 1929, exports accounted for more than one-third of the country’s national income. The fact that many foreign countries, most notably the United States, reacted to their individual economic problems by curbing imports and raising tariffs hurt Canada enormously. Entire export-driven Canadian industries shut down. For example, industries based on lumber and pulp, commercial fishing, and mining practically ceased operations, throwing thousands of employees out of work. These displaced people flocked to the cities looking for work, only to meet competition from thousands of unemployed factory workers. To make matters worse, prices in the Canadian wheat market collapsed. Price was only one of the farmers’ worries, however, as nature compounded their problems. A drought that affected Canada for almost ten years began around 1930. Making matters worse, clouds of grasshoppers destroyed the little grain that grew. The drought and the grasshoppers caused wheat to shrivel, cattle to die, and wind to pick up dirt and blow it in raging dust storms that could be seen for hundreds of miles. The Canadian government had few, if any, social programs in place, in part because of constitutional limitations that prohibited the federal government from enacting unemployment insurance legislation. Paradoxically, judicial decisions in the 1920’s left the provinces with heavy responsibilities in social arenas and the federal government with access to the largest sources of revenue. This situation presented a quandary for Canada throughout the 1930’s. A small old-age pension fund scheme had been started in 1927, but little else existed to help the unemployed, sick, or destitute. Out-of-work Canadians had to rely on the charity of private and public institutions for support, and that was something to which Canadians simply were not accustomed. Even though the Depression affected the entire country, citizens had to deal with it as best they could on a community-by-community basis. Even the provincial governments found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy. In Saskatchewan, for example, two-thirds of the province’s rural population was forced to seek public assistance. More than 95 percent of the province’s rural municipalities were at the brink of bankruptcy, and the provincial government could offer very little relief. Farmers lined up for a monthly allowance of flour and money to buy other food. As Canadians dependent on small-scale relief provided by communities and private charities searched desperately for a better answer, Richard Bedford Bennett offered some solutions.
Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation
Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation Once elected, Bennett wasted little time implementing his protectionist program. He placed new duties on agricultural products and granted increased protection to virtually every industry of any importance. Overall, Bennett raised the general tariff level almost 50 percent. He also employed a series of special devices such as arbitrary valuations for customs purposes and arbitrary fixing of exchange rates in the case of depreciated foreign currencies. The end result was the most sweeping change ever in the Canadian tariff system. The results, however, were mixed. The protectionist policy led to a heavy reduction in imports and increased Canadian manufacturers’ share of the domestic market, which eased unemployment. It did little, however, to increase domestic purchasing power and imposed higher costs on large groups of both producers and consumers. The tariff was of little help to the country’s basic producers unless used not as a barrier but as a lever to force trade concessions from other countries. Unfortunately for the Canadian government, such concessions were hard to come by, as most nations were experiencing economic downturns of their own. Bennett hoped, however, that protectionism would stimulate the Canadian economy in the short run. He was less concerned about the long term. In general, Canadians did not believe the financial downturn prompted by the 1929 stock market crash would last long. For example, Edward Beatty, president of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, suggested that once the temporary adverse effects of economic problems had run their course, Canadian economic conditions would be more soundly based, with the way cleared for a vigorous forward movement. The economic downturn proved to be much more than temporary. Beatty, like many Canadians, failed to recognize just how widespread the problem was. Perhaps the country’s economy could have survived with minimal disruption if only one major sector had been hit. Because both the industrial and agricultural sectors were affected at the same time, the country as a whole suffered. Grains, particularly wheat, provided Canada with one of its largest overseas markets in the early 1920’s. By the mid-1920’s, however, most European countries, in an effort to save their own farmers, began to raise tariffs. To make matters worse for Canadians, the Soviet Union began exporting wheat again after a suspension that began during World War I. The combination of protective tariffs and the Soviet Union’s reentry into the wheat exporting business drove wheat prices down and presaged problems for Canadian farmers. Prices dropped by more than half in some cases. 2450
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Canadian manufacturers were not as dependent on exports as were farmers; nevertheless, they could not absorb price reductions of more than half for pulp, paper, and mining products that beset them between 1929 and 1933. These four years were particularly trying as export markets shrank dramatically in the face of increasing tariffs imposed by other countries. Shrinking exports led to decreased purchasing power in Canada. Manufacturers cut back on production and started laying off their workers. By the summer of 1930, more than 390,000 people were out of work in Canada, nearly 13 percent of the country’s labor force. The percentage doubled by 1933 and remained high for the rest of the decade; it returned to the 1933 level only once before 1939. A concomitant drop in income occurred: Between 1928 and 1933, Canadians’ annual per-capita income declined by 48 percent, from $471 to $247. The highest declines occurred in the prairie wheat belt. For example, Saskatchewan’s percapita income dropped by 72 percent, Alberta’s by 61 percent, and Manitoba’s by 49 percent. Significance In addition to higher tariffs, Bennett established work camps in British Columbia to control moving gangs of unemployed men who were “riding the rails” across the country in search of work. Thousands of these men joined the Communist-sponsored Relief Camp Workers’ Union and began to march to Ottawa, the nation’s capital, to seek relief from the chronic unemployment plaguing the country. When they reached Regina, Saskatchewan, Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested the group’s leaders. In the ensuing riot, one police officer was killed and several others were wounded. That effectively ended the work camp experience. Bennett increased payments to the provinces for the relief of unemployment and sponsored legislation establishing the Bank of Canada, which added an important weapon to the central government’s fiscal and monetary policy arsenal. On the international front, he worked with Great Britain and other countries in the British Empire to establish an imperial free trading area protected against the rest of the world. He achieved some success in this attempt, securing the Ottawa Agreements in 1932, but nowhere near enough to right the foundering Canadian economy. There were a few signs of abatement in the world’s economic problems in the mid-1930’s. In Canada, between 1932 and 1937, the wholesale price index rose by nearly one-third, and exports increased from $500 mil-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
the Depression. Government programs did not bring an end to the lengthy Depression; the end came only when war broke out again. The onset of World War II did for Canada what nothing else had been able to: It spurred the economy and created a demand for Canadian products. Bennett and King perhaps had done the best they could under trying circumstances, but the depth of the Depression stymied them as much as it did their counterparts throughout the world. The war may not have been the solution that most governments wanted, but it did put the worldwide economy back on track. Canada regained its economic strength and put to rest the most frustrating decade in its history. —Arthur G. Sharp Further Reading Brebner, John Bartlett. Canada: A Modern History. Rev. ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970. A comprehensive, readable history of Canada. Brown, Craig, ed. The Illustrated History of Canada. 4th ed. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2003. Easy-to-follow history of Canada features numerous photographs and other illustrations. Creighton, Donald Grant. Dominion of the North: A History of Canada. Rev. ed. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1972. Focuses on significant events in Canadian history. Provides useful context and background for the events of the Depression years. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. 4th ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982. Focuses on the sociological impacts of historical events in Canada. McMenemy, John. The Language of Canadian Politics: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts. 3d ed. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Collection of more than five hundred brief essays on a wide range of topics related to the Canadian system of government, Canadian political history, Canadian laws and legal history, and more. Riendeau, Roger. A Brief History of Canada. 2d rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Concise history includes discussion of Canada’s difficulties during the Great Depression. See also: 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act; Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement; Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act. 2451
1930
lion to more than $1 billion. The minor improvements were not enough, and Bennett continued to seek ways to right the country’s economy. As the Depression dragged on, Bennett revised his strategies. In 1935, without consulting his cabinet, he went on the radio to talk directly to Canadians. He revealed a new approach to ending the economic downturn, one patterned after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. After addressing the nation, he presented Parliament with a package of hastily prepared legislation that provided for unemployment insurance, minimum wages and maximum hours for work, legislation for fair trade, and the establishment of a grain board to regulate prices. Unfortunately for Bennett, many Canadians thought of the measures as too little, too late. Later that year, Canadians ousted Bennett from office and returned William Lyon Mackenzie King. King had no immediate easy answers either. He did refer Bennett’s new social legislation to the Canadian Supreme Court, which determined that most of its important provisions were unconstitutional. King’s government ratified a new trade agreement with the United States, the negotiation of which Bennett’s Conservatives had initiated. King did not push for any new social initiatives, but he did succeed in winning the approval of the provinces for a constitutional amendment giving the federal government the power to enact unemployment insurance legislation. Canada’s economy did not improve as the 1930’s dragged on; in 1937, it worsened as a new depression materialized. The amount of personal suffering and the number of institutional bankruptcies grew. In response, King appointed the Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations, also known as the Rowell-Sirois Commission, to examine the distribution of constitutional powers and the financial arrangements of the federal system. The commission’s main task was to find a new constitutional equilibrium that would distribute revenues and responsibilities in conformity with the needs of an industrial society. It took three years for the commission to make recommendations, which were ultimately rejected by the larger provinces in 1940. In the interim, under King’s guidance, the federal government became more active in setting up social programs. By 1938, it was financing a variety of work projects, supporting a costly training program for youth, and contributing substantial subsidies to house building and other construction projects. By themselves, neither the increased number of social programs nor the RowellSirois Commission’s efforts had much impact on ending
Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation
First Grand Slam of Golf
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 27, 1930
First Grand Slam of Golf When amateur golfer Bobby Jones won all four of the world’s major golf tournaments in a single year, he became a popular national hero in the United States, and coverage of his success helped increase the popularity of recreational golf throughout the world. Locale: St. Andrews, Scotland; Hoylake, England; Edina, Minnesota; Ardmore, Pennsylvania Category: Sports Key Figure Bobby Jones (1902-1971), American amateur golfer Summary of Event In the history of competitive golf, 1930 marked the first ever “grand slam,” the winning of all four of the world’s major golf championships in the same calendar year by a single player. The tournaments considered to be part of the grand slam have changed over time. In 1930, they were the British Amateur, the British Open, the United States Open, and the United States Amateur championships, and American amateur golfer Bobby Jones won all four. Golf historians believe that Jones knew 1930 would offer him his only chance to achieve wins in all four major tournaments during a single year. Traveling across the Atlantic Ocean by ocean liner was time-consuming and expensive. The Walker Cup amateur team competition between the United States and Great Britain was held that spring in England, so the United States Golf Association named Jones to be its playing captain and, therefore, paid his travel expenses. The trip gave Jones a chance to fine-tune his skills and then extend his stay for the British Amateur and the British Open in May and June as well as to lead the American side to victory in the Walker Cup competition. The first tournament of Jones’s grand slam was the British Amateur Championship, held May 26-31 at the famous Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. It was a match play competition; that is, the scores of individual players were compared on each individual golf hole, with the overall winner being the player who won the greatest number of holes. Jones won matches against eight different players, three of them by a narrow one-up margin, and defeated the defending British Amateur champion, Cyril Tolley, in the fourth match. In the thirtysixth hole final match, Jones closed out the 1923 champion, Roger Wethered, by a clear margin with five holes left to play. 2452
The second tournament of the grand slam was the Open Championship of the British Isles, commonly known as the British Open, held June 18-20 at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England. Jones did not play well in the qualifying competition but still qualified to play. After the first two eighteen-hole rounds of the tournament, Jones was in first place by one shot, and after the third eighteen-hole round he was one shot behind Archie Compton. Jones won the tournament after the fourth round by a slim two-shot margin over Macdonald Smith and Leo Diegel. It was his third British Open title in four tries, a very noteworthy achievement. On July 2, on his return to the United States after winning the two British championships, Jones was celebrated in a tickertape parade through Manhattan streets. The grand slam’s third tournament was the U.S. Open Championship, held July 10-12 at the Interlachen Country Club at Edina, Minnesota. Jones was ahead of the field by five shots after the third eighteen-hole round and won the tournament by a two-shot margin over Macdonald Smith. It was a nervous final eighteen holes for Jones; he scored poorly on the seventeenth hole and then made a remarkable forty-foot putt for a birdie (a score of one stroke less than par) on the eighteenth hole. By this time, the world media and the golfing world were intensely following Jones’s quest for the grand slam. The fourth and final tournament that would complete his accomplishment was the U.S. Amateur Championship, held September 22-27 at the Merion Cricket Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Jones won the match play tournament in rather convincing fashion. He finished the two qualifying rounds in first place, and he won his first two match play victories by a comfortable fivehole margin, first defeating the Canadian Amateur champion, Sandy Sommerville. The last three matches, consisting of thirty-six holes each, were a severe test of endurance for Jones. He won by six holes in the final eight-player quarterfinal and then defeated Jess Sweetster by nine holes in the four-player semifinal. During the last match, Jones defeated Eugene Homans, who conceded at the twenty-ninth hole. Newspaper accounts of the final tournament of the grand slam emphasized the huge crowds of spectators lining the fairways of each hole played by Jones and the presence of a security guard detail to protect him from being engulfed by joyous fans at the completion of his victory. O. B. Keeler, a writer for the Atlanta Journal
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Grand Slam of Golf golf. He played golf competitively only from age fourteen to age twenty-eight, but during those fourteen years he won thirteen major championships: four U.S. Opens, three British Opens, five U.S. Amateurs, and one British Amateur. In 1926, he was the first player ever to win the U.S. and British Open tournaments in the same year. Jones practiced law and pursued business dealings from 1928 onward, and after he retired from competitive golf he was paid about $250,000 to make a series of golf instructional films. With A. G. Spalding and Company, he designed and manufactured the first set of matched golf clubs. He was among the thirteen original members inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.
Bobby Jones. (Library of Congress)
Further Reading Frost, Mark. The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf. New York: Hyperion, 2004. Very detailed, research-based biography relies on thorough analysis of newspaper accounts and firstperson accounts. Provides readers with a sense of the significance of Jones’s accomplishment and the degree of his fame. Includes photographs. 2453
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newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, accompanied Jones throughout his adult golf career. Keeler is credited with first using the phrase “grand slam” to describe the winning of all four major tournaments; he also referred to the accomplishment as the “impregnable quadrilateral.” Most golf historians agree that Jones’s grand slam stands as the greatest achievement in golf history because Jones truly was an amateur player, balancing a career in law and business with family responsibilities and competitive golf. He played in an era when amateur sport was more esteemed than professional sports. After he completed the grand slam, Jones appeared on the cover of Time magazine and received another New York City ticker-tape parade. Jones had a truly remarkable career in competitive
Significance By 1930, golf was rapidly evolving into a sport dominated by professional players. Jones’s chief rivals in the “open” championships (meaning that they were open to both amateur and professional players) were professionals, including the great Walter Hagen. Many historians believe that the publicity generated by Jones’s accomplishments in these tournaments helped to increase the popularity of recreational golf, leading to greater numbers of players, more courses, and mass production of equipment. Jones was the primary founder of the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in 1933, a tournament that later became part of golf’s grand slam. Jones retired from competitive golf in 1931, and by 1932 he had helped design and build the Augusta club. Jones served as the host of the Masters all the way through 1968, personally presenting the ceremonial green jacket to the winner each year. —Alan Prescott Peterson
Du Pont Introduces Freon Jones, Bobby. How I Play Golf [DVD]. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros., 2004. After he retired from competitive golf, Jones made a series of instructional films that were shown in movie theaters. These are now available in DVD format. Lewis, Catherine M. Bobby Jones and the Quest for the Grand Slam. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2005. Biography places Jones’s golfing accomplishments within the context of his life and times. Includes bibliography and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Rapoport, Ron. The Immortal Bobby: Bobby Jones and the Golden Age of Golf. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Carefully researched and readable guide to Jones’s life and accomplishments. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Jan., 1901: American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament; June, 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated; Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis.
December, 1930
Du Pont Introduces Freon In response to a growing need for such chemicals, the Du Pont Corporation introduced a class of nontoxic, nonflammable chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons for use as refrigerants, which they trademarked under the name Freon. Despite the advance in health and safety that Freon seemed to represent, it later was shown to harm the earth’s ozone shield, potentially creating a greater long-term hazard than did the more toxic chemicals it replaced. Locale: Wilmington, Delaware Categories: Environmental issues; inventions; science and technology; earth science Key Figures Thomas Midgley, Jr. (1889-1944), engineer, scientist, and president of the American Chemical Society Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958), American engineer and automotive pioneer Albert Leon Henne (1901-1967), chemistry professor at Ohio State University F. Sherwood Rowland (b. 1927), chemistry professor at the University of California at Irvine Richard S. Stolarski (fl. late twentieth century), physicist at the University of Michigan Summary of Event The history of mechanical refrigerators can be traced to the late eighteenth century, but the earliest devices relied on steam power and were large and cumbersome. Nevertheless, some refrigerators were used for ice-making and for industrial cooling in the nineteenth century. The source of the cooling effect was the evaporation of a volatile substance (the “refrigerant”) in a closed system. The evaporation cooled saltwater or air that circulated around 2454
the outside of the closed system. In order to achieve continuous cooling, the refrigerant would be reliquefied by a compressor, with the accompanying heat being rejected to the outside through air cooling. In effect, the refrigerator acted to pump heat from the interior of the unit to the outside, causing its surroundings to become warmer and creating a cold zone inside. Household refrigerators became practical after electricity and small electrical motors became available, eliminating the need for steam power. In 1913, the first home refrigerator went on sale in the United States. It used sulfur dioxide as a refrigerant, but it required the owner to keep a compressor in the cellar; the compressor would be connected by tubes to an icebox upstairs in the kitchen. This arrangement was considered necessary because of the possibility of leakage of obnoxious fumes from the compressor. In the 1920’s, some household refrigerators appeared in which ammonia—a toxic, flammable substance—was used as a refrigerant. These appliances were successful enough to show that an enormous potential market existed, but it was necessary for manufacturers to achieve greater safety and reliability before refrigerators could become commonplace. In response to this need, Charles Franklin Kettering, an executive at General Motors Corporation, asked Thomas Midgley, Jr., an engineer, to look into the development of a safe, effective refrigerant for use in consumer products. After talking to Lester Keilholtz, the chief engineer at the Frigidaire Corporation, Midgley went to work in the library, along with coworkers Albert Leon Henne and Robert MacNary. They became familiar with the physical and chemical properties of the known useful refrigerants described in chemical and engineering literature. All such materials contained one or more
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen, elements that occur in the first part of the chemist’s periodic table. The element fluorine, adjacent to oxygen in the periodic table, was known to form many compounds with low boiling points that might be suitable refrigerants. The possible toxicity of such compounds was of concern, however, as several fluorine compounds, such as hydrogen fluoride, are hazardous to breathe. At the time of Midgley’s work, organic fluorine compounds were not yet available commercially, but they could be made in the laboratory by fluorination procedures worked out by the Belgian fluorine pioneer Frédéric Swarts. Swarts’s methods depended on the replacement of chlorine atoms in carbon-chlorine compounds by fluorine through the use of metal fluorides, such as antimony trifluoride, as fluorine carriers. Midgley obtained several bottles of antimony trifluoride, which he later described as probably the entire U.S. supply of the compound. He did not know that only one of the samples was pure and free of water. Fortunately, and quite by accident, the pure sample was used in the first fluorocarbon preparation and afforded a pure, nontoxic fluorocarbon, harmless to experimental animals. The less-pure antimony fluoride released toxic gases in addition to the desired fluorocarbon. Encouraged by the preliminary experiment, Midgley and Henne made a thorough study of possible organic fluorides for use as refrigerants, and they published their findings in 1930. General Motors and the Du Pont Corporation formed a new company, Kinetic Chemicals, to manufacture dichlorodifluoromethane (Freon 12), and production began in December, 1930. The company trademarked the term Freon, which came to refer to a category of fluorocarbons or chlorofluorocarbons used as refrigerants, rather than to a particular chemical. During 1931, more than one million pounds of Freon 12 were sold. In 1935, a U.S. patent was granted to General Motors for the use of Freon as a refrigerant.
sulted partly from the use of CFC refrigerants. At major chemical companies such as Du Pont, chemists began to foresee other uses for CFCs. Soon, CFC solvents were developed and became increasingly important in electronic applications, such as the removal of grease from printed circuits. Volatile fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons began to be used as aerosol propellants. In this application, their low toxicity and lack of flammability gave them an advantage over such propellants as butane or nitrous oxide. Foam plastic manufacturers began to use fluorocarbon gases as “blowing agents” to create bubbles in plastic. Brominecontaining fluorocarbons were developed for use as fireextinguishing materials such as Halon. As the uses of fluorocarbons expanded, more corporations began to manufacture them, not only in the United States but also in Europe and Japan. By 1969, production of fluorocarbons reached 700 million pounds, of which about half was dichlorodifluoromethane. By 1974, world production of fluorocarbons was almost 2 billion pounds. This expansion was not an unmixed blessing, as events were to show. The fluorocarbons, CFCs, Freons, and their chemical cousins that were being so copiously manufactured were ultimately escaping into the atmosphere. In June, 1974, F. Sherwood Rowland and M. Molina published a paper in the British journal Nature describing the possible fate of CFCs in the earth’s atmosphere. They theorized that, after diffusing slowly into the stratosphere, CFCs would undergo irradiation by highly energetic ultraviolet light from the Sun. This radiation, upon absorption by a CFC molecule, would produce a temperature increase and, at the same time, would cause some CFC molecules to break up, forming highly reactive chlorine atoms. Earlier in 1974, Richard S. Stolarski and Ralph J. Cicerone had shown that chlorine atoms from rocket exhaust could cause ozone decomposition in the stratosphere. The stratosphere, an atmospheric layer of about ten to fifty kilometers in altitude, is the site of the earth’s protective ozone layer. Ozone is a form of oxygen containing three oxygen atoms rather than the two atoms present in ordinary oxygen. Ozone exists at low pressures and is continually forming and decomposing under the influence of solar radiation and through encounters with other constituents of the atmosphere. Although ozone is highly irritating and toxic and is regarded as a threat to health when it occurs near the earth’s surface, it has at least two beneficial effects when in its proper concentration and location in the stratosphere: It absorbs potentially dangerous ultraviolet radiation that might otherwise pene2455
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Significance The increasing production and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) had many and diverse effects in the United States. An enormous increase in sales of home refrigerators began in the 1930’s and escalated after World War II. According to one source, there were 35 million households with refrigerators by 1950 and 51 million by 1960. The use of CFCs in these refrigerators made them more appealing to the consumer. Later, home and automobile air conditioners were also sold in vast numbers. The convenience and portability of these appliances re-
Du Pont Introduces Freon
Du Pont Introduces Freon trate to the earth’s surface, and it helps to regulate the temperature of the stratosphere. Health effects of ultraviolet radiation include damage to skin and eyes, damage that can lead to skin cancer and cataracts. Although these effects are well known, it is difficult or impossible to predict the increased incidence of cancer or cataracts as a function of solar ultraviolet radiation. The effects are of a statistical nature, and many other environmental and hereditary factors may be involved in the incidence of such problems. Most scientists agree that degradation of the ozone layer presents a health hazard, but estimates of the magnitude of the threat vary widely. The story of the CFCs has shown the importance of considering the long-term environmental effects of each new product, particularly those that are manufactured and discarded in large quantities. The unique international cooperation shown in response to the threat to the ozone layer has been based on the recognition that, as the atmosphere has no political boundaries, the rules to protect it must also transcend such distinctions. —John R. Phillips Further Reading Benedick, Richard E. Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. Presents the text and a list of signers of the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and a detailed account of the negotiations that led to it. Authored by the head U.S. negotiator. Biddle, Wayne. A Field Guide to the Invisible. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. Discussion of the practical effects of fifty-eight unseeable entities, including Freon. Other entities discussed range from radio waves to bad breath to God. Bibliographic references and index. Derra, Skip. “CFC’s: No Easy Solutions.” Research and Development 32 (May, 1990): 56-66. The applications of CFCs are discussed, and attempts to find replacements are outlined. Provides a list that shows the uses of individual CFCs and their effects on the ozone layer. Includes an account of steps being taken in various countries toward compliance with the Montreal Protocol. Gillespie, Alexander. Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Air Pollution: Legal Commentaries Within the Context of Science and Policy. Boston: M. Nijhoff, 2006. Extensive legal analysis of the chemical threat to the ozone layer, synthesizing scientific knowledge on the subject with policy analysis. Bibliographic references and index. 2456
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gribbin, John. The Hole in the Sky. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. An introduction to the ozone shield and its problems. Describes the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole. Midgley, T. M., Jr. “From the Periodic Table to Production.” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 29 (1937): 241-244. Midgley gives a vivid account of the events leading up to the development of chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants. This account is either paraphrased or quoted from in most historical works that treat the subject. Midgley, Thomas, and A. L. Henne. “Organic Fluorides as Refrigerants.” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 22 (May, 1930): 542-548. Originally read as a paper at a 1930 meeting of the American Chemical Society, this paper announces the development of CFCs as refrigerants. Roan, Sharon. The Ozone Crisis: The Fifteen-Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989. Follows the complicated story of the ozone crisis, starting from the RowlandMolina publication of 1974. All the political maneuverings and scientific evidence are recounted in a historical-journalistic approach. Rowland, F. Sherwood. “Stratospheric Ozone in the Twenty-first Century: The Chlorofluorocarbon Problem.” Environmental Science and Technology 25 (April, 1991): 622-628. Clear, well-illustrated article that discusses the Antarctic ozone hole and the role of CFCs and ozone in the greenhouse effect. Schwartz, A. Truman, et al. Chemistry in Context. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown, 1994. The first three chapters of this college-level chemistry book deal with the earth’s atmosphere. Discusses global warming and the effects of CFCs on the ozone layer. Basic scientific background for an understanding of atmospheric chemistry. Color illustrations and list of references. Stolarski, Richard S. “The Antarctic Ozone Hole.” Scientific American 258 (January, 1988): 30-36. Describes how ice crystals in stratospheric clouds may facilitate the breakdown of chlorine compounds, leading to ozone destruction. Considers whether the ozone hole of 1984 was an anomaly or whether such holes might reappear in the Antarctic and perhaps elsewhere. See also: 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods; Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Bank of United States Fails
December 11, 1930
Bank of United States Fails The failure of the Bank of United States aggravated the country’s slide into the Great Depression and strengthened pressures to reform banking and the securities business. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Banking and finance; economics Key Figures Bernard Marcus (1890-1954), president of the Bank of United States, 1927-1930 Saul Singer (1881-1948), vice president of the Bank of United States, 1926-1930 Joseph Broderick (1881-1959), New York State superintendent of banking, 1929-1934 Amadeo P. Giannini (1870-1949), head of San Francisco’s Bank of Italy, 1904-1936
2457
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Summary of Event The Bank of United States was closed by order of the New York State banking authorities in December, 1930, at a time when the country was already sliding into severe depression. In terms of the dollar volume of deposits, it was the largest bank to fail in the United States up to that date. It was the twenty-eighth largest bank in the country in 1929, with $238 million in deposits and more than four hundred thousand depositors. The Bank of United States was established in 1913 by Joseph Marcus, an immigrant from Russia. Some criticized the bank’s choice of name, saying that it implied a nonexistent connection with the government, but in general the bank was honestly if aggressively managed. Catering especially to New York City’s Jewish merchants, it grew rapidly. As its profits increased, the market value of its stock increased rapidly. Part of this increase reflected investors’ high opinion of New York bank stocks in general. Several New York banks had succeeded in boosting their profits and stock values by creating “securities affiliates.” These affiliates were legally separate corporations owned by the same people who owned stock in the bank. The affiliates were free to speculate in securities and to engage in profitable financial services such as underwriting new securities issues and brokering existing shares. In New York, both First National Bank and National City Bank created highly profitable affiliates. Printing stock certificates of banks and their affiliates back-to-back ensured that both would be owned by exactly the same people. Although the parent banks were
subject to regular bank examination by state or federal authorities, the affiliates were not until, in 1929, New York State bank superintendent Joseph Broderick extended the inspections to include affiliates. In 1927, Joseph Marcus died, and the management of the Bank of United States came under the control of his son, Bernard Marcus, working closely with vice president Saul Singer. They observed the rapid rise of most stock prices, which took bank stock prices to especially high multiples of earnings. They apparently were impressed by the operations of Bancitaly, an affiliate organized by California’s Amadeo P. Giannini and closely linked with the Bank of Italy, forerunner of the Bank of America. In the late months of 1927, Marcus and Singer embarked on a three-pronged strategy designed to raise the market value of stock in the Bank of United States. They invested heavily in the stock, using money borrowed from their own bank. The first part of the strategy involved expansion through mergers and bank purchases. Within a year following May, 1928, they merged with or acquired five other banks. Usually these combinations involved giving stock in the bank or its affiliates in exchange for stock of the acquired bank. In several cases. the bank promised to repurchase its stock if its market value fell below the level at which these exchanges were made. These agreements exposed the bank to heavy losses when its stock did in fact fall. The second element of the Marcus-Singer strategy involved the creation of securities affiliates. This process began with the creation of City Financial Corporation in August, 1927. In December, 1928, Marcus and Singer established the Bankus Corporation, which then absorbed City Financial. Shares of Bankus were linked one to one with those of the Bank of United States and sold together as “units.” Another securities affiliate, Municipal Finance, joined the group through merger in April, 1929. City, Bankus, and Municipal in turn became investors in a second layer of affiliates, which included by 1929 an insurance company, a mortgage company, and three safe deposit companies. The affiliates also made extensive purchases of the bank’s stock or made loans with that stock as collateral. The third element of the strategy was a heavy commitment to real estate finance in New York City, even though the nation’s real estate markets were showing signs of trouble and banks were being warned against
Bank of United States Fails
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Irate and bewildered customers crowd around the closed doors of the Bank of United States on December 11, 1930. (AP/Wide World Photos)
such involvements. Because banking law severely restricted real estate lending and direct ownership, the bank organized its real estate involvements through a bevy of additional affiliates. A typical affiliate would own and operate an apartment building using funds obtained from City, Bankus, Municipal, or the second-line affiliates, which in turn were obtaining money by borrowing from the Bank of United States. Many of the real estate ventures involved heavy risk exposure, as the bank’s affiliates either were the owners of heavily indebted property or held junior mortgages. In 1929, bank examiners were critical of the real estate involvements. The Marcus-Singer efforts to raise the value of the bank’s stock and thus enrich themselves were not successful. Even as the general stock market rose in 1929, the bank’s “units” began to decline in value. From $242 in April, 1929, the price fell to $207 in early July. This 2458
decline led to a frenzy of effort by the bank’s management to sell shares to depositors. The bank’s employees were instructed to promise depositors that the bank would repurchase its shares if they fell below $198; about $6 million of additional stock was sold under this unwritten promise. The various affiliates were also buying the bank’s stock to try to prop up its price. Despite these efforts, the bank’s stock continued to decline, and it fell even more in the general market collapse in October, 1929. By December, the stock had fallen to $75 a share. Very few investors got the bank to stand behind its promise to buy back shares. The market decline meant a sharp fall in revenues from financial services, and capital losses replaced capital gains in the affiliates’ accounts. The bank’s earnings were disappearing, a process aggravated by neglect of honest and competent administration of mainstream banking operations.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 A thorough government examination of the bank began in July, 1930, and lasted until September. The authorities concluded that the bank was in serious trouble and that it could be saved only through merger. Various merger proposals were explored with the aid of federal and state officials, but excessive demands by the bank’s management prevented successful completion of a merger. In late November, a four-bank merger appeared to be firm, but the partners feared heavy deposit withdrawals and insisted that other New York banks stand ready to lend to them. These guarantees from other New York banks could not be secured. As withdrawals of deposits accelerated with news of the merger failure, Superintendent Broderick reluctantly agreed to close the bank, effective December 11, 1930. The bank’s assets were impaired partly because of the decline in the value of its stock, which was extensively pledged as collateral, and of its real estate assets.
The failure of the Bank of United States was an early and dramatic part of the massive wave of bank failures that swept the United States from 1930 to 1933. The lesson was learned that bank failures could be a major source of deflationary damage, aggravating depression and unemployment. From this lesson emerged several important policy measures. In 1932, Congress created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, an emergency lending agency charged particularly with making emergency credit available to distressed banks, even to the point of lending to suspended banks so that they could accelerate their payouts to depositors. A more permanent result was the establishment, through the Banking Act of June, 1933, of federal deposit insurance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) began operations in 1934. A major purpose of the FDIC was to ensure that even if a bank failed, the rank and file of household and small-business depositors would receive their deposit funds without loss or delay. Despite problems with deposit insurance in the 1980’s, it has remained an important reason why no serious depression has afflicted the United States since the 1930’s. The bank’s failure, coming so soon after the stock market crash of 1929, added to the public’s anger directed toward financial speculators and manipulators. Bernard Marcus and Saul Singer were indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison terms for fraudulent actions. Politically, this anger led to the passage of the Securities Act of May, 1933, and the Securities Exchange Act of June, 1934, regulating securities trading and requiring much more complete reporting of corporate financial conditions. Outrage was particularly directed toward the securities affiliates, which were blamed for banking difficulties. The Bankus experience was important evidence leading to the provisions of the Banking Act of 1933, which forbade banks to act as underwriters or dealers in securities or to be affiliated with such activities. Public anger was also directed at regulatory officials who let banking mismanagement go on so long. Superintendent Broderick was indicted for negligence in failing to close or reorganize the bank, but he was acquitted of the charges in 1932. Because of similar experiences throughout the country, bank regulators began to take much more aggressive attitudes toward ousting misbehaving bank managers. The newly created FDIC took on a forceful regulatory role toward banks not already under federal supervision. —Paul B. Trescott 2459
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Significance The immediate effect of the bank’s failure was to aggravate the country’s slide into serious depression. The bank’s stockholders sustained double losses. Not only did the stock in the bank and its affiliates become worthless, but also, under the “double liability” law in force at the time, stockholders were liable for an additional $25 per share to cover depositors’ claims. About $10 million was collected from stockholders. At the time the bank closed, its deposits totaled about $160 million, and this purchasing power was temporarily unavailable to depositors. As soon as the bank closed, intense efforts were made to collect its loans. Thousands of small businesses that counted on continuation of their lines of credit from the bank found themselves cut off. These developments caused a direct drop in consumer spending in New York, as measured by sales of department stores and chain stores. Ultimately, depositors received most of their money back. Collecting loans, selling assets, and suing stockholders and directors enabled depositors to regain about three-fourths of their funds. The bank’s affairs were not settled, however, until 1944. Although there were no other major bank failures in New York City in 1931 and 1932, the intense publicity attending the bank’s failure and liquidation undoubtedly added to public distrust of the banking system. This was reflected in heavy sustained withdrawals of currency from banks in 1931. These withdrawals reduced bank reserves and obliged banks to reduce their lending, adding force to the deflationary process.
Bank of United States Fails
Bank of United States Fails Further Reading Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Definitive and sometimes quite technical scholarly work makes brief mention of the failure of the Bank of United States, placing it in the context of the monetary crisis and showing how it led to increased withdrawal of currency from other banks. Presents controversial assertions about the causes and consequences of the failure. Kindleberger, Charles P. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. General survey of financial speculation and monetary crises from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. Peach, W. Nelson. The Security Affiliates of National Banks. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941. Scholarly work examines the evolution of securities affiliates and describes their role in the stock boom and bust of the 1920’s. Describes the hostility toward affiliates resulting from the stock market crash and assesses the resulting reform legislation. Pecora, Ferdinand. Wall Street Under Oath. 1939. Reprint. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973. Pecora was a major participant in the investigation of stock market scandals and recounts many of these in colorful if not entirely objective fashion. The securities affiliates receive much attention. Temin, Peter. Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? New York: W. W. Norton, 1976. Refutes
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 arguments by Friedman and Schwartz (cited above) about the causes of the bank’s failure and asserts that the failure did not have important economic consequences in worsening the Great Depression. Trescott, Paul B. “The Failure of the Bank of United States, 1930.” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 24 (August, 1992): 384-399. Examines the bank’s relationships with its affiliates, explains the causes of its failure, and shows evidence of the failure’s impact on currency withdrawals and on consumer spending. Werner, Morris Robert. Little Napoleons and Dummy Directors: Being the Narrative of the Bank of United States. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933. Detailed narrative of the bank’s failure is full of valuable details drawn in large part from the numerous civil and criminal court proceedings attending the failure. Colorful and melodramatic but not very analytic. Some of the material also appeared in a Fortune magazine article in March, 1933. Wicker, Elmus. The Banking Panics of the Great Depression. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Examines the origins, magnitudes, and effects of five individual banking panics. Includes discussion of the Bank of United States failure. Features figures, tables, references, and index. See also: Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror
1931
Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror
Locale: Hollywood, California Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Boris Karloff (1887-1969), British American film actor Bela Lugosi (1882-1956), Hungarian American film actor James Whale (1889-1957), British-born film director Tod Browning (1880-1962), American film director Summary of Event No two performers have been more associated with a particular motion-picture genre than Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Lugosi’s chilling portrayal of the vampire in Dracula and Karloff’s sensational incarnation as the monster in Frankenstein left Hollywood with a legacy of definitive performances that established a standard for horror films to come. Dracula and Frankenstein, both released in 1931, were the first horror films produced by Universal Pictures. The genre of the horror film, however, dates back to the beginnings of cinema and to the work of such directors as Georges Méliès and Thomas Alva Edison. Edison produced an extraordinary one-reel version of Frankenstein in 1910, the first attempt to transfer to film Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. Universal’s horror hits of the 1930’s and 1940’s, however, remain the classics of the genre. The enduring popularity of horror films is to a great extent a result of the performances of Lugosi and Karloff in these early productions. In 1930, Universal bought the film rights to a play by Hamilton Deane that was based on the 1897 Bram Stoker novel Dracula. In the play’s successful run on Broadway in 1927, Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi played the title role. Lugosi had fled his homeland in 1919 after a period of political unrest there and had made his way to New York, where he joined the Hungarian community and began working in Hungarian-language theater productions. The director of the film version of Dracula, Tod Browning, had a talent for the macabre. His direction of Lon Chaney, a master of grotesque disguises, resulted in several notable melodramas in the 1920’s, including The
Unholy Three (1925), The Big City (1928), and West of Zanzibar (1928). Originally, Universal had chosen the play as a vehicle for Chaney; when Chaney died of cancer in 1930, Browning considered several other actors for the lead. Lugosi, who had not yet mastered English, badly wanted the part and was finally hired—perhaps because he had successfully played the role on Broadway. The tremendous impact the film had on audiences was in part due to Lugosi’s exotic and mysterious presence. His halting command of English, his long black cape, and his refined manners created a stir among women, some of whom actually fainted during showings of the film. In the credits, however, Lugosi was merely listed along with the other players. In the film, Lugosi plays the part of Count Dracula, a five-hundred-year-old vampire whose thirst for human blood cannot be quenched. As the undying vampire constantly in search of new victims, he moves from his castle in Transylvania to the ruins of an abbey in England. While attending an opera one evening, he meets two young women from polite society. Using his cultivated charm and mysterious gaze, he begins stalking them, apparently with the aim of turning them into vampires also, but a famous vampire killer, Dr. Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) comes to the rescue. After some psychic struggle between the two, Van Helsing tracks Dracula to his coffin lair and drives a stake through his heart, thus breaking the spell. Because Dracula was being filmed during the Depression, when Universal operated under rather severe budget restraints, every effort was made to save money. In one scene, Universal even used footage cannibalized from one of its other films. Most of the four hundred thousand dollars it cost to make Dracula went into the fantastic sets of Dracula’s castle; Lugosi was paid a mere thirty-five hundred dollars for his performance. Universal was at first unsure of the impact Dracula would have on the public. Fearing that the film might be rejected as too horrible or disgusting, the studio had its publicity department advertise the film as “the story of the strangest passion the world has ever known.” Dracula was released on Valentine’s Day, 1931, and was an instant success. The popularity of the film owed as much to Lugosi’s sinister charisma as to Tod Browning’s direction and the magnificent sets. The role of Count Dracula was Lugosi’s greatest success, and he became permanently typecast as a player of vampires, 2461
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Bela Lugosi in the motion picture Dracula and Boris Karloff in Frankenstein created the archetypes for two of the most famous monsters in the horror film genre.
Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
monsters, and fiends. His “Count Dracula” was copymanagers that Karloff would terrify audiences that a prorighted by Universal, and virtually all subsequent movie logue was added to warn the audiences that the film was vampires were modeled after him in name or in style. capable of frightening and shocking them. So successful was Dracula that Universal immediWhen Frankenstein premiered in Santa Barbara, Calately set out to make another horror film. Choosing ifornia, on December 6, 1931, it created a huge sensation. the right material was a challenge; however, Mary ShelKarloff, who was not even invited to the premiere, beley’s gothic novel Frankenstein was considered a likely came an overnight horror superstar. In choosing Karloff follow-up to Dracula. Although an early treatment was to play the monster, Whale had made a brilliant choice. prepared by writer-director Robert Florey, the studio fiKarloff, who had served a lengthy apprenticeship both nally gave the picture to director James Whale. on the stage and in films, gave the monster a sympaWhale, a theatrically trained director, selected Boris thetic quality. Although the character had no dialogue, Karloff, an established character player in Hollywood Karloff was able to convey a wide range of emotions, films, to test for the part of the monster. Karloff saw the from childlike innocence to terrified bewilderment. The role as a dramatic challenge and had Jack P. Pierce, Unipoignant performance confirmed Karloff’s ability as a versal’s greatest makeup artist, design the monster’s imfirst-rate actor. age for his audition. When Whale saw the result, he immediately gave the part of Karloff. Oddly enough, the Significance part of the monster had originally been offered to Lugosi. Not only are Frankenstein and Dracula the most famous Lugosi, who was not interested in a nonspeaking part and of the Universal horror films of the 1930’s and 1940’s, who did not like having to wear the heavy makeup, but they also influenced the development of the entire turned down the role. genre. One of the most significant results of the success As adapted for film, Frankenstein is the story of a of the films has been the enduring popularity of Bela slightly mad scientist, Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive), Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Both men were highly rewho attempts to create a living man by stitching together garded actors who had already established their careers parts of cadavers. His final and most important step in the well before becoming involved in horror films. Because process is to find a suitable brain. Frankenstein’s assisof their definitive performances, however, Lugosi and tant, Fritz (Dwight Frye), a half-witted hunchback, misKarloff became typecast in the horror genre. For better or takenly brings his master a criminal brain rather than a worse, their names became forever linked in the minds of normal one. After being subjected to electrical current the public to films that evoke fear and terror. from bolts of lightning, the monster comes alive. Although Frankenstein is thrilled at the success of his work, the monster is so hideous that he is kept hidden from view in a dungeonlike cell. After being tortured by Fritz and finally escaping, the monster accidentally kills a child and is pursued by an angry mob of villagers. Dr. To view image, please refer to the Frankenstein joins the mob in search print edition of this title. of the monster. During the night, the monster grabs his creator and seeks refuge in an old windmill. The villagers finally surround the windmill and set fire to it, apparently killing the monster in the process. Jack Pierce’s artistry transformed Karloff into a truly horrible creature, with hinged skull, electrodes protruding from his neck, and a stiff-legged, Bela Lugosi in character as Count Dracula. (AP/Wide World Photos) lurching walk. So fearful were studio 2462
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Lugosi and Karloff were to be paired again in the 1930’s in another Universal adaptation of a Poe tale, The Raven (1935). Karloff was to re-create his role as the monster in two Frankenstein sequels, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi. Among the other memorable films of those years are Dracula’s Daughter (1936), The Wolf Man (1941), and The Mummy’s Tomb. The studio even successfully rereleased Frankenstein and Dracula on a double bill in 1938. Although Lugosi was perhaps as talented an actor as Karloff, he did not select his roles carefully, and he went on to make a number of forgettable, even embarrassing, films. In later years, marital and health problems took their toll, and by the mid-1950’s he was broke and addicted to drugs. He died practically destitute in 1956. Karloff, although also typecast as a horror film star, had a busy and varied career in other areas of show business, including television and the stage. In 1941, he achieved critical success in the Broadway production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Karloff’s gentle nature and quiet refinement were in stark contrast to the fiendishness of the ghouls he played in films. By the end of the 1930’s, although fans still turned out to see the latest Universal tales of horror, many of the studio’s films were mere remakes that exploited earlier films. The result was that each new title seemed to parody the horror genre. Although Dracula and Frankenstein are far from perfect films, horror fans continue to consider them minor masterpieces. The films may have lost much of their power to frighten, but the monsters created by Lugosi and Karloff remain definitive horror performances. —Francis Poole Further Reading Bojarski, Richard. The Complete Films of Bela Lugosi. New York: Citadel Press, 1980. Comprehensive survey of all Lugosi’s film appearances, including his earliest films made in Hungary and Germany. Carol Borland, who played the female vampire Luna alongside Lugosi in Mark of the Vampire (1935), contributes a wonderful introduction. Brief biography precedes the catalog of films. Includes many rare photographs. Brunas, Michael, John Brunas, and Tom Weaver. Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 19311946. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1990. A critical examination of every horror film produced by Universal in the 1930’s and 1940’s, presented chronologically. 2463
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Frankenstein was quickly followed by Murders in the Rue Morgue, which was released in 1932. Based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe (but drastically altered), the film starred Lugosi as Dr. Mirakle. This odd and disappointing melodrama is notable mainly for the presence of Lugosi as the mad scientist intent on proving his bizarre theory of evolution. Two other Universal films of 1932, The Old Dark House and The Mummy, starred Karloff. In the first film, Karloff’s performance was both brief and undistinguished. A much better film is The Mummy, which was directed by Karl Freund and starred Boris Karloff in the dual roles of Im-ho-tep, a mummy, and the resurrected Egyptian high priest Ardath Bey. Karloff plays Ardath Bey with an articulate charm and sense of style that resulted in one of his finest performances. The Mummy, noted for its excellent script, cast, and direction, is also famous for the incredible makeup by Jack Pierce. A unique and intelligent horror film, The Mummy spawned such lookalike films as The Mummy’s Hand (1940) and The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) and maintains a place alongside Universal’s two great horror films of 1931. Universal followed The Mummy with Secret of the Blue Room (1933) and The Invisible Man (1933). The Invisible Man, directed by James Whale and starring Claude Rains, was adapted from H. G. Wells’s 1897 novel The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance. Because of the innovative special effects devised to convey the illusion of invisibility, The Invisible Man is considered a unique film in Hollywood history. Lugosi and Karloff made their first joint appearance in a Universal film in The Black Cat (1934). Based loosely on a story by Poe, the film is a catalog of depravity, with various episodes of sadism, torture, mutilation, and murder acted out in a loosely woven tapestry of melodramatic sensationalism. In the film, archenemies Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi) and Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff) go at each other almost immediately upon reuniting in Poelzig’s mountaintop home. Werdegast accuses Poelzig of having killed his wife while Werdegast served time as a prisoner of war. In the years since their last meeting, Poelzig has been conducting monstrous experiments involving the preservation of the dead bodies of beautiful women. When Poelzig shows Werdegast the preserved body of his wife, Werdegast goes berserk, unleashing the forces of murder and mayhem that result in the death of both protagonists. Although The Black Cat was recut extensively prior to its release in order to placate studio chiefs who felt the film was too grisly, it remains a fascinating and bizarre horror film.
Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror
Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors Features insightful commentary presented with a nice touch of humor. Includes photographs and informative appendixes. Lennig, Arthur. The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Extensively researched biography seeks to expand the public’s view of Lugosi beyond his image as the Count. Draws on interviews, studio memos, and other primary documents. Includes numerous photographs. Lindsay, Cynthia. Dear Boris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Intimate, readable biography of Karloff by a longtime friend. Carefully explores Karloff’s early years in England and his moves to Canada and then to the United States. Quotes Karloff extensively and features excerpts of letters to Karloff from such friends as Vincent Price and Ronald Reagan. Includes photographs, family tree, and filmography. Nollen, Scott A. Boris Karloff: A Critical Account of His Screen, Stage, Radio, Television, and Recording Work. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1991. Scholarly historical and critical analysis of Karloff’s body of work, well organized and well documented. Features an assessment of Karloff’s artistic contributions writ-
1931 ULTRAMARES
ten by Ray Bradbury in 1969. Includes filmography, list of television and radio performances, and bibliography. _______. Boris Karloff: A Gentleman’s Life. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee Press, 2005. Biography written with the cooperation of Karloff’s daughter includes coverage of all aspects of the actor’s life. Features appendixes listing all of Karloff’s many performances, including those in radio and television as well as those on stage and in film. Underwood, Peter. Karloff: The Life of Boris Karloff. New York: Drake, 1972. Biography effectively recalls Karloff’s struggle to become an actor, first on the stage and then in films. Offers a detailed, anecdotal account of the making of Frankenstein. Includes photographs, selected bibliography, discography, and filmography. See also: 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 19311932: Gangster Films Become Popular.
Case Establishes Liability for Auditors
The 1931 New York case of Ultramares Corporation v. Touche set a precedent in establishing auditor liability to third-party users of audited financial statements. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938), chief justice of the Upper New York Court of Appeals George A. Touche (1861-1935), founder and partner of Touche, Niven, and Company John Ballantine Niven (1871-1954), founding partner of Touche, Niven, and Company Summary of Event The 1931 court case Ultramares Corporation v. Touche set a precedent in establishing auditor liability to third parties. The case established that auditors were not liable to “unknown” third-party users of financial statements 2464
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for ordinary negligence. The New York Court of Appeals held, however, that auditors could be liable to “known” third parties for ordinary and gross negligence and liable to “unknown” third parties for gross negligence when the negligence equated with “constructive” fraud. In January, 1924, Fred Stern and Company hired a public accounting firm, Touche, Niven, and Company (founded by George A. Touche and John Ballantine Niven), to audit its balance sheet for December 31, 1923. Touche performed the audit and rendered a “clean” opinion. Touche, Niven, and Company attached to the balance sheet a certificate dated February 26, 1924, that read as follows: We have examined the accounts of Fred Stern & Co., Inc., for the year ending December 31, 1923, and hereby certify that the annexed balance sheet is in accordance therewith and with the information and explanations given us. We further certify that, subject to provision for federal taxes on income, the said statement, in our opin-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ion, presents a true and correct view of the financial condition of Fred Stern & Co., Inc., as at December 31, 1923.
Touche was primarily for the benefit of Fred Stern and Company, not a third party. For a third party to collect based on ordinary negligence, it must be a primary beneficiary, one that the auditor had been informed about prior to conducting the audit. If so, then there is “privity of contract” between the two parties. Chief Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo wrote about privity that “if there has been neither reckless misstatement nor insincere profession of an opinion, but only honest blunder, the ensuing liability for negligence is one that is bounded by the contract, and is to be enforced between the parties by whom the contract is made.” He stated that if accountants were liable for ordinary negligence, then “a thoughtless slip or blunder, the failure to detect a theft or forgery beneath the cover of deceptive entries, may expose accountants to a liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class.” The court went on to say that this finding did not free Touche from the consequences of fraud. Cardozo stated that negligence, when considered gross or extreme, can be construed to be equivalent to fraud, even though there is no intent to deceive or to do harm. The court believed that gross negligence existed in the Ultramares case, because by “certifying to the correspondence between balance sheet and accounts the defendants made a statement as true to their knowledge, when they had . . . no knowledge on the subject.” As a result of the court’s finding, Cardozo ordered that a new trial be granted to Ultramares concerning fraudulent misrepresentation. Significance The 1931 Ultramares case brought to the forefront the issue of auditor liability to third parties. Liability can extend to include both “known” and “unknown” thirdparty users depending on the type of negligence. In recent years, some courts have broadened the Ultramares doctrine to include recovery for ordinary negligence by “unknown” third-party beneficiaries. The Restatement of Torts, an authoritative compendium of legal principles, allows recovery by a reasonably limited and identifiable group whose members rely on the auditor’s work, known as “foreseen” users. The Credit Alliance court case (1985) further extended liability to “foreseeable” users. Under this concept, users that the auditor should have been able to foresee have the same rights as those in privity of contract. As a result of Ultramares and other legal cases, accountants have become increasingly vulnerable to litigation. If an audited business experiences financial diffi2465
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After the opinion by Touche was rendered, Stern presented the balance sheet and certificate in its financial dealings. The balance sheet indicated assets of $2,550,671, liabilities of $1,479,956, and net worth of $1,070,715. In reality, the corporation was insolvent, with liabilities exceeding assets by about $200,000. Stern normally borrowed large sums of money to finance its operations. In March, 1924, the company approached Ultramares, a lending corporation, to borrow money. Based on the information contained in Stern’s audited balance sheet and certificate, Ultramares granted Stern three loans, for $100,000, $25,000, and $40,000, in December of 1924. Soon thereafter, on January 2, 1925, Fred Stern and Company declared bankruptcy. In November of 1926, Ultramares Corporation brought suit against Touche, Niven, and Company to recover the losses from the uncollectible loans. The company sued on the grounds of negligence and fraudulent misrepresentation. The balance sheet audited by Touche showed approximately $1,350,000 of accounts receivable, of which more than $700,000 was fictitious. These fictitious receivables were recorded in Stern’s books by a late entry on February 3, 1924, made by a Stern employee. The auditors accepted the adjustment and did not perform tests on the fictitious receivables. If they had, they would likely have discovered the fraud. Other suspicious discrepancies also existed in the balance sheet. For example, the auditors discovered mistakes totaling $303,863 in Stern’s inventory account, which was originally reported at $347,219. The Ultramares case made its way through three courts. The initial court hearing was a trial by jury that resulted in a ruling in favor of Ultramares Corporation on both counts, of negligence and of fraud. On appeal, the Lower New York Court of Appeals ruled again that negligence had occurred, but it found no fraud. The court based its decision on the 1922 case of Glanzer v. Shepard. The Glanzer decision stated that if a service was rendered primarily for the benefit of a third party, a company is potentially liable to the third party. Furthermore, the court stated that negligence, no matter how gross, was not equivalent to fraud. The Upper Court of Appeals reversed the lower court opinion. It made an important distinction between the Glanzer and Ultramares cases: The service provided by
Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors
Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors culties, and if a plaintiff can prove reliance on financial statements, the auditor may be subject to legal action no matter how professionally he or she conducted the audit. Investors and creditors with monetary losses sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between audit failure and business failure. Unable to recover money from a bankrupt business, they turn to auditors for compensation. The cost of defending against such litigation has become extremely high. As a result, many accountants will settle out of court even if not guilty. In order to counter potential litigation, the accounting profession responded by setting up auditing standards and a code of professional conduct. The first authoritative auditing pronouncement, issued in 1917, was described as a “memorandum on balance sheet audits” and was intended to promote “a uniform system of accounting.” At the time of the Ultramares case, audit work was preformed primarily to assure the owner that the accounting within his or her business had been handled properly. The Ultramares court ruling, however, extended liability beyond that of the owner. Furthermore, in the late 1920’s, operating performance and net income became equally as important as the balance sheet. As the complexity and scope of business changed, the auditor’s role shifted from certifying the correctness of the balance sheet to reviewing the accounting system and gathering evidence to render an opinion on the fair presentation of financial statements. A 1936 bulletin, “Examination of Financial Statements by Independent Public Accountants,” changed the accountant’s role from simple verification of the balance sheet to examination of the financial statements as a whole. Auditing standards concerning the auditor’s new role began to be issued. In 1947, the national professional accounting organization, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), released its ten “generally accepted auditing standards” (GAAS). These represented general guidelines to aid auditors in fulfilling their professional audit responsibilities. The ten GAAS were divided into three categories: general standards, standards of fieldwork, and standards of reporting. With a few minimal changes, these standards continued to govern auditors’ work into the twenty-first century. In brief, the general standards require auditors to be trained and proficient, to be independent in mental attitude, and to exercise due professional care. The standards of fieldwork require audit planning, the study of internal control, and the gathering of evidence. The reporting standards provide guidelines on matters to be 2466
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 addressed in the audit report. This discussion must include the client’s conformity with and consistent application of generally accepted accounting principles, full disclosure, and the rendering of an audit opinion. As the number of third-party users of financial statements increased, the AICPA adopted its Code of Professional Ethics in 1973 to give further guidance regarding professional conduct. Certified public accountants were to conduct their affairs in a manner meriting public trust. The code of conduct consisted of general statements of ideal conduct and specific rules of unacceptable behavior. The code included discussion concerning topics such as independence, integrity and objectivity, and compliance with standards and principles. The code, now called the Accountant’s Code of Professional Conduct, was revised in 1988. In further response to an increasingly litigious society, the AICPA updated the auditor reports in 1988 to define more clearly the roles of the auditor and management in the audit. Furthermore, at the beginning of an audit, accountants provide engagement letters to their clients that clearly outline the nature of the audit, the client’s responsibilities for the financial statements, and the meaning of the auditor’s report. Generally, accountants carry liability insurance to provide for payment of court defenses and claims. In addition, as another way of maintaining high quality within the accounting profession, the AICPA and some states require all public accounting firms providing attestation services to participate in periodic quality control reviews. Ultramares was the first of many legal cases that affected the accounting profession and its development. As a result of the ruling in that case, auditors began to take a defensive approach when conducting audits. They became aware of the potential risk of litigation, and organizations of accounting professionals began working to maintain high standards for their members’ conduct. —Marsha M. Huber Further Reading American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Staff. AICPA Professional Standards. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1992. Volume B contains the Accountant’s Code of Professional Conduct. Cook, John W., and Gary M. Winkle. Auditing. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Well-written textbook on auditing principles. Chapter on legal liability provides both historical and more current perspectives on the impacts of legal cases and government regulation on the auditing profession.
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Strawser, Jerry R., and Robert H. Strawser. Auditing: Theory and Practice. 9th ed. Houston: Dame, 2001. College textbook includes excerpts from newspaper and journal articles relating to developments in the accounting profession. See also: 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using CostPlus Contracts; Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded; Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm.
1931-1932
Gangster Films Become Popular Emerging out of the depths of the Great Depression, the gangster film revealed much about Americans’ frustrations and proved one of the most popular and resilient of film genres. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973), American film actor Mervyn LeRoy (1900-1987), American film director William Wellman (1896-1975), American film director James Cagney (1899-1986), American film actor Howard Hawks (1896-1977), American film director Paul Muni (1895-1967), American film actor Summary of Event The years 1931 and 1932 launched Hollywood’s time of the gangster. Caught in the widening Great Depression, the American people were disillusioned and angry. The national dream of economic opportunity had become a nightmare, and society’s institutions, especially the federal government under President Herbert Hoover, seemed unable to do anything except utter hollow, optimistic nostrums. The film industry, itself suffering from sagging attendance, discovered that tapping this mounting public discontent would bring people back to the theaters. In addition to normal escapist fare, the studios began offering productions dealing with corrupt politicians and businessmen, shady lawyers, dishonest journalists, and women driven to prostitution by economic necessity. These pictures showing the United States in a bleak, unsavory light were popular, but it was the gangster film
that most caught the public’s interest and offered the deepest insights into the troubled national psyche. Few gangster films were produced before the Depression; now they would proliferate, and the screen mobster, especially as he appeared in Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932), would offer himself as a new, disturbing hero. Little Caesar, directed for Warner Bros. by Mervyn LeRoy in late 1930 and released in January, 1931, broke the ground. It is a simple tale of a small-time hoodlum, Rico (played by Edward G. Robinson), who joins a mob and quickly gains power by being tougher, more relentless, and more ferocious than anyone else. Eventually, he becomes the second most important boss in the city. Rico is extremely ruthless, although ultimately not ruthless enough. He falls because he cannot bring himself to kill an old friend who wants to leave the mob. Rico stays his hand, the friend betrays him to the authorities, and Rico’s organization crumbles. Alone, on the run, he is finally gunned down by the police in an unfair fight. The police kill Rico, yet they really have little to do with his actual destruction. His doom stems from his going soft over friendship. Little Caesar was an instant hit. The film is not particularly well made or well plotted; its effectiveness comes from its violent action and the character of Rico as realized by Robinson. Rico is a compelling figure who, despite his murderous nature, emerges as a somewhat sympathetic protagonist. Rico’s prime ambition is to get ahead, to make something of himself. He wants wealth and control; even more, he desires status. He seeks to be somebody. A few decades earlier, he might have aspired to be a robber 2467
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Guy, Dan M., and D. R. Carmichael. Wiley’s Student GAAS Guide. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. A presentation of the AICPA’s standards for auditing aimed at accounting students. Hubbard, Thomas D., et al. Readings and Cases in Auditing. 6th ed. Houston: Dame, 1989. Collection of writings explaining and critiquing the auditing profession. Nielsen, Oswald. Cases in Auditing. Homewood, Ill.: R. D. Irwin, 1965. Contains legal opinions from all major court cases affecting the auditing profession.
Gangster Films Become Popular
Gangster Films Become Popular baron. Totally devoted to his ambition and rather puritanical in his personal behavior, he does not drink, involve himself with the easy women of the underworld, or do anything else that he thinks might distract him from his goals. For most of the film, Rico is successful. Through Rico, Little Caesar suggests that, given the shambles of American society, crime is perhaps the only way left to secure at least some of the American Dream. Warner Bros. quickly followed up Little Caesar with The Public Enemy. Made by veteran director William Wellman, the new picture surpassed Little Caesar in its realism and complexity of story and in its indictment of American society. The Public Enemy chronicles the career of Tommy Powers, a young man from a poor working-class district who savors the lifestyle of the wealthy mobster. Tommy, played with ebullient energy by James Cagney, takes up crime as a boy and then, with brutal efficiency, moves up the ranks of organized crime. He never obtains as much control or status as Rico, but he has more fun. Tommy likes alcohol, parties, and women. He is witty and engaging and, despite the fact that he also shoots people, he is presented as a hero. In The Public Enemy, those who have honest jobs and play by the legal rules fail. If you want to win, the film seems to say, be like Tommy Powers. Tommy enjoys his life immensely; nevertheless, he too dies, murdered by rival hoodlums while lying helpless, recovering from wounds. The gangsters of these films meet violent ends because Hollywood was unwilling to risk the wrath of censors by letting screen criminals get away with their crimes completely. Significantly, however, the film gangster’s death usually does not illustrate a crime-does-not-pay moral or occur in order that justice be upheld. Rarely does a protagonist’s demise have much to do with the nature of his crimes. He succumbs because of a personal weakness—in Rico’s case, affection for an old buddy—or, like Tommy, as a result of power struggles within the underworld. In facing death, the film gangster is often given stature and nobility; he becomes a tragic hero. The primary focus of the gangster film, however, is on these men’s lives, not their deaths, and their lives are sagas of achievement. In the midst of the economic chaos and spiritual malaise of the Great Depression, they make money in adventurous ways and enjoy great material comfort. They are common men, men of the city, men often of immigrant roots. In other words, they are men with whom millions can identify. They advance by their own talents and without hypocrisy. In a society in which the stock market crash of 1929 had revealed many business, 2468
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
James Cagney and Jean Harlow in a scene from The Public Enemy. (AP/Wide World Photos)
professional, and political leaders as frauds, the screen gangsters do not cover up what they are. Although they break the law, the law as presented in these films is either corrupt or irrelevant. In Little Caesar, the top criminal in the city, the only man more powerful than Rico, is clearly an established member of the upper-class governing elite. There are no courts in the gangster film, and the police, when they appear, are ineffectual at best. The police may show up at the end of a film to kill the gangster, as they do in Little Caesar; however, such an ending is usually a tacked-on resolution that has little to do with the logic of a film’s plot. By the time the police appear, the protagonist is already finished. In The Public Enemy, neither law nor government exists. The society belongs to those who seize control. The box-office triumphs of Little Caesar and The Public Enemy generated a host of similar films. From Little Caesar‘s release through 1932, the film industry
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incestuous feelings for his sister. When he discovers his best friend has gone off with his sister, he kills the man. The sister informs on Tony, and the police, who have spent the film doing little besides occasionally bemoaning their powerlessness, show up at the end to kill Tony. It takes large numbers of them, and a huge shootout scene, to get Tony Camonte, who goes down with almost operatic grandeur. Significance Scarface was the last of the seminal gangster films of the 1930’s. By 1933, the cycle was ending. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt was a major factor; as Roosevelt’s New Deal took hold, Americans felt that the government was finally doing something to help them. The angry national mood that had sustained the gangster films’ appeal diminished considerably. Roosevelt also ended Prohibition, eliminating any need for most people to feel grateful to organized crime. Most important, outcries against films depicting the United States as sick, films with too much sex and killing—especially mobster films— became deafening. Church and civic groups threatened boycotts, censors raged at state and local levels, and possible federal intervention loomed. Hollywood panicked. After Scarface’s release, the studios began curtailing gangster film production and moved to a self-censoring system to ensure that they would maintain control of their films. Theoretically, Hollywood had regulated itself since the 1920’s, but the program was feeble. In 1933 and 1934, the studios accepted a tougher production code that was to keep sex, excessive violence, severe disrespect for society, and glorification of such nasty people as gangsters out of films for decades. The new code at first kept the mobster off the screen, but soon he began a slow comeback. He had been so popular, had made the studios so much money, that they were loath to part with him. By 1935, Hollywood decided to make gangster films again, although with differences. There would be less violence and no sex. The moral message of the films must be clear: Crime does not pay. Government and the law, particularly the federal government in the person of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, or “G-man”—and not the criminals—must be presented as admirable. With these changes, the gangster returned. His hard edge gone, he was no longer the gutsy protagonist making his way in a lawless world. The spirits of Rico, Tommy Powers, and Tony Camonte, however, were hard to bury. As the years went by, the gangster subtly and incrementally took control of films. Although law2469
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produced dozens of gangster films. Americans wanted to see gangster pictures; the individualistic criminal as a culture hero and the savage portrayal of American society struck responsive chords. There were other reasons, too, for the outlaw’s fascination. Gangsters were part of the daily scene, not simply creations of Hollywood’s imagination. Every major city had its colorful mobsters, and their contemporary notoriety must have enhanced the genre’s attraction. Moreover, Prohibition was still the law. Gangsters provided alcohol for the average citizen, and many Americans were willing to accept them as long as they only killed one another and kept the booze flowing. The gangster films, by the nature of their subject matter, also included a good deal of sex and violence, which have always been popular with audiences. During the Depression, such escapist elements seemed especially popular. Although the gangster film helped to revive Hollywood’s fortunes, many in American society were outraged by the new genre. Religious and other groups that sought to monitor community standards complained loudly about the films’ level of sex and violence, glorification of criminals, and disparaging view of law and order. That the mobsters were killed off in the end did not satisfy them. As protests mounted, independent producer Howard Hughes released Scarface in March, 1932. Directed by Howard Hawks, who, like Wellman, was an established filmmaker, Scarface purportedly deals with Al Capone, the best-known gangster in 1930’s America. Capone, whose nickname was “Scarface,” supposedly was the model for Tony Camonte, the film’s protagonist. Actually, little of Capone’s career or personality is portrayed in the film. Capone was an ugly, bestial, thug of a man. Tony Camonte, as played by Paul Muni, is good-looking, somewhat boyish, and occasionally naïve. Hardly a brute, although certainly murderous, Tony is almost a composite of Rico and Tommy Powers. Determined to get to the top and merciless in his methods, Tony does take over the city. As he does so, however, he indulges himself with women and spends his illgotten gains along the way. Muni’s Tony is a man with a gun in his hand and a twinkle in his eye, a likable killer. Although the film’s story is the familiar one of a hood’s progress, Hawks’s direction makes Scarface special. Hawks utilizes a fast pace, goes well beyond the normal gangster film in both body count and sexual suggestiveness, and wraps the whole film in an absorbing, impressionistic visual style. Tony, of course, dies at the end; he is one of those with a weakness. Hawks, however, makes Tony’s flaw singularly different: Tony has
Gangster Films Become Popular
Gangster Films Become Popular and-order themes prevailed through the World War II years (1939-1945), the screen gangster emerged increasingly as a more potent, attractive character, and in postwar America, he once more came into his own. The oncetough production code atrophied, and the crime film again became popular at the box office. Many of the same themes seen in the early 1930’s reappeared: sex, violence, a corrupt and lawless society, and the mobster as success story. Shaken by such issues as the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, urban problems, and economic stagnation, Americans remained troubled, and the film gangster continued to serve as a representative of people disillusioned by the distance between the American Dream and its actuality. Many of the numerous films noirs of the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, as well as films of later decades such as The Godfather (1972) and its sequels, GoodFellas (1990), and Bugsy (1991), are heirs of the early 1930’s, and their protagonists are often similar to those of Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface. —Clarke Wilhelm Further Reading Bergman, Andrew. We’re in the Money: Depression America and Its Films. 1971. Reprint. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992. Excellent study of the Depression through its films provides an analysis of the gangster genre and also looks at other film types that reveal discontent with American society. Includes bibliography and index. Clarens, Carlos. Crime Movies: From Griffith to “The Godfather” and Beyond. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. Comprehensive history of the crime film is accessible to both film buff and serious cinema scholar. Examines most of the major crime films and provides full and insightful discussion of the gangster genre.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. McCarty, John. Bullets over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to the “The Sopranos.” New York: Da Capo Press, 2004. Comprehensive history of gangster films addresses the various elements that make up the genre and analyzes the films’ appeal. Includes select bibliography and index. Mast, Gerald. Howard Hawks, Storyteller. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Biography and study of Hawks’s films is a valuable source of information on the making of Scarface and the film’s multiple layers of meaning. Includes bibliography, filmography, and index. Roffman, Peter, and Jim Purdy. The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair, and Politics from the Depression to the Fifties. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. Scholarly study of pivotal Depression-era films includes brief discussion of the gangster film. Features select bibliography, filmography, and index. Warshow, Robert. The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre, and Other Aspects of Popular Culture. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Collection of essays on popular culture includes “The Gangster as Tragic Hero,” which is generally considered one of the most important and original analyses of the meaning of the early gangster films. See also: Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures; May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror.
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Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass
1931-1935
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar developed a mathematically rigorous theory of the structure of white dwarf stars that placed their maximum mass at 1.4 solar masses. Locale: India; England Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), Indianborn and British-trained theoretical astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944), English astrophysicist Ralph H. Fowler (1889-1944), English astrophysicist Walter Sydney Adams (1876-1956), American astronomer Summary of Event White dwarf stars have challenged and perplexed astronomers since their accidental discovery in the mid-nineteenth century. The German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel noted a wobble in the path of the star Sirius as it moved across the sky. After eliminating recognizable sources of error, in 1844 he concluded that a small companion star must be affecting the motion of the larger, brighter Sirius. From the wobble in the motion of the larger star, the mass of the smaller star was calculated to be that of the Sun. In 1915, Walter Sydney Adams managed to channel the light from the companion star into a spectrograph. The light from the star, now called Sirius B, indicated that the surface of the star was almost as hot as Sirius. From the temperature and the brightness of Sirius B, astronomers calculated that Sirius B had a radius of about 24,000 kilometers (approximately 14,913 miles—about twice that of Earth). Packing a mass nearly that of the Sun into a volume fifty thousand times smaller yielded densities that were much larger than astronomers had ever known: One cubic centimeter (about 0.06 cubic inch) of the star—less than the size of a throat lozenge—would weigh 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds). Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, the foremost astrophysicist of his time, was not completely convinced that these very small but bright stars, later called white dwarfs, were indeed so dense. Many other skeptics, however, were convinced by the 1925 measurement of the “redshift” of Sirius B. Light trying to escape from a white
dwarf is strongly affected by the extreme gravitational force arising from the large mass of the white dwarf. The photons of light lose energy as they struggle against the intense gravity. The frequency of the light is “shifted” toward the red end of the spectrum (reflecting the loss of energy) as the light struggles to escape. Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts that light will be affected in this manner by gravity. The amount of “shift” was equal to that predicted by Einstein’s theory. Eddington’s influential The Internal Constitution of the Stars (1926) attempted to bring together fifty years of work involving the mechanical and physical conditions of stellar interiors. When it came to white dwarfs, his theory ran into problems. In his theory, most of a star’s lifetime was spent balancing the outward pressure of the escaping heat of nuclear reactions with the inward pressure of gravity. Eventually, the store of nuclear fuel would be depleted and the star would collapse into itself, becoming a white dwarf. The atomic nuclei, which make up the mass of the white dwarf, would then keep cooling and the electrons that had been ripped from the nuclei would be able to reattach themselves to the nuclei in the star. The problem was that the amount of energy required to reform the atoms of the star would be more than that available in the star. In effect, the star would not have enough energy to cool down. This paradox puzzled Eddington. Eddington believed that the pace of work in the field was quickening and that the newly developed field of quantum mechanics might be able to cast light on the theory of stellar interiors. He was correct on both counts. The paradox introduced by Eddington was resolved shortly after it was stated. Ralph H. Fowler resolved the paradox using the recently developed quantum mechanics, but he showed that white dwarf stars were even stranger than anticipated. The pressure that kept the star from contracting indefinitely was the result not of the temperature of the star but of “electron degeneracy.” In the intense heat and pressure of a star’s interior, electrons are torn away from nuclei and move about freely. In the classical theory, the electrons can move about unrestricted. According to quantum theory, however, the electrons are restricted to a discrete set of energies. In a normal star, electrons typically occupy many of the higher allowed energy levels. In the interior of a white dwarf star, however, the elec2471
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Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass
Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass trons enter a special energy state. Electrons occupy all the lower energy levels. In this special case, the pressure exerted by the electrons becomes independent of the temperature. The star, according to Fowler, can no longer contract. The electrons cannot be forced into lower energy levels. The electrons are said to be “degenerate” because the electrons have become “neutralized”—they are no longer a factor in determining the resistance to gravitational collapse. Fowler resolved Eddington’s paradox by showing that a white dwarf can resist the force of gravity through electron degeneracy. The temperature of the star no longer matters. White dwarfs can live out their lives slowly cooling off.
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Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar followed the latest developments in astrophysics during his studies in theoretical physics in India. Upon graduation in 1930, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, on a scholarship. He won a physics contest, for which he received a copy of Eddington’s The Internal Constitution of the Stars. He began to question Eddington’s conclusions concerning white dwarfs and Fowler’s calculations concerning electron degeneracy. He calculated that electrons in the dense core of a white dwarf would be moving at a velocity nearly that of light, so corrections must be made to the classical formulas describing the behavior of matter. Chandrasekhar made the necessary corrections and realized that the effect was dramatic. For stars with a mass greater than about 1.4 times that of the Sun, the “pressure” exA Surprising Snub erted by electron degeneracy would not In 1935, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was scheduled to present his be enough to overcome the force of gravradical new theory of stellar evolution before the meeting of England’s ity. Instead of a long, slow cooling off, Royal Astronomical Society. Shortly before the meeting, Chandrasekhar such stars would continue to contract, received a program. He noticed that Arthur Stanley Eddington was also apparently indefinitely. Chandrasekhar giving a paper. Chandrasekhar’s findings contradicted those of Eddington. did not speculate on the ultimate fate At the meeting, Chandrasekhar discussed his results, which indicated of stars of more than 1.4 solar masses. that the lifetime of a star of small mass must be essentially different from Calculations done years later by others that of a star of large mass. Edward Arthur Milne, also attending the meetshowed that those stars form either neuing, said that he had achieved similar results using a cruder method. Edtron stars or black holes. dington then launched into a personal attack on Chandrasekhar and his theFrom 1931 to 1935, Chandrasekhar ory. Eddington was convinced that Chandrasekhar’s method was faulty published a series of papers of his findbecause it was based on a combination of relativistic mechanics and nonrelativistic quantum theory. He argued that his own result could still be ings. During this time, he worked with obtained after suitable modifications of Chandrasekhar’s theory. AlFowler and Eddington. By 1935, Chanthough Eddington admitted that he could find no fault with the technical drasekhar had developed a detailed, details of Chandrasekhar’s approach, he was compelled to challenge the quantitative, mathematically rigorous results because of the unexpected result that large stars will continue to theory of white dwarf stars, and he fully contract. The depth of Eddington’s objections and the way in which they expected Eddington to accept his theory. were made surprised and upset Chandrasekhar: “Eddington effectively Eddington gave no indication to Chanmade a fool of me,” he later recalled. drasekhar that he had any doubts about The dispute with Eddington lasted years, yet the two remained cordial. the surprising results Chandrasekhar’s Chandrasekhar left England in 1937 for Chicago. In 1939, he summed up theory predicted. In 1935, Chandrasekhar his work on stellar structure. In 1974, Chandrasekhar accounted for the dewas scheduled to present his results to lay in the acceptance of his theory, stating that his conclusions “did not meet with the approval of the stalwarts of the day.” He noted the irony of the Royal Astronomical Society. EddingEddington’s position: Eddington argued against the continual collapse of ton also presented a paper, but to Chanstars with a mass over the Chandrasekhar limit because such stars would drasekhar’s surprise it included an attack “go on radiating and radiating and contracting and contracting until, I supon Chandrasekhar’s theory. pose, it gets down to a few [kilometers’] radius when gravity becomes However, work on white dwarfs constrong enough to hold the radiation and the star can at last find peace.” tinued, and further evidence was preChandrasekhar was describing what is now called a “black hole,” sented in support for his calculations. which Eddington thought was an absurdity. Nevertheless, years later black Chandrasekhar’s ideas gained gradual holes were accepted as the final fate of stars that were so massive that their acceptance in the 1940’s and 1950’s as gravity even prevented light from escaping. Chandrasekhar’s “foolishmore white dwarfs were discovered and ness” was ultimately proved correct. as spectrographic evidence mounted.
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Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass
Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. The Collapsing Universe. 1977. Reprint. New York: Pocket Books, 1986. Engagingly written volume, intended for a wide audience, takes particular care to emphasize the immense range of stellar phenomena. Excellent introduction to astrophysics for the lay reader. Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan. Eddington: The Most Distinguished Astrophysicist of His Time. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Slim volume presents two Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington Centenary Lectures, encapsulating both Chandrasekhar’s personality and his relationship with Eddington. Reviews Eddington’s contributions to astrophysics with grace and style and politely points out where Eddington was incorrect. Moderately technical. Cooke, Donald A. The Life and Death of Stars. New York: Crown, 1985. Discusses the life history of stars in clear language, with minimal use of technical terms
(which are carefully introduced in the early chapters). Profusely illustrated with both color and black-andwhite photographs, charts, and diagrams. Highly recommended as a general introduction to stellar astronomy. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Chapter 28 is devoted to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Includes glossary and index. Miller, Arthur I. Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Provides background on the history of the idea of black holes and describes the debate between Chandrasekhar and Eddington concerning the nature of black holes as well as the implications of that debate for twentieth century science. Shipman, Harry L. Black Holes, Quasars, and the Universe. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. Written for nonastronomers and for use as a supplemental text in university courses for nonscientists. Includes discussion of black holes and white dwarfs. Provides summaries throughout. Tierney, John. “Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: Quest for Order.” In A Passion to Know, edited by Allen L. Hammond. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984. Interview with Chandrasekhar accompanied by some additional biographical information. Provides an interesting perspective on Chandrasekhar’s personality and work habits; gives minimal attention to the technical details of his theories. See also: 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity; July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars; 1934: Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars.
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Significance Chandrasekhar’s theory introduced the notion that not all stars behave as benignly in their old age as white dwarfs. He did not speculate what would happen to a star with a mass above the limit. For stars with masses below the limit, he devised a complete theory to account for their properties. He won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for his theoretical studies on the structure and evolution of stars. Chandrasekhar’s limit is the dividing line between the strange but benign white dwarfs and the truly exotic black holes, pulsars, and neutron stars. It established the possibility that the strange behavior of stars nearing the end of their lives as white dwarfs could get stranger. Chandrasekhar’s legacy is the mathematical order that he brought to the theory of white dwarfs. He continued to bring mathematical order to other areas of astrophysics, including black holes. —Roger Sensenbaugh
The Group Theatre Flourishes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1931-1941
The Group Theatre Flourishes The Group Theatre, founded in 1931 as a permanent theater company, flourished during the Great Depression before folding in 1941 after the United States entered World War II. Locale: New York, New York Category: Theater Key Figures Harold Clurman (1901-1980), cofounder and director of the Group Theatre Cheryl Crawford (1902-1986), cofounder and director of the Group Theatre Lee Strasberg (1901-1982), cofounder and director of the Group Theatre Stella Adler (1902-1992), American actor Morris Carnovsky (1897-1992), American actor Paul Green (1894-1981), American playwright Clifford Odets (1906-1963), American actor and playwright Summary of Event Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg founded the Group Theatre as a permanent acting company in 1931, when the United States was in the depths of the Great Depression. Clurman had been a play reader for the Theatre Guild, where Crawford was a casting director. Lee Strasberg was an actor who had learned the Stanislavsky method at the American Laboratory Theater. American theater grew rapidly during the 1920’s. Eugene O’Neill had emerged after World War I as a towering theatrical figure in a country that had little highquality indigenous drama to stage until O’Neill began writing plays. A new freedom of language and outlook affected the emerging drama. Most of the American theater of the early century consisted of dramas by European playwrights or by such canonical playwrights as William Shakespeare. Broad Jewish comedies in Yiddish or “Yinglish,” as the dialect that combined Yiddish and English came to be called, were also popular. Earlier American playwrights such as George H. Boker, Robert Montgomery Bird, Dion Boucicault, and Clyde Fitch made little artistic impact on American theater. Their plays were mere vehicles for the stars, who dominated the theater. The star system was sufficiently entrenched that Eugene O’Neill’s father, James, could spend most of his acting life playing one 2474
character: the count in the stage version of Alexandre Dumas’s novel Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844-1845; The Count of Monte-Cristo, 1846). Most plays revolved around stars of legendary proportions. Stages were filled with supporting cast members— sometimes large supporting casts—but all attention was focused essentially on one or two actors (male or female) who dominated. The Theatre Guild, founded in 1918 to support living theater, bowed to the star system. One of the Theatre Guild’s experiments during 1929 involved its Studio Program, which was intended to produce special Sunday performances of serious dramas. Crawford, Strasberg, and Clurman were all involved in putting on the first—and only—performance of the Studio Program. The play was a Russian drama, and it brought all sorts of communist sympathizers to the theater. After the Studio Program collapsed, Clurman dreamed of organizing an acting company unlike any in the United States. He wanted to develop a permanent—but not a repertory—company that would have its own cadre of actors, playwrights, and directors. Clurman knew that Strasberg could help in the implementation of this dream, but he knew as well that Strasberg was not a good organizer and that, despite his intelligence and talent, Strasberg could be devastatingly tactless. Clurman needed Strasberg, but he also needed a practical, down-to-earth organizer to carry on the day-to-day operation of the theater he envisioned. Crawford’s handling of the production for the Studio Program convinced Clurman that she could offer his project precisely the skills required. During the next months, the three worked toward establishing a theater company with the express aim of scrapping the star system. Its plays, written by various playwrights associated with the company, would have fewer than ten characters, with each as equal in prominence as the playwrights could manage. Actors would play lead roles one week and smaller roles or no roles the next. The favored acting technique was the Stanislavsky method of affective acting. Everyone associated with the group would share equally in any profits—again a blow to any vestigial thoughts the members might have about a star system. The playwrights were not to be stars either; rather, the plays were viewed as instruments for the expression of ideas and the formulation of philosophies. The playwrights received an equal share of the meager profits the Group Theatre’s plays usually generated.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Odets and the Group Theatre
• • • • • • • • • •
Waiting for Lefty (pr., pb. 1935) Till the Day I Die (pr., pb. 1935) Awake and Sing! (pr., pb. 1935) Paradise Lost (pr. 1935, pb. 1936) I Can’t Sleep (pr. 1935, pb. 1936) Golden Boy (pr., pb. 1937) Rocket to the Moon (pr. 1938, pb. 1939) Night Music (pr., pb. 1940) Clash by Night (pr. 1941, pb. 1942) The Russian People (pr. 1942, pb. 1946; adaptation of Konstantin Simonov’s play The Russians) • The Big Knife (pr., pb. 1949) • The Country Girl (pr. 1950, pb. 1951) • The Flowering Peach (pr., pb. 1954)
By late 1930, Clurman’s dream was in the first stages of becoming a reality. He and his two fellow founders enticed many theater people to meet with them in strategy sessions. Actors including Franchot Tone, Morris Carnovsky, J. Edward Bromberg, Phoebe Brand, Dorothy Patten, and Stella Adler and her brother Luther became interested in the concept of the Group Theatre. Clurman held meetings every Friday night to draw Broadway people into his scheme. When these meetings grew too large to fit into Clurman’s room at the Hotel Meurice, they were moved to Crawford’s apartment. When the enthusiastic crowd overflowed the apartment, the Friday night sessions moved to Steinway Hall. By June, 1931, the Group Theatre company—twentyeight actors, along with their various spouses, children, and others—left New York for the compound Crawford had found for them at Brookfield Center, near Danbury, Connecticut, where they undertook preparation for the theater’s initial summer of operation. The first play scheduled for production was The House of Connelly (pr., pb. 1931), by Paul Green of North Carolina. Clifford Odets was among the actors at Brookfield Center for the Group Theatre’s first summer together. He remained with the Group Theatre for most of its existence, leaving only to accept a tempting offer to write for Hollywood. Such an act meant that Odets was prostituting himself in his own eyes, but he did so to make money
he could send back to Clurman to keep the financially strapped Group Theatre afloat. The summer over, the Group Theatre returned to New York. Its members rented a ten-room apartment on West Fifty-seventh Street for fifty dollars a month, and the Group Theatre continued to operate during the winter. During its first few years, the organization presented important new plays by Group Theatre playwrights and also provided excellent experience for actors. In 1935, Odets burst upon the dramatic scene with the January production of his Waiting for Lefty (pr., pb. 1935), a tour de force that was precisely right for its time. By summer, Odets had two more plays on Broadway, Till the Day I Die (pr., pb. 1935) and Awake and Sing! (pr., pb. 1935). In the autumn, his Paradise Lost (pr. 1935) was brought to Broadway, transforming an unknown actor who claimed to live on ten cents a week into a playwright who was the toast of New York. The Group Theatre produced all Odets’s subsequent plays through Night Music (pr., pb. 1940). Its financial problems intensified when the United States entered World War II, a development that reduced the size of audiences. The Group Theatre was finally disbanded in 1941. With its disappearance, a significant chapter in the history of American drama ended. Significance The Group Theatre affected American drama in many ways. Even with the emergence of Eugene O’Neill as a full-fledged, high-quality American playwright, American theater was somewhat without a compass until the Group Theatre redefined the place of drama in society. Much of the drama of the 1920’s—excluding that by O’Neill—was a drama of manners. It did not seek to engage its audiences in penetrating thought along socioeconomic lines, nor, in the roaring 1920’s, could it have. The Group Theatre productions staged in the grim years of the Great Depression, however, raised thorny social questions relating to economics, the place of the individual in society, the role of government, pacifism and conscientious objection to war, and ethnically generated social injustice. One did not come to Group Theatre productions with the expectation of laughing, of being lulled into complacency, or of being amused. Nevertheless, people came, perhaps to have their consciences tweaked, their awareness of daunting economic problems raised. The social backdrop against which Group Theatre productions played was one of poverty, joblessness, insecurity, and social alienation. The plays the Group 2475
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Out of the work of the Group Theatre came one of the most important American playwrights of the twentieth century, Clifford Odets, whose major works of drama are listed below. The Group Theatre produced all of Odets’s plays through Night Music in 1940.
The Group Theatre Flourishes
The Group Theatre Flourishes Theatre presented dealt with all these problems, although they played to audiences who certainly had the financial means to rise above the immediate problems that surrounded them. Theatrical audiences obviously have enough disposable income to enable them to attend plays; the theatrical audiences of the early 1930’s seemed as well to have enough social conscience to encourage and patronize the kind of drama the Group Theatre favored. That the Group Theatre changed permanently the structure of American drama cannot be denied. By moving away from the star system and encouraging playwrights whose plays had a balance of significant roles, the philosophy of the Group Theatre opened new possibilities to playwrights, particularly to such later practitioners of the art as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Edward Albee. It is interesting to note that in a work such as Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (pr., pb. 1962), for example, the play’s four characters—Martha, George, Honey, and Nick—have virtually equal dramatic stature, even if Martha’s mouth gives her a slight advantage. The same can be said of plays such as Miller’s Death of a Salesman (pr., pb. 1949), Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba (pr., pb. 1950), and Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (pr. 1944). In Death of a Salesman, the characters Willy and Linda Loman and their two sons, Happy and Biff, are virtually dramatic equals; Lola, Doc, Marie, and Turk are almost equivalent characters in the Inge play; Amanda, Tom, Laura, and Jim are essentially equals in The Glass Menagerie. The Group Theatre was also largely responsible for emphasizing method acting in the United States. The technique had been taught previously by such organizations as the American Laboratory Theater, but the Group Theatre made it clear that this was the most effective way to act, and its mandate to advance “the Method” in its training sessions stuck. The countless actors produced by the Group Theatre included Franchot Tone, Stella Adler, Luther Adler, Jacob Adler, Morris Carnovsky, J. Edward Bromberg, Lee J. Cobb, Katharine Cornell, John Garfield, Frances Farmer, Luise Rainer, and Brock Pemberton. An even greater legacy, however, accrued to the next generation, to actors such as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and others whose training, often with individuals who had been part of the Group Theatre experience, emphasized method acting. Among those who act and write plays, the work of the Group Theatre remains well known, and its impact is readily acknowledged. Although the Group Theatre ex2476
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 isted for only a decade, it forged professional relationships and encouraged approaches to drama that were, until the company’s existence, all but unimaginable. — R. Baird Shuman Further Reading Bordman, Gerald. American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1930-1969. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Survey of every nonmusical play produced on Broadway (and some off-Broadway productions) during the period covered. Includes synopses and other details on many Group Theatre productions. Brenman-Gibson, Margaret. Clifford Odets: An American Playwright—The Years from 1906 to 1940. 1981. Reprint. New York: Applause Books, 2002. First volume of a comprehensive biography of Odets includes many entries for the Group Theatre in its index. Unusually well-documented biography goes far beyond the narrow limits of one person’s life and embraces an entire period of great change in American drama. A treasure trove for the scholar. Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years: The Story of the Group Theatre and the Thirties. 1945. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1983. Authoritative history of the Group Theatre by one of its founders and directors. Warm narrative discusses the people who made the Group Theatre possible. One of the most important books available on the topic. Cohn, Ruby. Dialogue in American Drama. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971. Examines the proletarian drama of the 1930’s, much of which was dialect drama. Relates the lyricism of such playwrights as Clifford Odets and Thornton Wilder to the use of language of later playwrights such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee. Written to be accessible to nonspecialists with a general interest in drama. Gassner, John. Dramatic Soundings: Evaluations and Retractions Culled from Thirty Years of Dramatic Criticism. New York: Crown, 1968. Collection of critic Gassner’s essays and theatrical reviews from 1935 through 1965. Includes perceptive insights into the work of the Group Theatre and its playwrights, particularly Clifford Odets, Paul Green, Philip Barry, and Maxwell Anderson. Focuses specifically on the Group Theatre, the Actors Studio, and the Theatre Guild. Herr, Christopher J. Clifford Odets and American Political Theatre. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Places Odets’s works in the context of the time of social, po-
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Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940. New York: Grove Press, 1990. History of the Group Theatre discusses the personalities of the individuals involved and the social and political context of the times. Includes a list of the plays produced by the theater. Williams, Jay. Stage Left. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. Engaging examination of radical theater in the United States is almost an informal history of the Group Theatre. Focuses on several of the Group Theatre’s playwrights—Green, Odets, Sidney Kingsley—and addresses the shift in American society that made proletarian drama, the mainstay of the Group Theatre, possible. See also: 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama; Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater.
January 2, 1931
Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron Ernest Orlando Lawrence’s development of the first successful magnetic resonance accelerator for protons marked the beginning of the modern era of particle accelerators. Locale: Berkeley, California Categories: Science and technology; physics; inventions Key Figures Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901-1958), American nuclear physicist M. Stanley Livingston (1905-1986), American nuclear physicist Niels Edlefsen (b. 1893), American physicist David Sloan (b. 1905), American physicist and electrical engineer Summary of Event The invention of the cyclotron by Ernest Orlando Lawrence was a first step toward the modern era of highenergy physics. Although the energies have increased steadily, the principles incorporated in the cyclotron have been fundamental to succeeding generations of accelerators, many of which were also developed in Law-
rence’s laboratory. The care and support of such machines have also given rise to “big science”: the massing of scientists, money, and machines in support of experiments to discover the nature of the atom and its constituents. Lawrence received his undergraduate degree in physics at the University of South Dakota and studied under W. F. G. Swann, an expert in electromagnetic theory and experiment at the Universities of Minnesota and Chicago and at Yale University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1925. Lawrence was an assistant professor until 1928, when he was lured to the University of California by an associate professorship, the opportunity to teach more graduate courses, and the university’s new physics research laboratory. At the University of California, Lawrence took an interest in the new physics of the atomic nucleus, which had been developed by Ernest Rutherford and his followers in England. This work was attracting increasing attention as the development of quantum mechanics seemed to offer an explanation of the problems of atomic physics that had long preoccupied physicists. In order to explore the nucleus of the atom, however, suitable probes were required. Rutherford had used alpha 2477
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litical, and economic change in which they were written. Includes many references to his work with the Group Theatre. Krutch, Joseph Wood. The American Drama Since 1918. Rev. ed. New York: George Braziller, 1957. Engaging overview of American drama between the world wars includes discussion of playwrights associated with the Group Theatre and the Group Theatre itself. An essential resource for anyone who wishes to understand the drama of the period in which the Group Theatre flourished. Odets, Clifford. The Time Is Ripe: The 1940 Journal of Clifford Odets. New York: Grove Press, 1988. The Group Theatre figures centrally in this journal, which Odets kept at a time when his life was changing drastically. His marriage to Luise Rainer was deteriorating, his artistic integrity was on the line, and the Group Theatre, whose members formed his surrogate family, was dissolving. Includes many cogent references to the Group Theatre and what it meant to him.
Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron
Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron particles ejected from radioactive substances to make his early studies, but these were not energetic enough to penetrate the nuclei of most atoms. An artificial means of accelerating ions to high energies was needed. During the late 1920’s, a variety of means were tried to accelerate alpha particles, protons (hydrogen ions), and electrons, but none had been successful in causing a nuclear transformation when Lawrence entered the field. The high voltages required stressed the resources available to physicists. It was believed that more than one million volts would be required to accelerate an ion to sufficient energies to penetrate even the lightest atomic nuclei. At such voltages, insulators broke down, releasing sparks across great distances. European researchers even attempted to harness lightning to the task, with fatal results. Early in April, 1929, Lawrence chanced on an article in Archiv für Electrotechnik by Rolf Wideroe, a German electrical engineer, describing a linear accelerator of ions that worked by passing an ion through two sets of electrodes, each of which carried the same voltage and increased the energy of the ions correspondingly. By spacing the electrodes appropriately and using an alternating electrical field, this “resonance acceleration” of ions could speed subatomic particles up to many multiplies of the energy applied in each step, overcoming the problems presented when one tried to apply a single charge to an ion all at once. Unfortunately, the spacing of the electrodes would have to be increased as the ions were accelerated, because they would travel farther between each alternation of the phase of the accelerating charge, making an accelerator impractically long in those days of small-scale physics. Lawrence knew that a magnetic field would cause the ions to be deflected and form a curved path. If the electrodes were placed across the diameter of the circle formed by the ions’ path, they should spiral out as they were accelerated, staying in phase with the accelerating charge until they reached the periphery of the magnetic field. This, he reasoned, would afford a means of producing indefinitely high voltages without using high voltages by recycling the accelerated ions through the same electrodes. Many doubted that such a method would be effective. No mechanism was known that would keep the circulating ions in sufficiently tight orbits to avoid collisions with the walls of the accelerating chamber. Others tried to use resonance acceleration without success. Lawrence waited nearly a year before encouragement from Otto Stern, a visitor in the University of California physics department from the University of Hamburg, persuaded him to try the method. 2478
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Ernest Orlando Lawrence. (The Nobel Foundation)
In the spring of 1930, Lawrence put one of his graduate students, Niels Edlefsen, to work on reducing his idea to practice. Edlefsen used glass flasks coated with silver or copper with a diametrical gap to serve as their electrodes. A filament introduced through one aperture in the flask produced protons from hydrogen introduced through another. When the flask was placed between the poles of a 10-centimeter (3.9-inch) electromagnet and radio frequency current was applied to the metallic electrodes, Edlefsen thought he saw evidence of particle acceleration. Unfortunately, he left Berkeley before this could be confirmed. Another graduate student, M. Stanley Livingston, took up the project. He decided quickly that resonance could not be achieved with Edlefsen’s apparatus. For his dissertation project, he used a brass cylinder 10 centimeters in diameter sealed with wax to hold a vacuum, a half pillbox of copper mounted on an insulated stem to serve as the electrode, and a Hartley radio frequency oscillator producing 10 watts. The shape resembled the letter D. The box itself constituted the other electrode: A brass bar
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Significance Demonstration of the principle led to a succession of large cyclotrons, beginning with a 25-centimeter (9.8inch) cyclotron developed in the spring and summer of 1931, which produced million-electronvolt protons. Lawrence succeeded in winning support for his device from Frederick Cottrell’s Research Corporation and the Chemical Foundation, which were interested in its applications to the production of high-voltage X rays. Lawrence also developed a linear accelerator for heavy ions with the help of David Sloan, another of his graduate students. Sloan built a million-volt X-ray tube as well. With the support of the Research Corporation, Lawrence was able to secure a large electromagnet that had been developed for radio transmission and a disused civil engineering laboratory to house it. This was the Radiation Laboratory. The 69-centimeter (27.2-inch) cyclotron built with the magnet was used to explore nuclear physics. Rather than ordinary hydrogen ions, it accelerated deuterons, ions of heavy water or deuterium that contain, in addition to the proton, the neutron, which was discovered by Sir James Chadwick in 1932. The accelerated deuteron, which injected neutrons into target atoms, was used to produce a wide variety of artificial radioisotopes, which had been discovered by Frédéric Joliot and Irène Joliot-Curie. Many of these, like technetium and carbon 14, were discovered with the cyclotron and found applications in medicine and tracer research. The 69-centimeter cyclotron was enlarged to 94 centimeters (37 inches) in diameter in 1937. By 1939, Law-
rence had built a 152-centimeter (59.8-inch) cyclotron for medical uses, including therapy with neutron beams. In that year, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the cyclotron and the production of radioisotopes. He also received $1.15 million from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1940 to build a 467-centimeter (183.9 inch) cyclotron, designed to produce 200-millionelectronvolt deuterons. World War II interrupted this effort, and Lawrence and the members of his Radiation Laboratory developed electromagnetic separation of uranium ions to produce the uranium-235 required for the atomic bomb. After the war, the 467-centimeter cyclotron was completed as a synchrocyclotron, which modulated the frequency of the accelerating fields to compensate for the increase of mass of ions as they approached the speed of light. The principle of synchronous acceleration, invented by Lawrence’s associate Edwin Mattison McMillan, became fundamental to proton and electron synchrotrons, just as the linear accelerator was developed by another member of the Radiation Laboratory staff, Luis W. Alvarez. The cyclotron and the Radiation Laboratory were the center of accelerator physics throughout the 1930’s and well into the postwar era. The invention of the cyclotron not only provided a new tool for probing the nucleus but also gave rise to new forms of organizing scientific work and to applications in nuclear medicine and nuclear chemistry. Cyclotrons were built in many laboratories in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and became standard tools of nuclear physics. —Robert W. Seidel Further Reading Childs, Herbert. An American Genius: The Life of Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Father of the Cyclotron. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968. Details the life of the cyclotron’s inventor in anecdotes, relying heavily on interviews with his colleagues. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Heilbron, J. L., and Robert W. Seidel. Lawrence and His Laboratory: A History of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Describes in detail the development of accelerator technology in the 1920’s and 1930’s and the impact of these developments on nuclear physics up to World War II. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Lee, S. Y. Accelerator Physics. 2d ed. Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific Publishing, 2004. Text intended for college physics majors or graduate students begins 2479
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was placed across it parallel to the straight side of the D with slots corresponding to those in the D. The hydrogen molecular ions were produced by a thermionic cathode mounted near the center of the apparatus from hydrogen gas admitted through an aperture in the side of the cylinder after a vacuum had been produced by a pump. Once formed, the oscillating electrical field drew them out and accelerated them as they passed through the gap between the bar and the D. The accelerated ions spiraled out in a magnetic field produced by a 10-centimeter electromagnet to a collector. By November, 1930, Livingston observed peaks in the collector current as he tuned the magnetic field through the value calculated to produce acceleration. Borrowing a stronger magnet and tuning his radio frequency oscillator appropriately, Livingston produced 80,000-electronvolt ions at his collector on January 2, 1931, thus demonstrating the principle of magnetic resonance acceleration.
Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron
India Signs the Delhi Pact with a chapter on the history of the development of particle accelerators. Livingston, M. Stanley. Particle Accelerators: A Brief History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969. Describes for the general reader the early attempts to produce high voltages for nuclear physics, the invention of the cyclotron and the electrostatic generator, the development of the betatron, and the origin and growth of the principles of synchronous acceleration and alternating gradient focusing. Includes illustrations, references, and index. _______, ed. The Development of High-Energy Accelerators. New York: Dover, 1966. Collection of twentyeight classic articles and an introduction written by the coinventor of the cyclotron. Depicts the evolution of direct voltage, resonance, linear, synchronous, and strong-focusing accelerators. Includes illustrations and index. Livingston, M. Stanley, and John P. Blewett. Particle Accelerators. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. Clas-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sic technical reference on particle accelerators offers a comparative critical analysis of the capabilities of various types of accelerators as well as a brief historical essay on each. Includes illustrations, references, and indexes. Mann, Wilfred Basil. The Cyclotron. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1953. Describes the cyclotron’s history and development. Well illustrated, with sketches of the components of cyclotrons. Features an introduction by Lawrence. Includes references and index. Wilson, Edmund. An Introduction to Particle Accelerators. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Moderately technical text devotes first chapter to the history of particle accelerators, including brief discussion of the Lawrence’s work on the cyclotron. See also: May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded; Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom; Jan.-Sept., 1937: Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element.
March 5, 1931
India Signs the Delhi Pact Mahatma Gandhi and the British viceroy of India agreed to the Delhi Pact, which ended a civil disobedience campaign and provided for talks between the Indian National Congress party and the British. Also known as: Gandhi-Irwin Pact Locale: India Categories: Indigenous peoples’ rights; diplomacy and international relations; independence movements Key Figures Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Hindu leader of the Indian National Congress Lord Halifax (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood; 18811959), viceroy of India, 1926-1931 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), president of the Indian National Congress Summary of Event In 1928, Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress party decided to mount vigorous opposition to the appointment of the Simon Commission, which the British sent to India to decide how the next step of constitutional reforms should take place. Gandhi decided that the 2480
opposition would take the form of a noncooperation movement. This would be a movement of civil disobedience begun with deliberate breaking of the salt laws, which gave a monopoly on salt production to the British government. Accordingly, on March 12, 1930, Gandhi and his followers started a twenty-five-day march to the sea to collect salt and thus break the law. The Salt March started off a nationwide protest over a wide variety of issues involving millions of Indians of all ages, classes, and religions. On May 5, Gandhi and the leaders of the Indian National Congress were arrested and imprisoned. Eventually, the British incarcerated more than sixty thousand people in their efforts to stop this protest movement, which led people to block streets, disobey police orders, and march through city centers curtailing business and disrupting all normal activities. The Congress leaders were held in prison for nearly a year, until January 26, 1931, when they were released by the viceroy, Lord Irwin (also known as Lord Halifax). They were set free because the British wanted a truce with the Congress. The British were anxious to bring the Congress into the ongoing constitutional discussions— the Second Round Table Conference, to be held in London at the end of the year—so that Indians would accept
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new relationship with the colonized people. Gandhi had aroused significant opposition to the British raj (rule), and India was no longer the docile and profitable country it had once been. The British knew they could no longer ignore Indian public opinion or ride roughshod over Indians’ civil rights. As a result, they seriously planned to hand over the government of India to the Indians. The end of nearly two hundred years of foreign rule was clearly near. Gandhi and the viceroy discussed a large number of issues. In the end, they came to an agreement on most and agreed to disagree on the others. The agreement began over the salt laws. The salt laws were not repealed, but local residents of areas where salt was made were allowed to produce some for domestic consumption and for sale within their villages. They were not, however, allowed to sell or trade their salt outside their villages. An amnesty was given to the many thousands of people arrested during the noncooperation movement who were not guilty of violent crimes, and all special ordinances passed to control the campaign were withdrawn. Those properties that were confiscated, forfeited, or attached because of a failure to pay fines and had not yet been sold by the government were restored to their owners. People were given back their government jobs if they had resigned from them as part of the noncooperation movement, provided that the jobs had not been offered to someone else in the meantime. Gandhi demanded an inquiry into police behavior during the campaign, but Irwin refused. Gandhi gave in on this point. Gandhi agreed that civil disobedience would be stopped. In particular, organized defiance of any law, the movement for the nonpayment of land-revenue and other legal fees, the publication of news sheets in support of civil disobedience, and attempts to influence civil and military officials or to persuade them to resign were to cease. Gandhi also agreed that Congress would attend the second meeting of the Round Table Conference, to be held in London in the fall, to discuss a new constitution. Gandhi’s comment after the talks were over was that Indians now had proof that the British were serious about giving them freedom and self-government. The Delhi Pact was an important breakthrough with regard to the rights of Indians. Gandhi and the Congress, which represented the majority of Hindus in India, had in the past been the major opponent of British rule. Previously, the British had ignored this opposition as much as they could. This was no longer possible. The Delhi Pact, which resulted from the Salt March and the noncooperation movement, created a new relationship between 2481
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the new constitution the British wanted to introduce into India. Because of this, they needed an end to the civil disobedience movement and Gandhi’s participation and cooperation. The Congress saw the noncooperation movement as a success, achieving a response never before seen in India, but many people, including Gandhi, were exhausted and ready for peace with the government. The rank-and-file members of the Congress who had led the demonstrations against the government were tired, and Indian businesspeople, who had in some cases lost a substantial sum of money because they were stopped from selling British products, wanted an end to disruptive practices. At this time, one of the most radical members of the Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru, came firmly under Gandhi’s influence after the death of his father, Motilal Nehru. In addition, many of the more moderate politicians in India wanted an end to illegal activities. The result was that Gandhi responded positively to the viceroy’s January 17 invitation to talks. The formal meetings between Gandhi and Lord Irwin began in New Delhi on February 17, 1931. There was a total of eight meetings over a period of three weeks. Gandhi and Irwin got along well together, as both men were very religious and appreciated that quality in each other. The talks represented the highest point of Gandhi’s political career and led to the Delhi Pact (popularly known as the Gandhi-Irwin Pact) of March 5, 1931. The meetings did not meet with everyone’s approval. Many Indians, including one of the most radical and forceful advocates of violent opposition to the British, Subhas Chandra Bose, wanted total opposition to British rule instead of talks and cooperation. Even they saw that opposition to Gandhi, who was immensely popular among the elite politicians as well as among the masses, would weaken their own position. Many conservatives in England were also strongly opposed to the meetings. Winston Churchill, the leading opponent in the Conservative Party, made the most famous comment when, referring to Gandhi, he complained about “the nauseating and humiliating spectacle of this one-time Inner Temple lawyer, now seditious fakir, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroy’s palace there to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.” This comment revealed the new reality of the political situation in India and the significance of the Delhi Pact: An Indian was talking as an equal with the British viceroy for the first time in history. Through their noncooperation and their mass opposition, Indians, under the leadership of Gandhi, had forced the British to establish a
India Signs the Delhi Pact
India Signs the Delhi Pact Indians and the British. The British had to respect Indians’ civil rights in a way they never had in the past. Significance As a result of the Delhi Pact, the Indian National Congress changed its policy of noncooperation with the British to one of working with them to write a new constitution and taking part in the government under that constitution. The pact also increased the determination of the British to work out a constitution that would be acceptable to Indians and would prevent any reoccurrence of noncooperation. Gandhi attended the second session of the Round Table Conference, which opened in September, 1931, as the sole representative of the Congress. He did not get everything he wanted, but the Government of India Act of 1935, which followed from the conference, provided for representative government in the provinces and planned for independence at the center as well. One British concession at the conference was that minorities such as the Muslims were given special representation in regional parliaments and the national assembly. This increased their civil rights considerably. The pact established a new relationship between Indians and the British—they were now partners and not master and servant in the government of India. The Government of India Act of 1935 called for general elections to be held in all the provinces of British India. These were held at the end of 1936 and the beginning of 1937. The Congress scored a major triumph, securing power in most of the provinces, and essentially ran the country from 1937 to 1939. The Congress members resigned from their government positions then because the British had declared war on behalf of India without consulting them. This had the unforeseen result of alienating elite Muslims, who believed they were excluded from government positions and contracts by the Hindus, who now had most of the power and patronage. In March, 1940, the leading Muslim political party, the All-India Muslim League, called for the creation of a separate country for Muslims. When India received its independence in 1947, the country was split into the Hindu area of India and the Muslim area of Pakistan. The Delhi Pact was a turning point in Indian history because it established a new relationship between the British and the Indians. The agreement of a viceroy of the world’s most powerful empire with Gandhi, a small man who dressed and acted as a saint, symbolized the triumph of Gandhi’s ideas of nonviolence and civil disobedience. —Roger D. Long 2482
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Brown, Judith M. Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics, 1928-34. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Provides an excellent detailed account of the events surrounding the signing of the Delhi Pact. _________. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990. Places the Delhi Pact within the context of Gandhi’s long and complex political life. Copley, Antony. Gandhi: Against the Tide. 1987. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Brief biography shows the place of the Delhi Pact within the framework of the Indian struggle for freedom. A useful quick reference. Erikson, Erik. Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. 1969. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Psychoanalyst looks at the psychology of Gandhi’s actions and the psychological dimensions of his relationship with the British. Analyzes Gandhi’s decision to enter into negotiations with the British and the reasons for the Delhi Pact. Fox, Richard G. Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. Anthropologist shows how Gandhi was not only attempting to come to political decisions with the viceroy through the Delhi Pact but also trying to define the Indian nationalist movement in cultural terms congruent with traditional Indian culture. Gandhi, M. K. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. 1957. Reprint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Essential source shows how Gandhi’s coming to terms and negotiating with his opponents had its origins in his experiences in South Africa. Covers only up to 1920, so does not include discussion of the Delhi Pact. _______. Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings. Edited by John Dear. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2002. Collection of Gandhi’s writings is organized thematically, with topics including nonviolent resistance, the search for God, and the pursuit of truth. Includes a chronology as well as a list of sources and recommended readings. Nehru, Jawaharlal. Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru. 1941. Reprint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963. An insider’s account of the events surrounding the signing of the Delhi Pact by one of Gandhi’s most loyal followers. A classic work, essential for its firsthand account of the Indian nationalist movement of the 1920’s and 1930’s.
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acy of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Biography of Gandhi and evaluation of his life’s work inspired in part by India’s seeming abandonment of his vision of nonviolence in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Includes bibliography and index. See also: Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle; Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables.
March 19, 1931
Nevada Legalizes Gambling Nevada governor Fred B. Balzar signed two bills that would have major impacts on the state’s image and economy. The first bill legalized most forms of gambling within the state, and the second made divorce easier in Nevada than in other states by cutting the necessary period of residency to six weeks. Locale: Carson City, Nevada Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; social issues and reform; trade and commerce Key Figures Phil M. Tobin (1901-1976), Nevada state assemblyman who sponsored the bill to legalize gambling in Nevada Fred B. Balzar (1880-1934), governor of Nevada, 1927-1934 Raymond I. Smith (1887-1967), entrepreneur who promoted the Harold’s Club around the world Summary of Event Nevada’s legalization of gambling followed a tradition that predated clanging slot machines or glittering casinos. Its roots lay in the state’s frontier past, when the first white settlers—cattlemen, sheepherders, miners, and the mountain men of the wilderness—came to northern Nevada. Gambling and liquor were always available to fill lonely workers’ idle hours in the mining camps and boom towns that sprang up around the state. Frontier conditions also bred a libertarian attitude toward personal behavior that not even the state’s strong Mormon influence could shake.
Nevada gained statehood in 1865. Two years later, the first state governor, Henry G. Blasdel, vetoed an act to legalize gambling. His objection was based on moral grounds, but in 1869 the state legislature overrode Blasdel’s veto. Gambling remained legal in Nevada for the next forty years, and the state also had some of the era’s most liberal divorce laws, which required a residency of only six months before papers were filed. In 1910, under pressure from Progressives and other reformers both in and outside of Nevada, gambling was outlawed. Over the next few years, the legislature ventured a few changes around the edges of the gambling laws—exempting private card games, for example—but the legislation remained largely intact. However, this did not mean that gambling stopped. “Key clubs” flourished in Reno, and they had guarded entries and other subterfuges. Almost any town large enough to support an undercover gambling den had one, or several, and police generally overlooked them (with or without a bit of bribery). By 1931, the Progressive Era had waned, and both the Great Depression and Prohibition had taken hold on the national scene. Nevada was especially hard hit when, in 1930, the production of silver—still one of the state’s major industries—and other minerals fell to less than half the previous year’s figures. Livestock production also began a downward slide in the late 1920’s, and although Nevada had not yet felt the full force of the Depression by 1931, businessmen and politicians were aware of the need for other economic stimuli to replace the losses. 2483
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Parekh, Bhiku. Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi’s Political Discourse. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000. Examines Gandhi’s political technique and explains how Gandhi was careful to use Indian symbols during his negotiations that led to the Delhi Pact. A rich analysis by a renowned Indian thinker. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber, and Lloyd I. Rudolph. Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Analyzes Gandhi’s appeal and his use of all kinds of symbols— political, religious, and traditional—to impart his message. Wolpert, Stanley. Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Leg-
Nevada Legalizes Gambling
Nevada Legalizes Gambling
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ber of commerce members about legalized gambling. All but one of the sixty-nine members favored legalization, a fact that provided some cover for Tobin. The bill sailed through Nevada’s assembly and senate with very little opposition. On March 19, it was signed by Governor Fred B. Balzar and was slated to take immediate effect. On the same day, Balzar also signed a bill that lowered the residency period for divorce to an unprecedented six weeks. The new divorce legislation went into effect on May 1, 1931. Provisions of the gambling law were fairly simple. Licensing was done by city or county officials, who imposed a modest fee that was similar to building and other business licenses. Only some years later, when gambling mushroomed into a giant enterprise and shady characters from outside the state made inroads into casino ownership, did the state’s modern complex of laws, licenses, and regulations develop. The law’s immediate economic impact was underwhelming. The Bank Club in Reno, the city’s largest casino, remodeled in anticipation of the new law and held a gala grand opening on the night the law took effect. However, most card clubs and other establishments were used to keeping a low profile, and there was confusion at first about just what legal licensing entailed. Most gambling stayed in the back rooms where it had previously operated. Advertising was mostly by word of mouth. Reno, the state’s largest city, expected to prosper from the law. It did so, but for the first five years, the economic impact of the divorce legislation was much larger than that of gambling. The was because divorce was difficult to get in many jurisdictions. The only grounds allowed for divorce in New York State were adultery, and in booming California, just across the mountains, there were still rigorous provisions. As a result of its To view image, please refer to the lenient policies, Reno gained a growprint edition of this title. ing reputation as a glittering “big little city” visited by celebrities, surrounded by dude ranches and spectacular scenery. In 1931, Las Vegas had a population of only around five thousand people. It was much more focused on the Boulder Dam project, which was just getting under way some few miles south, than it was on legalized gambling as a route to prosperity. Gamblers play roulette in a Nevada casino in 1939. (AP/Wide World Photos) Smaller cities, especially Elko and
George Wingfield, a leading banker and Reno hotel owner, and Thomas H. Carroll, an influential Las Vegas real estate agent, were outspoken in their belief that legalized gambling and an even more liberalized divorce law could bring tourist dollars into the state. Almost as important in changing the climate of opinion, however, was the public’s disillusion with the results of prohibiting gambling. The 1910 law was unenforceable, and despite frequent efforts to strengthen its regulation, gambling flourished in back rooms all over the state, and most police and officials were indifferent to it. Of course, by this time the United States had also adopted Prohibition, which had similar results. One state alone could not change the Eighteenth Amendment (1917), but the Nevada statute forbidding gambling could be overturned by one session of the legislature. By the time that body met in 1931, both legislators and public were ready to end Nevada’s prohibition of gambling. There had been low-key discussion in local newspapers, but the only strong voices opposing legalization came from women’s clubs and some religious groups, and they were a minority. Finding a representative to sponsor a bill, however, was not easy. Although many thought legalizing gambling was a good idea, few politicians wanted to “own” the bill. Finally, on February 13, Phil M. Tobin, a freshman assemblyman from Humboldt County, introduced Assembly Bill 98. Winnemucca, Tobin’s hometown, had recently polled its cham-
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Significance The two bills signed by Governor Balzar in March of 1931 had significant effects. Legalized gambling ultimately led to giant, corporate-managed casinos, with the Las Vegas Strip drawing visitors from the entire world. Because of its economic impact, that city and its suburbs became some of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. Furthermore, Nevada’s success with legal gambling led to its demystification and its acceptance by a wide segment of the U.S. population. Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and Native American tribes became the most notable investors in casinos, which brought prosperity to depressed areas and peoples.
In addition, many states adopted lotteries (still forbidden in Nevada by the state constitution) as a revenue source. The significance of the liberalized divorce legislation is harder to assess. For several decades it did contribute to Nevada’s influx of tourists and gave rise to dude ranches and other western-themed attractions in northern Nevada. Since the 1970’s, when no-fault divorce became available in most states, few of Nevada’s visitors came to the state simply to get a divorce. In fact, Las Vegas’s wedding chapels became more of a draw. The six-week residency requirement did not have a major influence on other states’ divorce requirements. —Emily Alward Further Reading Barker, Thomas, and Marjie Britz. Jokers Wild: Legalized Gambling in the Twenty-First Century. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. Topical treatment, with analysis of gambling as legitimate industry, gangster involvement, state-run lotteries, and gambling’s effect on communities. Hulse, James W. The Silver State: Nevada’s Heritage Reinterpreted. 3d ed. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2004. Overview of Nevada history, from original Native American inhabitants to the late twentieth century population boom. Photographs, maps, and extensive bibliography. Laxalt, Robert. Nevada: A Bicentennial History. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1977. Nevada history told in an informal style, with emphasis on colorful people and bizarre events that shaped the state. Chapter on “The Sin State” traces the state’s reputation back to an 1897 prizefight. See also: Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition; Mar. 5, 1923: Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions; Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed.
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Sparks, had mixed feelings toward the new law, and they tried to minimize its impact by denying licenses. In general, Nevada officials maintained a cautious approach for several years; they feared that the Puritan influence of other states might prompt federal interference that would kill the infant industry. This began to change with the advent of Harold’s Club, which opened in 1936 on Reno’s Virginia Street. Harold Smith, the owner, and his father, Raymond I. “Pappy” Smith, a public relations genius, put the casino and the city on the map through advertising and clever innovations. The elder Smith had “Harold’s Club or Bust” signs placed all over the nation’s highways and even in other countries, and this made people around the world curious about the little casino. The Smiths also designed a roulette game that was operated by mice. A little mouse ran around and around the wheel, and whichever hole he dived into was the winning number. This created valuable buzz and helped end the taboo against women in casinos; women could now use the excuse of going in to watch cute little mice. With these two advertising innovations and a customer base that included both sexes, legalized gambling was able to become a tourist attraction and economic engine for Nevada.
Nevada Legalizes Gambling
Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Spring, 1931
Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture Le Corbusier used his design for a weekend house to demonstrate that functionalist rules for architecture could produce a new style and a great work of art. Also known as: Les Heures Claires Locale: Poissy-sur-Seine, near Paris, France Category: Architecture Key Figures Le Corbusier (1887-1965), Swiss-born French architect and city planner Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1968), French engineer Mme Pierre Savoye (fl. mid-twentieth century), Frenchwoman who commissioned Le Corbusier to design a weekend house near Paris Summary of Event The Villa Savoye, also known as Les Heures Claires, is the most beautiful, rigorous, and subtle building designed during the tumultuous developing years of modern architecture, 1919-1930. When the building’s architect, Le Corbusier, undertook its design in 1928, he had been the leading spokesman for the modern movement in architecture for five years. His aphorism “A house is a machine for living,” published in his 1923 book Vers une architecture (Towards a New Architecture, 1927), articulated the beliefs of many radical architects in the decade after World War I. Architecture, Le Corbusier declared, could be a living art only if architects ceased to copy past artistic styles and worked toward a simple expression of functional needs. The bare white walls and relentlessly regular streets in Le Corbusier’s drawings of as-yetunbuilt designs, and his praise of automobiles, steamships, and mass-produced cheap goods, gave him a reputation as a farsighted but extreme propagandist for functionalism. Because of the broad scope of his proposals, he was much better known as a theorist of urban planning than as an architect. In 1928, Le Corbusier’s office was busy with several large-scale commissions, including a hostel for Swiss students in Paris and a government office complex in Moscow. He had built a few low-budget houses around Paris for artists and patrons. In the fall of that year, the wife of wealthy Parisian Pierre Savoye asked him to design a three-bedroom weekend villa on some twelve acres above the Seine valley; Le Corbusier later described Mme Savoye as without preconceptions for or 2486
against modernism. The building budget—approximately 350,000 francs—was far greater than any of his previous house budgets. The house was to be built on a gently domed hill in the middle of a field. As presented in October, 1928, the plans for the project called for a square reinforcedconcrete dwelling unit with four long strip windows, lifted a story above ground level on twenty-five slim concrete pillars (pilotis). Within the open ground-floor space was a driveway curved around a glass-walled entry chamber. On the top floor was another curved-wall space enclosing Mme Savoye’s bedroom. When this project was rejected as too expensive (758,000 francs), Le Corbusier presented a second, less elegant proposal in November, 1928; thereafter, however, he fought to return to the layout of the first concept. Optimistic budget estimates and the elimination of the top-floor bedroom (its curved wall remained as a roof-garden screen) led the Savoyes to approve the project in December, 1928, at a budget of 487,000 francs. Construction began in April, 1929. The Savoyes moved into the villa in the spring of 1931, but Le Corbusier began featuring the house in his writings and lectures as early as October, 1929. For the architect, it represented the culmination of all his work and theories to date. The Villa Savoye’s design owed much less to the Savoyes’ specific requirements than to the “five points of a new architecture” formulated by Le Corbusier and his cousin and design partner Pierre Jeanneret in 1926. These “points” were a list of functional requirements for buildings in the machine-age city that would become a universal stylistic vocabulary for architecture. The first point called for the elevation of the building on concrete posts, separating human-made buildings from the landscape and making the space under them accessible to nature and human circulation. The second point called for the creation of roof gardens, replacing the light, air, and greenery eliminated by a building by making them part of the building itself. The third point concerned the “open plan,” the separation of load-bearing pillars (concrete or steel) from walls that were to act only as screens—a requirement of structural honesty. The fourth point, the strip window, was intended to give the interior uniform light and the outside a sense of horizontal repose. The fifth, the “free facade”—the construction of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture
1931
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
The Villa Savoye. (The Granger Collection, New York)
the outside wall as a thin screen, not a bearing wall— would allow building fronts to be composed for aesthetic effect. The sense of overlapping thin walls, punctuated by windows and cutouts, would create an abstract, cubist aesthetic for the building. The Villa Savoye fulfills all five points masterfully in a complex yet integrated whole. The principle of the “open plan” separates the structural pilotis from the enclosure, made of taut, thin concrete walls finished in smooth white stucco. Resting on its white pilotis, the house rises from its field as the image of abstract reason in harmony with nature. The “open plan” also turns practical circulation into dramas of spatial experience—first as one drives up to and under the house by car, then as one climbs the interior ramp or the adjacent spiral staircase from the entry to the free-form living floor. This floor wraps around an open terrace, from which another ramp climbs to the steamship-funnel-like roof screen. The terrace represents the principle of the roof garden inserted into the mass of the building. The ribbon windows are uniform on all four sides, even where they cut through the wall that encloses the terrace. The house thus com-
bines symmetry and repose with an exciting intermingling of closed and open spaces. The Villa Savoye is a “machine” for beauty and harmony with nature. Le Corbusier declared that the Savoyes, “who will have come here because this countryside was beautiful . . . will contemplate it, preserved intact, from the height of their suspended garden or from the four sides of the long window. Their domestic life will be inserted into a Virgilian dream.” Significance Le Corbusier himself saw the Villa Savoye as the climax of his ideas of the 1920’s, but not as a new starting point. His designs soon began to change radically. The house’s critical success, however, forced reconsideration of the nature of Le Corbusier’s achievement and provided justification on several levels for adopting his methods. For critics, the house disproved the common estimation of Le Corbusier as an art-hating functionalist who could conceive utopian cities but not real buildings. In reality, as the Villa Savoye proved, Le Corbusier saw architecture as an art before anything else. The white, recti2487
Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture linear style in which he worked symbolized for him the marble classical architecture of the Mediterranean world, the exotic stucco architecture of the Arabs, and the vision-transforming planes of cubist painting. (The architect was himself a painter; he called his orderly version of cubism “Purism.”) Functionalism was only the twentieth century’s means toward architecture’s eternal purpose: to give walls and space vivid emotional impact. The Villa Savoye realized this purpose in a new, abstract way. In its geometric purity, it could be read as a contemporary version of the perfect harmony of the classical temple or the Renaissance country mansions of Andrea Palladio. The interplay of wall screens, solid geometrical shapes, and half-hidden open spaces gave the house an abstractness unknown to classical architecture, as did the way in which functional elements became part of the composition. Modernity and technology, in Le Corbusier’s hands, could call up the whole past history of the architectural art without ceasing to be the tools of “the machine for living.” The Villa Savoye’s aesthetic success seemed to bear out the inevitability of the “five points of a new architecture.” With the very limited repertory of the points— white freestanding walls, exposed supports, ribbon windows, unornamented right-angle forms, flat roofs—Le Corbusier had created a structure that seemed to meet all possible requirements of modern building, practical, urbanistic, ideological, and aesthetic. Younger architects who had come to doubt the usefulness of classic and Gothic Revival styles took Le Corbusier at his word and declared that his manner was a perfected style—in fact, the only possible style. This was the argument made by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in its seminal “International Style” exhibition of 1932, which showed the work of Le Corbusier and others in order to prove that such a new style existed. The argument was taken up by such architects as Wallace Harrison and Edward Durrell Stone in America, Bertold Lubetkin and the Tecton Group in England, and Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil. Despite angry disclaimers by modernists with different approaches, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, the “white box” style canonized in the Villa Savoye came to seem mandatory for contemporary architecture. The Villa Savoye also proved that functionalist beliefs did not necessarily lead to low-budget, utilitarian decisions in design. A sensitive artist could transform a type or program—in this case, the modern house—into a personal, unique work. That Le Corbusier had transformed functionalism into art was a crucial point in the arguments over modernism in the period from 1928 to 2488
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1931. His own earlier writings had given the (mistaken) impression that he saw modern architecture as a cheap form of social planning, not an aesthetic discipline. The idea that functionalism could be the means of building a new visual and social world economically had been even more strongly advanced by Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus design school in Germany, and by German municipal housing architects. To such designers at the beginning of the Depression, preoccupation with art in preference to society seemed blinkered, willfully individualist, and reactionary. By putting art, in the form of the Villa Savoye, before social reform, Le Corbusier seemed to be breaking with this position. Supporters of the modernist aesthetic who feared that social planning would replace artistic judgment in a social revolution were relieved to see that the greatest practitioner of the modern style was not a revolutionary. This sense of relief was essential to the Museum of Modern Art’s encouragement of the Villa Savoye’s style and helped lead to the adoption of Le Corbusier’s manner (and that of the equally art-conscious German modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) as the style of the corporate establishment after World War II. The power of Le Corbusier’s earlier urban-renewal arguments, however, made his approach equally acceptable to the architects of government housing projects during and after the Depression. After World War II, urban-renewal architects tended to confuse his arguments with those of Gropius. By the time Les Heures Claires was completed in 1931, Le Corbusier himself had begun to transform the elements of the “five points,” especially the piloti, box, and free wall, into heavier and more earthbound terms. His Swiss Pavilion in Paris (1931) used massive concrete pilotis with sculptural shapes and stone facings on the hostel block. The De Mandrot house of the same year rested on the ground, not on posts, and used fieldstone and rough plywood. Having proved in the Villa Savoye that machinelike abstract geometry could be used to make great buildings, Le Corbusier began to explore organic shapes and materials toward the same end. It would be some two decades before his followers took up this path themselves, and still longer before architects and critics realized that his ideal had been the freedom of the artist, not the necessity of machine functionalism. — M. David Samson Further Reading Benton, Tim. “The Villa Savoye and the Architect’s Practice.” In Le Corbusier, edited by H. Allen Brooks. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.
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Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture tion in Architecture. New York: Monacelli Press, 2000. Biography by a noted architectural historian covers Le Corbusier’s personal life as well as the development of his work. Includes endnotes and index. _______. Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. Presents an often complex analysis that convincingly links the biographical, artistic, and theoretical in the architect’s work. More inclusive than Benton’s account (cited above), but more speculative. Includes index. Le Corbusier. Precisions: On the Present State of Architecture of City Planning. Translated by Edith Schreiber Aujame. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. Collection of the 1929 Buenos Aires lectures in which Le Corbusier explained the Villa Savoye as the synthesis of his principles. Illustrated by the architect’s own sketches. Rowe, Colin. The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976. The title essay introduced the idea that Le Corbusier’s architecture had classical as well as functionalist sources. This and the other essays illuminate how architects can be inspired by the past in indirect ways, but Rowe often relies more on hunches than on scholarship. See also: 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet; 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House; Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship; 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea.
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Traces how Le Corbusier developed the Villa Savoye’s design, using the architect’s preliminary drawings and his lectures about the house. Discussions of budget and the clients’ complaints illuminate the practical problems of Le Corbusier’s art. Includes illustrations and index. _______. The Villas of Le Corbusier, 1920-1930. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Chronological catalog describes the circumstances, characteristics, and importance of all the architect’s house designs before 1930. Presents little discussion of nonresidential work of the same years. Provides a full list of surviving architectural drawings of Le Corbusier buildings. Blake, Peter. The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright. Rev. ed. 1976. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Provides an accessible and entertaining account of Le Corbusier’s life and principles. Somewhat dated; chapters written during the subject’s life were not revised after his death, and the book reflects little of the widespread dissatisfaction with modernism after 1960. Includes index. Curtis, William J. R. Modern Architecture Since 1900. 3d ed. London: Phaidon Press, 1996. A general textbook that devotes much attention to Le Corbusier and defends his achievements against contemporary and later critiques. Synthesizes the insights of other authors and critics while stressing the classical features of the Villa Savoye and other Le Corbusier work of the 1920’s. Includes endnotes and index. Jencks, Charles. Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolu-
Scottsboro Trials
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 25, 1931-July, 1937
Scottsboro Trials The trials of nine young African Americans on trumped-up rape charges mirrored both entrenched southern bigotry and antiliberal sentiments. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant the defendants a new trial expanded the rights of the accused to adequate counsel and due process of law. Locale: Scottsboro and Decatur, Alabama Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Ruby Bates (1915-1976), and Victoria Price (1911-1982), American professed rape victims Olen Montgomery (b. 1914), Clarence Norris (1912-1989), Haywood Patterson (1913-1952), Ozie Powell (b. 1916), Willie Roberson (b. 1915), Charlie Weems (b. 1911), Eugene Williams (b. 1918), Andy Wright (b. 1912), and Roy Wright (1918-1959), African Americans accused of rape James E. Horton (1878-1973), American judge Thomas E. Knight, Jr. (1898-1937), attorney general of Alabama Samuel Leibowitz (1893-1978), American defense counsel Summary of Event On March 25, 1931, nine young African Americans were pulled off a freight train in Scottsboro, Alabama, after an alleged fight with a group of white youths. As the African Americans were being rounded up by sheriff’s deputies, two women passengers told onlookers that they had been raped by the entire group. Within a month, the boys had been tried in Scottsboro, and eight of them had been convicted and sentenced to death; the case of the youngest boy, only thirteen years of age, was declared a mistrial. Because of the speed of the convictions, the questionable nature of much of the testimony, and the hostile atmosphere in which the trial had been held, the case soon attracted widespread attention. Both the International Labor Defense (ILD), an arm of the Communist Party, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) expressed concern about the 2490
possibility of injustice and launched an appeal for a new trial. The boys and their parents chose the ILD to manage their defense. The consolidated appeals reached the U.S. Supreme Court as Powell v. Alabama (1932), and the Court overturned the boys’ convictions and ordered that they be given new trials. The Court’s seven-to-two decision was based on the fact that the defendants had had access to counsel only immediately before the trial, preventing them from mounting an adequate defense. It also involved the lack of due deliberation in the overly speedy trial and the racial makeup of the jury. Only three of the defendants were retried immediately. Their trials took place in Decatur, Alabama, from March to December, 1933. All three received convictions and death sentences, but the U.S. Supreme Court again sustained their appeal, this time on the basis of irregularities in the selection of jurors: The apellants pointed out that Decatur’s voting rolls showed no African Americans registered to vote in the county in spite of a very large population of qualified African Americans residing there. This issue was to reappear on several occasions over the course of the Scottsboro trials. In January, 1936, a third group of trials, held in Decatur, resulted in the conviction of Haywood Patterson, who was sentenced to seventy-five years in prison. After more than a year of delay and behind-the-scenes negotiations between Alabama state officials and a group of the defendants’ supporters, the remaining eight were tried in the summer of 1937. One received the death penalty, three were sentenced to long prison terms, and the other four were released without charges. Although the one death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, the five convicted Scottsboro boys were unable to obtain any further reversals of their convictions. One of them was paroled in 1943, two more in 1946, and a fourth in 1950. The final prisoner escaped from a work gang in 1948 and managed to reach Michigan, whose governor refused to extradite him back to Alabama. The former defendant quickly found himself in trouble, however, committing a murder and being sentenced to Michigan’s worst prison. He was unable to escape the environment in which he had spent most of his days, the prison. It was not simply the length of the Scottsboro trials that accounted for the vast amount of publicity they attracted throughout the 1930’s. Most observers outside Alabama and an increasingly large number of people
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trials as from any reevaluation of the evidence. That is why four of the defendants were eventually released on the same testimony that convicted the other five. Significance Aside from serving as a symbol of southern bigotry, the Scottsboro trials attracted attention because of the efforts of the Communist Party to identify the cause of the defendants with their own. Working through the ILD, the Communist Party was one of the first groups to protest the verdicts in the 1931 trials, and it was the only group to offer direct aid at that time. For several years, the party engaged in a running battle with the NAACP and an “American Scottsboro Committee” over the right to manage the boys’ defense. The effect of these struggles was to unite many Alabamians against all “reds and foreigners” and make it more difficult to revise the verdicts. The chief defense counsel after 1931 was Samuel Leibowitz, a Jewish attorney from New York who became the target of scurrilous attacks from the prosecutors. Even he, along with Judge Callahan and part of the
Defendant Haywood Patterson (center) appears in court in April, 1933. (NARA)
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within the state came to believe that the defendants were innocent and were, therefore, the victims of southern racial injustice. One of their two accusers, Ruby Bates, had retracted her testimony by 1934 and admitted that she had lied in her original accusations. The other, a prostitute named Victoria Price, presented testimony so full of contradictions that one of the judges in the 1933 trials, Alabamian James E. Horton, overruled the jury’s guilty verdict and declared a mistrial. At least one of the defendants was ruled physically incapable of rape, and a physician testified that a medical examination of Bates and Price, performed shortly after the presumed attack, did not support their claims. Although both women were found to have had recent sexual intercourse, there were no contusions or other injuries that would have matched their stories about brutality at the hands of the nine men. None of this had any appreciable effect on the juries, the prosecutors, or Judge William W. Callahan, who presided after Horton was removed from the case. Even the milder sentences meted out in 1937 resulted as much from a desire to end the unfavorable publicity surrounding the
Scottsboro Trials
Scottsboro Trials
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Alabama press, came to regard the defendants’ Communist support as a liability, and Leibowitz sought to dissociate the ILD from the case. In 1935, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ILD joined to form the Scottsboro Defense Committee (SDC), which was designed to coordinate support for the defendants and seek cooperation from moderate Alabamians. Although the ILD played a much smaller role in the case from that point on, there remained enough hostility toward outside interference in Alabama to frustrate the SDC’s efforts. The Scottsboro case mirrored many of the important social currents of the 1930’s. Although it illustrated the extent to which white southerners would go to defend a system of white supremacy, it also marked a change from the not-too-distant era when the defendants might well have been summarily lynched. The hysterical attitude with which many Alabamians reacted to outside interest in the case underlined a regional insecurity that had been intensified by the unsettled conditions of the Great Depression. It was common for both men and women to hop onto freight trains, which the nine men had done, as had the two alleged victims. The Scottsboro boys had gotten into a fight with several white men. In Scottsboro and Decatur, race was on trial, not nine boys and men, much to the lasting chagrin of the state of Alabama. The episode would not end until 1976, when the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Clarence Norris a full pardon. It thus took forty-five years for justice to be served. —Courtney B. Ross and John Jacob
sity Press, 1979. Reprint. Delanco, N.J.: Gryphon Editions, 2000. Analyzes the trials and treatment of the nine African Americans and discusses the impact of the events on the South. Chalmers, Allan Knight. They Shall Be Free. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1951. An account of the Scottsboro trials from the perspective of one of the defense attorneys who also argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Khan, Lin Shi, and Tony Perez. Scottsboro, Alabama: A Story in Linoleum Cuts. Edited by Andrew H. Lee. Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley. New York: New York University Press, 2002. A fascinating primary source, this collection of 118 linocuts was unearthed by an NYU librarian. Originally created in 1935, they tell the story of the Scottsboro trials as a parable of the working classes resisting the tyranny of the ruling class. Bibliographic references. Levy, Leonard, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. 4 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Volume 3 provides ancillary but detailed analysis of decisions made by the Supreme Court in these cases. Norris, Clarence, and Sybil D. Washington. The Last of the Scottsboro Boys. New York: Putnam, 1979. The last and most literate of the defendants presents his case. Valuable for its perspective and the view of prison conditions over many years. Patterson, Haywood, and Earl Conrad. Scottsboro Boy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950. The first book to shed personal light on the plight of the nine, it remains a powerful testament to a decade of injustice.
Further Reading Carter, Dan T. Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South. Rev. ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univer-
See also: Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded; 1940: Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America.
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First Electron Microscope Is Constructed
April, 1931
First Electron Microscope Is Constructed
Locale: Berlin Institute of Technology, Berlin, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics; inventions Key Figures Ernst Ruska (1906-1988), German engineer and inventor Max Knoll (1897-1969), German engineer Hans Busch (1884-1973), German physicist Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), French physicist Reinhold Rüdenberg (1883-1961), German engineer Summary of Event A number of the most important inventions of the twentieth century had scattered origins, as did the first electron microscope, constructed by Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll in 1931. The electron microscope’s history can be traced along three lines: motivation, theory, and technology. Scientists who look into the microcosmic world always demand microscopes of higher and higher resolution, or resolving power—that is, the ability of an optical instrument to distinguish closely spaced objects. As early as 1834, George Airy, the eminent British astronomer, theorized that there should be a natural limit to the resolution of (optical) microscopes. In 1873, two Germans, Ernst Abbe, cofounder of the Karl Zeiss Optical Works at Jena, and Hermann von Helmholtz, the famous physicist and philosopher, independently published papers on this issue. Both arrived at the same conclusion as Airy. When it was proved that the wavelength of the light is the ultimate obstacle in raising the resolving power of the microscope, scientists and engineers began to consider electromagnetic radiations of shorter and shorter wavelengths. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Joseph Edwin Barnard experimented on microscopes using ultraviolet light. Such instruments, however, only modestly improved the resolution. In 1912, Max von Laue considered trying X rays. At the time, however, it was hard to turn “X-ray microscopy” into a physical reality. The wavelengths of X rays were exceedingly short, but they mostly penetrated material objects. It was thus made clear in the early 1920’s that, in terms of resolving power, the optical microscope was approaching its limit.
In a new microscopy, light—even electromagnetic radiation in general—as the traditional medium that carries image information, had to be replaced by a new medium. At the same time, progress in physics—theoretical as well as experimental—began to offer a prospective medium. In 1924, the French theoretical physicist Louis de Broglie advanced a startling hypothesis. His insight into the analogues between dynamic and optical phenomena and their mathematical formalities—a profound analogy first disclosed by Sir William Rowan Hamilton in the 1830’s—led him to state that there was something of a wave nature associated with material particles, particularly light microcosmic particles, such as electrons. His quantitative conclusions included a formula relating the particle’s motion—more exactly, momentum—to the wavelength of the particle’s associated wave. The faster the particle moves, the shorter the wavelength is. Before the first electron microscope had been built, the technological possibility of electron microscopy occurred to some theoreticians along the line of the “matter wave.” According to Dennis Gabor, in 1928 Leo Szilard suggested to him that an electron microscope should be made. Gabor, however, dismissed the idea with a forceful yet hypothetical statement: “Everything under the electron beam would burn to a cinder!” The electron microscope is another case of technological breakthrough that illustrates an interesting historical theme: Those who knew too much theory did not make the thing; those who made it were not aware of the latest theory. When Knoll and Ruska built the first electron microscope in 1931, they had never heard about de Broglie’s “matter wave.” Ruska recollected that when, in 1932, he and Knoll first learned about de Broglie’s idea, he became “extremely disappointed” but then “was immediately heartened” because he realized that those matter waves “must be around five orders of magnitude shorter in wavelength than light waves.” It was based on two other lines of physical study—oscillography and electron optics—that Knoll and Ruska accomplished their invention. The core component of the two new subjects was the electron beam, or the cathode ray, as it was usually called then. Although for a long time the physical nature of the beam was not clear, some nineteenth century physicists succeeded in controlling and focusing it. As early as 1858, the mathematician and physicist Julius Plücker noticed that magnetic fields could deflect the “electric glow discharge.” Later, in 1869, Johann Wil2493
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Replacing light rays and optical lenses, respectively, with electron beams and “electron lenses,” a group of German engineers pioneered electron microscopy.
First Electron Microscope Is Constructed helm Hittorf performed more and better experiments in controlling the cathode rays. In 1891, Eduard Riecke, using Hittorf’s results and carrying out his own calculations, conjectured about the ultimate corpuscular nature of the phenomena involved. Five years later, in 1896, Olaf Kristian Birkeland, a Norwegian physicist, after experimenting with axially symmetric magnetic fields, arrived at a very encouraging conclusion: “Parallel light rays are not concentrated better to the focal point by a lens than are cathode rays by a magnet.” From around 1910, the German physicist Hans Busch was the leading researcher in this field. In 1926, he published his theory on the trajectories of electrons in magnetic fields. His conclusion was that magnetic or electric fields possessing axial symmetry act as lenses for electrons or other charged particles. In 1927, he conducted experiments verifying his own theory with a magnetic lens. With these contributions, Busch has been recognized as the founder of a new field later known as electron optics. His theoretical study showed, among other things, the exactness of the analogy between light rays
Ernst Ruska. (The Nobel Foundation)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and optical lenses on one side and electron beams and electromagnetic lenses on the other. One logical consequence thus should be the feasibility of electron microscopy. Busch’s experimental verification, however, was not a complete success. Ruska noticed that there existed an “order-of-magnitude discrepancy between the size of cathode image that he [Busch] found experimentally and that required by the imaging equation,” in short, between theory and measurement. From 1928, Ruska, as a graduate student at the Berlin Institute of Technology, belonged to a group engaged in studying and building cathode-ray oscilloscopes, an instrument much in demand in the industry of electric power. Knoll and Ruska worked hard to find the physical laws of focusing electron beams by magnetic or electric fields. Ruska’s first project was the “bundling” of electron rays in the coaxial magnetic field of the short coil. On one hand, he had to find a method of calculation for the optimal design; on the other, he tried to build “powerful and compactly built oscillographs.” Because of this task, he was concerned with the discrepancies in Busch’s result. At this juncture, the difficulty of Busch became Ruska’s motivational force. Ruska carried out accurate measurements, especially with regard to the “lens theory of the short coil.” By doing so, he identified the major problem in Busch’s work, that is, the nonuniformity of the energy of the electrons in the beam. Beginning with certain nonuniformity, everything thereafter became increasingly diffused. Knoll and Ruska’s effort ended in a series of successes: verification of Busch’s theory, design and materialization of a concentrated electron “writing spot,” and the actual construction of the electron microscope. By April, 1931, they established a technological landmark with the “first constructional realization of an electron microscope,” although when Knoll lectured about their work in June, he avoided the term “electron microscope” because he did not want to be “accused of showmanship.” Significance The world’s first electron microscope, which took its first photographic record on April 7, 1931, was rudimentary. Its two-stage total magnification was only sixteen times. Since that time, however, progress in electron microscopy has been spectacular. It is one of the prominent examples that illustrate the historically unprecedented pace of science and technology in the twentieth century. One comparison in the field of microscopy is that it took centuries for the simple magnifier, or the “burning
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transmission electron microscope, both types use the quantum mechanical characteristics of the electron beam. The electron microscope has been described as one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century, and the long-range impacts of the instrument on science and engineering are self-evident. About Ruska’s work, John Reisner of RCA stated: “While electron-optics people knew of the idea after the work by Busch on electron trajectories, Ruska did it. It was tough technology, and his was the step that got everyone going.” —Wen-yuan Qian Further Reading Bradbury, S. The Evolution of the Microscope. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1967. Detailed examination of the evolution of microscopy as a whole; ends with a history of the electron microscope. Burton, E. F., and W. H. Kohl. The Electron Microscope. New York: Reinhold, 1942. Although dated, explains the physics and technology of the electron microscope in a manner accessible to lay readers. Chapters titled “The Dual Theory of the Electron” and “The History of the Electron Microscope” are particularly informative. Hawkes, Peter W., ed. The Beginnings of Electron Microscopy. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1985. Substantial anthology covers the history of electron microscopy. Most of the contributions discuss its development in various nations, fields, and laboratories. Includes a preface by Ruska. Marton, Ladislas. Early History of the Electron Microscope. 2d ed. San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1994. Brief historical introduction by an original contributor in the development of electron microscopy. Includes a preface by Dennis Gabor, the major constructor of the first electron lens and oscilloscope. Rasmussen, Nicolas. Picture Control: The Electron Microscope and the Transformation of Biology in America, 1940-1960. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. Discusses the rapid impact of the availability of the electron microscope on the direction of biological research in the United States. Includes index. Ruska, Ernst. The Early Development of Electron Lenses and Electron Microscopy. Translated by Thomas Mulvey. Stuttgart, Germany: S. Hirzel, 1980. Historical introduction by the acknowledged inventor himself begins with the ancestry of the optical microscope. Aware of his special position in the overall development, Ruska is careful to acknowledge other 2495
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glass,” to become the compound microscope, but the equivalent transition in the transmission electron microscope took only two years. Ruska and Knoll’s achievement immediately motivated others to study further and experiment, although electron microscopes with better-than-light-microscope resolution seemed in 1932, according to many experts at the time, a pipe dream. Ruska had set his goal to create an electron microscope that would have a resolution better than that of the best optical microscope and that could observe every kind of specimen that had been observed previously in the light microscope. After Knoll left the team to work on the developing technology of television, Ruska found new coworkers and stimulated more. Reinhold Rüdenberg was then the chief of the scientific department of the Siemens-Schuckent-Werke. At the end of May, 1931, he applied for a patent in electron microscopy; later, after Knoll and Ruska’s first paper was published in 1932, he stated that similar work had been ongoing for some time at Siemens. According to Ruska, Rudenberg could not substantiate such claims with actual results. In 1935, for the first time the electron microscope surpassed the optical microscope in resolution. The problem of damaging the specimen by the heating effects of the electron beam proved to be more difficult to resolve. In 1937, a team at the University of Toronto constructed the first generally usable electron microscope. In 1942, a group at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) headed by James Hillier produced its commercial transmission electron microscopes. From 1939 and 1940, research papers on electron microscopes began to appear in Sweden, Canada, the United States, and Japan; from 1944 to 1947, papers appeared in Switzerland, France, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, and England. Following research work in laboratories, commercial transmission electron microscopes using magnetic lenses with short focal lengths also appeared in these countries. Despite some priority disputes, Ruska’s personal contribution has been generally recognized. In 1960, Ruska and Hillier were jointly presented the Albert Lasker Award in Medical Research for “their major contribution to the design, construction, development and perfection of the electron microscope, which led to the creation of an unique and much used research instrument.” In 1986, Ruska received the Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, two IBM physicistengineers, for inventing the scanning tunneling microscope in the early 1980’s. Although the scanning tunneling microscope is a different microscope from Ruska’s
First Electron Microscope Is Constructed
Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed researchers’ contributions. This account extends to around 1940, when Ruska’s major contributions (magnetic lens with short focal lengths and the prototype transmission electron microscopes) still exerted significant influence. Wyckoff, Ralph W. G. Electron Microscopy. New York: Interscience, 1949. Although dated, provides an in-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 formative historical introduction to the technique and the applications of the electron microscope. See also: 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope; 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light; 1936: Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope.
April 14, 1931
Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed after the abdication of the king and the election of a constituent Cortes. The moderate and left-wing republicans formed a coalition government, but after five years of pressure from the far Right and the far Left, the government collapsed into civil war. Locale: Madrid, Spain Category: Government and politics Key Figures Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres (1877-1949), president of the Second Spanish Republic, 1931-1936 Julián Besteiro (1870-1940), president of the Cortes, 1931-1939 Manuel Azaña y Díaz (1880-1940), founder and leader of the Republican Action Party and prime minister of Spain, 1931-1933 and 1936-1939 Alejandro Lerroux (1864-1949), leader of the Radical Party and prime minister of Spain, 1933-1935 Alfonso XIII (1886-1941), king of Spain, r. 1886-1931 Francisco Largo Caballero (1869-1946), leader of radical elements in the Socialist Party Indalecio Prieto (1883-1962), leader of moderate elements in the Spanish Socialist Party José María Gil Robles y Quiñones (1898-1980), journalist and leader of the moderate Catholic party Miguel Maura y Gamazo (1887-1971), minister of the interior of Spain, 1931 José Sanjurjo (fl. early twentieth century), leader of an attempted coup by the right wing Summary of Event By 1931, Alfonso XIII of Spain was a bankrupt monarch. In addition to his failure to provide Spain with the leadership necessary to solve its problems, he had approved the 1923 coup d’état of Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, which had established a dictatorship. When the dictator 2496
had resigned in 1930, Alfonso had hoped to provide a transitional regime that would prepare the way for a return to constitutional government. The reformist parties, however, had gained great strength since the mid-1920’s. The Socialist Party, led by Indalecio Prieto and Francisco Largo Caballero, and the Republican Radical Party, led by Alejandro Lerroux, joined newly established liberal parties and groups under Manuel Azaña y Díaz and Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres to demand the establishment of a reform republican government. When the king announced municipal elections in April, 1931, to test this republican sentiment, the results indicated that the Crown had lost. On April 14, 1931, the republican politicians proclaimed the Second Spanish Republic, and Alfonso went into exile. In July, 1931, elections were held for the constituent Cortes, or parliament, and a liberal Republican-Socialist coalition was formed to govern Spain. The first cabinet reflected the overwhelming support of the electorate for Republican and Socialist deputies. Right-wing Republicans, the majority of whom were from the Radical Party of Alejandro Lerroux, and left-wing Republicans under Manuel Azaña y Díaz held more than half of the seats in the Cortes, while Socialists, led by Largo Caballero and Prieto, held an additional 115 seats. Alcalá-Zamora was chosen as prime minister, but became the first president of the republic later that year, after Azaña was selected to be prime minister of the governing coalition. Other members of the first government included Miguel Maura y Gamazo, minister of the interior; Lerroux, foreign minister; and Azaña, who also served as minister of war. The Cortes wrote a constitution incorporating many liberal reforms and providing regional autonomy for those provinces that desired it, thereby solving the Catalan problem. It provided for reform of the military and action against the Roman Catholic Church, which had been one of the supporters of the old regime. The Church
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Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed
1931 Some of the important figures of the Second Spanish Republic (front row, left to right): Manuel Azaña y Díaz, Álvaro de Albornoz, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres, Miguel Maura y Gamazo, Francisco Largo Caballero, Fernando de los Ríos, and Alejandro Lerroux. (NARA)
was disestablished, the clergy’s salaries were abolished, the Jesuit order was dissolved, and provisions were made to prevent the clergy from teaching. This attack on the Church, however, precipitated a crisis that brought down the first cabinet. When Article 26 of the constitution went into effect, many excellent schools operated by Jesuits and Augustinians closed; there were no state schools immediately available to take their place. This action angered both devout Catholics and members of the middle class whose children’s schooling was disrupted. Other reforms established machinery for wide and sweeping land reform, because solving Spain’s agrarian problems was critical to the new government. These reforms did not do enough to satisfy many peasants, and incidents in several small villages led to riots and murder. The government’s actions began to polarize the country. Liberal reforms satisfied many moderates, but practicing
Catholics were unhappy. Furthermore, extremist elements opposed the Republican-Socialists. On the right, the monarchists schemed with the military to restore Alfonso. General José Sanjurjo led a coup against the Republic in 1932, but he and his followers were arrested. Anarchists of the Left called the reforms too moderate. They countered with strikes and industrial violence and tried to provoke the clergy by burning churches and monasteries. Significance In 1933, the first phase of the Second Spanish Republic ended, as the Republican-Socialist coalition fell, and the election was won by Confederación Española de Derechos Autónomos (CEDA), the moderate Catholic party led by José María Gil Robles y Quiñones, and the Radicals, then becoming more conservative under their leader Lerroux. Because the CEDAhad unsavory monar2497
Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed chist connections, the Republican-Socialists in the newly elected Cortes rejected Gil Robles’s bid for power. Instead, Lerroux became prime minister with CEDA backing. CEDA-Radical ministries governed Spain from 1933 to 1935. As the CEDA’s main concern was revision of the anticlerical legislation and the Radicals had no reform plans, little action was taken during these years. Most of the Republican-Socialist reform legislation was allowed to lapse or was not implemented, causing the parties of the Left to refer to the period as the “Two Black Years.” The Anarchists protested and, along with certain Republicans and Socialists, revolted against the government in 1934. The revolt was put down, and many of the proletarian party leaders were imprisoned. Finally, in late 1935, Alcalá-Zamora dissolved the Cortes and ordered new elections in order to break the parliamentary impasse. In the elections of early 1936, the forces of the Left— Liberals and Socialists, with the tacit approval of the Anarchists—joined in a coalition known as the Popular Front. They defeated the disunited rightists and gained control of the Cortes. The Republican-Socialist reforms were once again implemented, but there was so much opposition from both extremes that public order was gravely compromised, thus provoking a military uprising by the right wing in July, 1936. This marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, as the forces of the Right battled the leftist government for control of the country until 1939, when the Fascists achieved victory with the support of Germany’s Nazi Party. The Second Spanish Republic was at an end, and the inability of the extreme Right and Left to accept a middle-leftist coalition had ultimately led to the establishment of an authoritarian right-wing regime. —José M. Sánchez and James A. Baer Further Reading Brenan, Gerald. The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Civil War. Canto ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Gives an excellent background to the civil war, and provides much information on the most important political forces in Spain. Carr, Raymond. Spain, 1808-1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. A comprehensive history of Spain with a
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 chapter on the period of the Second Spanish Republic. Crow, John A. Spain, the Root and the Flower: An Interpretation of Spain and the Spanish People. 3d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Offers a cultural history of Spain, with chapters 12 and 13 specifically on the background and events of the Second Spanish Republic. Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Political analysis sympathetic to the Second Republic and critical of “extremist” elements on both the left and the right. Lewis, Norman. The Tomb in Seville: Crossing Spain on the Brink of Civil War. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Travel memoir of a British writer’s journeys in Spain during the Second Republic and his observations of the situation on the ground leading up to the civil war. Madariaga, Salvado de. Spain: A Modern History. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958. A history of Spain and the events of the Second Republic from a minister of Education in the Republican government. Author states in Introduction that he does not treat Nationalist side evenly because he did not know these men and was sympathetic to those he knew in the Republican government. Payne, Stanley G. The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936: Origins of the Civil War. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006. Comprehensive study of the crux-years of the republic and the causes of its instability and collapse. Bibliographic references and index. Smith, Rhea Marsh. Spain: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965. General history of Spain from prehistoric times to the twentieth century includes clearly written chapters on the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Second Republic. Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. A classic study of the background of the civil war and its major events from a political as well as military perspective. See also: July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins; Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain; Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica; July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica.
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Empire State Building Opens
May 1, 1931
Empire State Building Opens
Locale: 350 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York Categories: Architecture; science and technology; economics Key Figures John Jakob Raskob (1879-1950), American financier William F. Lamb (1883-1952), American architect Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944), former governor of New York and president of the Empire State Corporation Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940), American photographer Summary of Event On August 29, 1929, The New York Times headlined an announcement that the Empire State Corporation would begin construction on an important commercial venture at Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, site of the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The five New York financiers involved intended to erect the world’s tallest building on the two-acre site. Their plan was to offer prestigious rental office space in a skyscraper that would embody the richness and achievement of New York, the Empire State. When it opened during the Great Depression, the Empire State Building represented an image of strength and spirit of which New Yorkers and, by extension, all Americans could be proud. The building was the inspiration of John Jakob Raskob, an influential New Yorker who was head of the Empire State Corporation and a vice president and shareholder in the General Motors Corporation. Politically active, he served as the Democratic National Chairman and acted as campaign manager for presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith, New York’s popular four-time governor. Smith lost to Herbert Hoover in the 1928 election, providing Raskob with the opportunity to offer him the position of president of the Empire State Corporation and manager of the proposed Empire State Building. Raskob’s shrewd decision to hire the charismatic Smith proved to be crucial to the success of the project. In late October of 1929, the stock market crashed, plunging the United States into the Great Depression. Many construction and skyscraper projects planned at the time were criticized as frivolous, given the severe economic slump. The Empire State Building project survived, however,
largely as a result of Smith’s association with it. The man’s powerful identification with New York, his obvious pride in the city, and his immense personal appeal and reputation for integrity helped to secure a loan of $27.5 million from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon was hired to design the Empire State Building. It was a young partnership with excellent credentials and a reputation for taking a practical, functional approach to commercial building. Together with chief architect William F. Lamb, Raskob calculated that 36 million cubic feet of rentable space would be needed to make the venture a profitable one. It soon became clear to Lamb that the skyscraper mass would be shaped primarily by practical matters: the size of the site (200 feet by 425 feet), a fixed budget of $60 million, a May 1, 1931, deadline, and city zoning laws. Adherence to the deadline date was of particular concern to Raskob, who wanted to avoid financial loss by ensuring immediate availability of rental space on the customary day for signing commercial leases. Of all the practical elements involved in the design of the Empire State Building, the restrictions imposed by New York City’s 1916 zoning law contributed most significantly to the building’s final shape. Aimed at protecting the city from overbuilding and ensuring sufficient light and air for all streets and offices, the law required street setbacks above the thirtieth floor for any building mass and required that no floor be more than one quarter the area of the site. The pyramidal style common to many New York City skyscrapers clearly was a reaction by local architects to these restrictions. Lamb designed from the top down. His sixteenth attempt (Plan K) at shaping the skyscraper resulted in the final design for the Empire State Building. Following the form of the classical column, the mass was divided into three parts: a five-story base topped by a sixty-foot terrace (meeting the required setback restriction), a limestone office tower that soared to the eighty-sixth-floor observation deck, and a cap composed of a rounded fourteen-story glass and metal mooring mast for dirigibles. It was Raskob’s intent that with the continuation of transatlantic dirigible travel, the top floor of New York City’s tallest building would make the ideal international arrival lounge. The style of the building was restrained Art Deco and blended traditional motifs with the streamlined look of the machine age. Fully conceived, the im2499
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The opening of the Empire State Building expressed the state of the art of skyscraper technology and introduced to the world an enduring symbol of American ingenuity and progressiveness.
Empire State Building Opens
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
age of the Empire State Building was The Empire State Building: Facts and Figures sleek, glamorous, and uplifting. • Completion time: 410 days The construction firm of Starrett • Architect: Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates Brothers and Eken was engaged, and • Contractor: Starrett Brothers and Eken an elaborate strategy was mapped • Construction man-hours: 7,000,000 out in minute detail, complete with a • Cost including land: $40,948,900 set of overlapping monthly sched• Cost of building alone: $24,718,000 ules. By October 1, 1929, the demo• Site area: 79,288 square feet lition of the Waldorf-Astoria was be• Foundation: 55 feet below ground gun. The hotel would relocate to a • Basement: 35 feet below ground chic uptown location. On March 30, • Lobby: 47 feet above sea level 1930, excavation for the Empire State • Height to top of lightning rod: 1,453 feet, 8 9⁄16 inches Building was under way. The speed • Floors: 103 with which the structure rose was • Steps: 1,860 from street to 102d floor surprising even to those who worked • Volume: 37 million cubic feet on the project. • Weight: 365,000 tons Lamb planned to meet the May 1 • Windows: 6,500 deadline by doing away with hand• Elevators: 73 work wherever possible, instead us• Exterior materials: 200,000 cubic feet of Indiana limestone; 10,000 ing glass, stone, and steel elements square feet of rose famosa and estrallante marble; 300,000 square feet capable of being accurately mass proof Hauteville and Rocheron marble for interiors duced and speedily assembled. Anew • Plumbing: 70 miles of pipe method of fenestration was used that • Electricity: 2,500,000 feet of electrical wire cut time and costs as well as saved office space: Glass for the sixty-five hundred windows was applied to the Empire State Building “is needed in the city of New outside wall, or skin, of the skyscraper with metal brackYork. It is located at a strategic center. . . . It is needed by ets, rather than setting each pane into an individual stone the whole nation.” frame. This also created the building’s characteristic smooth and shimmery exterior. Another timesaving inSignificance novation involved a temporary miniature railway that The Empire State Building is as much an icon as it is an made tightly scheduled runs to each floor, carrying needed outstanding example of architectural achievement. Since tools and materials. its opening in 1931, it has become an important and draOn April 11, 1931—having broken several construcmatic source of identity for the people of New York and tion records—the completed Empire State Building towan internationally recognized symbol of the wealth and ered 1,250 feet and 102 stories above New York City’s strength of the American nation. As such, the Empire busy avenues. Built in one year and forty-five days at a State Building remains one of New York City’s biggest cost of approximately $41 million, the world’s tallest skytourist attractions. More than 65 million visitors flock to scraper had, incredibly, been finished ahead of schedule the eighty-sixth-floor observation deck annually. They and under budget. go to experience the dizzying sensation of height, to see The building officially opened at 11:15 a.m. on May 1, the magnificent views (more than fifty miles on a clear 1931. Standing before a festive crowd of onlookers, Alday), and to buy millions of souvenirs. Pencils, pens, fred E. Smith assisted his two young grandchildren in a postcards, glasses and mugs, key chains, spoons, snowtraditional ribbon-cutting ceremony at the magnificent globe paperweights, and at least nine different variations Fifth Avenue entrance. At 11:30 a.m., President Herbert of the Empire State Building in miniature serve to carry Hoover pushed a button in Washington, D.C., and the its famous image to even the most remote areas of the main corridors of the Empire State Building were bathed world. in light. Later, at a luncheon celebration on the eightyArchitecturally, the Empire State Building represents sixth-floor observation deck, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt noted that, as a creation of vision and faith, the the culmination of the American skyscraper race of the 2500
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Empire State Building Opens
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projected, and the future of technology was glorified. American skyscrapers became linked symbolically to national dreams and expectations. During the Depression, construction of the Empire State Building provided positive images to the suffering populace. In May of 1930, American photographer Lewis W. Hine was commissioned to chronicle the rise of the building. He took more than one thousand photographs, concentrating on the energy and fearlessness of the thousands of workers involved. The photographs collected in Hine’s 1932 book Men at Work: Photographic Studies of Modern Men and Machines portrayed the workers as heroes. The collection revealed heartening images of courage, tenacity, and teamwork at a time when Depression hardships seemed almost insurmountable. The Empire State Building remains a focal point for New Yorkers. In the 1930’s, a television antenna was mounted on the top of the building and, in a pioneering effort, images of Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat were transmitted to homes within a fifty-two-mile range. Later, topped by a sixty-foot metal pole, the building was transformed into an immense lightning rod so that scientists could study the phenomenon of lightning. Tragically, the famed building received national attention in 1945, when a B-25 bomber became lost in Manhattan’s foggy maze of skyscrapers and crashed into the seventy-ninth floor. Lives were lost, yet only one steel beam in the entire structure was damaged. The accident briefly renewed negative comments about the continued construction of skyscrapers. The Empire State Building is an easily identifiable image and a part of American lore. Over the years, it has played a part in many motion pictures, including King Kong (1933), An Affair to Remember (1957), and Sleepless in Seattle (1993). Artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz have incorporated it into their works. Suicidal individuals and celebrities alike have been drawn by the mystique and majesty of the towering structure. Visitors have included Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II, and Helen Keller. A construction worker high above Manhattan streets on the framework of the EmThe Empire State Building is about pire State Building. This photograph by Lewis W. Hine is one of many he created to many things—glamour, identity, comdocument the courage of those who constructed the building. (NARA) merce, entertainment, technology, op-
1920’s and 1930’s, when monumentality was expressed by hugeness of mass and soaring height. This notion of height, which became an overriding concern among New York architects in particular, gave New York City a distinctive skyline and a progressive image that applied not only to it but also to other American cities of maturity. The building signified the nation’s vitality. It became a symbol of skyscrapers everywhere and of a force that would forever change the American urban environment. Its sheer size served to heighten controversy about the potential dangers of populating modern cities with densely packed high-rise buildings. Some perceived the great American skyscrapers as symbols of greed and profit. As the nation trudged along through the difficult Depression years, interest in the skyscraper movement waned. From an artistic standpoint, the Empire State Building’s restrained Art Deco style sent a message to the world about the successful marriage of art and technology in the machine age. It was a theme common to many major skyscrapers of that era. By blending progressive, eclectic, and traditional European stylistic elements, Art Deco skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building expressed the forces of motion, energy, and life, integrating these with the streamlined nature of the machine. The move away from the manual way of doing things was
Empire State Building Opens portunity, and, most important, achievement. Although it was surpassed in height when New York’s World Trade Center towers opened in 1972, and later by the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, its image and symbolism endure. With the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, the Empire State Building once again came to dominate the New York skyline. —Cynthia L. Breslin Further Reading Goldberger, Paul. The Skyscraper. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. Excellent discussion of the skyscraper movement in Chicago versus that in New York. Chapter 5 focuses on the skyscraper races of the 1930’s that produced the Chrysler, Chanin, and Empire State Buildings. Includes photographs, endnotes, and index. Goldman, Jonathan. The Empire State Building Book. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980. Brief, entertaining history presents facts and anecdotes. Includes excellent photographs and an interesting collection of postcard pictures, artists’ renditions, and other memorabilia. Huxtable, Ada Louise. The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: The Search for a Skyscraper Style. 1984. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Treatise on the history, aesthetics, politics, and economics of tall office building—what the Pulitzer Prize-winning author calls the “drama of the skyscraper.” Chronicles the search for a skyscraper style from the time when architects looked to the architectural styles of the past for inspiration to the newer varied styles of the late twentieth century. James, Theodore, Jr. The Empire State Building. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Exuberant, almost emotional, history includes many unusual facts and anecdotes. Features photographs (many taken by Lewis W. Hine), appendix of interesting facts, bibliography, and index. Macauley, David. Unbuilding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. Author/illustrator combines meticulous and playful pen-and-ink drawings with a unique fantasy tale about the dismantling of the Empire State Building in the year 1989. The story provides a vehicle for a technically accurate explanation of the building’s structure and engineering. Enjoyable for both juvenile and adult readers. Includes glossary.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Messler, Norbert. The Art Deco Skyscraper in New York. Rev. ed. New York: Peter Lang, 1986. Sophisticated treatment of the cultural and historical significance of New York City’s Art Deco skyscrapers of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Highlights and interprets the architectural elements unique to this style and discusses the American focus on technology and the machine age. Includes photographs, extensive notes, and index. Reynolds, Donald Martin. The Architecture of New York City: Histories and Views of Important Structures, Sites, and Symbols. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1994. Interesting and informative chronological survey of New York City architecture from the seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth century. Provides details about a wide range of significant buildings and structures. The Empire State Building is covered in Chapter 12, which is devoted to a study of the Art Deco skyscrapers. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Roth, Leland M. American Architecture: A History. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. Discussion of the history of architecture in the United States examines the many different forces that have influenced styles and trends. Places the design of the urban skyscraper within the larger national context. Includes many illustrations, chronology, glossary, and index. Schleier, Merrill. The Skyscraper in American Art, 18901931. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1986. Discusses the significance and meaning of skyscraper imagery in the arts as a direct reflection of the effects of skyscraper technology on American culture. Highlights artists such as photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Margaret Bourke-White and painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Includes bibliography and index. Tauranac, John. The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark. New York: Scribner, 1995. A thorough history of the building and its place in the history of architecture as well as the history of New York City. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. See also: May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea; May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails
May 8, 1931
Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails
Locale: Vienna, Austria Categories: Banking and finance; economics Key Figures Montagu Norman (1871-1950), governor of the Bank of England Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), chairman of the Austrian Credit-Anstalt creditors’ committee Alexander Spitzmüller (1862-1953), director of the reorganization of the Credit-Anstalt Adrianus Johannes van Hengel (1886-1936), general director of the Credit-Anstalt Summary of Event The failure of the Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria, of which the Austrian government was informed on May 8, 1931, was announced to the world on May 11, 1931. The Credit-Anstalt was one of the leading banks of Austria, both before and after World War I. Its failure precipitated a rush by international lenders to repatriate loans made during the heady days of the late 1920’s. The repatriation of foreign loans, intricately linked to one another, forced the entire delicate financial structure of Europe into crisis, deepened the depression that had begun the preceding year, and contributed to the rise of radical political movements in Central Europe. Prior to World War I, the Credit-Anstalt had been part of a network of Austrian banks that had provided much of the credit used by business and commerce in Eastern Europe. The number of banks needed to finance the businesses of an empire was far larger than the number needed simply to finance the businesses of the small Austrian republic that emerged from the peace treaties settling World War I. During the 1920’s, this oversupply of financial institutions was gradually corrected by the merger of a number of Viennese banks, often under pressure from the Austrian government. One of the chief mergers was that of the Credit-Anstalt with the BodenKredit-Anstalt (Farm Credit Institute) in 1929. As the accountants of the Credit-Anstalt struggled to incorporate the loans and deposits of the Farm Credit Institute into their own portfolio, they were appalled to discover that the Farm Credit Institute had a negative net worth, a
strain that, in the existing conditions, it was difficult for the Credit-Anstalt to absorb. The Credit-Anstalt of 1931 was substantially an international bank. It had major equity interests in the states created from the Austrian Empire, having invested in eleven banks and at least forty industrial firms, including a Romanian sugar refinery. Besides the equity investments, the bank provided credit for many of the firms in which it had invested. Most of these firms were producers of primary products, a sector that experienced severe overcapacity in the late 1920’s. A highly competitive world market put a severe squeeze on profits, to the point at which the profitability of many of the bank’s investments was questionable. The Credit-Anstalt crisis began on Friday, May 8, 1931. The bank discovered a shortfall of 166 million schillings in its cash position. This information was provided to the Austrian government, with a request that the government guarantee the bank’s liabilities. After an intense weekend of negotiation, during which the bank sought to pressure the government with the argument that it was “too big to fail,” it was agreed that the government would guarantee the bank’s liabilities. In return, the bank’s shares would be devalued by 25 percent, the government would receive shares amounting to one-third of the total, and the Austrian National Bank would become a 10 percent shareholder. It was the government’s intention to place its shares on the market at the earliest opportunity. The financial difficulties of the Credit-Anstalt were revealed to the world on May 11, 1931. Even though the Austrian government announced that it was providing a guarantee of the bank’s liabilities, depositors rushed to withdraw their funds, many of them purchasing foreign exchange, which the bank discounted at the Austrian National Bank. These losses forced the Austrian National Bank to seek an international loan through the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS brokered a loan underwritten by twelve national banks, but in return it required that the Austrian National Bank guarantee the entire Credit-Anstalt operation. The Austrian government put two-thirds of its annual budget on the line in this guarantee. The run on the Credit-Anstalt was so large that the first BIS loan of 100 million schillings (about $14 million) was used up by early June. The Austrian National Bank asked for a second loan, to be arranged by the BIS. 2503
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The first of a series of European bank failures and restructurings, the failure of the Credit-Anstalt Bank shook international financial markets and led to a worsening of the worldwide depression.
Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails This loan contained the additional requirement that the Austrian government itself should obtain from foreign sources a longer-term loan, with a maturity of two to three years, in the amount of 150 million schillings. The French exhibited substantial reluctance about this project, particularly because they were concerned about a proposed Austro-German customs union that had recently been proposed. Meanwhile, the Bank of England’s governor, Montagu Norman, came to the rescue with a seven-day loan to the Austrian government. This loan was extended several times and was replaced in the fall by a loan brokered by the League of Nations. The effective insolvency of the Credit-Anstalt required reorganization of the bank. Discussions over reorganization began in May and continued throughout the summer and fall. A committee was formed from representatives of the bank’s creditors, the Austrian government, and the Austrian National Bank. The head of the committee was Lionel Walter Rothschild, representing the creditors. The Rothschild family owned about onethird of the bank’s shares. English interests, chiefly the Bank of England and the Anglo-Austrian Bank of London, owned another third. American interests, including Kuhn, Loeb and Company and the Guarantee Trust Company of New York, also had large positions. The principal government representative on the reorganization committee was Alexander Spitzmüller, briefly a director of the Credit-Anstalt before the war and also a former finance minister of the Austrian Empire. He had presided over the liquidation of the old AustroHungarian National Bank in the early 1920’s. The task of reorganization, in which Spitzmüller appears to have played the most active role, was to liquidate the assets of the bank, in the form of its industrial investments and credits, with some residual falling to the bank. Generally the reorganization was gentle to debtors, refusing to advance further credit but allowing extended payment opportunities. A further obligation of the reorganization committee was to determine the extent to which the stockholders would suffer losses. The original plan, in which the foreign creditors’ shares would lose 25 percent of their value, was no longer acceptable to the international bankers. Negotiations continued into the next year, when it was finally agreed that, in return for a further devaluation of the foreign creditors’ shares, some of the losses would be made good by annuities that would be paid by the Austrian government over a seven-year period. No payments were made in 1934 and 1935, and in 1936 the Austrian government refused to make any 2504
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 payments. A new agreement was reached. The reorganized Credit-Anstalt loaned the Austrian government cash to compensate, in part, the annuity claimants. In return, the government agreed to pay the sum back in annual payments over forty years while also paying residual annuities to the foreign creditors over a twenty-year period. During the summer and fall of 1931, aided by increased interest rates on deposits, the Credit-Anstalt was able to resume normal operations, decreasingly relying on discounting with the Austrian National Bank. The appointment of a Dutchman, Adrianus Johannes van Hengel, as the bank’s director in February, 1932, restored confidence in the bank. It was able to function in normal fashion, although its sphere of activity had been essentially restricted to Austria. Significance The effects of the failure of the Credit-Anstalt were farreaching. The countries of Eastern Europe, which for decades had relied on Viennese banks for credit, were deprived of a major source of finance. Those of the bank’s assets outside Austria that did not have to be liquidated were turned over to a new company, organized in Monaco. The proceeds of this latter operation were intended to help pay off investors in the Credit-Anstalt. Of much greater importance, however, was the international financial crisis precipitated by the failure of the Credit-Anstalt. The run on the Credit-Anstalt frightened depositors throughout Central Europe, particularly in Germany, where large banks began to lose deposits at an alarming rate in June of 1931. Most of these withdrawals were either in the form of foreign currency credits, particularly British pounds, or gold. The banking crisis in Germany was made worse by restrictions placed on the German central bank, the Reichsbank, by the Allies, in conjunction with the revisions of reparations payments in 1924 and 1929-1930. These rules made it impossible for the Reichsbank to rediscount notes issued by the other commercial banks. The run on German banks continued into the summer, precipitating the failure of the Darmstaedter Bank in July. The German government responded in the same manner as the Austrian government. It guaranteed the deposits at the Darmstaedter and subsequently forced its merger with another large bank, the Dresdner. These commitments, combined with large withdrawals from most of the large German banks, put the Reichsbank itself in jeopardy. The Reichsbank appealed to the central banks of England, France, and the United States for help.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The worsening depression had political consequences. In Central Europe, it provoked a sharp increase in voting for radical political parties and almost certainly contributed to the growing support for the Nazis among disillusioned German voters. A similar development occurred in Austria. Even in countries that remained democratic, the lack of funds available for borrowing forced budgetary policies that precluded deficit financing to lessen the impact of unemployment. Both Germany and Great Britain cut back on public subsidy of the unemployed. Governments throughout Europe hewed to balanced budgets in the face of a downward spiral in tax revenues. The depression was made worse worldwide by the ramifications of the failure of the Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria. —Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Bennett, Edward W. Germany and the Diplomacy of the Financial Crisis, 1931. 1962. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. Classic study of the 1931 financial crisis. James, Harold. The German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924-1936. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Primarily focuses on the economic crisis in Germany but also discusses the contribution of the Credit-Anstalt failure to the development of the international financial crisis. Provides insight into the larger implications of the Credit-Anstalt collapse. Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 1929-1939. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Relates the antecedents of the CreditAnstalt failure and provides a broad discussion of the ramifications of the failure. Includes a brief summary of the events leading up to the crisis of May, 1931. Schubert, Aurel. The Credit-Anstalt Crisis of 1931. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Thorough analysis includes examination of the causes of the crisis as well as the responses to it. Features tables, bibliography, and index. Spitzmüller, Alexander. Memoirs of Alexander Spitzmüller, Freiherr von Harmersbach (1862-1953). Translated and edited by Carvel de Bussy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Provides numerous details of the reorganization of the Credit-Anstalt. Given that Spitzmüller was a man with a very large ego, this account should be read with some caution. Stiefel, Dieter. “The Reconstruction of the CreditAnstalt.” In International Business and Central Europe, 1918-1939, edited by Alice Teichova and P. L. 2505
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These central banks supplied several loans of several hundred million dollars to prevent the depletion of the Reichsbank’s stock of gold and foreign credits. Strict exchange controls were imposed that continued in effect throughout the 1930’s. The crisis in the banks and the precarious position of the Reichsbank’s foreign credits and gold supply made it obvious that the major foreign currency transactions required by the various reparations agreements would not take place. President Herbert Hoover had proposed a moratorium on reparations payments as early as midJune. Because he did not simultaneously offer a moratorium on inter-Allied debts, substantial negotiations were required before the moratorium could take effect. The French agreed to the moratorium on July 6, in return for a commitment that a proposed Austro-German customs union would not form. The banking crisis also had implications internally for most of the countries of Europe. In order to attract deposits, the banks had to raise the interest rates they were offering. They then had to charge higher interest rates on loans to pay the cost of interest on deposits. These higher rates had the usual effect of severely restricting the credit available to small businesses, which in turn were constrained in the amount of business they could do. Many were obliged to lay off workers, adding to the rapidly growing level of unemployment. The international banking crisis was also responsible for forcing the British to abandon the gold standard. After suspending conversion of paper money into gold during the war, the British government had returned to the gold standard in 1925 in the hope of restoring Great Britain’s position as the economic and financial center of the industrialized world. When the future of the European banks became suspect, and when the Bank of England made substantial loans to shore up the Central European currencies, suspicion was transferred to the soundness of the pound. Those who had deposits in London sought to convert them to gold, and a severe run on the Bank of England’s gold supply followed. On September 30, 1931, the British government suspended payment in gold. The United States was not immune to the effects of the Credit-Anstalt failure. The general contraction of foreign credits affected U.S. banks, many of which had made a significant number of international loans to various European banks. The resultant contraction of the money supply produced deflation in both Europe and the United States, making the depression in the United States worse than it might otherwise have been.
Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails
Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon Cottrell. Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, 1983. Provides a balanced and detailed account of the collapse of the Credit-Anstalt. Commentary by other scholars following the chapter offers insight into some of the more controversial issues surrounding the crisis.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors.
May 27, 1931
Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon Auguste Piccard piloted a balloon through an extended ascent into the stratosphere, presaging the space age with his pioneering use of a controlled-environment cabin. Locale: Augsburg, Germany; Ober-Gurgl, Austria Categories: Space and aviation; science and technology; physics Key Figures Auguste Piccard (1884-1962), Swiss physicist, aeronaut, and engineer Paul Kipfer (b. 1905), Swiss physicist Summary of Event In the early 1930’s, the last of Earth’s physical frontiers were slowly being understood and conquered. Stories of humankind pushing its limits regularly qualified for the front pages of major newspapers. When Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer ascended to 15,781 meters (approximately 51,775 feet) to break the world altitude record in a balloon of Piccard’s own design, the world was enthralled and the scientific community gained new venues for exploration. The stratosphere remained as one physical barrier that had been touched previously only barely. In 1902, Léon Teisserenc de Bort discovered the stratosphere, a layer in the atmosphere above the troposphere. There, the temperature does not decrease with altitude but is approximately constant at –55 degrees Celsius. The altitude of the lower boundary of the stratosphere varies greatly; a useful average is 12 kilometers (about 7.46 miles). Because barometric pressure decreases with altitude, the ambient pressure at such an altitude is about one-sixth that at Earth’s surface; at 16 kilometers (9.94 miles), the fraction is only about one-tenth. Prior to 1931, only two humans0 had been able to penetrate beyond 12 kilometers, and neither had available to them technology that would sustain life at that al2506
titude for extended periods of time. In 1927, U.S. Army captain Hawthorne Gray made two flights to 12.7 kilometers (7.89 miles) utilizing an open gondola. Neither flight, however, set an official altitude mark; the first ended in a bailout and the second in Gray’s death from lack of oxygen. In 1930, U.S. Navy lieutenant Apollo Soucek flew successfully to the lower reaches of the stratosphere in an airplane with the aid of heated goggles, gloves, and oxygen mask, setting a record of 13.16 kilometers (8.18 miles). In the two decades preceding Piccard’s flight in 1931,
Layers of the Earth’s Atmosphere
Exosphere 300 mi
200 mi
Thermosphere
100 mi 90 mi Mesosphere 40 mi 20 mi
Ionosphere
Stratosphere Troposphere Earth’s Surface
Ozone layer
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the realm of high-energy physics saw unexpected developments. Victor Franz Hess of Austria made a scientific balloon flight in 1912 in which he discovered a source of ionizing radiation that increased with altitude. Robert Andrews Millikan of the California Institute of Technology named the radiation “cosmic rays,” although it had not been generally To view image, please refer to the agreed yet that these rays were celestial in origin. Into this setting entered print edition of this title. Auguste Piccard. Piccard, a native of Switzerland, was trained in mechanical engineering and became a professor of physics at the University of Brussels. His scientific interests included radioactivity and electricity in both laboratory and natural environments. He also actively pursued an interest in aeronautics, first learning his practical ballooning skills in the Swiss Aero-Club, and later servAuguste Piccard enters his balloon before one of his attempts to ascend to the stratoing in the Swiss Army Observation sphere on January 1, 1932. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Balloon Corps. His complement of skills and interests led him, as early as 1926, to work on a balloon enveprevent the lightweight rubberized cotton balloon from lope and gondola capable of ascending to extremely high bursting as it ascended into the low pressures of the altitudes. He saw the balloon as a platform from which he stratosphere, the balloon was only partially inflated at could conduct cosmic-ray research far away from the ratakeoff. The balloon, which was pleated for storage, dioactive elements of Earth, which would otherwise bias would unfold and expand of its own accord as it asany measurements. cended. To ensure that the fabric unfolded safely, The balloon Piccard designed incorporated several Piccard devised a way to hang the gondola to the enveinnovative features. Most notably, the gondola was to be lope from points on a horizontal band attached to the ensealed and airtight, so that air pressure inside the gondola velope, rather than from a net that enclosed the envelope. would not be lost as the balloon ascended to regions of Piccard applied for funding from the Belgian science lower and lower pressure. Piccard chose to construct the agency, the Fonds National de Recherches Scientifique gondola out of aluminum, a material that had been under (FNRS), founded by King Albert I. As the king was eager development only recently. Because the flight would be to promote Belgium’s reputation as a leading nation in many hours long and the gondola relatively small, there scientific and industrial endeavors, and given that he was needed to be a source of oxygen as well as a way of dea balloon enthusiast himself, he was happy to provide toxifying exhaled air. For these purposes, Piccard imthe necessary funds. The craft, named the FNRS, was ported technology used in German submarines, a filterready in the fall of 1930. Piccard scheduled an ascent for ing system known as a Draeger apparatus. It utilized September 14, from Augsburg, Germany. The weather alkaline compounds to absorb unwanted gases. The oxychanged, however, and Piccard reluctantly called off the gen supply was stored in liquid form; it restored the cabin flight at the last moment. Weather conditions were not air as it slowly vaporized. suitable again until the next spring. An ascent was finally The balloon envelope was spherical, as was usual planned for 5:30 a.m. on May 27, 1931. During the night, for hydrogen-filled balloons. The constraints of a highthe wind began to rise; in anticipation of worsening altitude flight, however, dictated some adjustment. To
Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon weather, the crew prepared for a hastened launch. Suddenly, at 3:57 a.m., the ground crew somehow let go of the ropes without communicating the designated warning signal. Piccard and his assistant Kipfer found themselves in the air and rising quickly. A few minutes later, Piccard discovered a leak in the gondola caused by a broken seal; the damage had been done when the gondola was accidentally dropped during takeoff procedures. Piccard had prepared a supply of petroleum jelly mixed with fibers in case of just such accidents, and the mixture proved its worth. As the day progressed, Piccard and Kipfer discovered a problem with the gas exhaust valve. This was the valve with which they were to let gas out of the balloon, a principal component of their altitude control. Their eventual landing would be problematic if they could not control the valve. The only way to proceed was to wait until sundown, when the lower temperature would cause the balloon envelope to shrink, thereby reducing the lift sufficiently for a landing. Piccard and Kipfer tied down the instruments in anticipation of a difficult landing. Hours passed, and the balloon drifted southward over Bavaria and into Tyrol. Finally, around 9:00 p.m., the gondola touched ground on a glacier in the Tyrolean Alps, in the region of Ober-Gurgl. The two aeronauts spent the night on the glacier and the next morning hiked toward the village of Gurgl. A patrol sent up from the valley met them around noon and led them to safety. Piccard had planned several scientific activities for the ascent of the FNRS. The quick rate of ascent, the emergency leak that had to be taken care of, and the uncertain landing all conspired to prevent any measurements from being made while the balloon was at any other but top altitude. Piccard and Kipfer thus lost their opportunity to obtain many useful data, such as information on cosmic-ray altitude-intensity curves. One approximate observation was made, however, that suggested cosmic rays were indeed more intense in the stratosphere than below it; this, in turn, lent support to the theory that cosmic rays are in fact extraterrestrial. For their achievements, Piccard and Kipfer were knighted by the King of Belgium, and Piccard received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physics in both 1932 and 1933. Their altitude record of 15,781 meters stood for more than a year, until it was surpassed by Piccard and Max Cosyns. Significance The flight of the FNRS made its mark on a wide cross section of the scientific world, less by resolving scientific 2508
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 controversies than by preparing the way for further exploration. The data obtained on the flight were encouraging. Piccard and Kipfer measured cosmic radiation apparently 2.5 times more intense at 16 kilometers (9.94 miles) than that measured by Werner Kolhörster at 9 kilometers (5.59 miles). This piece of information was only marginally useful, however; because only one measurement was taken, it could not be calibrated with data from previous flights at lower altitudes, and its accuracy was not absolutely certain. Nevertheless, this first flight gave subsequent balloonists a resource of experience and technology from which to draw. In fact, the next stratospheric ascent, with Piccard and Cosyns piloting the FNRS in August, 1932, was quite successful scientifically as well as logistically, bringing back data to fill in the Hess-Kolhörster cosmicray altitude-intensity curve between 9 and 16 kilometers. A 1934 flight in Explorer II by Americans Albert Stevens and Orvil Anderson returned cosmic-ray data that physicists Robert Andrews Millikan and his rival Arthur Holly Compton both considered useful for their respective theories. In addition, the flight carried interesting experiments in other branches of science. For example, Stevens and Anderson measured ozone distribution in the atmosphere, photographed Earth from very high altitudes, and demonstrated an increased mutation rate in fruit flies. Piccard’s vision of the balloon as a platform from which to conduct scientific research thus did prove moderately productive. Ascents subsequent to those of the FNRS retained many of Piccard’s innovations. For example, American balloons such as Explorer used bands also rather than nets to attach the gondola. Most significant, however, was the sealed gondola. As late as 1956, balloons such as Stratolab were still using a gondola of essentially the same design as that of 1931. The flights of the FNRS preceded the space age by only three decades. During those years, stratospheric ballooning evolved from a matter of rising in open-air baskets to one of orbiting Earth in space capsules. Pressurized passenger airplane cabins and the modern-day space shuttle trace their ancestry to the sealed cabin that Piccard devised for his FNRS. Although the impact of Piccard and Kipfer’s ascent into the stratosphere reaches beyond the glory that their achievement brought, the glory itself was instrumental in promoting ballooning to the public and to policy makers. Proponents of aeronautic exploration in the United States in the following decades pointed to the flights of the FNRS to convince major funding agencies that research in high-altitude flight
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Further Reading DeVorkin, David H. Race to the Stratosphere: Manned Scientific Ballooning in America. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989. Excellent history of ballooning and analysis of science policy by the curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. Focuses on ballooning in the United States, but Piccard and his twin brother, Jean-Felix, figure prominently in the story. Well-researched and highly readable resource. Includes reference notes and extensive bibliography. Piccard, Auguste. “Ballooning in the Stratosphere.” National Geographic 63 (March, 1933): 353-384. Consistent with its calling to promote exploration, the National Geographic Society supported scientific ballooning from the start, publishing reports of projects such as Piccard’s in its popular magazine. _______. Earth, Sky, and Sea. Translated by Christina
Stead. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956. First-person account of Piccard’s voyages into the stratosphere and later, in a bathyscaphe, into the depths of the sea. Provides a personal perspective on his work. Sekido, Yataro, and Harry Elliot, eds. Early History of Cosmic Ray Studies: Personal Reminiscences with Old Photographs. Boston: D. Reidel, 1985. Anthology of writings by leading cosmic-ray researchers provides a depiction of the birth of the field that is balanced and thorough. Acknowledges and describes the roles of manned and unmanned balloons, underwater observations, and developments in theory. Often technical, but aimed at the general science reader. Includes photographs, illustrations, notes, and index. Stehling, Kurt R., and William Beller. Skyhooks. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962. Details the stories of fifteen historic balloon flights from the birth of ballooning in 1783 to the early 1960’s in a manner accessible to the general reader. Chapter on the flight of the FNRS contains some minor inaccuracies. Includes a chronology of important ascents. See also: Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays; 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory; 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect.
July, 1931
Yellow River Flood Apart from epidemics and famines, the Yellow River flood was the deadliest natural disaster of the twentieth century. Between three and four million perished, and tens of millions were displaced. International relief efforts prevented even greater losses. Also known as: Huang He flood; Yangtze River flood; North China flood Locale: North China Plain and eastern Yangtze lowland, northeastern China Categories: Agriculture; geography; disasters; environmental issues Key Figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), Nationalist Chinese military and political leader, 1927-1949, and president of the Republic of China, 1949-1975 Harry Virden Bernard (1879-1968), flood relief organizer
Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-1974), American aviation pioneer Summary of Event The Yellow River flood occurred when the waters of several rivers commingled across the low-lying plains that stretch from Tianjin, on the North China Plain near the Yellow River, to Nanjing (China’s capital in 1931), which sits on the floodplain of the Yangtze River. These two rivers were the main sources of the flood, so some historical sources refer to the deluge as the Yellow River flood; others call it the Yangtze River flood. The North China Plain is a low-lying platform of sediment built relatively recently (at least in geological terms) by four east-flowing rivers—the Yellow (Huang), Hai, Huai, and Yonglin—that come from the western uplands and fill the western rim of the pouch-shaped Bohai Sea. The Yellow River is the largest stream: It carries 2509
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was feasible and that the symbolic value of accomplishing such flights was worth the expense. Both technologically and sociologically, it was only a small step between the Stratolab 5 balloon flight in 1961 and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions of the same period. To those who came after Piccard, his flights stood as vital inspiration and encouragement. — Joyce Tang
Yellow River Flood
Yellow River Flood
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its average discharge is more than seven times greater. The Yangtze formed a large delta during the Pleistocene ice age, but it changed course about four thousand years ago, and this delta is now the Jiangsu Plain, which lies north of the city of Shanghai. In 1931, Shanghai was China’s largest city, and that year’s flood covered parts of the Yangtze’s delta, its broad inland floodplains, and the Jiangsu Plain. July is the peak month for precipitation in northern China, and the rain that occurs from early or mid-June to early or mid-July is called “plum rain” by local people in
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of the flood, Chiang was suffering heavy casualties in his fight against Communists in Shanxi Province.) Japan’s September invasion of the Chinese territory of Manchuria only added to China’s concerns. The Chinese Nationalist government hastily organized the National Relief Commission in an attempt to care for the refugees and to repair 7,000 miles of dikes. Over the next two years, the United States lent China $59 million to buy wheat and cotton (two major crops destroyed by the flood), to rebuild roads, and to pay wages for flood refugees rebuilding the dikes. Chiang appointed Harry Virden Bernard, an American businessman, as head of the Shanghai district of the National Flood Relief Commission, and Bernard held this position until 1934. In 1938, the International Red Cross chose him to head its program to aid Chinese refugees from the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War. Charles A. Lindbergh and his wife provided a valuable record of how widespread the devastation was in the Yangtze and Huai River basins. They were in Shanghai in late September, while the floodwaters were still extensive, and they flew over the area and took aerial photographs of the devastation. The photographs later appeared in a government report on the flood. Significance The Yellow River flood occurred in the heartland and granary of Chiang’s struggling Republic of China. The flood destroyed rice and wheat crops and spawned severe food shortages in one of the world’s most populous regions. Some 200 million people lived in the middle and lower sections of the Yangtze Valley, and 80 million people lived in the North China Plain, which meant that the flood affected 14 percent of the world’s total 1931 population of 2 billion. Initial reports of the deluge and its aftermath were as murky as the lingering, silt-laden waters. Estimates of drowning deaths published in foreign newspapers varied between 40,000 and 150,000, and the estimates of people rendered homeless ranged from 10 million to 50 million. According to the modern-day death estimate, 3.7 million people perished, although this larger figure includes deaths that accrued over the next two or three years from diseases (mainly cholera) and starvation. This estimate makes the 1931 flood in China the deadliest natural disaster on record. Efforts to curb the threat of floods that were undertaken immediately following the Yellow River disaster included the building of large flood-retention reservoirs and improvements on existing dikes. After China’s com2511
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the Yangtze and Huai valleys because it arrives when the flowers of plum and other deciduous fruit trees in these valleys are in bloom. Plum rain occurs because a polar front, the transitional boundary between polar and tropical air masses, hovers over these two valleys. Typically, moisture-laden southeastern monsoon winds push against newly arrived northwestern cold air, and the colder air wedges under the approaching monsoon air, lifting the monsoon air upward in a violent corkscrew spiral that spawns frontal cyclonic storms. The weather is continuously rainy and provides good conditions for rice paddies. On average, two slow-moving cyclonic storms pass over the region in July, but July of 1931 saw a series of seven storms in rapid succession. On July 28, dikes on the north side of the Yangtze River broke, sending waters rushing north onto the Jiangsu Plain and south into the delta and the city of Shanghai. At about the same time, the Yellow River tore at its confining banks and sent some of its flow gushing south into the channel it had abandoned nearly eighty years earlier. Effectively, the two rivers’ floodwaters converged. The most serious flooding took place in the convergence zone, which was supposed to be drained by the Huai River, a tributary of the Yellow River. The floodwaters of the three rivers blended and covered low-lying areas in the provinces of Henan, Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangsu. Additionally, the Grand Canal, which runs south to north across the eastern boundary of the usually gentle divide between the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, ruptured and flooded the provinces. Floodwaters in this zone and in floodplains bordering the middle course of the Yangtze covered a total of 47,000 square miles (an area the size of New York State). Widespread flooding also took place over the North China Plain. The flooding continued unabated until mid-August, and in many areas the floodwaters did not recede for six months, making farming impossible. In the colder northern areas around Tianjin, vast lakes of frozen floodwaters did not thaw and drain completely until early April, 1932, nine months after the flood. Initially, the disaster did not receive much attention around the world, partly because the flood itself caused a massive breakdown in communications. News reporters underestimated the scale of the deluge, and torrents isolated Nanjing and Shanghai, where foreign journalists got most of their news about China. The flood also paralyzed the country’s two main seaports, Shanghai and Tianjin. In addition, a bloody civil war between General Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army and Mao Zedong’s Communist forces preoccupied the nation. (At the time
Yellow River Flood
International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses munist government came to power in 1949, emphasis was placed on building dams in higher sections of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in order to control their flow. —Richard A. Crooker Further Reading Buck, J. Lossing. The 1931 Flood in China: An Economic Survey by the Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture and Forestry, the University of Nanking, in Cooperation with the National Flood Relief Commission. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932. This survey attempted to pinpoint the population affected by the 1931 flood. Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. New York: John Day, 1931. Fictional work describes a peasant family’s trials with flood, drought, and famine in the Huai River area. Chetham, Deirde. Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze’s Three Gorges. Brookline, Mass.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Provides a balanced perspective on the pros and cons of the world’s most controversial dam-building project. National Flood Relief Commission. Report of the National Flood Relief Commission, 1931-1932. Shanghai, China: Comacrib Press, 1933. Provides a summary
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of relief efforts in the immediate aftermath of the flood. Silver, Sylvia Cochrane. “Memories of North China Flood.” Asia Survey (May, 1933): 309-313, 317. Recounts the author’s personal experiences of the flood. Sinclair, Kevin. The Yellow River: A Five ThousandYear Journey Through China. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. Well-written description of the evolving relationship between the people and the land along the Yellow River. Winchester, Simon. The River at the Centre of the World. London: Picador, 2004. Includes historical information about the river’s floods and how they have affected people’s lives. Woodhead, H. G. W., ed. The China Year Book, 1932. Shanghai, China: North China Daily News Herald, 1932. Among the data are a chapter on climate of China and a special chapter on the flood. Zhao Songqiao. Geography of China: Environment, Resources, Population and Development. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. Excellent source of information about the climate, weather patterns, soil, and agriculture of the area affected by the flood. See also: 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War; June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees.
July 26, 1931
International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses When Joseph Franklin Rutherford, president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, addressed a convention assembly of the society’s London-based affiliate, the International Bible Students Association, he presented a stirring discourse and resolution that called for a distinctive name—Jehovah’s Witnesses—to be given to those who claimed to be servant-witnesses of God. Locale: Columbus, Ohio Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; organizations and institutions Key Figures Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869-1942), second president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1917-1942 Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), founder of the Bible Student movement that later incorporated as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society 2512
Nathan Homer Knorr (1905-1977), third president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1942-1977 Summary of Event In 1872, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), Charles Taze Russell founded the religious sect that would later become known as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Russell successfully advanced the new movement’s presence through far-ranging speaking tours and extensive publication and distribution of his writings. The organization’s growth led to the relocation of its headquarters to Brooklyn, New York, in 1909. One of the more prominent doctrines that Russell and his Bible Student movement espoused was the belief that the year 1914 marked the end of the “gentile times.” Before 1914, Russell said, Christ had ruled in heaven on his throne of authority, but the time had come for him to cleanse the earth of its wickedness by defeating evil, per-
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International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses righteous and would be judged accordingly by Jehovah (God). The true hope of the world, Rutherford said, was the righteous kingdom of God that had Christ as its head. The speech received an enthusiastic response from the audience, and at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, Rutherford again addressed the assembly. He followed his earlier “warning” by engaging the audience with a second discourse that focused on the need for a distinctive name for the organization. Rutherford believed that such a title would help define the true loyalties of the various Bible Student groups as well as provide a rallying point for expanding the organization’s evangelism. To provide biblical support for the new name he was about to introduce, Rutherford read several passages from the Scriptures that address the religious duty of being a witness of Jehovah. He placed special emphasis on Isaiah 43:8-12, the concluding passage for his stirring presentation. Rutherford presented a resolution declaring that the group’s name should not be tied to any specific person (including founder Charles Taze Russell) or derived from any of the titles of the society’s various affiliates. The resolution also declared that Bible Students was an unsuitable name, although that name had been long associated with Russell’s movement. Finally, Rutherford concluded his resolution by stating that the new name, which had been ordained by God, would be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Rutherford’s dramatic speech was broadcast around the world via radio, and millions of print copies were distributed in a booklet titled The Kingdom, the Hope of the World. Significance The Old Testament prophet Isaiah issued the imperative for adopting the name Jehovah’s Witnesses; the Book of Isaiah indicated that Jehovah is the personal name of God and that his chosen servants are to be witnesses who give testimony to their sovereign and his purpose for creation. On a more practical level, however, adopting this name afforded Watch Tower supporters recognition and differentiated them from others who remained aligned with the Bible Student movement still closely identified with Russell. Rutherford’s bold move was, in effect, an effort to distinguish his followers from the many disaffected Bible Students who had left the society during Rutherford’s tenure as president. This event enabled Rutherford to centralize his authority in the society, the structure of which had shifted from somewhat democratic to increasingly theocratic. Following Rutherford’s death in 1942, Nathan Homer Knorr, who had served as vice president of the Pennsyl2513
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sonified as Satan, at the Battle of Armageddon. Following this cataclysmic event, the earth would be restored to paradise. Russell also promised that a “little flock” of 144,000 faithful, “born-again” Christians would rule with Christ in heaven while a great multitude of the righteous would live forever in a peaceful post-Armageddon earthly kingdom. Although the Bible’s chronology does not reveal the exact year of Armageddon, Russell admitted, biblical prophecy indicated that humankind had been living in the “last days.” As a result of this belief, the concept of an imminent end of time was often obvious in the organization’s activities and doctrines. After Russell’s death in 1916, Joseph Franklin Rutherford (nicknamed “Judge”), who had been serving as the society’s chief legal counsel, was elected in January of 1917 to become the organization’s president. Challenges to Rutherford’s election and Rutherford’s own determination to squelch opposition within the society’s board of directors created a bitter schism that resulted in a significant drop in membership. Another challenge to the president’s leadership came in 1918, when Rutherford and several close associates from the society were arrested and charged with sedition under the terms of the Espionage Act (1917). These charges stemmed from the society’s opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I. Rutherford and his associates were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, but they were released after nine months. After his release, Rutherford continued to exert tremendous influence on the society’s doctrines through his extensive writings in Watch Tower publications and numerous speaking appearances. Under Rutherford’s leadership, the organization became significantly more doctrinally orthodox and autocratic. From the inception of Russell’s movement, the members were commonly referred to as Bible Students, but they were also called Russellites, Watch Tower Bible people, Rutherfordites, and Millennial Dawn people. The 1931 convention of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and the International Bible Students Association, the organization’s London-based affiliate, was held in Columbus, Ohio, from July 24 to 30. Attendees noticed the prominent display of the initials “J. W.” on the program and other convention literature, but the meaning of these letters was not revealed until the gathering’s third day. At noon on Sunday, July 26, Rutherford addressed the convention with a discourse titled “The Kingdom, the Hope of the World.” In the talk, he referred to Jehovah’s Witnesses as the proclaimers of the kingdom of God, and he presented the resolution “Warning from Jehovah,” in which he asserted that existing governments were un-
Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York vania affiliate (the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania), became the third president of the organization. During Knorr’s twenty-five-year tenure as president, the Jehovah’s Witnesses increased attention to public relations, published a translation of the Bible in modern English called The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Rendered from the Original Languages by the New World Bible Translation Committee (1961), and undertook a significant international expansion of the Witnesses’ message. In 1943, Knorr helped establish “theocratic ministry schools” in local congregations and a missionary training school called Gilead at South Lansing, New York. Knorr’s presidency also saw the last great international convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in one place, an event held in 1958 in New York City. —David L. DeHart Further Reading Holden, Andrew. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. London: Rout-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ledge, 2002. Well-researched analysis of the Jehovah’s Witnesses from a sociologist’s viewpoint. Penton, M. James. Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. 2d ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. A readable, comprehensive overview of the sect by a former member. Stroup, Herbert Hewitt. The Jehovah’s Witnesses. New York: Russell & Russell, 1967. Detailed study and analysis of the Witness movement from its beginning to the early 1940’s. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom. Brooklyn: Author, 1993. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own detailed account of their history and culture. See also: Oct. 31, 1904-1906: Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism; Apr., 1906-1908: Azusa Street Revival; 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association; Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded.
November 17, 1931
Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York The Whitney Museum helped to give American artists public importance and gained international recognition for American art as a distinct and viable movement. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Arts; organizations and institutions Key Figures Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), American heiress and artist Juliana Rieser Force (1876-1948), first director of the Whitney Museum Robert Henri (1865-1929), American artist John French Sloan (1871-1951), American artist Forbes Watson (1880-1960), American art critic and public relations expert Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), American photographer and art gallery owner Summary of Event In a short statement at the ceremony inaugurating the museum named in her honor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney noted that she had been collecting American art for twenty-five years not only because she thought it worthwhile but also because she believed in American creative 2514
talent. The struggle to achieve recognition for American art, and for modernism in general, had been difficult and was far from over. When Whitney, at the beginning of the twentieth century, had sought to escape the stifling social atmosphere into which she was born and to seek an identity for herself, she had no thought of establishing a museum. Turning to sculpture, for which she had some talent, she hired instructors and took classes. For the first time, she became aware of the struggles and often bleak world of the average American artist. American art, particularly modern American art, had no official recognition. The artistic establishment was firmly under the control of conservatives who saw merit in contemporary art only to the extent that it imitated the past. In 1906, Whitney by chance met Robert Henri, a member of a group of avant-garde artists seeking to escape the regimentation of existing artistic standards, especially as to subject matter. Henri believed firmly that American art should be indigenous and free of foreign influence. Even though the United States was undergoing tremendous social change in the face of increasing industrialization and urbanization, Americans did not generally tolerate “social realism” in art. Henri was so persuasive that when Whitney organized a 1907 art exhibition
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not exhibit elsewhere. Seeking to assist artists further, Whitney acquired another property and established the Whitney Studio Club, which enabled artists not only to display but also to work on the premises. With no formal entrance requirements, the club grew to an unmanageable size, and both the studio and the club faced the possibility of becoming little more than forms of artistic charity. Under the direction of Juliana Force and with the advice and guidance of John Sloan and Forbes Watson, both began to give greater focus and selectivity to exhibitions and to purchases. Watson, as editor of an art magazine and with newspaper connections, not only was a capable adviser and discerning critic but also was able to manage the increasingly necessary publicity. A model for the Whitney group’s objectives was the famous 291 New York gallery of the pioneer photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Limiting himself to a relatively small number of artists of promise, Stieglitz had promoted both American art and his artists, resulting in increasing sales and commissions. During the 1920’s, the Whitney group staged a number of exhibitions of works by artists who later became famous, including George Bellows, Jo Davidson, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Charles Demuth, Gaston Lachaise, and Elie Nadelman. To accommodate the increased activity, Whitney acquired two buildings adjoining the studio building. The financial drain, however, began to be a burden even for Whitney, who was beginning to think about the eventual disposition of her by then considerable collection of American art. A solution seemed to be to place the collection in an endowed separate wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum, however, summarily rejected Whitney’s offer, so strong still was the prejudice against modern or experimental American art. Whitney was more disturbed by the rejection than was Force, who had been charged with making the offer. Force had always hoped that the Whitney collection would keep its separate identity; she believed that even if the Metropolitan were to accept the offer, the museum would not give modern American art the respect and attention it deserved. The decision was made to create a separate museum. A building on West Eighth Street in New York City was acquired for the project; the new building’s facade was decorated with a picture of an American eagle with outspread wings. This, the first of three homes to the Whitney Museum of American Art, opened its doors on November 17, 1931. Subsequent moves were necessitated by the growth and importance of the museum’s collection. 2515
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in honor of the opening of the Colony Club, a fashionable social club for women, she included works from his group. Seeking to identify herself further with the avantgarde, Whitney at the time of the exhibit also acquired a studio in New York’s Greenwich Village. During the same period, she hired Juliana Rieser—an action that would change the lives of both. Exuberant, gregarious, efficient, and dedicated, Rieser gave focus and direction to her employer’s artistic development and objectives. The Colony Club exhibit set the stage for the mounting of an exhibit the following year that many consider to be the real beginning of the Whitney Museum of American Art. As one of the judges for the annual spring exhibit of the National Academy of Design, Henri wanted to enter works by six of his colleagues. To his chagrin, all but one were refused by the academy’s jury because of the “inappropriateness” of the works’ subject matter. The fallout resulted in the controversial Exhibit of Eight mounted in the Macbeth Gallery in 1908. The artists involved were Henri, George Luks, William Glackens, John French Sloan, Everett Shinn, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, and Arthur B. Davies. Because of the novelty of the new work, viewers flocked to the exhibit largely to express their disapproval. The artists were dubbed the “Apostles of Ugliness” and the “Black Gang.” The name that stuck was the “Ashcan School.” Another, more comprehensive exhibit was immediately planned. Under the guidance of the cosmopolitan Davies, it was decided that the exhibit would be dedicated to modernism in general and would include the works of leading European artists. The result was the Armory Show of 1913, which included more than a thousand works by nearly four hundred artists. Americans were exposed to movements such as Fauvism, with its emphasis on pure color, and cubism. For the first time, the American public saw works by Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. What was also painfully obvious to many American artists was how immature their work seemed in comparison to that of their European counterparts. Gertrude Whitney was the largest purchaser of works from the Exhibit of Eight, and she subsidized the group organizing the Armory Show. With her capable new assistant (who had in the meantime married and changed her name to Juliana Force), Whitney was determined to play a more direct role in American art largely through her sizable financial resources. In 1913, she acquired a town house that abutted her studio and established the Whitney Studio to show the works of artists who could
Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York
Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York Significance The primary impact of the establishment of the Whitney Museum of American Art was the legitimation of American art. The museum’s existence encouraged the recognition of American art as one of the world’s great art movements, on par with and soon to surpass that of Europe. This outcome had been a planned objective. In her speech at the opening, Juliana Force, in her role as the museum’s first director, noted that the Whitney would be devoted to the difficult but important task of gaining for modern American art the prestige that previously had been reserved for the art of foreign countries and the art of the past. An important step in validating the kind of art the Whitney promoted was the recognition of the free creative spirit of the nonacademic artist. Much of the battle waged by the founders of the Whitney had been against the narrow restrictions imposed by academic institutions such as the National Academy of Design. One of the consequences of increasing artistic freedom was the evolution of abstraction, which was central to the development of perhaps the first important American school of art, the New York school that developed in the decades after 1945. Central to the movement were abstract expressionists such as Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock. Force was attracted to abstraction, and the Whitney purchased a Gorky work in 1937. The museum would later become a major repository for American abstract art. The opening of the Whitney Museum also gave a major impetus to twentieth century art and to modern art in general. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, the Whitney Studio and the Whitney Studio Club were among the few places where so-called modern art could be seen in the United States. In the years 1929 to 1931, an artistic explosion of a sort took place with the openings of the Museum of Modern Art and the Albert E. Gallatin Gallery of Living Art as well as the beginnings of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Non-Objective Painting and the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery. The opening of the Whitney also did much to raise the prestige of American artists. Gone were the days when the artist John Sloan could pessimistically observe that the pioneering American artist was like a roach—not wanted, not encouraged, yet present. One of Gertrude Whitney’s major objectives, from which she never deviated, was to assist artists. Therefore, her emphasis was on encouraging living artists, and the exhibits at both the Whitney Studio and the Whitney Studio Club were primarily staged to enable artists to promote and sell their works. 2516
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 An adjunct to the prestige gained by the artist and the growing value of artworks was the growth of the art industry, which became a vital part of the economies of such American cities as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. When the Whitney Studio first opened, only a handful of American galleries existed, and almost none was willing to exhibit nonacademic works. By the time the Whitney Museum opened, dozens of galleries were operating, and the number kept growing. Art indeed had become big business. Perhaps the most pervasive impact of the opening of the Whitney Museum was its influence on the American public’s awareness and appreciation of art. Appropriate publicity was part of the museum’s operation from the beginning, and the Whitney was among the first art museums to arrange traveling exhibits both in the United States and abroad. Just as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney predicted in her address at the museum’s opening, the Whitney Museum of American Art grew and increased in importance as its public also grew. In the twenty-first century, it is considered one of the world’s great museums. —Nis Petersen Further Reading Ashton, Dore. The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning. 1972. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Stresses the beginnings of the modern American art movement, discussing its maturation in the form of the New York school associated with Surrealism and abstract expressionism. Includes little mention of the Whitney Museum, however, even in relation to the artistic life of Greenwich Village. Berman, Avis. Rebels on Eighth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art. New York: Atheneum, 1990. One of the best works available on the founding of the Whitney Museum. Stresses the role of Force, possibly because the author is persuaded that Force has not been given the credit she deserves. Includes excellent bibliography and index. Illustrations, all in black and white, are meager for a work on an art museum. Biddle, Flora Miller. The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made: A Family Memoir. New York: Arcade, 1999. Chronicle of the founding and nurturing of the Whitney Museum, written by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s granddaughter. Doss, Erika. Twentieth-Century American Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Examines art movements in the United States in the twentieth cen-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
enous American art movement began to coalesce after the cultural vacuum of the early part of the century. Sims, Patterson. Whitney Museum of American Art. 1985. Reprint. New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1992. Contains reproductions of many of the Whitney’s outstanding works, all in color. Two of the more interesting paintings are a portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Robert Henri and George Bellow’s Dempsy and Firpo, which greeted visitors when the Whitney opened its doors in 1931. Includes an excellent overview of the history of the museum and short biographies of its major artists. See also: Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the PhotoSecession; Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph; Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York.
December 11, 1931
Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations In the 1920’s, the self-governing former colonies of the British Empire, known as dominions, wanted to encode in law their growing political autonomy from Great Britain. The Balfour resolution, created at the Imperial Conference of 1926, asserted the dominions’ right to govern themselves independently. Also known as: Balfour resolution; Statute of Westminster Locale: London, England; Canada; Australia; New Zealand; South Africa; Newfoundland; Irish Free State Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; colonialism and occupation; government and politics; independence movements Key Figures Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), British prime minister, 1902-1905, first earl of Balfour after 1922, and lord president of the council in the British cabinet after 1925 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), Canadian prime minister, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 19351948 Summary of Event By the beginning of World War I, several British colonies settled by European immigrants—Canada, Austra-
lia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free State—had acquired a measure of self-government. The British North America Act of 1867 had given Canada the right to govern its internal affairs and had laid the foundation for its federal system. The six colonies of Australia had gained some measure of independence in the nineteenth century, and the 1901 Australia Act combined these regions into the Commonwealth of Australia, which operated under a federal system similar to Canada’s. Likewise, the 1909 South Africa Act bound the four provinces of that country, which had been united after the Boer War (1899-1902). The Irish Free State had been formed in 1922 as a compromise between two sides: one that wanted to sever ties with Great Britain and one that wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom. New Zealand and Newfoundland had also gained the right to internal self-government as unitary entities. In 1907, the British government recognized the former colonies’ status by forming a Dominions Section in its Colonial Office. The dominions had raised and paid for forces to aid the Allies in World War I. As a result, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 the dominions had been recognized as independent countries and were allowed to sit at the negotiating table. Each country signed the Treaty of Versailles and became a founding member of the League of Nations. However, this de facto independence was not 2517
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tury, with emphasis on the relations among artists, museums, and art audiences. Includes illustrations, time line, list of museums, and index. Friedman, B. H. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978. May be viewed as the history of the museum from the standpoint of Whitney. Most valuable is part 3, “Alone Again,” which focuses on the death of Whitney’s husband in 1930 as a motivating factor in her work to establish the museum. Goodrich, Lloyd. Pioneers in Modern Art in America: The Decade of the Armory Show, 1910-1920. New York: Praeger, 1963. The “Exhibit of Eight” in 1908 and the Armory Show of 1913 were instrumental in establishing the environment for the founding of the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. Goodrich, the third director of the Whitney, shows how an indig-
Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations
Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations necessarily encoded in law. At first, some thought that the United Kingdom would develop a single foreign policy based on consultation, but this idea disintegrated in 1923, when Britain requested unilateral support from its dominion partners to help settle a dispute between Turkey and Greece. The resulting confusion made it obvious that constant consultation over foreign policy was neither practical nor desired. In the meantime, however, British officials in London were becoming increasingly conscious of the strength of the empire as a whole and of the individual countries within it. No longer were the dominions dismissed as simply places for emigration, exports, and cheap foodstuffs. At the 1926 Imperial Conference of Prime Ministers, the dominions, led by William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada, pressed the British government to make a formal statement on dominion independence. Arthur Balfour, the British lord president of council, issued a statement that came to be called the Balfour resolution (not to be confused with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 expressed British approval of the Zionist philosophy). The resolution had a number of significant clauses, the first of which stated that the dominions and the United Kingdom were to be seen as equal in status as well as independent from each other. The second clause assured that there would be a common acknowledgment of the British crown as head of state, although each dominion would be allowed to choose its own governor-general as its representative. The third clause stipulated that the laws of Great Britain would be applied only to each dominion by express agreement and that all laws passed by each dominion would receive the governor-general’s approval. The Crown and the dominions officially agreed that the dominions and other colonies would be called the British Commonwealth of Nations. There were, however, two notable exceptions to the rule on including British colonies in the Commonwealth. India, the “jewel in the British Empire’s crown,” had not yet achieved complete internal independence, even though it retained
The state opening of Parliament, 1931. (NARA)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations
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a separate seat at the League of Nations The Statute of Westminster and had sent troops to World War I. The In the Statute of Westminster, delegates from the dominions of Australia, 1935 Government of India Act gave the Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and Newfoundland laid the nation further freedoms, but it was not unfoundation for their own self-government. The statute’s first four sections til 1947 that complete independence was read as follows: achieved by three separate countries: India, Pakistan, and Burma. The second ex1. In this Act the expression “Dominion” means any of the following ception was Southern Rhodesia, whose Dominions, that is to say, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwhite settlers—but not its large native wealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Union of African population—had become selfSouth Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland. governing in 1923. When the colony tried 2. (1) The Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, shall not apply to any law made after the commencement of this Act by the Parliament of a Doto achieve independence unilaterally in minion. the 1960’s, it was promptly expelled from (2) No law and no provision of any law made after the commencethe Commonwealth. Not until the white ment of this Act by the Parliament of a Dominion shall be void or inminority had ceded power to the African operative on the ground that it is repugnant to the law of England, or majority were sanctions against Southern to the provisions of any existing or future Act of Parliament of the Rhodesia dropped and it was allowed to United Kingdom, or to any order, rule, or regulation made under any rejoin the Commonwealth. such Act, and the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall inThe legal groundwork necessary to put clude the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule or reguthe Balfour resolution into practice was lation in so far as the same is part of the law of the Dominion. drawn up during the period 1926-1931. 3. It is hereby declared and enacted that the Parliament of a Dominion In each country, Britain started to aphas full power to make laws having extra-territorial operation. 4. No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the compoint high commissioners; the individumencement of this Act shall extend or be deemed to extend, to a Doals in these positions were ambassadors minion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly derequired to represent the British view, clared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, and they were seen quite separately from the enactment thereof. the governors-general. In 1931, Australia was the first Commonwealth country to appoint its own governor-general, even though King George V of England disapSignificance proved. The adoption of the Balfour resolution meant The Statute of Westminster was part of a much longer that the Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865 was declared evolution from colony to independent country. It alirrelevant, and so each country gained the power to legislowed the dominions to be more independent while relate the actions of its citizens regardless of whether they taining links with the United Kingdom, and it enabled the lived in that particular dominion. dominions to adopt fresh approaches to legislation. No An intervening Imperial Conference in 1930 dealt other colonial empire had managed such a process in more with trade, and it was here that the possibility of such a completely legislative manner. “Commonwealth preference”—advantageous trading A number of dominions, including Canada and New terms between the Commonwealth countries—was disZealand, chose not to act immediately. In Australia, the cussed. After some discussion and compromise, these Statute of Westminster Adoption Act was not passed terms were established in 1932 in Ottawa, Canada. In until 1942, during World War II, when Australia was 1931, the Commonwealth nations pegged their currenthreatened by invasion from Japan and realized it needed cies to the British pound and thus became known as the help from the United States as well as Great Britain. Up sterling area. That same year saw the promulgation of the to that point, Australia had been content to have Great Statute of Westminster, which had to be passed by both Britain determine its foreign policy. In dominions more the British parliament and by each Commonwealth hostile to Britain, such as the Irish Free State and South country. Until the statute was approved by a dominion, Africa, the Statute of Westminister was quickly apthe older acts of Parliament remained in effect there, and proved. In fact, the Irish withdrew from the Commonthe dominion government remained based in London. wealth entirely in 1947, and South Africa’s apartheid
Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations policies forced it to withdraw (rather than be expelled) for a time in the 1970’s and 1980’s. During the years of the Great Depression, Newfoundland found that its economy was not strong enough to allow it independent existence, and it was reincorporated as a British colony and administered by the Colonial Office in London until 1949, when the residents of Newfoundland decided to make it Canada’s tenth province. Canada did not introduce its own citizenship requirements until 1947, and it did not take full control over its constitution until 1982. After World War II, new Commonwealth members were allowed to move to a republican system of democracy: They could elect their own leaders and were no longer required to recognize the British crown as head of state. India and Pakistan were the first nations to take advantage of this freedom, and South Africa followed suit. Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) was the first nonwhite African country to become independent when it joined the Commonwealth in 1957. Other colonies had to fight fierce wars to achieve their independence, including Kenya, Malaya, and Cyprus. Afew former colonies, such as Burma (present-day Myanmar), formerly part of India, chose not to become members of the Commonwealth, and others have left and returned, as Pakistan did in 1989. The Statute of Westminster allowed the British Commonwealth of Nations to grow and develop. The Commonwealth lost some cohesion as countries exited and entered, but its members continued to share a commitment to democracy (through constitutional monarchy or republican forms of government) and many cultural ties (including language). The British monarch makes regular tours through Commonwealth nations, Commonwealth prime ministers still meet every four years, and there is still a considerable amount of immigration to Commonwealth countries from the United Kingdom. —David Barratt
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Darwin, John. “The Dominion Idea in Imperial Politics.” In The Twentieth Century, edited by Judith M. Brown. Vol. 4 in The Oxford History of the British Empire, edited by W. Roger Louis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Presents a solid account of the establishment of the British dominions. Judd, Dennis, and Peter Shinn. The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth, 1902-1980. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. A good account of the evolutionary processes involved in the change from dominions to Commonwealth. Kitchen, Martin. The British Empire and Commonwealth: A Short History. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, explains how Britain came to have the only true empire in the Victorian era and how it emerged victorious in two world wars. Lloyd, T. O. “The Defeat of the Imperial Idea, 19221945.” In The British Empire, 1558-1995. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Discussion places the Statute of Westminster in a fuller context of British history. Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton, and E. A. Benians, eds. The Cambridge History of the British Empire. 8 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1929-1963. The definitive history of the Commonwealth, although it has become somewhat dated. See also: Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed; May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa; 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements; Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control
1932
Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Gardiner C. Means drew national attention to emerging corporate centralism in the United States with their book The Modern Corporation and Private Property, setting the stage for the development of new ideas and mechanisms to protect individuals’ property rights and interests.
Key Figures Adolf A. Berle, Jr. (1895-1971), American corporate finance scholar Gardiner C. Means (1896-1988), American economist Michael C. Jensen (b. 1939), American professor of business administration William H. Meckling (1922-1998), American professor of business administration Summary of Event The 1932 publication of The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Gardiner C. Means recognized and documented the corporate system that was gradually replacing the free enterprise system in the United States. The pioneering book brought to national attention the existence of a forceful trend that already had resulted in concentration of power and control. Such concentration of power within corporations was taking place at the cost of alienating a diverse group of owner-managers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, the same group of individuals who had made Adam Smith’s laissez-faire philosophy so workable. The thesis developed in the book has since become known as the paradigm of separation of ownership and control. According to this theory, the structure of corporate ownership, with numerous stockholders putatively owning companies that in fact were controlled by managers, led to owners’ having little control over their property. Berle and Means’s claims regarding the emerging economic, social, and political order fell on deaf ears for some time. Theirs was not the message that economists, and possibly other scholars, wanted to hear. The separation of ownership and control, and the consequential conflict of interest between managers and owners, meant that there was something very wrong with prevailing
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Also known as: The Modern Corporation and Private Property Locale: New York, New York Categories: Business and labor; economics; publishing and journalism
economic theories and practices. Accepted knowledge among economists, legal scholars, and policy makers was that corporate managers were hired by shareholders and therefore they would do their best to maximize shareholders’ wealth and welfare. The direct implication was that stockholders held real power as well as real wealth. They could hire and fire quickly and effectively without any adverse consequences on the company’s operations. Shareholders were assumed to be fully represented by their elected representatives on a corporation’s board of directors. Such boards were supposed to be free of any influences, threats, and possible manipulations that might be initiated by the managing directors. Berle and Means, however, discovered a different picture. Shareholders did not appear to be exerting the natural control that would accompany the holding of property, in this case shares of common stock. Stockholders had become passive investors who did not—and in practice could not—have any say in the operation of the companies that they owned. It appeared that Adam Smith’s worst nightmare was in the making. He had warned about the potential conflict of interest in diversely owned corporations. Managers of other people’s money, rather than of their own, Smith wrote, are unlikely to exercise full care and vigilance because they will neither receive the benefit from such care nor suffer the losses resulting from poor management. The statistical evidence and conclusions provided by Berle and Means regarding the emerging separation between ownership and control and the resultant changes in the structure of private ownership were irrefutable. Aside from the many changes occurring at the time in intellectual, judicial, and policy-making circles, the new trend toward a corporate state was gathering momentum. The main thesis advanced in The Modern Corporation and Private Property was based on two major statistical observations. First, the American economic system showed trends of increasing concentration of wealth. Second, separation between ownership and control in the public corporation appeared to be expanding. Both developments seemed to be incompatible with the spirit of the free enterprise system. It took more than a quarter of a century for the warnings and thoughts expressed by Berle and Means to sink in. Eventually, researchers and practitioners from the fields of economics and law started addressing the issues of ownership and control. Publication of “Theory of the
Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure” by Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling in the mid-1970’s elevated the separation of ownership and control paradigm to a new level of recognition, sophistication, and interest. This paper integrated elements from the fields of property rights, corporate finance, and agency relations to build a new theory of ownership structures of business enterprises. Jensen and Meckling based their work on the insights and realities recognized and outlined in The Modern Corporation and Private Property and provided new insights into changing relationships in ownership structure. Jensen and Meckling’s work resulted in numerous other studies on the subject. Almost all such studies tried to both downplay and justify the separation of management and control. For example, Eugene F. Fama introduced the idea of a “managerial labor market” as a mechanism for disciplining nonloyal and nonabiding managers. He assumed that such markets were efficient, and that shareholders therefore should not be concerned about any conflict of interest. Berle and Means’s work did not allow for any such mechanism. Significance At least two major contributions to the U.S. and world economies can be attributed to the publication of The Modern Corporation and Private Property. First is the fundamental impact the study had on the passage, as well as strengthening and modification, of U.S. federal legislation concerning corporate securities. Berle and Means’s book became the foundation for the 1933 Securities Act and the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. The 1933 act dealt with full and truthful disclosure of material information concerning new securities sold in primary markets, and the 1934 act provided federal rules governing the sale of securities sold in secondary markets, including organized markets such as the New York Stock Exchange and the over-the-counter (OTC) markets. The 1934 act created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to operate as a watchdog for the securities industry. More important, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, along with similar studies it inspired, provided justification for the SEC to institute further regulations to protect the interests of stockholders against the discretionary power of managers. The role of the SEC in protecting stockholders’ interests became obvious when a frenzy of management-led special buyout arrangements surfaced in the 1980’s. Such deals, generally known as management buyouts (MBOs) or leveraged buyouts (LBOs), were not all in the best interests of 2522
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 shareholders. In an MBO, the ruling management buys enough of the company’s shares from other investors to take control of the company. To finance the purchase, management may borrow needed funds from financial institutions. In such a case, the managers or other buyers leverage their capital by using the company as collateral for loans—thus the term “leveraged buyout” for this kind of takeover. A problem arises because the buying management has full and free access to all available information within the corporation, giving management an advantage over the selling parties, the shareholders. The buying management has a much better idea of the true worth of the company. The second major contribution of The Modern Corporation and Private Property was the fact that the study acted as a forceful advocate for the free enterprise system in the United States and elsewhere. The book aroused awareness and curiosity among scholars and the general public. As part of the awareness exercise, Berle and Means explained the new corporate form as “a commercial instrument of formidable effectiveness, feared because of its power, hated because of the excesses with which the power was used, suspect because of the extent of its political manipulations within the political State, admired because of its capacity to get things done.” The major concerns expressed by Berle and Means turned out to be justified. Transformation of the American economy to one of corporate dominance came close to becoming reality. The Modern Corporation and Private Property prompted systems of checks and balances to be designed and put in place, so that a complete change to insider control of American business never materialized. One of the resultant movements was the formation in the United States of the United Shareholders Association (USA) in the 1980’s. This association of stockholders was built on the theses and principles discovered by Berle and Means in the early 1930’s. USA became a powerful voice in shaping public opinion regarding the massive power held by management in large corporations. It mobilized and united shareholders across the United States and educated them about how to watch after their interests in publicly held corporations. As a result, many combative corporate managers had no choice but to cooperate with shareholders or launch expensive proxy fights to keep their jobs. The shareholder revolt did not stop at the level of individual investors. Institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, which by the 1980’s held a majority of outstanding common stock, also became active participants in running the companies in which they invested.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Berle, Adolf A., and Gardiner C. Means. The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968. This revised edition of Berle and Means’s classic work includes an introduction written by the authors in 1967. Appropriate for general readers as well as readers with background in economics. Brown, Courtney C. Putting the Corporate Board to Work. New York: Macmillan, 1976. Presents a form of organization and practice—along with suggested
reforms—that could correct shortcomings of the board-of-directors form of corporate control. Intended for corporate managers. Freeland, Robert F. The Struggle for Control of the Modern Corporation: Organizational Change at General Motors, 1924-1970. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Examines the nature of the modern corporation and how corporations have changed by focusing on the specific case of General Motors. Herman, Edward S. Corporate Control, Corporate Power. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. A reassessment of Berle and Means’s work in the light of changes that occurred following World War II. Asserts that the power of government to restrict or limit corporate action is exaggerated and that corporations have remained faithful to their basic objective of profit maximization. Jensen, Michael C., and William H. Meckling. “Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure.” In The Modern Theory of Corporate Finance, edited by Michael C. Jensen and Clifford W. Smith. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. Original publication of this pioneering work in the mid-1970’s effectively rejuvenated and placed in a new framework the principles and theses developed by Berle and Means. Successfully took the issues to a wider audience and developed new interest in the area. Recommended for readers with some background in economics and business. Mason, Edward S., ed. The Corporation in Modern Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Collection of readings contains interesting pieces from both legal and economics scholars. The main purpose of the collection is to shed new light on issues related to ownership and control. Most contributions are accessible to general readers. Mueller, Dennis C. The Modern Corporation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. Discusses different frameworks and models in the theory of the firm and addresses some negative aspects of managerial capitalism. Intended for readers with background in business administration. Peters, Thomas. Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Envisions the future of corporations and management. Aimed at readers with ties to the business world. Putterman, Louis, and Randall S. Kroszner, eds. The Economic Nature of the Firm: A Reader. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Collection 2523
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A drive toward entrepreneurialism and innovation beginning in the 1970’s also aided in taking power from large corporations and their management teams. That trend, which surfaced with full power in the late 1970’s in the United States, gathered strength, and its effects were seen through the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Corporate monoliths became susceptible to attack from such entrepreneurial companies as Apple Computer and Novell. This apparent reversal of power made traditional corporate power much more vulnerable and less secure. Managers in large corporations had greater reason not to ignore their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, as executive jobs were not as well protected as they once were. Berle and Means found an intellectual ally in Thomas Peters. In 1992, Peters published Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties. The message of this book is very clear: Large corporations are a thing of the past. To stay competitive and agile, businesses must disorganize, shedding bureaucracy and allowing individual innovation and entrepreneurship. Top management should become much closer to the production lines—that is, it should be subject to close scrutiny by workers, owners, and other stakeholders. In such a world, the power of the corporate manager comes from below. In large part as a result of awareness initiated by The Modern Corporation and Private Property, the trend toward corporate centralism was reversed. According to statistics published by the U.S. Small Business Administration, about 41 percent of all U.S. private sales in the early 2000’s were under management by smaller companies. In addition, small firms produced more than half of U.S. output and employed half of the private workforce. Trends appeared to favor smaller and entrepreneurial firms, which have relatively few problems with conflicts of interest. —Rassoul Yazdipour
Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control
Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism of classic papers on the topic of the economic nature of firms includes Jensen and Meckling’s “Theory of the Firm.” Intended for readers with backgrounds in business and economics.
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See also: Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established.
1932
Céline’s JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT Expresses Interwar Cynicism Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s novel Journey to the End of the Night radiated an earthy vigor and alternately shocked and inspired readers with its exuberant expressions of disgust for civilization. Locale: Paris, France Category: Literature Key Figures Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894-1961), French novelist Émile Zola (1840-1902), French novelist Fyodor Dostoevski (1821-1881), Russian novelist Summary of Event The son of hard-pressed lower-middle-class Parisian shopkeepers, Louis-Ferdinand Destouches borrowed his pen name of Céline from his grandmother before making the transition from doctor to novelist in the 1930’s. His maiden novel, Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932; Journey to the End of the Night, 1934), vaulted him into the front ranks of the French literary scene, typically eliciting polarized reactions of either enthusiastic praise or vehement criticism from reviewers. Supporters contended that Céline had squarely faced the hypocrisy and degradation of modern social life with unprecedented candor and sensitivity, whereas one of the many detractors who rejected the novel as lowbrow and morally corrupt wisecracked that a tax levied on each of the myriad obscenities in the book would make a major dent in France’s ballooning budget deficit. Subsequent novels by Céline would differ from Journey to the End of the Night in various ways, but his maiden work established his lifelong pattern of writing darkly humorous picaresque novels featuring argot-peppered prose and a spirit of outspoken and often truculent pessimism. Like other picaresque novels, Journey to the End of the Night follows the footloose peregrinations of a dominant protagonist. Ferdinand Bardamu doubles as narrator and protagonist, and the many resonances of his life story with Céline’s make him at least a semiautobio2524
graphical figure. Bardamu’s life mirrors Céline’s as follows: He suffers a serious injury while fighting against Germany as a volunteer in World War I and soon comes to dismiss war as a totally absurd and vain ritual; he goes to Africa, where he experiences revulsion at both European colonialism and native folkways; he voyages to America, where he works for a period in the intimidating atmosphere of mammoth auto plants and indulges in flings with American women of low repute; and he returns across the Atlantic to France, where he settles down as a doctor in a seedy working-class neighborhood of Paris. Although the careful reader cannot go so far as to assume a relationship of absolute identity between Céline and Bardamu, the close overlap between the life stories of author and protagonist has persuaded most reviewers and interpreters to identify the major attitudes and values of Bardamu with those of Céline, even if many of the minor details in Bardamu’s life bear the mark of poetic license. Indeed, Céline’s subsequent novels would continue to adopt the first book’s strange mixture of plodding confessional autobiography and mercurial, hallucinatory disjunctiveness. The hallucinatory quality of Journey to the End of the Night emerges early in the novel. After Bardamu startles a somewhat conservative interlocutor at a Paris café with an outspoken exposition of his cynical and pessimistic view of the ordinary citizen as but a galley slave for the rich at the top of the social pyramid, a parade of men enlisting for military service in World War I rounds a street corner in the two young men’s direction. Supposedly overcome by the spectacle of a largely female crowd lining both sides of the street and cheering the marching men, Bardamu impulsively leaps up from his chair and hurries to join the procession of enlistees. Although the reader gradually becomes accustomed to the mercurial impulsiveness of Céline’s picaro, Bardamu’s cocksure rejection of his civilization as disgustingly corrupt and exploitative sits very uneasily beside the ebullient optimism with which he decides to defend his country. To
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Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism other example of a coarse and callow sensibility bent on perpetually extending the joyful irresponsibility of adolescent drifting while indulging in paranoid fantasies about a cruel society forever victimizing the innocent. When Robinson’s lover suspects that she means little more to him than one of the passing entertainments at the amusement park, she begins to insist that he show some commitment to their relationship of several months and talk about how it might be made permanent. Robinson merely scoffs at this idea with a cackle. When he notices how furious his lover has become, he tries to gloss over things by insisting that he has nothing personal against her but simply has an aversion to sullying himself with what he views as the hypocritical conventions of love and marriage. When he sinks into a sullen silence in response to her increasingly overwrought demands that he follow through with the implied commitment he has made to her over the past several months, she finally goes berserk and shoots him in the abdomen, at which point she flees the scene. Like many of Céline’s characters, she abruptly slips out of the narrative, never to be heard of again. Instead of rushing Robinson to a hospital, where inconvenient questions from the despised police might be asked, Bardamu and his paramour carry the bleeding and half-conscious man to a bed in the narrator’s sanatorium ward. Simply assuming that Robinson has no chance of surviving, Bardamu holds his dying sidekick’s hand while waiting for internal hemorrhaging to finish him off. The thoughts that run through Bardamu’s mind at this point well represent the caustically antihumanistic tenor of Céline’s pessimism, for Bardamu confesses that he feels less pity for the dying Robinson, his best friend, than he would have felt for a dying dog. After all, Bardamu muses, a dog is not sly, whereas Robinson was sly, as are humans in general. Were the word “sly” replaced with the word “sinful,” Céline would appear much like one of the religious zealots who pontificate about the utter depravity of man and the impossible state of the world as a vale of tears. As Céline rules out the possibility of efficacious intervention on the part of either human or supernatural forces, however, his views wind up even more acridly bitter and negative. It is hardly surprising that he can find no more appropriate line with which to end Journey to the End of the Night than “Let us hear no more of all this.” Significance Heavily pessimistic fiction can hardly be considered rare, as any reader of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels or Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series could attest. 2525
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say that this abrupt turn in attitude lacks verisimilitude would be understating the case, for Bardamu’s apparent amnesia regarding what he has just been saying about a world of galley slaves reminds one more of a dream or hallucination than of a plausible state of waking consciousness. After a war wound allows Bardamu to cheat the heavy odds against him at the battlefront and to return alive to convalesce in Paris, he has an affair with a young American woman, whom he eventually comes to despise. A subsequent trip to a French colony in sub-Saharan Africa seems to reinforce his jaundiced view of civilization as a whole, although he singles out a certain French petty official for adulatory praise, likening the man to an angel because of his selfless devotion to a young woman. Later on in the novel during Bardamu’s wanderings in America, he briefly shows obeisance to another model of selflessness, on this occasion the familiar popular archetype of the prostitute with a heart of gold, specifically the elusive and hastily sketched figure of Molly. Céline’s view of the human condition thus shows itself as highly polarized: The narrator views himself and the great majority of fellow humans as despicably selfish exploiters, while a tiny minority of saintlike and selfless characters such as Molly and the French official stand in stark contrast to the malevolent multitude. Given the relish with which Céline describes the failings of the majority and the brevity and sketchiness with which he portrays the tiny angelic minority, however, one can only conclude that the novelist attributes far more vitality and genuine significance to the wretched and ignoble majority. Although Bardamu takes Molly as his lover and seems satisfied with her as a partner, his wanderlust knows no bounds, and both he and his American paramour soon agree that the two of them must part for no other reason than his yearning for the road. Soon back in France, Bardamu takes up the practice of medicine in the same seedy neighborhood that houses Léon Robinson, his old war buddy and fellow pessimistic cynic. Robinson comes across as something of an alter ego or double for Bardamu. Robinson abruptly veers in and out of the narrative from beginning to end as Bardamu’s companion in avoiding the front lines in war, sampling American factory life in Detroit, and hustling jobs and approachable women in a grim working-class Parisian neighborhood. Both men harbor too much bitterness toward their society to take the step of partially integrating themselves with it by settling down and raising families. As the two escort their paramours on a double date to a cheap amusement park, the reader encounters yet an-
Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism Novels such as Hardy’s and Zola’s, however, offer the reader at least the possibility of a satisfactory resolution and also present the onset of disillusionment as a gradual development governed by intelligible relations of cause and effect. In contrast, Journey to the End of the Night does not even attempt to present an incremental rise in disillusionment of the protagonist; instead, the book offers the reader an antiheroic picaro who seems astonishingly free of “illusions” about wretched humankind from the very outset. Just a few pages into the novel, Bardamu self-assuredly likens the lot of both himself and the vast majority of humans to the miserable fate of galley slaves, who must row like the devil in a stinking ship’s hold while the captain lounges on the breezy deck with a perfumed and nubile young woman on his lap. Rather than witnessing Bardamu’s increasing understanding of human suffering over time, the reader of Journey to the End of the Night observes merely a repetitious piling up of anecdotes, vignettes, and pronouncements on the theme of human degradation and vileness. The degree to which the disjointedly connected episodes in Journey to the End of the Night can be appreciated independently of what occurs before or after in the novel seems extreme even by the loose standards of the picaresque novel; the overall effect is somewhat like that of a series of vaudeville acts united only by the sameness of the lead performer. Céline draws on his mastery of the spoken idiom and theatrical exuberance to forestall the monotony that tends to result from repetitiousness of attitude and disjointedness of incident, but his racy argot and theatricality can rarely make up for the absence of a larger order in the scheme of his novel. In lieu of setting up a structural framework for his novels, Céline draws on the concept of “lacework” to explain his proclivity for articulating an intricate but predictable pattern or motif time and time again, as if he were weaving a piece of lace. Céline’s antisocial and partly hooliganish picaro stands as an important intermediary between Fyodor Dostoevski’s underground man of Zapiski iz podpolya (1864; Letters from the Underworld, 1913; better known as Notes from the Underground) and the rebellious countercultural protagonists common in the works of Henry Miller and such Beat generation novelists as Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, and William S. Burroughs. Like Dostoevski’s underground man, Bardamu angrily resents the civilization from which he hails, and he repeatedly lashes both it and himself with partially relevant but greatly overblown accusations of sickness and inequity. Céline goes a step further, however, in jettisoning the decorum of a somewhat restrained and literate narrative 2526
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persona. It was one thing to allow one’s characters to brawl and spout obscenities, as many a character in Zola’s novels did, but it was quite another to create a narrator who similarly exulted in mouthing expletive-laden argot and slapping defenseless women around. Although the rough-and-tumble language and brutish antics of Céline’s narrators scandalized many readers at first, more and more writers followed suit with narrative personae similarly contemptuous of decorum and delicate aesthetic sensibilities. As a result, the kind of narrator who had shocked Céline’s readers in the 1930’s became an increasingly familiar figure in European and American fiction by the 1960’s. In more recent years, Céline’s writings have become so accepted within the canon of major modern French writers that passages from his novels have made their way into the very pillar of cultural traditionalism, the national baccalauréat examination. Céline often referred to his picaros as traveling the “night subway” through the seamy side of modern social life that more genteel writers ignored, falsified, or prettified. Although even many of his admirers have noted the dangers posed by his amoral stance and irrational and intolerant turns of thought, Céline’s important stature and wide influence in the realm of twentieth century fiction can no longer be contested. —Philip F. Williams Further Reading Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Acknowledges Céline’s literary talent in the concluding chapter, “The Morality of Impersonal Narration,” but also emphasizes how the French author’s hard-bitten distrust of virtually all human motivations contradicts his self-assured pronouncements on virtues and vices. Bouchard, Norma. Céline, Gadda, Beckett: Experimental Writings of the 1930s. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. Scholarly work examines the writings of the three authors and argues that they contain the roots of what came to be known as postmodernism. Includes a close reading of Journey to the End of the Night. Buckley, William K., ed. Critical Essays on LouisFerdinand Céline. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989. One of the most comprehensive volumes of Céline criticism available in English. Contains a representative selection of positive, negative, and neutral evaluations of the novelist. Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Journey to the End of the
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Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought comprehensive bibliographies of Céline criticism available in English. McCarthy, Patrick. Céline. London: Allen Lane, 1975. Excellent life-and-works study of Céline illuminates many connections between the author’s major novels and French politics of the 1930’s. See also: 1921-1923: Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment; Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction; 1924: Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis; 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes; Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism; Sept. 1, 1934: Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy.
1932
Gilson’s SPIRIT OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY Reassesses Christian Thought Étienne Gilson’s research in medieval history and his insistence that the Middle Ages played an important role in modern philosophy’s development brought about major changes in the study of the Middle Ages and in attitudes about the roles of religion and philosophy. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Philosophy; historiography; publishing and journalism Key Figures Étienne Gilson (1884-1978), French historian of philosophy and philosopher Émile Bréhier (1876-1952), French historian of philosophy and Gilson opponent Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), French neo-Thomist philosopher Summary of Event Étienne Gilson, who was to become one of the most important and influential medieval scholars and neoThomist philosophers of the twentieth century, received his early education in France’s Roman Catholic schools and later in secular lycées. He then pursued a philosophy degree at the Sorbonne, where he became particularly interested in Cartesian and post-Cartesian philosophy; he wrote his dissertation on René Descartes. On the advice
of his professor Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Gilson narrowed his topic to a study of the scholastic origins of Descartes’s thought. In 1913, he completed his dissertation titled “La Liberté chez Descartes et la Théologie” (freedom in Descartes and theology). While he was researching and writing his dissertation, Gilson developed new research interests: medieval philosophy and theology. Through study of the texts written by Saints Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure, Gilson became convinced that the theologians of the Middle Ages (which lasted from 500 to 1500 c.e.) had made significant contributions to the field of philosophy by combining it with theology to create Christian philosophy. In 1921, Gilson became a professor of medieval history at the Sorbonne. A devout Catholic, Gilson was also an independent thinker, and he introduced his ideas about medieval philosophers and the importance of studying original texts into his teaching, lectures, and publications. He soon gained a reputation as one of the best medieval scholars and historians of his time; medieval scholars considered his work on Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, and Bonaventure to be one of the field’s standard reference works. Gilson also gained an international reputation as a philosopher. In 1927, he received an invitation to be a guest lecturer at Harvard University; while he was there, 2527
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Night. Translated by John H. P. Marks. New York: New Directions, 1960. The standard English translation of Céline’s first and most famous novel. Hewitt, Nicholas. The Golden Age of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Leamington Spa, England: Berg, 1987. Survey of Céline’s work includes a chapter on the novelist’s 1920’s nonfiction writings about medical hygiene as significant influences on his fiction. _______. The Life of Céline: A Critical Biography. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. Comprehensive biography includes substantial discussion of Céline’s works, placing them within the context of his life and times. Luce, Stanford L., and William K. Buckley. A HalfCentury of Céline: An Annotated Bibliography, 19321982. New York: Garland, 1983. One of the most
Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought he was asked to go to Toronto to establish an institute for medieval studies. In 1929, he founded the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at Saint Michael’s College of the University of Toronto; the institute was instrumental in disseminating Gilson’s methods and approaches to medieval scholarship. The following school year (19301931), Gilson was invited to the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where he gave a series of talks known as the Gifford Lectures. These were published as The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy in 1932. As early as 1929, several important French philosophers, including Émile Bréhier, had begun to take issue with the idea of a Christian philosophy. Philosophers, historians of philosophy, and medievalists had generally accepted that the Middle Ages had been devoid of real philosophical thought, at least compared to the times of the Greeks and Romans. Bréhier insisted that philosophy slumbered during the Middle Ages and that it had been revived only when René Descartes began writing in the seventeenth century. Bréhier also insisted that it was absurd to talk about a Christian philosophy: Such a philosophy is no more possible than a Christian mathematics or a Christian physics. Philosophy, like mathematics or physics, requires the use of reason; revelation and faith belong to the discipline of theology. Maurice Blondel, Fernand van Steenberghen, Étienne Gilson, and Jacques Maritain all debated the issue with Bréhier, but Gilson was the chief spokesman for those opposing Bréhier. The Gifford Lectures began Gilson’s response to Bréhier. The first two lectures, which would become the first two chapters of The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, dealt with Christian philosophy. The first lecture addressed the problem of Christian philosophy, and the second one dealt with the concept of Christian philosophy. In his first lecture, Gilson examined and refuted each objection to the idea of a Christian philosophy. He concluded that historical facts, the original works of the medieval theologian-philosophers, and the premises on which modern philosophers such as Descartes and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz elaborated their philosophies all supported the idea of a Christian philosophy. In his second lecture, he proposed a definition of Christian philosophy based on a close examination of the medieval thinkers who accepted Christian revelation and yet viewed reason as a way to understanding. He argued that for these scholars, faith served as an aid to reason. The rest of the Gifford Lectures examined original philosophical texts and their treatments of religion and philosophy. 2528
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During the years that followed, Gilson published many books and articles in which he continued to demonstrate the importance of the medieval thinkers and their influence on the development of philosophy in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In many of his writings, Gilson sought to correct what he saw as errors in the research methods used to evaluate the medieval writers’ works, and his contributions to medieval scholarship and to philosophical thought earned him election to the French Academy in 1946. Significance Étienne Gilson had a major impact on medieval history and philosophy. His lack of formal training in medieval philosophy helped him develop an original way of viewing medieval writers, and he found that study of the original texts revealed aspects of the authors that were different from those revealed by most critics. He revitalized medievalists’ research methods by insisting on the use of original texts, and in the courses he taught he stressed that the Middle Ages were in fact times of significant intellectual activity. Through his founding and subsequent work with the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Gilson continued to encourage and facilitate research on the significant contributions made by medieval thinkers to the understanding of being and of moral philosophy. Gilson also created and developed the concept of Christian philosophy, and in The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy and later works he developed a convincing argument that theology and philosophy—faith and reason—are not mutually exclusive. His insistence that the medieval thinkers were philosophers as well as theologians and that their works created a Christian philosophy resulted in debates that reignited interest in these scholars and in philosophy in general. — Shawncey Webb Further Reading Dulles, Avery. “Can Philosophy Be Christian?” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, April, 2000, 24-29. Definition and program of Gilson’s philosophy. Links his ideas to Pope John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio. Gilson, Étienne. The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy. Translated by A. H. C. Downes. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. Gilson’s explanation of Christian philosophy as it was developed in the Middle Ages. This is the publication of his Gifford Lectures, which were given in 1930 and 1931. Grogin, R. C. The Bergsonian Controversy in France, 1900-1914. Calgary, Alta.: University of Calgary
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Rodopi, 2003. Written by Gilson’s students. Good survey of Gilson’s method of philosophy and his scholarship. Shook, Laurence K. Étienne Gilson. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984. Provides accurate and complete biographical information on Gilson. See also: 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience; 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher; 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy; 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time.
1932-1935
Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives Gerhard Domagk developed the experimental procedures for testing the effectiveness of drugs and discovered that sulfonamides are effective in curing a large number of diseases caused by bacteria. Locale: Elberfeld, Germany Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Gerhard Domagk (1895-1964), German physician Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), German chemist and bacteriologist Summary of Event Quinine was used to treat malaria for hundreds of years and had been purified by the French chemists Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou around 1820. Nevertheless, Paul Ehrlich is usually credited with being the father of modern chemotherapy because he was responsible for discovering a number of useful drugs. Ehrlich was familiar with dyes used to stain microorganisms and suspected that some of them might specifically poison the microorganisms responsible for disease but not hurt the patient. He began a search of dyes for “magic bullets” that would destroy microorganisms and cure diseases. From 1906 to 1910, he tested compounds that had been developed by the German dye industry. He eventually found that a number of complex trypan dyes inhibited the protozoans that cause African sleeping sickness.
Ehrlich and his coworkers also synthesized hundreds of organic compounds that contained arsenic. In 1910, he found that one of these compounds, later named Salvarsan, was useful in curing syphilis, a disease caused by the bacterium Treponema. This was an important discovery because at that time the disease was killing large numbers of Europeans each year. Unfortunately, Salvarsan was very toxic to patients because it had to be taken in large doses for one to two years to effect a cure. Ehrlich’s continued research resulted in a less toxic arsenic compound that was also effective against syphilis; this compound, Neo-Salvarsan, replaced Salvarsan in 1912. In 1915, tartar emetic (a compound containing the metal antimony) was found to be useful in treating kalaazar, a disease caused by a protozoan. Kala-azar affected millions of people in Africa, India, and Asia, causing much suffering and many deaths each year. Two years later, it was discovered that injection of tartar emetic into the blood of persons suffering from bilharziasis killed the flatworms infecting the bladder, liver, and spleen. In 1920, suramin, a colorless compound developed from trypan red, was introduced to treat African sleeping sickness. It was much less toxic to the patient than any of the drugs Ehrlich had developed, and a single dose would give protection for more than a month. From the dye methylene blue, chemists made mepacrine (also called Atabrine and quinacrine), which was effective against the protozoan that causes malaria. This chemical was introduced in 1933 and used during World War II. Its draw2529
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Press, 1988. Examines philosophical controversy about being, especially at the Sorbonne. Many quotes from Gilson on the subject. McCool, Gerald A. From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism. New York: Fordham University Press, 1999. Deals with four major Thomists. Chapter 8 discusses Gilson’s work on the theologian philosophers of the Middle Ages in terms of Christian philosophy. ________. The Neo-Thomists. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1994. Places Gilson among the Neo-Thomists and discusses the importance of his research and his creation of “existential Thomism.” Redpath, Peter A., ed. A Thomist Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Étienne Gilson. New York: Éditions
Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives
Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives back was that it caused the skin to become yellow. Gerhard Domagk had been trained in medicine but turned to research in an attempt to discover chemicals that would inhibit or kill microorganisms. He became director of experimental pathology and bacteriology at the Elberfeld laboratories of the German chemical firm I. G. Farbenindustrie in 1927. Ehrlich’s discovery that trypan dyes selectively poisoned microorganisms suggested to Domagk that he look for antimicrobials in a new group of chemicals known as azo dyes. A number of these dyes were synthesized from sulfonamides and purified by Fritz Mietzsch and Josef Klarer. Domagk found that many of these dyes protected mice infected with the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes. In 1932, he discovered that one of these dyes was much more effective than any tested previously. This red azo dye containing a sulfonamide was named prontosil rubrum. From 1932 to 1935, Domagk began a rigorous testing program to determine the effectiveness and dangers of prontosil at different doses in animals. Given that all chemicals injected into animals or humans are potentially dangerous, Domagk set about determining the doses that would harm or kill. In addition, he worked out the lowest doses that would eliminate the pathogen. The ratio of the smallest amount of drug that kills the patient to the minimum amount of drug that eliminates the pathogen is called the therapeutic ratio of the drug. Chemicals with low therapeutic ratios (near one) are not very useful; those with high therapeutic ratios (greater than ten) are usually the safest and the most effective drugs. The firm supplied samples of the drug to a select number of physicians to carry out clinical trials on humans. Animal experimentation can only indicate which chemicals might be useful in humans and what doses are required. The synthesis and purification of a drug, its testing in animals, and then its testing in humans require the involvement of many scientists and technicians as well as expensive and appropriate facilities. Clearly, the discovery of a new group of useful drugs does not result from the discovery and work of a single person. The chemists, the animal researchers, and the physicians at clinics all contribute to the final conclusions. From drug testing in animals, Domagk learned what doses were effective and safe. This knowledge saved his daughter’s life. One day while knitting, Domagk’s daughter punctured her finger with a needle and infected herself with virulent bacteria. The bacteria quickly multiplied and spread from the wound into neighboring tissue. In an attempt to alleviate the swelling, the infected 2530
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 area was lanced and allow to drain. This did not stop the infection that was spreading into her lymph and blood, however. The child became critically ill because of the developing septicemia (blood poisoning). In those days, more than 75 percent of those who acquired blood infections died. Domagk realized that the chances for his daughter’s survival were very poor. In desperation, he obtained some of the powdered prontosil that had worked so well on infected animals. He extrapolated from his animal experiments how much to give his daughter so that the bacteria would be killed but his daughter would not be poisoned. Within hours of the first treatment, her fever dropped. Complete recovery followed repeated oral doses of prontosil. Domagk’s daughter was saved. In 1935, Domagk published his results demonstrating that prontosil was useful in treating streptococcal infections in animals. German physicians, who had extensively tested prontosil on humans, reported that it was also extremely effective in treating streptococcal infections in humans. This announcement was an important first step in the battle against diseases caused by bacteria. Different strains of Streptococcus pyogenes are responsible for strep throat, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, erysipelas (a spreading skin infection), cellulitis (a localized skin infection), puerperal sepsis (childbed fever), and septicemia. During the 1920’s, puerperal sepsis, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, and septicemia killed thousands of women, babies, and children every year. The use of sulfonamides lowered the death rates of a number of diseases very quickly. Before 1935, the death rate for puerperal sepsis in England was 175 per 100,000 births. In 1937 and 1938, the rate fell to 80 per 100,000. The use of sulfanilamides saved the lives of more than one thousand English mothers in only two years. Significance The publication of Domagk’s 1935 paper stimulated extensive research in Germany, France, and England. French researchers found that the active portion of the azo dye prontosil was the colorless sulfonamide called sulfanilamide. Much later, it was discovered that bacteria are sensitive to prontosil if they are able to cleave the azo dye and release sulfanilamide. Sulfanilamide, as well as other sulfonamides, blocks the synthesis of a coenzyme bacteria needed to grow. The discovery that sulfanilamide was the actual antimicrobial agent spurred scientists to synthesize new classes of sulfonamides and test their effectiveness on other pathogenic bacteria. Domagk demonstrated that some sulfonamides called
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leprosy (Hansen’s disease), which is caused by Mycobacterium leprae. Domagk’s work also showed that sulfonamides were effective in treating gas gangrene caused by the anaerobic bacteria Clostridium septicum, C. perfringens, and C. novyi. Sulfonamides were not very useful in treating tetanus even though Clostridium tetani was inhibited. This results from the fact that the disease is caused by a toxin that binds to nerve cells. Killing the bacteria with sulfonamides after the toxin has caused its damage is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. A new sulfonamide, resembling sulfanilamide, was shown to be more effective on the clostridia than sulfanilamide, uliron, or sulfathiazole. Spread on wounds and taken orally, sulfonamides saved thousands of lives during World War II. For example, the U.S. Army lost 8.25 percent of its wounded in World War I, but in World War II, thanks largely to the use of sulfonamides, the proportion of wounded who died was cut to 4.5 percent. The proportion of fatalities resulting from operations on perforated appendixes fell from 14 percent to 1 percent when sulfonamides were used. Although Domagk was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize, he was unable to accept the prize money or give his Nobel lecture because Europe had entered World War II. He gave his postponed lecture, titled “Further Progress in Chemotherapy of Bacterial Infections,” after the war, on December 12, 1947. Much of the lecture concerned the relative effectiveness of the various sulfonamides, semicarbazones, and sulfones. —Jaime S. Colome Further Reading Brock, Thomas D., ed. Milestones in Microbiology. 1961. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: American Society for Microbiology Press, 1998. Collection of original papers by scientists who contributed to the development of microbiology. Part 5 is concerned with chemotherapy. Papers by Ehrlich, Sir Alexander Fleming, and Domagk are worthwhile reading. Edwards, David I. Antimicrobial Drug Action. Baltimore: University Park Press, 1980. Concise, clearly written resource for those interested in antimicrobial drugs. Includes a short history of antimicrobial chemotherapy, but most discussion is devoted to how the drugs inhibit and kill microorganisms as well as how microorganisms become resistant to drugs. Features a section on chemotherapeutic agents used to treat some cancers. Franklin, T. J., and G. A. Snow. Biochemistry and Mo2531
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ulirons were effective against the bacteria that caused gonorrhea. The ulirons were the first drugs used in Germany to treat gonorrhea because prontosils were not effective. Soon after the introduction of ulirons, it was found that gonorrhea could be treated more effectively with a number of newly synthesized sulfonamides. By 1938, English researchers and physicians demonstrated that sulfapyridine was effective against a number of bacterial pathogens. It was used to treat gonorrhea, pneumonia, meningitis, and wound infections. Another sulfonamide called sulfathiazole was even more effective against these organisms. Because of its rapid excretion, sulfathiazole was replaced by sulfadiazine and sulfadimidine. Research on the many different sulfonamides and their effectiveness on bacterial infections showed that bacterial species varied significantly in their sensitivity to a particular sulfanilamide. For example, some gonococci (bacteria that cause gonorrhea) were sensitive and effectively inhibited by low concentrations of a sulfonamide. Other bacteria of the same species were extremely resistant and would grow even when subjected to very high concentrations of the sulfonamide. It was found that a particular bacterium was not inhibited equally by all the different sulfonamides. Sulfathiazole, for example, might be more effective than sulfapyridine, which in turn might be more effective than uliron. Experiments showed that a particular sulfonamide was not equally effective when tested on different genera. For gonococcal infection, sulfathiazole was found to be the best sulfonamide. Nevertheless, sulfapyrimidines and sulfones were discovered to be more effective for streptococcal infections. In 1940, Domagk observed that sulfathiazole and sulfathiodiazole inhibited the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis that causes tuberculosis. In 1946, Domagk and the chemists working with him reported the development of a new group of compounds called thiosemicarbazones that were also effective against the mycobacteria that caused tuberculosis. Treatment of tuberculosis with the semicarbazones required more than one hundred days at a dose of one gram a day. The use of sulfonamides and semicarbazones beginning in 1945 caused a dramatic decline in the number of cases and deaths caused by tuberculosis. Because mycobacteria frequently develops resistance if treated with only one drug, tuberculosis is now treated with a combination of drugs that include streptomycin (1947), para-aminosalicylic acid (1950), isoniazid (1952), and rifampin (1963). Dapsone, a sulfone studied by Domagk, is used to treat
Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives
Development of Negritude lecular Biology of Antimicrobial Drug Action. 6th ed. New York: Springer, 2005. Presents a concise history of the discovery of antimicrobial agents. Includes discussion of the mechanism of action of the sulfonamides. Silverstein, Arthur M. Paul Ehrlich’s Receptor Immunology: The Magnificent Obsession. New York: Academic Press, 2001. Focuses on Ehrlich’s many contributions to the field of immunology, placing them in the context of their times. Includes appendixes and indexes. Taylor, F. Sherwood. The Conquest of Bacteria: From Salvarsan to Sulphapyridine. New York: Philosophi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cal Library, 1942. A history for the general reader of drug development before antibiotics were developed in the 1940’s. Focuses on the discoveries that different sulfonamides were effective on a variety of pathogenic bacteria. Makes clear the roles played by Domagk and other researchers in the discovery of the effectiveness of the sulfonamides. See also: 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India; Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis; Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds; May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic.
1932-1940
Development of Negritude Drawing influence from the Harlem Renaissance in the United States and their own experiences as men from France’s colonies in Africa, Aimé Césaire of Martinique, Léopold Senghor of Senegal, and LéonGontran Damas of French Guyana discussed and wrote about the concept of negritude. Locale: Martinique; Senegal; French Guiana; France Categories: Literature; civil rights and liberties; psychology and psychiatry; social issues and reform Key Figures Aimé Césaire (b. 1913), poet, playwright, and politician born in Martinique Léopold Senghor (1906-2001), first president of Senegal, 1960-1981, and a poet and philosopher influential in formulating the concept of negritude Léon-Gontran Damas (1912-1978), poet and political activist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), German scholar whose work promoted the value of African culture Summary of Event The negritude movement in Paris in the 1930’s had much in common with the Harlem Renaissance in the United States. It grew out of Paris, a city that, like Harlem, had a diverse population of people of African descent, and it also evolved out of discussions and concepts that were eventually expressed in verse. Although the negritude movement drew some of its ideas from what had happened in Harlem ten to fifteen years earlier, there were clear differences between the two movements. The negri2532
tude movement brought significant change to France’s colonies of France: It produced political activists and political leaders as well as artists. Furthermore, it outlived the Harlem Renaissance, which faded into obscurity in the 1930’s. The negritude movement was grounded in a celebration of African heritage. It was developed by men and women of African descent who lived in white cultures that privileged European lineage and subjugated African heritage, a hierarchy that had become firmly ingrained in the English language. For example, as Malcolm X explains in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), the word “white” is associated with innocence and purity, whereas the word “black” is associated with blindness and evil. In European and American educational systems early in the twentieth century, then, Africa was portrayed as a country that lived in darkness, without civilization, while Europe was the center of civilization. European culture was hailed by many as a civilizing influence on peoples from Africa and the Caribbean. In Paris in the 1930’s, college students Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor, and Léon-Gontran Damas all felt alienated by French society. In a famous description of his arrival in Paris, Senghor conveyed some of this feeling: “I disembarked one morning in Paris in a cold rain and October sky. And everything was gray, even the famous monuments. What a deception!” These men found that many of their colleagues shared their discontent, and they refused to be indoctrinated into the Eurocentric system. Instead, they valued, explored, and celebrated their African identities, and they were joined by others who
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Development of Negritude
1932
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Former Senegal president and poet Léopold Senghor (standing) at the Académie Française in Paris in 1984. (AP/Wide World Photos)
also wanted to develop a sense of community. There were, however, a large number of people of other nationalities, and the realization of this fact helped Césaire, Senghor, and Damas develop a sense of cultural relativity. Resistance to assimilation—an idea that would become one of negritude’s essential tenets—developed partly as a result of the negative experiences Césaire, Senghor, Damas, and others had while living in poverty in Paris. They were underprivileged and wore tattered clothes, were often hungry, and worked long hours in order to remain in Paris and get a university education. While taking courses at three institutions, Damas worked various menial jobs: He was a day laborer, a dishwasher, and a bartender; at one point he worked all night at a market in Les Halles and attended school during the day. Recounting his experiences as a student in Paris during the 1930’s, Césaire remembered, “It was a pretty unbalanced life. . . . I was sick. I suffered from headaches,
stomach aches, and that’s when I lost perspective.” Césaire eventually suffered a mental breakdown that rendered him incapable of continuing his university work. Senghor, who remembered Césaire’s breakdown quite clearly, later wrote that the three were rebels whose marginalization helped them to value their heritage: “We lived our writing morally, even physically and metaphysically to the edge of dementia.” Damas was the first of the three to publish a volume of verse. By the time he got to Paris, he spoke English and had already read and embraced many of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. His volume of poetry, Pigment (1937), became “a manifesto of negritude”: It articulated many of the ideas that others in the group were just beginning to experience. This book continued to influence the movement for years to come. Even before Damas published Pigment, however, the negritude movement had begun to create visibility for students of African descent. In 1934, Césaire, Senghor, and Damas founded a literary 2533
Development of Negritude journal for black students called L’Étudiant noir (the black student). The journal began the exploration of African roots and colonial alienation that would form the negritude movement’s basis. L’Étudiant noir, which was published until 1940, was actually the continuation of an earlier college journal that celebrated African identity called Légitime Défense, which began in 1932 and was discontinued in 1934. L’Étudiant noir’s longer life span was probably due to the prominence its founders achieved in the literary world. Significance Despite their early poverty and their cultural position, in Paris Césaire, Senghor, and Damas experienced opportunities not afforded to people of African descent in other parts of the world. In France, blacks had free access to libraries, museums, and galleries. Furthermore, they had access to a university education, something few blacks in the United States were able to experience in the 1930’s. As a result, all three scholars had the opportunity to explore their cultural roots and to encounter writers such as Leo Frobenius, a German ethnologist who bucked the standard historical view that African culture was inherently uncivilized. All three negritude founders were heavily influenced by Frobenius, whose work Senghor described as “a sudden burst of thunder.” The negritude movement catalyzed a group of intellectuals whose articulation of a universal sense of African identity united people of African heritage around the world. The movement drew on and extended many of the ideas made famous by the Harlem Renaissance, and in the process it set the stage for liberation movements in
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 France and created ideas that would inspire the Civil Rights movement in the United States. —H. William Rice Further Reading Bahri, Deepika. “Introduction to Postcolonial Studies.” http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html. Very good brief introduction to the issues and people in colonial France. Jack, Belinda E. Negritude and Literary Criticism. New York: Greenwood Press, 1996. A study of people of African heritage writing in French from 1920 onward. Kestelhoot, Lilyan. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1991. A study of African American writers in French as examples of the worldwide explosion of African self-realization. Wilder, Gary. The French Imperial Nation-State: Negritude and Colonial Humanism Between the Two World Wars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. A study of the political milieu out of which the negritude movement developed. See also: July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement; Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded; 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded; Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians
January-February, 1932
El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians The massacre of up to thirty thousand peasants by the Salvadoran army ended a radical reform movement in the countryside and ushered in fifty years of repression and military rule in El Salvador. Locale: El Salvador Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event Social relations in El Salvador in the first decades of the twentieth century were characterized by a wide division in power. The peasant masses, who had once enjoyed communal property rights as part of an ancient landholding system, had seen these rights taken away in the late 1800’s by a powerful clique of coffee planters. Behind a shield of “liberal” legislation, these growers had succeeded in expanding their holdings to encompass nearly all of the country’s arable land. They modernized the economy by tying their fortunes to the exclusive cultivation of coffee, for which a large international market existed. The peasants, most of whom were Pipil Indians, had an almost mystical reverence for their cornfields. The disestablishment of their communal system had a psychological as well as a material effect on their lives. Without access to land, they had no options other than to work on the coffee plantations as colonos, receiving in exchange tiny plots for their own subsistence along with miserable wages, often issued in kind. Once-independent peasants were thus reduced to debt peons. For their part, the members of the coffee growers’ oligarchy took advantage of a seemingly limitless world demand for their product. The coffee boom, which lasted throughout the 1920’s, stimulated urbanization, brought railways and telegraph lines to the interior, and widened the economic gap between the oligarchs and the peasantry. The wealthy lived in regal splendor while the poor seethed in their poverty. The rural environment of El Salvador had little in it of philanthropy. The planters kept wages low, and they paid
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Key Figures Agustín Farabundo Martí (1893-1932), principal leader of the Salvadoran Communist Party Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (1882-1966), military dictator of El Salvador, 1931-1944 Arturo Araújo (1877-1967), president of El Salvador, March-December, 1931
almost no taxes that might support social services. As a consequence, discontent among the poor was widespread, and isolated uprisings occurred frequently. The rural constabulary and the national guard crushed all of these movements. As time went by, the oligarchs came to rely more and more on coercion to maintain the status quo in the countryside. The coming of the Great Depression in 1929 provided the catalyst for a social explosion. The demand for coffee on the world markets collapsed. With prices falling, the colonos lost the opportunity to find work. Wages fell 60 percent. In the cities, the Depression gave rise to a period of intense political discussion, with younger members of the oligarchy expressing some doubts as to whether the traditional order could contain the social crisis. A few individuals looked to reformist solutions. Among their number was Arturo Araújo, an admirer of Britain’s Fabian Socialists. Araújo was something of a wild card in Salvadoran politics, and the Partido Laborista he founded reflected an eclectic blend of mysticism, anti-imperialism, and what was termed vitalismo mínimo–the idea that every citizen deserved a “vital minimum” of goods and services necessary to a happy life. Such sentiments appealed to many, especially in the cities, where trade unionists and middle-class professionals lent avid support to Araújo. The Communist Party of El Salvador also favored this wayward son of the oligarchy. In this instance, however, the party’s support was conditional, because the Communists, led by veteran activist Agustín Farabundo Martí, feared that Araújo’s popularity might overshadow their own plans to carve a measure of power from the country’s difficulties. As it turned out, they needed to fear something far more sinister. Despite the misgivings of most oligarchs, the government held free elections in January, 1931. Five presidential candidates, most of whom represented conservative coffee interests, entered the field against Araújo. The latter went on to win anyway and took office at the beginning of March. Problems plagued Araújo from the beginning. The Depression hit the country people very hard. Although he had made vague promises as to land reform, the new president simply could not deliver on these while simultaneously safeguarding the privileges of the elite. The lack of direction displayed by Araújo was evident from the beginning. The oligarchs, who had previously thought Araújo merely risky, now saw him as positively
El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians dangerous and looked to anyone who might deliver them from his influences. The peasants and the trade unionists also became disillusioned. Seeing that their support had brought them repression and not reform, they began to consider more radical solutions, particularly those espoused by Farabundo Martí and the Communists. Several strikes by colonos in April and May were brutally put down by forces under War Minister (and Vice President) Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. Widespread rebellion now seemed likely. Of all the groups opposed to Araújo, clearly the most willing to act on its grievances was the military. The president had tried to reduce the army’s budget by 25 percent and tried to retire a number of senior officers. Most crucial, however, was his inability to pay his soldiers. In normal times, export duties paid the greater part of government expenses, but with coffee exports at rock bottom, Araújo’s administration was delinquent in its payments to all officials. The end came swiftly. On December 2, 1931, army units loyal to General Hernández Martínez seized control of San Salvador and other major cities. Only Araújo loyalists initially condemned the attack. Most political parties, including the Communists, gave their tacit approval. They felt reassured when Hernández Martínez announced that municipal elections scheduled for January, 1932, would go forward. The Left then organized meetings and street demonstrations, distributed leaflets, and prepared for the elections. Few doubted that Hernández Martínez would keep his word. The general, however, had his own ambitions. A man of a mystical frame of mind who would later conduct seances in the presidential palace, he felt certain that he acted with divine aid. Having identified all opposition organizers, he cancelled the elections and began a massive repression. Realizing that they were moving in the eleventh hour, the Communists launched an urban revolt on January 22, supposedly set to coincide with a rural insurrection in the western departments of Santa Ana, Ahuachapán, and Sonsonate. The Indian leaders of those areas had tenuous ties to Farabundo Martí, even though they had no use for Communists generally. They nevertheless decided that a revolt offered them their last chance of deliverance. They were wrong, tragically so. The army quelled the urban uprising in a matter of hours, police agents having already penetrated the revolutionary cells. They had previously detained Farabundo Martí. A policy of summary execution began that included even suspected members of opposition groups. Martí received unusual treatment: He 2536
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was given a brief trial before he faced the firing squad. The rural districts experienced the full fury of the repression. The peasant rebels, armed with machetes, managed to hold out for forty-eight hours. They killed some fifty policemen. The army and the irregular forces set up by the landowners exacted an awesome revenge in what Salvadorans still refer to simply as la matanza, the massacre. The army regarded anyone with Indian features as being automatically guilty and liable for the ultimate penalty. Whole villages were razed. Hospitals were checked and the wounded dragged out and killed. Women, children, and dogs were shot along with men. The corpses soon became so numerous that they could not be buried and were simply left in ditches along the roads. As one witness later observed, only the vultures ate well that year. Before the violence had run its course in February, as many as thirty thousand people had died. The massacre left a legacy of violence in Salvadoran politics that was overcome only decades later. Significance La matanza left a deep scar in Salvadoran society. Virtually every family in the western part of the country lost someone to the army terror. The effects of the repression went even further, however, than the loss of life. There were cultural losses. Because Hernández Martínez and the army chose to identify the Pipil Indians as part of a wide Communist conspiracy, most Indian survivors rushed to deny their Indian identity. They abandoned the use of native garb, which they saw as a provocative symbol of resistance likely to bring down the wrath of the police. Indians encouraged their children to avoid speaking Pipil except at home, and then only in hushed tones. There were social losses. With the members of many families serving in the army or among the rebels, the repression could not help but have a divisive impact. It became impossible to trust anyone. All of the traditional foci of rural authority and trust—the church and, more important, the socioreligious brotherhoods (cofradías)—lost the popular support they once had enjoyed. Fear dominated the peasant landscape. Only the oligarchs could claim that la matanza had increased the level of solidarity in their ranks. It also taught them the false lesson that class solidarity outweighed national reconciliation and that their survival depended on the subordination of the peasants. Finally, the repression brought political losses. General Hernández Martínez followed la matanza with a twelve-year dictatorship that brooked little opposition, even from the oligarchs. Although civilian vigilantes
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Further Reading Anderson, Thomas P. Matanza. 2d ed. Willimantic, Conn.: Curbstone Press, 1992. Considered the classic English-language account of the repression. Thoughtful treatment draws on extensive interviews with participants and previously little-known manuscript materials. Includes map, footnotes, extensive bibliography, and index. Dalton, Roque. Miguel Marmol. Willimantic, Conn.: Curbstone Press, 1987. Unique and fascinating account of la matanza based on extensive interviews with an active organizer of the Salvadoran Communist Party who was himself shot and left for dead in 1932 and who later spent many years in exile in the Soviet Union. Marmol’s Stalinist attitude dates him, but his comments about sacrifice and struggle still ring true. Dalton, an important poet and member of the revolutionary underground, was murdered in 1975 by a rival leftist faction. Includes three letters from Marmol as well as an October, 1986, interview. Holden, Robert H. Armies Without Nations: Public Violence and State Formation in Central America, 1821-
1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Examines how Central American states have exercised public violence as a way of maintaining authority. Includes discussion of la matanza in El Salvador. Features photographs, endnotes, and index. McClintock, Michael. State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador. Vol. 1 in The American Connection. London: Zed Books, 1985. Thorough examination of U.S. military and economic aid to El Salvador contains some useful information on the 1932 massacre, including some of the comments of the American military attaché in San Salvador at the time. Includes endnotes, bibliography, and index. Montgomery, Tommie Sue. Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Civil Peace. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. Insightful history of the Salvadoran struggle for justice focuses more on the 1970’s and 1980’s than on la matanza but provides a detailed account of the antecedents of the quagmire of the 1990’s, making it a key source for those seeking to understand modern El Salvador. Includes photos, maps, tables, bibliography, and index. North, Liisa. Bitter Grounds: Roots of Revolt in El Salvador. 2d ed. Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1985. Brief but concise treatment of Salvadoran politics in the twentieth century, especially strong concerning economic questions. Chapter 3 covers the 1932 peasant revolt and its bloody aftermath. Includes maps, tables, notes, bibliography, appendixes, and index. Parkman, Patricia. Nonviolent Insurrection in El Salvador: The Fall of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988. Valuable, well-researched account of the Hernández Martínez regime focuses more on his ouster in the mid-1940’s than on la matanza. Based largely on materials drawn from the archives of the U.S. Department of State and on interviews. Includes maps, illustrations, endnotes, and bibliography. Russell, Philip L. El Salvador in Crisis. Austin, Tex.: Colorado River Press, 1984. Like most “committed” historical works, this study favors a leftist solution for the Salvadoran problem. Provides a thorough treatment of the 1932 bloodbath. Includes maps, tables, illustrations, graphs, endnotes, bibliography, and index. See also: Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians; Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War. 2537
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conducted much of the 1932 slaughter, that event’s political outcome confirmed the army’s claim on power. Hernández Martínez was only one of many military presidents who were to rule El Salvador during the twentieth century. As an institution, the Salvadoran armed forces consistently resisted pressures to make room for civilian participation in politics. When open application of force was inadvisable, the military acted in collusion with the oligarchs to create death squads. For their part, the peasant masses in El Salvador became caught between two polar extremes in the late twentieth century. They could either join the ranks of the army and the elites, who perceived the struggle as an anti-Communist crusade, or they could join with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas, the ideological descendants of Martí, and fight to establish the kind of Leninist regime that had been repudiated throughout the Eastern Bloc. In either direction, death threatened the average citizen. The greatest and most frightening legacies of la matanza were the effects that it left in the popular mind and the knowledge that it could happen again. However, a peace settlement reached in 1992 between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN paved the way for these fears to be alleviated in a spirit of national reconciliation and a new democratic process for a nation too long torn by civil war. —Thomas L. Whigham
El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians
Stimson Doctrine
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 7, 1932
Stimson Doctrine Following Japanese military activity in Manchuria in 1931, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson stated that the United States would not recognize any territorial changes accomplished through the use of force. Japan ignored the doctrine. Also known as: Hoover-Stimson Doctrine Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Henry L. Stimson (1867-1950), U.S. secretary of state, 1929-1933, and U.S. secretary of war, 1940-1945 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 William E. Borah (1865-1940), U.S. senator from Idaho, 1907-1940 Yfsuke Matsuoka (1880-1946), Japanese diplomat and president of the South Manchurian Railroad Second Earl of Lytton (Victor Bulwer-Lytton; 18761947), British delegate to the League of Nations Puyi (P’u-i; 1906-1967), last emperor of China, r. 1908-1912, and emperor of Manchukuo, r. 19341945 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Hideki Tojo (1884-1948), Japanese general, later prime minister of Japan, 1941-1944 Summary of Event In the late 1920’s, Japan and the Soviet Union both clashed with the Chinese government over the construction and operation of the Chinese Eastern Railway, a section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Manchuria, the northeast region of China. By 1929, it seemed possible that the Soviet Union could go to war with China in order to control the Chinese Eastern Railway. War did not break out, but the dispute made it clear that the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 could not prevent military conflict. Even though it did not resort to warfare, the Soviet Union managed to bully China into allowing it to take control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, and the international community did nothing to prevent the Soviet actions. Japan took note of the situation and began to exert greater control of the South Manchurian Railroad. By the 2538
late 1920’s, the Japanese military patrolled the railway, and Japan operated several armed military camps in Manchuria. Ostensibly, the Japanese sought to protect the railway they operated, but the Chinese government objected to the foreign military presence. However, the Chinese government was not strong enough to resist Japanese encroachment. The situation turned into a crisis on September 18, 1931, when an explosion damaged a section of the South Manchurian Railroad operated by Japan. The Japanese leveled blame for the explosion, which became known as the Mukden incident, on Chinese saboteurs and moved greater numbers of soldiers into southern Manchuria. The Chinese put up little resistance, and the Japanese quickly began extending their influence. Although no formal accusations were proven, the speed of the Japanese response to the explosion made it plain to the international community that the Japanese military had planned the entire event. The League of Nations responded to the incident by sending a commission to investigate; the commission was led by the British diplomat the second earl of Lytton. The Lytton Commission operated slowly, and several months passed before all of its members were appointed. A number of American officials wanted a more rapid response, but opinion in the United States was divided on how to handle the situation. President Herbert Hoover, however, made it clear that he did not favor imposing economic sanctions against Japan because he believed they would lead to war, which would cause further hardship to those Americans already suffering under the Great Depression. In the absence of any substantive international action opposing their efforts in Manchuria, the Japanese continued to expand their military influence throughout the region, and by the beginning of 1931 they had effectively stopped all Chinese resistance. Hoover’s secretary of state, Henry L. Stimson, believed that the United States could not sit by and watch Japan conquer Manchuria, and he responded by sending a letter to the Chinese and Japanese governments on January 7, 1932. The letter was sent on behalf of the U.S. government, but Stimson took this action on his own initiative, without President Hoover’s consent. The letter stated that the United States would follow a policy of nonrecognition: It would not acknowledge any territorial changes between Japan and China that developed as the result of Japanese aggression. Stimson’s letter quickly
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Henry L. Stimson. (Library of Congress)
nation in September of 1932. In theory, Manchukuo was independent, and the Japanese installed Puyi, the former emperor of China, as the head of state. However, Puyi ruled as a Japanese puppet, and most other nations did not recognize Manchukuo as a legitimate nation. The Lytton Commission finally issued its findings to the League of Nations in October of 1932. Lytton named Japan as the aggressor in Manchuria, and, in early 1933, the League accepted the commission’s findings and formally admonished Japan. Yfsuke Matsuoka, Japan’s representative in the League of Nations, walked out of the negotiations, and Japan withdrew from the League soon thereafter. Significance The Stimson Doctrine failed to restrain the Japanese conquest of Manchuria, and Japanese aggression continued when Japan initiated open warfare against China in 1937. The concept of the doctrine in American foreign policy might have disappeared after 1937, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Stimson as his secretary of war in 1940. Roosevelt made the appointment largely for political reasons: Stimson was a prominent Republican and could generate support for Roosevelt’s foreign policies on the eve of American entry into World War II. After his appointment, Stimson urged Roosevelt to accept his doctrine officially in order to halt the continued Japanese actions against China. As a result, the United States levied economic sanctions against Japan by embargoing the sale of military goods, notably oil, to Japan. The oil embargo, however, did not halt the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) any more than the Stimson Doctrine had halted Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Furthermore, the embargo fulfilled Hoover’s predictions that economic sanctions would lead to war with Japan. Japan had become increasingly militaristic as General Hideki Tojo rose to power, and the oil embargo led directly to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Even though the Stimson Doctrine’s inability to stop Japanese aggression in Manchuria and China meant that it was generally regarded as a failed policy, the philosophy of nonrecognition had an impact on international relations long after 1932. A handful of treaties, such as the 1933 Anti-War Treaty of Nonaggression and Conciliation, incorporated the Stimson Doctrine’s ideas, and the Roosevelt administration followed the doctrine’s philosophy in 1940 when it announced it would not recognize the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Officially, the United States contin2539
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became known as the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine, or more simply as the Stimson Doctrine. However, President Hoover refused to implement the policy officially, because he believed that the doctrine would lead to economic sanctions against Japan that would create a war between Japan and the United States. The Japanese ignored Stimson’s letter. On January 29, they launched a major offensive against Shanghai and continued to expand their influence in Manchuria. Unable to take any action due to constraints placed on him by Hoover, Stimson responded by sending a letter to Senator William E. Borah. That letter, which immediately entered the public domain, outlined the treaties that Japan had violated in Manchuria. It also demonstrated that Stimson favored nonrecognition backed with military force, if necessary, in order to restrain Japan. By defending his position through the Borah letter, Stimson generated support for his position, and the League of Nations gave him some vindication by passing a resolution with similar language in March of 1932. Seemingly cowed by the international response, Japan responded by removing most of its troops in May of 1932. The country followed this move by renaming Manchuria as Manchukuo, and it extended official diplomatic recognition to Manchukuo as a new independent
Stimson Doctrine
Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created ued to follow this policy toward the Baltic states until their independence in 1991. —John K. Franklin Further Reading Cohen, Warren I. Empire Without Tears: American Foreign Relations, 1921-1933. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987. Overview of American foreign policy from 1921 to 1933. Demonstrates that the 1920’s were not merely a period of American isolationism. Schmitz, David L. Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 2001. Biography of Stimson that shows his importance to American foreign policy from the administration of Theodore Roosevelt through the administration of Harry S. Truman.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Tohmatsu, Haruo, and H. P. Willmott. A Gathering Darkness: The Coming of War to the Far East and the Pacific, 1921-1942. Lanham, Md.: SR Books, 2005. An overview of Japanese foreign policy and military actions, such as the Mukden incident, that led to World War II. See also: Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War; Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere; Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports.
January 22, 1932
Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created Created to support ailing financial institutions during the Great Depression, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was a government agency that provided capital for New Deal programs, war production, and undercapitalized private ventures. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Banking and finance; business and labor; economics; government and politics Key Figures Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Eugene Meyer (1875-1959), chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and first chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) functioned from its establishment on January 22, 1932, until its dissolution in 1954 as a federal agency that provided capital and credit for a wide variety of public and private ventures. Lending more than $51 billion during its existence, the RFC played an instrumental role in stabilizing the American financial system during the early years of the Great Depression by supporting banks and financing numerous New Deal programs. During World War II, the RFC served as a conduit through which the nation’s eco2540
nomic resources were shifted from civilian output to military production. The stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression created a severe crisis for the nation’s financial institutions. Facing a catastrophic decline in the value of assets and a rush of depositors anxious to recover their money, the American banking system teetered on the brink of collapse. Most vulnerable were institutions holding large amounts of unsecured loans made during the previous decade to finance speculative ventures in the securities, real estate, and construction industries. By 1931, nearly twenty-three hundred commercial banks and savings and loans faced insolvency. The worldwide financial chaos of the period also contributed to the severity of the situation in the United States. At the beginning of the Depression, European banks began to withdraw substantial amounts of gold reserves held in American banks. Additionally, the HawleySmoot Tariff, enacted in 1930 with the intention of protecting American firms by increasing import duties, instead produced a worldwide protectionist movement that in turn created a further contraction of available capital and credit in the United States. President Herbert Hoover, a disciple of voluntarism, initially suggested that those in the financial industry should pool their resources and make loans to ailing banks without governmental intervention. In October, 1931, the National Credit Corporation (NCC), a voluntary association that encouraged healthy banks to lend
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The RFC was also active in supporting public works projects and helped to finance a variety of programs such as bridge and tunnel construction, public housing, natural resource development, and conservation projects. The RFC also organized and funded the Export-Import Bank to assist foreign economic development. Between 1934 and 1945, the agency loaned more than $500 million to various Latin American nations, Great Britain, Greece, Turkey, the Soviet Union, and Nationalist China. In 1934, Congress authorized the RFC to make business loans, provided that they were “adequately secured” and that the companies could not otherwise obtain capital on the open market. Originally, the maximum amount available was $500,000 over a five-year term. Congress later liberalized both the amount ceiling and the maximum maturity. RFC administrators excluded certain industries. For example, no loans were extended to the oil and automotive industries, which were deemed sufficiently profitable to obtain capital without government assistance. The RFC also refused loans to newspapers and radio stations for fear of influencing editorial content. During World War II, the RFC played a crucial role in shifting economic resources from the civilian to the defense sector. A variety of subsidiary corporations supervised the transfer of credit to defense-related industries. These corporations included the Defense Plant Corporation, the Defense Supplies Corporation, the Rubber Development Corporation, the Metal Reserve Corporation, the War Damage Corporation, and the United States Commercial Company. The largest subsidiary, the Defense Plant Corporation, constructed and equipped twenty-three hundred defense plants at a cost exceeding $9 billion. Despite a series of damaging scandals during the postwar years, the RFC remained active until July 30, 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Small Business Act, which officially terminated the RFC. The Small Business Administration assumed current RFC loans, and a number of the RFC’s subsidiary corporations, including the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Export-Import Bank, became independent agencies. The RFC terminated its operations in June, 1954, and by 1957 all the agency’s outstanding loans had been liquidated. Significance During the early years of the Great Depression, the RFC played a significant role in stabilizing the U.S. financial 2541
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capital to weaker ones, began operation. As the Depression worsened, however, the NCC proved unable to cope with the increasing number of bank failures. Recognizing the shortcomings of the NCC, on December 8, 1931, Hoover recommended the creation of a government agency with broad powers to issue bonds and extend credit to the financial industry. Congress moved quickly, and Hoover signed the bill creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation on January 22, 1932. Capitalized at $500 million, the RFC was authorized to borrow an additional $3.3 billion to shore up the nation’s financial infrastructure. The RFC initially was intended only to provide capital to ailing banks, but Congress soon extended its powers to lend money to a variety of public and private organizations. The major economic sectors that received RFC loans included banks and other financial intermediaries, railroads, agriculture, commercial and industrial businesses, mortgage lenders, public agencies, and national defense contractors. The administrative structure of the RFC included a seven-member board of directors, including the secretary of the treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, who served as ex officio members. Eugene Meyer, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board when the RFC was created, became the agency’s first chairman. Meyer served until 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Jesse H. Jones to head the agency. Jones was followed by Emil Schram and Charles B. Henderson. During the New Deal, the RFC played a significant role in financing the nation’s economic recovery programs. To alleviate the banking crisis of 1933, the agency purchased more than $1.3 billion of bank stocks, helping to bolster ailing institutions and restore public confidence in the financial system. The RFC also aided the agricultural sector through the creation of a subsidiary, the Commodity Credit Corporation, that gave farmers access to RFC funds. The agency also financed the Rural Electrification Administration and provided credit to tenant farmers for the acquisition of land. Amendments to the RFC Act empowered the agency to finance home mortgages directly and to purchase the capital stock of mortgage lenders. The creation of the RFC Mortgage Company, which lent nearly $700,000 between 1935 and 1947, and the Federal National Mortgage Association (later known as Fannie Mae), which financed more than $3 billion in home loans between 1938 and 1950, played a crucial role in expanding the opportunity for home ownership in the United States and provided a much-needed boost to the construction industry.
Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created
Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created system. By providing capital and credit to banks, the RFC enabled many otherwise insolvent institutions to continue operations. This had important psychological as well as economic benefits and mitigated the perception held by many Americans that the capitalist system was inherently flawed. The RFC helped ensure that the nation’s economic infrastructure would continue to function and, through infusions of capital, prevented disruptions in one sector from initiating a chain reaction of economic chaos. The RFC undoubtedly saved many banks, railroads, insurance companies, and farmers. Many historians have observed that the Great Depression would have been far worse without government intervention in capital markets to cushion the effect of declining demand and ease the impact of deflation and unemployment. The RFC failed to generate an economic recovery primarily because the decline in aggregate demand was simply too large to be offset by the RFC’s limited resources. Governmental policy also impeded the potential effectiveness of the RFC during the late 1930’s. In 1937, President Roosevelt tried to balance the budget for political reasons. He instructed the RFC to stop all lending, even though its loans did not appear in the budget. At the same time, the president reduced spending on public works and raised taxes, producing an economic contraction and increasing unemployment. RFC officials believed that this situation could have been avoided by increasing, rather than curtailing, available credit and by continuing public works projects. The most enduring legacy of the RFC was the establishment of the Federal National Mortgage Association, which revolutionized home finance by providing longterm mortgages. Previously, home mortgages typically had been intermediate-term loans requiring large down payments. Although other factors were involved, home ownership statistics reveal the impact of RFC policies. Prior to 1929, one-third of American families owned homes; by the 1950’s, nearly two-thirds were home owners. The RFC also had a significant impact in marshaling the nation’s economic resources for defense production during World War II. From 1940 to 1945, more than 80 percent of RFC loans went to support defense-related production, and more than half of all RFC financing occurred during the war years. Through its various subsidiary corporations, the agency constructed war plants, allocated strategic materials, and provided insurance for war-related assets against damage by military operations. As a result of its wartime activities, by the end of 2542
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the war the RFC held substantial interests in a number of industries such as shipping, nonferrous metals, machine tools, synthetic rubber, and aviation. During the postwar period, the RFC suffered from a series of scandals surrounding its involvement in providing capital for housing production. Congressional investigations revealed that the RFC had offered loans to highly speculative ventures supported by a number of senators and administration officials, in return for a promise of increased funding for the agency. The scandal tarnished the RFC’s reputation and led to a reevaluation of its economic mission. With a strong postwar economy, many questioned the need for continued federal intervention in capital markets. Opponents of the agency also feared that it would contribute to inflation by raising aggregate demand and argued that private financial markets allocated capital more effectively without governmental interference. As the need for the RFC diminished and as its political influence eroded after the taint of scandal, many who had been among the agency’s most vocal supporters called for its termination. The RFC was formally dissolved in 1953 by the Small Business Administration Act, although the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Export-Import Bank survived as independent agencies. Throughout the twentieth century, the Export-Import Bank continued to provide loan guarantees to exporters of American products. The Small Business Administration represented an evolutionary concept of governmental intervention by providing direct loans and loan guarantees to small firms to assist them in competing with larger enterprises. This more limited role retained the original RFC concept of providing access to capital for companies in need, although it restricted the government’s ability to influence broad sectors of the economy unduly. Even this level of government intervention was controversial, however. Despite occasional calls for a revival of the RFC or the establishment of a similar organization to assist distressed sectors of the economy, prevailing economic theory at the beginning of the twenty-first century favors market allocation over governmental control of capital markets. —Douglas Knerr Further Reading Bickley, James M. “An Evaluation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation with Implications for Current Capital Needs of the Steel Industry.” In New Tools for Economic Development: The Enterprise Zone, Devel-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
University Press, 1977. One of the best works available on the early years of the RFC. Presents a balanced view of the agency, its mission, and its accomplishments as well as a detailed account of the congressional battles surrounding the agency’s creation. _______. Saving Capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the New Deal, 1933-1940. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Takes up where Olson’s earlier study of the RFC (cited above) leaves off. Traces the agency’s involvement in financing numerous New Deal programs. Pusey, Merlo J. Eugene Meyer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Discusses the full span of Meyer’s life and delineates the role he played in suggesting and designing the RFC. Although a political conservative, Meyer had no illusions regarding the problems in the U.S. economy that the RFC was created to correct. Studenski, Paul, and Herman Edward Krooss. Financial History of the United States: Fiscal, Monetary, Banking, and Tariff, Including Financial Administration and State and Local Finance. 2d ed. 1963. Reprint. New York: Beard Books, 2003. An important general reference for financial research. Provides fundamental information as well as analysis of financial institutions and their place in the economic history of the United States. See also: Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation; June 26, 1934: Federal Credit Union Act.
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opment Bank, and RFC, edited by George Sternlieb and David Listokin. Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1981. Brief, highly informative overview of the background and achievements of the RFC. Provides analysis of the agency’s strengths and weaknesses within the context of government stimulus of economic growth. Ellis, Edward Robb. A Nation in Torment: The Great American Depression, 1929-1939. 1970. Reprint. New York: Kodansha International, 1995. Journalistic account of the Depression includes a chapter devoted to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Gup, Benton E., ed. Too Big to Fail: Policies and Practices in Government Bailouts. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. Collection of essays includes discussion of the RFC, in particular the agency’s assistance to the railroad industry during the Depression. Himmelberg, Robert F. The Great Depression and the New Deal. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Discusses the causes of the Depression and the actions taken in the United States to alleviate its effects, including establishment of the RFC. Features chronology, glossary, and index. Jones, Jesse H. Fifty Billion Dollars: My Thirteen Years with the RFC, 1932-1945. 1951. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1975. Personal recollections of the second chairman of the RFC, who was appointed to the board of directors at the time the agency was created. Presents a detailed account of the RFC’s accomplishments. Especially informative regarding the personalities and political infighting at the RFC during a crucial period in its history. Olson, James S. Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1931-1933. Ames: Iowa State
Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created
Chadwick Discovers the Neutron
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February, 1932
Chadwick Discovers the Neutron James Chadwick discovered that there is a fundamental particle in the atom that has no electrical charge and has a mass approximately equal to that of the proton. Locale: Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures James Chadwick (1891-1974), British physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), English physicist Frédéric Joliot (1900-1958), French physicist Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), French physicist Walther Bothe (1891-1957), German physicist Summary of Event The word “atom” comes from the Greek atomos, meaning “indivisible,” but discoveries in the late nineteenth century indicated that the atom has a divisible and very complex structure. By 1914, Ernest Rutherford, an English physicist, had developed a model of the atom based on his own work as well as on the work of many scientists before him. In this model, nearly all the mass of the atom and all the positive electrical charge are concentrated in an extremely small part of the atom, the nucleus. Rutherford estimated the diameter of the nucleus to be one tenthousandth of the diameter of the atom. Consequently, the electrons associated with the atom occupied a much larger volume than the nucleus and carried all the negative electrical charge, but had very little mass. He named the carrier of the positive charge in the nucleus the “proton” (for the Greek word for “first”). At this point, then, there were two elementary particles: the proton, with a positive charge, and the electron, with a negative electrical charge of the same magnitude as the positive charge of the proton. The atom, therefore, had to be built up with only these two particles. Helium, for example, would have two protons and two electrons. However, because the mass of the helium atom was known to be four times the mass of the hydrogen atom (which has one proton and one electron), the nucleus of the helium atom needed two more protons to produce the appropriate mass. In order to keep the electrical charge of the nucleus equal to that of two protons, it was suggested there were also two electrons in the nucleus, which neutralized the charge of the additional two protons. As early as 1920, Rutherford speculated that there might be another elementary particle with about the same 2544
mass as the proton, but with no charge. Perhaps it was somehow produced by the combination of a proton and an electron. In 1921, American chemist William Draper Harkins named this hypothetical particle the neutron, because it was electrically neutral. English physicist James Chadwick began his search for the neutron at the Cavendish Laboratory under Rutherford’s guidance. At first, his search was unsuccessful; however, he was not the only one searching. In 1930, Walther Bothe of Germany found that when beryllium and boron were bombarded by high-energy alpha particles, radiation with no electrical charge but with great penetrating power was produced. Only two years later, Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot reported that
James Chadwick. (The Nobel Foundation)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chadwick Discovers the Neutron
Chadwick: From Neutrons to Cyclotrons
this radiation could cause protons to be ejected from paraffin. These scientists concluded that the radiation was a type of gamma ray—that is, electromagnetic energy of very high frequency. When Chadwick read the account of the experiments performed by the French scientists, he immediately decided to examine this phenomenon further. He found that when boron and beryllium were bombarded by alpha particles from polonium, the mysterious radiation from these two substances could eject protons from any materials that contained hydrogen. He also discovered, from calculating the energy acquired by nitrogen atoms bom-
Significance The discovery of the neutron, in 1932, marked the beginning of nuclear physics—that is, the study of the nuclear structure of the atom. It was readily seen that, as the nuclei of most elements are extremely stable, there were forces of attraction hitherto unknown between the “nucleons” (the word coined to designate the particles in the nucleus). Until the discovery of the neutron, the only known forces in physics were those of gravity, electricity, and magnetism. After 1932, it was necessary to speak of a new kind of force: the nuclear force. With the discovery of the neutron came a much clearer understanding of atomic structure, specifically the structure of the nucleus. German physicist Werner Heisenberg proposed that envisioning the nucleus of an atom as being constructed of neutrons and protons resolved a number of difficulties. These included the problem of the missing mass of the helium atom—the answer is that two neutrons make up the additional mass. Neutrons also provide an explanation for isotopes, which are atoms of the same element that have different atomic masses. Clearly, the additional mass is caused by the presence of more neutrons in the nucleus. In 1939, it was discovered that when uranium atoms are bombarded by neutrons, they undergo fission. Shortly thereafter, physicists showed that this fission 2545
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James Chadwick majored in physics instead of mathematics because of a mistake in the registration procedure at the Victoria University of Manchester. However, after attending lectures on electromagnetism by Ernest Rutherford, the world leader in the investigation of radioactivity, he decided his major was no mistake, and he received a first-class honors degree in that subject in 1911. That year, Rutherford made one of the most important scientific discoveries of this century: the nuclear structure of the atom. In 1913, Chadwick received his master’s degree as well as a scholarship that sent him to study radioactivity with Hans Geiger, in Germany. There he discovered that the spectrum of beta rays was continuous. World War I began, and Chadwick was interned in a camp for enemy aliens. Despite brutal conditions, he conducted experiments using a German brand of toothpaste. After the war, Chadwick worked in the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University under his old mentor, Rutherford. There they investigated elements by alpha-particle bombardment. A notable exception to this line of work was his confirmation in 1920 that the charge on the atomic nucleus was equal to the atomic number, as had been suggested by A. van den Broek and Henry Moseley several years before. Chadwick’s most important scientific discovery was his identification of the neutron in 1932, for which he received the Royal Society’s 1932 Hughes Medal and the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics. The neutron not only explained the hitherto unresolved problem of just what particles composed the nuclei of atoms but also gave impetus to Enrico Fermi’s studies in nuclear reactions in uranium, which led to the 1938 discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. In 1935, Chadwick accepted the Lyon Jones Chair of Physics at the University of Liverpool, where he had the opportunity to create his own laboratory and build a cyclotron, a machine that accelerates nuclear particles to great energies and then directs the beam upon a target. After World War II began, Chadwick was influential in furthering the atom-bomb projects of both the British and U.S. governments. As head of the British mission in Washington, D.C., he formed a remarkable friendship with General Leslie Groves, an able but tactless man whom most scientists disliked. Their repoire helped minimize the inevitable policy differences any two nations would have. Chadwick left Liverpool in 1948 to become master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. A decade later he retired to a cottage in North Wales, and in 1969 he made his final move, back to Cambridge, where he died in 1974.
barded by the unknown radiation, that the radiation could not be gamma rays, as previously reported. Chadwick then showed that his experimental results were completely consistent with the assumption that each proton ejected from the paraffin had undergone a collision with an unknown particle of approximately equal mass (very much like what happens when billiard balls collide). When Chadwick was unable to deflect this particle in a magnetic field, he concluded that it had no electrical charge. Given that it did not correspond to any previously known particle, it must be the long-sought neutron.
Chadwick Discovers the Neutron would release considerable energy. When it was also discovered that the fission process produced additional neutrons, scientists realized that a chain reaction of great power was possible. Consequently, the discovery of the neutron ushered in the atomic age. —Wilfred Theisen Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Mass and Energy: The Neutron, the Structure of the Nucleus. Vol. 2 in Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Office of Information Services, 1972. Brief discussion on the history of atomic energy by a renowned science writer begins with the theory of relativity and concludes with the use of neutrons to bombard uranium. Nonmathematical and nontechnical presentation, with many fine illustrations and photographs. Brown, Andrew. The Neutron and the Bomb: A Biography of Sir James Chadwick. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. First full-length biography of Chadwick places his work within the larger context of his life and times. Features numerous extracts from his personal correspondence with other scientists. Includes index. Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. An excellent account for readers interested in the historical context in which the development of atomic theory took place. Describes how close Chadwick’s contemporaries in France and Germany came to discovering the neutron. Goldhaber, Maurice. “With Chadwick at the Cavendish.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 13 (December, 1982): 12-13. Lively brief account of Chadwick and some of his coworkers at the Cavendish Laboratory by a distinguished German physicist who worked with Chadwick. Of interest for its view of the personal side of scientific activity, as it shows how scientific
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ideas arise and how scientists are motivated and influenced by one another. Hughes, Donald J. The Neutron Story. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959. Excellent historical perspective provided by an author who was directly acquainted with some of the physicists associated with the development of nuclear physics. The physics is presented in nontechnical language without passing over significant details. Includes index. Oliphant, Mark. “The Beginning: Chadwick and the Neutron.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 15 (December, 1982): 14-18. Description of Chadwick’s work by a close associate of Chadwick at Cavendish Laboratory. Demonstrates how scientists work closely with others concerned with the same problems. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. An overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Chapter 3 discusses Chadwick’s work. Includes many illustrations and index. Smyth, Henry De Wolf. Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. 1945. Reprint. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990. The first published account of the Manhattan Project—the story of the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. As the bomb’s production depended on the possibility of a chain reaction, the role of the neutron was crucial to the success of the project. Contains numerous helpful appendixes and an index. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil
March 9, 1932
De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil When Eamon de Valera was elected president of the Irish Dáil, he became in effect the prime minister of the Irish Free State after the Fianna Fáil established a majority in the Irish parliament. Locale: Dublin, Ireland Category: Government and politics
Summary of Event The elections of February, 1932, saw Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fáil become the majority party in the Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Free State. On March 9, de Valera, long a major figure in Irish life and lore, was chosen as president of the executive council of the Dáil, equivalent to the position of prime minister, and came to command the state he had violently opposed at the time of its birth in 1922. Irish history is full of irony and paradox, much of it tragic, and de Valera’s career exhibits those qualities to the fullest. He had been at the center of the Irish consciousness since the failed Easter Monday Rising against Britain in 1916. A number of leaders were executed but de Valera was spared, possibly because of the perception that the earlier executions had created sympathy for the rebels, or perhaps because de Valera had been born in the United States. In 1919, war broke out between Britain and the Irish rebels, who were politically organized as Sinn Féin (ourselves alone) and militarily in the Irish Republican Army (IRA). De Valera, as head of Sinn Féin, and David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, agreed to a truce in the summer of 1921, but de Valera refused to participate in the subsequent negotiations, sending as head of the delegation his rival, Michael Collins. An “Irish republic” was never a possibility, as de Valera undoubtedly knew, and Collins and his associates accepted dominion status within the British Empire. Designated the “Irish Free State,” the dominion would still have as its constitutional head the British monarch, who lacked substantive power but was a symbol of the British connection, represented
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Key Figures Eamon de Valera (1882-1975), head of Fianna Fáil William T. Cosgrave (1880-1965), leader of Cumann na nGaedheal Sean Lemass (1899-1971), Fianna Fáil official James McNeill (1869-1938), governor-general of Ireland
in Ireland by a governor-general. Supported by Collins but opposed by de Valera, the treaty was narrowly adopted. The result was a new civil war in Ireland, green against green, the Free State forces against Sinn Féin and the IRA, and before it ended with a Free State victory, Collins and numerous others on both sides were killed. De Valera survived but was imprisoned by the Free State and ignored by the military leaders of the IRA. During the years that followed, the Free State government, led by William T. Cosgrave, got the fledgling state under way. The shadow of history and Britain lay heavily over the new nation, and the partition of Ireland into the Free State and Northern Ireland generated controversy. The greatest threat, however, came not from Britain or Northern Ireland but from the losers in the treaty debate: de Valera’s Sinn Féin and the IRA. One of the most brilliant politicians in Irish history— he was an avowed student of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il principe (1532; The Prince, 1640)—de Valera combined idealistic nationalism with ruthless self-interest. He was never as hard-line as many republicans, being willing to settle for what he called “external association” with Britain, but like everyone involved on both sides, he held symbols to be important. For de Valera, the required oath to the British crown remained a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. De Valera decided to disengage himself from the IRA’s violence and use the mechanisms of the hated Free State to gain power, but when many of his Sinn Féin colleagues refused to follow, de Valera resigned as president of the organization and founded Fianna Fáil (warriors of destiny) in May, 1926. In the 1927 elections, Fianna Fáil became the second largest party, with Sinn Féin reduced to insignificance. To take one’s seat in the Dáil, one had to sign one’s name as evidence of subscribing to the oath. In a gesture worthy of Machiavelli, de Valera signed his name but denied he was taking the oath and entered the Dáil in 1927. Cosgrave’s Cumann na nGaedheal (League of the Gaels), as the largest party in the multiparty Dáil, dominated the political arena throughout the 1920’s. Like its British and American counterparts, the government’s economic philosophy tended toward classic liberalism: The less government involvement, the better. The coming of the Great Depression, however, made such attitudes less tenable. In addition, Cosgrave attempted to enlist the Catholic Church’s support for his regime. The Catholic Church in Ireland was, if anything, more con-
De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil
Eamon de Valera. (Library of Congress)
servative than the Vatican in political and social matters. The Free State outlawed divorce and established a censorship board to search out any obscenities, including any reference to birth control. Suspicious of socialism and adamantly against the IRA’s violence, the bishops were a political prize worth having. De Valera also needed the Church, or at least its neutrality. Sincere in his own Catholicism, de Valera had the barrier of his Sinn Féin connections to overcome, but he and Fianna Fáil did so by complaining that Cosgrave had not taken a firm enough approach to entrenching the Catholic Church into Irish life. Also, as the established newspapers largely supported Cosgrave, in 1931 de Valera founded his own daily newspaper, the Irish Press, which became and remained de Valera’s political mouthpiece: He owned it, and he controlled it. Cosgrave called an election for February 16, 1932, several months earlier than constitutionally required—with the economy worsening, early elections seemed the lesser evil. Predictably, the government said little about economic policy, relying in its platform on being the party of religion, law and order, and accusing Fianna Fáil of be2548
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing crypto-communists with ties to the IRA. De Valera committed himself to abolishing the oath but stressed his economic programs that would increase welfare and reduce unemployment through public housing and other social programs. The Machiavellian de Valera’s chief adviser, Sean Lemass, reassured the IRA of Fianna Fáil’s friendship, Cosgrave’s party was accused of being Masons and British unionists, and de Valera used every opportunity to identify himself with the Church. The election results saw Fianna Fáil become the largest party in the Dáil with seventy-two seats, up fifteen from 1927. Cosgrave’s party won only fifty-seven seats. Although his party lacked an absolute majority—Labour and other minor parties held the balance of power—it was understood that de Valera would head the new government. During the campaign he had assured the voters that in the event of a Fianna Fáil victory there would be no untoward measures taken against the party’s political opponents. There were rumors that elements of the army would resort to a military coup in order to nullify Fianna Fáil’s victory, but Cosgrave, committed to democracy, had consistently reduced the influence of the military throughout his long tenure. On March 9, 1932, de Valera entered the Dáil, with his son Vivion at his side, armed with a revolver because of assassination rumors. There was no violence, however. Cosgrave did not even offer himself as a candidate, and thus de Valera, long a legend, as hero or villain, was elected president of the executive council by a vote of eighty-one to sixty-eight and came to preside over the state he had disowned at its birth. Significance In a gesture of conciliation, Governor-General James McNeill took the initiative and went to the Dáil to confirm de Valera’s election instead of requiring that de Valera travel to the Viceregal Lodge. McNeill was soon replaced, however, by a de Valera sycophant, much reducing the governor-general’s position as an imperial symbol. De Valera also suspended land annuity payments that were owed to the British government, beginning an economic war that lasted until the eve of World War II. Once in power, de Valera proved to be no friend to the IRA, cracking down on its activities as Cosgrave had before him. In 1937, a new constitution was promulgated that further weakened Free State ties with Britain, but it was not until 1947, ironically with de Valera briefly out of power, that the Irish Republic was established. The election of 1932 was a crucial event in Irish history. It brought de Valera into office as head of the gov-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ernment, and through the peaceful transition of power between two groups that had been shooting at each other only a few years earlier, it proved to many that Irish democracy could be a reality. —Eugene Larson
Foley, Conor. Legion of the Rearguard: The IRA and the Modern Irish State. London: Pluto Press, 1992. History of the IRA includes discussion of the 1932 election. Lee, J. J. Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Comprehensive account of economic, cultural, social, and political events in Ireland during the period examined. Includes maps, tables, selected bibliography, and index. Longford, Frank Pakenham, and Thomas P. O’Neill. Eamon de Valera. London: Hutchinson, 1970. Authorized biography published before de Valera’s death presents a sympathetic portrait. See also: Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded; Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill; 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created.
March 19, 1932
Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge When it was constructed, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was the second-longest steel-arch bridge in the world, and it remained both the third-longest steel-arch bridge and the world’s widest steel-arch bridge through the end of the twentieth century. The bridge greatly improved transit between Sydney and North Sydney, and it also led to an increase in tourism and commerce in Sydney. The bridge’s construction may have been the single most important factor in Sydney’s rise to international prominence. Locale: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Categories: Engineering; transportation; urban planning Key Figures John Job Crew Bradfield (1867-1943), chief engineer and codesigner of the Sydney Harbour Bridge Sir Ralph Freeman (1880-1950), consulting engineer for the British firm Dorman Long and codesigner of the Sydney Harbour Bridge John Thomas Lang (1876-1975), premier of New South Wales, leader of its Labor Party, and former treasurer of New South Wales’s labor government Francis de Groot (1888-1969), member of the New Guard, an anticommunist paramilitary group
Summary of Event On March 19, 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was officially opened by John Thomas Lang, the premier of New South Wales. Several thousand people attended the dedication ceremony. Many anchored their sailboats and yachts in the harbor, and thousands more watched and listened from the beaches as Lang, chief engineer John Job Crew Bradfield, and many others spoke over a public-address system. There was clearly a great deal of interest in the event, and attendance numbers may have been boosted by the serious advertising effort undertaken by New South Wales’s Urban Transit Authority. For example, the poster that Douglas Annand created for the event later became a valued piece of Australian art. Before the ribbon was cut, several important speeches were made, including one from Bradfield, who predicted that the bridge, which now linked Sydney with the poorer area of North Sydney, would drastically improve the economic circumstances of many Australians. Before the bridge’s construction, people and companies delivering and procuring goods had to drive cars and take trains for many miles around the bay or contract ferries across the bay in order to reach Sydney’s industry and ports. This was often too expensive for common citizens and too inefficient for vibrant commerce, and economic development in Sydney was stifled for decades. Bradfield 2549
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Further Reading Coogan, Tim Pat. Eamon de Valera: The Man Who Was Ireland. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Comprehensive biography places de Valera in the context of his times. Includes bibliography and index. _______. Ireland in the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. History of twentieth century Ireland by a respected historian and biographer examines events, attitudes, and cultures. Includes bibliography and index. Edwards, Owen Dudley. Eamon de Valera. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1987. Interpretive biography discusses de Valera’s character and motives.
Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge pointed out that the bridge would make it economically possible for more than a million people to reside in the North Sydney suburbs because they would have easy transportation to the city, an industrial powerhouse in New South Wales. The result of the bridge, Bradfield predicted, would be Sydney’s progression as a city that would rival New York in commerce, industry, and urban development. Those in attendance at the opening of the bridge observed a parade of sorts that included a cavalcade of cars carrying Lang, Bradfield, and city, regional, and provincial officials such as the British governor-general and the New South Wales minister of works. The cavalcade was accompanied by outriders, decorated soldiers in military dress who rode on horseback. In fact, one of the most humorous and confusing events of the bridge’s opening concerned one of these outriders. Captain Francis de Groot, a furniture maker, dressed as a soldier, rode a horse, and even donned a sword and several war medals so that he could ride with the cavalcade. De Groot was a member of the New Guard, a paramilitary organization
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 that rebelled against communism and the Labor Party, of which Lang was a leader. De Groot was not recognized as he rode with the procession to the bridge, where he waited through several speeches. Before the ribboncutting ceremony, de Groot positioned himself very near Lang, who motioned for the ribbon to be cut after he finished his speech. Instead, however, de Groot cut the ribbon with his sword and declared the bridge to be open to all the deserving citizens of New South Wales. The ribbon was then retied, and Lang formally opened the bridge. Lang was a controversial figure, although this was largely because he governed during a period of considerable tumult in the Australian economy, part of the Great Depression that engulfed the world. However, it was also due to disagreements over the bridge. Huge numbers of people were, in fact, wholeheartedly against the bridge’s construction, mainly because the massive amount of money that it required could have been used to bolster the nation’s railway systems. Also, many still believed that tunnels beneath the harbor would have been superior to a
The Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction in 1930. (Courtesy, National Library of Australia)
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Significance Although the Sydney Harbour Bridge created controversy, it allowed millions of Sydney residents to believe that things would get better during the devastating years of the Great Depression. It turned the world’s attention to
Sydney, and it also gave the city a moral victory over the Australian cities of Victoria and Melbourne, with which Sydney was in constant competition. The bridge cost an estimated ten million pounds (paid for by loans), which very roughly translates to more than a billion American dollars in more modern terms. This amount was not paid off until 1988. However, the bridge’s construction created fourteen hundred jobs on-site, and several thousand additional workers were needed to supply the site with materials. Given that Australia’s economic depression largely ended by 1933, it is possible that the bridge’s construction played an important role in the country’s economic improvement. Bradfield’s predictions largely came true. The beautiful Sydney Harbor gradually became a huge tourist and business destination. Hundreds of office buildings and hotels were built to support and develop an increase in commerce and tourism after World War II, and the demand for housing around the Sydney Harbor continued to grow. In retrospect, the bridge was constructed at an opportune time—during a depression and before World War II—to help Sydney become one of the most important commerce centers in the world. The bridge made it easier for people and goods to move, but it also grew as a source of general interest: By the end of the twentieth century, approximately seven hundred tourists were paying each day to climb to its 440-foot crown. —Troy Place Further Reading Johnson, Stephen, and Roberto T. Leon. The Encyclopedia of Bridges and Tunnels. New York: Facts On File, 2002. Provides historical background on tunnels and bridge types and a semitechnical analysis of these structures and how they function. Provides specifications of famous bridges and tunnels and ranks them by length. Moorhouse, Geoffrey. Sydney: The Story of a City. New York: Harcourt, 1999. Discusses the history of Sydney in terms of cultural struggle, politics, urban planning, urban sprawl, shipping, and commerce. Stephensen, P. R. The History and Description of Sydney Harbour. Adelaide, S.Aust.: Rigby, 1966. Provides an exceptionally thorough historical description of Sydney’s harbor from 1788 to 1965. See also: May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens; Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses.
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bridge, even though the construction of such tunnels was proved unfeasible by 1912. Finally, many were bitter about the way hundreds of people had been forced to leave their homes, which were to be demolished to make way for the bridge, without any compensation from the government. By the time the bridge opened, the citizens of Sydney had seen the installation of the bridge’s two enormous pylons, which anchored the force displaced by the dual metal arches (although the lower arch was more important as an anchor). Many onlookers were very impressed by the pattern of perfect symmetry offered by the web of steel girders that connected the arches to each other and the arches to the deck. Many were also awestruck by the fact that the crown of these arches hovered 440 feet above sea level and the deck rose 178 feet above sea level. In 1922, when Bradfield and fellow designer Sir Ralph Freeman finalized their design, their bridge promised to be the longest, widest, and most massive in the world. At the time, the only project remotely similar to theirs was New York’s Hell’s Gate Bridge, which had been designed by Gustav Lindenthal in 1916. The Hell’s Gate Bridge, however, was 977.5 feet long, whereas the Sydney Harbour Bridge spanned 1,650 feet. Although Bradfield had been to New York to study long-span bridges, he had not seen the Hell’s Gate in person. Some said that he used the Hell’s Gate as an example in his original design, but clearly he must have studied it from a secondary source. The immense Bayonne Bridge, which linked Newark, New Jersey, to Staten Island, New York, was finished in 1931, but there is no evidence that Bradfield and Freeman’s design referenced it. Although they are both steelarch bridges, and although the Bayonne is three feet longer, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is more massive, and many argued that the Sydney bridge was designed with aesthetic value in mind, whereas the Bayonne’s value is entirely functional. Bradfield and Freeman’s task was further complicated by the need to include a connection to Sydney’s railway system in the plan—an engineering feat in itself.
Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 23, 1932
Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations By curbing the use of injunctions in labor disputes, extending unions’ exemption from antitrust laws, and prohibiting yellow-dog contracts, the Norris-La Guardia Act made it easier for labor unions to organize and operate. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor Key Figures George W. Norris (1861-1944), U.S. senator from Nebraska, 1913-1943 Fiorello Henry La Guardia (1882-1947), U.S. congressman from New York, 1917-1933 Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), associate justice of the United States, 1916-1939 John L. Lewis (1880-1969), president of the United Mine Workers, 1920-1960 Summary of Event The Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932 was passed in order to free labor unions from antiunion actions involving three related elements: the Sherman Antitrust Act, the injunction, and the “yellow-dog contract.” As industry developed rapidly in the United States in the late nineteenth century, widespread efforts were undertaken to organize labor unions and to engage employers in collective bargaining. Many employers resisted these efforts. One instrument for such resistance was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which outlawed “every contract . . . or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce.” Union actions such as strikes and boycotts could be penalized through employer lawsuits for triple damages, as in the Danbury Hatters case (Loewe v. Lawlor) of 1908. Antiunion employers often were able to obtain court injunctions against union actions. An injunction is a court order primarily intended to forbid someone from taking actions that could cause severe injury to another. Courts had wide latitude in issuing injunctions. Violating an injunction could bring the offender under severe penalties for contempt of court, again with wide discretion for the court. Another antiunion instrument was the so-called yellow-dog contract, whereby a worker was required, as a condition of employment, to agree explicitly not to join a union and to renounce any current union membership. Efforts by legislatures to outlaw such contracts had been overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court. A company whose 2552
workers had signed such contracts could seek an injunction against any union organizer who might try to persuade workers to breach their contracts. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 ostensibly established the principle that the existence and operation of labor unions were not illegal under the Sherman Act. Further, the law forbade the federal courts to issue injunctions against a long list of union activities, vaguely worded but clearly referring to strikes and boycotts. Union jubilation that the Clayton Act would expand labor’s scope of organized activity was short-lived. In 1917, the Supreme Court held in the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company v. Mitchell case that issuing an injunction was an appropriate remedy against a union organizer trying to persuade workers to breach their yellow-dog contracts. Even more striking was the Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering case of 1921. The Duplex Company had attempted to obtain court action against a system of union boycotts intended to force it to become unionized. Federal district and appeals courts refused to uphold the Duplex claim, but the Supreme Court overruled them in 1921. The decision held that the union’s actions could be in violation of the Sherman Act and did not constitute a “labor dispute” protected by the specific terms of the Clayton Act. Furthermore, issuing an injunction was appropriate to prevent harm to the employer. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Louis D. Brandeis pointed out that the majority opinion appeared to deny the intent of the Clayton Act. A strong antiunion trend persisted in Supreme Court decisions during the 1920’s. In 1921, the Court upheld use of an injunction against picketing when there were elements of intimidation and when “outsiders” to the direct dispute were involved, in American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council. Also in 1921, the Court held unconstitutional an Arizona statute establishing the right to peaceful picketing in Truax v. Corrigan. The case of Bedford Cut Stone Company v. Journeymen Stone Cutters’ Association (1927) involved concerted refusal by union stonecutters to work on the products of a nonunion firm. The Court held that this action could be considered a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and that an injunction was an appropriate form of relief. In a vigorous dissent, Justice Brandeis pointed out the lack of parallel between the union activities and the business monopoly actions against which the antitrust laws were directed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The Norris-La Guardia Act removed obstacles to the formation of unions and to unions’ activities, particularly organizing, striking, and boycotting. The law did not commit the government directly to the promotion of unions, but such promotion was soon forthcoming. After the election of 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal swept aside the Republican administration and many Republican members of Congress, including La Guardia. One of the first acts of the New Deal was passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933. Its
section 7a guaranteed workers the right to form and join unions of their own choosing and obliged employers to bargain with those unions. Similar provisions were contained in the Railway Labor Act of 1934. When the NIRA was held unconstitutional in 1935, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935, which affirmed a “right” to unionize and created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to make this right effective. Whereas the Norris-La Guardia Act merely protected union activities from damage suits and injunctions, the Wagner Act protected unions from a long list of “unfair” labor practices. These included employer interference with union organizing activities or union operations, discrimination against union members, and refusal to bargain collectively “in good faith” with certified unions. The NLRB was authorized to conduct elections to determine if a group of workers should be represented by a union. As a consequence of this legislation, much of the focus in labor relations shifted away from the private lawsuits with which the Norris-La Guardia Act was concerned. Union organizers undertook vigorous campaigns for new members, sparked by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) under the leadership of John L. Lewis. Union membership, which had fallen below three million in 1933, passed ten million in 1941. Organizing efforts continued to meet with strong opposition, and employers still tried to enlist the courts to assist them, without much success. In 1938, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Norris-La Guardia Act in the case of Lauf v. E. G. Shinner and Company. The Court affirmed the legality of union picketing activities directed against a nonunion employer. In the case of Apex Hosiery Company v. Leader, the Supreme Court in 1940 refused to consider a union sit-down strike to be a violation of the antitrust laws. The case arose from a violent incident in 1937 when union members broke into the company’s plant and physically took possession of it. The Court noted that the union’s actions were clearly unlawful but argued that the appropriate remedies lay in channels other than the antitrust laws. In the case of United States v. Hutcheson (1941), the Supreme Court again refused to permit antitrust prosecution to be brought against union officials. The carpenters’ union that was the target of the lawsuit was trying to use a boycott to induce Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company to reverse a decision that certain work should be performed by machinists. It was a no-win situation for the company, because it could be similarly attacked by the machinists if it reversed its decision. The Supreme Court simply af2553
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The prosperous condition of the U.S. economy in the 1920’s did not produce much union militancy; in fact, union membership showed a declining trend. After 1929, however, the economy headed into severe depression. As workers faced wage reductions, layoffs, or reduced hours, many perceived an increased need for the protection of union members and collective bargaining. Workers brought increasing political pressure to overrule the antiunion legal doctrines. In the U.S. Congress, their cause was taken up by Senator George W. Norris, a Republican progressive from Nebraska. With the aid of a panel of distinguished labor law experts, including Felix Frankfurter of Harvard Law School, Norris drafted a bill to achieve the intent of the Clayton Act. Congressman Fiorello Henry La Guardia of New York, also a progressive, introduced the bill into the House of Representatives. As the worsening depression created a sense of panic among many legislators who became eager to show concern for workers, the Norris-La Guardia Act passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming margins and became law on March 23, 1932. Sections 3 and 4 of the law stated that contracts whereby workers agreed not to join a union were not to be enforced and could not be the basis for injunctions. Section 4 directed federal courts not to issue injunctions against concerted refusals to work (that is, strikes), joining or remaining in a union, giving financial or other aid to a union or strike, publicizing a labor dispute by picketing or other methods, or assembling peaceably to organize or promote a labor dispute. Further, such actions were not to be held to constitute violations of the antitrust laws. Section 13 gave a broad definition of a labor dispute, allowing disputes to involve persons other than an employer and his or her workers, thus broadening the range of union activities protected by the law. Section 6 provided that no union officer or member could be held liable for financial damages for the separate and independent actions of other union members or officers.
Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations
Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations firmed that the union actions should not be viewed as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The great spread of unionization in the late 1930’s helps explain why hourly wage rates in manufacturing increased about 30 percent between 1935 and 1941 at a time when more than 10 percent of workers remained unemployed. Some economists noted that while union workers were benefiting, their gains were raising business costs and thus slowing the rise of job openings for the unemployed. Union membership continued to increase during World War II, but developments led many observers to believe that unions held too much power. Strikes by coal miners led by Lewis during the war were particularly damaging to the image of unions. In November, 1946, Lewis provoked a confrontation with the government, which was then nominally operating the mines under wartime legislation. A federal court issued an injunction against a work stoppage by the union and then imposed heavy fines on Lewis and the union when they did not comply. In March, 1947, the Supreme Court upheld the injunction, ruling that the Norris-La Guardia Act did not apply when the government was in the role of employer. In 1945, the Supreme Court established that some labor union actions could be considered to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, if the union acted in collusion with employers in a manner that promoted monopoly conditions in markets for business products. The belief that unions had gained too much power ultimately led to adoption of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. That act prohibited a long list of “unfair” practices by unions. By that time, many of the issues confronted by the Norris-La Guardia Act had faded from significance. Under the protection of the Wagner Act, unions had been organized and certified in most of the areas in which workers wanted them. Yellow-dog contracts had disappeared, and harassment of union organizers had diminished. A major consequence of the Norris-La Guardia Act was to shift the bulk of litigation involving labor union activities to state courts. Picketing and related activities associated with strikes and other labor disputes often primarily involved state laws, local ordinances, and local police. Private business firms largely lost the opportunity to bring civil lawsuits to halt or penalize nonviolent strikes and other labor union activities. —Paul B. Trescott Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: 2554
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. 1960. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1983. First volume of twovolume history; see below. _______. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. These two volumes provide an excellent detailed narrative of a colorful and dramatic period in labor history. Breen, W. J. Labor Market Politics and the Great War: The Department of Labor, the States, and the First U.S. Employment Service, 1907-1933. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997. History of the federal government’s involvement in labor issues during the critical period from before World War I through the early years of the Great Depression. Includes bibliography and index. Daugherty, Carroll R. Labor Problems in American Industry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941. Deals at length with all aspects of labor relations, including the Norris-La Guardia Act and many court cases subsequent to it. Gregory, Charles O., and Harold A. Katz. Labor and the Law. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. Detailed, readable account of U.S. legislation and court actions relating to unions. Chapter 7 focuses on the Norris-La Guardia Act and related litigation. Jacoby, Daniel. Laboring for Freedom: A New Look at the History of Labor in America. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. Examines opposed ideas concerning freedom as manifested in labor history in the United States. Includes bibliography and index. Lieberman, Elias. Unions Before the Bar. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950. Devotes a chapter apiece to twenty-six major court cases involving unions. Excellent background on the events. Summarizes litigation at all court levels. Limpus, Lowell M., and Burr Leyson. This Man La Guardia. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938. Provides a good review of La Guardia’s colorful career, including his tenure as mayor of New York City. Mason, Alpheus Thomas. Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life. New York: Viking Press, 1946. Detailed account of the life of the powerful liberal thinker and activist puts his Supreme Court role in a broad context. Includes discussion of his dissents in labor cases. Norris, George W. Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of George W. Norris. 1945. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. Demonstrates the impressive array of liberal causes Norris supported. Chapter titled “Yellow Dog Contract” gives a narrative of the evolution of the Norris-La Guardia Act.
Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom See also: Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes; July 5, 1935: Wagner Act.
April, 1932
Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom
Locale: Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures John Douglas Cockcroft (1897-1967), English physicist and electrical engineer Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903-1995), Irish physicist Marcus Laurence Oliphant (1901-2000), Australian nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), English nuclear physicist T. E. Allibone (1903-2003), English electrical engineer Summary of Event Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton opened a new era in physics in 1932 when they successfully split the lithium nucleus using 500-kilovolt protons accelerated in a voltage multiplier. Modern nuclear and particle physics depends on subatomic particle accelerators for sources of probes to investigate the behavior of nuclei of atoms, their constituent particles, and the forces that influence them. Cockcroft and Walton’s achievement made the heart of the atom accessible for nuclear physicists. Following Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the atomic nucleus in 1910, his transformation of nitrogen into radioactive oxygen using natural radioactive substances in 1917, and his assumption of the directorship of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University in 1918, the importance of the atomic nucleus as a field of physical inquiry was well established. However, the nature of the nucleus could not be explored adequately with the projectiles placed at scientists’ disposal by nature: alpha particles, electrons, and gamma rays. An artificial
means of producing high-energy particles was required to disintegrate the atomic nucleus; this was first supplied by Cockcroft and Walton. Cockcroft was educated in physics at the University of Manchester and Cambridge University, and in electrical engineering at the Manchester College of Technology. At Metropolitan Vickers Company, one of the engineers, T. E. Allibone, had made the first attempts to produce nuclear disintegration with accelerated electrons produced by a modified tesla coil in 1927, thus inspiring Rutherford’s call “for a copious supply of atoms and electrons which have an individual energy far transcending that of the alpha- and beta-particles from radioactive bodies.” Walton had earned his doctorate in physics at Cambridge University by investigating a variety of means of accelerating subatomic particles: electrons in a circular magnetic field similar to the one later successfully used by Ernest Orlando Lawrence in his cyclotron and by Donald Kerst in his betatron, and positive ions of the heavier elements in a linear accelerator. Late in 1928, Cockcroft became aware of a theory propounded by Soviet theoretical physicist George Gamow. Using the wave mechanics developed by Erwin Schrödinger, Gamow had proposed that alpha particles escaped their parent atoms occasionally, not by attaining sufficient energy to overcome the potential barrier that surrounded the nuclei but by “tunneling” through it. The reverse process, Gamow argued, could account for a particle penetrating the nucleus with smaller energies than those of its potential barrier. Cockcroft realized that several-million-volt subatomic particles were not required to penetrate the nucleus. Given enough subatomic particles, however, about six in one thousand particles with energies of about 300,000 volts should penetrate a boron nucleus. Cockcroft informed Rutherford of this prospect and immediately began to build an accelerator to test this hypothesis. Rutherford assigned Walton to assist Cockcroft 2555
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John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton bombarded a lithium atom with protons, producing the first artificial nuclear disintegration with accelerated particles.
Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom in building a source of protons (positive hydrogen ions) and a vacuum tube to withstand several hundred kilovolts to accelerate them. Rutherford then arranged for the team to receive a grant to purchase a transformer and rectifiers to produce steady direct-current voltage for the experiments; these were provided by the Metropolitan Vickers Company. The 350-kilovolt transformer was custom-built to fit the room in which it was housed by B. L. Goodlet and was installed in December, 1928. The rectifiers were designed by Allibone to produce steady direct currents to accelerate ions from the transformer’s alternating current. When the transformer failed in August, Cockcroft determined a new means of producing higher voltages than the 280 kilovolts they had achieved. Cockcroft reinvented the “voltage multiplying” circuit in which condensers, which store electric charges like a battery, were linked alternately in parallel with rectifying diodes. The voltage was divided from the transformer, which had been applied to the first condenser in the series between it and the others, then separating the condensers as the first was charged up again, and reconnecting them so that it was possible to build up a charge equivalent to three times that of the source. With the 200kilovolt transformer, four rectifiers, and four condensers, 800 kilovolts could be built up in this way. Cockcroft and Walton also built an accelerating tube strong enough to bear this high voltage, basing their design on that of a high-voltage X-ray tube invented by W. D. Coolidge of General Electric in the United States. The particles to be accelerated were generated in a small glass chamber at its top, to which 60 kilovolts were applied. Then they entered two evacuated glass tubes placed end to end in which the electrodes, supported by a steel plate to withstand the stresses induced by the high voltages applied to them, supplied the energy to accelerate the tubes to 710 kilovolts. At this point, Cockcroft and Walton’s experiments were interrupted by the demands of the laboratory in which they had built their apparatus. They moved the apparatus to a larger laboratory in May of 1931 and resumed their experiments. By early 1932, 710-kilovolt protons had been produced by the tube. The two researchers, however, interrupted these studies to look for gamma rays that they expected to be produced when alpha particles struck beryllium, as Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot had observed in Paris. Although it had yet to be revealed by their colleague James Chadwick, these “gamma rays” were in fact neutrons, which Rutherford had predicted ten years earlier should exist in the nucleus. 2556
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Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton. (The Nobel Foundation)
After a fruitless search, Cockcroft and Walton returned to accelerating protons and measured their magnetic deflection in order to determine their energies. At this point, Rutherford intervened and reminded them of the fundamental technique for detecting alpha particles that had been developed by the Cavendish Laboratory: the use of a fluorescent screen, a paper or a card coated with zinc sulfide. He was convinced that when protons bombarded lithium, alpha particles must be produced. Rutherford believed they should give up their search for gamma rays to hunt them. On April 14, 1932, they inserted a lithium target in the tube, and Walton climbed into a darkened cabin built at its base to look for fluorescence. He saw them immediately and summoned Rutherford, who confirmed that the fluorescence was produced by alpha particles. This was the first human-made artificial disintegration of any atom: The proton had united with lithium and broken it up into two atoms of helium, releasing 17 million electronvolts of energy. This energy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 conformed to the difference between the masses of the lithium and hydrogen before the disintegration and the helium afterward. Mass had been converted to energy according to the formula E = mc2, exactly as predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
tion of interests that was to give rise to modern science. The involvement of industrial firms such as Metropolitan Vickers and General Electric with the Cavendish Laboratory in the investigation of nuclear physics presaged the industrial scale of the particle accelerators that were to be developed in the twentieth century. Allibone and Cockcroft needed engineering skills along with training in physics to accomplish the goal of artificially accelerating protons to energies sufficient to split the atom. The state of the art in high-voltage engineering had to be advanced for them to do this; therefore, industry benefited from the quest to understand the nucleus just as did physics. These early collaborations engendered gigantic efforts such as the construction of the Superconducting Super Collider, on which the U.S. government spent $2 billion before the partially completed project was ultimately canceled in 1993. —Robert W. Seidel Further Reading Cathcart, Brian. The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Relates the story of Cockcroft and Walton’s work in an exciting way, focusing on the Cambridge physicists’ struggle to split the atom ahead of competing scientists in the United States and Germany. Cockburn, Stewart, and David Ellyard. Oliphant. Adelaide, S.Aust.: Axiom Books, 1981. Biography of Rutherford’s associate chronicles aspects of nuclear physics at Cambridge during Oliphant’s tenure there from 1927 to 1936 and his work with Rutherford in following up the Cockcroft and Walton experiment. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Crowther, J. G. The Cavendish Laboratory, 1874-1974. New York: Science History Publications, 1974. Anecdotal history of the Cavendish Laboratory is a wellillustrated introduction to its work. Includes references and index. Hartcup, Guy, and T. E. Allibone. Cockcroft and the Atom. Bristol, England: Adam Hilger, 1984. Biography of Cockcroft, written in part by Allibone, who was a participant in the work, is an authoritative source of information on Cockcroft’s life and work. Includes illustrations, appendixes, bibliography, and index. Hendry, John, ed. Cambridge Physics in the Thirties. Bristol, England: Adam Hilger, 1984. Collection of retrospective accounts interspersed with historical 2557
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Significance The disintegration of the lithium atom by Cockcroft and Walton unleashed the power of particle accelerators on the nucleus and led to the rapid development of the field of nuclear physics in the succeeding decades. Rutherford and Marcus Laurence Oliphant, who came to Cavendish in 1927 from Australia, developed a low-energy accelerator of protons to follow up the experiments of Cockcroft and Walton with 200-kilovolt protons in order to examine the thresholds of proton-induced nuclear reactions. They succeeded in producing the disintegration of lithium with only 100-kilovolt protons by February, 1933, and subsequently found that 20-kilovolt protons would suffice; boron required only 60-kilovolt protons. Other accelerator developers, such as Lawrence at the University of California’s Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, Robert J. Van de Graaff at Princeton University, and Charles C. Lauritsen at the Kellogg High-Voltage Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, quickly entered the field with more powerful particle accelerators. They had not paused to look for disintegration of atoms at the energies Cockcroft and Walton used because they were not as familiar with nuclear theory. Once they had developed the appropriate detectors, they were able to surpass the Cambridge experimenters, whose machine was not capable of much higher energies. Indeed, Cockcroft built a cyclotron at the Cavendish in 1937, after trying and failing to develop a larger machine of their design in collaboration with a physicist in the Netherlands. Lawrence’s cyclotron easily outpaced directcurrent accelerators in energy, although very significant scientific work was done with the accelerators developed at Cambridge in the mid-1930’s. The voltage multiplier remained, however, a very successful source of potentials around 1 million volts and has been used extensively as the first stage of many larger accelerators. Cockcroft and Walton received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for their pioneering work with this accelerator. By demonstrating that it was possible to disintegrate nuclei with artificially accelerated particles, they had opened up the new field of accelerator physics and demonstrated conclusively the conversion of mass to energy in nuclear processes. Their achievement also reflected the new constella-
Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom
Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers commentary places the achievements of the 1930’s in a broad context and illuminates many of the more obscure technical developments that ensured the Cambridge physicists’ leadership in the field. Includes illustrations, selected bibliography, and name index. Oliphant, Mark. Rutherford: Recollections of Cambridge Days. New York: Elsevier, 1972. Anecdotal account intended for a wide audience includes a chapter on the work of Cockcroft and Walton by a participant who knew them. Illustrated with contemporary photographs. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. An overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Chapter 3 discusses Cockcroft and Walton’s work. Includes many illustrations and index. Rutherford, Lord Ernest. The Newer Alchemy. 1937. Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003. A brief dis-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cussion of nuclear physics by its founder. Written for a general audience. Wilson, David. Rutherford: Simple Genius. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. Massive biography of the founder of nuclear physics summarizes what has been said in many other volumes on the “force of nature” who led the Cavendish Laboratory at the time of Cockcroft and Walton’s work. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. See also: Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling; Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron; Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom.
April 23, 1932
Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers Joseph Stalin’s mandate that all Soviet music conform to the dictates of Socialist Realism was complicated by the inherent abstraction of music. This resulted in a situation in which composers were not merely expected to conform to socialist ideology—as were all Soviet artists of the period—but were also subject to the unpredictable dictates of subjective taste on the part of Communist Party leaders, as even the presence or absence of realist representation in a piece of music is an almost entirely subjective matter. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Music; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Karl Radek (1885-1939), Soviet Communist Party official Andrei Zhdanov (1896-1948), Soviet Communist Party official Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Soviet composer 2558
Summary of Event Socialist Realism was an outgrowth of basic MarxistLeninist philosophy. “Realism,” in the context of socialism, could better be defined as “idealism,” given that the goal of socialism is the elusive concept of a perfect, harmonious life for all. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 established Marxist-Leninist socialism in what then became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The result was the creation of a totalitarian society that provided a fertile ground for the forced application of socialist goals to all areas of life, including arts and culture. In 1925, Soviet leadership was seized by Joseph Stalin, who wanted every aspect of Soviet life under his direct control; his massive ego led to the creation of the “Stalin cult” by 1929. This, in turn, allowed Stalin to begin enforcing his brand of socialism throughout the Soviet Union. His First Five-Year Plan (1928-1933) called for all Soviet artists, writers, and musicians, in their creative works, to support his socialist goals by glorifying the real and imaginary accomplishments of the workers and peasants. From 1929 to 1932, the idea of Socialist Realism emerged. The term is attributed to Stalin himself. In an early definition of the idea, Karl Radek emphasized that reality, in socialist terminology, is not only what is but
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Party, they were able to maintain more individuality than other artists. Music’s inherent abstraction also meant that compositions that included vocal or narrative texts, such as opera or ballet, were best suited to Socialist Realism. Stalin enjoyed these forms because they could combine the nation’s rich folk heritage with plots expressing socialistic goals. Even nonvocal music, however, was expected to project those same goals in some manner. Long before the official proclamation of Socialist Realism, organs were in operation in the Soviet Union to support the ideological goals of the movement. On January 1, 1929, the journal Proletarskii muzykant (proletarian musician ) began publication in Moscow. In the preface of the first issue, the editors declared that they would be opposing the decadent influence of Western bourgeois music, supporting the ideologically acceptable contributions of the past, and promoting new styles of proletarian music. The editors, however, had not yet been told what those new styles were. In March, 1931, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians held its first convention in Moscow. This group, and similar groups in other cultural arts, was controlled by its own leaders, who were then to obey the dictates of the Central Committee. This arrangement, however, did not give the Central Committee members the immediate control they desired. On April 23, 1932, the Central Committee dissolved by decree the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians and the other cultural organizations, an event that marked the official beginning of Socialist Realism. From that date until Stalin’s death, cultural leadership was in the largely uncultured hands of the members of the Central Committee. In September, 1934, the Soviet government decreed the amount of money that composers would get for their work; it thus became financially advantageous for composers to create works that supported Socialist Realism. The obvious result was that some musicians, especially the younger ones who were trained after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, began to channel their creativity in order to gain favor with Stalin and other government leaders. Sergei Prokofiev, an older composer, dared to remark that Socialist Realism in music really meant the writing of tunes that Stalin could whistle. Later, however, even Prokofiev helped to create those tunes. Significance The first impact of Socialist Realism on music was its application to composers of worldwide fame. Because Stalin enjoyed the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven was declared in conformity to Socialist Realism. In 2559
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also what will be. All Soviet citizens involved in the creative arts were thus expected not only to portray the future but also to help create it. They were to become, again in Stalin’s words, “engineers of the human mind.” The result of that engineering was that the Soviet Union entered a cultural wilderness from which the country did not emerge until after Stalin’s death in 1953. As Stalin was an avid reader, it was natural that the first application of the doctrine of Socialist Realism should have been in the field of literature. Andrei Zhdanov, a top Stalinist official, led the efforts to silence Soviet writers who would not confess their past “errors” of espousing Western views and who would not conform to Socialist Realism. Zhdanov’s efforts were soon felt in other cultural areas, including music. Soviet writers, musicians, and others were soon being compelled to produce works envisioning a glorious socialist future. In the field of music, the major enemy of Socialist Realism was Western formalism. However, in music the distinction between realism (or any form of representation) and formalism (or any form of abstraction) is tenuous at best, lending itself to extremely subjective interpretations of given pieces as either realist or formalist. Unsurprisingly, then, “formalism” soon came to mean anything that Stalin and his top officials did not like or did not understand—and as Stalin rarely attended concerts and apparently knew little about music, the latter category was broad. Certain musical concepts, either correctly or incorrectly identified as Western, were soon officially banned. One of these concepts was atonality, the perceived absence of a tonal center in musical compositions. The rich heritage of Russian music soon began to suffer. Earlier Russian composers such as Mikhail Glinka, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky, and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky had used the age-old themes of Russian nationalist folk music. Soviet composers laboring under Socialist Realism were expected not to renounce the folk traditions but to project them into the socialistic future. Of the earlier musicians, Mussorgsky was the most useful to the architects of Socialist Realism because of his belief that music had to be “true” as well as beautiful. Tchaikovsky was also useful as a model, because his music was international in its scope and thus conformed more readily to the vision of a socialistic world order. Because music is more abstract than the other arts, it was less easily brought under government control. As long as Soviet composers paid lip service to the dogmas established by the Central Committee of the Communist
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Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers fact, some Soviet leaders classified Beethoven as the first Socialist Realist composer. The work of Johann Sebastian Bach, on the other hand, was respectfully rejected by Stalin; Stalin could not perceive the meaning of Bach’s compositions. It is obvious that Igor Stravinsky, a Russian composer in exile, was a major factor in the rejection of Bach. Stravinsky sought to return to many of Bach’s principles; Stalin interpreted this as an expression of preference for the past rather than for the bright future of socialism. In 1934, when Stalin’s bloody purges of the Soviet Union began, the avalanche of Socialist Realism buried the once-rich Russian culture. Replacing that richness was the ideologically uniform culture of the Communist Party. This new culture was molded around the personal-
Sergei Prokofiev. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ity of Joseph Stalin. The terror of the purges had a savage, sadistic twist when it was applied to cultural leaders. Writers and musicians were often forced to be the instruments in declaring their own condemnations. One by one, Soviet composers and other cultural greats either capitulated to the dictates of Socialist Realism or disappeared into the oblivion shared by many others who were a perceived threat to Stalin’s tyranny. Sergei Prokofiev provides a classic example of the impact of the constant and ever-increasing pressure of the state’s mandate to conform to the values of Socialist Realism. After living and working in Paris during the 1920’s, Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1934. He first tried to ignore the concept of Socialist Realism, but this soon proved to be impossible. Prokofiev’s music then became more practical and even propagandistic. For the remainder of his life, Prokofiev fell in and out of favor with the leaders of Socialist Realism. The reasons for the periodic attacks on Prokofiev remained obscure to Western observers, given that most of his music appeared to conform to the dictates of Socialist Realism. The government’s reception of Dmitri Shostakovich provides the best example of the official cultural policy toward the younger Soviet composers who were trained after 1917. The starting point for the music of Shostakovich was Beethoven—which put Shostakovich in good favor with the government of Stalin. Shostakovich, however, soon exhibited a spirit of individuality that provoked official criticism. His famous opera Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda (1930-1932; Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District) is an intense satire that fell far short of Socialist Realism. Trouble for Shostakovich began when Stalin attended a performance of this opera. After being sharply attacked, Shostakovich tried, without immediate success, to redeem himself. Finally, his Fifth Symphony in 1937 sufficiently conformed to accepted standards, and Shostakovich settled down to produce a series of patriotic works with heroic themes. His later Leningrad Symphony (1941) expressed both the fury of the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the successful Soviet defense of the city and country. Two other composers of the post-1917 generation, Aram Khachaturian and Dmitry Kabalevsky, were sufficiently able to uphold the ideals of Socialist Realism so as to avoid serious criticism. To some Western critics, however, the music of these men had a superficial character that might have been absent in a free environment. Fortunately for Soviet composers, the bloody purges of the late 1930’s concentrated on perceived political and literary threats to Stalin. The purges were soon followed
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The death of Stalin in March, 1953, brought sighs of relief in many areas of Soviet life. One of these areas was culture. The full weight of Socialist Realism died with Stalin; Stalin’s successors found milder means of cultural control. As the reality of this began to spread, musicians and others began to produce more independent works. — Glenn L. Swygart Further Reading Bek, Mikuláš, Geoffrey Chew, and Petr Macek, eds. Socialist Realism and Music. Brno, Czech Republic: Institute of Musicology, Masaryk University, 2004. Proceedings of a conference on Socialist Realism in music held in Brno in 2001. Includes relevant sheet music from compositions discussed in the papers presented. Dobrenko, Evgeny. Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2005. Study of Soviet aethetics, specific governmental groups and institutions, and their negotiations by individual artists. Includes a chapter on the Prolekult movement’s effects on Soviet music and composition. Bibliographic references and index. Fitzsimmons, Thomas, Peter Malof, and John C. Fiske. U.S.S.R.: Its People, Its Society, Its Culture. New Haven, Conn.: HRAF Press, 1960. Provides an excellent overview of Soviet life and culture. Published just seven years after Stalin’s death, this book is valuable for readers who are not familiar with Stalin and the oppression of his regime. Heller, Mikhail, and Aleksandr Nekrich. Utopia in Power. New York: Summit Books, 1985. Written originally in Russian by authors who were raised and educated in the Soviet Union, this book reveals the tragic effects of Marxist-Leninist socialism on Russia. Particularly valuable in showing the reader the progress of Socialist Realism after World War II. Kulski, W. W. “The Party and the West.” In The Soviet Regime: Communism in Practice. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1954. This chapter by Kulski presents a detailed picture of Stalin’s attempt to rid the Soviet Union of all Western influences, including music styles. The author defines what the Central Committee of the Communist Party meant in classifying Western music as “pathological.” Readers familiar with composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich will better understand the pressure under which they labored. 2561
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by World War II (called the “Great Patriotic War” in the Soviet Union), when all energies were directed toward survival. The end of World War II in 1945, and the simultaneous advent of the Cold War with the West, initiated a revival of Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. A pathetic scene was created in 1946 when Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Khachaturian were forced to repent publicly for some of their earlier works that did not uphold the tenets of Socialist Realism. Soviet citizens were accustomed to seeing their political leaders publicly confess to imaginary crimes, but seeing their composers and other cultural leaders grovel at the feet of Stalin was a shock. For most of the remainder of his life, Prokofiev conformed, at least outwardly, to Socialist Realism, although not without criticism. Vocal texts were often added to his compositions to help achieve the desired goals. One of his last works, On Guard for Peace (1950), was widely hailed by Soviet leaders. From 1946 to 1948, the revival of Socialist Realism was led by its earlier spokesman, Andrei Zhdanov. By then a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Zhdanov demanded the total abolishment of Western cultural influences. Because independence was the greatest threat to Socialist Realism, the most independent-minded composer, Shostakovich, was specifically attacked. Shostakovich then performed the usual repentance and produced several works in honor of Stalin. Zhdanov’s death in 1948 did not mean the end of his campaign. Although his replacement, Mikhail Suslov, preferred to work behind the scenes, the pressure to conform with Socialist Realism did not weaken. Once again, Prokofiev was attacked and forced to recant in a letter to the Central Committee. The total impact of Socialist Realism on Russian culture becomes clear when it is realized that professional composers were compelled to produce their work according to the dictates of professional politicians who knew little or nothing about music. The very livelihood of the composers, who were under contract to the State Committee on Arts, depended on their conformity to those dictates. This did not mean that the composers were mere stooges of the Communist Party. The subtle nature of music, combined with the musical ignorance of most party leaders, meant that the good composers could still manifest their independence. One cannot help but wonder, however, what kinds of works Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and others would have produced if they had not been compelled to labor under the weight of Socialist Realism.
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Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature Randall, Francis B. “The Culture.” In Stalin’s Russia. New York: Free Press, 1965. Randall tries to analyze Stalin’s personality in order better to understand Socialist Realism. He emphasizes the use of censorship and terror to discourage dissent by cultural leaders. Compares what Stalin called the “bourgeois realism” of the nineteenth century with the Socialist Realism of the twentieth century. Salzman, Eric. “National Styles.” In Twentieth Century Music: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974. Salzman presents an excellent survey of twentieth century music styles. Himself a composer, the author in this chapter discusses the influence of Socialist Realism on Soviet composers and also describes the changes it produced in the Soviet Union’s nationalist music styles. Treadgold, Donald W. “Stalin’s Cultural Policy, 1927-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1945.” In Twentieth Century Russia. 9th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000. In this chapter, the author, a respected scholar of Soviet studies, evaluates Socialist Realism in the light of Stalin’s full totalitarian rule. Reveals the influence of the Communist Party and officials such as Zhdanov in determining what was or was not acceptable in music and other cultural areas. See also: Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art; Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed; Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
April 23, 1932-August, 1934
Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature The Communist state regimented the Soviet literary world, reversing the encouragement of artistic innovation shown in the years immediately following the 1917 revolution. Locale: Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Literature; civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Andrei Zhdanov (1896-1948), secretary of the Bolskevik Central Committee Maxim Gorky (Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov; 18681936), first president of the Soviet Writers’ Union Leopold Averbakh (1903-1939), Soviet literary critic and leader of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin (1888-1938), political rival of Stalin Summary of Event The year 1932 was a milestone in Russian literary history. Persecution of literary figures in the Soviet Union had begun before 1932, and it would worsen later, as part 2562
of an even more rigorous regimentation of the arts in general. It was in 1932, however, that the Soviet government officially eschewed pluralism and tolerance of differing literary ideologies. Instead, it was declared that Socialist Realism was to be the only school of Soviet literature; all other literary movements were prohibited. Under Communism, the age of broadest freedom for Soviet writers before the late 1980’s was the New Economic Policy era (1921-1928). Led by Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the Bolsheviks, victors in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war, did not at first try to enforce literary conformity. Indeed, they welcomed a plurality of viewpoints, in keeping with Karl Marx’s ideal of the free expression of species-being. A spirit of experimentation flourished in poetry, fiction, drama, music, and cinema. Vladimir Mayakovsky, a fiery young poet and playwright who would commit suicide in 1930, ardently defended both the new regime and avant-garde literature. Exile was not yet permanent; the literary portrayer of late czarist Russia’s urban poor, the novelist and playwright Maxim Gorky, left the Soviet Union in 1921 but was later allowed to return home. Writers were even permitted to maintain contacts with Western European publishing houses. In contrast with later periods, varied schools of literary thought were permitted. Two principal types of Soviet writers coexisted in the 1920’s: the proletarians, who glorified the new regime in
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cialist Realism as an official creed was a bad omen, yet some writers, tired of the zealotry of RAPP, mistakenly thought that a new era of tolerance was at hand. After Leningrad party boss Sergey Mironovich Kirov was assassinated in December, 1934, Stalin’s purges began. In 1938, Bukharin was tried and executed. Vladimir Stavsky, who headed the Writers’ Union after Gorky’s death in 1936, ferreted out suspected anti-Stalinists among the literati. Artist victims of the purges included Ivan Katayev, who had once written a short story expressing doubts about agricultural collectivization, Pilnyak, Babel, the poet Osip Mandelstam, and the innovative theatrical director Vsevolod Yemilyevich Meyerhold. Ironically, Averbakh himself was purged as an alleged Trotskyite; fellow RAPP member Fadeev survived to become a key Soviet Writers’ Union bureaucrat. The purge was the final stage in the regimentation of literature. Socialist Realism may be viewed as mixing formal conservatism with ideological radicalism in its content, although many literary critics believe that ideology is inseparable from form, greatly complicating that formulation. Initially applied to fiction, it was later imposed on the theater, motion pictures, the visual arts, and music. The novel was seen as the highest expression of literature; its protagonist, according to the doctrine, should be a positive hero who fights for the goals of socialism and attains these goals despite stiff social or natural obstacles. A novel should pay heed to the Communist Party’s role in guiding people toward a new society; its ending must be happy for the community as a whole, if not for individuals. Writers were urged to use a simple style, avoiding any experimentation that might make their works difficult for ordinary people to comprehend, yet they were also commanded to go beyond mere realism and to educate people toward socialism. Ironically, such “realist” literature often ended up sugarcoating some of the harsher realities of life in the Soviet state. Significance Any discussion of the impact of the imposition of Socialist Realism on Soviet writers must treat both the effect on individual writers and the effect on those writers taken as a group. Even in the Stalinist era, not all writers who strayed from Socialist Realism were purged. Some, unwilling to produce literature of the approved type, simply stopped writing original work altogether. Olesha, who published nothing from 1934 until the 1950’s, was one of these; so was Pasternak, who turned from poetry writing to translation. If permitted to remain writers, those literati who 2563
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works of fiction about the Russian Civil War (19181921) and the tasks of reconstruction, and the fellow travelers, who, although they did not make propaganda for the new regime, were non-Communist rather than anti-Communist. Proletarian novelists included Fedor Vasil’evich Gladkov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Fadeev, and Mikhail Sholokhov. The satirist Yevgeny Zamyatin, the short-story writers Boris Pilnyak and Isaac Babel, and the novelists Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin, Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Yury Olesha, and Leonid Maksimovich Leonov were fellow travelers. Mediating between the two was Aleksandr Voronsky, a literary critic and editor of the journal Red Virgin Soil, who urged both government aid to and broad freedom for writers. In June, 1925, the Communist Party Central Committee, while explicitly encouraging proletarian literature, ordained continued freedom for other approaches as well. Politics destroyed this climate of tolerance. After Lenin died in 1924, Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin vied for power; by the end of 1929, Stalin had won the upper hand. Stalin believed in agricultural collectivization and rapid industrialization, but not in freedom for the arts. In 1927, Voronsky had to resign the editorship of Red Virgin Soil. Mayakovsky’s satirical plays Klop (pr., pb. 1929; The Bedbug, 1931) and Banya (pr., pb. 1930; The Bathhouse, 1963) were withdrawn from the stage after sharp official criticism. In August, 1929, the leader of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP), Leopold Averbakh, attacked Pilnyak and Zamyatin as traitors. Pilnyak’s career was ruined; Zamyatin left Russia in 1931. RAPP seemed about to take over the Soviet literary world. On April 23, 1932, the Communist Party suddenly called a halt to the strife by ordering that all competing literary associations be dissolved, to be replaced by a single Soviet Writers’ Union. The term “Socialist Realism,” first used by Izvestia editor Ivan Gronsky in a speech of May 20, 1932, was defined publicly by Stalin’s spokesman Andrei Zhdanov at the First Congress of the Soviet Writers’ Union held in August, 1934. Although this congress had a pro-Stalin majority, it was attended by writers of all viewpoints, including such mavericks as Babel, Olesha, and the poet Boris Pasternak, as well as by the out-of-favor Communist Bukharin, who praised Pasternak’s poetry. Gorky, back from Italian exile, was named president of the new union; his novel Mat (1906; The Mother, 1906), about a woman converted to the revolutionary cause by her son, was now praised as a model of Socialist Realism. The adoption by the congress of So-
Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature
Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature were judged to have deviated from the creed either revised their own works or saw them revised by others. Loyalty to the creed of Socialist Realism was enforced with carrots as well as with sticks. After 1934, writers who became members of the Writers’ Union and steered clear of Stalin’s wrath were guaranteed a market for their writings; various material perquisites were also attached to membership in the Writers’ Union. Those recognized as writers by the state came to enjoy both high social status and a privileged lifestyle, important considerations given the narrow range of white-collar occupations permitted in a socialist economy. Just how seductive the allure of privilege could be is indicated by the fact that some of the writers who did well under Stalin (such as Aleksey Tolstoy) had been fellow travelers rather than proletarian writers in the 1920’s. The enforcement of Socialist Realism as the state literary school was somewhat capricious. Once the creed was imposed, works published by first-time writers under official auspices adhered to Socialist Realism slavishly. Hence a book such as the autobiographical novel Kak zakalyalas stal (1932-1934; The Making of a Hero, 1937), by Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky, about a boy from a poverty-stricken background who fights bravely for Bolshevism despite severe physical handicaps, is regarded as an example of Socialist Realism by both Russian and Western critics. However, some works published before 1932 that are cited by Russian literary critics as models of Socialist Realism are found by Western critics to deviate from that literary creed in some way. Thus Sholokhov’s Tikhy Don (1928-1940; translated in two parts as And Quiet Flows the Don, 1934, and The Don Flows Home to the Sea, 1940), the first two volumes of which were published in 1928-1929, is not only beautifully written but also remarkably impartial. In this novel of the civil war in the Don Cossack country, the Bolsheviks are not portrayed as plaster saints, nor are their enemies cartoon villains. The protagonist, no positive hero, switches back and forth between the Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik sides, and the ending is not a happy one, yet because of the enormous popularity of the novel both in the Soviet Union and abroad, Communist critics praised it as a Socialist Realist classic. Sholokhov’s fame may even have saved him from being purged in the 1930’s. In his hurriedly produced novel about agricultural collectivization, Podnyataya tselina (1932; Virgin Soil Upturned, 1935), Sholokhov tried harder to glorify the role of the Communist Party without entirely glossing over the disruptions collectivization had imposed on the peasantry. 2564
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 On the other hand, Leonov’s Doroga na okean (1935; Road to the Ocean, 1944) was severely criticized for its pessimism, individualism, and emphasis on personal tragedy and death, and it was practically suppressed. Leonov, turning to the writing of plays, did not publish another novel until 1953. Fedin was not punished in the 1930’s for his somewhat unorthodox (by 1934 standards) work of the 1920’s; he did, however, try to ingratiate himself with Stalin’s new order in art by writing a cliché-filled novel, Pohkishchenie Evropy (1933-1935; the rape of Europe). In the cases of Sholokhov, Fedin, and Leonov, one could argue that the contortions necessary to make their literary works politically acceptable stultified to some extent the creativity that all three had shown in the 1920’s. During World War II, controls were relaxed; the strictest enforcement of Socialist Realism came during the period between the end of the war in 1945 and Stalin’s death in 1953. In 1946, the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, tolerated up to that time, was driven from his profession by Zhdanov, Stalin’s cultural watchdog, for a story that seemed to compare Soviet man to an ape. Even Fadeev, a party literary stalwart, was compelled to rewrite his World War II novel Molodaya gvardia (1946; the young guard) because it did not sufficiently emphasize the role played in the war effort by the Communist Party. Writers were now expected to refrain from portraying either the less pleasant sides of Soviet society or the conflicts within it. During the period from 1945 to 1953, Socialist Realism was also imposed on the literary world in those Eastern European states on which Stalin had imposed Communist regimes. Thus it grew from the mandated literary school of the Soviet Union to become the mandated literary school everwhere the Communist Party held sway. —Paul D. Mageli Further Reading Brown, Edward J. The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928-1932. New York: Columbia University Press, 1953. This study of the rise and fall of Leopold Averbakh and RAPP emphasizes the diversity of viewpoints within the proletarian literary movement. Views proletarian writers not as mere fanatics but as defenders of artistic autonomy and victims of Stalin’s regimentation of literature. Endnotes, selected bibliography, index. Clark, Katerina. The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual. 3d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Using the tools of anthropology and literary criticism,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Maguire, Robert A. Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920’s. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968. A history not just of Voronsky’s journal but also of literary politics in the 1920’s. Suggests that writers’ poverty spurred them to form associations to secure government help and argues that Socialist Realism combined Voronsky’s reverence for past literary models with the activism of the proletarian writers. Footnotes, index, bibliography. Simmons, Ernest J. Russian Fiction and Soviet Ideology: Introduction to Fedin, Leonov, and Sholokhov. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958. Shows how three writers who had made their reputations in the relatively liberal 1920’s adapted to the literary dogmatism prevalent in the 1930’s; the damage done to artistic integrity varied with each writer, being probably greatest with Leonov. List of works discussed, index, photographs of each writer. Struve, Gleb. Russian Literature Under Lenin and Stalin, 1917-1953. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. A useful survey. Nine chapters out of thirty treat the 1930’s; the 1934 Writers’ Congress gets an entire chapter. Sees proletarian writers as accomplices in, as well as victims of, Stalin’s regimentation of literature. Discusses the influence of Socialist Realism on fiction, poetry, and drama. Bibliography, footnotes, index. See also: Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art; Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed; Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
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Clark, examining novels by various authors, outlines a prototypical Socialist Realist plot. Denies that Socialist Realism was simply imposed by bureaucrats; sees its roots in pre-revolutionary literature and its influence in the writings of post-1953 dissidents. Endnotes, bibliography, index. Dobrenko, Evgeny. Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2005. Study of Soviet literary aethetics, specific governmental groups and institutions, and their negotiations by individual authors. Bibliographic references and index. Ermolaev, Herman. Soviet Literary Theories, 19171934: The Genesis of Socialist Realism. University of California Publications in Modern Philology 69. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. A pathbreaking study, repeatedly cited by scholars of Communist-era Russian literature. Analyzes critical articles, speeches, resolutions, and debates. The treatment of the period from 1932 to 1934, when an official definition of Socialist Realism was hammered out, is especially good. Sees Socialist Realism as imposed by Stalin. Endnotes, bibliography, index. Estraikh, Gennady. In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance with Communism. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2005. Study of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union, ending with a chapter on Socialist Realism in Soviet Yiddish literature. Bibliographic references and index. Garrard, John, and Carol Garrard. Inside the Soviet Writers’ Union. New York: Free Press, 1990. Contains two historical chapters that treat the Stalin era. The account of the 1934 Writers’ Congress relies partly on survivors’ testimony published in the 1980’s. Tries to estimate exactly how many writers were purged by Stalin. No analysis of literary works. Endnotes, index.
Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature
First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 20-21, 1932
First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman Amelia Earhart, an American aviator, was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming a national hero and an ardent advocate for female independence. She died attempting to become the first female pilot to fly around the world. Locale: Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Ireland Categories: Space and aviation; transportation; women’s issues Key Figures Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), pioneer aviator and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Frederick Joseph Noonan (1893-1937), navigator on Pan-American Airlines’s mapping flights in the Pacific and Earhart’s navigator George P. Putnam (1887-1950), Earhart’s husband and publicist Summary of Event For decades after her death, Amelia Earhart remained the most famous female American aviator. During her brief career in aviation, she set many aviation records, including being the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. She actively promoted the growth of the air transportation industry and the role of women in aviation. Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, on July 24, 1897. During World War I she lived in Toronto, Canada, where she served as a nurse at a military hospital. After the war, she enrolled as a premed student at Columbia University, but she did not finish the training. In 1920 Earhart moved to California and took her first flight in an airplane, a 10-minute ride over Los Angeles. She began taking flying lessons almost immediately, and her instructor, Anita Snook, was one of the world’s first female pilots. Earhart bought her first airplane, a Kinner Airster that she named The Canary, on her twenty-fourth birthday. A few months later, in October, she set a new women’s altitude record of 14,000 feet in The Canary. Earhart moved to Boston, where she worked as a social worker, but she continued to be interested in aviation, and she publicized the role of women in aviation at a time when women had just been given the right to vote in the United States. Her activities brought her to the attention of George P. Putnam, the New York City publicist who had promoted Charles Lindbergh’s book We (1927), which described Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Putnam had been hired by Amy Guest, a 2566
wealthy American living in London, to identify someone suitable to be the first female to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Guest had purchased Commander Richard Byrd’s Fokker F7, a powerful three-engine airplane, and she had initially intended to be the first woman passenger on a transatlantic flight. Guest’s family objected to the risk such a journey posed, however, and Putnam recommended Earhart for the flight. Although Earhart was a licensed pilot, she had no experience flying an airplane that had more than one engine, and she had much more experience navigating with ground references than with more advanced navigational instruments. For these reasons, Earhart was a passenger on the flight, which was piloted by Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. On June 18, 1928, the Fokker F7, named Friendship, took off from Trepassy, Newfoundland. Stultz, Gordon, and Earhart flew through dense fog for most of the trip, which made navigation difficult. They completely missed Ireland, their intended destination. After a flight that lasted 20 hours and 40 minutes, Friendship landed at Burry Port in South Wales with almost no fuel to spare. The welcoming crowd paid little attention to Stultz and Gordon, since men had already flown the Atlantic. Instead, the media seized on Earhart’s role as the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. Earhart, however, was uncomfortable with the acclaim she received, since she had only been a passenger on the flight. As a publicist, Putnam recognized the significance of being a record-breaker, and he began arranging Earhart’s career. He organized a national speaking tour and a cross-country flight for Earhart, who described her first transatlantic flight in her book Twenty Hours, Forty Minutes (1928). Earhart married Putnam in 1931. She bought a new aircraft, a Lockheed Vega, and set several women’s speed records in her new airplane. Piloting a craft across the Atlantic remained a challenge for Earhart. On the evening of May 20, 1932, five years after Lindbergh left on his own solo flight across the Atlantic, Earhart took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. This time she was both the pilot and the only occupant of her single-engine Lockheed Vega. She encountered good weather for several hours and was able to navigate using the moon’s position in the sky. Then the altimeter, which displays the height of the aircraft above sea level, failed, and the Vega encountered a severe thunderstorm. Earhart struggled to keep the plane level in the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman
Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight, 1937
SaintLouis
Oakland Khartoum Gao
Massawa
Calcutta Aseb
(May 20, 1937)
Akyab
Tucson
New Orleans
Miami
Rangoon Bangkok
(June 1, 1937)
Singapore
Lae
Bandung Soerabaja Darwin Kupang
?
Howland Island (July 2, 1937)
San Juan Caripito
Paramaribo Fortaleza
1932
Dakar Fort Al Lamy Fashir
Kar3chi
Natal
Amelia Earhart disappeared somewhere between Lae and Howland Island in July, 1937, while attempting to fly around the world.
storm as the updrafts and downdrafts stressed the plane’s structure. It was night, and she saw flames coming from a cracked weld on the engine. Hours later, with her aircraft running low on fuel and flames continuing to come from the engine, Earhart saw the Irish coast. She landed in a field near Londonderry, Ireland, at 2:30 p.m. on May 21, where she was greeted by a surprised farm laborer. Earhart set four world’s records on the flight: The flight was the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by air (in 14 hours, 54 minutes) and the longest distance flown by a woman (2,206 miles), and Earhart became both the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the only person to have flown across the Atlantic twice. When she returned to the United States, President Herbert Hoover presented her with a medal from the National Geographic Society, and she received a ticker-tape parade in New York City. After her second transatlantic flight, Earhart became active in encouraging the development of commercial aviation. She served as vice president of Luddington Airlines,
Earhart Sets the Record Straight In 1932, the National Geographic Society awarded Amelia Earhart its Special Medal in recognition of her transatlantic flight. In her acceptance speech, Earhart debunked some of the popular stories that had circulated about the flight: Some features of the flight I fear have been exaggerated. It made a much better story to say I landed with but one gallon of gasoline left. As a matter of fact, I had more than a hundred. The exact quantity I remember because I had to pay a tax for every gallon imported into Ireland! I did not land within six feet (2 meters) of a hedge of trees. I taxied to the upper end of a sloping pasture and turned my plane into the shelter of some trees, as a matter of course. It made a much better story the other way, I admit. No flames were threatening to burn my plane in the air. I did have some trouble with my exhaust manifold, of which I shall tell you later. There was no extreme hazard from that cause, however. I did not kill a cow in landing—unless one died of fright. Of course, I came down in a pasture and I had to circle many other pastures to find the best one. The horses, sheep, and cows in Londonderry were not used to airplanes, and so, as I flew low, they jumped up and down and displayed certain disquiet. I really was afraid that an Irishman would shoot me as I stepped out of the plane, thinking that I was just a “smart Alec” from some big town come down to scare the cattle.
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First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman which provided passenger service between New York and Washington, D.C., and wrote her second book, The Fun of It (1932). Three years after her solo transatlantic flight, Earhart became the first person to fly from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland, a 2,408-mile flight across the Pacific Ocean. Before her successful flight, ten pilots had died attempting this journey. Earhart’s voyage had the further distinction of being the first time a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio. On May 20, 1937, Earhart set out from Oakland, California, in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra in an attempt to fly around the world. Fred Noonan served as navigator on the flight, the route of which went from Miami to Puerto Rico, South America, Africa, India, and Australia. On June 29, Earhart and Noonan reached New Guinea and had only 7,000 miles left to go. On July 2, they left New Guinea on the most difficult segment of the trip, a 2,556-mile flight to Howland Island, which was only 6,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide. They carried a twoway radio, and their last confirmed position report was over the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles along their route. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca was at Howland Island to communicate with Earhart and help her locate the small island, but the Itasca never received a clear transmission from Earhart, and an intensive search found no trace of her, Noonan, or their plane. The disappearance became one of the unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century. Significance Earhart used her fame as an aviator to promote two causes in which she strongly believed: She became an advocate for the developing industry of passenger air transportation, and she encouraged an increasingly prominent role for women in aviation. Earhart’s second transatlantic flight demonstrated the growing safety of airplane flight. Prior to this flight, several pilots had perished on their first attempt to cross the Atlantic, but only a few years later, on March 26, 1939, Pan-American Airlines made its first trial transatlantic flight, from Baltimore, Maryland, to Foynes, Ireland, using a Boeing-314 Yankee Clipper. By the 1970’s, jet airplanes had replaced ocean liners as the most common mode of transatlantic travel. In 1929, Earhart cofounded the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of female pilots, and she served as its first president. The Ninety-Nines, which grew to more than five thousand members, continued to promote opportunities for women in aviation and offered the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship to support female pilots trying to complete advanced pilot-training courses. As part of her support of women’s rights, Earhart suggested that women be drafted to fight in wars just like men. —George J. Flynn Further Reading Gilbert, James B., and Amelia Earhart. Twenty Hours, Forty Minutes: Our Flight in the “Friendship.” Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1979. Earhart’s own account of her first transatlantic flight includes copies of pages from her flight log and many photographs. Lovell, Mary S. The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. A wellresearched account of Earhart’s life from her childhood to her consuming quest for aviation fame. Well illustrated; includes twenty-four pages of photographs. Morrissey, Muriel Earhart, and Carol L. Osborne. Amelia, My Courageous Sister: Biography of Amelia Earhart. Santa Clara, Calif.: Osborne, 1987. Earhart’s sister provides an account of the pilot’s life and achievements in aviation. Includes many family pictures, letters, and documents. Rich, Doris L. Amelia Earhart: A Biography. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1989. Account of Earhart’s life includes discussion of her first flying experience, how she was selected to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, her marriage to Putnam, her support of women’s rights, and her attempt to fly around the world. Van Pelt, Lori. Amelia Earhart: The Sky’s No Limit. New York: Forge Press, 2005. Brief account of the life and achievements of Amelia Earhart emphasizes her efforts to refuse all limits on the role of women in American society. See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel; June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres
July 3, 1932
Jooss’s Antiwar Dance THE GREEN TABLE Premieres Kurt Jooss’s The Green Table, a powerful commentary on the futility of war, extended the subject matter and technical range of modern dance. Locale: Théâtre des Champs-Élyseés, Paris, France Category: Dance
Summary of Event The Green Table is a danse macabre in contemporary terms. Consisting of six scenes, a prologue, and an epilogue, the work presents the consequences of war and their related social results realistically in a stylized, unromanticized manner. Before the dance begins, discordant piano sounds foretell the ominous atmosphere of the ballet that will unfold. The music then changes into a lighthearted cabaret tango. The curtain opens to reveal a rectangular conference table covered in green; the table is lined on two sides by diplomats dressed in black morning coats and spats and wearing grotesque masks. The factions on either side of the table engage in rituals of diplomacy, making points and counterpoints, bickering among themselves, and almost coming to blows with the opposing group. A feigned mood of courtesy prevails as the arbiters gesticulate in puppetlike fashion. The scene concludes in response to the rising insurmountable tensions among the diplomats. Finding no solution to their discussion, they remove pistols from their vests, bow politely to one another, lift their arms upward, and shoot the pistols into the air, symbolically releasing a pattern of violence that will bring death, injury, and tragedy. The stage goes dark. The grisly image of Death is then gradually revealed out of the blackness. Death, who dominates the work, is humanized as a skeleton and is garbed in the breastplate and helmet of Mars, the god of war. His menacing, repetitive, marchlike steps evoke a sense of doom. The Standard-Bearer enters, holding a banner and rallying troops. Forces for battle are assembled, trained, and called to action. The combatants take leave of their sweethearts and mothers, and the story of war continues. The cunning Profiteer, a sleazy character whose pleasure
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Key Figures Kurt Jooss (1901-1979), German choreographer and dancer Fritz A. Cohen (1904-1967), German composer Hein Heckroth (1901-1970), German designer of theatrical sets and costumes
derives from the misfortunes of others, is portrayed. The hovering, ever-present Death claims his victims one by one and triumphantly leads them in a procession of the dead. The figure of Death fades into blackness. Pistol shots ring out, and the scene returns to the conference table. Friendly relations are resumed, and the politicians once more enact their charade, which freezes in a stalemate. The conceptualization of the libretto for The Green Table grew gradually over a ten-year period. Kurt Jooss had seen a sequence of medieval drawings of individuals from various walks of life dancing with Death, personified as a skeleton. Jooss found the dance of death a fascinating subject and thought the idea could be a proposal for an actual dance work. He also interpolated memories of World War I and the Depression into the piece. Jooss was an avid reader of Die Weltbühne, a German periodical edited by Carl von Ossie. The magazine published political writings by Kurt Tucholsky that concerned moral integrity and the struggle for human decency; Tucholsky’s work directly affected the political overtones of The Green Table. Movement for the ballet stemmed, in part, from Jooss’s study with Rudolf Laban, an innovative teacher and theorist of the style of “plastic rhythm,” or motion for its own sake. This extremely different form of dance expression rejected the artificiality and structure of classical ballet that existed in German dance prior to World War I. Laban elaborated on the principles of anatomical expression and gesture set forth by François Delsarte in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1921, Jooss began to study with Laban at the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany, later becoming his assistant and principal dancer. Subsequently, Jooss founded Neue Tanzbühne (New Dance Stage), a separate entity of the state theater in Münster. The group included the dancers Sigurd Leeder and Aino Sümola, the composer and conductor Fritz A. Cohen, and the designer Hein Heckroth. The company toured throughout Germany for a two-year period presenting a repertoire of Jooss’s works. Jooss’s search for expression in a personal manner led him to merge and reorganize new ideas in theater dance continually. He traveled to Paris and Vienna in the winter of 1926 with Sigurd Leeder to study, both in mind and body, the system of classical ballet. While gaining physical mastery of classical dance, Jooss examined its technique and pedagogy. He adapted some of these ideas into
Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres his choreographic endeavors as he sought to give clarity to performance. Jooss earned the hostility of his classical as well as his modern dance colleagues in 1928, when he candidly stated that the rivalry between the two dance forms was absurd. The Green Table synthesizes these two forms of dance, combining the dramatic expression of modern dance with ballet technique. The choreography utilizes the range of everyday movement while adding strong distinctive patterns for the soldiers, diplomats, and other dancers. Identifying movements used only by the Profiteer and Death were created. The music moves along with the dancing and does not influence the shape of the choreography or its movement. At times the score conveys the atmosphere, which ranges from foreboding to lyrical to plaintive. The masks used for The Green Table evolved in response to practical considerations. With only sixteen dancers in the piece, requiring a quick change of the opening scene and a change of costumes, the possibility of applying makeup was negligible. As the dancers had to look grotesque for the prologue and epilogue, masks were designed to transform their appearance in a rapid fashion. Significance The Green Table won first prize in a choreography competition organized by the Archives Internationales de la Danse in Paris, and the success led to an offer to participate in a season of innovative dance at the Casino de Paris in the fall of 1932. The event called for the inclusion of The Green Table and the competition’s other prizewinners in a production during the dormant period between the casino’s regular shows. When the Jooss dancers arrived in Paris, however, they learned that the other groups were unavailable and the casino was continuing to present its revues. The fall season’s offering began with the casino’s attractions of nudity, risqué songs, and other suggestive happenings. Following the intermission, The Green Table, with its sober commentary, was presented. The ballet, in sharp contrast to what went before it, was met with such commotion that the music could not be heard. In a short time, however, as the Parisian public learned of the performance, different types of audiences began to attend and gave their approval to the work. A proper theater season in Paris and Europe was arranged for the following spring, and Ballets Jooss, as the company had become known, was firmly established. The Green Table was presented along with other works by Jooss. 2570
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Created a year before Adolf Hitler seized power, the ballet expressed a message that was comparable to those expressed in many antiwar novels of the time. Sentiments portrayed in The Green Table were not, however, in keeping with the views of Hitler and the Nazi Party. As a result of this and of Jooss’s support of Jewish and partly Jewish colleagues, of necessity, Jooss and his company fled Germany. During World War II, while Ballets Jooss was performing in England, Jooss made the decision to withdraw The Green Table from the repertoire. He believed that the effects of war were too near at hand and that those who attended the theater in wartime did so for relaxation. Audiences requested the ballet, however, and The Green Table was restored to the programs. With the final days of World War II approaching, Jooss again believed the end of The Green Table’s performance life was near, but he was proved wrong once more. Audiences continued to request the ballet, and so Ballets Jooss continued performing the work. In 1948, Jooss was invited to Santiago, Chile, by former soloists of Ballets Jooss who had performed in the original production of The Green Table. There, Jooss staged The Green Table for the Chilean National Ballet, which his dancers had founded. During this production, Jooss made his final appearance as a dancer in the role of Death. The enduring quality of The Green Table led to its incorporation into the repertoires of ballet companies worldwide. Productions have been staged by the City Center Joffrey Ballet in New York (March, 1967), the Tanz-Forum in Cologne (December, 1971), the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Toronto (November, 1974), the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv (November, 1975), the José Limon Dance Company in New York (April, 1977), the Opernhaus in Zurich (May, 1978), the Suomen Kansallisbaletti in Helsinki (November, 1982), and the Bühnen der Stadt in Essen, Germany (March, 1985), among others. In addition, continued interest in The Green Table led to several televised productions of the ballet, including a German production in 1963, a British production in 1966 directed by Peter Wright, a Swedish production in 1977, and a Japanese production in 1979. In 1982, the Joffrey Ballet undertook a production for public television’s Dance in America series. The Green Table’s significance extends beyond the ballet’s message and reflects Jooss’s innovative use of choreography, stagecraft, and lighting. A period of development during which Jooss formulated his beliefs and experimented in dance movement and in stagecraft pre-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Anderson, Jack. Art Without Boundaries: The World of Modern Dance. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1997. Comprehensive chronological history of dance since the nineteenth century presents discussion of Jooss’s work. Includes photographs. Bergsohn, Isa, and Harold Bergsohn. The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss. Hightstown, N.J.: Princeton Book Company, 2003. Examines the connections and influences among the three choreographers considered to be the founders of German modern dance. Includes photographs and index. Chujoy, Anatole, and P. W. Manchester, eds. The Dance Encyclopedia. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967. Provides brief accounts of The Green Table, Kurt Jooss, and Ballets Jooss. Includes a photograph of Jooss in the role of Death. Clarke, Mary, and Clement Crisp. The Ballet Goer’s Guide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. Presents a
capsule view of Jooss’s career and a brief synopsis of The Green Table. Illustrations include photographs of the tableau that opens and closes the work and Jooss in the role of Death. Coton, A. V. The New Ballet: Kurt Jooss and His Work. London: Dennis Dobson, 1946. Valuable work on Jooss presents discussion of the background of twentieth century ballet that places the development of Ballets Jooss in proper context. Includes excellent information on The Green Table and other selected Jooss works. Features photographs and line drawings. Gruen, John. The World’s Greatest Ballets. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981. Presents an account of Jooss’s career and a vividly descriptive synopsis of The Green Table. Markard, Anna, and Hermann Markard. Jooss. Cologne, Germany: Ballett-Buhnen-Verlag, 1985. Excellent resource, based on part of an exhibition for a 1981 Venice dance festival. Includes a biography of Jooss, a record of the tours of Ballets Jooss, and a list of Jooss’s choreographic works. Features photographs of ballets and of soloists, some taken at productions of The Green Table. Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa. Modern Dance in Germany and the United States: Crosscurrents and Influences. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994. Discusses the progression of American and German modern dance over the course of the twentieth century, focusing on the similarities and differences in the art in the two nations. Includes discussion of Jooss’s work and its influence. Features bibliography and index. Williamson, Audrey. Contemporary Ballet. London: Rockliff, 1946. Provides a chapter of commentary on Ballets Jooss, which made its home in England during World War II. Critiques the major ballets of Jooss and presents insightful commentary on The Green Table. See also: Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut; May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens; Jan. 26, 1936: Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London.
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ceded his creation of The Green Table. His dance technique negated many premises that were accepted by ballet choreographers of the time. To Jooss, a painted set, a corps de ballet, and the sound of an orchestra were nonessential; instead, the dramatic effect of dance was underlined by stagecraft. He placed emphasis on costume rather than on decor, using costumes to accentuate symbolism rather than for merely decorative purposes. Jooss also used costumes to make his dancers appear more vividly three-dimensional to the audience. Jooss’s unusually fluid use of lighting contributed to his three-dimensional concept. He altered the stage space by filling or emptying different areas, surfaces, and levels with light. He used lighting to mask, reveal, or emphasize a solo figure or group; the color, volume, and direction of Jooss’s lighting were constantly changing to reveal the spaces necessary for action at any moment. All aspects of Jooss’s style of theatrical dance were first completely realized in The Green Table. Jooss blazed a trail in dance with The Green Table; until the piece’s premiere, dance, with few exceptions, was escapist in its audience appeal. The Green Table is acknowledged as Jooss’s greatest, most successful, and most enduring work. The ballet remains a powerful indictment of war. —Mary Pat Balkus
Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres
St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 18, 1932
St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty The signing of the St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty in 1932 initiated a series of negotiations that spanned twentyfive years before the United States and Canada agreed on the conditions for constructing the seaway. The seaway’s completion in 1959 established a new level of interaction between the two countries. Also known as: St. Lawrence Deep Waterway Treaty; Hoover-Bennett Treaty Locale: St. Lawrence River watershed in both Canada and the United States Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; laws, acts, and legal history; transportation Key Figures Tom Connally (1877-1963), U.S. senator from Texas Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), president of the United States, 1953-1961 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Summary of Event The story of the St. Lawrence Seaway began in 1909, when the United States and Canada signed the Boundary Waters Treaty, which created the International Joint Commission. The commission was charged with implementing joint development of all navigable boundary waters. The St. Lawrence River was first and foremost among these waters. Although most of the river flowed through Canada, it divided the two nations for a 44-mile stretch between the province of Ontario and the state of New York. The St. Lawrence had been an important communications route between Europe and North America since the time of European exploration of the American continent. Because it is the outflow of the Great Lakes, four of which also form the boundary between Canada and the United States (only Lake Michigan is wholly within the United States), it had become a major trade artery for both countries. Before the nations could carry out the commitments expressed in the Boundary Waters Treaty, a number of engineering problems needed to be solved. One of these was passing Niagara Falls, which lies between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. This problem was addressed by the Welland Canal, which was built in Canadian territory. In the 1820’s, the canal had been dug to a depth of eight feet, and it had been progressively enlarged and deepened during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In its 2572
course west of Montreal, Canada, the river contained a number of rapids that severely impeded navigation, and there were significant shoals in the section that formed the international boundary between the two countries. Finally, the river’s massive flow offered substantial hydroelectric potential that would require dams or diversions to harvest. Powerful interests lobbied on both sides of the issue. In favor were the agricultural interests of the Midwest, both in Canada and the United States, that wanted a water-based transportation system (as opposed to a rail system), which would be a cheaper way of sending bulk commodities such as grain. In the 1930’s, the iron and steel industries, especially those in the United States, expected to mine the iron deposits of northern Minnesota’s Mesabi range indefinitely, but by the end of World War II it was clear that these supplies were almost gone. The most promising replacement was the extensive deposits recently discovered in Labrador, and the steel industry realized that it could move these deposits to the plants of the Midwest if ships were able travel down the St. Lawrence River from the Atlantic Ocean and make it at least as far as Lake Erie. Until it became clear that this new source of iron was needed, the steel corporations were not interested in promoting the seaway. Multiple interests were opposed to the seaway’s development, partly because it would involve major government investments and partly because it would negatively affect their businesses. The railroads of both nations saw the seaway as a competitor and were strongly opposed to its development; prior to the seaway’s completion, many exporters had used the railroads to transport their products to the coasts. The coal industry (of which the railroads were major customers) also opposed the seaway, since it would harm the railroad industry. Ports along the Atlantic coast opposed the seaway because it would enable ships to proceed from the Midwest directly to their destinations elsewhere in the world. Private utilities did not want to compete with government-funded facilities that produced hydroelectric power, and so they were also opposed. Major political interests also opposed the seaway’s development. In Canada, the dominant political forces in both Ontario and Quebec opposed ceding power to the federal government, arguing instead that Canada’s constitution gave control over boundary waters to the provinces. In the United States, progress on the issue
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
hydroelectric capabilities that were developed in conjunction with the seaway. Resolving the hydroelectric issue in the United States was harder, because New York State wanted its own power authority to control its share of the hydroelectric power, and it could do so only with the approval of the Federal Power Commission (FPC) in Washington, D.C. Opponents of the seaway remained in control of the FPC almost to the end of negotiations, but finally President Eisenhower overrode the FPC’s opposition by arguing that the seaway could be a useful tool in the U.S. defense arsenal. Once the Canadians had resolved their differences about the seaway, they became its chief proponents in the post-World War II era. As long as it was impossible to resolve congressional opposition to U.S. participation, the Canadians had to develop an alternative solution. They proposed that Canada should develop the seaway alone,
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
A Great Lakes freighter passes through the Cornwall Locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Ontario, Canada, on the U.S. border, in 1955. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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was stymied by senators from the South; these senators, notably Tom Connally of Texas, were able to prevent approval of the treaty, which required a positive vote of two-thirds of senators before it could go into effect. Despite the fact that every president from Herbert Hoover to Dwight D. Eisenhower supported the idea, opposition from the Senate could not be overcome for more than twenty years. There was also the question of local versus federal control over any hydroelectric power developed in conjunction with the seaway’s construction. In Canada, the federal government could not proceed with a plan to develop the seaway until the premier of the province of Ontario was brought on board. This issue was resolved by two 1941 agreements between Ontario and Canada’s federal government, in which the federal government assumed responsibility for any navigational improvements in the St. Lawrence and Ontario was put in charge of any
St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty
St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty which became possible when most of the construction costs were shifted from the navigational improvements to developing the hydroelectric capabilities. Canada created its own St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, which was in charge of the development. Canadian officials agreed, however, that this was a less desirable solution than joint development, and it was hoped that this prospect would spur the United States to action. Significance Efforts to build the St. Lawrence Seaway spanned the first half of the twentieth century in both the United States and Canada. The seaway’s completion was a monument to a new level of cooperation between the two North American powers. Its construction indicated the shifting priorities of both countries, even though from a population standpoint Canada remained about one-tenth the size of the United States. The joint creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway inaugurated a series of cooperative ventures of the two largest North American powers, and its economic and political success led to the nations’ increased regionalization. The combination of shifting many of the costs to the hydroelectric development at last moved Congress to act, and in the spring of 1954, Congress voted to create the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, which would work jointly with Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway Authority in developing the project. FPC approval of the New York State Power Authority was also secured. Work immediately began on construction of the seaway improvements to navigation-related matters and the creation of the hydroelectric elements. The entire project was built in the period 1954-1958, and it opened on June 26, 1959, in a formal ceremony presided over by
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Queen Elizabeth of England, who represented Canada, and President Eisenhower, who represented the United States. — Nancy M. Gordon Further Reading Bothwell, Robert. A Short History of Ontario. Edmonton, Alta.: Hurtig, 1986. Describes the negotiations by which Ontario and the Canadian federal government resolved their differences. MacLennan, Hugh. The Rivers of Canada. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1977. Describes the history of the St. Lawrence and clarifies its enormous strategic significance. Rea, K. J. The Prosperous Years: The Economic History of Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. A thorough survey of economic developments in Ontario, the most developed part of Canada. Willoughby, William R. The St. Lawrence Waterway: A Study in Politics and Diplomacy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961. An exhaustive account of the attempts, on both sides of the border, to construct the waterway. See also: 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements; Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution; Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada; Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act; Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ottawa Agreements
July 21-August 21, 1932
Ottawa Agreements The Canadian government approved the Ottawa Agreements in an attempt to relieve pressures caused by the Great Depression. The agreements secured more favorable tariffs from Great Britain and other British dominions.
Key Figures Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), prime minister of Canada, 1930-1935 Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), prime minister of Great Britain, 1931-1935 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The worldwide Great Depression of the 1930’s had a devastating impact on Canada, in part because Canada did not have an independent economy at the time. Instead, the country was linked inextricably to the economies of the United States, England, and the rest of Europe. Canada’s domestic production was particularly dependent on trade with Europe. Unfortunately, many countries throughout the world, including the United States and Great Britain, raised tariffs and curbed imports during the 1930’s to protect their own economies. Early on, the Canadian government had little success in easing the Depression. Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett, who took office in 1930, instituted new tariffs to retaliate against other countries that had raised their own tariffs and to protect Canada’s economy. He and other government leaders did not believe that much more needed to be done to help Canadians in the early days of the Depression; they expected it to be relatively short-lived. They made some attempts to enact social programs such as unemployment insurance but were stymied somewhat in their attempts by constitutional limitations on such programs. Bennett soon recognized that England would have to help Canada survive the economic downturn. In 1930, he traveled to a conference in England to demand that the British Labour government permit the creation of a com-
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Locale: Canada Categories: Trade and commerce; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics
monwealth that would provide protection for the dominions and would allow the dominions and England mutual preferences. At the conference, Bennett pleaded for a system of preferences, and he also made it clear that this system must be reconciled with the fullest protection for Canadian producers against competition from foreign nations as well as from Great Britain and the other dominions. Bennett announced that he stood solidly behind the doctrine of “Canada first,” and he conceded that the other dominions would also believe that they should come first. Nevertheless, he said, they should all work together to hammer out a collective agreement that would benefit each nation. Bennett offered specific solutions to the problem. He suggested that after Canada had decided on the level of tariff protection it needed, it would add an extra 10 percent against non-British companies, with a certain flexibility in this margin in the case of specific products. The ruling British Labour party, long proponents of free trade, scoffed at Bennett, but he was not deterred. Bennett believed that the British had both political and economic reasons for reaching some type of agreement with the other members of the Empire. England faced both a declining trade position and a growing crisis in international affairs. At Bennett’s insistence, the conference participants agreed to meet in Ottawa in 1932 to continue their discussions. By 1932, England’s economic picture had changed for the worse, strengthening Canada’s demand for preferential treatment within the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, Canada’s economy also had worsened, primarily as a result of other countries’ protective actions. From 1930 through 1932, Germany and Italy both levied tariffs against Canadian wheat. In 1930, the United States enacted its controversial Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act against Canadian lumber, cattle, and agricultural products. Even England, considered to be the home of free trade, instituted an emergency tariff in 1931. Moreover, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald’s government was in turmoil as a result of the impending collapse of the Bank of England and opposition from his own party for his inability to balance the nation’s budget. These factors made Canada’s economic status more tenuous and increased the need for concessions from England. Bennett hoped that Great Britain and the dominions would agree to the establishment of an imperial free trade
Ottawa Agreements area protected against the rest of the world. He also wanted to exploit England’s trading interests, which reached far beyond the Empire. The British were not particularly interested in satisfying either of Bennett’s hopes, but as 1932 arrived, they were not in a position to deny him entirely. By 1932, the Conservatives were back in power in England, and one of their first acts was to institute protection. In February of 1932, the British government passed the Imports Duties Act, which imposed a 10 percent duty on many articles imported by England. The act exempted the dominions from the tax. In 1932, the Commonwealth countries hammered out a series of twelve separate trade agreements, most of them five-year bilateral pacts, known as the Ottawa Agreements. In general, the agreements worked in Canada’s favor. Representatives from each of the dominions needed to secure preferred markets for themselves, but none of them wanted to curtail individual levels of trade. It did not take long before the problems became obvious, and these problems were especially serious for England. About two-thirds of the country’s exports went to countries outside Europe, and England also had the distinction of being the largest shipowner and international banker in the world. As a result, the British banking industry had huge amounts of long-term investments throughout the world. Understandably, England was not willing to jeopardize its banking and shipowning industries in order to create an uncertain unity among the dominions or raise the cost of living for its own citizens. England also had to deal with the Commonwealth countries’ growing independence; many of these nations wanted to develop favorable trade agreements to benefit themselves at England’s expense. There was a certain amount of irony in Bennett’s appeal to the British for economic help: His plea contradicted the idea that nationalism was alive and well in Canada. The majority of Canada’s citizens believed in the concept of one country, even though the individual provinces were unsure as to the exact legal status of their federation. Moreover, there existed no formal agreement establishing Canada’s position in the Commonwealth. The nearest thing to one was the Balfour resolution of 1926, which stated that the members of the Commonwealth “are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” This was affirmed by the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which declared that “no act of the 2576
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 British Parliament shall apply to any dominion unless the latter requests it.” Canada had taken its autonomy seriously. The conference in July and August of 1932 was intended to be the British answer to the worldwide Depression. Nine countries participated, hoping to establish free trade within the Commonwealth while retaining or raising tariffs against nonmember countries. Protective tariffs played a big role in the economies of the dominions. The British delegation supported low tariffs on goods exchanged among the members of the Commonwealth, but Bennett, in accord with his party’s protectionist philosophy, fought for high tariffs. He asked for preference in the British market for Canadian lumber, wheat, bacon, cheese, and butter. In return, he offered partial preference to British textiles and steel products, and none at all for boots and shoes. Bennett wanted to base preferential treatment on a general raising of tariffs on foreign nations’ products. In the end, the British acceded to his demands. To the Canadians’ delight, tariffs remained high. The British government tendered generous trade privileges to the Canadians, granting a privileged market for Canada’s principal exports without getting much in return for its own products, in order to maintain peace between the two countries. Canadian manufacturers continued to demand and receive protection, especially against the textiles that England wanted to export. The Canadians could not be blamed for their demands for protection, as they were concerned about Russian and Argentine competition in the British market for primary products. Significance The Ottawa Agreements had mixed results. The cotton producers of the two countries held a side conference that broke down completely with no agreement, Canada’s sheltered industries opposed any threats to their protected position, and England demanded reduced duties on textiles, iron, and steel products. That demand produced heated discussions, as did Canada’s insistence that Great Britain impose an embargo on Russian lumber and other competing products. Progress was slow on any agreements, and the conference almost came to a premature halt. That was partly a result of personality conflicts, as participants accused Bennett of being too domineering and overbearing. However, England could not afford to end the talks without some sort of agreement. At last, the countries compromised on several issues. England agreed to forgo tariffs on a substantial number of Canadian goods, including manufactured products,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
farmers also had mixed feelings about the conference and about Bennett himself. There was some serious international political fallout from the Ottawa Agreements. Many non-Empire countries were affronted by the concessions Commonwealth members granted to one another. Ironically, the United States, which had imposed high tariffs of its own to combat the Depression, was one of them, and Americans felt slighted by the agreements. In the final analysis, the Ottawa Agreements gave Canadians the perception that free trade among the Empire’s members was one step closer. On the other hand, however, the agreements heightened the dislocation of world trade and accentuated the trend toward anarchy. Overall, however, to Canadians, the Ottawa Agreements represented a step toward economic independence, which was perhaps the most welcome benefit of all. —Arthur G. Sharp Further Reading Brown, Craig, ed. The Illustrated History of Canada. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987. An easy-tofollow history of Canada replete with photos that give readers a visual image of the people and events that contributed to the country’s history. Creighton, Donald. A History of Canada. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. A lengthy history of Canada focusing on the most significant events in the country’s past. Ferguson, Linda W. Canada. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979. An overview of Canadian history. Offers a broad view of the people and events that have contributed to the country’s history. Hall, Walter Phelps, Robert G. Albion, and Jennie B. Pope. A History of England and the Empire-Commonwealth. 4th ed. Waltman, Mass.: Blaisdell, 1965. A textbook that provides insights into major events in Canadian history, from the British viewpoint. McDiarmid, Orville John. Commercial Policy in the Canadian Economy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946. A comprehensive history of the Canadian tariff. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1959. A readable book that focuses on the sociological impact of historical events in Canada. McMenemy, John. The Language of Canadian Politics: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts. 3d ed. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001. Collection of more than five hundred brief es2577
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food, and raw materials. It also imposed duties of 10 to 33 percent on competing foreign products. Of primary importance to Canada was England’s decision to grant preference to Canadian wheat. Great Britain also agreed to take effective steps against foreign dumping of products, particularly of Russian lumber. Canada increased the margin of preference on 223 British products, either by lowering existing preferential rates or by raising the general tariff imposed on competitors. The chief beneficiaries were the textile, iron, steel, leather goods, coal, and chemicals industries. In addition, Canada agreed to restrict protection to industries that had a reasonable prospect of success. Finally, it allowed the British to be represented in a tariff board on the administration of tariffs or any proposed changes in rates. A series of bilateral agreements with the other dominions supplemented the arrangements with England and promised to give Canada wider access to Empire markets. Despite the fact that some historians saw the conference as a failure, Bennett’s government won some important concessions. In each year from 1927 through 1932, payments by Canada to the United Kingdom exceeded receipts, although the reverse was true from 1933 to 1939. Canadian product exports to England increased steadily after 1932, although values were lower because of lower prices. The proportion of Canada’s exports shipped to England rose from 28 to 38 percent. For the Empire as a whole, the increase was from 36 to 48 percent. Conversely, Canadian imports from England did not rise above the 1932 level until 1935. Overall, the percentage of Canada’s trade with England was slightly higher during the 1930’s than it had been in the 1920’s. That made the Ottawa Agreements worthwhile in the eyes of some Canadians. The Canadian parliament vehemently argued about whether Canada had benefited from the conference. William Lyon Mackenzie King, the prime minister before 1930, seized on the agreements as a political issue. He criticized the agreements because they raised Canadian duties, granted only a slight concession to England, and made it more difficult to reach a new trade agreement with the United States. This last issue was particularly important to King. Regardless of macroeconomic trends, many Canadians believed that it was vital to exchange goods freely with the United States. In the absence of such an arrangement, Canada would be forced to meet its heavy financial obligations to the United States through an increasing drain on its gold supply, a prospect that was extremely unappealing to many Canadians. Manufacturers and
Ottawa Agreements
Bonus March says on a wide range of topics related to the Canadian system of government, Canadian political history, Canadian laws and legal history, and more. Miller, J. D. H. Britain and the Old Dominions. London: Chatto & Windus, 1966. Positive evaluation of the Ottawa Agreements. Riendeau, Roger. A Brief History of Canada. 2d rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Concise history includes discussion of Canada’s difficulties during the Great Depression. Safarian, A. E. The Canadian Economy in the Great Depression. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1959. The role of the Depression in making the agreements possible. Wittke, Carl. A History of Canada. 3d ed. New York: F. S. Crofts & Company, 1942. A concise history of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Canada. Contains marginal notes that make it easy for the reader to identify major events in the narrative. Young, J. H. Canadian Commercial Policy. Ottawa: Royal Commission on Canadian Economic Prospects, 1957. Brief treatment of the agreements in the context of Canada’s commercial policy. See also: 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I; July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement; Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada; Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act.
July 28, 1932
Bonus March At the beginning of the Great Depression, frustrated World War I veterans demanded a promised bonus. Although Congress attempted to meet the soldiers’ demands, President Herbert Hoover and General Douglas MacArthur took a harder line, and the rebellion was silenced. Locale: Washington, D.C.; Anacostia Flats, Maryland Categories: Social issues and reform; government and politics Key Figures Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Patrick J. Hurley (1883-1963), U.S. secretary of war Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), chief of staff of the U.S. Army Walter W. Waters (1898-?), elected leader of the Bonus Army Summary of Event In the years following World War I (1914-1918), many of the more than three million U.S. veterans of that war joined the American Legion and other lobbying organizations. One of the benefits to be awarded as a result of these groups’ lobbying efforts was a bonus that the American Legion called “adjusted compensation,” which was the difference between the pay that was re2578
ceived during military service and what soldiers could have earned outside the military. The first bonus bill passed Congress in 1922 and was vetoed by President Warren G. Harding. The Congress finally passed a bonus bill over the veto of President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. The bill provided for each veteran one dollar per day of military service inside the United States and a dollar and a quarter per day outside the United States, but payment was deferred to the year 1945. Described as endowment insurance, 3.5 million interest-bearing compensation certificates were issued, to expire twenty years later. Each was worth about a thousand dollars, for a total value of $3.5 billion. Veterans were not satisfied, however, and they continued to pressure the government as the Great Depression intensified. In 1931, over President Herbert Hoover’s veto, Congress passed a provision that stipulated that 50 percent of the individual cash value of a certificate could be borrowed at an interest rate of 4.5 percent. The Great Depression created massive unemployment, and many of the unemployed were veterans. There had been agitation and some violent demonstrations in the early 1930’s, and the role of the Communist Party in the United States and abroad was seen by some as significant. At another level, the role of the American Legion and other advocacy groups was also important. Because of the deteriorating economic conditions, groups of veterans from all over the nation began to de-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Bonus March
1932
Bonus Marchers and police battle in Washington, D.C. (NARA)
mand action. Some traveled great distances to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., where they lobbied for immediate payment of their bonus. A bill proposing full and prompt payment to veterans was introduced in the 1931 session of Congress, and as a result, approximately fifteen thousand veterans descended on Washington in the spring of 1932. The elected leader of the veterans was Walter W. Waters. He organized the veterans into military-type units, each of which found or built makeshift housing all over the city. Some were housed in a group of abandoned government buildings, and others created an encampment consisting of more than two thousand tents and lean-tos across the Anacostia River in Maryland at Anacostia Flats. Many of the tents were provided by the U.S. Army. During the spring and summer of 1932, the assembled veterans, called the Bonus Army or Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF), exerted increasing pressure on Congress to pass a bonus bill that would providing cash payments to each eligible veteran. Such a bill was introduced by Congressman Wright Patman of Texas, and although it
passed the House of Representatives on June 15, it was defeated in the Senate. Congress adjourned, and most of the veterans left Washington. Some money was allocated to help veterans get home. About two thousand veterans remained. Matters reached crisis level on July 28. A series of demonstrations began on Pennsylvania Avenue and Third and Fourth Streets Northwest. The Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia asked President Hoover for assistance. By early afternoon, Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley had ordered General Douglas MacArthur, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, to bring in previously prepared army units. MacArthur chose to lead the army units on horseback and dressed in full uniform with medals. There was a great deal of confusion, and the marchers were driven out of the abandoned government buildings. There is some question about whether Hurley ordered MacArthur to pursue other marchers outside the District of Columbia. In any event, the army forces pursued the marchers across the river, using copious tear gas but 2579
Bonus March not firing their guns. By midnight, the shantytown at Anacostia Flats had been burned. (Later tests confirmed that the tear gas used could initiate fires.) Two deaths and dozens of injuries resulted from the rioting. Significance Studies of the Bonus March have emphasized two factors: MacArthur’s ostentatious display and the role of the Communist Party of the United States. Although Communist Party organizers were present, Waters and others claimed that they had distanced themselves from the activists. In his memoirs and in partisan biographies, MacArthur insisted that the Communists had instigated the entire affair, and there was even talk that Communists had a list of officials who would be jailed after the revolution and that MacArthur’s name allegedly led the list. Some hagiographic MacArthur biographers went gone so far as to link the Bonus March imbroglio with MacArthur’s 1951 recall by President Harry S. Truman, claiming that the Communists were responsible for both. For his part, MacArthur claimed that only one in ten of the Bonus Marchers was a legitimate veteran. A survey by the Veterans Bureau, however, concluded that 94 percent were legitimate. At the time, President Hoover, Secretary Hurley, and especially General MacArthur were roundly criticized in the press for overreacting. —Eugene L. Rasor Further Reading Daniels, Roger. The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971. Criticizes Hoover and MacArthur. Enumerates several myths: that the Army fired on and killed veterans, that the marchers had machine guns, and that the BEF was infiltrated by large numbers of
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Communists. Includes the controversial report MacArthur wrote summarizing his actions. Hunt, Frazier. The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur. New York: Devin-Adair, 1954. One of several hagiographic biographies of MacArthur. Describes the Bonus March as a plot of the U.S. Communist Party, which supposedly had been instructed by Moscow to bring about a bloody riot. James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur. 3 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970-1985. The standard and authoritative biography of MacArthur. The Bonus March is covered in volume 1. MacArthur, Douglas. Reminiscences. Annapolis, Md.: Bluejacket Books, 2001. A self-serving memoir that should be read with caution. Declares that the Communist Party planned the riot and denies that he wore medals during the march. Perrett, Geoffrey. Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Media, 2001. Very readable but sometimes inaccurate biography. Its clear bias toward its subject makes it less valuable than many other biographies of MacArthur. Waters, Walter W. B.E.F.: The Whole Story of the Bonus Army. New York: John Day, 1933. A personal memoir by the most identifiable leader of the Bonus Marchers. See also: Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion; June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles; Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement
August 1, 1932
Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, led by James Shaver Woodsworth, was founded at a conference in Calgary, Alberta. The formation of the CCF, Canada’s first democratic socialist movement, transformed the Canadian political scene and represented a serious challenge to political orthodoxy in the climate of the Great Depression.
Key Figures James Shaver Woodsworth (1874-1942), Methodist minister, social activist, and politician William Irvine (1885-1962), Unitarian minister and politician Francis Reginald Scott (1899-1985), poet and professor of constitutional law Frank Underhill (1889-1971), historian and political theorist James Coldwell (1888-1974), teacher and politician Agnes Macphail (1890-1954), Canada’s first female member of Parliament Tommy Douglas (1904-1986), Baptist minister, politician and CCF premier of Saskatchewan, 19441961 Summary of Event On August 1, 1932, a conference at Calgary, Alberta, launched a new force in Canadian politics: the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Socialist ideas as well as the interests of labor and farmers were represented at the conference, and the CCF combined previously distinct movements into a single party. A follow-up conference in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1933 produced the Regina Manifesto, a sweeping document calling for overthrow of capitalism. The formation of the CCF owed much to the climate of the Great Depression. The 1929 stock market crash dried up investment, and high tariffs led to shrinking world markets. Since a third of Canada’s income came from exports, many Canadians lost their jobs, and 30 percent of the labor force was unemployed by 1933. On Canada’s prairies, the situation was especially dire. Wheat prices declined sharply, from $1.60 per bushel in
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Also known as: Cooperative Commonwealth Federation; New Democratic Party Locale: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Categories: Government and politics; social issues and reform
the middle of 1929 to $0.50 by the end of 1930. More serious difficulties followed as Canada’s Prairie Provinces—parts of Manitoba, Alberta, and especially Saskatchewan—faced the scourge of grasshopper plagues, hail, and drought. With successive years of inadequate rainfall, the prairies became a dustbowl, and valuable topsoil blew away. Two-thirds of Saskatchewan’s population was dependent on government relief, and the prevailing capitalist system was not equal to the challenge. The solutions proposed by orthodox political parties were clearly inadequate; Richard Bedford Bennett, Canada’s Conservative prime minister from 1930 to 1935, clung to the belief that tariffs would help Canada “blast a way” into world markets. Disillusioned people became more willing to entertain unconventional economic and political theories, and ideas such as communism and social credit—a complicated scheme of deficit spending through the distribution of dividends—received a more sympathetic hearing than they might have in better times. American populist ideas, which promoted antagonism toward “power elites,” and British socialism were among the ideological currents to which the CCF owed some of its inspiration. Chief among the CCF’s first organizers was James Shaver Woodsworth, a former Methodist minister with roots in the Social Gospel movement. Woodsworth had worked among the poor, participated in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, and had been a Labour and independent member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre since 1921. True to his Social Gospel principles, Woodsworth focused his efforts on the salvation of society as a whole through political action. Sometimes called “the conscience of Canada,” Woodsworth moved a resolution in each session of Parliament calling for the replacement of capitalism’s competitive profit motive with public and cooperative ownership of the means of production and distribution. This idea became the core of the CCF. The CCF, however, encompassed more than socialist ideals. Farmers’ organizations had been active since early in the century, and a tradition of political activism grew out of Grain Growers Associations and cooperatives formed to market grain through collectively owned pools. A perception that Canada’s National Policy tariffs served the interests of manufacturers at the expense of farmers also fueled political action. Provincial parties devoted to farmers’ interests, such as the United Farmers
Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement of Ontario (UFO) and United Farmers of Alberta (UFA), had made rapid gains, and in the 1921 election the farmer-supported Progressive Party gained the second largest number of seats in Canada’s federal parliament. These farmers’ parties, however, did not function as truly disciplined political parties in the traditional sense; instead, they perceived themselves as interest groups that condemned the whole party system as inherently corrupt. In 1924, a splinter group of more radical Progressives called the Ginger Group (to commemorate labor leader Ginger Goodwin, who had been killed by police) broke away to join with two Labour members of Parliament, James Shaver Woodsworth and William Irvine. Irvine, another devotee of the Social Gospel ideal, was a member of Parliament from Alberta and the author of The Farmers in Politics (1920). The Ginger Group would ultimately form the nucleus of the CCF. Another key to the party’s formation was the establishment in 1931 of the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR). The LSR consisted largely of left-wing intellectuals drawn from Canadian universities who were admirers of Woodsworth’s ideals and who expressed skepticism about the future of the capitalist system. The most prominent members of the LSR were Frank Underhill, a historian from the University of Toronto, and Francis Reginald Scott, a poet and law professor from McGill University in Montreal. Underhill and Scott would be the authors of the CCF’s 1933 Regina Manifesto. The Canadian Forum, a political periodical founded in Toronto in 1920, became a means of disseminating the league’s ideas. In May of 1932, Woodsworth met in Ottawa with a dozen or so others devoted to forming a “commonwealth party” that would unify labor, socialists, and farmers in a federation. William Irvine was among the group, as was Agnes Macphail, Canada’s first female member of Parliament, who was elected under the Progressive banner in 1921. Other key organizers were Angus MacInnis, Woodsworth’s son-in-law and a Vancouver Labour member of Parliament, and James Coldwell, a Saskatchewan teacher who would ultimately succeed Woodsworth as party leader. The leaders of this new political movement worked to bring together key radical groups. Several of these groups were holding their own conferences throughout the summer of 1932: the Western Conference of Labour Political Parties, the United Farmers of Canada, and the United Farmers of Alberta, who had formed the government in that province since 1921. These groups, along with other labor and farmers’ parties, answered the call from the Ottawa organizers to 2582
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 come together at the Calgary conference on August 1, 1932. The delegates considered adopting such names as the Socialist Party of Canada or the United Workers Commonwealth, but at last they settled on the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Woodsworth was elected president of the new group. No definitive policy declaration was accepted at the Calgary conference, but ideas presented there ultimately found their way into the Regina Manifesto, which was produced in 1933 and represented a fundamental rejection of free market capitalism. There was broad agreement on a program drafted by James Coldwell, which included the need for socialization of production, distribution, and exchange. The federation favored public ownership of banking, credit, utilities, and natural resources, and social legislation was to be pursued, especially with respect to health and employment insurance. Socialization would not extend to landownership, however, and the land tenure of farmers was to remain secure. In this respect, the early CCF revealed a fundamentally conservative stripe that differed from communist ideology. The deep religious convictions held by many CCF adherents was another key point of distinction. Nevertheless, defenders of the status quo in the Canadian press raised the specter of Soviet-style forced collectivization and warned that the adoption of CCF principles would lead to the burning of churches. Significance The 1932 formation of the CCF at the Calgary conference was followed the next year by a conference at Regina, Saskatchewan, that set out the party’s manifesto. The Regina Manifesto boldly called for the replacement of the capitalist system “with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated.” But it rejected Communist-style violent revolution in favor of democracy. Under Woodsworth’s leadership, the CCF functioned as a disciplined political party, an essential strategy to gain influence within the existing parliamentary system. While the CCF alarmed the political right, it was also criticized by Communists, who called for more sweeping change. Woodsworth displayed his disavowal of such ideas by dissolving the Communist-dominated Ontario branch of the CCF in 1934. The CCF gained 8.9 percent of the popular vote in the 1935 federal election, winning seven seats. The presence of a viable socialist alternative arguably pushed mainstream parties into more progressive legislation. Under Tommy Douglas, the CCF formed the provincial government in Saskatchewan in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1944. The party would continue to be a force in Canadian federal and provincial politics, evolving into the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. —Barbara J. Messamore
Written from a political-science perspective, these essays offer detailed analysis of the party’s early history. Young, Walter D. The Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932-61. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. A reliable and detailed account of the formation of the CCF. Young rejects the “party” label as applicable to capitalist organizations and prefers to consider the CCF a “movement.” See also: Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote; May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike; July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty; July 21Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements; Oct. 23, 1935Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada.
September, 1932
Anderson Discovers the Positron Carl David Anderson discovered the first antiparticle, a particle with the same mass as an electron but with a positive charge. His discovery represented the first evidence that antimatter exists and confirmed a prediction of relativistic quantum mechanical theory. Locale: Pasadena, California Categories: Physics; science and technology Key Figures Carl David Anderson (1905-1991), American physicist and professor Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-1984), British physicist Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953), American experimental physicist Summary of Event The first three decades of the twentieth century saw perhaps the most radical conceptual changes in the history of physics, especially at subatomic levels. To this period belong groundbreaking theoretical work on the quantum of energy (Max Planck), the quantum of light and the theory of relativity (Albert Einstein), the theory of atomic structure (Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr), the un-
certainty principle (Werner Heisenberg), quantum mechanics (Erwin Schrödinger), and relativistic quantum mechanics (Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac). The early twentieth century was also a period of great experimental discoveries, particularly of hitherto unknown constituents of matter. The electronic charge was measured by Robert Andrews Millikan, and the charge-to-mass ratio was measured by Sir Joseph John Thomson. The alpha particle was discovered by Ernest Rutherford, and the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick. It seemed as though the basic structure of matter was being completely unveiled, as though physicists had discovered a way to describe subatomic matter exhaustively in terms of Schrödinger’s and Heisenberg’s quantum mechanical theories. Thus, by the mid-1920’s, it had been established that matter consists primarily of heavy particles called protons, with a positive electric charge, and very light, negatively charged particles called electrons. The neutron— an electrically neutral particle, now known to be the third primary constituent of matter—had not been discovered yet. The neutron was discovered in 1932 by Chadwick. Dirac, a physicist at St. John’s College, Cambridge, was convinced that the quantum theory and the theory of 2583
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Further Reading Brennan, William J., ed. Building the Co-operative Commonwealth: Essays on the Democratic Socialist Tradition in Canada. Regina, Sask.: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1984. Essays by prominent scholars of Canadian socialist history consider such topics as the role of women in the CCF and the Saskatchewan CCF government of Tommy Douglas. McNaught, Kenneth. A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J. S. Woodsworth. 1959. Reprint. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. A frequently reprinted narrative of Woodsworth’s life that reveals his centrality to the formation of the CCF and puts the events into the context of a life devoted to social reform. Whitehorn, Alan. Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Anderson Discovers the Positron
Anderson Discovers the Positron relativity needed to be combined. This combination was accomplished in 1928, when Dirac formulated relativistic quantum theory. The mathematically elegant theory led to the conclusion that every particle had to have an antiparticle—a counterpart that was oppositely charged and that had an opposite “spin” (a property of every particle that is difficult to measure). This conclusion meant that there should be positive electrons and negative protons. It even led Dirac to expect there to be antineutrons, which, like neutrons, would have no charge, but would have a spin opposite to that of neutrons. Dirac’s relativistic quantum mechanics thus predicted theoretically the existence of “antimatter.” Antimatter particles, however, had yet to be observed. In 1927, Carl David Anderson, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, started to study elementary particles by investigating cosmic radiation. Cosmic radiation is a continuous stream of radiation, originating from nuclear reactions on the Sun and elsewhere in the cosmos, that flows into Earth’s atmosphere. It was not yet clear if these “cosmic rays” contained particles in addition to high-energy radiation. Early experiments could not detect any particles. Anderson began his work at Caltech in the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics under Millikan, the physicist who had first measured the charge on an electron. Their research goal was to find the nature of cosmic radiation. As Millikan’s junior research colleague, Anderson was first given the job of planning and directing the research. The necessary experimental equipment was ready for operation in the summer of 1931. The technique used was to send up balloons containing instruments containing water vapor called cloud chambers. When a charged particle entered one of these chambers, it left a track. By studying the track, the mass and charge of the particle that caused the track were calculated. In addition, if a magnet was placed in the chamber so that the track was made in the presence of a magnetic field, the way the track curved would indicate whether the particle had a positive or negative charge. Anderson and Millikan’s equipment took photographs every fifteen seconds. A very strong electromagnet was incorporated into the cloud chamber. The photographs showed several tracks of particles with very high energies. They also seemed to indicate that there were as many positive as negative particles in cosmic radiation, in many instances originating from the same point. The first explanation of the physicists’ empirical observations was that the positive particles whose tracks were 2584
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 observed must be protons, and the negative ones must be electrons. Nevertheless, the experimental results seemed to show that the positive particles in the cosmic radiation showers had masses close or equal to those of electrons. (A proton has 1,835 times the mass of an electron.) As Anderson stated in his 1936 Nobel lecture, the assumption that the positive particles had electronic mass “appeared very radical at the time.” Further refined experiments, however, indicated that the positively charged particles observed in cosmic radiation had to be light particles, like electrons, rather than heavier protons. Anderson published a paper in September, 1932, announcing the existence of positive electrons, or positrons. Experiments by Patrick M. S. Blackett and Giuseppe Occhialini at the University of Cambridge confirmed Anderson’s findings in 1933. Blackett and his coworkers suggested that the positive particle they had found was the antiparticle of the electron that Dirac’s theory had predicted. This discovery was the first evidence of the existence of antimatter. Dirac received the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics (with Schrödinger) for his experimental confirmation of the theory. Anderson received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 (with Victor Franz Hess) for his work on the positron. Anderson went on to win many other awards for his efforts, such as the Gold Medal of the American Institute of the City of New York (1935), the Elliot Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1937), and the Presidential Certificate of Merit (1945). The collections of positive and negative particles originating in the same point noted by Anderson now had an explanation. Some of the energy in the cosmic radiation was changing into particles, forming an electronpositron pair, which then sped off in opposite directions under the influence of the magnetic field. This was the first observation of what is known as “pair creation” (or pair production). It was also an example of the conversion of energy into matter, as predicted by Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2. The opposite of pair creation is annihilation: When equal amounts of matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other, with their mass being turned into pure energy. Some of the theories of the early history of the universe involve the conversion of energy into matter through pair creation. According to the big bang theory of the creation of the universe, fifteen billion years ago a gigantic explosion took place that created substance from energy. As many antiparticles as particles would have been created at that moment. The question arises as to why Earth’s part of the universe is predominantly
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 composed of one type of particles (matter: protons, electrons, and neutrons) to the exclusion of the other type, antimatter. It is not known yet if there are galaxies that are predominantly composed of antimatter. Anderson’s discovery was the first evidence that this is a possibility.
Further Reading Charlton, M., and J. W. Humberston. Positron Physics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. A lengthy treatise on the study of positrons and of positronium (an unstable form of matter consisting of an electron and a positron in orbit around each other). Foot, Robert. Shadowlands: Quest for Mirror Matter in the Universe. Parkland, Fla.: Universal, 2002. An introduction for lay readers to antimatter, dark matter, mirror matter, and other “non-ordinary” types of matter that are predicted by quantum mechanics and rela-
tivity. Explains the evidence that such types of matter exist, as well as the implications of their existence. Guillemin, Victor. The Story of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968. A general textbook discussion on the history of the development of quantum mechanics. Heathcote, Niels H. de V. Nobel Prize Winners in Physics, 1901-1950. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. Entries contain the details of the discoveries for which the Nobel Prizes were awarded and give lengthy extracts from the Nobel lectures. Inman, Fred W., and Carl E. Miller. Contemporary Physics. New York: Macmillan, 1975. A modern survey of physics, this book divides physics into the classical and modern eras. The discoveries of the modern era, including that of the positron, are described. Kim, S. K. Physics: The Fabric of Reality. New York: Macmillan, 1975. Starting with the idea of absolute and relative motion, this book attempts to give a simple description of the central concepts of modern physics, including Dirac’s relativistic quantum theory, for the nonspecialist. Trefil, James S. The Moment of Creation: Big Bang Physics from Before the First Millisecond to the Present Universe. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983. This book is a description of the theories of the starting point and development of the universe and includes a lengthy discussion of the role of matter and antimatter in this development. See also: Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed; Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay; Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons.
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Significance The discovery of the positron—the first antiparticle to be discovered—furnished direct evidence supporting Dirac’s theory of the existence of antimatter. Because antimatter is scarce on Earth, scientists began to produce antimatter under laboratory conditions. These experiments required particles at very high energies. At these energies, it was found that many new kinds of reactions occured and new kinds of particles were produced. The entire field of “high-energy physics,” for which large and expensive particle accelerators are required, can be considered to have started with Anderson’s discovery of the positron. His discovery gave physicists a clearer understanding of elementary particles. Further, this branch of physics has led to the unveiling of a very complex set of particles and of new forces that operate in the subnuclear realm. — Indira Nair
Anderson Discovers the Positron
Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 25, 1932
Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables The Poona Pact was a compromise measure that rescinded an award of separate electorates to the untouchables but gave them reserved seats in an electoral college. Also known as: Yeravda Pact Locale: Poona, India Categories: Civil rights and liberties; indigenous peoples’ rights; laws, acts, and legal history; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), leader of the depressed classes and founder of the All-India Depressed Classes Federation, a signatory to the Poona Pact Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of the Indian National Congress and signatory to the Poona Pact Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), prime minister of Great Britain, 1931-1935 Summary of Event The Second Round Table Conference was called both to frame a new constitution for British India and to establish gradual moves toward self-government that would lead to dominion status and then independence. It was held in London in 1932. At the conference, members of the British government, including Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and representatives of the Indian National Congress Party, met to discuss constitutional safeguards, the protection of minority communities in India, and the establishment of provisional and central legislatures. The All-India Muslim League had successfully convinced the British government that Muslims and other minority groups needed these types of safeguards to protect their political, economic, and educational interests. As the need for constitutional safeguards became widely recognized, other communal groups—including Sikhs, Indian Christians, Mahrattas, Anglo-Indians, members of the European community, the so-called backward classes, and women—also petitioned the government for special representation in the 1935 Indian constitution. One such religious group was the untouchables, the Hindu “outcastes” (also known by their more political names of “scheduled castes” or “depressed classes”), whom Mahatma Gandhi referred to as Harijans, or “children of God.” The untouchable classes were divided into three categories—untouchables, unap2586
proachables, and unseeables. In 1962, the number of untouchables was estimated at about sixty million (out of three hundred million Hindus). It was very difficult for the Congress Party to accept the idea that there were two communities in India—the Hindus and the largest minority, the Indian Muslims— whose interests diverged. The prospect of recognizing differences between caste Hindus and the group historically known as the untouchables was extremely daunting. When an August 4, 1932, decision made communal awards not only to Muslims but also to the depressed and other classes, Gandhi, who was in Yeravda Prison for his civil disobedience activities, reacted very strongly. He deeply opposed the creation of separate electorates for the depressed classes and the government’s insistence that fundamental differences lay between them and caste Hindus. Prime Minister MacDonald tried to justify the decision, and in response Gandhi began a fast that he vowed would continue until his death if separate electorates were not lifted. In essence, Gandhi wanted one electorate that would include all classes, and he wanted caste Hindus to recognize their moral and social responsibilities toward eradicating untouchability and bringing “outcaste” persons into the fold. In a September 16 statement announcing his fast, Gandhi said that he would begin eating as soon as the threat of separate electorates was removed once and for all. As a prisoner, he considered himself unfit to set forth his proposals, and he agreed to accept any accord that was made by a joint electorate composed of responsible caste Hindus and members of the depressed classes and was accepted by mass meetings of all Hindus. Essentially, Gandhi required the removal of the statesanctioned inequality that had long been attached to untouchability. The Poona Pact, also known as the Yeravda Pact, was reached on September 24 and signed on September 25, 1932. Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a highly educated member and representative of the depressed classes, agreed to the pact on September 26. The pact was seen as a compromise: While it continued to recognize the special status of the depressed classes, it would not award separate electorates to them. Instead, an electoral college of members of the depressed classes would be created, and voters would elect four candidates to participate in primary elections. The general electorate would then vote on the winners of the primary elections. Although
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Significance The most immediate consequence of the Poona Pact’s acceptance was the termination of the “epic fast” and the preservation of Gandhi’s life. When he began fasting, Gandhi indicated that his actions were not a response to those who disagreed with him but rather a way to force his supporters to confront an issue— untouchability—that had disturbed him since he was a young man. Putting his life on the line over this matter was a way to show how deeply he was affected by it, although it is important to note that even Gandhi was unwilling for the caste system to be entirely abolished because it was so central to Indian history and culture. In contrast, however, some saw the removal of the caste system as the only way untouchability would disappear. The Poona Pact did convince the Indian National Congress to put untouchability on its agenda, and as a result the issue became a cause for the reform movement. Other movements
The Poona Pact The Poona Pact created a special type of electoral college for India’s depressed classes. Just as important, however, it ensured Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s place as a leader and ended Mahatma Gandhi’s life-threatening fast. The full text of the pact follows: 1. There shall be seats reserved for the Depressed Classes out of general electorate seats in the provincial legislatures as follows: Madras, 30; Bombay with Sind, 15; Punjab, 8; Bihar and Orissa, 18; Central Provinces, 20; Assam, 7; Bengal, 30; United Provinces, 20. Total 148. These figures are based on the Prime Minister’s (British) decision. 2. Election to these seats shall be by joint electorates subject, however, to the following procedure: All members of the Depressed Classes registered in the general electoral roll of a constituency will form an electoral college which will elect a panel of four candidates belonging to the Depressed Classes for each of such reserved seats by the method of the single vote and four persons getting the highest number of votes in such primary elections shall be the candidates for election by the general electorate. 3. The representation of the Depressed Classes in the Central Legislature shall likewise be on the principle of joint electorates and reserved seats by the method of primary election in the manner provided for in clause above for their representation in the provincial legislatures. 4. In the Central Legislature 18 percent of the seats allotted to the general electorate for British India in the said legislature shall be reserved for the Depressed Classes. 5. The system of primary election to a panel of candidates for election to the Central and Provincial Legislatures as herein before mentioned shall come to an end after the first ten years, unless terminated sooner by mutual agreement under the provision of clause 6 below. 6. The system of representation of Depressed Classes by reserved seats in the Provincial and Central Legislatures as provided for in clauses (1) and (4) shall continue until determined otherwise by mutual agreement between the communities concerned in this settlement. 7. The Franchise for the Central and Provincial Legislatures of the Depressed Classes shall be as indicated in the Lothian Committee Report. 8. There shall be no disabilities attached to anyone on the ground of his being a member of the Depressed Classes in regard to any election to local bodies or appointment to the public services. Every endeavour shall be made to secure a fair representation of the Depressed Classes in these respects, subject to such educational qualifications as may be laid down for appointment to the Public Services. 9. In every province out of the educational grant an adequate sum shall be earmarked for providing educational facilities to the members of Depressed Classes.
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the provision was designed to last ten years, it could be abolished earlier. In every province, the pact provided money for the establishment of educational facilities for members of the depressed classes, and it also required that members of the depressed classes be allowed as candidates for publicservice jobs. The scheme for primaries, in which only the depressed classes would have a vote, was proposed by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru; this feature made the compromise more palatable to Ambedkar. The Poona Pact, which later became part of the 1935 Indian Constitution, offered less to the depressed classes than had the 1932 communal decision. However, the fact that the pact established separate electorates secured Ambedkar’s reputation as an effective voice for the untouchables. Crucially, the pact gave legitimacy to the idea that the caste system in India was unfair and certainly outdated, an idea that had strong religious as well as political implications. Gandhi himself said that he saw the division of castes as a religious matter and moral issue, and he believed that these matters could only be corrected by Hinduism itself rather than by what he called “political constitutions.”
Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables
Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables had sought to ameliorate the situation of the depressed classes by eliminating subcastes, relaxing caste restrictions, or even abolishing caste altogether. After the pact was signed, Gandhi attempted to eradicate the debilitating social and religious effects of untouchability by opening Hindu temples to untouchables. He remained opposed to interdining and intermarriage, although these eventually took place as well. By not endorsing the interdining and intermarriages that were taking place even then—including private efforts to join the depressed classes and the Sanatanists, or orthodox Hindus, at the table—some said that Gandhi sent ambiguous signals to people who wished to follow his example. In 1932, the All-India Anti-untouchability League, an organization to assist the untouchables, was founded. In 1933, Gandhi renamed the league the Harijan Sevak Sangh. That same year, a new weekly paper, Harijan, was also started. The paper published graphic drawings of the miserable habitations in which these “outcastes” lived. Their disabilities were listed at length: In some parts of the country they were denied access to village wells, schools, and post offices, and they were prevented from using umbrellas and wearing sandals. The Poona Pact could not end the curse of untouchability, which was more than three thousand years old, and the Harijans remained at the bottom of Indian society. In fact, after the fast and the signing of the Poona Pact, untouchability even lost some of its stigma: The debate had given the concept moral legitimacy. —Nancy Elizabeth Fitch Further Reading Coupland, Reginald. The Indian Problem: Report on the Constitutional Problem in India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1944. Discusses British India’s constitutions of 1919 and 1935 and the Round Table Conferences that led to the latter statute. Good background for the constitutional problems with untouchability, including itemization of political liabilities of the depressed classes. Desai, A. R. Crusade Against Untouchability: Social Background of Indian Nationalism. 3d ed. Bombay: G. R. Bhatkal, 1959. Provides glimpses of the history of untouchability and what it means as a cultural principle as well as a brief history of reform movements that attempted to improve the situation of people who suffered under it. Also shows the economic basis of untouchability, which historically has favored caste Hindus.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Fischer, Louis. “Climax.” In The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950. Achapter in an interesting biography of Gandhi that gives a detailed analysis of Gandhi’s fast. Gandhi, M. K. Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings. Edited by John Dear. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2002. Collection of Gandhi’s writings organized thematically, with topics including nonviolent resistance, the search for God, and the pursuit of truth. Includes a chronology as well as a list of sources and recommended readings. Keer, Dhananjay. Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1962. A biography of the leader of the depressed classes with a detailed account of the activities of Ambedkar and Gandhi during the second Round Table Conference. Particularly interesting for its recounting of pressures on Ambedkar to accept the Poona Pact and thus end Gandhi’s fast. Majumdar, R. C., ed. Struggle for Freedom. Vol. 11 in The History and Culture of the Indian People. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969. Good encyclopedic review of Indian nationalism with an interesting and slightly polemic view of Gandhi’s motivations in fighting against untouchability. Lengthy discussion of pre-Gandhi social reforms against this practice. Nanda, Bal R. “Harijans.” In Mahatma Gandhi: A Biography. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958. The biographer strongly makes his point that Gandhi, throughout his life, was very much against untouchability. Nanda suggests that fasting might have been a form of coercion, but if so it was directed at Gandhi’s followers rather than those wanting separate electorates—that it was “to sting the conscience of the Hindu community into right religious action.” Parekh, Bhiku. Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi’s Political Discourse. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000. Examines Gandhi’s political technique and explains how Gandhi was careful to use Indian symbols during his negotiations that led to the Delhi Pact. A rich analysis by a renowned Indian thinker. See also: June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion; 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement; Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion; 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change; Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact.
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Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship
October, 1932
Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright invited apprentices to work with him during the third and most productive period of his career. Locale: Spring Green, Wisconsin; Scottsdale, Arizona Category: Architecture
Summary of Event In 1932, at the age of sixty-five, architect Frank Lloyd Wright had fallen on hard times. Taliesin, his home in Spring Green, Wisconsin, had been struck by lightning and burned. Having fallen in love with another woman during a messy divorce, he was hounded by police and forced to spend a night in jail before he could remarry. The Great Depression was making the money needed to create big buildings scarce. In nearly five years, Wright had created buildings for only two paying clients, one a cousin. With his new bride, he returned to Taliesin with plans to rebuild it and to write his autobiography. Genius struck again, however—Wright decided to found the Taliesin Fellowship. He invited apprentices from around the world to live and work with him at Taliesin, where they could learn architecture from the ground up. It was a self-sufficient community: The Taliesin fellows generated electricity, grew their own food, cut their own lumber, quarried stone, and built buildings to live and study in. Having learned design and construction, the fellows helped to engineer and superintend construction of Wright’s greatest buildings. Twenty-three fellows gathered at Taliesin in October, 1932. A few soon left, daunted by the work; others stayed a decade or more. The fellowship flourished, and the numbers of fellows doubled and tripled. To escape the brutal winter of 1937, Wright led the fellows by caravan to Arizona, where they built winter quarters in Scottsdale at what became Taliesin West. A frontier camp at first, the new location had a drafting room that was lit by sunlight through a canvas roof. Based on Wright’s principles of organic architecture, the headquarters was designed to blend with the desert land-
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Key Figures Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), American architect William Wesley Peters (1912-1991), American architect Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. (1910-1989), American architect Edgar Tafel (b. 1912), American architect
scape and was made mostly of materials that were readily at hand. Wright remained young at heart, especially in old age, and he formed a natural bond with his young apprentices. He believed buildings should not be designed by politicians with grudges or old people with prejudices to preserve, but by fresh young minds. His own creative vigor was spurred by that of his fellows. The Taliesin Fellowship thrust Wright’s career into a second golden age. Among the first to join Wright at Taliesin was Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., who persuaded his father to commission a vacation home in the wild woods of western Pennsylvania. Wright visited the spot, and the result was Fallingwater, perhaps the most famous private home ever built for a person not of royal blood. Senior Taliesin fellows superintended the construction of Fallingwater. A boulder by a stream, which had been the family’s favorite picnic spot, shoulders through the floor beside the hearth. Anchored to that rock, the house sweeps out horizontally over a waterfall on cantilevered, reinforced concrete balconies. Light and sound from the rippling waters reverberate on slabs of stone, glass, and concrete. Indoors and outdoors blend. United with nature organically, interior space seems unenclosed, reaching out from within. In the same year, Herbert Johnson asked Wright and his fellows to make a new headquarters for his wax company. They presented him with one of the most astonishingly original, aesthetically pleasing commercial building ever erected. One newspaper reviewer said it was “like a beautiful naked woman bathing in a forest pool,” a rare compliment for an office building. Fashioned on low horizontal curves without corners, the building is entered from behind and beneath, through a carport. Its windowless walls afford no view of drab downtown Racine, Wisconsin, yet there is no feeling of containment, for bands of glass tubing encircle the building, shedding natural daylight on a great communal workspace without cubicles or partitions. As the tubes of glass disperse consciousness of walls, so the ceiling is effaced by giant columns shaped like lily pads; the columns are twenty-four feet in diameter at the top, slimming down to a width of nine inches at the floor. Building code inspectors balked at this design, as each column had to support seven tons. Wright staged a public demonstration in which sixty tons was loaded on one column; the permit was issued, and the spectacle drew nationwide attention. Johnson de-
Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Frank Lloyd Wright (center) works with four Taliesin fellows (from left): Eugene Masselink, Edgar Tafel, John H. Howe, and Bennie Dombar. (AP/Wide World Photos)
clared the building was worth more than five times its cost in publicity alone; he gave the fellowship a twentythousand-dollar tip and renewed that donation every year. One of the fellowship’s first projects had been a scale model of Broadacre City, Wright’s visionary plan for a community with a tillable acre of land for each family. The model had featured low-cost “Usonian” (American) homes incorporating Wright’s functional concepts. Madison newspaperman Herbert Jacobs commissioned the first truly Usonian home actually built. Without plaster, radiators, attic, or cellar, the famous five-thousanddollar house was built of concrete blocks and glass on a concrete slab heated by hot-water pipes. Jacobs also commissioned another home that made history, a rounded structure with a berm in back and glass in front for exposure to the sun. Called the solar hemicycle, it was the prototype for passive solar design. One of the last great projects undertaken by Wright and his fellows proved their most controversial: the 2590
Guggenheim Museum in New York City, an art gallery for nonfigurative art. Wright designed a circular structure that looked more like a concrete eggshell than a regular building. Inside, he coiled a walkway three-fourths of a mile long down from a glass skylight dome on a 3 percent grade. Visitors take an elevator up to the top and then stroll past paintings hung on luminous walls. A turn toward the center presents a prospect of the whole collection. One floor flows into another imperceptibly. Nowhere does the eye meet with any abrupt change of form; all lines flow together in unified harmony. The whole effect is quite serene. Unfortunately, Wright died just months before the museum was opened. Significance The Taliesin Fellowship had impacts on Wright’s own career, on the careers of the fellows, and on modern architecture in the United States and around the world. Taliesin is a Welsh word that means “the shining brow.” Wright took it as the name for his sparkling house of rock
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
across the United States. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and School of Architecture were also established to promulgate Wright’s philosophy and provide professional education in architecture. Taliesin Associates completed several important projects unfinished at the time of Wright’s death: the buildings at Florida Southern College, the Marin County Civic Center complex, and the Grady Grammage Memorial Auditorium at Arizona State University. Some of Wright’s designs were executed as late as the 1970’s, such as the Pfeiffer House at Taliesin West, the Feldman House in Berkeley, California, and the Loveness Guest House in Stillwater, Minnesota. Many fellows went on to achieve prominence in their own right in architecture and related fields, among them Edmund Thomas Casey, Bruce Gobb, Aaron Green, John deKoren Hill, John H. Howe, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Eugene Masselink, Charles Mantooth, Robert Mosher, William Wesley Peters, Ling Po, John Rattenbury, Paolo Soleri, and Edgar Tafel. Moreover, Taliesin Associated Architects was responsible for several significant structures erected in the decade after Wright’s death, such as the Ascension Lutheran Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, designed by Peters; the Prairie School in Racine, designed by Mantooth; the Rocky Mountain National Park Center; the Lincoln Income Life Insurance Company in Louisville, Kentucky; the Spring Green resort development near Taliesin; and the Lescohier House in Madison, designed by Peters. Wright regretted that his effects on architecture had been more imitative than emulative, but they were both. The course of modern architecture was charted by the possibilities of concrete, steel, and glass that he and his Taliesin fellows pioneered. Indeed, his concepts of the prairie house, the Usonian house, and passive solar design revolutionized residential architecture, especially in American suburbs. City planners, of course, never realized the concepts Wright envisioned for Broadacre City in full, but they did try to bring more of the country into the city. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, many downtowns were redesigned as pedestrian malls and gardens to minimize or eliminate the presence of private automobiles. Suburban shopping malls, with their wide-open spacing and horizontal sweep, reflect the massive indirect influence of Wright’s Taliesin period. If Wright had retired at sixty-five instead of founding the Taliesin Fellowship, he would be remembered as a daring experimentalist in residential architecture and interior design. The impact of his creative innovations and organic philosophy on subsequent architecture would 2591
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and glass built on the brow of a hill in rural Wisconsin. Taliesin was also the name of a mythical Welsh bard who entertained King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. For Wright, the name thus suggested artistic inspiration, and he used it to christen the fellowship that lifted him late in life with abundant inspiration. With his fellows around the drafting board, he could play King Arthur with his court. They built a new Camelot for themselves and enlivened architecture around the world. The commission that relaunched the great architect’s career came from the father of a Taliesin fellow. The worldwide acclaim that Fallingwater garnered was unprecedented and led to dozens of other residential commissions, the bread and butter of an architect whose scandalous private life had turned away many corporate and governmental customers. The Taliesin Fellowship itself drew a significant amount of publicity. Its work-camp ethic appealed to American values during Depression years. Much was made of receiving visitors at Taliesin. For fifty cents, a visitor could receive tours of the house and grounds conducted by fellows, attend a performance of the Taliesin orchestra or chorus, and be greeted by Wright himself. The fellowship gained many clients and allies in this way, among them Herbert Johnson, Carl Sandburg, Adlai Stevenson, Henry R. and Clare Boothe Luce, and other influential shapers of public opinion. The most immediate and long-range effect the Taliesin Fellowship had on architecture was to spread the fame and influence of Frank Lloyd Wright around the world. The successes of Fallingwater and the Johnson Wax headquarters early in the life of the fellowship reestablished Wright’s professional reputation. In 1938, a special edition of the influential journal Architectural Forum was devoted to Wright’s recent work, and his portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In 1939, Wright was asked to lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Taliesin fellows put together a major retrospective exhibition shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940. In the 1950’s, Philadelphia architect Oscar Stonorov organized an exhibition of Wright’s work titled Sixty Years of Living Architecture and presented it in several cities in the United States, Europe, and Mexico. Wright was the first American architect to gain worldwide fame and influence, and fascination with his work has hardly abated since his founding of the fellowship. Individually and as an organization, many of the fellows carried on after Wright’s death. The fellowship was transformed into Taliesin Associated Architects, a firm that extended Wright’s organic principles of design
Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship
Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship have been marginal, however, as it was before 1932, and his impact on modern building would have been a fraction of what it became. —John L. McLean Further Reading Costantino, Maria. Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Crescent Books, 1991. Lavishly illustrated picture book of Wright’s architecture, with brief commentary, covering all periods of his work in chronological order. Features numerous full-color photographs and black-and-white illustrations. Includes biographical introduction and index. Levine, Neil. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. Examines Wright’s life as well as his architectural career, addressing the ways in which each influenced the other. Includes many illustrations, bibliographical note, and index. Smith, Norris Kelly. Frank Lloyd Wright: A Study in Architectural Content. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1966. An intriguing portrait of the architect; not a biography, but an analysis of his political, religious, social aesthetic, and philosophical beliefs. Asserts that Wright was a romantic spirit committed to the universal salvation of humankind, a fundamentally conservative and religious cause. Includes illustrations and footnotes. Storrer, William Allin. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog. 3d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Provides photographs or sketches of all buildings known to have been designed by Wright, with brief, cogent commentary. Includes an introduction, floor plans for several structures, maps, and geographic and alphabetical indexes. Tafel, Edgar. Apprentice to Genius: Years with Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979. Full and reliable account of the Taliesin Fellowship by one of Wright’s greatest protégés. Lavishly illustrated with dozens of photographs, maps, and designs, many in color, including photographs of apprentices at
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 work and buildings under construction. Includes list of Wright buildings that are open to the public and index. Twombly, Robert C. Frank Lloyd Wright: An Interpretive Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Excellent interpretation of Wright’s life, work, and thought for the general reader. Offers cogent commentary on the major designs and an appreciative yet balanced assessment of Wright’s political and social ideas and their impact on his work. Marred somewhat by vituperative attacks on Wright’s followers. Includes illustrations, notes, annotated bibliography, and index. Wright, Frank Lloyd. An Autobiography. Rev. ed. New York: Horizon Press, 1977. Wright’s own revelations of his amazing experiences and the overwhelming adversity he overcame remain lively, fresh, and intriguing. This edition incorporates corrections of earlier editions and eighty-two photographs of people and works built as late as 1976. Wright, Olgivanna. Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life, His Work, His Words. New York: Horizon Press, 1966. Laudatory first-person account of the architect by his beloved third wife. Interesting as an insider’s view of life at Taliesin and as a sampler of Wright’s lectures to his Taliesin fellows. Includes many black-and-white photographs, a chronological list of Wright’s architectural innovations, a catalog of his buildings and unfinished projects, and several sketches of later designs by Taliesin fellows. See also: 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; 1925: Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure
November, 1932
Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure The Radio Corporation of America was restructured following an antitrust lawsuit, bringing an end to the “radio trust.” Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Radio and television; trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history
Summary of Event The action taken by the U.S. government to curtail monopolistic practices of the “radio trust” forced the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to restructure its corporate organization in 1932, profoundly altering its status and its role in the growing home entertainment field. The U.S. government began to investigate RCA for violations of antitrust legislation in 1924, just five years after the government had played an important part in creating the Radio Corporation of America. In 1919, radio was used primarily for point-to-point transmission between stations and ships at sea. The federal government was concerned that this important service would come under the control of foreign hands, namely, the British Marconi Company. It used its influence to persuade Owen D. Young of the General Electric Company (GE) not to sell some important radio patents to Marconi. With government support, GE acquired the American Marconi Company and joined with the Westinghouse, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), and United Fruit companies to form the Radio Corporation of America. Each of the founding companies held important patents in radio technology and received stock in the new organization in return for putting their patents into the RCA pool. AT&T and United Fruit sold their interest in RCA after a few years of operation, leaving GE and Westinghouse as the principal shareholders. RCA was created on the foundation of radio-related patents—about two thousand of them in 1920—and given the mission to wrest control of wireless communi-
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Key Figures David Sarnoff (1891-1971), founder and leader of the Radio Corporation of America Owen D. Young (1874-1962), founder of the Radio Corporation of America Lee de Forest (1873-1961), American scientist and inventor Warren Olney (1870-1939), assistant U.S. attorney general
cation from Great Britain. It quickly achieved these goals and successfully acquired many more patents, until it dominated the technology of radio. In the early 1920’s, the astonishing rise of radio as home entertainment brought immense wealth and power to RCA but also changed its relationship with the U.S. government. David Sarnoff was the force behind RCA’s move into radio as home entertainment. He had first brought the idea of a radio “music box” to the attention of the management of RCA and had directed the company’s strategy of acquiring broadcasting stations and manufacturing radio receivers. Point-to-point transmission of radio messages was usually the preserve of monopolies, but the fledgling broadcast industry was a highly competitive business with hundreds of new companies. Sarnoff saw that RCA’s pool of patents could bring order to this chaos. He encouraged energetic prosecution of patent infringers in the courts. Once RCA’s key patents had been upheld, the path was clear to establish a radio monopoly. The technology of wireless communication rested on numerous patents, but Sarnoff chose to use the vacuum tube as the means to enforce RCA’s patent holdings and establish its monopoly. The vacuum tube detected and amplified radio waves and was a vital component of radio sets and many other valuable products, such as control devices for industry. RCA’s patent position was especially strong in vacuum tubes, and its research laboratories were constantly producing new types of tubes that brought dramatic improvements in radio sets. Sarnoff instituted a system of “package licensing” by which a company wishing to enter the radio field could get access to all necessary patents by acquiring one license from RCA. It was impossible to make radio equipment without infringing on RCA’s patents, especially those related to vacuum tubes. In the early days of radio, in the first years of the 1920’s, twenty-five large companies received licenses from RCA in return for substantial fees and a royalty paid on each radio set sold. The conditions of the license favored RCA’s monopoly because the licensees had to agree to use only RCA vacuum tubes in their products. Independent producers of vacuum tubes, such as inventor Lee de Forest, who had created one of the pioneer tubes, opposed this restriction and took their case to the U.S. Congress. Independent radio manufacturers, such as the Grigsby-Grunow company, brought suits against RCA and kept the issue of the radio monopoly in the public eye.
Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure As radio sets became one of the most popular consumer products of the 1920’s and vacuum tubes were applied to many more products, RCA’s patent holdings became more profitable. By the end of the 1920’s, royalty income was running around $7 million annually and was the main source of revenue for the company. Although RCA allowed smaller companies to acquire licenses, it still held a stranglehold on the booming business of making radio receivers. It increased the amount of royalty payments and placed more restrictions on use of the licenses it issued. Soon, disgruntled radio companies were referring to RCA as the “radio trust.” Complaints from radio manufacturers led the Federal Trade Commission to launch a four-year investigation into RCA in 1924. That investigation brought many accusations that the company and its owners were restraining trade but no prosecution. In 1930, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit against RCA and its owners, alleging unlawful conspiracy to dictate the terms by which any potential competitor could use any of the patents held by RCA. In terms of the dollar amount of business covered by the prosecution, this was one of the largest antitrust suits ever initiated by the United States. The announcement of an impending lawsuit against RCA quickly led to negotiations with the Justice Department to find a basis for dropping the prosecution. These negotiations continued through 1931 and 1932. The Justice Department was represented by Assistant Attorney General Warren Olney. The government’s position was that the leading participants in RCAshould take their patents back, thus removing the means of monopoly power in the radio field and restoring competition. They favored an open patent pool with no restrictive licenses. RCA argued that the patents were its greatest asset and that removing them would lead to the dissolution of the company. The Great Depression had already begun to take its toll in the radio industry, and RCA’s common stock, which had once been priced at 114, reached its low point. Several times during 1932, preliminary agreements on terms of the breakup of the radio trust were reached, but RCA backed out because it believed that the conditions were too severe. Many in the company believed that an open patent pool that gave free access to inventions was unfair to those who had worked to produce them, including RCA’s own laboratories. Representatives of each side met daily in an effort to resolve their differences. Opinion within RCA was that no wrongdoing had occurred in their contracts with affiliates, but Owen D. Young argued for compromise to avoid a long 2594
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and potentially damaging lawsuit. In November, 1932, RCA gave way and agreed to the conditions demanded by the Justice Department two days before the trial was scheduled to begin. It signed a consent decree that did not admit guilt of any antitrust violations. Significance The major result of the consent decree was that General Electric and Westinghouse had to divest themselves of stock in RCA. Their employees who sat on the board of directors of RCA had to resign their seats. Owen D. Young, who had been a founder of RCA and had played a major part in forging the agreement with the Justice Department, had to leave the board. GE and Westinghouse agreed to stay out of the business of manufacturing radio sets in competition with RCA for a period of thirty months, by which time RCA was expected to have weathered the transition from monopoly status and become fit to compete. The agreement also made it possible for AT&T to reenter the radio business and begin making its own sets. The telephone companies had been some of the first to investigate wireless transmission because it threatened their long lines. After playing an important part in the formation of RCA, AT&T had sold its shares in the organization in 1922 and in 1926 had abandoned its interests in radio broadcasting. It had exploited the work of its Western Electric laboratories to become a leading force in vacuum tube technology and had established itself as the major supplier of sound equipment for motion-picture studios. It now stood as a dangerous competitor to RCA in the new field of electronic equipment manufacture. The conditions of the agreement between RCA and the Justice Department were not all unfavorable to the company. Under its old relationships, RCA had been obliged to buy vacuum tubes and transmitting apparatus from GE and Westinghouse and then use them in its own products. Now it was able to make its own tubes and use them in new businesses, such as industrial applications. This opened up several profitable new fields for the company. The consent decree ended the practice of issuing exclusive licenses that forced radio manufacturers to use only RCA tubes. RCA could no longer pick and choose whom to allow into the radio business because it was forced to license any applicant. RCA no longer dominated the patent pool, and the independent radio manufacturers hoped that they would be able to secure licenses from General Electric or Westinghouse. They saw competition as a means of lowering license and royalty fees.
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larger corporate control of GE and Westinghouse, Sarnoff seized the opportunity to make RCA into a more flexible and innovative company. Under his tenure, research became one of the foundations of RCA’s operations and the guiding force of its business strategies. Sarnoff’s vision was of an enterprise based on technology, not necessarily the result of accumulating patents but the consequence of an ambitious research agenda. RCA was one of the first companies to investigate the technical and commercial opportunities of television, carrying out important research in the 1930’s. Television became a bigger and more profitable business than radio after World War II and established RCA as the leader in the home entertainment field. — Andre Millard Further Reading Aitken, Hugh G. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. The definitive study of the early years of radio. Contains a detailed description of the founding of the Radio Corporation of America. Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. One among many favorable biographies of Sarnoff, written by an RCA executive who worked with him. Reveals the inner workings of the company up to the 1960’s. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Maclaurin, W. Rupert, and R. Joyce Harman. Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry. 1949. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1976. Although somewhat dated, still an excellent overall account of the formation and first decades of the radio industry. Includes illustrations and index. Sarnoff, David. Looking Ahead: The Papers of David Sarnoff. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Contains selections from Sarnoff’s papers held at Princeton University. Focuses on technology but reveals Sarnoff’s strategies and personality. Sobel, Robert. RCA. New York: Stein & Day, 1986. Good overview of the history of the company, written by a leading business historian for the lay reader. Places the growth of RCA and its technology in the context of the times. Portrays Sarnoff in a more realistic and less flattering light than do other sources. 2595
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The open patent pool never materialized, and AT&T controlled many important patents. It was not until 1958 that RCA’s licensing power was ended by a Justice Department antitrust suit. Although the consent decree limited RCA’s monopoly power in the radio field, it did not bring the company to bankruptcy, as many feared it would, nor did it hinder RCA’s growth during the 1930’s. The radio trust might have been broken, but by 1932 the great radio boom was over. Sales of receiving sets had reached the saturation point. David Sarnoff had correctly recognized that the time was right to diversify RCA’s business. To this end, he had moved into the businesses of broadcasting, filmmaking, and the manufacture of phonographs and records. As news of the impending antitrust suit was reaching RCA in the late 1920’s, Sarnoff was already pressing the directors to turn the company into a self-contained concern that manufactured all the components used in its products. Sarnoff wanted to integrate the company fully by building up its research operation and by creating a strong manufacturing base. He also wanted to make RCA a force in technologies other than radio. Rather than undermining this strategy, the consent decree actually pushed RCA further along this path. RCA acquired several manufacturing facilities from GE and Westinghouse and embarked on the manufacture of a wide range of electronic products. Although the United States was in the grip of a serious depression, RCA continued to be a highly profitable concern. The company had sales of $100 million and profits of $6 million in 1936. The government’s antitrust suit helped turn RCA from an organization focused on collecting royalty payments into a broad-based manufacturing concern driven by the innovations emerging from its laboratories. The critical cross-licensing agreement that had been the basis of the original idea for the Radio Corporation of America was left untouched by the consent decree. RCA still had access to radio-related inventions produced in the laboratories of GE and Westinghouse and could share in the advance of radio technology. It also had acquired several of their development laboratories. RCA emerged from the antitrust suit as one of the most powerful research and development organizations in American business. Although Sarnoff publicly mourned the breakup of the radio trust and predicted hard times for RCA after it had been separated from its powerful owners, he was actually pleased that he now had free rein to lead the company. Free from the restraints of operating within the
Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure
Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. The standard one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. See also: Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Mar.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed; Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast.
November 8, 1932
Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President Dissatisfied with President Herbert Hoover’s response to the Great Depression, Americans voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised them a “New Deal.” Roosevelt would become the only president reelected three times as well as the most famous and successful Democratic leader of the twentieth century. Locale: United States Categories: Government and politics; economics Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), governor of New York, 1929-1933, and president of the United States, 1933-1945 Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), first lady of the United States, 1933-1945 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 James Aloysius Farley (1888-1976), chairman of the National Democratic Committee and Roosevelt’s campaign manager John Nance Garner (1868-1967), speaker of the House of Representatives, 1931-1932, and vice president of the United States, 1933-1941 Huey Long (1893-1935), Louisiana politician Summary of Event On July 2, 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt boarded a trimotored airplane at Albany, New York, and flew to Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention had nominated him to be the party’s candidate in the general election for president of the United States. It was a dramatic gesture. Breaking tradition, Roosevelt became the first presidential candidate ever to make an acceptance speech at a nominating convention. Previously, nominees had awaited official notification through the U.S. mail. In a personal appearance, he could both emphasize his determination to take vigorous action against 2596
the nation’s economic ills and demonstrate his physical ability to handle the job. His plane bucked strong headwinds and twice had to land in order to refuel. When he at last stood before the sweating delegates in Chicago Stadium, he endorsed the party platform, promising relief for the unemployed, public works, repeal of Prohibition, agricultural reform, and tariff reduction. In a ringing conclusion he declared: “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” Three years of the worst economic depression in U.S. history, occurring under a Republican administration, had wrecked Republican chances to retain the White House in 1932. An unenthusiastic Republican convention had nominated President Herbert Hoover and his vice president, Charles Curtis, to run for a second term. Republican leaders were under no illusions. Only a sudden upturn in the economy could offer the ticket any hope. Given the near certainty of a Democratic victory, the struggle within the Democratic Party’s ranks for the nomination was intense. As governor of New York, Roosevelt had emerged as the early front-runner. He had support among both urban and rural Democrats, the two factions that had torn the party apart in recent elections, but he lost ground late in the primaries. Al Smith, the titular leader of the party and the 1928 presidential nominee, was the darling of the eastern political bosses. The most important favorite son was a Texan, John Nance Garner, who had the backing of powerful newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. If the anti-Roosevelt coalition had stayed together, the nomination might have gone to a dark horse such as Newton D. Baker, secretary of war in the Woodrow Wilson cabinet. On the third ballot, the Roosevelt forces were stopped cold, about one hundred votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority. The bandwagon envisioned by Roosevelt’s campaign manager, James Aloy-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President
U.S. Electoral Vote, 1932 WA 8 OR 5
MT 4 ID 4
WY 3 UT 4
CA 22 AZ 3
MN 11 WI 12
SD 4 IA 11
NE 7 CO 6
OK 11
NM 3
PA 36 IL 29
KS 9
TX 23
NY 47
MI 19 OH 26
IN 14
MO 15
KY 11
MS 9
AL 11
NH 4 MA 17 RI 4 CT 8 NJ 16 DE 3 MD 8
NC 13
TN 11
AR 9
WV VA 8 11
ME 5
1932
NV 3
VT 3
ND 4
GA 12
SC 8
LA 10 FL 7
= Roosevelt (Democrat) = Hoover (Republican)
sius Farley, had not materialized, and the prize seemed about to slip away. After a brief recess, Texas and California switched their votes to support Roosevelt, giving him the necessary majority. Garner himself had made the crucial decision. He was a loyal Democrat who feared the consequences of a deadlocked convention and the nomination of a weak compromise choice; to mollify his supporters and balance the ticket, he accepted the vice presidential nomination. Louisiana’s governor, Huey Long, assisted Garner with southern delegations. The flight to Chicago the next day set the tone of the Democratic campaign, but Roosevelt remained vague about the “new deal” he so casually had promised. He spoke in warm but sometimes contradictory generalities, always playing it safe; most of all, he wanted to keep his fractious party together and gather the enormous vote of protest against Hoover. His major farm address, at Topeka, Kansas, promised a national program of planned agricultural production without being explicit about how it would work. To the business community, he pledged a 25 percent reduction in federal spending and a balanced
budget. The Hoover administration, he said at Pittsburgh, was “the most reckless and extravagant” peacetime government in history. This speech would haunt him later, but he was thoroughly serious. He left himself one loophole: People would not be allowed to starve, even if the government had to run a deficit. In his address before the Commonwealth Club at San Francisco, he came closest to spelling out his economic philosophy: that government must assume the role of regulator of the common good within the existing economic system. Hoover’s brutal use of the army against the Bonus Marchers that summer—in a demonstration that turned into the Anacostia Flats riots—confirmed the popular image of him as a man insensitive to suffering. On the hustings, Hoover hammered out his speeches without the aid of speechwriters, and his plodding performances contrasted with Roosevelt’s ebullience. Sometimes Hoover and Roosevelt sounded strangely alike, but they had fundamental differences. Hoover argued that the causes of the Depression lay in Europe and thus far away from U.S. shores, whereas Roosevelt emphasized the 2597
Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President Depression’s domestic origins. They also disagreed on tariff policy, the gold standard, Prohibition, and public utility regulation. Late in the campaign, Hoover panicked with the fear that U.S. institutions were in jeopardy. If Roosevelt had his way on the tariff, Hoover said, “The grass will grow in the streets of a hundred cities, a thousand towns; the weeds will overrun the fields of millions of farms.” Despite the lack of any real debate of the issues, voters understood that Roosevelt’s election meant change, even if it was not clear exactly where he would lead them. Roosevelt amassed 22,821,857 votes to Hoover’s 15,761,841, losing only six northeastern states; he overwhelmingly carried the electoral college with a vote of 472 to 59. The Socialist and Communist Parties polled less than a million votes in what should have been a golden opportunity to exploit discontent. Between election day and the inaugural lay another hard winter. While the nation awaited clarification of Roosevelt’s “new deal,” the Great Depression reached its nadir.
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Significance Once Roosevelt took office, he began to turn his campaign references to a “new deal” into the reality of a series of social and economic reforms called the New Deal. He instituted programs to create jobs, to feed the starving, to help banks reFranklin D. Roosevelt takes the oath of office from Chief Justice cover, and otherwise to fight the effects of the Charles Evans Hughes in 1933. (AP/Wide World Photos) Great Depression. Roosevelt’s administrations are remembered as the most successful incarnation of Democratic “big government,” as he significantly Further Reading expanded the federal government and used that governAlter, Jonathan. The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred ment as a tool of what would later be called “social jusDays and the Triumph of Hope. New York: Simon & tice.” At the time, the forces of the Right labeled RooseSchuster, 2006. Tightly focused study of the first one velt a socialist and fought tooth and nail against many of hundred days of Roosevelt’s first term in office, durhis most famous and most popular programs. However, ing which he responded to the national crisis and deRoosevelt’s eventual success in combating the Depresfined his presidency and legacy for generations. Insion—arguably as much a function of the advent of cludes bibliographic references and index. World War II and the mobilization of a wartime econBernstein, Michael. The Great Depression. New York: omy as anything else—ensured that subsequent generaCambridge University Press, 1987. A provocative tions would portray him differently. By the 1980’s, he study of the causes of the Great Depression. was portrayed almost universally in the mainstream of Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest. New York: Vintage American politics as a great leader (whatever might have Books, 1983. Analyzes the criticism that was aimed at been said about him in private), and such diverse political voices as Ronald Reagan and Lyndon LaRouche have the New Deal by Huey P. Long and Father Charles claimed to be the authentic inheritors of the Roosevelt Coughlin. legacy. Friedel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous —Donald Holley and Joseph Edward Lee with Destiny. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. In a single 2598
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guing that Roosevelt’s transformation of the federal government defined its role and functions in American life for the rest of the century and beyond. See also: Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation; Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime; May 27, 1935: Black Monday; July 5, 1935: Wagner Act; Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts; Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act; June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy.
December, 1932-Spring, 1934
Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union In the Soviet Union, forced collectivization and the seizure of foodstuffs by the central government resulted in the deaths of millions of peasants. Huge numbers of people were either murdered outright or died as a result of horrific conditions in state-run camps, although Joseph Stalin’s government attempted to hide its crimes from the world. Also known as: Terror Famine Locale: Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and the Soviet Union’s North Caucasus regions Categories: Agriculture; disasters; government and politics; human rights Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party in Russia and dictator in the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 Nikita S. Khrushchev (1894-1971), Soviet leader in the Ukraine Pavlik Morozov (1918-1932), one of many young people who informed on their parents at the behest of the Soviet state Summary of Event In October of 1928, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin rolled out the First Five-Year Plan for the Soviet Union’s eco-
nomic transformation. The plan promised to ensure the comprehensive development of industry throughout the Soviet Union and included a plan to modernize Soviet agriculture, which remained largely unchanged from its days under the czars: Most peasants still lived in small villages and followed traditional methods of agriculture. The Five-Year Plan was supposed to transform Soviet peasants into an agricultural proletariat. Although some would become direct employees of state-owned farms, the rural equivalent of factories, the majority were expected to join cooperative enterprises known as collective farms, in which they would pool their tools and labor and share in the proceeds. These new farms would be provided with modern farm machinery that would help bring Soviet agricultural productivity in line with that of industrialized Western nations. In theory, the transition was supposed to be voluntary, and a great deal of publicity was devoted to the first few peasants who joined. However, only the poorest of peasants stood to gain anything under the new arrangement, and so most simply ignored the call to collectivize. Many resisted the government’s attempts to compel their participation. Stalin’s response to attempts at resistance was brutal and coercive. The prosperous peasants, often known as kulaks (the Russian word for “fist”), were condemned as enemies of the people. Another group, known as sub2599
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volume, one of the most prolific Roosevelt experts examines the president’s career. Garraty, John A., ed. The Great Depression. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Acollection of essays exploring the economic collapse from an international perspective. Lash, Joseph. Eleanor and Franklin. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. Documents the role played by Eleanor Roosevelt in her husband’s march toward the White House. Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. An excellent analysis of the implementation of Roosevelt’s program. Winkler, Allan M. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006. A study of Roosevelt’s administration, ar-
Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union
Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union kulaks, was theoretically composed of peasants too prosperous to be grouped among the very poor and not prosperous enough to be kulaks, although in reality this group included anyone who objected to collectivization. Kulaks and subkulaks were arrested in huge numbers and sent to prison camps in obscure regions of Siberia, where many began building their own camps immediately after disembarking from the deportation trains. Thousands died of exposure within days of their arrival: Prisoners often wore nothing but the clothes they had on at the time of their arrest in the far warmer lands of Ukraine and the northern Caucasus. Many of the peasants who were not arrested were accused of hoarding food. Arbitrary production quotas from the central planning agencies were enforced by the secret police, whose members operated under the assumption that peasants had plenty of food and that they were simply hiding it from the government. Agents regularly broke into peasant huts and barns to take whatever they found, and in response desperate peasants sought food wherever they could, often picking fallen grain from the fields. Stalin reacted by promulgating even harsher laws. A person could be shot for “stealing” as little as five heads of wheat. The mere possession of grain, even if it was being stored for the next year’s planting, was considered evidence of hoarding, and the accused were often executed without even the pretense of a trial. Children were encouraged to inform on their parents for hoarding grain or for otherwise resisting collectivization. The most famous case was that of Pavlik Morozov, a fourteen-year-old member of the Young Pioneers (the state-sanctioned youth organization) who turned in his father—who had been the head of the village soviet in Gerasimovka—and was subsequently murdered by a group of villagers led by his uncle. The Soviet government quickly made Morozov a martyr and erected a shrine to him in the house where his father’s trial had been held. Stalin’s background as a former seminarian was perversely expressed in the development of the cults centered on Morozov and others like him, including Kolya Myagotin, Kolya Yakovlev, Kychan Dzhalkylov, and Promya Kolibin. At least one mother who lost her son in the collectivization and resulting famine said that she would rather see her child killed than have him twisted into the type of person who would betray family to the government. Whole families perished during the artificial scarcity: Some collapsed from exhaustion while in search of food, while others died quietly in their huts. Starving peasants 2600
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 who searched for food in the towns and cities were turned away, and some became so maddened by hunger that they filled their bellies with anything remotely edible, including tree bark and grass. Others were so desperate that they turned to preying on their fellow human beings, eating what little flesh remained on the bones of those who had already starved or murdering people outright. Nikita S. Khrushchev’s memoirs grimly recounted the author’s memory of finding a peasant woman ranting that she had already eaten her daughter and was now salting her son’s flesh. In March of 1930, Stalin issued a proclamation called “Dizzy with Success,” a tactical retreat in which he criticized the “excesses” of collectivization, but this meager action did little to slow famine’s rising tide, and the disruption of agriculture and widespread starvation continued for several years. Furthermore, Stalin refused to seek international aid and determinedly concealed the famine’s extent. Western democracies were largely unaware of the massive numbers of deaths; Stalin did not want to give the world powers reason to doubt the First Five-Year Plan. In order to prevent the unauthorized flow of information, Stalin established strict controls on travel, and any contact between Soviet and foreign citizens was automatically suspect. Significance Forced collectivization and the resulting famine dealt huge blows to Soviet agriculture. Agricultural productivity plummeted just as the Soviet Union was most in need of food to fuel the industrialization imposed by the First Five-Year Plan. Production would not return to precollectivization levels until 1940, just before the Nazi invasion inflicted further destruction on the Soviet Union’s principal agricultural regions. The problems at the root of the Soviet systems of collective farming and central planning prevented the country’s agricultural advancement and made it permanently incapable of feeding its citizens. Even Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1980’s-era program of perestroika (restructuring) proved incapable of remedying the situation. Furthermore, Stalinist policies discouraged farmers’ attempts to take any initiative, and this legacy continued to plague Russian farmers after the Soviet Union’s fall. The famine’s human cost was enormous but could not be acknowledged under Stalin’s inflexible policies. Noted Soviet writer Boris Pasternak suggested that the 1936-1937 Great Terror, in which thousands of Soviets suspected of opposing Stalin were killed, was the direct result of collectivization’s failure: Because the catastro-
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Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism
phe of collectivization could not be acknowledged, Soviet citizens were taught to ignore the evidence of their own experience and believe what they were told. This absurd situation spawned show trials in which the Bolshevik Revolution’s founding fathers confessed to outlandish accusations that they had spied for foreign governments and had conspired to destroy the government that in reality they had risked everything to create. —Leigh Husband Kimmel
See also: 1907: Famine Strikes Russia; 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives; May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow; Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning; Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials; Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church.
Winter, 1932
Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World titillated readers with a portrait of a dystopian world in which science and technology have satisfied every need at the expense of human freedom. Locale: England Category: Literature Key Figures Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English novelist John B. Watson (1878-1958), American psychologist Summary of Event By the time Brave New World was published early in 1932, Aldous Huxley was reaching the zenith of his fame as a novelist. Although he would publish much more over the next thirty years, he would turn increasingly to nonfiction. Huxley grew up in the stimulating intellectual atmosphere of a family of prominent scientists and literary figures. His exposure to writing and matters of style came about as a natural consequence of his father’s editorship of the influential Cornhill Magazine. Huxley’s early writings included his contributions to the Univer-
sity of Oxford’s respected The Athæneum. During World War I, while still a student at Oxford, he published two books of poetry. Another volume of poetry and a book of short fiction immediately preceded the 1921 publication of his first novel, Crome Yellow, which was a critical and popular success and established Huxley as a novelist of ideas and as a satirist. Huxley’s world, from the beginning of his literary career up until (and certainly after) the publication of Brave New World, was one in which satire seemed to be the writer’s appropriate mode. The post-World War I era was crassly materialistic, skeptical, and cynical; at the same time, it was buoyantly optimistic owing to the explosion of research and knowledge in many areas of life. Huxley and his literary contemporaries also detected a moral and spiritual emptiness that focused their themes. Huxley’s 1920’s novels witheringly portrayed the same frivolous generation being explored and satirized in the works of Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sinclair Lewis. Disillusionment, loss of faith, and spiritual shallowness received equal although less satirical treatment by Ernest Hemingway, 2601
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Further Reading Belov, Fedor. The History of a Soviet Collective Farm. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1955. A study of the experiences of a single collective farm through the 1930’s and beyond. Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. A comprehensive history of the period by the noted expert on the subsequent Great Terror. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev Remembers. Boston:
Little, Brown, 1970. A revealing primary source, although it must be read with some skepticism given Khrushchev’s complicity in many of the crimes he describes and his desire to minimize his own culpability. Lewin, M. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. An in-depth scholarly study of collectivization. Rayfield, Donald. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him. New York: Random House, 2004. Carefully researched study of the relationship between Stalin and his chief henchmen. Describes Stalin’s ability to manipulate those around him.
Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot. Over them all loomed the genius of James Joyce, who liberated style and form in the novel and strengthened Huxley’s conviction that satirical fiction was the proper vehicle for the exploration of the modern human condition. The beneficial effects of the literary atmosphere in which Huxley evolved as a writer were offset by some of the unpleasant social realities of the 1920’s and early 1930’s. England’s postwar economic woes belied the feverish consumerism of the privileged classes. The “Roaring Twenties” were punctuated by the 1926 General Strike and the global 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression. In the new Soviet Union, power struggles unfolded that resulted in the ascent of Joseph Stalin. His aggressive totalitarianism was repeated in the equally ominous comings to power of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Francisco Franco. The eco-
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Aldous Huxley. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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nomic disarray of their nations provided fertile ground for these dictators’ relentless repression of individual and cultural freedom; the progressive breakdown of European nations signaled the inevitability of another global war. At the same time, exciting developments in the sciences, both physical and social, were occurring. These stimulated both Huxley’s intellect and his imagination. For example, mass production was revolutionizing industry (including arms production) through use of the assembly line, making inexpensive, mass-produced consumer goods widely available. Air travel technology, glamorized by the exploits of Charles A. Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, was rapidly developing, and the pace of achievement in communications technology was stunning. Explorations in genetics and genetic mutation were stirring public debate. Behaviorist and conditioning theories, pioneered by American psychologist John B. Watson, were stimulating controversy and influencing theories of child care and education. In 1928, Margaret Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, forcing cultural anthropologists to redefine many ideas about human social behavior. Huxley’s considerable scientific knowledge enabled him to consider these advances, carried to their satirical extreme, in Brave New World. Because of Huxley’s well-established literary fame, Brave New World provoked an immediate popular response when it appeared in the winter of 1932. In its first year, it sold a total of twenty-eight thousand copies in England and the United States. Eventually, it was translated into nineteen languages, and it continued to enjoy respectable sales throughout the remainder of the century. It evidently struck a chord in a population both fascinated by and fearful of the huge scientific and technological advances of an era beset by economic instability, the possibility of renewed global warfare, and a decline in traditional values. As a novelist of provocative ideas and sophisticated style, Huxley viewed fiction as the vehicle through which the human experience, especially in his eventful times, could best be explored. Judging by the novel’s continuing popularity, Brave New World was the work with which Huxley came closest to achieving his goal of examining the dilemma posed by hu-
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already programmed and predestined. Although free of illness and old age, it In his foreword to the 1946 edition of Brave New World, Huxley—from the is a sterile life without free will or vantage of one year after World War II and into the age of nuclear weapons— emotional depth. All human endeavor mused over the speed with which his predictions seemed to be coming true. is directed toward satisfying the popuFrom the perspective of the twenty-first century, his novel is eerily prophetic: lation’s carefully conditioned impulses for material consumption and immeAll things considered it looks as though Utopia were far closer to us than anydiate sexual gratification. As the novel one, only fifteen years ago [when the novel first appeared in 1932], could progresses, every aspect of life is scruhave imagined. I projected it six hundred years into the future. Today it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us within a single century. That is, tinized and ultimately trivialized by if we refrain from blowing ourselves to smithereens in the interval. Indeed, the jingles and slogans that have reunless we choose to decentralize and to use applied science, not as the end to placed thought and idealism. which human beings are to be made the means, but as the means to producing Little in the way of a satisfying ala race of free individuals, we have only two alternatives to choose from: eiternative to this frighteningly shallow ther a number of national, militarized totalitarianisms, having as their root the (some critics said misogynist) society terror of the atomic bomb and as their consequence the destruction of civiliis offered. In keeping with the tradization . . . or else one supra-national totalitarianism, called into existence by tions of satire, characters’ names sugthe social chaos resulting from rapid technological progress in general and gest to an alert reader the existing pothe atomic revolution in particular, and developing, under the need for effilitical and philosophical ideals that ciency and stability, into the welfare-tyranny of Utopia. You pays your Huxley either rejects or admires. The money and you takes your choice. central protagonists, everyday people through whose eyes the future society is mostly presented and who provide mankind’s equal impulses for good and evil, for creativthe measure of Huxley’s satirical intent, are themselves ity and self-destructiveness. flawed and hopelessly alienated. Short, dark Alpha-Plus Bernard Marx, a psychological counselor, is set apart by physical deviation from the handsome, strapping Alpha Significance and Beta norm, represented, for example, by the “pneuAlthough all of Huxley’s first four novels satirize conmatic,” intelligent, but determinedly conformist Lenina temporary life, Brave New World extrapolates the values Crowne. and the scientific and technological achievements of that Bernard abhors the casual, sterile sexual license that life into a world exactly six hundred years in the future. A keeps the population docile. He also resists soma, the soglobal holocaust, the Nine Years’ War, has reshaped the porific drug carried by all citizens to provide them with world. Its spokesman in 632 a.f. (After Ford) is the world an immediate “holiday” from any unpleasantness or controller, Mustapha Mond. Early in the novel, he exstress, any pesky remnant of dissatisfaction or longing pounds the principles on which the society, portrayed for a fuller life not quite bred out of the human psyche. largely in a transformed London, is founded. Stability is Bernard consciously rejects the ideal of undisturbed, its cornerstone; relentless elimination of human individpainless existence. Unfortunately, the courage he disuality through biological engineering and superficially plays in doing this is offset by his tendencies toward egobenign totalitarianism is its most chilling achievement. tism and whining. His eventual fate is exile to Iceland, Life is orderly and tranquil, owing largely to the techsuitably remote and cold for hopeless social deviants. nological wizardry applied to its daily functions. The John the Savage, nurtured (accidentally) on the poetry showpiece is the assembly-line production of the five and humanism of William Shakespeare, also has been types of humans, ranging from the intellectually superior shaped by the degraded society of his birth, a New MexiAlphas to the semimoronic Epsilons. The novel opens can reservation where poverty, disease, brutality, and with a tour of the Central London Hatchery and Condicorrupted tribal tradition prevail. In England, to which tioning Center. Huxley’s wit and evocative descriptive Bernard brings John and his ruined Beta-Minus mother style are at their best here, as the hatchery’s director Linda, John is first an object of scientific interest and proudly describes the fetuses’ inexorable nine-month public fascination but finally a figure of fun. In both journey by bottle through a twilight world, controlled dystopian societies, he is an outcast from birth—indeed, and manipulated at every phase, to “decanting” into a life
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Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism by the very process of birth, natural reproduction being considered the most revolting of the old human habits known. Denied the nobility inherent in his Rousseauesque life and name, his dignity, and his Shakespearean outlook, John’s only possible response is suicide. The one protagonist clearly intended as sympathetic is Bernard’s friend and confidant Helmholtz Watson, a peripheral character marked for exile from the outset. Critical response to Brave New World was contradictory. Huxley’s literary reputation caused the novel to command the immediate attention of a large group of intellectual heavyweights in whose circles Huxley had moved all of his life, and with whom he debated the heady ideas—literary, historical, philosophical, scientific, and religious—of the time. Much of the reaction was negative and focused on the novel’s satirizing of current scientific thought and research. Influential novelist and historian H. G. Wells, for example, reportedly was deeply offended by what he regarded as Huxley’s betrayal of science and the future. Critic Joseph Needham, a distinguished biologist, thought the novel would appeal only to special-interest readers such as biologists and philosophers. Other reviewers, unreceptive to the novel’s satirical intent and tone, dismissed it as frivolous. Some reviewers thought that Huxley was promoting the ideals of his anti-Utopia and were disgusted. Perhaps the most telling observations came from such influential contemporary thinkers as Bertrand Russell, Rebecca West, and Hermann Hesse, who all recognized in Brave New World its application to the present world, the anxiety it expressed about the human condition, and the serious intent beneath the surface cleverness and playful wit. This latter view prevailed in successive generations of readers, especially as some of Huxley’s projections about modern life seemed to come horribly true. Brave New World was a watershed in Huxley’s development as a writer and thinker. After his 1932 introduction to mystic Gerald Heard, his interest in the spiritual parameters of life led him to controlled experimentation with drugs, which colored his subsequent writing and thinking. He continued to ponder his achievement in Brave New World in a foreword to a 1946 edition and finally in the full-length Brave New World Revisited (1958). Paramount among the novel’s weaknesses, Huxley believed, was his own failure to recognize the ominous potential of nuclear fission, “for the possibilities of atomic energy had been a popular topic of conversation for years before the book was written.” Huxley came to believe, especially after the dropping of the atomic bomb, that individual freedom was much closer 2604
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to extinction than he had suggested when he placed Brave New World six hundred years in the future. His fundamental optimism about humanity is also evident in the novel. Huxley observed, “The theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals.” One artistic failure, he thought, was the character John the Savage, because he was not offered sanity as a possible alternative to the shortcomings of future life. Huxley hoped throughout his life that sanity would prevail to pull humankind back from the brink of annihilation. Ironically, Brave New World is best described today by the adjective “Orwellian,” coined after George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) described the nightmare world of Oceania and its successful assault on individual freedom. In a 1959 review of both novels, influential novelist, playwright, and essayist C. P. Snow dismissed the two works on artistic grounds and especially for their pessimism about scientific progress and social purpose. Yet Huxley, like Orwell, simply tried to express the pervasive anxiety of the turbulent twentieth century, above all acknowledging the contradictory creative and destructive forces of humankind’s most potent capability, that of free will. —Jill Rollins Further Reading Brander, Laurence. Aldous Huxley: A Critical Study. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1970. Exhaustive, readable study covering all of Huxley’s writing except his poetry. Includes a short selected bibliography and an index of topics related to Huxley’s works and thought. Deery, June. Aldous Huxley and the Mysticism of Science. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. Focuses on the roles of religion and science, and the relationship between the two, in Huxley’s writings. Includes chronology and index. Firchow, Peter Edgerly. The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1984. Examines the novel as literature, as prophecy of future science and technology, as consideration of future humankind, as political anti-Utopia, and in comparison to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Henderson, Alexander. Aldous Huxley. New York: Russell & Russell, 1936. Describes Huxley’s life and assesses all of his writing to the mid-1930’s. An interesting if a bit pedantic study of contemporary thought on Huxley’s works.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kuehn, Robert E., ed. Aldous Huxley: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1974. A variety of critical response reflected in ten essays and a critical symposium written for the London Magazine (1955). Includes chronology and selected bibliography. Murray, Nicholas. Aldous Huxley: A Biography. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002. Draws on previously unpublished material and interviews with Huxley’s family members and friends to show the complexity of the author’s life and place his work in context. Includes chronology and index. Nance, Guinevera A. Aldous Huxley. New York: Continuum, 1988. Chapter titled “Heaven and Hell: The Utopian Theme in Three Novels” explores this aspect of Brave New World. Analyzes the progress of Hux-
Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career ley’s vision from dystopian to positive, with hindsight offering a clear perspective. Interesting and readable. Watt, Donald, ed. Aldous Huxley: The Critical Heritage. 1975. Reprint. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1997. Indispensable collection of critical reviews of Huxley’s writings from beginning to end, listed chronologically by title and date of work. Includes an intelligent biographical introduction, interesting appendixes, bibliography, and index. See also: 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation; Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby; Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa; 1938: Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25.
1933 1933
Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career Producer John Hammond’s recording of Billie Holiday singing with Benny Goodman’s band in 1933 brought her to the attention of jazz aficionados, and she gradually became a legendary singer. Locale: New York, New York Category: Music Key Figures Billie Holiday (1915-1959), jazz and blues singer whose recordings and innovative techniques would prove widely influential Lester Young (1909-1959), celebrated saxophonist who teamed with Holiday on many of her best recordings Teddy Wilson (1912-1986), pianist who recorded with Holiday and helped to launch her career John Hammond (1910-1987), Columbia Records producer who signed Holiday to her first recording contract Benny Goodman (1909-1986), renowned bandleader with whom Holiday made her first recordings Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), hugely influential trumpeter and jazz musician Summary of Event Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 7, 1915, to Sadie Fagan and guitarist Clarence Holiday, a guitarist in the renowned band led
by Fletcher “Smack” Henderson. Her parents were later married, but only for a brief time. After they separated, Holiday was left with relatives while her mother went to New York to find work. Several stories have been told about the origin of the name “Billie,” including that she was a tomboy, that her father called her “Bill,” and that the actress Billie Dove was her idol. When Holiday was ten years old, she was raped by a forty-year-old man. He went free, and she was sent to a Catholic “correctional” home. At thirteen, she went to live with her mother in Harlem. She smoked marijuana and was jailed as a prostitute. She said she ran errands for a madam so that she could hear the Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong records played in the parlor of the brothel. At seventeen, she began to sing professionally in Harlem at Monette Moore’s speakeasy on 133rd Street for ten dollars a week. She soon began working at other Harlem clubs, and eventually Columbia Records producer John Hammond heard her. He arranged for her to record with Benny Goodman’s band on Columbia in 1933. The two sides were “Riffin’ the Scotch” and “Your Mother’s Son-in-Law.” In that same year, Teddy Wilson came to New York and signed with Brunswick Records. He played piano with Goodman’s small group (Lionel Hampton was on vibes) and recorded pop tunes for Brunswick in 1935. Earlier, Wilson had been allowed to record with Goodman for Victor Records; in return, Goodman had agreed to record as a sideman with him for 2605
Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career Brunswick. Billie Holiday was chosen as the vocalist, and these recordings created a following among jazz musicians and jazz buffs. In 1936, Count Basie’s band came to New York City. “The Count” had a Decca Records contract and could not play on the Wilson-Holiday recordings, but his sidemen—Buck Clayton, Freddie Greene, Walter Page, and Lester “Prez” Young— could. Young is generally recognized as the person who gave Holiday the nickname “Lady Day” or “The Lady.” In the jazz world, there was a Duke (Ellington), a Count, a “Prez”—short for “president”—and now a Lady. In addition to Holiday, the 1936 recordings featured other fine musicians, including Jonah Jones, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, John Kirby, Cozy Cole, Vido Musso, Ben Webster, and of course, Teddy Wilson, whose ability to play with his left hand was far ahead of most other pianists. For eight months, Holiday was Count Basie’s vocalist, and three airchecks—recordings of the Basie band live at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in 1937— made during this time were later released commercially. For a short time, she was also the vocalist for bandleader Artie Shaw, but a miserable trip on the band bus through the segregated South helped inform her decision to work on her own from that point. In 1936, she began recording with her own group for Vocalion Records. Shaw was a sideman on one session along with Bunny Berigan and Joe Bushkin. She again recorded for Vocalion in 1938 and 1939 and also worked for Columbia as Wilson’s vocalist and as the leader of a group called Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra. From 1939 through 1941, she recorded with her own band for OKeh Records and as vocalist with Teddy Wilson and his orchestra. On a number of the OKeh recordings, Lester Young, Walter Page, Freddie Greene, and Jo Jones joined her. Roy “Little Jazz” Eldridge played trumpet on several of the recordings, and Charlie Shavers also played on one. Lester Young, Eddie Heywood (on piano), and Kenny Clarke (on drums) were among the people who recorded “Georgia on My Mind” with Holiday in 1941. In the late 1940’s, some of the Teddy Wilson recordings were reissued by Commodore Records, including “Gloomy Sunday,” which was more of a folk song than a piece of jazz or popular music but nonetheless became identified with Holiday. The recording was purportedly a version of a Hungarian “suicide song” that had, it was 2606
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Billie Holiday. (AP/Wide World Photos)
said, been banned from radio because some listeners had killed themselves—although a disclaimer toward the end of the song noted that the singer was “only dreaming.” Another song that was neither jazz nor pop belongs to Holiday alone. “Strange Fruit,” a poem set to music, describes the contrast between the ugly violence of lynchings and the physical beauty of the South. She recorded it in 1939, a brave act at a time when the issue of such a racially charged song could have wrecked her career or led to physical harm. Southern writer Lillian Smith used the song’s title as the title of a novel about racial violence in the South. Holiday created some other songs that would always be identified with her, including “God Bless the Child,” which has the structure of a pop tune but the feel of a blues lament and is still recorded by vocalists in many genres. Several original blues tunes that she performed have stayed in the jazz vocalist repertoire, including “Fine and Mellow,” “Billie’s Bounce,” “Long Gone Blues,” and “Billie’s Blues.”
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Later, Holiday made other recordings of the tunes she had first sung in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, but the early recordings give the listener a strong, young Holiday at home within the structure of the song. Among these often-recorded early performances were “Them There Eyes,” “Love Me or Leave Me,” “I Cover the Waterfront,” “I Can’t Get Started,” “These Foolish Things,” “No Regrets,” and “Some Other Spring.” Other later songs also identified with Holiday include “Trav’lin’ Light,” “Don’t Explain,” “Good Morning, Heartache,” and “Easy Livin’.” Even some songs originally identified with blues giant Bessie Smith came to be known as Holiday’s, including “Gimme a Pigfoot” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business.”
a police ambulance to a private hospital, where she lay unattended for an hour. She was then taken to Metropolitan Hospital in Harlem. She lingered, under an oxygen tent, for more than two weeks, with a policeman outside her door. Authorities denied that the officer was waiting to arrest her, but rumors of Holiday’s pending arrest continued, and the officer was removed by court order the day before Holiday died. When Holiday collapsed, she had seventy cents in her bank account and $750 in cash taped to her leg. Three thousand people attended her funeral at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Harlem, and she was buried in Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. For some time, her grave was not marked by a headstone, a fact that resulted in an angry article in Downbeat magazine. (Ironically, she never won the top spot in any of Downbeat’s celebrated polls.) The success of Holiday’s music was entirely dependent on her much-discussed style. Despite the fact that many scholars have written about the way she altered the melodic line of a song, she did not, in fact, play around with melody very much—no more, for example, than the young Miles Davis, who played “Blue Room” almost note for note. Unlike other popular African American stars of the day such as Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, the Ink Spots, and the Mills Brothers, Holiday’s music was not featured on the jukeboxes in white establishments. She simply recorded the popular songs of the day, some of which became standards. Others commented that Holiday sang “like a horn player,” but this is not quite right. Holiday shared Louis Armstrong’s ability to use vocals to play with the time, a skill she demonstrated on the “up” tunes on her 1930’s recordings. On such songs, the last bars of the chorus that led into a musician’s solo often anticipated the solo, inviting the instrumentalist into the tune. Holiday’s talent, however, was not confined to the room she could make inside those four-beat rhythms. Sometimes it emerged from the spaces between the notes or in her accents on particular notes, words, or syllables. Although “percussive” is too strong a term to describe her technique, her work is almost percussive and almost syncopated. To her unique sense of timing she added bent, gliding notes in a voice that could seem both sweet and sassy. Although toward the end of her career—when both her health and breath were fading—she sometimes sounded like an imitation of herself, many people preferred her later style, which seemed to embody a universally held idea of suffering. —Katherine Lederer 2607
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Significance In 1938, Holiday moved from Harlem into Manhattan. She began performing at the well-known Café Society, and until the late 1940’s she worked at various Manhattan jazz clubs. In 1947, she appeared, dressed as a maid, in the film New Orleans. In that same year, however, she was arrested for possession of heroin and sentenced to a year and a day in a federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia. Ten days after her release, she performed to a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. She could not, however, work in any jazz club in New York City; an archaic law required performers in establishments that sold liquor to obtain a “cabaret card” that permitted them to work there, and cabaret cards were unavailable to musicians with drug convictions. Holiday was thus prohibited from working in her own town, the center of live jazz performance in the United States at that time. In the early 1950’s, Steve Allen, the host of an early New York television variety show that would later become The Tonight Show, featured a number of notable jazz performers, including Holiday, on his program. In 1957, a television special with Lester Young and others let fans see and hear her one more time; the sound track to the special was released as the album The Sound of Jazz. In 1956, Holiday wrote her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, with coauthor William F. Dufty. A hit 1972 film based on the book starred Diana Ross as Holiday. Although Ross’s music was very different from Holiday’s, the film’s sound track introduced another generation to Holiday’s songs. Holiday toured Europe in the last few years of her life and was enthusiastically received. Her last performance in New York City was a 1959 benefit performance at the Phoenix Theater. On May 31 of that year, she collapsed at her Manhattan apartment. In a coma, she was taken by
Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career
Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals Further Reading Friedwald, Will. Jazz Singing: America’s Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990. An excellent illustrated overview of the contributions of great jazz vocalists, from Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby through Betty Carter. The author contrasts Holiday’s singing with that of Ella Fitzgerald, noting that the two singers “travel completely different ways to the same destination.” Lucid, scholarly, and comprehensive. Holiday, Billie, and William F. Dufty. Lady Sings the Blues. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956. Holiday’s autobiography is frank in its presentation of details about her painful childhood and drug addiction, although some people who knew Holiday later in life have criticized the book as unreliable. James, Burnett. Billie Holiday. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984. A useful short biography of the singer produced as part of the “Jazz Masters” series. Illustrated; helpful selective discography. Jones, LeRoi. Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America. 1963. Reprint. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Examines how blues and jazz evolved in white America, including valuable discussion of Holiday’s work. Generally an important and useful study. Includes index.
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Kliment, Bud. Billie Holiday. New York: Chelsea House, 1990. A profusely illustrated biography directed toward younger readers. Contains an introductory essay, “On Achievement,” by Coretta Scott King. Pleasants, Henry. The Great American Popular Singers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974. An interesting although somewhat dated overview of the topic. Useful, and somewhat unusual, in its discussion of Holiday and other jazz and blues artists alongside singers such as Elvis Presley and Hank Williams, who earned their fame in other genres. Illustrated, with a glossary of singing terms. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Excellent scholarly account of the subject provides both background and important detail. Includes critical bibliography and discography as well as numerous selections from scores and an extensive index. See also: Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club; Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts; Jan. 2, 1939: Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall; 1940: Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America.
STREET Defines 1930’s Film Musicals
With film studios near bankruptcy at the height of the Great Depression, Busby Berkeley revitalized film musicals with new camera and staging techniques. Locale: Hollywood, California Categories: Motion pictures; dance; entertainment Key Figures Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), Broadway dance director who created a musical form unique to film Ruby Keeler (1909-1993), former Broadway performer who became a film star in Forty-Second Street Dick Powell (1904-1963), actor who played Keeler’s love interest in the film Warner Baxter (1891-1951), distinguished character actor who played a Broadway producer in the film Lloyd Bacon (1890-1955), former silent-screen actor who directed the nondancing part of the film 2608
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Summary of Event In the late 1920’s, when sound films began to replace silent films, Hollywood studios produced a flood of musicals. Early sound cameras were almost immobile, since any motion created noise that was magnified on the sound track; most early musicals were therefore photographed as if the camera were a member of the audience. Apparently, studio directors did not realize that sloppy dancing, tawdry sets, and poor costumes, while sometimes effective on the stage, would appear ridiculous when magnified many times over on the screen. As a result, the first musicals failed at the box office. In 1928, sixty were released, but in 1932, only fifteen were released, and only two of those made a profit. By then, the Depression had forced many studios near bankruptcy, and in 1933, some twenty-five hundred theaters had been forced to close.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
which she is traveling surrealistically splits in half, and she finds herself surrounded by chorus girls wearing night cream and mouthing cynical asides about love and marriage. These numbers are dwarfed by “Forty-Second Street,” which closes the film and made Berkeley’s reputation. As that number begins, Sawyer is dancing, as if on a stage. The camera pulls back, and she is seen on top of a taxi. She climbs down and is surrounded by New Yorkers—police officers, nursemaids, ordinary pedestrians— going about their everyday dramas. A woman appears in an upstairs window. Terrified, she flees from a man who pursues her into the street and stabs her. Her death attracts no more than a moment’s attention, as Powell sings “Forty-Second Street” from an upstairs window. An instant later, both are forgotten as a chorus of precisely choreographed and beautifully costumed dancers tap along with the title song. They mount a staircase and, turning, reveal cardboard cutouts that form the Manhattan skyline. The skyline dances, stabilizes, and opens to reveal a skyscraper with Powell and Keeler embracing at the top. Berkeley had created a fairy-tale ending to a dazzling fantasy, and in doing so, he had built a world that could exist nowhere except on film and could be staged nowhere except huge Hollywood sound stages. The techniques he used changed Hollywood musicals. He worked with a single camera rather than with the customary four, planning out each number so that its development was smooth. The camera’s eye was the audience’s eye, and Berkeley photographed from every possible angle. He respected the integrity of the production number and showed it without interruption. He demanded both beauty and intelligence of his dancers, and while critics complained about his tendency to focus on their bodies, he was careful to let his camera pause on their faces and especially on their eyes. He allowed greater variation of face and body types than was permissible later on, and he demanded precise movement, proud posture, and precision. By juxtaposing violence and musical exuberance, Berkeley reminded the audience of the world they were escaping even as they escaped it. His techniques would have their greatest effect on the Hollywood musical before the mid-1950’s, when the decline of the Hollywood studio system virtually ended the production of these expensive films. Significance The immediate effect of Forty-Second Street was that Berkeley was given a free hand and almost unlimited financial support at Warner Bros., which allowed him to 2609
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Darryl Zanuck, then employed by Warner Bros., believed the musical still had a future, although he did not tell his bosses that he had a musical in mind when he brought Busby Berkeley to the studio. Berkeley had been dance director for twenty-one Broadway musicals, and as a soldier during World War I he had devised trick-drill patterns to allow the movement of masses of men in close formation. Both experiences would influence his Hollywood career. He had never had a dancing lesson, and he did not know much about cameras or photography when he was brought to Hollywood in 1930 to direct dance numbers for Eddie Cantor and Mary Pickford. Berkeley had run out of work by the time he was assigned to Forty-Second Street. He directed production numbers at one site, while his colleague Lloyd Bacon worked with the rest of the script at another. Veteran cameraman Sol Polito was in charge of filming at both. The directors emphasized the Cinderella theme of this backstage musical, replacing the tearful sentimentality of many earlier musicals such as Al Jolson’s The Singing Fool (1928), which had involved, among other things, a dying child. Both directors understood that the Depression audience needed hope, not more depression. Still, the film’s script and its first production numbers were fully grounded in the realities of the Depression. The threat of unemployment hangs over the characters who appear early in the film, from Julian Marsh (played by Warner Baxter), a Broadway producer who has lost his money and health, to the girlish Peggy Sawyer (played by Ruby Keeler). After being given a place in the chorus, Sawyer faints in rehearsal from hunger and fatigue. She and other chorus girls, desperate for work, stoically endure brutally crude sexual remarks and groping hands. Even the fictitious show’s star endures the witless sexual aggression of the show’s lecherous financial backer until, driven beyond her capacity, she rejects him. Shortly afterward, she is injured and must be replaced. Sawyer steps in, and in one grueling rehearsal scene, she is forced to prove her talent, courage, and capacity for hard work. At this point in the story, Berkeley inserted production numbers that reminded the Depression audience that bravery and a strong work ethic could make dreams come true. The play’s music and staging change when Sawyer becomes a star. She does not appear in the first major production number, “Young and Healthy,” sung by Dick Powell, which introduced the moving platforms and geometric designs for which Berkeley became famous. The second major number, “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” depicts Sawyer as a young bride, but the Pullman sleeping car in
Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals
Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals develop his vision. The film’s success motivated other Hollywood studios to produce equally popular pictures. Among the first of these was the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production Dancing Lady (1933), which attempted to exploit the popularity of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, neither of whom was suited for musical films. Crawford’s dancing was strained and ungainly, but Fred Astaire, then new to Hollywood, played a bit part. MGM’s 1936 The Great Ziegfeld, with its giant wedding cake and beautifully costumed tiers of girls, owed more to Berkeley than to anything the real Florenz Ziegfeld could have produced on the narrow confines of a Broadway stage. RKO gave Astaire a role—along with Ginger Rogers, who had attracted attention with a bit part in FortySecond Street—in its new film, Flying Down to Rio (1933), and the pair’s famous partnership was formed. Berkeley’s influence is evident in the spectacular aerial ballet that ends the RKO film and in the precision dancing of the “Carioca” production number that is the film’s showpiece. Twentieth Century (later Twentieth Century-Fox) imitated Berkeley with Stand Up and Cheer and George White’s Scandals, both in 1934, but it was not to find a successful formula until later in the 1930’s, when it featured singer Alice Faye, child star Shirley Temple, and ice-skating champion Sonja Henie. While being imitated, Berkeley polished the forms he introduced in Forty-Second Street and developed new ones. His Gold Diggers of 1933 featured, among others, the spectacular “We’re in the Money” number, in which Ginger Rogers led the Berkeley dancers, dressed in oversized gold coins, against a backdrop of gigantic coins. His “Shadow Waltz” in that film showed his chorus playing illumined violins and finally shaping themselves into the pattern of a lighted violin. In “Remember My Forgotten Man,” a parade of World War I soldiers, filmed in silhouette, becomes a ragged procession of the unemployed, and an out-of-work drunk wearing a combat medal is arrested. In Footlight Parade (1933), Berkeley shot a water ballet from over, under, and around a specially designed pool, and he incorporated “Shanghai Lil,” a number sung and danced by Keeler and James Cagney, which begins in barroom violence and ends, some time later, in one of the military formations that Berkeley frequently used. In Roman Scandals (1933), he filmed naked dancers. In Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935), Berkeley filmed what is generally considered his best work, “Lullaby of Broadway.” In this production number, the audience sees the life and death of a Broadway party girl as an 2610
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 army of precision tap dancers paces out the cadence of her life. Singer Wini Shaw’s face is first seen as a small white dot on a black screen. She sings “Lullaby of Broadway” as the camera moves gradually into close-up, and her face dissolves into a view of Manhattan. The audience sees her story: She arrives home after a night of fun, feeds her cat, sleeps all day, and sets out with Dick Powell for another night of entertainment. They go to an enormous nightclub, where two dancers begin the lullaby. Suddenly, the dancers become an army of men and women who engage in a dazzling display of precision dancing that does without musical accompaniment for many beats. The dancers become threatening and overpowering, and as they begin to engulf Shaw and Powell, Shaw flees to a balcony and then falls screaming to her death. The camera moves back to the New York scene. The cat waits to be fed. Shaw’s face fades back to a tiny white dot and then disappears. In the late 1930’s, Berkeley moved to MGM, where his dance direction included Ziegfeld Girl (1941). His MGM credits also included Lady Be Good (1941), with dancer Eleanor Powell, and three of the most popular Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musicals, Babes in Arms (1939), Strike up the Band (1940), and Babes on Broadway (1941), all backstage musicals that were variations on the Cinderella theme. He directed the eccentric dance by Scarecrow Ray Bolger, “If I Only Had a Brain,” for The Wizard of Oz (1939) and designed spectacular swimming ballets for Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and Easy to Love (1953). Although Berkeley was frequently imitated, some of his techniques were impossible to re-create. Far more than most dance directors, he stressed the precision movement of masses of people more than dance steps. No other director turned dancers into geometric patterns—flattening conventional perspective—as frequently as he did. At the same time, more than most other directors, he featured the dancers’ faces; his stars had to work harder to prove themselves than did the stars of more conventional musicals, which often showed the star figure alone against a vaguely photographed background of anonymous bodies. His juxtaposition of violence and exuberance was often imitated but was never presented as forcefully as in Berkeley’s own productions, in which Berkeley would not allow the use of mood music to signal the coming of tragedy. Berkeley’s gift was to give his audience a reality that they understood, one in which violence and agony come without warning, while at the same time giving his Cinderella figures an escape even more fantastic than the most imaginative of his audiences could dream. He was best
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 known for his camera angles, but these were more easily imitated than the other qualities that made him unique. —Betty Richardson
eral overview of Berkeley’s role in reviving musicals and influence on the genre. Pike, Bob, and Dave Martin. The Genius of Busby Berkeley. Reseda, Calif.: Creative Film Society, 1973. This poorly produced book contains a lengthy interview with Berkeley, most of which is accessible in Tony Thomas’s book (see below). Also includes a filmography, some review material, and a biography that largely repeats the interview. Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. New York: Pantheon, 1988. Easily the best readily accessible source for information about the business side of filmmaking, including the making of Forty-Second Street. Provides an excellent list of archival sources and a reliable bibliography. Sennett, Ted. Warner Brothers Presents: The Most Exciting Years—From the “Jazz Singer” to “White Heat.” New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1971. Discusses Berkeley as a film director, a role in which he was relatively unsuccessful, as well as a dance director. Sennett gives an overview of Berkeley’s creative use of cameras, his inventiveness, and his contribution to the revival of the studio. Thomas, Tony, and Jim Terry, with Busby Berkeley. The Busby Berkeley Book. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973. This is the single essential work for a study of Berkeley. Lavishly illustrated, it contains a foreword by Ruby Keeler, a biography, and a filmography. See also: Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team.
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Further Reading Altman, Rick. The American Film Musical. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Made unnecessarily difficult by scholarly jargon, this book contains both difficult chapters on theory and more readable ones. The latter can be read separately and provide an excellent categorization of folk musicals, fairy-tale musicals, and backstage musicals. The material on backstage musicals necessarily includes much about Berkeley. Delameter, Jerome. Dance in the Hollywood Musical. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1981. This scholarly but relatively readable work includes two chapters, “Dance in Film Before 1930” and “Busby Berkeley at Warner Brothers,” which are useful for an understanding of Berkeley’s importance. Delameter, primarily interested in technical dance, thinks little of Berkeley but rightfully associates him with the French Surrealism. Kantor, Michael, and Laurence Maslon. Broadway: The American Musical. New York: Bulfinch, 2004. Comprehensive, lavishly illustrated volume on the history of musicals. Includes year-by-year list of significant shows, selected bibliography, and maps of the theater district at different periods. Companion book to a sixpart PBS series. Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. History of the genre focuses on how themes in American musical productions relate to how Americans view themselves. Includes useful appendixes, notes, bibliography, and index. Mordden, Ethan. The Hollywood Musical. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. Mordden’s witty, opinionated, and readable work remains a standard starting place for students of the film musical; he offers a gen-
Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals
Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1933
Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 GUINEA PIGS Arthur Kallet and Frederick John Schlink’s 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs shocked Americans by accusing well-known food, drug, and cosmetic companies of gross irresponsibility in producing and marketing their products. The public outcry led to stricter regulation and increased powers for the FDA. Locale: United States Categories: Publishing and journalism; trade and commerce Key Figures Arthur Kallet (1902-1972), American engineer and consumer advocate Frederick John Schlink (1891-1995), American engineer, physicist, and consumer advocate Harvey W. Wiley (1844-1930), chief chemist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1883-1912 Summary of Event In 1933, Arthur Kallet and Frederick John Schlink collaborated to publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics, a shocking book in which the authors alleged that many of the best-known U.S. consumer products of the day were either useless or dangerous. Products they warned against included such heavily advertised brands as Listerine, Pepsodent, Kellogg’s All-Bran, Crisco, Lifebuoy, Bromo-Seltzer, Mercurochrome, Absorbine Jr., and ExLax, as well as a number of others that were household names but have since been forgotten. The public was astonished to learn that in the modern American marketplace, as in ancient Rome, it was still a matter of buyer beware. Kallet and Schlink warned that Ex-Lax, probably the best-known laxative of the time, could produce laxative dependency and had killed a child who ate a whole box because the drug tasted like chocolate candy. In the case of Kellogg’s All-Bran, a cereal commonly believed to be effective in relieving constipation, the authors charged that harsh bran ingested in large quantities on a daily basis could cause serious damage to the intestines and even lead to death from cancer. Kallet and Schlink knew they were leaving themselves and their publisher open to libel suits from the makers of the products they named. Nevertheless, these two crusaders accused some of the biggest business firms in the country of gross negligence in marketing their 2612
products. They explained their charges in detail, and their words had the ring of authority. For example, they charged that Crisco, the best-known vegetable shortening of its kind, was dangerous because, although the normal human body temperature is 98.6 degrees, part of the fats in most vegetable shortenings became liquefied only at higher temperatures. This meant that a fatty residue would remain in the intestines of consumers for several days, causing indigestion and even more serious stomach disorders over time. Kallet and Schlink also charged that the cleaning agent in Pepsodent toothpaste contained “large sharp angular particles” that were dangerous to tooth enamel. “Of the thousands of drugs, medicines and other preparations cluttering the shelves of every large drug store,” wrote Kallet and Schlink, “hundreds are potentially poisonous or injurious.” They also charged that many well-known medications and antiseptics, though not actually dangerous, were vastly overrated in their advertising. Americans had never seen such a wholesale indictment. Kallet and Schlink called Americans “guinea pigs” because the food, drug, and cosmetic industries were experimenting on them just as if they were laboratory animals. The authors had nothing but contempt for the officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with the exception of the courageous Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, who had been forced to step down as head of that government agency because he had been too outspoken and too zealous in prosecuting offenders. Kallet and Schlink called for American consumers to take positive action. They recommended boycotting offending firms, especially those that opposed stricter legislation or were members of trade associations that opposed corrective measures. Kallet and Schlink suggested that consumers demand immediate dismissal of government officials who made rulings that showed a lack of sensitivity to the public interest. In particular, they asked their readers to keep in constant contact with their representatives, senators, and state legislators on matters related to foods, drugs, and cosmetics. Another way consumers could be effective, according to Kallet and Schlink, was in writing letters to newspapers and magazines in which they criticized publishers for accepting advertising from known violators of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. They suggested that readers could act more effectively by joining consumer-advocate organizations, and they praised American women’s clubs
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
A Menace to Health and Life In the first chapter of their book, titled “The Great American Guinea Pig,” Kallet and Schlink set forth in shocking detail the dangers posed by U.S. manufacturers of foods and other consumer goods: In the magazines, in the newspapers, over the radio, a terrific verbal barrage has been laid down on a hundred million Americans, first, to set in motion a host of fears about their health, their stomachs, their bowels, their teeth, their throats, their looks; second, to persuade them that only by eating, drinking, gargling, brushing, or smearing with Smith’s Whole Vitamin Breakfast Food, Jones’ Yeast Cubes, Blue Giant Apples, Prussian Salts, Listroboris Mouthwash, Grandpa’s Wonder Toothpaste, and a thousand and one other foods, drinks, gargles and pastes, can they either postpone the onset of disease, of social ostracism, of business failure, or recover from ailments, physical or social, already contracted. If these foods and medicines were—to most of the people who use them— merely worthless; if there were no other charge to be made than that the manufacturers’, sales managers’, and advertising agents’ claims for them were false, this book would not have been written. But many of them, including some of the most widely advertised and sold, are not only worthless, but are actually dangerous. That All-Bran you eat every morning—do you know that it may cause serious and perhaps irreparable intestinal trouble? That big juicy apple you have at lunch—do you know that indifferent Government officials let it come to your table coated with arsenic, one of the deadliest of poisons? The Pebeco Toothpaste with which you brush your teeth twice every day—do you know that a tube of it contains enough poison if eaten, to kill three people? . . . It is exceedingly likely that the poisons legally and systematically fed to the American public will, by disturbing the bodily functions, overtaxing the kidneys and other organs, and upsetting the digestive processes, bring the onset of old age and functional weakness and infirmity earlier than it would otherwise have come. . . . Such shortening of the average life can conservatively be estimated at from three to ten years. . . . All of the propaganda agencies of business have skillfully conditioned the public to believe that the only safeguard needed is the integrity of the manufacturer. . . . But, on the whole, this first link in the chain of consumer protection is the weakest. In case after case, the manufacturers have demonstrated that their chief and most consistent interest is in profits; and we speak here not only of the small herb compounder and cancer quack, but also of the largest and most reputable drug and food houses. . . . Case after case demonstrates only too well that the average manufacturer will resist to the end any interference with his business, any attempt to deprive him of his vested interest, even when it has been proved beyond doubt that his product is a menace to health and life. . . . The food and drug manufacturers also kill. Perhaps we should name a new crime for them and call it statistical homicide. But whatever we call it, they are responsible for the death of very large numbers of persons—death through premature old age, disease of stomach, bowels, and kidneys, which weakened organs cannot resist, and death because good medicine or medical care was needed, and a patent medicine for pneumonia or tuberculosis or cancer was taken instead. Source: Arthur Kallet and Frederick John Schlink, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics (New York: Vanguard Press, 1933).
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for taking a leading role in matters related to the protection of their families. Kallet and Schlink also pointed out that lawyers could be utilized in cases of fraud or negligence, reminding readers that they could initiate civil suits for monetary compensation and criminal suits threatening violators with fines and imprisonment. Kallet and Schlink called for consumers to demand radical changes in government supervision of the food, drug, and cosmetic industries. These changes would include licensing and bonding, on-site federal supervision of manufacturing plants, and drastic penalties for malpractice. They suggested that the burden of proof for compliance with regulations should be placed on the manufacturer and not on the FDA. They called for truthful and complete labeling and for the abolition of the advertising of “mystery ingredients” and “secret formulas.” Their anger did not fail to transmit itself to their readers. They talked about padlocking firms that did not rate close to perfection in sanitation and observed that the FDA had “no right of entry into plants manufacturing foods and drugs, nor any right to supervise or to stop processes, even if an inspector should see rat poison being added to canned soup before his very eyes.” It is not surprising that 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs raised a storm of controversy. It was the most shocking book to be published in the United States since The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s horrifying 1906 novel about the meatpacking industry. Many prestigious magazines and newspapers published caustic reviews of Kallet and Schlink’s call to arms and charged the authors with recklessness, gross exaggeration, incompetence, and opportunism. A review of the book in The Nation called it
Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs
Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs “intemperate, misleading, and potentially pernicious.” Newspapers and magazines, which were by and large heavily dependent on advertising for their existence, tended to reflect the probusiness sentiments of their owners. Kallet and Schlink charged that offenses against the public interest were often known but were ignored by the “venal press.” When firms were penalized under the Pure Food and Drug Act or committed offenses that resulted in lawsuits, they alleged, such news was often overlooked or buried in the back pages, along with the weather news and the high school batting averages. Significance Kallet and Schlink’s work had a strong effect on the American public because the book was written in nontechnical language and referred to products used by millions of people every day. The book’s impact was comparable to that of The Jungle; like Sinclair’s novel, it led to an outcry for strict government intervention. In fact, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs has been credited with being largely responsible for the enactment of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. The accusations in the book implied the need for stricter government control of business—and more government control was exactly what big business interests did not want. It was, however, exactly what the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration did want, and 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs helped to turn the sympathies of many American voters in favor of greater bureaucratic control at the national level. Kallet and Schlink’s best seller appeared at a time when the United States was undergoing a dramatic social and political transformation. The year 1933 marked the beginning of Roosevelt’s presidency and the introduction of his New Deal program, which proposed to revolutionize the influence of government in the lives of Americans. Roosevelt was to be elected president for four consecutive terms; during his lengthy administration, the federal government assumed unprecedented regulatory powers. Roosevelt’s popularity can be seen as a reaction against the adulation of big-business tycoons that had dissipated with the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it. Kallet and Schlink called on American consumers to pressure the federal government to exercise far greater control over the manufacture and sale of potentially dangerous products. They also suggested that the federal government take much stronger control over advertising. Advertising would prove to be a sensitive area, given the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohib2614
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 its Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” It nevertheless became common practice for the government to force advertisers to stop making unprovable claims. Moreover, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs gave lawyers the notion that considerable money might be made in civil actions under what insurance companies term “product liability.” As the public at large had been alerted to the hidden dangers in familiar household products, many lawyers reasoned, it would be easier to persuade jurors to award generous damages to claimants. The triple threat of stricter government control, civil lawsuits, and mass boycotting by an outraged public motivated manufacturers to become more responsible about the food, drugs, and cosmetics they marketed and to become more circumspect about the claims they made in their advertisements. The fact that Americans now buy food, drugs, and cosmetics with greater confidence than they did in the 1930’s is largely a result of the efforts of such individuals as Wiley, Sinclair, and Kallet and Schlink. In the long term, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs was important because it helped change American consciousness. The book helped turn the American people against the idea that unrestricted competition inevitably leads to a better way of life for everyone, undermined Americans’ naïve adulation of business tycoons, whose private lives were chronicled in the society pages, and persuaded Americans to think in terms of government regulation. This increase in consumer consciousness affected the public’s general voting habits as well: By making Americans suspicious of big business, the book indirectly helped the Roosevelt administration enact legislative reforms, including reforms that had little to do with consumer goods. —Bill Delaney Further Reading Anderson, Oscar Edward. The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Biography of the courageous crusader for pure food and drug legislation. Wiley was singled out for special praise by Kallet and Schlink. Chase, Stuart, and F. J. Schlink. Your Money’s Worth: A Study in the Waste of the Consumer’s Dollar. New York: Macmillan, 1927. Schlink collaborated with Stuart Chase to write this best-selling exposé of the sharp practices of certain American businessmen. The authors compare the value of products to their
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437-438. An article about the new food labels mandated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Consumer Reports, founded in 1936, accepts no advertising and strives to remain impartial in its evaluation of products and services. Newman, Kathy M. Radio Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism, 1935-1947. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. A focused study of the effects on radio of the increased consumer consciousness brought about in part by the publication of 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs. Discusses the use of radio as a tool of consumer activism, as well as the grassroots battle to regulate radio advertising. Bibliographic references and index. Wiley, Harvey Washington. The History of a Crime Against the Food Law. 1929. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1976. Wiley’s best-known publication. Provided strong evidence for Kallet and Schlink to use in 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs. See also: Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established; Jan.-Mar., 1936: Consumers Union of the United States Emerges; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
1933-1934
First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed Frédéric Joliot and Irène Joliot-Curie used alpha particles from polonium to bombard aluminum and create phosphorus 30, an artificial nucleus that is radioactive. Locale: Radium Institute, Paris, France Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), French physicist Frédéric Joliot (1900-1958), French physicist Summary of Event In 1930, a German team of scientists reported that beryllium bombarded by alpha particles emitted a new sort of penetrating radiation. In France, the husband-wife team of Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot confirmed the German results and in the process came close to proving the existence of the neutron, of which the new radiation was composed. This particle, which has no charge but
has the same mass as the proton, joins the proton to form the nucleus of the atom. British physicist James Chadwick won a Nobel Prize in Physics for making the actual discovery of the neutron. In 1932, the Joliot-Curies, studying cosmic radiation in the high Alps, observed the positron, a particle with the same mass as the electron but with a positive rather than a negative charge. They failed to follow up their observation, and that same year, an American physicist, Carl David Anderson, identified the positron, using equipment similar to that used by the Joliot-Curies. By early 1933, the Joliot-Curies were using alpha particles produced from polonium to bombard boron, beryllium, fluorine, aluminum, and sodium. After the bombardment, these elements emitted neutrons and both positrons and electrons. The accuracy of the results of their experiments was questioned at the Seventh Solvay Conference, which was attended by most of the major physicists in Europe. They returned to Paris with dam2615
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actual costs and suggest ways that consumers can protect themselves from unethical practices. Fuller, John G. 200,000,000 Guinea Pigs: New Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics. New York: Putnam, 1972. This excellent book, written in the same spirit as Kallet and Schlink’s landmark and published nearly forty years later, was intended to show that there were still many abuses by the food, drug, and cosmetic industries and that the FDA still needed improvement. Goodwin, Lorine Swainston. The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879-1914. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999. A study of the precursors of Kallet and Schlink and the important work done to educate consumers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Bibliographic references and index. Kallet, Arthur. Counterfeit: Not Your Money but What It Buys. New York: Vanguard Press, 1935. Discusses the ways in which manufacturers and retailers deceive the public. Contains many illustrations of popular products and copies of their advertisements. Calls for fundamental change in the U.S. economic system. “New Food Labels: At Last, You Can Trust Them— Most of the Time.” Consumer Reports 59 (July, 1994):
First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed
First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
aged pride and a new determination to prove conclusively that neutrons and positrons were emitted at the same time from their irradiated targets. To conduct the necessary experiments, they were forced to modify their experimental apparatus. Until now, the Geiger counter, which detected radioactivity, had been automatically turned off when the radioactive source (the source of the alpha particles) was removed. In the new arrangement, it would be left on after the source was removed. With this arrangement, they noticed that aluminum continued to emit positrons for some time after the removal of the radioactive source. This
meant that the aluminum target had been made artificially radioactive by bombardment with alpha particles. The Joliot-Curies were certain that they had produced artificial radioactivity. In order to place their discovery beyond doubt, they needed to separate chemically the source of the new radioactivity and to demonstrate that it had nothing to do with the original aluminum target. On January 15, 1934, friends, including Irène’s famous mother, Marie Curie, received frantic telephone calls from the young researchers and rushed to the laboratory. From makeshift apparatus scattered in apparent disarray over several tables, the Joliot-Curies bombarded aluminum with alpha particles and separated from the irradiated samples an isotope of phosphorus with a half-life of only three Radioactive Romance minutes and fifteen seconds. Marie CuIrène Joliot-Curie was the daughter of the legendary Marie Curie, the rie, who was dying of the leukemia prophysical chemist who twice won the Nobel Prize, and a member of the duced by her lifetime work with radioacFrench scientific elite by birth as well as a brilliant physicist in her own tivity, was handed a tiny tube containing right. As a teenager, she had worked alongside her mother, using X-ray the first sample of artificially produced equipment to treat soldiers wounded during World War I. She published radioactivity. Her face expressed joy and her first paper in physics in 1921, and in 1932 she succeeded her mother as excitement. Other colleagues filled the director of the Radium Institute. room with lively discussions. Frédéric Joliot grew up in a middle-class family and attended the École The Joliot-Curies soon repeated their de Physique et de Chimie Industrielle de la Ville de Paris rather than one experiments with boron and magnesium, of the prestigious French universities. Because of his unquestionable abilproducing still other sources of artificial ity as an experimenter, he was recommended to Marie Curie as an assisradioactivity. They promptly sent off a tant by a close friend, French physicist Paul Langevin. He joined the laboratory at the end of 1924 and gradually acquired the necessary degrees. report of their discovery to the scientific Because of his background, he found it difficult to break into the inner cirpress. Its publication opened a floodgate cle of French science, despite his personal charm and ability. of new experiments on the transmutation The outgoing, charming, handsome Frédéric fell in love with the quiet, of nuclei, which led directly to the discapable, socially awkward Irène. In 1926, they were wed, beginning a covery of “nuclear fission” five years very happy marriage and an extremely successful scientific collaboration. later.
During the first four years of the 1930’s, they embarked upon a remarkable series of experiments in nuclear physics that led to the creation of radioactive elements in the laboratory. Their achievement led directly to nuclear fission, achieved in 1939. The Joliot-Curies continued to lead a rich family life hampered only by poor health caused, in Irène’s case, by her early work with large amounts of radioactive materials. Frédéric Joliot was now accepted as a member of the French scientific elite and not as an upstart who had married Madame Curie’s daughter. As World War II loomed on the horizon, Frédéric Joliot was drafted into the military. Recognizing the possibility of a nuclear fission bomb, he took steps to secure uranium for France and began negotiations for a large supply of “heavy water” located in Norway. With the Nazis closing in, he and his colleagues smuggled the heavy water to Britain and hid the uranium in Morocco just ahead of Adolf Hitler’s advancing troops. During the war, Joliot used the prestige of his Nobel Prize to conceal his activities in support of the French Resistance. Thus, in addition to being a major scientific contributor in his own right, Joliot helped tilt the war in the direction of the Allies.
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Significance The report of the discovery of artificial radioactivity was published early in 1934, and in 1935 the discovery earned for the husband and wife a shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The scientific community almost immediately recognized the discovery as equal to that of the neutron or the positron. Physicist Enrico Fermi and his group in Rome quickly noted that neutrons were more effective in producing artificial radioactivity than the alpha particles used in the original experiments. The entire community, including the JoliotCuries, began to study artificial radioactivity produced by bombarding different
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First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed
Further Reading Biquard, Pierre. Frédéric Joliot-Curie: The Man and His Theories. Translated by Geoffrey Strachan. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1966. Biography by a scientific colleague who was an eyewitness to the discovery of artificial radioactivity. Marred somewhat by the author’s extremely sentimental attachment to Frédéric Joliot.
See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling.
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
King Gustav of Sweden congratulates Irène Joliot-Curie during the 1935 Nobel Prize presentation ceremony. Frédéric Joliot stands behind his wife. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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elements with neutrons. Studies on uranium in Rome, Berlin, and Paris led to confusing results, which were finally interpreted as nuclear fission in 1939. (Nuclear fission is the splitting of an atomic nucleus into two parts, especially when bombarded by a neutron. When the nuclei of uranium atoms are split, great amounts of energy are released.) —Ruth H. Howes
Goldsmith, Maurice. Frédéric Joliot-Curie. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976. Readable biography written by a colleague of Joliot provides a clear account of the physics of the scientist’s work but tends to idealize him. Includes discussion of Joliot’s role in World War II that reads like a spy novel. Jungk, Robert. Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists. Translated by James Cleugh. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958. History of the Manhattan Project provides solid background on the physics of that time. Chapter titled “An Unexpected Discovery” provides a history of the discovery of artificial radioactivity in the context of the time during which it was made. Opfell, Olga S. “Irène Joliot-Curie.” In The Lady Laureates: Women Who Have Won the Nobel Prize. 2d ed. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1986. Readable account of the vital role Joliot-Curie played in the discovery of artificial radioactivity. Emphasizes her life as a wife and mother and as the daughter of a Nobel laureate. Rayner-Canham, Marelene F., and Geoffrey W. RaynerCanham. A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005. Collection of biographical essays on twenty-three women involved in atomic science research in the early part of the twentieth century includes essays on Irène Joliot-Curie and Marie Curie as well as on many lesser-known scientists whose stories are rarely told. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Excellent history of early twentieth century physics. Chapter titled “Stirring and Digging” provides a lively description of the discovery of artificial radioactivity set in the context of the physics community and the political events surrounding it.
Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 2, 1933
Coward’s DESIGN FOR LIVING Epitomizes the 1930’s Noël Coward kept a promise to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and wrote a comedy that epitomized the laughter and despair of the 1930’s. Locale: Hanna Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio Category: Theater Key Figures Noël Coward (1899-1973), English playwright, composer, and actor Lynn Fontanne (1887-1983), English actor Alfred Lunt (1892-1977), American actor Max Gordon (1892-1978), American theater producer Summary of Event Design for Living (pr., pb. 1933) resulted from an elevenyear-old promise. In 1921, actors Noël Coward, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne were relatively unknown. They dreamed of stardom, and they agreed that, when fame arrived, Coward would write a play to star all three. Coward had begun to perform in 1910; he had worked in Charles Hawtrey’s company in 1911 and, among other appearances, had briefly acted in D. W. Griffith’s film Hearts of the World (1918). His first major hit was the 1923 revue London Calling, based largely on his lyrics. He performed in it with Gertrude Lawrence. Fontanne made her English debut in a 1905 production of Cinderella before arriving in the United States in 1910. She met Lunt in 1917 and appeared with him for the first time on stage in 1919 in a play titled A Young Man’s Fancy. In 1921, she made her reputation in George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly’s Dulcy. Lunt’s first major recognition came for his Broadway performance as the title character in Booth Tarkington’s Clarence (pr. 1919). After their marriage in 1922, Lunt and Fontanne achieved the kind of fame they desired with their appearance as a team in a 1924 Theatre Guild production of Ferenc Molnár’s The Guardsman (Hungarian title A test¹r, pr., pb. 1910). Coward’s major breakthrough came with his own serious drama The Vortex (pr. 1924), in which he played the role of Nicky. The Vortex provided a considerable and scandalous sensation, and it presented a theme that was to remain a constant in Coward’s work: the struggles of post-World War I characters to work out their own values, as the values of the past had become outmoded or bankrupt. The principal characters in The Vortex are Nicky, who is addicted to drugs, and his mother, who is 2618
addicted to eternal youthfulness. She refuses to admit her maturity, takes lovers her son’s age, and cannot relinquish her own pleasures to be a mother to her son. At the end, mother and son vow to reform, but they leave the audience with no particular reason to believe that they will. This contrast between the meaningless lives of moderns and the values of the past that are lost underlies many of the Coward hits that followed. In Cavalcade (pr. 1931), a panorama of England from the Boer War to 1929, Coward ends by juxtaposing the weary song “Twentieth Century Blues” with the figures of six basket-weaving wounded World War I veterans as well as with a cacophony of noise from planes, jazz, and loudspeakers; these suddenly give way to a singing of the traditional “God Save the King.” At the end of Coward’s musical Bitter Sweet (pr., pb. 1929), heroine Sari Linden sings of the enduring loves and loyalties of the past only to find herself abandoned by her uncomprehending audience of Jazz Age young people. Most bitterly in PostMortem (pb. 1931), Coward shows his affinity with the great wave of revulsion that swept Europe, England, and, to some extent, the United States in reaction to the traditional values that had produced the devastation of World War I, with its aerial bombardment, gas and trench warfare, and millions of casualties. In Post-Mortem, young John Cavan, killed in action, returns from the dead to learn that his death, apparently, meant little. Attitudes have not changed; the platitudes and hypocrisy that made the war possible still conceal its brutal reality. Young people, survivors of the war, cannot accept these values but have nothing with which to replace them. Design for Living moved to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City on January 24, 1933, after opening at the Hanna Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 2. Although the play is high comedy, indirectly it reflects the grim world of the 1930’s, a world in which frivolous laughter barely conceals despair. The play reflects the decade’s insecurity, recorded in Coward’s autobiography and letters, about the Great Depression and the European situation that was to lead to World War II. Coward wrote Design for Living very quickly on his way back from Chile, where he had received a cable from the Lunts informing him that their Theatre Guild commitment was over and asking him about the play he had promised to write. He returned to California, the lone passenger on a Norwegian freighter, and completed the play two days before the ship docked at Los Angeles. Clearly, the play
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Noël Coward. (AP/Wide World Photos)
niture are for sale. Otto and Leo enter and scandalize some guests. Gilda walks out again. Ernest returns the next morning to find both Otto and Leo emerging from the bedroom, wearing his pajamas. They claim they want Gilda. Conventional Ernest is horrified and flies into a fury, mouthing the platitudes of an outraged moralist, when Gilda returns to say she is leaving with Otto and Leo. She cannot live without them both. It is Ernest’s turn to stalk out, but he trips and falls flat, and the play ends with the laughter of Otto, Leo, and Gilda. Significance Like many other Coward plays, Design for Living was a success, but critical reviews were mixed. Having exhausted himself during the run of The Vortex, Coward had promised himself that he would appear in no more than a three-month run, but Design for Living was so successful that he extended this to five months. According to Coward biographer Cole Lesley, during the final week of the play’s run, police had to be called out to control the crowds. For the only time in his life, Coward had to hire a bodyguard. He had rented a secluded cottage and was receiving threatening letters, which may have been related to the play. Critics, while praising Design for Living, often described it as decadent or amoral. The most famous still photograph from the 1933 production emphasizes a possible homosexual relationship between Leo and Otto; one man reclines in the arms of the other while reaching out to Gilda, who sits separately. Then, too, the play supports an aristocracy of the elite, whose duty is to live by its own precepts regardless of the conventional morality for which Ernest, as his name suggests, is the humorless spokesman. Finally, Gilda walks out on her marriage to Ernest, not for high principles, as was true of Henrik Ibsen’s Nora in Et dukkehjem (pr., pb. 1879; A Doll’s House, 1880), but simply because she wants to do so. In fact, problems with British censorship probably explain why the play was not performed in England until 1939. Paramount filmed the play in 1933, with Ernst Lubitsch as director, but screenwriter Ben Hecht threw out most of Coward’s script. (The film starred Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, and Edward Everett Horton.) The popularity of Lunt, Fontanne, and Coward himself, however, was such that would-be censors had no power over the production, thus opening up hitherto questionable material for future playwrights, such as Coward’s admirer Edward Albee. Of those involved, only theatrical producer Max Gordon’s career was profoundly affected, and that positively. Coward had been 2619
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emerged from preoccupations, especially the idea, suggestive of George Bernard Shaw’s beliefs, that moderns must overthrow traditional moral and social sanctions to create their own lives and values. Coward’s play is light, seemingly frivolous, but its action points irrevocably to this single conclusion. Gilda, Leo, and Otto are the play’s principal characters. Leo (played by Coward in the original production) is a playwright, Otto (Lunt) is a painter, and Gilda (Fontanne) loves both. In the first act, Gilda lives with Otto in Paris. She and picture dealer Ernest Friedman (played in 1933 by Campbell Gullan) are talking as Otto returns from a trip. Leo emerges from the bedroom. Conventionally furious, Otto stalks off, feeling betrayed. In the second act, Gilda is living with Leo in London. Leo leaves for a country weekend but returns early to find Otto with Gilda. Disgusted with both men’s reactions, Gilda stalks out. She marries Ernest, a merchant, not a creator, and tries to live a conventionally money-hungry life in New York. The third act takes place in their New York apartment, where their pictures and even their fur-
Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s
Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s impressed by Gordon’s frank critique of his performance in Coward’s earlier play Private Lives (pr., pb. 1930). When Coward offered Gordon the opportunity to produce Design for Living, he apparently did not know that Gordon was having financial problems so severe that they had brought him near bankruptcy; he was suicidal and had been hospitalized. For Gordon, Design for Living was a lifeline; he became solvent again and went on to produce such hits as Roberta (1933), The Great Waltz (1934), The Women (1936), My Sister Eileen (1940), and Born Yesterday (1945). The Lunts, too, went on from this success to others such as Reunion in Vienna (1931), Idiot’s Delight (1936), Amphitryon 38 (1937), There Shall Be No Night (1940), and The Pirate (1942). Coward’s career was at its height with Design for Living. He followed it with Conversation Piece in 1934, written for French singer Yvonne Printemps, and in that year the first volume of his collected plays appeared. Of the many plays that followed, the two most important are Tonight at 8:30 (a collective title for nine plays designed to be presented in various combinations of three bills of three plays; pr. 1935) and Blithe Spirit (pr., pb. 1941). In 1942, he gained wartime celebrity for writing and acting in the patriotic film In Which We Serve, which also starred John Mills and Michael Wilding. The film was a starkly realistic account of the German destruction of a British ship and its effects on the people involved. In the post-World War II world, Coward lost critical favor but retained his popular audience. John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger (pr. 1956) introduced a new kind of realism, as shocking in its way as Coward’s had been two decades earlier. Coward continued to write plays, but he rarely repeated his earlier successes. He continued entertaining as well. In 1953, for example, he appeared as King Magnus in a London production of Shaw’s The Apple Cart (pr. 1929). Shaw’s advice had been an early influence on him, and a continuing influence can be seen in the structure and dialogue of Coward’s plays. By the mid-1950’s, the critical tide again turned, and Coward became celebrated as the grand old man of British theater. He appeared several times in the 1950’s at London’s Café de Paris, and in 1954 he gave a royal command performance at London’s Palladium. In the following year, he wrote and directed Together with Music, a U.S. television review, for himself and Mary Martin. He also made other television appearances, including, in 1967, a role in a U.S. performance of Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion (pr. 1913). A number of his own plays were adapted for television. In 1955, to his astonishment, he 2620
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was offered forty thousand dollars a week to appear at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas; that engagement was a personal triumph. Also in that year, he appeared in the film version of Around the World in Eighty Days. He followed this with a noteworthy performance in the 1959 film of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. A London revival of Private Lives led to major revivals of many of his other plays.
Coward Comments In his introduction to one of the earliest volumes collecting several of his plays, Noël Coward offers these comments about Design for Living: Design for Living has been produced, published, and reviewed. It has been liked and disliked, and hated and admired, but never, I think, sufficiently loved by any but its three leading actors. This, perhaps, was only to be expected, as its central theme, from the point of view of the average, must appear to be definitely antisocial. People were certainly interested and entertained and occasionally even moved by it, but it seemed, to many of them, “unpleasant.” This sense of “unpleasantness” might have been mitigated for them a little if they had realized that the title was ironic rather than dogmatic. I never intended for a moment that the design for living suggested in the play should apply to anyone outside its three principal characters, Gilda, Otto, and Leo. These glib, overarticulate, and amoral creatures force their lives into fantastic shapes and problems because they cannot help themselves. Impelled chiefly by the impact of their personalities each upon the other, they are like moths in a pool of light, unable to tolerate the lonely outer darkness, and equally unable to share the light without colliding constantly and bruising one another’s wings. The end of the play is equivocal. The three of them, after various partings and reunions and partings again, after torturing and loving and hating one another, are left together as the curtain falls, laughing. Different minds found different meanings in this laughter. Some considered it to be directed against Ernest, Gilda’s husband, and the time-honoured friend of all three. If so, it was certainly cruel, and in the worst possible taste. Some saw in it a lascivious anticipation of a sort of triangular carnal frolic. Others, with less ribald imaginations, regarded it as a meaningless and slightly inept excuse to bring the curtain down. I as author, however, prefer to think that Gilda and Otto and Leo were laughing at themselves. Source: Noël Coward, “Introduction,” in Play Parade (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City, 1933).
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In 1970, Coward was knighted in recognition of his contributions, and in 1971, he received an honorary Tony Award for his career achievements. In 1972, the Coward revue Cowardy Custard played in London, and the revue Oh! Coward played in New York in 1973; both shows were essentially anthologies of his lyrics. —Betty Richardson
Lesley, Cole. Remembered Laughter: The Life of Noël Coward. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Wellwritten memoir is tipped slightly toward a personal, rather than professional, biography. First employed by Coward in 1936, Lesley remained his companion and assistant until Coward’s death. Levin, Milton. Noël Coward. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Workmanlike study includes chronology, bibliography of Coward’s works, and limited bibliography of works about him. Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. The Theatrical Companion to Coward. 1957. Reprint. London: Oberon Books, 1999. Extremely useful for information on Coward’s early plays and other works. Includes a tribute to Coward by playwright Terence Rattigan as well as cast lists, production dates, synopses, a discography, and a list of individual songs. Morley, Sheridan. A Talent to Amuse: A Biography of Noël Coward. Rev. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. Focuses slightly more on Coward’s professional life than on his personal life. Includes a valuable chronology that lists his work as playwright, performer, composer, author, and director as well as major revivals of his work. Peters, Margot. Design for Living: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Biography of the Lunts features considerable material about their relationship with Coward. Includes photographs, chronology, selected bibliography, and index. See also: Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot; 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes; 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy; Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama; Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater; Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York; Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway.
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Further Reading Castle, Charles. Noël. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. Informal compilation of biographical notes, photographs, texts of songs, extracts from plays, and recollections of friends provides an interesting supplement to more formal biographies. Coward, Noël. Collected Plays. Vol. 3. London: Methuen, 2000. Collection of plays includes Design for Living, Cavalcade, Conversation Piece, and three plays from the Tonight at 8:30 cycle. _______. Noël Coward: Autobiography. 1986. Reprint. London: Methuen, 2003. Contains his three autobiographies: Present Indicative (1937), Future Indefinite (1954), and Past Conditional (an unfinished work). Includes index. Gordon, Max, with Lewis Funke. Max Gordon Presents. New York: Bernard Beis, 1963. Readable, generally anecdotal account of Gordon’s rise from New York slums to prominence as a theatrical producer. Includes some coverage of his work with Coward. Hoare, Philip. Noël Coward: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Comprehensive, thoroughly researched biography places Coward’s work within the context of his life and times. Includes photographs and index. Lahr, John. Coward the Playwright. 1982. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. One of the earliest studies to take full account of Coward’s homosexuality. Stresses that topic and Coward’s desire for fame, sometimes at the expense of the plays’ substance. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index.
Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s
Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
January 23, 1933
Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute As a response to the banking crisis of the 1930’s, the Italian government created the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, which bought bank-owned shares of stock in failing companies. Locale: Rome, Italy Categories: Banking and finance; organizations and institutions; government and politics Key Figures Alberto Beneduce (1877-1944), president of the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 1933-1939 Donato Menichella (1896-1984), general manager of the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 1933-1943 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), dictator of Italy, 19221945 Giuseppe Toeplitz (1866-1938), director of Banca Commerciale Italiana, a major holder of industrial securities Summary of Event In the 1920’s, Italian banks commonly purchased large blocks of stocks in firms to which they had lent money. By doing so, the banks could have an influence on management operations and, presumably, make sure that their financial interests were being handled responsibly. As a result of the worldwide economic depression of the 1930’s, which was precipitated by the stock market crash of 1929, many Italian businesses became undervalued, and their stock prices plummeted. Three major banks in Italy—Banca Commerciale Italiana, Credito Italiano, and Banco di Roma—faced failure because of their holdings in such businesses. The Instituto per la Rico Struzione Industriale (the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, or IRI) was created as a temporary measure to keep these banks afloat through the purchase of their stock holdings. The IRI thus obtained great potential influence over Italian business. Eventually, the IRI developed into a permanent holding company owned by the state but independent of direct government control. The IRI became a major tool for implementing economic and industrial policy controls in Italy. Although the Fascist government of Italy (led by dictator Benito Mussolini) supported the use of public funds to subsidize private business, it did not create the concept. Just prior to World War I, in 1914, the Italian government had established an industrial business cooperative to provide funds for the production of war materials. 2622
In 1921, this cooperative was permitted to use Italian treasury funds to rescue two important businesses that had joint operations. These firms were the giant industrial company Ansaldo and the Banca Italiana di Sconto (the Italian Discount Bank). Two brothers who managed Ansaldo had earlier given Mussolini support for his newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia. In 1923, partly to please the Vatican and partly to avert a major economic downturn, Mussolini worked directly to save the Banco di Roma through the use of public funds. Soon the Fascists were regularly transferring public money to private organizations. Of principal concern through this period was the survival of banks, on which consumer confidence and industrial development depended. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, a small number of associations of industrialists and industrial organizations had formed and developed considerable power. The most influential, the CGII (General Confederation of Italian Industrialists), had assisted the Fascists when they attained power in October, 1922. Because of its close association with the government, it began to transform from a collection of private business interests to a powerful element of the public bureaucracy. In November, 1931, it became clear that the banking community had more severe problems than could be solved by the methods used to help the Italian Discount Bank and others in the 1920’s. The CGII became adamant that the government do something dramatic to avoid severe bank failures. As a response, the Italian Mobilization Institute (IMI) was created and given authority to collect funds from any source to rescue troubled banks. Although it continued to operate, the IMI did not satisfactorily accomplish its mission, in part because of an austere management style and in part because of the uncertainty of the private funds that were to be included in the mix of funds to be administered for failing banks. The IRI was established as a last-resort response to the failure of the CGII. It was to use only public funds to directly purchase, from banks, shares of stock in failing companies that had been held in security. The creation of the IRI was an uneventful occasion, as most people regarded this extreme measure as only a temporary direct intervention of government into business affairs. The immediate need was to save three major banks from failure. Among them, only the Banca Commerciale Italiana was very reluctant to sell its industrial holdings to the newly
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The short-term impact of the IRI was to stabilize the Italian banking system through reorganization of industrial stock portfolios and the sale of such stabilized portfolios back to the banks. The IRI eventually became a permanent holding company and a major economic institution with direct influence on political and social institutions, and much of postwar Italy’s cultural character was shaped by the IRI’s presence and activities. In addition, by the end of the 1960’s, Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and Germany had all established state holding companies based on the IRI model. For a time, the future of the IRI was in doubt. The war destroyed approximately 45 percent of Italy’s production capacity, and much of the capacity that remained had to be reconstructed for the production of peacetime goods. The years immediately following the war saw uncertainty over the country’s development, and a 1946 statute reaffirmed the 1937 legislation establishing the IRI as a permanent agency. That act was soon disavowed, but it was replaced by more permanent (but equally controversial) legislation in 1948. The Allies severely restricted the IRI’s management, and although aid provided under the Marshall Plan was necessary for any economic redevelopment, such aid was highly controlled. The Christian Democrat Party, the ruling party of the postwar period, was undecided as to how much influence the IRI should have, and the government presented an ambiguous direction for the IRI. Nevertheless, the IRI was permitted to grow for two primary reasons. First, there were economies of scale in large industries that could be exploited by the IRI’s centralized administrative apparatus. Second, the IRI instituted policies that were perceived as humane, such as retaining employees who were not needed in order to prevent their deportation or conscription to Germany. By 1949, the IRI had achieved its prewar capacity. From the mid-1950’s, it had an influence on virtually every aspect of Italian society. The Italian economy experienced remarkably rapid growth during the postwar period, and although a number of factors contributed to this growth— including the European Common Market, the Marshall Plan, foreign investments, and increased domestic consumption—the IRI is generally acknowledged as the single most important factor behind the Italian economy’s expansion. The IRI benefited private industry in important ways. Its operation reduced responsibility for unprofitable ventures, thus encouraging entrepreneurship and maximization of profit-producing investments. The IRI’s decision 2623
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created IRI. Giuseppe Toeplitz, director of the bank, finally gave his approval in 1933, and in doing so he firmly established the IRI’s legitimacy. At this stage, Mussolini was careful not to appoint people with strong stands either for or against fascism to management positions. The first president of the IRI, Alberto Beneduce, appeared to be the type of neutral person of whom Italy and the world at large would approve. Appearances, however, were somewhat deceiving. Beneduce had long been active in politics, and as a member of the moderate Social Democrat Party, he had served in several minor positions as statistician, and from 1921 to 1922 he served Italy as minister of labor and welfare. Mussolini and Beneduce developed a relationship of mutual respect despite their philosophical differences; both were technically competent and yearned for power, regardless of labels. In 1935, Beneduce became convinced that the future of governmental intervention in business in Italy should take the form of managerial directives and strategies rather than direct financial subsidization. The IRI thus made no more loans or purchases of bank-held stocks. These functions were returned to the IMI in March, 1936. In June, 1937, the IRI became a permanent government agency, responsible for overseeing industrial production, management, and strategy of those companies in which it held major blocks of shares. The business community objected, but IRI prevailed, primarily through the vast amount of control, through stock ownership, it had obtained in earlier years from failing banks. In those industries in which productivity and innovation had remained at relatively high levels, repurchase of ownership was possible, but the majority of companies were unable to regain ownership. The IRI, therefore, continued to have a significant amount of control of industrial operations, principally in industries that did not operate at a profit. It had controlling interests in a number of key industries, including electricity, machinery, shipping, and telephone systems. Because stock purchases by the IRI were not complete takeovers (the institute did not buy all the shares of any one company), the resultant industrial model was that of a mixed economy, with ownership of manufacturing industries shared between the private and public sectors. The war years devastated Italy’s production capacity, but the IRI survived largely through the efforts of its early leaders and the demand for the heavy industrial products created by large-scale warfare.
Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute
Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute to issue stock was particularly helpful to private industry: Businesses could buy shares of ownership in the holding company which, in turn, held ownership in their firms. In consequence, the IRI had more capital and could blur the lines between public and private sources of funds, which created an extremely strong cover for the “mixed” economy. The IRI thus posed no threat to private initiative but did provide for centralized economies of scale and protection against economic disaster. Perhaps the most outstanding example of this influence was in the development of the Italian steel industry. For purposes of national security and to support the auto and other heavy industries, reduced dependence on imported steel was a high priority in postwar Italy. The country had very few deposits of iron ore, the basic material for the production of steel. The Italian steel industry, therefore, had always depended on steel scrap as a raw material. This approach, however, put the Italian industry at the mercy of worldwide supply and demand for scrap. Under the leadership and financial sponsorship of an IRI group called Finsider, a scrap-steel plant near Genoa was rebuilt to accommodate raw iron ore. Dredging operations produced channels that would permit oceangoing freight vessels to dock at the shore-based plant. Direct importing of raw iron began, essentially eliminating dependence on steel scrap. An immediate result of this was to ensure Italy’s membership in the European Coal and Steel Community. This, along with a long-term contract with Fiat to supply auto-quality steel, ensured an adequate supply of raw iron ore and a demand for product. Most researchers attribute a number of positive social consequences to the influence of the IRI. From 1948 to 1972, employment rose by 93 percent, sales rose a phenomenal 1,300 percent, and investment rose 1,500 percent. The result of these developments was creation of a highly productive economy that by the 1980’s was among the world leaders. Such rapid growth meant wide availability of consumer goods, incomes with which to purchase them, and a comfortable standard of living. The IRI’s impacts beyond Italy were also substantial. The British Industrial Reorganization Corporation was established in January, 1966, followed in March, 1970, by the French Industrial Development Institute and the Canada Development Corporation, and in June, 1970, by the Australian Industries Development Corporation. All were modeled principally on the Italian IRI. What began as a temporary measure to save three banks from failure on the eve of World War II became a major 2624
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 economic institution of Italy and a model for the institutional arrangements in the mixed economies of many other nations. —Steven K. Paulson Further Reading Allen, Kevin, and Andrew Stevenson. An Introduction to the Italian Economy. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1975. A detailed and adequate reference on the Italian economy up to the 1970’s. Chapters 1 and 7 present detailed discussions of economic developments in the 1930’s and 1940’s, with a focus on the state sector. Clough, Shepard B. The Economic History of Modern Italy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. An extraordinarily thorough treatment of the economic history of Italy from the late nineteenth century through the mid-1960’s. The Fascist period is discussed in chapters 7 and 8. Provides a helpful discussion of the context within which the IRI was created and developed. De Grand, Alexander. Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development. 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. This relatively short book presents a very readable and concise history of Italian Fascism. The development and impact of the IRI are reviewed in several pages. Holland, Stuart, ed. The State as Entrepreneur. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972. Comprehensive analysis of the IRI as the prototype state holding company. Provides considerable factual information about the formative period of the IRI as well as its long-term impacts on other economies. Kindleberger, Charles P. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. General survey of financial speculation and monetary crises from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. Posner, M. V., and S. J. Woolf. Italian Public Enterprise. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Brief examination of the role of state enterprises in Italy for the period 1952-1967. Devotes much attention to the role of the IRI and provides informative discussion of the IRI’s origins. Also discusses the long-run impact of the IRI on the postwar economy of Italy. Sarti, Roland. Fascism and the Industrial Leadership in Italy, 1919-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Brief but thorough analysis of the relationship between the Italian Fascists and economic developments of the period 1919-1940. Provides detailed insights into the personalities important to the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 creation and development of the IRI as a product of Fascist authority and, at times, the direct involvement of Mussolini. Wicker, Elmus. The Banking Panics of the Great Depression. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Examines the origins, magnitudes, and effects of five individual banking panics. Features figures, tables, references, and index.
Hitler Comes to Power in Germany See also: Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control; 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors.
January 30, 1933
Hitler Comes to Power in Germany Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and his leadership of the Nazi Party marked the end of German democracy in the 1930’s and ushered in political changes that led to World War II.
Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Nazi leader of Berlin and later propaganda minister under Hitler Hermann Göring (1893-1946), president of the Reichstag, 1932-1933, and minister in Hitler’s cabinet Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), president of the Weimar Republic, 1925-1934 Franz von Papen (1879-1969), chancellor of Germany, 1932, and vice chancellor under Hitler, 1933-1934 Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), chief of staff of the paramilitary Sturm Abteilung (SA) Kurt von Schleicher (1882-1934), chancellor of Germany, 1932-1933 Summary of Event On the morning of January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler took the oath of office from Weimar Republic president Paul von Hindenburg. That evening, thousands of torchbearing Nazi Brownshirts, members of the paramilitary Sturm Abteilung (SA), marched through the Brandenburg Gate past the new chancellor, celebrating their victory over the forces of German democracy. The Third Reich, which would bring the fanatical allegiance of the majority of Germans to Hitler and would lead to the vast holocaust of World War II, had begun.
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Locale: Germany Categories: Government and politics; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Hitler’s movement, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), also known as the Nazi Party, had begun with a handful of malcontents in Munich shortly after World War I. Many other racist-nationalist groups existed at the time, but Hitler’s ruthless, brilliant leadership made the NSDAP a special case. Although Hitler had first tried to grasp power in 1923 in the Beer Hall Putsch, Weimar democracy had prevailed, and by the time of the 1928 elections the Nazis appeared to be no more than an annoying, inconsequential party from the radical right. Their combination of nationalism, antiMarxism, anti-Semitism, anti-big business “socialism,” militaristic agitation, and raucous oratory had gained them less than 3 percent of the popular vote. Yet, in less than five years, Hitler was chancellor of Germany, and he placed such key men as Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels in charge of the state. By the time of Hindenburg’s death in August, 1934, Hitler had secured totalitarian control of the state. Historians noted a number of reasons for the Nazi’s rise. Few modern scholars accepted the early argument that Hitler’s victory was made inevitable by the German intellectual traditions that venerated the authority of the state, lauded military virtues, and praised the greatness of the German people. Nevertheless, this background provided traditions that Hitler could pervert and exploit. The Great Depression, which hit Germany soon after the 1929 stock market crash in the United States, gave Hitler’s movement its greatest boost. As business indicators fell and the unemployment lines grew, the Nazis scored impressive electoral gains. Curiously, however, Hitler’s votes did not come from the unemployed; most of those were working-class people devoted to Marxism. If they were moderates, they voted for Social Democrats, if they were radicals, they voted for Communists. While research supports the con-
Hitler Comes to Power in Germany
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tention that the Nazi voters appear to have come largely from the ranks of the middle classes, including shopkeepers, managers, small farmers, white-collar workers, civil servants, and other members of petite bourgeoisie, some studies indicate that Hitler’s support extended across a much broader section of sociTo view image, please refer to the ety. For the most part, those who voted print edition of this title. for Hitler’s NSDAP feared Marxist rhetoric and had abandoned the traditional bourgeois parties in frustration. Nationalistic appeals based on denunciation of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), which had been imposed on Germany after World War I, heightened levels of support. Hitler, portrayed through careful and manipulative propaganda as a humble soldier from the Adolf Hitler (second from right) and other members of his party raise their hands in ranks and a member of the German the Nazi salute after winning elections in 1933. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) “race” (although he was an Austrian by birth), appealed to the German sense of pride by calling for a greater Germany. est single party there, with 36.2 percent of the votes. The German people were not as lacking in democratic In July, when the national parliament, the Reichstag, traditions as some commentators (including Hitler) bewas elected, the Nazis won 37.3 percent of the vote. Tolieved, but their feelings about the Weimar Constitution gether, the Nazis and the Communists—the antidemwere pragmatic, and when unstable parliamentary coaliocratic forces, respectively, of the radical Right and the tions proved incapable handling the economic crisis, radical Left—held a majority of Reichstag seats. A govthey were fully prepared to try more authoritarian soluernment based on even the broadest coalition of the midtions. The Nazis, with their vigorous and aggressive (if dle parties was impossible, so in November the German somewhat ill-defined) program, stood out in stark conpeople voted again. This time the Nazi totals fell, giving trast to the modesty and fatigue which characterized the Hitler and his party only 33.1 percent. The Nazi campaign other middle-class parties. Hitler’s leadership, amplified coffers were depleted, and the flood of Nazi votes seemed by the Goebbels propaganda machine, brought many to have crested and receded. Hindenburg refused to give solid German burghers to his side. Hitler the dictatorial powers he demanded as his price for The Nazis became the largest single power in the Gersupporting a government with Nazi votes in the Reichsman multiparty system, but they never received an absotag. Both Hitler and Goebbels became despondent. lute majority in a free national election. It was the inSince midyear, the chancellorship had been held by trigues of reactionary politicians, rather than the votes of Franz von Papen, a reactionary aristocrat once active in Germans, that put Hitler in power. In March of 1932, Hitthe Catholic Center Party. After the November elections, ler ran for president against the aging Hindenburg. Hitler Papen found his position undermined not only by the Nareceived 30.1 percent of the votes to Hindenburg’s 49.6 zis but by General Kurt von Schleicher, army chief and percent, with the remaining votes going to the Commuan inveterate political manipulator. Hindenburg apnist candidate (13.2 percent), and two minor candidates. pointed Schleicher to serve as chancellor in December, Clearly, Hitler had lost, but a second ballot was neces1932. The clever general tried to split the Nazi Party and sary because no one had received an absolute majority. form a coalition of left-wing Nazis, right-wing Social In April, Hindenburg beat Hitler, receiving 53 percent of Democrats, and conservatives in order to keep Hitler the vote as compared to Hitler’s 36.8 percent. Several from power. Schleicher’s plan gathered little support, state legislative elections followed, the most significant and Papen worked behind the scenes to unseat Schleicher of which was in Prussia. The Nazis emerged as the larg2626
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and create a coalition of Nazis and Nationalists (German National People’s Party) in which he would hold a key position. Papen assured Hindenburg and others on the traditional right that Hitler could be controlled by the conservatives in the cabinet. Indeed, only three Nazis— Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Frick, and Hitler himself— would be in the cabinet. Thus Hindenburg agreed to make the fatal appointment. The first few months of Hitler’s rule were crucial to his success: During that period he accomplished a revolution after coming to power. Rather than controlling Hitler as they had planned, Papen and the other conservatives found themselves outmaneuvered by him at every turn. Hitler skillfully dismantled the constitutional guarantees he had sworn to uphold and went on to establish a totalitarian dictatorship in the years that followed. Upon Hindenburg’s death in August of 1934, Hitler assumed his powers as president and exacted an oath of personal loyalty from the military.
and the arts were coordinated under Goebbels’s leadership, and youth organizations, unions, professional societies, and even singing groups and garden clubs found it prudent either to amalgamate with the parallel Nazi organizations or simply to go out of business. Coordination was a process rather than a single action, so it overlapped other phases of the Nazi takeover, and its results were uneven. Within the churches, for example, pockets of independence continued to exist, although the vast majority of both Protestants and Catholics formally accepted Nazi dominance. Anyone who actively and publicly opposed coordination faced the prospect of joining thousands of dissidents in the concentration camps. The fourth phase included two events in 1934 that placed the capstone on Hitler’s control of the state. In late June, rumors of a putsch—an attempt to overthrow the government—by Ernst Röhm and certain other “radicals” within the SA provided an excuse for a bloody purge. During what has come to be known as the Night of the Long Knives or the Great Blood Purge, between 150 and 200 potential or real opponents of the regime were shot on Hitler’s orders by the Schutzstaffel (SS), which was directed by Heinrich Himmler. Röhm and a number of other prominent conservatives were killed, including Schleicher. On August 2, 1934, the eighty-six-year-old Hindenburg finally died, and Hitler swiftly assumed the powers of the deceased president and had the military swear a personal oath of loyalty to him as führer (leader). He then arranged for a plebiscite in which 89.9 percent of the valid votes cast supported him. —George R. Mitchell and Liesel Ashley Miller Further Reading Abel, Theodore. Why Hitler Came into Power. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Originally published in 1938, Abel’s study remains an analytic cornerstone in the question of why Hitler was successful in becoming Germany’s leader. This edition has a foreword by Thomas Childers. Allen, William Sheridan. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 19301935. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965. Allen’s book shows the local impact of Nazism and how the grassroots organization and support of the party made possible Hitler’s ultimate seizure of power. Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Remains one of the best, most thorough standard biographies of Hitler. Shows how Hitler carried out his “revolution after power.” Childers, Thomas. The Nazi Voter. Chapel Hill: Univer2627
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Significance After Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazi revolution occurred in four phases. First, Hitler prevailed on Hindenburg to call new elections for the Reichstag. Nazis now controlled the police, so Brownshirt terrorism went unchecked while the opposition parties labored under severe handicaps. A few days before the election, a former Communist Dutch arsonist set fire to the Reichstag building. Quickly, the Nazis fabricated evidence of a Communist uprising and promulgated emergency decrees that suspended civil rights. The decrees were never lifted. Even with all the power of the state behind them, the Nazis missed a majority, receiving 43.9 percent of the votes on March 5, 1933. The second phase was the forcing through the Reichstag of the Enabling Act (1933), which was written to give Hitler dictatorial powers for four years and required a two-thirds vote of the Reichstag for passage. The Communists had been forcibly excluded, and many Social Democrats had been threatened and did not appear. Nevertheless, Hitler needed the votes of the Catholic Center Party, so he combined honeyed words and threats to gain its support. When the vote came, only the Social Democratic Party voted against Hitler. As a result, his dictatorship was legitimated on March 23, 1933. The third phase of the Nazi revolution was the policy of Gleichschaltung (coordination), which subordinated every organization to the Nazi state. All other political parties dissolved more or less “voluntarily” (that is, without being physically forced to do so). The mass media
Hitler Comes to Power in Germany
Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations sity of North Carolina Press, 1983. In this statistical analysis of German voting behavior, Childers contends that Hitler’s supporters came not simply from an indistinguishable middle class, but from very diverse backgrounds. Flood, Charles Bracelen. Hitler: The Path to Power. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. An insightful addition to accounts of Hitler and his rise to power, this work provides an exhaustive bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Focuses on Hitler’s years in Vienna. Includes photographs, select bibliography, and index. Hamilton, Richard F. Who Voted for Hitler? Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. In this controversial book, Hamilton rejects the traditional centrist argument—that of the dominant lower-middle-class support for the NSDAP—and suggests alternative explanations for the Nazi rise to power. Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. 3d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Comprehensive account of the Nazi treatment of the Jews of Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. Graphically illustrates how the ideas Hitler expressed in Mein Kampf led directly to unspeakable suffering for millions of people. Includes excellent bibliography and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Reprint. New York: Mariner Books, 1998. No commentary can illustrate Hitler’s ideas as well as Mein Kampf itself. Hitler’s clumsy and often pompous prose does not prevent the reader from understanding that his program called for the destruction of many basic human rights, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of association, free enterprise, and sexual freedom. Manheim’s translation is among the best available. Maier, Charles S., Stanley Hoffmann, and Andrew Gould, eds. The Rise of the Nazi Regime: Historical Reassessments. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986. This collection of essays begins with an informative overview by Charles Maier, while subsequent contributors address the collapse of Weimar and the Nazi rise to power. See also: Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 23-24, 1939: NaziSoviet Pact.
February 24, 1933
Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations In 1931, the Japanese military invaded Manchuria. By 1932, it had installed a puppet regime there, as well as a subservient civilian government at home. The League of Nations commissioned an investigation of the seizure of Manchuria, and when the investigation concluded with a report condemning the invasion, Japan formally withdrew from the League, destabilizing its diplomatic relations with most of the world powers. Locale: Geneva, Switzerland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; organizations and institutions; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), Chinese military and political leader 2628
Yfsuke Matsuoka (1880-1946), chief Japanese delegate to the League of Nations Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855-1932), prime minister of Japan, 1931-1932 Second Earl of Lytton (Victor Bulwer-Lytton; 18761947), British delegate to the League of Nations and president of the Commission of Inquiry into the Manchurian Incident Puyi (1906-1967), former Chinese emperor and figurehead ruler of Manchukuo, 1932-1945 Summary of Event On February 24, 1933, Yfsuke Matsuoka, the chief Japanese delegate to the League of Nations, read a long and impassioned plea to the General Assembly in Geneva. He implored the League not to give sanction to its own Lytton
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navy and “old” army versus Young Officer Movement) but solidly united against the idea of returning Manchuria to a corrupt Chinese government. On the other hand, Japan’s government was assailed by opposition parties that wished to use the crisis to further their own political objectives. Criticism of the government’s weak foreign policies had been the time-tested weapon for opposition parties in Japan for half a century. To its credit, the government tried to manage the crisis by attempting to reach a compromise with Chinese military leader Chiang Kaishek. The Kwangtung Army, however, continued to make matters worse. The army leadership recognized that if something were not done to destroy the chances for an agreement between the Chinese and Japanese governments, all their hard-won territory might be returned to Chinese sovereignty. Despite explicit government orders not to precipitate more problems, the army began to manuever to create a separate Manchurian regime that it could control. China, like Japan, was a member of the League of Nations and therefore appealed to the League for redress. The League agreed to investigate the matter, and after nearly a year of preparation it appointed an investigatory commission led by its British delegate, the second earl of Lytton. Before the Lytton Commission could accomplish its tasks, however, in mid-December, 1931, the Japanese government collapsed. It was replaced by one led by Inukai Tsuyoshi, who five months later was gunned down by militarists in May, 1932, ushering in what one historian has called “government by assassination.” As busy as the military was coercing political change by threat and intimidation in Japan, its branch in Manchuria was equally intent on extending its power and control there as well. In a series of rapid strikes, it secured the strategic strongholds of the area. In March, 1932, it engineered a Kwangtung Army-inspired “spontaneous” native Manchu revolution and declared an independent state of Manchukuo. The army installed Puyi, the “last emperor” of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, as the “emperor of Manchukuo.” Puyi had ruled as a child emperor from 1908-1912 and had then been made a mere figurehead, retaining only the title of emperor until 1924. His prior twelve years as a powerless ruler made him seem the perfect candidate to act as Japan’s puppet. Inukai was assassinated in part because he refused to recognize this travesty of a government under Puyi. His successor extended full diplomatic recognition to Manchukuo in September, 1932, almost exactly one year after the Mukden incident. As for the political and human rights of the Manchurians, the Japanese military already had an imperialist 2629
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Commission report, which criticized Japan’s actions in the so-called Mukden incident of 1931 and its subsequent actions in relation to the establishment of the Japanese puppet regime in Manchukuo in 1932. When the League ignored his plea and voted to sustain the report, Matsuoka turned on his heel, summoned his Japanese colleagues to follow, and stalked dramatically out of the meeting hall. In so doing, he visibly dramatized Japan’s eventual official withdrawal from the League and, some historians have argued, the beginning of World War II. Without doubt, Japan’s decision to withdraw from the League of Nations was a watershed event in SinoJapanese relations and in the history of human rights in Manchuria as well. It was also an event that contributed to the destruction of civilian democratic government in Japan and drew a suffocating pall over the possibilities for democracy in China. Japan’s withdrawal from the League can be traced directly to the Mukden incident, which occurred on the evening of September 18, 1931. In that incident, the Japanese Kwangtung Army stationed in Manchuria feigned a Chinese attack on the Japaneseowned South Manchuria Railroad as part of a strategy to overrun all of Manchuria and parts of northeast China. The antecedents of the 1933 withdrawal can also be traced to Japanese attempts to win supremacy in Manchuria as early as the First Sino-Japanese War of 18941895. For the next thirty years, Japan attempted to wrest control of that mineral-rich area from China. By the time the Japanese Kwangtung Army precipitated the Mukden incident, Japan had come to believe that it possessed “special interests” and rights in the region. In fact, only three years before, the army had attempted to create cause for military intervention by assassinating its own military protégé, the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin. In the Mukden incident, when the Japanese army “responded” to the fabricated Chinese attack on the railroad, it was the culmination of a longstanding wish to separate Manchuria from China. Before the Japanese government could reestablish control over its own troops, the Kwangtung Army had driven before it most of the Chinese troops in the area as a “protective reaction.” A week after the beginning of the incident, most of Manchuria and parts of North China were firmly in the possession of the Kwangtung Army. The army had in effect conducted its own foreign policy and now dared the Japanese civilian government to negate a victory for which the Japanese people showed great support and enthusiasm. The government was confronted with a nearly impossible situation. On one hand, it faced a military that was split internally on many issues (including army versus
Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations
Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations blueprint for the treatment of subjugated people. Like the Taiwanese in 1895 and the Koreans in 1910, Manchurians in 1931 became second-class citizens in their own homeland. The heretofore untapped major mineral and commercial sectors of their economy were controlled outright by the Japanese, and nearly all forms of political expression were brutally suppressed. Manchuria had been controlled previously by a mixture of feudal warlords, former members of the Chinese Imperial government, and members of the landed elite. Most of this leadership had fled with the retreating Chinese army in September, 1931. Those who had not were closely watched, imprisoned, or both. The Manchurian government, which mirrored Japan’s own, was in fact totally controlled by Japanese “advisers,” and all decisions were made by the commander of the Kwangtung Army. A few Manchurian collaborators were used as puppets, but the Manchurians were in the main relegated to subservient positions. A second year went by as the Lytton Commission went about its task. Japan attempted to coerce the Chinese government into recognizing Manchukuo, but China preferred to await the final League disposition of the case. Finally, in late September, 1932, the Lytton Commission reported that “without any declaration of war, a large part of Chinese territory has been forcibly
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 seized and occupied by Japanese troops.” It recommended that the Kwangtung Army return to its position and function as of September 17, 1931, and that all actions taken subsequent to that date not be recognized or sanctioned by the League. Japan’s chief delegate to the League, Matsuoka, scrambled to try to have the report tabled pending a trilateral agreement between Japan, China, and Manchukuo (which he knew to be unlikely if not impossible). The League, after some deliberation, decided to vote on whether to accept the Lytton Commission’s report. At this point, Matsuoka made a quixotic and impassioned speech to the General Assembly in which he implored it not to accept the report “for the sake of peace in the Far East and for the sake of peace in the world.” Unconvinced, the General Assembly voted to accept the report by an overwhelming majority (forty-six to one, with Siam abstaining). Matsuoka and the Japanese delegation then made their dramatic and symbolic exit. One month later, on March 27, 1933, the Japanese government officially notified the League of its intention to withdraw from that body. Manchukuo remained a nation in name only, with only Japan, Italy, Germany, and a few other nations extending it diplomatic recognition. It became part of Japan’s wartime Greater East Asia Co-
Japanese diplomats gather their belongings as they leave their posts at the League of Nations. (NARA)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 prosperity Sphere and was returned to Chinese control with the defeat of the Japanese Empire in August, 1945.
(Taisei Yokusankai), which acquiesced in Japan’s eventual extension of the war with China to include the United States, Great Britain, and the other Allies. Thousands of Japanese dissidents were rounded up and imprisoned without trial, and hundreds more simply disappeared, probably assassinated by the secret police forces of the army. Opposition newspapers were closed down and their editors imprisoned, political rallies of all sorts were outlawed, and legal and civil rights were suspended for the duration of the war. It may be fairly said then that the Mukden incident of September 18, 1931, led directly to the establishment of Manchukuo. Both, in turn, contributed to withdrawal of Japan from the League of Nations. The incidents foisted on a hapless Japanese civilian government by the Kwangtung Army and its supporters in Japan helped to discredit, destabilize, and ultimately destroy the political party-style democratic government in Japan. —Louis G. Perez Further Reading Borg, Dorothy. The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964. Concerned primarily with the effects of the crisis on American foreign policy. Excellent analysis and masterful integration of both Japanese as well as American sources. Valuable bibliography, especially for access to the Tokyo war crimes trial documents. Byas, Hugh. Government by Assassination. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. Although suffering from a dearth of Japanese sources and a lack of objectivity (written by a journalist-turned-historian in the middle of the war), it is still valuable for the description of Japanese domestic politics. Crowley, James B. Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy 1930-1938. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. A superb work that integrates the crises into the greater history of Japan’s foreign policy. Chapter 3, “Withdrawal from the League,” is truly masterful. Excellent bibliography. Jones, Francis C. Manchuria Since 1931. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1949. The best study of the effects of the crises on Manchuria. Excellent chapters on “Japanese Immigration and Settlement” and on “Treatment of Racial Minorities.” Extensive charts, maps, and statistical tables. League of Nations. Official Journal, 1931-1933. Geneva: Author, 1933. Contains official proceedings, deliber2631
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Significance Once it had seized Manchuria, Japan began a concerted effort to colonize the country with nearly one-half million Japanese immigrants, who found ready employment as managers in companies “jointly owned” by Japanese financial interests and the government of Manchukuo. All political parties, with the exception of the Hsieh Ho Hui (Concordia Association), were outlawed. All other forms of political expression, including the few remaining Manchu-language newspapers, were tightly controlled or completely stifled. By 1937, the country had become part of Japan’s fancifully named Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere. A corporation was established in October, 1937, to help supply Japan with war materials. The corporation, like the government of Manchukuo, was under the complete control of the Kwangtung Army. The bulk of Manchuria’s natural resources were exported to Japan for the war effort. The government of Manchukuo was modeled on that of Japan, but in reality the organs of government were firmly in the hands of the Japanese. In fact, virtually every aspect of Manchurian society was controlled by the Kwangtung Army. “Emperor” Puyi was never allowed even the semblance of power. The thirty million Manchurian people were limited to working for Japanese-owned and -controlled companies, their every political, civil, and human right suppressed by the brutal military government. Hundreds of thousands of them were imprisoned or forced to work as slave laborers during the war. Estimates of Manchurian deaths by starvation, torture, malnutrition, and execution ranged between 80,000 and 100,000. Between 1931 and 1945, Manchurians were denied the rights to own property, to assemble and speak freely, to vote, to a fair trial, to sue, to emigrate, and even to divorce their spouses. In short, Manchurians were denied virtually every conceivable human and civil right by their Japanese masters. At home, the Japanese military continued to threaten and assassinate its civilian and even its own military leaders. In mid-1937, a militarycontrolled Japan began another war with China, a conflict that would last until Japan’s defeat in August, 1945. Japan’s political party system, which had been the first in East Asia and had showed promise, was dismantled. All political parties were coerced into “cooperating” with the military during the war. They disbanded and joined the Imperial Rule Assistance Association
Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations
Reichstag Fire ations, speeches, and the extensive Lytton Commission report. Wordy and difficult to use, but invaluable for particulars as well as detailed maps. No index. Ogata, Sadako N. Defiance in Manchuria: The Making of Japanese Foreign Policy, 1931-1932. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. Valuable for its time, but superseded two years later by Crowley’s work. Good use of Japanese documents. Valuable bibliography, well indexed. Smith, Sara. The Manchurian Crisis, 1931-1932: A Tragedy in International Relations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1948. Dated, but still valuable as an example of the argument that the crisis exposed the League’s weaknesses and led Mussolini and Hitler into their own foreign adventures. Uses no Japanese sources. Thorne, Christopher. The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, the League, and the Far Eastern Crisis of 19311933. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972. Perhaps the definitive monograph of the subject from the EuroAmerican perspective. Relies heavily on the translated works of Japanese historians. Excellent bibliography. Wilson, Sandra. The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931-1933. New York: Routledge, 2002. Study of the crisis, not from the point of view of inter-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 national relations, but rather from the point of view of its domestic causes and effects. Bibliographic references and index. Yoshihaski, Takehiko. Conspiracy at Mukden: The Rise of the Japanese Military. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963. Concerned with the crisis up to the fall of the Japanese government in December, 1931. Uses the crisis as a case study for the rise of militarism in Japan. Handy chronology, good bibliography and index. Young, Louise. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Study of the Japanese expansionist military regime, its annexation of Manchuria, and its participation in World War II. Bibliographic references and index. See also: Jan. 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; May 5, 1925: Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men; Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
February 27, 1933
Reichstag Fire Adolf Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag, the German parliament building, as an excuse to limit civil and political liberties granted under the Weimar Constitution. Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Government and politics; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany and leader of the Nazi Party Hermann Göring (1893-1946), Prussian minister of the interior, president of the Reichstag, and prosecutor at the trial that followed the Reichstag fire Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Nazi propaganda leader and German minister of propaganda after March 13, 1933 Marinus van der Lubbe (1909-1934), Dutch arsonist who burned the Reichstag building 2632
Georgi Mikhailovich Dimitrov (1882-1949), Bulgarian defendant at the trial, later secretary-general of the Communist International Ernst Torgler (1893-1963), German communist representative to the Reichstag and defendant at the trial Ernst Hanfstaengl (1887-1975), German Nazi sympathizer and friend of Hitler Franz von Papen (1879-1969), German chancellor, 1932, and vice chancellor under Hitler, 1933-1934 Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), president of the German Republic Summary of Event The years following World War I were chaotic ones for Germany. Defeat in war and the humiliation of the peace at Versailles made the populace bitter, frustrated, and angry. They vented their frustration on the Allies, on Jews and other non-German peoples, and above all on the
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nist headquarters in Berlin and closed their printing presses. Up to this point, many had not seen Hitler’s chancellery as a threat because the Nazis remained a minority in the government. The left now became alarmed, and apprehension spread. On February 25, the day after Göring’s raid, three attempts to start fires in government buildings were aborted. The next day, Hitler’s astrologer, Erik Hanussen, predicted a building would soon go up in flames. On Monday, February 27, a Dutch arsonist, Marinus van der Lubbe, perpetrator of the February 25 attempts, purchased some incendiary materials and went to the Reichstag. After surveying the building from several directions, he entered a nearby structure to wait for dark. At 9:00 p.m., he scaled the wall to the balcony near a littleused entrance. Shortly afterward, a passerby, hearing breaking glass and seeing a person (presumably van der Lubbe) fleeing with a flame in his hands, notified the police. An officer went to the scene but could only watch, transfixed, as flames began to engulf the internal rooms. By the time the firemen arrived, the building was already burning down. Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, an associate of Hitler’s, saw the fire from his apartment and notified Goebbels, who was hosting a party that Hitler and others were attending. At first, neither Hitler nor Goebbels believed Hanfstaengl, who was known for his practical jokes, but as the fire progressed, even the revelers could see the red sky. One report states that Hitler yelled, “It’s the communists!” Hitler and Goebbels went to the scene, where they found Göring distraught over the possible loss of the building’s precious Gobelin tapestries. Göring also blamed the communists. He told Hitler that a number of communist deputies had been in the building shortly before the fire broke out and that one arrest had already been made. Hitler asked about other buildings, and Göring assured him that he had taken precautions to preserve them. Hitler, Göring, and Papen then conferred on what action to take. Papen went to inform Hindenburg, and Hitler called a meeting of his cabinet and civic and police officials. The police inspector assigned to the case reported that the police had found van der Lubbe, who admitted that he committed the arson as a protest. Göring shouted, “This is the beginning of a communist uprising,” and Hitler added, “Now we’ll show them! Anyone who stands in our way will be mown down!” He threatened to hang or shoot communists, socialists, and even conservative opponents. When the police inspector revealed that van der Lubbe was not a communist and had carried out the deed alone, Hitler refused to believe it. “This is a 2633
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Weimar Republic, which had been created to replace the monarchy. The first wave of turmoil arose from 1918 to 1923, but it subsided as economic conditions improved in the second half of the 1920’s. The Weimar Constitution appeared to be working very well, but the outbreak of a worldwide economic depression in 1929 led to a new swell of political agitation based on hatred of certain races and classes. The turbulent years immediately after the war saw the rise of extremist parties on the left and right. From 1919 to 1923, the German Communist Party initiated three uprisings, and nationalist, anticommunist, and anti-Semitic groups also attempted to overthrow the republic and committed acts of terror against its officials. The most infamous uprising of the political right in those years occurred in Munich in November of 1923, when Adolf Hitler led the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch. The party did not fare well from 1925 to 1929, but the worldwide economic depression helped Hitler gain the support of many extremist organizations. As conditions in Germany worsened and political haggling in the Reichstag (the German parliament) accomplished little, the aged and reactionary president of the republic, former Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, disregarded the principles of democratic government. He relied on rule by his aristocratic cronies, principally Franz von Papen, who assumed the chancellorship in 1932. The latter, however, found himself stymied by the Communists and the Nazis, whose strength in the parliament had increased with the Great Depression. Papen came to an agreement with Hitler, whom he hoped to control. After a number of backroom deals, on January 30, 1933, Papen convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as the new chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s chancellorship did not come through a mass revolution or through the ballot box. Although the Nazi Party had grown rapidly in strength since 1929, Hitler had lost the presidential election to Hindenburg in 1932. Similarly, his Nazis won only 37 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections of July, 1932, although they were able to gain a plurality. Without sufficient popular support, Hitler was forced to find a different way to free himself from Papen’s restrictions. In one of his first acts as chancellor, Hitler used emergency decrees provided by the constitution to replace the democratically elected government with one led by Hermann Göring, a Nazi minister without portfolio in the national cabinet. Hitler also took measures against the Communists, who were calling for resistance (but were not carrying out any overt acts). Göring raided Commu-
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ings. In fact, however, later research demonstrated that van der Lubbe set the fire alone. The International Communist Party to which he belonged was a small splinter group, more anarchist than Marxist in ideology and not part of the Communist International directed by Moscow. Indeed, van der Lubbe and the Communists loyal to Joseph Stalin had little use for each other. Göring found four communists to indict in addition to van der Lubbe: Ernst Torgler, a leader of the German Communist Party and a member of the Reichstag, and three BulgarTo view image, please refer to the ian agents of the Communist International: print edition of this title. Georgi Mikhailovich Dimitrov, Vasili Tanev, and Blagoi Popov. In a spectacular trial in which Hitler, Goebbels, and Göring (one of the prosecutors) hoped to prove to the world that a communist conspiracy actually did exist, the communist defendants, particularly Georgi Dimitrov, proved their innocence. In fact, Dimitrov even accused the Nazis of deliberately setting the fire themselves. He humiliated Göring in an unexpected courtroom confrontation that was broadcast and reported around the world. In other countries, communists and other antifascists organized protests. Nazi opponents convened a countertrial in London with a court of respected international jurists to show that the Nazis did indeed start the fire. Goebbels’s propaganda ploy had backfired, and the governFlames rise from the Reichstag in Berlin. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) ment moved the trial from Berlin to Leipzig, where it concluded with little publicity. The court acquitted the Communists but cunning and well-prepared plot,” he said. The chancellor found van der Lubbe guilty, and he was executed shortly then went to the offices of the Nazi Party newspaper, thereafter. Dimitrov, Tanev, and Popov were released Voelkischer Beobachter (people’s observer), and immeand welcomed in the Soviet Union. Some said their diately helped compose a version of the story that blamed acquittal and release came through pressure from Mosthe communists for the fire. Göring assisted in changing cow, which threatened retaliation against German citithe report of the official Prussian press service to exagzens living in the Soviet Union. Torgler was released gerate the facts and imply that a conspiracy had been inseveral months after the Bulgarians. Even though the volved. court ruled that the accused Communists were innocent, The fire was just the excuse Hitler needed to begin it said that the fire was part of a more general commuthe drive for totalitarian power that would change the nist conspiracy. Weimar Republic into the Third Reich. Hitler argued that a single individual could not have perpetrated the arson Significance and that van der Lubbe had been a member of the InternaIn 1935, Dimitrov became the secretary-general of the tional Communist Party and had been arrested twice in Communist International and the spokesperson for MosLeiden, the Netherlands, for setting fires to public buildcow’s new foreign policy, which was to be implemented 2634
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tion on February 28, 1933, the day after the fire. He cited a constitutional provision that permitted the government to rule by decree in times of emergency. The justification was the need for “a defensive measure against communist acts of violence endangering the state.” The decree read, in part: “Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.” With the enabling legislation, Hitler outlawed the Communist Party and arrested its leadership. He harassed other opposition parties as well, closing their newspapers and outlawing their meetings. New elections were scheduled for March 5. The government tried to silence the opposition’s campaigns, but the Nazis were still unable to gain more than 44 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, Hitler held full power. He used the legislation to break down the federal structure of the republic and take over all the state governments. Although originally perceived to be temporary, the decrees enacted under the enabling legislation were permanently applied to the Third Reich. Over the ensuing months, the government banned all political parties except the Nazis, and civil and political guarantees were effectively ended. Discriminatory legislation directed against the Jews was put into effect. Political opponents, some even within the Nazi Party, were arrested without cause, forced to emigrate, or even murdered extralegally. The Weimar Republic was dead, and the führer was dictator. —Frederick B. Chary Further Reading Broszat, Martin, and Volker R. Berghahn. Hitler and the Collapse of Weimar Germany. Translated by Volker R. Berghahn. New York: Berg, 1987. A survey of the descent of the Weimar government through the period before Hitler was appointed chancellor. Bibliography and index. Delmer, Sefton. Trail Sinister: An Autobiography. Vol. 1. London: Secker & Warburg, 1961. The autobiography of an Australian journalist born in Germany. It contains a very good eyewitness account of the Reichstag fire, the trial, and its consequences. Index. Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. The best scholarly biography of Hitler, placing him in the context of German history 2635
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by world communist parties promoting antifascist coalitions (even at the expense of delaying the world socialist revolution). In 1948, Dimitrov became prime minister of communist Bulgaria. Popov also returned to Bulgaria after the war and served in a number of government posts. Tanev was killed in guerrilla warfare during World War II. Torgler, falsely accused of being a Nazi agent, was expelled by the German Communist Party. He settled in Hanover, where he retired from political life. Even before Hitler became chancellor, economic crises and flaws in the Weimar Republic’s constitutional government subjected Germany to stress and social disorientation. The constitution’s provisions allowed President Hindenburg and Chancellor Papen to act in a high-handed manner. They were not concerned about parliamentary or democratic government in general and the Weimar Constitution in particular, and the spirit of the law fell victim to their disregard. The conservative government’s favoritism toward right-wing nationalists allowed Nazi storm troopers to wreak havoc in the German cities and placed Jews, trade unionists, political moderates, and the political left in a state of jeopardy and fear. These events did not bode well for the civil and political freedom that the Weimar Constitution’s drafters had hoped to bring to a recovering Germany. Papen and Hindenburg’s political manipulations brought Hitler to power, although he needed little excuse to begin antidemocratic and anticonstitutional actions such as the dismissal of state governments and raids on opponents. Nevertheless, the high-handed manner in which the Nazis dealt with power did not help them maintain relationships with aristocrats such as Hindenburg and Papen, who disliked the Nazis not so much because of their nationalist and anticommunist ideology but because of their lower-class origins and crudeness. Hitler’s party may have had the plurality in the Reichstag, but it did not have the majority and had not demonstrated its ability to win a clear victory at the polls. The Reichstag fire gave Hitler the opportunity to demand the enabling legislation that created his dictatorship. Whether he believed that the communists were conspiring to seize power is immaterial, just as it is immaterial whether, as the communists charged at the time, the Nazis deliberately started the fire to help them secure the passage of such legislation. Historical opinion considered the latter allegation true until the 1960’s, when it was disproved. The fire was an opportune event for Hitler, but if it had not happened, he undoubtedly would have found another route to totalitarian power. President Hindenburg enacted the enabling legisla-
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Reichstag Fire and politics of the twentieth century. Fest tends to follow Tobias (below) on the issue of the Reichstag fire but does not absolutely reject the possibility of a Nazi plot. He believes the actual culprits are irrelevant and argues that the fire provided a convenient excuse to institute totalitarianism. Documented; bibliography, indexed. Fischer, Klaus P. A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Continuum, 1995. The most recent comprehensive account of the Nazi regime, based on research up to the time of its publication. Concludes that the Reichstag fire most likely resulted from the efforts of van der Lubbe and unnamed accomplices. Gilfond, Henry. The Reichstag Fire, February, 1933: Hitler Utilizes Arson to Extend His Dictatorship. New York: Franklin Watts, 1973. An unconvincing argument that the Nazis deliberately burned the Reichstag building in order to stampede Hindenburg into granting Hitler the power to suppress the anticipated Communist revolution. Lee, Stephen J. The Weimar Republic. New York: Routledge, 1998. Overview of the Weimar Republic with a chapter on its collapse. Bibliography. Leers, Johann von [Paulus van Obbergen, pseud.]. The Oberfohren Memorandum. London: German Information Bureau, 1933. An attempt by an official organ of the German government to refute the so-called Oberfohren memorandum. Ostensibly written by Ernst Oberfohren, a former leader of a German political party, and published in the Manchester Guardian on April 27, 1933, the memorandum accused the Nazis of setting the Reichstag fire. Mommsen, Hans. The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Translated by Larry E. Jones and Elborg Forster. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Examines the political, social, and economic developments of Germany in the period 1919-1933. Reed, Douglas. The Burning of the Reichstag. New York: Covici-Friede, 1934. Concludes that van der Lubbe was not guilty, or at least did not act alone. Spielvogel, Jackson J. Hitler and Nazi Germany: A His-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988. A widely used college text on the Nazi era which leaves open the question of responsibility for the Reichstag fire, but points out that Hitler gained much from the fire, while it cost the Communists dearly. Tobias, Fritz. The Reichstag Fire. Introduction by A. J. P. Taylor. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1964. This controversial book first revealed the fact that the Nazis did not burn down the Reichstag, but that van der Lubbe did it alone. It is a well-researched refutation of the Brown Book’s thesis (see next entry), although at times it sinks to an anticommunist polemic. Illustrations, bibliography, index. ______. The Reichstag Fire Trial. Translated by Arnold J. Pomerantz. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1964. Argues that van der Lubbe was guilty of setting fire to the Reichstag building and did act alone. An introduction by famed British historian A. J. P. Taylor supports the author’s position. World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism. The Reichstag Fire Trial: The Second Brown Book of the Hitler Terror. 1934. Reprint. New York: Howard Fertig, 1969. A reprint of the 1934 edition published to demonstrate that the Nazis themselves actually burned down the Reichstag. Critics claim that it is communist propaganda, exaggerating and manufacturing facts and evidence. Presents the case against the Nazis which was believed universally until Fritz Tobias’s research. Contains a list of about 750 victims of Nazi atrocities before March, 1934. Has illustrations but is not indexed. See also: Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933; June 30July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact.
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Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor
February 28, 1933
Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor The appointment of Frances Perkins as the first female secretary of labor proved that women could play a key role in national politics. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Women’s issues; business and labor; government and politics
Summary of Event Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins as secretary of labor on February 28, 1933. She took office on March 4, 1933, and served until July 1, 1945. For Perkins, the appointment was a recognition of almost thirty years of distinguished service as a social worker and civil servant whose expertise in labor relations was acknowledged throughout the country. For Roosevelt, appointing Perkins was a practical way to seek the support of female Progressive reformers, whose post-1920 (when woman suffrage was secured) political achievements were relatively few. By appointing Perkins, Roosevelt secured a cabinet member who had recognized national expertise in her department. She was a better choice than the male candidate recommended by the American Federation of Labor, since she possessed an independent background that allowed critical thinking and did not force allegiance to labor union’s positions. Perkins was the daughter of Fred and Susan Perkins, who anticipated that their talented daughter’s primary career would be as wife and mother. They bucked tradition, however, by encouraging her to graduate from Worcester Classical High School in 1898 and Mount Holyoke College in 1902. The Perkinses provided financial assistance to their daughter in the early stages of her social
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Key Figures Frances Perkins (1880-1965), American social worker with a strong background in industrial and labor relations before her appointment as U.S. secretary of labor Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944), governor of New York, 1919-1920 and 1923-1928, who gave Perkins her first significant appointive post Martin Dies, Jr. (1900-1972), first chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities Harry Bridges (1901-1990), radical labor leader and target for deportation
work career, although they would have been happier if she had remained a volunteer and not become a professional social worker. Perkins began to form an independent identity as a student at Mount Holyoke, where she researched factory conditions as part of a class project. More important, at Mount Holyoke Perkins was elected class president, and in that position she demonstrated potential as a political candidate. Perkins deserted the conservative Republican politics supported by her parents, who were successful and respected small-business owners. Perkins also deserted her parents’ Congregational faith by becoming a devout Episcopalian, and her intense devotions to her faith contrasted sharply with the haphazard Episcopalianism of Franklin D. Roosevelt. After college, Perkins did volunteer work and taught in Lake Forest, Illinois, where she met Graham Taylor, head of the Chicago Commons settlement house. Through Taylor, Perkins met social reformers Jane Addams, Ellen Gates Starr, and Grace Abbott. By 1907, Perkins lived at Hull House, worked at the Chicago Commons, and had decided on a career in social work. In September of 1907, Perkins became general secretary of the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association. She received a nominal salary of fifty dollars per month from this organization. At the association, Perkins worked with young female immigrants and African Americans who had migrated to Philadelphia from the South; both of these groups were often forced to work under extremely exploitive conditions or were recruited for brothels. Meanwhile, Perkins also attended classes in economics and sociology at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. After two years in Philadelphia, Perkins moved to New York in 1909 and used a five-hundred-dollar fellowship to attend the New York School of Philanthropy. While she lived in settlement houses, Perkins’s thesis “A Study of Malnutrition in 197 Children from Public School 51” qualified her for a master’s degree in political science at Columbia University on June 10, 1910. Despite the fact that her degree was granted in political science, most of the courses Perkins had taken were in economics and sociology. In 1910, Perkins became general secretary of the National Consumers League. Through the Consumers League, Perkins formed a lasting friendship with its national director, Florence Kelley, and gained a national reputation for her surveys of industrial conditions. Con-
Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor ditions were unhealthy and dangerous in most occupations, and Perkins saw the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911, in which 146 women either burned or jumped to their deaths. Influenced by this fire, Perkins served from 1912 to 1917 as executive secretary of a committee on safety that was formed to press for better working conditions. The Triangle fire led to the creation of the New York State Factory Investigating Commission, and Perkins served as one of the commission’s investigators in 1912 and 1913. Perkins married Paul C. Wilson, an economist on the staff of New York City reformist mayor John Purroy Mitchell. This marriage lasted until Wilson’s death in 1951, despite the fact that he was hospitalized for mental illness throughout most of the marriage. Perkins was the breadwinner for Wilson and their daughter Susanna, who was born in 1916. Both Perkins and her husband agreed that Perkins would keep her maiden name for professional purposes. In 1919, Governor Alfred E. Smith, whom Perkins had known since 1911, appointed her to the State Indus-
Frances Perkins. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 trial Commission. She served from 1919 to 1920, and Smith reappointed Perkins after he began his second term as governor in 1922. She also served with the Industrial Board of the State Labor Department. In 1926, Smith recognized Perkins’s increasing professional credibility as an expert in labor law by naming her chair of the Industrial Board. When Smith lost his presidential race in 1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected governor of New York. Roosevelt appointed Perkins to be industrial commissioner of New York, a state-level position that helped prepare Perkins for her cabinet appointment. Perkins’s educational and professional background made her a highly qualified cabinet appointee, and no affirmative action was needed to advance candidacy. She was prepared to reorganize the Labor Department for Roosevelt and to participate in the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. Martin Dies, Jr., and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee introduced impeachment action against her in 1938; Dies resented her refusal to deport radical longshoreman Harry Bridges. Despite this controversy, however, Perkins was generally seen as a successful cabinet member, and her appointment and service set a precedent for other women. Although Perkins did not favor an equal rights amendment— which she viewed as a threat to protective legislation for women—she must be viewed as a practical advocate of women’s rights within the context of her times. Significance Perkins’s appointment had enduring consequences in several areas related to human rights. Like many successful, college-educated women of her day, Perkins broke important ground in proving that women could be competent professionals, and she devoted her career to alleviating the misery created by the excesses of industrial capitalism in diverse areas of public concern. Trained in social work, she sought practical measures to protect the dignity of American workers. Perkins’s success established the previously untested competence of women to hold cabinet-level positions. As the first female cabinet member, she helped make it possible for other women, such as Oveta Culp Hobby and Elizabeth Dole, to serve in future cabinets. Although Perkins supported protective legislation for women and opposed the idea of an equal rights amendment, her contributions greatly furthered women’s search for equal participation in American politics. Perkins was a consistent proponent of emerging unions and organized labor’s right to organize and bargain collectively, even though as a social worker she had
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and compre-
hensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Braden, Maria. Women Politicians and the Media. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. Discusses how women politicians have been scrutinized by the American media and how the media’s treatment has influenced public perceptions of these women. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Cobble, Dorothy Sue. “A Self-Possessed Woman: A View of F.D.R.’s Secretary of Labor, Madame Perkins.” Labor History 29 (February, 1988): 225-229. Cobble reviews the film You May Call Her Madam Secretary in this laudatory essay. She views Perkins as a successful pathbreaker for women. Goldberg, Joseph P. “Frances Perkins, Isador Lubin, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” Monthly Labor Review 103 (April, 1980): 22-27. Goldberg details how Lubin and Perkins modernized the statistical recordkeeping system at the Department of Labor. Although the article focuses more on Lubin than on Perkins, it provides useful background to Perkins’s career. Guzda, Henry P. “Frances Perkins’s Interest in a New Deal for Blacks.” Monthly Labor Review 103 (April, 1980): 31-35. Guzda contends that Perkins made the welfare of African American laborers a priority at the Labor Department, and that she made a significant effort to include blacks in New Deal programs. Although her actions were minimal by post-Civil Rights era standards, Perkins attempted to see that blacks benefited from New Deal labor-relief programs. Hardin, Patrick, and John E. Higgins, Jr., eds. The Developing Labor Law. 2 vols. 4th ed. Chicago: Bureau of National Affairs, 2002. Collection provides comprehensive coverage of rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Contributions are written by members of the American Bar Association’s Section on Labor and Employment Law. Martin, George. Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. Provides a comprehensive and definitive scholarly account of Perkins’s life. The author is clearly an admirer of Perkins and her work in the New Deal. It is notable that he gives fair attention to her religious motivations and to the interaction among Progressive Era women. Mohr, Lillian Holmen. Frances Perkins: That Woman in FDR’s Cabinet. Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: North River Press, 1979. Mohr provides a competent account of Perkins’s life notable for its reticence in describing the nature of Paul C. Wilson’s illness. Mohr, a professor at Cornell, knew Perkins during the last years of her life. 2639
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showed more interest in the rights of nonunion labor than the American Federation of Labor (AFL) would have liked. She supported pro-union legislation such as the Employment Stabilization Act of 1931, and she made impassioned pleas to industrial employers, asking them to recognize that their employees could not effectively negotiate as individuals. She believed, however, that social legislation needed to address the concerns of nonunion labor in an era when labor unions often considered collaboration with nonunion labor as counterproductive to their organizing efforts. Perkins was also a consistent advocate of the emerging economic, political, and social interests of African American workers. She insisted that New Deal workrelief programs serve African American workers in the Deep South, and she symbolically integrated the Labor Department cafeteria in racially segregated Washington, D.C. She also worked to promote African American employees into higher-level professional positions in the Department of Labor. Perkins opposed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s proposal that all American citizens be fingerprinted, which she argued was a potentially totalitarian measure. Ultimately, she defeated J. Edgar Hoover on this issue, and her victory extended her influence beyond strictly labor-related matters. Perkins fought to end the intimidation of resident aliens who were perceived as dangerous radicals, such as longshoreman leader Harry Bridges. She suffered great political and personal embarrassment over this issue, but she protected the civil rights of alien workers even while losing the Labor Department’s traditional control of immigration enforcement to other agencies. Perkins’s concerns for the rights of workers, minorities, and women left a significant human rights legacy in the United States. Her political achievements were formidable, and she broke with tradition in many arenas; for example, she consistently insisted on being addressed as “Miss Perkins,” a decision that helped establish the right of women to retain their maiden names. An active lecturer at Cornell University until the 1960’s, she was a unique combination of Christian idealist and practical politician who successfully applied the doctrines of the Social Gospel movement in a public context without breaching the separation of church and state. —Susan A. Stussy
Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor
Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating See also: Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire; Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress; 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament; Jan. 5, 1925: First Female Governor in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the United States; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act; May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
March, 1933
Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating The opening of Nazi Germany’s first concentration camps was an early step in a process of destruction that culminated in the Holocaust. Locale: Germany Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; human rights; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Nazi Party leader named German chancellor on January 30, 1933 Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), second in power in Nazi Germany who presided over the “final solution” Theodor Eicke (1892-1943), commandant of the Dachau camp beginning in June, 1933, and chief of Nazi concentration camps from July, 1934 Hermann Göring (1893-1946), Prussian minister of the interior who played a leading role in organizing the Gestapo Rudolf Höss (1900-1947), SS officer who became commandant of the death camp at Auschwitz Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), leader of the Nazi storm troopers Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), president of Germany, 1925-1934 Summary of Event Although the Nazis never gained a majority in any freely contested election, their control of Germany began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler was named chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg, president of the Weimar Republic. Six months later, the Nazis were the only legal political party in Germany, Hitler’s decrees were as good as law, basic civil rights had been suspended, and thousands of the regime’s suspected political opponents had been interned in a growing number of concentration camps. Before the Third Reich fell twelve years later, millions of people—including two-thirds of the Jews in Europe—would perish in concentration camps. Nazi concentration camps disregarded the principle 2640
that one should not be punished unless found guilty in a fair trial. Instead, they removed people who could not be confined through the normal workings of a state’s criminal code. The Nazis did not invent the concept of a concentration camp, nor did they have a systematic design for developing such places when they came to power in Germany. Gradually, however, a deadly camp system evolved. An early step in that process occurred at Dachau, a town about ten miles northwest of Munich, where one of the first concentration camps was established. The site of a vacated World War I munitions factory provided the needed space for Dachau’s first prisoners, who entered the camp in late March of 1933. Those early inmates were political opponents of the Nazis—mainly Communists and Social Democrats—who were kept under “protective custody.” Heinrich Himmler established Dachau. In 1925, he had joined the SS (Schutzstaffel), a small group of dedicated Nazis who served as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguards. Hitler appointed Himmler head of the SS in 1929. At the time, the SS included about two hundred members, but under Himmler’s direction it eventually numbered in the hundreds of thousands and formed an awesome empire within the Nazi state. Meanwhile, shortly after Hitler became chancellor in 1933, Himmler gained important police powers in Munich and in the entire province of Bavaria. He used his authority to create the Dachau camp. Bavarian state police guarded the camp at first, but in April, 1933, SS personnel took control. Theodor Eicke became Dachau’s commandant in June. As he regulated camp life, including stating rules about work and punishment, Eicke ensured that Dachau’s procedures would be systematic and replicable as well as harsh. After Eicke was appointed head of the Nazi network of concentration camps in July, 1934, the system he had developed at Dachau became standard. The SS personnel who trained under him saw to it that his policies were established at other camps as they rose to new positions of leadership in the system. One who did so, for example, was Ru-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating
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dolf Höss, whose Dachau training prepared him to become the commandant of Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland in 1940. Although the Dachau model fostered by Himmler’s SS leadership eventually dominated the Nazi camp system, that outcome was not a foregone conclusion in the early months of the Third Reich. By the end of July of 1933, Nazi Germany held nearly twenty-seven thousand political prisoners in protective custody. Dachau contained its share, but thousands more could be found in a variety of other detention centers. These centers, however, lacked overall coordination, and their only common trait was that the incarcerated people were “guilty” only in the sense that they were judged politically suspect by the Nazis. An early pretext for arrests of the politically suspect was the fire that ravaged the German parliament building on February 27, 1933. Although Nazis were suspected of setting the blaze to serve their own purposes, Hitler blamed the Reichstag’s destruction on arson by Communists. The next day, President Paul von Hindenburg signed the emergency decree that the Nazis wanted: By suspending basic rights guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution, and thereby alAs part of their early program of making life as difficult as possible for German lowing detention for persons suspected Jews, the Nazis began a boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933. The sign reads, of hostility to the state, the decree opened “Germans, defend yourselves, do not buy from Jews.” (NARA) the door for a policy of Schutzhaft, or protective custody, that would guard the Reich’s security by imprisoning those In a regime where terror loomed so large, anyone who who were suspected of threatening it. Taking advantage could gain control of the Nazi concentration camps of this sweeping decree, the Nazis launched a wave of arwould wield immense power. Göring attempted to outdo rests throughout the country. his rivals, but his efforts were surpassed by Himmler. By Many victims of this campaign were interned in early July, 1934, Himmler had not only established the camps quickly set up by the SA, the brown-shirted Nazi SS camp at Dachau but had also gained control of the postorm troopers led by Ernst Röhm. Others, especially in litical police in the Reich’s various states, including the state of Prussia, were imprisoned in detention centers Göring’s Gestapo in Prussia. In addition, he had mastercreated by Hermann Göring, the chief of the Prussian pominded a purge of the SA, and appointed Eicke, his SS lice, who was also organizing the Gestapo, a secret police subordinate, to supervise the concentration camps force dedicated to maintaining the security of the Nazi state. Precisely how many of these camps existed in 1933 throughout Germany. remains unclear, although informed estimates indicate This consolidation of power eliminated most of the that Prussia alone had twenty of them. small camps that had sprung up in 1933. By September,
Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Nazi Extermination Camps The Nazis operated several types of camps: prison camps, collection centers, transit centers, labor camps, and extermination camps. This table presents information on the ten extermination camps. Name of Camp
Country (today)
Period of Operation
Number of Deaths (estimated)
Auschwitz-Birkenau Bel/ec Cheumno
Poland Poland Poland
1.1 to 1.5 million 600,000 340,000
Jasenovac Lwów, Janowska Street Majdanek Maly Trostenets Sobibór Treblinka Warsaw
Croatia Ukraine Poland Belarus Poland Poland Poland
April, 1940-January, 1945 March, 1942-June, 1943 December, 1941-April, 1943 April, 1944-January, 1945 August, 1941-April, 1945 September, 1941-November, 1943 July, 1941-July, 1944 July, 1941-June, 1944 May, 1942-October, 1943 July, 1942-November, 1943 1942-1944
1935, the six official concentration camps in the Third Reich were at Dachau, Lichtenburg, Sachsenburg, Esterwegen, Oranienburg, and Columbia Haus (near Berlin). On the eve of World War II, in the late summer of 1939, even those camps—except for Dachau, which was reconstructed in 1937 and 1938—had been eclipsed by newer and larger installations at Sachsenhausen (1936), Buchenwald (1937), Flossenbürg (1938), Mauthausen (in Austria, 1938), and Ravensbruck (a concentration camp for women, 1939). In the period from 1933 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, there were changes in the concentration camp population. The number of prisoners fluctuated. Although mostly political prisoners were incarcerated at first, the concentration camps gradually engulfed many other types of people in addition to the Communists, Social Democrats, and trade unionists who had been initially targeted. By 1938, Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of the clergy, and “asocial elements” (such as homosexuals and so-called habitual criminals) as well as Roma and Jews were among those in the camps. Treatment varied from person to person and place to place, but exhausting labor, severe punishment, poor food, filth, disease, and execution were all among the possible and persistent threats. Release from a concentration camp was possible, but death while in a camp was likely. Significance Nazi concentration camps of the kind that began at Dachau in March, 1933, were only the beginning of an 2642
700,000 More than 40,000 78,000 200,000-500,000 250,000 At least 800,000 Up to 200,000
unprecedented twelve-year assault on human rights. Although all the Nazi camps derived partly from impulses and intentions that brought Dachau into existence, not every camp in the Nazi system was simply a holding pen for political detainees. After World War II began (with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939) different but related institutions started to appear. There were, for example, labor camps, transit camps, prisonerof-war camps, and, most destructive of all, extermination or death camps. The Nazis violated human rights in virtually every possible way, but no group received more inhumane treatment than the Jews. In the early years, however, relatively small numbers of Jews were interned in concentration camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald. Not until the summer of 1938, and especially after the Kristallnacht pogrom in November, 1938, were large numbers of Jews imprisoned strictly on religious grounds. Even then, most of these Jewish prisoners were eventually released after paying a ransom or proving that they were about to emigrate from Germany. This practice would change catastrophically with the outbreak of World War II, however. Nazi ideology held that Jews were the chief obstacle to the racial and cultural purity that Hitler craved for the Third Reich. Political opponents were dealt with ruthlessly to ensure Nazi domination, but the Jews were soon identified as an even more virulent threat. Their polluting presence, Hitler believed, had to be eliminated. For a time, the Nazis relied largely on punitive laws to segre-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Feig, Konnilyn G. Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979. This detailed study gives an overview of the Nazi concentration and death camps and, focusing on their structure and function, a camp-by-camp analysis of many of them, including Dachau. Contains helpful maps and photographs. Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. 4 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1990. Contains articles on many concentration camps as well as on the camp system as a whole. Provides surveys of the SS, SA, and Gestapo, as well as essays about individual SS leaders in the camp system. All of the essays in this extensive work have been carefully prepared by highly qualified scholars. Useful maps and illustrations included. Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. 3d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. An unrivaled study of the bureaucratic process of de-
struction that the Nazis directed toward the Jews of Europe. Analysis situates the concentration and death camps within that systematic process. Focuses especially on developments that transformed the conventional concentration camps into centers of mass murder such as those at Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland. Höhne, Heinz. The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS. Translated by Richard Barry. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979. Offers a detailed study of the rise of the SS, its immense power in Nazi Germany, and its central role in administration of the concentration and death camps. Focuses on individual figures as well as on the overall organization of the SS. Krausnick, Helmut, Hans Buchheim, Martin Brozat, and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen. Anatomy of the SS State. Translated by Richard Barry, Marian Jackson, and Dorothy Long. New York: Walker and Company, 1968. Supports a theory of concentration camp crimes and genocidal treatment of Jews as essential features of Nazism. Martin Brozat’s “The Concentration Camps, 19331945” provides particularly effective documentation. Laqueur, Walter, and Judith Tydor Baumel, eds. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Detailed, comprehensive survey of all aspects of the Holocaust. Includes more than 200 photos and many helpful research tools. Rubenstein, Richard L., and John K. Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987. An overview of the Holocaust. Discusses the emergence and development of the concentration and death camps that played a central role in the mass death unleashed by Nazi Germany. Focuses on the victims as well as on the perpetrators. Wistrich, Robert S. Hitler and the Holocaust. New York: Random House, 2001. An authoritative work recounting the major issues of the Holocaust. See also: Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 2324, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps.
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gate Jews, expropriate their property, and deprive them of their professions and other rights. The Nazi strategy was to make life so difficult that the German Jews would be forced to leave. This plan did not achieve its goals, and when Hitler went to war with the aim of expanding the German nation, Nazi policies aimed at population reduction had to change. Hitler’s conquests, especially in Eastern Europe, brought millions of Jews under German domination. What gradually evolved was a policy of mass murder— the “final solution”—that was implemented from late 1941 until late 1944. Its most devastating effects occurred in the gas chambers that operated at six death camps in occupied Poland: Cheumno, Bel²ec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dachau and the other early concentration camps on German soil were never death factories like Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The violations of human rights initiated at the first camps, however, were part of wide-ranging aims to stamp out every element of dissent and diversity that stood in the way of Nazi domination. Concentration camps such as Dachau helped to pave the way for other camps, which were even worse because they were specifically designed to remove unwanted lives, especially Jewish ones, through unrelenting mass murder. Six million Jews died in the camps, as well as millions of non-Jews, especially people from the Slavic countries occupied by Germany during the war. — John K. Roth
Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating
Good Neighbor Policy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 4, 1933-1945
Good Neighbor Policy A new articulation of U.S. relations with Latin American nations replaced military interventionism with mutual respect and cooperation. Locale: Western Hemisphere Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Sumner Welles (1892-1961), U.S. assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Cuba Summary of Event In his first inaugural address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised that the United States would be a good neighbor. After he applied the term specifically to relations with Latin America and pledged his opposition to armed intervention, the phrase “good neighbor” came to be identified with his policies toward Latin America. Some questioned U.S. intentions, however, because of the country’s interventionist history. The United States had used its military to intervene in Central American and Caribbean affairs after the Spanish-American War (1898). Asserting its right to exercise a police power in the Americas under the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, U.S. presidents sent troops into Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Panama to stabilize conditions, prevent European intervention, and protect the lives and property of U.S. citizens. After a brief incursion in 1909, a contingent of U.S. Marines was stationed in Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933. Seeking to prevent future interventions, several Latin American jurists proposed the adoption of doctrines against intervention, the use of force, and the use of diplomatic recognition as means of protecting the interests of foreign nations in Latin America or changing Latin American governments. At the Sixth Inter-American Conference, held in Havana, Cuba, in 1928, the Latin American representatives tried, but failed, to obtain U.S. support for a nonintervention resolution. Meanwhile, in the United States, more and more citizens opposed the policy of sending troops to protect U.S. interests in Central America and the Caribbean. 2644
In 1928, President-elect Herbert Hoover made a series of goodwill trips to Latin America, and in 1930 he repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Resisting pressure to intervene to protect U.S. investors, Hoover prepared to withdraw troops from Haiti and removed the marines from Nicaragua. His goodwill gestures were undermined, however, by the Great Depression and the high duties imposed by the Tariff Act of 1930. On March 4, 1933, in his inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that in foreign policy he wished to “dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor . . . who respects himself and . . . the rights of others.” After his inauguration, Roosevelt undertook specific measures to improve relations with Latin America and to stimulate economic recovery. In 1933, at the Seventh International Conference of American States, in Montevideo, Uruguay, Secretary of State Cordell Hull accepted the principle of nonintervention and signed a convention declaring that no state had the right to intervene in the internal and external affairs of other countries. Hull also proposed the reduction of tariffs and trade agreements to stimulate trade. In 1936, at the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace in Buenos Aires, the United States signed an expanded resolution that renounced intervention and agreed to the principle of consultation in the event of a war between American nations or an external threat to the peace of the Americas. In 1933, Roosevelt had also dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles to Cuba, where Welles orchestrated the resignation of dictator Gerardo Machado. When Welles’s personally designated successor was overthrown by a sergeant’s revolt, Welles persuaded Roosevelt to withhold recognition from the nationalistic government of Ramón Grau San Martín. With U.S. naval vessels offshore, this policy of nonrecognition encouraged a second revolt, and a series of presidents controlled by Colonel Fulgencio Batista was brought to office. Despite his clear interference in Cuban politics, President Roosevelt had refrained from using armed force in Cuba, and in 1934 the United States and Cuba agreed to the removal of the Platt Amendment (1901), which, following the Spanish-American War, gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba when its independence was threatened and the right to maintain a military base on the island. Similar agreements were created with Panama and the Dominican Republic. The United States
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance After 1945, therefore, Latin American requests for economic cooperation and assistance were ignored until the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba in 1959. When the Central Intelligence Agency conducted a covert action to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954, it appeared that the United States had abandoned nonintervention in favor of military intervention and protection of U.S. companies. Subsequent attempts to overthrow Castro, U.S. invasions of the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama, the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in Chile, and the support of military forces in Central America also violated the principle of nonintervention and the Good Neighbor Policy. However, with the collapse of communism in 1991, successive U.S. administrations decreased the nation’s interventionist stance. The Good Neighbor Policy did not promote freedom and democracy. After the removal of U.S. troops, the commanders of the national guards trained by the United States seized power and established long-term dictatorships. Since these regimes guaranteed stability, protected foreign investments, and were anticommunist, they received U.S. economic and military aid. Although the reciprocal trade agreements stimulated trade, they also reinforced a dependency on the U.S. market and prevented economic development through diversification. Nevertheless, the Good Neighbor Policy fostered a period of goodwill among the nations of the Western Hemisphere, as well as a sense of political hegemony against potential aggressors. The United States demonstrated its growing role in world affairs and safeguarded its longrange interests in both the economic well-being and political autonomy of its Latin American neighbors. — D. Anthony White Further Reading Aguilar Monteverde, Alonso. Pan-Americanism from Monroe to the Present: A View from the Other Side. Translated by Asa Zatz. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968. A Latin American view of Pan-Americanism and U.S. imperialism. Blasier, Cole. The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America, 1910-1985. Rev. ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985. A study of U.S. reactions to revolutionary movements in Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Grenada, and Nicaragua. Gellman, Irwin F. Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933-1945. Balti2645
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and Cuba also signed reciprocal trade agreements that lowered duties on Cuban sugar, guaranteed access to the U.S. market for Cuban agricultural exports, and reduced duties on hundreds of U.S.-manufactured goods exported to Cuba. When Bolivia, Mexico, and Venezuela threatened to nationalize their oil industries in 1937 and 1938, the Good Neighbor Policy faced a direct challenge. President Roosevelt resisted pressures to intervene, and he also accepted the right of these countries to seize the foreign companies’ assets or increase government revenues from their operations as long as they made immediate and just compensation. Roosevelt continued to provide economic assistance and, after a brief suspension, signed new trade agreements with Bolivia and Mexico. By refusing to intervene to protect the oil companies, Roosevelt demonstrated his adherence to the principle of nonintervention and his Good Neighbor Policy. Furthermore, in addition to renouncing the use of military force in the Caribbean and Central America, the United States provided credits to struggling countries through the newly created Export-Import Bank and negotiated a series of reciprocal trade agreements to lower barriers to trade between the United States and Latin America. By renouncing intervention and withdrawing its troops, the United States demonstrated its commitment to its Good Neighbor Policy and fostered an era of good relations and cooperation between Latin America and the United States. In a series of agreements drawn up at prewar conferences, nations of Latin America and the United States agreed to cooperate and form an alliance of mutual protection. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, all Latin American countries except Argentina joined the Allied war effort, cracking down on Axis sympathizers and supplying strategic materials, airbases, and troops for the Allies. Although Argentina was eventually pressured to declare war on the Axis countries, public efforts by the U.S. ambassador to influence or change the government in Buenos Aires not only backfired but also raised the specter of past interventions. While the unity and cooperation between the United States and Latin America survived the war, Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, and the departure of the architects of the Good Neighbor Policy from the State Department contributed to the policy’s demise. Differences between Latin America and the United States had already surfaced at wartime and postwar conferences, and with the advent of the Cold War, the United States turned its attention to the economic recovery of Europe and the defense of the West.
Good Neighbor Policy
The Hundred Days more: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. A thorough study that emphasizes the significance and originality of Roosevelt’s policy and the contributions of Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles. Kirk, John M., and Peter McKenna. Canada-Cuba Relations: The Other Good Neighbor Policy. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. The United States tends to dominate most discussions of relations between Cuba and its northern neighbors, so this indepth treatment of Canada’s foreign policy is a welcome one. LaFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. A critical history of U.S. policy that views conflicts as a consequence of U.S. policy and externally imposed conditions of dependency. Roorda, Eric Paul. The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Do-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 minican Republic, 1930-1945. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998. A thorough discussion of the complicated relationship between the Roosevelt administration and the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Wood, Bryce. The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. Traces the gradual dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy after the death of Roosevelt, ending with the U.S. intervention in Guatemala in 1954. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment; June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise; Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act; Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace; Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties.
March 9-June 16, 1933
The Hundred Days In its first days, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration passed a series of acts aimed at bringing hope to millions of Depression-weary Americans. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Social issues and reform; laws, acts, and legal history; government and politics Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Harry Hopkins (1890-1946), head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and later Roosevelt’s second in command Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965), U.S. secretary of agriculture, 1933-1940 Hugo L. Black (1886-1971), U.S. senator from Alabama, 1926-1937, and associate justice of the United States, 1937-1971 Raymond Moley (1886-1975), assistant secretary of state in 1933 and member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust Rexford Guy Tugwell (1891-1979), economist from Columbia University and member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust 2646
Summary of Event On November 8, 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. Few people knew what to expect from Roosevelt, a consummate politician who once described himself only as “a Christian and a Democrat.” One thing, however, was clear: Immediate action of some kind was imperative to stop the nation from slipping further into economic chaos. Voters had been impressed by the confidence evident in Roosevelt’s inaugural address and his promises of immediate action. The problem facing the new administration was how to sustain this sense of movement and have confidence in a new order. On March 9, 1933, a special session of Congress met, and it sat until June 16. During that period, which became known as the Hundred Days, fifteen major resolutions became law, and the United States underwent a revolutionary change. The legislation was the product of no single person or particular group. In essence, the program was a series of emergency compromises, and Roosevelt was the mediator. The immediate problem politicians faced involved the paralyzed banking system and the lack of confidence in American business. As a preliminary measure, Roosevelt issued an executive order that proclaimed March 6 the beginning of a national bank holiday. During the holiday, cash from the Federal Reserve replenished bank
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years 1909 to 1914. Not all farming interests accepted vaults. The closing of the banks convinced many people this idea of production control, and many demanded that the crisis had reached its bottom and things would cheap money as a remedy. When the Agricultural Adbegin to improve. On March 9, 1933, Roosevelt submitjustment Act (AAA) was finally signed into law on May ted to Congress the Emergency Banking Act (also known 12, 1933, government leasing of idle land was not the as the Emergency Banking Relief Act), which was imonly option provided for controlling production. Addimediately passed. The act gave the president power over tional New Deal legislation provided for loans through gold transactions, outlawed hoarding, and provided for the Farm Credit Administration, aid to very poor farmers the gradual reopening of the banks under the supervision through the Resettlement Administration, and a means of the secretary of the treasury. This had been preceded for all rural areas to receive power through the Rural by the Economy Act (1932), which initially caused some Electrification Administration. members of Congress to threaten revolt but ultimately One of the most successful programs of the Roosedrastically reduced federal expenditures by cutting govvelt administration was the enactment of the Tennessee ernment salaries and veterans’ payments. On March 12, Roosevelt gave the first of many radio addresses that came to be known as “fireside chats.” He emphasized that most of the banks Roosevelt’s First Fireside Chat were sound and would reopen in a few days. In the first of thirty national radio broadcasts—his “fireside chats”— When the banks did reopen, people rushed on March 12, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke about the to deposit money rather than to make withstate of the country’s banking system. In his other fireside chats, which drawals. The banking crisis subsided. continued until June 12, 1944, Roosevelt addressed such topics as the Next, Roosevelt attempted to eradicate Dust Bowl and the war in Europe. some of the abuses in the nation’s banking and financial practices. The Securities Act We had a bad banking situation. Some of our bankers had shown themof May 27, 1933, called for close superviselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s sion by the Federal Trade Commission of funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and the issue of new stock, and held those who unwise loans. This was of course not true in the vast majority of our banks but it was true in enough of them to shock the people for a time sold stock liable if they provided false inforinto a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where mation. A complementary measure was the they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comBanking Act of June 16, 1933, which differparative few had tainted them all. It was the government’s job to entiated between commercial and investstraighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible—and the ment banking. An important corollary of job is being performed. this act was the creation of the Federal DeI do not promise you that every bank will be reopened or that indiposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which vidual losses will not be suffered, but there will be no losses that possiinsured individual bank deposits up to five bly could be avoided; and there would have been more and greater thousand dollars. The creation of insurance losses had we continued to drift. I can even promise you salvation for on deposits was a significant step in restorsome at least of the sorely pressed banks. We shall be engaged not ing public confidence and bringing currency merely in reopening sound banks but in the creation of sound banks through reorganization. It has been wonderful to me to catch the note back into the banks. of confidence from all over the country. I can never be sufficiently Another pressing problem was agriculgrateful to the people for the loyal support they have given me in their ture. In preparing his legislation, Roosevelt acceptance of the judgment that has dictated our course, even though relied heavily on the advice of his secretary all of our processes may not have seemed clear to them. of agriculture, Henry A. Wallace. A former After all there is an element in the readjustment of our financial sysfarm editor and horticulturist, Wallace advotem more important than currency, more important than gold, and that cated a domestic-allotment plan designed to is the confidence of the people. Confidence and courage are the essencombat overproduction and declining prices tials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; by restricting acreage and leasing to governyou must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banment land that had been left idle. The scale ishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial of payments was aimed at establishing parsystem; it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail. ity between farm prices and the cost of manufactured goods based on figures for the
The Hundred Days Valley Authority Act (TVA) on May 18, 1933. The act provided for a regional authority that would build dams designed to control disastrous flooding in the states of the Tennessee River basin, bring electricity to rural areas, and replant forests. Eventually, the TVA became the largest utility company in the United States. The unemployed and the middle class also received benefits under the new legislation, which later became known collectively as the New Deal. The unemployed were helped through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was created by the Reforestation Relief Act, one of Roosevelt’s most popular measures. The act, passed March 31, 1933, provided for a civilian army of young men to work in reforestation and conservation projects. In the CCC’s nine-year life span, a total of 250,000 jobless men from the ages of eighteen to twenty-five were given an opportunity to move forward in life. Enactment of the Federal Emergency Relief Act on May 12, 1933, and the subsequent creation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) provided direct federal grants to states and fostered cooperation between federal and state agencies. FERA, headed by Harry Hopkins, promoted the idea of work relief instead of the “dole” (as welfare was often called at the time) and stipulated that no discrimination toward recipients would be tolerated. Many middle-class home owners faced mortgage foreclosures, and the Home Owners’ Loan Act, passed in June, 1933, provided for the exchange of defaulted mortgages for guaranteed government bonds, but it appeared to give more assistance to mortgage companies than to hard-pressed home owners. Home owners benefited later, when it became government policy to refinance loans where possible instead of taking possession of homes. When organized labor demanded action to relieve unemployment, Senator Hugo L. Black of Alabama proposed a thirty-hour workweek, and his proposal received considerable support from labor interests. Roosevelt regarded the bill proposed by Black to be both unconstitutional and unworkable, but he had to meet the growing demand for relief by industry and industrial workers. He therefore ordered his advisers to prepare an omnibus labor and industry measure to attack the root causes of depression in those fields. A draft was prepared under the direction of Raymond Moley, economist and assistant secretary of state. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), passed on June 16, 1933, provided for industrial selfgovernment through the use of universal codes regulat2648
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ing production, wages, and hours, but negated enforcement of the antitrust laws. Although the program was short-lived, the wage and hour provisions of the codes benefited nearly four million women workers. The program did not, however, set up codes for agricultural or domestic laborers, three-fourths of whom were African Americans. The Roosevelt administration hoped that the act would eliminate inefficiency and raise prices. The provision that all codes had to be submitted for government approval pleased advocates of government control, such as Rexford Guy Tugwell, a member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, a group of distinguished individuals who served as advisers to the president. Organized labor received legal guarantees that all codes would have to provide for collective bargaining before they could be recognized. Finally, the unemployed were assured of aid from a vast program of public works connected with the NIRA and financed from additional money through increased federal spending. Significance On June 16, 1933, Congress adjourned after its historic session. Never in the nation’s history had so much new legislation been enacted in so short a time. With support from both houses, bills originating from the president’s White House office were passed nearly every day in order to give the country help during the emergency of the Depression. The hasty legislation that was adopted during the Hundred Days helps to explain why so many measures subsequently had to be drastically amended or abandoned altogether. —George Q. Flynn and Marilyn Elizabeth Perry Further Reading Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New Deal Years, 19331937. 1986. Reprint. New York: Random House, 1995. A chronicle of the New Deal years combined with the interactions of people and events and their effect on strategy. Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. A complete biography of Roosevelt, detailing the Depression and the measures taken to bring recovery. Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. A one-volume survey of the New Deal period. Excellent bibliography. Morgan, Ted. FDR: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. Emphasizes Roosevelt’s private life and how that influenced his political decisions. Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. The Coming of the New Deal.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Vol. 2 in The Age of Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959. Re-creating the prevailing atmosphere, attempts to place the Hundred Days within the context of modern U.S. reform. Sitkoff, Harvard, ed. Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985. Essays outlining the merits and pitfalls of the New Deal. Watkins, T. H. The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America. New York: Henry Holt, 1999. Draws on oral histories as well as memoirs and other documents of the time to present a pic-
Enabling Act of 1933 ture of the lives of Americans during the Depression. Includes index. See also: Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act; Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; May 27, 1935: Black Monday.
March 23, 1933
Enabling Act of 1933
Also known as: Act for Ending the Distress of People and Nation Locale: Kroll Opera House in Berlin, Germany Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; government and politics Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), president of Germany, 1925-1934 Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), German minister of propaganda Ludwig Kaas (1881-1952), leader of the Center Party Franz von Papen (1879-1969), chancellor of Germany, 1932, and Hitler’s vice chancellor, 1933 Otto Wels (1873-1939), leader of the Social Democratic Party Hermann Göring (1893-1946), chairman of the Reichstag, 1933 Summary of Event Only two months after becoming chancellor, Adolf Hitler sought a legal foundation for dictatorship by proposing the Act for Ending the Distress of People and Nation, commonly known as the Enabling Act. In five short paragraphs, this bill transferred key legislative powers held by the Reichstag, or parliament, to Hitler’s Nationalist So-
cialist (Nazi) Party for four years. Specifically, the act allowed Hitler and his cabinet to draft and pass laws without the Reichstag’s consent, to propose amendments to the constitution and even to suspend it, to control the national budget, and to enter into foreign treaties. Although it contained reassuring phrases about not curtailing the power of either President Paul von Hindenburg or the parliament, the bill actually enabled Hitler to bypass all opposition. Because it modified the Weimar Constitution, however, Hitler needed a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag to enact the bill, which meant that more than two-thirds of the deputies had to be present, and at least two-thirds of those present had to vote for it so that it could pass into law. The general elections of March 5, 1933, had given the Nazis 44 percent of the total vote and 288 out of the 647 seats in the Reichstag. After the elections, Hitler turned his attention to the task of obtaining the two-thirds majority in the Reichstag. First, he expelled the eighty-one Communist deputies: Those not arrested were threatened with arrest if they attempted to take their seats in the Reichstag. Second, Hitler persuaded the Center Party and the Nationalists to vote for the Enabling Act. The Center Party, under the leadership of Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, was pessimistic about blocking the bill and decided to support it in the hope of gaining Hitler’s consideration for its own Catholic interests. Hesitant to trust Hitler’s verbal pledge, however, the party demanded a written promise that Hitler would abide by the president’s power of veto. Kaas never received such an assurance from Hitler, but he accepted a letter from President Hindenburg stating that he had been assured by Hitler that the Enabling Act would not be used without prior 2649
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The Enabling Act of 1933 ultimately doomed the Weimar Republic by granting Adolf Hitler unprecedented powers and lending his totalitarian ends the illusion of legitimacy.
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consultation with the president. Thus Kaas made the same error as his fellow Center Party member Franz von Papen, who had agitated for Hitler’s installation after his own dismissal from the chancellorship because he hoped to share and profit from Hitler’s power. To win the support of the Nationalists and the army, Hitler and his newly appointed minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, staged a well-planned ceremony in the Garrison Church at Potsdam. The ceremony was held on March 21 to mark the opening of the new Reichstag, two days before it was to consider the Enabling Act. Hitler and Goebbels selected Potsdam, the royal residence of the Hohenzollerns and seat of their dynasty (the Second Reich, which ruled Brandenburg-Prussia from 14151918 and imperial Germany from 1871 to 1918) and the Garrison Church, which housed the grave of Frederick the Great, to symbolically marry the past glories of Prussia to the new Nazi regime. Even the date of the ceremony had significance: Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German empire, had opened the first Reichstag on March 21, 1871. At noon, Hitler entered the church beside the fading,
eighty-six-year-old Hindenburg, who endorsed the simple former corporal’s new government to the crowd; Hitler’s own speech emphasized the national renewal evident since he had taken office. The two men’s handclasp at the climax of the ceremony convinced many that Hitler stood for a restoration of the old order in Germany. The success of Hitler’s policy was demonstrated when the Reichstag convened two days later in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to vote on the Enabling Act. The building was surrounded by belligerent SS and SA troops. Hitler opened the session with a speech notable for its restraint: He pointed out that the new powers would be used only to carry out vital measures and that such occasions were unlikely to occur very often. Significance The only deputy to speak out against the bill was Otto Wels, leader of the Social Democrats. Amid the menacing jeers of swastika-waving storm troopers, Wels began a speech condemning the Nazis’ gangster mentality, but he was soon interrupted by Hitler. Infuriated by Wels’s opposition, Hitler threw off all restraint. After savagely
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Adolf Hitler, the newly appointed chancellor of Germany, rides with Reich president Paul von Hindenburg in a parade in May, 1933. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Further Reading Bracher, Karl Dietrich. “The Technique of Nationalist Socialist Seizure of Power.” In The Path to Dictatorship, 1918-1933, edited by Theodor Eschenburg et al. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. The author analyzes how the concept of “legal revolution” led to the middle-class parties’ naïve trust in Hitler and their consequent passage of the Enabling Act. Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. New York: Hill & Wang, 2000. Not as accessible as Evans, but a thorough investigation of the rise of Nazism and the construction of the Enabling Act. Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. A work of impressive and engaging scholarship that includes an in-depth discussion of the Enabling Act. Fischer, Klaus P. Nazi Germany: A New History. New York: Continuum, 1995. Fischer’s masterful study stresses the Nazi cynicism and terrorism underlying both the Potsdam ceremony and the ratification of the Enabling Act.
Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Focuses on Hitler’s years in Vienna and how his experiences there influenced him. Includes photographs, select bibliography, and index. Hamilton, Richard F. Who Voted for Hitler? Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. Controversial book rejects the traditional centrist argument—that of the support for Hitler among the dominant lowermiddle classes—and suggests alternative explanations for the Nazi rise to power. Hoffmann, Peter. The History of the German Resistance 1933-1945. Translated by Richard Barry. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977. Convincingly argues that the lack of meaningful opposition to Hitler’s pseudolegal seizure of power was rooted in terrorism, ignorance and denial about Nazi values, and weak democracy. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. A comprehensive and welldocumented examination of Hitler’s rise to power. Krausnick, Helmut. “Stages of ‘Co-ordination.’” In The Path to Dictatorship, edited by Theodor Eschenburg et al. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. Krausnick views the Enabling Act as a decisive step in the “coordination” of German institutions to Hitler’s will, second only to the February 28, 1933, decree suspending basic constitutional rights. Redlich, Fritz. Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Although mainly a behavioral study, this book does focus some attention on the Enabling Act as a psychological milestone in the Nazi dictator’s obsessive quest for power. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Shirer’s account of the Enabling Act emphasizes Hitler’s manipulation of Prussian patriotism—and the Social Democrats’ weakness—in bringing the nation under the Nazi’s control. See also: Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact. 2651
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attacking the Social Democrats, he told them that he did not need their votes: Germany would be free, he said, and its freedom would come despite the Social Democrats’ efforts. Moreover, Hitler reminded Wels, the Nazis had merely observed legal niceties by seeking Reichstag approval for something that they could and would readily have taken through extralegal means, if necessary. Despite this clue about Hitler’s ruthlessness, the Enabling Act passed by a huge majority: 441 votes for and 94 votes against. The opposition votes were cast by the Social Democrats. When Hermann Göring, president of the Reichstag and Hitler’s trusted henchman, made the votes known, the Nazi deputies sprang to their feet and sang the Nazi anthem, “Die Fahne Hoch” (also called the “Horst Wessel” song), while giving the Nazi salute. The Nazis had reason to be happy: Their leader had just freed himself from dependency on the Reichstag and the president. Hitler could now issues decrees without the president’s approval, even if such legislation modified the Weimar Constitution. A provision introduced by Hindenburg on January 31, 1933, technically limited the Enabling Act’s legislative powers to the particular cabinet in office, but Hitler soon flouted this restriction. He also seized on Hindenburg’s death on August 1, 1934, using the event as a pretext for fusing the presidency and chancellorship and justifying his growing power by saying that Hindenburg’s will had named him successor. — Harry E. Wade and Margaret Bozenna Goscilo
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April 5, 1933
U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established The Civilian Conservation Corps was established to put millions of unemployed people to work in beautification, forestry, and other natural resource projects. One of the first programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to be implemented, it simultaneously helped create work for those left jobless by the Great Depression and helped save eroding natural resources. Also known as: Emergency Conservation Work; Executive Order 6101; CCC Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Organizations and institutions; natural resources; government and politics Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Robert Fechner (1876-1939), American labor leader who served as the first director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1939 James J. McEntee (fl. mid-twentieth century), second director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 19391942 Summary of Event On March 29, 1933, the U.S. Congress authorized Public Act No. 5, which was known as the Reforestation Relief Act. This act gave the president the authority to establish a chain of forest camps in which unemployed young men could be put to work protecting and improving millions of acres of forest land. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law on March 31, 1933. Less than a week later, on April 5, 1933, Roosevelt, by Executive Order 6101, established the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW), making this plan a reality. On June 28, 1937, Congress officially changed the name of the agency from the ECW to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the name by which it is best known to history. Roosevelt has been called the father of the CCC because of his vast experience in conservation. As a young legislator in New York, he was made chairman of the Committee on Forests, Fish, and Game. As chairman, he invited Gifford Pinchot, chief forester of the United States, and other notable conservationists to the state capitol at Albany to present lectures on forestry to the legislature. Roosevelt helped pass legislation that pro2652
vided the first practical government-supervised forestry in the eastern United States. As governor of New York, Roosevelt continued to support reforestation programs. Land was purchased for reforestation and paid for by individual counties and the state. More than $20 million was appropriated in 1931 for the growing of trees. More than one million trees were planted, and more than ten thousand unemployed people were put to work in the last year of Roosevelt’s governorship. In March, 1933, when Roosevelt became president, the United States was in the middle of the Great Depression, and more than thirteen million Americans were unemployed. Almost everyone was affected by the devastated economy. Several million people were living as nomads, drifting around the country looking for work. Many people left their homes and moved in with relatives to help cut costs. Others simply stayed home, tired of looking for nonexistent jobs. Five million of those looking for work were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, with no opportunity to get a start in life. Many of these young people left home looking for any kind of work but ended up in jail, municipal shelters, soup lines, and worse. A perfectly capable workforce was wasting away. The country was ready for a conservation program similar to the one Roosevelt had started in New York. At the 1932 Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt had pointed out that many abandoned farms and cutover forests were growing worthless brush. He also stated that every European nation had a definite land policy and that the United States had none, an omission that could result in soil erosion and timber famine. In his candidacy acceptance speech, Roosevelt said, “Let us use common sense and business sense, and, just as one example, we know that every hopeful and immediate means of relief, both for the unemployed and for agriculture, will come from a wide plan of the converting of many millions of acres of marginal and unused land into timber land through reforestation.” Much of the nation’s timber had been squandered. Only 100 million acres out of more than 800 million acres were left. Soil erosion, wind, and water was carrying away six billion tons of soil each year. Something had to be done. On March 4, 1933, Roosevelt took the oath of office as the thirty-second president of the United States. On March 9, he called a meeting of the secretaries of war, agriculture, and the interior, the judge advocate general of
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U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established
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1933 More than eighteen hundred recruits line up for their noon meal at the CCC camp in Fort Slocum, New York, in April, 1933. (AP/Wide World Photos)
the U.S. Army, and the solicitor of the Department of the Interior to hear his conservation plan. They formulated a plan that same day, and it was introduced to Congress on March 13. This original proposal was withdrawn because of problems, and a revised plan was resubmitted on March 21, 1933. The new plan had three major provisions: Direct relief would be given to the states, a large public works program would be started, and a carefully designed soil-erosion and forestry program would be undertaken. Less than one month had passed since Roosevelt had been sworn in as president. On April 6, 1933, Roosevelt appointed Robert Fechner, an authority on labor, as the first director of the ECW. James J. McEntee was appointed assistant director. Four departments and one independent agency were responsible for the enrollment of men, administration
of the camps, and planning and supervision of the work programs. The Departments of Labor, War, Interior, and Agriculture, as well as the Veterans Administration, were to cooperate in administering the program. The War Department was responsible for the physical conditioning of the enrollees, as the recruits were called. It was also charged with organization, enrollment, transportation, and provision of equipment. The War Department was chosen to organize and administer the camps because it had a standing force that could provide the camp leadership needed to supervise men in groups (or companies) of two hundred men each. The War Department also provided the enrollees with food, clothing, housing, and medical care and educational, religious, and recreational facilities. The chief of finance of the army was given the chief fiscal responsibility to see that everyone was paid. 2653
U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established The Department of Labor was responsible for the selection of enrollees. This department delegated this authority to directors in each state. Names of qualified persons who wished to enroll were provided from town, county, and political subdivisions to the state coordinator. These state and local units were usually welfare agencies who knew which people were qualified for enlistment. The selection of enrollees was transferred to the office of the director in May, 1939. The Department of the Interior was responsible for the planning and supervision of work projects. The National Park Service, General Land Office, Bureau of Reclamation, Office of Indian Affairs, and Grazing Service were major subdivisions of the department that participated in the program. The Office of Indian Affairs was in charge of selecting Indian enrollees and personnel who worked on reservations. The National Park Service administered the enrollment in Hawaii and the Virgin Islands. Under the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureaus of Animal Industry, Biological Survey, and Agricultural Engineering provided technical and supervisory personnel for work projects. The Forest Service also provided full administration over enrollees in Alaska and Puerto Rico. The Veterans Administration selected the quota of veteran enrollees. The number of veterans was not to exceed 10 percent of the total national enrollment. The first enrollment period was to enroll no more than 250,000 men. All were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, and all were unemployed and unmarried. Each enrollment period was six months long, and anyone could apply to stay for more than one period. The enrollees were required to send part of their monthly cash allotment to their dependents. This afforded enrollment of those with the greatest need. Each state was assigned a quota based on its population in proportion to the total national population. The country was divided into nine corps areas for military purposes. The CCC retained these corps areas for its own use, as each area already had training camps that would be used as conditioning camps for enrollees before they reported to work camps. Problems developed early in the selection process. Enrollees who found work were no longer eligible to participate. Some enrollees would get homesick and leave camp. Others would get married. These and other problems were solved by increasing the number of men selected. When an enrollee could not fulfill his obligation, one of the extras would take his place. The importation of large groups of men into a certain geographic location could deprive local men of local employment. Local experienced men 2654
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 (LEMs) were therefore hired to advise the enrollees on the proper methods of carrying out local work projects. On July 1, 1933, the War Department reported that mobilization was complete. More than 1,315 camps had been established. They were staffed by 3,641 regular and 1,774 reserve officers. A typical army camp staff included a company commander, an executive officer, and a medical officer. There was to be no connection with the military other than the administration of the camps. Drilling and maneuvers were not part of the daily routine. The army was simply the national agency most experienced in handling large number of enrollees. The first camps were set up as tent camps. Later, wooden barracks were constructed. In addition to the commanding officer, each camp had a civilian superintendent and local staff supplied by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Educational, recreational, and vocational activities were under the supervision of these men. The representatives of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture were in charge of the men when they left camp on work details. With this foundation, the enrollees were ready to get to work. Significance The accomplishments of the Civilian Conservation Corps were numerous. More than 150 types of work were accomplished by the enrollees. There were ten basic types of work projects. These included forest protection, forest culture, soil-erosion control, flood control, aid to wildlife, irrigation and drainage, transportation improvements, structural improvement, range development, and landscape and recreational development. The fuits of many of the projects of the 1930’s are still evident in state and national parks throughout the country. The CCC program also served the socialization needs of American youth. Men were assigned to camps in other states, so they could not go home or leave camp any time they wished. They learned to eat three healthy meals a day, and to work eight hours a day, five days a week. They got into a routine of getting up, doing a fair day’s labor, coming back to the barracks, cleaning up, and going to dinner. Their evenings were devoted to recreational and educational activities. Men who had never worked in groups before learned to work in teams and interrelate with other people. They were preparing for their future. CCC enrollees built many of the state and national parks that are visited by millions of people annually. They built fire towers, hiking trails, dining pavilions, cooking pits, culverts, and bridges. They fought forest fires and thinned woods so trees would grow better.
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Further Reading Cohen, Stan. The Tree Army: A Pictorial History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1945. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorian Histories, 1980. Heavily illustrated with pictures from around the country, brief historical references, and captions. A great reference work. Cornebise, Alfred Emile. The CCC Chronicles: Camp Newspapers of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Study of daily life in CCC camps and the culture of the CCC through the lens of the newspapers published by and for campers. Bibliographic references and index.
Dearborn, Ned H. Once in a Lifetime: A Guide to the CCC Camp. New York: Charles E. Merrill, 1936. A very good reference work on the CCC program, presented in question and answer format. Holland, Kenneth, and Frank Ernest Hill. Youth in the CCC. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1942. Describes the history, programs, and activities of the CCC. Hoyt, Ray. We Can Take It: A Short Story of the C.C.C. New York: American Book Company, 1935. Good background information and history of the first two years of the CCC program. Lacy, Leslie Alexander. The Soil Soldiers: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Great Depression. Radnor, Pa.: Chilton, 1976. A good descriptive history of selected CCC work programs. Merrill, Perry H. Roosevelt’s Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Montpelier, Vt.: Perry H. Merrill, 1981. Concise history of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Oliver, Alfred C., Jr., and Harold M. Dudley. This New America: The Spirit of the Civilian Conservation Corps. New York: Longmans, Green, 1937. A good reference source to the CCC written during the height of the program. Paige, John C. The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Park Service, 1933-1942: An Administrative History. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. This book describes the relationship between the National Park Service and the CCC. Good illustrations of work projects. Pfaff, Christine. The Bureau of Reclamation and the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Denver, Colo.: Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, 2000. Study of the history of the CCC and its relationship to the Bureau of Reclamation. Bibliographic references. Salmond, John A. The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A Case Study. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1967. Probably the best-known work on the subject and one of the earliest histories of the CCC. See also: Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act; June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established. 2655
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Many cabins that still house campers were constructed by these men. Electric and telephone lines were strung in areas needing these services. Water lines were run to camping areas in state and national parks. Emergency service was provided where needed. Flood control and cleanup work was performed by enrollees. Each company of men did the jobs specified by their camp supervisors. Many enrollees learned trades that turned into occupations they followed the rest of their lives. The country benefited from the CCC in several ways as well. Enrollees were required to send home twenty-five dollars of their thirty-dollar monthly pay. This enabled the people at home to start recovering financially. This money was put back into the local economies. The enrollee kept five dollars per month for spending money. Local economies were aided in other ways. Lumber for the buildings constructed in the CCC camps was purchased from local lumber mills. Buildings were constructed to uniform standards, and blueprints were furnished to local contractors to supply materials. Food for the camps was also purchased locally. The enrollee could have all the food he wanted. Most of them gained weight and grew physically fit during their stay in the camps. Many opted to reenlist when their six-month enrollment period was over. The country was getting back into shape. The economy was recovering, and the people were getting the work and training they needed to carry on a productive life. More than three million men joined the Civilian Conservation Corps during its eight-year life. The contributions of these men stand as tributes to one of the most successful government programs ever established. The CCC, the largest government relief program ever attempted in the United States, came to an end in 1942, after the start of World War II. Many men traded their CCC uniforms for military uniforms—the nation’s youths were prepared to defend democracy. —Larry N. Sypolt
U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established
Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 18, 1933
Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created After decades of debate over government versus private ownership of electric power, the U.S. Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority, demonstrating the critical relationship between economic and environmental decisions. Also known as: TVA Locale: Tennessee River Valley system, southeastern United States Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; energy; government and politics Key Figures George W. Norris (1861-1944), U.S. representative from Nebraska, 1903-1913, and senator, 1913-1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933 Arthur Ernest Morgan (1878-1975), engineer and first chairman of the TVA David Eli Lilienthal (1899-1981), attorney and TVA board member Harcourt A. Morgan (1867-1950), agronomist and TVA board member Summary of Event On May 18, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as the first public regional development agency in the nation. The history of the founding of the TVA is also the history of an enduring national debate over the appropriateness of publicly versus privately owned electric power generation. This controversy illustrates the critical links among economic development, environmental use, and the role of the federal government in economic and environmental decisions. The debate originated in the nineteenth century and pitted conservationists and Progressive politicians against the electric power industry. Unregulated capitalist ventures in the 1880’s and 1890’s had caused widespread environmental destruction for economic gain. The conservation movement emerged, urging that natural resources be regulated by the federal government to ensure that they would be protected and carefully used. Conservation meant controlled economic development 2656
in the first half of the twentieth century. Pioneering conservationist Gifford Pinchot first developed the concept of multiple-use management for the conservation of forest resources and then extended the idea to water resources. He argued that private power companies’ exploitation of only the hydroelectric power of rivers would waste the rivers’ potential for flood control and increased navigation, which could only be realized by public entities. Conservationists were also motivated by changes in technology. Steam-electric power generated by burning coal or oil had been the main source of power since the 1880’s. For the first time, power transmission technology made possible the transport of electric power from remote rivers to cities. Ownership and control of electrical power generation was a critical issue because of the enormous amounts of power needed to run the production processes on which the economy depended. Progressive politicians supported the regulation of industry for environmental and social purposes. Progressives such as Republican senator George W. Norris of Nebraska accepted the sagacity of the multipurpose use of natural resources. More important, the Progressive politicians feared that if private utilities monopolized hydroelectric resources, they would soon control all industry and, ultimately, the country. Believing that regulatory policy would not be enough, Progressives emphasized the need for competition from public power. An important focal point for the controversy over public versus private power was the development of the federally owned Muscle Shoals site on the Tennessee River. Near Florence, Alabama, the Tennessee River falls 137 feet over thirty-seven miles. Known as Muscle Shoals, this series of rapids, pools, and rocks constituted an obstruction to navigation. Near the end of the century, the waterpower potential of the shoals was recognized. In 1906, the Muscle Shoals Hydroelectric Power Company began a ten-year attempt to secure congressional approval for a joint navigation and power project at Muscle Shoals in which the government was to bear a substantial portion of the cost. The company failed. Other private developers also tried and failed to purchase the site from the government. In 1916, the passage of the National Defense Act mandated that Muscle Shoals was to be used by the government to produce the nitrates needed for explosives in the anticipated war effort. Muscle Shoals was chosen primarily because it was both a technically feasible and a
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were consistently foiled by Senator Norris. In 1926, Norris proposed his first bill for the multipurpose development of the Tennessee River watershed. Congress passed the bill in 1928, but President Calvin Coolidge killed it with a pocket veto. Congress passed Norris’s second bill in 1930, but President Herbert Hoover vetoed it amid charges that it was socialistic. The Democratic Party’s 1932 platform reflected the public-versus-private-power debate by advocating the conservation, development, and use of the nation’s waterpower in the public interest. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March, 1933, with 15 million Americans unemployed and the banks closed by executive order to prevent collapse. As governor of New York, Roosevelt had taken a strong position on the power question, attempting to increase the effectiveness of state regulation. Soon after taking office, he called Congress into special session and asked for legislation similar to Norris’s to create the TVA. He signed the bill as part of his New Deal legislation to bolster economic development and appointed Arthur Ernest Morgan, a renowned engineer, as the first chairman of the TVA Board of Directors. The TVA was administered by the chairman and two directors, who answered to Congress. The TVA was created as the first public regional development agency. It was charged with planning regional economic development while protecting natural resources in order to create wealth for the people from the resources of the valley. The act defined the TVA region as the area drained by the Tennessee River, which included parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The agency was granted three major powers: to construct dams for flood control and hydroelectric power, to deepen the river channel to aid navigation, and to produce and distribute electricity and fertilizer.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (left), Eleanor Roosevelt, and Arthur Ernest Morgan during an inspection tour of TVA projects in late 1934. (Tennessee Valley Authority)
Significance The creation of the TVA had both immediate effects and a long-term impact on the history of U.S. environmental policy. Its most important immediate effect was the agency’s 2657
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politically desirable site. Additionally, the nitrate plants could be used in peacetime to produce the nitrates required for cheap fertilizer needed by southern farmers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a steam-electric plant to provide power for the nitrate facilities because the urgency of the need for nitrates was so great that there was no time to construct a hydroelectric dam. President Woodrow Wilson ordered the dam— eventually named Wilson Dam—built in addition to the steam plants. The nitrate plants never worked, however, and the dam was not completed until 1925. For ten years, little use was made of Wilson Dam’s power-producing capacity. After World War I, President Wilson attempted to carry out the mandate of the National Defense Act of 1916 to produce peacetime nitrates for fertilizer, but his plan became enmeshed in the dispute over public versus private operation of hydroelectric plants. The electric power industry expanded rapidly in the decade after the war, and companies were eager to buy Muscle Shoals. In 1921, Henry Ford offered to purchase the site. Several other companies made bids to buy it, but their efforts
Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created
Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created control over the 650-mile-long Tennessee River. Dams constructed for flood control and for hydroelectric power to electrify the rural hinterlands also created large lakes for recreation that brought land developers and tourist dollars to the region. At least three important long-term trends emanated from the creation of the TVA. The first was that, although the TVA’s establishment did not stop the public-versusprivate-power debate, it gave it form and served as a concrete symbol of the continuing debate. Private-power advocates lost the battle for the Tennessee Valley but won a qualified victory in the war against public power. The second trend concerned the exposure of the fundamental relationship between economic growth and environmental use. The TVA represented an organizational effort simultaneously to promote economic growth and to conserve resources. Several important legal and political conflicts have been generated by the TVA’s attempts to carry out these seemingly contradictory tasks over the years. The third important long-term impact of the TVA was the precedent the agency set for government intervention in power technology. With the government’s participation in the development of hydroelectric power and its emphasis on electric power as important to national defense, the way was paved for the later federal direction of nuclear technology. The government’s Manhattan Project was designed to research and develop the atomic bomb for use in World War II. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was chosen as one of three secret sites constructed for working on the bomb, in part because of its proximity to an enormous source of electric power: the TVA. In its postwar bid to control the development of nuclear technology, the federal government again turned to the TVA. In 1946, Director David Lilienthal left the TVA to become the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the federal regulatory agency for nuclear technology. The TVA was complicit in creating the Cold War nuclear arms race, buying coalfields, increasing their stripmining operations, and building a vast coal-fired power system to power the federal nuclear operations. The TVA’s effects have been varied, both in their consequences and in their capacity for social progress. The agency set an important precedent, however, that may benefit many future generations. The TVA was the first organization to seek the protection of public resources as defined by regional, rather than legal, boundaries, resulting in planned efforts toward coastal management, wetlands management, and the protection of the Everglades. — Sherry Cable and Thomas E. Shriver 2658
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Chandler, William U. The Myth of TVA: Conservation and Development in the Tennessee Valley, 19331983. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984. Economic analysis of the TVA’s impact in navigation, flood control, power production, agriculture, and environmental protection concludes that the TVA was a bad investment of tax dollars. The book is flawed in that it uses surrounding non-TVA areas with different economic bases as a control group. Colignon, Richard A. Power Plays: Critical Events in the Institutionalization of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. A study of the legal and institutional struggles that—through the precedents they set—established the insitutional power of the TVA. Creese, Walter L. TVA’s Public Planning: The Vision, the Reality. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. Well-written, lavishly illustrated book demonstrates the relationship between the physical impact of TVA on the visual environment of the region and the policy goals of the agency’s leaders. Gray, Aelred J., and David A. Johnson. The TVA Regional Planning and Development Program: The Transformation of an Institution and Its Mission. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005. Study of institutional change within the TVA and its causes and effects in relation to its fundamental mission. Bibliographic references and index. Hubbard, Preston. Origins of the TVA: The Muscle Shoals Controversy, 1920-1932. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1961. Documents the various attempts to deal with the Army Corps of Engineers project at Muscle Shoals. Useful for understanding the roots of TVA in the Progressive ideology of the early twentieth century. McCraw, Thomas K. Morgan vs. Lilienthal: The Feud Within the TVA. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970. Detailed analysis of the feud between TVA Chairman Arthur E. Morgan and TVA Director David E. Lilienthal. The feud and its outcome determined the shape that the agency would take. _______. TVA and the Power Fight, 1933-1939. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1971. Good, nuanced study of the continuation of the debate over publicly versus privately owned electric power after the TVA was founded, and the role of the TVAin that debate. Particular emphasis on the lawsuits brought against the TVA. McDonald, Michael J., and John Muldowny. TVA and the Dispossessed. Knoxville: University of Tennes-
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Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System
see Press, 1982. Examines resettlement of the population in Norris after construction of Norris Dam. Good analysis of how the TVA used the power of eminent domain as a threat to force residents to sell their land. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Coming of the New Deal. Vol. 2 in The Age of Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. A classic liberal narrative. Brilliantly written and informed. Part 5 is pertinent to the origins of the TVA. Page notes serve as a bibliography. Fine index. Well worth reading in its entirety. _______. The Politics of Upheaval. Vol. 3 in The Age of Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Superb narrative. Chapter 20 deals with court challenges to
the TVA. Wonderful historical work on a dramatic subject. Page notes function as a bibliography. Excellent index. Wilcox, Clair. Public Policies Toward Business. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1966. Superb for essentials on the TVA as a government authority and its effects on the business community. Clear basic presentation, objectively handled. Many page notes, excellent index. See also: 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed.
June 16, 1933
Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System
Also known as: Glass-Steagall Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; banking and finance Key Figures Carter Glass (1858-1946), former U.S. secretary of the treasury and member of the Senate Banking Committee Ferdinand Pecora (1882-1971), counsel to the Senate Banking Committee and an original member of the Securities and Exchange Commission Henry Bascom Steagall (1873-1943), U.S. congressman from Alabama, 1915-1943 Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg (1884-1951), U.S. senator from Michigan, 1928-1951 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event Hundreds of American banks failed every year during the 1920’s, and thousands failed in the period 19301933. The existing banking and financial oversight systems were clearly inadequate, and Senator Carter Glass began pushing for reform of the system in 1931. In a re-
port on the bill that became the Banking Act of 1933, the Senate Banking Committee explained that “a completely comprehensive measure for the reconstruction of our banking system” had been deferred. The purposes of the committee’s emergency bill were more modest: It aimed “to correct manifest immediate abuses, and to bring our banking system into a stronger condition.” The new law significantly amended the Federal Reserve Act (1913) and the National Bank Act (1864) and added the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to those agencies already regulating and monitoring the banking system. When the stock market collapsed, share prices fell an average of one-sixth of the value they had previously held in the period 1929-1932. Generous credit to stock speculators—funneled through stockbrokers—had fueled the Wall Street boom in the late 1920’s, and the crash was largely blamed on excessive loans to these stockbrokers and stock speculators. A major purpose of the Banking Act of 1933, signed into law on June 16 of that year, was to prevent the “undue diversion of funds into speculative operations.” This meant that banks belonging to the Federal Reserve system (member banks) were forbidden to act as agents to brokers and dealers on behalf of nonbank lenders. Congress was concerned that businesses engaged in agriculture, industry, and commerce would be deprived of adequate credit. The Federal Reserve Board, a presidentially appointed group that governed the Federal Reserve, was to ascertain whether bank credit was being used for speculative purposes. The board could limit the 2659
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The Banking Act of 1933 established deposit insurance, regulated interest paid on deposits, prohibited underwriting of corporate securities by commercial banks, and restricted loans to buy securities.
Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System amount of stock and bond collateral that could be used to secure member banks’ loans, and banks whose lending policies fostered speculation would be denied the privilege of borrowing from the Federal Reserve bank. Most of the loans financing speculation in stocks and bonds had been made by banks in financial centers; there was no evidence that these banks turned down requests by businesses for short-term loans. Moreover, corporations could finance expansion through the sale of new securities. The Federal Reserve Board also set ceilings on the rates that member banks were permitted to pay on time and savings deposits. In 1935, the FDIC was given the power to set ceilings for all insured banks. Regulation Q, issued by the Federal Reserve Board, established a ceiling of 3 percent—well above what most banks paid—as of November 1, 1933. One section of the Banking Act of 1933, often referred to as the Glass-Steagall Act (although this name was originally attached to the entire Banking Act of 1933), ordered that the practice of taking deposits be separated from investment banking activities within one year. This meant that financial institutions had to choose to be either commercial banks or investment houses; investment banks could no longer accept deposit accounts, and member banks could no longer underwrite securities issues of business corporations. Banks with national charters were, however, permitted to underwrite and deal in securities issued by all levels of government in the United States for resale to the investing public. Separation of commercial banking and investment banking was expected to contribute to the soundness of commercial banks and to increase the overall stability of the economy. In the 1920’s, commercial banks began the largescale development of affiliates that dealt in securities. By 1930, these affiliates brought more than half of all new securities issues to market, making them a significant threat to established investment banks. Ferdinand Pecora, counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, conducted extensive hearings on abuses by the affiliates, and his investigation generated negative publicity. There is little evidence to support the idea, which prevailed in 1933, that many bank failures were the result of affiliates’ activities in securities. At the time, many smallbank failures were blamed on the poor results from securities portfolios, which had been purchased on the advice of larger correspondent banks eager to promote issues held by their affiliates. As a result of this (mistaken) perception, member banks were forbidden from investing in corporate stock. They could continue to buy corporate 2660
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bonds for their investment portfolios, however, provided that those bonds were of investment (rather than speculative) quality. Senator Glass was convinced that banks should confine their activities to short-term business loans, because most deposits held in banks had to be payable on demand. Glass believed that banks should not lock themselves into long-term loans when their deposits, the source of funding for loans, could be quickly withdrawn. In the past, banks had made riskier loans and investments so that they could offer higher interest rates to their depositors—a situation that would occur again in the 1970’s and 1980’s. To encourage safer portfolios, Congress resorted to regulating interest rates. For deposits payable on demand, no explicit interest payments were allowed. The ban on interest was also intended to discourage the exchange of deposits between small banks and correspondent banks; Congress wanted funds to go to local borrowers instead. Small banks, however, continued to hold deposits with correspondent banks. Rather than paying interest, the correspondent banks offered various services free of charge. Congressman Henry Bascom Steagall spearheaded the inclusion of deposit insurance provisions of the Banking Act of 1933 . For fifteen years he had battled for the reform, which he saw as a way of instilling confidence in the safety of deposits made in local banks. Senator Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg pushed for deposit insurance to take effect immediately, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt was opposed. As a compromise, a temporary plan covering the first $2,500 in insured accounts went into effect on January 1, 1934. In the meantime, infusions of capital strengthened the banks that were permitted to reopen after Roosevelt’s banking holiday, which lasted from March 6 to March 13, 1933. From 1920 through 1933, thousands of minuscule, small-town banks had failed, and so the Banking Act of 1933 raised the minimum amount of capital required to open a national bank from $25,000 to $50,000. The capital held by each branch of a national bank had to match or exceed the capital required for a one-office bank in the same location. To prevent the creation of unhealthy competition caused by bank proliferation, the Banking Act of 1935 (passed on August 23, 1935) further tightened the requirements for a bank to obtain a charter. The FDIC stood ready to deny insurance if excessive competition posed a threat. Prior to the stock market crash of 1929, banks in the United States were undiversified institutions that did almost all their business at a single location. As a result,
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Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System
Significance Exercise of authority over banking by individual states had led to a “competition in laxity” among federal regulators. Over the years, federal authorities had eased restrictions on national banks in order to prevent them from switching to state charters and to encourage state banks to convert to national charters. Many states had weak or inadequate banking supervision, and state banks failed at a much higher rate than national banks in the period 1920-1933. Supporters of states’ rights had prevented a federal takeover of commercial banks’ chartering, supervision, and regulation. After the Banking Act of 1933, however, states had to share jurisdiction with the FDIC for nonmember banks covered by that agency’s insurance. States retained the power to decide their own policies on branch banking. Some persisted in prohibiting all
branches, but most broadened the territory in which branching was authorized. No state allowed the extension of branches across state lines. Deposit insurance, which was fiercely opposed by some bankers in 1933, became permanent in the Banking Act of 1935. Advocates hoped that, as deposits increased, deposit insurance would stimulate bank lending to the private sector. Bank deposits increased by more than 46 percent from 1934 through 1939, surpassing the record 1930 total by more than $2.6 billion. Total loans, however, failed to significantly increase, reflecting the weak recovery of businesses’ investment spending and the timidity of bank lending officers. After the FDIC was organized in September, 1933, all member banks were required to join, and solvent nonmember banks were also eligible. Banks paid an initial premium of .25 percent of insurable deposits. By the beginning of 1934, 87 percent of all commercial banks had joined the FDIC, and more than 96 percent of all deposits were covered. By the end of that year, 93 percent of commercial banks had joined, and 98 percent of deposits were covered. All but about 1 percent of applicant banks qualified for deposit insurance. To remain insured, nonmember banks were expected to become member banks by mid-1936. This deadline was first extended and then abandoned in 1939. A majority of American banks continued to be nonmembers, largely because state charters had lower minimum capital and lower reserve requirements than did the Federal Reserve Board. The FDIC later proved successful in one of its goals: preventing a new wave of bank failures triggered by depositors’ fears. Even as hundreds of banks were forced to close in the 1980’s, depositors did not panic and rush to remove their funds. Ceilings on interest rates did not hamper the gathering of deposits by banks until the 1950’s, when competition with investment outlets that offered returns higher than those permitted under Regulation Q caused some hardships for banks. Interest rate regulations for time and savings deposits were eliminated in 1986. Banks had begun to separate their commercial and investment banking programs before the Banking Act of 1933 required that they do so. The two leading American banks, Chase National Bank and National City Bank, announced plans to eliminate their affiliates in March, 1933. The Morgan investment banking business, sharply reduced by the Depression, continued under the leadership of several partners who left to form Morgan Stanley. The historic name J. P. Morgan & Company now be2661
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their fates were tied to the fortunes of local economies. To provide some banking services in places where banks had closed, states began to ease restrictions on branch banking, and a heated battle for permission to operate branches began to take place in state legislatures and in Congress. In 1927, national banks with federal charters were authorized to have branches in the same community as their head offices if branch banking was allowed by the state’s law. The Banking Act of 1933 permitted branches to be developed outside the headquarter’s community, so that national banks could branch just as easily as state banks. Interstate branch banking remained forbidden, however. In 1922, the Federal Reserve banks had begun to coordinate purchases and sales of government securities (known as open-market operations). The 1933 act placed open-market operations under regulation by the Federal Reserve Board; the board could now disapprove policies that had been recommended by the Federal Open Market Committee. Further, all relationships and transactions made between the Federal Reserve banks and foreign institutions were placed under control of the Federal Reserve Board. Both measures diminished the policymaking roles previously played by the twelve Federal Reserve banks, particularly the powerful one in New York City. The 1933 act also gave the Federal Reserve system its first measure of authority over bank holding companies that owned shares in member banks. A bank holding company could avoid supervision if control over a member bank was exerted without the need to vote shares. Involvement of the Federal Reserve system with bank holding companies remained limited.
Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System longed to a commercial bank that became Morgan Guaranty Trust Company in 1959. Other large investment banks chose to eliminate their deposit-taking activities. The 1933 act began the process of diminishing the autonomy of the twelve Federal Reserve banks and centralizing power in the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, and the Banking Act of 1935 completed that shift. In many significant ways, however, the American banking system was unchanged by New Deal legislation. Several major problems were left unresolved, including those posed by the dual banking system (of state and national banks), the division of responsibilities among federal agencies, and banks’ limited ability to branch (and thus to diversify their lending and deposit bases). The 1933 act also created some problems by failing to make deposit insurance premiums related to risk and by banning interest on demand deposits, which made it more difficult for banks to get those deposits. — Benjamin J. Klebaner Further Reading Benston, George J. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. A well-argued case for the repeal of separation of the two types of banking. Burns, Helen M. The American Banking Community and New Deal Banking Reforms, 1933-1935. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. Useful background material and a detailed exposition of the attitudes of bankers regarding proposals that led to the banking acts of 1933 and 1935. Chandler, Lester Vernon. America’s Greatest Depression, 1929-1941. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Provides the economic setting of the era. _______. American Monetary Policy, 1928-1941. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. A leading economic historian discusses banking issues as well as central bank policy. Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Masterful and comprehensive. Covers the banking collapse and
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legislation of the 1930’s in great detail, from a monetarist perspective. Ginzberg, Eli. New Deal Days, 1933-1934. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1997. A lighter, less scholarly treatment of early New Deal legislation. Kennedy, Susan Estabrook. The Banking Crisis of 1933. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1973. Carefully researched, authoritative treatment of events of the period after 1929 and measures to deal with the banking crisis. Klebaner, Benjamin J. “Banking Reform in the New Deal Era.” Quarterly Review (Banca Nazionale de Lavoro) 178 (September, 1991): 319-341. An analysis of the limited changes made from 1933 through 1939 in commercial and central banking. Krooss, Herman Edward, comp. Documentary History of Banking and Currency in the United States. 4 vols. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1969. Volume 4 contains the text of the Banking Act of 1933 and useful commentary by an eminent financial historian. Studenski, Paul, and Herman Edward Krooss. Financial History of the United States. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Excellent, concise treatment of developments since 1789 by two leading experts. Westerfield, Ray B. Money, Credit, and Banking. New York: Ronald Press, 1938. The most comprehensive treatise of the period. Well written. A less-detailed second edition appeared in 1947. Wicker, Elmus. The Bank Panics of the Great Depression. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. The first analysis of five major banking panics that occurred during the Great Depression. A thorough discussion. See also: Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act
June 16, 1933
Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act The National Industrial Recovery Act was an attempt to help businesses recover from the Great Depression. It temporarily replaced the U.S. market system with a system of planning boards under which labor and management would decide on wages, prices, and output levels. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor; trade and commerce; organizations and institutions
Summary of Event The National Industrial Recovery Act was passed by Congress on June 16, 1933, in an attempt to bring relief from the Great Depression by overhauling the way in which American industry was organized. The experiences of the War Industries Board during World War I had convinced many in Washington that it was possible greatly to expand production if the competitive system were replaced with a system of industrial cooperation, guided by government. By the spring of 1933, the severity of the Depression was such that even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was urging the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to expand government’s role in the economy. Rexford Guy Tugwell, an economist at Columbia University and a member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust (a distinguished group of presidential advisers), had sketched out a plan for peacetime governmental direction of production through the use of industry codes in his book The Industrial Discipline and the Governmental Arts, published in early 1933.
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Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Hugh S. Johnson (1882-1942), first head of the National Recovery Administration, 1933-1934 Rexford Guy Tugwell (1891-1979), American economist and Roosevelt adviser Robert F. Wagner (1877-1953), U.S. senator from New York, 1927-1949 William E. Borah (1865-1940), U.S. senator from Idaho, 1907-1940 Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), American attorney and head of the National Recovery Review Board Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946
The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) as sent by President Roosevelt to Congress on May 15, 1933, was divided into two parts. Title I closely followed Tugwell’s recommendations. It authorized a suspension of antitrust laws to allow management and labor in each industry to write binding codes specifying standards of fair competition. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was established to administer the codes. Section 7a of Title I was aimed at securing the rights of labor by guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining and by including minimum wage and maximum hour stipulations. Title II of the bill established the Public Works Administration and appropriated $3.3 billion for carrying out public works. The bill was passed quickly by the House of Representatives with little dissent, but it ran into trouble in the Senate. Many senators feared that suspending antitrust laws would give industry free rein to fix prices and restrict output. A group led by Senator William E. Borah of Idaho attempted to amend the bill to preclude price fixing, but the bill’s Senate sponsor, Robert F. Wagner of New York, arguing that the drafters of the industry codes should be given maximum flexibility, was able to defeat the amendment. The Senate finally passed the bill on June 13, 1933, by a vote of forty-six to thirty-nine. Roosevelt signed the bill on June 16. Roosevelt chose Hugh S. Johnson to head the National Recovery Administration and decided to place the Public Works Administration under the control of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Johnson had had considerable relevant administrative experience serving as an aide to Bernard Baruch on the War Industries Board during World War I. Although Johnson appeared to have considerable authority to impose codes of fair practice on industry, he chose instead to attempt to obtain voluntary cooperation. He hoped to establish a system of industrial self-government not dissimilar to the European doctrine of syndicalism, although Johnson saw himself as building on the industry trade associations that had arisen and grown during the 1920’s. Johnson’s reliance on voluntary cooperation was reinforced by doubts about the constitutionality of the NIRAand fear that disgruntled industrialists might bring lawsuits against it. The process of writing codes took place largely in offices at the Department of Commerce, with NRA administrators mediating between delegations of owners and workers from each industry. The reliance on voluntary
Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
velt administration had always been ambivalent concerning the wisdom or necessity of allowing business to restrict output and fix prices. The ambivalence is evident in a parenthetical phrase included in the following passage from section 1, Title I of the act, which states that the purpose of the legislation is “to promote the fullest possible utilization of the present productive capacity of industries, [and] to avoid undue restriction of production (except as may be temporarily required).” In practice, it became clear during the negotiations for drawing up the codes that industry saw output restrictions and price fixing as a quid pro quo for agreeing to the restrictions on wages and hours and guarantees of collective bargaining. Support for the NRA began to wane as it became clear to what extent the industry codes allowed the code authorities to replace determination of wages, prices, and output through the market with determination by administrative fiat. Support was also undermined by the mercurial and erratic behavior of Johnson as administrator. Responding to criticism, Roosevelt set up the National Recovery Review Board, chaired by attorney Clarence Darrow, to review the industry codes. Johnson was finally obliged to resign in late September, 1934. He was replaced as the administrative authority by a fiveperson National Industrial Recovery Board (NIRB). The NIRB, particularly under the influence of Leon Henderson, the NRA’s chief economist, attempted to scale back the regulation of smaller industries and to modify the price fixing and output-restricting provisions in existing codes. The original act was set to expire in June, 1935. In February, Roosevelt formally asked for a two-year extension. Privately, however, Roosevelt appeared to have been ready to abandon the NIRA as having done little to help economic recovery. Many in Congress were also skeptical. In the end, congressional consideration of an extension of the NIRA was rendered moot when the Supreme Court ruled in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States (1935) that the NIRA was unconstitutional. The Court was unanimous in ruling that the act was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority to the executive branch A 1934 political cartoon satirizes the proliferation of New Deal legislation. (Library and that the commerce clause of the of Congress) Constitution did not allow the federal cooperation resulted in few codes being drawn up during the early months. In July, Johnson persuaded Roosevelt to agree to a stopgap proposal under which essentially every business in the country would adopt NRA standards on minimum wages and maximum hours immediately. Businesses in compliance with what was called the President’s Reemployment Agreement would be allowed to display a sign featuring the NRA’s Blue Eagle and the motto We Do Our Part. Gradually, NRAadministrators began to hammer out the industry codes. By June, 1934, codes covering 450 industries with twenty-three million workers had been drawn up. The industry codes all included provisions establishing minimum wages and maximum hours and guaranteeing the collective bargaining rights of workers. Employment of children under the age of sixteen was also generally prohibited. Most codes specified minimum prices and otherwise attempted to restrict competition. Examples of restrictions on competition included production quotas, under which individual companies would be assigned a specified share of total industry output, which would itself be limited; restrictions on the installation of new machinery; and restrictions on the hours during which existing machinery could be operated. Supporters of the NIRA in Congress and in the Roose-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 government to control the details of the operations of businesses that had only a slight involvement in interstate commerce.
isting stocks of money and wealth. This resulted in lower levels of consumption than would otherwise have occurred. The lower real value of the money stock also resulted in higher interest rates than would otherwise have existed. These higher interest rates, in turn, retarded borrowing by businesses to finance new machinery and equipment and borrowing by households to finance houses and, to a lesser extent, automobiles, furniture, and other consumer durables. In fact, industrial production had increased, on a seasonally adjusted basis, by more than 50 percent between March and July, 1933, before the NRA began operations. During the operating life of the NRA, industrial production actually declined slightly. Perhaps most damning was the fact that after the Supreme Court ruled in May, 1935, that the NIRA was unconstitutional, industrial production during the rest of 1935 increased by almost 15 percent. Investment spending performed somewhat better during the NRA period. Spending by businesses on new machinery and equipment and new factories and office buildings rose more than 40 percent between the depressed second quarter of 1933 and the second quarter of 1935. This increase, however, still left business investment spending more than 60 percent below its level in 1929 and further still below the level necessary if the economy was to return to full employment. Similarly, spending by consumers on new houses more than doubled during the time of the NRA, but residential construction remained more than 70 percent below its peak level of the late 1920’s. Peter Temin has provided an interesting argument that reinforces the view that the NRA retarded recovery from the Great Depression. Temin notes that there are a number of parallels between the course of the early years of the Depression in the United States and in Germany. After 1933, however, the paths of the two countries diverged economically. Germany experienced very rapid employment gains, whereas employment recovered only slowly in the United States. Temin argues that the recovery in Germany was spurred, in part, by the determination of the Nazis, who came to power in January, 1933, to hold down the growth of wages. In the United States, in contrast, the NRA acted to keep wages far above marketclearing levels. Although there are many striking contrasts between U.S. and German economic policy in the post-1933 period, Temin believes that differences in wage policies are central to understanding the differing pace of employment recovery in the two countries. The NRA effectively precluded the possibility that the large 2665
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Significance Following the Supreme Court decision, the vast apparatus of industrial codes and industrial authorities that had been created under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act was rapidly dismantled. Congress preserved the labor legislation embodied in the NIRA by passing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, popularly known as the Wagner Act), which actually went beyond section 7a of the NIRA in attempting to ensure fair labor practices. The NLRA created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to police labor relations. In the years since the demise of the NIRA, the law’s impact has been debated by economists and historians. Economists have generally viewed the NIRA as having retarded recovery from the Great Depression. Economists have tended to be critical of the industry codes for artificially raising wages and prices and authorizing—in fact, often promoting—output restrictions. Some historians have been kinder to the NIRA, which they are inclined to view favorably in light of the social consequences of the labor law reforms contained in the act. Arthur Schlesinger, for example, although conceding that the NIRA contributed little economically to the recovery, has argued that legislative sanction for maximum hours, minimum wages, and collective bargaining and against child labor would have been difficult to obtain any other way. A careful analysis of the economic impact of the act has been carried out by Michael M. Weinstein, who argues that the codes had a substantial effect on wages and prices. The NIRA’s impact on wages resulted, first, from the enactment of minimum wage regulations that raised the wages of workers who previously had been earning below the minimum and, second, from increases in the wages of those who had been earning more than the minimum in order to restore previous wage differentials. Weinstein estimates that in the absence of the NIRA, average hourly earnings in manufacturing in May, 1935, would have been less than $.35 per hour, rather than almost $.60 per hour. The act resulted in higher prices as a result of its effect on wage costs and its encouragement of collusive behavior and price fixing. Weinstein estimates that in the absence of the NIRA, the price level in May, 1935, would have been more than 20 percent lower than it actually was. Higher prices reduced the purchasing power of the ex-
Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act
Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act numbers of unemployed workers in the United States would be able to find jobs by competing on the basis of wage rates. —Anthony Patrick O’Brien Further Reading Fine, Sidney. The Automobile Under the Blue Eagle: Labor, Management and the Automobile Manufacturing Code. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963. Detailed case study. Emphasizes labor aspects of the NIRA; also deals with Henry Ford’s resistance to the NIRA. Hawley, Ellis W. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. Puts the NRA in a broader context of New Deal concern with economic planning and the revival of antitrust after Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States. Johnson, Hugh S. The Blue Eagle from Egg to Earth. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Doran, 1935. A colorful, opinionated account of the top NRA administrator’s life and the NRA experience, which he regarded as “a holy thing.” Ohl, John Kennedy. Hugh S. Johnson and the New Deal. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985. Lively, objective, scholarly account of Johnson’s life and of the achievements and problems of the NRA. Roos, Charles F. NRA Economic Planning. Bloomington, Ind.: Principia Press, 1937. An economist who worked in the NRA tries to assess its relevance to the issue of economic planning. Long, scholarly, and analytic. Rosenof, Theodore. Economics in the Long Run: New Deal Theorists and Their Legacies, 1933-1993. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Examination of the New Deal and its theorists from the perspective of their impact on later years. Contains an extensive bibliography and index. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Coming of the New Deal. Vol. 2 in The Age of Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. Chapters 6-10 provide a sympathetic
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 treatment of the formulation and administration of the NRA by one of the best-known biographers of Roosevelt. Storrs, Ladon R. Y. Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers’ League, Women’s Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Examination of the interrelationship between New Deal programs and women activists fighting for social justice and consumer rights. Includes the chapter “The Acid Test of the New Deal: The National Recovery Administration, 1933-1935.” Temin, Peter. Lessons from the Great Depression. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Chapter 3 presents Temin’s argument that the high wages resulting from the NRA retarded economic recovery in the United States. Contains references to fairly advanced economic theory, but the basic argument is easily understood. Tugwell, Rexford G. The Industrial Discipline and the Governmental Arts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1933. Contains Tugwell’s rationale for the sort of system embodied in the NRA codes. Reveals the extent to which confidence in the free market system had declined by 1933. Weinstein, Michael M. “Some Macroeconomic Impacts of the National Industrial Recovery Act.” In The Great Depression Revisited, edited by Karl Brunner. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. A brief analysis of the economic impact of the NIRA. Relatively nontechnical, but some knowledge of elementary economics is presumed. See also: Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; May 27, 1935: Black Monday; July 5, 1935: Wagner Act; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act; June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
First Major League Baseball All-Star Game
July 6, 1933
First Major League Baseball All-Star Game The template for all-star games in every sport was set when stars from baseball’s American and National Leagues met in baseball’s first All-Star Game. The game’s popularity immediately made it one of the premier events in sports. Locale: Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois Category: Sports
Summary of Event On Thursday, July 6, 1933, more than forty-nine thousand enthusiastic spectators jammed into Chicago’s Comiskey Park to watch top players from both the American and National Leagues compete in the first ever AllStar Game. The American League emerged victorious, 4-2. Arch Ward, sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, had conceived of the game as the once-in-a-lifetime battle between baseball’s best players. A native of Illinois’s Kankakee County, Ward had been publicity director for legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and sports editor of the Rockford Star before coming to the Tribune in 1925. In 1933, Depression-ridden Chicago was playing host to the World’s Fair, the theme of which was “Century of Progress.” Scholars disagree about the nature of Ward’s involvement in the fair: Some say that fair officials asked local sports editors to help them develop a grand sporting event to focus attention on the city, while others argue
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Key Figures Arch Ward (1896-1955), sports editor for the Chicago Tribune, 1930-1955 Will Harridge (1883-1971), president of the American League, 1931-1958 John Heydler (1869-1956), president of the National League, 1918-1934 Bertie McCormick (1880-1955), publisher of the Chicago Tribune Babe Ruth (1895-1948), star outfielder for the New York Yankees, 1920-1934 Lefty Gomez (1908-1989), American League pitcher, 1930-1943 Bill Hallahan (1902-1981), National League pitcher, 1925-1938 William L. Veeck (1878-1933), president of the Chicago Cubs, 1919-1933 Sam Breadon (1876-1949), owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, 1920-1947
that Chicago mayor Ed Kelly asked Tribune publisher Bertie McCormick to help develop a major sporting event. Either way, Ward was soon involved in the process. Ward, who considered himself more of an idea man and promoter than a writer, proposed an exhibition baseball game between the best players from the American and National Leagues. The game’s profits would go to the Association of Professional Baseball Players of America, and fans from all over the United States would select the teams’ players. McCormick had doubts about whether the game would be popular, but he agreed to underwrite its costs. The office of the American League’s president, Will Harridge, was located in Chicago at the time, and on April 20, 1933, Ward walked over to see him. A negative reaction from Harridge would have almost certainly prevented the game from taking place, but Harridge enthusiastically embraced the idea. William E. Veeck, president of the National League’s Chicago Cubs, was equally supportive. Others were not, however: Three National League teams—the New York Giants, the Boston Braves, and the St. Louis Cardinals—vetoed the idea. The Giants and Braves pointed out that they were scheduled for a doubleheader in Boston on July 5, and that it was impossible for players from these two teams to get to Chicago in time for the game. Fortunately for Ward, John Heydler, the president of the National League, supported the idea of the All-Star Game, and he agreed to postpone the doubleheader. Sam Breadon, owner of the Cardinals, had other concerns: He was afraid that the game would set a precedent and that future contests would be forced to give the proceeds to charity. Breadon only agreed to the game after Ward pointed out that the game would bring financial benefits to its host city. To help tabulate the ballots produced by fan voting, Ward asked fifty-five sportswriters from various cities for help. The Tribune’s editors did not think that other newspapers would collaborate, but all fifty-five accepted. The fans’ choices included Chicago White Sox outfielder “Bucketfoot” Al Simmons, who was tied for the American League’s batting lead with a .368 average. Simmons polled more ballots (346,291) than any other player and was followed by Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Chuck Klein, whose banner season earned 342,283 votes, the highest number in the National League. Other outstanding players selected included New York Yankee first
First Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
All-Star Game Winners, 1933-1955 Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game remained a popular event throughout the twentieth century. Listed below are the winners, the final scores, and the game locations for the All-Star Games played from 1933 through 1955. Year
Winning League
Score
Venue
1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955
American American American National American National American National American American American National Not held American American American American National National National National American National
4-2 9-7 4-1 4-3 8-3 4-1 3-1 4-0 7-5 3-1 5-3 7-1
Comiskey Park (home of the Chicago White Sox) Polo Grounds (home of the New York Giants) Municipal Stadium (home of the Cleveland Indians) Braves Field (home of the Boston Braves) Griffith Stadium (home of the Washington Senators) Crosley Field (home of the Cincinnati Reds) Yankee Stadium (home of the New York Yankees) Sportsman’s Park (home of the St. Louis Cardinals) Briggs Stadium (home of the Detroit Tigers) Polo Grounds (home of the New York Giants) Shibe Park (home of the Philadelphia Athletics) Forbes Field (home of the Pittsburgh Pirates)
12-0 2-1 5-2 11-7 4-3 8-3 3-2 5-1 11-9 6-5
Fenway Park (home of the Boston Red Sox) Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs) Sportsman’s Park (home of the St. Louis Browns) Ebbets Field (home of the Brooklyn Dodgers) Comiskey Park (home of the Chicago White Sox) Briggs Stadium (home of the Detroit Tigers) Shibe Park (home of the Philadelphia Phillies) Crosley Field (home of the Cincinnati Reds) Municipal Stadium (home of the Cleveland Indians) County Stadium (home of the Milwaukee Braves)
baseman Lou Gehrig, New York Giants players Bill Terry and Carl Hubbell, and Detroit Tiger second baseman Charlie Gehringer. Fans also elected the thirtyeight-year-old Babe Ruth, the oldest player on the field, even though he was heavier, slower, and clearly nearing the end of his legendary career as a right fielder in the American League. Ward chose the game’s managers. For the National League he selected famed New York Giants skipper John McGraw, who had retired the previous year but returned for this game. The Philadelphia A’s Connie Mack, nicknamed the “Tall Tactician,” was tapped to lead the American League. To ensure fairness, the leagues agreed to use the American League’s ball, which was considered livelier, for the first four and one-half innings. The less lively National League ball would then be used to finish the contest. The game’s starting pitchers were Lefty Gomez (for the American League) and Bill Hallahan (for the National League). 2668
Some had feared that the game would not attract fans, but Chicago’s Comiskey Park was filled to capacity on July 6; even the 2,250 bleacher seats that had been added a few days before were filled. The game got under way at 1:15 p.m. Because Comiskey Park was the home of the American League’s Chicago White Sox, the American League was considered the home team, and so the National League batted first. Gomez retired St. Louis Cardinal third baseman Pepper Martin, the first batter, on a ground ball. With the help of Hallahan’s characteristic wildness, the American League scored the first run in the second inning. Two walks put runners on first and second base, and pitcher Gomez—usually a feeble hitter— plated the first run with a single. Babe Ruth came to bat in the third inning. With Gehringer on first base, Ruth belted a home run into the right-field seats, and the delighted crowd roared as “the Babe” rounded the bases. The first home run in All-Star history gave the American League a seemingly insur-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The first baseball All-Star Game cemented the idea of a showcase exhibition contest among a sport’s most prominent players. Most other sports—including football, basketball, and hockey—eventually followed suit, although both the complexity of scheduling such a game and the threat of injury remained controversial issues. However, sports fans continued to show support for such a contest, and the leagues used the games as venues for promoting their best athletes. Some players saw the
games as barometers of their skill and popularity, particularly as free agents became more common; players could use their success in an All-Star Game as a tool in contract negotiations. — Russell Roberts Further Reading The Baseball Chronicle: Year-by-Year History of Major League Baseball. Lincolnwood, Ill.: Publications International, 2003. Illustrated history covers Major League Baseball from the nineteenth century through 2002. Includes tidbits about players who appeared in All-Star Games. The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Major League Baseball. 10th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1996. An encyclopedic reference of baseball player records, nicknames, and firstperson accounts, and highlights of All-Star Games through 1992. Olson, Drew. “Ward’s Simple Idea a Classic Success: All-Star Game a Big Hit from the Start.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 19, 2002. Vincent, David, Lyle Spatz, and David W. Smith. The Midsummer Classic. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Exhaustively researched accounts of every baseball All-Star Game from the first in 1933 to 2000. Includes play-by-play accounts by inning of the games, plus player rosters, career statistics for all players, and career and game statistical rankings. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; Oct. 113, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth; Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association; June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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mountable three-run lead. Gomez blanked the National League’s players for the first three innings, and the Washington Senators’s star hurler Alvin Crowder did the same in the fourth and fifth innings. In the sixth inning, however, the National League showed signs of life. Chicago Cubs pitcher Lon Warneke got a triple on a fly ball down the right-field line that a younger and quicker Ruth might have held to a single. Warneke scored and was followed by Frankie “Fordham Flash” Frisch, who hit the National League’s first home run by smacking a shot into the rightfield seats. The American League’s lead narrowed to 3-2. In the bottom of the sixth inning, the American League scored another run. The New York Giants’ masterful screwball pitcher Carl Hubbell completely dominated during the seventh and eighth innings, although the National League came close to tying the game in the top of the eighth when Cincinnati Reds outfielder Chick Hafey hit a long fly ball to right field with a runner on first. Ruth caught the ball with his back to the wall, although in a smaller ballpark Hafey’s ball would almost certainly have been a home run. The ninth inning was a quiet one, and the game ended with a 4-2 victory for the American League and more than forty-six thousand dollars raised for the Association of Professional Baseball Players of America. The game’s popularity led Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to declare the game an annual event.
First Major League Baseball All-Star Game
Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 2, 1933
Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal By using prisoner labor, Soviet political police built the White Sea-Baltic Canal in less than two years. The canal’s rapid construction came at the cost of at least twenty-five thousand lives. Locale: Karelia, Russia Categories: Engineering; government and politics; transportation Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party in Russia and dictator in the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda (1891-1938), deputy head of the Soviet political police Maxim Gorky (Alexsey Maksimovich Peshkov; 18681936), Russian writer Matvei Davidovich Berman (1898-1939), head of the Gulag Lazar Iosifovich Kogan (1899-1939), head of the White Sea-Baltic Canal construction project Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel (1883-1960), deputy head of the White Sea-Baltic Canal construction project Summary of Event On August 2, 1933, the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union issued a decree proclaiming the opening of a canal connecting the White Sea with the Baltic Sea. The canal, which had been built in just twenty months by tens of thousands of prison-camp inmates working under the direction of the Soviet political police (OGPU), was to be named in honor of Joseph Stalin, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The decree celebrated the new canal as a triumph of Soviet engineering and an enlightened penal administration, and the canal was hailed as a key to the future economic and cultural value of the entire Soviet north. In reality, the decree vastly overstated the economic value of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and concealed the brutality with which it had been constructed. The idea of building a canal across the desolate, thinly populated area known as Karelia first arose in the eighteenth century. Only five hundred miles separated the new city of St. Petersburg (renamed Leningrad in 1924) and Arkhangel’sk, Russia’s principal port on the White Sea, but there was no direct water route between the two cities. Ships had to sail around Scandinavia using the 2670
Arctic Ocean, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea, a distance of more than 3,500 miles. Czarist-era governments, however, repeatedly concluded that the estimated expenses of building a canal far outweighed any foreseeable economic or strategic benefits. Stalin was determined to prove that the Soviet Union’s communist system could succeed where its prerevolutionary, capitalist predecessors had failed. He believed that the answer to the problem of cost was to use political prisoners and ordinary criminals as unpaid laborers. Many of the OGPU’s concentration camps were located in Karelia and on the Solovetskiye Ostrova (the Solovetski Islands) in the White Sea. Since the mid 1920’s, Solovetski prisoners had been working in an OGPU logging enterprise operated by Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel, a former inmate who had been recruited into the Solovetsky prison-camp administration. At Stalin’s insistence, the OGPU was commissioned to build the White Sea-Baltic Canal in just twenty months. The organization lacked modern construction equipment, and their labor consisted of tens of thousands of prisoners instead of skilled workers. OGPU deputy chairman Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda had overall responsibility for the project. In late 1930 or early 1931, the OGPU created the chief administration of camps (Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei in Russian, or Gulag for short) to coordinate the supply of labor for this and the other largescale projects that it would eventually undertake. Survey work on the canal route began in February, 1931, and actual digging began in September. The proposed route would make use of Leningrad’s Neva River and two deep lakes, Ladoga and Onega, but 141 miles would still need to be excavated between the two lakes and between Lake Onega and the White Sea. Plans called for the construction of nineteen locks, but Stalin’s timetable and the lack of up-to-date equipment and materials obliged the project’s administrators to resort to cutting corners wherever possible. The locks and dikes were constructed out of logs, rocks, and earth rather than metal and cement. Moreover, canal engineers decided to excavate the canal to a depth of only twelve to fifteen feet, which would be much too shallow for most oceangoing vessels and would undermine the reasons for building the canal in the first place. According to documents found in Soviet archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union, about 170,000 prisoners worked on building the canal. They were forced to work
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year round in a harsh environment White Sea-Baltic Canal close to the Arctic Circle, and they had to fulfill high work quotas using primitive, homemade tools. Prisoners White Sea had to build their own barracks. It is difficult to determine how many of Arkhangel’sk them died building the White Sear Baltic Canal, but the memoirs of surna the vivors indicate that the death rate was Ri rn ve r high. Fragmentary archival evidence Lake Vygozero suggests that more than twenty-five thousand people perished; the actual number was probably much higher. Lake On May 1, 1933, Yagoda notified Onega Petrozavodsk Stalin that construction of the canal had been completed on schedule, and r ve Stalin himself sailed through the caRi Lake Leningrad Ladoga nal in late July on an inspection tour. (St. Petersburg) The Soviet government bestowed its highest award, the Order of Lenin, Helsinki Neva land on eight of the men who had overFi n f seen the project, including Yagoda; o lf u Matvei Davidovich Berman, head of Tallinn Baltic G Lake the Gulag; Lazar Iosifovich Kogan, Est Peipus on Sea v who had headed the construction projia o ect; and Frenkel, who had taken over S daily operations in November, 1931. On August 17, a group of 120 Soviet writers, led by Maxim Gorky, sailed through the canal. In February of 1934, thirty-six of them published projects located in remote and inhospitable regions of the an official history, edited by Gorky, of the building of the Soviet Union up to Stalin’s death in 1953. White Sea-Baltic Canal. This volume praised not only the The completed White Sea-Baltic Canal typified the project’s managers for their achievement but also preachievements and shortcomings of Stalinist methods for sented the project as a successful penal experiment in retransforming Russia into a modern industrial country. It habilitating enemies of socialism and ordinary criminals, was a remarkable achievement given the primitive techand it concealed the degree to which human suffering and nology employed in its construction, but its usefulness death had occurred. By the end of the 1930’s, Yagoda, was limited. Stalin, Yagoda, and the police officials who Berman, and Kogan—though not Frenkel—had all been oversaw the project were completely indifferent to its huexecuted in Stalin’s purges. All copies of the official hisman costs. It was built more for prestige and propaganda tory were withdrawn from public libraries and destroyed. and to prove Stalin’s belief in the efficacy of slave labor than as part of a carefully developed plan. Significance —Richard D. King The construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal was the first major industrial project undertaken by the Soviet Further Reading political police. Its organizers pioneered the use of Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History. New York: forced labor by massive numbers of Gulag prisoners as a Doubleday, 2003. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for hissubstitute for scarce financial resources, advanced techtory; argues that Stalin considered slave labor to be innology, and skilled labor. Their example would be foldispensable to Soviet industrialization. lowed in subsequent mammoth construction and mining
Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians Baron, Nick. “Conflict and Complicity: The Expansion of the Karelain Gulag, 1923-1933.” Cahiers du monde russe 42 (April-December, 2001): 615-48. Using local archives, this article provides estimates of the number of inmates who were employed and who died on the building of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Gorky, Maxim, L. Auerbach, and S. G. Firin, eds. Belomor: An Account of the Construction of the New Canal Between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea. Edited and translated by Amabel Williams-Ellis. 1935. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1977. An abridged and greatly altered English translation of the Russian, which was an official history prepared by a team of thirty-six writers headed by Maxim Gorky. Khlevniuk, Oleg V. The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror. Translated by Vadim A. Staklo. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Argues that the vast expansion of the Gulag and the Great Terror were planned by the Stalinist leadership and that the need for labor with special skills influenced the pattern of arrests. Service, Robert. Stalin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. An assessment of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Stalin’s life and rule that emphasizes the complexity of his character and his fascination with ideas. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation. Translated by Thomas P. Whitney. 4 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Second volume of Solzhenitsyn’s trilogy contains a sarcastic critique of the official history edited by Gorky. Utilizes recollections from surviving inmates. Tolczyk, Dariusz. See No Evil: Literary Cover-ups and Discoveries of the Soviet Camp Experience. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Critiques representations of Soviet concentration camps in official Soviet literature, including the official history of the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. See also: 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature; May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow; Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning; Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials; Nov. 30, 1939Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War; Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War.
August 11-13, 1933
Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians A long history of tense Iraqi nationalism climaxed when the members of an Assyro-Chaldean Christian community were slaughtered and their homes were looted and burned by Iraqi troops and mostly Kurdish and Arab tribesmen. Also known as: Simmele Massacre Locale: Simmele, Mosul, Iraq Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Bakr Sidqi (1885-1937), prominent Iraqi officer of Kurdish origin commanding the northern Iraq district where the Assyrians had settled Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII (1908-1975), patriarch of the Nestorian Christian Assyrian community during the Simmele Massacre Summary of Event After the Assyrians sided with the British and against their Turkish overlords in World War I, the British forces 2672
(the dominant power in Iraq between 1920 and 1932) had several thousand Assyrians resettled as refugees from the Hakkâri Mountains in Anatolia, which had been part of the Ottoman Empire. The Assyrians had been in the Ottoman Empire for centuries, and they had enjoyed a special status as a millet (a term essentially equivalent to “nation”). After the empire’s dissolution at the end of World War I, the Assyrians became a homeless minority, and they were eventually resettled by their British patrons in several villages near the northern Iraqi town of Mosul. These villages included Dahuk, Zakhu, and Simmele. However, the Assyrian Christian refugees, who had arbitrarily been planted among the area’s native Muslim Kurds, came to be viewed as British protégés or clients. Indeed, the Assyrian intrusion had been sponsored by the British, and many of the officers among the Britishsponsored Iraq enlistees were Assyrian militiamen doing guard duty at Britain’s two Royal Air Force bases, which Britain retained after Iraq was given formal independence in 1932. These troops had even been used to put down Arab Shiite and Kurdish revolts against the British
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moted to the rank of brigadier general, and he became a national hero. The army was soon engaged in a “pacification” program involving restless minorities. In fact, however, even close witnesses and experts disagreed on who fired the first shot and on the extent of casualties—which ranged from a few hundred to three thousand—and of property damage. Britain did not want to jeopardize its position in the newly independent Iraq, and so after the incident it obtained a generous whitewash for Baghdad at the League of Nations. The League had been briefed by Mar, who had stressed his people’s mistreatment, but Britain’s imperialist desire to secure Iraq’s cooperation proved more important than loyalty to the Assyrians. Significance The Simmele Massacre proved a dismal beginning to Iraq’s independent existence and did not bode well for future relations between Iraq’s Muslim majority and its nonMuslim—mostly Christian and Jewish—minorities. Unfortunately, distrust between the central government in Baghdad and the minorities would continue well into the future. The Assyrians’ connection with the British made them particularly vulnerable as both anti-imperialist and nationalist sentiments grew among Iraqis. The Assyrian National Pact of 1932 (created under Mar’s leadership) had defined the Assyrian minority as a separate nation and culture, but the Iraqi government came to consider them a threat to national integrity. As a result, Mar was stripped of his Iraqi citizenship and exiled to Cyprus, which at the time was a British colony. He later became a U.S. citizen. Crucially, the slaughter of Assyrian Christians also marked the emergence of the Iraqi army onto the national scene, and the event helped the army claim a larger share of public funds and add recruits to its ranks. By 1936, Sidqi was staging his own coup d’état, although this upheaval would prove to be merely the first in a series of subsequent intrusions by the military into Iraqi political life. In turn, Sidqi’s assassination by ambitious army officers in 1937 was the first of many power struggles within the army. —Peter B. Heller Further Reading Husry, Khaldun S. “The Assyrian Affair of 1933.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5 (1974): 161-176, 344-360. With its something of a nationalist, pro-Iraqi bias, this work contrasts with Stephen Longrigg’s and Ronald Stafford’s pro-Assyrian account of the 1933 event. 2673
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authorities in the 1920’s. However, Iraq’s position on the strategically important route to India and its large oil reserves (which were exploited by the British-controlled Iraq Petroleum Company) meant that the British government had a vested interest in remaining in the country. The twenty-five-year-old Assyrian patriarch Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII was obstinate and not given to compromise, and this further complicated the situation. Indeed, Mar had long been agitating with Iraq’s central government and the League of Nations (of which Iraq had become a member when it achieved independence) to agree to Assyrian administrative autonomy in a compact national enclave in the northern region. The Assyrians’ wish was motivated by a fear of being overpowered by other ethnic groups after independence and by the relative loosening of British control (and therefore protection of the Assyrians). Their desire, however, was perceived by the Iraqi government and many of its citizens as an uninvited intrusion into Iraqi sovereignty and an attempt to prevent national unity. The Assyrians became the targets of deep resentment, especially by the Kurds, who saw the Assyrians as intruders in Kurdish territory. On August 4, 1933, a number of violent clashes began to erupt in this tense environment. They were largely confined to conflicts between Assyrian Christians on one hand and Muslim villagers and tribesmen—mostly Kurds—on the other. In the latter part of July, 1933, armed bands of Assyrians had crossed the Tigris River into Syrian territory, where they sought permission to establish a sanctuary. French authorities in Syria would not approve such a settlement, however, and they eventually forced the Assyrians to choose between being disarmed and interned or returning to Iraq. During the Assyrians’ return to northern Iraq, Kurdish forces under the general command of Colonel Bakr Sidqi confronted these armed Assyrian militiamen and tried to disarm them. The most intense clash occurred in Simmele from August 11 through August 13, 1933. Other confrontations occurred in neighboring villages. While the well-armed Iraqi soldiers did most of the killing, the Kurdish tribesmen did most of the arson and the looting of Assyrian property in Simmele and other towns, including Dahuk, Amadiyah, and Shaikhan. Apparently, Sidqi had obtained permission from higher authorities to retaliate with an iron fist, a move supported by much of Iraqi public opinion. Indeed, the Assyrians were represented in the Iraqi press as a threat to Iraq’s national integrity and as pawns in a strategic part of the country. Following the Simmele event, Sidqi was pro-
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Marshall Writes The People’s Forests Longrigg, Sir Stephen. Iraq, 1900-1950. London: Oxford University Press, 1953. A renowned British historian expresses sympathy for the Assyrians’ plight despite what he considers to be the intemperate attitude of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII. Mansoor, Menahem, ed. 1900-1941. Vol. 1 in Political and Diplomatic History of the Arab World, 19001967. 16 vols. Washington, D.C.: NCR/Microcard Editions, 1972-1977. Includes a day-to-day report of the Assyrian disturbances in July and August of 1933. Marr, Phebe. The Modern History of Iraq. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004. Provides cogent analysis of several consequences of the 1933 massacre. Stafford, Ronald S. The Tragedy of the Assyrians. 1935. Reprint. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. A senior British official in Iraq strives to provide an objective account of the Assyrian tragedy of 1933, explaining that the underlying problem was that, after alienating the Turks by mandating their departure from their ancestral homes, the Assyrians were not welcome by any other country. Tarbush, Mohammad A. The Role of the Military in Poli-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tics: A Case Study of Iraq to 1941. London: Kegan Paul, 1982. Awell-documented work that presents the Assyrian massacre as an important stepping-stone for the Iraqi army as it strove to become an important political power center in Iraq. Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Explains the ambivalence of the Assyrians’ position in Iraq given their status as a minority religion, the reputation as uninvited intruders under British protection, and their subservience to the former imperial power as it continued to maintain a military presence in “independent” Iraq. See also: Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East; Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia.
September, 1933
Marshall Writes THE PEOPLE’S FORESTS In The People’s Forests, Robert Marshall advocated the preservation of untouched wilderness areas in the national forests. Locale: United States Categories: Environmental issues; publishing and journalism Key Figures Robert Marshall (1901-1939), American conservationist, bureaucrat, and hiker who fought to preserve wilderness lands within national forests Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), first chief of the U.S. Forest Service Ferdinand A. Silcox (1882-1939), chief of the U.S. Forest Service who supported Marshall’s fight for wilderness preservation Summary of Event In The People’s Forests (1933), Robert Marshall decried the devastation of American forests by private owners and called for increased federal regulation and public ownership of these lands. The book followed Marshall’s 2674
1930 pamphlet The Social Management of American Forests and the U.S. Forest Service’s National Plan for American Forestry (1933), for which Marshall wrote the chapter on recreation (one of the most articulate and widely read treatises on the topic). Marshall’s work as a conservationist and writer ultimately led to the passage of important regulations protecting wilderness areas in the United States, including the Forest Service’s 1939 U-Regulations and the Wilderness Act of 1964. The People’s Forests demonstrated Marshall’s interest in conservation as well as his gift for writing. The book is clear and straightforward, and at times both eccentric and passionate. Marshall began his book by harking back to the Pilgrims’ first encounter with the New World, when half of what is now the continental United States was forest land. He created beautiful images of million-acre stands of tall trees with no unnatural sounds or sights, and he described how the wild animals and the Native Americans benefited from the trees without harming them. In harsh language, he showed how settlers destroyed the land and narrowed the forests for the next three hundred years.
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Finally, there are those whose chief purpose in visiting the forests is simply an escape from civilization. These people want to rest from the endless chain of mechanization and artificiality which bounds their lives. In the forest they temporarily abandon a routine to which they cannot become wholly reconciled, and return to that nature in which hundreds of generations of their ancestors were reared.
Marshall acknowledged that few people would ever take advantage of the chance to spend significant amounts of time in the forest. Still, he believed that their right to do so was important and that a democracy should protect the rights of such minorities. His cause, he said, was important enough that the government should take control of the forests from their owners, either by purchase or by foreclosure. Without this control, there would not be any wilderness left, since the private owners had shown themselves incapable of taking care of their land. If the government operated forest land, Marshall believed, the timber industry could still thrive; with proper management and replanting, the forests could be replenished. In addition, large tracts of land could be set aside for recreational use, with restrictions on cutting, the building of roads, and other intrusions. Marshall proposed several types of recreational forest land that people could enjoy: “superlative areas” such as the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, of such profound beauty that they should be protected and carefully developed for
everyone; “primeval tracts” of at least one thousand acres of virgin timber; “wilderness areas”; “roadside areas”; “campsite areas”; and “residence areas,” which could contain homes, hotels, and resorts. His chief concern was with the wilderness areas, and it was to those areas that he devoted much of his professional and personal life. Marshall defined “wilderness” as an area with no residents, no roads or means for motorized or mechanical travel, no power lines, and no hotels, restaurants, or souvenir stands. The idea was that travelers in the wilderness should be self-sufficient, just as travelers had been for centuries. Simple shelters and trails would be permitted, because they had been available to early travelers. Marshall thought such an area should be large enough for visitors to spend at least a week actively hiking without recrossing their tracks. Since he often hiked twenty or thirty miles a day, wearing common tennis shoes and carrying heavy, old-fashioned equipment, the wilderness areas would need to be sizable. Large virgin forests could no longer be found in the continental United States, although such areas did exist in northern Canada and in Alaska, which was not yet a state. Since Marshall was concerned mainly with getting away from modern conveyances and conveniences, he was willing to accept land that had been logged and retimbered for his wilderness areas. Primeval areas gave him access to primitive plants, while wilderness areas gave him access to primitive transportation. Marshall estimated that it would take 55 million acres of forest land to supply the recreational needs of the nation— approximately 11 percent of the 506 million acres of commercial timber land of the time. He proposed that 20 million acres be set aside as wilderness areas, in tracts ranging from 200,000 acres to a million acres or more. As he said, “This seems like a very conservative area to devote to the purpose of assuring tens of millions of our citizens a fitting environment for the finest moments of their lives.” Significance The publication of The People’s Forests came at a time when American forests seemed to be in real danger of disappearing. Although national “forest reserves” had been established as early as 1871 and Yosemite had been designated a national park in 1890, federal agencies did not necessarily consider that national lands should be protected from use or even from overuse. Gifford Pinchot saw a need in the early part of the twentieth century for a national agency to regulate federal forest lands, and 2675
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Carefully and thoroughly, Marshall explained the state of the forests and the timber industry as it existed in the 1930’s. With statistics and tables, he showed how much lumber was produced over the years from 1809 to 1932, how the lumber was used, and how many acres of forest had disappeared. He persuasively argued that the nation’s forests had been dealt great harm under the private ownership of timber companies. (Modern readers who study the statistics will find interesting gems: For example, the third-highest volume of wood used in the 1930’s was for railroad ties, and the sixth-greatest use was for barrel staves. The automobile industry was also a great consumer of wood.) Marshall conceded the importance of forests as a source of raw material but asserted they also were important for soil and water conservation and for recreation. Recreation, however, was Marshall’s chief concern. He believed that walking through the woods was important to human happiness, and that this preservation became more important as the world became more mechanized:
Marshall Writes The People’s Forests
Marshall Writes The People’s Forests he became the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Yet even Pinchot believed that scenic areas should not be preserved if a “better”—that is, more utilitarian—use could be found for them. National forest lands were being leased to private timber companies and cleared, and there was little interest in acquiring and protecting more acreage. Even more alarming was the rate at which privately owned forest land was being cleared. Private companies were not farsighted, and they cleared their land without adequately replanting. The total area covered by forest was rapidly shrinking, and the land might never recover if more careful reforesting plans were not put into effect. Forest tracts of hundreds of thousands of acres were rapidly disappearing. There were, however, a few men who actively worked for wilderness conservation in the early part of the century and who won a place for conservation in national policy. Some of these men, such as John Muir and Aldo Leopold, were well known during their lifetimes and on to the end of the twentieth century. Marshall was a quieter figure who devoted a short life to public service and to solitary travel. He never achieved great fame, but his work had important and lasting effects. As a bureaucrat and a well-educated conservationist, Marshall wrote government reports and scientific articles outlining his plans for national wilderness areas. With The People’s Forests, he brought his case to the citizens, the common people who would most benefit from his plans. He gave them enough statistical information to understand what was happening to the forests and presented it in a clear, easy-to-read, and passionate style. He urged them to consider the effects of increased mechanization on their lives and to find peace by spending time in the forest. The result was not a great public outcry. There were no public demonstrations, no boycotts, no letter-writing campaigns. Yet the stage was set for Marshall to use the powers of bureaucracy. In 1933, he was director of forestry for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and he encouraged Native Americans to manage the natural resources on reservation lands wisely. He also worked to limit public roads on reservations so that reservation residents would be able to limit their contact with outsiders. In 1935, dissatisfied with the support he received from other bureaucrats, Marshall joined Leopold and others to form the Wilderness Society. Marshall put up part of his own family fortune to support the group’s lobbying and educational efforts. In 1937, Marshall became chief of the new Division of Recreation and Lands in the Forest Service. He was sure his stance on preserving for2676
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ests was right, and he was encouraged by public response to the Wilderness Society and to The People’s Forests. As chief, he worked hard to protect large wilderness areas within national forests and to keep them from being leased to timber companies or overdeveloped. He never forgot that the forests belonged to the people, however; in overseeing recreational developments in the national forests, he tried to make sure that provisions were made for visitors from all income groups. Shortly before his sudden death in 1939, Marshall pushed for the adoption of a new set of Forest Service rules called the U-Regulations. Supported by the chief of the Forest Service, Ferdinand A. Silcox, these regulations established three categories of primitive areas within the national forest: U-1 Wilderness areas of more than 100,000 acres, which could have grazing and emergency access but no roads, timber harvesting, or motorized transportation; U-2 Wild areas of 5,000 to 100,000 acres, managed as wilderness; and U-3 Recreation areas, in which some timber cutting would be permitted away from scenic views. These new rules were stronger than the regulations they replaced and should have protected the people’s forests. Unfortunately, after Marshall died there was no one in the Forest Service to take up his fight; Silcox died during the same year. Soon afterward, World War II demanded the government’s attention, and conservation was largely forgotten. Private groups such as the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club were disappointed as the U-Regulations were poorly enforced during the next two decades. Not until the late 1950’s did the government again show a strong interest in conservation. This renewed call, which echoed the language and arguments Marshall had set down in The People’s Forests, led eventually to the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. —Cynthia A. Bily Further Reading Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. A political scientist’s view of American wilderness policy throughout the nation’s history. According to the author, when the nation was new, government policy was directed toward conquering and exploiting the wilderness; more recent public policy seeks to protect it. How this change has come about, shaped by tension between economic and social needs, is the subject of this rather scholarly work. Fox, Stephen. John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement. Boston: Little, Brown,
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Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. An exploration of the physiological and psychological significance of wilderness, especially for Americans of European descent. The book looks backward to prehistoric humans, treats notions of the wilderness in classical and medieval Europe, and focuses on American efforts to define, explore, and conquer the wilderness up to the end of the twentieth century. Wellman, J. Douglas. Wildland Recreation Policy: An Introduction. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987. Recounts the history of national parks and wilderness areas and analyzes their management. Instead of attempting to cover every regulation and agency, the author focuses on the careers and thoughts of key people, including Robert Marshall. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established; Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature; June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society; 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed.
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1981. An important and insightful biography of the famous naturalist John Muir. This book looks beyond Muir’s life to the 1980’s, providing a history of the conservation movement and its most colorful characters, including Robert Marshall. Frome, Michael. Battle for the Wilderness. New York: Praeger, 1974. Part 1 traces the importance of the wilderness to American artists and authors, including Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Robert Marshall. Part 2 gives the history of the American conservation movement and calls on the reader to support conservation philosophy and policy. _______. The Forest Service. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984. Frome, a journalist, has more than twenty-five years of experience with the Forest Service and its leaders. He formed clear opinions about the agency’s strengths and weaknesses through this contact and through extensive research into the earlier history of the agency, and he gives a balanced view of them in this book. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. A seminal work on the early history of conservation. Argues that the movement began as a search for greater efficiency in resource management, not as a democratic crusade against supposed business rapacity. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species.
Marshall Writes The People’s Forests
Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 8, 1933
Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam The Grand Coulee Dam was designed to pump water from the Columbia River, convey it more than one hundred miles to the south, and use the water to irrigate more than one million acres of arid land while simultaneously generating electricity. Locale: Eastern Washington State Categories: Engineering; environmental issues; natural resources; energy Key Figures James O’Sullivan (1876-1949), teacher, lawyer, selftaught engineer, and tireless proponent of the Grand Coulee Dam Rufus Woods (1878-1950), editor and publisher of several newspapers and an enthusiastic advocate of the dam Summary of Event The biggest, most powerful hydroelectric dam in North America was built as an irrigation project. Its construction marked the end of a battle of conflicting interests that had waxed and waned over thirty years. Originally, the plan had been to use the channel—the Grand Coulee—cut by the Columbia River during the Ice Age to distribute some of its waters to the arid land of southeastern Washington. (Steep, dry gulches in the American West are often called “arroyos” in areas historically influenced by the Spanish; in more French-influenced regions, such gulches are often referred to as “coulees.”) This particular dry gulch, among the largest known, was a very straight valley that extended fifty miles to the south and was one thousand feet deep and two miles wide. The Grand Coulee, however, was six hundred feet above the floor of the Columbia River. Clearly, the river had cut a channel far above its present course. Glacial forces had deposited a huge pile of ice and debris to form a natural dam where the Grand Coulee Dam was constructed, and this natural dam—which was much larger than the present dam—impounded a lake that stretched into Canada. Initially, the pile of ice and debris was higher than the bedrock wall at Grand Coulee, so when the lake was full, the glacial Columbia River would overflow through this valley. Its flow eroded the valley floor and produced magnificent waterfalls through the hard basalt. At the same time, rain and snow fell on the ice and debris of the dam. Although this precipitation had much less erosive power than did the Co2678
lumbia River, it was only working on ice and unconsolidated soils, and it was eventually able to erode the dam to the level of the lake. When the dam failed, all the water stored behind it rushed through, causing a catastrophic flood. The Grand Coulee was left high and dry by the river, which now could return to its earlier course. Thousands of years later, in 1918, engineers proposed the return of some of the Columbia River’s water to the abandoned channel. The goal was to irrigate the Columbia basin, an area of nearly one million acres that had been inhabited, cleared, and farmed by homesteaders who settled there in the 1890’s. Mountains to the west of the basin caused the moist air coming in from the Pacific Ocean to rise and cool, wringing out its moisture on the western slopes and creating a rain shadow to the east where these settlers were trying to eke out a living. As farmers began to understand that the average natural precipitation would not be adequate for agriculture, they either left the region or tried to develop irrigation. If this situation had occurred in a modern, environmentally aware society, relocation subsidies for the residents of the basin might have been provided. The Columbia basin itself might have been seen as a vast wilderness area, and adequate funding might have restored it to its original pristine condition. Wilderness, however, was not seen as valuable at that time. Instead, growth and development were paramount. The U.S. Reclamation Service had been formed in 1902 in order to convert much of the arid and semiarid land of the American West into productive acreage. Water for irrigation was generally sought at elevations that were higher than the land to be irrigated, and aqueducts, tunnels, and canals were used to transport and distribute the water. Such plans for the Columbia basin generally had the Pend Oreille Lake or Pend Oreille River, a tributary of the Columbia River in Idaho, as their water source. The idea of letting power from a dam pump water up to a natural distribution channel was new and widely derided. Much of the opposition to the dam, and support for the gravity plan, came from private electric-power companies in Washington. These companies knew how much power could be generated from this river, and they were not eager to have competition from an irrigation project. Furthermore, excess water from the gravity system would have ended up in the Columbia River, where it could supply additional generating capacity for the pri-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam
vate power companies during the winter, when flow was diminished. Other opposition came from the East, where people still considered Washington State to be wilderness area with little need for electricity. Many people were concerned that government ownership of power production was a step toward socialism, and some argued that the federal government should not get involved in local politics. James O’Sullivan, a lawyer and schoolteacher, and Rufus Woods, the editor and publisher of the Wenatchee World, led the fight for the high dam for thirty years. In the end, they triumphed, and construction began. As World War II developed, it became clear that the need for greater generating capacity was of much greater strategic importance than additional agricultural acreage, and so resources were allocated to the dam and its power generators and were withheld from the irrigation part of the project. The dam began producing electricity in 1941,
but it would be another eleven years before it began to irrigate the Columbia basin. Significance The Grand Coulee Dam is 4,173 feet long and 500 feet thick at its base, and it stands 550 feet above bedrock. It contains 10,230,776 cubic yards of concrete and weighs twenty-two million tons. It impounds the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake, which stretches 150 miles from the Grand Coulee to Canada. At the time construction began it was the largest dam in the world, and it has remained the largest concrete structure in the United States. More than any other dam, the Grand Coulee Dam symbolized man’s attempt to subordinate nature. Often called the “eighth wonder of the world,” the dam drew huge crowds of tourists who marveled at its engineering, and Woody Guthrie wrote a folk song about it. Power generated by the dam was used to create aluminum used 1933
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Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam in aircraft in World War II and permitted the expansion of industry into the American Northwest. Many saw the dam as the key to progress and prosperity, and soon dams were being built all over the country. Thirteen were built on the Columbia River alone. The original Grand Coulee Dam could generate about 2,000 megawatts of electricity. Additional power-generation capability was subsequently added, so that by 1991 it had a rated capacity of 9,070 megawatts and a planned capacity of 10,830 megawatts. It housed one of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world. Other large dams include the Guri Dam in Venezuela, which has a rated and planned capacity of 10,300 megawatts, and the Itaipu Dam in Brazil and Paraguay, which has a rated capacity of 7,400 megawatts and a planned capacity of 13,320 megawatts. If the dam operates nonstop for one year, it produces about 80 billion kilowatt-hours, or about 0.25 quads (quadrillion BTU) of power. In 1990, all 112 nuclear power plants operating in the United States together produced 577 billion kilowatt-hours of power. Roughly speaking, then, the Grand Coulee Dam could generate as much electricity as 15 nuclear reactors. It would take 30 million tons of coal, or 20 million tons of oil, to produce this much energy each year, and burning this much oil would add 6.25 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide every year. The dam’s most direct cost was the loss of a wild and scenic stretch of the Columbia River. Had the Grand Coulee Dam been the last dam created on the Columbia, the loss of this stretch might have been less significant, but the Grand Coulee Dam’s success encouraged the construction of other dams. In the United States alone, some 75,000 dams have been constructed, each of which wiped out a stretch of wild river. Unfortunately, often the most scenic, beautiful spots are those most desirable for dam construction. As the supply of wild and scenic rivers diminished, the value of those remaining increased. By some estimates, only 9 percent of river miles in the lower forty-eight states remain undeveloped. The irrigation of the Columbia basin also had significant impact. Historically, the dry climate and basalt flows made water too scarce for many plants to grow. However, the soil in this region is very fertile, and the arid climate permits an exceptional growing season, with many clear, sunny days. Once the Grand Coulee Dam delivered water, orchards and fields in the half million acres irrigated by the dam became some of the most productive in the country. Such agricultural accomplishments came at a cost, however. Orchards and hop yards 2680
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 in the East suffered with the new competition. Furthermore, the long-term effects of irrigation on the environment in the Columbia basin are not yet known: Evaporation from the huge lake and the diversion of six billion gallons of water per day during the growing season may be causing subtle changes in the Columbia River. —Otto H. Muller Further Reading Borah, Leo A. “From Sagebrush to Roses on the Columbia.” National Geographic 102 (November, 1952): 571-611. Written shortly after the arrival of the first irrigation waters from the Grand Coulee Dam, this article celebrates the transformation of “desolate and useless” land into fertile farms. The bias is strongly in favor of development, as environmental concerns were uncommon in the early 1950’s. Boyer, David S. “Powerhouse of the Northwest.” National Geographic 146 (December, 1974): 820-847. This beautifully illustrated article about life along the Columbia River gives a picture of the costs and benefits of the dams and the changes they have produced. Includes several personal viewpoints that tend to point out the human and environmental costs. It is written with a bias in favor of environmentalism and against development. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species. Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Moss, Frank E. The Water Crisis. New York: Praeger, 1967. A good general background to water resource development throughout the country. Written from the perspective of a U.S. senator who was very active in water legislation, it begins by deploring the squandering of many of the nation’s resources, and argues that if proper planning had occurred, much larger dams could have been constructed, and there would have been less waste. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness, beginning with the earliest days of European contact. Includes bibliography and index. Sundborg, George. Hail Columbia. New York: Macmillan, 1954. This thorough book develops the story
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the Grand Coulee Dam as it follows the life of James O’Sullivan, who is probably the individual most responsible for its creation. Tiny details, such as the age and type of car he drove, add color to an elaborate account of this man’s commitment to the idea of a high dam on the Columbia. Permits the reader to appreciate the glacial pace at which support for the dam actually progressed. U.S. Department of the Interior. The Columbia River. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1947. This comprehensive report details the development of the water resources of the Columbia River.
Lewis Convenes the Inklings The weather, soil, and wildlife in each of the seven subdivisions of the drainage basin are described, and the past, present, and future development activity is outlined. Prospective sites for power dams are listed. Seven large maps, dozens of page-sized maps, and illustrations. See also: June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams; Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed.
Fall, 1933-October 20, 1949
Lewis Convenes the Inklings
Locale: Oxford, England Category: Literature Key Figures C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), author and professor of English at Oxford and Cambridge Universities J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), author and professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University Charles Williams (1886-1945), author, editor at Oxford University Press, and lecturer in English at Oxford University Warren Lewis (1895-1973), author, army major, and brother of C. S. Lewis Owen Barfield (1898-1997), author, anthroposophist, and solicitor Hugo Dyson (1896-1975), professor of English at Reading and Oxford Universities Christopher Tolkien (b. 1924), son of J. R. R. Tolkien and editor of his father’s voluminous papers Summary of Event In hindsight, the formation of the Inklings seems almost predestined, for such groups were common in the Oxbridge (a synthesis of “Oxford” and “Cambridge” connoting British academic circles) life of the time, and
both of the founding members, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, had belonged to similar groups. At University College, Oxford, were the Martlets, an informal literary society at which Lewis read papers, and during the 1920’s Lewis attended meetings of philosophy dons (instructors) called the Wee Teas. At King Edward’s School in Birmingham, Tolkien belonged to a small group of informal friends who called themselves the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, and this group had a meeting that Tolkien called the Council of London. Tolkien and Lewis first became acquainted during Tolkien’s attempts to reform the English syllabus at Oxford as a member of a group called the Cave or the Junto. Lewis eventually joined Tolkien’s cause, and the two soon got into the habit of meeting every Monday morning for an hour or so over beer. Lewis had earlier instituted what he called evenings of “Beer and Beowulf ” for his pupils. This later metamorphosed into the Coalbiters, a group of dons who read old Norse sagas under the direction of Tolkien and others. So, when like-minded friends took the name “Inklings” from a group that an undergraduate, Edward Tangye Lean, had formed and began meeting in Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College on Thursday nights, they were taking another step in the evolution of such groups. Lewis loved to hear, read, and comment on his friends’ work, and he loved to get feedback on his own work. Owen Barfield, whom Lewis met as an undergraduate, had read and commented on Lewis’s Dymer (1926), a book of poetry. In 1929, Tolkien had offered his poem about Beren and Luthien to Lewis, who responded with a mock-critical analysis, and just before the Inklings began 2681
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C. S. Lewis united a group of Oxford professors and friends who came to call themselves the Inklings. The group met once a week to read from new works and discuss topics of interest. Some of the most famous works of modern fantasy, particularly The Lord of the Rings (1955), might never have emerged without these meetings.
Lewis Convenes the Inklings meeting, Lewis read an early version of Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937). From the beginning, then, the Inklings shared scholarly and imaginative works with sympathetic friends. Lewis and Tolkien had similar tastes in literature, but Lewis had read far more widely in postmedieval literature. Little is known about the Inklings’ early meetings or their subsequent weekly meetings at the Oxford pub the Eagle and the Child (affectionately called the Bird and the Baby), because after Lewis’s brother Warren returned home from China, Lewis stopped corresponding with him, and Warren did not keep a diary covering those years. However, when Warren Lewis returned to the army at the beginning of World War II, C. S. Lewis began writing to him again, and these letters, along with Warren’s resumed diary, provide the best evidence about the Inklings’ meetings. The Lewis brothers and Tolkien formed the group’s cornerstones. Owen Barfield and Hugo Dyson also became famous members, but their attendance was sporadic until Dyson was hired at Oxford in 1945. Less famous members of the group included Dr. Robert “Humphrey” Havard, physician to the Lewises and the Tolkien family; Adam Fox, dean of divinity and professor of poetry at Oxford; Lord David Cecil, critic and Oxford English don; and Neville Coghill, Oxford English don. Later additions included author John Wain, a pupil of Lewis, and Tolkien’s son Christopher joined after he returned from World War II. By far the most important addition, however, was Charles Williams, whose novel The Place of the Lion (1931) earned Lewis’s immediate admiration. Williams was a regular member of the Inklings from 1939 (when his employer, Oxford University Press, had to move to Oxford from London because of the war) until his death in 1945. Other members came and went; the chief requirement for permanent membership was C. S. Lewis’s approval. Admirers of these authors’ literary works might wish to have attended one of these sessions, when Tolkien read from the “new Hobbit” (as they called The Lord of the Rings) or when Lewis read from Perelandra (1943), which Tolkien admired immensely. However, friction certainly existed among group members. Williams was the first major figure to come between Tolkien and Lewis, and while Lewis was a Williams fan, Tolkien was not. Dyson disliked hobbits, and he once vetoed a proposed reading from The Lord of the Rings. (He also threatened to leave the group if any more Roman Catholics were admitted.) 2682
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The Inklings lost much of their momentum when Williams died, and by the late 1940’s the group was largely sustained by the prospect of another ham supper (one of Lewis’s fans in the United States sent food parcels to England, where strict rationing was still in effect in the postwar period). The Thursday meetings petered out in late 1949, but reading of The Lord of the Rings had ceased by 1947, and none of Lewis’s Narnia stories (published as Chronicles of Narnia from 1950 through 1956) were read to the group. The last ham supper was held on October 20, 1949. Significance When the works of the main Inkling authors began to grow immensely popular and reminiscences about the group became more widely known, researchers quickly undertook studies that tried to gauge the group’s influence on the works. Most of these studies were dismissed by those who knew the group best, however. Upon reading one such study by Charles Moorman in 1967, Warren Lewis wrote, “I smiled at the thought of Tollers [Tolkien] being under the influence of Moorman’s group mind.” Lewis realized that Tolkien, the most obdurate of the group, resisted most attempts to change his subject matter or style. It was C. S. Lewis who was the most open to influence, whether it was by Tolkien’s use of language (many of Tolkien’s invented words turn up in Lewis’s works) or by Williams’s view of the penetration of the supernatural into the real world. Disagreements among group members certainly existed; Tolkien, for example, disliked Lewis’s famous book The Screwtape Letters (1942). Lewis was quite stubborn in his own way, however, and the group’s disapprobation may not have reached him. C. S. Lewis was a bit disingenuous when he claimed the Inklings were “only a circle of Christian friends by a good fire.” Although some of the group’s members produced works that had nothing to do with religion or quasi-allegorical subjects, including Warren Lewis’s excellent books on France at the time of Louis XIV, other examples of Inklings’ works were clearly related. It has been convincingly suggested, for example, that Tolkien’s semiautobiographical allegory “Leaf by Niggle” (1945) was influenced by Williams’s fiction. Whatever the extent of their influence on one another, the Inlings’ encouragement of one another’s work was crucial. C. S. Lewis once wondered whether The Lord of the Rings would be popular outside the warmth of the fire of their little group, but the enthusiastic recep-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion it received from Warren Lewis and Dr. Havard, both intelligent yet unscholarly readers, convinced Lewis that their appreciation would be echoed by millions of other readers. —William Laskowski
Lewis, C. S. Books, Broadcasts, and War, 1931-1949. Vol. 2 in Collected Letters, edited by Walter Hooper. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004. A valuable primary source on Inkling meetings, this edition of Lewis’s letters is by far the most comprehensive and gives much of the flavor of the man. Includes useful notes and biographical appendixes. _______, ed. Essays Presented to Charles Williams. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1947. The most tangible production of the Inklings as Inklings (with one essay by the quasi Inkling Dorothy Sayers). Includes extremely important essays by Lewis and Tolkien on writing stories. Lewis, Warren. Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis. Edited by Clyde Kilby and Marjorie Mead. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982. A valuable primary source, especially about the Inkling meetings during the 1940’s. Warren Lewis is an interesting author in his own right. See also: 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard; Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism; Sept., 1937: Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature; 1938-1950: Golden Age of American Science Fiction.
October 18, 1933
Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Agriculture; government and politics; trade and commerce
Lynn P. Talley (1881-1942), Texas banker, president of the Commodity Credit Corporation from 1933 to 1940 Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965), U.S. secretary of agriculture, 1933-1940 Jesse H. Jones (1874-1956), chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1933-1945 Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), president of the United States, 1945-1953
Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Charles W. Macune (1851-1940), leader whose subtreasury plan foreshadowed the Commodity Credit Corporation Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), president of the United States, 1929-1933
Summary of Event The agricultural sector of the U.S. economy began a decline in the early 1920’s, and the general slump in the economy following the stock market crash in the fall of 1929 aggravated the situation. The crux of the farm problem was overproduction. Crops that exceeded domestic demand pushed prices down to the low levels
Established as a supplement to the crop reduction program of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the Commodity Credit Corporation became the major instrument for implementing government farm price supports.
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Further Reading Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Their Friends. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Volume by a biographer of Tolkien includes not only some valuable insights on the Inklings but also some of the most level-headed consideration of Lewis available in print. Duriez, Colin. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. Mahwah, N.J.: Hidden Spring, 2003. Presents often pedestrian and partisan analysis (Lewis did have a major problem with women), but benefits from the use of a great deal of new material on Tolkien and Lewis. Duriez, Colin, and David Porter. The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought, and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends. St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2001. Handy compendium of data, although the arguments presented are sometimes rather obvious. Somewhat misleading at times; for example, Warren Lewis’s alcoholism is mentioned, but not in the essay on him.
Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation
Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation prevailing in world markets. The solution adopted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and incorporated in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 was the Voluntary Domestic Allotment Plan. The idea was to reduce production so that prices would rise to parity, a level at which each commodity would have the same purchasing power as it had during the period from 1909 to 1914. The mechanism for achieving that goal was to pay farmers who agreed to limit the number of acres they cultivated. The program covered seven basic commodities: wheat, cotton, corn, hogs, rice, tobacco, and milk. Later additions to the list included rye, flax, barley, grain sorghum, cattle, sheep, peanuts, sugar beets, sugar cane, and potatoes. Farmers had long complained about short-term fluctuations in prices. Most farmers had to sell their crops at or soon after harvest, when prices were artificially depressed by the influx into the market. At the same time, the Roosevelt administration was under heavy pressure to do something to give an immediate boost to agricultural prices and put cash into farmers’ hands. In response, Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6340 of October 18, 1933, established the Commodity Credit Corporation. The agency had $3 million that could be used to make lowinterest loans available to farmers so that they could hold their crops off the market. The loans, however, were to be limited to those who signed the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) acreage limitation contracts. These were nonrecourse loans, meaning that if the market price rose above the loan level, the grower could repay the loan and sell the crop. If the price fell below the loan level, the grower could have the loan canceled without liability; the Commodity Credit Corporation would take over the crop and thus bear the loss. The roots of the Commodity Credit Corporation lay in the farm protest movements of the late nineteenth century. Many of the protesters blamed the decline in farm prices, which began in the 1870’s, on an insufficient supply of money. Failure of the money supply to expand to meet the needs of a growing economy was in turn blamed on the gold standard. A popular solution recommended that the money supply—and thus farm prices—be inflated by the issue of paper money. The most ambitious of those proposals was the “subtreasury” plan advanced in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s by Texas farm protest leader Charles W. Macune. Macune proposed that every county in which a minimum of $500,000 worth of agricultural produce was sold a year should have a subtreasury office along with crop storage facilities. Farmers who brought in their crop for storage would be 2684
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 advanced 80 percent of the local price in paper money at an interest charge of 1 percent a year, on the condition that the produce be redeemed or sold at auction within one year. Support for the plan faded even among farmers because of the appeal of William Jennings Bryan’s call for free silver as the solution to the money-supply problem. The more direct antecedents of the Commodity Credit Corporation lay in the agricultural programs introduced by President Herbert Hoover. The major thrust of Hoover’s solution to the farm problem, incorporated in the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 and administered by the Federal Farm Board, was government assistance to promote better-organized and more orderly marketing of agricultural products through larger and stronger cooperative marketing associations. The cooperative marketing associations set up under the new law, such as the Farmers National Grain Corporation and the National Wool Marketing Corporation, included programs in which farmers could receive an advance on delivery of their crop for later resale. A tool meant to iron out shortterm fluctuations in price, the legislation provided for the establishment of “stabilization corporations” that would purchase farm products at harvest time and would resell them when prices rose. When prices for cotton, corn, and wheat fell sharply after the stock market crash, the stabilization corporations made large-scale purchases in a futile bid to sustain prices. The resulting losses exhausted most of the $500 million revolving fund allotted to the Federal Farm Board and forced suspension of stabilization corporation purchases. Significance The Commodity Credit Corporation was a continuation of the Federal Farm Board’s stabilization corporations, but with more generous funding. Its $3 million in startup capital was supplied by the secretary of agriculture and governor of the Farm Credit Administration from funds provided by the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933). During its early years, however, most funding came as loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). Although technically a corporation organized under the laws of Delaware, the Commodity Credit Corporation was largely administered as an RFC subsidiary. Lynn P. Talley, a Texas banker who was a longtime friend of Jesse H. Jones, chairman of the RFC, was made president of the new agency and retained that position until health problems forced his retirement in early 1940. Under Roosevelt’s 1939 reorganization of the executive branch, the Commodity Credit Corpo-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ment Act of 1936. This failure was partly the result of the lack of voluntary cooperation from farmers and partly the result of contract violations by cooperating farmers. The major difficulty faced by the corporation was that advances in technology were rapidly increasing output per acre. When the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 was written, Farm Belt lobbyists managed to include directing the Commodity Credit Corporation to make mandatory nonrecourse loans on a number of crops whenever their prices fell too low or their production rose too high. Such loans were available only to those who cooperated with the legislation’s acreage limitation program, in which the major crops were cotton, corn, and wheat. As of 1940, however, the Commodity Credit Corporation was making loans on butter, dates, figs, hops, mohair, peanuts, pecans, prunes, raisins, rye, tobacco, turpentine and rosin, and wool. Congress also repeatedly raised the loan rate and offered higher guaranteed prices. Given the continued failure of meaningful production limitations, the net effect was to give farmers a virtually blank check from the treasury, and the Commodity Credit Corporation accumulated increasingly large collections of stocks and commodities as more and more farmers defaulted on their loans. The carryover of cotton, for example, reached an all-time high of 13.3 million bales in 1939, more than a full year’s supply for both domestic use and export. The carryover of corn rose to a record level of 687 million bushels in 1940, more than double the carryover of the early 1930’s. Only World War II prevented what appeared to be the impending collapse of the farm-price support system. As the price of allowing the imposition of wartime price ceilings on farm products, the farm bloc in Congress wrote into the Stabilization Act (or Anti-inflation Act) of October, 1942, a provision requiring the Commodity Credit Corporation to provide loans at 90 percent of parity for two years after the official end of hostilities for a broad range of crops, including cotton, corn, wheat, rice, tobacco, peanuts, hogs, chicken, eggs, milk, butterfat, and potatoes. This provision did not raise major difficulties because the exceptional need for foodstuffs abroad absorbed nearly all available production during 1946 and 1947. The Agricultural Act of 1948 continued the loan program of the Commodity Credit Corporation at 90 percent of parity until June 30, 1950, when a flexible system was supposed to support prices at a level ranging between 60 and 90 percent of parity, depending on production totals. The move to avoid the rigidities of the 2685
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ration became a part of the Department of Agriculture and was wholly responsible to the secretary of agriculture. Although Congress placed the Commodity Credit Corporation on a statutory basis in January, 1935, the agency continued to depend on periodic renewals of its authorization until June, 1948, when Congress gave it permanent status. Although the Commodity Credit Corporation had authority to make loans directly to farmers, few were made in that fashion. The agency’s managers preferred to encourage private banks to extend loans by guaranteeing that the Commodity Credit Corporation would, on demand, buy all such loans. Even this guarantee failed to overcome private bankers’ nervousness about the soundness of farm loans, however, and as a result, most of the loans were made by the Commodity Credit Corporation itself, with private lending agencies acting only as brokers. Thanks to the strength of the farm bloc in Congress, the agency had even larger amounts of money to lend, and its capital was raised to $100 million in 1938. More important, lawmakers repeatedly increased its authority to borrow on the credit of the United States: Farmers could borow $900 million in 1939, $1.4 billion in 1940, $2.65 billion in 1941, and $10 billion by 1954. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 shifted the major thrust of the Commodity Credit Corporation from ironing out short-term fluctuations in supplies and prices to a new goal of maintaining farm prices above their free-market levels. The agency’s mission thus became one of subsidization rather than stabilization. The Commodity Credit Corporation’s first major loan undertaking, the corn program of 1933-1934, proved successful because of a drought that caused a sharp reduction in the size of the 1934 corn crop and therefore increased the price per bushel. Most of the loans were repaid, and the Commodity Credit Corporation even made a profit on the operation. This success inspired Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace to urge a permanent commodity-loan program for maintaining an evernormal granary—that is, stabilization of supplies and prices through loans that allowed farmers to withhold part of their crops from the market in years of high output and release them in years of short production. The ever-normal granary idea was a handy rationale for permanent establishment of the Commodity Credit Corporation. The decisive factor in its transformation into the major instrument for long-term farm price maintenance was the failure of the production-limitation program of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and its successor, the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allot-
Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation
Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation parity formula, however, was undone by the surprise victory of Democratic Party presidential nominee Harry S. Truman in the 1948 election, a victory that owed much to farmer discontent over falling prices. The Agricultural Act of 1949 was largely a victory for those who favored high price supports. Commodity Credit Corporation loans remained the major instrument for implementing the price-support program, and its loan rate became farmers’ minimum-price guarantee. High price supports, coupled with rapid growth in agricultural productivity because of the continuing revolution in technology, brought larger and more burdensome surpluses that were only temporarily alleviated by the Korean War (1950-1953). The Agricultural Act of 1954 represented a victory for more flexible and marketoriented price supports, but it did not change the system’s basic structure. As output continued to grow, so did the stock of farm commodities in government hands. Farmers’ resistance blocked a bid by the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to impose mandatory production controls. By the 1960’s, however, even farm bloc lobbyists recognized that high price supports were having a damaging influence on U.S. farm exports. The Food and Agricultural Act of 1965 introduced a new gimmick that became a standard part of the farm program: the “two-price” plan. To make American products competitive in the international market, domestic price supports were reduced to the world-market level through Commodity Credit Corporation loans. Producers were then paid a deficiency payment that amounted to the difference between the loan rate and the official target (or ought-to-be) price. Most agricultural economists agreed that this approach had major flaws. It saddled the federal government with a multibillion-dollar commitment whose costs were unpredictable and encouraged chronic overproduction. Because of the alarmingly high levels to which Commodity Credit Corporation inventories and loans had risen by 1983, Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration introduced the payment-in-kind (or PIK) program, whereby farmers were paid to take land out of production in return for a payment of government-owned stocks rather than cash. The 1983 PIK program temporarily relieved the carryover problem, but falling export demand in the years that followed produced a major crisis, and farm subsidy costs skyrocketed to an estimated $26 billion in 1986 alone. Because farming interests remained sources of political power, the demand for subsidies remained high, and Congress usually responded to pressures from the farming industry. Subsidies distorted 2686
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the marketplace, and this put pressure on the federal budget. These problems persisted into the early 2000’s, as Congress made historic increases in farm subsidy levels that largely benefited the wealthiest farmers and agribusinesses. —John Braeman Further Reading Benedict, Murray. Can We Solve the Farm Problem? An Analysis of Federal Aid to Agriculture. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1955. Analytic and evaluative. Chapter 10 has an excellent summary of Commodity Credit Corporation activities from 1933 up to the early 1950’s. _______. Farm Policies of the United States, 17901950: A Study of Their Origins and Development. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1953. An indispensable, comprehensive, and detailed history both of the demands of farmers and farm organizations and of government policies regarding agriculture. Cochrane, Willard W., and C. Ford Runge. Reforming Farm Policy: Toward a National Agenda. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992. An illuminating critical analysis of the shortcomings of contemporary U.S. government farm programs by two leading agricultural economists. Offers recommendations for reform. Cochrane, Willard W., and Mary E. Ryan. American Farm Policy, 1948-1978. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976. A history of the U.S. government’s farm policies. Gup, Benton E., ed. Too Big to Fail: Policies and Practices in Government Bailouts. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. Collection of essays includes discussion of the farming industries. Hamilton, David E. From New Day to New Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, 19281933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. An important revisionist account that emphasizes, in contrast with most treatments of the New Deal, the large degree of continuity between the farm programs of the Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations. Hansen, John M. Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. An illuminating analysis of the politics of congressional farm policy making that documents the farm lobby’s continuing success in gaining lavish subsidies for farmers despite their dwindling numbers.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Himmelberg, Robert F. The Great Depression and the New Deal. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Discusses the causes of the Depression and the actions taken in the United States to alleviate its effects. Features chronology, glossary, and index. Olson, James S. Saving Capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation in the New Deal, 1933-1940. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. A thorough examination of the role of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in the New Deal that includes coverage of the activities of the Commodity Credit Corporation during the years when it was virtually an RFC subsidiary.
Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay Saloutos, Theodore. The American Farmer and the New Deal. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1982. The most comprehensive treatment of New Deal agricultural programs. See also: June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture; 1904: Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat; June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains; May 16, 1939: First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins.
November-December, 1933
Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay
Locale: Rome, Italy Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), Italian American nuclear physicist Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), Austrian American theoretical physicist Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-1984), British American theoretical physicist Antoine-Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), French physicist Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981), Japanese theoretical physicist Summary of Event Enrico Fermi’s theory of beta decay solved one of the most puzzling problems of radioactivity and provided strong evidence for the existence of the neutrino and of a new type of weak force in nuclear interactions. Radioactivity was discovered by Antoine-Henri Becquerel in 1896 in the form of spontaneous and continuous radiation from various compounds of uranium that could penetrate layers of black paper to expose a photographic plate. Additional radioactive elements were discovered by Marie Curie and others in the next few years, and Ernest Rutherford demonstrated more than one type of
radiation from these materials in 1898 at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He showed that one component could be absorbed by a single piece of paper, whereas another component was about one hundred times more penetrating. He called the short-range radiation alpha rays and the penetrating radiation beta rays. By the end of 1899, Becquerel and several other researchers had shown that beta rays are deflected by a magnetic field in the same direction as cathode rays (electrons) and thus consist of negatively charged particles. In 1900, Paul Villard in France discovered an even more penetrating radiation that was not deflected by a magnetic field. These rays were eventually called gamma rays and were shown to be electromagnetic waves like X rays but with higher frequencies. Meanwhile, Becquerel showed that the deflection of beta particles was consistent with the behavior of electrons, with some of them ejected at speeds of up to about half the speed of light. By 1903, Rutherford succeeded in observing a much smaller magnetic deflection of alpha rays in the direction of positively charged particles, and by 1909 he had identified them as positive helium ions (helium atoms that have lost their two electrons). Other differences between alpha and beta particles soon became evident. The deflection of alpha particles was found to be well collimated, whereas beta particle deflections formed a diffuse and extended image on a photographic plate. Thus alpha decay seemed to produce particles of a single velocity compared with beta particles with a variety of energies. By the end of 1903 at McGill University in Montreal, 2687
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Enrico Fermi used quantum mechanics to derive a theory of radioactive beta decay involving the neutrino and a new weak force of nuclear interactions, which led to many new elementary particle discoveries.
Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay Rutherford and Frederick Soddy proposed that alpha and beta decay result from a transmutation of the atoms of one element into another. Eventually, it was shown that alpha decay produces a new element with atomic number (of nuclear protons) reduced by two and atomic mass number (protons and neutrons) reduced by four, corresponding to the charge and mass of the helium nucleus. Beta decay increases the atomic number by one with no change in atomic mass number. The spontaneous energy associated with radioactive decay was at first a mystery that seemed to contradict the law of conservation of energy. This mystery was partially resolved with Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity in 1905, which showed the equivalence of mass and energy and could account for radioactive energy from the decrease in mass between the parent and product nuclei. The energy of alpha particles was found to agree closely with this change in mass, but beta particles did not fit as well. By 1914, James Chadwick confirmed the continuous distribution of beta particle energies, in addition to some definite energies associated with so-called conversion electrons ejected from their orbits around the nucleus by gamma rays. The continuous beta energy spectrum was found to vary from small energies up to a maximum value that corresponded to the decrease in mass in the nuclear transmutation. For several years, the problem of the continuous distribution of energies among beta particles perplexed physicists. Calorimeter measurements by Lise Meitner and others showed that the average energy of beta decay was only about one-third the value expected from the difference in masses of the parent and product nuclei. In his Faraday lecture of 1931, Niels Bohr suggested that energy conservation might not apply to beta decay. Additional problems arose with the quantum concept of particle spin, indicating that angular momentum might not be conserved in the beta decay of an electron with spin. One way to save the conservation principles was suggested by Wolfgang Pauli at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Pasadena, California, in June, 1931. He suggested that the beta decay electrons might be accompanied by light neutral particles too penetrating to be observed or have any effect on a calorimeter experiment. The beta particle and the neutral particle would share the available energy so that their sum would be equal to the mass-energy difference between parent and product nuclei. Such a particle would have zero or near-zero rest mass, given that some beta electrons were at or near the maximum possible energy. It would be neutral to conserve charge and have spin equal to the electron spin but 2688
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 possibly in the opposite direction to conserve angular momentum. In Rome, Pauli’s light neutral particle was called the neutrino (Italian diminutive form of the word “neutron”) to distinguish it from the neutron, which was discovered by Chadwick in 1932 and shown to have a mass slightly greater than the proton. Pauli’s neutrino hypothesis was first published in a report on discussions at the Solvay Conference on physics held in Brussels in October of 1933. After returning from the conference, Fermi began to develop a quantitative theory for the role of the neutrino in beta decay from the equations of quantum mechanics. He followed the same approach that Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac used in his 1928 relativistic quantum theory of photon emission and pair creation (particle and antiparticle). He postulated the simultaneous creation of an electron and an antineutrino (same as a neutrino except for spin) when a nuclear neutron converts into a proton during beta decay. In doing this, Fermi introduced a new
Enrico Fermi. (The Nobel Foundation)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay neutrino was more difficult to detect because it passed readily through matter. In 1956, C. L. Cowan and Frederick Reinries confirmed the effects of neutrinos near a nuclear reactor, where enough were produced for a few to interact with protons to yield nearly simultaneous neutrons and positrons, easily detected in this so-called reversed beta decay. By 1961, experiments revealed a difference between the electron neutrino of ordinary beta decay and the muon neutrino produced when pions decay into muons. Theories predicting a large production of neutrinos when stars explode were confirmed by the supernova of February, 1987, when about ten neutrino events were recorded in a Japanese detector. The most important result of Fermi’s beta decay theory was the development of a unified electroweak theory in 1967 by Steven Weinberg and independently by Abdus Salam. These researchers showed that the electromagnetic and weak interactions are different aspects of a single electroweak force requiring three new massive field quanta. The electroweak theory was dramatically confirmed in 1983 when a 135-member team led by Carlo Rubbia used proton collisions in a giant accelerator in Geneva to produce positive and negative W-particles with mass about eighty-five times the proton mass and neutral Z-particles with about ninety-seven proton masses, in exact agreement with the Weinberg-Salam theory. — Joseph L. Spradley
Significance Fermi’s beta decay theory led to the development of new concepts of nuclear interactions and the discovery of new elementary particles. In 1935, Hideki Yukawa used the theories of Fermi and Dirac (for weak and electromagnetic interactions) as models for his theory of the strong nuclear force that holds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. His theory included the prediction of the meson as the field quantum to transmit the strong interaction, and he also proposed a field quantum to mediate weak interactions in beta decay instead of the direct coupling used by Fermi. Yukawa showed that the meson would have mass equal to about two hundred electron masses; his theory implied a much larger mass for the field quantum to transmit weak interactions, now called the W-particle because of its much shorter range. In 1937, a 207-electron-mass particle was discovered in cosmic rays, but Fermi and his associates showed that this so-called muon interacted with matter by a weak force. A 273-electron-mass particle, now called the pion, was discovered in 1947. It interacted by a strong force and matched the properties of Yukawa’s meson. The
Further Reading Beyer, Robert T., ed. Foundations of Nuclear Physics. New York: Dover, 1949. This volume contains facsimile copies of a dozen foundational articles, including Fermi’s original 1934 beta decay article in German, the 1932 article by Chadwick on the existence and mass of the neutron, and Yukawa’s 1935 article on the meson theory of the strong nuclear force and beta decay. The second half of the book is a 120-page bibliography of the most important early articles on nuclear physics. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work, including Fermi, Pauli, and others. Includes glossary and index. Eisberg, Robert, and Robert Resnick, ed. Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1985. An intermediate-level college physics textbook with 2689
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weak force of much shorter range than the familiar gravitational and electromagnetic forces. The equation he derived for the probability of beta emission contained a coupling constant for the weak interaction that was determined from beta decay data to be 100 billion times smaller than the corresponding coupling constant in Dirac’s theory of electromagnetic interactions. The weakness of this interaction is one factor in the relatively long half-life for beta decay. Fermi sent his findings to the British journal Nature at the end of 1933, but it was promptly rejected. It was then accepted for publication in the German journal Zeitschrift für Physik in January, 1934. Fermi’s theory successfully explained the exact form of the beta decay energy spectrum, the decay half-life, and its relation to beta particle energies, and other characteristics of beta decay. After the 1934 discovery of artificial radioactivity with positron (positive electrons) emission, physicists realized that Fermi’s theory also fit this positive beta decay in which nuclear protons convert to neutrons by the emission of a positron and neutrino. The discovery of electron capture in 1937, in which a nuclear proton converts to a neutron by capturing one of its atomic electrons, could also be explained with Fermi’s theory by assuming the emission of a neutrino. The beta decay theory was Fermi’s theoretical masterpiece and the foundation for many new discoveries.
United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime good sections on beta decay, Fermi’s theory of weak interactions, and the electroweak theory. Theoretical results are discussed with equations, graphs, and diagrams, but without lengthy mathematical derivations. Evans, Robley D. The Atomic Nucleus. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955. A classic graduate-level textbook on nuclear physics with excellent historical documentation, with more than thirty pages of bibliography. A chapter on beta-ray spectra gives a good outline of experimental data and a twenty-page sketch of the mathematical details of Fermi’s beta decay theory. Glasstone, Samuel. Sourcebook on Atomic Energy. 3d ed. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1967. A wellorganized introduction to atomic and nuclear physics with good historical detail. Chapters on radioactivity, nuclear radiations, and elementary particles provide good background on the discovery of beta decay, Fermi’s theory, and the neutrino. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. An overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Includes many illustrations and index. Polkinghorne, John. Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Aims to make quantum theory accessible to the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 general reader. Among the concepts discussed are uncertainty, probabilistic physics, and the exclusion principle. Includes mathematical appendix and index. Segrè, Emilio. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. A very readable historical account of modern physics and of the personalities involved in it. A chapter on radioactivity and a brief treatment of Fermi’s beta decay theory provide personal details by an early associate of Fermi. Many interesting historical photographs and diagrams are included. Strachan, Charles. The Theory of Beta-Decay. Elmsford, New York: Pergamon Press, 1969. An introduction to the theory of beta decay, the neutrino, and weak interactions is given in part 1. In part 2, several original articles are reprinted, including an English translation of Fermi’s 1934 article on beta decay. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; 19051907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks; Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed; Jan.-Sept., 1937: Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element; Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom.
November 16, 1933
United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime
Locale: Washington, D.C.; Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; trade and commerce
Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party and premier of the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 William Bullitt (1891-1967), adviser to Cordell Hull and first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1933-1936 Alexander Troyanovsky (1882-1955), first Soviet ambassador to the United States, 1935-1939
Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov (Meier Moiseevich Wallach; 1876-1951), Soviet minister of foreign affairs Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state, 1933-1944
Summary of Event Prior to 1933, the U.S. government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the government of the Soviet Union because the Bolsheviks (later renamed Communists) had seized power through force rather than through democratic means. During the Russian Civil War (19181921), the United States even sent troops to Russia to as-
The United States and the Soviet Union established formal diplomatic relations in November of 1933, ending sixteen years of disagreement regarding the legitimacy of the Communist government in Moscow.
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dent was the deciding factor in the creation of the opportunity for a change in U.S. policy. The new president and his congressional majority took massive steps to promote economic recovery—the New Deal—and simultaneously modified several other well-established policies. Among other changes, Roosevelt’s administration ended Prohibition (overriding the Eighteenth Amendment) and expressed a willingness to open negotiations with Moscow. At the same time, the Soviet Union had reached a point that made a diplomatic opening possible. Joseph Stalin’s government had enunciated a more cooperative policy toward the Western democracies and the League of Nations, and it had participated in economic and disarmament conferences in the early 1930’s. Furthermore, as it confronted Japan’s conquest of Manchuria along the Soviet frontier, the Soviet Union saw the United States as a potential ally who could help counter further Japanese expansion. Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, who favored better relations with the West, became foreign minister in 1930, and he used his position to help mend U.S.-Soviet relations. During the first half of 1933, Roosevelt solicited detailed studies and other relevant information to help him decide whether to approach the Russians for a possible rapprochement. Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted a lengthy report to the president in September outlining reasons to contact the Soviet government with a goal of opening diplomatic relations and resolving other points of dispute. Many others encouraged a review of the existing policy. Roosevelt agreed with their views, and in mid-October he wrote to the Russian authorities with an American proposal to open high-level negotiations on issues of interest to both states. The Soviets replied positively, and formal talks began in Washington on November 9. Foreign Minister Litvinov headed the Soviet delegation, and Hull led the Americans. The talks made quick progress and the agreements, signed on November 16, 1933, dealt with most of the major issues. Roosevelt personally took part in several of the negotiations with Litvinov. These agreements covered a variety of important topics: financial arrangements (which focused on increasing U.S. trade credits to the Soviet Union), the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two states, the outline of procedures for protection of legal rights and religious freedoms of American citizens in the Soviet Union, and the ban of hostile communist propaganda and other disruptive activity directed toward the United States. The agreements and public statements never used the word “recognition,” referring instead to the creation of “normal diplomatic relations.” On November 17, 1933, 2691
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sist opponents of the Bolshevik regime. Americans also opposed the Soviets’ support of communist propaganda in other nations (especially in democratic states) and their refusal to repay debts owed by previous Russian governments. Moscow’s hostility toward the League of Nations during the 1920’s further complicated the Soviet Union’s reputation in world affairs. Nevertheless, during the 1920’s American businesses—including prominent companies such as American Locomotive, Du Pont, General Electric, Radio Corporation of America, and Standard Oil—signed trade agreements with Soviet agencies that promised assistance in developing the nation’s economy. In 1929, Ford Motor Company signed a contract to build a plant in Russia that would produce one hundred thousand vehicles annually. Many Americans traveled to the Soviet Union to help design and build industrial facilities and to participate in other economic projects. Many Americans also provided major assistance during the massive famine that took place in the Soviet Union in the period 19211923. Relief agencies in the United States and other Western states helped ameliorate widespread hardship by providing food and medicines. By the early 1930’s, Washington had begun to reconsider its policy toward the Soviet Union. Several major governments already had given diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union: Germany (1922), Great Britain, Italy, and France (1924). The United States was one of the last major world powers to withhold this acknowledgment. Furthermore, the Great Depression was having an adverse effect on American farmers, who needed to find markets for their surplus grain. The possibility of selling grain to Russia through government-sponsored arrangements was extremely appealing. Similarly, manufacturers hoped to increase sales of industrial products by opening their market to the Soviet Union. The Communist Party’s ability to maintain power for more than a decade had proved that the regime would not disappear, and this reality had to taken into consideration by those dealing with Russia’s role in the international diplomatic scene. By the early 1930’s, the development of other issues had raised concerns in both Washington and Moscow. The rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany and the growing power of militaristic Japan and its invasion of Manchuria in 1 931 were sources of concern to both the United States and the Soviet Union. Americans were particularly aware that their interests and territorial possessions in the western Pacific could be threatened by increased Japanese influence and expansion in the region. The 1932 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as presi-
United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime
United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime the United States announced that William Bullitt would be the new American ambassador to the Soviet Union, and on November 20, the Soviet government named Alexander Troyanovsky as its ambassador to the United States. Both governments agreed to meet to deal with unresolved issues, and in January of 1937, they reached a compromise settlement on claims of American property seized by the Communists. Later negotiations led to a trade agreement in July of 1935, followed by one in August of 1937. Significance Moscow’s foreign policy during the 1930’s illustrated a willingness to take a more cooperative position in world affairs. The Soviet Union’s entry into the League of Nations in 1934 was an important step in this regard, as were the diplomatic and military agreements that the Soviet Union signed with several European nations during the decade. The 1933 Soviet-American agreement had an uneven impact, and it failed to fill its American supporters’ high hopes. Increased Soviet-American trade did not reach predicted levels. Promises regarding religious freedom and legal rights of U.S. citizens in the Soviet Union meant relatively little. Communist propaganda and revolutionary activities, emanating from Moscow and the Comintern (Communist International), continued in the United States throughout the decade. Hull later wrote that the results fell far short of creating meaningful trust and cooperation, and by 1935 the relationship had deteriorated. Soviet leaders believed that the Soviet Union could benefit from the agreement without conceding any of its fundamental interests on major issues. Behind occasional improvement in Soviet international behavior during the 1930’s remains the reality that the Soviet Union was a one-party dictatorship under the firm hand of Stalin and the Communist Party. No complete accommodation, cooperation, or trust could exist in the relationship between the Soviets and Americans, who represented diametrically opposed value systems and political institutions. Only during World War II, when both countries faced Germany as a common enemy, was a revitalized—but temporary—bond of cooperation created. Nonetheless, even during times of confrontation, the diplomatic understanding that began in 1933 provided the formal government-to-government contacts needed for important dialogue on many future issues. —Taylor Stults Further Reading Bennett, Edward M. Recognition of Russia: An American Foreign Policy Dilemma. Waltham, Mass.: 2692
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Blaisdell, 1970. Discusses the political and legal aspects of the U.S. government’s decision. Bishop, Donald G. The Roosevelt-Litvinov Agreements: The American View. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1965. Explanation of the issues negotiated. Farnsworth, Beatrice. William C. Bullitt and the Soviet Union. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967. Bullitt, the first ambassador to the Soviet Union, also participated in prior negotiations between the Russians and the Americans. Gambone, Michael D. Documents of American Diplomacy from the American Revolution to the Present. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. A good source for the correspondence between Roosevelt and Litvinov that restored diplomatic relations. Glantz, Mary E. FDR and the Soviet Union: The President’s Battles over Foreign Policy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Discusses changing U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union in 1933. Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Personal recollections of the U.S. secretary of state on American-Russian relations. Morris, M. Wayne. Stalin’s Famine and Roosevelt’s Recognition of Russia. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994. Analysis of the economic factors behind U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union. Richman, John. The United States and the Soviet Union: The Decision to Recognize. Raleigh, N.C.: Camberleigh & Hall, 1980. Valuable source with details not found in other accounts. Sibley, Katherine A. S. Loans and Legitimacy: The Evolution of Soviet-American Relations, 1919-1933. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. Traces the impact of economic ties on decisions in Washington and Moscow. Wilson, Joan H. Ideology and Economics: U.S. Relations with the Soviet Union, 1917-1933. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974. Assesses advocates and opponents of American recognition in the debate over potential benefits. See also: Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials; Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact; Aug. 23-24, 1939: NaziSoviet Pact; May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning.
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Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous
December 8, 1933
Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous The Roman Catholic Church canonized MarieBernade Soubirous in recognition of her devout faith and humility after she had visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Bernadette was designated the patron saint of those afflicted with illness, and Christians from all over the world continued to pray to her and to make the pilgrimage to Lourdes, France. Locale: Vatican City; Lourdes, France Category: Religion, theology, and ethics
Summary of Event Born in Lourdes, France, on January 7, 1844, MarieBernarde Soubirous (more commonly known as Bernadette) was the eldest child of Francis and Louise Soubirous. Her childhood was beset with poverty and illness. On February 11, 1858, while gathering wood with one of her siblings and a neighborhood friend, fourteen-year-old Bernadette witnessed her first apparition of the Virgin Mary in the Grotto of Massabielle, situated near the Gave River. The figure in the vision, whom Bernadette called “the lady,” continued to appear to Bernadette in seventeen similar apparitions at the cave. Bernadette described the lady as a young woman wearing a white robe and veil with a blue sash. The vision’s feet were decorated with golden roses, and she held a rosary in her right hand. Although all of the apparitions were important, three of Bernadette’s encounters with the lady had especially significant impacts on history. On February 26, 1858, at the apparition’s urging, Bernadette discovered a small stream of water in the cave that eventually grew to a significant size and flowed into the Gave River. On March 2, the lady told Bernadette to ask the local clergy to have a chapel built on the site. Finally, on March 25, the spirit revealed herself to be the embodiment of the Immaculate Conception. Bernadette’s visions of the Virgin Mary were viewed by many as miraculous, and as word spread, pilgrims began to descend on Lourdes to witness the phenomenon themselves.
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Key Figures Bernadette of Lourdes (Marie-Bernarde Soubirous; 1844-1879), French nun who saw visions of the Virgin Mary Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti; 18571939), Roman Catholic pope, 1922-1939 Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 1835-1914), Roman Catholic pope, 1903-1914
Both ecclesiastical and government officials questioned the authenticity of Bernadette’s claims and tried to restrict access to the site, but public outcry forced them to keep the grotto open. Amid staunch skepticism, Bernadette retold her story often, and she never changed any of the details of her experiences, never wavered under the pressure of those who doubted her truthfulness, and never accepted any gifts. Instead, she took refuge from all of the public attention at a local school run by the Sisters of Notre Dame in Nevers. Then, in September of 1878, she took her vows and became Sister Marie-Bernard. She remained at the convent, where she suffered from numerous health problems, until her death on April 16, 1879. In 1908, Bishop Gauthey of Nevers formally began the process of canonizing Bernadette by initiating a series of 132 sessions in which church officials interviewed Bernadette’s family members, friends, and clergy about her life and character. On September 22, 1909, Bernadette’s remains were exhumed from their resting place near St. Joseph’s Chapel in Nevers. To everyone’s surprise, the exhumed body was intact and practically undamaged after being interred for thirty years, and many considered the body’s preservation to be a miracle. On August 13, 1913, Pope Pius X bestowed the title of venerable on Bernadette, indicating that she had completed the first stage of canonization. In accordance with the Church’s canonization guidelines, Bernadette’s body was exhumed two more times for identification purposes. The second exhumation occurred on April 3, 1919, and the third on April 18, 1925. Both exhumations revealed that her body remained almost entirely intact. On May 2, 1925, the Church certified that two miracles had been performed in Bernadette’s name. The first involved Henri Boisselet, who was cured of tubercular peritonitis after a novena to Bernadette was started. The second involved Sister Marie-Melanie Meyer, who was cured of a gastric ulcer after making a pilgrimage to Bernadette’s tomb. Following the Church’s authentication of these miracles, Pope Pius XI presided over Bernadette’s beatification ceremony on June 14, 1925, in which she was declared blessed and was given a feast day of April 16. Her body was permanently laid to rest in a crystal coffin at the chapel of Saint Gildard, in Nevers, on August 3, 1926. Following the beatification ceremony, the church was required to verify two additional miracles performed in the candidate’s name. Both of these miracles occurred within three years of Bernadette’s beatifi-
Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous cation and involved the miraculous healings of Archbishop Lemaître Carthage, who suffered from a chronic amoebic infection, and of Sister Marie de Saint-Fidele, who suffered from Pott’s disease. Once these miracles were certified, the Church published the decree de tuto, the last step in the canonization process, on July 2, 1933. Finally, on December 8, 1933, on the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, the Pius XI canonized Bernadette in a special ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Bernadette was made a saint as much for her honesty and humility as for her visions of the Virgin Mary, and she became known as the patron saint of those suffering from illness. Significance The historical significance of Bernadette’s visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes and her subsequent canonization as Saint Bernadette is enormous. Immediately following Bernadette’s first apparition, people began to travel to Lourdes to witness the miracle at the grotto, and in 1876, a shrine was built above the grotto to accommodate all of the visitors. By the late nineteenth century, reports of miraculous healings at the grotto’s springs began being reported. In response, people from all over the world— many of them ill and in search of a cure—descended on Lourdes. In 1943, Bernadette’s story was popularized for millions by the film The Song of Bernadette, which was based on the book Das Lied von Bernadette (1941; The Song of Bernadette, 1942) by Franz Werfel. Jennifer Jones won an Academy Award in the title role. In 1958, a church capable of holding twenty thousand people was built at the site. Lourdes remained one of the most visited destinations for religious pilgrimage: At the beginning of the twenty-first century, an estimated six million people visited the grotto at Massabielle each year. Many of these visitors came to drink or bathe in the spring water discovered by Saint Bernadette in hope of being cured of their ailments. The spring produces approximately twenty-seven thousand gallons of water per week. On November 9, 2005, the Medical Bureau of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes verified the sixtyseventh miraculous cure at the Grotto. It involved the immediate healing of Anna Santaniello, who suffered from Bouillard’s disease until she was instantly cured after bathing in the spring water at Lourdes in August of 1952.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Saint Bernadette’s body, which remained uncorrupted, continued to be on view for visitors at the chapel of Saint Gildard in Nevers. For Catholics and other believers worldwide, her corpse’s preservation was yet another example of Bernadette’s miraculous healing powers. —Bernadette Zbicki Heiney Further Reading Carroll, Michael P. “The Virgin Mary at LaSalette and Lourdes: Whom Did the Children See?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 24 (1985): 56-74. Explores why apparitions of the Virgin Mary appear to certain people and not to others. Also examines the theory that these visions might be modeled after a parental figure. Heffernan, Anna Eileen, and Mary Elizabeth Tebo. Saint Bernadette Soubirous. Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1999. Written for a young-adult audience, this book provides readers with a short biography of Bernadette of Lourdes as well as a description of the shrine at Lourdes at the end of the twentieth century. Laurentin, René. Bernadette Speaks: A Life of Saint Bernadette Soubirous in Her Own Words. Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2000. A fact-based account of the life of Bernadette of Lourdes. Taylor, Therésè. “So Many Extraordinary Things to Tell: Letters from Lourdes, 1858.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 46 (July, 1995): 457-482. Explores Bernadette’s visions by examining letters written by Adelaide Monlaur, an eyewitness to the events at Lourdes. Describes how the visions led to the establishment of Lourdes as a world-renowned religious shrine. Trochu, Francis. Saint Bernadette Soubirous, 18441879. Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1985. Comprehensive biography traces the saint’s life from her childhood in Lourdes to her death as a nun at the convent in Nevers. Werfel, Franz. The Song of Bernadette. 1942. Reprint. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Based on fact, this novel tells the story of the saint’s life. See also: May 13-Oct. 17, 1917: Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal; May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska.
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End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule
December 17, 1933
End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule During the tumultuous rule of Thubten Gyatso, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tibet faced threats from China, British India, and Russia. Thubten instituted important cultural changes in Tibet and gave Tibetans pride in their heritage, and he was widely considered the greatest and most powerful leader of Tibet since the Fifth Dalai Lama. Also known as: Thubten Gyatso Locale: Lhasa, Tibet Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; government and politics; social issues and reform Key Figure Thubten Gyatso (1876-1933), Thirteenth Dalai Lama
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Summary of Event Independent Tibet was governed by a theocracy headed by the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the nation’s predominant religion. This leader is called the Dalai Lama, which is roughly translated as “ocean of wisdom.” The first Dalai Lama was born to a herdsman in the western reaches of Tibet in 1391. He founded great monasteries of Drepung and Tashi Lhunpo, and it was believed that his spirit found its home in the body of another priest upon his death. Reincarnation is a fundamental aspect of Tibetan Buddhism. Under this view, death is almost never final, and the spirit of a living thing can be incarnated or reborn into the body of another creature, even if that creature belongs to a separate species. The Dalai Lama is said to be the reincarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. A bodhisattva is an individual who has achieved enlightenment through hard training and a well-lived life. The usual reward for this achievement is entering Nirvana, the realm of enlightenment and total, absolute, infinite peace. Some individuals—including the Dalai Lamas— achieve enlightenment but decide to delay entering Nirvana until they have helped all other living things to achieve enlightenment. Calling the Dalai Lamas an incarnation of Avalokitesvara is a recognition of the belief that the Dalai Lamas are reincarnations of previous leaders who are no longer bound to the cycle of karma (which compels beings’ return to Earth) but who have decided to return to the world to help all beings achieve enlightenment. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, was born in 1876 in Thakpo Langdun in south Tibet to Kunga
Rinchen and Lobsang Dolma, a herdsman and his wife. His status as the reincarnation of the Twelfth Dalai Lama was recognized in 1878, and he was enthroned in 1879 at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. Upon reaching maturity, he was granted the political power of a Dalai Lama, although the political situation he inherited was a complicated one. Under the four Dalai Lamas who preceded him, monasteries had amassed too much power, and political corruption was rampant. As a result, the rulers had not possessed much power over Tibet or its people. An important example of monasterial power in Tibet was the Great Prayer Festival, the Monlam Chenmo. Tibetans came from all over the country to see the festival, and they packed Lhasa. Tradition held that control of the city was given to one of the more prominent monasteries during the festival; this responsibility largely consisted of ensuring security and leading ceremonies and rituals. However, prior to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s ascendance, the monastery controlling the festival had begun to levy heavy taxes and fines on Lhasa’s lay population. As a result, during the festival most of the city’s residents fled to the country in order to avoid being virtually robbed of all their possessions. A story recounts an exchange in which the Thirteenth Dalai Lama summoned the monks in charge of the festival and required them to divulge the name of the person who had ordered the taxes. They replied that the Great Fifth Dalai Lama had given them their authority. Thubten’s response was to ask to whom the monks thought they were talking, a reminder that Thubten himself was the reincarnation of all the Dalai Lamas before him. The period in which the Thirteenth Dalai Lama rose to power was sometimes called the time of “the Great Game,” as the struggle to control Tibet came to be known. The British were suspicious of Tibet’s relationship with Russia, and they invaded Tibet in 1904, which forced the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to flee to Mongolia and then to China. The Chinese were afraid of British power in the region, and so they invaded Tibet. Upon learning that General Chao Er-feng of China had reached Lhasa in 1909, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and some of his political leaders ran from Lhasa to India. After the Manchu Dynasty was overthrown in the Chinese Revolution of 1911, Tibet forced the remaining Chinese out of their nation, and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama returned to his homeland and gained considerable political power, the
End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule likes of which had not been seen since the Great Fifth Dalai Lama. The British wanted to use Tibet as a buffer state between their territories in India and China, and in 1913 they organized the Simla Conference, the goal of which was to formalize Tibetan independence. However, this convention failed to secure China’s recognition of Tibet. A secret agreement in 1914 between India and Tibet established the McMahon line, the official boundary between Tibet and India, but China refused to recognize this border, and the agreement’s effectiveness was doomed. However, this did not prevent the institution of regulated trade between Tibet and the British. In 1920, Sir Charles Bell of England visited Tibet and received permission for explorers from England to pass through Tibet on the way to Mount Everest. Tibet revoked these permissions from 1924 to 1933, however, after an adventurer exploited lamas and sold their photographs. Nonetheless, Bell enjoyed a friendship with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and ultimately produced a biography on him. Many of the reforms credited to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama were technological. While in exile in British India, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama became extremely interested in technology, and he tried to bring a basic degree of modernization to Tibet. From India he brought Tibet’s first telephone, set up the first Tibetan postal office in 1913, and sent four young Tibetans to Great Britain in order to learn about modern engineering. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s rule also oversaw many cultural changes. He founded the first English school in Tibet in 1923 at Gyaltse and designed the Tibetan flag, which is still in use by the Tibetan government in exile today. On January 8, 1913, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama publicly expounded the five points of Tibetan independence, and he personally composed Tibet’s national anthem. He also increased Tibet’s military power: In 1914, he instituted special training for the Tibetan army. Two years later, he oversaw the establishment of the Tibetan Medical Institute, and in 1923 he set up a security headquarters in Lhasa in order to protect the Tibetans from invasions of their capital city. Thubten died on December 17, 1933, at the age of fifty-eight. Significance Thubten Gyatso was responsible for various cultural, economic, and political changes that did much to improve the Tibetan way of life. During his tenure, diplomatic relations between Tibet and Great Britain matured, but the threat of external dominance persisted. Just be2696
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Thubten Gyatso’s Prediction Shortly before his death in 1933, Thubten Gyatso predicted that Tibet would soon face considerable challenges: Very soon in this land (with a harmonious blend of religion and politics) deceptive acts may occur from without and within. At that time, if we do not dare to protect our territory, our spiritual personalities including the Victorious Father and Son (Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama) may be exterminated without trace, the property and authority of our Lakangs (residences of reincarnated lamas) and monks may be taken away. Moreover, our political system, developed by the Three Great Dharma Kings (Tri Songtsen Gampo, Tri Songdetsen and Tri Ralpachen) will vanish without anything remaining. The property of all people, high and low, will be seized and the people forced to become slaves. All living beings will have to endure endless days of suffering and will be stricken with fear. Such a time will come.
fore his death in 1933, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama issued a statement in which he predicted difficult times for Tibet, and he could not have been more correct. In 1950, the Chinese army defeated the Tibetan military and invaded. The Tibetan government, led by Thubten Gyatso’s successor, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, began to operate in exile in 1959 in Dharamsala, India. After this date, China claimed Tibet as part of its territory, while the exiled Tibetan government maintained that China was violating Tibetan sovereignty. —John F. Gamber, Jr. Further Reading Bell, Charles. Portrait of a Dalai Lama: The Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth. 1946. Reprint. Boston: Wisdom, 1987. Biography of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama by a British man who befriended him. Goldstein, Melvyn C. The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama. Berkeley: University of California, 1997. Presents possible means for achieving an independent Tibet in light of the country’s historical development. Gould, Basil. “Tibet and Her Neighbors.” International Affairs 26, no. 1 (January, 1950): 71-76. Sentimental article about the Tibetan people on the eve of the Chinese occupation. Gupta, Karunakar. “The McMahon Line, 1911-45: The British Legacy.” China Quarterly 47 (July-Septem-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ber, 1971): 521-545. Article detailing the debate over the McMahon line, which was to divide India and Tibet. Hansen, Peter H. “The Dancing Lamas of Everest: Cinema, Orientalism, and Anglo-Tibetan Relations in the 1920’s.” The American Historical Review 101, no. 3 (June, 1996): 712-747. Reexamines the diplomatic relationship between Tibet and England by add-
Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture ing the realm of cultural representation to traditional politics. See also: 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms; Sept. 7, 1904: Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet; May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement; 19261949: Chinese Civil War; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan.
1934
Benedict Publishes PATTERNS OF CULTURE Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture contributed to new directions in anthropological theory, methodology, and philosophy. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Anthropology; publishing and journalism Key Figures Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942), American anthropologist
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Summary of Event The field of anthropology began to develop new concerns and methods in the beginning of the twentieth century. Having its origins in the nineteenth century, it focused originally on the concerns of that period: classification and development of human races, languages, and societies. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), with the general concept of evolution, strongly influenced the thinking of the time, so that by the end of the nineteenth century, studies classified societies on a hierarchical scale to determine the phases, stages, and states through which all human groups passed. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels added to this evolutionary perspective by stressing the causes of human evolution and argued that the mode of production is the prime force on which political, judicial, and ideological superstructures are based. The evolutionary perspective, however, assumed that there is a universal “human nature” and did not consider the different meanings and functions similar traits can have when in different contexts. It was in this era that Franz Boas, a German-born American and the father of American anthropology, joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University. He scorned the sweeping
generalizations of many evolutionists because they were selective in the facts they used and their ideas did not account for the more sophisticated observations of cultural variability. Boas emphasized fieldwork and firsthand observation. He founded the culture history school, the name of which is misleading, given that Boas tended to favor the functionalist approach, which considered societies as likened to organisms where the parts are interdependent. Boas argued that cultures should be considered as a whole. He emphasized the importance of life histories and drew attention to the relationship between culture and personality. Boas inspired a number of students who became prominent anthropologists, one of whom was Ruth Benedict. Benedict’s humanistic ideas led her not only to challenge the rigid scientific methodology that some considered to be essential in anthropological research but also to argue that anthropology belonged with the humanities and not the social sciences. She discovered anthropology after the age of thirty, and she believed that the discipline enabled her to contrast different peoples and different historical periods. She was a student at the New School for Social Research, where she was greatly influenced by Boas. She was also influenced by Robert Lowie and was directed in her fieldwork among the Serrano Indians by Alfred Kroeber. Benedict completed her doctoral dissertation in 1923 and was appointed an assistant to Boas. In 1927, she studied the Pima Indians and was struck by the contrast between them and the Pueblo Indians. The Pueblo emphasized harmony, whereas the Pima emphasized extremism. During this time, Benedict began to view culture as a total configuration, not merely a matrix in which personalities develop; she saw culture as being like a personality on a large scale. She presented this view of culture, which developed into the theoretical framework for her book Patterns of Culture, at the Twenty-third Con-
Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture gress of Americanists in 1928. She did not publish her book until 1934, however. After Boas’s retirement, Benedict became chair of the anthropology department at Columbia University. She also served as editor of the Journal of American Folklore, directed field trips, and wrote poetry. World War II opened up new avenues, and Benedict received a research posting in Washington, D.C., where she applied anthropological thought to contemporary societies. After returning to Columbia University in 1946, she published The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, a book that some consider to be her masterpiece. Patterns of Culture, however, remained Benedict’s most popular work, and its publication was the central event in her life. The work was not only a culmination of her questioning in the 1920’s but also the fulfillment of a sense of social responsibility and a desire to lead society to new values and goals. It was a course given at Columbia University by Kroeber, however, that triggered the
Ruth Benedict. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 effort. At the insistence of Boas, Kroeber acquiesced to give a series of lectures on the cultures of Highland South America. Benedict thought that Kroeber’s lectures and contributions were dry, and out of exasperation she made the impulsive decision to write her own book, which became Patterns of Culture. In Patterns of Culture, Benedict argued that every culture is an integrated whole, a “personality writ large.” As her friend Margaret Mead later explained, Benedict showed that “each historical culture represents a many-generational process of paring, sifting, adapting, and elaborating on an available ‘areal forma,’ and that each culture, in turn, shapes the choices of those born and living within it.” Benedict recognized that hereditary factors contribute to differences in behavior and also that those who do not conform to the culture within which they live have difficulties. To support her argument, Benedict analyzed and compared the cultures of three peoples: the Kwakiutl of western Canada, the Zuni of the southwestern United States, and the Dobuans of Melanesia. She chose them because she considered the data available on each culture viable. She had studied the Zuni, was familiar with the literature concerning them, and could also draw on Ruth Bunzel’s field materials. Boas had studied and written extensively on the Kwakiutl, and she had full access to his published and unpublished materials, as well as spending many hours discussing the Kwakiutl with him. Benedict had a high regard for Reo Fortune’s work on the Dobuans and got permission from him to use his material. Building on her earlier work, she used Friedrich Nietzsche’s terms “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” as classification terms but used the psychological term “paranoid” for her third category. Also, she had become acquainted with Gestalt psychology, an approach that agreed with her insights, so she used the Gestalt framework in her analysis. She compared the three cultures. The Kwakiutl were “Dionysian” because, as she viewed them, they were egocentric, individualistic, and ecstatic in their rituals. Located on a narrow strip of the Alaskan coast, the Kwakiutl were wealthy, living off the products of the sea. Technologically, they were superior; they worked wood without metal tools, built houses and ceremonial halls, and raised great totem poles. In spite of this wealth, however, they were Dionysian in their ecstatic dancing. Often, a dance leader foamed at the mouth, seemed mad, and sometimes even threw himself on burning coals. Wealth was for display, not use. The Kwakiutl would lend out etched sheets of copper, blankets, and canoes with obligatory interest, which often began with the children. The potlatch was a ritual competition in which gifts
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Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture
In fact, it was forbidden for a serving priest even to feel anger. They emRuth Benedict begins the third chapter of Patterns of Culture with a discusphasized the ceremony, the perfecsion of the diversity of cultures around the world, using as an example the varition of ritual, and had hierarchies of ety of reactions to the taking of a life: kachinas, or masked gods, some of which were impersonated in dances. The diversity of cultures can be endlessly documented. A field of human beMarriage was a personal affair with haviour may be ignored in some societies until it barely exists; it may even be little ceremony attached to it, and in some cases unimagined. Or it may almost monopolize the whole organized divorce was easy. The society was behaviour of the society, and the most alien situations be manipulated only in matrilineal, and when a wife became its terms. Traits having no intrinsic relation one with the other, and historically tired of her husband, she merely laid independent, merge and become inextricable, providing the occasion for behaviour that has no counterpart in regions that do not make these identificahis belongings on the doorstep and tions. It is a corollary of this that standards, no matter in what aspect of behavhe went home to his mother. Dreams iour, range in different cultures from the positive to the negative pole. We and hallucinatory experiences were might suppose that in the matter of taking a life all peoples would agree in conavoided, but prayers lasting an hour demnation. On the contrary, in a matter of homicide, it may be held that one is long were repeated without mistakes. blameless if diplomatic relations have been severed between neighbouring Aggressive, ambitious individuals countries, or that one kills by custom his first two children, or that a husband were frowned upon and suspected of has right of life and death over his wife, or that it is the duty of the child to kill sorcery. The ideal person was easyhis parents before they are old. It may be that those are killed who steal a fowl, going and socially poised and made or who cut their upper teeth first, or who are born on a Wednesday. Among others feel comfortable. some peoples a person suffers torments at having caused an accidental death; The Dobuans, were considered among others it is a matter of no consequence. Suicide also may be a light matter, the recourse of anyone who has suffered some slight rebuff, an act that ocparanoid because they emphasized curs constantly in a tribe. It may be the highest and noblest act a wise man can magic, and everyone feared and hated perform. The very tale of it, on the other hand, may be a matter for incredulous everyone else. The Dobuans were of mirth, and the act itself impossible to conceive as a human possibility. Or it Melanesia and part of the kula ring may be a crime punishable by law, or regarded as a sin against the gods. studied by Bronisuaw Malinowski. Source: Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934). Unlike Malinowski’s Trobrianders, the Dobuans displayed antagonisms and hostility. They used charms to defend their yam crops against comwere heaped on a rival who could not repay or a contest petitors. If there was a problem, it was ascribed to evil of wild destruction during the recitation of hymns of selfmagic. They saw life as dominated by treacherous rivalry; glorification. If the guest could not destroy an equal adultery was common and violent jealous outbursts were amount, he was shamed. The same contest was perfrequent. Dobuans used incantations to cause disease in formed at a wedding, where the bridegroom’s party those they disliked, and all had antidotal spells. They might try to overpower the father of the bride with heaps used charms to protect themselves and their property as of gifts. During other forms of revenge, innocent parties well as to infect trespassers and thieves. Death was alwere killed to avenge natural deaths. A boy struck by his ways attributed to magic, with women being particularly father was shamed into committing suicide; similarly, a suspect. Often on the death of a spouse, the survivor was wife heaped with accusations of adultery was sent home suspected of magical murder. The Dobuans disapproved to take her own life eventually. The ideal character of laughter and believed that laughter during gardening among the Kwakiutl was to strive constantly to escape prevented yams from growing. The ideal person cheated, limitations, to achieve excesses, and to break into the orstole, charmed, and poisoned his way to eminence. der of experience. Thus they valued drugs and alcohol, fasted, and used self-torture and frenzy. Significance The Zunis were “Apollonian” because they were reWhen Patterns of Culture was published, it initially restrained—they did not condone excessive or disruptive ceived acclaim. The New York Times said it was “expsychological states. They preferred a noncompetitive, pertly conceived and brilliantly developed.” Kroeber, in gentle, peace-loving, and middle-of-the-road existence. the American Anthropologist, called it “an important
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Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture contribution” but also noted that Benedict’s configuration approach should be further developed to give anthropology “new stimuli and insights.” In spite of the initial favorable reaction and the book’s popularity among nonanthropologists, the approach was eventually abandoned because it was considered impressionistic, reductionist, and not susceptible to replication. It explained behavior by focusing on cultural patterns and did not account for the variation within particular groups. Also, some of the data came to be challenged by other studies. In spite of these limitations, however, Patterns of Culture made a significant impact at a crucial time, influencing both anthropologists and nonanthropologists. It raised philosophical and theoretical issues while building on and developing existing concepts. Some of the criticisms were exactly what Benedict had argued against. For twenty years, many had tried to discredit subjectivity in anthropology. Benedict, with her humanistic orientation, reintroduced subjectivity into analysis, but it was subjectivity based on verifiable facts. This marked a clear split between what Kroeber termed “scientific” anthropology and “historical” anthropology. A debate within the discipline of anthropology concerning the merits and validity of each approach followed. Benedict defined anthropology as a discipline that studies differences between cultural traditions, so that the concern is what particular cultures do to people. She presented “culture” as an integrated whole made by humans, which means that every culture is integrated and implies that a culture is more than the sum of its parts. By studying whole cultures and seeing culture as a total configuration, Benedict adopted Boas’s emphasis on the collection of information and took it further by integrating data around a concept; in her case, it was the cultural configuration. This gave impetus to cultural relativism, which argued that whole cultures should be studied rather than cultural traits or culture as a general concept. Benedict also brought forth the issue of the relationship between the individual and society. She showed that culture provides a stimulus for certain behavioral patterns and that individuals influence their culture—that is, influence flows both ways. People who do not fit into a society thus do not necessarily have to blame themselves. In fact, Benedict showed that even though some cultures evaluate certain behaviors as abnormal, other cultures provide environments where people practicing those behaviors function well. These revelations gave impetus to the culture and personality focus in anthropology. For nonanthropologists as well as anthropologists, Benedict set forth a concept of culture and showed the 2700
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 importance it has in everyday life, even in modern society. She challenged the biological deterministic position that dominated the thinking of the time and replaced biology with culture as a prime determinant in human behavior. She also communicated the concept of cultural relativity to the public, leading people to be more open to evaluating others on their own terms rather than from outsiders’ ethnocentric bias. This formed the basis for reevaluation of cultural practices, such as sex roles. One ramification was that women did not have to be seen as innately weaker or inferior, given that in other cultures they hold a dominant position. Patterns of Culture has remained a popular book, and much of the philosophy and many of the concepts it sets forth are as relevant in the twenty-first century as they were at the time it was initially published. The appearance of this book was an important step toward an understanding of human behavior that is part of the foundation of human knowledge. —Arthur W. Helweg Further Reading Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. 1934. Reprint. New York: Mariner Books, 1989. Classic work sets forth Benedict’s philosophical and theoretical views concerning the analysis of human behavior. Bohannan, Paul, and Mark Glazer, eds. High Points in Anthropology. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. Briefly describes some of Benedict’s contributions to anthropology as well as criticisms of her ideas. Includes Benedict’s original writings to allow readers to judge the ideas as they appeared in the primary sources. Caffrey, Margaret M. Ruth Benedict: Stranger in This Land. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Highly acclaimed, well-researched, and insightful portrayal of Benedict and her works. Includes selected bibliography and index. Harris, Marvin. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. Updated ed. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2000. Presents analysis of anthropological theories from the cultural materialist perspective. Hays, H. R. From Ape to Angel: An Informal History of Social Anthropology. 1958. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. An account of the development of anthropology from a literary perspective. Honigmann, John J. The Development of Anthropological Ideas. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1976. Addresses the development of anthropology from the cultural perspective of the American school.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mead, Margaret. Ruth Benedict: A Humanist in Anthropology. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. A portrayal of Benedict by a close friend and scholar who had access to much of her correspondence. Modell, Judith Schachter. Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Insightful biography offers analysis of Benedict’s life and work. Young, Virginia Heyer. Ruth Benedict: Beyond Relativ-
Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect ity, Beyond Pattern. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Biography by one of Benedict’s last graduate students draws on the anthropologist’s unpublished and lesser-known works as well as her personal correspondence and other materials to illuminate the final years of her life. See also: 1911: Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa.
1934
Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov undertook a detailed study of the properties of the faint blue light emitted by charged particles moving through a material faster than the speed of light in that material. Locale: Soviet Academy of Science, Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Science and technology; physics
Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, many scientists noticed that transparent materials placed near intense radioactive sources emitted a very faint blue light. Pierre Curie, codiscoverer of the radioactive element radium, was said to have fascinated dinner guests by producing from his pocket a tube of radium salt that illuminated the dinner table with a mysterious blue glow visible in the fading evening light. At the time, however, scientists were interested in the isolation and identification of new chemical elements, and little or no effort went to understanding the origin of the bluish glow. The first systematic attempt to understand this emission of blue light was made by Lucien Mallet from 1926 to 1929. He found that the light emitted from a wide variety of different transparent materials placed next to radioactive sources always had the same bluish-white color and that its spectrum was continuous. This later observation was very important be-
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Key Figures Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov (1904-1990), Soviet physicist Ilya Mikhailovich Frank (1908-1990), Soviet physicist Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm (1895-1971), Soviet physicist Emilio Gino Segrè (1905-1989), Italian physicist
cause it distinguished this light from the fluorescent light emission, which occurred in narrow, discrete color bands, also observed when materials were bombarded with the rays from radioactive sources. Mallet, however, completed his work without attempting to offer any explanation for the mechanism that produced the light. In 1934, Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov was working at the Institute of Physics of the Soviet Academy of Science in Moscow, where he undertook an exhaustive series of experiments to characterize the properties of the blue emission. He had been studying the problem of fluorescent emission from materials exposed to radiation. Apparently unaware of Mallet’s earlier efforts, Cherenkov noticed the very weak emission of visible light from liquids exposed to gamma rays, high-energy light invisible to the human eye. In his first experiment to determine the nature of this emission, Cherenkov inserted a vial containing about 100 milligrams of radium into a wooden block. The wood absorbed all the radiation from the decaying radium except the gamma rays. A container of liquid was then placed above the radioactive source and an optical microscope system was used to observe the intensity and color of the light emitted by the liquid. Sixteen different pure liquids including distilled water, paraffin, and various alcohols were examined. After studying the liquids, Cherenkov concluded that the intensity of the emission varied little when one liquid was substituted for another, that the emission was mainly in the blue and violet regions of the color spectrum, and that the color of the emission did not change significantly when a different liquid was substituted. These properties of the emission were quite different from what would be expected from the fluorescence emission process. In addition, when Cherenkov added compounds such as po-
Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect tassium iodide or silver nitrate (known to inhibit the fluorescence process) into the liquids, the intensity of the emitted light did not decrease. By the early 1930’s, the mechanism for the fluorescent emission from materials bombarded with the rays from radioactive sources was well understood. Soviet scientists, who were the first to become aware of Cherenkov’s observations, took up the challenge of attempting to explain the mechanism for this new emission process. In 1934, Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov proposed the emission might be caused by the energy lost as electrons produced by the passage of the gamma rays through the liquid slowed down, a process known as bremsstrahlung. Cherenkov undertook a second series of experiments in 1936 to understand better the mechanism of the emission process. He investigated the influence of a magnetic field on the emitted light and concluded that the emission must be from electrons produced in the liquid by the gamma rays, not directly from the gamma rays themselves, but that the process was inconsistent with bremsstrahlung. In 1937, two other Soviet physicists, Ilya Mikhailovich Frank and Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm, developed a theory to explain the emission process. Frank and Tamm recognized that the speed of light in solids, liquids, and gases is slower than in a vacuum. According to Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, no particle can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, but it is possible for a particle to travel faster than the speed of light in the medium through which it is moving. After applying their knowledge about electricity and magnetism, Frank and Tamm concluded that when a charged particle travels faster than the speed of light in the medium through which it is moving, it will give off light directed in a cone oriented along its direction of motion. This emission is analogous to the bow wave produced by a boat moving through water or the sonic boom produced by an airplane moving through air faster than the speed of sound in the medium. The theory predicted that the angle of the cone of emitted light would depend on the speed of the charged particle as well as the properties of the medium. Their theory also predicted the distribution of colors to be expected in the emitted light. Cherenkov and two American physicists, George B. Collins and Victor G. Reiling, undertook a series of experiments to test the new theory. Cherenkov succeeded in photographing the emission in 1937 and showed that it had a shape crudely consistent with the cone predicted by the theory. In 1938, Cherenkov improved his apparatus and was able to verify that the angle the cone of emitted light made with the path of the particle varied in a manner 2702
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Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov. (The Nobel Foundation)
consistent with the theory of Frank and Tamm. In addition, Cherenkov confirmed that the intensity of the emitted light and its color distribution were consistent with the theory. Independently, in 1938, Collins and Reiling published results on the intensity and angle of the emitted light, generally referred to as the Cherenkov effect. Their observations were also consistent with Frank and Tamm’s theory. These early experiments all involved the examination of the Cherenkov radiation from an intense beam of particles. The emission from a single particle, however, was so faint that it could not be seen using the tools available in the 1930’s. The development of the photomultiplier tube, an extremely sensitive light detector, provided the hope that the Cherenkov radiation from a single particle passing through a liquid or solid could be detected. After several unsuccessful attempts by a number of researchers, in 1951 John V. Jelley succeeded in detecting the Cherenkov emission from a single, fast-moving charged particle passing through distilled water. Almost immedi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ately, other scientists succeeded in using Cherenkov radiation for the direct measurement of particle velocities. By the mid-1950’s, Cherenkov detectors were being employed by particle physicists worldwide to detect unusual atomic particles at accelerators and in the cosmic rays. For their efforts in characterizing the properties of the radiation and developing a theory to explain its emission mechanism Cherenkov, Frank, and Tamm were jointly awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Another large, water-filled Cherenkov detector, the Kamiokande II, operated by Japanese physicists at a site 300 kilometers west of Tokyo (originally designed to search for proton decays) has been upgraded to allow detection of neutrinos from space. This detector has provided confirmation of the unexpectedly low neutrino flux from the Sun, which has puzzled astronomers since it was reported by Raymond Davis, Jr., in 1967 using another type of neutrino detector. The Kamiokande II also detected the neutrino burst from the 1987 supernova, confirming models of the duration and intensity of neutrino emission in supernovas. Cherenkov detectors are also employed by radiochemists to identify and count decaying nuclei. Because Cherenkov radiation occurs only if the charged particle is traveling faster than the speed of light in the detection material, Cherenkov detectors can be used to count rare decays in which a high energy, or fast-moving, particle is emitted in a background of many more low-energy events below the detection threshold. Cherenkov detectors have been used to determine the amount and type of radioactive material present in plant and animal tissue, environmental materials, nuclear reactor effluents, and biomedical fluids. Astronomers have used Cherenkov detectors to understand the properties of the cosmic rays. In 1956, Frank McDonald of the University of Iowa combined Cherenkov detectors with scintillation counters to obtain the charge and energy of individual cosmic rays. Early balloon-borne experiments using this combination of detectors were able to determine the relative proportions of each element in the cosmic rays. Cosmic ray analysis advanced further when similar paired detectors measuring 6 square meters flew in the third High Energy Astronomical Observatory satellite launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1979. The blue glow of Cherenkov radiation emitted from the water pools surrounding many nuclear reactors is also a familiar sight to reactor workers and members of the public who have been permitted to tour nuclear reactor sites. —George J. Flynn Further Reading Close, Frank, Michael Marten, and Christine Sutton. The Particle Explosion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. This well-illustrated book makes extensive use of color photographs in explaining the world of subatomic particles to general audiences. It describes how Cherenkov detectors were used in Segrè’s discovery of the antiproton, the search for 2703
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Significance Although initially regarded as little more than a scientific curiosity, the distinctive Cherenkov effect has found widespread applications in the fields of particle physics, astronomy, and chemistry. In 1955, Emilio Gino Segrè and his colleagues set up an apparatus at the Bevatron particle accelerator in Berkeley, California, to search for the antiproton. They expected only a few antiprotons in a background of many other particles called pions, and their experiment was set up to allow the pions to move more rapidly than the antiprotons. To facilitate this movement, they built a Cherenkov detector filled with a particular organic liquid in which the speed of light was faster than the expected antiproton speed but slower than the pion speed. This detector provided a signal when a pion went through, but no signal was given when the antiproton passed. They also used a second detector sensitive to both types of particles, and by comparing the two outputs, they were able to identify the antiprotons. On September 21, 1955, Segrè and his colleagues obtained their first evidence for the antiproton using detectors based on Cherenkov radiation. Cherenkov detectors have been employed in the investigation of the stability of the proton. Although the proton was once believed to be a stable particle, certain theories predict that eventually the proton will decay. Its lifetime must be very long; therefore, to see a decay, scientists would have to watch a single proton for billions and billions of years or watch a large number of protons for a shorter time. Cherenkov radiation provides the tool to undertake such an experiment. Physicists from the University of California at Irvine, the University of Michigan, and the Brookhaven National Laboratory costructed a huge pool of eight thousand tons of pure water at a Morton Thiokol salt mine in Ohio. If any single proton in one of the water molecules were to decay, the resulting fragments traveling through the water would produce a pulse of Cherenkov light to be detected by one or more of the 2,048 individual Cherenkov detectors surrounding the pool.
Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect
Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect proton decay, neutrino experiments, and efforts to reveal other elusive subatomic particles. Collins, George B., and Victor G. Reiling. “Cherenkov Radiation.” Physical Review 54 (October 1, 1938): 499-503. This article reviews the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, describes the theory of its emission, and reports the authors’ results in determining the color spectrum of the emitted light. Although a technical article, it should be understandable to students in a high school-level physical science course. Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Presents portraits of the lives and accomplishments of important physicists and shows how they influenced one another with their work. Includes glossary and index. Jelley, John V. Cherenkov Radiation and Its Applications. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1958. This book is the definitive scientific description of Cherenkov radiation. Although intended for specialists, the first chapter, which presents an extensive historical account of Cherenkov’s contribution and the observations of this phenomenon that predate his work, is appropriate for general audiences. The extensive citations and reference list will assist readers interested in locating original papers on the topic. Jordan, W. H. “Radiation from a Reactor.” Scientific American (October, 1951): 54-55. Provides a nonmathematical description of how Cherenkov light is emitted and describes the early experiments in the United States to follow up on Cherenkov’s discovery. The blue glow of Cherenkov radiation surrounding an operating nuclear reactor is shown on the cover. Koshiba, Masa-Toshi. “Observational Neutrino Astrophysics.” Physics Today 40 (December, 1987): 3842. This well-illustrated, nontechnical article describes the construction, operation, and results from the Japanese Kamiokande II proton decay and neutrino detector. How Cherenkov radiation from these
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 particles is produced and detected is described, and the results for solar neutrino observations and the 1987 supernova are discussed. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. An overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Includes many illustrations and index. Ross, H. H., and G. T. Rasmussen. “Modern Techniques and Applications in Cherenkov Counting.” In Liquid Scintillation Counting: Recent Developments, edited by Philip E. Stantey and Bruce A. Scoggins. New York: Academic Press, 1974. Although written for specialists, this chapter provides a clear description of many of the applications of Cherenkov detectors to problems in chemistry, biology, and environmental science. The authors explain how the unique characteristics of Cherenkov detectors make them the instrument of choice for particular scientific experiments. Segrè, Emilio. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. Segrè was one of the few physicists who both participated directly in nuclear physics (for which he received a Nobel Prize) and wrote a number of popular accounts on the history of physics. The earlier sections of this volume cover the discoveries and theories of those who produced a coherent picture of the atom. See also: Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity; Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity; Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light; 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect; Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle; Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons.
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Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals
1934
Lubitsch’s THE MERRY WIDOW Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals Ernst Lubitsch brought visual and verbal wit, European sophistication, dance, and song together into a fully integrated musical myth that popularized cinematic operetta. Locale: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, Culver City, California Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947), German actor and motionpicture director Jeanette MacDonald (1903-1965), onetime Broadway chorus girl who played Sonia, the title character in The Merry Widow Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972), former French cabaret singer turned international film star who played Captain Danilo in The Merry Widow Edward Everett Horton (1886-1970), comedian who played fussy, blundering Ambassador Popoff
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Summary of Event Early film musical directors were troubled by the role of song and dance: They wondered how to explain a performer’s decision to stop the action, turn to the audience, and begin to sing within the context of a story. Efforts to justify production numbers explain why many early musicals were set in theaters or nightclubs, where music was the logical outgrowth of the setting. On stage, operetta came closer than any other form to fully integrating music, dance, plot, and character development into a coherent whole. That integration was most successful in Jerome Kern’s Show Boat, which opened on Broadway in 1927. In Germany, Ernst Lubitsch, once a comic and a student of famed director Max Reinhardt, had become a director himself. His first success in this area was Schuhpalast Pinkus (Shoe Salon Pinkus), a silent musical released in 1916. (Silent films were not, to their audiences, silent; they were always accompanied by music, and in urban centers, the films might be accompanied by full orchestras.) After Lubitsch’s arrival in the United States, he made Rosita (1923), which featured Mary Pickford as a street singer; So This Is Paris (1926), with an extravagant production number; The Student Prince (1927), which drew from the Sigmund Romberg oper-
etta; and Love Parade (1929), with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier. The Merry Widow had been filmed before. In fact, Lubitsch’s film was overshadowed, at the time, by the 1925 silent version, which starred screen idol John Gilbert and popular actress Mae Murray; the director of the earlier version was Erich von Stroheim. Lubitsch, however, brought a new perspective to the film, as well as new and witty songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and by Gus Kahn. The major characters, Sonia and Danilo, are treated both tenderly and poignantly. Comedy derives partly from his vanity and her pride but primarily from the pair’s struggles to resist the social order and the necessary cycles of marriage—and, by implication, reproduction—to which they must ultimately yield. The film is based on an operetta by Franz Lehár that was first staged in Vienna in 1905. The plot is simple. Sonia, wealthy and widowed, is lonely and bored. Captain Danilo, a happy womanizer, is eager to meet the heavily veiled widow, but he has been spoiled by the bored women of Maxim’s bordello in Paris, the equally bored peasant women of Marshovia, and the even more bored Queen Dolores (first played by the famous actress Una Merkel) of that country. When he meets Sonia, his remarks are directly sexual. She is attracted, but her pride causes her to rebuff him. She flees to Paris. Danilo’s government sends him after her to marry her and keep her wealth in the country. He wins her at an embassy party, but she learns he is courting her under orders. Now truly in love, Danilo refuses to defend himself. He is arrested and returned to Marshovia to be tried for treason. She appears at his trial and visits him in jail. There, the king and ambassador lock them in until they agree to be married by a priest the king has conveniently provided. Lubitsch added contrast to the story. Chevalier’s untrained, French-cabaret voice represents the forces of passion and freedom; MacDonald’s trained, operatic soprano is the voice of love and marriage. At Maxim’s, where Sonia follows Danilo, the audience first sees a cancan, an exhibitionist dance in which women display themselves to male viewers. That dance gives way to an awkward hopping dance that Chevalier performs with a crowd of women, not with a single partner. The scene switches to the embassy, where a disciplined folk dance balances the cancan of the earlier scene. Then the waltz
Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals
The Hays Code In 1930, Will Hays devised the “Code to Govern the Making of Talking, Synchronized and Silent Motion Pictures. Formulated and Formally Adopted by the Association of Motion Picture Producers, Inc. and The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. in March 1930.” Known as the Production Code or simply the Hays Code, it was used by the film industry as an instrument to regulate material depicted in motion pictures, such as the sexual subject matter of Lubitsch’s films. Among its provisions were the following: General Principles 1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. 2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented. 3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation. Particular Applications I. Crimes Against the Law These shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation. . . . The technique of murder must be presented in a way that will not inspire imitation. . . . Methods of Crime should not be explicitly presented. . . . Illegal drug traffic must never be presented. . . . The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization, will not be shown. II. Sex The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing. . . . In general passion should so be treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser element. . . . Seduction or Rape . . . should never be more than suggested, and only when essential for the plot, and even then never shown by explicit method. . . . Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden. . . . Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races) is forbidden. . . . III. Vulgarity The treatment of low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects should always be subject to the dictates of good taste and a regard for the sensibilities of the audience. IV. Obscenity Obscenity in word, gesture, reference, song, joke, or by suggestion (even when likely to be understood only by part of the audience) is forbidden. V. Profanity Pointed profanity (this includes the words, God, Lord, Jesus, Christ—unless used reverently—Hell, S.O.B., damn, Gawd), or every other profane or vulgar expression however used, is forbidden. . . .
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 begins. In contrast to Danilo’s hopping dance at the club, the circles of the waltz are disciplined. They represent the eternal cycles of mating, childbirth, and death, a notion given particular poignancy by a single shot of viewers—older people, whose time of youth and joy is ended—on a balcony. They are observers, as Sonia and Danilo must someday be. Below, the lovers dance alone, merge into the crowd, dance alone, and are surrounded by dancers again, in a scene that symbolizes the difficulty they are having accepting their destiny. When Sonia rejects Danilo, however, and he is arrested, she begins a hysterical parody of the waltz; in its disorder, it is comparable to Danilo’s earlier hopping dance. Both visual and verbal wit suggest that social order is necessary but not flawless. Much of the film’s considerable comedy comes at the government’s expense. In the opening credits, a magnifying glass appears over a map of central Europe so that the audience can find tiny Marshovia. The Marshovian government, however, takes itself very seriously. King Achmed communicates clichés and trivia to Ambassador Popoff in an elaborate secret code. He tolerates his queen’s adultery because he possesses a politician’s desire to avoid scandal. Yet livestock must be removed from a Marshovian courtroom before Danilo can be tried for treason; significantly, a goat is led out as Danilo enters. Set design and costume are important to the film’s mythic dimension. Exterior shots of Sonia’s castle are unrealistically presented in ways that suggest German expressionist theater. Hers is a fairy-tale castle in which a widow is imprisoned by convention. As the film develops, black comes to represent confinement, and white is a symbol of freedom: Alone in her castle, Sonia wears a widow’s mourning clothes, and the audience sees a closet of mourning gowns, mourning veils, and mourning corsets; even her dog is black. When she resolves to leave for Paris, everything (even the dog) turns white. In the cancan at Maxim’s, the girls’ costumes are white edged in black; at the embassy the waltzers at first wear black and white.
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Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals
Significance Lubitsch popularized operetta on film, but for Lubitsch himself, The Merry Widow was an ending, not a beginning. He made more than forty films in Hollywood, but no other musicals. His later credits include Ninotchka (1939), with Greta Garbo; The Shop Around the Corner (1940), with Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart; To Be or Not to Be (1942), with Carole Lombard and Jack Benny; Heaven Can Wait (1943), with Gene Tierney; and Cluny Brown (1946), with Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones. The film also was an ending for Chevalier. After appearing in Folies Bergère (1935), he returned to Europe and made no more Hollywood films until Gigi (1958). The “Lubitsch touch,” as the director’s influence came to be known, was affected by increasing censorship. Following a decade of Hollywood scandals, the institution of the Catholic Church’s League of Decency in 1933 caused Hollywood to enforce the production rules
known as the Hays Code, which prohibited the type of wit that had informed The Merry Widow. Danilo’s casual promiscuity would become unacceptable; clearly, in the film, when he marries Sonia, he gives up a life that has given him great pleasure. This is sacrifice, not repentance. The obvious sexual reference of the trial scene— when the entrance of Danilo, now romantically in love, is associated with the exit of the goat, a traditional symbol of lechery—would also be unacceptable, as would the blatant sexuality of the queen and the obvious prostitutes at Maxim’s. Specific kinds of stage business would not be seen again for two decades. For example, there is considerable symbolic byplay involving a comparison of swords and swordbelts in the scene in which the king learns of his wife’s adultery with Danilo. When Danilo thinks the king is gone, he suggestively sheaths his sword before entering the queen’s bedroom. The king, however, returns after forgetting his sword and belt. He accidentally picks up the now-abandoned sword and belt of
1934
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Ernst Lubitsch with star Jeanette MacDonald and other cast members of The Merry Widow. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals Danilo, which obviously belong to a younger, trimmer, and—by implication—more virile man. This broadly sexual use of visual humor would go underground until such films as the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965), which were released after censorship had ended. It is possible, too, that with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini on the march in Europe, neither the public nor studio heads, many of them Jewish, were as amused as they had once been by the self-important doings of heads of small European nations. Certainly, Lubitsch was harshly criticized for his treatment of European politics in his later To Be or Not to Be. The Merry Widow, however, heavily depends on such topical humor. For example, when Sonia leaves Marshovia, the threat to the economy is so great that the king hears of impending revolution. The shepherds, he is told, are threatening to organize into a Black Sheep movement. The king is later relieved to hear that the leaders are merely “Left Bank intellectual” shepherds and, consequently, not a force to be feared. Such humor savors more of the Weimar Republic than of the United States of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Lubitsch’s use of operetta was influential, although it was changed in ways that offered revealing insights into popular culture in the 1930’s. With the Depression’s heightening impact and the increasing threat of war in Europe, the public demanded simpler emotions and more stereotyped characters than were to be found in Lubitsch musicals. Audiences clearly rejected Lubitsch’s characters’ complex ambivalence about their proper roles. Chevalier’s European sophistication was thus replaced by Nelson Eddy’s boyish earnestness. Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald were rivaled only by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire as the most popular couple in film history. Eddy had a trained operatic voice and had sung with the Philadelphia Civic Opera. Without acting ability, he simply portrayed manly courage, protectiveness toward women, and American virtue. Even in films such as the disastrous I Married an Angel (1942), which concluded the Eddy-MacDonald series and in which Eddy is described as a womanizer, he obviously viewed women with great alarm. Unlike Chevalier’s Danilo, Eddy greeted his rescue by a virtuous woman with absolute relief. MacDonald played innocent girls, not experienced women, until, in I Married an Angel, the camera shows her forty-one years in her chin line and eyes—even as she simpers like a teenager in a film caught between pure sentimentalism and self-parody. The MacDonald-Eddy partnership began in 1935 with Naughty Marietta and continued through Rose Marie (1940), Bitter Sweet 2708
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(1940), and The Chocolate Soldier (1942), among others. In these films, worldliness and social satire were replaced with sentimentality. Lubitsch’s synthesis of fairy-tale musical and myth would not reappear for a long time. A number of films in the folk-musical tradition subordinated romance and melodrama to mythic structure; these began with King Vidor’s Hallelujah (1929) and continued through the filmings of Show Boat (1936 and 1951), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and such later musicals as Carousel (1956) and Oklahoma! (1955). Audiences were not prepared to accept the more sophisticated Lubitsch myths until after World War II, when Lubitsch’s aware, experienced, and committment-phobic couple appeared in South Pacific (1958). A similar story is told in Gigi, in which Chevalier also reappears, and Lubitsch’s mythic kingdom is alive, but sentimentalized, in the 1967 Camelot. These films shared something of Lubitsch’s archetypes, but audiences never again saw his ideas portrayed with such dazzling effect and such wit as in The Merry Widow. — Betty Richardson Further Reading Altman, Rick. The American Musical. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. The reader put off by academic jargon should avoid the theoretical chapters here, but the chapter “The Fairy Tale Musical” contains an excellent analysis of Lubitsch, and “The Folk Musical” introduces the use of mythic elements. Eisner, Lotte H. “Lubitsch and the Costume Film.” In The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969. Eisner is annoyingly condescending to Lubitsch as a lower-middle-class Jew, but Eisner’s work, first published in France in 1952, recognizes expressionistic and mythic elements overlooked by most critics. Kislan, Richard. The Musical: A Look at the American Musical Theater. Rev. ed. New York: Applause Books, 1995. Textbook for a general course in musical theater includes a brief but thorough history and a study of the various crafts and artists in the musical theater. Includes excellent photographs. Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. History of the genre focuses on how themes in American musical theater productions relate to how Americans view themselves. Includes useful appendixes, notes, bibliography, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Manvell, Roger, and Heinrich Fraenkel. The German Cinema. New York: Praeger, 1972. The first two chapters provide a solid overview of the German film from 1895 to the 1920’s, when Lubitsch was learning acting and directing. The authors emphasize spectacular films, such as Lubitsch’s Madame Dubarry (1929), and the influence on Lubitsch’s later, more intimate work of such directors as Mauritz Stiller. Poague, Leland. The Cinema of Ernst Lubitsch. South Brunswick, N.J.: A. S. Barnes, 1978. Deals somewhat superficially with Lubitsch’s American work but provides good synopses of these films, although Poague’s conclusions about Lubitsch’s dawning selfawareness are dubious. Contains a valuable filmography of Lubitsch’s American films and a useful, if brief, bibliographical note. Pratt, George C. “Foreign Invasion (II) Ernst Lubitsch.” In Spellbound in Darkness: A History of the Silent Film. Rev. ed. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973. Less a history than a filmography, but contains valuable extracts from hard-to-find feature articles and reviews, the latter only concerning Lubitsch’s American silents. Only one illustration.
Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art Sennett, Ted. “The First Sounds of Music.” In Hollywood Musicals. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. This lavishly illustrated coffee-table volume contains an intelligent, if superficial, overview of Lubitsch’s work and a brief bibliography. Weinberg, Herman G. The Lubitsch Touch: A Critical Study. 3d ed. New York: Dover, 1977. Otherwise excellent book on Lubitsch’s total career is marred by the author’s coy prose style, by some thirty-five pages of tributes from contemporaries given without the documentation that would allow readers to consult the sources, and by a bibliography arranged, inexplicably, in chronological rather than alphabetical order. See also: Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the AstaireRogers Dance Team; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres.
1934 Initial hopes for a true revolution in art in the new Soviet Union were dashed when the leaders of the Communist Party centralized control of artistic production and outlawed all forms of art except Socialist Realism. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Arts; government and politics; civil rights and liberties Key Figures Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 18701924), chairman of the Council of the People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union, 1917-1924 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), Soviet sculptor Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935), Soviet abstract artist Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933), first commissar of education in the Soviet Union
1934
Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Soviet artist, theoretician, and museum director Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Soviet abstract artist Summary of Event When, in 1934, the First Congress of the Soviet Writers’ Union decreed that Socialist Realism was to be the only acceptable form of artistic expression in the Soviet Union, the final nail was driven into the coffin of Soviet abstract art. The pronouncement was not unexpected, for abstract artists who had been heartened by the promises of new freedom under the Communists had already seen their early hopes dashed by a series of actions—beginning in 1922—that had made it increasingly difficult for them to survive and practice their art in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the declaration was a particularly insidious blow to men such as Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevich, and Wassily Kandinsky, whose rise to prominence in the decades before the 1934 congress had signaled a true revolution in Russian art. Under their leadership, men and women in what was now the Soviet Union 2709
Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art had become part of the larger European artistic community and were advancing the boundaries of artistic expression in a country that had had a history of imposing on its artists long before the Communists had come to power. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, a group of artists who came to be known as the Wanderers rebelled against the classical style being taught in Russian academies; rejecting both classicism and the new notion of art for art’s sake, the Wanderers focused on the folk aspects of Russian life and embedded in their realist works a sense of social consciousness. At almost the same time, a different group of young Russian artists were discovering the new theories emerging in other European countries. Reacting against both the academies and the Wanderers, these artists brought various forms of abstractionism into the Russian salons and museums. This group reached its zenith in the years immediately before the 1917 revolution swept the Communists into power. Experimentation became the byword for these
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artists; Impressionism, cubism, Imagism, Futurism, and Russia’s own contributions to the movement—constructivism, under the leadership of Vladimir Tatlin, and Suprematism, inspired by Kazimir Malevich—gained strong footholds in artistic circles. It was inevitable that these two major forms of artistic expression would come into conflict. There was already bad blood between champions of realist art and the abstractionists before the 1917 revolution. The Wanderers, whose popularity waned in the early years of the twentieth century, stressed the importance of content in their works. The various practitioners of abstract art, on the other hand, were interested in the technical possibilities of the various media. For example, constructivist sculptors combined various materials—steel, concrete, wrought iron, even paper—to suggest the variety of human experience that formed the impetus for artistic creation. More attention was paid to form than to substance; meaning was subordinated to the aesthetic experience. In the opinion of more conservative artists, art critics, and (most important) influential Communist leaders, such art had no social conscience. The 1917 revolution promised to free art from its capitalist bonds. Communist leaders announced that all forms of artistic expression were to be supported under the new government. Initially, steps were taken to see that this happened. Although he was essentially conservative in his tastes in art, Bolshevik leader To view image, please refer to the Vladimir Ilich Lenin made no overt print edition of this title. attempts to control the production of art in the new Soviet Union. On the contrary, Lenin’s close associate Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first Soviet commissar of education, appointed important abstract artists to positions of prominence: Kandinsky was named director of the Museum of Pictorial Culture in Moscow, and Malevich and noted painter Marc Chagall were given positions as professors of art. The euphoria was short-lived, however. By 1921, Kandinsky had resigned his position and had emigrated, expressing frustration at what Wassily Kandinsky. (The Granger Collection, New York) he saw as meddling by government
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Significance The ramifications of the 1934 decree were both immediate and long-lasting. During the next several decades, an elaborate apparatus was constructed to control the production of Soviet art, and bureaucrats whose primary interest lay in promoting party ideals sat in judgment of artists’ creations. As historian Joel Carmichael has
observed, the “indispensable component” of the new artistic program “had to be an absolutely unswerving obedience to the Party”; the result was a “totalitarian homogenizing of culture.” The demands that all forms of art have a strong propagandistic quality that could be easily understood by the masses and by party censors led to uniformity in production. Painting, sculpture, literature, and even architecture became forums for celebrating the worker and the Soviet hero. More often than not, this meant a glorification of the revolutionary leaders, specifically Stalin during his reign and Lenin after Stalin died and was denounced by Nikita S. Khrushchev. Artists were forced to conform or suffer the consequences. Several of the most prominent abstractionists had already emigrated before Stalin imposed the monolithic principles of Socialist Realism on the entire creative community. Those who stayed behind either returned to producing works according to the Communist plan or found themselves without supplies for either working or living. Experimentation ceased, and the principles of realism expounded by the Wanderers more than half a century earlier were eagerly embraced by party officials and reluctantly adopted by those who wished to earn their livelihood as painters, sculptors, or artists in any other medium. At the same time, contact with the West was discouraged, ostensibly to prohibit decadent influences from cheapening Soviet art. Museum collections were purged of offensive works, and books about abstract art were banned from libraries and art academies. Aspiring artists in the Soviet Union were taught that the function of their work was to serve as a means of conveying a socialist message, and that its ideological content was the primary—in some cases the sole—criterion for judging excellence. With no models to guide them in any direction other than that charted by Socialist Realism, the burgeoning artists of the decades between 1930 and 1970 either passively accepted their role as soldiers in the war against capitalism or groped along blindly to fashion works that challenged the bounds of realism or that ignored the demands of the dominant ideology. Striking out in any direction except that charted by the party, however, often proved dangerous. Artists who did so had their works confiscated and destroyed, and they were usually blacklisted by government officials who controlled the assignment of commissions; such commissions represented the only guaranteed source of income for Soviet artists, whose works could not be sent abroad without party approval. Making matters even worse was the fact that there 2711
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officials in the handling of commissions and direction of artists’ work. Chagall and others were to follow him into self-imposed exile within a few years. By 1922, the proponents of realism had won the sympathy of various influential groups within the Communist hierarchy, especially members of the Soviet military; with their help, realism began to reclaim the position of prominence it had held in the last decades of the nineteenth century. From 1922 forward, the various organizations that had sprung up immediately after the revolution to support a multiplicity of artistic viewpoints found themselves increasingly regulated by the central government. The death of Lenin and the ascension of Joseph Stalin as the new ruler of the Soviet state signaled the death knell for Soviet abstract art. The last vestiges of real freedom were swept away in 1928, when the government ordered that all artists’ organizations be consolidated under a single agency run from Moscow. Few artists held out any hope that this “oversight” agency would permit the freedoms that had become commonplace in the smaller, more specialized groups founded by the artists themselves. Their fears were confirmed in a mandate of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, issued on April 23, 1932. Titled the “Decree on the Reconstruction of Literary and Artistic Organizations,” the proclamation dissolved all other organizations previously set up for supporting the arts and centralized commissions, sales, and exhibitions under the control of the party. In effect, this meant that artists already subjected to regulation in housing, studio space, and supplies would be solely dependent on the government for their livelihood. By this time, it was apparent that the government was interested in supporting only those artists whose work could be readily understood by the masses—in effect, realist art with a strong socialist message. Socialist Realism, the new, official art form—named by Stalin himself—was decreed by the Congress of the Soviet Writers’ Union in 1934. The decree effectively banned all forms of abstractionism in the arts. Painters, sculptors, writers, and architects found that they would have to conform to the dictates of party censors or suffer serious consequences for their transgressions.
Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art
Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art were no published guidelines for what constituted acceptable art. Only after a work was completed could the artist gain a review by party officials, who would then pass judgment on the work’s adherence to Socialist Realist principles. What could be considered ideologically sound by one group of bureaucrats might be dismissed as wrongheaded and corrupt by another. As the years passed, artists became more and more conservative in their productions. Any strains of genuine creativity that may have existed in the young men and women who followed in the footsteps of Kandinsky, Malevich, and Tatlin during the reigns of Stalin and his successors were effectively stifled, as art became a tool of the party in its battle to liberate the masses from bourgeois domination. —Laurence W. Mazzeno Further Reading Bendavid-Val, Leah. Propaganda and Dreams: Photographing the 1930’s in the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. New York: Edition Stemmle, 1999. Comparison of Soviet Socialist Realist photography of the 1930’s and American photography during the Great Depression. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of photographs held at the Corcoran Gallery in 1999. Bibliographic references. Billington, James H. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. Thoughtful and thoroughly researched examination of the roots of Russian culture, its development under the various czars, and its demise under the Communists. Explains how Socialist Realism is linked to earlier forms of Soviet artistic and architectural styles. Bown, Matthew Cullerne. Socialist Realist Painting. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. Lenghty treatise on Soviet Socialist Realism from 1917 through 1991. Many illustrations, some in color, bibliographic references, and index. Carmichael, Joel. A Cultural History of Russia. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968. Examines the culture of Russia from the founding of the nation to the twentieth century. Provides insight into the ways all forms of artistic expression suffered under the control of the Communists, who insisted that art serve the aims of the revolution. Douglas, Charlotte. Swans of Other Worlds: Kazimir Malevich and the Origins of Abstraction in Russia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1976. Analysis of the rise of abstract art in Russia and the initial reaction of Soviet revolutionaries to non2712
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 representational works. Outlines the principles on which such art was based. A useful summary of the movement against which Stalin reacted in demanding a return to realism in all the arts. James, C. Vaughn. Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973. Outlines the principles on which Socialist Realism was founded. Describes the ways art in the Soviet Union was intended to serve both the people and the party. Traces the origins of the movement to Leninist ideology. Contains useful appendixes by Lenin and the Communist Central Committee on reforms in the arts necessary to make them compatible with socialist aims. Medvedev, Roy A. Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. Study of Communism under the brutal reign of Stalin by a prominent Soviet historian; shows how Stalin’s oppressive policies stifled all forms of creativity. Includes a lengthy chapter on the impact of these policies on the arts and sciences; notes how artists were driven to become puppets of the Communist hierarchy or suffer economic and physical hardships. Salisbury, Harrison E., ed. The Soviet Union: The Fifty Years. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. Collection of essays reviewing the impact of Communist policies on the Soviet Union. Includes a chapter on the arts, focusing on the deadening influence of official policies that stifled creativity and drove artists into exile or underground. Valkenier, Elizabeth. Russian Realist Art: The State and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Studies the influence of the realist tradition in nineteenth century Russia and in the Soviet Union during the twentieth century. Explores the rise of the Wanderers, whose folk style formed the basis of Socialist Realism. Examines the reaction of the abstract schools of art to the Wanderers, the abstractionists’ ascendancy during the early decades of the twentieth century, and their demise under Communist oppression. See also: Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers; Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature; Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed; Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
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Squier Founds Muzak
1934
Squier Founds Muzak The Muzak company, founded by George O. Squier, became the leading provider of recorded music designed to increase employee production. Locale: Cleveland, Ohio Categories: Communications and media; marketing and advertising; music Key Figures George O. Squier (1865-1934), inventor of Muzak William Benton (1900-1973), owner of Muzak, 19391957 Harry E. Houghton (fl. mid-twentieth century), advertising and marketing expert for Muzak
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Summary of Event George O. Squier, a military general, had a job that required him to determine if an invention had any military use. An inventor himself, he developed a method to send many messages through power lines at the same time and invented the photochronograph, which allowed calculation of the velocity of an object. In 1908, while on military duty, he flew a plane made by the Wright brothers. In 1922, Squier brought his invention for signal transmission to the North American Company. A holding company for public utilities, North American Company had financed Thomas Edison’s lightbulb and later went on to form General Electric. When the North American Company purchased Squier’s invention, it formed Wired Radio, Inc. Wired Radio wanted to compete with wireless radio, which was steadily growing in popularity. The North American Company also purchased a music publishing company that became Associated Music Publishers, Inc. With these two companies, the North American Company was in a position to send music, commercials, announcements, and news to individual homes. Squier hoped that his invention would allow the general public to receive all these media in their homes. Wired Radio, Inc., changed its name in 1934, when Squier decided to combine the word “music” with “Kodak,” the name of an already popular company, to get Muzak. That same year, Muzak started sending transmissions to individual homes in Cleveland. These transmissions combined music with commercials and announcements. Muzak also got involved in “functional music,” which was broadcast in hotels and restaurants. The functional music did not contain commercials or announcements and was meant to be unobtrusive to cus-
tomers. It also provided privacy for restaurant clients by masking their conversations. At the same time, Muzak also switched transmission of its programs from electric power lines to telephone lines, which made transmission easier and less expensive. In 1936, Muzak started its commercial services in New York. Many clubs, restaurants, and hotels subscribed to it, but individual subscriptions to Muzak were very expensive, and so the number of clients was limited. In 1938, the North American Company sold Muzak and Associated Music Publishers to Warner Bros. By 1939, Muzak had only 30 individual homes but more than 360 restaurants as clients, and it soon introduced a program for apartment complexes. This program was relatively inexpensive and included four New York radio stations in addition to Muzak. Wireless radio reception was still not very clear, and Muzak’s reception was a substantial improvement. By 1945, 60 apartment houses in New York were wired with this program. Since Muzak had grown in popularity in New York, the company decided to franchise. The first franchises were located in Buffalo, Detroit, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia. All the franchises were obligated to play only Muzak productions and were not allowed to alter them in any way. After a year of ownership, Warner Bros. sold both Muzak and Associated Music Publishers to a group of businessmen. Out of this group, William Benton owned the largest percentage of the companies. When Benton took over, Muzak had just begun to make a profit. By 1942, Benton was the sole owner of Muzak. In that year, Muzak went from a 17.5hour programming day to producing broadcasts all day, every day. Benton was interested in producing an information service for the government. Muzak could be transmitted even while the country was at war or being raided, when wireless radio stations would no longer be able to transmit communications. In case of such an emergency, Muzak purchased gasoline-operated generators for its offices in New York so that broadcasting could continue during a power failure. Muzak would be able to warn its clients of coming attacks and be able to advise them on what to do afterward. This service was never used, however. Muzak spent a large portion of its profits on research and on producing functional music. The armed services reported less tardiness, better morale, and more work
Squier Founds Muzak accomplished in barracks where soldiers listened to Muzak. Factory experiments showed that the introduction of Muzak was followed by lower turnover rates, increased efficiency, and decreased sick days reported. The effects of Muzak were not limited to humans. One farm that received Muzak reported increases in milk production from cows and egg production from chickens. This experiment increased the credibility of the effect of Muzak. Since animals could not have been affected by a self-fulfilling prophecy, the results were unquestionable. In other words, farmers could not have informed cows that the music would increase the amount of milk they produced, thus leading them to produce more because that was expected. Factories reported increases in production ranging from 2 to 11 percent. Workers remarked that Muzak was soothing, and many thought that relationships with managers improved. Muzak was programmed to counteract the lows that workers experience at midmorning and midafternoon by manipulating the tempo and type of music. This increased production, and the general calmness of the music contributed to maintaining even tempers in the workplace. After World War II ended, Muzak had three major concerns. The first and most important was a dispute with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). When Muzak had been short of funds, it had stopped paying ASCAP for the use of its copyrighted materials; as a result, Muzak had to pay the ASCAP royalties. The second problem, which had not plagued Muzak prior to the war, was competition. Muzak’s solution to this problem was to hire an advertising and marketing expert, Harry E. Houghton. Houghton helped end the dispute with ASCAP and a dispute with the American Federation of Musicians, the third difficulty faced by Muzak. The disagreement had kept Muzak out of the Chicago area, but shortly after Muzak hired Houghton, the company entered the Chicago market. During Benton’s ownership, Muzak gained several large companies as subscribers, including Sears, Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, General Electric, and Dow Chemical. Most of these companies continued their membership through the 1980’s. Benton sold Muzak in 1957 to the Wrather Corporation. It was during the period when the Wrather Corporation owned Muzak that the programming became solely functional. In 1972, Muzak was sold again and became part of the TelePrompTer Corporation. Muzak continued to grow and was purchased by Westinghouse in 1981. With the acquisition of Muzak, Westinghouse became the largest 2714
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 telecommunications and cable operation in the world. Muzak was part of Westinghouse’s Radio Group W Broadcasting Network and continued research on functional music. Muzak changed hands several more times and in 1992 was bought by New-York based Centre Partners. In 1996, it formed an alliance with EchoStar Communications. Under the name DISH Network for Business, Muzak began to provide direct-broadcast satellite services in both audio and video formats. Significance Muzak conducted many experiments in order to substantiate its claims of increased worker productivity. Several grocery stores wired with Muzak reported increases in sales of up to 40 percent. Muzak apparently made shoppers feel more comfortable and more relaxed, which ultimately caused them to purchase more items. These results were enough proof to persuade many grocery stores to subscribe to Muzak. In the early 1990’s, Muzak started creating programs for specific stores based on location and clientele. Once a company started subscribing to Muzak, the likelihood of its discontinuing the service was small. Workers became accustomed to Muzak and found that the silence left in its absence became unbearable. Although most people agree that Muzak is relatively benign, it is still perceived as a form of influencing people. Many arguments have been made that regardless of its effects, something that affects people without their knowledge should be illegal. Because Muzak is difficult to avoid, almost all people are involuntarily affected by it. One debate over the use of Muzak occurred in Washington, D.C. Although Capital Transit was a privately owned company, the District of Columbia had given it a monopoly on public transportation. The agreement stated that no other companies would be allowed to operate buses in the District of Columbia unless Capital Transit could no longer accommodate all the passengers. This agreement was signed in 1925. In March, 1948, Capital Transit began to install radios on its buses. Passengers complained that they were being subjected to listening against their will. Given that Capital Transit had a monopoly, the passengers did not have the choice to use a different company. The original complaint was aimed at commercials, because passengers were obligated to listen to spots promoting various companies’ products. They claimed that this was unconstitutional and took Capital Transit to court. The case began on March 3, 1952, and revolved around whether it was constitutional for a public trans-
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workers and counteract Muzak’s goal of increasing work productivity. Despite a number of changes over the years of Muzak’s operation, functional music remained its most important product. —Dan Kennedy Further Reading Barnes, Stephen H. Muzak: The Hidden Messages in Music: A Social Psychology of Culture. Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press, 1988. Discusses the beginning of Muzak and its history. Includes many portraits of leaders of Muzak. Addresses the effects of music on subjects and the subconscious. Describes the influencing part of music and its potential use as a control by government. Hoffman, Thomas. “Muzak Offers New Tune for Data Flow: Retailers Are Increasingly Using Satellite Data Transmission to Distribute Corporate Information.” Computerworld 26 (September 14, 1992): 72. Discusses transmitting music along with many other possibilities, including e-mail, credit card processing, and teleconferencing. Describes Muzak’s relationship with other companies and the ability of Muzak’s satellites to send more than music. Katz, Mark. Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. A well-written and accessible analysis of the history of recorded music; a good introduction to the field. Includes CD. Lanza, Joseph. Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy Listening, and Other Moodsong. London: Picador, 1995. Rejects the standard scholarly approach to musical analysis; argues that Muzak has been unfairly maligned and chronicles its history. McDermott, Jeanne. “Muzak Is the Music We Hear but Don’t Listen To.” Smithsonian 20 (January, 1990): 70-78. Discusses Muzak’s intent not to disturb people by playing music that might entice them to hum, clap, or dance. Describes how Muzak edits material. Sutherland, Alastair. “Sorry, No Kazoo Players Required.” Canadian Composer 1 (Summer, 1990): 4. Discusses Muzak’s tough restrictions and requirements of pieces that it plays. Yang, Dori Jones. “Hear the Muzak, Buy the Ketchup: The Elevator-Music Folks’ New Push—Customized In-Store Ads.” BusinessWeek, June 28, 1993, 70-71. Discusses Muzak’s influence on customers in supermarkets. Describes Muzak as an advertising strategy and describes the different choices of music for different stores, depending on location and clientele. 2715
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portation company to play a radio station on its vehicles. The programs played included Muzak and many other stations. The U.S. District Court found radio programming on buses to be acceptable. The passengers objected and took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Although the Court of Appeals reversed a portion of the earlier verdict, the passengers still were not satisfied. Up until that point, the music portion of the programming had not been questioned. The passengers decided that the music portion should be included in the case, and when the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, all the program content was included. The Supreme Court decided that the case would be limited to concerns for passengers’ safety and comfort. Many reports were submitted to the Court that stated that buses with the programming did not have any more accidents than buses without it. A report on public opinion of the programming stated that more than 90 percent of individuals surveyed were not opposed to the programming. Only 3 percent reported that they were strongly opposed to the programming. Justice Harold H. Burton believed strongly that the rights of the passengers were not being violated. Only Justice William O. Douglas thought that forcing people to listen against their will was unconstitutional regardless of whether the majority was pleased. Douglas stated that if a person can be forced to listen to something beneficial, there is only a small step to forcing him or her to listen to something detrimental. Despite Douglas’s objections, the Supreme Court ruled in Public Utilities Commission v. Pollak (1952) that public transportation companies could play radio programs in their vehicles. The Muzak company was questioned about the ethical aspect of manipulating listeners, but the company was largely able to avoid lawsuits on this matter. Because the effects of Muzak are beneficial for the employer, because most employees enjoy Muzak, and because most listeners are unaware of the effects that Muzak has on them, the product has not generated much controversy. Muzak put time and effort into making its music functional. Because transmitting to individual homes proved to be too costly, Muzak aimed its efforts at factories, offices, shopping centers, and grocery stores. Muzak stopped using commercials, announcements, and vocal music, and instead concentrated on becoming almost unnoticeable, striving to avoid interrupting the work environment. Content was strictly edited; no jazz or blues music was included, nor was any music that might entice someone to sing or clap along, as this would distract
Squier Founds Muzak
Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate See also: Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 search; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting.
1934
Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate When the famous British historian Arnold J. Toynbee issued the first three volumes of his multivolume classic A Study of History, his metahistorical approach was challenged and championed by other historians, social scientists, and politicians around the world. Also known as: A Study of History Locale: London, England Categories: Historiography; sociology; publishing and journalism
War II). Arguably, Toynbee proposed a view of human history that was more expansive than that of any previous historian. Toynbee began his inquiry by identifying the basic intelligible unit of historical study: those societies he called “civilizations,” which he distinguished from “primitive” societies. He identified twenty-one different civilizations (although later he would expand the number to twenty-six). In his first six volumes, Toynbee’s basic questions focused on the geneses of civilizations from primitive societies; the growth, breakdown, and disinte-
Key Figures Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), British historian Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), German historian and philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883), German economist and philosopher William H. McNeill (b. 1917), Canadian historian Summary of Event In 1934, Oxford University Press published the first three volumes of the historian Arnold J. Toynbee’s monumental work A Study of History (1934-1961; 12 volumes). Volumes 4, 5, and 6 followed in 1939, and volumes 7, 8, 9, and 10 were released in 1954. In 1959, a historical atlas and gazetteer was added as volume 11, and finally, in 1961, Toynbee published his response to criticisms of his work in volume 12, titled Reconsiderations. D. C. Somervell, a British schoolmaster, published an abridgment of volumes 1-6 of A Study of History in 1946, and a second, of volumes 7-10, in 1957. The Somervell condensation of the twentieth century’s most massive single-authored historical work made it accessible to a far larger audience. Toynbee sought to glean meaning from the entire course of human history, and the monumental work of erudition and speculation he produced was vigorously attacked by professional historians and widely read (especially in the Somerville abridgment and in the decades immediately after World 2716
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Marx, but Toynbee transformed Marx’s key ideas into political and religious categories.) As a civilization disintegrates, the dominant minority regroups and creates what Toynbee calls a “universal state.” These universal states have two functions: They bring unity to the areas over which they rule, and they can act as a chrysalis out of which a higher religion will emerge. The archetype for such a universal state was the Roman Empire and the development of Christianity within it. Toynbee had developed these arguments in the first six volumes of A Study of History (1934-1939). However, the combined impress of World War II and Toynbee’s personal and spiritual development led Toynbee to shift his emphasis in volumes 7-10. In the earlier volumes, he had seen the higher religions essentially as byproducts of ongoing civilizational development, but he now argued that the deeper meaning of civilizational development was to produce the “higher” religions, such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Their emergence was the ultimate product and final meaning of the story of humankind’s development. These universal religions now became a third kind of society in human history, in addition to primitive and civilized societies. During the last several decades of his life, Toynbee became increasingly convinced that the future hope of humanity lay in the values of expressed by these higher religions, especially love, compassion, and selflessness. Significance Among the community of professional historians, Toynbee’s A Study of History met with widespread criticism. For many, his work smacked more of the speculative philosophy of history that dated to Augustine than of the sober empirical approach to the past favored by academic historians. On the other hand, within the broader literate public, Toynbee’s work, especially in Somervell’s excellent abridgment, was widely read. During the last decades of his life, Toynbee became a public intellectual whose pronouncements on world affairs were listened to around the world. In fact, his willingness to offer his interpretation of current events and to make pronouncements on the current and future condition of humankind was a second reason for the severely critical response Toynbee’s work received. Many historians disliked the idea of a pundit and prophet who made metahistorical speculations. Toynbee himself, of course, always saw himself as a historian, and he took enormous care to respond to all the criticisms of his work in what constituted the twelfth volume of A Study of History. Although the popularity of 2717
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gration of civilizations; and the emergence of what he called “universal states” out of civilizations’ disintegration. In short, Toynbee sought to compare the historical development of all human civilizations in an effort to fathom the deeper meanings of the human past. It was an effort similar to that of German cultural historian Oswald Spengler in his Die Untergang des Abendlandes (19181922; The Decline of the West, 1926-1928). After reading Spengler’s work in 1920, Toynbee had determined to pursue his own inquiry into the comparative history of civilizations so provocatively anatomized in The Decline of the West. Toynbee argued that civilizations emerge out of a process he termed “challenge and response.” The challenge a particular primitive society might face could be environmental or social, but a successful response to challenge, mediated by the leadership roles played by creative individuals, put that society on the path toward civilization. Interestingly, although Toynbee’s most basic concept was “civilization,” he never clearly defined this idea in the twelve volumes of A Study of History. Civilizations were inadequate units of studying the historical development of humankind, Toynbee ultimately determined, and several volumes of his work are devoted to the search for the best unit for this type of study. If any one civilization was a model or paradigm of what a civilized society should be, from Toynbee’s point of view, it was the Hellenic civilization of ancient Greece and Rome. (Toynbee had become intimately familiar with these cultures during his training as a classical scholar at Oxford University.) If the leadership of creative individuals guides a civilization’s growth, the breakdown of a civilization occurs, Toynbee argued in volume 4, when this creative minority loses its élan and the majority no longer follows it. The minority rest on their laurels, so to speak, and are therefore unprepared for further challenges. Disintegration ensues, as Toynbee showed in the next two volumes, and this disintegration of a civilization takes a specific form: A “dominant minority” emerges, which is the formerly creative minority, and it is joined by both an “internal proletariat,” the mass of people who no longer follow the minority and may rebel against it, and an “external proletariat,” which lives outside the civilization’s boundaries and may launch attacks against it. Although the internal proletariat may react with violence against the dominant minority, creative leaders within it may also produce a “higher religion.” (The intellectual inspiration behind Toynbee’s discussion of internal and external proletariats was the work of Karl
Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate
Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars Toynbee’s monumental volumes lessened, his belief in the unity behind humankind’s history and his conviction that this unity can be made understandable inspired later academic historians led by important figures such as William H. McNeill. Toynbee’s lifelong intellectual and spiritual endeavor to understand the modern world and to critically probe the human condition made significant contributions to the twentieth century’s intellectual history. — Michael W. Messmer Further Reading McIntire, C. M., and Marvin Perry, eds. Toynbee: Reappraisals. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. Interesting compilation of essays examining Toynbee’s work from multiple perspectives. McNeill, William. Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Excellent biography of Toynbee by a renowned world historian who knew and was inspired by Toynbee. Navari, Cornelia. “Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975): Prophecy and Civilization.” Review of International Studies 26 (2000): 289-301. An article situating Toynbee’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 theory of international relations and his concern with the future of Western civilization in his grand narrative of universal historical process. Perry, Marvin. Arnold Toynbee and the Western Tradition. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. Sees Toynbee’s historical vision as a response to the intellectual and political crises of the twentieth century and a call for critical reflection on the Enlightenment tradition and the human condition. Toynbee, Arnold J. A Study of History. 2 vols. Abridged by D. C. Somervell. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1957. Somervell’s excellent condensation of A Study of History received the imprimatur of Toynbee himself and made the basic arguments of his massive work accessible to a wide reading public. See also: 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History; Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography; 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears; Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity; 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought.
1934
Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars Fritz Zwicky and Walter Baade proposed that a neutron star forms during the explosion of a supernova. Locale: Mount Wilson Observatory, California Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Walter Baade (1893-1960), German American astronomer Fritz Zwicky (1898-1974), Swiss astronomer Lev Davidovich Landau (1908-1968), Soviet physicist Summary of Event The Greek philosopher Aristotle taught that the stars, the Sun, and the planets were located on crystal spheres that moved around the stationary Earth. On rare occasions, a new star would appear in the sphere, shining so brightly that it was visible during the day, and finally growing dim over several months. These were called “novas” (or “novae”) from the Latin word for “new,” because they seemed to be new stars. (Centuries later, research would reveal how wrong that name is.) 2718
In the past two thousand years, only seven bright novas remained visible in the northern sky for at least six months each. In 185 c.e., for example, the Chinese recorded the appearance of a “guest star” that lasted for twenty months. Another such star in 393 c.e. lasted for eight months. The nova of 1006 was visible for several years and was recorded by the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, and Arabs. The nova in 1054 lasted twenty-two months and was noted by the Chinese and Japanese; there is evidence from several petroglyphs in the American Southwest that Native Americans also observed the event. A nova that appeared in 1572 was observed by the last great astronomer before the age of telescopes, Tycho Brahe. It was Brahe who gave novas their name. Because of his study of that nova, known as Brahe’s star, and his subsequent book titled De Nova Stella, Brahe’s reputation was made. The German astronomer Johannes Kepler, who was Brahe’s assistant in later years, studied the 1604 nova, Kepler’s star. After Brahe’s death in 1601, Kepler used the astronomer’s data to explain the motion of the planets. The appearance of the nova drove
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars
Neutron Star
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A neutron star’s strong magnetic field generates radiation that can be detected on Earth as radio waves.
A binary star system is a pair of stars that orbit a common center of gravity. A binary star system whose stars are near the end of their life cycles is the common source of nova explosions. Material from one of the stars is pulled onto the surface of the other star. When enough of it accumulates, it will fuse to helium and produce the brightening that can be seen as a nova. That is why the word “nova” is not really correct—a nova is not a new star, but rather the death of a star in a binary system. A supernova, however, is the very rapid explosion of a very massive star near the end of its life cycle. This is evident because in the constellation Taurus, the location of the 1054 nova, lies a gaseous mass known as the Crab nebula. This gas cloud is expanding outward. Calculations of the velocity of the cloud’s gas show that, after the explosion, it started its outward journey in 1054. When a massive star depletes its supply of hydrogen, it collapses and its internal heat and pressure increase until helium is converted to carbon. Elements with increasingly higher atomic numbers are formed as the collapse continues. Once the core becomes the element iron, the process cannot continue until more energy is added. At this point, the collapse continues because of gravity; in the last stages, the star’s outer layers hit the core and 2719
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Kepler to greater efforts that resulted in three laws of planetary motion. Over the centuries, advances in telescopes and other astronomical instruments led to a better understanding of novas. Studies suggested that novas were not a simple class of stars. Some were bright and rare, whereas others were much fainter and more common. Fritz Zwicky and Walter Baade recognized in 1934 that a division was necessary and renamed the brighter novas “supernovas.” Stars are “born” from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. As they become older, the interior pressure and temperature increases, producing chemical reactions in which hydrogen fuses into helium. Energy is released from this reaction in the form of light and other electromagnetic radiation. The length of a star’s life cycle is determined by its mass. Low-mass stars such as the Sun fuse the hydrogen slowly and have lifetimes of tens of billions of years. The most massive stars have lifetimes of tens of millions of years. As the star “dies,” it can do so in one of several ways. The low-mass star depletes its hydrogen supply, grows in size to become a “red giant,” and then collapses to a “white dwarf ” phase. It shines by its stored heat until eventually it cools and reaches the “black dwarf ” stage. Astar the size of the Sun will shrink to the size of Earth.
Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars bounce. The star explodes, sending a large part of its mass into space. The remainder of the supernova collapses to become a neutron star or a black hole, depending on its mass. Zwicky and Baade, and independently Lev Davidovich Landau, postulated that, after this explosion, the pressure of the star’s collapse overcomes the atoms’ electrical forces and fuses protons and electrons into neutrons. This explanation was not verified experimentally until Jocelyn Bell, a graduate student at Cambridge, discovered the first pulsar in 1967. A pulsar is a neutron star that spins very rapidly, emitting radio waves from its rotating magnetic field. First thought to be signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, these pulsars were the first observational evidence of Baade and Zwicky’s theory.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bethe, Hans, and Gerry Brown. “How a Supernova Explodes.” Scientific American 252 (May, 1985): 6068. Bethe was the first person to show how stars convert mass into energy. Discusses the mechanics of the massive star’s implosion and resulting explosion. Also explores the star’s preexplosion history. Rich with figures and diagrams. Intended for informed readers. Charles, Philip, and J. Leonard Culhane. “X-Rays from Supernova Remnants.” Scientific American 233 (December, 1975): 36-46. Points out that when a supernova occurs, huge amounts of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation are sent into space. X rays produced by the explosion are analyzed for information about the explosion. Herbst, William, and George Assousa. “Supernovas and Star Formation.” Scientific American 241 (August, 1979): 138-145. Shows how theory and observations support the idea that supernovas trigger the formation of other stars. Also discusses the formation of the spiral structure of some galaxies.
Significance For thousands of years, people have tried to figure out how the planets came into being. The discovery and understanding of neutron stars and supernovas have helped scientists to solve the puzzle. The “big bang theory” suggests that the universe began about fifteen billion years ago. At that time, all the energy and matter in the universe were contained within a small sphere that exploded. As the universe—the pieces of matter sent flying by the explosion— Proportion of total mass: 40% cooled and expanded, hydrogen and Major constituents: hydrogen and helium helium began to form. Eventually, clouds of hydrogen and helium col20% lapsed to form stars, and these formed helium into galaxies. 20% As these stars aged, the more mascarbon, oxygen neon, magnesium sive ones exploded as supernovas. The blast spewed into the surround10% ing space all the chemical elements 10% contained in the star, enriching the interstellar medium with essential ingredients. After enough stars had become supernovas, planets could begin to form. So, too, could the next generation of stars, which would benefit from the enriched gas and dust clouds of the planets. Before this titanium, vanadium, silicon, sulfur, chromium, manganese, chlorine, argon, time, planets could not exist. Life iron, cobalt, potassium, as it is now known could not exist nickel calcium because the essential elements on which life depends—carbon, nitrogen, and others—did not exist. A supernova is born at the end of a massive star’s life. —Stephen J. Shulik 2720
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Shows that the X-ray spectrums for Type I and Type II supernovas are different. Silk, Joseph. The Big Bang. 3d ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2000. Presents a sweeping account of the formation and evolution of the universe. Recounts the history of astronomical speculation about the universe and examines evidence for the big bang theory. Includes glossary and index. _______. On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. A history of the universe and the development of humankind’s knowledge about it. Accessible to lay readers. Includes illustrations and index. Stephenson, F. Richard, and David Clark. “Historical Supernovas.” Scientific American 234 (June, 1976): 100-107. Reports on seven supernovas of the last two millennia and the search for their remnants. Also discusses the recorded observations of various cultures. Wheeler, J. Craig, and Robert Harkness. “Helium-Rich Supernova.” Scientific American 259 (November, 1988): 50-58. Reveals that there is a Type Ib subcategory supernova, similar to a nova explosion because it occurs in a binary star system. A massive companion star expands and drives matter into the other star, ripping that star’s outer layer away and exposing the core, which subsequently collapses and explodes. See also: Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution; 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity; 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula; 19311935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass; Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes.
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Kirshner, Robert. “Supernovas in Other Galaxies.” Scientific American 235 (December, 1976): 89-101. Points out that, because supernovas are rare phenomena in Earth’s galaxy, scientists must look to other galaxies such as the Andromeda galaxy to find examples to study. This reveals a difference in supernovas that leads to the classifications of Type I and Type II supernova explosions. Mitton, Simon. The Crab Nebula. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978. An in-depth study of the 1054 supernova in the constellation Taurus. Covers the historical records of the Asian and American Indian observers, the telescopic observations of the Crab nebula, the formation of a neutron star, and how pulsars pulse. Motz, Lloyd, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Story of Astronomy. New York: Plenum, 1995. Presents the history of astronomy from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. Chapters 16 and 17 include discussion of supernovas and galactic research in general. Features bibliography and index. Schramm, David, and Robert Clayton. “Did a Supernova Trigger the Formation of the Solar System?” Scientific American 239 (October, 1978): 124-139. Explores the implications of small amounts of decay product from short-lived radioactive isotopes found in primitive meteorites. Concludes that the original isotopes were formed in a nearby supernova explosion that triggered the formation of the solar system. Seward, Frederick, Paul Gorenstein, and Wallace Tucker. “Young Supernova Remnants.” Scientific American 253 (August, 1985): 88-96. Reports on the X-ray data obtained from the Einstein X-Ray Observatory and its relationship to supernova remnants.
Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars
Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense
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1934-1935
Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense With The Man Who Knew Too Much and The ThirtyNine Steps, Hitchcock revitalized a sagging career, creating a mixture of themes and cinematic techniques that would make his name synonymous with suspense. Locale: Great Britain Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980), British film director who established his reputation with thrillers Michael Balcon (1896-1977), British film producer who helped Hitchcock to reemerge as an important filmmaker Robert Donat (1905-1958), lead actor in The ThirtyNine Steps and the first truly Hitchcockian hero Madeleine Carroll (1906-1987), actor whose portrayal of Pamela in The Thirty-Nine Steps created the prototype of the Hitchcock blond Peter Lorre (1904-1964), actor who was able to make evil somewhat sympathetic in The Man Who Knew Too Much Summary of Event By 1933, Alfred Hitchcock was stymied; his career appeared to be going nowhere. In 1926, he had made The Lodger, a melodramatic thriller involving a Jack-theRipper motif that had won stunning praise and instantly placed him among Great Britain’s top directors. The Lodger had been his third film, but since then he had directed thirteen more, none of which matched The Lodger’s popularity. Although some of his pictures had been well received, most met with indifference, and his last few films had been outright flops. He had tried other thrillers, romance, comedy, filmed plays, and even musicals, but nothing seemed to work. At this point, as he seriously questioned whether he had any future in the film industry, Hitchcock was approached by an old colleague, Michael Balcon. Balcon, who had produced some of Hitchcock’s early pictures, including The Lodger, was now in charge of production for the Gaumont-British Studio, and he wanted Hitchcock for his film company. Some of Hitchcock’s problems in the past had stemmed from his working for studios that gave him little control over which films he was to direct. Balcon offered Hitchcock freedom of choice and personal moral support. Agreeing to join Balcon, Hitchcock decided to return to 2722
the genre that he preferred and that had given him his first success—the thriller. The Man Who Knew Too Much, released in 1934, was a tale of murder, kidnapping, and attempted assassination centering on an English family caught in a web of international intrigue. While vacationing in Switzerland, Bob and Jill Lawrence (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) inadvertently stumble on a plot to slay a leading European statesman in London. Their young daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam) is then abducted by the conspirators. Bob and Jill return to England and, through a series of adventures, foil the assassination and rescue Betty. The Man Who Knew Too Much reawakened interest in Hitchcock and captured public and critical acclaim, but The Thirty-Nine Steps, released in 1935, would be an even greater triumph. The Thirty-Nine Steps deals with espionage. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Canadian visiting London, meets a mysterious woman who tells him that she is trying to stop a group of spies from smuggling an important military secret out of the country. She is murdered in Hannay’s apartment; Hannay is suspected and flees from the police. He soon discovers that the foreign agents are trying to kill him in order to prevent him from revealing their plans, and he is pursued from London to the Scottish Highlands, across fog-swept moors, and back to London. In the process, he becomes romantically involved with Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), a young woman who at first believes he is a killer and who then becomes convinced of his innocence. Together, Hannay and Pamela save the secret, help break up the spy ring, clear Hannay’s name, and go off to live happily ever after. Significance The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Thirty-Nine Steps reestablished Alfred Hitchcock as Great Britain’s premier director, setting him on a path that would lead to Hollywood and greater fame. The two films represent the mature realization of several of Hitchcock’s trademark techniques and approaches. He had always favored spectacular scenes, an expressionist mood, and editing that kept viewers off balance and the pace moving. Both films skillfully mix these elements. The Man Who Knew Too Much features several exciting moments, including three scenes that have become part of Hitchcockian lore: the assassination attempt during a symphony in the vast Albert Hall, a shootout with besieged conspirators that seems to engage half of London’s police force, and a des-
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absurd oration. Pamela and Hannay are handcuffed together and awkwardly try to eat and sleep together. These are diverting, antic scenes; however, they soon give way to renewed suspense. In The Thirty-Nine Steps (and in other films) Hitchcock never allows his viewers to relax fully. These two films also introduced new elements that would be crucial in the evolution of Hitchcock’s work. The Man Who Knew Too Much was his first foray into espionage. By 1934, fascism was entrenched in Italy, Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany, and the English were beginning to feel the onset of war jitters. Fear was in the air, and Hitchcock’s ability to tap this appre-
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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perate moment at the picture’s conclusion, when one of the assassins stalks Betty across a high roof in an attempt to kill her before she can be saved. Although The ThirtyNine Steps does not offer as many memorable scenes, it does have a striking conclusion in London’s Palladium; it is also a faster-paced film, with almost nonstop action. Both films are darkly expressionistic, and both are filled with sudden, jarring changes of mood. Although sound was still a primitive art in the industry, Hitchcock was among the first to experiment with the different ways it could be used to enhance films. He made great strides in this area in these two pictures. The films’ use of dialogue is more extensive and more assured than in Hitchcock’s previous talkies. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock employed sound to accompany the assassination; the attempt is made in the midst of a symphonic performance, at the precise instant when the drums beat and the cymbals clash. The music becomes an integral part of the plot, heightening the anxiety for the viewer. In The ThirtyNine Steps, when a maid finds the murdered woman in Hannay’s apartment, she opens her mouth to scream, but what the audience hears is the whistle of the train on which Hannay is fleeing London. Sudden and unsettling, the segue became one of the historic cinematic moments. With it, Hitchcock broke with the convention of early sound films that required the camera and the soundtrack to stay in sync, and in doing so he enlarged the possibilities for the use of sound in films. Hitchcock liked to utilize humor to relieve tension, and he also liked to follow comic incidents with the return of menace, allowing the humor to make the shift to danger all the more potent. The Man Who Knew Too Much was, to that point, his most extensive melding of the comical into the thriller, but the film’s humor is largely limited to witty dialogue. In contrast, humor permeates The Thirty-Nine Steps. The banter is even sharper than that of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and the film is replete with laughable situations that temporarily mask Hannay’s peril. Hannay is sitting in a railway car, expecting to be caught, and he finds himself having to listen to a lingerie salesman display his wares and make risqué jokes. Running from the police, Hannay stumbles into a political meeting, is mistaken for a speaker, and gives an
Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense
Alfred Hitchcock. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense hension helped to ensure the success of The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Thirty-Nine Steps. After 1934, a significant proportion of Hitchcock’s work would revolve around international intrigue. The world would be plagued by tension and conflict for the rest of his life; the espionage film would become a special type of thriller, and Hitchcock was one of its most skilled practitioners. Part of the reason was financial—spies could be big successes in the box office, as Hitchcock discovered with The Man Who Knew Too Much—yet he also found he enjoyed fashioning stories around the shadowy life of the secret agent. The archetypal Hitchcock hero, heroine, and villain were first seen in these films. The Man Who Knew Too Much provides the villain in the leader of the conspirators, played by Peter Lorre. Dangerous, yet perversely appealing, a terrorist at once droll, sophisticated, and menacing, Lorre is the most dynamic character in the film; his character was the first of a number of similarly fascinating evil figures who would energize many of Hitchcock’s future films. After The Thirty-Nine Steps, moreover, Hitchcock’s male and female protagonists would be made to resemble Hannay and Pamela. His previous heroes and heroines, including the Lawrences in The Man Who Knew Too Much, tended to be one-dimensional; their characters were secondary to plot and to Hitchcock’s special cinematic techniques. In The ThirtyNine Steps, both primary roles are multifaceted and central to the story’s development, and they are played by actors of major talent and star presence. Hannay, as envisioned by Hitchcock and realized by Robert Donat, is a witty and courageous man of action and charm. Similar characters would reappear in Hitchcock films over the years in roles played by Michael Redgrave, James Stewart, Paul Newman, and Cary Grant. Madeleine Carroll is the original “Hitchcock blond”; strong blond women, seemingly icy but actually passionate, would become a Hitchcock hallmark. While he had featured blond women in films before The Thirty-Nine Steps, Madeleine Carroll’s Pamela was the first personification of his ideal heroine. Later Hitchcock stars such as Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, and Tippi Hedren were cast in her lineage. The Thirty-Nine Steps presents one of Hitchcock’s favorite thriller structures: An honest man, made to look guilty by circumstances, is chased over long and picturesque distances while trying to establish his innocence. It also contributes the legendary Hitchcock device, the “MacGuffin.” The MacGuffin is a secret that inaugurates the action, a secret apparently so crucial that everyone wants to control it, although it ultimately turns out to be 2724
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 rather inconsequential. In The Thirty-Nine Steps, the MacGuffin is a military secret, a type of aircraft engine design. The viewer never really learns much about it, and, indeed, the secret is soon lost sight of in the plot. The film is not about the engine design; it is about Hannay’s attempt to prove his innocence and his growing relationship with Pamela. The MacGuffin could have been anything; its only real importance is to get events started. After The Thirty-Nine Steps, Hitchcock incorporated the MacGuffin into his repertoire, and a favorite game for Hitchcock buffs would be to look for the MacGuffins in his pictures. Of the two films that restored Hitchcock’s reputation, The Thirty-Nine Steps is the more significant. Audiences at the time felt this was so, as did critics. Hitchcock himself believed it a richer, more professional accomplishment, and cinema scholars have agreed. They see it as a compendium of his best early work and the first clear indication of the Hitchcock that was to come. Nevertheless, The Man Who Knew Too Much is not without its importance. The film did begin Hitchcock’s relationship with the spy thriller and was quite popular, and its success was the turning point of Hitchcock’s career. After that film, there was no doubt of Hitchcock’s ability as a director. Hitchcock crafted two more espionage thrillers for Michael Balcon: Secret Agent (1936) and Sabotage (1936). While neither was as admired as The Man Who Knew Too Much or The Thirty-Nine Steps, both added to his indisputable standing as Great Britain’s finest director. The fruitful collaboration with Balcon, however, did not last. Gaumont-British, destroyed by executive wrangling, gave up film production. Hitchcock made two films for Gainsborough Studios: Young and Innocent (1937), a lighthearted thriller, and The Lady Vanishes (1938), a spy film that many consider one of his best. He then decided to quit Great Britain for the United States. Ever since making The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Thirty-Nine Steps, he had received approaches from Hollywood. After much hesitation, he finally chose to accept an offer from David O. Selznick. The working relationship with Michael Balcon was gone, and there would be more money, better production facilities, and perhaps more artistic challenges in the United States. Before he left, he directed one last film, Jamaica Inn (1939), a pirate melodrama, for actor and producer Charles Laughton. Although the film earned money, it was a critical failure and confirmed evidence that his strength lay in thrillers. Hitchcock went to the United States in 1939; he
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 would die there in 1980. The forty-one years in Hollywood would make him perhaps the best-known filmmaker in the world. Building on his experience in Great Britain, he would create a remarkable number of varied landmark thrillers, including Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963). He would influence generations of filmmakers, especially in the suspense genre. His films continue to be watched, and universities and film schools produce studies in ever-increasing numbers that interpret his pictures in minute detail. If Hitchcock had not made The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Thirty-Nine Steps, none of this might have happened. —Clarke Wilhelm
Calif.: Citadel Press, 2002. A fully illustrated analysis of all Hitchcock’s work, picture by picture. Despite its slick appearance, this is a serious, well-written overview of the films. Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. 1976. Rev. ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992. This massive book looks at each film separately. Spoto’s style is accessible, and his insights are rewarding. A necessary source. Index and filmography. Truffaut, François. Hitchcock. 1967. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. A series of interviews of Hitchcock by Truffaut, the noted French director, in which Hitchcock tells his own story. Illustrations, extended filmography, short bibliography, index. Taylor, John Russell. Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Perhaps the best biography of Hitchcock; easy to read and comprehensive. Index. See also: 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis; May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy; 1937-1939: Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes.
1934-1938
Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy Romantic Hollywood comedies featuring bickering lovers flourished with the release of such films as It Happened One Night and Bringing Up Baby. Filmmakers had to be creative in their presentation of sexual themes, which were heavily regulated. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Frank Capra (1897-1991), American film director Claudette Colbert (1903-1996), American film actor Clark Gable (1901-1960), American film actor Howard Hawks (1896-1977), American film director Cary Grant (1904-1986), American film actor Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), American film actor
Carole Lombard (1908-1942), American film actor Walter Connolly (1887-1940), American film actor Summary of Event When films learned to talk, they also learned to be naughty. Many American films of the early 1930’s, especially those starring Mae West and Jean Harlow and the sophisticated comedies directed by Ernst Lubitsch, featured strong sexual innuendoes. Fear of government censorship led in 1934 to the implementation of a production code that severely restricted the amount of sex and violence in American films. One of the sillier results of the code, ferociously enforced by Joseph L. Breen of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, was that two people of the opposite sex could not appear 2725
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Further Reading Chandler, Charlotte. It’s Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock—A Personal Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Chandler’s treatment is less than scholarly, but her book includes a number of rare, entertaining, and revealing insights about Hitchcock, most of which were provided by his family. Durgnat, Raymond. The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1974. Especially helpful in illuminating Hitchcock’s work in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Quite intellectual in its approach, but written clearly enough for the general reader. Bibliography, filmography, and index. Harris, Robert A., and Michael S. Lasky. The Complete Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Rev. ed. Sacramento,
Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy
Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy on a bed together unless one had at least one foot on the floor. The production code remained in effect, with only slight modifications, until 1966. The screwball comedy evolved in part as a response to the limitations of the code. The inability of filmmakers to spell out the sexual attraction of their films’ protagonists resulted in the production of films in which the romantic leads battled both verbally and physically for much of the running time. Quarreling lovers on the stage go back at least as far as William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (15931594). By the 1930’s, they had become prominent in such Noël Coward plays as Private Lives (1930). One of the main precursors of the screwball comedy is Lubitsch’s Americanized 1933 version of Coward’s Design for Living, in which two young Americans in Paris, Tommy Chambers (Fredric March) and George Curtis (Gary Cooper), fall in love with the same woman, Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins). Despite discreet fadeouts, Lubitsch clearly implies that Gilda has sex with both George and Tommy. After the implementation of the production code, sexual innuendo became more subtle and was often hidden behind a veil of slapstick. Most experts consider It Happened One Night (1934) to be the first screwball comedy. Directed by Frank Capra and written by Robert Riskin (based on two short stories by Samuel Hopkins Adams), It Happened One Night presents the efforts of spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) to escape her father, Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly), and marry playboy King Westley (Jameson Thomas). On a bus from Florida to New York, Ellie meets newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who eventually offers to help her in exchange for her story. After numerous adventures, she finds herself in the middle of an elaborate wedding ceremony only to forsake Westley for Peter. Although the film’s studio, Columbia, had no such expectations, It Happened One Night was an enormous success and had a tremendous influence on Hollywood. According to legend, the film popularized bus travel, saving the Greyhound Bus Company from bankruptcy, and a scene in which Gable undressed to reveal he wore no undershirt drastically affected the sales of men’s underwear. The film won Academy Awards for best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, and best adapted screenplay. It Happened One Night introduced several plot features that would become familiar as the screwball genre flourished through the early 1940’s. The most significant element was the constant bickering that occurred between the film’s protagonists. When Ellie and Peter 2726
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 meet, they argue over the last remaining bus seat, and Peter forces Ellie, who is used to sharing nothing, to give him enough room to sit. Throughout the trip, they argue over money, food, and sleeping arrangements. When they are compelled to share a motor-camp cabin after roads are flooded, Peter erects a blanket between their beds to ensure, he says, his privacy. Peter calls the blanket, suspended on a rope, “the walls of Jericho.” The blanket represents the sexual tension between Peter and Ellie. Ellie is drawn to a man who stands up to her peevishness, and Peter is drawn to her spunk. The film ends with Capra’s camera outside another motel cabin, and a trumpet is heard inside as the walls of Jericho come down at last. In most screwball comedies, the protagonists battle on almost equal terms. Ellie’s audacity allows her to escape her father’s yacht by jumping into water fully clothed. When detectives confront them at the first motor camp, Peter begins a mock argument to divert suspicion, and Ellie is quick-witted enough to assume immediately the persona of a crying southern belle. In the film’s most famous sequence, Peter attempts to show Ellie his foolproof hitchhiking techniques and fails miserably; Ellie then raises her skirt to stop the next passing car, proving to Peter that she has resources he does not have. Significance It Happened One Night conveyed a notably sympathetic attitude toward the rich that was evident in many screwball comedies. Ellie is condemned more for being spoiled than for being privileged, and her father, far from being a capitalist ogre, immediately perceives that the earthy Peter will make a much better son-in-law than the oily Westley. This attitude was taken to further extremes in Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey (1936) and Mitchell Leisen’s Easy Living (1937). In the former, a homeless man turned butler (William Powell) is really a Boston Brahmin who has chosen poverty after an unhappy love affair. When the family employing him faces financial disaster, Godfrey uses his understanding of the stock market to rescue them, essentially rewarding them for their selfishness, eccentricity, and incompetence. Easy Living, written by Preston Sturges, pokes fun at the pompous banker J. B. Ball (Edward Arnold) by having his servants and secretary make sneering remarks, but the film ends with another narrow escape from ruin, thereby justifying Ball’s way of life. It Happened One Night initiated the tradition of spoiled heiresses and cynical reporters at the center of screwball comedies, including Carole Lombard’s ex-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Memorable Screwball Comedies The films listed below are acknowledged to be among the very best in screwball comedy. Year Film
Director
1934 1934 1936 1937 1937 1938 1938 1940 1940 1941 1941 1942 1942 1944
Frank Capra Howard Hawks Gregory La Cava Leo McCarey William A. Wellman Howard Hawks George Cukor Howard Hawks George Cukor Preston Sturges Alfred Hitchcock Preston Sturges Ernst Lubitsch Frank Capra
It Happened One Night Twentieth Century My Man Godfrey The Awful Truth Nothing Sacred Bringing Up Baby Holiday His Girl Friday The Philadelphia Story The Lady Eve Mr. and Mrs. Smith The Palm Beach Story To Be or Not to Be Arsenic and Old Lace
a mare, takes off in romantic pursuit of another horse. In Nothing Sacred, Lombard and March knock each other out, and in Alfred Santell’s Breakfast for Two (1937), an heiress (Barbara Stanwyck) conceals a doorknob in a boxing glove to give a black eye to a playboy (Herbert Marshall). Many screwball comedies offered satirical elements: My Man Godfrey made fun of the trivialities of the Park Avenue rich, Nothing Sacred punctured the excesses of the sensationalist press, and The Moon’s Our Home attacked the inflated egos of celebrities. The most penetrating satire came in Richard Boleslawski’s Theodora Goes Wild (1936), which is based on a story by Mary McCarthy. In the film, a young woman (Irene Dunne) writes a best seller whose sexual suggestiveness is condemned by her puritanical hometown. The film constantly ridicules the smug hypocrisy of small-town America, especially when Theodora delights in making the community think she has given birth to an illegitimate child. Bringing Up Baby, although it lacks a satiric edge, is the culmination of these screwball elements. Directed by Howard Hawks and written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde, it presents the dizziest of dizzy heiresses, Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), who hopes for a million-dollar bequest from her Aunt Elizabeth (May Robson). Paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) wants the same million for his museum. Susan soon falls in love with David and wants him to get the money, but all of her assistance leads to disaster. Susan’s brother has sent a domesticated leopard from South America as a present for Aunt Elizabeth. Susan tricks David into helping her take the leopard, called Baby, to her aunt’s Connecticut farm so that he will miss his wedding to the stuffy Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker). Aunt Elizabeth’s fox terrier steals and buries the bone David has just received to complete the dinosaur skeleton he has been working on for years, Baby escapes, Susan releases a dangerous leopard she thinks is Baby from a circus van, and all the protagonists end up in jail suspected of a variety of offenses. Aunt Elizabeth becomes convinced of David’s instability and gives her money to Susan. Alice is also shocked by his behavior and decides not to marry him. Bringing Up Baby ends with Susan giving the million to David, who has spent the entire film resisting her aggressive advances. As Susan climbs onto his dinosaur skeleton to express her love, causing the skeleton to collapse, David finally accepts the inevitable. The collapsing dinosaur is a fitting conclusion to a film filled with slapstick. David and Susan are constantly 2727
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ceedingly empty-headed rich girl in My Man Godfrey and Fredric March’s tough newspaperman in William Wellman’s Nothing Sacred (1937). March’s character falls in love with a young woman (Lombard again) who is supposedly dying of radium poisoning. Hostilities between heiresses and reporters that dissolve into romance appear in several screwball comedies, most notably with Myrna Loy and William Powell in Jack Conway’s Libeled Lady (1936) and Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda in Leigh Jason’s The Mad Miss Manton (1938). The most important influence of It Happened One Night is the tradition of bickering it engendered. Among the many variations on the Ellie-Peter model are the married couple (Irene Dunne and Cary Grant) who cannot stop their altercations even after divorcing in Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1937) and the multiple battling couples of Libeled Lady: Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy, Loy and Powell, and Harlow and Powell. Before the genre reached its apex with Bringing Up Baby (1938), several more essential screwball elements had to be introduced, the most significant of which was slapstick. Because the production code prohibited suggestive physical contact between the battling lovers, pratfalls were substituted as a means of releasing pent-up sexual energy. In William A. Seiter’s The Moon’s Our Home (1936), an heiress (Margaret Sullavan) and an explorer (Henry Fonda) take spills off a sled, a sleigh, and skis. They are thrown from their sleigh when their horse,
Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy
Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
and many received their best parts in screwball comedies. In addition to Robson, Ruggles, and Fitzgerald, Bringing Up Baby offered Walter Catlett as a hot-tempered, easily confused sheriff and Fritz Feld as a stodgy psychiatrist. The most significant supporting performer in these films may To view image, please refer to the be Walter Connolly, who played the print edition of this title. father in It Happened One Night, the assistant constantly being fired by theatrical producer John Barrymore in Twentieth Century, Myrna Loy’s fishing-obsessed father in Libeled Lady, and the easily angered editor in Nothing Sacred. Other notable supporting performers in screwball comedies included Luis Alberni and Franklin Pangborn Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in a scene from the 1938 film Bringing Up (Easy Living); Mischa Auer, Alice Baby. (AP/Wide World Photos) Brady, Eugene Pallette, and Gail Patrick (My Man Godfrey); Eric Blore and Donald Meek (Breakfast for falling down. Aunt Elizabeth’s explorer friend, Major Two); Charles Butterworth and Margaret Hamilton (The Horace Applegate (Charles Ruggles), and her drunken Moon’s Our Home); Spring Byington (Theodora Goes servant Gogarty (Barry Fitzgerald) chase and are chased Wild); Roscoe Karns (It Happened One Night and Twenby the leopards. Viewers and reviewers of 1938 appartieth Century); Edgar Kennedy and Una Merkel (True ently felt that the physical humor was excessive; the film Confession); and Maxie Rosenbloom and Charles was a commercial and critical flop. However, audiences Winninger (Nothing Sacred). and film historians in the years since have embraced the Bringing Up Baby is especially praiseworthy for the silliness, which includes Grant’s dressing up in a womspeed and surety of its comic timing. Screwball comean’s fluffy dressing gown, as essential to the genre. The dies are generally fast-paced, but those directed by romance at the center of the film is notable for the extroHawks are the fastest of all. The director made films in verted antics of Susan, who is willing to try anything that this genre longer than anyone, continuing into the 1940’s might lead to fun. David, stiff and humorless at the bewith His Girl Friday (1940), with Grant and Rosalind ginning of the film, learns from Susan to accept the unRussell; Ball of Fire (1942), with Stanwyck and Cooper; predictability of life and becomes more human. I Was a Male War Bride (1949), with Grant and Ann Physicality was important in Bringing Up Baby and Sheridan; and Monkey Business (1952), with Grant and other screwball comedies, and the preeminent performGinger Rogers. ers of the genre were Grant, who displayed his debonair Other important screwball comedies made after athleticism also in The Awful Truth and in Norman Z. Bringing Up Baby included Leisen’s Midnight (1939), McLeod’s Topper (1937), and Lombard, who showcased with Colbert and Don Ameche; Garson Kanin’s My Faher combination of beauty, vulnerability, physical vitalvorite Wife (1940), with Dunne and Grant; Alfred Hitchity, and buffoonery in Howard Hawks’s Twentieth Cencock’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), with Lombard and Robert Montgomery; Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve tury (1934), My Man Godfrey, Wesley Ruggles’s True (1941), with Stanwyck and Fonda, and The Palm Beach Confession (1937), and Nothing Sacred. Story (1942), with Colbert and Joel McCrea; Billy As important as the stars of screwball comedies were Wilder’s The Major and the Minor (1942), with Rogers the contributions of the supporting performers. More noand Ray Milland; and George Stevens’s The More the table character actors appeared in Hollywood films durMerrier (1943), with McCrea and Jean Arthur. The last ing the 1930’s and early 1940’s than at any other time, 2728
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of these is perhaps the most romantic screwball comedy, as the sexual longing of the protagonists is made as explicit as the production code allowed. Screwball elements continued to appear in varying degrees after the genre’s heyday, resurfacing, for example, in Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959). In 1972, Peter Bogdanovich attempted a contemporary version of Bringing Up Baby with his What’s Up, Doc? with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. Although the film was a popular success, most reviewers condemned it as heavyhanded, cartoonish, and mean-spirited. Many critics have claimed that the classic screwball comedy is extinct, largely because attaining the appropriate combination of versatile performers, sophisticated writing, and perfect timing is so difficult. Of recent works, perhaps Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie (1982), with Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange, comes closest to the classic formula. —Michael Adams
with particular attention to the films of Lubitsch and Sturges. Also discusses such directors as Capra and Hawks and such performers as Colbert, Grant, and Lombard. Includes photographs, index, and an interview with Dunne. Kendall, Elizabeth. The Runaway Bride: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1930’s. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Traces the device of the runaway bride and its variations through several films of the 1930’s and early 1940’s, including It Happened One Night, My Man Godfrey, and The Awful Truth. Provides considerable background about the stars and directors. Excellent study includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Sarris, Andrew. “The Sex Comedy Without Sex.” American Film 3 (March, 1978): 8-15. Discusses the difficulty of defining the genre and of determining what films are truly “screwball.” Argues that female comedians are the most crucial ingredient. Excellent brief introduction to the genre. Sikov, Ed. Screwball: Hollywood’s Madcap Romantic Comedies. New York: Crown, 1989. The most thorough examination of the genre. Analyzes the major examples and divides screwball comedies into clearly defined categories. Extensively and beautifully illustrated. With excellent filmography and bibliography. Index. Weales, Gerald. Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedy of the 1930s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Attempts to place twelve 1930’s comedies in the context of the social and political life of the decade. Analyzes Bringing Up Baby, My Man Godfrey, Libeled Lady, and Nothing Sacred. Photographs and index. See also: Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy; 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle; June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush; May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres.
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Further Reading Byrge, Duane, and Robert Milton Miller. The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 19341942. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005. An informative, informed, and relatively complete survey of the genre. Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. Examines seven comedies of the 1930’s and 1940’s, including It Happened One Night, Bringing Up Baby, and The Awful Truth, to show how they create a comic genre of remarriage. Shows how the genre grows out of Shakespearean comedy. Photographs and index. Everson, William K. “Screwball Comedy: A Reappraisal.” Films in Review 34 (December, 1983): 578584. Thought-provoking but unconvincing argument that screwball comedies are period pieces of little interest to modern audiences. Gehring, Wes D. Romantic Versus Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2002. Discusses the differences between the two genres and places them in their social and political contexts. Includes sixteen photo stills. Harvey, James. Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. Analyzes comic style of the 1930’s and 1940’s,
Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy
Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1934-1939
Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains A massive drought ruined farms on a large scale throughout the plains states. Coming in the midst of the Great Depression, the so-called Dust Bowl exacerbated an already desperate situation, driving hundreds of thousands of people out of the Great Plains and prompting them to migrate westward to California. Locale: American Great Plains Categories: Economics; environmental issues; agriculture; disasters Key Figures Robert Geiger (fl. early twentieth century), reporter who coined the term “Dust Bowl” Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Hugh Hammond Bennett (1881-1960), chief of the Soil Conservation Service Ferdinand A. Silcox (1882-1939), chief forester of the United States Chester C. Davis (1887-1975), director of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), American photographer Summary of Event Farmers all across the Great Plains apprehensively watched the skies during the spring of 1934. Day after day, the weather offered no relief. Instead, there was intense sun, wind, drought, more sun, and then gales. Massive clouds of dust blotted out sunlight over western Kansas. At first, the wind raced along the surface, tearing at the stunted wheat and kicking up the topsoil. Then the dust thickened into low, heavy, dirt-laden clouds. From a distance, the storm had the appearance of a cumulus cloud, but it was black, not white; and it seemed to eat its way along with a rolling, churning motion. As the storm swept toward Oklahoma and Texas, the black clouds engulfed the landscape. Birds and jackrabbits fled before it, and people scurried to safety. For those engulfed in the storm, there was an eerie sensation of silence and darkness. There was little or no visibility, and wind velocity hit forty to fifty miles per hour. That spring was exceedingly hot, with the temperature often above one hundred degrees. On May 10, the wind returned. Unlike the previous storm, these winds whipped up a formless, light brown fog that spread over an area nine hundred miles long. During the next day, an esti2730
mated twelve million tons of soil fell on Chicago, and dust darkened the skies over Cleveland. On May 12, dust hung like a pall over the entire eastern seaboard. These two storms alone blew 650 million tons of topsoil off the plains. The Dust Bowl was an elusive and constantly moving phenomenon. The entire decade of the 1930’s was unusually hot and dry. In 1930, there was a drought in the eastern half of the nation. In 1931, the drought shifted to the northern plains of Montana and the Dakotas, and local level dust storms throughout the plains became more common. The storm that first brought the Dust Bowl to national attention, however, and gave it its name, was the one in May, 1934, which originated mostly on the northern plains and drew the dust high into the atmosphere, allowing the jet stream to deposit it over much of the eastern United States and even into the Atlantic Ocean. After that, the worst storms shifted to the southern plains and were typically more localized in extent. By many statistical measures, 1937 was the peak year for dust storm occurrence and severity, but in popular memory, the worst of the Dust Bowl over the largest area was probably in the early spring of 1934, including the famous “Black Sunday” storm of April 14. The heart of the Dust Bowl is usually considered to be an area of 300,000 square miles in western Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas and eastern Colorado and New Mexico, although conditions in the northern plains were, at times, equally deserving of the name Dust Bowl. In the hardesthit areas, agriculture virtually ceased. With successive storms, the wind and the flying dust cut off the wheat stalks at ground level and tore out the roots. Blowing dirt shifted from one field to another, burying crops not yet carried away from the wind. Cattle tried to eat the dustladen grass and filled their stomachs with fatal mud balls. The dust banked against houses and farm buildings like snow, burying fences up to the post tops. Dirt penetrated into automobile engines and clogged the vital parts. Housewives fought vainly to keep it out of their homes, but it seeped in through cracks and crevices, through wet blankets hung over windows, through oiled cloth and tape, covering everything with grit. Hospitals reported hundreds of patients suffering from “dust pneumonia.” The black blizzards struck so suddenly that people became lost and disoriented and occasionally suffocated, some literally within yards of shelter. As a result, more than 350,000 people fled the Great Plains in the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains
The Dust Bowl = Dust Bowl
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machines that could harvest and thresh grain in one operation, inaugurated the age of the wheat kings. By 1930, there were almost three times as many acres in wheat production as ten years earlier, and the tractors were still tearing open the turf. The plow exposed the land to rain, wind, and sun. By 1932, the earth on the plains was ready to blow. Significance The Dust Bowl speeded the development of long-range federal programs in the new field of soil conservation. A veteran conservationist, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in late 1933 created the Soil Erosion Service, later the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), with Hugh Hammond Bennett as its head. The SCS’s task was to supply technical assistance and leadership, while local soil-conservation districts carried out Bennett’s program of strip cropping, contour plowing, stubble-mulch farming, and terracing. In 1934, the Forest Service, under Ferdinand A. Silcox, started planting a shelter belt of trees within a zone one hundred miles wide from Canada to the Texas 2731
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1930’s. These “Okies” loaded their meager household goods on flivvers and struck out along Route 66 for California. Wind and drought alone did not create the Dust Bowl. Nature’s delicate balance of wind, rain, and grass had been disturbed by human settlement. Fifty years earlier, a strong protective carpet of grass had covered the Great Plains. The grass held moisture in the soil and kept the soil from blowing away. In dry years, the wind blew out huge craters, later mistakenly called “buffalo wallows”; but as long as the turf remained, the land could recover. After the Civil War, farmers began staking out homesteads in regions once considered too arid for use as anything but range land. Wherever they went, they plowed under the grass. During World War I, the demand for wheat, along with the invention of the tractor, led them to plow larger areas of the virgin grassland. Between 1914 and 1917 the area of wheat planted increased to twentyseven million acres; more than 40 percent of this land was being plowed for the first time. After the war, the plowing continued. Larger tractors and combines, new
Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
tees, one to study Dust Bowl conditions and the other to recommend In 2004, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration despecific legislation. Congress passed termined the causes of the Dust Bowl disaster. a water-storage bill along the lines that the latter committee had sugNASA scientists have an explanation for one of the worst climatic events in the gested, but it did little else. In docuhistory of the United States, the “Dust Bowl” drought, which devastated the menting the extent of the Dust Bowl Great Plains and all but dried up an already depressed American economy in and providing information and arguthe 1930’s. Siegfried Schubert of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, ments to support their own programs, Md., and colleagues used a computer model developed with modern-era satelhowever, federal agencies created a lite data to look at the climate over the past 100 years. The study found cooler wealth of documentary information than normal tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures combined with on the Dust Bowl, including human warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures to create conditions in the atmoresponses to it, as recorded in the sphere that turned America’s breadbasket into a dust bowl from 1931 to 1939. photographs of Dorothea Lange. The team’s data is in this week’s [March 19, 2004] Science magazine. There has continued to be a lively These changes in sea surface temperatures created shifts in the large-scale debate over who or what—governweather patterns and low level winds that reduced the normal supply of moisment programs, conservation practure from the Gulf of Mexico and inhibited rainfall throughout the Great Plains. tices of individual farmers, or Mother “The 1930s drought was the major climatic event in the nation’s history,” Nature—should receive most of the Schubert said. “Just beginning to understand what occurred is really critical to understanding future droughts and the links to global climate change issues credit for bringing the Dust Bowl to we’re experiencing today.” . . . an end, with the majority of scholars The researchers used NASA’s Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project placing the greatest responsibility (NSIPP) atmospheric general circulation model and agency computational fawith nature. In any case, by 1938, the cilities to conduct the research. The NSIPP model was developed using NASA scale of wind erosion had dropped satellite observations, including: Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy Sysdramatically, and by 1941, temperatem radiation measurements; and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project ture and rainfall levels had returned precipitation data. to near or above normal and the Dust The model showed cooler than normal tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures Bowl had effectively disappeared. and warmer than normal tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures contributed to a More to the point is the question of weakened low-level jet stream and changed its course. The jet stream, a ribbon its possible recurrence. In the 1970’s, of fast moving air near the Earth’s surface, normally flows westward over the Gulf of Mexico and then turns northward pulling up moisture and dumping Great Plains farmers were once again rain onto the Great Plains. As the low level jet stream weakened, it traveled farplowing “fence row to fence row” for ther south than normal. The Great Plains dried up and dust storms formed. export, grasslands were plowed up for irrigation farming, and the shelter Source: “NASA Explains ‘Dust Bowl’ Drought.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, March 18, 2004. belt had mostly been destroyed or allowed to deteriorate. Whether the government and the people of the plains learned the appropriate lesPanhandle. Ten years later, more than two hundred milsons from the terrible experience of the Dust Bowl relion trees were serving as windbreaks and helping to conmains an open question. serve moisture. In 1936, the Agricultural Adjustment —Donald Holley and Kent Blaser Administration (AAA), directed by Chester C. Davis, adopted soil conservation as a subterfuge to get around Further Reading an unfavorable Supreme Court decision. On the Great Bonnifield, Mathew Paul. The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, Plains, however, soil conservation was a legitimate part and Depression. Albuquerque: University of New of the AAA program. Farmers received government Mexico Press, 1979. Emphasizes the roles of nature checks for both acreage reductions and wind control and government policy in creating the Dust Bowl, and practices. the efficacy of grass-roots human responses in alleviating the problem. After 1936, the New Deal added little to its conservation program. Roosevelt did appoint two special commitClements, Frederic, and Ralph Chaney. Environment
The Dust Bowl Explained
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of the most famous images available of those events. Lowitt, Richard. The New Deal and the West. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. A well-written synthesis that presents the national, political, and economic background for New Deal programs that had an impact in the Great Plains. Also discusses the impact of national policies in the context of regional, state, and local political and economic conditions. Sears, Paul. Deserts on the March. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1935. A contemporary assessment by a pioneering popular writer in the field of ecology who attempted to explain the Dust Bowl as an example of a long-term worldwide trend. Controversial and stimulating. Svobida, Lawrence. An Empire of Dust. 1940. Reprint. Farming the Dust Bowl: A First-Hand Account from Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986. A classic account of the Dust Bowl, written by a Kansas farmer who battled the Dust Bowl conditions for almost a decade. Watkins, T. H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930’s. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Readable, informed general history of the decade; includes a brief but insightful section on the Dust Bowl. Companion volume to a public television program. Worcester, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Great Plains in the 1930’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Well-researched, thought-provoking analysis of the economic and cultural causes of the Dust Bowl, the strengths and weaknesses of the government and private-sector responses to the crisis, and long-term consequences of the experience. _______. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985. A survey of the evolution of ecological thought from the 1700’s to the 1970’s. The arrival of agriculture on the Great Plains and the development of the Dust Bowl are important episodes in the emergence of ecological theory in the twentieth century. Glossary is helpful for introductory students. See also: Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States; Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established; Apr., 1939: The Grapes of Wrath Portrays Depression-Era America.
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and Life in the Great Plains. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1937. Written during the Dust Bowl crisis, this brief work contains Clements’s ideas for land management and agricultural practices based on ecological principles. Cunfer, Geoff. On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Study of the agricultural and environmental history of the area at the center of the Dust Bowl. Includes a chapter on the drought and its impact. Bibliographic references and index. Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Comprehensive history and analysis of the causes and effects of the Dust Bowl, beginning with agricultural developments in the first years of the twentieth century. Map, bibliographic references, and index. Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Historical study of the migrants from Oklahoma and other southern Great Plains states who settled in California in the 1930’s. Excellent social history, with emphasis on the continuity in culture and traditions among the Oklahoma migrants as they became part of California’s complex social and ethnic mix. Hurt, R. Douglas. “Agricultural Technology in the Dust Bowl, 1932-1940.” In The Great Plains: Environment and Culture, edited by Brian W. Blouet and Frederick C. Luebke. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977. Succinct summary of the changes in agricultural techniques and technology in response to the drought of the 1930’s, with emphasis on the work of the Soil Conservation Service. _______. The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History. Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1981. A broad historical survey of the Great Plains region during the 1930’s. Contains much useful information on economic conditions, agricultural practices and technology, and the human responses to the crises of the era. Lange, Dorothea, and Paul Taylor. An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939. Lange’s stunning photographs of the Dust Bowl and migration to California provide some
Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains
Radar Is Developed
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1934-1945
Radar Is Developed The development of radar, which made the identification of distant objects possible, revolutionized both wartime and peacetime industries. Locale: United States; Europe Categories: Science and technology; military history; inventions Key Figures Christian Hülsmeyer (1881-1957), German engineer acknowledged as inventor of the world’s first practical radar system Robert M. Page (1903-1992), American physicist who developed a practical technology for pulse radar Leo C. Young (b. 1926), American physicist and colleague of Page Robert Alexander Watson-Watt (1892-1973), Scottish physicist who initiated development of radar in Britain Henry Thomas Tizard (1885-1959), British scientist who led a delegation to the United States for cooperative development of radar
Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. While several proposals to build radar-type detection devices had been made since the late nineteenth century— including a demonstration by Germany’s Christian Hülsmeyer in 1904—it was not until the 1930’s that the study of radio-echo signals from moving objects was considered important. Early in 1934, Robert M. Page, an American physicist pursuing the theory of his colleague Leo C. Young at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, worked out a practical technology for pulse radar. This development marked the beginning of an effective radar program in the United States. By this time, Britain was becoming increasingly apprehensive of Adolf Hitler’s rearming of Nazi Germany. Responding to rumors about a German “death ray” initiated by a speech by the Nazi leader, Scottish physicist Robert Alexander Watson-Watt wrote a report in which he demolished the death-ray fiction but observed that the echoes of shortwave pulses could be used to locate approaching aircraft and the like. To boost the British effort, a special committee headed by scientist Henry Thomas Tizard was formed to give top priority to the systematic research and development of British radar. By 1935, Watson-Watt had completed a practical radar system that was to contribute to the successful outcome of
Summary of Event “Radar” is an acronym for “radio detection and ranging.” The principle of radar involves the transmission of highfrequency pulses of electromagnetic energy through a directional antenna. The pulses are reflected by objects that intercept them. Radar receivers pick up the reflections, process them electronically, and convert them into dots of light (blips) on the face of a fluorescent screen that forms part of a cathode-ray tube. In this way, the receivers determine with instant precision the direction, distance, velocity, altitude, and even form of the targeted object, such as an airplane, ship, submarine, iceberg, body in space, thunderstorm, or landmass. Radar came into widespread use during World War II and has been credited with changing the course of history, and certainly that of North American history. During the 1930’s, Three U.S. soldiers sit in place at a radar installation used in Casablanca, French radar development was pioneered inMorocco, during World War II. (NARA) dependently and simultaneously in 2734
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Battle of Britain five years later. Simultaneously, the French were placing their own version of radar on the luxury liner Normandie to assist in the detection of icebergs on crossings of the North Atlantic. Thus, by the beginning of World War II, several nations benefited from functioning radar systems. These systems were based on fundamentally different designs. The further diversification of radar designs and their applications by the Allies and Germany would improve the technology considerably by the end of the war. The British won the Battle of Britain by using radar to help intercept approaching aircraft. When Germany switched to night bombing in 1941, British ground and airborne radar enabled British fighters to zero in on the attackers. The German threat of invasion was thus foiled, and Britain in turn became the strategic staging area from which the Allied forces launched their landing in Nazi-held “fortress Europe” in 1944.
craft to avoid radar detection, radar contact with planets and other celestial bodies (radio astronomy), and the use of radar to improve the safety of air travel. —Peter B. Heller Further Reading Bowen, E. G. Radar Days. Bristol, England: Adam Hilger, 1987. Describes how airborne radar helped to defeat Hitler and the bombers of the Luftwaffe. Early accounts of English radar usually were written from the viewpoint of someone in the higher echelons of government or as seen by the management, but this work was written from the point of view of those who performed laboratory studies, which were followed by flight trials in which the lone experimenter tried to simulate the problems likely to be met in upcoming battles. Brown, L. A Radar History of World War II: Technical and Military Imperatives. Boca Raton, Fla.: Taylor & Francis, 1999. Comprehensive volume discusses radar programs in every nation that participated in World War II. Buderi, Robert. The Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won the Second World War and Launched a Technical Revolution. Carmichael, Calif.: Touchstone Books, 1998. Provides a clear and logical explanation of the technology behind radar and its development. Includes several short biographies of the individuals involved. Burns, Russell W., ed. Radar Development to 1945. London: Peregrinus, 1988. Illustrated, blow-by-blow account of the development of radar in various countries. Among those writing the history of American radar is one of its principal developers, Dr. Robert M. Page, the retired head of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Clark, Ronald W. Tizard. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965. In 1940, the Tizard mission was sent to the United States to disclose English secret technical advances, including radar, in return for U.S. help on technical and production matters. No comprehensive account of the Tizard mission has ever been written, but this book is a step in that direction. De Arcangelis, Mario. Electronic Warfare: From the Battle of Tsushima to the Falklands and Lebanon Conflicts. Poole, England: Blandford Press, 1985. Fascinating, clearly written account of important military operations involving radar and other technologies. Fisher, David E. A Race on the Edge of Time: Radar, the Decisive Weapon of World War II. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. Competent account of radar’s 2735
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Significance In some respects, radar was a typical product of midtwentieth century scientific technology. It was made possible by an earlier effort, a research project committed solely to an understanding of pertinent scientific phenomena. Two names stand out in this connection: James Clerk Maxwell in Britain, whose mathematical predictions in 1864 regarding the nature of light and electromagnetic phenomena indicated that the latter, like the former, could be reflected, and Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist who in 1887 demonstrated that Maxwell was right. Hertz’s efforts were based on the sophisticated understanding of electronics that had formed over three decades of experiments with radio communications. So many individuals were involved in this development that it can be said that radar—like most scientific breakthroughs—evolved rather than was invented. The fact that radar did not have any single inventor was also a result of its complexity, its design variations, and the number of different components used in radar systems. Moreover, the national emergency of war mandated a total mobilization of resources on the parts of all involved. Accordingly, for perhaps the first time in history, scientists, policy makers, military personnel, and others on both sides of the Atlantic became completely devoted to research and development on a single project. In tribute, former World War II German navy head Admiral Karl Doenitz said in 1945, “The one single weapon which defeated the [German] submarine and the Third Reich was the long-range airplane with radar.” In subsequent years, scientists were to focus on technologies that enabled air-
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Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed use during the war. Based on interviews with those involved. Pritchard, David. The Radar War: Germany’s Pioneering Achievement, 1904-1945. Wellingborough, England: P. Stephens, 1989. Traces the development of German radar from Hülsmeyer’s demonstration to the end of the war. Includes photographs of individuals and equipment. Rowe, Albert P. One Story of Radar. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1948. The period at St. Athan will be remembered for the start of mass production of airborne radar and for fitting these sets to aircraft at an unprecedented rate. As that work drew to a close, another move was contemplated. The decision of where to relocate was decided by events at Dundee, where things had reached crisis point. The fiction that Dundee was a good place for radar research could no longer be maintained and another move had to be made. Skolnik, Merrill I. Introduction to Radar Systems. 2d ed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Includes a few pages devoted to radar development prior to World War II. Surveys the efforts of both Allied and Axis powers. Watson-Watt, Robert A. The Pulse of Radar: The Autobiography of Sir Robert Watson-Watt. New York: Dial Press, 1959. Account by the gifted Scottish pioneer of radar, including a perceptive chapter on why the Americans ignored radar warnings of the impending Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere; Nov. 16, 1904: Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed; June-Sept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope; Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II; July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain.
February, 1934
Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed When Diego Rivera included an image of Soviet leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin in a mural for the newly constructed RCA Building, controversy arose and the painting was destroyed. Locale: New York, New York Category: Arts Key Figures Diego Rivera (1886-1957), painter and muralist who vibrantly depicted Mexican folk and American working classes Nelson A. Rockefeller (1908-1979), millionaire philanthropist and art collector who commissioned and later dismissed Rivera José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), renowned Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), renowned Mexican muralist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), respected Mexican painter and Rivera’s second wife Summary of Event Mexican painter and muralist Diego Rivera managed to earn commissions from mainstream government and 2736
corporate leaders while simultaneously portraying the struggles and epics of the laboring classes. His murals, which frequently embellished the walls of public buildings, drew attention to native farmers, peasants, and urban dwellers. In the United States, he often focused on those who worked on assembly lines and thereby fueled industrial processes. Rivera’s subject matter evolved from his political beliefs. An activist who was kicked out of but later reinstated in the Mexican Communist Party, his artistic interpretations of doctrine were direct and uncomplicated. Rivera’s murals also displayed an understanding of higher mechanics and of the ways in which various physical and human elements interacted. From a political perspective, his work could move the masses; from a technical perspective, it appealed to the cognoscenti. The collision between subject matter and patronage had surfaced before Rivera was commissioned to do a mural at the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, but to a different degree. In the United States, the conflict proved to be more acute than in Mexico, where the Revolution of 1910 had empowered the country’s vast citizenry and diminished the European, particularly Spanish, influences of the reigning elite. Rivera’s
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American debut took place in San Francisco in 1930. His murals soon graced the walls of the local stock exchange and the California School of Fine Arts. Although some condemned the painter for being a Communist, his San Francisco tenure proved personally enjoyable, and it ended without incident. Rivera’s next major assignment foreshadowed the events that would transpire in New York City. The Detroit Art Commission, under the chairmanship of automobile mogul Edsel Ford, gave the To view image, please refer to the artist complete freedom to decorate the print edition of this title. courtyard of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The resulting epic consisted of twentyseven panels, the artist’s self-described vision depicting “in color and form the story of each industry and its division of labor.” Given the sheer number of political statements that could be interpreted in such a massive work, controversy was hardly surprising. Father Charles Coughlin, a conservative, virulently jingoistic, Detroit-based priest then at the height of his national influence, proved to be one of the most threatening critics. Rivera’s creation provoked extreme reactions on all fronts, drawing support as well as criticism. A disparate group of workers coalesced solely for the purDiego Rivera in May, 1933, working on the Rockefeller Center mural that was later pose of protecting the murals, and they destroyed. (AP/Wide World Photos) threatened the use of force. Nelson A. Rockefeller was a Diego Rivera supporter, and his wife, Mary the use of color, the muralist acceded. Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, had several of the artist’s Rivera submitted a sketch addressing the predesigworks in her collection. After expressing a desire to see nated theme, “Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope the Detroit murals, the millionaire philanthropist soon and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Fufollowed up with a letter describing another project: decture.” The design concept, which extolled workers and oration of the new RCA Building in Manhattan. The proshunned some of the more egregious facets of indusject’s parameters appeared to be circumscribed from the trial society, won Nelson Rockefeller’s approval. Work start. Rockefeller’s contractors sent proposals to three commenced in March, 1933. The technical aspects of Richosen artists—Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and vera’s mural painting were labor-intensive. A cadre of Rivera—inviting them to participate in a “contest.” Inassistants applied three surface coatings to ensure stabilstructions were clear, down to the size of the figures, ity and enhance color, ground the paints, and transferred color scheme (black and white), and varnishing requirements. All three painters, well respected enough by this the lines of the artist’s sketches to the wall. Rivera then time to demand artistic freedom, rejected the offer. proceeded with his brushwork. Rockefeller personally set out to persuade Rivera. After As the painting neared completion in late April, a New some of the rules were softened, including allowing York World-Telegram reporter, Joseph Lilly, visited the
Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed RCA Building for a preview. The resulting article, headlined “Rivera Paints Scenes of Communist Activity and John D. [Rockefeller], Jr., Foots Bill,” highlighted many themes that were not new to those familiar with the artist’s work. Representations of toxic materials and poisonous gases, for example, had appeared in the Detroit murals. One element was to make its debut: the figure of Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin. Nelson Rockefeller viewed the mural after reading the article. Claiming to find the work “thrilling,” he nevertheless wrote Rivera a letter requesting that another figure be substituted for Lenin. Rivera sought the counsel of his friends and assistants before telling Rockefeller that Lenin would remain. In an attempt to compromise, Rivera suggested that some additional elements, such as the figure of a great American, could be used for balance. Several days later, Rockefeller’s contractors and a band of security guards escorted Rivera off the scaffold, paid his full $21,000 commission, and placed canvas over the mural. Workers protested by picketing, and intellectuals, artists, and businesspeople mounted strong pro- and anti-Rivera campaigns. After he paid his expenses and reimbursed his assistants, Rivera retained almost $7,000 from the RCA job. He used his “Rockefeller money” to paint murals in two American Communist institutions, the New Workers’ School and Trotskyite headquarters. The New York frescoes were to be Rivera’s last permanent works in the United States, since all the commissions planned in the United States were canceled or never materialized. Rivera did, however, continue to exhibit and paint on movable panels. In February, 1934, after returning to Mexico, Rivera learned that his previously covered RCA mural had been removed. He gained a commission from the Mexican government and reconstructed the work, with several changes. As Rivera himself described it, a scene of nightclub carousing now included John D. Rockefeller, Jr., “his head but a short distance away from . . . venereal disease germs.” Significance Although Rivera received no more large American commissions after the Rockefeller incident, other offers came from around the world. Nevertheless, the artist soon turned to easel painting and to the interests of private collectors who would use his work to decorate their homes, galleries, and offices. Mural painting, however, had not yet reached its pinnacle in either the United States or Mexico. Rivera surely contributed to the explosion that followed, but he left the genre before it could be considered common. 2738
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sometimes an extraordinary event can push politics or culture in a certain direction. The RCA mural may have had such an effect. Left-wing politics, wrought out of the Great Depression and Soviet influence, brought about two related art forms, social realism and Socialist Realism. Both elevated the ordinary person, celebrated daily existence, and called attention to widespread social and economic inequities. Socialist Realism suggested a political, clearly Marxist answer to working-class dilemmas, and it was the more blatantly propagandistic of the two schools. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin mandated Socialist Realism as the cultural medium. Artists who did not pursue it were denied commissions, banished, or even killed. Some historians pointed out that the RCA murals represented a leap for Rivera from social realism to Socialist Realism. Meanwhile, in the United States, critics wondered whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt was leading the country toward socialism. If that were the case, however, the course was temporary and motivated by economics. Roosevelt’s first term, which began in 1933, saw a flurry of progressive legislation aimed at reducing widespread unemployment. One of these programs was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), initiated in 1935. Part of that program engaged artists and writers in the celebration and documentation of American cultural heritage. WPA commissions soon enlivened post office walls, government buildings, and many other public venues. Rivera’s influence radiated from these brightly colored murals, which were often rendered in social realist style, were filled with historical references, and illustrated themes inspired by the working class. It is impossible to address the work of Diego Rivera without mentioning two of his contemporaries, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The tres grandes, or big three, differed in techniques and in their personal and artistic responses to political events, yet they collectively elevated their chosen genre. According to one expert, Mexican mural commissions reached their peak in the late 1950’s, although in the decade that followed a whole new generation of Mexican artists concerned with social values drew their inspiration from the great muralists. Siqueiros was particularly influential in helping to organize the Syndicate of Revolutionary Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers, a sort of postrevolutionary union that was ultimately responsible for instituting mural painting as a national art form in Mexico. The tres grandes experienced the United States in similar ways. All worked there during the Depression, and after the Rockefeller Center incident, they were never again to receive large, permanent commissions.
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Further Reading Chavez, Augustin Velazquez. Contemporary Mexican Artists. New York: Covici-Friede, 1937. Thumbnail sketches, typically two pages in length, and four black-and-white plates are used to present each of the
twenty-five artists included here. A short introductory section lends unity to the book. Goldman, Shifra M. Contemporary Mexican Painting in a Time of Change. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977. Although most of this book focuses on a later generation, this work portrays Rivera and other muralists as wellsprings of modern Mexican art. Goldman demonstrates the interrelationships among various painters, how they inspired each other and split to create new schools or perspectives. The historical and political nature of art is an important theme. Helm, MacKinley. Modern Mexican Painters. New York: Dover, 1974. A chapter on Rivera lends insight into the artist’s technique and evolution over the years. It is evident that Helm, a collector with informed opinions, came to know the muralist through both personal interviews and exhibitions. Their conversations periodically surface on these pages. A good discussion of the differences between Rivera the person and Rivera the artist. McMeekin, Dorothy. Diego Rivera: Science and Creativity in the Detroit Murals. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1985. A massive mural project— twenty-seven frescoes in the courtyard of the Detroit Institute of Arts—is used to illustrate Rivera’s comprehension of biology, geology, and technology. The broader political feelings are apparent, too, thus providing a good basis of comparison with the Rockefeller Center work. Marnham, Patrick. Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Thoroughly researched biography strikes a perfect balance between providing enough historical context to orient the reader well and providing so much that the book’s subject is obscured. Museum of Modern Art (New York). Diego Rivera. New York: Arno Press, 1931. Published to celebrate Rivera’s one-person show at the museum, this catalog contains more than one hundred black-and-white plates. A short bibliography and a time line offer an excellent perspective on early, enduring influences including the artist’s nurturing and liberal family; impressive general education; and encouragement, from the age of three, to pursue creative avenues. Rivera, Diego, with Gladys March. My Art, My Life: An Autobiography. New York: Citadel Press, 1960. Rivera writes in an informal voice, divulging details and presenting his side of an often controversial life story. The appendix features “statements” from each of the four women whom he lived with or married. 2739
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Rivera possibly held more of a universal appeal than did either Siqueiros or Orozco. Unlike his respected colleagues, he benefited from a solid general education and from formal artistic training in Europe. Rivera first studied in Spain, then moved to Paris, where he was mentored by Picasso and was captured on Amedeo Modigliani’s canvas. His use of color is said to have been derived from classical Italian frescoes, and for a while he dabbled in cubism. Europe during Rivera’s stay (19071921) also blazed with differing political philosophies, including nationalism and Marxism. As a result, the artist gained a sense of history and learned how to incorporate his ideas into unique and timely contexts. On his Detroit commission, he conducted interviews, and he sent his assistants to research American historical figures for the RCA mural. Later, in the midst of the 1936 controversy concerning his Communist credentials, Rivera was invited by fascist leader Benito Mussolini to paint in Italy. The muralist exuded a personal charm that drew fledgling artists to him. His wife, the painter Frida Kahlo, respected for her sensitive portrayal of women’s emotional needs and feelings, declared at the age of thirteen that she wanted to have a child by Rivera. In a different way, his assistants formed a cadre of steadfast supporters. There is evidence, for example, that Rivera might have acceded to Rockefeller’s demands if these young men and women had not threatened to strike over such terms. In addition to his own enduring artistic legacy, the Rivera influence survived through the work of assistants Lucienne Bloch, John Hastings, and, most notably, social realist painter Ben Shahn. Decades after his death, Rivera’s influence endures. During the early 1990’s, the Mexican and U.S. governments promoted a traveling art exhibit of Rivera’s work that was so large that, with some extra borrowing or by digging into permanent collections, museums could focus on any number of styles, historic eras, or themes. In this way, the ever-buoyant Diego Rivera was introduced to a new generation. (Frida Kahlo also enjoyed a revival during the early 1990’s, particularly attracting the attention of young women who could relate to her style and empathize with her spirit.) —Lynn Kronzek
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Stavisky Riots Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998. Lavishly illustrated. A good place to begin for readers interested in comparing these three giants’ works. Wolfe, Bertram D. The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera. New York: Stein & Day, 1963. Perhaps the most comprehensive basic biography of Rivera, this book includes a chapter on “The Battle of Rockefeller Center.” The author was an adviser to the artist during the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 episode, and he uses correspondence, business documents, and contemporary accounts to describe it. See also: Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed.
February 6, 1934
Stavisky Riots The public violence known as the Stavisky riots helped polarize political life in the Third French Republic and weakened the centrist parties’ capacity to resist the growth of Fascism at home and abroad. Locale: France Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Édouard Daladier (1884-1970), Radical Party leader and premier of France, January-October, 1933, and January 28-February 7, 1934 Serge Alexandre Stavisky (1886-1934), petty criminal turned international swindler who occasioned a major political scandal in France Jean Chiappe (1878-1940), prefect of Paris police, 1928-1934 Camille Chautemps (1885-1963), Radical Party leader and premier of France, November, 1933-January 27, 1934 Léon Blum (1872-1950), Socialist Party leader and statesman Summary of Event The French governmental crisis of 1934 began in late 1933, when newspapers noted that Serge Alexandre Stavisky, a member of the underworld, had been accused of defrauding hundreds of investors using municipal bonds in the city of Bayonne. Stavisky had been a police informer, a cabaret backer, a theater promoter, and a peddler of political influence. Called “King of the Crooks,” he was actually a petty gangster. The legal protection he had received from both judges and police was not uncommon in the Third Republic, where officials fre2740
quently protected men of Stavisky’s caliber in return for information. He had also made major contributions to the dominant Radical Party (officially called the Parti Républicain Radical et Radical-Socialiste, or Radical Socialist and Radical Republican Party). Further revelations that Stavisky had been protected by Radical Party politicians created a scandal that was trumpeted by right-wing critics. Long active as a financial swindler, Stavisky had been indicted for fraud in 1927, but nineteen attempts to try him had mysteriously failed. He fled the warrant issued for his arrest in 1933, and was found shot to death in January, 1934. Many French people doubted the police reports of suicide and asked two questions: Who had protected Stavisky? Who had killed him? The political scandal forced the Radical premier, Camille Chautemps, to resign in January, 1934, after reports revealed that he had indirectly supported Stavisky. France’s problems helped to turn the scandal into a crisis. The French normally suspected public officials of incompetence or dishonesty. The right-wing press normally ranted about conspiracies to destroy France. It took the economic and political failures of the Republic to convert myths and half-truths into politically potent beliefs. Adolf Hitler’s Germany was challenging French dominance in Europe, which had been gained at a terrible price in World War I, and the Great Depression overwhelmed the Third Republic’s politicians. Foreign threats and economic insecurity created an atmosphere in which radical propagandists could use the Stavisky scandal as an excuse to challenge republicanism. France’s woes made the rightist version of the Stavisky affair credible. Numerous political organizations wanted to destroy the Third Republic and replace it with a republican or
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Significance The events of February 6 had a major influence on later French politics. Daladier’s resignation on February 7 was a clear victory for the rioters. The right-wing factions were excited by the republic’s weakness, and Fascists argued that a more systematic attack on the government could end the Republic. In the short run, Action Française, whose Camelots du Roi had supplied the most committed members of the mob, gathered support from those who blamed the republic and its police for the rioting. In the long run the crisis damaged Action Française. Its Fascist competitors emphasized that inept Action Française leadership had caused the February riots to fall short of their professed goal of a new authoritarian regime. This failure pointed to larger shortcomings within Action Française, whose leaders could neither comprehend nor exploit the revolutionary possibilities in France before, during, and after the 1934 crisis. They needed to be mindful of their aristocratic and bourgeois allies, who could not formally approve of any serious disruption of public order. Action Française’s failure to seize the opportunity for a coup drove rightist youth into more activist organizations. After 1934, Action Française declined as more radical rightist movements prospered, and this shift helped to undermine French unity at a time when it was sorely needed. The Left, frightened by the events of February 6, became less revolutionary. Although its massive antifascist demonstration on February 12 alarmed some legislators, it had actually been intended as a show of leftist loyalty to the republic. Communist workers eventually forced their leadership to support the existing regime. Leftist fear of a Fascist coup helped create the Popular Front coalition of Radicals, Socialists, and Communists in 1936, led by Socialist leader Léon Blum, who had also supported the government during the riots. Workers, realizing that the likely alternatives to a bourgeois republic would probably not have their best interests at heart, intensified their plans to defend themselves if the next crisis became a coup. The riots, then, had the longer term result of strengthening both the Left and the Right and helping to shatter the coalition of centrist parties that had long stabilized the Republic. Officially, Stavisky’s death remained a suicide, but a new sense of mystery was added when a judge who supposedly possessed papers relevant to the case died under strange circumstances. The police were again accused of political murder, and even the relatively limited corruption revealed by commissions investigating the Stavisky case discredited some Republican politicians and led to 2741
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monarchical authoritarian regime. Foremost among these groups was Action Française, a rightist and monarchist movement whose daily newspaper, L’Action française, had exposed the Stavisky affair. Action Française also encompassed a violent youth movement, the Camelots du Roi. Other rightist organizations made Action Française seem moderate by comparison: There was the semifascist Croix de Feu, whose tendencies were exceeded only by the openly Fascist Francistes. Politically embittered veterans had formed leagues, some of which sought an “honest and authoritarian” regime. Rightists led the opposition in 1934, and the Communists played only a minor role. Right-wing papers inflamed the public’s suspicions. Perhaps the police, who were embroiled in politics, had Stavisky killed to protect unknown politicians. Perhaps Germans, Jews, Communists, or all three groups, had planned the entire affair. These opinions, and the government’s silence, caused riots in January, in which the Camelots du Roi and similar young toughs gleefully participated. Édouard Daladier, a relatively unknown moderate Radical politician, finally promised to investigate the case and restore order. His initial moves, aimed at forming a coalition government, provided the pretext for the February 6 riots. Unable to gather sufficient support from the rightist deputies, who often supported Action Française, Daladier turned to the Left, appointing a Socialist, Eugène Frot, to be minister of the interior. In a further bid for support, he dismissed the head of the Paris police, Jean Chiappe, a tough Corsican with a reputation for meting out harsh treatment to leftist demonstrators while treating rightist demonstrators with relative care. Chiappe refused to accept his dismissal gracefully, and L’Action française declared him a martyr to the “rotten” Republic. Right-wing leaders were willing to take the Stavisky and Chiappe affairs to the people, but they did not predict their followers’ enthusiasm. On February 6, an unplanned demonstration began while the new government presented itself to the Chamber of Deputies. People had filled the vast Place de la Concorde by 6:30 p.m. The crowd unsuccessfully charged police stationed on the Pont de la Concorde, a bridge that led to the deputies’ meeting place at the Palais Bourbon. The police, disgruntled after Chiappe’s dismissal, offered only halfhearted resistance until the mob began to use lead pipes, paving bricks, and even razors fixed on poles to cripple the horses of the mounted police. The struggle raged until midnight, and both sides suffered heavy losses. Thirteen rioters and one police officer were killed, and hundreds were injured.
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Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act charges that others were hiding evidence. The Stavisky affair remained as both a symbolic cause and effect of France’s political sickness in the 1930’s. —Charles H. O’Brien Further Reading Agulhon, Maurice. The French Republic 1879-1992. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. The first half of this prizewinning book offers a vivid, lucid, and comprehensive survey of the history of the Third Republic. Colton, Joel. Léon Blum, Humanist in Politics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. This biography of the great Socialist Party leader of the 1930’s includes a discussion of the Left’s reaction to the 1934 crisis. Eley, Geoff. Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002. A sympathetic history of the European Left, arguing that radical movements played the central role in the creation and evolution of democracy in Europe. Horn, Gerd-Rainer. European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism, and Contingency in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Study of developments in Europe in the years 19331936 provides background for the move toward nationalization in France. Lamour, Peter J. The French Radical Party in the 1930’s.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964. Offers an entire chapter analyzing the impact of the 1934 crisis on the Radical Party. Soucy, Robert. French Fascism: The Second Wave, 1933-1939. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995. The author exposes the conservative, traditionalist essence of French fascism. Weber, Eugen. Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth Century France. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962. An exhaustive, wellwritten, and fair-minded study, based almost entirely on original sources. _______. The Hollow Years: France in the 1930’s. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. A lively, masterfully detailed picture of the riots and their social context. Werth, Alexander. The Twilight of France, 1933-1940. New York: Harper & Row, 1942. Places the 1934 crisis within the general framework of France’s decline. See also: Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics; Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences; Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France.
March 16, 1934
Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act
Also known as: Duck Stamp Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history
Jay Darling (1876-1962), American artist, cartoonist, and director of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Peter Norbeck (1870-1936), U.S. senator from South Dakota, 1921-1936 George A. Lawyer (fl. early twentieth century), chief U.S. game warden Frederic Collin Walcott (1869-1949), U.S. senator from Connecticut, 1929-1934 August H. Andresen (1890-1958), U.S. representative from Minnesota, 1925-1932, 1935-1958
Key Figures Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), American conservation philosopher and wildlife biologist Thomas Beck (fl. early twentieth century), American magazine editor
Summary of Event On March 16, 1934, the U.S. Congress enacted the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (also known as the Duck Stamp Act) to provide critical funds
While legislation had been passed five years earlier to protect waterfowl populations in the United States, it had lacked any funding mechanism. Enactment of the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act provided the nation’s first regular federal funding for waterfowl management, thereby enabling such management to be accomplished rather than merely recommended.
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Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act
sources for such land purchases. Without funds to implement the 1929 legislation and the recommendations of Roosevelt’s blue-ribbon committee, programs to protect waterfowl would exist only on paper. Darling—who was the new director of the Bureau of Biological Survey (later known as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)— came up with a potential solution to this problem: He revived the idea of requiring a federal stamp on duckhunting licenses and stipulating that revenue from its sale be used to restore lost waterfowl habitat. The idea of issuing a federal waterfowl stamp to provide funds for the acquisition of public hunting grounds had first been proposed by George A. Lawyer, chief U.S. game warden, shortly after the end of World War I. Such a bill was debated several times in Congress but failed to pass four times between 1921 and 1926. Dr. William T. Hornaday led the formidable opposition against the Game Refuge-Public Shooting Grounds Bill. Hornaday believed that liberal bag limits and the use of semiautomatic shotguns was causing the slaughter of too many ducks and geese, and he argued that the creation of game refuges was simply a method of concentrating waterfowl for more killing by hunters. He called supporters of this bill “game hogs” and “butchers.” Senator Peter Norbeck had reintroduced the Game Refuge-Public Shooting Grounds Bill in the opening days of the Seventieth Congress (1927-1928). After bitter debate, the federal licensing and public huntinggrounds features were removed from it, and the Norbeck bill passed the Senate. Congressman August H. Andresen of Minnesota authored a new bill identical to the amended Norbeck bill on January 23, 1929. Without provision for congressional moneys, this bill quickly passed the House. After eight years of disagreement and acrimonious charges, on February 8, 1929, the Norbeck-Andresen Act established a feasible waterfowl refuge law. The idea of a federal hunting license for waterfowl had seemed defeated with the passage of the final version of the Norbeck-Andresen Act, but in the wake of the onset of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, it acquired new life and new urgency. In early 1927, drought, drainage of wetlands, and expanding The first Duck Stamp, featuring art by Jay Darling. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) hunting and poaching pressure had 2743
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for wetlands and waterfowl conservation programs. Until this act was passed, no stable funding source was available for such conservation work. As has been the case with many conservation programs, a long, twisting journey was taken over many years to enact this farreaching legislation. Waterfowl populations declined sharply in the early 1900’s. Extensive habitat loss caused by the long drought of the 1930’s, overharvest by market hunting, and the Great Depression created both ecological and financial crises for resource management programs. Water from prairie potholes, ponds, and marshes had disappeared, and with it the nesting and rearing habitat for waterfowl. Dust storms raged, and the Dust Bowl created a biological crisis. Waterfowl numbers in North America reached their lowest point in history. Many conservationists predicted the extinction of ducks and geese in the United States. In January, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed a special waterfowl committee of Jay Darling, Thomas Beck, and Aldo Leopold to determine the needs of waterfowl management and outline a plan for saving this disappearing resource. The committee estimated that $50 million was needed for the purchase and restoration of wetlands for wildlife, with special emphasis on migratory waterfowl. Finding such an immense sum during the Depression was improbable. Indeed, Congress had already passed legislation in 1929 to buy land for waterfowl refuges, but had yet to provide any stable funding
Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act caused waterfowl numbers to decline sharply. In the fall of 1929, drought-stricken populations of waterfowl had begun to plummet sharply. On December 31, 1929, the bag limit had been reduced from twenty-five to fifteen ducks a day, but the waterfowl crash had continued. Frederic Collin Walcott, a Connecticut senator and an avid duck hunter, viewed the waterfowl crash with alarm. His great desire for wildlife conservation led him to establish the Senate Special Committee on the Conservation of Wildlife Resources. As its first chairman, he proposed a greatly intensified waterfowl management program in 1931. The funding of this management effort revived the American Game Association’s idea of a federal hunting stamp. On April 4, 1932, more than one hundred witnesses were heard by Walcott’s committee. Most of the witnesses favored the hunting stamp proposal. By 1934, then, the way had been largely prepared for the recommendation of Darling’s committee, which seemed to confirm what Walcott’s committee had already decided. Darling lobbied Congress for a duck stamp, and progress toward its enactment was rapid: The Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act become law on March 16, 1934. The law required all waterfowl hunters sixteen years of age and older to buy federal duck stamps, sign them, and paste them to the back of their state-issued hunting licenses. Sold at local U.S. Post Offices, the stamps were required only for hunting ducks and geese, not for hunting any other migratory game birds. Darling, an astute political cartoonist and an outstanding artist, designed the first duck stamp in 1934; it sold for one dollar. All funds from the sale of this stamp were to be used for waterfowl management and the acquisition of wetland habitats essential for restoring waterfowl numbers. The act was the first major federal statute to establish a special fund to be used exclusively for wildlife conservation purposes. Significance Before the crash of waterfowl populations in the 1920’s, the U.S. government had set aside about 744,000 acres of habitat for all wildlife. By 1942, almost 3 million acres had been set aside for the preservation of waterfowl alone. Much of the money for this land acquisition came from the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act of 1934. Duck stamp receipts are available for use without congressional appropriation. In the first fifty years of the program’s existence, more than eighty-eight million duck stamps provided more than $300 million for waterfowl conservation. 2744
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 On August 12, 1949, in response to fiscal crises, the price of the duck stamp was doubled from one dollar to two dollars. The 1949 amendment to the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act also authorized the secretary of the interior to set aside wildlife management areas on up to 25 percent of any land acquired with duck stamp revenues. Hunting of resident and migratory game birds was to be allowed on these lands. In 1958, another amendment to the act increased hunter access to 40 percent of lands acquired with duck stamp moneys. The issue of whether to allow sport hunting on lands acquired with duck stamp revenues in the National Wildlife Refuge System remains controversial. Inadequate funding for acquisition of lands for wildlife, especially waterfowl, is a continuing problem for wildlife conservationists. For example, the price of a duck stamp increased nearly 750 percent between 1934 and 1986. In the same interval of time, however, the price of farmland rose 2,600 percent. Thus revenues generated by duck stamps alone cannot buy and maintain all the needed remaining wetlands of the United States. In the United States, about 5.2 million acres of waterfowl habitat have been preserved since the 1930’s through the duck stamp program. Because of the success of the U.S. government in raising moneys through the sale of duck stamps for waterfowl conservation, many states in the United States also issue hunting stamps to fund their conservation needs. Stamps for upland game birds, trout, turkeys, and nongame animals raise several million dollars each year for important conservation activities. Such programs are thus legacies of a time when it seemed that waterfowl, one of the nation’s priceless resources, might disappear forever from North America. — David L. Chesemore Further Reading Day, Albert M. North American Waterfowl. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1959. Provides an excellent overview of the historical progress of waterfowl management in North America through the 1950’s. Farley, John L. Duck Stamps and Wildlife Refuges. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1959. Circular no. 37. A capsule summary of the history of the enactment of the Duck Stamp Act and how it has benefited waterfowl conservation. Gilmore, Jene C. Art for Conservation: The Federal Duck Stamps. Barre, Mass.: Barre, 1971. Each duck stamp from 1934 through 1971 is portrayed in black and white. Additional information on number of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 stamps sold, a brief biography of the artist who produced the stamp, and information on the stamps’ production is given clearly and concisely in this book. Linduska, Joseph P. Waterfowl Tomorrow. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964. An updated version of Day’s book on waterfowl history, this is a good first book from which to learn the history of waterfowl management. McBride, David P. The Federal Duck Stamps: A Complete Guide. Piscataway, N.J.: Winchester Press, 1984. The best book on duck stamps. Details the enactment of the Duck Stamp Act and includes blackand-white reproductions of the stamps from 1934 through 1984. Eleven appendixes and a bibliography add considerable information about duck stamps. Reiger, John F. American Sportsmen and the Origins of
Philippine Independence Act Conservation. 3d rev. and expanded ed. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001. Study emphasizing the connection between sport and conservation in American history. Largely a prehistory of the Duck Stamp Act, but includes an epilogue on Aldo Leopold and his place in the history of conservation and sport. Bibliographic references and index. Trefethen, James B. Crusade for Wildlife: Highlights in Conservation Progress. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1961. One of the best books on the history of wildlife conservation in the United States. Written in a readable style that makes historical facts come alive. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created.
March 24, 1934
Philippine Independence Act In the Philippine Independence Act, the United States promised independence to the Philippines by 1944, and in doing so it paved the way for expansion of U.S. economic interests in the islands.
Key Figures Harry B. Hawes (1869-1947), former senator from Missouri John McDuffie (1883-1950), representative from Alabama Sergio Osmeña (1878-1961), vice president of the Philippines Manuel Quezón (1878-1944), president of the Philippines Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Millard Tydings (1890-1961), senator from Maryland Summary of Event On March 24, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Philippine Independence Act, popularly known as the Tydings-McDuffie Act. The law promised independence to the Philippine islands by 1944, follow-
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Also known as: Tydings-McDuffie Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; independence movements; colonialism and occupation
ing a ten-year transition period of “commonwealth status.” During that time, the islands were to be governed by their own national legislature and executive branches; policy-making power, however, would continue to remain in the United States. This commonwealth system was in place when the Philippines were invaded and occupied by the Japanese in 1942, an event that delayed Philippine independence for two years (until 1946). Initial support for the Philippine legislation came from particular special interest groups both in the United States and in the Philippines. Striving for their own nationhood, many native Filipino lobbying groups pushed hard for the act’s passage. A more economically based pressure came from American beet-sugar producers, who sought to eliminate competition from island goods, and from trade-union leaders, who wanted to prevent the influx of Filipino workers into the Hawaiian islands and the U.S. mainland. These groups had earlier lent similar support to the legislative predecessor of the Philippine Independence Act, the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act of 1933. The earlier act’s attempt to curb competitive imports from the Philippines was rejected by the U.S. Senate in a close vote. After the defeat of the Hare-Hawes-Cutting legislation, a new contingent of Filipino supporters of independence traveled to Washington, D.C., where they were joined by those groups of politically influential Americans who supported Philippine autonomy. Sergio Os-
Philippine Independence Act meña led the Philippine delegation, but his call for immediate independence was too drastic for many in the American group. He was subsequently recalled to Manila. His replacement, Manuel Quezón, took a less politically offensive position, emphasizing a gradualist approach to independence for the islands. He was thus able to enlist the support of additional American politicians who favored a more moderate approach to Philippine independence. The resulting coalition influenced the passage of the Philippine Independence Act. Following enactment of the Philippine Independence Act’s legislation, the Filipino delegation returned home to draft a constitution and to elect officials who would oversee the gradual transition to Philippine autonomy. Quezón and Osmeña were elected president and vice president, respectively, of the new commonwealth. Although steps were taken to create a Filipino-based political structure, most of the political decision-making authority still rested with the United States. Filipinos did, however, retain limited control over internal political affairs, but all foreign policy, defense, and monetary matters were defined and implemented in Washington. This political arrangement clearly benefited the United States at the expense of the Filipinos: The commonwealth was prohibited from legislating most of its own economic policies, and In particular, legislation was passed that imposed duties on Philippine exports to the United States. Significance The Philippine Independence Act ensured that, under the new commonwealth system, the cliental politics and economics of the old colonial structure were perfected. Increasingly, the Philippine presidency came to resemble the office of an American state governor: Quezón was accorded certain discretionary powers, but only where American interests were not affected. Quezón could organize an army, but he could not deploy it without President Roosevelt’s consent. Travel to foreign lands and discussion of trade agreements with foreign officials could take place, but Quezón was powerless to conclude any formal agreement. The enactment of any official Philippine trade agreements remained under the authority of the U.S. high commissioner of the Philippines. This position, strengthened by the provisions of the Philippine Independence Act, protected the interests of the United States in all foreign relations and established official relationships between the Philippines and all other nations. Looking after American interests abroad required the centralization of political authority in Manila. As a re2746
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sult, domestic policies were often delegated from the top level of Philippine government. It was under such an arrangement that President Quezón increasingly took advantage of his position. As long as his policy initiatives did not conflict with American interests, he wielded immense power, especially toward those who opposed his policies. Quezón often crushed his opposition with American blessings, and the elimination of domestic competition greatly increased Quezón’s confidence. He began to challenge some of the policies of American commonwealth administrators and even, at times, those of the high commissioner. Chastised at this level, he boldly began to take his conflicts to the American president. Although he was successful in protesting the directives of the high commissioner on some occasions, his appeals to President Roosevelt most often produced results that reinforced American hegemony in the Philippines. Under the structure authorized by the Philippine Independence Act, the goal of true Philippine independence was increasingly circumvented, and American sovereignty over the Philippines continued in the name of independence. American suzerainty was magnified by a commonwealth political system that furthered American economic interests at the expense of the islands’ position as a competitor in the world market, and in the end, the Philippines became increasingly dependent on American economic interests. Commonwealth status destroyed what the Philippines needed in order to compete economically on a global scale: revenue from the export of duty-free goods to the United States. Without trade revenues, the Philippines became increasingly dependent on the United States for loans and investments, which were always made, of course, with the understanding that U.S. interests came first. As the Philippine treasury emptied, the commonwealth thus became more indebted to the United States. The implementation of the Philippine Independence Act both initiated and reinforced this condition. The new relationship between the Philippines and the United States established by the Philippine Independence Act produced a paradox: The closer the Philippines came to political independence, the more economically dependent on the United States it became. In the end, the Philippine Independence Act reinforced the idea that the only kind of independence that would be granted to the Filipinos was the kind that the United States could not grant, at least under the conditions of the day. Ultimately, after intense cooperation during the ravages of World War II, Filipinos were granted independence in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1946, when they were saddled with the task of fashioning a truly national political life and an independent foreign policy. — Thomas J. Edward Walker, Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes, and Ruby L. Stoner
pines and the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. An overview of the origin and evolution of U.S. policy toward the Philippine islands during the first half of the twentieth century. Explains how such policy affected American Filipino economic relations, examines the evolution of Filipino political institutions, and defines the structure of the independence of the Philippine nation. Hayden, John Ralston. The Philippines: A Study in National Development. New York: Macmillan, 1942. A somewhat patronizing account of the Philippine interaction with the United States during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Through primary source materials, provides a positive opinion of U.S. contributions to the development of an independent nation. Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. New York: Random House, 1989. Journalistic account of the American imperial experience in the Philippines. Suggests that the U.S. attempts to remake the Philippines in its own image through the establishment of political, educational, and sociocultural institutions barely affected traditional Filipino values yet such activity resulted in a unique relationship between the two countries. Indexed with bibliography. Paredes, Ruby R., ed. Philippine Colonial Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988. Analyzes the patron-client relationship between the United States and the Philippines. Suggests that the interaction was mutually corruptive for both nations: devastating to the evolution of Philippine democracy and detrimental to U.S. foreign policy. Indexed. See also: May 27, 1901: Insular Cases; 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States; May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment; Mar. 2, 1917: Jones Act of 1917.
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Further Reading Constantino, Renato. A History of the Philippines. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975. A clearly written historical analysis of the Filipino struggle against imperialism. Provides a regional examination of Philippine political, economic, sociocultural, and religious colonization; also includes an intellectual examination of the decolonization process. Excellent nonWestern documentation. Delmendo, Sharon. The Star-Entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. History of the troubled relationship between the United States and the Philippines in the twentieth century. Examines several issues, including the longterm effects of American imperialism. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Feuer, A. B. America at War: The Philippines, 18981913. New York: Praeger, 2002. Employs previously unpublished letters, diaries, and photographs to present a look at the Philippine-American War from the point of view of American soldiers, sailors, and marines who participated. Gallego, Manuel. The Price of Philippine Independence Under the Tydings-McDuffie Act: An Anti-view of the So-Called Independence Law. Manila: Barristers Book Company, 1939. A Philippine account of the implementation of the act and the evolution of the commonwealth period; provides personal narratives documenting political, economic, and social oppression. Grunder, Garel A., and William E. Lively. The Philip-
Philippine Independence Act
Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
May 23, 1934
Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker carried out one of the most celebrated crime sprees of the Great Depression era before meeting their violent end in a controversial police ambush. Locale: Gibsland, Louisiana Category: Crime and scandal Key Figures Clyde Barrow (1909-1934), serial armed robber and murderer Bonnie Parker (1910-1934), serial armed robber and accomplice of Clyde Barrow Frank Hamer (1884-1955), Texas Ranger who led the party that killed Barrow and Parker Marhall Lee Simmons (1873-1957), manager of the Texas prison system Henry Methvin (1912-1948), police informant and Barrow and Parker’s accomplice Summary of Event The exploits of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, commonly known as Bonnie and Clyde, inspired one of the most popular criminal legends to emerge from the era of the Great Depression. From 1932 until 1934, Parker and Barrow embarked on a crime spree that extended from Texas into several southern and midwestern states. Their crimes were small but occasionally violent and generally focused on holdups of small businesses and banks. By 1934, Barrow, Parker, and a rotating gang of accomplices had been implicated in more than a dozen murders, including the killing of several law-enforcement officers, and they were among the most wanted criminals in the United States. Their criminal activities also made Parker and Barrow minor celebrities. Widespread economic privation and a sensationalist press helped construct a popular image of the bandit as a romantic antihero during the Great Depression, and many of the era’s criminals, including Barrow and Parker, cultivated this image. The pair would often leave their kidnapped robbery victims unharmed and even gave them enough money to return home. Parker, an amateur poet, sent letters and verse to newspapers and left her work behind for authorities. Barrow, whose experiences with high-speed chases had made him a skilled driver, allegedly wrote automobile magnate Henry Ford a letter in which he praised the performance of a stolen Ford sedan. 2748
By late 1933, the pair were living a life much less romantic than their popular image. A police raid on their safehouse in Joplin, Missouri, forced them to leave most of their possessions, and they had begun using a series of increasingly remote hideouts. Further encounters with the police led to more shootouts, resulting in the death of Barrow’s brother, Buck Barrow. In early 1934, the Barrow gang freed several inmates at the Eastham Prison Farm, the brutal prison where Barrow allegedly committed his first murder in 1931. The bold act and ensuing publicity enraged Texas officials, who hired former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to track down Parker and Barrow. Hamer, who had killed dozens of criminals in shootouts, began tracking the Barrow gang in February, 1934. He found an unlikely source of assistance in former accomplice Henry Methvin, whom the gang had freed from Eastham in the raid. In exchange for immunity from pending charges in Texas and Louisiana, Methvin informed authorities about a planned meeting between Barrow and Methvin that was to take place on May 23 at Methvin’s parents’ house outside Gibsland, Louisiana, approximately 50 miles from the Texas border. Hamer assembled a posse composed of four officers from Texas and two from Louisiana and made plans to wait for Parker and Barrow along State Highway 154, the most likely route to their meeting place. The officers were hidden and heavily armed behind natural barricades when they deployed along the roadside just after dusk on the evening of May 21, the designated time of the meeting. Parker and Barrow did not show that evening, and the pair waited through the next day and into the morning of May 23 before the Ford sedan driven by Barrow and occupied by Parker came into view. The posse remained hidden as Barrow stopped to talk with Methvin’s father, who had been enlisted as a decoy and had parked his truck in the road to force the couple’s vehicle into the lane closest to the officers’ hiding place. What happened immediately afterward is the source of controversy. As Methvin’s father dove for cover, the assembled officers opened fire, striking the sedan and its occupants with approximately 130 rounds of ammunition. Barrow, struck in the head with the first bullet fired, died instantly, but participants claimed that they could hear Parker screaming in agony as she was hit by multiple gunshots. Authorities did little to secure the scene of the ambush, which was soon inundated with reporters, souvenir seekers, and onlookers. Bystanders reportedly
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde
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removed locks of hair from Parker’s corpse, and Hamer and other members of the posse took weapons from the car as souvenirs. American newspapers, capitalizing on the sensational nature of the deaths, published front-page stories of the ambush of along with photographs of the bullet-riddled automobile. Popular media trumpeted the killing of the famous duo as a victory for law enforcement and evidence of the devastating and inevitable consequences of a life of crime. Yet the romantic legend of Parker and Barrow survived, spawning a multitude of books, articles, feature films, and other popular culture references. Many questioned the ambush’s propriety, particularly the killing of Bonnie Parker, who was not wanted for a capital crime. Some evidence indicates that the head of the Texas prison system, Marshall Lee Simmons, may have issued a direct order to Hamer to kill both Parker and Barrow. All accounts of the incident suggest that the couple was completely taken by surprise: Barrow was driving without shoes, and Parker was reportedly eating a sandwich as they approached the point of ambush. Although Barrow had killed numerous policemen in shootouts and the sedan he was driving contained numerous weapons, there is no evidence that either he or Parker attempted to use force or that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. (Library of Congress) they were even aware of the presence of the posse. Although the posse possessed high-powered weaponry capable of disposing a broken, corrupt, and oppressive system and caabling the sedan’s tires and engine and thus removing the pable of random acts of compassion toward ordinary citionly available escape option, accounts indicate that the zens. The crimes and violent deaths of Clyde Barrow and first shot fired hit Barrow in the head at close range. The Bonnie Parker occurred during the final wave of the well-documented frustration expressed by authorities “public enemy” era and paralleled the careers of other faand Hamer’s violent reputation prompted further specumous criminal gang leaders such as John Dillinger and lation that the killing of the infamous couple was unjustiArizona Donnie “Ma” Barker. Yet the story of Bonnie and fied and premeditated. Clyde proved one of the most popular and durable criminal legends of the twentieth century, and it periodically Significance resurfaced in motion pictures such as The Bonnie Parker Many scholars suggested that Americans traumatized by Story (1958), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and Natural Born the Great Depression seized on the true-crime gangster stories of the era as a means of assuaging frustration and Killers (1994); popular songs such as the 1968 Merle Hagescaping the reality of daily life by living vicariously gard hit “The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde;” and numerthrough the exploits of high-profile outlaws, whom the ous biographies and other literary treatments. At the end media often portrayed as morally ambiguous figures opof the twentieth century, the legend had gained a measure
Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established of popularity in American hip-hop; several musical recordings contained references to Parker and Barrow. When the U.S. government consolidated federal lawenforcement agencies into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935, the federal government took a more active role in combating organized crime and in inspiring the federalization of a number of crimes whose enforcement had been the states’ responsibility. The government’s efforts to prevent interstate criminal activity continued to grow throughout the twentieth century as organized crime and gang violence remained sources of media attention and public concern. —Michael H. Burchett Further Reading Barrow, Blanche, and John Neal Tebo Phillips . My Life with Bonnie and Clyde. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. Memoir written in prison by Barrow’s sister-in-law. Edited by noted researcher of Parker and Barrows. Includes accounts of Blanche Barrow’s experiences with the Barrow gang and previously unpublished photographs from author’s personal collection. Bruns, Roger. The Bandit Kings: From Jesse James to Pretty Boy Floyd. New York: Crown, 1995. Examination of the outlaw as folk hero discusses prominent
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 American criminals from 1850 through 1940. Knight, James, and Jonathan Davis. Bonnie and Clyde: A Twenty-First Century Update. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2003. Detailed biography of Parker and Barrow contains previously unpublished information and photographs as well as refutations of previously unchallenged theories and allegations. Phillips, John Neal. “The Raid on Eastham.” American History 35, no. 4 (October, 2000): 54. Narrative account of the prison break that led to the ambush of Parker and Barrow; the author alleges that Marshall Lee Simmons ordered Frank Hamer to kill the couple. Prassel, Frank Richard. The Great American Outlaw: A Legacy of Fact and Fiction. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. Scholarly discussion of the outlaw in American popular culture. See also: Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition; Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation; Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains.
June 6, 1934
Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 created a quasijudicial administrative body, the Securities and Exchange Commission, with broad powers to regulate the securities markets and protect the public interest. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; banking and finance; business and labor Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Ferdinand Pecora (1882-1971), legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Banking and Currency Committee Sam Rayburn (1882-1961), U.S. congressman from Texas Duncan U. Fletcher (1859-1936), U.S. senator from Florida Richard Whitney (1888-1974), president of the New York Stock Exchange 2750
Summary of Event The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 solidified the expanding role of the federal government in protecting the investing public. Passed in the aftermath of the greatest stock market collapse in history, this legislation established a new administrative agency with broad powers to ensure that many of the financial abuses and deceptive practices of the past would not recur. Historically, as economic activity increases in volume, complexity, and sophistication, the corporation emerges as the dominant form of business organization. Corporate entities thrive because of the continued and expanding capital investment of people willing to accept the risks and rewards of ownership but unwilling or unable to participate in actual management of the business operation. Through the issuance of securities by corporations, ownership can be spread over a broad base of individuals, thus maximizing the potential for invested resources.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
curring, the strength of the market was quickly eroding as a result of a number of prevailing traditions. First, stock price manipulation was common. This was often executed by means of a manipulation pool, in which a syndicate of corporate officials and market operators join forces and, through a succession of equally matched buying and selling orders (“wash sales”) among themselves, create the false impression of feverish activity, thus driving up the price of the stock. At the height of this artificial activity, the stock is sold, huge profits are reaped by the syndicate, and the stock price subsequently plummets. As an example of the success of this gambit, a pool formed in March, 1929, to trade in Radio Corporation of America (RCA) stock operated for only a sevenday period and netted a profit of almost $5 million. The excessive use of credit to finance speculative stock transactions (that is, buying stocks “on margin”) was another tradition that undermined the stability of the market. An investment as small as one hundred dollars could purchase one thousand dollars in securities (with a 10 percent margin), and there were no limits to the level of credit a broker could extend to a customer. This practice effectively lured potential capital away from productive economic investment and toward mere market speculation. A third practice that hindered the efficient operation of the securities market relates to the misuse of corporate information by insiders. Corporate officials could withhold information, either positive or negative. By timing the release of information until after they had already positioned themselves in the market, they could benefit from price fluctuations when the news finally became public. The weight of these traditions finally culminated in the stock market crash of October, 1929, which was a financial earthquake of dramatic proportions. The aggregate value of all stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (the largest capital market in the United States, handling 90 percent of all stock transactions on a dollar basis) declined from $89 billion before the crash to only $15 billion by 1932. The economic depression that rapidly deepened following the crash was the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. In March, 1932, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee was empowered to investigate the securities industry. This inquiry was continued and greatly expanded in scope after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as president in November, 1932. Roosevelt had been on record since his tenure as governor of New York as being highly critical of various stock market activities. 2751
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In order to facilitate this capital exchange process, organized marketplaces have developed throughout the world. These capital markets provide the mechanism for the corporate distribution of debt and equity securities as well as the subsequent transfer of these securities between individuals. Because of the inherent separation of corporate management from ownership, current and potential investors operate under a distinct informational disadvantage. Capital contributors are at the mercy of claims made by “insiders.” Exploitation of unwary investors inevitably occurs, and securities markets merely serve to provide an organized forum within which to execute such schemes on a broad scale. Government, concerned with ensuring an adequate supply of available capital in order to sustain economic growth, has a natural interest in protecting investors and maintaining public confidence in these securities markets. In the United States, attempts at regulation of securities were first made at the state level. In response to widespread fraudulent activities of stock promoters, Kansas enacted a statute in 1911 to protect the public interest. In the first year following enactment of this law, approximately fifteen hundred applications to sell securities in Kansas were filed. Only 14 percent were accepted; the rest were judged to be fraudulent (75 percent) or too highly speculative (11 percent). Other legislatures followed Kansas’s lead, and by 1913, twenty-two other states had passed laws similar in intent but widely varying in approach. These state securities laws are often called blue-sky laws, because the speculative schemes they attempted to foil often involved little more than selling “pieces of the sky,” or worthless securities. For various reasons, the individual state attempts to regulate securities markets were not very effective. Perhaps the greatest problem arose from the tactic of “interstate escape.” Individuals or companies could continue deceptive and fraudulent practices merely by moving across state lines (physically or through the mails) to other jurisdictions where regulations were inadequate, poorly enforced, or perhaps even nonexistent. To limit such evasion, some form of federal intervention was needed. During the 1920’s, a veritable explosion took place in securities market activity. Small investors entered the market in numbers larger than ever before. National brokerage firms doubled the number of their branch offices and reported phenomenal increases in business. Despite the vigorous trading and investing activity that was oc-
Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established
Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established The 1932 Democratic national platform on which he ran explicitly called for federal supervision of securities transactions. Ferdinand Pecora served as legal counsel to this committee during its extensive investigations in 1933 and 1934. He compiled an impressive body of evidence concerning financial corruption and malpractice. Pecora personally elicited much of the damaging evidence from the most prestigious financial leaders of the time and was invaluable in documenting the need for securities regulation. For example, his investigation disclosed that of the $50 billion of new securities issued during the decade after World War I, half had proved to be worthless. With the passage of the Securities Act in 1933 (signed into law on May 5, 1933, soon after Roosevelt’s inauguration), the federal government finally entered the arena of securities regulation. This bill was championed in Congress by Representative Sam Rayburn of Texas and Senator Duncan U. Fletcher of Florida. The 1933 act is primarily a disclosure statute, concerned only with the initial distribution of a security. Although it was an important first step and forerunner to more ambitious efforts in securities regulation, this legislation failed to address adequately many of the practices in the capital market that contributed to the 1929 collapse. Fletcher and Rayburn once again introduced bills in Congress, based in large part on drafts written by investigator Pecora. At the time, there was significant and widespread opposition to stock market regulation. Government interference, it was argued, would likely upset the delicate workings of Wall Street. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), was at the vanguard of this resistance. Whitney organized a well-financed protest campaign and mobilized forces to defeat the proposed legislation. Overt threats were even made to relocate the NYSE to Montreal, Canada, which offered a less obtrusive regulatory environment. Intense lobbying efforts did result in some modifications of the original bills, but finally, on June 6, 1934, Roosevelt signed the Securities Exchange Act. Significance The major provisions of the Securities Exchange Act deal with three broad areas of regulation in an attempt to prevent the abuses previously cited and thereby protect the public interest: full and fair disclosure, supervision of capital market practices, and administration of credit requirements. This act requires that all national securities exchanges register with and be subject to the regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an 2752
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 administrative agency with quasi-judicial powers that was created by this legislation. The immediate result was the closing of nine stock exchanges that could not meet the new requirements, including a one-man exchange operating out of an Indiana poolroom. All corporations with securities listed on a national exchange must file detailed registration statements with the SEC and are required to disclose financial information on a periodic basis in a form that meets certain standards. The SEC retains discretionary power over the form and detail of such disclosures. The SEC also requires periodic audits of these firms by independent accountants. This last requirement has had a dramatic impact on the growth and development of the accounting profession. Certified public accountants were effectively granted a franchise to audit corporations with publicly traded securities. There was a substantial cost involved in terms of increased risk exposure. By expressing an opinion on the veracity of financial statements filed with the SEC, the auditor becomes legally liable to third parties (including investors) who may subsequently be harmed by reliance on that information. In the area of actual market practices, the SEC had immediate and far-reaching impact. Because of the relative informational advantage that market participants have over the public, the SEC now closely scrutinizes their activities. Exchanges, brokers, and dealers must all register with the SEC and file periodic disclosure reports. Corporate insiders are subject to especially strict rules designed to prevent unfair profit-taking. Certain stock market manipulation schemes (for example, wash sales) are prohibited. In fact, any fraudulent, manipulative, or deceptive securities dealings, whether specified by the act or not, are prohibited for all market participants. The penalties for infraction include fines, imprisonment, or both. Finally, in the area of credit, the 1934 act authorizes the Federal Reserve system to administer the extension of margin credit in securities trading, with the SEC as ultimate enforcer. This important component of government economic and monetary policy was no longer to be left in the hands of individual brokers. The first Securities and Exchange Commission was composed of a presidentially appointed five-member bipartisan panel that included Ferdinand Pecora. Ironically, Pecora was passed over as chairman in favor of Joseph P. Kennedy, who the year before had participated in a pool syndicate operation. Since its inception, the SEC has progressed through a
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reform of corporate business practice since passage of the Securities Exchange Act in 1934. —Jon R. Carpenter Further Reading Chatov, Robert. Corporate Financial Reporting. New York: Free Press, 1975. Readable scholarly study of the broad regulatory process and the various social and political controls used in public policy formation and implementation. The SEC serves as the focal point for this detailed analysis of independent regulatory agency behavior. De Bedts, Ralph F. The New Deal’s SEC. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Provides an interesting historical perspective on the origins of the SEC and a description of its early, formative years of operation. Offers in-depth coverage not normally found in writings on New Deal reforms. Relaxed narrative form. Ginzberg, Eli. New Deal Days, 1933-1934. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1997. Relatively light treatment of early New Deal legislation for nonspecialist readers. Hughes, Jonathan, and Louis P. Cain. American Economic History. 6th ed. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2002. Comprehensive volume on the economic history of the United States includes discussion of securities legislation. Kindleberger, Charles P. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. General survey of financial speculation and monetary crises from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. Pointer, Larry Gene, and Richard G. Schroeder. An Introduction to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Plano, Tex.: Business Publications, 1986. Designed as a supplemental text for undergraduate accounting students, this booklet is nontechnical and serves as a good, brief overview of the SEC for the general reader. Provides some historical perspective but focuses on the SEC’s structure and operation. Rappaport, Louis H. SEC Accounting Practice and Procedure. 3d ed. New York: Ronald Press, 1972. Exhaustive reference work and guide to the broad range of financial reporting requirements of the SEC. Often very technical in presentation, a natural outcome of the inherent complexity of the subject matter. Provides numerous illustrative examples. Tyler, Poyntz, ed. Securities, Exchanges, and the SEC. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1965. Provides the general 2753
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number of different phases. The first decade of operation was an innovative period in which the permanent machinery and procedures necessary to carry out the functions and responsibilities of the SEC were established. This period was also marked by a concerted effort on the part of the early commissioners to promote the agency to both the public and the business community as a powerful partner in the quest for honest financial activity, not as a mere enforcement arm of the government. It was during this early period that a philosophy of operation began to evolve. Rather than merely coercing compliance through enforcement actions, the SEC often adopted the policy of encouraging self-regulation within a framework of governmental constraints. By inspiring confidence in the laws that it administered, the SEC hoped to foster a heightened sense of social responsibility and ethics among the private sector, leading to development of self-monitoring systems. This pragmatic approach was perhaps most evident in the area of establishing accounting and reporting standards. Although the SEC had been empowered to develop and maintain standards and principles of accounting practice, it generally deferred to the accounting profession. Such concession did not occur automatically. The SEC first had to satisfy itself that the private sector’s system of establishing accounting and auditing standards had progressed to an acceptable level. The next twenty-year period was characterized by very little significant legislation or innovation. Investor confidence in the capital markets was generally high, and the SEC routinely carried on the mission that had been developed. Revitalization of the SEC came in the early 1960’s, after a rash of litigation related to the civil and criminal liability issues involved in inaccurate financial disclosures. Various amendments to legislation administered by the SEC followed. In the 1970’s, major legislation was passed to combat corporate bribery and other illegal business practices. During the 1980’s, the SEC was guided by a doctrine of facilitation. Major efforts to expand full and fair disclosure and to streamline and standardize reporting requirements demonstrated the SEC’s commitment to improving the efficiency of the flow of information and ultimately the flow of capital investment in the economy. Continuation of this tradition will likely ensure that the SEC remains a potent regulatory force in the mission of protecting the public interest. In 2002, after a raft of high-profile bankruptcies involving corporate fraud, Congress passed the SarbanesOxley Act, which represented the most comprehensive
Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established
Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress reader with background information essential to an understanding and appreciation of more complex writings in the area of investing, capital markets, and regulation. Contains reprints of short articles, excerpts from books, and other documents. An interesting and very readable compendium. See also: Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy;
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; 1915: Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded; 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme; Oct. 2429, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes; Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails; 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System.
June 10, 1934
Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress Congress created the Federal Communications Commission in response to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s desire to consolidate regulatory powers over communications. The organization became an important testing ground for ideas about the First Amendment and the role of advertising in American culture. Also known as: Communications Act of 1934 Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Communications and media; laws, acts, and legal history; radio and television Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Daniel C. Roper (1867-1943), U.S. secretary of commerce Frank McManamy (1870-1944), chairman of the legislative committee of the Interstate Commerce Commission Eugene O. Sykes (1876-1945), chairman of the Federal Radio Commission Lionel Van Deerlin (b. 1914), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications Summary of Event The Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), which sought to ensure that radio broadcasting served the public interest. The FRC had the central authority to grant licenses to radio stations, however, and it soon faced a regulatory nightmare. Radio broadcasters with long histories enjoyed a favored status that they vigorously fought to retain, many radio stations were broadcasting on frequencies reserved for Canada, and several unregulated amateurs had ventured into ra2754
dio broadcasting. To add to these problems, the FRC had been created on a temporary basis; its authority was assured for only one year. As a result, its life had to be extended annually through a congressional renewal process that was used to impose restrictions on the FRC. For example, the Davis Amendment to the 1928 congressional renewal of the Radio Act severely restricted the FRC by requiring it to divide licenses and broadcast frequencies equally across five geographic zones. Although such congressional mandates elicited protests from President Herbert Hoover, the regulation of broadcasting remained in this unsatisfactory state until 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed Daniel C. Roper, the U.S. secretary of commerce, to study radio broadcasting. In January, 1934, a committee chaired by Roper recommended that the communications-oriented regulatory activities of the FRC (which centered on radio frequencies), the Interstate Commerce Commission (focused on the telephone, telegraph, and cable), the postmaster general, and the president be consolidated into a single regulatory body. Extensive congressional hearings followed. Witnesses offered testimony, including Frank McManamy, chairman of the legislative committee of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and Eugene O. Sykes, chairman of the Federal Radio Commission. As a result of the hearings, Congress enacted the Communications Act of 1934, which established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Congress directed the FCC to uphold the “public interest, convenience, and necessity” in regard to broadcasting, the same mandate that it had imposed on the FRC. This mandate had the potential to curb the broadcasters’ rights to free speech rights, which had been guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress
Significance The FCC consisted of seven commissioners and several professional or middle-level staff personnel. Over the years, both these groups substantially influenced the direction and thrust of FCC policies. Analysis has suggested that the education and occupational background of FRC and FCC commissioners were key variables that affected decisions in these administrative agencies. In contrast to the commissioners, who directly administer broadcast policy, FCC staff members influence policy matters indirectly by controlling the content and flow of information provided to commissioners before they make their decisions. Broadcast regulation is an intensely political enterprise, and studies found that the political orientation of FCC commissioners strongly affected FCC regulation activities. For example, the speeches of Commissioner
Newton Minow in the early 1960’s reflected the political stance of John F. Kennedy’s presidential administration toward enforcing stricter regulation of broadcast programming. In the 1980’s, under the leadership of Mark Fowler, the FCC reflected a deep commitment to follow President Ronald Reagan’s political philosophy that government should make regulations less intrusive. The FCC’s policies and actions changed over time to accommodate the philosophies of elected officials. Because commissioners were appointed and because the Communications Act of 1934 required that no more than four commissioners share a party affiliation, virtually every president tried to select commissioners who agreed with the administration’s philosophy and policy objectives, regardless of party identification. Politically driven changes in FCC policy were instrumental in the evolution of a new form of commercial communication labeled “program-length commercials” or PLCs (also called infomercials). PLCs are commercials that usually resemble regular television talk show or documentary programs in both content and length. In the early 1970’s, the FCC expressed concern over broadcast of PLCs because they had the potential to subordinate public-interest programming to commercial programming. The commission launched two policy initiatives to outlaw PLCs. First, widespread concern over television advertising directed toward children led the FCC to stress the need for distinguishing between program content and advertising material. The FCC expressed concern over children’s shows that focused on particular toys, which were sometimes characters in animated shows. Second, the commission adopted a limit of sixteen minutes of commercial matter per broadcast hour. The FCC reversed this policy in 1984 by eliminating quantitative advertising guidelines for television broadcasting on the grounds that marketplace forces were adequate to regulate the level of advertising. Then, as part of the broadcast deregulation effort launched by the Reagan administration, the FCC rescinded its earlier policy banning PLCs. By underscoring the acceptability of PLCs, these developments also enhanced their popularity. As a result, PLC programming registered impressive growth in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The infomercial industry, which barely existed in the early 1980’s, became an industry that generated billions of dollars in sales. Broadcast regulation in the United States is dynamic and complex, and the FCC is only one of several organizations involved in such regulation. Other key participants include industry groups such as the National Asso2755
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For example, a central theme of the Communications Act was that the airwaves should serve the needs and interests of the public, and so broadcast licensees were expected to be “socially responsible.” This idea found expression in many FCC policies relating to broadcastmedia content, including the fairness doctrine, which stipulated that opportunities should be provided for expression of opposing viewpoints about any topic of public importance, and FCC policy statements on scheduling television programs for children. Such policies were applied only to the broadcast-media context and would be construed as illegal censorship in a print-media context. Court rulings reconciled this apparent anomaly by perpetuating the view that government supervision of broadcast content is more acceptable than review of print outlets. This interpretation underscored complaints that the broadcast media enjoyed less First Amendment protection than did the print media. A basic justification for the “socially responsible” orientation of broadcast regulations enforced by the FCC was that the right of the public to receive useful and unbiased information should outweigh the First Amendment rights of broadcast licensees to be free of government control. According to this view, the broadcasting media are “scarce” because of the finite range of airwave frequencies available for licensing. In addition, the ability to reach mass audiences bestows broadcast licensees with substantial power to influence public opinion. Under these circumstances, Congress decided that it was appropriate to allow some form of government control to ensure that broadcasts served the public interest.
Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress ciation of Broadcasters (NAB), various citizens’ groups, the courts, Congress, and the White House. It is important to understand how the FCC is influenced by each of these participants. The NAB commanded substantial lobbying power until the mid-1960’s, and other organizations, such as the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Clear Channel Broadcasting Service, and the Daytime Broadcasters Association emerged as specialist lobbying groups. The broadcast industry influenced FCC policies through successful congressional lobbying efforts. This industry’s substantial political clout in Congress stems from its control over electronic media exposure, an important resource for politicians. Citizens’ groups also have influenced FCC activities. In 1966, a landmark decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recognized the right of responsible civic groups to object to license renewal applications that were under FCC consideration. In the case Community of the United Church of Christ v. FCC, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ was allowed to challenge the license renewal of WLBTTV in Jackson, Mississippi, because this broadcaster discriminated against African American audiences. Groups such as the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting and Action for Children’s Television sought to influence the FCC on policy matters relating to the content of broadcast material. During the 1960’s, several citizens’ groups settled differences with specific broadcasters through petitions to the FCC that requested denial of license renewal for these broadcasters. In the 1970’s, the first African American commissioner was appointed to the FCC at the urging of such groups, which also actively participated in congressional hearings to urge funding support for consumer group activities. The continual threat of judicial review tended to have an impact on policies of the FCC even when these policies were not formally adjudicated. The Communications Act stipulated that appeals concerning FCC decisions on broadcasting licensing should be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and that the decisions of that court are final, except for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Congress also exercised substantial control over federal administrative agencies such as the FCC, and the FCC was often targeted for special congressional investigations. Investigations supervised by Congressman Oren Harris, Democrat from Arkansas, in the early 1960’s provided insights into “payola” problems prevalent in the recording and broadcast industries and led to revisions in the Communications Act. 2756
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Several powerful standing committees in Congress continuously reviewed FCC performance and the adequacy of the broadcasting regulatory framework. These committees held general oversight hearings and other hearings designed to evaluate any relevant legislation. A 1981 decision by Congress to change the FCC’s status from a permanently authorized agency to one requiring congressional reauthorization every two years underscored the power of the standing committees, which ultimately had the authority to approve such reauthorization. Finally, Congress and the White House both influenced the FCC through the nomination and confirmation process for commissioners. The White House Office of Management and Budget exercised authority through reviewing and revising the annual FCC budget. In 1976, Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin, a Democrat from California, proposed a major revision to the Communications Act. The motivation for the proposal was that the law had become antiquated: New technologies such as cable television had transformed broadcasting. In 1978, Van Deerlin introduced a bill that proposed abolition of the FCC and replacement with a Communications Regulatory Commission. This proposal was abandoned in 1979, but in retrospect, the proposal was beneficial to the FCC because it pushed the agency toward major deregulation decisions on the radio and cable television industries. —Siva Balasubramanian Further Reading Head, Sydney W., et al. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Begins with an analysis of the invention of wireless radio broadcasting. Krasnow, Erwin G., Lawrence D. Longley, and Herbert A. Terry. The Politics of Broadcast Regulation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Authoritative account of the laws and policies that govern broadcasting in the United States. Traces the history of both the FRC and the FCC and offers insights into the political factors that shaped their creation and growth. Offers forceful, thought-provoking, and well-researched arguments and perspectives. Presents five case studies on diverse topics, including ultrahigh frequency television, commercials, and congressional efforts to rewrite the Communications Act during the 1970’s. Lichty, Lawrence. “The Impact of FRC and FCC Commissioners’ Backgrounds on the Regulation of Broad-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 casting.” Journal of Broadcasting 6 (Spring, 1962): 97-110. Suggests that factors such as the education, occupational history, and personal experience of commissioners affect policies. Robinson, Glen O. “The Federal Communications Commission: An Essay on Regulatory Watchdogs.” Virginia Law Review 64 (March, 1978): 169-262. A former FCC commissioner offers some rare and useful perspectives on the FCC. Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. The standard one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. A good place to begin. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Federal Communications Commission: Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Seventy-third Congress, Second Session on H.R. 8301, a Bill to Provide for the Regulation of Interstate and Foreign Communication by Wire or Radio, and
Indian Reorganization Act for Other Purposes. 73d Congress, 2d session, 1934. Contains verbatim transcripts of hearings on the Communications Act. Williams, Wenmouth, Jr. “Impact of Commissioner Background on FCC Decisions: 1962-1975.” Journal of Broadcasting 20 (Spring, 1976): 244-256. Extends Lichty’s work on how the backgrounds of FCC commissioners have influenced FCC policy. See also: Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission; Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting; Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds; Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair; Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast.
June 18, 1934
Indian Reorganization Act
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; indigenous peoples’ rights; social issues and reform Key Figures John Collier (1884-1968), commissioner of Indian affairs, 1933-1945 Charles J. Rhoads (1872-1956), commissioner of Indian affairs, 1929-1933 Felix Cohen (1907-1953), expert in Native American law who helped draft the original Wheeler-Howard bill William F. Zimmerman, Jr. (1890-1967), assistant commissioner of Indian affairs who worked with Collier Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946
Edgar Howard (1858-1951), U.S. congressman who cosponsored the Indian Reorganization Act Burton Kendall Wheeler (1882-1975), U.S. senator who cosponsored the Indian Reorganization Act Summary of Event From earliest colonial times, the U.S. government sought to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream American culture. Whether government policy called for abrupt, forced acculturation or advocated gradual change, politicians generally believed that ultimately American Indians must adopt the lifestyle of the whites or perish. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 was the first legislation designed to preserve, not to destroy, Native American cultures and to give back some of what had been taken away during the settlement of the United States, including Indian lands. The greatest loss of Indian lands after the assigning of reservation territories to the various surviving tribes occurred as a result of the Indian General Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act) of 1887. The goal of this legislation was to destroy tribal structure and the communal lifestyle of Native Americans by encouraging 2757
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Passage of the Indian Reorganization Act by the U.S. Congress permitted Native American groups to form self-governing bodies, ending decades of forced assimilation.
Indian Reorganization Act tribal Indians to become individual farmers. Tribal structure and authority were bypassed as allotments of acreage were made to individuals. A patent in fee, or negotiable title, was issued on this land, which was held in trust by the federal government for twenty-five years and could not be sold until that period expired. Any surplus lands remaining after allotments had been made for a particular reservation were then auctioned off, which often created a massive land grab by eager white settlers. The funds from the sale of these surplus lands were held in a trust fund for the tribes by the federal government. However, when few Native Americans attempted to farm their allotments, the lands were leased to nonIndians and the meager fees were given to the allottees as rental income. This system proved too slow in breaking up the reservations, and so the Burke Act was passed in 1906. It permitted the secretary of the interior, through a declaration of competence, to release a particular allottee from the twenty-five-year restriction of federal supervision. By the 1930’s, ninety million acres of reservation lands had been lost through legal means. Unscrupulous, landhungry settlers often cheated Native Americans out of their allotments, leaving them destitute and no more acculturated than they had been before implementation of the Indian General Allotment Act. Although Native Americans had always had a few champions, it was not until the Bursum Bill of 1922 was introduced that the Indian reform movement gathered appreciable force and Indian affairs garnered sustained interest. This bill was designed to permit non-Indians to gain title to lands within the Pueblo Indian land grants. It was defeated by protest of the Pueblo people and their many supporters. One of the champions of Indian rights was John Collier, who would be appointed commissioner of Indian affairs eleven years later by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and would be instrumental in the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. In the meantime, as executive secretary of the Indian Defense Association, he tirelessly questioned and protested government policy regarding Native Americans and made the case for desperately needed reforms. In 1923, Herbert Work became secretary of the interior. Work commissioned several examinations of the Indian Service, including the Meriam Report of 1928, which served as the blueprint for reforms sought through the Indian Reorganization Act. Unfortunately, reforms were not attempted until the next administration, in which Ray Lyman Wilbur was appointed secretary of the 2758
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 interior, Charles J. Rhoads was commissioner of Indian affairs, and J. Henry Scattergood was assistant commissioner. Although Wilbur wanted to move quickly on the issue of assimilation, Rhoads and Scattergood were cautious. Rhoads’s only direct victory was the Leavitt Act of 1932, which concerned the issue of reimbursable debts, in which Native American tribes would be relieved from millions of dollars in liens placed on their lands for projects that they had not requested and that gave them little benefit. Another reform targeted by the Meriam Report was the incorporation of tribes for the purpose of selfgovernment and the management of tribal resources, an issue that was basic to the Indian Reorganization Act. The report suggested a special claims commission to hear the claims of individual Indian tribes against the United States. Education and health care were examined and targeted for reforms of often dismal conditions. State employees and agents were permitted to enter reservations to inspect health and educational conditions, and they found a higher death rate among Native Americans than in the general population, mainly from diseases such as tuberculosis. Sanitation and quarantine regulations were enforced by the state employees, and efforts were made to improve conditions by teaching personal hygiene and disease prevention. Compulsory school attendance was enforced for Native American children, and some attempt was made to improve the boarding schools. Although the Rhoads administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) improved some conditions, much more was needed. John Collier was appointed commissioner of Indian affairs in 1933. He set about designing legislation to redress problems made clear by the Meriam Report. Collier’s team included assistant commissioner William F. Zimmerman, Jr., and Felix Cohen. The latter became an expert on Indian law and helped to draft the WheelerHoward bill, which evolved into the Indian Reorganization Act. While the act was being assembled, Collier’s administration moved ahead with some reforms. Where possible, Native American children were transferred from boarding schools to community-based day schools. The boarding schools that remained in use were developed as special facilities for certain children with needs best met by these institutions. A statement was issued to the effect that BIA employees would no longer interfere with Native American culture, religion, and languages. The bureau itself sought to employ Native Americans in increasing numbers.
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Significance The Indian Reorganization Act was the first responsible effort to deal with the problems of a people who the federal government had for years assumed would “vanish” either by assimilation or by extinction. Although BIA personnel sometimes failed to implement its good designs, the act was the first major reform that attempted to give Native Americans a choice in determining their own lives. As politicians prepared to implement the Indian Reorganization Act, they followed a unique procedure: Indians themselves were asked to express their opinions on the legislation affecting them and to vote on whether such legislation should be accepted by their tribes. By giving Native Americans a choice, the act implicitly validated them as a people, something that had never before been done by the federal government. The government also reversed its policy by encouraging Native American cultures, languages, and religious practices. Not all Indians, and certainly not all non-Indians, welcomed this change. Some feared that acculturated Indians would be forced back onto the reservations and into an outdated lifestyle, but this did not occur. Other people were alarmed and offended that the federal government would officially sponsor—and use public funds to support—cultures whose beliefs and practices deviated from those of mainstream American culture. These people were deeply suspicious of the communal lifestyles that many tribes maintained. Others who rejected the Indian Reorganization Act sought to acquire use of—or title to—Indian lands for themselves or for corporations. The act curtailed the number of these opportunities and made them less profitable. The demand for such lands, however, was not great at this time, as the United States was suffering through the Great Depression. The timing for the Indian Reorganization Act was especially good. Assimilated Indians had suffered more during the Depression than had reservation Indians engaged in subsistence farming. Because there was little demand for land, it was a good time to give back the lands lost through allotment. More than two million acres were purchased and returned to Native American title, including some purchases made for “landless” tribes. The act’s reformation of the boarding school system radically improved a system that had not provided adequate food or clothing for its charges and had often exploited their labor. Where possible, community-based day schools were established. Indian children were also encouraged to attend public schools where feasible. Educational goals were shifted from irrelevant, elitist train2759
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President Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms were extended to Native Americans through a specially organized branch of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) called Emergency Conservation Work (ECW). This program provided work for Native Americans on the reservations in conservation and improvement projects similar to that offered to other Americans through the CCC. This wage labor caused a temporary increase in income for many Native Americans, but it worried Collier, who wondered what would take its place when the relief projects ended. In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act, which officially stated the changes that studies such as the Meriam Report had recommended. Congresses were held to permit Native Americans to discuss the act and to vote whether to accept it for their individual tribes. The Indian Reorganization Act allowed tribes to incorporate and form governing bodies in a democratic fashion. These governing bodies were designed to resemble boards of directors and had an elected chairperson. Individual Native Americans acted as “shareholders” who had the right to vote. Furthermore, the act officially ended the allotment process and sought to restore lands lost in the past, or at least to replace them with other lands purchased for the tribes. Native American culture and religions were encouraged, often to the dismay and the protest of Christian missionaries. The boarding school system was further improved, and more community-based day schools were established. A revolving credit system was established based on the principle of a credit union, whereby Indians could borrow funds to improve their lands or establish businesses. Native American arts and crafts were encouraged as a form of industry and a source of ethnic pride. Critics argued that the act was not properly implemented, and they were especially critical of the fact that Native Americans were not fully cognizant of the reorganization process and that the new forms of self-government were alien to the cultural practices of many groups. BIA personnel were not adequately prepared for changes in policy, and the new policy often conflicted with past goals and with personal philosophies concerning American Indians. Many people concerned about American Indians were not sure that the act provided the best means for improving their conditions. Under the terms of the Indian Reorganization Act, however, Native Americans could retain their lands and their culture and still find ways to survive in the modern world.
Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act ing to more practical, agrarian-based learning and technical and professional training. Many graduates chose to return to the reservations and contribute their skills to improving their communities. One tragic incident involved the BIA’s attempt to improve reservation land resources of soil, water, and vegetation. The livestock population had exceeded the carrying capacity of the arid lands on the Navajo reservation. When the Navajo resisted Collier’s plan to reduce the livestock, it was forced on them. Navajos had to watch helplessly as their animals were sold off or slaughtered. Although the reduction plan allegedly resulted in improved livestock and vegetation, bitter feelings remained among the Navajo, who had voted to reject the Indian Reorganization Act. —Patricia Alkema Further Reading Dippie, Brian W. The Vanishing American. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1982. A comprehensive and sympathetic study of Native American relations with the federal government. Good coverage of the climate of reform leading up to passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. Extensive notes and a good index. Donns, James F. The Navajo. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Specific ethnographic study of the Navajo people serves as a useful introduction to the culture and lifestyle of the largest Native American group. Explains the relationship of livestock to Navajo livelihood and culture, a relationship that was disrupted by Collier’s plan to reduce the livestock population. Fey, Harold E., and D’Arcy McNickle. Indians and Other Americans: Two Ways of Life Meet. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Good account of the Collier years. McNickle, a Montana Blackfoot, was a BIA employee during this era. Hoxie, Frederick, ed. Indians in American History: An Introduction. 2d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1998. Collection of chronologically arranged essays by authors who speak from a variety of disciplines and perspectives provides an introduction to the Indian side of U.S. history. Draws attention to the depth and complexity of the American Indian experience. Includes list of suggestions for further reading following each chapter, illustrations, and index. Kelly, Lawrence C. “The Indian Reorganization Act:
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The Dream and the Reality.” Pacific Historical Review 44 (August, 1975): 291-312. Balanced look at what the act failed to achieve in contrast to the claims of some proponents. Discusses Collier’s strong points and shortcomings as American Indian commissioner during the New Deal era. Kelly, William H., ed. Indian Affairs and the Indian Reorganization Act: The Twenty Year Record. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1954. A collection of scholarly essays on this subject. Parman, Donald L. The Navajos and the New Deal. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. A study of the troubled relations between the American Indian policy reformers in the Roosevelt administration and the nation’s largest tribe. Philp, Kenneth R. John Collier’s Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920-1954. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977. A detailed, objective account of Collier’s achievements and shortcomings as a policy critic, activist, reformer, and administrator. Taylor, Graham D. The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism: The Administration of the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-1945. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. Argues that the act, although enlightened compared to previous policies, was weakened by its emphasis on tribal reorganization and its mistaken assumptions about contemporary American Indian societies. Tyler, S. Lyman. A History of Indian Policy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1973. An extremely well-organized and detailed historical account of U.S. government policy toward Native Americans. Covers criticism and accomplishments of government programs. A useful guide to the philosophy and expedients behind historical government policy. Highly recommended for the serious student. Includes tables and charts, foldout maps, and black-and-white photographs. Extensive bibliography. Wilkins, David E., and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Reviews the often inconsistent federal legal precedents related to issues concerning Native Americans. See also: Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock; Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians; June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Federal Credit Union Act
June 26, 1934
Federal Credit Union Act By establishing a federal credit union system, the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 legitimated the developing credit union movement in the United States. It encouraged savings and made credit more available to people of limited means, providing American consumers with greater spending power. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Banking and finance; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Alphonse Desjardins (1854-1920), Canadian journalist Edward A. Filene (1860-1937), Boston merchant, philanthropist, and founder of the Credit Union National Extension Bureau Roy F. Bergengren (1879-1955), first manager of the Credit Union National Association Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch (1808-1883), German urban cooperative credit founder Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818-1888), German rural cooperative credit founder Arthur Capper (1865-1951), U.S. senator from Kansas, 1919-1948
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Summary of Event A federal credit union is a nonprofit, member-owned cooperative. The union encourages its members to put money into savings, and it uses these accumulated savings to make loans to individual members. It also educates members on how to manage their finances. The U.S. government, through the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), charters credit unions as corporations, as well as supervising and insuring them. In order to generate and maintain a feeling of mutual responsibility, members of a federal credit union generally have a common bond of employment, association, or residence. The members, with one vote each, elect a volunteer board of directors from the membership at an annual meeting. The board has the authority to determine the maximum limits on loans and the interest rates to be charged. Interest rates tend to be favorable in comparison to those offered by other lenders because of the lower labor costs in volunteer organizations, lower losses on defaulted loans, and lower marketing costs. In addition to an unpaid board of directors, credit unions have officers who are generally unpaid or receive nominal salaries. The ratio of delinquent to outstanding loans is generally
far lower than that of federally insured commercial banks. Personal contact and personal credit judgments play a large role in keeping this ratio low. Two major marketing advantages are the bond of clients to the credit union through membership and the close proximity of clients, with the credit union often located at an employee’s place of work. Loans can be designed to meet the needs of individual members. Federal credit unions must comply with all federal consumer protection laws, such as the Truth in Lending Act (1980) and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1975). Deposits by members take the form of purchases of shares in the credit union and are frequently made through payroll deductions. Profits from lending money and other sources may be distributed to the members as dividends. The development of credit unions resulted from the needs of lower income groups. Prior to the existence of credit unions, there were a limited number of outlets for small savings or loans. In 1844, the first credit union was organized in Belgium. Around the same time in Germany, Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch organized cooperative credit societies and developed the principle that the funds to be loaned to members would come from the savings of members. By 1880, about three thousand cooperative credit societies had been organized in Germany. Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen also organized cooperative credit societies in Germany but put greater emphasis on unselfish service to the organization. By 1920, his model for the earliest credit unions was being used in most countries in the world. The credit union movement spread to the North American continent with the help of Alphonse Desjardins, a Québécois legislative journalist who was studying economic conditions in Europe in the late 1890’s. In 1900, Desjardins used ideas from the SchulzeDelitzsch and Raiffeisen financial cooperatives to establish the first cooperative bank, La Caisse Populaire (the people’s bank), in the city of Levis in the province of Quebec, Canada. Edward A. Filene, a wealthy Boston merchant and philanthropist, was influential in bringing credit unions to the United States. His interest in the subject resulted from extensive travel throughout the world. He convinced Pierre Jay, commissioner of banking for Massachusetts, to work toward establishing a cooperative credit society in that state. Jay asked Desjardins to assist in passing a credit union
Federal Credit Union Act act in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Credit Union Act, the first complete credit union act in the United States, was enacted in 1909. In the same year, in Manchester, New Hampshire, Desjardins helped organize the first legally chartered cooperative credit society in the United States. Growth in the credit-union movement was slow during the decade after passage of the Massachusetts act. By 1919, however, Filene believed that there was a sufficient number of credit unions to justify an organized move toward national legislation. He organized the National Committee on People’s Banks to spearhead this task. The development of credit unions was aided by favorable conditions during the 1920’s. General prosperity and development of new consumer goods resulted in higher savings by workers and greater demand for consumer credit. Three factors were necessary to expand the movement: legislation allowing the chartering (incorporation) of credit unions, education of the general public regarding the movement, and voluntary associations of credit unions at the state level to further expand the movement. To facilitate each of these, Filene created and financed the Credit Union National Extension Bureau (which became the Credit Union National Association in 1934). He hired Roy F. Bergengren as manager and Thomas W. Doig as assistant manager. Bergengren had started as the managing director of the Massachusetts Credit Union Association in 1920. He used the extension bureau to promote enabling legislation authorizing credit unions and helped organize individual credit unions. The Great Depression had a favorable impact on the movement. In 1932, Congress authorized credit unions in the District of Columbia and allowed them to borrow from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. By 1934, thirtyeight states had enacted credit union laws and more than twenty-four hundred credit unions were in operation. Bergengren became increasingly convinced that national legislation was necessary. He argued that a federal law would permit the organization of credit unions in states that had refused to pass such legislation; that there was some possibility that other states might repeal their credit union laws, as West Virginia had done in 1931; that a federal statute would be useful as a basis of organization in those states that had weak or defective laws; and that federal legislation should be complete before credit unions formed a national association. The culmination of the legislative efforts of the Credit Union National Extension Bureau came on June 26, 1934, when the U.S. Congress enacted the Federal Credit Union Act. The act provided for the chartering, supervi2762
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sion, and examination of federal credit unions by the U.S. government. The writers of the act tried to incorporate the best ideas from state laws. In the same year, Congress chose the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) to supervise credit unions because of its expertise in examining other types of financial cooperatives chartered by the U.S. government. Claude R. Orchard was appointed the first director of the Credit Union Section, FCA. More than eighty-seven hundred federal credit unions were chartered during the nineteen years he served as director. Also in 1934, Bergengren and Filene held a national meeting of credit union delegates that led to the development of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA). Significance The most important result of the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 was the confidence it inspired in the American public regarding credit unions. Involvement by the federal government played a major role in the growth of credit unions, from almost 2,500 credit unions when the act was passed to 3,372 by the end of 1935. In 1937, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the taxation of federal credit unions except on the basis of real or personal property. This legislation further supported growth in the number of entities, which approached 8,000 by 1939. Individual credit unions also grew at an impressive rate. By March, 1936, Armour and Company employee credit unions had more than twenty-two thousand members, had $1.25 million in assets, and had made loans up to that date of almost $7 million. There were twenty-four credit unions among Sears, Roebuck and Company employees, with almost eight thousand members, and credit unions associated with the United States Steel Corporation had almost twenty-three thousand members. A credit union served employees of the U.S. Senate. Another credit union at the Twentieth Century-Fox film studio had more than one thousand members. Many employers considered a credit union to be an important fringe benefit, with the advantage of involving no necessary cost to them. Space for the credit union’s offices often was provided on the premises, perhaps at reduced cost. Payroll withholding both for regular savings and for installment collection of loans was another service commonly provided by employers. In 1935, CUNA’s national board of directors agreed to establish the CUNA Mutual Insurance Society. The society provided only borrowers’ protection insurance to credit unions at first, adding life insurance for officers and families associated with CUNA in August, 1936. At
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the same time, the society considered writing automobile insurance but took no action. By the end of 1936, 437 credit unions in thirty states were members of the society. A total of twenty-three thousand loans were insured, with a total coverage of $2,425,000. The reserves of the society for payment of claims amounted to $11,000. In later years, new legislation designed to modernize credit unions, combined with favorable regulatory changes, made credit unions more competitive with banks and savings and loans. The industry was permitted to use a greater variety of sources for both assets and liabilities, and a greater range of financial activities was allowed. The interest rates that credit unions could pay on savings and charge for loans were relatively free from government control. Finally, credit unions still enjoyed the political and economic benefits of being nonprofit organizations. The benefits of credit union membership combined with the decline in reputation of savings and loans in the late twentieth century to ensure that credit unions remained an attractive, and in some cases a vital, option for financial services. —Richard Goedde
include reserves, liquidity, growth, and investment yields. Written to be comprehensible by noneconomists. _______. The Federal Credit Union: Policy and Practice. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. An analytic study of the growth, policies, and practices of credit unions on a national scale from 1934 to 1954. Provides statistics on assets and liabilities, operating costs, earnings, and dividends. Includes an interesting chapter on structural change and suggested improvement. Emmons, William R. Bank Competition and Concentrations: The Impact of Credit Unions. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 2000. Discusses the effects on the U.S. banking and finance sector of direct competition between forprofit instutions (banks) and not-for-profit institutions (credit unions). Isbister, John. Thin Cats: The Community Development Credit Union Movement in the United States. Davis: University of California, Center for Cooperatives, 1994. A history of the community development and credit union movements and their intersections in helping communities to grow and flourish in the United States. Bibliographic references. Moody, J. Carroll, and Gilbert C. Fite. The Credit Union Movement: Origins and Development, 1850-1970. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971. Traces and analyzes the history of credit unionism as a national social movement, with a focus on the founders and leaders. Detailed and comprehensive. Source of many of the statistics in this article. Pugh, Olin S., and F. Jerry Ingram. Credit Unions: A Movement Becomes an Industry. Reston, Va.: Reston Publishing Company, 1984. A comprehensive look at the growth of the credit union movement. Describes the structure of the industry, regulations, financial management, and role in the financial marketplace. Also discusses the future of the industry from an early 1980’s perspective, including likely effects of legislation of that era. U.S. Department of the Treasury. Credit Unions. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1997. Overview of all federal legislation through 1997 relating to credit unions and to deposit insurance covering credit unions. Bibliographic references. U.S. National Credit Union Administration. Development of Federal Credit Unions. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1972. Focuses on the role of the U.S. government in the credit union movement. Explains the ben2763
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Further Reading Bergengren, Roy F. “Achievement: United States.” In Credit Union: North America. New York: Southern, 1940. Gives a detailed summary of the growth of credit unions by state. _______. Crusade: The Fight for Economic Democracy in North America, 1921-1945. New York: Exposition Press, 1952. A detailed history of the credit union movement, written by the man who had the greatest influence in passage of the Federal Credit Union Act and growth of credit unions. Reads like an autobiography in parts. Includes a six-page photograph section of early crusaders and administrators in the movement. _______. CUNA Emerges. Madison, Wis.: Credit Union National Association, 1935. Summarizes the functions and operations of credit unions one year after passage of the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934. Discusses the organization of CUNA. The final chapter offers an interesting, almost philosophical, explanation of how credit unions can lead to a better society. Croteau, John T. The Economics of the Credit Union. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963. Credit unions have many unique economic characteristics because they do not maximize profits as their sole goal. After analyzing data from credit union questionnaires, the author recommends ways to improve financial efficiency in large credit unions. Topics
Federal Credit Union Act
Taylor Grazing Act efits of federal government participation in the movement. Also describes the Credit Union National Association, Inc. (CUNA) and organizations associated with it.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Apr. 5, 1910: First Morris Plan Bank Opens; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Feb. 10, 1938: Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership.
June 28, 1934
Taylor Grazing Act The Taylor Grazing Act brought belated federal control of grazing to the public domain rangelands of the West and marked the end of the homestead movement and the closing of the public domain. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Expansion and land acquisition; laws, acts, and legal history; natural resources Key Figures Edward T. Taylor (1858-1941), U.S. congressman from western Colorado Farrington Carpenter (1886-1980), attorney and northwestern Colorado rancher Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Summary of Event Until the forest reserves were established in the 1890’s, the U.S. Congress envisioned an American West of cultivated, 160-acre homesteads. However, the Homestead Act (1862) failed to recognize the arid nature of much of the country’s unoccupied land. In response, the livestock industry saw opportunity and profit in the uncultivated rangelands that had been vacated by the relocation of Native Americans and the demise of the bison. Increases in U.S. population and development of the country’s railroads made commercial livestock production lucrative, and foreign capital sought profit in the new trade. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that the cattle population increased from about 8 million to more than 21 million from 1870 through 1886 in the seventeen western states. The boom was followed by a bust of dramatic proportions. Many cattle, weakened by a lack of forage from overgrazing, died in the severe winters of 1885-1886 and 1886-1887. Livestock mortality was estimated at 40 to 60 percent, and some areas reported death rates of 85 percent. 2764
As homesteaders pushed West, conflicts with ranchers followed. There was no provision for acquiring grazing land under the public-land laws, and in many cases, ranchers used fraud to gain title to large areas of public land. This fraud, coupled with their foreign financing, made them easy political targets, and they were considered land barons and monopolists. In the 1880’s, Congress ignored the recommendations made by the first Public Lands Commission to sell grazing lands in 2,560-acre parcels. Ranchers illegally fenced public lands and limited access to water resources to protect their range rights. In 1885, Congress declared public domain fencing illegal, but the practice prevailed. In 1901, the federal government prosecuted 161 cases of illegal fencing and estimated that about 2.5 million acres had been illegally enclosed. These rancher-homesteader conflicts were often apparent in state and local politics. Community boosters encouraged farming and settlement. States and railroads encouraged immigration for farming and opposed early bills that would have allowed ranchers to fence or lease public domain rangeland. Many ranchers feared any government regulation. The results were political stalemate and continued damage to the rangeland ecosystem. By 1890, the effects of overgrazing were becoming obvious. Western soil and water resources were severely depleted, and a group of cattle and sheep ranchers began to form a consensus about the lease of public rangelands. The states of Texas and Wyoming, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and the federally managed Indian reservations reported success in reducing overgrazing through leasing as early as 1883. Rangeland leasing bills were introduced in Congress in 1901 and 1902, but they failed in the face of opposition from western governors and homestead interests. Despite political risk, President Theodore Roosevelt began to support rangeland leasing proposals after the 1904 election. However, many people believed that Roosevelt was siding with monopolistic, big business interest groups at the expense of farmers, and his support of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
In 1931, members of Congress from Utah and Idaho introduced a general public domain leasing bill after consulting with the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior and gathering support from the White House. In 1933, Congressman Edward T. Taylor reintroduced a modified version of this bill and shepherded it through the opposition’s objections, which were largely centered on contentions that the new bill unfairly favored large interest groups. Taylor also found a way to skirt the growing feud between the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior over which department would administer the public domain program. When the bill initially failed, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes threatened to withdraw the lands. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s active support of the Taylor bill also improved its chances for passage. The Taylor Grazing Act passed the House of Representatives on April 11, 1934, and a slightly different version passed the Senate on June 12, 1934. Roosevelt signed the conference committee version on June 28, 1934. Significance The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 marked the end of fifty years of political struggle over control of the unallocated public lands in the western United States. The act gave the secretary of the interior broad powers to control livestock grazing by establishing grazing districts and regulating the use of the public domain pending its final disposal by Congress. It also ended free access to the public range and began the process of controlling livestock grazing, firmly established local control over allocation of public rangelands, and effectively ended large-scale public-land disposals. The first grazing district was established in Wyoming in 1935, and others followed in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah. Ranchers recommended fifty districts covering 142 million acres. Since this area was larger than the one provided by the original act, in 1936 the act was amended to allow the larger area. The effort to implement the Taylor Act was one of the most ambitious land-management actions undertaken by the federal government. Allocation of grazing privileges and fees, fencing, water development, erosion, and fire control were initiated, and in the act’s first year, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) operated sixty camps with twelve thousand men to aid the program. In many areas, recovery from decades of abusive grazing was a stubborn problem. By the mid-1960’s, experts estimated that production in three-fourths of western ranges was at less than half of its potential. 2765
1934
the leasing proposal was particularly opposed by irrigation and reclamation interests. Still, a provision for leasing public rangelands under the Department of Agriculture was included in the 1907 Agriculture Appropriations Bill and was at least partially responsible for the first major defeat of Roosevelt’s conservation program. The defeat precluded serious consideration of additional leasing bills until the 1920’s. From 1909 through 1915, Congress passed a series of enlarged homestead acts that established 320-acre homesteads. Millions of acres of rangeland were plowed and sown to grain, which had disastrous consequences for the soil. Declining prices and severe drought ended the boom after World War I. In 1916, in spite of the opposition of ranchers, Congress passed a law to allow individuals to obtain 640 acres of public land that was valuable chiefly for grazing and cultivating forage crops. In the law’s first year, about sixty thousand applications were filed for some 20 million acres under the Stock-Raising Homestead Act (1916). Unfortunately, it was only through firsthand experience that many applicants learned that the twenty to thirty cattle that could be supported on 640 acres of good rangeland were too few to support a family. With the support of the livestock industry, the U.S. Forest Service had made significant progress in controlling livestock grazing in the national forests. By establishing allotments, carrying capacities, and grazing fees, the Forest Service had brought a semblance of order to a disorderly field. In 1919, ranchers in northeastern California petitioned the government to move 400,000 acres of public domain rangeland into the Modoc National Forest. During the early 1920’s, many ranchers supported proposals to have the Department of Agriculture administer a leasing program, but a proposal to increase grazing fees on the national forests rapidly ended their support. In 1925, a Senate committee introduced a bill that called for reform of Forest Service’s rules about grazing and leasing of the public domain. The administration and the ranchers eventually reached a compromise, and it appeared that a leasing bill would pass, but the ranchers’ rhetoric inflamed the conservationists. The American Forestry Association and the Society of American Foresters rallied opposition to the bill, and it failed. In 1928, Congress authorized an experimental cooperative grazing program in southeastern Montana. The MizpahPumpkin Creek Grazing District combined lands from the public domain, the Northern Pacific Railroad, the state of Montana, and private lands and leased them to a grazing association.
Taylor Grazing Act
Taylor Grazing Act In some areas, large reductions in livestock use were required to bring grazing into balance with carrying capacity. Organized local opposition to the reductions was often strong. To restore productivity, managers undertook forage improvement projects that often relied on clearing sagebrush and woodlands and reseeding with improved forage grasses. As the environmental movement gained strength in the 1960’s and 1970’s, range managers were often criticized for concentrating on livestock production at the expense of wildlife habitat. Protection and recovery of degraded riparian areas became a particular concern in the 1980’s. When the Taylor Act passed, Farrington Carpenter, a Colorado rancher and lawyer, was selected to head its implementation. By the end of 1935, the Division of Grazing employed fewer than thirty people and administered 258 million acres of rangeland. Carpenter relied on local advisory committees authorized by the act. These committees allocated each district’s forage based on a complex system of historical use and adjacent private land or water to establish “preference,” which in many cases exceeded the available forage. In 1944, the Grazing Service was administering more than twenty-two thousand licenses and permits and approximately 3.8 million animal units of forage. (An animal unit is the amount of forage necessary to feed a 1,000-pound animal for twelve months.) In 1992, the Bureau of Land Management reported about 1.1 million animal units of preference and about 833,000 animal units of actual use. By the end of the second year, the ranchers had elected 523 district advisers. The advisory boards’ role was clearly defined in a 1939 amendment to the Taylor Act: Boards were to consist of at least five but no more than twelve members to be appointed by the secretary of the interior following election and recommendation of the boards. The secretary of the interior was also allowed to add one member to represent wildlife interests. District advisory committees later elected state and national advisory committees. The 1930’s were a period of intense rivalry between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior. In his bid for control of the program, Secretary Ickes had promised that the Interior Department could manage public lands for $150,000 per year, and he also promised a grazing fee based on that low administrative cost. By giving the ranchers a largely autonomous program, Ickes thwarted the efforts of the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service to gain control of the lands as the original bill was amended. The Taylor program ensured continuing support from 2766
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Department of the Interior by relying on local advisory committees. In addition, however, more general forms of local assistance and cooperation were necessary. In some respects, this form of home rule seemed an ideal mechanism for undertaking a large-scale landmanagement program at a minimal cost. Advisory board members were commended as outstanding examples of citizen participation in government. In contrast, conservation groups often lacked organized, effective representation in the rural West. Amenity interests were not well protected by the ranchers, and after the growth of the environmental movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s, their absence in the decision-making process became a source of continuing conflict. Although Taylor initiated the act that effectively ended public-land disposal, he was, like many rural westerners, opposed to a continual federal presence in the region. He generally supported decreasing the restrictions on homesteaders and was one of the authors of the 1916 Stock-Raising Homestead Act. Like many westerners, he viewed the Taylor Act as a temporary measure to stabilize the livestock industry. The clause that referred to the land’s final disposition would cause considerable consternation and political upheaval before it was finally resolved in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. — Donald W. Floyd Further Reading Barnes, Will C. The Story of the Range. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926. Detailed historical account of the early livestock industry in the American West. Clarke, Jeanne Nienaber, and Daniel C. McCool. Staking Out the Terrain: Power and Performance Among Natural Resource Agencies. 2d ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. A well-developed assessment of the rise and fall of natural resource bureaucracies in the United States. Includes illustrations, tables, bibliography, and index. Donahue, Debra L. The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. A controversial volume that does much to advance the debate over grazing’s costs and benefits. Foss, Phillip O. Politics and Grass. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960. A detailed analysis of the influence of grazing advisory boards and the capture of the Grazing Service and BLM by the livestock industry.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. An authoritative history of the conservation movement in the Theodore Roosevelt administration. Muhn, James, and Hanson R. Stuart. Opportunity and Challenge: The Story of the BLM. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management, 1988. A reasonably detailed, in-house chronology of the BLM and its predecessor organizations. Peffer, E. Louise. The Closing of the Public Domain. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1951. The principal and authoritative history of the public do-
Great Blood Purge main in the first half of the twentieth century. U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management. Fifty Years of Public Land Management: 1934-1984. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1984. An inhouse BLM pamphlet that celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Taylor Grazing Act. See also: June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture; Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains; Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established.
June 30-July 2, 1934
Great Blood Purge The Great Blood Purge eliminated the Sturm Abteilung’s leadership and gained support for Adolf Hitler’s radical restructuring of German society among German military leaders and industrialists.
Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), chief of staff of the paramilitary Sturm Abteilung Hermann Göring (1893-1946), prime minister of Prussia and president of the German parliament Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), commander of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Hitler’s elite guard Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), president of the Weimar Republic, 1925-1934 Werner von Blomberg (1878-1946), German minister of war, 1935-1938 Franz Pfeffer von Salomon (1888-1968), leader of the Sturm Abteilung, 1926-1930 Summary of Event From June 30 through July 2, 1933, members of the SS summarily executed several hundred Germans on direct orders from Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Hitler targeted the
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Also known as: Night of the Long Knives (Nacht der langen Messer); Reichsmordwoche; Operation Hummingbird; Röhm Purge; Blood Purge Locale: Berlin, Munich, Bad Wiessee, and other locations in Germany Categories: Terrorism; atrocities and war crimes; government and politics
top leadership of the Sturm Abteilung, or SA (also known as the Brownshirts), including the SA chief of staff, his old friend Ernst Röhm. These murders, which were often called the Röhm Purge or the Night of the Long Knives, resulted from a series of intrigues among top leaders of the Nazi Party, members of the German general staff, and non-Nazi members of the German government. The origins of the purge dated to the beginnings of Hitler’s movement. Röhm, a World War I hero and career army officer, joined the fledgling Nazi Party in 1919, shortly after Hitler’s own entry. Röhm became a valuable liaison between Hitler and the German general staff during the years before Hitler’s first attempt to seize political power in Germany in 1923. During the eleven months of Hitler’s imprisonment after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Röhm, with Hitler’s authorization, managed to reorganize the SA under another name and keep its members together, despite a government ban on the Nazi Party and its affiliated organizations. Hitler had authorized the formation of the SA as the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party in 1922. Its members had protected party meetings and rallies from being broken up by organizations affiliated with rival political parties, particularly those with Marxist orientations. Members of the SA had also broken up the rallies of other parties in bloody confrontations on the streets of many German cities. By the time the German government released Hitler from prison in December, 1924, Röhm had built the SA into an organization with thirty thousand members. Röhm wanted to maintain the SAas an autonomous organization under his own direct command, and when Hitler
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ever, Hitler’s attitude toward his old comrade began to change. Nazi theorist and early party leader Alfred Rosenberg recalled in his The March elections gave the Nazis and memoirs Hitler’s surprise visit to Ernst Röhm on June 30, 1934: their coalition partners a slight majority in the German parliament. The parliament imWith an SS escort detachment the Führer drove to Weissee and knocked mediately passed the Enabling Act, which softly on Röhm’s door: “Message from Munich,” he said with disguised gave Hitler dictatorial powers to solve the voice. “Well come in,” Röhm called to the supposed messenger, “the problems created by the Great Depression door is open.” Hitler tore open the door, fell on Röhm as he lay in bed, in Germany. Rank-and-file members of the seized him by the throat and screamed, “You are under arrest, you SA became uncontrollable after Hitler’s swine.” Then he turned the traitor over to the SS. At first Röhm refused success, and many began to launch physito get dressed. The SS then threw his clothes in the Chief of Staff’s face until he bestirred himself to put them on. In the room next door, they cal attacks against Germans they considfound young men engaged in homosexual activity. “And these are the ered inimical to the creation of an egalitarkind who want to be leaders in Germany,” the Führer said trembling. ian society. Wealthy and prominent Jews became favorite targets of SA violence. Source: Quoted in Jackson J. Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001). The SA membership and leadership talked openly of an imminent “second revolution” during which they would replace the old institutions of Germany with new institutions. insisted that the SA be subordinated to the party leaderAs his men and officers became more impatient with ship rather than to Röhm, Röhm resigned from both the Hitler’s failure to elevate them to top positions in Gerparty and the SA. During the next five years, Röhm tried many and institute the “second revolution,” Röhm began several jobs with little success. In 1928, he accepted a poto openly criticize the Nazi Party’s leaders. He also began sition as an instructor with the Bolivian army. to criticize Hitler in private, although his basic sense of In 1930, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, Röhm’s succesloyalty remained. Still, SA violence, Röhm’s homosexusor as chief of staff of the SA, resigned his post after a disality, and his criticism of members of the party’s top hierpute with Hitler. Röhm returned to Germany the next archy had won him the enmity of several Nazi officials by year to resume his command of the SA on Hitler’s perearly 1934. Hermann Göring, prime minister of Prussia sonal invitation. During the next two politically turbulent and the most powerful Nazi after Hitler, joined forces with years, Röhm built the SA into a private army almost a Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior. These two men million strong (the German army, by comparison, had began conspiring to oust Röhm from the leadership of the slightly more than one hundred thousand officers and enSA. Göring and Frick gained an important ally when listed men). The members of the organization came Heinrich Himmler, commander of the SS, joined the antilargely from the ranks of the unemployed, were mostly Röhm coalition. Despite the mounting criticism of Röhm, young (under twenty-five), and espoused radical soluHitler refused to dismiss the man who had been instrutions to Germany’s social and economic problems. mental in the Nazi electoral successes of 1930-1933. Röhm himself began to envision the SA as becoming a In April, 1934, Hitler met with leaders of Germany’s people’s militia that would absorb the regular army once general staff. He needed the support of the army if his the Nazis came to power. plans for a rejuvenated Germany were to succeed. The During the period 1931-1933, Hitler came under inrepresentatives of the general staff demanded that in recreasing criticism from conservative circles in German turn for their support Hitler initiate a massive expansion society because of Röhm’s open homosexuality and his of the German armed forces and greatly diminish the size appointment of other homosexuals to high posts in the and power of the SA. The army leadership feared that SA. Röhm and his friends gained reputations as being Röhm’s plan to absorb the regular army into the SA corrupt and engaged in criminal activities as well as bemight actually be realized. Then, on June 17, 1933, Hiting morally dissolute. Despite this criticism, Hitler reler’s vice chancellor, Franz von Papen (a member of the conservative establishment of Germany who was never a fused to replace Röhm. He argued that only Röhm could control the radicalism of the SA members and turn it to Nazi Party member), delivered a speech at Marburg criticizing Röhm and the SA leadership. Hitler interpreted the advantage of the Nazi struggle for political power. Papen’s speech as the official position of German conAfter the parliamentary elections of March, 1933, how-
The Führer Makes a Surprise Visit
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solidated his position in Germany, the brutality and lawlessness of the purges revealed the true face of Nazism for the first time. —Paul Madden Further Reading Bornstein, Joseph. The Politics of Murder. Toronto: George J. McLeod, 1950. Surveys political murders in the twentieth century, including the Röhm purge. Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. New York: Hill & Wang, 2000. Less accessible than the Evans volume cited below. Includes an interesting and thorough analysis of the role of the purge in Nazism. Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. A work of impressive and engaging scholarship on the events that led to the purge. Gallo, Max. The Night of the Long Knives. Translated by Lily Emmet. Toronto: Harper & Row, 1972. The most complete account of the Röhm purge in English. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1945: Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. The Rhineland rearmament is viewed as the triumphant capstone of Hitler’s early political career and the springboard for his more aggressive global initiatives. Smelser, Ronald, and Rainer Zitelmann, eds. The Nazi Elite. Translated by Mary Fischer. New York: New York University Press, 1989. Biographical sketches of twenty-two leading Nazis, including Ernst Röhm. Concise account of Röhm’s life and the events of the purge. Spielvogel, Jackson J. Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988. Introductory college text includes a brief account of the Röhm purge. Tolstoy, Nikolai. Night of the Long Knives. New York: Ballantine, 1972. Concise account of the purge, accessible to most readers. Replete with a number of rare photographs. See also: Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 23-24, 1939: NaziSoviet Pact. 2769
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Significance Röhm and his SA leaders were not the only victims of the purge. As early as June 24, Göring and his coconspirators began drawing up lists of Germans to be eliminated. Included on the list were their own personal enemies and people they felt were dangerous to Nazi aspirations. Hitler added other names to the list on July 1 and 2. Included among the non-SA victims of the purge were individuals who had opposed Hitler during the preceding years, including Kurt von Schleicher (Hitler’s immediate predecessor as German chancellor) and his wife, and Gregor Strasser, who had once challenged Hitler for leadership of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party). Hitler announced to the German parliament on July 13 that the SS had executed seventy-seven people during the purge, all of whom were involved in a plot to overthrow his government. The parliament immediately passed a law legalizing everything Hitler had done to protect Germany, and President Hindenburg sent him a congratulatory message. The purge won Hitler the support of the army and eliminated the primary target of domestic criticism of the Nazi party. Historians of the period put the purge’s death toll much higher; estimates range from 150 to more than 1,000. Although Hitler con-
Great Blood Purge
Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy
September 1, 1934 Miller’s TROPIC OF
CANCER Stirs Controversy
Henry Miller’s autobiographical novel Tropic of Cancer, which was based on his first two years as an expatriate in Paris, created a sensation and began a new phase in American literature. Locale: Paris, France Category: Literature Key Figures Henry Miller (1891-1980), American writer who used his life as the basis for his art Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), Paris-born writer who befriended Miller during his stay in Paris and who was instrumental in getting Tropic of Cancer published Jack Kahane (1887-1939), English expatriate who owned the Obelisk Press in Paris and who first published Tropic of Cancer Michael Fraenkel (1896-1957), writer who let Miller share his Paris apartment in 1931 and who encouraged Miller in the writing of Tropic of Cancer June Edith Smith (b. 1902), dancer and actress whom Miller married in 1924 Summary of Event It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.
Thus begins Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s opus of self-liberation and rebirth. Tropic of Cancer records Miller’s unflinching look at himself as he struggled to survive amid the bohemian milieu of Paris in the early 1930’s. It is the record of an odyssey of the spirit in which Miller experiences the hard, essential truth of what it means to be truly alive and open to the moment as it unfolds. By transforming the chaos of his struggle into art, he fashioned a document that captures the turbulent spontaneity of existence. Henry Miller was born the son of lower-middle-class parents in the Yorkville section of New York City on December 26, 1891. In 1892, Miller’s family moved to Brooklyn, where Miller learned to play the piano and developed a love for the romantic adventure stories of Knut Hamsun and the poetry of Walt Whitman. In 1909, 2770
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Miller attended the City College of New York, but he left after two months. He spent the next several years traveling through the Southwest and working odd jobs. When he returned to New York City, he assisted his father in the family tailor shop. In 1917, he married Beatrice Wickens, a piano teacher, and they had a daughter, Barbara. In 1920, after a succession of dreary jobs, he was hired as employment manager for the Western Union Telegraph Company in Manhattan. In 1924, Miller divorced his wife and married a Broadway taxi dancer, June Edith Smith, whom he had met during his late-night wanderings in the city. Their relationship was tumultuous, and Smith’s promiscuity was destructive for Miller. Smith, however, encouraged Miller’s aspirations to become a writer, and with her support, Miller quit his job to write full time. His early efforts met with little success, and in 1928, Miller and Smith left for Europe for a brief stay. Running low on funds, they returned to the United States after eight months. In 1930, with Smith’s urging and promises of financial support, he returned alone and settled in Paris. Now that they were separated, their marriage fell apart under the weight of Smith’s emotional instability, and four years later, Smith obtained a Mexican divorce. In Paris, Miller was free from the demands of American society, but he also faced new problems. Miller was in a strange country where he had no friends, little money, and no prospects. He did not even speak the language. After arriving in Paris in 1930, Miller moved to a cheap hotel on the rue Bonaparte. From there, he began wandering the streets of Paris, taking notes and keeping a daily record of his life, including the things he saw and the people he met. He would relate these adventures in long letters to his friends in the United States, and many of these letters were later included in Tropic of Cancer. His adventures with prostitutes and the characters he met on the street and in cafés became the fabric of his book. When Miller’s money ran out, he was forced to panhandle and find lodging wherever he could. He had, in reality, become homeless, and he was dependent on fate and others’ charity. He did not become dejected, however. Instead, by using these deprivations and desperate situations as the raw material for his letters, he turned his destitution into a testament to the human spirit. Miller met a number of writers, artists, and intellectuals in Paris who befriended him. After months of living hand to mouth, he landed a job as a proofreader for the
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lent and euphoric autobiographical novel went to press Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. While there, he met on September 1, 1934. Michael Fraenkel, a writer and occasional publisher who let Miller move in with him. While living with Fraenkel, Significance Miller began to work on Tropic of Cancer. Fraenkel, a Miller began receiving praise for Tropic of Cancer soon man given to abstract debates about death, is portrayed in after its publication. Among the writers and artists who the novel as Boris, a character frozen by philosophical applauded the novel were Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Marcel introspection. Miller, on the other hand, is the hero who Duchamp, and Blaise Cendrars. As his reputation grew, opens himself to the richness and sensuality of life in Miller became the subject of a great deal of interest. Paris. Other publishers, such as Alfred A. Knopf in New York Although he was still very much in love with Smith, and Faber & Faber in London, expressed interest in who was back in New York, Miller met and began an inMiller’s work but did not make definite offers. After timate relationship with the French writer Anaïs Nin. completing Tropic of Cancer, Miller had begun his secWhen they met, they were immediately drawn to one anond autobiographical novel, Tropic of Capricorn (1939), other, and although Nin lived outside Paris with her huswhich was about his life in New York City and his exploband, Miller frequently visited her. During 1931 and ration of sexuality during a period of personal frustration 1932, they exchanged a voluminous correspondence. At one point, when Miller was depressed over his estrangement from Smith, Nin arranged for him to teach English at a Miller’s Philosophical Reflections preparatory school in Dijon. The posiAlthough the novel’s sexually explicit passages garnered the most attention, tion paid little, and Dijon was a deTropic of Cancer also gives some fascinating insights into Miller’s ego and pressingly provincial town that added worldview, as this excerpt shows. to Miller’s sense of isolation. He left after two months. Back in Paris in the There are days, nevertheless, when the sun is out and I get off the beaten path summer of 1932, he completed work and think about her hungrily. Now and then, despite my grim satisfaction, I on the manuscript of Tropic of Cancer. get to thinking about another way of life, get to wondering if it would make a An American literary agent in Paris difference having a young, restless creature by my side. The trouble is I can read Tropic of Cancer, liked it, and hardly remember what she looks like, nor even how it feels to have my arms gave it to English expatriate Jack Kaaround her. Everything that belongs to the past seems to have fallen into the sea; I have memories, but the images have lost their vividness, they seem hane, who owned the Obelisk Press. dead and desultory, like time-bitten mummies stuck in a quagmire. If I try to Kahane read the novel and was so imrecall my life in New York I get a few splintered fragments, nightmarish and pressed that he offered Miller a concovered with verdigris. It seems as if my own proper existence had come to tract. The raw, uninhibited style Miller an end somewhere, just where exactly I can’t make out. I’m not an American used in the Tropic of Cancer contained any more, nor a New Yorker, and even less a European, or a Parisian. I haven’t obscene language and graphic accounts any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejuof sex. Although the Obelisk Press had dices, any passion. I’m neither for nor against. I’m neutral. a reputation for publishing risqué novWhen we walk home of a night, the three of us, it often happens after the els, Kahane stalled publication because first spasms of disgust that we get to talking about the condition of things of fears of French censorship laws. with the enthusiasm which only those who bear no active part in life can musKahane persuaded Miller to write anter. What seems strange to me sometimes, when I crawl into bed, is that all this enthusiasm is engendered just to kill time, just to annihilate the threeother, more “serious” book, one that quarters of an hour which it requires to walk from the office to Montparnasse. would give his work an air of respectWe might have the most brilliant, the most feasible ideas for the amelioration ability. Although Miller attempted a of this or that, but there is no vehicle to hitch them to. And what is more scholarly study of D. H. Lawrence, he strange is that the absence of any relationship between ideas and living failed to produce a publishable book. causes us no anguish, no discomfort. We have become so adjusted that, if toFinally, after nearly two years of demorrow we were ordered to walk on our hands, we would do so without the lays, Anaïs Nin came to the rescue slightest protest. Provided, of course, that the paper came out as usual. with six hundred dollars to underwrite Source: Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (Paris: Obelisk Press, 1934). the publication of Tropic of Cancer with the Obelisk Press. Miller’s turbu-
Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy and upheaval. In 1939, that work also was published by the Obelisk Press. Another work that Miller had begun writing in 1933 was a surrealistic self-portrait filled with fragments of letters, dreams, and reminiscences. Finally given the title Black Spring, it was published in Paris in 1936. Meanwhile, Miller’s life had begun to settle somewhat. While in Paris, he wrote steadily and worked on various publishing projects, but with the outbreak of war in Europe and the threat of invasion by the Germans, Miller decided to leave his Paris home for good. After nearly ten years, his time in France was drawing to an end. In 1939, he sailed for Greece at the urging of his friend Lawrence Durrell. After arriving in Corfu, he stayed with the Durrells and then traveled around Greece. His adventures were later published as The Colossus of Maroussi: Or, The Spirit of Greece (1941), a kind of spiritual travelogue praised as one of his best books. In 1940, Miller left Greece for New York. Although his books had continued to sell briskly in Paris, he was unable to obtain royalties owed him, and when he arrived back in the United States he was almost as broke as when he had left ten years earlier. Miller eventually moved to California and settled in Big Sur, where he became the focal point in a growing artists’ colony. There he worked on The Rosy Crucifixion: Sexus (1949, 2 volumes), Plexus (1953, 2 volumes), and Nexus (1960), the story of his ill-fated relationship with June Smith. All through the 1930’s, Tropic of Cancer continued to sell in Paris, although it was not until the German occupation of the 1940’s that sales dramatically increased. By the war’s end, Miller’s accumulated royalties from French sales of Tropic of Cancer totaled some forty thousand dollars. By 1947, he was owed ten times that amount. Because of postwar restrictions and rapid devaluation of the franc, however, he was unable to collect his earnings. Meanwhile, Miller’s Paris publisher faced other problems. In 1946, French authorities brought charges against the owners of the Obelisk Press and managed to convict them of distributing pornographic materials. Fortunately, several famous and influential French writers, including Albert Camus, Paul Éluard, and JeanPaul Sartre, came to the book’s defense, and the verdict was overturned. Meanwhile, Tropic of Cancer had still not been published in the United States. For years, Tropic of Cancer and The Rosy Crucifixion were deemed obscene and were banned from publication in the United States. In 1961, however, Grove Press brought out an American edition of Tropic of Cancer. Sales of the book were phenomenal, and Miller became 2772
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 an overnight celebrity. The publication was met with controversy, however, and numerous attempts were made to have the book banned. Finally, in 1963, a U.S. Supreme Court decision ended censorship of Miller’s books. In spite of—or perhaps because of—such controversy, Tropic of Cancer’s effect on American literature was significant. The unrestrained language and lack of literary pretenses in Miller’s autobiographical novel influenced such writers as William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Norman Mailer. Miller’s work explored the meaning of what it was to be alive in a civilization that was being torn apart by forces it had unleashed on itself, one in which dehumanizing technology, the forced conformity of the masses, poverty, and war all threatened to destroy the individual’s spirit and imagination. Tropic of Cancer recorded Miller’s fight to save his own soul, and it is a work that reverberates with a desperate energy and a liberating vision. — Francis Poole Further Reading Brassaï. Henry Miller, Happy Rock. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Rerelease of Brassaï’s reflections on his friendship with Miller. Includes valuable advice for young writers. Dearborn, Mary V. The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. A valuable biography that raises questions about the lack of serious academic criticism of Miller’s work. Successfully depicts the man and all of his contradictions. Includes numerous photographs and detailed notes. Decker, James M. Henry Miller and Narrative Form: Constructing the Self, Rejecting Modernity. New York: Routledge, 2005. Studies Miller’s frequent transitions between realism and an interest in the fantastic. Analyzes the influences of James Joyce, Walt Whitman, and Friedrich Nietzsche, among others. Durrell, Lawrence. Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. Edited by Ian S. MacNiven. London: Faber & Faber, 1988. A collection of letters that nearly doubles the published correspondence between the two writers. The letters illustrate and confirm the affection between them and the vitality of their relationship. Gordon, William A. The Mind and Art of Henry Miller. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967. The first serious, full-length study of Henry Miller as an artist. Insightful and objective. Examines Miller’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 principal themes and studies his growth toward selfliberation through his writing. Lewis, Leon. Henry Miller: The Major Writings. New York: Schocken Books, 1986. An examination of Miller scholarship and a perceptive discussion of Miller’s life and major works. Offers insight into reasons for Miller’s enduring popularity. Miller, Henry. Letters to Emil. Edited by George Wickes. New York: New Directions, 1989. A collection of several dozen letters from Henry Miller to Emil Schnellock, written when Miller was in Paris. The letters offer a unique record of Miller’s literary apprenticeship. Winslow, Kathryn. Henry Miller: Full of Life. Los An-
Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine geles: J. P. Tarcher, 1986. A memoir by a longtime friend of Miller who met the novelist in 1944, after he had moved to Big Sur. See also: Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons; 1913-1927: Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past; 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation; 1920-1924: Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist; 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction; 1924: Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis; Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books.
Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953
Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine John H. Gibbon, Jr., developed and tested, in animals and then humans, the first artificial device to oxygenate and circulate blood during surgery. The machine made open-heart surgery possible. Also known as: Pump-oxygenator Locale: United States Categories: Health and medicine; inventions
Summary of Event In the first half of the twentieth century, cardiovascular medicine had many triumphs. Effective anesthesia, antiseptic conditions, and antibiotics made surgery of all
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Key Figures John H. Gibbon, Jr. (1903-1973), American cardiovascular surgeon Mary Hopkinson Gibbon (fl. mid-twentieth century), American research technician Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874-1956), founder and head of IBM T. L. Stokes (fl. mid-twentieth century), researcher in Gibbon’s laboratory J. B. Flick (fl. mid-twentieth century), researcher in Gibbon’s laboratory Bernard J. Miller (fl. mid-twentieth century), American cardiovascular surgeon and research associate Cecelia Bavolek (fl. mid-twentieth century), first human to undergo successful open-heart surgery using the heart-lung machine
kinds safer; blood typing, anticlotting agents, and blood preservatives made blood transfusion practical; cardiac catheterization (feeding a tube into the heart), electrocardiography (noninvasive measurement of the electrical changes in the heart caused by its beating), and fluoroscopy (visualizing living tissues with an X-ray machine) made the nonsurgical diagnosis of cardiovascular problems possible. These advances were put to use solving problems of disease, injury, and birth defects in blood vessels and around the heart. Before the 1950’s, however, there was no safe way to treat damage or defects within the heart. To make such a correction, the vital organ’s function must be interrupted, and the body’s tissues must be kept alive artificially during that interruption. Some surgeons practiced so-called blind surgery, inserting a finger into the heart through a small incision to attempt to make corrections without observing what they were doing; others attempted to reduce the body’s need for circulation by slowly chilling the patient until the heart stopped. Still other surgeons used “cross-circulation,” a procedure in which the patient’s circulatory system was temporarily connected to a donor’s system. All these approaches carried profound risks of hemorrhage, tissue damage, and death. Not until the successful development of the pumpoxygenator, or heart-lung machine, did heart surgery as it is known today become possible. The heart-lung machine uses mechanical devices to oxygenate and circulate the blood during heart surgery. It was developed
Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine over a period of more than twenty years through the persistence of John H. Gibbon, Jr., who, on May 6, 1953, first used it successfully in a human being. Ironically, Gibbon’s first interest in such a machine arose from his concern for a patient with an obstruction of lung circulation rather than a heart defect. In February of 1931, Gibbon witnessed the death of a young woman whose lung circulation was blocked by a blood clot. Because her blood could not pass through her lungs, she slowly lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. As he monitored her pulse and breathing, Gibbon thought about ways of circumventing the obstructed lungs and straining heart and providing the required oxygen to the rest of her body. Because surgery to remove such a blood clot in the pulmonary artery was often fatal, her surgeons operated only as a last resort. Their reluctance proved appropriate: Although the surgery took only 6.5 minutes, the young woman never regained consciousness. This experience prompted Gibbon to pursue what few people then considered a practical line of research. At the time, researchers were still experimenting with separate devices for pumping blood during transfusion or for oxygenating blood during isolated perfused-organ experiments. Gibbon, however, sought to create a device capable of doing both at once, circulating blood around the heart and oxygenating it. If such a device could be created, it would permit the treatment of not only pulmonary obstruction but also abnormalities of the heart. Gibbon began the project in earnest in the fall of 1934, when he returned to the laboratory of Edward D. Churchill at Massachusetts General Hospital for his second surgical research fellowship. He was assisted by his wife, Mary Hopkinson Gibbon. Together, they developed an experimental surgical preparation in cats to remove blood from a vein, supply it with oxygen, and return it to an artery using tubes inserted into the blood vessels. Their objectives were to assemble a device that would keep the blood moving, spread it over a very thin layer to pick up oxygen efficiently and remove carbon dioxide, and avoid both clotting and damaging blood cells. The Gibbons’ initial attempts included using a vertical revolving cylinder for gas exchange. This device applied centrifugal force to spread the blood over a very thin layer in an oxygen-filled chamber. A piston-type pump was used for blood circulation. Ultimately, they modified this arrangement to use a gentler roller pump that had no valve surfaces. This reduced the damage to blood cells, as well as the surface area available for clot formation. They reported in 1937 that heart and lung function could be artificially maintained for fifty min2774
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 utes, and the animal’s normal heart function could be restored for a period of several hours. After their return to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1935, they repeated their experiments under sterile conditions and reported in 1939 that prolonged survival after heart-lung bypass was possible in animals. World War II interrupted the progress of Gibbon’s work, but he resumed his research at Jefferson Medical College in 1944. Shortly thereafter, he attracted the interest of Thomas J. Watson, Sr., chairman of the board of International Business Machines (IBM), who provided the services of IBM’s experimental physics laboratory and model machine shop, as well as the assistance of engineers Al Malmrose, Don Rex, Leo Farr, and John Enstrom. IBM constructed and modified two experimental machines during the next seven years, and these engineers contributed significantly to the evolution of a machine that would be practical in humans. The most critical problem presented by the ambition to take over heart-lung function in humans mechanically was that of achieving the efficiency of gas exchange required to oxygenate such a large flow of blood. This problem was addressed by T. L. Stokes and J. B. Flick,
John H. Gibbon, Jr. (National Library of Medicine)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance John Gibbon devoted most of his career to developing the pump-oxygenator, or heart-lung machine. His success depended on a network of critical discoveries made
by many others before him, and it combined with concurrent discoveries to make possible future advances, some of which could not even be anticipated by cardiovascular scientists of the time. Heart-lung bypass alone could not make open-heart surgery a truly practical technique. Therefore, once it was possible to keep they body’s tissues alive by diverting blood around the heart and oxygenating it, other questions already under investigation became even more critical. Scientists had yet to determine how to stop and restart the heart, how to evaluate and prevent or correct erratic heartbeats, how to prolong the survival of bloodless organs, how to measure oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood, and how to prolong anesthesia safely during complicated surgery. Thus, following the first successful use of the heart-lung machine, surgeons and engineers continued to refine the methods of open-heart surgery. Many scientists, including those working with Owen Wangenstein at the University of Minnesota and John Webster Kirklin at the Mayo Clinic, employed and improved the technique so consistently in the late 1950’s that by 1960 it was a standard operative procedure. The immediate result of Gibbon’s invention and its subsequent refinements was the development of reliable surgical techniques to correct congenital heart defects. For example, a hole in the wall between two of the heart’s chambers, such as an atrial septal defect or a ventricular septal defect, could be exposed now to plain view and sewn closed, because blood was diverted around the heart. Valvular stenosis, a stiffening or narrowing of the heart valves, could be relieved with far less risk of permanent damage to the valve because surgeons could now judge the appropriate type and size of correction necessary. Transposed great arteries (that is, misdirected major arteries) could be severed now and rejoined to their appropriate connections with the aid of heart-lung bypass. Furthermore, the heart-lung apparatus set the stage for the advent of “replacement-parts” solutions for many types of cardiovascular problems. In 1960, Albert Starr and M. L. Edwards first successfully accomplished cardiac valve replacement by placing an artificial ball valve between the left atrium and ventricle. In 1967, R. G. Favaloro performed the first coronary bypass surgery, grafting sections of a leg vein into the heart’s circulation to divert blood around clogged coronary arteries. Likewise, the first successful heart transplant (Christiaan Barnard, 1967) and the controversial Jarvik-7 artificial heart (William DeVries, 1982) required the ability to stop the heart and keep the body’s tissues alive during time2775
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who, while working in Gibbon’s laboratory, observed that turbulence in the blood greatly enhanced gas exchange in the oxygenator. They demonstrated and reported in 1950 that lining the oxygenation cylinder with a wire screen could produce turbulence and the desired oxygenation effect without creating a foam from broken blood cells. Bernard J. Miller joined Gibbon’s group in January of 1950 and contributed to the final stages in developing the second IBM machine, which was completed in 1951. After testing a series of materials to improve the oxygenation surface, they settled on multiple stainless-steel wire mesh screens suspended in parallel within an oxygenfilled plastic chamber. The screens were coated with a protein solution to permit a complete film to spread over them. The electronic circuit developed to control blood flow through the system was improved, and a filter was incorporated into the circuit to prevent air bubbles or incipient blood clots from reentering the body. Safety systems to maintain power and prevent combustible gases (then used as anesthetics) from entering the system were incorporated into the device, and blood pressure, flow, and hydrogen-ion concentration were continuously monitored in the circuit. By 1952, the survival rate for animals maintained by this device was 90 percent. Gibbon’s first attempt to use the pump-oxygenator in a human was in a fifteen-month-old baby. This attempt failed, not because of a malfunction or a surgical mistake but because of misdiagnosis. The child died following surgery because the real problem was not corrected by the surgery. On May 6, 1953, the heart-lung machine was first used successfully on a human being, Cecelia Bavolek. In the six months before surgery, Bavolek was hospitalized three times for symptoms of heart failure when she could not engage in normal activity. With her circulation connected to the heart-lung machine for forty-five minutes, the surgical team headed by Gibbon was able to observe directly and to close an opening between her atria, thereby establishing normal heart function. Two months later, an examination of the defect revealed that it was fully closed, and Bavolek resumed a normal life. Although Gibbon reflected some years later that he may have opened a Pandora’s box, the age of open-heart surgery had begun.
Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine
Gibbon Develops the Heart-Lung Machine consuming and delicate surgical procedures. While cardiovascular science awaits the developments that will permit the prevention or true cure of the conditions that compromise cardiac functions, these corrective surgical measures, which make use of the heart-lung apparatus, continue to contribute to prolonging life. —Laura Gray Malloy Further Reading Comroe, Jr. Julius H. “The Heart and Lungs.” In Advances in American Medicine: Essays at the Bicentennial, edited by John Z. Bowers and Elizabeth F. Purcell. Vol. 2. New York: Joshua Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1976. An excellently written history of American contributions to the knowledge of cardiovascular and pulmonary function. Puts the significance of Gibbon’s success into context by examining the many scientific discoveries on which it built (including contributions from two important but often uncredited female scientists, Maude Abbott and Helen Taussig) and the many important developments to which it led. _______. The Retrospectroscope: Insights into Medical Discovery. Menlo Park, Calif.: Von Gehr Press, 1977. Comroe uses a historical perspective to make an insightful and readable examination of the conditions in which important medical discoveries have been made. This work is invaluable to anyone interested in studying the process of science. Included are several references to John and Mary Gibbon, who worked at the University of Pennsylvania when Comroe was an instructor there in pharmacology. Davis, Goode Edwards, Jr., Edwards Park, and Editors of U.S. News Books. The Heart: The Living Pump. Washington, D.C.: U.S. News Books, 1981. A beautifully illustrated and photographed volume for the general public. Historical, experimental, and clinical aspects of the heart’s function are presented simply and accurately. Treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease are given ample consideration, as are experimental and clinical techniques. Gibbon’s work is put in perspective with other surgical research of the time. Glossary. Excellent for high school or college students. Fenster, Julie M. “Long Way to Bypass: John H. Gibbon
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jr., the Heart-Lung Machine.” In Mavericks, Miracles, and Medicine: The Pioneers Who Risked Their Lives to Bring Medicine into the Modern Age. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. Profile of Gibbon in a companion volume to a documentary series produced on the History Channel detailing advances in medical science. The volume also discusses blood transfusion, kidney transplantation, and the cardiac pacemaker, among many such advances. Bibliographic references and index. Gibbon, John H., Jr. “The Development of the HeartLung Apparatus.” The Review of Surgery 27 (1970): 231-244. John Gibbon’s very readable personal account of his experiences through a career devoted to the development of the heart-lung machine, with a consideration of the problems to be solved in the project and its impact on his life. Includes photographs of the original device and experimental surgery in progress. Miller, Bernard J. “The Development of Heart-Lung Machines.” Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics 154 (1982): 403-414. Miller’s account of the evolution of heart-lung apparatus from before Gibbon’s era through stages following the first successful use of the apparatus. It is technically complete, especially with respect to modifications made during the stages of development from 1950 to 1954, when Miller was a research associate at Jefferson Medical College. Moore, Francis D. “Surgery.” In Advances in American Medicine: Essays at the Bicentennial, edited by John Z. Bowers and Elizabeth F. Purcell. Vol. 2. New York: Joshua Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1976. An accessible review of the history of American surgery from colonial times to the present. Moore asserts that two features unique to American surgery after World War II contributed to developments such as Gibbon’s: government support and the availability of animals as experimental models. Includes a photograph of John and Mary Gibbon inspecting the heart-lung machine. See also: 1905: Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography; Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Mao’s Long March
October 16, 1934-October 18, 1935
Mao’s Long March Facing a Nationalist assault on the Communist stronghold in southern China’s Jiangxi Province, Mao Zedong joined the Communist retreat toward a sanctuary at Yan’an in the remote northern Ningxia Huizu Province. On a trek that covered about five thousand miles, Mao engineered his rise to supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party and turned the event into a core myth of Communist triumph. Locale: China Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history; government and politics Key Figures Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung; 1893-1976), chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, 1935-1976 Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), leader of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party Zhang Guotao (Chang Kuo-t’ao; 1897-1979), Communist general and rival of Mao Zedong Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai; 1898-1976), Communist leader Zhu De (Chu Teh; 1886-1976), commander of the Communist army who helped establish the Chinese soviets
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Summary of Event The Chinese Communist Party formed an alliance with the Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang) in 1923 in order to unify China by defeating independent warlords, but this alliance broke apart in the period 1926-1927. When Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang after 1925, launched a devastating attack on the Communists and purged his new government of all Communists on October 10, 1927, the Communists retreated into remote rural sanctuaries throughout China. One of the Communists’ most important southern strongholds, ruled through terror by Mao Zedong and Zhu De, was the Jiangxi Soviet state, which they proclaimed on November 7, 1931. Even though he faced challenges from independent warlords and Japanese aggression, in late 1933 Chiang Kai-shek moved to destroy the Jiangxi stronghold. Turning for advice to a German World War I general, Hans von Seeckt, Chiang Kai-shek trapped the Communists inside a series of blockhouses, where he hoped hunger would eventually force them to surrender. When the key Communist leaders—Red Army commander Zhu De, party officials Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai, and Joseph Stalin’s
German envoy Otto Braun (who was married to a Chinese woman)—met in August, 1934, they decided to evacuate Jiangxi and move their forces to a sanctuary in northern China, which was closer to the border with the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong, president of the Jiangxi Soviet, made sure he joined the breakout against the wishes of his rivals. After killing thousands of Chinese deemed unworthy in Jiangxi, Zhou Enlai coordinated the breakout of the Communist forces. The Communists chose a path through the southwest, which was guarded only by unreliable allied warlord troops from Guangxi Zhuangzu and Guangdong. Two days into the event, on October 18, 1934, Mao Zedong traveled across Yudu bridge and out of Jiangxi. The Communists moved with relative ease through the four Kuomintang lines, and they crossed the Xiang River into the Guangxi Zhuangzu region in December, 1934. They took the town of Zunyi on January 7, 1935, after crossing the Wu River in Guizhou Province with their remaining forty thousand troops. Traditionally, the success of the Communist breakout was blamed on poor performance of the Kuomintang and warlord troops, but more recent historical evidence suggests that Chiang Kai-shek may have been willing to allow an escape by reduced Communist forces. He wanted to please Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, which China hoped would be its ally against Japan. Matters were made even more complicated by the fact that Chiang’s son Jiang Jingguo was essentially a hostage in Moscow, where the young man had gone to study in 1925. Additionally, Chiang confided to his secretary that by pursuing the Communists into provinces still held by semi-independent warlords, the Kuomintang would establish its power there. At a high-level Communist Party meeting in Zunyi from January 15 to 18, Mao cemented his position by becoming a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party’s Politburo and by blaming others, including Otto Braun, for the Jiangxi defeat that made the Long March necessary. Contrary to later claims, Mao was not made chairman of the party until later. He did, however, become military adviser to Zhou Enlai at this time. After the Zunyi Conference, the Communists decided to move north into Sichuan, where they planned to double their strength by joining an army—led by the ruthless Zhang Guotao—already stationed in the region.
Mao’s Long March
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Fearing that a successful linkup could result in a loss of his power, Mao made sure the forces could not meet. With Zhou Enlai’s approval, Mao ordered his troops southward, where they attacked a Nationalist force in the Battle of Tucheng on January 28. The Communists lost four thousand soldiers, and Mao used the defeat to argue against a breakthrough to Sichuan. Instead, he led the Long Marchers back into Guizhou and then back into Zunyi on February 27. In Zunyi, Mao was appointed commander of the general front after the Communists repelled a Kuomintang attack. Communist anger grew when Mao refused to go north, and he was finally forced to move west into Yunnan and Sichuan. On May 29, 1935, Mao’s forces reached the hundredyard-long Luding (or Dadu) Bridge, which spanned the raging Datong River. Communist mythology describes the events there as a fierce battle in which the Communists heroically captured the bridge. Later historical research, however, revealed that there was no real battle; Chiang Kai-shek wanted the Communists to go north. Mao turned the May 31 crossing into a legend in order to build his status. Similarly, during this time and through2778
out the Long March, Mao and his leadership circle were carried on chairs by porters, although Communist legend states that this happened only when Mao was ill with malaria. The Long Marchers finally reached the Sichuan town of Mougong on June 12, 1935, after crossing the inhospitable passes across the Snow Mountains (the altitude of which exceeded 10,000 feet). On this part of the journey, Mao abandoned his seShanghai dan chair and walked with his men. By the time Mao was joined by a furious Zhang Guotao and his eighty East thousand troops on June 25, his sufChina fering troops numbered only about Sea ten thousand. Mao was in control of the party’s leadership, and to ensure that his troops would reach the sanctuary Taiwan first, Mao proposed a two-pronged approach into Shaanxi Province. His forces would go directly northeast through the Banyou marshes, while Zhang’s troops were to take a more northwesterly route. The two Communist columns departed in early August. Bogged down in the dangerous marshes, Mao feared that Zhang would overtake him, and in the name of the party Mao ordered Zhang to go through the marshes as well. Even though he objected, Zhang obeyed, and after realizing that he could not cross the marshes that late in the year, Zhang issued a September 3 order for all Communist troops to rest for the winter. Mao and his allies refused this military order, denounced Zhang, and took their most loyal troops away to the north. The group stopped in surprisingly hospitable Muslim minority territory in south Gansu Province, where a rash of desertions caused Mao to release an October 2 order promising harsh punishments for stragglers. Many soldiers were executed under the order. On October 18, 1935, Mao and a mere four thousand Communists reached Communist-controlled territory in Ningxia Huizu Province; they entered the city of Wuqizhen on October 20. In Moscow, Mao’s envoy Chen Yun gave a glowing report of Mao’s leadership on the Long March, and this account earned Mao an admiring article in the Soviet Pravda newspaper in late October. By December, 1935,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mao had ended his Long March in Yan’an and was busy ensuring that his version of the event was enshrined in history. In the spring of 1936, Zhang Guotao’s army arrived; over the course of the winter, the army had lost half its men.
Further Reading Chang, Jung, and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Controversial but based on fresh eyewitness accounts. Questions conventional wisdom built on Communist propaganda and highlights Mao’s ambitions, which caused a great deal of suffering for his followers and for his Communist rivals. Illustrated with maps, notes, bibliography, and index. Salisbury, Harrison E. The Long March: The Untold Story. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Descrip-
Mao Draws Class Distinctions In October, 1933, Mao Zedong outlined the following distinctions in an attempt to clarify some of the confusion resulting from his land-reform campaigns. 1. The Landlord A landlord is a person who owns land, does not engage in labour himself, or does so only to a very small extent, and lives by exploiting the peasants. The collection of land rent is his main form of exploitation; in addition, he may lend money, hire labour, or engage in industry or commerce. But his exaction of land rent from the peasants is his principal form of exploitation. . . . Warlords, officials, local tyrants and evil gentry are political representatives and exceptionally ruthless members of the landlord class. Minor local tyrants and evil gentry are also very often to be found among the rich peasants. 2. The Rich Peasant The rich peasant as a rule owns land. But some rich peasants own only part of their land and rent the remainder. Others have no land of their own at all and rent all their land. The rich peasant . . . always relies on exploitation for part or even the major part of his income. . . . Rich peasants regularly practice exploitation and many derive most of their income from this source. 3. The Middle Peasant Many middle peasants own land. Some own only part of their land and rent the rest. Others own no land of their own at all and rent all their land. All of them have a fair number of farm implements. A middle peasant derives his income wholly or mainly from his own labour. As a rule he does not exploit others and in many cases he himself is exploited by others, having to pay a small amount in land rent and in interest on loans. But generally he does not sell his labour power. Some middle peasants (the well-to-do middle peasants) do practice exploitation to a small extent, but this is not their regular or their main source of income. 4. The Poor Peasant . . . In general, a middle peasant does not need to sell his labour power, while the poor peasant has to sell part of his labour power. This is the principal criterion for distinguishing between a middle and a poor peasant. 5. The Worker The worker (including the farm labourer) as a rule owns no land or farm implements, though some do own a very small amount of land and very few farm implements. Workers make their living wholly or mainly by selling their labour power. Source: Mao Zedong, “How to Differentiate the Classes in the Rural Areas,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967).
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Significance The Long March provided Mao Zedong with an extraordinary chance to take hold of the Chinese Communist Party, and he ruthlessly exploited this opportunity. By brilliantly outmaneuvering his Communist adversaries (at staggering human costs to his fellow Communists), Mao rose to a near-mythical status without any real challenges. He consistently used propaganda to emphasize the Long March’s importance, and in the process he built a solid foundation for his rule. If, as history suggests, Chiang Kai-shek’s political and personal interests led him to allow a small band of Communists to escape from Jiangxi into Yan’an, his move backfired. The Communists were quick to spread their version of a heroic Long March to receptive Chinese and other sympathizers from around the world. Within a few years, Mao’s account of the Long March gathered support from Chinese and international supporters such as American journalist Edgar Snow, whose interviews with Mao fascinated an international audience. The Long March allowed Mao’s Communists to build a secure base of power that provided crucial support during Japan’s 1937-1945 war on China and launched the 1946-1949 conquest of mainland China during the final phase of China’s civil war. The Communist myths and memoirs of the Long March became an accepted part Chinese history, and historians whose research contradicted Mao’s long-accepted version of the event faced a challenging battle. —R. C. Lutz
Mao’s Long March
Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society tion of the event by a journalist who later traveled Mao’s route by himself. Endorses the Communist version of events. Snow, Edgar. Red Star Rising over China. Rev. ed. New York: Grove Press, 1968. Originally published in 1937 and based on the author’s interviews with Mao after the event. Decisively pro-Communist, this account had considerable influence on America’s view of events. Uses Wade-Giles romanizations. Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. Rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Gives a succinct and balanced account of the event based on the conventional historical belief biased in Mao’s favor.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Maps, illustrations, notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. Uses Pinyin romanizations. Young, Helen Praeger. Choosing Revolution: Chinese Women Soldiers on the Long March. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Detailed account of women’s experience of the Long March through analysis of twenty-two interviews with survivors, including four in-depth case studies. Illustrated, bibliography, index. Uses Pinyin romanizations. See also: May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement; 19261949: Chinese Civil War; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
October 19, 1934
Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society The Wilderness Society became the leading critic of development and the destruction of the environment that attended that concept. Locale: United States Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures Robert Marshall (1901-1939), first president of the Wilderness Society Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), American wildlife biologist, ecologist, and author Robert Sterling Yard (1861-1945), second president of the Wilderness Society and editor of its journal, The Living Wilderness Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946 John Collier (1884-1968), American social reformer and commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1933-1945 Summary of Event On October 19, 1934, Robert Marshall gave the keynote speech at the American Forestry Association Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. That afternoon, he and four friends—Benton McKaye, a naturalist and city planner; Harold C. Anderson, an accountant, avid hiker, and developer of the Appalachian Trail; Harvey Broome, a Knoxville attorney; and Bernard Frank, associate forester with the Tennessee Valley Authority—had taken a trip into the mountains north of Knoxville. On the drive, 2780
Marshall, who was director of forestry in the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior, talked about organizing a national group interested in promoting the preservation of wilderness areas in the United States. No such group existed, he explained, because nationwide organizations such as the Audubon Society and the Izaak Walton League focused most of their attention on saving wildlife rather than on wilderness in general. The Sierra Club focused on such a program, but that group, founded by the famous naturalist John Muir, had offices only in California. After Marshall’s talk, the other passengers in the car began creating a plan to organize the Wilderness Society. Marshall had become interested in conservation as a teenager. Born to a wealthy family in New York City, he had spent many of his childhood summers at the family’s summer home in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. He studied forestry in college and received a master’s degree in forestry from Harvard University before going to The Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a doctorate in plant pathology. Before he joined the Department of the Interior, Marshall spent five years in Alaska, where he helped identify hundreds of Arctic plants and assembled a lengthy catalog of species. In the Arctic, Marshall became a wilderness preservation advocate. Cities and industrial civilization, he believed, destroy the human connection with nature. Wilderness not only satisfies the human need for freedom and adventure but also makes people more self-sufficient, improves their health, and liberates them from the tension and pressure of civilization.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
derness advocate, believed that the group should be open to like-minded explorers who searched for a place to study animals, plants, and their relationship with the environment. When the Wilderness Society held its first conference in Washington, D.C., in January, 1935, the Wisconsin professor did not attend. Yard and other members chose Marshall as the group’s first president. Marshall accepted the position, but his job with the government created a conflict of interest, and within a few months he had stepped down from the presidency. He could not promote wilderness and cooperate with the Bureau of Land Management at the same time because the bureau leased millions of acres of grasslands to western cattle ranchers. Secretary Ickes told Marshall that he could not hold both jobs, and so Marshall turned leadership of the society over to Robert Sterling Yard, the seventy-four-year-old former Park Service publicity director. Yard had quit that job after criticizing the agency for building too many roads and making parks too accessible to the public. During its early years as a two-man organization, the Wilderness Society pushed for reversal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s conservation priorities. Roosevelt considered himself a conservationist, but his priorities differed greatly from the society’s. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Roosevelt and his advisers stressed recreation, forestry and lumber milling, range management, soil and water conservation, land reclamation, and wilderness in their conservation agenda. The founders of the Wilderness Society agreed that these priorities needed to be reversed. In its first statement, the society called for maintaining primitive areas in the United States. The statement asserted that, since many of the most beautiful areas in the country had already been opened to automobile traffic, all future road construction should be halted (though exceptions could made for unusually compelling cases). By the end of its first year, the society had 576 members and was slowly growing. The pace of growth did not dishearten Marshall and Yard; both men believed that a small, well-organized group of wilderness lovers would have more impact on Interior Department policy than would a large group of sports lovers, tourists, and fishermen. Wilderness had spiritual as well as recreational or economic importance, they agreed, and only those people concerned about preserving the most obscure plants and animals in the country would have the proper understanding of the society’s ethic. For these two men, preservation was important not only for human health but also for even deeper and more spiritual reasons. Main2781
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Marshall saw wildness as comparable to works of art and music in its importance to the human spirit. It presents opportunities for contemplation and meditation. All human senses are aroused by the sights and sounds of wild places, and the beauty of the wilderness cannot be matched by any synthetic objects. For these reasons, Marshall believed wilderness had to be preserved. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a supporter of conservation, brought Marshall into his department because of Marshall’s reputation as a defender of wilderness. The Bureau of Indian Affairs controlled vast tracts of forest in the American West, and in the 1920’s agency leaders had advocated economic development on these lands. Roads and hotels would bring tourists into the forests and increase Native American prosperity. Marshall argued that the so-called benefits of civilization would never compensate for the loss of true wilderness. Wilderness was as important a resource as coal, oil, or lumber, and all of these resources needed to be preserved. On this point, Marshall won the support of Indian Affairs Commissioner John Collier, who set up sixteen wilderness areas on reservations. That meant that no development would be allowed. The principle of no development became a key part of the Wilderness Society’s creed. Shortly after the October 19 car trip, the organizers sent out an invitation to people believed to be interested in a movement to preserve the American wilderness. The letter stated that wild places had to be kept “sound-proof and sight-proof from mechanized life.” The recipients included Ernest Oberholtzer, a naturalist and leading defender of maintaining the Quetico-Superior region of Minnesota as a wilderness area; Robert Sterling Yard, a retired Park Service employee and critic of the government’s conservation policies; and Aldo Leopold, who had written essays on wildlife preservation and the ethics of conservation. John Collier and John C. Merrian, president of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, declined to participate. Leopold was a former National Park Service ranger, a manager of national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, and a professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin after 1933. His stature among naturalists and preservationists led Marshall to suggest that he be offered the Wilderness Society’s first presidency. Leopold initially agreed to serve, but he raised several questions concerning the group’s goals, membership, and agenda. Marshall envisioned a small, tightly organized group of “thoroughly earnest” wilderness lovers who appreciated the beauty and purity of the outdoors. In contrast, Leopold, who was a scientist as well as a wil-
Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society
Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society taining undisturbed tracts of wilderness demonstrated a human commitment to living as part of the natural world rather than as destroyer and master of living things. The human being, in Aldo Leopold’s view, must learn to think “like a mountain” and must give up the drive to conquer everything. Mountains prosper because of the great abundance of life that they support. Respect for all life was the key to survival for all things, living or nonliving. The Wilderness Society sought to impart these values. Marshall contributed most of the money, and Yard wrote the society’s newsletter and edited its magazine, The Living Wilderness. Yard did not want people in the group unless they were absolute purists on wilderness preservation. Aldo Leopold contributed an essay to the first issue of The Living Wilderness in which he summarized the society’s view of the human place in nature. Humankind, he said, had become far too arrogant toward the natural world and had to relearn its place in the biosphere. People needed to treat nature with “an intelligent humility,” and that meant leaving much of nature alone; no development or improvement was needed. Civilization was corrupt; nature was pure and free. Yard promoted the society’s cause before Congress, the National Park Service, and the Forest Service (he received a salary from Marshall). In his view, and in Marshall’s, the Park Service had already gone too far in prioritizing accessibility over preservation. In the 1920’s, the Park Service had built roads, tunnels, and tourist facilities in an effort to encourage more people to use the parks, and these actions had thoroughly upset wilderness supporters. In the mid-1930’s, three projects especially troubled the preservationists: the Skyline Drive being built through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, the proposed Ridgeline Highway cutting through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the proposed 450-mile National Parkway along the Blue Ridge Mountains from Shenandoah to the Smokies. Park and Marshall set out to fight these projects’ completion, but when their opposition met with little success, they turned away from the Park Service and decided to push for wilderness protection in the Forest Service. They reasoned that the national forests were more geared toward preservation, since they contained more than 188 million acres of land, while the national parks contained only 16 million acres. Late in 1937, Marshall became the director of the Division of Recreation and Lands in the U.S. Forest Service. The agency had maintained primitive areas since 1929 but had no specific ban on road building or other 2782
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 improvements. The new director quickly set about issuing regulations restricting all development on Forest Service land. Unfortunately for wilderness advocates, Marshall died of heart failure early in 1939 while on a train trip to New York City. During his brief tenure with the Forest Service, however, he had set aside more than 14 million acres of land as pure wilderness. Aldo Leopold became the intellectual leader of the Wilderness Society after Marshall’s death. Leopold served as Yard’s principal adviser and his link to other conservation groups around the country. He continued to write for The Living Wilderness and to expand his philosophy. In 1941, when the Saturday Evening Post accused Marshall of having been a member of the American Communist Party, Leopold came to his defense. The Post also informed its readers that Marshall’s brother George, who was a member of the board of the Wilderness Society, maintained his membership in the party. Leopold publicly supported the Marshall brothers and maintained that, as long as George did his job, political labels were not important. Significance The Wilderness Society became the nation’s strongest supporter of untouched wilderness areas. While other conservation groups, such as the National Wildlife Society and the American Forestry Association, tried to make accommodations with hunters, developers, and tourists, the Wilderness Society tried to remain faithful to the ethic established by Marshall and elaborated by Leopold. As Leopold wrote in an article titled “The Conservation Ethic,” human beings would have to totally transform their attitudes toward private property and nature if the earth were to survive. Land and the natural environment could no longer be treated like slaves to humankind. Human beings would have to learn that destruction and abuse were wrong, whether they were directed at human beings or at the land and nature. According to its critics, the Wilderness Society advocated an antidevelopment agenda. The society’s publications, indeed, argued that development led to “the enslavement of the earth,” and that human beings needed to stop themselves from destroying the environment. Instead, the society argued, people needed to recognize their part in a community of plants and animals that needed to be treated with love and respect. It was imperative that some wild places be kept free from human access and economic development. — Leslie V. Tischauser
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United States. This book conveys the spirit of the movement, discusses its successes and failures, and describes the major difficulties involved in challenging the basic values of modern society: production and consumption. Both do harm and destroy much of the natural environment. The Wilderness Society was among the first groups to challenge these values. Nash includes a lengthy bibliography. _______. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Nash’s first history of the environmental movement and its challenge to modern ways of life. Includes much useful information about the founding of the Wilderness Society and especially about the role of Robert Marshall. _______, ed. The American Environment: Readings in the History of Conservation. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968. Collection of essays includes Robert Marshall’s “Wilderness,” written in 1930 and one of the few essays he ever published, and Aldo Leopold’s “An Ethic for Man-Land Relations.” See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established; Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature; June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated; May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act; Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests; Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon; 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed.
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Further Reading Glover, James M. A Wilderness Original: The Life of Bob Marshall. Seattle: Mountaineers, 1986. Tells the life story of the founder of the Wilderness Society. Based on original research and on interviews with friends and relatives. Includes a balanced account of the founding of the Wilderness Society. Extensive bibliography and index. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. 1959. Reprint. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. A seminal work on the early history of conservation. Argues that the movement began as a search for greater efficiency in resource management, not as a democratic crusade against supposed business rapacity. Meine, Curt. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The most detailed biography of the great conservationist. Based on extensive research in Leopold’s vast collection of papers, it includes useful information about the aims and goals of the Wilderness Society. Detailed bibliography and useful index. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and the environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species. Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Nash, Roderick Frazier. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Nash is the foremost authority on the history of conservation movements in the
Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society
Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons
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November, 1934
Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons Hideki Yukawa first postulated the existence of mesons, which later became known as pi-mesons or pions, as fundamental carriers of the nuclear force. His prediction of the particles’ existence was confirmed in 1948, when they were discovered by Cecil Frank Powell. Moreover, although the particles later proved not to be fundamental, they were still intimately connected with the nuclear force, largely confirming Yukawa’s other prediction. Locale: Osaka, Japan Categories: Physics; science and technology Key Figures Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981), Japanese physicist Cecil Frank Powell (1903-1969), British physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), Austrian physicist and philosopher Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), German physicist Summary of Event The existence of positively charged nuclear states was experimentally confirmed by physicists working between 1910 and 1920. They found that atomic nuclei contained several positive charges, which seemed to indicate that the centers of atoms should fly apart as a result of electromagnetic coulomb repulsion. The unexplained failure of atomic nuclei to explode became a foremost concern of theoretical physicists. In 1932, three new particles—the neutron, the positron, and deuteron (a heavy nuclear isotope of hydrogen)—were discovered, adding confusion to some fledgling nuclear models that were emerging. In the same year, nuclei were broken apart by particle accelerators. Prior to 1932, only the proton, the electron, and the massless photon were known to inhabit the realm of elementary particle physics. Most working physicists were trying to model nuclear structure with some combination of protons, electrons, and the newly discovered neutrons, which caused considerable confusion. At the age of twenty-two, Hideki Yukawa set two goals for himself: to investigate the quantum mechanics of the atomic nucleus and to develop relativistic quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics had been developed by Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Erwin Schrödinger in the 1920’s, and the wave descriptions that Schrödinger in particular had developed were appealing to Yukawa. By 1932, Yukawa had arrived at the notion that the 2784
nuclear force (that is, the force holding nuclei together despite their electromagnetic repulsion) was a primary force and not derivable from electromagnetism or gravity. This was a break with most thinking in theoretical physics, which was attempting to explain nuclear structure as some combination of positive charges (protons) and negative charges (electrons). Unfortunately, there were a considerable number of problems associated with Yukawa’s theory. First, electrons and protons each have a “spin” of 1 , as does the neutron. If one takes as an example the 2 deuteron, the simplest compound nucleus in nature, one finds that it has a charge of +1 and a spin of 1. If it were composed of two protons and one electron, it would have a charge of +1, but its spin would be either 1 2 or 3 2, because spins, like charges, are arithmetically additive. In October, 1934, Yukawa became convinced that a meson was responsible for nuclear forces. Mesons (“middle ones”) originally were defined as being midsized or middleweights, as compared with lightweight leptons (“light ones”) or heavyweight baryons (“massive ones”). Yukawa realized that the small range of nuclear forces required a force carrier of a particular mass. Nuclear forces, as was known at the time, had a range of the order of only 0.02 trillionth of a centimeter, or 2 × 10–15 meters. Yukawa saw that there was an inverse relationship between mass and distance or range. A small-mass particle such as the electron acted over distances hundreds of times greater than the diameter of the nucleus. Protons and neutrons, being relatively massive, acted over distances of the order of 1 10 that diameter. In November, 1934, Yukawa presented his initial paper on the existence of such mesons to the Osaka branch of the Physico-Mathematical Society of Japan. Yukawa’s paper, which later earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics, postulated the existence of what were to become known as pi-mesons, or pions. He concluded that their masses should be about two hundred times that of the electron, or about 1 10 that of the proton or neutron. In fact, when pions were discovered experimentally after World War II, their masses were found to be about 270 times that of the electron, or 1 7 that of the proton: The uncharged pion, called the pi-naught, has a mass 264 times that of the electron, whereas the charged pions—pi-plus and pi-minus—each have a mass about 271 times that of the electron. Yukawa wrote his paper in English, and it was published in the February, 1935, Proceedings of the Physico-Mathematical Society of Japan.
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Significance Yukawa’s paper did not catch the attention of the physics community until the discovery of muons two years later. Yukawa wrote a letter to Nature, a prestigious science journal in England, stating that this discovery might be the particles that he had predicted. The editors rejected
his paper and claim, but he published a note in a Japanese journal that established precedence for his claim. The discovery of muons at several places throughout the world in the next few years motivated physicists to look for explanations of what they might be, and Yukawa’s mesons seemed close enough to focus the attention of many theorists. Yukawa’s paper clearly delineated nuclear forces from the electromagnetic and gravitational forces of nature and laid the theoretical groundwork for accounting for the behavior of protons in the nucleus by recourse to a separate fundamental force. Later physicists would complicate Yukawa’s model, especially once it came to be believed that pions are not themselves fundamental particles but are made up of such particles, known as quarks. A model then developed in which “strong nuclear force” referred to a force—carried by particles called gluons— that holds quarks together, while the force holding protons and neutrons together came to be seen as a side effect of strong force, known as simply “nuclear force,” or sometimes “strong residual force.” However, even within this more complicated model, it was still believed that pions were largely responsible for binding protons and neutrons together, making Yukawa’s prediction all the more impressive. Physicists now recognize hundreds of mesons, of which Yukawa’s pions were the first predicted types. Newer and higher-energy particle accelerators have caused the number of known mesons to rise almost exponentially every decade since Yukawa proposed them. More than two hundred mesons are firmly established, and more have given experimental hints of existing. Most experimental physicists expect that many more mesons will be discovered in the future as newer and more energetic particle accelerators are built. Many of the newer mesons are very heavy, much heavier than protons and neutrons; therefore, the word “meson” has lost its middleweight meaning and now designates any integral spin particle that undergoes the strong nuclear interaction, as defined by Yukawa in 1935. Modern elementary physics owes its existence to Yukawa’s efforts in predicting pions. —John P. Kenny Further Reading Böhm, Manfred, Ansgar Denner, and Hans Joos. Gauge Theories of the Strong and Electroweak Interaction. Stuttgart: Teubner, 2001. Details the place of pions within the complex set of subatomic interactions carrying the fundamental forces of nature. Bibliographic references and index. 2785
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Yukawa viewed the nuclear force as a quantum effect whereby a sizable quantum of energy was exchanged between the proton and the neutron in the nucleus. His original paper called for only two such quanta, the pi-plus and the pi-minus. He did not predict the existence of the pi-naught. These pions, or nuclear quanta, have 0 spin and thus contribute nothing to the nuclear spin states of the particles they compose. This 0 spin feature makes them “bosons,” obeying Bose-Einstein statistics, which in turn allows two or more to exist in the same quantum states within a specific nucleus. In 1937, two American physicists, Seth Neddermeyer and Carl David Anderson, discovered what they thought was Yukawa’s meson family in cosmic rays. Ten years later, it was generally agreed that their particle, now named the muon, or mu-meson, was not the carrier of the strong nuclear interaction, even though it had almost exactly the mass and charge states predicted by Yukawa. In 1948, Cecil Frank Powell and his coworkers at Bristol, England, found pi-plus and pi-minus meson tracks in photographic emulsions left for several months on mountain tops. Only the year before, in 1947, the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer had suggested in a cogent theoretical argument that the uncharged pion not predicted by Yukawa might also exist. It was found experimentally in 1950 at both Berkeley and Stanford in California. With Powell’s discovery confirming his prediction, Yukawa had fulfilled his first research objective in bringing quantum theory into nuclear physics to explain nuclear structure. That he had done so in such a spectacular way earned for him the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics and elevated the reputation of Japanese physics in the worldwide scientific community. Powell himself won the award in 1950 for developing the photographic emulsion technique of detecting subatomic particles. Yukawa was able to enter the scientific elite by predicting theoretically the existence of a clearly detectable family of subatomic particles whose mass, spin, and charge he was able to describe. Seldom if ever has such a clear, incisive, and elegant prediction been verified in physics. Pions proved to be universal carriers of nuclear force at low energies (or residual strong force) and largely responsible for holding nuclei together.
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Stalin Begins the Purge Trials Brown, Laurie M. “Hideki Yukawa and the Meson Theory.” Physics Today 39 (December, 1986): 55-62. This brief article describes how Yukawa’s ideas contrasted with and were received by physicists of the time. Fuchs, Walter R. Physics for the Modern Mind. Translated by M. Wilson and M. Wheaton. New York: Macmillan. 1967. Chapter 7 is devoted to elementary particles but gives a series of models of how Yukawa’s meson exchange works between protons and neutrons in nuclei by considering pions as balls in a ballgame. Excellent descriptions and graphics for precollege-age students. Nobel Foundation. Physics. Vol. 3. New York: Elsevier, 1964. Contains Yukawa’s brief Nobel acceptance speech and a good motivation essay on his work. The Yukawa article is followed by one on Powell, the experimental discoverer of the pions; it sheds considerable perspective on Yukawa’s insights. Stuewer, Roger E., ed. Nuclear Physics in Retrospect. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979. A good reference for physics students and those interested in majoring in physics in college. Gives a good view of Yukawa’s contribution as seen by a fellow nuclear theorist.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Weinberg, Steven. The Discovery of Subatomic Particles. Rev. ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Discusses the discovery and importance of pions alongside muons and W and Z particles (the carriers of weak nuclear force). Bibliographic references and index. Yukawa, Hideki. Tabibito (The Traveler). Translated by L. Brown and R. Yoshida. Singapore: World Scientific, 1982. This book is a personal testament of Yukawa from his early childhood until he published his mesonic theory of nuclear forces in 1935. Includes an excellent description of how working Japanese academic scientists lived and worked before World War II. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays; 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope; Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect; Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay.
December, 1934
Stalin Begins the Purge Trials Soviet leader Joseph Stalin undertook a brutal campaign of terror against those he believed to be his political enemies in the Communist Party. Also known as: Great Purge Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; government and politics Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Sergey Mironovich Kirov (1886-1934), secretary of the Communist Party in Leningrad, 1926-1934 Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein; 1879-1940), Russian revolutionary leader and Soviet politician Nikolay Ivanovich Yezhov (1895-1940), head of the NKVD (Soviet secret police) during the most intense period of the purge 2786
Lev Borisovich Kamenev (Lev Borisovich Rosenfeld; 1883-1936), Soviet politician and former chairman of the Moscow Soviet, 1918-1925, and of the Politburo, 1923-1924 Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky; 1883-1936), Soviet politician and former head of the Comintern, 1919 Summary of Event The murder of Sergey Mironovich Kirov, the Communist Party leader in Leningrad and a member of the Soviet Politburo (policy-making committee), gave Joseph Stalin an excuse to begin a reign of terror similar to those carried out by earlier Russian leaders Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. Scholars have engaged in debate for some time concerning what motivated Stalin to embark on such a destructive course. Some have argued that he was disappointed by the failure of his First Five-Year Plan (1928-1933) to achieve all the goals he had set, whereas others have suggested that his intent was to cen-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tralize power in his own hands at the expense of the Communist Party. More than a few have contended that the purging stands as proof of Stalin’s unstable and unbalanced state of mind. Although the Great Purge began in December, 1934, there were harbingers of what was to come during the period from 1927 (when Stalin consolidated his power) to 1934. On several occasions, the party, at Stalin’s urging, had removed hundreds of local Communist leaders from their posts. They were charged with falling under capitalist influence or not pushing hard enough to fulfill Stalin’s drive to collectivize the countryside. The areas most affected were Odessa, Kiev, and the Urals. These “preliminary purges,” widespread as they were, paled by comparison to what occurred after the murder of Kirov in December, 1934. Kirov was shot by Leonid Nikolayev, a Communist
Stalin Begins the Purge Trials Party member described by some at the time as disgruntled. Stalin immediately blamed the assassination on his principal political enemies, Leon Trotsky (in exile at the time), Lev Borisovich Kamenev, and Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev. It is now generally agreed by scholars that Stalin himself arranged the murder of Kirov, his friend and ally, to generate an excuse to eliminate his rivals. On the day of Kirov’s murder, Stalin asked the party to issue a decree eliminating civil and legal rights for all persons accused of “terroristic acts.” This made it possible for the government to arrest, detain (for the purpose of gaining forced confessions), or execute anyone it wished. In January, 1935, Kamenev, Zinovyev, and two others were tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for their alleged roles in the Kirov murder. The length of the sentences was irrelevant, as none of those arrested was
1934
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Joseph Stalin (left) in 1925 with Lev Borisovich Kamenev (second from right) and Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (right). (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Stalin Begins the Purge Trials ever released. This was the beginning of what became known as the “purification” of the Communist Party. Stalin began with Kamenev and Zinovyev because he perceived them as especially treacherous. They had once worked closely with him in the 1920’s but then had turned against him and given their loyalty to Trotsky. After the January convictions, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of party members came under suspicion. Many were shot, detained, or sent to distant regions of the Soviet Union. Although some in the Politburo were uneasy with this development, Stalin insisted that it was necessary to protect the country from those who wished to “wreck” his great drive for full communization. The first victims when Stalin began purging the party were those considered to be “Old Bolsheviks,” party members who had been associated with Vladimir Ilich Lenin and Trotsky during the 1917 revolution and in the formative days of the Soviet state. Many had been supporters of Lenin’s moderate New Economic Policy begun in 1921. The greatest number of those purged in 1935 were individuals who, after Lenin’s death in 1924, had supported Trotsky’s claim to succeed Lenin as head of the party and the state. Between 1924 and 1927, Trotsky and Stalin competed for control. Stalin was ultimately successful, and Trotsky went into exile for the remainder of his life. Stalin continued to insist, however, that Trotsky’s followers (“Trotskyites”), guided by their leader from abroad, were working to remove him from power. Having been established as his enemies, they became convenient scapegoats to explain every failure that Stalin experienced. He could simply say that the Trotskyites had wrecked his plans. In 1936, Stalin intensified the purging. Public trials (“show trials”) were held in which those accused were expected to confess their misdeeds and to implicate others involved in plots against Stalin. Kamenev and Zinovyev, already in prison, were among sixteen Old Bolsheviks put on public trial in August, 1936. All were charged with conducting a terrorist campaign at Trotsky’s bidding, and all were sentenced to death. From that point, the purging began to mushroom. After a second round of show trials in January, 1937, there was no way to brake the terror that Stalin had instigated in 1935. No one except Stalin was insulated from the possibility of being charged as a Trotskyite. For the first eighteen months after Stalin started the purges, the country at large remained relatively unaffected. That changed in 1937. Nikolay Ivanovich Yezhov, the new chief of the NKVD (secret police), understood that Stalin expected him to dispatch all of the 2788
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Soviet leader’s political opponents as quickly as possible. With Yezhov in charge, the purging became much better organized. The NKVD began to arrest people by the thousands, usually in the predawn hours. Anyone accused of disloyalty to Stalin was presumed to be guilty of “wrecking.” Desperate to prove their loyalty to the regime, officials and ordinary citizens began to accuse others of treason. Neighbors denounced neighbors, fellow workers denounced one another, subordinates denounced their superiors, and relatives denounced relatives. In each instance, the person denounced to a local official was arrested and charged as an “enemy of the people.” Falling victim to the purge was largely a matter of chance for those outside the party, but those most frequently denounced were persons of foreign birth or members of minority groups, especially Ukrainians, Jews, and Armenians. All who were accused were expected to confess (the NKVD used torture when persuasion failed) and to implicate others. There is evidence that Stalin was aware of the effect on the country of the expanded purge, but by the middle of 1937 even he was powerless to slow it down. The general hysteria in the country made the terror an unstoppable force. Citizens throughout the Soviet Union lived in fear of a late-night or early-morning knock on the door. The terror reached its peak in 1937 and early 1938; thereafter, the NKVD no longer had sufficient resources to respond to the huge number of accusations it received. Yezhov, architect of this worst phase of the purging, was himself charged with “Trotskyite” leanings in 1938 and purged. The coming of World War II in the late summer of 1939 finally brought the purging to an end, as internal enemies were replaced by external enemies and capitalist powers became temporary allies of the Soviet Union. Significance Stalin’s purging of political opponents created great problems for the Communist Party and, ultimately, for the country at large. Those officials and party leaders who were purged had to be replaced, and the replacements were frequently ill equipped to handle their new responsibilities. The dimensions of the purging serve to illustrate this point. More than one-half of the Communist Party’s Central Committee (78 of 139 members) were purged, and more than one-third of those who sat in the Politburo between 1927 and 1938 were expelled. The army and the government suffered staggering losses: Thirteen of the fifteen commanders of the Soviet Army were purged between 1935 and 1938, as were fourteen of the eighteen ministers of state. Thus, throughout the or-
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Further Reading Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. An expanded and revised edition of Conquest’s pioneering 1968 work on the subject. _______. The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1973. This is the most popular, most readable, and perhaps most thoroughly documented account of the Great Purge. Conquest, an English political writer, provides a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of the purge. His epilogue on the “Heritage of the Terror” is especially valuable. Scholars have questioned some of Con-
quest’s conclusions. Appendixes, bibliographical note, select bibliography, and index. _______. Stalin and the Kirov Murder. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. This small book investigates Stalin’s probable responsibility in causing Kirov’s death. _______. Stalin: Breaker of Nations. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. This psychological study emphasizes Stalin’s paranoia and his desire to achieve massive power. Crowley, Joan Frances, and Dan Vaillancourt. Lenin to Gorbachev: Three Generations of Communists. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1989. A very useful introduction to Communist leaders from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to Gorbachev. Crowley and Vaillancourt write in a style that is clear and without jargon. The section on Stalin is excellent. Suggestions for further reading and index. Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg V. Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. This detailed account of Stalin’s campaign is the first to utilize formerly secret Soviet documents. Includes appendixes. Levytsky, Boris. The Stalinist Terror in the Thirties: Documentation from the Soviet Press. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1974. Includes more than two hundred biographies of purge victims, plus the later Soviet rehabilitation campaign of some of those unjustly accused and punished. _______. The Uses of Terror: The Soviet Secret Police, 1917-1970. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1972. Broad survey of the topic includes a description and assessment of the purges of the 1930’s. Potok, Chaim. The Gates of November: Chronicles of the Slepak Family. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Biography of a family who survived Stalin’s purge. Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive Documents from Russia’s Secret Archives. New York: Doubleday, 1996. Provides more details on specific cases and Stalin’s role during the purges, based on previously classified files. Thurston, Robert W. Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia: 1934-1941. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996. A controversial account of Stalin’s purges, proposing an alternative interpretation of the terror campaign. Illustrated, includes maps. Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New 2789
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deal, the purgers were themselves always subject to being purged. As the purging expanded beyond the confines of the party, the effect on the country became devastating. Business and industry came virtually to a standstill, as workers and supervisors were afraid to make an error, lest they be charged with “wrecking.” In the major cities—Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev—there was little activity, as residents tried to limit their associations. The Moscow telephone directory was not published in 1938 because most people wanted to keep their telephone numbers and street addresses secret. Artists, writers, and intellectuals dared not express themselves freely. All were expected to produce works that somehow glorified the Stalinist state and reflected negatively on what had existed before Stalin. Stalin wanted paintings of tanks and factories, not romantic sunsets or anything that might be considered bourgeois. Writers of history were to make it clear that Stalin’s regime represented the culmination of all that had gone before in Russia’s past. The most important political consequence of the Great Purge was that Stalin obliterated all political debate and discussion. Members of the Politburo no longer raised questions during their meetings with Stalin. He had succeeded in creating one-person rule, or, as Nikita S. Khrushchev called it, “the cult of personality.” Although World War II made Stalin a hero in the Soviet Union, the legacy of fear that he instigated was not seriously challenged until three years after his death, when Khrushchev, who had risen to prominence as Stalin’s ally during the purge, addressed the Communist Party Congress. In that February, 1956, speech, Khrushchev— before an astonished group of party leaders—condemned Stalin as a murderer and Stalinism as a misguided formula for a successful Communist state. —Ronald K. Huch
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Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. This substantial biography by a noted Russian historian provides a postCommunist perspective of Stalin. Von Laue, Theodore. Why Lenin? Why Stalin? 2d ed. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1971. This may be the single best essay written about the formative years of the Communist Revolution. Von Laue’s grasp of Russian history and its application to early twentieth century events is impressive. Highly recommended for all readers. Suggestions for further reading and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow; Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning; Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union; Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal; Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime; Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church; Dec., 1940: Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism.
December 1, 1934
Goodman Begins His LET’S DANCE Broadcasts Benny Goodman’s Let’s Dance broadcasts on network radio led to the launching of the “swing era,” in which big band music achieved huge popularity. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Music; radio and television; entertainment Key Figures Benny Goodman (1909-1986), virtuoso clarinetist and bandleader who helped establish swing music as the dominant popular style of 1935-1945 Fletcher “Smack” Henderson (1897-1952), pioneering black orchestrator and bandleader John Hammond (1910-1987), scion of a wealthy family who recorded some of the most important American musicians Gene Krupa (1909-1973), drummer whose drive and showmanship contributed to the popularity of the Goodman band Teddy Wilson (1912-1986), African American pianist who joined Goodman’s trio and became part of the first famous integrated group in American music Lionel Hampton (1908-2002), vibraphonist and drummer who helped turn Goodman’s trio into an influential jazz quartet Summary of Event Benny Goodman’s prodigious talent as a clarinetist freed him from an early life of poverty in a Jewish ghetto in Chicago; by the age of thirteen, he was a member of the American Musicians Union, and he became a full-time professional within the following year. He quickly combined his traditional European classical training with an 2790
interest in the New Orleans-style jazz that was flourishing in Chicago and paid special attention to important players such as Jimmy Noone, Albert Nicholas, Johnny Dodds, and Barney Bigard. Goodman played with various dance bands, and at the age of sixteen he joined drummer Ben Pollack’s Chicago-based band, which was working in California at the time. In 1926, Goodman made his first recordings with Pollack, and he had recorded under his own name by 1928. He played with most of the promising white jazz players in Chicago, including Dave Tough, Bud Freeman, Gene Krupa, and the visiting Bix Beiderbecke, before moving with Pollack to New York, where he continued to record and broaden his experience. As economic times became increasingly difficult, the talented Goodman found work in a variety of dance bands and as a freelance musician playing in theater-pit bands, film sound-track studios, and radio-studio orchestras. His first love was jazz, and in 1934 he decided to form a big band that would satisfy both his taste in music and his need for stable employment. On a shoestring budget, Goodman assembled a band, and with the encouragement of his future brother-in-law John Hammond, he landed an engagement at the new Billy Rose Music Hall. After four months, the management changed and the band was fired. During this period, Goodman struggled to give his undistinguished band a musical identity. Plans to take an all-star, racially mixed band to England fell through, and Goodman hung all his hopes on being hired for an exciting new radio program sponsored by the National Biscuit Company (later Nabisco) to advertise its new product, Ritz crackers. The program, called Let’s Dance, was to feature a “sweet”
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Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts
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band, a Latin band, and a “hot” or jazz band in a three-hour program broadcast on Saturday nights to fiftythree stations nationwide on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network. Goodman narrowly won the audition in the hot band category, in which he played a brassy and rhythmic jazz-oriented dance music that became known as swing. On December 1, 1934, the Benny Goodman Band made its first broadTo view image, please refer to the cast in the Let’s Dance series before a print edition of this title. large studio audience. Goodman’s contract provided for generous salaries and the purchase of the musical arrangements necessary to supply a band of fourteen musicians with fresh material for each program. These written arrangements were essential to the establishment of the band’s identifying and distinctive sound, and Goodman, who was not an arranger, set about commissioning writers who could work to his specifications. Goodman’s ideal was to assemble a Benny Goodman plays the clarinet with his orchestra at the Roseland Ballroom in band that featured ample room for New York City in 1938. (AP/Wide World Photos) improvised solos, a disciplined yet swinging ensemble, and an inspiring rhythm section. As his career propromoter of African American artists. Hammond engressed, Goodman made frequent personnel changes in couraged Goodman to buy some of Henderson’s aran attempt to find better musicians, and this contributed rangements for his own band. In effect, this meant adoptto his reputation as a difficult employer. The most signifing the Henderson sound. icant of the early additions were the flamboyant drumHenderson’s influence strengthened when he agreed mer Gene Krupa and the gifted trumpet player Bunny to write orchestrations especially for Goodman, whose Berigan, who would both become famous musicians in well-trained band executed them with a flawless rhyththeir own right. mic drive seldom heard in white bands of the day. AlGoodman had long been an admirer of Fletcher though Goodman continued to use a number of talented “Smack” Henderson’s orchestra, an aggregation of Afriarrangers, the bulk of his band’s repertoire (including can American musicians that had been well known important pieces such as “King Porter Stomp” and among other musicians since the mid-1920’s. Henderson and his collaborators are usually credited with perfecting “Down South Camp Meetin’”) and much of its fundathe basic formulas used by most large jazz-oriented mental style originated with Fletcher Henderson. Goodbands in their written orchestrations. Unfortunately, man put his own stamp on the band through his insistence Henderson’s abilities as a leader did not match his musion excellence and his meticulous attention to nuance and cal talent; by 1934 his influential band was disintegrating musical detail. His virtuoso clarinet playing became a and the Depression was exacerbating his financial probtrademark that appealed to a wide audience while relems. John Hammond, a member of the Vanderbilt maining true to its jazz roots. family and one of the most important nonmusicians in The national exposure afforded by the Let’s Dance American musical history, was a lifelong supporter and broadcasts started Goodman on the road to stardom if not
Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts immediate popular success. However, when the Let’s Dance series was canceled after twenty-six broadcasts as a result of the sponsor’s labor troubles, Goodman found himself out of work. Hired to replace Guy Lombardo and his orchestra at New York’s prestigious Hotel Roosevelt, Goodman’s band was abruptly fired as too loud and jazzy. In a desperate attempt to save the band, Goodman embarked on a long cross-country tour. Audiences ranged from mildly enthusiastic to indifferent, and the dispirited Goodman expected that he would be forced to disband in California. When the band appeared at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, however, it was greeted by excited crowds of mainly young people who came not only to dance but also to listen. The way had been prepared by the Let’s Dance live broadcasts, the local disc jockeys who often featured Goodman’s recorded music, and the increased availability and sales of the records Goodman had made during and after the period of his network broadcasts. Crowds grew in size and enthusiasm, and the Palomar engagement was extended from one month to two. Public taste was shifting and Goodman, soon to be dubbed the “King of Swing” by a press agent, had caught the crest of the wave. Significance After his triumph at the Palomar, Goodman’s next major appearance was at Chicago’s Congress Hotel, where an engagement of one month was extended to six. During this period, the popular press joined jazz journalists in paying increasing attention to Goodman’s music. Goodman’s success allowed him, with the encouragement of some Chicago socialites, to confront the de facto racial segregation that existed in American entertainment. At a specially arranged benefit performance, both Goodman and Krupa played on stage with a group of black musicians in what Goodman believed was the first integrated performance before a paying audience in the United States. Jazz is essentially the product of African American culture, and most white jazz musicians had taken outstanding black musicians as their models. Interracial performances were common at informal jam sessions and had occurred from time to time in public, but they seldom took place at important venues. Goodman himself was one of many who had played with racially mixed groups on recordings, where color could be ignored, but those who controlled the music industry were convinced that the public would not accept black and white musicians who openly performed together as equals. Despite his own concern about the financial and other consequences, 2792
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Goodman decided to use his growing popularity to publicly challenge prevailing racism. Goodman already had made several popular trio recordings with Gene Krupa and the impressive young black pianist Teddy Wilson. With the urging of John Hammond and others, he introduced his trio as part of a special concert. When the feared adverse reaction did not materialize, Goodman made trio appearances a part of his regular band performances, but he did not yet dare to actually integrate his band. Instead, he presented the trio as a unit by itself. Despite the tentative nature of Goodman’s initial actions, he showed considerable courage in breaking the color barrier, and his success was well publicized. When Goodman expanded his trio to a quartet in 1936, he hired another black musician, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Wilson and Hampton’s association with Goodman made both famous, and Hampton credited Goodman’s example with opening up opportunities for African Americans not only in music but also eventually in baseball and other fields. Although notoriously parsimonious, Goodman accepted the financial and social problems that threatened integrated groups. He wanted the best musicians he could find and continued to employ African Americans throughout the rest of his career. Goodman’s small groups also had an influence on American culture. He often set up his trio or quartet on the dance floor so that audiences were enticed to pay close attention to these exciting ensembles. This chamber music approach introduced a broad audience to the conventions and delights of superior small-group jazz performance and presented jazz as both an accompaniment to dancing and socializing and as music worthy of serious attention. Goodman’s example was copied frequently by other big band leaders, including his rival clarinetist Artie Shaw, who formed a small group called the Gramercy Five. Some critics who found Goodman’s big band performances artistically uneven point to his trio, quartet, and sextet recordings as examples of his highest musical achievements. As Goodman’s fame and success increased, the jazz that his band and others like it played became the popular music of the day. For about a decade, commercial success accompanied a significant elevation in the public’s musical taste. Not only leaders but also sidemen such as Goodman’s outstanding trumpet soloist Harry James became celebrities on a par with the most famous film stars. Goodman’s band itself appeared in a number of Hollywood films, as did other swing bands such as those of Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller.
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Further Reading Baron, Stanley. “Introduction.” In Benny, King of Swing: A Pictorial Biography Based on Benny Goodman’s Personal Archives, by Benny Goodman. New York: William Morrow, 1979. The handsome coffee-table book has more than two hundred photographs and Baron’s long introduction, replete with interesting anecdotes and biographical details but little musical commentary. No index. Collier, James Lincoln. Benny Goodman and the Swing Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. A comprehensive and detailed study of Goodman, his many sidemen, and their music within the musical, social, and historical context of the swing period. Its scholarly method and personal opinion make this a
lively if at times quirky approach to the subject. An attempt is made to debunk many popular myths. Photographs, a selected discography, and index. Connor, D. Russell, and Warren W. Hicks. BG on the Record: A Bio-Discography of Benny Goodman. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969. A standard and highly detailed reference for the study of most of Goodman’s recordings, including dates, locations, and personnel. Biographical details and anecdotes place the recordings in context. Photographs and a variety of indexes, including song titles, artists, and arrangers. Douglas, George H. The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting. 1987. Reprint. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Provides excellent coverage of the start of networking and the rise of announcers, news, and sportscasting. An admiring and sympathetic—although not uncritical—view of the subjects. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Douglas, Susan J. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. New York: Crown, 1999. Focuses on the effects of radio listening on Americans’ social, political, and economic attitudes and beliefs. Covers the period from radio’s golden age in the 1930’s to the end of the twentieth century. Goodman, Benny, and Irving Kolodin. The Kingdom of Swing. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1939. Goodman’s autobiography, written near the height of his success. Highly readable. A few photographs, no index. Hammond, John, with Irving Townsend. John Hammond on Record: An Autobiography. New York: Penguin Books, 1981. By the man who discovered and first recorded performers ranging from Billie Holiday and Count Basie to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Hammond, associated with Goodman through common interests and family ties (Goodman married his sister several years after the men had first met), provides an insider’s view of Goodman’s career. Photographs, a selective discography, and index. Schuller, Gunther. “The ‘King’ of Swing: Benny Goodman.” In The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. A valuable and at times technical evaluation of Goodman’s musical achievements by one of the foremost experts in the field. Transcribed musical illustrations, a selected discography, glossaries, and indexes. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Excel2793
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Goodman’s success in presenting jazz as a respectable music purely for listening was demonstrated triumphantly in 1938 by his historic concert at Carnegie Hall, a hallowed venue previously reserved largely for classical music. The absentminded Goodman discovered twelve years later that he had recordings of the concert, and these records went on to sell more than one million copies and became some of the most popular jazz recordings of all time. As Goodman sought to make jazz more respected, his classical music performances enhanced his own credibility as well as that of other jazz musicians. Many who had disparaged jazz and its players came to see that the boundaries between genres were fundamentally artificial as Goodman commissioned and performed music by such composers as Béla Bartók, Aaron Copland, and Paul Hindemith. During the height of swing music’s popularity in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, there were at least fifty dance bands with national reputations and significant followings and hundreds of lesser-known and local professional orchestras. Dance styles such as the jitterbug were based on swing music, fan clubs boosted individual bands, and thousands of high school and college students, especially young women, flocked to performances, where they often mobbed the bandstands and drowned out the music in their enthusiasm (this occurred in 1937 at Goodman’s legendary Paramount Theater appearances in New York City). Radio broadcasts, record sales, public dances and performances, and extensive media coverage all confirmed that swing was the period’s dominant form of American musical entertainment, and Goodman had played a central role in its development. —Douglas Rollins
Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts
Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet lent scholarly account of the subject provides both background and important detail. Includes critical bibliography and discography as well as numerous selections from scores and an extensive index. See also: 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six; Feb. 12, 1924: Gersh-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 win’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment; 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career; Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the AstaireRogers Dance Team.
December 6, 1934
Balanchine’s SERENADE Inaugurates American Ballet George Balanchine’s Serenade presaged a new era for ballet in the United States. Locale: Avery Memorial Theater, Hartford, Connecticut Category: Dance Key Figures George Balanchine (1904-1983), Russian American choreographer Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996), American impresario Edward Warburg (1908-1992), American patron of the arts Summary of Event Born Georgi Melitonovich Balanchivadze in St. Petersburg, Russia, George Balanchine was enrolled in the Imperial Ballet School in that city at age ten and danced in productions at the Mariinsky Theatre. After becoming known for his experimental choreography, he formed a small troupe of dancers to tour Germany in 1924, with the full intention of never returning to the revolutionary turmoil in Soviet Russia. He joined Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes the next year and remained the company’s chief choreographer until the company disbanded after Diaghilev’s death four years later. For the next three years, Balanchine worked in London, Paris, Monte Carlo, and Copenhagen for various theaters, but the insecurity of this peripatetic life did not appeal to him. When Lincoln Kirstein appeared on the scene in 1933 and offered him the directorship of a company that was yet to come into existence, Balanchine took a gamble and moved to the United States, a country that had fascinated him for much of his life. This decision was to change the shape of American ballet. Balanchine was not the first Russian dancer to seek his fortune in the United States. Anna Pavlova had toured the country from coast to coast beginning in 1910, and 2794
several of her partners had settled in the United States to teach. Vaslav Nijinsky led Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes for a series of American appearances in 1916. Other of Diaghilev’s chief choreographers and dancers, most notably Michel Fokine and Adolf Bolm, had come to the United States to teach and perform. By the time Balanchine arrived on October 17, 1933, well-established pockets existed across the country where young dancers could receive adequate training in ballet. Balanchine, however, recognized the need for an academy with unified standards where talented dancers could be molded to suit his stylistic needs. The first auditions for the School of American Ballet were held on January 1, 1934, and a first performance was scheduled for June of that year. Balanchine chose as music for the ballet a piece that he had loved ever since he was a child, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade in C for String Orchestra (1880). The composer was one with whom Balanchine felt a close spiritual affiliation all his life. More practical considerations were involved as well; for example, the piece required only a small orchestra, which was all the company could afford. For the premiere, Balanchine utilized the first three movements of the Tchaikovsky work; in 1940, he added the final section (which he interposed before the third movement). Working in a style that anticipated modern dancer Merce Cunningham’s “chance” choreography, in which a flip of a coin may determine dance sequences, Balanchine choreographed Serenade with whichever dancers happened to show up each day for rehearsal. For example, the beginning section of Serenade has a corps de ballet of seventeen female dancers—because that was how many were enrolled in the class. Not until Charles Laskey joined the rehearsals was a male dancer introduced into the second section. A dancer entered late one day and walked through the lines to search out her place;
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Hartford premiere was adjudged a glamorous event by its fashionable audience, which included George Gershwin and Salvador Dalí. The American Ballet made its New York City debut with Serenade on March 1, 1935, and Balanchine was to retain his ties with the city, except for a brief period, from then on. Neither the puzzled critic for the New York Post nor John Martin of The New York Times was particularly impressed with Serenade, however. Martin even had the effrontery to suggest that Balanchine ought to be sent back to Paris, where his avant-garde “Riviera esthetics” really belonged, so that he could be replaced by an Americanborn director. Kirstein, however, praised Serenade’s “cool frankness, a candor that seemed at once lyric and natively athletic; a straightforward yet passionate clarity and freshness suitable to the foundation of a non-European academy.” He was echoed by the critic of the Dancing Times in London, who commented that “Serenade, which opened the bill, contains some of Balanchine’s most unusual groupings, breathtaking in the sheer beauty of their arrangement. The ‘Elegy,’ which forms the closing movement of this ballet, is a little masterpiece of choreographic design.” Significance The company’s size grew from the original twenty-eight dancers who performed in Hartford that December to forty-five within the next nine months. The season, boasted company supporter Edward Warburg, proved that a first-rate company of American-born dancers could be put together, and that these dancers could even be comparable on a technical level with European imports. Martin of The New York Times had “nothing but praise” for these “hard-working youngsters,” who conveyed “the dignity and purity of the classic style at its best.” The writer for the Dancing Times agreed that inexperienced dancers had been magically transformed into skilled dancers, but pointed out that their artistic maturity still lagged behind. The company not only proved that Americans could dance well but also raised hopes of establishing an American tradition of ballet that would equal the Russian tradition. Martin had originally welcomed the company in “An Open Letter of Greeting,” in which he complimented the organizers for their “sincere and almost passionate purpose to create an American ballet.” He expressed reservations about the choice of a Russian choreographer—one who would take many years to acquire “a feeling of America, its life and background” and 2795
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Balanchine mischievously retained the sequence, a pointed lesson to remind others to come on time. Another dancer slipped, fell, and began to cry, and Balanchine told her to repeat the incident thereafter at the exact same spot in the piece. The ballet, then, became a living witness to the company’s transition from amateur to professional, a veritable history of individual growth. Serenade begins with daring simplicity: Seventeen girls pose with right arms lifted in salute. They perform standard ports de bras exercises with arms moving slowly along circular paths, movements drawn from the five classic positions of ballet. Then, with deliberate abruptness, the dancers face forward, toward the audience. Suddenly, their legs rotate outward so that they stand resolutely with heels touching. The underlying message is obvious: They acknowledge the three-hundred-year-old tradition of classic ballet and yet announce that they are fully prepared to face whatever the future may bring. They are ready to dance. Extravagantly fullblown movements follow, with great arm sweeps, full backbends, and the fleet footwork that was to become a Balanchine signature. The ballet’s most gripping sequence is its conclusion, a dreamlike scene in which a man walks slowly across the stage followed by a darkly dressed woman, who covers his eyes with one hand and holds her other hand over his heart. The man’s eyes open, and he beholds a woman at his feet. The three begin to dance, but they are interrupted by streams of dancers who throw themselves into the man’s arms. He attempts to express his love for the woman, but when he places his hand over his heart to pledge his devotion, the dark shadow behind him again covers his eyes and places her chill hand over his heart. He walks away, and the distraught woman is borne offstage by a solemn procession of dancers. The final scene is noteworthy for its psychological ambiguity: Strong emotions appear to underlie the dancers’ relationships, yet the ballet’s creator denied any attempt to portray a story. Balanchine prided himself on his innovative “plotless” ballets, which discarded the dramatic story line and lush scenery characteristic of many Diaghilev ballets. When a puzzled dowager once demanded to know what one particular ballet was about, he is alleged to have replied pertly, “About twenty minutes.” Serenade evidently held a special meaning for him, however; one night he confessed to a friend that the final scene was “like fate. . . . Each man going through the world with his destiny on his back. He meets a woman—he cares for her—but his destiny has other plans.”
Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet
Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet who would “inevitably put the stamp of Europe upon his pupils and dancers in these sensitive and formative years.” The directors of the American Ballet, however, remained adamant in their conviction that their work would one day come to be seen as the building of an American tradition in classical dance. In their brave aspirations and high expectations, they could cite the successes of the early modern dancers of the time such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Helen Tamiris, who were founders of an American dance form of great originality. After the company moved to New York, the American Ballet joined with the Metropolitan Opera ballet for the 1935 to 1938 seasons; in 1946, Balanchine and Kirstein founded the Ballet Society, and in 1948 they were invited to join the New York City Center with the company that became known as the New York City Ballet. Serenade became the company’s signature piece. The New York City Ballet style associated with Balanchine became an international standard by the end of the twentieth century, and plotless ballets, once dismissed as mere avant-garde experiments, became the norm. The cool neoclassicism of the so-called Balanchine ballerina was soon imitated everywhere. The choreographer acknowledged that women had primacy in his ballets—“Ballet is woman,” he was fond of saying. His women all looked alike, even down to their diamond stud earrings; he declared that they must have “skin the color of a peeled apple,” and he chose dancers with coltishly long legs, long necks, small heads, long hair, and prepubescent, even anorexic, physiques. Balanchine’s vision came to dominate the ballet world, with the unfortunate consequence that, even years after his death, many talented dancers, including African American women and women with bustlines, could find only limited performance opportunities in ballet. In the end, Kirstein and Warburg’s faith in Balanchine was confirmed, and John Martin confessed error. At the moment of Serenade’s premiere, Kirstein was beside himself with impatience to get the company moving, for he had set a deadline to deliver “an American ballet,” free of alien influences and danced by American youths, within a few years after Balanchine’s arrival. It was going to take longer than that, but their vision eventually made debtors of everyone in the ballet world. —Maureen Needham Costonis Further Reading Balanchine, George, and Francis Mason. Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets. Rev. ed. Gar2796
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 den City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. Useful reference source. Chapter on Serenade describes the ballet’s action, with a rare commentary by Balanchine on his own work in which he rejects the notion of “storytelling.” Includes descriptions of other Balanchine works and index. Barnes, Clive. “Serenade.” In Dance and Dancers. London: Hansom Books, 1976. A description of Serenade in honor of the ballet’s performance by the Royal Ballet in 1964. Most writers focus on the ballet’s historical importance as the first Balanchine ballet in the United States, so Barnes’s reactions to the Royal Ballet version, although more journalistic than scholarly, are refreshing. Includes photographs. Buckle, Richard, with John Taras. George Balanchine: Ballet Master. New York: Random House, 1988. One of the most comprehensive biographies of Balanchine available includes previously unpublished information about his early life in Russia. Unfortunately, the author’s effusive praise does a disservice to a subject known for excessive modesty. Features limited bibliography, source notes, photographs, and index. Garafola, Lynn. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. A selection of essays and reviews by one of the most influential scholars of the history of dance. Covers the transformation of dance, especially ballet, since the early twentieth century. Includes many photographs. Kirstein, Lincoln. The New York City Ballet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. Blends Kirstein’s intensely personal diary jottings with his later recollections. Provides invaluable insights into the founding of the American Ballet. Profusely illustrated with exquisite photographs. Includes appendix containing a list of premiere performances produced by all the Balanchine companies and index. Teachout, Terry. All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2004. Biography by a literary critic emphasizes Balanchine’s personal life while moving through a chronological discussion of the ballets. Includes photographs. Volkov, Solomon. Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky: Interviews with George Balanchine. Translated by Antonia W. Bovis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. Although normally shy in talking about his sources of creative inspiration or working methods, Balanchine opened up to Volkov, a fellow Russian émigré. The author, a trained musicologist, succeeds in making this pro-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vocative book much more than a series of formulaic questions and answers. Sheds indirect light on Balanchine’s emotional life. Includes parallel chronologies of events in Tchaikovsky’s and Balanchine’s lives and index. See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides
Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1912: L’Aprèsmidi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Jan. 26, 1936: Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London; Apr. 5, 1938: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts.
December 29, 1934
Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties The renunciation of the Washington and London naval treaties was a significant step in Japan’s move toward militarism in the early 1930’s. Locale: Tokyo, Japan; London, England; Geneva, Switzerland Category: Diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event On December 29, 1934, the Japanese government formally renounced the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. This action, which occurred after the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 and the international reaction condemning it, was a further step along the road to Japan’s participation in World War II. The Washington Naval Treaty had been an attempt to deal with the growing tensions between Japan and the Western powers—especially the United States and Great Britain—in the years following World War I. Although Japan had fought on the winning side in the war and was a
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Key Figures Shidehara Kijnrf (1872-1951), ambassador to the United States, 1919-1922, and Japanese foreign minister, 1924-1927, 1929-1931 Katf Tomosaburf (1861-1923), Japanese navy minister, 1915-1923 Katf Hiroharu (1870-1939), senior naval expert, Washington conference delegation, 1921-1922, and chief of the navy general staff, 1930 Hirota Kfki (1878-1948), Japanese foreign minister, 1933-1936 bsumi Mineo (1876-1941), Japanese naval minister, 1934-1936 Okada Keisuke (1868-1952), Japanese prime minister, July, 1934-March, 1936 Hamaguchi Osachi (1870-1931), Japanese prime minister, July, 1929-April, 1931
participant in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that concluded it, Japan disagreed with the Western powers on several key issues. Most notable among these was Japan’s territorial claim resulting from the war and its plans for naval expansion in the Pacific. In response to these matters, an international conference was held in Washington from November of 1921 to February of 1922. Three treaties with major implications for Japan’s future resulted from this conference. The first, the Four-Power Treaty (involving the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan) committed the participants to maintenance of the status quo in the Pacific. The second treaty, the Nine-Power Treaty (including these same four countries and Belgium, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, and China) affirmed China’s territorial integrity and created an open-door policy for foreign trade and investment there. The third treaty, the Washington Treaty, dealt with placing limits on naval expansion. It was also known as the Five-Power Treaty and was signed by the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, and Italy. In particular, the negotiation of the naval treaty caused a considerable amount of controversy. The process focused on the establishment of ratios for the relative size of each country’s navy: The United States and Great Britain favored a ratio of 10:10:6 for the number of battleships held by their countries and by Japan, but the Japanese representatives were divided on this question. Navy minister Admiral Katf Tomosaburf and ambassador to the United States Shidehara Kijnrf indicated willingness to accept the formula if compromises could be reached on other issues, whereas senior naval adviser Rear Admiral Katf Hiroharu supported a ratio of 10:10:7. In the end, Katf Tomosaburf and Shidehara prevailed, and the 10:10:6 ratio was accepted. Attempts to expand the treaty to include smaller ships failed, and the treaty, with only the larger ships included, was signed on February 6, 1922. Formal ratification by the Japanese
Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties assembly occurred on August 5. Although in the 1930’s, Japanese militarists viewed the treaty as a sign of weakness, the Washington treaty came to stand as one of the key events of what is often called “Shidehara diplomacy,” named for the aforementioned Japanese diplomat whose efforts to maintain positive relations with the West dominated Japanese foreign policy during this period. After the three 1922 treaties were signed, future meetings to update and possibly expand the agreements were scheduled for Geneva in 1927 and London in 1930. At the Geneva meeting, Japanese negotiators again put forward the 10:10:7 ratio, this time in connection with the discussion of limitations on smaller naval vessels. When negotiations on this issue failed, the matter was held over until the London meeting. When that latter meeting convened, on January 21, 1930, the lines between Japan and the two Western powers seemed more firmly drawn. After considerable discussion, an agreement was reached on April 22 that partially met the Japanese demands, although the 10:10:6 formula remained in place for ships of the larger cruiser class. Although it was formally ratified in the Japanese diet on October 2, the agreement was met with an outpouring of dissent. Key government and military officials resigned, including Admiral Katf Hiroharu, who had become chief of the navy general staff. Furthermore, the treaty was almost certainly a factor that led to the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi in November. (Hamaguchi died from injuries related to the attempt in April of 1931.) In the years that followed, Japan slipped under the control of the militarists, and relationships with the Western powers became increasingly tense. In September of 1931, the Japanese military—acting totally outside of the control of the civil government in Tokyo— moved to occupy Manchuria. In response to this action, the U.S. government formally proclaimed the Stimson Doctrine (named for U.S. secretary of state Henry L. Stimson), which refused to recognize Japan’s right to its newly gained territory, in January of 1931. In May of 1932, right-wing extremists staged an armed rebellion in an attempt to overthrow the civil government. The rebellion was successfully put down, but the military’s power grew as a result. The following year, in February of 1933, Japan officially withdrew from the League of Nations in response to the release of the League’s Lytton Commission report, which condemned Japanese aggression in Manchuria and refused to recognize its newly established puppet state of Manchukuo. As a result of these events, strong 2798
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sentiments were taking shape within Japan to formally renounce the Washington and London treaties and move toward full parity in naval power with the United States and Great Britain. The movement to end the naval treaties reached a crescendo in July of 1934, when the naval minister, Admiral bsumi Mineo, threatened to resign from the government of Prime Minister Okada Keisuke if the treaties were not formally ended. A number of efforts were made to moderate the crisis. The Japanese foreign minister, Hirota Kfki, set forth a plan to move toward parity with the United States and Britain in stages. By September, however, efforts to gain United States and British support for this plan had failed. Following a period of further debate, the Okada government formally renounced the treaties on December 29. Significance In the aftermath of these events, one more effort was made to settle the differences. A meeting of representatives from Japan, Britain, the United States, France, and Italy took place in London in 1935. When the Japanese again argued for full parity with the United States and Britain, the proposal was again rejected by the Western powers, and the Japanese left the conference. From that point, events continued their downward spiral to the eventual onset of the war in the Pacific. The Japanese renunciation of the 1922 Washington and London naval treaties was as a significant event in Japan’s movement toward militarism, both at home and abroad. It demonstrated both the military’s growing power of over Japan’s civil governments as well the rejection of the pattern of Shidehara diplomacy and international cooperation that had characterized Japanese foreign policy during the previous decade. These trends would lead the nation into World War II. — Scott Wright Further Reading Barnhart, Michael A. Japan and the World Since 1868. London: Edward Arnold, 1995. Offers a brief overview of the topic viewed within the larger context of Japan’s foreign policy since the Meiji Restoration. Dingman, Roger. Power in the Pacific: The Origins of Naval Arms Limitation, 1914-1922. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. In-depth background on the Washington conference. LaFeber, Walter. The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Contains background on the Washington and London
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 conferences viewed from the perspective of U.S.Japanese relations. Morley, James William, ed. Japan’s Foreign Policy, 1868-1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974. Contains a broad overview of the Washington treaty system as well as individual essays on Japan’s long-term relations with Britain (by Ian Nish) and on the United States (by Akira Iriye). Nish, Ian. Japanese Foreign Policy, 1869-1942. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977. Provides a broad view of the topic with particular emphasis on the personalities and policies of the various Japanese foreign ministers involved. O’Connor, Raymond G. Perilous Equilibrium: The
Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide United States and the London Conference of 1930. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1962. Indepth background on the first London conference. Pelz, Stephen E. Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. Offers a good overview of the topic and on the events leading from it to the beginning of World War II. See also: Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere; Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports.
1935
Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes Sydney Chapman’s determination of the lunar atmospheric tide (the effect of the Moon’s gravitation on Earth’s atmosphere) helped later scientists in their study of heat and radio physics. Locale: Imperial College, London, England Categories: Science and technology; earth science; physics Key Figures Sydney Chapman (1888-1970), English mathematician and geophysicist Julius Bartels (1899-1964), German geophysicist Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827), French astronomer and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), Scottish physicist
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Summary of Event In 1951, Sydney Chapman, an applied mathematician and geophysicist who had been a professor in Manchester, London, and Oxford, was named the advisory scientific director and professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska. Four years later, he became the senior research fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. His colleagues recognized that Chapman was a prolific producer and contributor to a greater understanding of the atmosphere: His work in the determination of the lunar air tide led to several (but by no means most) of the more than three hundred scientific papers he either authored or coauthored in
such areas as Earth’s magnetism; theory of nonuniform gases; solar plasma, geomagnetism, and aurora; and composition of the ionosphere. During the period 19121917, he also modified the accurate kinetic theory of gases that James Clerk Maxwell had proposed in 1867, and in the process Chapman discovered gaseous thermal diffusion and confirmed it through experiments. He also demonstrated the power of thermal diffusion in highly ionized gases such as those in a solar corona. Atmospheric tide, or atmospheric oscillation, is an atmospheric motion of the scale of Earth in which vertical accelerations are neglected. Atmospheric tides are produced by both the Sun and the Moon. They may be thermal, if the variation in atmospheric pressure is caused by the diurnal differential heating of the atmosphere by the Sun, or they may be gravitational, if the variation is caused by the attraction of the Sun or Moon. The semidiurnal lunar atmospheric tide is gravitational. On the other hand, atmospheric tides produced by solar twenty-four-, twelve-, eight-, and six-hour pressure fluctuations act on Earth’s atmosphere by means of its gravitational field and also by emitting electromagnetic radiation and particles toward it. The amplitude of the lunar atmospheric tide is so small that it is detected only by careful statistical analysis of a long record, such as that conducted by Chapman in 1918 and 1935. The lunar tide is the rise and fall of the oceanic surface twice each lunar day as a result of Earth’s rotation in a nonuniform external gravitational field. The atmosphere
Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide
Sydney Chapman. (National Science Foundation)
is subject to the same tide-producing gravitational forces as the oceans; this periodic change in atmospheric pressure is called the “equilibrium atmospheric” tide. At the equator, the calculated equilibrium tide-pressure variation at ground level is 0.022 millimeters of mercury (mmHg). Lunar twelve-hour fluctuations in pressure have been observed on the ground and are believed to be of purely gravitational origin; however, it is customary to refer to those periodic pressure fluctuations as atmospheric tides. The dynamical theory of atmospheric tides goes back to 1778, when Marquis Pierre-Simon Laplace first published his conclusions on the theory. According to Laplace, the barometric amplitudes in equatorial regions, as a result of the gravitational action of the Sun and Moon, should be about 0.0109 millimeter and 0.025 millimeter, respectively, and decrease rapidly with the increase of latitude. In 1842, at an observatory on the British island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the lunar semidiurnal pressure oscillation was determined to have a mean of about 0.055 millimeter, an 2800
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 amount that exceeded the calculated equilibrium tide of 0.022 millimeter by a factor of 2.5. In 1918, Chapman had become the first to determine the lunar atmospheric tide from barometric readings taken at a moderate latitude at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England. His conclusions were based on meteorological records of the barometer, wind, and temperature, which had been collected by the Greenwich Observatory during the period from 1854 to 1917. He also analyzed the magnetic data to determine the lunisolar daily variations of the magnetic field. (“Lunisolar” is a term used to describe the mutual relationship, or combined attraction, of the Moon and Sun.) Solar and lunisolar daily magnetic variations are caused by electric currents in the ionosphere, which are induced motions produced thermally and tidally. This relationship between the ionosphere and air tides led to Chapman’s later formulation of an idealized ionized layer. In these and later calculations, Chapman used the mathematical theory of statistics, which was emerging as a major scientific tool. (Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data.) He saw that statistics could be used to improve the quality of inferences in important sections of his study of atmospheric lunar tides. The rigorous statistical procedures allowed him to make clearer determinations and to elucidate features of tides in Earth’s atmosphere that are caused by the Moon’s gravitational attraction. Of specific importance were significant figures, which are the figures of a number that begin with the first figure to the left that is not a zero and end with the last figure on the right that is not a zero, or is considered to be exact. Mathematical numbers are known to any accuracy required and carry any number of significant figures. The mean of more than ten and less than one thousand numbers may contain one or more significant figures. Using this basis gave Chapman an advantage in finding the lunar tide from barometric readings in high latitudes. He followed his achievement with similar readings at more than fifty stations of the amplitude (in millimeters) during phases of the lunar semidiurnal mean atmospheric tide for the four equinoctial months (March, June, September, and December), and he presented his conclusions in 1935. Chapman found that the fundamental period of the free oscillation of the atmosphere as a whole is about twelve mean solar hours. Mean amplitudes and phases of the lunar semidiurnal atmospheric tide for the four equinoctial months had a mean of approximately 0.03 millimeter at 30 degrees
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 south latitude, 0.038 millimeter at 20 degrees, 0.045 millimeter at 10 degrees, and 0.060 millimeter at the equator. At 10 degrees north, the barometric pressure was about 0.052 millimeter; it was 0.028 millimeter at 20 degrees, 0.022 millimeter at 30 degrees, 0.018 millimeter at 40 degrees, and 0.013 millimeter at 50 degrees. This work aroused Chapman’s interest in geomagnetism and its connection with solar phenomena and led to his theoretical researches in these fields. He became best known for his research in geomagnetism and his pioneering work on both the photochemistry of the upper atmosphere and on nocturnal emission of light by atoms of oxygen and sodium. In 1940, he coauthored, with Julius Bartels, a two-volume work on geomagnetism. This complete work was an excellent contribution to the understanding of the external field of a uniformly magnetized sphere, the magnetic field at Earth’s surface, electric currents in and beyond the ionosphere, local and world indices of geomagnetic disturbance, sunspots and magnetism, and the twenty-seven-day recurrence in geomagnetic disturbance. As part of his study of the lunar tide, he investigated why Earth’s magnetic field varies with periods equal to the lunar day (27.3 days) and its submultiples. He showed that this was the result of a tidal movement in Earth’s atmosphere caused by the Moon.
upper atmosphere (which begins 100 kilometers above ground level) would be largely dissociated. This conclusion was confirmed later by rocket-borne mass spectrometers. Another of his inferences was that airglow, or the self-luminescence of the atmosphere at night, was energized mainly by the oxygen dissociation energy stored in the atmosphere during the sunlight hours. His work in this area led later to his 1953-1959 presidency of the central organizing committee for the International Geophysical Year, for which he led the planning of the auroral program. Solar and lunisolar magnetic variations are caused by electric currents in the ionosphere, and Chapman’s research efforts in this area led the formulation of an ideally ionized layer—the Chapman ionized layer—which was used much later by radio physicists in studies of radio propagation and other research. His work in thermal diffusion—heat transfer between two parts of a solid, liquid, or gas at different temperatures—in the absence of convection was important for separating isotopes for atomic fission. Chapman made major contributions to the history of science, and his creative genius was recognized by his peers by the many awards he received. —Earl G. Hoover Further Reading Aguado, Edward, and James E. Burt. Understanding Weather and Climate. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. Meteorology textbook aimed at both science majors and non-science majors focuses on the processes that produce weather and climate. Includes many illustrations and other learning aids. Chapman, Sydney. IGY: Year of Discovery; the Story of the International Geophysical Year. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959. A popular account of the events that took place during the International Geophysical Year of 1957 to 1958; taken from four lectures Chapman gave at the University of Michigan in October, 1958. A good reference for the general public, as well as high school and college students. Clancy, Edward P. The Tides: Pulse of the Earth. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. Primarily about ocean tides, but refutes Chapman’s resonance theory of solar semidiurnal oscillation in the chapter on tides in the atmosphere. Suggests that the diurnal oscillation is the extraordinary phenomenon. Well written and a good general reference. Fleagle, Robert C., and Joost A. Businger. An Introduction to Atmospheric Physics. New York: Academic Press, 1963. A college-level text that presents a good 2801
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Significance Chapman’s contributions had major impacts in the extension of knowledge about the lunar tide and Earth’s atmosphere. His analysis of many years of barometer, wind, and temperature recordings, along with his magnetic data, was facilitated by expert use of statistical analysis, which at the time of his study was a new mathematical theory. The use of physical observations and an innovative mathematical theory were truly pioneering. As a consequence of his work in the atmosphere and magnetic field, Chapman developed a deep interest in geomagnetism and its connection with solar phenomena. These interests led to several major publications: The Earth’s Magnetism (1936; 2d ed. 1951); The Mathematical Theory of Non-uniform Gases, with T. G. Cowling (1939; 3d ed. 1970); Geomagnetism, with Julius Bartels (1940); IGY: Year of Discovery (1959); Solar Plasma, Geomagnetism, and Aurora (1964); Atmospheric Tides: Thermal and Gravitational, with Richard S. Lindzen (1970); and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, with Syun-Ichi Akasofu (1972). Chapman’s research and studies of the atmospheres of Earth and the Sun produced a photochemical theory of atmospheric ozone and inferred that the oxygen in the
Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide
Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books understanding of the relationship of matter as expressed in the principles of physics. Some of the areas covered include gravitational effect, properties of atmospheric gases, properties and behavior of cloud particles, and solar and terrestrial radiation. Numerous mathematical formulas and graphs and a good bibliography. Hanle, Paul A., and Von Del Chamberlain, eds. Space Science Comes of Age: Perspectives in the History of the Space Sciences. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981. A compilation of essays from a symposium held at the National Air and Space Museum. A good reference for the general public on the early contributions to the field. Contains little mathematics or physics. Lutgens, Frederick K., and Edward J. Tarbuck. The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. Introduction to meteorology for college students is accessible to advanced upper-level high school students as well. Well illustrated. Includes glossary and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wylie, Francis E. Tides and the Pull of the Moon. Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1979. An easy-toread book written for the general public. Covers the lore and legends of tides and the Moon in history, astrology, and astronomy. Explains how gravitational attraction of the Moon and Sun causes tides. A few black-and-white photographs and reference notes after each chapter help explain the text. See also: Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere; June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots; Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays; Jan. 17, 1913: Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere; 1919-1921: Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation; 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays; 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy; May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon; JuneSept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope.
1935
Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books The public’s acceptance of paperback books that began with Penguin Books Limited’s introduction of a series of ten reprinted titles established a new market for publishing. Locale: London, England Categories: Publishing and journalism; literature; trade and commerce Key Figures Allen Lane (1902-1970), founder and managing director of Penguin Books Limited, 1935-1970 Sir William Emrys Williams (1896-1977), author, literary critic, and chief editor and director of Penguin Books Limited, 1935-1965 Summary of Event The first ten titles of Penguin paperback books reached the booksellers of England in 1935. The softcover editions were reprints of works already available in hardback, and Penguin’s approach mystified skeptics. The initial selection consisted of books that had already done well in hardcover sales, including works by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Beverly Nichols. High2802
lights of the series included Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929) and Andre Maurois’s Ariel: Ou, La Vie de Shelley (1923; Ariel: Or, The Life of Shelley, 1924). The books went on sale for sixpence, one-fifteenth of the price of a hardback novel. Allen Lane, who had started Penguin after a short career with publisher Bodley Head, saw his mission as providing mass access to affordable books of good taste. He was determined to offer nothing that was trite, salacious, or sadistic. For one of these books to break even at the low price, fifteen to twenty thousand copies—a huge number at the time—of each book had to be sold. Critics were puzzled. They thought that people who already bought books would spurn the softcovers, which would quickly perish, and people who were accustomed to using public libraries would not start buying their own copies. Moreover, the existing hardback market would be undercut by the success of paperbacks; surely, critics argued, publishers would not grant reprint rights. Advance orders of seven thousand per volume did not dispel the doubts. The first ten Penguin releases were an instant success, and over a period of eighteen months other titles were
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added. A total of nearly one hundred titles consisted pritrade in hardbacks had established a whole new market marily of fiction but also included some biography and of readers. travel. The first Penguins were given a distinctive look: Each had the Penguin emblem and bands of white and Significance color—orange for general fiction, green for detective The significance of the first Penguins was not immedinovels, and blue for biographies. The covers were plain ately evident. Cheap reprints were not without precebut instantly recognizable. Lane eschewed using pictodent: Several series of reading matter for travelers had rial covers as an allure. The interior of each book was, been offered at railway stations beginning in the ninehowever, carefully planned by the Penguin typographiteenth century. These books were usually fiction of cal department, which worked in the company’s makenonenduring interest. Modestly priced hardback reprints shift headquarters in an old church crypt in North Lonof major works had also been offered as parts of various don. Outside commercial printers were in charge of series, including the Everyman’s Library, which began production. in London in 1906. Marketing the books to booksellers was a challenge, Allen Lane’s initial vision was based on his underas it took twelve softcover sales to make the same profit standing that there might be a market for softcover books as one hardback sale. Booksellers could not devote that much extra shelf space, and so they had to depend on rapid turnaround. Penguin’s First Paperback Titles Many booksellers believed that people who loved books would not buy the Penguin ediPenguin published the following twenty-six paperback titles, in the ortions, especially because the first issues (under shown, in 1935. The works included mysteries such as The Unlike later ones) were flimsy, would not stay pleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers, and The Mystestraight on a shelf, and were easily marred. rious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie, as well as collections of The booksellers were soon convinced, stories such as Naval Occasions, by Bartimeus. however, by Penguin’s early success. Other • Ariel, by André Maurois outlets, such as department stores and chain • A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway stores, also sold Penguins. Lane devoted his • Poets Pub, by Eric Linklater personal attention to both large and small • Madame Claire, by Susan Ertz sellers. Because the first Penguin paperbacks • The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers were reprints, relations with other publish• The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie ing houses were crucial. Hardback publish• Twenty-Five, by Beverley Nichols ers feared that softcover sales would erode • William, by E. H. Young hardback sales, but it soon became apparent • Gone to Earth, by Mary Webb that the paperbacks created a new market, • Carnival, by Compton Mackenzie and before long every major publisher in • South Wind, by Norman Douglas • The Purple Land, by W. H. Hudson Great Britain had granted reprint rights for • Patrol, by Phillip MacDonald one of its works to Penguin. Publishers were • The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett quickly won over, as were authors. The extra • Four Frightened People, by E. Arnat Robertson sales from paperback editions gave authors • The Edwardians, by Vita Sackville-West exposure to a wider market, and the attention • The Informer, by Liam O’Flaherty increased the prospects of selling future • Debonair, by G. B. Stern works. If hardback sales were dropping and • The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg, by Louis Bromfield further printings could not be justified, a • Erewhon, by Samuel Butler Penguin edition offered hope of a second • Our Mr. Wrenn, by Sinclair Lewis lease on life. The success of the original ten • Dr. Serocold, by Helen Ashton Penguin books disproved the skeptics and • Esther Waters, by George Moore • Hangman’s House, by Donn Byrne began a project of bringing good books to • Naval Occasions, by Bartimeus the masses at low prices. In eighteen months, • Odd Craft, by W. W. Jacobs the gathering successes of a hundred reprint titles whose sales did not damage existing
Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books for serious readers who liked to read but were not concerned with collecting books. The railway-stall works, in comparison, were essentially an appendage to the magazine market. Eighteen months after the first Penguin titles were released, Lane clarified Penguin’s niche: The group would focus on inexpensive editions of nonfiction works. Publication of these books reflected an idea more akin to the Everyman concept and established the position of Penguin as a popular educator. Penguin offered not only good fiction but also a range of nonfiction written by experts for nonspecialists. In 1937, when a hundred novels already had been issued as Penguin reprints, the publisher made its educational purpose explicit by publishing its first nonfiction titles, called Pelicans. The first title was The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928), by George Bernard Shaw, who added some new material for the reprint. Other early Pelicans were works by Julian Huxley, Roger Fry, Arnold Bennett, and Sigmund Freud. These works, like the novels, cost sixpence, and all were unabridged. In the same year, the Penguin company made the natural extension of commissioning its own works. Against a background of crisis in Europe, the new works, called Penguin Specials, focused on current affairs. These included Searchlight on Spain (1938), by the Duchess of Atholl; The Jewish Problem (1938), by Louis Golding; Europe and the Czechs (1938), by Sheila Grant Duff; and Mussolini’s Roman Empire (1938), by G. T. Garratt. These works helped Penguin transition from being solely a reprint house to being a publisher of new works. Remarkably, this was achieved without any competitive response from other publishers, whose own sales had so far not been affected by the arrival of Penguin. The publishing of new works put Penguin in direct competition with other houses, but the others did not respond by issuing their own softcover series or by becoming alarmed about losing authors to Penguin. The Penguin Specials had an enormous impact. Some of these books sold a quarter of a million copies, and the unprecedented achievement of selling a large volume of serious books gave a mass of people a deep understanding of the questions of the day. In an era of immense turmoil, when fascist, communist, and democratic philosophies actively challenged each other, Penguin books were vitally important resources for promoting and informing widespread discussion. The Penguin Specials’ success permitted Penguin to continue its mission during World War II. Paper was rationed on the basis of sales in the years prior to the war, so Penguin was allowed a far 2804
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 greater ration than it would have had without them. During the war, Penguin introduced several other series, largely fulfilling its mission to publish more works of literature than any other company. King Penguins were a series of illustrated books. Puffin Picture Books were produced especially for children, and their treatments of various subjects found approval with educators. Penguin Modern Painters, a series edited by Sir Kenneth Clark, was also issued during the war. The series of Penguin Classics, with translations of Homer and other illustrious ancient writers, cemented Penguin’s reputation as the publisher most concerned with educating the public. No other company had a comparable range of subjects in print. Booksellers who were originally doubtful about the desirability of stocking paperbacks were soon persuaded. Company salespeople from Penguin maintained regular contact through personal visits, sometimes taking orders at the shops, and developed a sensitive awareness of the kinds of works that sold well in different districts. Every month, Penguin prepared a list of books in production, and this list was sent out each month with an order form. The full catalogue was sent with it, and an inhouse magazine was occasionally issued. From the start, the company was run on modest means. Unlike most other publishers, Penguin put out virtually no advertisements in the press for its books; such advertisements were simply too expensive. The press was important to the company, however, in that it often reviewed Penguin’s publications. Meanwhile, Penguin pioneered its own kind of promotional initiative, called the Penguin Exhibitions. The first exhibitions were parts of other events, such as conferences of educators, but they became events in their own right. Other publishers were welcome to exhibit at these events, which were held in several British cities. Penguin’s mission to publish only books of merit and good taste was safeguarded by the long-serving editor Sir William Emrys Williams. Williams was a literary scholar and a good complement to founder Allen Lane, who was passionately interested in publishing but was not a reader. As chief editor and director, Williams brought distinguished people to the company as series editors and advisers in specific fields. Penguin was careful to place a higher priority on taste than on popular appeal, and this tendency was evidenced in the widespread adoption of Penguins in adult education courses. Penguins changed both the publishing industry and the reading habits of entire sections of the population, but their competitors were slow to respond. In Great Britain,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 it was not until the late 1950’s that other companies, such as Hutchinson and Methuen, started series of books with features similar to Penguin’s. In the 1960’s, the Open University began producing all of its printed curriculum materials in paperback. Gradually, publishers in many countries began to routinely issue softcover editions of academic books, and they sometimes did so at the same time as the hardback edition was released. —Richard Barrett Further Reading Baines, Phil. Penguin by Design. New York: Allen Lane, 2005. A retrospective look at Penguin’s covers and the general development of the British publishing industry. Heavily illustrated. Barnes, James. “British and American Booktrade, 18191939.” In Economics of the British Booktrade 16051939, edited by Robin Myers and Michael Harris. Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1985. A study in economic history. The author charts changes and trends in the book trade, with particular reference to mass markets. Includes American developments such as the dime novels and the impact of Book-of-theMonth Club and the Literary Guild. Hoggart, Richard. An English Temper: Essays on Education, Culture, and Communications. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Written by a distinguished scholar of literacy who worked in adult education, this volume includes “Allen Lane and Penguin,” which explains the educational significance of the Penguin nonfiction books in offering to the layperson specialized subject matter that is readable but not pedantic.
Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books Lupoff, Richard A. The Great American Paperback: An Illustrated Tribute to the Legends of the Book. Portland, Oreg.: Collectors Press, 2001. A more general history of paperback books that focuses more on their seamy side. Valuable for understanding the degree to which Penguin broadened the notion of the paperback book and its readership. Schmoller, H. “The Paperback Revolution.” In Essays in the History of Publishing in Celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the House of Longman, 1724-1974, edited by Asa Briggs. London: Longmans, 1974. A short account of paperbacks in the publishing industry. Williams, William E. Allen Lane: A Personal Portrait. London: Bodley Head, 1973. A work by a literary critic who worked for many years in association with the Penguin company as editor and adviser. Offers insights from a personal acquaintance of Penguin founder Sir Allen Lane. _______. The Penguin Story. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1956. An anniversary book for Penguin’s twenty-first year. A well-written but terse account of the success of Penguin not only in fiction but in specialized nonfiction in various fields of knowledge. Much of the information is incorporated in Williams’s 1973 book cited above. See also: Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine.
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Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine
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Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine Alan Mathison Turing invented a precise concept of an abstract computing machine, providing a basis for both the theory of computation and the development of digital computers. Locale: Cambridge, England Categories: Computers and computer science; mathematics; science and technology Key Figures Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954), English mathematician, logician, and cryptanalyst Alonzo Church (1903-1995), American logician and philosopher David Hilbert (1862-1943), German mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), German logician John von Neumann (1903-1957), Hungarian American mathematician and physicist Summary of Event In 1931, Kurt Gödel proved that arithmetic (and mathematics) is either inconsistent or incomplete, meaning that any consistent axiom system for arithmetic must fail to include some true arithmetical statements. This result answered the first two of the three questions that David Hilbert had posed three years earlier: Is mathematics complete? Is it consistent? Is it decidable? The last question asks if there is a definite procedure (algorithm) that is guaranteed to produce a correct answer as to whether an arbitrary mathematical sentence is true. After Gödel’s proof, there was much speculation that mathematics must be undecidable. In the late spring of 1935, shortly after having been made a fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, Alan Mathison Turing set out to prove it. To do so, Turing needed a precise concept of “definite procedure,” which led him to invent what are now called Turing machines. A Turing machine is an abstract machine rather than a physical one: It is used to define or describe algorithms precisely, not to execute them. Any Turing machine has three components: a control unit, which takes any of a finite number of states; a two-way infinite tape, which is divided into squares capable of holding any one of a finite number of symbols; and a read-write head, which writes a symbol, moves left or right over the tape, and reads the new square. The behavior of such a machine on the next step is fully determined by its current state and the symbol being read. Specific Turing machines are de2806
scribed with tables of quintuples, such as , which means: If the machine is in state Q0 and reading the symbol A, then write the symbol B (replacing the symbol A), move right on the square on the tape, and go into state Q1. It can be stipulated that a Turing machine will halt when it enters a state for which no quintuple exists. As a simple example, the following represents a machine that determines the parity of a string of zeroes and ones, when the read-write head starts at the rightmost digit (that is, the machine will report “1” if the string has an odd number of ones; otherwise, it reports “0”): In this machine, state Q0 signifies that the string has even parity so far, and Q1 signifies odd parity. The first tuple scans a zero in the even-parity state; the read-write head moves left, and the machine stays in even parity. The next tuple scans a one and so changes the state from even to odd parity. The next two tuples are similar but describe the machine’s behavior when in the odd-parity state. The final two states recognize the end of the string (b stands for the blank symbol), write the answer (at the head of the input string), and stop (by entering the undefined state Q2). One of the remarkable things about Turing machines is that they are universal; that is, they are capable of performing the computations done by any other Turing machine. This is achieved through the encoding of that other machine’s table of quintuples in a numerical string (called the Gödel number of the machine); then, this number can be written on the universal machine’s input tape. The universal machine simulates the target machine by examining and interpreting the appropriate quintuple on the tape. This encoding of the target machine is analogous to software programs on modern digital computers. With this basis, Hilbert’s third question can be answered by the proof that mathematics is undecidable. For any Turing machine, the question can be asked whether, when given a certain input, the machine will halt. One
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they sometimes are mistakenly called Turing machines). Of course, some machines—such as finite automata—are not as powerful as Turing machines. The convergence of all sufficiently general kinds of machines on the class identified by Church and Turing seems explainable only if one assumes the truth of the Church-Turing thesis. Significance The invention of the Turing machine provided a precise concept of computation, which helped to pave the way for the introduction of practical computing machinery. While the Turing machine as such would make an impractical computing device (given that storing everything on tape would be impossibly slow), it anticipated much of the function required for practical computers. During and immediately after World War II, various engineering efforts produced the first working electronic digital computers. Especially noteworthy are the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC), developed from 1943 to 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) at England’s National Physical Laboratory, designed by Turing in 1945. The ENIAC led to a more general computer design by John von Neumann that has had a pervasive effect in the computer industry; most modern computers are classified now as von Neumann machines. Beyond providing a model for practical computation, the concept of Turing computability has supported the development of much of the theory of computer science. In addition to its bearing on the nature of unsolvable problems, Turing computability has been instrumental in the study of the degrees of solvability of problems— more accurately, the computational complexity of problems—a major research area in theoretical computer science. Computational complexity is measured by the amount of time (number of steps) required by an optimal Turing machine to solve a problem. The complexity of a problem is expressed as a function of its size; thus the size of the problem to search sequentially a list of N items to find a specific item is merely N; the time it takes, on average, is directly proportional to N/2. Two classes of complexity are of special interest: polynomial time problems and exponential time problems. Polynomial time problems require a polynomial function of the problem 2 size to complete—such as N/2, N, N , and so on. Exponential time problems require 2 to the Nth power, or 2 to 2 the N power, and so on, to complete. Exponential problems always grow faster than polynomial problems in the computation time required, and so they are often called 2807
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also can ask the broader question of whether there is a Turing machine-named halter that, when given the Gödel number for a target machine and that machine’s input, can decide in a finite number of steps whether the target machine would stop with that input. (This is called the halting problem.) If one assumes that halter exists, one can ask the self-referential question: What happens if halter encounters the Gödel number for itself? Turing proved that in such a case, halter will halt if and only if it does not halt; in other words, whichever way one turns, there is a contradiction, so halter cannot exist. Turing also demonstrated that there are mathematical statements for which any decision procedure would presuppose the existence of halter; thus he established the existence of undecidable mathematical statements. Turing presented these results in a paper titled “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” in 1936. Shortly before, however, Alonzo Church had published his proof of the undecidability of mathematics using a different formulation called the lambda calculus. Because the two methods of proof were substantially different, Turing’s paper was accepted for publication. First, however, Turing was obliged to show in an appendix that Turing computability and Church’s definition of effective calculability were equivalent. Both papers argued for the ChurchTuring thesis (sometimes called Church’s thesis), which asserts that their equivalent concepts of computability precisely capture the intuitive concept of an effective procedure or definite algorithm. Given that this intuitive concept cannot itself be exactly specified, the thesis is unprovable. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable fact that every adequate substitute for “effective procedure” has been proved to be equivalent, including the contemporaneous formulations by Emil Post and by Stephen Kleene (the latter using general recursive functions). Furthermore, every coherent extension of the concept of Turing machines has been shown to possess exactly the same computational power as Turing machines themselves, as long as they adhere to the same standard of definiteness—for instance, not allowing randomized state changes. (Note that “power” here refers to the range of functions that can be computed and not to the informal notion of the speed of computation.) For example, adding multiple tapes or multiple read-write heads per tape in no way increases the set of functions that a Turing machine can compute, although some computations will become faster. Von Neumann machines—everyday office computers and personal computers—are likewise no more powerful than Turing machines (for that reason
Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine
Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine intractable. An important set of problems, called NP problems, are defined in terms of a special class of Turing machine. It is an unproved, but widely believed, thesis that many NP problems are necessarily exponential. Given that Gödel, Turing, and others collectively proved that mathematics cannot be completely mechanized, it might be thought that Turing should have been pessimistic about the prospects for artificial intelligence—that is, the attempt to mechanize intelligence. In fact, however, Turing believed that whatever limits apply to machines in this regard apply equally to humans— that neither humans nor machines can have access to all mathematical truths or to an infallible decision procedure. Turing, in his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” created the well-known Turing test for intelligence, which has provided the main backdrop for philosophical inquiries in artificial intelligence since that time. In recognition of Turing’s achievements, the Association for Computing Machinery named its most prestigious annual research prize the ACM Turing Award. —Kevin B. Korb Further Reading Ceruzzi, Paul E. A History of Modern Computing. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. A straightforward, comprehensive history of computing. Places the technology in its appropriate social context. Davis, Martin, ed. The Undecidable. New York: Raven, 1965. A collection of many of the seminal articles in the development of computation theory and logic. Includes original papers alluded to above by Church, Gödel, Kleene, and Post. These papers are accessible to those already acquainted with formal logic. Reprints the original paper by Turing, “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42 (January, 1937): 230-265. Dewdney, A. K. The Turing Omnibus. New York: Owl Books, 1993. Collection of short and engaging tutorials on sixty-one different topics in computer science by the “Mathematical Recreations” columnist for Scientific American. Chapter titled “The Halting Problem” presents an informative discussion of that issue. Garey, Michael R., and David S. Johnson. Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NPCompleteness. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1979.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 A standard, introductory college text on computational complexity. Provides a very accessible survey for those with some college-level mathematics or logic. Contains an exhaustive list of NP-complete problems known as of 1979. Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. A thorough, enjoyable biography of Turing. Includes a lengthy, fascinating account of Turing’s successful cracking of Nazi Germany’s encryption devices. Also provides background material to Turing’s foundational work on artificial intelligence in the late 1940’s. Hofstadter, Douglas R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books, 1999. The concepts of self-reference, recursion, and infinite regress are woven into an absorbing tapestry. Explicates Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, drawing analogies with M. C. Escher’s reflexive drawings and the musical edifices of Bach. Nontechnical but lengthy. Minksky, Marvin. Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967. An especially clear introduction to automata and computation theory, used as a freshman college textbook. Presupposes no college-level mathematics, but it does introduce and use formal notation. Minsky is a leading figure in artificial intelligence. Turing, Alan. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind 59 (October, 1950): 433-460. An exploration of the concepts of human and machine intelligence. Introduces the famous Turing Test for intelligence. Reprinted frequently; for example, in Alan Ross Anderson, ed. Minds and Machines. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. See also: 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1906: Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities; 19101913: Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement; 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation; Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line; 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer; July, 1929July, 1931: Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems; 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique.
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Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength
January, 1935
Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength Charles Francis Richter devised a scale for measuring the strength of earthquakes based on their seismograph recordings. Locale: Pasadena, California Categories: Science and technology; earth science; geology Key Figures Charles Francis Richter (1900-1985), American seismologist Beno Gutenberg (1889-1960), German American seismologist Kiyoo Wadati (1902-1995), Japanese seismologist Giuseppe Mercalli (1850-1914), Italian physicist, volcanologist, and meteorologist Michele Stefano de Rossi (1834-1898), Italian geologist and archaeologist François-Alphonse Forel (1841-1912), Swiss geologist and geographer
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Summary of Event Earthquakes range in strength from barely detectable tremors to catastrophes that devastate large regions and cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. The human impact of earthquakes is not an accurate measure of their power; minor earthquakes in heavily populated regions may cause great destruction, whereas powerful earthquakes in remote areas may go unnoticed. To study earthquakes, it is essential to have an accurate means of measuring their power. The first attempts to measure the power of earthquakes involved the development of intensity scales that relied on damage effects and the reports of witnesses as measures of the force of vibration. The first such scale was devised by Michele Stefano de Rossi and FrançoisAlphonse Forel in 1883. It ranked earthquakes on a scale of 1 to 10. The de Rossi-Forel scale proved to have two serious limitations: Its level 10 encompassed a great range of effects, and its description of effects on humanmade and natural objects was so specifically European that the scale was difficult to apply elsewhere. To remedy these problems, Giuseppe Mercalli published a revised intensity scale in 1902. The Mercalli scale, as it came to be called, added two levels to the high end of the de Rossi-Forel scale, making its highest level 12. It also was rewritten to make it more globally applicable. With later
modifications by Charles Francis Richter, the Mercalli scale is still in use. Intensity measurements, even though they are somewhat subjective, are very useful in mapping the extent of earthquake effects. Nevertheless, intensity measurements are still not ideal measuring techniques. Intensity varies from place to place and is strongly influenced by local geologic factors, and different observers frequently report different intensities. There is a need for an objective method of describing the strength of earthquakes with a single measurement. Richter devised an objective technique for determining the power of earthquakes in the early 1930’s at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. The eventual usefulness of what became known as the Richter scale was completely unforeseen at first. In 1931, the California Institute of Technology was preparing to issue a catalog of all earthquakes detected by its seismographs in the preceding three years. Several hundred earthquakes were listed, most of which had not been felt by humans, only detected by instruments. Richter was concerned about possible misinterpretations of the listings. With no indication of the strength of the earthquakes, the public might overestimate the risk of earthquakes in areas where seismographs were numerous and underestimate the risk in areas where seismographs were few. To remedy the lack of a measuring method, Richter devised the scale that now bears his name. Richter defined the magnitude of an earthquake as the logarithm of the height of its seismograph trace in microns (thousandths of a millimeter), as recorded on a standard instrument. Thus an earthquake that produces a trace one millimeter (1,000 microns) high would be magnitude 3, one that produces a trace 1 centimeter high (10,000 microns) would be magnitude 4, and so on. These measurements were defined for a standard seismograph magnifying ground motion twenty-eight hundred times and located 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) from the earthquake. The magnification of the instrument means that the actual ground motion caused by a magnitude 3 earthquake 100 kilometers away is not 1 millimeter but only 1/2,800 millimeter, or only about three thousand times the diameter of an atom. By comparing records for earthquakes recorded on different devices at different distances, Richter was able to create
Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength conversion tables for measuring magnitudes for any instrument at any distance. He also set up the scale so that any event likely to be felt by humans would have a positive magnitude, because scales with zero and negative numbers tend to be confusing to most people. Richter had hoped to create a rough means of separating small, medium, and large earthquakes, but he found that his scale was capable of making much finer distinctions. Most magnitude estimates made with a variety of instruments at various distances from earthquakes agreed to within a few tenths of a magnitude. Richter formally published a description of his scale in January, 1935, in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. Other systems of estimating magnitude had been attempted, notably that of pioneering Japanese seismologist Kiyoo Wadati, published in 1931, but Richter’s system proved to be the most workable scale yet devised and rapidly became the standard. Over the next few years, the scale was refined. One
Amplified Maximum Ground Motion (Microns)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 critical refinement was in the way seismic recordings were converted into magnitude. Earthquakes produce many types of seismic waves, but it was not known which type should be the standard for magnitude. Socalled surface waves travel along the surface of the earth. It is these waves that produce most of the damage in large earthquakes; therefore, it seems logical to let these waves be the standard. On the other hand, earthquakes deep within the earth produce few surface waves. Magnitudes based on surface waves would be too small for these earthquakes. Deep earthquakes produce mostly waves that travel through the solid body of the earth, or socalled body waves. Actually, two scales are needed: one based on surface waves and one on body waves. Richter and his colleague Beno Gutenberg developed scales for the two different types of waves that are still in use. Magnitudes estimated from surface waves are symbolized by a capital M, and those based on body waves are denoted by lowercase m.
9
8.9 New Madrid, Missouri, 1812 Alaska, 1964 San Francisco, 1906 Great
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10 8
Major
10
Great devastation; many fatalities possible
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Strong 10 6 5 10 4 10 2 10 1 10
6 5 4 -1
0
-1
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1
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Damage begins; fatalities rare
Small
Minor
Not felt 1
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4 5 3 Magnitude
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A graphic representation of the Richter scale.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 From a knowledge of movements of the earth associated with seismic waves, Richter and Gutenberg succeeded in relating the energy output of an earthquake with its magnitude. Each increase of one Richter magnitude corresponds to about a thirtyfold increase in energy. A magnitude 6 earthquake releases about as much energy as a onemegaton nuclear explosion; a magnitude 0 earthquake releases about as much energy as a small car dropped off a two-story building. An additional refinement to the Richter scale was developed in the 1970’s. Extremely large earthquakes release their energy over time spans as long as several minutes and over a fault break of hundreds of kilometers. The highest seismograph trace for the earthquake, however, measures the energy received at only one instant. It is also possible to estimate energy released from the length of the fault rupture and the amount of fault displacement, and by this measure, conventional magnitudes for the largest earthquakes are too small. A magnitude corrected for the long duration and great spatial extent of the largest earthquakes is called a seismicmoment magnitude. Japanese seismologist Hiroo Kanamori devised a seismic-moment magnitude scale during the 1970’s; on this scale, unlike the conventional Richter scale, some of the greatest earthquakes exceed magnitude 9.
Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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Charles Francis Richter studies earthquake tremors in his laboratory Significance in Pasadena, California, in 1963. (AP/Wide World Photos) The Richter scale is a good example of an accidental scientific discovery. Richter’s original intent had been to develop a scale for very rough meaThe scientific utility of the Richter scale stems from surements, but the scale proved to be useful on a comits logarithmic nature. Wave phenomena occur over a pletely unforeseen scale. Richter scrupulously avoided great range of intensities and are best described by logausing the term “Richter scale” in his writings and went to rithmic scales; other examples include the speed and some length to give credit to other researchers who also shutter settings on cameras (each step doubles or halves had similar ideas. The Richter scale has now become the original amount of light) and the decibel scale for firmly established in popular and professional usage. sound. Virtually all the important physical quantities asThe Richter scale had been in use among scientists for sociated with waves are proportional to the amplitude of about fifteen years before Richter scale readings began to the wave raised to some power; such relationships are be widely quoted by the press in the 1950’s. Just as scienvery simple to express in logarithmic terms. Because the tists had, the press found the scale a useful tool for defining the strength of earthquakes. Initially, there was much magnitude of an earthquake is defined as the logarithm of confusion among laypersons over the difference beits ground motion, many of the physical dimensions of tween magnitude and intensity. Also, the logarithmic naearthquakes, such as their energy release, are directly and ture of the scale, clear enough to scientists, was widely simply related to magnitude. Also, it is simple to develop misunderstood. It was not until about 1970 that the press equations to relate ground motion, magnitude, and disgenerally stopped describing the Richter scale as running tance from an earthquake. from 1 to 10. The Richter scale made it possible for scientists to
Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength compare the energy outputs of earthquakes in a quantitative way and to derive new understandings of earthquake phenomena. For example, most of the energy released by earthquakes is released by the few most powerful ones. Also, earthquakes are more powerful in some geologic settings than in others. The greatest earthquakes (above magnitude 6.5) are associated with faults on or bordering the continents, whereas earthquakes along the midocean ridges rarely exceed magnitude 6.5. Deep earthquakes are rarely as strong as magnitude 7. These differences provide scientists with important insights into the forces at work in the earth. —Steven I. Dutch Further Reading Bolt, Bruce A. Earthquakes. 5th ed. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 2003. Presents a generally nontechnical account of earthquakes, their effects, and methods of studying them. Includes a good description of magnitude and intensity. Boore, David M. “Motion of the Ground in Earthquakes.” Scientific American 237 (December, 1977): 68-87. Describes the types of waves generated by earthquakes and the instrumental techniques used in measuring them. Includes a description of the seismicmoment magnitude scale. Gutenberg, Beno, and Charles F. Richter. Seismicity of the Earth. 2d ed. New York: Hafner, 1965. A pioneering study of earthquake locations and magnitudes around the world. Includes extensive tables of large earthquakes. Hough, Susan Elizabeth. Earthshaking Science: What We Know (and Don’t Know) About Earthquakes. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Presents information on earthquake science for lay
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 readers, including discussion of earthquake measurement and the Richter scale. Press, Frank. “Earthquake Prediction.” Scientific American 232 (May, 1975): 14-20. Interesting summary of research efforts and seismic clues used in attempts to predict earthquakes. Somewhat dated, in that shortterm prediction of earthquakes has turned out to be much more difficult than was believed in the mid1970’s. Richter, Charles F. Elementary Seismology. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1958. College-level textbook on seismology is dated but valuable for Richter’s personal description of the origin of the Richter scale. U.S. Geological Survey. Earthquakes and Volcanoes 21 (January/February, 1989). Special issue devoted to the measurement of earthquakes and an excellent short survey of seismology. Includes maps of seismic activity, locations of seismographs, and explanations of how seismographs work. Wesson, Robert L. “Predicting the Next Great Earthquake in California.” Scientific American 252 (February, 1985): 35-43. Presents a summary of modern field and theoretical techniques used in estimating earthquake risk and predicting earthquake magnitudes. Of particular interest is the fact that the article accurately predicts the location and approximate magnitude of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake; Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily; 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary; Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan; 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion
January, 1935
Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion Elsa Schiaparelli collaborated with Surrealist artists to create a reputation for outrageous fashion designs while developing new and successful means of marketing her creations. Locale: Paris, France Categories: Fashion and design; arts Key Figures Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973), French fashion designer who linked high society, the fine arts, and haute couture Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Surrealist painter who collaborated with Schiaparelli on designs for clothing and furniture Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), poet, essayist, and film writer whose drawings were adapted by Schiaparelli for clothing Jean-Michel Franck (1893-1941), interior designer responsible for the Schiaparelli boutique and home Léonor Fini (1908-1996), Surrealist painter, sculptor, and designer who worked closely with Schiaparelli
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Summary of Event In January, 1935, Elsa Schiaparelli moved her couture house into new quarters at 21, place Vendôme in Paris. Although she had been showing her designs since 1926, she had presented major collections for only six years. Beginning with sportswear and her signature knits—her trompe l’oeil sweaters were the first of her creations to make fashion news—she expanded to designing day wear and, in 1930, to evening wear. She defined the feminine silhouette of the 1930’s, with its broad and squared shoulders, and she repeatedly shocked the establishment with new fabrics, refined shapes, and unusual buttons and accessories. In six years, she gained significant recognition. Recognition translated into financial success, and her new house, at the center of one of the most exclusive districts in Paris, symbolized that success. The move, however, meant more than a larger space. In addition to her studio, workrooms, and sales salons, Schiaparelli dedicated three rooms with windows fronting on the square to the display and sale of separates, perfumes, and accessories—the daring hats, scarves, gloves, and jewelry on which her reputation was in part based and which had become known as “Schiaparelliisms.” Unlike the designs offered in the salons upstairs, which were custom-made for individual clients, these
separates could be purchased “ready to wear.” Schiaparelli’s boutique combined high-fashion appeal with remarkable business acumen and the outrageousness of the avant-garde. It took a person of Schiaparelli’s background to hit upon the idea. Unlike the Parisian designers with whom she competed, Schiaparelli was born to the class that made up her clientele. Her family combined Italian aristocracy and intelligentsia; a brief marriage had given her the title of countess. She had lived in Rome, London, New York, and Paris, and she spoke four languages, three of them fluently. Her society connections, especially those with Americans in Paris, were useful and helped to provide her with financing, expertise, and notoriety, as well as with clients. Her connections with the cultural elite were essential for her sense of design, and her collaboration with the Surrealist avant-garde resulted in the creations for which she became best known. The boutique itself was an act of collaboration: The idea was pure Schiaparelli, but the interior was designed by Jean-Michel Franck to resemble a great gilded cage. Schiaparelli’s longtime American associate Bettina Jones broke new ground in creating the striking window displays. Spanish expatriate Salvador Dalí designed a couch in the form of enormous Surrealist lips, which Schiaparelli had made in shocking pink—her signature color, which she developed and introduced in 1936. Her perfume bottles were designed by Léonor Fini, an artist known for Surrealist erotica. Throughout the mid-1930’s, the cross-fertilization between Schiaparelli’s designs and the work of artists stamped Schiaparelli’s most characteristic designs. To her, fashion design was an art, and as such, it had to be daring and shocking. Surrealism gave her the images and techniques to fulfill her vision. This art form sought to deconstruct the world of experience by means of metamorphosis, fragmentation, and dislocation; the designs Schiaparelli and her Surrealist friends created from 1935 through 1939 achieved those ends. In 1937, Schiaparelli applied to an evening coat a Jean Cocteau drawing of a vase of flowers that is transformed, by the addition of eyes, into a picture of two lovers kissing. In the same year, Schiaparelli produced a jacket animated by Cocteau’s drawing of a female figure whose hair cascades down the jacket’s sleeves and whose hands clasp the wearer’s waist. Schiaparelli worked with many artists, but Dalí was
Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Elsa Schiaparelli. (AP/Wide World Photos)
her most frequent collaborator, and it was with him that she created her most notorious works. To celebrate the boutique, Dalí presented her with a life-sized model of a bear into whose body he had constructed drawers reminiscent of his Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936). Under this influence, Schiaparelli in 1936 created her “desk suit,” on which real and false pockets are treated as drawers, with drawer pulls substituting for buttons. In the following year, she showed several Dalí-inspired designs: a dress made of fabric painted by Dalí with a depiction of a large, cooked lobster across the center of the skirt (a garment chosen by Wallis Warfield Simpson as part of her trousseau when she married the duke of Windsor). The evening gown known as the “tear dress” had both painted tears and actual rends in the fabric, causing the viewer to question the function of clothing and the gap between the wealth of couture and the poverty of rags. It was in the creation of hats, the perfect Freudian ve2814
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 hicle for social and sexual displacement, that Dalí and Schiaparelli were at their most outrageous. Schiaparelli designed a hat that was also a shoe; in one version, the fetishized high heel was shocking pink. Another hat, which, like the lobster dress, alluded to the woman wearer as comestible object, was in the shape of the lamb chop, complete with white patent-leather frill to mimic paper trim at the bone end. Only Schiaparelli was audacious enough to wear this version. Beyond such examples of specific influence, many of Schiaparelli’s creations bore the imprint of Surrealism. The early trompe l’oeil sweaters presented one thing as something else. Schiaparelli’s buttons were often adapted from unusual objects, including fruit forms, kitchen utensils, and insects. She designed a line of gloves that mimicked the hands they were meant to cover, and she was the first designer to engage artists to paint designs—including musical notes, circus performers, and poodles—which she then had translated to fabrics. Significance Schiaparelli successfully marketed her designs to shoppers at her boutique and to clients for whom she did custom work, and she continued to affect the shape of fashion. Paris in the 1930’s placed great emphasis on youth, style, and bravura: Gaiety in the face of an absurd and darkening world was the order of the day. Furthermore, the economics of fashion were changing. Style was no longer only for the upper classes. More women worked and had wages to spend, fashion publications were growing in circulation and influence, skilled copyists were imitating couture designs before models left the runway, and American designers were pioneering moderately priced, ready-to-wear clothing. These trends were captured in Schiaparelli-isms and in the boutique that sold them. Schiaparelli altered the relationship between social class and fashion in two ways. As the first of the socialite designers—women of high station who turned to fashion design and merchandizing as genteel employment and diversion—Schiaparelli capitalized on the panache of her own breeding, and she also employed a number of wealthy or titled women as models and associates. She and her aristocratic models could not only display designs within the salon but could also wear such designs at social events. Second, Schiaparelli pioneered the notion of offering items of high fashion to buyers who had neither the courage nor the money for couturier designs. The boutique became a tourist attraction, and Schiaparelli-
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to customers. While Schiaparelli’s one-of-a-kind couture creations made her reputation, it was the boutique, and especially the perfume business, that made her fortune. After Schiaparelli began the practice, most designers exploited licensing’s financial potential, and most operated boutiques. In fact, while designers came to base their reputations on couture designs shown in fall and spring exhibitions, such designs are so labor-intensive and costly to produce that designers’ profits depend on the proceeds from the sale of diverse items, many of which (such as bed sheets) are only indirectly related to fashion. —Jean Owens Schaefer Further Reading Blum, Dilys E. Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Richly illustrated volume that emphasizes the relationship between Schiaparelli’s designs and architecture. De Marly, Diana. The History of Haute Couture, 18501950. London: B. T. Batsford, 1980. A history of the beginnings of haute couture, with emphasis on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Interesting chapters on the organization and financial aspects of the couture industry and on clients and their wardrobe requirements. Schiaparelli is discussed primarily in chapter 9. Black-and-white illustrations; brief bibliography. Hall, Carolyn. The Thirties in “Vogue.” New York: Harmony Books, 1985. A montage of images and ideas covered in Vogue magazine during the decade. Divided into broad groupings—the social scene, arts and entertainment, and travel and leisure. Important for the flavor of the times and for photographs of celebrities in couture creations, including those by Schiaparelli. A brief section on the magazine’s coverage of and links with Surrealism. Martin, Richard. Fashion and Surrealism. New York: Rizzoli, 1987. A richly illustrated overview of the interactions between clothing design and Surrealist art. Discussion of Schiaparelli is scattered throughout; a chapter is dedicated to her collaborations with Dalí. Of particular interest are many illustrations of otherwise seldom shown Surrealist pieces. Gives attention to contemporary Surrealist designs. Mulvagh, Jane. “Vogue” History of Twentieth Century Fashion. London: Viking, 1988. A chronological discussion of fashions featured in Vogue. The period is 2815
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isms were carried home by many upper-middle-class travelers as souvenirs of Paris. Of course, Schiaparelli’s designs had a major impact on the fashion industry. Her early collections emphasized coordinated separates, and this economical, logical tactic set the precedent for women’s clothing. She also pioneered the use of many synthetic fabrics and of the zipper for closures. Her suited silhouette of the 1930’s, popularized by film stars such as Joan Crawford, became the uniform for career women of the prewar period. Schiaparelli’s exploitation of fantasy and the absurd was adapted by Parisian designers Yves Saint-Laurent and Jean-Paul Gauthier and by the punk designers of the 1970’s in Great Britain. One of Schiaparelli’s most formidable business skills was her ability to identify talent in young people and her willingness to let such talent loose. It is no surprise, therefore, that several of her associates went on to have spectacular careers. For example, both Hubert de Givenchy and Pierre Cardin were her apprentices after World War II. She also recognized early the talents of a young jewelry designer, Jean Schlumberger, who worked with her from 1937 to 1939. Schiaparelli was one of very few designers who was able to maintain close collaborations with avant-garde artists, but the links she forged between fashion and art would continue to hold. Through her work, Surrealism came to be recognized by a broader public, and publishers of fashion magazines came to realize the movement’s potential. Surrealism’s stress on the eroticism of the female form, the potential of the fragmented, fetishized image, the linking of fashion with the subconscious and the absurd—all aspects explored in the illustrations of Schiaparelli’s designs by such artists as Léonor Fini, Man Ray, Cecil Beaton, and others—became standard elements in fashion layouts. Even after Schiaparelli had largely retired from designing, the relationship between Surrealism and commercial fashion continued: Dalí, for example, continued to design for fashion publications long after World War II. It is probably in the field of fashion merchandizing, however, that Schiaparelli and her boutique—which was the first of its kind—had the greatest influence. Other designers had brought out perfumes linked to their design houses, but Schiaparelli added designer cosmetics and beauty supplies. She made her scarves such fashion accents that they were in much greater demand than the clothes they accessorized, and then she broke major ground by combining these cosmetics and accessories with a truly ready-to-wear line that could be sold directly
Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion
Carothers Invents Nylon divided into segments of six to nine years; the sections dealing with each segment are introduced with brief essays. Useful because so many other works are cavalier about the specific dates of fashion events. Copiously illustrated, but in small black-and-white reprints from the magazine. Schiaparelli, Elsa. Shocking Life. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954. Schiaparelli’s autobiography. A good source for information about her cultural background, the network within which she operated in the 1930’s, her career, and her travels. Considerably less revealing of her inner and personal life. Steele, Valerie. Women of Fashion: Twentieth Century Designers. New York: Rizzoli, 1991. A history of women in fashion, written from a contemporary feminist perspective and highlighting the major role played by female designers in the period between the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 two world wars. Attention is also given to an international range of contemporary women designers. Moving postscript about acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Extensive notes and bibliography. Many illustrations, some in color. White, Palmer. Elsa Schiaparelli, Empress of Paris Fashion. London: Aurum Press, 1996. One of the best biographies of the designer available, based largely on her autobiography but in many ways more complete than that work and more informative about her personality. Lavishly illustrated, with fine color depictions of Schiaparelli designs. See also: Spring, 1910: Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage; 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion; 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit.
February, 1935-October 27, 1938
Carothers Invents Nylon By applying his insights to the synthesis of new high molecular weight substances, including nylon, Wallace Hume Carothers developed the theory of condensation polymers and created a substance that would come to be used every day by millions of people around the world. Locale: Wilmington, Delaware Categories: Chemistry; inventions; science and technology Key Figures Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937), American organic chemist who did the research in polymer chemistry that led to the development of nylon Charles M. A. Stine (1882-1954), American chemist and director of chemical research at the Du Pont Corporation Elmer K. Bolton (1886-1968), American industrial chemist who directed the development of nylon into a commercial textile fiber Summary of Event Although the Du Pont Corporation’s industrial research laboratory was only one of many, its most famous invention—nylon—became the model for scientifically based industrial research in the chemical industry. Nylon, however, was not the first commercially important poly2816
meric material. From the late nineteenth century, several cellulose derivatives appeared, including celluloid and rayon. In the 1890’s, people began to use the word “plastic” to describe this class of materials. The first important purely synthetic polymer was Bakelite. Invented in 1907 by Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Bakelite was a phenolformaldehyde moldable plastic and a major commercial success. Its success encouraged American industry to search for more special-purpose plastics. During World War I, Du Pont tried to diversify; the company was concerned that after the war it would not be able to expand, since explosives had been its primary product. It hired organic chemists and built a research laboratory in the hope of mastering organic chemical reactions and producing synthetic dyestuffs. By 1921, Du Pont had put $20 million into the venture but lacked both the theoretical understanding and knowledge about how to succeed in organic synthesis. Instead, the company bought what it needed to diversify from outside, becoming a producer of rayon, cellophane, and other products. In this context of dependency on outside inventions, Charles M. A. Stine, Du Pont’s director of chemical research, proposed that Du Pont move into fundamental research by hiring first-rate academic scientists and giving them freedom to work on important problems in organic chemistry. He convinced company executives that a program to explore the fundamental science underlying Du
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Pont’s technology would ultimately result in discoveries produced water, which was decomposing polyesters back of value to the company. In 1927, Du Pont gave him a into acid and alcohol. Carothers and his associate Julian new laboratory for research. Stine had given a new role to Hill devised an apparatus to remove water as it formed. the industrial research laboratory; it was not to be affiliThe result was a polyester with a molecular weight of ated with manufacturing departments but was to genermore than 12,000, far higher than any previous polymer. ate new knowledge. Stine visited universities in search of Hill, while removing a sample from the apparatus, found brilliant young scientists who had not yet established that he could draw it out into filaments that, when cooled, their reputations, and he hired Wallace Hume Carothers. could be stretched to form very strong fibers. This proceStine suggested that Carothers do fundamental redure, called “cold-drawing,” oriented the molecules from search in polymer chemistry, a field that had been a mysa random arrangement into a long, linear one of great tery to chemists. Polymeric materials were the result of strength. The polyester fiber, however, was unsuitable ingenious laboratory practice, and this practice ran far for textiles because of its low melting point. ahead of theory and understanding. German chemists deIn June, 1930, Du Pont promoted Stine; his replacebated whether polymers were mysterious aggregates of ment as research director was Elmer K. Bolton. Both smaller units held together by some unknown special were organic chemists, but Bolton was a far more tradiforce or genuine molecules held together by ordinary tional industrial chemist. He had opposed Stine’s 1927 chemical bonds. Chemist Hermann Staudinger, who fundamental research program; now he was in charge won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1953, asserted that of it. Bolton wanted fundamental research to be more they were large molecules with endlessly repeating units. closely controlled, relating it to projects that would pay Carothers shared this molecular view, and he devised a off and not allowing the research group freedom to purscheme to prove it by synthesizing very large molecules sue purely theoretical questions. Despite their differthrough simple reactions that would leave no doubt about their structure. Carothers clarified the nature of polymers, distinguished between addition and condensation types, and lay the basis for much of modern polymer science in terms of its methods, vocabulary, and understanding. His syntheses of polymers revealed that they were giant but ordinary molecules. In April of 1930, Carothers’s group produced two major innovations: neoprene synthetic rubber and the first laboratory-synthesized fiber. However, neither discovery was Du Pont’s initial intention. Neoprene appeared unexpectedly when, during a project to study short polymers of acetylene, the substance began to polymerize spontaneously. Carothers studied its chemistry and developed the process into the first successful synthetic rubber made in the United States. The other discovery was an unexpected outcome of the group’s project to synthesize polyesters by the reaction of acids and alcohols, both of which had two functional groups in their molecules, which allowed the newly formed ester to continue to react indefinitely and thus form a substance with a high molecular weight. These polyesters’ molecular weight was limited to about 5,000. Wallace Hume Carothers. (Courtesy, Hagley Museum and Library) Carothers realized that the reaction also
Carothers Invents Nylon ences, Carothers and Bolton shared an interest in fiber research. Carothers began to work on the synthesis of polyamides from acids and amines, reasoning that since simple amides had higher melting points than simple esters, the same would hold for their polymers. The polyamide research, however, was unsuccessful and by the end of 1933, all fiber work had ceased. In 1934, Bolton pressured Carothers to resume polyamide research. Carothers began trying different approaches to synthesis. On May 24, 1934, his assistant Donald Coffman drew a strong fiber from a new polyamide. This was the first nylon fiber, although not the one commercialized by Du Pont. The nylon fiber was high melting and tough, and it seemed a practical synthetic fiber might be feasible. By the summer of 1934, the fiber project was the heart of the research group’s activity. It prepared polyamides from many combinations of acids and amines. The one that had the best fiber properties was nylon 5-10 (the numbers referred to the number of carbon atoms in the amine and acid chains). Still, it was the nylon 6-6, prepared on February 28, 1935, that became Du Pont’s nylon. Nylon 5-10 had some advantages, but Bolton realized that its components would be unsuitable for commercial production, whereas those of nylon 6-6 could be obtained from chemicals in coal. Bolton pursued nylon’s practical development, a process that lasted nearly four years. In April, 1937, Du Pont filed a patent for synthetic fibers, which included a statement by Carothers that there was no previous work on polyamides, and that this was a major breakthrough. After Carothers’s death on April 29, 1937, the patent was issued posthumously and assigned to Du Pont. Carothers was responsible for the discovery of the laboratory process for nylon, but Bolton was responsible for the commercial process. Du Pont wisely decided not to pursue the full range of possibilities, confining its efforts to the silk hosiery market. The company knew that about $70 million was spent on silk hosiery each year. By focusing on this use of nylon, Du Pont would find it easier to overcome the considerable obstacles involved in commercializing the fiber. The practical development was as exceptional as the laboratory discovery, and it took several years for Du Pont’s skilled and ingenious chemists and engineers to bring nylon into the marketplace. The first test of a yarn knitted into stockings came in February, 1937. It was not satisfactory, and it took until the end of 1937 to obtain high-quality nylon hosiery. Du Pont made the first public announcement of nylon on October 27, 1938. 2818
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Nylon, a generic term for polyamides, became an important component of several commercial products. In addition to nylon 6-6, other kinds of nylons found widespread use as both a fiber and as a moldable plastic. Since it resisted abrasion and crushing, was nonabsorbent, stronger than steel on a weight-for-weight basis, and almost nonflammable, it embraced an astonishing range of uses: laces, screens, surgical sutures, paint, toothbrushes, violin strings, coatings for electrical wires, lingerie, evening gowns, leotards, athletic equipment and clothing, outdoor furniture, shower curtains, handbags, sails, luggage, fish nets, carpets, slip covers, subway and bus seats, and in space as the safety nets on the space shuttle. The day after Du Pont’s announcement in 1938, The New York Times ran articles on nylon, headlining one “New Hosiery Strong as Steel.” Another article focused on nylon’s indestructibility, stressing that it was made from simple substances in coal, air, and water. A wellorchestrated publicity campaign kept the public aware of nylon until May, 1940, when the first nationwide sales took place. During the eighteen-month period between Du Pont’s announcement and nylon’s sale, sample nylon stockings became available, and rave notices appeared. Du Pont called its exhibit at the New York World’s Fair “The Wonder World of Chemistry,” and the display celebrated its acetate, cellophane, and neoprene products and, above all, nylon. Visitors to the exhibit also saw a machine that rolled out sheer nylon stockings. Newspapers reported that four million pairs of nylon hosiery were sold, and the supply was exhausted in one day. Before year’s end, 60 million pairs had been sold. Nylon heralded a future of synthetic polymers that would become standard in clothing, building materials, and furnishings. The American military began to use nylon when the United States entered World War II, and Du Pont tripled its production during the war. Nylon served as a replacement for the silk of parachutes, as mosquito screens in tropical hospitals, as rope for towing gliders and mooring ships, and as surgical sutures and filters for blood plasma. In its moldable plastic form, nylon was made into gears, valves, bearings, and propellers for outboard motors. On the home front, nylon became a blackmarket item in great demand. After the war, it took more than two years to retool manufacturing processes so that nylon stockings could be made. When the hosiery reappeared, demand again outstripped supply, and there were near riots in some stores. Nylon became the biggest moneymaker in Du Pont’s history, and its striking success led the company
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to create new uses for the material and to create new forms of nylon hosiery. By the mid-1950’s, Du Pont had produced more new textile fibers, notably Orlon, a polyacrylic, and Dacron, a polyester. These new materials and nylon’s spectacular growth helped Du Pont effect a revolution in manufacturing that propelled its earnings. The invention of nylon stimulated notable advances in the chemistry and technology of polymers. Some historians of technology have even dubbed the postwar period the “age of plastics” in recognition of the importance of the giant molecules made by ingenious chemists and engineers. The increasing use of synthetics has also been regarded as a measure of a country’s prosperity, although such success comes at a cost. Several environmental problems have been found to be related to synthetic materials: Some plastics are not biodegradable, and sustainability has been threatened by the utilization of valuable, vanishing natural resources such as petroleum, which contains the essential chemicals needed to make polymers. —Albert B. Costa
Nylon Drama.” American Heritage of Invention and Technology 4 (Fall, 1988): 40-55. Two American historians explore how Du Pont took Carothers’s discoveries on synthetic fibers and translated them into a commercial textile fiber. This is the best account available on the difficult technological development that made nylon possible. Joseph, Marjory L., Peyton B. Hudson, Anne Calvert Clapp, and Darlene Kness. Joseph’s Introductory Textile Science. 6th ed. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. The authors relate fiber properties to end-use performance. The section on the modification of nylon is easy to understand. Kadolph, Sara J., Anna Langford, Norma Hollen, and Jane Saddler. Textiles. 7th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1993. Chapter 8 offers a basic understanding of how nylon is made. Properties and end uses of nylon are provided in an easy-to-read manner. Chapters 6 and 7 provide excellent background material on synthetic fibers. Marvel, Carl S. “The Development of Polymer Chemistry in America: The Early Days.” Journal of Chemical Education 58 (July, 1981): 535-539. A good description by a leading American organic chemist of Carothers’s contribution and the contributions of his contemporaries to the theory and practice of polymerization. Mossman, Susan, ed. Early Plastics: Perspectives 18501950. New York: Continuum, 2000. A collection of essays by historians of art and technology on all aspects of the social history of the first century of plastic. Includes twenty color plates. Smith, John K., and David A. Hounshell. “Wallace H. Carothers and Fundamental Research at Du Pont.” Science 229 (August 2, 1985): 436-442. The authors contribute an excellent article on Carothers and his work at Du Pont. They provide a coherent narrative as well as insight into his brilliance as a theoretical chemist who could also lead a research group into unchartered territory and make important laboratory discoveries. Tortora, Phyllis. Understanding Textiles. 4th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1992. The types of nylon, along with consumer considerations, are discussed. See also: 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye; 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones; 19041912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane; 19051907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite; Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon. 2819
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Further Reading Adams, Roger. “Wallace Hume Carothers.” Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 20 (1939): 291-309. This official biography of the National Academy of Sciences was written by Carothers’s doctorate professor. It includes a bibliography of his articles and a listing of his patents. Brun, Roger. “Of Miracles and Molecules.” American History Illustrated 23 (December, 1988): 24-29, 48. This is an outstanding and well-written article on the social impact of nylon, from its introduction as hosiery to its many uses over five decades to its association with both glamor and toughness. Dickerson, Kitty G. Textiles and Apparel in the International Economy. New York: Macmillan, 1991. An excellent overview of the global textile industry. Fenichell, Stephen. Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century. New York: Collins, 1996. Traces the history of plastics and discusses their sociological importance as they revolutionized many fields, from fashion to medicine. Garrett, Alfred. The Flash of Genius. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1963. Chapter 13 provides a narrative of the discovery of nylon. The use of nontechnical language enables those not trained as chemical scientists to appreciate the discovery and to become acquainted with Carothers’s work. Hounshell, David A., and John Kenly Smith, Jr. “The
Carothers Invents Nylon
Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 12, 1935
Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York The Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the first comprehensive exhibition of American abstract painting, opening the way for many changes in the American art world. Also known as: Abstract Painting in America Locale: New York, New York Categories: Arts; organizations and institutions Key Figures Stuart Davis (1894-1964), leading American abstract painter who exhibited in Abstract Painting in America, wrote the essay for the exhibition catalog, and drew the catalog’s cover illustration Hermon More (1887-1968), chief curator at the Whitney Museum Juliana Rieser Force (1876-1948), director of the Whitney Museum of American Art Lloyd Goodrich (1897-1987), curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art David Smith (1906-1965), young sculptor who wrote to the museum on behalf of several artists demanding inclusion in the 1935 exhibition Byron Browne (1907-1961), abstract painter who participated in the exhibition and helped to found the influential American Abstract Artists group Arshile Gorky (c. 1905-1948), leading abstractionist who exhibited in the 1935 show Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), renowned photographer and art dealer who promoted modern art in the United States Summary of Event In February, 1935, the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted an exhibition titled Abstract Painting in America that traced the development of an abstract style of painting in the United States during the early part of the twentieth century. The show also examined the extent of American artists’ commitment to abstraction. Although the exhibit fell short of some expectations, it was a serious attempt to address artistic modernism in the United States. American abstract art during this period was closely tied to European models and employed a broad range of artistic expression. Whether avant-garde American artists employed a cubist breakup of space, the geometry of nonobjective form, or merely stylized form, “abstrac2820
tion” was the rubric under which all of their work was grouped. Some of these artists were committed to an agenda of abstraction, whereas others only dabbled in an abstract stylization of form. Many of those represented in the Whitney’s exhibit had already abandoned abstraction by the time of the show, and it was generally thought that the American abstract movement had ended. Nevertheless, the exhibition was the first attempt by a major museum to deal with the issue of abstraction in American art, and it was an important historical event that was crucially tied to the art production of the time and to the political and social matrix in which such art was made. The issue of abstraction in American art had been blurred during the 1930’s. An ideological schism erupted between figurative and abstract painters, between social realist and “American scene” artists on one side and their abstract counterparts on the other. American scene painters such as Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood received support from galleries and museums, while the abstract artists were considered outsiders and often felt disfranchised. Yet American abstractionists continued their engagement with the abstract, and some formed a coalition with European abstract and nonobjective artists called the Abstraction-Création group. This debate over figurative and abstract art was a major concern for artists, and the Whitney responded by holding a symposium on April 10, 1933, to discuss the issue. Led by Cooke Glassgold, the panel included Whitney curator Lloyd Goodrich, art critic and artist Walter Pach (who had been one of the organizers of the 1913 Armory Show), and artists Leo Katz and Morris Davidson. The panel discussed the topic “The Problem of Subject Matter and Abstract Esthetics in Painting.” The Whitney curators were more comfortable with figuration, and Goodrich spoke on behalf of that style of imagery. The young Arshile Gorky spoke up and challenged their view, calling for recognition of abstract art as a valid means of expression, one that could be judged and evaluated by the same criteria employed for more traditional work. Gorky’s work was represented by four paintings in the 1935 show; in 1937, Goodrich would reconsider his position, and the Whitney would purchase a painting by Gorky for its permanent collection. The sale was the artist’s first to a major public collection. By 1935, with all the interest and discussion sur-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Stuart Davis’s 1932 painting Landscape with Garage Lights. Davis was the leading American abstract painter featured at the Abstract Painting in America exhibition. (AP/Wide World Photos)
had further resonance for the exhibition. In his essay, Davis stated that the greatest period of abstract art had occurred from 1915 through 1927. The outlook of the museum’s curators and its spokesman artist, therefore, was that abstraction for the most part was over, and that the Whitney’s exhibition was an overview of a movement that was now part of the past. While Davis seemed to think that the abstract movement had waned, he did present an eloquent summary of the abstract artist’s objectives. He wrote that “the generative idea of abstract art is alive. It changes, moves and grows like any other living organism.” Davis continued by explaining that “art is not and never was a mirror reflection of nature. All efforts at imitation of nature are foredoomed to failure. Art is an understanding and interpretation of nature in various media.” While key figures of abstraction were represented in the Whitney’s show, 2821
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rounding abstraction in the United States, the Whitney decided to mount an exhibition. The museum’s curator, Hermon More, his assistant Karl Free, and museum director Juliana Rieser Force proceeded to make plans for a comprehensive show. More was well regarded for his installation techniques, and his judgment of American art was sound. He asked Stuart Davis, a leading American abstract painter and the editor of Art Front magazine, to write the introductory essay for the exhibit’s catalog, and a drawing of Davis’s was used for the catalog’s cover illustration. Ironically, the drawing chosen for the cover was an ordinary line drawing, a representational still life, rather than an abstraction. Davis’s abstract work was well represented in the show, however, by five oil paintings and one gouache (a kind of watercolor painting), including two paintings from his seminal Eggbeater series. Yet the cover illustration and the accompanying essay
Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York many of the artists included were mere stylists; some, too, had by then abandoned abstraction altogether. The Whitney may have mounted a less-than-inspired show, but the fact that the exhibition took place at all was important. The Museum of Modern Art, New York’s other leading venue for the exhibition of modern works, was entrenched in European modernism and was virtually closed to American artists. Countering the Museum of Modern Art’s disregard for American modernism, the Whitney championed neglected American talent. When American abstract artists heard of the upcoming exhibition, they were heartened that the museum was going to address the issue of abstraction; many hoped that the show would somehow validate their position and promote their ideas and their careers. This was an invitational exhibition, but many lesser-known artists openly solicited the museum for inclusion. One such artist was the young sculptor David Smith, who, together with a group of artist friends—including Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Edgar Levy, and Mischa Resnikoff—drafted a letter to the museum stating that they had formed an alliance and would exhibit in the show only if they all were accepted. Only three were invited to participate, however, and the group disbanded. A number of galleries were asked to contribute work to the show, including that of Alfred Stieglitz, who secured the work of Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Stanton MacdonaldWright, members of his illustrious gallery. Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery supplied the works of several of the precisionist painters, including George Ault, Preston Dickinson, and, most notably, Stuart Davis. Work by Gorky was secured through the J. B. Neumann Gallery, which handled the work of many leading European painters. All the artists, collectors, and dealers concerned cooperated with the museum in the venture, and Abstract Painting in America opened on February 12, 1935. Significance Abstract Painting in America baffled most New York critics; even abstract stylization was too much for many of them to comprehend and appreciate. The only critics who offered favorable reviews of the show were Forbes Watson and Henry McBride. The Whitney’s next exhibition was American Genre: The Social Scene in Paintings and Prints, which was certainly a retrenchment to safer ground. The following year, however, the Museum of Modern Art mounted an abstract exhibit assembled by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Barr’s impressive Cubism and Abstract Art 2822
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 show traced the genesis of abstraction from its postImpressionist roots through neoplasticism and beyond. The only American artist included was Alexander Calder, and the show’s Eurocentric emphasis gave a stamp of approval to artists across the Atlantic. Barr had said that he felt that abstraction was a European feature, not an American one, and that Americans were not, by nature, abstract. A decade later, he would change his mind, but in the mid-1930’s the Modern’s edicts were law. In December, 1935, Barr mounted another important show, Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism, which dealt another blow to the Americans by exhibiting yet more examples of important art from abroad. Although the Whitney’s show had not done much to further the cause of American abstraction, at least it had addressed the issue. Artists in the United States knew that galleries, museums, and critics remained hostile to abstraction, but a new idea emerged: American abstractionists would form an exhibition group to popularize abstract art, and they would hold group exhibitions promoting abstraction. At Ibram Lassaw’s studio, a band of artists, including Burgoyne Diller, Gertrude Greene, Harry Holtzman, and Byron Browne, met to discuss exhibitions and the creation of a school for modern art. While the school idea was abandoned, the idea of an exhibition group took root. Browne took a major role in the group, which in 1936 formed the American Abstract Artists. Browne was one of the younger artists included in the Whitney exhibition, and as a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, he helped to mount the group’s first annual exhibition on April 3, 1937, at the Squibb Building Gallery on New York’s Fifth Avenue. The exhibit was the largest abstract show held outside a museum venue. Large numbers of visitors filled the gallery, and New York’s art critics did review the show, although their opinions were mixed. The artists involved wanted to make a strong statement about abstract art, and Václav Vytlacil compiled a portfolio of affordable lithographs of the exhibitors’ work to help acquaint the public with the new work. At the lively opening, Gorky carried around a large reproduction of a painting by the nineteenth century French classicist Jean-AugusteDominique Ingres and pointed out the painting’s abstract qualities. This group established the viability of abstraction in the United States, providing a forum for young abstract artists to discuss their ideas and to display their work. Many of the group’s members would later go on to establish the New York school of abstract expressionism. —Nancy Malloy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama
Further Reading Berman, Avis. Rebels on Eighth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art. New York: Atheneum, 1990. An excellent history of the founding of the Whitney and of the leading artists and other figures involved in its development. An engrossing look at a pivotal period in American art. Chipp, Herschel B. Theories of Modern Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. An anthology of writings by various critics, historians, and artists. Includes “The Artist Today,” written by Stuart Davis in 1935, and “Is There an American Art,” dated 1930, which first appeared in Creative Art magazine as a reply to critic Henry McBride. Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 2d ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2002. Excellent reference guide. Although not illustrated, includes a variety of materials, including academic essays, excerpts from artists’ diaries and letters, and thorough philosophical, political, and artistic analyses of specific movements, including American abstract painting. Lane, John R., and Susan C. Larsen, eds. Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America, 1927-1944. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983. A thorough examination of abstract painting in America during an important period. Rose, Barbara. American Art Since 1900. Rev. ed. New
February 19, 1935 Odets’s AWAKE AND
York: Praeger, 1975. A good survey of the development of modern art in twentieth century America. Schapiro, Meyer. “Nature of Abstract Art.” In Modern Art, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: George Braziller, 1982. A seminal essay that shows the political matrix involved in abstract painting during this period of early modernism. Tuchman, Maurice, ed. The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890-1985. New York, Abbeville Press, 1999. An interesting analysis of the relationship between modern art and the occult. Produced in conjunction with a show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this catalog comprises a series of essays by noted academics. See also: Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced; Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public; Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art; July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition; 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images.
SING! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama
Locale: New York, New York Categories: Theater; social issues and reform Key Figures Clifford Odets (1906-1963), American playwright Lee Strasberg (1901-1982), American theater director Stella Adler (1902-1992), American actor Summary of Event Awake and Sing! is largely a product of Clifford Odets’s success after Waiting for Lefty (pr., pb. 1935) catapulted
him to instant prominence in 1935 by winning the New Masses/New Theatre Award and galvanizing audiences during its first performance at the Civic Repertory Theatre in Lower Manhattan. Waiting for Lefty, about a strike of taxicab drivers, was written in three days and could not have been more appropriate to its times. Odets, a member of the Group Theatre, had acted in a few of that company’s plays and was an indifferent actor. He lived with members of the Group Theatre during summers in the countryside outside New York City and during winters in the sprawling tenement apartment they rented collectively on New York’s West Fifty-seventh Street. In 1933, he wrote I’ve Got the Blues, which later that year was retitled Awake and Sing! The play was optioned to Frank Merlin, who shortly afterward went bankrupt. Odets then read his script to members of the 2823
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With its depiction of the social and economic consequences of the Great Depression for three generations of a working-class Jewish American family in the Bronx, Clifford Odets’s play Awake and Sing! influenced the nature of protest drama.
Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama Group Theatre in the hope that they would produce it. The play focuses on the social adjustments faced by the members of a three-generation working-class Jewish American family in the Bronx as the Great Depression gradually robs them of their livelihoods and security. Lee Strasberg, the most dyspeptic of the Group Theatre’s three directors, disliked the play, and his disapproval scuttled its chances of being staged, even though its second act was given a reading by the group during the summer of 1933 in Warrensburg, New York. Strasberg had reservations about Waiting for Lefty as well. Awake and Sing! was resurrected in 1935 because Waiting for Lefty had left the public clamoring for more Odets. Under pressure to capitalize on the enthusiastic recognition Waiting for Lefty had brought him, Odets quickly polished the earlier play, which opened on February 19, 1935, at New York City’s Belasco Theatre to favorable reviews. Like most plays written with the Group Theatre in mind, Awake and Sing! has a cast of seven characters of relatively equal importance. An eighth character, Schlosser, is minor, but he advances some of the business of the narrative and carries part of its philosophical burden. Odets’s manuscript of I’ve Got the Blues shows that
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Clifford Odets. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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he had Stella Adler in mind for the role of Bessie Berger when he originally conceived of the play; he often referred to Bessie as “Stella” in the typescript that is now housed in the Library of Congress. Bessie, the mother of the family, belongs to the middle generation. Her father, Jacob, lives with the family in their respectable Bronx apartment. Bessie’s husband, Myron, once had potential; Bessie worked in a stocking factory for two years so that he could attend law school, which he did not complete. Myron has eked out an existence for his family, but his idealism is now badly tarnished and emerges only vestigially when, after Myron spends fifty cents for an Irish Sweepstakes ticket, he tells his skeptical brother-in-law, Morty, that the contest cannot be rigged because the government would not allow it. The children in the family, Ralph and Hennie, are both grown; Ralph is in love with Blanche, whose name heavy-handedly suggests her purity. The two cannot realistically consider marriage, however, because Ralph does not earn a decent living; the future holds little hope for him. Ralph’s sister Hennie, pregnant and unmarried, has no more hope for her future than her brother has for his. The only people Odets brings onto the stage who have some sort of security are Moe Axelrod, the Berger’s boarder, who makes no secret of his attraction to Hennie, and Uncle Morty, Bessie’s cigar-chomping brother, who, although he has money, shares little of it with his aged father, Jacob. Moe Axelrod has been injured in the war and has the security of a government pension. Uncle Morty represents the dirty, self-centered capitalist indifferent to anyone’s problems except his own. Bessie lives daily in a hell of insecurity. She recounts to her family how a respectable old lady on the next block has been evicted because she lacks the money to keep her house; the woman is out on the street over on Dawson Avenue, surrounded by her belongings. The old woman’s plight embodies Bessie’s worst nightmare. Bessie’s urgent need is to keep her family intact. She is the caregiver and the manager in a family whose father, the natural provider, has been worn down by a socioeconomic system that, in Odets’s eyes, is destroying the working class. Myron, robbed of his maleness by society (and by a very domineering wife), has been neutered emotionally. When Hennie turns up pregnant, Bessie has to find a husband for her. To do otherwise would be to jeopardize the family’s respectability in the neighborhood, the limit of Bessie’s encapsulated world. In order to protect this precious image, which could, in her eyes, easily be shattered, Bessie has no qualms about marrying Hennie off
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Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama
to Sam Feinschreiber, a hapless immigrant who is duped into thinking that Hennie’s baby is his. Both the representatives of the younger generation escape by the play’s end, but the escape is not a happy one. Hennie runs off with Moe Axelrod, leaving her husband and child behind. Distant places have been calling. Odets uses the leitmotif of the evening mail plane that flies over the Berger house in the same way that earlier generations of writers used train whistles to suggest escape to some land of heart’s desire. Ralph is given his chance when Jacob, who has made Ralph the beneficiary of his small insurance policy, throws himself from the roof. Because Ralph and Hennie have been robbed of their hope, the escape Odets offers them does not involve their doing anything productive to overcome their problems. The point of the play clearly is that the accommodation each of them finds offers no realistic hope for the future, either theirs or society’s.
Further Reading Bentley, Eric, ed. Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from the Hearings Before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. 1971. Reprint. New York: Nation Books, 2002. It is difficult to understand Odets fully without understanding his reaction to being 2825
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Significance Awake and Sing! presents a stinging critique of the capitalist society that, Odets suggests, robs people of their dignity, their hope, and their potential. One cannot really call the play “angry”; the hopeless characters are too demoralized to be angry in the way that Odets’s taxicab drivers are. Instead, the play touched the inner beings, the social consciences, of large audiences—the affluent audiences that sat in the expensive seats as well as the audiences that squeezed into the dollar seats in the balcony on matinee days. In writing the play, Odets benefited from the new freedom of language that the 1920’s—especially the work of Eugene O’Neill—had brought to American drama. Odets wrote in the vernacular of common people, a vernacular he had learned growing up in a Jewish American family in Philadelphia and New York. The language of Awake and Sing! is both lyrical and authentic. It employs the accents, the clichés, and the wisecracks that working-class people use naturally in their daily speech. Awake and Sing! also pointed the way to a drama of the people. Odets’s heroes are antiheroes. If their tragedy comes about because of a fall, they do not have far to fall. They are not Oedipuses or Lears or Macbeths. They are, rather, the people next door or around the corner. Their kinship is more to Everyman or to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath than to the classical heroes of ancient Greek or Elizabethan tragedy. Playwrights associated with the Group Theatre— Paul and Claire Sifton, Paul Green, Sidney Kingsley,
Maxwell Anderson, John Howard Lawson—wrote generally about the proletariat, about common people, rather than about the famous or highly placed. Odets and his compatriots during the 1930’s opened new worlds for such later playwrights as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and William Inge, all of whom drew sustenance from the drama that immediately preceded their emergence as playwrights. The trend of writing about common people continued in the work of such later playwrights as Lanford Wilson, August Wilson, Tom Stoppard, Edward Albee, and Samuel Beckett. Eugene O’Neill had made strides in this direction during the 1920’s with such plays as Anna Christie (pr. 1921), The Hairy Ape (pr., pb. 1922), and Desire Under the Elms (pr. 1924). Writers such as Odets benefited greatly from O’Neill’s daring ventures and built on them in ways that moved American theater forward into unexplored dramatic territory. An earlier generation in Europe—Gerhart Hauptmann, Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Henrik Ibsen— had already used drama as a vehicle for advancing proletarian ideas. Those who wrote for the Group Theatre eagerly plugged into the currents these dramatic pioneers had sparked. They made their own advances, which in turn led to a burgeoning of plays about common people in the 1940’s and after. Awake and Sing! is a prime example of a play that departs from a blind acceptance of the star system. The counterbalancing of seven significant characters in the play replicates the actual dynamics of the informal human relationships that characterize family existence and interaction. The star system makes protagonists of Shakespearean proportions obligatory; the Group Theatre approach, however, reduces those proportions to dimensions common people understand. In many respects, Awake and Sing! was a key element in the advance toward much of the drama in vogue in the late twentieth century. Although its impact is essentially socialistic, Awake and Sing! is also a significantly democratic play in that it takes seriously the lives of people who, in cultures that are less egalitarian, probably would evoke little interest or attention. —R. Baird Shuman
Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama summoned before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, when his national loyalty and that of many others working in theater and film was questioned. Indispensable resource for readers interested in the political ramifications of Odets’s work. Brenman-Gibson, Margaret. Clifford Odets: An American Playwright—The Years from 1906 to 1940. 1981. Reprint. New York: Applause Books, 2002. Welldocumented, comprehensive biography is a monument in its field. Covers Odets’s early life in greater detail than any previous biography. Presents a brilliant and original psychoanalytic interpretation of Awake and Sing! Cantor, Harold. Clifford Odets: Playwright Poet. 2d ed. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 2000. Reviews Odets’s use of language, especially of dialects, through close readings of eleven plays. This approach is particularly relevant to Awake and Sing! as the play’s lyricism and authenticity have been widely acknowledged. Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years: The Story of the Group Theatre and the Thirties. 1945. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1983. Quintessential history of the Group Theatre, out of which much of Odets’s work grew. Goes into great detail about the genesis of Awake and Sing! Cooperman, Robert. Clifford Odets: An Annotated Bibliography, 1935-1989. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990. Begins with a thoughtfully conceived and well-presented bibliographical essay. Part 2 provides a comprehensive list of Odets’s writings, and part 3 contains an extensive bibliography of writings about Odets. Griffin, Robert J. “On the Lovesongs of Clifford Odets.” In The Thirties: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, edited by
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Warren G. French. Deland, Fla.: Everett/Edwards, 1967. Focuses on Odets’s two most notable family plays, Awake and Sing! and Paradise Lost (pr. 1935). Valuable for comments on Odets’s language and on his social outlook as reflected in these plays. Herr, Christopher J. Clifford Odets and American Political Theatre. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Places Odets’s works in the context of the time of social, political, and economic change in which they were written. Includes chronology, selected bibliography, and index. Miller, Gabriel, ed. Critical Essays on Clifford Odets. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991. Presents essays on Odets by such critics as Joseph Wood Krutch, Brooks Atkinson, and John Mason Brown. Also includes interviews with Odets conducted by Michael Mendelsohn, Arthur Wagner, and Armand Aulicino. Includes three entries specifically on Awake and Sing! Weales, Gerald. Clifford Odets: Playwright. Reprint. New York: Methuen, 1985. Excellent brief critical biography provides valuable insights into each of Odets’s major plays, including Awake and Sing! Relates Odets’s work to the sociopolitical currents of the period in which he was most productive. See also: 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard; Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes; Jan. 2, 1933: Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s; Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater.
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Temple Receives a Special Academy Award
February 27, 1935
Temple Receives a Special Academy Award Shirley Temple, America’s cinema sweetheart and the top box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, received a special miniature Academy Award for her outstanding contribution to the film industry. Locale: Los Angeles, California Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Shirley Temple (b. 1928), American child film star Damon Runyon (1884-1946), American author Adolphe Menjou (1890-1963), American actor Darryl F. Zanuck (1902-1979), American film producer
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Summary of Event Following the stock market crash of 1929, Shirley Temple, a cheery child screen star of the 1930’s, quickly rose to fame by capturing the hearts of the moviegoing audience and freeing them momentarily from the worries of joblessness, homelessness, breadlines, bank failures, and other monetary disasters. For her popularity and skill in dance, voice, and acting, she was awarded a special child-size Oscar—the slender gold statuette coveted by film professionals since it was first awarded in 1929—at the 1935 Academy Awards presentation banquet. The event, as usual, was attended by the elite of Hollywood society and agency professionals and announced by searchlights, press releases, film magazine interviews, and nationwide radio coverage. Temple, the youngest star to receive an Oscar, earned the admiration of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chiefly for Little Miss Marker (1934), a black-and-white film adapted from a Damon Runyon story and starring Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell, Charles Bickford, and Lynne Overman in addition to Temple. The plot, about a seedy racetrack gambler who adopts a small girl who eventually rescues him from his adversaries, features the predictable Runyon components—cynical underworld figures and appealingly helpless ingenues who employ their charms to soften hardened hearts and bring about a quick rescue. The story concludes with a satisfying reward for good and an appropriate penalty for evil. Variety lauded the film for its blend of melodrama and compassion. Shirley Temple’s unprecedented success sprang from a pairing of genes and luck, with a little family push thrown in for good measure. Born in Santa Monica, Cali-
fornia, the third child and first daughter of Francis George Temple, a bank officer, and Gertrude Krieger Temple, Shirley, a sunny, smooth-limbed blond, enhanced her natural appeal by studying tap dance beginning when she was three years old. Scouted in her kindergarten classroom by an agent from Educational Studios and accompanied on location by her famous stage mother, Shirley began her screen appearances in the “Baby Burlesk” series before advancing to major roles. At the age of five, she bested two hundred candidates for her first cinema part in Stand Up and Cheer (1934). Success brought a contract for $1,250 a week, a phenomenal salary for Depression times. Temple’s image—the stereotypical lighthearted, dimple-cheeked minx—evolved from good grooming in little-girl fashions, including patent leather Mary Janes and anklet socks, starchy sailor suit, immaculate gloves, and saucy, cylindrical curls highlighted with a bow to match her outfit. A disarmingly bright, poised, mischievous moppet, Temple delighted fans with her selfconfident, insouciant air. Hordes of worshipers and Temple look-alikes followed her wherever she appeared, at airports, the circus, the beach, and visits to department store Santa Clauses. Notables such as Albert Einstein, J. Edgar Hoover, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt counted her among their personal favorites, and fans the world over recognized her at once by her characteristically bumptious posturing and mugging and Kewpiedoll smile. The epitome of little-girl sweetness, Temple parlayed her charms into success by maximizing talent, concentration, and hard work. She could mimic her contemporaries, including Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and match the complicated dance routines of veteran hoofer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. She balanced a variety of male costars, from Randolph Scott, Joseph Cotten, Cary Grant, and Buddy Ebsen to Ronald Reagan. Even though the plots of her films provided meager challenges to a thinking audience, much to the filmmakers’ benefit, the public’s rush to see Temple singing, dancing, and mugging in her costume-rich scenarios kept theater lines long. Eager to make the most of their pint-sized box-office wonder during a period when money for film tickets was growing scarce, the studios moved swiftly to exploit every moment of her childhood. Two subsequent 1934 films, Now and Forever, a Paramount production star-
Temple Receives a Special Academy Award ring Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard, and Stand Up and Cheer, with James Dunn, Nigel Bruce, and Stepin Fetchit, influenced her Academy Award nomination. The former, a likable mix of thrills and comedy, as was Little Miss Marker, depicts the power of a small child to transform her father, a jewel thief, and his hard-boiled mistress. Now and Forever received high marks from both the New York Post and Variety. In contrast, Stand Up and Cheer, a Fox production about a child performer who helps the fictional U.S. secretary of amusement to boost the country’s Depression-racked spirits, received less favorable press because of its contrived plot. The film redeemed itself primarily through audience reaction to the engagingly talented, cherubic six-year-old star.
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Significance The Shirley Temple phenomenon peaked in 1939, when the child lost her rounded cuteness and entered adolescence. Up until that point, she had been a major moneymaker for the studios. In her biography, she noted bitterly the commercialism of her success and how she was marketed like a grocery-store commodity. Signed by Darryl F. Zanuck to a Twentieth Century-Fox contract and insured by Lloyd’s of London, Temple lived in a special on-site four-room cottage, complete Shirley Temple in costume for her 1935 film The Little Colonel. (AP/Wide with rabbit hutch, picket fence, and rope World Photos) swing. To restrict the public’s access to her, she was tutored privately. In the 1940’s, returned to a semblance of normalcy, she atily because they could not play on the cuteness of childtended the Westlake School for Girls, from which she hood. About the time that Temple met John Agar, a soldier graduated at the age of seventeen. She contributed greatly turned actor whom she married to relieve the loneliness in her childhood to film history, with forty film and fifty and isolation engendered by too much fame, the studio, television productions, including hits such as Baby Take searching for a replacement child star, considered Sybil a Bow (1934), Bright Eyes (1934), Curly Top (1935), The Jason, Gigi Perreau, and others. Among the most successLittle Colonel (1935), Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), Wee ful post-Temple child stars were Margaret O’Brien, who Willie Winkie (1937), Heidi (1937), Rebecca of Sunnypremiered at the age of four in Babes in Arms (1939) and brook Farm (1938), The Little Princess (1939), and The won an honorary Oscar in 1944, and Natalie Wood, who Blue Bird (1940). debuted at the age of eight in Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). In her teens, Temple, taller but still unmistakably dimNever as appealing as Shirley Temple, Wood earned lastpled and winsome, continued to please faithful fans. Her teen and postteen roles in Since You Went Away (1944), ing fame in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street Kiss and Tell (1945), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), then grew more voluptuous and appealing to cin(1947), That Hagen Girl (1947), Fort Apache (1948), and ema audiences. Her later successes included Splendor in A Kiss for Corliss (1949) received less adulation, primarthe Grass (1961) and West Side Story (1961). 2828
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oppressive communist regime. As an outspoken supporter of the human rights that communism had violated, she remained difficult to typify as liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, but periodically she was considered as a vice presidential candidate or a cabinet post nominee. Looking back on her many honors, appointments, and opportunities, Shirley Temple Black acknowledged that her film career, although it had little connection with her adult interests and capabilities, provided the requisite name recognition to people in power such as President George Bush, who nominated her for the ambassadorship to Czechoslovakia. Her prior fame opened possibilities for her to become involved with research programs on acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), assistance for homeless and disabled people, and the campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. In her 1988 autobiography, Child Star, she unleashed adult vengeance on Hollywood’s corrupt star system, which exploited her in childhood, menaced her innocence, and enriched a cadre of opportunists, many of whom borrowed money for private use that they never repaid. —Mary Ellen Snodgrass Further Reading Bell, Joseph N. “Shirley Temple: Her Movies, Her Life.” Good Housekeeping, February, 1981, 114-115, 185190. Brief biographical article features photographs of Temple’s film career, including shots of her with costars Buddy Ebsen, Charles Farrell, James Dunn, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Chronology covers Temple’s bout with breast cancer, her role as first U.S. chief of protocol, and her service as a U.S. ambassador. Hammontree, Patsy Guy. Shirley Temple Black: A BioBibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Thorough discussion of Shirley Temple Black’s careers, from child star to diplomat. Includes chronology, filmography, bibliography, and index. Osborne, Robert. Seventy-Five Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards. New York: Abbeville Press, 2003. Overview of the Academy Awards demands respect from historians, researchers, and serious cinema fans. Presents a thorough listing of Academy Award winners from the inception of the Oscar to 2003. Features full-color cinematic stills as well as reproductions of dust jackets from adapted novels and plays. Temple Black, Shirley. Child Star: An Autobiography. 2829
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Some male child stars met with equally long-lived popularity. Jackie Cooper scored with The Champ (1931) and Skippy (1931), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor. A stream of other cute-child scenarios brought him work in Sooky (1931), Young Donovan’s Kid (1931), and Divorce in the Family (1932). Along with a coterie of children who composed the Our Gang cast, he made a notable effort that resulted in years of reruns. Through her success, Temple certainly influenced the trend toward child-oriented films. An extended film career is not a part of the Shirley Temple legend. After her divorce from Agar, Temple, already the mother of a daughter, suffered intense depression. Following a relaxing vacation in Hawaii, she met businessman Charles Alden Black, son of a wealthy family, whose emotional maturity provided the stability she needed at the nadir of her young womanhood. They married, had a son and a second daughter, and settled south of San Francisco. Shirley Temple Black involved herself in volunteer work for the National Wildlife Federation and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. At one point, she served as a receptionist in a children’s orthopedics hospital. From local activism, she moved into politics. To maintain a dignified professional image, she was forced to transcend the public’s image of a dimpled darling in frills and tap shoes. In 1967, she failed to unseat Pete McCloskey in a bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, but from 1974 to 1976 she served as the U.S. ambassador to Ghana. Her return to the public eye brought new audiences of children to her old films, which had fallen into neglect. Hollywood, capitalizing on her late-in-life achievements, returned the spotlight to her. Honored at the fifty-seventh annual Academy Awards presentation ceremony on March 25, 1985, Shirley Temple Black received a full-sized Oscar to replace the miniature version she accepted in 1935. To recapture the mystique of the toddler star, organizers of the ceremony ran clips of her greatest films. Three years later, the documentary Going Hollywood: The War Years received archival footage from her canon in a montage of films from the World War II era. Recovered from breast cancer in 1989, Shirley Temple Black was named ambassador to Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia). She took an immersion language course to expedite her pursuit of negotiations with President Gustav Husák, to whom she presented her credentials in his native tongue. She took particular pride in the nation’s bloodless overthrow of an
Temple Receives a Special Academy Award
Works Progress Administration Is Established New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. Autobiography describes Temple’s family life, early training in dance and music, introduction into filmdom from kindergarten, starring film roles, and adolescent screen roles, along with critical opinions of her cinematic talents. Details her eclipse in adolescence and failed marriage to John Agar. A worthy study for the cinema buff or student of Hollywood history. Windeler, Robert. The Films of Shirley Temple. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1978. Critique of Temple’s screen career focuses on information pertinent to cin-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ema history and critical commentary on the child film genre. Useful source for detailed history. Yorkshire, Heidi. “Shirley Temple Black Sets the Record Straight.” McCall’s, March, 1989, 88-92. Describes Temple’s adult career and her decision to write her autobiography Child Star. See also: 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres.
April 8, 1935
Works Progress Administration Is Established The Works Progress Administration was responsible for a nationwide program of public works to alleviate unemployment. At its height, the WPA employed four million people. It funded both vital infrastructural projects, such as bridges and highways, and the creation of many works of art and literature, becoming a showcase for President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Also known as: Emergency Relief Appropriation Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures Harry Hopkins (1890-1946), director of the Works Progress Administration Holger Cahill (1887-1960), head of the Federal Art Project Henry G. Alsberg (1881-1970), director of the Federal Writers’ Project Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969), director of the Federal Theatre Project Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946, and head of the Public Works Administration under the National Industrial Recovery Act Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 George Biddle (1885-1973), American artist Frank Comerford Walker (1886-1959), head of the Application and Information Division of the Federal Relief Program 2830
Aubrey Willis Williams (1890-1965), director of the National Youth Administration Edward Bruce (1879-1943), American lawyer, businessman, and painter Summary of Event The history of the New Deal’s relief policy is essentially one of hopeful experimentation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was reluctant to engage in a full-scale program of deficit spending implicit in direct relief and public works, yet he was deeply committed to relieving the nation’s unemployment. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), passed in June, 1933, provided for the creation of the Public Works Administration, under Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, for the purpose of spending some $3.3 billion to relieve unemployment. Ickes, however, approached his task with such caution that it had little effect. Also, to relieve the growing unemployment problem, Roosevelt established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in May, 1933, with an appropriation of $500 million to make direct grants to the states for relief services. The director of FERA was Harry Hopkins, a former social worker. Hopkins soon realized that his agency was making little progress on the national unemployment problem. With Roosevelt’s assistance, he succeeded in establishing a temporary Civil Works Administration (CWA) in October, 1933. The primary purpose of this agency was to provide employment for some four million men and women in a complete federal make-work project. Nationwide, the CWA engaged in such tasks as repairing or building in excess of 500,000 miles of roads, one thousand airports, forty thousand schools, and more
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Works Progress Administration Is Established
than thirty-five hundred playgrounds and athletic fields. The CWA also employed fifty thousand teachers. In the winter of 1933-1934, Hopkins employed more than 3 million persons and spent $933 million. At its peak, in mid-January, 1934, the program employed 4.23 million individuals. According to historian William E. Leuchtenburg, “The CWA got the country through the winter.” By March of 1934, however, the president was disturbed at the rate of expenditure; more important, he did not want the work-relief program to become a permanent form of dole to the unemployed. The CWA was terminated, and once again FERA took up primary responsibility for relief, including those projects left unfinished by the CWA. An evaluation of the programs persuaded Roosevelt that something else was needed to combat the problem of unemployment. Neither FERA, which generally provided direct relief, nor the CWA, which had provided a disguised dole, had made much of an impact on the constantly expanding unemployment problem. Both the
president and Hopkins wanted to keep the federal government out of direct relief; instead, they wanted to concentrate on a vast public employment program that would provide honest jobs for the needy. It was this reasoning that led Roosevelt to call for a new emergency relief appropriation in January, 1935. The subsequent Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, passed April 8, 1935, provided $5 billion with few strings attached. The appropriation of the money, however, was only one of the problems facing Roosevelt in his new workrelief program. Of immediate concern was the appointment of a director for the new program. Hopkins had much to recommend him for the task. Roosevelt sympathized with Hopkins’s desire to place major emphasis on benefits for the workers. At times, however, the president seemed disturbed by the fantastic rate at which Hopkins spent federal funds. Another leading contender for the job was Ickes, who desired an expansion of his Public Works Administration. With both men campaigning for the job, and feeling unable himself to disregard
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A Works Progress Administration crew rebuilds the Morris Canal in New Jersey around 1936. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Works Progress Administration Is Established either for fear of seeming to repudiate their past accomplishments, Roosevelt effected a compromise by creating an incredibly complex organization to spend the money and by bringing in Frank Comerford Walker, an old and tactful friend, to serve as mediator between the two men. Despite the elaborate organization, Hopkins managed to dominate the new relief program, primarily because the president, liking his approach better than that of Ickes, provided loopholes in the rules and certain strategic assistance. Hopkins’s new agency, called the Works Progress Administration (WPA), proceeded to expand into the most gigantic federal works operation ever seen in peacetime. Originally designed for the unskilled worker, the WPA was soon engaged in a variety of projects, constructing more than 600,000 miles of highways,
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roads, and streets, repairing and constructing more than 100,000 bridges, 100,000 public buildings, thousands of parks and airfields, and thousands of recreational facilities. In these activities, Hopkins was guided by the idea of providing legitimate employment and making sure that most of the money went into wages rather than material expenses. The WPAalso aided thousands of artists, writers, actors, and students. The Federal Theatre Project was established under the direction of Hallie Flanagan, a Guggenheim Fellow and head of Vassar College’s theater. The project employed many gifted people and engaged in considerable experimentation until it was abruptly terminated by Congress in 1939. During a period of four years, live drama was brought to an audience totaling thirty million in thousands of small towns that hitherto had seen no better than small traveling tent shows. The Federal Writers’ Project directed by Henry Alsberg, a former director of the A Slave Narrative Provincetown Theater, employed college One of the Works Progress Administration’s projects was to interview professors, journalists, and other literary more than two thousand former slaves. This account was given by a persons to record local and regional hiswoman known as Aunt Adeline in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1937. tory. More than one thousand state and territorial guides, picture books, and other When my mother’s master come to Arkansas about 1849, looking for a works of historical interest were written. country residence, he bought what was known as the old Kidd place on Under the direction of Holger Cahill, the the Old Wire Road, which was one of the Stage Coach stops. I was about Federal Art Project provided employment one year old when we came. We had a big house and many times passenfor thousands of local artists whose artisgers would stay several days and wait for the next stage to come by. It was tic endeavors still grace hundreds of local then that I earned my first money. I must have been about six or seven years old. One of Mr. Parks’ daughters was about one and a half years post offices and libraries throughout the older than I was. We had a play house back of the fireplace chimney. We United States. didn’t have many toys; maybe a doll made of a corn cob, with a dress In addition to these projects, the Namade from scraps and a head made from a roll of scraps. We were playing tional Youth Administration (NYA) was church. Miss Fannie was the preacher and I was the audience. We were created to assist those young men and singing “Jesus my all to Heaven is gone.” When we were half way women of the United States unable to through with our song we discovered that the passengers from the stage find jobs. Under the direction of former coach had stopped to listen. We were so frightened at our audience that Alabama social worker Aubrey Williams, we both ran. But we were coaxed to come back for a dime and sing our the NYA sought and found part-time emsong over. I remember that Miss Fannie used a big leaf for a book. ployment for more than 600,000 college I had always been told from the time I was a small child that I was a Nestudents and more than 1.5 million high gro of African stock. That it was no disgrace to be a Negro and had it not been for the white folks who brought us over here from Africa as slaves, school students over a five-year period. we would never have been here and would have been much better off. The WPA, effective as an emergency We colored folks were not allowed to be taught to read or write. It was measure, had its weaknesses. At no time against the law. My master’s folks always treated me well. I had good did Hopkins employ more than four milclothes. Sometimes I was whipped for things I should not have done just lion people, accounting for less than half as the white children were. of the ten million unemployed at the time. Source: Works Progress Administration, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Political problems arose because of his Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves opposition to the use of the WPA for pa(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, 1941). tronage purposes, and there was mounting concern that the jobs created by the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 program were in fact a dole. When Congress succeeded in gaining control of WPA appropriations, Hopkins was forced to change his approach, and the administration was restructured in 1939. It continued until 1943, when—in light of the simultaneous employment boom and conscription brought about by World War II—it was finally terminated. Significance The WPA proved to be one of the most famous programs of the New Deal as well as one of those considered most successful. It is a mark of the ability of the program to live up to its own standards—creating real jobs rather than handouts—that the WPA is remembered more for its products than for its effects on unemployment. Many important American literary and artistic figures—including Arthur Miller and Orson Welles—produced works with WPA monies, and many of the bridges and roads created with those monies remain—with plaques attesting to the source of their funding—in the twenty-first century. Corruption was to some degree inevitable, but when the immensity of the unemployment problem posed by the Depression and the novelty of the remedy is considered, the WPA represented a gigantic effort on the part of the federal government to bring immediate succor to the country’s jobless. It also proved to be a forerunner and the introductory phase of the nation’s attempt to deal effectively with the ever-growing problem of unemployment and public welfare, with all the accompanying complications. —George Q. Flynn and Liesel Ashley Miller
Contreras, Belisario. Tradition and Innovation in New Deal Art. London: Associated University Presses, 1983. Discusses both the politics and aesthetics of New Deal art. Points out what was traditional and what was innovative in the art of the PWAP and the WPA/FAP. Thoroughly documented and well illustrated (black-and-white plates only). DeNoon, Christopher. Posters of the WPA. Los Angeles: Wheatley Press, 1987. Identifying the period from 1935 to 1943 as one of the most innovative in the history of American graphic design, the author discusses the developments that took place as the WPA printed two million posters from thirty-five thousand designs. Illustrated with accurate color reproductions of the original posters. Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Explores Roosevelt’s role in the New Deal. Chapter 6 focuses on efforts of the Works Progress Administration to relieve unemployment. McKinzie, Richard. The New Deal for Artists. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973. Emphasizes the social and political forces behind the establishment of the WPA/FAP; does not focus on the evaluation or explication of the art produced under the program’s auspices. A carefully documented study of the relationship between a government bureaucracy and the arts. O’Connor, Francis, ed. Art for the Millions. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973. A collection of essays written by many of the artists and administrators who were in the WPA/FAP. One of the best sources of information about the program. Also contains complete documentation: inventories of works and manuscripts, reports of expenditures, a list of community art centers, and bibliography. Park, Marlene, and Gerald Markowitz. Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984. Focuses on the Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts, which commissioned murals and sculpture for federal buildings and for eleven hundred post offices. Authors concentrate on choice of themes as well as style, while also giving helpful data on individual artists. Profusely illustrated. Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. The Coming of the New Deal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959. An essential and timeless study, this comprehensive and detailed work cannot be overlooked in any thorough examination of New Deal legislation and policies. 2833
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Further Reading Adams, Henry H. Harry Hopkins. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1977. This biography of the director of the Works Progress Administration provides insight into both the private and public lives of Hopkins. Photographs, extensive bibliography, index. Becker, Heather. Art for the People: The Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive- and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002. Study of populist Chicago school murals beginning thirty years before the WPA. Since it covers both WPA and pre-WPA art, the study provides a basis of comparison that allows one to determine just what the program did and did not accomplish. Bibliographic references and index. Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Brinkley sees the New Deal not merely as a reform movement, but “as part of a long process of ideological adaptation” in the United States.
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Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution Seaton, Elizabeth. WPA Federal Art Project: Printmaking in California, 1935-1943. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 2005. An example of the art projects funded by the WPA, this is a case study and collection of prints made by WPA artists in California. Bibliographic references. White, Graham, and John Maze. Harold Ickes of the New Deal: His Private Life and Public Career. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. Looks
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 at the career of Ickes as the temperamental interior secretary and head of the Public Works Administration in the context of the New Deal. See also: Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established; Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed; Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater.
April 15, 1935
Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution An international jury declared that countries were responsible for their pollution and required Canada to compensate the United States for environmental damage caused by exhaust from a smelter in Trail, British Columbia. Also known as: Trail Smelter dispute; Trail Smelter arbitration Locale: United States; Canada Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Richard Bedford Bennett (1870-1947), prime minister of Canada, 1930-1935 Charles Warren (1868-1954), American attorney Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), associate justice of the United States, 1902-1932 Summary of Event On April 15, 1935, the United States and Canada signed a special agreement to resolve the Trail Smelter dispute. Canada agreed to pay the United States $350,000 in compensation for agricultural damage in northern Washington State that was caused by exhaust from a metal refinery in Trail, British Columbia. This landmark case of international environmental law articulated the idea that a country is responsible for the pollution it generates. The Trail Smelter arbitration is unique in international law because it is the only case specifically related to air pollution crossing national borders. In the Trail Smelter arbitration, Canada and the United States also asked the international jury that refereed the dispute to decide whether Canada should repay the United States for damages that happened after the jury’s award, to determine whether there was an accept2834
able amount of damage the smelter could cause in the future, and to decide how the smelter company should limit future damage. In another unique action in the history of resolving international disputes, the jury carried out an independent study to answer these questions. The Trail Smelter arbitration and its final decision provided guidelines for countries concerned about their responsibility for environmental pollution that affects other countries. The problems that led to the Trail Smelter arbitration began long before 1935. Trail, British Columbia, is on the Columbia River, seven miles north of Canada’s border with the United States. Metal refining, primarily of lead and zinc, had been going on in Trail since 1906. Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada owned the smelter. By the 1920’s, the smelter at Trail was the largest metal-refining operation in Canada. The smelter roasted ores containing sulfides to extract and purify the metals. It also produced exhaust containing sulfur dioxide (SO2). Prevailing winds blew this exhaust down the river valley into Stevens County, Washington, to the south. Farmers near Trail and in Stevens County recognized that the exhaust damaged crops, livestock, and buildings as early as 1925. Daily SO2 production sometimes exceeded seven hundred tons by 1930. Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada also recognized the damage their exhaust caused. The company made some individual settlements and obtained permission from some property owners to allow exhaust to damage their land. Eventually, the exhaust angered Stevens County commissioners enough to make the commission vote for an announcement that condemned the smelter’s operation. In August, 1928, a citizen protection agency formed in Stevens County that stopped individual settlements from being made with the smelting company. Because municipal law in the United States and Can-
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for damages that occurred between 1932 and 1937. It also imposed permanent restrictions on the smelter’s SO2 exhaust. The Trail Smelter dispute officially ended on January 24, 1950, when the United States returned $8,828.19 of unused compensation to Canada. To meet the new exhaust limits, Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada had to remove more SO2 from its stack than the combined exhaust of all other smelters operating in North America at the time. Over the years, SO2 removal cost the company $20 million. SO2 exhaust that was dispersing at a rate of 10,000 tons per month in 1930 declined to a rate of 475 tons per months by 1937. The company sold the recovered sulfur as fertilizer to help pay the costs of removing the sulfur from the exhaust. Significance The ruling in the Trail Smelter arbitration reflected a specific incident. Its immediate effect was to solve a border dispute between the United States and Canada. The two sides agreed to accept an impartial jury’s decision, and the jury established the cause and provided the solution to a clear-cut case of environmental pollution. The importance of the Trail Smelter arbitration as a precedent setter has increased with time. Its ruling became a guide for solving similar disputes on a global basis. In international law, the principle of good neighborliness is the basis for the regulation of pollution that crosses national borders. This principle—that one must use one’s own resources in a manner that will not injure another—comes from the tradition of Roman law that underlies law practice in most Western societies. The Trail Smelter dispute was the first instance in which a dispute over air or water pollution was refereed by an international jury. The jury had precedents on which to base its decision in past U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In State of Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Company and Ducktown Sulphur, Copper, and Iron Company (1907), Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., stated in the Court’s opinion that “the state has the last word as to whether its mountains shall be stripped of their forests and its inhabitants shall breathe pure air . . . it is a fair and reasonable demand on the part of the sovereign that the air over its territory should not be polluted.” The decision in the Trail Smelter arbitration applied this idea of good neighborliness with respect to environmental pollution, ruling that “under the principles of international law . . . no state has the right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by fumes in or to the territory of another country or to the 2835
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ada could not solve the ongoing problem, the U.S. government entered the dispute in 1927 and lodged an official complaint with Canada about the SO2 exhaust. In December, 1927, the two governments agreed to refer the dispute to the International Joint Commission (IJC) for investigation. (The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between Canada and the United States created the International Joint Commission to referee disputes about the use and control of inland waters such as the Great Lakes on their mutual border. The IJC has six members, three from the United States and three from Canada. It has the authority to investigate and obtain precise information about any factors that might affect the existing or planned use of boundary waters.) On August 7, 1928, the IJC began studying the Trail Smelter case to determine how much the exhaust damaged property and what compensation, if any, Canada owed the United States. On February 28, 1931, the IJC announced its unanimous decision that Canada owed the United States $350,000 for damages up to 1932. It also ruled that Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada should reduce SO2 in the smelter’s exhaust. Canada accepted the commission’s report, and Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada voluntarily began reducing the SO2 in exhaust. The United States, however, rejected the IJC decision because the United States believed the $350,000 was insufficient compensation for damages. The United States and Canada continued to negotiate and signed an agreement in 1935 to refer their dispute to binding arbitration by an international jury. That jury had three members: Charles Warren of Massachusetts, a former U.S. attorney general, represented the United States; Robert Greenshields of Quebec represented Canada; and Jans Hostie of Belgium, the chairman, represented a neutral party to the dispute. A scientist assisted each country’s representative: Reginald Dean of Missouri for the United States and Robert Swain of California for Canada. In the 1935 agreement, Pierre Boal, the acting chargé d’affaires for the U.S. government at Ottawa, accepted the original compensation that the International Joint Commission gave the United States in 1931. Boal and Richard Bedford Bennett, the prime minister of Canada, asked the jury to find a permanent settlement to the dispute. The settlement would identify how much Canada owed the United States for environmental damage that happened after 1932. It would also issue guidelines to restrict further environmental pollution. The jury made its final decision on March 11, 1941, after several years of study. It gave the United States an additional $78,179.51
Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution
Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution properties or persons therein, when the case is of serious consequence and the injury is established by clear and convincing evidence.” In the Trail Smelter arbitration, studies identified the level of environmental damage by “clear and convincing evidence,” and the Canadian government accepted responsibility for the damage its citizens caused. By the mid-1960’s and early 1970’s, air pollution crossing national borders was occurring over much of northern Europe and Scandinavia. Many scientists linked it to stream and lake acidification and forest decline. The damage, however, was not clear and convincing in many people’s eyes. Identifying the polluters was difficult. The Swedish government became very concerned with long-range air pollution and blamed SO2 exhaust from English and German industrial complexes for the acid rain appearing in Sweden. Sweden’s concern led it to organize a conference addressing this issue, and the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment took place in Stockholm in 1972. The conference provided Swedish scientists with an opportunity to present their case that acid rain was an international issue. The U.N. Conference on the Human Environment initiated the development of international environmental law. Conference participants summarized their conclusions about international environmental issues in a series of governing principles. Principle 21 was the most appropriate for international pollution and clearly reflected the ruling in the Trail Smelter arbitration. Principle 21 stated that countries had the right to exploit their own natural resources and follow their own environmental policies, but they also had the responsibility “to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.” The 1972 Stockholm conference noted that humans have basic rights to freedom, equality, and adequate living conditions, including a quality environment that permits a dignified life and well-being. Development and environmental protection had to coexist. The conference report also implied that countries had a duty to avoid causing environmental damage to other countries and a duty to prevent pollution. Modern development often produced industrial pollutants that did not respect international boundaries. The U.N. Conference on the Human Environment began an era of cooperative agreements between countries to deal with global environmental issues. Burning coal to produce energy also produced SO2. This raised international 2836
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 attention because SO2 contributed to acid rain. Industrialized nations also produced and used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Chlorofluorocarbons reacted with ozone and destroyed it. CFCs may have contributed to thinning the ozone layer that protected the earth from ultraviolet radiation. In 1985, the Vienna Ozone Layer Convention concluded that protecting the ozone layer is an urgent global responsibility. The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer followed soon after. On September 16, 1987, twenty-four nations and the European Economic Community (EEC) agreed to freeze CFC consumption in 1990 at the levels that had existed in 1986. They also agreed to reduce CFCs by a formula based on a gradual reduction of global CFC emissions. Chlorofluorocarbons would be reduced 20 percent by 1994 and an additional 30 percent by 1999. The era of international cooperation to reduce global air pollution was clearly under way. Beginning with the Trail Smelter arbitration, the world community began to recognize that the environmental consequences of pollution are global rather than local. It also recognized that individual countries are responsible for the pollution they cause. International law now requires nations to recognize this responsibility and take appropriate action. Unlike the results of the Trail Smelter arbitration, however, this responsibility is in principle only. The first tentative steps to move beyond principles and take action began with cooperative agreements such as the Montreal Protocol. The Trail Smelter arbitration, by successfully resolving an environmental dispute involving air pollution and by reducing that air pollution, remained unique in its application throughout the twentieth century. —Mark S. Coyne Further Reading Boyle, Alan, and David Freestone, eds. International Law and Sustainable Development: Past Achievements and Future Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Collection of essays discusses developments in international environmental law as of the end of the twentieth century. Includes tables of cases and treaties and index. Brunnée, Jutta. Acid Rain and Ozone Layer Depletion: International Law and Regulation. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Transnational, 1988. Readable book places the Trail Smelter arbitration in the context of ongoing global prevention of air pollution. Chapter 2 provides a good summary of the scientific background sur-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 rounding acid rain and ozone depletion. Chapter 4 presents concise discussion of international environmental law. Madders, Kevin. “Trail Smelter Arbitration.” In Decisions of International Courts and Tribunals and International Arbitrations, edited by Rudolf Bernhardt. Vol. 2 in Encyclopedia of Public International Law. New York: North Holland, 1981. Brief legal summary of the Trail Smelter arbitration describes the case chronologically in terms accessible to lay readers. Maine, Frank. “Address to Conference Delegates.” In Effects of Acid Precipitation on Terrestrial Ecosystems, edited by Thomas Hutchinson and Magda Havas. New York: Plenum Press, 1980. Provides a useful summary of the issues involved in pollution across national borders. Describes the role and responsibilities of the International Joint Commission very well. Rüster, Bernd, and Bruno Simma, eds. International Protection of the Environment. Vol. 15. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1979. Collection of documents from international environmental law includes the text of the convention that initiated the original Trail Smelter
Soil Conservation Service Is Established arbitration, the final ruling of the arbitration tribunal, and correspondence between the United States and Canada with respect to the dispute. Excellent source for the background of the case and the reasoning behind the tribunal’s final decision. Schmandt, Jurgen, Judith Clarkson, and Hilliard Roderick, eds. Acid Rain and Friendly Neighbors: The Policy Dispute Between Canada and the United States. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Welldocumented chronological overview of atmospheric pollution negotiations between the two countries. Social Learning Group. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Examination of global environmental management focuses on international efforts to address climate change, acid rain, and ozone depletion. See also: June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters.
April 27, 1935
Soil Conservation Service Is Established The Soil Conservation Service was established to alleviate problems created by the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, in which some of the nation’s most productive topsoil blew away as a result of poor land management.
Key Figures Hugh Hammond Bennett (1881-1960), soil conservationist and the first director of the Soil Conservation Service Milburn L. Wilson (1885-1969), assistant secretary of agriculture, 1934-1937 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The Great Depression and the drought of the early 1930’s alerted U.S. leaders to the need for government to take a
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Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; organizations and institutions; government and politics
more active role in resource management. During President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, a number of initiatives were introduced, and in 1935 Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, which established the Soil Conservation Service (SCS). Although the findings from field research at experimental erosion stations, the worldwide economic depression, and dust storms resulting from drought conditions were all important considerations, the legislation was largely passed as a result of efforts by Hugh Hammond Bennett, the father of modern soil conservation in the United States, who used his knowledge to garner political support for national soil-conservation programs. Concern for soil erosion was common in the United States, especially in the South. After observing contour plowing in France, Thomas Jefferson and his brother-inlaw, Thomas Mann Randolph, introduced the method in Virginia. By 1850, contour plowing was common in the South. The Southwest Soil and Water Conservation conference, held in Texas in 1929, helped to bring attention to the problem of soil erosion. Still, soil erosion did not warrant national concern until the Great Depression of
Soil Conservation Service Is Established the 1930’s, when the connection between poor soils and poor people became apparent. During the 1930’s, millions of people were unemployed and desperate for work. The market system did not appear to be functioning, and the nation’s economic woes were exacerbated by the drought. During the 1932 presidential election campaign, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised to do something about the stagnant economy and high unemployment rate by offering people a “New Deal,” and after his inauguration in 1933, he initiated a large-scale government-spending program. One aspect of this initiative was the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), a broad-based act that provided stimulus for all sectors of the economy. Although the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) was not established until 1935, its predecessor, the Soil Erosion Service, was established as a temporary agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior under the 1933 act. When the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established in 1933, several hundred CCC camps were assigned to the Soil Erosion Service, giving impetus to erosion-control efforts. Bennett, a soil scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was employed to direct the Soil Erosion Service. He had firsthand experience with soil erosion in North Carolina; moreover, he had seen the effects of erosion while working as a surveyor and as a supervisor of surveys in the South. In 1928, he and W. R. Chapline published a paper titled “Soil Erosion: A National Menace.” This U.S. Department of Agriculture publication, along with other articles that appeared in such widely read publications as Nature, Geographical Review, and Farm Journal, alerted politicians and the public to the severity of the nation’s erosion problem. When Bennett took control of the Soil Erosion Service in 1933, his budget was $5 million. Soil-conservation projects were strategically located in watersheds near erosion-control experiment stations so that the research findings could be readily employed, and farmers signed five-year cooperative agreements to employ the recommended conservation measures. In return, the Soil Erosion Service provided them with equipment, seeds, seedlings, lime, fertilizer, soil-conservation assistance, and labor from the CCC or the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Many of the conservation practices promoted by the Soil Erosion Service were not new. Various methods in a conservation system, however, were designed specifically for each individual farm. For example, strip cropping under longer rotation was encouraged for hay and small grain crops. Administrators also emphasized pas2838
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ture management by using fertilizers and fencing off woodland from grazing in hilly areas to reduce runoff, and many farmers were introduced to grassed outlets, grassed waterways, and grade stabilization techniques. Significance The Soil Erosion Service was shifted from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture and was given permanent status under the Soil Conservation Act. Its name was changed to the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), and its responsibilities centered on planning and conducting a national program to conserve and develop the nation’s soil and water resources. If not for the activities of the Soil Conservation Service, the physical landscape of the United States would be much less stable. CCC workers conducted a number of demonstration projects. Seeds for nursery production of seedlings were collected for reforestation, native grasses were used to revegetate rangeland in semiarid regions, water filtration was enhanced by water-spreading systems and contour furrows, and livestock grazing was redistributed with the use of stock-watering in ponds and springs. Demonstration projects aimed at improving rangeland through range management were also implemented on Native American reservations. The demonstration projects’ results were so convincing, in fact, that farmers who visited areas where these projects were being implemented also began to ask for assistance. Realizing that the CCC and WPA workers would be available only temporarily, the assistant secretary of agriculture, Milburn L. Wilson, devised a plan for making a sustained supply of conservation expertise available to farmers. His plan called for the development of soilconservation districts, which provided for greater local participation in the planning operations. The Standard State Conservation Districts Law was sent to state governors on February 27, 1937, by President Roosevelt. After each state passed the law, districts were organized around local watersheds or county boundaries, and supervisors were elected. Districts signed agreements with the Department of Agriculture, which provided nearly three thousand districts with trained soil conservationists, who worked directly with farmers. Through these planning districts, the SCS developed a land-classification system and associated soil management practices that did much to restore the fertility of American soils after periods of degradation. Over the years, the responsibilities of the Soil Conservation Service grew to include a variety of tasks, and the
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A Soil Conservation Service poster emphasizes the importance of good farming practices. (NARA)
than one billion acres of land were mapped, and maps of millions of additional acres were added each year. The soil surveys and maps were published, and the SCS also cooperated with other agencies that prepared special reports and maps relevant to soil surveys. More than one hundred new plants were identified by the Soil Conservation Service’s Plant Materials Center. This group searched for plants that lend themselves to stabilizing waste disposal areas, extending grazing seasons, improving windbreaks and shelterbelts, and reducing air pollution, snow drift damage, and wind erosion. More than twenty-three thousand plants were examined after 1938, and more than one hundred were released for conservation purposes. The Soil Conservation Service also became involved in a comprehensive system of land-resource conservation, and it analyzed alternate soil-conservation methods and management practices required to safeguard the soil under different cropping systems. The practices included such methods as no-till and minimum-tillage farming, contour plowing, terracing, strip cropping, stubble mulching, and the efficient use of fertilizers. On rangeland, the SCS pioneered the use of range inventory methods that incorporated ecological principles and concepts as well as practical methods for range management. Furthermore, thousands of pilot studies correlated soils with tree growth, and these analyses were made available to woodland conservationists. Hundreds of millions of acres of land were restored or stabilized as a result of these practices, and farmers and other land users were given the latest information pertaining to crops and their use and management. Land users received assistance with wildlife conservation efforts, recreational land-use projects, and campaigns to prevent land-disturbing activities. The Food and Agriculture Act of 1962 authorized the Department of Agriculture to assist landowners with developing recreational resources. Nearly two million lakes and ponds were built on farms and ranches by the SCS, which also helped soilconservation districts to help stabilize mine spoils and reclaim hundreds of millions of acres of land. Watershed projects enacted in 1954 under the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act established soil- and water-conservation measures on private and public land and allowed for the construction of dams and other water-control structures on upstream tributaries to ensure effective water management. This activity was administered by the Soil Conservation Service, which also administered work on watersheds that was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944 in eleven major 2839
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SCS tried to promote soil conservation in a number of ways. Soil conservation was enhanced by employing conservation methods based on scientific research findings, by developing an agency of technically trained personnel to carry out soil conservation in farm communities, and by creating soil-conservation districts. Furthermore, the agency shared in the cost of establishing and implementing soil-conservation practices. The Soil Conservation Service came to be widely recognized for its soil surveys and maps. The surveys examined the soil’s physical attributes, revealing such information as soil moisture, texture, slope, erosion, and chemistry. This information was supplemented by laboratory studies and was used for selecting sites for specific land uses. Each soil survey described the key characteristics of soils in a survey area, classified and named the soil according to a nationwide system, provided information on the potential and limitations of soils for various uses, and showed the soil distribution on a detailed map. More
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Soil Conservation Service Is Established watersheds covering about thirty million acres. These watershed projects helped control flooding and erosion while supplying water for irrigation, industrial, and municipal uses. The Soil Conservation Service also became involved with some of the provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985. Under this program, SCS conservationists worked directly with farmers to determine soil erodibility as it applied to the preservation of wetlands. Some of the most erodible land was taken out of production and covered with protective vegetation, and farmers received rental payments in return. Although the effectiveness of soilconservation efforts has been debated by some, the nation’s soils are much more protected as a result of the Soil Conservation Service’s work. In 1994, the Soil Conservation Service was subsumed under the National Resources Conservation Service, part of the Department of Agriculture. —Jasper L. Harris Further Reading Bennett, Hugh H. “Soil.” In The American Environment: Readings in the History of Conservation, edited by Roderick Nash. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968. A historical perspective of the soil-erosion problem in the United States. _______. Soils Conservation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939. A comprehensive view of soil erosion. Although not written as a history of soil conservation, Bennett’s persuasive argument for soil conservation is articulated. Soils are viewed as an essential natural resource that must be protected to secure the nation’s future. Helms, Douglas. Readings in the History of the Conservation Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service, 1992. A collection of short articles by Douglas Helms, national historian for the Soil Conservation Service. The articles focus on a general history of the Soil Conservation Service, its origin, and selected historic activities, including involvement by women and minorities.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Klee, Gary A. “Soil Resource Management.” In Conservation of Natural Resources. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991. A brief historical view of misuse of soil that dates back to the Sumerian and Roman empires. An attempt is made to compare these ancient practices to more recent soil-conservation efforts. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species. Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. An exploration of the physiological and psychological significance of wilderness, especially for Americans of European descent. The book looks to prehistoric humans, treats notions of the wilderness in classical and medieval Europe, and focuses on American efforts to define, explore, and conquer the wilderness up to the end of the twentieth century. Steiner, Frederick R. Soil Conservation in the United States: Policy and Planning. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Comprehensive view of soil erosion and related legislation in the United States. Examines the activities of the Soil Conservation Service and recommends a quantitative approach to soil conservation. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established; May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains; June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act; July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Black Monday
May 27, 1935
Black Monday A business-oriented U.S. Supreme Court rendered a series of decisions that undermined New Deal programs. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; economics; government and politics Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), chief justice of the United States, 1930-1941 Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), associate justice of the United States, 1916-1939 Pierce Butler (1866-1939), associate justice of the United States, 1922-1939 Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938), associate justice of the United States, 1932-1938 James C. McReynolds (1862-1946), associate justice of the United States, 1914-1941 Owen J. Roberts (1875-1955), associate justice of the United States, 1930-1945 Harlan Fiske Stone (1872-1946), associate justice of the United States, 1925-1941 George Sutherland (1862-1942), associate justice of the United States, 1922-1938 Willis Van Devanter (1859-1941), associate justice of the United States, 1910-1937
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Summary of Event In the spring of 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the last year of his first term as president of the United States. He had taken office in 1933 and had labored to end the Great Depression, which had begun with the stock market crash of October, 1929. His initiatives had resulted in an unprecedented assertion of presidential power and made inevitable a conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court. Decisions concerning the constitutionality of legislation and executive action are based on nine sitting Supreme Court justices’ interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, a document written in general terms at a time when the complexities of twentieth century governing bodies could not have been imagined. President Roosevelt received what he may not have recognized as a portent on January 7, 1935, when the Court ruled unconstitutional the provision of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) by which the
president could prohibit interstate transportation of oil exceeding production quotas. By a vote of eight to one, the Court ruled that the president had usurped legislative power—a violation of the first section of Article I of the Constitution. By May, it began to be clear that the NIRA as a whole was in trouble. As often happens, the Court was considering a case that on the surface seemed to have small and merely local interest: violations of the Live Poultry Code by a Long Island firm that supplied chickens for New York-area kosher markets. The code was part of the National Recovery Administration’s codemaking authority, through which the Roosevelt administration was striving to pull the nation out of the Great Depression. While the administration awaited the decision on this matter, the Court, by a five-to-four margin, on May 6 declared the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934 a violation of the Fifth Amendment property rights of the railroads, because the law required that the railroads (as well as their employees) contribute to the retirement fund. Retirement, said the Court, had nothing to do with the government’s legal right to regulate interstate commerce. Because the Roosevelt administration was keenly interested in a much larger retirement program that had not yet passed the Senate—the one familiar today as Social Security—the decision on the railroad pension arrangement threatened Social Security even before it could be enacted. Three weeks later, on Monday, May 27—a day that came to be known as Black Monday—the Court handed down a series of decisions. In the first, and crucial, decision, the Court unanimously declared that President Roosevelt had acted unconstitutionally by removing a Republican appointee, William E. Humphrey, from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) without cause. From the president’s point of view, the cause was clear enough: Humphrey had been obstructing Roosevelt’s policies at the FTC. In its decision, the Court in effect reversed a 1916 decision that had justified a similar exercise of presidential power. Next, the Court ruled unanimously that an amendment to the National Bankruptcy Act that aimed at relieving farmers who had defaulted on their mortgages was in violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Although not, strictly speaking, a part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the act had been signed into law the year before. Here again, the Court was hedging the combined
Black Monday legislative power of Congress and the president and making it more difficult for the federal government to deal with the economic crisis. Finally, in the case of Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States—the “sick chicken case,” as some had termed it—Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes read a unanimous decision in favor of the former. The conviction of the Schechter brothers by a lower court for selling diseased poultry was thrown out because the Supreme Court ruled that the applicable federal code was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the executive branch. This decision was significant because it voided hundreds of other NIRA codes. Again, the previously accepted power of government to regulate interstate commerce was abridged. Only activities that the Court considered as having direct effects on interstate commerce could be regulated. Significance The Court’s decisions on Black Monday dealt a devastating blow to the administration’s recovery program. While opponents of the New Deal rejoiced, many industries that appeared destined to be affected by the decision in the Schechter case had much to worry about. The textile manufacturers of New England, for example, now were stripped of possible government protection from competing southern firms that paid significantly lower wages. More than anything else, it was that aspect of the decision abridging government’s power to regulate interstate commerce that made May 27 Black Monday, for the Court’s narrow interpretation of “interstate” in the interests of local industry suggested that the Court viewed most of what had commonly been regarded as interstate commerce as only indirectly interstate. If all industry was local, because it occurred in a particular locality, the government would be virtually powerless to effect economic recovery nationally. The Court was acting sincerely as guardian of the Constitution, but its decisions were standing between the New Deal and the economic recovery that everyone wanted but that the federal government alone seemed in a position to promote. A decisive majority in Congress had been willing to accept the NIRA codes, but Hughes argued that the legislative branch had no right to abdicate or transfer to the executive the powers constitutionally vested in Congress. Of concern also was the matter of emergency powers. The issue had come before the Court in 1934 in Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell, when the judgment had suggested that emergencies justified en2842
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 largement of the government’s ordinary constitutional powers. In the eyes of Roosevelt and his aides, the economic situation in 1935 constituted a national emergency, but the Supreme Court seemed to back away from that opinion in the Black Monday decisions. One possible explanation for this seeming inconsistency is the common background of the Court’s members at the time. The Court—which consisted of Chief Justice Hughes and Associate Justices Louis D. Brandeis, Pierce Butler, Benjamin N. Cardozo, James C. McReynolds, Owen J. Roberts, Harlan Fiske Stone, George Sutherland, and Willis Van Devanter—was split then, as it has often been, between philosophical liberals and conservatives, but the fact that eight of the nine justices had backgrounds in corporate law disposed even relative liberals, such as Brandeis and Stone, to affirm the property rights of business interests. In the eyes of the administration, the Court’s stalwart defense of these property rights was blocking attempts to protect the livelihoods of millions of jobless people, many of whom had already lost all the property they owned. Far from being discouraged by the Court’s most recent actions, President Roosevelt called a news conference four days later in which he attacked the Court’s “horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce.” Shortly thereafter, his administration began to redesign the National Recovery Administration programs to evade similar Supreme Court obstructions of the New Deal in the future. The Court, however, continued to strike at pillars of Roosevelt’s reforms, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Regarding that legislation, Associate Justice Roberts delivered the Court’s majority decision in January, 1936, again employing the argument that the government was trying to regulate local enterprises that fell under the jurisdiction of the states. The tide began to turn in 1937. Despite stern popular opposition to Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the Court with his own appointees by raising the number of justices, the now more circumspect Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) and the Social Security Act, two of the most vital reforms to emerge from Roosevelt’s second term. In that year, the first of Roosevelt’s nemeses on the Court, Van Devanter, retired. By 1941, the president had named replacements for all but one of the 1935 justices. — Robert P. Ellis Further Reading Cope, Alfred Haines, and Fred Krinsky, eds. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Supreme Court. Boston: D. C.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Heath, 1952. Collection of a variety of relevant writings from the 1930’s, including selections from primary sources. Cushman, Barry. Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Scholarly study focuses on the Supreme Court in the period following Roosevelt’s reelection in 1936, but includes discussion of the 1935 Black Monday cases. Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New Deal Years, 19331937—A History. 1986. Reprint. New York: Random House, 1995. Offers a carefully documented and evenhanded account of the series of clashes between President Roosevelt and the U.S. Supreme Court. Part of a multivolume biography. Hendel, Samuel. Charles Evans Hughes and the Supreme Court. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1951. Study of the man who, as chief justice, epitomized judicial opposition to New Deal innovations. Contains extended discussion of Black Monday as viewed by Supreme Court justices.
Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous Jackson, Percival E. Dissent in the Supreme Court: A Chronology. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969. Discusses the dissenting opinions of Justices Hughes and Cardozo in two of the 1935 cases. Leuchtenburg, William. The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Focuses primarily on Supreme Court-related developments during Roosevelt’s second term, but includes detailed chapters on the Black Monday railroad pension decision and the Humphrey case. See also: May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight.
June 10, 1935
Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous Founded by two professionals who were also alcoholics, Alcoholics Anonymous began as a nonsectarian program based on mutual reinforcement and adherence to a set of twelve specified steps that led toward a healthy, alcohol-free lifestyle. The organization grew to more than three million recovering alcoholics worldwide and spawned a number of other addiction treatment groups based on the same principles.
Key Figures William G. Wilson (1895-1971), stockbroker and cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous Robert Holbrook Smith (1879-1950), physician and cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous William D. Silkworth (fl. early twentieth century), medical adviser and supporter of AA who was one of the first to believe that alcoholism is a disease
Summary of Event On November 11, 1934, William G. Wilson, a failed stockbroker caught in the throes of alcoholism, checked himself into Towns Hospital in Manhattan. His few remaining associates, his wife, and even Dr. William Silkworth, the attending physician, regarded the veteran of three “cures” at this drying-out facility as a hopeless case. However, a few days before, a former colleague and fellow alcoholic had paid Wilson a visit. Rejoicing in his newfound sobriety, the friend persuaded Wilson to attend an Oxford Group meeting. Oxford Groups were an early twentieth century revival movement dedicated to moral reformation. Although nonsectarian, they were explicitly Christian, and they considered alcoholism to be a moral failing. Wilson, an agnostic with little interest in tackling any problem other than his addiction to alcohol, was a poor candidate for salvation by the Manhattan Oxford Group. What he heard there, however, persuaded him to attempt another visit to Towns Hospital. While undergo2843
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Also known as: AA Locale: Akron, Ohio; New York, New York Categories: Organizations and institutions; health and medicine; social issues and reform
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960), American philanthropist and supporter of Alcoholics Anonymous
Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
other alcoholics kept him sober, he called a local clergyman, who put Alcoholics Anonymous adopted the Twelve Steps in 1939, and they have been a him in touch with Robert Holbrook crucial part of the organization ever since. Smith, a physician who was also an alcoholic. Dr. Smith listened to Wil1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become son and was inspired, although he unmanageable. never had a “white light” experience 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to and never entirely lost the compulsanity. sion to drink. His more gradual re3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we covery helped temper Wilson’s enunderstood Him. thusiasm and make the fledgling 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact naorganization more receptive to tentature of our wrongs. tive newcomers. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. For the next several months, Wil7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. son stayed in Smith’s house, and the 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make two men attempted to bring the mesamends to them all. sage of sobriety to other alcoholics. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do Together, Bill Wilson and “Dr. Bob” so would injure them or others. discussed every point of strategy, 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly ideas that were later tested among a admitted it. small group of people in the early 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact stages of recovery from active alcowith God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. holism. When Wilson returned to 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to New York in the fall, he left behind a carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our group of half a dozen men who were affairs. attempting to stay sober by taking Source: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Big Book, 4th ed. (New York: one day at a time and by holding freAuthor, 2001). quent meetings at which they shared their concerns. The fact that Smith was a physician helped smooth relations between ing detoxification, Wilson experienced a moment of total the fledgling organization and the medical community. surrender to a vague power: He felt bathed in white light Furthermore, the Akron Oxford Group already had a strong emphasis on recovery from alcoholism, and it was and completely lost the compulsion to drink. more welcoming than the New York group, which exBill Wilson left Towns Hospital a changed man, and pelled Wilson in 1938. Wilson’s first New York recruits he immediately set about spreading the “gospel of sobricame from Towns Hospital, where Dr. Silkworth had beety” to alcoholic members of the Oxford Group, inhabcome convinced of the merits of Wilson’s approach. itants of a homeless shelter, and anyone else who would Silkworth was willing to let Wilson work with patients listen. With the acquiescence of his patient wife, Lois and even offered Wilson a job as a lay alcoholism theraBurnham Wilson, he invited the down-and-out into their pist in 1938. The offer was extremely tempting, as the apartment and held meetings directed specifically toWilsons’ finances were precarious, but the other members ward alcoholics. His efforts did not meet with success, of the now-solid New York group persuaded Wilson that but after six months he was still sober and had recovered selling his services would undermine the organization. enough of his old dynamism that a Wall Street firm sent At first, Alcoholics Anonymous grew slowly. When him to Akron, Ohio, on business. the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, the AA bible, His work in Ohio went poorly, however, and by the appeared in April of 1939, membership numbered about beginning of June of 1935, Wilson found himself in the a hundred, including a few women. By 1955, memberMayflower Hotel, his expense account depleted. For the ship had increased to one hundred fifty thousand, and first time since emerging from Towns Hospital, he was chapters had begun in a number of foreign countries. strongly tempted to drink. Recognizing that talking with
AA’s Twelve Steps
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States also endorsed the program, although some found absence of sectarian dogmatism too unorthodox. On the other hand, dedicated secularists complained that mere reference to God by an organization with a prominent community role violated separation of church and state. Significance Alcoholism is a progressive, fatal, socially devastating disease to which roughly 10 percent of people are susceptible. The foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous followed close on the heels of Prohibition, a singularly ineffective attempt to eliminate alcoholism by a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the United States. Prohibition failed to curb alcoholism, and it spawned a culture of crime that continued to plague the nation for decades. Later attempts to solve the problem of drug addiction through the criminal justice system had similarly problematic results. In contrast, Alcoholics Anonymous’s work saved the lives of many thousands of people at negligible cost. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the worldwide membership numbered somewhere between two and three million, and in the United States, the average member had been sober for four years. Although medical treatment programs became widely available, many people found AA to be the only organization that could help them achieve sobriety, and many more relied on continuing participation in AA to avoid relapse. Al-Anon, a group founded by Lois Burnham Wilson to help families of alcoholics cope with the disease’s effects, provided invaluable services and support for families in crisis. Alcoholics Anonymous faced accusations that it brainwashed its members by insisting on admissions of powerlessness, by promoting religion, or by adhering to methods that had not been rigorously tested in a controlled clinical setting. Unfortunately, AA’s success rate, although probably equal to that of reputable medical programs, nonetheless remained discouragingly low. However, few people who personally experienced alcoholism or who worked in social service organizations doubted that the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous was a major turning point in American social history. —Martha A. Sherwood Further Reading Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. Alcoholics Anonymous. 4th ed. New York: Author, 2001. Includes unrevised text of the 1939 edition, introductions to all four editions, and forty-two personal stories of recovery spanning seventy years of AA operation. The AA bible. 2845
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Membership stood at around a million in 1976, when the third edition of Alcoholics Anonymous appeared, and had risen to two million by 2001. Wilson entertained grandiose plans for spreading the message of recovery. He envisioned massive publicity campaigns, a large paid staff, and special treatment centers run according to AA principles. He approached John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who agreed that the cause was worthy and its approach was successful but believed that it could and should be self-supporting. The modest support Rockefeller provided did, however, fill a critical need from 1938 to 1945. Living within its means was a critical ingredient in AA’s success. Indeed, the organization was supported by member contributions and the sale of publications, received no government grants or subsidies from religious or other charitable foundations, and refused large individual bequests. Instead, AA operated mainly with volunteer labor, and as a result it could open its doors to any suffering alcoholic with no strings attached. AA based its program on a series of twelve steps to recovery that began with recognition of the problem and culminated in work with other alcoholics. These steps, adapted from principles employed by the Oxford Groups, included taking a moral inventory and making amends for past behavior. The Twelve Steps of AA first appeared in the 1939 edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they were soon copied by other recovery programs geared toward addressing addictions and compulsive behaviors. The principle of anonymity was established early and served several purposes. Because of the stigma attached to alcoholism and potential legal complications, the professionals who dominated AA’s early membership were anxious to avoid public identification. Wilson also knew that relapses were common and calculated that a celebrity who slipped would destroy any positive effect created by an initial recovery. AA members, therefore, identified themselves by their first names only and avoided being photographed for national publications. Wilson himself is often referred to as simply “Bill W.” From the outset, AA was an inclusive organization that welcomed alcoholics regardless of their race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, or prior criminal history. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. Individual branches had considerable autonomy, and some were more restrictive than others. After some initial hostility, most medical doctors and mental health professionals came to support AA and referred patients to the organization (usually as an adjunct to treatment). Most religious groups in the United
Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous
Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem” _______. “Early AA’s Take Stock.” AA Grapevine 60, no. 6 (November, 2003). An introduction to the work of E. M. Jellinek and his collaboration with AA in refining the concept of alcoholism as a disease. _______, ed. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of AA. New York: Editor, 1985. Texts of talks given by Bill Wilson and other key figures at the AA General Service Conference in 1955; includes a detailed timeline.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hartigan, Francis. Bill W.: A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Bill Wilson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. A well-researched, balanced account that presents a favorable picture of the man and organization and steers clear of the various myths surrounding AA. See also: Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established; May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded.
July, 1935
Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem” Arthur G. Tansley coined the word “ecosystem” to emphasize the need for ecological studies to integrate the living and nonliving parts of the environment. Locale: Great Britain; United States Categories: Environmental issues; science and technology; biology Key Figures Arthur G. Tansley (1871-1955), English plant ecologist Frederic E. Clements (1874-1945), American ecologist Henry Allen Gleason (1882-1975), American ecologist Raymond L. Lindeman (1915-1942), American ecologist Summary of Event In 1935, Arthur G. Tansley, a leading English plant ecologist, wrote a paper criticizing the pioneering ecological theory of his American colleague and friend Frederic E. Clements. John Phillips, a South African plant ecologist, had carried Clements’s ideas on the nature of the plant community to an extreme that Tansley found intolerable. Tansley responded with “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms,” which was published in the American journal Ecology. In that paper, Tansley suggested the term “ecosystem” to replace Clements’s “complex organism” and defined the new term to include both the living and the nonliving parts of the environment. He argued that plant interactions with the physical environment as well as interactions among plants determine community organization. He suggested that the ecosystem should be studied as the fundamental ecological unit. Tansley was an institution in British ecological research. He did important early work on plant communities and wrote influential botanical textbooks. In 1902, 2846
he started the first British ecology journal, the New Phytologist. He was instrumental in the establishment of the British Ecological Society in 1913 and served as the organization’s first president. He also played an important role in nature conservation in the British Isles. Clements was a leading American ecologist, a pioneer in the formulation of a new science. He wrote an influential ecology text, coauthored an early attempt to integrate animal and plant ecology, developed a new, mathematically based system of vegetation analysis, and developed a historically important theory on the nature of plant communities. He and his theory played important roles in early arguments for conservation of natural communities during and after the Dust Bowl tragedy of the 1930’s. According to Clements’s theory, plant communities behave like complex organisms, with the different species as interdependent on one another as the organs within an organism. In addition, this organismic community has a specific and predictable developmental sequence (called ecological succession) that is analogous to embryologic development in an organism and that ends in a mature community (the climax community). Under a given set of climatic conditions, an identical climax community is reached at the end of every successional sequence. The sequence is predictable because of the intimate (organismic) interactions among community members. Ecologists agreed that a given set of climatic conditions generally gives rise to a given type of vegetation and that a particular sequence of communities occurs in establishing this climax community. They disagreed, however, with Clements’s idea of nearly complete interdependence among community members, his insistence on identical climax communities under a given set of cli-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Tansley’s paper had little immediate impact, but the concept of the ecosystem gained acceptance over time. The ecosystem came to be viewed as an aggregation of plant, animal, and microorganismic species, each of which re-
sponds individually to its physical environment as well as to the other species sharing that environment. Community and ecosystem types are recognizable in nature (temperate deciduous forest, tropical rain forest, grassland, lake, and salt marsh, among others), but they merge gradually into one another, and a given ecosystem differs from one part of its geographic extent to another. Therefore, the community contained within the ecosystem is not a tightly integrated unit, an organism, but a group of species thrown together by their common ability to live under the available conditions. Once thrown together, the species must interact, and intimate (organismic) relationships sometimes develop between members of the community. The community’s organization is based on
The First Use of “Ecosystem” Arthur G. Tansley introduced the term “ecosystem” in this passage in a 1935 journal article: I have already given my reasons for rejecting the terms “complex organism” and “biotic community.” Clements’ earlier term “biome” for the whole complex of organisms inhabiting a given region is unobjectionable, and for some purposes convenient. But the more fundamental conception is, as it seems to me, the whole system (in the sense of physics), including not only the organismcomplex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment of the biome— the habitat factors in the widest sense. Though the organisms may claim our primary interest, when we are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate them from their special environment, with which they form one physical system. It is the systems so formed which, from the point of view of the ecologist, are the basic units of nature on the face of the earth. Our natural human prejudices force us to consider the organisms (in the sense of the biologist) as the most important parts of these systems, but certainly the inorganic “factors” are also parts—there could be no systems without them, and there is constant interchange of the most various kinds within each system, not only between the organisms but between the organic and inorganic. These ecosystems, as we may call them, are of the most various kinds and sizes. They form one category of the multitudinous physical systems of the universe, which range from the universe as a whole down to the atom. Source: Arthur G. Tansley, “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms,” Ecology 16 (July, 1935).
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matic conditions, and his lack of emphasis on the role of physical factors in molding community structure. Henry Allen Gleason suggested an alternative explanation for the phenomena of ecological succession and climax: the individualistic model. According to this theory, each individual plant responds to physical and biological factors independently, and the climax community is made up of the plants that can grow and reproduce under the physical conditions at the site. Climate is a major factor in determining which plants can grow in an area, but soils, fire, and other physical factors are also important. Interactions among the living things that occur in the area play a role in community structure, but that structure is essentially determined by each species’ individual response to the physical environment. Similarly, the plants present at any given stage of succession are determined by which plants have reached the area by that stage and which plants grow best under the physical conditions present. The organization of a community is determined by individual plant characteristics, not by organismic plant interactions. Tansley embraced many of Clements’s ideas, but he held to a less literal view of the organismic community. He saw Clements’s literal view as neither an accurate representation of natural communities nor a helpful framework for advancing ecological understanding. Phillips’s articles triggered Tansley’s direct attack on the literal organismic community; in that attack, he redirected ecological thought to the total system, in which the physical environment plays a larger role than it does in Clements’s organismic community. A word was needed to designate the community, its physical environment, and all the interactions between them. The idea was not new, and several terms were already available. In 1883, Karl August Möbius had used the term “biocoenosis” to refer to the physical and biological interactions in an oyster bed. Stephen Alfred Forbes had used “microcosm” in 1887 to describe the same set of interactions in a lake. These are often cited as the earliest expressions of the idea. Rather than use one of the older terms, however, Tansley coined his own: “ecosystem.” The word and, more important, the idea it represented set the stage for elaborate studies, the results of which demonstrated the necessity of conserving entire ecosystems.
Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem”
Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem” the individual species’ abilities to handle the physical conditions as well as these interactions. Charles Elton, a British animal ecologist working in the general context of Tansley’s earlier modification of Clements’s theory of community organization, had already developed models for the transfer of energy and matter through the components of biological communities: food chains, food webs, and ecological pyramids. Elton said that plants are eaten by and are more numerous than herbivores, which are in turn more numerous than the carnivores that eat them, and so on. This reduction in numbers with each link in the food chain (or feeding level in the pyramid) restricts the number of links in the chain (or levels in the pyramid), because after a few reductions there is not enough food to support the next higher link (or level). Elton’s work inspired another British ecologist, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, who also worked within a modified Clementsian model, although he probably did not derive it from Clements directly. Hutchinson studied matter and energy flow through lake communities and introduced the idea of biogeochemical cycles in which nutrients (chemicals) move between the physical environment and the members of the community. Elton and Hutchinson, both working within modified organismic models, focused the attention of ecologists on the transfer of matter and energy from the physical environment through a series of community members back to the physical environment. These transfer events became the major topics of ecosystem ecology. A student of Hutchinson, Raymond L. Lindeman, used Tansley’s ecosystem concept and Hutchinson’s methods in an analysis of the energetics of a lake ecosystem. Despite serious objection to his work by several established biologists, Lindeman’s resulting paper, “The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology,” published in the journal Ecology in 1942, had a dramatic impact. His study served as a model and became a catalyst for similar studies of ecosystem energy relationships and helped establish the ecosystem as a fundamental ecological unit. Lindeman’s paper was highly theoretical and was not based on extensive or particularly accurate measurements of ecological parameters. The technology of the time made such measurements difficult or impossible. Beginning in the 1950’s, Eugene P. Odum and Howard T. Odum, both deeply influenced by Hutchinson, pushed ecosystem ecology to its next plateau. They ran a series of ecosystem studies on abandoned farmland around the Savannah River nuclear plant in Georgia, on the Pacific island of Enewetak (a site used for nuclear testing), on 2848
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the mineral springs at Silver Springs, Florida, and at other sites. In each of these studies, they considered the energy flow and matter cycles of the entire system; they also developed new techniques for measuring such flows, most notably the use of radioactive isotopes to trace the flow of matter through a system. In the 1960’s, thirty years after Tansley’s suggestion to consider entire ecosystems as units for ecological research, F. Herbert Bormann and Gene E. Likens began a series of studies in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. These studies evolved into a multiyear study of the entire Hubbard Brook ecosystem and involved nearly two hundred scientists. The researchers measured inputs and outputs to individual watersheds and explored the watersheds’ handling of materials. They cut all vegetation from some watersheds and studied the effects. They also applied herbicides to some clear-cut watersheds and analyzed the long-term absence of plant cover. Bormann and Likens followed Tansley’s advice to study entire ecosystems, and their work resulted in significantly improved understanding of ecosystem organization and function. An even larger-scale ecosystem study was also initiated in the 1960’s. The International Biological Program (IBP) was considerably more popular in Europe and Canada than it was in the United States, but even in the United States, its goals were in keeping with Tansley’s suggestion. These goals included gathering sufficient data from five major ecosystems—referred to as “biomes” by the IBP—to produce computer models of the structures and functions of each. Scientists could use these models to understand the biomes in greater depth and so better direct their management. In his paper, Tansley had suggested the use of mathematical models for improved understanding of ecosystems. The IBP did not fulfill its mission to generate functional models of biomes, but it did stimulate elaborate and cooperative studies of whole ecosystems, and so contributed to the establishment of ecosystem ecology. The Ecosystem Studies Program of the National Science Foundation followed the IBP as the organization responsible for funding large-scale ecosystem studies, and such studies increased in numbers, indicating the perceived importance of ecosystem ecology. The sequence of events that established that importance was, in a sense, initiated by Tansley’s introduction of the word “ecosystem” in his criticism of Clements’s “organismic community.” Once the ecosystem became established as the functional ecological unit, it became clear that conservation efforts could be successful only if they concentrated on
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 conserving such units. Although community structure is not literally organismic, an intact ecosystem is required for continuity of many of its member species. In their day, both Clements and Tansley argued for the conservation of entire ecosystems. As researchers learned more about the structures and functions of ecosystems, their findings led to conservation efforts that attempted to save systems rather than species. —Carl W. Hoagstrom
Press, 1985. Excellent work places Tansley’s contribution in context. Chapter 6 specifically covers ecosystem ecology, but related ideas are discussed throughout. Includes bibliography and index. Pepper, David. Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 1996. Places key ideas concerning environmentalism in social and cultural context. Includes discussion of the ecosystem concept. Features figures, tables, glossary, and index. Real, Leslie A., and James H. Brown, eds. Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Collection of classic papers presents wide-ranging information, and commentaries provide historic perspective. Includes the paper in which Tansley coined the term “ecosystem,” Lindeman’s paper, and related papers by Forbes, Clements, Gleason, Eugene Odum, and Likens and Bormann. Tobey, Ronald C. Saving the Prairie: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. An excellent source of information on the rise and fall of Clements’s organismic community model and its impact on the drought-stimulated conservation movement. Chapter 6 outlines Tansley’s criticism of Clements’s ideas. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Worster, Donald. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Well-written history of ecology includes ample coverage of ecosystem ecology. Provides an interesting perspective on the concept of the ecosystem and its history. See also: May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control; 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity”; Sept. 1, 1914: Last Passenger Pigeon Dies; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests.
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Further Reading Egerton, Frank N. “The History of Ecology: Achievements and Opportunities, Part One.” Journal of the History of Biology 16 (Summer, 1983): 259-310. An overview of the history of ecology, including ecosystem ecology. Commentaries on other sources are especially interesting. Includes extensive references. _______. “The History of Ecology: Achievements and Opportunities, Part Two.” Journal of the History of Biology 18 (Spring, 1985): 103-143. Continuation of the paper cited above deals with applied ecology in which ecosystem ecology has played an important role. Considers Clements’s arguments for conservation during the Dust Bowl era. Includes extensive references. Godwin, Sir Harry. “Sir Arthur Tansley: The Man and the Subject.” Journal of Ecology 65 (1977): 1-26. Brief biography of Tansley by one of his closest colleagues. Provides insight into Tansley’s personality and varied interests. Golley, Frank Benjamin. A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More Than the Sum of the Parts. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. Lucid history, chronologically arranged, on the evolution of the concept of the ecosystem. Chapter 2 places Tansley’s contribution in historical context. Includes extensive bibliography and index. Hagen, Joel B. An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Excellent history of ecosystem ecology. Includes illustrations and index. McIntosh, Robert P. The Background of Ecology: Concept and Theory. New York: Cambridge University
Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem”
Wagner Act
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July 5, 1935
Wagner Act The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, placed positive federal authority behind labor organizing and collective bargaining. Also known as: National Labor Relations Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor; economics Key Figures Robert F. Wagner (1877-1953), U.S. senator from New York Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 William Green (1873-1952), president of the American Federation of Labor John L. Lewis (1880-1969), leader of the United Mine Workers and first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), chief justice of the United States, 1930-1941 Summary of Event Passage of the National Labor Relations Act on July 5, 1935, signaled the beginning of a national labor policy, a prolabor reform policy that the first administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, then preoccupied with the nation’s economic recovery, initially had not anticipated and about which it was ill informed. Also known as the Wagner Act—for its principal author, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York—the new law was one of the most significant pieces of labor legislation ever enacted in the United States. Moreover, unlike the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932, which was prolabor in spirit and removed unions and their organizers from the danger of court injunctions, the Wagner Act actively placed that authority of the federal government behind economic coercions, such as strikes, believed to be essential to a vigorous and expansive labor movement. The Wagner Act also instantly provoked heated controversy both in the ranks of organized labor and in the boardrooms of many employers. The novel presumption of the Wagner Act was that the profound labor unrest from 1933 into early 1935— much of it attended by bitter strikes, violence, critical disruptions of interstate commerce (a factor vital to federal jurisdiction), and in some quarters fears of civil war—was largely attributable to employers’ general re2850
fusal to recognize organized labor’s conviction that collective bargaining was a prerequisite of union survival. The ability to organize unions that could bargain more equally with employers in regard to individual workers’ wages, hours, and working conditions was perceived not only as a necessity but as a right. Accordingly, the act carried into public law an explicit acknowledgment that employers, especially the nation’s giant corporations, enjoyed disproportionate shares of bargaining power relative to those of their employees. These imbalances were perceived to be large enough to allow employers to slash employment and wages almost at will, drastically reducing much of the nation’s purchasing power and thus contributing directly to the unprecedented and persisting Depression of the 1930’s. The act represented, therefore, the federal government’s mandate to redress the imbalance of power. Such were the assumptions and rationales confirmed in the act’s introductory section and mortised into its substantive portions, most notably in section 7. It was this section that guaranteed workers the right to self-organization, or the forming, joining, or assisting of union organizations, as well as the right to bargain collectively through their chosen union representatives and to collaborate in their efforts to achieve collective bargaining. The Wagner Act provided more than guarantees to labor. It further recognized the intense antiunion hostilities of corporate employers in the partially or entirely unorganized mass-production industries and consequently specified and prohibited practices that were deemed unfair to labor. Employers were prevented, for example, from interfering with, restraining, or coercing workers trying to exercise the rights extended to them by section 7. Similarly, employers could no longer with impunity interfere with the formation of unions or dominate their operations, nor could they contribute to unions’ support. Hiring or tenure policies could neither encourage nor discourage workers’ union membership. Workers involved in lawful strikes against employers’ unfair practices, moreover, had to be reinstated when reapplying for their jobs, even when employers had replaced them, and workers who struck for higher wages or other improvements in working conditions could claim reinstatement if they had not been replaced. The Wagner Act thus sought to end employers’ blacklists, “yellow-dog contracts” (under which potential employees had to renounce union membership as a condition of employment), lockouts,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance Passage of the Wagner Act coincided with the massive unemployment of the Great Depression. Union membership, which in 1920 included 12 percent of the labor force, had eroded steadily thereafter, so seriously that by the advent of the Roosevelt administration in 1933, unions could count only two million members, or 6.6 percent of the labor force. Several factors accounted for this decline. The conservative, employer-dominated governments and economy of the 1920’s were character-
ized in spirit and deed by effective antilabor campaigns, sometimes masked as patriotic suppression of communism. Changes in the complexion of the industrial world also contributed. Shifting structural and technological patterns in basic industries such as railroads, steel, and coal mining, along with the spread of mass-production enterprises in the automotive, appliances, chemical, tire and rubber, oil, trucking, longshoring, meatpacking, and textile industries, led to a greater concentration of unskilled and largely nonunion workers. In addition, with 40 percent of American children completing high school by 1930, the educational level of the workforce was undergoing dramatic alteration, bringing with it predominantly urban visions of democracy and fresh perceptions of individual rights. The traditional craft unionism that distinguished the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a federation of skilled workers’ unions, seemed increasingly ill suited to the needs of the largely unskilled workers of the 1930’s. In previous decades, unskilled workers had been all but precluded from joining the AFL crafts because of the nature of their occupations. AFL president William Green eventually did sanction inclusion of several industrial unions, which rapidly became the fastest growing in the AFL, but he did not aggressively recruit them. The outlook of the unskilled workers’ leaders differed from that of the AFL. In opposition to the AFL’s perception of government’s role in the economy—basically an eschewal of any role at all—the leaders of the unskilled, in general, were far more enthusiastic than their skilled brethren in calls for governmental intervention on labor’s behalf. These were just a few of the critical differences dividing labor’s house by the mid-1930’s. Almost simultaneously with enactment of the Wagner Act, they grew more serious because of the emergence of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), dedicated to the recruitment of unskilled labor as well as to vigorous political activism. Subsequent antipathies between the CIO’s leaders—among them the fiery United Mine Workers’ chief, John L. Lewis—and the AFL’s old guard, from whose camp the industrial unionists of the CIO had departed, left the labor movement as a whole without clear direction or coherent policy. Beginning almost instantly upon its enactment and continuing through the next decade, the Wagner Act successfully promoted its major objective of relatively free collective bargaining. The proof lay in the rise of union membership. The three million unionists of 1933 swelled to more than fifteen million by 1946, more than 22 percent of the labor force. The vast majority of the labor 2851
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dual unionism, the corporate hiring of private armies or armed thugs, spying, and various other antilabor tactics. The new quasi-legislative, quasi-judicial National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) charged with administration of the Wagner Act was resurrected from the Supreme Court’s devastation of Roosevelt’s early New Deal legislation. The NLRB was created under the aegis of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), itself designed to hasten economic recovery through the formulation of industrial labor codes. The NIRA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court’s decision in the famed Schechter case two years later. The old NLRB, established specifically to ensure collective bargaining under the NIRA’s section 7a, was abolished as well. The tenacity of the chairman of the old NLRB, Senator Wagner of New York, proved the main force behind the NLRB’s re-creation. A German American immigrant, Wagner had carved out a brilliant career as a labor reformer, partly during Roosevelt’s incumbency as governor, in New York State’s roiling politics. Wagner brought the character and experience requisite to the launching of the new NLRB to a New Deal administration less uncaring than ignorant about the labor world and more concerned, at least before 1935, with engineering recovery through business. Formation of the NLRB embodied a dawning comprehension of the complexities of the American economy. That comprehension was based on perceptions of the growing inseparability of intrastate and interstate commerce, and it therefore incorporated Wagner’s and the administration’s elastic definition of what constituted interstate commerce. This implicit loose construction afforded the NLRB’s three directors their jurisdiction in overseeing and enforcing workers’ rights to collective bargaining and prohibiting employers’ unfair labor practices. These were the battlegrounds, as it transpired, on which the effectiveness and the constitutionality of the act were to be tested.
Wagner Act
Wagner Act force was composed of unskilled or semiskilled industrial workers, previously shunned by the AFL. More revealing than these overall figures, however, were union gains in manufacturing industries. Barely one-fifth of manufacturing workers were bargaining collectively in 1935, but more than two-thirds were doing so in 1946. The AFL claimed nine million members by the end of this expansion. The CIO’s count came to an impressive six million members. Behind these statistics of rising union membership lay thousands of decisions rendered by the NLRB. During the ten years following the reestablishment of the NLRB, fifty thousand union representation elections were held under its auspices and judgments were rendered on more than forty-five thousand union complaints about practices unfair to labor. Once unions were lawfully established, labormanagement disputes no longer fell under the jurisdiction of the NLRB. The Wagner Act and NLRB nevertheless contributed significantly to removing violence from, and substituting democratic procedures for, the selection of workers’ union representation and thus their right to collective bargaining. On April 12, 1937, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes delivered the Supreme Court’s majority decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., in essence proclaiming the Wagner Act constitutional. The act and the NLRB, along with “little Wagner Acts” in many states, were already engulfed in controversies. The NLRB was understaffed, underfunded, and ill prepared to cope with these disputes. With only a thousand employees, even with self-imposed restrictions on its business, it handled annually roughly seven thousand representational cases and fourteen thousand complaints on practices unfair to labor, which averaged a year and a half for resolution. Operation of the NLRB fell under different interpretations. These differences arose from confusion among employers and unionists, complicated by their traditional animosities, and differences in interpretation of the act’s jurisdictions and responsibilities. There were notable lapses in the drafting of the law. It said nothing, for example, about employer (rather than employee) petitions for union elections. The act likewise had no provisions for handling the harassment of one union by another, a serious matter given the sometimes heated competition for union membership by the mutually hostile AFL and CIO. What constituted a “bargaining unit” when industries or plants were divided between craft and industrial workers was unresolved. There were problems 2852
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 regarding whether bargaining should be by area, company, or plant. These problems and many more were made more troublesome by immature union leadership and by inexperienced and resentful employers. The heart of the Wagner Act’s difficulties lay in its legal promotion of union activity and its prolabor bias. Official and popular sentiments soon shifted toward seeking greater balance between labor and management. Those sentiments led to amendment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1947 by the Taft-Hartley Act. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Bernstein, Irving. The New Deal Collective Bargaining Policy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950. Ahistory of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Boyer, Richard O., and Herbert M. Morais. Labor’s Untold Story. 3d ed. New York: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, 1975. Presents a history of labor’s struggles against industrial capitalists from the point of view of labor. Focuses on key events and major personalities from the 1850’s through the 1950’s and examines conflicts among workers themselves. Includes bibliography and index. Eby, Herbert O. The Labor Relations Act in the Courts. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943. Provides a review of court decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers in the years following the enactment of the Wagner Act. Includes an excellent citation index of legal cases concerning the act as well as the full text of the act and related rules and regulations. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967. Intelligent, insightful, and readable work discusses unions and related laws from the Wagner Act through the early 1960’s in chapters 23 and 24. Includes index. Hardin, Patrick, and John E. Higgins, Jr., eds. The Developing Labor Law. 2 vols. 4th ed. Chicago: Bureau of National Affairs, 2002. Collection provides comprehensive coverage of rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Contributions are written by members of the American Bar Association’s Section on Labor and Employment Law.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hughes, Jonathan, and Louis P. Cain. American Economic History. 6th ed. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2002. Comprehensive volume on the economic history of the United States includes discussion of legislation concerning organized labor. Mathews, Robert E., ed. Labor Relations and the Law. Boston: Little, Brown, 1953. Collection contains several excellent articles on various legal and historical dimensions of the relationships between organized labor and employers. Includes index and sections of several labor laws, such as the Clayton, Norris-La Guardia, and Railway Labor Acts, in appendixes. Millis, Harry A., and Emily Clark Brown. From the Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley: A Study of National Labor Policy and Labor Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. Provides one of the best analyses available of the events leading to the passage of the Wagner Act of 1935 and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Examines in detail the acts’ provisions, their implementation, and their effects on labor relations. Includes bibliography and index. Northrup, Herbert R., and Gordon E. Bloom. Government and Labor: The Role of Government in UnionManagement Relations. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1963. Discussion of the relations between labor
Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act and government emphasizes key questions raised by the Wagner Act and the NLRB in chapter 3. Includes notes, chapter bibliographies, and index. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Coming of the New Deal. Vol. 2 in The Age of Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. Classic scholarly work includes extensive, detailed discussion of pertinent politics and personalities associated with the Wagner Act and the NLRB. Includes bibliographic notes and index. Wilcox, Clair. Public Policies Toward Business. 3d ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1966. Offers clear, detailed, and authoritative discussion of the relations between government and business. Chapter 32 provides excellent context for the passage of the Wagner Act and establishment of the NLRB. Includes indexes of cases, names, and subjects. See also: Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts; Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
August 14, 1935
Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; economics; social issues and reform Key Figures Frances Perkins (1880-1965), U.S. secretary of labor and chair of the Committee on Economic Security Edwin E. Witte (1887-1960), American economist and executive director of the Committee on Economic Security
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Robert F. Wagner (1877-1953), U.S. senator from New York, 1927-1949 David J. Lewis (1869-1952), U.S. representative from Maryland, 1911-1916, 1931-1938, and U.S. tarriff commissioner, 1917-1925 Francis E. Townsend (1867-1960), American lobbyist Wilbur J. Cohen (1913-1987), staff member of the Committee on Economic Security and later a top administrator with the Social Security Board Summary of Event Although Social Security in the United States is most often associated with a program for older, retired persons, the creators of the 1935 legislation viewed old-age dependency in the larger context of major changes in the economy and in family structure. They tended to believe that if economic security could be assured to the oldest 2853
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Despite objections raised by those who equated it with socialism, the Social Security Act passed the U.S. Congress by an overwhelming margin, creating the first national program of economic protection for Americans during retirement, unemployment, and disability. The program achieved such great popularity that it later became known as the “third rail” of politics, meaning that any attempt to alter it would be equivalent to political suicide.
Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act members of society, such security could also be made a reality for other citizens. The original legislation did not profess to solve deep structural problems of unemployment and poverty: It was designed to provide the first links in the safety net that would protect U.S. citizens from future economic disasters. From the beginning, social welfare programs reflected an uncertainty of purpose between adequacy—a concept that benefits should be based on the needs of the recipients—and equity—a notion that benefits should reflect contributions made by the participants. By the 1930’s, most of the nations of Western Europe had enacted some kind of social insurance legislation providing for old-age care and unemployment compensation. For a number of reasons, however, the United
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 States had lagged behind in such efforts. It was not until the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the United States adopted an effective social security measure. The general economic depression of the decade undoubtedly contributed to the momentum needed to pass social security legislation, for during the Great Depression, many people in the United States came to see economic insecurity as a social problem, not merely a matter of individual virtue and responsibility. By 1934, considerable support had developed for utopian schemes, such as that developed by Francis E. Townsend, whose Old-Age Revolving Pension Club was lobbying for a monthly grant of two hundred dollars for every citizen over sixty years of age. There was nothing radical about a plan for old-age
Surrounding President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he signs the Social Security Act are (from left) Representative Robert Doughton, Senator Robert Wagner, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Senator Pat Harrison, and Representative David L. Lewis. (Library of Congress)
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tional program of old-age pensions. Roosevelt accepted the committee’s report. The Social Security bill was introduced into Congress in January, 1935, by Senator Wagner and Congressman Lewis. The air was filled with warnings that the act would destroy individual responsibility and the principles of self-help, but it was passed in the Senate by 76 votes to 6 and in the House by 371 votes to 33. On August 14, 1935, Roosevelt signed the measure. Money to fund the old-age insurance plan was to come from a tax to be levied on employees’ wages and employers’ payrolls. Benefits would be payable at sixtyfive years of age. The unemployment compensation provisions followed the recommendations of the Perkins Committee. In addition, the federal government would extend grants to the states for the care of those destitute elderly not covered by Social Security and provide aid on a matching basis to states for the care of dependent mothers, children, and the blind and for public health services. The Social Security Board was set up to administer the various provisions of the act. Significance Although clearly innovative for its time, the Social Security Act was considered inadequate by many of its planners. The requirement that a worker pay one-half the cost of his or her own retirement stopped far short of most of the European plans. As Tugwell pointed out in 1934, the worker would already be paying a disproportionate share as a consumer, because the employer’s payroll tax in the program would immediately be passed on in the form of higher prices. Roosevelt defended the payroll tax by pointing to the political strength it gave the program. Because workers contributed to the pension fund, they built up equity in it. The sense that workers had earned a right to future benefits would make it difficult, if not impossible, for subsequent administrations to deny coverage or to dismantle the program. A weakness of the law was its limited scope: It omitted farmworkers and domestics from unemployment compensation and contained no health insurance provisions of any kind. The law also reflected the assumptions of its framers that men were the principal wage earners and that women were economically dependent. Nevertheless, the act represented the beginning of a growing belief that the federal government has a responsibility to ensure certain benefits to its citizens. It provided a floor of basic economic protection and a greater level of uniformity of assistance among the states. —George Q. Flynn and Mary Welek Atwell 2855
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pensions. Both private pensions and veterans’ benefits existed long before the New Deal. Partly because such plans had proved inadequate during the Great Depression, the Democratic platform of 1932 called for public retirement pensions and for unemployment compensation. By the 1930’s, almost half the states had some kind of old-age pension, but these were generally limited in scope. Only Wisconsin had a working unemployment compensation plan. In 1932, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York and Congressman David J. Lewis of Maryland introduced bills in Congress calling for a federal unemployment plan patterned after that of Wisconsin. The same year, Senator Clarence C. Dill of Washington and Congressman William P. Connery of Massachusetts introduced a bill providing for federal grants to those states establishing old-age pensions. It was not until 1934 that President Roosevelt decided to take the initiative in the field of social insurance legislation. He asked Congress to delay action on the existing bills while he appointed a special committee to look into all aspects of social security, with the aim of presenting a comprehensive measure during the 1935 congressional session. In June, 1934, Roosevelt established the Committee on Economic Security, with Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins as chair and economist Edwin E. Witte as executive director. Perkins took a broad view of her job and aimed to bring U.S. social insurance up to that of advanced European countries. She soon discovered, however, that there were divergent opinions, especially on the subject of how unemployment compensation should be handled. The debate centered on whether the compensation should be strictly a national operation. On one side of the question stood a group of Wisconsin social workers, such as Paul Rauschenbush and his wife, Elizabeth Brandeis Rauschenbush. They advocated a joint state-national plan that would allow for greater experimentation and variety. They also pointed out that a joint approach would be more likely to pass constitutional scrutiny. Others, such as Rexford Guy Tugwell, Abraham Epstein—former secretary of the American Association of Old-Age Security— and Professor Paul H. Douglas of the University of Chicago, recommended a solely national system to avoid unequal coverage and to protect the highly mobile U.S. worker. Perkins sided with the Wisconsin group, and the final recommendation of the committee followed the decentralized approach: Unemployment compensation would be financed by a federal tax on total payrolls, with 90 percent of the tax going to the states to implement the program. The report also advocated a contributory na-
Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act
Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act Further Reading Achenbaum, Andrew. Social Security: Visions and Revisions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. An excellent general history of Social Security from the early background of the law to the 1980’s. The book is especially useful as a guide to the changes in Social Security after 1935. The bibliography is very complete. Achenbaum advocates medical and other benefits for all. Altman, Nancy J. The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Provides the background developments leading up to passage of the Social Security Act, the history of the Social Security program, and attempts to reform the program in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Bibliographic references and index. Berkowitz, Edward D. America’s Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Interprets the development and history of Social Security as a series of reasonable and pragmatic responses to political and economic conditions. Bernstein, Irving. A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. An extensively researched, well-written assessment of the 1930’s from labor’s vantage point. Includes a comprehensive discussion of the passage of the Social Security Act. Solid documentation and full index. Crafted by a leading labor historian, this is among the best single-volume studies of the period. Davis, Kenneth. FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933-1937. New York: Random House, 1979. A detailed and scholarly account of the policies and strategies of President Roosevelt, with a chapter devoted to the passage of the Social Security Act. Douglas, Paul. Social Security in the United States: An Analysis and Appraisal of the Federal Social Security Act. New York: Whittlesey House, 1936. Written by one of the important participants on the Perkins Committee, the book gives a detailed account of the background and the legislative process in the passage of the act. The book reflects the period, and a complete text of the act is included in the appendix. Haber, Carole, and Brian Gratton. Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Social History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Emphasizes the importance of Social Security in replacing intrafamilial support for the aged with an intergenerational public strategy. 2856
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kollmann, Geoffry, and Carmen Solomon-Fears. Social Security: Major Decisions in the House and Senate, 1935-2000. New York: Novinka Books, 2002. Survey of all important Social Security legislation passed in the twentieth century. Bibliographic references and index. Louchheim, Katie, ed. The Making of the New Deal: The Insiders Speak. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. A collection of fascinating essays by those who participated in the making of the New Deal, with Wilbur J. Cohen and Thomas Eliot explaining their roles in the formulation of the Social Security Act. Lubove, Roy. The Struggle for Social Security, 19001935. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. An important work in the history of ideas, with a focus on the clash between the traditions of voluntarism and the goals of social insurance. The book is especially good in its treatment of the ideas and careers of Isaac Rubinow and Abraham Epstein. Nelson, Daniel. Unemployment Insurance: The American Experiment, 1915-1935. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. A very scholarly and wellresearched study devoted to the single issue of unemployment insurance, emphasizing the importance of the British model and the passage of Wisconsin’s law of 1932. The book has a great deal of interesting information about individuals such as Commons, Epstein, and Wagner. There is little information about other aspects of the Social Security Act. Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Knew. New York: Viking Press, 1946. A delightful personal memoir by the woman who chaired the Committee on Economic Security, including an excellent chapter on the formulation and passage of the Social Security Act. Quadagno, Jill. The Transformation of Old Age Security: Class and Politics in the American Welfare State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. An interesting study of how the elderly have coped in the United States from the nineteenth century to the 1980’s. The book compares American traditions with those of Europe and espouses a sociological theory that the organization of production determines social policy. Despite much useful material, the work is marred by an excessive use of sociological generalization and terminology. Witte, Edwin E. The Development of the Social Security Act. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962. An invaluable insider’s account of the planning for, drafting, and adoption of the Social Security Act of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1935 by the executive director of the Committee on Economic Security. See also: Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded; Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act;
Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control Mar. 5, 1923: Nevada and Montana Introduce OldAge Pensions; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme CourtPacking Fight.
August 23, 1935
Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control By centralizing monetary control, the Banking Act of 1935 assured American businesspeople of a more stable and predictable economic environment and allowed them to conduct longer-range planning. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; banking and finance Key Figures Marriner Eccles (1890-1977), banker and official of the Federal Reserve system Carter Glass (1858-1946), U.S. senator from Virginia Benjamin Strong (1872-1928), governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1914-1928
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Summary of Event The Banking Act of 1935 reorganized control of the U.S. monetary system, centralizing power in the hands of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Prior to the act, each of the twelve Federal Reserve banks that had been established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 had greater freedom to pursue policies of their own choosing. This lack of central control had the potential to create chaotic business conditions. Businesspeople could not be sure what credit policies the Federal Reserve banks would implement. As a result, entrepreneurs could not predict confidently whether their customers would face an economic upturn and easy credit in upcoming months or instead be discouraged from purchasing because of an economic downturn that might be allowed or encouraged by the local Federal Reserve bank. Furthermore, a business could unexpectedly find itself at a competitive disadvantage in relation to a rival in another city if Federal Reserve banks differed in their monetary policies. These types of uncertainties made business planning and forecasting difficult. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 represented a desire to put knowledge of the economy and its monetary system to work. Its passage marked the first systematic attempt
to influence the U.S. economy through monetary policy (governmental control of the national money supply and credit conditions). A committee of experts with specialized knowledge not commonly held by politicians would guide monetary policy. Concern about how to balance potential control of the monetary system for political purposes against domination of it by private banking interests led to a splitting of power between private bankers and the presidentially appointed Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board could indirectly change interest rates charged by banks or change the amount of money available to lend, by recommending to the twelve Federal Reserve banks that they change the interest rate on loans they made to banks or by recommending purchases or sales of government bonds and bills. The Federal Reserve Board made few recommendations of either type during its first twenty years. Instead, the chief executive officers, or governors, of the twelve Federal Reserve banks took independent control of monetary policy through the Governors Conference. That group made its own policy choices, then offered them to the Federal Reserve Board for ratification. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did not provide for this conference; its unauthorized action was indicative of private banks’ reluctance to yield to central control. In addition, the individual Federal Reserve banks were free to ignore recommendations of the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York in particular acted independently. Its governor, Benjamin Strong, also acted as a powerful leader among the officials who set monetary policy for the system as a whole. Strong’s death in 1928 left the system without commanding leadership. Following the 1929 stock market crash, the New York Reserve Bank favored buying government bonds from banks to provide purchasing power to the economy. It acted on this policy, but Strong’s successor was unable to persuade the rest of the Federal Reserve system to follow along. The Depression might have been far less severe if he had.
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Between the stock market crash and the banking holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, the Federal Reserve banks operated essentially independently, according to the beliefs of their own boards of directors. The Federal Reserve Board was weak and divided in opinion. The Open Market Investment Committee (an authorized body that replaced the Governors Conference in 1923), with one member from each Federal Reserve bank, was similarly powerless. Each bank’s representative came to meetings with directions from the bank’s board of directors, and those banks rarely were unified in their goals. The decentralized control in the period from 1929 to 1933 led to monetary policy that has been described as inept and as possibly worsening the Depression. The Banking Act of 1933 set up the Federal Open Market Committee, a successor to the Open Market Investment Committee, to determine appropriate bond sales or purchases for the Federal Reserve system. The FOMC also had one member from each Federal Reserve bank. It instituted all policy actions, and the Federal Reserve Board had only the power to approve or disapprove. Federal Reserve banks remained free not to participate in any open market operations recommended by the FOMC. System officials blamed inadequate powers, rather than misuse of powers, for their inability to stop the Depression’s economic contraction and to prevent bank panics and failures. Furthermore, many system officials were willing to tolerate the bank failures, seeing them as proper punishment for poor management or excessive earlier speculation in financial markets. The failures were concentrated among smaller banks and those that were not members of the Federal Reserve system, so they were of relatively little interest to the larger banks with the most influence in the system. The larger banks, in fact, saw the failures as a way of shaking their small competitors out of the market. In response to the behavior of the Federal Reserve system in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, Marriner Eccles, a banker and Treasury Department official, devised a plan to correct what he saw as flaws in the monetary control system. He and many others believed that better use of monetary policy could be a powerful tool to end the Depression. Some argued that improper use of monetary policy had exaggerated the economic downturn and that, therefore, less rather than more central control was indicated. Eccles, however, wanted to implement the powers of the Federal Reserve system more broadly and to establish conscious centralized control of the monetary system.
Eccles’s proposals formed the basis for Title II of the Banking Act of 1935, which stirred strong debate in Congress. Senator Carter Glass, who had helped develop the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and had coauthored the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932, particularly opposed changing the nature of the system. It was argued that a stronger Federal Reserve Board would become an arm of the political administration rather than provide independent judgment. These debates led to a rewording of the act to reduce control by the executive branch. The act reorganized the central bodies of the Federal Reserve system. The Federal Reserve Board was renamed the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the U.S. secretary of the treasury and comptroller of the currency were dropped from membership. Each of the board’s seven members was to be appointed by the president, but the members’ fourteen-year terms would overlap, so that no single presidential administration could appoint a majority. The FOMC was reconstituted to include all members of the Board of Governors and five presidents of Federal Reserve banks. Those five positions would be filled by the twelve Reserve bank presidents on a rotating basis. They were to give independent policy recommendations rather than being guided by their banks’ boards of directors as in the past. Most important, each Federal Reserve bank was required to follow the policies recommended by the FOMC and not operate on its own. The Board of Governors also gained the power to set reserve requirements, or the percentage of deposits that private banks in the system had to keep available to meet demands for withdrawals. The act left election of Federal Reserve bank presidents and vice presidents up to the banks’ boards of directors but made those choices subject to approval by the Board of Governors. These main provisions of the Banking Act of 1935 took power from the individual Federal Reserve banks and centralized it within the Board of Governors and FOMC. Eccles, who had been made chair of the Federal Reserve Board late in November, 1934, was chosen to chair the new Board of Governors that replaced it.
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Significance The most important impact of the Banking Act of 1935 was its message: In the future, there would be a centralized guiding hand behind U.S. monetary policy. Along with other New Deal reforms such as the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (which the Banking Act of 1935 amended), the act helped to persuade the American business community that there
Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control
would not be another Great Depression. Businesspeople could predict a more stable American economy in which the government promoted a steady course of growth, with neither excessive unemployment nor the opposite problem, high rates of inflation. Businesspeople became relatively certain of being able to obtain bank credit for promising projects. Previously, they sometimes had faced bank loan officers who were unwilling to lend because they were uncertain about future national financial conditions and the availability of funds to their banks. Centralized and planned monetary control greatly reduced these uncertainties. Although individual banks would still fail, depositors and borrowers could rely on the Federal Reserve system to prevent large-scale bank failures. Banks themselves could count on a steadier, more predictable monetary policy environment in which to conduct business. Centralization of power made it possible and profitable for businesses and especially financial speculators to monitor the FOMC and try to guess its policy decisions, which were kept secret for several weeks to avoid any disruptive effects on financial markets. A new job function of “Fed watcher” thus was created. Formal centralization of control did not end debates concerning independence of the Federal Reserve system. Individual bankers still wanted influence within the system, and the Treasury Department was unwilling to relinquish control of the system completely. The Board of Governors agreed at first to cooperate with the Treasury Department by buying government bonds, as a means of keeping bond prices high to aid the financing of government operations. In 1936, the Board of Governors also exercised its new power to raise the required reserve rate. This acted to reduce the amount of money available to the financial system, more than offsetting the effects of bond purchases. The combined policy contributed to a minor recession in 1936 and 1937. Congress then proposed very specific guidelines for establishing monetary policy, leaving little room for discretion on the part of Federal Reserve system officials. The proposal was not made law, but system officials heeded the implicit warning to coordinate plans with other government agencies. The Board of Governors and FOMC chose not to exercise their powers to any great degree during the 1930’s, generally letting recovery from the Depression run its course. During World War II, the Federal Reserve banks agreed to cooperate with the Treasury Department’s borrowing, buying Treasury bonds to maintain their price and keep interest rates low. As the war neared its end, however, the Treasury’s desire to keep interest rates low
conflicted with the FOMC’s wish to restrain the growth of the money supply as a means of preventing inflation. The Employment Act of 1946 stated that the government had a responsibility to use all of its tools in a coordinated fashion to maximize employment, production, and purchasing power. Implicitly, the act recognized that neither fiscal policy (use of government powers to tax and spend) nor monetary policy alone was powerful enough to control the U.S. economy. The FOMC continued to buy Treasury bond issues, but Federal Reserve system officials argued more strongly against the constraint that this cooperation imposed on their decisions. In March, 1951, an agreement was reached under which the FOMC was no longer responsible for supporting the price of Treasury bonds. That left the system without a clear and specific policy objective. The public had begun to believe in the power of monetary policy, so Federal Reserve system officials wanted to state clearly how that policy would be used. An appropriate growth rate of the money supply was chosen as one objective. The FOMC would provide enough money to finance business expansion without causing inflation. The second objective was to vary credit conditions countercyclically, reducing credit availability during business expansions and allowing easier credit during contractions, as a means of offsetting business cycles. The Board of Governors and the FOMC began to exercise their powers of central control in a manner basically independent of political or private business interests. —A. J. Sobczak Further Reading Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2002. An official exposition for the general public. Periodically updated. Broaddus, Alfred. A Primer on the Fed. Richmond, Va.: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 1988. Booklet provides useful background on the Federal Reserve system, summarizing its structure and operation. Devotes a long section to describing actions of the system in the 1970’s and early 1980’s and also offers case studies. Clifford, Albert Jerome. The Independence of the Federal Reserve System. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965. Discusses the structural arrangement of the Federal Reserve system, including changes up to 1960. Valuable for insights into debates concerning which public or private agencies should control the U.S. monetary system. 2859
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Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater De Saint-Phalle, Thibaut. The Federal Reserve: An Intentional Mystery. New York: Praeger, 1985. Examines the philosophy behind the U.S. system of bank regulations, including those related to overseas bank holding companies and international lending. Includes index. Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Authoritative study of the operation of the U.S. monetary system by two highly respected economists. Provides a narrative discussion of the use of monetary policy, illustrated with detailed statistics. Argues for the power of monetary policy, devoting more than one hundred pages to explaining how correct use of such policy could have prevented the Great Depression or at least minimized its effects. Hafer, R. W. The Federal Reserve System: An Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005. Provides a comprehensive explanation of the structure, processes, and policies of the Federal Reserve system and describes key events in the system’s history. Moore, Carl H. The Federal Reserve System: A History of the First Seventy-Five Years. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1990. Highlights major events in the history of the Federal Reserve system and provides an
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 overview of the issues the system has faced. Accessible to the general reader. Patman, Wright. The Federal Reserve System: A Study Prepared for the Use of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. Chapter 9, “The Banking Act of 1935,” gives a concise history of the political maneuvering behind passage of the act and rationales for its passage. Other chapters outline the history of the Federal Reserve system. Includes appendixes containing letters and speeches concerning aspects of the U.S. banking system. Wells, Donald R. The Federal Reserve System: A History. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Describes American banking practices before formation of the Federal Reserve and then presents a full history of the Federal Reserve system, including information on the system’s relationship to each presidential administration and how the system has evolved over the years. See also: Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907; Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System.
August 29, 1935-June 30, 1939
Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project brought live theater to the American general public by funding small and regional theaters all over the United States. Locale: United States Category: Theater Key Figures Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969), American theater director Orson Welles (1915-1985), American actor and director John Houseman (1902-1988), American actor and director Summary of Event In May, 1935, Vassar College theater professor and director Hallie Flanagan received a call from Harry Hop2860
kins, head of the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), asking her to come to Washington, D.C., to discuss what to do about unemployed theater people. Out of that phone call came the Federal Theatre Project, which was designed to provide subsistence income for unemployed theater workers. In 1935, there were fifteen million unemployed people in the United States. Six million were on relief rolls. An estimated forty thousand theater people across the country were out of work. The Federal Theatre Project’s aim was to employ as many theater people then on relief rolls as possible. Approximately ten thousand people found work with the project. By the time of its demise, nearly three thousand of those workers had found employment within the private sector. In President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous first hundred days in office in 1933, he set up a number of agencies to alleviate the conditions under which ordinary
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Americans had suffered since 1929. Businesses had gone bankrupt. Banks and savings and loans had failed, impoverishing the people whose uninsured savings were wiped out. Unemployed men sold donated apples on street corners. Many people were forced to ask for food at the back doors of those lucky enough still to have homes. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps gave unemployed urban men work in rural areas, where they built roads, replanted deforested areas, and built picnic grounds along highways. The Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration built post offices, schools, community swimming pools, and recreation buildings in city parks. The WPA also found work for writers, who were assigned to write books about each state. Other writers and photographers documented the plight of farmers in the southern states. Under WPA auspices, interviews were conducted with former slaves and the interview transcripts archived in Washington, D.C. Artists painted murals for local post offices and other public buildings. The Federal Theatre Project, begun under the Emergency Relief Act of April, 1935, as a measure to provide minimal wages for ten thousand unem-
Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater ployed theater people, was part of the same effort to combat unemployment as well as bring performance art to wider audiences. From the time it officially came into being on August 29, 1935, the Federal Theatre Project kept thousands of future professionals in the theater. Many became famous in later years. They covered the spectrum of the arts, including among their numbers composers, set and costume designers, directors, playwrights, and actors. Among project employees were Will Geer, Canada Lee, Joseph Cotten, Virgil Thomson, Paul Bowles, Arthur Miller, Sidney Lumet, Orson Welles, John Houseman, Dan Dailey, Gene Kelly, and Burt Lancaster (as an acrobat with a Federal Theatre circus). The Caravan Theatre, with its portable stage, presented productions in New York City parks. Multilingual productions brought theater to Spanish Harlem and presented plays in Yiddish. Admission prices ranged from nothing to a nickel to, on Broadway, one dollar. The project also produced children’s theater, including puppeteers and magicians, as well as regional and community dramas.
1935 A scene from director Orson Welles’s Macbeth featuring an all-black cast, produced in New York through funding provided by the Federal Theatre Project. (Library of Congress)
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people, it was estimated, had never before seen live theater. Before the Federal Theatre Project came to an end in 1939, the project’s There was trouble with Congress, the director, Hallie Flanagan, presented a brief before the Committee on Patsource of funding for the project, almost ents of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 8, 1938. She began from the beginning; project employees by stating the reasons the project was established: were accused of “boondoggling” and of serving as fronts for New Deal and ComGovernment support of the theatre brings the United States into the best munist Party propaganda. Attacked by historic theatre tradition and into the best contemporary theatre practice. the House Committee on Un-American Four centuries before Christ, Athens believed that plays were worth payActivities in 1938, the Federal Theatre ing for out of public money; today France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Project came to an end on June 30, 1939, Denmark, Russia, Italy and practically all other civilized countries appropriate money for the theatre. after the congressional committees in However, it was not because of historic theatre tradition, nor because of charge of appropriations decided not to contemporary theatre practice that the Federal Theatre came into being. It continue funding. came into being because in the Summer of 1935, the relief rolls of AmeriIn its brief life, the Federal Theatre can cities showed that thousands of unemployed theatre professionals, afProject brought free or nearly free live fected not only by the economic depression but by the rapid development theater to new mass audiences and creof the cinema and the radio, were destitute. The Federal Theatre came into ated work for thousands. Some few of being because Mr. Harry Hopkins, Administrator of the Works Progress them later became famous in the arts. Administration, believed not only that unemployed theatrical people Some production devices of its “Living could get just as hungry as unemployed accountants and engineers, but— Newspaper” productions were later used and this was much more revolutionary—that their skills were as worthy of in professional theater. Its research diviconservation. He believed that the talents of these professional theatre workers, together with the skills of painters, musicians and writers, made sion created histories of local and reup a part of the national wealth which America could not afford to lose. gional theaters. Its neighborhood ethnic productions, often performed on specially designed trucks, were the prototype for productions in the late twentieth The project’s national headquarters, directed by century in New York City. Hallie Flanagan, was located in New York City. There Perhaps most important, the project left a dream of the were five regional organizations, each with a regional dipossibilities of a government-funded national theater. In rector: East, Midwest, South, West, and New York City. television and radio in the last decades of the twentieth In each region, there were various subgroups of theatricentury, its closest counterparts may be the Public cal performance. The regional organizations were either Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. attached to already existing nonprofit theaters or, where those were lacking, set up as independent companies. Significance Flanagan had a plan for regional theater, to establish Difficulties with Congress began before the first productheaters that had the possibility of growing into social intion opened. The directors of the Living Newspaper, a stitutions in the communities where they were located. In subunit of the project, chose to do a piece about the Italian addition to plays with nonregional content produced by invasion of Ethiopia. Playwright Elmer Rice, selected by these regional centers, some work based on local history Flanagan to head New York projects, agreed with her that and folklore was produced, such as The Sun Rises in the the productions should be fluid and timely, like a newsWest, produced in Los Angeles, and The Lost Colony, paper. Rice selected Morris Watson, vice president of the produced in North Carolina. American Newspaper Guild, to run the Living NewspaThe immediate impact of the project, in addition to reper group, and a staff of real reporters researched the mamoving thousands from public assistance programs, was terial on which the plays were based. Employing devices to draw hundreds of thousands of people to performances of agitprop (agitation propaganda) plays Flanagan had all over the country. It is estimated that project perforseen recently in Europe, the Living Newspaper producmances drew audiences of half a million weekly and that tions were total theater, using light, music, dance, mime, by the project’s end in 1939, thirty million people had posters, graphs, charts, and direct speeches to the audiseen its productions. Approximately 65 percent of those ence. Many of the techniques became staple devices of
Supporting Theater in Hard Times
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of an evil king throw him out so that they can remain nine years old and eat ice cream, was described by project haters as Communist allegory. Among the project’s more striking socially conscious plays were the musical The Cradle Will Rock and It Can’t Happen Here. Technically, The Cradle Will Rock is not a Federal Theatre Project play, because Congress canceled funding for it. Unpaid theater owners padlocked their doors on opening night, and Equity actors could not appear in roles in costume. Directors Orson Welles and John Houseman led the cast and the audience that had showed up to see the show down the street to a hastily rented vacant theater, where composer Marc Blitzstein played the score on a piano and actors in street clothes stood up in the audience and sang when their cues came. The performance received great publicity and gave impetus to the Welles-Houseman Mercury Theatre, which the directors left the project to form. It Can’t Happen Here is remembered for the conditions of its staging. Novelist Sinclair Lewis, his political consciousness raised by his wife, columnist Dorothy Thompson, published a novel in 1935 that concerned the way in which a fascist pretending to be antifascist could be elected president and become a dictator. He adapted it for the stage, and on October 27, 1936, the Federal Theatre Project produced the work simultaneously in seventeen theaters across the country. Hallie Flanagan canceled productions in St. Louis and New Orleans; Louisiana politicians protested that the play was really about Governor Huey Long, and Missourians wanted script changes. Most reviews were favorable, however. The simultaneous productions reached the largest audience ever to see a play at the same time until the advent of television. The project did not neglect the classics, performing works by William Shakespeare and the Greek playwrights, including the first performance in the United States of Euripides’ Lysistrata as well as medieval miracle and morality plays. George Bernard Shaw let the project produce his plays for only token royalties, and T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral was given its premiere performance on Broadway by project actors. Under attack from its inception by critics of Roosevelt’s New Deal relief acts and by those who labeled it a hotbed of Communist propaganda, the Federal Theatre Project was weakened slowly by financial cuts and attempts at censorship. In 1938, Martin Dies’s House Committee on Un-American Activities attacked the project and refused to allow Hallie Flanagan and other project officials to testify at the committee’s hearings. Republican Representative J. Parnell Thomas accused the proj2863
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later Broadway theater. The first production, Ethiopia, nevertheless was killed by congressional fiat before it could open. Elmer Rice quit in protest. Because the subject matter of Living Newspaper plays was contemporary social and political problems, these plays always found criticism from politicians and columnists. Triple-A Plowed Under dealt with the plight of the farmer; Power with Tennessee Valley Authority attempts to control floods and harness waterpower for electricity; One-Third of a Nation, taking its title from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished,” championed public housing for the urban poor. Until the creation of the Federal Theatre Project, African American actors and playwrights who did not want to conform to white stereotyping of their lives had little access to theater. In New York, there were the Harlem Suitcase Theater and the Rose McClendon Players’ Theater Workshop, and in Cleveland the Karamu Theater. In addition to creating its New York group, the project set up black production groups in Chicago, Birmingham, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, and other cities and developed a repertory of fifty-five plays, nearly all original scripts. The New York company, in particular, was highly successful. Orson Welles and John Houseman directed an all-black cast in a production of Macbeth set in Haiti in which the play’s witches were voodoo practitioners. Productions of works by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan by white project performers were popular, but the black group had a smash hit with an all-black cast and updated music in The Swing Mikado. It also produced W. E. B. Du Bois’s Haiti, depicting the rebellion led by Toussaint Louverture. Walk Together Chillun dealt with the need for unity among African American factory workers. Critics of “that man in the White House,” as hard-core Republicans referred to Roosevelt, argued that the Works Progress Administration was created to buy votes by paying “boondogglers,” a word coined to describe workers who allegedly did nothing. Roads, buildings, and dams provided visible evidence that somebody must be doing something; it was easier to attack the arts, which had few such tangible products. Even the Federal Theatre Project’s Children’s Theatre did not escape the criticism that the project was full of Communists and that its productions were Communist propaganda. The Children’s Theatre performed free of charge in playgrounds, parks, and public schools and had some long-running hits, notably The Emperor’s New Clothes. A play called The Revolt of the Beavers, however, in which the subjects
Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater
Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater ect’s plays of being propaganda for Communism or the New Deal. Flanagan finally was allowed to testify before the committee in December, 1938. When she managed to refute the so-called evidence, the hearings were ended, and Flanagan was not allowed to finish her testimony. The end of the project came in 1939, after the committees in the House and Senate that controlled appropriations for the project debated ending funding. Republican Representative Clifton Woodrum said that “every theatre critic of note has expressed his disapproval of projects of this type.” The day following his statement, he received a telegram denying its truth, signed by every major critic in New York City. The House committee voted to end appropriations, but the Senate committee approved funding. A joint committee passed a compromise bill that omitted funding. On June 30, 1939, the Federal Theatre Project was killed. Two project productions, Pinocchio and Sing for Your Supper, were still running on Broadway. As funding expired, Pinocchio was given a different ending. Instead of becoming a real boy at the end, Pinocchio died and was placed in a pine coffin bearing a death date of June 30, 1939. Leaving the curtain up, the stagehands struck the set; the audience then followed the cast and crew outside and down the street in a “funeral march.” Representative Woodrum, attacking Sing for Your Supper, said that he would eat the manuscript if there was a line in it that “contributed to the cultural or educational life of America.” The next year, the closing song from the show, “Ballad for Americans,” was the theme song of the Republican National Convention. Many people involved in the Federal Theatre Project went on to professional fame. Of the rest, Hallie Flanagan wrote, “The 10,000 anonymous men and women— the et ceteras and the and-so-forths who did the work, the nobodies who were everybody, the somebodies who believed it—their dreams and deeds were not to end. They were the beginning of a people’s theatre in a country whose greatest plays are still to come.” —Katherine Lederer Further Reading Bentley, Eric, ed. Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from the Hearings Before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. 1971. Reprint. New York: Nation Books, 2002. Collection of excerpts from transcripts of the testimony of artists, writers, and other theater people before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Includes Flanagan’s testimony. Buttitta, Tony, and Barry B. Witham. Uncle Sam Pre2864
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sents: A Memoir of the Federal Theatre, 1935-1939. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Buttitta worked on the Federal Theatre Magazine and was press agent for some of the New York productions. Gives an eyewitness account of the project, particularly of the New York City center. Flanagan, Hallie. Arena. 1940. Reprint. Pompton Plains, N.J.: Limelight, 1985. Personal history of the Federal Theatre Project by its founder and director, written immediately after the project ended. Interesting and useful source, particularly for its eyewitness accounts. Himelstein, Morgan Yale. Drama Was a Weapon: The Left-Wing Theatre in New York, 1929-1941. 1963. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976. Chapter 5 concerns the Federal Theatre Project. Other chapters describe various efforts in the theater conducted by the Communist Party. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Kazacoff, George. Dangerous Theatre: The Federal Theatre Project as a Forum for New Plays. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. Scholarly work focuses primarily on new plays produced by the Federal Theatre Project, including those criticized as political. Includes a useful bibliography, particularly for material in the Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Schwartz, Bonnie Nelson. Voices from the Federal Theatre. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. Created as a tie-in with a public television special on the Federal Theatre Project, brief history presents interviews with actors, directors, and others who were involved in the project. Williams, Jay. Stage Left. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. Chronicles the early years of left-wing theater in the United States, ending with a discussion of the Federal Theatre Project. Covers many of the theater groups involved in socially conscious drama. Includes index and photos. Witham, Barry B. The Federal Theatre Project: A Case Study. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Detailed look at the project relies on archival sources, official correspondence, and interviews. Includes production calendar, glossary of names, bibliography, and index. See also: 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established; Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Neutrality Acts
August 31, 1935-November 4, 1939
Neutrality Acts During the 1930’s, strong isolationist sentiment across the United States prompted legislation to prevent the nation from becoming involved in foreign entanglements. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state Gerald Prentice Nye (1892-1971), U.S. senator from North Dakota William E. Borah (1865-1940), U.S. senator from Idaho Hiram Warren Johnson (1866-1945), U.S. senator from California
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Summary of Event During the early 1930’s, foreign policy was of secondary importance in the estimation of most people in the United States, as the nation was preoccupied in the struggle to recover from the Depression. By 1935, however, a congressional movement had been initiated to formulate legislative safeguards that would prevent the United States from becoming involved in foreign entanglements. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull supported such safeguards, so long as the chief executive retained discretionary power in their application. Ignoring the president’s wishes, Congress passed a series of neutrality acts in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 that limited presidential options. Passage of the neutrality laws stemmed, in large part, from a reevaluation of the reasons for U.S. entry into World War I. Noteworthy in this regard was Senator Gerald Prentice Nye, a North Dakota Republican, who chaired the committee investigating the munitions industry and seeking evidence of possible economic pressures leading to the nation’s involvement in World War I. Supported by a vigorous peace lobby in 1934, Nye dramatically publicized the thesis that the United States had been duped into entering World War I to assist unscrupulous armaments producers and bankers, so-called merchants of death, who stood to profit financially by an Allied victory. This conclusion strengthened an existing feeling that some kind of neutrality legislation, which included
an arms embargo, was needed to prevent such a catastrophe in the future. In March, 1935, with American public opinion staunchly against involvement in any future war, Roosevelt asked the Nye Committee to study the neutrality question and formulate appropriate legislation. Entrusted with this new task, Nye and his colleagues proposed several resolutions, one of which prohibited the export of arms and ammunition to all belligerents. Because Nye’s resolutions did not give the president the authority to distinguish between aggressors and victims or to embargo the sale of arms to aggressors exclusively, Roosevelt had the Department of State draft legislation that did so. The State Department measure was lost when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dominated by two isolationist senators, William E. Borah of Idaho and Hiram Warren Johnson of California, produced its own bill. The Foreign Relations Committee measure, approved by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, was to last six months. It provided for an impartial arms embargo to nations engaged in a conflict recognized by the president, prohibited U.S. ships from carrying war materiel to belligerents, and recommended that U.S. citizens be warned against traveling on belligerent ships. Roosevelt opposed the mandatory embargo and objected that the act did not apply to nonmunitions war materials. Nevertheless, he accepted the bill on August 31, fearing that failure to do so would adversely affect domestic reforms then under consideration in Congress and believing that he could persuade the legislators to revise the act by the time it expired on February 29, 1936. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, a State Department neutrality resolution of January 3, 1936, which gave the president discretionary authority to limit the sale of raw materials to belligerents, ran into serious opposition from Nye, Borah, Johnson, and other isolationists. With the expiration date of the 1935 measure fast approaching, Congress passed a new act slightly more stringent than the first in mid-February. Extending the basic provisions of the first act, the Second Neutrality Act also required the president to extend the arms embargo to any third party that became involved in a conflict and forbade loans by U.S. citizens to belligerents. Recognizing that there was no chance for the State Department measure and wary of creating an antiadministration issue in an election year, Roosevelt signed the Second Neutrality Act on February 29, 1936.
Neutrality Acts Like its predecessor, the Second Neutrality Act carried an expiration date: May 1, 1937. When Congress began to debate a new measure in early 1937, neither the wisdom of the basic principle of keeping the United States out of war nor the implementation of this goal through an arms embargo was questioned. As the nation emerged from the Depression, however, pressure mounted for some kind of compromise that would permit business as usual with Europe, even in wartime. Bernard Mannes Baruch, a noted financier, suggested that a practical solution would be a cash-and-carry formula. He reasoned that if U.S. businesses could sell goods, with the exception of arms, on the basis of immediate delivery and payment by the buyer, the risk of U.S. involvement in war would be minimized. Both Roosevelt and the advocates of strict neutrality favored the cash-and-carry plan, the president believing it would favor Great Britain,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
the European state controlling the sea. The new, permanent neutrality bill that emerged in April retained the mandatory embargo on arms, the ban on loans, and the prohibition on travel, but it gave the president discretion, until May 1, 1939, to place all belligerent trade except arms under the cash-and-carry formula. On May 1, the Third Neutrality Act, having passed both the House and the Senate, was signed by Roosevelt. Two months later, in the first test of this act, the futility of legislating for unforeseen diplomatic contingencies was revealed. In July, 1937, without a declaration of war, Japan launched a full-scale attack against China. American adherence to the Neutrality Act would work to the advantage of the aggressor, Japan, whose powerful navy dominated the seas off the coast of China. Therefore, Roosevelt made no official recognition of the conflict, and the provisions of the Neutrality Act were not implemented in East Asia. In the months that followed, Roosevelt had little reason to suspect Borah Argues Against European Involvement that isolationism was losing strength. Public reaction to his call for collecThe following is an excerpt from a radio address titled “Retain the Arms Emtive security, given in his Chicago bargo: It Helps Keep Us Out of War,” delivered by Senator William E. Borah on September 14, 1939. Borah argued strongly against a revision of the Neu“Quarantine Speech” of October trality Act of 1937 that would end the arms embargo. 5, 1937, was mixed. The Ludlow Amendment, requiring a favorable We are met on the threshold of all debate, of all consideration, of this subject of national referendum before a declaneutrality with the statement often delivered and with an air of finality that we ration of war, was only narrowly decannot be neutral, that Europe is now so near to the United States, owing to feated in the House on January 10, modern inventions and the mingling of business affairs, that neutrality is im1938. Alarm in the United States at practicable if not impossible. the ominous trend of events in EuThis seems to me a spineless doctrine. It is not the doctrine inherited from rope and the Far East must be attribour forebears. If true, we would be the most ill-fated nation on the earth instead uted to the nation’s relaxation of its of being, as we had long supposed, the most favorably circumstanced of any, or policy of strict neutrality. In March, all, nations. . . . 1938, Adolf Hitler’s Germany anBut we have no alternative, it is in effect declared, after these 150 years of self-government, we must go in some way or other into all these controversies, nexed Austria and began to make broils and wars of Europe. It is useless, we are told, to try to avoid this fate. . . . demands on Czechoslovakia. MeanAlthough our people have sought peace and now seek peace, still we must while, the Japanese extended their make war because European governments maintain an eternal saturnalia of huaggression in China. man sacrifices. Though the law of our land banishes racial and religious perseBy the beginning of 1939, Roosecution from our common country, still, because Europe is “near,” we must join velt had concluded that the Neutralin the racial and religious conflicts and sacrifice our people over conditions ity Act of 1937 needed revision. On which our forebears long since rejected. January 4, in his state of the union Though we seek no people’s territory, nevertheless, because Europe is address, the president warned of in“near,” we must sacrifice the savings of our people and the sons of our mothers creasing threats to peace and pointed in this endless imperialistic strife. Though we would take no part of the loot out that U.S. neutrality laws could which was divided up at the close of the World War, we are now called upon to make sure the title to a vast amount of this loot. What a fateful doctrine to prooperate unfairly, giving aid to agpose! Let us renounce it and make the effort at least to establish freedom from gressors and denying it to victims. the European system. Although he knew that Congress would not agree to a discretionary
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 arms embargo, Roosevelt hoped it might agree to modify the law allowing for the sale of arms on a cash-and-carry basis. Although Germany and other aggressors would be eligible, the administration anticipated that Great Britain and France would benefit most, because of their control of the sea. In April, with the president’s approval, Senator Key Pittman of Nevada introduced a resolution providing for the repeal of the arms embargo and the placing of all trade with belligerents on a cash-and-carry basis. Congress, under the influence of Borah, Johnson, and Nye, who were adamant in their opposition, rejected the proposal. Attitudes in Congress toward a revision of the 1937 law changed after Germany’s assault on Poland on September 1, 1939. When he learned from discussions with a number of legislators that a repeal of the arms embargo might be possible, Roosevelt called Congress into special session on September 23. Reiterating his belief that the existing law aided aggression, the president requested that the sale of all goods, including arms, be placed on a cash-and-carry basis. By shrewdly courting southern conservatives, dispensing patronage, and securing indefatigable public relations work by internationalists, the president succeeded in pushing his revision through Congress by a close vote. On November 4, 1939, Roosevelt signed the Fourth Neutrality Act, and the United States took its first step toward becoming the “arsenal of democracy,” as Roosevelt would later describe it.
Further Reading Cole, Wayne S. Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 19321945. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. Discusses the relationship between Roosevelt and the isolationists from the perspective of the latter. Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945. 1979. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Defends Roosevelt’s foreign policy, showing the president as a master politician who had to consider both domestic and diplomatic objectives. Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New Deal Years, 19331937. 1986. Reprint. New York: Random House, 1995. Second volume in a multivolume biography covers the period in Roosevelt’s administration during which the first of the neutrality acts was passed. Includes index. _______. FDR: Into the Storm, 1937-1940. New York: Random House, 1993. Third volume in a multivolume biography brings to life the people and issues involved in the passage of the neutrality acts. Includes index. Divine, Robert A. The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. A valuable source of information about the neutrality acts. Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Describes how Americans responded to the deprivations of the Great Depression and the recovery period of the New Deal. Chapters 13 and 14 address the isolationist sentiments and neutrality laws of the 1930’s. Includes maps and index. Rhodes, Benjamin D. United States Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period, 1918-1941: The Golden Age of American Diplomatic and Military Complacency. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. In-depth examination of American diplomacy during the period covered includes discussion of the neutrality laws passed in the 1930’s. Features selected bibliography and index. See also: July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins; Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain.
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Significance The neutrality acts of the 1930’s demonstrated the strength of isolationist sentiment among Americans that was stimulated by such factors as bitterness concerning U.S. involvement in World War I and the deprivations of the Great Depression. Despite the public’s desire for isolationism, however, the acts were unsuccessful in keeping the United States out of a second world war. Because the neutrality laws made no distinction between aggressor nations and those they aggressed against, viewing both only as “belligerents,” they prevented the United States from providing substantial support to Great Britain in its war with Nazi Germany until the formal American declaration of war in 1941. —George Q. Flynn and Bruce J. DeHart
Neutrality Acts
Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team
September 6, 1935 TOP HAT Establishes
the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang and danced to Irving Berlin’s music in Top Hat, one of a series of Astaire-Rogers films that helped to popularize and define the screen musical. Locale: Los Angeles, California Categories: Motion pictures; dance; entertainment Key Figures Fred Astaire (1899-1987), performer who appeared with Ginger Rogers in Top Hat and eight other RKO musicals Ginger Rogers (1911-1995), Astaire’s dancing and acting partner Pandro Samuel Berman (1905-1996), studio head at RKO who oversaw the development of the AstaireRogers series Irving Berlin (1888-1989), American songwriter who composed five songs for the film Mark Sandrich (1900-1945), director of Top Hat and four other Astaire-Rogers musicals Hermes Pan (1910?-1990), with Astaire, dance director for the Astaire-Rogers musicals Summary of Event Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers both made their screen debuts in the 1930’s. Astaire played a small role supporting Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in Dancing Lady (1933) and Rogers was a wisecracking supporting player in Young Men of Manhattan (1930). They began to define their more familiar screen characters when paired by producer (soon to be studio head) Pandro Samuel Berman at RKO. Astaire and Rogers first appeared together in Flying Down to Rio (1933), although Dolores del Rio and Gene Raymond played the leads. The first true Astaire-Rogers musical was their next vehicle, The Gay Divorcee (1934), which had been adapted from a Cole Porter show in which Astaire had recently starred on Broadway. Although only one Porter song (“Night and Day”) was kept in the film, the concluding set piece “The Continental” (by Con Conrad and Herb Magidson) won the first Academy Award ever presented for best song, and along with the Astaire and Rogers’s chemistry, it helped make the film profitable. Astaire and Rogers worked for the RKO motionpicture studio, whose initials stood for Radio-KeithOrpheum, the names of the theater circuits (some of them former vaudeville houses) through which the studio’s 2868
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films were distributed. In 1933, RKO was bankrupt and under the receivership of a New York bank, and Berman, the young studio head, eagerly pursued any film property that looked financially promising. Berman also overrode Astaire’s objections to being part of a film couple. Astaire had previously been teamed on Broadway with his sister Adele, who had received the greater acclaim. Now he wanted to be a solo performer, but the studio’s financial straits allowed Berman to offer Astaire a rare incentive: profit points. Astaire relented, and the success of his early films with Rogers—Roberta (1935) followed The Gay Divorcee—pulled RKO out of debt. With their fourth teaming, Top Hat (1935), in preparation, Astaire’s contract called for him to receive 10 percent of the profits above his regular salary. Berman assigned Mark Sandrich to direct Top Hat, and Sandrich would go on to direct four other AstaireRogers films. Sandrich had an engineering background, and he took a systematic approach to filming dance musicals. He reduced a film’s sequences (dialogue, action, music, dance) to a color-coded diagram that showed the order and duration of each activity in the shooting script. Sandrich understood the structural purpose of every scene, and he wanted songs that advanced the plot. For the music, Berman hired Irving Berlin. Somewhat disappointed by his previous experiences with film productions—Puttin’ on the Ritz (1930) and The Cocoanuts (1929)—Berlin, a perfectionist, found a kindred spirit in the meticulous Astaire. Berlin’s respect for Astaire would continue, and Berlin would later join the film Holiday Inn (1942) only because Astaire was part of the project. Berlin even claimed that he would rather have Astaire introduce his songs than any other performer (quite a statement, considering that Bing Crosby had performed Berlin’s enormously popular “White Christmas”). The composer stayed for six weeks at a Los Angeles hotel, sometimes working for twelve hours at a stretch. “Cheek to Cheek,” Berlin’s longest-ever popular tune (at sixty-four bars), was written in one day; on the other hand, “The Piccolino,” the big production number to conclude the film, was a throwback to the type of music Berlin had composed for Broadway revues in the 1920’s and required as much work as the rest of the score. The remainder of the creative team also worked on many of the Astaire-Rogers films. Dwight Taylor wrote the script for Top Hat, which emphasized romantic comedy and mistaken identity and was a virtual rewrite of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team
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The Gay Divorcee. Allan Scott reworked the screenplay Astaire. As well-known actress Katharine Hepburn noted, and went on to contribute to the scripts for the next four Rogers gave Astaire sex appeal, and Astaire gave Rogers Astaire-Rogers films: Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing class. When Top Hat opened at the new Radio City MuTime (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree sic Hall (which was partly owned by RKO) on Septem(1938). Hermes Pan is listed in the screen credits of Top ber 6, 1935, it became an instant hit. The New York Daily Hat for staging the ensembles, but he was really assigned News called it the best movie musical ever. Produced at a by RKO to be Fred Astaire’s assistant. Pan had heard of cost of $600,000, the film brought in more than $3 milAstaire’s broken-rhythm dancing, and both he and lion. Only Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) earned more Astaire had relocated from Broadway to Hollywood. money that year. Physically, he closely resembled Astaire, and the two would rehearse routines together and collaborate on deSignificance signing choreography before Pan taught Rogers the comThe Astaire-Rogers series began at a time when the techpleted steps. Astaire and Pan would collaborate throughniques for filming screen musicals were changing. Diout their long careers. As the head of the art department, rector Mark Sandrich has been credited with formulating Van Nest Polglase is listed in the credits for nearly all the playback method of prerecording the performers’ RKO motion pictures of the time, but his assistant Carroll songs with the orchestra and then having the actors lipClark may have been more responsible for giving the musicals their sleek visual shine. Viewers of the films remember their distinctive Art Deco style nearly as much as the dance numbers. The stars were assisted by an able group of supporting players who formed what could be called the Astaire-Rogers repertory company. The British comic actor Eric Blore, who embodied the prototypical gentleman’s gentleman, played the butler Bates, Edward Everett Horton took the role of the fussy but likable theatrical producer Horace Hardwick, To view image, please refer to the Helen Broderick appeared as Hardprint edition of this title. wick’s sarcastic wife, and Erik Rhodes drew on his supply of accents to play Beddini (Rhodes had played a Frenchman in The Gay Divorcee). The studio’s contract system also resulted in the casting of some performers who would later become famous, including a brief cameo by a platinum blond Lucille Ball, who plays a clerk in a flower shop. Although Astaire would later appear with dancers who were more technically proficient than Rogers, none of these women generated the magnetism seen in the Rogers and Astaire pairing. Rogers would later win an Academy Award for her dramatic performance in RKO’s Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in a scene from the first true Astaire-Rogers muWoman (1940), but she would always sical, The Gay Divorcee (1934). (AP/Wide World Photos) be remembered first for her work with
Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team sync the lyrics during shooting. The advantages of this approach can be seen by comparing any of the AstaireRogers films with a musical such as The Cocoanuts, an early talkie starring the Marx Brothers. In that film, the usually fast-moving comedians are noticeably more stationary because of their need to hear the off-camera accompaniment and because of the immobile camera and sound apparatus used at the time. By 1935, the playback method had improved and the equipment was lighter, allowing the creation of livelier musical numbers and more ambitious dance sequences. These dance numbers were enormously effective. More than any other element, they give the AstaireRogers films their unique stamp. Dancing became Astaire’s way of reshaping the film medium. In the same way that Alfred Hitchcock would shoot his suspense scenes by trying to avoid clichéd situations and by emphasizing the visual and Ernst Lubitsch would find fresh ways to film romantic scenes, Astaire brought innovations that forever changed dance musicals. This change had both technical and dramatic facets. Astaire insisted that dance numbers be shot and shown as much as possible in one continuous camera take. By minimizing editing, he hoped that the audience would notice that a dance number was not a spliced-together sequence representing the best of numerous takes on the sound stage but rather a single perfect performance captured on film. He opposed cutaways and reaction shots, since they interrupted a scene’s fluidity and hinted that camera tricks might be involved (and, indeed, the few reaction shots that remain in the dance numbers are always intrusive). Filming in one unbroken take placed greater demands on Astaire and Rogers, since one wrong step would mean reshooting the entire dance from the beginning. Hermes Pan and Astaire also gave attention to camera placement. To move a dancer toward the camera, for example, tended to lessen the audience’s overall impression of movement; moving the camera at times with the performer, however, created more kinetic excitement. Dramatically, the dances develop character and advance the plot. The first number in Top Hat, “No Strings,” is an anthem of independence for Astaire’s character, Jerry Travers. After he sings about his freedom from emotional ties, he dances with syncopated squirts from a seltzer bottle and slaps on the furniture, using rhythm and objects to emphasize his happiness as a bachelor. The film’s second song—Berlin’s “Isn’t This a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain)?”—becomes a courtship dance for Astaire and Rogers. Trapped on a deserted bandstand when a cloudburst hits, they stroll about 2870
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and cautiously ease into concurrent steps; clearly, they are releasing their inhibitions through music. The visual contrast between the downpour outside and the couple moving in graceful rhythm under the roofed bandstand works well: At the start of the song, she faces him as an antagonist, but by the song’s end, they are in love. It is a cinematic courtship that takes place through dance rather than words. The Astaire-Rogers films may have established and popularized the film musical, but they did not spawn a series of close imitations at other studios. Audiences continually cherished the films not because they are time capsules of an age gone by, since such total stylization— people who always wear dinner jackets and formal dresses, drawing rooms as big as gymnasiums—never existed. In fact, Woody Allen gently satirized such films in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and even included a clip from Top Hat. Instead, the Astaire-Rogers films depict a cultivated artificiality that provided audiences with a welcome escape from the Depression. —Glenn Hopp Further Reading Astaire, Fred. Steps in Time. 1959. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. More a series of anecdotes than a thorough autobiography, this work is still an entertaining read. Bergreen, Laurence. As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin. New York: Viking Press, 1990. The most thorough and authoritative biography of the famous composer and the first published after his death. Chapter 14 discusses the making of Top Hat. Carrick, Peter. A Tribute to Fred Astaire. Salem, N.H.: Salem House, 1984. Carrick’s biography describes Top Hat more fully than any other Astaire-Rogers film, seeing it as representative of the very best of the series. Croce, Arlene. The Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers Book. New York: Vintage Books, 1972. Not merely good on the Astaire-Rogers series, Croce’s excellent study is one of the best books ever about film. Thoughtfully written and a pleasure to read, the work also cleverly features two series of still frames printed in page corners, so that by flipping pages, one can see Fred and Ginger dance. Gallafent, Edward. Astaire and Rogers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. A solid treatment of Astaire and Rogers’s work together and as individuals. Dense, serious, and detailed. Jewell, Richard B. The RKO Story. New York: Crown, 1982. Oversized and filled with photographs, but
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 good for reading as well as for browsing. Covers every film RKO produced year by year and includes useful facts about the costs of productions and the box-office receipts of notable successes and failures. Mueller, John E. Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. Rich analysis of each of Astaire’s dances from every film. Mueller’s book is rightfully viewed as one of the best on Astaire and dance musicals. Rogers, Ginger. Ginger: My Story. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Somewhat slight and anecdotal, and obviously geared toward a popular audience. Nevertheless, valuable for its first-person—albeit highly selective—view. Thomas, Bob. Astaire, the Man, the Dancer: The Life of Fred Astaire. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. A popular biography that includes comments by
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York Astaire. Readers interested in more of Astaire’s point of view should consult his autobiography, Steps in Time (1959). See also: Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie”; Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot; 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals; 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy; Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres.
October 10, 1935
Gershwin’s PORGY AND BESS Opens in New York George Gershwin permanently blurred the distinction between musical theater and opera with Porgy and Bess and opened the door to other ambitious experiments in form. Locale: Alvin Theater, New York, New York Categories: Theater; music
Summary of Event On the night of October 10, 1935, after a brief overture, the curtain rose at the Alvin Theater in New York City. The audience heard a solo soprano voice sing a plaintive lullaby, “Summertime.” From there, the joys, sorrows, laughter, and tears of Porgy and Bess cascaded from the stage. This opening, which today seems so elegant and has seemed so right since 1935, was not the first choice. Like much else in musical theater, the opening went through drastic changes before the work debuted. Prior to the world premiere on September 30 in Boston, it was planned that Porgy and Bess would open with a black pi-
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Key Figures George Gershwin (1898-1937), American composer Ira Gershwin (1896-1983), American lyricist DuBose Heyward (1885-1940), American poet and playwright Robert Breen (1909-1990), former general director of the American National Theatre and Academy
ano player playing jazz in a smoky dance hall. The change was based purely on economy—the dance hall would have required another set. Such choices are part of the collaboration common in musical theater, and the story of Porgy and Bess is a story of collaboration. Often referred to as George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, the story about the crippled Porgy and his woman, Bess, had a genesis that was quite removed from the sophisticated composer. In 1924, an insurance salesman named DuBose Heyward decided to become a full-time writer. He had written some poetry as a hobby and had become involved in a summer writers’ colony. Heyward set out to write a novel, and he chose for his subject the people of the poor black section of his native Charleston, South Carolina. Specifically, Heyward used as inspiration a crippled man named Sammy Smalls who moved about the poorer sections of Charleston in a cart pulled by a particularly pungent goat. Heyward read a short article in the Charleston News and Courier detailing Smalls’s arrest for aggravated assault and attempted escape on his cart. Another inspiration was an area of Charleston called “Cabbage Row.” It was an area of decay, with a courtyard fronted by vegetable stands. It was a place of poverty, crowds, and numerous calls to the police. Heyward passed it every day as he went to work. In his mind, he transformed it into “Catfish Row.” Heyward took these ideas with him to the MacDowell
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York Colony, an artists’ community, where he met and married a playwright named Dorothy Kuhns. He worked on his novel while she worked on plays and mysteries. Heyward’s main character was first called Porgo. Like Smalls, he made his way on a cart pulled by a goat. His wife immediately saw dramatic potential in the unfinished manuscript, but Heyward was hesitant. He wanted to concentrate on his work as a novel. In addition, the mid-1920’s was not a time to put a serious treatment of African Americans on the Broadway stage. The novel was completed in 1925, renamed Porgy, and published to a very positive response. In very little time, the former insurance salesman became a literary celebrity. Cecil B. DeMille expressed interest in filming the novel for a group called the Producers Distributing Corporation, with Paul Robeson considered for the lead. Finally, however, the business minds at the corporation ended the project because it would not sell in the South. Others had higher hopes for Heyward’s novel. Dorothy Heyward was still at work, secretly, on a dramatic treatment. In the late summer of 1926, Heyward received a letter from George Gershwin indicating interest in and excitement about the possibility of turning Porgy into an opera. DuBose Heyward may have been unfamiliar to Gershwin, but Gershwin was very familiar to Heyward. By 1926, Gershwin’s name was quite well known. Because he was the son of immigrant Jews, Gershwin’s name had changed several times. George began as Jacob. His elder brother’s name went from Israel to Isadore to Ira. Their last name was Gershovitz in Russia and then became Gershvin, Gershwine, and, finally, Gershwin. George began piano lessons at the age of twelve and was playing in bars at fifteen. Soon, while working for a music publishing house, he became familiar with popular music and show music. By 1916, he had written a song for a revue. In 1919, Broadway saw the first George Gershwin musical, La La Lucille. Previously in that year, Al Jolson had sung Gershwin’s song “Swanee” in Sinbad. For the 1922 edition of the revue known as George White’s Scandals, Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva wrote a twenty-minute “jazz opera” called Blue Monday. It dealt with infidelity among African Americans, although the parts were played by white actors in blackface. After opening night, the piece was cut from the show, but it clearly indicated Gershwin’s future work with Porgy. In 1924, Gershwin made important strides in several directions. Paul Whiteman, the orchestra conductor for Blue Monday, had admired the work and approached Gershwin with the idea of composing and performing a serious 2872
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George Gershwin. (Library of Congress)
work using jazz idioms. The result was Rhapsody in Blue. Later that year, Gershwin opened Lady, Be Good! on Broadway. This was his first collaboration with his brother, Ira. George had worked with other lyricists and he would work with others in the future. Ira also had worked with other composers and he would work with more as well, but there was something special about the brothers working together. Their other shows included Girl Crazy (1930), Strike Up the Band (1930), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Of Thee I Sing (1931), the first musical to win that award. This was the reputation George Gershwin had started to build when he wrote to Heyward about turning Porgy into an opera. As Heyward considered a partnership with the great Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward confessed that she had been writing a dramatic version of Porgy. Both were convinced that the issue was a choice between a play or an opera. It did not occur to either that they could have both. Heyward was drawn to his wife’s work not only out
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance In addition to the obvious contributions of Gershwin’s melodies and the story of Porgy told by Heyward and Ira Gershwin, the production of Porgy and Bess made several other unique contributions to music and theater. First among these was the use of black actors on stage. Clearly this was not the first time African Americans had been on stage; it was not even the first time black actors had serious singing roles on stage. Show Boat, by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, had in 1927 featured a character named Joe, who sang “Ol’ Man River.” The original stage version of Porgy featured serious black actors. For the most part, however, black actors in Broadway musicals were in revues such as Shuffle Along (1921) and From Dixie to Broadway (1924). Lack of experienced black actors made casting a challenge, and it meant that the performers who eventually were hired were in many cases in need of coaching. The original Porgy, Todd Duncan, was a music teacher from Washington, D.C. Anne Brown (Bess) and Ruby Elzy (Serena) were both graduates of Juilliard. A vaudeville performer, John W. Bubbles, was hired to play Sportin’ Life. The Eva Jessye Choir, a black touring choir, was added to the chorus. As is the case with most productions that open and then tour, Porgy and Bess went through many cast changes over the years. The musical afforded unique opportunities for many black performers. In the early 1950’s, Robert Breen, the former general director of the American National Theatre and Academy, began a crusade to revive Porgy and Bess and tour it worldwide. Over the next seven years, the show toured with various casts to London, Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union. It was the first American theatrical production to play in the Soviet Union since the 1917 revolution. There was some hesitation about a production there, as it might communicate a false impression to audiences about how black people lived and acted in the United States. Another view was that Porgy and Bess showcased members of a minority who were gifted artists and should be given the opportunity to share their gifts. That view won out. Otto Preminger directed a 1959 film version starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. A contradiction existed concerning the show itself. Some critics thought it was an opera, whereas others were sure it was a Broadway musical. The various arguments are clear. It appeared first on the Broadway stage, although it became part of the repertoire of several leading opera companies. It was composed by a “popular” composer, and there are “standard” songs in the score. At 2873
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of loyalty but also because it was good. He was intrigued by how well she was able to make the story work on stage. Heyward told Gershwin of his decision, assuming that it would put an end to the opera. Gershwin’s greater theater experience led him to believe that the two options were not mutually exclusive, however. In fact, Gershwin realized that working from a play would give him a needed structure. With this news, the Heywards set to work revising the first draft. DuBose was able to make the unique contribution of accurate dialect. Dorothy, however, made the key suggestion of changing the novel’s ending to show that Porgy’s spirit had not been crushed. The play was produced by the Theatre Guild in October, 1927, under the direction of Rouben Mamoulian. It was a hit and only served to increase Gershwin’s determination to create an opera from the material. Other proposals were made, including a musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, to feature Al Jolson in blackface. By 1933, Heyward and Gershwin were committed contractually to the project. George wrote the music, and both Heyward and Ira Gershwin created lyrics. They had very different styles of working. According to Ira Gershwin, it took the poet that Heyward was to create “Summertime,” but when it came to uptempo, rhythmic songs such as “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” Gershwin would step in. Ira could not read music; he would simply listen to the melody his brother created and work from there. In at least one instance, the three collaborated. It was agreed that Porgy needed a happy song. George played a happy melody for the two lyricists. Ira immediately suggested the line “I got plenty o’ nuthin’, and nuthin’s plenty for me.” Heyward took that line and the music and finished the song. Mamoulian, by this time a noted film director in Hollywood, was brought back to direct the opera, once again produced by the Theatre Guild. By the time of the much anticipated Boston premiere on June 24, 1935, Gershwin had made several cuts in the score. At the suggestion of the producers and the director, he made several more as the show was prepared for its New York opening. Following the New York opening on October 10, 1935, the reviews and the public response were mixed. Many realized the genius of each of the collaborators, but others were unsure as to exactly what had been created. George Gershwin was certain that this was his stage masterpiece. As fate would have it, it was his last major work for the stage. He and his brother worked on several films following Porgy and Bess and then, in 1937, he died of a brain tumor.
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York the same time, this “popular” composer did work in the classical arena, and the score is filled with recitatives and choruses. Another argument made is that Porgy and Bess does not have the kinds of characters usually found in opera—this is basically the same argument used later concerning the status as a tragedy of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (pr., pb. 1949). The debate concerning classification of Porgy and Bess is in part a question of attitude. Although Porgy and Bess may not be populated with the usual characters of opera, it certainly has opera characteristics. Technically, it has elements of a sung-through score, grand passions, and tragedy. For some, the fact that it is in English— American English, no less—precludes it from consideration as an opera. Others perceive its blending of forms between Broadway and the opera as leading to Frank Loesser’s Most Happy Fella (1956), Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) and Evita (1979), and other such shows. Whether George Gershwin wrote an opera therefore is debatable, but he certainly wrote a great work of art that led to other great works. —William B. Kennedy Further Reading Alpert, Hollis. The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Exceptional study of the show uses research and interviews to re-create the experience, from the newspaper article that gave Heyward his idea to the 1959 film. Focuses as much on the art as on the business. Includes pictures and summary of the original New York production. Useful resource for the layperson as well as the scholar. Engel, Lehman, with Howard Kissel. Words with Music: Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto. Rev. ed. New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2006. A serious look at the needs and problems of the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy
October 11, 1935-July 15, 1936
League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy The League of Nations applied economic sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia, establishing economic sanctions as a means to obtain political objectives. Locale: Geneva, Switzerland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition; trade and commerce Key Figures Pietro Badoglio (1871-1956), commander of Italian troops in Ethiopia beginning in November, 1935, appointed governor-general and viceroy of Ethiopia in 1936 Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British minister for League of Nations affairs, June-December, 1935, and British foreign secretary, 1935-1938 Sir Samuel John Gurney Hoare (1880-1959), British foreign secretary, June-December, 1935 Pierre Laval (1883-1945), French foreign secretary Ato Wolde-Mariam (fl. early twentieth century), Ethiopian delegate to the League of Nations Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), dictator of Italy, 19221943, and minister for the armed forces of Italy, 1922-1945 Haile Selassie I (Tafari Makonnen; 1892-1975), emperor of Ethiopia, r. 1931-1936 and 1941-1974
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Summary of Event In the early 1930’s, Ethiopia occupied an approximately circular area, five hundred miles in diameter, in the interior of East Africa. It was bounded by the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean. Strips of coastal land surrounding Ethiopia had been colonized by the British, the French, and the Italians. Ethiopia was one of a few African nations not controlled by Europeans. The name Ethiopia, preferred by rulers of the nation, was derived from black African sources, whereas Abyssinia, another traditional name, was derived from Arabic sources and refers to the racial mix of the region. The conflict between Italy and Ethiopia began in the late nineteenth century, when Italy occupied a strip of the Red Sea coast later called Eritrea. In 1887, an Italian army of five hundred soldiers was surprised and completely destroyed by an Ethiopian army of twenty thousand soldiers. Hostility between the nations never disappeared. Then, at 2:00 a.m. on October 3, 1935, Italian
patrols crossed the Mareb River, which served as the border between the Italian colony of Eritrea and the nation of Ethiopia. Those patrols attacked outposts of the Ethiopian army in the Adowa area. Three hours later, Italian aircraft bombed Adowa. As a result of these actions, the League of Nations issued economic sanctions against Italy on October 11, 1935. The sanctions were formally withdrawn on July 15, 1936. In order to add prestige to his reign, as well as gaining access to oil fields, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini saw the successful invasion of Ethiopia as vital to Italian interests. What he needed was an incident to justify the invasion. A suitable situation developed in the southwest section of Ethiopia near the town of Walwal, an Ethiopian oasis outpost located about one hundred miles from the border of Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. This outpost had been occupied since 1928 by Italian forces to protect their access to the water of the oasis. Borders were neither precisely marked nor well defined by local residents, and bickering was common. In 1928, Mussolini made his one and only attempt to broker a treaty with Ethiopia. The Treaty of Friendship ceded economic concessions to Italy, but Ethiopia’s emperor, Haile Selassie I, feared Italian aggression and was unable to meet his end of the agreement. Each side viewed the other as a trespasser. The two sides exchanged shots on December 5, 1934. Ethiopia immediately brought the incident to the attention of the League of Nations, as a formal action of notification of an attempt by another nation to disturb the peace. Italians were offended by this action. By December 20, 1934, Mussolini had drawn up an important but secret document, the Directive and Plan of Action for the Resolution of the Italian-Abyssinian Question. This directive essentially established an Italian goal of conducting a war of colonial conquest of Ethiopia during October, 1935. The conquest of Ethiopia was completed in May, 1936, at a cost of 3,600 Italian and Eritrean lives and 275,000 Ethiopian lives. The use of mustard gas by the Italians was a significant factor. Liberation of Ethiopia by the Allies came in the spring of 1941. Mussolini’s position toward Ethiopia was heavily influenced by developments in Europe. Adolf Hitler was elected in 1933, and militarization in Germany began almost immediately. If Italy wanted to establish a presence
League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy in North Africa, Mussolini realized that he needed to act before Germany was fully armed (and therefore ready to move into Austria, territory in which Italy also had an interest). The British and French were carefully watching the Germans, and Mussolini reasoned that they might overlook his move into Ethiopia if they thought it would aid efforts to create a united front against Germany. In an attempt to avert war between Ethiopia and Italy, the League of Nations had formed several international committees to study the situation and to make recommendations for continuing the peace. Finally, a group called the Committee of Six (Britain, Chile, Denmark, France, Portugal, and Romania) made a report on October 7, 1935, in which they concluded that the Italian government had violated article 12 of the Covenants of the League of Nations. All representatives on the Council, except for the Italian representative, approved the report. The report was endorsed four days later, on October 11, in the Assembly by fifty of the fifty-four members present; Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Albania were against the report. The United States and Germany were not
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 members of the League of Nations, although their opposite influences were strongly felt by members. Because a violation of article 12 (conducting unlawful war) automatically enacted article 16 (punishments), the next step for the League was to determine what punitive action to take. Although article 16 allowed for military action, that was never considered. Discussions focused on economic restrictions. The term “sanctions” was coined at this time, presumably to avoid the more extreme implications of a term such as “punishments.” By tradition, since that time, the term has come to refer to economic restrictions. The task of designing these sanctions fell to a coordinating committee, which appointed a subcommittee to draw up a series of proposals for sanctions. On October 19, 1935, the subcommittee presented its proposals to the coordinating committee, which adopted them on behalf of the League. The five proposals that were approved and became the official sanctions of the League were as follows: lifting of an arms embargo against Ethiopia, prohibition of loans or credit to Italy by member nations, prohibition
Emperor Haile Selassie addresses his subjects from his palace balcony in July, 1935, a few months before the Italian invasion of Ethiopia began. (Library of Congress)
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the sanctions in their entirety. Because some nations did not fully support the sanctions and because Britain and other nations wanted to maintain cordial relations with Italy in the event of a possible war with Germany, alternative proposals were drawn up. One such plan was the Hoare-Laval proposal to divide Ethiopia, giving part to Italy and allowing part to be a sovereign nation. This proposal was the joint work of British foreign secretary Sir Samuel John Gurney Hoare and French foreign secretary Pierre Laval. During the nine months following the imposition of sanctions, member nations of the League looked on them with increasing disfavor. The Italian conquest was viewed favorably by American business interests, and the U.S. government approved of it in a formal statement on June 22, 1936. This worldwide trend of opinion led to the conclusion that sanctions were not relevant and were essentially inappropriate. The British formally denounced sanctions on June 18, 1936. France, Austria, Canada, Haiti, Honduras, Uruguay, and Belgium did so by June 22, and on June 25 the “neutral nations” of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Switzerland, and Spain followed suit. A speech by Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia on June 30, 1936, caused a temporary reconsideration of the wisdom of lifting sanctions. Ethiopia submitted two resolutions regarding its plight. They were rejected on July 4, but on the same day the president of the League of Nations made a formal recommendation to lift sanctions against Italy. It was passed by a vote of 44 to 1, with 4 abstentions. On July 6, 1936, the coordinating committee decided to end sanctions. This action came into effect on July 15, 1936. Significance Italy’s attack on Ethiopia served to discredit the League of Nations and thus hastened the development of World War II. One crucial outcome was the general conclusion that the Western democracies, especially Great Britain and the United States, were weak and would not pose a threat to international aggression. This made an impression on Adolf Hitler, who in 1936 was still a student of Benito Mussolini. The Rome-Berlin Axis was a direct outcome of the invasion and League sanctions. Mussolini advised his nation to meet sanctions with quiet resolve to do more with less. The Italian population was thus conditioned to endure the hardships of the much longer war to come. A less obvious but far-reaching impact of the invasion and sanctions was that Africans became convinced that the traditional colonial system was of no use to them. Nationalist fervor developed, and the conti2877
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against importing Italian goods except precious metals, prohibition against exporting goods normally exported by member nations to Italy, and economic support by large member nations for small member nations that depended on Italian trade for livelihood. A significant aspect of these provisions was that there was not a prohibition against the sale of iron, coal, and oil to Italy. Some nations, such as the United States, restricted the sale of these resources to Italy voluntarily, but the overall supply to Italy was not severely affected. Oil was a necessity for short-term military success. Had an immediate ban been placed on oil, the effects of economic sanctions might have been very different. Italy might have been stopped from further military actions, domestic support for Mussolini’s ambitions might have dwindled, and the various agreements between Italy and Germany in 1936 (the “Axis Accords”) might not have occurred. Perhaps the aggression of Germany in Europe would have been slowed, allowing the Allies to develop their offensive strategies. Ironically, the provisions of the League of Nations sanctions seemed to have an immediate effect opposite to that intended. Although the sanctions did bring about minor domestic hardships, Italy suffered enormously because of the economic and external political costs of the Ethiopian invasion itself. Mussolini, however, was able to shift the perception of responsibility for the economic consequences of the invasion from himself to the sanctioning nations. He thus obtained greater loyalty and sacrifice from the Italian population. Italians came to believe that desertion by former allies, rather than the costs of invasion, had produced their economic crisis. Three important ideas concerning the use of economic sanctions to bring about political ends were developed and became part of the general strategy of the use of economic sanctions. First, sanctions must be very broad in terms of goods restrictions and must focus on those goods most directly related to the resource needs of the sanctioned nation. Second, the issuance of sanctions must be independent of other events that could potentially become a substitute point of blame for the actual cause of the nation’s problems. Third, based on the long experience of failed economic sanctions not only under the League but also under its successor, the United Nations, sanctions against an authoritarian regime that is unresponsive to its population’s suffering will only frustrate the population and leave the wayward regime intact. The sanctions were not universally enforced by members. Four nations refused to participate at all, and more than 25 percent of the remaining nations refused to apply
League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy
League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy nent would not return to former ways. Self-governance and self-reliance became the only realistic options after the lack of trust that developed. In economic terms, Ethiopia gained from Italian investments and development in infrastructure, but at a high price in terms of lives and freedom. The use of economic sanctions to achieve political ends, however, was firmly established in spite of failure in this first use. It has been refined and, in combination with other methods, has been used successfully in attempts by nations to limit the aggression of others. As a single solution, however, economic sanctions have never been successful, perhaps because of the failures of 1936. Economic sanctions have become more of an initial tactic rather than a complete strategy. When the income and employment opportunities of nations become restricted, popular sentiment for military adventurism declines quickly. As politicians have recognized for decades, immediate effects on personal and family incomes are of major consequence in determining popularity for various business and government proposals. Economic sanctions that can affect those incomes thus have an important strategic role. —Steven K. Paulson Further Reading Asante, S. K. B. Pan-African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1941. London: Longman, 1977. The purpose of this book is to examine the effects on, and reactions of, black Africans to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Most analyses are from a European perspective. Extensive bibliography. Baer, George W. The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. One of two important volumes on this subject by Baer, this 403-page book begins by describing events of the period 1889-1934 that led up to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The majority of the book discusses the nine months preceding the October, 1935, invasion. _______. Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia, and the League of Nations. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1976. This 367-page book is an extraordinarily complete reference concerning the response of the League of Nations to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Chapter 12, “Ethiopia Is Italian,” is a very readable, vivid description of the issuance, and then withdrawal, of sanctions against Italy by the League of Nations. Barker, A. J. The Civilizing Mission: A History of the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-1936. New York: Dial 2878
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Press, 1968. A thorough description of the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy. Takes the point of view that the originating motivation for the invasion was rooted in late nineteenth century attempts by Italy to establish colonies in East Africa and in unexpected defeats by the Africans. Thirty interesting photographs, convenient timetable outline, ten maps, and four helpful appendixes, including one with details concerning the composition of Italian invasion troops. Clark, Martin. Modern Italy: 1871-1982. London: Longman, 1984. This 444-page volume provides a competent history of modern Italy. Of particular interest is chapter 14, which presents a concise discussion of the Ethiopian invasion of 1935 and repulsion in 1941. Insightful discussion of the relationship of the creation of the IRI (Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale) and the Ethiopian invasion. Clough, Shepard B., and Salvatore Saladino. A History of Modern Italy: Documents, Readings, and Commentary. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. This substantial book (657 pages) presents a helpful and concise review of the events of the Italian-Ethiopian war. Of special note are key documents that have been included verbatim (in translated form): “Mussolini’s Speech to the Chamber of Deputies, May 25, 1935” and “Mussolini’s Speech on the Eve of Hostilities Against Ethiopia, October 2, 1935.” Coffey, Thomas M. Lion by the Tail: The Story of the Italian-Ethiopian War. New York: Viking Press, 1974. Presents a thorough history of events leading to the withdrawal, by the League of Nations, of sanctions against Italy. The style of this book is particularly engaging. Eighteen carefully selected photographs. Del Boca, Angelo. The Ethiopian War, 1935-1941. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. A straightforward account of the war and of the short-lived Italian rule in Ethiopia. Del Boca strongly supports Haile Selassie’s efforts to maintain Ethiopian independence. Dugan, James, and Laurence Lafore. Days of Emperor and Clown: The Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936. New York: Doubleday, 1973. The premise of this book, begun by Dugan and completed by Lafore, is that the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935-1936 was important not only in and of itself but also in giving impetus and direction to World War II. The “Note on Usages and Literature” is very helpful for American or European readers of the history of this event. Hardie, Frank. The Abyssinian Crisis. Hamden, Conn.:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Archon Books, 1974. Presents a concise sequential history and assessment of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia using, lightly, a chess metaphor. Useful appendixes provide principal dates of the Ethiopian crisis and “Notes on Books” used in research for the book. Macartney, M. H. H., and P. Cremona. Italy’s Foreign and Colonial Policy, 1914-1937. London: Oxford University Press, 1938. The Ethiopian conquest allowed Italy to sever its traditional relationship with Great Britain and establish closer relations with Hitler’s Germany. Even so, the authors argue that Mussolini’s foreign policy was consistent with his predecessors. Marcus, Harold G. A History of Ethiopia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. A survey of Ethiopian history from prehistoric times to the present. Marcus’s account is supportive of Haile Selassie and his efforts to modernize Ethiopia and to maintain its independence. Mockler, Anthony. Haile Selassie’s War: The ItalianEthiopian Campaign, 1935-1941. Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, 2002. Includes detailed factual information about Ethiopia. A lengthy “tale of blood and war” which the author hopes is objective
King Returns to Power in Canada and accurate. Covers not only the Italian invasion but also the British invasion in 1941. Sbacchi, Alberto. Legacy of Bitterness: Ethiopia and Fascist Italy, 1935-1941. Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1997. Sbacchi places the struggle in a broader global context and pays particular attention to development of black nationalism and its reaction to the war. Schaefer, Ludwig F., ed. The Ethiopian Crisis: Touchstone of Appeasement? Chicago: D. C. Heath, 1961. Collection of essays by well-known statesmen, general historians (including Winston Churchill and Arnold Toynbee), and specialists. Suitable for high school-level readers. See also: 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy; June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed; Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact; Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Dec., 1936: InterAmerican Conference for the Maintenance of Peace; Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt.
October 23, 1935-November 15, 1948
King Returns to Power in Canada
Locale: Ottawa, Canada Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945
Louis St. Laurent (1882-1973), Liberal Canadian minister of justice, 1941-1946, secretary of state for external affairs, 1946-1948, and prime minister, 1948-1957 Summary of Event William Lyon Mackenzie King was born in Berlin (later Kitchener), Ontario, on December 17, 1874, and died at Kingsmere, Quebec, on July 22, 1950. King’s political career began in 1909, when he became labor minister in Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal government. In 1911, the Liberals were defeated by the Conservatives, and King lost his parliamentary seat. In 1919, King was reelected to Parliament and chosen as leader of the Liberal Party. He led the Liberals to a majority in the 1921 federal election but could muster only a minority government in the 1925 election, and this government soon lost a confidence vote. The Conservatives formed a government that quickly collapsed, forcing another election. King again won a majority, and he governed until 1930, 2879
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William Lyon Mackenzie King returned to office as prime minister of Canada on October 23, 1935, after having served from 1921 to 1930. King enjoyed the lengthiest tenure of any Canadian prime minister and led the nation through the difficult years of World War II. Under his cautious leadership, Canada emerged from the war as a prosperous and confident nation.
King Returns to Power in Canada when the Liberals again lost to the Conservatives. The defeat was a political blessing, as the Conservatives were forced to govern during the worst years of the Great Depression. In the 1935 election, the Liberals, led by King, were reelected and he returned as prime minister, winning three straight federal elections before his retirement in 1948. The first years of King’s third administration (19351940) were largely focused on domestic issues created by the Depression’s devastating economic impact. His government transformed the Bank of Canada from a private corporation into the nation’s central bank and made it responsible for Canada’s monetary policy. Under King, the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations was created to investigate both the fiscal plight of the provinces and the relations between provinces and the federal government, and King also began to consider the possibility of creating a national insurance plan for the unemployed. In 1939, the Liberals deliberately ran a budget deficit in an attempt to stimulate the economy, but the effects of the Depression lingered. As World War II approached, nearly half a million Canadians remained unemployed. King maintained a policy of cautious autonomy from Britain, ensuring that Canada’s foreign policy interests were determined by Ottawa, not by London. Outside the Commonwealth, King also developed a close relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the two worked together to expand trade relations and to cooperate on defense issues. King was particularly successful in his negotiations on defense, and when Canada entered World War II in September, 1939, Roosevelt’s administration made it clear that it was prepared to defend the continent from any external threat. King hoped to avoid entering the war, and he skillfully led the nation from 1939 to 1945, although this was arguably the most tumultuous period of his political career. National unity was King’s most important goal, and he wished to avoid the profound discord that occurred between English and French Canadians during World War I. In particular, King wanted to avoid conscription, and initially he sought a limited role for the military, one that focused on schemes such as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), which developed and trained pilots from around the world. Opposition from the provinces led King to call an election in early 1940, and he again asserted his opposition to conscription. His consistency assuaged the French Canadians’ concerns, and the Liberals were awarded another majority victory. 2880
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Following the rapid German victories in Western Europe and Scandinavia in May and June of 1940, the King government vastly expanded its war effort. The BCATP grew (eventually producing 131,000 crew members), a large navy was raised and played a vital role in protecting the North Atlantic convoys sailing to Britain, and an overseas land army of five divisions was eventually mobilized for service in several of the war’s theaters. By 1945, 1.1 million Canadians were serving in the Canadian armed forces, a significant number given that Canada’s total population numbered only 11.5 million. Canada’s increased involvement in the war put King’s nonconscription promise in jeopardy, and the issue began to threaten party unity. King was able to compromise by amending the National Resources Mobilization Act of June, 1940, which had authorized homedefense conscription for thirty days. This did not, he stressed to Canadians, necessarily entail conscription. Despite Conservative protests, King called for a 1942 plebiscite to release his government from his earlier promise. The government won, although the vast majority of French Canadians voted against it. However, as Canadian casualties mounted in Europe during 1944, a reinforcement crisis developed. King had delayed imposing conscription, using all of his political skills to avoid splitting the country along regional and linguistic lines, but the issue could be avoided no longer. Finally, King opted to send conscripts to Europe. Quebecers were overwhelmingly opposed to conscription, but it was apparent that King had tried to accommodate conflicting national viewpoints. Although King appeared indecisive to many English Canadians, his search for compromise had allowed him to succeed in negotiating the political tempest of conscription and to avoid tearing the country apart. The close working relationship established among King, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Roosevelt was one of the cornerstones of the Allied effort. This relationship became especially vital for Canada as the war progressed. Roosevelt had pressed for a defense alliance and King acquiesced, which freed Canadian men and resources for the overseas war effort. King was also able to persuade Roosevelt to solve a deeply worrisome wartime trade deficit that threatened to undermine the Canadian economy. Before the Hyde Park Declaration of April, 1941, Canada had accumulated huge trade deficits with the United States as a result of wartime purchases. The American lend-lease plan with Britain threatened to exacerbate this problem, particularly if it meant that Can-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ada could lose British business. Under the agreement, the Americans promised to buy as much in Canada, if not more, as Canada was buying in the United States, thereby wiping out the trade deficit. Fearing social unrest and another economic downturn after the war, King carefully laid the planks of the Canadian welfare state. The Liberals introduced unemployment insurance in 1940 and family allowances in 1944. Large sums were given for new housing, the Department of Health and the Department of Welfare were created, and returning veterans could choose from several programs designed to help them reintegrate into postwar society. Public works projects increased as the war ended, and this decreased postwar unemployment levels. The government’s wartime record was impressive: The new social programs were popular, and the economic transition from wartime to peacetime appeared seamless. Still, Canadians never really warmed to King, and the seventy-one-year-old won a hard-fought victory in 1945. His final years in office were dominated by Cold War strains and pronounced political wariness, and King announced his retirement in January of 1948. He had a remarkable ability to recruit talent, and the Liberal Party made a smooth transition into the government of Louis St. Laurent in 1948. The cautious craft of politics had been King’s life, but it had taken a toll, and he died in 1950.
These programs were popular, and future governments expanded on them. Globally, King oversaw Canada’s emergence as a “middle power” that played an increasingly important international role, and the country maintained active memberships in the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Commonwealth. King’s record of consistently successful political strategies led many historians to suggest that he was Canada’s greatest prime minister. —Ryan M. Touhey Further Reading Bliss, Michael. Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from MacDonald to Mulroney. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1994. Biographical study of Canada’s prime ministers presents a highly favorable assessment of King in two well-researched chapters. Granatstein, J. L. Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974. One of the most thorough studies of King’s wartime governments available, although somewhat dated. Granatstein, J. L., and Norman Hillmer. Empire to Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990’s. Toronto: Irwin, 2000. An excellent survey of Canadian foreign relations during the King years. _______. Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada’s Leaders. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1999. A thoughtful and balanced general summary of King’s political career by two of Canada’s leading political historians. Stacey, C. P. A Very Double Life: The Private World of Mackenzie King. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1976. Based on text from King’s private diaries, much of which was previously unavailable to the public. Provides an unflattering but fascinating view of King’s character. See also: 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I; May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike; July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Aug., 19301935: Bennett Era in Canada; Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II.
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Significance King was not an inspiring politician, but he led Canada for twenty-two years (the record among Commonwealth leaders) and successfully navigated his way through half of the Great Depression and World War II. Arguably, it was during the years after 1935 that King made his mark as prime minister. He kept Canada relatively unified during this period with strong, if cautious, leadership, a considerable feat given the fissures that occurred during World War I. Under strict government control, Canada’s wartime economy—which had been ravaged by the Depression—was rapidly transformed and tightly controlled. From 1945 through 1948, Canada continued its robust growth and ushered in an era of prosperity. King borrowed heavily from the left-wing Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Party’s platform to create social welfare programs, a move that disarmed his opponents.
King Returns to Power in Canada
Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November-December, 1935
Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy António Egas Moniz pioneered the surgical treatment of psychiatric disorders, giving impetus to the widespread practice of lobotomy. Locale: Lisbon, Portugal Categories: Health and medicine; psychology and psychiatry Key Figures António Egas Moniz (1874-1955), Portuguese neurologist Pedro Almeida Lima (b. 1903), neurosurgeon who performed the first prefrontal lobotomy under Moniz’s direction Walter Jackson Freeman (1895-1972), American neuropathologist and neuropsychiatrist Summary of Event In the early twentieth century, no consensus existed in the medical community concerning the treatment of mental illness. In part, this lack of consensus reflected opposition between two broad approaches to human development. One stressed the biological determinants of behavior, whereas the other stressed the role of environment and experience in shaping the psyche. (This division was mimed by the professional rivalry between neurologists and psychiatrists.) More fundamentally, however, this lack of consensus simply reflected a lack of knowledge. As the number of patients admitted to hospitals for psychiatric treatment steadily increased (by 1938, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, there was “one bed for mental disease for each bed for all other diseases in America”), the demand for effective treatment increased proportionately. The issues at stake were not only humanitarian—many psychiatric patients, especially those in state institutions, were condemned to live in utter misery with no hope of relief— but also financial, for the costs of maintaining such patients for years and even decades were enormous. This was the climate that encouraged the development and acceptance, in the 1930’s, of such radical therapies as shock treatment (using drugs or electric shock to induce coma or convulsions) and lobotomy. António Egas Moniz, the pioneer of lobotomy, was an extremely ambitious and multitalented man, with many interests outside his career in neurology. Prior to the development of lobotomy, he was best known for his work 2882
in cerebral angiography, which permits the visualization of the blood vessels in the brain after the injection of a radiopaque substance. He had hoped to receive a Nobel Prize for this work, which was done in the late 1920’s, and he was very disappointed when it became apparent that such recognition was not forthcoming. In August, 1935, Egas Moniz traveled to London for the Second International Congress of Neurology. There, he attended a symposium on the frontal lobes of the brain, including a presentation by Yale University researchers John Fulton and Carlyle Jacobsen on the effects of removing much of the frontal lobes of two chimpanzees. Egas Moniz himself later asserted that this presentation was not decisive in the development of lobotomy, which, he said, he had been considering for some time. Contemporary observers, however, noted that Egas Moniz seemed to be deeply impressed by the fact that the surgery had a calming effect on one of the chimpanzees, which had previously been subject to fits of temper and other disturbances. As Elliot S. Valenstein has shown, Egas Moniz’s interpretation of the Fulton-Jacobsen study was selective and deeply flawed, yet this misreading entered medical folklore and was even perpetuated by the Nobel Prize Committee in its citation of Egas Moniz in 1949. Egas Moniz ignored the fact that, although one of the subjects was indeed less agitated after the surgery, the other chimpanzee was affected in the opposite way, becoming much more temperamental and uncooperative postsurgery. This latter result did not accord with the presuppositions that Egas Moniz brought to the London congress. He believed that many psychiatric disorders were caused by “abnormal adhesion” between nerve cells, as a result of which neural impulses “keep following the same path . . . constantly giving rise to the same morbid ideas, which are reproduced over and over again.” This hypothesis of “fixed ideas” was sheer speculation, but the lack of evidence did not deter Egas Moniz. He interpreted the Fulton-Jacobsen study as a confirmation of his belief that if the nerve fibers in which the pernicious “fixed ideas” were conducted could be destroyed, the patient might experience significant improvement. Thus, in November, 1935, only three months after the London congress, Egas Moniz made his first attempts at psychosurgery. Long crippled by gout, Egas Moniz himself did not perform the operations; rather, he directed his younger
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 colleague, the neurosurgeon Pedro Almeida Lima. Initially, Egas Moniz used injections of alcohol to destroy nerve fibers in the frontal lobes. The first operation took place on November 12, 1935. The patient was a sixtythree-year-old woman with a long history of mental illness. Two holes were drilled in the top of her skull and injections were made on both sides of the brain in the prefrontal area. In the following weeks, Egas Moniz and Almeida Lima repeated this procedure with six more patients, steadily increasing the amount of alcohol injected. With his eighth psychosurgical patient, however, Egas Moniz adopted a new method, cutting (or, at first, crushing) the nerve fibers. This surgery, performed on December 27, 1935, may be called the first lobotomy. Egas Moniz himself did not employ the term “lobotomy,” which was first used in 1936 by his American disciple Walter Jackson Freeman and became the standard designation for the operation in the United States. The term that Egas Moniz coined for the operation was “leucotomy,” from the Greek word for white (because the nerve fibers are white matter, as opposed to gray
matter, which contains nerve cell bodies); accordingly, the surgical instrument he employed was called the “leucotome.” This instrument, the design of which was refined and modified by Egas Moniz and others, contained a retractable wire loop. After the leucotome had been inserted into the brain, this wire loop was extended and the instrument was rotated. In the first leucotomy, one such rotation (or “core,” as Egas Moniz termed it) was made on each side of the brain; in subsequent operations, as many as six cores were made on each side of the brain. In 1936, Egas Moniz published a monograph in which he reported on the outcome of psychosurgery for the first twenty patients he treated (including those treated with the alcohol-injection method). These patients suffered from a variety of disorders, ranging from disabling anxiety and depression to chronic schizophrenia. Egas Moniz reported that of the twenty patients, seven had been cured as a result of the surgery and seven had improved; six were said to be unchanged. Despite the fact that Egas Moniz’s claims could not bear scrutiny (he overestimated improvement, underestimated postoperative difficulties, and failed to conduct adequate follow-up, basing most of his analyses on observations made within days of the operation), his monograph was widely hailed as persuasive evidence for the potential benefits of psychosurgery. Significance The impacts of Egas Moniz’s radical and well-publicized use of brain surgery to treat psychiatric disorders were both immediate and lasting. Within three months of the publication of Egas Moniz’s 1936 monograph, prefrontal lobotomies had been performed as far afield as Italy, Romania, Cuba, and Brazil, as well as in the United States, where the acceptance of lobotomy owed much to Freeman’s advocacy. Freeman, a superb lecturer and a man of seemingly inexhaustible energy, was head of the neurology department at George Washington University when, in 1936, he read Egas Moniz’s monograph. Soon thereafter, assisted by a colleague, James Winston Watts, Freeman performed his first lobotomy; by the end of the year, he and Watts had performed twenty lobotomies. In 1942, Freeman and Watts published Psychosurgery: Intelligence, Emotion, and Social Behavior Following Prefrontal Lobotomy for Mental Disorders. The book was extremely influential, not only in the United States but also abroad. In the immediate postwar years, there was a dramatic increase in the number of lobotomies per2883
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António Egas Moniz. (New York Academy of Medicine)
Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy
Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy formed worldwide; in the United States, lobotomies increased from approximately five hundred per year in 1946 to five thousand in 1949. When Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949 for the development of the prefrontal lobotomy (he shared the award with Walter Rudolf Hess, a Swiss researcher recognized for his discovery of the function of the middle brain), the credibility of psychosurgery was further enhanced. Within only a few years, however, by the mid-1950’s, the number of lobotomies performed annually began to decline steeply. There were two reasons for this sudden turnabout: First, tranquilizing drugs such as Thorazine had been developed, and their widespread use was sufficient by itself to restrict lobotomy to exceptional cases; second, serious concerns about the validity of lobotomy were being expressed in the medical community. Some physicians had been opposed to lobotomy from the beginning, but as more long-term studies of lobotomized patients became available, it became evident that proponents of lobotomy, like Egas Moniz before them, had not been objective in assessing the consequences of such surgery. Although the operation as performed by Freeman and his colleagues became something quite different from Egas Moniz’s early attempts, lobotomy always involved radical injury to the frontal lobes. Lobotomized patients frequently lost their abilities to plan ahead, to think abstractly, and to perform other vital functions. In many cases, particularly in the treatment of patients suffering from schizophrenia, lobotomy was not only excessively costly in psychic terms but also generally ineffective. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, growing public awareness of ties between the government and science and a new appreciation of the threat of various kinds of mind control led to the placement of further limitations on the use of psychosurgery, including some legislative restrictions. Psychosurgery is still practiced in the United States on a small scale, with greater precision than ever before, thanks to technological advances and significant improvements in knowledge concerning the brain’s circuitry. Despite such advances, resistance to psychosurgery remains high, both within the medical profession and among the general public. —John Wilson Further Reading El-Hai, Jack. The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Biography of Walter Jackson Freeman draws on his writ2884
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ings, including journals and personal correspondence, to place his work in the context of his life and times. Discusses Egas Moniz’s development of the lobotomy. Includes bibliography and index. Freeman, Walter, and James W. Watts. Psychosurgery: Intelligence, Emotion, and Social Behavior Following Prefrontal Lobotomy for Mental Disorders. 2d ed. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1950. Second edition of the 1942 landmark volume—part textbook, part popularizing manifesto, part how-to manual— that had a worldwide influence in promoting lobotomy. Although the book is dedicated to Egas Moniz, Freeman and Watts eschew his flights of speculation and seek to provide a solid rationale for psychosurgery. Heavily illustrated, with copious references; reports the results of 619 lobotomies, compared with 80 reported in the first edition. Fulton, John F. Frontal Lobotomy and Affective Behavior: A Neuropsychological Analysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1951. Fulton (1899-1960), a leading figure in the American medical establishment of his time, received grants for several major studies of lobotomy. This short book, dedicated to Egas Moniz and Almeida Lima, discusses lobotomies of animals as well as of human subjects and presents a very positive overall assessment of the achievements of and prospects for lobotomy. Includes illustrations and bibliography. Lippman, Helen. “Lobotomy Enters the Twenty-First Century.” Clinical Psychiatry News 30 (January 1, 2002). Brief discussion of limbic surgery, which is now the name attached to improved versions of the lobotomy procedure. Notes the arguments for using such surgery in intractable cases of obsessivecompulsive disorder and major depressive disorder. Sackler, Arthur M., et al., eds. The Great Physiodynamic Therapies in Psychiatry: An Historical Reappraisal. New York: Hoeber-Harper Books, 1956. Compilation of articles selected from the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology and the Quarterly Review of Psychiatry and Neurology includes Egas Moniz’s article “How I Succeeded in Performing Prefrontal Leukotomy” and a brief biographical sketch of Egas Moniz. Shutts, David. Lobotomy: Resort to the Knife. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982. Highly readable popularized survey of the history of lobotomy. Recounts Egas Moniz’s development of the lobotomy, but focuses primarily on the life and work of Freeman. Unreliable in detail; should be used only in conjunction
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 with the Valenstein book cited below. Includes illustrations and bibliography. Valenstein, Elliot S. Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness. New York: Basic Books, 1986. Excellent treatment of psychosurgery presents lobotomy in its historical context, not as a bi-
Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting zarre aberration but rather as a representative if unusually dramatic case of “uncritical enthusiasm running rampant and causing great harm to desperate patients.” Includes illustrations and extensive notes. See also: Apr., 1938: Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia.
November 5, 1935
Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting During the early 1930’s, Edwin H. Armstrong invented frequency-modulated radio broadcasting, although he would neither receive credit for it nor see its widespread use in his lifetime. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Science and technology; inventions; radio and television; communications and media Key Figures Edwin H. Armstrong (1890-1954), American inventor David Sarnoff (1891-1971), founder of the Radio Corporation of America
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Summary of Event Because the original radio broadcasts used amplitude modulation (AM) to transmit their sounds, they were subject to a sizable amount of interference and static. As amplitude modulation relies on the amount of energy transmitted, energy sources in the atmosphere between the station and the receiver can distort or weaken the original signal. This is particularly irritating when the sound being transmitted is music. Edwin H. Armstrong provided a solution to this technological constraint. A graduate of Columbia University, Armstrong made a significant contribution to the development of radio with his basic inventions for circuits for amplitude-modulated receivers. (Indeed, the money Armstrong made from his earlier inventions financed the development of the frequency modulation, or FM, system.) Armstrong was one among many contributors to AM radio. For FM broadcasting, however, Armstrong must be ranked as the most important inventor. During the 1920’s, Armstrong established his own research laboratory in Alpine, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. With a small staff of dedicated assistants, he carried out research on radio circuitry and systems for nearly three decades. At that time,
Armstrong also began to teach electrical engineering at Columbia University. From 1928 to 1933, Armstrong worked diligently at his private laboratory at Columbia University to construct a working model of a frequency-modulated radio broadcasting system. With the primitive limitations then imposed by the state of vacuum tube technology, a number of Armstrong’s experimental circuits required as many as one hundred tubes. Between July, 1930, and January, 1933, Armstrong filed four basic FM patent applications; all were granted simultaneously on December 26, 1933. Armstrong sought to perfect FM radio broadcasting, not to offer radio listeners better musical reception but to create an entirely new radio broadcasting system. On November 5, 1935, Armstrong made his first public demonstration of FM radio broadcasting in New York City to an audience of radio engineers. An amateur station owned by Armstrong’s friend, Randolph Runyon, based in suburban Yonkers, New York, transmitted these first signals. The scientific world began to consider the advantages and disadvantages of frequencymodulated radio broadcasting. Other laboratories began to craft their own versions of FM radio broadcasting. At the then-dominant Radio Corporation of America (RCA), scientists began to experiment with FM radio broadcasting. Because Armstrong had no desire to become a manufacturer or broadcaster, he approached David Sarnoff, head of RCA. As owner of the top manufacturer of radio sets and the top radio broadcasting network, Sarnoff was interested in all advances of radio technology. Armstrong first demonstrated FM radio broadcasting for Sarnoff in December, 1933. This was followed by visits from RCA engineers, who were sufficiently impressed to recommend to Sarnoff that the company conduct field tests of the Armstrong system.
Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Edwin H. Armstrong. (Smithsonian Institution)
In 1934, Armstrong, with the cooperation of RCA, set up a test transmitter at the top of the Empire State Building, sharing facilities with the then experimental RCA television transmitter. From 1934 through 1935, tests were conducted using the Empire State Building facility, to mixed reactions of RCA’s best engineers. AM radio broadcasting already had a performance record of nearly two decades. The engineers wondered if this new technology could replace something that had worked so well. This less than enthusiastic evaluation fueled the skepticism of RCA lawyers and salespeople. RCA had too much invested in the AM system, both as the leading manufacturer and as the dominant owner of the major radio network of the time, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Sarnoff was in no rush to adopt frequency modulation. Changing systems would endanger the millions of dollars RCA was making as the United States emerged from the Great Depression, and Sarnoff believed the risk was too great. In 1935, Sarnoff advised Armstrong that RCA would cease any further research and development activity in 2886
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 FM radio broadcasting. (Still, engineers at RCA laboratories continued to work on frequency modulation to protect the corporate patent position.) Sarnoff declared to the press that his company would push the frontiers of broadcasting by concentrating on research and development of radio with pictures—that is, television. As a tangible sign, Sarnoff ordered that Armstrong’s FM radio broadcasting tower be removed from the top of the Empire State Building. Armstrong was outraged. By the mid-1930’s, the development of FM radio broadcasting had grown into a mission for Armstrong. For the remainder of his life, Armstrong devoted his considerable talents to the promotion of FM radio broadcasting. Armstrong was certain that Sarnoff was simply trying to suppress FM radio broadcasting to preserve RCA’s profits. After the break with Sarnoff, Armstrong proceeded with plans to develop his own FM operation. Allied with two of RCA’s biggest manufacturing competitors— Zenith and General Electric—Armstrong pressed ahead. In June of 1936, at a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing, Armstrong proclaimed that FM broadcasting was the only static-free, noise-free, and uniform system—both day and night—available. He argued, correctly, that AM radio broadcasting had none of these qualities. An FM radio broadcasting transmission tower was built in Alpine, New Jersey, and in 1938, station W2XMN became the first FM station. Armstrong gained backing from the regional radio network and, in cooperation, a transmitter tower was built atop Mount Asnebumskit in Massachusetts. The radio network would invest a quarter of a million dollars in FM radio stations. The central question turned from the technological to the legal: What part of the spectrum should be allocated for frequency modulation? Space on the very high frequency band was set aside, and, in the days before World War II, preliminary licenses were granted for more than fifty stations. In 1941, the FCC decreed that sound for the new television system it had approved should be telecast by FM principles. (It remains so to the present.) In December, 1941, the United States became involved in World War II. Innovation of frequency modulation was halted, and the infant industry was maintained at an arrested stage of development. Armstrong gave the military permission to use frequency modulation with no compensation, and his patriotic gesture cost him millions when the military soon became all FM. This did, however, expand interest in FM radio broadcasting. World War II had provided a field test of equipment and use.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Armstrong’s final battle to institute FM radio broadcasting began in 1948 when he filed a lawsuit charging infringement of patents by RCA. This was a struggle for the claim of invention rather than the possible development of an industry. Armstrong would not live to see his invention of FM radio broadcasting come to mainstream use; on January 31, 1954, he committed suicide. The case was settled shortly thereafter. The court sidestepped the basic question of who had invented FM radio broadcasting but ordered RCA to pay the Armstrong estate $1 million for infringement of patents.
FM radio broadcasting. By 1972, one in three radio listeners tuned in an FM station at some time during the day. Advertisers began to use FM radio stations to reach the young and affluent audiences that were turning to FM stations in greater numbers. The advertisers were attracted also by the low rates. Gross revenues soared from about $10 million for 1962 to nearly $85 million a decade later. By the late 1970’s, FM stations were surging past AM radio broadcasts. In 1976, the average FM station began to show a profit. By 1980, nearly half of radio listeners tuned in to FM stations on a regular basis. A decade later, FM radio listening accounted for more than two-thirds of audience time, and regulators and station owners were seeking ways to boost the fortunes of AM radio broadcasting, but FM radio listening dominance persisted into the twenty-first century. Armstrong’s predictions that listeners would prefer the clear, static-free sounds offered by FM radio broadcasting had been proven correct by the mid-1980’s, nearly fifty years after Armstrong commenced his struggle to make FM broadcasting a part of commercial radio. — Douglas Gomery Further Reading Barnouw, Erik. A History of Broadcasting in the United States. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-1970. The standard history of broadcasting in the United States. The development of FM radio broadcasting is covered in the first two of the three volumes. Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Presents a detailed history of the activities of RCA and its founder, Sarnoff, in the invention and innovation of FM radio. Erickson, Don V. Armstrong’s Fight for FM Broadcasting: One Man Versus Big Business and Bureaucracy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1973. Attempts to reclaim Armstrong’s role in the history of broadcasting by exposing the collaboration between the FCC and the entrenched broadcasting lobby to protect then-dominant AM radio. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to radio and television in the United States. Includes an analysis of the invention of FM radio broadcasting and Armstrong’s role. 2887
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Significance It would be three decades before Armstrong’s legacy of FM broadcasting had its full impact. When the FCC granted FM radio broadcasting licenses after World War II, most went to successful AM stations. The AM radio stations acquired the FM licenses to ensure that no serious competitors would threaten their market shares. During the 1950’s, a handful of independent FM stations labored at the margins of the radio industry, playing ethnic, classical, jazz, and folk musical programming to small audiences. At that time, a radio receiver that could pick up FM radio broadcasts cost much more than a radio that could pick up the far more popular AM radio broadcasting signals. A particular impediment came with the lack of radios in automobiles that could pick up FM signals. As late as 1966, only one car radio in twenty-five was equipped to receive FM radio broadcasting. The FCC initiated a change in 1966. To encourage greater diversity in programming, the FCC dictated that FM broadcasting licensees needed to provide at least 50 percent original programming on FM stations. That meant that those who owned an AM and FM station in the same market could no longer simulcast their signals. That is, they could no longer transmit the same signal on both outlets simultaneously. Although this meant hiring more staff and thus less profits in the short run, the disgruntled owners complied rather than lose their FM licenses. At first, there was abuse of the regulation. For example, a number of station owners simply ordered that staff members replay earlier tapes of the AM programming on the FM station. The signals were the same, but not simultaneous. Gradually, risk-taking station owners sought to differentiate their products to see if they could see greater profits in the long run. The first change came with alternative rock; then came all-jazz, all-talk, and allsports FM stations. Listeners loved the fact that radio sounded as good as their stereo record players. The result in the 1970’s was tremendous growth in
Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting
Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded Inglis, Andrew F. Behind the Tube: A History of Broadcasting Technology and Business. Boston: Focal Press, 1990. Offers a contemporary examination of the technological history of the mass media. Chapter 3 provides a fine overview of the history of FM radio, including Armstrong’s contributions. Lessing, Lawrence. Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1956. Paints a portrait of Armstrong as a great man who, against the odds, was able to convince a nation to adopt FM radio broadcasting. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping, comps. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. Collection of articles and documents concerning the history of radio and television. Treats the invention and innovation of FM radio transmission in some detail.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. The standard one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. Provides particularly strong coverage of the history of FM radio broadcasting. Whetmore, Edward Jay. The Magic Medium: An Introduction to Radio in America. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1981. Fine textbook covers all phases of radio, including Armstrong’s invention and attempted innovation of FM radio. Places Armstrong’s role in the history without the “wronged man” rhetoric found in other accounts. See also: 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded.
November 10, 1935
Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded The Congress of Industrial Organizations, a militant congress of trade unions, organized both skilled and unskilled workers regardless of race or gender. Locale: United States Categories: Business and labor; organizations and institutions Key Figures John L. Lewis (1880-1969), president of the United Mine Workers Philip Murray (1886-1952), head of the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee William Green (1873-1952), president of the American Federation of Labor David Dubinsky (1892-1982), head of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union William L. Hutcheson (fl. mid-twentieth century), head of the Carpenters’ Union Homer Martin (1901-1968), president of the United Auto Workers Sidney Hillman (1887-1946), president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Frank Murphy (1890-1949), governor of Michigan, 1936-1938 Myron C. Taylor (1874-1959), chairman of the board of the United States Steel Corporation 2888
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The struggle that produced the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) revolved around a disagreement over labor tactics and philosophy. The American Federation of Labor (AFL), founded in 1886, was organized on a craft basis and did not include the skilled and unskilled workers in mass-production industries. By 1934, however, some members of the AFL wanted to form one union for an entire industry to include these massproduction workers. William Green, president of the AFL, and the generally conservative members of that organization’s executive council associated industrial unionism with violence and radicalism. Leadership in the move for more militant unionism came primarily from John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and vice president of the AFL. Lewis criticized the voluntarism preached by Green and argued that it was imperative that the AFL become active in politics and in industrial unionism. Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and David Dubinsky of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union were the other leading figures in this insurgency. At the 1934 convention of the AFL, Lewis and other
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The decision of the AFL to move into mass-production industry unionism was probably prompted by the remarkable success of the CIO. Initially, the insurgent unions had approximately 1.8 million members, but in seven months the CIO claimed to represent more than 3.7
million workers. This growth resulted from organizational victories in the steel and automobile industries. In 1935, Lewis appointed Philip Murray, vice president of the United Mine Workers, to head the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee. Before Murray could start activities, however, a crisis arose in the automobile industry that demanded attention from the CIO leadership. Under the AFL, the United Auto Workers (UAW) had been losing members, and local leadership was completely intimidated by management. In 1936, Homer Martin, a former minister, took over the union and began to work closely with the CIO. Although Lewis would have preferred to attack steel first, he rushed to the support of the nowmilitant UAW when on December 28, 1936, the union began a dramatic sit-down strike in the Flint, Michigan, plant of General Motors. Although the sit-down tactic had been utilized on a limited scale before, the dramatic effect of thousands of men refusing to work but remaining in their plant took the public by surprise. Following normal procedure, General Motors immediately requested government assistance. An injunction was issued by a local judge, but the sheriff refused to serve it and was backed up by Michigan governor Frank Murphy, a Democrat who supported the rights of the workers and strove for a compromise settlement. Management, realizing that little support could be expected from Washington, constantly prodded by Murphy to go to the bargaining table, and faced with a considerable loss of profits, decided to meet with the UAW. On February 11, 1937, a contract was signed providing for the dismissal of the injunction, recognition of the UAW as the sole bargaining unit, and procedures for collective bargaining on wages and hours. The other automaking companies, with the exception of Ford, which held out until 1941, quickly fell into line. In the meantime, Murray was conducting his campaign to organize the steel industry, although in the end steel was broken from the top down. Myron C. Taylor, chairman of the board of the United States Steel Corporation, desiring to avoid a work stoppage that would jeopardize a lucrative foreign contract and anticipating inevitable union recognition, invited Lewis to private talks that lasted for three months. The result was the signing of a contract on March 2, 1937, that granted union recognition and provided for a 10 percent wage increase, a forty-hour week, and overtime pay. Many other companies followed Taylor’s lead, but three of the “Little Steel” companies, under the moral leadership of Tom M. Girdler of Republic Steel, fought unionization successfully, culminating in the so-called Memorial Day 2889
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industrial union supporters succeeded in receiving an endorsement for the chartering of unions in a number of industries, including auto and rubber. In addition, there had been a promise made to organize the steel industry. However, little was done in the following months to implement the resolution. The next year, the AFL leadership rejected appeals for help in instituting a more active movement among the industrial workers. Lewis addressed the convention, pleading to “organize the unorganized” and thereby make the AFL the “greatest instrumentality . . . to befriend the cause of humanity.” His resolution failed by a substantial majority. The frustrated Lewis confronted the head of the Carpenters’ Union, William L. Hutcheson, who was quelling dissent among some of the workers, and started a fistfight. Lewis knocked Hutcheson to the floor, disrupting the convention; afterward, a new image became popularized of a “battling Lewis” who fought for industrial organizing. Rebuffed by the convention, Lewis, Hillman, and others proceeded to meet separately, and on November 10, 1935, they formed what was originally called the Committee for Industrial Organization. Ostensibly this group was working within the AFL to promote organization of the mass-production industries. Green and his executive council, however, quickly concluded that such activity was in disregard of majority AFL sentiment as expressed at the convention and that it could easily lead to dual unionism. The council called on the Committee for Industrial Organization to disband. The unions now involved in this revolt included the United Mine Workers, the United Auto Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the United Textile Workers, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and a number of smaller organizations. They ignored the AFL request, and, in August, 1936, the entire group was suspended. A peace conference between Green and Lewis was arranged, but it collapsed—a result primarily of the latter’s uncompromising attitude. In March, 1937, the insurgent group was formally expelled from the AFL. Green also announced that the AFL itself would begin an immediate campaign to organize the mass-production industries. In 1938, Lewis’s group changed its name to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded
Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded Massacre on May 30, 1937, when police fired on union demonstrators in front of the South Chicago plant of Republic Steel. It was not until World War II that the entire industry was finally “organized.” Nevertheless, within the space of one month, the CIO had achieved a remarkable victory over two huge industries that had long been immune to unionization. The drive of men such as Lewis, Murray, and Martin and the reasonableness of men such as Taylor were important in this advance, but the attitude of the government on both the state and federal levels was also of critical importance. Without the fair-minded attitude and support of Governor Murphy, the UAW would have been driven from the General Motors plant. Although Lewis and President Franklin D. Roosevelt were soon to be enemies, the White House placed considerable pressure on the employers to negotiate. Finally, the work of the National Labor Relations Board and the revelations by a Senate subcommittee, headed by prolabor senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr., of the unsavory antiunion tactics used by employers helped the CIO to consolidate and expand its gains over the next year. By the end of the 1930’s, union membership had increased to 30 percent of all workers. The CIO’s commitment and democratic initiatives to bring workers into the union organization regardless of skill, job, race, or sex, as well as a policy of inclusion on the part of the massproduction industries, revolutionized unionization. Although not completely removed from discrimination, hundreds of thousands of African American workers were able to join unions. Women, despite obstacles to their gaining key union leadership roles, nevertheless were instrumental in building the forces of the CIO, especially in cases involving issues specifically relating to women. —George Q. Flynn and Marilyn Elizabeth Perry Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Barnard, John. Walter Reuther and the Rise of the Auto Workers. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983. Fine account written for lay readers provides an important vignette of mid-1930’s CIO activity in a major industry. Includes bibliographic essay and index. Bernstein, Irving. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton 2890
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mifflin, 1969. Authoritative, clearly written general history of American labor in the era between the world wars. Discusses the development of unionism and collective bargaining in American industry and public policy relating to collective bargaining during the New Deal era. Includes bibliographic notes and index. Brooks, Thomas R. Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor. 2d ed. New York: Delacorte Press, 1971. Provides good personality sketches and colorful anecdotes. Solid and informative, despite the author’s clear prolabor bias. Includes index. Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Foster Rhea Dulles. Labor in America: A History. 7th ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 2004. Comprehensive account of American labor and labor movements since colonial days. Devotes substantial discussion to national organization during the 1930’s, including the rise of the CIO and the merger of the CIO and the AFL. Features bibliographic notes and index. Fine, Sidney. Sit-Down: The General Motors Strike of 1936-1937. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963. Well-told account presents a clear scholarly view of specific CIO battles with business and the community. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Galenson, Walter. The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941. 1960. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. History of the CIO during what the author calls a revolutionary era marked by a radical change in the power structure of American labor. Green, James R. The World of the Worker: Labor in Twentieth-Century America. 1980. Reprint. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Focuses on notable labor leaders, including John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman, emphasizing the relationships between leaders and workers. Provides a valuable description of the conflict over power and authority in the unions. Includes bibliographical essay and index. Stolberg, Benjamin. The Story of the CIO. 1938. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1971. Readable journalistic account encapsulates well the atmosphere and personalities that affected the establishment of the CIO. Combines theory and history. Includes index. Taft, Philip. The A.F. of L. from the Death of Gompers to the Merger. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959. An invaluable study, although at times dense reading. The best work of its kind for understanding the AFL and CIO dissidents. Chapter notes, valuable index. Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935-1955. Chapel Hill:
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 University of North Carolina Press, 1995. History of the CIO prior to its merger with the AFL draws on archival records and oral histories. Includes endnotes and index. See also: June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World; Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions
New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws; June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established; May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations; July 5, 1935: Wagner Act; June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act.
November 27, 1935
New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration The New Zealand Labour Party, once considered a fringe socialist group, emerged from the Depression of the 1930’s as the party with the most comprehensive support among New Zealanders. The easygoing and compassionate personality of Labour’s first elected prime minister, Michael Joseph Savage, helped unify New Zealand as the country experienced economic uncertainty and war, and helped consolidate New Zealand’s identity as a society that placed more emphasis on social equality than on free enterprise. Locale: New Zealand Categories: Government and politics; social issues and reform
Summary of Event Michael Joseph Savage, perhaps New Zealand’s most important prime minister, did not settle in the country until he was thirty-five years old. He came from the Australian state of Victoria, and many commentators noted that his antiauthoritarian populism had a streak of the larrikinism, or outlaw gallantry, often associated with Victoria and especially with the Irish-Australian bushranger Ned Kelly. Like Kelly, Savage was a Roman Catholic, which was rather unusual for New Zealand,
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Key Figures Michael Joseph Savage (1872-1940), New Zealand’s first Labour prime minister, 1935-1940 Peter Fraser (1884-1950), deputy and prime minister of New Zealand, 1940-1949 Walter Nash (1882-1968), finance minister under Savage and prime minister of New Zealand, 19571960 Adam Hamilton (1880-1952), leader of the opposition National Party during Savage’s term John A. Lee (1891-1982), leftist Labour Party activist who became one of Savage’s most virulent opponents
which (unlike Australia) did not have a large Irish Catholic population and was dominated by an often puritanical Protestantism. Savage’s Catholicism was evident in his opposition to conscription during World War I, a cause popular among Catholics in the British dominions, who were anxious about the restive state of the Catholic portions of British-occupied Ireland. Savage’s religious beliefs also appeared in his social policies, which had an integralist aspect not far from the policies advocated by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). Savage drifted into the labor union movement more by chance than by ideological intent. Once involved, however, he became a radical who joined the faction of Red Feds associated with leaders such as Bob Semple. In his early political career, Savage was not content with simply improving the conditions under which workers labored; he wanted to make a fundamental change in society’s nature. However, Savage began to move away from his more extreme positions after he was elected a member of Parliament in 1919. After the death of Labour’s leader, Harry Holland, Savage worked throughout the 1920’s and early 1930’s to redefine Labour’s image as a party capable of governing. His task was made easier as New Zealand voters looked for new ideas to help them overcome the the economic circumstances created by the Great Depression. The Depression had catastrophic effects around the world, but it had a particularly harsh impact on New Zealand’s undiversified, resource-based economy. Prices for wool and lamb plummeted. When the Labour Party was elected in 1935—with 90.8 percent voter turnout—Savage and an entire generation of leaders, including Peter Fraser and Walter Nash, were brought to power. Fraser, like Savage, had been a laborer; Nash had been a shop clerk and tailor’s assistant. All three leaders, however, had what the Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci termed an “organic” rela-
New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration tionship to the New Zealand working class; these politicians came from backgrounds very similar to those of their constituents. The three were also united by the fact that, although they had not received much formal schooling, they had both intellectual and instinctive approaches to New Zealand’s social problems. The new Labour government immediately gave unemployed New Zealanders substantial cash payments to supplement preexisting benefits. Housing was a huge problem in Depression-era New Zealand, and many unemployed farmers and factory workers became itinerants who traveled from homestead to homestead with no fixed address. The government committed itself to constructing a large number of new housing units and facilitated access to these units for the dispossessed and impoverished. Savage set minimum prices for dairy and other resources that helped New Zealand place its products in the world market. Members of the conservative opposition, however, such as Adam Hamilton, believed that some of the Savage government’s policies deprived workers of freedom of choice. New Zealand’s first Labour government also made significant efforts to improve relations with the Maori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, although efforts in this area were often underrated. Unlike Australia, where the Labor Party basically supported the reigning “White Australia” policy and called for assimilation of the Aborigines, the Savage government recognized Maori identity and sought—and largely achieved—a rapprochement with the Ratana movement, a syncretic religious group that espoused both Christian and indigenous Maori beliefs. Ratana essentially became the Maori arm of the Labour Party, as Ratana candidates dominated the allotted Maori seats and gave crucial support to Savage’s overall agenda. Labour won the 1938 election, although Savage’s triumph required huge personal sacrifices: Before the campaign, he had learned that he had cancer but did not actively seek medical attention, both because he feared that treatment would take time away from the campaign and because he feared losing the election if his illness became public knowledge. By 1939, Savage was obviously ill, and his opponent John A. Lee was widely criticized for his attacks on the ailing politician. Although people in political circles were widely aware of Savage’s illness, the reluctance of newspapers to be candid about the health of political figures in that era meant that Savage’s death came as a shock to the New Zealand electorate. By the time Savage died, World War II had begun. Ironically, the world’s second great conflict involved the 2892
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 physical environment around New Zealand less than had the first, in which German South Pacific territories had been involved; during World War II, the Japanese never seriously approached Polynesia. However, if New Zealand had fewer threats to its own security, it made more sacrifices in Europe and the Middle East. Despite their different ideologies, British prime minister Winston Churchill respected Peter Fraser, who succeeded Savage, as an Allied leader and kept him current on military planning efforts. Significance Although Labour prime ministers had served in Britain and Australia before 1935, they never exerted unchallenged authority and often headed coalition governments that diluted their political force. The government headed by Savage was the first Labour government in the English-speaking world to be voted into office by a groundswell of support from the populace, and it was the first to be secure in its ability to legislate its platform. Labour’s fate, however, might have been very different were it not for the outbreak of World War II, which cemented the Labour leadership position and swathed it in patriotism. The precedents established by Savage, Fraser, and Nash formed the basis for Labour’s prestige and continued hold on power. Even as many of its economic policies were reversed and its social assumptions began to be seen as outdated, the Savage government still inspired warm feelings on the part of New Zealanders. Indeed, Savage remained one of the most popular of New Zealand’s prime ministers. His combination of charisma and idealistic views lent him a status somewhat similar to that of nationalist president Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico. Like his fellow World War II leader William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada, Savage never married and had an interest in mysticism. However, unlike King, who was rather remote, Savage was an unabashed populist. He also had a vulnerability, a humility, and a lack of interest in concealing his own failings that placed him in diametric opposition to the swaggering figures who dominated world politics in the 1930’s. In contrast to these administrations, New Zealand’s Labour government provided humane, accessible leadership for the island country at a time of worldwide turmoil and ideological upheaval. — Nicholas Birns Further Reading Bassett, Michael. The State in New Zealand: Socialism Without Doctrines. Auckland, New Zealand: Auck-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 land University Press, 1998. A negative assessment of Savage’s economic policies by a historian committed to free-market ideology. Belich, James. Paradise Reforged. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Emphasizes Savage’s role in the articulation of a distinct New Zealand identity, one based in the working class but sufficiently moderate to appeal across the population. King, Michael. The Penguin History of New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books, 2003. Argues that though Labour in the Savage era did not have an ideology that was recognizable in the orthodox Marxist sense, it nonetheless had an articulated intellectual platform. King, Michael, and Merle van de Klundert. God’s Farthest Outpost: A History of Catholics in New Zealand.
Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core Auckland, New Zealand: Viking Press, 1997. Depicts Savage as a pioneer for Catholics in New Zealand politics. Mein-Smith, Phillippa. A Concise History of New Zealand. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Provides insight into Savage’s Catholicism and the importance of his Australian background; also gives a good general sense of the first Labour government’s role in New Zealand history. See also: Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed; June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women; May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society; July 10, 1912: Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand; 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
1936
Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core Inge Lehmann’s hypothesis that the earth has an inner and outer core led to investigations that confirmed her theory. Locale: Copenhagen, Denmark Categories: Science and technology; geology; earth science Key Figures Inge Lehmann (1888-1993), Danish seismologist John Milne (1850-1913), English engineer
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Summary of Event Prior to the development of the seismograph, an instrument that records vibrations of the earth, or earthquakes, very little was known about the composition of the inner parts of the earth. In the late 1800’s, a basic knowledge of vibrations generated by a seismic source evolved. It was found that these vibrations, or waves, travel outward through the earth at measurable speeds. The science of geophysics recognizes two major types of “elastic” waves, which were defined by the British geologist Richard Dixon Oldham. The first type is called a P wave because it causes a “primary” disturbance that deforms the earth by means of alternately lengthening and shortening in the direction of the source of the wave. P waves are also called “compressional waves” because the volume of the earth that is affected is alternately compressed and expanded. The second type
of elastic wave is the S wave, which produces a “secondary” disturbance. The S wave is a transverse body wave that travels through the interior of an elastic medium. S waves do not change the volume of the medium, but they do change its shape; for this reason, they are also called “distortional waves” or “shear waves.” Both P waves and S waves pass through the interior of the earth; for this reason, they are called “body waves.” When an earthquake occurs, its waves travel through the body of the earth and are recorded by seismographs at earthquake observatories. These seismic waves carry to the surface information about the material through which they have passed. In 1883, the English engineer John Milne surmised that every large earthquake at any point of the globe could be recorded if there were an instrument designed for that purpose; however, it was not until 1893 that he perfected the first clockwork-powered seismograph. In later years, when extremely sensitive seismographs had been developed, it was found that some weak P waves actually were penetrating a shadow zone, an area opposite the projected core of the earth. The shadow zone, discovered in the research of the Croatian geophysicist Andrija Mohorovi5i6, was left unexplained in earlier research conducted by pioneers in the use of seismographs to map the interior. Inge Lehmann postulated the existence of an inner core that could reflect the rays back into the shadow zone.
Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
At the Copenhagen Seismological Observatory, Lehmann had for a number of years been clearly observing, through the core, seismic waves caused by earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean. Among these were the shocks that occurred at Murchison and Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand in 1928 and 1931, respectively. It was evident from these records that a P-type wave that should have been within the shadow zone was arriving at seismological stations. This phenomenon could be explained only by the existence of an inner core that was about 1,250 kilometers (roughly 777 miles) in radius and was denser than the outer core. Lehmann believed that core waves could be classified into three separate types of P wave. The standard explanation for the first two of these wave types was that their rays were refracted at the boundary between the mantle and core and focused toward the antipodes, placed opposite each other on the globe. She explained that waves of the third type were reflections from another sharp discontinuity within the core itself. This family of waves is made up of the core refractions. Beyond about 103 degrees, the direct P wave cannot be recorded because of the shadow effect of the core. Beyond this distance, the first wave to appear on long-period instruments is often a
PP wave, which does not penetrate so deeply and therefore is able to avoid the obstacle. Short-period instruments show a refracted wave arising from complexities within the core, but it is not quite as prominent as P when it makes its reappearance at 142 degrees. Because it is deflected from its path and disappears altogether for nearly 40 degrees, it is called a PKP wave (K stands for Kern, the German word for “core”). In 1936, after ten years of interpreting seismograms (records made by a seismograph) and using a well-established scientific method, Lehmann was prepared to discover the inner core. Her first step was to calculate a direct problem. She assumed an earth model that was particularly simple. It had constant velocities in the mantle (10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, per second) and in the core (8 kilometers, or 5 miles, per second). These were reasonable average values for both regions. She then introduced a small central core, which again had a constant velocity. These simplifications enabled her to view the seismic rays as straight lines; therefore, their travel times could be calculated by using elementary trigonometry. She then showed by making successive adjustments that a reasonable velocity and radius of the inner core could be found that predicted a travel-time curve close to the observations of the third type of P wave. In effect, she proved an existence theorem: A plausible threeEarth’s Interior shell earth structure could be defined that explained the features of the obLithosphere 100 km served waves. (including crust 5-40 km) Lehmann’s discovery of the inner core was very complicated, but it Asthenosphere 700 km convinced Beno Gutenberg in the United States and Harold Jeffreys in England that her hypothesis was a viInner core able one. Within two years, they had 1216 km independently carried out more detailed calculations involving many Outer Mantle observed travel times of P waves core 2885 km 2270 km and calculated by means of an inverse method both the radius of the inner core and the P-velocity distribution in it. Significance After the discovery of the earth’s inner core, the measured travel times could be transformed, using inverse theory, into plausible P velocities in the mantle and the outer core. In late
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1938 and 1939, Gutenberg and Jeffreys computed, independently, the average velocity based on thousands of observed travel times of P and S waves. Their agreement was extremely close; in fact, their calculations were so well developed that they have not been seriously altered since. As a result of the development of sensitive seismographs, an increase in the number of seismographic stations around the world, and the availability of largecapacity computers, a better understanding of the earth has become possible. The core has a role in many geophysical studies, and the way it is affected during great earthquakes is being probed actively. If the physical properties inside the earth were better known, the frequencies and amplitude patterns of the resonant vibrations could be calculated, thereby making it possible to prevent loss of life. —Earl G. Hoover Further Reading Bolt, Bruce A. Inside the Earth: Evidence from Earthquakes. 1982. Reprint. Fairfax, Va.: Techbooks, 1991. An easy-to-read, copiously illustrated introductory textbook covering the evolution of knowledge of the middle earth, types and measurements of earthquake waves, main shells of the earth, structural vibrations densities, elastic properties, and temperatures. Includes a guide to further reading. Clark, Sydney P., Jr. Structure of the Earth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Brief and very readable introduction to the earth’s structure. Areas covered include geologic structures, the earth’s magnetic field, plate tectonics, seismology, and heat flow and the earth’s temperature. Includes many illustrations and references as well as suggestions for further reading.
Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core Jacobs, I. A. The Earth’s Core. New York: Academic Press, 1975. Geared for graduate students and research workers in geophysics. Focuses on seismology and geomagnetism; contains many graphs and mathematical computations. Areas covered include the general properties of the earth, the origin of the earth’s core, and the thermal regime of the earth’s core. Includes both author and subject indexes. Stein, Seth, and Michael Wysession. An Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes, and Earth Structure. New York: Blackwell Science, 2002. Introductory textbook intended for advanced undergraduate and firstyear graduate courses in seismology. Heavily illustrated. Includes suggestions for further reading and index. Strahler, Arthur N., and Alan H. Strahler. Environmental Geoscience: Interaction Between Natural Systems and Man. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973. Introductory college textbook weaves the basic principles of geoscience with information on environmental and resource problems. Of particular interest is the discussion of the magnetosphere and the core as the source for the generation of the earth’s magnetism. Abundantly illustrated. Tarbuck, Edward J., and Frederick K. Lutgens. The Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Introductory-level text offers a very good overview of the earth’s interior. Well written and illustrated with color graphics. See also: 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure; 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary; Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength.
1936
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Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1936
Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope Erwin Wilhelm Müller invented the field emission microscope, the first instrument to depict the crystal structure of metals and the forerunner of the more powerful field ion microscope. Locale: Berlin, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics; inventions Key Figures Erwin Wilhelm Müller (1911-1977), German physicist and engineer Eugen Goldstein (1850-1930), German physicist Ralph H. Fowler (1889-1944), English physicist Robert Gomer (b. 1924), American chemist and physicist Summary of Event Erwin Wilhelm Müller began to study the physical process that would constitute the basis of the field emission microscope while he was a research physicist in Berlin from 1935 to 1937. Field emission is the emission of electrons, the negatively charged subatomic constituents of all matter, from a metal electrode under the influence of a strong electrical field into a vacuum. The strong field induces the electrons to travel in the direction of the field. In 1876, Eugen Goldstein had demonstrated this effect experimentally. Goldstein projected the image of a small coin onto the fluorescent wall of a vacuum tube by using the coin as the electron-donating electrode, or cathode, of an electrical circuit, and the fluorescent wall of the tube as the electron-receiving electrode, or anode. The resulting electrical field around the metal coin induced electrons to traverse the vacuum tube and strike the fluorescent wall. When the moving electrons struck the fluorescent coating of the tube wall, a blurred, glowing image of the coin appeared. Müller’s research involved electron emission from point sources, not flat sources such as coins. One particular source consisted of a sharply edged tungsten needle. At first, Müller was simply interested in the paths taken by the field emitted electrons. Because Müller was familiar with the work of Goldstein and others, he set out to construct a similar apparatus, replacing the flat coin with his convex metal needles in order to stimulate the electron flow. Müller’s vacuum tubes were more like lightbulbs than tubes, with the hemisphere opposite the needlelike cath2896
ode coated with a fluorescent material. In 1936, when Müller applied an electric field of approximately 40 million volts per centimeter to this apparatus, he did not view an image of the needle point analogous to that of Goldstein’s coin face. Instead, his images were single, unstable blotches of light and dark that were at first nearly impossible to interpret. He soon recognized that the images of the convex needles produced by the instrument were highly magnified, whereas Goldstein’s images offered no magnification at all; they were mere representations. The apparatus was a crude version of the field emission microscope. In order to overcome the poor image quality, Müller worked to improve the quality of the needle tip through the chemical and electrolytic preparation of fine, heattreated metal wires. Such procedures allowed Müller to manufacture needles with tips that were no larger than 0.00002 centimeter in diameter. At this size, many of the needles were composed of one nearly perfect crystal of the metal. With such improvements, Müller was able to publish emitted electron images of the surface crystallographic structure of tungsten in the German journal Zeitschrift f ür Physik in 1937. The magnification of these images was so great that it offered the first glimpse of the metallic crystal structure at the level of the atoms making up the crystal lattice. These were the first applications of the new invention, dubbed the field emission, or field electron, microscope. Soon thereafter, Müller obtained similar micrographs of the crystal structures of molybdenum, platinum, nickel, and copper. Müller realized the importance such an instrument would have on the study of metallic surfaces. Such an instrument could be used to study the adsorption, or the physics of adherence, of contaminating materials onto the very structure of the metal. He also recognized that the instrument would be useless without a firm understanding of the physical process on which it depended— the field emission of electrons. The power of the field emission microscope would depend on the limits that the physical process of field emission imposed on it, for any scientific instrument is limited by the physical system on which it depends in order to operate. Two of the most important parameters in assessing the power of any microscope are magnification and resolution. The former is a measure of the size of the smallest objects that the microscope can make visible; the latter concerns the size of the objects that it can distinguish,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
at the subatomic level, which states that entities such as electrons behave both as particles and as waves. Given that the electrons have particle-like properties, they would have a particular velocity, like any other moving particle. Given that they also behaved like waves, they would have a particular wavelength, as do sound waves or light waves. The electron velocity was extremely high and uncontrollably random, which caused the blurred micrographic images. In addition, the electrons had an unsatisfactorily high wavelength. When Müller combined these two factors, he was able to determine that, theoretically, the resolution of the field emission microscope would never reach below 20 angstroms. This may seem quite small. In fact, a resolution of 20 angstroms is equal to a resolution of 0.000000002 meter. Müller noted, however, that the atoms in an atomic crystal lattice are separated by only 4 to 5 angstroms. Thus the field emission microscope could never depict single atoms, for it was a physical impossibility for it to distinguish one atom from another. Significance Even with its inherent limitations, the field emission microscope had an enormous impact on two fronts: the field of surface science and Müller’s development of the field ion microscope in the early to mid-1950’s. Robert Gomer, an American chemist and physicist, was among the first scientists to put Müller’s invention to use in actual scientific investigation. Most other microscopes and magnifying instruments consist of an independent system of lenses that process the image of the specimen under investigation by focusing the reflection of some wavelength of radiation (visible light, X rays, and the like). The field emission microscope does not require such an apparatus, however. The specimen under study—the needle—is an integral part of the instrument, for it is also the electron emitting cathode. Whatever happens physically or chemically to the specimen will affect directly the resulting image. Gomer was attracted to the device because of this simplicity, and it was this simplicity that permitted the types of experiments he conducted. As size requirements dictated that the needle often consists of only one individual crystal of the metal, Müller realized that the properties of individual crystals could be examined. The most important of these properties was the adsorption of materials onto the needle surface. The instrument offered such a precise map of the crystal structure that a layer as thin as one one-hundredth of an atom would affect the emission quality and hence the resulting image. Gomer used the field emission mi2897
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and is thus a measure of accuracy. For example, a microscope that has a magnification of one hundred times will make objects appear one hundred times larger than they are in reality. A microscope with a resolution of two millimeters can distinguish objects that are separated by a distance of two millimeters. Objects that are separated by less than two millimeters will not be seen as distinct objects. The electron emission process influences both these parameters and would ultimately preclude the instrument from depicting the images of individual metal atoms within the crystal lattice. Müller studied the effect of needle shape on the performance of the microscope throughout much of 1937. He discovered that the magnification of a field emission microscope depends on the ratio of the fluorescent screen radius to the metal emitter radius. This underscores the importance of having a needle-shaped electron emitter. The more precise the tip of a needle is, the smaller its radius will be. The smaller this measure becomes, the larger the ratio of the screen radius to emitter radius becomes, and hence the higher the magnification becomes. The reason Goldstein’s apparatus produced an unmagnified image of the coin was that the radius of the screen was approximately equal to that of the coin; because their ratio was approximately equal to one, the apparatus yielded no magnifying power at all. This should not be interpreted as meaning that the needle emitter should be fashioned into the sharpest point possible with a radius approaching zero. Indeed, when Müller showed the instrument to the German physicist Max von Laue in 1937, von Laue maintained that the emitter should have the sharpest point that the particular metal (and its associated crystal structure) would allow. Based on his knowledge of metallic crystal behavior, however, he reasoned that a smooth, hemispherical tip, albeit a very small one, would be the most efficient electron emitter. This was indeed the case. When the needles had been properly shaped, Müller was able to realize magnifications of up to one million times. This magnification allowed Müller to view what he called “maps” of the atomic crystal structure of metals. Although the magnification may have been great, the resolution of the instrument was severely limited by the physics of emitted electrons, which caused the images Müller obtained to be continually blurred. Müller was well aware of the contemporary developments in quantum mechanics, especially those resulting from the work of Ralph H. Fowler, which applied these theories to field electron emission. Quantum mechanics is the set of physical theories that describes phenomena
Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope
Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope croscope to study the adsorption and desorption of materials such as barium. The field of surface science was in its infancy at the time of Müller’s invention, and the field emission microscope provided the impetus that allowed this discipline to expand and flourish through the 1940’s and 1950’s. By the late 1950’s, Gomer used the instrument to investigate and study the rate of migration of gases that diffused into the lattice itself. In order to achieve this, Gomer immersed a field emission microscope in a bath of liquid helium, creating an extremely high vacuum within the bulb. This allowed him to introduce gases such as hydrogen and oxygen into the bulb and view their movement through the crystal by viewing the subsequent changes in the emitter image. The studies of diffusion and adsorption allowed Gomer and others to view the gross molecular structure of any material that could be either embedded within or adsorbed onto the emitter surface. Medium-sized molecules of materials such as phthalocyanine have also been observed. Despite these advances, Müller’s studies of the limitations of the microscope eventually led to his development of the more powerful field ion microscope between 1951 and 1956. Rather than imaging the needle tip with emitted electrons, Müller used emitted positive ions. The ions had smaller velocities and shorter wavelengths than the much lighter electrons, and hence the inherent resolution problems of the field emission microscope were overcome at last. By 1956, Müller and his colleagues at the Pennsylvania State University’s Field Emission Laboratory reported the first images of individual atoms in metal lattices. —William J. McKinney Further Reading Müller, Erwin Wilhelm. “The Field Ion Microscope.” American Scientist 49 (March, 1961): 88-98. Largely devoted to Müller’s work on the field ion microscope, but presents some introductory material concerning the physical limitations of the field emission micro-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 scope that eventually led to the later microscope’s development. _______. “Field Ion Microscopy.” Science 149 (August, 1965): 591-600. Focuses on the later and more powerful field ion microscope, but discusses Müller’s realization of the resolving problems of the field ion microscope. Also addresses the ramifications of the fact that the imaging medium and sample are one and the same in both the field emission and field ion microscopes. _______. “The Imaging Process in Field Ion Microscopy from the FEM to the Atom Probe.” In Chemistry and Physics of Solid Surfaces, edited by Ralf Vanselow and S. Y. Tong. Cleveland: CRC Press, 1977. Technically concise and accessible account of the development of the field emission microscope. Like most of Müller’s work, presented in the context of the later field ion microscope. Traces the history of the field emission microscope and includes illustrations and micrographs from Müller’s original German publications, including micrographs of the tungsten crystal and barium adsorbed onto tungsten. Müller, Erwin Wilhelm, and Tien Tzou Tsong. “Fundamentals of Field Ion Microscopy.” In Field Ion Microscopy: Principles and Applications. New York: Elsevier, 1969. Müller’s most comprehensive account of the application of his inventions in the field of surface science. Focuses mostly on the later field ion microscope, but the introductory chapter gives a concise account of the historical events leading to the development of both instruments. Oudar, Jacques. “Recent Methods in the Study of Adsorption.” In Physics and Chemistry of Surfaces. Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1975. Details the use of both the field emission and the field ion microscopes in surface studies. Adequately illustrated, although sparse in technical content. See also: 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope; Apr., 1931: First Electron Microscope Is Constructed.
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France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors
1936-1946
France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors Through nationalization of banking and some industrial sectors, France moved toward a mixed economy. Locale: France Categories: Government and politics; trade and commerce; business and labor; banking and finance Key Figures Léon Blum (1872-1950), premier of France, 1936-1938 Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), head of the Free French government in exile during World War II Maurice Thorez (1900-1964), leader of the French Communist Party, 1932-1964
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Summary of Event In the 1930’s, faced with economic depression, several Western countries experimented with innovative policies. Governments intervened in the economy in order to promote recovery. Solutions varied, but the concept that national governments should intervene in the economy and exert countercyclical pressures remained, becoming a prominent feature of post-World War II economic policy. Between 1936 and 1946, France chose to enact the nationalization of credit and some industrial sectors to help build a mixed economy that ultimately would become compatible with private business practices. French leaders considered nationalization to be part of the solution to France’s economic woes in the 1930’s. The principal advocates of nationalization were the Socialists, the Communists, and the left-wing trade union Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT). All three were influenced by Henri de Man, a Belgian Marxist who called for a mixed economy, one between socialism and capitalism on the political and economic spectrum. De Man and his French followers were not interested so much in government ownership as in governmental control of investment. Through nationalization of credit, the state could provide cheaper and easier credit for small businesses, which could then increase wages and contribute to growth. Small businesses supported nationalization of France’s credit structure. The Left, however, was divided concerning the role nationalization should play. The Socialists, led by Léon Blum, saw nationalization not so much as an instrument to achieve socialism but as a means of promoting greater worker welfare within a capitalist structure. The Socialists envisioned indemnification of private owners upon nationalization. The Communists, led by Maurice Tho-
rez, expressed disbelief in the improvement of workers’ welfare while a capitalist economy was still in place. They saw nationalization and planning as measures to be taken only after revolution. In 1936, the Front Populaire (Popular Front), an electoral alliance of Socialists, Communists, and Radicals, took over the government. Its program included nationalization on a limited basis. The Popular Front was far more active in the field of social and labor legislation, enacting a number of social welfare measures, reducing the workweek to forty hours, and granting the right to collective bargaining. These measures alarmed the business community and contributed to considerable capital flight abroad. Only the Bank of France and the armaments industry were initially directly affected by nationalization. They were followed in 1937 by the railway. Government control of the Bank of France was popular because of the bank’s deflationary policies and its proclivity to favor large firms when extending credit. The government stopped short of outright nationalization and instead enacted administrative reform as a means to introduce strong state representation on the bank’s executive boards. Further steps were envisioned but never taken, and the bank did not change its policies markedly. Effective nationalization instead hit the armaments industry. This too caused panic in the business community. The Schneider firm, as one case, walled off the newly nationalized armament section of its plant from the remainder of it. It appears, however, that nationalization of armaments improved national defense, government control over mobilization, and production centralization. There are a number of reasons the Popular Front government led by Blum enacted such a limited nationalization program. The government feared losing the confidence of businesspeople and the middle class at a delicate political juncture, when Europe seemed to be swept by fascism. France did not appear to be immune to that danger. An excessively radical program might have brought economic conflict with Western democracies. Finally, Blum would do nothing to create an efficient state apparatus of economic control if such creation might facilitate formation of a fascist government in the future. These preoccupations reflected growing fears of resurgent Nazi Germany and of possible armed conflict. The latter issue preoccupied the Popular Front far more than did nationalization.
France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors
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The only other major nationalization of the 1930’s concerned the railroad system. The Railway Act of 1937 created a mixed company, Société Nationale de Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF). State intervention in this case was prompted by the sector’s huge budget deficit. The existing network of private lines was consolidated, and operations were streamlined. The government retained 51 percent of ownership. Asecond nationalization phase took place in 1945 and 1946 and was more extensive. As a result of their active role in the Resistance against Nazi occupation, the Socialists and Communists were popular at the end of World War II and dominated the political agenda. The Left reopened the issue of nationalization, which this time was more popular, supported even by France’s conservative leader, General Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle saw nationalization as a means for the state to acquire sufficient authority to be able to promote recovery and unprecedented growth and in the process reestablish France as a major world power. Several political groups shared de Gaulle’s idea that nationalization could put the “levers of command” into the hands of the state. Little opposition to nationalization existed at the end of World War II, except in the business community. The business community, however, was on the defensive because of widespread perceptions that it had collaborated with the German occupiers. For example, Louis Renault’s property was confiscated because he had supplied the Germans with some military materials during the occupation, and Renault became a state company. After the war, the private sector clearly lacked sufficient capital to fuel rapid recovery unaided. As a consequence, between December, 1945, and April, 1946, nationalization was enacted by large parliamentary majorities. It affected the Bank of France and the four largest deposit banks, electricity, gas, the thirty-four largest insurance companies, and coal. After April of 1946, popular and party support for nationalization slackened considerably, as political tides began to change.
rapid economic recovery and modernization, divisions continued among the major parties about the exact role the nationalized sector should play in the economy. The Socialists conceived of the nationalized sector as a stepping-stone toward socialism. The Communists, to the contrary, still separated the issue of veritable revolution from mere nationalization of some sectors of the economy. To the Communists, nationalization was only a patriotic measure meant to reinforce the French government’s control over resources and make the country more independent as a consequence. The Movement Republicain Populaire (MRP) saw nationalization as a means to break the large trusts, but it was no panacea: It should be adopted only when government regulation proved inefficient. It continued to prefer joint publicprivate ownership and to ascribe a moral mission to the nationalized sector of humanizing working conditions. Disagreement arose, moreover, concerning institutional and political control of nationalized enterprises. Socialists and Communists disagreed about whether the nationalized sectors should be strongly centralized and about who should hold managing authority. The Socialists favored a decentralized technocratic approach, as they sought efficiency above all. The Communists preferred instead strong centralized control by the government, matched within each nationalized enterprise by tripartite boards composed of state, labor, and consumer representatives. Compromises were adopted whereby the natural gas and electricity industries followed a centralized approach with strong tripartite boards. The coal industry instead was decentralized and bound to technocratic criteria. The model that emerged was therefore one of compromise. The nationalized sector never had the authority or power to function as a “lever of command” through which the government could direct the economy. A degree of coordination within the nationalized sector was brought about only by the French Modernization and Equipment Plan (PME). Initially, the business community bitterly criticized the nationalized sector. In the 1930’s, nationalization caused widespread capital flight abroad. In 1945-1946, deputies close to business interests sought to obstruct or influence legislation, with little success. Accusations were launched against the nationalized sectors that they were mismanaged, particularly because of the system of tripartite boards that were stacked with left-wing trade union representatives, that they increased the state’s budget deficit, and that they created a huge bureaucratic apparatus.
Significance The overall impact of nationalization was relatively limited. Nationalization remained confined to a few, though important, sectors of the economy. The political influence of the Socialists, the Christian Democrats, and other moderates ensured that nationalization would not fundamentally alter the market-oriented character of the French economy. Although after World War II there was widespread agreement that nationalization was necessary to achieve 2900
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France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors
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After 1947, France began to enjoy the fruits of a massive American aid package to Europe, the Marshall Plan. By choosing to participate in the plan, France made a clear pro-Western political choice. French politics moved toward the center, with the Left losing control and influence. As a consequence, business confidence began to return and criticism of the nationalized sector subsided. Business criticism also diminished because the nationalized sector, by the late 1940’s, no longer appeared to be threatening the health of the private sector. To the contrary, private enterprises began to recognize some advantages to them of nationalization. Chief among these was the fact that during the difficult reconstruction period, private businesses could enjoy the low energy costs that only a subsidized national sector could provide. In addition, it became clear that credit practices were not significantly altered in France despite the nationalization of the largest deposit banks. Criteria adopted to extend or deny credit were by and large no different from before. Finally, a positive “personal” factor intervened to modify the negative attitudes of the business community. Very often, pubFrench premier Léon Blum addresses a crowd in Poissy, France, in 1936. lic and private enterprise managers were (NARA) alumni of the same schools, knew one another, and shared the same economic philosophies. Moreover, many managers emThe first accusation by the business community was barked on mixed careers, accepting executive positions well founded. Once the early enthusiasm for nationalizain both private and public businesses, switching from tion had subsided, Socialists and the MRP managed in one sector to the other with ease. By the 1950’s, the inithe late 1940’s to impose a managerial approach in which tial animosity against the nationalized sector no longer technocratic criteria prevailed over political ones. The existed. France emerged as a “mixed economy” insofar bureaucratic apparatus was also streamlined. as the state owned a share of the means of production and The accusation that nationalized industries operated adopted economic planning, but it remained nevertheat a loss and drained state resources was only partially less an economy ultimately still driven by market imperfounded. The nationalized sectors had to be rebuilt after atives. six years of war and four years of harsh Nazi occupation. —Chiarella Esposito Large deficits during the period of recovery and modernization were therefore inevitable. It has been argued that Further Reading had the nationalized sectors been left in private hands, Colton, Joel. Léon Blum: Humanist in Politics. 1966. Reand given the scarcity of private capital, it would have print. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987. been far more difficult to achieve as spectacular and Outstanding political biography of Blum by an Amerrapid a recovery as the one that in fact took place by the ican historian. Part 2, “The Years of Responsibility,” particularly deals with the Popular Front experience, end of 1949.
Consumers Union of the United States Emerges Blum’s leadership of two cabinets, his economic philosophy, and the so-called French New Deal of the 1930’s. Ehrmann, Henry W. Organized Business in France. 1957. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981. Thorough and informative book on the French business community from the 1930’s to the mid1950’s; one of the best on the topic available in English. Presents a historical survey and then describes the post-World War II structure of French business associations. Concludes with an in-depth analysis of business attitudes and policies in France. Forsyth, Douglas J., and Ton Notermans, eds. Regime Changes: Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Regulation in Europe from the 1930s to the 1990s. New York: Berghahn Books, 1997. Collection of essays by historians, economists, and political scientists includes discussion of the nationalization of France’s banking sector. Horn, Gerd-Rainer. European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism, and Contingency in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Study of developments in Europe in the years 19331936 provides background for the move toward nationalization in France. Kuisel, Richard F. Capitalism and the State in Modern France: Renovation and Economic Management in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, England: Cam-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 bridge University Press, 1981. Excellent comprehensive study of twentieth century French capitalism. Traces the evolution of French state-capital relations from the late nineteenth century to the early 1950’s, explaining how France arrived at its postwar mixed economic model. Information on nationalization appears in chapters 4 and 7. Lacouture, Jean. Léon Blum. Translated by George Holoch. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. Provides a thorough account of Blum’s political career. Part 2, “The Tests of Power,” sets Blum’s tenure of power against the backdrop of a mounting fascist threat within France and elsewhere in Europe. Explains Blum’s policies as products of an unprecedented and dangerous political environment. Pinkney, David H. “The French Experiment in Nationalization, 1944-1950.” In Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics, edited by Edward Mead Earle. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951. Straightforward account of French nationalization after World War II provides all the basic information. Adeptly sets nationalization in the context of the postwar political climate and describes both the advantages and the disadvantages of nationalization. See also: Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party; Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties.
January-March, 1936
Consumers Union of the United States Emerges After industrialization, buyers and sellers in the United States were no longer neighbors or acquaintances. Consumers Union arose to fill the need for tests, standards, and guarantees to protect all consumers. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Business and labor; government and politics; organizations and institutions Key Figures Arthur Kallet (1902-1972), first director of Consumers Union Colston Warne (1900-1987), first president of Consumers Union Dewey Palmer (1898-1971), first technical supervisor of Consumers Union 2902
Frederick John Schlink (1891-1995), coauthor of Your Money’s Worth (1927), cofounder of Consumers Research, and unwitting catalyst for the beginning of Consumers Union Stuart Chase (1888-1985), coauthor of Your Money’s Worth and cofounder of Consumers Research, the predecessor of Consumers Union Summary of Event Before the Industrial Revolution, producers and purchasers of food, clothing, and other items were usually neighbors, friends, or even members of the same family. With the rise of factories, however, many common items were no longer produced locally. Instead, they were made by strangers, often in faraway places. The quality of these items varied greatly, and most familiar items
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ously a neighborhood consumer club formed by Schlink in 1927, it had done its own home testing and produced a mimeographed list of products—“good values” versus products to avoid—called “Consumer’s Club Commodity List.” The mimeographed list evolved into the Consumers Research Bulletin. It took no financial support of any kind from producers or advertisers and was the first magazine to be established solely to test products for consumers’ benefit. Five years after it began, the bulletin had 42,000 subscribers, compared with 565 subscribers in 1927. Schlink and Chase, with the help of other scientists and writers, published an array of pamphlets, books, and articles in addition to their bulletin. One of these, a book published in 1933 titled 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics, was a tremendous success, and it inspired a wave of investigative writing about consumer-oriented topics. Schlink cowrote 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs with Arthur Kallet, a young engineer who was also on the board of Consumers Research. Stuart Chase had left Consumers Research to pursue other interests, but Schlink remained at the helm with a staff of more than fifty and a large number of outside consultants. With the growth in size of the staff, there were differences of opinion about the direction the organization should take. This was especially true of decisions about spending. Should resources be used primarily for educating consumers, for political purposes, or for improving the testing program? In May, 1933, the organization moved into a large stone building in Washington, New Jersey. In Washington, a small town about a hundred miles outside New York City, Schlink hoped to be able to expand his testing facilities. He was also drawn to the location because of the lower costs; he believed that people who were seriously interested in the consumer movement would come with him. In fact, however, only six of the seventy employees moved from New York to New Jersey with Schlink, and Schlink, his wife, and close friends became the majority on the board of directors. Schlink tried to stay in complete control of the organization. He had a difficult time working with anyone who held differing ideas about what Consumers Research should try to accomplish, and he fired many people who disagreed with him. He also believed that it was a privilege for employees to work for Consumers Research, and so he rejected their appeals for higher wages or shorter working hours. When three employees tried to form a labor union in order to improve working conditions, they were fired. 2903
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such as soap, shirts, and wagon wheels began to be made by machine. The variety of available products increased, and each manufacturer made claims that might or might not prove to be true. The use of electricity brought many electrical appliances onto the market: lightbulbs, toasters, hair-curling devices, and more. Consumers could try to judge the quality of a product before purchasing it in two ways: by brand name and by advertising. Abrand name, such as Standard Oil, Armour Meat, or Heinz Soup, could be placed on a company’s products in hopes of guiding consumers to buy all a company’s products if they found that one of them was reliable. Even the most well-known brands, however, often were made under unsanitary conditions or with questionable or inferior ingredients. In many cases, there was no quality control to ensure that the products were not defective. Advertising, then, became one of producers’ most important tools. Advertisers attempted to create a desire for a product in the public’s awareness by promising certain results from using it or by getting endorsements of the products from well-known people—movie stars for beauty products or doctors for medicines. Often these claims either were untrue or were unsupported by facts. Another problem was the lack of standardization of items. Not only was quality not guaranteed, but sizes, weights, and measures of items also varied, even with products made by the same manufacturer. The attitude of many businesses about these problems was caveat emptor: “Let the buyer beware.” The responsibility was left with the buyer to purchase the right product; if a purchaser got a faulty product, it was not considered to be the producer’s problem. In 1927, a book titled Your Money’s Worth became a best-seller within months after its appearance. The authors were Frederick John Schlink, an engineer, and Stuart Chase, an economist. The book pointed out some of the serious problems that consumers experienced as they tried to guess their way through the maze of products and advertising. Consumers were “so many Alices in the Wonderland of salesmanship.” Schlink and Chase pointed out practices of shortweighting, quackery, mislabeling, and uselessness of some products, naming specific products as examples. They proposed scientific research as the antidote and noted that the U.S. government had already begun to do testing and to set standards and specifications for some products. In response to the hundreds of letters they received requesting information about products, Chase and Schlink began Consumers Research of New York City. Previ-
Consumers Union of the United States Emerges
Consumers Union of the United States Emerges Forty other employees then left their jobs in a show of support for their colleagues. Although thousands of workers across the country were also on strike during that time, the strike at Consumers Research was particularly significant. Consumers Research had a stated goal of upgrading the lives of consumers, and the irony of its own workers having to strike for better conditions was considered humorous by the popular press. Liberal leaders were concerned and offered to help the workers and management reach a compromise, but Schlink would accept no such offers. Instead, he used the same strikebreaking tactics used by the big corporations—legal injunctions, strikebreakers, and armed detectives. Consumers Research Bulletin’s fifty-five thousand subscribers were caught in the middle of the ruckus. Arthur Kallet, who had coauthored 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs with Schlink, had been a rather inactive member of the Consumers Research board of directors. When the strike began, however, he resigned from the board and supported the workers. As 1935 wore on with no end to the strike in sight, he helped to keep the strikers together. The idea began growing among them to start a publication of their own in order to compete with Consumers Research Bulletin. The group planned to use its many contacts, financial and academic, with unions, researchers, and sympathetic Bulletin subscribers to help with its initial efforts. The new publication—Consumers Union Reports—would support the interests of both consumers and workers. The organization itself would be run collectively rather than by a management team. By March, 1936, New York State had given Consumers Union of the United States its charter as a nonprofit organization. The first issue of Consumers Union Reports magazine was published in May of that year. Three years later, it was known simply as Consumer Reports and had gained a larger number of subscribers than Consumers Research Bulletin. The director of the new organization was Arthur Kallet. Dewey Palmer, formerly technical director of Consumers Research, became the technical supervisor. Colston Warne, a professor at Amherst College, was made president and served in that role for the next forty-four years. Consumers Union staff members had been politically active: They participated in labor movement picketing, testified at government hearings, and had promotional drives for the poor. Product testing suffered, however, as a result of this focus. Ultimately, the board decided that testing should not be sacrificed, since the scientific rating program was at the foundation of Consumers Union’s existence. Thus, in December, 1939, a joint conference 2904
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 was arranged by Kallet and Warne between the members of Consumers Union and the Cambridge-Boston branch of the American Association of Scientific Workers (AASW) to gain support for Consumers Union among scientists. The conference resulted in AASW’s offering to provide advice and assistance not only to Consumers Union but also to consumer organizations in general. In 1986, the year of its fiftieth anniversary, Consumers Union reported that it had helped many additional consumer organizations get started. These included the American Council on Consumer Interests, the Emergency Care Research Institute, the Washington Center for the Study of Services, the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Auto Safety, the International Organization of Consumers Unions, and the British Consumers Association. In addition to aiding other consumer groups, Consumers Union directly affected the lives of many Americans by conducting research that led to reforms or legislation in the areas of fallout from nuclear testing, risks of smoking, and automobile safety. It also did pioneering research on air pollution’s cost to consumers, unhealthy additives and chemicals in foods, and pesticide dangers in the food chain. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, these became important issues for reforms. Significance When it began, Consumers Union was considered to be a pioneer in the consumer movement. Colston Warne later reported, “The idea of testing and appraising products by name constituted an overdue scientific mechanism designed to restore rationality to the marketplace.” This idea, he stated, was “nothing less than a social invention.” To the original four thousand members of Consumers Union, the organization was not only a guide to making better consumer decisions but was also “an approach to the choices and problems of our materialistic world,” as one charter member wrote fifty years later. Consumers Union’s reports helped to bring about improvements in specific products, such as certain electric fans that it reported in 1956 to have dangerously exposed blades. Poor sales of product brands that received bad ratings in Consumer Reports caused manufacturers to correct the products’ problems. On the other hand, a good product rating in Consumer Reports boosted an item’s sales. Volkswagen cars and Maytag washers both received superior ratings, and spokespeople credited the ratings for the products’ tremendous increases in sales. The original goals of Consumers Union were to provide scientific information about products and to report
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on the labor conditions under which those products were produced; ultimately, Consumers Union sought to achieve a decent standard of living for all consumers. For the first several years, a discussion of labor issues was included in the product descriptions but not in the actual criteria for product ratings. As time went on, the labor analysis was dropped in favor of emphasis on objective scientific testing. Although Consumers Union did not pursue its second goal as aggressively as it did its first, the organization has carried on its strong tradition of providing reliable product information for consumers. Consumer Reports has over the years appealed for food stamps for the poor, demanded fairer tax laws, argued against harsh methods of debt collecting, pushed for national health insurance, and urged provision of “lifeline” banking services and utility rates. —Caroline Godwin Larson
Nadel, Mark V. The Politics of Consumer Protection. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971. Looks at governmental policies relating to consumer protection and analyzes the reasons they developed. Includes historical information from the early twentieth century and discussions of Ralph Nader and other consumer advocates of the 1960’s. Contains tables, index, and extensive list of references. Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965. This scholarly text looks at various types of groups and their interactions. Chapters on labor unions and pressure groups provide an overview of the history and role in society of unions and collective action groups, including the period during which Consumers Union began. Includes an index and footnotes. Reid, Margaret G. Consumers and the Market. New York: F. S. Crofts, 1938. Work written at the approximate time of Consumers Union’s origin provides a fascinating summary of the problems then facing consumers in areas of labeling, quality, advertising, and price setting, with specific examples and historical references. Includes tables and index. Ryan, Edward W. In the Words of Adam Smith: The First Consumer Advocate. Sun Lakes, Ariz.: Thomas Horton & Daughters, 1990. Easily read presentation of the ideas of Adam Smith, the “father of modern economics.” Consists mainly of passages from Smith’s treatise An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), with connecting and explanatory comments. Smith’s clear prose includes some of the earliest statements of consumer advocacy. Includes index and bibliography. Silber, Norman Isaac. Test and Protest: The Influence of Consumers Union. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983. Provides thorough coverage of the origin of Consumers Union and the conditions that led to its formation, in addition to coverage of specific Consumers Union research projects, their impacts, and the organization’s evolution over time. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act; 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established; 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. 2905
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Further Reading Bishop, James, Jr., and Henry W. Hubbard. Let the Seller Beware. Washington, D.C.: National Press, 1969. Lively and informative history of the consumer movement from the 1800’s to the 1960’s. Full of specific examples of consumer problems and the people who attacked them and, in many cases, eventually won legislation to correct them. An optimistic look at trends in the consumer movement. Includes index. Cohen, Lizbeth. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Excellent history of postDepression American economics. Analysis of the postwar creation of suburbs highlights the difficulties and inequalities faced by women and African Americans as they encountered the opportunities and hurdles created by trends toward mass consumption. Consumers Union. “Fifty Years Ago.” Consumer Reports 51 (January/February, 1986): 8-10, 76-79. On the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, Consumers Union included this two-part narrative in consecutive issues of Consumer Reports. A detailed summary of events leading to, and following, the founding of Consumers Union. Provides a summary of many of the organization’s activities and achievements up to 1986. Leach, William R. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Vintage, 1994. Nominated for the National Book Award, this readable volume offers an overview of the ways in which manufacturers, banks, and religious and government leaders promoted the creation of a nation of consumers.
Consumers Union of the United States Emerges
Ford Foundation Is Established
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January 1, 1936
Ford Foundation Is Established Founded by Henry and Edsel Ford as a tax shelter against the Revenue Act of 1935, the Ford Foundation began as a charitable organization that gave millions each year to organizations in the Detroit area. By 1951, the foundation was donating billions of dollars to causes around the world. Locale: Dearborn, Michigan Categories: Humanitarianism and philanthropy; organizations and institutions Key Figures Henry Ford (1863-1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company Edsel Ford (1893-1943), Henry Ford’s only child, president of the Ford Motor Company, 1919-1943, and cofounder of the Ford Foundation Clara Bryant Ford (1866-1950), wife of Henry Ford and a significant influence on the Ford Foundation Summary of Event Very little has been documented about the actual day the Ford Foundation was incorporated, mainly because the press was not immediately notified, and the neither the Ford family nor its lawyers made any formal public announcement. The public became aware of its existence only after the director of the state of Michigan’s corporation and securities division in Lansing informed a reporter that a lawyer from the offices of Bodman, Longley, Bogle, Middleton, and Farley had filed incorporation papers (which consisted of only three pages). The law firm refused to make comments on the foundation, and when asked by reporters, Edsel Ford simply said that the foundation would have a small scope and that he did not expect the scope to increase, a very peculiar statement in light of the foundation’s later influence. The Ford Foundation began with a donation of twenty-five thousand dollars from Edsel Ford and was headquartered at the Ford Engineering Laboratories in Dearborn. Although the paperwork filed with the state of Michigan stated that the foundation was nominally concerned with strengthening scientific, educational, and other charities, it is clear that the Fords used the foundation primarily as a way to pool their funds to assist local Detroit causes with which they were already involved: the Edison Institute (a campus for primary, secondary, and postsecondary education), the Henry Ford Hospital, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Symphony, the 2906
Henry Ford Museum, and Greenfield Village (the first outdoor museum in the United States, dedicated to the American traditions of liberty, industry, and innovation). After incorporation and until 1950, the foundation continued to give approximately one million dollars a year to these charities. (This sum rose dramatically after the foundation went international in 1950.) However, it was no coincidence that the foundation became incorporated at nearly the same time the Revenue Act of 1935 went into effect. The Revenue Act of 1935, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, raised the estate tax to 69 percent on estates worth twenty million to fifty million dollars and to 70 percent on estates worth more than fifty million dollars. Henry Ford and many others believed that the tax was directed specifically at the Ford Motor Company: The government, Ford believed, wanted to confiscate the family’s personal assets and force them into selling Ford stock to pay the tax. In addition to creating immense underwriting costs, the 70 percent tax would have left the Fords with almost nothing and no option but to surrender control and go public with the Ford Motor Company. In fact, the Fords did face significant pressure to sell stocks. Wall Street, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and other automobile companies may well have wanted the Ford Motor Company to cease being a family-owned corporation. This prospect appealed to competitors such as General Motors, which was beholden to its voting stockholders and their power to siphon off money that could be used in design and production by demanding more dividends. In contrast, the Fords could use its profits to improve plants, equipment, sales, and other areas as they saw fit. The Revenue Act diminished the Ford Motor Company’s competitive edge, and at the same time it supported the interests of Wall Street, the federal government, and the American public. However, the act contained a loophole: Aprovision allowed a portion of an estate’s assets to be tax-exempt if they were given to charitable, religious, or educational organizations. A charitable foundation operated by the Fords would fit into that category. As a result, even though the Fords lost a vast amount of money to the Revenue Act, this provision allowed them to retain family control of the company, at least temporarily. The foundation’s first administrators—Edsel Ford,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Burt J. Craig, and Clifford B. Longley—effectively functioned as its board of trustees. Craig had previously been the Ford Motor Company’s secretary and treasurer, and Longley had served as legal counsel for the company until 1929, when he left to establish a private law practice in Detroit. This board and Clara Bryant Ford, Edsel Ford’s mother, left a legacy of donating money to causes that the foundation still champions today. Even before the foundation began, Clara Ford, for example, was very involved with establishing the Berry School, which eventually became a liberal arts college in Georgia known for teacher education and teaching English as a second language. Her influence helped create the Ford Foundation’s tradition of championing liberal arts schools, teacher education, teaching English as a second language, and many other education-oriented endeavors. Although he did not publicly discuss his involvement with the foundation, Henry Ford consistently donated his own money to provide a hands-on secondary and postsecondary educational model to help students learn a trade, and his gifts funded the Edison Institute in Michigan and the Richmond Hill Project in Georgia. The elder
Ford also believed that education should be used to help people help themselves, a goal exemplified by his creation of several programs in Michigan that taught selfsustaining agricultural and manufacturing techniques to troubled teens and impoverished communities. Furthermore, the Fords designed the Henry Ford Hospital, now the Henry Ford Health System, to provide excellent health care at a price affordable to all citizens. The foundation carried its health- and education-focused mission throughout the United States and the rest of the world to help developing nations provide health care to as many people as possible. In addition, Edsel Ford used a great deal of effort and money to help the Detroit Institute of Arts become a world-class organization, and this endeavor launched the Ford Foundation’s tradition of championing art institutions. Significance By 1947, both Henry and Edsel Ford had passed away, and the Ford Motor Company was losing tens of millions of dollars every year. Henry Ford II, Edsel’s son, had control of the company, and his family’s lawyers and advisers recommended that he sell the family’s stock in order to save the company. Profits from the company’s sale gave the foundation so much revenue—$474 million— that the foundation became the largest in the nation, and the foundation’s board of directors decided to make it an international organization. By 1951, offices were based mostly in New York City, and the organization became an entity separate from the Ford Motor Company and the Ford family. The eight-member board of independent consultants gave the foundation five primary goals: to promote world peace and a world order of law and justice; to secure and maintain allegiance to the principles of freedom and democracy; to promote stable economies that would facilitate the realization of democratic goals; to improve educational institutions and enable individuals to realize their potential and to promote equality in education; and to increase knowledge of factors that influence human conduct and extend that knowledge to benefit individuals and society. These goals were inspired by the interests and concerns expressed by Henry, Clara, and Edsel Ford, and the foundation’s board interviewed hundreds of consultants from many backgrounds and fields. The wide array of opinions that shaped the foundation’s policies extended the organization’s revenue, workforce, and influence over almost every part of the world, but the foundation was not without its critics. Left-wing activists criticized 2907
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Henry Ford. (Library of Congress)
Ford Foundation Is Established
Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London it for championing right-wing ideals, and conservatives chastised it for being too progressive. —Troy Place Further Reading Greenleaf, William. From These Beginnings: The Early Philanthropies of Henry and Edsel Ford. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964. Provides an exhaustive description of these philanthropies. Greenleaf ends the book with a description of the foundation’s beginning. MacDonald, Dwight. The Ford Foundation: The Men and the Millions. New York: Reynal, 1956. Provides very specific information on the foundation from 1947 to 1955. Includes discussion of the controversy,
January 26, 1936 Tudor’s JARDIN AUX LILAS
leadership, early direction, and vision, as well as explanations of why and how the foundation went international. Magat, Richard. The Ford Foundation at Work: Philanthropic Choices, Methods, and Styles. New York: Plenum Press, 1979. In 1975, at the request of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation, Magat provided this self-study of the foundation. Analyzes the foundation’s beginnings and possible future directions. See also: Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded; Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, Eight-Hour Workday.
Premieres in London
With his Jardin aux lilas, Antony Tudor created a new form of dance, the psychological ballet, which represented a step forward in the evolution of twentieth century ballet. Locale: London, England Category: Dance Key Figures Antony Tudor (William Cook; 1908-1987), British choreographer Marie Rambert (1888-1982), founder of London’s Ballet Rambert Nora Kaye (1920-1987), American ballet dancer Hugh Laing (1911-1988), British ballet dancer Agnes de Mille (1905-1993), American choreographer Richard Pleasant (1906-1961), cofounder of Ballet Theatre Lucia Chase (1897-1986), cofounder of Ballet Theatre Summary of Event When Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes broke up in 1929, the company’s dancers and choreographers dispersed throughout the West, taking with them the heritage of Diaghilev’s bold experiments with contemporary arts and themes. For those who went to England, there was little opportunity for performance; most English ballet was relegated to the music halls. There were, however, two good dance schools in London; one had been formed in 1920 by Marie Rambert, the other in 1926 by Ninette de Valois. Both women had worked with Dia2908
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ghilev and would found, respectively, Ballet Rambert and the Royal Ballet. Marie Rambert was interested in following Diaghilev’s lead in developing contemporary ballet, and she had an acute eye for talent. In 1930, she presented her Rambert Dancers (later called the Ballet Club) in the first season of English ballet. One of her students who had come to study dance in 1928 helped with lights, stage management, refreshments, and anything else that needed doing. He was twenty-two years old, and his name was William Cook. Nine years later, he changed his name to Antony Tudor. After only three years of study, Tudor created his first ballet. According to Rambert, it was not a good piece, but it showed considerable talent. Tudor honed his talents on Rambert’s dancers (including himself) for another five years. In 1938, the Ballet Club presented his first major work, Jardin aux lilas (later called Lilac Garden). Jardin aux lilas was unlike anything anyone had seen on the ballet stage. Although he worked in the idiom of classical ballet, Tudor had transformed his technique into a vehicle for exposing the characters’ psychological states. Jardin aux lilas does not have a plot; rather, it depicts a social situation in which the characters are caught with no means of escape. Set in a lilac garden in Edwardian times, it concerns a young woman, Caroline, who is soon to enter a marriage of convenience to a man she does not love. At a farewell party in the lilac garden she must say goodbye to the man she loves, and her fiancée must reaffirm his parting from a former mistress. As Edwardian
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Dark Elegies (1937), performed to Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, was an expression, in ritual form, of the grief of a village of parents who have lost their children. The piece, although more abstract than Jardin aux lilas, displayed the same potency of feeling beneath its simple, folk-based movements. Despite his predominant emphasis on the psychological aspects of human difficulty, Tudor had a sense of the comic that came out in the remaining two of his significant London works. Judgment of Paris (1938) was a satiric comedy based on the myth of Paris and the Golden Apple. Gala Performance, also created in 1938, poked fun at the backstage intrigues of the ballet world and, most particularly, at the pretensions of ballet dancers from the three major schools, Russian, Italian, and French. By 1938, Tudor had left Rambert to form his own company, the London Ballet, for which he produced Judgment of Paris and Gala Performance. In 1939, however, World War II intervened, and the London theaters were closed. Although he was already a recognized master choreographer, he had no place to work. During the years when Tudor was developing his craft, American choreographer Agnes de Mille was also in London establishing herself as a ballet recital artist. She was in the original cast of Dark Elegies and danced the role of Venus in Judgment of Paris. In 1938, de Mille returned to New York. Hearing that the newly formed Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre) was looking for a choreographer, de Mille urged the company to invite Tudor to the United States. He arrived in New York in 1939. In its inaugural season in January, 1940, Ballet Theatre presented his Jardin aux lilas, Dark Elegies, and Judgment of Paris. American audiences and critics alike embraced him as a major new choreographer, and Tudor was to spend most of the remainder of his life in the United States. At the time of Tudor’s American debut, the new modern dance was gaining rapid ground. Tudor had seen in Europe the works of German expressionists Mary Wigman, Harold Kreutzberg, and Kurt Jooss. He discovered in them the valuable precept that feeling and its gestural expression originate in the torso. Of his mode of working, he said: “We start from the spine and the torso, and we get to the feet later. In ballet school you usually start with the feet.” According to American modern dance pioneer Martha Graham, Dark Elegies was “the first ballet to invade modern dance.” In 1942, Tudor created what is universally considered to be one of the great ballets of the twentieth century. Set to the music of Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, 2909
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propriety demanded that personal desires be subjugated to the mandates of society, all four main characters are constrained to accept the situation without overtly expressing their true feelings. Still, Tudor’s first audiences saw very clearly the yearning, frustration, and anguish suffered by each. To depict these emotions, Tudor did not use the customary approach to choreography, which was to design steps that would then be danced with appropriate feelings. Instead, he reversed the process and derived the movement from the feelings. He understood that even the posture of a character reveals a psychological state. Hence Caroline stands with her arms straight to her sides, her back stiff, her body charged with the effort of selfcontrol. Tudor used small, everyday gestures to the same effect. Fingers to the temple, tentative reaches, a head turning back over the shoulder all suggested the fragments of thought and feeling that passed through the characters. He used classical steps to express or intensify emotion; no steps were included merely for the sake of dancing. Tudor’s use of the dramatic form differed from the standard balletic treatment. He chose music (in this case, Ernest Chausson’s Poème for Violin and Orchestra) that did not have easily identifiable beats or measures but that flowed in long phrases. Tudor choreographed along these sweeping phrases and moved the characters from moment to psychological moment, not from dance to dance. There might be duets, solo passages, and group dances, but these erupted from and receded into the general flow of the ballet. Unusual uses of time, reminiscent of cinematic effects, also appear in Jardin aux lilas. Encounters between Caroline and her lover, between the man she must marry and his mistress, are furtive and fleeting close-ups within the fluid picture. Toward the end of the piece, when Caroline realizes the time is near when she will never see her lover again, she swoons into the arms of the man she must marry, and all action stops while the music continues. As the other characters stay frozen, Caroline alone moves toward her lover, reaching. The reach is somnambulistic and devoid of hope. She then moves backward into the swoon, and all the characters resume action. This short sequence, the turning point of the ballet, is highlighted by the use of these cinematic techniques (freeze-frame, slow-motion, and dream-sequence effects). The cumulative effect of these elements of style was one of austere beauty and poignancy. Jardin aux lilas was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. Within the next three years, Tudor created three more major works in London. The first of these,
Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London
Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London Pillar of Fire tells the story of Hagar, a young woman of nineteenth century New England. Facing spinsterhood, Hagar hopes for a match with a friend of the family, but the friend appears to be more interested in her younger sister. In desperation she gives herself to a roué and is subsequently ostracized by her family and the town. The ballet focuses on the dilemma of those who, like Hagar, have passions that run deeper than social codes and roles can tolerate and who therefore often become outcasts. In addition to using posture, everyday gesture, and a blend of modern and ballet techniques in Pillar of Fire, Tudor employs two groups of dancers (the “Lovers in Innocence” and the “Lovers in Experience”) to underline Hagar’s suspension between society’s “good” and “bad.” The hip-swinging, free-wheeling movements of the Lovers in Experience are in contrast with the softer, more conventional movements of the Lovers in Innocence, which, in turn, contrast with the stiffer movements of the judgmental townspeople. Tudor worked on Pillar of Fire for a solid year. On opening night, the labor was rewarded with thirty curtain calls and, subsequently, the highest critical praise. Hagar was danced by Nora Kaye, who was recognized from then on as a great dramatic ballet dancer. She was eminently capable of expressing the finest emotional nuances within the difficult, highly stylized movements and was for many years the model for aspiring Tudor dancers. Other original cast members who set a standard for future dramatic dancers were Tudor’s principal male interpreter and lifelong companion, Hugh Laing, Tudor himself, and Lucia Chase, who eventually became codirector of Ballet Theatre. Following Pillar of Fire, Tudor created The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1943), Dim Lustre (1943), and Undertow (1945) for Ballet Theatre, Shadow of the Wind (1948) for England’s Royal Ballet, and in 1975, his last masterwork (for American Ballet Theatre), The Leaves Are Fading, an abstract piece with strong lyric undertones. Significance Tudor’s work focused on the experiences of real people rather than on the adventures of the fairy-tale characters, colorful ethnic personalities, or mythic heroes more typical of ballet. Rather than following a narrative about realistic characters, however, he drew portraits of people whose psychological reactions, in combination with their social situations, created the events. Tudor influenced a whole generation of dancers and choreographers by the way he worked. He was meticulous and would research his subject extensively before 2910
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 beginning a ballet. He derived gestures from the character in the moment, sometimes taking two or three hours to find and work on one movement. This intensive search for the psychological motivation of movement was entirely new to ballet. Tudor did not necessarily tell his dancers much about the characters or story. Rather, he led them into it by asking questions and by goading them. Indeed, although dancers flocked to his classes and yearned to be in his ballets, they were almost always terrified of being the target of one of his merciless personal barbs. The purpose behind these verbal assaults was to strip away the “ballet persona” that develops early in many young dancers and that often engenders such set reactions to movement that it becomes almost impossible for many dancers to respond to dramatic situations with any spontaneity or truth. There was no doubt that Tudor’s ballets brought out unsuspected depths of expression in the dancers who performed them. At a time when English and American ballet were just getting started, Tudor brought to them both distinction and a progressive leap forward in the evolution of ballet. He was the first to achieve a genuine integration of ballet and modern dance and the first to create what has come to be called the psychological ballet. He directly influenced future choreographers of high stature, such as Great Britain’s Walter Gore and America’s Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins. His work pulled choreographers away from melodrama and superficial acting and taught dancers to work in depth, to search for the real motivations of movement. Tudor’s dramatic ballets have been compared to the works of Marcel Proust, Renate Stendhal, and Anton Chekhov for their detailed portraiture of personal inner landscapes. Beginning with Jardin aux lilas, Tudor did something no one else thought possible. In the words of dance critic Fernau Hall, “For the first time in the twentieth century a choreographer succeeded in emulating the achievements of good dramatists, novelists and film directors.” —Catherine Sim Further Reading Amberg, George. Ballet: The Emergence of an American Art. New York: New American Library, 1949. Begins with a background of classical ballet from the nineteenth century through Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and traces the development of ballet in the United States through the 1940’s. A fascinating, exhaustive examination of companies, choreographers, works, dancers, and the evolution of twentieth century Amer-
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Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
ican aesthetics as seen in its ballet. Chronology. Repertoire listing of all major American companies of the period. Index. Chazin-Bennahum, Judith. The Ballets of Antony Tudor: Studies in Psyche and Satire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. A colleague of Tudor, ChazinBennahum deliberately adopted an approach very different from that of Tudor biographer Donna Perlmutter; Chazin-Bennahum focuses more on Tudor’s productions than his personality. Essential reading for those interested in Tudor and a valuable contribution to the history of dance. De Mille, Agnes. Dance to the Piper. New York: Little, Brown, 1952. The first volume of De Mille’s autobiography. Separate chapters on Marie Rambert, Tudor and Hugh Laing, and Martha Graham. De Mille’s brilliant writing makes this a classic of dance biography. Index. _______. Speak to Me, Dance with Me. New York: Little, Brown, 1973. De Mille’s letters from her early career years in London. Gives accounts of several trips to the western United States (including one to work for her uncle, Cecil B. DeMille). Includes her time spent with Tudor, Laing, and Rambert and gives a good sense of the struggle experienced by the independent ballet artists of the 1930’s. Interesting “what became of” section of major figures mentioned in the book. Index. Lee, Carol. Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution. New York: Routledge, 2002.
A good starting place for any student of ballet. A readable history that traces ballet’s evolution from ancient Greece to modern the United States. Index. Perlmutter, Donna. Shadowplay. New York: Viking Press, 1991. A complete biography of Tudor that follows his life and career in clear chronological sequence. Detailed descriptions of the creation of Tudor’s major ballets, with emphasis on their development as a reflection of Tudor’s life and relationships. Bibliography, source notes, choreographic chronology, and index. Rambert, Marie. Quicksilver. London: Macmillan, 1972. Autobiography contains interesting accounts of Rambert’s childhood in Poland (then part of the Russian Empire), her work with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, her fostering of Tudor’s early career, and the evolution of Ballet Rambert. Factual rather than critical, with many anecdotes of theater and dance greats of the 1920’s through 1960’s. Index. See also: May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; May 29, 1912: L’Aprèsmidi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences; May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences; Dec. 6, 1934: Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet; Apr. 5, 1938: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts.
January 28, 1936
Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s LADY MACBETH OF THE MTSENSK DISTRICT The condemnation of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was a landmark in Soviet cultural history, drawing worldwide attention and leading to the oppression of other Soviet artists. Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Music; theater
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Key Figures Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Soviet composer Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party and absolute ruler of the Soviet Union Nikolai Leskov (1831-1895), Russian author
Summary of Event In January of 1936, Dmitri Shostakovich was only thirty years old and had already achieved world fame as a leading Soviet composer. At that time, he was in the city of Archangelsk on a concert tour, buoyed by the recent successes of his opera Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda (1930-1932; Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District). On January 28, he went to the railroad station to buy a copy of Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party. He opened the paper and was shocked to read a scathing editorial condemning his opera. It was a turning point in his life and for the future of Soviet culture as a whole.
Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District Shostakovich was born in 1906 in St. Petersburg. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, he became a child of the new Soviet state, and his hometown was renamed Leningrad. As a boy, Shostakovich exhibited great musical talent and studied at the Leningrad Conservatory. He composed his first symphony at the age of nineteen, and the work was premiered in the West to great acclaim. Shostakovich was the first Soviet composer who came of age after the revolution to become world famous. Symphonies, ballets, film scores, and incidental music followed. His first opera, Nos (19271928; The Nose), was based on a satire of czarist Russia by the novelist Nikolai Gogol. Shostakovich was an indefatigable worker and versatile composer. By 1929, he had evolved a style that was dazzling, pungent, lyrical, ironic, and haunting—in a word, unique. His musical idols were Ludwig van Beethoven, Modest Mussorgsky, Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, and innovative Western composers of the 1920’s such as Alban Berg. His fame assured and his individuality seemingly unthreatened, Shostakovich in 1930 began to write a tetralogy of feminist operas about the struggles of Russian women. The tetralogy was modeled on Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelungs. The first opera would portray the misery of women under the old regime, the second would present revolutionary women who helped to overthrow the czars, and the third and fourth would celebrate the triumph of the new Soviet heroine of the future. Only the first opera was to be completed. Shostakovich chose for his story of oppressed Russian womanhood the short nineteenth century novel Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda (1865; Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 1922) by the Russian classical writer Nikolai Leskov. Shostakovich was also inspired by the operatic models of Georges Bizet’s Carmen (1875) and Alban Berg’s expressionist and atonal opera Wozzeck (1925). Both explored important social problems and stormy relationships between men and women. Leskov’s novel is somewhat reminiscent of Gustave Flaubert’s great work Madame Bovary (1857; English translation, 1886) in its exploration of an intelligent, frustrated woman in a narrow provincial society. Katerina Izmaylova is the wife of a boring merchant in a small, provincial Russian town of the 1840’s. Stifled by her existence, she takes a young lover, Sergei, poisons her fatherin-law after he discovers her unfaithfulness, strangles her husband with the assistance of Sergei, and is sentenced to penal servitude in Siberia along with her lover. When Sergei becomes unfaithful to Katerina in Siberia, Katerina 2912
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Dmitri Shostakovich. (Library of Congress)
kills his new mistress and herself, and the story ends. Shostakovich was captivated and inspired by this theme. He composed his opera from 1930 to 1932 and dedicated it to his future wife, Nina Varzar, with whom he had a stormy romance during that period. Shostakovich wrote a lengthy commentary on the opera in which he spelled out his intentions. He intended the drama to be a “tragic satire,” prompting some to liken his musical style to the content of the profound novels of Fyodor Dostoevski retold by the comic actor Charles Chaplin. He also strove to create a Marxist opera in which he would portray Katerina as a victim of a rotten bourgeois society that has corrupted her, leading to her self-destruction and the destruction of others. Shostakovich played a key role in writing the libretto. He departed from Leskov’s story in four major respects. First, the opera was much more a satire on the middleclass, patriarchal society of nineteenth century Russia than the novel had been. Second, Shostakovich incorporated a new episode, a pointed satire on police corruption
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Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District Significance Stalin left the Bolshoi Theater in a rage, offended by the dissonance, stark realism, eroticism, and tragic theme of the opera. In addition, he was upset by the satirical attack on the police, which he interpreted as an affront to himself. His control of the police was a vital source of his immense power and a weapon of the terror he was unleashing against Soviet society. The now-famous vehement editorial in Pravda followed the next day, on January 28. The long article was titled “Chaos Instead of Music.” It condemned Shostakovich as a bourgeois “formalist” and the opera as filled with “an intentionally ungainly, muddled flood of sounds [that] drown, escape, and drown once more in crashing, gnashing, and screeching.” The success of the opera in the West was attributed to its appeal to the depraved tastes of the bourgeoisie. The article warned Shostakovich that things “could end very badly.” A week later, a second editorial in Pravda condemned Shostakovich’s 1935 ballet The Limpid Stream. Nevertheless, the first editorial gave Shostakovich an opportunity to redeem himself: Pravda recognized his great talent and his ability to express strong and direct emotions in music. The article was unsigned, meaning that it reflected the views of the highest officials in the party. Some scholars think that much of the article was written by Stalin himself. Shostakovich was shattered. He was certain that he would be arrested, for this was a time when arrests and executions were commonplace. He kept a suitcase at the ready that contained warm underwear and a sturdy pair of shoes. He could not sleep. This frightening episode cast a shadow over the rest of his life. His anxiety was increased by his friendships with other persecuted avantgarde cultural figures. Shostakovich was shunned. His works were no longer performed, and friends who saw him on the street would cross to the other side to avoid meeting him. Still, he was allowed to continue teaching. He discreetly withdrew his completed Fourth Symphony and started working on his Fifth Symphony, which would rehabilitate him, a work so successful that when it premiered in November, 1937, it received a forty-minute ovation. Why was Shostakovich not arrested or executed, as were so many other great Soviet cultural figures? First, he was well known in the West as a product of the revolution and a great Soviet artist. Ironically, most Westerners saw him as a committed Communist, although his Communist critics attacked him as a bourgeois formalist. Nevertheless, it could be argued that his notoriety made 2913
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and arbitrary behavior, into the third act. Third, Katerina was treated sympathetically as a heroic victim of circumstance, despite her adulterous and violent behavior. Finally, the inhuman conditions of penal servitude in Siberia were vividly depicted. The music and the orchestra were given special prominence to sustain the story line, and the music flowed without interruption. In the manner of the work of expressionist composers, the music indulged in violent contrasts between lyricism and dissonance and employed unusual effects to produce violent contrast, heighten emotions, and create effects of irony, crudity, and realism. Katerina alone was given lyrical solos to heighten her individuality and her tragic plight. The music also daringly attempted to describe the erotic behavior of the principal characters. Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District received its premiere on January 22, 1934, in Leningrad, and was produced later that year in Moscow. It was a resounding success, receiving eighty-three performances in Leningrad and ninety-seven in Moscow in just two seasons. Soviet writers hailed it as a great triumph of Soviet culture and a piercing satire of middle-class society. By 1935, it was introduced to the major cities of Europe and was premiered in Cleveland and New York. On the whole, Western critics viewed the work favorably, although there was some division of opinion. Some called it a masterpiece of true social criticism and dramatic intensity, whereas others were put off by its violence, unusual musical effects, and erotic themes. The Soviet political and cultural scene, however, was changing rapidly. The relatively free, experimental period of the 1920’s in culture and the economy was coming to an abrupt end. From 1929 to 1933, the Soviet Union experienced a “second revolution from above” that took the form of forced collectivization of agriculture, rapid industrialization, and the use of state-sponsored terror and forced labor to ensure obedience and conformity. By 1932, the official doctrine of “Socialist Realism” imposed drab, optimistic formulas in art and literature, and newly organized writers’ and composers’ unions regimented the arts through the supremacy of Communist bureaucrats. By 1936, Joseph Stalin had become the absolute dictator of the Soviet Union, personally intervening in all state-supervised areas of Soviet life and imposing his views and his will. When he visited the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in January of 1936 and heard Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the fate of Soviet music, and of Soviet culture as a whole, was sealed.
Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District him even more vulnerable. Second, Shostakovich had written three very popular film scores prior to 1934. Stalin loved films as a form of relaxation and appreciated the potential for propaganda and self-glorification that the medium had to offer. Finally, Stalin might have used Shostakovich as an example of an artist who would recant, a model for others. Subsequently, Stalin heaped both rewards and humiliations on the beleaguered composer. The major significance of the condemnation of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District lay in the powerful warning it sent to all Soviet cultural figures to abandon innovation and to toe the new line of Socialist Realism. The government also seized on the opera to mechanize and regiment Soviet cultural life. Shostakovich thus became a test case and a living example of what could happen to a modernist, experimental artist. The condemnation of Shostakovich was followed by a flood of directives controlling every area of cultural life. The attack on Shostakovich increased the use of two favorite Soviet code words, “formalism” and “Socialist Realism.” “Formalism” denoted abstraction, symbolism, and experimentation. Stalin liked opera as well as film. After attending a performance of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, he formulated certain guidelines to be followed for opera, guidelines that illuminated the meaning of “Socialist Realism.” Opera, said Stalin, should be optimistic in content, should be filled with simple folk melodies, and should glorify the Soviet system and even the Russian past. The impact of the condemnation of Shostakovich on the composer’s style is still a matter of debate. Some Western critics have argued that his innovative, dashing style of the 1920’s was ruined by the incident and that he retreated into stilted formulas and mannerisms. Until the death of Stalin, Soviet critics argued that Shostakovich’s style had matured into serious and disciplined art, although he continued to be taken to task from time to time. Shostakovich’s posthumously published memoirs, however, make it apparent that he became a kind of secret dissident, eliminating the blatant themes of modernism but using tragic and satirical themes in a critical musical language, at the same time continuing to write film scores and popular works to placate the regime. In 1958, during the more liberal period of deStalinization, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was revised; the new version was performed in 1963. Shostakovich retitled the opera Katerina Izmaylova and slightly revised the score and libretto. This time the somewhat changed conditions in both the Soviet Union and the 2914
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West enabled the opera to be judged more from a musical and dramatic standpoint than from an ideological one, and critics hailed it as the greatest Russian opera since Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama of 1890. The verdict of 1936 was thus reversed, and, in this instance, art outlived tyranny. —Leon Stein Further Reading Fay, Laurel E. Shostakovich: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Comprehensive biography draws extensively on Shostakovich’s correspondence and other primary documents, such as concert programs and reviews. Includes list of works, glossary of names, bibliography, and index. _______, ed. Shostakovich and His World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Collection of essays on Shostakovich as well as some of his personal correspondence and other documents that shed light on his life and creative process. Includes index. Leskov, Nikolai. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In Six Great Russian Short Novels, edited by Randall Jarrell. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970. Useful edition of the short novel on which Shostakovich’s opera was based, with a fine introduction by Jarrell. Necessary reading for an understanding of the opera. MacDonald, Ian. The New Shostakovich. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990. Excellent volume on Shostakovich’s life and work clarifies misconceptions about the composer in the West. Argues that Shostakovich was losing faith in communism at the time he wrote Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and afterward adopted strategies to evade censorship while at the same time composing great music to memorialize the sufferings of the Soviet people. Includes photographs and bibliography. Schwarz, Boris. Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1970. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972. Excellent survey of the period, with fine sections on the episode of the condemnation of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Provides valuable insights into the political and social conditions of the period that affected Shostakovich’s music. Shostakovich, Dmitri, and A. Preis. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Or, Katerina Izmailova. Translated by Edward Downe. New York: G. Schirmer, 1983. Clear, attractive translation of the English libretto that captures the essence of the spicy Russian original. Volkov, Solomon, ed. Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. 1979.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Reprint. Pompton Plains, N.J.: Limelight, 2000. Valuable source on the life and work of Shostakovich by a friend who pieced together many of their conversations, mostly from the period 1970-1974. Shostakovich emerges as a secret dissident, outraged by the sufferings caused by the Soviet regime. Posits the interesting theory that Shostakovich was in the tradition of the Russian yurodivy, the artist-saints of Rus-
Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation sian history who fought tyranny with their spiritual strength. Includes excellent photographs. See also: 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers; Apr. 23, 1932Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature; 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art.
February 4, 1936
Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation Jay Darling founded the National Wildlife Federation, an organization that united local and state wildlife concerns into one association. Since its inception, the National Wildlife Federation has played a key role in the creation of laws controlling the pollution put forth by humans’ use of air, water, and hazardous chemicals. Locale: United States Categories: Environmental issues; organizations and institutions Key Figures Jay Darling (1876-1962), American cartoonist and founder of the National Wildlife Federation Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), president of the United States, 1901-1909 Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), American forester who championed a scientific approach to the management of wildlife and other natural resources
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Summary of Event On February 3, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially proclaimed the opening of a conference dedicated to organizing all public and private institutions involved with conservation. The conference was the brainchild of nationally acclaimed cartoonist Jay Darling, whose hope was to not only establish a national federation of conservation clubs but also to form strong state conservation organizations where they did not exist or where they were weak. He also encouraged the participation of organizations that already had been working toward conservation of natural resources. Darling hoped that Canada and Mexico would also participate in the new federation and that a spirit of ecological cooperation among the two countries and the United States would be fostered.
Darling was born in 1876 in Norwood, Michigan, where his father was a minister. His father’s profession took the family to a number of different areas of the Midwest. This opportunity for travel allowed Darling to get a firsthand view of the region’s geographic diversity and to observe the variety of changes that occur on its terrain. As a child, Darling took a great interest in his environment and was an admirer of John James Audubon, Gifford Pinchot, and other conservationists. He also enjoyed sketching, and when he entered college he became the art director of the Beloit College yearbook, where he gained notoriety for the caricatures he fashioned of the Beloit College faculty. Later, he distinguished himself as an artist who caricatured famous legislators and corporate chiefs who did not favor conservation efforts. In 1900, Darling began his career as a cub reporter for the Sioux City Journal. He soon began drawing cartoons, many of which incorporated his hero, Theodore Roosevelt. By 1906, Darling had taken a position with the Des Moines Register. His first cartoon for the newspaper depicted a polluted Des Moines, Iowa. He left the Des Moines Register in 1911 for a brief stint at the New York Globe, but he returned to Des Moines and the Register two years later. He enjoyed the autonomy he was afforded at the Iowa paper, and his fans rewarded him with dedication to his work. He became so popular that the Herald Tribune syndicate issued Darling an offer that he could not refuse, and so he worked diligently for both papers. It was through his affiliation with the syndicate that Darling was able to gain fame nationwide. He used his popularity to draw cartoons that depicted the despoliation of the landscape as well as the damage caused to wildlife by lack of attention. Darling’s interest in conservation and his love of the outdoors led him to place pressure on the Iowa legislature to enact legislation creating an Iowa Fish and Game
Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation Commission. He became a charter member of this commission and went on to exert his influence nationally as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1932. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Darling to a seat on a three-member commission whose mission was to study factors that threatened wildlife. The committee was named the Beck Committee in honor of the editor of Collier’s magazine. Recognition of the need for human attention to wildlife preservation was apparent and had received its first support in the nineteenth century. In the mid-nineteenth century, the New York State Game Protective Association was formed. At the same time, a number of naturalists began exhorting the public to find legal means to protect wildlife. In 1886, the New York Audubon Society was founded by George Bird Grinnell. The early efforts of the Audubon Society and similar organizations were aimed at hunters whose primary motive was to kill birds and other wildlife for the feathers or furs they yielded for market. In 1900, the first federal law regulating wildlife was passed. This legislation made it a violation to kill game for shipment in interstate commerce. In 1902, the International Association of Game, Fish, and Conservation Commissioners was formed. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the growth of the wildlife refuge movement began. The first park designated as a refuge was Yellowstone National Park, which served as a haven for the last herd of buffalo residing in the nation. Subsequently, other national parks and forests were established as refuges. Under President Theodore Roosevelt, the conservation movement began to evolve into a coherent national program. A number of federal bills were passed to regulate wildlife, and all received the overwhelming support of Roosevelt, who was an ardent lover of the outdoors. Roosevelt was instrumental in instituting a system of wildlife refuges. In 1908, he convened a conference of governors which dealt, in part, with preservation issues. This led the governors to go back to their home states and initiate agendas that included the establishment and expansion of state wildlife departments. By 1911, attention began to be paid to the issue of protection for migratory game birds. In that year, an organization known as the American Game Protective and Propagation Association was formed; its main tasks involved the safeguarding of migratory game birds. This organization was responsible for drafting a number of pieces of federal legislation that were designed to give federal attention to pressing wildlife issues. Among the most important of these legislative concerns was the 2916
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1916 Migratory Bird Treaty, which was negotiated by President Woodrow Wilson and a representative from Great Britain. This treaty placed many species of birds under federal protection and banned the killing of sandpipers and shorebirds. It also gave migratory birds federal protection and invested the secretary of agriculture with the authority to regulate the hunting of game birds and gave the federal government authority to enforce the legislation. During the 1920’s, concentration was placed on the prevention of the depletion of the wetlands of waterfowl. This led to the realization that a concentrated effort would have to be made in order to provide safe refuges for waterfowl. Aldo Leopold, one of Jay Darling’s cocommissioners on the Beck Committee, articulated the relationship between wildlife and its habitations, and this led to the concept of managed wildlife. As a result, the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge Act was passed in 1924. The bill gave Congress the authority to buy bottomlands that would provide sanctuary to waterfowl. This act was followed in 1929 by the Norbeck-Andresen Act, which established a series of waterfowl refuges. The Beck Committee met in 1934 in the wake of these accomplishments. The committee made a number of important recommendations, including the proposal to use lands that were considered less than optimal for other purposes as wildlife refuges. The committee also diverted money from other resources and used it to employ workers who performed many vital functions relevant to wildlife preservation. As a result of the work that Darling accomplished on the Beck Committee, Roosevelt asked him to head the Bureau of Biological Survey, which was the precursor to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Darling had been a critic of the Biological Survey and was ready for the task of reorganizing it. In doing so, he was careful to choose the most qualified researchers rather than naming political appointees. His accomplishments at the helm of the organization were considerable; they included the establishment of limits on the amount of hunting that could take place in certain areas, the elimination of the use of live decoys and other objectionable practices, and the procurement of cash resources for the preservation of wildlife. Darling was also able to establish the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit Program, a federal program similar to the one he had successfully established on the state level in Iowa. This project created a program of wildlife research and training for students attending land-grant colleges. Darling gained funding for this project by invit-
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them concerning important conservation issues, and would raise money to fund these issues. Significance National Wildlife Federation members have engaged in legislative activities to reach their goals, and their legislative triumphs have been numerous. For example, in 1947 the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act required the labeling of chemicals to avoid contamination of creatures not targeted by the chemicals. This was the first act to deal with the issue of toxins and their effects on the environment. In 1956, the Water Pollution Control Act stated that the federal government could designate funds to build water treatment plants. The 1963 Clean Air Act authorized the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Environmental Protection Agency to take whatever action they deemed necessary to gain compliance with clean-air standards. In 1966, the Endangered Species Preservation Act set aside as much as $15 million to be used to encourage the breeding of certain endangered wildlife. This act was expanded in 1969. In 1972, the Clean Water Act established strict standards to control pollution of bodies of water in the United States. In 1986, the Superfund Reauthorization Act was passed; it set forth a timetable for the cleanup of toxic materials from accidents caused by human beings. This act also required chemical companies to report to the public any toxic emissions as well as a schedule for the alleviation of the problem of toxic emissions. Over the years, the National Wildlife Federation has considered the education of the public to be its foremost aspiration and has worked toward that goal in many ways. National Wildlife Week, for example, serves as an educational tool. During that week, the organization distributes educational kits to schools throughout the country. Beginning in 1968, the National Wildlife Federation introduced a new character named Ranger Rick to its educational kit; this character has served an important function in educating children about the environment both through books and through Ranger Rick’s Nature Magazine, a publication that came to symbolize the organization’s recognition that the environmental issues of tomorrow are in the hands of today’s children. In 1980, the National Wildlife Federation designed another publication for children who are not yet of reading age, and it continues to publish thousands of documents, books, pamphlets, and films aimed at diverse audiences. Another important educational function of the National Wildlife Federation is served by the Conservation 2917
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ing a group of industrialists to a dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The financial backing that the program needed emerged from this monumental meeting, and so did ideas for a number of wildlife organizations, some of which soon materialized. Darling, for example, got the idea for the National Wildlife Federation from a similar organization that existed in Indiana. In that organization, local conservation clubs reported to county associations, which in turn were accountable to a state organization. The historic North American Wildlife Conference took place in Washington, D.C., from February 3 to February 7, 1936. The delegates to the conference voted unanimously to form the General Wildlife Federation, the name of which was changed to the National Wildlife Federation in 1938. Darling directed this assembly, which included more than one thousand members, and was elected the temporary head of the new organization. The membership decided that the federation would become permanent once federations were established by the individual states. The purposes of the General Wildlife Federation were to assemble into one organization all who had an interest in the conservation and refurbishment of wildlife and other natural resources, to produce a policy designed to promote the conservation of wildlife, and to involve the public in a search for solutions to the problems that existed. The conference was considered an overwhelming success and led to a successful program of wildlife conservation. The founding of the National Wildlife Federation changed the entire scope of the wildlife conservation movement, and the new group—under Darling’s leadership—adopted a bold legislative agenda. Darling stressed to the organization’s members that political action was necessary to achieve the goals set forth by the organization’s constitution. At the first annual meeting of the organization in 1937, seven resolutions were passed, one of which led to the Pittman-Robertson Act, one of the most important pieces of wildlife legislation in U.S. history. This act served two important functions: It placed a federal excise tax on guns and ammunition and provided the state with funding to promote wildlife management. Among some of the other measures discussed at the annual meeting of the National Wildlife Federation were trapping restrictions, expansion of wildlife research, and national attention to the issue of water pollution. The delegates also voted to set aside one week per year to be known as National Wildlife Restoration Week. This week would bring the subject of wildlife preservation to the attention of the public, would help to educate
Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation
Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation Summits, which began in 1970. These summits are educational vacations that provide entire families with the opportunity to learn more about the environment. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people are recipients of the fruits of the work of the National Wildlife Federation, which boasted four million members and supporters throughout the United States as of 2005. —Judy Arlis Chesen Further Reading Allen, Thomas B. Guardian of the Wild: The Story of the National Wildlife Federation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Discusses the organization’s founding in great detail, addressing its historical origins as well as the environmental conditions that led to the need for its establishment. Emphasizes the federation’s position as an umbrella organization linking local and state conservation organizations. Clepper, Henry, ed. Origins of American Conservation. New York: Ronald Press, 1966. Twelve conservationists trace the evolution of the conservation movement and illustrate the manner in which management of natural resources came about in order to address environmental issues such as wildlife regulation, soil, water, range, park, and aquatic preservation. Cronon, William, ed. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Taken from a series of essays presented at the University of California at Irvine in 1994, this interesting volume examines modern conceptions of nature and its role in modern society. Useful for understanding the reasoning behind our views toward the natural world. Lendt, David L. Ding: The Life of Jay Norwood Darling. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1979. An insight-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ful biography of cartoonist and conservationist Darling. It follows Darling from his boyhood in Michigan and Iowa through his six-decade association with the Des Moines Register. The biography successfully integrates Darling’s career as a cartoonist with his environmental activities. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Brilliant intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness begins with the earliest days of European contact. Norton, Bryan G., ed. The Preservation of Species: The Value of Biological Diversity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. Collection of essays presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the reasons for conservation. The contributors go beyond scientific explanations of conservation of vanishing wildlife and delve into the philosophical issues that impact decision making with regard to endangered species. Street, Philip. Vanishing Animals: Preserving Nature’s Rarities. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1963. Discusses some of the causes of and solutions to the problem of diminishing species of certain animals throughout the world. Street discusses those varieties of wildlife remaining in the wild as well as those living in captivity. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed; Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society; Sept. 2, 1937: Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding; July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy
February 4, 1936
Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy John Maynard Keynes revolutionized the field of economics when he proposed active government management of the economy through taxation, borrowing, and spending. Also known as: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money Locale: London, England Categories: Government and politics; economics; publishing and journalism Key Figures John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), British economist Richard Kahn (1905-1989), British economist who collaborated with Keynes Joan Robinson (1903-1983), British economist and pupil of Keynes Paul Samuelson (b. 1915), American economist whose undergraduate textbook was instrumental in spreading Keynes’s ideas in the United States Roy Harrod (1900-1978), British economist who helped Keynes develop the theories that culminated in Keynes’s book Ralph Hawtrey (1879-1975), British economist with whom Keynes discussed his new theory while writing his book Alvin Hansen (1887-1975), American economist initially critical of the Keynesian revolution who later became one of the leading supporters of Keynes’s theory James Tobin (1918-2002), American economist who developed and refined Keynesian ideas Milton Friedman (1912-2006), American economist critical of Keynesian economic theory and policy
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Summary of Event In 1936, John Maynard Keynes of the University of Cambridge in England published The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (also known simply as The General Theory). Undoubtedly the most influential book on economics written in the twentieth century, Keynes’s monograph touched off what has come to be called the Keynesian revolution. It provided a new theoretical structure for dealing with the aggregate economy, a structure that revolutionized both economic theory and policy. No other book, not even Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) or Karl Marx’s Das Kapital (1867, 1885-1894), had such an impact on economic theory and policy.
The General Theory was published at a critical juncture in the history of Western civilization. In the early 1930’s, the world was in the midst of the Great Depression, the most sweeping economic catastrophe of modern times. As the Depression deepened, millions of people were thrown out of work. In the United States, from 1929 through 1932 more than eighty-five thousand businesses failed, more than five thousand banks suspended operations, farm income fell by more than half, manufacturing output decreased by almost half, and the unemployment rate increased to 25 percent. The Depression came at a time when natural resources were still plentiful. Thousands of factories stood idle or operated far below capacity, and workers had the same skills as they had in better times and wanted to put them to work. The U.S. economy and other economies clearly were able to produce, yet millions of people begged, borrowed, stole, and lined up for charity. The widespread social unrest caused by mass unemployment also threatened the viability of democratic institutions. The appeals of communism and fascism gained strength. A totalitarian government took power in Italy, and the National Socialist Party was on its way to taking power in Germany. Many people thought that this was the end of capitalism and that Karl Marx’s predictions regarding socialism’s inevitability were coming true. The Depression was a mystery that posed problems that no one knew how to overcome. Conventional economics suggested that further wage cuts were necessary in order to allow more people to be hired, but this approach aggravated the malaise instead of relieving it. Even workers who had jobs barely supported themselves, and because they had low incomes they could not buy things produced by other workers. The appearance of The General Theory provided both a revolutionary explanation of the problem and theoretically supported solutions within a democratic framework, thus offering potential solutions to the burning political, economic, and social problems. The central idea of The General Theory is that policy planners cannot rely on free markets to maintain full employment in the economy. The self-correcting features of the system are too weak to do that. Modern capitalist economies may be plagued by unemployment because of a deficiency of aggregate demand (the total of planned spending by consumers, investors, and the government). Some products may remain unsold because no one wants to buy them. Paradoxically, this problem gets worse as a society becomes affluent, because consumers have a tendency to
Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy
From THE GENERAL THEORY In chapter 12 of The General Theory, Keynes considers the obstacles faced by the average investor: There is one feature in particular which deserves our attention. It might have been supposed that competition between expert professionals, possessing judgment and knowledge beyond that of the average private investor, would correct the vagaries of the ignorant individual left to himself. It happens, however, that the energies and skill of the professional investor and speculator are mainly occupied otherwise. For most of these persons are, in fact, largely concerned, not with making superior long-term forecasts of the probable yield of an investment over its whole life, but with foreseeing changes in the conventional basis of valuation a short time ahead of the general public. They are concerned, not with what an investment is really worth to a man who buys it “for keeps,” but with what the market will value it at, under the influence of mass psychology, three months or a year hence. Moreover, this behaviour is not the outcome of a wrong-headed propensity. It is an inevitable result of an investment market organised along the lines described. For it is not sensible to pay 25 for an investment of which you believe the prospective yield to justify a value of 30, if you also believe that the market will value it at 20 three months hence. Thus the professional investor is forced to concern himself with the anticipation of impending changes, in the news or in the atmosphere, of the kind by which experience shows that the mass psychology of the market is most influenced. This is the inevitable result of investment markets organised with a view to so-called “liquidity.” Of the maxims of orthodox finance none, surely, is more anti-social than the fetish of liquidity, the doctrine that it is a positive virtue on the part of investment institutions to concentrate their resources upon the holding of “liquid” securities. It forgets that there is no such thing as liquidity of investment for the community as a whole. The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelop our future. The actual, private object of the most skilled investment today is “to beat the gun,” as the Americans so well express it, to outwit the crowd, and to pass the bad, or depreciating, half-crown to the other fellow. This battle of wits to anticipate the basis of conventional valuation a few months hence, rather than the prospective yield of an investment over a long term of years, does not even require gulls amongst the public to feed the maws of the professional;—it can be played by professionals amongst themselves. Nor is it necessary that anyone should keep his simple faith in the conventional basis of valuation having any genuine long-term validity. For it is, so to speak, a game of Snap, of Old Maid, of Musical Chairs—a pastime in which he is victor who says Snap neither too soon nor too late, who passes the Old Maid to his neighbour before the game is over, who secures a chair for himself when the music stops. These games can be played with zest and enjoyment, though all the players know that it is the Old Maid which is circulating, or that when the music stops some of the players will find themselves unseated. Source: John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 devote an increasing percentage of their income to saving rather than to consumption. This tendency to save more will not create difficulties as long as savings are channeled, via financial markets, into an equivalent amount of investment spending on factories and equipment. There is no mechanism, however, to guarantee that every dollar saved will be converted to an equivalent amount of investment. Thus, if there is not enough investment spending to absorb the increased saving, the result will be unemployment as firms begin to produce less. An economy can get stuck in such a position, according to The General Theory. Keynes argued that aggregate demand (especially investment) is inherently unstable and that government must pick up the slack when necessary. Thus when business activity falls and there is substantial unemployment, the government should increase its expenditures or reduce taxes (or perhaps both); during periods of prosperity it should do the opposite. Such active intervention offered the possibility of maintaining full employment. The General Theory was the product of Keynes’s involvement in the economic problems of the Western world in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The roots of his ideas can be traced back to before the 1929 stock market crash that signaled the beginning of the Depression. Keynes’s Indian Currency and Finance (1913) was a contribution to understanding the functioning of economies with gold exchange standards, but it was his The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) that brought him international fame. In it, he questioned the widely accepted modes of thought about war reparations and war debt and presented a vivid examination of an extraordinary episode of laissez-faire capitalism. A later book, A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923), was written in response to the monetary disorder following World War I, and it was followed by A Treatise on Money (1930), which contained a comprehensive exposition of monetary theory and policy. Keynes’s preface to the Japanese edition
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of A Treatise on Money, dated April 5, 1932, was possibly the first public intimation of the ideas to appear in The General Theory. Keynes’s correspondence and discussion with economists Joan Robinson, Roy Harrod, Richard Kahn, Ralph Hawtrey, and others give indications that he began writing the book in the summer of 1932. These economists also played crucial roles in the origin and development of the book, as Keynes made extensive revisions based on their feedback and circulated drafts among the group. On October 10, 1932, Keynes began the first of his eight lectures for the fall term. He changed the title of these lectures from “The Pure Theory of Money” to “The Monetary Theory of Production” and in effect announced the beginning of the Keynesian revolution. In a letter to playwright and philosopher George Bernard Shaw in 1935, Keynes wrote that the book he was then writing on economic theory would revolutionize the way the world thinks about economic problems. His prophecy was amply fulfilled. The General Theory is a technical, theoretical book addressed to the economics profession, and economists hotly debated the merits of Keynes’s theory and policy prescriptions. Although
Keynes’s ideas did not gain instantaneous acceptance, it was not long before the book became the gospel of an ardent group of followers. Within a short time, the ideas and analytic techniques of The General Theory stimulated what came to be called the Keynesian revolution. The timing of the publication had much to do with the book’s acceptance. The protracted unemployment of the 1930’s cast doubts on the viability of laissez-faire capitalism, and The General Theory offered a theoretically justified plan to retain capitalism, although with significant active government participation. With the outbreak of World War II, unemployment problems began to melt away. Increased government expenditures during the war transformed severe unemployment to shortages of labor. The war experience suggested that Keynes’s ideas were correct: A government’s wise use of taxation, borrowing, and spending can move an economy to full employment. The book can be credited with giving intellectual justification to the notion that an economy can be and perhaps should be managed to smooth out fluctuations in output and employment. To Keynes and his followers, a balanced economy is more important than a balanced budget. Specific recommendations to tackle an economic depression were maintenance of low interest rates through central control, redistribution of wealth through taxation, and augmentation of insufficient private investment by government spending. For these policy prescriptions, Keynes was accused of being both a left-wing ideologue as well as a defender of imperialist capitalism. Keynes always claimed that his intention was to save capitalism, not to destroy it. The publication of The General Theory coincided with the development of quantitative economic data on employment, the gross national product and various related income categories, consumer spending, and savings and investment. These data made it possible for analysts to test macroeconomic relationships empirically. The various concepts discussed in The General Theory were widely incorporated into the economics profession and created the modern macroeconomics that still forms the basis of what is taught in undergraduate macroeconomics courses throughout the world. Policy implications were widely adopted to provide the tax, expenditure, and debt management agendas of most countries. Keynesian economics achieved its greatest influence in the United States during the 1960’s. One of the longest unbroken economic expansions in American history occurred in the period 1961-1968, during which time the members of the Council of Economic Advisers were 2921
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John Maynard Keynes. (Library of Congress)
Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy
Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy Keynesian almost without exception. They promoted tax cuts that coincided with increased prosperity, as expected by Keynesian logic. During the 1970’s, however, Keynesian economics failed to provide a satisfactory answer to the twin problems of high unemployment and high inflation. Keynesian economics has often been criticized for ignoring inflation. Economists such as Milton Friedman generated a counterrevolution in economics in the 1970’s, claiming that government is not wise enough to manage the economy along Keynesian lines and recommending that government’s influence in the economy should be kept to a minimum. The views of Friedman and other economists (referred to as monetarists) have also become widely accepted. Data do not yet exist to prove either Keynesian or monetarist theory correct; the principles underlying both schools of thought are widely believed and taught. However, the gradual globalization of the international economy and fluid movements of capital by private banks and corporations across national boundaries have inhibited the ability of governments to control the money supply strictly through centralized monetary policy. Supply-side economists have also pointed out that fiscal approaches that seek to control inflationary periods by raising taxes hurt business activity, leading to declining revenue. According to proponents of this school of thought, low and lower taxes are always better for economic growth and generation of government revenue. Significance The General Theory’s revolutionary impact on the field of economics and on the general public can be seen in the speed with which the policies advocated in it were incorporated into government planning. Many of the measures instituted during the later years of the New Deal were Keynesian in origin. Franklin D. Roosevelt, by his second presidential term (1937-1941), had come to embrace deficit spending as a necessary condition of prosperity. He recommended resumption of lending to increase aggregate demand. In 1946, the U.S. Congress passed the Employment Act, which legally (although in vague terms) obligated the government to maintain high levels of employment. The president’s Council of Economic Advisers and the Joint Economic Committee in Congress were created to fulfill this mandate. In Great Britain, The General Theory’s influence was clearly demonstrated in the 1941 budget and the coalition government’s White Paper on Employment (1944), which made a strong commitment to full employment as a public policy. By the end of World War II, Canada, 2922
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, and South Africa had accepted national responsibility for achieving high levels of employment. Similar concepts of economic management were embodied in the new French constitution of 1946, in the Charter of the United Nations, and in the Treaty of Rome. Keynesian economics found success because it offered something to almost everyone. Labor liked the government’s support during economic depressions, businesses benefited from government contracts, banks found profitable areas for investment in government bonds, and government control gave the banking system liquidity, security, and stability. Reformers and intellectuals enjoyed increased employment in the government services and influence on government policies. — Baban Hasnat Further Reading Blaug, Mark. John Maynard Keynes: Life, Ideas, Legacy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. An excellent book for general readers and beginning students of economics. Clarke, Peter. The Keynesian Revolution in the Making, 1924-1936. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Provides a historical account of Keynes’s thought leading to publication of The General Theory. Good for those interested in economic history. Hamouda, Omar F., and John N. Smithin, eds. Economics and Policy. Vol. 2 in Keynes and Public Policy After Fifty Years. New York: New York University Press, 1988. Covers a wide range of topics. Part 1 concerns public policy in Great Britain and the United States, with some discussion of Keynes. Harrod, Roy F. The Life of John Maynard Keynes. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1963. A definitive biography of Keynes. Chapter 11 provides letters written by Keynes and to Keynes on the theory and policy articulated in The General Theory. Kahn, Richard F. The Making of Keynes’ “General Theory.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Collection of lectures on the book by an economist closely associated with Keynes. Valuable insights into the making of the book are given in lectures four and five; Keynes’s relations with other economists are discussed in lecture six. Lekachman, Robert, ed. Keynes’ “General Theory”: Reports of Three Decades. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964. Part 1 contains Austin Robinson’s excellent discussion of Keynes’s life and ideas. Moggridge, Donald E. John Maynard Keynes. New
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 York: Penguin Books, 1976. Suitable for both economists and noneconomists. Provides a simple exposition of Keynes’s ideas, his work, and his influence. Skidelsky, Robert. John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Abridged version of Skidelsky’s three-volume biography of Keynes. Although biased toward his subject, Skidelsky forcefully argues that
Corporatism Comes to Paraguay Keynes was a visionary who changed the course of economic theory. See also: Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control; Aug. 17, 1937: Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance.
February 17, 1936
Corporatism Comes to Paraguay A regime came to power in Paraguay that offered a program with recognizably corporate elements. Corporatism accorded more power to small, often professional groups, but internal struggles made the experiment short-lived. Locale: Asunción, Paraguay Category: Government and politics Key Figures Rafael Franco (1896-1973), leader of the Febrerista Party and president, 1936 and 1937 Carlos Antonio López (1790-1862), president of Paraguay, 1844-1862, and father of Francisco Solano López Francisco Solano López (1827-1870), president of Paraguay, 1862-1870 José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1766-1840), supreme dictator of Paraguay, 1814-1840 José Félix Estigarribia (1888-1940), hero of the Chaco War, ambassador to the United States, and president of Paraguay, 1939 and 1940 Higinio Morínigo (1897-1983), Paraguayan military leader and president, 1940-1948 Juan Stefanich (1889-1976), politician, journalist, novelist, and essayist whose writings provided the ideological base for the Febrerista Party Bernardino Caballero (1839-1912), founder of the Asociación Nacional Repúblicana (Colorado Party) and president from 1880 to 1886
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Summary of Event Colonel Rafael Franco’s takeover of the Paraguayan government on February 17, 1936, was a response to Paraguay’s long history of dictatorial regimes and disregard for the needs of the peasant class. Franco and his Febrerista party represented themselves as nationalist
socialists ready to introduce democratic reforms, and Franco’s military coup was a step in the turbulent progression of Paraguayan politics. When Paraguay emerged as an independent nation in 1811, it was as an isolated buffer state separating Argentina and Brazil. At the time, Paraguay was under the despotic control of one man, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, and it continued to have essentially one-man rule until the last decade of the twentieth century. Francia, called “El Supremo,” was the driving force behind both Paraguayan independence and the establishment of Paraguay’s political parameters. Francia became indispensable to the governing of the state and ensured that no reasonable alternative to his rule existed. Those few individuals who dared to suggest otherwise found themselves in prison or the cemetery. As Paraguay’s leader, Francia focused the nation’s resources on the creation and maintenance of a strong army to defend the borders of his hermit kingdom. The state drafted not only the manpower of the nation but also its economy. The peasants worked as sharecroppers on land leased from the state, state-controlled industries supplied the military and civilian markets, and production and trade were closely regulated. Francia’s policies brought a considerable measure of prosperity to Paraguay, but they also denied the people fundamental political freedoms. El Supremo designated no political heir, but ultimately Carlos Antonio López seized control in 1844, after a period of political chaos following Francia’s death in 1840. The political autocracy and state-run socialism initiated by Francia continued, but López did moderate the regime’s rigor. After the death of Carlos Antonio López in 1862, the government of Paraguay was entrusted to his son, Francisco Solano López, whose character and intentions remain a subject of historical controversy. He is variously viewed as a barbaric egomaniac
Corporatism Comes to Paraguay who sacrificed his countrymen in pursuit of grandiose schemes and as the quintessential patriot who bravely fell in battle against foreign imperialism. The true Francisco Solano López is obscure, but the consequences of the war he presided over—and was killed in—are not subject to dispute. The end of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) found more than half the population of Paraguay dead and the economy in ruins. The struggle between Brazil and Argentina for regional supremacy almost destroyed Paraguay, but the process allowed Paraguay to avoid absorption. Moreover, the government imposed by Brazil and Argentina
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
was, within a short time, overthrown by Bernardino Caballero’s successful appeal to antiforeign sentiments engendered by the postwar occupation. Unfortunately, General Caballero inherited an empty treasury from his predecessors. He saw little choice but to continue the sale of the extensive state enterprises begun by the occupation governments. Foreign corporations established feudal enclaves (latifundios) throughout the nation and subjected the peasantry to merciless exploitation. As a result, the prospects of a broadly based representative political system that surfaced at the end of the war vanished without a trace. The Chaco War, a boundary dispute with Bolivia, lasted three bloody years (1932-1935), diverted enormous amounts Paraguay, 1936 of manpower and resources from Paraguay’s economy, and caused significant PANAMA Caracas GUYANA numbers of casualties. Although the North VENEZUELA SURINAME peace treaty confirmed Paraguay’s conMedellin Atlantic FRENCH trol of twenty thousand square miles of Bogota Ocean GUIANA Quito the Chaco, the victory cost the nation two COLOMBIA dead per square mile, a casualty rate that many Paraguayans attributed to the failECUADOR Belem ure of the Paraguayan government to adequately prepare for war. PERU The government was further indicted BRAZIL for its inability to sponsor meaningful reforms in the structure of Paraguayan soLima ciety. Land reform was first on the list of Brasilia BOLIVIA demands, followed by improvements in La Paz the standard of living, the public welfare services, and working conditions, in adSucre South PARAGUAY dition to the reform of an educational Pacific Sao Paulo system that was probably the poorest in Rio De Janeiro Ocean Asuncion Latin America. As was the case throughCHILE out most of Latin America in the period before World War II, the landowning aristocracy reaped the benefits of governSantiago mental power, and the middle class was URUGUAY Buenos Aires Montevideo largely nonexistent. Paraguay, in short, ARGENTINA was in need of renovation and redempSouth tion, if not revolution. Atlantic Colonel Rafael Franco, a prominent Ocean figure in the Chaco War, organized a group within the Paraguayan military to stage a coup that took place on February 17, 1936. Once in power, the revolutionaries deemed it necessary to present themselves as more than simply another junta of discontented officers. Therefore,
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indeed, reform of almost any kind—would be difficult as long as the country was dominated by foreign capital in league with an upper class wedded to the status quo. Despite the renewed power of the old order, the promises of the Febreristas continued to attract support, a circumstance that explains the emergence of José Félix Estigarribia. General Estigarribia, a hero of the Chaco War, ran for and won the presidency in 1939. He was a popular candidate whose speeches indicated a decided preference for many of the Febrerista ideas. Significance Traditionally, most Latin Americans insisted that unity, not diversity, was key to political success. Latin American governments thus generally eschewed attempts to balance competing centers of power and attempt to integrate or eliminate them in the name of collective harmony. The idea that two competing ideologies might barter or negotiate for anything less than total victory was anathema. Paraguay was operating under two vastly different concepts of legitimate government: the Francia-López tradition of autocratic state socialism and the democratic free enterprise liberalism of the postwar decades. Febrerismo attempted to fuse these opposing principles by recourse to corporatism. The objective of the Febreristas was not a totalitarian state but a “perfected” democratic regime. The state was not to serve as a policeman; instead, it would regulate and defend society. The state would intervene to solve political, social, and economic problems, and national interests would take precedence over individual interests. Thus democracia solidarista differed from totalitarianism in that the latter places the state first and fits individuals into a pattern that subordinates and even denies their liberties. The Febreristas, however, recognized individual liberties and tried to reconcile them with collective or group rights. The Febrerista experiment was cut short, but the pressure for reform remained undiminished. Thus the new Estigarribia government scrapped the Constitution of 1870 and replaced it with a new instrument approved by plebiscite on August 4, 1940. The new constitution envisaged a powerful chief executive assisted by an advisory council composed of representatives from business, banking, the church, education, the government, agriculture, processing industries, and the military. The council was designed to oversee an “orderly democracy,” in which the government had extensive powers to intervene in the economy. Furthermore, the president might declare a state of siege and thereby acquire virtual dictatorial powers. Corporatism fell into disrepute at the end of 2925
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the nation was informed that Paraguay would adopt a more democratic version of the nationalistic socialism of the Francia-López era. A serious attempt to encourage the growth of small and medium-sized landholdings was undertaken, and regional agricultural schools, agricultural experiment farms, and a bank for low-cost agricultural loans were proposed. Equally important, a labor department was created, and a moderately progressive labor code was promulgated. The official goal of the revolution was a “natural democracy” of peasants and workers, a regime that would identify and utilize the best parts of individualistic democracy, corporatism, and socialism in order to provide benefits to the whole of the Paraguayan people. Colonel Franco repeatedly indicated his opposition to the total transplantation of any foreign system to Paraguay. His Mussolini-like speeches from a balcony in Asunción, however, led some to characterize his government as the first manifestation of fascism in Latin America. The ideological hero of many in the new regime was Juan Stefanich. Stefanich found little appeal in either laissez-faire capitalism or Marxist socialism. He saw the former as at fault for the worldwide depression and the latter as a path to a totalitarian, Soviet-style state. Like countries as diverse as Portugal, Ireland, and Italy, Stefanich’s Paraguay sought salvation in what he termed democracia solidarista, which was an attempt to organize the state along corporate models and thereby accord power to professional and occupational groups. Stefanich espoused corporatism, but the Franco regime remained a mixture of political and ideological opposites. These diverse elements (corporatism, socialism, and traditional political partisanship) struggled for control of a revolution that came to power without a central theme, and this internal conflict assisted those who supported a counterrevolution. The Febreristas, as supporters of Colonel Franco were later named, were replaced on August 15, 1937, by a group who gave only lip service to the new governmental programs. The Febreristas were overthrown for several reasons. They promised land and better social conditions but were unable to undertake anything more than symbolic implementation. Labor was “liberated” through the creation of the National Department of Labor, which defined labor’s rights and privileges, but there was only enough time for strikes and turmoil, not the requisite negotiations between the workers and management. A decree authorizing the expropriation of land was promulgated, but the land reform program was only a beginning and was not continued by the new regime. Effective land reform—
Corporatism Comes to Paraguay
Corporatism Comes to Paraguay World War II, because it was often confused with fascism. They are, however, very different: The latter involves a leadership principle, a mass political party, and an aggressive foreign policy that are not characteristic of the former. Colonel Franco and those elected in accord with the Constitution of 1940 might have resembled the fascist dictators of the prewar decades, but they owed more to Francia and the Lópezes than to Hitler or Mussolini. Despite their reverence for ideological accord, some Latin American governments ruled in the name of the whole by integrating diverse interests. Others governed in the name of a privileged part of that whole by excluding or eliminating representatives of the less privileged. The government of Paraguay, despite its corporate pretensions, adhered more to the latter model than to the former. These general patterns of Latin American politics persisted until the last quarter of the twentieth century, when, beginning around 1980, the trend shifted toward the emergence of a more pluralist political life, competitive parties and elections, and the resolution, in Central America, of long-standing civil wars, which permitted the exploration of more stable democratic forms of government. From Mexico to Chile, a more vibrant and competitive party politics emerged, and the old-style authoritarian governments of the past, although not everywhere eclipsed, were no longer the norm. Democratization gradually spread throughout Latin America, as it had during the same period in the world at large. Paraguay was one of the countries that joined this democratic bandwagon, and although it later experienced some political turmoil (including the assassination of its vice president in March of 1999 and the 2003 impeachment of President Luis González Macchi), the country has been able to operate under a democratic constitution and maintain a lively and very competitive multiparty system that demands coalition government. — J. K. Sweeney Further Reading Alexander, Robert J. A History of Organized Labor in Uruguay and Paraguay. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. A thorough analysis of the historical relationships among labor, political leaders, and the economy in these South American countries. Kolinski, Charles J. Historical Dictionary of Paraguay. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1973. The only reference work of this type on Paraguay. It is not encyclopedic in its coverage, but it does contain a useful multilingual bibliography. 2926
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. Independence or Death: The Story of the Paraguayan War. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965. The only work in English on this important event in the history of Paraguay. Essential to any understanding of the country’s political history or prospects for the future. Leuchars, Chris. Paraguay and the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005. Focuses on Paraguay’s role in the war, its direction under the leadership of Francisco Solano López, and the war’s long-term effects on Paraguay’s relations with Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Lewis, Paul. Paraguay Under Stroessner. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Although this monograph is primarily concerned with a political analysis of the long regime of Alfredo Stroessner (president from 1954-1989), the author places considerable emphasis on discussion of Paraguayan politics in the decades before Stroessner’s rise to power. _______. The Politics of Exile. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965. A behavioral analysis of the Febrerista party’s organization. The only work in English on the topic, it analyzes the workings of the party, its ideology, its formal organization, and the pattern of relationships among the leaders. Rouguié, Alain. The Military and the State in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. This comparative analysis places Paraguay within the context of the entire continent. Warren, Harris G. Paraguay: An Informal History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949. The seminal work in English on the subject. The bibliographic essay is basic. _______. “Political Aspects of the Paraguayan Revolution, 1936-1940.” Hispanic American Historical Review 30 (February, 1950): 2-25 . This is the only historical treatment of this event in English. It is heavily footnoted and invaluable, although dated. Zook, David H. The Conduct of the Chaco War. New York: Bookman Associates, 1960. The definitive English monograph on a conflict that influenced twentieth century Paraguay to the same degree as the War of the Triple Alliance affected the previous century. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela; June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy; Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.
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German Troops March into the Rhineland
March 7, 1936
German Troops March into the Rhineland period, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 and the Locarno Treaties of 1925, the area was to be permanently demilitarized. Through his early official foreign policy statements, German chancellor Adolf Hitler indicated support for the Rhineland demilitarization and the settlements at Versailles and Locarno, but his domestic statements to the German people carried a different message. At home, Hitler made no secret of his contempt for the treaties’ provisions and of his determination to undo the settlement one provision at a time. Upon gaining power on January 30, 1933, Hitler launched what was at first a clandestine buildup of German military power. As time went on, this became a more overt campaign that clearly violated the military limitations set forth in the Versailles treaty. As Hitler continued to push his boundaries, he encountered no effective opposition from other European powers or from the United States.
Having already successfully violated armament provisions of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Adolf Hitler embarked on his first great gamble: moving his troops into the Rhineland frontier toward France. The French government, torn by internal debate over how best to respond, was unable to secure backing from Britain in support of intervention against this move and consequently allowed Germany again to flout postWorld War I peace accords. Locale: Germany; France; Great Britain Categories: Military history; diplomacy and international relations; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics; World War II
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Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Werner von Blomberg (1878-1946), German field marshal and minister of war, 1935-1938 Werner von Fritsch (1880-1939), The Rhineland German general and commander mark Den of the German army, 1935-1938 = The Rhineland Albert Sarraut (1872-1962), prime minister of France, 1936 Sea rth Pierre-Étienne Flandin (1889No Hamburg 1958), French foreign minister, 1936 Maurice Gamelin (1872-1958), French general and chief of the Hannover general staff, 1935-1940 Amsterdam Winston Churchill (1874-1965), th R Ne British parliamentarian and advocate of intervention against G e r m a n y Düsseldorf B Germany Cologne Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), Bonn prime minister of Great Britain, Wiesbaden 1923-1924, 1924-1929, and Luxembourg Mainz 1935-1937 S AARLA ND Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Saarbrücket Luxembourg prime minister and dictator of Metz Stuttgart Italy, 1922-1943 hi
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Summary of Event From 1918 to 1930, the German Rhineland was occupied by Allied— mainly French—troops. After this
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German Troops March into the Rhineland
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
German troops enter the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland, breaking the Treaty of Versailles. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Prior to 1936, Hitler had limited himself to internal rearmament, but by March of that year he was poised to embark on a riskier, much more aggressive project: the reoccupation of the Rhineland by German troops. A rift had developed between Italy and its former allies France and Britain over Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s decision to attack Ethiopia in 1935, an action that had been condemned by the French and British governments. Hitler saw an opportunity to profit from this disagreement by making his move at a time when the erstwhile Allies were unlikely to cooperate with one another. Hitler’s secret plan for remilitarizing the Rhineland was opposed by Minister of War Werner von Blomberg and Commander General Werner von Fritsch, who argued that the German army was vastly inferior to the French army and that any military intervention by France would have to be met by a quick and humiliating retreat that would probably prove fatal to the Nazi regime. 2928
Although Blomberg and Fritsch might be right, Hitler conceded, he was convinced that the British and French leadership would not intervene because they were desperate to avoid renewing the horrors of trench warfare that had been a hallmark of World War I. Appeasement and national self-interest, he believed, would prevail over any desire to enforce international agreements. Furthermore, Hitler argued, Mussolini was unlikely to mend his relationships with Britain and France. On March 7, 1936, a small contingent of German troops—estimated at no more than thirty-five thousand—marched across the line of demarcation and began to garrison the Rhineland all the way to the French border. The orders from Blomberg, however, were to retire immediately in the event of any French advance across the German border. Hitler insisted that his intentions were strictly nonaggressive and driven by concerns for German national security. Morever, he said, recent
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 French diplomatic overtures to the Soviet Union had violated the Locarno Treaties, and Germany was therefore freed from the terms of those agreements. Prime Minister Albert Sarraut and Foreign Minister Pierre-Étienne Flandin of France favored an instant and overwhelming military response. However, they were countered by General Maurice Gamelin, who warned that war with the Germans could be perilous, even though the French army numbered 1.5 million soldiers. Gamelin ordered only thirteen divisions and some tanks into a defensive position near the German border. The debate between Sarraut and Gamelin divided and paralyzed the French government, and Flandin was dispatched to London on March 11, where he tried to convince the British to help repel the Germans. Flandin’s diplomatic mission was a total failure; he could garner support only from Winston Churchill, who was adamant that Germany’s rearmament and aggressive defiance of the Versailles provisions were threats to future world peace. Churchill argued that Hitler must be stopped before he gained so much strength that another global conflict would be required to prevent him from attaining world control. However, at this time Churchill was a shunned and ignored political figure, even within the ranks of his own Conservative Party. The real power in Britain lay with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who had scant knowledge of (and even less interest in) foreign affairs. Baldwin believed that Britain and the British public were unready for war and did not think that the nation should take even the smallest risk of another conflict like World War I. Diplomatically abandoned, the French government was not willing to make further moves, and Germany’s rearmament in the Rhineland was allowed to stand unchallenged.
and Fritsch were undermined, and they were relieved of their posts in 1938. The Nazi seizure of military control over the Rhineland set into motion a campaign of “racial purity” against the so-called Rhineland bastards (the offspring of German women and African or Southeast Asian soldiers stationed in the area during France’s garrisoning of the Rhineland). These children and adolescents were persecuted and in many cases sterilized. —Raymond Pierre Hylton Further Reading Churchill, Winston S. Memories of World War II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. In his assessment of the events of 1936, Churchill views the Rhineland occupation as one of the most significant steps to World War II, and he chides his Conservative Party colleagues for failing predict later developments. Eimerl, Sarel. Hitler over Europe: The Road to World War II. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. The author sees a paranoid fear on the part of the Western Allies as the most significant element behind the success of Hitler’s military and diplomatic coup. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1945: Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. The Rhineland rearmament is viewed as the triumphant capstone of Hitler’s early political career and the springboard for his more aggressive global initiatives. Redlich, Fritz. Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Although mainly a behavioral study, this book does focus some attention on the Rhineland reoccupation as a psychological milestone in the Nazi dictator’s obsessive quest for power. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Ballantine, 1991. Classic account of Hitler’s rise and fall; extremely detailed. Credits the success of the Rhineland occupation to Hitler’s iron nerve and instinct for bluffing. See also: Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact; Feb. 12Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 2324, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland. 2929
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Significance Hitler’s assessment of the Allies’ war-weary state and their lack of will to enforce the Versailles provisions proved to be shrewd, timely, and accurate. The German army would soon build a formidable network of fortifications known as the Siegfried line, which facilitated German aggression in the region by preventing any Anglo-French efforts to safeguard the integrity of smaller Eastern European states such as Austria and Czechoslovakia. The setback further demoralized the French, who became increasingly defense-oriented and obsessed with dependence on the Maginot line. Internationally and domestically, Hitler’s prestige rose as a result of this triumph, and he was able to secure greater control over Germany’s armed forces. Blomberg
German Troops March into the Rhineland
Boulder Dam Is Completed
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 11, 1936
Boulder Dam Is Completed Completion of Boulder Dam provided irrigation, municipal water, flood control, and abundant power, but it also catalyzed great environmental and economic change. Also known as: Hoover Dam Locale: California; Nevada; Arizona Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; engineering; energy Key Figures Henry J. Kaiser (1882-1967), American industrialist and leading figure in the Six Companies consortium Elwood Mead (1858-1936), American commissioner of reclamation Ray Lyman Wilbur (1875-1949), president of Stanford University and U.S. secretary of the interior Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), U.S. secretary of commerce and federal representative to the Colorado River Commission Philip D. Swing (1884-1963), U.S. congressman from California Oliver M. Wozencraft (1814-1887), physician, promoter, and member of the California Constitutional Convention and the first state legislature Frank Crowe (1882-1946), civil engineer who was superintendent of construction for Boulder Dam Arthur Powell Davis (1861-1933), hydrographer and engineer who directed the Reclamation Service in initial stages of development of Boulder Dam Walker Young (1884-1982), engineer who represented the Bureau of Reclamation on the scene as construction engineer and led preliminary tests of sites in Boulder and Black Canyons Summary of Event Boulder Dam (also called Hoover Dam after 1947) was officially accepted by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes on March 11, 1936. On completion, the dam was the world’s highest and largest, rising 727 feet above bedrock and containing more than 3 million cubic yards of concrete. The Grand Coulee Dam, completed in 1942, surpassed it with more than 10 million cubic yards of concrete, and the Mauvoisin Dam, completed in Switzerland in 1958, was the first higher dam at a height of 777 feet. Lake Mead was formed by Boulder Dam; with a capacity of more than 31 million acre-feet of water, it was 2930
the world’s largest reservoir until 1959, when the Kariba Dam on the Zambia-Zimbabwe boundary created a reservoir of 130 million acre-feet capacity. Boulder Dam and Lake Mead, however, remain among the largest structures of their kind. The Boulder Dam project had its roots in Oliver M. Wozencraft’s efforts to promote diversion of Colorado River water to irrigate the Imperial Valley of California. In 1859, at Wozencraft’s instigation, the California legislature passed a bill petitioning Congress to cede the Imperial Valley to the state for reclamation purposes. Wozencraft’s desert-land bill finally was introduced in Congress in 1862 but failed to pass. Private construction of irrigation works began in 1898, and the first water was diverted in 1901. Severe floods in 1905 and 1906 broke through the levees and canals, bringing Colorado River water to the Salton Depression and creating the Salton Sea. It took two years to bring the flood under control, and the strong possibility remained that the river could break through again. A flood would inundate more than one million acres of irrigated farms. Erosion of the channel also threatened to dry out additional irrigated lands at Yuma, Arizona, and farmland to the north. Furthermore, the 1905-1906 flood and subsequent floods exceeded the financial capacity of private companies and irrigation districts to maintain irrigation systems in the valley. The inability of private organizations to cope with the flood threat and the advent of proposed private hydroelectric power schemes resulted in appeals for governmental intervention. Conflicting claims by the states of the Colorado basin for river water and the perceived need to regulate public and private power caused Congress, on August 19, 1921, to authorize the states of the Colorado River drainage basin to enter into a compact dividing the basin’s waters. The Colorado River Commission, which was composed of representatives of the states as well as the secretary of commerce, was appointed by the president and states. At the commission’s first meeting, on January 26, 1922, Herbert Hoover, the U.S. secretary of commerce, was elected chairman. After prolonged controversy, the Colorado River Compact was signed by the commission on November 24, 1922, opening the way for unified development of the Colorado River basin. The means by which that development was achieved, however, remained controversial. The Colorado River Compact divided the basin into a
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Boulder Dam Is Completed
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Boulder Dam as seen from the Nevada side. (Archive Photos)
in producing and selling electrical power delayed construction. After prolonged political maneuvering, the fourth Swing-Johnson bill (named for its primary author, Congressman Philip D. Swing of California), which authorized the Boulder Canyon Project, passed Congress on December 19, 1928. Three previous versions failed to pass in 1922, 1923, and 1925. Under the terms of the act, also known as the Boulder Canyon Project Act, a high dam and reservoir were to be constructed at either Boulder or Black Canyon in order to control floods, improve navigation, regulate the flow of the Colorado River, store water for reclamation and other beneficial purposes exclusively within the United States, and generate electrical energy. Construction of the Imperial Dam and AllAmerican Canal, which were designed to divert water to the Imperial Valley by means of works entirely within the United States, also was authorized in the bill. Construction of the high dam commenced on May 16, 1931. Because of engineering considerations, the dam was built in Black Canyon instead of in Boulder Canyon. A town, a railroad, a highway, and power lines were built 2931
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lower basin comprising Arizona, California, and Nevada and an upper basin within Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. Both basins were allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water and the right to draw an additional one million acre-feet of unallocated water for beneficial consumption if additional water was available. Division of water within the upper and lower basins, however, was not specified, and conflict between Arizona and California remained an obstacle. The water allocated was designated primarily for domestic and agricultural purposes, secondarily for power generation, and thirdly for navigation. Much later, Mexico was allocated 1.5 million acrefeet from the surplus waters. If there was insufficient surplus water to supply the Mexicans, the lower and upper basins were required to surrender equal amounts to fulfill the Mexican quota. Arizona and the upper-basin states immediately objected, because California had already appropriated all, or nearly all, of its share of the water and was prepared to take more. In contrast, the upper-basin states lacked the dams and reservoirs needed for storage and diversion of their share of the water. In addition, conflicts over the role of government and private enterprise
Boulder Dam Is Completed
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
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to allow construction to proceed in the previously isolated, uninhabited area. Four diversion tunnels were driven around the site, and a cofferdam was erected to keep the river out of the dam site. The diversion tunnels became operable in March, 1931, and the upper cofferdam was completed in March, 1933. On June 6, 1933, the first concrete was poured for the dam after the rock abutments had been stripped and the valley floor excavated to bedrock. On March 23, the main body of the dam was completed to crest elevation. The large volume of concrete required cooling to dissipate the heat of curing and to avoid cracking and deforming the dam. For this purpose, refrigerant piping was buried in the concrete, and a substantial refrigeration plant was built to supply internal cold-water circulation. This technique, invented for Boulder Dam’s construction, was later used for building other massive concrete structures. 2932
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Significance Boulder Dam fulfilled all the purposes for which it was built. Irrigation water was supplied to the Imperial Valley and riverine lands below the dam. Water stored in the reservoir became available to maintain irDouglas rigation during droughts. Flooding on the Lower Colorado River occurred only once after completion of the dam, and the great flood of 1953 would have been far more severe without storage of much of the waters in Lake Mead. An installed capacity of 4.33 million kilowatt-hours of electric power was expected upon installation of all planned generators. Additional benefits of the dam’s construction included temporary stimulation of the economy in the midst of the Great Depression and creation of a major recreational resource. This resource, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, preserved a large area of desert environment. Boulder Dam was the first very large modern dam, and it initiated worldwide expansion of large-scale hydroelectric and irrigation-dam construction. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the Columbia basin system, and the PickSlogan program in the Missouri basin were developed in part because of the momentum generated by completion of Boulder Dam. The federal government constructed more than one thousand dams between 1930 and 1980. Construction of the Parker Dam and the Colorado River Aqueduct began immediately after completion of Boul-
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The dam began regulating Colorado River flow on February 1, 1935. It was dedicated on September 30, 1935, and was accepted by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes on March 1, 1936, two years and two months ahead of schedule, at a cost of $51,950,000—essentially the price at which it had been bid. By June, 1937, the power plant was in routine operation, although not all the contemplated turbines and generators were installed until decades later. The dam was renamed Hoover Dam in 1947 to honor Herbert Hoover, who as secretary of commerce and as president of the United States played a large role in the dam’s construction.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Water delivered by the Los Angeles and San Diego aqueducts permitted and stimulated the large population increase in Southern California. Irrigation water was ensured for the Imperial Valley and the districts along the Colorado River. Power from Hoover Dam serviced the pumps on the aqueducts and met a large part of the increased power demands during World War II. A magnesium reduction works at Henderson, Nevada, was the principal source of magnesium for the war effort. Inexpensive power also was sent to the zinc mines at Pioche, Nevada. The dam’s name has been subject to partisan political conflict and has been a source of confusion. The Democratic Swing-Johnson bills authorizing the dam referred to the Boulder Canyon Project and referred to the dam as Boulder Dam. On “driving the silver spike” on the branch line to the site, Ray Lyman Wilbur, Herbert Hoover’s Republican secretary of the interior, named the dam Hoover Dam, and this name subsequently was used in congressional bills and appropriations. In May, 1933, the new Democratic secretary of commerce, Harold Ickes, changed the name to Boulder Dam. In 1947, the first Congress elected with a Republican majority since 1932 passed a bill restoring the name Hoover Dam. Democratic President Harry S. Truman signed the bill. This ended the partisan series of name changes, but both names remain in common use. — Ralph L. Langenheim, Jr. Further Reading Berkman, Richard L., and W. Kip Viscusi. Damming the West. New York: Grossman, 1973. Excellent volume about the process of damming rivers in the American West. Places the construction of Boulder Dam into a larger context and underscores its catalytic role. Dunar, Andrew J., and Dennis McBride. Building Hoover Dam: An Oral History of the Great Depression. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2001. A people’s history of the dam’s construction that focuses on the day-to-day realities experienced by the workers. Hoover, H. C. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, the Cabinet, and the Presidency, 1920-1933. New York: Macmillan, 1952. Hoover’s own account of his actions, motives, and beliefs regarding the Boulder Canyon Project. Emphasizes his role in the Colorado River Commission and his work to clear the way for the project. Also relates details about the naming and renaming of the dam and about Hoover’s exclusion from the dedication ceremonies. Kleinsorge, Paul Lincoln. The Boulder Canyon Project: 2933
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der Dam. Aqueducts to service San Diego and the Coachella Valley were built somewhat later and met California’s primary objectives for the Boulder Canyon Project. Efforts to secure use of the upper basin and Arizona’s share of the water, however, were unsuccessful. The Colorado River Storage Project, which was approved by Congress in 1956, authorized construction of ten dams in the upper Colorado River basin. These dams were to store 48.5 million acre-feet of water and to ensure delivery of the upper basin’s share of water as stated in the Colorado River Compact. Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1966, was the largest of those actually built. The Central Arizona Project, authorized in the Colorado River Basin Project Act, signed on September 30, 1968, finally delivered Arizona’s share of water allocated under the Colorado River Compact. The Colorado River Basin Act also provided for a domestic water aqueduct to Las Vegas, authorized several upper-basin dams and projects, and assumed responsibility for delivering acceptable water to Mexico. Although the completed works in the Colorado basin are adequate to deliver the water allocated to the states of the basin and Mexico, most people believe that the river does not supply enough water to meet the quotas. The estimated average annual flow, on which the allocations were based, was determined by available flow rate measurements. These measurements, however, were made during a wetter-than-average climatic cycle. As a consequence, virtually no water reaches the Gulf of California. In addition, irrigation water leaches salts from the soil and returns saline water to the river. This process, as well as the natural increase in salinity as the river crosses the Colorado Plateau and the desert, so degraded the river water at the Mexican boundary that it became unfit for irrigation. Crop damage in Mexico provoked protests from the Mexican government, and these protests culminated in 1973 with a threat to bring the matter before the World Court. This protest has been somewhat quelled by the authorized construction of a $300 million desalination plant to treat water crossing the border and additional salinity-control projects upstream. Water flowing downstream to the Gulf of California is even more highly saline and has greatly altered wetlands on the Colorado River delta. Reduction in flow also has led to saltwater incursion on the delta. Boulder Dam and Lake Mead remove all sediment from the Colorado River. As a consequence, the clear water below the dam erodes the bed and banks of the river. Also, the delta and the floodplain no longer receive sediment.
Boulder Dam Is Completed
Boulder Dam Is Completed Historical and Economic Aspects. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1940. Provides excellent coverage of the legislative battle over the Boulder Canyon Project Act, or Swing-Johnson bill. Addresses how the legislative process works and accurately describes the underside of that process. _______. The Boulder Dam Project. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1941. Describes the Colorado River and the history of navigation, agriculture, flood control, and power development on the lower river. Reviews political action leading to construction of the dam and the financing and construction of the dam. Includes an economic evaluation of the project. Readable and comprehensive through 1940. McBride, Dennis. In the Beginning: A History of Boulder City, Nevada. Boulder City, Nev.: Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, 1981. Discusses the people involved in the project, although in a somewhat romanticized manner. Gives a feeling that through all the trials and tribulations, a sense of community was established. For a wide audience. Mann, Elizabeth, and Alan Witschonke. The Hoover Dam: The Story of Tough Times, Tough People, and the Taming of a Wild River. New York: Mikaya Press, 2001. A very readable account; written for high school students. Includes sidebars with first-person narratives. Fully illustrated. Moeller, B. S. Phil Swing and the Boulder Dam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Sympathetic political biography describes Swing’s dedication to furthering Imperial Valley irrigation. Minimizes Hoover’s contributions to the project. Readable and well documented. Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert. New York: Viking,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1986. Best seller about water policy in the western United States concludes that water is being overused, that water projects are largely uneconomical, and that desertification awaits. Describes and evaluates the entire Colorado River project. Stevens, Joseph E. Hoover Dam: An American Adventure. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Superb resource on the people who built the dam. Presents an especially strong account of the technical aspects of the construction, but pays little attention to the environmental impacts. Watkins, T. H., et al. The Grand Colorado: The Story of a River and Its Canyons. Palo Alto, Calif.: American West, 1969. The Colorado River is one of the great and majestic rivers in the United States. This volume captures the spirit of that river as it passes through some of the most hostile but beautiful areas if the country. Woodbury, D. J. The Colorado Conquest. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1941. Fictionalized account of events leading to construction of Hoover Dam and the AllAmerican Canal. Asserts that the actions and statements of the historical figures portrayed are factual and that the fictional characters are composites of individuals the author knew as a resident of Brawley, California. Very readable. See also: June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams; Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling; May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created; Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam; Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine
April 15, 1936-1939
Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine Palestinian Arabs united first through a general strike and then through violent resistance to the British mandate and its policy supporting a Jewish homeland. A severe British response left thousands dead, but the Arabs succeeded in curtailing immigration. Locale: Palestine Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; colonialism and occupation; immigration, emigration, and relocation Key Figures Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope (1874-1947), British high commissioner of Palestine First Earl Peel (William Robert Wellesley Peel; 18671937), head of the 1936 Peel Commission Amtn al-Wusaynt (c. 1895-1974), mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Muslim Council 4Abd All3 ibn al-Wusayn (1882-1951), leader of Transjordan and first ruler of Jordan, 1946-1951, as 4Abdullah I Abd al-Q3dir al-Wusaynt (1907-1948), military commander of Arab forces Izz al-Dtn al-Qass3m (1882-1935), Syrian-born Muslim preacher and militant activist Fawzt al-Q3wuqjt (1890-1977), leader of Syrian revolt who assisted the Palestinian uprising Orde Charles Wingate (1903-1944), British military commander Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), head of the World Zionist Congress Jam3l al-Wusaynt (1893-1982), chairman of the Arab Higher Committee
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Summary of Event The Shaw Commission, which had investigated the 1929 riots at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, concluded that the major cause of unrest in Palestine was the worsening economic condition of rural Palestinians, and it recommended limitations on Jewish immigration and land purchases. However, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald essentially ignored this report, and conditions grew more perilous for Palestinians. Instead of looking to the Palestinian countryside, the new British high commissioner, Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, recruited European Jewish investors to improve the urban economy. A younger generation of Arabs, who had been educated under the British mandate, began to direct their
hostility at the British occupiers. New parties were formed around the principle of noncompliance, including the pan-Arab Istqlal Party, which was founded in 1932 in the northern towns. At the same time, Khalil alBudayri, a Jerusalem physician impressed with Gandhi’s efforts in India, proposed a strategy of nonviolent resistance. This tactic had proved successful elsewhere in the Arab world: Demonstrations in Damascus in 1935 had led to renegotiations of agreements with the French, and similar demonstrations in Egypt affected British policies. In 1933, however, thousands of Arabs had taken to the streets of Jaffa to protest British policy. They were met with force, and a dozen Arabs were killed in one day. In response, Sheik Izz al-Dtn al-Qass3m, a fundamentalist Syrian Muslim preacher in Haifa, began a wave of militant attacks on Jews and British interests. Although he was killed by the British agents in November of 1935, he quickly became a martyr who inspired further resistance. On April 15, 1936, the murder of two Jews and the immediate retaliation by Jewish forces triggered an uprising. For the first time, various Arab factions were able to come together to form the Arab Higher Committee, which called for a general strike that lasted from April to November. The strike included a total boycott of Jewish goods and prohibition on the sale of goods to Jews. Paid agricultural workers on Jewish settlements quit their jobs, and many laborers in factories and construction accepted significant sacrifices by refusing to work. Those who had already been living at subsistence levels were stretched to the limit. Government workers continued in their positions in order to retain influence, but they contributed 10 percent of their earnings to aid other strikers. The Jerusalem elite were taxed to support the poor. Bands of young men took it upon themselves to enforce compliance by attacking both Jewish shopkeepers and Arabs suspected of dealings with Jews. In many ways, the strike was a failure. Vacated jobs were soon taken by Jewish immigrants. The closing of the port of Jaffa led Jews to develop their own port in Tel Aviv. This unified action, however, succeeded in attracting British attention. A commission of inquiry led by the First Earl Peel recommended that Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Jerusalem and a corridor to the port of Jaffa would remain under British authority. The division of territory fell roughly in line with population figures, which meant that Jews
Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine would receive only 20 percent of the land. However, the recommendation that the proposed Arab state be joined with Transjordan (now Jordan) under the authority of 4Abd All3 ibn al-Wusayn did not sit well with Arab notables of Jerusalem, who expected self-rule. It was an even greater blow to the 250,000 Arab inhabitants of the northern region who would be expected to cede their fertile land to the proposed Jewish state. These northern Arabs had taken an active role in the uprising’s earliest stages with the help of the Istqlal Party and the militant al-Qass3m. They rejected the offer and resumed the struggle. In 1937, the center of the uprising shifted from the cities to the rural areas. The movement was led by figures from within Palestine such as Abd al-Q3dir al-Wusaynt and by figures from outside, such as Fawzt al-Q3wuqjt. These men had gained military experience in Syria and Iraq, and they helped make the movement increasingly violent. Armed bands mined roads and tried to disrupt transportation, and the railroad was a frequent target. A newly constructed oil pipeline from Iraq to the port of Haifa was sabotaged, and eventually postal service came to a halt. A number of attacks were made on Jewish settlements. In September, rebels killed a significant number of Jews in Tiberias, and they raided British prisons and set political prisoners free in other cities. At one time, two thousand rebels occupied Jerusalem’s Old City for five days, and they wrested control of Jaffa away from the British for several months. Perhaps the blow that hit the British hardest was the September, 1937, murder in Nazareth of Lewis Andrews, the acting commissioner of Galilee. The numbers of British troops increased to twenty thousand, and they came down on the Arabs with an iron fist. Leaders of the Arab Higher Committee were arrested, more than one hundred militants were publicly hanged, and homes that harbored rebels were dynamited. Jerusalem mufti Amtn al-Wusaynt, the first head of the Arab Higher Committee, and others were forced into exile. The British also encouraged retaliation by the Jewish defense force, the Haganah, which by this time numbered around fifteen thousand troops. British military strategist Orde Charles Wingate came from India to organize Jewish forces, and he helped them make night raids on Arab villages. More extremist Jewish military groups emerged, but when one of these groups, Irgun, killed seventy-seven Arabs in a period of three weeks with bombs in Arab marketplaces, the British also publicly hanged one of the Irgun leaders. In its latter stages, 2936
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the uprising turned into a civil war: There were reports of Muslims attacking Christian Arabs and the poor attacking the elite. Many Arabs who supported cooperation with the British were killed or sent into exile. By 1939, the once-united Arab resistance was fragmented and exhausted, and by the time order was restored, nearly five thousand Arabs, four hundred Jews, and two hundred Britons had been killed. Significance The uprising of the late 1930’s has been described as the event that shaped the Palestinian Arab identity. For the first time, Arabs were able to unite in a sustained push for a common cause, and their efforts changed British policy. The British mandate had been built on the principle of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which had promised to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine without fully considering the existing population’s needs. Unlimited Jewish immigration and land purchase had been the norm for two decades, but after the 1936-1939 uprising, the British reversed themselves. The 1936 Peel Commission, the Woodhead Commission, and a 1938 white paper demonstrated that partition was not a satisfactory solution, and they led to limits on immigration. This latter decision was the result of a follow-up diplomatic conference in London in 1939. Instilled with new confidence, the Arabs demanded that they be able to negotiate directly with the British. Meeting separately with Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann reiterated the need for continued unlimited Jewish immigration, especially with the precarious position of European Jews. Jam3l al-Wusaynt, speaking for the Arab delegation, asked for a reconsideration of an independent Arab state promised by the British diplomat Henry McMahon during World War I. In the end, the British agreed with the Arab proposals, and the British government issued another white paper on May 17, 1939, that called for the eventual creation of a single Palestinian state. At the time, the region was about 70 percent Arab and 30 percent Jewish, and the British promised to limit Jewish immigration to ensure an Arab majority. The 1939 white paper reinterpreted the Balfour Declaration’s promise of a Jewish homeland, saying that it would be determined by the needs of the existing Arab inhabitants. With Jewish interests now defeated in the diplomatic arena, their struggle shifted to force the British out of Palestine. The extremist military groups Irgun and Stern Gang began to direct terrorist attacks on the British. The well-organized Haganah began to prepare itself for its war of independence after the departure of the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 British and the eventual partition of Palestine by the United Nations. —Fred Strickert Further Reading Bowden, Tim. “The Politics of Arab Rebellion in Palestine, 1936-1939.” Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1975): 147-74. Chronicles the difficulties inherent in attempts to organize the rural peasantry and compares this population to the traditional urban political elite. Kimmerling, Baruch, and Joel S. Migdal. The Palestinian People: A History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. Sees the Arab uprising as the formative event in shaping Palestinian identity. Morris, Benni. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Reevaluation of the history of the period draws on original sources. Pappe, Ilan. A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination versity Press, 2004. Concerned that Israelis and Palestinians have separate histories shaped by their own ideologies, Pappe writes an interwoven story that focuses on the lives of the victims, not the powerful. Segev, Tom. One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Translated by Haim Watzman. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999. A comprehensive journal drawn from the diaries and letters of three decades of the British mandate. Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 2d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Designed as a textbook for undergraduate college classes. It gives a balanced introduction to the conflict. See also: 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine; Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots.
June 19, 1936
Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination The Robinson-Patman Act amended the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 to make it more difficult for firms to charge different prices to different buyers, particularly if the buyers were businesses buying to resell. Also known as: Anti-Chain-Store Act; RobinsonPatman Antidiscrimination Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Business and labor; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Marvel Mills Logan (1874-1939), U.S. senator from Kentucky, 1931-1939 Wright Patman (1893-1976), U.S. congressman from Texas, 1929-1976 Joseph Taylor Robinson (1872-1937), U.S. congressman from Arkansas, 1903-1913, and U.S. senator from Arkansas, 1913-1937
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Summary of Event The Robinson-Patman Act was passed in order to strengthen the price-discrimination provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Price discrimination occurs when a seller charges different prices to different
buyers for the same product or service when there are no comparable differences in the cost of serving the different customers. As examples, barbershops and motionpicture theaters commonly charge children less than they charge adults, and electricity rates are often higher for residential customers than for businesses. Charging different prices to different buyers can often increase profits for the sellers, provided that the seller can separate the markets. By separating the markets, the seller ensures that favored buyers do not resell to the less-favored ones, and that demand is significantly less sensitive to price in one market than in another. During the notorious “trust movement” of the late nineteenth century, many believed that aggressive and predatory firms such as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company used price discrimination as a means of harassing rivals. The big trust might offer its product for sale at a very low price in the area served by the smaller and weaker rival, thereby “persuading” the rival firm to enter into collusion with the trust or to sell out to it on favorable terms. At the same time, the trust might be selling at a much higher price in other localities, although the price would be limited by people’s ability to buy cheaply in one area and ship for resale into a more expensive area. Price discrimination’s ill repute caused it to be explic-
Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination itly outlawed by section 2 of the Clayton Act of 1914, which forbade it in situations whose effect “may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.” If price differences reflected differences in grade, quality, quantity, costs of selling, or costs of transportation, they were not discriminatory. Further, a discriminatory price offered “in good faith to meet competition” would not be illegal. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), created in 1914, was given the principal responsibility for enforcing the act, responding mainly to complaints from injured parties. Not many cases were brought by the FTC, and its efforts to prevent price discrimination met with a number of rebuffs from the courts. Strong pressure to amend the Clayton Act reflected a shift in focus. During the 1920’s, the U.S. economy experienced a large increase in the activity of chain stores such as the A&P grocery chain and mass marketers such as Sears, Roebuck. Because of their size, these firms were often able to gain price concessions from their suppliers, price concessions that worked to the competitive disadvantage of smaller wholesalers and retailers trying to compete with such large operations as A&P or Sears. The FTC completed an exhaustive report on chain stores in 1934 and provided examples of the preferential treatment of large buyers. The FTC also issued a complaint against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, alleging that unlawful price discrimination was involved in its contract to sell tires to Sears at cost plus 6 percent. The commission alleged that Sears was gaining an advantage of 29 to 40 percent over its retail competitors by this discriminatory pricing arrangement. Political efforts to limit chain store activities were undertaken by independent wholesalers and retailers on a number of fronts. A number of states, for example, levied special taxes on chain stores. The lobbying efforts intensified when the Great Depression drove many small firms out of business. The legal counsel for the United States Wholesale Grocers Association drafted a bill to amend the price discrimination law to make it a stronger protection for smaller firms against mass distributors. Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas and Representative Wright Patman of Texas introduced the bill in Congress, where it was commonly known as the AntiChain-Store Act. In Senate debate, Senator Marvel Mills Logan of Kentucky presented the major arguments for the bill. The Robinson-Patman Act was approved on June 19, 1936. The test criterion of illegal discrimination was broadened: Discrimination was now illegal if its effect 2938
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 might be “to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them.” The thrust of this change was that price discrimination might be illegal if it simply caused injury to some competitor, even if the vigor of competition itself was not impaired and no monopoly was created. The law was also amended to justify quantity discounts only if they made “due allowance” for cost differences; thus firms accused of illegal price discrimination might be required to present data on the costs of handling orders and shipments of different sizes. Whereas the Clayton Act permitted discriminatory pricing “to meet competition,” the Robinson-Patman Act restricted this provision; firms could make price cuts “to meet the equally low price of a competitor” but presumably not to undercut that price. The FTC was given authority to set limits on quantity discounts if it found that “available purchasers in greater quantities are so few as to render differentials on account thereof unjustly discriminatory or promotive of monopoly.” In other words, a price reduction might be illegal—even if it could be shown to reflect proportionately lower costs—if it appeared to give monopoly power to one or two very large buyers, such as Sears or A&P. The FTC, however, has never invoked such restrictions. Large purchasers were often able to dispense with the services of brokers in dealing with suppliers. They would sometimes pressure their suppliers to give them price concessions in lieu of the brokerage charges those suppliers might have paid under different conditions. The 1936 law prohibited such brokerage allowances when no independent broker was involved. Special provisions such as promotional allowances, advertising allowances, and services or facilities provided by sellers were required to be available to all businesses that bought a company’s products, on “proportionally equal” terms. If Coca-Cola Company, for example, was willing to subsidize Kroger’s advertising of Coke, it had to make similar subsidies available to smaller retail firms, proportional perhaps to their purchases of Coke during the previous year. In the first twelve years following the RobinsonPatman Act, the FTC issued 186 cease-and-desist orders involving price discrimination. Of these, 104 were based on the prohibitions against paying brokerage allowances where no brokers’ services were involved. Immediately after passage of the act, the A&P grocery chain began to insist that its suppliers provide price concessions equal to former brokerage allowances; the concessions were to
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Enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, like that of the original Clayton Act, was primarily the responsibility of the FTC, which was authorized to issue orders to “cease and desist” when it found evidence of illegal price discrimination. These orders carried no direct penalty, and if the firms continued their violations, the FTC had to go to court to enforce its orders. The 1936 law also provided that injured parties could sue for damages. The issue of price discrimination reached the Supreme Court in the 1993 case Brooke Group v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco, but the FTC has not had any notable victories in price-discrimination issues since. Significance The Robinson-Patman Act has not been well regarded by economists studying antitrust policy. Firms competing actively for business may often charge different prices to different customers, and such practices need not lead to oppressive monopoly. Wholesale and retail trade, on which much of the litigation has focused, is generally characterized by easy entry for new firms and absence of sizable economies of large-scale operation. Those characteristics make it unlikely that a dangerous monopoly will arise. The A&P grocery chain, which was a primary target of the law, faded into insignificance; apparently, it did not benefit greatly from any monopoly power. A large proportion of FTC orders relating to price discrimination involved the highly competitive food products industry. Critics of the law hold that it had the purpose and effect of reducing the vigor of competition. They argue that the test of illegality has often been whether some competitor was injured by a low price rather than whether the vigor of competition itself was impaired. Competition has the potential to injure competitors, but it is desirable (according to economists) as a way of improving efficiency and securing high-quality products at low prices for consumers. Defenders of the Robinson-Patman Act argued that large firms have strategic advantages that do not reflect superior quality or efficiency and that it is appropriate to counterbalance these. For example, large firms may be in a better position to lobby for preferential treatment by government units or to engage in costly lawsuits against smaller rivals. Still, only a small minority (approximately 5 percent) of price-discrimination complaints filed with the FTC typically involve firms with more than one hundred million dollars in annual sales. Many relatively small firms face the possibility of being cited for violations, and the law has given rise to a large and confusing body of litigation. The consensus among econo2939
1936
take the form of quantity discounts. The FTC moved quickly to block this and was upheld in the courts. In some other brokerage allowance cases, prohibitions appear to have been unfairly directed against independent purchasing agencies and cooperative buying agencies serving small firms. The next most frequent type of complaint concerned promotional allowances, subsidies and services made available to large buyers on a discriminatory basis. The FTC issued 54 such cease-and-desist orders up to the beginning of 1948. For example, Corn Products Refining Company was ordered to stop paying to advertise products of the Curtiss Candy Company, since it was not comparably advertising for smaller customers. The Elizabeth Arden cosmetics firm was ordered to stop its policy of supplying demonstrators to help its large retail customers sell its products, because smaller retailers were not offered similar opportunities. The FTC also dealt with a number of cases involving quantity discounts. Firms offering discounts on individual orders sometimes successfully showed cost justifications, but price concessions based on cumulative orders over a sustained period were usually banned. Morton Salt, for example, was permitted to sell more cheaply for carload shipments than for less-than-carload shipments, but it was not allowed to offer further discounts based on the number of cases purchased over a twelve-month period. Ironically, there have been very few cases of local price cutting like those attributed to the old predatory trusts. Some such considerations were involved in a case involving the Utah Pie Company, a small local enterprise that lost significant sales in its home territory when major national firms made discriminatory price reductions for sales in Salt Lake City. The Supreme Court found the discrimination illegal in Utah Pie Company v. Continental Baking Company (1967) even though Utah Pie continued to be profitable during the price war. The FTC was able to use the Robinson-Patman Act as the basis for an attack on systems of delivered pricing for certain heavy products such as steel, cement, and corn syrup. These involved the so-called basing-point system, in which customers in a given locality would find all suppliers quoting identical delivered prices, regardless of how close the supplier might be. A seller shipping from a longer distance would realize a smaller net price after paying shipping charges. The pricing system was employed as a way for sellers to avoid direct price competition with one another. A series of cases in 1945 and 1948 found that such pricing systems violated the RobinsonPatman Act.
Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination
Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination mists is that the Robinson-Patman Act is one of many well-intentioned pieces of economic micromanagement that has ended up generating more costs than benefits. —Paul B. Trescott Further Reading Adelman, Morris A. A&P: A Study in Price-Cost Behavior and Public Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. The A&P grocery chain was a major target of the Robinson-Patman Act and other antitrust action. Adelman examines these issues in detail and comes out largely in defense of the company. Benson, Bruce L., and M. L. Greenhut. “Special Interests, Bureaucrats, and Antitrust: An Explanation of the Antitrust Paradox.” In Antitrust and Regulation, edited by Ronald E. Grieson. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1986. Looks at the competing pressures of special interests on the Federal Trade Commission that led to policies aimed at protecting competitors against competition. Includes interpretation of the Robinson-Patman Act by the FTC. Blackburn, John D., Elliott I. Klayman, and Martin H. Malin. The Legal Environment of Business. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003. Collegelevel text presents an up-to-date view of the RobinsonPatman Act, with extensive quotations from court cases. Blair, Roger D., and David L. Kaserman. Antitrust Economics. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1985. Textbook treatment explains the economic reasoning behind price discrimination and reviews the law and cases, including relatively recent ones. Critical of the law. Crews, Wayne. “Reexamining Antitrust: Can ‘Anticompetitive’ Business Practices Benefit Consumers?” USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education) 130, no. 2862 (March, 2002): 1-28. Advocates a skeptical approach to study of antitrust policy, particularly with regard to modern corporations like AOL/ Time Warner and Microsoft. Dirlam, Joel B., and Alfred E. Kahn. Fair Competition: The Law and Economics of Antitrust Policy. Ithaca,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1954. Stylish, opinionated analysis that is very critical of the Federal Trade Commission’s presentation of price discrimination cases but praises the law’s tendency to restrict the power of dominant firms. Gellhorn, Ernest, William E. Kovacic, and Stephen Calkins. Antitrust Law and Economics in a Nutshell. Series. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2004. Consistently accurate guide to the confusing world of antitrust law gives special attention to the roles of evidence, the granting of immunity, and government intervention. Patman, Wright. Complete Guide to the RobinsonPatman Act. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. One of the creators of the law describes its purposes and effects. Biased, but has an interesting chapter titled “Supporters and Opponents of the Act.” One appendix lists all the cases brought to date, and another presents the legislative history, with committee reports and debates. A valuable, comprehensive source. Purdy, Harry L., Martin L. Lindahl, and William A. Carter. Corporate Concentration and Public Policy. 2d ed. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950. This older college text gives a good brief survey of the chief provisions and major early cases involving the RobinsonPatman Act. Scherer, Frederic M. Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. The most comprehensive economic examination of the law and its effects. Very critical of the anticompetitive tendencies of the law and its administration by the FTC. See also: 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing; Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act; Aug. 17, 1937: Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel
June 25, 1936
The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel The Douglas DC-3 revolutionized air travel by providing passenger comfort and operating capabilities and by creating profit-making potential in the fledgling airline industry. Locale: United States Categories: Transportation; manufacturing and industry; travel and recreation; space and aviation Key Figures Donald W. Douglas, Sr. (1892-1981), founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company Jack Frye (1904-1959), vice president of flight operations for Transcontinental & Western Air Lines Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-1974), chief technical adviser for Transcontinental & Western Air Lines W. E. Patterson (1899-1980), president of United Air Lines Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), president of Eastern Air Lines C. R. Smith (1899-1990), president of American Airlines
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1936
Summary of Event The Air Mail Act of 1925 authorized the U.S. postmaster general to contract with any individual, firm, or corporation for the carriage of mail by aircraft between points designated by the postmaster general. This legislation signaled the beginning of what would become the airline industry. The Air Mail Act’s first amendment (in 1926) changed the basis for payment to these contract mail carriers, but even with this change, which essentially amounted to subsidization, the young airlines frequently had difficulty generating a profit. The carriers came to recognize that earning additional revenue would be easier if aircraft could carry passengers in addition to mail. This demand eventually led to a larger aircraft, suitable for combined mail and passenger service. The first generation of these aircraft could accommodate from two to six passengers, but soon, larger multiengine aircraft became operational. The most popular of these were the all-metal Ford trimotor and Fokker’s wood and fabric trimotor, which used laminated plywood as the wing skin. It was this plywood wing that ultimately would lead to Donald W. Douglas’s DC series. In March, 1931, a Fokker trimotor owned by Transcontinental & Western Air Lines (TWA, which became
Trans World Airlines in 1950) crashed while en route from Kansas City to Wichita. One of the passengers aboard was Knute Rockne, the University of Notre Dame’s famous and beloved football coach, and his death was mourned around the nation. Public pressure began to mount on the Department of Commerce as the news media became increasingly strident in calling for public release of information on the cause of the accident, particularly because Rockne had been one of the passengers. Ultimately, the Department of Commerce concluded not only that the accident was traceable to the Fokker’s wooden wing structure but also that all Fokker F-10’s should be grounded temporarily while inspections and structural fixes were made. Publicity surrounding the accident turned public opinion against Fokker’s trimotors, forcing TWA to depend solely on its Ford trimotors. The airline’s vice president of flight operations, Jack Frye, recognized that a more modern aircraft type was needed as soon as possible. Frye visited Seattle in an attempt to obtain some of Boeing Aircraft’s new B-247 models. The B-247 was a ten-passenger, streamlined, all-metal airplane that Boeing thought would revolutionize air travel. The first sixty B-247’s, two years’ worth of production, were destined for United Air Lines, an affiliated company then under the Boeing umbrella. Frye and his engineers, with technical advice from aviation pioneer Charles A. Lindbergh, then proceeded to develop a set of specifications for a trimotored transport, and proposals were solicited from a number of aircraft-manufacturing companies, the smallest of which was Donald W. Douglas’s company in Santa Monica, California. Douglas’s engineers, after studying TWA’s specifications, determined that they could meet the stringent requirements with a twin-engine airplane by using new design applications as well as new, more powerful engines then being developed by both the Wright Aeronautical Company and Pratt & Whitney. A contract was signed on September 20, 1932, for the first airplane, at a cost of $125,000; the contract also included a one-year option for up to sixty additional planes priced at $58,000 each. TWA later admitted to Douglas that obtaining financing for the purchase had been difficult. Bankers, it seems, doubted that an aircraft could be built that would meet all of TWA’s specifications. Eleven months after receiving the specifications, Douglas’s first version of this new generation of aircraft, the twelve-passenger Douglas
The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel Commercial-1 (DC-1), made its first flight. Even before the plane’s delivery to TWA, the airline asked for design changes that would, among other things, increase the DC-1’s capacity by two passengers. TWA quickly ordered twenty-five units of this new model, the DC-2. Douglas began work on the new version immediately after flight tests had been completed on the DC-1, and in May, 1934, TWA took delivery of its first DC-2. The DC-1 first flew on July 1, 1933. It could operate at 180 miles per hour while carrying twelve passengers. On the other hand, United’s Boeing B-247, the pride of its fleet, could carry only ten passengers while cruising at 165 miles per hour. At TWA’s insistence, Douglas immediately started making refinements to the DC-1, and orders began coming in for this improved model, the DC-2. Within two years, the DC-2 had evolved into the larger and more powerful DC-3, capable of carrying twenty-one passengers at 195 miles per hour. The DC-3 would continue as the workhorse of the world’s airlines through World War II and into the early postwar years. One of the earliest DC-2’s was delivered to KLM, the Royal Dutch Airline, and it was almost immediately entered in the MacRobertson Trophy Race, which started in London and ended in Melbourne, Australia. The DC-2’s second-place finish to a British twin-engine fighter aircraft—it placed well ahead of a Boeing B-247, even while carrying a few passengers—helped firmly establish the DC-2 in the traveling public’s mind as the fastest and most reliable passenger aircraft yet made. As the number of carriers ordering the DC-2 continued to grow, Douglas’s engineers began working with specifications developed by American Airlines for an aircraft with sleeping berths that could provide American’s passengers with overnight transcontinental sleeper service. Stretching and enlarging of the DC-2 created a new aircraft, the DC-3. Because of its combination of operating performance, passenger comfort, and operating costs, the DC-3 quickly became the most widely used passenger airplane in the world. C. R. Smith, president of American Airlines, commenting on his company’s high regard for the DC-3, said that it was “the first airplane in the world that could make money just by hauling passengers.” In February, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt abruptly canceled all existing airmail contracts and transferred airmail operations to the Army Air Corps. The service, hampered by continuing and worsening budgetary reductions, was anxious to demonstrate its capabilities to Congress and the American public. Tragically, during the Army’s four months of airmail opera2942
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tion, sixty-six crashes took place, with twelve fatalities, three of which occurred as Army pilots were en route to their assigned origination points. As the Army was preparing to fly the mail, the DC-1 was used to demonstrate the capabilities of airlines and their new aircraft. In a highly publicized demonstration flight only hours before the Army was to take over airmail carriage, TWA’s Jack Frye and Eastern’s Eddie Rickenbacker flew the DC-1 from Burbank Air Terminal near Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in slightly more than thirteen elapsed hours, with two refueling stops, at Kansas City, Missouri, and Columbus, Ohio. The flight’s success did much to convince the American public of the efficiency and capability of the nation’s airlines. Although airmail contracts were again awarded to private carriers after June 1, 1934, the Roosevelt administration’s change of heart resulted not from the February DC-1 demonstration flight of Frye and Rickenbacker but instead from growing public displeasure with the Army’s obvious inability to sustain the airmail operation: Its inexperienced pilots flew virtually obsolete aircraft. Contractually, the airlines had been receiving from 42 to 54 cents per mile for airmail carriage, but the cost to the taxpayer of the Army’s operation was put at $2.21 per mile, an unacceptable difference. In June, with the contract situation resolved and airlines again carrying the mail, TWA began operating DC2’s on its overnight service from Newark to Los Angeles, with intermediate stops at Chicago, Kansas City, and Albuquerque. At the same time, American Airlines, on its overnight transcontinental service, was operating a sleeper version of the Curtiss Condor, a twelve- to fifteen-passenger, twin-engine airplane that was the last bi-wing air transport in commercial service in the United States. After TWA quickly gained a competitive edge with its DC-2’s, American began looking for a replacement aircraft for the Condor, one capable of carrying a greater payload at a faster speed and at lower operating costs. American’s search began and ended at Douglas Aircraft. With American’s order for an upgraded version of the DC-2 that could accommodate sleeper berths, Douglas realized that this new model, the Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST), would essentially be a new airplane. The fuselage, enlarged to accommodate sleeper berths, could be fitted with twenty-one seats, and this new, larger version’s operating performance still handily exceeded that of the two-year-old DC-2’s. Although Douglas’s development costs for its DC-3 series reached $400,000, prospects for sales of this series were strong enough to as-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 suage most concerns. American Airlines was so pleased by the combination of passenger comfort, performance, and operating costs that over the next few years, at a cost of $110,000 per plane, its aircraft fleet gradually was converted exclusively to DC-3’s. This revolutionary airplane’s payload capacity, gross weight, and operating performance exceeded those of any other aircraft then in commercial operation. The DC-3 became an instant success with the airlines and their passengers. Although the DC-2 had proven successful, Douglas decided to terminate further production when it became evident that the DC-3 would outperform its predecessor rather significantly, and at lower operating costs. Up to that point, Douglas had built a total of 191 DC-2’s and had recouped all of its development costs with production of the seventy-fifth aircraft. The success of the DC series caused Boeing to terminate its B-247 line after the production of its seventy-fifth aircraft. William Boeing’s revolutionary new transport had been in production for less than three years. In the meantime, a provision of the 1934 Air Mail Act prohibited any interlocking of airlines with aircraftmanufacturing companies, a practice common up to that time. As a result, United Air Lines was freed of dependence on Boeing as its principal aircraft supplier, and
The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel United’s new president, W. E. Patterson, immediately contacted Douglas. United’s primary transport, the Boeing B-247, could not match the DC-3’s carrying capacity, performance, or cost. Patterson realized that he needed to upgrade United’s fleet quickly, and as a result, over the next few years United became almost exclusively a DC-3 airline. Eastern Air Lines quickly followed suit. It was becoming obvious to the entire industry that this new Douglas transport was revolutionizing air travel throughout the world. American Airlines, the first operator of the new DC-3 series, began taking delivery of both versions in mid1936. It put its first DC-3, a sleeper version, into regular line service on June 25, 1936. Most aviation chroniclers consider that day to have marked the beginning of a new era in air transportation, one that marked an end to airline operations that had been delivering, at best, only marginal profits on an irregular basis. The DC-3 and its predecessor the DC-2 proved so popular with the traveling public that within the first calendar year following the DC-3’s introduction and first flight, one million passengers had flown on scheduled airlines in the United States. This total would grow significantly each year; after doubling within two years, it exceeded two million in 1939. Douglas originally had estimated a total sales volume of
1936
A DC-3 in flight in 1959. (Library of Congress)
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The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel fifty DC-3’s, but because of the airline’s popularity with travelers and operators alike, a total of 803 eventually were built. In addition, almost 10,400 military versions of the DC-3—known as the C-47—saw service during World War II.
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Significance In the years following the Army’s around-the-world flight in 1924 with Douglas-built airplanes, the company continued designing and building mostly military aircraft, but TWA’s 1931 accident in Kansas had the ironic result of revolutionizing air travel by presenting Douglas with an opportunity to enter the commercial aircraft market. TWA needed a new type of aircraft that could exceed the performance capabilities of the Boeing B-247, which was about to be introduced by its chief competitor, United Air Lines. The B-247 gave United a definite competitive advantage over TWA, with its older and slower trimotors, but that advantage lasted only for little more than one year. On August 22, 1932, Jack Frye, seeking a new and competitive airplane for TWA, solicited proposals by sending letters containing the airline’s detailed specifications to six aircraft manufacturing companies. Donald Douglas later would refer to Frye’s letter as the “birth certificate of the modern airliner.” The DC-3 revolutionized commercial air travel throughout the world. Its well-deserved reputation for reliability and safety attracted more and more people to air travel. Within two years of the first DC-3 commercial flight, a significant industry milestone was reached when, for the first time, passenger revenues exceeded airmail revenues. From an airline standpoint, the DC-3 offered a virtually unbeatable combination of revenue potential and low operating costs. It is little wonder that by 1939, 90 percent of the world’s airlines were using the Douglas DC-3, a plane that unquestionably changed airline travel forever. —James D. Matthews
evolution, although much more emphasis is placed on its military service in World War II than on its role in the commercial airline industry. Holden, Henry M. The Boeing 247: The First Modern Commercial Airplane. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1991. Interesting account of the development of the DC-3’s primary competitor, Boeing’s B-247, and the DC-3’s effect on Boeing and its pride and joy. Johnson, Robert E. Airway One. Chicago: United Air Lines, 1974. Written by a longtime member of United Air Lines’ top management, this is one of the better corporate narratives. Includes an interesting look at United’s developmental years and its changeover from a Boeing B-247 airline to a DC-3 airline. Kane, Robert M. Air Transportation. 11th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1993. Primarily a college-level aviation textbook. Includes some interesting information on the early airline period and the evolution of the DC-3. Morrison, Wilbur H. Donald W. Douglas: A Heart with Wings. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. An excellent account of the DC-3’s development, seen as one of the landmark accomplishments of this aviation pioneer. Pattillo, Donald M. Pushing the Envelope: The American Aircraft Industry. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. An excellent resource for those looking for a survey history of the American aerospace industry. Makes clear the relationships between the aircraft industry and the military and economic power structures and is careful to avoid overly technical language. Pisano, Dominick A. “The Crash That Killed Knute Rockne.” Air & Space Smithsonian 6 (December, 1991): 88. A fascinating narrative of the accident that would lead TWA to request proposals for a new airplane that ultimately would become the revolutionary DC-3.
Further Reading Blistein, Roger E. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. An excellent first stop for those looking for information about the history of aviation in the United States. Comprehensive and very readable. Glines, Carroll V., and Wendell F. Moseley. The DC-3: The Story of a Fabulous Airplane. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1966. An excellent account of the DC-3’s
See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Spanish Civil War Begins
July 17, 1936
Spanish Civil War Begins The Spanish Civil War began as a military uprising against the Spanish Republic and resulted in a threeyear civil conflict that brought Francisco Franco and the Fascist Falange to power. Locale: Spain; Morocco Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics Key Figures Manuel Azaña y Díaz (1880-1940), president of the Spanish Republic, 1936-1939 José Calvo Sotelo (1893-1936), monarchist leader in the Cortes Santiago Casares Quiroga (1884-1950), prime minister of the Spanish Republic, May-July, 1936 Francisco Franco (1892-1975), leader of the uprising against the Spanish Republic and later military leader of Spain, 1939-1975 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Francisco Largo Caballero (1869-1946), prime minister of the Spanish Republic, 1936-1937 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), premier of Italy, 19221943 José Antonio Primo de Rivera (1903-1936), leader of the Falange José Sanjurjo (fl. early twentieth century), one of the leaders of the uprising against the Spanish Republic
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1936
Summary of Event In the spring of 1936, Spain was on the verge of chaos. Five years of Republican government had heightened the tensions of the previous hundred years. A liberal, reform government had been defeated by conservatives in 1933, who began to reverse changes that had benefited workers and supporters of federalism. The elections of February brought the Popular Front government to power, but its varied composition of Liberals and Socialists, with tacit support from the Anarchists, meant that it could not act effectively to curb public and civil disorder caused by the Anarchists and the right-wing Falange. The Anarchists, impatient with Republican reforms and desiring a revolution immediately, had begun uprisings and takeovers of land after the election. There were many strikes, and economic chaos threatened. The Falange, the Fascist party organized and led by José An-
tonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former dictator of Spain, responded with violence to the Anarchists’ actions to show the Republican government’s inability to cope with the problem. There were assassinations and gunfights in the streets. In addition, military and rightwing groups were organizing to oppose the newly elected government. Finally, the election victory of the Popular Front polarized both left-wing and right-wing extremes, and the country seemed to be moving inexorably toward violence. Even so, the government of Prime Minister Santiago Casares Quiroga refused to believe reports of military plots, while President Manuel Azaña y Díaz frantically sought a political solution that would not require arming workers against the military. José Calvo Sotelo, a monarchist deputy in the Cortes (Spain’s national legislative assembly), José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and General José Sanjurjo formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government and restore order to Spain. Although they did not commit themselves to a specific form of government, they were able to get the support of the monarchist leaders, who hoped for the restoration of Alfonso XIII, and the Falangists, who wanted to establish a Fascist state. Throughout the spring of 1936, they made plans for an uprising that summer. In the Cortes, where Calvo Sotelo regularly complained of the civil disorder, the government could not answer the complaints of its critics. President Azaña did little except wait for the situation to improve, for he feared the leftist extremists. Francisco Largo Caballero, leader of the Socialist Party and one of the mainstays of the Republic, staged a march of ten thousand workers in Madrid on May 1, 1936, to demand a workers’ government. There was talk about a leftist revolution to prevent a rightist coup and to implement long-desired radical reforms. On July 13, 1936, Calvo Sotelo was arrested and murdered in revenge for a Falangist assassination of a Liberal policeman. So great was the public’s shock at this deed that the military conspirators decided to take advantage of the nation’s mood and advanced the date of their planned uprising. On July 17, military garrisons of the Canary Islands, Morocco, and throughout Spain pronounced against the Republican government and began taking over control of local governments. Despite the uprisings, Azaña and the government refused to distribute arms to proletarian organizations and the trade unions.
Spanish Civil War Begins
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Nevertheless, workers seized arms and resisted the military. In Madrid and Barcelona, armed workers were responsible for the failure of the insurrection, which had triumphed in about half of Spain. Significance The conflict that began on July 17 settled into a prolonged civil war. The conspirators, called the Nationalists, had the support of the rightist elements—the Church, the landed classes, and many moderates—but, more important, they were able to get military aid and material from the Italian Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, and from Adolf Hitler, the German chancellor. Mussolini wanted influence in Spanish affairs, and Hitler wanted to
keep Mussolini embroiled in war so as to draw him away from the Western powers. By October, 1936, General Francisco Franco had emerged as the leader of the Nationalists, and in that month he proclaimed himself caudillo, or military leader, of Spain. On the Republican, or Loyalist, side chaos prevailed. The military uprising allowed the Anarchists to implement a proletarian revolution in several areas of Spain. Workers seized factories and elected committees to oversee operations, while owners were murdered or fled. Azaña and Largo Caballero, who had become prime minister, were powerless to stop Anarchist workers, whose activities, while fulfilling the hopes of many workers, antagonized many moderates
Division of Spain, 1936 B a y
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 who came to support the Nationalists. The Republicans’ only source of outside aid was Soviet Russia, whose leader, Joseph Stalin, sent supplies and military advisers. With its control over the distribution of Russian aid, the Spanish Communist Party, a relatively small and powerless group before the uprising, became powerful. The democratic Western powers stood aside from the conflict, hoping that it would not spread into a general European war. Throughout 1936 and 1937, the Nationalists slowly encircled the Republicans, whose army was largely undisciplined. By 1939, the superior military force of the Nationalists had prevailed, and in April, General Franco seized Madrid, the last Republican stronghold, and the war was over. —José M. Sánchez and James A. Baer
Spanish Civil War Begins
Franco’s Fascism In 1936, General Francisco Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists and he proclaimed himself Spain’s military leader. He would remain in power to 1975. Here are some excerpts from Franco’s speeches during the Spanish Civil War: • July 17, 1936, on the eve of the war: Spaniards! The nation calls to her defense all those of you who hear the holy name of Spain, those in the ranks of the Army and Navy who have made a profession of faith in the service of the Motherland, all those who swore to defend her to the death against her enemies. The situation in Spain grows more critical every day; anarchy reigns in most of the countryside and towns; government-appointed authorities encourage revolts, when they do not actually lead them; murderers use pistols and machine guns to settle their differences and to treacherously assassinate innocent people, while the public authorities fail to impose law and order. Revolutionary strikes of all kinds paralyze the life of the nation, destroying its sources of wealth and creating hunger, forcing working men to the point of desperation. • November 26, 1937: I will impose my will by victory and will not enter into discussion. We open our arms to all Spaniards and offer them the opportunity of helping to form the Spain of tomorrow which will be a land of justice, mercy, and fraternity. The war is already won on the battlefields as in the economic, commercial, industrial, and even social spheres. I will only agree to end it militarily. My troops will advance. The choice for the enemy is fight or unconditional surrender, nothing else. • July 18, 1938: Our fight is a crusade in which Europe’s fate is at stake. . . . Spain was great when she had a State Executive with a missionary character. Her ideals decayed when a serious leader was replaced by assemblies of irresponsible men, adopting foreign thought and manners. The nation needs unity to face modern problems, particularly in Spain after the severest trial of her history. Separatism and class war must be abolished and justice and education must be imposed. The new leaders must be characterized by austerity, morality, and industry. Spaniards must adopt the military and religious virtues of discipline and austerity. All elements of discord must be removed.
analysis of both the political and the military battle for Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Includes maps and photographs. Payne, Stanley G. The Spanish Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. Thorough account of events in Spain from the early twentieth century through the Civil War. Focuses on the revolutionary changes occurring in the Republican Zone. Informative, although clearly biased toward the liberal Republic. Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1986. Short interpretive work argues that the military uprising under Franco ended a Republican government that was doing the best it could for Spain. 2947
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Further Reading Alpert, Michael. A New International History of the Spanish Civil War. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Wellresearched analysis focuses on the international aspects of the war, placing it in the context of other world events. Includes map, bibliography, and index. Bolloten, Burnett. The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Massive study provides extensive detail regarding the role of the Communist Party in undermining the revolution and the efforts of the Spanish Republic to operate outside of Stalin’s control. Forrest, Andrew. The Spanish Civil War. New York: Routledge, 2000. Brief text designed for undergraduates covers all aspects of the war, including the roles played by foreign powers. Features illustrations, selected bibliography, and index. Hills, George. The Battle for Madrid. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976. Provides detailed history and
Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Rev. ed. 1977. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Updated, expanded edition of a classic study of the war presents both political and military perspectives. Addresses the war’s impacts on both individual lives and nations.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Apr. 14, 1931: Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed; Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts; Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain; Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain; Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica; July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica.
August 1-16, 1936
Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics The Berlin Olympics of 1936, the most controversial Olympic Games of the modern era, were used by the Nazis to showcase their racial ideology and strengthen their regime through carefully staged pageantry and propaganda. The gold medals won by African American athlete Jesse Owens in four events represent one of the most spectacular individual achievements in Olympic history. Also known as: Nazi Olympics; Hitler’s Games Locale: Berlin and Kiel, Germany Categories: Sports; diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Avery Brundage (1887-1975), American businessman and head of the American Olympic Committee Carl Diem (1882-1962), general secretary of the organizing committee in charge of planning and overseeing the Games Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Nazi propaganda minister Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945, Jesse Owens (1913-1980), African American athlete who won four gold medals Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003), German filmmaker who produced Olympia, 1938, a groundbreaking documentary on the 1936 Olympics Summary of Event Berlin had been scheduled to host the 1916 Olympic Games, which were canceled because of World War I, and German athletes were not invited to the 1920 and 1924 Olympics as a punishment for Germany’s role in the war in an early interjection of politics into the Olympic Games. When they competed in the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, however, German athletes finished second to the Americans in the overall medal count. The selec2948
tion of the venue for the 1936 Olympics was made in 1931, when Berlin bested Barcelona, Spain. Olympic practice allowed the host of the Summer Games to do the Winter Games as well, and Germany selected the Bavarian resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Some Germans were not pleased with Germany’s hosting the 1936 Olympics, both because Jewish and black athletes would be competing and because of the expense involved in sponsoring the Games during the Great Depression. Planning for the 1936 Olympics had begun before Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor. Carl Diem, general secretary of the organizing committee, attended the 1932 Games and took copious notes on the pageantry and handling of the events. With Hitler in power, however, several new issues arose. What was Hitler’s attitude toward hosting the Olympics? Would the Nazi government adhere to the Olympic ideals of equal access for all athletes? How would athletes and governments react to an Olympics sponsored by Nazi Germany? After some initial hesitancy—overcome by Joseph Goebbels’s strong support for the Games—Hitler authorized full funding of the 1936 Olympics. He saw the Games as a vehicle to promote Nazi ideology, strengthen the government and Germany, and to deflect criticism from the Nazis. Although German sports officials had made a June, 1933, written promise that Jewish athletes would not be excluded from the German Olympic team, Jewish athletes and officials were expelled from German athletic associations, which effectively barred them from the Olympics. Such actions led to a movement in the United States and Western Europe to move the Games or to boycott the Berlin Olympics if Jewish and black athletes were barred from competing. Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, went on a fact-finding tour of Germany in 1934 to investigate matters. He urged that American athletes participate in the Games and condemned the boycott movement as interfering with athlet-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics
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ics. Passage of the discriminatory Nazi Nuremberg Ramated 300 million listeners worldwide; and an expericial Laws in 1935 energized the boycott movement, but mental television network beamed the events to select loBrundage was able to outmaneuver boycott supporters at cations throughout Berlin. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, the December, 1935, vote of the American Athletic with secret funding from the Nazis, was able to docuUnion (AAU), which decided to send athletes to the ment the Olympics in her groundbreaking three-andGames. Individual athletes then faced the dilemma of one-half-hour film, Olympia (1938). This work set the whether to participate. Two Jewish athletes were restandard for sports documentaries but raised questions called from abroad to participate for Germany: Rudi Ball about Reifenstahl’s connection to the Nazi regime and played on the hockey team at the Winter Games, and her artistic vision. In general, however, the pageantry Helene Meyer won a silver medal in fencing at the Sumand festivities resonated with many excited participants mer Games and did the required Hitler salute on the and visitors. medal platform. The sailing competitions at Kiel and the other events The Winter Games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Berlin brought together forty-nine nations, about five which lasted from February 6 to 16, 1936, attracted aththousand athletes, and more than three million attendees. letes from twenty-eight countries. Complaints from German athletes won the most medals—eighty-nine— high-level Olympic officials caused the Nazis to reand the United States was second with fifty-six. These move anti-Semitic signs from the roads leading to the site Games, however, were remembered for the tremendous prior to the commencement of the Winter Games. The reaccomplishments of the African American athlete Jesse occupation of the Rhineland by German troops on March Owens, who won four gold medals: in the 100-meter and 7, 1936, led to renewed calls for boycotts in France and Britain, but athletes from both nations competed, The Horst Wessel Song and the Nazis removed anti-Semitic The hosting of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games was only part of a large prosigns from Berlin, suspended antipaganda apparatus designed to showcase the Nazi regime to the world. The Jewish activity, and cleaned the city Games opened with tremendous fanfare and pageantry, including famous in preparation for the Summer composer Richard Strauss conducting a one-hundred-piece orchestra and Games. Carl Diem and Joseph Goebthree-thousand-voice chorus in the Nazi Party’s anthem “Die Fahne hoch” bels had created great publicity and (“The Flag on High”), commonly known as the Horst Wessel song after the propaganda campaigns to advertise storm trooper who wrote the song’s lyrics. The anthem was later banned in the Olympics, which featured both Germany. an Olympic exhibition and an Olympic caravan. Flag high, ranks closed, The S.A. marches with silent solid steps. The Summer Games opened with Comrades shot by the red front and reaction tremendous fanfare and pageantry. march in spirit with us in our ranks. The famous composer Richard Strauss led a 100-piece orchestra and The street free for the brown battalions, chorus of 3,000 in the German naThe street free for the Storm Troopers. tional anthem, the Nazi Party’s anMillions, full of hope, look up at the swastika; them (the “Horst Wessel” song), and The day breaks for freedom and for bread. a special composition to honor the For the last time the call will now be blown; Olympics. The 110,000 spectators For the struggle now we all stand ready. saw the culmination of the torch run Soon will fly Hitler-flags over every street; from Olympia, Greece, and Hitler Slavery will last only a short time longer. was presented with an olive branch from Olympia. The Nazis paid careFlag high, ranks closed, ful attention to media coverage by The S.A. marches with silent solid steps. providing print journalists with imComrades shot by the red front and reaction pressive facilities; shortwave radio march in spirit with us in our ranks. was used to broadcast the Games in twenty-eight languages to an esti-
Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics 200-meter dashes, in the broad jump, and in the 4- by 100-meter relay. The relay remained controversial because of the last-minute replacement of two Jewish members of the American team, Martin Glickman and Sam Stoller, with two African American runners, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. Questions still remain whether this was done to field the fastest team or to avoid offending the Nazis. Contrary to popular belief, Hitler did not refuse to shake Owens’s hand: On the first day of competition, the head of the International Olympic Committee had insisted that Hitler congratulate either all or none of the victors. Hitler chose to not congratulate any of the participants, but the American media were unaware of the situation and thought that only American athletes were affected. At the end of the Berlin Games, the site for the 1940 Olympics was announced—Tokyo, Japan—but World War II caused the 1940 and 1944 Games to be canceled. After the closing ceremonies were over, many spectators launched into a series of “Sieg Heils.” Significance More than any other Olympics, those of 1936 were linked to the head of state of the host country who was a highly visible spectator and beneficiary of the validation which the Games brought to his regime. The nearly flawless execution of events and festivities, coupled with suspension of anti-Semitic activities during the Olympics, convinced many foreign journalists and visitors that accounts of earlier anti-Semitic actions had been exaggerated. Although a few perceptive observers saw through the propaganda, the Nazis achieved their goals through their politization of the 1936 Olympics. New innovations and technologies became permanent fixtures at the Olympics: the torch run, the extensive use of radio and the experimental medium of television, and the elaborate pageantry. The boycott movements in the United States and Western Europe set an example that would become a reality during the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980 and the Soviet Union-led retaliatory boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The reasons for the success of the German athletes are subject to scholarly disagreement: Some tout nationalistic and ideological motivation, while others focus on the rigorous and scientific training that would soon become standard for world-class and Olympic athletes. In any case, the strong showing by the totalitarian regimes in the medal count—Germany in first place, Italy in third; and Japan in eighth—caused other nations to emulate their 2950
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 examples for physical education programs for school children and training athletes. Perhaps emboldened by their Olympic successes, Germany, Italy, and Japan drew closer and became more aggressive: Japan invaded China in 1937 and Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and many nations were engulfed in World War II within a few years of the Berlin Games. —Mark C. Herman Further Reading Bachrach, Susan D. The Nazi Olympics: Berlin, 1936. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000. Developed from an exhibit of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, this concise treatment’s strength is the superb photographs that supplement the text. Hart-Davis, Duff. Hitler’s Games: The 1936 Olympics. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. This journalistic account examines the 1936 Olympics from the British perspective. Krüger, Arnd, and William Murray, eds. The Nazi Olympics: Sport, Politics, and Appeasement in the 1930’s. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. A valuable collection of eleven scholarly essays covering the 1936 Olympics from the point of view of individual nations. Mandell, Richard D. The Nazi Olympics. 1971. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. Has a new preface. The first scholarly treatment of the 1936 Games highlights the strong connection between Nazi ideology and the propaganda to which the Olympics were subjected. Schaffer, Kay, and Sidonie Smith, eds. The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000. These essays provide an overview of key themes of Olympic history in the twentieth century. Especially valuable is “Jewish Athletes and the ‘Nazi Olympics’” by Allen Guttman, et al. Senn, Alfred E. Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 1999. A historical overview which explores the relationship between domestic and international politics and the Olympics. See also: May 5-July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics; 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain
August 2-18, 1936
Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain Over a period of days, Republican militia executed fifty-one Claretian priests and seminarians in one of the Spanish Civil War’s most brutal episodes of anticlerical persecution. Thousands of priests, nuns, and laypeople were ultimately killed during the war. Locale: Barbasto and Madrid, Spain Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Florentino Asensio Barroso (1877-1936), bishop and apostolic administrator of Barbasto, Spain Felipe de Jesús Munárriz Azcona (1875-1936), rector and father superior of the Barbastro seminary Faustino Pérez García (1911-1936), cleric who composed a farewell dedicated to the Claretian congregation Francisco Franco (1892-1975), leader of the uprising against the Spanish Republic and later military leader of Spain, 1939-1975
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Summary of Event The extensive persecution, brutal treatment, and summary executions of Catholic clergy and laypeople during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) is one of the conflict’s most overlooked elements. The most intense period of killings of innocent clergy and laypeople occurred in the first few months of the civil war, before the so-called international brigades of the Republican cause began arriving in Spain. Nearly 7,000 clergy members were killed, more than half of whom were diocesan bishops. The rest were priests or seminarians, including 283 nuns. The exact number of laypeople killed is difficult to establish, but it certainly numbered several thousand and may have been as high as tens of thousands. Anticlericalism had been on the rise in Spain since the early nineteenth century, when the fortunes of the Spanish Empire waned, and the country became vulnerable to foreign intervention. As the collapse of Spanish power gave rise to a debate about how to restore the country’s former greatness, a small, mostly urban, politically progressive, and anticlerical elite emerged. This group blamed traditional Catholicism as the cause of national decline. On the other hand, a large number of Spaniards, most of whom came from rural areas, continued to cling to the Catholic faith and to more conservative and traditionalist attitudes. Added to these two schools of thought
was another, more complicated set of issues that surrounded regionalist and nationalist or centralist strategies for ruling the country. Centralists tended to be anticlerical, while the clergy tended to rally to the regionalist cause. The Napoleonic invasion of 1808 revealed this division and gave rise to the first anticlerical government in 1810, ushering in a dynastic struggle that persisted through the nineteenth century. A complicated politics of land expropriations by the government gradually deprived the Church of much of its property and increased its dependence on bourgeois elements in Spanish society. In the class conflict that resulted, the Church largely supported the middle class, which led to a sense of resentment against the clergy by the working classes. The struggle over control of education also pitted clerical and anticlerical parties. Democratic and radical political parties emerged at the turn of the century, and levels of anticlerical sentiment varied among the disparate groups that comprised the left wing of the Spanish populace, which included many Freemasons, atheists, communists, anarchists, and moderate socialists. Many leftists considered the Catholic Church to be helplessly enmeshed in aristocratic and monarchial thinking and part of a Spanish legacy that had to be uprooted for the country to establish a modern democracy. It is equally certain, however, that at least half of the Spanish population continued to be Catholic in sentiment, even if they did not regularly practice the religion. The deep cultural divisions in the country became even more obvious after World War I, as governmental authority disintegrated. A military coup in 1923 imposed only a semblance of order, and eventually Republican and Socialist parties toppled the monarchy in April 1931. Agreeing on little except the need for anticlerical policies, the Republican-Socialist coalition imposed brazenly antireligious policies that prohibited any public display of religion, including traditional processions and even the simple wearing of crucifixes. Anarchists began another wave of church burnings, driving many lukewarm Catholics otherwise disposed toward reform away from the left-wing coalition. The elections of 1933 and 1936 showed a country almost evenly split, but when the Republican-Socialist bloc took power in 1936 (after conservatives won the popular vote but lost control of Parliament), the Popular Front declared amnesty and anarchists freed from prison went on a rampage of anticlerical vio-
Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain lence. In July of 1936, the army rose to oppose the Republican government, and the active phase of the Spanish Civil War began. Murders of priests, bishops, and other church members occurred in almost every area dominated by Republican forces: Churches, convents, and monasteries were attacked and destroyed, and those members of congregations who did not flee were attacked. In the Madrid region alone, more than 1,100 clerics—about 30 percent of the diocesan clergy—were killed. By far the highest proportion of clergy killed was in Barbastro, where 123 of its 140 clergy were murdered by Republican anarchists. Among those shot to death was Barbastro’s bishop, Florentino Asensio Barroso. On July 20, the local Republican committee, which was composed of both Republican sympathizers and anarchists, broke into the Claretian house, arrested its three most senior priests, in-
A Martyr’s Last Letter Seminary student Ramón Illa wrote the following letter on August 10, 1936, shortly before he was martyred. Dearest Mother, Grandmother and Well-remembered Brothers: I am writing to you with deep joy of soul, and the Lord knows I’m not lying. I say it before heaven and earth. I’d never rest without letting you know by these lines that the Lord has seen fit to place the palm of martyrdom in my hands. By these lines, too, I’m sending you my only will and testament, namely, that when you receive them you will sing to the Lord for the great and signal gift of martyrdom that He has deigned to grant me. We’ve been in this jail since July 20th. The whole community is here: 60 just individuals. Eight days ago they shot our reverend Father Superior and some other Fathers. Happy they, and happy we who will follow them. I wouldn’t exchange my jail for the gift of working miracles, nor my martyrdom for the apostolate, which has been my life’s dream. I’m going to be shot for being a religious and a member of the clergy, or if you will, for following the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Thanks be to the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Ramón Illa, C.M.F. Barbastro Source: Quoted in Gabriel Campo Villegas, Claretian Martyrs of Barbastro (Glenlivet, Scotland: Scalan Association, n.d.).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cluding the seminary rector, Felipe de Jesús Munárriz Azcona, and placed them in separate prison cells. After the arrival of the much more radical and bloodthirsty Catalan Columns on July 25, pressure mounted to begin executions of the detained clergy. The three Claretian superiors were executed, along with other local clergy, on August 2. The fifty remaining Claretians were detained over the next few weeks and subjected to degrading conditions before being killed. The six oldest priests were executed on August 12, and the rest were put to death in groups over the days that followed, with the exception of two Argentine seminarians who were released and later recounted the inhumane and degrading treatment of their classmates as well as the occasional humane acts performed by their captors. The two freed clerics also carried a handwritten farewell address written (on a chocolate wrapper) by Faustino Pérez García in which the doomed priest and his associates forgave their persecutors. The last two Claretians of Barbastro were murdered on August 18. Although executions continued throughout other parts of Republican-held Spain, the Barbastro bloodbath was over as virtually all the priests in the area had been exterminated. The Catalan Columns then moved on to more fertile ground. Significance Although atrocities occurred on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, the concentrated fury against innocent clergy was especially notable in the war’s first months, and it pushed many Spaniards, including some of the more moderate Catholics, to support General Francisco Franco, who promised to deliver relief from the anticlerical carnage. As the decades passed and the partisan passions subsided, historians were able to better assess and attain a more balanced understanding of the atrocities committed on all sides of a complicated cauldron of political animosities. Caught in the middle of this tragic violence were many innocent religious people whose heroism was recognized not only by historians but also by the Catholic Church, which began the process of beatification and canonization of many of the Spanish martyrs, including the fifty-one Claretians of Barbastro. The Claretians were beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 25, 1992. The barbarity of the Spanish Civil War sometimes seems to pale in comparison when set against the backdrop of the even more extensive barbarisms of Nazi and Communist regimes in Europe during and after World War II. However, the Spanish atrocities did illustrate the degree to which hatred of religion could lead political regimes that were otherwise dedicated to progressive social pro-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 grams to debase themselves in patently unjust outbursts of brutality against clearly innocent and harmless religious believers. —Robert F. Gorman Further Reading Royal, Robert. The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2000. Contains an excellent summary chapter on anticlerical persecution during the Spanish revolution. Sánchez, José M. The Spanish Civil War as a Religious Tragedy. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985. A scholarly account by an expert on anticlericalism. Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. New York: Si-
Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature mon & Schuster, 1986. A balanced assessment of this bitter conflict by a respected British historian. Villegas, Gabriel Campo. Claretian Martyrs of Barbastro. Scalan Association, Glenlivet, Scotland. http://www.scalan.co.uk/gordondelsur.htm. One of the most extensive historical reconstructions of the Barbastro incident available, based on collected eyewitness testimony. See also: Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians; July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins; Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain; Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope.
November, 1936
Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature Dale Carnegie, a farm boy who struggled through adversity to establish a career in public speaking, achieved fame with his practical advice for business and personal success. Also known as: How to Win Friends and Influence People Locale: New York, New York Category: Publishing and journalism Key Figure Dale Carnegie (1888-1955), American writer and lecturer
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Summary of Event Dale Carnegie was born into a world undergoing painful social and economic change. For most people in the United States, farms and small communities represented a mythic past; the future was in the cities. New York City, for example, grew from a population of 125,000 in 1820 to more than 5 million by 1910. Many urban inhabitants were immigrants, of whom some 9 million entered the United States in the single decade between 1900 and 1910. Most dreamed of solvency, if not success, but they entered a struggle for mere survival in an increasingly complex industrial world. Formal education had little to offer, and demand for public education was met only gradually. For example, the United States had fewer than eight hundred high schools in 1878, and that figure increased to only fiftyfive hundred during the next twenty years. High school
education, if achieved at all, marked the end of formal schooling for most Americans; in 1904, approximately one hundred thousand students were enrolled in U.S. colleges or universities, which, in any case, were more nearly allied to the traditional European studies of Latin, Greek, and rhetoric than to the needs of a newly industrialized age. An overwhelming demand existed for adult education, and that demand was met in a number of ways. Most successful was the Chautauqua program, which influenced Carnegie in his youth. Founded in 1874, by 1883 this summer camp had expanded to include a winter home-study program. In 1888, New York began offering free lectures for working people, resulting in an attendance of seven million within the first fifteen years. That idea spread, as did public libraries (largely funded by millionaire Andrew Carnegie) and mechanics’ institutes. For most Americans, however, the printed word remained the primary source of information. Although self-help books had long been popular, most still dealt with manners and morals, offering advice on the use of forks and cures for consumption and rabies. Self-help books for men dealt mostly with the vast generalities of writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Ruskin, and Émile Coué. Dale Carnegie, like many other Americans, had undergone the experience of being the outsider in a system that rejected him. Born in Maryville, Missouri, he was the son of a devout Methodist mother, a schoolteacher before her marriage, and a farmer father who had com-
Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature pleted six years of education. (Until 1916, the family name was Carnegey.) Carnegie’s father was unsuccessful; his crops were wiped out by flood and his livestock by disease. The father suffered severe and suicidal depression, overwhelmed with health problems, debts, and threats of bank foreclosure on the farm. The son attended a one-room school. The family moved to live near Warrensburg so that Dale could live at home and attend the tuition-free college that later became Central Missouri State University. Awkward, self-conscious, and poorly dressed, he was a failure until he trained himself to compete in oratorical and debate contests. Eventually, he began to win, and his success gave him confidence. He left the college in 1908, but he never graduated, having failed in his studies of Latin. He became for a time a salesman for the International Correspondence School, after which he eked out a living selling meat in small Dakota towns. In 1911, he went to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. The school, founded in 1886, taught a natural acting style that contrasted with the overstated and stylized acting that dominated much of the nineteenth century stage. Carnegie went on the road with an acting company, but he discovered he was not suited for the stage. In 1912, he was living in a New York slum and attempting to sell cars. Depression and headaches caused him to give up that job, however, and he dreamed of being a writer. (He eventually completed a novel, The Blizzard, in 1921, only to have it rejected by publishers and his literary agent.) Deciding to write and teach public speaking, he applied to teach adult courses at Columbia University and New York University but was rejected. At last, he worked out an agreement to teach at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) at 125th Street in Harlem, which was then primarily a white neighborhood. The YMCA doubted the course would prove attractive and offered to pay him only a percentage of profits rather than the two dollars per session he had requested. He was soon earning thirty dollars per session. By the outbreak of World War I, he was able to hire instructors and to write tracts to standardize his methods. By this time, he had rejected the formal oratorical techniques he had studied in college and had developed techniques similar to those he had studied at the Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1915, with J. Berg Esenwein, he wrote The Art of Public Speaking, which was based on his theories. He followed this with Public Speaking: A 2954
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Practical Course for Business Men (1926), Little Known Facts About Well Known Men (1934), and a study of his boyhood hero, Lincoln the Unknown (1932). Carnegie’s next book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, appealed to a wide audience frightened by economic and urban change and, by 1936, wearied of economic depression. In 1936, only 12.9 percent of high school graduates would enter college, but an urbanized and industrialized society with widespread unemployment demanded more skills than did the community life of the past. By 1936, one American family in four was reported to be on relief; 38 percent of families (11.7 million families) lived below the poverty line. In Europe and the United States, fascists on the political right and socialists and communists on the left wanted to overturn a seemingly failing system, but the majority of Americans simply wanted to survive and, if possible, thrive. To these people, Dale Carnegie offered hope. Significance How to Win Friends and Influence People was, Carnegie wrote, the book he wished he could have read two decades earlier. He was modest about the book and its future, hoping it would sell fifteen or twenty thousand copies. Instead, the book was a sensational success. Its effects were personal and immediate as well as general and far-ranging. Carnegie’s personal success was quickly obvious. The book soon began to sell five thousand copies per week. Despite parodies by humorists such as James Thurber and uncompromising condemnation by academics and intellectuals, the book appeared for two years on The New York Times best-seller list. By the time Carnegie’s widow, Dorothy, revised the book in 1981, more than fifteen million copies had been sold. The effect of this success on his courses in public speaking was also immediate; enrollment in the courses increased dramatically. Carnegie was to have problems with these classes during the late 1930’s and World War II, but, by 1992, Dale Carnegie training was offered in every U.S. state and in some sixty other countries. Graduates by then numbered 3.5 million. Life magazine named Carnegie as one of the one hundred most important Americans of the twentieth century. Carnegie also revolutionized the genre of self-help literature. Rather than speaking as a specialist, Carnegie addressed his students as a slightly more experienced equal speaking to equals, freely admitting his own mistakes. The roots of his style clearly lie in the Methodist sermons of his youth. His work is heavy with anecdotes about people,
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century, had spread throughout much business literature as well as Among the topics he addresses in How to Win Friends and Influence People, self-help literature. In the academiDale Carnegie expounds on how an individual can make others like him or her. cally sanctioned A Passion for ExHe sums up by advising the reader to follow these six basic “principles”: cellence (1985), for example, authors Tom Peters and Nancy Austin 1. Become genuinely interested in other people. incorporated much of Carnegie’s an2. Smile. ecdotal approach, gave tips for de3. Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important veloping courtesy and sensitivity to sound in any language. others, and echoed Carnegie in their 4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. advocacy of motivation based on re5. Talk in terms of the other man’s interest. 6. Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely. wards and praise. Carnegie’s influence also is evident in literature proSource: Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (New York: Simon duced by entrepreneurs such as & Schuster, 1936). Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, who directly echoed Carnegie with chapters on “Golden both famous and unknown, who have overcome adverRule Management” and instructions about how to make sity using the techniques Carnegie advocates; he often others feel a sense of self-worth in Mary Kay on People echoes the rhetoric of a Protestant minister, drawing lesManagement (1984). Ash, too, urged motivation through sons from the parables and other stories of the Scriptures. rewards. Carnegie’s views were also echoed in some Carnegie’s tone is informal, conversational, even unNew Age literature, such as Marilyn Ferguson’s The grammatical. His sentences generally are brief, although Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformanever condescending, and his words are simple. tion in the 1980s (1980), in which abilities to motivate, If in his style he offered a work consistent with the reengender self-esteem, and demonstrate sensitivity were ligious experiences of many, in substance he offered a defined as essential qualities in leaders of the future. simple, easily comprehended system that was unlike the Stress reduction was the subject of the second best heavy-handed philosophizing of earlier self-help literaseller produced by Carnegie as a result of his initial sucture. His most direct source was American philosopher cess. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948) William James, from whom Carnegie borrowed the idea became perhaps Carnegie’s most influential book. How that emotion follows action, rather than precedes it. to Win Friends and Influence People was written on the Logically, then, the imitation of a mood will produce the assumption that behavior modification is relatively simdesired mood. The emotions he advocated are essentially ple: Imitate a feeling, and the feeling will come. In the a secularized version of the biblical Golden Rule: courpreface to his next book, however, Carnegie observed tesy, sensitivity to others, assertiveness rather than agthat the process is actually more complex because of the gression. Understanding the need to motivate others, he intervention of emotional blocks, chief among them anxadvocated a system based on rewards and praise, not iety or worry, which would later, as he described them, punishment. He advocated what would later be called come to be called “stress.” At the heart of these blocks, he conflict resolution and teamwork to replace the aggresnoted, are unfocused fears about the future, humorlesssive individualism of the mythic American frontier. Imness and self-importance, depression, inability to deal plicit everywhere and frequently explicit was the aswith criticism and life’s inevitable adversities, and inability to accept oneself. sumption that financial rewards will follow. Unlike earlier self-help literature, Carnegie’s book Carnegie had no access to statistics indicating a relationship between stress and disease, but he inferred this was an exhortation to action. He gives instructions on how to use the book and summarizes his points for easy relationship from popular psychiatric literature and from reference. Theories were kept to a minimum; anecdotal personal observation of his father’s depression and of his accounts were written so that a reader could imitate the own tension-related headaches while he was living in behavior described. New York slums. He found many historical anecdotes to Although condemned by critics and academicians, show his readers that, if they were suffering, they were Carnegie’s techniques and style, by the late twentieth not alone. The book ended with thirty-one stories by in-
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dividuals who overcame stress, ranging from relatively unknown businessmen to singing cowboy Gene Autry, baseball star Connie Mack, and boxing champion Jack Dempsey. In effect, Carnegie had produced the first modern work on stress management. Again, he had offered his readers hope with the promise that at least some of their fate was within their control. By 2005, fifteen million copies of How to Stop Worrying and Start Living had been sold, and the book’s influence had been felt in the writings of many other self-help leaders. —Betty Richardson
Kasson, John F. Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America. New York: Hill & Wang, 1990. Makes passing mention of Carnegie and treats his work with contempt as showing the middle classes how to achieve a spurious gentility. Includes much valuable material about the self-help tradition and the emergence of urbanization and industrialization, but facilely categorizes readers of selfhelp literature and ignores economic motivations. Kemp, Giles, and Edward Claflin. Dale Carnegie: The Man Who Influenced Millions. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Pulls together materials from other sources, including newspaper reports and reviews, to describe Carnegie’s influence. Compensates for a scarcity of biographical material with accounts of Carnegie’s training sessions. Meyer, Donald. The Positive Thinkers: Popular Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale and Ronald Reagan. Rev. ed. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1988. Scholarly work surveys self-help writers. Unfortunately lumps together many dissimilar writers and provides only superficial readings of many texts, including Carnegie’s.
Further Reading Carnegie, Dale. How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956. Adaptation of Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business (1926), which was itself an adaptation of Public Speaking: A Practical Course for Business Men (1926). Includes chapters on memory development, preparation, and vocabulary development. More a formal textbook than a book of practical hints. _______. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. The original 1948 work with some revisions by Dorothy Carnegie. _______. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. The original 1936 work with some revisions by Dorothy Carnegie.
See also: Nov. 28, 1908: Christian Science Monitor Is Founded; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales.
November 2, 1936
BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program The British Broadcasting Corporation’s inauguration of regularly scheduled high-definition television service had enormous impacts on industry, commerce, and popular culture. Locale: Alexandra Palace, London, England Categories: Radio and television; communications and media; science and technology; inventions Key Figures John Charles Walsham Reith (1889-1971), first director-general of the BBC, 1927-1938 John Logie Baird (1888-1946), Scottish engineer Alan A. Campbell Swinton (1863-1930), British engineer Hugh Carleton Greene (1910-1987), director-general of the BBC, 1960-1969 2956
Summary of Event Television was not the unique invention of a single genius but more a case of an idea whose time had come. Shortly after the development of the telephone and the radio, a number of inventors, scientists, and engineers addressed themselves to the problem of transmitting pictures electronically. Alan A. Campbell Swinton, a British engineer, proposed in 1908 a remarkably accurate theory of how this might be done. On a more practical level, John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer, began successful experiments with low-definition television in the 1920’s. Unfortunately for Baird, he relied on a mechanical scanning system to transmit pictures; an electronic system utilizing the cathode-ray tube would eventually prove superior. Baird was important because he helped to popularize this new form of entertainment. By the
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early 1930’s, experimental demonstrations of television were taking place. Central to the development of television was the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Founded as a company in 1922, the BBC was transformed into a corporation by royal charter in 1927 and was given a monopoly on the transmission of all programming. It was financed by a license fee on all users of radios (called wireless sets) and was thus free of commercial pressure and of the need to rely on Parliament for funding. This independence ensured that the BBC’s programming would be free of government influence. Because radio was growing enormously in popularity, the financial basis of the BBC was secure, and income increased each year. For example, 4.5 million licenses were granted in 1932; six years later, that figure had risen to 8.5 million. The BBC raised additional money from the sale of its publications, such as Radio Times and The Listener. No proven guidelines existed to draw upon when it came to harnessing the immense power of radio, then later television. Much of the direction of the BBC was determined by its first director-general, John Charles Walsham Reith. A serious-minded Scottish Presbyterian, Reith could be arrogant, domineering, and selfrighteous, and certainly he imposed his strong personality on the corporation. He also had a deep sense of public service and was determined that the BBC would not only entertain but also inform and educate. He had no wish to court vast audiences by producing banal, vulgar, and tawdry programs; the BBC should maintain moral standards and expand the minds and cultural sensitivities of its listeners. Above all, he wanted the BBC to retain its monopoly status and remain independent of both government and business by having its own source of income. Within a short time, the BBC became the most admired radio network in the world, famous for its quality, objectivity, professionalism, and wide variety of programming. When the television age dawned, Parliament gave the BBC the task of providing this new service. The television industry from the earliest moment thus benefited from the high standards and traditions already established by the BBC in general and Reith in particular. The world’s first regularly scheduled high-definition television program was broadcast on November 2, 1936, from Alexandra Palace, London. Germany had begun regular service a year earlier, but it utilized a low-definition system of 180 lines, whereas the BBC transmitted a 405-line picture. (The United States eventually adopted a 525-line system.) Programming was limited to two hours a day,
from 3:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon and from 9:00 to 10:00 in the evening, six days a week. Sunday service and additional hours were added later. Initially, the BBC was unable to decide which television system was the best, that advocated by Baird, utilizing his mechanical scanning system (240 lines), or that of the Marconi-EMI Company, using the cathode-ray system (405 lines). It adopted the peculiar arrangement of alternating the two systems every other week. Within a short time, however, the latter system proved vastly superior. The BBC adopted it exclusively in February, 1937. From the beginning, certain trends emerged that were to remain a permanent part of the television landscape. Although serious drama was an integral part of BBC programming, the public overwhelmingly preferred light entertainment such as prize fights, boat races, cricket matches, circuses, and popular plays. Women quickly became prominent in front of the camera, serving as presenters or entertainers, although senior administrative staff positions were dominated by men. The public also demonstrated that it was addicted to dramatic national events, such as the coronation of King George VI. About ten thousand viewers watched the event, foreshadowing the enormous audiences that later were to watch inaugurations, coronations, and high-profile sporting events. Opinion polls consistently showed that the public thought the quality of the BBC’s service and programming was excellent. Still, by 1939, television reached only a small audience, mainly in the London area. Although the cost of television sets was falling dramatically, there were only about ten thousand of them in use. The new medium was regarded as essentially a toy of the rich. When World War II broke out, the government ordered the television transmitter at Alexandra Palace shut down, because its signals would have been an excellent detection device by which German bombers could find London. Ironically, the last programming to be shown before the war was a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Service was not resumed until June 7, 1946. Significance After the war, television proved to be immensely popular with the British public. The prosperous 1950’s saw a sharp increase in the sale of television licenses. In 1953, about 2.1 million television licenses were issued. Many people were encouraged to buy television sets by the televising of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Sales of licenses increased at the rate of about one million a year. Simultaneously, there was a vigorous debate as to 2957
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
John Logie Baird, inventor of an early version of television, presents his machine to the Science Museum in London in 1926. (The Granger Collection, New York)
whether the BBC should retain its monopoly. One alternative was to establish a second channel, to be financed by advertising. Opponents of the BBC argued that a second channel was needed for greater variety, that monopoly was inconsistent with a free society, that competition would actually benefit the BBC, and that a channel showing advertisements would provide British industry with a powerful tool in marketing its products. After much debate, Parliament passed legislation in 1956 creating a new public corporation, the Independent Television Authority, to run commercial broadcasting. Even supporters of commercial television had no wish to introduce American-style television, with its alleged vulgarity, crassness, endless commercial intrusions, and programming catering to the lowest common denominator. A system of controlled competition was set up that imposed certain programming standards and closely regulated commercials. Advertisers could only buy time; they had no control or influence over programming. Moreover, the time allotted to advertising was limited and minimal, 2958
usually working out to only one brief commercial break during a half-hour program. Commercials were not allowed to disrupt the dramatic flow of a program. Competition initially devastated the BBC. The new channel captured almost 80 percent of the viewing audience, and hundreds of BBC staff members defected to the opposition for higher pay or new challenges. Some of the worst fears of those who opposed commercial television appeared to prove true. It was estimated that the BBC carried about three times more serious programming than did its rival, which soon slipped into a conventional and bland format of programs lest it alienate its huge audience and jeopardize advertising revenue. The BBC fought back. Much of the corporation’s success in the 1960’s was directly related to the personality of Hugh Carleton Greene, who served as directorgeneral from 1960 to 1969. Greene is often considered to be the second most influential personality in the history of the BBC, behind Reith. He is generally credited with modernizing the structure and programming of the BBC,
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as he was forward-looking and made sure the corporation reflected the most modern trends in British society. During his tenure, the BBC brought in enterprising and imaginative writers and took chances on new forms of entertainment. The corporation also began to spend more money on television, at the expense of its radio division. When Greene became director-general, the corporation had a staff of seventeen thousand and revenue from ten million licenses. By 1969, he had added some seven thousand staff positions, and the number of licenses totaled sixteen million. Programming in the field of comedy became more daring, police dramas reflected the gritty realism of law enforcement, and controversial documentaries both shocked the nation and stimulated debate. In 1964, the BBC was authorized to set up a second channel, simply called BBC2. A logical division ensued: BBC1 concentrated on high-quality light entertainment and first-rate news and information programs, and BBC2 specialized in serious programming, catered to the needs of minorities such as opera lovers and science buffs, and experimented with new forms of entertainment. Eventually, the BBC won back about half the viewing audience. In 1982, a second commercial channel was created, giving Great Britain four channels equally divided between the BBC and commercial television. The impact of television on Great Britain in particular and modern society in general has been enormous. To compare it to the invention of the wheel or the written word is probably no exaggeration. It created vast new industries in the field of electronics and dramatically expanded other industries, such as advertising. In the process, it changed the global economic balance of power. The ability to produce quality television sets and related electronic goods played a significant role in the dramatic rise of Japan and the Pacific Rim countries, at the expense of Great Britain and the United States. It encouraged industrial research and produced a string of new products such as color television and video cassette recorders. Business directly benefited from home shopping networks. Television technology allows people in different places to see each other during teleconferences. The television industry itself employs millions of people. Television wreaked havoc on other sectors, such as daily newspapers and weekly magazines. The film industry benefited from the larger market for films, but theaters suffered. Television had profound social and cultural implications and rearranged the way that families lived and communities operated. The moral and ethical dimensions of television were constantly debated. Television has been accused of promoting promiscuity, en-
couraging violence, and destroying the family. It has been charged with polluting the democratic electoral process. In the United States, for example, a successful candidate for a major office must be telegenic and have access to vast sums of money for political advertisements. In business, cynics claim that the quality of a product matters less than how attractively it is presented in television commercials. Even the most severe critics concede that at its best, television offers wondrous opportunities. It provides information, knowledge, and entertainment beyond the dreams of previous generations. Television gives people access to news events as they happen and to high-quality documentary programming dealing with history, nature, and society. On a human level, it undoubtedly has enabled millions of people to cope with loneliness, illness, and boredom. Its impact on education has also been considerable. In 1971, the BBC began providing television courses for the Open University, which offered degrees primarily to nontraditional students studying at home. By 1980 these broadcasts were reaching about seventy thousand students; about twenty-one thousand already had been graduated. The Open University has been called the most successful educational experiment in modern British history. Starting from the most humble beginnings in Alexandra Palace in 1936, television emerged as one of the great industries of the modern epoch. It is difficult to imagine business and commerce operating effectively without television, just as it is difficult to imagine daily life without it. Many observers have noted that television constantly poses new problems to industry and society but never offers solutions. Certainly one of the great ongoing business and ethical challenges for modern society concerns how to harness the immense power of this medium for the benefit of all people while minimizing its potential for misuse. —David C. Lukowitz Further Reading Black, Peter. The Mirror in the Corner: People’s Television. London: Hutchinson, 1972. Lively and useful account of how the BBC’s television monopoly was ended. Focuses on the debate leading to the creation of the Independent Television Authority and how commercial television affected the BBC. Boyle, Andrew. Only the Wind Will Listen: Reith of the BBC. London: Hutchinson, 1972. Unconventional biography focuses only on Reith’s years at the BBC. Adopts a psychological approach, emphasizing the 2959
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Reciprocal Trade Act puritanical and depressive side of Reith’s personality. Fascinating reading. Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985. Excellent introduction to the BBC by a distinguished British scholar. Includes useful list of significant dates and a fine bibliography. Cain, John. The BBC: Seventy Years of Broadcasting. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1996. Lively, entertaining, and informative volume provides an ideal introduction to the history of BBC radio and television. Includes numerous photographs, including some depicting early television sets and transmitting apparatus. Crisell, Andrew. An Introductory History of British Broadcasting. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Comprehensive history of British radio and television discusses the beginnings of BBC television in chapter 4. Includes time line, bibliography, and index. Paulu, Burton. Television and Radio in the United Kingdom. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1981. Scholarly work by a noted authority on European television details the structure of the BBC, including finances, personnel, programming, and legal status. Pawley, Edward. BBC Engineering, 1922-1972. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972. Immensely valuable work on the application of technology to the development of BBC services. Intended for readers with some scientific and technical background. Smith, Anthony, ed. Television: An International History. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Collection of essays on the history of television around the world includes discussion of the BBC and its impacts. Features a list of television museums and archives. See also: Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television; Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered; Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair; Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast.
November 11, 1936
Reciprocal Trade Act In 1936, the United States and Canada established their first reciprocal trade agreement since 1854. Locale: United States; Canada Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; economics Key Figures Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state, 1933-1944 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, 19351948 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event A reciprocal trade agreement between two nations provides for both countries to reduce tariffs on trade goods. Such agreements between the United States and Canada date to 1854. British diplomats had begun negotiations with the U.S. government two years earlier, but they were unable to reach a conclusion at the time because of a dispute over fishing rights off the eastern coast of Can2960
ada. Negotiations continued until the fisheries dispute was resolved and a reciprocity treaty was signed on June 6, 1854. This treaty gave fishermen from the United States the right to catch fish in the Atlantic coastal fisheries off Newfoundland, which were then the richest fishing grounds in the world. In turn, British fishing boats were granted permission to operate in U.S. coastal waters off Maine. The agreement also created a list of goods, such as timber, wheat, and corn, that neither country would tax in trade with the other. Trade between the two nations increased rapidly after ratification of this treaty. In 1866, because of complaints from U.S. farmers, the United States repealed its part of the agreement. The American Civil War had ended a year earlier, and many veterans had resumed farming; they protested loudly against free importation of Canadian grain, so reciprocity was ended. The Canadians wanted a new agreement, however, and in 1871 sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., to open trade talks. Nothing came of the talks, and the 1871 Treaty of Washington barely mentioned reciprocity of trade. The issue was not raised again until 1911, when Canada’s finance minister, William S. Fielding, told the
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as many nations as possible, but he faced considerable criticism for his position within his own Democratic Party and especially from conservatives in the Republican Party. He knew it would be difficult to win the twothirds majority vote needed in the Senate for approval of any bill reducing tariffs. Many conservatives in both parties thought higher tariffs rather than lower presented the best opportunity for protecting jobs. The Great Depression, they argued, made it necessary for countries to protect themselves from competition from outside states by building a high tariff wall. Hull wanted Canada and the United States to reach an agreement quickly. This, he explained to the Canadians, would demonstrate to the rest of the world, especially the Europeans, that persons of goodwill could still sit down and negotiate peacefully. The Germans, Italians, and Japanese seemed to prefer war or economic suicide to any attempt to discuss seriously the mutual sacrifices required by reciprocal trade treaties. The United States and Canada could show world leaders an alternate course for resolving economic problems. Friendly nations had to show that talking still could produce results, Hull argued. The fact that the King government recently had signed a bilateral agreement with the German Nazis angered him, but he indicated that this would not stand in the way of the current discussions. He hoped that reciprocal trade agreements could reduce conflict in the world and provide an alternative to cutthroat methods of bilateral trading, with each nation looking out only for its own narrow self-interest. Hull believed that unless freer world trade was provided for, the nations of Europe and the Far East would face continued economic strife and chaos. Economic disaster would affect all countries and bring about an even worse financial collapse than the Great Depression. Only a broad program to remove excessive trade barriers, he told the Canadian delegation, could save the situation. The world needed a policy of equal treatment for all nations and a method to promote and protect fair trade methods and practices. If nations such as the United States and Canada refused to take the first steps in this direction, catastrophic consequences awaited the peoples of the world. Hull’s warnings of the terrible consequences of failure encouraged a quick end to negotiations. Significance The final result, the Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936, produced far fewer reductions in trade barriers than had been gained in 1854, but it proved satisfactory to both sides. 2961
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House of Commons that negotiations with the United States would begin immediately. The goal was to obtain as much free trade as possible, and Fielding suggested that once that was accomplished, the Canadian economy would flourish and unemployment would decline rapidly. Loud protests from workers and industrialists in Ontario indicated that many Canadians did not agree. The protesters argued that reciprocity and free trade would give a tremendous advantage to powerful industries in the United States, such as the steel and textile industries, which would flood Canada with huge amounts of goods, driving Canadian industries into bankruptcy and costing thousands of Canadian jobs. Trade became the major issue in the Canadian election of that year. Conservatives denounced reciprocity in the campaign and won the election, bringing an end to discussions of free trade with the United States. In 1924, both nations signed a treaty limiting halibut fishing off the coast of Washington and British Columbia, but reciprocity talks failed. Republican administrations in the United States wanted only one thing from the Canadians: an agreement to construct the St. Lawrence Seaway to link the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. This massive project would make it easier to ship grain from the Midwest to Europe and, it was hoped, greatly improve the prosperity of farmers in the region. By 1932, it seemed as if negotiations on this project were almost completed. President Herbert Hoover signed an agreement in July with the Canadians, but the U.S. Senate was unable to get the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution for ratification. The major opposition came from senators opposed to the seaway’s projected high costs. The seaway would not be constructed for another twenty-five years. Relations between Canada and the United States improved greatly after the inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Roosevelt promoted the Good Neighbor Policy with all nations in the Western Hemisphere, which included support for reciprocal trade agreements. Talks with Canada began in 1934 but were not concluded until two years later. Roosevelt had signed the Trade Agreements Act of 1934, significantly lowering tariffs on many items. This bilateral agreement was not satisfactory, however, to the newly elected Liberal government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. King, a fervent advocate of reciprocal trade agreements, led a delegation to Washington to discuss such an agreement with representatives of the U.S. Department of State. Secretary of State Cordell Hull headed the U.S. negotiating team. He favored reducing trade restrictions with
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Reciprocal Trade Act The United States agreed to admit limited amounts of cream, cattle, lumber, and potatoes with significantly reduced rates. In return, Canada accepted more manufactured goods from the United States. Members of Canada’s Liberal Party hoped that this trade would produce higher incomes for Canadian farmers, loggers, and ranchers. They also predicted it would reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the United States. As it turned out, it made little difference. Both policies, the high tariffs favored by Conservatives in the 1920’s and the Liberal support for freer trade, had the same result: They increased Canadian economic dependence on the United States. From 1923 to 1935, the period of the highest tariffs on U.S. manufactured goods, the number of U.S.-owned factories and businesses in Canada increased from 524 to 816. U.S. goods were kept out, but corporations bought the factories or built new ones in Canada rather than pay the increased rates. One Canadian economist observed that it made little difference whether Canadians were buried by U.S. exports or U.S. branch plants—they would lose control of their economy either way. The 1936 agreement remained in effect until 1948, when both nations signed a general agreement that superseded prior trade treaties. In 1994, Canada joined Mexico and the United States as a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which solidified the movement toward free trade that gathered momentum after World War II with the formation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. —Leslie V. Tischauser Further Reading Butler, Michael A. Cautious Visionary: Cordell Hull and Trade Reform, 1933-1937. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998. Discusses the impacts on U.S.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 trade policy of Hull’s tenure as secretary of state, given his strong views on the importance of fair trade. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Corbett, Percy E. The Settlement of Canadian-American Disputes: A Critical Study of Meetings and Results. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937. Covers treaty and tariff negotiations from the 1840’s to 1936. Provides detailed discussion of the trade policies of both nations. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. 4th ed. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1982. Contains a useful discussion of Canadian trade policy in the 1930’s and a brief discussion of the treaty. Riendeau, Roger. A Brief History of Canada. 2d rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Concise history includes discussion of Canada’s difficulties during the Great Depression, tariff protections, and reciprocity. U.S. Department of State. British Dominions and Canada. Vol. 1 in Papers Relating to the Foreign Policy of the United States, 1936. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1951. Contains the complete record of the discussions and negotiations. Welles, Sumner. Seven Decisions That Shaped History. New York: Harper, 1951. Discusses the U.S. secretary of state’s views on trade relations and his belief that freer trade would prevent a future war. Written by a participant in the 1936 negotiations with Canada. See also: Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission; Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty; Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced
November 23, 1936
Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced Decorative lighting for the one hundredth anniversary celebration of the U.S. Patent Office was provided by fluorescent lamps, setting the stage for the widespread use of this efficient form of lighting. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures Vincenzo Cascariolo (1571-1624), Italian alchemist and shoemaker Francis Hauksbee (c. 1660-1713), English scientist Heinrich Geissler (1814-1879), German glassblower George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903), English physicist and mathematician Peter Cooper Hewitt (1861-1921), American electrical engineer
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Summary of Event On the night of November 23, 1936, more than one thousand industrialists, patent attorneys, and scientists assembled in the main ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the U.S. Patent Office. A transport liner over the city was about to radio the names of the twelve greatest American inventors, as chosen by the Patent Office, and as the distinguished group strained to listen for those names, “the room was flooded for a moment by the most brilliant light yet used to illuminate a space that size.” This is how The New York Times summarized the commercial introduction of the fluorescent lamp on the day following the event. Among the twelve inventors named as greatest were Thomas Alva Edison, Robert Fulton, Charles Goodyear, Cyrus Hall McCormick, and Samuel F. B. Morse, but the list did not include the name of the inventor of fluorescent lighting. The honor for inventing fluorescent lighting is shared by many who participated in a series of discoveries over a very long period. The fluorescent lamp operates as a low-pressure, electric discharge inside a phosphor-coated glass tube that contains a droplet of mercury and a rare gas, commonly argon. At room temperature, the droplet gives off a very weak vapor of mercury atoms. Because mercury ionizes more easily than the rare gas atoms, the mercury atoms control the discharge despite the much larger number of rare gas atoms. The inside of the glass tube is coated with fine particles of the phosphor, a material that fluoresces when bathed in the strong ultraviolet radiation
from the mercury atoms in the discharge. The light from a fluorescent lamp is composed mainly of the broadspectrum, whitish light from the phosphor with a small, but significant, contribution from narrow-spectrum mercury emissions in the violet, blue, green, and yellow. In contrast to an incandescent lamps, a fluorescent lamp gives off light with little heat. The high light efficiency of the fluorescent lamp is caused by a finely tailored match between the phosphor coating within the lamp and the mercury discharge. Commercial production of the fluorescent lamp followed only after a long sequence of events that instructed scientists on the colorful properties of fluorescent materials and of electrical discharges. The setting for the introduction of the fluorescent lamp began at the beginning of the 1600’s, when Vincenzo Cascariolo, an Italian shoemaker and alchemist, discovered a substance that continued its glow after exposure to strong sunlight. After exposure to the sun, the material gave off a bluish glow in the dark. The fluorescent substance was apparently barium sulfide and was so unusual for that time and so valuable that its formulation was kept secret for a long time. Gradually, however, scholars became aware of the preparation secrets of the substance and studied it and other luminescent materials. Sir Isaac Newton, who favored the particle theory of light, studied fluorescence and incorrectly attributed the delayed emission of light to the time spent undergoing internal reflections within the grains of the substance. Sir George Gabriel Stokes, who favored the wave theory of light, studied the phenomenon as well. In 1852, he termed the afterglow “fluorescence” and announced a law that summarized the findings on fluorescent substances: The exciting light always has a shorter wavelength than the fluorescing light. For example, short wave violet light can produce longer wave green fluorescence, but green light does not produce violet fluorescence. It is now known that shorter wavelengths correspond to higher light frequencies and energies, with frequency energies increasing from red, yellow, and green through to violet and ultraviolet. Shorter wavelengths of light thus correspond to higher packets of energy. Stokes’s law requires that the exciting light must be more energetic than the emitted fluorescence. Although light does have particle-like properties, the delayed emission is not caused by internal reflections; rather, it is caused by a
Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced real delay in emission during which the energy is held within individual atoms, or groups of atoms, inside the fluorescent material. While these advances were being made on fluorescent substances, other workers were taking the steps needed to bring about practical discharge that could produce energetic light. In 1706, Francis Hauksbee fabricated an electrostatic generator. He then used a vacuum pump produced by Otto von Guericke to evacuate a vessel to a low pressure and tested his electrostatic generator. Therefore, Hauksbee obtained the first human-made electrical glow discharge by capturing lightning in a jar. Later, investigators worked on this novel form of trapped lightning. In 1854, Heinrich Geissler, a glassblower and apparatus maker, opened his shop in Bonn, Germany, to make scientific instruments; in 1855, he produced a vacuum pump that used liquid mercury as an evacuation fluid. That same year, Geissler made the first gaseous conduction lamps while working in collaboration with the German scientist Julius Plücker. Plücker referred to these lamps as “Geissler tubes.” Geissler was able to create red light with neon filling a lamp and light of nearly all colors by placing different gases within the lamps, thus giving birth to both the neon sign business and the science of spectroscopy. A variety of scientists and inventors studied Geissler tubes extensively. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the practical American engineer Peter Cooper Hewitt put these studies to use by marketing the first lowpressure mercury-vapor lamp. The lamp was quite successful, although it required high voltage for operation, shed an eerie blue-green light, and shone only dimly in comparison with its eventual successor, the fluorescent lamp. At about the same time, systematic studies of phosphors had finally begun. By the 1920’s, a number of investigators discovered that the low-pressure mercury-vapor discharge marketed by Hewitt was an extremely efficient method for producing ultraviolet light, if the mercury and rare gas pressures were properly adjusted. With a phosphor to convert the ultraviolet back to visible, the Hewitt lamp made an excellent light source. Scientists learned that the mercury vapor was proper if the coolest portion on the discharge wall was kept between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius, quite cool for a lamp. Under these conditions, the scientist found that 60 percent of the electrical energy entering the discharge appeared as ultraviolet energy radiating from the mercury atoms in the discharge. Several commercial European laboratories began de2964
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 velopment of a practical fluorescent lamp in the early 1930’s. Around 1934, laboratories in the United States undertook earnest efforts toward production. A range of durable and efficient phosphors were devised. Sturdy, but inexpensive, electrodes were designed for operation with special metal-oxide coatings that, when heated in the lamp, readily boiled off electrons to supply current to the discharge and so reduced the operating voltage from the high value found in the Hewitt lamp. At the same time, engineers developed the transformer circuitry needed to start the lamp at somewhat elevated voltage and then operate it at the lower voltage available on the electrical lines. Finally, the light coming from the developing fluorescent lamps had to be measured and compared with other light sources. Electrical power is measured in watts; light power is measured in lumens. Invisible powers, such as ultraviolet and infrared light, contain no lumens. The number of lumens per watt of actual power thus must depend on color within the spectrum of visible light. Per watt, violet and red give fewer lumens than green and yellow, which lie near the middle of the spectrum, where the eye is most sensitive. The measurements demonstrated that the fluorescent lamp was quite efficient, at least twice that of an incandescent lamp of similar light output, depending on the phosphor blend chosen for the fluorescent lamp. Early in 1936, the U.S. Patent Office announced plans for its centennial celebration, and new discoveries were invited for presentation. Fluorescent lighting was chosen to be among the new inventions displayed. On November 23, 1936, fluorescent lighting debuted, and an extraordinary editorial in The New York Times on November 24 carried these words: “We must look for the revolutionary inventions to come—engines driven by atomic energy, rocket ships that voyage in interplanetary space, lamps that glow without heat.” Significance The revolution of light that glowed without heat took place almost immediately. By 1938, production of fluorescent lamps was well under way. By April, 1938, four sizes of fluorescent lamps in various colors were offered to the public and more than 200,000 lamps were sold. When the United States entered World War II, the demand for efficient factory lighting soared. In 1941, more than 21 million fluorescent lamps were sold. During 1939 and 1940, two great expositions—the New York World’s Fair and the San Francisco International Exposition—helped popularize fluorescent lighting. Thousands of tubular fluorescent lamps formed a
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
high efficiency, long life, and relatively low cost. When it was introduced in 1936, a new industry was born. Within three years after production of the first commercial fluorescent lamps, the industry had reached $100 million in sales. In comparison, the automobile industry took fifteen years after the first cars were produced to reach that sales figure, and the radio industry needed five years. — Peter J. Walsh Further Reading Bova, Ben. The Beauty of Light. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988. Provides an excellent, readable account of light: how it is seen, how it is used, and how it affects people. Chapter 14 discusses light sources, including fluorescent lighting and its deficiencies. Bowers, Brian. Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Concise history of lighting technologies, including fluorescent lighting. Discusses both technical aspects of different lighting technologies as well as the societal effects of advances in such technologies. Well illustrated, with exploded diagrams and reproductions of etchings. Elenbaas, W., ed. Fluorescent Lamps. New York: Macmillan, 1959. Collection of articles by experts provides technical details about the fluorescent lamp. Kane, Raymond, and Heinz Sell, eds. Revolution in Lamps: A Chronicle of Fifty Years of Progress. 2d ed. New York: Fairmont Press, 2001. A history of the progress made in lamps and lighting as well as information on new lighting technologies, aimed at designers, engineers, and architects as well as lay readers. Includes a chapter on fluorescent lamps. Stern, Rudi. The New Let There Be Neon. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988. An atlas of vivid neon lights. Includes a survey of the historical development of gas-discharge and related types of lamps. Zwikker, C., ed. Fluorescent Lighting. New York: Elsevier Press, 1952. Provides a good mix of technical detail and information on the historical development and practical aspects of fluorescent lamps. See also: 1901: Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp; Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays.
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great spiral in the “motor display salon,” the car showroom, of the General Motors exhibit at the New York World’s Fair. Fluorescent lamps lit the Polish Restaurant and hung in vertical clusters on the flag poles along the Avenue of the Flags at the Fair, and upright fluorescent tubes two meters long illuminated buildings at the San Francisco International Exhibition. Technical advances improved the fluorescent lamp, especially in the area of light efficiency, commonly rated in lumens per watt. Depending on its exact shade, a perfectly efficient white source may yield 200-300 lumens per watt, whereas a common twenty-first century 100watt incandescent lamp with a normal lifetime of 750 hours of use has a light efficiency of slightly more than 17 lumens per watt. Even in 1938, the common 40-watt fluorescent lamp had an efficiency of about 45 lumens per watt. This efficiency increased to more than 57 lumens per watt by 1948 and to nearly 80 lumens per watt by the mid-1980’s. All of this was accompanied by large increases in the useful life of the fluorescent lamp from about 2,000 hours in 1942 to nearly 20,000 hours by the mid-1980’s. The fluorescent lamp did have a number of drawbacks that limited complete acceptance, and some of these persisted. One limitation is the need for a transformer ballast to operate the lamp; this has prevented the widespread use of fluorescent lamps in homes in the United States. It is much simpler to insert an incandescent lamp into a light socket than to replace a fluorescent lamp in a bulky light fixture. Another disadvantage of fluorescent lamps is their relatively poor color rendition in comparison with sunlight and incandescent lamps. In comparison with the color of high-pressure mercury-vapor lamps and sodium-vapor lamps, used for lighting highways and large areas, the color rendition of fluorescent lamps is excellent. The color of fluorescent lamps, however, is not highly uniform across the spectrum, because of the strong blue and green lines of mercury. Also, it is deficient in the red in comparison with sunlight and, especially, in comparison with the incandescent lamp. Because red colors are especially flattering to the skin tones of most people, the use of fluorescent lighting has been severely limited in the home and in mood settings outside the home. Despite the limitations of the fluorescent lamp, this new form of lighting offered the enormous advantages of
Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced
Luce Launches Life Magazine
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 23, 1936
Luce Launches LIFE Magazine The emergence of Life marked not only the birth of another American magazine but also the creation of a new genre within the publishing industry, one that precipitated the enormous impact of photography combined with journalism. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Publishing and journalism; photography Key Figures Henry R. Luce (1898-1967), creator of Time and Fortune and editor in chief of Life Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), second wife of Henry Luce, journalist, playwright, congresswoman, ambassador, and originator of the Life idea John Shaw Billings (1898-1975), first managing editor of Life Daniel Longwell (1899-1968), first executive editor of Life Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), staff photographer and war correspondent for Life Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995), German photojournalist who joined Life in 1936 Summary of Event Henry R. Luce married Clare Boothe Brokaw on November 23, 1935; it was a second marriage for both. The couple returned from a ten-week honeymoon in Cuba in February, 1936, and the announcement of their intent to start a pictorial magazine soon followed. Henry Luce’s biographer, John Kobler, writing in 1968, identified Clare Luce as the source of the idea for the magazine, and scholars often point to a pattern for such a magazine she had sketched out for Condé Nast, the publisher of Vanity Fair, of which she had been editor. Clare Boothe Luce, who was thirty-three at the time of her marriage to Luce, had begun her career six years earlier at Vogue magazine and went on to write three relatively successful Broadway plays before involvement with World War II took her back into journalism and politics. Henry Luce had been cofounder with Briton Hadden of Time Incorporated and its lead periodical, the successful newsweekly Time, from its inception in 1923. In addition, in February of 1930, Luce had created a significant monthly magazine for American business called Fortune. In March of 1931 he inaugurated the radio news program The March of Time, and in April, 1932, he ac2966
quired and then remodeled into a professional exemplar the periodical Architectural Forum. The title of the new pictorial magazine originally was to be Dime—its initial newsstand cost. Over the eight months of frantic preparation, a whole series of alternative working titles were tried, including Parade, Scene, Seen, and Pictures, while the subtitle remained most descriptive: The Show-Book of the World. By midsummer, a mock-up issue of the magazine had been produced. The decision was made to print the magazine on paper measuring ten and one-half inches by fourteen inches, making it somewhat larger than most other magazines of the day; when an issue appeared on the newsstands, its dimensions allowed it to stand out from the other displayed titles competing for the purchaser’s attention. By September, a trial mock-up had been created under the name Rehearsal. Throughout the preparatory period, the company had to deal with a large number of unknowns, including the location of presses capable of handling the projected print run, the availability of equipment permitting high-quality photographic reproduction on a large scale, and the feasibility of obtaining supplies of coated paper on which high-quality images could be sustained. In describing his intended pictorial magazine, Luce had written, “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; . . . to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half mankind.” The obvious title for the unnamed magazine thus emerged; if “to see life” was the objective, then the medium of the seeing would be called Life. Clare Boothe Luce had used this very designation in her original sketch for Condé Nast. Another Life, a humor magazine, had existed since 1883, but it was fading rapidly under the impact of the national economic plight of the Great Depression and its own inability to keep pace with the times and with the competition of such rivals as The New Yorker. Luce and company purchased the title for $92,000 in August, and work on the first issue of the new Life followed immediately. Bearing the date Monday, November 23, 1936, the new weekly Life appeared on the newsstands on the preceding Thursday, November 19. A circulation of 250,000 had been guaranteed to potential advertisers, and the initial printing was of 466,000 copies. These sold out within hours of hitting the stands.
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risen to 5,369,000 copies per week, the largest circulation of any magazine. Wartime issues (beginning October 11, 1943) went overseas without advertising. Time could be illustrated, but its success was dependent on its ability to create and use the language of mid-twentieth century America. Life, on the other hand, was intended to provide images of the midcentury world as seen through the eyes of the United States. Regular features of Life thus came to spawn other magazines, including its own international editions (from July 22, 1946) and the Spanish-language Life en Español (from January 5, 1953), as well as Sports Illustrated (from August 16, 1954) and People (from March 4, 1974). In addition, both as composites from issues and as creations from without, Life generated whole series of books—magazine journalism in hard covers. Life could do essays with photographs, but its best pieces were the arresting illustrations with word captions. On the occasion of the celebration of photography’s sesquicentennial, Lance Morrow noted that photojournalism is not only “the first impression of history” but also, disturbingly, “history’s lasting visual impression.” In an article titled “What Is Photojournalism?” Wilson Hicks observed that “Life had been projected headlong into its own evolutionary state.” The magazine was the laboratory in which the intended art form was accomplished. Early issues of Life show abuses of photographs that were cut to eliminate the unwanted or to fit some aesthetic notion of space. An awareness of the camera gradually emerged, so that what was actually taken— though the images were certainly affected by the photographer’s eye and bias—was precisely what appeared in the magazine. Life’s photographers provided an average of thirty-five thousand pictures for every ten thousand that were used, but the editorial selection of the approximately two hundred images used per issue—itself an aesthetic act—ensured that the selected images remained inviolate. Significance Henry Luce thought of Life as a new kind of magazine. The picture magazine had already appeared in varying degrees: The Illustrated London News originated in May, 1842, just after the invention of photography, but it was chiefly illustrated by drawings and engravings into the 1920’s. Harper’s Weekly had incorporated Civil War photographs by Mathew Brady, and Boston of the 1880’s had Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion. From the beginning of the new century, photography was 2967
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Every page of the inaugural issue had some kind of illustration of greater spatial proportion than text, with the exception of page 3, which featured an essay titled “Introduction to This First Issue of Life.” On the facing page 2 was a full-page photograph captioned “Life begins”— an infant just after birth in the hands of an attending physician. The first issue’s front cover depicted Fort Peck Dam, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project being built in Montana. The cover photograph was taken by Margaret Bourke-White, whose work also illustrated the lead article on pages 9 through 17. Color was used in the photographs on eleven of the interior pages, although except for a four-page article illustrating the paintings of John Steuart Curry of Kansas, all the color was used in advertisements. Advertising occupied thirty-three full pages, including three of the covers, plus nine half-page ads and three quarter-page ads. Advertisements were sold at the rate of $1,500 for a full black-and-white page and $2,250 for color. The magazine itself sold for 10 cents. Total revenues for the first issue exceeded $110,000, but this was insufficient to cover printing costs. Loss of money was a regular venture through many years of Life’s publication. Issues were affectionately known by the staff as the “Big Red.” Each had a red band at the bottom across the front cover (a feature eliminated with the issue of June 2, 1961). A bold red rectangle with the word “LIFE” in white lettering was set dramatically in the upper-lefthand corner. Only once was this recognition symbol absent: in the issue published April 16, 1937, when it would have interfered with the photo of a rooster’s comb. Once, too, the recognition symbol appeared in black—on the issue printed on November 29, 1963, after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Life was not intended as a war magazine, as its covers made evident. There was much more to see: Life paid special attention to women, who adorned at least one of every three covers, and the magazine’s pages included many illustrating fashion and the perennial interest in swimsuits. From its second issue, and for the sixteen years that followed, Life had a regular feature called “Movie of the Week,” and the magazine made stars’ careers by featuring photographs of them. The magazine’s greatest love affair was with Elizabeth Taylor, who appeared on its covers a record twelve times. Yet Life’s first decade was dominated by the interactive forces of depression and war. As a result, it became widely known as a war magazine, and this development did not hinder its initial growth. By 1947, circulation had
Luce Launches Life Magazine
Luce Launches Life Magazine exploited by major illustrated weeklies in Paris, Leipzig, and Berlin. Luce, however, was aiming for something more—a genre not yet created. Luce had identified films and radio as the magazine’s most obvious competitors, but by the time Life emerged, television had already been invented. Rather than giving the public what it wanted, Luce elected to offer “what they must have lest they perish.” By perfecting the magazine’s craftsmanship, Luce thought his brainchild could compete with its electronic rivals. As late as 1965, George P. Hunt, then Life’s managing editor, could still observe: “Permanence is what photographs and paintings are. The TV set represents the fleeting moment. You can see the great photos in Life forever.” Nevertheless, television was in part destructive of both Life and its photojournalistic competitors. Collier’s and Woman’s Home Companion both folded in December, 1956; the Saturday Evening Post was bought out by Time Inc. and eliminated in February, 1969; Look survived until October, 1971. From November 23, 1936, to December 29, 1972, 1,864 regular weekly issues of Life appeared. In addition were special editions, including “Israel’s Swift Victory” (1967), “The Kennedys” (1968), and “To the Moon and Back” and “Woodstock” (1970). From 1973 to 1977, Life produced only two issues per year, one “special” and a year-end “The Year in Pictures.” Life resumed publication as a monthly between 1978 and 2000 and also put out occasional special issues, remaining as a survivor of the golden age of photojournalism. It resumed a weekly format and as of 2005 was published every Friday and distributed in more than seventy American newspapers each week for a total circulation of twelve million. —Clyde Curry Smith Further Reading Doss, Erika Lee, ed. Looking at “Life” Magazine. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. Collection of more than a dozen essays chronicles the magazine’s impact on American history. Especially interesting is the discussion of Life’s role in shaping American sentiment toward the Vietnam War. Elson, Robert T. Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1923-1941. Edited by Duncan Norton-Taylor. New York: Atheneum, 1968. _______. The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1941-1960. Edited by Duncan Norton-Taylor. New York: Atheneum, 1973. 2968
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 These two volumes and their sequel, Curtis Prendergast’s The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise, 1960-1980 (1986), constitute an official account. The authors had full access to the private papers of those involved in the Time Inc. publishing enterprise. The birth of Life is chronicled in the first volume, and its success is discussed in the second. The third volume deals with the magazine’s late-1970’s revival. Goldberg, Vicki. Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography. New York: Harper, 1986. Informative biography of a principal Life photographic contributor. Henle, Faye. Au Clare de Luce: Portrait of a Luminous Lady. New York: S. Daye, 1943. Early biography has the advantage of emphasizing Clare Boothe Luce’s own prior editorial success before Life was launched. Hicks, Wilson. Words and Pictures: An Introduction to Photojournalism. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952. Written by an editor of Life, this book discusses the history and nature of pictorial journalism. Extensively illustrated with examples from Life. Kobler, John. Luce: His Time, Life, and Fortune. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. Written immediately after the death of Luce. Contains valuable information about the creation of the magazines, including the role of Clare Boothe Luce’s memo on the format and character of Life. Includes bibliography. Swanberg, W. A. Luce and His Empire. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. A political assessment of Luce and the perspective appearing within his publications. Independent of the official history of the company, and thereby lacks sources of information pertinent especially to Life. Includes photographs and a thorough index of names. Time Life Books. The Best of “Life.” Alexandria, Va.: Author, 1973. A selection of the magazine’s highlights, compiled after the demise of the weekly version. Captions alongside each selection and picture credits at the end. _______. “Life”: The First Fifty Years, 1936-1986. Boston: Little, Brown, 1986. An official commemorative, with illustrations of every cover, samples from every year, and brief interpretive essays on each decade. The finest all-around introduction to the magazine and its impact. _______. “Life” Goes to the Movies. Alexandria, Va.: Author, 1975. Focuses on a social arena that Life regularly appreciated and exploited. Stars, studios, and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 behind-the-scenes aspects of Hollywood are illustrated and put into perspective. _______. “Life”: One Hundred Events That Shook Our World. New York: Author, 2005. Presents some remarkable photographs from the magazine’s long history.
Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact See also: Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic; Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded; Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded; Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine.
November 25, 1936
Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact Germany and Japan signed a largely symbolic agreement out of mutual self-interest, signaling a proto-Axis alliance that was conceived as a means of confronting the Soviet Union with a two-front war. Hitler ignored and abrogated the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1939 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but Japan showed little interest in being drawn into a European conflict. Locale: Berlin, Germany; Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), prime minister of Great Britain, 1937-1940 Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), Hitler’s foreign minister, 1938-1945 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin; 1890-1986), premier of the Soviet Union, 1930-1941, and foreign minister, 1939-1949 and 1953-1956 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party in Russia and dictator in the Soviet Union, 1929-1953
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Summary of Event On November 25, 1936, Adolf Hitler announced that he had signed an anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Foreign correspondent William L. Shirer, then in Berlin, recalled that Hitler claimed that the two countries had banded together to defend Western civilization. Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin’s Comintern (Communist International) was aiding Communist activities throughout the world, especially in those countries that seemed on the brink of revo-
lution. Exploiting Western fears of Communist subversion, Hitler deflected attention away from his own aggressive actions at home and abroad, and by suggesting that he was helping to isolate the Soviet Union as a rogue nation, Hitler sought to obscure his efforts to promulgate German hegemony in Europe. The success of his efforts was at least partly dependent on whether he could convince the British that it was in their best interests to cooperate with Germany. The treaty with Japan also had a secret protocol: In the event of a Soviet attack on either country, Germany and Japan would work together to preserve their common interests and do nothing to support Soviet policies, including signing any agreements with the Soviet Union that did not have the approval of both Germany and Japan. Hitler consolidated his alliance of fascist countries when he persuaded Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini, to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 6, 1937. Hitler’s annexation of Austria in 1938 demonstrated that his rationale for promoting the Anti-Comintern Pact was sound. British prime minister Neville Chamberlain rejected a Soviet request for a conference of nations that would seek to check any further German expansion. Not only was Chamberlain unwilling to use force against Hitler, he was not even willing to exert concerted diplomatic action against Germany’s growing power. Hitler correctly calculated that the West’s suspicion of Stalin would prevent any significant effort to halt German efforts to dominate Europe. That Hitler already had in hand an axis of powers on his side—Italy and Japan—did not seem to trouble Chamberlain. As 1938 wore on, Hitler continued to use the AntiComintern Pact as a kind of cover for his territorial designs. In the events leading up to his takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939, he demanded that the Czechs sign the pact, which served as a pretext for his claim that Czechoslovakia was somehow pursuing a foreign policy inimical to both German and Western interests.
Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact By the end of October of 1938, Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who had been advancing the German claim to the Polish city of Danzig, requested that Poland also sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had become a kind of German test of any European country’s determination to resist the Third Reich’s foreign policy (masked, as always, as an anti-Soviet program). In other words, if the Poles wished to show their good faith and demonstrate their anti-Communist credentials, they had to be willing to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. In return for acceding to an alliance with Germany, the Poles would receive a renewed guarantee that Germany would respect Poland’s borders. Poland had fought a war against the Soviet Union in 1920 and was traditionally anti-Russian, and so Hitler could present his demands in the guise of an effort to protect the very country he would soon invade. The Poles, however, refused to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, which to them would mean acknowledging Germany’s preeminence in central Europe. The more Hitler emphasized the importance of the Anti-Comintern Pact, the harder it was for Western leaders like Chamberlain to include the Soviet Union in any effort to check belligerent German foreign policy. At any rate, for Chamberlain any act in concert with the Soviet Union meant that he would simply be strengthening the ties of the countries that had already signed the AntiComintern Pact. That the pact itself was not much more than Hitler’s ruse never seems to have occurred to Chamberlain. Indeed, by April of 1939, Hitler’s speeches no longer contained his customary anti-Soviet language, although fascist Spain signed the Anti-Comintern Pact on April 5. In fact, in October of 1938, Stalin had opened secret negotiations with Hitler in a reaction against Chamberlain’s continued refusal to include the Soviet Union in efforts to check German expansionism. The minor importance Hitler actually placed on the Anti-Comintern Pact was made apparent when German diplomats did not object to the demands of Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov that the German government offer concrete proof of its intention to fundamentally alter its hostile policy toward the Soviet Union. Hitler acceded to the Soviet demand that he sign a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, and he signaled this major policy shift by sending Ribbentrop to the Soviet Union to meet with Molotov, a sign of respect that the British had never accorded the Soviets. Ribbentrop explained to Molotov that the AntiComintern Pact had never really been directed against the Soviet Union but rather against the Western democracies. At this meeting of foreign ministers, Stalin seemed 2970
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to agree with Ribbentrop and with German foreign policy: The Soviet leader said that the pact had in fact intimidated British financiers and shopkeepers, presumably because it showed the weight Germany could bring to world affairs and, more important, foreshadowed the diminution of the British Empire. Ribbentrop then told Stalin that the joke in Berlin was that soon Stalin himself would join the Anti-Comintern Pact. With the signing of the German-Soviet nonaggression pact (known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in 1939, the Anti-Comintern Pact was effectively abrogated, but the Soviet Union abolished the Comintern in 1943 in an attempt to placate its Western allies. Significance As historian John Lukacs has argued, before the beginning of World War II, Hitler had created an astoundingly successful foreign policy record. Virtually all of his major objectives had been achieved: rearmament, the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the annexation of Austria, and the takeover of Czechoslovakia. The Anti-Comintern Pact was part of Hitler’s clever effort to mask his antiWestern foreign policy with a seemingly aggressive stance toward the Soviet Union. In particular, he aimed to dupe Britain into believing that the two countries both opposed Stalin. In fact, to some extent, the two countries did share concerns about the threat of Communist subversion, and Hitler wanted to maintain an alliance with Britain as long as Chamberlain continued to appease him. After a British alliance failed to materialize, however, and after Stalin agreed to the nonaggression pact, the need for the Anti-Comintern Pact evaporated. In the meantime, the Anti-Comintern Pact had served its purpose: It had allowed Hitler to give the impression of being a friend to Western democracy while simultaneously forcing the unification of Germany, Japan, and the fascist powers in Italy and Spain. —Carl Rollyson Further Reading Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. The second volume of Kershaw’s acclaimed biography of Hitler (the first was Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris). Accords Ribbentrop a central role in strengthening Germany’s alliance with Japan, a role that the professionals in the German Foreign Office belittled because they considered Japan a sideshow. In effect, Ribbentrop was establishing an alternative foreign policy that found favor with Hitler. Lukacs, John. The Hitler of History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Although this book does not specifi-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cally deal with the Anti-Comintern Pact, it is an indispensable and concise explanation of why Hitler’s foreign policy was so successful until the beginning of World War II. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Ballantine, 1991. Classic work is still one of the most readable and informative histories of the Third Reich. Although Shirer’s research has been superseded in some respects, this remains one of the best in-
Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace troductions to the Nazi era, especially given that the author witnessed many of Hitler’s actions while serving as a foreign correspondent in Berlin. See also: Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference.
December, 1936
Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace The countries of the Western Hemisphere met in an attempt to formulate strategies for avoiding warfare in the region. The conference set the tone for future relations among North, Central, and South American nations. Locale: Buenos Aires, Argentina Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state, 1933-1944 Carlos Saavedra Lamas (1878-1959), foreign minister of Argentina, 1932-1938
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Summary of Event Prospects for world peace diminished during 1936. Imperial Japan had taken over Manchuria in 1931 and threatened to invade China. Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had sent his army into Ethiopia in order to build Italy’s African empire. German chancellor Adolf Hitler hoped to unite Austria, the country of his birth, with Germany, and he also wanted to incorporate western Czechoslovakia into the greater German Reich. Spain’s Fascist military leader Francisco Franco and his troops rebelled against the central government and began a civil war that lasted for three years (1936-1939) before Franco defeated the Spanish Republican forces and took power. In addition to the outbreak of strife in continental Europe, turmoil in the continents of Africa and Asia had also become a serious concern for the countries in the Western Hemisphere. As a group, the Americas were
suffering from the continuation of the serious economic depression that had begun in 1929, and an expansion of global unrest during the decade of the 1930’s only increased the severity of the depression. The need for the development of strong hemispheric economic program that would meet the needs of all of the countries in the Americas weighed heavily on those responsible for the planning of U.S. foreign policy. Thousands of Italians and Germans had immigrated to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil in the preceding fifty years. The Argentine army had many officers trained by the Germans and Italians, and German officers actually served with the Argentinians on regular tours of duty in that country. The U.S. State Department and War Department worried about whether the governments of Italy and Germany would attempt to utilize these close connections to influence foreign policy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were very concerned about the expansionist policies being used by Germany, Japan, and Italy. Could the Western Hemisphere be drawn into global conflict? To answer this question, in 1936 the American leaders called for a conference of the area’s independent nations to discuss a plan for preserving peace in the face of any threat from outside the hemisphere. Roosevelt traveled to South America at the conference’s opening, a trip that made him only the second American president to travel abroad to open a pan-American conference. He visited Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina, and he received a tremendous welcome in all three countries. Undoubtedly, the newly reelected president’s appearance at heavily attended public gatherings was a successful public relations strategy. Roosevelt took advantage of his popularity and stressed the need for the conference dele-
Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace gates to adopt a Good Neighbor Policy. He announced that the United States was committed to this principle and said that he hoped that the conference’s commitment to peaceful discussion of international disputes could serve as a model for the rest of the world. The Latin American countries did not automatically respond to President Roosevelt’s statements. Historically, the United States had not been a good neighbor. In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the U.S. government had sent troops into Mexico, Haiti, and Nicaragua, and the Americans had U.S. Marines stationed in Haiti as recently as 1934, although they were recalled in an attempt to demonstrate the commitment of the United States to the Good Neighbor Policy. Earlier in the century, however, President Theodore Roosevelt had fomented a civil war in Colombia’s Central American territory that led to the establishment of an independent Panama. He ordered support for the Panamanian rebels solely for the purpose of building the canal that would connect the two oceans and serve U.S. interests in the region. This shortcut greatly enhanced the shipment of trade goods from coast to coast. Nevertheless, the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace was held at Buenos Aires in December of 1936, and out of the conference came the framework for a Western Hemisphere agreement. The main provisions were as follows: All of the members agreed to respect the sovereignty of other members, all members would consult immediately if the peace of the American community of nations was disturbed, no acquisition of territory made through violence would be recognized, intervention by one state in the internal or external affairs of another was condemned, forcible collection of debt was made illegal, and any dispute between American nations had to be settled through conciliation, arbitration, or the operation of international justice. Much of the content of the declaration was designed to convince the Latin American nations that the United States truly intended to be a good neighbor, and the document set the tone for all future hemispheric meetings among the American states. Significance Although the Latin American countries agreed to adopt the concept of the Good Neighbor Policy, Argentine for-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 eign minister Carlos Saavedra Lamas led these countries in insisting that the declarations clearly delineate the concept of equality for all of the conference’s members, and the conference set the stage for the maintenance of independence of action for all its participants. Despite a proposal from the United States for a united front against the fascist dictatorships of Europe, Argentina pursued a policy of neutrality throughout World War II. That country’s independent action endorsed the concept that each participant in the Inter-American Conference had the right to formulate its own foreign and domestic positions. — Carl Henry Marcoux Further Reading Bailey, Thomas Andrew. A Diplomatic History of the American People. 10th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1980. Presents an overview of American diplomacy since the country’s founding. Gellman, Irwin F. Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933-1945. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. Provides a thorough history of the period. _______. Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. An analysis of the three major actors in the development of the Good Neighbor Policy of the United States during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Autobiographical account of the U.S. State Department’s pan-American policies during Hull’s years as secretary of state. Woods, Randall Bennett. The Roosevelt Foreign-Policy Establishment and the “Good Neighbor”: The United States and Argentina, 1941-1945. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979. Discussion provides insights into Argentine neutralism during World War II. See also: Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy; Feb. 17, 1936: Corporatism Comes to Paraguay.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne
December 10, 1936
Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne Edward VIII gave up the British throne in the wake of the public scandal surrounding his romantic involvement with an American divorcée. Locale: Great Britain Categories: Government and politics; crime and scandal Key Figures Edward VIII (1894-1972), king of Great Britain, January 20-December 11, 1936, later duke of Windsor Wallis Warfield Simpson (1896-1986), twice-divorced American woman whom Edward VIII wished to marry
Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), Conservative prime minister of Great Britain, 1935-1937 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman and author George Geoffrey Dawson (1874-1944), English journalist and editor of the London Times, 19231941 William Cosmo Gordon Lang (1864-1945), archbishop of Canterbury, 1928-1942
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Summary of Event Edward VIII was unconventional but popular both as Prince of Wales and as king—popular, perhaps, because he seemed modern and unconventional. His father, George V, had endowed the British monarchy with a comfortable sense of middle-class propriety. His eldest son, however, had a less clear sense of the duties and responsibilities of the monarch. Edward wanted to attune the monarchy to the times and to the people, and he was suspicious of what seemed to him the unimaginative and insensitive leadership of tired old men that characterized British politics in the 1930’s. Because of his intimate relationships with married women and his To view image, please refer to the pro-German sympathies, the Prince print edition of this title. of Wales was regarded in many circles with distaste and even suspicion. A constitutional crisis drove him from the throne before he had reigned one year. The king, who at age forty-one was still a bachelor, fell in love with Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American and a commoner. Not only was Mrs. Simpson married at the time to Ernest Simpson, a London stockbroker, but she had a former husband from whom she had been divorced many years before. The intimate friendship between the king and Mrs. Simpson soon became a matter of gossip in The duke and duchess of Windsor following their wedding on June 3, 1937. (AP/Wide London society and of comment in World Photos) the American press. The British
Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne
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advice of the cabinet. If he did not, the cabinet would be justified in resigning, as it On December 11, 1936, the day after he abdicated the British throne, now threatened to do. The question of the the Duke of Windsor addressed his former subjects through a radio king’s marriage became a constitutional broadcast. He began with these words: crisis. Baldwin endeavored to convince the king to renounce Mrs. Simpson; otherwise At long last I am able to say a few words of my own. I have never wanted it was his duty to abdicate. For Edward to withhold anything, but until now it has not been constitutionally posVIII, who apparently had little sense of the sible for me to speak. A few hours ago I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor, and duties of the royal family, the choice was now that I have been succeeded by my brother, The Duke of York, my simple. He decided to marry the woman he first words must be to declare my allegiance to him. This I do with all loved. Meanwhile, the British public knew my heart. nothing because the secret was so well You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the guarded. Then, suddenly, on December 3, Throne. But I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did the press broke its self-imposed silence. not forget the country or the Empire which as Prince of Wales, and The nation was shocked and disbelieving. lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve. But you must There was some popular support for the believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the king and numerous demonstrations were heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I held. Yet Baldwin and the cabinet had been would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love. right; most of the British people disapproved and public sentiment in the Commonwealth against the king also ran high. press, with its traditional respect for the royal family’s Most of the British press was against the monarch. privacy, treated Mrs. Simpson as if she did not exist. Winston Churchill’s attempts to stir up support in the Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative prime minister, chose House of Commons failed dismally. to bide his time and wait for the king to make a mistake or The king notified Baldwin on December 5 of his decicome to his senses. sion to abdicate. Certain conventions had to be honored, In October of 1936, Mrs. Simpson sought and was and Parliament was not informed until December 10. On awarded a divorce from her husband. This decree freed December 11, a Declaration of Abdication Bill was introher to marry again after six months. At this point, the duced in Parliament, passed both houses, and received king told Baldwin that he intended to marry Mrs. Simproyal assent. Edward was now a private citizen. The new son. Baldwin and the entire cabinet opposed the marking, the former duke of York, succeeded as George VI. riage. They believed that the king’s marrying a twiceThat evening, Edward broadcast a touching farewell divorced woman would violate the principles of the message to the people of Great Britain and the CommonChurch of England (of which the king was supreme govwealth in which he said that he could not continue his life ernor) regarding divorce and remarriage. The archbishop without the help of “the woman I love.” Immediately afof Canterbury, William Cosmo Gordon Lang, strongly terward, he went into self-imposed exile in France, upheld the church’s view. Divorce still barred a man where he married Mrs. Simpson the following June. Alfrom public life in Britain, and it would be an intolerable though Edward was created duke of Windsor, his wife affront if the king were to marry Mrs. Simpson. The cabiwas not accorded the title of royal highness. The British net correctly assumed that public opinion, in Great Britroyal family, bitter at how Edward had behaved during ain and in the even more conservative countries of the the abdication crisis and convinced that Mrs. Simpson Commonwealth, would display a similar outrage at what was responsible, refused to receive her or acknowledge the king wanted to do. The king, the monarchy, and the her as duchess of Windsor. There was some softening government would be drawn into the storm of political of their attitude, however, before the duke of Windsor’s controversy. There would likely be permanent political death in 1972. damage to the monarchy and all that it represented for the unity of the British people and the solidarity of the ComSignificance monwealth. Edward VIII’s abdication became one of the most controversial episodes in the history of the British monarThe king was legally free to marry any woman he chy. Modern scholarship now contends that Edward VIII wished, but he was constitutionally obliged to accept the
The Duke of Windsor Addresses the Nation
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mishandled his personal and public affairs throughout the period that led up to the abdication, and in the process he alienated many members of Parliament. His later expressions of pro-German sentiment in the 1930’s and 1940’s have also hurt his historical reputation. After his abdication, the duke met with several Nazi Party officials and even had an audience with Adolf Hitler; the Nazis hoped to reinstall the duke on the throne and thereby establish a Nazi presence in England. The plan was not a serious one, however, and in 1945 the duke accepted Churchill’s offer of a post as governor in the Bahamas. Fortunately, the duke’s departure had proved no more than a minor tremor for the British monarchy, and though Windsor family relations were severely strained, their conflicts were not made as public as some later disagreements. Furthermore, the spotlight quickly turned to the duke’s brother, King George VI, who made an excellent monarch. As a result, the abdication controversy passed quickly and was almost as quickly forgotten. Eventually, the duke returned to England for visits and for the funerals of his brother in 1952 and his mother, Queen Mary, in 1953. Fourteen more years would pass before the duke and duchess were formally invited to a royal gathering, although the pair were ultimately buried together at Windsor Castle’s Frogmore. —James M. Haas and Lewis L. Gould Further Reading Bloch, Michael, ed. Wallis and Edward: Letters, 19311937—The Intimate Correspondence of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. New York: Summit Books, 1986. A valuable primary source for understanding how King Edward VIII and the woman he loved viewed the constitutional crisis that had changed their lives. Bradford, Sarah. The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI, 1985-1952. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Looks at the abdication crisis from the point of view of Edward VIII’s brother and successor
Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne and is critical of the performance of the future duke of Windsor. Donaldson, Frances. Edward VIII: A Biography of the Duke of Windsor. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1974. The first thorough and critical biography of the duke of Windsor, one that began the reappraisal of his life and the implications of the abdication and its background. Edward VIII, King of Great Britain. A King’s Story: The Memoirs of H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951. The ghostwritten memoirs of the king illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of his personality and approach to his royal responsibilities. Williams, Susan. The People’s King: The True Story of the Abdication. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Williams was the first of Edward VIII’s biographers to have access to scores of official records andprivate diaries, and so she is able to argue convincingly that the duke’s democratic leanings were just as—and perhaps more—responsible for his ouster than his desire to marry Simpson. Windsor, Wallis Warfield, Duchess of. The Heart Has Its Reasons: The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor. New York: David McKay, 1956. The duchess of Windsor offers her account of the abdication crisis, which reveals how little she understood the British monarchy and the political system of the country. Ziegler, Philip. King Edward VIII: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. Excellent modern biography of the king presents a thorough and balanced treatment of the abdication crisis and its aftermath. See also: Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered; July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women; Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion; Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program.
1936
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Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1937
Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone Henry Dreyfuss’s design for the Bell 300 telephone— which remained the standard desk telephone from its introduction in 1937 until 1950—was a milestone for the developing world of industrial design in the United States. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Fashion and design; science and technology Key Figures Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972), pioneer of industrial design in the United States Doris Marks Dreyfuss (1903-1972), one of Dreyfuss’s first employees and, after their marriage in 1930, his firm’s business manager Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958), theatrical designer turned industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague (1883-1960), pioneer in the professionalization of industrial design in the United States Raymond Fernand Loewy (1893-1986), industrial design innovator Summary of Event Henry Dreyfuss was born on March 2, 1904, in New York City. He graduated from the Ethical Culture Fine Arts High School in 1922. His father and grandfather had been in the theatrical equipment business, supplying costumes and props, and Dreyfuss followed family tradition by becoming an apprentice to stage designer Norman Bel Geddes in the design of the sets for the 1924 Broadway hit The Miracle. Starting in 1923, Dreyfuss worked as a designer for the stage productions of the Strand Theater in New York City. His success at the Strand led to similar work for the nationwide RKO Orpheum chain of vaudeville theaters. “Out of the sheer necessity of producing six new sets weekly for 260 weeks,” he recalled in his Designing for People (1955), “came an understanding of what people like.” Dreyfuss was first attracted to industrial design in 1927, when an executive at Macy’s department store asked him to look into the possibility of redesigning the store’s merchandise to boost sales. Dreyfuss turned down the job because he thought that the changes involved would require excessively expensive retooling. He concluded that the way to improve the design of a product was to work directly with the product’s manu2976
facturer before the manufacturer had made a major investment in machinery and materials. “A fundamental premise was involved in my refusal—one from which I have never retreated,” he later explained. “An honest job of design should flow from the inside out, not from the outside in.” Interest in industrial product design first appeared in Europe, climaxing in a 1925 Paris exhibition of designs and decorative arts. Industrial design, however, emerged as a profession first in the United States, where the rise of a consumer culture occurred earlier than in Europe. In the 1920’s, demand for mass-market consumer items such as automobiles, sewing machines, refrigerators, radios, and other electric appliances increased enormously, and at the suggestion of their advertising agencies, manufacturers began to give more attention to the appearance of their products. Henry Ford’s decision to meet increasing competition by replacing the Model T automobile with the new Model A in 1927 gave other businessmen a high-profile demonstration of the importance of style to sales. The Great Depression further pushed manufacturers into searching for ways to boost sales by making products more attractive and efficient. The leading philosopher of the emergent profession of industrial design was Dreyfuss’s mentor in stage design, Norman Bel Geddes. Geddes’s 1932 book Horizons did much to popularize what became the dominant American style of the 1930’s, streamlining, which emphasized the separation of the outer shell of a product from its internal mechanism. The outer shell typically had a smooth and flowing surface with rounded edges. Streamlining was strongly influenced by research in aerodynamics—the techniques for eliminating the friction of wind resistance to a moving vehicle. Researchers had concluded that the teardrop was the aerodynamically most efficient shape for a moving vehicle. Industrial designers in the 1930’s extended the teardrop shape from its use in locomotives and automobiles and began to apply it to stationary objects. Geddes was a technocratic utopian who envisaged industrial design transforming the world. A similar vision animated Walter Dorwin Teague. Teague had a successful career as an advertising illustrator before he began his second career as an industrial designer by creating (around 1930) several cameras for Eastman Kodak. He would count among his clients such other corpo-
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Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone
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leader in the new field of industrial design. The 300 rate giants as Ford, Texaco, and Du Pont. Teague and model remained the standard desk telephone until 1950, Dreyfuss took the initiative in promoting organization when it was replaced by another Dreyfuss model. of a professional association for industrial designers; Other Dreyfuss designs included the Big Ben and they in turn brought in Raymond Fernand Loewy to Baby Ben alarm clocks for Westclox, a vacuum cleaner constitute the founding triumvirate responsible for the for Hoover, the Eversharp pen, a Royal typewriter, gas establishment in 1944 of the Society of Industrial Destations for Cities Service, bathroom fixtures for Crane, signers. and farm equipment for John Deere. His influence was Loewy came to personify for the lay public the new strongly felt in magazine publishing via his design of profession. Loewy—who had been born in Paris in the formats for McCall’s, Time, and Reader’s Digest 1893—launched his own independent design firm in magazines. His scale model of the “city of tomorrow” New York City the same year that Dreyfuss opened his for the interior of the Perisphere at the 1939 New York office. He would go on to become a household name with World’s Fair did much to bring his name to popular atsuch designs as the Gestetner stencil duplicating matention. chine (1929), the remodeled Coldspot refrigerator for Dreyfuss’s most publicly visible contributions were Sears, Roebuck (1934), the interior of the Pennsylvania in the transportation sphere. The two trains that he Railroad’s Broadway Limited train (1938), the Chrysler planned for the New York Central Railroad—the MerMotors Building at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the cury (1936) and the even more famous Twentieth Cenred-and-white package for Lucky Strike cigarettes tury Limited (1938)—set a new standard for luxurious (1941), the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus (1954), and the rail travel. He designed the interiors of the American ExStudebaker Champion (1947), Starliner (1953), and port Lines ships SS Independence and SS Constitution, Avanti (1962) automobiles. along with those of many airplanes. He was proudest, In April, 1929, Dreyfuss opened his own independent however, of the prosthetic devices he invented for the design office on New York’s Fifth Avenue. One of his victims of limb loss during World War II. first employees was Doris Marks, whom he married in By the 1950’s, his firm had grown to include two of1930. After their marriage, she remained active in the fices (in New York City and South Pasadena, California) firm as business manager. During the firm’s early years, headed by six partners, with a staff of fifty specialists and when clients were few, Dreyfuss kept afloat financially by designing the sets for such Broadway shows as The Last Mile (1930) and The Cat and the Fiddle (1931). Gradually, however, he built a following among manufacturers. One of his first commissions was his redesigned mason jar, which occupied less space; Dreyfuss achieved the goal by making the jar square with a rounded top. His Toperator washing machine for Sears, Roebuck in 1933 was a runaway sales success. So was his design in 1934 of a refrigerator for General Electric that had its motor unit at the bottom, enclosed in an easy-to-clean cabinet, instead of at the top. Starting in 1930, he worked as a consultant for the Bell Telephone Laboratories to design an improved desk telephone. The result of his collaboration with the Bell engineers, the 300 model—introduced in Model 302 in the Bell Telephone 300 series, designed by Henry Dreyfuss. 1937—confirmed his reputation as a
Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone office personnel. Dreyfuss himself divided his time between the two offices. His approach to design called for detailed knowledge of all aspects of the manufacturing and selling of the product. Accordingly, he placed heavy emphasis on research and teamwork in the design process, and he limited his clients to approximately fifteen at a time. Significance Dreyfuss lacked the personal flamboyance and flair for self-publicity exhibited by his colleague Raymond Loewy. Dreyfuss’s tastes were more plain: Brown was his favorite color, not only for his suits but also for his office decor. However, he shared Loewy’s pragmatism. He saw increasing sales for the client as the industrial designer’s primary responsibility. He applied to design problems a five-point yardstick: utility and safety, ease of maintenance, cost, sales appeal, and appearance. Although many of his designs reflected the dominant streamline model, he was no rigid devotee of that style. The keystone of his design credo was the maxim that “the most efficient machine is the one that is built around a person.” Dreyfuss’s goal was thus to achieve maximum simplicity in fitting a product’s form to its function. He was wary about moving too far ahead of popular taste. The industrial designer, Dreyfuss commented in Designing for People, “is a businessman as well as a person who makes drawings and models. He is a keen observer of public taste. . . . He has an understanding of merchandising, how things are made, packed, distributed, and displayed. He accepts the responsibility of his position as a liaison linking management, engineering, and the consumer and cooperates with all three.” Dreyfuss was elected president of the Society of Industrial Designers in 1947. He was a consultant in industrial design at the California Institute of Technology and lectured in engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles. He had privately printed a pictorial record of his designs: Ten Years of Industrial Design: Henry Dreyfuss, 1929-1939 (1939); A Record of Industrial Designs, 1929 Through 1947 (1947); Industrial Design: A Progress Report, 1929-1952 (1952); and Industrial Design: A Pictorial Accounting, 1929-1957 (1957). His Designing for People combined autobiographical reminiscences with a summation of his design philosophy. He presented the data he had accumulated about the physical dimensions of the “average” American in The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design (1960). —John Braeman 2978
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Bush, Donald J. The Streamlined Decade. New York: George Braziller, 1975. An excellent survey, with accompanying extensive illustrations, of the application of streamlining to locomotives, automobiles, ships, airplanes, industrial products, and even buildings during the 1930’s. Dreyfuss, Henry. Designing for People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955. A handsome volume, all aspects of which (jacket, binding, typography, and page layout) were designed by Dreyfuss himself. The text combines autobiographical reminiscences with a summation of Dreyfuss’s design philosophy. _______. The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1960. A portfolio containing charts summarizing the data that Dreyfuss compiled on the physical dimensions of the “average” American for the guidance of industrial designers. Flinchum, Russell. Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer: The Man in the Brown Suit. New York: Rizzoli, 1997. Offers clear and concise discussion of Dreyfuss’s work. Includes more than two hundred carefully chosen images. Gorman, Carma, ed. The Industrial Design Reader. New York: Allworth Press, 2003. Valuable for its inclusion of dozens of primary-source critiques on individual works rather than just their photos. Features not only essays by the artists but also essays by advertisers, industrialists, academics, and politicians. Meikle, Jeffrey L. Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979. A detailed and thoroughly researched account of the formative years of the industrial design profession in the United States. Focuses on the so-called big four of Geddes, Loewy, Teague, and Dreyfuss. Illuminates the assumptions, concepts, and visions influencing, and underlying, their design work. Pulos, Arthur J. The American Design Adventure, 19401975. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988. Pulos carries on his history of American industrial design from where his first volume left off, with the same first-rate results. _______. American Design Ethic: A History of Industrial Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. A pioneering survey of American product design from the colonial period to the 1940’s. Approximately the last third of the volume is devoted to the post-1920’s period, when industrial design began to emerge as a
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 recognized profession. Lavishly illustrated; includes an extensive bibliography.
Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed; May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco; 1929: Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design.
1937
Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication Jean Prouvé initiated and refined the total prefabrication of homes and a variety of other structures in an effort to bring building into the industrial age. Locale: France Category: Architecture Key Figures Jean Prouvé (1901-1984), French metal craftsman, engineer, and designer Walter Gropius (1883-1969), German architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965), Swiss-born French architect Tony Garnier (1869-1948), French architect Eugène Elie Beaudouin (1898-1983), French architect Marcel Lods (1891-1978), French architect Summary of Event In 1937, near Buc, a French village too small to appear in atlases, construction was completed on the Roland Garros Aeroclub. Almost the entire building, including floors, walls, ramp, and roof—indeed, all the structure’s pressed-metal components—were prefabricated. Dismantled by the Germans a few years later during World War II, the Aeroclub nevertheless has subsequently been identified by architectural historians as one of the twentieth century’s most interesting and important buildings. Although the Aeroclub was less influential than Antonio Gaudí’s Casa Milá flats, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, or Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea, it was in many respects more innovative than any of these architectural milestones. So, too, was another structure built in 1938 in the Paris suburb of Clichy, the Maison du Peuple, a large market and auditorium with floors, walls, and a roof that moved electrically—all within an envelope of stressed-skin panels separated by coil springs. The Maison du Peuple was another novel building that was industrially designed and industrially produced. Moreover, although the designs of
the Aeroclub and the Maison du Peuple engaged the talents of the same two notable architects, Eugène Elie Beaudouin and Marcel Lods, the buildings’ distinctive characters were as much the work of Jean Prouvé, a remarkable metal craftsman, engineer, and self-taught architect. By 1946, barely a decade after erection of the Aeroclub, Prouvé was pioneering not only the total prefabrication of industrial and public buildings but—of equal importance from his perspective—the prefabrication of entire houses and housing units. Prouvé believed that neither architects nor builders had adequately availed themselves of industrial materials or techniques and had therefore failed to recognize the efficiencies and potential afforded by an industrial age. Prouvé’s convictions made him one of the leaders of the modern movement in building technology. The son of Victor Prouvé, a painter prominent in the decorative arts that flourished in Nancy (France) around 1900, Jean was born in Paris in 1901. Nancy—the home to which the Prouvés soon returned—was a manufacturing center lying at the heart of an iron mining region with major ironware and steel industries. Consequently, after his preliminary education, the young Prouvé, under the aegis of master craftsmen in Paris, trained from 1916 to 1923 as a blacksmith and metalworker. Back in Nancy by 1924, he married and, as a qualified engineer, founded his own metal-fittings and furniture establishment. Like many of the century’s famed and formally educated architects, such as Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Prouvé came to an understanding of architecture early in his career through the design and manufacture of furnishings. He rapidly became a master of modern building materials, and his designs and the works of his establishment were avidly sought by the greatest architects. In the early 1930’s, for example, Prouvé collaborated with Tony Gar2979
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See also: 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States; 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; Oct., 1907:
Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication
Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication nier, producing operating theaters and sliding windows for a Lyon hospital and doors, partitions, and furniture for the Boulogne-Billancourt town hall. In the mid1930’s, too, Prouvé began more than thirty years of intermittent collaboration with Le Corbusier. Prouvé entered this association modestly with the design of a portable toilet for the Paris World’s Fair. In the ensuing years, he provided such design and building components as the suspended ceilings for Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation as well as the staircases, kitchens, and furnishings for the Cité Radieuse, both major projects of Le Corbusier in Marseille. Over the years, Prouvé did similar business with other notable French architects who had international repute, including Bernard Zehrfuss and Robert Mallet-Stevens. His work was also solicited by leading corporations, banks, hospitals, research institutions, schools, oil companies, hotels, subway systems, and cinema and television chains, as well as by the governments of France and many other European and African nations. Prouvé’s industrialized design and production of prefabricated housing was the result of several factors. First, his own mastery of modern building technology and materials, in addition to his familiarity with the manufacture and installation of nearly every modern structural component, brilliantly equipped him to carry his work into the production of entire dwelling and structural units. Second, France’s preparations for and engagement in World War II created huge demands for swiftly constructed housing. Third, Prouvé, along with the great architects with whom he collaborated, believed that the industrialized production of housing more honestly reflected the efficiency, character, and potential of an industrial era than did traditional design. Prouvé’s first experiment with full prefabrication was the creation of eight hundred units in Lorraine for the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning, a project closely followed by the construction of a house in Vesoul; both projects took place in 1944, while Prouvé was still working with the French Resistance. Pressures for housing increased at war’s end, and his work began maturing with construction of Nancy’s Cité Universitaire student quarters. The following year, he produced the fully prefabricated Portico House for his own workshop as well as boarding facilities for the Apprenticeship Glassworks Center and a more modest private home in Carnac. In 1948, he continued his prefabrication for the ministry, producing demonstration houses in four French towns. In 1949, serving as architect himself, he prefabricated so-called Metropole and Coque housing, 2980
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 again for the ministry, in Meudon. These were successful ventures, and he repeated construction of the Metropole houses in both Oran and Algiers for local utility companies. Until 1976, Prouvé averaged one commission on fully prefabricated structures per year. Always disdainful of the conservatism of professional architects and builders (not to mention the general public), Prouvé had difficulties with industrialized housing. As a consequence, he continued earning much of his living by supplying others with his superb prefabricated components and furnishings, which always spoke by their excellence of the aesthetic and economic possibilities of industrialized building. Significance By the early twentieth century, prefabrication was an old idea and a frequently utilized construction technique. Many examples existed before Prouvé’s work began. The prefabrication of Venetian galleys for Venice’s great commercial fleet functioned effectively throughout the fifteenth century. Similarly, on the American and Canadian frontiers during the late nineteenth century, whole towns of individual homes and shops were preassembled, transported westward, and assembled again. More notably, London’s spectacular Crystal Palace of 1850— one of the century’s architectural landmarks—was premanufactured and, amazingly, assembled within a few days. Quite commonly by the 1880’s, whole building facades of premanufactured cast iron distinguished businesses on the Main Streets of American cities. Until the twentieth century, however, prefabrication generally was definable as the manufacture and assembly of varied building components, not as the design and manufacture of industrialized structures that represented complete industrial products in themselves. For influential schools of architecture such as Germany’s Bauhaus as well as for precedent-breaking architects—Gaudí, Garnier, or Le Corbusier, for example—the very objective of designs was to bring building, and lifestyles, into the machine age. These innovators sought to explore and experiment with the qualities (and economies) of modern construction materials such as concrete, steel, aluminum, glass, and plastics and envisioned the “machining” of all sorts of structures. Gropius, for years the leader of the Bauhaus, was profoundly interested in this form of prefabrication; in the early 1930’s, before Prouvé’s industrialized structures had appeared, Gropius had contracted with the Hirsch Copper Company, a German firm, to manufacture scores of company houses. A few years later, he effected an identical arrangement with an-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
ways—a fault of both architects and builders. Having designed and manufactured his own products as if nothing had ever been built before, he deplored adaptations of buildings to existing machine processes, many of which he disdained. In the twenty-first century, the general approbation for his industrialized pressed-metal structures—including his exhibition village, at Michel-surOrge, his Pierrelatte workshop for France’s atomic energy workers, and his Fontainebleau holiday resort for Air France, all built in the 1960’s—continues to goad architects and builders to escape confinement in the thinking of the past. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Arieff, Allison, and Bryan Burkhart. Prefab. New York: Gibbs Smith, 2002. Examination of innovative prefabricated structures includes a chapter devoted to the history of prefabricated housing. Features photographs, bibliography, and index. Lavedan, Pierre. French Architecture. London: Scolar Press, 1971. Readable, scholarly survey places Prouvé in a national setting and clarifies the innovativeness of his work and that of other modernists. Very informative. Includes photographs, bibliography, and index. Newton, Nigel. “Prouvé: Modern Movement Pioneer.” Building Design 30 (March, 1984): 175-178. Essentially a tribute to Prouvé published shortly after his death. Gives Prouvé his due and touches on his amazingly brilliant collaborations. Includes photographs. Prouvé, Jean. Jean Prouvé: Prefabrication, Structures, and Elements. Translated by Alexander Lieven, edited by Benedikt Huber and Jean-Claude Steinegger. New York: Praeger, 1971. One of the few discussions available on the prefabrication of buildings and of Prouvé’s role in the field. Deals with Prouvé’s work in context. Includes plates, notes, bibliography, and index. Rowlands, Penelope. Jean Prouvé: Compact Design Portfolio. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002. Focuses on Prouvé’s furniture designs, but includes an introductory essay on his life and work in general. Features many illustrations. Sulzer, Peter. Jean Prouvé Highlights 1917-1944. Translated by Gerald B. Binding. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhäuser, 2002. Discusses Prouvé’s architectural work during the period covered and his importance to the history of twentieth century design. Includes many illustrations. 2981
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other German firm, although in each instance the materials to be employed were largely traditional ones such as wood. Undertakings like these united Gropius, Garnier, and Le Corbusier, among others, in mutual influences and collaborative enterprises. In the United States, R. Buckminster Fuller had begun experiments with manufactured housing and other buildings in an attempt to provide light, sturdy structures that were easy to erect and that used not only modern materials such as steel, prestressed concrete, and aluminum but also paperboard, plywood, and bamboo. It was not until 1946, however, that Fuller succeeded in completing his famed Dymaxion House and geodesic domes. These and similar twentieth century experiments, although undeniably impressive, were nevertheless architectural “sports” developed beyond the pale of architecture’s everyday business of building design and construction. The steady impetus toward industrialized building came not only from the aesthetics and creative curiosities of a handful of architects but was also stimulated by the immense backlog of housing created by two world wars. In France and the rest of Europe, incentive stemmed more urgently from the requirements of national reconstruction and from the increasing intervention of governments in all areas of national life. Each of these circumstances directly informed Prouvé’s expectations and experiments. Prouvé’s work and its analogues had profound consequences in the second half of the twentieth century. The testimonials to his influence stand as familiar parts of urbanized landscapes around the developed world. For industrialized building as a type of architecture, Prouvé set singular and exemplary standards. His sensitivity to the capacities and possibilities of materials and machines opened architects’ eyes to new structural vistas for individual homes, housing complexes, towns, offices, and schools. Nevertheless, it is more common to witness the drab, monotonous expanses of wartime prefabrications, of construction camps, and trailer towns, than it is—as Prouvé complained before his death—to know the whereabouts of factories that produce houses much as other types of factories mass-produce automobiles. Acknowledging by the 1980’s that both the principles and practice of what he meant by “prefabrication” had taken root, Prouvé was still aware of the shortfall of his expectations. Architects, he advised, needed to be intimate parts of manufacturing, which as yet they were not. Too much industrialized building, he argued, unnecessarily continued employing new materials in traditional
Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication
Aalto Designs Villa Mairea “The Work of Jean Prouvé.” Architectural Design 33 (1963): 511-525. Solidly professional and laudatory examination of Prouvé’s contributions to architecture. Published while Prouvé was at the top of his form and attracting international attention and honors. Includes photographs.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House; 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea.
1937-1938
Aalto Designs Villa Mairea Alvar Aalto’s design of Finland’s Villa Mairea, an architectural masterpiece, confirmed him as one of the world’s leading architects and helped to revolutionize residential architecture. Locale: Noormarkku, Finland Category: Architecture Key Figures Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), Finnish architect Aino Marsio Aalto (1894-1949), Finnish architectdesigner and Alvar Aalto’s first wife Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940), Swedish architect and friend of Alvar Aalto Le Corbusier (1887-1965), Swiss-born French architect who was an early influence on Alvar Aalto Walter Gropius (1883-1969), German architect who was a founder of modern architecture Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), American architect who had a humanistic influence on Aalto and Villa Mairea Summary of Event Alvar Aalto’s design and construction of Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, Finland, in 1937 and 1938 produced one of the masterpieces of modern domestic architecture. Among architects and architecture critics, the structure has been accorded rank with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House (1930), Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye (1931), and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater (1936) as a twentieth century landmark. Like many other impressive artworks, Villa Mairea also represented a fruitful symbiosis between wealthy, intellectually progressive clients and an inspired architect whose own evolution required opportunity, empathy, and experimental freedom. Aalto’s patrons and clients were millionaires Henry Gullichsen and his wife, Maire Ahlström Gullichsen. Mrs. Gullichsen was heiress to Finland’s Ahlström for2982
tune, wealth that had been earned over three generations in lumber, pulp mills, paper products, and furniture. Upon his marriage to Maire, Henry Gullichsen became chairman of the board of the Ahlström business. Maire, a painter by profession as well as a successful executive, collaborated with Alvar Aalto and his designer-architect wife, Aino Marsio Aalto, in manufacturing and marketing the Aaltos’ unique wood and plywood furniture. Both Gullichsens were patrons of the arts and, like the Aaltos, they were social and political liberals who looked forward to contributing to fuller lives for workers and employers alike. By 1937, Aalto had been a practicing architect for fifteen years. Until then, both his writings about his architectural philosophy and his works clearly indicated the influence of the earlier works of Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and several of their disciples, including Aalto’s Swedish friend and colleague Sven Markelius (Jonsson). Aalto’s early works and writings thus showed his adherence to a strict rationalist or functionalist style known as modern architecture or the International Style. Aalto, like all functionalists, rejected the older architectural criteria of aestheticism and decorativeness. Instead, he believed that a building should reflect only its specific needs. Just as an engineer would design a machine for a definite purpose rather than with an artistic end in mind, the rationalist architect, too, treated each structure as a discrete product of social, technical, psychological, and economic organization, with the architect as a presumptive social administrator. The creation of beauty, of course, was not ignored, but it was asecondary consideration in the design of functionalist architecture. Aalto’s earlier designs and structures, therefore, display the characteristically spartan, boxlike, and elementary geometric forms that Le Corbusier, himself a painter as well as author and architect, derived from purist and cubist painting. There was ample evidence of this bent in
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Aalto’s inimitable detailing marked both exterior and interior. Outside, there were venetian blinds, exposed vertical board and batten, columns bound by willow withes, and a natural turf-and-grass roof for the sauna. The inside featured pole space dividers, living room pillars protected by leather wrappings, slatted wood ceilings of Finnish birch, distinctive ventilation through tens of thousands of hand-bored holes in the living room ceiling, daringly ingenious staircases, and, throughout, specially designed Aalto furniture. Villa Mairea, as critic Göran Schildt summarized, embodied “the vernacular tradition, the organic overall conception of Art Nouveau, Neo-Classical humanism, rational Functionalism, Japanese feeling for texture and Aalto’s personal susceptibility to the complex interaction of natural forces.” By the late 1930’s, Aalto was taking full advantage of his clients’ natural environments and designing structures that afforded them the most humane living and working conditions. The Sunila Sulphate Mill, completed in 1939, rises out of its granitic terrain faced by a warm, rough Finnish brick, its horizontal lines softened by a slight arch over the central structure and accented by a tall smokestack. Nearby is the employee and executive housing, initially a small, cellular community that Aalto planned around a communal laundry and steam bath— later expanded to include larger civic and community centers—has been kept to human proportions by using the broken granite moraine to divide dwellings into modest clusters. Furthermore, at Aalto’s insistence, few of the houses are identical; in line with the evolution of Finland’s ancient village housing, provisions were made for each home to expand as family needs changed. Aalto carefully discriminated between the need for standardized production of construction materials and standardized housing. Aalto’s concern with placing humans more properly in their natural surroundings by the use of rugged, natural materials became even more apparent in his design of the Finnish Pavilion for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. A proud nationalist aware of his country’s need for good relations with the United States, he built the pavilion of Finnish woods and highlighted the interior with an undulating wooden display wall reminiscent of the northern lights. The pavilion was a warm, inviting structure adjacent to the American exhibition and provided a romantic alternative to the International Style. Aalto’s new rationalism had accomplished much the same effect in his stepped multiple housing project at Kauttua, where varied residential structures marched up a hillside as in an Italian hill town and where Aalto’s use of vertical poles 2983
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four of Aalto’s most important commissions before 1937: the Turun-Sanomat newspaper building (19281929), the Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium (19301933), the Viipuri Municipal Library (1933-1935), and the Helsinki Savoy restaurant (1937). The modernist style is also reflected in his (and Aino’s) splendidly distinctive functional furniture, which by the mid-1930’s had gained international acclaim. By the late 1930’s, however, Aalto’s perspectives were changing. There were several explanations for this. To begin with, after Eliel Saarinen’s departure for the United States, Aalto aspired to replace him as Finland’s dominant national architect. Then, too, during the 1930’s, with the broadening of his influential professional contacts in Europe and the United States, Aalto shed much of his remaining provincialism. Morever, the freedom vouchsafed him by the Gullichsens to design their vacation home in Noormarkku allowed him to synthesize the best aspects of his previous designs. Aalto sited Villa Mairea in the hills of western Finland’s pine forests on an Ahlström family estate that contained domestic architecture representative of three generations of one of Finland’s leading families. The villa was intended to serve as a vacation home for the Gullichsens and their children, as an art studio for Maire, and as a business and entertainment center—or, as need be, a retreat—for both husband and wife. Aalto was to design everything: building, interior decor and furnishings, swimming pool, and sauna. Completed, the villa established a great sense of privacy yet satisfied all of the Gullichsens’ practical and aesthetic requirements. The building was a U-shaped, open structure that nevertheless was subtly divided into living and service areas. Thus, although the ground-floor living spaces were flowing and continuous, they could be broken up for the display or enjoyment of the family’s collected art by means of easily movable partitions (in which artworks were also stored), and dining facilities were separate. The ample living room was divided between a private Finnish hearth and, by way of contrast, a substantial, well-planted solarium with large picture windows. Far to the left of the main entrance was a superstructure that served as Maire Gullichsen’s studio, which on the second floor gave way to another living room and bedrooms with boldly projecting windows. To the rear, visible directly through back windows of the main living room, ran a covered portico that ended in a right angle containing a sauna—almost Japanese in its motifs—and a kidney-shaped swimming pool. The home’s rough “U” was closed by forest.
Aalto Designs Villa Mairea
Aalto Designs Villa Mairea and metal railings, covered with vines, repeated themes from the surrounding trees and forests. With the reconstruction required in 1940 after the end of the Russo-Finnish War—one immense consequence of which was the loss of Karelia, Finland’s most populous province, and the forced resettlement of a huge population—Aalto even more imaginatively spoke to his desire to clarify relations between humans and nature in his design of the cellular housing project of Rovaniemi. More impressive still was his plan for the Finnish Technical Institute at Otaniemi, on the outskirts of Helsinki, where terrain almost entirely dictated the structure’s character. Thereafter, just as Aalto had drawn some inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania, so too his own future work was characterized increasingly by his departures from literal rationalism toward a more personal, more humane, architectural expression. The evolution of his style is visible in his later works, such as his design of the Baker House (1946-1949) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Aalto taught part-time from 1945 to 1951. Significance The completed Villa Mairea marked Aalto’s maturation. His background and character, blended through experience with his work, modified, romanticized, and humanized his earlier rationalist ideology and functionalist architecture. Born in 1898, Aalto spent formative years in a rural, heavily forested Finland that, until 1917, was a western province of Imperial Russia untouched by extensive industrialization and urbanization. Even its major resources and their related industries—timber, wood and paper products, mining, and waterpower—required only small, isolated rural communities. The forces and mythologies of nature were part of his environment, as they were for his father, a surveyor, and his grandfather, a forester. Respect for nature, terrain, and environment, qualities that began manifesting themselves in Aalto’s designs of the Paimio Sanatorium, the Viipuri Library, and the Finnish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition, became even more striking after completion of Villa Mairea. Aalto definitively signaled his presence at Villa Mairea. He was soon viewed as Finland’s national architect and as an international figure of the front rank, and some thought him the greatest architect alive. He had reversed the formulas of Gropius and Le Corbusier; his mature view was that nature, not the machine, should be the architect’s most important model. In the United 2984
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 States alone, his humane perspective won him the allegiance of young architects such as Hugh Stebbins, Charles Warren Callister, and Ralph Rapson. Aalto mastered the use of his origins and its vernacular, building within the whole fabric of his environment yet bending modern materials to achieve his purposes. A warm, modest man, he lacked Le Corbusier’s capacity for stridency and self-advertisement and did not have others’ urge toward monumentality and self-aggrandizement. He was a brilliant innovator, exquisitely sensitive to his local traditions and conditions and yet able to draw on all of architecture’s major styles for the benefit of humankind. — Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Aalto, Alvar. Alvar Aalto. Edited by Karl Fleig. Zurich: Les Éditions d’Architecture Artemis, 1970. Splendid text and photographs of Aalto’s major works. Parallel texts in German, French, and English recite detailed descriptions of Aalto structures, designs, and furnishings. Hundreds of photos and plans, but no other reader aids. Worth careful perusal. Diaconis, Pamela. Scandinavian Country. New York: Friedman/Fairfax, 1999. Provides a basic introduction to modern Scandinavian design. The book’s fullcolor photos make it worth examining. Donnelly, Marion C. Architecture in the Scandinavian Countries. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992. Important in placing Aalto in the specific vernaculars of Scandinavia. An authoritative, easily read survey. Many excellent photographs and annotated texts. Appendixes, chapter notes, fine bibliography, and an excellent index. Giedion, Siegfried. Space, Time, and Architecture. 5th rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. A recognized classic and a handmaiden to most architects’ recapitulation of their own professional history. Should be read in its entirety, but Giedion clearly understood the importance of Aalto’s outlook and work and thus included a full chapter on him before he was widely known. Some illustrative matter, notes, and bibliography, as well as an index. Outstanding, regardless of whether one agrees with the author’s critical pronouncements. Gutheim, Frederick. Alvar Aalto. New York: George Braziller, 1960. Five brief, sketchy, and superficial chapters that suffice only for an introduction to Aalto. Should be supplemented with the work of Fleig, Pearson, or Schildt for any real understanding of the
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Schildt, Göran. Alvar Aalto: The Decisive Years. New York: Rizzoli, 1986. Enjoyable and indispensable; matchless for intimate, personal perspectives on Aalto’s mature years. Schildt was Aalto’s favorite critic, and he does a brilliant job of summarizing Aalto’s and other functionalists’ ideas about a technological utopia. Also discusses changes in Aalto’s rationalist beliefs. Contains much material on Villa Mairea. Scores of excellent photographs and plans. Includes a detailed list of Aalto’s works from 1928 to 1939 along with drawings and thumbnail descriptions. See also: 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte; 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet; Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded; Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory; 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House; 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship.
1937-1939
Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes With such socially conscious films as The Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir established himself as one of the world’s premier directors. Locale: Paris, France Category: Motion pictures Key Figures Jean Renoir (1894-1979), acclaimed motion-picture director considered by many the world’s greatest Charles Spaak (1903-1975), screenwriter who collaborated with Renoir Pierre Fresnay (1897-1975), actor who played the role of de Boeldieu in The Grand Illusion Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957), motion-picture director and actor who played the role of von Rauffenstein in The Grand Illusion Marcel Dalio (1900-1983), actor who played the roles of Rosenthal in The Grand Illusion and Robert de la Chesnaye in The Rules of the Game Jean Bachelet (b. 1894), photographer who worked with Renoir on many films
Summary of Event When it premiered on June 4, 1937, at the Marivaux Cinema in Paris, Jean Renoir’s film La Grande Illusion (The Grand Illusion) marked the culmination of Renoir’s career as a French motion-picture director who explored social themes, expressed sympathy for workers, and criticized establishment capitalism. Renoir’s films before 1937 included Le Crime de M. Lange (1936; The Crime of Monsieur Lange), about a worker who saves a company and then kills the boss. Earlier, Renoir showed interest in the naturalistic tales of Émile Zola and Maxim Gorky, with a silent film, Nana, in 1926 and a talking film, Les Bas-fonds (The Lower Depths), in 1936. He made La Vie est à nous (The People of France), blatantly proletarian propaganda, in 1936, but it did not have a public screening in France until 1969. The Grand Illusion is a continuation of Renoir’s preoccupation with working peoples’ struggles against social and political tyranny. Set during World War I, the film sets forth a view of the future that makes heroes of an unlikely team, the mechanic Maréchal and the rich Jew Rosenthal. While a plea for peace, it is not altogether an antiwar 2985
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man or his works. Many good photographs, plans, a chronology of works, brief select bibliography, and an adequate index. Lane, Barbara Miller. National Romanticism and Modern Architecture in Germany and the Scandinavian Countries. Edited by Richard A. Etlin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Aalto certainly exhibited Romantic tendencies, and this is arguably the most thorough work ever produced on the relationships among the artistic, literary, and architectural arms of national Romanticism. Pearson, Paul David. Alvar Aalto and the International Style. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1978. Authoritative and appreciative. Organization is chronological, and the text is detailed and easily read. A fine one-volume review of Aalto’s origins, career, achievements, and philosophies. Prominence is accorded to Villa Mairea. Scores of excellent photographs and plans, good chapter notes, useful bibliography—particularly for article materials—and a solid triple-columned index. A crucial volume for laypersons and experts alike.
Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes
Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes film, because its heroes escape captivity to continue their struggle against their common enemies, the old order of European aristocracy and the German army. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game), released in a cut print in 1939, was hooted by its first audiences, nearly lost when its original negative was destroyed during Allied bombing raids during World War II, and finally restored to something near its original length in 1956. Despite the film’s stormy beginning, its reputation grew tremendously over the decades until it became one of the world’s most critically acclaimed achievements in motion pictures. In the film, Renoir examines again the relationships of workers and owners, servants and masters, with a dashing hero who is killed by a jealous husband, a wealthy aesthete of Jewish ancestry who is married to a moralistic Austrian, and two complementary poachers— one a failed artist and the other a failed servant. Both motion pictures were achievements of a distinctive style that has been praised as realistic and democratic. Deep-focus shots were made of scenes in which several events occurred simultaneously, allowing spectators to observe a variety of movements, characters, and complications in a single field of vision. Subjects intermingle, as war and captivity bring together men of contrasting social backgrounds in The Grand Illusion, and love throws together men and women of varying social classes in The Rules of the Game. Both narratives follow similar patterns: from prison enclosure to pastoral liberation in The Grand Illusion; from sophisticated urban hypocrisy to pastoral farce in The Rules of the Game. The director casts a cold eye on decaying values, but he also exposes a sympathetic understanding of the trials through which people pass as their values are tested and found wanting. The Grand Illusion explores the ironies of a war in which the officers of the opposing armies may have more in common with one another than they have with the men who serve under their commands. Von Rauffenstein is a gentleman with training and tastes shared by de Boeldieu; when together, they often speak English, which is the language of the aristocracy and is not understood by 2986
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the commoners. Von Rauffenstein is the commandant of a gloomy and massive castle used as a prison for French, English, and Russian prisoners of war. He is not happy to be a policeman, but he has little choice, since he is crippled and scarred from battle. Von Rauffenstein is forced, by his code of honor, to shoot de Boeldieu when the French officer helps his men to escape the German prison. Maréchal and Rosenthal make their escape and nearly die of hunger and exhaustion, but they finally reach an idyllic (although not completely safe) haven in the farm home of a German widow, Elsa, and her little girl. The French soldiers are warmly received by this family of the enemy, and they celebrate Christmas together. Eventually, the Frenchmen continue their escape, despite Maréchal’s love for Elsa, and they succeed in crossing the border into Switzerland before a German patrol spots
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Jean Renoir. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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reveal a confidence that play and art reveal essential truths and at the same time can be instruments for individual freedom and personal integrity. Soldiers dressed as women are men expressing their sexual and romantic desires. Grand gestures of sacrifice focus on tragic heroes, allowing romantic ones to escape. Discipline without purpose becomes an iron prison of the spirit. Mechanical motions, from phonographs to crippled soldiers, occur in counterpoint to organic development in The Grand Illusion (ironically presented in von Rauffenstein’s cutting the geranium blossom, as well as in the contrast between the massive prison and the idyllic farm). Similar counterpoint occurs in The Rules of the Game, but discipline is a source of integrity in that film, in which social order preserves individual identity from the anarchy represented by a thief (Marceau, a rabbit poacher) and an aviator (Jurieux, a solo flier). Although the film’s protagonist, Chesnaye, seems to arrange and explain events, he is able to do so largely because of the animating spirit of the artist Octave. The fact that Renoir played this part is surely a reason the film is so intriguingly successful as a self-reflective experience of art. Octave is nearly a victim of misunderstanding, but he is also a figure of animality (symbolized by his wearing of a bear costume), which unites people in an organic way. Octave is a complement to Chesnaye. Their relationship is a warm advance on the destructive one that marked the pairs in The Grand Illusion. Still, audiences did not like what they saw in The Rules of the Game, perhaps because it told them they were decadent, without direction, and careless about the value of life. The film ends with Chesnaye excusing a murder and turning back to his lighted chateau after Octave has wearily moved into the darkness of the opposite direction. The ending sometimes left audiences feeling dislocated and torn apart at the center; many have noted that the film tends to separate form from substance and discipline from vitality. This joyless conclusion irritated the Nazis and Fascists condemned by the movie. Others, such as U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, saw something different. Significance The Grand Illusion won several prizes for Renoir, including one in Venice in 1937 for best artistic production and one in New York in 1938 for best foreign film. Most interesting, however, was the vote by an international jury at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958 that ranked the film fifth among the best films of all time. The Rules of the Game also earned great respect when it was chosen as 2987
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them. Several borders are crossed in the film’s symbolic use of realistic material, including the sexual borders that disappear when the prisoners dress as women to present a musical entertainment and, of course, the social and racial borders that are dissolved when the laborer allies himself with the Jewish bourgeoisie. When de Boeldieu dies, von Rauffenstein cuts the blossom of his geranium, and by this gesture enhances the symbolic richness of the film. The Rules of the Game is full of such details, and it also includes a car wreck, a rabbit and bird hunt on a country estate, and a musical entertainment that concludes in a dance of death. The social texture of life in this motion picture is richly complicated, but moving across the boundaries of class distinctions are two profoundly interesting characters—the game poacher Marceau and the failed artist Octave, who is played by Renoir himself. The film complicates human relationships through the game of love, but it also analyzes the rules governing the game of civilization. As a political statement, The Grand Illusion seemed to challenge militarist solutions to personal and social problems; indeed, some believed the film was highly pacifistic. Such an interpretation, however, has to take into account the sympathetic treatment of the soldiers as men doing their duties, sacrificing personal comforts, and devoting themselves to patriotism. In this respect, then, The Grand Illusion is romantic. Certainly, when de Boeldieu diverts German attention to assist the escapes of Maréchal and Rosenthal, de Boeldieu is performing a very romantic act of self-sacrifice. To describe de Boeldieu’s self-sacrifice as a theatrical role in the grand manner would not be an exaggeration. Renoir frequently used the device of theater or musical performance as a visual metaphor within his films. This technique of self-reflection and self-commentary would be taken up with equal sophistication by younger directors, such as François Truffaut and Federico Fellini. Truffaut, certainly, and Fellini perhaps were both students of Renoir’s film style, against which they increasingly defined themselves. It may seem odd to say that the self-reflective technique of theatricality within a motion picture is in a realistic style. The realism lies in the ostentatious claim by art to mirror reality, by drama to show an audience to itself, and by art to abstract the timeless from the temporal. Renoir’s theatrical metaphors perform these functions. The soldiers’ show in drag, followed by de Boeldieu’s grand operatic gestures of self-sacrifice (which he carefully directs and stages for maximum effect), enclosed by von Rauffenstein’s stiffly disciplined show of power,
Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes
Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes the third-greatest film ever made by an international poll of film critics in 1962. The latter film also earned the dubious honor of being hissed by its first audiences in Paris, banned by Nazis and Fascists, and praised by President Roosevelt. Perhaps the most lasting impact of The Rules of the Game is in its portrayal of the triumph of the will to be, to endure, even when the game seems about to end and the rules are shown to be vulnerable to passion and to chance. Chesnaye, like a master of ceremonies, turns away from his audience at the end, and Octave moves into the audience as he moves into the darkness. (Renoir, like Chesnaye, turned away from his European audience and moved, like Octave, into an American one when he migrated to the United States during the war and later became an American citizen.) There is an affirmative consequence from these opposing movements, as the spirit of life disappears into the audience itself, where it can rejuvenate as it hibernates through the long, dark spiritual winter that is expected to follow (and did, in the war years). Such a residue of feeling, a calm beneath the passion spent, is more lasting because it is more realistic for living beings, moving through organic rhythms of light and dark, vigor and rest. Here is the major impact of the film, and of others directed by Renoir: entertainments end, ironies soften, and artists disappear through their art into their audiences. —Richard D. McGhee Further Reading Durgnat, Raymond. Jean Renoir. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. A masterful survey of Renoir’s life and work, with analyses of Renoir’s films in chronological order. Durgnat presents Renoir as a storyteller with a mind to share. Contains a bibliography, an index, and many photographs, both stills from the films and views of Renoir at home and at work. Ellis, Jack C. “Golden Age of French Cinema, 19351939.” In A History of Film. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990. Sees Renoir’s career as peaking in the era when films by Jacques Feyder, Marcel Pagnol, and Marcel Carné drew on a rich literary, theatrical, and painting tradition. Political turmoil, with escapist tendencies, was reflected in their movies. Includes stills, a list of major films, and a bibliography. Faulkner, Christopher. The Social Cinema of Jean Renoir. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. A demanding study of the origins of Renoir’s themes in political activity of the 1930’s. Faulkner 2988
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 employs techniques of ethnography to analyze many of Renoir’s films, including The Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game. Contains a bibliography and index. Leprohon, Pierre. Jean Renoir. Translated by Brigid Elson. New York: Crown, 1971. Presents Renoir as a painter’s son and a craftsman who matured during the 1930’s with three masterworks. The American Renoir is sketched as struggling to please Hollywood but eager to return to his sources. Contains excerpts of interviews, screenplays, essays, anecdotes, filmography, bibliography, and index. Mast, Gerald. “France Between the Wars.” In A Short History of the Movies. 3d ed. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1981. French experimental film of the 1920’s prepared for the triumphant films of the 1930’s. Analyzes The Crime of Monsieur Lange, The Grand Illusion, and The Rules of the Game. Surveys René Clair, Jean Vigo, Jacques Feyder, Marcel Carné, and Jacques Prévert. Contains an index and a valuable bibliography/filmography. O’Shaughnessy, Martin. Jean Renoir. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2000. Written for the general public, this analysis of Renoir’s sound films summarizes the current debate over Renoir’s social views and places them in historical and political context. Pechter, William S. “Radical Freedom: Aspects of Jean Renoir.” In Twenty-Four Times a Second: Films and Film-Makers. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Pechter sees a continuity of theme over thirty years of Renoir’s work. Failure to resolve conflicts between individual freedom and social commitments results in sadness. Renoir, Jean. My Life and My Films. 1974. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2000. Renoir’s autobiography is highly acclaimed as a model in the genre, and the director’s energy and spirit radiate through every page. See also: Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres; 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques; 19251927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques; 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking; 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis; 1928: Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog; 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element
January-September, 1937
Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element
Locale: Palermo, Italy Categories: Science and technology; physics Key Figures Emilio Gino Segrè (1905-1989), Italian-born American physicist Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), Italian physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901-1958), American physicist Summary of Event The periodic table of chemical elements is an ordered array of the elements positioned to reflect the similarities and trends among the different discrete substances that compose matter. When the table was first created in the mid-1800’s, controversy arose regarding placement of the limited number of chemical elements known at that time. The Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev is credited with the foresight to leave voids within the framework of his representation of the periodic table, predicting that as-yet-undiscovered elements would fill these voids. In the years following his prediction, the majority of these missing elements were discovered and properly placed within the framework of the modern periodic table, with some notable exceptions. Even after scientists gained a more thorough understanding of atomic structure, as developed in the early 1900’s, and with the work of Henry Moseley, who utilized X-ray spectral data to ascertain the atomic numbers of the elements available to him—thus providing experimental support to the periodic array previously based solely on similarities of chemical and physical properties and trends—voids remained. The periodic table is arranged in order of increasing atomic number—that is, the number of protons within the nucleus of each atom of an element. There were no reports of discovery in the scientific literature on the isolation and identification of elements with atomic numbers 43, 61, and 85. The search for these elements among the rocks and minerals of the world was intense. Searching was not altogether random. The element 43 in particular, because of its reserved location in the framework of the periodic table, would have properties similar to those of manganese. Mendeleyev had tentatively named the ele-
ment ekamanganese and predicted some of its chemical and physical properties. Scientists concentrated their search on ores and minerals known to contain those elements whose chemical behavior would be close to that of the missing element. Several claims were made for the discovery of element atomic number 43 (which was later named technetium), the earliest of which was in 1887. All claims, however, were subsequently proved false until 1925, when Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke, and Otto Berg, based on unobserved X-ray spectral lines, reported a new element identified as atomic number 43. Each chemical element emits, under proper experimental treatment, X rays uniquely characteristic of that element. The emissions of known elements had been studied thoroughly and their wavelengths and relative intensities tabulated. Given, for example, an unknown substance, one could generate the X-ray spectrum of the sample, match it to the tabulated values, and identify its composition. Recognition of a previously unreported X-ray spectrum warranted the claim that a new element had been discovered. Following Noddack, Tacke, and Berg’s initial claim of discovery, in which they named their element masurium, they attempted to isolate a pure sample of the element from the mineral columbite, the source material of their newly defined X-ray spectrum. Because they were unable to do this and without a pure sample to support their claim, their discovery was rejected. During the period when the search for the natural occurrence of atomic number 43 was taking place, another seemingly unrelated series of scientific investigations was under way. Natural radioactivity had been observed first at the beginning of the twentieth century. Certain naturally occurring substances sent out emissions spontaneously; that is, they were radioactive. Notable among these was uranium. The study of radioactivity, the identification of radioactive emissions (now recognized as corning from the nucleus of the emitting atom), and potential implications of this phenomenon for humanity were beginning to be recognized. Among the early pioneers in the study of radioactivity and the structure of that atom was Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist. Fermi received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for his work on the production of artificial radioactive elements. Upon bombardment of a stable chemical element with nuclear particles, frequently new and often unstable isotopes are formed. Artificial radioisotopes are of enormous interest 2989
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Emilio Gino Segrè positively identified and characterized the first human-made chemical element, technetium, atomic number 43.
Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element not only for the information they provide regarding the structure of matter but also for their practical applications in industry, medicine, and other areas. Emilio Gino Segrè was the first of many graduate students to receive a Ph.D. degree in physics under Fermi’s guidance. He later received the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics with colleague Owen Chamberlain for their discovery of the subatomic particle the antiproton. Segrè collaborated with Fermi on several studies pertaining to the interactions of particles with matter. These studies provided him with considerable insight into various nuclear processes. While serving as director of the physics laboratory at the University of Palermo, Italy, he received a sample of irradiated molybdenum sent to him by Ernest Orlando Lawrence. Lawrence had developed the cyclotron, a huge device weighing hundreds of tons and costing millions of dollars, which is capable of propelling nuclear particles to great energies. When these highenergy particles strike a target, they interact with the target material, producing artificial radioactive isotopes. Study of these isotopes and their decay contributed greatly to the understanding of matter and to the applications of radioisotopes for both peacetime and military use. The Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley was and remains today a leading center for the study of nuclear processes. In December, 1939, Lawrence sent Segrè the molybdenum metal sample that had been bombarded by deuterium nuclei for several months in the cyclotron. Segrè and his research group undertook to study the effects of this bombardment and to isolate and identify the artificial radioisotopes produced. Separation of radioisotopes by chemical means—the only means available in 1937— was not an easy task. The transmuted products are many and are themselves undergoing radioactive decay forming further substances. Often, the quantity of each transmuted element is negligibly small, too small to be weighed by ordinary means. The presence of these products is generally ascertained indirectly through the measurement of their characteristic radio or X-ray emissions. Because these emissions are frequently very similar, prior chemical separations are mandatory if one is to say with certainty that a particular radionuclide is present. The slightest contamination of one component by another as complete chemical separation is seldom if ever achieved; it clouds the observed emissions. It had been predicted from theoretical considerations that technetium could be one of the radioactive products formed from bombardment of molybdenum with deuterons. Segrè and his group were prepared to observe 2990
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 among the several predicted products (including isotopes of zirconium, niobium, and molybdenum) previously unreported emissions that might be attributed to technetium. Following lengthy chemical separations involving fusion, precipitation, filtration, and volatilization, an emission activity was observed that could not be assigned to any known element. This activity was attributed to atomic number 43, and Segrè first reported the results in a coauthored paper in the Journal of Chemical Physics in September, 1937. A series of papers by Segrè and his associates followed this initial notice and further characterized technetium by identifying several of its isotopes and studying its chemical and radiochemical properties. In 1947, Segrè reported formation of technetium from uranium fission rather than bombardment of molybdenum. The first significant quantity of the element, gram amounts, was prepared by others in 1952 from uranium fission products. Because of the availability of fissionable uranium from nuclear reactors, it is this source from which technetium is now prepared in commercially available quantities. The radiochemical data of Segrè’s group could not be disputed, and the name technetium (symbol Tc) was given to atomic number 43. Scientists ask whether or not technetium occurs naturally. The half-life of the longest technetium isotope, Tc-97, is 2.6 × 106 years. The term “half-life” refers to the time interval for one-half of any newly formed radioactive substance to decompose by emission of radioactive particles or rays. In the second half-life interval, half of the remaining amount decomposes. It is estimated that 8 radioisotopes with half-lives of less than 1.5 × 10 years would be virtually undetectable considering the time interval between the present and when the earth was formed. Because of natural radioactive fission of uranium from interaction with cosmic radiation, however, it is suggested that some, albeit a small amount of, Tc can be found naturally. It has been estimated that this amount is on the order of 10–13 gram per gram of uranium ore and that this amount was sufficient to produce the X-ray emissions reported by Noddack, Tacke, and Berg in 1925. Significance With the identification of technetium and later astatine by Segrè and his colleagues, the missing gaps in the periodic table of the elements were filled. Although some questioned whether human-made elements should be recognized as true chemical forms, their complaints were quickly dispelled; credit for the discovery of technetium was given to Segrè and his research group. As with other
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Emilio Gino Segrè. (AP/Wide World Photos)
radionuclides—both natural and artificial—studies of their properties have enhanced the understanding of matter and its composition and decomposition. Technetium, through its spectral emissions, has been identified on distant stars. Given existing knowledge concerning the halflives of the various technetium isotopes, these data provide evidence regarding the time origin and composition of these stars. Elemental technetium alone and in various alloys exhibits the property of superconductivity; that is, it passes an electric current with negligible resistance. As with all superconducting materials, this property is exhibited only at temperatures approaching absolute zero, yet as developments in this field advance, technetium may find a role in the manufacture of superconducting magnets. The greatest use of technetium is in the field of medicine as a radiochemical tracer. In 1985, Thomas C. Pinkerton and his coauthors noted in the Journal of Chemical Education that “a wide variety of tissues can be visualized with 99mTc radiopharmaceuticals, including
the kidneys, bones, lungs, heart, liver, brain, and thyroid. Although other radionuclides are used in nuclear medicine, of the millions of diagnostic imaging procedures conducted each year, over 80 percent involve the use of 99m 99m Tc.” The metastable technetium isotope Tc emits a 0.143 million electronvolt gamma radiation with a halflife of 6.0 hours, transforming itself into the more stable 99 99m Tc isotope. Combining Tc into compounds uniquely essential for various body organs and functions allows one (by monitoring the emitted gamma radiation) to determine the extent and duration necessary for incorporating these compounds into various bodily functions. If in monitoring this incorporation, one finds deviation from the expected normal body utilization of these materials, an abnormality is indicated and appropriate medical treatment can be started. Because of its short half-life, the 99m Tc-containing compound rapidly loses its radioactivity, causing little if any long-term damage to the patient. Technetium, with its numerous chemical oxidation states, forms a variety of chemical compounds, in particular those incorporating organic molecules similar to or identical to those found in body organs. Technetium is taken up easily in these organs and suited for a specific organ whose normal function is suspect. Studies on other animal species and on various plant functions also incorporate technetium containing radionuclides. Scientists have amassed considerable information regarding the hazards of technetium and its proper and careful handling. As is true of all substances, technetiumcontaining compounds pose a potential danger both to humankind and to the environment if they are carelessly used. — Gordon A. Parker Further Reading Barr, Robert Q. “Technetium.” In Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia, edited by Glenn D. Considine. 9th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 2002. Brief summary of technetium traces its history, isolation, chemistry, and applications to industry and medicine. Boyd, G. E. “Technetium and Promethium.” Journal of Chemical Education 36 (January, 1959): 3-14. Detailed account of the discovery, chemistry, and uses of these two radioactive elements. Deutsch, Edward, Karen Libon, and Silvia Jurisson. “Technetium Chemistry and Technetium Radiopharmaceuticals.” In Progress in Inorganic Chemistry, edited by Stephen J. Lippard. Vol. 30. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1983. Review of technetium in2991
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element
Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon cludes information on its chemical reactions, electrochemistry, and chromatographic separation techniques. Briefly discusses radiopharmaceuticals. Holden, Norman E. “The Delayed Discovery of Nuclear Fission.” Chemistry International 12 (September/October, 1990): 177-185. A very personal account of the activities of those associated with the events leading to the discovery of nuclear fission. Kotegov, K. V., O. N. Pavlov, and V. P. Shvedov. “Technetium.” In Advances in Inorganic Chemistry and Radiochemistry, edited by H. J. Emeléus and A. G. Sharpe. Vol. 11. New York: Academic Press, 1968. Overview of technetium traces its history, nuclear and chemical properties, separation procedures, and uses. Krebs, Robert E. The History and Use of Our Earth’s Chemical Elements. 2d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. Introductory text explains the importance of an understanding of the chemical elements and examines individual elements within their
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 groups. Presents information on the discovery, history, and uses of each element. Paneth, F. A. “The Making of the Missing Chemical Elements.” Nature 159 (January, 1947): 8-10. A discussion on the search for atomic numbers 43, 61, 85, and 93. Urges the discoverers of artificial elements to name their discoveries. Pinkerton, Thomas C., et al. “Bioinorganic Activity of Technetium Radiopharmaceuticals.” Journal of Chemical Education 62 (November, 1985): 965-973. Detailed discussion of technetium imaging for studying functions in the thyroid, brain, kidney, liver, bone, and heart. See also: 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements; Jan. 2, 1931: Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron; 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed; 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect.
January, 1937-February, 1940
Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon Ansel Adams, photographer and Sierra Club director, used his photographs to lobby the U.S. Congress to create the Kings Canyon National Park. Locale: Washington, D.C.; San Francisco, California Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; photography Key Figures Ansel Adams (1902-1984), American photographer and conservationist Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946 Bertrand Wesley Gearhart (1890-1955), U.S. congressman from California John Muir (1838-1914), American explorer, naturalist, and conservationist Summary of Event On March 4, 1940, the U.S. Congress enacted the legislation necessary for the establishment of Kings Canyon National Park in east-central California. The passage into law of the proposed legislation marked the successful conclusion of a long battle to protect these lands from commercial development, protection first sought by the preservationist John Muir nearly forty-nine years earlier. 2992
During his initial exploratory trip into the Kings Canyon area in 1875, Muir recognized the unique scenic beauty of the region. Even at that early date, however, Muir encountered signs indicating attempts to establish livestock rights in the canyons and the initial stages of environmental degradation. In December, 1881, Senator John F. Miller of California introduced a bill in Congress that would have established an enormous national park in the Sierra Nevada that would have included the Kings River area. This attempt failed. Ten years later, on his fourth visit to the canyons of the Kings River, Muir found the surroundings suffering from the ever-increasing activities of loggers and sheepherders. Muir had just successfully completed the campaign that led to the establishment of Yosemite National Park, barely one hundred miles to the northeast. The signs of commercial and agricultural encroachment in the Kings area spurred Muir to make a public request for park status for this region as well. Commercial interests were already well established in the area, however. In the end, national forest status was conferred on the region, and it was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service. Afterward, although repeated attempts were made to introduce legislation in Congress that would transfer the status of the area from national
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stands of big trees outside of the national parks. This grove had been under the protection of private owners, but as a result of a tax sale, it had become available for purchase. The club’s directors believed that the best means of achieving their goal was for Adams to present his photographs, as visual surrogates, to those lawmakers who were unable to experience the beauties of this region personally. Previously, photographs had had a positive effect in establishing Yosemite Park in 1864 and Yellowstone Park in 1872. Adams had visited the Kings Canyon region in 1925 and again in 1926. The photos he would present in Washington, however, were taken long before he became a part of the efforts to establish the park; these images were not special products designed for propagandizing the club’s cause. Adams’s approach to photography was known as straight photography, because his photos were artistically achieved without retouching. Furthermore, as Adams would later explain, the subject was of secondary importance in his work. Adams’s first objective was achieving a print that accurately recorded the artist’s feelings or emotions visualized at the moment of exposure. Adams’s photos were therefore particularly well suited to the Sierra Club’s endeavor. In November, 1936, Adams traveled to New York for the opening of his solo exhibition of fifty photos sponsored by Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery, An American Place. Stieglitz was honoring the young photographer with a one-man show, something that he had allowed only once before with the work of noted American photographer Paul Strand. Adams departed New York for Washington, D.C., during the second week of January, and after visiting congressmen with his portfolio of photographs under his arm, he was invited to address the congressional commission conducting park hearings. Afterward he spent two days in the capital with congressmen from districts abutting the Kings River territory. On his return to California there was no indication of the bill’s impending doom. Without further active support, however, the bill for a Kings Canyon Park failed in the 1937-1938 session of Congress. Nearly three more years elapsed before the Kings Canyon project passed into law. During this interim, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, whom Adams had encountered in Washington, visited San Francisco, where he met with Sierra Club directors. The meeting resulted in a compromise between Ickes, who promised to protect the wilderness values of 2993
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forest to that of national park, Forest Service lobbies successfully defeated all proposals. National park status would have placed the Kings Canyon forests under the direction of the Federal Park Service, a division of the Department of the Interior, and the lands would have been managed in the interest of preservation and recreation, without commercial interest. In the meantime, the Forest Service, as part of the Department of Agriculture, encouraged active management of the land and allowed hunting, logging, and mining to take place. During the previous year, in 1890, Sequoia National Park had been established, but without Kings Canyon. In the same year the General Grant National Park was established to preserve the General Grant grove of sequoia trees. The efforts of Muir and others were resisted by stockmen, lumbermen, and those in Los Angeles who feared restrictions on waterpower development. The Federal Water Power Act of 1920 was amended in 1921 to exclude existing national parks from future water projects, but not national parks established after that date. The Kings Canyon had tremendous potential for waterpower development. The city of Los Angeles was seeking six sites in the region, thereby making any battle for park status that much more difficult. Between the years 1916 and 1926, bills were sent before each session of Congress calling for the enlargement of Sequoia National Park so that it included the Kings and Kern River canyons and the Mount Whitney area. Partial success was attained in 1926 when the latter two parcels were added to Sequoia National Park. In 1935, the threat of greater and greater commercial development in the territories of the Kings River took on a new urgency among park constituents when the New Deal public works program proposed constructing a major highway into the area to spur private development of the region. The threat of a new road into the remote countryside reinvigorated conservationists’ efforts to preserve the area as a public park. Leading the movement was the Sierra Club, a recreational and environmental organization cofounded in 1892 by John Muir, who served as its first president until his death in 1914. Ansel Adams had joined the Sierra Club in 1919 and had been a member of the organization’s board of directors for two years when in 1936 he was assigned the task of assisting the club’s congressional lobby. The Sierra Club’s lobbyists were promoting the preservation of much of the Kings Canyon as originally proposed by Muir, land that had been repeatedly left out of Sequoia National Park. Included in the lobbyists’ bid was the Redwood Mountain Sequoia Grove, one of the largest
Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon
Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon
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One of the photographs that Ansel Adams took with him to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the preservation of Kings Canyon. (NARA)
Kings Canyon with special provisions in a new park bill, and the club, which promised to support a smaller park area. Another part of Ickes’s strategy was to accept a proposal from other park advocates and append the name of John Muir to the proposed bill, thereby assuring Sierra Club support. Ickes convinced the club that this bill contained the idea for a new type of park, one that would not allow Yosemite-like luxury accommodations. The secretary of the interior envisioned a park for fishermen and hikers or mountaineers, where wildlife could be restored, a park serviced by a minimum of roads and horse or foot trails. Permanent improvements such as hotels and roads would be prohibited. At Ickes’s request, a bill for a John Muir-Kings Canyon Park was introduced in Congress by Representative Bertrand Wesley Gearhart of California early in 1939. The title honoring Muir was later changed 2994
while the bill was in committee because it was not a custom to assign individuals’ names to national parks. Prior to the submission of this successful legislation, Adams sent a complimentary copy of his book Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail (1938) to the National Park Service, which forwarded it to Ickes in early January, 1939. This work contained many of the pictures of the Kings Canyon region Adams had taken to Washington, D.C., three years before. Ickes was enthusiastic about Adams’s book and presented his copy to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who consequently lobbied in favor of the bill’s passage. The Kings Canyon National Park bill passed the House that summer and the Senate in February, 1940. Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail obtained the desired response and brought Adams compliments on the persuasive effectiveness of his photography. Adams of-
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Significance General Grant National Park was abolished in 1940 and became a part of the 460,123 acres set aside for Kings Canyon National Park. This and other groves in the Kings park area contain some of the largest living trees in the world. Following the establishment of the new park, visitors could enjoy not only the giant sequoia trees but also the spectacular contrasts between some of the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada and the canyons formed by the middle and south forks of the Kings River rising in the High Sierra north of the border of Sequoia National Park. The Kings Canyon National Park bill represented a significant and early move toward wilderness visions advocating preservation of natural environments rather than unlimited recreational use of the same areas. The creation of Kings Canyon National park was the culmination of the Sierra Club’s most important conservation campaign of the 1930’s. As of the end of the twentieth century, the park remained nearly roadless, closed to hunting, and accessible only to hikers or horseback riders. Another result of Adams’s work on the Kings Canyon Park project was the commission he received from Ickes in 1941 for a landscape photomural to hang in the Interior Department’s Washington, D.C., offices. Adams’s artistry continued to be instrumental in the preservation of many regions throughout the United States, including Three Sisters Park in Oregon’s Cascades and Golden Gate Recreation Area near his own home. In 1958, Adams began collaboration with Nancy Newhall on the production of This Is the American Earth (1960), a book based on a photographic exhibit first organized in 1956. This Is the American Earth is only one of many of Adams’s publications that focuses on the American wilderness environment. Adams’s environmental concerns went far beyond the artistic recording of nature. For example, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, the National Park Service initiated the “Mission 66” program, promoting automobile travel and thereby necessitating more park accommodations for the increasingly larger numbers of visitors to national parks. Part of the Mission 66 proposal included the remaking of the Tioga Road through the Yosemite high country, the construction of which would destroy a part
of the Tenaya Lake area. Adams and others proposed alternative routes so that the road would avoid Tenaya Lake. In addition, Adams offered his resignation to the Sierra Club to protest the club’s lack of action as well as the government’s construction policy. Although Adams’s actions gained some media attention, particularly his telegram to the heads of the National Park Service and the secretary of commerce in 1958, the road design changed little. Adams also actively worked for the preservation of Alaskan lands; he was a member of the preservationist groups Americans for Alaska and the Wilderness Society, in addition to serving as president of the Trustees for Conservation, established in 1954 as an adjunct lobbying group in support of conservationist organizations. Adams was tireless in his efforts to protect the nation’s wilderness areas at the highest levels of national government. In 1965, he joined the environmental task force created by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and he later presented President Gerald R. Ford with a copy of his memorandum listing New Initiatives for the National Parks. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter recognized Adams’s artistic and environmental achievements when he awarded the photographer the National Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Adams’s portrait of President Carter, the first official photographic presidential portrait, hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Adams continued to challenge the federal government regarding care of the nation’s environmental resources under the Ronald Reagan administration when he called for the resignation of Interior Secretary James Watt, whose federal land policy he opposed. The name, artwork, and environmental achievements of Ansel Adams will always be inseparable from the American conservationist movement. Adams’s photographs continue to give artistic tangibility to a specifically American vision of a people’s relationship with its parks and wilderness. — William B. Folkestad Further Reading Adams, Ansel. Interview by David Sheff and Victoria Sheff. Playboy, May, 1983, 5-6, 67-73, 76, 81-82, 84, 87, 226. Good source for a frank discussion of Adams’s objections to the policies of Interior Secretary James Watt. Adams, Ansel, and Mary Street Alinder. Ansel Adams: An Autobiography. 1985. Reprint. New York: Bulfinch, 1996. Provides insights into the artist’s personal history and viewpoint. Very readable. 2995
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ten argued, however, that he was not willing to produce propaganda. Speaking later about his Kings Canyon folio, he insisted that he had adhered first of all to his own artistry.
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Embargo on Arms to Spain Cohen, Michael P. The History of the Sierra Club, 18921970. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988. Carefully written, well-researched study sheds light on the context in which Ansel Adams’s artwork was nurtured, endorsed, and publicized. Fox, Stephen. John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. Very useful, well-written guide to the myriad personal, political, and philosophical influences that contributed to the environmental movement in the United States in the nineteenth century. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ relationship with the wilderness begins with the earliest days of European contact. Includes bibliography and index. Newhall, Nancy. Ansel Adams: The Eloquent Light. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1964. Well-illustrated topical treatment of Adams’s photographic work. Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience. 3d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1997. History of national parks in the United States discusses the various motivations, political constraints, and other factors that have affected the establishment and maintenance of the park system. Includes maps, illustrations, and index. Strong, Douglas Hillman. Trees—or Timber? The Story of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Three Rivers, Calif.: Sequoia National History Association, 1967. Provides sound historical treatment of the forestry issues surrounding the establishment of the two parks. See also: May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park; Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation; 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed.
January 6, 1937
Embargo on Arms to Spain The United States adopted a noninterventionist approach in dealing with the Spanish Civil War. Locale: United States Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Manuel Azaña y Díaz (1880-1940), president of the Spanish Republic Francisco Franco (1892-1975), leader of the Nationalist forces rebelling against the Spanish Republic Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state, 1933-1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event As the Great Depression of the 1930’s deepened and economic hardship increased, most people in the United States, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, placed major emphasis on domestic problems. In 1935, 2996
the U.S. government passed a neutrality law that provided for a mandatory embargo of U.S. arms shipments to all belligerents. Despite most Americans’ desires, however, international events were developing in a way that eventually would frustrate any hopes of noninvolvement. In Europe, Adolf Hitler had begun his career in Germany and Benito Mussolini was elaborating the fascist system that he had established for Italy in 1922. As the decade unfolded, it had become apparent that these nations were on the move, dissatisfied with the results of World War I and dedicated to changing the status quo. The two main champions of the Treaty of Versailles, the settlement that had concluded the war, were England and France, both of which, because of numerous factors such as internal economic problems, were willing to accept limited expansion on the part of both Germany and Italy as the best means of preserving peace. It was in such a historical setting that the Spanish Civil War began in 1936. Seldom has an event represented the culmination of so many complex and long-range forces as did the decision of General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist forces to revolt against the Spanish Republic,
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Roosevelt and Hull had many reasons for this action. This seemed an opportunity whereby the United States could act in unity with England and France to preserve the peace by promoting noninterference in Spain and at the same time serve the cause of noninvolvement, the dominant attitude of Congress, the American people, and the administration. It would permit continuance of the policy of complete disengagement from situations involving foreign wars. This initial decision met with almost universal approval by the American people. Unfortunately, the unofficial embargo proved inadequate to the situation. The desire for profit led one entrepreneur to export more than $2.7 million worth of aircraft equipment to the Loyalists despite the disapproval of President Roosevelt, and it appeared that others were eager to follow this example. This situation forced the administration into requesting from Congress a special amendment to the existing Neutrality Act that would legalize the embargo on arms to Spain. Passed on January 6, 1937, by overwhelming majorities in both houses, the joint resolution soon became the focal point for a vigorous national debate, as the tide of battle turned decidedly in favor of the Axis-supported Nationalists under Franco. Significance On January 9, 1937, The Nation, a liberal weekly, printed an editorial condemning the embargo resolution as “profascist neutrality.” This particular line of reasoning was soon adopted by the elite segment of the American public, representing in most cases the liberal, professional, and well-educated classes. Ranged on the other side of the controversy were many who felt the embargo was a good assurance of U.S. noninvolvement and a minority who were anxious for a Franco victory. Numerous U.S. public opinion polls during the period indicated that most Americans favored the Loyalists in the civil war, but an even larger majority favored noninvolvement. Of those groups most vigorous in support of retaining the embargo, an especially large number were Roman Catholics. During 1937 and 1938, the debate on the wisdom of the administration’s policy continued. Liberal weeklies such as The Nation and The New Republic consistently debated the question with Catholic periodicals. A concerted lobbying campaign was undertaken in the spring of 1938 to end the arms embargo. Twenty-eight hundred volunteers from the United States went to Spain to aid the Republic, most serving in the Lincoln and Washington Brigades. Some were African Americans, such as Abraham Lincoln Brigade commander Oliver Law. About 2997
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led by President Manuel Azaña y Díaz, in July, 1936. Spain had become a republic in April, 1931, and was torn by dissension from the very beginning. In broad terms, by 1936, the Spanish Republic had come to represent the liberal, anticlerical forces of the nation and was dedicated to agrarian reform and disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church, against which more than one act of violence had been directed by Republican sympathizers. However, large segments of the population, represented by the army and monarchists on the right and by the Anarcho-Syndicalists on the left, rejected this Republican government and by spring, 1936, civil disorder was widespread. The immediate reaction of England and France to the civil war was the fear that it might spread into a general European conflict. To avoid this threat, France sponsored a British-authored plan for the establishment of a Non-Intervention Committee to see that the struggle in Spain remained localized. This solution soon developed into a farce, as Germany, Italy, and Russia—all members of the committee—began extending aid to different parties of the civil war. That England and France were unwilling to acknowledge or to prevent this aid can be explained by several factors: concerns that a leftist revolutionary Spain might open the door to social revolution and Soviet involvement in Western Europe, a desire not to permit relations with fascist Italy to deteriorate further, and the haunting fear of a local war leading to a general European conflagration. In the United States, events had once more demonstrated the futility of trying to legislate for all contingencies in international affairs. The Neutrality Act in force at that time made no mention of civil wars, and the Spanish Republic (Loyalists) immediately requested military aid from the United States. Even before England and France decided on their Non-Intervention Committee, President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull had agreed that noninvolvement would be the best course for the United States to follow. Supporting this decision, the Department of State was strictly neutralist, as were William Bullitt, the ambassador to France, and Joseph P. Kennedy in London, two heavy contributors to Roosevelt’s electoral campaign. Urging support for the Loyalists was Ambassador Claude Bowers in Madrid, who warned that a fascist state in Spain could have a fascist “domino effect” in Latin America. Bowers’s input into policy formulation was largely ignored by Roosevelt and Hull. The administration announced that, although not legally binding, the arms embargo should be considered as extending to the Spanish situation.
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Embargo on Arms to Spain nine hundred Americans, including Law, died in Spain for the Republican cause. The embargo was never lifted, however, and by March, 1939, Franco was in complete control of Spain. Many different theories have been advanced to explain why President Roosevelt decided not to initiate a change in the embargo policy toward Spain. Some scholars have asserted that Roosevelt retained the embargo because he feared the alienation of Roman Catholic Democrats, a bulwark of the party. Others have pointed to a divided cabinet and Roosevelt’s ignorance about Spanish affairs. Still others have emphasized that the president desired to cooperate with the noninvolvement policy of France and England. U.S. military aid to one side in the Spanish Civil War would have flouted the international Non-Intervention Committee and placed the United States in the company of Germany, Italy, and Russia. Some scholars have asserted that retention of the embargo was simply another reflection of the predominant attitude of isolationism that controlled U.S. opinion during the 1930’s. The policy clearly was not isolationist, however, but noninterventionist, as the seriousness with which the issue was debated indicated a lively concern about how best to respond to a very nasty and complicated civil war. To adopt neutrality was to choose among a range of possible responses. —George Q. Flynn and Irwin Halfond Further Reading Alpert, Michael. A New International History of the Spanish Civil War. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Well-researched analysis of foreign policy formulation in the era of the Spanish Civil War. Includes map, bibliography, and index. Bolloten, Burnett. The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Comprehensive and ex-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tensively documented study draws on previously unavailable materials from the Spanish archives. Includes maps, bibliography, and index. Falcoff, Mark, and F. Pike, eds. The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939: American Hemispheric Perspectives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Collection of scholarly analyses of reactions to the Spanish Civil War in the United States and major Latin American nations. Forrest, Andrew. The Spanish Civil War. New York: Routledge, 2000. Brief text designed for undergraduates covers all aspects of the war, including the roles of foreign powers and the noninterventionist stance of the United States. Features illustrations, selected bibliography, and index. Little, Douglas. Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. Provides an in-depth, critical evaluation of motivations underlying U.S. foreign policy objectives during the Spanish Civil War. Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Rev. ed. 1977. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Updated, expanded version of a highly readable seminal study of the war and its impacts on both individual lives and nations. Traina, Richard. American Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War. 1968. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Standard work on U.S. policy concerning the war remains indispensable to any research on the subject. See also: July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins; Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain; Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica; July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica.
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Supreme Court-Packing Fight
February 5-July 22, 1937
Supreme Court-Packing Fight
Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Homer S. Cummings (1870-1956), U.S. attorney general Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), chief justice of the United States Owen J. Roberts (1875-1955), associate justice of the United States Joseph Taylor Robinson (1872-1937), U.S. senator from Arkansas Burton Kendall Wheeler (1882-1975), U.S. senator from Montana Summary of Event In November, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was returned to office by one of the widest election margins in history. Even conservative journalists spoke of a mandate for further New Deal reform. Indeed, the president’s second inaugural address spoke of the problems with “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” In what was a surprise to many, including some members of his own party, however, the president’s first message to Congress on February 5, 1937, called not for social programs but for adjustments to the U.S. Supreme Court. By July, 1937, the president had been defeated in his attempts to reorganize the Court, and he was faced with the growing disintegration of congressional support for his other legislative initiatives. The Court that sat in judgment on Roosevelt’s reform measures consisted of pre-New Deal appointees. Roosevelt had not had an opportunity to appoint a single justice during his first term. James C. McReynolds, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler (known as the Four Horsemen) were all staunch con-
servatives who considered private property sacred and laissez-faire the best policy. The liberal wing of the Court consisted of Louis D. Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo, and Harlan Fiske Stone. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts were both Republicans, and although they did not share the uncompromising laissez-faire attitude of the conservative bloc, they were reluctant to see an expansion of government involvement in the economy. However, in 1935, the Court delivered a series of decisions that virtually overturned the early New Deal’s recovery programs. In January, the Court, by a vote of eight to one, invalidated parts of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). At that point, the president was ready to attack the Court’s power of judicial review publicly as “unconscionable” if the justices ruled against the government’s power to regulate the currency in the Gold Clause cases. Confrontation was temporarily averted when the Court sustained the administration’s monetary policy by a vote of five to four. Three months later, the Court, in a five-to-four division, declared the Railway Retirement Act of 1934 unconstitutional. New Dealers feared that their programs would be destroyed by a narrowly divided Court, especially if Justice Owen Roberts, an unpredictable jurist, had permanently joined the conservatives. Their worst fears were confirmed when, on May 27, a day that became known as Black Monday, the Court handed down three unanimous antiadministration decisions. In Louisville Bank v. Radford, the justices declared the Frazier-Lemke Act (Farm Bankruptcy Act), which provided mortgage assistance to farmers, unconstitutional. The Court limited the president’s power to remove members of regulatory bodies in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, and in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, it found that the NIRA was unconstitutional because of an illegal delegation of legislative authority to the executive branch of the government in the form of code-making procedures. In the last of these cases, the Court also narrowly defined Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. In a press conference, Roosevelt criticized the ruling, calling it a “horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce.” Also, to some advisers he expressed a brief interest in a constitutional amendment that would limit the Court’s power of judicial review. In early 1936, in United States v. Butler, the Court ruled that the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was 2999
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When the executive and judicial branches of the U.S. government confronted each other over social legislation, a battle to pack the Supreme Court ensued. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was ultimately able to name eight justices and one chief justice to the Court, but in the process he catalyzed the creation of an antiNew Deal coalition that stymied many of his later efforts at social reform.
Supreme Court-Packing Fight also unconstitutional. In a six-to-three decision, the Court held that the AAA involved an illegal use of federal taxing power. Finally, during the summer of 1936, in the Tipaldo decision, the Court struck down a New York State minimum wage law by a five-to-four vote in terms that seemed to indicate that the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) and the recently passed Social Security Act were both in danger. The president accused the Court of creating a regulatory “no man’s land,” where neither states nor the federal government was allowed to function. During 1936, more than one hundred bills that would curb the Court’s power were introduced in Congress without Roosevelt’s endorsement. Even before the election of 1936, Roosevelt had undoubtedly decided to take some action to protect his program from judicial nullification. His advisers believed that it was an opportune time to act, but there was disagreement about the best
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method to employ. A constitutional amendment was rejected because it would be too difficult to draft and ratification would take too long. Change needed to occur before the Court had an opportunity to decimate more New Deal programs. Roosevelt was convinced that the real problem with the Court was one of personnel. The method finally selected was designed to foil the conservative bloc by an outflanking strategy. Ironically, it incorporated an approach once advocated by Justice McReynolds, the most intractable of the Four Horsemen on the Court. The administration bill, which was drawn up by Attorney General Homer S. Cummings, provided that whenever a federal judge failed to retire after reaching the age of seventy, the president could appoint a new judge to that bench. The number of new appointments, however, was limited to six on the Supreme Court and forty-four in the lower federal courts. The chief attraction of this plan, according to Roosevelt, was that it emphasized efficiency in the entire federal judicial system rather than singling out the high court or dwelling on politics and personalities. The president made reference to the overcrowded dockets of the federal courts and the resulting expense and delay to litigants. He claimed that younger judges could handle the courts’ business with more vigor and new vision. Although many people shared Roosevelt’s frustration with the Court, opposition to the bill developed immediately from Republicans, antiNew Deal Democrats, members of the bar, and newspaper editors. More serious was the resistance from party regulars and liberals such as Senator Burton K. Wheeler. Chief Justice Hughes soon made it clear to Senator Wheeler that the Court was not behind in its business. Wheeler had been a supporter of many New Deal measures in the past but was now heading the opposition to the bill from his post on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition, many elder statesmen resented Editorial cartoon published in March, 1937, ridicules President Franklin D. Roosethe president’s oblique slap at people velt’s efforts to reorganize the Supreme Court to protect his New Deal programs. over the age of seventy. One of these (FDR Library) was the most liberal member of the 3000
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Significance If the public was initially surprised at Roosevelt’s “Court-packing” proposal, the idea of judicial reform had long appealed to some members of the administration. A number of considerations led to Roosevelt’s deci-
sion to place judicial reorganization ahead of social legislation. The Supreme Court, as then composed, favored a conservative interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, but the president and others had hoped that the Court would make allowances for the emergency atmosphere when considering New Deal legislation. Many historians have commented that Roosevelt lost the battle over the Court-packing law but won the war to achieve a more compatible Supreme Court. Before he left office, Roosevelt would name eight justices and one chief justice. In the process of winning the war, however, he may have lost his army, for after the court fight, an anti-New Deal coalition formed. After 1937, Roosevelt was never again able to count on widespread congressional support for his social reform programs. — George Q. Flynn and Mary Welek Atwell Further Reading Abraham, Henry J. Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. This volume provides a basic discussion on the Court’s nomination process. Bibliography. Baker, Leonard. Back to Back: The Duel Between FDR and the Supreme Court. New York: Macmillan, 1967. Details the politics of the Court-packing fight. Burns, James Macgregor. Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956. Classic political biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hall, Kermit L. The Magic Mirror: Law in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. A chapter on the New Deal-era Court puts it into the context of legal thought and culture. _______. The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Multiauthored collection of essays on more than four hundred significant Court decisions, with supporting glossary and other aids. _______, ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Provides a detailed and useful outline of the history of the Court, major decisions and doctrines that have guided and influenced Court rulings dating back to 1789, and brief biographies of every justice who has served on the Court as well as other historically significant characters. Concise but detailed entries help to make landmark cases and legal terms accessible to a variety of users. Irons, Peter. A People’s History of the Supreme Court. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Chronicles the de3001
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bench, Justice Brandeis, who was eighty years old. Helping to strengthen this opposition were the incredibly clumsy political tactics employed by the administration. Keeping even the floor leaders in ignorance until the last minute, Roosevelt did little to prepare Congress for the measure. Finally, the administration was surprised at the level of reverence many Americans expressed for the judiciary as a guardian of personal liberties and the separation of powers. In the midst of the debate, the Supreme Court itself spoke out in a manner that did much to undermine the president’s already faltering support in Congress. In March, 1937, in West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, the Court, in a move that appeared to reverse its Tipaldo ruling, upheld a Washington state minimum wage law by a five-to-four vote. In April, National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. upheld the Wagner Act by the same margin. On May 24, 1937, the Court upheld the Social Security Act in all particulars. It was clear that at least one member of the court, Justice Roberts, had shifted from opposition to support of the New Deal legislation. Roberts’s move, which appeared to seal the doom of the Court-packing bill, is often referred to as “the switch in time that saved nine.” In addition, Justice Van Devanter announced his plans to retire. Roosevelt would at last be presented with the opportunity to nominate a member of the Court with a philosophy compatible with the New Deal, and presumably to assure approval of his legislation by a six-to-three margin. While the president publicly announced his great satisfaction with the Court’s apparent change of ideology, the news actually helped to kill his floundering Court reform bill. He was also acutely aware of the dissension the bill was creating within the Democratic Party. The Court reform bill gave conservative Democrats (who had been temporarily intimidated by the Depression) an opportunity to take a popular stand and at the same time to free themselves from the irritating confines of the presidential directions. When Senate majority leader Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, who was guiding the bill through Congress, died suddenly, the future of the legislation became hopeless. On July 22, 1937, the Senate sent the bill back to committee. It was never seen again.
Supreme Court-Packing Fight
Delaware River Project Begins velopment of the Court and argues that its history is largely characterized by its tendencies toward discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and socioeconomic status, at least before the entrance of Chief Justice Earl Warren. The author’s passion injects new life into old arguments. Recommended. Leuchtenburg, William E. The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. The definitive study of the Court-packing battle.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created; Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations; Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days; Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act; Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established; May 27, 1935: Black Monday.
March, 1937
Delaware River Project Begins New York City, facing water-supply demands of more than one billion gallons per day, expanded its supply system by constructing the water system known as the Delaware River Project. Locale: New York, New York; southeastern New York State Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; government and politics; engineering Key Figures John B. Jervis (1795-1885), chief engineer who directed and completed the Croton Aqueduct project Fiorello Henry La Guardia (1882-1947), mayor of New York City, 1934-1944, who supported the Delaware River Project Herbert Lehman (1878-1963), governor of New York and supporter of the Delaware River Project Walter E. Spear (fl. twentieth century), chief engineer of the Delaware River Project and department engineer on the Catskill Aqueduct project Summary of Event The Delaware River Project, including the Delaware Aqueduct, quickly became an important component of the water-supply system for New York City, one of the largest cities in the world. This system continues to help the city meet its massive demand for water by using its supply capacity of more than one billion gallons per day. From its inception, the Delaware River Project promised to be an engineering marvel, and it remains the longest continuous tunnel in the world. Since the Delaware River Project is part of a larger water system that developed over the past two hundred years, a study of its evolution is valuable. 3002
Prior to 1800, inhabitants of New York City had no public water-supply system. Water was drawn from public or private wells. (One famous well, the Tea Water Pump, provided water that was especially pure and fit for making tea. Some merchants, known as tea-water men, sold the water from carts they wheeled through the city’s streets.) In 1799, a private company began work on the first public water system, which consisted of twenty-five miles of wooden water mains made from logs that had been bored hollow. This system delivered 700,000 gallons of water daily to about two thousand homes. In 1829, a new system was built. It used an elevated castiron tank to hold 230,000 gallons of water. This system pumped 21,000 gallons of water per day through twelveinch-diameter cast-iron water mains. In 1834, the New York state legislature authorized construction of the Croton Aqueduct project, which began in 1837. The initial cost was estimated at $5.4 million, but by 1842, when the project was completed, its cost had risen to $13 million. The Croton Aqueduct supplied 90 million gallons of water per day to a city population of 360,000. The Murray Hill Reservoir was constructed at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, the modern-day site of the main branch of the New York Public Library. By 1885, New York City’s population was approaching two million, and new demands were being placed on the city’s water system. The New Croton Aqueduct project began in 1885 and was completed in 1893. It was capable of supplying 340 million gallons of water per day to the city. This aqueduct included a thirtymile tunnel, which was the longest tunnel in the world at that time. In 1905, the New Croton (Cornell) Dam was completed, which expanded Croton Lake to a length of nine-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
at the rate of 135 to 270 feet per week, and workers toiled around the clock. Although the project was not interrupted during World War II, available material and human resources were limited and the project was guarded against possible enemy attack or sabotage. The first water from the Delaware Aqueduct reached New York in 1944; stage 1 was completed in 1954 and provided 889 million gallons per day. Stage 2 of the Delaware River Project included a 25.5-mile extension, the East Delaware tunnel, which connected the Rondout Reservoir with the Pepacton Reservoir on the east branch of the Delaware River. Stage 2 was completed in 1955 and carried 375 million gallons per day. The East Delaware tunnel has a diameter of 11.25 feet. Finally, Stage 3 of the Delaware River Project was completed in 1966. Stage 3 included the 39-mile-long West Delaware tunnel, which connected Cannonsville Reservoir on the west branch of the Delaware River with the Rondout Reservoir. The West Delaware tunnel varies in diameter from 11.3 feet to 13.3 feet and has a capacity of 310 million gallons per day. The Delaware River Project water system was expected to satisfy water requirements for New York City through the year 2000, but given declining overall water usage and per-capita usage, it seems that the water system might well serve the city’s needs indefinitely. In 1970, in order to satisfy New York’s water demand of 1.5 billion gallons per day, digging began on water tunnel number 3 to add 55 miles of tunnel to the existing system; this project was planned to be completed in 2020. Usage generally and steadily declined from the highs of the 1970’s, however, to less than 1.1 million gallons per day in 2003. Per-capita consumption also dropped from a high of 208 gallons in 1988 to a low of 136.6 gallons in 2003. The demand for water by the people of New York City has grown with the city’s increasing population and burgeoning manufacturing and commercial activities. Development of New York City’s water-supply system has been characterized by its success not only in meeting the demand for quantity but also in delivering high-quality soft water. This availability of ample highquality water has had a positive economic impact and has contributed to desirable living and working conditions, which attract residents and businesses. The Delaware River Project was completed over a period of time during which water demand increased from 870 million gallons per day in 1927 at the completion of the Catskill Aqueduct to 1 billion gallons per day in 1930, to 1.2 billion gallons per day in 1948. The Delaware River portion of the entire system provides 920 million gallons per day, or 3003
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teen miles. This dam was 300 feet high and contained 35 billion gallons of water. The Catskill water-supply system was initiated in 1907 and was completed in 1927. This system transported water from Esopus Creek and the Ashokan Reservoir, eighty miles northwest of New York City, to the Kensico Reservoir near White Plains, New York. The Catskill Aqueduct is fourteen feet in diameter and is constructed of seventeen-inch-thick concrete walls. It passes eleven hundred feet below the Hudson River between Newburgh and West Point. From the Kensico Reservoir, the aqueduct continues fifteen miles south to the Hill View Reservoir near Yonkers. Two distribution tunnels emanate from Hill View Reservoir. Tunnel number 1, completed in 1907, distributes water to Manhattan, while tunnel number 2, completed in 1937, carries water through the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. The two distribution tunnels eventually meet in Western Brooklyn and continue on to supply Staten Island. These tunnels, lined with concrete, were bored through solid rock, at some locations as far as 750 feet below the ground. By 1933, New York City realized that even more water was needed for the future. Since watersheds northwest of New York City had already been included in the Catskill Aqueduct, the Delaware River basin, farther west, was identified as the next water source. The new system became known as the Delaware River Project and would consist of four reservoirs and miles of new tunnels to be constructed in three stages. A lawsuit by the state of New Jersey, in which the U.S. Supreme Court limited New York to 440 million gallons per day from the Delaware River basin, held up the project for more than two years. Construction of stage 1 began in March, 1937, with an estimated cost of $272 million over twelve years. Stage 1 included construction of the Neversink and Rondout Reservoirs. The Delaware Aqueduct, which extends forty-five miles, connects these reservoirs with the Croton Watershed. Additional tunnels extend twentyseven miles to connect with the Kensico Reservoir, then thirteen miles to the Hill View Reservoir. Water then enters one of the two city distribution tunnels and is carried into New York City. The total tunnel length of this aqueduct system is 105 miles. The aqueduct has a circularly shaped cross section that ranges from 13.5 feet to 19.5 feet in diameter. It is situated between 300 and 2,500 feet below the ground surface. Machinery used to bore the tunnels was lowered down vertical shafts that were up to 19 feet in diameter and up to 1,500 feet deep. Tunnel excavation progressed
Delaware River Project Begins
Delaware River Project Begins one-half of the entire water-system capacity of 1.82 billion gallons per day. This total capacity, given the decline in demand since the 1980’s, seems largely adequate to the area’s needs for the foreseeable future. Significance Construction of the Delaware River Project had an immediate impact on the environment and on the people of New York in several areas. The most important immediate impact was the provision of sufficient quantity and quality of water to one of the world’s largest metropolitan populations. Other effects included the displacement of people and their homes from land needed for reservoirs, the economic stimulation of the area through job creation and material purchases, and side effects from construction, including noise, dust, and earth displacement. Each construction phase of the New York City watersupply system included the building of dams to create reservoirs. For the Delaware River Project, damming of rivers created the Rondout, Neversink, Pepacton, and Cannonsville reservoirs. When a reservoir is created, water covers previously dry land. In some cases, entire valleys are filled with water. Land purchased for the Delaware River Project included woods, tillable farmland, and small villages, from which residents were displaced to accommodate the reservoirs. The Rondout Reservoir occupies 3,513 acres and displaced three small villages and 329 people. The Neversink Reservoir covers an area of 93 square miles. Another immediate impact of aqueduct construction was the creation of jobs. Construction of the Rondout Reservoir, for example, employed 329 people, and the number of employees at the New York Board of Water Supply increased substantially, from 219 to 720, when the Delaware River Project began. The estimated project cost of $272 million was an enormous amount of money, especially in the 1930’s, to add to the economy. Interstate and intrastate competition for water use from the Delaware River Project in the New York City metropolitan area led to the establishment of the State Commission on the Water Supply Needs of Southeastern New York in 1969. This commission was charged with laying the foundation for meeting Southeastern New York’s water needs through the twentieth century, including determining long-range needs, evaluating water resources, analyzing alternative methods for financing, and constructing necessary facilities. The commission also reported on a range of issues affecting future water supply. Environmental impact on fish and wildlife was cited as a problem resulting from water released from New 3004
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 York City reservoirs. Extreme variations in the quantity, temperature, and time of water release inhibited fish populations and adversely affected recreational opportunities. There was also discussion of a water withdrawal plant on the Hudson River near Hyde Park, New York, to utilize river water, and expansion of the Hinckley Reservoir by ten thousand acres to provide an additional five hundred million gallons of water per day. The commission contemplated several water-supply technology options. Its considerations included largescale desalting operations to utilize salt water from the ocean, weather modification using chemicals spread by airplane to seed clouds, and direct and indirect wastewater recycling and reuse, in which wastewater would be treated and injected back into the water-supply system either directly (direct reuse) or at a point in the initial stage of the supply cycle (indirect use) in a process similar to the feeding of a reservoir by a tributary. The commission examined methods of reducing water consumption, such as leakage control of water-main breaks; incentives to use water-saving appliances such as special toilets, showerheads, and washing machines; and innovative water pricing that could penalize any user’s excessive consumption demands. The Delaware River Project helped to provide water to people in the suburbs of New York City on a long-term basis. Many other municipal water systems were able to obtain water from the New York City system. The New York City water system also allowed conservation of important groundwater resources beneath Long Island, providing water for millions of people, in addition to the people served by the New York City system. Access to and development of watershed areas surrounding the reservoirs was strictly limited to protect water purity; hence natural habitats for wildlife were simultaneously created and protected. Finally, the system yielded exceptionally good water, especially compared with systems of other large metropolitan areas. — Garrett L. Van Wicklen Further Reading Chiles, James R. “The Fearless Forty of New York’s Water Tunnel.” Smithsonian 25 (July, 1994): 60-69. A description of tunnel excavators working on the expansion of New York City’s water system, which is due for completion in 2020. Provides a brief history and good maps of New York City’s system. Describes the equipment, working conditions, danger, and excitement of excavating tunnel number 3. A very readable article. Conway, E. Virgil. Water for Tomorrow: Recommenda-
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Koeppel, Gerard T. “A Struggle for Water.” Invention and Technology 9 (Winter, 1994): 18-31. Excellent historical account of the New York City water system from its inception through development of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842. Includes several enlightening paintings, photographs, and diagrams of the water system. _______. Water for Gotham: A History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. Sometimes slowpaced but well-researched and extremely detailed account. Weidner, C. H. Water for a City: A History of New York City’s Problem from the Beginning to the Delaware River System. Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1974. This text provides one of the most complete histories of New York City’s water system and includes many details of the system’s development. See also: 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins; Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct; 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems; Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam; Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed.
March, 1937
Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle Hans Adolf Krebs postulated the operation of a series of chemical oxidation and reduction reactions that convert the food humans eat to energy in a form useful to the cells of the body. Also known as: Krebs cycle; tricarboxylic acid cycle Locale: University of Sheffield, England Categories: Science and technology; biology; chemistry Key Figures Hans Adolf Krebs (1900-1981), British biochemist William Arthur Johnson (1913-1993), British student of Krebs Hans Leo Kornberg (b. 1928), British biochemist Summary of Event The foods humans eat consist largely of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins; each of these classes represents a
source of energy and molecules required for growth and repair of tissue. A detailed understanding of the conversion of foods into energy and chemical building blocks is necessary to any attempt to use particular foods to maintain or restore health. The central problem in the early 1930’s was that of describing exactly how this conversion is conducted in the cell. When Sir Hans Adolf Krebs first became interested in these questions, it had already been established that carbohydrates, or sugars and starches, are converted to carbon dioxide, a gas. As these names imply, the chemical structures involve the carbon atom. It had been known for many years that this single element is the main constituent of all living matter. It is not obvious from the names that many complex molecules, or unique collections of six to thousands of carbon atoms, are converted to a specific substance of a single carbon atom. This idea is important because it suggests that such a process might 3005
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tions of the Temporary State Commission on the Water Supply Needs of Southeastern New York. Albany: New York State Government Printing, 1973. A report on water use circa 1973, thirty years after the completion of the Delaware Aqueduct. Presents the strategies for water use and production methods dictated by technology during 1973. Good maps of the New York City water system are provided. Galusha, Diane. Liquid Assets: A History of New York City’s Water System. Harrison, N.Y.: Harbor Hill Books, 2002. An excellent work of regional history and a thorough, detailed examination of water in New York City. Garrison, E. G. “Sanitary and Hydraulic Engineering.” In A History of Engineering and Technology: Artful Methods. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 1991. A short but interesting discussion of New York City’s water supply. A good review of other hydraulic-engineering projects. Kirby, R. S., S. Withington, A. B. Darling, and F. G. Kilgour. “Sanitary and Hydraulic Engineering.” In Engineering in History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956. Excellent chapter dealing with the history of New York City’s water supply, beginning with the late eighteenth century. Excellent illustrations. Map of the reservoir and aqueduct system.
Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle
Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle
The Krebs (Citric Acid) Cycle
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
food substance citric acid, which had long been known to be connected diGlycolysis rectly with the healthy operation of the body. Not only does citrate—the Pyruvic acid (3C) form of an acid in cells—undergo oxidation rapidly, but it also speeds CO2 up, or catalyzes, respiratory chemisAcetyl CoA (2C) try. This effect of a compound causing a greater increase in the rate of a reaction had been demonstrated in Citric acid (6C) Oxaloacetic acid (4C) 1935 for several acids by Hungarian CO2 biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi. NADH + H+ Unlike those acids, citrate possesses Oxaloacetic acid (4C) three acidic carbon atoms. FurtherNADH + H+ a-Ketoglutaric acid more, in 1937, organic chemists Carl Fumaric acid (4C) Martius and Franz Knoop showed FADH2 exactly how citrate is converted into CO2 NADH + H+ succinate. Now, Krebs had all the inADP formation he needed to propose a Succinic pathway describing the conversion of acid (4C) ATP a carbohydrate into carbon dioxide. The key feature of Krebs’s hypothesis is that the process is cyclic in design. It is apparent that each take place in a series of steps rather than all at once. In step, or individual change of one molecule into another, fact, it was well known that energy is transformed more must be connected to the next. Biochemists refer to such efficiently in such a series. an arrangement as a pathway. In asserting that the pathLittle was known at that time about the nature of these way is cyclic, Krebs linked the last chemical reaction to steps as applied to the carbohydrates, although some the first as well. The scheme involves some material beprogress had been made with the fats and proteins. Krebs ing constantly fed into the pathway and reacting, or unhad heard of a proposal that combined two acetate fragdergoing a chemical change, with one of the products of ments, each containing two carbon atoms, to form a fourthe last reaction of the sequence. carbon structure called succinate. Both of these strucTo be specific, acetate, already proposed by other scitures are acids that had been shown to involve carbon entists, enters from the food supply. Reaction takes place atoms that had reacted with the element oxygen. These with a four-carbon acid, oxaloacetate, which Krebs sugfacts and ideas were entirely consistent with respiration, gests is a product of the final chemical conversion in his which involves breathing in oxygen and breathing out cycle. The product, by a well-known chemical reaction, carbon dioxide. More important, they suggested a reis citrate. There is an unexpected characteristic of many pathsearch lead that turned out to be vital: the study of acid ways that leads to the breakdown of substances: They oxidation. may require first the synthesis of a more complicated Krebs appreciated that the most promising approach structure, in this case, citrate. Such apparently wasteful to the problem of describing the chemistry that takes indirect steps can be explained by considerations such as place in the cell was the study of the rates, or velocity, at efficiency and control of the complex process. which possible intermediate molecules are oxidized. He Krebs’s proposal for what he called the tricarboxylic, made an important contribution in the development of a or citric, acid cycle has come to be known as the Krebs sensitive method of following the changes of pressure in cycle. Citrate contains as part of its structure a carbon oxygen as the acid was being transformed. In this way, he atom linked sequentially to an oxygen atom and a hydrofound that a number of acids are oxidized rapidly enough gen atom. Such an arrangement is characteristic of the to play a role in the overall conversion sequence. common substance alcohol and may be easily lost, or His most important discovery concerned the common 3006
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Hans Adolf Krebs. (The Nobel Foundation)
lose electrons, they must not be taken too literally. The electrons are transferred actually to some other chemical; that is, they are gained also in a process called reduction. First, it is necessary to look at another basic understanding of the biochemist. In essentially every chemical reaction that makes up the myriad chemical processes called metabolism, a highly specific and efficient catalyst, called an enzyme, is found. For many of these enzymatic reactions to occur, a second component, or coenzyme, is also required. In the Krebs cycle, specific coenzymes are reduced by accepting the electrons lost, as, for example, when isocitrate is oxidized. As isocitrate is oxidized, it becomes a very unstable substance known as a beta-ketoacid. In spontaneously losing a molecule of carbon dioxide, it provides a route to one of the known final products of respiration. This event does not prove that Krebs is right, but it demonstrates that his proposal is in accord with experimental observations. The subsequent steps in the Krebs cycle are similar in that they involve oxidations and loss of carbon dioxide, coupled with the reduction of coenzymes. The final production of oxaloacetate is the result of an oxidation of malate whose structure involves an alcohol similar to isocitrate. Thus the cycle is prepared to begin again with the arrival of another acetate group. Many men and women worked untold years to provide evidence that Krebs’s brilliant hypothesis is a valid approximation of the truth. Significance At the beginning of the nineteenth century, chemists were fascinated by the extraordinary changes that matter undergoes in living organisms. It is from this interest that the designation “organic” was used for the ubiquitous carbon compounds of nature. It was generally believed, however, that these reactions could not be studied outside of living beings. In the century between the 1830’s and the 1930’s, this “vital force theory” was so completely abandoned that a new science, biochemistry, was born. Krebs, as one of the principal founders of such studies, provided a vital link between biology and chemistry. In the early years of the twentieth century, a great interest was developing in the exact and quantitative study of chemical reactions. Krebs contributed to both of these modern movements by his leadership in using and developing precise instruments and techniques for the examination of metabolic reactions. The proposal of the citric acid cycle was met with characteristic scientific skepticism, because it was a breath3007
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eliminated, along with another hydrogen atom as a molecule of water; this process is known as dehydration. The product formed, aconitate, can undergo the reverse process of hydration and produce another alcohol, called isocitrate. This sequence is a clear example of apparently unproductive chemistry. Although the chief concern is oxidation, none has taken place in three chemical reactions. These mysteries can be explained by the fact that citrate is very difficult to oxidize, whereas isocitrate undergoes such chemical change easily. The next step in the Krebs cycle involves oxidation, but in a surprising way. The element oxygen is not directly involved. Such chemistry had been known long before Krebs’s work, and required chemists to look at oxidation in more general terms. The most satisfactory view is that oxidation demands that a substance lose electrons from its structure. Such a definition includes, but is much broader than, reaction with oxygen. The very nature of this extended view brings about a fundamental chemical concern of direct interest in terms of the Krebs cycle. When chemists say a substance must
Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle
Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle taking leap into uncharted territory. It was about a decade before the conversion of pyruvate to citrate was demonstrated experimentally. There were severe criticisms directed toward the hypothesis, especially because so much of its experimental justification remained to be found. In time, most working biochemists came to accept the cycle as a hypothesis, and a huge amount of extremely important experimental work was conducted. Much of the refinement was done by Krebs and his students, but in a review characteristic of his generosity, he gives full credit to many other workers who contributed significantly to the development of his basic scheme, such as William Arthur Johnson and Hans Leo Kornberg. Of central importance is the fact that Krebs’s original proposal, although greatly enhanced and extended, has stood the test of many studies. For example, although the proposal was originally conceived to explain the oxidation of carbohydrates, it was shown later that all major foodstuffs are readily accommodated by its chemistry. Furthermore, the functioning of the cycle in plant, as well as animal, tissue soon became apparent. About twothirds of all the oxidation that takes place in plants and animals using carbohydrate, fat, or protein takes place through the Krebs cycle. The discovery of the Krebs cycle has been called the greatest imaginative and experimental accomplishment of the science of biochemistry. The breadth of application of the cycle is so great that it lies at the very heart of life, a concept that is not understood completely. Its greatest feature is demonstrated in its delicate control of chemical rates of conversion and balanced supply of vital molecular building blocks for the growth and repair of tissue. In 1970, a volume of essays was dedicated to Krebs on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. In a dedication, his research director asked, “What had he [Krebs] achieved since 1925?” The answer: “He had discovered the essential chemical reactions of energy-transformations in life.” —K. Thomas Finley and Patricia J. Siegel Further Reading Bartley, W., H. L. Kornberg, and J. R. Quayle, eds. Essays in Cell Metabolism: Hans Krebs Dedicatory Volume. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1970. Collection of highly technical essays also includes vivid and unique personal recollections by Krebs’s former students and colleagues. Essential for a full appreciation of Krebs as a scientist and as a person. 3008
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Igelsrud, Donald E. “How Living Things Obtain Energy: A Simpler Explanation.” American Biology Teacher 51 (February, 1989): 89-93. Well-written presentation for the biology teacher and the nonspecialist, with classroom suggestions that aid understanding. Kornberg, H. L. “H. A. Krebs: A Pathway in Metabolism.” In The Metabolic Roles of Citrate, edited by T. W. Goodwin. New York: Academic Press, 1968. Fascinating biographical sketch by one of Krebs’s students and close collaborators. Full of highly personal observations and rare insights. Krebs, H. A. “The History of the Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 14 (Autumn, 1979): 154-170. Not only describes the origin of Krebs’s ideas and their development but also offers details concerning their success. A revealing analysis of how one scientist finds a solution when others, just as brilliant, overlook it. Krebs, H. A., and H. L. Kornberg. Energy Transformations in Living Matter: A Survey. Berlin: SpringerVerlag, 1947. Careful review of the citric acid cycle as a means of changing energy from foods to forms directly useful for the organisms. Krebs, H. A., and M. B. V. Roberts. The Citric Acid Cycle: An Historical Analysis. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Audio Learning, 1973. Package consisting of manual, audiocassette, and eleven slides presents discussion between Krebs and an English scientist and illustrates chemical reactions. Invaluable description of the history and goals of biochemistry. McMurray, W. C. Essentials of Human Metabolism. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1983. Places the Krebs cycle within the context of the overall metabolic picture. Treats the regulation of the cycle and the role of the mitochondria in some detail. Includes excellent glossary. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. An overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Chapter 5 includes brief discussion of Krebs’s work. Includes many illustrations and index. Quayle, J. R. “Obituary: Sir Hans Krebs, 1900-1981.” Journal of General Microbiology 128 (1982): 22152220. Far more than the usual obituary, written by a colleague and admirer. Full of inside detail on Krebs as a person, scientist, and coworker. Provides important information about the development of the entire field of biochemistry. Rensberger, Boyce. Life Itself: Exploring the Realm of
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provoking questions and a list of suggested readings at various levels. See also: 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi; 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan; 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins; 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells; 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C.
March 14, 1937
Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism In the midst of Adolf Hitler’s assault on organized Christianity and the early stages of the Holocaust, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical to the German bishops urging them to resist Nazi attempts to destroy Catholicism in Germany. Also known as: Mit brennender Sorge Locale: Vatican City; Germany Categories: Civil rights and liberties; human rights; religion, theology, and ethics; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti; 18571939), Roman Catholic pope, 1922-1939 Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (18761958), cardinal and Vatican secretary of state, 19301939, and later Pope Pius XII, 1939-1958 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Michael von Faulhaber (1869-1952), German cardinal and archbishop of Munich who opposed the Nazis Summary of Event On July 20, 1933, after six months of negotiation, Cardinal Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, the Vatican’s secretary of state and future Pope Pius XII, signed a concordat with the vice chancellor of the new German regime, Franz von Papen. Pope Pius XI ratified the agreement on the Vatican’s behalf on September 10. The concordat guaranteed the Catholic Church and its personnel freedom of action in organizing, preaching, teaching, and conducting religious rites in the secular state. In exchange, the Vatican agreed to keep the Church out of German politics. The Weimar government had refused to make the for-
mal reassurances that the pope saw as vital in the highly secularized nation, which had a high percentage of Protestants and a history of anti-Catholic government actions. The Vatican felt that the agreement to such guarantees by the new National Socialist (Nazi) government, which was doctrinally anti-Christian, was a major diplomatic achievement and vital to the safety and security of the Church in Germany and its adherents. The concordat also appeared to give formal Church recognition of the Nazi state, which was a boost to the new government’s legitimacy and an opportunity for the Nazis to calm German Christians’ fears of repression. German leader Adolf Hitler broke the terms of the agreement again and again. Catholic clergy were ridiculed and physically assaulted, worshipers were harassed, and Catholic schools were oppressed or closed by state organs such as the SA (Sturm Abteilung, also called the Brownshirts) and the Gestapo. The rise of the blatantly pagan Hitler Youth movement, led by Baldur von Schirach, undermined moral and religious teaching in every Catholic school and actively sought to supplant every Catholic youth organization. Nazi attempts to undermine Catholicism were fed by Hitler’s plans for a German national church that would absorb all forms of Christianity. At the same time, Nazi anti-Semitism ran rampant, expressed in both statesanctioned and private murders of Jews and in the destruction of Jewish property. The unbridled power of Hitler’s Germany confronted every institution or organization that seemed to pose a threat to Nazi hegemony. Official state religiosity teetered somewhere between atheism and mythical Germanic neopaganism, with the cult of a semideified Hitler as its focus. Between the signing of the concordat and the middle of 1937, Pius XI and Pacelli issued nearly sixty formal, 3009
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the Living Cell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Comprehensive examination of scientific knowledge about human cells and the frontiers of cell research. Includes glossary and index. Steiner, Robert F., and Seymour Pomerantz. The Chemistry of Living Systems. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1981. Well-written, detailed review of the chemistry of the Krebs cycle and its relationship to oxidative phosphorylation. Includes an array of thought-
Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism
Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism private diplomatic letters to the German government in which they protested the unwarranted and illicit treatment of Catholics and the Church in Germany. Pacelli had earlier served in Germany as papal nuncio to the state of Bavaria and then to the Weimar government, so his knowledge of German affairs and his rapport with the German Church were quite strong. Typically, however, the Nazis paid no attention to the Vatican’s pleas. The protests were ultimately recorded in three volumes that were secretly provided to German bishops as a way of informing them of papal activities. Papal concerns, however, were not limited to the status of Catholics. Leaders in the Vatican worried about
MIT BRENNENDER SORGE Pope Pius XI’s famous encyclical Mit brennender Sorge surprised the world by blatantly condemning the Nazi regime. Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called preChristian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who “Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community— however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds. Source: Pope Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge, Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Church and the German Reich to the Venerable Brethren the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany and Other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See. Given at the Vatican on March 14, 1937.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Christians in general and about the German Jews, who were the special targets of Nazi hatred and oppression, especially after the 1935 passage of the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of their citizenship. Hitler, however, saw the concordat as a guarantee against papal meddling in German politics, including the “urgent struggle against international Jewry,” as he put it to his cabinet in 1933. For his part, Pacelli spoke out forcefully against Nazi atheism, racism, and use of terror in a speech in Lourdes and in an open letter to the archbishop of Cologne in 1935. By 1936, the position of the Catholic Church in Germany had deteriorated even further, and the Church was also under assault in such places as Mexico, war-torn Spain, and the Soviet Union. The situation in Germany worsened, and in August of 1936, German bishops urged Pius XI to issue a formal protest against the Nazis’ doctrines and actions. The following winter, the ailing pope decided to issue two encyclicals, or formal letters, that would be read to Catholic congregations and published in the Catholic press. Pius issued his anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge, on March 14, 1937. Pacelli was charged with drawing up the statement against the Nazi regime, a task in which he was aided by three German cardinals and two German bishops. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, archbishop of Munich, drafted the initial document for the group, and Pacelli lengthened and intensified it. Breaking with tradition, Pacelli made sure that the encyclical was composed in German rather than in Latin, and he took the work’s title from its opening words: “with burning anxiety.” It is addressed to the bishops of Germany and expresses Pius’s pain at learning of the persecution of Catholicism in Germany and of the many Catholics who abandoned the Church for Nazi secularism. Mit brennender Sorge reviewed the history of the 1933 concordat and lamented the Nazi violations of it. It attacked Nazi neopaganism and the cult that had formed around Hitler while simultaneously reaffirming Christ and the Church as the only sources of religious truth. Furthermore, the encyclical addressed Nazi assaults on the use of Hebrew Scriptures in Christian education and emphasized the importance of the Old Testament and its people in a statement many viewed as a protest against anti-Semitism. Mit brennender Sorge defined freedom of conscience and worship as human rights that the German state was wrong to abridge or even attack, and although its references to faith were clearly intended as statements about the Catholic faith, the principles expressed extend to Protestants and Jews alike. After the encyclical’s secret publication on March 14,
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Significance The Nazis had no prior knowledge of the Mit brennender Sorge encyclical, and they were caught off guard by its publication. They condemned what they claimed was an open breach of the concordat and did all they could to stop the document’s spread. Printers who published it were punished, and possession of a copy was declared illegal. Even mention of the encyclical’s title was outlawed. Nazi propaganda as well as Nazi thugs went after the Catholic clergy with increased intensity, and Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, started a clumsy campaign claiming that Pius had Jewish ancestry. Internationally, Mit brennender Sorge was viewed as a bold and greatly needed condemnation of a vile regime and a powerful statement of universal rights—especially of conscience and worship—in an age of ever-increasing official repression. Shortly after its publication, Pius ordered a new encyclical aimed directly at Nazi racial and anti-Semitic doctrines and practices, although this document, Humani Generis Unitas, was never promulgated. Given the horrors of the Holocaust, historians have either defended Mit brennender Sorge as an outspoken, if oblique, defense of Jews and an attack on anti-Semitism or decried it as a lost opportunity for the pope to confront Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish atrocities directly. In fact, Pius’s intent was clearly to defend Roman Catholic principles of human dignity and to assert the Church’s right to the freedom it needed to minister. Pius was deeply concerned about the integrity and liberty of the Catholic Church in Germany, but the Nazis had essentially declared war on the Vatican even before the encyclical’s publication, and Pius was loath to meddle in what the
Nazi regime insisted were internal political matters. Even though no specific reference to the Nazis is ever made in the encyclical, it remains a powerful condemnation of the movement and one of the most forthright papal attacks ever made on a sitting political regime. —Joseph P. Byrne Further Reading Cornwall, John. Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Highly controversial study that criticizes Pacelli, later Pius XII, for his failure to confront or condemn the Nazi state; downplays the importance of Mit brennender Sorge. Godman, Peter. Hitler and the Vatican: Inside the Secret Archives That Reveal the New Story of the Nazis and the Church. New York: Free Press, 2004. Another controversial work based upon a rather narrow reading of relevant sources and underestimation of the brutality of the Nazi regime. Lewy, Guenther. The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany. New York: Da Capo Press, 2000. Fairly evenhanded treatment of the relationship of the Nazi regime with the Catholic hierarchy in Germany and the Vatican. Passelcq, Georges, and Bernard Suchecky. The Secret Encyclical of Pius XI. New York: Harcourt, 1997. Emphasizes the importance of Humani Generis Unitas and Mit brennender Sorge. Pius XI. “Mit Brennender Sorge”: Encyclical on the Church and the German Reich. The Vatican. http:// www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/ documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennendersorge_en.html. The encyclical is available online in English at this Web site. See also: Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope; June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery; Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope.
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the text was smuggled into Germany and read from every Catholic pulpit on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937. Bold printers produced tens of thousands of copies, and the German government quickly reacted. So did the Vatican, however, and a second encyclical, Divini Redemptoris, appeared on March 19, 1937. It targeted totalitarian, atheistic, and violently anti-Christian forms of communism in the Soviet Union and Western Europe.
Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism
Britain Separates Burma from India
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 1, 1937
Britain Separates Burma from India After the three Anglo-Burmese wars of the nineteenth century, Great Britain finally absorbed Burma into its empire on February 26, 1886. Burma was then ruled by the viceroy of India from Calcutta and Delhi as a province of India. With the Government of India Act of 1935, Burma was separated from India; it became a separate colony when the act took effect in 1937. Locale: Burma (now Myanmar) Categories: Colonialism and occupation; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Sir Archibald Douglas Cochrane (1885-1958), governor of Burma, 1936-1941 Aung San (1915-1947), Burmese nationalist leader Ba Maw (1893-1977), Burmese nationalist leader and prime minister, 1937 Ne Win (Shu Maung; 1911-2002), Burmese nationalist leader U Nu (1907-1995), Burmese nationalist leader Saya San (Ya Gyaw; 1874-1931), self-proclaimed leader of Burma, 1930-1932 Lawrence Dundas (second marquis of Zetland; 18761971), British secretary of state for India, 19351937, and secretary of state for Burma, 1937-1940 Summary of Event Since 1886, Burma had been ruled by the British as a province from India, which brought to Burma a modern administrative and police system and absorbed it into the global system of finance and trade. The British also created a new, nonhereditary, urban, elite landlord class that was educated at the University of Rangoon, which had been founded in 1920. British citizens acquired increasingly larger amounts of land, and Indian moneylenders and Chinese businessmen moved to Burma to provide the credit for a growing marketdriven economy. Meanwhile, a resistance movement led by monks and former monks developed. In 1906, the Young Men’s Buddhist Association was established. Although it was initially a modernist organization concerned with cultural and religious revival, it became increasingly nationalistic and political. In 1909, the British introduced the Government of India Act, which created a Legislative Council with a nonofficial Burmese majority. The 3012
Burmese, however, were not mollified. In response, the British declared that the Burmese were not ready for responsible government and excluded them from the Government of India Act of 1919, which extended the provisions of the 1909 act. This statement aroused considerable resentment among the Burmese and led to such an increase nationalist agitation that the British gave Burma five seats in the Indian Legislative Assembly in Delhi. By the end of the 1920’s the idea of separating Burma from India had become popular—it was welcomed by the British business classes—but the Burmese were concerned that the British wanted Burma to be a Crown Colony whose constitutional freedoms could be denied. In the House of Commons in London on January 20, 1931, the secretary of India insisted this charge was inaccurate, and he stated that the British were committed to the introduction of responsible government in both Burma and India. A former monk named Saya San crowned himself king of Burma in 1930 and led his Galon Army against the government. His rebellion was snuffed out after two years, and he was captured and hanged, but his death became a rallying point for nationalists. In 1930 the Dobama Asiayone (which translates as the “We Burmese Association”) was founded by a number of graduates of the University of Rangoon. They called themselves Thakin (master), and they became the recognized leaders of the Burmese nationalist movement. Aung San, one of the Thakin, had became one of the most important leaders of the nationalist movement by the mid1930’s. The growth and organization of the nationalist movement in Burma prompted the British to reduce the movement’s support by co-opting increasing numbers of conservative and opportunistic members of the educated classes into the Burmese civil service and the imperial government. The result was that the Government of India Act of 1935 separated Burma from India, and the country received a fully elected assembly. The Burmese gained considerable authority—more than the Indians—over their own affairs. In the only general election held in Burma by the British, which took place in December of 1936, 24 percent of the population was allowed to vote for a 132-member House of Representatives. Burmese became ministers responsible for all aspects of their government, except for foreign relations, defense, and the financial system,
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Significance The separation of Burma from India through the Government of India Act of 1935 accelerated the pace of reforms in Burma. The British colony was given a large
dose of self-rule, even though the British remained firmly in control of the police and the army, which were backed by the British navy. However, these reforms merely encouraged the Burmese, especially the younger generation of Thakins (many of whom had become Communists), to demand complete independence. They became frustrated with Britain’s hold on power and with what they saw as the collaborationist and compromising attitude of the older generation of Burmese leaders. As this younger generation became increasingly radicalized, they turned first to the Kuomintang in China and then to the Japanese—who ultimately became Burma’s ally—for assistance in expelling the British. In the short term, the separation of Burma from India led to the introduction of a modern political system roughly modeled on the British system of representative government. This began the short-lived practice of democracy and responsible government. In the long term, however, the separation of Burma from India made little difference to Burma. By the end of World War II, Great Britain was a bankrupt nation with little financial or political choice but to grant independence to its colonies, including Burma. —Roger D. Long Further Reading Kitchen, Martin. The British Empire and Commonwealth: A Short History. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. The book concentrates on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explains how Britain came to have the only true empire in the Victorian era and how it emerged victorious in two world wars. Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton, and E. A. Benians, eds. The Cambridge History of the British Empire. 8 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1929-1963. This is the definitive history of the Commonwealth, although it has become somewhat dated. Tarling, Nicholas, ed. From c.1800 to the 1930‘s. Vol. 3, part 1 in The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. 4 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Different sections of the five parts of this volume offer authoritative details of the history of Burma leading up to the separation of Burma from India and its aftermath. Includes segments written by Tarling, one of the foremost authorities on modern Southeast Asian history. Tinker, Hugh. The Foundations of Local Self-Government in India, Pakistan, and Burma. New York: Praeger, 1968. The importance of the history of the 3013
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which remained under the direct control of the governor, who administered these offices through official counsellors and a financial adviser. In addition, the British kept control of the “excluded areas,” the tribal areas of the Shan States and the Karen Hills in the east, Kachin in the north, and the Chin Hills in the west. Burma was separated on April 1, 1937, and Sir Archibald Douglas Cochrane was appointed governor in February of 1936. His appointment was also a concession to Burmese nationalism: In the past, the governors of Burma had been senior members of the Indian Civil Service, but Cochrane was a former submarine commander and member of Parliament. The secretary of state for India, Lawrence Dundas, continued to be the British cabinet minister responsible for Burmese affairs, but he did so through the new Burma office. Ba Maw, the leader of the Sinyetha (translated as the “poor men” or “proletarian”) Party became the prime minister after he received the support of the thirty-four seats held by non-Burmese groups—Europeans, Indians, and non-Burmese minorities—but he quickly lost power in Burma’s faction-ridden politics. He was followed by three other prime ministers, none of whom could command the support of the majority of the Burmese politicians. During World War II, Aung San fled to China, where the Japanese took him and his group, called the Thirty Comrades, to Japan for military training. By May of 1942, the Japanese had captured all of Burma, and the British retreated to Imphal, India, where they established a government in exile. On August 1, 1943, Aung San was appointed Burma’s war minister, and U Nu became the country’s foreign affairs minister. Ne Win formed the Burma National Army in 1943, and Aung San formed the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, which became the most popular nationalist organization in Burma. The Japanese retreated in May of 1945, and in October of 1946, Aung San and his allies were appointed to Britain’s Governor’s Council. In September of 1946, Aung became head of the provisional government, but on July 19, 1947, he and six colleagues were murdered at a cabinet meeting. U Nu succeeded Aung after October 17, 1947, and he signed the treaty with the British that gave Burma its independence as of January 4, 1948.
Britain Separates Burma from India
Raids on Guernica British parliament to British political development made Parliament see constitutional development as a key to national development and as the means toward freedom for colonies. Accordingly, the British colonial model was to establish local government and then follow it with a responsible provincial government before granting full independence. Tinker’s book is considered a classic in the field.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India; Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle; Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar; Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion; Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
April 26, 1937
Raids on Guernica Raids on Guernica made civilians the targets of military assaults in the Spanish Civil War, indicating Francisco Franco’s ties to other fascist governments. Locale: Guernica, Spain Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; atrocities and war crimes Key Figures Francisco Franco (1892-1975), leader of the Nationalist forces rebelling against the Spanish Republic Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), premier of Italy, 19221943 Summary of Event Probably the most notorious event linked with war to precede Hitler’s “final solution,” the bombing of a completely civilian target in the Basque area of Spain—the town of Guernica—revealed to the world the tactics of Spain’s General Francisco Franco and his ability to enlist the aid of fascist dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. By April, 1937, the civil war in Spain between Republicans and Nationalist troops fighting under Franco had been raging for some months. Many Republicans fled to France to live and carry out raids across the border. Ill equipped, they depended on the hospitality of and news carried by peasants in the Basque region of Spain, including Guernica. The Republican forces had also received muchneeded assistance from the American volunteer fighters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, although that brigade failed in its objectives and was ultimately disbanded without having contributed to the war in a palpable way. 3014
Nevertheless, writers and authors began to take notice of this war, most notably Ernest Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and several short stories. These works were precursors to reactions to the bombing of Guernica, which created the largest artistic protest since the introduction of the use of mustard gas in World War I. A number of studies have shed light on the genesis of the bombing raid on Guernica. One actor in this drama who has often been ignored is Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Apparently, Mussolini had been in constant contact with Franco about the “Basque problem.” With intelligence assistance from Franco’s troops, Mussolini had singled out the town of Guernica as a target whose destruction would send a message to the provinces. Having chosen Guernica as a likely target, Mussolini met on several occasions with Hitler. Hitler’s role in the bombing went far beyond his action in dispatching the German bombers that attacked Guernica. All three dictators knew that Guernica constituted a civilian target. Only with Mussolini’s discussion with Hitler was the bombing of Guernica finalized as part of Hitler’s plans to “impress” the world with the extent of Germany’s military might. Hitler’s easy agreement to bomb civilians in another country served to prefigure future German actions during World War II. The attack on Guernica surprised many contemporary observers because Germany had largely left Spain to its own struggles in its civil war. Although Franco and Hitler shared similar right-wing philosophies, they were not on particularly friendly terms with each other. Mussolini and Hitler had developed far more amicable relations, however, and that is why Mussolini’s actions as a gobetween were so important to carrying out the bombing raid on Guernica. Early on the morning of April 26, 1937, while it was still dark, the people of Guernica were awakened by the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Raids on Guernica
1937
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
A devastated section of the Basque village of Guernica following the German air attacks of April 26, 1937. (AP/Wide World Photos)
unfamiliar sound of waves of high-flying German bombers. No fighter planes accompanied these bombers because no resistance was expected. The bombers soon released their payloads of solid and shrapnel bombs over the town. When they landed, the solid bombs obliterated entire buildings and started fires throughout the town. The shrapnel bombs split apart on impact, spraying fragmented pieces across a wide area. As more people were roused from sleep or interrupted in their chores by German planes and the sound of falling bombs, they rushed into the streets, where most were cut down by pieces of shrapnel bombs. Unsure of what was happening, many people who lived on nearby farms made the mistake of running to Guernica in a vain attempt to rescue relatives and friends. Some survivors later spoke of climbing into their root cellars until they could hear nothing overhead; a few managed to escape into the countryside and found shelter in areas less devastated by the bombing. Reports about how long the bombing lasted differ, but some scholars have estimated that the attack it-
self may have lasted little more than an hour. A tremendous number of bombs were dropped in that time, destroying people, houses, churches, and a hospital. Other Basque villages tried to assist the survivors of Guernica, sharing the few medical supplies they had, and additional assistance came from France. The destruction was so complete that at the conclusion of World War II, some eight years later, the town of Guernica had not been rebuilt. Significance Despite this attempt to halt their efforts, the Republicans continued to conduct even more raids from across the French border against Nationalist targets. Although most Basque residents stopped taking up arms against Franco, they provided secret assistance to the rebels. Franco had proved that he could call on Germany’s powerful military resources with the intercession of the Italian government, but the destruction of Guernica was not truly a triumph for the leadership of Spain, Italy, or Germany. 3015
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The Basque Response to the Attack on Guernica On the day after the attack on Guernica, the Basque Country’s president, José Antonio de Aguirre, issued the following statement to the press: The German airmen, in the service of the Spanish rebels, have bombarded Guernica, burning the historic town which is held in such veneration by all Basques. They have sought to wound us in the most sensitive of our patriotic sentiments, once more making it entirely clear what Euzkadis may expect of those who do not hesitate to destroy us down to the very sanctuary which records the centuries of our liberty and our democracy. Before this outrage all we Basques must react with violence, swearing from the bottom of our hearts to defend the principles of our people with unheard-of stubbornness and heroism if the case requires it. We cannot hide the gravity of the moment; but victory can never be won by the invader if, raising our spirits to heights of strength and determination, we steel ourselves to his defeat. The enemy has advanced in many parts elsewhere to be driven out of them afterwards. I do not hesitate to affirm that here the same thing will happen. May to-day’s outrage be one spur more to do it with all speed.
The bombing of civilians spoke volumes about Franco’s character and encouraged a growing distrust of Hitler and his motives—a conviction that was reinforced during the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II. Artists throughout the world responded to the horror of the bombing. Pablo Picasso created his powerful and enduring antiwar painting titled Guernica, and Paul Éluard was inspired to write his famous poem “La Liberté,” copies of which were later dropped in bundles across wartorn France by the RAF in 1940. It has been estimated that some twenty thousand poems were written by five thousand poets in response to the Spanish Civil War, and many of these poems were written about Guernica. —John Jacob Further Reading Alpert, Michael. A New International History of the Spanish Civil War. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Mac-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 millan, 2004. Well-researched analysis of all the international elements involved in the Spanish Civil War. Chapter 10 discusses the events at Guernica. Includes map, bibliography, and index. MacDonald, Nancy. Homage to the Spanish Exiles: Voices from the Spanish Civil War. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1987. Discusses the value of the work of the Basque rebels and those exiled to France during the war. Martin, Russell. Picasso’s War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. New York: E. P. Dutton, 2002. Follows the literal and figurative journey of the painting since its creation to present an examination of art’s importance to human lives. North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. The Crime of Guernica. New York: Author, 1937. One of the first published reactions of North Americans (particularly U.S. citizens) to the bombings. Oppler, Ellen C., ed. Picasso’s Guernica: Illustrations, Introductory Essay, Documents, Poetry, Criticism, Analysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. Collection of materials presents scholarly discussion of the political motives behind the raids on Guernica and the artistic impulse these actions unleashed. Pérez, Janet, and Wendell Aycock, eds. The Spanish Civil War in Literature. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1990. Collection of essays discussing literary reactions to the Spanish Civil War, including the bombing of Guernica. Thomas, Gordon. The Day Guernica Died. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975. Presents a blow-by-blow account of the atrocities at Guernica. Thomas, Gordon, and Max Morgan Witts. Guernica, the Crucible of World War II. 1975. Reprint. Chelsea, Mich.: Scarborough House, 1991. Discusses how Guernica prefigured further atrocities and military campaigns during World War II and the relationships among Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler. See also: July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins; Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain; Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain; July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica.
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May 6, 1937 HINDENBURG
Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames
Dirigible Bursts into Flames
Locale: Lakehurst, New Jersey Categories: Disasters; transportation; space and aviation Key Figures Max Pruss (1891-1960), German captain of the Hindenburg Ernst Lehmann (1886-1937), German naval officer who was Eckener’s right-hand man at the Zeppelin Company Herbert Morrison (1905-1989), journalist who witnessed the Hindenburg’s destruction Charles E. Rosendahl (1892-1977), American commander of the naval air station at Lakehurst, New Jersey Hugo Eckener (1868-1954), zeppelin pioneer and successor to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin and head of the Zeppelin Airship Construction Company Summary of Event On May 6, 1937, on its first scheduled transatlantic crossing, the LZ-129 zeppelin Hindenburg was preparing to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, when its hydrogen ignited and it suddenly burst into flames. As stunned spectators watched, the burning mass crashed to the ground within seconds. Thirteen of the thirty-six passengers and twenty-two of the sixty-one crew members died in the disaster, and one ground crew member was also killed. Miraculously, almost two-thirds of the ninetyseven people on board survived the crash. The flight from Frankfurt, Germany, had been smooth, and a routine landing was expected. The Hindenburg could carry seventy-two passengers, but it did not have a full passenger load on this flight; May was not peak flying season. No celebrities were onboard, and most of the crowd on the ground were family members and friends, ground crew, journalists, and customs, immigration, and public health officials. The arrival of the airship had been scheduled for 8:00 a.m., but it was running behind schedule. As the ship neared the air station at about 4:00 p.m., Captain Max
Pruss, the flight’s commander, signaled his intention to cruise and delay landing until 6:00 p.m. because of threatening storm clouds. Sudden showers drenched the crowd and landing crew, but at 6:12 p.m., Commander Charles E. Rosendahl, who was in charge of landing operations on the ground, signaled to Pruss that the landing could proceed. The ceiling was 200 feet, visibility was 5 miles, and the wind was from the west-northwest at 8 knots. Pruss headed the ship back toward the landing field, passed over it, and made a tight turn to return to the landing area. Passengers were waving from the windows as landing ropes were let down to the waiting ground crew and officials prepared to receive the passengers. The Chicago-based radio station WLS had sent reporter Herbert Morrison and sound engineer Charles Nehlsen to make a disc recording of the Hindenburg’s arrival. As the airship approached, 200 feet above the field, Morrison described its awesome beauty and grace. At 7:25 p.m., a strange quiet fell on the ship as it neared the mooring mast. Some spectators reported they saw a blue flame along its back, and these flames suddenly mushroomed from the top of the Hindenburg. Landing personnel began scrambling away from under the ship as fire spread from one gas cell to another and the burning stern fell to the ground. Commander Rosendahl, who had survived the Shenandoah airship wreck, cried out in disbelief as tiny figures fell like ants from the dirigible. Some passengers walked from the burning wreckage in flames, some jumped to their death, others jumped to safety, and a few dazed, but relatively unharmed, passengers escaped with the help of the heroic crew and rescuers. As the tragedy unfolded, Morrison sobbed and was unable to speak, but Nehlsen kept him talking and he resumed his historic account of the horrific scene. Photographers and newsreel cameramen also recorded the disaster live. Shocking photos of the catastrophe appeared on the front pages of morning editions of American newspapers and were carried by wire services to papers overseas. Later in the day, newsreels carried the images to horrified theatergoers, and Herbert Morrison’s emotional account was heard on radio across the country. Captain Pruss survived the wreck, but he underwent months of plastic surgery and was scarred for life. Captain Ernst Lehmann, a senior captain and German naval officer who had flown zeppelins on reconnaissance and bombing raids in World War I, was on board as an adviser. He was badly burned in the crash and died on May 7. 3017
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The disastrous explosion of the zeppelin dirigible Hindenburg, the largest rigid aircraft ever constructed, caused the deaths of thirty-five on board. The crash marked the end of the age of lighter-than-air commercial passenger aircraft.
Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The Hindenburg flies over New York City on its way to Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937. (Courtesy, Navy Lakehurst Historical Society, Inc.)
The world was stunned. The loss of the Hindenburg was a serious blow to the German people. Named for their revered late president, Paul von Hindenburg, it was the symbol of German technology and progress. The largest airship ever built, it was 804 feet long (comparable to a thirteen-story building and only 79 feet shorter than the Titanic), with a maximum diameter of 135 feet. The ship contained sixteen cells, filled with more than seven million cubic feet of hydrogen gas, and traveled on the lower currents of the air. Living space was only 1 percent of the ship’s volume. Powered by four 1,200-horsepower Daimler-Benz diesel engines, the Hindenburg had a cruising speed of 78 miles per hour (126 kilometers per hour), and a maximum speed of 84 miles per hour (135 kilometers per hour). Airplanes of the day could carry only the pilot and crew, but zeppelin dirigibles offered intercontinental passengers luxurious service and faster travel than ocean liners at less expensive fares. After construction was completed in 1935, the Hindenburg inaugurated the first scheduled transatlantic air service between Frankfurt, Germany, and Lakehurst, New Jersey, in March, 1936, logging 60 hours for the first trip and 50 hours for the return. In ten round-trips 3018
that year, it carried more than 1,300 passengers and thousands of pounds of cargo and mail (the Graf Zeppelin, the Hindenburg’s predecessor, had flown 590 flights, including 144 ocean crossings, for ten years, carrying a total of 13,110 passengers.) Since 1910, zeppelins had flown 2,300 flights and carried more than 50,000 passengers. Until the Hindenburg catastrophe, zeppelins had never lost a passenger. Only Germany enjoyed such an enviable safety record, and most countries, plagued by catastrophes, had given up building airships. Adolf Hitler recognized the zeppelins’ potential as a propaganda tool and a symbol of the “new Germany” that could reinforce the image of German superiority and invincibility. The Nazi government took over the Zeppelin Company in 1935 (renaming it Deutschezeppelin Reederei) and financed the Hindenburg’s completion. Huge swastikas were painted on its fins, and Dr. Hugo Eckener, Count Zeppelin’s successor and an international celebrity unsympathetic to the Nazis, was installed as a figurehead chairman of the board. After the crash, ten thousand people witnessed the Nazi rites for the twenty-eight European victims, whose coffins were then transported by ship to Germany.
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Significance The Hindenburg crash was not the worst aircraft disaster in history, but it was the greatest disaster captured live by the media up to that time. Herbert Morrison’s account became a landmark in the history of broadcasting and was later synchronized to newsreel footage. It foreshadowed the importance of the media in portraying world events. The demise of the Hindenburg ended the golden age of lighter-than-air ships: The public was no longer willing to trust airships. The United States was the world’s only source of helium, the safer, nonflammable gas, and its refusal to release it to any foreign concern also contributed to the end of commercial-airship construction. However, advances in airplane design and technology
The Hindenburg seconds after bursting into flames. (Courtesy, Navy Lakehurst Historical Society, Inc.)
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Controversies raged about the disaster’s cause. Given the zeppelins’ safety record, many believed that the ship had been sabotaged. An American commission and German investigators, led by Eckener, however, found no evidence of sabotage. The most commonly held belief was that the thunderstorm’s conditions had ignited a static electrical charge (known as St. Elmo’s Fire) that resulted in the loss of hydrogen gas. (A U.S. embargo on the exportation of helium had forced Germany to use highly flammable hydrogen to lift the aircraft.) A few modern revisionist theorists claimed that the cover of the ship was ignited by static electricity rather than hydrogen. These theorists contended that reflective, flammable aluminum paint reacted with the fabric, hydrogen in the gas cells, and oxygen in the air to cause the crash.
Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames
Egypt Joins the League of Nations were the most important factors behind the end of airship construction. After the Hindenburg disaster, Hitler was convinced that zeppelins had no military potential and that military superiority in the air would depend on heavier-than-air vessels. Zeppelins were never again used for commercial service, and by the start of World War II, Nazi authorities declared the dirigibles obsolete. On the third anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, the German air ministry destroyed all of its airships. Still, long after the end of the age of airships, the debate over the cause of the Hindenburg disaster continued, as did fascination with lighter-than-air vessels. —Edna B. Quinn Further Reading Archbold, Rick. Hindenburg: An Illustrated History. New York: Warner Books, 1994. Discusses events leading up to the disaster and its possible causes, but the book’s strength is its wealth of photographs and illustrations. Botting, Douglas. Dr. Eckener’s Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel. New York: Henry Holt, 2001. Discusses Eckener’s invention, its successful flight history, and examines the possible cause of the Hindenburg disaster, concluding that the zeppelins’ inherently flammable nature was responsible. Dick, Harold G., and Douglas Robinson. Golden Age of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Great Passenger Airships: Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1992. Illustrated volume concerning the evolving designs of the German airships. Stephenson, Charles. Zeppelins: German Airships, 1900-1940. New York: Osprey, 2004. Provides a detailed history of zeppelins. Syon, Guillaime de. Zeppelins: Germany and the Airship, 1900-1939. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Excellent resource on the political importance of the German airships to Nazi Germany. Toland, John. The Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs and Disasters. Rev. ed. New York: Dover, 1972. Chapter titled “Twilight of the Gods” discusses the Hindenburg disaster and points out the possibility of sabotage by an anti-Nazi crew member. See also: Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight; July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel; Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids; May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman.
May 26, 1937
Egypt Joins the League of Nations Although still limited in its sovereignty by Britain’s four “reserved points” in the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, Egypt decided to join the League of Nations as a nationalist assertion of its independence. Locale: Cairo, Egypt; Geneva, Switzerland Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; organizations and institutions Key Figures Mu;zaf3 an-Naww3s Pasha (1875-1965), head of Egypt’s nationalist Wafd Party, 1927-1952, and prime minister of Egypt, 1928, 1930, 1936-1937, 1942-1944, 1950-1952 William Makram Ebeid (1889-1961), prominent Coptic, Wafd Party secretary-general, and frequent minister of finance Wasef Boutros Ghali (Wasif Butrus Ghali; 1878-1958), 3020
Coptic foreign minister, 1924-1937 Alt al-Shamst (1885-1962), prominent businessman and Wafd Party member, first Egyptian representative at the League of Nations, 1937-1939 Summary of Event After receiving invitations from twenty-two members of the League of Nations, Egypt formally applied for admission to the League on March 6, 1937. The first invitation to join had come on February 14, 1937 from Iraq, which at the time was the only Arab member of the League. The original vote on Egypt’s application had been scheduled for the regular League Assembly meeting in September of 1937, but since both Egypt and Britain were anxious to settle the issue, a special session was held on May 26, 1937. The proceedings began and ended on the same day, and Egypt’s application was unanimously approved in a secret ballot by all fifty members present.
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League’s increasing fragility. By 1937, Japan, Germany, and Italy had been pursuing their own aggressive policies in violation of the League’s Covenant, defections from world membership were increasing, and the world body was losing both effectiveness and credibility. In fact, at the very session when Egypt was admitted, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia was the issue that most concerned the League’s members. Egypt’s admission into the League was also complicated by the problems of unemployment and poverty created by the Great Depression. Even the success of Alt alShamst’s efforts to include Arabic as an official League language (side by side with English and French) on September 16, 1937, did not convince Egypt that it had achieved the complete and unmitigated sovereignty for which it had aimed since achieving nominal independence in 1922. Significance By the time Egypt was admitted to the League of Nations, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s dream (described in his Fourteen Points) of an alternate forum that would peacefully settle political differences was deteriorating. The United States had never joined the world body, and Japan, Germany, Italy, and others had decided to withdraw from the League altogether. For all intents and purposes, the League had stopped being an effective body. In fact, Egypt was the last country to be admitted before the debacle that ended with the Soviet Union’s ouster for its invasion of Finland in 1939. In this context, then, Egypt’s induction into the League turned out to be something of a Pyrrhic victory. — Peter B. Heller Further Reading “Egypt Not Excited by League’s Action: Admission by Unanimous Vote Seen Merely as Final Step in Rise to Independence.” The New York Times, May 28, 1937, p. 9. Reports that Egypt’s admission was viewed by Egyptian leaders as only one of several steps in the country’s progress to complete independence. Goldschmidt, Arthur, Jr. Biographical Dictionary of Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: American University of Cairo Press, 2000. Profiles the major actors involved in Egypt’s entry into the world organization. Gorman, Anthony. Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003. Discusses the ways in which Egypt tried to offset Britain’s “veiled protectorate” by asserting its independence through League membership. 3021
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Egypt thus became the fifty-ninth member (although some counts list it as the fifty-sixth member, given the intervening defections by Germany, Italy, Japan, and others). According to the statement by Antonio Quevedo of Ecuador, the outgoing League Council president, Egypt’s admission was a sign of the League’s vitality and of its readiness to be available to those who put their trust in it. The members of the Egyptian delegation were invited to take their seats by the League Assembly’s president, Tevfik Rültü Aras of Turkey. They included Mu;zaf3 an-Naww3s Pasha at their head, Makram Ebeid, Wasef Boutros Ghali, and Alt al-Shamst. Even though Egypt’s formal independence had been declared on February 28, 1922, the fifteen-year delay in its admission to the League was a result of Britain’s opposition; the British feared that the matter of its various “reserved points” would not hold up to international forum international scrutiny. The reserved points involved defense matters that Egypt had brought up at every round of negotiations with British prime minister Austen Chamberlain in 1928 and Prime Minister Arthur Henderson in 1930. Britain kept reasserting Egypt’s right to join the League, but the British did not fully support Egyptian membership until the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of August 26, 1936, which established the stationing of British troops in Egypt. As Al-Ahram, Egypt’s semiofficial newspaper, editorialized, “Egypt, which has regained its independence, is keen to register this achievement through its membership in the League of Nations, thereby rendering its independence an incontrovertible international reality.” Elaborate celebrations were planned for the delegates on their return from League headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. It was perhaps surprising, then, that the headline announcing Egypt’s admission into the League in The New York Times of May 28, 1937, read, “Egypt Not Excited by League’s Action: Admission by Unanimous Vote Seen Merely as Final Step in Rise to Independence.” There are two reasons for this perception. First, while the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 had advanced Egypt’s aim of limiting the British military presence in the country to certain bases, especially in the Suez Canal Zone, and of promising an end to the Capitulations System under which foreign nationals enjoyed certain extraterritorial rights in the court system, Egypt continued to be riled by Britain’s hold on various aspects of Egyptian politics and especially by its privileges in the Anglo-Egyptian region of the Sudan and the Nile Valley. The second major reason for Egypt’s muted rejoicing at joining the League’s other independent states was the
Egypt Joins the League of Nations
Golden Gate Bridge Opens “League Admits Egypt as Fifty-Ninth Member; Ethiopia Casts Shadow on Geneva Session.” The New York Times, May 27, 1937, p. 14. Describes the League’s special assembly to consider, among other things, Egypt’s application for membership. League of Nations. “Legal and Constitutional Questions.” The Monthly Summary of the League of Nations 17 (1937): 89-92. Section headed “Admission of Egypt to the League” provides the verbatim statements of Egyptian Prime Minister Mu;zaf3 anNaww3s Pasha and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden on the occasion. Rizk, Yunan Labib, “Ministry of Education Centennial,” Al-Ahram Weekly Online 757 (August, 2005). http: // weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/757/chrncls.htm. The Egyptian government’s semiofficial newspaper comments on the country’s joining the world organization
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on May 26, 1937, and identifies the architects of that initiative. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986. Still considered a classic on the world body, the work includes a synopsis of Egypt’s admission to membership. See also: Dec. 21, 1908: Cairo University Is Inaugurated; Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established; Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established; July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine; Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention; Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt.
May 27, 1937
Golden Gate Bridge Opens In the years immediately following World War I, the number of commuters crossing into San Francisco became so great that the existing ferry system could no longer accommodate the traffic without long delays. The Golden Gate Bridge, built to relieve the problem, was the longest suspension bridge constructed up to that time. Locale: San Francisco, California Categories: Engineering; transportation Key Figures Joseph B. Strauss (1870-1938), civil engineer and builder of the Golden Gate Bridge Charles A. Ellis (1876-1949), civil engineer, professor of engineering, and codesigner of the Golden Gate Bridge Leon Moisseiff (1872-1943), civil engineer and codesigner of the Golden Gate Bridge Summary of Event In the post-World War I era, San Francisco was beginning to feel the need to expand northward. Unfortunately, the Golden Gate, the scenic entrance to San Francisco Bay, prevented easy travel to and from the city. Regular ferry service was available, but it was operating at near capacity and passengers had to wait for several hours on heavy travel days. Dreams of a bridge across the 3022
Golden Gate had been periodically discussed since the latter half of the nineteenth century, but no one considered it feasible or affordable. In 1917, San Francisco’s chief engineer, Michael O’Shaughnessy, began contacting engineers around the country about the possibility of building a bridge, but many of the engineers estimated the cost of such a bridge at more than $100 million. Joseph B. Strauss, a Chicago engineer who had made his name designing drawbridges, stood out from the other engineers: He estimated that the bridge could be built for less than $30 million. In 1921, Strauss submitted preliminary plans for a hybrid bridge with a 2,640-foot suspension span flanked on each end by 685-foot cantilevered-truss spans. Most people disliked the aesthetics of his original design, which probably would have been structurally sound but would have ruined the view of the San Francisco Bay. A greater source of initial concern, however, was that many feared that the cost would be too great and would likely be significantly above Strauss’s estimate. The city felt it would be unable to cover the cost, and the counties to the north were even less able to help. The ferry operators were also opposed; they saw the bridge as direct competition that would endanger their business. In spite of clear opposition, Strauss became a crusader for the project, traveling throughout the counties north of San Francisco to convince them that they stood to gain if the bridge was built.
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Golden Gate Bridge Opens
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In spite of his best efforts, however, Strauss made little progress on finding approval for the bridge until 1929, when he decided to get help in redesigning his proposed structure. With the assistance of the engineers Charles A. Ellis and Leon Moisseiff, the bridge’s design was extended to a suspension span of 4,000 feet. Instead of the clunky hybrid design originally proposed, the new design was more sweeping, and it promised to be the world’s largest suspension bridge. Once the new design was unveiled, preliminary approval was given, and Strauss was appointed chief engineer. For final approval, however, the engineers needed a completed design, inTo view image, please refer to the cluding all the engineering calculations. print edition of this title. Strauss relentlessly pushed Ellis to get him to finish the calculations, and finally, on August 30, 1930, the completed report and plans were presented to the city. Even though Ellis had done the majority of the design work, he was simply listed as “chief assistant” and received only secondary credit. Rivalry between Ellis and Strauss soon led to Ellis’s dismissal. By 1930, the U.S. War Department determined that the bridge would not cause navigational problems and gave its approval. While the design was being finished, the search for funding also continued, although it was made more difficult by the onset of the Great Depression. After finding no interest in the project at the state or federal levels, full attention was turned to local sources. Convinced of Military biplanes fly between the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge as pedestrithe bridge’s economic benefits and after ans walk across the span during the bridge’s opening ceremonies. (AP/Wide heavy lobbying efforts by Strauss and his World Photos) supporters, the northern counties decided to join a bridge district that would issue bonds to raise the estimated $35 million that would support the suspension span. Because the needed for construction. In November of 1930, the voters length of the span was so great—4,200 feet in the final overwhelmingly approved the bonds, but no bond house design—they had to bear tremendous forces. Each tower or bank would agree to take them. The bonds remained in was to extend 746 feet above the water. The north tower limbo until 1932, when A. P. Gianini, whose bank later was relatively easy to construct as it was in shallow became the Bank of America, agreed to lend the needed water, but the south tower was to be built in deep water money. 1,100 feet from shore, where wave action from the open Construction on the Golden Gate Bridge began in ocean would leave it very exposed. To provide adequate 1933. The first major project was to build the two towers
Golden Gate Bridge Opens anchorage, 1.6 million cubic yards of rock had to be blasted and dredged from the south tower’s site. Much of the blasting work required that divers enter the water to place the charges, but strong currents meant that there were only small windows of time in which diving was possible. After excavation was complete, a protective bumper was built around the spot where the caisson for the base of the tower was to be placed. Wave action was so intense that the first attempt failed, and the caisson shifted. After further engineering calculations, a sturdier method was designed, and the tower began to take shape. The Art Deco design of the towers was the work of architect Irving F. Morrow. Once the towers were complete, in the fall of 1935, the Roebling company was hired to spin the cables that would support the road bed. The contract with the Roebling company specified that Roebling would complete the cables in one year; after the year had passed, the company would lose money for each additional day needed. The bridge required 80,000 miles of wire, enough to span the equator more than three times. Thousands of strands were laboriously spun together to produce the largest suspension cable of that time, which was 36.5 inches in diameter. The towers and cables were designed to withstand a broadside wind of 100 miles per hour; at this speed, the bridge would be able to sway as much as 27 feet at midspan. The cables were completed on May 20, 1936, well ahead of schedule and four times faster than predicted. The final part of the project was to complete the road bed, the most dangerous part of the job. At the time, the rule of thumb was one fatality for each $1 million in cost. Strauss, who was obsessed with safety, spent $130,000 for a safety net to be placed beneath the developing road bed. In spite of this precaution, one major accident left ten fatalities, but the overall fatality figures were well below the typical rate. By 1937, the bridge was completed, sixteen years after Strauss first submitted plans. The official opening day was May 27, 1937. More than two hundred thousand people turned out for the celebration and
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 were given the chance to be the first pedestrians to cross the bridge. Joseph B. Strauss gave one of the speeches that day, but he died within a year after the bridge’s opening. Significance When the Golden Gate Bridge was opened to traffic, drivers had to pay a toll that was intended to pay off the bonds used to build the bridge. Drivers of passenger cars were charged fifty cents, with an additional five cents for each passenger. The bridge remained in operation and tolls continued to be charged, not to pay off the bonds, which were retired, but to pay for the continuing maintenance required to keep the bridge safe. After 1997, the bridge began a three-phase seismic retrofit, a significant portion of which was funded by bridge tolls. —Bryan Ness Further Reading Dillon, Richard H., Don Denevi, and Thomas Moulin. High Steel: Building the Bridges Across San Francisco Bay. Berkeley, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1980. Recounts the history of the two largest bridges in the San Francisco Bay: the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. Schock, James W. The Bridge: A Celebration. Sherman Oaks, Calif.: Shock Ink, 1997. Considered by many to be a definitive account of the history of the Golden Gate Bridge. Van Der Zee, John. The Gate: The True Story of the Design and Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Delves into the personalities involved in the building of the Golden Gate Bridge. Wells, Matthew. Thirty Bridges. New York: WatsonGuptill, 2002. As the title suggests, this book looks at thirty different bridges worldwide, including the Golden Gate Bridge. Gives a nice perspective on how the Golden Gate fits into history. See also: Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake; Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge; Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses.
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Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever
June, 1937
Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever
Locale: New York, New York Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Max Theiler (1899-1972), South African microbiologist and specialist in tropical medicine Wilbur Augustus Sawyer (1879-1951), American physician Hugh Smith (b. 1902), American physician Summary of Event Yellow fever, caused by a virus and transmitted by mosquitoes, infects humans and monkeys. After the bite of the infecting mosquito, it takes several days before symptoms appear. The onset of symptoms is abrupt, with headache, nausea, and vomiting. Because the virus destroys liver cells, yellowing of the skin and eyes is common. Approximately 10 to 15 percent of patients die after exhibiting the terrifying signs and symptoms. Death occurs usually from liver necrosis (decay) and liver shutdown. Victims who survive, however, recover completely and are immunized. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was no cure for yellow fever. The best that medical authorities could do was to quarantine the afflicted. Those quarantines usually waved the warning yellow flag, which gave the disease its colloquial name, “yellow jack.” After the Aëdes aegypti mosquito was clearly identified as the carrier of the disease in 1900, efforts were made to combat the disease by wiping out the mosquito. Most famous in these efforts were the American army surgeon Walter Reed and the Cuban physician Carlos Juan Finlay. This strategy was successful in Panama and Cuba and made possible the construction of the Panama Canal. Still, the yellow fever virus persisted in the tropics, and the opening of the Panama Canal increased the danger of its spreading aboard the ships using this new route. Moreover, the disease, which was thought to be limited to the jungles of South and Central America, had begun to spread around the world to wherever the mosquito Aëdes aegypti could carry the virus. Mosquito larvae traveled well in casks of water aboard trading vessels and spread the disease to North America and Europe. Max Theiler received his medical education in Lon-
don. Following that, he completed a four-month course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, after which he was invited to come to the United States to work in the department of tropical medicine at Harvard University. While there, Theiler started working to identify the yellow fever organism. The first problem he faced was finding a suitable laboratory animal that could be infected with yellow fever. Until that time, the only animal successfully infected with yellow fever was the rhesus monkey, which was expensive and difficult to care for under laboratory conditions. Theiler succeeded in infecting laboratory mice with the disease by injecting the virus directly into their brains. Laboratory work for investigators and assistants coming in contact with the yellow fever virus was extremely dangerous. At least six of the scientists at the Yellow Fever Laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute died of the disease, and many other workers were infected. In 1929, Theiler was infected with yellow fever; fortunately, the attack was so mild that he recovered quickly and resumed his work. During one set of experiments, Theiler produced successive generations of the virus. First, he took virus from a monkey that had died of yellow fever and used it to infect a mouse. Next, he extracted the virus from that mouse and injected it into a second mouse, repeating the same procedure using a third mouse. All of them died of encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). The virus from the third mouse was then used to infect a monkey. Although the monkey showed signs of yellow fever, it recovered completely. When Theiler passed the virus through more mice and then into the abdomen of another monkey, the monkey showed no symptoms of the disease. The results of these experiments were published by Theiler in the journal Science. This article caught the attention of Wilbur Augustus Sawyer, director of the Yellow Fever Laboratory at the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Division in New York. Sawyer, who was working on a yellow fever vaccine, offered Theiler a job at the Rockefeller Foundation, which Theiler accepted. Theiler’s mouseadapted, “attenuated” virus was given to the laboratory workers, along with human immune serum, to protect them against the yellow fever virus. This type of vaccination, however, carried the risk of transferring other diseases, such as hepatitis, in the human serum. 3025
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Max Theiler conducted research that led to the 17D vaccine for yellow fever, one of the deadliest diseases of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever
Theiler’s Contribution In 1951, Max Theiler received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the yellow fever vaccine. In a presentation speech at the awards ceremony, Professor H. Bergstrand, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine of the Royal Caroline Institute, noted why Theiler’s discovery was worthy of recognition: The significance of Max Theiler’s discovery must be considered to be very great from the practical point of view, as effective protection against yellow fever is one condition for the development of the tropical regions— an important problem in an overpopulated world. Dr. Theiler’s discovery does not imply anything fundamentally new, for the idea of inoculation against a disease by the use of a variant of the etiologic agent which, though harmless, produces immunity, is more than 150 years old. Jenner used a natural virus variant, cowpox virus, against smallpox, and Pasteur produced a similar variant of the rabies virus by repeated passage through animals. So far there have been only a few successful attempts to master a disease by such measures, but Dr. Theiler’s discovery gives new hope that in this manner we shall succeed in mastering other virus diseases, many of which have a devastating effect, and against which we are still entirely powerless. Max Theiler, therefore, has rendered mankind such a service as Nobel made a condition for the awarding of this prize.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ler’s assistant, called to his attention an odd development as noted in the laboratory records of strain 17D. In its 176th culture, 17D had failed to kill the test mice. Some had been paralyzed, but even these eventually recovered. Two monkeys who had received a dose of 17D in their brains survived a mild attack of encephalitis, but those who had taken the infection in the abdomen showed no ill effects whatever. Oddly, subsequent subcultures of the strain killed monkeys and mice at the usual rate. The only explanation possible was that a mutation had occurred unnoticed. The batch of strain 17D was tried over and over again on monkeys with no harmful effects. Instead, the animals were immunized effectively. Then it was tried on the laboratory staff, including Theiler and his wife, Lillian. The batch injected into humans had the same immunizing effect. Neither Theiler nor anyone else could explain how the mutation of the virus had occurred. Attempts to duplicate the experiment, using the same Asibi virus, failed. Still, this was the first safe vaccine for yellow fever. In June, 1937, Theiler reported this crucial finding in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Source: H. Bergstrand, “Presentation Speech,” in Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1964).
In 1930, Theiler worked with Eugen Haagen, a German bacteriologist, at the Rockefeller Foundation. The strategy of the Rockefeller laboratory was a cautious, slow, and steady effort to culture a strain of the virus so mild as to be harmless to a human but strong enough to confer a long-lasting immunity. (To “culture” something—tissue cells, microorganisms, or other living matter—is to grow it in a specially prepared medium under laboratory conditions.) They started with a new strain of yellow fever harvested from a twenty-eight-year-old West African named Asibi; it was later known as the “Asibi strain.” It was a highly virulent strain that in four to seven days killed almost all the monkeys that were infected with it. From time to time, Theiler or his assistant would test the culture on a monkey and note the speed with which it died. It was not until April, 1936, that Hugh Smith, Thei3026
Max Theiler. (The Nobel Foundation)
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Further Reading Bendinger, Elmer. “Max Theiler: Yellow Jack and the Jackpot.” Hospital Practice, June 15, 1988, 211-244. An excellent article on the life story of Max Theiler. Opens with Theiler’s childhood in South Africa, where he began his fascination with biology, and continues through his brilliant scientific career. Bres, P. L. J. “A Century of Progress in Combating Yellow Fever.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 64 (December, 1986): 775-786. Surveys the epidemiological situation of yellow fever in the fifty
years that followed the discovery of the vaccine. Discusses major scientific advancements in the study of the virus and the disease. Includes a short description of the history of yellow fever epidemics and research on yellow fever. Hill, Ralph Nading. The Doctors Who Conquered Yellow Fever. New York: Random House, 1957. Depicts the story of the fight against yellow fever through the life story of Walter Reed. Includes a brief description of the developments in the fight against the disease following Reed’s death up to Theiler’s development of the 17D vaccine. Oldstone, Michael B. A. Viruses, Plagues, and History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Examines the effects of deadly viruses on human history and discusses scientists’ efforts to eradicate such viruses. Chapter 5 is devoted to the successful fight against yellow fever. Pierce, John R., and Jim Writer. Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Secrets. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Focuses on the impact of yellow fever epidemics in the United States and on Walter Reed’s work to determine the disease’s mode of transmission. Strode, George K., ed. Yellow Fever. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951. The most authoritative book on yellow fever at the time of its publication. Chapters were written by the foremost experts in the field, including one by Max Theiler on the virus. Covers topics such as the history of the fight against yellow fever, the search for a vaccine against the disease, and the cost of this effort. Williams, Greer. Virus Hunters. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959. Describes the development of a vaccine against yellow fever in chapter 15, titled “Theiler: Yellow Fever’s Second Exit.” Includes annotated bibliography. See also: Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever; Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau; 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control.
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Significance Following the discovery of the vaccine, Theiler’s laboratory became a production plant for the 17D virus. Before World War II (1939-1945), more than one million vaccination doses were sent to Brazil and other South American countries. After the United States entered the war, eight million soldiers were given the vaccine before being shipped to tropical war zones. In all, approximately fifty million people were vaccinated during the war years. Although the vaccine, combined with effective mosquito control, eradicated the disease from urban centers, yellow fever is still present in large regions of South and Central America and of Africa. The most severe outbreak of yellow fever ever known occurred from 1960 to 1962 in Ethiopia; out of one hundred thousand people infected, thirty thousand died. Severe outbreaks of yellow fever occurred in the 1980’s in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. In 2001 the World Health Organization reported that the incidence of yellow fever rose during the 1980’s and 1990’s, infecting up to two hundred thousand people and causing thirty thousand deaths per year. This resurgence of the disease was attributed to deforestation, the proliferation of environments in which mosquitoes breed, and large unvaccinated populations in developing countries of Africa and Latin America. More than fifty years after its development, the 17D yellow fever vaccine prepared by Theiler in 1937 continues to be the only vaccine against the disease used by the World Health Organization, which is involved in a continuous effort to prevent infection by immunizing the people living in tropical zones. —Gershon B. Grunfeld
Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever
Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
June-September, 1937
Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope Grote Reber’s construction of the first reflecting radio telescope for the systematic study of radio emission from space marked the beginning of intentional radio astronomy. Locale: Wheaton, Illinois Categories: Science and technology; astronomy Key Figures Grote Reber (1911-2002), American radio engineer and amateur astronomer Karl G. Jansky (1905-1950), American radio engineer Bernard Lovell (b. 1913), English radio astronomer Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German physicist Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), Italian electrical engineer Summary of Event Intentional radio astronomy began in 1937 when Grote Reber built the first reflecting radio telescope at his home in Wheaton, Illinois, only fifty years after the discovery of radio waves by Heinrich Hertz in 1887 and five years after the first report of radio waves from space. Hertz had produced radio waves with a spark generator at about 50 million oscillations per second (50 megahertz) and measured a wavelength of about 6 meters (almost 20 feet), indicating a wave velocity equal to the speed of light (approximately 300 million meters, or 186,000 miles, per second). His work demonstrated that radio waves and light waves are both electromagnetic waves differing only in frequency and wavelength. Radio waves are the longest waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, which also includes infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, and X rays at increasingly higher frequencies and shorter wavelengths. The early study of radio was directed toward the development of wireless communications, leading to transatlantic transmission and reception of radio signals in 1901 by Guglielmo Marconi. In 1932, Karl G. Jansky reported his accidental discovery of radio waves from space. At the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, he built a rotating dipole-array wire antenna sensitive to 15-meter (49.2-foot) radio waves to study the static noise that interferes with radio communications. In addition to the usual atmospheric static, he detected a weak, steady hiss that appeared four minutes earlier each day. As this corresponds to the twenty-three-hour, fiftysix-minute apparent daily motion of the stars, he con3028
cluded that he was receiving cosmic radio noise from outside the solar system. Jansky’s work was published in a series of scientific papers starting in 1932. His results made the front page of The New York Times, and a national radio network broadcast ten seconds of radio hiss from space. Despite this publicity, no scientist followed up on Janksy’s discovery until Grote Reber, a twenty-five-year-old radio engineer and amateur astronomer, decided to build a large parabolic dish for radio reception in the side yard at his home in Wheaton, Illinois, 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) west of Chicago. It was the first intentional radio telescope and the only one in operation until after World War II. Reber was an avid radio amateur who built his first transceiver at age fifteen and began to communicate with other amateurs around the world. He received an electrical engineering degree in 1933 from what is now the Illinois Institute of Technology and began working for the Stewart-Warner Company in Chicago. After reading Jansky’s papers, he recognized the importance of his discovery. He also realized that greater progress could be made with equipment specially designed to measure cosmic static at radio frequencies. He began to plan the construction of a large reflecting dish with associated receiving equipment that could measure the detailed distribution ofradiation intensities throughout the sky at different wavelengths. Although he had no outside support, Reber decided to build as large a reflector as he could in order to obtain maximum resolution (separation of sources) at radio frequencies. His reflector design also had the capability of tuning to different wavelengths by changing the antenna feed at the focus of the parabolic dish. He decided on a 6.1-meter (20-foot) focal length and a dish diameter of 9.4 meters (31 feet), based on the length of the longest two-by-fours available locally. Working with only a minimum of help from June to September, 1937, he completed his radio telescope at a cost of thirteen hundred dollars of his own money. This instrument remained in his yard for ten years; it was a source of amazement and wild rumors among local residents and visitors. To minimize expense, Reber used a meridian-transit mounting that could be pointed up and down in a northsouth plane (declination), while scanning east and west (right ascension) was provided by Earth’s rotation. The differential gear from a Ford Model T truck was used to change the elevation angle of the dish. The reflecting
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope
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to find any radiation of celestial origin. A still longer wavelength could be conveniently detected with a cylindrical cavity made from a sheet of aluminum measuring 2 meters by 4 meters (approximately 6.6 feet by 13.1 feet), setting the operating wavelength at 1.87 meters (6.14 feet). A dipole antenna in the cavity resonator at the dish’s focus gave positive results by the spring of 1939, after two years of persevering work. Reber did most of his observing from midnight to dawn to avoid interference from automobile ignitions. By April, the plane of the Milky Way crossed the meridian late at night, and it became apparent that our galaxy emitted 1.87-meter radio waves. The intensity of the cosmic radiation was determined by reading a microammeter at one-minute intervals while monitoring the audio signal to detect and remove periods of local interference. His initial results were published in February, 1940, in the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, where he noted that his estimated intensity was far below that reported by Jansky at the 15-meter (49.2-foot) wavelength. This The reflecting radio telescope built by Grote Reber in Wheaton, Illinois, in 1937. led Reber to the conclusion that the source of the cosmic radiation could be explained by interactions between dish consisted of seventy-two radial wooden rafters cut electrons and positive ions (charged atoms) in an ionized to parabolic shape with a tolerance of about 0.5 centimegas rather than from thermal emission. Over the next five ter (about 0.02 inch), with forty-five pieces of galvanized years, he obtained the first radio maps of the galaxy at sheet metal screwed over the rafters to form the reflecttwo different wavelengths and identified a number of iming surface. The entire structure weighed nearly two tons. portant radio sources in different parts of the galaxy. Using custom-made vacuum tubes from the UniverAs virtually the only active radio astronomer in the sity of Chicago and other radio components from his emworld, Reber operated his telescope in Wheaton for ten ployer, Reber began with a receiver designed for the years before it was finally moved to a U.S. Bureau of shortest possible operating wavelength of 9 centimeters Standards field station in 1947. The telescope was again (3.5 inches). This would give the best angular resolution relocated in 1960 to the National Radio Astronomy Oband would be more sensitive to thermal radiation than servatory at Green Bank, West Virginia, where it reat the longer wavelength detected by Jansky. Unfortumains on public view and is occasionally used for demnately, scanning at 9 centimeters gave no response, so onstration purposes. In 1954, Reber moved to Tasmania, he began to doubt that thermal radiation was the source Australia, where he constructed a huge wire-antenna arof Jansky’s observations. By the summer of 1938, Reray telescope to measure radiation at a wavelength of 150 ber had upgraded his receiver to detect 33-centimeter meters (approximately 492 feet) in the Southern Hemi(13-inch) waves at a greater sensitivity, but still failed sphere.
Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope Significance The success of Reber’s pioneering radio telescope led to the rapid development of radio astronomy after World War II and the construction of increasingly larger and more sophisticated radio telescopes. Early work in radio astronomy was done by adapting radar scanning dishes retired from wartime service. Their electronic receivers were much more sensitive than the relatively simple devices used by Jansky and Reber. In fact, radio emission from the Sun was first observed accidentally by James S. Hey, when antiaircraft radars, operating between 4- and 8-meter (about 13- and 26-foot) wavelengths in England, experienced severe noise jamming on February 27 and 28 of 1942. Analysis of this phenomenon showed that the signals came from the Sun during unusual sunspot activity, but publication was withheld until after the war. Reber also detected solar radio emissions in 1943. One of the first applications of radar to radio astronomy began in 1946 at Jodrell Bank, an experimental botanical site of Manchester University. Here, a group led by Sir Bernard Lovell used radar astronomy to study daytime meteor activity in great detail, even though it was invisible to ordinary sight. In 1947, they constructed a fixed, upward-looking parabolic reflector, 66 meters (216.5 feet) in diameter, with a reflecting surface consisting of wire mesh spread over a frame on the ground. This instrument was limited to vertical reception, with scanning mainly from Earth’s rotation. Lovell soon began to plan a giant fully steerable reflector that could explore radio phenomena throughout the universe. Construction of the 76-meter (249.3-foot) radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Experimental Station took six years, with the turret rack of a battleship to move the huge dish. It was designed to operate at 21 centimeters (about 8.3 inches) after it was discovered that interstellar atomic hydrogen radiates at that wavelength. The telescope was completed in 1957, in time to track the first human-made satellite, Sputnik 1. This instrument gave productive results in many investigations, including emissions from the Sun, the galaxy, and several discrete radio sources. In the United States, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory began operation at Green Bank, West Virginia, with a 26-meter (85.3-foot) dish in 1959, followed by a 91-meter (298.6-foot) transit telescope in 1962 and a 43-meter (141.1-foot) steerable telescope in 1965. For more than twenty-five years, the 91-meter telescope, with its wire-mesh reflecting dish, was the largest movable telescope in the United States until it collapsed from metal fatigue in 1989. In 1970, a 100-meter (328.1-foot) fully steerable radio telescope was completed at Effels3030
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 burg near Bonn, West Germany, and in 1963, a 305meter (1,000-foot) fixed bowl built of wire mesh was constructed in a natural valley near Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Larger telescopes provide sharper images, but the best resolution can be achieved through the electrical connection of two or more radio telescopes in an array; this configuration gives a resolving power equivalent to a single dish with a diameter equal to the size of the array. The Very Large Array (VLA) in the high desert near Socorro, New Mexico, began operation in 1980 with twenty-seven dishes, each 25 meters (about 82 feet) in diameter, forming a Y-shaped array 27 kilometers (about 16.8 miles) long, with a resolution comparable to that of the best optical telescopes. —Joseph L. Spradley Further Reading Abell, George O., David Morrison, and Sidney C. Wolff. Exploration of the Universe. 6th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing, 1991. Standard college astronomy textbook includes a good chapter on radio telescopes that presents some discussion of Reber’s work. Describes many of the most important radio telescopes and features a good variety of photographs. Burke, Bernard F., and Francis Graham-Smith. An Introduction to Radio Astronomy. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Authoritative graduate-level text provides an introduction to radio telescopes as well as an overview of radio astronomy. Includes references, index, and an appendix on the origins of radio astronomy. Hey, J. S. The Evolution of Radio Astronomy. New York: Science History Publications, 1973. Useful history of radio astronomy by one of the pioneers in its development. Describes the work of Jansky and Reber as well as the rise of radio astronomy after World War II. Includes illustrations and references. Malphrus, Benjamin K. The History of Radio Astronomy and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory: Evolution Toward Big Science. Melbourne, Fla.: R. E. Krieger, 1996. Presents the history of the field of radio astronomy along with that of one of the world’s most important radio astronomy observatories. Accessible to both lay readers and readers with science backgrounds. Spradley, Joseph L. “The First True Radio Telescope.” Sky and Telescope 76 (July, 1988): 28-30. Introductory article on Reber’s background and work describes the design, construction, and operation of the first intentional radio telescope. Includes photographs
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Springer-Verlag, 1987. Provides good description of the results of radio astronomy with more than one hundred photographs and radio contour maps. Concluding chapters give a history of the field since Jansky and Reber and present an overview of the most important radio telescopes. See also: Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere; 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered; 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way; 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy; 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed; 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes.
June 2, 1937
Berg’s LULU Opens in Zurich Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, written in a personalized version of the twelve-tone compositional style, premiered in Zurich in truncated form; the completed version would not premiere until 1979. Locale: Zurich, Switzerland Categories: Music; theater Key Figures Alban Berg (1885-1935), Austrian composer Helene Berg (1887-1976), wife of Alban Berg Frank Wedekind (1864-1918), German playwright Summary of Event The performance history of the opera Lulu is one of the most complicated in musical history. It took three quarters of a century between the opera’s conception and its world premiere in the definitive form intended by its composer, Alban Berg, before an audience could comfortably say it had seen the “real” Lulu. The tortuous stage history of Lulu involves the composer’s premature death, a world war, a succession of provocative but inadequate productions, a good deal of scholarly bickering, and even a ghost. As a young man, Alban Berg was deeply impressed by a May, 1905, performance of Frank Wedekind’s play Die Büchse der Pandora (pr., pb. 1904; Pandora’s Box, 1918). Wedekind himself had been inspired by reports of the gruesome murders of Jack the Ripper in London and wrote a play on the topic. To avoid almost cer-
tain difficulties with the German censor, in 1895 he published only the first three acts of the play as Der Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1914), and eventually the remaining portions of the play were published as Pandora’s Box. Like Freud before him, Wedekind discovered that German and Austrian audiences at the turn of the century were not willing to tolerate his radical views. What made the work so shocking was its implicit call for complete female sexual freedom and its depiction of human sexuality as an endlessly disruptive force. One prominent scholar has called Wedekind’s plays “sex tragedies par excellence, a ferocious battle in the Nietzschean sense between the sexes and ultimately a conflict between spirit (man) and flesh (woman).” When Berg died on Christmas Eve, 1935, he had completed the short score for the entire opera, but not the full orchestral score. Erwin Stein had prepared the complete piano-vocal score (the reduction of the full score for voice parts and piano), but the engraving by Berg’s publisher, Universal Editions, was halted by the onset of World War II and never completed. Although he was not Jewish, Berg was denounced by the German press for sharing the “decadence” of the Arnold Schoenberg circle of composers. For the opera’s world premiere in Zurich, Switzerland, on June 2, 1937, at which Nuri Hadzic sang the role of Lulu and Robert Denzler conducted, the musicians had full access only to the first two acts of the piece. In place of the crucial third act, the musicians made use of 3031
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of the telescope and the original model used in its design. Sullivan, Woodruff T., III, ed. The Early Years of Radio Astronomy: Reflections Fifty Years After Jansky’s Discovery. 1984. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Collection of articles by the pioneers of radio astronomy on the field’s early development. Includes a 1958 article by Reber, originally published in Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, titled “Early Radio Astronomy at Wheaton, Illinois” and an article by Lovell titled “The Origins and Early History of Jodrell Bank.” Features many historical photographs. Verschuur, Gerrit L. The Invisible Universe Revealed: The Story of Radio Astronomy. 2d ed. New York:
Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich
Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich fragments from Berg’s previously published Lulu Symphony, which was a sort of advertisement for the opera in progress. (The Lulu Symphony had premiered in Berlin in November, 1934.) The woefully truncated third act, used until 1979, consisted of twelve minutes of music, ending with the murder of Lulu and her companion, the Countess Geschwitz, by Jack the Ripper. The use of fragments of the Lulu Symphony was a stage director’s attempt to round out the action and had not been sanctioned by Berg. The first concert performance of Lulu after the interruption of World War II occurred in Berg’s native Vienna on March 16, 1949, and the first postwar stage production took place at Essen, Germany, on March 7, 1953, still with the truncated, improvised third act. This was the version that served for the production of the Hamburg State Opera, a version that was widely influential during the 1960’s, for the American premiere, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 7, 1963 (sung in English), and the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere, on March 18, 1977 (in German). What had become of Berg’s third act? Why did fortythree years elapse between the composer’s death and its premiere? The answer lies with a misguidedly loyal widow. Helene Berg was determined to prevent the completion of her late husband’s final opera. A spiritualist, she claimed to be in constant contact with the ghost of her husband, who, she said, urged her to prevent any attempts to complete the score, and she preserved the Bergs’ residence in the way that it stood on the day of Alban’s death. She also claimed to have been told by Berg’s friends, the composers Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, and Alexander von Zemlinsky, that the opera was “unfinishable.” Although her word was accepted as fact for many years, the few critics who gained access to the manuscript materials reported that the score was basically complete and could easily be performed; it remains puzzling why Universal Editions collaborated with the widow’s obstinacy. Not until Helene Berg’s death in 1976 did the publisher relent and allow wider access to the manuscript. The Austrian scholar Friedrich Cerha was chosen to examine and complete the orchestral score, and the Paris Opera was chosen to offer the world premiere on February 24, 1979, with the soprano Teresa Stratas in the title role and Pierre Boulez conducting; the production was staged by Patrice Chereau. Despite some complaints about Chereau’s direction, the production was widely celebrated as a success, and it confirmed the integrity and vision of Berg’s total conception. 3032
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance For his first opera, Wozzeck, which premiered in 1925, Alban Berg reordered the scenes of Georg Büchner’s tragedy Woyzeck (wr. 1836; English translation, 1927); when he began to compose Lulu in 1929, Berg had to cut an enormous amount of material, shorten the dialogue, and combine Wedekind’s two Lulu plays into one. The surprise is that Berg was able to compress Wedekind’s vast and philosophically meaningful materials into seven long operatic scenes that critics generally regard as more coherent and dramatically effective than the Lulu plays. Although Wozzeck remains one of the monuments of twentieth century music, Berg’s goals for Lulu were even greater. Critic George Perle has argued that “between Wozzeck and Lulu Berg’s musical language was transformed.” As a student and disciple of the German composer Arnold Schoenberg, Berg was a proponent of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone compositional theory, known as serialism. Schoenberg’s theory challenged the traditional use of tonality in Western music by advocating the complete equality of twelve tones in the musical scale. The basic melodic strategy of the opera would be dictated by Berg’s choice of tone row (a nonrepeating series of the twelve tones of the scale) to depict the character of Lulu. Berg’s devotion to Schoenberg’s ideal, however, was tempered by his own lyrical and melodic gifts. Although expressionism as an artistic style, whether in music or painting, is often accused of exaggerating the horrific and grotesque, Berg’s musical expressionism shows a preference for the lyrical and romantic, resulting in the often-repeated critical putdown that Berg is the “twelvetone Puccini.” Having made the basic decision that character would determine the musical structure, Berg then made the even more provocative decision that the tone row associated with Lulu (the twelve notes of the scale, used in equal measure) would determine the entire musical action of the opera. All the other characters in the opera are lovers, victims, or attempted manipulators of Lulu. In her key aria in the second act, usually called “Lied der Lulu,” Lulu asserts her innocence, depicting herself as a natural woman who cannot help being universally desired. Among the victims of Lulu are Doctor Goll, who succumbs to a heart attack; a painter, who slits his throat in a fit of jealousy; and Doctor Schon, the most important male figure in the opera, who is shot by Lulu with the very pistol with which he demands that Lulu kill herself. In the descending half of the opera, Lulu finds that even as a prostitute she is less and less in demand. By selling
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Further Reading Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. 2d rev. ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983. Solid musical and dramatic study, with Freudian hints, by the most prominent student of Giacomo Puccini. The dissimilar composers, near contemporaries, shared only the determination to depict sexual neuroses on the operatic stage. Grout, Donald J., and Claude V. Palisca. “Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-
Century Europe.” In A History of Western Music. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Covers the full range of Schoenberg’s innovations and provides a balanced overview with examples, illustrations, and bibliography. Accessible to the general reader. Jarman, Douglas. The Music of Alban Berg. London: Faber, 1979. Argues that Berg’s music reflects his deeply pessimistic view of life. Perle, George. Lulu. Vol. 2 in The Operas of Alban Berg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Exhaustive study by the American composer and musicologist who argued tirelessly for the release of the third act of Lulu. _______. Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. 6th ed., rev. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Excellent treatment of twelve-tone technique intended for readers with background in music. Reich, Willi. Alban Berg. Reprint. New York: Vienna House, 1974. Useful introductory study of the life and works of Berg by a Viennese friend. Rosen, Charles. Arnold Schoenberg. 1975. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Lucid and sympathetic introduction to the seminal figure in musical expressionism and serialism. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Schmidgall, Gary. Literature as Opera. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. A provocative study of the literary sources of great operas. Claims that the difficult playwrights Büchner and Wedekind find their ideal musical interpreter in Berg, as Berg’s style is marked by “rootlessness and flexibility, extreme distortion and nervous tension.” Simms, Bryan R., ed. Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese School. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Examines the works of these composers in the context of earlier Viennese musical developments and compares the modernism in their music with that in the nonmusical arts in Vienna during the same period. Includes bibliography and index. See also: 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality; Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres; 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System; Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin.
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her sexual favors, she has repudiated her claim to be free and has set the pattern for her ultimate victimization when both she and her lesbian admirer, the Countess Geschwitz, are stabbed by Jack the Ripper. Lulu’s death scream (“Todesschrei”) and Geschwitz’s subsequent tender death song (“Lulu, my angel”) bring the opera to its conclusion. That scream, like its famous visual counterpart, Edvard Munch’s painting The Cry (1893; also known as The Scream), is practically the signature of the expressionist style, and the cry of Lulu, like the opera to which she lends her name, provides vivid articulation of the desire and suffering of mankind in the twentieth century. As Douglas Jarman notes in his study of Berg’s music, the third act of Lulu is largely recapitulatory, bringing Lulu from her amoral innocence of the first act to her final degradation and death at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Jarman’s thesis, that Berg’s obsession with symmetry in his composition reflects his pessimistic assessment of life (with characters who are trapped in a cycle of ascent invariably followed by descent and death), perhaps offers a hint at the true motivation of Helene Berg: By preventing the release of the third act, she could keep hidden the bleak pessimism of Berg’s vision of life. The complete version of the opera perhaps reveals Berg’s indebtedness to one of his philosophical heroes, Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Nietzsche’s theory of “eternal return,” mankind is doomed to enact endless repetitions of the events of life; in this light, the actions of Lulu, her lovers, and her victims are irrelevant. All one can do, argued Nietzsche, is affirm life, for all its pain and problems; and the affirmation of life, finally, is what Lulu glowingly provides. The opera has increasingly been recognized as one of the towering artistic masterpieces of the century, and even as serialism has declined in prestige, popular appreciation of Lulu has continued to grow. —Byron Nelson
Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich
Picasso Exhibits Guernica
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
July, 1937
Picasso Exhibits GUERNICA Created for the Paris International Exposition, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica expressed the great artist’s horror at the bombing of the Basque capital Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Locale: Paris, France Category: Arts Key Figures Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist Francisco Franco (1892-1975), Spanish dictator Summary of Event Spanish by birth, Pablo Picasso spent most of his working life in France, in or near Paris. His political sympathies were always on the left (he joined the Communist Party in 1944), although his art did not begin to contain explicit political themes until the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, when a group of right-wing military officers, headed by Francisco Franco, attacked the democratically elected government of Spain. Outgunned by Franco and his allies (the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy), the Spanish Republic waged a losing battle over a three-year period, gradually relinquishing territory to the rebels, who mercilessly bombed the civilian population. In early 1937, Picasso had written a poem ridiculing Franco, rejecting his rebellion, treating him as a subhuman type, and evoking the violence of war: the screaming of women, children, and animals, of inanimate objects such as beds, chairs, and curtains, and of nature itself—a holocaust of screaming that could be seen and smelled because it permeated everything. Picasso’s strongest statement against the assault on the republic, however, came after the bombing on April 26, 1937, of the Basque capital Guernica, where sixteen hundred of seven thousand inhabitants were killed and 70 percent of the town was destroyed during an attack by forty-three German bombers and low-flying planes armed with machine guns. Working at a furious rate over the course of a month, the artist produced a monumental canvas (twenty-five feet by eleven feet), fulfilling a commission given to him by the Spanish Republic for the Paris International Exhibition. The painting was received not merely as a protest against a horrible act of war but as a symbol of the irrational forces of terror that had been loosed not only on Spain but also on humanity as a whole in the twentieth century. The stark brutality of this enormous painting is em3034
phasized by Picasso’s use of shades of black and white against a rectangular background, creating a field of violence, a killing ground. This mythic scene, expressive of the world’s cruelty and not solely the product of a particular evil act, seems timeless, universal. The scene is dominated by the fragmented figures of human beings and animals arranged both horizontally and vertically— all with mouths open, screaming: a man tumbling from a burning building, a woman lamenting the dead baby in her arms, a dead soldier, fallen from his horse, his body in pieces. Another woman, dazed by the desolation and chaos, is on one knee, her head thrust upward on a diagonal toward a light held over the soldier by another screaming woman. As in so much of Picasso’s painting, human faces and bodies are distorted (heads elongated, eyes, hands, and limbs enlarged), shown frontally and in profile at the same time, and flattened against the picture plane in order to increase the emotional impact of the setting and the conception of a people, a whole nation, suffering. Several commentators have remarked that images of a horse and a bull are at the heart of the painting, linking it to Picasso’s earlier bullfight paintings, which employed symbolic evocations of these animals to suggest the power and mobility the artist found compelling. In Guernica, the horse is clearly under attack; the bull, however, stands apparently unharmed and impassive, perhaps as an evocation of the impersonal brutality that attracts certain human beings to the bullfight but also of the terrible force the ritual of the bullfight seeks to master. At least one critic has interpreted the bull as hovering protectively above the woman wailing over her dead child, although the bull may have more to do with presenting death as part of the ritualistic recurrence of events such as the bullfight and war. In this respect, human beings and animals suffer the same fate. By juxtaposing horse and bull, Picasso seems to acknowledge his identification with the victims while frankly confessing that violence is inherent in the makeup of the universe. It is an austere vision and highly abstract, as befits a painting purporting to encompass the core conflict in the nature of the world and the inevitability of death—so often seen in the human and animal skulls Picasso painted and sculpted before Guernica. The lightbulb shining at the top center and the tile floor visible at the bottom of the painting suggest Picasso’s effort to render the horror of war within the con-
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Significance Until Guernica, exactly where Picasso stood on the great issues of his time was not understood. It was supposed that he sympathized with leftist and democratic causes, but his art was not interpreted as having a particularly political orientation, even though many 1930’s artists, writers, and musicians had created works that were socially and politically oriented—even directly supportive of political ideologies such as communism and anarchism. In Guernica, Picasso fused his great reputation with the aspirations not only of the Spanish Republic but also of all those politically progressive artists and activists who regarded Spain as the testing ground for the defense against fascism. The prestige he lent to the cause of saving Spain can hardly be exaggerated. He had been previously attacked by certain Communist Party ideologues for finding refuge in what they regarded as a solely personal, idiosyncratic, and decadent art that did not reflect the aspirations of the masses or dignify their struggle. Although Guernica is hardly
an example of Socialist Realism, the kind of art the Communist Party saw as faithfully rendering the everyday as well as the heroic actions of the people, there is a sense of collective humanity in the painting that made it possible for Picasso to earn his place on the left (having been dismissed as a “degenerate” modern artist by the Nazis) while maintaining his standing as the foremost artist of his time. In 1939, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City gave Picasso his largest retrospective to date, calling it “Picasso: Forty Years of His Art.” The exhibition included more than three hundred works, including Guernica, which had already been shown to great acclaim in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Picasso ensured his standing among radicals by issuing in pamphlet form a series of etchings called The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937), later produced as post-
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Pablo Picasso. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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fines of art. This is not a naturalistic painting, in which the artist tries to re-create the look and the feel of the actual setting and event or the perspective of an eyewitness; instead, the painting offers a highly personal and aesthetic reaction to death and destruction, a deliberate distancing of the artist from the historical facts in order to portray the human condition. The heavy symbolic load of Guernica is balanced by the fluidity of Picasso’s line, the deftly drawn, flaring nostrils, teeth, and tongue of the horse, the almost equally wide open, concave mouths of the human victims who shout out the vitality of the life that is extinguished. This grim lyricism heightens emotional identification with the lives lost. The expressiveness of the art is at one with the expressiveness of its doomed figures. Guernica has been considered one of Picasso’s finest paintings since his cubist period because it manages to suffuse the personal symbols and figures of his work with the struggles of a whole people and the fate of twentieth century civilization.
Picasso Exhibits Guernica
Picasso Exhibits Guernica cards and sold to raise money for the Republican cause. The image of Picasso as an aloof artist alienated from his society gave way to the image of the artist expressing solidarity with the people, thus ratifying the social and political involvements of many of his contemporaries in art throughout the 1930’s. On December 18, 1937, Picasso sent a statement of his political commitment to the American Artists’ Congress in New York, affirming that the most important values of humanity were at stake in the attack on Spain. From that point on, he would periodically issue political statements, often drafted by his close Communist friends. Picasso would continue his involvement with the Communist Party in the postwar years, attending and designing posters for party congresses. Guernica was only one of a series of works that Picasso and other artists created in the years immediately preceding World War II that expressed a sense of foreboding, even of apocalypse. The somber and savage quality of many of his paintings produced during the war period express a personal despair, best evoked in a series of still lifes depicting the skulls of bulls’ heads, their flesh flayed and lit by a naked candle flame, that Picasso produced during the Occupation. Picasso’s adamant refusal to leave Paris during the Occupation and his spurning of German offers of fuel to warm his studio made the artist a symbol of resistance. In one often-told story, Picasso is said to have been visited in his studio by a German officer who spotted a photograph of Guernica and wanted to know if Picasso had done it. “No,” Picasso reportedly replied, “you did.” In fact, there is some doubt about exactly how uncompromising Picasso’s position toward the Germans actually was, but his loyalty to Paris became the stuff of legend, making him into a symbol of freedom and the unvanquished spirit and elevating him to a category all his own. Throughout the war, the artist continued to create chilling examples of the impact of war on his consciousness. In Death’s Head (1943), he strips away most of the human features from the face, leaving only rounded, hollow eyes and jagged slits for the nose and mouth, suggesting the darkness and hollowness of war at a point when the wrenching emotions of Guernica have been spent. Similarly, The Charnel House (1945) goes beyond Guernica in presenting war’s aftermath; in the later painting, the earth has become a mortuary, the resting place of the dead, where there is no screaming, where everything has been reduced to a ghastly silence in a world that is just discovering the atrocities of the concentration camps. Instead of the moving figures of Guernica, the bodies in The Charnel House are tumbled together as in a 3036
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mass grave, with parts of bodies twisted together or gouging into one another; a frozen gasp of agony is expressed on the face of a woman upended and pressing down on the bodies below her. Humanity itself is rent and mangled in the painting. Perhaps what is most gruesome about The Charnel House is that it is not, like Guernica, associated directly with war or with a catastrophic event, for the heap of broken corpses is shown beneath a mundane domestic scene: a white table with an empty jug and an empty saucepan. It is as if the war—not shown on the canvas— has resulted in the bankruptcy of everyday life, which rests on (or covers up) a mountain of death. In the long term, Picasso’s Guernica contributed to a postwar questioning of the foundations of civilization. The Spanish Civil War and World War II were not seen merely as aberrations, savage interludes between periods of peace, but as the outcomes of malevolent strains within civilization itself, a much more frightening vision of the end of things than the insight that first prompted Picasso to paint Guernica. — Carl Rollyson Further Reading Beardsley, John. First Impressions: Picasso. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991. A lucid introductory study with a chapter on Guernica and a large foldout illustration of the painting. Describes several other works Picasso created during the Spanish Civil War and World War II and situates both paintings and sculptures in their historical context. Includes color plates and index. Blunt, Anthony. Picasso’s “Guernica.” 1969. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Heavily illustrated study (many of the plates are of the fortyfive preliminary drawings) with photographs of the painting at various stages of realization. Discusses Guernica in the context of Picasso’s other work and in terms of European traditions that go back to antiquity. Includes large foldout of the painting and notes. Gilot, Françoise. Matisse and Picasso. London: Bloomsbury, 1990. Presents incisive comments on Guernica and other works created during the Spanish Civil War and World War II in the light of Picasso’s friendship and rivalry with his great contemporary. Having lived with Picasso for several years, and as an artist herself, the author provides a unique and sensitive reading of his art and its development. Includes notes and index. Hilton, Timothy. Picasso. 1975. Reprint. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Includes discussion of
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mark, 1988. Sumptuous reproductions of Picasso’s paintings and drawings, including a huge foldout of Guernica, enlargements of the bull and the horse, and pencil-on-paper and pencil-and-crayon-on-paper sketches for the painting. Includes a full-page illustration of The Charnel House and many other color plates, with accompanying text. Walther, Ingo E. Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973. 2d ed. Translated by Hugh Beyer. Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen, 2000. Introductory study includes a chapter on Picasso’s wartime experience, a twopage layout of Guernica, and several black-and-white and color plates of work done during the war, including The Charnel House. Informative text accompanied by sidebars quoting the artist on various aspects of his work and his attitudes toward art. Includes illustrated chronology of Picasso’s life and work and extensive bibliography. See also: 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art; Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works; 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism; Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica.
July 7, 1937
China Declares War on Japan After the Battle of the Marco Polo Bridge, the Chinese Kuomintang government declared war on the nation of Japan. This military action was the result of Japan’s aggressive expansionist policies. Also known as: Marco Polo Bridge incident Locale: China; Manchuria Categories: Military history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), leader of the Kuomintang, president of China, 1948-1949, and president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), 19501975 Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung; 1893-1976), chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, 1935-1976 Henry L. Stimson (1867-1950), U.S. secretary of state, 1929-1933, secretary of war, 1940-1945 Hirota Kfki (1878-1948), prime minister of Japan, 1936-1937
Summary of Event The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) was the result of the political, economic, and geopolitical factors that directed the struggle for control of China in the years following the end of World War I. When the founder of the Chinese Republic, Sun Yixian (also known as Sun Yat-sen), died in 1925, the leadership of the Chinese Kuomintang Party passed into the hands of a young military officer named Chiang Kai-shek. During this period, China was a decentralized state with large regions, especially in the north, which was controlled by independent warlords. Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Party joined forces with the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong and launched a military campaign called the Northern Expedition to reclaim the northeast part of China from the warlords. By 1927, the majority of the warlords in the region had been pacified, and Chiang took advantage of his success to launch a campaign against Mao and his Communist forces. The Kuomintang army inflicted heavy casualties, and the Communists retreated into the safety 3037
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Guernica, with several illustrations and examination of preliminary drawings and the artist’s related works. Notes the impact of Surrealism on Picasso’s poetry and painting and some of the negative American responses to the style. Concludes that Guernica is a competent but not a breakthrough work. Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos. Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988. Biography provides very little discussion of Picasso’s art, but summarizes reactions to it and analyzes biographical background relevant to his paintings, including Guernica. Sensationalizes some aspects of Picasso’s life but contains important information drawn from extensive interviews with his friends and associates. Includes photographs, extensive bibliography, and index. Martin, Russell. Picasso’s War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. New York: E. P. Dutton, 2002. Follows the literal and figurative journey of the painting since its creation to present an examination of art’s importance to human lives. Sommer, Robin Langley. Picasso. New York: Smith-
China Declares War on Japan
China Declares War on Japan
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of the Chinese countryside. By 1928, Chiang felt secure enough to declare that the Kuomintang government was in control of China, and he established his capital in Nanjing. In reality, however, Chiang’s power was tenuous at best, and he had to deal with challenges to his government’s sovereignty from a number of internal and foreign threats. The Kuomintang Party had failed to implement the needed economic reforms, especially in the agricultural sector, that would have helped alleviate the widespread poverty among peasants, and Chiang’s government also faced serious challenges from the warlords, who still pledged their allegiance to the Kuomintang regime but maintained large, independent standing armies and controlled a significant percentage of China’s natural resources. Chiang also faced a political challenge from Mao and the Communists, who had taken advantage of Chiang’s failed economic reforms to establish strong ties with the peasantry. On an international level, the Chinese Communist Party had called for a military campaign against Japanese incursions into northern China, and Mao also
argued for an alliance with the Soviet Union; he believed such an alliance would give China the military strength needed to stop Japan’s aggressive policies. Japanese expansion into mainland Asia was the most pressing national security threat facing Chiang’s government. Japan’s first target was Manchuria, which occupied territory directly northeast of China. There were three major reasons that the Japanese military sought to control this vital region. Economically, Manchuria possessed great quantities of industrial raw materials, the most important of which were iron ore and coal, which were needed to maintain growth in Japan’s manufacturing and defense sectors. Manchuria also had thousands of square miles of rich, productive farmland, which would help feed Japan’s growing population. Location also played an important role in Japan’s geopolitical worldview, and Manchuria’s strategic position would allow the Japanese to use it as a base of operations against three possible military targets: the Soviet Union, China, and the United States. In 1894 and 1895, Japan had fought a successful war
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Chinese soldiers defend Beijing from behind a sandbag barricade on the Marco Polo Bridge. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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rest caused by the struggle between the military and the civilian government. A group of chauvinistic army officers had attacked the civilian government for what they perceived was its weak and incompetent handling of the nation’s diplomacy; they believed the government had disgraced itself in accepting the provisions of the two major treaties of the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1922. They viewed the Five-Power Treaty, which assigned Japan the smallest ratio of battleships among the world’s major naval powers, and the NinePower Treaty, which assured China’s territorial integrity, as betrayals of Japan’s national security. These army officers called for a military takeover of the government, and army death squads assassinated a number of important Japanese officials. With the approval of the young militarists, a former foreign minister named Hirota Kfki became leader of the new Japanese government. This marked a turning point in the history of Japan and placed the nation’s foreign policy directly in the hands of the military. Once in control, the army began to finalize plans to invade China; their rationale was based on the belief that it was Japan’s responsibility to control events in East and Southeast Asia. This control would be assumed through swift military action followed by the occupation of strategically important areas and, eventually the complete colonization of the region. The Japanese military elite believed that China was decadent, corrupt, and antimodern and that it had abrogated its traditional position of dominance in East Asia. Japan initiated a series of preliminary military actions to both probe China’s weaknesses and establish staging areas for a massive invasion of the mainland. By the summer of 1937, Chinese and Japanese forces had clashed in battles in both northern and eastern China. The tension between the two nations finally exploded in the Marco Polo Bridge incident just outside Beijing. The nationalist government responded to this incident by declaring war on Japan. Significance The Japanese army inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese military and on the segments of the civilian population unfortunate enough to be caught between the two opposing forces. The worst example of Japanese brutality was the Rape of Nanjing. Using a deadly combination of armor, as well as tactical air and ground forces, the Japanese launched a blitzkrieg-like attack against the defenses around Nanjing. The Chinese military was unable to repulse the assault, and the city was quickly overrun. 3039
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against China for the control of the Korean Peninsula. The object of this conflict was to drive China from the region because its weak and inefficient military was unable to maintain order in this pivotal strategic area. In addition, the Japanese wanted to block Russian expansion into what Japan believed was its own sphere of influence. Ten years later, in 1904 and 1905, Russia was soundly defeated in the Russo-Japanese War, which established Japan as the premier military power in Asia. If Japan could gain control of Manchuria, it could block any attempts by the new Soviet government to link up with the Chinese Communist army and destabilize the region. Japan could also use Manchuria as a staging area for a future invasion of China. Using the detonation of a small bomb on the Southern Manchurian Railway near the outskirts of Mukden as a sign of Chinese aggression, the Japanese quickly overran Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo. In the meantime, relations between Japan and the United States were already tense: The two nations were on a geopolitical collision course over the Nine-Power Treaty, which assured China’s territorial integrity and served as a bulwark against Japanese domination. As a result of this Japanese aggression, the Western democracies issued a series of condemnations, the most forceful of which came from the U.S. secretary of state, Henry L. Stimson. He convinced the United States to issue the Stimson Doctrine, which refused to recognize Manchukuo’s political legitimacy. Stimson wanted to take more aggressive action, but President Herbert Hoover, like his counterparts in the other capitalist democracies, was too bogged down in the economic chaos of the Great Depression to become involved in an international incident thousands of miles from the borders of the United States. The League of Nations openly condemned the aggressive act, and Japan responded by giving up its membership in the international body. The lack of international response to this blatant aggression unleashed powerful political forces in both China and Japan. In China there was a rapprochement between the Kuomintang government and the Chinese Communist Party; this reconciliation was coordinated by the Soviet Comintern. Communist leaders were concerned about the Japanese drive to control Manchuria, which they believed would isolate the Chinese Communists from their Soviet counterparts. This geopolitical reality convinced Mao to enter into an alliance with Chiang Kai-shek, at least until the threat of Japanese aggression had been overcome. Japan was also experiencing a period of domestic un-
China Declares War on Japan
Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition Once inside Nanjing, the Japanese violated and slaughtered thousands of innocent citizens. The military’s failures in Nanjing and other areas caused a significant number of Chinese, especially the peasants, to lose faith in the Kuomintang government. Mao and the Communists would eventually use this lack of confidence to gain power after World War II. —Richard D. Fitzgerald Further Reading Graff, David A., and Robin Higham. A Military History of China. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002. One of the best surveys of Chinese military history available. Includes maps, bibliography, and index. Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict. New York: Da Capo Press, 1986. Provides a detailed study of Japanese military operations during the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 period 1931-1945. Includes maps, bibliography, and index. Hsü, Immanuel Chung-yueh. The Rise of Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Among the best single-volume treatments of modern Chinese history. Includes maps, bibliography, and index. See also: Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War; 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties; Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing; June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere; Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports.
July 19-November 30, 1937
Nazi Germany Hosts the DEGENERATE ART EXHIBITION A display of modern art confiscated by the Nazis from German museums and labeled “degenerate” foreshadowed the later purging of artists by Adolf Hitler’s regime. Also known as: Entarte Kunst Locale: Hofgarten Arcades, Munich, Germany Category: Arts Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Nazi dictator who believed that Germany needed to be cleansed of modern art Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Nazi minister of propaganda who was responsible for overseeing German cultural life Adolf Ziegler (1892-1959), president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts and organizer of the Degenerate Art Exhibition and the Great German Art Exhibition Otto Dix (1891-1969), artist and World War I veteran whose work was attacked by the Nazis George Grosz (1893-1959), artist who satirized German economic and political life during the Weimar Republic Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), expressionist painter derided by the Nazis Emil Nolde (1867-1956), expressionist painter whose Nazi Party membership did not protect his work from confiscation 3040
Summary of Event The Degenerate Art Exhibition was opened in Munich on July 19, 1937, by Adolf Ziegler, the president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts, one day after Adolf Hitler had dedicated the city’s House of German Art and the first of eight official “Great German Art Exhibitions.” Speaking in the city where the Nazi movement was born and shortly before the height of his prewar success, Hitler described the House of German Art as a temple for an eternal German art that would not welcome modern art. Ziegler’s speech, which summarized thoughts previously articulated by Hitler and his minions, condemned modern art as “the monstrous offspring of insanity, impudence, ineptitude, and sheer degeneracy.” These complementary speeches and exhibits clarified the role of art in the Third Reich; they established the parameters for what would be officially promoted and made clear what would be condemned, removed from public view, and concealed or destroyed. Visitors to the Degenerate Art Exhibition viewed a display of more than 650 modern paintings, prints, books, and sculptures that had been hastily removed from thirtytwo public museums in Germany by Ziegler, with the authorization of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. The works were carefully displayed in the most defamatory manner possible: Some paintings were stripped of their frames, and the labels that provided information about the works, including their original purchase prices,
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were often erroneous and simply tacked Products of Madness or pasted in place. Scattered haphazIn 1937, president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts Adolf Ziegler exardly throughout the exhibit were pressed his frustration with “degenerate” artists as he contemplated the phrases and slogans denigrating modforthcoming Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition: ern art, quotations by avant-garde artists taken out of context and selected Our patience with all those who have not been able to fall in line is at an to seem threatening or ridiculous, and end. . . . What you are seeing here are the crippled products of madness, impassages about the nature of art and its pertinence, and lack of talent. . . . I would need several freight trains to clear place in Nazi Germany by Hitler and our galleries of this rubbish. . . . This will happen soon. other party functionaries. The exhibiGerman expressionist painter Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, whose works showed tion appeared crowded, jumbled, and the influence of cubism and African art, received the following letter from claustrophobic—an effect the organizZiegler in 1938: ers wished to impress on the viewer, because the event reflected a concept In connection with the task, entrusted to me by the Führer, of eradicating the of modern art as both degenerate and works of degenerate art from our museums, no fewer than 608 paintings of yours had to be seized. A number of these paintings were displayed at the exthe product of artistic incompetence. hibits of Degenerate Art in Munich, Dortmund, and Berlin. This fact could In the opinion of Hitler, the modern leave no doubt in your mind that your paintings did not contribute to the adart that had flourished in Germany bevancement of German culture in its responsibility toward people and nation. fore World War I and then during the Although you must also have been aware of the policy-setting speech of the 1920’s was a symptom not only of poFührer at the opening of the Great German Art Exhibit in Munich, the recent litical and cultural decline but also of paintings of yours which you have now submitted to us indicate that even at racial, physical, and mental pathology. this date, you are still far removed from the cultural foundations of the NaArt confiscated for the Degenerate tional Socialist state. On the basis of these facts, I am unable to grant that you Art Exhibition was arranged in nine possess the necessary reliability for belonging to my Chamber. On the basis loosely themed groups. Visitors saw of Paragraph 10 of the first executive Order implementing the Law Concernfirst Ludwig Gies’s Crucified Christ, a ing the National Chambers of Culture of November 1, 1933 (Official Gazette, I, 797) I hereby expel you from the National Chamber of Fine Arts and war memorial that had once hung in forbid you, effective immediately, any activity—professional or amateur— Lübeck Cathedral and that the Nazis in the field of graphic arts. Membership book no. M 756 issued in your name branded a horror, and then Emil Nolde’s is no longer valid, and you are requested to send it back to me by return mail. multipaneled altarpiece The Life of Source: The Nazi Years: A Documentary History, edited by J. Remak (New York: Christ, both of which purportedly Prentice-Hall, 1969). mocked Christianity. Next came paintings by Jewish artists such as Marc Chagall and Ludwig Meidner. The third room housed more than seventy pieces, and miscellaneous works by Klee, Schmidt-Rottluff, among them nudes by Karl Hofer, Ernst Ludwig KirchGeorge Grosz, and Max Beckmann, among others. In the ner, and Otto Mueller headed “An Insult to German lobby stood Otto Freundlich’s sculpture The New Man, Womanhood,” images of World War I labeled “Deliberwhich appeared on the cover of the exhibition guide. ate Sabotage of National Defense,” and portrayals of The names of the 112 artists exhibited testify to the peasants by Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff that dynamism of modern German art during the first third were identified as “German Farmers: A Yiddish View.” of the twentieth century; the artists listed represented Singled out for ridicule was Dadaist art; on the so-called movements as diverse as the Bauhaus style, cubism, DaDada wall, works by Kurt Schwitters and Paul Klee apdaism, expressionism, the New Objectivity, and abstracpeared beneath a quotation from George Grosz and tionism. Artists represented with ten or more works, against a backdrop copied from an abstract but hardly excluding those named above, included Erich Heckel, Dadaist painting by Wassily Kandinsky. Similar disOskar Kokoschka, Max Pechstein, and Christian Rohlfs. plays filled the remaining rooms. Prominently featured works included townscapes by Lyonel Feininger, comThe selection criteria, however, remain obscure. Despite positions by professors and teachers of art who allegedly the Nazi insistence that modern art was foreign, Jewish, were corrupting German youth, etchings by Otto Dix, or left-wing in inspiration, only six artists were Jewish,
Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition and non-German artists were rare. Troublesome was the inclusion of works by the expressionist Franz Marc, who had been killed in World War I; the German Officers’ Federation protested the use of his work, and his Tower of Blue Horses was removed from the exhibit. The presence of works by Nolde, a Nazi Party member whose art had once found favor with such high officials as Goebbels, was controversial for similar reasons. The case of the sculptor Rudolf Belling was particularly ironic; Belling had two works shown in the Degenerate Art Exhibition at the same time his bronze of the boxer Max Schmeling stood in the nearby Great German Art Exhibition. More than two million people visited the Degenerate Art Exhibition, making it the most popular exhibit of modern art ever; less than one-fifth as many viewers attended the Great German Art Exhibition. From February, 1938, to April, 1941, the Degenerate Art Exhibition traveled to twelve cities in Germany and Austria, usually under the patronage of local branches of the Nazi Party. Although the traveling exhibition was changed and reduced in size from the Munich showing, it also attracted large audiences, with attendance in excess of one hundred thousand in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Vienna, and a total of more than one million additional viewers. Added in Düsseldorf was an exhibit of “degenerate music” that excoriated jazz, so-called Jewish music, and the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Kurt Weill, to name a few. A catalog accompanied the touring exhibition, although none was available for the original in Munich. The catalog juxtaposed a programmatic statement and excerpts from Hitler’s speeches with quotations from the exhibit’s walls and photographs of exhibited works. Readers were invited, in one notorious instance, to view three drawings and guess which was by an inmate of an insane asylum and which were by a modern artist. The brand of art favored by the Nazis was made evident at the Great German Art Exhibition. Displayed were almost nine hundred paintings and sculptures by Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, Ziegler, and other politically acceptable artists. Landscapes, portraits of Nazi officials, and images of idealized men and women, farmers and artisans, and public buildings or works predominated. The large number of male and female nudes achieved what George L. Mosse has called “beauty without sensuality.” Also shown was In the Beginning Was the Word, an image by Hermann Otto Hoyer of Hitler speaking before his earliest followers. Notable by their absence were urban scenes and any art that raised questions or stimulated 3042
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 thought. In brief, the Great German Art Exhibition presented idealized images of Nazi ideology, just as the Degenerate Art Exhibition summarized, again with images, not only what the Nazi regime rejected as diseased but also what it intended to purge from German cultural life. Significance The Degenerate Art Exhibition and the Great German Art Exhibition cannot be understood apart from Hitler’s ideas concerning art. According to his worldview, the Nazi movement stood at the forefront of a cultural revolution destined to usher in a creative new age, that of the thousand-year Reich, and the arts were to play a formative role in the revolution’s genesis. Nazi doctrine held that artistic creativity and inspiration originated in the Volkgemeinschaft, the racial community, and that the duty of the artist was to express what Hitler called the essential character of that people or community; the artist’s task was therefore not to create images for other artists to admire but rather to present an ideal for the people to emulate. Further, said Hitler, art should embody eternal values and be easily understood and appreciated by the average person. However specific their formulation by the Nazis, these ideas derived from racist concepts long in circulation and from an ongoing debate that had set in opposition so-called pure German art and modern art. The Munich Degenerate Art Exhibition completed a series of attacks launched by Hitler and his government after 1933 on artists, teachers, collectors, museum administrators, and critics connected with avant-garde movements. Such actions had been anticipated by a 1933 report by Goebbels that had proposed a five-point program for the purge of modern art and were in keeping with the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung, the goal of which was ideological and administrative control of all German associations, institutions, and aspects of individual life. Artists whose work was categorized as degenerate—including, for the most part, those even remotely associated with expressionism, the German defeat in World War I, the Weimar Republic, Jewishness, Marxism, or abstract art—were excluded from membership in the Reich Chamber of Culture and therefore forbidden to practice their profession. Likewise, the modern wing of the National Gallery in Berlin was closed in 1936, the same year that Goebbels banned art criticism. Not content merely to silence modern artists and their advocates, the Nazis organized nearly a dozen exhibitions slandering modern art in the period 1933-1937, giving the shows such titles as The Chamber of Horrors and Images of Cultural Bolshevism. Indeed, the prototype for
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Adam, Peter. Art of the Third Reich. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. Understanding the Degenerate Art Exhibition is impossible without an understanding of the exhibit’s context, the official Nazi art discussed and reproduced in this book. Barron, Stephanie, ed. Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1991. Essential source; its ten essays by mostly German authors include a complete re-creation of the exhibit, photographs of works exhibited, a facsimile and translation of the 1937 catalog, and an outstanding bibliography of literature, mostly in German. _______. Exiles and Emigres: The Flight of European Artists from Hitler. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1997. Barron selected twenty-three famous artists exiled from Austria and Germany in the period 1933-1945. More than three hundred images and essays from nineteen contributors are compiled in this stunning catalog. Crockett, Dennis. “The Most Famous Painting of the ‘Golden Twenties’? Otto Dix and the Trench Affair.” Art Journal 51 (Spring, 1992): 72-80. Solid discussion of the controversy raised during the Weimar period by a painting shown at the Degenerate Art Exhibition. Dunlop, Ian. The Shock of the New: Seven Historic Exhibitions of Modern Art. New York: American Heritage, 1972. Final chapter deals with the Degenerate Art Exhibition. Extensive quotes from German documents and reviews in the German press make this a valuable source. Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Carefully crafted and thorough analysis of Hitler’s rise to power and the development of his social and economic policies. Argues that Hitler’s vision of a new, “pure” Europe could only have been created by war. Grosshans, Henry. Hitler and the Artists. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983. A general account of the development of Hitler’s ideas on art and culture, with a chapter on the Degenerate Art Exhibition. Hinz, Berthold. Art in the Third Reich. Translated by Robert Kimber and Rita Kimber. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979. Well-illustrated study, with chapters that treat the Great German Art Exhibition, the Degenerate Art Exhibition, and Nazi concepts of art. Sax, Benjamin, and Dieter Kuntz, eds. Inside Hitler’s Germany: A Documentary History of the Third Reich. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1992. Contains a translation of Hitler’s speech opening the House of German Art. See also: 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht. 3043
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the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition may have been a Dresden exhibition of the same title organized in 1933 and shown at eight other locations, including the 1935 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg. Before long, however, ridicule gave way to a systematic purge. While the Degenerate Art Exhibition still hung in Munich, a committee appointed by Goebbels and headed by Ziegler undertook additional confiscations, and some sixteen thousand pieces of modern art by more than a thousand artists were seized and removed to Berlin for storage. A few hundred, including a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh, were sold abroad at auctions or exchanged from 1939 to 1941. Approximately five thousand other works of art were reportedly burned at the central fire department in Berlin in March, 1939, while thousands more simply vanished. The fate of the artists classified as degenerate by the Third Reich was similarly grim. Those who were able, including Max Bechmann, Jacob Feininger, and George Grosz, left Germany. Some committed suicide; Otto Freundlich and others died in concentration camps. Many, including Nolde, retreated into silence after having lost their teaching or other public positions. Following the end of World War II, those who survived often resumed their work, taking on teaching and administrative positions both in the East and the West. In the long term, of course, the Nazis failed. The Thousand Year Reich lasted but twelve years, and its creators succeeded neither in imposing their ideology and their concept of art on Germany and Europe nor in purging Germany of modern art. Museum visitors today are thus able to view paintings and sculptures by the expressionists, the New Objectivists, the Surrealists, and the members of other schools attacked by the Nazis. In contrast, the officially sanctioned art of the Third Reich is all but unknown. Nevertheless, the Degenerate Art Exhibition should be not forgotten, for it is an example of what is possible when a government manipulates for its own purposes the bewilderment or the discomfort felt by many in the presence of modern art. —Robert W. Brown
Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition
Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
August 17, 1937
Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance By allowing manufacturers to maintain minimum prices, the Miller-Tydings Act promised small retailers protection from chain-store competition, but adverse court decisions and changing economic circumstances diminished the impact of the law. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Trade and commerce; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Herbert Levy (fl. twentieth century), lawyer for the National Association of Retail Druggists John E. Miller (1888-1981), U.S. congressman from Arkansas Millard Tydings (1890-1961), U.S. senator from Maryland Emanuel Celler (1888-1981), U.S. congressman from New York Summary of Event The Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 amended the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. It legalized retail price maintenance, and in doing so it allowed manufacturers to maintain minimum prices for the sale of their goods. Manufacturers used retail price maintenance to protect their goodwill, hoping that high prices would keep retailers from cutting services to customers. Independent retailers hoped that retail price maintenance would eliminate price competition from chain stores. Prior to the act, the courts had held retail price maintenance to be in violation of the 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act. The Miller-Tydings Act embodied the anti-chainstore sentiment prevalent in the 1920’s and 1930’s. During the early twentieth century, independent retailers had confronted new types of competition as department stores appeared in large cities and mail-order houses began to sell goods throughout the nation. The rapid rise of chain stores in the 1920’s further eroded the market share of small businesses. Chain stores attracted customers by offering prices lower than those of their single-store competitors. This form of mass marketing spread rapidly as the automobile connected small towns to larger urban markets. Chain-store sales continued to increase during the cost-conscious Depression years, and by 1935 the chains handled nearly one-fourth of all retail sales. Independent retailers responded by sponsoring advertising campaigns encouraging Americans to “trade at 3044
home” and by boycotting those manufacturers that sold to chain stores. Ambitious politicians also seized on antichain-store sentiment to attract the votes of independent merchants and others critical of big business. The antichain-store movement gained additional momentum in the South and West, where politicians played on the populist fear of “outside” corporations that could control local economies. This movement found expression in state laws that discriminated against chain stores. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, almost every state imposed punitive taxes on chain stores. During the early twentieth century, organized merchants had tried to overcome the competitive advantage of mass marketers by urging manufacturers to fix minimum retail prices, a practice known as retail price maintenance or “fair trade.” The Supreme Court, however, ruled against retail price fixing. Manufacturers and retailers interested in retail price maintenance then sought to secure the passage of laws legalizing fair trade. The American Fair Trade League (AFTL) and the National Association of Retail Druggists (NARD) led this drive for fair trade. The AFTL represented manufacturers of trademarked goods that wished to use fair trade as a means to protect their goodwill. By maintaining minimum prices, manufacturers hoped to attract those retailers interested in emphasizing quality and service rather than price. As chain stores increased their market share, however, many manufacturers sought higher sales volume and abandoned retail price maintenance. The druggists hoped to increase their profit margins and reduce chain-store competition. The NARD, widely considered to be one of the most powerful trade associations in the country, conducted intense, well-organized campaigns in support of fair trade legislation. In 1931, California enacted a fair trade law drafted by the NARD, and several other states quickly followed suit. In 1936, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these laws. Thereafter, fair trade advocates met with virtually no opposition on the state level. In 1937 alone, twentyeight states passed fair trade laws, and by 1940, a total of forty-four had enacted some form of this legislation. At the federal level, however, proponents of fair trade met resistance from within the executive and legislative branches of the government. The Federal Trade Commission had always opposed fair trade legislation on the grounds that it lessened competition and violated the spirit of antitrust legislation. Since 1914, Congress had
Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance
also rejected bills aimed at legalizing retail price maintenance. As a result, the impact of state fair trade laws remained limited because products sold in interstate commerce, under federal law, could not be subject to fair trade agreements. Having failed to secure a national fair trade law, the proponents of retail price maintenance sought the passage of permissive legislation allowing states to settle the issue. In 1935, the NARD enhanced its influence by hiring Herbert Levy, a law partner of Senator Millard Tydings (Democrat of Maryland). Levy persuaded Tydings to sponsor a bill drafted by the NARD. Representative John E. Miller (Democrat of Arkansas) introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives. Tydings’s bill met with opposition from Representative Emanuel Celler (Democrat of New York), who feared it would reduce price competition. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also expressed his belief that the bill would increase the cost of living and slow recovery by removing purchasing power from the economy. Congressional supporters, however, played on sentiments in favor of states’ rights by emphasizing that the law merely gave the states the right to determine their position on fair trade. In July, 1937, Tydings hoped to avoid a presidential veto by attaching his bill as a rider to a bill granting appropriations to the District of Columbia. Despite the opposition of consumer groups and nearly all economists, Congress passed this legislation by an overwhelming margin. President Roosevelt criticized the use of this evasive tactic but signed the bill into law on August 17, 1937. By amending the Sherman Act, the Miller-Tydings Act granted an antitrust exemption for retail price maintenance agreements. Manufacturers of trademarked or brand-name goods could now prohibit retailers from selling their product below a minimum price. Tydings neglected to incorporate a nonsigner clause that would make retail pricemaintenance agreements binding on all merchants within a state. This defect would later allow the U.S. Supreme Court effectively to nullify the law. Although technically an antitrust law, the Miller-Tydings Act did not authorize the Federal Trade Commission to police resale price agreements; instead, Congress left it to manufacturers to enforce their own fair trade contracts. The Miller-Tydings Act failed to satisfy the demands of independent retailers hungry for higher margins. Ironically, the high margins on fair trade products attracted mass marketers, and thereby intensified competition. Although the price of fair trade products increased after passage of this act, the NARD and other trade associations still criticized manufacturers for setting their
minimum prices too low. These associations also found it difficult to persuade many manufacturers to abandon volume sales and adopt fair trade. As a result, several of these organizations decided to engage in coercive practices prohibited by the Miller-Tydings Act. The act allowed manufacturers to set minimum prices voluntarily, but retailers could not legally conspire to force manufacturers into fair trade. Nevertheless, the NARD proceeded to boycott and blacklist manufacturers that did not maintain minimum prices. The rise of new types of competition also limited the impact of fair trade. During the 1950’s, discount chains spread rapidly, and department stores responded by carrying a greater number of private brands. R. H. Macy & Company, for example, carried more than fourteen hundred products under its own name. By 1954, fewer than nine hundred manufacturers sold fair trade products, and the number continued to dwindle through the end of the decade. In 1956, a Senate Small Business Committee survey of retailers revealed widespread pessimism about the future of retail price maintenance. During the late 1930’s and the 1940’s, the courts upheld the constitutionality of the Miller-Tydings Act, but this favorable treatment did not last into the 1950’s. In 1951, the Supreme Court ruled that fair trade agreements could not be enforced against nonsigners in interstate commerce. Congress overrode the Court by passing the McGuire Act (1952), but the Court’s strongly worded indictment of fair trade continued to influence the thinking of lower courts. Critical studies by economists and the Federal Trade Commission also fostered a judicial climate of opinion hostile to fair trade. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, state courts throughout the United States invalidated all or part of their fair trade laws, and by 1975 only eleven states had fair trade laws on the books. The Miller-Tydings Act finally fell victim to the inflationary climate of the 1970’s. In 1937, the sponsors of the act had hoped to raise prices in a deflationary period, but policy makers in the inflationary postwar years became more concerned with reducing prices. Economists estimated that fair trade raised the nation’s cost of living by several billion dollars per year. In 1975, President Gerald Ford urged repeal of fair trade legislation as part of his WIN (Whip Inflation Now) program. Senator Edward W. Brooke (Republican of Massachusetts) introduced legislation to repeal the Miller-Tydings Act. His bill gathered overwhelming support from both liberals and conservatives. The resulting Consumer Goods Pricing Act repealed the Miller-Tydings Act and ended the experiment with retail price maintenance. 3045
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Significance The Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 expanded the marketing options of manufacturers by allowing them to emphasize quality and service rather than price. The act also reflected congressional concern with the fate of small business. Along with other legislation, such as the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 (which limited the quantity discounts available to chain stores), the MillerTydings Act aimed to reduce the competitive advantage of discounters. Independent retailers hoped that the elimination of price competition would enable them to compete more successfully with mass marketers. The impact of the Miller-Tydings Act varied from trade to trade. Retail price maintenance flourished in oligopolistic industries with trade associations strong enough to enforce compliance with fair trade agreements. Manufacturers found that they could maintain minimum prices on luxury goods that already sold at a high profit margin. Thus retail price maintenance spread most rapidly in drugs, cosmetics, jewelry, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, books, electrical appliances, cameras, and hardware. In 1950, the number of manufacturers engaged in retail price maintenance peaked at approximately sixteen hundred. Despite the success of retail price maintenance in these fields, less than 10 percent of all goods were sold under fair trade contracts. Several factors limited the appeal of retail price maintenance. First, manufacturers using this tactic still faced price competition, so the minimum prices set could not be too high. In addition, mass marketers responded to retail price maintenance by adopting an increasing number of private brands, especially in the grocery trade. Discounters also found ways to evade retail price agreements, such as by offering rebates and accepting trade-ins. Many price cutters simply flouted the law, confident that manufacturers could not afford to enforce their fair trade contracts. Indeed, several leading consumer goods manufacturers, including General Electric and the Sheaffer Pen company, initially pursued a policy of price maintenance but abandoned this marketing strategy because the costs of enforcement were too high. Other manufacturers paid lip service to fair trade while at the same time seeking high sales volume through chain stores. —Jonathan Bean
the American economy as well as its impact on society at large. Chapter 3, “Government Policies for Small Business, 1921-1971,” examines the political influence of small business. A good general history of American small business. Bork, Robert H. The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself. New York: Basic Books, 1978. A critical study of the American antitrust tradition. The author shows how government enforcement of antitrust laws has deviated from original legislative intent. Bork combines economic theory with legal analysis in arguing for a consumer welfare test of antitrust policy. In chapter 14, “Resale Price Maintenance and Vertical Market Division,” Bork develops arguments in favor of legalizing retail price maintenance. Assumes some knowledge of antitrust law. Crews, Wayne. “Reexamining Antitrust: Can ‘Anticompetitive’ Business Practices Benefit Consumers?” USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education) 130, no. 2862 (March, 2002): 1-28. Advocates a skeptical approach to study of antitrust policy, particularly with regard to modern corporations such as Microsoft. Gellhorn, Ernest, William E. Kovacic, and Stephen Calkins. Antitrust Law and Economics in a Nutshell. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2004. This volume is a consistently accurate guide to the confusing world of antitrust law. It gives special attention to the roles of evidence, the granting of immunity, and government intervention. Hawley, Ellis W. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly: A Study in Economic Ambivalence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. A wellresearched study of business-government relations in the New Deal period. Hawley presents a picture of an administration hopelessly divided among antitrusters, central planners, and those favoring close cooperation between government and business. The attention to detail is sometimes overwhelming, but the author provides an excellent summary of his findings in the concluding chapter. Palamountain, Joseph Cornwall, Jr. The Politics of Distribution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955. The standard work on the politics surrounding the anti-chain-store movement of the 1920’s and the 1930’s. The author analyzes the legislative history of the Miller-Tydings Act from the perspectives of manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers. Heavy on theory in some parts but generally easy to read. Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of
Further Reading Blackford, Mansel G. A History of Small Business in America. New York: Twayne, 1991. Provides an overview of the changing role played by small business in 3046
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Yamey, B. S., ed. Resale Price Maintenance. Chicago: Aldine, 1966. A collection of essays examining the impact of fair trade legislation in the United States and abroad. In “United States of America,” Stanley Hollander discusses the efforts of congressional small-business advocates to strengthen fair trade legislation in the aftermath of adverse court decisions. See also: Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized; Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act; June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act; Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation; June 19, 1936: Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination; June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act.
September, 1937
Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature With the publication of The Hobbit, the first of his successful and imaginative books that would later include the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien established a new benchmark for the fantasy genre of literature: fully realized imaginary worlds, epic in nature, including relevant moral themes, and appealing to adults as well as children. Also known as: The Hobbit Locale: Oxford, England Category: Literature Key Figures J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), English writer and professor of early English language and literature C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), English author and close friend of Tolkien Stanley Unwin (1884-1968), English publisher responsible for publication of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Summary of Event J. R. R. Tolkien was educated at Oxford, where he earned a degree in English language and literature in 1915. He served in France during World War I, married, and had four children from 1917 to 1929. He was a respected scholar and professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature at Leeds University and, beginning in 1925, at Oxford. Tolkien had a deep love for language and mythology, and he learned Old English, Old Norse, and Finnish so
that he could read the myths he loved in their original languages. In addition, he invented languages from childhood through adulthood and then invented worlds and civilizations to go with those languages. After World War I, he began to write about a complex fantasy world in a series of stories that later became The Silmarillion (published in 1977); these stories lay the groundwork for The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1955). At the same time, Tolkien lived the life of an English academic, teaching, writing poetry, and publishing scholarly works. The Hobbit grew out of a family mythology that Tolkien created while telling stories to his children. He began to invent a complex English mythology, using English landscapes, elves, dwarves, wizards, and dragons. Among the characters he created were those known as hobbits, small furry creatures who love order and the comforts of home. Tolkien based the hobbits on English peasant and middle-class types. C. S. Lewis, who later published his own works of fantasy fiction, including The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956), played an extremely important role in the development of Tolkien’s fantasy world. Tolkien and Lewis were close friends and colleagues at Oxford for many years, and both men were members of the Inklings, a group of writers at Oxford who critiqued each other’s unpublished works. Tolkien began writing The Hobbit in 1930, and by 1933 he had much of the book completed. Tolkien and Lewis were both interested in fantasy worlds, which at the time were considered only suitable 3047
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the American Mass Market. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989. A lively account of the rise of mass marketing and its impact on the business practices of large and small firms. Chapter 8, “The Politics of Packaged Products,” discusses the debate over retail price maintenance. Written for a general audience. U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Report of the Federal Trade Commission on Resale Price Maintenance. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1945. Summarizes the findings of a six-year study of the effects of retail price maintenance. This work provides a wealth of data, including results of public opinion surveys and the changing price levels of fair trade products.
Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature
Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
In the final third of the book, the threads of the tale come together: Once Bilbo has helped the dwarves reach their treasure, Bilbo takes a moral stand against materialism, greed, and war and tries to reach a compromise between the dwarves on one side and the elves and men on the other. The climax of the story comes when the dragon is finally killed and the dwarves, elves, and men unite against a common enemy, the goblins. The treasure is divided fairly, and Bilbo returns to the Shire with a comfortable amount of gold, a reputation for adventure, and a treasure in memories. Bilbo’s growth and development is a major theme of the story: Within himself he finds the wit, strength, and courage to help his friends and himself and proves himself to be a resourceful and down-toearth hero. By the time Tolkien showed the manuscript to C. S. Lewis in 1933, J. R. R. Tolkien. (Courtesy, Houghton Mifflin Company) The Hobbit was mostly complete. It remained rough and incomplete until 1936, when Tolkien showed it to a for children’s books, and they encouraged each other’s former student and friend of the family who had a job at work. As a result, Lewis was the first person to read The the London publishing firm Allen & Unwin. The pubHobbit, which at the time was still in manuscript form. lisher asked Tolkien to complete the book and submit it The hero of the novel is Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who for publication. With this incentive, he finalized the lives in a fairy-tale country called the Shire (based on the manuscript and publisher Stanley Unwin gave it to his landscape of the English countryside). Content with the ten-year-old son to read. The Hobbit was published in simple pleasures of home, Baggins is a reluctant hero September of 1937, and it was an immediate success: who is recruited by the wizard Gandolf to help a comCritics pronounced it genial, attractive, and fresh. The pany of dwarves recover their treasure from the dragon initial printing sold out before Christmas, and a second Smaug. Together they undergo a journey to the territory printing was rushed through the presses. Unwin immedilaid waste by Smaug: They travel through mountains and ately asked for a sequel and for more stories about forest, brave the dangers of trolls and goblins, enjoy the hobbits. Tolkien soon began work on The Lord of the hospitality of elves, and share in the company of giants Rings, although that trilogy was not published until and heroes. Through a series of episodic adventures, 1955. The Hobbit stands as an independent work and as Bilbo acquires a ring that can make him invisible, and an introduction to the more mature work of the trilogy. he grows in confidence and competence as he moves Although The Hobbit originated as a story for his chilthrough a world of epic danger, heroism, war, and comdren, Tolkien did not conceive of the written work as a children’s book. The clarity and simplicity of the style, plex cultures in which new civilizations and languages which appealed to young readers, was necessary to make are introduced. His cleverness in wordplay and language the complex, imaginary world understandable and clear, wins battles of wits that help Baggins overcome obstaand it helped the book to be enjoyed at several different cles, especially as he attempts to obtain the precious ring levels by children and adults. The Hobbit’s fully realized from a subterranean creature named Gollum. 3048
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Significance The Hobbit is considered a transitional work in Tolkien’s career and in literary history. In the context of Tolkien’s writing, the development of The Hobbit formed a crucial link between the stories Tolkien told to his children and the rich, mature narrative of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Hobbit also connected the genre of British children’s literature and a new fantasy genre meant to appeal to adults’ imaginations. Together, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were largely responsible for the creation of an adult readership for fantasy literature. Their careful construction of alternative universes that combined quest tales and exploration of the nature of heroism with the appeal of mythology, wordplay, and a variety of linguistic styles gave the genre a life beyond the confines of children’s literature. —Susan Butterworth Further Reading Carpenter, Humphrey. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The authorized biography of Tolkien, originally published in the 1980’s. Carpenter also edited a published a collection of Tolkien’s letters and a book on the Inklings. De Koster, Katie, ed. Readings on J. R. R. Tolkien. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven, 2000. Collection of critical articles including a comprehensive section on aspects of The Hobbit, such as its roots in British
children’s novels, adult themes, and the nature of heroism. Heims, Neil. J. R. R. Tolkien. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. Engaging literary biography drawing on the work of previous Tolkien scholars. Accessible portrait of the man and his ideas that strives to illuminate his works. Manlove, Colin. The Fantasy Literature of England. New York: Palgrave, 1999. Places Tolkien’s work in the context of the history and conventions of the fantasy genre in England. O’Neill, Timothy R. The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien, and the Archetypes of Middle-Earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Demonstrates the connection between Carl Jung’s theories of the struggle for self-realization and Tolkien’s mythology and characters. Rosebury, Brian. Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. New York: Palgrave, 2003. Clear, lucid criticism and analysis of Tolkien’s work and his place in twentieth century literature and culture. Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. A respected Tolkien scholar discusses the sources and creation of Tolkien’s complex world. See also: 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature; Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker; Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930: The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel; Fall, 1933-Oct. 20, 1949: Lewis Convenes the Inklings; 1938-1950: Golden Age of American Science Fiction.
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imaginary worlds, its exploration of nature of heroism, it moral themes and their relation to contemporary politics and events, its epic scope, and its detailed descriptions (including maps) of imaginary people and places became the characteristics of a new genre of fantasy for adults.
Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature
Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
September 2, 1937
Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding The Pittman-Robertson Act authorized funding of state wildlife agencies through federal excise taxes on sporting guns and ammunition used in hunting. Also known as: Federal Aid in Wildlife Act Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Carl D. Shoemaker (1882-1969), special investigator for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Conservation of Wildlife Resources and secretary of the National Wildlife Federation Key Pittman (1872-1940), U.S. senator from Nevada who introduced Shoemaker’s draft in the Senate and speeded the act’s passage A. Willis Robertson (1887-1971), U.S. congressman from Virginia who introduced the bill in the House and served as its sponsor Jay Darling (1876-1962), American political cartoonist and advocate of wildlife conservation Scott Lucas (1892-1968), U.S. congressman from Illinois who, as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, supported the bill through the House Summary of Event On September 2, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Pittman-Robertson Act, which authorized the federal government to collect manufacturers’ excise taxes on sporting guns and ammunition and to transfer the money to state wildlife agencies. This law originated through the cooperation of conservationists, primarily hunters, and manufacturers of sporting arms and ammunition. The revenues collected have been used to support wildlife management, including purchase of critical habitat, management of existing refuges, hunter training, and wildlife restoration. Many species whose survival had once been threatened have thereby been able to thrive. The law, also known as the Federal Aid in Wildlife Act, was initiated by Carl D. Shoemaker, a conservationist, and was sponsored through Congress in less than three months by Senator Key Pittman and Representative A. Willis Robertson. In the early years of the twentieth century, as sport hunting became increasingly popular and wildlife habitat and wildlife itself became increasingly scarce, lead3050
ing conservationists tried to develop and fund a refuge system that would benefit both wildlife and sportsmen. Several laws were passed as a result. The Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929 set up a refuge system to be financed by congressional appropriations. In 1934, largely through the efforts of Jay Darling as chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey, the Duck Stamp and Fish Wildlife Coordination Acts, which provided funding for wetland conservation, were passed. Darling and Shoemaker, as special investigator of the Senate Special Committee on Conservation and Wildlife Resources, helped to organize the first North American Wildlife Conference in 1936, out of which the National Wildlife Federation was created. At the second North American Wildlife Conference in 1937, Shoemaker and others started to develop what would become the Pittman-Robertson law by modifying suggestions made by John B. Burnham and T. Gilbert Pearson in 1925. Burnham and Pearson had suggested that the 10 percent excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition be used to finance refuges instead of being considered part of general funds, but the proposed financing did not go through because Congress repealed all excise taxes, although they were reinstated in 1932. In 1937, Shoemaker suggested that the current 11 percent manufacturers’ excise tax on sporting guns and ammunition be allocated to the states equitably. In order to apportion funding equitably and to balance the small populations of the western states with the high populations of the East, his formula included the number of paid license holders as well as the area of the states. This approach would balance the western states with their relatively small populations but large land area with the larger number of licensed hunters in the more populous but smaller eastern states. The draft bill was supported by the Bureau of Biological Survey, state wildlife agencies, and conservation organizations. The firearms industry supported it as well after Shoemaker agreed to the suggestion of Charles L. Horn of the Federal Cartridge Company to lower the percentage of tax collections used for administrative costs by the Biological Survey from his proposed 10 percent to 8 percent. Shoemaker enlisted the support of Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, chairman of the Special Committee on Wildlife, and Representative A. Willis Robertson of Virginia, chairman of the House Select Committee on Conservation of Wildlife Resources. Robertson
Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding
had been a member of the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries Commission and knew that state legislatures sometimes used funds from license receipts for state programs other than those of the wildlife agencies. He therefore added to Shoemaker’s bill the prohibition of the diversion of funds for purposes other than the administration of the state fish and game department. The modified bill moved through the Senate very quickly. In the House, however, the Agriculture Committee, not the Wildlife Committee, had jurisdiction over the bill. In order to entice Representative Scott Lucas from Illinois, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, to move the bill through the House more quickly, Shoemaker encouraged Illinois women’s groups and garden clubs to contact Lucas. The bill passed the House on August 17 and was signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 2, 1937. Ira N. Gabrielson, chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey, and his assistant, Albert M. Day, implemented the Pittman-Robertson Act. Day determined that the funds were to be used for three types of state projects: to purchase land to rehabilitate wildlife, to develop and improve land’s suitability for birds and mammals, and to research ways to solve problems of wildlife restoration. In order to ensure that management of state wildlife programs was performed by professionals and not political appointees, Gabrielson and Day also required that management personnel hired through Pittman-Robertson funds be trained and competent. Despite excise tax revenues of around three million dollars in 1938, Congress allocated only one million dollars that first year and continued to refuse to allocate the funds to the state wildlife agencies until the 1950’s. In 1939, the Bureau of Biological Survey was removed from the Department of Agriculture and placed in the Department of the Interior, where it was combined with the Bureau of Fisheries of the Department of Commerce. This new agency was called the Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1951, as part of the Appropriations Act, Congress agreed to transfer all the tax collections to the state wildlife agencies. In 1956, Congress agreed to release thirteen million dollars in back tax revenues. As a result, excise tax revenues collected from hunters have been used to replenish wildlife and their habitat throughout the United States. Over the years, as the act’s influence has grown, it has financed scientific research of particular species and their habitats, habitat restoration, hunter education, and wildlife research in general. As a result, the decline of many species has been reversed, habitat has been re-
stored, and hunting accidents and fatalities in many states have declined. The Pittman-Robertson Act has increased the professionalism of wildlife research and management by setting professional standards for management personnel as well as requiring that projects meet national standards. It also has served as a dependable source of money so that states may engage in long-term programs, and it has provided professionals with a means of exchanging information to ensure that managers are aware of projects in different states. Funds have also been used to support cooperative programs with nongovernment organizations. Funds are distributed based on the number of paid license holders and the area of each state. No state may receive more than 5 percent or less than 1 percent of the total funds. Puerto Rico receives one-half of 1 percent and Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands each receives one-sixth of 1 percent. For every dollar a state receives it must contribute twentyfive cents. In 1970, Pittman-Robertson’s funding base was expanded to include a 10 percent excise tax on handguns, and in 1971, an 11 percent tax on archery equipment. Half of these revenues are used for hunter education and half for traditional wildlife restoration. The use of the funds has changed over the years. In 1970, Congress allowed states to finance not only specific projects but also wider-ranging comprehensive plans. All in all, eligibility has become more complicated as environmental attitudes and regulations have changed and as new federal requirements, including laws pertaining to civil rights and age discrimination, have been instituted. More than $800 million (or around 60 percent of the money) has been used to obtain land for feeding, resting, and breeding places for wildlife. States have provided around $270 million of their own money, largely from license fees from hunters. Wetlands were of particular concern. In the first fifty years of the law’s existence, the states acquired more than two million acres of waterfowl habitat. This and other acquisition and control of land through leasing and cooperation with farmers and other landowners has been very important in preventing further deterioration and loss of natural habitat. The law also has facilitated modification of the land, through stream diversion and improvement of drainage and nesting cover, all beneficial to wildlife. Significance The Pittman-Robertson Act was enacted to reverse the decline of wildlife in the United States. It has led to very 3051
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successful restorations of specific species, including the wild turkey and white-tailed deer. Through the application of knowledge gained about such factors as habitat, food habits, and predators, and by regulating human hunting, the number of white-tailed deer has drastically increased so that in some areas of the country there are too many deer. Heightened awareness of the wild turkey’s needs, combined with the development of traps and transfer techniques, has led to successful turkey restoration in many states. Turkey populations have increased so much that the number of states with legal hunting seasons has grown from sixteen in 1952 to fortysix in 1987. Improved trapping and transfer techniques for bighorn sheep have also been developed with funds from Pittman-Robertson and from such groups as the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep and the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep. Bighorn sheep have been transferred back to parts of their historic ranges in the intermountain plateau region between the Rockies and the Cascades and Sierra Nevada in the western United States. Development and construction of artificial water-collecting devices have also improved conditions for the bighorn and other animals such as the elk, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope. Although the bighorn sheep are not flourishing to the degree of the wild turkey and the white-tailed deer, their number are much larger than they would have been without the money and cooperation fostered by PittmanRobertson. Pittman-Robertson matching funds have also contributed to the comeback of black bear populations. States have been able to buy and manage lands and to support long-term studies. By trapping and tranquilizing bears so that they can be tagged and collared with radio transmitters, wildlife researchers have greatly expanded their knowledge of the black bear. New hunting regulations, changes in the public’s attitudes about bears, and the recovery of its forest habitat have all combined with scientific research to contribute to the increase in bear population. Other animals whose numbers have increased include the prairie chicken, the mountain lion, the Canadian goose, the pronghorn antelope, the elk, the caribou, the beaver, the sea otter, the gray and fox squirrels, the mule deer, the wood duck, the chukar partridge, the bobcat, and the ring-necked pheasant. The benefits of the Pittman-Robertson Act extend beyond the hunters who pay the excise taxes funding the program. Because of the act, wildlife has become more plentiful, some spe-
cies have been saved from extinction, and natural habitats have been improved and expanded throughout the United States. —Margaret F. Boorstein
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Further Reading National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Land Use and Wildlife Resources. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1970. Focuses on the interactions between wildlife management and agriculture. In examining the relationship of the Pittman-Robertson Act with other legislation, the book provides some context for its role in wildlife restoration. Owen, A. L. Riesch. Conservation Under F. D. R. New York: Praeger, 1983. Examines conservation during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. Discusses the historical context in which Pittman-Robertson Act was enacted and the law’s relation to other legislation and policies. _______. “Wildlife Aid from Gun Taxes.” Nature Magazine 30 (December, 1937): 361-362. This magazine states that its purpose is to assist Americans in playing a militant part in attaining constructive conservation aims. The editorial, written a few months after the Pittman-Robertson Act became law, predicted that both migratory and resident game would be harmed because more hunting would be encouraged to raise more tax money. Sheldon, H. P. “Game Restoration.” Country Life and the Sportsman 74 (June, 1938): 28, 90. A brief summary of the act. Discusses how the act expanded federal authority to nonmigratory wildlife, previously considered property of the states but now seen as a national resource. It warns that although Congress has authorized funds, wildlife interests must ensure that the moneys are actually appropriated. Sinclair, Anthony R. E., John M. Fryxell, and Graeme Caughley. Wildlife Ecology, Conservation, and Management. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. An excellent introduction to ecology and conservation studies. Includes a CD that helps students create computer-based models of different ecological scenarios. Taber, Richard D., and Neil F. Payne. Wildlife, Conservation, and Human Welfare: A United States and Canadian Perspective. Malabar, Fla.: Krieger, 2003. Attempts to chronicle the history of human impact on wildlife and analyzes the response to its destruction.
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tographs, statistical tables, and a state-by-state summary of actions taken by wildlife agencies. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation; July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed.
Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938
Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man When Franz Weidenreich reconstructed the face of the oldest known hominid and provided the first glimpse of Peking man, he clarified the path of human evolution. Also known as: Beijing man Locale: Beijing, China; Zhoukoudian, China Categories: Anthropology; prehistory and ancient cultures Key Figures Franz Weidenreich (1873-1948), German anatomist, physical anthropologist, and paleoanthropologist Davidson Black (1884-1934), Canadian physician, anatomist, and paleoanthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), French Jesuit, philosopher, archaeologist, and paleontologist Pei Wenzhong (W. C. Pei; 1904-1982), Chinese archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874-1960), Swedish geologist and paleoanthropologist Summary of Event As early as 1900, Western scientists knew that China was an ideal place to look for fossil humans. Western visitors had discovered isolated humanlike teeth in Chinese drugstores, where they were called “dragon’s teeth” and sold as medicine. In 1918, the Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson discovered a major deposit of Pleistocene fossils in a cave outside the village of Zhoukoudian, located near Beijing (then known in the West as Peking). These fossils appeared to be about 500,000 years old. Looking for fossil mammals and hoping for fossil humans, Andersson began excavating the site in 1921. Shortly thereafter, Davidson Black, a professor of anatomy at the Peking Medical Union, persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to establish the Cenozoic Re-
search Laboratory in Beijing. It became the center for excavations at Zhoukoudian and for the analysis of material found at that site. Based on isolated teeth, Black formally identified Peking man in 1927, calling him Sinanthropus pekinensis. In 1929, the Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong discovered the first nearly complete skullcap of a Sinanthropus pekinensis, providing the first real evidence that early man existed in China. This discovery seemed to confirm Black’s belief that humanity’s ancestor was to be found in the Far East. Furthermore, stone tools, burned animal bones, and animal bones with clear-cut marks were found in association with the skullcap, giving definite evidence of culture. When Black died of a heart attack in 1934, he was succeeded by Franz Weidenreich, who had been firmly established in Germany as an anatomist and physical anthropologist. Already renowned for his work in hematology and osteology, in 1928 he had written the definitive account of a Neanderthal-like skull found at Weimar-Ehringsdorf, Germany. In Beijing, he cooperated with the archaeologists who were actively involved in excavations such as Pei and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Weidenreich supervised the extraction of the bones from their rocky matrices, directed the scientific drawing of the fossils, and wrote reports of findings. Although many human fossils had been found at Zhoukoudian by 1937, nearly all were damaged skullcaps. The skull below the level of the ears was frequently destroyed, as were most facial bones. Bones from the lower skeleton were rare, but those that had been found were broken in a way that implied extraction of marrow. It has generally been assumed that Peking man had been the agent of this destruction and that he had been removing and eating brains and bone marrow. With the advent of the study of taphonomy—the natural conditions af3053
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United States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. Restoring America’s Wildlife: 1937-1987: The First 50 Years of the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration (Pittman-Robertson) Act. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1987. Provides an overall summary of the evolution and implementation of the act and many detailed examples of its impact on specific species, habitats, and hunters. Includes maps and pho-
Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man
Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man
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structed. One of the skulls, a female’s, included a large fragment of the upper jaw. This was the important piece needed to fill in the picture of the Sinanthropus face. Only the nasal bones, a portion of the front of the upper jaw, the cheekbones, and part of the area around the eyes needed to be adapted from other individuals. The lower jaw was adapted from the lower jaw of a female found in 1936. Weidenreich was satisfied that his reconstruction was correct, given that it was based on real bones and had no imaginary details. According to Weidenreich’s reconstruction, the face of Peking woman was heavy and large. Her eye sockets were larger than those of modern humans, and her eyes were set wide apart. Her nose was low and wide, but within the range of variation in modern humans. Her face was wide and jutted forward slightly. She had the usual Sinanthropus chin and forehead and the usual heavy brow ridge over her eyes and nose. Her head was small in comparison to modern humans but is larger than any ape’s. Her skull was widest above the ears and then sloped upward and inward, and she had a slight ridge running from front to rear along the top of her head. She had a bony ridge at the back of her head, set slightly above a very thick neck. Despite these characteristics, she undeniably represents an ancestor of modern human beings. Weidenreich left China in 1941, barely escaping incarceration in a Japanese prison camp. He had attempted to send the Peking man fossils out of China with the help of the United States Army. The bones of forty individuals— men, women, and children—from an important stage of human evolution were packed in footlockers and sent to the coast with American soldiers to be delivered to the S. S. President Harrison at the port of Zhingwangdao. Unfortunately, they disappeared after they left Beijing. It is not known whether they were stolen, lost, or destroyed by Japanese soldiers. Weidenreich and others attempted to locate the fossils after World War II, but to no avail. Although a number of mysterious stories were told about their whereabouts, the Peking fossils were never found. The disaster of this loss has been partly compensated for by the excellent casts, photographs, and drawings made by laboratory technicians in China. That is all that is left of the major finds from Zhoukoudian. In recent years, archaeologists in China have continued the search for Peking man. No furFranz Weidenreich. (American Museum of Natural History) ther fossils of Peking man have been found at
fecting preservation of human activities—it has been recognized that fossils as old as Peking man are frequently crushed and that the thinnest part of the bone in Peking man’s skull was below the ears. Consequently, it is possible that the damage to these bones may have been caused by natural agencies. Nevertheless, it was impossible for modern scholars to reconstruct his face. They knew that he had a massive ridge of bone above his eyes, little or no forehead, his skull was long and low, and his brain was somewhat more than twice the size of a modern chimpanzee, but the scarcity of facial bones meant that they did not know what he looked like. This knowledge was pieced together after the end of fall, 1937. This was to be the last season at Zhoukoudian before the Japanese invasion put an end to fieldwork. Three fairly well-preserved skulls, all adults, were found in the same location. None of these individuals had complete faces. Nevertheless, enough of the three faces had survived that it was possible to reconstruct the appearance of Peking man. Actually, it was a Peking woman who was recon-
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Significance At the time that Weidenreich made his reconstruction, Peking man, together with his cousin, Java man, was the earliest accepted ancestor of modern people. Neanderthals and related types from Europe and the Middle East were far too recent and far too similar to modern humans to qualify as early ancestors. Although the Australopithecines had been discovered in South Africa as early as 1924, they were not accepted as being on the human line of evolution until the 1950’s. At the time of the great discoveries of Peking man, an acrimonious debate was percolating over whether the Australopithecines were large apes or early hominids. The discoveries in Zhoukoudian excited the world, because Peking man and his Javanese cousins stood alone as humankind’s undisputed ancestors. In a certain sense, they still stand alone. In later years, Peking man, Java man, and other related types later found in Africa and Europe were reclassified as Homo erectus, thought to have lived between one million years ago and about 150,000 years ago. They are the first members of the genus Homo and the immediate forerunners of the modern human species, Homo sapiens. They were the first to use fire, first to have habitations, first to use stone tools with a definite style, and first to inhabit the temperate regions of Europe and Asia; they are indisputably human. Furthermore, the fossils found at Zhoukoudian remain unique in the annals of human prehistory. Although Homo erectus has been found elsewhere, the remains have most often consisted of fragmentary and isolated finds that natural processes have often removed from where the individuals died. Nowhere else have so many individuals been found who are more or less contemporaneous and who died on the spot, surrounded by their tools, their hearths, and their garbage. As a result, the fossils from Zhoukoudian reveal what the range of variation was for this species, and their relatively in situ position tells much about how they lived and what they ate. They are fundamental in defining the species Homo erectus, and they are unique pieces in the puzzle of human evolution. —Lucy Jayne Botscharow
Further Reading Brace, C. Loring. The Stages of Human Evolution: Human and Cultural Origins. 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991. Well-written general account of human evolution also presents a short history of evolutionary thought, together with descriptions of the discovery of important human fossils and the controversies that often ensued. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Howells, W. W. “Homo Erectus in Human Descent: Ideas and Problems.” In Homo Erectus: Papers in Honor of Davidson Black, edited by Becky A. Sigmon and Jerome S. Cybulski. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. Provides a clear and succinct summary of current scientific thought regarding Peking man’s position in human evolution. Somewhat technical, but indispensable for an understanding of the current status of Homo erectus. Includes illustrations, a map of fossil hominid sites, and excellent bibliography. Koenigswald, Gustav Heinrich Ralph von. Meeting Prehistoric Man. Translated by Michael Bullock. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. Although outdated scientifically, provides enjoyable discussion of “dragon’s bones” and of the exhilaration of the early finds in Java and China. Koenigswald worked in Java and later at the American Museum of Natural History and was a close associate of Weidenreich. Includes illustrations. Oosterzee, Penny van. Dragon Bones: The Story of Peking Man. New York: Perseus Books, 2000. Historical account for lay readers describes the activities that led to the discovery of Peking man and the events that followed. The author is an Australian ecologist and science writer. Shapiro, Harry L. Peking Man: The Discovery, Disappearance, and Mystery of a Priceless Scientific Treasure. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974. Combines good scholarship with exciting narrative. Shapiro was associated with the American Museum of Natural History for more than fifty years and knew Weidenreich well. Includes illustrations and charts of geological time and of Peking man’s place on the evolutionary tree. Tattersall, Ian. The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives. Rev. ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Examination for a lay audience of the evidence concerning humans’ relation to the Neanderthals. Provides background on paleoanthropology in general 3055
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Zhoukoudian, but they have been found elsewhere in China. It is regrettable that the bones so carefully studied by Weidenreich and others are no longer available for further research. New and sophisticated methods of analysis could have been used to extract further secrets from them, and it is unlikely that such a large population of early man will ever be found again.
Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man
The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers and current knowledge about the hominid line. Includes illustrations and index. Weidenreich, Franz. “The Face of Peking Woman: Latest Developments Regarding Our Celebrated Apelike Relative.” Natural History 41 (May, 1938): 358360. A description of the reconstructed face of Peking woman written for the general public. Clearly conveys the satisfaction that Weidenreich felt regarding
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his reconstruction. Includes excellent illustrations and bibliography. See also: Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton; Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil; Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered.
COUNTRY PRIEST Inspires American Readers
During the Great Depression, while many Americans were turning in despair to mass political movements and charismatic leaders, Georges Bernanos’s story of an unprepossessing man who becomes a vehicle for God’s grace suggested that the answer lay elsewhere. Locale: Europe; United States Category: Literature Key Figure Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), French novelist Summary of Event George Bernanos’s 1936 novel Journal d’un curé de campagne, the winner of France’s Femina Prize and the Grand Prix of the Académie Française, became available in English translation as The Diary of a Country Priest in October, 1937. The book had been a great success in France, the author’s native country (although he wrote the work while living in Spain), but its focus on a Catholic priest’s struggles was more problematic in the United States. Could a literary work that sought to address the great problems of society through a Roman Catholic cleric’s eyes speak to a nation that had, within the past decade, rejected a Democratic candidate for president largely because of his membership in the Catholic Church? The Catholic press in the United States celebrated the work as emphatically as the French had. Bernanos’s most valuable praise came from John Kenneth Merton, who wrote for the lay Catholic weekly Commonweal. Merton characterized the book as “unusually touching and beautiful,” a work that, “despite its exquisite restraint, makes the reader breathless with intensity.” He called some of the characters “beautiful” and extolled the protagonist’s “spirit of heroism that is so perfect as not to be conscious of itself.” He further praised The Diary of a Country 3056
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Priest as “a remarkable book, one written with beautiful art, full of a searching and delicate psychology, and revealing a simplicity so crystalline and a courage so humble as to lift what might have been a sordid tragedy to heroic heights.” What of the American literary world outside the Catholic orbit? Would others also see the beauty of the work? The New York Times trumpeted the publication with a glowing review on the front page of its book review section in which Katherine Woods pronounced the novel to be a work of “deep, subtle and singularly encompassing art” likely to “fill a quite definite place in the interest of readers here.” Woods celebrated the work’s “greatness as creative art” and called it a “strange and sad, yet beautiful and triumphant, story.” Reviewers and critics for other publications also welcomed the work with high praise and suggested its import for the American audience. However, the simplicity so often cited as the principal source of The Diary of a Country Priest’s value, when coupled with the Catholic focus, militated against the book’s success in the literary market. The book has little action and no excitement. Even Merton admitted that the work had “very little” plot “in the ordinary sense.” The novel consequently never made it onto any best seller lists, and it subsequently fell into relative obscurity. Even so, it remained available in English translation for more than fifty years and continued to draw praise from those who read it even decades after its initial publication. What little action the novel contains takes place in an obscure French village. The protagonist is a young, frail, and dying Roman Catholic priest who is largely incapable of inspiring those around him and whose greatest attribute is the ability to absorb lectures from those seemingly more confident, secure, and wise than himself. The book consists of a series of these lectures (and the reflec-
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Significance Contemporary American reviewers located the value of The Diary of a Country Priest in its transcendence of the French village setting and in the lessons the book provided for all who struggled in those turbulent times. Bernanos wrote as much about the world as he did about the tiny French village, and the young priest is not so much a denominational manifestation as a representative of every person searching for the good in a society steeped in despair and ugliness. The priest grapples with the very issues that consumed Americans in the late 1930’s, questions of social justice and human dignity. Bernanos loated much of the cause of these concerns in the very institutions that were supposed to eliminate (or at least ameliorate) them: the Church and the community. The Church sought institutional survival rather than social salvation, and the community blunted and dwarfed its members rather than nurtured them. If Bernanos seemed cynical about the ability of the Church and the community to solve serious social problems, he also suggested that individuals could successfully find solutions through inner, individual, efforts. Although the Church did not always foster virtue and
dignity (and often seemed to impede the achievement of those aims), people could find such values in the world around them. The dying priest’s last words, spoken in answer to his friend’s concern that a priest will not arrive soon enough to provide final absolution, suggest an extrainstitutional route to salvation and dignity. The priest asks if it matters that he will not receive the Church’s final rite; he then answers his own question by
The Country Priest’s Despair In the opening paragraphs of The Diary of a Country Priest, the narrator’s gloomy state of mind is evident: Mine is a parish like all the rest. They’re all alike. Those of to-day I mean. I was saying so only yesterday to M. le Curé de Norenfontes—that good and evil are probably evenly distributed, but on such a low plain, very low indeed! Or if you like they lie one over the other; like oil and water they never mix. M. Le Curé only laughed at me. He is a good priest, deeply kind and human, who at diocesan headquarters is even considered a bit of a freethinker, on the dangerous side. His outbursts fill his colleagues with glee, and he stresses them with a look meant to be fiery, but which gives me such a deep sensation of stale discouragement that it almost brings tears into my eyes. My parish is bored stiff; no other word for it. Like so many others! We can see them being eaten up by boredom, and we can’t do anything about it. Some day perhaps we shall catch it ourselves—become aware of the cancerous growth within us. You can keep going a long time with that in you. This thought struck me yesterday on my rounds. It was drizzling. The kind of thin, steady rain which gets sucked in with every breath, which seeps down through the lungs into your belly. Suddenly I looked out over the village, from the road to Saint Vaast along the hillside— miserable little houses huddled together under the desolate, ugly November sky. On all sides damp came steaming up and it seemed to sprawl there in the soaking grass like a wretched worn-out horse or cow. What an insignificant thing a village is. And this particular village was my parish! My parish, yes, but what could I do? I stood there glumly watching it sink into the dusk, disappear. . . . In a few minutes I should lose sight of it. I had never been so horribly aware both of my people’s loneliness and mine. Source: Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest, translated by Pamela Morris (New York: Macmillan, 1937).
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tions they inspire) presented as discussions, bracketed between bouts of personal anxiety and small defeats. The plot develops from the reflections these experiences inspire. The work takes place within the individual priest’s consciousness as he grapples to comprehend his place and role in the largely unpleasant developments around him. The priest comes new to his assignment in a small village and worries that the residents neither like nor respect him. His physical and social impairments sap his confidence and impede his efforts to relate to his parishioners; the parish children make fun of his efforts to teach them the faith he sometimes wonders if he still holds. The local merchant seems to take advantage of his impoverished state, and his peculiar diet of bread dipped in wine (necessitated by a growing stomach cancer) causes parishioners to suspect him of alcoholism. Despite the unrelenting frustration the curate experiences in the town—perhaps because of it—he rises to heroic heights. His earnest ineffectualness and his genuine and seemingly losing battle with despair render him a transcendent hero to whom all who suffer can relate. Although he accomplishes no final feat that might render him “heroic” in the sense that many understand the term, his continued charity throughout his suffering suggests a spiritual triumph.
The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers
The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers noting that “grace is everywhere,” which is itself a teaching of the Church. Bernanos, however, came to this conclusion slowly. He was born in the late nineteenth century, when many Frenchmen were divided over the issue of whether they owed their loyalty to the republic or to the monarchy and Church. Bernanos grew up strongly in the royal camp and was highly supportive of the Catholic Church in its struggle to regain preeminence. He developed this position from his early life experiences, such as his Jesuit education, and bolstered his monarchical bent with political commitments. He joined the reactionary Action Française movement and edited the royalist weekly L’Avant-garde de Normandie. He fought in the French army during World War I. His views began to change shortly after the war, when he began to question the Catholic Church’s strong alignment with the wealthy rather than with the poor. He became even more critical of the Church during the Spanish Civil War. Bernanos became disillusioned with his fellow conservative Catholics as he witnessed firsthand the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by Francisco Franco’s supporters in the Spanish Civil War. The more he spoke out about the violations, the more isolated he became from the community in which he had long situated himself. He wrote The Diary of a Country Priest in the midst of this profound personal transformation, this disillusionment with the institutions he had so long supported. Evidence of his disillusionment permeates the novel and culminates in the young priest’s conclusion that grace abounds outside the Church. Many of these concerns, particularly regarding the French Catholic Church, might reasonably be considered more European matters than American. What might explain the favorable reception of The Diary of a Country Priest in the American literary world of 1937? Much can be explained by the state of the American social, economic, and cultural scene at the time. Drained by nearly a decade of terrible economic depression, Americans sought solace from their misery. The earlier optimism about the New Deal’s ability to move society completely out of the Depression waned by 1937—despite the relative success various programs had achieved. For a short while, such demagogues as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin promised to lift the country from its economic malaise, but they too foundered. An assassin felled Long, and with him the promise of his share-thewealth solutions to the sufferings many Americans endured. Coughlin turned vitriolic in his social criticism, and his increasingly strident and hateful message came to 3058
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 alienate many who had placed with him their own hopes for a solution to their suffering. Cultural historians suggest that Americans had begun to turn inward for relief by 1937, and away from social interpretations of their persistent suffering. By the late 1930’s, Americans had come to seek personal rather than societal solutions for their problems. The Diary of a Country Priest provided a portrait of a young man in much the same state as many Americans during the Depression. He was anxious and near despair. If Americans worried about the seeming inability of collective social reform to regenerate society, the French country priest shared their troubling concerns. He too located much of his anxiety in larger social developments that impeded the formation and survival of a just society, but he located his solace, his resolution to the problems he identified for himself and his world, in an individual, deeply personal commitment to the struggle for human dignity and grace. Another key theme perhaps often missed in this work is the central Christian teaching about the need for humility in a world governed by pride. The young priest’s relationship as confessor to the haughty Mme la Comtesse, and to others, is rooted in humility and charity facing down pride and hard hearts. The majesty of the interior life of the soul, Bernanos holds, in keeping with the Sermon on the Mount and Church teachings, is built paradoxically on the foundation of humility, from which wellordered love, justice, mercy, and peace then grow. Many American critics could appreciate this struggle and resolution because they too saw the causes of their concerns, and the answers to their uncertainties, to be individual and personal. They too had become cynical about the possibility of societal transformation, about the potential for social justice in the world, and they saw in the young priest’s simplicity and honesty, in his earnest struggle to do right, the dignity Americans sought in their own lives. The young curate’s final peace provided hope for Americans frustrated with persistent social and economic dislocation, and in creating such a character, Bernanos provided reason for optimism in a troubled world. — Timothy Kelly Further Reading Bernanos, Georges. The Diary of a Country Priest. Translated by Pamela Morris. 1965. Reprint. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Reprinting of the novel includes an introduction by novelist and cloistered monk Rémy Rougeau.
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Greeley, Andrew. The Catholic Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Examination of the Catholic worldview through discussion of central themes such as the Sacrament, salvation, and community, particularly as these themes have been addressed by Catholic artists, including novelist Bernanos. Pells, Richard. Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years. 1973. Reprint. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Solid one-volume survey of the American cultural scene during the Great Depression helps to set the context for the positive reception The Diary of a Country Priest received in the United States. Includes bibliography and index. Speaight, Robert. Georges Bernanos: A Study of the Man and the Writer. London: Collins & Harvill Press, 1973. Comprehensive biography examines in depth both Bernanos’s literary work and his life, explaining his writing in the context of his experiences. See also: 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; 1932: Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism.
December, 1937-February, 1938
Rape of Nanjing After having captured the Nationalist Chinese capital city of Nanjing, three divisions of Japanese troops were allowed to kill, rape, loot, and burn. Locale: Nanjing, China Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; diplomacy and international relations; military history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; terrorism Key Figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), president of China, 1948-1949, and military commander in chief who rejected negotiations Iwane Matsui (1878-1948), overall commander of the expeditionary force that captured Nanjing, later executed for war crimes Yasuhiko Asaka (1887-1981), commander who succeeded Matsui at Nanjing and presided over the atrocities but was not prosecuted Akira Muto (1892-1948), officer who ordered troops
into Nanjing and was in closest contact with the atrocities Kingoro Hashimoto (1890-1957), officer who ordered the sinking of the USS Panay and other vessels Summary of Event Japan had begun absorbing parts of China in 1895 with the annexation of Taiwan, followed by Manchuria in 1932, Jehol Province in 1933, and Inner Mongolia in 1935. In the latter three, a pattern was established: Local Japanese field commanders initiated military action, after which the Tokyo higher command would debate but finally back up their actions, and then the Chinese Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek would submit to a local settlement to avoid major confrontation. The Japanese attitude toward the Nationalist government and the Chinese people came to be contemptuous. In July, 1937, a clash occurred outside Beijing and, when the Chinese did not back down, the Japanese army was 3059
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_______. The Last Essays of Georges Bernanos. Translated by Joan Ulanov and Barry Ulanov. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1968. Collection of six essays Bernanos wrote roughly a decade after he published The Diary of a Country Priest and shortly before his death. Centers on the evils of the times and covers some of the same issues as the earlier novel. Bush, William. Georges Bernanos. New York: Twayne, 1969. Surveys Bernanos’s artistic vision, summarizes his novels, and provides a brief analysis of each. One of the most approachable works on Bernanos available in English. Chapters are organized around Bernanos’s works, and each provides a brief conclusion. Chapter on The Diary of a Country Priest argues that the original English-language edition mistranslates the priest’s final words, and so misses the centrality of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to Bernanos’s work. Cooke, John E. Georges Bernanos: A Study of Christian Commitment. Amersham, England: Avebury, 1981. Brief examination of Bernanos’s religious life centers on the author’s focus on the human struggle for redemption. Suggests that all of Bernanos’s work can rightly be understood as his attempt to point the modern, corrupted world back toward a spiritual orientation, to the search for grace and societal salvation.
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forced to choose between withdrawal and full military assault. Dismissive of Chinese military capability, they chose the latter course, hoping that a quick defeat would topple Chiang, neutralize China, and free Japanese troops for expected confrontations with the Soviet Union. The key to rapid conquest was Shanghai, the gateway to the Yangtze Valley and central China. Once Shanghai was taken, the passage to Nanjing, the Nationalist capital 170 miles inland, would be easy. Chiang committed the cream of his officer corps and best-trained troops to the battle for Shanghai, but he lost the majority of them in a suicidal stand against naval and air bombardment that began in August and lasted into November. With the Japanese forces bogged down in street fighting, the higher command formulated a strategy that would outflank the Shanghai fortifications and expedite the drive on Nanjing, which many in the Japanese army and government expected to be the final campaign. The overall commander of the expeditionary force was General Iwane Matsui, a slight, tubercular man pulled out of retirement by the emperor himself. He had been a pan-Asian idealist earlier and, although he advocated the drive on Nanjing, there is nothing to indicate that he held any enmity toward the Chinese, whose language he spoke fluently. 3060
The flanking forces he drove toward Nanjing, however, were hard to control. Indications of their mood were shown in the bombing, strafing, and looting of cities and villages along the way. Many in the Japanese high command, including Matsui, believed that negotiations for a cease-fire should have been initiated before atSea of tacking Nanjing. Chiang had indiJa p a n cated willingness to negotiate, although at the same time he issued Jap orders that Nanjing was to be defended to the last, despite its indefensible position and its lack of military value. In any case, Japanese moderates were overridden and no terms were offered. The assault began on December 9, with a creeping artillery and air barrage that shattered all resistance by December 13. On December 17, with the Nanjing atrocities already beginning, Chiang, who had moved his government inland, issued his historic address rejecting all negotiations and calling for a people’s war to the bitter end. As the attack on Nanjing began, General Matsui was removed from personal supervision of field operations and confined to theater command. Emperor Hirohito’s uncle, General Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, was appointed to the Nanjing operation. His headquarters issued secret orders to kill all captives, referring presumably to the Chinese troops trapped in the besieged city. Under him were the field commanders whose troops perpetrated the Nanjing outrages: Lieutenant General Kesago Nakajima of the Sixteenth Division, General Heisuke Yanagawa of the Nineteenth Corps, Lieutenant General Hisao Tani of the Sixth Division, and Colonel Akira Muto. Muto was in charge of billeting troops, and he moved soldiers from encampments safely outside Nanjing into the city, where the holocaust took place. The Chinese never formally surrendered the city. Their retreat was unplanned and disjointed, and about seventy thousand troops were trapped inside. About three-fourths of the city’s population of one million fled, with Japanese firing on boats in the Yangtze, killing thousands as overloaded junks capsized. Many people were trampled in the confusion. As the Chinese authorities departed, they turned over supplies and effective auan
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practice. Prisoners were roasted over fires, doused with kerosene and set on fire, burned with chemicals, disemboweled, or buried up to the neck before torture. Rapes occurred more and more frequently and increasingly flagrantly, often on the street in broad daylight. Pregnant women, girls as young as nine, and women as old as seventy-six fell victim. Some women were gang-raped, were raped and then murdered, or saw their children murdered. Others were rounded up and kept for months in sexual bondage at camps. The grisly statistical totals for the seven weeks from December, 1937, to February, 1938, when the carnage finally subsided, are difficult to determine; official sources are often biased and the eyewitnesses were unaware of the bigger picture. Many deaths went unrecorded because of the difficulty of keeping wartime records in China. A high estimate of the death toll is 300,000; the true number is almost certainly more than 150,000. There were more than twenty thousand rapes. The overall economic loss was impossible to determine. Japanese army warehouses were filled with looted valuables. Some officers, including Nakajima, retained small fortunes in plunder, but most items were sold to defray army expenses. A study on a limited sample of individuals estimated that the average farmer lost the equivalent of 278 days of labor and the average city dweller lost 681 days. Nanjing would take more than a year to begin its economic revival. On December 12, as Nanjing was falling, Japanese forces under Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto bombed and sank an American gunboat, the USS Panay, twenty-five miles upriver from Nanjing. Lifeboats were strafed and the craft was machine-gunned from a nearby Japanese gunboat. Two American tankers, two British gunboats, and two British-flag steamers were also bombed. Four American crew members were killed and sixty were wounded; two British crew members and countless refugees were also killed. Hashimoto, an ultranationalist zealot, had done this on his own initiative in defiance of standing policy to avoid provoking the West. In contrast to the Nanjing The remains of South Station in Shanghai, which the Japanese ravaged before attackoutrages, the Japanese government ing Nanjing. (NARA) apologized officially and privately
thority to a self-appointed committee of twenty-seven foreign residents—American, British, German, and Danish missionaries, academics, and businesspeople—who established a safety zone of about two square miles in the northwest part of the city. Working tirelessly to protect a refugee population that reached a total of one-quarter million, they protested to Japanese authorities without result and restrained countless acts of individual brutality by their sheer presence, although they were never formally recognized by the Japanese. It was their diaries, letters, reports, film, and reminiscences that provided the four-thousand-page record of the atrocities in Nanjing for history and for the Allied war crimes trials. Systematic looting began as soon as Japanese troops reached the city. Evidence of command complicity lay in the organized nature of the looting and the fact that army trucks were used. Later, even refugees were stripped of their pitiful possessions. Arson was also systematic; efficient thermite strips were used to burn whole sections of what had been one of the loveliest cities in China. Tricked by notices promising good treatment, disarmed Chinese soldiers, and later virtually all males of military age, were bound and murdered by machine gun or bayonet. Many were staked and used for bayonet or sword
Rape of Nanjing and offered indemnities, which were accepted by the United States and Great Britain with little protest. Significance The attitude of the Japanese army and government at first was to ignore the events at Nanjing, treating them as a matter for the army and accepting the army’s bland fictions minimizing the horror. Later, however, Nanjing veterans on leave boasted openly of their depredations. In December, newspapers had even reported a grotesque sort of contest between two lieutenants racing to see who could cut down the most Chinese with their swords, referring to the race as “fun.” The authorities were forced to suppress virtually all mention of atrocities. Even decades later, Japanese school texts avoided the subject, and prominent officials have asserted that it never happened. The Imperial Japanese Army almost never punished a soldier for excesses (punishment was reserved for lack of aggressiveness), so punishment had to wait for the war’s end. Matsui, who had scolded his subordinates for their complicity (they laughed at him), retired after Nanjing, built a temple, and held services for the dead of Nanjing. Even though he was less guilty than most, he offered no defense and so was the only prominent officer executed specifically for the Nanjing atrocities at the Tokyo war crimes tribunal. Muto was executed for war crimes in the Philippines, Hashimoto was given a life sentence, and Prince Asaka, protected by his royal connections, escaped prosecution. Nanjing had a crucial effect on the course of the war. Japan might have won the war either with an acceptable offer of terms or with an immediate drive past Nanjing into the interior. Instead, the brutal tactics at Nanjing clearly failed to shock the Nationalists into negotiating and allowed them time to reorganize to carry on the war. This left the Japanese with the sole alternative of creating collaborationist governments, which were divided and subject to the same independent field commands that had produced the Nanjing incident. Japan’s actions in China cost it any credibility in negotiations with the United States. The breakdown of these negotiations produced the impasse that made Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor possible. The atrocities in Nanjing had a consciousness-raising effect on Japan’s reputation in the court of world opinion, particularly on American public opinion. Newspapers in the United States began reporting on the sinking of the USS Panay almost immediately. Reports on the larger disaster at Nanjing came more gradually but were regular 3062
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 after December 30. Photographs were taken by foreigners, and even by the ingenuous Japanese, of horrible scenes. Chinese shops that processed the film smuggled out duplicate prints. There was even motion-picture footage taken by the Reverend John Magee of the carnage, footage that was later used by the isolationist organization America First to frighten Americans into staying out of war. So many, however, were moved to anger and sympathy that the film was withdrawn. Nanjing was one of the great atrocities of World War II. Never quite overshadowed by the more massive but impersonal Holocaust, it remained the benchmark for personal savagery and exemplified the dilemma posed by the rights of noncombatants in any profound nationalistic or ideological conflict. —David G. Egler Further Reading Brook, Timothy, ed. Documents on the Rape of Nanking. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Collection of primary sources that document the rape of Nanjing. Divided into two parts addressing both letters and documents during the time of the invasion and records of the judicial proceedings that followed. Butow, Robert J. C. Tojo and the Coming of the War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961. More than a biography of Prime Minister Tojo, this book delineates the military-bureaucratic environment that produced the decision to go to war with the United States. A classic and a foundation for subsequent scholarly works on the political history of Japan’s part in World War II. Excellent bibliography and index. Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Vivid, horrifying account of the Nanjing attack from viewpoints of Japanese soldiers, Chinese civilians, and Westerners. Coox, Alvin D., and Hilary Conroy, eds. China and Japan: Search for Balance Since World War I. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1978. Predominantly analytic account that discusses the emperor’s role in the war. The Nanjing atrocities are seen as a watershed in the “pure military” line toward China. Some of the articles later became major works. Crowley, James B. Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930-1938. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. The major monograph on diplomacy, bureaucracy, and military decision-making. Particularly good re-
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opinion. Based on International Safety Zone Committee sources and international publications. Morley, James W., ed. The China Quagmire: Japan’s Expansion on the Asian Continent, 1933-1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Part of the seven-volume Japanese Taiheiyo senso-e no michi, translated with additional chapters and commentary. Reflecting a Japanese academic (liberal) view, it accepts all of the occurrences at Nanjing but tends to dwell on the decision-making context of the war as a whole. Wilson, Dick. When Tigers Fight: The Story of the SinoJapanese War, 1937-1945. New York: Viking Press, 1982. One of the most balanced condensed military histories of the war available. Presents astute judgments of all the major military leaders on both sides. Heavily anecdotal, with a preference for extensive quotes. Accessible style makes this an excellent work to start with on this subject. See also: Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea; Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
December 21, 1937
Disney Releases SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became a milestone in cinema history as the first full-length animated feature film. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Walt Disney (1901-1966), producer and creator of the cartoon legend Mickey Mouse and the genius behind the idea of full-length animated films Frank Thomas (1912-2004), Disney studio animation artist Eric Larson (1933-1988), Disney studio animation artist Ward Kimball (1914-2004), Disney studio animation artist Wolfgang Reitherman (1909-1985), Disney studio animation artist
Milt Kahl (1909-1987), Disney studio animation artist Les Clark (1907-1979), Disney studio animation artist Summary of Event By 1937, Walt Disney was well known by filmmakers and audiences across the country. His animated hero, Mickey Mouse, was a nationally recognized figure and had been enormously popular since Steamboat Willie was released with sound in 1928. Disney’s 1933 cartoon version of The Three Little Pigs often received larger marquee billing than the feature films at the theaters where it played. Disney’s Silly Symphony series had successfully wedded classical music to the use of color animation, and one entry in the series, Flowers and Trees, had won several film awards. Yet Walt Disney was far from being content with his position as a leading producer of short animation; he had 3063
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source for information on Sino-Japanese relations behind the scenes, in which Nanjing becomes only a part of a larger picture composed of hard decisions, misperceptions, lost opportunities, and situational imperatives. A thorough and scholarly work covering territory not dealt with elsewhere. Eastman, Lloyd. “Facets of an Ambivalent Relationship: Smuggling, Puppets, and Atrocities During the War, 1937-1945.” In The Chinese and the Japanese: Essays in Political and Cultural Interactions, edited by Akira Iriye. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. A thoughtful and intriguing glimpse behind the obvious national hatreds at the fraternization, trade, and other cooperative ventures between the two sides. Offsets the brutality of Nanjing with instances of mutual accommodation. Eastman makes no apology for the widely observed Japanese arrogance. Fogel, Joshua A., ed. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. This collection of essays analyzes the Nanjing massacre and the ways in which the issue has become a political controversy. Hsue, Shu-hsi. The War Conduct of the Japanese. Shanghai, China: Kelly & Walsh, 1938. Includes hastily compiled essays on Japanese atrocities in China. Exceedingly detailed, this volume is designed as an archive for war crimes charges and to inform public
Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a grander design in mind. One warm evening in 1934, Disney called his animators together on a soundstage at the studio. He told them the story that would become Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, acting out principal parts complete with voice intonations and facial gestures. He created suspense, filled in details, and even provided jokes and sight gags. At the end of the story, when Snow White was awakened from her deadly sleep by Prince Charming and carried away to his castle, many of the hard-boiled animators were in tears. Disney then told them that he planned to make a feature film of the story— not an eight-minute short—as complete and detailed as the story they had just heard. Financing was a problem from the outset. Despite Disney’s success with short cartoon features, few lenders were willing to risk the $500,000 that Disney originally projected as the cost of a feature film. The Depression was still stifling the American economy, and no one was
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sure that Disney could find audiences of adults as well as children who would pay to watch a feature-length cartoon. As production costs skyrocketed toward the $1,488,000 that the finished Snow White cost, Hollywood insiders dubbed the project “Disney’s Folly.” Desperate for financing to complete the film, Disney was forced to show the incomplete film to his banker. He watched, horrified, as the banker remained grim and unmoved throughout the film. At the film’s end, however, the banker turned to Disney and said, “Walt, that film is going to make you a hatful of money.” It did. Technically, the film was incredibly complex. Although actual animation did not begin until 1936, story work had been proceeding on an almost daily basis since 1934. It is estimated that more than one million drawings were made during the production of the film. Hollywood knew that a big project was afoot when Disney sent out a call for 300 artists—a staggering number for a single film, but short of the real total needed. In fact, more than 750 artists worked on the film, including 32 animators, 102 assistants, 107 “in-betweeners” (who filled in bits of action between the animator’s drawings), 20 layout artists, 25 background artists, 65 special-effects animators, and 158 inkers and painters. Technicolor was still a new process in 1937; most films, live action and animated, were still produced in black and white. Studio chemists and artists mixed more than fifteen hundred shades of paint to determine the best hues for painting charTo view image, please refer to the acters and backgrounds. This care provided a far print edition of this title. more subtle and realistic effect than did the bright primary colors of other animation. To create the most realistic possible drawings, live models were used for several principal characters. The best known was Marge Belcher, who modeled for Snow White (she later achieved fame as Marge Champion of the Marge and Gower Champion dance team). As was always true in animation, finding the right voices for characters was vital. After auditioning more than 150 women, including the popular singing actor Deanna Durbin, Disney chose Adriana Caselotti, daughter of a Los Angeles vocal coach, to be Snow White. Harry Stockwell voiced the Prince, and Pinto Colvig, better known as the voice of the Disney character Goofy, did the voices of Sleepy and Grumpy. Walt Disney poses with characters from his animated works after reDisney, sparked by childhood memories of a ceiving an honorary master of arts degree at Harvard University in 1917 silent-film version of Snow White starring 1938. (AP/Wide World Photos) Marguerite Clark, nevertheless returned to the 3064
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films, not just as background, began with Snow White and continues in the Disney studio’s productions in the twenty-first century. Significance The impact of Snow White on both Walt Disney’s career and on worldwide filmgoing audiences is hard to overstate. For Disney, the success of Snow White meant a financial and critical base from which he could launch new experiments. Snow White’s pioneering animation was succeeded by more complex animated features such as Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Sleeping Beauty (1959); by ambitious films that combined live action and animation, such as Song of the South (1946) and Mary Poppins (1964); by highly successful pioneer work in television, both fantasy and documentary; and finally by the entertainment triumphs of the Disneyland and Walt Disney World theme parks. As the concrete figures that appear to hold up the roof of the Disney headquarters building in Burbank, California, attest, Disney was indeed an empire built not only by Mickey Mouse but by seven dwarfs as well. With Snow White, animation came into its own. It was no longer only a backup for feature films or a clever device for commercials; it was a medium for capturing fantasy for an international audience of all ages. Walt Disney steadfastly maintained that he did not make films for children but for the child in himself and in all viewers. The strong personal will and tenacity that propelled him to make Snow White are reflected in his comment: “Sheer animated fantasy is still my first and deepest production impulse. The fable is the best storytelling device ever conceived, and the screen is its best medium.” — Evelyn Romig Further Reading Canemaker, John. Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation. New York: Disney Editions, 2001. Aimed at young adults, this book focuses on the nine men who created many of the most recognizable Disney films. Fully illustrated. The Complete Story of Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987. Illustrated anniversary edition of the Grimm tale that formed the basis of the Disney film. Good beginning point for reference work. Finch, Christopher. The Art of Walt Disney. Rev. ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975. A concise edition of Finch’s much larger earlier work by the same name. Provides a chapter of information on the making of Snow White and places the movie in the larger 3065
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classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale as the basis for his film. Parts of the tale were deleted; the film witch, for example, presents Snow White with only a poison apple rather than with the poison lace and combs of the original. Parts of the tale were expanded, especially the roles of the dwarfs, which are only vaguely sketched in the original. Disney experimented with as many as twentyfour dwarf names and personalities (including such alternatives as Deafy, Awful, and Burpy) before settling on the seven that achieved cinematic immortality. The ending was rendered more traditionally romantic; in the Grimm tale, Snow White awakens when the bearers drop her glass coffin and the apple flies from her throat, but Disney had the Prince awaken Snow White with love’s first kiss. Snow White had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood on December 21, 1937, and it was an enormous success with audiences, both immediately and over time. The film made $8.5 million during its first release, an astonishing figure given the fact that in 1937 a child paid a dime for theater admission. Although surpassed in 1939 by Gone with the Wind, Snow White for a time held the record as the highest-grossing motion picture ever. Furthermore, the film had several financially successful rereleases, including a special fiftieth anniversary release in 1987. Snow White was also a critical success. The New York Daily News reported in January, 1938, that “Disney has maintained faith with the Brothers Grimm in transferring the broad outline of the plot of the fairy tale to the screen, but he has drawn on his own delicious sense of humor, and that of his staff, for the delightful details that have been worked into the story.” The New York Herald Tribune also reported in January, 1938, that Disney had “taken a Grimm fairy tale and brought it to such hauntingly beautiful pictorial realization that fantasy and reality are inextricably mingled in a world of fresh wonder and enchantment.” As a further indication of the acceptance of animation as a serious art form, Snow White received an Academy Award nomination for best score (for Frank Churchill, Paul Smith, and Leigh Harline) and won a special award for Walt Disney for having produced “a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon.” The award, presented by child star Shirley Temple, consisted of one full-size Oscar and seven dwarf Oscars. The Snow White record album was the first “original soundtrack” recording ever released; prior to that time, film music was rerecorded for release on records. Disney’s use of music as a significant feature of his
Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive context of Disney’s developing art form. Contains 251 illustrations, including 170 full-color plates. Hollis, Richard, and Brian Sibley. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”: The Making of the Classic Film. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. The best single book on the making of the film. Contains backgrounds, sources, anecdotes, and a wealth of early sketches and film plans. Johnston, Ollie, and Frank Thomas. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York: Disney Editions, 1995. Johnston and Thomas were two of Disney’s original animators, and in this book they manage to both clearly explain the animation process and to give a readable history of the Disney brand. Schickel, Richard. The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney. Rev. ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997. A powerful, provocative analysis.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Probably the best biographical study of Disney. This edition adds a new introduction to the 1985 version. Thomas, Bob. Disney’s Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to “Beauty and the Beast.” New York: Hyperion, 1991. A panoramic look at the films of Disney, including those made after Walt’s death. Excellent chapter on the making of Snow White, with technical information made available in simple language. Illustrated. See also: May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry; May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres; Nov. 13, 1940: Disney’s Fantasia Premieres.
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Barnard Publishes THE FUNCTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE In The Functions of the Executive, Chester Irving Barnard established an intellectual foundation for America’s leadership by a professionalized managerial elite. Locale: Cambridge, Massachusetts Categories: Business and labor; publishing and journalism Key Figures Chester Irving Barnard (1886-1961), American management theorist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Italian economist sociologist Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), American efficiency expert Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933), American management theorist Walter S. Gifford (1885-1966), president of American Telephone and Telegraph John R. Commons (1862-1945), American labor historian and institutional economist Summary of Event Published in 1938, Chester Irving Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive filled an immense theoretical and practical void in knowledge of executive goals and of executives’ institutional and public responsibilities. De3066
spite the fact that a managerial class had been the principal force in modernizing the United States, wielding immense power as a consequence, executives carried out their functions and met responsibilities chiefly through reliance on habit and intuition. Formal analyses of what they did or how and why they did it, except in reference to profits and losses, were almost as unknown to them as their names were to the general public. Guides to rationalizing and improving their performance and to coping with their expanding responsibilities were notably lacking. Fewer still were studies produced by the kinds of people whose works executives were likely to read or whose advice they might follow—namely, other successful and experienced executives. The seminal studies of organization theorist Henri Fayol, for example, went untranslated for years. A “science” of management—of the executive’s roles in regard to the organization, the public, and the government—was still being explored in the United States by a handful of positivist and progressive social scientists in 1938, but their inquiries were far from complete. Moreover, most studies originated with academics. Their approaches to what occurs—or ought to occur—inside the organizational world of executives was marked by an understandable caution characteristic of outsiders. To be sure, a new breed of executives had appeared during the 1920’s and 1930’s. They brought fresh pre-
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cooperative system of management was based on this catholic amalgam of knowledge. Barnard’s explicit assumptions were that highly complex private and public organizations are the permanent and central characteristics of modern societies. The key role in these organizations is that of the executive. By Barnard’s estimate, five million executives were working in the United States at the time he was writing, of whom approximately one hundred thousand occupied major, mostly corporate, positions. Their authority was immense, and, in his mind, they ran American society. One issue was the legitimacy of their position in a democratic setting. According to Barnard, that legitimacy depended on their ability to satisfy the needs of individuals in their workforces and in society by efficiently delivering material goods in socially responsible ways and by enhancing the quality of individual lives. To the extent that executives meet these criteria of performance, they ensure a stable social system as well as their own longevity in authority. Significance Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive was a functionalist manifesto. Barnard regarded systems of cooperation as being alive. His concept of businesses, particularly of corporations and their executives, was therefore an organic one. The book was also a guide to scientific management that drew speculation and evidence from some of the finer minds of Barnard’s era. Barnard generously acknowledged his debts to them. His organic theories, for example, derived from works by the brilliant Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, from the distinguished English philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, and from Barnard’s Harvard colleagues Lawrence Henderson (a specialist on Pareto) and Mary Parker Follett (an authority on the dynamics of administrative control). His concepts of cooperation came from one of the great American administrators, Herbert Hoover, as well as from Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka. Barnard borrowed from sociologist Eugene Ehrlich and from the famed labor historian and institutional economist John R. Commons the idea that law itself does not confer legitimacy on authority, but, rather, legitimacy comes from the people. These are only a few of the impressive figures whose works contributed to blending Barnard’s own executive experiences with scholarly theory and abstractions. This range of creatively synthesized learning, abstrusely explained by Barnard, was heavy reading for 3067
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cepts and practices to running their corporations, thus developing their own contributions to a systematized knowledge of management that was commensurate with a mature industrial economy. Pierre S. du Pont undertook the decentralization of the Du Pont Corporation, for example, and Julius Rosenwald and Robert E. Wood restructured Sears, Roebuck. Such novel successes were swiftly studied by consultants and by academic specialists. These operations, as perceived by other executives, however, seemed idiosyncratic and thus unworthy of conscious imitation. Only much later did literature flow from them. Alfred P. Sloan, for example, did not publish what he had learned from restructuring General Motors until 1964. Thus, despite the changes and successes in management during the 1920’s and 1930’s, analyses of managerial tasks and responsibilities were still far removed from the public domain. They had little effect on the formal training of prospective executives until after World War II. This was the gap that was filled by Barnard’s pathbreaking work, combining as it did the fruits of his eclectic readings, particularly in philosophy and the social sciences, with the dividends of his high-level executive experience. Barnard received preparatory education and Christian moral instruction at Mount Hermon School and then attended Harvard University. Under the mentorship of Walter S. Gifford, Barnard joined the statistics department of American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) in 1909. Gifford’s promotion to chief executive officer of AT&T in 1925 resulted in Barnard’s promotion to the presidency of AT&T’s subsidiary, New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, in 1927. He held that position until 1948. Over time, he accompanied his presidency with the direction of several foundations as well as with government service and continuing close rapport with his Harvard faculty friends. This was the career that generated The Functions of the Executive, originally a series of eight lectures delivered at Boston’s Lowell Institute in 1937. The book carefully defines in scholarly language the nature of cooperative systems and the role of individuals within them. It examines both formal and informal organizational theory and structure as well as the bases of specialization, economic incentives, the decision-making environment, and specific executive roles and responsibilities. Recognizing the abundant technical literature available to executives on accounting, personnel, technology, and the like, Barnard stressed instead the need for a science of management that synthesizes materials from the physical, biological, and social sciences. His
Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive
Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive working executives and heady fare for prospective managers. Nevertheless, it possessed the authentic smack of science and represented the first work of its type in the United States. Business management schools, foremost Dean Wallace B. Donham’s Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, burgeoned during the decades of the management boom and a spreading awareness of the critical importance of managers. The Functions of the Executive was a perfect fit as a text for these schools and met the needs of the times. Barnard’s book was more than a timely set of nostrums that happened to appear during the years prior to World War II, a time that Peter F. Drucker, a prolific and influential American authority on management and an ideological descendant of Barnard, has described as years of management innocence, obscurity, and ignorance. By 1968, the thirtieth anniversary of the book’s first publication, it had been reprinted eighteen times. Its usefulness and relevance, and consequently its impact, had grown during the astounding organizational, managerial, and technological changes that had occurred through the decades. Barnard’s work is cited as pioneering in nearly every book Drucker wrote on managers and management. Drucker’s first influential book, The Practice of Management (1954), was designed to carry forward, clarify, and amend Barnard’s central themes. This was particularly true of Barnard’s view that managers constitute— and should constitute—the force behind the formal organizations that serve as the “concrete social process by which social action is largely accomplished.” Barnard believed that order and freedom in the United States could be combined best under the leadership of a managerial elite that knows its business, can deliver material goods, and can maintain a quality of life that ensures social stability. Because most Americans are employees, he noted, some loss of liberty is required for order to prevail, a point he stressed by quoting Aristotle. In Barnard’s view, application of the kind of knowledge dealt with in his book, in combination with refined rational and moral sensibilities among managers, legitimates managerial authority. American Progressivism furnished the context into which Barnard fit. Predominantly represented by welleducated, urban, middle-class professionals and businessmen, the Progressives sought between the 1890’s and the 1930’s to recast American life and to reorder it by applying scientific principles to nearly everything that fell under their scrutiny. Like Frederick Winslow Taylor, who premised his study of work on scientific principles so as to bring efficiency into the workplace, or Barnard’s 3068
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 colleague, Mary Parker Follett, who among many others sought scientific principles that might be applied to dynamic administration, the Progressives sanguinely believed that applications of knowledge—whether to government, to politics, or to enterprise—would ensure both a healthier democracy and social stability. Both goals could be achieved at small expense. Seen as part of this tradition, Barnard was the first American to attempt to ground executive functions on the most advanced, relevant knowledge and thereby convert management into a discipline rather than an art. The American managerial revolution was well under way when Barnard published his seminal work. Executives, among them Barnard’s friend and mentor Gifford, by 1938 were already running the United States. John Kenneth Galbraith, the liberal economist and public servant, recognized in his international best sellers The Affluent Society (1958) and The New Industrial State (1967) the triumph of managerialism. Despite worries about the conformity demanded of the “Organization Man,” Galbraith predicted that managerialism and the technostructure surrounding it would prove to be permanent. Barnard’s cooperative collectivism, which champions effectiveness over hierarchy, became the boardroom norm. Beginning in the 1970’s and continuing into the early 2000’s, evidence flowed in from social commentators, the press, polls, scholars, and even novelists that confidence in managerial leadership was undergoing a precipitous decline. This erosion, observers noted, was specific to executive leadership and did not extend to basic American institutions. Successions of business failures and scandals certainly quickened the loss of respect, as did the general perception that American technology and the quality of major American products lagged behind those of foreign competition. The erosion of confidence came from within as well. A number of major executives expressed the opinion that the vast majority of their colleagues working in Fortune’s top five hundred corporations held their jobs only for what they could get out of them and were failing in their performance if measured against legal, moral, and ethical criteria. More philosophical observers simply wondered whether any elite, no matter how golden its moments, can enjoy great longevity in a democratic society. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Barnard, Chester Irving. The Functions of the Executive. 30th anniversary ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Reprint edition of Barnard’s orig-
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Callendar Connects Industry with Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Scott, William G. Chester I. Barnard and the Guardians of the Managerial State. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992. Well-written and wellresearched work discusses Barnard and his influences. Places Barnard within the context of his times. Williamson, Oliver E., ed. Organization Theory: From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond. Expanded ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Excellent collection of essays provides information on the theoretical context into which Barnard fits. Includes index. See also: Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School; Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management; July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management; 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard; Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established; 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm; 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control.
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Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Guy Stewart Callendar noted the increasing level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere and traced it to human activity. Also known as: Greenhouse effect; Callendar effect Locale: England Categories: Science and technology; earth science; physics; chemistry; environmental issues Key Figures Guy Stewart Callendar (1898-1964), English physicist Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927), Swedish physicist and chemist Charles D. Keeling (1928-2005), American marine geochemist Bert R. Bolin (b. 1925), Swedish meteorologist Summary of Event Carbon dioxide is a colorless, tasteless, transparent gas that is present in very small quantities, about 0.03 percent by volume, in the air that humans breathe in and in larger quantities in the air that is breathed out, because it is a waste product of the process by which life is maintained.
It also has the interesting property that, while it allows the electromagnetic energy of sunlight to pass through it unhindered to the surface of the earth, when the warm surface of the ground or ocean radiates heat upward at infrared frequencies, this heat is absorbed by carbon dioxide. This process by which heat is trapped near the surface of the earth is known as the greenhouse effect. It operates for other gases in the air, but, unlike other gases, the proportion of carbon dioxide in the air is increasing steadily as a result of human activity. There is no doubt that the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A few decades after the beginning of the industrial age, scientists began to question the effect of increased burning of carbon-based fossil fuels on the atmosphere. Carbon-based fuels are the chief energy source for the earth’s population, and, as a result, the human impact on the global carbon cycle is far-reaching. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbon molecules whose chemical energy is released when they are burned, the principal emission from this combustion being carbon dioxide gas. The effect of 3069
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inal work includes an introduction by Harvard Business School professor Kenneth Richmond Andrews. Drucker, Peter F. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. 1974. Reprint. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Readable work by an acknowledged authority on all aspects of management. Includes discussion of the legitimacy of management. Gabor, Andrea. The Capitalist Philosophers: The Geniuses of Modern Business—Their Lives, Times, and Ideas. New York: Crown Business, 2000. Examines the history of American business by focusing on important individuals. Chapter 3 is devoted to discussion of Barnard. Includes selected bibliography and index. Lipset, Seymour Martin, and William Schneider. The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor, and Government in the Public Mind. Rev. ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Presents information from polls, the press, and many other sources confirming a steady decline in public confidence in managerial leadership. Includes figures, tables, index of poll results, and general index.
Callendar Connects Industry with Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
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carbon dioxide gas is that it heats the The Greenhouse Effect lower atmosphere as carbon dioxide concentrations increase. Svante August Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist Atmosphere and chemist, was one of the first to write about increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. In the mid-1880’s, he announced his survey of the first few decades of the Industrial Revolution and concluded that humans were burning coal at an unprecedented rate. Arrhenius knew Sun that carbon dioxide trapped infrared radiation that would otherwise have Earth reflected back out to space. He used measurements of infrared radiation from the full moon in his first calculations of the possible effects of anthropogenic (of human origin) carbon dioxide. His conclusions were that the average global temperature would rise as much as 9 degrees if the amount of carbon dioxide in the air doubled from its preindustrial level. In the so-called greenhouse effect, some of the heat from the Sun is reflected back into Arrhenius’s work did not gain acspace (wavy arrows), but some becomes trapped by Earth’s atmosphere and radiates ceptance until Guy Stewart Callenback toward Earth (straight arrows), heating the planet. dar, an English physicist, speculated in 1938 that increasing carbon dioxide levels were the probable cause unsystematic, and somewhat unreliable data; however, for a warming of North America and Northern Europe they agreed with later, more precise observations. that meteorologists had begun to observe in the 1880’s. Several factors worked against widespread acceptance Carbon dioxide is transparent to incoming ultraviolet but of Callendar’s study, one of which was that a warming opaque to the resulting reradiation in the infrared. Beseemed to be replaced by a temperature decline around cause carbon dioxide also absorbs incoming infrared ra1940. Another was that most scientists in the 1930’s were diation, it is an integral part of the mechanism of global too busy with the exploitation of petroleum for new prodheat balance. Without compensating charges, increased ucts and believed that the problem of excess carbon dioxlevels of carbon dioxide will result in higher temperaide would be absorbed in the oceans, not the atmosphere. tures. The increase in the effective emissivity of infrared Callendar remained convinced by his 1938 study and radiation from the earth, with resulting atmospheric heatnoted in 1958, that since 1942, the carbon dioxide content ing, is responsible for the so-called greenhouse effect. had continued to rise at a rate of about 0.2 percent per Callendar was the first to assemble a large body of meayear. Concern about atmospheric pollution as a direct resurements from several scientific sources and predict sult of humans virtually exploded in the late 1960’s, when significant temperature change from anthropogenic carmany of the industrial nations began to promulgate laws bon dioxide. and write regulations covering atmospheric pollution by Direct measurements of the temperature effects of carmanufacturers. The early work done by investigators such bon dioxide are difficult because the underlying natural as Callendar was remarkably correct considering the fact fluctuations in temperature do not provide a stable basethat the work was done during a time when there were no line against which to reference anthropogenic disturcomputers to allow for the development of models to add bances. Callendar, working from this disadvantage, colinnumerable variables and analyze them. lected data from several scientists. They were odd, rather 3070
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Callendar Connects Industry with Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Significance In the several decades after Callendar first noted that humans were causing increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it has been found that the much more abundant constituent carbon monoxide is also increasing as a result of automobile exhausts and other combustion processes. Although carbon monoxide does not make a direct impact in enhancing the greenhouse effect, it does play an indirect role by serving as a sink for the hydroxyl radical, which acts as a catalyst in modulating the increase of nitrous oxide from combustion processes. Also
contributing to carbon monoxide is the use of chemical fertilizers and the increase of methane from biogenic and industrial production. From 1957 to 1975, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increased from 312 to 326 parts per million, almost 5 percent. American scientists have measured this trend since 1957, initially under the leadership of marine geochemist Charles D. Keeling (until his death in 2005), and Swedish meteorologists, led by Bert R. Bolin, have taken measurements since 1963. Both groups of scientists have made their measurements in areas far away from any localized sources of carbon dioxide so that they might observe the background and thus the worldwide trends in carbon dioxide: the Americans on Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and at the South Pole, and the Swedes on the air-intake systems of commercial aircraft flying the polar route. In addition to research in the atmosphere, considerable research has been carried out in glacial areas of the world. In 1990, two teams of European and American researchers drilled through more than two miles of ice searching for trapped air bubbles and entombed crystals in order to discover what the weather was like during the past 200,000 years. On the summit of Greenland, the highest point on the vast ice mound that almost completely covers the world’s largest island, scientists are seeking an answer to the most pressing question in climatology: Will rising levels of carbon dioxide and methane heat the earth and melt the polar ice caps? Evidence from ice cores drilled by Soviet researchers in Antarctica have indicated that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have resulted in warmer temperatures on the earth several times during the past 200,000 years. —Earl G. Hoover Further Reading Breuer, Georg. Air in Danger: Ecological Perspectives on the Atmosphere. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Very good account of the atmosphere covers carbon dioxide increase and features a good discussion of the risks associated with higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Includes a few illustrations. Callendar, Guy S. “The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 64 (1938): 223-240. Interprets and analyzes worldwide temperature measurements and the effects of production of carbon dioxide. Includes interesting temperature charts from the great cities and oceans. Valuable primarily for historical reasons. 3071
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There are uncertainties about what has caused the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; for example, the rate of absorption of excess carbon dioxide by the ecosystem and oceans, the rate of production of carbon dioxide by destruction of forests, the cooling effect of increasing aerosols—both anthropogenic and from revived volcanic activity—and feedback effects of water vapor and clouds. Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that there is a connection, as Callendar noted in 1938, between human activity and air pollution. The energy crisis in the mid-1970’s and the increasing sophistication of numerical atmospheric circulation models have led to greatly increased interest and investigation of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect. In 1975, V. Ramanathan pointed out that the greenhouse effect is enhanced by the continued release into the atmosphere of chlorofluorocarbons, even though their combined concentration is less than a part per billion by volume. Many physicists look to the computer models and view the steadily rising concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide as a prelude to climatological catastrophe; at the other extreme, another group of scientists concentrates on more empirical data. Empirical data are those that rely on experience or observation alone, often without regard for system and theory. The empiricists believe that any change in the climate caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide will be indistinguishable from natural climatic fluctuations. They foresee that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide will tend to stimulate photosynthesis and so increase the productivity of crops and the efficiency with which plant life uses water. The empirical approach depends on finding some natural event that temporarily disturbs the heat balance of the atmosphere, such as the great dust storms of the 1930’s in the southern plains of the United States. By monitoring the temperature changes and flow of radiative heat during such natural events, scientists can measure the response of the real world to the perturbation.
Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25 Gore, Al. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1992. Argues that only a drastic rethinking of humankind’s relationship with nature can preserve the earth for the future. Includes bibliography and index. Goudie, Andrew. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present, and Future. 6th ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. Excellent general reference accessible to lay readers. Chapter 7 focuses on the human impact on climate and the atmosphere. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Idso, Sherwood B. “Carbon Dioxide Can Revitalize the Planet.” In The Greenhouse Effect, edited by Matthew Kraljic. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1992. Contends that the rising carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is beneficial and that the small amount of greenhouse warming it causes may actually enhance the biosphere. Keller, Edward A. Environmental Geology. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. Includes a well-illustrated chapter on urban air with diagrams showing the effects of various factors on potential air pollution: smog, future trends for urban areas, and the control of particulates in air pollution. Lyman, Francesca. The Greenhouse Trap. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. One of a series of books by the World Resource Institute Guides to the Environment. Dis-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 cusses the basic concerns about atmosphere and climate and the steps necessary to achieve climate stability. McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Random House, 1999. Addresses the scientific evidence about the greenhouse effect, the depletion of the ozone layer, and an array of other ecological ills. Written in a narrative style accessible to the lay reader. Revkin, Andrew. Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992. Discusses Callendar’s and Arrhenius’s early studies as well as more recent developments such as the Persian Gulf War of 1990 and the effects of industrial development in emerging nations. Includes tables and color plates. Schneider, Stephen H. Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1989. Examines the causes of world climate change and provides an authoritative, entertaining look at the science, personalities, and politics behind the problem of global warming. Explains in clear, nontechnical language what is scientifically known, what is speculative, and where major uncertainties lie. See also: 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation; 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere; Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon.
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Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25 While pursuing ergot alkaloid medicinal chemistry research, Albert Hofmann synthesized LSD-25 (lysergic acid diethylamide-25), a drug with potent psychogenic properties that were not recognized until 1943. Locale: Basel, Switzerland Categories: Science and technology; chemistry Key Figures Albert Hofmann (b. 1906), Swiss research chemist Arthur Stoll (1887-1971), Swiss chemist Werner Stoll (b. 1915), Swiss psychiatrist Summary of Event For thousands of years, human beings have searched for tranquillity, spiritual enlightenment, and guidance in understanding and defining their role in the natural world. 3072
Both primitive and modern religions frequently advocate individuals’ use of aids such as meditation, fasting, and ritual ingestion of psychoactive plants to alter perception of the world and to achieve a harmonious state of being. Mescaline, a natural substance occurring in peyote cactus, and psilocybin, found in various species of mushrooms, have been used in religious rituals in Mexico since the Aztec era; these are only two examples of the dozens of psychoactive plants distributed throughout the world. Such plants contain substances that have a profound ability to influence consciousness—the innermost essence of being. Mystical experiences are difficult to express and are often beyond words, thus a number of words have been fashioned to define and describe the psychic effects of such natural substances. Because these compounds often induce visual hallucinations (colors, patterns, objects,
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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flights of imagination) perceived by the taker as either drug-induced fantasy or less often as reality, the term “hallucinogen” is commonly employed. Such compounds also have been called “psychotomimetic” drugs because people suffering from psychoses are often plagued by hallucinations and altered states of reality. The term “psychedelic” (mind-expanding), coined by British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, was widely used in the 1960’s. Since then, the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) stands alone as having achieved a notoriety matched only by its potency. On the basis of weight, LSD is ten thousand times more active than mescaline. As told firsthand by the “father” of LSD, Albert Hofmann, in his 1980 book LSD, My Problem Child, the discovery of LSD began not as a quest for a drug with fantastic properties but as a disappointment to the chemist working in a research laboratory that was investigating derivatives of natural products for use as medicines. After completing his dissertation research at the University of Zurich, in which he determined the chemical constituents of chitin (the structural material of wings, shells, and claws of insects and crustaceans) in only three months, Hofmann joined the pharmaceutical research group at Sandoz Limited in Basel, Switzerland, in 1929. Hired by Arthur Stoll, director of the laboratory, Hofmann spent several years working with ergot alkaloids. These natural compounds are produced by a parasitic fungus of rye and were an area of interest to Stoll. In 1918, Stoll had isolated the pure active principle of ergot, ergotamine, and this natural product was used widely as a treatment for migraine and as a hemostatic remedy in obstetrics to stop uterine bleeding after childbirth. In the early 1930’s, several research groups, including Sandoz, published simultaneous reports that the principal active ingredient of ergotamine was a simple alkaloid, subsequently named ergobasine by Stoll. By chemical degradation, it was determined that ergobasine was composed of two chemical constituents: lysergic acid and the amino alcohol, propanolamine. With this knowledge and further research into the chemistry of these compounds, Hofmann began to synthesize many artificial ergot alkaloids, all derivatives of lysergic acid. In 1938, Hofmann produced his twenty-fifth substance in a series of lysergic acid derivatives, lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD-25 (based on the German name for the compound, Lysergsaure-diathylamid). This synthesis had been planned to produce a compound with properties similar to the drug Coramine, a circulatory and respiratory stimulant. Animal tests with
Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25
Albert Hofmann. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
LSD-25, however, aroused no special interest at Sandoz. Further testing was discontinued and LSD was forgotten. Over the next five years, Hofmann developed several commercially successful drugs including Hydergine, an effective geriatric remedy that was Sandoz’s most successful pharmaceutical product. Despite his obvious successes, Hofmann decided to produce LSD-25 once again to provide samples to the pharmacology department for further testing, an unusual undertaking as the compound had been rejected already for further testing. On April 16, 1943, when Hofmann was performing the final purification step of the synthesis of LSD-25, he was affected by dizziness and a remarkable restlessness. He stopped working and went home, where, as he later reported to Stoll, he “sank into a not unpleasant intoxicatedlike condition, characterized by an . . . uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.” Hofmann attributed this remarkable experience to working with LSD-25, but he was skeptical. He was a chemist who had worked with very toxic compounds for 3073
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Hofmann later described the next two hours as a nightmare. He was convinced In the foreword to his 1980 book LSD, My Problem Child, Hofmann both that he had poisoned himself and that he extolled and warned of the hallucinogenic properties of the drug: was going to die, but neither his assistant nor the doctor who was summoned to atThere is today a widespread striving for mystical experience, for visionary tend him observed anything out of the orbreakthroughs to a deeper, more comprehensive reality than that perdinary about him physically other than ceived by our rational, everyday consciousness. Efforts to transcend our extremely dilated pupils. His respiration materialistic world view are being made in various ways, not only by the and heartbeat were normal, and the assisadherents to Eastern religious movements, but also by professional psytant said they had bicycled to his home at chiatrists, who are adopting such profound spiritual experiences as a basic a good speed. With the constant assurtherapeutic principle. I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis ances of his companions, by 8:00 p.m. pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only Hofmann was no longer panic-stricken, by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialisalthough this LSD experience was much tic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward stronger than his previous experience a a new consciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the few days earlier. One hallucinogenic feaexperiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate ture of the drug that astounded Hofmann nature and all of creation. was synesthesia, the overflow from one Everything that can contribute to such a fundamental alteration in our sensory modality to another in which perception of reality must therefore command earnest attention. Foremost colors are “heard” and sounds may be among such approaches are the various methods of meditation, either in a “seen.” The effects subsided gradually religious or a secular context, which aim to deepen the consciousness of and he was able to sleep. reality by way of a total mystical experience. Another important, but still controversial, path to the same goal is the use of the consciousness-alterThe next morning, feeling refreshed ing properties of hallucinogenic psychopharmaceuticals. LSD finds such and without a hangover, Hofmann went an application in medicine, by helping patients in psychoanalysis and psyto work and reported on the previous chotherapy to perceive their problems in their true significance. day’s experiences to Stoll and Ernst RothDeliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD lin, director of the pharmacology laboraand related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experitory. Both expressed disbelief that the ences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must dose of a fraction of a milligram of LSD take into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their could have such effects; a psychoactive ability to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. compound of such potency seemed unThe history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consebelievable. Several days later, Rothlin quences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the suband two colleagues repeated Hofmann’s stance is mistaken for a pleasure drug. LSD experiment but took only one-third Source: Albert Hofmann, foreword to LSD, My Problem Child, translated by the dose that Hofmann had ingested. The Jonathan Ott (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980). effects they experienced were remarkable, and all doubts about Hofmann’s statements were eliminated. years and had meticulous work habits. He wondered if a It was determined later that for his first self-experidrop of the chemical had touched his fingertips. If so, ment, Hofmann ingested five to eight times the optimal LSD-25 was a very potent psychogenic compound. With dose of LSD necessary to achieve the psychedelic state. the full knowledge of Stoll and his assistants, Hofmann LSD is such a potent substance that experimental doses carefully planned a self-experiment with LSD-25. As rein humans are calculated in micrograms (one microgram corded in his laboratory notebook, Hofmann took merely equals one-millionth of a gram) per kilogram body 0.25 milligram of the drug dissolved in water at 4:20 p.m. weight. on April 19, 1943. At 5:00 p.m., he recorded that he felt Laboratory animal studies proved to be of little value dizzy, anxious, and had visual distortions and an urge to in examining the psychic effects of LSD because lower laugh. That was his last entry in the notebook. Hofmann animals do not respond to the drug except at extremely became overwhelmed by the hallucinogenic experience high doses. Animal studies have demonstrated that LSD and asked his assistant to escort him home by bicycle. has an extremely low toxicity potential in comparison to
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 its effective dose in humans. There are no recorded deaths attributed to the direct action (overdose) of LSD, although deaths have been recorded as accidents or as suicides accomplished under the influence of LSD. The danger of the drug lies not in its toxicity, but rather in the unpredictability of its psychic effects.
abandoned the drug, but Leary continued to advocate the use of LSD, encouraging people to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” The LSD movement expanded rapidly to students, writers, and artists who were more interested in the possibilities of self-exploration of the psychedelic experience than in scientific experimentation. By 1967, the “psychedelic age” had arrived and evolved into a distinct subculture with its own language, music, and art forms. LSD came to be known as “acid,” and users were “acid heads.” An LSD experience was a “trip.” Words like “bummer” and “bad trip” were used to describe panic or psychotic reactions to LSD. Bright fluorescent colors appeared in the palettes of psychedelic artists. Many popular music groups of the day recorded songs with veiled references to drugs in their lyrics; the music of several San Francisco-based bands—including Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead—became known as “acid rock.” The use of LSD declined sharply at the end of the 1960’s because of widely publicized concern over “bad trips,” prolonged psychotic reactions, and personality changes in some people who took the drug. Other publicized adverse effects of LSD (chromosome damage and birth defects), although never validated, contributed to this decline. By 1970, U.S. law included LSD in the same regulatory category as the narcotic heroin, as a drug with no proven, effective use in medicine or scientific investigations. — Brian L. Roberts Further Reading Bowman, William C., and Michael J. Rand. Textbook of Pharmacology. 2d ed. Oxford, England: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1980. Chapter titled “Psychotropic Drugs” offers brief treatment of the history and pharmacology of major hallucinogens. Chapter titled “Social Pharmacology: Drug Use for Nonmedical Purposes” describes the spread of LSD from controlled clinical experiments to street use and discusses adverse psychiatric reactions and social consequences of LSD use; dismisses some of the dangers attributed to LSD. Hoffer, A., and Humphry Osmond. The Hallucinogens. New York: Academic Press, 1967. Indispensable resource for any serious student of hallucinogens. Extensive literature review covers the history, pharmacology, and psychiatric uses of LSD, how the drug works, and the psychedelic state of mind induced by the drug. 3075
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Significance In 1947, Werner Stoll, a Zurich psychiatrist and the son of Arthur Stoll, was the first to publish reports of selfexperiments with LSD and results of experimental studies involving both healthy normal volunteers and psychiatric patients. In 1953, Sandoz applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to study LSD as an investigational new drug and supplied the drug to authorized investigators. In the 1950’s, hundreds of scientific papers were written that examined the use of LSD as a model for psychosis, as a psychotherapeutic aid to help patients see themselves and their problems from a detached perspective, in the treatment of alcoholism, and as therapy for terminal cancer patients to help them deal with their own mortality. A darker side of investigations with LSD evolved as well. The U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency both conducted experiments with LSD as a chemical warfare agent and as a sort of “truth serum” for interrogating spies and prisoners of war. Many of the subjects were dosed secretly with LSD. It was later revealed that the Army sponsored LSD experimental research on more than fourteen hundred people between 1956 and 1967 that often blatantly violated ethical codes of conduct established for experiments with human subjects. In the mid-1950’s, Aldous Huxley, a philosopher and writer, published two books (The Doors of Perception, 1954; Heaven and Hell, 1956) describing his experiences with the peyote cactus hallucinogen, mescaline. Huxley’s concept of “chemical keys” as an alternative to meditation to alter one’s perception attracted the attention of two Harvard University professors, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. These researchers began studies with graduate students using the mushroom hallucinogen psilocybin but later used LSD as the drug of choice. Although the original work was conducted under proper scientific controls and with a physician present, by 1963, the studies apparently had become little more than off-campus LSD parties, with no semblance of scientific method applied. Leary and Alpert were dismissed from the university. Alpert moved to the West Coast and
Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25
John Muir Trail Is Completed Hofmann, Albert. LSD, My Problem Child. Translated by Jonathan Ott. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Excellent firsthand account of the history of LSD. Describes Hofmann’s career as a chemist at Sandoz and conveys the excitement and joys of a scientist immersed in his work. Details his collaboration with Albert Stoll on ergot alkaloids, his self-experiments with LSD, and his later work with other hallucinogens. The last third of the book is devoted to Hofmann’s encounters with people such as Huxley and Leary. Jaffe, Jerome H. “Drug Addiction and Drug Abuse.” In Goodman and Gilman’s the Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, edited by A. S. Gilman, L. S. Goodman, I. W. Rall, and F. Murad. 7th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1985. Presents a good explanation and description of the altered states of consciousness and the hallucinations induced by LSD as well as standard pharmacology text discussions of the pharmacology and toxicity of LSD. Julien, Robert M. A Primer of Drug Action: A Concise, Nontechnical Guide to the Actions, Uses, and Side Ef-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 fects of Psychoactive Drugs. Rev. ed. New York: Owl Books, 2001. Comprehensive coverage of psychoactive substances for general readers. Chapter 12 discusses psychedelic drugs, including LSD. Ray, Oakley, and Charles Ksir. Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Thorough treatment of hallucinogens includes an interesting discourse on the history, use, and politics of LSD during the 1960’s. Suitable for nonscientists. Stevens, Jay. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. New York: Perennial Library, 1987. Looks back at the 1960’s psychedelic movement as part comedy, part tragedy. Presents sketches of many of the advocates of LSD use, including Leary, poet Allen Ginsberg, and novelist Ken Kesey. Describes the CIA’s experiments with LSD and discusses the impact of the era on American life. See also: Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
1938
John Muir Trail Is Completed With the completion of Forester Pass, the 212-mile John Muir Trail, which runs along the crest of the Sierra Nevada, made a unique wilderness experience possible for more people. Locale: California Categories: Environmental issues; travel and recreation Key Figures John Muir (1838-1914), American naturalist and wilderness preservation advocate Theodore S. Solomons (1870-1947), charter member of the Sierra Club William E. Colby (1875-1964), secretary of the Sierra Club Summary of Event Forester Pass in the Sierra Nevada, 13,150 feet above sea level, was the last portion of the John Muir Trail to be completed. Work began on the pass in 1930; because the pass was located on the boundary of the Sequoia National Forest and the Sequoia National Park, both the De3076
partment of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior provided crews for the project. Forester Pass, sometimes called the Golden Staircase, is a narrow notch 187 miles from the north end of the trail, beginning at Happy Isles, 4,035 feet above sea level. The view from the pass includes several lakes, Kern Canyon, the KingsKern Divide, and the treacherous Kaweah Peaks. It was appropriate that this mountain trail should be named for naturalist and mountaineer John Muir. Muir had come to Yosemite in 1868 after emigrating to Wisconsin from Dunbar, Scotland, and the beauty of the region had captivated him. The following year, he worked as a shepherd in the High Sierras, exploring and recording his experiences. Later, he wrote books and articles, published his drawings, and gave lectures on his wilderness experiences. In 1892, Muir helped to found the Sierra Club. Initially, the club limited its efforts to the conservation of wildlife and the natural formations of the Sierra Nevada. In 1903, Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt camped together in Yosemite, an experience that underlay the significant conservation efforts of the Roosevelt administration.
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Sierra Club members, who explored, photographed, climbs to the summit of Mount Whitney, at 14,494 feet and mapped the High Sierra region, were pioneers in the highest point in the contiguous United States. Thirtygenerating the public support needed for developing the eight lateral trails connect the John Muir Trail to automoJohn Muir Trail. The club published information that entive routes, and there is an 8-mile extension to the trail on abled many hikers to experience the wonders of the area, which hikers can wind down the eastern side of Mount and club members led small expeditions. The club made Whitney to Whitney Portal. handbooks available that explained the geography, geolThe idea for the trail began in 1888 in the mind of ogy, and plant and animal life of the High Sierra region, fourteen-year-old Theodore S. Solomons, who was provided information on side routes along the major secworking on a cattle ranch in the High Sierra. Solomons tions of the trail, and described techniques for living in could see the mountain peaks in the distance, and he enthe wilderness. visioned a route that horses and mules could travel while Once the John Muir Trail was completed, hikers carrying heavy camping items. In 1888, twenty-three could begin at the northern end in Yosemite Valley and years before the trail actually began to be constructed, follow the natural ridges and valleys of the High Sierra. Solomons explored the possibility of a trail southward Some portions were old sheep and Indian trails. South of from Yosemite Valley, and three years later, he forged a the Yosemite area, the trail never drops below 7,500 feet, trail from Yosemite Valley one hundred miles south. and the altitude increases steadily to Cathedral Pass at Many of these paths form portions of the northern half of 9,700 feet, 17.3 miles from the trail’s beginning. At this the John Muir Trail. Beginning in 1898, Joseph N. Lepoint, the trail affords a view of Upper Cathedral Lake. Over the next 4.2 miles, the trail descends 1,100 The John Muir Trail feet to the Tuolumne Meadows and, 0.7 miles further on, to Soda Springs, Hawthorne = John Muir Trail Muir’s favorite campsite. After that, the trail ascends again to Donohue old Pass, at the southeastern boundary of Yosemite National Park. Devils Postpile National MonuN e va d a Mono Yosemite Lake National ment lies 56 miles south of the trailra Park Lee head. The area is marked by a wall of Devils Vining TUOLUMNE Postpile polygonal columns created by basalt MEADOWS National that poured from a volcano about Monument 100,000 years ago. Most of the colMammoth Lakes umns are five- or six-sided, and some are sixty feet tall. Another climb of Mariposa 2,500 feet and 12.4 miles brings the Bishop Oakhurst trail to Duck Pass, which lies at one d end of Duck Lake, one of the largest Big Pine howchilla lakes in the High Sierra; it can be reached only by trails. California Madera Over the next 54.9 miles, the Kings Independence trail’s altitude fluctuates between Canyon 10,860 and 7,750 feet. Sapphire Lake National MOUNT Park WHITNEY lies at 11,000 feet and Wanda Lake Sanger San Joaquin Lone Pine at 11,500 feet. The Muir Pass is at Sequoia Reedley Selma 11,955 feet. The next high points on National Park Owens the trail are Mather Pass at 12,000 Woodlake Lake feet, Pinchot Pass at 12,100 feet, and Hanford Visalia Forester Pass. After that, the trail Huron does not drop below 10,000 feet as it Tulare
John Muir Trail Is Completed Conte and other Sierra Club members explored the difficult passes and canyons of the southern section near the Kings-Kern Divide; this area was later found to require much more blasting and construction than the northern half of the trail. The specific proposal for the trail was formulated in 1914, the year John Muir died. The project was funded by the California legislature and placed under the direction of state engineer Wilbur F. McClure. Construction began in 1917. The U.S. Forest Service contributed to the development of the trail, and the Sierra Club lobbied for state appropriations until the trail was completed in 1938. The total cost was $50,000. Significance Even during the twenty-one years of the construction of the John Muir Trail, many people enjoyed the completed sections of trail. By 1934, the increased use of Tioga Road to Tuolumne Meadows required that it be improved. William E. Colby, a Sierra Club secretary who had worked to develop the John Muir Trail and make the mountains accessible to many people, petitioned the National Park Service not to reroute the road, as had been suggested, because the rerouted road would harm the wilderness that Muir wished people to enjoy. The Park Service followed Colby’s and the Sierra Club’s recommendations. The completion of Forester Pass made one of the most scenic spots in the High Sierra accessible to many people, even the occasional hiker. Previously an animal crossing on the Kings-Kern Divide, the pass had been difficult for any but trained mountaineers to reach. A plaque at the pass, erected by fellow workers, honors Donald Davis, who died on September 2, 1930, at the age of nineteen in a rock slide during construction of Forester Pass. In 1939, the Sierra Club made the protection of the high country around the John Muir Trail one of its main priorities. In 1940, the club supported a bill that established the King’s Canyon National Park in 1940. Together with the Sequoia National Park, this area formed an 11,320-square-mile twin-park wilderness region. The completion of the John Muir Trail through Forester Pass also helped promote the development of the Pacific Crest Trail System, which Clinton Clark initiated in the 1930’s and which eventually ran along the entire length of the West Coast. This trail was linked to the 442mile Oregon Skyline Trail and to 185 miles of the John Muir Trail—the area from Forester Pass through Devils Postpile National Monument and Donahue Pass to Tuol3078
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 umne Meadows. Later, these trails were connected with the 445-mile Cascade Crest Trail in Washington, which was completed in 1941. Eventually, the John Muir Trail passed through three national parks (Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon), one national monument (Devils Postpile), and four national wilderness areas (John Muir, Sequoia, Minarets— now known as Ansel Adams—and Kings Canyon). This caused some problems, because each park and area had its own regulations. For example, the Forest Service, under the Department of Agriculture, promoted an “adopt-a-trail” policy in the wilderness areas and allowed in-season hunting, guns, and dogs on trails adjacent to the John Muir Trail itself. The service considered site restoration and trail maintenance to be priorities; over the years, however, the service’s focus gradually shifted from conservation toward preservation. The parks administered by the Department of the Interior employed park rangers who enforced strict regulations, including rules against pack trains, which the early developers of the trail saw as the only way some people could enjoy the trail. Hunting and firearms were not allowed in these park areas, and vehicles, even helicopters, were used to move working crews to their assignments, to remove garbage, and to undertake rescue work. Because the John Muir Trail proved so popular, permits became necessary to control the number of people using it. This presented many questions, among them whether the land is more important than the people. Use of the trail showed the need for the application of scientific management techniques, not only to care for the land but also to influence government and private action. Since its completion, the John Muir Trail has offered a prime example of the need to maintain a delicate balance between policies that protect wilderness and policies that allow people to enjoy it. —Rose A. Bast Further Reading Cohen, Michael P. The History of the Sierra Club, 18921970. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988. Provides excellent background information on the organization primarily responsible for the development of the John Muir Trail. Fishbein, Seymour L. Wilderness U.S.A. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1973. Excellent collection of photographs taken in wilderness areas, including the four through which the John Muir Trail passes.
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tionship with the wilderness. Begins with the earliest days of European contact. Roth, Hal. Pathway in the Sky: The Story of the John Muir Trail. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell North Books, 1965. Provides a history of the trail and information on its geology and wildlife. Also describes the area around Forester Pass. Starr, Walter A., Jr. Starr’s Guide to the John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Region. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1974. Trail guide continually revised and updated since it was first published in 1934. Includes detailed map and description of the trail as well as an excellent history. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite; Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams.
1938-1950
Golden Age of American Science Fiction The entry of scientifically trained writers and editors into the science-fiction magazine market significantly increased the quality of the genre, making the 1940’s the Golden Age of American science fiction. Locale: United States Category: Literature Key Figures John W. Campbell, Jr. (1910-1971), engineer turned science-fiction writer and editor who launched the careers of virtually all the great writers of the period Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), scientist, science writer, and science-fiction writer first published, by Campbell, at the age of eighteen Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), most popular writer of the Golden Age, controversial for the strong political views in his fiction Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985), most consciously prose-oriented stylist of the Golden Age, known for taking science fiction beyond various taboos
A. E. van Vogt (1912-2000), influential science-fiction writer of the 1940’s whose ideas about nonAristotelian logic form the premise for his stories, most of which have superhuman protagonists Summary of Event The story of America’s Golden Age of science fiction is the story of the “pulp” magazines. Until the end of the 1940’s, little science fiction was published in book form. Novels usually were serialized in the pulps, cheap magazines named for the rough, cheap, pulpy newsprint on which they were printed. The pulps were the major forum for adventure stories of the mystery, detective, Wild West, and sea-adventure genres. In the beginning, science fiction simply followed the established pulpadventure formula. The roots of the Golden Age can be dated quite specifically. In April of 1926, the first magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction appeared: Amazing Stories, edited by Hugo Gernsback. To be sure, science fiction 3079
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Lantis, David W., Rodney Steiner, and Arthur E. Karinen. California: Land of Contrast. 3d rev. ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1981. Provides a short summary of the history of the John Muir Trail and a detailed account of the various areas through which the trail passes. Also discusses trails that join the John Muir Trail. Includes many black-and-white photographs. Lowe, Don, and Roberta Lowe. The John Muir Trail: A Complete Hiking Guide. 1982. Reprint. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 2001. Presents a historical summary as well as a careful description of the trail. Describes wildlife and rock formations to be found along the trail as well as road exits and side trails. Includes black-and-white photographs and detailed maps. Muir, John. The Yosemite. 1912. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2003. Excellent source of insight into Muir’s personality and his struggle to protect his beloved Yosemite. The tone is lyrical in places, providing the reader with vivid word pictures of the High Sierra scenery. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Intellectual history of Americans’ rela-
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Golden Age of American Science Fiction appeared in other periodicals, and Gernsback’s science and technology monthlies, such as Modern Electrics, had published and encouraged science stories as early as 1911. In Amazing Stories, however, science fiction for the first time could find its own identity without competing with other forms of fiction. Gernsback’s ideal was a fiction that combined literary skill with scientific plausibility. That ideal was not achieved for another decade, and then by another editor. In September of 1937, a young engineer who had been publishing science fiction in Amazing Stories since 1930 (Gernsback was no longer editor) was invited to take over as editor of a magazine with a similar title: Astounding Stories. His name was John W. Campbell, Jr., and he remained at the helm of the magazine—which changed its name twice during his tenure—until his death in 1971. He introduced more talented writers than any other editor of the period. The writers who dominated the Golden Age of the 1940’s were almost all first published by Campbell: Lester del Rey and L. Ron Hubbard in 1938; Isaac
Isaac Asimov. (Library of Congress)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, and A. E. van Vogt in 1939; C. M. Cornbluth in 1940; Hal Clement in 1942; Arthur C. Clarke in 1946; Poul Anderson in 1947; and Judith Merril in 1948. The few science-fiction writers of any stature who did not come through Campbell’s stable in the 1940’s—James Blish, Ray Bradbury, and Damon Knight—were influenced by those who did. Campbell’s high editorial standards were largely responsible for the quality of the work produced during the Golden Age. The pieces he chose told readers and writers what the new measure of science fiction would be. Notably, Campbell avoided the scientifically absurd travesties scornfully dubbed “space operas” by science-fiction fans. In editorials and letters pages, his principles were articulated more directly: He required solid scientific plausibility and the same basic standards of literary quality set by any other genre. Four writers who delivered both, and who came to dominate the genre, owed their start to Campbell. Their first works in Astounding Stories all appeared in 1939. The first was Isaac Asimov, whose short story “Marooned off Vesta” appeared in the March issue. As a chemistry major at Columbia University preparing for graduate school, Asimov was confident of the scientific quality of his writing. Under Campbell’s guidance, he soon developed a literary craftsmanship to match. Campbell’s influence can be seen in Asimov’s two most important contributions to science fiction: the three laws of robotics and the psychohistory that is the basis of his Foundation series. The three laws explained how robots would be governed in their relationships with humans. Psychohistory, involving prediction of the future and guidance of its course through human psychology, was born out of a discussion Asimov had with Campbell about Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788). The second Campbell find of 1939 was Robert A. Heinlein, an older man who also had done graduate study in the sciences. His major contribution to the Golden Age, the “future history” concept, also owed much to Campbell’s influence. Campbell had noticed that many of Heinlein’s stories referred to the same characters and events, as if Heinlein had a coherent picture of a possible future. He had, and Campbell began referring to Heinlein’s “future history” in the February, 1941, issue of Astounding Stories, in which an outline of the concept was eventually published. Campbell’s influence on his third discovery of 1939, Theodore Sturgeon, may have been more negative than
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quickly made the American public aware that science had caught up with fiction. Another boom time for science fiction came immediately after the war. The major writers from before the war began writing again, and several new writers appeared. Many influential British science-fiction magazines appeared in 1946, emulating (and sometimes reprinting) the best stories of the American Golden Age. Arthur C. Clarke was published in these British pulps, although his first publication was in Campbell’s Astounding Stories in 1946. The American magazines that had survived the war were stronger than ever, but new developments in publishing occurred in the last years of the Golden Age that would end the pulp magazines’ exclusive hold on science fiction. The first was the advent of paperback publishing during the war. Many publishing houses at that time produced inexpensive newsprint versions of their bestselling titles, with spaces on the back cover for addressing. The intent was for civilians to buy them and mail them to servicemen overseas. The paperback form, without the address labels, remained after the war, and science fiction found a home in the paperback industry. Significance The end of the 1940’s also saw Golden Age science fiction published for the first time in hardcover form, as short-story anthologies and novels previously serialized in the pulps. Four small presses specializing in science fiction sprang up in the 1940’s: Advent, Fantasy, Gnome, and the horror-story publisher Arkham House. When these houses proved that it was economically feasible to publish science fiction outside pulp magazines, Doubleday became the first mainstream publisher to try it. Charles Scribner’s Sons launched a series of “boys’ books” by Robert A. Heinlein, beginning with Rocket Ship Galileo in 1947. For the most part, paperback and hardcover science fiction continued the style and themes of the Golden Age. Hugo Gernsback’s emphasis on gadgets had changed to John Campbell’s focus on people. The scope of stories broadened, however, following the Golden Age. Instead of reading about individuals encountering new ideas and technologies, readers began to see stories about the effects of those ideas and technologies on society at large. To put it another way, the science of science fiction had been drawn from the physical sciences in the Golden Age. In the second half of the twentieth century, it would be drawn from the social sciences, including anthropology, sociology, and psychology. 3081
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positive, in that Campbell represented the moral taboos against which Sturgeon would later struggle to break free. Sturgeon’s Golden Age work stayed within Campbell’s guidelines, but the language and style of his stories of the 1940’s pushed the limits of science fiction. Sturgeon was the first true stylist of American science fiction; he had a sophisticated ear for the sound and rhythm of prose. Sturgeon made science fiction sing without endangering its value as story or science. A. E. van Vogt, the last science-fiction giant to emerge in 1939, is the only one of the four whose influence has not lasted. His novel Slan, serialized in Astounding Stories in 1940, introduced the first of a series of superhuman heroes persecuted by an inferior majority who feared them. The stories were tremendously popular until it became uncomfortably obvious that they presented an ugly potential for science-fiction writers and readers to see themselves as just such misfits with a supposed superiority. Nevertheless, van Vogt remained one of Campbell’s most popular writers through the end of the Golden Age. Although the beginning of the Golden Age was signaled by Campbell’s rise as editor, its end was not dependent on Campbell’s retirement, and he remained an influential editor until his last issue of Analog (formerly Astounding Stories) in December of 1971. However, several developments conspired to lessen Campbell’s influence, and most of these had nothing to do with the nature of science fiction. The first major influence was World War II. Campbell lost his best writers to the war effort. The most scientifically gifted were assigned to war-related scientific research; Asimov and Heinlein, in fact, worked in the same laboratory in Philadelphia. Moreover, the government appropriated more than Campbell’s writers. The war effort needed paper, and science fiction, like all literary fields, lost many magazine titles during the war. In 1941, there were twenty major science-fiction magazines; by the end of the war, there were seven. The influence of a watershed event like World War II is not, of course, limited to personnel and paper. As Asimov later pointed out in his essays on the Golden Age, a single moment at the end of the war changed the world’s attitude toward science fiction forever. That was the world’s abrupt entry into the atomic age, when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suddenly, everything the science-fiction writers had suggested about atomic power became horribly real. The concurrent fight for Adolf Hitler’s rocket scientists and the subsequent race with the Soviets to get into space
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Golden Age of American Science Fiction To some extent, Heinlein and Asimov, both Campbelltrained Golden Age writers, had anticipated this shift. From the beginning, many of Heinlein’s stories dealt with psychological issues. Heinlein complained that editors were rejecting such stories for lack of “scientific” content. Asimov’s Foundation series, similarly, had sociological and psychological premises in its use of psychohistory. Both Heinlein and Asimov, however, were trained in the physical sciences and always had some of that orientation in their stories. The rise of two new and different science-fiction magazines, Fantasy and Science Fiction (which began in the fall of 1949) and Galaxy (beginning in October of 1950), proclaimed the end of the Golden Age by taking science fiction in a new direction. A greater emphasis on prose style, the courting of mainstream writers, and an aim at a more adult audience characterized these two titles. Although it differed in many respects from the science fiction that preceded it, this newer fiction still showed the influence of the Golden Age, in which a successful balance was found between science and fiction. —John R. Holmes Further Reading Aldiss, Brian W. Billion Year Spree. New York: Schocken Books, 1973. A history of science fiction that takes into account concurrent movements in literature outside the field. Written by an important science-fiction writer of the later “New Wave” movement who is not blinded by nostalgia for the Golden Age. Asimov, Isaac. Asimov on Science Fiction. New York: Avon Books, 1981. A collection of periodical essays, mostly editorials from Asimov’s science-fiction magazine. Chapters are arranged by topic. Two chapters deal with the Golden Age in general, and two specifically with Campbell. Disch, Thomas M. The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. New York: Free Press, 1998. An excellent introduction to
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the genre. The author treats his material seriously and without bias. Among other discussions, Disch makes an interesting case for Edgar Allan Poe as the father of modern science fiction and analyzes the successful development of L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology. Fiedler, Leslie A., ed. In Dreams Awake. New York: Dell Books, 1975. A critical anthology of short stories, with helpful introductions to each section. Both the general introduction and the introduction to the Golden Age section contain vital insights regarding the period. Fiedler is the most important mainstream critic to write on the Golden Age. Moskowitz, Sam. Seekers of Tomorrow. New York: Ballantine, 1967. A series of critical biographies of the major writers in science fiction up to the mid1960’s. Chapters on Asimov, Campbell, Heinlein, Sturgeon, and van Vogt are included. Moskowitz, the editor of Gernsback’s last science-fiction magazine, knew most of the major writers professionally. Robinson, Frank M. Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century. Tigard, Oreg.: Collector’s Press, 1999. Although some of the text lacks substance, this book’s vast array of beautiful, full-color images is worth noting. The latter sections of the book focus more on the role of science fiction in film than on its literary history. Wingrove, David. The Science Fiction Source Book. New York: Van Nostrand, 1984. The bulk of this book is an encyclopedia of science-fiction writers, rarely with more than one hundred words per entry. A brief history of science fiction by Brian W. Aldiss opens the book, and an essay on science-fiction magazines by Wingrove appears as an appendix. Both essays provide insight into the Golden Age. See also: 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation; Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism; 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books; Sept., 1937: Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity
January, 1938
Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa developed ideas relating to superfluidity in liquid helium and techniques that remain basic to modern low-temperature physics. Locale: Institute for Physical Problems, Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Science and technology; physics
Summary of Event A thorough and systematic study of the properties of materials whose temperature is close to absolute zero was made possible when, in 1908, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes of the University of Leiden succeeded in liquefaction of helium. Among many unexpected properties, it was found that electrical resistance of many metals approached a constant as the temperature was lowered, and in some cases it vanished entirely at some characteristically low temperature, found to depend on the magnetic field. Kamerlingh Onnes thus had discovered superconductivity in liquefying helium, and for his many achievements in the area of low-temperature physics, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913. By 1920, as the properties of various metals near liquid helium temperature (4.20 Kelvins) were being investigated, it became evident that liquid helium exhibits strange and unusual properties around 2.20 Kelvins, thus making it a subject of intense study. In 1924, Kamerlingh Onnes and coworkers found that liquid helium density has a maximum at around 2.30 Kelvins, and a graph of density versus temperature shows a cusp rather than a smooth curve as in the analogous case of water. After several attempts, Willem Hendrik Keesom of Leiden succeeded in solidifying liquid helium under several atmospheric pressures and showed that the melting curve (pressure versus temperature) bends at the lower end so as to appear almost parallel to the temperature axis. This led Kamerlingh Onnes to surmise that under atmospheric pressure, helium may remain a liquid down to absolute zero temperature. By 1927, Keesom and coworkers observed an increase in the dielectric constant of liquid helium, as well as peculiar variations in the specific heat at
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Key Figures Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894-1984), Soviet physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926), Dutch physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), English physicist Lev Davidovich Landau (1908-1968), Soviet physicist
around 2.20 Kelvins. It was suggested that a phase change in liquid helium occurs at 2.19 Kelvins such that normal “liquid helium I” prevails at higher temperature and stable “liquid helium II” exists at lower temperature. A curve of specific heat of liquid helium as a function of temperature resembles the Greek letter lambda, and the critical temperature at which phase transition occurs is known as the “lambda point.” In addition to these accumulated perplexing properties of liquid helium, in 1935, Keesom and his daughter A. P. Keesom discovered that helium II exhibits a seemingly infinite thermal conductivity. At the University of Cambridge, John Frank Allen and his collaborators, in addition to confirming Keesom’s result, showed that the thermal conductivity of helium II differed from the ordinary because of its dependence on the temperature gradient. In 1938, Allen and his coworkers were to find two of the three important properties of helium II. Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa arrived at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory in 1921. After initially working under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford, he received his Ph.D. in 1923 and remained at Cambridge until 1934. By early 1930, he was honored by the Royal Society of Science and installed as a Royal Society Professor and as director of the newly constructed Mond Laboratory. During this time, Kapitsa had achieved “liquefaction of helium by an adiabatic method without precooling with liquid hydrogen,” a common procedure since Kamerlingh Onnes’s work. Kapitsa returned to the Soviet Union in 1934 for a visit and was not permitted to leave (until 1965); he was named director of the new Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow in 1935. The apparent lack of “explanation to the abnormal thermal conductivity of helium II” evident from Keesom’s experimental results, confirmed by Allen and collaborators, provided the setting for Kapitsa’s work. In an article that appeared in Nature in January, 1938, he suggested that the thermal conductivity of helium II, below the lambda point, occurs via the convection currents rather than the normal conduction process. He pointed out that such convection current can be maintained only if the viscosity of helium II is exceedingly low. The experimental data pointed to the fact that viscosity of helium II was at least eight times less than that slightly above the lambda point (2.20 Kelvins). Kapitsa showed experimentally that the viscosity of “helium II was at least ten thousand times less than that of gaseous hydro-
Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa.
gen at low temperature,” supposedly the least viscous of fluids. Based on these supporting arguments, Kapitsa proposed that helium II “below the lambda point assumes a special kind of state,” which he called “superfluid.” He was able to demonstrate the low viscosity (the internal resistance to flow) by allowing helium to –7 flow through a narrow slit of 5 × 10 meters formed by two polished glass disks. He found that helium II passed through the slit rapidly below the lambda point but scarcely flowed above it. A few months later, Allen and his collaborators at Cambridge discovered that around 1.08 Kelvins, a small heat flow, which was passed electrically, produced a rise in the liquid helium level in a closed bulb at the heated end. It should have fallen because of increased vapor pressure, and this was found to be the case for larger heat flows. When the experiment was repeated with a modi3084
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 fied apparatus such that the top of the bulb at the hot end of the capillary was open, thus sharing the vapor pressure with the helium bath, no difference in the result was noted. They also found “fountain effect,” in which a hydrodynamic flow through a capillary resulted when liquid helium was heated by radiation. In 1938, John Gilbert Daunt and Kurt Mendelssohn of the University of Oxford reported yet another property of superfluid, the phenomenon of the “creeping film.” They demonstrated that when an empty beaker was lowered into the liquid, it filled to the level of the helium bath even though the rim of the beaker was above the liquid level. It was observed that the level of the liquid in the beaker dropped at the same rate at which the beaker filled when it was partly lifted above the bath. In a 1941 paper, Kapitsa proved, in addition to his original hypothesis, that helium II flow was composed actually of two currents: one flowing along the wall of the capillary and the other through the center in the opposite direction. He showed further that heat transfer in helium II is produced by these oppositely directed convection currents of different heat content. Kapitsa also assumed that the heat content of the flow of thin films along the wall was different, resulting from the molecular force of the surface, as opposed to the flow along the center. Through a series of experiments, Kapitsa established that below the lambda point, helium II is a mixture of normal fluid and superfluid and that the concentration of the latter increases as the temperature is lowered. He showed that superfluid has zero entropy and as one approaches absolute zero, helium II is transformed entirely into superfluid, which flows without friction, unlike the normal fluid, which experiences drag as it transports heat. He also confirmed Daunt and Mendelssohn’s result; namely, if the fluid is forced out through a fine capillary, its temperature falls as much as three- to four-tenths of a degree. Seeking to demonstrate that heat transport in helium II is the result of movement of fluid, Kapitsa fashioned a movable vane and suspended it at the mouth of a flask filled with fluid so that any flow would be observable by the deflection of the vane. He then filled the electrically heatable flask with liquid helium and immersed it in a helium bath. By placing the movable vane at the mouth of the flask and applying heat to it, he was able to observe the deflection of the vane, proving conclusively that the liquid flows. During World War II, research activities in the area of low-temperature physics were suspended in the West, while in the Soviet Union, Kapitsa and other prominent physicists such as Lev Davidovich Landau pro-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gressed at a rapid rate, the latter formulating an elaborate quantum theory of liquid helium during 1940 to 1941.
In 1938, John Gilbert Daunt and Kurt Mendelssohn reported a property of superfluidity known as the “creeping film” phenomenon: When an empty beaker is lowered into a bath of liquid helium, it fills to the level of the helium bath even though the rim of the beaker is above the liquid level. Liquid helium, in other words, will “creep” along surfaces to find its own level.
fluids, each in a different state, are assumed to coexist as a mixture of separate quantum states capable of independent simultaneous motion, free of mutual drag, as if through each other. The new state—the superfluid state emerging through a phase change in the normal fluid—is nonviscous and has zero entropy. The transition from normal to superfluid increases with decreasing temperature and tends to complete at 0 Kelvins. The normal viscous fluid transports heat, and in a sense, it is heat itself, flowing against the background of superfluid at ground state or zero energy. Kapitsa had shown in one of his experiments that although normal fluid escaping from a flask that was being electrically heated deflected the movable vane, the quantity of liquid helium remained unchanged. The explanation of this phenomenon is that superfluid countercurrent flowed back into the flask, keeping the quantity of fluid constant. Landau’s theory assumes the superfluid flow to be “irrotational,” and, according to the theory of hydrodynamics by the well-known eighteenth century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, the flow of such nonviscous fluid past a solid surface should not exert a force on the body. Thus normal fluid current in one direction and the countercurrent in the opposite direction would keep the quantity of fluid in a container unchanged. The theory of liquid helium predicts the so-called second sound. Based on the propagation of two different kinds of waves, one associated with the normal fluid and the other with the superfluid, both moving simultaneously in opposite directions with different velocities, Landau’s theory should lead to a second sound in addition to the ordinary sound. The initial effort to detect the “second sound” failed in 1940. It soon became evident, however, that whereas the ordinary sound waves are associated with cyclical compression and rarefaction of fluid that propagates through the fluid, the second sound waves oscillating in opposite directions would be too weak to detect. Such counteroscillations of normal and superfluid were realized as giving rise to oscillations of heat relative to cold superfluid background of ground state. Thermal waves can be expected to radiate and are susceptible to excitation (hence detection) by appropriately tuned temperature oscillators. A. P. Peshkov successfully confirmed the occurrence of second sound in helium II. In recognition of his theory of liquid helium, Landau was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics. Eminent Soviet physicists such as Ilya Mikhailovich Lifshitz, Isaak Yakovlevich Pomeranchuk, and Nikolai Nikolaevich Bogoliubov continued to explore superfluidity after Landau’s death. The work done on liquid 3085
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Significance Following Kapitsa’s hypothesis of superfluidity, numerous unexpected and puzzling properties of liquid helium were discovered, but none could be explained theoretically. From 1940 to 1941, Landau, of Kapitsa’s institute, advanced an elaborate quantum theory of liquid helium. Independently, Laslo Tisza of the College de France advanced some of the qualitative aspects of the theory of helium II, such as zero entropy and “second sound.” Landau’s theory of superfluidity describes quantum mechanically all observed macroscopic properties of liquid helium below the lambda point at 2.19 Kelvins. The two
Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity
Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity helium in the United States pointed to the fact that critical phase change in helium II is brought on by the formation of microscopic vortices, experimentally verified by William Frank Vinen of Mond Laboratory in Cambridge. It soon became obvious that as helium is composed of two stable isotopes—helium-4 and helium-3—it should exhibit different statistical characteristics. Helium-4 would obey Bose-Einstein statistics, whereas helium-3 atoms conform to Fermi-Dirac statistics, and therefore liquid helium composed of pure helium-3 isotope would show totally different characteristics. In 1949, Edward Roger Grilly, Edward Frederic Hammel, and Stephen George Sydoriak, of Los Alamos showed that helium-3 liquefies at 3.20 Kelvins. Experiments indicate that helium-3 does not become superfluid and that it is a new and even more interesting quantum fluid in comparison with helium-4. The study of superfluid and low-temperature physics progressed at a rapid rate after Kapitsa formulated his hypothesis and conducted his experiments. Kapitsa is said to have believed firmly that the secrets of nature are revealed only at the limits of physical phenomena. After nearly half a century, he was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to low-temperature and plasma physics. —V. L. Madhyastha Further Reading Kapitza, P. L. The Collected Papers of P. L. Kapitza. Edited by D. ter Haar. 4 vols. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, 1926-1970. Highly technical volumes demonstrate Kapitsa’s contributions to physics. Papers appearing in volume 2, pertaining to superfluidity, are relatively simple to follow. Kedrov, Fedor B. Kapitza: Life and Discoveries. Translated by Mark Fradkin. Moscow: Mir, 1984. A journalistic account of Kapitsa’s scientific career and his life in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Includes a complete list of Kapitsa’s scientific and nontechnical writings and related works.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lifshitz, Eugene M. “Superfluidity.” Scientific American 198 (June, 1958): 20. Well-written account of Kapitsa’s discovery of the phenomenon of superfluidity and the historical development of low-temperature physics. Written for the general reader by a well-known Soviet scientist. Lubkin, Gloria B. “Nobel Prizes: To Kapitza for Low Temperature Studies.” Physics Today 31 (December, 1978): 17-19. Explains the essence and importance of Kapitsa’s work. Perry, Albert. Introduction to Peter Kapitza on Life and Science, by Pyotr L. Kapitza. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Provides a brief sketch of Kapitsa’s life and discusses his work at the Cavendish Laboratory. Spruch, Grace Marmor. “Pyotr Kapitza, Octogenarian Dissident.” Physics Today 32 (September, 1979): 3436. Brief account of Kapitsa’s career shows the physicist’s development from a prisoner in a gilded cage to an effective dissident treading a narrow path. Trigg, George L. Landmark Experiments in Twentieth Century Physics. 1975. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1995. Provides highly readable and accurate technical accounts of developments in low-temperature physics from 1908, when Kamerlingh Onnes succeeded in liquefaction of helium. Includes extensive excerpts from Kapitsa’s original papers that appeared in Nature. Wilson, David. Rutherford: Simple Genius. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. Interesting biography of a man who played a crucial role in Kapitsa’s life. Chapter 16 presents an account of the special bond that existed between Rutherford and his unique student. See also: Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1930-1931: Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond; 1934: Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars; Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 4, 1938 OUR TOWN Opens
Our Town Opens on Broadway
on Broadway
The Broadway opening of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town signaled an American revolt against traditional “box set” staging that kept spectators at a distance from the play. Locale: New York, New York Category: Theater
Summary of Event Having achieved worldwide recognition at the early age of thirty with his second published novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), Thornton Wilder, who had been fond of the theater since childhood, harbored an ambition to write plays. By the age of forty, Wilder had published two additional novels to somewhat mixed reviews and had begun to set his sights and expectations on the stage. As early as 1931, he had published a volume of collected short plays, and since then he had translated and adapted at least two European plays for performance on the Broadway stage for such recognized performers as Katharine Cornell and Ruth Gordon. Many of Wilder’s good friends, including Gordon and her then-consort Jed Harris, were Broadway theater people, and Wilder, along with most of his students at the University of Chicago, saw the theater as the most rewarding outlet (personally and professionally, if not financially) then available to creative writers. Although not born to wealth, Wilder had acquired, with the unexpected success of his second novel, sufficient means and income not only to buy a house for his parents and siblings but also to travel wherever he pleased, with added remuneration along the way for lectures and other public appearances. While traveling in Europe, he had kept his eyes and ears open to various developments in the arts, particularly in the theater. As a student at Yale University recently mustered out of stateside service during World War I, Wilder had been impressed by the minimalist, “theatricalist” staging of the French director Jacques Copeau, then on worldwide tour with the repertory company he had founded in 1913 at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris. While traveling through Europe in the mid-1930’s, Wilder had reexperienced both French theatricalism (recently re-
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Key Figures Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), American novelist and playwright Jed Harris (1900-1979), American theater producer
freshed by the import of plays by Luigi Pirandello of Italy) and German expressionism; he had also discussed the elements of literary art at great length with the American expatriate poet and theorist Gertrude Stein, whom he first met when Stein came to Chicago as a visiting lecturer. Drawing eclectically from such “foreign” influences, as well as from his own earlier experiments in playwriting, Wilder in late 1936 conceived and subsequently developed what would in time be seen as the quintessential American play, which would eventually be seen and heard by a larger worldwide audience than any previous American play. Its plotting grounded in classical and medieval literature, Our Town highlights life and death in a New England town between 1899 and 1913. Time and place, however, soon recede into the background; spectators see a bare stage that remains to be furnished by their imaginations, with only occasional help from the Stage Manager, Wilder’s one-man adaptation of the classical Greek chorus. Ladders and shelving are moved around the bare stage by the actors to simulate houses, rooms, and furniture; many props, however, are left to be imagined. Years earlier, Wilder had accorded to his Yale and Broadway acquaintance Jed Harris the rights of refusal to his first full-length play. In fact, Wilder in 1937 had two such efforts in his briefcase: Our Town and The Merchant of Yonkers (pr. 1938), which he later reworked as The Matchmaker (pr. 1954) and which became the source of the 1964 musical comedy Hello, Dolly! Harris, already well known for his devotion to the bottom line, was quick to choose Our Town, because it offered him and his actors, yet to be chosen, an easy compromise between creative freedom and practical economy. Harris had long sought to combine art with craft and profit. Our Town, perhaps a bit exotic for the prevailing Broadway taste, nevertheless opened at the Morosco Theater on Broadway early in 1938, with future film star Martha Scott in the pivotal role of Emily Webb. Our Town got off to a slow start, but it gained momentum as the months passed. Failing to acquire the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for which it was nominated, the play nevertheless won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for drama, with several amateur and student groups quite literally waiting in the wings for performance rights to be released in the spring of 1939. In 1940, Our Town was successfully filmed in Hollywood from a screenplay pre-
Our Town Opens on Broadway pared free of charge by Wilder himself, who had rejected an earlier scenario written by playwright Lillian Hellman. Significance A quarter century after its less-than-spectacular debut, Our Town had become perhaps the most often read and most frequently performed text in American dramatic history, known at least by name to most literate Americans and respected and performed by theater professionals in Europe. More than a few American theatergoers versed also in the European tradition yet jaded by repeated exposure to bad productions of Our Town in American high schools, where countless prom queens sought to play Emily, would first rediscover the play’s abiding virtues through the medium of European productions, not only in a foreign country but also in a foreign language. After fifty years, the place of Our Town in the worldwide dramatic repertory was even more secure, proving the wisdom and foresight implicit in Wilder’s
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Thornton Wilder. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 apparently peculiar blend of foreign and domestic elements. Unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries writing for the Broadway stage, Wilder in Our Town rejected the somber, detailed realism of plot and staging, itself a European legacy most frequently associated with the work of the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, whose work Wilder had himself translated and adapted for the stage. Breaking with recently hallowed tradition, following even more recent German and French trends that harked back to the ancient Greeks, Wilder presented his archetypal town, Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, as less fictional than mythical; the town is constructed and furnished through the collaboration of the play’s spectators, who contribute their imaginations in order to make the play succeed as an act of communication. “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?” wonders Emily Webb Gibbs, dead in childbirth at age twenty-six. Emily is allowed by the Stage Manager to reexperience one full day in her short life, and she chooses her twelfth birthday, February 11, 1899. The Stage Manager replies to her question in the negative, adding, after a pause, “The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.” The deceptive homespun simplicity of Wilder’s carefully crafted dialogue earmarks the play as quintessentially American, but it also misleads some observers to find in the play only nostalgia and sentimentality. What Wilder has done, however, is to place each human life against the broadest possible background—described elsewhere in the play as “The Mind of God”—highlighting both the unique and the universal elements implicit in all human experience. The American audience for which he was writing is thus “repatriated” into the world community of theater, at once giving and receiving; thus does Our Town remain in the dramatic repertory, often revived in New York and elsewhere, despite the grumblings of those who still regard the play as sentimental. The 1940 film version of the play, notable mainly for its impact on the Hollywood career of William Holden, who starred as George Gibbs, was recirculated some forty years later on videotape. A somewhat ill-advised television musical version from the mid-1950’s, starring Frank Sinatra as the Stage Manager, remains in the collective American memory primarily as a consequence of its theme song, “Love and Marriage,” performed and recorded by Sinatra. Televised productions of Our Town, without music, have continued well past Wilder’s death in 1975, as have live productions both domestic and foreign. In the meantime, the creative freedom exercised by
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Wilder on OUR TOWN In his preface to a 1957 volume containing three of his plays, Thornton Wilder sheds some light on his decisions regarding the staging of Our Town:
Source: Thornton Wilder, preface to Three Plays (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957).
Wilder in Our Town helped to open up the American stage to greater measures of spectator participation. By the late 1960’s, many American productions, on and off Broadway, were performed with few or no props and frequently on three-dimensional “thrust” stages, which were all but unknown to American audiences before their use for Our Town productions during the 1950’s. Beneath the surface of Wilder’s plays, especially Our Town, lies an intelligent acquaintance with developing psychoanalytic theory. Wilder’s biographers have documented his meetings during the 1930’s with pioneer psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and Wilder’s public denunciation of the elderly, terminally ill doctor’s mistreatment by the Nazis. In retrospect, however, Wilder’s theater seems to bear an even stronger imprint from Freud’s erstwhile colleague Carl Jung’s explorations of myth and the collective unconscious. In any case, Wilder, through the contemplation of death, managed in Our Town to breathe
fresh life into the mainstream of American theater, and his contribution still survives him. — David B. Parsell Further Reading Burbank, Rex. Thornton Wilder. 2d ed. New York: Twayne, 1978. Second edition of a volume that was among the first full-length studies of Wilder’s work. Remains authoritative, if not definitive. Cowley, Malcolm. A Second Flowering: Works and Days of the Lost Generation. New York: Viking, 1973. Devotes a useful, perceptive chapter to Wilder’s “universality” and its sources. Goldstein, Malcolm. The Art of Thornton Wilder. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. A reader’s guide to Wilder’s novels and plays, notable for its brevity and insights. Goldstone, Richard. Thornton Wilder: An Intimate Portrait. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975. Prepared over the course of many years, originally planned—or presented—as a work of literary criticism. Draws on previously unavailable letters and documents. Appeared in print shortly before Wilder’s death, and much against Wilder’s wishes. Wilder questioned Goldstone’s critical talents, seriously opposed biographical studies of persons still living, and in effect forced a cancellation of Goldstone’s original contract with Harper & Row, Wilder’s own longtime publisher. Haberman, Donald. The Plays of Thornton Wilder: A Critical Study. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1967. Study of Wilder’s plays remains fresh and provocative, reaching back toward sources and forward toward results. Harrison, Gilbert A. The Enthusiast: A Life of Thornton Wilder. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1983. Fullscale biography of Wilder begun after his death. Somewhat better grounded than Goldstone’s (cited above), although short on literary analysis. Authoritative on production history of Our Town. Konkle, Lincoln. Thornton Wilder and the Puritan Narrative Tradition. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Scholarly study places Wilder’s work within the context of American, and specifically New England, culture and literary tradition. Includes a chronology of Wilder’s works, bibliography, and index. Siebold, Thomas, ed. Readings on “Our Town.” San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Collection of critical essays examines various aspects of the play, including Wilder’s experimental approach to theater. Features chronology and index. 3089
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Our Town is not offered as a picture of life in a New Hampshire village; or as a speculation about the conditions of life after death (that element I merely took from Dante’s Purgatory). It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life. I have made the claim as preposterous as possible, for I have set the village against the largest dimensions of time and place. The recurrent words in this play (few have noticed it) are “hundreds,” “thousands,” and “millions.” Emily’s joys and griefs, her algebra lessons and her birthday presents—what are they when we consider all the billions of girls who have lived, who are living, and who will live? Each individual’s assertion to an absolute reality can only be inner, very inner. And here the method of staging finds its justification—in the first two acts there are at least a few chairs and tables; but when she revisits the earth and the kitchen to which she descended on her twelfth birthday, the very chairs and table are gone. Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind—not in things, not in “scenery.” Molière said that for the theatre all he needed was a platform and a passion or two. The climax of this play needs only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.
Our Town Opens on Broadway
Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership See also: 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard; May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres; 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater; 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes;
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jan. 2, 1933: Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s; Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama; Aug. 29, 1935June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater.
February 10, 1938
Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership Establishment of the Federal National Mortgage Association facilitated the move out of the Great Depression and assisted families in achieving home ownership. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Banking and finance; organizations and institutions Key Figures Robert J. Bulkley (1880-1965), Democratic member of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency and influential supporter of the National Housing Act Amendments of 1937 Henry Bascom Steagall (1873-1943), Democratic congressman from Alabama and chair of the House Committee on Banking and Currency Robert F. Wagner (1877-1953), chair of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency T. Alan Goldsborough (1877-1951), Democratic congressman from Maryland and member of the House Committee on Banking and Currency Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), organized on February 10, 1938, was designed to create and maintain an active market for insured mortgages and a steady flow of mortgage money at relatively favorable interest rates. It provided an avenue of investment for individuals and institutions previously unable to benefit directly from insured mortgage programs. The U.S. housing industry is made up of hundreds of thousands of small builders, carpenters, and real estate agents, making supervision and control difficult. The construction industry operates in thousands of small, separate sites. The industry is significantly affected by interest rates, which are influenced by fiscal and monetary policies of the U.S. government. The construction 3090
industry is an important segment of the economy that can provide a great stimulus to the overall employment level and the economy or can drag it down. Construction activity usually changes in advance of changes in the economy as a whole. The U.S. housing industry suffered a severe setback as a consequence of the stock market crash of 1929. Investors lost approximately seventy-five billion dollars in the market. Builders stopped work overnight, millions of construction workers lost employment, housing starts plunged, funds for mortgage financing dried up, and more than 1.5 million homes eventually came under foreclosure. Apart from directly affecting the housing industry, the Depression and foreclosures resulted in a large-scale failure of financial institutions, which were left holding foreclosed properties that had declined significantly in value. By the end of 1930, the housing industry was in disarray as a result of the Depression, poorly planned projects, badly designed homes and apartments, overextended financing, and second and third mortgages on homes at high interest rates. The mortgage finance structure was weak and almost insolvent. Housing starts declined from a high of 937,000 units in 1925 to 93,000 in 1933. A severe decline in deposits at banks and saving institutions, a natural consequence of unemployment, made home financing difficult to find, and many people were unwilling to buy homes and thereby obligate themselves to make mortgage payments. Inability to meet mortgage payments by many home owners resulted in unusually high rates of foreclosure. The foreclosures and a resulting drop in new construction as foreclosed properties came on the market threw more than two million construction workers out of employment. In 1932, President Herbert Hoover attempted to alleviate the problem by creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), with capital of $500 million and the authority to borrow $1.5 billion to make loans to banks, insurance companies, building and loan associa-
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A lack of an efficient secondary mortgage market, however, kept private resources away from mortgage investments. A secondary market would allow lenders to sell loans they had made, thus allowing diversification. On February 10, 1938, under provisions of the National Housing Act of 1934 as amended in 1937, the National Mortgage Association of Washington was organized by the RFC. On April 5, 1938, the name of the National Mortgage Association of Washington was changed to the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as FNMA and later as Fannie Mae. The FNMA began as a wholly owned corporation of the federal government, with initial capital of $10 million, a reserve of $1 million, and borrowing capacity limited to twenty times its equity capital. The FNMA essentially took over the role of the RFC Mortgage Company. The basic goals of the FNMA included utilization of the best available means of achieving sustained long-term residential construction, with a minimum expenditure of federal funds and a maximum reliance on private business enterprise. During its first ten years of operation, the FNMA performed a useful secondary market function by buying FHA mortgages when private financial institutions were unable to meet the demand and selling mortgages when housing activity, especially during World War II, fell behind the available supply of funds. By 1942, its investment in mortgages amounted to $211 million. Low interest rates and low levels of real estate activity made mortgage investment an attractive vehicle for private investors from 1942 to 1947, and the FNMA sold much of its portfolio. During the prewar period, the FNMA remained a minor factor in the mortgage market. Its holdings never exceeded 1 percent of the total outstanding mortgage debt on nonfarm properties. During the period from 1948 to 1954, the size and scope of FNMA operations increased sharply. It became a large primary source of funds for real estate. Mortgage bankers and lenders started playing the role of loan originators for the agency. In 1948, Congress authorized the FNMA to purchase Veterans Administration (VA) authorized loans. In 1948, through an amendment to the National Housing Act of 1934, Congress authorized the FNMA to support mortgages for special federal housing programs in cases in which private money was not available. By the end of 1954, 20 percent of the FNMA’s portfolio and 70 percent of its FHA-guaranteed holdings were loans on disaster relief and defense projects. The FNMA was reorganized in November, 1954. It 3091
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tions, and others. Hoover also signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932, which created the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB). The FHLB was to act as a reserve system for major mortgage financiers such as savings and loan associations. These actions did not succeed in revitalizing the housing industry. It was left to the next president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to stimulate the economy and the construction and financing of housing throughout the country. To get the home-construction industry going, he signed the National Housing Act, which created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), in June of 1934. The FHA established standards for insurance and property and standards for economic soundness in lending. The FHA was also authorized to insure regulated financial institutions that were engaged in mortgage financing and to insure mortgages, to encourage private financial institutions to provide financial resources for real estate purchases. To allow the FHA to borrow funds in the market at a relatively low cost, the interest paid by the FHA on its obligations was freed from all taxes. The FHA revolutionized mortgage financing with its long-term amortized mortgages and acceptance of low down payments. The development of long-term amortized loans eliminated the need to frequently refinance short-term mortgages and significantly reduced borrowers’ financing costs. The RFC Mortgage Company was organized in 1935 as a subsidiary of the RFC to help maintain a market for mortgages. The agency was moved among various departments of the federal government before being abandoned in 1947. By 1937, it had become clear that although the FHA had significantly succeeded in improving the financing of and growth in the real estate industry, it still had not succeeded in attracting private money to the housing market. The construction of housing facilities had not kept pace with the needs and the growth of the population or with recovery in other fields. Industrial production as a whole was more than 90 percent of the average for the period 1925-1930, but residential construction was limping along at only 34 percent of its level during the same period. The lack of activity had a retarding effect on the recovery of all industries and trade. There was a shortage of affordable housing, especially for lower- and middleclass families. It was estimated that it would be necessary to provide new units at the rate of 760,000 per year for the next ten years to meet the accumulated deficit. The federal government had hoped that private lenders, especially commercial banks, would increase their mortgage holdings in response to federal insurance of mortgages.
Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership
Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership was to be a true secondary market facility that would eventually be privately owned and financed. To avoid excessive use of its secondary market facilities, it paid going market prices for loans, and sellers were required to purchase equity interests in the agency. The FNMA was to provide special assistance on certain residential mortgages and housing programs as designated by the government. It was to manage and liquidate its mortgage portfolio in an orderly manner, with a minimum of unfavorable effects on the market and a minimum loss to the government. At the end of 1954, the FNMA’s mortgage portfolio stood at more than $2.4 billion. The FNMA had thus far depended primarily on the Treasury for its financing needs. It experienced substantial growth in its operations after 1954. The most notable change after 1954 was a greater use of private funds to finance FNMA operations. By the end of 1960, $2.5 billion of the FNMA’s secondary market obligations were held by the public. Private investment in its common stock amounted to another $73 million. Early in 1960, the FNMA introduced a new method of financing by selling discount notes with maturities ranging from 30 to 270 days. Rates on these discounts changed periodically to reflect market interest rates. The availability of these investment alternatives proved attractive to private investors and reduced the FNMA’s dependence on Treasury funds. Although mortgage sellers were required to buy FNMA stock, the stock subscriptions were not large. Attainment of private ownership, it became clear, would require a higher rate of stock subscription. The FNMAwas reorganized as a privately owned corporation under the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968. At that time, all stock, both common and preferred, owned by the U.S. Treasury was redeemed and replaced by the sale of common stock to the public, and the FNMA came to be known as Fannie Mae. The common stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. After the reorganization, the FNMA retained its secondary market mortgage operations. Its special assistance and management and liquidation functions were assigned to a new organization, the Government National Mortgage Association, popularly known as GNMA or Ginnie Mae. Ginnie Mae was to remain under the direction of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The 1968 act provided for a transitional period for the FNMA’s shareholders to assume control over the FNMA. Although the 1968 act removed all federal ownership interests, significant federal regulation of the 3092
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 FNMA remained. The secretary of the treasury retained the authority to regulate the issuance of the association’s debt instruments. In addition, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the authority to require that a reasonable portion of FNMA mortgage loan purchases be related to the national goal of providing adequate housing to low and moderateincome families, but with a reasonable rate of return to the FNMA. Five of the thirteen members of the FNMA’s board of directors were to be appointed by the president of the United States, with the others elected by shareholders. Significance By the time the FNMA was created, the FHA insurance program was four years old but not well established. Immediately upon its creation, the FNMA started its secondary market operations by buying, selling, and holding federally underwritten mortgages. It issued shortterm and long-term debentures for sale in the markets to raise additional resources. To stimulate recovery, the FNMA purchased FHA mortgages on new houses from all types of mortgage lenders and mortgage companies. Until its dissolution in 1947, the RFC Mortgage Company continued to finance mortgages on existing properties, which were not authorized to be financed by the FNMA. Although the FNMAoperated under strict federal regulations, it also had certain privileges and immunities. Securities issued by the FNMA were considered to be exempt securities not required to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission before their issuance. The FNMA was also exempt from all taxation (except for real estate taxes) by any state, county, city, or municipality. The FNMA issued different types of debt instruments to suit different investor needs. Traditionally, its debt traditionally was treated as governmentagency debt in the credit markets. The FNMA, then, enjoyed ready access to funds in the credit markets at rates that are slightly lower than those on comparable U.S. Treasury obligations. Over the years, the FNMA evolved from a taxpayer-supported government agency into a federally chartered private company that by 2005 had provided hundreds of billions of dollars in affordable mortgages and helped sixty-three million American families to own their own homes. —Rajiv Kalra Further Reading Brueggeman, William G., Jeffrey D. Fisher, and Leo D. Stone. Real Estate Finance. 8th ed. Homewood, Ill.:
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FNMA and its activities in the real estate market. Lists sources of income, securities issued to raise funds, and international activities. Jones, Oliver, and Leo Grebler. The Secondary Mortgage Market: Its Purpose, Performance, and Potential. Los Angeles: University of California, Graduate School of Business Administration, 1961. Excellent work, although somewhat dated, provides a detailed look at the growth and development of the secondary mortgage markets. A good source of data on market activity for the period up to 1960. Mason, Joseph B. History of Housing in the U.S., 19301980. Houston: Gulf, 1982. Chapter 1 provides a review of the Depression years and the federal government’s efforts to restart the housing industry. Ward, Colin. Cotters and Squatters: The Hidden History of Housing. Nottingham, England: Five Leaves, 2002. Draws parallels between the history of informal settlements that have been erected throughout human history and the modern debate over zoning, planning, and the availability and cost of housing. See also: Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act; June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System; Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control.
February 12-April 10, 1938
The Anschluss After being thwarted in a 1934 attempt to subvert and overthrow the government of the neighboring Republic of Austria, Adolf Hitler capitalized on the growing friction between Italy and the Allied Powers to bluff, cajole, and intimidate his way into initiating a bloodless invasion that incorporated the formerly independent Austrian state into the greater German Reich. Locale: Germany, Austria Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1977), chancellor of Austria, 1934-1938 Arthur Seyss-Inquart (1892-1946), Austrian Nazi Party leader and chancellor of Austria, 1938
Wilhelm Miklas (1872-1956), president of Austria, 1928-1938 Guido Schmidt (1901-1957), Austrian foreign affairs secretary, 1936-1938 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), prime minister and dictator of Italy, 1922-1943 Hermann Göring (1893-1946), German field marshal and head of the armed forces Franz von Papen (1879-1969), German ambassador to Austria Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), German foreign minister, 1938-1945 Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), prime minister of Great Britain, 1937-1940 Summary of Event An Austrian German by birth, Adolf Hitler had long harbored a desire to implement Anschluss, a concept that might be broadly defined as the union of all Germans in 3093
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Irwin, 1989. This comprehensive text on real estate finance provides a general look at the subject, including legal instruments, institutional sources of funds, and secondary mortgage markets. Bryant, Willis R. Mortgage Lending: Fundamentals and Practices. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956. A good resource for fundamental aspects of mortgage lending, sources of funds, VA loan programs, and general mortgage loan services. Dasso, Jerome, and Gerald Kuhn. Real Estate Finance. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983. A detailed book about financial institutions in the real estate industry, primary and other sources of funds, laws relating to real estate finance, and arrangements for financing. De Souza Briggs, Xavier, and William Julius Wilson, eds. The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2005. Contemporary experts in housing and urban policy studies examine the relationship between housing and America’s history of racial, social, and economic segregation. Federal National Mortgage Association. Introducing Fannie Mae. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1992. Twelve-page booklet provides a brief history of the
The Anschluss
The Anschluss
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Germany After the Anschluss, 1938 De n m a r k
Nazis, now led by lawyer Arthur Seyss-Inquart, were waging a terrorist campaign against the Austrian Sweden government, and Seyss-Inquart accelerated his efforts in early 1938 so North Baltic that the German government would C Sea op Sea enh have a greater pretext for armed inagen tervention. Netherlands Confident of success, Hitler summoned von Schuschnigg and his foreign secretary, Guido Schmidt, to a Berlin conference at Berchtesgaden on FebPoland ruary 12, 1938. The German chancellor launched a hysterical, abusive verbal attack and threatened the AusGermany trians with dire consequences if they Prague did not meet his demands. This inCzecho vective so unnerved von Schuschslo va Paris nigg that he signed the document ki Luxembourg a presented to him by the new Nazi Vienna foreign minister, Joachim von Ribe Liechtenstein nc bentrop, and Franz von Papen, GerAu s t r i a Hu Bern many’s ambassador to Austria. In don ing so, von Schuschnigg also pledged Switzerland n to meet a number of Nazi demands: e I ta ly v Croatia Slo Before February 18, he would appoint Seyss-Inquart as his interior minister, free all imprisoned Ausone land. When Hitler became Germany’s chancellor on trian Nazis, and name Nazis to head the ministries of war January 30, 1933, and established a totalitarian regime, and finance. Von Schuschnigg’s concessions went quite Anschluss and the incorporation of Austria into his Gera distance toward surrendering Austrian sovereignty. manic Third Reich became not only a possibility but also Somewhat recovered from his return to Vienna, the a priority. On July 25, 1934, Austrian Nazis assassinated shaken von Schuschnigg attempted to undo some of the Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss and attempted a damage. In a defiant speech in the Austrian parliament coup, but they were stymied when Dollfuss’s successor, on February 24, von Schuschnigg ruled out further conKurt von Schuschnigg, assumed control. Matters were cessions and reaffirmed Austria’s sovereignty. Seyssmade more complicated when Italian dictator Benito Inquart’s response was to unleash mobs of Nazis to riot Mussolini threatened to deploy Italian troops to the and terrorize the population; since the Interior Ministry Brenner Pass to prevent the German military from addirected the police, nothing was done to prevent the viovancing into Austrian territory. Hitler had hoped to use the lence. The chaos provided an excellent subterfuge for German military intervention, and so von Schuschnigg Nazi uprising in Vienna as a justification for taking conresorted to two desperate expedients: He sought assistrol of the area, but he was compelled to abandon the idea. tance from Mussolini and announced, in a speech on Although on that occasion Hitler had been forced to March 9, that a plebiscite on the question of whether or back down, the situation had changed by early 1938. The not to unite Austria with Germany would be presented to German military machine had been transformed into a the Austrian electorate on March 13. Had they been alpowerful entity through Hitler’s repeated violations of lowed to vote, Austrians surely would have rejected the the rearmament clauses of the treaties signed at VerAnschluss, and this would have seriously undercut Hitsailles and Locarno, and German-Italian relations had ler’s assertions that the vast majority of Austrians wanted undergone a complete turnaround: Hitler and Mussolini to merge with the Third Reich. were now on the most cordial of terms. The Austrian lg i Be
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Significance The Anschluss was a significant stepping-stone in Hitler’s grand scheme to build German military strength and secure both domination over Western Europe and the destruction of the Soviet Union. The success of the Anschluss contributed to Hitler’s delusory legend of invincibility, and it fore-
Chamberlain on the Anschluss Most world leaders, including British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, displayed remarkably little reaction to the Anschluss. Chamberlain made the following remarks in a speech to the House of Commons on March 14, 1938. In the first place, Great Britain and Austria are both members of the League [of Nations], and both were signatories, as was also the German Government, of treaties which provided that the independence of Austria was inalienable except with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations. Quite apart from this, His Majesty’s Government are, and always must be, interested in developments in Central Europe, particularly events such as those which have just taken place, if only for the reason . . . that the object of all their policy has been to assist in the establishment of a sense of greater security and confidence in Europe. . . . Throughout these events His Majesty’s Government have remained in the closest touch with the French Government who, I understand, also entered a strong protest in Berlin on similar lines to that lodged by His Majesty’s Government. It seems to us that the methods adopted throughout these events call for the severest condemnation and have administered a profound shock to all who are interested in the preservation of European peace. . . . In appraising recent events it is necessary to face facts, however we may judge them, however we may anticipate that they will react upon the international position as it exists to-day. The hard fact is—and of its truth every hon. Member can judge for himself—that nothing could have arrested this action by Germany unless we and others with us had been prepared to use force to prevent it. I imagine that according to the temperament of the individual the events which are in our minds to-day will be the cause of regret, of sorrow, perhaps of indignation. They cannot be regarded by His Majesty’s Government with indifference or equanimity. They are bound to have effects which cannot yet be measured. The immediate result must be to intensify the sense of uncertainty and insecurity in Europe. Unfortunately, while the policy of appeasement would lead to a relaxation of the economic pressure under which many countries are suffering to-day, what has just occurred must inevitably retard economic recovery and, indeed, increased care will be required to ensure that marked deterioration does not set in. This is not a moment for hasty decisions or for careless words. We must consider the new situation quickly, but with cool judgment. . . . As regards our defense programs, we have always made it clear that they were flexible and that they would have to be reviewed from time to time in the light of any development in the international situation. It would be idle to pretend that recent events do not constitute a change of the kind that we had in mind. Accordingly we have decided to make a fresh review, and in due course we shall announce what further steps we may think it necessary to take.
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After an initial burst of rage, Hitler ordered that preparations for a military move into Austria be prepared under the code name Case Otto. On March 10, responding to Hitler’s request, Mussolini abandoned Austria and stated his support for Anschluss. On March 11, von Schuschnigg was confronted with the massing of German troops along his borders and a demand from Hitler and Field Marshal Hermann Göring that the plebiscite be canceled. No sooner had von Schuschnigg done so than Göring upped the ante, insisting that von Schuschnigg be replaced by Seyss-Inquart. Although von Schuschnigg resigned, Austrian president Wilhelm Miklas refused to confirm Seyss-Inquart as chancellor. The stalemate lasted into the evening: The sixty-six-year-old Miklas refused to bend, even under intense pressure, until nearly midnight. By this time the invasion was already under way; Seyss-Inquart had long since agreed to authorize the arrival of German troops. The German army entered without opposition, and the path was cleared for Hitler to make his triumphant entrance. On March 13, an Anschluss law was drafted, and Hitler drove into Vienna the next day. A plebiscite on the Anschluss was scheduled to take place on April 10. By that time it had become obvious that there would be no interference from the Western European democracies. France’s government had fallen on March 11, and the French were not able to re-form a ministry until the German takeover was complete. In Britain, Joachim von Ribbentrop worked to assuage the government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, which was already committed to appeasement. In a March 14 speech to Parliament, Chamberlain announced his acceptance of what had transpired and his reluctance to resort to force. With the Gestapo arresting Austrian opponents of the Nazi regime and intimidating all dissenting voices, the results of the April 10 plebiscite were—as a foregone conclusion—overwhelmingly in support of the Anschluss.
The Anschluss
Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia shadowed a pattern that would be repeated in nearly every formerly sovereign state that fell to Nazi influence. In each of these cases, Jewish populations were singled out for the persecution that would culminate in the Holocaust. —Raymond Pierre Hylton Further Reading Bischof, Gunter, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, eds. The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2003. Emphasis in placed on the foreign policy miscalculations of the Schuschnigg regime, which the authors see as a major factor behind the implementation of the Anchluss in Austria. Eimerl, Sarel. Hitler over Europe: The Road to World War II. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Falls somewhat short in its depiction of the role of the international community in this affair and views the implementation of the Anschluss as not being a smoothly run operation as much as it was a haphazard adventure that was carried to fruition through Hitler’s brazen psychological ploys. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Concludes that the key to the success of the Anschluss was Hitler’s dexterity in
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 steering the middle road between the extremist views of Göring and those of Papen. Manchester, William. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill; Alone, 1932-1940. Boston: Little, Brown, 1988. Asserts that the plebiscite issue marked the critical point in Hitler’s decision to annex Austria openly rather than maintain the sham of a puppet state. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Ballantine, 1991. Classic work presents one of the most complete accounts available of Hitler’s browbeating of Schuschnigg and Schmidt at Berchtesgaden. As a foreign correspondent in Vienna, the author was witness to many events connected to the Anschluss. See also: Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism; July 6-15, 1938: Evian Conference; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland.
March 3, 1938
Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia In the early 1900’s, oil was increasingly demanded for fuel. With the support of their governments, oil companies aggressively sought new sources of commercial oil, especially in the Middle East, where large sources of commercial oil were discovered in the Arabian Peninsula. The large oil fields of Saudi Arabia changed the country from a remote desert kingdom to an important player in world affairs. Also known as: Saudi Arabian Oil Company; Saudi Aramco Locale: Saudi Arabia Categories: Energy; natural resources; trade and commerce Key Figures Ibn Sa4nd (c. 1880-1953), king of Hijaz and Najd, r. 1927-1932, and king of Saudi Arabia, r. 1932-1953 H. St. John B. Philby (1885-1960), British official and explorer who became a key adviser to Ibn Sa4nd 3096
Karl Saben Twitchell (1885-1968), American mining engineer who first explored for water, minerals, and oil in Saudi Arabia Charles R. Crane (1858-1939), American philanthropist Summary of Event The growing need for oil to fuel navies and new motorized vehicles in the early 1900’s catalyzed the search for new commercial sources of oil. First discovered in Persia (modern-day Iran) in 1908, oil had also been found in 1927 near Kirkuk in modern-day Iraq, and exploration continued on the Arabian Peninsula. Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, an Armenian knowledgeable about the Russian Baku oil field, played an important role in the 1912 creation of the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), which sought to develop oil in the Ottoman Empire. After World War I, the oil rights of the former Ottoman Empire were divided between the French and the
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Sa4nd was hosting a visit by Charles R. Crane, an American philanthropist with a strong interest in the Middle East. In response to the need for more irrigation in the kingdom, Crane offered the assistance of a mining engineer named Karl Saben Twitchell, who was under contract to Crane in Yemen. Twitchell began his work in 1932. His explorations in the country convinced him that there were commercial sources of gold and oil in the country, and he left to see if financing could be found in the United States. Socal geologist Fred A. Davies believed that there might be a great deal of oil near Bahrain, and Socal immediately contracted Twitchell to help arrange an oil concession from King Ibn Sa4nd. Negotiations began in Jiddah in 1933. Socal was represented by Twitchell and lawyer Lloyd Hamilton with support from Philby. Saudi finance minister Abdullah Suleiman negotiated for the Saudi government, and Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) also sent a negotiator, Stephen Longrigg, to Jiddah. However, IPC’s reluctance to pay cash up front and Philby’s hostility prevented IPC from being a serious competitor, and on May 29, 1933, an agreement was signed. Socal received the oil concession to eastern Saudi Arabia and preferential rights (which meant that it would be allowed to match any offer) to the rest of the kingdom for sixty years. Saudi Arabia received a loan (to be paid back from future royalties) in gold, a yearly fee, another loan if oil was found, and a royalty per ton of oil. Exploration and drilling began immediately. The focus on exploration in eastern Saudi Arabia was at the Dammam Dome formation. Socal chose California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casco), a subsidiary, to do the work, and drilling began in 1935. The Texas Company (Texaco) became a half owner in Casco in 1937 after it provided needed facilities and capital. The initial wells were not successful, and Socal began to consider closing its operations. On March 3, 1938, Dammam’s well number seven hit significant oil at 4,727 feet. Other companies quickly showed interest in Saudi Arabia’s oil, but the king was pleased with Casco and granted additional valuable oil concessions to the company. Casco and the later Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) remained the chief producers of oil from Saudi Arabia, which gave American oil companies a strong position in Middle East oil production. Significance Dammam’s well number seven would operate until 1982 and produce 32.5 million barrels of oil. This well was just the start of oil production: By 1949, Saudi Arabian oil 3097
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British. Political pressure forced the inclusion of American oil companies, too, and the issue became more important when a large commercial oil field was found near Kirkuk in 1927. Under an agreement signed in 1928, the TPC (later renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company) was to be owned by British Petroleum, Royal Dutch/Shell, the Compagnie Française des Petroles, the Near East Development Corporation (a group of five American oil companies), and Gulbenkian. All the companies involved signed the Red Line Agreement, which prevented them from seeking individual oil concessions in the former Ottoman Empire region (including all of the Arabian Peninsula except Kuwait). After World War I, Major Frank Holmes of New Zealand became an agent for the Eastern and General Syndicate, which wanted to find business opportunities in the Middle East. During the 1920’s, he obtained oil rights in eastern Saudi Arabia, the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and the island of Bahrain. The syndicate became short of money, however, and it decided to try to sell the oil concessions. Gulf Oil was interested in the oil concessions and bought them, but because the company had signed the Red Line Agreement—it was a member of the Near East Development Corporation—it was required to relinquish its purchase. Gulf Oil sold its concession in Bahrain to Standard Oil of California (called Socal and later Chevron), and the other concessions lapsed. Socal discovered a modest oil field in Bahrain on May 31, 1932. Ibn Sa4nd was a formidable political and military leader who consolidated much of the Arabian Peninsula into a sovereign state under his rule. The British government formally recognized his kingdom—which was renamed Saudi Arabia in 1932—in the Treaty of Jiddah in 1927. The treaty had the important effect of replacing a previous treaty agreement with Ibn Sa4nd that had restricted his ability to negotiate commercial agreements with anyone but the British. The new treaty did not have this restriction. H. St. John B. Philby was a British official and explorer who became deeply involved in the affairs of Ibn Sa4nd and his kingdom. He even converted to Islam in 1930 so that he could be a senior adviser to the king. King Ibn Sa4nd was in great need of money, and Philby believed that oil concessions were one possible solution. He was also concerned about the strong British influence in the region. Philby, who had a favorable opinion of the United States, decided to see if any American oil companies would be willing to pay for oil concessions in Saudi Arabia. A chance arose when King Ibn
Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia
Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties production was 500,000 barrels per day. In 2005, Saudi Arabia was producing more than 10 million barrels per day (8-9 percent of the world’s use) and had one-fourth of the world’s proven reserves. Iraq, which had only half as much in proven oil reserves, was second in the world. As the importance of the oil production in Saudi Arabia grew, its management changed. Casco became the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) in 1944, and Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon) and SoconyVacuum Oil (Mobil) became partners in Aramco in 1948. The Saudi government gained 25 percent ownership of Aramco in 1973, 60 percent in 1974, and full ownership in 1980. The name was changed to the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) in 1988. Oil accounted for approximately 75 percent of the Saudi Arabian government’s revenue and 40 percent of its gross domestic product in 2005, and oil paid for the kingdom’s economic development and modernization. The importance of the exported oil from Saudi Arabia and its neighbors in the Middle East made the political events of this part of the world of vital interest and concern to the world’s most powerful nations. —Gary A. Campbell Further Reading Brown, Anthony Cave. Oil, God, and Gold. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. A very readable book about the details of the discovery and development of oil in Saudi Arabia.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hamilton, Charles W. Americans and Oil in the Middle East. Houston: Gulf, 1962. An insider’s view of U.S. involvement in the development of oil in the Middle East. Chapter 5 specifically deals with Saudi Arabia. Lacey, Robert. The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud. New York: Avon Books, 1981. A best-selling history of modern Saudi Arabia. Parts 4 and 5 deal with oil and petropower. Mansfield, Peter, and Nicholas Pelham. A History of the Middle East. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Chapter 9 deals with the discovery of oil. Sampson, Anthony. The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Made. New York: Viking Press, 1975. A best-selling history of the development of the international oil industry. The role of the Middle East is well covered. Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. A well-researched, best-selling history of the oil industry. Parts 2 and 3 cover the discovery and development of oil in the Middle East. See also: Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop; May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia; Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela; July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara; Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East.
March 18, 1938
Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties In order to keep hefty oil profits from going to foreign investors, the Mexican government seized control of all aspects of the Mexican petroleum industry. American and European oil companies complained about lost profits and wasted investments and pressured their governments to intervene, but Mexico refused to bow to diplomatic pressure and ultimately nationalized other industries in an effort to bolster the Mexican economy. Locale: Mexico Categories: Trade and commerce; diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; energy Key Figures Lázaro Cárdenas (1895-1970), president of Mexico, 1934-1940 3098
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Cordell Hull (1871-1955), U.S. secretary of state, 1933-1944 Josephus Daniels (1862-1948), U.S. secretary of the Navy, 1913-1921, and ambassador to Mexico, 1933-1941 Summary of Event In the 1920’s, Mexico was the second-largest producer of petroleum in the world and the world’s leading oil exporter. American and European business interests, however, controlled most aspects of the Mexican oil industry, and as a result Mexico’s immense oil profits benefited foreign investors instead of the Mexican economy. Foreign companies made matters worse for Mexican unions
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their actions would force Cárdenas to rescind his decree and return their property. Indeed, demands by the European and American governments did create hardships. The discontinuance of American silver purchases proved to be particularly burdensome. The United States purchased approximately thirty million dollars in silver each year from Mexico, and Mexico did not sell mass quantities of silver to any other nations. As a result of the halt in American silver purchases, Mexican silver soon appeared on the world market, and the price of silver fell rapidly. Furthermore, the silver profits that Mexico lost caused the value of the peso to plummet. In order to manage the new national monopoly, Cárdenas soon created a state-run oil company called Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), which received the exclusive right to extract, refine, and market oil within Mexico. Foreign oil companies had been rather successful in Mexico, but PEMEX had initial difficulties, particularly because foreign oil companies refused to sell PEMEX the chemicals it needed for refining. The foreign powers still hoped to force Mexico to relent and invite foreign companies into the country again. PEMEX persevered, however, and sought alternative methods of production. The company’s experimentation led to a deadly explosion that killed a number of engineers, but ultimately PEMEX managed to produce the necessary chemicals. PEMEX faced difficulties also in obtaining equipment, and boycotts made foreign markets virtually impenetrable. As a result, Mexico began to sell increasingly large amounts of oil to the fascist regimes in Spain and Germany. In exchange, these nations provided PEMEX with machinery and technical assistance. With the outbreak of World War II, Mexico found itself in an uncomfortable situation. It supplied oil products to Germany and the Axis Powers, but at the same time it tried to maintain a good relationship with the United States and the Allies. As a result of Mexico’s position, the United States and Britain blocked Mexican oil shipments to their allies, and some American and British oil companies even advocated an invasion of Mexico. Finally, in 1943, American and British leaders realized that eliminating Nazi Germany’s oil supply was more important than punishing Mexico. Further, as Ambassador Josephus Daniels had informed President Roosevelt, Cárdenas’s position seemed secure, and Mexico was not likely to yield to foreign pressure. As a result, the American government persuaded dispossessed oil companies to settle, and the Mexican government paid the foreign oil companies twenty-four million dollars for seized properties, a small fraction of the value lost by the for3099
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by refusing to improve working conditions for Mexican oil workers. Tensions between workers and foreign managers gradually increased, and in May of 1937, an industrywide strike crippled the petroleum industry. The Mexican government convinced union members to resume working while it attempted to negotiate a settlement, but oil companies claimed that financial difficulties prohibited them from fulfilling many of the workers’ demands. As a result of this claim, President Lázaro Cárdenas ordered a full investigation of the oil industry. Although the study found that oil production had declined considerably due to the Great Depression of the 1930’s, it also demonstrated that the Mexican oil industry produced more profits than the American oil industry. More strikes and legal battles plagued Mexico’s oil industry after this revelation. On March 18, 1938, in an effort to restore stability, Cárdenas announced that the Mexican government would assume sole control of production, refining, and distribution of petroleum and natural gas within Mexico, and the Mexican government quickly took control of all foreign oil properties within the country. The declaration affected seventeen foreign oil companies operating in Mexico, the largest of which were Mexican Eagle, operated by Royal Dutch/Shell, and Huasteca, operated by Standard Oil of New Jersey. The foreign companies estimated the value of lost property at more than $350 million. The announcement of the creation of a state-owned monopoly was instantly popular in Mexico. Mexicans held spontaneous parades and took up collections to pay the foreign oil companies, which reacted with instant hostility. American-owned oil companies pleaded with the U.S. government to intervene, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull publicly condemned the action. The United States enacted a brief economic embargo against Mexico as a result, and the U.S. Treasury discontinued purchases of Mexican silver. Even so, the United States soon grudgingly followed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy and urged American corporations to pursue all available legal avenues within Mexico before taking more extreme action. European nations reacted with similar bitterness: Great Britain demanded restoration of its oil properties and suspended diplomatic relations with Mexico when its demands were not met, and the Dutch government insisted on immediate and significant compensation. The dispossessed oil companies also started a massive public campaign to boycott Mexican petroleum products. The American and European oil companies hoped
Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties
Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties eign companies. Nevertheless, concessions led to a relaxation of restrictions against Mexico, and Mexican oil profits grew as World War II generated a high demand for oil. Significance Generally, Mexicans saw the expropriation of their oil as an economic success. Indeed, the move was so popular that March 18 became an unofficial holiday in Mexico, and Lázaro Cárdenas ranked among Mexico’s most popular presidents. Despite lost government revenues from silver sales, which caused the devaluation of the peso in the world economy, PEMEX ultimately generated tremendous profits for the Mexican government. On average, oil profits increased by 6 percent per year until the 1970’s, when discoveries of new petroleum reserves further increased Mexican oil production. Although nationalization provided the Mexican economy with increased oil revenue, the change damaged Mexico’s economic relationships with the nations that lost property as a result of the expropriation. Fearful that the Mexican government could seize control of other industries, many businesses chose to keep their investments outside Mexico for several decades, and the lost revenue from the potential investments had an incalculable effect on the Mexican economy. Indeed, these businesses were correct in their suspicions: The oil expropriation laid the groundwork for the Mexican government to nationalize other industries that it judged essential public institutions. By then, however, a precedent of expropriation had been set, and other Mexican industries did not face the same level of international backlash when they were nationalized. The successful operation of PEMEX also encouraged the Mexican government to believe that government-owned monopolies could benefit the national economy. As a result, Mexico national-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ized its airline (Aeromexico) in 1950 and its telecommunications industry (TELMEX) in 1972. — John K. Franklin Further Reading Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Places the Mexican oil expropriation into the context of American foreign policy during the Roosevelt administration. Includes a new afterword. Jayne, Catherine E. Oil, War, and Anglo-American Relations: American and British Reactions to Mexico’s Expropriation of Foreign Oil Properties, 1937-1941. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Examination of British and American reactions to the Mexican oil expropriation that demonstrates the inability of the United States and Britain to work together in their relationships with Mexico. Schuler, Frederich. Mexico Between Hitler and Roosevelt: Mexican Foreign Relations in the Age of Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. Examination of Mexico’s foreign policy. Argues that the United States and Mexico had a good relationship during the covered period and that the oil expropriation stabilized the Mexican economy. See also: Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution; Dec. 31, 1911: Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System; Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition; Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code; Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela; 19361946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors.
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Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising
March 21, 1938
Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising By adding jurisdiction over “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce” to section 5 of the 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act, the U.S. Congress broadened the Federal Trade Commission’s power over deceptive advertisers with the Wheeler-Lea Act.
Key Figures Burton Kendall Wheeler (1882-1975), U.S. senator from Montana, 1923-1946 Clarence Frederick Lea (1874-1964), U.S. congressman from California, 1917-1949 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), president of the United States, 1913-1921 Summary of Event The first decade of the twentieth century witnessed numerous investigations by the U.S. Department of Commerce into alleged monopolistic business practices in the farm equipment, petroleum, steel, and tobacco industries, among others. Two groups had evolved with differing viewpoints concerning antimonopoly and antitrust legislation. One group believed that all trusts should be abolished, whereas the other thought that Congress should instead establish mechanisms to regulate monopolistic practices. The latter thinking prevailed and led Congress to enact the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was activated the following year. Many analysts trace the origins of the Federal Trade Commission to the advertising industry association known in the twenty-first century as the American Advertising Federation (AAF). In 1905, several local advertising clubs (primarily in Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, and St. Louis) formed what became the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, one of the goals of which was to eliminate the false and deceptive advertising practices that were common at the time. The association’s 1912 truth-in-advertising campaign is generally credited as being the first of its kind, and its lobbying efforts eventually led to President Woodrow Wilson’s recommendations in 1914 that the Federal Trade Commission be formed. The vigilance committees set up by member clubs in many cities also resulted in the establishment of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
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Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; marketing and advertising
The Federal Trade Commission Act focused on protecting businesses from unfair trade practices on the part of competitors. The act did not specifically define unfair competition, leaving that determination up to the FTC on a case-by-case basis. Legislators may not have intended the FTC to have strong punitive powers, but rather to serve as a barrier to protect weaker businesses from the predatory behavior of monopolies. The FTC grew to police the activities of business in general, not simply monopolistic practices, and developed strong punitive capabilities. The power to regulate advertising was given to the FTC under section 5 of the 1914 act. The wording of this section originally prohibited only unfair methods of “competition.” This led to a 1931 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that the commission was without jurisdiction unless actual injury to competitors could be proved. The case before the Court involved a questionable weight-reduction product that could have been dangerous for some consumers. The Court’s decision seriously limited the FTC’s power to intervene in cases in which consumers, but not competitors, were injured. Congress subsequently amended the FTC Act in 1938, thereby closing the loophole opened by this decision. This amending legislation is commonly known as the Wheeler-Lea Act, named for its two cosponsors, Senator Burton Kendall Wheeler and Congressman Clarence Frederick Lea. At the federal level, the Wheeler-Lea Act gave the government its most important control over false and deceptive advertising. Section 5 of the FTC Act was amended to read, “Unfair methods of competition in commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce are hereby declared unlawful.” The intent behind the Wheeler-Lea Act was twofold. First, Congress wanted to expand the FTC’s jurisdiction over unfair competition by extending it into commerce as well as industry. Second, Congress intended to give the commission more power to regulate false and deceptive advertising of food, drugs, therapeutic devices, and cosmetics. The first objective was accomplished through the modification of section 5 as previously discussed. The second goal was reached through section 12(a) of the amended act, which made it illegal to disseminate false information concerning foods, drugs, therapeutic devices, or cosmetics for the purpose of inducing their purchase. No matter how incidental a marketer’s behavior seems, the FTC has the authority to act if a false advertisement is
Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising sent through the U.S. mail or is concerned with commerce. False advertising that violates section 12(a) is by default unfair and deceptive under section 5. The definition of false advertising in section 15 of the Wheeler-Lea Act was designed to be very inclusive. The intent to be false or deceptive was not specified as a necessary element; legislators wanted any materially misleading advertising to be subject to or cause for FTC action, regardless of the advertiser’s intent. Media and advertising agencies were exempted from liability if they cooperated with the agency’s investigation. Aggrieved competitors who have, for example, been directly named in what they consider to be a false or deceptive comparative advertising campaign have several options for resolution of the problem. They can complain to industry arbitration organizations such as the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) and appeal an NAD decision to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB). They can ask for assistance from the media in which the questionable ads are disseminated or take the issue directly to court under section 43(a) of the Lanham Act. They can resort to local and state regulatory bodies (such as the state attorney general) or file a complaint with the FTC. The commission is also capable of issuing its own complaint under section 5, even if no business or individual has lodged a complaint. Advertisers usually consent to stop running advertisements disputed by the FTC. If the FTC believes that an advertisement is false or deceptive but the sponsor refuses to sign a consent decree and stop using the ad, the commission can issue a cease-and-desist order requiring the advertiser to stop running the questionable campaign. Under section 5, cease-and-desist orders become final in sixty days unless the advertiser requests a court review. If the advertiser requests a hearing, the cease-and-desist order cannot become final until an administrative law judge has reviewed the case. If the order is upheld by the judge, the sponsor can appeal to the full commission. Advertisers who violate final cease-and-desist orders are subject to substantial fines. The FTC can seek court remedies under sections 13 and 14 of the amended act. These include injunctions to stop the campaign in question as well as fines or imprisonment for sponsors of the advertisement in severe cases that involve blatant intent to defraud or reckless endangerment of consumers. In some cases, even though the FTC believed that section 12 had been violated, the courts have disagreed with the commission and denied requests for injunctions to stop ad campaigns. 3102
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance Largely because of the Wheeler-Lea Act, the core of the FTC’s regulatory mission became its efforts to end deceptive advertising, although antitrust concerns still influence FTC policy. The aggressiveness with which the FTC is able to carry out its mission depends heavily on the philosophy of the FTC chairperson as well as the presidential administration’s relationship with business. In some periods, such as the late 1960’s, the agency has been perceived as weak and ineffective. With the Wheeler-Lea Act as a foundation, the FTC underwent major reorganization and staffing changes during the 1970’s that resulted in a more powerful and effective regulatory force. In the 1980’s, President Ronald Reagan’s administration sought to disarm the FTC. In contrast, President George H. W. Bush indicated soon after his election in 1988 that the FTC’s inactivity concerning advertising practices would not continue under chairperson Janet Steiger. Steiger stated that the FTC would begin to hold both advertisers and their agencies responsible for false and deceptive advertising and that the commission would be especially interested in tobacco and alcohol advertising that encouraged underage persons to purchase those products as well as the practice of disguising commercial messages as thirty-minute or longer news or interview programs, commonly called infomercials. In spite of these inconsistencies, the FTC developed into a more powerful regulator of advertising after the implementation of the Wheeler-Lea Act in 1938. Two areas in which this trend has been most apparent are the commission’s requirement for substantiation of claims made in ads and its use of forced corrective advertising to help counter false advertising claims. In the years since passage of the Wheeler-Lea Act, the FTC has asked that sponsors of numerous disputed claims offer proof that their claims were true, particularly since 1970. Product claims that are literally untrue (that is, cannot be proven in laboratory tests) are considered to be inherently deceptive. Claims are also judged according to how the average “rational” consumer will perceive them. The FTC often admits as evidence the results of consumer surveys designed to determine the perceptions of average consumers to the claims in question. In a move considered to be much more drastic than requiring claim substantiation, the FTC also began to force sponsors of deceptive advertising to pay for corrective advertising disclaiming previously made false statements. For example, in one of the first corrective advertising cases, the FTC required the makers of Listerine
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Further Reading Clarkson, Kenneth W., and Timothy J. Muris, eds. The Federal Trade Commission Since 1970: Economic Regulation and Bureaucratic Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Presents a comprehensive analysis of the FTC during the 1970’s. Very informative. Digges, Isaac W. The Modern Law of Advertising and Marketing. New York: Funk & Wagnalls/Printers’ Ink, 1948. Although dated, provides a useful description of the legal environment surrounding the practice of marketing and advertising in the United States prior to 1948. Dillon, Tom. “What Is Deceptive Advertising?” Journal of Advertising Research 13 (October, 1973): 9-12. Presents an interesting view that contrasts with criticisms that the FTC had been ineffective because of its
focus on trivial issues and the unfair practices of small businesses instead of national advertisers. Garon, Philip A., ed. Advertising Law Anthology. Washington, D.C.: International Library, 1974. Collection of articles related to all aspects of advertising law. Of particular relevance are “The FTC Ad Substantiation Program,” by T. H. Hoppock, and “Corrective Advertising: Theory and Cases,” by G. J. Thain. Kintner, Earl W. A Primer on the Law of Deceptive Practices: A Guide for Business. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1978. Discusses the foundations on which the U.S. laws concerning unfair and deceptive business practices are based. Lane, W. Ronald, Karen Whitehill King, and J. Thomas Russell. Kleppner’s Advertising Procedure. 16th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Wellestablished advertising textbook designed for undergraduate classes in the principles of advertising. Contains updated information concerning all aspects of advertising, including excellent coverage of legal and regulatory issues. Maronick, Thomas J. “Copy Tests in FTC Deception Cases: Guidelines for Researchers.” Journal of Advertising Research 31 (December, 1991): 9-17. Provides guidelines for research used in FTC deceptive advertising disputes, based on three decades of FTC case studies. Moore, Roy L., Ronald T. Farrar, and Erik L. Collins. Advertising and Public Relations Law. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998. Text intended for advertising students and practitioners includes chapters on the FTC and on deceptive advertising practices. Features useful appendixes and index. Ulanoff, Stanley M. Advertising in America. New York: Hastings House, 1977. Relatively strong historical orientation sets this book apart from others. Although somewhat dated, sections related to legal and regulatory issues will be of interest to historians. See also: 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising; 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code; July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers; 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales.
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mouthwash to include in a ten-million-dollar advertising campaign a disclaimer stating that the product does not kill germs that cause the common cold, as advertisements had previously claimed. The commission members believed that the false claim of cold prevention was a major reason consumers selected the Listerine brand and that the corrective advertising campaign was the best method for eliminating this misperception. At first, the FTC required sponsors whose original campaigns had been ruled false and deceptive to disclose that fact. This generated criticism from those who believed the requirement was beyond the FTC’s scope of remedial authority. The FTC took heed and later required sponsors only to disclose that, contrary to what their previous advertising had stated, the claim in question was not true. In addition, the FTC’s original requirement that 25 percent of the advertisement’s space or time be devoted to the corrective message was changed to 25 percent of advertising expenditures during the same period when other advertisements were run. The FTC’s call for corrective advertising is probably the single most controversial activity ultimately derived from the expanded power given to the agency through the Wheeler-Lea Act. Had the language of the original act not been modified, the commission would not have obtained the authority to require sponsors to run corrective advertising for the sake of consumers who had acquired false information. —William T. Neese
Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising
Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April, 1938
Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia Ugo Cerletti and Lucino Bini were the first to introduce the idea of inducing convulsions for therapeutic purposes by using electric currents rather than convulsive drugs. Locale: Münsingen, Switzerland Categories: Health and medicine; psychology and psychiatry Key Figures Ugo Cerletti (1877-1963), Italian professor of neuropathology and psychiatry Lucino Bini (b. 1908), Italian clinician Ladislas J. Meduna (1896-1964), Hungarian psychiatrist Summary of Event The history of somatic treatment procedures in psychiatry (specifically, the use of electric currents for therapeutic purposes) has never followed a linear course of development. It is recorded that in 46 c.e. Scribonius Largus used the discharge of a torpedo fish to cure headaches and gout; Romans used electric eels for similar purposes. In the sixteenth century, Ethiopians applied electric catfish to mentally ill patients for the purpose of expelling “demons” from the human body. The element that all these diverse organic methods of treating mental illness have in common is that they are based on the belief that psychiatric conditions, particularly psychoses, can be influenced therapeutically through nonpsychological methods. The invention of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) by Ugo Cerletti and Lucino Bini in 1937 was entirely unrelated to earlier investigations on treating mental illness through the use of electric currents. The use of ECT as a treatment for mental illness, rather, must be credited to the Hungarian psychiatrist Ladislas J. Meduna, who first recognized the therapeutic effect of generalized seizures when he induced convulsions with pharmacologic agents. Much of Meduna’s research was in the neuropathology of schizophrenia, in a school that maintained that schizophrenia was an incurable, endogenous (originating internally), hereditary disease in which cerebral neurons were preferentially attacked. Other mental syndromes, particularly epilepsy, were considered exogenous (originating externally) in origin, and hence 3104
curable. Meduna’s attempt to induce seizures in schizophrenics resulted from his hypothesis that there is a biological antagonism between the process that produces epileptic attacks and the process that produces schizophrenia. The effect of the epileptic convulsion is that it changes the chemical constituents in the organism in a way suitable for the cure of schizophrenia. Consequently, in January of 1934, Meduna treated his first patient with intramuscular camphor in oil, causing the patient to have a seizure fifteen to twenty minutes after the injection. Meduna obtained the first remissions in schizophrenics with camphor in oil. He soon realized, however, that this technique was inconvenient because the patients convulsed only after considerable time, sometimes had more than one seizure, or did not convulse at all. He therefore replaced the camphor injections with intravenous pentylenetetrazol (Metrazol). The pharmacologic convulsive treatment with Metrazol, and some other convulsive drugs, was immediately recognized as a valuable treatment for schizophrenia and, as reported several years later, also for depression. In 1936, Cerletti, in the Rome Clinic, adopted the Sakel method (named for its inventor, Manfred Sakel) of treating schizophrenia by means of insulin coma (insulin shock treatment). The following year, Cerletti and Bini replaced the pharmacological induction of seizures with induction by means of an electric current. It was a logical sequence to Meduna’s discovery. In 1870, electricity was used in animal experiments concerning epilepsy, and it was found that electrical shock was the simplest way to induce seizures. Cerletti’s involvement in such research was not treatment directed; rather, it was aimed at investigating problems of epilepsy. It was reasonable, then, that when Cerletti heard about Meduna’s treatment, he wondered why electricity had not been used. Cerletti expressed the enthusiastic opinion that “shock treatments” with insulin coma and Metrazol had changed psychiatry from a morbid science into a therapeutically active field, and he immediately developed an extensive research program to investigate electroconvulsive therapy. In his previous research on experimental epilepsy, Cerletti had induced seizures by applying the electrodes to the mouth and anus of dogs. His considerable hesitation about attempting this procedure in humans resulted from the fact that half of the dogs
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gave two accounts of his work in English, in 1950 and 1956. These accounts, however, were partly distorted by Cerletti’s belief that the injection of the brain substance of electroshocked animals into psychiatric patients would eliminate the need for convulsions. He assumed that repeated seizures in animals produced a substance in their brains that he called “acroagonine.” Cerletti found that injections of such brain substances also increased the resistance of animals to certain infections. In psychotics, some improvement in affect (emotion) and anxiety was seen, but overall the results of this indirect method to reproduce the therapeutic effect of electroconvulsive therapy remained unsatisfactory. Cerletti continued his research attempts to improve the electroconvulsive treatment techniques and to understand exactly how the treatment worked. He determined that the cerebral seizure was essential to the clinical results and that neither the currents used to elicit a seizure nor the motor aspects of the convulsion were significant. Anticipating some of the later interest in the hormonal effects of seizures, in 1956 Cerletti suggested that part of the vegetative syndrome induced by electroshock was localized in the diencephalic section of the cerebrospinal axis. Unfortunately, Cerletti never determined electroconvulsive therapy’s exact mode of action. Significance The development of electroconvulsive therapy had an immediate impact on the psychiatric community. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the new therapy demonstrated by Cerletti and Bini largely replaced pharmacologic convulsive treatment. Moreover, following initial reports of the value of convulsive therapy in the treatment of affective disorders as well as schizophrenia, ECT became the most widely used organic therapy in psychiatry during the years immediately preceding and following World War II. Interest in the convulsive therapies increased with the demands of war. Many physicians were trained in clinical psychiatry by the military, and the convulsive therapies were a significant part of their education as well as their military clinical experience. When patients failed to respond to one therapy, insulin coma and seizure therapy were combined. Some physicians increased the number and frequency of seizure inductions and found positive results—particularly in schizophrenia—to be related to number and frequency of seizures. The use of electroconvulsive therapy soon began to have a negative impact on some members of the psychiatric community, however. As the side effects of shock 3105
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treated in this manner had died. Bini, however, realized that death was caused by the current traveling through the heart. Consequently, when the investigators changed the location of the electrodes to the two temples of the dogs, the heart was no longer within the electric circuit, and no further animals were killed. It was Bini who had first reported on Cerletti’s studies, at the First International Congress on New Treatments of Schizophrenia, in Münsingen, Switzerland, in 1937, after he heard that electrical current was being used in a Rome slaughterhouse. Bini and Cerletti, however, delayed the clinical application of the treatment and visited the slaughterhouse, where they found that the animals were not killed by means of the electric current but were only stunned with electrodes applied to the head. The animals convulsed, and the actual killing was done before they regained consciousness. After spending two years performing experimental neuropathological studies to rule out brain damage and finding that neither the dogs nor other animals succumbed to the electrically induced convulsions, the researchers considered it safe to proceed with the first application of electroconvulsive therapy to human beings. The first patient was treated in April, 1938, with a very primitive machine constructed by Bini. Cerletti’s understandable fear of allowing Bini to proceed with the treatment explains why, at first, a minimal amount of eighty volts for one-tenth of a second was applied. Although the application of this voltage led to a short period of unconsciousness, no seizure resulted. A second stimulus of ninety volts for one-tenth of a second led to a somewhat longer “petit mal” (small seizure). After a minute, the patient awakened and began to sing a popular song. When the doctors discussed the prudence of a third stimulus, the patient unemotionally uttered something about dying but did not object to a third, stronger application, which led to a generalized seizure. The patient, a completely incoherent schizophrenic who had not been able to give his physicians any information about himself, received a total of nine treatments. During the two-year period of follow-up treatments, he was leading a normal life and maintained a job as a skilled worker. After clinical application of electroconvulsive therapy had begun, Cerletti organized a detailed research program, giving assignments to the different members of his staff. Cerletti and Bini published the findings of this program in a monograph (in Italian) in 1942. In that publication, they answered many important questions concerning the procedure, but the monograph remained unknown in American psychiatric literature. Later, Cerletti
Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia
Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia therapy as well as prefrontal lobotomy (another organic treatment developed at about the same time as shock therapy and largely used to treat the same disorders) came to be more and more recognized, many maintained that the cure did more harm than the disease. By 1946, accusations of random and/or indiscriminate use of these techniques on patients (to deal with anything from homosexuality to psoriasis) questioned the effectiveness of these organic methods. At that time, the American Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry issued a statement declaring that widespread and dangerous abuses in the use of ECT justified a campaign of professional education in the limitations of the technique and the institution of certain measures of control. In 1978, a task force of the American Psychiatric Association published a report of their findings on electroconvulsive therapy’s effectiveness. By the 1950’s, psychotropic drugs had all but replaced electroconvulsive therapy in the treatment of schizophrenia. The efficacy of tricyclic antidepressant drugs, the monamine oxidase inhibitors, stimulants, and lithium in depressive and manic disorders further reduced the interest in and use of ECT. Consequently, many ECT facilities were closed, and it was only in the mid-1960’s, as the limitations of the antidepressant drug therapies were recognized, that interest in this form of treatment was rekindled. Once again, however, a gradual decline in the use of the convulsive therapies occurred, although some scientists continued their studies in reduced numbers. Much research was devoted to understanding the seizure process and improving its safety. The usefulness of intensive treatments in severely ill schizophrenics was reexamined, with follow-up studies finding that those who received intensive treatments exhibited better results in residual symptoms, work records, and rehospitalization rates than did those treated with pharmacotherapy alone. Whereas insulin coma was virtually abandoned, electroconvulsive therapy continued to be used. Nevertheless, growing concern that ECT may cause irreparable damage to the brain and that its use may contravene or deny patients’ rights to decide knowingly what is done to them led to judicial and legislative challenges to its use, as exemplified by the virtual ban the state of California placed on its use in 1974. Similar concerns voiced in England, Scandinavia, and Holland resulted in additional evaluations.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Ultimately, with improved equipment and techniques of treatment, clarification of the indications, and better education, the incidence of adverse reactions declined. Moreover, some researchers in the early twenty-first century believe that the legacy of this once-experimental psychiatric treatment may eventually lead to a better understanding of brain function and behavior. —Genevieve Slomski Further Reading Abrams, Richard. Electroconvulsive Therapy. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Standard reference work on the subject covers the biological foundations and clinical applications of the procedure, reflecting state-of-the-art technology. Informative chapter on the history of convulsive therapy highlights the work of Cerletti and Bini. Includes bibliography. Breggin, Peter R. Electroshock: Its Brain-Disabling Effects. New York: Springer, 1979. Informative work describes the adverse effects of electroconvulsive therapy (including brain damage) and notes the uses and potential abuses of this form of therapy. Accessible to lay readers as well as clinicians. Cerletti, Ugo. “Old and New Information About Electroshock.” American Journal of Psychiatry 107 (1950): 87-94. Article by one of the coinventors of electroshock therapy presents a history of the origin of this practice, offers a firsthand account of the invention, and discusses the first ten years of its application. Fink, Max. Electroshock: Restoring the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Explains the use and efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Also presents a brief history of ECT. Includes comprehensive bibliography and index. Kalinowsky, Lothar, and Paul H. Hoch. Shock Treatments, Psychosurgery, and Other Somatic Treatments in Psychiatry. 2d ed. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1952. Lengthy and rather dated work devoted to the organic treatment of psychiatric disorders includes a useful chapter on the historical development of treatment procedures that includes much information on Cerletti and Bini’s work. See also: Nov.-Dec., 1935: Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts
April 5, 1938
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts French critic René Blum and Russian impresario Sergei Denham joined in managing the new company Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which helped to popularize ballet in the United States through its frequent touring. Locale: New York, New York Category: Dance
Summary of Event The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, aggressively promoted as “The One and Only,” was synonymous with glamorous stars, sumptuous decor, and brilliant dancing for nearly a quarter of a century. An itinerant company with roots torn by war and internal intrigue, the Ballet Russe adopted an accessible approach in its dealings with the American public. Rather than being elitist, inapproachable bearers of high art, the company infiltrated remote corners of the United States, appearing in high school auditoriums as well as big-city opera houses. The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo created a mass audience for ballet with success unmatched by fledgling American companies during the same period. Its contribution to the evolution of twentieth century theatrical dance is extremely significant.
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Key Figures René Blum (1884-1944), French impresario and art critic who took over the management of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, eventually renaming it the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Sergei Denham (1897-1970), Russian impresario whose direction of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo helped to popularize ballet in the United States Léonide Massine (1895-1979), French dancer originally from the Diaghilev company who served as the widely acclaimed choreographer for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Wassili de Basil (1888-1951), Cossack colonel who briefly joined Blum in leading the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Michel Fokine (1880-1942), Russian choreographer whose revolutionary ideas about dance helped to modernize ballet George Balanchine (1904-1983), Russian choreographer who contributed works to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo before beginning a long association with the New York City Ballet
Beginning in 1938, impresarios René Blum and Sergei Denham together guided the group’s progress. Blum, formerly Monte Carlo Opera Ballet’s director, managed the remains of Sergei Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes after Diaghilev’s death in 1929. Denham, a Russian banker transplanted to New York, was vice president of a sponsoring organization called Universal Art (formerly known as World Art). This organization wished to assemble a new company for French choreographer Léonide Massine. Denham turned to Blum. For roughly forty thousand dollars, Blum sold the rights to the valuable Monte Carlo name and elements of the Diaghilev repertory to Universal Art (which was backed by millionaire Julius Fleischmann). By arrangement, the Ballets Russes continued its annual spring season in Monte Carlo and its U.S. touring under Universal’s management and financial support. Denham assumed the role of business director of the company— renamed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo—while Blum remained its artistic director and Massine its choreographer and principal dancer. (In fact, to Blum’s chagrin, the company was widely known as Massine’s Ballet Russe.) The company’s debut performance was given on April 5, 1938, in Monte Carlo, and on October 12, 1938, the company first appeared in New York City. The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo led by Blum, Denham, and Massine was one in a series of incarnations of the Ballet Russe name. The success of Blum and Denham’s partnership followed the deterioration of Blum’s earlier efforts to preserve the legendary company created by Diaghilev. Blum initially assumed direction of the Ballets Russes in the country of its patron, the prince of Monaco. In 1932, Russian Colonel Wassili de Basil joined him in his efforts to salvage the dissipated Diaghilev spirit. With new ballets by George Balanchine and Massine, this earlier company created a sensation during its tours of Europe and, in 1933, of the United States. Blum and de Basil proved incompatible as partners, however. They split the group into two separate enterprises in 1936 with great hostility, dividing repertory, trademarks, costumes, and even dancers. Thriving on intrigue and confusion, de Basil changed the name of his reorganized company six times in less than eight years. Common appellations were “De Basil’s Ballet Russe” and the “Original Ballet Russe.” Litigation over rights of ownership to the ballets continued into the late 1940’s, as did the rivalry between the two companies. These so-
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts called Ballet Wars, often fought across continents, generated tremendous publicity. Newspapers from Europe to the Americas carried frequent updates on the squabbles and traced the dancers’ shifting loyalties. Indeed, in addition to the exotic company name, the star appeal of the dancers in Blum and Denham’s company was crucial to its popularity. At its inception, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo took with it or hired such foreign favorites as Alexandra Danilova, Alicia Markova, Eugenie Delarova, Mia Slavenska, Tamara Toumanova, Serge Lifar, Michel Panieff, Marc Platoff, and Frederic Franklin. Among those lost to de Basil were premier danseur David Lichine and “baby ballerinas” (Balanchine’s prodigies) Tatiana Riabouchinska and Irina Baronova. Both Ballet Russe companies continued to tour Europe and North and South America with immense, if independent, success. The partnership undertaken by Blum and Denham ushered in golden years for the new Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and their travels took them from New York to Boston, Toronto, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Seattle. The company was met by welcoming audiences, impressive box-office returns, and daily reviews. Many historians recall that theaters advertised “standing room only” as much as a month before the company’s arrival in a given town. Although the Ballet Russe was officially headquartered in Monte Carlo, the company became a permanent fixture at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House as a result of the onset of World War II in 1939. With European tours impossible, the company performed frequently throughout the United States and Canada. Furthermore, when new Russian dancers became unavailable, Blum and Denham began to hire Americans. Many of them, seeking a share of the company’s alluring image, at first adopted Russian stage names. Although many of his previous works were retained by de Basil through court action, Massine created new choreographic masterpieces for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Favoring the avant-garde and the surreal, Massine often commissioned modern artists such as Henri Matisse and Salvador Dalí to create the decor for his ballets. The company came to be associated with colorful, flamboyant, even outrageous results. Blum and Denham employed the Diaghilev formula for an evening’s concert: They presented three or four stylistically or thematically different ballets on one program. One critic compared the Ballet Russe to a three-ring circus in which an audience could pick its pleasure from a variety of interesting acts. Entertainment value aside, the com3108
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 pany’s repertoire was the subject of serious and intense scrutiny by patrons who were beginning to gain a critical understanding of ballet. Despite its continued success, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo soon faced new political and artistic realities. The horrifying state of affairs in Europe dealt a severe blow to the dance company in the United States. Many dancers worried about family members overseas, and some even joined the armed forces. Most distressingly, while his company was touring the United States in 1943, Blum tragically decided to visit France instead. He was arrested by Nazi police in December and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he died nine months later. The prewar glamour of the Ballet Russe, replete with its images of Russian exoticism, started to fade. Indeed, external upheaval seemed to coincide with a change in the company’s internal artistic philosophy. The new
Portrait of Léonide Massine by artist and theatrical set designer Léon Bakst.
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Significance Blum and Denham’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo made the United States excited about ballet. This was no small achievement, as the country was only slowly gaining an understanding of dance as legitimate entertainment and even art. The way had been paved by the frequent tours of Anna Pavlova’s company and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the 1910’s and 1920’s. These dancers introduced the United States to the glamour and artistry of a European and Russian tradition that, until their visits, was mostly unfamiliar to Americans. The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo capitalized on that earlier introduction, performing often enough to help a mass audience cultivate its tastes and emerging aesthetic values. The Ballet Russe’s greatest asset was its familiarity to the public and its recognizable brand of showmanship. Under Blum and Denham, the company preserved the Diaghilev mystique and kept the lauded Russian tradition before a starstruck public’s eye. In so doing, however, it reinforced the notion that ballet was essentially a Russian art form. While some considered this a negative influence, it had the positive effect of elevating artistic standards for rising national and regional groups that struggled to compete with the Ballet Russe’s established fame. Regardless of its international orientation, the Bal-
let Russe de Monte Carlo helped to establish ballet on a permanent, professional basis in the United States. Probably the best-known choreographer of the decade, Massine created some of his finest pieces for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Gaîeté Parisienne, which premiered in 1938, featured fun-loving cancan dancers and madcap waiters in a Paris music hall. Massine also produced a 1930’s series of notable symphonic ballets set to the music of such composers as Hector Berlioz, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms. Rouge et Noir (1939), with music by Dmitri Shostakovich, incorporated color-drenched settings and costumes by Matisse. Described as “a vast mural in motion,” the ballet was a discordant allegory representing the forces of destiny in shaping a man’s life. De Mille made a different kind of contribution to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, affecting both the company and its audiences. Rodeo, which premiered to dozens of curtain calls, was the Ballet Russe’s first major attempt to incorporate American themes (although Massine had tried to do this on several occasions as well). Rodeo also employed an American composer, Aaron Copland, and American designer Oliver Smith. Depicting a naïve cowgirl’s fervent crush on a Kansas City cowboy, Rodeo was based on a realistic theme and believable characters—a true departure from the traditional ballet fantasies of swans, princes, and spirits. That this tribute to life in the United States could find success in the repertory of the Ballet Russe signified a new era in the company’s history and the growing popularity of ballet as an American art form. For his part, Balanchine brought an extensive repertory with him to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Among them were older works such as Mozartiana (1933) and Serenade (1935); recent works, including the 1941 Concerto barocco (created for another fledgling company, the American Ballet); and new works, such as Danses concertantes (1944), choreographed especially for the Ballet Russe. Over the next two decades, choreographers such as Frederick Ashton, Ruth Page, Ruthanna Boris, and Bronislawa Nijinska added works to the repertory as well. The Ballet Russe was certainly not the only group competing for audiences’ attention. Often the company appeared in the same city or even the same theater with Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan, a company that overtly attempted a nationalistic outlook. In other instances, the repertory of Blum and Denham’s group overlapped with Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballet. In their last parallel season, 1940-1941, the two companies both boasted 3109
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modern dance was rising to the forefront of American stages, as choreographers such as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey sought to translate into movement the emotion of inherently national or personal themes. For example, dances were created about the Great Depression and unemployment, and about the American frontier, freedom, and equality. Denham responded to this outside impetus by inviting the young American dancer Agnes de Mille to create a work for the Ballet Russe in 1942. The result was Rodeo, a spirited depiction of ranch life in the American West. Massine stayed with the group until 1943, when he left to form yet another offshoot company, Ballet Russe Highlights. Denham then appealed to Balanchine to rejuvenate his company. In contrast with the idiosyncratic ballets of Massine, Balanchine composed “neoclassic” ballets that were closely related to their music and structurally complex. He remained with the company until 1946, when he left to join Lincoln Kirstein in the formation of Ballet Society. These initial years of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, guided by Blum and Denham with artistic direction by Massine and Balanchine, were profoundly instrumental in raising the American public’s interest in the art of ballet.
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts versions of Giselle, L’Après-midi d’un faune, Petrushka, Swan Lake, and Schéhérazade. Presenter Sol Hurok, who then managed both Ballet Russe groups, ignored the coincidence because tickets continued to sell. Quite possibly, audiences did not distinguish between the two companies with similar names and repertoire; on the other hand, the presence and popularity of one company probably enhanced that of the other. Under Denham’s guidance, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo remained active until 1962 (roughly a decade longer than de Basil’s group). During that time, it became an essentially American company, both in its travels and in its repertory. It partly preserved the spirit of the Diaghilev legend while absorbing some of the qualities of its new homeland in the process. Although after Massine’s and then Balanchine’s departure the company lacked definite artistic coherence, its very existence helped the American public to make (as one dancer remarked) “a habit out of art.” —Alecia C. Townsend Further Reading Amberg, George. Ballet in America. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1949. An older publication that provides three detailed chapters on the succession of companies called the Ballet Russe. All are useful; Blum and Denham’s group is discussed in a chapter titled “The Ballet Russe II: Massine’s Ballet Russe.” Appendix provides a comprehensive list of the company’s repertoire. Anderson, Jack. The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2003. An excellent resource. Traces the company through birth, reorganization, and final performances. Contains well-researched information, extensive notes,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 rosters of repertoire and dancers, and important primary-source material. Clarke, Mary, and Clement Crisp. “History of Ballet: Twentieth Century.” In The History of Dance. New York: Crown, 1981. While this attempts to cover an obviously enormous topic in a comparatively small number of pages, it provides a helpful chronological sequence of developments in the art of ballet. The origins of the Ballet Russe and its implications are discussed in detail. Good for putting the company into the context of the history of dance. Massine, Léonide. My Life in Ballet. Edited by Phyllis Hartnoll. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968. A complex autobiography of the choreographer, with heavy emphasis on descriptions of works. The influence of Sergei Diaghilev on the author is stressed. Contains a catalog of ballets organized alphabetically. Maynard, Olga. “The Companies: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.” In The American Ballet. Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1959. A look at the evolution of theatrical dance in the United States, with a section devoted to Blum and Denham’s Ballet Russe. Describes company history, repertory, and dancers in detail. Stowitts, H. J., and Anne Holiday. Najinski Dancing! From the Golden Age of the Ballet Russe. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Park Place, 1996. A catalog from an art exhibition featuring images of Vaslav Najinski, one of the Ballet Russe’s most famous dancers. No index. See also: Dec. 22, 1907: Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan; May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris; June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet; June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris; Dec. 6, 1934: Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet.
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HUAC Is Established
May 26, 1938
HUAC Is Established The House Un-American Activities Committee launched a crusade against subversive activity in the U.S. government, spreading its investigations to include unions, educational institutions, and the media. The committee came in later years to be a symbol of political intolerance, repression, and abuse of civil liberties by the government.
Key Figures Martin Dies, Jr. (1900-1972), U.S. representative from Texas, 1931-1944, 1953-1958 J. Parnell Thomas (1895-1970), U.S. representative from New Jersey, 1937-1950 Samuel Dickstein (1885-1954), U.S. representative from New York, 1923-1946 J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1924-1972 Robert M. La Follette, Jr. (1895-1953), U.S. senator from Wisconsin, 1925-1946 John P. Frey (1871-1957), president of the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor Harry Hopkins (1890-1946), adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt Harold Ickes (1874-1952), U.S. secretary of the interior, 1933-1946 Frances Perkins (1882-1965), U.S. secretary of labor, 1933-1945 Summary of Event Inspired by the failure of the country to emerge from the Great Depression, the ebbing of the New Deal, the reemergence of the Republican Party in the electoral process, the successful growth of trade unionism, and the uneasiness of international political affairs, loyalty probes by the U.S. Congress started to take center stage during the late 1930’s in a delicate political process. Attempting to expose real and perceived conspiracies, a congressional committee was organized to investigate the affairs of individuals and groups who, it was alleged, were engaged in attempts to overthrow the existing so-
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Also known as: Dies Committee; House Special Committee on Un-American Activities; House UnAmerican Activities Committee Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Government and politics; civil rights and liberties; laws, acts, and legal history
cial and political order of the nation. On May 26, 1938, the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities, popularly known as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), chaired by conservative Democrat Martin Dies, Jr., of Texas, was established. In June, the committee began hearings to seek out subversive activities against the government of the United States. Members of the committee included Democrats John J. Dempsey of New Mexico, Samuel Dickstein of New York, and Joe Starnes of Alabama and Republicans Noah M. Mason of Illinois, Harold G. Mosier of Ohio, and J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey. The committee was created for the purpose of uncovering fascist subversion, particularly Nazi spies and collaborators among the Ku Klux Klan, German American organizations, and other groups with pro-German, fascist, or Aryan leanings. HUAC did very little in this regard. Instead, the committee quickly changed its focus to the other end of the political spectrum, choosing to ferret out communist, rather than fascist, activity. In the light of this change of focus, first on HUAC’s list for investigation were the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Writers’ Project. Born in New Deal legislation, these programs became early targets for Republican strategists in the congressional electoral campaigns of the late 1930’s. Representative Thomas led the way, determining that evidence received from committee investigators clearly indicated that the Federal Theatre Project was a branch of the Communist Party. Actual evidence in support of the specific allegations against the project failed to materialize. Next, HUAC investigated labor unions. Testifying before the committee, John P. Frey, president of the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), accused all but one member of the leadership of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), a rival labor organization, of being either members of the Communist Party or sympathetic to its cause. Only John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, was exempted from this charge. Regardless of the accusations, no cross-examination of the witness took place and no subpoenas against those accused were issued. Charges were made in the presence of a supportive gallery of witnesses. Frey’s indictment of the CIO leadership later was amended to state that the rank and file of the union were not being accused, only its leadership. Newspapers elaborated Frey’s charges. By the end of his testimony, 280
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pense of business; and institutions of higher education, which the committee said were rife with Communists and radicals encouraging racial strife and antifascist activities. The motionpicture industry received special attention; accusations against screen stars and writers such as James Cagney, Clark Gable, Dorothy Parker, To view image, please refer to the Robert Taylor, and Shirley Temple print edition of this title. were written into the records. Despite HUAC’s assurances that all those accused would be given a chance to clear their names, only a small number received that opportunity. Writer Heywood Broun read a prepared statement and then was asked to leave. Between June and October, witness after witness was paraded before the committee, supporting the idea that there were ComMartin Dies, Jr., chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, admunists in government positions, dresses the general conference of the Methodist Church in Atlantic City, New Jersey, higher education, the media, and lain April, 1940. (AP/Wide World Photos) bor. By the November elections, public opinion had become divided on some of the committee’s methods but CIO union leaders had been charged with Communist acnot on the idea that there was a role for the committee in tivity. In only a few cases was there any corroborating government. material to support the allegations. Dies’s attack on Communists eventually led to his atWalter S. Steele of the National Republic, chairman tack on trade unionism, civil rights movements, and libof the American Coalition Committee on National Secueral agendas in general. He called for the resignation of rity, claimed to have documented evidence that more government officials with whom he disagreed, such as than 6.5 million Americans were engaged in conspiratoHarry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, and Frances Perkins. His rial activities against the government of the United accusations that there were thousands upon thousands States. Steele did not have to support his claim. By the of Communists in the federal government conspired end of the committee’s first hearings, 640 separate against New Deal programs and personalities alike. In groups, 483 newspapers, and 280 labor unions had been his book The Trojan Horse (1940), Dies institutionalized labeled as Communist organizations. the idea that Communism was an organized fifth column Included in the list of accused organizations was the that had brought on the Great Depression and made PresAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had reident Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal its tool. He went cently been involved in the Senate Civil Liberties Comon to accuse the president’s wife, Eleanor, of being the Communist Party’s most valuable asset in Washington, mittee hearings. The Senate’s committee had been orgaD.C. Once again, no evidence of these accusations ever nized by Robert M. La Follette, Jr., to investigate official materialized. abuses of civil rights in trade union organizing activities during the decade. According to HUAC, both the Senate Significance Committee and the ACLU had fallen under the influence HUAC’s charges changed the nation’s legislative of the Communist Party. Other groups receiving HUAC’s agenda. The Republican Party’s success in the 1938 elecire were pacifist organizations, which were seen as dupes tion, its first major success in almost a decade, brought of the Communist conspiracy; the media, which, accorddown New Dealers such as Michigan and Wisconsin ing to the committee, supported trade unionism at the ex3112
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Further Reading Bentley, Eric, ed. Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, 1938-1968. New York: Viking, 1971. At times hilarious and at other times sobering,
this volume remains the best introduction to the things said and done in HUAC’s name. Dies, Martin. Martin Dies’ Story. New York: Bookmailer, 1963. The memoir of the man who set the committee’s tone and tact. Provides personal insight into Dies’s life. Includes informative appendixes. _______. The Trojan Horse in America. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940. Dies’s summary of the subversive threat posed by communists and native fascists. Goodman, Walter. The Committee: The Extraordinary Career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968. Written in a lively, journalistic style, this is the standard history of HUAC’s first thirty years. Goodman criticizes both the committee, for its inquisitorial and sensationalist style, and the investigated, for their dissident politics and confrontational posturing. Navasky, Victor. Naming Names. New York: Viking, 1980. This self-described moral detective story investigates HUAC in Hollywood and the difficult choices faced by those who received committee subpoenas. Ogden, August Raymond. The Dies Committee: A Study of the Special House Committee for the Investigation of Un-American Activities, 1938-1944. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1945. Discusses the antecedents of the committee, its formation, and its process of investigation. O’Reilly, Kenneth. Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983. Based on thousands of FBI and other government agency files obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, this book explores the on-again/off-again relationship between the FBI and HUAC. Particular emphasis is placed on the ways in which HUAC publicized information from FBI files on dissident individuals and groups. Redish, Martin H. The Logic of Persecution: Free Expression and the McCarthy Era. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005. An examination of the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Includes a chapter on HUAC and the committee’s investigation of Hollywood. Bibliographic references and index. Schultz, Bud, and Ruth Schultz. The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Includes two essays on HUAC by Dagmar Wilson and Abbie Hoffman, alongside many other essays on the history of the organized repression of dissent in the United States. Bibliographic references and index. 3113
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governors Frank Murphy and Philip La Follette. At the national level, eight new Republican senators and eighty-eight new Republican members of the House of Representatives helped point to the facts not only that the New Deal was in trouble but also that there was a perceived need for government to ferret out subversives in the United States. Despite Roosevelt’s support, the Senate Civil Liberties Committee came to an end in 1940, after only four years in operation. On the other hand, HUAC went on for another thirty-five years. Dies’s initial confrontation with those on the political left helped lay the groundwork for the killing of the Senate’s committee by helping to elect those who would support the loss of its funding. Dies’s committee also laid the foundation for the evolution of the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s and for government police operations such as the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Dies set up the rules for official government action that, in the end, ruined lives and careers, denied due process of law to those accused, and insinuated guilt by association. In the process, his committee produced a thorough challenge to the democracy it was attempting to protect. Although HUAC has a deeply entrenched reputation as being antidemocratic in itself, historians can now see that the underlying concern of the committee was not unfounded. More widespread scholarly access to Soviet-era documents became possible with the opening of the Soviet archives in the early 1990’s, and evidence in those documents revealed that the Soviet Union had a substantial espionage program in the United States involving high-level U.S. government officials, including the cofounder and vice chairman of HUAC, Samuel Dickstein, who was paid $1,250 per month by the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) between 1937 and 1940. At the same time, it has since become an established principle of common law that the First Amendment right to assembly protects the right of American citizens to belong to the Communist Party, and persecuting citizens for their membership in the party is therefore unconstitutional. — Thomas J. Edward Walker, Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes, and Ruby L. Stoner
HUAC Is Established
Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees Sexton, Patricia Cayo. The War on Labor and the Left: Understanding America’s Unique Conservatism. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991. Analyzes how the use of power has evolved in government and legal institutions, economic policies, and the media.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded; Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor; Aug. 29, 1935June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater.
June 7, 1938
Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees In an attempt to halt the Japanese invasion, Chinese forces breached levees along the Huang River (also known as the Yellow River). The resulting flood did not significantly aid the Chinese military, and although casualties from the flooding itself were not large, disease and famine afterward caused an estimated 890,000 deaths. Also known as: Huang River Locale: Huang River, China Categories: Disasters; military history; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), leader of the Nationalist Chinese forces Shang Chen (1887-1978), Chinese general whose troops carried out the breaching of the Huang levees Hisaichi Terauchi (1879-1946), Japanese general who commanded advancing troops at the levees Summary of Event After oil pipelines were opened into the Persian Gulf and oil wells set on fire during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, many commentators asserted that a new kind of warfare had emerged: environmental warfare. On the contrary, however, environmental warfare is very ancient: Armies have modified the environment to achieve their own objectives or hinder the enemy for centuries. In the summer of 1938, the Chinese army committed perhaps the largest act of environmental warfare in history by breaching the levees of the Huang River (long known in the West as the Yellow River) to hinder the advancing Japanese army. The resulting floods slowed the Japanese and drowned some of their troops, but at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Chinese lives. The Huang originates in west-central China. After it exits the highlands about 400 kilometers from the coast, it flows across a gently sloping, coastal plain to the sea. The Huang is the most sediment-laden large river in the 3114
world, and the north China coastal plain is essentially like a vast alluvial fan; the Huang periodically jumps to a new path when its current channel becomes filled with silt. In the last twenty-five hundred years, historical records show dozens of diversions. In recent millennia, the river has followed two main courses. One, the present course, runs northeast and empties north of the Shandong Peninsula; the other empties south of the peninsula. Because the floodplain has a very gentle slope and is densely populated, floods throughout history have caused staggering loss of life. Many deaths were due to disease and starvation rather than drowning. The war that caused the 1938 disaster was the result of a long-running campaign by Japan to expand its power at China’s expense. Japan had occupied Korea, and following a short war (the First Sino-Japanese War, 18941895), China was forced to cede Taiwan to Japan in 1895. In 1931, following a bombing that many historians suspect was staged as a pretext for invasion, Japan invaded Manchuria and in 1932 set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. Over the next few years, the Japanese nibbled away at the frontiers of China, and by 1937, the limits of Japanese occupation hemmed in Beijing on the west, north, and east. In July, 1937, clashes at the only remaining bridge linking Beijing to the rest of China escalated into outright invasion, and the Second SinoJapanese War began. Beijing was occupied on August 18. By the end of 1937, Japanese forces had occupied the coastal plain north of the Huang. In addition, Japan attacked Shanghai in mid-August, although it took until November to conquer the city. In December, Japanese forces moved inland and captured Nanjing as well. In the spring of 1938, Japanese forces invaded the coastal plain south of the Huang and attacked the city of Xuzhou. Although at one point Chinese forces won their first major victory and forced a large Japanese force to retreat, the overall campaign was a victory for Japan, and Chinese forces retreated to the west. By June, Japanese forces commanded by Hisaichi Terauchi threatened to
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Significance Because Japan was at war only with China at the time of the flood, American and European journalists had access to both Chinese and Japanese sources. Japanese sources
reported that Japanese troops had been warned about the levees being mined but had been unable to locate the charges. They also claimed that Chinese troops fired on Japanese troops and local work parties who were attempting to repair the breaks. On June 16, a New York Times article reported that Chinese interviewed in Shanghai (then occupied by the Japanese) overwhelmingly favored breaching the dikes if it could halt the Japanese. A number of Western analysts also approved of the tactic. They noted that the flood created a huge humanitarian problem but that the war was a more serious cause for concern. Although the flood delayed the Japanese and bought time for Chinese withdrawal, the Japanese eventually captured all the objectives they were striving for at the time of the flood. Most histories treat the flood as a minor episode in a much larger conflict, and very little detailed information is available in English. The most devastating loss of life occurred as a result of famine: Huge amounts of crops were destroyed, and the war prevented sufficient transportation of relief supplies. It is extremely hard to separate the effects of the flood from overall civilian loss of life in the war, but most published estimates claim half a million to one million lives lost. Official Chinese figures put the death toll at about 890,000. Bitterness over the flood may have been significant in causing many victims to reject the Nationalist cause in favor of the Communists. The Huang was diverted back to its present course in 1947. — Steven I. Dutch Further Reading Dorn, Frank. The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1941: From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor. New York: Macmillan, 1974. Detailed account by a U.S. embassy officer stationed in China. Makes use of Japanese and Chinese sources. A brief account of the dike breaching can be found on pages 177-178. Map showing the new route of the river is on page 171. Durdin, F. Tillman. “Chinese Attacking Japanese in Flood.” The New York Times, June 13, 1938, p. 1. First major press account of the flood. Other significant New York Times accounts were published on June 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 26, and 28, and on July 4. Elvin, Mark, and Liu Ts’ui-jung, eds. Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Case studies of historical human environmental effects in China. One chapter deals with a military diversion in 1128 that was nearly identical to the 1938 event. Lary, Diana. “Drowned Earth: The Strategic Breaching of the Yellow River Dyke, 1938.” War in History 8, no. 2 3115
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capture Zhengzhou, a strategic rail junction. His Chinese opponent Shang Chen was one of the ablest Chinese commanders, but he was unable to halt the Japanese advance. On June 8, press reports announced that Chiang Kai-shek had ordered the breaching of the levees along the Huang to impede the Japanese advance. The objectives of the diversion were to halt or at least slow the Japanese onslaught, cause casualties and damage to military equipment, and give the Chinese army time to withdraw and establish defenses. Destruction of levees was not new in Chinese military history, and the upper part of the floodplain is especially vulnerable. The dikes were breached in 1128 and 1642 in nearly the same places as the 1938 breach. In 1937, the Chinese army had breached levees along the Grand Canal, which joins the Huang and Yangtze Rivers, to obstruct the Japanese, and Western journalists believed that the breaching of the levees in 1938 had been the subject of a great deal of planning. Initial reports exaggerated the flooding. A week after the flooding, a Japanese report claimed 150,000 people had drowned, while a Chinese report claimed that 6,000 Japanese troops had also drowned. Some newspaper stories described a “wall of water,” but later reports were more restrained. They stated that early estimates of death tolls were not credible, that most people were able to escape the flood, and that the floodwaters spread slowly and were generally shallow. There was widespread agreement that the flood had diverted almost the entire flow of the Huang and that the former course of the river below the breach had been reduced to a small stream. Most later reports stressed that the greatest danger to human life was from destruction of crops and famine, which was exacerbated by the war. The floodwaters advanced southeast along tributaries to the Huai River and eventually entered the Yangtze. Reporters taken on an aerial survey of the flood area by the Japanese in early July reported that flooding had receded in many areas and was then concentrated on channels leading southeast. The summer of 1938 was described as both sweltering and unusually rainy, and natural flooding compounded the human disaster. Later that summer the Chinese also breached dikes along the Yangtze River, and natural flooding along the Yangtze caused additional damage and loss of life.
Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees
Natural Gas Act (April 1, 2001): 191-207. Deals more with the political setting and repercussions of the levee breach than the actual flood, but valuable because it contains the most detailed references to original Chinese sources. Wilson, Dick. When Tigers Fight: Story of the SinoJapanese War, 1937-1945. New York: Viking, 1982. The account of the flood is on pages 119-122 and includes a map. The account of the aftermath of the flood appears to be based on Dorn’s account. Zhao, Songqiao. Geography of China: Environment, Re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 sources, Population, and Development. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. Includes general discussions of Huang floods but is especially noteworthy for a detailed map (on page 114) of changes in the river’s course since 600 b.c.e. See also: 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War; July, 1931: Yellow River Flood; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March; Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing.
June 21, 1938
Natural Gas Act The Natural Gas Act mandated the Federal Power Commission to control gas prices in interstate commerce and to decide which pipelines could enter the interstate market. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Environmental issues; natural resources; laws, acts, and legal history Key Figures Clarence Frederick Lea (1874-1964), U.S. congressman from California Sam Rayburn (1882-1961), U.S. congressman from Texas Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event On June 21, 1938, Congress passed the Natural Gas Act (NGA), and seven days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law. The NGA provided the Federal Power Commission (FPC) much discretion in determining “just and reasonable” rates for the sale of natural gas in interstate commerce. The findings of the commission were to be “conclusive” so long as “supported by substantial evidence,” but these findings could be challenged in court. The regulation of prices was not to apply to local sales or to intrastate deliveries; the state public-service commissions would continue to regulate these services. The FPC was given additional powers to regulate interstate pipelines and to award certificates of public convenience and necessity, meaning that no new pipeline could enter the interstate market without FPC approval. The major purpose of the law was to protect consumers from excessive prices; public safety and conservation of 3116
a scarce resource were secondary considerations. Since the late nineteenth century, the federal government had been regulating interstate business that was monopolistic or “affected with a public interest.” Until the late 1920’s, however, natural gas was generally an intrastate business, and it had been regulated by the state public-service commissions since the beginning of the twentieth century. The business changed as improvements in metals and welding made it possible for long seamless pipelines to cross state borders between areas of production and large urban centers in the North, and by 1936, thirty-five states had access to supplies of natural gas. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas (1924), interrupted the status quo by ruling that the states could no longer regulate the prices of natural gas transported from one state to another, because the Constitution gave Congress exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. After the Court’s decision, those suspicious of the large energy companies wanted the Congress to “fill in the gap” in the regulation of natural gas. In 1928, the Senate instructed the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the matter, and the commission’s one-hundredvolume study recommended federal regulation of both electricity and natural gas. With the support of this study, the New Deal Congress passed the Federal Power Act of 1935, which enlarged the scope of the FPC and authorized it to regulate electricity sold between states. The FPC had both quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions, so that it could formulate rules with the force of law and interpret these rules in specific cases, subject to appeals in the federal courts. After the passage of the Federal Power Act, Congressman Sam Rayburn, one of the strongest proponents of
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Significance The first major court battle of the NGA had to do with the method that the FPC was to use in determining “just and reasonable” rates. When the act was passed, regulatory bodies generally were following the fair-value standard that a probusiness Supreme Court had articulated in its
1897 Smythe v. Ames decision. According to this standard, regulated businesses were entitled to a rate of return based on the value of their capital investment. Beginning in 1942, a more aggressive FPC changed its standard to one of production investment costs, which meant a lower rate of return for gas businesses. The issue was tested in court in the case Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas (1944), in which the Supreme Court supported the FPC’s position and overruled the Smythe precedent. The Court enunciated the principle that government regulators were no longer required to use the investment-value standard, but they could use any reasonable method or formula. A more long-standing controversy was whether the FPC was authorized to regulate the price charged for natural gas in the fields (at the wellheads). The issue was complex, because although large companies were involved in both the production and the transmission of natural gas, some four thousand independent producers were not involved in interstate transmission. At first, the FPC did not regulate any sales in the fields, but in 1942, the commission began to regulate the large companies that both produced gas and controlled pipelines. The FPC decided against the regulation of the independent producers, but in the surprising landmark case Phillips Petroleum Company v. Wisconsin (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that the intent of Congress in 1938 had been to regulate the sale of natural gas in the fields when its destination was interstate commerce. Because the Phillips decision required the FPC to regulate the sales of thousands of independents, the work of the FPC became much more extensive and complex. Lawyers and economists tended to view the Phillips decision as almost equal in importance to the NGA itself. Until 1960, the FPC made individual price determinations through a case-by-case approach. After a study pointed to the FPC as an example of the “breakdown of the administrative process,” the commission changed to the area rate method, which was a determination of the reasonable requirements within each of twenty-three geographic regions. In the 1970’s, the FPC changed to one standard rate to be used nationwide. Until about 1968, large supplies of natural gas kept prices low, but by 1972, the FPC acknowledged that there actually were shortages in parts of the country. Because oil and gas are often substituted for each other, the increase in oil prices after the embargo of 1973 had a great impact on the market for natural gas. By about 1975, gas prices in the intrastate markets were about twice as high as those in the interstate market, and it was becoming apparent that 3117
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New Deal regulations in the House of Representatives, instructed legislative drafters to take the law and use it as a model for similar legislation authorizing controls of natural gas sales. As Rayburn introduced the bill into the House, Burton Kendall Wheeler introduced the same bill into the Senate. Natural gas companies and state regulators, however, objected to some of the features of the Rayburn bill, and it failed to become law. The next year, Representative Clarence Frederick Lea, chairman of the appropriate commerce subcommittee, revised the bill with the assistance of Clyde Seavey, one of the members of the FPC. Lea introduced the new bill into the House that year, and although there was little opposition, there was not enough interest to get it to the floor for a vote. Lea then turned to the natural gas companies for their views; after making some changes, he introduced the bill a second time in April, 1937. The companies had decided that regulation was in their interest. At this time, the companies’ major problem was that oversupplies were driving down prices, and they were now happy to accept regulation in exchange for a guaranteed profit margin. In spite of a consensus in favor of regulation, the Senate was slower than the House to vote in favor of the bill, and the differences between the two chambers were not worked out until June 21, 1938. Compared with many innovative laws of the New Deal, the NGA was considered rather unexceptional, and the press at the time almost ignored the issue. The NGA was vague and ambiguous in several key areas, and thus the implications of the law would evolve with judicial challenges. The most uncertain portion of the NGA was the statement that FPC regulation would not extend to “the production and gathering of natural gas.” It was clear that the FPC would not have authority over the physical production of gas. Because the term “production and gathering” was not defined, however, it was unclear whether the FPC was authorized to regulate the sale of gas in the fields if the gas was destined for the interstate markets, or whether FPC regulations would apply only after the gas had been sold. This particular ambiguity would be the most controversial aspect of the history of the NGA. Over the years, interpreting this and similar provisions of the NGA would give employment to a large number of lawyers.
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price regulations were contributing to gas shortages in the interstate market. The situation became critical in the cold winter of 1976 and 1977, when a lack of supplies forced four thousand manufacturing plants to close and resulted in 1.2 million workers temporarily losing their jobs. Hundreds of schools had to close their doors in order to protect gas supplies for residential consumers. President Jimmy Carter and his administration concluded that the only answer was to move to the deregulation of natural gas at the wellheads, and the result was the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) of 1978. The NGPA was complex because it made distinctions among about twenty different categories of natural gas. The schedules provided that price controls for new gas and hard-to-get gas from deep wells would end by 1985, whereas the lifting of controls on old gas and gas in shallow wells would not end until 1987. President Ronald Reagan and his administration were committed to competitive markets, and they generally supported the principles of the NGPA of 1978. After the beginning of decontrols, prices did increase significantly by 1982, but adequate supplies ceased to be a problem. Thereafter, new discoveries of natural gas appeared to produce a satisfactory equilibrium and the public lost interest in the issue. By the 1990’s, the controversies of the Natural Gas Act of 1938 were a memory. Most economists tended to conclude that the NGPA of 1982 was a positive step, and few people wanted to return to the field regulations that began with the Phillips decision. It was not clear whether the Natural Gas Act had actually operated in the interest of the consumer, because evidence indicated that the realities of supply and demand had always influenced prices more than had price regulations. With the growing concern for the environment, there was a new complexity about the implications of the term “conservation” in regard to the natural gas industry. Since the passage of the NGA in 1938, the justification for conserving natural gas had been to place a limit on how much gas was consumed so that supplies would last longer. Natural gas, however, is a clean-burning, environmentally friendly fuel, and efforts to decrease its use result in the increased use of other forms of energy that do more ecological damage. The limits of the obtainable reserves of this wonderful resource are as yet unknown. —Thomas Tandy Lewis
can Council on Public Affairs, 1942. Presents a favorable interpretation of the early history of the FPC’s regulation of natural gas. Breyer, Stephen, and Paul W. MacAvoy. Energy Regulation by the Federal Power Commission. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1974. Emphasizes the economics of regulation and argues that price regulation at the wellheads resulted in shortages. Castaneda, Christopher James. Invisible Fuel: Manufactured and Natural Gas in America, 1800-2000. Boston: Twayne, 1999. History of the use of gas as an energy source in the United States includes discussion of the Natural Gas Act of 1938. Features chronology, selected bibliography, and index. DeVane, Dozier. “Highlights of Legislative History of the Federal Power Act of 1935 and the Natural Gas Act of 1938.” George Washington Law Review 14 (December, 1945): 30-41. Very informative account of how the act was passed, emphasizing the roles of Congressmen Rayburn and Lea. Hawkins, Claud. The Field Price Regulation of Natural Gas. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1969. Excellent, scholarly, and readable account of the passage of the act and of interpretations of the law by the courts. Kohlmeier, Louis, Jr. The Regulators: Watchdog Agencies and the Public Interest. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Interesting journalistic account is critical of the regulatory process. Includes substantial coverage of the regulation of natural gas. MacAvoy, Paul W. The Natural Gas Market: Sixty Years of Regulation and Deregulation. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Argues that federal attempts to regulate natural gas have cost the United States billions of dollars and have encouraged intrusive involvement in the natural gas market on the part of regulatory agencies. Sanders, M. Elizabeth. The Regulation of Natural Gas: Policy and Politics, 1938-1978. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981. Excellent, informative study considers various theories of regulation. Concludes that legislators in 1938 were primarily influenced by local interests and that capture of the industry did not take place.
Further Reading Baum, Robert. The Federal Power Commission and State Utility Regulation. Washington, D.C.: Ameri-
See also: 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty.
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Fair Labor Standards Act
June 25, 1938
Fair Labor Standards Act The federal Fair Labor Standards Act, passed during the Great Depression, stipulated minimum wages and maximum hours of work for employees of firms engaged in interstate commerce in the United States. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; business and labor; social issues and reform
Summary of Event Enacted into federal law on June 25, 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was part of a package of reform legislation characterizing the so-called Second New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that began with his landslide reelection in 1936. It applied to all businesses that were engaged in or that affected interstate commerce. Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the “commerce clause,” provided the legal grounds granting federal jurisdiction to effectuate the act. Because the U.S. Supreme Court had begun giving broad construction to what was meant by interstate commerce (as it did in decisions regarding the Wagner Act, for example), the Roosevelt administration believed it would have wide latitude in applying the act. The Fair Labor Standards Act placed a floor under wages and a ceiling over hours for those workers covered by the law. Initially, it established a minimum wage of forty cents an hour, with provisions for subsequent increases, and mandated a maximum forty-hour workweek. To smooth the act’s implementation, the provisions for both wages and hours were to be phased into effect over eight years. The act also placed national authority behind the abolition of child labor. The labor of
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Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Frances Perkins (1880-1965), U.S. secretary of labor, 1933-1945 Harlan Fiske Stone (1872-1946), associate justice of the United States, 1925-1941, and chief justice of the United States, 1941-1946 William Green (1873-1952), president of the American Federation of Labor Thomas J. Walsh (1859-1933), U.S. senator from Montana Hugo L. Black (1886-1971), U.S. senator from Alabama
children under sixteen years of age was forbidden, and persons under eighteen years of age were prohibited from working in hazardous occupations, including mining. In the act’s original form, however, workers in a number of occupations were exempted from coverage, notably farm laborers, professional workers, and domestic servants, although these exemptions would be altered in time. The original bill before Congress envisaged a special board to administer the law. In subsequent years, however, oversight of the act fell to the Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration. President Roosevelt had given little thought to placing his political prestige behind a wages and hours bill until 1937. In efforts to combat the Depression, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), sponsored by Roosevelt during his “First New Deal,” sought to increase purchasing power by establishing minimum wages among the NIRA’s participating businesses and industries. Along with several other major pieces of early New Deal legislation, however, the NIRA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935. By 1935, however, prolabor legislation and support for the incomes of disadvantaged groups were popular in Congress. The Guffey Coal Act of 1935 and the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, for example, each contained provisions to limit hours and raise wages. The institution of Social Security in 1935 was still another attempt to raise the incomes of disadvantaged groups. The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935 threw federal protection around union organization and collective bargaining. The principles of a wages and hours bill were further vindicated in 1936 with congressional passage of the Walsh-Healy Act. Guided through Congress chiefly by Montana’s Democratic senator Thomas J. Walsh, long an enemy of child labor, the act mandated that a prevailing minimum wage, as determined by the secretary of labor, was to be paid to workers on all jobs performed under federal contracts worth more than ten thousand dollars. Work hours were limited to eight per day, and the labor of boys under the age of sixteen and girls under the age of eighteen was prohibited. Even with these enactments in the mid-1930’s, the United States continued to differ from other advanced economies in regard to promulgating national standards for wages and hours. The American version of laissezfaire economics was deeply rooted in an endemic individualism coupled with a widespread fear of peacetime
Fair Labor Standards Act government intervention. Consequently, the Roosevelt administration faced serious difficulties in persuading Congress to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act. These difficulties were compounded by Roosevelt’s shift into a spirited campaign of reform following his 1936 reelection. The president was eager to defuse his growing popular opposition and restore the essence of several key programs of his first administration that had been held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. He was also faced with a secondary economic depression that threatened to be as deep as the one he had inherited in 1933. After initial rebuffs by Congress, the bill that became the Fair Labor Standards Act was introduced to the special congressional session called by Roosevelt in November, 1937. The bill was backed by the president’s message to the nation that a self-respecting democracy “can plead no justification for . . . child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers’ wages or stretching workers’ hours.” Hugo L. Black, then a senator from Alabama and later a Supreme Court justice, had sponsored an earlier wages and hours bill. He chaired the joint congressional committees charged with conducting hearings on the bill. Backing his effort were socially conscious Progressives such as Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Leon Henderson, and White House aides Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen. Opposition to the bill was intense. Critics branded the measure fascist, and the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) denounced the bill on both economic and constitutional grounds. Reflecting southern textile and lumber interests, congressmen from the South fought bitterly against prospective federal interference in or regulation of their industries. Nor was organized labor of one mind. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) and its president, William Green, seeking important changes in the bill, temporarily joined the NAM in opposition; the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), under John L. Lewis, was split on the measure. A Gallup Poll indicated that most Americans, from the North and the South, favored the bill, as did many northern industries that competed with the low-wage, long-hour employment of southern workers. Amid such divisions, many of the bill’s original features were dropped or amended. On June 13, 1938, the House passed the bill by a vote of 291 to 97. The Senate accepted it without a recorded vote. Roosevelt signed the FLSA on June 25, and it became effective on October 24. 3120
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance The FLSA reflected many debilitating and limiting congressional compromises, although over subsequent years amendments would remedy a number of these deficiencies. Leading economists in 1938 reckoned that in its original form the act covered fewer than eleven million workers, less than 25 percent of the employed labor force. Administration officials estimated that when the act took effect, nearly 300,000 workers covered by it were earning less than twenty-five cents an hour and 1.3 million workers normally labored more than forty-four hours a week. The national standard of a forty-hour workweek did not arrive until 1940. The long battle to abolish child labor was also far from over. Entry into employment was restricted to those aged sixteen and over, and the act’s administrators could raise that age to eighteen for work in hazardous or unhealthy industries. Administrators could lower the age of employment to fourteen, however, in industries other than manufacturing and mining in some cases. In addition, the act’s coverage did not extend to agriculture, personal services, street trades, or retailing, which collectively were the largest employers of children. The act proved to be the last of the Second New Deal’s major reform measures. It was also a popular law. A1939 Gallup Poll showed that 71 percent of the country favored it, and it therefore came as a political blessing to an embattled President Roosevelt. The president’s own view of the measure was that it constituted “the most farreaching and the most far-sighted program for the benefit of the workers ever adopted.” One purpose of the law was to secure better terms of employment for workers than they could secure acting alone. It undoubtedly raised wages for the lowest-paid employees, particularly in the South. These included workers in sawmills, canneries, cigar factories, and textile mills. Depending on the degree of enforcement of the act, which generally was low, it shortened the hours of work where abuses were greatest. Its general effects varied widely, from very positive to negative, depending on a variety of factors including product prices, the extent of unionization and collective bargaining, and the state of the economy. Unions eventually applauded it because it curtailed competition from underpaid workers. The act also excluded from legal employment many people who wished to work, by putting their wages above what employers were willing to pay. The last word on the act was that of the Supreme Court. Until 1937, the Court had almost systematically eviscerated major New Deal programs. This had led
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other than are prescribed by the Constitution.” That power, he argued, was not susceptible to modification by states. He granted that although manufacturing was not commerce, the shipment of manufactured goods outside a state was commerce and thus fell under national authority. In order to restore federal power over the regulation of child labor, Stone made his second assertion, namely, that congressional power to regulate child labor was “plenary.” Such power was not limited to child labor in hazardous or unhealthy occupations. On both points and contrary to Darby’s plea, the Supreme Court was unanimous. The Fair Labor Standards Act survived its constitutional test and gained additional strength from Stone’s reaffirmation of Congress’s complete authority over interstate commerce. —Clifton K. Yearley Further Reading Babson, Steve. The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Concise and comprehensive history of the American labor movement. Includes notes and index. Bernstein, Irving. A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. Examination of the New Deal by a leading labor historian maintains a critical balance despite a clear pro-New Deal bias. Chapter 5 presents an informative narrative history of the adoption of the FLSA. Card, David, and Alan B. Krueger. Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. Controversial study reports on data from interviews that suggest that increases in the minimum wage do not decrease employment. Includes references and index. Douglas, Paul H., and Joseph Hackman. “The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 I.” Political Science Quarterly 53 (December, 1938): 491-515. _______. “The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 II.” Political Science Quarterly 54 (March, 1939): 29-55. Two concise articles by a distinguished economist and a labor expert assess the immediate impact of the FLSAon the American workforce. Very informative. Felt, Jeremy P. “The Child Labor Provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Labor History 11 (Fall, 1970): 477-481. Clear and concise scholarly assessment of the subject examines three decades of the FLSA’s child labor provisions at work. 3121
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President Roosevelt to launch an attempt to pack the Court with his own appointees—a legal, if unpopular, method of changing the Court’s conservative complexion by appointing additional justices. Politically, this unfolded as a battle that Roosevelt lost but a war—as a result of events beyond his control—that he won. Amid the controversy, five incumbent justices either died or retired before the constitutionality of the FLSA came before the Court in 1941, and Roosevelt had appointed five new, ostensibly liberal, justices to replace them. As a consequence, when redrafted, several major New Deal programs that earlier had been killed by the Court passed the test of constitutionality before the substantially reconstituted Court. Labor observers thought it a foregone conclusion that the FLSA would find Supreme Court approval, but at the time, the Roosevelt administration was not overly optimistic. The test of the Fair Labor Standards Act came before the Supreme Court as United States v. Darby Lumber Company in 1941. The Darby Lumber Company bought timber, transported it to its mill, and manufactured it into finished lumber entirely within the state of Georgia. The finished lumber, however, was thereafter shipped out of state, thereby entering interstate commerce. By FLSA criteria, Darby’s employees, who earned less than twenty-five cents per hour and who worked more than forty-four hours per week, were underpaid and overworked. Moreover, the company kept no records, as the Labor Department discovered when it tried to bring Darby into compliance with the FLSA. Darby’s rejoinder was that the FLSA was unconstitutional insofar as it sought to regulate manufacturing taking place entirely inside Georgia. A Georgia district court agreed with this reasoning. On appeal, the case went before the U.S. Supreme Court. At the request of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, Associate Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote the Court’s opinion, principally because Hughes deemed it to be a “great” case and because it involved issues that long had concerned Stone. In his opinion, Stone sought first to reassert the absolute nature of congressional power over interstate commerce. In effect, this was designed to return the Court to the sweeping mandate it received from Chief Justice John Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, a position that had been eroded by Supreme Court decisions such as Hammer v. Dagenhart in 1918 that separated actual manufacturing activities from the stream of interstate commerce. Stone declared that congressional authority over interstate commerce, on the contrary, was “complete in itself . . . and acknowledges no limitations
Fair Labor Standards Act
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Levin-Waldman, Oren M. The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Discusses the evolution of minimum wage policy and law in the United States, focusing on how the nature of arguments concerning a minimum wage has changed over time. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index. Levitan, Sar A., and Richard S. Belous. More than Subsistence: Minimum Wages for the Working Poor. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. Brief, clearly written work presents narrative, analysis, and advocacy concerning the minimum wage. Nordlund, Willis J. The Quest for a Living Wage: The History of the Federal Minimum Wage Program. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Traces the process through which the U.S. government attempted to develop a fair method of ensuring that workers receive a living wage. Gives an overview of the first fifty years of the operation of the FLSA. Includes tables and figures, bibliography, and index.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Rauch, Basil. The History of the New Deal. New York: Capricorn Books, 1963. Fine summary of the New Deal by an important historian presents discussion of the work of Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust” in writing and fighting for the president’s legislation. Addresses the FLSA as part of a complex political picture in chapter 13. Wilcox, Clair. Public Policies Toward Business. 3d ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1966. Excellent and authoritative work provides an overview of expanding government controls over American economic and social life. Chapter 32 deals with the FLSA in the context of previous domestic and foreign legislation on wages and hours. See also: Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded; June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States; Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; Feb. 5July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight.
June 25, 1938
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act In response to growing concern about the inadequacy of regulations on food and drugs, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which required premarket safety clearance for certain products. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; trade and commerce Key Figures Royal S. Copeland (1868-1938), U.S. senator from New York, 1923-1938, and chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, 1935-1938 Walter Gilbert Campbell (1877-1963), chief of the Food and Drug Administration Rexford Guy Tugwell (1891-1979), assistant secretary of agriculture Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed in 1938 in response to growing concern that many parts of earlier legislation, such as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 3122
1906, were either inadequate or outdated. A basic weakness of the regulative framework in the 1930’s was the absence of proper public protection against food and drug products or advertisements that made fraudulent therapeutic claims. Furthermore, fraudulent claims were often made for cosmetic products, a category not addressed in the 1906 act or its subsequent amendments. Following discussions between Walter Gilbert Campbell, chief of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Rexford Guy Tugwell, the assistant secretary of agriculture, the FDA initiated a move to tighten the federal regulation of food, drugs, and cosmetics. When this legislative effort was later introduced in Congress by Senator Royal S. Copeland as Senate Resolution 1944 on June 12, 1933, it met with bitter opposition from business and advertising circles. This was partly because the bill’s original sponsor, Tugwell, inspired suspicion and fear with his openly expressed belief in a planned economy. To help assuage such resistance and to forestall passage of competing congressional measures introduced by powerful trade groups, Copeland modified several aspects of his earlier bill during 1934 and 1935. Nevertheless, business groups remained opposed to key parts of the Copeland bill such as the provision that the FDA
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bacterial food contamination could not be addressed effectively by other statutory means. Fourth, label disclosure of artificial coloring, flavoring, or preservatives was specifically required, as was information on vitamin and mineral content and other characteristics of special dietary foods. Finally, greater authority and power were envisaged for agencies responsible for enforcing the law. Injunctive powers were added to other methods of enforcement previously available, and the penalties for noncompliance were increased. Furthermore, the 1938 act specifically allowed for factory inspections. It also provided for automatic premarket testing and approval of new drugs and coal-tar dyes. Significance Compared to the 1906 act, the 1938 act was more comprehensive in scope and was better oriented to serving the public interest. It established the principle that food and drugs that were dangerous to the public should be prohibited, no matter what the source of the danger represented (for example, whether or not a poisonous agent was added artificially or occurred naturally). On the other hand, the act was criticized because, although it required drug manufacturers to establish that their products were safe, it did not mandate the establishment of product efficacy. Moreover, the act allowed for automatic clearance of drugs through time lapse if the FDA did not take any action. Both of these defects would be addressed in future legislation. Additional aspects of the 1938 act merit special attention. Section 201 carefully defined what constituted a food or a drug. The statutory term “food” included all products that could be used as a food or drink by either humans or animals as well as all raw materials that do not have food value but enter into food products during manufacture. The term “drug” encompassed all substances that are recognized in the current official U.S. pharmacopoeia, recommended for use in a disease condition, or capable of affecting bodily structure or function. Two aspects are worth noting. First, the statutory requirements that apply for a food are somewhat different from those that apply for a drug. Second, the definitions of what constitutes a “food” or a “drug” need not be mutually exclusive. That is, a given substance could satisfy the definition of both a food and a drug. Unless there is a clear statement concerning intended use as either a food or a drug, such a substance has to satisfy the statutory provisions that apply to both types of products. As one example, the manufacturer of a laxative in the form of a medicated candy or chewing gum could bring the prod3123
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would be responsible for regulating food, drug, and cosmetic advertising. Because the advertising regulation framework of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was relatively lenient, the business lobbyists wanted the FTC, rather than the FDA, to have such authority. The likelihood of congressional passage of the modified Copeland bill appeared remote until two important developments occurred. First, the 1938 Wheeler-Lea Act reinforced FTC authority over food and drug products. Second, a drug tragedy emphasized the need for greater control over labeling and testing of products intended for public consumption: More than one hundred people died after consuming the drug Elixir of Sulfanilamide, which contained sulfanilamide dissolved in a potent poison called diethylene glycol. Apparently, this product was tested for flavor, appearance, and fragrance, but its safety was not evaluated before its market introduction. Clearly, if there had been stringent regulations to ensure safety tests of products intended for public consumption, this tragedy could have been averted. These events created a political climate conducive to enactment of the Copeland bill. It was passed by the Senate on May 5, 1938, and by the House of Representatives on June 1, 1938. Finally, after more than five years of bitter legislative history since it was introduced in Congress, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1938. The key provisions of the 1938 act were as follows: It prohibited traffic in new drugs unless they had been adequately tested for safe use under conditions prescribed on their labels. Drugs were required to carry warnings against habit formation (if any), to provide adequate directions for use, to bear warnings against unsafe use, and to have precautionary labeling if subject to deterioration over time. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act also prohibited traffic in foods and cosmetics that were injurious to health. The addition of any poison or other adulterant to food was prohibited; further, coal-tar dye products for hair were required to bear a warning label regarding use and preliminary testing. The act contained several key innovations not offered by the amended version of its predecessor, the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. First, the 1938 act prohibited the production of food under unsanitary conditions that might contaminate it or render it injurious to public health. Second, foods considered harmful because of naturally contained poisons were subject to regulation. Third, the 1938 act empowered the imposition of emergency license restrictions whenever the dangers of
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act uct within the definition of the term “drug” and escape the rules concerning food. On the other hand, medicated foods (food products with added medicines) are considered to be adulterated foods. Unless such products can be justified as special dietary foods, as was done for the addition of iodine to table salt, the 1938 act banned the marketing of such products. Another aspect of the 1938 act that led to some controversy was the congressional intent to allocate supervision of food advertising to the FTC and supervision of food labels and labeling to the FDA. This distinction remains unclear and has generated conflicting precedents. For example, the FTC has launched several proceedings on the basis of food labels. Although these proceedings appear legitimate given the agency’s mandate to control unfair or deceptive acts in commerce, they may also be characterized as an encroachment on the FDA’s authority. Moreover, the FDA and FTC decisions have not been consistent with regard to enforcing drug labeling requirements. A further complication is that some courts have ruled that the FDA’s authority to proceed against a firm that misbrands products is not diminished by a prior proceeding against the same firm by the FTC, whereas other court decisions have implied just the opposite. —Siva Balasubramanian Further Reading Anderson, Oscar E. The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Wiley’s biography; presents him as a crusader with a flair for publicity. An interesting look at the relationship between science and politics. Curtis, Patricia A. Guide to Food Laws and Regulations. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell, 2005. Overview of all U.S. federal laws and regulations regarding the preparation, sale, and marketing of foodstuffs. Bibliographic references and index. Herrick, Arthur D. Food Regulation and Compliance. 2 vols. New York: Revere, 1944-1947. Authoritative source on early food and drug laws in the United States. The 1906 act is compared with the 1938 act. Also reviews other federal food statutes. Despite being dated, this book offers a useful summary interpretation of the intent and scope of key sections of the 1938 act. Hinich, Melvin J., and Richard Staelin. Consumer Protection Legislation and the U.S. Food Industry. New York: Pergamon Press, 1980. Examines enforcement procedures of the Food and Drug Administration, the 3124
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Agriculture. Explains the conflicts between federal, state, and local governmental food regulations. Kay, Gwen. Dying to Be Beautiful: The Fight for Safe Cosmetics. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005. Study of the history of safety regulation in the U.S. cosmetics industry. Part of the Women, Gender, and Health series. Bibliographic references and index. Kleinfeld, Vincent A., and Alan H. Kaplan. Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act: Judicial and Administrative Record, 1961-1964. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1965. This book belongs to the Food Law Institute Series and is a useful source of information on food, drug, and related laws. It contains details of the legislative and judicial activities initiated in connection with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act for the period 1961 through 1964. Several types of cases are described in detail. Quirk, Paul J. “Food and Drug Administration.” In The Politics of Regulation, edited by James Q. Wilson. New York: Basic Books, 1980. Focuses on the social and economic effects of drug regulation. Analyzes problems created by the food and drug laws and suggests various reforms. There is also a chapter in the book on the relationship between politics and government regulation. Skinner, Karen. “Scientific Change and the Evolution of Regulation.” In Chemical Safety Regulation and Compliance, edited by Freddy Homburger and Judith K. Marquis. Basel, Switzerland: S. Karger, 1985. Provides a good overview of the passage of the 1938 act and discusses its implications concerning food safety and food additives. Temin, Peter. Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. A detailed history of food and drug regulation and its relationship to the development of new drugs and the therapeutic revolution. Relates this to economic behavior and the role of government in the drug market. See also: Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce; Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust; Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act; Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code; 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established; 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs.
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Evian Conference
July 6-15, 1938
Evian Conference The Evian meeting was an international conference, convened at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s initiative, to discuss comprehensive emigration policy in response to the rapidly accelerating numbers of Jewish refugees. The conference represented a critical turning point in the evolution of the Holocaust.
Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Myron C. Taylor (1874-1959), chairman of the Evian Conference George Rublee (1868-1957), director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees Summary of Event The Evian Conference took place in the French resort community along Lake Geneva from July 6 through July 15, 1938. A climate of deep, ubiquitous anti-Semitism had been spreading throughout Nazi Germany, and it was unfolding with increasing viciousness. On September 15, 1935, Nazi Germany had legislated and begun the implementation of the Nuremberg Laws, racist statutes of the Third Reich that were critical to the marginalization, segregation, and dehumanization of German (and eventually Austrian) Jews. The Anschluss, which annexed Austria to Germany in March, 1938, provoked the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to respond to the proliferating crisis faced by European Jews. The Anschluss made the situation of Jewish refugees much worse: It shattered the pattern of gradual German Jewish emigration. Prior to the Anschluss, Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany was slow, steady, and relatively small. The Jewish refugee crisis was deliberately and systematically precipitated by Nazi Germany’s relentless attempts to eliminate “undesirables”; the Third Reich was eager to remove Jews from all its territories. The Evian Conference was a direct result of this urgent need for nations to deal with the Jewish refugee crisis. Soon after the Anschluss, Roosevelt recommended that heads of state convene at an international meeting to negotiate a remedy to the plight of stateless Jewish émi-
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Locale: Evian, France Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; diplomacy and international relations; human rights
grés. Although it is difficult to determine Roosevelt’s exact motives for calling for such a meeting, it is clear that the president was responding to domestic political pressures, particularly from the isolationist forces in the United States and from groups of American Jews. In the late 1930’s, when the United States and most European countries were still attempting to emerge from the Great Depression, Roosevelt might have thought that the American public was unwilling to accept European Jewish refugees, given that the United States continued to have unemployment concerns for its own citizens. Strategically, the United States may have intentionally placed itself in a win-win situation: By calling for the conference, it communicated concern over the refugee crisis, but the country did not make any significant reforms to its own restrictive immigration policy. Instead, the Americans continued to maintain barriers that reduced the number of Jewish émigrés entering the United States. It appears that Roosevelt’s strategy was to head off progressive immigration demands while circumventing any radical shift in immigration policy. Representatives from thirty-two nations, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, the United States, and countries in Latin America, attended the meeting. Myron C. Taylor, former chairman of the United States Steel Corporation and a friend of Roosevelt, was charged with organizing the meeting at Evian and appointed as the conference chairman. Throughout the meeting, a consensus of passivity and indifference in resolving the refugee crisis emerged among the delegates. At the conference’s commencement, the U.S. delegation immediately assumed an apathetic and constrained posture by refusing to articulate a radical shift in its immigration policy or offer a systematic, comprehensive resolution to the crisis. Instead, the United States announced that it would honor its established immigration policy by merging the quotas for German and Austrian immigrants (which allowed for a combined annual maximum of 27,370 refugees). The British declared that Great Britain and its colonies were incapable of accepting any additional refugees and should be excluded from the absorption of any significant number of Jewish immigrants. In particular, Great Britain was reluctant to open its doors to greater numbers of Jewish refugees because of its resistance to ex-
Evian Conference ternal pressures to greatly increase European Jewish immigration to Palestine. The delegates of other countries responded to the reticence or reluctance of the United States and Great Britain to liberalize and expand their immigration policies by continuing their own restrictive immigration policies. As pretexts for their refusal to increase the number of refugees admitted to their respective countries, the delegates articulated a variety of claims, including that they were already saturated with such refugees and that their countries were suffering from profound economic problems. The delegations did not discuss the reasons behind the massive immigration of European Jews or the Nazis’ perpetration of anti-Semitic policies. Furthermore, the lack of public criticism of Nazi Germany’s antiSemitism was a manifestation of the countries’ implicit recognition of Nazi Germany’s sovereignty. By the end of the conference, the delegates of the thirty-two nationstates were virtually unanimous in their resistance to any liberalization or expansion of their respective immigration policies, with the sole exception of the Dominican Republic, which accepted a meager number of Jewish refugees supported by American Jewish philanthropic aid. The conference also resulted in the creation of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR), which sought to mitigate the problem of Jewish refugees by systematically facilitating global attempts to resettle émigrés. George Rublee was the chair of this committee, which was established in London. The Evian delegates gave the IGCR the power to negotiate with Nazi Germany to systematize the continuous emigration of Jewish refugees and to increase the flow of immigration, and to foster long-term assimilation of these immigrants in their newly adopted homelands. In essence, this committee’s task was to serve as a global instrument to diplomatically resolve the Jewish refugee problem with Nazi Germany. However, the committee immediately faced the dilemma of solving the massive Jewish refugee problem without disrupting the current restrictive immigration policies of Evian’s participants. Although it is ironic that both the IGCR, under Rublee’s leadership, and Nazi Germany shared a common objective of expediting the emigration of Jews, they disagreed about the logistics. The committee preferred that Jewish refugees emigrate with some of their possessions, while Nazi Germany wanted to receive compensation for Jews’ departure. This impasse resulted in dire consequences for many of Germany’s and Austria’s 3126
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 remaining Jews. Furthermore, the nation-states represented by the IGCR contributed very little to efforts to resettle the European Jewish refugees, and this diminished the perception of the IGCR’s potency and credibility. Ultimately, the IGCR did not have the support it needed to rescue Jewish refugees. Significance Holocaust scholars widely regard the Evian Conference as a dismal failure and a watershed event in the history of the Holocaust. The inability of the proceedings at Evian to reform the participants’ immigration policies resulted in a rapidly deteriorating situation for German Jews, and Jews desperate to escape Nazi Germany were hugely disappointed. This meeting signaled to Nazi Germany that the participants in the Evian Conference would respect the Nazis’ sovereignty and domestic affairs. Furthermore, the delegates’ reluctance to condemn the antiSemitic policies of the Third Reich openly and officially was linked to Germany’s accelerated path toward the “final solution”: the extermination of the Jews. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis may have believed that the participants in the Evian Conference would also ignore or be bystanders to an accelerated German policy of genocide against European Jews. Regrettably, at a critical moment for the fate of many European Jews, the ineptness and indifference of the states represented at Evian negated the potential to rescue a significant number of victims of the Holocaust. Organized attempts to rescue Jewish refugees for the duration of World War II remained inconsequential: The Bermuda Conference, which took place in April of 1943, was equally ineffective in its efforts to plan for the rescue of Jewish refugees. —Mitchel Gerber Further Reading Bauer, Yehuda. Jews for Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. Intellectual historical investigation of the efforts to rescue Jews by negotiating with the Nazis. _______. Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Presents an analytical evaluation and articulates insights on a range of problematic topics of the Holocaust. Feingold, Henry L. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1970. Classic historical study of the systematic efforts of the Roosevelt administration to assist European Jews threat-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ened by Nazi Germany’s plans for extermination. Friedlander, Saul. The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939. Vol. 1 in Nazi Germany and the Jews. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Meticulous study of the complex historical factors that led to the Holocaust. Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Historical study of the inadequate efforts of the United States to rescue European Jews.
First Grand Slam of Tennis See also: Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism; 19391945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps.
1938
September 17, 1938
First Grand Slam of Tennis Don Budge became the first singles player in the history of tennis to win the grand slam—that is, he won all of the world’s four major championship tournaments in the same calendar year. The grandslam tournaments were the Australian, British, French, and U.S. amateur national championships. Locale: Australia; France; England; United States Category: Sports Key Figure Don Budge (1915-2000), American tennis player and member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame Summary of Event In 1938, Don Budge from the United States became the first player ever to win the tennis grand slam when he won all four of the world’s major tournaments in the same calendar year. The four grand-slam tournaments consisted of the national championships of Australia, France, England, and the United States. At that time, international competitive tennis was played only by amateurs, so Budge did not play against those who were playing on professional exhibition tours. Budge’s two finest years as an amateur player were 1937 and 1938. In both years, he was ranked as the world’s number one player. In 1937, he won Wimbledon (the English championship) and the U.S. national championship, and he led the American team to its first Davis Cup victory in eleven years. In the semifinal round victory over Germany, Budge won the most thrilling singles victory in Davis Cup history. The team score was tied at two matches, and he lost the first two sets to Baron Gottfried von Cramm. Budge then came back to tie the match at two sets all and then fell behind four games to
one in the deciding fifth set before rallying to win. He was awarded the Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States, and he was also named the Associated Press’s Athlete of the Year. In 1938, he defeated John Bromwich at the Australian finals, Roderich Menzel in France, Bunny Austin at Wimbledon, and Gene Mako in the United States. Budge helped the U.S. team win the Davis Cup again, and he repeated as the Associated Press Athelete of the Year. During 1938, Budge won six of the eight tournaments in which he played: He had a record of forty-three wins and two losses. In the period 1937-1938, he had a streak of wins in fourteen consecutive tournaments, winning ninety-two matches in a row. Budge also won the mixed doubles and the men’s doubles titles at Wimbledon and in the U.S. national championship in 1938. In total, he won eight titles at the four grand-slam tournaments in 1938. Significance Budge, who lived from June 13, 1915, to January 26, 2000, was more than six feet tall and was noted for his ability to use both power and finesse as his opponent and the court conditions dictated. He had a powerful serve and a smooth backhand that was considered one of the greatest ever. He played the game as a gentleman and almost never lost his temper. The publicity that resulted from Budge’s win increased tennis’s recreational and competitive popularity, and tennis became a popular spectator sport throughout the world. Budge also had a positive effect on beliefs about exercise, fitness, and athletic competition. After 1938, Budge turned pro and played on the traveling tour against the world’s top professionals, including Ellsworth Vines, Fred Perry, Bill Tilden, Bobby Riggs, and 3127
First Grand Slam of Tennis Pancho Gonzales. He was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1964. After the Don Budge slam in 1938, Rod Laver of Australia was the only player to duplicate the amateur slam (in 1962). Laver also won a professional slam in 1968; however, Budge remained the only American to have won the grand slam during the twentieth century. Women who have won a singles slam include Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Smith Court in 1970, and Steffi Graf in 1988. — Alan Prescott Peterson
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To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
Further Reading Clerici, Gianni. The Ultimate Tennis Book: Five Hundred Years of the Sport. Chicago: Follett, 1975. Richly illustrated and thorough historical and cultural account of the evolution of tennis; also chronicles the economic growth of modern tennis as a participant and spectator sport. Danzig, Allison. The Fireside Book of Tennis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. A complete book Don Budge at Wimbledon in 1937, the year before his grand-slam victory. (AP/Wide on tennis history with very deWorld Photos) scriptive stories of great matches, including the one between Budge and von Cramm in 1937. See also: July 1, 1903: First Tour de France; June, Gillmeister, Heiner. Tennis: A Cultural History. New 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated; York: New York University Press, 1998. Chronicles Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel; the evolution and development of tennis from the Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf. Middle Ages through the twentieth century.
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Munich Conference
September 29-30, 1938
Munich Conference The Munich Conference formalized the capitulation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his French ally to Adolf Hitler’s demands for the Sudetenland but failed to slake Hitler’s thirst for power. Locale: Munich, Germany Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition
Summary of Event As soon as Germany had annexed Austria in March, 1938, Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Germany, accelerated his political operations against the democracy of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Although Czechoslovakia was stronger and more populous than Austria, it was also more divided internally as a result of the decision of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to draw its frontiers along economic and strategic rather than ethnic lines. Included in the new Czech state was the Sudetenland, a mountainous border area in western Czechoslovakia that was historically Austrian, linguistically German, and inhabited by more than three million people who were opposed to Czech domination. The region was strongly pro-Nazi. The Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria) greatly intensified pan-German sentiment in the Sudetenland and correspondingly increased the power of the Sudeten German Party. Outwardly, the party worked for Sudeten autonomy within the Czech state, but during the summer months of 1938, Sudeten negotiators continually rejected proposals for settlements put forth by the Czech government in Prague. Secretly, the Sudeten Ger-
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Key Figures Edvard Beneš (1884-1948), president of Czechoslovakia, 1935-1938 Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), prime minister of Great Britain, 1937-1940 Édouard Daladier (1884-1970), premier of France, 1938-1940 Emil Hácha (1872-1945), president of Czechoslovakia, 1938-1939 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), premier of Italy, 19221943 Walter Runciman (1870-1949), head of the British mission to Czechoslovakia
man Party took orders from Hitler, who, unknown to the rest of the world, sought to dismember and ultimately destroy Czechoslovakia. As early as April, 1938, Hitler discussed with his cabinet plans to provide additional Lebensraum (living space) for the German people. This undisclosed plan, known to insiders as Operation Green, was the blueprint for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Since 1924, Czechoslovakia had been allied with France, an alliance that provided also for Soviet support, contingent on prior French support. By 1938, France had decided that it could not maintain its Eastern European alliances without the support of Great Britain. In the last analysis, support of Czechoslovakia against German aims depended on Great Britain. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, was convinced that there were injustices in the treaties of 1919 that had to be removed if peace were to be preserved. He mistakenly believed that Hitler shared his abhorrence of war and that Hitler’s objectives in Czechoslovakia were limited; he therefore favored a policy of appeasement. Instead of standing firmly behind Edvard Beneš, the president of Czechoslovakia, and his government in their efforts to resist German pressure, Chamberlain continually urged Beneš to make maximum concessions. In August, Chamberlain sent Walter Runciman, an English politician and millionaire shipbuilder, as an “impartial mediator” to investigate Czech-Sudeten differences at first hand. Runciman had no prior experience in such matters, and his proGerman sympathies were soon detected. The fact that Hitler was instructing the Sudeten leaders to keep increasing their demands remained hidden. In September, when it became evident that Hitler was preparing an armed attack on Czechoslovakia and that the Czechs intended to resist, Chamberlain made three visits to Germany in the space of fourteen days. On September 15, at Hitler’s mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden, Chamberlain conceded the right of selfdetermination to the Sudetens and promised to win acceptance of this point from the French and Czech governments. After this initial meeting, Chamberlain believed he had averted a general war, telling his sister, “I have no doubt whatever . . . that my visit alone prevented an invasion.” He met Hitler again on September 22 at Bad Godesberg, a small town on the Rhine River, only to find that this concession was no longer enough. Hitler now demanded immediate Czech evacuation of the Sudetenland and German military occupation before the hold-
Munich Conference ing of any plebiscite. Even Chamberlain balked at such bullying. The outbreak of a general war seemed imminent, and on September 24 the Czechs mobilized in preparation for war, refusing to give in to Hitler. Chamberlain made a final effort to prevent hostilities, however, by proposing a four-power conference, which he asked Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, to urge upon Hitler. On September 29, Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini, and the French premier, Édouard Daladier, met in Munich, at what became known as the Munich Conference. Together, without representatives of Czechoslovakia or its Soviet ally, they reached agreement on the Sudeten question. Relieved at the outcome of the Munich Conference, Chamberlain declared the settlement a “peace with honor.” Abandoned by its allies, Czechoslovakia had no alternative but to relinquish the region to Hitler.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Significance The Munich Agreement provided for the speedy and peaceful transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany and for an international guarantee of the reduced Czech state once the territorial demands of the Poles and Hungarians had been fulfilled. Chamberlain did prevent, at least temporarily, Hitler’s military advance on the Czechs. He also secured Hitler’s signature to an Anglo-German consultative pact, which he naïvely hoped would prevent the Nazi leader from acting unilaterally in the future. He paid an enormous price, however—soon the connotations of “sellout” and “peace at any price” would become attached to the terms “appeasement” and “Munich.” Czechoslovakia made its settlement with Poland, but difficulties with Hungary brought German and Italian intervention to determine the new Czech-Hungarian frontier. The British and French did not seem disturbed by the
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain (left) shakes hands with German chancellor Adolf Hitler at the signing of the Munich Agreement. (Library of Congress)
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Munich Conference
Text of the Munich Agreement Below is the agreement concluded at Munich, September 29, 1938, among Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy. Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, taking into consideration the agreement, which has been already reached in principle for the cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory, have agreed on the following terms and conditions governing the said cession and the measures consequent thereon, and by this agreement they each hold themselves responsible for the steps necessary to secure its fulfilment:
The territory marked No. I on the 1st and 2nd of October; the territory marked No. II on the 2nd and 3rd of October; the territory marked No. III on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of October; the territory marked No. IV on the 6th and 7th of October. The remaining territory of preponderantly German character will be ascertained by the aforesaid international commission forthwith and be occupied by German troops by the 10th of October. (5) The international commission referred to in paragraph 3 will determine the territories in which a plebiscite is to be held. These territories will be occupied by international bodies until the plebiscite has been completed. The same commission will fix the conditions in which the plebiscite is to be held, taking as a basis the conditions of the Saar plebiscite. The commission will also fix a date, not later than the end of November, on which the plebiscite will be held. (6) The final determination of the frontiers will be carried out by the international commission. The commission will also be entitled to recommend to the four Powers, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, in certain exceptional cases, minor modifications in the strictly ethnographical determination of the zones which are to be transferred without plebiscite. (7) There will be a right of option into and out of the transferred territories, the option to be exercised within six months from the date of this agreement. A German-Czechoslovak commission shall determine the details of the option, consider ways of facilitating the transfer of population and settle questions of principle arising out of the said transfer. (8) The Czechoslovak Government will within a period of four weeks from the date of this agreement release from their military and police forces any Sudeten Germans who may wish to be released, and the Czechoslovak Government will within the same period release Sudeten German prisoners who are serving terms of imprisonment for political offences. Munich, September 29, 1938. Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Benito Mussolini.
fact that they were not consulted, and they did not press strongly for the promised guarantee of the remainder of the Czech state. Hitler worked through the Slovak and Ruthenian nationalist groups to complete the destruction of the Czech state. Finally, in March of 1939, after brutally browbeating the new Czech president, Emil Hácha, in Berlin, Hitler forced the surrender of Bohemia and Moravia, estab-
lished Slovakia as a German satellite, and assigned Ruthenia to Hungary. Thus, after months of negotiations and concessions to appease Hitler, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was finally occupied by Nazi troops, which had been Hitler’s plan from the outset. These flagrant violations of the Munich Agreement belatedly awakened Chamberlain to the fact that Hitler was seeking not merely the self-determination of German3131
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(1) The evacuation will begin on 1st October. (2) The United Kingdom, France and Italy agree that the evacuation of the territory shall be completed by the 10th October, without any existing installations having been destroyed, and that the Czechoslovak Government will be held responsible for carrying out the evacuation without damage to the said installations. (3) The conditions governing the evacuation will be laid down in detail by an international commission composed of representatives of Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia. (4) The occupation by stages of the predominantly German territory by German troops will begin on 1st October. The four territories marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops in the following order:
Munich Conference speaking people but also the domination of all Europe. Among historians, the Munich Agreement has remained a source of debate. Although it is, as David Clay Large has put it, “one of the most widely condemned acts of diplomacy in modern history,” defenders of the pact insist that even the slightest chance for peace warranted Chamberlain’s decision to make the agreement with Germany. Moreover, Chamberlain’s efforts allowed the Western powers a vital year to improve their armaments, strengthen their armed forces, plan their strategies, and prepare their countries psychologically for another war. Critics of the agreement contend the Germans actually improved their military position relative to the West in that same vital year, and that the agreement predisposed the Soviet Union toward an accommodation with Germany. Whatever the case, it is clear that Hitler’s intention was not peace but war. — William Harrigan and Liesel Ashley Miller Further Reading Adams, R. J. Q. British Appeasement and the Origins of World War II. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1994. Examines Britain’s role in the lead-up to World War II. Sections titled “Variety of Opinion” and “The Search for Lessons” are especially informative on the topic of the Munich Conference. Baumont, Maurice. The Origins of the Second World War. Translated by Simone de Couvreur Ferguson. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978. Concise yet thorough review of events leading up to and including the Munich Conference. Discusses also the Soviet response to the pact. Dutton, David. Neville Chamberlain. London: Hodder Arnold, 2001. Focuses on Chamberlain’s public life and how the events of his years as prime minister were perceived at the time and have been perceived since. Includes chronology.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Eubank, Keith. “The Road to War, 1938.” In The Origins of World War II. 3d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 2004. Focuses on Czechoslovakia, negotiations between Hitler and Chamberlain, and the agreement among Germany, Britain, France, and Italy. Jensen, Kenneth M., and David Hendrickson, eds. The Meaning of Munich Fifty Years Later. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1990. Collection of essays provides a variety of viewpoints on the significance of the Munich pact. Large, David Clay. “‘Peace for Our Time’: Appeasement and the Munich Conference.” In Between Two Fires: Europe’s Path in the 1930’s. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Provides an insightful, detailed narrative of the process of appeasement, meetings between Hitler and Chamberlain, and the Munich Conference. Taylor, Telford. Munich: The Price of Peace. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979. Lengthy and exhaustive study of every facet of the Munich Agreement, replete with details of the events leading to, during, and following the fateful conference. Watt, Donald Cameron. How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938-1939. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989. Examines the final two years of peace and discusses the roles of appeasement and the Munich Conference in the onset of general war. See also: Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr; Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 23-24, 1939: NaziSoviet Pact; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland.
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Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska
October 5, 1938
Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska A humble nun and mystic, Kowalska left behind her diary Divine Mercy in My Soul, which became a classic of Christian mysticism and spawned a devotion to the philosophy of divine mercy in the Catholic Church.
Key Figures Maria Faustina Kowalska (Helena Kowalska; 19051938), author of Divine Mercy in My Soul, later canonized as Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Most Blessed Sacrament Michael Sopocko (fl. early twentieth century), Kowalska’s spiritual adviser, who helped to propagate her message John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyua; 1920-2005), Roman Catholic pope, 1978-2005, responsible for Kowalska’s canonization Summary of Event Born August 25, 1905, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska was the third of ten children in a very poor but devout family in Glogowiec, Poland. Although she lacked a proper education, her writings formed the basis of the Catholic philosophy of divine mercy, and she would become one of the most prominent Polish nuns in history. Her beginnings, however, were spartan. Stories about Kowalska’s family recall that its members were so poor that Kowalska and her sisters had only one dress fit to wear to church and had to take turns wearing it, so the sisters all went to Mass at different times. At an early age, Kowalska knew that she was destined for a holy life and asked her parents if she could join a convent. Her parents feared losing their favorite daughter, however, and they refused. The young woman became involved in dancing and other popular activities until one day she had a vision of God while she was at a dance. God asked her why she was wasting her life and not devoting herself to him, and he told her she should board a train for Warsaw and enter a convent. She traveled to Warsaw and attempted to enter many convents, but none would allow her to stay. Finally Kowalska was accepted by the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, a group that worked with troubled young girls. After working for some time as a servant to pay the sum re-
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Locale: Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy Convent, Kraków, Poland Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; publishing and journalism
quired to join the convent, Kowalska entered as a postulant on August 1, 1925. A year later, she became a novice, and her name changed from Helena Kowalska to Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Jesus appeared to Kowalska on February 22, 1931, as a being of immense mercy who held one of his hands to his brilliant white robe and the other up in blessing. He revealed to her that she was to spread a message about the mercy of God and have an image painted of him exactly as he appeared to her. She was also instructed to found a Catholic congregation that would focus on the divine mercy of God. Kowalska’s superiors balked at both ideas and forbade them. Kowalska was saved, however, by her appointment to a new spiritual adviser, Father Michael Sopocko, who believed in her visions. Sopocko asked Kowalska to describe all her visions in a diary, and he commissioned a painter to portray Jesus according to Kowalska’s description. At first Kowalska had a great deal of trouble writing, and her lack of education and frequent errors in spelling and grammar caused her to suspect that some of her thoughts might be heretical. She was also ostracized by nuns in the convent who thought that her visions were fictitious and that Jesus would not take an interest in a poor, lower-class nun. In 1936, Kowalska became so sick that her superiors sent her to a sanatorium in Pradnik, Poland, where she began proselytizing to fellow patients, visitors, and anyone else who would listen. During the summer of 1938, Kowalska was so ill that she could not write in her diary, and she died in her convent on October 5, 1938. She had not been able to found a religious congregation based on the principle of divine mercy, but she had left behind her diary, which was eventually published as Dzienniczek Sulugi Bo/zej S. M. Faustyny Kowalskiej: Profeski wieczystej zgromadzenia Matki Bo/zej Miulosierdzia (1981; Divine Mercy in My Soul: The Diary of the Servant of God, Sister M. Faustina Kowalska, 1987). The book served as a guidebook to divine mercy. Kowalska’s spiritual adviser, Father Sopocko, took over her heavenly mission and spread divine mercy’s message. In 1941, a religious order was founded to celebrate and study divine mercy. However, disaster struck this community in 1958, when the Holy See (the government of the Roman Catholic Church) declared the teachings of divine mercy to be heretical. Theologians did not take into account Kowalska’s lack of education, and as a result they interpreted some of her grammatical errors as
Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy arguments against the Church and as disloyal to the pope. Devotion to divine mercy was declared heretical, but the archbishop of Kraków, Karol Józef Wojtyua, allowed the painting of Jesus that Father Sopocko had commissioned to remain on display so that petitioners could still pray to it. In 1965, Wojtyua, then cardinal of Kraków, launched an investigation into the life of Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, and this investigation concluded that the teachings of divine mercy were not heretical. On April 18, 1993, Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska was beatified, and she was canonized on April 30, 2000, by Wojtyua, who by then was Pope John Paul II. Significance For a large number of Catholics, Kowalska’s writings spawned a new understanding of human beings’ relationship with God. Her teachings also inspired Wojtyua, who became Pope John Paul II. Saint Faustina’s work became one of the standard texts read by Catholics, and the diary of this uneducated nun took on an importance that rivaled works of popes and even other saints. Her book’s popularity was especially amazing in the light of the vast difference in opportunities available to uneducated nuns from poor families and educated nuns from richer families. The concept of divine mercy guided many in the Catholic Church during the twentieth century, and Saint
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Faustina became something of a national hero in Poland. Many of the quotations that she attributed to Jesus in her diary speak of Jesus’ special love for that country, a very interesting notion that conflicted somewhat with Poland’s especially horrific experiences during World War II, which began the year after Saint Faustina’s death. —Josephine K. Portillo Further Reading Kosiki, George W. Study Guide to the Diary of Saint Faustina. Toronto: Marian Press, 2003. A very good, directed study of Kowalska’s writings. Kowalska, Maria Faustina. Diary of Sister M. Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul. Toronto: Marian Press, 2003. Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska’s diaries, translated from Polish. An excellent resource. Spans more than six hundred pages. Stackpole, Robert. Pillars of Fire in My Soul: The Spirituality of Saint Faustina. Toronto: Marian Press, 2003. Gives a good understanding of Faustina’s connection to God and how that connection has been viewed by others. See also: May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc; May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized; Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous.
October 22, 1938
Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy The technological breakthrough of xerographic photocopying created a revolution in the maintenance of records and the transmission of information. Locale: Astoria, New York Categories: Science and technology; inventions Key Figures Chester F. Carlson (1906-1968), American physicist, inventor, and patent attorney John H. Dessauer (1905-1993), director of research and engineering at the Haloid Company (later Xerox Corporation) Otto Kornei (b. 1903), German American engineer Roland Michael Schaffert (1905-1991), American scientist Joseph C. Wilson (1909-1971), president of the Haloid Company (later Xerox Corporation) 3134
Summary of Event In Astoria, New York, stands an unpretentious building with a bronze plaque on a central wall commemorating an event that occurred on October 22, 1938, when Chester F. Carlson and Otto Kornei produced the first dim copy of an image by a process called “electrophotography.” The text of the copy was simply “10-22-38 Astoria.” Carlson patented the process and, after considerable additional work, also patented a working model of a copying machine based on electrophotography. Carlson had come to New York from California, where he had earned his bachelor’s degree in physics at the California Institute of Technology in 1930. He was employed by the patent department of P. R. Mallory Company, and he carried out his experimental work in his spare time and entirely at his own expense. He hired Kornei, an unemployed engineer recently arrived from Germany, to assist him.
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Wise, improved the process and patented further inventions related to it. The work attracted additional support from the U.S. Signal Corps and from the Haloid Company of Rochester, New York, a small company that needed a new product to bolster earnings in the period following World War II. During this time many other companies were approached and offered a share in the new process in exchange for their support of the research at Battelle, but none was interested. After 1947, research began to be directed toward the production of a practical copying device that could be sold commercially. In 1948, work had progressed far enough for a demonstration to be held at a meeting of the Optical Society of America in Detroit. The date was October 22, 1948, the tenth anniversary of Carlson’s first copy, and for the occasion a new word, “xerography” (from the Greek, meaning “dry-writing”), was coined to replace the more technical term “electrophotography.” The demonstration was a success, but Haloid could not immediately benefit from the publicity. Two more years of developmental work were necessary before the Model A copier, the first commercial xerographic copier, could be brought out in 1950. The Model A was successful mainly for preparation of multilith masters; it was not particularly successful as a document copier. Not until 1960, after a long, expensive, and difficult period of development, did the Xerox Model 914 copier become available (“Xerox” and “914" are registered trademarks of the Xerox Corporation, Stamford, Connecticut). Many people contributed to the success of Model 914 (so called because it used 9-by-14-inch paper), but prominent mention should be made of Dr. John H. Dessauer, Haloid’s vice president in charge of research and product development, and Joseph C. Wilson, the company president. Soon after the introduction of the new copier, Haloid adopted a new name: Xerox Corporation. Significance Model 914 weighed about six hundred pounds and could make up to four hundred copies per hour. It was reliable and simple to operate. These virtues soon made it very popular, so much so that people began to speak and write of a “copying revolution.” Many other companies began to develop and market competitive models, and in the latter part of the 1960’s, smaller and faster copiers were available. By 1975 it was estimated that 2.3 million copying machines were in use in the United States, making a total of approximately seventy3135
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Carlson’s invention may be contrasted with ordinary photography, in which an image is produced by the effect of light on a film or plate coated with a silver compound. In electrophotography, the light-sensitive element is a reusable plate of metal coated with a layer of sulfur and electrostatically charged before exposure. When the plate is exposed, electrical charge leaks away from the illuminated areas in proportion to the light that falls. The image is trapped as an invisible pattern of static charges, which may be rendered visible through the dusting of the plate with fine powder that adheres to the charged areas. The copying process ends when the powder pattern is transferred to paper and permanently bonded by heat or solvent vapors. In conventional photography, the image is developed through the bathing of the film in successive chemical liquids that darken the exposed areas and remove unexposed silver compounds. The advantage of electrophotography lies in the speed and convenience of dry developing and in the economy resulting from having a reusable plate, thus avoiding the consumption of expensive silver compounds. In modern xerographic equipment, most of the technical details are different from the ones used by Carlson and Kornei, but the principles are essentially the same. The light-sensitive plate is usually coated with a thin layer of selenium, which is much more sensitive than the original sulfur, and electrostatic charging is accomplished by a corona discharge instead of through the rubbing of the plate with cloth or fur, as was the practice in 1938. The corona discharge is generated in a shielded wire maintained at a high voltage and moved across the selenium-coated plate prior to exposure. In 1938, the clinging powder image was transferred to paper by pressing, which caused the powder to stick to the paper. A more efficient method is now used in which the paper is given an electrical charge opposite to that of the powder, causing the image to be transferred as the powder clings preferentially to the paper. For six years following his success in 1938, Carlson was unable to obtain financial backing for further research and development of his invention, despite repeated attempts. In 1944, he demonstrated his process in Columbus, Ohio, at the Battelle Memorial Institute. When asked for his opinion of the demonstration, Dr. Roland Michael Schaffert, then head of the Graphic Arts division at Battelle, wrote a memorandum favoring the new idea, and support was granted. In the years that followed, Battelle scientists, including William E. Bixby, L. E. Walkup, C. D. Oughton, J. F. Rheinfrank, and E. N.
Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy
Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy eight million copies annually. Extrapolation from the growth of copying to that point led to the expectation that the volume would double within another five years, but that estimate proved to be short of actual figures. By the mid-1990’s, the volume of xerographic copying in the United States soared beyond a billion copies annually. By the end of the twentieth century, the technology of xerography had developed to the point where the process of making a single copy could be completed in less than a few seconds and at comparatively little expense. Advances from the early days of xerography included color copying as well as reduction and enlargement; in addition, copying machines were configured to accomplish such tasks as collating and even stapling. The easy availability of a means to copy documents, periodicals, and books led to many benefits for businesses as well as for individuals. Communications of many kinds were speeded by the ability to produce perfect copies quickly, and informational, artistic, and other forms of the written word were able to reach audiences they may never otherwise have reached. Along with the benefits of photocopying came some problems. For one thing, the excellent reproduction quality of many color copiers led to increased problems with the counterfeiting of currency and stock certificates. More widespread problems, however, came in the area of copyright infringement. In a 1976 government study of photocopying, 21,280 libraries were surveyed with regard to their copying practices. It was found that a total of 114 million copies were made, of which 54 million were of copyrighted materials. Authors and publishers became concerned about their rights, as libraries, always desirous of providing service at low cost, found copying irresistible. Eventually there were lawsuits, including the 1975 case of Williams and Wilkins v. United States. The U.S. Supreme Court reached a tie vote on the case, in which Williams and Wilkins, a publishing company, sought royalties from a library that had reproduced copyrighted materials. In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed into law a new copyright bill that went into effect on January 1, 1978. Under the new law, publishers would receive royalties for some of the copies made in libraries, but limited royalty-free “fair use” library copying was still allowed. During the next five years Congress amended the law four times, one of which was to align U.S. law with the provisions of the Berne Convention, a multinational copyright treaty of 1989. —Elizabeth Fee and P. Ann Peake 3136
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Dessauer, John H. My Years with Xerox: The Billions Nobody Wanted. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971. Nontechnical account of the growth of Xerox Corporation by a scientist who worked there from 1935 to 1970. Includes material on the development of xerography and the people who made it possible, the farsighted business decisions that allowed the company to succeed, and the sociological implications of xerography. Dessauer, John H., and Harold E. Clark, eds. Xerography and Related Processes. London: Focal Press, 1965. Collection includes a chapter that presents Carlson’s account of the history of electrostatic recording. Features a picture of the first experimental copy and drawings from some of Carlson’s earliest patents. Golembeski, Dean J. “Struggling to Become an Inventor.” American Heritage of Invention and Technology 4, no. 3 (1989): 8-15. Recounts the life and work of Chester F. Carlson, who developed xerography, and traces the subsequent commercial development of the process. Gundlach, R. W. “Xerography from the Beginning.” Journal of Electrostatics 24, no. 1 (November, 1989): 3-9. Surveys the history of xerography, emphasizing the contributions of Carlson and scientists at Battelle who made substantive improvements in the process. Also credits Xerox’s business success to the uncommonly good management of Joseph C. Wilson. Jacobson, Gary. “Carlson’s Timeless Lessons on Innovation.” Management Review 78 (February, 1989): 13-16. Brief review of the history of xerography on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Draws on Carlson’s notebooks for insights into his creativity. Jacobson, Gary, and John Hillkirk. Xerox: American Samurai. New York: Macmillan, 1986. This history of Xerox has been praised as an inspirational story of American competitiveness against the Japanese and criticized for adulation of the corporation. Provides historical details about Carlson, Wilson, and the early days of Xerox. Includes a glossary of copier-related terms. Owen, David. Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Highly readable account of Carlson’s invention, his struggle to have its potential recognized, and the work of all the other individuals, including scientists and corporate executives, who contributed to the development of photocopying technology.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Schaffert, Roland Michael. electrophotography. Rev. ed. New York: Focal Press, 1975. Devotes a chapter to a thorough discussion of the xerographic process. Includes charts, graphs, and photographs.
Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds See also: 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography; Mar. 4, 1909: U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law; 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines.
October 30, 1938
Welles Broadcasts THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
Locale: New York, New York Category: Radio and television Key Figures Orson Welles (1915-1985), American actor and director John Houseman (1902-1988), American actor, director, and acting teacher Howard Koch (1902-1995), American scriptwriter and playwright Summary of Event On October 30, 1938, as newspaper headlines and radio news broadcasts carried threats of a coming world war, a Sunday-night radio drama sent thousands of Americans into panic, hysteria, and flight. The young Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre had already acquired a reputation in New York for unusual productions either under the aegis of the Federal Theatre Project or begun while Welles worked for the project. Welles staged a moderndress Julius Caesar with characters in uniforms resembling those of German and Italian soldiers and a memorable production of Macbeth with an African American cast. When Congress canceled funding for the Federal Theatre Project’s production of Marc Blitzstein’s political musical The Cradle Will Rock and the unpaid theater owners locked the doors, directors Welles and John Houseman led the cast and audience to a hastily rented theater down the street, making headlines and creating the first production of their new Mercury Theatre in 1937. In the fall of 1938, Mercury Theatre had a radio broadcast spot on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) opposite ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s popular program, featuring his dummy Charlie McCarthy, on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network. The Mercury Theatre company presented dramatic versions of classic stories, and Welles decided to present an update of H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel The War of the Worlds
on the night before Halloween. As writer Howard Koch noted later, nothing much of the original story, set in England in the nineteenth century, could be used except the Martian invasion and the subsequent destruction wrought by the “alien beings.” Koch had only days to write the script. Welles told him to use the format of a news broadcast. To understand how listeners could have been so gullible as to be fooled by the program, it is helpful to have some knowledge of the format of radio in the 1930’s. Radio airtime had to be filled with sounds. An easy way to fill “dead” time, particularly at night, was to broadcast live dance music from hotel ballrooms across the country. Listeners were conditioned to expect interruptions of these programs for news bulletins. In addition, commercial time slots were shorter and more flexible in their scheduling than later became the norm. Today, a viewer switching channels among major television networks during a commercial break simply finds more commercials. In 1938, a radio listener changing stations might have found another program in progress. The Mercury Theatre’s fairly small audience was augmented during the first commercial break on Edgar Bergen’s show as that show’s listeners tuned in and found themselves in the midst of what seemed to be a Martian invasion. These station switchers and other late arrivals missed the program’s opening announcement: “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in a radio play by Howard Koch suggested by the H. G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds.” This was followed by the show’s musical theme and the introduction of the “director of the Mercury Theatre and star of these broadcasts, Orson Welles.” Welles’s lead-in to the script of “Invasion from Mars” was followed by a “weather report” and by what purported to be live dance orchestra music from downtown New York. The music was interrupted almost immediately by a bulletin announcing the “explosion of incandescent gas” on Mars, which was later connected to the takeoffs of the vehicles that would invade Earth. 3137
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Orson Welles terrified thousands with his radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, proving the power of the medium in the hands of a genius.
Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds
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ticular, was in serious trouble, good sense prevailed at last. The show had been announced as an adaptation, and it was clear that no one connected with it had intended to create a panic or had dreamed that listeners would confuse it with reality. Dorothy Thompson, an important politiTo view image, please refer to the cal newspaper columnist of the day, print edition of this title. wrote a supportive column, helping to calm the overreaction. Headlines in major newspapers on October 31 indicated the seriousness of the panic of the night before. The headline in the New York Daily News proclaimed “Fake Radio ‘War’ Stirs Terror Through U.S.” The New York Times headed a front-page article “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking On October 31, 1938, Orson Welles (center) explains to reporters that he and his actWar Drama as Fact.” The accoming company meant no harm with their broadcast of The War of the Worlds. (AP/ panying piece was four columns in Wide World Photos) length, with four more columns on page 4 giving examples of reactions from all the New York City borThe time left for the presentation of the entire invaoughs and upstate New York. The story ended with a sion, after commercials and the introduction, was only statement from CBS “pointing out that the fictional charforty-five minutes. This included events from the takeacter of the broadcast had been announced four times and offs from Mars to the spread of destruction across the had been previously publicized.” Welles was quoted as United States and the ultimate destruction of the Marexpressing “profound regret” and commenting that he tians, “slain, after all man’s defenses had failed, by the had “hesitated about presenting it . . . because ‘it was our humblest thing that God in His wisdom put upon this thought that perhaps people might be bored or annoyed at earth,” to Orson Welles’s closing line, “If your doorbell hearing a tale so improbable.’” rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian . . . it’s Halloween.” Significance Of an estimated six million listeners, approximately At the end of the radio broadcast season, Welles and one million believed that Martians had landed. Thousome of his company went to Hollywood. Welles disands did not wait to hear that the aliens had been derected and starred in the now highly respected film Citizen Kane (1941). He followed that success by directstroyed by bacteria or that the broadcast was the “radio ing The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), treasured by version of dressing up in a sheet and saying ‘Boo!’” as film buffs for its then-unusual camera angles. He was Welles said at the end of the show. Some fled in their never to have such great success in Hollywood again, cars, some called friends and families to warn them, although he acted in a number of films and directed sevsome rushed to churches, some guarded their property eral more. with guns, and some even headed for Grovers Mill, New He directed The Stranger (1946), costarring Loretta Jersey, where “the Martians had landed,” to lend a hand Young and Edward G. Robinson, in which he also played in the defense. a Nazi hiding under a false identity in a small American Meanwhile, at the CBS studio in New York, the actors town. The Lady from Shanghai (1948), which he directed were unaware of problems until the telephone rang as the and in which he costarred with Rita Hayworth, is rememclosing theme played. Police officers entered and esbered for its climactic scene in a maze of mirrors. He both corted the Mercury Theatre players out a back entrance. acted in and directed Touch of Evil (1958), which is conAlthough for several days it appeared that Welles, in par3138
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Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds
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American Film Institute in 1975. In the later part of his career, Welles appeared frequently on television, particularly on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where he told interesting stories and performed magic tricks (he was a skilled magician), and in commercials for a winemaker in which he repeated the slogan “We will sell no wine before its time.” Houseman, who had been codirector of Mercury Theatre, followed Welles to Hollywood and produced a number of films, including The Blue Dahlia (1946), Julius Caesar (1953), Executive Suite (1954), Lust for Life (1956), and This Property Is Condemned (1966). He acted in several films during this period, and for a number of years he taught acting at Juilliard in New York City, training many students who became immensely successful. It was his role as a law professor in the film The Paper Chase (1973), however, followed by the same role in a popular television dramatic series based on the film, that made his face and voice so familiar to the general public that he was cast in a series of television commercials for an investment firm. Through his work with the Federal Theatre Project, the Mercury Theatre, and his film work, both as director and actor, Orson Welles left a permanent creative mark on American theatrical entertainment. Ironically, Invaders from Mars what may live longest with the genIn Howard Koch’s 1938 radio play adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the eral public is his “panic broadcast.” Worlds, an announcer makes this vivid report: In the 1980’s, a television docudrama re-created the broadcast, interwoven Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it with the fictional stories of characters may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead who listened to it. Woody Allen into the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jercluded the broadcast in his film Radio sey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Days (1987). In 1970, scriptwriter Mars. The battle which took place tonight at Grovers Mill has ended in one of Howard Koch published a book about the most startling defeats ever suffered by any army in modern times; seven the experience, The Panic Broadcast: thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars. One hundred and twenty known surviPortrait of an Event. vors. The rest strewn over the battle area from Grovers Mill to Plainsboro, Two years after the Mercury crushed and trampled to death under the metal feet of the monster, or burned to Theatre broadcast, Princeton profescinders by its heat ray. The monster is now in control of the middle section of sor Hadley Cantril, funded by the New Jersey and has effectively cut the state through its center. CommunicaRockefeller Foundation, studied the tion lines are down from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean. Railroad tracks reaction of selected interviewees who are torn and service from New York to Philadelphia discontinued except routhad been frightened by it. He pubing some of the trains through Allentown and Phoenixville. Highways to the lished the results in a volume titled north, south, and west are clogged with frantic human traffic. Police and army The Invasion from Mars (1940). Canreserves are unable to control the mad flight. By morning the fugitives will tril noted that the political and ecohave swelled Philadelphia, Camden, and Trenton, it is estimated, to twice their nomic environment of the times was normal population. Martial law prevails throughout New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. At this time we take you to Washington for a special broadcast an element that should not be dison the National Emergency . . . the Secretary of the Interior . . . counted in any consideration of the broadcast’s effects. The radio pro-
sidered to be cinematically innovative for its opening scene, shot in one long take as the camera takes the audience through the streets of the town in which the film is set. Later directors borrowed this “long take” opening on many occasions. Welles acted in a number of later films, his most memorable performance perhaps being in The Third Man (1949), in which his presence was always announced by the film’s distinctive theme song. Among the other films in which he had acting roles were Compulsion (1959), based on the Leopold and Loeb case; Moby Dick (1956), in which he played Father Mapple in a tour de force scene, preaching to the crew of the Pequod before they sailed; The Long, Hot Summer (1958); Is Paris Burning? (1966); A Man for All Seasons (1966); Casino Royale (1967); Catch-22 (1970); and Treasure Island (1972). The version of Macbeth (1948) that he directed and in which he played the title role was a perhaps undeserved failure. Self-exiled to Europe, where he worked for a number of years, he was “forgiven” by Hollywood in 1970, when he received an Academy Award for “supreme artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures.” He received a life achievement award from the
Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds gram took place during the last years of the Great Depression. On the eve of World War II, Americans were accustomed to listening to news broadcast from Europe; they heard Adolf Hitler himself speaking to the German people and their answering cry of “Sieg Heil!” In the movie theaters, they saw newsreels showing German troops. They had vicariously experienced the Spanish Civil War, in which the Fascist forces had “tested the guns” for the invasions of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Belgium, and France. Americans thus had reason to be apprehensive. Their hearts jumped when they heard the words “We interrupt this program” as they listened to their radios. A wit said at the time that the panic happened because “all the intelligent people were listening to Charlie McCarthy.” It was not that simple, however. The people who were taken in by the broadcast constituted a cross section of the American citizenry. Many of them missed the opening announcement and had swung into wild action before the repetition of the announcement at the commercial break. Many made some attempt to check on what was actually happening by calling neighbors or family members. If the callers got no answer, their fears were confirmed. If they could not get through to authorities because others were trying to make similar calls, the busy signal confirmed their fears. Some listeners did switch stations and realized the truth. Others who switched and heard nothing of the “invasion” reasoned that the other stations had simply not received word yet. Some of the more eschatological thought that the invasion was the justified end of the world. One man whom Cantril interviewed said that he had been pleased; he hoped his mother-in-law would be scared to death. Another interviewee said that when he was convinced of the reality of the invasion, he was struck by “how pretty all things on earth seemed.” Cantril concluded that anxiety about impending war was a less important cause of the panic than the “highly disturbed economic conditions many Americans have experienced for the past decade, the consequent unemployment, the prolonged discrepancies between family incomes, the inability of both young and old to plan for the future,” all of which “engendered a widespread feeling of insecurity.” He also noted that Americans had become highly suggestible. —Katherine Lederer Further Reading Brady, Frank. Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Scribner, 1989. Comprehensive biography devotes a large section to the broadcast of 3140
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The War of the Worlds and its aftermath. Includes bibliographies and index. Cantril, Hadley. The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. 1940. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2005. Provides an account of the public panic followed by the findings of Cantril’s funded study of some of the listeners and his conclusions. Includes the broadcast script. Heyer, Paul. The Medium and the Magician: Orson Welles, the Radio Years, 1934-1952. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Study of Welles focuses on his years in radio and his influence on the art of radio drama. Holmsten, Brian, and Alex Lubertozzi, eds. The Complete “War of the Worlds”: Mars’ Invasion of Earth from H. G. Wells to Orson Welles. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2001. Illustrated volume includes the complete text of H. G. Wells’s novel, Koch’s script for the infamous radio program, and discussion of reactions to the program as well as two CDs featuring the original Mercury Theatre broadcast, interviews with Welles and Houseman, and more. Houseman, John. Run-Through. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. Entertaining career memoir includes discussion of Houseman’s work with Welles in the Federal Theatre Project and the Mercury Theatre, including the famous broadcast. Also recounts how the two actor-directors parted ways in Hollywood. Koch, Howard. As Time Goes By: Memoirs of a Writer. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. Includes an account of Koch’s involvement with Houseman, Welles, and the Mercury Theatre. _______. The Panic Broadcast: Portrait of an Event. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970. The scriptwriter’s account discusses the origin of the script, the night of the broadcast, and the results of the broadcast. Includes the full script, photographs of the studio performance, reproductions of news accounts, and cartoons about the broadcast. See also: Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting; 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium; Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air; Aug. 29, 1935June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater; May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Kristallnacht
November 9-10, 1938
Kristallnacht The night of violence dubbed Kristallnacht initiated the deliberate, government-sanctioned extermination of the Jews in Germany now known as the Holocaust. Subdued reaction to the anti-Semitic violence from both the international community and “ordinary” Germans opened the door to the Nazi policies of extermination that soon followed.
Key Figures Herschel Grynszpan (1921-c. 1943/1945), a PolishJewish student living in Paris Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), chief propagandist for the Nazi Party in Germany Hermann Göring (1893-1946), German field marshal and head of the armed forces Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Summary of Event German anti-Semitism did not suddenly materialize with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933; it was already entrenched among many in Germany’s non-Jewish population. Hitler, however, fomented anti-ethnic sentiments and promulgated the myth of “Aryan” superiority to consolidate his power, establishing policies and laws against German Jews from the beginning of his rule. In 1933, he announced a daylong boycott against Jewish businesses, legislated against kosher butchering, and set in motion a policy prohibiting Jewish children from attending public schools. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws declared that Jews were no longer German citizens. Soon afterward, Jews were relieved of their voting rights and outright hatred was exhibited throughout Germany on signs that read Jews Not Welcome. Laws passed in 1938 restricted Jewish enterprise and job opportunities and required that all Jews carry identification cards. On November 7, 1938, a seventeen-year-old PolishJewish student, Herschel Grynszpan, assassinated German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris in protest against the deportation of some twelve thousand Polish Jews living in Germany—including his own family—a week be-
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Also known as: Night of Broken Glass; Imperial Crystal Night (Reichskristallnacht); Pogrom Night (Pogromnacht) Locale: Berlin, Vienna, and other cities in Germany and Austria Categories: Terrorism; atrocities and war crimes
fore, on October 28. The Polish government would not admit the homeless expatriates, who wandered near the border in pouring rain, without food or shelter, for several days. (The Polish government would eventually admit them to a concentration camp where conditions were generally worse.) Grynszpan received a letter from his mother on November 3 outlining their situation, and Grynszpan, a youth with few resources, appealed for help to the uncle and aunt with whom he was staying, but they could do little. Grynszpan, distraught, purchased a gun on November 7, walked into the German Embassy in Paris, and asked to see an official; vom Rath, a junior official, was on duty and Grynszpan was admitted to his office. He shot vom Rath three times in the stomach, reportedly cursing him and saying he was acting on behalf of the twelve thousand exiled Jews. Little did Grynszpan realize that he had provided the Nazi regime with an excuse to unleash unspeakable atrocities on Jews throughout Germany and Austria. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made the best of the opportunity, organizing “spontaneous” demonstrations against Jews that erupted in violence in cities and villages across the country. According to Goebbels, Hitler had received the news of vom Rath’s death on November 9: “[T]he Führer,” Goebbels reported in an address to the Nazi leadership, “has decided that . . . demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered.” In fact, the riots were initiated by members of the Gauleiters, the Sturm Abteilung (SA), and the Schutzstaffel (SS), who for the most part wore civilian garb. German citizens eventually joined them. What followed was a orgy of violence that lasted for two days. The rioters administered axes and sledgehammers to Jewish storefronts, shattering window panes—hence the name Kristallnacht, meaning “crystal night,” in reference to the broken glass. The term was a euphemism, however. The destruction went well beyond the smashing of glass. Thousands of homes and stores were looted, damaged, or burned, and the destruction extended to more than fifteen hundred synagogues and several Jewish cemeteries. Police and firefighters stood idly by, their only mandate being to protect “Aryan” property. Estimates vary on the number killed in the rioting, from as few as three dozen to as many as two hundred. The deaths were mainly the result of bludgeoning. In the after-
Kristallnacht math of the rioting, thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and transported to concentration camps: Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and elsewhere. The camps would be expanded to accommodate their new charges, and a means of systematic extermination began to emerge. On November 11, Goebbels called for an end to the violence, which went unheeded in the camps. The number of deaths that followed as an immediate result of Kristallnacht—by suicide and in the camps—ran into the thousands. The London News Chronicle reported that at Sachsenhausen, for example, sixty-two men were beaten until they fell: “Twelve of the sixty-two were dead, their skulls smashed. The others were all unconscious. The eyes of some had been knocked out, their faces flattened and shapeless.” On November 12, a meeting of Nazi leaders was convened by Field Marshal Hermann Göring to hear the official anti-Jewish policy. As Göring put it: “I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.” Göring concluded the meeting by noting that he “would not like to be a Jew in Germany.” Significance Incredibly, the Jews were seen as the instigators of the riots and were forced to clean the rubble of their ruined businesses and places of worship. Those who had survived the violence of the riots were now subjected to increasingly oppressive policies, fines, and restrictions on their movements—including the Judenvermoegersabgabe, a collective fine for the murder of vom Rath which today would be the equivalent of several billion U.S. dollars. The Nazis began to confiscate Jewish property as part of their program of “Aryanization.” A mass exodus of Jews followed as many emigrated to the United States, Palestine, or sympathetic European nations. The assassin, Grynszpan, would remain in German custody awaiting a trial that never materialized; he was probably executed in 1944 or 1945. Most striking, however, was the relatively mild reaction on the part of those Germans not directly in the path of Nazi violence. Even the international response— though outrage was expressed—was measured. Newspapers condemned the pogroms, but no immediate action was undertaken by the international community. In its November 11 issue, for example, The New York Times reported only that Goebbels had called a halt to the violence, not mentioning the undisguised fact that he had instigated it. The silence of the German people was tantamount to complicity: Whether they were cowed by fear, 3142
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 shared the Nazis’ ethnic hatreds, or simply were indifferent, their passivity in the face of the events of Kristallnacht made it clear to Nazi leaders that they faced little resistance. Hitler and his henchmen proceeded to excise the Jewish “threat” in the form of increasingly transparent atrocities that eventually constituted the Holocaust. At the same time, Kristallnacht—to be followed four months later by the German invasion of Czechoslovakia (March 15, 1939)—made it clear to world leaders that the Nazi regime would stop at nothing to appropriate Lebensraum (living space) by incorporating central Eu-
Göring Calls for the Removal of Jewish Influence On November 12, Hermann Göring spoke before a meeting of the Nazi leadership to assess the Kristallnacht rioting, blaming the events on the Jews and calling for a series of laws that would remove the Jewish influence on the German economy: Gentlemen! Today’s meeting is of a decisive nature. I have received a letter written on the Führer’s orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another. Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled. Because, gentlemen, I have had enough of these demonstrations! They don’t harm the Jew but me, who is the final authority for coordinating the German economy. If today a Jewish shop is destroyed, if goods are thrown into the street, the insurance companies will pay for the damages; and, furthermore, consumer goods belonging to the people are destroyed. If in the future, demonstrations which are necessary occur, then, I pray, that they be directed so as not to hurt us. Because it’s insane to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse, then have a German insurance company make good the loss. And the goods which I need desperately, whole bales of clothing and whatnot, are being burned. And I miss them everywhere. I may as well burn the raw materials before they arrive. I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today’s meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me. Source: Transcript by Robert Conot in Justice at Nuremberg (New York: Harper and Row, 1983).
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 rope into an Aryan empire. Support for the policy of appeasement was coming to an end as visionary politicians began to foresee a second world war. —Christina J. Moose
Laqueur, Walter, and Judith Tydor Baumel, eds. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Surveys all aspects of the Holocaust. Includes more than two hundred photos and many helpful research tools. Read, Anthony. Kristallnacht: Unleashing the Holocaust. New York: Random House, 1989. Examines the Nazis’ exploitation of German anti-Semitism on Kristallnacht and the international reaction, which the authors describe as “mere squeaks of indignation.” A scholarly and complete examination of the Nazis’ institutionalization of their policy of Jewish extermination. Photos. Rubenstein, Richard L., and John K. Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987. Analyzes the emergence and development of the concentration and death camps, focusing on both the victims and the perpetrators. See also: 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism; July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition; Feb. 12Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps.
December, 1938
Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom Otto Hahn led the group that established uranium fission, an essential step toward the development of both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Locale: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, Berlin, Germany Categories: Science and technology; physics; chemistry Key Figures Otto Hahn (1879-1968), German physical chemist Lise Meitner (1878-1968), Austrian Swedish physicist Fritz Strassmann (1902-1980), German chemist Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), Italian American physicist Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), French physicist
Frédéric Joliot (1900-1958), French physicist Pavle Petar Savi6 (1909-1994), Yugoslavian physical chemist Otto Robert Frisch (1904-1979), Austrian English physicist Summary of Event When Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany on January 30, 1933, Otto Hahn did not think Hitler’s regime would last. Hitler was still in power ten years later, however, and Hahn refused to work on military research for Hitler. In this the world was fortunate, for military research in Hahn’s field led to the atomic bomb. Hahn was a superb experimentalist; specifically, he 3143
1938
Further Reading Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Prolific historian and Holocaust scholar Gilbert identifies Kristallnacht as the moment when the Nazi regime consolidated its momentum toward genocide. Eyewitness accounts from those in Berlin, Vienna, and other cities who endured the crime spree testify to the violence and personal terror experienced by the victims. Newspaper accounts and the reactions of ordinary people record the inadequate response. Photos and maps. Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. 3d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Comprehensive account of the Nazi treatment of the Jews of Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. Bibliography and index. Johnson, Eric A., and Karl-Heinz Reuband. What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany —An Oral History. Cambridge, Mass.: Basic Books, 2005. In answer to the conventional wisdom that the non-Jewish German public was unaware of the anti-Semitic atrocities growing in the Nazi state, Johnson and Reuband, using hundreds of interviews reproduced here, document that regime’s popularity and the ease with which it took advantage of rampant anti-Semitism.
Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom
Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom was a radiochemist. He headed the department of radioactivity of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin and had done so since the department’s inception in 1912. Together with a colleague, Lise Meitner, he discovered a new element that they named protactinium. He enjoyed a modest fame that gave him some protection against Hitler’s followers. Much of Hahn’s work lay in discovering the chain of decay products of the naturally occurring radioactive elements. Uranium, for example, is a natural element that is radioactive; that is, it emits radiation. Upon so doing, it changes or decays into a “daughter” element, thorium. Thorium, in turn, decays to radium, which decays to radon, and so forth, with the ultimate end product being a stable form of lead. As one element decays into another, three types of radiation may be emitted. British physicist Ernest Rutherford, under whom Hahn once studied,
Otto Hahn. (The Nobel Foundation)
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 named the three types for the first three letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, and gamma. Uranium, thorium, and radium all emit alpha particles when they decay. In 1909, Rutherford showed that alpha particles are actually helium nuclei, and, in fact, this is where the earth’s helium originates. The helium used to fill balloons comes from gas wells drilled in the ground; it is found there because natural radioactive elements in the dirt and rocks emit alpha particles as they decay. Helium itself is stable and is not radioactive. In trying to understand radioactive decay, some scientists pictured a uranium nucleus as composed of swarms of alpha particles. They imagined that alpha decay occurred when one of the alpha particles managed to break free and leave the swarm. In the uranium decay chain, there are eight steps in which alpha particles are emitted; there are six steps in which beta particles are emitted. Beta particles are the familiar electrons, but in this case they are emitted by the nucleus. One normally thinks of the nucleus as a ball of neutrons and protons, and it is not clear where the electron comes from. To envision a very crude model, suppose that a neutron is a proton (positive charge) and an electron (negative charge) somehow crammed together. In beta decay, a neutron must change into a proton and an electron. Thus, when the beta particle (electron) is ejected from the nucleus, the nucleus is left with one more proton (positive charge) than it formerly had. Going beyond natural radioactivity, artificial radioactivity was discovered in 1934 by Irène Joliot-Curie and her husband, Frédéric Joliot. They showed that alpha particles striking the nuclei of light elements, such as aluminum, could make those elements radioactive, but alphas were ineffective at making heavy elements radioactive because alpha particles are composed of two protons bound together with two neutrons; heavy elements are composed of a large number of protons (92 for uranium) and a larger number of neutrons. The large positive charge of the heavy elements repels the positive charge of the alpha particle and keeps it from penetrating the nucleus. When alpha particles were allowed to fall on the light element beryllium, a strange new particle was emitted. In 1932, James Chadwick showed that this new particle had zero charge; consequently, it was named the neutron. The neutron made a wonderful nuclear bullet because it was not repelled by the positively charged nuclei as the alpha particle had been. It became popular to bombard various elements with neutrons and look for interesting results. Enrico Fermi did exactly that. What usually oc-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom
knock an alpha particle out of uranium and change it to thorium. They In his presentation speech on the occasion of Otto Hahn’s receipt of the Nobel carefully checked for thorium but Prize in Chemistry on December 10, 1944, Professor A. Westgren, chairman of could find none. Savi6 and Joliotthe Nobel Committee for Chemistry of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Curie then claimed to have found a included these observations: radioactive element that they could not separate from lanthanum. In a The discovery of nuclear fission is very momentous and indeed dangerous, but similar vein, Hahn’s group found a even more, it is full of promise. In autumn 1943, Hahn read a paper to the radioactive product that they supSwedish Academy of Sciences on his latest work in nuclear chemistry, and posed was a type of radium, but they there referred to the possibility of splitting uranium by means of a chain reaccould not chemically separate it from tion. In this process such enormous quantities of energy would be produced in a short instant that the effect would exceed any explosion phenomenon so far barium. known. Hahn doubted however whether it was possible to surmount the techniIn the waning weeks of 1938, cal difficulties involved. “Providence has not wanted the trees to reach to the Hahn and Strassmann conducted a sky,” he said, and his hearers guessed from the passion in his voice that he remarkable series of complex experwished that this conquest of atomic energy had been made at a much later date. iments. The experiments were difHe certainly shuddered at the thought that the atomic bomb was nearer at hand ficult because the researchers had than the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. to work with small samples. Hahn’s Hahn’s work has been inspired throughout by an invincible desire to solve group had only a weak neutron the problems which he has encountered. Unlike Prometheus, who gave fire to source; consequently, some of the Man, he has never dreamed of giving Man control over atomic energy. May hudaughter nuclei were produced only manity weigh deeply the responsibility which the gift of this discovery has imby the thousands. (It can be composed on it. Then this will be a blessing and a step towards the improvement of the conditions of human life. pared with the million billion atoms to be found in a pencil dot.) With Source: A. Westgren, “Presentation Speech,” in Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1942Hahn’s expertise, they used tech1962 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1964). niques such as fractional crystallization, wherein relatively pure crystals of various substances crystallize at curred was that the target nucleus absorbed the incoming different temperatures from a hot solution. neutron, and then beta decayed into the element having Hahn had pioneered the technique of tracing a subone more proton. In a fateful experiment, Fermi bomstance by its radioactivity, in which case one does not barded uranium with neutrons. He expected to make a need weighable quantities of the target substance. new element beyond uranium, a “transuranic” element. Daughter atoms are often created “glowing hot,” which He made trace amounts of the elements that would come makes them stand out. Such nuclei are said to be in an exto be called neptunium and plutonium. cited state. Even if they could be seen with the naked eye, Because Hahn and Meitner were experts on the chemthese nuclei would not look hot because they don’t give istry of the heavy radioactive elements, they repeated off normal heat as they cool or “de-excite.” Instead, they Fermi’s experiment to analyze the results more carefully. emit packets of energy called gamma rays. Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, a young German analytic chemist, Strassmann had sensitive Geiger-Müller counters with joined their group in 1935. By early 1938, they had found which to detect these gamma rays. From the number of ten different radioactive elements where Fermi had rays detected, they could estimate the number of atoms in found only a few. Supposing the main ones to be beta detheir sample. cay daughters, Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann proposed In time, Hahn and Strassmann firmly established that four transuranic elements, but they did so with reservathe “radium” they thought they had formed, and that they tions. Although they had seen evidence of their new elehad been unable to separate from barium, was in fact raments, they had not been able to isolate them cleanly. dioactive barium. As impossible as it seemed to them, a Pavle Petar Savi6, a chemist from Yugoslavia, was single neutron caused the uranium nucleus to split into now working with Joliot-Curie. They claimed to have two roughly equal parts. Their scientific paper announcing that humankind had split the atom was published on found thorium after bombarding uranium with neutrons. December 22, 1938. Hahn’s group thought it unlikely that one neutron could
The Danger and Promise of Nuclear Fission
1938
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Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom Significance Hahn asked Meitner to develop a theory that would make sense of his results. Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch became absorbed in the problem for some time. It seemed impossible to them that the nucleus should be brittle and seemingly split into two parts as if a neutron struck it along a cleavage line. In fact, Frisch recalled that Niels Bohr had suggested that the nucleus was not brittle, but was more like a drop of liquid. Frisch visualized the nucleus as a liquid drop struck by a neutron, causing it to vibrate. Oscillations could build up that would break the original drop into two drops. Because these smaller drops would both be positively charged, they would repel each other with tremendous force. Borrowing a term used to describe the splitting of cells in biology, Frisch later named the process “fission.” Because of the strength of the electrical repulsion, the fission fragments should fly apart with millions of times the energy involved in chemical reactions. It took Frisch only a few hours to set up an experiment in his laboratory to detect the energetic fission fragments. Another characteristic of fission was soon discovered: Each fission releases two or three neutrons. These neutrons can cause other fissions that cause still more fissions in what is called a chain reaction. If this reaction is controlled, one can build a nuclear reactor and use it for an energy source. If the reaction is allowed to proceed without control, a bomb can turn itself to incandescent vapor in less than one millionth of a second. Hahn’s work thus formed an essential link in the chain that led to both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of nuclear fission. As the power of the nucleus became available, some predicted that nuclear power would be so cheap, it would be provided free as a government service. Others saw in nuclear weapons a way to end World War II and to make future wars unthinkable. It can be argued that the use of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945 ultimately saved many lives by making an Allied invasion of mainland Japan unnecessary. There is no doubt that the terrifying prospect of nuclear war was of prime importance in keeping the superpowers from directly attacking each other during the years of the Cold War. Hahn’s own life can be seen as a summary of the societal impact of his work. During World War I, Hahn worked with Fritz Haber to use poison gas as a weapon. When Hahn expressed reservations, Haber argued that gas could bring an early end to the war and thereby save lives. Later, Hahn was so upset when he saw the agony of Russian soldiers who had been gassed that he attempted 3146
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 to use his own respirator to aid them. During World War II, although Hahn avoided direct military work, he did not actively speak out against government policies, but during the 1950’s he became politically active and quite outspoken against the misuse of nuclear power and against the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. — Charles W. Rogers Further Reading Hahn, Otto. New Atoms: Progress and Some Memories. New York: Elsevier, 1950. Collection of papers about the discovery of fission and related topics accessible to lay readers. Includes Hahn’s Nobel lecture as well as some of his personal reminiscences from the history of natural radioactivity. _______. Otto Hahn: A Scientific Autobiography. Edited and translated by Willy Ley. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966. Autobiography discusses Hahn’s life in science and features three of his key scientific papers on discovering fission as well as biographical notes on other scientists. Includes photographs, a chronology of Hahn’s life, a comprehensive bibliography of Hahn’s publications, and many helpful footnotes by the editor/translator. Hoffmann, Klaus. Otto Hahn: Achievement and Responsibility. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2001. Biographical work focuses on Hahn’s contributions to science as well as his views on social and scientific responsibility. Includes index. Irving, David. The German Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967. Gripping account of the efforts of German scientists and the German government to develop the atomic bomb includes detailed discussion of Hahn’s discovery of fission. Also addresses why the Germans failed despite their early start over the Allies’ bomb programs. Piel, Gerard. The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Chapter 3 discusses the early days of nuclear physics, including Hahn’s work. Includes many illustrations and index. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Comprehensive, highly detailed account of the making and use of the American atomic bomb, intended for general readers. Includes the story of Hahn’s discovery of fission and places it within the context of the worldwide efforts then under way to develop the atomic bomb. Features extensive bibliography.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Shea, William R., ed. Otto Hahn and the Rise of Nuclear Physics. Boston: D. Reidel, 1983. Collection of copiously referenced papers on Hahn’s discoveries of nuclear fission, nuclear isomerism, radiothorium (thorium-228), and related matters. Includes a fine chapter on Hahn and social responsibility. Accessible to the general reader, but somewhat technical at times.
Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature See also: Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron; 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure; Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus; 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton; Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron; Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom.
December 10, 1938 When Pearl S. Buck accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, 1938, she became the first American woman to receive this honor. Locale: Stockholm, Sweden Category: Literature Key Figures Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), American author Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), Swedish author and member of the Nobel Committee Summary of Event By the time the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee met to consider candidates in 1938, Pearl S. Buck had already published seven novels and two biographies, including her first novel, East Wind, West Wind (1930), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Good Earth (1931). Although many of her books were renowned, the biographies became the decisive factor in the committee’s decision. One of the biographies, The Exile (1936), was a memorial to Buck’s mother, Caroline Sydenstricker, and had been been written soon after Buck’s mother died; the other one, Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul (1936), commemorated her father’s life. The Nobel Prize was not for a given work. Instead, the Nobel Committee citation that accompanied the prize made it clear that Buck was being rewarded especially for the literary merit of the biographies of her parents and for the masterful way that she depicted Chinese peasant life in an area largely unknown to Western readers. (Buck’s parents were missionaries, and she had grown up in China.) The committee also felt that the biographies would be of permanent interest to readers, which was one of the required criteria for the judges to consider in their deliberations. It was with some uneasiness that Buck anticipated the
twentieth anniversary of the end of World War I. Little did she realize that on that day, November 11, 1938, the Swedish Academy would release the announcement of their choice of Pearl S. Buck for the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her first verbal reactions were in Chinese (she expressed disbelief) and then in English (she cited others who she thought deserved the prize more). While she described the four days spent in Stockholm as the happiest ones of her professional life, the days following the announcement were not without some misgivings: She felt herself to be an outsider in the American literary world, after living so much of her life in China, and although she was extraordinarily popular as a writer, she felt unappreciated by the predominantly male circle of American literary critics. Some American writers, too, made negative comments about her being selected, and this added to Buck’s isolation. There were others, however, who rallied around her in support, including S. J. Woolf, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, who wrote a flattering article about Buck. Sinclair Lewis, who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930 and had also received criticism, urged Buck to not let anyone take away from her the joy and satisfaction of receiving the prize. Dr. Selma Lagarlöf, the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1909), was one of Buck’s main supporters; Lagarlöf sat on the selection committee. Henry Seidel Canby and Malcolm Cowley expressed their approval of the Nobel Committee’s choice in published articles, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher, William Lyon Phelps, Edward Weeks, and Katherine Woods were also enthusiastic about her selection. Many people assumed that the Swedish Academy had honored Buck in order to make a political statement, for she had already established herself as a powerful spokeswoman against totalitarianism and violence. Negative reaction to her selection ranged from unkind remarks to 3147
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Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature
Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Requests and invitations poured in for speeches and interviews as well as for articles and reviews. The sheer volume of invitations meant that she could accept only those that interested her most and those that offered remuneration. Despite the pleasures that her celebrity provided, Buck became acutely aware of the difficulty that a woman had in sharing the attention with her husband. There were times when her husband was not invited to important occasions, and when declining these invitations was impossible, Buck was frustrated that she had to go alone or see her husband seated in the audience. Buck’s experience made it clear that the United States was not yet completely prepared to include women in the circle of Nobel laureates.
Pearl S. Buck. (The Nobel Foundation)
outright hostility. One established critic complained about Buck’s popularity; like some other literary critics, he believed that a novelist’s success should come from discovery by a young critic who would foster the writer until, little by little, his or her reputation spread to the public, not the other way around. Nonetheless, Buck’s trip Stockholm was a joyous occasion. The Swedes were quite taken with her determination to follow custom by taking steps backward to her seat after receiving the prize rather than turn her back to King Gustav V. (Doing so was considerably more difficult for a woman in a long formal dress than for men wearing trousers.) For her Nobel lecture, Buck chose to revise an essay on the Chinese novel. In choosing this topic, she was able to accomplish at least two things: She provided the mostly European and American audience with an introduction to a rich literature that was largely unknown in the West, and she displayed her expertise in Chinese literature. Regardless of any misgivings Buck or others may have had about her choice as a Nobel laureate, her return to the United States was filled with events and activities. 3148
Significance In addition to being the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Buck was the third American and the fourth woman to be a Nobel laureate in any category. Writers from the United States had been conspicuously missing from award lists for more than thirty years, and when three Americans were honored during the 1930’s, the message to American writers was that American writing was at last considered equal to European writing. The three women who preceded Buck were from Sweden, Norway, and Italy; recognition of an American woman was especially noteworthy. It is important to note that Buck did not emerge from an elite circle of American writers. Instead, she gained popularity among the general population. Furthermore, Buck’s writing had largely focused on Chinese culture, and she lived in China most of the time. Her selection as a Nobel laureate thus marked a new openness that had not been apparent in previous decades. The choice also indicated the Nobel Committee’s recognition that there was more to good writing than aesthetics and that a book’s universal appeal and comprehensibility could also be marks of excellence. —Victoria Price Further Reading Conn, Peter. Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. A thorough account of Pearl S. Buck’s life with a detailed chapter on her Nobel Prize. Doyle, Paul A. Pearl S. Buck. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1980. Provides a chronology of Buck’s life and discusses her novels before and after receiving the Nobel Prize. Explains the factors that resulted in Buck’s winning the prize. Harris, Theodore F., and Pearl S. Buck. Pearl S. Buck: A
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Biography. 2 vols. New York: John Day Company, 1969, 1971. In tracing Pearl Buck’s life, this account gives a detailed account of Buck and her nomination for the Nobel Prize. Sherby, Louise S. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-2000. 4th ed. Westport, Conn.: Oryx, 2002. Contains detailed information on Nobel Prize winners through 2000, organized chronologically by prize, as well as a brief history of the prizes. Entries include biographical details about recipients and lists of their relevant publications as well as summaries of their achievements. Features four indexes.
Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique Thompson, Dody Weston. “Pearl Buck,” in American Winners of the Nobel Literary Prize, edited by Warren G. French and Walter E. Kidd. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. Discusses events and activities surrounding the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Pearl Buck. See also: Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded; June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded; 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature; Dec. 10, 1928: Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1939
Bourbaki Group Publishes ÉLÉMENTS DE MATHÉMATIQUE
Locale: Paris, France Category: Mathematics Key Figures André Weil (1906-1998), French mathematician Jean Dieudonné (1906-1992), French mathematician Summary of Event From the publications of Georg Cantor and Giuseppe Peano through the logicist work of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell’s Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), to the formal axiomatics of David Hilbert’s Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899; The Foundations of Geometry, 1902) and Grundzüge der Theoretischen Logik (1928; Principles of Mathematical Logic, 1950), mathematics has evolved through several distinct phases in regard to its degree of abstraction, self-consistency, and unity. Notwithstanding the apparent limits of formalization attendant on Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems in 1931, in many areas of applied mathematics there remained numerous active followers of Hilbert’s axiomatics. Axiomatics, for Hilbert, remained the means to provide and explain the deductive structure of logical and mathematical conceptual systems, isolating the general principles that serve as axioms from which all other key consequences can be deduced. Hilbert maintained that there are no innate differences in the degree and kind of rigor, clarity, and internal consistency between one
branch of mathematics and another, with axiomatics providing the language and method for unifying all mathematical specializations. The modern ideas of Peano, Russell, Hilbert, and others have loosened many of the traditional connections of mathematics with specific ideas about “number” and “quantity,” instead underscoring the general roles of abstract structures and axioms. As Hermann Weyl discusses in Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft (1927; Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science, 1949), key features of Hilbert’s mathematical views that survived Gödel and intuitionist criticism include reliance on abstract deduction, an autonomous language and method continually concerned with solving outstanding practical problems and creation of new and more comprehensive and integrative concepts and methods. In contrast to the practically inapplicable logicism of Gottlob Frege and Russell, and L. E. J. Brouwer’s intuitionism, Hilbert’s outlook was at least in part that of a working applications-oriented mathematician. Throughout the 1930’s, the pragmatic counterbalance to formalist foundation studies included widespread use of Hilbert space representations in statistical and quantum mechanics, the efforts of Andrey Nikolayevich Kolmogorov on probability theory, and eventually the diverse effects of the composite French mathematical group known as Nicolas Bourbaki. Notwithstanding a 1949 biographical note on “Professor Bourbaki” of the “Royal Poldavian Academy and Nancago University,” the name “Bourbaki” designates a largely anonymous group of principally French mathematicians, first organized shortly before World War II. In 3149
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The “Bourbaki circle” of French mathematicians published the first of more than sixty monographs surveying and synthesizing the abstract structure of extant operational mathematics.
Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique a list that was never confirmed, André Deleachet in his text on mathematical analysis includes as key Bourbaki circle members noted mathematicians André Weil, Jean Dieudonné, Henri Cartan, Charles Chevalley, Jean Delsarte, and Samuel Erlenberg, most originally associated with the École Normal Supérieure in Paris. Some have suggested that the pseudonym “Bourbaki” refers to the Greco-French general Charles Bourbaki, defeated in the Franco-Prussian War by unconventional German tactics, and thus obliquely to many French mathematicians responding to a perceived “germanic” onslaught of strict Hilbertian formalists. The nature of the Bourbaki group’s systematic approach to and interpretation of mathematics was first presented in the initial volumes of the Éléments de mathématique, in 1939, then continued in several annual installments under the aegis of the Séminaire Bourbaki. As recounted by noted mathematician Laurent Schwartz, each of the Bourbaki volumes is the result of periodic group meetings, the resulting drafts of which involve lengthy criticism and revisions. Intended as high-level textbooks for “working mathematicians” at the postgraduate level and above, the Éléments are meant to serve as a perplexed mathematician’s guide to the structural unity of all mathematics in the face of its apparent splintering into separate and noncommunicating specialisms. Although in many respects incorporating the spirit and some of the technologies of Hilbert’s formal axiomatics, as a prologue “Bourbaki” clearly distinguishes the latter’s logical formalism from its own “structural axiomatics.” In this structuralist approach, functions, operations, transformations, and substitutions are but different names for various types of fundamental relations. Bourbaki criticizes Hilbert’s overemphasis on logicodeductive reasoning as the sole basis and unifying principle for mathematical relations, calling it the only external form and vehicle that the mathematician gives to his thought. What the Bourbakian method sets as its aim is exactly what it believes Hilbert’s logical formalism cannot by itself supply—namely, the profound creativity and intelligibility of mathematics. Taking a “naïve realist” approach, assuming mathematical theories as “given” and ignoring metamathematical questions on the nature and existence of mathematical objects or the connections between language and intuition, “structural relations” or structures are simply posited as the most fundamental points of common access for conceptually unifying the diversity of mathematical theories. Although never defined to the full satisfaction of many readers, mathematical structures are 3150
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 characterized by Bourbaki as abstract common or generic concepts that can be applied to different sets of elements whose nature has been specified, common properties expressible in the same way in different mathematical theories, and the form of a possible system of related objects that ignores specific material features of the objects not relevant to their abstract interrelations. In contrast to premathematical givens or assumptions of Russell, Hilbert, or Brouwer, Bourbaki structures are described as practical and useful tools from which the global aspects of a mathematical problem or theory can be reconstructed from its local aspects. As outlined in a number of ancillary journal publications in the American Journal of Symbolic Logic and the American Mathematical Monthly, the main Bourbakian structural principles propose a hierarchy and network of interrelations between mathematical subdisciplines and theories. Particular structures are thought of as inhering in specific sets, the fundamental mathematical entity of the Bourbaki system. As understood by Bourbaki, set theory is considered as the systematic study of a triadic hierarchy of structures, each structure characterized by a suitable set of axioms, and serving as a conceptual network or linkage between different theories of present-day mathematics. Bourbaki cites the most basic of the three levels as including three general families of mathematical structures from which all (sub)branches derive—namely, algebraic, ordinal, and topological structures. The main structural features of the algebraic family are its forms of “reversibility,” as best characterized by inversion and negation operators. Prototypical properties of ordinal or order structures are those networks, or lattices, defined via the predecessor/successor relation. The most abstract fundamental structure—the topological—is characterized by the basic concepts of neighborhood, continuity, and limit. Beyond the first structural level of parent structures are so-called multiple structures, involving combinations of two or more fundamental structures simultaneously. Bourbaki cites as examples of multistructures topological algebra (including topological entities and properties and algebraic composition rules) and algebraic topology (including algebraic entities and properties together with topological construction rules). Finally, the level of particular or special structures corresponds to the different theories and branches of contemporary mathematics, seen not as independent and separate areas, but as crossroads where several general and multiple structures intersect and meet. The legitimacy and plausibility of this structurally integrative approach in mathematics is for Bourbaki
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 based on the closer, but largely unperceived, functional unity between different mathematical theories and departments arising from the internal evolution of mathematics since about 1860. In contrast to Hilbert’s formal axiomatics, Bourbaki repeatedly states that the total number and interconnections between multiple and particular structures cannot be delimited or classified in advance. For Bourbaki, Hilbert’s original program of complete axiomatization is possible only for certain “univalent” mathematical theories (such as relational logic and geometry), which are determined entirely by a finite system of explicit axioms. Although easier said than shown, Bourbaki repeatedly argues that it is necessary to identify and explicate parent and multistructures by working with the rich fields of particular structures in which higher-level abstractions are embedded.
axiomatics. What counts is not formal limits in themselves but whether a domain of mathematics is enlarged permanently by a study of its structural axioms. The efforts of the Bourbaki circle to generalize axiomatically those (multiple and particular) mathematical structures in overlapping theories has continued in the more than sixty volumes and numerous journal papers appearing since 1939. To date, the order of publication of the Éléments has reflected only multistructures corresponding to particular extant areas of algebra, topology, topological vector space, integration theory, group theory, and Lie algebras. Not all the originally proposed topics of the Bourbaki circle have as yet been examined. In many cases, the Bourbakian structuralist approach has made it considerably more simple to see the general structures than the many previous hypotheses in areas such as the theory of fields, groups, lattices, and numbers. It is also true that in some classical areas of mathematics, it has not proven so simple to perceive and formulate mathematical theories in terms of axiomatized structures. As the process of structural axiomatization continues, Bourbaki employs sometimes colorful idiosyncratic modifications of ordinary language whenever formal accuracy can be preserved along with intuitive perspicacity. This, among other aspects of the Bourbaki movement, motivated several other new approaches during the 1960’s to reformulate elementary mathematics, in some cases contributing driving ideas behind the so-called new math. More particularly, the “structural” theory of mathematics by Bourbaki directly stimulated, and in some cases interacted with, the efforts of Jean Piaget and others to outline the structural genesis and psychological development of mathematical and logical abilities in children. Piaget and others have focused on the question of whether the mathematical architectures of the Bourbaki circle are simply arbitrary axioms or are in some manner actually innate and natural in respect of human cognition. Some mathematicians and educators have reacted negatively to Bourbaki structuralism, fearing that its dream of all-inclusive axiomatics is too inflexible and too removed from specific content and examples. Many educators, in particular, emphasize that it is clearly possible to derive adequately and apply many aspects of classical mathematics without knowing their parent structures and their interconnections. Other more supportive developments in philosophy and critical theory, such as the diverse “structuralisms” of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, and others, bear a superficial resemblance to the jargon and rigor of the Bourbaki mathematics. Bourbaki structures should not be confused 3151
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Significance The subsequent impact and history of Bourbaki’s initial publications has largely been continued contributions to structurally explicating other domains of pure and applied mathematics. As an example of three intersecting multistructures discussed in later volumes, the Éléments considers the theory of real numbers. If considered with regard to compositional rules such as addition and multiplication, the real numbers form an algebraic “group,” which is a set or class of relations having a special characteristic property such as symmetry. If arranged according to their ordinal magnitudes, the real numbers encompass an ordered set. Finally, examining the theory of continuity and limits for real numbers in the most general fashion necessitates recourse to central connectivity and adjacency properties of a topological space. Thus in principle there are many advantages of a structuralist mathematics. Most notably, once a theorem is proven for a general abstract structure, it is applicable immediately for any specific realization of that structure. For example, developments in the theory of measure and integration can be structurally applicable to some aspects of probability theory, by virtue of the common parent set of structural axioms. Bourbaki has subsequently endorsed the view that the most appropriate foundation for mathematics is a combination of axiomatic set theory and symbolic logic. In this view, mathematical entities (numbers, geometric figures, and the like) are never given in isolation, but only in and as part of parent and multistructures. Nevertheless, in contrast to Hilbert, Bourbaki replies that mathematicians cannot map out all structures by working mechanically with symbols, but require their own special “intuition” to inform but not eliminate symbolism, formalisms, and
Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique
Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach with Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) or with other American philosophers’ debates concerning how knowledge of abstract structures “matches” real structures of the physical world. With the retirement of the Bourbaki group’s original founders, it remains to be seen whether the colossal task of the project will be continued and completed beyond the roughly 25 percent now extant. Nevertheless, even the initial efforts of Bourbaki’s structuralist mathematics have provided a stimulating and efficient method and model for organizing scientific as well as mathematical hypotheses in areas such as mathematical physics, linguistics, and economics, where there is adequate prior development and strong basic relationships that lend themselves to systematization. —Gerardo G. Tango Further Reading Aczel, Amir D. The Artist and the Mathematician: The Genius Mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki and How He Shaped Our World. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006. Places the Bourbaki group’s work in the context of its times and explores the revolution in mathematics associated with Bourbaki. Beth, Evert Willem. Formal Methods: An Introduction to Symbolic Logic and to the Study of Effective Operations in Arithmetic and Logic. 1962. Reprint. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1970. Discusses typical influences of Bourbaki structuralism.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Beth, Evert Willem, and Jean Piaget. Mathematical Epistemology and Psychology. Translated by W. Mays. 1966. Reprint. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1974. The primary source for Piaget’s structuralism. Cartier, Pierre. “The Continuing Silence of Bourbaki: An Interview with Pierre Cartier, June 18, 1997.” Interview by Marjorie Senechal. Mathematical Intelligencer 20, no. 1 (1998): 22-28. Discussion of the Bourbaki group by one of its members. Fang, J., ed. Towards a Philosophy of Modern Mathematics. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Paideia Press, 1970. Excellent source for Bourbaki papers. Geroch, Robert. Mathematical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Discusses analyses influenced by Bourbaki and Piaget. Kneebone, G. T. Mathematical Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics: An Introductory Survey. 1963. Reprint. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2001. Provides a good introduction to the set theory, logical, and axiomatic methods of Bourbaki. See also: 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory; June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox”; 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics; 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory; 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space; July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves Incompleteness-Inconsistency for Formal Systems.
1939
Ford Defines the Western in STAGECOACH John Ford’s Stagecoach combined realistic characterizations, dramatic special effects, and impressive location filming to define the Western as both popular culture and serious art form. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures John Ford (1895-1973), American director John Wayne (1907-1979), American actor Claire Trevor (1909-2000), American actor Thomas Mitchell (1892-1962), American actor Yakima Canutt (1895-1986), American rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and stunt director Walter Wanger (1894-1968), American independent producer and sometime studio executive 3152
Summary of Event The camera seemed to jump forward toward the young cowboy standing by the roadside. The cowboy held a Winchester rifle in one hand and a saddle in the other, and his rugged face suddenly filled the screen with a compelling mixture of confidence and vulnerability. In this single shot, less than ten seconds in duration, director John Ford notified his audience and film critics that Stagecoach was no ordinary Western and that John Wayne was no ordinary film personality. The film’s content involved much more than cowboys, Apaches, chases, and shoot-outs. Dudley Nichols’s screenplay was based on Ernest Haycox’s short story “The Last Stage to Lordsburg,” which appeared originally in Collier’s magazine. Nichols placed the emphasis on both pathos and humor to underline the human feel-
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work as less innovative than the contemporary critical and public response indicated. Within these limits, however, it must be noted that Stagecoach was an exceptional achievement in a specific set of circumstances. Ford’s accomplishment was to bring so many new techniques into one film, which was, after all, a Western—a genre that had become a cliché-ridden, low-budget, mass-produced Hollywood staple during the years of the Great Depression. Ford’s directorial virtuosity surprised and stimulated audiences and critics, who had come to expect little artistry in Westerns. Ford had a good ear for folk and popular music and worked well with Richard Hageman, whose Academy Award-winning score offered carefully selected tunes drawn from American rural traditions. The film’s songs varied from Stephen Foster’s “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” to honky-tonk tunes typical of frontier saloons and bordellos. Hageman’s music helped establish the film’s sympathy for Dallas and Ringo and appealed to a broad public taste for symphonic versions of familiar tunes. Stagecoach launched John Wayne to more than stardom; he became the archetypal Western hero whose film persona assumed mythic proportions in popular culture. Wayne had broken into motion pictures in 1926 as a stunt man and had made a series of generally unimpressive Westerns and other action-adventure films. By the mid1930’s, he had steady work as the lead in cowboy films for Monogram and Republic, two of Hollywood’s minor studios. Fortunately for Wayne, he made a favorable impression on Ford, who sensed the lanky ex-collegiate football player’s potential as a dominant screen personality. Wayne and Ford worked well together on Stagecoach. Even a casual viewer of the film will be aware that the actor’s laconic voice and commanding presence somehow combined with a sincerity and an occasional suggestion of vulnerability to create a powerful personal image. Ford’s camera captured all these qualities in Wayne’s depiction of Johnny Ringo. Few directors in motion-picture history have had the leeway granted to director Ford by producer Wanger, and even fewer have been able to translate an opportunity for creative expression into such a large financial and artistic success. The story itself was a reflection of Ford’s sympathy for the common people, a perspective also brought to the screen in his films The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941). Ford’s personal touch was especially visible in Stagecoach, a major event in his career and in the history of Hollywood Westerns. 3153
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ings and personal struggles of his protagonists. An outlaw with a conscience and a prostitute with a yearning for respectability established a poignant ambiguity in the film’s two main characters. Nichols’s screenplay and Ford’s direction stressed the interaction of nine people thrown together in a perilous journey from the frontier town of Tonto to Lordsburg. In their cramped quarters, the passengers were divided into two classes. The elite consisted of the pompous, overbearing banker Gatewood (Berton Churchill), the suave southern gentlemangambler Hatfield (John Carradine), and the pregnant wife of an army officer, Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt). Of a lower social standing than this trio were the prostitute Dallas (Claire Trevor), the outlaw Ringo (John Wayne) in custody of Sheriff Wilcox (George Bancroft), the bumbling whiskey drummer Peacock (Donald Meek), and the buffoonish, verbose stage driver Buck (Andy Devine). Thomas Mitchell won an Academy Award for his performance as an alcoholic doctor, Doc Boone, fallen from the grace of professional respectability because of his drinking. The story line had a strong populist bent. By the end of the film, the self-righteous Gatewood was arrested for embezzlement, Hatfield died in an Apache attack, and Lucy Mallory discovered her indebtedness to her social inferiors, as Doc Boone, Dallas, and Ringo helped her through childbirth. The wrongly accused Ringo revealed his physical prowess, strength of character, and sense of justice as he saved the stagecoach from the Apaches and then, with the blessing of Sheriff Wilcox, wreaked vengeance on the wastrel Plummer brothers, the murderers of his father and brother. The film thus upended the social pyramid. Right-minded Ringo and good-hearted Dallas, their characters redeemed, rode off together on a buckboard to his ranch in Mexico, while Gatewood went to jail. In a time of autocratic studio bosses and meddlesome producers, Ford was fortunate to have Walter Wanger finance the film as an independent production through United Artists. Wanger allowed Ford considerable latitude as director, and Ford used this opportunity well. The visual imagery was impressive, as Ford captured the large vistas of Monument Valley with sweeping camera angles and deep-focus shots. In the confinements of the stagecoach and the way station, the camera helped to establish class distinctions through the physical and emotional distance between the characters. Except for the use of Monument Valley, however, none of these devices was original with Stagecoach. Therefore, many film critics and historians in recent decades have seen Ford’s
Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach
Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach Significance Stagecoach rescued the Western from the wilderness of quickly made, often hackneyed B-films and the pristine Arcadia of music and dance inhabited by the singing cowboy. These two types of films had their strengths and their loyal fans, but the mix of cinematic creativity and social realism in Stagecoach set a standard for quality and box-office appeal that even the most profit-oriented studio could not ignore. Ford’s work was so different from other films of the time, however, that few producers and directors attempted to copy Stagecoach. Instead, they began to explore the genre with feature attractions as vehicles for established stars, proven directors, and the new technology of Technicolor. As film historian William K. Everson has observed, “Its enormous popularity was understandable. . . . What was surprising was that none of its immediate offspring even attempted to duplicate its artistic standards, but were content to be big ‘shows.’” Examples abounded in the early 1940’s. Director Raoul Walsh reunited Wayne and Trevor in Dark Command (1940) for Republic Pictures. William Wyler’s The Westerner (1940) starred Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan for United Artists, and Fritz Lang’s Western Union (1941) featured Robert Young, Randolph Scott, and Technicolor for Twentieth Century-Fox. Ford’s use of Monument Valley prodded other directors to film on location in the broad expanses of the American West. Among the many following in Ford’s footsteps were Raoul Walsh, who placed Errol Flynn on the rolling plains to film George Custer’s fatal blunders in They Died with Their Boots On (1941). King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946) presented the spectacle of a massive cattle drive, and George Stevens captured the grandeur of the Grand Tetons in Shane (1953). Stuntman and second-unit director Yakima Canutt made a major contribution to Stagecoach in the film’s exciting chase sequence, which also gave a major boost to his own career. Canutt was already a Hollywood veteran in 1939, but Stagecoach put his services in great demand. Westerns and other types of films as well began to use more complex and difficult stunts that called for the skills and experience of Canutt. He continued to be active as a stuntman into the 1940’s and worked as a stunt director for many years thereafter. His later films included Ben-Hur (1959) and El Cid (1961). In Stagecoach, Ford elicited a strong performance from John Wayne, at the time a little-known performer. From the release of Stagecoach when he was thirty-two until his death in 1979, Wayne projected the image of the 3154
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 iron-willed, two-fisted man of action with an unerring sense of justice. The hero of the common folk in Stagecoach, he starred as an army officer in Ford’s cavalry trilogy and made a deep imprint on the public mind with his roles as courageous soldiers in several films about World War II. Because of his immense popularity over four decades, Wayne had a larger symbolic importance than most Hollywood stars. Known as a political conservative in his last years, Wayne also had another side to his image: the champion of the underdog, especially in his first major characterization as Johnny Ringo and in later Westerns such as True Grit (1969), The Cowboys (1972), and The Shootist (1976). Stagecoach made John Ford the master of the mature Western. His direction of My Darling Clementine in 1946 brought the shootout at the O.K. Corral to the screen in impressive fashion, but he enjoyed even greater success with his cavalry trilogy Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950). John Wayne appeared as the central character in all three films. In comparison with Wayne’s roles in the BWesterns of the 1930’s, these characters were far from one-dimensional cowboys. In particular, Rio Grande explored the troubled relationship between professional commitment to military discipline and the importance of wife and family. In the end, the brutality of the frontier was decisive; the dominant male patriarch discovered that he needed his wife and that his son could stand on his own. While critics and historians continue to debate the precise place of Stagecoach in the evolution of serious cinema, the film itself remains a durable and impressive contribution to American motion-picture history. Ford successfully combined popular culture with high culture through his creative use of camera, visual imagery, and character. Other directors such as Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, and Kihado Okamoto, as well as numerous film commentators, such as William K. Everson and Andrew Sarris, have testified to the lasting importance of Stagecoach as a serious achievement in motion-picture history. —John A. Britton Further Reading Buscombe, Edward. Stagecoach. London: BFI, 1996. Brief monograph on Ford’s film, including close formal reading of key scenes. Bibliographic references. Edgerton, Gary. “A Reappraisal of John Wayne.” Films in Review 37 (May, 1986): 282-289. Emphasizes Wayne’s instinctive appeal to American audiences as
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Parks, Rita. The Western Hero in Film and Television: Mass Media Mythology. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982. Broad, interpretive analysis of the cowboy hero that provides the literary and sociological setting for Stagecoach in American popular culture—from the frontier folk tales of the nineteenth century to the Hollywood films of the interwar years to the television Westerns of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Place, J. A. The Western Films of John Ford. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1974. Useful compendium of Ford’s Westerns, with descriptive commentary and representative illustrations. Sarris, Andrew. The John Ford Movie Mystery. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Incisive, stimulating overview of Ford’s contributions as director and as social and political commentator. Stowell, Peter. John Ford. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Sophisticated assessment of Ford’s films within the context of American culture and history. Chapter 2 deals with Stagecoach in the development of the American frontier myth, and chapter 6 explores Ford’s use of narrative structure in that film and in The Searchers (1956). Zolotow, Maurice. Shooting Star: A Biography of John Wayne. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974. Detailed, pioneering biography based on interviews and some private archives. Nicely written; includes anecdotes and insights into Wayne’s personality. Much material on the Wayne-Ford relationship, including the production of Stagecoach. See also: 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres.
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the embodiment of the nineteenth century ideal of rugged honesty. Everson, William K. A Pictorial History of the Western Film. New York: Citadel Press, 1969. Well-written general survey with carefully chosen illustrations from film stills and posters. Chapters 10 and 11 are especially helpful in assessing the Hollywood background for Stagecoach and the film’s impact on the motion-picture industry of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Fenin, George N., and William K. Everson. The Western: from Silents to the Seventies. Rev. ed. New York: Grossman, 1973. Greater factual detail and analytic depth than the Everson work cited above, with more text and fewer illustrations. Chapters 9 through 13 cover the period from 1920 to 1950, ranging from the big studio productions to the action B-Westerns and singing cowboy films that were typical of the 1930’s. Gallagher, Tag. John Ford: The Man and His Films. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Thorough academic treatment of Ford and his work. Clearly written, although with some technical language. Contains an analysis of Stagecoach; Gallagher also discusses the film throughout the text in comparison with other Ford films. Covers Ford’s private life as well as his Hollywood career. Careful research reflected in extensive and informative footnotes and filmography. Grant, Barry Keith, ed. John Ford’s “Stagecoach.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Collection of essays on Stagecoach comprises work by major film scholars—including Leland Poague, Gaylyn Studlar, and William Rothman—as well as three newspaper reviews of the film from 1939. Bibliography, filmography, and index.
Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach
Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1939
Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT Paul Hermann Müller’s discovery that the chlorinated organic compound dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane is an effective insecticide led to its widespread use for controlling vectors of disease and causes of devegetation. Locale: Switzerland Categories: Science and technology; chemistry; agriculture; health and medicine; environmental issues Key Figures Paul Hermann Müller (1899-1965), Swiss chemist Othmar Zeidler (d. 1911), German chemist Summary of Event It has been known for centuries that numerous species of insects are vectors of human diseases and causative agents of agricultural devegetation. The scientific community recognized this problem, and numerous researchers attempted to discover insecticides that were potent to insects yet relatively innocuous to humans, animals, and vegetation. Prior to the discovery of the insecticidal property of DDT in 1939 by Paul Hermann Müller, inorganic, arsenic-based insecticides were most commonly developed because of their effectiveness in controlling insects. These insecticides, which were initially used during the latter half of the 1800’s, however, were found to be very toxic to humans and other mammals. Other common insecticides utilized prior to the 1940’s were the inorganic fluorinated compounds plus organic-based nicotine, pyrethrum, and derris compounds. These substances, however, had limited application and insufficient permanent effect because of their instability in the environment. Müller, a Swiss chemist, worked on developing an alternative to the most widely used inorganic arsenicbased insecticides while he was employed by the Swiss firm J. R. Geigy during the mid-1930’s. He thus did not concentrate on modifying the noncarbonaceous “inorganic” compounds consisting of the metal arsenic and other elements, which, when combined, produce arsenic salts, oxides, or hydrides depending on the elemental composition. Instead, he focused on carbon-containing “organic” compounds, which, when combined with the element chlorine, produce organochlorine compounds. Müller’s task was to synthesize an original compound or to discover an existing one that would be not only an 3156
effective and safe insecticide but also economical and inoffensive in odor. Müller had determined from a review of the published scientific literature regarding patented insecticides that the most effective mode of inducing insecticidal activity was through direct contact of the compound with the insect. This meant that it was not necessary for the insects to consume the insecticides in order for a toxic effect (that is, death) to occur. He also concluded that for an insecticide to be effective, especially for agricultural use, it needed to be chemically stable and, accordingly, relatively resistant to decay or inactivation in the environment. As a result of his conclusions drawn from the literature, Müller decided to study organochlorine compounds. Many compounds in this class were already known to be relatively chemically stable under ambient conditions. In addition, an organochlorine compound called chloroform was already known to exhibit insecticidal properties. Accordingly, Müller focused on studying organochlorine compounds that contained a chemical group similar to the chloroform molecule. He eventually discovered an organochlorine molecule that exhibited potent insecticidal activity. In 1939, Müller and his research group at J. R. Geigy developed an insecticide product that they named Gesarol. Müller had discovered that the active ingredient in Gesarol was insecticidal when tested against beetles and moths. The active ingredient was the organochlorine compound dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), which was originally synthesized in the laboratory of Othmar Zeidler, a German chemist, in 1874. Zeidler’s intention was not to develop an insecticide but to determine the substitution reactions involving chlorine atoms and aromatic organic compounds. Zeidler discovered the compound DDT as one of many products of such reactions, but its insecticidal property was unknown to anyone until years later. Although Müller discovered the insecticidal properties of DDT in 1939 and the Swiss government put the compound to use almost immediately to control the devastating Colorado beetle, U.S. government approval of DDT for use as an insecticide was not initiated to any degree until 1944. The American government, through several federal health agencies, conducted tests during 1942 and 1943 to determine the effectiveness of DDT. In addition, tests were conducted also to determine potential longterm (chronic) and immediate (acute) health effects to
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The Work of the Scientist In 1948, Paul Hermann Müller received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT. In his presentation speech at the awards ceremony, Professor G. Fischer spoke of the nature of scientific discovery: The story of DDT illustrates the often wondrous ways of science when a major discovery has been made. A scientist, working with flies and Colorado beetles, discovers a substance that proves itself effective in the battle against the most serious diseases in the world. Many there are who will say he was lucky, and so he was. Without a reasonable slice of luck hardly any discoveries whatever would be made. But the results are not simply based on luck. The discovery of DDT was made in the course of industrious and certainly sometimes monotonous labour; the real scientist is he who possesses the capacity to understand, interpret and evaluate the meaning of what at first sight may seem to be an unimportant discovery.
humans. Based on the results of the governmental tests, it was concluded that DDT was indeed effective for terminating insect pests, yet relatively innocuous to human health. The product Gesarol with its active ingredient, DDT, was suggested by the J. R. Geigy company for possible use to combat the insect vectors confronted by the American troops engaged in World War II and stationed in Europe, Africa, and the South Pacific, where they were exposed to typhus-carrying lice and mosquitoes that transmitted malaria. The idea was derived from historical documentation of the use of the insecticide pyrethrum during 1900 in Cuba and 1904 in Panama to destroy the species of mosquitoes that transmitted yellow fever (Aëdes) and malaria (Anopheles) to humans. Although pyrethrum did not exhibit permanent activities, its use and the resulting benefits to soldiers in Cuba and workers in Panama demonstrated an effective application of an insecticide in order to decrease the outbreak of human diseases resulting from insect vectors. As a consequence of this historical account, the effectiveness of DDT, and the perceived innocuous impact to humans, the insecticide was selected by the U.S. government in 1944 as the optimal insecticide for use to protect American troops from the insect vectors that transmitted typhus and malaria. Later, the insecticide was released for agricultural and general commercial purposes following the war.
Significance The impact of using DDT as an insecticide can be viewed both positively and negatively. From a positive perspective, the insecticide proved to be instrumental in controlling insect pests and, in turn, preventing outbreaks of disease and destruction of vegetation. On the negative side, DDT was eventually shown to exhibit greater toxicity and potential for adverse environmental impact than originally reported. It was documented that the use of DDT in Italy and Japan during World War II resulted in the cessation of outbreaks of typhus through the decimation of lice. The use of DDT in Naples during early 1944 to delouse clothing, the native inhabitants, and American and English troops marked the first reported time in which human beings were able to end a typhus epidemic at will. Equally as important, delousing programs using DDT helped to prevent future outbreaks of typhus in epidemic proportions. Outbreaks of malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes, which was endemic in the South Pacific islands during the war, were also decreased as a result of the use of DDT. The chemical insecticide was discharged from airplanes and sprayed liberally over the islands to control the proliferation of mosquitoes, without reported cases of toxicity to humans. As a result of the reported effectiveness of DDT in decreasing outbreaks of typhus and malaria among military personnel and its use to end and prevent typhus epidemics during the World War II era, Müller was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Following the U.S. government’s approval of the use of DDT for agricultural and commercial purposes, the insecticide was used extensively on American farms and in residential areas. Although it was effective and appreciated for protecting crops and combating insect infestations, concerns began to arise regarding the compound’s toxicity. Evidently, the initial toxicity testing conducted by the U.S. government during the early 1940’s and the lack of reported cases of illness among exposed troops during World War II were not accurate indicators of potential long-term or chronic health effects in humans. Indiscriminate use of DDT during the postwar years resulted in reported contamination of food, water, and soil. In turn, the insecticide passed through the food chain, and DDT residues were detected in humans and other animals. It was discovered later that DDT has the propensity to absorb into and through biological tissue 3157
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Source: G. Fischer, “Presentation Speech,” in Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1964).
Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT
Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT and accumulate in body fat. In addition, excessive exposure to DDT was determined to increase the risk of damaging the nervous system in humans and other mammals. These findings resulted in the eventual ban of DDT for use in the United States approximately thirty years following the discovery of its insecticidal property. It should be noted that although the insecticide is stable in the environment, tends to accumulate in fat tissue, and has the potential to induce adverse environmental impact, DDT did not cause any reported fatalities to humans. Indeed, in comparison with the alternatives available at the time, DDT was relatively safe. Unfortunately, the misuse and overuse of DDT led to excessive environmental contamination and, subsequently, to an end of its legal use. —Michael S. Bisesi Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 2d rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. Presents biographical sketches of more than one thousand great scientists, including Müller. Müller’s biography presents an overview of his discovery of the insecticidal property of DDT. Berenbaum, May R. Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs. Boston: AddisonWesley, 1995. Survey of the life and evolution of insects around the world, with emphasis on how insects have affected and continue to affect human beings and their societies. Chapter 9 is devoted to humans’ development of ways to eradicate insects. Includes index. Dunlap, Thomas R. DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Public Policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Provides a historical perspective on DDT, with detailed descriptions of its uses and impacts. Includes bibliography and index. Jukes, Thomas H., et al. Effects of DDT on Man and Other Mammals. New York: Irvington, 1973. Collection of scientific papers provides detailed information regarding the effectiveness and toxicity of DDT. Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. An examination by an environmental historian of how geography, plants, animals, and natural resources have shaped the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States. Includes brief discussion of the impact of agricultural use of pesticides. Taton, René. Science in the Twentieth Century. Translated by A. J. Pomerans. New York: Basic Books, 1966. Provides an overview of the historical sequences of events that influenced the development of various scientific disciplines and applications. Whorton, James. Before “Silent Spring”: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974. Focuses on the history and evolution of the development of insecticides in response to the need to control insects that affect agriculture and public health. Includes index. See also: 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use; 1930: Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States; Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation; June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Nazi Extermination of the Jews
1939-1945
Nazi Extermination of the Jews The Nazis began extermination of the Jews in an effort to achieve Hitler’s goal of eradicating the Jewish race. The Nazi program resulted in the deaths of six million Jews from Germany and from areas of Europe occupied by the German armed forces. Also known as: The Holocaust Locale: Europe Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; human rights
Summary of Event The extermination of European Jews during World War II, which has come to be known as the Holocaust, was the outgrowth of Adolf Hitler’s violent persecution of Germany’s Jews through tactics that began with his ascent to power in 1933. Systematically deprived of their political rights, occupations, and property, the Jews in Germany suffered physical violence, mental anguish, exile, and death at the hands of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party). On January 30, 1939, Hitler predicted that the coming world war would bring “the annihilation of the Jewish race throughout Europe.” World War II began seven months later, on September 1, when Hitler’s armed forces invaded Poland. Simultaneously, Hitler and his henchmen, including Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler (commander of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, the Nazi secret police), initiated policies and programs they hoped would bring about the extermination of the Jews. At the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland, Reinhard Heydrich was placed in charge of German actions affecting the Jews in Poland, who constituted about two million of the Polish population in 1939. During medieval
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Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962), head of the Austrian Central Immigration Office and chief of the German deportation system during World War II Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), commander of the SS and chief of the German Gestapo Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), second in command of the SS and commander of the Sicherdienst (SD), or security service Josef Mengele (1911-1979), chief physician of Auschwitz
and early modern times, many Jews had been driven to Poland by persecution and expulsion from Western Europe. Moreover, when the Polish borders were redrawn after World War I, the nation gained areas that included many Jews. Heydrich first began to deal with the Polish Jews in a directive dated September 21, 1939. This order was issued to the heads of the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing squads. First, Jewish property was to be “Aryanized,” or expropriated. Second, Jews were to be forced into ghettos in the large cities. In each ghetto, Jews were required to establish a Council of Elders, or Judenrat, which was to administer the ghetto in conformity with Nazi orders. Historians regard Heydrich’s directive as the preliminary step to the so-called final solution, which eventually accomplished the near destruction of European Jewry. In addition to ghettoization, another of Hitler’s policies toward the Jews in 1939 was murder. The Einsatzgruppen that accompanied the German armies in Poland and elsewhere were given orders to massacre Polish civilians, especially Jews. Eventually, members of the Einsatzgruppen operated throughout Eastern Europe and, with the assistance of some two hundred thousand collaborators, tortured and murdered about one and one-half million Jews by the end of World War II. Two difficulties arose, however, with the Einsatzgruppen. First, as diligent as they were in murdering Jews, they could not possibly accomplish the destruction of all of Europe’s Jews. In only two days at Babi Yar in Russia, the Einsatzgruppen shot thirty-five thousand Jews, but the Russian Jewish population numbered four to five million. Second, there was some concern about the ability of members of this Nazi elite to retain their sanity as they went about their duties. “The unlimited brutalization and moral depravity,” wrote German general Johannes Blaskowitz, “will spread like an epidemic through the most valuable German human material” and “brutal men will soon reign supreme.” In order to help solve these two problems, the Nazis devised a more efficient means of murder that was expected to have a less brutalizing effect on the murderers. Ghettoization had concentrated the Jews into rather small areas—including the central Polish cities of Radom, Lwów, Lublin, Warsaw, and Kraków—that were then sealed. Jews from throughout Europe, including Germany, were deported to the Polish ghettos. Concentrated in the worst parts of cities and required to subsist on a few
Nazi Extermination of the Jews calories per day, many Jews fell ill or starved to death. The Nazis found starvation too slow, however, and so prepared other means of extermination. In the meantime, they exploited the Jews as a natural resource. The largest form of exploitation involved using Jews as forced laborers for various large-scale projects. Many Jews were literally worked to death during the construction of concentration and labor camps. Once the labor camps were in operation, major German industrial corporations, such as Krupp and I. G. Farben, continued the brutal process of killing Jewish laborers with overwork. At the I. G. Farben synthetic rubber works at Auschwitz, the estimated life expectancy of workers was three to four months. The ghettos were also centers of labor where Jews were required to produce a variety of manufactured goods for the Nazis. Although the Jews were, by
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 their labor, contributing significantly to the German war effort, Hitler’s implacable objective remained the destruction of their race, regardless of the impact on the German economy or the war. By the winter of 1942, rumors of the Nazi determination to destroy all Jews began to circulate. Actually, that decision had already been made, and efforts to implement the decision were being carried out. Because the mass shootings of the Einsatzgruppen had certain drawbacks, as had the program of starvation, German technical skills were used to devise an orderly technology of murder. Facilities for mass extermination by gas were constructed at six camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibór, Majdanek, Bel/ec, and Cheumno. At the same time, the Nazi bureaucracy organized to undertake mass murder and to process the corpses as effi-
Prisoners in Buchenwald concentration camp near Jena, Germany, in April, 1945. (Library of Congress)
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ciently as possible. Top Nazi officials coorHeydrich and the Gestapo dinated the entire procedure at the Wannsee Those who gather information gather power. Furthermore, those Conference held near Berlin on January 20, who misuse information condemn themselves. Reinhard Heydrich 1942. As a result of the decisions made at that was the chief gatherer of information for the Nazi Party from 1936 to conference, the Nazis began to transport Jews 1941, and he did not hesitate to use it to intimidate, distort, murder, from all over Europe by rail to the exterminaand organize genocide. tion camps. In 1931, Heinrich Himmler organized the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, The camps were very efficient; for examor security service) as the autonomous intelligence branch of the ple, in two months of the summer of 1942, Schutzstaffel (SS). Heydrich was put in charge of the SD. His authorthree hundred thousand Jews from the ghetto ity expanded greatly when Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, of Warsaw were gassed at Treblinka, and the and even greater power came to him in 1936 when he was given conJudenrat of the Warsaw ghetto was forced to trol of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police, better known furnish six thousand Jews per day for transby its abbreviation, Gestapo) as well as the SD in the newly organized Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, Reich Department of Security), portation to Treblinka. Throughout Germanwhich also controlled the criminal police (Kripo). occupied Europe, Jews were sent to extermiIn 1936, a new law essentially freed Heydrich and his Gestapo nation camps in Poland and Germany until from any judicial oversight. He could use any means whatsoever to do one and three-quarter million had been exterthe bidding of Himmler and Hitler. While the SD watched all political minated at Auschwitz, one and one-half milopponents (or Nazi Party rivals) and collected information on them, lion had died at Majdanek, and hundreds of the Gestapo tracked, bullied, tortured, and killed anyone detected in thousands had been killed elsewhere by 1944. any activity deemed subversive to National Socialism. The Gestapo About fifty thousand people were engaged also took over the duties of border police in order to catch spies and in carrying out the extermination process in saboteurs. the camps. Two types of gas were used: carIn September, 1939, the functions of the security police and SD bon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon were combined, and groups of officers were transferred to each occupied country. They formed Einsatzgruppen (mobile task forces), B), which was considered to be much quicker which sought out Jews and political enemies for schutzhaft (protecthan carbon monoxide. The procedure was tive custody), a euphemism for imprisonment without trial. Eventually, much the same in the various death camps. these task forces simply murdered any Jews and “undesirables” that Jews would arrive jammed into railroad boxthey found. The Gestapo was also charged with establishing the syscars. Forced out of the cars, they were sent to tem of concentration camps, where murder was later carried out with barbershops, where their heads were shaved efficiency on an industrial scale. and the hair was carefully retained for variTo cover these extensive duties, RSHA had some forty-five thouous manufacturing purposes. They were then sand Gestapo officers during World War II. After the war, the Internarequired to surrender all their clothing, valutional Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared the Gestapo and SD ables, eyeglasses, and everything else they to be criminal organizations. Its members were thereafter candidates possessed—even artificial limbs. Those Jews for prosecution as war criminals. Had Heydrich survived that long, he would certainly have been executed along with the other chief Nazis. not spared to be used for forced labor were then marched to large open areas in front of gas chambers, where they were forced to wait, often for hours, while smaller groups daily. Auschwitz held the record: In July of 1944, thirtywere “processed.” These smaller groups were marched four thousand people were killed there in a single day. into the gas chambers, which were filled with so many In addition to their extermination efforts, the Nazis people that there was no room even to fall down. The undertook medical experiments on the Jews. Regarding doors were sealed, and, while the remainder waited, the Jews as potential research animals, the Nazis were ready gas was turned on for about half an hour. When all inside to test literally any drug or attempt any type of experwere dead, doors at the opposite end from the entrances iment on them, as Dr. Josef Mengele—known as the were opened and the corpses were removed. Gold fill“Angel of Death”—demonstrated. All segments of the ings and valuable dental bridges were salvaged, and the German scientific community took part in these experibodies were cremated while the next group entered the ments, for reasons that were frequently obscene and sachamber. By 1944, this process had become so efficient distic as well as scientific. Almost all of the experiments that tens of thousands of Jews were being slaughtered
Nazi Extermination of the Jews involved torture and resulted in the deformity or death of the victims. In short, such “research” was little more than one aspect of the extermination process, as Mengele himself performed the daily selection of experimental subjects at Auschwitz. By the end of World War II, the combined activities of the Einsatzgruppen, the medical experimenters, and the extermination camps had brought death to approximately six million Jews. Some of the Jews who died in the camps did not reach the gas chambers or become the subjects of experimenters; they died of typhus, cholera, or dysentery. Significance Hitler’s program of extermination was not limited to Jews. The Nazis also attempted to exterminate all intellectuals, priests, deformed persons, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other “undesirables,” bringing the total number exterminated to between ten million and twelve million. Despite his determination, Hitler failed to decimate the Jewish race or even to eliminate Jews from Europe. In many countries, brave individuals stepped forward to protect Jews, often claiming them as their own relatives and providing them with food and lodging. One example is Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who used his position to save many Jews. Hitler underestimated the human nature of many of the Germans in his employ, not to mention people in Poland, Lithuania, and France who did not support the mass extermination. Hitler’s plan was highly mechanistic, relying on a cold, unfeeling bureaucracy, and this bureaucracy was sometimes circumvented. In their sufferings under the Nazis, many Jews lost their faith in God and therefore in the world. Nevertheless, Jewish resistance, as some scholars have noted, was not unknown. The Warsaw ghetto uprising drew thousands of German troops away from the front, and minor events within the camps distracted the camp commanders each day. The Jews fought back when and as they could. To “choose life” under the conditions of the concentration camp had to have been one of the hardest things an individual could do. Author Elie Wiesel, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, made that choice, but it was an internal pact—one that he has written about in most of his books, most notably his memoir Un di Velt hot geshvign (1956; Night, 1960) and his novella Le Jour (1961; The Accident, 1962). Many of those who survived the camps confronted terrible feelings of guilt, and it was not uncommon for survivors to commit suicide decades later, as did Italian author Primo Levi. Other survivors 3162
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 believed it to be their duty to bear witness to the Holocaust, so that such mass destruction of human life could never happen again and so that those responsible could be brought to justice. —Saul Lerner and John Jacob Further Reading Browning, Christopher R. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Highly detailed and well-documented work focuses on the beginnings of the Holocaust. Des Pres, Terrence. The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Describes well how those in the camps had to live one day at a time—as though they had no past, history, or future—in order to survive. Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Examines the intentions of the Nazis and traces each step along the way to the “final solution.” Greene, Joshua M., and Shiva Kumar, eds. Witness: Voices from the Holocaust. New York: Free Press, 2000. Companion volume to a documentary film collects the remembrances of twenty-seven Holocaust witnesses, including camp survivors, American prisoners of war, and resistance fighters. Hilberg, Raul. Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Explains early German interest in eradication of the Jews and discusses the roles played by various individuals. Langer, Lawrence L. Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Attacks the misguided revisionism of those who argue that the Holocaust did not happen and aims to force the German people to admit their complicity in the acts. Levi, Primo. “Survival in Auschwitz” and “The Reawakening”: Two Memoirs. New York: Summit Books, 1986. Two visceral commentaries on camp life by a survivor who later killed himself. Marrus, Michael R., ed. The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews. 9 vols. Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1989. Multivolume work collects decades of writings to present the definitive study of the Nazi execution of European Jews. See also: 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein
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Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music
Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; July 6-15,
1938: Evian Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps.
1939-1949
Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music The innovative playing style of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys led to the development of a new musical genre, bluegrass, which combines the “high lonesome” sound of Appalachian vocal performance with blistering speed in instrumentals. Locale: Nashville, Tennessee Category: Music
Summary of Event In October of 1939, George D. “Judge” Hay, the creator and producer of The Grand Ole Opry, invited Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys to audition for a spot on the prestigious radio broadcast. Although Monroe lacked the experience and name recognition of such Opry stars as Roy Acuff, he was confident that his Blue Grass Boys were ready for the task. His opinion was proved correct, when, at the conclusion of the band’s audition, the Opry’s representatives, Judge Hay and David Stone, offered Monroe what was in essence a lifetime appointment to the Opry’s slate of performers. Insight into the unique Monroe sound is best obtained by examining one of the audition numbers performed by the Blue Grass Boys, “Mule Skinner Blues.” This popular Jimmie Rodgers song, which became one of Monroe’s top showpieces, provides excellent commentary on the innovator’s musical ingenuity. Monroe took Rodgers’s newfangled “blue yodel” and rhythmically reshaped it by increasing the tempo to a fiery speed and significantly elevating the vocal pitch to fit his high tenor voice. In short, Bill Monroe fused a popular hill-
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Key Figures Bill Monroe (1911-1996), American country and bluegrass singer-songwriter Charlie Monroe (1903-1975), Bill’s older brother and early performing partner Lester Flatt (1914-1979), American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and emcee Earl Scruggs (b. 1924), American banjo player
billy song with the older string-band sound, and in the process, he created a new style of music. After his successful audition for Judge Hay, Monroe selected “Mule Skinner Blues” as his inaugural piece for The Grand Ole Opry. According to observers, when the curtain went up, the audience and Opry regulars alike, including stars such as Roy Acuff, Uncle Dave Macon, and Pee Wee King, were awed by the furious tempo of the Blue Grass Boys. Band member Cleo Davis later observed that the audience “couldn’t think as fast as we played.” Without question, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys were perceived by their contemporaries as being new, unique, and exciting, but it would be erroneous to credit any single individual with having been the inventor of a genre of music. Does Bill Monroe merit the title “father of bluegrass music”? Yes, but the story is complex, and there were several plateaus and numerous personages involved in the evolution of the music. The Monroe Brothers, Bill and Charlie, performed as a duo in the mid-1930’s; the Monroe Brothers were followed in 1939 by Bill’s first group of Blue Grass Boys, who awed folks at The Grand Ole Opry. In 1945, Monroe put together his most celebrated band, including Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Chubby Wise, and Cedric Rainwater. The new band provided increased refinement and new instrumentation for Monroe’s creation. Although bluegrass evolved through several stages and involved a host of contributors, through it all, Bill Monroe remained the guiding and inspirational force. Born on September 13, 1911, near Rosine, Kentucky, William Smith Monroe was the youngest child in a musical family of six. From his earliest youth, Bill loved the fiddle and guitar, but he was relegated to the mandolin in the family band, as his older brothers, Birch and Charlie, had prior claims to Bill’s instruments of choice. One of the greatest musical influences in Bill’s early life was his uncle, Pendleton Vandiver, a fiddler who played at dances in the area. As a boy, Bill provided guitar rhythm
Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music for his uncle and, in the process, gained valuable insight into the capabilities of the fiddle. Monroe also acknowledged the virtuosity of black guitarist and fiddler Arnold Schultz as being one of the molding forces in his music. As a result of the influences of Vandiver, Schultz, and, later, Clayton McMichen, Monroe kept his mandolin in tune with his bands’ fiddles—an important ingredient in the ultimate development of the Monroe sound. When Bill turned eighteen, he moved north to join brothers Birch and Charlie, who were working in oil refineries in East Chicago. The brothers supplemented their income by performing as an acoustic trio for the WLS-Chicago radio station’s National Barn Dance road show. Although the Depression years were extremely difficult for the Monroe brothers, in 1933 Charlie and Bill decided to leave their day jobs to become full-time musicians. The Monroe Brothers, as they were billed, worked for the southern-based “Crazy Water Crystal Barn Dance,” and they developed a considerable following in the South and Midwest. The duo began their recording career in February, 1936, and by 1938, they had recorded sixty songs for Victor Records that were released on the Bluebird label. Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of Bill Monroe during his tenure with Charlie was the proficiency he gained on the mandolin, transforming it into a popular solo instrument. After six years of performing with the Monroe Brothers, Bill left the family band in 1938 in the hope of perfecting his own musical ideas, something he could not do with his older brother as boss. In search of a new partner, Bill ran an advertisement in an Atlanta newspaper that resulted in the hiring of Cleo Davis as his new guitarist and lead singer. As the duo’s repertoire expanded beyond the songs of the Monroe Brothers, Bill advertised for additional band members, and he eventually hired bassist Amos Garen and fiddler Art Wooten. Monroe named the expanded band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys in honor of his home state of Kentucky. Throughout 1939, Monroe labored endlessly, tutoring Cleo Davis on how to do his guitar runs and Wooten on how to bow his fiddle. In addition to his emphasis on speed and clarity, Monroe forced his members to play in unconventional keys. His band was the first to play in B-flat, B-natural, and E, and when Monroe moved up to a B-flat or B, he went beyond the capabilities of most fiddlers and guitarists. In the process of perfecting his new sound, Monroe also established higher standards of professionalism for acoustic musicians. Another contribution of Monroe’s 1939 band was the utilization of the string bass, an instrument popularized 3164
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by jazz musicians, in country music. Although Monroe was not the first to use a string bass in his band—Roy Acuff and a few others were experimenting with the integration of the bass into their music—after the grand success of the Blue Grass Boys at the Opry in 1939, the bass became a mainstay in all bluegrass and country bands. Perhaps the most significant new Blue Grass Boy was Art Wooten, the first in a long line of Monroe’s worldclass fiddlers that included Tony Magness, Gordon Terry, Chubby Wise, Kenny Baker, Bobby Hicks, Charlie Cline, Howdy Forrester, Benny Martin, and “Tater” Tate. The fiddle was not only critical to the new instrumentals he was perfecting, but it also influenced Monroe’s unique vocal quality, which is often described as the “high lonesome sound.” This sound became another characteristic that helped to define bluegrass music. Guitarist Cleo Davis proved to be an able replacement for Charlie Monroe. He worked with the band through their first appearance on The Grand Ole Opry, but he departed before their first recording session in 1940. Davis had a worthy list of successors that included Clyde Moody, Pete Pyle, Lester Flatt, Jimmy Martin, Edd Mayfield, Del McCoury, Wayne Lewis, Tom Ewing, and others. By October of 1939, Monroe had fused his hard-driving tempo with the high lonesome sound, and the result was the style that proved so successful on The Grand Ole Opry. Although Bill experienced great success following his debut at the Opry, the World War II years were difficult for all bands. Not only did the military draft make retaining a band quite difficult, but the implementation of gas rationing and other federal restrictions also greatly reduced the size of audiences. In an attempt to carry the music to the people, Bill organized his own traveling tent show in 1943, and it proved to be a major success. The tent show was a combined minstrel and vaudeville show that included comedy, jug players, harmonica players, and even a baseball team. Using such unorthodox techniques, Monroe, an ingenious businessman, attracted record crowds, kept his music alive, and weathered the war years in good financial shape. In the postwar era, Monroe assembled his most renowned band, which included the five-string banjo wizard Earl Scruggs; Scruggs added the final ingredient that was to distinguish bluegrass as a unique form of music. Scruggs, a native of Cleveland County, North Carolina, who had played for Lost John Miller and the Allied Kentuckians, was encouraged by Jim Shumate, a Monroe band fiddler, to audition for a position with the Blue Grass Boys. Fearful of losing his regular job, Scruggs
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Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music
Significance By 1948, Monroe’s innovation was clearly being transformed from the “Monroe sound” into the musical genre of bluegrass. This transformation was signaled by an ever-increasing number of Monroesque bands appearing across the country. Rather than being flattered by this newly emerging school of imitators, however, Monroe was enraged; he considered the copying to be equivalent to theft. He was understandably disturbed in 1948 when three of his Blue Grass Boys—Flatt, Scruggs, and Rainwater—left to form their own band, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Monroe had lost numerous band members since 1939, but this was the first time a group had left to go into direct
competition with him. Their sound, as well as much of their repertoire, was without question the creation of Bill Monroe. Other imitators included Ralph and Carter Stanley (the Stanley Brothers), who had a singer and mandolin player, Darrell “Pee Wee” Lambert, who was a Bill Monroe clone. When the Stanley Brothers were signed by Columbia Records in 1948, Monroe moved from Columbia to Decca, being totally intolerant of his imitators. Other bands imitating the Monroe sound were Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, the Bailey Brothers, the Briarhoppers, and the Blue River Boys. Although some of Monroe’s resentment was justified—as when Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper recorded and released Monroe’s “Wicked Path of Sin” before he could release it himself—with the increasing number of bands aping his music, bluegrass was becoming more than a personalized sound. Bluegrass was becoming a musical genre, and the future of the music was becoming more secure. By 1965, Bill Monroe came to realize the significance of his contribution, and the resentment he formerly expressed for his competitors ended. Formal recognition of Bill Monroe’s contribution to bluegrass music came in September, 1991, when he was selected by his peers and fans to be one of the first three inductees into the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Hall of Honor. —Wayne M. Bledsoe Further Reading Black, Bob. Come Hither to Go Yonder: Playing Bluegrass with Bill Monroe. Foreword by Neil V. Rosenberg. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Part of the Music in American Life series, this memoir of one of Monroe’s banjo players focuses on his experiences as part of Monroe’s band. Bibliographic references and index. Kochman, Marilyn, ed. The Big Book of Bluegrass. New York: Quill, 1984. A heavily illustrated text with historical notes, artist interviews, and personal notes. Special attention is given to the patriarchs of bluegrass and current innovators. Should be used with caution; contains errors. Malone, Bill C. Country Music U.S.A.: A Fifty-Year History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. A scholarly book that is useful for placing Monroe’s work in a larger context. Rinzler, Ralph. “Bill Monroe: ‘The Daddy of Blue Grass Music.’” Sing Out 13 (February/March, 1963): 5-8. The first work to call for Bill Monroe’s recognition as the “father of bluegrass.” 3165
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was reluctant, but Shumate arranged for the audition. There was also doubt among the Blue Grass Boys as to whether or not a banjo should be added to the band; Monroe had already experimented with a banjo player, David “Stringbean” Akeman, in 1942, but Akeman’s old-time style of play was incompatible with the band’s rapid-fire tempo. Scruggs appeared for his audition and played an old standard, “Sally Goodin,” which he followed with a new song titled “Dear Old Dixie.” Lester Flatt, who had opposed the addition of a banjoist, was so dumbfounded that he recommended to Monroe that Scruggs be hired whatever the cost. Scruggs utilized a three-fingered (thumb, index, middle) picking style that was indigenous to western North Carolina. Although he did not invent the three-fingered technique, Scruggs certainly refined and revolutionized the style. His banjo solos at the Opry made him an instant star, and his style of banjo playing became a permanent part of the Monroe sound. It would be hard to exaggerate the impact of Earl Scruggs on Bill Monroe’s band, but it is a mistake to conclude, as some critics have, that the banjo is the first requirement of bluegrass. Clearly, Monroe assigned a greater importance to the fiddle and mandolin. It would also be a mistake to minimize the importance of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Lester Flatt, who sang lead on many Monroe recordings and who contributed a number of hit songs to the band’s repertoire, including “Why Did You Wander?” and “Will You Be Loving Another Man?” Fiddler Chubby Wise was also important to this model bluegrass band, as he perpetuated the extremely high standards set by his predecessors for bluegrass fiddling. It is also clear that bassist Howard Watts (who used the stage name Cedric Rainwater) complemented the virtuosity of the other band members.
Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall Rosenberg, Neil V. Bluegrass: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985. The definitive work on bluegrass music, written by the leading authority. The best first source for anyone desiring to know more about bluegrass. Contains extensive bibliography as well as discography. _______. “From Sound to Style: The Emergence of Bluegrass.” Journal of American Folklore 80 (April, 1967): 143-150. Special emphasis given to the transformation of the Bill Monroe sound into a genre.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Smirth, Richard D. Can’t You Hear Me Callin’: The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000. Lengthy, authoritative biography of Bill Monroe, including a discography and a videography of video recordings of Monroe’s performances. Bibliographic references and index. See also: 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era; Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry; Aug. 4, 1927: Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor.
January 2, 1939
Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow contralto Marian Anderson to sing at Constitution Hall, Anderson rescheduled her appearance and sang outside the Lincoln Memorial. Locale: Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C. Categories: Civil rights and liberties; social issues and reform; music Key Figures Marian Anderson (1897-1993), first leading African American singer of classical and operatic roles Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), American social activist, author, and chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Solomon Hurok (1888-1974), Russian American concert manager Summary of Event Even with her rich, warm, evocative contralto, Marian Anderson, the first African American to perform with New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company, did not arrive easily at fame and acceptance, particularly among prejudiced whites. The daughter of a poor Philadelphia widow, she got what training she could afford, then evolved an expanded vocal repertoire that included material ranging from spirituals to folk songs and grand opera. She developed a significant following among classical music fans. In 1939, however, when she requested the use of Washington’s Constitution Hall from its owners, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), she was humiliated by a flat rejection. Marian, the first of three daughters of John and Annie Anderson, was born at her grandmother’s house in Philadelphia on February 27, 1897. Her father, a coal and ice 3166
seller, died of brain cancer when Marian was a girl, leaving his wife, a schoolteacher, to support the family by taking in laundry and working in Wanamaker’s Department Store. Anderson, who progressed from the Union Baptist Church junior choir to public performances of duets and solos, also learned to play the piano and violin. She concentrated on a business curriculum at William Penn High School, then transferred to South Philadelphia High for music training and studied privately under voice coach Mary Patterson. Public response to Anderson’s extensive range and expressive talents brought invitations to a variety of public musical forums and Negro colleges as well as membership in the Philadelphia Choral Society. White philanthropists often donated funds to assist her obviously promising future in music. Despite the beneficence of a few, segregation laws and local custom required her to travel to her singing engagements on separate train cars from white passengers, to ride in service elevators, and to eat in substandard dining areas maintained for nonwhite patrons. Overnight accommodations in hotels proved so difficult to obtain that she usually stayed in private residences. In 1921, Anderson received a church-sponsored scholarship for voice lessons with Giuseppe Boghetti, who strengthened her technique and stage presence and taught her operatic roles. With the help of her African American piano accompanist and manager William “Billy” King, she gained the stature to demand a fee of one hundred dollars per performance. A period of low self-esteem arising from unfavorable reviews deflated her enthusiasm temporarily, but the expertise she gained from learning foreign languages to augment her vocal talent, in addition to the backing of her mother, sisters,
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people, including government dignitaries, representatives from Howard University, and the secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), showed Anderson’s sincere response to the racist action of an elitist clique. Choked with tears at the sight of so many supporters, Anderson faltered on the words to the national anthem. She drew on her professional training and years of onstage experience to help complete her usual repertoire of hymns, classical arias, and national favorites. She closed with a simple rendition of “America.” Anderson’s performance at the Lincoln Memorial became the focal point of her career. To commemorate her public triumph, the U.S. Department of the Interior commissioned a mural. Fellow entertainers of all races boycotted future performances scheduled for Constitution Hall. For her self-control and positive attitude, Anderson accepted honors from Eleanor Roosevelt and from the king and queen of England. In subsequent years, she entertained at the White House for the inaugural galas of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. The policy at Constitution Hall eventually changed in regard to use by nonwhites, and Anderson subsequently performed there on several occasions. Significance The nationwide notoriety that resulted from the DAR’s rejection and its triumphant aftermath brought Anderson a deluge of opportunities to travel, perform, study, and record. Reluctant to release many of her RCArecordings, she reworked studio performances until they reached her high standards. Her most popular recording, a soulful, intense rendering of “Ave Maria” marked by her characteristic vibrato and amplitude, sold a quarter of a million copies. Twice Anderson toured Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, impressing Finns by singing in their language. The admiration of royalty, local fans, and notable musicians, especially composer Jean Sibelius, escalated her Scandinavian appearances from mere acclaim to “Marian fever.” European and Asian audiences, particularly Russians and those in other nations under communist regimes, demanded encores of her spirituals, claiming “Deep River” and “Heaven, Heaven” as their favorites. Konstantin Stanislavsky carried a bouquet of lilacs to entice her to sing Carmen. Returning to the United States in triumph, Anderson came under the management of Russian American impresario Solomon Hurok. Under his direction she accepted new challenges, touring in Japan, Africa, and 3167
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coach, and manager, restored her to her earlier levels of confidence. In 1925, after defeating three hundred contenders in a local singing competition, Anderson won the privilege of appearing with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium under the direction of Eugene Ormandy. Good reviews bolstered her competitiveness. As a result, in 1930, on a scholarship from the National Association of Negro Musicians, she traveled to Europe to study. While sailing on the ocean liner Ile de France, she sang for distinguished passengers. The experience proved beneficial to her career, encouraging her to return to Berlin to immerse herself in the German language. Back in the United States, she demonstrated her cosmopolitan training with a cross-country tour. It was in the midst of this increasing professional success, on January 2, 1939, that Anderson was refused by the Daughters of the American Revolution when she attempted to book the use of Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., for a concert to be performed on Easter Sunday. The refusal was based solely on Anderson’s race. At the time the rejection came, Anderson was on tour in California. She met with interviewers to voice her sadness and shame. In characteristic low-key, nonjudgmental style, she refused to affix blame and noted, by way of explanation, that crusading for racial equality was foreign to her nature. She did, however, alter her personal criteria for performance sites and refused to sing where nonwhites were refused admittance. The refusal to let Anderson sing proved embarrassing to the two hundred thousand members of the DAR, an elite women’s historical society founded in 1890 to honor descent from patriots, encourage patriotism and activities related to teaching history, foster genealogical research, honor the American flag and Constitution, found citizenship clubs, award scholarships and medals, assist disabled veterans, and generally further Americanism. To save face in response to press stories about the organization’s action, the DAR’s leaders cited a Washington, D.C., law restricting integrated performances. They insisted that the DAR had in fact challenged bigotry by publicizing the local restrictions that forbade Anderson’s performance. This story proved to be false. Other entertainers and leaders came to Anderson’s defense and protested the obvious attempt to hide racial discrimination. As a conciliatory gesture, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from and broke all ties with the DAR and persuaded Anderson to sing a free Easter concert at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The Sunday performance, attended by more than seventy-five thousand
Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall
Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall
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At the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1943, Marian Anderson greets audience members after singing at the dedication ceremony for a mural commemorating Anderson’s 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert. (Library of Congress)
South America. She gave concerts before standingroom-only crowds at New York City’s Town Hall and Carnegie Hall and at the Philadelphia Forum. Far from her original rewards of fifty cents per performance, she earned hefty fees commensurate with her talents. Fans poured out their response to her compassion, which brought them comfort in times of personal crisis. Critics acknowledged her maturing grace, range, control, and musical technique. She performed more than seventyfive concerts per year and had many other opportunities she could not accept without overextending her voice and sapping her energies. Even with increased audience rapport, racism continued to crop up in correspondence, reviews, and public treatment, especially after Anderson was invited to sing before Nazis in the 1940’s. Following her reply to their questions about race, Hitler’s staff dropped their request for a concert. In the United States, she was presented 3168
with the key to Atlantic City, but white hotels refused her requests for reservations. These unsettling public insults were somewhat offset by awards and honoraria from fifty universities, including Howard, Temple, Smith, Carlisle, Moravian, and Dickinson. At the age of thirty-seven, Anderson received the Springarn Medal, awarded annually by the NAACP to an African American achiever. A year later, in 1940, she earned the Bok Award, an annual prize accorded to a native Philadelphian. She used the ten thousand dollars that accompanied the award to endow the Marian Anderson Scholarship for students of the arts. To ensure unprejudiced administration of the annual scholarship, she placed her sister Alyce in charge. In 1943, Anderson left the Philadelphia home she shared with her mother and married architect Orpheus Fisher of Wilmington, Delaware, whom she had met during her school years. The couple built Mariana Farm in a
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Rashad, Connecticut governor William A. O’Neil, and President George Bush, she graciously accepted the national acclaim that well-wishers extended. She later became more reclusive but remained a symbol of African American achievement and grace under pressure. —Mary Ellen Snodgrass Further Reading Anderson, Marian. My Lord, What a Morning: An Autobiography. 1956. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Presents the most factual information available on Anderson’s childhood and developing career. Somewhat sentimentalized, but avoids bitterness in recounting events related to racial prejudice. Includes photographs and index. Keiler, Allan. Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey. New York: Scribner, 2000. Comprehensive biography places the better-known events of Anderson’s life within the context of her larger life and the times in which she lived. Includes discography, bibliography, and index. Sweeley, Michael. “The First Lady.” National Review 41 (September 29, 1989): 65-66. Brief, articulate summary of Anderson’s life and career focuses in particular on the open-air concert at the Charles Ives Center. “A Tribute to Marian Anderson: Famed Contralto Is Honored at Gala Concert in Connecticut.” Ebony 45 (November, 1989): 182-185. Article serves as a tribute to Anderson’s concert at the Charles Ives Center and fills in information about her retirement and widowhood. Includes photographs. Trotter, Joe William, Jr. “From a Raw Deal to a New Deal? 1929-1945.” In To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans, edited by Robin D. G. Kelley and Earl Lewis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Addresses the position of African Americans in the United States during the period when Anderson was prevented from singing at Constitution Hall, providing some historical context for the incident. See also: 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era; Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues”; Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five; Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club; 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career; Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York.
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rural setting outside Danbury, Connecticut. Often absent from home on tour, she reserved the summer months for domestic pleasures, particularly sewing, cooking, and gardening. Her particular delight was the success of her strawberry patch. By choice, she had no children so that she could avoid the problem of separation from family while she devoted her life to music. To fill the gap left by voluntary childlessness, she immersed herself in the activities of her sisters’ children, who were frequent visitors to her home. In middle age, Marian Anderson continued to achieve renown. At the bidding of German fans, she returned to post-Nazi Berlin to perform. In 1955, New York impresario Rudolf Bing organized her debut as Ulrica, the aged sorceress in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (1857-1858; The Masked Ball). This performance at the Metropolitan Opera House was the first ever by an African American performer. It made extra demands on her limited stage experience, which she met by practicing her acting role and deliberately subduing stage fright. She reprised her part in the opera on tour in Philadelphia, where black fans mobbed the performance. Continuing to refine the role of Ulrica in later appearances, she commented that she felt that perfection of the small character part was an essential part of her training for the operatic stage. At the age of fifty-four, Anderson wrote her autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning (1956), in which she revealed personal reflections on poverty and longing in her childhood, when performing before distinguished audiences lay far outside the grasp of a black singer. Late in her career, having toured Europe and the United States once more, she was named in 1958 as an alternate delegate to the United Nations for her support of human rights. In 1959, two years before her formal retirement, she accepted from President Dwight D. Eisenhower the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the age of seventysix, she appeared at the Kennedy Center and, as the sole woman among fellow honorees George Balanchine, Arthur Rubinstein, Richard Rodgers, and Fred Astaire, received a national award. The famed singer returned to the spotlight long after the end of her stage career. At the age of eighty-seven, to raise scholarship funds, Anderson, still regal and gracious, presided over a concert at Danbury’s Charles Ives Center. Feted by admirers including Jessye Norman, Isaac Stern, William Warfield, Cicely Tyson, Phylicia
Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall
Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
February 15, 1939
Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes J. Robert Oppenheimer calculated that stellar matter could collapse under intense gravitational pressure to form what would later become known as a black hole. Locale: Berkeley, California Categories: Astronomy; physics; science and technology Key Figures J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), American physicist George Michael Volkoff (1914-2000), Canadian physicist and student of Oppenheimer Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916), German physicist Lev Davidovich Landau (1908-1968), Soviet physicist Hartland S. Snyder (1913-1962), American physicist and student of Oppenheimer Summary of Event Sir Isaac Newton first formulated the mathematical nature of gravity and its relationship to mass in 1692, when he theorized that the more massive an object, the more gravity it possesses. Such a relationship is true for all objects with mass, including a child’s marble, the earth, and massive stars. Shortly after Newton’s brilliant philosophical and mathematical treatment of gravity, scientists began to consider the limits of mass and gravity. In 1796, Pierre-Simon Laplace used the eighteenth century notion that light was made of microscopic particles, or corpuscles, and reasoned that if there were a sufficiently massive body somewhere in the universe, these light corpuscles could not escape from its surface. Laplace’s reasoning, however, was nothing more than armchair musings on the limits of Newtonian gravity. In 1915, German physicist Albert Einstein reconsidered Newton’s description of gravity with profound effect in a treatment he called the general theory of relativity. Einstein’s theory united such seemingly disparate ideas as light, energy, time, space, matter, and gravity into a single formulation, enabling all these concepts to be treated as unified elements of single conditions for the first time. Later that year, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild considered the new philosophy of gravity proposed by Einstein. Schwarzschild began to ponder the relativistic mathematical implications of a point in space emanating an intense gravitational field and what an observer would 3170
see as that point in space was approached. He was contemplating Einstein’s notion that light is affected, or bent, when traveling through a gravitational field, a concept substantiated in 1913 when the light of a star was apparently bent while traveling through the gravitational field of the Sun. Schwarzschild’s mathematics were designed to establish the limits of relativity and the degree of the bending effect on light, not to define what would later become known as a “black hole.” The significance of Schwarzschild’s work was not only that he had uncovered some extremely interesting concepts based on relativity but also that some remarkable effects were mathematically allowed by relativity that seemed to violate even common sense. Schwarzschild discovered that as one approaches his theoretical focal point of intense gravity (such as Earth’s mass concentrated in a single point), space literally curves in on itself, and relativity dictates that not even light can escape such a point. More significantly, Schwarzschild discovered that the intense gravitational field need not be confined to a single point in space. His calculations demonstrated that such effects could be observed if one compressed the planet Earth to a sphere with a diameter of 1 centimeter. This relationship of mass to diameter has become known as the Schwarzschild radius. In 1939, American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his student George Michael Volkoff were doing calculations on the nature of extremely massive star cores at the University of California, Berkeley. They were contemplating the theory of Soviet physicist Lev Davidovich Landau, who had used Newton’s theory of gravity in the previous decade. Landau created the first theoretical treatment of the center of very dense stars known as neutron stars. Landau believed that if a star were massive enough, the core would contract and be composed of densely packed neutrons. The discussion of stellar densities continued, and it was suggested to Landau that if the density were great enough, the core of the star would continue to collapse even beyond the neutron state to a single point. Landau dismissed this suggestion as ridiculous, insisting that his calculations demonstrated that this could never happen. However, Oppenheimer and Volkoff reasoned that there was nothing in the relativistic calculations that would prevent collapse beyond the neutron star state and added
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Significance The Oppenheimer-Volkoff paper was an important early use of Einstein’s relativity because it deliberately challenged Landau’s use of classical Newtonian physics within the same predictive environment. It clearly demonstrated the superiority of relativistic physics compared with classical physics, which became a practically useless measure of predicting stellar conditions. Oppenheimer employed relativistic physics—and made its superiority obvious—in his now-famous discussion of the core of neutron stars. Oppenheimer’s paper made an important comparison between Newtonian and classical physics and justified his view of neutron stars, but it also gave rise to a wildly conjectural concept. It proposed that there could be a class of star so dense that it devoured itself and became, in essence, a hole in space and time, where space literally curved in on itself. In his follow-up paper, Oppenheimer used Snyder’s mathematical genius to further refine the concept of a black hole to the point that it became a welldefined physical entity. It was Oppenheimer’s refinement of the idea that took the concept of black holes from a physical abstraction to a physical entity. The Oppenheimer-Snyder work defined the black hole in terms that are still used. Twenty years after their paper was published, scholars determined that a class of bizarre stellar objects emitted prodigious quantities of energy, and Oppenheimer’s studies were applied to further understand these objects’ strange environment and makeup. Oppenheimer’s work discussed the relativistic concepts of observing a black hole from nearby space and even within the direct physical influence of a black hole. Today, his work remains an important tool for explaining the extremes of relativistic physics. Black holes are a vital piece of the universe’s vast puzzle, and ideas about black holes are widely used in a variety of cosmological and astrophysical theories. They are blamed for everything from hot jets of matter seen ejected from the center of some galaxies to energetic Xray pulses emitted from star groups. There may be a black hole lurking at the heart of nearly every galaxy, and black holes may hide a significant portion of the universe’s mass. The knowledge gained in studying these ideas is vital to predicting whether the universe will continue expanding indefinitely or will ultimately collapse on itself. The science and theory of these enigmatic objects remain some of the most startling and interesting ideas in science in the late twentieth century. —Dennis Chamberland 3171
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that Landau had used Newtonian concepts that had been superseded by relativistic concepts. On February 15, 1939, Oppenheimer and Volkoff published a paper making these points in the Physical Review. The two scientists continued to speculate even after their paper was published: They teamed up with another one of Oppenheimer’s graduate students, mathematics prodigy Hartland S. Snyder, and formulated a more refined mathematical picture of such a hypothetical stellar collapse. In this treatment, published less than a year after the Oppenheimer-Volkoff paper, Oppenheimer and Snyder described in detail the effects of such a stellar collapse. They discussed the effects that would prevent such a collapse, including a rapid spin rate, stellar explosions, and internal pressure that would act to resist the collapse. Still, they speculated that a truly massive star could not help but collapse in on itself. Eventually, light would bend back into the star, as would any other form of radiation, until it could no longer escape. As they described it, “The star thus tends to close itself off from any communication with a distant observer; only its gravitational field persists.” In these two papers, Oppenheimer and his students were the first to address the idea of a black hole as more than an academic exercise. They both introduced the idea of such an object and also related it to stellar concepts. Furthermore, they went on to mathematically define the limits of such an object. At no time during any of these discussions did the term “black hole” ever arise. Indeed, even Oppenheimer had no idea that such an object really existed, and if it did, he did not know it might ever be detected; by his own definition, the object would tend to cut itself off from any outside communication. The person credited with first using the term “black hole” (in 1967) was Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler. In late 1963, a group of scientists convened in Dallas, Texas, for a meeting titled “An International Symposium on Gravitational Collapse and Other Topics in Relativistic Astrophysics.” Scientists discussed the relationship of very strong, high-energy point sources emanating from space, and most strongly suspected that these point sources of extraordinary energy could well be caused by the collapse of very massive stars up to or beyond the Schwarzschild radius. The meeting was chaired by Oppenheimer and was also attended by Martin Schwarzschild (son of Karl) and by Wheeler, who contributed his long-held convictions that black holes did in fact exist. Although no black hole has ever been directly observed, strong indirect evidence points to their existence.
Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes
Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes Further Reading Asimov, Isaac. The Collapsing Universe. New York: Walker, 1977. Asimov provides an easy-to-grasp look at the story of black holes as seen from the layperson’s perspective. In his readable style, Asimov attacks the discussion from both the historical and scientific points of view. Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth Century Physics. 1986. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996. In this book, Crease and Mann follow the making of twentieth century physics from its nineteenth century roots to the most enigmatic mysteries of the late 1980’s. Examines characters and personalities as well as the issues of physics. Although this work makes little mention of Oppenheimer’s famous black hole paper of 1939, it offers a unique and fascinating glimpse into his character and personality. Harwit, Martin. Cosmic Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1981. This book offers a readable style and approach that details the development of the black hole concept and Oppenheimer’s contribution. The book is written somewhat stiffly from the lay perspective, and it contains valuable information, photographs, and illustrations. Miller, Arthur I. Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Provides background on the history of the idea of black holes and describes the debate concerning the nature of black holes as well as the implications of that debate for science. Shipman, Harry L. Black Holes, Quasars, and the Universe. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. In this excellent book, black holes are covered extensively in a readable style and related to their cosmic cousins, the pulsars and quasars. The book relates how Oppenheimer’s work with pulsars dovetailed into the black
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Pius XII Becomes Pope
March 2, 1939
Pius XII Becomes Pope Pius XII became Pope six months before Hitler’s invasion of Poland officially began World War II. Prewar attempts at avoiding large-scale conflict were not productive, and throughout the war Pius XII was concerned with maintaining an independent role for the Vatican and the Church in the face of German domination. Accusations that Pius XII was anti-Semitic and supported Hitler’s Germany were later refuted by scholars. Locale: Vatican City Categories: Religion, theology, and ethics; World War II; diplomacy and international relations; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event Before he assumed the papacy and became Pius XII, Cardinal Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli served as secretary of state for Pope Pius XI, a capacity in which he continued his diplomatic work, focusing particularly on the position and interests of the Church in Germany. In 1917, he had served as an archbishop and was nuncio to Bavaria, where he developed a concordat between the provincial Bavarian government and the Vatican. In 1925, he was assigned to Berlin to work on a similar treaty with the German government, and he remained there until 1929, when Pius XI appointed him secretary of state of the Vatican and elevated his rank to cardinal. The future Pius XII was aware of the fragility of the German Weimar Republic and witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in the wake of the impact of the Great Depression. As papal secretary of state he traveled widely: He visited the United States and many other nations in North and South America. During his travels, he developed an appreciation of the extent of Catholicism’s reach and of the Church’s different, often region-specific problems. Later, Pius XII played a particularly important role in developing the concordat with Hitler’s Third Reich on
Pope Pius XII. (Library of Congress)
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Key Figures Pius XII (Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 1876-1958), Roman Catholic pope, 1939-1958 Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti; 18571939), Roman Catholic pope, 1922-1939
July 20, 1933. Fearing the loss of extensive Church property, the closure of Catholic schools and seminaries, and restrictions on the clergy and on chuchgoers, Rome entered into the agreement with Hitler. The terms, however, were not in the Vatican’s favor: The agreement subordinated the Church to the state, silenced German Catholic opposition to Hitler, and gave credibility to Hitler’s regime. From 1933 to 1939, Roman Catholic interests in Germany suffered: After the outbreak of the war, the Church and its priests were ignored or subject to persecution. As the war neared, Cardinal Pacelli played a crucial role in the drafting of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, which denounced Nazism and fascism, used diplomacy to indicate Vatican displeasure with German policies, and reprimanded Catholic bishops for not adequately denouncing German aggression and authoritarianism. When Pius XII was elected pope on March 2, 1939—on the first and only ballot—the Germans condemned his elevation, and they blocked his efforts at mediation. Throughout the late spring and summer of 1939, Pius XII called for a conference to resolve the differences among European powers, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
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Although Pius XII opposed the unconditional surrender required by Pope Pius XII’s first encyclical condemned the rise of totalitarianism around the Allies, Vatican attempts to allethe world: viate hunger in Rome and its vicinity reached more than 3.6 million indiVenerable Brethren, as We write these lines the terrible news comes to Us that viduals each month. Pius XII also the dread tempest of war is already raging despite all Our efforts to avert it. supported efforts to identify missing When We think of the wave of suffering that has come on countless people who persons and return displaced persons but yesterday enjoyed in the environment of their homes some little degree of to their homes. well-being, We are tempted to lay down Our pen. Our paternal heart is torn by Scholars have been concerned anguish as We look ahead to all that will yet come forth from the baneful seed about claims that Pius XII was an of violence and of hatred for which the sword today ploughs the blooddrenched furrow. anti-Semite and that he could have But precisely because of this apocalyptic foresight of disaster, imminent been more attentive to the plight of and remote, We feel We have a duty to raise with still greater insistence the European Jews during the war, but eyes and hearts of those in whom there yet remains good will to the One from study of the documentary evidence Whom alone comes the salvation of the world—to One Whose almighty and indicates that these accusations are merciful Hand can alone calm this tempest—to the One Whose truth and largely without merit. Pius XII diWhose love can enlighten the intellects and inflame the hearts of so great a secrectly intervened to save Jews in the tion of mankind plunged in error, selfishness, strife and struggle, so as to give it Vatican and supported a wide range a new orientation in the spirit of the Kingship of Christ. of actions to alleviate the distress and Perhaps—God grant it—one may hope that this hour of direct need may horrors they experienced during the bring a change of outlook and sentiment to those many who, till now, have Nazi regime. The papacy provided walked with blind faith along the path of popular modern errors unconscious of the treacherous and insecure ground on which they trod. Perhaps the many who more than four million dollars in rehave not grasped the importance of the educational and pastoral mission of the lief to Jews during the war and, on Church will now understand better her warnings, scouted in the false security two occasions, December 24, 1942, of the past. No defense of Christianity could be more effective than the present and June 2, 1943, Pius XII denounced straits. From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian movements there the German plan to exterminate the has come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute a condemnaJews. The papacy was also actively tion surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoretical refutation. involved in attempts to address the Source: Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Unity many factors inherent in Europe’s of Human Society to Our Venerable Brethren: The Patriarchs, Primates, refugee crisis. Archbishops, Bishops, and Other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the After the defeat of Germany and Apostolic See. Given at Castel Gondolfo, near Rome, on October 20, 1939. Japan in 1945, Pius XII appointed a new generation of cardinals, worked to support the United Nations and other institutions that were focused Despite the German invasion of Poland on Septemon maintaining peace, and expanded his anticommunist ber 1, 1939, and the outbreak of World War II, Pius XII policies and programs throughout the world. Pius XII continued his diplomatic efforts. While he was unable to viewed Russian communism’s atheistic and material bring the conflict to a close, Pius XII served as a conduit core as the next threat to Christianity and organized relibetween the internal German resistance to the war and gion, and in 1949 he proclaimed that any Catholic who the Allied Powers, especially Britain and the United was aligned with communism was automatically excomStates. After Italy entered the war in June, 1940, as a Germunicated from the Church. Theologically, Pius XII deman ally, Pius XII strove to keep Rome out of the battle: clared the Assumption of Mary into Heaven as a dogma He sought—but failed—to have Rome recognized as an of faith in his encyclical Munificentissimus Deus (1950), international city. Only once during the war did a bomb and he declared 1954 as the Marian Year to commemohit the Vatican; that incident occurred on March 1, 1943, rate the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. when Italian members of the Fascist Party caused the exPius XII’s health declined during the 1950’s, and he died plosion. (Rome, however, was not spared, and a July 19, on October 9, 1958. He was succeeded by Pope John 1943, attack destroyed parts of the San Lorenzo quarter.) XXIII.
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Pius XII Becomes Pope Pius XII’s role as defender of the Vatican, the Church, and human rights during World War II. Bottum, Joseph, and David G. Dalin, eds. The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004. A response to and defense of the interpretations of John Cornwell and other scholars who advanced criticisms of Pius XII’s actions and failures during World War II. Cornwell, John. Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. New York: Viking Penguin, 1999. Cornwell’s critique of Pius XII is the most widely cited; he argued that Pius XII failed to take a stand against Hitler and the horrors of the Holocaust. Dalin, David G. The Myth of Hitler’s Pope. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2005. A defense of Pius XII and his actions during World War II; Dalin attempts to dismantle the Cornwell thesis. Friedländer, Saul. Pius XII and the Third Reich: A Documentation. Translated by Charles Fullman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. An examination of primary sources that raise questions about the relationship between the Vatican and Hitler’s Germany during World War II. Sánchez, José M. Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2002. An important, valuable, and balanced study that examines the multitude of factors that emerged in the controversy of Pius XII’s actions toward the Jews during World War II.
Further Reading Blet, Pierre. Pius XII and World War II: According to the Archives of the Vatican. Translated by Lawrence J. Johnson. New York: Paulist Press, 1999. A study of
See also: Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope; June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism.
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Significance The nineteen years of Pope Pius XII’s pontificate saw the turbulent outbreak of World War II, the subsequent defeat of the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy), the postwar diplomacy that led to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the mounting concern that the Roman Catholic Church was detached from the world and its needs. Pius XII defended the interests of the Vatican and the Roman Church while advancing the cause of human rights, and his actions resulted in the rescue of many Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust. His postwar years focused on the recovery of the Church in Europe and on combating forms of Marxist communism that denounced God and religion and sacrificed individual rights and liberties in the name of collectivist values. Pius XII was consistently opposed to statism, fascism, communism, and all other variations of totalitarianism. Theologically, he was a conservative who produced many encyclicals that reinforced traditional Church doctrine; his most notable doctrinal and liturgical achievements were his declaration of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven as a dogma of faith and his establishment of the Marian Year in 1954. His conservatism tended to stifle those who desired greater freedom from the dictates of the Church hierarchy, and his succession by the more liberal Pope John XXIII resulted in the creation of the Second Vatican Council, which John XXIII hoped would “let light shine into the church.” —William T. Walker
Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
March 31, 1939
Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins Basil Rathbone starred in the first of fourteen films that made him the most popular Sherlock Holmes in cinema history. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Basil Rathbone (1892-1967), successful and respected stage and film actor who achieved his greatest popularity in the film role of Sherlock Holmes Nigel Bruce (1895-1953), venerable character actor who played Holmes’s bumbling sidekick, Dr. Watson Darryl F. Zanuck (1902-1979), executive producer for Twentieth Century-Fox who signed Rathbone and Bruce for their roles and oversaw the production of the first two films of the series Sidney Lanfield (1898-1972), director of The Hound of the Baskervilles Mary Gordon (1882-1963), character actor who played Holmes’s landlady, Mrs. Hudson, throughout the series Summary of Event In the spring of 1939, American moviegoers of all ages were familiar with Sherlock Holmes as a film character. First popularized in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s through the novels and short stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes had been represented on silent film in Europe and the United States since the beginning of the twentieth century. After talking pictures were introduced in the late 1920’s, a number of Holmes films followed, the most popular of which was a highly successful five-film series starring British actor Arthur Wontner. By 1939, Sherlock Holmes was still popular in print, had been represented successfully on stage, and had been portrayed in numerous radio versions. Basil Rathbone’s portrayal of the Baker Street sleuth was certainly no novelty. One of the most popular of the Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles, was familiar to many. Twentieth Century-Fox made the story into a film that stuck fairly closely to its source (unlike later movies in the Rathbone series). The plot begins with the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville of Baskerville Hall. It is rumored on the Dartmoor marshland that Sir Charles was killed by a supernatural hound that for centuries has been 3176
avenging the brutal murder of a young peasant woman by Sir Charles’s wicked seventeenth century ancestor Sir Hugo Baskerville. Upon the death of Sir Charles, young Sir Henry Baskerville inherits his uncle’s estate, and Holmes is called to investigate the danger that the avenging hound might present to Sir Henry. Holmes eventually discovers that the hound is merely a mortal beast trained by John Stapleton, a neighbor and distant Baskerville relative who had hoped to kill Sir Henry and claim the estate for himself. After Holmes solves the mystery, young Sir Henry is able to marry Stapleton’s stepsister Beryl, and the two are presumed to live quietly and happily forever. Ultimately, the Doyle stories were designed to showcase the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes and to tantalize the audience with mystery and suspense. By highlighting the vicious canine, however, The Hound of the Baskervilles adds a touch of horror and the macabre to the detective mixture. The 1939 film version of Doyle’s classic emphasized the horror element. Twentieth Century-Fox advertised the film as “literature’s most shocking, spine-chilling mystery story,” pitting Holmes “against the giant, unearthly Beast from Hell that roams the fog-swept moor . . . terrorizing the countryside . . . striking horror into the hearts of two young lovers!” As the opening credits roll, the misty Dartmoor setting prepares the audience for what Watson later calls “the dreadful eeriness of this place.” Insert titles announce that “in all England there is no district more dismal than that vast expanse of primitive wasteland, the moors of Dartmoor in Devonshire,” and the action begins at night on the boggy Grimpen Mire with the terrified Sir Charles fleeing the howling of the hound. Then, when Sir Charles collapses from heart failure, a horrific, wild-eyed man scurries from the bushes to steal Sir Charles’s pocket watch. Although the film was shot entirely at the Twentieth Century-Fox studios, the atmosphere of the moors is genuinely eerie; when the audience finally sees the hound, however, it appears to be of normal size and is not sufficiently frightening. Twentieth Century-Fox also emphasized the romantic element of Doyle’s story. In the end, Sir Henry Baskerville wins the heart of his beautiful neighbor, Miss Beryl Stapleton, and in advertisements for the film, the studio gave the lovers as much prominence as Holmes and Watson. Two actors known for playing romantic leads, Richard Greene and Wendy Barrie, were cast to play Sir Henry and Miss Stapleton, and the opening credits gave
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Greene top billing, followed by Rathbone and Barrie, with Nigel Bruce (as Dr. Watson) receiving secondary billing and separated in the credits from Rathbone. Emphasis on the romantic element was also reflected in Cyril Mockridge’s music for the opening credits. The music began by suggesting horror—ominous measures featuring brass instruments— then segued into several bars of sweeping, romantic violins before returning to the opening mood, which To view image, please refer to the continued into the first scene on the print edition of this title. moor. Richard Greene’s romantic Sir Henry failed to dominate the screen. Instead, it was Rathbone’s brisk, electric, intense characterization of Holmes and Bruce’s languid, goodnatured characterization of Watson that carried the picture, along with striking portrayals of numerous minor characters. For example, Lionel Atwill, who in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) would make a very effective Professor Moriarty, here created an effectively mysterious Dr. Mortimer. The slim and gravel-voiced John Carradine played the Baskervilles’ servant with Basil Rathbone as he appeared in the role of Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the a compelling and taciturn quality, Baskervilles. (AP/Wide World Photos) and in a typically brief appearance, Mary Gordon created the role of Mrs. Hudson, which she would play performances from 1939 through 1946. In September, throughout the series. The result was a rich fictive world 1942, Universal Pictures purchased the film rights to the dominated by the Rathbone/Bruce tandem and espeDoyle short stories and began a series of twelve more cially by the intensity of Rathbone as Holmes. Rathbone/Bruce films. The last of these was Dressed to Five months later, in September, 1939, Twentieth Kill, and after it was released in 1946, Rathbone quit the Century-Fox capitalized on Rathbone and Bruce’s sucseries to return to New York and his first love, the stage. cess by releasing a second Holmes film, The Adventures Although Rathbone had initially felt challenged by the of Sherlock Holmes. The two character actors were well Holmes role, he eventually tired of it, feeling that he was on their way to becoming the most popular Holmes and simply repeating himself rather than growing as an actor. Watson in cinema history. In this and subsequent films, Unfortunately, he had become so identified with the role Rathbone and Bruce received top billing and were feathat his career as an effective character actor was essentured as the stars; their personal status was emphasized even more than their roles as Holmes and Watson. tially destroyed. Children asking him for his autograph In October, 1939, Rathbone and Bruce began solidiwould often not know that Sherlock Holmes was a ficfying their new fame by repeating their roles for radio, tional character and that the man they addressed was reand they went on to act in more than two hundred radio ally the actor Basil Rathbone, and Rathbone could not
Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins appear on screen without reminding audiences of Sherlock Holmes. In the late 1940’s in New York, Rathbone worked on stage, radio, and television with some success but without offsetting his typecasting as Holmes, and he even returned to the role in 1953 in a play and a television pilot, both of which were unsuccessful. He did not appear again in film until the middle 1950’s, and then with little success. By the early 1960’s, he was acting in cheap thrillers for American International Pictures, and he ended his film career by appearing in a pair of obscure films, Autopsy of a Ghost (1967) and Hillbillies in a Haunted House (1967). Although Rathbone achieved international fame as Sherlock Holmes, his acting career was finally severely limited by his phenomenal success in that role. Significance There had been many successful and popular portrayals of Sherlock Holmes before Rathbone’s appearance in The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939. William Gillette, H. A. Saintsbury, Eille Norwood, John Barrymore, Clive Brook, Raymond Massey, Arthur Wontner, and others had given significant performances as the great detective. Gillette, who acted until 1935, had played Holmes on stage, in film, and on radio for more than thirteen hundred performances and was considered by many in his heyday to be the definitive Sherlock Holmes. The British actor Eille Norwood had made forty-seven short, silent films in the early 1920’s as Holmes. By 1946, however, Rathbone’s performance in the series of fourteen Sherlock Holmes films had eclipsed all other portrayals. In the decades following Rathbone’s 1946 departure from the Universal series, many other actors portrayed Holmes. Actors such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Douglas Wilmer, Fritz Weaver, John Neville, Stewart Granger, John Wood, Nicol Williamson, Christopher Plummer, Roger Moore, Frank Langella, Ian Richardson, and others played Holmes on film, stage, and television. For forty years, however, no one threatened to dislodge Rathbone as the image of Sherlock Holmes until Jeremy Brett began his long and effective series of Holmes tales for England’s Granada Television in the mid-1980’s. For nearly half a century, Rathbone reigned supreme as the popular image of Sherlock Holmes. Some of Rathbone’s popularity in the role must be attributed to his appearance. Tall and slender, with a strong nose, dark hair, piercing eyes, and a slightly receding hairline, Rathbone bore a striking resemblance to the image of Holmes created by the most famous and most influential of Doyle’s illustrators, Sidney Paget, who es3178
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tablished the initial and most abiding portrait of Holmes in his many drawings for the original publication of Doyle’s stories in the Strand Magazine. As an excellent and experienced character actor, Rathbone also brought to the role an intensity coupled with a thoughtful intelligence and an aristocratic manner that perfectly suited the character. Rathbone’s height, intense eyes, angular features, and lack of muscularity all suggested brains rather than brawn, and he brought to his portrayal of Holmes an aristocratic demeanor that had been honed in earlier roles, beginning with his portrayal of the stern Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935) and including a bravura performance as the oily Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Also of no small consequence was Rathbone’s precise, deep, and crisp speaking voice, which seemed to capture the very sound of clear thinking. Rathbone’s aristocratic manner, so essential to the Sherlock Holmes character, would not be sufficiently recaptured until the advent of Jeremy Brett’s Holmes in the mid-1980’s. As Rathbone had become the definitive Sherlock Holmes for movies, Brett promised finally to eclipse him by becoming the definitive Holmes in the next dominant popular medium—television. In addition, Rathbone had an advantage over all previous and subsequent screen Sherlocks when he was paired with Nigel Bruce’s incomparable Dr. Watson, whose good-natured bumbling served as the perfect foil to Rathbone’s characterization. The Watson character has always proved deceptively difficult to play: A companion and contrast to Holmes, Watson tends to be sycophantic, prosaic, even dull, and many actors cannot bring any meaningful liveliness to the role. Bruce, however, managed to create a richly sentimental warmth in Watson that complemented a genuinely close relationship with Holmes, and in some respects Nigel Bruce’s Watson proved an even more indelible screen image than Rathbone’s Holmes. Another factor contributing to Rathbone’s enormous popularity was the timing of the series, which coincided with U.S. involvement in World War II. Many of the films in the Universal series exploited the war consciousness, creating un-Doyle-like tales that set Holmes against Nazi spies, and a number of the films in the series ended with uplifting, jingoistic speeches such as the one that caps Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), in which Holmes quotes Winston Churchill: “In the days to come, the British and American people for their own safety and the good of all will walk together in majesty and justice and in peace.” Finally, the timing of the
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detective, Holmes does not resort to weapons, violence, or physical prowess. He wins by using deductive reasoning that permits him to cull meaning from what seems prosaic and meaningless to everyone else. —Terry Nienhuis Further Reading Barnes, Alan. Sherlock Holmes on Screen: The Complete Film and TV History. London: Reynolds & Hearn, 2004. Wonderfully illustrated history of Holmes’s portrayals on screen. Breaks down the performances by category and provides some interesting analyses. Davies, David Stuart. Holmes of the Movies: The Screen Career of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Bramhall House, 1968. Very readable survey of Holmes literature covers Doyle and the major actors who have portrayed Holmes. Devotes three chapters to Rathbone. Includes photographs and filmography but no index. Eyles, Allen. Sherlock Holmes: A Centenary Celebration. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. A sumptuously illustrated coffee-table book covering Holmes in all popular forms, including radio. One Rathbone chapter and a very useful chapter on recent Holmes figures. Includes index, academically slanted bibliography, chronological list of Doyle stories, and a valuable chronological list of performances. Eleven chapters, 144 pages. Haydock, Ron. Deerstalker! Holmes and Watson on Screen. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978. Sixteen-chapter survey devotes nearly three chapters to Rathbone and Bruce. Written in a very personal, chatty style; its main strength is its wealth of detail. Includes photographs, annotated bibliography, and index. Pohle, Robert W., Jr., and Douglas C. Hart. Sherlock Holmes on the Screen: The Motion Picture Adventures of the World’s Most Popular Detective. South Brunswick, N.J.: A. S. Barnes, 1977. Although dated, still very useful. Provides unusually thorough and specific details on scores of films. Features a long chapter on the Rathbone series. Includes many photographs, a list of Doyle stories, bibliography, and index. Rathbone, Basil. In and Out of Character. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962. Autobiography of eighteen chapters and 278 pages, in which, amazingly, Rathbone covers the Holmes series in a single ten-page chapter. This chapter, however, is essential reading, as it bristles with deep feeling. Includes an incisive analysis of the Sherlock phenomenon and reveals 3179
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Rathbone series coincided perfectly with the advent of television as a powerful cultural force in the United States. As local stations sought films for their afternoon and late-night movie slots, the Rathbone series proved both useful and popular. Given that all the pre-1929 Holmes films were silent and thus not commercially viable, and because most of the pre-Rathbone sound versions were either lost or not readily available, the Rathbone series enjoyed a virtual monopoly. Consequently, the fourteen Rathbone/Bruce films became the most popular series of feature films ever shown on American television. The Rathbone Holmes series is not generally thought of as cinematically innovative or daring, but in one way two of the films are almost shocking for their time. When Doyle created his detective hero at the end of the nineteenth century, he had made Holmes a narcotics addict who injected cocaine, heroin, morphine, and other drugs to combat the monotony of his daily routine. Only when challenged by a particularly difficult case did Holmes find life stimulating enough to make drugs unnecessary. At the end of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes has solved all the mysteries, trapped the murderer, and brought peace and justice to Baskerville Hall; he has declared it “a very interesting case for your annals, Watson.” Announcing that he has had a strenuous day and will now turn in, Holmes pauses at the door and, turning back to Watson, says, “Oh, Watson, the needle!” This was a startling line, given the conservatism and heavily censored nature of the film industry of the 1940’s. Holmes’s addiction would not be dealt with openly on film until the mid-1970’s, when The Seven Percent Solution (1976) unabashedly focused on Holmes’s drug use. There is another veiled reference to Holmes’s addiction in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942), the second film in the Universal series. Near the end of the film, the evil Professor Moriarty has captured Holmes and has strapped him to an operating table; Moriarty plans to kill Holmes by draining his blood, drop by agonizing drop. Smiling, Moriarty says, “The needle till the end, eh?” Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective genre in the 1840’s, and before the century was finished, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had made Sherlock Holmes the most compelling of all detective characters. As a kind of popular romantic hero, the detective character entertains audiences by surpassing the limits felt by ordinary people, but Sherlock Holmes’s intelligence made him especially appealing to popular audiences. Unlike such heroes as the cowboy of the American Western or the usual police
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Rathbone’s ultimate disappointment that the series so seriously damaged his acting career. Richardson, Ian, and David Stuart Davies. Starring Sherlock Holmes. London: Titan Books, 2003. An attractive and generally well-researched volume on all the Holmes performances. Pays special attention to those by Rathbone, Brett, and Peter Cushing. Steinbrunner, Chris, and Norman Michaels. The Films of Sherlock Holmes. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1991. Excellent lengthy survey includes many illustrations. Devotes a full chapter to each Rathbone/ Bruce film. One of the best books of its kind; unusu-
ally detailed, informative, and well written. However, it provides no index, bibliography, or other scholarly aids.
April, 1939 THE GRAPES OF
WRATH Portrays Depression-Era America
John Steinbeck’s use of journalistic exposé, documentary style, and experimental fiction in The Grapes of Wrath, a critique of modern inhumanity, produced one of the most controversial novels of the century. Locale: New York, New York Category: Literature Key Figures John Steinbeck (1902-1968), American novelist Carol Henning Steinbeck (1906-1983), Steinbeck’s wife, typist, and editor and an activist for migrant workers Tom Collins (1897?-1961), U.S. government camp worker Pascal Covici (1885-1964), Steinbeck’s editor and literary confidant Edward F. Ricketts (1896-1948), American amateur biologist Summary of Event The man who would come to write the quintessential American novel of the Great Depression began the 1930’s in obscurity and with uneven literary success. John Steinbeck had rejected his middle-class upbringing in Salinas, California, and the pretensions of college (Stanford University) for the life of an itinerant laborer and aspiring writer. His efforts of the early 1930’s were regarded by most critics as florid and vague renditions of humanity’s encounter with a mystical nature. In Tortilla Flat (1935), however, he began to restrain his style and to construct richer, more detailed portraits of the folkways 3180
See also: 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense; 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres.
of people on the social margins. With In Dubious Battle (1936) and Of Mice and Men (1937), Steinbeck established himself as a sensitive chronicler of the vanishing rural communities of the United States and the persistent underclass. These novels also confronted the Great Depression more bluntly than most popular authors dared. By 1936, waves of destitute farmers (“Okies”) were fleeing the Dust Bowl to Salinas and Monterey, California, where Steinbeck saw them victimized by nature and by other human beings. He began researching their plight for a series of journalistic exposés. As the intricacy of the farmers’ experience emerged, however, he decided to expand his work into a fictional treatment of the migrant quandary as an emblem for the Depression itself. The situation also invited Steinbeck to make better use of his maturing style and social concerns. His careful attention to regional dialects and folkways, the relationship between political struggle and human need, and the use of innovative narrative techniques all came together in what was to be his greatest novel. After several false starts, Steinbeck began serious writing in May, 1938. His wife, Carol Henning Steinbeck, typing and editing throughout, also provided the book’s title, a phrase from the lyrics of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The Grapes of Wrath (1939) recounts the suffering and human endurance of the Joad family as they abandon their bankrupt farm in Oklahoma for the promise of work in California. Eldest son Tom jumps parole (stemming from a questionable manslaughter conviction) to help lead the family westward. Ma Joad, an intuitive genius of human nature and a noble sufferer, struggles to keep her extended family whole amid their despondence. A fallen
The Grapes of Wrath Portrays Depression-Era America
preacher, Casey, accompanies them as a mouthpiece for the author’s folk philosophy and the source of Christian imagery throughout the tale. As the family traverses the legendary Route 66, Steinbeck exposes a litany of American sins: exploitative banks and agribusiness, the xenophobic defensiveness of the middle class, and a socioeconomic order that seems perversely distant from human morality and needs. The Joads and Steinbeck find temporary solace within a “government camp,” a utopian model of participatory democracy, altruism, and cooperation. In the end, however, the Joads move on to an exploitative farm camp where Casey is killed (crucified); Tom must then flee after he murders again in retaliation. Steinbeck’s migrants are not unambiguous heroes, nor are their oppressors simplistic villains. All of his characters’ good and bad natures are complicated by circumstance. Material scarcity, social disarray, and an inhuman economic machine cause men to violate their own heartfelt sense of morality. Steinbeck’s concept of humankind was deeply influenced by his close friend, amateur biologist Edward F. Ricketts. Partly through
interactions with Ricketts, Steinbeck developed the quasi-scientific notion of the “phalanx”: He believed that individuals in groups were able to locate transcendent elements of human nature, evil, and morality that were not apparent to individuals alone. “Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of,” Casey preaches. Such primal themes pervade the novel through allusions to Christianity, Jeffersonian agrarianism, American Transcendentalism, and tribal social organization. The thread of hope for American renewal in the face of relentless tragedy courses through Ma and Tom Joad and their ability to locate the common morality of “human spirit.” The literary merits and sophistication of the novel remain controversial, but it is inarguable that Steinbeck offered his general readers a compelling depiction of modern society as diseased and beyond human control. Beyond the more apparent social and philosophical messages, Steinbeck wanted to construct a monument to the American “common man.” His spare, descriptive writing called attention to the details of human relations, rather than to his own literary artistry. Descriptions of physical gestures, dialect and inflection, and quick dialogic exchanges constitute much of the narrative. Such elements were intended to underscore the profundity of common struggles and to suggest the rich meanings within everyday relationships. Steinbeck’s most daring literary innovation, however, came in his punctuating of the main plot with numerous “interchapters.” These passages wrenched the reader out of the Joads’ story and into more general and often more prosaic ruminations on the migrants’ plight. Steinbeck intended to disorient and permanently change his readers. Many critics, however, have argued that The Grapes of Wrath had a similar effect on its creator. He suddenly became the most discussed novelist in the United States; he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. His book became a best seller and produced a firestorm of debate, both political and aesthetic. Critics often dismissed Steinbeck as a mawkish sentimentalist of limited skill. Questions about his place within the literary pantheon were renewed in 1962, when Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize. While he continued to write at a decent pace after 1939, East of Eden (1952) was the only subsequent novel that approached his earlier work in its ambition. Steinbeck never again invested in his writing the level of passion, social conscience, and literary experimentation that made The Grapes of Wrath a landmark of American cultural history.
The Causes of Revolt In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck included “interchapters” in which he ruminated on the migrants’ plight in order to distance readers from the main plot and allow a longer perspective on the social machinery that drove it. One famous passage concerns the evolution of farming from a family occupation to an industry to which the Joads were clearly in thrall: And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history . . . and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmurings of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on. Source: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Random House, 1939).
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Significance The publication of The Grapes of Wrath was among a handful of literary events that reverberated into the larger political and social arenas of American culture. Steinbeck anticipated some controversy, and he had the lyrics to the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” printed on the hardcover edition’s endpapers as a sign of his patriotism. The strategy failed; the book has been among the most banned, burned, and censored literary works of modern times. Steinbeck himself was accused variously of instigating worker unrest, of betraying the dignity of the migrants themselves, and simply of being a mediocre writer. Nevertheless, The Grapes of Wrath has remained one of the most widely read works of serious American fiction of the century and an influential example of the activist novel. The political Right first attacked the book as inaccurate, biased propaganda, neither fair nor artistic. Steinbeck was called an outright liar and anti-American by some newspapers and many farm owners’ organizations around the country. His blistering depictions of brutality by landowners were challenged in all manner of publications. Collier’s spoke for many when it branded the book subversive propaganda. Still, Steinbeck enjoyed no less a fan than Eleanor Roosevelt, who praised the book’s disturbing images of the American underbelly as a call to action. Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr., initiated an official inquiry into the work conditions of California farms. The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a California law that had been used against migrant workers. The growing momentum for reform faded, however, as World War II provided new opportunities for the itinerant and unemployed. Controversy over the novel quickly shifted from politics to taste and morality. Most bannings and burnings were responses to the characters’ earthy dialogue and occasional mentions of sexuality. Charges of obscenity have maintained the book’s dubious place on the list of most-censored works; it has often been removed from school reading lists and libraries. From the time of publication, however, attempts to ban or abridge the novel for reasons of propriety have been challenged as excuses for suppressing its political ideas. Moreover, few authors have enjoyed Steinbeck’s broad readership and popular esteem. Although hardly resolved, persistent controversies over who should read The Grapes of Wrath often raise deeper questions about the motives and intentions of censorship. Nevertheless, Steinbeck’s use of a more frank and naturalistic style may have helped accustom American readers to the more explicit content of postwar popular fiction.
The deeper cultural impact of The Grapes of Wrath was more subtle and enduring than the immediate response it garnered in 1939. Although the book did not have the same demonstrable social influence as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888), or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906), controversy generated by the novel foreshadowed persistent arguments about the role of social issues and ideology in an age of mass communications. Even journalists who were sympathetic to Steinbeck’s cause at the time pondered the consequences of his blending of reportage with literary license in a popular novel. The question of art’s duty to fact and impartiality would become all the more pressing after World War II. As film and television gained authority in American life, the social responsibilities, even politics, of popular artists were more carefully scrutinized; some artists were “blacklisted” for their views. Steinbeck’s novel suggested the power of socially committed novelists to redirect political agendas and to influence public opinion. This memory of the radical art of the 1930’s certainly informed later attacks on alleged Communists in the film and television industries. To the chagrin of many critics, The Grapes of Wrath has been regarded by general readers as one of the great American novels and continues to be a standard text in secondary school English classes. Like James T. Farrell, John Dos Passos, and even film actor and director Charles Chaplin, Steinbeck strove to engage art with immediate social issues without sacrificing the artist’s unique qualities of vision and experimentation. These artists argued that a radically changed modern society required new forms of narrative. Farrell and Dos Passos were more dogged—some say more talented—in their pursuit of this goal. The Grapes of Wrath thus is probably taught more as history than as literature. Nevertheless, Steinbeck helped to advance the art of the social-issue novel beyond the didacticism of nineteenth century efforts and the often leaden style of much proletarian fiction by the radical Left. After World War II, issueoriented fiction became more often the purview of film and television than of literature. The Grapes of Wrath suggested a palatable recipe for mixing social activism and fiction. Much of such fiction has humanized social issues, dramatizing the ways in which abstract debates affect common lives. Still, the more provocative blends of literary innovation and social exposé have continued to flourish, especially among African American novelists such as Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. Whatever form the book’s legacy
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has taken, however, the events surrounding The Grapes of Wrath have dramatized the ways in which art matters. —Steven Smith
Greenwood Press, 2000. Collection of critical essays on the novel, including a selection of criticism from the first fifty years of its publication, as well as a section devoted to the criticism of the 1990’s. Steinbeck, John. “The Grapes of Wrath”: Text and Criticism. Edited by Peter Lisca. New York: Penguin Books, 1977. This critical edition provides the most reliable version of the original novel and includes selected evaluations of the book from the time of publication into the 1970’s. Also includes a selected bibliography of Steinbeck and scholarship on his work. _______. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten. New York: Viking Press, 1975. An indispensable collection of Steinbeck’s correspondence. Regarding The Grapes of Wrath, there are revealing letters to friends that recount Steinbeck’s experiences in migrant farmer camps. Moreover, there are important exchanges with Pascal Covici, Steinbeck’s editor, about the novel’s form and its controversial ending. _______. Working Days: The Journals of “The Grapes of Wrath,” 1938-1941. Edited by Robert DeMott. New York: Viking Press, 1989. An account of Steinbeck’s writing of the novel through his own journal entries. DeMott’s extensive annotations and supportive material are helpful in establishing the social setting in which the book was created.
Further Reading Astro, Richard. John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1973. A detailed chronicle of Steinbeck’s relationship with Ricketts. Explores the place of biological science in the author’s thought about human behavior and society. Of special importance to The Grapes of Wrath is a chapter on Steinbeck’s “phalanx” theory of society as a biological organism. Photographs of both men are included. Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: Viking Press, 1984. A biography of Steinbeck that emphasizes his life over his works. Bloom, Harold, ed. John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005. Anthology of evaluations of the novel by leading Americanists and literary critics, including Harold Bloom, Howard Levant, Donald Pizer, and Frederic I. Carpenter. Donohue, Agnes McNeill, comp. A Casebook on “The Grapes of Wrath.” New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968. An anthology of commentary on the novel and Steinbeck. Contemporaneous articles about the book’s accuracy, literary quality, and general reception are included from sources throughout American culture. Also includes material on the controversy surrounding Steinbeck’s winning of the Nobel Prize in 1962. Heavilin, Barbara A., ed. The Critical Response to John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Westport, Conn.:
See also: Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle; Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression; 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States; 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains.
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Italy Invades and Annexes Albania
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April 7, 1939
Italy Invades and Annexes Albania Italy’s successful invasion of Albania in 1939 emboldened dictator Benito Mussolini and brought about an annexation of Albania that lasted for four years. Locale: Albania; Italy Categories: Military history; diplomacy and international relations; expansion and land acquisition Key Figures Zog I (1895-1961), king of Albania, r. 1928-1939 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian fascist dictator, 1922-1943 Enver Hoxha (1908-1985), leader of Albanian Communist Party and dictator, 1944-1985 Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944), Italian count, Fascist, and foreign minister under Mussolini
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Summary of Event The forces of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini attacked Albania, which had been a close ally, on April 7, 1939, and easily added that country to Italy’s growing empire. Albanian resistance gradually grew, however, and by 1943, when Italy left the war and Nazi troops showed up to hold Albania, three main resistance forces and the Yugoslav Partisans were all vying for control. The Italian invasion created the power vacuum that ultimately allowed the communist forces of the brutal Enver Hoxha to come to power in Albania. For more than a decade in interwar Europe, the young state of Albania had increasingly fallen under Italian influence. In 1924, when Zog I came to power for the second time, he did so with the backing of the Yugoslav government. When Zog had himself crowned king in 1928, relations with Yugoslavia rapidly soured. He courted Italian economic and military aid, especially after a spy scandal with the Yugoslavs. The poor relations between Belgrade and Rome left Yugoslavia suspicious that Albania would become Mussolini’s minion. Furthermore, in the face of Serbia’s blatant anti-Albanian measures in Kosovo, Zog took the title “king of the Albanians,” not simply “king of Albania.” This name promised future conflict over Kosovo. Italy’s grab for Albania was conditioned by two trends. First was the well-known fascist desire to turn the Mediterranean into an “Italian sea,” a concept that invoked the grandeur of the Roman Empire. This impulse
gave rise not only to the desire to conquer Albania, but also to engage in massive, and often brutal, adventurism in Libya, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Greece. Less well known but equally important to Italy’s immediate geopolitical strategy was mistrust of Hitler and the Nazis and the desire to expand Italian influence at a rate proportionate to that of the Third Reich. In the aggressive style of the day—which was not unique to fascism but was rooted in older, elitist practices of the major world powers—the Italians craved compensation for recent Nazi successes in taking over Austria and Czechoslovakia. Albania was to suffer the consequences for this rivalry between Rome and Berlin. Over a week before the invasion, the Italians had presented King Zog with a capitulation agreement, which he delayed signing. Then, early in the morning of April 7, 1939, Italian forces landed at four cities on the Albanian coast. On paper, this major amphibious assault was a riotous success. It involved about twenty-two thousand soldiers, four hundred airplanes, three hundred tanks, and a large number of warships. The day before, as King
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Strait of Otranto
Greece Sarandë
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Significance With the Italian invasion of 1939, Albania was dragged into World War II. For Italy, the glory of adding another Mediterranean colony was soon overshadowed by the rash move that followed: the failed invasion of Greece in late 1940, which largely proceeded from bases in Albania and showed that the Italian military had not fixed its fatal flaws. World War II brought many changes. As the famous Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare said in testimony before the U.S. Congress in 1991, the war was ultimately responsible for bringing the long-lived Stalinist dictatorship to Albania, since Hoxha’s rule emerged from the mobilization and military success of the antifascist forces of national liberation. The fact that King Zog fled ignominiously into exile undercut his efforts to create a legitimate government in exile; this in turn aided the Communists in their eventual rise to power. The destruction wrought by the war itself was light when compared to some European states such as Poland, Russia, and Yugoslavia. Approximately thirty thousand Albanians died, but the extensive losses of livestock, transportation infrastructure, and housing made postwar recovery difficult for Europe’s poorest state. The invasion of southern Albania by the Greek army at the end of the war added to existing resentments over border demarcation and minority rights on both sides of the frontier. At first, the war induced cooperation between Yugoslav and Albanian Communists, and the former provided the latter with organizational and military support. Ultimately, however, the war’s legacy heightened the rivalry between the two states over the Kosovo region. The area was returned to Yugoslavia after the war, which for most Albanians meant that more than a million of their conationals were returned to Serbian domination. The Kosovar Albanians responded with a major rebellion against Yugoslav rule that lasted from November, 1944, to May, 1945. The promises of Yugoslav leader Tito (Josip Broz) to return the region to Albania once Serbian nationalism had been diluted within the new socialist Yugoslavia came to naught, in part because of the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 that left Albania vehemently pro-Moscow and anti-Belgrade. As the 1999 conflict and continuing United Nations occupation of the province demonstrates, the future of Kosovo remained very contested. The long, harsh decades of Hoxha’s communism in Albania ensured that postwar relations with Italy would be cold. Through the media and through contacts with the five-hundred-year-old Italo-Albanian, or Arbëresh, populations of Calabria and Sicily, Italy gradually reemerged as the most accessible land of plenty; thou3185
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Zog had appealed for succor to other countries, the Italians had evacuated their civilians and dropped leaflets by air into the Albanian capital, Tirana, explaining that they only intended to restore order and justice. According to historian Bernd Fischer, the Albanian defense forces, which consisted of around four thousand effective soldiers and three thousand British-trained gendarmes, offered almost no resistance, but if they had, the poorly trained Italian forces, with their disorganized tactics and shoddy equipment, would probably have met with an embarrassing defeat. The Italians landed at Durrës, Vlorë, Shëngjin, and Sarandë. King Zog headed for exile in Greece with his wife, Queen Geraldine (née Apponyi) and two-day-old son, Leka, that same day. At midmorning the next day, Italian trooops were already in Tirana. Only at the coastal city of Durrës did the Italians meet significant resistance. Estimates of casualties are sketchy, but several hundred people probably died on each side during the takeover. Although Italian control never really extended beyond the coast and the cities, Albania and Italy were united in a “personal union” headed by King Victor Emmanuel III in Rome. This amounted to an annexation: Albanians technically became Italian citizens, the populous and hotly disputed Kosovo region was attached to Albania, and a free trade zone made Albania’s economic situation somewhat better. Nonetheless, Albanians bristled at their loss of sovereignty and realized that their local government was nothing but a pawn of Mussolini. Galeazzo Ciano rewrote the Albanian constitution in 1939 and abolished Tirana’s foreign ministry, and Italy tried to cement its control further by founding a local Fascist Party, Italianizing the educational system, and absorbing Albania’s security forces into Italy’s. The war heightened tensions between the Gegs of northern Albania and the southern Tosks, the country’s main two linguistic and cultural groups. Most of King Zog’s support had come from the north, and a monarchist resistance group called Legaliteti was formed by Abaz Kupi, hero of the defense of Durrës. Aseparate resistance movement known as the Balli Kombëtar also emerged with a strong nationalist platform. Both groups came into conflict with the Communist-dominated Partisan movement. This latter group, which was officially known as the National Liberation Front, was greatly influenced by the Yugoslav Communists and would ultimately triumph by mobilizing as many as seventy thousand men and women as fighters, especially in the Tosk areas. These sectional rivalries and disputes over Yugoslav influence and Kosovo continued to manifest themselves after the war.
Italy Invades and Annexes Albania
American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair sands of Albanians emigrated there in the 1990’s. Italy became Albania’s leading trading partner and leading donor of aid, and the Italian government sent armed forces—which were welcomed by the Albanian government—to help restore stability after the economic and governmental crisis of 1997. —John K. Cox Further Reading Ciano, Count Galeazzo. Diary, 1937-1943. New York: Enigma Books, 2002. One of the most important political diaries of the twentieth century, smuggled out of Italy by Ciano’s widow after his execution by the forces of Mussolini and Hitler. Elsie, Robert. Historical Dictionary of Albania. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. Entries on all key figures in the eras of Zog and Hoxha. Fischer, Bernd. Albania at War, 1939-1945. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1999. One of the most extensive works available in English on this period, based on excellent archival sleuthing and interviews.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kadare, Ismail. The General of the Dead Army. New York: New Amsterdam, 1991. Path-breaking novel by one of Europe’s greatest writers, recalling the resistance struggle and commenting on postwar Albanian-Italian relations. Tomes, Jason. King Zog of Albania: Europe’s Self-Made Muslim Monarch. New York: New York University Press, 2004. Detailed study of the regime that came to depend very heavily on Mussolini even before the invasion of 1939. Vickers, Miranda. The Albanians: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995. A balanced and erudite study that emphasizes both what is unique about Albania and how the country fits into the European context. See also: 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome”; Oct. 11, 1935July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland; Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt.
April 30, 1939
American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair At the New York World’s Fair, television was displayed to the American public for the first time, NBC announced the start of regularly scheduled television broadcasting in the United States, and David Sarnoff gave a prophetic address about the new industry of television. Locale: Long Island, New York Categories: Radio and television; communications and media; science and technology; inventions Key Figures David Sarnoff (1891-1971), founder and president of the Radio Corporation of America Vladimir Zworykin (1889-1982), Russian American inventor Philo T. Farnsworth (1906-1971), American inventor Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event The 1939 New York World’s Fair was a technology showcase, but its most significant innovation went largely unnoticed at the time. On the opening day of the 3186
fair, television was displayed to the American public for the very first time. On that day also, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) announced plans to begin regularly scheduled television broadcasting. That afternoon, David Sarnoff, the founder and president of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC’s parent company, made several truly visionary pronouncements about the industry he was about to launch. Sarnoff was born in Russia in 1891 and moved to the United States with his family at the age of nine. As a young man, Sarnoff gained national celebrity working for Marconi Radio when he manned a Morse code receiver for seventy-two hours after the Titanic sank in 1912, taking down the names of survivors. Sarnoff rose quickly in the Marconi company and eventually struck out on his own in the 1920’s, founding RCA. A decade of diligent planning and hard work produced the most successful commercial radio company—manufacturer and broadcaster—of the period. The millions of dollars that RCA made with its NBC radio subsidiary (the Red and Blue Networks) and its sales of console radios provided the seed money needed to make television a reality. The term “television” first appeared in a 1907 issue of
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broadcast continued with actors from the Broadway play Tobacco Road, a singing act, and dancers from Radio City Music Hall. The United States was on the air, but it was losing the international race for television. Both Germany and England already had regularly scheduled television services. Although picture quality was poor, Germany went on the air in 1935, broadcasting daily to eleven public viewing rooms around Berlin. England, having finally settled the issue of electronic versus mechanical television, began its regular service early in 1936. Britain’s pioneering efforts in television design had an enormous beneficial side effect, the invention of radar. This technology, closely related to television, proved lifesaving to the English during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. In the United States, Zworykin had estimated that it would cost $100,000 to get television operational, but Sarnoff ended up spending $20 million by 1938. After several years of testing, Zworykin’s system was ready, and RCA began distribution of its first television set, the TRK 660. This was a $660 console unit that stood four and one-half feet tall and had a flip-up, mirrored lid. The picture tube sat vertically, pointing upward inside the cabinet, and the image was reflected and reversed in the mirror so that people sitting around the console could view it. Because of the high price, only about one hundred sets were sold, most of them to RCA and NBC executives, with a few going to New York City bars. Sarnoff, known to have a flair for the dramatic, chose the World’s Fair for his big announcement. The fair opened on April 30, 1939, in Flushing Meadows, Long Island. A gigantic camera tethered to a mobile broadcast van was set up for the opening ceremonies. Franklin D. Roosevelt became the nation’s first “television president” as he described the fair as “a beacon of progress and hope.” His speech, along with that of New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was carried by cables to monitors inside the RCA exhibit. It was then relayed to NBC’s transmitter for broadcast to monitors in NBC’s Radio City headquarters and to the one hundred or more sets around the city. Tens of thousands of people were at the fair that day, but it is estimated that, at most, two thousand people watched these events on television. NBC broadcast pictures featuring the fair’s symbols, including the Trylon and Perisphere, in the background. Its camera swept across the Court of Peace, panned the gathering throng, and captured the arrival of the president’s motorcade. Mayor La Guardia recorded the first close-up when he walked up to the camera and stared into it. After televising Roosevelt’s initial address, the cam3187
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Scientific American; however, experiments in video transmission actually began in the 1880’s. Early on, there was a difference of opinion whether mechanical or electronic systems would work best. In the 1920’s and early 1930’s, Britain’s Television, Ltd., developed a cumbersome, clattering contraption that could send a watery image eight miles through the air. Vertically mounted spinning wheels with glass lenses set into their perimeters were used in both the camera and the receiver to transduce light. As the wheels spun, they created a sound similar to a film projector, and the image was likewise displayed on a wall screen. The British Broadcasting Company initially showed a great deal of interest in this system; however, it was never able to send a clear, flicker-free picture, and it eventually was scrapped in favor of the fast-developing electronic television system. Another U.S. immigrant from Russia, Vladimir Zworykin, invented the “iconoscope” in 1923. His employer, Westinghouse, showed no interest in the device, so Zworykin sought out his fellow Russian émigré, David Sarnoff. Sarnoff recognized that, crude as it was, the iconoscope represented the basis of an effective electronic television process. The iconoscope used lightsensitive materials to transduce light. Coupled with another new invention, the cathode-ray tube (CRT), electronic television was born. During the early 1930’s, Zworykin perfected electronic television while Sarnoff went about gathering up all the television-related patents he could get his hands on. In addition to the iconoscope, Zworykin invented the “kinescope,” a receiver for iconoscope signals. Many television components were designed at RCA, but several significant elements were invented by other companies and by independent inventors. Prominent among these inventors was San Francisco-based Philo T. Farnsworth. He created an “image dissector” in 1927. This apparatus was essential to high-quality electronic television, and RCA initially infringed on his patent. Farnsworth, in his early twenties and with no formal college-level science training, sued RCA. When the court finally found in his favor, RCA was forced to pay ongoing royalties to his Philco, Inc. for use of the image dissector. With an acceptable electronic television system completed, and with all legal questions settled, NBC began experimental television broadcasting from Camden, New Jersey, on July 7, 1936. The initial day’s programming consisted of Sarnoff and his senior executives welcoming viewers, of which there were next to none, from his office on the fifty-third floor of Radio City. The
American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair
American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
World’s Fair broadcast is significant because Sarnoff made several indisputably The following is an excerpt from the speech that David Sarnoff preaccurate predictions about what television sented at the opening of the RCA pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair, in would be like. He believed that television which he made a number of hopeful predictions about the new technolwould bring Americans together as a naogy of television. tion, that it would spawn new industries, and that it would change the American poToday we are on the eve of launching a new industry, based on imaginalitical system. At the time, however, Sartion, research and accomplishment. We are now ready to fulfill the promise made to the public last October, when, after years of research, noff was focusing on a more immediate eflaboratory experiments and tests in the field costing millions of dollars, fect of his announcement. the Radio Corporation of America announced that television program In the 1930’s, the U.S. Federal Commuservice and commercial television receivers would be made available to nications Commission (FCC) was faced the public with the opening of the New York World’s Fair. . . . with the task of selecting a national video And now we add radio sight to sound. It is with a feeling of humbletransmission standard. RCA, Philco, and ness that I come to this moment of announcing the birth in this country Dumont each had invested heavily in reof a new art so important in its implications that it is bound to affect all search on and development of such syssociety. It is an art which shines like a torch of hope in a troubled world. tems. All were capable of transmitting picIt is a creative force which we must learn to utilize for the benefit of all tures, but each was totally incompatible mankind. with the others. Sarnoff was certain that if he could get his system to market first, a wave of public support (similar to that of era was moved to the RCA Pavilion for Sarnoff’s dedicaearly radio listeners) would propel the RCA system to the tion. Fairgoers could step inside and watch the “show” forefront, forcing the FCC to select it as the national stanon black-and-white monitors, then step outside to prove dard. Sarnoff’s plan suffered from poor timing, however. to themselves that what they were seeing was indeed With the United States just coming out of the Depresreal. sion, few Americans had the money to buy a TRK 660. Sarnoff, in his speech, promised a new industry for the The world war brought television development to a United States. NBC began regularly scheduled televistandstill, so the great outpouring of support that Sarnoff sion broadcasts the same day, and receiving sets began to hoped for never materialized. Nevertheless, Sarnoff’s be made more widely available. Fairgoers also felt a ploy had the desired effect. The FCC settled on RCA’s sense of destiny of another sort. Clouds of war were alsystem, with only minor modifications, as the American ready forming over Europe. Commercial television was video standard in 1941. interrupted by World War II just as people were learning Although this rush to market was in RCA’s best interof its existence, and the war meant a further delay of alest, it proved less than optimal for American television most eight years before television sets were in anything viewers. The American video standard—the picture seen but very limited use. That only a few thousand people acon American television sets—is of lower quality than the tually watched the World’s Fair on television that day is standards required in all other major industrial nations. ironic, because television grew into an industry that The image is fuzzier and less true to life than television prided itself on covering memorable events and broadimages in Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. These casting shared experiences. Still, Sarnoff and NBC were nations, with their researchers free from the pressure of the first to bring the United States commercial television, private enterprise, took the time to perfect their broadan industry for which economic, social, and political efcasting systems before presenting them to the public. fects are still evolving—and being debated—today. Sarnoff’s loftier predictions of things to come were indeed precise. Television brought viewers together to witness and be a part of all major national events. The Significance first half century of television history yielded hundreds In retrospect, Sarnoff’s presentation was a relatively inof common shared experiences, among them President consequential television milestone. Almost nobody saw John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Apollo 11 Moon the broadcast. England and Germany were already “on landing, the Vietnam War, the Watergate hearings and the air,” and the coming world war put American televithe resignation of President Nixon, and the space shuttle sion broadcasting on hold for several more years. The
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Further Reading Abramson, Albert. The History of Television, 1880 to 1941. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1987. Early chapters present, in language generally accessible to lay readers, a comprehensive discussion of the technological developments between 1671 and 1900 that led to television; later chapters are more technical. Includes developments outside the United States that are often ignored in American television histories, such as the 1930’s development of television in Japan and London television service between 1936 and 1939. Barnouw, Eric. The Golden Web: 1933-1953. Vol. 2 in A History of Broadcasting in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Covers the development of radio through its ascendancy in the 1930’s and begins the history of the development of commercial television. Well documented. _______. Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. 2d rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Condensed, updated version of the material in Barnouw’s three-volume set A History of Broadcasting in the United States, published between 1966 and 1970. Very readable general survey of television development. Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Comprehensive biography focuses on Sarnoff in the context of his industry. Relatively unbiased account by a former RCA executive and associate of Sarnoff covers the full range of Sarnoff’s career. Includes bibliography. DeFleur, Melvin L., and Everette E. Dennis. Understanding Mass Communication. 7th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. College-level text provides both technical and historical information about television’s development. Includes pictures and diagrams. Everson, George. The Story of Television: The Life of Philo T. Farnsworth. New York: W. W. Norton, 1949. Uncritical biography by a man who recognized the young Farnsworth’s ability and helped him find funding for his research laboratory. Emphasizes the rags-to-riches odyssey of Farnsworth from farm boy to internationally known inventor. Includes material unavailable elsewhere. Gross, Lynne S. Telecommunications: Radio, Television, and Movies in the Digital Age. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. College-level text provides a good overview of electronic mass media, including the history of radio and television. 3189
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Challenger disaster. Less notable, but still important in American culture, are the many beauty pageants, Rose Parades, football bowl games, and World Series that viewers have watched. As time passed and television audiences grew, the producers of such events modified their presentation to make them easier and more profitable for television to broadcast. Just as Sarnoff promised, the growth of television produced many new industries. Prominent among these were the manufacture of broadcast and reception equipment as well as the production of programs. In addition, many parallel and ancillary businesses owe their existence to television. Radar, satellite communications, and computers, for instance, all share elements of television technology. Other businesses emerged to support the television industry, including ratings services (such as the A. C. Nielsen Company) and cable television providers. Sarnoff also believed that showmanship would replace thoughtful expression on the part of politicians once they were exposed to television, a prediction that has arguably been proved correct. It is true that television has had its noteworthy political moments, such as Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now episode in 1954 that took on communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy, the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential campaign debates, and the combined use of live television and nationwide telephone call-ins that allowed access to the candidates during the 1992 presidential election. For the most part, however, the political discourse that has appeared on television has been one-sided, taking the form of campaign advertising. The process of packaging a candidate’s ideology in an advertiser’s format, with only thirty seconds or a minute for most messages, offers little to voters to allow them to gauge accurately a candidate’s plans, goals, or abilities. Sarnoff was right—the more evocative the picture, the more influenced the voter. Sarnoff envisioned greatness for television, yet even he might not have believed that fifty years after television service began in New York City in 1939, 98 percent of all American homes would be receiving it. Delivered through direct broadcast, cable, and satellite dish, television reached approximately ninety million American households in 1989, and American households watched an average of seven hours of programming per day. Sarnoff lived into the 1970’s, long enough to see his product mature. As a businessman, he understood something that the American public took much longer to realize: The entertainment programs on television are not what is important—they are just filler between the commercials. —Thomas C. Breslin
American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair
First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The standard introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Lyons, Eugene. David Sarnoff. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Biography by Sarnoff’s cousin is uncritical but provides considerable material about Sarnoff’s family, his early poverty and pursuit of a career, and his rise from office boy to executive. Ritchie, Michael. Please Stand By: A Prehistory of Television. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1994. Covers the period of television broadcasting before 1948. Includes interesting appendixes, bibliography, and index. Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. Comprehensive one-volume history of radio and television in the United States. Udelson, Joseph H. The Great Television Race: A History of the American Television Industry, 1925-1941. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989. Chronicles the people, inventions, and events important to the development of commercial television worldwide. See also: Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress; Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program; Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast.
May 16, 1939
First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins The first food stamp plan established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture began as an experiment in Rochester, New York. Locale: Rochester, New York Categories: Social issues and reform; government and politics; health and medicine Key Figures George D. Aiken (1892-1984), U.S. senator from Vermont Christian Archibald Herter (1895-1966), U.S. congressman from Massachusetts Robert M. La Follette, Jr. (1895-1953), U.S. senator from Wisconsin Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965), U.S. secretary of agriculture, 1933-1940 Summary of Event In May, 1939, eleven million people in the United States were receiving federal food assistance through direct donations of commodities. At that time, various groups were searching for methods of increasing consumption of grapefruit and other surplus foods. In January, 1939, at the National-American Wholesale Grocers Convention in Chicago, a plan developed by the grocers had been presented that proposed the issuance of “scrip” vouchers to unemployed people and those with low incomes. The 3190
vouchers would permit recipients to purchase designated foods and foodstuffs at retail grocery stores at prices 50 percent below normal. The federal government would make up to grocers the difference between the amount actually charged and the normal price. The plan’s cost to the government was estimated at $1.4 billion. In addition to providing food to the needy at reduced prices, the plan would help wipe out agricultural surpluses. The plan was submitted to the National Food and Grocery Conference Committee, which was composed of representatives from all areas of the food industry, from manufacturers to retailers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture explored the proposal, and at a meeting of the committee on March 13, 1939, department representatives announced an experimental food stamp plan that would distribute certain surplus food items through regular channels of trade. The plan was to be tried out in six cities with populations of more than fifty thousand. This represented a relatively cautious approach to the paradoxical dual problems of hunger and food surpluses. During the early years of the New Deal and the Great Depression, such a program might have been rushed into operation on a nationwide scale. The decision to try a food stamp or coupon approach in lieu of direct distribution of commodities was based on the following factors. First, the food stamp approach reflected a desire to match more closely the kinds, vari-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
homa; and Des Moines, Iowa. Secretary of Agriculture Wallace stated that the stamp plan would apply at first only to food but that it might be extended to other goods, cotton products in particular, if it proved to be successful and if satisfactory arrangements could be made with retailers. Wallace also stated that measures such as the stamp plan, with the government subsidizing expanded consumption, were not the most desirable solution to the problem of making abundance work for the American people; he hoped that other solutions ultimately would be found. The first food stamp program was established through the broad authority contained in Section 32 of Public Law 74-320, passed in 1935. Section 32 permanently appropriated an amount equal to 30 percent of U.S. Customs receipts from all sources each year for the secretary of agriculture, to be spent on three purposes: encouragement of agricultural exports, encouragement of domestic consumption of agricultural commodities, and reestablishment of farmers’ purchasing power. Specifically, Section 32 provided that the funds were to be used “to encourage the domestic consumption” of agricultural commodities or products. The secretary of agriculture was given authority to pay benefits to low-income people to further the three stated purposes. The food stamp plan was first administered by the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation and later by the Surplus Marketing Administration and its successor organizations, the Agricultural Marketing Administration and the Food Distribution Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The United States was divided into four regions, each with a regional director who was given considerable discretionary powers to carry out program policy and procedures. A two-color stamp plan was formulated in an attempt to ensure that the federal subsidy actually was used for additional food purchases and to control the kinds of food participants could purchase with the free additional coupons. Participating families were required to exchange an amount of money representing estimated normal food expenditures for orange stamps of the same monetary value. Along with these orange stamps, participants were provided, without cost, additional blue stamps, which they could use to buy designated surplus foods. In this manner, the plan attempted to concentrate the additional purchasing power on surplus foods—that is, foods for which there were marketing difficulties. In 1939, a significant portion of the nation’s food supply could be classified in the surplus category. When the program was first begun, the surplus commodities on the 3191
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eties, and amounts of foods being made available to lowincome families to the actual needs of such families. Second, such a plan was thought to provide more assurance that federal subsidies would actually increase food consumption rather than partially replace previous food expenditures. Third, planners believed that there were inherent advantages in utilizing regular commercial food-distribution channels rather than food banks or charities. The plan called for the issuance of food stamps to needy persons receiving or certified for public aid. Each such client would be permitted to purchase a minimum value (varying according to size of family) of one type of stamp that could be used to purchase any food product. In addition, clients would receive, free of charge, another type of stamp in an amount equal to 50 percent of the value of the stamps purchased. These supplemental stamps would be redeemable only for certain food commodities. This feature of the plan was intended to guarantee that the free stamps would increase consumption, especially of surplus commodities. According to Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, who addressed a meeting of the National Food and Grocery Conference Committee in Washington, D.C., on March 13, 1939, the plan aimed to increase the domestic consumption of surplus food commodities. Issuance of the stamps would create demand for commodities that were surplus not because the need for them did not exist but because the persons who needed them most could not afford them. Records of various public health services and studies by the Bureau of Home Economics indicated that malnutrition and undernourishment, particularly of children, were widespread in every U.S. state at that time. These same studies estimated that millions of people in the United States spent an average of $1.00 or less per week for food. Such low expenditures translated into low prices and surpluses for farmers and into diets for lowincome families that were less than the minimum necessary to maintain adequate standards of health. The proposed plan was designed to raise average spending on food to $1.50 per week per person for those eligible to participate in the program. The plan was heartily endorsed by the National Food and Grocery Conference Committee. The first food stamp plan established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture began as an experiment on May 16, 1939, in Rochester, New York, and was subsequently extended to five additional experimental areas: Montgomery County, Ohio; King County, Washington; Jefferson County, Alabama; Pottawatomie County, Okla-
First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins
First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins blue stamp list were butter, eggs, white and grain flour, cornmeal, oranges, grapefruit, dried prunes, and dried beans. At one time or another the list also included rice, hominy grits, peaches, pears, apples, raisins, peas, tomatoes, snap beans, cabbage, onions, pork, and lard. Foods were designated as blue-stamp (surplus) food each month by the secretary of agriculture, and a list of the foods designated was sent to participating retail merchants. Participating retailers were required to post notices of these monthly designations in their stores as a means of informing participants of the foods that could be purchased with the blue stamps. It was intended that this posting also would bring these foods to the attention of other customers and thereby encourage increased purchases of the surplus foods among higher-income families not participating in the plan. Both the orange and the blue stamps were printed in two denominations—twenty-five cents and one dollar— and resembled postage stamps in design. In fact, an engraver’s plate for an old postage stamp was redesigned and used for food stamp purposes. The stamps were issued in books. Participating areas were required to use public funds to establish a revolving fund to purchase the orange stamps from the Department of Agriculture. The revolving fund was subsequently replenished from the proceeds received from the sale of these orange stamps to participants. Significance As measured by the number of participants, the food stamp plan reached its peak in May, 1941, when approximately four million people participated. New geographic areas were brought into the plan after 1941, but it never operated on a nationwide basis. As measured by the number of geographic areas served by the plan, the peak was reached in August, 1942, when 1,741 counties— about half of the counties in the nation—and eighty-eight cities were included. These areas contained almost twothirds of the population of the United States, according to the 1940 census. During the forty-six months that the plan was in operation, the additional food purchasing power provided to participants by the federal government was $260 million. Surveys and studies indicated that the plan did increase food consumption levels among participating groups. The early plan, however, was believed to have been greatly abused. The Department of Agriculture estimated that 25 percent of all benefits were misused. Some of the same types of abuse were repeated in later food stamp programs. For instance, some stamps reportedly 3192
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 were traded for liquor and tobacco, and some grocers would buy them for cash at a discount, an activity now known as trafficking. The plan was discontinued in early 1943, when World War II wartime conditions had greatly reduced unemployment and greatly increased demands on U.S. food supplies, thereby removing part of the rationale for the program. Inasmuch as the program was predicated on the existence of surplus foods, the program was terminated as such surpluses turned to scarcity during the early years of U.S. involvement in World War II. The program had been established administratively and never had been explicitly authorized by Congress. Immediately following termination of the plan, two bills were introduced to establish a food stamp, or food allotment, program legislatively: House Resolution 2997, by Representative Christian Archibald Herter (Republican of Massachusetts), on June 18, 1943, and Senate Bill 1331, by Senators George D. Aiken (Republican of Vermont) and Robert M. La Follette, Jr. (Progressive of Wisconsin), on July 8, 1943. An amendment to establish a food stamp program, incorporating the thrust of the Senate bill, was proposed in the Senate on February 10 and 11, 1944, by Senators Aiken and La Follette. The amendment was defeated by a vote of forty-six to twenty-nine. Hearings on the bill itself had been concluded on January 26, 1944, by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. The U.S. government did not institute another food stamp program until 1961, when a pilot program was undertaken. That program became permanent with the passage of the Food Stamp Act of 1964, but it underwent a number of changes in the latter part of the twentieth century. In May, 2002, the Food Security and Rural Investment Act reauthorized the federal government’s food stamp program. —Gregory P. Rabb Further Reading Batchelder, Alan B. The Economics of Poverty. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971. Discussion of poverty in the United States includes a chapter titled “Transfer Programs Now Operating,” which contains a short discussion of the food stamp program that was created in the early 1960’s. Gaus, John M., and Leon O. Wolcott. Public Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture. 1940. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1975. Presents an excellent brief description of the first food stamp plan and how the plan evolved out of a proposal
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King, Ronald F. Budgeting Entitlements: The Politics of Food Stamps. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2000. Discusses the political and governmental budgeting issues related to the federal food stamp program since the 1960’s. Includes index. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. The Food Stamp Program: History, Description, Issues, and Options. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. Includes an excellent description of the first food stamp plan, with details on how the program was administered, the problems it encountered, and evaluations of its successes and failures. See also: Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded; June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States; Nov. 23, 1921June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act; Oct. 29, 19291939: Great Depression; Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act.
June 12, 1939
Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame According to the “romantic” version of the origins of the game of baseball, in 1839 Abner Doubleday, then a West Point cadet, set up the first baseball diamond in Cooperstown, New York, and thereby invented the game. As that event’s one hundredth anniversary approached, baseball promoters attempted to increase interest in the sport by establishing a baseball hall of fame and museum, which was formally dedicated in 1939. Also known as: National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Locale: Cooperstown, New York Categories: Sports; organizations and institutions Key Figures Abner Doubleday (1819-1893), army officer reputed to be the inventor of baseball A. G. Mills (1844-1929), head of the 1907 commission that named Doubleday as the inventor of baseball Abner Graves (1834-1926), former Cooperstown resident who allegedly witnessed Doubleday’s invention of baseball in 1839 Albert Goodwill Spalding (1850-1915), early baseball pitcher and a force behind the Mills Commission Ford Christopher Frick (1894-1978), sportswriter and
National League president who proposed a hall of fame Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), commissioner of baseball Henry Chadwick (1824-1908), writer who established many of baseball’s early rules Summary of Event Baseball’s origins have always been controversial, but the prevailing belief is that it evolved from the British game of rounders. Henry Chadwick, the New York sportswriter noted for establishing both the first box score and the rules of the game in the mid-nineteenth century, was among the most noted advocates of this theory. However, in the early 1900’s, Albert Goodwill Spalding, former player and founder of one of the early sporting businesses, argued that baseball was a purely American sport. His notoriety, combined with the forcefulness of his argument, resulted in the creation of a commission to determine baseball’s origin. In 1905, a commission of seven men under the direction of A. G. Mills, former league president and officer in the Civil War, spent three years on the study. Using primarily the testimony of Abner Graves, a retired Denver mining engineer and a former resident of 3193
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developed by the National-American Wholesale Grocers. Harrington, Michael. The New American Poverty. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984. Examines poverty in the United States and praises the food stamp program for establishing uniform national levels of nutritional assistance. Asserts that “food stamps have been a triumph.” Haveman, Robert. Starting Even: An Equal Opportunity Program to Combat the Nation’s New Poverty. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988. Discusses the impacts of programs intended to address the problem of poverty in the United States, including food stamps. Presents statistics and examines proposed reforms for the food stamp program. Katz, Michael B. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America. Rev. ed. New York: Basic Books, 1996. History of the development of social programs aimed at relieving the plight of the poor in the United States. Includes notes and indexes.
Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame
Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame Cooperstown, New York, the commission concluded that baseball had originated in Cooperstown. Graves testified that he had been present when, in 1839, a schoolmate named Abner Doubleday laid out the game on a local field. The commission reported its findings on December 30, 1907, concluding that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooperstown in 1839. The discovery of an aged baseball hidden in an old trunk in a nearby town in 1934 lent credence to the earlier report. The “Doubleday ball” was implied to have been one of the first baseballs used by Doubleday. The Mills Commission’s report was immediately controversial, particularly in view of the evidence that games similar to baseball had been played much earlier than 1839. It was also noteworthy that Graves would have been only five years old at the time he allegedly observed Doubleday, and that the two could not have been schoolmates. At the least, however, the Mills Commission set in motion events that resulted in excitement and public awareness of the game. In 1935, with the one hundredth anniversary of the game approaching, baseball’s most powerful leaders began to discuss a way to commemorate the game. Ford Christopher Frick, president of the National League, proposed to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis that a hall of fame be established to honor the game’s outstanding participants. Cooperstown was the logical choice for the hall’s site. In 1932, the significance of the Mills report led the people of Cooperstown to purchase the alleged site on which Doubleday played, and they built a grandstand and fence in the area. The field was dedicated in 1935. Since the town now owned the Doubleday ball, the town’s trustees convinced Frick that land adjacent to the field should be the site of the new hall of fame and museum. At the time, the Doubleday ball was stored at the National Baseball Museum, Inc., which was directed by Alexander Cleland and was little more than an upstairs room in the local Village Club. In addition to the ball, the museum contained a number of trophies and artifacts donated by various notable figures. In 1936, organized baseball donated $100,000 to begin building a larger and more suitable headquarters for the hall and the library that would accompany it. A Cooperstown architect, Frank Whiting, was selected to design the building. The chosen site, adjacent to Doubleday Field, was the former Leo Block building on Main Street, right in the middle of downtown. Plans were completed by July, 1937. The first election, held in 1936, utilized members of 3194
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), a professional association of baseball journalists, as voters. Atotal of 226 votes were cast, and 75 percent approval was required for an individual’s election to the hall. The outcome of the voting, which was announced January 29, 1936, resulted in the induction of five retired players: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson (who had died in 1925). Plaques commemorating all of these players were hung in the hall. Subsequent elections prior to the hall’s dedication created a Veterans Committee, which in 1937 consisted of Commissioner Landis, the two league presidents, and three others. The committee members elected five “builders of baseball” to the hall: George Wright, Morgan Bulkeley, Ban Johnson, John McGraw, and Connie Mack. Although the original idea was that election would be determined by baseball writers, complaints that the game’s early pioneers and players were being overlooked resulted in a semipermanent Veterans Committee. The new hall’s dedication was not the only event held to commemorate the anniversary of baseball in 1939. Ball games around the country were played according to 1839 rules, although ballplayers dressed in contemporary uniforms. In Cooperstown alone, twenty-seven baseball days were staged, and players from various colleges and organizations played on Doubleday Field. The hall’s official dedication took place on June 12, 1939. Landis, Frick, American League president Will Harridge, and the National Association (for minorleague teams) president William Branham cut a ribbon that officially opened the building to the public. Of the twenty-five inductees, the eleven who were still living all attended the ceremony, and all but Ty Cobb posed for what became a famous photograph (Cobb arrived too late to be included in the picture). In commemoration of the event, a postage stamp was also issued; it depicted a painting of children playing baseball. In addition to the induction ceremonies, retired players were divided into teams and played an exhibition game for fans, many of whom had never had the opportunity to see those players in their prime. The Hall of Fame game became an annual ritual, with major-league teams playing an exhibition game each year on the day of induction. Significance In reality, baseball did not originate with Doubleday, and the rules were not first established in Cooperstown. If any single person could be labeled the “father of baseball,” it would be Henry Chadwick. As a writer and promoter of the sport, Chadwick established many of the
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Further Reading James, Bill. Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Noted for his
use of statistics in analysis of baseball strategy, the author compares the pros and cons of hall members as well as recounts the history of the museum. Levine, Peter. A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Spalding was one of the founders of modern baseball. Establishment of the Mills Commission was due in large part to his arguments for the American origin of the game. Smith, Ken. Baseball’s Hall of Fame. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1977. One of the first books written on the subject of the early history of the hall. Somewhat dated, but still provides insight into the history. Vail, James. The Road to Cooperstown. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. The author discusses the mechanisms for induction into the hall, as well as a comparison of those who have been selected. See also: Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game; Oct. 113, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series; Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass; Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal; Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth; Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association; July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
Summer, 1939
Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church The long Bolshevik campaign against religious practice and belief in the Soviet Union reduced the Russian Orthodox Church nearly to institutional extinction by the late summer of 1939. Locale: Soviet Union Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; religion, theology, and ethics; organizations and institutions Key Figures Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Sergius (1867-1944), senior prelate of the Russian Orthodox Church, 1927-1944 Aleksi (1877-1970), metropolitan of Leningrad, 1933-
1944, and head of the Russian Orthodox Church, 1945-1970 Summary of Event When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in 1917, they began to act on their atheist convictions, which held that all religion is an opiate, a spiritual gin that capitalist exploiters use to drug the workers into submission. They decreed the separation of church and state, nationalized church lands and assets, canceled the status of the Russian Orthodox Church as a legal entity, discontinued state subsidies to religious bodies, deprived church marriages and baptisms of official standing, and banned organized religious education of the young. In 1922, in the midst of famine, the Bolshevik regime ordered the church treasures confiscated, ostensibly to finance relief for the starving. Believers and international religious 3195
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early rules by which the game was played. For his contributions, Chadwick himself was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1938. Nevertheless, Cooperstown became the ultimate destination for baseball fans. The Hall of Fame founders certainly achieved their two primary goals: placing Cooperstown on the map and honoring those who elevated baseball to the status of the “national pastime.” The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was not only the first such sporting commemorative site, but it also remains the most well known. Most major sports now have their own halls of fame, but few of the locations of these halls are as familiar to sports fans as Cooperstown. The size and goals of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum have evolved over the decades, as the histories of women’s baseball, the Negro Leagues, and esoteric memorabilia have been recognized. Arguments have persisted concerning who should be inducted and, sometimes, who should not have been. Each year, fans await the list of new inductees that is announced in early winter, and thousands attend the induction ceremonies to honor their heroes. — Richard Adler
Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church
Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church bodies, among them the Holy See, offered to ransom the Russian Orthodox Church’s sacramental objects, but the Bolshevik regime moved ahead. Soviet press accounts reported some fourteen thousand bloody fights as priests and parishioners tried to guard their churches. Many churches were closed and priests and hierarchs arrested. Vasily Belavin Tikhon, the patriarch (religious leader) of Moscow, was placed under house arrest. With government support, a Renovationist, or Living Church, movement was organized and split the church for a time. When Patriarch Tikhon died on April 7, 1925, his death plunged the Russian Orthodox Church into a rolling crisis of leadership. By 1927, ten out of eleven prelates successively named to act as head of the church were in prison or in exile, and most of the bishops were in similar straits. The man who emerged as acting head of the church was Metropolitan Sergius. Arrested more than once, Sergius was released from prison in March of 1927 and issued a declaration of loyalty to the Soviet Union on July 24 of that year. Sergius’s action in support of a godless and hostile state outraged many believing Orthodox people in the Soviet Union as well as many Soviet exiles abroad. Sergius justified his declaration as necessary to preserve the church. The forced industrialization and collectivization drives launched under the leadership of Joseph Stalin in 1928 led to another crisis for the church. Troops and Communist Party workers fanned out into the countryside. Peasant resistance to them produced violence, the slaughtering of livestock, and the destruction of food stores. More than five million people were said to have died in this human-made famine. Peasants defended their churches and priests with scythes and pitchforks against soldiers and communist militants determined to deal harshly with the vestiges of Orthodox reaction. The campaign changed the face of the Russian countryside, which later became dotted with the shells of churches serving as granaries, overcrowded dwellings, storehouses, and workshops, their rusting and disintegrating cupolas standing hollow against the sky. A third great wave of church closings began in 1936 and gathered momentum over the next three years. This was the period of the great purges. The terror of the prison camp complex of the Gulag Archipelago in Siberia was felt in every corner of the land. An estimated nineteen million Soviet citizens died in the purges, and the police (the NKVD—Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, or the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) became the largest employer in the Soviet Union, responsible for one-sixth of all new construction. With 3196
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 restraint and normal living swept away, church closings on a large scale resumed, and the arrest of priests and the incarceration of bishops accelerated. By mid-1939, Metropolitan Sergius lived in Moscow virtually alone, cut off from any regular contact with the churches still functioning in the country. Only four active bishops remained in all of Russia: Metropolitan Aleksi of Leningrad was the second; Aleksi’s suffragan, Nikolai of Peterhof, was the third; and Metropolitan Sergi, who later defected to the Germans, was the fourth. All four prelates lived from day to day in the expectation of arrest. The numbers of open churches and functioning priests were very small. Soviet official sources and foreign scholars confirm that there were no open churches at all in more than one-third of the provinces of the Russian federated republic. One-third of the provinces of the Ukraine had no functioning churches, and an additional three Ukrainian provinces had only one open church each. According to Friedrich Heyer, the German troops that occupied Kiev in 1941 found only two churches in that diocese; sixteen hundred churches had been functioning before the 1917 Revolution. Three priests were serving in those two churches, one at the edge of the city of Kiev and one in the countryside. In the Ukrainian province of Kamenets-Podolski, the Germans found one aged priest holding services. A mission team that followed German troops into the area south of Leningrad found two priests reduced to complete impoverishment. It is probably a fair estimate that in 1939 two hundred to three hundred churches were functioning in the Soviet Union, and no more than three hundred to four hundred priests were conducting services. Describing the situation through the 1930’s in the diocese of Rostov-on-Don, Nikita Struve observed that the archbishop, Serafin, was exiled to the far north, where he soon died. His vicar, Nicholas Ammasisky, was sent to the steppes to graze a flock of sheep. He was arrested a second time and shot, but miraculously recovered from his wounds. The former cathedral was transformed into a zoo. According to historian Dimitry Pospielovsky, in Odessa, where there had once been forty-eight churches, Stalin allowed only one to remain open, apparently as a favor to a great eye doctor in that city who had treated him. Stalin, however, made no promise to spare the priests. Each Sunday, and later just at Easter, a priest would appear from the congregation in the Odessa church and celebrate the liturgy, only to disappear into the NKVD dungeons the following day. After all the priests who dared martyrdom had disappeared, there re-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 mained a few deacons who could perform the entire rite except for the Eucharist. They likewise disappeared and were replaced by psalmists, who in turn were liquidated. There remained only the laity, who prayed as best they could in the church. In the summer of 1939, then, the Russian Orthodox Church teetered on the edge of institutional destruction.
dox parishes that had been established under the German occupation. Stalin probably also perceived an advantage in tapping Russian pride and religious patriotism as Soviet rule was being reestablished in the lands overrun by Hitler. The Russian Orthodox Church emerged from the war with about fourteen thousand churches. The travails of Orthodox believers in the Soviet Union did not end with the country’s victory in World War II. Nikita S. Khrushchev launched another antireligious assault in the 1959-1964 period, but even Khrushchev’s onslaught did not reduce the Russian Orthodox Church to the desperate straits of 1939. Under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, late in the twentieth century the church was permitted to reopen thousands of parishes, scores of monasteries and nunneries, and a substantial number of seminaries and theological training schools. During that period, a new law of freedom of conscience was promulgated. Although religious believers continued to encounter problems and difficulties of various kinds, Soviet people found the opportunity to worship, teach children religion, engage in charitable work, and perform other religious functions and duties to an extent not witnessed since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. —Nathaniel Davis Further Reading Alekseev, Wasilli, and Theofanis G. Stavrou. The Great Revival: The Russian Church Under German Occupation. Minneapolis, Minn.: Burgess, 1976. In specialized publications written in Russian and French, Alekseev presented firsthand and eyewitness accounts of the desperate straits through which the Russian Orthodox Church was passing in 1939 and the church revival experienced in German-occupied territories during World War II. These and other valuable materials are presented here in English. Anderson, Paul B. People, Church, and State in Modern Russia. 1944. Reprint. New York: Hyperion, 1980. Classic, insightful work by the dean of American scholars on religion in the Soviet Union. Anderson played a central role in drawing the Russian Orthodox Church into ecumenical cooperation after World War II. Includes index. Davis, Nathaniel. A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. Wide-ranging and statistically detailed account of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. Includes tables and figures, selected bibliography, and index. 3197
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Significance In the late summer of 1939, an event occurred that was unrelated to Stalin’s repression of the Russian Orthodox Church but that profoundly affected its situation. Signed on August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact opened the door to Soviet annexation of Eastern Poland in September of 1939 and of the Baltic states and Romanian Bessarabia and Northern Bubovina in 1940. The annexations brought the Russian Orthodox Church millions of faithful parishioners and thousands of active parishes, functioning churches, and priests. The church also acquired monasteries, nunneries, seminaries, and other resources. On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler’s armies attacked the Soviet Union and swept forward on a thousand-mile front stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Behind German lines, thousands more Orthodox churches were able to open their doors and start serving believers living in pre-1939 Soviet territories, most of whom had long been denied the opportunity to worship in a functioning church. As soon as Hitler attacked, Metropolitan Sergius publicly rallied believers to the defense of the Motherland. When German forces were advancing on Moscow, however, Stalin ordered Sergius evacuated, and the head of the Russian church was sent by train to Ulyanovsk, a small provincial city about 435 miles (700 kilometers) east of the capital. Sergius was able to open some churches in that region and consecrated a few bishops, thereby reconstituting diocesan life along the Volga. By the spring of 1942, there were about a dozen Orthodox prelates of episcopal rank. On September 4, 1943, Stalin received Sergius and two other metropolitans in the Kremlin. Stalin authorized the opening of more churches, convents, seminaries, and theological academies, as well as allowing more bishops and the elevation of a new patriarch. Four days later, nineteen bishops assembled and elected Sergius as patriarch. By this time, Red Army forces were pushing the Germans back, and Stalin’s motives in his more supportive religious policy probably revolved around the need for reliable leadership over the thousands of Ortho-
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United States Begins Mobilization for World War II Ellis, Jane. The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History. London: Croom Helm, 1986. Focuses on the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the late twentieth century and the rise and repression of Orthodox dissent. Provides comprehensive description of churches, clergy, convents, theological education, and other aspects of Orthodox church life during the period covered. Includes bibliography and index. Fletcher, William C. A Study in Survival: The Church in Russia, 1927-1943. New York: Macmillan, 1965. Highly respected American scholar of religion in the Soviet Union traces the story of the Russian Orthodox Church’s travails through the turnaround that followed Stalin’s reception of Metropolitan Sergius in 1943. Includes bibliography and index. Pospielovsky, Dimitry. The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. Comprehensive account of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church from prehistory to current times. _______. The Russian Church Under the Soviet Regime, 1917-1982. 2 vols. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Seminary Press, 1984. Analyzes the experience of the church under Soviet rule, drawing on published and unpublished documents as well as interviews. Includes extensive footnotes and bibliography. Struve, Nikita. Christians in Contemporary Russia. Translated by Lancelot Sheppard and A. Manson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967. Highly sensitive and deeply informed account presents poignant and illuminating vignettes of religious life in the Soviet Union in 1939. Also provides coverage of later periods. Includes index. Timasheff, Nicholas S. Religion in Soviet Russia, 19171942. 1942. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Classic work conveys the realities of the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church before and during World War II. See also: 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia; Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday; Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto; 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church; 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror.
August, 1939
United States Begins Mobilization for World War II The prospect of involvement in war prompted the United States to convert domestic production to meet military needs. The result was a huge increase in U.S. industry’s production but very little change to the American economy’s basic structure. Locale: United States Categories: Business and labor; economics; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), U.S. senator from Missouri and chairman of the committee investigating defense spending James F. Byrnes (1879-1972), director of the Office of Economic Stabilization Donald Marr Nelson (1888-1959), head of the War Production Board William Signius Knudsen (1879-1948), head of the Office of Production Management 3198
William Martin Jeffers (1876-1953), head of the Government Rubber Board Emory Scott Land (1879-1971), head of the U.S. Maritime Commission Summary of Event In June, 1940, German forces overran France, and the British military placed large orders for military supplies from the United States. These orders helped spur U.S. industrial mobilization, but events in Europe also aided President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration in passing a number of military appropriations bills. Although more money was becoming available for wartime production, U.S. industry was reluctant to exploit this market. Conditioned by the static economic situation of the Depression, many capitalists expected such conditions to return after the war. Expanding plants for wartime production was seen as a risky, short-term investment, and the Roosevelt administration tried in various ways to persuade industrialists that this was not true. For example, the federal government offered to finance expansion through low-interest loans
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United States Begins Mobilization for World War II
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from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The Revenue Act of 1940 provided an incentive in the form of a depreciation of new defense plants of 20 percent per year, instead of the former 5 percent tax write-off. Most important, however, was the “cost-plus” provision incorporated into government defense contracts. Private industry was guaranteed the cost of producing particular military hardware plus a profit of a certain percentage of the cost. This plan proved lucrative to industry but led to excessive waste in production. Eventually, Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri led a special investigation into the waste and corruption in defense work, and the resulting revelations resulted in improved efficiency. Members of the U.S. Office of Production Management, including Edward Roosevelt wrestled desperately with the Reilly Stettinius, Jr. (third from left), and William Signius Knudsen (second problem of centralizing control of industrial from right), meet with British minister of supply Lord Beaverbrook (center) mobilization. Drawing on his experiences in August, 1941. (Library of Congress) during World War I, he first established the War Resources Board (WRB) in August, 1939. The WRB drew up a plan of mobilizashift toward a war economy, but it placed strains on dotion providing for rigid government controls, but Roosemestic needs and shortages developed in the electric velt rejected this plan for political and personal reasons, power, aluminum, steel, and railroad-equipment indusand he permitted the WRB to be dissolved in October, tries. By August 28, 1941, Roosevelt was ready for an1939, after organized labor accused it of being prejuother change. At first, a slight adjustment was made with diced in favor of big business. A pattern of establishing the creation of the Supplies Priorities and Allocation an agency with a vague mandate and then reorganizing it Board, headed by Sears, Roebuck executive Donald when its attempts to operate provoked criticism was reMarr Nelson. Within a few months, the OPM had gone peated during succeeding years. the way of the WRB, and Nelson was called to the White The next attempt at central direction was the estabHouse to head an entirely new organization called the lishment of the National Defense Advisory Commission War Production Board (WPB). on May 28, 1940. Composed of representatives of labor, Established on January 16, 1942, the WPB was to industry, the armed services, and the consuming public, have supreme command over the entire economy. Nelthe commission was under the direction of a former Genson, however, proved inadequate for the job; he permiteral Motors executive named William Signius Knudsen, ted the military to regain control over priorities and who was expected to balance these various interests. The seemed to favor big corporations in the allocation of conmost vexing problem was the assignment of priorities to tracts. He also permitted the economy to develop unthe various manufacturers for the acquisition of scarce evenly. Ship factories were built at a pace far exceeding materials. Ideally, such materials ought to have gone to the ability of the steel industry to supply material for ship factories in proportion to the relative importance of their construction. Nelson remained as head of the WPB until finished products to the health of the economy as a 1944, but long before then control of economic mobilizawhole. Knudsen never solved this problem; instead, he tion had been assigned to yet another agency. permitted the Army-Navy Munitions Board to gain great Recognizing that problems were developing under power in acquiring scarce materials. the WPB, Roosevelt asked Supreme Court associate jusOn January 7, 1941, Roosevelt tried another reorganitice James F. Byrnes to head the new Office of Economic zation. The Office of Production Management (OPM) Stabilization (OES). This new office replaced the WPB was created with Knudsen and labor leader Sidney Hillas supreme arbiter of the economy. Byrnes did solve the man of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as problems of priorities and brought order to the entire mojoint directors. The OPM did succeed in beginning the
United States Begins Mobilization for World War II bilization scheme. He seemed to have the political astuteness required to make the OES work. In May, 1943, his agency’s official title was changed to Office of War Mobilization, and in October, 1944, it became the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Significance Despite such frequent reorganization of the government’s regulatory bodies, U.S. industry performed fantastic feats of production during the war years. Statistics tell part of the story. In 1941, the United States produced approximately $8.5 billion worth of military equipment. Using the same dollar value, in 1944 the sum was $60 billion. Included in these gross figures was an increase in the annual production of planes from 5,865 in 1939 to almost 100,000 in 1944. Ship tonnage rose from one million tons in 1941 to nineteen million in 1943. Certain parts of the economy performed miracles. As public director of WPB, William Martin Jeffers, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, directed the creation of a great synthetic rubber industry, and Admiral Emory Scott Land, head of the U.S. Maritime Commission, prodded the shipbuilding industry to the point that a ship could be produced in fewer than ten days. Comparable production feats were achieved by other industries. In the long run, the most significant fact of this remarkable production was that it was accomplished with little effect on the basic corporate structure of the U.S. economy. Of course, shortages existed in the civilian community during World War II, and rationing was introduced for foodstuffs, including meat and sugar. Although restraints were imposed on free enterprise, however, outright government seizure of private industry was never attempted. For the most part, government gave business exceptional freedom in choosing what it could produce and how; the only requirement was that national goals were met. In fact, the government let contracts for a wide variety of experimental or unusual projects, such as the famous Spruce Goose developed by Howard Hughes’s engineers. Government allowed exceptional industrialists, such as Andrew Jackson Higgins, Preston Tucker, and Henry Kaiser, to mass-produce patrol torpedo (PT) boats and landing craft, gun turrets, and ships with little interference and almost no concern for cost. Kaiser, for example, cut the production time for a Liberty Ship (a basic freighter crucial to the war effort) from 120 days to 4.5 days. As British historian Paul Johnson has observed, the war “put back on his pedestal the American capitalist folk-hero.” The War Production Board’s efforts increased busi3200
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nesses’ involvement in planning future economic activities, and many were persuaded that government could and should play a role in economic planning. The size of government has never returned to its pre-Depression levels, and only in the administration of Ronald Reagan did the military’s share of the gross national product remain at less than 6 percent for more than a year. Ironically, many business leaders took from the war the exact opposite message from what it had taught. Rather than reaffirming the phenomenal productive capacity of the United States, business left the war expecting special favors and government considerations. — George Q. Flynn and Larry Schweikart Further Reading Catton, Bruce. The War Lords of Washington. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1948. Argues that the war failed to produce the social revolution that started with the New Deal, because putting industrialists in charge ended the opportunity for social reform. Given the extraordinary production of the system, Catton’s thesis does not convince. Civilian Production Administration. Industrial Mobilization for War, 1940-1945. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1947. The official government record of mobilization. Divine, Robert A. The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. A valuable source of information about the political climate in the United States at the dawn of World War II. Higgs, Robert. Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Examines the War Production Board and dozens of other government agencies as agents of government expansion during wartime. Hypothesizes that wars and other critical episodes created a ratchet effect that caused government power and scope to increase. Janeway, Eliot. The Struggle for Survival. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1951. This brief volume in the Chronicles of America series is a convenient treatment of the economic mobilization for the general reader. Johnson, Paul. Modern Times: A History of the World from the Twenties to the Nineties. Rev. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Vast interpretive history of the modern world devotes more than two chapters to World War II and spends several pages celebrating the efforts of U.S. business.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Describes how Americans responded to the deprivations of the Great Depression, the recovery period of the New Deal, and the country’s entrance into World War II. Includes maps and index. Nelson, Donald M. Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1946. A personal account of the WPB’s achievements by its director. Depicts the difficult decisions about strategy that the WPB had to make and praises the free enterprise system for its efficiency and productivity. Novick, David, Melvin Anshen, and W. C. Truppner. Wartime Production Controls. New York: Columbia University Press, 1949. An older but useful study of the problems faced by Nelson and his associates in allocating priorities.
The Wizard of Oz Premieres Rhodes, Benjamin D. United States Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period, 1918-1941: The Golden Age of American Diplomatic and Military Complacency. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. In-depth examination of American diplomacy during the period covered. Features selected bibliography and index. Rockhoff, Hugh. Drastic Measures: A History of Wage and Price Controls in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Argues that controls kept inflation under wraps during the war, a tactic that only postponed its effects. See also: Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II; May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France; June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy. 1939
August 17, 1939 THE WIZARD OF
OZ Premieres
The Wizard of Oz catapulted Judy Garland into stardom and set a new standard for cinematic design in musical fantasy. Acclaimed and beloved by generations of audiences, it has become one of the most famous films of all time. Locale: United States Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Mervyn LeRoy (1900-1987), American film director and producer Arthur Freed (1894-1973), American producer and songwriter Victor Fleming (1883-1949), American director Judy Garland (1922-1969), American singer and actor Ray Bolger (1904-1987), American song-and-dance man Jack Haley (1899-1979), American actor Bert Lahr (1895-1967), American actor and vaudevillian Summary of Event Samuel Goldwyn sold the film rights to L. Frank Baum’s classic 1900 children’s book The Wizard of Oz to MetroGoldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for $75,000 on June 3, 1938.
The studio had, however, been preparing to film the story for several months prior to the sale. As early as January, 1938, Mervyn LeRoy had entrusted William Cannon with the task of preparing the story for the screen. The first of the twelve screenwriters who worked on the script was Irving Brecher; others included Herman Mankiewicz, Ogden Nash, Noel Langley, Herbert Fields, Samuel Hoffenstein, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. Langley, Ryerson, and Woolf received screen credit. Harold Arlen and Edgar Harburg wrote the music and lyrics; they had been hired in May. The model for both the writers and the composers was Walt Disney’s animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which had been extremely successful just a year earlier. From the beginning, however, MGM did not apparently expect to make much money on the live-action fantasy. Instead, this was to be the studio’s “prestige picture” for the year. When the film began production, Norman Taurog was the director, but he left within a short time to direct the Mickey Rooney vehicle The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939). Richard Thorpe, director of a few Tarzan films, followed briefly, then—for seven days—came George Cukor. Cukor, like his successor Victor Fleming, left The Wizard of Oz to work on Gone with the Wind 3201
The Wizard of Oz Premieres (1939). Finally, King Vidor completed the sequences in Kansas that would begin and end the film. On-screen directorial credit went to Victor Fleming, and it seems clear that he did the lion’s share of the director’s work. The many writers, directors, producers, and assorted others who worked on the film, however, show just how much of a collaborative effort filmmaking was in the large studios of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Much of the film’s appeal stemmed from the performances of its stars, but these, too, changed before the final version was cut. At the outset, Louis B. Mayer attempted to borrow Shirley Temple from Twentieth Century-Fox to play the role of Dorothy, but Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck refused. The alternative was Judy Garland, the choice of both LeRoy and his assistant Arthur Freed. Garland was sixteen years old and more mature than the Dorothy of the book, but with a tight-fitting brassiere and pigtails, she began to look the part. At first, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were to be played by Buddy Ebsen and Ray Bolger, respectively, but after much complaining by Bolger, the two actors changed roles. Before long, Ebsen developed an allergy to the makeup needed to play the Tin Woodman, and he was replaced by Jack Haley. The part of the Cowardly Lion was apparently always intended for Bert Lahr. Gale Sondergaard tested for the part of the Wicked Witch, but the role eventually went to Margaret Hamilton. A number of actors were considered for the role of the Wizard. LeRoy wanted Ed Wynn, but he turned the part down because he thought it was too small (Wynn based his decision on an early version of the script in which the Wizard’s part was considerably smaller than in the final version). Others mentioned for the part included Wallace Beery, W. C. Fields, Hugh Herbert, and Charles Winninger. The final choice was Frank Morgan. Production began in the fall of 1938 and was completed in the spring of 1939. Several features of the final film were noteworthy, including the wardrobe and makeup, the special effects, and the music. The head of the MGM wardrobe department was Gilbert Adrian, and his counterpart in makeup was Jack Dawn. To give the effect of a straw man, the makeup people fashioned a light mask of baked rubber made to simulate burlap. For the Tin Woodman, a suit of buckram covered over with metallic cloth painted silver served to give the illusion of a tin man. Bert Lahr wore fifty pounds of genuine lion skins. Virtually all the characters endured many changes in costume and makeup. For example, the witch’s costume 3202
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 at various times included sequins and cowled headdress, fright wig and false nose, several hairstyles, and green skin. For the diminutive Munchkins who populated the land of Oz, Adrian and Dawn concocted costumes and makeup that would make the already small actors cast in the roles appear even smaller than they were. Oversized belts, hats, buttons, and so on accentuated the smallness of the Munchkins. The Munchkin makeup required wigs, prosthetic items, and skullcaps. Dawn organized an assembly line to manage the makeup of the Munchkins, a kind of real-life echo of the sprucing up of the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Dorothy that took place within the film in Emerald City. Equally complex were the special effects. The film contained many fantastic effects: a tornado that swept Dorothy and her dog Toto into the land of Oz, a good witch who traveled in a bubble, flying monkeys, talking and apple-throwing trees, a flying witch, a huge, spectral appearance by the Wizard, and a melting witch. In charge of special effects for the picture was A. Arnold “Buddy” Gillespie, and he and his cohorts used five of the six types of special effects available at the time: miniatures, back projection, optical effects, matte painting, and full-scale mechanical effects. Some of the flying monkeys were full-scale effects; various types of rear and front projection created the effects of the Wizard’s disembodied head and the head of the witch in her large crystal ball. The witch on her broomstick writing in the sky was a miniature; the witch was, in reality, three-eighths of an inch high, and her broomstick was a hypodermic needle filled with milk and dye. Matte painting was used to create the panorama of Emerald City and parts of the witch’s castle. Other effects included the Cowardly Lion’s swishing tail, which was controlled by a man on a catwalk with a fishing pole, the line of which was attached to the tail; dry ice and an elevator simulated the melting witch. Elevators proved dangerous, and Margaret Hamilton, the wicked witch, was injured using one in her departure from Munchkinland near the beginning of the film. On the second take, the flames that accompanied her departure set alight her hat and broom, and her face and right hand were burned. She left the set for six weeks. Perhaps the most complicated effect in the film was the tornado. The tornado was a muslin sock connected to a slot in a floor and to a steel gantry at the top of a stage. The gantry had a small car that could zigzag horizontally. From the bottom, fuller’s earth and compressed air were fed into the tornado to create the illusion of a great wind whipping up dust as it crossed the prairie. Eight-by-four
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ing and closing sequences in Kansas, and the lavish worlds of escape that Hollywood was famous for producing in the decade appear in the colorful Oz sequences. Both the fantasy and the “reality” in the film express the need for self-reliance and cooperation; all one needs to succeed, the film implies, are a little ingenuity and pluck. In a year in which high romance was the order of the day—witness such 1939 productions as Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Ninotchka, Destry Rides Again, Only Angels Have Wings, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—The Wizard of Oz provided romance enough for everyone. Significance The Wizard of Oz was more successful than anyone involved with its making expected. Shortly after its release, the market was flooded with memorabilia related to the film: party masks, rag dolls, wooden dolls, rubber dolls, Valentine cards, stationery, and dart games. Such merchandise continued to sell decades later; clearly, the public, in North America and around the world, took the film to its heart. It also took Judy Garland to its heart, and the film had a profound impact on her career. She had signed her first contract with MGM on September 27, 1935, only three months after her thirteenth birthday. The Wizard of Oz was her eighth film and the one that catapulted her to worldwide fame. For her role in the film, Garland won a special Academy Award as the best juvenile performer of the year. The honor was well deserved; Garland played her part with a conviction and a depth of feeling that struck a chord in audiences. MGM knew it had a star on its hands, and the studio’s story department set about finding musical properties for her. In the next two years, she starred in seven films. As late as 1968 (six months before she died), Garland guest-hosted a television talk show on which Margaret Hamilton made a surprise appearance. Garland asked her wicked witch adversary from The Wizard of Oz to “Laugh! Just do that wicked, mean laugh!” Hamilton did as she was asked, and the audience went wild. The Wizard of Oz is among the most familiar films in history. It has enjoyed a long life on network television (it was the first film MGM sold to network television in 1956), and its release to the home video market has ensured that many households own a copy of the musical. Released in 1939, popularly referred to as the single greatest year of the Hollywood studio system, The Wizard of Oz is one of the central films supporting that title. Moreover, what MGM referred to in 1939 as the film’s “kindly philosophy” has not gone out of fashion. Audi3203
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panels of glass with cotton balls pasted on them served to heighten the effect of a stormy sky. Once photographed, the film of the tornado was projected to form a backdrop for the actors scurrying to shelter. In addition to its effects, The Wizard of Oz contained a stunning musical score. From romantic ballads to jaunty dance numbers to ebullient celebratory choruses, the music and songs were various and vibrant. The score was the creation of Harold Arlen (music) and Edgar Harburg (lyrics), and their genius provided not only memorable songs and tunes but also songs that were integrated with the plot development. “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” for example, clearly sets the wistful tone for a young girl whose life is as uneventful as the sepiacolored print of the scene indicates. The lyrics prepare viewers for Oz as a dreamworld (“a land that I heard of once in a lullaby”) and a land of color (“skies are blue,” “troubles melt like lemon drops,” “bluebirds,” and, of course, the rainbow image itself). Dorothy’s longing for color, adventure, and release finds expression in the song. In a similar way, the songs of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion fill in their personalities. Unlike other musicals of the 1930’s, The Wizard of Oz contained no large-scale production numbers that existed merely for their own sake. The closest the film came to such a scene was in the Lion’s “King of the Forest” number; even that song, however, indicates the Cowardly Lion’s inner goodness. The scene also serves to provide a playful interlude before the climactic encounter with the Wizard. Such lively music and words deserved equally lively choreography, and in this, too, the film excelled. LeRoy wanted Busby Berkeley to handle the dance numbers, but Bobby Connolly came from Warner Bros. to take over as dance director. His dance numbers were visually imaginative. The sprightly nursery-rhyme effect of “The Wicked Witch Is Dead” sequence far outshone similar sequences in Laurel and Hardy’s Babes in Toyland (1934), and Ray Bolger’s floppy footwork as the Scarecrow became justly famous. It is interesting to note that much of Bolger’s first dance was cut to keep the film from running too long. The completed film was a triumph of cinematic art that demonstrated how the collaboration of many people could produce a serendipitous masterpiece. It premiered first in Wisconsin on August 12, 1939, and three days later in Hollywood. The film opened in general release on August 17. The Wizard of Oz sums up much of what went on in the films of the 1930’s: The Depressionweary lives of middle Americans are visible in the open-
The Wizard of Oz Premieres
The Wizard of Oz Premieres ences young and old continue to seek escape to fantastic worlds in motion pictures, looking for places where good always triumphs over evil and people get what they desire. —Roderick McGillis Further Reading Billman, Carol. “‘I’ve Seen the Movie’: Oz Revisited.” In Children’s Novels and the Movies, edited by Douglas Street. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983. A comparison of the book with the film. Argues that the film reduces the clutter of the book and simplifies the plot and that the visual splendor of the film helps it to surpass the book, despite the fact that both are moralistic. Notes that the artificiality of the effects adds to the film’s (and Oz’s) fantastic quality. Fricke, John, Jay Scarfone, and William Stillman. “The Wizard of Oz”: The Official Fiftieth Anniversary Pictorial History. New York: Warner Books, 1989. A detailed account of the making of The Wizard of Oz and its subsequent impact. Filled with rare photographs of the players and professionals associated with MGM, of Oz memorabilia and merchandise, and of memos and letters related to the film and its creation. Bibliography. Harmetz, Aljean. The Making of “The Wizard of Oz.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. A detailed account of how a major studio worked in the heyday of the Hollywood studio system. Many interviews with the people who worked on the film, and many behindthe-scenes photographs. A more complete account of the special effects than in the Fricke, Scarfone, and Stillman volume. Index and bibliography.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Langley, Noel, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. “The Wizard of Oz”: The Screenplay. New York: Delta, 1989. The first publication of the entire film script, including the addition of scenes and songs cut from the final version. Introduction and notes by Michael Patrick Hearne. Contains film stills and other photographs. Hearne’s introduction chronicles, in brief, the making of the film. McClelland, Doug. Down the Yellow Brick Road. New York: Pyramid Books, 1976. Recounts the legends behind the making of the film. For a general audience rather than for aficionados. Many film stills. Scarfone, Jay, and William Stillman. The Wizardry of Oz: The Artistry and Magic of the 1939 M-G-M Classic. New York: Applause, 2004. Lengthy study of the makeup, special effects, set design, props, and costumes employed in the film. Bibliographic references and index. Swartz, Mark Evan. Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” on Stage and Screen to 1939. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Recounts the history of Oz adaptations up to the 1939 film, comparing them to the version that since 1939 has been definitive. Bibliographic references and index. See also: 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film; 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals; 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals; 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach; Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Nazi-Soviet Pact
August 23-24, 1939
Nazi-Soviet Pact The Nazi-Soviet Pact freed Adolf Hitler from the immediate possibility of a two-front war, allowing him to attack Poland and trigger the beginning of World War II hostilities. Also known as: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact Locale: Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history; diplomacy and international relations
Summary of Event The signing of a treaty of nonaggression between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia in August, 1939, surprised most European observers, who believed that a rapprochement between the diametrically opposed dictatorships was impossible. Relations between the Soviet Union and Germany had declined substantially since 1933, when the National Socialist regime under Adolf Hitler had assumed power in Germany. Before 1933, Hitler had frequently denounced Bolshevism; in his political autobiography, Mein Kampf (1925-1926; English translation, 1939), he had stressed the need for Germany to acquire living space (Lebensraum) in Eastern Europe at the expense of the Soviet Union. Hitler’s genuine interest in Eastern Europe was demonstrated in January, 1934, when he signed a nonaggression treaty with Poland, which had traditionally been Russia’s enemy.
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Key Figures Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), prime minister of Great Britain, 1937-1940 Édouard Daladier (1884-1970), premier of France, 1938-1940 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov (Meier Moiseevich Wallach; 1876-1951), Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, 1930-1939 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin; 1890-1986), Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, 1939-1949 Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), German foreign minister, 1938-1945 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), dictator of the Soviet Union, 19291953
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin viewed this pact as a potential threat to Russia’s security, and he concluded that sooner or later Hitler would start a war somewhere in Europe. Beginning with a successful bid for membership in the League of Nations in September, 1934, Stalin and his foreign minister Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov became the leading champions of “collective security,” the concert of European governments against Hitler, and the “Popular Front,” the cooperative effort of European moderate leftists and Communist Parties against fascism. During Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia (which began in 1940), the Soviet Union made a staunch defense of the covenant only to find this an irritant rather than an aid in warming up to the West. When the Popular Front coalition in republican Spain came under assault, the Soviets provided critical military supplies while the Western forces avoided participating in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The activities of the world revolutionary Communist International, or Comintern, which was supported and sustained by Moscow, were now sharply curtailed. In May, 1935, the Soviet government took major steps to encircle Germany by concluding pacts of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia; the agreement with the latter, however, was to bind the Soviet Union only if France made the first move toward extending aid to the Czechs in the event of a German attack. Hitler used these treaties as an excuse to occupy the Rhineland in 1936, and in the fall of that year he countered them by signing an agreement with Italy and the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan; the pact was directed against the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Stalinist purge trials and the execution of numerous army officers did nothing to strengthen Western confidence in the Soviet Union as a viable military ally against Hitler. By 1937, the attitude toward the Soviet military posture contributed to the genesis of the appeasement policy in the French and British governments, led at that time by Édouard Daladier and Neville Chamberlain, respectively. The fruit of this policy was Hitler’s bloodless conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia during 1938 and 1939. The Soviets were prepared to come to Czechoslovakia’s defense in 1938, but Western appeasement doomed such a move. As a result, in 1939 Stalin was driven to accept a policy of “Fortress Russia.” In response, the collective security coalition collapsed, and Stalin set about reexamining all available options in the conduct of his foreign affairs.
Nazi-Soviet Pact
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov signs the Nazi-Soviet agreement while Joachim von Ribbentrop (left) and Joseph Stalin (right) stand behind him. (NARA)
Stalin’s subsequent exercise of one of these options— namely, the conclusion of a nonaggression pact with Germany—was the result of the last prewar crisis involving Nazi demands on Poland. Shortly after the Nazi occupation of Prague in mid-March, 1939, the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, submitted a series of demands to Poland that were categorically refused. Although he was furious, Hitler could not undertake an immediate solution of the Polish question for a number of reasons. First, in the light of Anglo-French promises to aid the Poles if attacked by Germany (made in late March and early April, 1939), Hitler appeared to suspect that the Western powers might fight back if he attacked Poland. Second, both Hitler and the Western powers were uncertain about the role that the Soviet Union might play in the event of a German attack on Poland. If the Soviet Union joined the Western powers in an alliance, Hitler would be caught in a two-front war. If he 3206
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 could engage the Soviets in a pact of nonaggression, however, Hitler might be able to force Great Britain and France to back down, as they had in the past. If this pattern were not repeated, Hitler reasoned, he would at least be in a better position to dispose of a military thrust from the West. Hitler also delayed aggression because he had to draft extensive military plans that would provide the operational details for both the invasion of Poland and the defense of the Reich from an attack by the Western powers. On April 3, Hitler ordered his military commanders to draw up such plans; those for the Polish campaign, known by the code name Operation White, were to be ready by September 1, 1939, the scheduled date of their implementation. By the end of April of 1939, Hitler was beginning to give serious consideration to rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Stalin, too, was anxious to prevent his country from becoming isolated if Hitler invaded Poland. Because the Soviet leader was still uncommitted regarding the Polish question, however, the diplomacy surrounding it assumed the character of a contest between the Western powers and the German Reich for the prize of Russia’s favor. From mid-April to mid-August, 1939, the British and French governments made several clumsy attempts to negotiate a common defense against Hitler’s designs on Poland. Neither Chamberlain nor Daladier relished the idea of negotiating with the hated Bolsheviks. Consequently, they carried on talks with the Soviet Union at a slow pace through second-rank officials. When they finally dispatched a joint Anglo-French military mission to Moscow in the critical days of August, it traveled by boat rather than by airplane. Apart from these problems, a Soviet-Western pact foundered almost immediately on traditional RussoPolish animosity. Russian leaders insisted that a SovietPolish military agreement would have to be arranged before the Soviet Union would conclude any pact with Great Britain and France. Poland, however, adamantly rejected any such agreement with the Soviet Union. The prospects for accord between the West and the Soviet Union were not promising. During the often-overlooked British and German talks, Neville Chamberlain clearly expressed his preference for appeasing Hitler rather than forming a grand alliance with the Soviet Union. Chamberlain’s proposals to the Third Reich were quite generous. They included an enormous loan to Germany and settlement of colonial problems as well as the Polish crisis on terms favorable to Hit-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Apparently, Stalin wanted to be sure that Germany would become embroiled in war with the West over Poland. He was fearful that Great Britain might back down on its support to Poland, thus containing Hitler’s aggression in Eastern Europe to the Soviet frontier. Therefore, in trying to attain an essential goal of Soviet foreign policy—namely, the escape from isolation—Stalin had to take the risk that he might actually deepen his country’s isolation. When he decided that Great Britain would fight, when his mistrust of the West outweighed his suspicion of the Nazis, and when he became convinced that there were real advantages to be gained from a bargain with Hitler, then and only then did Stalin approve the signing of the nonaggression pact so desperately sought by his German counterparts. Stalin decided to go ahead, and Ribbentrop was received in Moscow on August 23. As signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov early on August 24, the treaty contained a mutual promise of neutrality and nonaggression. A “Secret Additional Protocol” attached to the treaty divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of interest. Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, Germany was allowed influence over Lithuania, and the Soviet Union was given a free hand in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland. The Soviet Union also declared its interest in Romania’s Bessarabia. Significance The Nazi-Soviet Pact had several important results. The immediate effect was to precipitate World War II. Assured of Russian neutrality, Hitler launched his invasion of Poland as originally planned on September 1; the British and French declared war on Germany two days later when Hitler failed to respond to their demand for immediate withdrawal from Poland. Meanwhile, Stalin gained at least temporary immunity from German attack, and he proceeded to build up Soviet armed forces. The sphere of interest granted to Stalin in Eastern Europe appeared to provide him with a strong forward defensive zone against possible German attack. Russia attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, after the Finns refused to grant territorial and naval base concessions. Led by Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, the Finns resisted with astonishing strength, annihilating five Soviet divisions. However, a Soviet offensive in February, 1940, succeeded, and Stalin then dictated peace terms that were more severe than the original Soviet demands. He later absorbed the Baltic states, including Lithuania, which Hitler conceded to him in a readjustment of their pact. Simultaneously in the Far East, the Nazi-Soviet 3207
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ler. In addition, the British offered Germany an AngloGerman condominium over Europe, and all Hitler had to do was promise that he would not invade Poland. For the moment, however, Hitler preferred the destruction of Poland in a short, local war to another Munich Agreement. The Anglo-French-Russian negotiations, carried on with considerable publicity, were closely watched by the German Foreign Office. By the end of April, Berlin had decided to explore the possibilities of a Russo-German rapprochement to which the Soviet ambassador had alluded earlier in the month. In his April 28 speech before the Reichstag, Hitler formally renounced Germany’s nonaggression pact with Poland. Surprisingly, his address was devoid of his usual invective against Bolshevism and the Soviet Union. Initially, Stalin pursued a cautious policy designed to avoid Soviet isolation in an increasingly dangerous international environment. By early 1939, however, increasing Soviet economic and military strength gave him sufficient confidence to take the diplomatic offensive. Stalin believed that Germany was far weaker than the Western powers and would be more likely to meet his demands. In response to Germany’s apparent interest in better relations, on May 3 the Soviet Union announced the dismissal of Litvinov, a pro-Western Jew with a British wife, as Soviet commissar for foreign affairs. He was replaced by Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, a determined negotiator who was Stalin’s oldest and closest associate. Although the two dictatorships negotiated in an atmosphere of deep distrust, the Russo-German talks made steady progress in contrast to the negotiations between the Soviet Union and the other Western powers. Finally, at the end of July, Molotov used his negotiators to indicate the Soviet Union’s willingness to enter into a commercial treaty with Germany that would be followed later by a political agreement. By this time, however, Germany was desperate for a political pact, as the planned date for the invasion of Poland was only a month away. The Soviet-German trade talks were more than a mere preliminary to the pact. Because economically strapped Germany needed Sovietsupplied raw materials, Soviet negotiators extracted German agreement to deliver Germany’s most up-todate weapons and vast quantities of strategic goods. Now the arch appeaser, Stalin gained additional time to build up the Red Army by buying off Hitler with fresh trade deals. The signing of a commercial agreement on August 19 only served to intensify the impatience of Hitler and Ribbentrop for an immediate political arrangement with the Soviet Union.
Nazi-Soviet Pact
Nazi-Soviet Pact Pact enabled Stalin to relieve the pressure that Japan had been exerting on the Soviet Union’s Asian frontier since the outbreak of an undeclared Russo-Japanese war in 1938. Nominally an ally of Nazi Germany, Japan terminated the conflict in April, 1939, and signed a mutual agreement on September 15, 1939. Intermediately, however, the alliance nearly proved disastrous for Stalin. Hitler got the better of the pact because he was able to conquer most of Europe and turn on the Soviet Union at a time of his choosing. Stalin assumed that he was dealing with Hitler from a position of unassailable strength, and so he was able to secure the favorable revision of the secret protocol of the Soviet-Nazi pact on several occasions. Stalin was preparing to do so again in late 1940; he thought that Hitler could not do without the Soviet Union’s political and economic support in Germany’s continuing war with Great Britain and that this dependence would increase with time. Refusing to believe mounting evidence that Hitler was preparing to attack, Stalin was genuinely shocked by Operation Barbarossa (Germany’s World War II invasion of the Soviet Union). For Hitler, Stalin’s misplaced trust in him almost spelled a German victory over Russia in 1941 and 1942. Viewed in wider perspective, however, the NaziSoviet Pact added considerably to Hitler’s overconfident attitude toward Russia. The ultimate failure of Hitler’s military campaign against Russia and his loss of the war brought about an extension of Soviet influence into central Europe that existed into the 1990’s. Many historians have considered the Nazi-Soviet Pact’s possible ramifications. How would the course of World War II have changed if Hitler had maintained the pact against Britain before the United States launched its all-out intervention? Britain might have surrendered. Even after Barbarossa began, the possibility of a NaziSoviet truce on the eastern front would have stiffened considerably German resistance against Allied forces. A negotiated armistice to World War II could have occurred in Europe because British intelligence learned that Heinrich Himmler made overtures to an interested Stalin about a Russian front truce. —Edward P. Keleher and Douglas W. Richmond Further Reading Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. Rev. ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. A detailed account, from the German vantage point, of how the development of the Polish crisis led to the Nazi-Soviet accord in August, 1939.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Carr, E. H. German-Soviet Relations Between the Two Wars, 1919-1939. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. Contains a discussion of the 1939 NaziSoviet Pact. Churchill, Winston S. The Gathering Storm. Vol. 1 in The Second World War. 1948. Reprint. Tampa, Fla.: Mariner Books, 1986. Chapters 20 and 21 trace the course of the Polish crisis and the rapprochement between Germany and Russia. Haslam, Jonathan. The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933-39. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. Haslam defends the sincerity of Soviet attempts to ensure collective security. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. The second volume of Kershaw’s acclaimed biography of Hitler (the first was Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris). Accords Ribbentrop a central role in establishing an alternative foreign policy that found favor with Hitler. Read, Anthony, and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Askillful correlation of concurrent sets of secret negotiations that outline the British and German talks. Rossi, Angelo. The Russo-German Alliance, August 1939-June 1941. Translated by John and Micheline Cullen. Boston: Beacon Press, 1951. This study deals with the uneasy relations between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia after the negotiation of their nonaggression pact in August, 1939. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Ballantine, 1991. Classic work is still one of the most readable and informative histories of the Third Reich. Although Shirer’s research has been superseded in some respects, this remains one of the best introductions to the Nazi era, especially given that the author witnessed many of Hitler’s actions while serving as a foreign correspondent in Berlin. Ulam, Adam B. Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-67. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968. Ulam’s study offers a controversial evaluation of the diplomatic background of the Nazi-Soviet Pact from the Russian vantage point. See also: Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Germany Invades Poland
September 1, 1939
Germany Invades Poland Germany’s invasion of Poland initiated the first fighting in World War II, demonstrated to the Western powers that a policy of appeasement was untenable, as the Nazis had come to seem insatiable, and launched the German policies that would result in the Holocaust. Locale: Poland Categories: World War II; colonialism and occupation; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest
Summary of Event On March 15, 1939, after the Nazis had staged a bogus crisis, German troops marched into Czechoslovakia and occupied Prague, thus completing the annexation of the Czech state that Adolf Hitler had planned in 1938. Hitler and his henchmen then turned their attention to Poland. On March 21, Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreign minister of Germany, summoned Józef Beck, the foreign minister of Poland, to Berlin and gave him a list of German demands. Danzig, a free city administered under the super-
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Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator, 1933-1945 Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), German foreign minister, 1938-1945 Józef Beck (1894-1944), Polish foreign minister, 19321939 Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), prime minister of Great Britain, 1937-1940 Lord Halifax (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood; 18811959), British foreign secretary, 1938-1940 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov (Meier Moiseevich Wallach; 1876-1951), Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, 1930-1939 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin; 1890-1986), Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, 1939-1949 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Fascist premier of Italy, 1922-1943 Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944), Italian foreign minister, 1936-1943, and son-in-law of Benito Mussolini Édouard Daladier (1884-1970), premier of France, 1938-1940
vision of the League of Nations, in which Poland had certain economic rights, was to revert to German control; Germany would receive an extraterritorial road and railway across the Polish Corridor, a strip of Polish territory separating East Prussia from the remainder of the German Reich; and Poland would agree to associate itself with Germany in an anti-Russian policy. Colonel Beck rejected these demands. In the meantime, alarmed by the seizure of Prague, Great Britain and France guaranteed Poland’s independence and territorial integrity. On March 31, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that if Germany invaded Poland, Great Britain and France would give Poland all the support in their power. London and Paris could not, however, give effective direct assistance to Warsaw because Poland was separated from them geographically by Germany. Poland’s best help could come only from the Soviet Union, and in the weeks following the Anglo-French guarantee, Moscow became the center of European diplomacy. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was worried about Hitler’s rising power, especially because the Red Army was undergoing reorganization in the wake of the executions of so many of its high officers in 1937. Stalin decided to explore the feelings of both the Allies and the Nazis. On April 16, 1939, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, the Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, who was believed to be friendly toward the West, approached the Allies with an offer to conclude a mutual assistance pact. The next day, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin inquired of the Reich foreign ministry whether Russo-German relations might be improved. The Germans made some noncommittal answers at once. The Allies made no answer at all until, after a delay of three weeks, Chamberlain and his Conservative cabinet, with their inveterate suspicion of Russian motives, virtually rejected Litvinov’s advances. Meanwhile, Litvinov had been replaced by the ironwilled opportunist Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov. Hitler now scored a success in another quarter. On May 22, he made the Pact of Steel with Italy, in which the two powers pledged themselves to fight as allies in the event one of them went to war. Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, was anxious for gain and, over the protest of his son-in-law and foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, committed his country to war on Hitler’s terms. This alliance strengthened Hitler’s position, and on May 23, he told his generals that war with Poland
Germany Invades Poland
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hitler ordered his attack to begin at dawn on August 26. The British, however, were determined to honor their guarantee, and they signed a formal treaty with Poland on August 25. The same day, facing the prospect of war with less than ten fully equipped divisions, Mussolini informed Hitler that he would remain neutral in the event of a conflict. At this point, Hitler paused; in the evening, he ordered the invasion, then only twelve hours away, to be postponed. Hitler attempted to separate the Poles from their allies. Daladier and Chamberlain stood firm, however, and when it became apparent that his efforts to shake them had failed, Hitler unleashed his army and air force on Poland. On September 1, at 4:45 a.m., six armored divisions (panzers) rolled forward while the pilots of the German Luftwaffe struck at the Polish airfields. The Germans had developed a new kind of warfare based on the rapid advance of tanks and mobile artillery, closely supported by aircraft. This so-called Blitzkrieg (literally, lightning war) was launched with devastating success. The Luftwaffe smashed the Polish railway system, with the result that Polish attempts to mobilize effectively failed. Air strikes against Polish troops attempting to defend Warsaw were so successful that Polish forces collapsed completely in that area. Heavy air attacks also
was inevitable. Hoping to prevent the Soviet Union from helping Poland, the Nazis opened serious talks with the Russians on May 30. During the next two months, the situation did not develop rapidly. The Russian and German negotiators hesitated to commit their countries to a clearly defined pact. By now, the West had also sent delegates to Moscow, but they also acted slowly, unable to carry the strongly anticommunist and anti-Russian Colonel Beck with them. Because most of their country had been occupied by Russia for more than a century prior to 1918, the Poles were understandably reluctant to readmit the Red Army in 1939. On the other side, Stalin distrusted the West. With the events in Munich still in mind, he doubted their determination to resist Hitler and suspected them of wishing to embroil him in war with Germany. In August, it became apparent that Stalin had chosen Hitler because Hitler could give more and ask for less than Chamberlain or French premier Édouard Daladier. In the early hours of August 24, the Soviet-German nonaggression pact was signed; a secret protocol spelled out the share of Poland that each power would take. Poland’s situation was now critical. On August 23, believing that his pact with Stalin would convince Chamberlain and Daladier that helping Poland would be futile,
The German Invasion of Poland
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occurred against military targets inside Warsaw once the Germans realized that their armor could not operate effectively in the narrow streets. Considerable collateral damage and casualties among the civilian populace also resulted from air attacks. Having hoped that, with good luck and bad weather, Poland could resist for six months, the West watched the Polish army become torn to pieces within two weeks. To view image, please refer to the On September 3, the British and print edition of this title. French government fulfilled their commitment to Poland by declaring war. Nevertheless, they were unable to do anything to avert Poland’s fate, and the Poles found themselves in an impossible strategic situation. Their entire country was a flat plain; the only defensible feature was the Bug River. It lay so far to the east, however, that a defense along it would have forced the Poles to surrender all their economic assets and politiAdolf Hitler salutes his troops as they march toward a wooden bridge constructed by cal centers. Nevertheless, by placing the Germans across the San River near Jarosuaw, Poland, in September, 1939. most of their troops in the Polish cor(Hulton Archive/Getty Images) ridor and between Warsaw and the industrial city of Ladz, the rest of the Polish army was stretched dangerThe process by which the Wehrmacht (the German ously thin. German armored forces quickly broke through armed forces) analyzed its performance after the Polish Poland’s border defenses and penetrated deep into the invasion explains why the German army did so well on interior. On September 17, the Russians hastily invaded World War II battlefields. By early October, the high Poland from the east to secure their portion of the spoils; command obtained reports from units down to the regiby October 2, 1939, all organized Polish resistance had mental level. The army then established a rigorous trainceased. ing program throughout to correct mistakes. Thereafter the army trained for sixteen hours a day and six to seven Significance days a week. When the Wehrmacht streamed west in Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, May, 1940, few armies of the twentieth century had been the Allies had realized that allowing Hitler to annex terrias well trained or disciplined. tory until he was satisfied was not going to be an effective From the beginning, the German invaders embarked means to prevent war. Germany’s forces would keep exon Hitler’s racial and ideological crusade. Atrocities fell panding until they were too powerful to be resisted should the nation desire to add western Europe to its terimmediately on Jews as well as Poles. Hitler ordered that ritories. France and England therefore made Poland their Poland’s ruling and intellectual elites be liquidated. Sta“line in the sand.” Should the Nazis invade, war would lin’s secret police also wiped out large numbers of army result. The ultimatum gave Hitler momentary pause, but officers and the Polish intelligentsia. An even deadlier only momentary, and with the invasion of Poland, he fate devastated the Jews. There were 3.25 million Jews in crossed the line. Two days later, with the French and EnPoland in 1939; less than 10 percent survived to 1945. glish declarations of war, World War II began. The largest number were exterminated in various death
Germany Invades Poland camps, of which Treblinka, Sobibór, and Auschwitz have become particular symbols of the Holocaust. The Jewish partisan movement began in the summer of 1942 as a result of the German action to liquidate the ghettos by transporting the Jews to the death camps. The nightmare lasted only a few years, but wounds of the German invasion lingered long after the fighting ended. —Samuel K. Eddy and Douglas W. Richmond Further Reading Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. This definitive biography tells the story of Hitler’s career, which culminated in the outbreak of World War II. Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan. Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004. Study of the internal politics of Poland during German occupation during World War II, as well as during the Soviet occupation that occurred in the war’s aftermath. Maps, bibliographic references, index. Colvin, Ian. Vansittart in Office. London: Victor Gollancz, 1965. Fills in details of British diplomatic activity behind the Chamberlain administration. Garli½ski, Jozef. Poland in the Second World War. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1985. Concludes that despite the mistakes it committed, the Polish government could not have avoided confrontation with Germany and the Soviet Union. Gross, Jan. Polish Society Under German Occupation: The General Government, 1939-1944. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979. The longest and most severe occupation by Germany of any European country receives detailed consideration here. Krakowski, Shmuel. The War of the Damned: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942-1944. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1984. Krakowski describes the conflict in Poland between Hitler’s forces and the Jews,
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 who were determined to resist the Third Reich even at the cost of their lives. Namier, Lewis B. Europe in Decay: A Study of Disintegration, 1936-1940. London: Macmillan, 1949. Reprint. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1963. A series of well-written, analytic reviews of the memoirs of some of the principal leaders who participated in the diplomatic prelude to the war—a series of pictures of demoralized and debased European ministers of state. Reynaud, Paul. In the Thick of the Fight. Translated by J. D. Lambert. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955. A personal memoir by the French statesman and cabinet minister. Taylor, A. J. P. The Origins of the Second World War. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961. An interpretation of the events leading up to the invasion of Poland that blames Britain and France for causing the war. Toynbee, Arnold, and Veronica M. Toynbee, eds. Survey of International Affairs, 1939-1946. The Eve of War, 1939. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. A detailed study, country by country, of the events of the summer of 1939, written by experts. Trzcinska-Croydon, Lilka. The Labyrinth of Dangerous Hours: A Memoir of the Second World War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Personal memoir of a Polish fighter in the underground resistance who was eventually captured and sent to Auschwitz. See also: Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty; Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Aug. 2324, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway; May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Canada Enters World War II
September 10, 1939
Canada Enters World War II Canadian soldiers proved to be tough, battle-hardy fighters capable of major contributions to the Allied war effort. Troops from Canada were on the front lines of some of the war’s most dangerous campaigns. Locale: Canada; France; Italy; England Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II
Summary of Event When Great Britain declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939, Canada was expected to do the same. In a show of independence, Canada waited one week before declaring war on September 10, 1939. With the nation’s experience during World War I still fresh, Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had promised the people of Canada that conscription would be instituted only for domestic military service and that Canadian citizens would not be forced to fight a foreign war. By 1942, however, it became clear that conscription for foreign military service could not be avoided. King decided to put the matter to a vote of the people, and on April 27, 1942, the Canadians voted three to one for conscription. The Canadian troops’ first engagement in battle during World War II occurred not in Europe but in Hong Kong. In October of 1941, when troops were ordered to prepare for deployment in the Pacific, the threat of war with Japan was not yet imminent. The Canadian troops were not well prepared for battle engagements: The 1,975 Canadian soldiers assigned to the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong had expected to see only garrison duties. On December 18, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Hong Kong. The Canadians fought gallantly, holding out until Great Britain surrendered Hong
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Key Figures William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), chancellor of Germany, 1933-1945 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), prime minister and dictator of Italy, 1922-1943
Kong to the Japanese on Christmas Day. Of the 1,975 Canadian troops defending Hong Kong, approximately 550 died either in battle or as prisoners of war, and about 500 Canadian troops were wounded. The total casualty rate amounted to more than 50 percent, one of the highest in all of Canada’s wartime theaters. The first Canadian battle on the European continent came on August 19, 1942, at Dieppe, France. Intended as a test for a large-scale invasion of Europe, the exercise was ultimately a huge disaster for the Canadians, who lost the element of surprise and were forced to surrender. Nearly 5,000 Canadian troops were committed to the one-day-long Battle of Dieppe; of these, approximately 2,000 were taken prisoner and nearly 1,000 were killed. In this battle, the Canadian air force lost 13 aircraft and 10 pilots, and the British air force lost 106 planes and 81 crew members. These combined losses made August 19, 1942, the day of the Allied air forces’ greatest losses. The Canadians’ next major effort took place in Italy. After recovering from the Battle of Dieppe, the First Canadian Army trained extensively in England and numbered 250,000 troops. The First Infantry Division and a tank brigade participated in the invasion of Sicily on July 10, 1943, but the four-week campaign took its toll on the Canadians. On September 3, 1943, Canada’s First Infantry Division and British soldiers landed at Italy’s southern tip. Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist dictator, had already been removed from power, and the Italians had signed a secret armistice with the Allies. The Germans were still determined to defend Italy, however, and they posed a formidable threat to the Allies. The most notable clash between the Canadians and Germans in Italy was known as Little Stalingrad, and it occurred in Ortona, Italy, in December of 1943. The Canadians fought fiercely and helped to clear the way for the liberation of Rome on June 4, 1944, but at heavy cost. Approximately 93,000 Canadians fought in Italy, and the casualty rate there topped 25 percent casualties, including almost 6,000 killed in action. While the Italian campaign occupied twenty divisions of German forces, the Allies were preparing for the massive invasion of Western Europe. Two days after the Allied liberation of Rome, the D-day invasion began in France. For several months, the Royal Canadian Air Force had been bombing the area they planned
Canada Enters World War II
Canada Joins the Allied War Effort Following Great Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on September 3, 1939, Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King addressed the people of Canada to inform them of the steps their country would take next. He concluded his address with these words: In what manner and to what extent Canada may most effectively be able to co-operate in the common cause is . . . something which Parliament itself will decide. All I need to add at the moment is that Canada, as a free nation of the British Commonwealth, is bringing her cooperation voluntarily. Our effort will be voluntary. The people of Canada will, I know, face the days of stress and strain which lie ahead with calm and resolute courage. There is no home in Canada, no family, and no individual whose fortunes and freedom are not bound up in the present struggle. I appeal to my fellow-Canadians to unite in a national effort to save from destruction all that makes life itself worth living, and to preserve for future generations those liberties and institutions which others have bequeathed to us.
to invade, preparing it for the Allied offensive. The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships and more than 10,000 sailors to the invasion effort. Canadian minesweepers cleared a path across the English Channel for the invading fleet, and Canadian destroyers pounded German beach fortifications while armed merchant cruisers ferried soldiers to the beach and later carried the wounded back to England. The Canadian infantry and tanks that landed at Juno Beach in Normandy worked to eliminate the German fortifications that had escaped damage from the naval bombardment. The Canadian troops again proved themselves in battle, and by the end of the day they had destroyed the German fortifications covering the beach and were moving inland. Canadian losses at Juno Beach numbered approximately 340 dead, 600 wounded, and 50 prisoners of war. The ensuing Battle of Normandy was costly for both the Axis and the Allied powers. More than 300,000 Axis soldiers were killed, and they lost most of their equipment, including more than 2,000 tanks. The Canadians’ casualties numbered around 18,500, with more than 5,000 dead. Although these high casualty rates were partly due to misguided command decisions and lack of training, they were also the result of the particularly dan3214
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 gerous tasks to which the Canadians were assigned. Canadian troops were placed at the spearhead of the attacking forces and therefore suffered more casualties than others. Some scholars have claimed that the Canadians often volunteered for the more difficult tasks and so naturally suffered especially high casualty rates. On July 25, 1944, the second-bloodiest day for the Canadians occurred near Caen, where the British and Canadians were to keep German forces contained while the Americans prepared an attack. The Americans were delayed by bad weather, and the Canadians were ordered to carry out an attack on their own. The Germans had laid many traps, and the Canadians paid a heavy price: The Black Watch regiment, for example, had 300 men at the start of the day and only 15 at its end. In total, the attack cost more than 1,500 Canadian lives. After the invasion at Normandy, the Canadians were largely responsible for defending northwestern Europe. Their most notable concerns included clearing northern coastal France and capturing the rocket-launching sites that were still sending rockets toward England. The Canadians also reopened the Schelde Estuary to the Belgian port of Antwerp. Significance The Canadian military forces played a vital and effective role in all theaters of operation during and especially after World War II. Canadian troops—like the forces from other Allied nations—were ill prepared for the fighting, but they quickly became battle hardened. In places such as Dieppe and Caen, the Canadians’ willingness to meet the challenges posed by their experienced adversaries proved the soldiers’ bravery and constitution. Their active participation in operations from the Pacific to the Netherlands ensured their place in the top echelon of the Allied fighters. In addition to its wartime sacrifices, Canada made some gains during World War II. The Canadians began the war with fewer than a dozen naval vessels and left it with well over a hundred. Moreover, Canada’s economic recovery after the Great Depression occurred very rapidly because of the war, and the nation established many social programs and support systems for war veterans. —Glenn S. Hamilton Further Reading French, David. Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany, 1919-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Details the assembly of the Allied forces that fought against the Axis countries during World War II.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gilbert, Adrian. Germany’s Lightning War: The Campaigns of World War II. Newton Abbot, England: David and Charles, 2000. Provides a vast amount of tactical information, some of which centers on Canadian involvement in World War II. Townshend, Charles, ed. Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Presents extensive discussion and photographs concerning the Canadian involvement in World War II.
Rockefeller Center Is Completed See also: July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada; 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Aug., 19301935: Bennett Era in Canada; Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement; Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada; Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II; May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning; Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement.
November 1, 1939
Rockefeller Center Is Completed
Locale: New York, New York Categories: Architecture; urban planning Key Figures John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960), American financier, real estate developer, and philanthropist Raymond Hood (1881-1934), American architect Nelson A. Rockefeller (1908-1979), president of Rockefeller Center, Incorporated David Sarnoff (1891-1971), founder and president of the Radio Corporation of America Summary of Event On November 1, 1939, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., drove the last rivet on Rockefeller Center during a ceremony marking the official completion of the New York City commercial and entertainment complex. The building program, which for ten years had symbolized corporate optimism in the face of the Great Depression, consisted at the time of thirteen structures and a plaza that would become famous. Speaking at the completion ceremony were Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, which held the lucrative land lease on the property; David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which was the anchor tenant in the project’s main building; Thomas A. Murray, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, who extolled the project as a model of corporate and union cooperation; New York mayor Fiorello H. La
Guardia; and Nelson A. Rockefeller, the president of Rockefeller Center, Incorporated, who served as the master of ceremonies. Rockefeller Center held both short-term and longterm significance to the institutions and constituencies represented by the speakers. Columbia University saw its income from the land on which the complex was built increase more than tenfold, from $300,000 per year to $3.3 million. RCA received a corporate home of unsurpassed prestige, almost immediate and universal name recognition, and the most modern facilities in which to create and showcase its productions. The ten-year construction period had provided 75,000 jobs at union wages during the height of the Depression, and had created an estimated 150,000 jobs in support industries. New York City found in Rockefeller Center—in addition to the benefits of employment and tax revenue—a focal point and landmark that became synonymous with the city itself. For John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the complex that bore his name would become the most famous and enduring monument and legacy of his career. The son of the oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Sr., he had focused his interests on real estate development and the philanthropic charities that his father had established. At the same time that he was building Rockefeller Center, he was also organizing and financing the restoration of colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. His intentions for Rockefeller Center were impressively fulfilled. He wanted good design, profitable returns on investment, and international tenants who would help to stimulate foreign trade. The center also symbolized his optimism in the nation’s future and his belief in civic-minded corporatism. The completion of Rockefeller Center was the final result of an idea that had originally been relatively tradi3215
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The completion of Rockefeller Center, the first planned complex of city office buildings and public spaces in the United States, influenced urban planning and provided a symbolic focus for Depression-era New York City.
Rockefeller Center Is Completed tional and modest. Ten years earlier, the Metropolitan Opera had been looking to build a new theater. Rockefeller became involved and collected rights to the leases on Columbia University’s land and neighboring properties in midtown Manhattan, and he helped to implement a plan that would include a new opera house supported by rents from surrounding commercial buildings. He set up the Metropolitan Square Corporation, headed by Arthur Woods, to oversee the property. Todd, Robertson, Todd Engineering was named first as developers and later as managers of the project. L. Andrew Reinhard and Henry Hofmeister were appointed as architects, with Benjamin Morris, Raymond Hood, and Harvey Corbett as consultants. Initially, Rockefeller’s involvement was to end with the development of the property and his donation of the public plaza. The stock market crash of October 29, 1929, forced the Metropolitan Opera to withdraw from the project, however, and Rockefeller assumed full financial responsibility. The overall plan for the center evolved over the next several years. The architectural team of Reinhard and Hofmeister was expanded to include a consortium of firms, including Corbett, Harrison, and MacMurray and Hood, Godley, and Foulihoux, which called itself the Associated Architects. Of this group, Reinhard, Hofmeister, Harrison, and Hood were most active in the design. All the architects had in common a background in the Beaux-Arts tradition of architecture and an interest in and familiarity with modern styles and practices. Their approaches to design and construction might best be described as conservative modernism. In consideration of the state of the nation’s economy, the architects were instructed to maximize the income potential of the land but still to design a complex that would be humane and modern. The central position previously allocated to the Metropolitan Opera House was replaced with a towering skyscraper, the RCA building. Massed around it in an abstract angular composition were other skyscrapers of varying heights that became the corporate centers of such major companies as the Time-Life Corporation, Eastern Airlines, the Associated Press, and the American Rubber Company. Lower buildings, serving as trade centers for foreign countries, flanked a promenade that funneled pedestrians from Fifth Avenue to the plaza at the center of the complex. By the time Rockefeller drove the last rivet, Rockefeller Center, symbol of the metropolis of the future, encompassed more than five million square feet of office space. Although the shapes and proportions of the buildings were to a certain extent predetermined by zoning restric3216
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 tions and tenants’ needs, architect Raymond Hood is credited with dominating the final style of the center. Hood had won the Chicago Tribune building design competition in 1922; since then, his skyscraper style had shown an evolving abstraction and simplification of the stepped-back gothic tower popular with architects in the 1920’s and 1930’s. For Hood and other architects of the period, the setbacks, originally imposed by zoning laws to permit light penetration to the streets, were not merely practical necessities; they were design elements that gave skyscrapers upward movement, energy, and visual variety. Hood’s incorporation of setbacks to relieve the monolithic nature of the RCA Building thus tied the design of the structure firmly to the more conservative, historically derived forces of early twentieth century architecture, in contrast to the more radical abstract modernism that had developed in Europe by the late 1920’s. Rockefeller Center’s unity of design extended beyond related building styles and materials. The interior decoration of the structures was developed according to a theme, the progress of civilization, in order to give the complex spiritual content. Murals and sculptures were sought from the most prominent artists of the day. At times, as in the case of Pablo Picasso, the commissions were refused because artists were either unsympathetic to corporate interests or resistant to dictated content. On one occasion, the management received more than it expected. In 1934, the Mexican painter Diego Rivera’s mural Man at the Crossroads caused a scandal when communist iconography was identified in it; Rivera’s mural was eventually removed and reconstituted in Mexico City. Throughout the complex, the dominant stylistic influence on the decorative program was Art Deco. Even before its official completion, Rockefeller Center became a magnet for visitors. Its soaring edifices and open spaces seemed to represent the best that a city could be and encouraged hope in a future of prosperity during the dark years of the Depression. Significance Rockefeller Center marked a turning point in urban planning and development in the United States. It was the first time that a complex of stylistically related commercial buildings had been planned in the middle of a city. Its public plaza was unprecedented both for being privately built and supported and for being urban rather than rural or agrarian in design and ambience. The mixture of skyscrapers and low buildings, all visually unified but each one surrounded by light and air, became a benchmark for corporate urbanism and a model for subsequent develop-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Rockefeller Center Is Completed
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prise. This integrated approach was to add a new dimenments in other cities after World War II. Prior to the consion to corporate building in the following decades. struction of Rockefeller Center, the large-scale planning The center’s influence was felt not only in the area of and design of large sections of city property had been corporate urbanism but also in the development of New the domain of city governments, especially through the York City itself. Through its location between Fifth and “cities beautiful” movement at the turn of the century. Sixth Avenues, Rockefeller Center anchored and stabiSubsequently, the private sector would lead the way, allized the shopping district on the first street and helped to though frequently with municipal aid and encouragerevitalize the second. It inaugurated a midtown business ment. Not all of these developments would be as successdistrict that expanded after World War II as other office ful as Rockefeller Center, and certain practices, such as towers clustered in its vicinity, borrowing its prestige the wholesale destruction of older buildings and homes to make way for redevelopment, would become controversial legacies of the Rockefeller program. Part of Rockefeller Center’s success and influence stemmed from its designers’ attempts to incorporate features that would relieve the potential for urban congestion inherent in a project of its size. The center featured the first integral garage in an urban commercial building. Underground roadways permitted trucks to make deliveries, and at the completion ceremony, it was noted that eight hundred trucks serviced the center daily without disrupting traffic on neighboring streets. Underground walkways connected the buildings as well. Shops and restaurants helped to service the office workers’ practical needs. Although the primary function of Rockefeller Center was commercial, public use was not only permitted but also encouraged. The famous skating rink in the plaza was added specifically to increase pedestrian traffic in the complex’s central area. Visitors were allowed access to terrace and rooftop gardens. Shops and exhibitions invited strolling and browsing. Extravagant displays of flags and seasonal decorations evoked a festive mood. The emphasis on the center as an integrated focal point of the urban fabric of the city, a self-contained community tied to the larger metropolis, reflected the designers’ attempt to adapt contemporary European theories of soRockefeller Center’s RCA Building in 1933, six years before the entire complex was cial urban planning to an emphatically completed. (Library of Congress) capitalistic, profit-motivated enter-
Rockefeller Center Is Completed and, at times, even its designs. Radio City Music Hall became a center of popular entertainment and a main tourist attraction for the area, and the plaza, with its seasonal decorations and skating rink frequently featured in television programs and motion pictures, became one of the most recognized urban sites in the country. —Madeline C. Archer Further Reading Balfour, Alan. Rockefeller Center: Architecture as Theater. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. Descriptive, condensed history of the project presents detailed analysis of the buildings themselves, the architects, and the theoretical and historical influences on the designs. Features more than two hundred photographs, including views of the property before construction and of the subsequent development in the area. Includes notes, brief annotated bibliography, and index. Jordy, William. “Rockefeller Center and Corporate Urbanism.” In The Impact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century. Vol. 5 in American Buildings and Their Architects. 1972. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Informative, considered analysis of the successes and failures of Rockefeller Center’s architecture and public spaces. Places the plan within the historical context of urban design and planning, thus explaining its conservative and innovative features. Includes photographs and footnotes. Kilham, Walter H., Jr. Raymond Hood, Architect: Form Through Function in the American Skyscraper. 1974. Reprint. New York: Architectural Book Publishing, 1999. Subjective, first-person account by a member of Hood’s architectural firm provides a behind-thescenes view of architectural practices, Hood’s personality and attitudes, and the problems attendant on various commissions, including Rockefeller Center. Includes bibliography and index. Krinsky, Carol H. Rockefeller Center. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Comprehensive, scholarly contextual history of the project, including later developments through the 1970’s. Examines the center’s impacts and influences as well as its art and decorative program. Includes photographs, illustrations, extensive bibliography, and index. Loth, David. The City Within a City. New York: William Morrow, 1966. Anecdotal, accessible account of Rockefeller Center’s history and development. Pro-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 vides background on the principal participants and recounts colorful episodes. Okrent, Daniel. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center. New York: Viking Press, 2003. Entertaining account by a journalist traces the events surrounding the creation of the center and places the accomplishment in the context of its times. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. Reynolds, Donald Martin. The Architecture of New York City: Histories and Views of Important Structures, Sites, and Symbols. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1994. Interesting and informative chronological survey of New York City architecture from the seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth century. Provides details about a wide range of significant buildings and structures. Chapter 13 is devoted to Rockefeller Center. Includes glossary, bibliography, and index. Rockefeller Center, Incorporated. The Last Rivet: The Story of Rockefeller Center, a City Within a City, as Told at the Ceremony in Which John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Drove the Last Rivet of the Last Building, November 1, 1939. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940. Essentially a transcript of the ceremony that marked the official completion of Rockefeller Center. Includes texts of speeches describing the history of the property and project. Notably absent are any references to the designers or architects. Especially interesting for comparative reasons, as researchers have found certain details of the history recollected in the speeches of some major participants to be erroneous. Includes photographs of the property before, during, and after construction. Roth, Leland M. American Architecture: A History. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. Discussion of the history of architecture in the United States examines the many different forces that have influenced styles and trends. Places the design of the urban skyscraper within the larger national context. Includes many illustrations, chronology, glossary, and index. See also: May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco; Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture; May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens; Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship; Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea; May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Russo-Finnish War
November 30, 1939-March 12, 1940
Russo-Finnish War When the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Finnish territory, emulating recent German expansion, the Finns resisted, launching the Russo-Finnish War. Staunch fighting by Finnish soldiers allowed Finland to retain its independence, albeit with a significant loss of territory. Also known as: Winter War; Soviet-Finnish War Locale: Finland; Soviet Union Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; expansion and land acquisition
Summary of Event On November 30, 1939, the armed forces of the Soviet Union launched an invasion of Finnish territory. While the Soviet air force bombed Finnish cities, Soviet troops advanced into Finland on two fronts. Some units advanced eastward on a front bordered by the White Sea on the north and Lake Ladoga on the south, while a larger Soviet force advanced northward into the Karelian Isthmus between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Bothnia. The Soviets deployed 470,000 troops, supported by 2,200 tanks and more than 2,000 aircraft against a Finnish force of 295,000 men with virtually no aircraft or tanks. This invasion resulted from a number of factors in the tumultuous history of the two nations. The czars of Russia and the kings of Sweden long battled for domination of the area that later became Finland. Peter I of Russia (r. 1682-1725) incorporated most of Finland into his empire at the conclusion of the Great Northern War in 1721. During the Napoleonic wars, Al-
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Key Figures Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951), Finnish commander in chief and later president of Finland, 1944-1946 Kirill Meretskov (1897-1968), commander of Russian forces on the Finnish front, 1939 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin; 1890-1986), Russian foreign minister Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Kliment Voroshilov (1881-1969), commander of Russian forces on the Finnish front, January-March, 1940
exander I of Russia (r. 1801-1825) declared Finland to be a grand duchy with himself as its grand duke. Although many Finns were unhappy with Russian rule, no opportunity presented itself to them to break away until the Russian Revolution of 1905. With Czar Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917), the last Russian czar, distracted by revolt in his far-flung dominions, Finnish students led a revolt against the Russian ruler. Two revolutionary military forces, the Red Guard and the Nationalists, led armed assaults on Russian military garrisons. When the revolutionaries fell out among themselves over political issues, Nicholas managed to regain control of the grand duchy by granting its people nearly complete autonomy and the world’s first parliament elected by universal suffrage. When the great Russian Revolution of 1917 came, many Finns opted for complete independence. Taking advantage of Russian preoccupation with civil war between the Communists and White (royalist and nonCommunist) forces and the concurrent foreign intervention in Russia, Finnish nationalists declared Finland’s independence on July 18, 1917, and suppressed the Finnish Bolsheviks. The Red Army of the Soviet Union attempted to suppress the Finnish government, but was defeated by German troops and a Finnish army commanded by Carl Gustaf Mannerheim in May, 1918. Finnish and Soviet representatives confirmed Finland’s independence and settled the borders between their countries in the Treaty of Dorpat in 1922. Relations between the Finnish and Soviet governments remained stable and friendly until the beginnings of German rearmament and territorial expansion in the mid-1930’s. German dictator Adolf Hitler made it plain in his book Mein Kampf (1925-1927; partial English translation, 1933) that he planned to destroy communism and acquire living space for Germany’s excess population in the Ukraine. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin realized that Hitler could accomplish his ambitions only through a successful war against the Soviet Union. Stalin became increasingly anxious to strengthen Soviet defenses as Hitler became more aggressive in throwing off the territorial and military terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In planning the defense of their nation, Soviet leaders decided that they must garrison troops and ships in areas belonging to Finland. In 1937, Soviet emissaries proposed a military alliance between the two countries. The Finns turned down the Russian proposals because they wanted to remain
Russo-Finnish War
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 European countries confronted each other, Stalin occupied and annexed the Baltic republics during October and November, 1939. On October 5, Stalin summoned Finnish emissaries to Moscow. The Finnish government sent the emissaries, but at the same time ordered the mobilization of the Finnish army. The Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, demanded of the emissaries that their government allow Soviet troops to establish bases on Finnish territory. As the Finnish representatives continued to resist Soviet demands, Stalin ordered a massive military buildup on the Russo-Finnish border. He also ordered general Kirill Meretskov to plan an invasion of Finland. When Molotov reported to Stalin that the Finns would never accept the Soviet demands, the dictator ordered an invasion of Finland. On November 26, the Soviet government claimed Finnish troops had shelled the border village of Mainila. Using this supposed aggression as an excuse, the Soviet government broke off relations with the Finns on November 29 and invaded Finland the next day. Concurrently, Soviet bombers launched attacks against Finnish cities, including Helsinki. Russo-Finnish War Mannerheim, the hero of the Finnish war of independence in 1918, asBarents sumed command of the Finnish army. Sea A career soldier who had risen to the rank of general in the imperial Russian army during World War I, ManKOLA nerheim was an able commander who PENINSULA well understood the rigors of a winter war. Mannerheim and the Finnish White Sea General Staff had long planned for the possibility of a Soviet invasion of their country. Their plan called for the small Finnish army to hold the Russians at bay in the Karelian Isthmus while reserves could be called Lake to active service. Both in the isthOnega mus and on a front north of Lake LaLake Lake Päijanne Saimau Ladoga doga the Finns fought the Red Army Lake KARELIAN to a standstill in November and DeKotka ISTHMUS Helsinki cember. d Leningrad lan Fi n f During the fighting, the Finnish (St. Petersburg) o ALAND lf ISLANDS government tried to secure military Gu Estonia aid from abroad. The Germans held fast to their nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. The French and Latvia the British seemed willing to send military aid if the Finns would grant
neutral in the event of a new European war, which seemed likely. By 1939, the Soviet proposals for an alliance turned into demands for military bases for their troops in Finnish territory. The Finnish government resisted these demands, thinking that the rivalry between Germany and the Soviet Union would guarantee their own continued neutrality. The Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact of August, 1939, shattered the Finnish hope that they could continue to walk a tightrope between the two greatpower antagonists. Secret protocols of the pact divided Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The Soviet sphere included Finland and the small Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as eastern Poland. When the German army invaded Poland and defeated its armed forces in September of 1939, the Soviets occupied the eastern part of the country. The German invasion brought Great Britain and France into the war, which quickly escalated into a global conflict. While the
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Russo-Finnish War
Mannerheim’s Speech to Finnish Soldiers On March 14, 1940, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim thanked his troops for their enormous efforts and tried to explain the terms of the Treaty of Moscow. Although Mannerheim voiced appreciation for the help given by the Western powers, he also acknowledged that the Finnish army was severely hampered by the West’s refusal to grant the troops the right of transit. and Varsinais-Suomi. I am as proud of the sacrifice tendered by the child of a lowly cottage as of those of the wealthy. . . . In spite of all bravery and spirit of sacrifice, the Government has been compelled to conclude peace on severe terms, which however are explicable. Our Army was small and its reserves and cadres inadequate. We were not prepared for war with a Great Power. While our brave soldiers were defending our frontiers we had by insuperable efforts to procure what we lacked. We had to construct lines of defense where there were none. We had to try to obtain help, which failed to come. We had to find arms and equipment at a time when all the nations were feverishly arming against the storm which sweeps over the world. Your heroic deeds have aroused the admiration of the world, but after three and a half months of war we are still almost alone. We have not obtained more foreign help than two reinforced battalions equipped with artillery and aircraft for our fronts, where our own men, fighting day and night without the possibility of being relieved, have had to meet the attacks of ever fresh enemy forces, straining their physical and moral powers beyond all limits.
Source: Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, “His Commander in Chief’s Order of the Day, Nr. 34,” in Invasion in the Snow: A Study of Mechanized War, edited by John Langdon-Davies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941).
them bases for their armed forces on Finnish territory. U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly denounced Soviet actions, but he was not inclined to send military aid. The Finns were no more willing to have French and British bases on their soil than they were to have Soviet bases, so the appeal of Finnish representatives did not succeed. The Soviet troops at the front proved to be poorly led and ill equipped for war in conditions where the temperature often reached forty degrees below zero and lower. Their offensive halted, the Red Army found itself constantly harassed by the Finns and without supplies. Thousands were killed in the fighting and thousands more froze or starved to death. Even while his troops were dying, Stalin was planning a new offensive. In December, the Soviet dictator replaced most of the generals on the Finnish front. General Kliment Voroshilov became the commander of Soviet forces and launched a new offensive against the Finns in February
of 1940 with overwhelming force. The Finnish army gave up a considerable amount of territory but managed to fight the Russians to a standstill once again. By this time, Mannerheim had given up on aid from the French or British, and he advised the Finnish government to make peace on any terms short of unconditional surrender. The Finns negotiated an armistice on February 13. Peace was finalized in the Treaty of Moscow, signed on March 12, 1940. The Finns had lost 22,425 men killed, 43,557 wounded, and 1,434 missing in action. The Russians had lost 53,500 killed, 176,000 wounded, and 16,000 missing in action. The exact numbers of civilian casualties are unknown, but hundreds of Finnish civilians died in the Russian bombings, which intensified during January and February, 1940. Significance The terms of the Treaty of Moscow forced the Finns to give up more than thirty-five thousand square kilometers 3221
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Soldiers of the glorious Finnish army! Peace has been concluded between our country and the Soviet Union, an exacting peace which has ceded to Soviet Russia nearly every battlefield on which you have shed your blood on behalf of everything we hold dear and sacred. You did not want war; you loved peace, work and progress; but you were forced into a struggle in which you have done great deeds, deeds that will shine for centuries in the pages of history. More than fifteen thousand of you who took the field will never again see your homes, and how many those are who have lost for ever their ability to work. But you have also dealt hard blows, and if two hundred thousand of our enemies now lie on the snowdrifts, gazing with broken eyes at our starry sky, the fault is not yours. You did not hate them or wish them evil; you merely followed the stern law of war: kill or be killed. Soldiers: I have fought on many battlefields, but never have I seen your like as warriors. I am as proud of you as though you were my own children; l am as proud of the man from the Northern fells as of the son of Ostrobothnia’s plains, of the Carelian forests, the hills of Savo, the fertile fields of Häme and Satakunta, the leafy copses of Uusimaa
Russo-Finnish War of their territory. The Finns also agreed to the establishment of Russian military bases in their territory and signed a mutual assistance pact with the Soviets. Harsh as these terms were, the Finns kept their independence and did not suffer the fate of the Baltic republics, which were annexed outright into the Soviet Union. Through the sacrifice of their soldiers in the face of overwhelming odds, the Finns managed to keep their freedom. The mutual assistance pact proved useless, as rather than aid the Soviet Union against Germany, Finland accepted German military support when it launched the Continuation War against the Soviets in June of 1941. Perhaps the greatest significance of the Winter War lay in its effects on the stature of the Soviet Union and the Red Army in the eyes of the world. In response to the illegal invasion of Finland, the Soviet Union was ejected from the League of Nations, and despite their victory, their losses were so great as to make the Red Army look vulnerable. This perception of vulnerability may have contributed to Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union. Ironically, the Soviets’ losses could also have been interpreted as an indication of the extreme difficulty of staging an invasion in wintertime, a lesson Hitler famously learned himself when he did invade the Soviet Union. —Paul Madden Further Reading Engle, Eloise, and Lauri Paananen. The Winter War: The Soviet Attack on Finland, 1939-1940. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1973. Written for a popular audience, concentrates primarily on the soldiers and battles on the front lines.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jakobson, Max. Finland Survived: An Account of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War, 1939-1940. Helsinki, Finland: Otava, 1961. Pro-Finnish account of origins and course of the war suitable for general readers. Written by a Finn, the language is sometimes confusing and the book reveals some obvious biases. Tillotson, H. M. Finland at Peace and War, 1918-1993. Wilby Hall, England: Michael Russell, 1993. Heavily weighted toward military history, contains an account of Finnish history that puts the 1939-1940 war into a broader perspective of Finnish history. Trotter, William R. A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 2000. Surveys the origins, course, and results of the war in language accessible to most readers. Bibliographic references and index. Upton, Anthony F. Finland, 1939-1940. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1974. A concise overview of the origins of the war, the battles of the war, and the war’s results. Recommended for high school audiences and above. Van Dyke, Carl. The Soviet Invasion of Finland, 19391940. Portland, Oreg.: F. Cass, 2001. A volume in F. Cass’s series on Soviet military experience: Recounts the war from the Soviet perspective and places it in the context of Soviet history. Bibliographic references. See also: Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
December 15, 1939 GONE WITH THE
Gone with the Wind Premieres
WIND Premieres
Following its premiere, Gone with the Wind, independently produced by David O. Selznick, received a then-record ten Academy Awards and became the biggest blockbuster in motion-picture history to that time. Locale: Atlanta, Georgia Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment
Summary of Event In 1935, David O. Selznick left Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the premiere Hollywood studio of the time, to form Selznick International Pictures. As an independent producer, Selznick made films that were in keeping with his preference for adaptations of classical novels, often with central roles for women. Early in 1936, at the urging of his East Coast story editor Kay Brown, Selznick read a synopsis of an as-yet-unpublished Civil War melodrama by Margaret Mitchell. Worried about the box-office failure of other Civil War stories and the length of the novel, Selznick initially refused to pay the asking price of sixtyfive thousand dollars for the book’s film rights. Just a week after the book’s official publication in July, 1936, Selznick reconsidered and made an offer of fifty thousand dollars, which was accepted. The novel immediately became a runaway best seller, and the Gone with the Wind phenomenon began. Selznick was obsessive about his role in film production. No detail was too small for his involvement, and no price was too high to achieve the quality he sought. These facts are partially responsible for the cost and length of the production of Gone with the Wind. In addition, Selznick had a contract with United Artists to distribute the films he produced through 1938. Popular opinion,
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Key Figures David O. Selznick (1902-1965), American independent film producer Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949), American novelist Vivien Leigh (1913-1967), British film actor Clark Gable (1901-1960), American film actor Olivia de Havilland (b. 1916), American film actor Leslie Howard (1893-1943), British film actor Hattie McDaniel (1895-1952), African American film actor Victor Fleming (1883-1949), American film director William Cameron Menzies (1896-1957), American film production designer
however, demanded that Clark Gable, who was under contract to MGM, play the role of Rhett Butler. Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, agreed to lend Gable and to provide one-half of the film’s financing (estimated then at $2.5 million) in return for world distribution rights and half the total profits. Because he had other films then in various stages of production and because of his typically extravagant methods, Selznick did not have enough capital to make Gone with the Wind on his own. In order to get Gable and financial backing, Selznick eventually accepted Mayer’s offer. In early 1937, Selznick commissioned Sidney Howard, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, to write the screenplay. In six weeks, Howard completed a fourhundred-page script that translated into six hours of screen time. To get the script to a more manageable length, Selznick and Howard worked on three subsequent drafts in early 1938. Still not satisfied with the script, Selznick put it aside while he returned to the unresolved casting problems. During this time, as a means of focusing public attention on Gone with the Wind while stalling production until the contract with United Artists expired, Selznick’s publicity director, Russell Birdwell, orchestrated a nationwide “search for Scarlett,” seeking an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara. Selznick was never convinced that an inexperienced or unknown actress should play the central character, who would be on screen in nearly every shot of the film, but he relished the publicity that the search provided. He considered a number of established Hollywood stars for the role of Scarlett, including Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Paulette Goddard, Norma Shearer, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Katharine Hepburn, but none was felt to be quite right. Selznick signed with MGM for the use of Gable in August, 1938, and production was scheduled to begin in December, 1938, even though there was still no finished script and the roles of Scarlett and of many of the supporting characters had not yet been cast. The “burning of Atlanta,” in which old movie sets on Selznick International’s backlot were set ablaze while doubles for Rhett and Scarlett fled, initiated the production of the film. Rewrites on the script continued and employed a number of writers, including Jo Swerling, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Charles MacArthur, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ben Hecht. Selznick insisted that the writers use only dialogue from the novel and respect the narrative structure
Gone with the Wind Premieres
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On January 26, 1939, production of Gone with the Wind began in earnest, with George Cukor as director. After only a few weeks of filming, Cukor left the production, in part because of his refusal to comply with Selznick’s demand for approval of every camera setup. In addition, Cukor was widely known as a “woman’s director,” and Clark Gable felt that his role was being diminished at the expense of the female characters. Victor Fleming, with whom Gable felt comfortable, was chosen to replace Cukor. To view image, please refer to the The removal of Cukor set a tone of upprint edition of this title. heaval that was to characterize the remainder of the production. Selznick demonstrated that, with the exception of the stars, all personnel were expendable parts and that he was the dominant creative force of the production. At least five different directors, three cinematographers, and countless writers were involved in the production of Gone with the Wind—a fact that had surprisingly little effect on the film’s look, as it was Selznick, and to a lesser extent production designer William Cameron Menzies, whose vision shaped the film. Filming officially ended on June 27, 1939, although work on retakes and process shots continued. Postproduction was only slightly less chaotic than the other Searchlights frame the “Tara” facade of Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, stages of the film’s creation, but Selznick Georgia, for the premiere of Gone with the Wind. (AP/Wide World Photos) showed a four-hour version to MGM executives in late August and received an enthusiastic response. The completion of the of the original as closely as possible. None of the writers music track, intertitles, additional editing, and the largest who followed Howard was allowed to work without main title ever designed resulted in a final version runSelznick’s constant interference, and script revisions ning three hours and forty minutes. Two sneak previews continued throughout the film’s production. in September received overwhelmingly positive response, Casting decisions for principal roles were finally analthough some criticism was leveled at the amount of nounced on January 13, 1939. Olivia de Havilland landed kissing in the film and at Rhett’s final line, “Frankly, my the role of Melanie, which she had actively pursued, and dear, I don’t give a damn.” The use of any profanity, and Leslie Howard reluctantly consented to play Ashley as specifically the word “damn,” was forbidden by the Mopart of a deal that allowed him to produce his next film. tion Picture Production Code of 1930. Selznick eventuVivien Leigh was chosen to play Scarlett, and although ally received permission to use the word, although he she had been a serious contender for several months, was fined five thousand dollars for violating the code. Selznick preferred to have her arrival in Hollywood seem Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta on December 15, 1939, and the occasion delivered all the glamour the result of happenstance rather than deliberate planand spectacle of Hollywood during its heyday. Huge ning in order to avoid the wrath of rejected actresses. 3224
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 crowds thronged the spotlit theater, women fainted when Clark Gable arrived, and many of the country’s most wealthy and powerful people attended. The film went on to garner ten Academy Awards, including the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, for outstanding achievement in motion-picture production, for Selznick. The first Oscar awarded to an African American performer went to Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy and who would remain the only black to win an Oscar for another twentyfour years.
model for the production approach that eventually replaced the studio system in the new Hollywood. Selznick’s filmmaking method was not marked by the assembly-line efficiency and economy often equated with the studio system but was both extravagant and painstaking. He believed that the public would pay increased ticket prices to see high-quality film spectaculars, and the reception of Gone with the Wind proved him correct. The marketing strategy employed for the release of Gone with the Wind became a model for later blockbuster films. Exhibitors charged seventy cents at the door, two to three times the going rate for a movie ticket. Loew’s Incorporated, MGM’s parent company, charged exhibitors 70 percent of the box-office revenues, twice the usual fee for a top feature, which Loew’s then split with Selznick. Initially, the film opened only in large cities in premiere movie theaters; subsequently (nearly two years later, in some cases), it was released to second-run theaters. Gone with the Wind was reissued four times by 1948 and continued to reap profits with each new release. In 1940, Selznick International Pictures had only three films in release, but the company netted $10 million in profits that year. Only MGM, with profits of $8.7 million, was even close, and half its profits came from its distribution of Gone with the Wind. The film became the biggest blockbuster in movie history and was not dislodged from its number one position until 1965 and The Sound of Music. — Toni A. Perrine Further Reading Behlmer, Rudy, ed. Memo from David O. Selznick: The Creation of “Gone with the Wind” and Other MotionPicture Classics, as Revealed in the Producer’s Private Letters, Telegrams, Memorandums, and Autobiographical Remarks. Introduction by Roger Ebert. Massive compendium of Selznick’s personal papers and official and unofficial correspondence, revealing much about his contributions to his films and his manner in collaborating with and managing others. Filmography and index. Bridges, Herb, and Terryl C. Boodman. “Gone with the Wind”: The Definitive Illustrated History of the Book, the Movie, and the Legend. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the film. Contains hundreds of stills, many in color. Brief history of the film, from preproduction to premiere. No index. Cameron, Judy, and Paul J. Christman. The Art of “Gone with the Wind”: The Making of a Legend. Englewood 3225
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Significance The total production cost of Gone with the Wind, including prints and publicity, ran to $4.25 million, more than twice the average cost for a prestige picture of the time. The length of the film and the inclusion of an intermission were extremely rare practices. Gone with the Wind’s production eventually utilized 59 leading and supporting cast members, 2,400 extras, 1,100 horses, 375 pigs, mules, oxen, cows, dogs, and other animals, 450 vehicles, including wagons, ambulances, and gun caissons, 90 sets built using 1 million feet of lumber, 5,500 wardrobe items, and 449,512 feet of film shot in Technicolor, a relatively new process at the time. All of these elements added up to the biggest film spectacle ever produced, one that many industry insiders predicted would fail to return a profit. The popularity and profitability of Gone with the Wind signaled both the height and the beginning of the end of the Hollywood studio system. The year 1939 was a banner year for Hollywood, producing such films as Dark Victory, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and profits increased through the war years. However, the Hollywood system of “vertical integration,” in which production, distribution, and exhibition were controlled by the major Hollywood studios, was under attack as a monopolistic practice. In 1948, a court decision put an end to block booking, blind bidding, price fixing, and other unfair business practices, and the major studios were ordered to divest themselves of their theater holdings. The decision spelled the beginning of the end for the studiobased production system. As an independent producer, Selznick already worked outside the studio system, although he relied on the cooperation and financial support of the major studios to produce the top-quality “blockbuster” films that were his goal. The phenomenal success of Gone with the Wind marked the arrival of the independent producer as a dominant force in the industry, and Selznick served as a
Gone with the Wind Premieres
García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989. Introduction by Daniel Mayer Selznick. Another oversized anniversary edition, with full-page photos and more production information than the Bridges book. Includes limited index, original memos, and telegrams related to the film’s production. Flamini, Roland. Scarlett, Rhett, and a Cast of Thousands. New York: Macmillan, 1975. Numerous photos from the collection of the author and others. Includes detailed history of the film’s production and a good index. Lambert, Gavin. GWTW: The Making of “Gone with the Wind.” Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. The author knew Vivien Leigh, George Cukor, and David O. Selznick. Provides interesting information regarding the psychological disposition of the key people involved. Includes bibliography and index. Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. Explores the Hollywood studio system
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 with close analysis of representative companies, including Selznick International Pictures. Provides insightful historical context for production of Gone with the Wind. Includes notes on sources and index. Taylor, Helen. Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture Through a Transatlantic Lens. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. This study of the transatlantic reception of representations of the American South includes a chapter devoted to sequels and revisions of Gone with the Wind, attesting to the lasting popularity and influence of the work on both sides of the Atlantic. Bibliographic references and index. See also: May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement; 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking; 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular; 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy; 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach; Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres.
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García Lorca’s POET IN NEW YORK Is Published In Poet in New York, Federico García Lorca described his feelings of attraction to and repulsion by white urban American civilization from the perspective of an Old World outsider. Locale: Mexico Category: Literature Key Figures Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), Spanish poet and playwright whose travels to New York City inspired the volume Poet in New York Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Spanish Surrealist painter and close friend of García Lorca who had a strong personal and artistic impact on the writer Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), Spanish Surrealist film director who belonged to García Lorca’s circle of close friends Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American poet whose work influenced the style and content of García Lorca’s poetry in general and Poet in New York in particular Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681), Spanish playwright whose work is echoed in Poet in New York 3226
Summary of Event Federico García Lorca is widely regarded as Spain’s most distinguished twentieth century writer of poetry and drama. García Lorca was a major participant in the flowering of Spanish literature that occurred in the years between World War I (1914-1918) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), an era of richness and diversity that has been compared to the sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish Golden Age. Having already published numerous volumes of poetry, in 1929 García Lorca found himself at an artistic and personal impasse. Early that year, García Lorca had received inquiries regarding the possibility of giving a series of lectures in the United States, and at the urging of his family he embarked on his first trip outside Spain in the summer of 1929. The trip led him, via France and England, to Columbia University in New York City. Although they stimulated his literary output, the new and completely different surroundings also proved to be overwhelming and shocking. Written in 1929 and 1930 while the poet was living in New York City and published after his death, Poeta in Nueva York (1940; Poet in New York) belongs to García Lorca’s mature period of artistic evolution. It is, in fact,
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lent imagery drawn from the technological world of New York City. Poet in New York, then, reflects García Lorca’s experience of depression and alienation in a foreign reality he perceives to be hostile, yet it is also an account of his psychological journey from alienation and disorientation to reintegration into the natural world. Poet in New York marks the first appearance in García Lorca’s work of poems that seriously address the topic of homosexuality—notably in “Tu infancia en Menton” (your childhood in Menton) and “Oda a Walt Whitman” (ode to Walt Whitman). Under the aegis of the noble American poet Walt Whitman, García Lorca ventures to introduce and defend homosexual love. The poem is an ode both to Whitman and to the agonized individuals whose homosexuality brings them only the pain of frustrated love. They are alienated human beings for whom there is no place in the world and who know the anguish of unfulfilled desire. Transcending the poet’s private vision of modern civilization, Poet in New York also reflects a metaphysical dimension; modern man recognizes the spiritual wasteland in which he lives. He discovers that he is alone, empty, without roots, and without belief in a divine being. Locked in a prison of subjectivity, he no longer belongs to the world or the cosmos. Now he is conscious, and his vision separates him from the world and his gods; he is fallen. The myth of the Fall expresses both the state of man’s alienation from God and nature, resulting from consciousness, and the state of modern civilization’s alienation from any unifying reality that might have held society together as a community. Significance In the 1920’s, Surrealism exploded onto the artistic horizon with the publication of French poet André Breton’s Manifeste du surréalisme (Manifesto of Surrealism, 1969) in 1924 and the publication of the journal La Révolution surréaliste (the Surrealist revolution). Breton described Surrealism as the poet’s surrendering to a state of pure psychic automatism, a state in which the poet could express—by means of the written word—the actual functioning of thought. Poetry, then, was dictated by thought, without any control exercised by reason. Consequently, it was exempt from any aesthetic or moral concerns. García Lorca himself had participated actively in the propagation of the ideas of Surrealism in 1928 by founding and editing Gallo, an avant-garde magazine that acknowledged the influence of many prominent Surrealist poets, painters, and musicians of the day. Because García Lorca’s New York poetry was indeed 3227
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part of a new stage in his development as a poet, both stylistically and thematically. In this volume of poetry, a new vision of modern civilization is expressed, yet it is a vision that originates from some of the same emotional responses to the world that gave rise to his earlier volumes: Libro de poemas (1921; book of poems), Poema del cante jondo (1931; Poem of the Deep Song, 1987), and Romancero gitano (1928; The Gypsy Ballads of García Lorca, 1951, 1953). The themes underlying the poems of these early volumes—desire for the unattainable, nostalgia for a lost Eden, and the sterility of selfconsciousness—reappear in Poet in New York with larger social implications. García Lorca’s volume also explores the themes of materialism, dehumanization, violence, and racism. The poet-persona (although the book contains autobiographical elements, the speaker in each of the poems in the volume cannot be identified with the poet) of Poet in New York becomes outraged against the empire of office buildings, the river drunk on oil, and the suits of clothing empty of humanity—all of which are the tangible results of humankind’s intellectual endeavors. In the midst of this teeming humanity, the speaker of the poems desires a moment of peace and fulfillment (which is unattainable); his nostalgia for childhood grows stronger as Eden grows more inaccessible. Near the beginning of the volume, García Lorca’s persona identifies with a tree that cannot bear fruit because of its self-consciousness. By the end of the volume, however, the speaker identifies with nature and with the blood and human vitality of natural violence. He sides with the blacks of Harlem, and he experiences all the pain of consciousness. Rendered passive by the impact of this harsh world on his suffering sensibility, he can only name the objects of his nightmare vision. In his outrage, however, when he has sufficient strength to react against this world, he calls for a revolution that will flood the streets with blood and destroy the bloodless suits of Wall Street. Thus, although some thematic similarities to his earlier poetry exist in Poet in New York, the manner in which García Lorca confronts the New World (New York City) radically differs from his manner of expression prior to his departure from Spain (the Old World). García Lorca moves from a state of participation in nature and in his community, manifested in the rhythmic, frequently dramatic poetry of imagery drawn from the natural world of southern Spain, to a state of extreme estrangement and dislocation from his familiar universe. This alienation manifests itself in the dissonant, subjective, and vio-
García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published
García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published a startling departure from his earlier poetry in its tone of alienation and violent imagery, and because of its surface resemblance to some French Surrealist poetry written by Breton and Paul Éluard, Poet in New York was generally labeled as Surrealist at the time of its publication. Although Poet in New York does reflect the influence of Surrealism in both its use of language and its imagery, however, there is a basic difference between Breton’s Surrealist poetry and García Lorca’s symbolic poetry. García Lorca’s New York poetry functions symbolically and metaphorically. The irrational, illogical, surrealistic (but not Surrealist) images, considered together, compose an organic whole expressive of a feeling or idea in the poet’s mind; these images come into being by their relation to the subject rather than by their relation to each other. In other words, the notion of automatism or chance, which is at the root of Surrealist creation, is not an active force in García Lorca’s New York poetry. The critical reception of Poet in New York has been extremely varied. When the poems started to appear, many Spanish critics, certain that García Lorca was a popular poet, tended to regard the poetry from the New York period as a temporary aberration on his part. It was considered a strange, impenetrable work, apparently Surrealist in origin. To many, the New York poems represented a rejection of the traditional style of his earlier poetry and an embarkation on a new experiment in poetic creation. García Lorca’s “experiment” was regarded by many as a failure: In their opinion the poetry somehow did not measure up to the greatness of his earlier work. The issue of García Lorca’s influence is complex. In Spain, García Lorca’s New York poetry did have an effect on his younger contemporaries, but this influence is difficult to isolate from the influence García Lorca himself was receiving. García Lorca certainly influenced the poet Luis Cernuda, a poet of similar but more refined temperament; Cernuda followed García Lorca in the note of rebellion that finally broke out openly in the former’s poetry. Other prominent Spanish poets never accepted García Lorca’s Surrealist manner. They were unable to accept the iconoclastic aspects of his work—both in form and content—specifically those aspects that clashed with Spanish tradition. After the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, Spanish poets returned to formalism and tranquillity, to simple human expression, and even to religion under the varied influence of many poets, including the modern poet Antonio Machado. Aside from evoking an appreciation of its rebelliousness and prohibited themes, García Lorca’s New York poetry had little direct impact on later Spanish poets. 3228
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 In Latin America, however, the situation proved different. Among the many Latin American poets influenced by García Lorca were Carlos Correa in Chile, Miguel Otero Silva in Venezuela, Jorge Zalamea in Colombia, Claudia Lars in Central America, and Manuel José Lira in Mexico. To them, García Lorca was a spokesman not only for his native Spain but also for the twentieth century Western world. García Lorca’s work presented a new spiritual insight. Tormented and mutilated, but still sensually realistic, the New York poems carried a peculiarly important message to the modern age. They were not viewed as the fabrications of a mind that had lost touch with reality, as the outpourings of a Surrealist creating a gruesome antihuman nightmare world. Although they were regarded as García Lorca’s most difficult poems—musically discordant, disrupted in meter, poured into arbitrary autonomous form, cascading with the fragments of exploded metaphor—their secret was that a new world of imagery had been created to embody the intense spiritual effort that informs them. The intricate imagistic and metaphoric language of Poet in New York proceeds from a vision of the world that, finding no expressive instrument in the traditions of any literary medium, demanded of the poet a new imaginative invention. Poet in New York, an intensely personal yet strikingly universal work, is an example of modern alienation from self, family, society, and religion. The work has been regarded as an apocalyptic vision of the United States. On the social level, García Lorca denounces the poverty and exploitation he sees around him, criticizes Wall Street (which was in the midst of the 1929 stock market crash) and its materialism and capitalism, hurls invectives against the pope and much of organized religion, and even looks forward to the day when a cataclysmic upheaval is envisioned as overtaking the city. — Genevieve Slomski Further Reading Allen, Rupert C. The Symbolic World of Federico García Lorca. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972. In this original study of García Lorca’s poetic and dramatic use of symbolism, the author discusses Poet in New York as a volcanic eruption of symbols of personal as well as social destruction, disease, and disintegration. Contains bibliography. Barea, Arturo. Lorca: The Poet and His People. Translated by Ilsa Barea. London: Faber & Faber, 1954. Although somewhat dated, Barea’s study argues that, above all, García Lorca’s work is “popular” in the
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Pantheon Books, 1997. An essential work by a noted scholar. Thoroughly analyzes García Lorca’s literary and political activity. Londre, Felicia Hardison. Federico García Lorca. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984. This perceptive work discusses the personal and artistic influences in García Lorca’s life, his major plays, the musicality of his early poetry, and the folk ballads, paintings, and stories. It also analyzes the new directions in his more mature poetry. Useful bibliography. Maurer, Christopher. Introduction to Poet in New York. Translated by Greg Simon and Steven F. White. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988. In this brief but excellent essay, Maurer points out the many reasons why he considers Poet in New York to have been a turning point in the poet’s work. Also discusses the volume in the context of the poet’s life. Predmore, Richard L. Lorca’s New York Poetry: Social Injustice, Dark Love, Lost Faith. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1980. The aim of this original study is to explore and elucidate the poetic symbolism and thematic structure of García Lorca’s New York poetry. Predmore measures the poetic language of the work in the light of the ambiguous symbolism already developed in earlier works. Contains a brief bibliography. See also: 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land; Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born; Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge; July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins; Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica; July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica.
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sense that it touched a generation, speaking to the emotional and revolutionary forces that were beginning to take shape. In addition, the author discusses the themes of sex and death in García Lorca’s poetry and drama. Includes appendix of Spanish quotations from García Lorca’s works. Cobb, Carl W. Federico García Lorca. New York: Twayne, 1967. The aim of this perceptive, well-written work is to give a general overview of some of García Lorca’s representative works. Cobb devotes an entire chapter to Poet in New York and discusses the prophetically tragic outlook that infuses García Lorca’s work with the turbulence, rebellion, and frustration of spirit of the modern age. Chronology, bibliography. Craige, Betty Jean. Lorca’s “Poet in New York”: The Fall into Consciousness. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1977. This brief scholarly study focuses on the Fall as the thematic center of Poet in New York. The nostalgia for a lost Eden and the sterility of selfconsciousness, according to Craige, are the driving forces of the volume. Discusses the work in the context of García Lorca’s earlier poetry. Contains a brief bibliography. Dalí, Salvador, et al. Sebastian’s Arrows: Letters and Mementos of Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca. Translated by Christopher Maurer. Chicago: Swan Isle Press, 2005. A careful and fascinating study of the friendship between these two men. Includes an excellent introduction by Maurer, a Spanish professor at Boston University. Gibson, Ian. Federico García Lorca: A Life. New York:
García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published
Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America
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Wright’s NATIVE SON Depicts Racism in America Richard Wright’s Native Son shocked white Americans with its graphic depiction of the rage and violence engendered by racism in the hearts of African Americans. Locale: Chicago, Illinois Categories: Literature; social issues and reform Key Figure Richard Wright (1908-1960), African American writer Summary of Event In 1939, Richard Wright completed work on Native Son, his second work of fiction and his first full-length novel. The book’s publication in 1940 immediately established Wright as an important author and a spokesman on conditions facing African Americans. Earlier, Wright had published a collection of four novellas titled Uncle Tom’s Children (1938), which gained him the attention of some literary critics and helped him to win a Guggenheim Fellowship. The fellowship enabled Wright to devote all his time to writing. Native Son, published by Harper’s, was unlike any book by an African American writer ever published up to that time. Speaking of Uncle Tom’s Children, Wright had said, “I had written a book which even bankers’ daughters could read and weep over and feel good. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears.” Native Son was indeed such a book. To avoid the unfocused sympathy of those who wished to avoid the hard realities of life for African Americans, Wright created for his protagonist a violent young black man in Chicago, Bigger Thomas, who murders two women, one black and one white, and who is then condemned to death, which he faces unrepentantly. Bigger and all his friends are resentful, frustrated by racism, and both fearful of the white world and inclined to violence toward it. Harper’s was somewhat concerned about the graphic nature of some of the book, but the publisher insisted on only limited changes. Just before publication, however, the Book-of-the-Month Club expressed interest in including Native Son as one of its selections if several sexually explicit scenes were removed and if Bigger Thomas did not show such obvious sexual interest in the white character, Mary Dalton. Wright agreed to these changes. 3230
Upon publication in 1940, Native Son became an immediate hit. In less than six months, a quarter of a million copies had been sold at five dollars a copy—at a time when the minimum wage in the United States was thirtyfive cents an hour. The first edition sold out in only three hours. Virtually every major newspaper and magazine in the nation reviewed the book. Native Son was on the best seller list for nearly four months. No other African American writer had ever achieved such fame and financial success. Moreover, no other African American writer had ever focused such attention on the conditions of life in black ghettos before. In the introduction to the first edition, Dorothy Canfield wrote: “Native Son is the first report in fiction we have had from those who succumb to . . . crosscurrents of contradictory nerve impulses, from those whose behavior patterns give evidence of the same bewildering, senseless tangle of abnormal nerve-reactions studied in animals in laboratory experiments.” For many white Americans, Bigger Thomas became a symbol of the entire black community. Prior to the publication of Native Son, Wright had worked at a variety of jobs to support himself, his invalid mother, a number of relatives, and a wife. These jobs had included janitorial work, selling burial insurance, employment on the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration, and occasional writing for leftwing and Communist Party publications. Wright had joined the Communist Party in 1935, but he resigned his membership in 1944. With the financial security brought by the success of Native Son, Wright could devote himself to literary pursuits, and he spent the rest of his life writing. The first impact of Native Son on Wright’s writing was to encourage him to produce an autobiography, Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth (1945), which described his life growing up in the South. Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1908, and his parents then took the family to Memphis, where Wright’s father abandoned them. There followed an itinerant existence in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi that entailed rough and bruising contact with Jim Crow segregation laws and the heavy-handed demands for obsequious behavior made by the racial etiquette of the place and time. Black Boy ended with Wright’s migration to Chicago and the vaguely expressed hope that life would be better there. This book also became a matter of national debate and helped to establish Wright as a commentator
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on current racial conditions, not just a writer of fiction. More than four hundred thousand copies of the book were sold within a few weeks. The financial independence delivered by Native Son also allowed Wright to make some personal changes. He divorced his first wife, to whom he had been married for less than a year, and married Ellen Poplar, a Jewish woman, in 1942. The couple had one child, a daughter named Julia. The African American community recognized the accomplishment represented by Native Son when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) awarded Wright its prestigious Spingarn Medal in 1940. Native Son launched Wright’s career as a writer. He went on to produce nineteen major fiction and nonfiction works, screenplays, and stage plays, and he became the first of the modern generation of African American writers.
three approved of integrated schools or neighborhoods. Most whites, however, seemed to feel that blacks were satisfied with existing conditions. The usual white concept of African Americans was bifurcated. On one hand were the happy-go-lucky “darkies,” who were obviously poor and socially unequal but who did not worry about their situation at all; on the other were the fearful, downtrodden victims of southern bigotry. Native Son confronted the United States with the fact that the first of these stereotypes was false and the second was a national, not a regional, problem. The growing urban ghettos of the North and West were not lands of opportunity but instead festering wounds in which people lived and died largely without hope. On a broad scale, Wright brought into the open the hatred, fear, and violence that he saw as characterizing American race relations. After Native Son, literary critic Irving Howe asserted, “American culture was changed forever.” Quaintness and idealized folksiness disappeared from black literature, and the way was opened for later African American writers to emphasize their own ethnic culture. Later black writers could repudiate white culture and could celebrate black identity and even mili-
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Significance Since its publication in 1940, Richard Wright’s Native Son has never been out of print. Orson Welles produced a Broadway play based on the book, and film versions were released in 1950 and 1986. The book and its author have been the subject of numerous scholarly and popular investigations from literary, historical, and sociological perspectives. Although the author was a Mississippian who set his story in Chicago and wrote it while living in New York, the plot of Native Son has continued to be a metaphor for much of the black experience throughout the United States. The book explores individuals, their environments, and the ways in which environments shape people. In an essay titled “How Bigger Was Born,” Wright wrote of his character:
Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America
He is a product of a dislocated society; he is a dispossessed and disinherited man; he is all of this and he lives amid the greatest possible plenty on earth and he is looking and feeling for a way out. . . . He was an American because he was also a native son; but he was also a Negro nationalist in a vague sense because he was not allowed to live as an American. Such was his way of life and mine; neither Bigger nor I resided fully in either camp.
In 1940, most white Americans were unaware of such feelings on the part of African Americans. There was little contact between the races. In a survey taken in 1942, less than half of all white Americans approved of integrated transportation facilities, and only about one in
Richard Wright. (Library of Congress)
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Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America tancy. Wright’s message in Native Son, variations of which have appeared frequently since, is that African Americans may wish to destroy the symbols of white cultural dominance and control. Trickery, when directed toward the dominant culture, is acceptable, as is militancy. These ideas have become widespread since the publication of Native Son. This does not mean that the influence of Native Son has been seen as all positive, even by blacks. James Baldwin commented that the book was “the most powerful and celebrated statement we have yet had of what it means to be a Negro in America.” Baldwin, however, did not think Wright dealt adequately with the psychological and social conditions of Bigger Thomas’s life, and he argued that this failure prevented Wright from conveying any sense of black life as a complex group reality. In a 1949 essay titled “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Baldwin wrote that Native Son was in its own way as simpleminded as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852). In “Many Thousands Gone,” an essay published in 1951, Baldwin remarked that Wright wrote as if racism were a social problem that could not be cured but could be checked. Although Wright’s reputation as a writer and as a spokesman for African Americans ebbed during the 1950’s, as younger black writers such as Baldwin and Ralph Ellison rejected Wright’s naturalistic style of writing as well as the Marxist overtones of Native Son, Wright’s influence was revived in the 1960’s. With the growth of the militant black consciousness movement, there came a resurgence of interest in Wright’s work. It is generally agreed that Wright’s influence in Native Son is not a matter of literary style or technique. The novel’s impact, rather, comes from ideas and attitudes, and Wright’s work became a force in the social and intellectual history of the United States in the last half of the twentieth century. A part of this impact developed from Wright’s work after Native Son. Wright described Bigger as “vaguely a Negro nationalist.” During the years Wright spent in France, from 1947 to his death in 1960, he spent much of his time supporting nationalist movements in Africa. Wright wrote with a mixture of fearlessness and brilliance. He said he wanted to move black writing beyond the servile depiction of stereotyped “colored people.” With Native Son he accomplished that while at the same time showing how little black Americans and white Americans really knew about one another. —Michael R. Bradley 3232
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Further Reading Abcarian, Richard. Richard Wright’s “Native Son”: A Critical Handbook. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970. Collection of reviews, critical essays, and chapters on topics related to Native Son. Insights presented are informed by the context of the book’s publication in the aftermath of the racial unrest of the 1960’s. Bone, Robert. Richard Wright. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969. Brief sketch of Wright’s life provides a good source of information on the author for general readers. Includes some analysis of his work. Butler, Robert J., ed. The Critical Response to Richard Wright. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. Collection of critical essays discussing Native Son, Black Boy, and two other major Wright works. Includes commentary by the editor on how critical responses to Wright have changed in the years since Native Son was first published. Fabre, Michael. The World of Richard Wright. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1985. Collection of essays written over a period of twenty years by one of Wright’s most prominent biographers. Considers many aspects of Wright’s art and interests. Felgar, Robert. Richard Wright. Boston: Twayne, 1980. Brief biography focuses on the facts of Wright’s life and devotes little discussion to critical analysis of his work. Gayle, Addison. Richard Wright: Ordeal of a Native Son. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1983. Biography presents an informative account of Wright’s life, especially his years in France. Examines the issue of whether or not Wright was the target of special scrutiny by the U.S. government. Hakutani, Yoshinobu, ed. Critical Essays on Richard Wright. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. Collection of essays on Wright’s work by various writers and critics includes important essays by James Baldwin and Irving Howe. Rowley, Hazel. Richard Wright: The Life and Times. New York: Henry Holt, 2001. Comprehensive, indepth biography places Wright’s work in the larger context of American society and the era in which he wrote. See also: 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration; 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance; 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales; Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images
1940-1941
Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images Sculptor Henry Moore accepted a wartime assignment to make a series of sketches as a record of England at war after he was inspired by the huddled shapes of Londoners using subway stations as air-raid shelters. Locale: London, England Category: Arts Key Figures Henry Moore (1898-1986), English artist Kenneth Clark (1903-1983), retired director of the London Museum and chairman of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee Herbert Read (1893-1968), English art historian and author
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Summary of Event Henry Moore first became known as a sculptor of some repute in 1928. He usually is identified as the sculptor of massive stone architectural or landscape figures, of more or less human shape, perforated in their centers and with heads that are often mere protuberances. Moore’s travel in France and Italy in 1925 was a strong catalyst for his art. His Mother and Child (19241925) shows the influence of Masaccio and a remarkable boldness and austere strength. His cubist works from this period manifest the influence of monumental Mexican Chac Mool statues. Moore’s Seated Woman (1928), the culmination of his early drawings from life, was the first piece that forecast his lifelong sculptural style. Moore’s first major commission was the monumental relief North Wind (1928-1929) on the headquarters of the London Transport Board. The first of Moore’s characteristic reclining figures, that in Leeds, England, was done in 1929. The years from 1929 to 1939 represent Moore’s experimental period. Stephen Spender, a poet and friend of Moore, wrote about the prewar meetings of friends at Henry and Irina Moore’s studio, where discussions ranged over such topics as abstract art, representationalism, Surrealism, and functionalism. Writing about Moore’s drawings, art historian Kenneth Clark noted that in the period 1932 to 1934 the sketches of reclining figures and mother-and-child groups show Moore moving in the direction of more abstract human shapes and the use of holes. The Moores moved to a new home in Kingston in 1934. It had a field that fulfilled Moore’s ideal setting for sculpture as a “monumental art standing freely on the ground, under the sky.”
The world of Henry Moore, like that of all Europeans, came apart in 1939 with the intrusion of World War II. The Chelsea School of Art, where Moore taught, was evacuated from London, and Moore became essentially an unemployed artist. His successive studios were destroyed by bombs. Recumbent Figure (1938) was Moore’s last large piece before the interruption of war. His next major sculpture would be the Northampton Madonna and Child in 1943. From 1939 to 1943, Moore primarily recorded ideas in notebooks. His drawings, however, were not insignificant, and many later bore sculptural fruit. Clark called Two Women: Drawing for Sculpture Combining Wood and Metal (1939) one of Moore’s greatest drawings, the colors adding drama and creating space. Similarly, Moore’s 1939 lithograph Spanish Prisoner first articulated Moore’s interest in the perceptual relationship between internal and external form. From this piece evolved his helmet-head sculptures (1939-1940 and early 1950’s). Adrawing of 1940 titled September 3, 1939, ominously depicted a group of women bathing near Dover, gazing seaward toward France. In the same year came a series of sketches of upright oval “cocoons” within which are inserted abstract “embryos.” These were realized in wood as Internal and External Forms (1953-1954). Moore referred to them as “a mother and child idea, something young and growing being protected by a shell.” The Shelter Drawings of 1940-1941 are without doubt Moore’s most famous. According to art historian Herbert Read, Moore’s drawings can be placed in two categories: those made as rehearsal of ideas for sculpture, including the life drawings of his student days, and drawings done for their own sake, both actual scenes (Shelter Drawings) and imaginary scenes such as his most famous drawing, Crowd Looking at a Tied-Up Object (1942). The Nazi bombing of London began in earnest in September of 1940 and ended in May of 1941. When Moore and his wife were confined in the subway during an air raid, Moore got his first sight of people lying in an underground station with their blankets, pillows, and necessities. He later recalled, “I had never seen so many reclining figures. Even the train tunnels seemed like holes in my sculpture!” When Kenneth Clark, chairman of the newly formed War Artists’ Advisory Committee, saw Moore’s sketches of that experience, he persuaded the sculptor to accept a commission. The project had its problems. Rather than intrude on
Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images what was left of the privacy of the shelterers, Moore made only quick sketches accompanied by mnemonic notes. He then worked from memory at his Parkhill Road studio and later, after his studio was bombed, at his house at Much Hadham, outside London. Some of the figures he sketched are seated on benches; some sketches are street scenes of buildings collapsing, such as Head Made Up of Devastated Buildings and Morning After the Blitz. The series includes the wellknown Sleeping Child Covered with Blanket and Pink and Green Sleepers, which Moore’s friend Stephen Spender favored as Moore’s most famous shelter drawing. Given Moore’s penchant for reclining figures, the sight of the huddled and sleeping denizens of the London tube was for him a moving revelation of meaning: the reclining figure as a suffering human being. The drawing Tube Shelter Perspective depicts long rows of figures reclining along the receding length of a subway tunnel. For many, the Shelter Drawings appear to be impressionistic studies. Eric Newton, a critic for the London Sunday Times, wrote of “Moore’s unearthly studies of a white, grub-like race of troglodytes swathed in protective blankets in underground shelters.” Moore himself saw them as poetic symbols of the Blitz, comparing them to “the bowels of slave ships from Africa.” Read observed Moore’s ability to capture the fear, boredom, and protective love expressed in the bodily attitudes of the people. Clark noted that “the stoicism and dignity of the shelterers” inspired several classical renderings, such as the Two Seated Figures, which are “like late Roman patricians, awaiting the coming of the barbarians.” As one might expect, in Moore’s drawings the human body is given sculptural weight and substance, as if occupying three-dimensional space. When, well after the last air raid in May of 1941, Moore revised his exactly recorded drawings into more imaginative finished forms, the results were drawings of monumental power and among the finest graphic works of his career. Moore filled two sketchbooks with groups. Clark later described these sketches as “among the most precious works of art” of the twentieth century. Significance Wishing to keep Moore under contract, the War Artists’ Advisory Committee offered him several unappealing projects. Moore was a son of miners and farmers. When, in 1941, Herbert Read suggested that he make a series of drawings of miners, both Moore and the committee were amenable. Moore decided to work in the Wheldale colliery in his hometown of Castleford, the very mines in 3234
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 which his father had worked. He thus had a great sympathy for the project. In every sense, Moore’s Studies of Miners at Work was a direct result of his work in the subway shelters. To him, the mines resembled the tube tunnels and the miners recalled the shelter figures “imprisoned in claustrophobic space.” This time the drawings were made on the spot, with the coal dust and dimly lit atmosphere producing certain distorting and tenebrist effects that were compatible with the mind of the artist. When Moore arrived in Castleford, he was given a tour of the tunnels that verified his early memory of the harshness of life and work in the mines. He later recorded his profound impressions of crawling on hands and knees deep into the mine, in “a dense darkness you could touch,” the thick coal dust impervious to miners’ lamps, under “a mile’s weight of rock.” For a week at a time, Moore made sketches by day and refined them in the evening. Finally, his on-site notebook sketches became two sketchbooks and twenty finished drawings in crayon, chalk, watercolor, and india ink. Although Moore was not as emotionally moved by the miners as he had been by the shelterers, his drawings are powerful. Some imbue the miners with an idealized dignity. Moore’s studies of miners working on their backs provided him with a rich variety of new ideas for his famous reclining figure sculptures, in particular his Falling Warrior (1956-1957) and his King and Queen (19521953). Moore was glad to see the end of the miners project in 1942, because it allowed him to return to his first love, sculpture. Although the Shelter Drawings were intended as documents of the war and not as studies for generating ideas for sculpture, they nevertheless inspired, by their humanizing force, other drawings of groups of draped figures, often with resultant statues. Moore’s work in the 1940’s seemed preoccupied with an almost classical concern for human destiny. His drawing Women Winding Wool suggests the Three Fates; Group of Draped Standing Figures (1942) seems to depict characters in a Greek drama, as does Crowd Looking at a Tied-Up Object. His drawing Three Standing Figures (1947-1948) grew into the stone ladies of Battersea Park, London. The shelter studies promoted Moore’s international fame. Many of them were among the drawings that, with one reclining figure sculpture, composed Moore’s firstever exhibit in the United States, in May of 1943, at Curt Valentin’s Buchholz Gallery in New York City. Valentin, who purchased all the pieces himself, disseminated many of them at a profit to major museums such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Chicago’s Art
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Further Reading Andrews, Julian. London’s War: The “Shelter Drawings” of Henry Moore. Burlington, Vt.: Lund Humphries, 2002. Presents the Shelter Drawings along with explanations and commentary. Includes comparisons of some drawings to photographs of the locations. Berthoud, Roger. The Life of Henry Moore. 2d rev. ed. London: Giles de la Mare, 2003. Comprehensive biography is filled with detailed anecdotes that intimately present the mind and heart of Henry Moore. Includes many black-and-white illustrations. FitzGibbon, Constantine. The Winter of the Bombs. New York: W. W. Norton, 1958. Vivid description of the Nazi Blitz of London provides excellent background on the context in which Moore produced his Shelter Drawings. Lichtenstern, Christa. “Henry Moore and Surrealism.” Translated by Sally Arnold-Seibert. Burlington Magazine 113 (November, 1981): 645-658. Intends to demonstrate through a few examples that Surrealist impulses shaped Moore’s art, particularly from 1930 to 1940 and to a certain extent throughout his career. Moore, Henry. Henry Moore Drawings. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Survey of the development of Moore’s art presents a study of the relationship between his drawings and his sculpture. Copiously illustrated with 304 plates of Moore’s graphic art, 40 in color. _______. Shelter Sketch Book. London: Editions Poetry London, 1940. Small volume reproduces beautifully the Shelter Drawings on eighty-one leaves, in their original colors. Contains no text. Read, Herbert. Henry Moore: A Study of His Life and Work. New York: Praeger, 1965. Authoritative biography and critique of Moore’s work by a great art historian and friend of the artist. Illustrated with 245 photographs of Moore’s art. Spender, Stephen. “Realism’s Blitz.” Art and Antiques 9 (January, 1992): 75-77, 97-98. Interesting personal recollection, by a close friend of Moore, of times spent together with other friends and artistic discussions that took place in the decade before World War II. See also: Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain. 3235
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Institute. The exhibit also traveled to Los Angeles. Moore’s commission to make Madonna and Child (1943) for the fiftieth anniversary of St. Matthew’s Church in Northampton also resulted from the Shelter Drawings. Seeking to make the anniversary a magnificent artistic occasion, Walter Hussey, the vicar, commissioned a Benjamin Britten cantata. Hussey was impressed with Moore’s work in the war artists’ exhibit in London’s National Gallery in 1942 and urged the hesitant sculptor to accept the commission. The public reaction to the finished work was either love or hate— nothing in between. Moore became notorious as thousands visited the church just to see what the fuss was all about. Some years later, Madonna and Child ceased to raise eyebrows and came to be considered one of Moore’s more realistic sculptures. It is possible to find unarguable echoes of the Shelter Drawings in Moore’s subsequent output. The year 1950 saw Helmet Heads No. 1 in lead and bronze and his abstract Double Standing Figure for Vassar College (for which Moore made pages of studies in 1948). His bronze Draped Reclining Figure and an abstract stone screen adorned the Time-Life Building in London (1952), his Warrior with Shield (1953-1954) resides in Toronto, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Building in Paris commissioned Reclining Figure (1957-1958), and in 1961 the St. Louis, Missouri, airport purchased two bronze figures. In choosing for his archetypal models the imposing sculptural creations of ancient Egypt and Mexico, Moore asserted his ties to tradition. Although Moore showed his work in Surrealist exhibitions (1933-1939) with Alberto Giacometti, Jean Arp, and Joan Miró, he nevertheless felt apart from that school. He saw roles for both the unconscious, emphasized by the Surrealists, and the conscious. As he explained to Spender, however hard he tried to produce a nonrepresentational piece, even his most abstract work seemed like something real. Three criteria can be used to judge the greatness of an artist: prolific output, absolute mastery of a medium, and universal representativeness of the art, with relevance for later ages. All three apply to Moore. Moore is representative of the artistic tradition of Western civilization. His work recalls the great art and artists of the past but was modern in its day. In view of his expanding power and clarity of purpose through the years, Moore will doubtless become a model and point of departure for artists of the future. —Daniel C. Scavone
Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images
Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April-May, 1940
Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War When the Soviets executed more than four thousand Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest in the early spring of 1940, German propagandists attempted to use the event to influence public opinion in Poland and to split the Allied cause. Locale: Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, Soviet Union (now Russia) Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; human rights; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945 and 1951-1955 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1922-1953 Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), minister of propaganda for Nazi Germany Summary of Event On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed an agreement that set the stage for the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The agreement, in part, provided the basis for the dismemberment of Poland. Shortly thereafter, on September 1, 1939, German armed forces attacked Poland, and on September 17, the Soviet army moved into eastern Poland and occupied its assigned portion of Polish territory. Under the weight of the German onslaught and the Soviet invasion, Polish resistance collapsed, and the remnants of Poland’s government fled the country. Immediately after the termination of hostilities in Soviet-occupied Poland, Soviet authorities began the forced deportation of approximately 1.2 million Poles to areas within the Soviet Union. In addition, the Soviets captured more than 200,000 members of the Polish armed forces. These prisoners were joined by thousands of Polish reservists arrested at home as well as by soldiers who had initially escaped to Lithuania and Estonia only to be taken by the Soviets after the Baltic states fell under Soviet control. In the final count, approximately 250,000 members of the Polish armed forces, including about 10,000 officers, were placed in more than one hundred major Soviet prison and labor camps. 3236
The international situation changed dramatically on June 22, 1941, when Germany launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. Soon thereafter, the Soviets and the Polish government in exile, located in London, reestablished diplomatic relations and agreed that the Soviets would grant amnesty to those Poles being held in the Soviet Union. Simultaneously, the new Polish embassy in the Soviet Union took steps to organize a Polish army on Soviet soil composed of those members of the Polish armed forces who were being held as prisoners of war by the Soviets. Eventually, after these former prisoners had been assembled by the new Polish military command in the Soviet Union, it became clear that approximately 15,000 soldiers remained missing, including some 8,000 officers. Moreover, it was not just professional officers who were missing: Hundreds of reservists, including doctors, lawyers, educators, and journalists, were also missing. Investigations by Polish authorities revealed that the missing individuals had been held at three camps: approximately 6,500 men at Ostashkov, 4,000 at Starobelsk, and 5,000 at Kozelsk. In late April and early May, 1940, troops from the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, known as the NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del), had removed in small groups all but 448 of the prisoners from the three camps. Investigations revealed that the men from Kozelsk had been taken by rail to a point immediately west of Smolensk, but there they had disappeared. Indeed, of the approximately 15,000 men originally held in these three camps, only the 448 survived. Polish requests for information concerning the missing soldiers were addressed to Soviet officials but were met with evasive and contradictory responses. Nevertheless, between the summer of 1941 and the spring of 1943, the Poles continued to attempt to ascertain the fate of the missing soldiers. Meanwhile, in late February, 1943, German field police discovered the mass graves of several thousand individuals, apparently Polish officers, in the Katyn Forest about ten miles west of Smolensk. Prior to the German capture of the area in 1941, the Katyn Forest had been controlled by the NKVD. This information was transmitted to Berlin, where Nazi officials recognized the propaganda value of this discovery and moved to capitalize on the opportunity. Consequently, on April 13, 1943, German radio announced that Soviet authorities had executed thousands of Polish prisoners of war. The Germans
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Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War
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occupied Europe, and neutral European states visited the Katyn Forest, as did German-sponsored Polish and Allied prisoner-of-war delegations. The German authorities, the various medical commissions, and the other visitors to the area found more than 4,000 corpses buried in eight mass graves that were six to eleven feet deep. In addition to the bodies actually found, some analysts have speculated that more than 300 more undiscovered Polish corpses may remain in the forest. In any case, all but 22 of the bodies found were clad in Polish uniforms and were piled face down in the graves in layers. Many, especially the younger men, had had their greatcoats tied over their heads with ropes Germans conduct exhumation of bodies from the mass graves found in the Katyn connected tightly to their hands, which Forest. were tightly bound behind their backs. As a result, any movement of the hands would serve to tighten the ropes that sequickly followed this announcement by inviting a series cured the greatcoats at the neck. In addition, many bore of specially chartered international groups to examine bayonet wounds. All, however, had been shot through the site and report their conclusions. the head in a similar manner. Finally, the individual Three investigatory commissions were formed under graves of two Polish general officers, in uniform, were German sponsorship. First, an international commission also located in the forest. was formed, drawing distinguished specialists in the Based on a variety of evidence collected at the site, the field of forensic medicine from twelve European counthree German-sponsored commissions independently tries other than Nazi Germany. On April 28, 1943, the reached similar conclusions. They agreed that the Polish members of this commission began a three-day investiprisoners had been executed and buried about three years gation of the grave sites in the Katyn Forest. While there, prior to their exhumation. In other words, they had been they examined 982 corpses already exhumed by German murdered in the spring of 1940. Given that this was more authorities and 9 that had been previously untouched and than a year prior to the German invasion of the Soviet were randomly selected by the commission. During their Union in June, 1941, and given that the Katyn Forest was investigation, the members of the group had complete under the control of the NKVD at the time of the killings, freedom to move throughout the area and enjoyed the full the conclusion of the commissions was that Soviet aucooperation of the Germans at the site. Simultaneously, thorities had killed the Polish prisoners. The conclusions the Germans invited a medical delegation from the Polof the three commissions were confirmed and further ish Red Cross in German-occupied Poland to conduct a supplemented by additional evidence supplied by the second investigation in the Katyn Forest. Without the families of the dead soldiers and by the survivors of knowledge of the German authorities, the Polish underCamp Kozelsk. This additional material clearly established that the Polish soldiers found in the forest were the ground infiltrated the Polish Red Cross group. The Polish missing prisoners from Camp Kozelsk. Finally, the fact team remained at the site for five weeks, during which it, that the Germans fully cooperated with the investigators like the international commission, was given full Gerat the Katyn Forest site and subsequently attempted to man support as well as freedom of movement around the preserve the evidence of the atrocity suggested that the site, including authority to photograph whatever the Nazis were not the murderers. team members wished. Finally, a specially formed GerMeanwhile, the Soviet Union denied the German acman medical team was sent to Katyn. In addition to cusations and charged that the Nazis had themselves these three teams, journalists from Germany, German-
Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War committed the crime. On April 15, 1943, two days after the initial German radio broadcast announcing the discovery of the mass graves, the Soviets stated that the Polish prisoners had been seized by invading Nazis during the summer of 1941 and, subsequently, the Nazis had executed them. After the capture of the Smolensk region, the Soviet authorities organized a special Soviet commission to investigate the Katyn Forest murders. The Soviet team was composed exclusively of Soviet medical experts; no international medical experts were asked to participate. Predictably, given the official title of the Soviet investigatory team, the “Special Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating the Circumstances of the Shooting of Polish Officer Prisoners by the GermanFascist Invaders in the Katyn Forest,” the Soviet team concluded that the Germans had murdered the Poles between September and December of 1941. The Soviets claimed to have found nine documents on the bodies bearing dates after May, 1940. In view of the fact that most of the bodies had been previously and extremely carefully searched by the German-sponsored commissions, most observers discounted these so-called finds as fabrications. Following World War II, the Katyn Forest atrocity was inconclusively examined at the Nuremberg Trials, and later, in considerable detail, in 1951-1952 by a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Notwithstanding continued Soviet denials of guilt and assertions that the Germans were responsible, virtually all analysts outside the Communist countries concluded that the Soviets had killed the Polish prisoners found in the Katyn Forest. Finally, in 1990, fifty years after committing the atrocity, the Soviets acknowledged that the NKVD had murdered the men. Two questions remained, however, even after the establishment of Soviet guilt for the Katyn atrocity. First, what happened to the more than 10,000 Poles held at Camps Starobelsk and Ostashkov? Apparently these men were also killed by the NKVD, although their exact fate remained unclear. Second, why were 448 men from Kozelsk, Ostashkov, and Starobelsk allowed to live? It would seem that the NKVD selected those individuals who appeared to be pro-Communist, who were susceptible to Soviet propaganda, or who, by virtue of their backgrounds, were deemed worthy of selection for survival. Significance Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels immediately recognized the significance of the Katyn Forest discovery and took special pains to make certain that Germany 3238
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 derived the fullest propaganda dividends from the Soviet atrocity. For example, the German-controlled media in Poland provided extensive coverage of the Katyn Forest investigations and argued that Jewish Bolshevism was responsible for the atrocity. The Poles were told that they must look to the Germans for protection against the ruthless Soviets. Moreover, the extensive daily coverage, extending from April 14 to August 4, 1943, coincided with the Nazi massacre of the Warsaw ghetto, which took place from mid-April to mid-May, 1943. In addition to attempting to influence Polish public opinion, the Germans intended to use the atrocity to split the Allied cause. There, however, the Germans unwittingly assisted Moscow in the latter’s policy objectives. Immediately following the German announcement of the discovery of the mass graves in the Katyn Forest, on April 15, 1943, the Polish government in exile in London decided to call on the International Red Cross to conduct a full investigation. The following day, the British press reported this decision. On April 17, a spokesperson for the Polish government in exile confirmed the decision, and, that same day, the Poles formally made their request to officials of the International Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. Meanwhile, in Berlin, acting on a British press story predicting the Polish request to the Red Cross, but prior to the formal request itself, Goebbels decided to embarrass the Poles by issuing a second German request to the International Red Cross to investigate the atrocity. The timing of the German request was designed to coincide with the Polish request, thereby making it appear that the London Poles and Berlin were acting in concert. The German request was thus handed to the representatives of the International Red Cross in Geneva less than one hour prior to the Polish appeal. For its part, the International Red Cross responded that it would conduct an investigation provided that the Soviet Union joined with the Poles and Germany in requesting such an investigation. The Soviet Union, of course, did not agree to join in the request. The appearance of Polish-German cooperation in requesting the investigation provided Soviet leader Joseph Stalin with an opportunity to cut his ties with the London Poles in favor of his own Moscow-sponsored Union of Polish Patriots. Thus not only did the Soviets fail to request an investigation by the International Red Cross, but on April 19, 1943, the Soviet media also denounced members of the Polish government in exile for collusion with the Nazis in perpetuating the so-called Nazi-fabricated allegations that the Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn atrocity. This theme was in turn repeated by
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Further Reading Abarinov, Vladimir. The Murderers of Katyn. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1993. Account by a Soviet
journalist is one of the most in-depth discussions of the massacre available. Lauck, John H. Katyn Killings: In the Record. Clifton, N.J.: Kingston Press, 1988. Comprehensive overview of the events leading up to the massacre and the various investigations that followed, especially the hearings of the select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Mackiewicz, Jozef. The Katyn Wood Murders. London: World Affairs Book Club, 1951. Early examination of the atrocity is presented in a somewhat personalized manner. Paul, Allen. Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Polish Massacre. New York: Scribner, 1991. Presents vivid forensic details in recounting the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre and its precursors. Includes illustrations. Sanford, George. Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice, and Memory. New York: Routledge, 2005. Detailed study draws on Soviet documentation released in the 1990’s to examine the factors that led to the Soviets’ use of mass murder in the Katyn Forest. Tucker, Robert C. Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Informative work offers insight into Stalin and his regime. Includes brief but significant discussion of the Katyn Forest massacre. Zawodny, J. K. Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre. 1962. Reprint. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1988. Readable account provides a detailed and balanced examination of the Katyn Forest massacre and its implications. See also: Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar; Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians; Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians; Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church; Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Dec., 1940: Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism.
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the pro-Soviet media outside the Soviet Union. The free Polish media responded that the Polish government in exile was merely seeking answers to questions as to what had happened in Katyn Forest. Nevertheless, on April 21, 1943, Stalin informed British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt that the Soviets had decided to sever relations with the Polish government in exile in London. Churchill and Roosevelt responded by appealing to Stalin not to risk the unity of the Allies by breaking relations with the London Poles, and Churchill appealed to the Polish leaders in London to drop the entire matter. Notwithstanding British and American appeals, however, on April 26, 1943, the Soviets notified the Polish ambassador in Moscow of the Soviet government’s decision to break relations with the Polish government in exile in London. Subsequently, despite the fact that the London Poles, under pressure from the British, withdrew their request to the International Red Cross for a neutral investigation the day after the severance of Soviet-Polish relations, the Soviet Union remained firm in its decision to break relations. Clearly, Stalin had decided to use the Polish government in exile’s response to the German announcement of the Katyn discovery as his excuse to dispose of the independent Polish authorities in London in favor of the Soviet-backed Poles. Indeed, the latter would ultimately serve as a central component in the satellite regime erected by the Soviet Union in postwar Poland. Thus the massacre of more than four thousand Polish prisoners of war by the Soviet NKVD in the Katyn Forest and the disappearance and presumed execution of another ten thousand Polish prisoners not only deprived Poland of a significant element of the prewar Polish elite but also ultimately was used to advance Soviet objectives in postwar Eastern Europe. — Howard M. Hensel
Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War
Germany Invades Norway
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
April 9, 1940
Germany Invades Norway The German invasion of Norway began with a successful surprise attack by land, sea, and air and challenged the traditional dominance of British sea power in Europe. It secured valuable resources for Germany for the remainder of the war, but at the expense of committing the Germans to maintaining an occupation force of 300,000 troops that would come to be needed elsewhere. Locale: Norway Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator, 1933-1945 Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), Norwegian politician Winston Churchill (1874-1965), first lord of the British Admiralty, 1939-1940, and later prime minister, 1940-1945, 1951-1955 Otto Ruge (1882-1961), Norwegian army commander Nikolaus von Falkenhorst (18851968), commander of German infantry and later governorgeneral of Norway, 1940-1944 Haakon VII (1872-1957), king of Norway, r. 1905-1957 Carl Joachim Hambro (1885-1964), president of the Norwegian Storting Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), prime minister of Great Britain, 1937-1940 Summary of Event Soon after the outbreak of World War II, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander in chief of the German navy, drew Adolf Hitler’s attention to the importance of Norway’s coast for Germany’s submarines, surface raiders, and blockade runners. He emphasized that an Allied capture of the ice-free port of Narvik in northern Norway would prevent Germany from importing vital Swedish iron ore. Hit3240
ler did not show much interest in Scandinavia until he received reports that Britain was in fact considering a descent on Norway, spurred on by Winston Churchill, the first lord of the Admiralty. The Russo-Finnish War, which began on November 30, 1939, also prompted Allied agitation for sending troops to Finland via Narvik and northern Sweden. On December 10, 1939, Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian nationalist with Nazi sympathies, came to Berlin to propose to Hitler a Norwegian coup d’état to forestall the British, and Hitler appointed a staff to study ways of intervening. When Churchill, on February 16, 1940, sent the destroyer Cossack into Norwegian territorial waters to rescue British prisoners from the supply ship Altmark,
German soldiers make their way up a snowy slope during the invasion of Norway. (NARA)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Germany Invades Norway
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Hitler accelerated preparations for a Norway, 1940 German invasion, code-named Operation Weserubung (exercise on the Weser). A British cabinet decision a n O c e on March 12 for landing troops at c i t c A r Narvik was reversed that same day by the end of the Russo-Finnish War, but Hitler decided not to risk further delay. Britain started mining Norway’s shipping channels on April 8, d Narvik Ve st Fjor but by then German invasion forces Folda Fjord were on their way—most of the navy, Norwegian twelve hundred aircraft, and the vanSea guard of six reinforced army divisions under the capable command of General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst—moving toward an April 9 Namsos surprise dawn attack on Denmark Trondheim Fjord and Norway. Thus the Norwegian cabinet, afTrondheim ter discussing British minelaying into Andalsnes Finland the evening of April 8, had to reconGUDBR AN DS vene in the early hours of April 9 to face reports of an approaching German threat. Norwegian mobilization N o r way Bergen Oslo orders were delayed and muddled. Tel The army, short on rifles, artillery, e Østfold and ammunition and without tanks, Stavanger Oslo was also between drafts, with almost Kristiansand Fjord no men in barracks. Norway’s planes ak r e r were obsolete, and most of the navy’s North ag k ships were museum pieces. Soldiers S Sea and civilians alike were surprised and confused, and the unexpected German dawn attack quickly seized most of its objectives—seaports and air fields at Narvik, Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, and Kristiansand. horst’s main army. The seizure of Oslo had the effect of The most important opposition occurred at the narisolating Norwegian troops in Ostfold, southern Norrows of the Oslofjord, where the fortress at Oskarsborg way, and Telemark from the Norwegian forces retreatsank a German heavy cruiser (Blucher), damaged a ing northward. pocket battleship (Lutzow), and delayed the invasion floOn the evening of April 9, Storting president Carl tilla by more than twelve hours. This enabled King Joachim Hambro persuaded that assembly to grant full Haakon VII, the cabinet, and the Storting (parliament) emergency powers to the king and cabinet for the durato escape the German plan for their capture, taking a tion of the war. Ongoing attempts to capture the king or special train north at 7:23 a.m., followed by commanpersuade him to name Nazi puppet Quisling prime minisdeered trucks carrying the nation’s gold reserves. Six ter failed, as did an air raid intended to kill the Norwegian German airborne companies seized Fornebu airport on leaders. By evening on April 9, however, the Germans the morning of April 9 and occupied Oslo that afternoon, held all the main ports and airfields, and by April 10 followed the next day by reinforcements from Falken-
Germany Invades Norway strong squadrons of fighters and bombers were already operating from them. The new commander in chief of Norway’s army, Otto Ruge, retreating northward, relied chiefly on help from Britain, whose Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain assured him, “We are coming as soon as possible, and in great strength.” Indeed, on the morning of April 9, the British Home Fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Forbes was in a position to sail into Bergen after the Germans with a far superior naval force. Strong German air attacks on his fleet that afternoon, however, persuaded Forbes to abandon his planned attack. A British cabinet project for a naval attack on Trondheim was also canceled because of the threat of German air power. Instead, from April 14-17, Britain landed an Allied expedition in the region of Narvik and sent smaller contingents to the west coast ports of Andalsnes and Namsos in the hope of converging on Trondheim and linking up with Norwegians in the Gudbrandsdal. The Allied soldiers arrived too late, however, and were too few in number. Without armored vehicles, field artillery, or effective aircraft, the British were no match for the well-equipped and fast-moving Germans. Defeated in the Gudbrandsdal and Trondheim areas, the Allies on May 28 drove the isolated German garrison out of the port of Narvik, but by then defeat in France forced the Allies to abandon Norway. The Allied evacuation of June 5-8 carried the Norwegian king and political leaders to England as a government in exile, while General Ruge remained behind to surrender his troops on June 10. Significance In the Norway campaign, the Germans had and employed superior forces, took the offensive, and achieved surprise. The Luftwaffe (German air force) outmatched British naval power in ways that seemed to threaten the security of Britain itself. The Norway invasion also marked the first major combined operation of the three service branches, demonstrating the necessity for cooperation among air, land, and sea forces in future campaigns. Allied weaponry and methods were exposed in Norway as outmoded, and the Allied intelligence system ineffective. The German capture of Norway had wartime consequences for both sides. Germany gained secure access to Sweden’s iron ore, Trondheim became an important German submarine base, and other air and naval bases in the far north were used for attacks on Allied ship convoys to Russia between 1941 and 1945. Britain, although beaten in the struggle for Norway, avoided significant 3242
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 losses while inflicting enough damage on the German navy to reduce its importance during the 1940 Battle of Britain. Another significant benefit for Great Britain was the fall of Chamberlain’s ineffectual administration, and its replacement by the national coalition government headed by Churchill. The Norwegian population of less than three million could not be a major factor in the war, but their large merchant marine helped the Allies, and their example of continuing underground resistance was a moral asset and also tied down 300,000 German occupation troops until 1945, preventing those troops from participating on the fronts of the European theater. At the end of the war, King Haakon VII and the government returned to Oslo, Falkenhorst and Raeder went on trial as war criminals, and Vidkun Quisling was convicted of treason and shot. — Samuel K. Eddy and K. Fred Gillum Further Reading Churchill, Winston S. The Gathering Storm. Vol. 1 in The Second World War. London: Cassell, 1948. An indispensable account of the author’s role. Derry, T. K. The Campaign in Norway. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1952. The official history of British army operations. Gray, Edwyn. Hitler’s Battleships. London: Leo Cooper, 1992. Includes an account of German landing operations taken largely from Walther Hubatsch’s untranslated history of the 1940 Scandinavian wars. Høiback, Harald. Command and Control in Military Crisis: Devious Decisions. Portland, Oreg.: F. Cass, 2003. Case studies comparing the command and control systems employed in Norway in 1940 with those on the western front in World War I. Bibliographic references and index. Kersaudy, François. Norway, 1940. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. Brief, balanced, broadly researched account that is also well translated. Includes the clearest account of Norwegian operations so far available in English. Kynoch, Joseph. Norway, 1940: The Forgotten Fiasco. Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England: Airlife, 2002. Personal account of a British soldier’s experiences in the Norwegian invasion. Bibliographic references and index. Moulton, J. L. The Norwegian Campaign of 1940: A Study of Warfare in Three Dimensions. London: Eyre and Spottiswode, 1966. Analytic critique of the British campaign, with a few references to German and Norwegian sources.
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Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic
Ruge, Friedrich. Der Seekrieg. Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute, 1957. Chapter 5 gives a decidedly German perspective on the campaign.
Munich Conference; Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France; May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk; July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain.
See also: 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938:
May, 1940
Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic Baron Florey and Ernst Boris Chain concentrated and clinically tested penicillin, the first successful and widely used antibiotic drug. Locale: Oxford, England Category: Health and medicine Key Figures Baron Florey (1898-1968), Australian pathologist Ernst Boris Chain (1906-1979), British biochemist Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), Scottish bacteriologist
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Summary of Event During the early twentieth century, scientists were aware of antibacterial substances but did not know how to make full use of them in the treatment of diseases. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, but he was unable to duplicate his laboratory results of its antibiotic properties in clinical tests. As a result, he did not recognize the medical potential of penicillin. Between 1935 and 1940, penicillin was purified, concentrated, and clinically tested by pathologist Baron Florey, biochemist Ernst Boris Chain, and members of their Oxford research group. Their achievement has since been regarded as one of the greatest medical discoveries of the twentieth century. Florey was a professor at Oxford University in charge of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. Chain had worked for two years at Cambridge University in the laboratory of Frederick Hopkins, an eminent chemist and discoverer of vitamins. Hopkins recommended Chain to Florey, who was searching for a candidate to lead a new biochemical unit in the Dunn School of Pathology. In 1938, Florey and Chain formed a research group to investigate the phenomenon of antibiosis, or the antagonistic association between different forms of life. The union of Florey’s medical knowledge and Chain’s biochemical expertise proved to be an ideal combination for
exploring the antibiosis potential of penicillin. Florey and Chain began their investigation with a literature search in which Chain came across Fleming’s work and added penicillin to their list of potential antibiotics. Their first task was to isolate pure penicillin from a crude liquid extract. A culture of Fleming’s original Penicillium notatum was maintained at Oxford and was used by the Oxford group for penicillin production. Extracting large quantities of penicillin from the medium was a painstaking task, as the solution contained only one part of the antibiotic in ten million. When enough of the raw juice was collected, the Oxford group focused on eliminating impurities and concentrating the penicillin. The concentrated liquid was then freeze-dried, leaving a soluble brown powder. In May, 1940, Florey’s clinical tests of the crude penicillin proved its value as an antibiotic. Following extensive controlled experiments with mice, the Oxford group concluded that they had discovered an antibiotic that was nontoxic and far more effective against pathogenic bacteria than any of the known sulfa drugs. Furthermore, penicillin was not inactivated after injection into the bloodstream but was excreted unchanged in the urine. Continued tests showed that penicillin did not interfere with white blood cells and had no adverse effect on living cells. Bacteria susceptible to the antibiotic included those responsible for gas gangrene, pneumonia, meningitis, diphtheria, and gonorrhea. American researchers later proved that penicillin was also effective against syphilis. In January, 1941, Florey injected a volunteer with penicillin and found that there were no side effects to treatment with the antibiotic. In February, the group began treatment of Albert Alexander, a forty-three-yearold policeman with a serious staphylococci and streptococci infection that was resisting massive doses of sulfa drugs. Alexander had been hospitalized for two months after an infection in the corner of his mouth had spread to
Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic his face, shoulder, and lungs. After receiving an injection of 200 milligrams of penicillin, Alexander showed remarkable progress, and for the next ten days his condition improved. Unfortunately, the Oxford production facility was unable to generate enough penicillin to overcome Alexander’s advanced infection completely, and he died on March 15. A later case involving a fourteen-year-old boy with staphylococcal septicemia and osteomyelitis had a more spectacular result: The patient made a complete recovery in two months. In all the early clinical treatments, patients showed vast improvement, and most recovered completely from infections that resisted all other treatment.
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Significance Penicillin is among the greatest medical discoveries of the twentieth century. Florey and Chain’s chemical and clinical research brought about a revolution in the treatment of infectious disease. Almost every organ in the body is vulnerable to bacteria. Before penicillin, the only antimicrobial drugs available were quinine, arsenic, and sulfa drugs. Of these, only the sulfa drugs were useful for treatment of bacterial infection, but their high toxicity often limited their use. With this small arsenal, doctors were helpless to treat thousands of patients with bacterial infections. The work of Florey and Chain achieved particular attention because of World War II and the need for treatments of such scourges as gas gangrene, which had infected the wounds of numerous World War I soldiers. Team “Wonder Drug” With the help of Florey and Chain’s Penicillin was a bacteriological curiosity when Sir Alexander Fleming Oxford group, scientists at the U.S. isolated it in 1928—at best a possible local antiseptic. No one realized that Department of Agriculture’s Northern this chemical would become a potent, systemic antibacterial “wonder drug.” Regional Research Laboratory develIt would be more than a decade before the monumental applications of oped a highly efficient method for propenicillin were investigated by Baron Florey and Ernest Chain, marked by ducing penicillin using fermentation. the exciting observation that its injection into mice killed disease-causing After an extended search, scientists staphylcocci and gangrene-causing bacteria. In these experiments, all the were also able to isolate a more prountreated mice injected with the disease bacteria died, whereas virtually all ductive penicillin strain, Penicillium the penicillin-treated animals survived. Florey began to direct the great scichrysogenum. By 1945, a strain was entific resources of Oxford’s School of Pathology toward full-scale study of developed that produced five hundred the drug. By virtue of much work, carried out by numerous gifted Oxford scientists, the basic project proceeded quickly. First, the wide range of mitimes more penicillin than Fleming’s crobes killed by penicillin was identified. Then the pharmacology and the original mold had. toxicology of the drug were delineated in animals and in humans. Penicillin, the first of the “wonder A major initial stumbling block to human studies was the fact that sucdrugs,” remains one of the most powercessful treatment of a single human being required administration of the enful antibiotics in existence. Diseases tire “yield” of penicillin, isolated from hundreds of gallons of culture mesuch as pneumonia, meningitis, and dium. The efforts of another of Florey’s colleagues, Norman Heatley, led to syphilis are still treated with penicillin. development of the laboratory equipment that allowed the production of Penicillin and other antibiotics also had enough penicillin for wider human testing. Production of penicillin was a broad impact on other fields of medisoon increased enough to allow successful treatment of ten cases of human cine, as major operations such as heart bacterial infection. surgery, organ transplants, and manExciting though this was, Britain—in the throes of World War II—did not have the resources to produce enough penicillin for widespread use. agement of severe burns became possiTherefore, Florey traveled to the United States and convinced the American ble once the threat of bacterial infecOffice of Scientific Research to fund the effort. Thanks to this massive tion was minimized. American funding and the collaborative efforts by American industry, Florey and Chain received numerenough penicillin was produced to allow its widespread use in treatment of ous awards for their achievement, the war casualties after the 1944 Normandy invasion. With large-scale producgreatest of which was the 1945 Notion of penicillin now well in hand, Florey next identified the best methods bel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for testing the efficacy of the drug and effecting the most appropriate ways to which they shared with Fleming for his administer it to patients. In 1945, Florey, Chain, and Fleming shared the Nooriginal discovery. Florey was among bel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery of penicillin and its the most effective medical scientists of curative effect in various infectious diseases.” his generation, and Chain earned simi-
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The Action of Antibiotics Antibiotic Water enters
Bacterial cell Cell expands Cell bursts
An antibiotic destroys a bacterium by causing its cell walls to deteriorate; water then enters the bacterium unchecked until it bursts.
lar accolades in the science of biochemistry. This combination of outstanding medical and chemical expertise made possible one of the greatest discoveries in human history. — Peter Neushul
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Further Reading Bickel, Lennard. Florey: The Man Who Made Penicillin. Carlton South, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1995. Relates how the brilliant and ambitious Florey pursued the testing and production of penicillin. Places the work of Florey and Chain in the context of their times. Clark, Ronald W. The Life of Ernst Chain: Penicillin and Beyond. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Biography provides a complete examination of Chain’s career, including four chapters on his penicillin work. Draws on Chain’s papers, which are housed at the Contemporary Medical Archives Center of the Welcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London. Hare, Ronald. The Birth of Penicillin, and the Disarming of Microbes. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970. Excellent firsthand description of Alexander Fleming’s early work with penicillin by an author who was among those who witnessed that work. A brief but very informative account of Fleming’s work that provides the reader with a perspective on the state of penicillin research before Florey and Chain. Hobby, Gladys L. Penicillin: Meeting the Challenge.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. One of the best overall descriptions available of the roles played by Fleming, Florey, Chain, and numerous other scientists in the discovery, development, and eventual mass production of penicillin. Benefits from the author’s extensive personal work with penicillin as a scientist employed by the Pfizer Corporation. Includes extensive footnotes. Lax, Eric. The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Relates the story of the discovery of penicillin and its development into a useful drug. Sheds light on the personalities of the scientists involved. Includes bibliography and index. Macfarlane, Gwyn. Howard Florey: The Making of a Great Scientist. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1979. Excellent biography of Florey blends both personal and archival data. The author worked at Oxford and was an acquaintance of Florey’s for twenty years. Makes extensive use of the Florey archives at the Royal Society. Mateles, Richard I., ed. Penicillin: A Paradigm for Biotechnology. Chicago: Canadida Corporation, 1998. Volume reprints The History of Penicillin Production, a classic work first published in 1970, along with new chapters that address advances in penicillin research since that time. Also discusses the status of penicillin and its derivatives at the end of the twentieth century.
Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning Williams, Trevor I. Howard Florey: Penicillin and After. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. A welldocumented examination of Florey’s entire scientific career, including both penicillin and his postwar work.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India; Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis; Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds; 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives.
May, 1940
Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s appointment of William Signius Knudsen of General Motors Corporation to take charge of the manufacturing aspect of military supply marked a turning point in U.S. military preparation and anticipated the later development of the military-industrial complex. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; government and politics; manufacturing and industry Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 William Signius Knudsen (1879-1948), president of General Motors Corporation Louis A. Johnson (1891-1966), U.S. assistant secretary of war, 1937-1940, and secretary of defense, 19491950 Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr. (1900-1949), chairman of the board of the United States Steel Corporation and chairman of the War Resources Board Sidney Hillman (1887-1946), president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union and associate director-general of the Office of Production Management Leon Henderson (1895-1986), administrator of the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, 1941-1942 Donald Marr Nelson (1888-1959), former executive vice president of Sears, Roebuck and Company James F. Byrnes (1879-1972), U.S. senator from South Carolina, 1931-1941, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1941-1942, and head of the Office of Economic Stabilization, 1942-1943, and the Office of War Mobilization, 1943-1945 3246
Summary of Event Modern war involves the conflict of rival industrial complexes as much as it involves armed combat between opposing armies. The crux of the problem of industrial mobilization of the United States for World War II was how to supply the war materials required by U.S. and Allied military forces while meeting the needs of the country’s civilian population. Complicating that task were three fundamental difficulties of war production. The first difficulty involved the technical and engineering problems of large-scale manufacture of new and complex military equipment that had to meet exacting specifications. The second was the shortage of many critical resources, given the magnitude of military demands. The third— which aggravated the other two—was the pressure to meet the goals of war production as rapidly as possible. Overcoming those difficulties required a degree of centralized control, or national planning, that was anathema to most Americans in peacetime. The exercise of such control was sensitive politically because decisions concerning industrial mobilization inevitably affected people’s lives and interests. During World War I, mobilization of the American economy took place through hasty improvisation rather than planning and preparation. Congress, in the National Defense Act of 1920, assigned to the assistant secretary of war responsibility for planning how to shift the economy from a peace to a war basis in a future emergency. The upshot was a series of industrial mobilization—or M-Day—plans by the War Department in the 1930’s. Although the details varied, the keystone of those plans was the establishment of a new agency, referred to from 1936 on as the War Resources Administration, to assume control over the nation’s resources so as to meet war production requirements. In the aftermath of the triumph of German dictator Adolf Hitler in the Munich crisis in the fall of 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved to strengthen the
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Born in Denmark in 1879, Knudsen immigrated to the United States in 1900 and worked for a bicycle manufacturer that turned to the manufacture of automobile parts. After the firm was purchased by the Ford Motor Company, Knudsen rose to production manager of the giant Ford plant at Highland Park, Michigan. While there, he made his mark applying and improving the techniques of mass production associated with the moving assembly line. After he was fired in 1921 by an increasingly erratic and eccentric Henry Ford, he became vice president in charge of operations and then president and general manager of the Chevrolet division of the General Motors Corporation (GM). By 1927, he had pushed Chevrolet ahead of Ford as the best-selling automobile brand. Thanks to Knudsen’s cost cutting through continuous improvement of the techniques of mass production, Chevrolet continued to show a profit even during the worst of the Great Depression. In 1933, Knudsen became executive vice president of General Motors in charge of all car, truck, and body operations in the United States and Canada. In 1937, he succeeded Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., as GM president. Knudsen was attractive to Roosevelt for many reasons. Although not a supporter of the New Deal, he was not identified with the more extreme antiadministration wing of the business community. His role in negotiations ending the 1937 sitdown strike at GM and opening the door for unionization of GM made him acceptable to organized labor. The German invasion of Denmark had made him strongly antiAxis. Most important was his reputation as a production wizard. Knudsen achieved no more than mixed results in his efforts during the summer and fall of 1940 to overcome bottlenecks in the production of such critical items as machine tools, airplane engines, and tanks. He was handicapped by his lack of experience in Washington politics and by the ramshackle administrative structure of the NDAC. The major problem was that the NDAC lacked the power to force manufacturers to switch to military production. Most personally embarrassing to Knudsen was continued noncompliance by the automobile industry. By late 1940, complaints about the effectiveness of Knudsen’s leadership were growing. Critics found him too willing to cater to the estimates of military needs of the U.S. armed services, thereby neglecting American civilian and allied military needs. Owners of small businesses grumbled that the bulk of defense contracts were going to a relatively few giant corporations. Liberals and 3247
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United States militarily to meet what he saw as the threat of German aggression in Europe and Japanese expansionism in the Far East. In the summer of 1939, Assistant Secretary of War Louis A. Johnson, a strong champion of preparedness, induced Roosevelt to allow him to appoint a National Resources Board. That board, made up of top business executives headed by Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr., chairman of the United States Steel Corporation, reviewed the War Department’s industrial mobilization plans. Johnson hoped that the National Resources Board would become the nucleus of the War Resources Administration envisaged by the War Department’s M-Day plans. Roosevelt, however, shied away from a superagency to handle industrial mobilization as draining too much power from his office, and worse, transferring that power to businesspeople hostile to the New Deal. He thus ignored the board, refusing even to make public its recommendation for economic authority to be held by a single administrator in the event of war. In the wake of the German Blitzkrieg (lightning war) that swept over Western Europe in the spring of 1940, Roosevelt successfully asked Congress for a special appropriation of $1.1 billion for rearmament and publicly called for the production of fifty thousand airplanes per year. In late May, 1940, he appointed, under a World War I congressional authorization, a seven-member Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense (popularly known as the National Defense Advisory Commission, or NDAC). The NDAC represented a broader cross section of interests than the War Resources Board had and was firmly under Roosevelt’s authority. Stettinius was the NDAC commissioner for materials; Sidney Hillman, the president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union and a founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), was commissioner for employment; Chester C. Davis, a former administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, was commissioner for food products; Ralph Budd, president of the Association of American Railroads, was commissioner for transportation; Leon Henderson, a New Deal economist, was commissioner for price stabilization; and Harriet Elliott, dean of women at the University of North Carolina, was commissioner for consumer protection. In June, 1940, Donald Marr Nelson, former executive vice president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, was made a de facto NDAC member as coordinator of national defense purchases. The key member, however, and expected driving force of the NDAC was William Signius Knudsen, the commissioner for industrial production.
Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning
Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning leaders of organized labor were unhappy with the generous financial inducements—such as cost-plus contracts, under which the contracting firm received the cost of production plus a fixed fee or guaranteed profit—offered to businesses to win their cooperation. The loudest complaints came from those, such as Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, calling for a more aggressive program to expand the country’s industrial capacity. Knudsen shared the Depression-fed anxiety of many corporation executives that adding new plants would aggravate the problem of overproduction in peacetime. The attacks by “all-outers” against what they charged was Knudsen’s “business as usual” approach were heightened when he brushed aside in the fall of 1940 a proposal advanced by Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers union for large-scale conversion of the automobile industry to airplane production. In January, 1941, Roosevelt reshuffled the industrial mobilization machinery to meet expected new demands from the planned lend-lease program. He replaced the NDAC with the Office of Production Management (OPM), keeping Knudsen on as director-general of the new agency. In a bow to organized labor, Sidney Hillman was named associate director-general. Knudsen soon lost the confidence of the White House. Roosevelt was dissatisfied with an agreement Knudsen reached with the automobile industry in the spring of 1941. That agreement called for a 20 percent reduction in civilian car production, less than Roosevelt wanted. His unhappiness was heightened by the public conflict between Knudsen and Leon Henderson, the administrator of the new Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (established on April 11 to protect consumer interests) for control over the allocation of materials such as steel, building supplies, and copper that were in short supply. The upshot was that Roosevelt, in late August, 1941, established the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB), with Donald Marr Nelson, the head of the OPM’s division of purchases, as executive director. The SPAB would be the policy-making and coordinating agency for the entire defense program. The OPM was relegated to implementing the policies laid down by the SPAB. On January 16, 1942, soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt created the War Production Board (WPB), with Nelson at its head, to replace the OPM and SPAB. Knudsen was assigned to expedite production in plants under War Department control, given an army commission as a lieutenant general, and made special adviser to Undersecretary of War Robert P. 3248
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Patterson. In September, 1944, he was appointed director of the Air Technical Service command, with the responsibility of purchasing, distributing, and maintaining the aircraft and other equipment of the Army Air Force. Although Hillman remained head of the WPB’s labor division, he no longer played a major role in the war mobilization effort. The focus of his interest shifted to the CIO’s political action committee. Under the War Powers Act of March, 1942, the WPB was given broad authority over all aspects of production and procurement. Nelson was only partially successful in overcoming the obstacles of full war production. Adoption of the Controlled Materials Plan in November, 1942, resolved the problem of allocating scarce raw materials by dividing the available supplies among the different government purchasing agencies, which then made allocations to their prime contractors. Roosevelt’s appointment of special “czars” to deal with the problems of petroleum, rubber, and manpower, however, diluted the WPB’s overall authority. Although the WPB at its first meeting prohibited the manufacture of civilian automobiles after January 31, 1942, Nelson generally shied away from compulsion except as a last resort. Like Knudsen, he preferred to win business cooperation by offering generous financial inducements. Liberals were unhappy with the possible conflicts of interest resulting from the WPB’s reliance on so-called dollar-a-year men, business executives on temporary leave from their firms to work for the WPB while still drawing their regular salaries from those firms. Most important, Nelson allowed the armed services to handle procurement, or contracting for equipment and supplies. As a practical matter, Nelson probably had no alternative except to allow the military service to handle procurement. The services had established purchasing offices that would be difficult and time-consuming to duplicate, and Nelson thought it best to defer to military expertise in the laying down of specifications for equipment and supplies. Still, the decision had far-reaching consequences. The services’ heavy demands threatened to leave the Allies and the civilian economy with shortages. The result was the so-called feasibility dispute that climaxed in the fall of 1942, when many civilian officials, including Nelson, questioned the ability of the economy to meet military demands. The immediate conflict was resolved by a compromise whereby the military program was scaled back through extending scheduled delivery dates farther into the future. Keeping military demands within realistic
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Significance Even under the strains and redirections caused by the government’s mobilization efforts, American industry during World War II was extremely productive. The gross national product (in constant dollars) rose from $91.3 billion in 1939 to $166 billion in 1945. The index of manufacturing production rose 96 percent, that of agricultural production 22 percent, and that of transportation services 109 percent. By 1942, American war production equaled that of Germany, Italy, and Japan combined. By 1944, American factories were producing twice the volume of the Axis powers. The WPB began to loosen its controls over the economy in the spring of 1945. The issuance of “spot authorizations” allowing
manufacturers to resume civilian production began in April; orders prohibiting civilian use of critical materials were rescinded soon after the German surrender in early May. The WPB was terminated on October 4, 1945. — John Braeman Further Reading Catton, Bruce. The War Lords of Washington. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948. An indictment of big business domination of the war mobilization program, by an associate and admirer of War Production Board head Donald M. Nelson. Chandler, Lester V., and Donald H. Wallace, eds. Economic Mobilization and Stabilization: Selected Materials on the Economics of War and Defense. New York: Henry Holt, 1951. An anthology of materials treating the problems of economic stabilization during wartime that draws heavily on the experience of the United States in World War II. Part 2 focuses on the machinery of World War II economic mobilization. Koistinen, Paul A. C. Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Massive, comprehensive study of U.S. production and industrial and economic mobilization during World War II. Bibliographic references and index. Nelson, Donald M. Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946. Nelson’s account, and defense, of his role in the war mobilization effort. Polenberg, Richard. War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1972. An excellent survey of all aspects of the American home front during World War II. Includes a brief but perceptive treatment of the problem of industrial mobilization. Smith, Ralph Elberton. The Army and Economic Mobilization. Washington, D.C.: Office of Military History, U.S. Army, 1959. A balanced and judicious history of War Department planning for and involvement in World War II economic mobilization. Somers, Herman M. Presidential Agency: OWMR, the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950. An excellent account of James F. Byrnes’s coordination and direction of the government’s wartime management of the economy. U.S. Bureau of the Budget. The United States at War. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 3249
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limits remained a continuing source of friction. An additional problem was that the services suspended the peacetime requirement of competitive bidding for most contracts because of time constraints. Because procurement officers preferred to deal with a small number of suppliers, the bulk of wartime contracts went to a relatively few large corporations. Cozy relationships often developed between procurement officers and the firms with which they dealt. In October, 1942, Roosevelt appointed James F. Byrnes, a former senator from South Carolina and Supreme Court justice, to head the new Office of Economic Stabilization. Although the agency was set up to coordinate the government’s wartime price and wage stabilization efforts, Byrnes gradually extended his control over all aspects of the economy. That control was formalized by the creation in May, 1943, of the Office of War Mobilization, or OWM (later renamed the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, or OWMR), headed by Byrnes. The WPB was placed under supervision of the OWM. Byrnes was successful in ironing out most of the remaining difficulties in the government’s direction of war production. By early 1944, the military situation appeared so promising that Nelson wanted to begin a gradual reconversion to civilian production. His idea was to assist the smaller firms that had been largely left out of the war contract bonanza by giving them a head start in the postwar civilian market. The plan faced strong resistance from big business. The military services were similarly hostile, warning that Nelson was too optimistic. In the controversy that followed, Byrnes sided against the gradual reconversion plan. Nelson was eased out as head of the WPB in August, 1944, and sent on a fact-finding mission to China.
Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning
Collapse of France 1946. This official history is a comprehensive survey of the administrative machinery for wartime government management of the economy. U.S. Civilian Production Administration. Industrial Mobilization for War: History of the War Production Board and Predecessory Agencies, 1940-1945. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1947. The in-depth official history of the administrative problems and techniques involved in the mobilization of American industry during World War II.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France; June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy.
May 10-June 22, 1940
Collapse of France The collapse of France occurred after German forces breached the Maginot line and overwhelmed the combined French and British military forces, eliminating France as a serious opponent to Germany for the remainder of World War II. Locale: France Categories: World War II; colonialism and occupation; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator, 1933-1945 Gerd von Rundstedt (1875-1953), German commander in France Erich von Manstein (Erich von Lewinksi; 1887-1973), Rundstedt’s chief of staff Maurice Gamelin (1872-1958), inspector general of the French army and vice president of Higher Council of War, 1935-1940 Maxime Weygand (1867-1965), French general and successor to Gamelin in 1940 Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), premier of Vichy France Paul Reynaud (1878-1966), premier of France, MarchJune, 1940 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945, 1951-1955 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Fascist premier of Italy, 1922-1943 Summary of Event When World War II broke out in September, 1939, France was weak and demoralized. Unable to face a resurgent Germany alone and unaided, French leaders had followed the British in appeasing the aggressions of Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Germany. France’s 3250
domestic political problems had worsened during the interwar years, and there was a feeling of disillusionment with the politicians of the Third French Republic. Finally, France’s military establishment, ostensibly strong, was actually weak in both planning and practice. Hidden behind the daunting series of fortifications known as the Maginot line, the French army waited for the Germans to attack and did not go to the aid of Poland when the Germans invaded it. From September, 1939, to May, 1940, the border between France and Germany was characterized by inactivity, for the French were reluctant to move out of their defenses. What mobile forces the French had were concentrated on the Belgian border, prepared to go to that country’s aid should the Germans invade. Meanwhile, following his successes in the east, Hitler made plans to invade France. In the winter of 1939-1940, he appointed General Gerd von Rundstedt as commander of Army Group A and approved a modified Schlieffen Plan that would call for the Germans to sweep through Belgium and attack northern France. It was clear from the concentration of French mobile forces along the Belgian border that the French expected such an attack. Rundstedt’s chief of staff, General Erich von Manstein, a strong proponent of the utility of the armored division, proposed instead that the German armies concentrate on a push through the Ardennes forest, outflanking both the Maginot line and the French mobile forces. The French considered the Ardennes impassable to armor, and the area was lightly defended. Hitler approved of Manstein’s plan, and following his Blitzkrieg invasion of Norway and Denmark in April, 1940, he prepared to attack France. The British and French were totally unprepared militarily and psychologically for the German assault. Dur-
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There were obvious signs of panic in Paris, where the ing the 1930’s, France had focused on the building of the train stations were overwhelmed with citizens and govMaginot line. Military preparedness lagged behind that ernment officials who were trying to evacuate the city of Germany, which, after 1936, had concentrated on before the Germans arrived. To spare the historic city building mobile, armored forces along with new aircraft and its population, Paris was declared to be an open city. such as the Stuka divebomber. The lessons of the sucThat is, the government announced that it would not decessful, rapid German campaign in Poland in September, fend Paris: The Germans would be allowed to occupy it, 1939, were also lost on the French high command. The in the hope that it would be spared from a devastating senior French leadership was basically very old. For exbombing campaign. ample, General Maurice Gamelin, overall commander of On June 11, the French cabinet withdrew to Tours, Allied forces in France, was sixty-eight years old in as the German armies approached Paris. Churchill im1940. Very few senior French generals grasped the fact plored the French not to surrender but to retreat to North that new battlefield technology had changed the face of Africa and carry on the fight from there. Although Reycombat since 1918. The French and British General naud agreed, the French military saw no reason to carry Staffs made few substantive inspections of the front and remained dangerously ignorant of the poor state of training of the armies or of the low state of morale of the troops. On May 10, 1940, the German armies invaded Belgium, and Army Group A struck through the Ardennes, achieving an immediate breakthrough. The French cabinet, led by Premier Paul Reynaud, removed General Gamelin from command because he had committed all his armored forces to the fighting in Belgium and held none in reserve. General Maxime Weygand was appointed to replace Gamelin. To bolster the French cabinet and increase its prestige, Reynaud took over the Ministry of War himself and recalled Marshal Philippe Pétain, the aged hero of World War I, to act as his deputy. Weygand could not contain the German forces, and they swept close to Paris, encircling and trapping the French troops against the back of the Maginot line. Reynaud appealed to Great Britain for additional aid, particularly fighter planes, but Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, refused the request because he foresaw that he would need them to protect England. Reynaud’s cabinet was in a state of indecision and confusion over the obviously deteriorating military and political situation. Word reached Paris that the roads from northern and eastern France were jammed with hundreds of thousands of fleeing, terrified refugees. German tanks were moving Adolf Hitler (center) poses in front of the Eiffel Tower in June, 1940, after takwith no significant opposition from the deing France. (Library of Congress) feated and demoralized Allied armies.
Collapse of France
De Gaulle’s Appeal of June 18 With the rise of the Nazi-installed Vichy government, led by Philippe Pétain, François Darlan, Joseph Darnand, and others, the commander of the French Free Forces, General Charles de Gaulle, issued his famous “Appeal of June 18,” aired by the British Broadcasing Corporation on that date in 1940. De Gaulle’s words prompted the French Resistance, the struggle against Nazi occupation that would last through World War II: The leaders who, for many years, were at the head of French armies, have formed a government. This government, alleging our armies to be undone, agreed with the enemy to stop fighting. Of course, we were subdued by the mechanical, ground and air forces of the enemy. Infinitely more than their number, it was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans which made us retreat. It was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans that surprised our leaders to the point to bring them there where they are today. But has the last word been said? Must hope disappear? Is defeat final? No! Believe me, I speak to you with full knowledge of the facts and tell you that nothing is lost for France. The same means that overcame us can bring us to a day of victory. For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone! She has a vast Empire behind her. She can align with the British Empire that holds the sea and continues the fight. She can, like England, use without limit the immense industry of United States. This war is not limited to the unfortunate territory of our country. This war is not finished by the battle of France. This war is a world-wide war. All the faults, all the delays, all the suffering, do not prevent there to be, in the world, all the necessary means to one day crush our enemies. Vanquished today by mechanical force, we will be able to overcome in the future by a superior mechanical force. The destiny of the world is here. I, General de Gaulle, currently in London, invite the officers and the French soldiers who are located in British territory or who would come there, with their weapons or without their weapons, I invite the engineers and the special workers of armament industries who are located in British territory or who would come there, to put themselves in contact with me. Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London. Source: Charles de Gaulle, The Speeches of General de Gaulle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944).
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 on the fight, especially after Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, declared war and sent Italian troops into southern France. On June 16, in the face of almost certain defeat, Reynaud resigned his cabinet positions, and because the majority of the government wanted to conclude an armistice with Germany, Pétain was named premier with full powers. He appealed to Hitler, and on June 22, 1940, the French surrendered to Germany. Significance France’s surrender did not mark the end of all French resistance to the Germans: When it became clear that the French government was no longer able or willing to fight, Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle, serving as an undersecretary of state for war, fled to England. On June 18, 1940, de Gaulle broadcast from London his first appeal for France to continue the struggle against Nazi Germany. Eventually, a signficant French resistance movement would develop. In June of 1940, however, few Frenchmen had the will to resist any further. According to the terms of the surrender, France was divided into two parts; northern France was to be under German occupation, and southern France was to be nominally independent. The French fleet was to be interned in its home ports and was not to be used for the duration of the war. Pétain formed a government at the small southern town of Vichy, and in July formally abolished the constitution of the Third French Republic and established himself as virtual dictator. It was France’s most inglorious moment and Germany’s greatest, for Hitler had captured in one month what the German armies of 1914 had failed to take in four years of fighting. —José M. Sánchez and James J. Cooke Further Reading Corum, James S. The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992. A fine study of the rebuilding of the German army that eventually defeated France and Britain in 1940. Diamond, Hanna, and Simon Kitson, eds. Vichy, Resistance, Liberation: New Perspectives on Wartime France. New York: Berg, 2005. Collection of essays reconsidering many aspects of France’s occupation during World War II. Bibliographic references and index. Doughty, Robert A. The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1992. An analysis of the German breakthrough at Sedan, a battle that destroyed Allied defensive plans.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 _______. The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1985. Discusses the decisions and the doctrine that brought France to the disaster of 1940. Footitt, Hilary. War and Liberation in France: Living with the Liberators. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. In addition to discussing France’s brief defense, occupation, and liberation, this study looks at the long-term effects of the occupation and liberation on French culture and politics. Bibliographic references and index. Horne, Alistair. To Lose a Battle: France, 1940. Rev. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. Horne’s classic work remains an excellent, detailed account of the French military disaster in 1940.
Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps Weygand, Maxime. Recalled to Service. London: William Hinemann, 1952. These memoirs by a key player shed much light on the lost battles of 1940. See also: 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built; Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime; Feb. 6, 1934: Stavisky Riots; Oct. 11, 1935July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway; June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy.
May 16, 1940-1944
Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps Gypsies were transported from Nazi-occupied Europe to the Nazis’ death camps, where they were exterminated along with Jews and other ethnic groups in an effort to “purify” the Aryan race.
Key Figures Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), commander of the German secret service and the concentration camp system Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), commander of the SS and overseer of the Nazi “final solution” Ernst Zindel (fl. mid-twentieth century), German senior councilor and bureaucratic coordinator of government policies concerning the Gypsies Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator, 1933-1945 Robert Ritter (1901-1951), anthropologist and leading German expert on the “Gypsy problem” Eugen Fischer (1874-1967), German professor of anthropology Summary of Event On May 16, 1940, German police rounded up almost three thousand Gypsies living in western and northwestern Germany and put them on trains bound for Germanoccupied Poland. These deportations initiated a more
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Also known as: Porajmos Locale: German-occupied Europe, especially modern Poland Categories: Atrocities and war crimes; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II
radical phase of the attempt by the German government to solve what they called the “Gypsy problem.” The solution to the “problem” resulted in tens of thousands of Gypsy deaths over the next five years. Although the total number of Gypsies who died during what Gypsies call the Porajmos (the Gypsy holocaust) remains unknown, some estimates range as high as one-half million. Four distinct but related factors in European history contributed to this massive destruction of human lives: the lifestyle of the Gypsies and their reputation in European folklore, the eugenics movement, the euthanasia movement, and the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. According to ethnologists, ancestors of the modern Gypsies began emigrating from northwestern India around 1000 c.e. They developed a nomadic lifestyle, never staying in one area for long. They retained their own distinct language. They earned money by fortunetelling, entertaining audiences with their unique music and dancing, and by theft and chicanery. Arriving in Europe sometime during the fourteenth century, they were often viewed as criminals and pests. Many European monarchs decreed laws limiting their mobility and contact with their own settled populations. By the twentieth century, many Europeans viewed the Gypsies as nomadic criminals who were a danger to the public welfare. Even the European scientific community began to denounce the Gypsies in the late nineteenth century with the advent of the “science” of eugenics. Sir Francis Galton, a first cousin to Charles Darwin, founded eugenics in the 1870’s. In several influential
Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps books, Galton argued that governments should encourage the genetically well-endowed members of their countries to reproduce in order to improve the human race. He also maintained that persons with congenital diseases and deformities should not be allowed to pass on their flawed genes to future generations. A number of scientists and laypersons around the world took up Galton’s cause and began to push their lawmakers to implement eugenics laws. The eugenics societies that soon emerged in most of the European nations and in the United States began to demand that their governments adopt laws for the mandatory sterilization of people they identified as genetically deficient. Some, if not all, of these eugenics societies adopted distinctly racist agendas, identifying blacks, Jews, Gypsies, and other “people of color” as being genetically inferior to the “white” races. In Germany, Eugen Fischer and Ernst Ruedin emerged as the most outspoken advocates of eugenics. Both were professors and both warned of an impending “biological crisis” that could irreparably damage the German race. Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, read one of Fischer’s books while imprisoned after his failed attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923. Hitler was so impressed by Fischer’s arguments that he incorporated many of them into his own semiautobiographical book Mein Kampf (1925-1927; partial English translation, 1933). When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, the eugenicists realized they had a powerful ally in the highest position of the German government. Although many of the leading eugenicists never joined the Nazi Party, they worked closely with Nazis in the German government to develop a racial policy for the German people. The Nazis created a number of government agencies such as the Reich Office for Research on Race Hygiene and Population Biology to identify and solve the racial problems of Germany. They also established university chairs of Racial Hygiene in many of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning to study the racial problem. By 1935, the racial experts proposed that allegedly undesirable elements (homosexuals, carriers of hereditary diseases, the terminally insane, and others) be excluded from German society through incarceration. The eugenicists also proposed that “alien” minorities in Germany (particularly the Jews and the Gypsies) be excluded as well and forbidden to intermarry with Germans. The German parliament responded by passing the infamous Nuremberg laws that deprived Jews and Gypsies of German citizenship and provided stiff penal3254
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ties for sexual relations between Germans and nonGermans. The government also established bureaus to deal with the several racially undesirable elements in Germany. To deal with the Gypsies, the government established the Zentralstelle zur Bekaempfung des Ziguenerunwesen (ZBZ; the Central Office to Combat the Gypsy Pest). One career bureaucrat of the ZBZ, Senior Council Ernst Zindel, recommended in 1935 that the Gypsies be identified and placed on reservations under close supervision. Accordingly, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Sicherheitdienst (SD; the secret service) and the ZBZ, commissioned a young scientist named Robert Ritter to study and identify all Gypsies living in Germany. Ritter performed a number of tests on more than twenty thousand German Gypsies over the next ten years, including blood types, cranial and skeletal measurements, and eye, hair, and skin pigmentation. As Ritter’s work progressed, Heydrich adopted ever more restrictive legislation concerning the Gypsies. In 1935, Heydrich ordered that all municipal governments establish Gypsy camps. By law, nomadic Gypsies could stay only in these camps. After 1937, Gypsies could leave these camps only during the day. Also in 1937, Heydrich adopted a regulation that permitted “preventive arrest” of anyone his police deemed likely to commit a crime. The police in German cities often used this law to arrest Gypsies and send them to concentration camps. In 1938, Heydrich ordered that all Gypsies must register with the local police whenever they entered a new district. In January of 1940, Ritter issued a report to Heydrich recommending that all pure and “mixedblood” Gypsies be sent to work camps and completely isolated from German society. The May, 1940, deportations represented Heydrich’s first step in implementing Ritter’s recommendation. The mass deportation of Gypsies from the rest of occupied Europe did not begin until November of 1941, when members of the German government apparently decided on an even more radical solution to the Gypsy problem. The so-called final solution to the racial problems as defined by the Nazis owed much to a movement in the German medical profession related to but distinct from the eugenics movement. Beginning shortly after World War I, some German doctors advocated the medical termination of “lives unworthy to be lived.” These doctors, including many eugenicists, argued that the terminally ill, the hopelessly insane, and persons incapable of thought, be granted mercy deaths—euthanasia. A number of doctors began to practice euthanasia illegally
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Significance By the time the death camps halted operations in late 1944, tens of thousands of Gypsies had died from various causes directly related to their incarceration. One historian puts the Gypsy death toll at 500,000, although the actual number may be significantly higher or lower. Like the Jews, the Gypsies were a people long used by Europeans to stand for the “Other” and thereby to define themselves. The extermination of the Gypsies, then, like that of the Jews, merely took to a horrific extreme a racist logic that was at the heart of European history and of the
self-understanding of many European races. Moreover, like the larger Holocaust of which it is a part, the Gypsy extermination had effects on both European and Gypsy history that are impossible to describe or measure adequately. —Paul Madden Further Reading Crowe, David M. A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Surveys the Gypsy communities of all the Eastern European and Russian areas during the Holocaust. Editors of Time-Life Books. The Apparatus of Death. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1991. A brief account of the Gypsy holocaust, along with a number of rare photographs of the deportation of Gypsies from occupied Europe and the death camps. Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Incorporates accounts of Nazi policies toward the Gypsies throughout the book. Milton, Sybil. “Holocaust: The Gypsies.” In Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, edited by Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, and Israel W. Charny. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. An account of the Gypsy Holocaust, appearing in a collection that also discusses the Nazi exterminations of the Jews and the disabled. Bibliographic references and index. Mueller-Hill, Benno. Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others— Germany, 1933-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Shows the complicity of the non-Nazi German scientific community in the “final solution.” See also: Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins; 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power; Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating; Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism; 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland.
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and without authorization. After the outbreak of World War II, Hitler personally authorized the implementation of euthanasia under the strict surveillance of competent doctors. Between 1939 and 1945, German doctors killed many thousands of their own citizens without the consent of the patients or their relatives. Some estimates put the number of “mercy deaths” as high as seventy thousand. A special group of German medical personnel called T-4 usually carried out the actual killing of patients. The T-4 group worked out several methods for killing large numbers of people at one time, including the use of carbon monoxide gas. Sometime in 1940 or 1941 (the exact date is uncertain, given that no written order exists), Hitler apparently made the decision to apply the methods of mass euthanasia to solve the Jewish and Gypsy problems. Heydrich and Himmler entrusted the deportation of Jews and Gypsies living in the German-occupied territories to Adolf Eichmann. In 1942, Eichmann began the mass transport of Jews and Gypsies to concentration camps and ghettos in Poland, where the T-4 group had set up mass extermination centers in January, 1942. In camps such as Auschwitz, Cheumno, Sobibór, Bel/ec, Majdanek, and Treblinka, Schutzstaffel (SS) personnel began the systematic murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and other racially undesirable or asocial persons. According to some Polish sources, the SS also began to murder Gypsies wherever they found them in the occupied territories without bothering to ship them to the camps in Poland. According to witnesses, at least twenty thousand Gypsies perished in Auschwitz alone, many dying from malnutrition or typhus.
Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps
Evacuation of Dunkirk
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May 26-June 4, 1940
Evacuation of Dunkirk The British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium was cornered by the German Blitzkrieg invasion of those countries. In a massive evacuation, the force was transported across the English Channel to the relative safety of England. Although it lost a great many supplies, the preservation of its troops enabled the British army to continue in the war, and the evacuation of French troops to England formed the foundation for a Free French armed force. Locale: Dunkirk, France; English Channel Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II; military history
10, the German army and air force struck. In accordance with Allied plans, two French armies and nine divisions of the British Expeditionary Force advanced into Belgium, to confront the German attack there. On May 13, six German divisions broke through the French defenses farther south along the Meuse River and struck northwestward toward the English Channel. On May 20, German forces reached the English Channel coast at the mouth of the Somme near Abbeyville, trapping the Allied forces in Belgium and northern France. The progress of the Germans toward the coast had seriously alarmed General Lord Gort, the commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force, and as early as May 19, he informed the British government that he was considering withdrawing his nine divisions to the English Channel for possible evacuation. The British Admiralty, the War Office, and Admiral Sir Bertram H. Ramsay, the flag officer commanding Dover, began to improvise plans for such an evacuation under the code name Dynamo. The prospects for a successful evacuation did not appear promising, as German forces moved northeastward along the coast. Boulogne and Calais were quickly surrounded, and a German force moved toward Dunkirk, the
Key Figures Lord Gort (John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker; 1886-1946), commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force Jean-Marie Charles Abrial (1879-1962), commander of French naval forces at Dunkirk Sir Bertram H. Ramsay (1883-1945), British flag officer at Dover Gerd von Rundstedt (1875-1953), German commander in France Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945, 19511955 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Evacuation of Dunkirk chancellor of Germany, 19331945 England North Anthony Eden (1897-1977), secretary of war of Great Sea Britain, 1940 London Hermann Göring (1893-1946), commander of the German Dunkirk Dover r Luftwaffe e v o Summary of Event When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, the British sent an expeditionary force to France. By May of 1940, it had risen to a strength of ten infantry divisions. In the meantime, Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Germany, had issued orders for a general offensive, planned by General Erich von Manstein, against France, Belgium, and Holland. At dawn on May 3256
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Significance The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk ensured that the British army could continue in the war. Although the British had been forced to leave behind all their heavy equipment, tanks, artillery, and transport, their trained men were rescued, and they
British soldiers taken prisoner at Dunkirk, June, 1940. (NARA)
formed the nucleus of the British army of the future. The loss of their equipment, however, meant that Britain had no effective land-based defense against a German invasion. It thus set the terms for the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force became the primary defenders of the island. — Samuel K. Eddy and Donald L. Layton Further Reading Atkin, Ronald. Pillar of Fire: Dunkirk, 1940. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2000. First-person narrative of the Dunkirk invasion by a British soldier. Includes bibliographic references and index. Carse, Robert. Dunkirk, 1940: A History. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Captures the horror, shock, and excitement that surrounded the withdrawal at Dunkirk, but does not present a detailed analysis of the event. 3257
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last port through which an Allied evacuation could take place. On May 24, however, Gerd von Rundstedt ordered the German armor to halt, less than fifteen miles from Dunkirk. This decision became one of the most controversial of the entire war. After the war, German generals singled out Hitler as responsible for the failure to finish off the Allied forces. In fact, a number of senior generals shared the blame. The halt, however, allowed the British and French to establish a defense line around Dunkirk and provided them time to put Operation Dynamo into motion. Hermann Göring, the German Luftwaffe commander, told Hitler that if the Allies left Dunkirk by sea, the German air force could stop them by bombing alone. Evacuation of the British began during the night of May 26. The French continued to consider defending Dunkirk as a fortress; it was not until May 28 that they decided to withdraw their troops and issued orders to Admiral JeanMarie Charles Abrial, in command of their forces at Dunkirk, to cooperate with the British. The Royal Navy recruited hundreds of small civilian pleasure craft to ferry troops from the beaches to the larger naval ships waiting offshore. The Luftwaffe’s attempt to stop the evacuation proved much more difficult than Göring had imagined. German fighters, still operating from bases in western Germany, were farther from Dunkirk than British fighters operating from England. Although the British could not gain control of the air over Dunkirk, the British did hamper the German air attacks, destroying 240 German aircraft while losing 177 planes. On May 26, Hitler rescinded the halt order, but problems in the German command structure slowed the German advance, and it was not until May 30 that they even realized that the British were evacuating their troops. In the early morning hours of June 4, the last British ship left Dunkirk. The evacuation was over, a feat of heroism and great organizational skill on the part of the Royal Navy and Ramsay. Altogether, the British, with some French assistance, rescued 338,000 men, 224,000 of them British—many more than anticipated. The cost was heavy, however. The British used 760 ships, of which 228, mostly small craft, were sunk by air attack, and the French had about 300, of which 60 were lost.
Evacuation of Dunkirk
United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy Collier, Richard. The Sands of Dunkirk. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961. An attempt to reconstruct the fighting at Dunkirk, this book’s greatest strengths are its full tables of units and ships. Divine, A. D. Dunkirk. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1948. Informative, although dated, account of the evacuation based on the logs of small boat masters and Admiralty reports. Gelb, Norman. Dunkirk: The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler. New York: William Morrow, 1989. An anecdotal reprise of the Dunkirk story based mostly on the standard secondary sources. Harman, Nicholas. Dunkirk, the Necessary Myth. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989. Revisionist account
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 of the evacuation emphasizes British manipulation of the press at home. Lord, Walter. The Miracle of Dunkirk. New York: Viking, 1982. One of the best accounts of the Dunkirk evacuation available. Presents interpretations of major issues that are soundly based on scholarship. See also: 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France; July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain.
June 14, 1940
United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy On the eve of World War II, the U.S. government began construction of warships that would come to dominate both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Locale: United States Categories: Government and politics; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; military history; World War II Key Figures Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Carl Vinson (1883-1981), U.S. congressman from Georgia Park Trammel (1876-1936), U.S. senator from Florida Harold Raynsford Stark (1880-1972), chief of U.S. naval operations Summary of Event The goal of establishing a two-ocean fleet was a powerful, if elusive, force in determining the nature of the U.S. Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into war in 1941. In the late 1930’s, the two-ocean standard became the latest in a succession of rallying cries designed to gain support for naval expansion among the American public. Its appeal originated in a growing recognition that vital U.S. interests were being threatened simultaneously by Germany and Japan. This two-ocean focus was an extension of threat perceptions and arguments dating back to the 1890’s and made more pressing with the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 and 3258
Japan’s victory over Russia in the 1904-1905 RussoJapanese War. With the collapse of naval arms limitations in 1936, the rearmament of National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, and the naval buildup and military adventurism of Japan, the necessity of creating fleets capable of fighting independently in widely separated theaters seemed evident. The U.S. Congress, responding to the change in popular attitude, passed legislation between 1938 and 1941 designed to translate the ideal of a two-ocean fleet into reality. U.S. naval policy in general has mirrored national ambition. In the 1890’s, and especially after the SpanishAmerican War, the horizon of that ambition increased measurably. At a single stroke, the United States became both a Caribbean and a Pacific power. U.S. control of the Philippines was perplexing for many people in the United States but exciting for navalists and imperialists. Together with Hawaii, which was annexed in 1898, the Philippines provided U.S. commerce with a toehold in the fabled China trade. Distant possessions seemed to mandate an increased fleet, and an increased fleet required overseas bases, setting the foundation for a selfperpetuating expansion of the military and naval establishment. For better or worse, expanded interests called for expanded responsibilities, and President Theodore Roosevelt, an enthusiastic convert to U.S. imperialism, led the movement to secure those interests. Between 1905 and 1909, Congress authorized the construction of sixteen new battleships of the all-big-gun, dreadnought
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the three years that followed the signing of the armistice ending World War I, the United States built more warships than all the rest of the world combined. In taking dead aim at British naval superiority, the United States also revealed apprehension concerning Japan’s being linked to Britain by the ten-year renewal of the AngloJapanese alliance in 1911. Between 1917 and 1921, Japanese naval appropriations tripled, undoubtedly affected by the upsurge in U.S. construction. It is not surprising that with the demise of German naval power in 1919, concern in the United States shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the summer of that year, the battle fleet was divided, with the newer and heavier units being sent to the West Coast. Fear of a costly, all-out naval race in the immediate postwar period served to induce a certain amount of moderation. In Washington, D.C., in 1921-1922, the five leading naval powers adopted a system of restrictions on individual capital ships (battleships and battle cruisers) and aircraft carriers as well as on the aggregate tonnages of capital war fleets. By the terms of the Five-Power Treaty, Great Britain and the United States were to share the first rank of naval power, Japan was assigned the second rank (approximately 60 percent of capital ship parity with the first-rank powers), and France and Italy were relegated to the third rank. In 1930, this agreement was augmented by the London Treaty, which established similar kinds of restrictions on the noncapital construction (cruisers, destroyers, and submarines) of Great Britain, the United States, and Japan. Thus from 1922 through 1936, the size and nature of the U.S. war fleet were restricted by international agreement. Domination of the Imperial Japanese Navy by the hardliners of the so-called Fleet Faction, who chafed at Japan’s second-rank status under the treaties, resulted in significant pressure on the Japanese government to demand equal status with the United States and Great Britain at the London Naval Conference of 1935. When Great Britain and the United States demurred, the Japanese government provided the requisite notice that it would no longer abide by the naval treaties after December, 1936. Japan’s subsequent penetration of China in 1937 and Hitler’s annexation of Austria and absorption of the Sudetenland in 1938 seemed to provide ample proof for the proposition that unilateral restraint by the United States was a dangerous policy. The issue of naval preparedness became correspondingly less controversial. In 1932, U.S. naval officers applauded the election of navalist Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency after the lean years of Republican naval and military expendi3259
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style by which international naval power was measured. Meanwhile, work on the Panama Canal, which was intended to provide much-needed flexibility for the fleet, continued toward its completion in 1914. By the time of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, Japan and especially Germany were seen as the most important potential threats to U.S. commerce and possessions. Tension caused by the treatment of Japanese nationals living in the United States was the primary reason for congressional approval of the last six new battleships authorized during Roosevelt’s administration. The attention of most U.S. naval experts was fixed on Germany, where an ambitious twenty-year naval construction program had been announced in 1900. Whereas the German fleet law was intended as a challenge to British naval supremacy, it was also perceived as a threat to U.S. interests by a host of U.S. congressmen and naval authorities. That traditional German concerns were continental and that the German navy had a nearer rival in Great Britain seemed to make no difference. Those guiding U.S. naval policy believed that it would be a mistake for the United States to allow itself to be surpassed in naval power by any nation that also maintained a great standing army. This growing American fear of Germany was also reflected in the concentration of the fleet. Long a dictum of the most distinguished U.S. naval strategic synthesizer, Captain A. T. Mahan, the concentration of naval forces was adopted by Roosevelt as a cardinal principle of fleet deployment. Throughout his presidency, and that of William Howard Taft as well, the main fleet remained posted in the Atlantic Ocean. After 1914, the prewar desire to improve the U.S. Navy to second place behind the British fleet was replaced by a determination to build a navy second to none. This challenge to British naval superiority, the first ever by the United States, was engendered by British arrogance toward neutral U.S. shipping and a fear of the naval landscape in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson and Congress joined in the $588 million naval construction act of 1916, which mandated ten new superdreadnought battleships and six battle cruisers. Wilson called for a similar program in 1918 to strengthen the U.S. bargaining position at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference. By 1924, the U.S. Navy would be the most powerful in the world, a dismaying prospect to the British government. U.S. naval ascension was delayed by the decision to shift battleship construction assets to the production of antisubmarine warships, such as destroyers, and to merchant ships to counter losses to German submarines. In
United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy
United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
A newly completed ship at the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1943. (Library of Congress)
tures. They were not disappointed. On the same day he signed the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) into law in June, 1933, Roosevelt signed an executive order using $238 million of NIRA public works funds for construction of new warships. This first step in building the U.S. Navy up to “treaty limits” was followed by congressional moves to improve the status of the war fleet. Spearheaded by the navalist chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, Carl Vinson, and the aging chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, Park Trammel, this movement’s objective was the replacement of all the fleet’s obsolete warships, or “floating coffins,” to use Vinson’s words. The resulting Vinson-Trammel Act, also known as the Vinson Naval Parity Act, which became law in March, 1934, envisioned the replacement of almost one-third of the existing tonnage of the U.S. Navy, including practically all the destroyers and submarines. The act did not appropriate funds for construction 3260
but served as a blueprint for U.S. naval policy. The clear intention of this action was the establishment of a fighting force that would be the equal of any in the world. Both the NIRA-funded ships and the Vinson-Trammel Act exacerbated strategic concerns in Japan, which was approaching its warship treaty limits and now faced new, qualitatively superior, U.S. warships. By 1938, many isolationists, hemispherists, and internationalists were in agreement that a powerful navy was an indispensable adjunct to a free United States, and so another authorization bill swiftly passed through Congress. The second Vinson-Trammel bill, the Naval Expansion Act, or Vinson Naval Act, sought the creation of a navy 20 percent larger than that permitted by the former limitation treaties. As Europe plunged into war, the last restraints on full-scale naval construction disappeared. On June 14, 1940, the day that Paris fell to the German Blitzkrieg, President Roosevelt signed into law a naval
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 expansion bill that authorized an 11 percent increase in appropriations. Three days later, Admiral Harold Raynsford Stark, chief of naval operations, asked Congress for an additional four billion dollars in order to bring the fleet up to the two-ocean standard. This bill, which was passed the following month, was the largest single naval construction program ever undertaken by any country. It provided for a 70 percent increase in combat tonnage to be constructed over a period of six years.
Further Reading Baer, George W. One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890-1990. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1994. Detailed history of the modern U.S. Navy examines how naval policy has been formulated. The Navy’s readiness for World War II is discussed in chapter 8. Davis, George T. A Navy Second to None: The Development of Modern American Naval Policy. 1940. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971. Informative scholarly study of U.S. naval policy and armaments as well as the relation of naval power to commerce. Hagan, Kenneth J. This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power. New York: Free Press, 1991. Excellent concise history of the U.S. Navy examines the service’s military, political, and technological evolution. O’Connell, Robert. Sacred Vessels: The Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the U.S. Navy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991. Readable cautionary account of naval strategic weapons and the profession in which they evolved. Pelz, Stephen E. Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. Excellent examination of the naval policies of the great sea powers from the end of arms limitations to Pearl Harbor. Draws on American, Japanese, and British sources. Tuleja, Thaddeus V. Statesmen and Admirals: Quest for a Far Eastern Naval Policy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1963. Provides informative discussion of the interwar relationship between the naval policies of the United States and Japan. Wheeler, Gerald. Prelude to Pearl Harbor: The United States Navy and the Far East, 1921-1931. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1963. Presents clear discussion of the attitudes of senior naval officers, Congress, the executive branch, and the U.S. public during an important period of naval limitation. See also: Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President; Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts; Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace; Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II; May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning; Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement.
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Significance President Roosevelt, who largely acted as his own secretary of the Navy, shared most admirals’ perception that the battleship defined naval power. Although additional aircraft carriers were authorized in the late 1930’s, the main focus of the Roosevelt naval buildup was the production of the seventeen new battleships authorized prior to U.S. entry into World War II. Despite the flurry of construction authorizations, U.S. naval power was insufficient to protect the Atlantic and Pacific interests of the United States in the wake of Pearl Harbor. A full year prior to that catastrophe, the Navy, pressured by the president, had been forced to shift its strategic focus from an offensive action against Japan to a position that in any future war would include both Germany and Japan; the fleet would take the offensive in the Atlantic while assuming a defensive posture in the Pacific. Even this severe modification of the strategy implicit in the two-ocean standard did not achieve satisfactory results for a disconcertingly long period of time. Although the success of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor might well be considered the result of a failure of specific rather than general preparedness, the inability of U.S. naval resources to provide adequate protection against the onslaught of Germany’s U-boat attack during all of 1942 provides convincing evidence that the Atlantic fleet had not achieved even a one-ocean capability at that time. This was an outgrowth of the myopic battleship strategic paradigm that restricted movement toward true capabilities in air, surface, and subsurface warfare. It was not until early 1943 that U.S. naval forces began to gain the upper hand in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of the war. — Meredith William Berg and William M. McBride
United States Begins Building a Two-Ocean Navy
Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
June 30, 1940
Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic The Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 brought organized regulation of the domestic civil aviation industry and presaged the development of the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1940 and the Federal Aviation Administration in 1958. Locale: Washington, D.C. Categories: Space and aviation; transportation; trade and commerce Key Figures Clarence Frederick Lea (1874-1964), U.S. congressman from California, 1917-1949 Patrick Anthony McCarran (1876-1954), U.S. senator from Nevada, 1933-1954 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event Several landmark regulatory efforts helped to shape commercial aviation in the United States. First, the Air Mail Act of 1925 relieved the government from the responsibility of carrying airmail and allowed contracts to be given to commercial airlines through competitive bidding. Second, the Air Commerce Act of 1926 placed responsibility for the development of the airways, aids to navigation, and safety regulation squarely with the federal government. The Federal Aviation Administration had its roots in the Air Commerce Act of 1926. Third, the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 laid foundations for centralized federal control. The act came to subject commercial air transportation to regulation of entry and exit from the industry, routes, and fares. By the mid-1930’s, the growth of airmail and air passenger operations had firmly established the U.S. airline industry. After the disastrous years of the Great Depression, aircraft manufacturers began providing more aircraft to airlines for air passenger service. The advent of World War II put even greater emphasis on the development of military and eventually commercial aviation. Progress and acceptance of new technology were substantial, and the future appeared bright for the industry. As motor carriers’ popularity and dominant positions as movers of domestic passengers grew, comparisons between the nation’s airways and railroads began to be made. Because both railroads and major carriers had been substantially regulated by the mid-1930’s, some 3262
thought was given to the potential for regulation of the domestic airline industry. Economic regulation, furthermore, was precipitated by uneconomic duplications of routes or substantial signs of exercise of market power. The Interstate Commerce Commission regulated railroads and motor carriers, but airlines were judged to be in a substantially different industry from their surfaceoriented counterparts. Airlines approached the federal government to suggest working out a basic set of guiding principles, and the fact that the legislation was initiated by the airlines rather than by the government made it unique. The Air Mail Act of 1934 had created three agencies that overlapped in authority, bringing confusion and hardship for the airlines. After several months of study by industry leaders and government officials, a completely new and all-encompassing law was passed affecting civil aviation in the United States. The new law found its base in Article 1, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the same foundation used for the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. The Civil Aeronautics Act was introduced into Congress by Senator Patrick Anthony McCarran and Congressman Clarence Frederick Lea and was passed by Congress on June 23, 1938. The Civil Aeronautics Act (also known as the McCarran-Lea Act) amended or repealed all major previous legislation related to aviation, and in doing so it prepared the setting for regulation of a growing industry. Air transportation was judged to be substantially different from previously regulated forms of surface transportation. Issues of competition, monopoly, public service, passenger focus, and safety were all in the minds of regulators. This law and its counterparts for surface transportation found their basis in the industry’s public-service nature. Government officials believed that they should regulate industries or organizations that were concerned with the public interest and were important to the economy. Public-service regulations were destined to ensure that rates charged were equitable, services offered were reasonable and nondiscriminatory, and the public interest was protected. The 1938 act was in many ways more advanced than the industry it was designed to serve, as it was based on regulatory provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act that had proved effective. Many provisions in the 1938
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic Significance The CAB had specific definitions and interpretations of regulations unique to the air transport field. Although there were parallels to surface transportation in economic regulation, safety regulation was much different. In the decades following World War II, there was a tremendous increase in the speed of aircraft and rapid growth in the number of daily flights. These factors, coupled with the increasing inadequacy of aviation navigation facilities, created serious congestion and danger. The problem was graphically illustrated in May, 1958, by the collision of a military jet trainer and a civilian transport plane, the third major disaster in less than four months. The worst civil aviation tragedy in the nation’s history to that date occurred in 1956, when two airliners collided over the Grand Canyon, with a combined loss of 128 lives.The mounting number of air accidents gave rise to the demand for a single aviation agency to conduct the operation and development of aviation facilities and services related to air traffic control. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 brought no major changes to economic regulations, but it did establish the Federal Aviation Agency, which was directed by a civilian administrator. This agency in effect replaced the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which had previously been charged with safety regulation. The administrator was given the power to regulate the use of navigable air space, to establish and operate air navigation facilities, to prescribe air traffic rules for all aircraft, to conduct research and development, and to suspend or revoke safety certificates, subject to review by the CAB. In addition, the administrator retained all authority previously granted to the Civil Aeronautics Administration. The 1958 act also created the federal government’s policy toward several aviation-related issues. The CAB was to encourage and develop an air transportation system properly adapted to the present and future needs of the foreign and domestic commerce of the United States, the postal service, and national defense. Air transportation was to be regulated in a manner that would recognize and preserve its inherent advantages, assure the highest degree of safety, and foster sound economic conditions. Economic regulation would include the promotion of adequate, economical, and efficient service by air carriers at reasonable charges, without unjust discrimination, undue preferences and advantages, or unfair or destructive competitive practices. Competition would be encouraged to the extent necessary to ensure the sound development of an air transportation system that would serve the public interest. Finally, federal policy would 3263
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act were taken almost verbatim from the Interstate Commerce Act. Other provisions were refined to reflect the half century of experience with the regulation of rail transportation. The mechanics of the Civil Aeronautics Act were based on the argument that regulation of air transportation, both economic and safety aspects, should be administered by three separate agencies. The original three agencies were the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), composed of five members who were to establish policies for regulation of safety and economics, an administrator of aviation appointed to carry out the CAA’s safety policies and economic regulations, and an air safety board, which was formed as an independent group of three persons responsible for the investigation of aircraft accidents. At first, the three agencies’ jurisdictions overlapped, and adjustments had to be made to the authority structures. In April and June of 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed changes that became effective on June 30, 1940. The organizational changes, known as the 1940 amendments to the Civil Aeronautics Act, led to the reorganization of the three agencies into two. The first agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), was set up as an independent group of five persons who reported to the president. This board exercised legislative and judicial authority over civil aviation as well as executive control of the economic regulations that governed airmail carriers. The investigation of aircraft accidents also became the responsibility of the CAB. The second agency created by the 1940 amendments was the Civil Aeronautics Administration, headed by an administrator who would focus on the execution of safety regulations. The Civil Aeronautics Administration was placed under the Department of Commerce. The Roosevelt plans submitted to Congress in 1940 led to reorganization in which the five-member Civil Aeronautics Authority became the independent CAB; the Office of the Administrator of Civil Aeronautics was renamed the Civil Aeronautics Administration and placed under the Department of Commerce, wholly separate from the CAB; the three-person air safety board was abolished, with its procedures and personnel absorbed into a bureau of safety within the CAB. The CAB, however, retained the responsibility for prescribing safety regulation and suspending or revoking certain aircraft or airmen certificates. The president’s belief was that reorganization would reduce the number of administrative agencies and simplify the task of executive management while drawing a more practical separation between the functions of the administrator and the functions of the CAB.
Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic promote safety in air commerce as well as promoting, encouraging, and developing civil aeronautics. On October 15, 1966, Congress created the Department of Transportation. The department became operational in April, 1967, and the Federal Aviation Agency was placed in the new department, with its name changed to the Federal Aviation Administration. The act also transferred the CAB’s accident investigation and related safety functions to the Department of Transportation and delegated them to an independent agency, the National Transportation Safety Board. In all other respects, the CAB’s function remained unchanged. Airlines continued to grow and prosper. The airlines’ share of domestic intercity common carrier passenger miles rose from less than 1 percent in 1930 to more than 77 percent in 1974. U.S. airlines carried 94 percent of overseas travelers in 1974, and airlines also became carriers of diverse types of freight. In 1974, air-freight revenues totaled more than $1.2 billion, which amounted to about 9 percent of air carrier revenues and more than 1 percent of freight revenues for all modes of transport. Regulation consistently focused on industry development. The acts passed in the middle of the twentieth century proved that the federal government was paying close attention to the stabilization and organization of the commercial aviation industry and to the regulations that ensured its operation and safety. Existing U.S.-based carriers continued to enjoy protection in market share and stability through careful regulatory activities, and it was not until the late 1970’s and the 1980’s that the industry turned its attention to deregulation and a return to freemarket control. The efficacy of deregulation was vigorously debated. Many argued that the new freedoms given to aviation departed substantially from the direction of early economic regulation and made it difficult for the domestic system to operate effectively. Although safety issues were not deregulated, they were affected by increased competitive pressures in the commercial aviation industry. Debates will likely continue on deregulation and on the efficacy of economic regulatory tools. Lending further urgency to the debate over airline safety were attacks by hijackers and terrorists during the last three decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, highlighted most dramatically by terrorists’ use of airplanes to hit the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,
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on September 11, 2001. Outrage over these attacks and fears of more attempts prompted the tightening of airport security and the bulletproofing of cockpit doors; cockpit crews were issued weapons, and the deployment of air marshals on airplanes increased. In the wake of the 2001 attacks, Congress also established the Transportation Security Administration, which succeeded the FAA as the primary agency responsible for security in civil aviation. —Theodore O. Wallin Further Reading Davis, Grant M. Transportation Regulation: A Pragmatic Assessment. Danville, Ill.: Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1976. Discusses various pieces of regulation concerning various transportation industries. Harper, Donald V. Transportation: Users, Carriers, Government. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1982. Discusses the interactions among the users and providers of transportation services as well as government involvement in the transportation industries. Hazard, John L. Transportation: Management, Economics, Policy. Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1977. A good foundation for the economics of transportation, with references to regulatory actions. Specific sections deal with aviation regulation. Kane, Robert M. Air Transportation. 14th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2002. Undergraduate textbook provides a section on history that includes excellent coverage of the early airmail days and the Kelly Act’s ramifications. Material on subsequent aviation legislation nicely supplements earlier coverage. Wells, Alexander T., and John G. Wensveen. Air Transportation: A Management Perspective. 5th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2003. Textbook aimed at undergraduates includes a brief but thorough discussion of contract airmail service and the original twelve contract airmail routes. See also: Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery; Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail; May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System; May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight; May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman; June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed
July 1, 1940
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed As part of an effort to organize the federal government more efficiently, the U.S. Congress merged the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey to form the Fish and Wildlife Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Locale: United States Categories: Organizations and institutions; environmental issues; government and politics Key Figures Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887), first commissioner of the U.S. Fish Commission Clinton Hart Merriam (1855-1942), first chief of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey
1940
Summary of Event In an effort to organize the government more efficiently according to functions, the U.S. Congress on July 1, 1940, merged the Bureau of Fisheries from the Department of Commerce and the Bureau of Biological Survey from the Department of Agriculture into the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Interior Department. This was somewhat unusual, because the trend had long been to divide and expand government bureaucracies instead of consolidating them for greater efficiency and less duplication of effort. The work done in the field by the agencies involved continued almost exactly as it had before consolidation. The Bureau of Fisheries originated as the U.S. Fish Commission by act of Congress in 1871. Spencer Fullerton Baird, director of the National Museum and assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was the key person behind the creation of the Fish Commission and served as its first commissioner. Baird was in the habit of spending his summers along the New England coast, where he noticed a pattern of gradual decrease in the number of the fish he was accustomed to catching. Inquiries among local fishermen confirmed what he had suspected. It was decided that a commission would be appointed to discover the cause of the problem and attempt to correct it in an expedient manner. No money was available for the commission, so Baird agreed to serve without salary and furnished office space in his own home. The chairman of the appropriations committee refused Baird’s request for money to rent offices for fear that a new government bureaucracy would get started. Never-
theless, the commissionership eventually became a salaried position, and in 1903 the U.S. Fish Commission was renamed the Bureau of Fisheries in the Department of Commerce. Its duties included the systematic investigation of reasons for the decrease of commercial food fish in the coastal and inland waters of the United States. The bureau studied fish migratory patterns and investigated the effects of pollution on the fishing industry. The bureau also established federally operated fish hatcheries and began propagating freshwater food fish in the lakes and rivers of the United States. This project was later expanded to the coastal areas to include marine fish, shellfish, and lobsters. Methods of storing and processing fish were compared, and improvements in fishing methods and equipment were suggested. In 1906, responsibility for Alaskan salmon fisheries and fur seals was transferred from the Treasury Department to the
Spencer Fullerton Baird. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce)
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed Bureau of Fisheries. The bureau protected certain Alaskan fur-bearing animals, sea lions, and walruses and also collected whaling data. The Bureau of Biological Survey began as the Division of Entomology, later called Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy, in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1885. Headed by Clinton Hart Merriam, the survey investigated the interrelationships of birds and agriculture and the relationship of mammals to agriculture and forestry. The work was subdivided into four areas: wildlife research, regulation of game laws, refuge management, and predator and rodent control. The Biological Survey introduced new techniques for studying wildlife based on the use of the cyclone trap, which soon demonstrated that there were many more animal species in North America than anyone had imagined. The bureau also began mapping the United States according to flora and fauna. It studied the relationship between the geographic distribution of specific plants and animals and the climates of given regions. In addition, the bureau operated the federal bird refuge system and large game preserves, a responsibility eventually transferred to the U.S. Forest Service. The government purchased marshlands for bird refuges. Farmers and ranchers welcomed the bureau’s work in controlling rodents and predators that destroyed their crops and livestock. The bureau also sought to control rabies. Significance The 1940 merger of the two bureaus into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continued and enlarged the work of conservation begun by the bureaus’ founding leaders, and the importance of the Fish and Wildlife Service has grown steadily ever since. One vehicle for the organization’s growth has been the federal grants-in-aid program to the states for wildlife and fish restoration projects. Soon after World War II, the service’s Office of Foreign Activities became involved in international fishery projects, working with the State Department to help negotiate and administer international fishery agreements. Members of the Fish and Wildlife Service began attending international conferences on fisheries and serving on international fishery commissions. Members also administered educational programs in foreign countries to share the results of their experience and research. Eventually, an organizational distinction was made between commercial fisheries and sport fish and game. In 1970, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries was transferred to the Commerce Department under the name of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Bureau of 3266
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sport Fisheries and Wildlife remained in the Interior Department under the name of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The basic goals of the service remained what they had always been: to ensure that the population of the fisheries is high enough to fulfill the needs of the human population and to protect the fisheries from the destruction that overuse can cause. Under the Endangered Species Acts of 1966 and 1973, the Fish and Wildlife Service became responsible for implementing the acts’ provisions. The service acquired habitats for endangered species and sought to restore them. In 1975, the service began evaluating the impacts on fish and wildlife of offshore development and oil spills. The service also conducts aerial and ground surveys of migratory birds and seeks to protect waterfowl production areas, sometimes setting up nets and barriers to prevent human incursions during mating and birthing seasons. In addition to its programs for conservation and preservation, the service has produced many valuable studies of American natural history. — William H. Burnside Further Reading Cameron, Jenks. The Bureau of Biological Survey: Its History, Activities, and Organization. 1929. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974. Detailed history of the Bureau of Biological Survey and how it conducted its work in the early twentieth century. Includes the texts of key laws relating to birds and wildlife in an appendix. Clarke, Jeanne Nienaber, and Daniel C. McCool. Staking Out the Terrain: Power and Performance Among Natural Resource Agencies. 2d ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Well-developed assessment of the rise and fall of natural resource bureaucracies in the United States, including the Fish and Wildlife Service. Clepper, Henry. Origins of American Conservation. New York: Ronald Press, 1966. Brief survey of the history of conservation in the United States includes chapters on wildlife regulation and restoration, forests and forestry, fisheries, and water conservation. Dolan, Edward F. The American Wilderness and Its Future: Conservation Versus Use. New York: Franklin Watts, 1992. Discussion of the attempt to balance the need for conservation with the need to use natural resources. Includes information on the role of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the enforcement of laws under the Endangered Species Act.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Dupree, A. Hunter. Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1957. Classic, welldocumented study of the relationship between the development of science in the United States and national politics. Discusses the Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the effort to use the tools of science in the work of conservation. Jaussaud, Renee M. “United States Fish and Wildlife Service.” In Government Agencies, edited by Donald R. Whitnah. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. Provides a brief history of the bureaus that were part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1871 to 1976. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American
Battle of Britain Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Discusses how humans and environment have interacted throughout American history, including human impacts on animal species. Includes an environmental history time line and an extensive guide to resources. See also: Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established; Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act; Sept. 1, 1914: Last Passenger Pigeon Dies; Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated; Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act.
July 10-October 31, 1940
Battle of Britain Germany launched an aerial attack on Great Britain in an attempt to clear the way for a land invasion. The Royal Air Force, however, successfully defended the island, and the Germans were forced to postpone the invasion of Britain and to turn instead toward the Soviet Union.
Key Figures Sir Alan Francis Brooke (1883-1963), British general officer and commander in chief of the Southern Command Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945, 1951-1955 Sir Hugh Dowding (1882-1970), commander in chief of the Fighter Command with the Royal Air Force Hermann Göring (1893-1946), commander in chief of the German Luftwaffe Albert Kesselring (1885-1960), commander of Luftwaffe Luftflotte 2 Keith Park (1892-1975), commander of Royal Air Force Number 11 Group Erich Raeder (1876-1960), commander in chief of the German navy Hugo Sperrle (1885-1953), commander of Luftwaffe Luftflotte 3
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Locale: England; English Channel Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II; military history
Summary of Event With the German conquests of the Low Countries and France completed by June of 1940, Britain stood alone in Western Europe to confront Adolf Hitler’s forces. Winston Churchill spoke to his countrymen: “Hitler knows he will have to break us on this island or lose the war.” British military leaders assumed that a German invasion of Britain from across the English Channel was likely to begin in the near future. Although the British Royal Navy controlled the seas immediately around Britain, its forces were strained by the need to protect the Atlantic supply routes used by American supply ships against German U-boat attacks. Some fifty-five army divisions could be mustered to defend the island, but many of those divisions were only at half strength. Prospects of defending against a German ground attack were further complicated by the fact that British forces fleeing Dunkirk earlier in June were forced to abandon most of their supplies while retreating from German forces. An army general observed at the time that the defense of Britain would fall primarily on the Royal Air Force (RAF), particularly on the Fighter Command planes. Since 1936, Sir Hugh Dowding, head of the Fighter Command, had tried to convince the cabinet and the Air Council that, in the next war, Britain would be on the defensive. For that reason, priority in aircraft planning and production should be given to a buildup of fighter plane strength, not bombers as the Air Council wanted. Dowding also stressed the need for improved detection and
Battle of Britain early warning of enemy aircraft. Over much opposition and after much delay, Dowding’s warnings persuaded the Air Council to alter its contingency plans. In 1939, the Air Council ordered stepped-up production of more fighters, as well as the construction of an early warning system. British designers developed two types of improved fighter planes: the Hurricane and the Spitfire. Both flew at maximum speeds of three hundred miles per hour (fast for the time), had heavy armor, constant speed propellers, self-sealing fuel tanks, and eight machine guns. The innovative design of these planes had a major impact on the course of Britain’s air battle with the German Luftwaffe (air force). During 1937, British physicists had worked on air-
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craft detection by means of radio wave signals, and what would later be known as radar was quickly developed. Work began on building a linked system of radar stations, ground observation units, and Fighter Command sector control bases that would enable the Fighter Command to anticipate and intercept enemy bombers. Hundreds of barrage balloons and antiaircraft artillery added to the British defensive shield. Since the German invasion of France, Hitler had sought to persuade the British to negotiate a settlement and end the fighting between their nations. His peace overtures were rejected out of hand by Churchill. Although he believed the mission “technically unfeasible,” Hitler approved Operation Sea Lion, the military plan for the German invasion of England, in July of 1940. The invasion was tentatively set to begin on September 21, some two months later. Ninety thousand German troops would make up the initial assault force, building to ten divisions within two weeks. Preparations for Operation Sea Lion went forward rapidly. More than twelve hundred boats and barges were assembled at French ports across the Channel from England. Troops were trained in landing procedures, and bases were built for the aircraft that were to provide air cover during the landing. A central element in the plan was to neuTo view image, please refer to the tralize Britain’s air force before Gerprint edition of this title. man troops crossed the English Channel. Serious disagreements then arose between the German naval and army high commands as to whether the landings should be made along a broad front in southern and eastern England as the army wanted, or on a more concentrated front in Kent and Sussex. Admiral Erich Raeder insisted that his ships could not assure protection of the assault forces over the broad front, and the generals feared that the narrow front would enable the British to place their full force in one locality and so more effectively contest the invasion. Raeder The Luftwaffe’s field marshal, Hermann Göring (left), discusses plans with chief of finally won his point, and the narrow staff Major General Hans Jechonnek in 1940. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) front plan was adopted; but the delay 3268
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glish cities that lasted until May of 1941. Most historians place the decisive period of the battle between July 10 and October 31, 1940. The fighting during that period consisted of a number of bomber attacks and fighter plane encounters, increasing in size and intensity. During July and into early August, the Luftwaffe carried out intermittent strikes, mostly on British shipping in the Channel and on the port of Dover. Some 150 civilians were killed and twenty ships were sunk in these strikes, but dozens of Luftwaffe planes were downed by RAF fighters and antiaircraft fire. On August 1, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy the Royal Air Force and establish air superiority. “The German air force is to overcome the British air force with all means at its disposal, and as soon as possible,” Hitler ordered. The next phase of the German air offensive was directed at the radar stations and airfields in the southeastern counties of England. British losses of men and machine were heavy, and the prospects of clearing the area for the Sea Lion landings were enhanced. The airfields were quickly repaired, radar stations were rebuilt, and the Fighter Command was able to complete most of its operations by mid-August. As a result of the energetic efforts of Lord Beaverbrook, the minister of aircraft production, Britain more than made up its losses in fighter aircraft. The pilot shortage was partly rectified through increased graduation from training schools, the retraining of bomber pilots, and shifting pilots from other branches of the military, as well as recruitment of foreign pilots then in Britain. Meanwhile, Göring had been planning Operation Eagle, a massive saturation bombing of Britain’s southern ports and airfields. Operation Eagle had to be postponed several times in early August because of bad weather. Then on August 13, designated “eagle day” by the German Command, British radar stations picked up signals of very large formations of approaching aircraft: Operation Eagle had begun. The German attackers came in several waves, and Park’s fighters rose to meet them. Some of the German bombers penetrated British defenses and did further damage, but the Hurricanes and Spitfires shot down forty-seven of the enemy planes at the cost of thirteen British craft. Bad flying weather returned, causing a two-day suspension of the operation. By August 15, favorable weather prompted Göring to order a renewal of the bombings. He declared that the objective was to obliterate the Royal Air Force planes and facilities. On that day, and into August 16, four successive waves came across the Channel and across the North Sea from bases in Nor3269
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had further shortened the time margin for implementation. Logistic revisions had to be made with dangerous haste to get Operation Sea Lion under way before autumn storms closed the Channel. Across the Channel, British ground and air defense preparations were also proceeding. Under General Sir Alan Francis Brooke, the Home Guard was increased to five hundred thousand men; mobile field guns, antitank weapons, and small arms were provided in ever larger amounts; more than two million bomb shelters were built and distributed; and plans to resist German landings from the sea or by parachutes from the air were developed. It was increasingly apparent to both sides that control of the air over southern England would be the critical factor in determining the success or failure of a German invasion. The Luftwaffe’s commander in chief, Hermann Göring, had no doubt that his pilots could gain that control. Indeed, he believed that his bombers would so pulverize British defenses within a month’s time that they would have to surrender, and a cross-Channel invasion would be unnecessary. Göring had cause for optimism. With more than thirteen hundred bombers and twelve hundred fighter planes, the Luftwaffe in Western Europe greatly overmatched the Royal Air Force. The Luftwaffe squadrons were organized into three air groups (Luftflotten); of these, the latest was Luftflotte 2, commanded by Albert Kesselring, and Luftflotte 3, commanded by Hugo Sperrle. The air groups were stationed in France and the Netherlands, from whence they would spearhead the German air offensive. To confront the German air power, Dowding’s Fighter Command had only about 700 front line fighter aircraft, with another 350 in reserve. They were, of necessity, deployed all over the island. Even the heaviest concentration of fighter planes—those in Park’s Number 11 Group in the southeast—would probably be outnumbered by as much as ten to one by the attacking German planes. Dowding’s most serious shortage, however, was of men to fly the planes. There were only a few more than fourteen hundred fully trained fighter pilots and almost no reserves available to replace them if they were disabled or killed. Assigning precise beginning and ending dates to the Battle of Britain is a somewhat arbitrary proposition: There were German attacks on the British Isles before the “battle” is thought to have begun, and the fighting continued for quite a while after the most intense phase— which defines the battle proper—ended. Indeed, the Battle of Britain was followed immediately by what is known as the Blitz, a period of German bombing of En-
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Battle of Britain way. Luftflotte 2 and Luftflotte 3 bombers eluded Park’s fighters and the antiaircraft guns in sufficient numbers to destroy four aircraft factories and five airfields around London. The bombers from Norway had been sent with insufficient fighter escort and they were brought down in large numbers. In those two days, the Luftwaffe had seventy-six planes shot down, the worst damage in a short period the German air force would ever suffer. In all, between August 8 and August 26, the British fighters destroyed 602 German aircraft—mostly bombers, especially the Stuka dive bombers, which proved very vulnerable to British defenses. In that same period, 259 British fighters were shot down during these daylight raids. Under intense bombardment, Britain refused to yield to German air power. Churchill praised the efforts of the Royal Air Force and the British military in his famous speech to the House of Commons on August 20, 1940. “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few,” Churchill observed. Despite the growing German losses, the Luftwaffe attacks intensified. Göring was convinced that, weather permitting, Britain could be brought to its knees in approximately two weeks. During the last week of August and the first week of September, 1940, there were more than thirty major attacks averaging more than one thousand planes per raid. Most of the bombs were directed at the airfields and sector stations of Number 11 Group. Vice Marshal Park admitted that the damage was extensive and that the fighting efficiency of his command was being seriously impaired. Dowding saw the mounting loss of fighter pilots as critical: In those two weeks, 103 RAF pilots were killed or declared missing. By September 6, the Fighter Command (and therefore all of Britain) appeared on the verge of defeat. Across the Channel, Operation Sea Lion preparations were stepped up with the news of the Luftwaffe successes. Then, in early September, Göring made a serious tactical error. He ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF facilities toward massive attacks on London and other population centers. Göring had received intelligence reports that the Fighter Command had been neutralized and no longer had sufficient strength to defend against German bombers. Those reports were wrong, as the events of the following week would illustrate. If Göring had pursued his objective of destroying the Fighter Command, Germany might have won the Battle of Britain. On September 7, the British government sent out the code signal “Cromwell,” signifying that the expected invasion was now at hand. On that same day, nearly two 3270
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 hundred German bombers hit East London, killing more than three hundred civilians and inflicting extensive damage to houses, docks, and warehouses. That night, another 250 bombers, guided by the light of the extensive fires, did more damage to the British capital. Park sent up his fighters to intercept. In the air battles that ensued, another thirty-eight German planes were shot down, as were twenty-eight British aircraft. Most important, Park had demonstrated that the Fighter Command was still functioning and lethal. London was again bombed on September 9, but with less effect than on September 7, because only about half of the attacking planes were able to penetrate and attack their targets. As the attacks continued, nearly one thousand civilians per week were dying in raids on London. Churchill, fearing any show of weakness, ordered the Royal Navy and the RAF Bomber Command to attack French port facilities that could be used by Germany in a cross-Channel invasion. It was increasingly obvious that the Germans did not yet control the Channel or the air space over England. Faced with that knowledge, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion to the spring of 1941. What proved to be Göring’s last major effort to clear the way for the invasion came on September 15, 1940. He threw everything he had into the day’s fighting. Some 123 bombers with 5 fighter escorts each went out from the continental bases. Park’s squadrons, reinforced by planes from other British air groups, went to meet the Luftwaffe. The air battle began about noon and lasted until late in the evening. When the day ended, sixty German planes had been destroyed, with British losses of only twenty-six aircraft. September 15, 1940, would later be identified by many as the turning point in the Battle of Britain. “We still keep this day, and I hope we will always keep it,” Harold Macmillan would write, “in commemoration of our victory.” Significance German air attacks on England would continue for the better part of a year, as the Battle of Britain evolved into the Blitz sometime around October 31. In many ways, however, British victory was achieved on September 15. Two days afterward, realizing that the Luftwaffe could not gain air supremacy and that it was too late for weather favorable to further attacks, Hitler ordered the indefinite postponement of Operation Sea Lion. His interest turned eastward instead, and German plans for the invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) began. Britain would still have to endure repeated pounding by German bombers in the Blitz, but in the summer of 1940, the “gallant few” of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the RAF Command had saved Britain from invasion. Adding up the final cost, more than forty thousand British civilians were killed. In addition, more than forty-six thousand were injured and more than one million homes were destroyed. Six to seven hundred British military aircraft had been destroyed, as against some fourteen hundred German aircraft of all types. In addition to preserving England from invasion, occupation, and defeat, the Battle of Britain was a turning point in American perception of the war. It demonstrated that Britain was capable of resisting the Nazis’ aggression—something that no other country had yet accomplished and that many Americans thought beyond British power. Moreover, the radio broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow from the rooftops of London during the battle—with the sound of bombs falling all around him—brought the stakes of the conflict home to Americans by bringing the visceral experience of enduring a Nazi bombing attack into their living rooms. It weakened somewhat—albeit only somewhat—the isolationist mood of the nation, and it ensured that most would see the British as allies and the Germans as enemies. — James W. Pringle and Lawrence I. Clark
“Never . . . Was So Much Owed by So Many to So Few” In his August 20, 1940, speech to Parliament, Winston Churchill attempted to dispel fears of an impending Nazi invasion by noting that the Allied soldiers’ recent sacrifices had done much to strengthen Britain’s position. The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day. . . . A good many people have written to me to ask me to make on this occasion a fuller statement of our war aims, and of the kind of peace we wish to make after the war, than is contained in the very considerable declaration which was made early in the autumn. . . . I do not think it would be wise at this moment, while the battle rages and the war is still perhaps only in its earlier stage, to embark upon elaborate speculations about the future shape which should be given to Europe. . . . But before we can undertake the task of rebuilding we have not only to be convinced ourselves, but we have to convince all other countries that the Nazi tyranny is going to be finally broken. The right to guide the course of world history is the noblest prize of victory. We are still toiling up the hill; we have not yet reached the crest-line of it; we cannot survey the landscape or even imagine what its condition will be when that longed-for morning comes. The task which lies before us immediately is at once more practical, more simple and more stern. . . . For the rest, we have to gain the victory. That is our task. . . . Some months ago we came to the conclusion that the interests of the United States and of the British Empire both required that the United States should have facilities for the naval and air defense of the Western Hemisphere against the attack of a Nazi power. . . . We had therefore decided spontaneously, and without being asked or offered any inducement, to inform the Government of the United States that we would be glad to place such defense facilities at their disposal by leasing suitable sites in our Transatlantic possessions for their greater security against the unmeasured dangers of the future. . . . His Majesty’s Government are entirely willing to accord defense facilities to the United States on a 99 years’ leasehold basis. . . . Undoubtedly this process means that these two great organizations of the English-speaking democracies, the British Empire and the United States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage. For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.
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Further Reading Bickers, Richard Townsend, ed. The Battle of Britain: The Greatest Battle in the History of Air Warfare. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990. A detailed examination of the Battle of Britain written by a former RAF pilot and British military historian. Contains photographs, detailed information on military aircraft, day-to-day analysis of the air battles, index, and chapter on “RAF Heroes” killed during the Battle of Britain. Fisher, David E. A Summer Bright and Terrible: Winston Churchill, Lord Dowding, Radar, and the Impossible Triumph of the Battle of Britain. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005. History of the Battle of Britain, focusing on the importance of Churchill’s moral leadership and Dowding’s military strategy to the British victory. Bibliographic references and index. Franks, Norman. Battle of Britain. New York: Gallery Books, 1990. A useful general intro-
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Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere duction to the Battle of Britain by a British aviation writer. Includes photographs, appendix, and index. Gilbert, Martin. “France’s Agony, Britain’s Resolve” and “The Battle for Britain.” In The Second World War: A Complete History. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. In this widely acclaimed book, the official biographer of Winston Churchill provides a valuable history of German strategy and the defiance of the British people. Hough, Richard, and Denis Richards. The Battle of Britain: The Greatest Air Battle of World War II. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Richards, the coauthor of the official history of the Royal Air Force, and Hough, a former RAF pilot, draw heavily on official sources in this detailed military history. Includes photographs, illustrations, maps, detailed appendix, index, and day-to-day chronology of the fighting.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Robinson, Derek. Invasion, 1940: The Truth About the Battle of Britain and What Stopped Hitler. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005. A reconsideration of the role of the RAF in preserving Britain from invasion: Emphasizes the weather and the ability of the Royal Navy to protect the island by staging night attacks on German ships in the Channel. Bibliographic references and index. See also: 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built; Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland; Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss; Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference; Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland; 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images; Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway; May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France; May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk.
August, 1940
Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere The empire of Japan sought to lead a bloc of Asian nations that would establish its political, economic, and cultural independence from the Western group of nations—including the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands—that had colonies in East Asia. Locale: Japan Categories: Diplomacy and international relations; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Hachirf Arita (1884-1965), general in the Japanese Army and minister of foreign affairs Nobuhiro Satf (1769-1850), originator of the greater East Asia concept Hideki Tojo (1884-1948), war minister, 1940-1941, and prime minister of Japan during World War II, 1941-1944 Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945), Indian revolutionary Summary of Event The Japanese government faced a crisis of monumental proportions in 1940. The major Western powers—the United States and Great Britain—demanded that Japan abandon its claims on and occupation of China. The 3272
Americans and the British also insisted that Japan withdraw from French Indochina, a colony that the Japanese had seized from the Vichy government in France. Failure to comply, the Western governments announced, would result in the adoption of severe economic sanctions against the Japanese. At this point, control of the Japanese government lay in the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. A surrender of the holdings that it had already taken in China and a withdrawal from French Indochina would be in complete contravention of the military’s long-range plans for expansion. Accordingly, in August of 1940, the Japanese government proclaimed the creation of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, which would incorporate Japan, Manchuria, Korea, and China into an independent economic and political entity composed solely of Asian peoples. The sphere would ultimately include French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippine Islands, and Burma, and extremists even considered both India and Australia as possible additions. The concept of a cooperative agreement among Asian peoples had long been a dream of the Japanese leadership. As early as the latter part of the eighteenth century and in the first half of the nineteenth century, Japanese scholar Nobuhiro Satf introduced the concept of a
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Subhas Chandra Bose, the head of the provisional government in India, which wanted to overthrow British rule in the subcontinent. The Japanese established and trained the Indian National Army as well as the Burma Area Army with the intention of using the help of these two groups in a planned invasion of British India. Such an invasion never progressed past its initial planning stages, however, because the Japanese troops stationed on the Indian border lacked the supplies and equipment necessary to undertake such a campaign. Significance Although Japan’s promotion of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere seemed to be a shrewd propaganda move to secure the cooperation of Asians in countries colonized by Europe, in practice the movement was a failure. Despite pronouncements made by Japan’s central government on the benefits that the new organization would provide to the colonial peoples of Southeast Asia, the Japanese military proved to be substantially more oppressive in its relationships with the colonial peoples than the Europeans and Americans had been. The Japanese conquerors stripped the colonies of all the wealth they could find and cruelly abused the peoples under their control. Many of the local economies were devastated by these actions, which often left members of the native populations without enough food and equipment to support themselves. Moreover, the occupiers slaughtered members of the local population who objected to Japanese rule. As World War II progressed in countries such as the Philippines and Burma, locals joined guerrilla groups and undermined the Japanese military administrations wherever they could, even though the latter were ruthless in their efforts to end such opposition. As the Allied forces gradually defeated the Japanese, local peoples took revenge on both retreating Japanese soldiers and the native citizens who had aided them. For example, Japanese colonies such as those established on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines were wiped out by members of the Filipino resistance. — Carl Henry Marcoux Further Reading Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: Random House, 1991. A detailed report on the activities of the Japanese army in the conquered countries under their control. Ienaga, Saburo. The Pacific War, 1931-1945. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Chronicle of the events of the 3273
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greater East Asia. He argued that Japan should aggressively expand its territory by seizing the Ryikyu Island group, Luzon (in the Philippines), and ultimately Java (in the Dutch East Indies) as part of what he called the “southward advance” strategy. If Japan were to achieve a leadership position in Asia, it would have to dominate a number of its neighbors. Hachirf Arita, a professional diplomat who had served as foreign minister in a number of Japanese cabinets in the twentieth century, rationalized that the Coprosperity Sphere was not an attempt by Japan to monopolize economic and political power in Southeast Asia. Instead, he argued, it was designed to promote mutual opportunities for its members through support of independence movements, trade agreements, loans of capital, and exchanges of ideas. The Japanese government announced the implementation of the new concept with great fanfare. The idea, however, was largely a piece of propaganda: No carefully delineated master plan for its implementation had been devised by the civilian leadership. The government left the mechanics of its application to the military governor in each conquered territory, which resulted in a wide variety of different economic and political approaches among jurisdictions, depending on the needs of the troops stationed in each area and the availability of goods. In November of 1942, Premier Hideki Tojo called representatives from all of the conquered countries to Tokyo for a conference on the goals of the Coprosperity Sphere. In his opening speech, he attacked the United States and Britain for their exploitation of Asian peoples and promised that Japan would lead the East Asian nations in a program of mutually beneficial economic development, racial harmony, and independence. Japan, however, had already established a reputation for brutality in its relationship with its neighbors. In 1937, it received worldwide condemnation for the widely publicized destruction of the Chinese city of Nanjing. According to records developed during the postwar Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, soldiers of the Tenth Japanese Imperial Army and the Sixteenth Division were responsible for the murders of more than two hundred thousand Chinese soldiers and civilians. The army was also accused of some twenty thousand rapes of Chinese women. Equally devastating records were uncovered in the final days of the Japanese army’s occupation in Manila, where thousands of Filipinos were slaughtered by the Japanese as they retreated from Manila’s walled city in early 1945. Included in the list of politicians invited by Tojo was
Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere
Italy Invades British Somaliland war in the Pacific by an outstanding Japanese historian. Explains the failure of the Japanese civil authorities to curb action by the military that led to the war’s disastrous outcome. Lebra, Joyce C. Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. A collection of individual reports by Japanese military and political leaders. Also includes contributions by writers from other countries. Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 A detailed study by a Japanese researcher into the motivation for the crimes committed by the Japanese military. See also: Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea; Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine; Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; Dec., 1937Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing; Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports.
August 3, 1940-March, 1941
Italy Invades British Somaliland After a search for battle sites that they would be able to conquer, Italian forces struck British Somaliland. Although the Italians achieved their basic objective— to complicate British access to Ethiopia—their victory in the area was temporary. Also known as: East African Campaign; Abyssinian Campaign Locale: British Somaliland (now in Somalia); Italian Somaliland (now in Somalia); French Somaliland (now Djibouti) Categories: Military history; colonialism and occupation; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), prime minister and dictator of Italy, 1922-1943 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945 Amadeo (1898-1942), third duke of Aosta and commander of the Italian forces in British Somaliland Guglielmo Nasi (1879-1971), commander of the native African troops of the Italian army Alfred Godwin-Austen (1889-1963), commander of British defensive forces in British Somaliland Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), commander of the British Middle East command Summary of Event Of all the Italian campaigns during World War II, the invasion and occupation of British Somaliland was counted as the sole Italian success in an independent 3274
operation. The purpose of the invasion was to deny the British access to French Somaliland and its port city of Djibouti, which would cut off access to Ethiopia. On August 3, 1940, Amadeo, a field marshal, and General Guglielmo Nasi led the invasion forces into British Somaliland. The invading force of approximately 175,000 troops consisted of nearly 70 percent native African troops who had been enlisted as members of the Italian army and were gathered mostly from the Italian colony of Italian Somaliland. On June 10, 1940, after witnessing Nazi Germany’s massive territorial gains during its early victories and after the fall of France, Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Italian dictator, decided to join World War II on the side of the Axis forces, which had previously consisted of Germany and Japan. On June 10, 1940, Italy formally declared war on Great Britain, but it was slow to initiate any action against its new enemy. After surveying the strength of various Allied forces around the world, Mussolini decided to launch his first offensive action in Africa, since a campaign there was likely to end in an Italian victory. The British army had approximately thirty-six thousand troops in Africa. On the other hand, the Italians had nearly one million troops in the same area. Britain’s success as a colonial power was largely dependent on its impressive navy, and the Italians realized that they could defeat the British on land if not at sea. When Italy’s army confronted the British in Africa in 1940, the vast Italian forces quickly overwhelmed the few battalions of British defenders stationed in British Somaliland. Both the Axis and Allied Powers were extremely interested in the control of the Suez Canal and in the Middle East’s vast oil supplies. Throughout World War II,
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When the total size of the initial invading and defending forces are considered, a careful analysis of these numbers shows that the British were able to conduct an extremely skillful and orderly withdrawal while inn flicting maximum casualties on the Italians. At first Winston Churchill criticized General Archibald Wavell, head of the Middle East command, for practically giving away British Somaliland without a fight, but later, after analyzing the numbers carefully, Churchill withdrew any criticisms of Wavell’s tactics; Churchill realized that the alternative could have cost Britain its entire Indian defensive force. Ocean The Italians had little interest in gaining natural resources or territory in British Somaliland. Instead, Italian interests were based entirely on denying access to Ethiopia via British Somaliland. While British Somaliland had no direct access to Ethiopia, it could access the area through French Somaliland and its port of Djibouti. However, by preventing Great Britain from contact with the border between British Somaliland and French Somaliland, the Italians were able to keep the British away from Ethiopia. Significance The Italian invasion of British Somaliland was successful largely due to the fact that the invading Italian troops overwhelmingly outnumbered the defending British troops. The main objective of the invasion—to deny Great Britain access to Ethiopia through the French Somaliland port of Djibouti—was also met. This victory, however, came at significant human cost to the Italians, particularly in light of the imbalance in numbers of troops. The British inflicted more than 2,000 casualties and lost only 260 of their own troops. Also, in the face of huge numbers of Italian troops, the British successfully evacuated most of their assets. In other words, the British defeat was not a total defeat, and it was not long before they regained their strength. The Italian occupation of British Somaliland was very short-lived. In March of 1941, Great Britain launched a successful military expedition from Aden to retake British Somaliland from the Italians. This expedition was just a part of a multipronged and successful Allied offen3275
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the Allies maintained the upper hand in the Middle East. The Axis forces had several victories, although many of these were short-lived, including the Italian invasion and occupation of British Somaliland. In this campaign, the four battalions of British defenders were vastly outnumbered by the attacking Italians, who formed three separate columns to take the western cites of Zeila, Hargeisa, and Odweina. Zeila and Hargeisa both fell to the Italians on the second day of the invasion, and Odweina fell on the third day. The British defending forces fell east to Tug Argan, where their main positions were located. Two of the three Italian columns joined forces for the attack on Tug Argan and moved into position, while the third column moved on toward the capital city Berbera. The British, realizing their desperate straits, received a few reinforcements and a new commander, General Alfred GodwinAusten, but they were still only able to hold Tug Argan for a few days. The British defenders then retreated to the north coast city of Berbera, the capital of British Somaliland. On August 19, 1940, the British troops were successfully evacuated across the Gulf of Aden to the city of Aden in southern Yemen, leaving British Somaliland to the victorious Italians. Defense of British Somaliland cost the British 38 deaths, 111 wounded, and 111 missing soldiers. The Italians fared significantly worse: Their losses included approximately 465 deaths, 1,530 wounded, and 34 missing.
Ogdensburg Agreement sive military operation into North Africa, known as the North African Campaign. The Italians’ success was at least partly based on use of modern technology. Italian forces did an excellent job of coordinating by radio as they split into three separate columns in the western cities of Zeila, Hargeisa, and Odweina. In addition, the Italians were able to force the British troops out of British Somaliland with remarkable speed: In a little more than two weeks, the Italians controlled the British Somaliland capital city of Berbera and had driven all the defending British troops off the continent and into the British protectorate of Aden. —Glenn S. Hamilton Further Reading French, David. Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany, 1919-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This work contains a detailed accounting of the military tactics and equipment utilized by Great Britain’s troops during World War II. Gilbert, Adrian. Germany’s Lightning War: The Cam-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 paigns of World War II. Newton Abbot, England: David and Charles, 2000. This book conveys a great deal of information concerning the tactics of ground war utilized by the Axis countries. Goda, Norman J. W. Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa, and the Path Toward America. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1998. This work contains detailed information on Axis tactics utilized during the African campaign. Townshend, Charles, ed. Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. This work contains a great deal of text and photographs that fully cover the African campaign of World War II as well as many other conflicts. See also: 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya; Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion; 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy; Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy; Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania; Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt.
August 16, 1940
Ogdensburg Agreement The United States and Canada entered into an agreement on hemispheric defense. Locale: Ogdensburg, New York Category: Diplomacy and international relations Key Figures Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945 William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), prime minister of Canada, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 James Layton Ralston (1881-1948), Canadian defense minister Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States, 1933-1945 Summary of Event After only slight hesitation, Canada followed the mother country, Great Britain, in going to war against Germany in 1939. Canada’s southern neighbor, the United States, was sympathetic to Great Britain and its allies but vowed to remain neutral. The situation changed drastically after the Germans 3276
conquered France in June, 1940. The German armies seemed invincible, and there was a real threat that they might cross the English Channel and conquer Great Britain. The United States, realizing the gravity of the world situation, became more concerned about its security and that of the Western Hemisphere. The prime minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, developed a contingency plan to have the British royal family, in the event of a German takeover, flee Britain and take sanctuary in Canada. Clearly, the Atlantic Ocean was no longer a barrier to world conflict. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States, was worried about both Western Hemisphere security and Great Britain’s ability to stay in the war. He wanted to help Great Britain and prepare his own country for the war he knew it would one day enter, but he believed that the U.S. public was not ready for full-fledged participation. Roosevelt therefore conceived the lendlease policy to address both issues. Under lend-lease, Great Britain would lease certain military bases in the Western Hemisphere (in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and elsewhere) to the United States for ninety-nine years. In return, the United States would lend surplus aircraft and
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 other military equipment to Great Britain. Thus the British military would be strengthened and the United States would gain control of bases that would help it defend the Western Hemisphere against potential German aggression. Canada was not consulted under this agreement. Although a close ally and associate of Great Britain, Canada had been a sovereign nation since the Statute of Westminster in 1931. The Canadian prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, had been slow to recognize the threat posed by Nazi Germany. King, indeed, was ambivalent about his country’s entry into the European war until the very last moment. There were many political pressures on King not to enter the war; the voices raised in opposition ranged from those of Francophones in Quebec, whose fierce opposition to Britain made them reluctant to enter the war even though their own mother country, France, was on the British side, to those of isolationist farmers in the Prairie Provinces who saw no apparent need for Canada to intervene in foreign disputes. Most Canadians, however, supported King when he decided to commit Canada to the war effort at the side of Great Britain.
Ogdensburg Agreement Once engaged in the war, King shared the concerns of Roosevelt and Churchill regarding Western Hemisphere security. He was heartened by the lend-lease agreement, but he was concerned about Canadian national sovereignty as affected by the accord, especially in the case of Newfoundland. Newfoundland’s close geographic proximity to Canada put it in the natural Canadian sphere of influence. Newfoundland had been an independent, selfgoverning dominion for sixty years, until the 1930’s, when, because of its inability to handle the economic depression of that era, it had been taken over by Great Britain. King and the majority of the Canadian public expected that one day Newfoundland would join the rest of Canada (as, in fact, it did in 1949). King was thus unwilling to accept the permanent transfer of bases in Newfoundland to U.S. sovereignty. Roosevelt was friendly toward Canada and knew the country well from his summer visits to the Canadian island of Campobello. Recognizing King’s concern over the situation, Roosevelt advised the Canadian leader that he would be reviewing troops in the town of Ogdensburg, located in northern New York State, close to the Canadian border, on August 16, 1940. King decided that
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt (left), Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (center), and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in Ogdensburg, New York, two days after Roosevelt and King signed the Ogdensburg Agreement. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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Ogdensburg Agreement it would be to Canada’s advantage for him to meet Roosevelt at Ogdensburg. In deference to Canadian public opinion, he made no public announcement of the visit, fearing that it would be seen as an act of submission or surrender to the United States. King did his best to keep the meeting a secret. Even James Layton Ralston, the Canadian minister of defense, whose responsibilities were vitally concerned with the situation, learned of the meeting only through reading the next day’s newspapers. On the morning of August 16, Roosevelt arrived in Ogdensburg, accompanied by the U.S. ambassador to Canada, J. Pierrepont Moffat. Roosevelt met King, and the two men together reviewed U.S. troops. Roosevelt and King then repaired to a railway carriage, where the substantive discussions were held. The two men were very different. King was a mystic who regularly attended séances in order to communicate with the spirit of his dead mother. Roosevelt, on the other hand, was regarded by many as the ultimate political opportunist, although his fierce commitment to democracy and liberalism never wavered. Nevertheless, the two men, who knew each other from previous meetings, established a good working rapport, and they quickly reached a broad consensus. The centerpiece of this consensus was the so-called Continental System, which provided that Canada and the United States would regularly consult each other about military conditions. It also stipulated that the two countries would prepare themselves to mount a common defense of the Western Hemisphere. It even allowed for the possibility of temporary establishment of U.S. bases on Canadian soil. This was the aspect of the Continental System most disagreeable to Canadian nationalists. The U.S. bases, however, were only in the context of Canadian involvement in the lend-lease policy. Although King and Canada had not been involved in the formulation of this policy, Roosevelt’s briefing apprised the Canadian prime minister of the lend-lease initiative, of which King wholeheartedly approved. King and Roosevelt also reached agreement on the status of Newfoundland. Roosevelt abjured any possible U.S. intent to control or annex Newfoundland permanently and stated that the future status of Newfoundland was up to the inhabitants of the island themselves, in consultation with the Canadian and British governments. Significance The most important achievements of the Ogdensburg meeting were not in the precise terms hammered out between Roosevelt and King but in the general spirit of un3278
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 derstanding and mutual support built between the two men. Canada and the United States had enjoyed friendly relations for many years, but the two countries had never really been allies. The Ogdensburg Agreement prepared Canada and the United States for the alliance that would exist between them when the United States entered World War II in 1941 and that would continue through the postwar years. The Ogdensburg Agreement also represented a shift on the part of Canadian military and defense policy from a primary orientation toward Great Britain to a similar orientation toward the United States. By 1940, Canadian independence had been fully achieved. Canada, large in area but small in population, would inevitably have to engage in cooperation and alliance with another, more powerful country. Canada previously had been wary of the United States because the latter country was so much larger in population. The dominance of the United States on the North American continent had caused observers periodically to wonder if Canada might eventually be annexed by the United States. Although the Ogdensburg Agreement might have seemed to subordinate Canada to U.S. defense policy, it had the countervailing effect of firmly enshrining the interests of an independent Canada within a North American defense context. This reaffirmation of Canadian independence substantially assisted U.S.-Canadian cooperation after the United States entered the war. It also smoothed the way for eventual Canadian participation in two postwar defense alliances led by the United States: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the North American Air Defense Pact (NORAD). Predictably, King faced considerable outcry in the Canadian nationalist press once he returned to Ottawa and his meeting with Roosevelt was revealed to the public. However, his achievement in the Ogdensburg meeting was considerable, helping to cement Allied cooperation in the long and determined struggle against Nazi Germany and its threat to democracy and freedom. — Nicholas Birns Further Reading Gibson, Frederick, and Jonathan G. Rossie, eds. The Road to Ogdensburg. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993. Collection of essays on developments in Canadian-U.S. relations leading up to the Ogdensburg Agreement. Kimball, W. F. The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-Lease, 1939-1941. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969. Provides background on British-U.S.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 relations in the period when the Ogdensburg Agreement was formulated. Perras, Galen Roger. Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 19331945: Necessary, but Not Necessary Enough. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998. Focuses on Roosevelt’s role in encouraging Canada to establish a defense pact with the United States. Pickersgill, J. W. The Mackenzie King Record. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960. A comprehensive archive of the events of King’s tenure as prime minister. Riendeau, Roger. A Brief History of Canada. 2d rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Concise history includes discussion of King’s government and the World War II years in Canada. Sokolsky, Joel J., and Joseph T. Jockel, eds. Fifty Years of Canada-United States Defense Cooperation: The
Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports Road from Ogdensburg. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. Collection of essays by noted American and Canadian scholars discusses cooperation between the two nations in the years following the Ogdensburg Agreement. Stacey, C. P. Arms, Men, and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939-1945. Ottawa: Queen’s Printers, 1970. Discusses Canadian defense policy in the World War II period. Teatero, William. Mackenzie King: Man of Mission. Don Mills, Ont.: Nelson, 1979. Brief biography of the prime minister. See also: 1921-1948: King Era in Canada; Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty; Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations; July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty; Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada; Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II.
September, 1940
Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports
Locale: French Indochina (now in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) Categories: Colonialism and occupation; diplomacy and international relations; World War II; wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Key Figures Yfsuke Matsuoka (1880-1946), Japanese foreign minister Hideki Tojo (1884-1948), Japanese general and prime minister of Japan, 1941-1944 Hachirf Arita (1884-1965), Japanese general and minister of foreign affairs Summary of Event The Japanese military establishment seized control of its country’s government during the 1930’s. Through the use of both assassination and intimidation, the Imperial
Japanese Army, claiming that its policies reflected the will of Emperor Hirohito, established itself as the main political force in the island nation. The army planned to strengthen its hold on power by expanding the empire through the conquest of neighboring countries and exploiting their resources. The concept of empire, however, was not new to Japan. Just before the turn of the twentieth century, the military had seized control of Korea, described as “a dagger pointed at the heart of the empire.” In late 1931 and early 1932, the army overran Manchuria, established a puppet emperor, Puyi, and began a major exploitation of the newly conquered territory’s natural resources. The Japanese army invaded China proper in July of 1937. The army was committed to conquering China, and it engaged in a tremendous expenditure of men and equipment. Despite a series of impressive victories against the opposition Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces in the field, however, the Japanese high command never succeeded in gaining complete control of China’s vast territory. In 1940, the Japanese high command considered the occupation of French Indochina’s ports critical to the success of its long-range plans for the military, political, and economic domination of Southeast Asia. In order to proceed with the planned invasions of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, as well as to cut off 3279
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The Japanese Imperial Army, in the midst of an invasion of China, determined that an occupation of French Indochina was critical to the success of that endeavor as well as to its plans for Japanese military expansion into Southeast Asia generally. The Japanese government convinced the Vichy French government to allow it to occupy Indochina, thereby solidifying its hold on the region.
Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese forces from the French colony’s key cities of Haiphong and Hanoi, French Indochina had to be neutralized. In 1887, the French, after interfering in the local politics of the area for decades, had seized control of what were then the territories of Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos, and named the new political entity the Indochinese Union. For the next five decades, they exploited the area, establishing mines and rubber and rice plantations. As was common for European colonial regimes, the French authorities organized (or compelled) cheap local labor to run these operations. Their trade was forced to stop by the advent of World War II. Yfsuke Matsuoka, Japan’s foreign minister, began negotiations with France’s Vichy government to cooperate with Japan with reference to the Indochina question. Japan had joined Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact of September 27, 1940. Certainly, this new ally of the victorious Germans influenced the thinking of the recently defeated French. Japanese General Issaku Nishihara arrived in Hanoi to negotiate with the French leader, Admiral Jean Decoux. After some procrastination on its part, Vichy agreed to allow the Japanese army to occupy southern Indochina. The Japanese needed at least twelve weeks of full access to the country in order to build the additional bases necessary to launch their impending planned attacks on surrounding military targets such as the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese also succeeded in preventing Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces from receiving any more supplies through northern Indochina. The Japanese, citing their policy of “Asia for the Asians,” sought to gain support from the local population for their occupation of the country once they gained control. The U.S. government regarded the Japanese action as tantamount to an invasion and demanded that the Japanese army withdraw from the French colony, as well as from China itself. Despite the restrictions that the United States imposed on exports to Japan, however, the island nation’s military hierarchy had no intention of giving up its recent conquests. On December 7, 1941, Japan launched an all-out attack on Allied bases in Hawaii, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Dutch East Indies. The bases that the Japanese army and navy acquired in the Indochina agreement with Vichy France served as critical launching pads for the invasion of the Dutch colonial possessions to the south. The quick surrender of Singapore allowed the army to advance their timetable for the invasion of the Dutch East Indies, which 3280
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Hideki Tojo. (AP/Wide World Photos)
quickly fell to a determined combined Japanese army and navy campaign. Once the Japanese military succeeded in conquering French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, the Japanese government launched what proved to be a largely propagandistic campaign designed to regulate the politics and the economies of those countries. Called the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, the plan called for the eventual independence of all of its participants, as well as the integration of their economies into a master plan headed by Japan itself. The Japanese called for an end to colonialism in the area, repeating the slogan of “Asia for the Asians.” In practice, the central Japanese government left the implementation of the program to the military governments of each conquered country. As was the case in Indochina, the military simply confiscated any goods they thought of value and shipped them to the Japanese home islands, leaving the local populations in desperate economic shape. It was only after the U.S. Navy success-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 fully interdicted Japan’s supply lines from Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and Indochina to its home islands that these critical raw materials were lost to the Japanese war effort.
Further Reading Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: Random House, 1991. A detailed description of the operations of the Japanese army and its development, from its beginnings in 1890 until its dissolution in 1945. Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. Hoyt used the 101-volume offical Japanese-language history of World War II, never previously thoroughly examined by a Western scholar. He has made excellent use of these documents to give some insight to Japanese thinking about the war. Ienaga, Saburo. The Pacific War, 1931-1945: A Critical Perspective of Japan’s Role in World War II. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Prominent Japanese historian and university professor questions what the Japanese people could have done to avoid their nation’s participation in World War II. Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945. New York: Random House, 1970. This is the work of an American historian, but his work was ably assisted by his Japanese wife and her family, which greatly facilitated his face-to-face interviews of Japanese who had held key positions during the war. His family connections also aided him in his extensive review of the records of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Military History Archives of the Japan Defense Agency. See also: 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War; Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine; Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties; July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan; Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing; Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
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Significance Although the Japanese military profited initially from the acquisition of French Indochina, its long-term goal of incorporating the former French colonial possession into its master economic plan failed miserably. Not only did the United States and its allies defeat the Japanese in the field, but also the behavior of the Japanese occupiers toward the indigenous peoples in the lands that they conquered turned out to be so brutal and rapacious that they received little if any support when World War II began to turn against them. While it was true that the colonial peoples of Burma, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies sought independence, they quickly realized that with the Japanese they had only exchanged one colonial master for another. In most of the former European and American colonies, the local population aided their former masters to overthrow the Japanese occupiers. All these nations would achieve their independence shortly after the conclusion of World War II in one manner or another. French Indochina was split up into three independent countries—Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Meanwhile, Hideki Tojo, Japan’s prime minister, and Yosuke Matsuoke, its foreign minister—both of whom had played prominent roles in the adoption of the country’s plans of aggression—were charged as major war criminals by the Allied Forces at the conclusion of the war. Foreign Minister Matsuoke died June 26, 1946, before he could be tried. Prime Minister Tojo, however, was found guilty of seven major counts, sentenced to death, and executed. —Carl Henry Marcoux
Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports
First Color Television Broadcast
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September 1, 1940
First Color Television Broadcast The Radio Corporation of America and the Columbia Broadcasting System both demonstrated color television systems in 1940, although the RCA system was not adopted until 1953. Locale: New York, New York Categories: Science and technology; radio and television; communications and media Key Figures Peter Carl Goldmark (1906-1977), head of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s research and development laboratory William S. Paley (1901-1990), founder and head of the Columbia Broadcasting System David Sarnoff (1891-1971), founder and head of the Radio Corporation of America Summary of Event Although color television had been demonstrated in Scotland in 1928 (by engineer John Logie Baird), 1940 serves as the benchmark for the invention of a medium that would come to dominate television technology during the latter third of the twentieth century. Two events in 1940 denote that year as the beginning of color television. First, on February 12, 1940, RCA demonstrated its color television system privately, including to members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an administrative body that had the authority to set standards for an electronic color system in the United States. The demonstration did not go well; indeed, DavidSarnoff, head of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), canceled a planned public demonstration and had his engineers return to the Princeton, New Jersey, headquarters of RCA’s laboratories. On September 1, 1940, CBS struck its blow for a competition to determine the color system that would become the standard for the United States. On that late-summer day, CBS demonstrated to the public a sequential color system that was based on the research of engineer Peter Carl Goldmark. CBS’s color technology was the superior of the two systems demonstrated in 1940. Goldmark’s system broke the television image down into three primary colors through a set of spinning filters in front of black and white, causing the video to be viewed in color. This was known as additive color. Although Goldmark had been at work as a research engineer at CBS since January, 1936, he did not attempt 3282
to develop a color television system until March, 1940, after he had witnessed the spectacle of the Technicolor motion picture Gone with the Wind (1939). Inspired, Goldmark began to tinker in his tiny CBS laboratory in the headquarters building in New York City. If a decision had been made in 1940, the CBS color standard would have been accepted as the national standard. At that time, however, the FCC was trying to establish a black-and-white standard; color television seemed decades away. A 1941 decision by the FCC to adopt standards only for black-and-white television left the issue of color unresolved. This standards recommendation was based on the advice of the National Television Standards Committee, which represented electronics manufacturers and leading research scientists. The two leading broadcasting companies in the United States did not simply accept the FCC’s decision. Control of a potentially lucrative market as well as personal rivalry threw William S. Paley, head of CBS, and Sarnoff into a race for the control of color television. Both companies would pay dearly in terms of money and time in developing the technology for color television, and it would not be until the 1960’s that color television would become common in the United States. RCA’s leadership in the development of the accepted black-and-white television system gave the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), a subsidiary of RCA, a head start over CBS. Once black and white became the standard in the late 1940’s, however, CBS saw the creation of a workable color system as a potential weapon to counter the advantage long held by NBC. CBS took a far different approach from that of RCA. Goldmark alone did the work for the CBS Laboratories. In contrast, RCA relied on a corporate laboratory staffed by highly skilled but largely anonymous scientists. Sarnoff ran RCA laboratories as a true corporate monolith; no scientists at RCAever became as famous as Sarnoff. The CBS color system was incompatible with the RCA standard for black-and-white television. In other words, viewers would need one set to watch black-andwhite programming and one for color. Moreover, because the CBS color system needed more spectrum space than the National Television Standards Committee blackand-white system in use, CBS was forced to request that the FCC allocate new channel space in the ultrahigh frequency (UHF) band, which was then not being used. In contrast, RCA scientists labored to fashion a compatible
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color system that required no additional spectrum space. Not surprisingly, in the early 1940’s, CBS received little encouragement from the FCC, even though roughly one hundred scientists were trying to perfect the color system. Indeed, the leaders of CBS were not able to convince the FCC to do anything about color television before To view image, please refer to the the end of World War II. This meant print edition of this title. that, although CBS had a workable color system, it faced a world lining up to purchase RCA’s black-andwhite television sets in 1945. The suburbanites who populated new communities in American cities sought television immediately; they did not want to wait for governmental bodies to decide on a color standard and then for manufacturers to redesign assembly lines to make color sets. Americans, rich with savings accumulated during the prosperity of the war years, wanted to spend CBS founder William S. Paley (left) with CBS executive Frank Stanton in 1951. immediately, not wait as they had (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) through the Great Depression. After the war, the FCC saw no reason to open up proceedings about color. standard for black-and-white television. Thus ended the Black-and-white television was operational; customers invention phase of color television begun in 1940. The were waiting in line for the new electronic marvel. To race for standardization would require seven years of give its engineers time to create a compatible system, corporate struggle before one system would win out. RCA skillfully lobbied the members of the FCC to take no action. Significance There were legitimate problems with the CBS meThe inventions of CBS and RCA set off the race toward a chanical color television technology. Not only was it instandard for color television. Each company would pour compatible with the millions of new black-and-white millions of dollars into convincing the FCC to select its television sets being sold, but it also was noisy and bulky, system as the standard. The winner of the first round was and it did not always maintain the color balance. DemonRCA when, in 1946, the FCC again rejected the color strations often went poorly. CBS proclaimed that through technology of CBS as the standard. CBS had tried to confurther engineering work it would improve the actual vince the world it was time to adopt color; officials of sets, but RCA was able to convince other manufacturers RCA argued that black and white was here, whereas to support it in preference to CBS principally because of color was still five years away. its proven manufacturing track record. In 1950, the FCC reversed its decision and accepted the In 1946, RCA demonstrated a new electronic color remechanical scanning system after a convincing demonceiver with three picture tubes, one for each of the primary stration. RCA countered with a lawsuit seeking to overcolors. The color was fairly true; there was little flicker, turn the commission’s decision. In 1951, RCA lost this but any movement on the screen caused color blurring. suit, and it seemed that the CBS color system would beThis was an all-electronic system, in contrast to the mecome the national standard. CBS began to manufacture chanical system of CBS. It was also compatible with the
First Color Television Broadcast color television sets while RCAworked to reverse the official rulings. According to one source, RCA poured about $150 million more into research and tendered many more millions to Washington, D.C., lobbyists and lawyers. In the end, few of CBS’s color sets were made, because American involvement in the Korean War caused the company to cease production in October, 1951. This gave the opposing forces time to convince the National Television Standards Committee that any color system ought to be compatible with the millions of black-andwhite sets Americans had already purchased—as was RCA’s system. So lobbied, the FCC rescinded its 1950 ruling approving the CBS color television system. On December 17, 1953, it reapproved the compatible RCA system. Seeing what the delay caused by the Korean War cost CBS, RCA moved quickly. In 1954, in eighteen cities in the United States, the Rose Parade held in Pasadena, California, on New Year’s Day was broadcast in color on NBC. Few viewers had color sets at that time, but owners of blackand-white-compatible sets could receive the signal and see the parade in black and white. Through the 1950’s, black-and-white television remained the order of the day. Five years after the 1953 adoption of the National Television Standards Committee, only the NBC television network was regularly airing programs in color. Full production and presentation of programming in color during prime time would not come until the mid-1960’s; most industry observers acknowledge 1972 as the date of the true arrival of color television. By 1972, more than one-half the homes in the United States owned color sets. At that point, TV Guide stopped tagging color program listings with a special symbol and instead tagged black-and-white shows. Gradually, only cheap portable sets were made for black and white, whereas color sets came in all varieties, from tiny handheld pocket models to mammoth projection televisions. It should be noted that, despite RCA’s victory in the race to have its color system become the standard, specialized uses of closed-circuit television in medical settings used the high-quality color rendition of the CBS system for many years. Indeed, the pictures from the Moon transmitted by American astronauts were sent on CBS cameras—built by RCA. —Douglas Gomery Further Reading Barnouw, Erik. A History of Broadcasting in the United States. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 3284
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1966-1970. Massive work still stands as among the most important histories of broadcasting in the United States. The coming of color television is covered in the second and third volumes. Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Biography by a longtime associate of Sarnoff presents a balanced account of his life. Provides a detailed history of RCA’s contribution to the invention and innovation of color television. Dreher, Carl. Sarnoff: An American Success. New York: Quadrangle, 1977. Comprehensive work on the activities of RCA and its founder presents a detailed history of the invention and innovation of color television. Fink, Donald G., and David M. Lutyens. The Physics of Television. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960. Compact volume gives an excellent explanation of how television works in nontechnical language accessible to readers with only modest science background. Explains color systems in the final chapter. Goldmark, Peter C., and Lee Edson. Maverick Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973. Autobiography of the key inventor at CBS includes three chapters that detail the development of color television. Provides a rare look into the world of corporate technological research and development. Head, Sydney W., Thomas Spann, and Michael A. McGregor. Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media. 9th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Comprehensive introduction to the institutions of radio and television in the United States. Includes discussion of the invention and innovation of color television technology. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping, comps. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. Collection of articles and documents covering the history of radio and television. Informative concerning the history of all forms of television technology, including color television, as well as the changing economics and social impact of this mass entertainment industry. Metz, Robert. CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye. New York: Playboy Press, 1975. A history of one of the most important broadcasting institutions in the United States. Smith, Sally Bedell. In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Biog-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 raphy includes detailed examination of the history of the Columbia Broadcasting System and explains why CBS developed color television technology. Sterling, Christopher H., and John M. Kittross. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. Comprehensive history of radio and television in the United States provides excellent coverage of the development of color television technology.
Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered See also: Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins; Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television; Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded; June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress; Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program; Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair.
September 12, 1940
Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered Discovery of the cave paintings at Lascaux enabled archaeologists to elaborate on the historical evolution of prehistoric art techniques and to determine that such techniques originated further back in the chronological record of human cultures than had previously been believed. Locale: Near Montignac, Dordogne, France Categories: Archaeology; arts; prehistory and ancient cultures
Summary of Event For several generations after its discovery in 1868, the cavern at Altamira in Spain, along with a few discoveries made in the Levantine (southeastern) regions of Spain and in southwestern France, represented the richest archaeological remains of paintings by prehistoric man in Europe. Then, quite by accident, a new, exceptionally rich find in the region of Dordogne in France occurred shortly after the outbreak of World War II. On September 12, 1940, five boys—three local youths named Ravidat, Marsal, and Queroy, accompanied by two refugees, Coencas and Estréguil, who had fled the German occupied northwestern zone of France—were roaming through fields belonging to the ruins of a dwelling referred to locally as the Chateau Lascaux. The muffled yelping of their lost dog, who had fallen into a narrow opening at the base of an upturned tree, drew their attention to what appeared to be the mouth of a large cavern or grotto. Seventeen-year-old
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Key Figures Henri-Édouard-Prosper Breuil (1877-1961), French archaeologist Marcel Ravidat (fl. mid-twentieth century), French youth who was the first to enter Lascaux Cave
Marcel Ravidat entered the hole and slid down 7.6 meters (about 25 feet) to a sandy floor in a vaulted oval subterranean hall 18 meters by 9 meters (approximately 59 feet by 29.5 feet) in size. When he lit matches to illuminate his surroundings, he became the first person in fifteen thousand years to gaze upon the wondrous prehistoric polychromatic cave paintings of Lascaux. Although they had no way of realizing it, what they had discovered resembled the famous Altamira paintings in northern Spain. The latter had been discovered seventy years before. The Lascaux cavern walls were covered with paintings of wild beasts: horses and stags, oxenlike creatures with strangely elongated bodies, and especially prominent and dominating, bulls with strange spotted patterns covering portions of their bodies. Scattered among the animals in this prehistoric scene were a series of symbols or emblems: checkers and marks resembling sprigs of grass or leaves. The first graphic impressions of what the cave contained were drawn by Estréguil. The second, more technically perfected, set of sketches came a few days later, when the youths had informed the local schoolmaster of their discovery. Qualified archaeologists were brought to view the site. Abbé Amédée Bouyssonie was one of the archaeologists who was notified; he had discovered the famous Neanderthal man skeleton in 1908. Bouyssonie was aware that HenriÉdouard-Prosper Breuil of the College of France, a wellknown archaeologist who had been involved in a number of excavations connected with Neanderthal remains and Mousterian-period prehistoric cultures, had come to Dordogne in June, 1940. Together with M. Peyrony, director of the famous local museum of prehistoric cultures at Les Eyzies, the two archaeologists undertook a more systematic exploration of the Lascaux cavern. For
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role in attempts to re-create the cultural conditions of human existence in prehistoric times: the presence of a gd ed Kin om Netherlands el Unit drawing of what Breuil called a “halfgi Lille Germ um l e conventionalized man” lying beside n n an Cha y h s what were obviously his hunting Le i gl Luxembourg Rouen Luxembourg Havre En tools (a javelin and a throwing stick). Se Caen This human figure, presumed to be ine Paris Strasbourg fatally wounded, faces the promiRi Le Mans Orleans nently outlined figure of a bison. The r latter, his entrails disemboweled by e v Lo ire Ri Dijon Liechtenstein the hunter’s spear, appears to be gazF r a n c e Nantes Bern ing at its stalker. n Switzerland ti Poitiers Those who first entered Lascaux c ClermontGeneva O ce Ferrand Cave were astounded to find a numan I ta ly Milan Lyon ber of other unique forms of artistic Po Rive r Grenoble Bay of expression. Perhaps the most impresTurin Bordeaux Ga sive was an outline of a child’s hand Genoa Lascaux ro Biscay Avignon and forearm. Although such primiNice tive techniques of representing the Toulouse Monaco Marseille Bayonne “artists” themselves were not uncommon in prehistoric cave sites, archaea Se ologists were impressed particularly Andorra an Corsica e by this tiny reminder of the commun Spain ra ter i nity of painters who executed the Barcelona d Me frescos at Lascaux, simply because it was the only such hand to be found among such a large number and variety of representations of animals. Breuil, the opportunity was particularly important beIndeed, the number and variety of animals found decause, as a specialist interested in establishing a general picted at Lascaux were not the only things that impressed theory covering the chronological evolution of prehisthose who found them; the uniqueness of (apparent) toric art, he knew that Lascaux held a great potential for symbolism was equally striking. Some paintings contain a new archaeological breakthrough. simple symbols to tell a “practical” story. This is the case The first survey revealed more than eighty pictures, of what later came to be called the “falling horses,” both in the main hall and in a side gallery attached to it. which are depicted in chaotic disorder, often upside Most of these were found on blocks of stone that had down, to represent primitive man’s common method of fallen from the cavern roof above. It would take some hunting such prey by driving them off the edges of precitime before more complex theories concerning the age pices. Other scenes contain elements that were much too and content of the paintings would emerge. Almost imcomplex for the first observers of the paintings to commediately, however, Breuil wrote a preliminary report prehend beyond the mere state of wonder they engenon the findings and submitted it to the prestigious Endered. This is the case with the so-called Apocalyptic glish scientific journal Nature. Beast, which appears prominently in the main hall of the The sizes of the primitive paintings varied from small cavern. This animal figure may have represented an ox or proportions (about 30 centimeters, or roughly 12 inches) a prehistoric rhinoceros. The body is massive and sagto very large drawings (some 5 meters, or about 16 feet, ging, as if in a late state of pregnancy, and spotted with long). It was evident immediately that a number of differcurious oval-shaped rings. Other features appear to be ent techniques had been used to create artistic effects, grossly distorted, such as the tiny head and neck on the and that many paintings had been retouched or restored. otherwise massive beast. Most perplexing for the first Breuil noticed something that would play an important observers, who could not even begin to interpret the
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 meaning of what they had found, were the “horns” of the unidentifiable Apocalyptic Beast. These appear as straight, rigid sticks capped by peculiar “tufts” that bear no resemblance even to now-extinct animals known to have existed in this prehistoric period. In addition to these visually impressive features of the Lascaux paintings, an announcement came from Breuil immediately after his first viewing of the site that would alter the theoretical bases for scientific observation of prehistoric cave paintings. Drawing on his previous experience nearby at Font de Gaume (Les Eyzies), where he had identified partial remains of paintings that had been painted over in the Magdalenian archaeological period (c. 15,000 b.c.e. to 10,000 b.c.e.), Breuil hypothesized that the Lascaux paintings were considerably older than the Magdalenian period. Although the archaeologists who found the Lascaux paintings retained full respect for the previously unequaled paintings at Altamira, Spain, which many called the “Sistine Chapel of Magdalenian art,” specialists looking at this new discovery in 1940 were nearly certain that they would be able to push the origins of prehistoric art back to a much earlier age, christened by Breuil with the name “Perigordian.”
Painting in the Great Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux Cave.
15,000, and 15,000 to 10,000 years ago, respectively) practiced painting on the interior walls of subterranean caverns. On the ceilings of the caverns at Altamira was an extraordinary panorama of polychrome paintings of animals, mainly gigantic bisons, together with pictographs that some thought represented huts and roofs, or, possibly symbolic figures. Some were made up of checkers, squares, and dots. There were also some engraved (not painted) “semihuman” forms. Later, specialists studying the Altamira site suggested that such pictographs held a key to ritual practices carried out by late Paleolithic human communities. The main disappointments associated with the Altamira site, somewhat in contrast to several other important, if less spectacular, discoveries made a few years later in the Gironde and Dordogne departments of France (specifically at Pair-non-Pair and at La Mouthe, respectively), involved chronological dating. If archaeologists were in general agreement that the first forms of human art as archaeologists understand it appeared in the Aurignacian period (c. 25,000 b.c.e. to 15,000 b.c.e.), they seemed to be at a loss for making any finer distinctions concerning stages of artistic development leading to a “crossover” into the relatively sophisticated Magdalenian period (15,000 b.c.e. to 10,000 b.c.e.). Both the Pair-non-Pair and La Mouthe sites, partially because of the more primitive techniques used to paint much less finished figures, but also because of archaeological artifacts found in them, were considered to be of Aurignacian origin. For some time, however, no one knew how to tie these earliest known paintings to the very considerable number of more “advanced” works associated with the Magdalenian period. In 1900, Breuil began to build a chronological scheme at La Mouthe to evaluate cave art that would establish a major reputation for him. Breuil’s theory for dating cave art was based on comparative techniques more than on styles (which seemed to change very little over several millennia). Between his first publication on the subject in 1902 and 1934, when he published L’Evolution de l’art pariétal dans les cavernes et abris ornées de France (the evolution of rock art in the caves of France), Breuil worked out a scheme that would be retained in its major essentials in his capstone monograph Quatre cents siècles d’art pariétal (1952; Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art, 1952), published some twelve 3287
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Significance Although from the early nineteenth century archaeologists had studied a fairly wide range of artifacts left behind in Paleolithic human settlements in various areas of Western Europe, it was the discovery, in 1868, of the now famous Cantabrian site at Altamira that provided the first evidence that prehistoric Aurignacian and Magdalenian human cultures (dating from about 25,000 to
Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered
Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered years after the Lascaux discoveries. This scheme held that the passage from the primitive technique of the earliest human artists (handprints and finger meanders, sometimes referred to as “macaroni style”) to the “classical” style of the “high” Magdalenian was marked by a “twocycle” or “repeat-development” system. The crux of this view was that Aurignacian artists, the work of some of whom Breuil was able to identify at Lascaux, had already mastered a series of technical methods of painting that would be “remastered” and altered during the period of passage from Aurignacian to Magdalenian times. The complete first cycle, which Breuil claimed could be detected in different Aurignacian sites, included use of the following techniques: introduction of color pigments, first yellow, then red; use of fine lines of color, then bolder lines, with flat shading, usually in red; and finally, black linear drawings. These characteristic methods could be expected in cave paintings predating 15,000 b.c.e. For later, classical Magdalenian-period painting, Breuil posited the following cycle of techniques: use of simple black line drawings, some hatched and then stumped; plain, flat brown paintings followed by polychromes, partially and then entirely outlined in black; and finally, red linear drawings. Although professional archaeologists continued to debate the “final” accuracy of Breuil’s method of dating primitive cave art according to evolutionary stages in techniques employed, the fact that many Lascaux paintings were composed of superimposed “layers” (reflecting the application of later techniques to existing “base” paintings) lent considerable weight to Breuil’s thesis that they were much older than Altamira’s classical Magdalenian compositions. His “proof” of this thesis was important not only for establishing the relative ages of different examples of primitive cave art but also for “unscrambling” the symbols mixed together in complex scenes in prehistoric cultural landmarks, particularly at Lascaux. —Byron D. Cannon Further Reading Breuil, Henri. Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art. Translated by Mary E. Boyle. 1952. Reprint. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1979. General work includes discussion of the place of the Lascaux paintings in the overall framework of prehistoric art. _______. “A Remarkable Painted Cave on the Estate of Lescaux (Montignac, Dordogne).” Nature 147 (1941): 12-13. The earliest written description of the Lascaux paintings prepared by a well-known professor at the College of France who was among the first 3288
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 people to enter the caverns in 1940. Conkey, Margaret W. “On the Origins of Paleolithic Art: A Review and Some Critical Thoughts.” In The Mousterian Legacy: Human Biocultural Change in the Upper Pleistocene, edited by Erik Trinkhaus. Oxford, England: British Archaeological Reports, 1983. Scholarly work focuses on prehistoric artistic products recovered by archaeologists in the southwestern regions of Europe. Reviews theories that have been put forth by a number of prominent commentators and compares early interpretations with more recent approaches. Curtis, Gregory. The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World’s First Artists. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Focuses on what archaeologists have been able to understand about the lives of the creators of prehistoric cave art. Fagan, Brian. From Black Land to Fifth Sun: The Science of Sacred Sites. New York: Perseus Books, 1998. Approaches the scientific examination of various ancient sites and artifacts, including prehistoric cave art, from the perspective of their possible sacred or spiritual meanings. Discusses how archaeologists’ interpretations of such sites and artifacts have changed over time. Laming-Emperaire, Annette. Lascaux: Paintings and Engravings. Translated by Eleanore Frances Armstrong. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1959. Comprehensive work by a wellknown French archaeologist draws on the wide variety of literature on the Dordogne cave paintings that accumulated over the first two decades after their discovery. Discusses methods used to date the paintings and especially to interpret the possible meanings behind the prehistoric artists’ work. Sieveking, Ann. The Cave Artists. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979. Beautifully illustrated volume covers cave art in the southwestern region of Europe, concentrating on the area spanning southwestern France and northeastern Spain. Objectively reviews Breuil’s theory on the prehistoric cultural stages reflected in cave paintings, pointing out both its strengths and apparent weaknesses. See also: Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton; Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man; Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil; Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man.
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Italy Invades Egypt
September 13, 1940
Italy Invades Egypt Italy’s African empire nearly disappeared in 1940. Poor preparation, bad morale, and obsolete weapons spelled disaster for the Desert War, which began when Italy invaded Egypt. This disaster was only averted by the British decision to transfer troops from North Africa to Greece and the subsequent timely arrival of the German Afrika Korps, which allowed the Axis to preserve its presence in North Africa through 1943. Also known as: Desert War Locale: Libya; Egypt; Sudan; Ethiopia; Somalia Categories: Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War II; colonialism and occupation Key Figures Rodolfo Graziani (1882-1955), Italian field marshal and governor-general of Libya Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), British commander in chief in the Middle East Richard O’Connor (1889-1981), British commander of the Western Desert Force Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian dictator, 19251943 Winston Churchill (1874-1965), prime minister of Great Britain, 1940-1945, 1951-1955
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Summary of Event General Archibald Wavell, commander in chief for British imperial and Commonwealth forces in the Middle East, faced a daunting task in the summer of 1940. Italy declared war on France and England on June 10, and Wavell had only sixty-threee thousand men to protect Egypt, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, and Iraq. There were an additional ten thousand troops in the Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland. Some of these troops were needed for internal security roles, which made the odds even worse for a successful showdown with the Italians. Under the dynamic Air Marshal Italo Balbo, Italy maintained 250,000 men in Libya. A separate command in Italian East Africa contained 300,000 troops. Like the forces of the United Kingdom, some of the Italian troops were needed to maintain internal security, especially in East Africa, where Ethiopian guerillas known as the Patriots maintained an armed resistance to Italian authority. Still, Italian forces in the region greatly outnumbered their British counterparts. This was also true in the air, where Italy could deploy 500 aircraft vs. 370 for Great Britain. On water, the odds also favored Italy, although
only by a small margin. These numbers were formidable, and considering that England faced a possible invasion by the German Wehrmacht, reinforcements for Africa and the Middle East were unlikely. Italy’s bombastic dictator, Benito Mussolini, recognized this, and he ordered his proconsuls to advance on all fronts. This aggressive strategy paid its first dividend in August, 1940, when Italian forces overran British Somaliland. Friction, poor planning, and failed leadership intervened, however, to end any possibility of an Italian “blitzkrieg” in North Africa. First, Balbo died in a friendly fire incident on June 28. This slowed Italian plans to invade Egypt until he was replaced by Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, whose experience was mainly in counterinsurgency warfare. Finally, on September 13, Italian units crossed the Libyan-Egyptian frontier, initiating phase one of World War II’s famous Desert War. Graziani directed the Tenth Army, a force of six infantry divisions. Although unfamiliar with the fine points of armored and mechanized warfare, he was worried his desert flank allowed the British armored divisions numerous opportunities to attack. Graziani also had a very long supply line stretching back to Tripoli, nearly twelve hundred miles west of the Egyptian frontier. The marshal had good reasons to worry. Although Italy had more troops, these soldiers were poorly prepared for modern warfare. From small arms to heavy artillery, most Italian weapons were obsolete, underpowered, or unreliable. For instance, the tiny M-13 tankette was so poorly protected, it could be destroyed even by British antitank rifles, which were ineffective against German armor. In contrast, the formidable “Matilda” tank employed by some British units was nearly impervious to any Italian weapon. These handicaps ended Italian thrusts into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Kenya, and Egypt. In the latter, Graziani started a march toward Alexandria, but halted after crossing only sixty miles. At this point, arguing “one can not break a steel door with fingernails,” he ordered his troops to dig in and await a British counterattack. Graziani deployed soldiers in six fortified outposts, but poor staff work created gaps that a daring enemy might slip through to hit these positions from the flank or the rear. General Richard O’Connor was just the man to take advantage of this flaw. Commander of the British Western Desert Force, he was directed by Wavell to disrupt the Italian forces, exploiting any possibility to drive them
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This happened in nearly every battle of Operation Compass, and the seeming invincibility of the British tanks was a tremendous blow to Italian morale. Nibeiwa opened up the Italian front, and as Graziani’s troops were on foot, many could not escape. By January 1, 1941, he lost 30,000 men and vast quantities of equipment, while British losses totaled just 810 killed or wounded. Four days later, the fortress of Bardia fell, netting an additional 38,000 Italian prisoners, plus supplies of food, ammunition, fuel, and, most important, trucks. The latter were quickly employed to replace British losses from desert wear and tear. Bardia’s capture caused Anthony Eden, Britain’s foreign secretary, to quip, “Never has so much been surrendered by so many to so few.” On January 6, the Australian Sixth Infantry Division laid siege to Tobruk. A major fortress and key port for eastern Libya, Tobruk was defended by 32,000 men, 220 guns, and 70 tanks. The Australians, who had just captured Bardia, conducted skillful assaults that overwhelmed one position after another. Resistance ended on January 22, with another 27,000 men lost by the Italian army. Australian casualties totaled 500. With the fall of Tobruk, Wavell faced difficult choices. Italian forces had invaded Greece on October 28, 1940, but quickly bogged down in difficult mountain terrain. Greek counterattacks pushed the invaders back into Egypt, 1940 Albania, which induced German support for their Axis partner. Churchill saw this as a golden opportunity to Greece widen the war and ordered Wavell to I r a q form an expeditionary force to aid the Mediterranean Sea Baghdad Greeks. Simultaneously, Wavell was Palestine Alexandria Tobruk conducting an offensive into Italian TransBardia Nibeiwa Cairo East Africa, which began on January Jordan 19, 1941. This was a three-pronged N attack, featuring Allied columns adLibya Egypt vancing into Eritrea, Ethiopia, and S a u d i Somalia. Combined with the attrition to men and machines from the A r a b i a Western Desert Force—due mainly to poor roads and the harsh desert climate—Wavell had very few troops capable of offensive action. It was Eritrea Khartoum therefore unclear what he could do about the Italian army retreating into n de Aden Anglo-Egyptian f A o western Libya. f ul French G Sudan O’Connor convinced his superior Somaliland Ethiopia that it was still possible to destroy British Italian Somaliland Somaliland this force. Sending what little armor
out of Egypt. Next, Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered on a gutsy plan that sent additional tanks, including the deadly Matildas, to Egypt, rather than keep them for home defense. Churchill knew that if the Royal Air Force was defeated by the German Luftwaffe, England would stand no chance against a German infantry invasion, so the tanks would do more good elsewhere. This decision allowed O’Connor to direct a mechanized force of tanks and truck-mounted infantry, providing his Western Desert Force with a massive advantage in mobility. Dubbed Operation Compass, the British attack began on December 9. Hitting the Nibeiwa fortified camp at daybreak, O’Connor’s men produced a textbook example for the combined arms attack: Artillery, armor, and infantry attacked in perfect order, overwhelming the surprised defenders. Although the Italians fought for several hours, Nibeiwa demonstrated the great advantage the British gained from their Matilda tanks. Attacked with grenades, antitank guns, and even medium artillery, the tank’s armor was thick enough to stop all but the most lucky of shots. A captured Italian officer described rampaging Matildas, shells bouncing off their armor plates with impunity, as “the nearest thing to hell I ever saw.”
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 and mechanized troops were still functional, he managed to outflank the Italians again at Beda Fom. Despite hard fighting between February 6 and 9, 1941, this battle marked the end of the Tenth Army. Italian losses included 150,000 men killed, wounded, or captured; while British forces suffered 2,000 casualties. Beda Fom demonstrated beyond a doubt that successful desert warfare required tanks and motorized vehicles. It also destroyed most of the Italian garrison holding Libya. O’Connor was poised to eliminate the remnants and end Italy’s presence in North Africa. Churchill intervened, however, ordering more British forces dispatched to Greece in March, 1941. Doing so gave the Italians breathing space and allowed General Erwin Rommel to organize his newly arrived Afrika Korps. As a result, the Desert War continued for two more years.
tion in North Africa. The British conquest of Eritrea and Somalia ended any Italian threat to the Red Sea—the back door to the Suez Canal. Liberating Ethiopia not only played well—as the first occupied nation freed from Axis tyranny—but also secured another back door into Egypt. Also, the string of Italian defeats, especially those in Libya, destroyed Italy’s home front morale and began the process that culminated in the overthrow of Mussolini in 1943. Finally, Italy’s 1940 debacles forced German intervention into the Balkans and North Africa. U.S. general George C. Marshall claimed this was “one of the principal factors in Germany’s defeat.” —John P. Dunn Further Reading Latimer, Jon. Operation Compass, 1940: Wavell’s Whirlwind Offensive. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. Excellent, brief account based mainly on British sources. Moorehead, Alan. Desert War. 1941. Reprint. London: Penguin Books, 2001. Very good presentation from the Commonwealth perspective. Pitt, Barrie. The Crucible of War: Western Desert. 1940. Reprint. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980. Good overview that examines both Libyan and Ethiopian campaigns of 1940 and 1941. Walker, Ian J. Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts: Mussolini’s Elite Armored Divisions in North Africa. Marlborough, Wiltshire, England: Crowood Press, 2003. Important English-language effort to explain the many problems facing the 1940 Italian army. See also: Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia; May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations; Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania; Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland.
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Significance Italy’s 1940-1941 debacles greatly influenced the course of World War II. First, they revealed grave flaws in the Italian armed forces, flaws that could not easily be fixed. Despite Fascist boasts to the contrary, Italy’s economy could not gear up quickly to produce improved weapons. Thus Italian soldiers employed out-of-date tanks, such as the lightly armored yet slow M-13, or underpowered 47mm antitank guns, the shells of which bounced off most Allied tanks made in 1941-1943. Italy’s insufficient armaments guaranteed more humiliating defeats by a British opposing force with weapons systems even better than those of 1940. Nor was a technology gap the only problem—the Italian Army also failed to recover from its North African disaster because the officer corps was riddled with incompetence. It never produced leaders who could inspire their men to pick up their obsolete weapons and fight in their despite. Second, Italy’s loss of East Africa and western Libya significantly enhanced Great Britain’s geopolitical posi-
Italy Invades Egypt
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 7, 1940
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses Strong winds forced the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to oscillate in an unexpected, twisting fashion that ripped the bridge asunder and dumped the central span, a car, and a dog into the sea. Studies of the collapse led to the development of the science of bridge aerodynamics. Locale: Tacoma Narrows, Puget Sound, Washington Categories: Engineering; physics; urban planning Key Figures Clark Eldridge (1896-1990), original designer and chief engineer of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Frederick B. Farquharson (1895-1970), engineer who tried to save the bridge and whose pioneering studies of bridge aerodynamics led to the designing of safer suspension bridges Leon Moisseiff (1872-1943), world-famous bridge designer who made fatal changes in Eldridge’s original design Summary of Event When it was built, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world (the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest, and the George Washington Bridge was the second longest). Leon Moisseiff had participated as a consulting engineer in the design of nearly every major suspension bridge built during the previous twenty years, and he intended the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to be the most beautiful bridge in the world and the capstone of his career. Indeed, the bridge was breathtaking: a thin ribbon of roadway suspended from cables gracefully draped from two towers that soared 436 feet above the water. More than a mile long, it connected Tacoma with the peninsula across a narrow arm of Puget Sound. The nature of the seafloor dictated where the two support towers could be placed, and once they were established, engineers determined that the length of the central span would be nearly 2,800 feet. The fast tidal surges that flowed through the channel four times a day at a depth of nearly 200 feet made the construction of the towers’ foundations even more complicated. However, after only nineteen months of construction, the bridge officially opened on July 1. It was in use for only four months. As Clark Eldridge, the bridge’s original designer and chief engineer, drove across the bridge at 8:30 a.m. on November 7, 1940, the wind was blowing at 38 miles per 3292
hour. Eldridge experienced the notorious undulating motion of the roadbed as it rose and fell, making humps and valleys like the body of a sea serpent. When the wave motion was at its worst, cars in different valleys actually lost sight of each other. The bridge’s history of sinuous dancing in the wind led to its being referred to as “Galloping Gertie,” a nickname also used for the Wheeling Suspension Bridge in West Virginia, which shook apart on May 17, 1854. Eldridge was not overly concerned by the Tacoma bridge’s movement on that morning: The bridge had already survived a storm with winds of 50 miles per hour and had been designed to withstand the push of winds at 120 miles per hour. Eldridge calmly returned to his office. Frederick B. Farquharson, professor of civil engineering at the University of Washington, drove onto the bridge around 9:30 a.m. that same day. He was responsible for designing mechanisms to reduce the bridge’s motion, so he began filming and measuring the roadbed’s waves. He had already had strong anchor cables attached between the roadbed and the shore, and other cables with dynamic dampers (piston-in-cylinder mechanisms similar to automobile shock absorbers) attached between the roadbed and the suspension towers. When the anchor cables snapped, the dampers could do nothing because their seals had been breached when the bridge was sandblasted prior to painting. Farquharson’s recommendation to attach wind-deflector panels to the sides of the roadbed had only just been approved; these panels would have given the bridge a more streamlined profile in order to reduce wind effects. About 10:00 a.m., Leonard Coatsworth, a news editor for the Tacoma News Tribune, drove onto the bridge with his family’s dog, Tubby. The wind had increased to 42 miles per hour, and the deck rose and fell 3 feet every 90 seconds. Suddenly the bridge began to twist about its center line, a type of motion that had never before occurred. Although at first the twisting motion was small, within minutes it grew so large that the roadbed tilted at a 45-degree angle, pushing the left sidewalk about 28 feet below the right sidewalk. Then the left sidewalk rose and the right sidewalk fell, and so on, in 5-second intervals. Coatsworth’s car was thrown against the curb in the opposite lane. Coatsworth crawled out a window, but the terrified dog would not come with him. Not able to stay on his feet, Coatsworth clung to the curb as he crawled toward the east tower, nearly 400 feet
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses
To view image, please refer to the print edition of this title.
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A large section of the roadway collapses in the center span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. (AP/Wide World Photos)
away. As he neared the tower, he met Winfield Brown, a college student who had earlier walked across the bridge to experience the roller-coaster effect. As they neared the tower, they were able to stagger the 1,575 feet from the tower to the toll plaza at the eastern end of the bridge. At about the same time, near the west tower, the driver and passenger of a Rapid Transfer Company van were able to jump out of the vehicle just before it tipped. With the help of some workmen, the van’s occupants reached the western end of the bridge safely. At 10:30 a.m., a large chunk of concrete dropped from the bridge’s central span. The wind subsided, and the bridge steadied somewhat. Howard Clifford, one of several photographers who had arrived, tried to rescue the dog, Tubby, but could not reach him. Farquharson was able to reach Tubby, but the dog bit him on the finger. As Farquharson struggled to safety, the air was filled with
the shriek of twisting steel girders, the sharp gunshot sounds of breaking cables and popping bolts, and the grinding of concrete against concrete. One of the two suspension cables slipped from its saddle atop a tower, and at 11:02 a.m., a 650-foot-long section of the roadway tore loose from the central span and dropped 210 feet into Puget Sound. Other segments fell soon after, as did Coatsworth’s car (with Tubby still inside). By 11:10 a.m., most of the central span was gone, and the bridge was quiet. Significance The basic principles of bridge building seem simple enough: Each segment of the bridge must be able to sustain its own weight plus the weight of any load it might carry. Further, the forces on a bridge segment must be passed on to support towers or to the shore, but for a long 3293
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses suspension bridge it is difficult to calculate these forces accurately. As a substitute, engineers use an accepted design theory that incorporates both assumptions and experimental measurements in order to create estimates for the unknown forces. Eldridge’s original design cost $11 million and called for 25-foot open-grid-work trusses that would stiffen the roadbed, but eastern financiers would not lend construction money unless a suitable engineer was allowed to review and change the plans. Moisseiff was selected to do this, and he used the relatively new deflection theory to guide his calculations. He proposed using solid-plate trusses that were only 8 feet high because this allowed him to design a more visually appealing bridge that used less steel and therefore cost less. His design was accepted. The bridge was built with a $6.4 million loan plus $1.6 million in toll revenues. Unfortunately, Moisseiff had pushed deflection theory into untested territory, as the shallow trusses and narrow roadway made the Tacoma Narrows Bridge three times more flexible than the Golden Gate Bridge, which had been the most flexible bridge up to that point. Farquharson’s wind-tunnel tests of a carefully constructed scale model of the bridge and his measurements during the final hours before the bridge’s collapse showed that the structure’s failure was due to torsional flutter. When the wind rammed into the plate truss on the bridge’s side, the wind current divided, blowing over and under the bridge in unequal amounts. This caused the roadway to tilt, and that tilt caused the winds to be even more unequal, which caused more tilt, and so forth, until finally the weight of the roadway pulled it back to a horizontal level. The roadway’s momentum then carried it through the horizontal plane, tilting the roadbed the opposite way, and so on. The model showed that this cycle repeated every five seconds, just as Farquharson had measured. In order for a bridge to be safe, the bridge’s
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 dynamic response had to be taken into account. Farquharson helped develop the tools to do that, and ten years later a new and successful Tacoma Narrows Bridge was opened. — Charles W. Rogers Further Reading Billah, K. Yusuf, and Robert H. Scanlan. “Resonance, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Failure, and Undergraduate Physics Textbooks.” American Journal of Physics 59 (February, 1991): 118-124. Shows that physics texts focus on the wrong mechanism for failure and gives the correct mechanism. Includes numerous references. Article is rather technical; see Feldman reference below. Feldman, Bernard J. “What to Say About the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to Your Introductory Physics Class.” Physics Teacher 41 (February, 2003): 92-96. A simplified version of the Billah and Scanlan article cited above. Freiman, Fran Locher, and Neil Schlager. Failed Technology: True Stories of Technological Disasters. Vol. 2. New York: Gale Research International, 1995. Investigative reports of technological disasters, including the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure and the loss of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. Very interesting and easy to read. Scott, Richard. In the Wake of Tacoma: Suspension Bridges and the Quest for Aerodynamic Stability. Reston, Va.: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2001. Uses nontechnical language to trace the development of suspension bridges from the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to a possible bridge spanning the Strait of Gibralter. See also: Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge; May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
November 13, 1940 Disney’s FANTASIA
Disney’s Fantasia Premieres
Premieres
Although Fantasia drew fire from critics and was not a commercial success in its first release, the film advanced the art of animation by freeing it from strict plot and character limits. Locale: Broadway Theater, New York, New York Categories: Motion pictures; entertainment Key Figures Walt Disney (1901-1966), American entrepreneur and film producer Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977), British-born American conductor
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Summary of Event Walt Disney had few nay-saying critics left when Fantasia appeared in 1940. Less than three years earlier, he had silenced most of those who had said that a feature-length cartoon was an absurdity by releasing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which was an instant critical and financial success, as was Disney’s second animated feature, Pinocchio (1940). Even while those two features were being released, however, Disney was working on what would become the most ambitious and controversial animation project of his career: Fantasia. Throughout the 1930’s, Disney had been pushing his animators toward continual improvement of their already highly developed painting skills. Many of the artists who worked for Disney feared that the goal of such refinement was a photographic, representational realism that would, they felt, take the heart out of animation. There was no lack of grounds for such fears. The 1934 Disney short The Goddess of Spring was intended to train animators in realistic animation of human figures; the 1937 short The Old Mill was a test run of the multiplane camera, which gave animation a three-dimensional look (a feature that helped to win the short an Academy Award). Snow White combined both techniques, and Pinocchio improved them, to the extent that reviewers voiced the very fears of the animators: Was Disney headed toward photorealism? The opening sequence of Fantasia removed such fears when the film premiered at New York’s Broadway Theater on November 13, 1940. Unlike the other sequences in the film, this visual interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor developed no story and created no characters. Instead, an abstract movement of line and color grew out of the music. The closest the
segment came to any representation was a sequence showing a brief dance of strings and bows, but even this was short-lived. No amount of abstraction in the animation could protect Disney, however, from the charge of some music critics—such as Dorothy Thompson of the New York Herald Tribune—that the pure abstraction of music was tainted by any visualization. From the standpoint of animation, however, Disney had proved that the art could succeed without story or character. Another anxiety about the premiere of Fantasia was the technical innovation the Disney studio called Fantasound. Decades before the appearance of commercial stereo recording, Disney engineers had pioneered a multitrack recording process, and they envisioned showing Fantasia only in theaters equipped to be compatible with the process. The music was recorded on nine sound cameras (through thirty-three microphones) and was played back by an expensive synchronized unit developed by engineers at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and installed in the Broadway Theater. Neither Disney nor the Broadway was a stranger to sound technology; Disney himself had developed a technique for synchronizing music with cartoon action in the first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928), which had premiered in the same theater. The Fantasound unit was itself a source of controversy. Because the unit was a piece of stage equipment, the stage employees’ union members argued that they should operate the new toy; because it was electronic, the electricians’ union members argued that it should be theirs. By the time a compromise was worked out, allowing both unions a piece of the installation, technicians had to work twenty-four-hour shifts (at overtime rates) to be ready for the premiere. Reviewer Sam Robins of The New York Times raved about the sound system. “When the waters hurl Mickey Mouse down a flight of stairs,” he enthused, “the music pours out of one corner of the theatre and floods the auditorium.” The sequence Robins referred to was the film’s version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by composer Paul Dukas. Unlike Bach’s music, the Dukas piece begs visual and narrative interpretation: It is intended to tell a story (and is in fact based on one by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). In fact, Disney’s treatment of the piece was the kernel around which Fantasia grew. In 1938, Disney met conductor Leopold Stokowski at a Hollywood party and mentioned his idea of animating a Mickey Mouse version of
Disney’s Fantasia Premieres
The Music of FANTASIA Fantasia includes several major works of Western music, two of which—Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain—were adapted for the film by Leopold Stokowski. • Johann Sebastian Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (1703-1707): Stokowski adapted this piece for performance by an orchestra; in the film, this music accompanies a series of abstract images. • Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (1816): In the film, this music frames a series of dances performed by characters such as fairies, mushrooms, and fish. • Paul Dukas, L’Apprenti sorcier (1897): In the famous “sorcerer’s apprentice” sequence, Mickey Mouse plays the role of the apprentice. • Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring (1912-1913): This music accompanies a depiction of Earth’s history, including the extinction of the dinosaurs. • Ludwig van Beethoven, Sixth Symphony in F, Pastorale, Op. 68 (1808): In this memorable scene, centaurs, fauns, and other mythological creatures relax and play together. • Amilcare Ponchielli, La Gioconda: Dance of the Hours (1876): As it was originally, this piece is performed as a ballet, but here the dancers are elephants, ostriches, hippos, and alligators. • Modest Mussorgsky, Night on Bald Mountain (1867): In one of the film’s final scenes, the demon Chernabog and other malevolent creatures wreak havoc until Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” (1825) signals the breaking of day and the entrance of monks.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Stokowski not only approved but also offered to conduct the piece and suggested expanding the film to include other classical works. In celebrating the ways in which Fantasia broke new ground, critics have not always acknowledged the extent to which it grew out of Disney’s previous work. From the beginning, Disney’s sound cartoons had incorporated music written to augment the action. In 1929, after only six Mickey Mouse sound shorts had been made, Disney and his musical director, Carl Stalling, adapted screen animation to a classical melody, Edvard Grieg’s March of the Dwarfs. To do so, Stalling had to rewrite the music to fit the action, just as Stokowski later did for Fantasia. The finished cartoon, Skeleton Dance, launched a new series for Disney: He called them Silly Symphonies. Although the term “symphony” was obvious tongue-incheek hyperbole, it indicated that music would dominate these shorts rather than merely punctuate the action, as the music did in the Mickey Mouse shorts. Most of the 3296
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Silly Symphonies were developed musically, without dialogue. It was as a Silly Symphony, at first, that Disney intended The Sorcerer’s Apprentice; with Stokowski’s collaboration, it became the embryo of Fantasia. Significance If Fantasia can be considered Disney’s greatest success, it can also be called his biggest failure. In attempting to bring together the audiences of animated films and classical music, he succeeded, at first, in alienating a goodly percentage of both. Although his studio finally made back its investment after the film was rereleased, Disney never lived to see Fantasia find the popular acceptance it finally reached. In an interview conducted for a television special celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Fantasia, Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney recalled that his uncle never got over the popular and critical neglect of what he considered his masterpiece; his audience, he felt, did not understand. “I don’t regret it,” Walt Disney said in 1961. “But if we had it to do all over again, I don’t think we’d do it.” The biggest misunderstanding, perhaps, was Disney’s motive. Music critics feared he was trying to turn masterpieces into bits of kitsch; average theatergoers felt he was trying to “elevate” them, and justifiably resented the condescension. According to film critic and historian Neil Sinyard, “Actually, nothing was farther from Disney’s mind. What he was attempting in Fantasia was the same as in his other cartoons—to extend the boundaries of animation.” Extend them he did. Even though Fantasia’s box-office doldrums caused Disney to back away from both the animation of classical music and purely abstract animation, other animators were inspired by Fantasia to expand the art of animation in several directions. Carl Stalling, cocreator of Disney’s Silly Symphonies, had left Disney before the Fantasia project, yet in his work for Warner Bros. he began working classical melodies into greater and greater roles in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. A Corny Concerto (1943), directed by Bob Clampett and written by Frank Tashlin, is a parody of Fantasia that features Elmer Fudd introducing two short segments of pantomime comedy involving Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Bugs Bunny, set to Stalling’s adaptation of two wellknown waltzes by Johann Strauss. Stalling and animator Chuck Jones had Bugs Bunny
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had been so dismal, however, that Disney waited only a little more than three years before rereleasing it in 1944; it was released again only two years later. After three more releases (1953, 1956, 1963), the studio took a chance on leaving prints in permanent circulation beginning in 1969. The popular reaction was extraordinary, especially among young audiences. The “psychedelic” subculture saw Fantasia as “mind-expanding” and enjoyed watching it again and again, often enhancing the experience with the use of drugs. Many college film series included Fantasia on a yearly basis, with no apparent loss in the film’s popularity from overexposure. When advanced stereo systems were installed in many theaters in the late 1970’s, the multitrack experience of the original 1940 premiere was re-created—although many mistakenly believed that the stereo version was new; few remembered the elaborate sound system used for the original release. For the fiftieth-anniversary release of Fantasia in 1990, the Disney studio undertook a full-scale restoration project, cleaning up the negatives frame by frame and releasing the “new” prints for the Christmas season. For the following Christmas, 1991, the Disney studio at last released the film on videotape for home use. —John R. Holmes Further Reading Finch, Christopher. The Art of Walt Disney. Rev. ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004. Highly illustrated volume provides brief, descriptive commentaries on Disney films, including Fantasia. Maltin, Leonard. The Disney Films. 4th ed. New York: Disney Editions, 2000. Comprehensive guide to all Disney films through the end of the twentieth century by an accomplished film critic. Excellent criticism reveals Maltin’s love and admiration for Disney without devolving into blind praise. Section on Fantasia is generous in scope and balanced in analysis. Schickel, Richard. The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney. 3d ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997. History of the man and his studio offers a corrective to the excessive praise of the studio-controlled books that preceded it—although it sometimes goes too far in the other direction. Chapter on Fantasia provides a good balance of information and excellent film criticism. Sinyard, Neil. The Best of Disney. Greenwich, Conn.: Twin Books, 1988. Provides insightful commentary from a respected film critic along with full-color blowups of frames from Disney films. Briefly dis3297
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tackle opera; Gioacchino Rossini’s Barber of Seville was parodied in The Rabbit of Seville (1950), and Richard Wagner’s work provided the basis for What’s Opera, Doc? (1957). Jones, who had animated his first short only two years before the premiere of Fantasia, described the segment performed to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite segment as the “happiest, most perfect single sequence ever done in animated cartoons, perhaps in motion pictures.” The scene’s influence on Jones’s animation is obvious in his work. Even though the box-office disappointment of Fantasia caused Disney to be more cautious in many ways, he and his animators still followed through on two of the artistic implications of Fantasia. First, although they never again came close to the level of abstraction found in the film’s opening piece, they did experiment with Surrealism in the “Pink Elephants on Parade” sequence in Dumbo (1941), and the expressionistic play of light and color in the stag fight scene in Bambi (1942) provided further evidence that Disney features were not attempts at photorealism. The entire design of Alice in Wonderland (1951) militates against realism, as do the “Never Land” scenes in Peter Pan (1953). After the 1950’s, any carp about realism became moot, as the new economics of animation forced animators to develop the more linear, stylized approach that would dominate cartoons for two decades, until computer animation and bigger budgets once more made the creation of realistic detail and shading economically feasible. The second artistic legacy of Fantasia, the visualization of music through animation, showed the influence of the film’s negative criticism. Several Disney features of the 1940’s stitched together musical narratives, but the musical originals were more popular in nature. Make Mine Music (1946) was a pastiche of ten songs in various styles, their stories told by animation. Stokowski was involved in this film at the outset, although by the time it was in production he was no longer with the project. Similar patchworks were Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and Melody Time (1948). Furthermore, all Disney cartoon features continued to combine music and action, as the studio’s Academy Award nominations for music attested. Fantasia continued to influence the art of animated film for decades after its release, in part because of its unusual availability after 1969. Disney established an ingenious cyclical rerelease practice that kept public interest in the films high; the practice began with Snow White’s second release in 1943. Eventually, the studio settled on a seven-year cycle for most features. Fantasia’s profits
Disney’s Fantasia Premieres
Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism cusses controversies about Fantasia not mentioned in “official” Disney-sponsored sources. Taylor, Deems. Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.” New York: Simon & Schuster, 1940. Mostly a promotion piece, this profusely illustrated account of the film is nevertheless valuable for musicologist Taylor’s contemporary comments about the project. Most of the text sim-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ply describes the film, but the opening chapter gives interesting behind-the-scenes background. See also: Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art; Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting; Dec. 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
December, 1940
Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism Arthur Koestler, a former member of the German Communist Party, published Darkness at Noon, a novel that revealed the evils of the totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union. The work became a best seller in several countries and influenced attitudes toward the Soviet Union and communist movements worldwide. Also known as: Darkness at Noon Locale: England Categories: Literature; government and politics Key Figures Arthur Koestler (1905-1983), Hungarian-born novelist and essayist Daphne Hardy (1917-2003), artist and British translator of Koestler’s work Joseph Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 1878-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party in Russia and dictator of the Soviet Union, 1929-1953 Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin (1888-1938), Russian revolutionary and leader in the Communist Party Summary of Event Arthur Koestler, born in Hungary and raised in Austria, joined the German Communist Party as a young man. After a trip to Stalinist Russia during 1932-1933, however, Koestler became disillusioned with communism and left the party in 1938. His participation in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) provided materials for Spanish Testament (1937), a work that established his reputation in England and on the Continent as a critic of both communism and fascism. The Gladiators, his first novel, was published in 1939. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Koestler was living in Paris with his mistress, Daphne Hardy, and they escaped to England through Portugal. They managed to bring the English translation she had made of Koestler’s second novel, for which Hardy had 3298
suggested the title Darkness at Noon, and the book was published by Jonathan Cape in December of 1940. In Darkness at Noon, Koestler was careful not to identify either the specific country or the leaders who inspired the work. Instead, the fictional hero of the novel, Nicholas Salmanovitch Rubashov, is described as one of a group of revolutionaries who helped establish communism in his country. The leader who had spearheaded the revolution is dead, and his successor, referred to as No. 1, has systematically eliminated all of the old guard. Koestler describes Rubashov’s interrogations, in which he is interviewed first by one of his old comrades and later by
Arthur Koestler. (NARA)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism
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one of the newly minted revolutionarThe Temptations of God ies. Although Koestler uses these men to While imprisoned, the protagonist of Darkness at Noon, the former comhighlight the differences between the first missar Nikolai Rubashov, hears this pronouncement from the disilluand second generations of the revolution, sioned and half-drunk Soviet official Ivanov, a former comrade who has his account of Rubashov’s imprisonment become his interrogator: makes it clear that the protagonist has no alternative but to confess that he has been The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than engaged in counterrevolutionary activithose of Satan. As long as chaos dominates the world, God is an anachroties for years. nism; and every compromise with one’s own conscience is perfidy. When The incarceration of his main characthe accursed inner voice speaks to you, hold your hands over your ears. . . . ter was a convenient way for Koestler to The greatest criminals in history are not of the type Nero and Fouché, but of the type Gandhi and Tolstoy. Gandhi’s inner voice has done more create an opportunity for internal monoto prevent the liberation of India than the British guns. To sell oneself for logue, in which the imprisoned leader thirty pieces of silver is an honest transaction; but to sell oneself to one’s could think about communism’s philoown conscience is to abandon mankind. History is a priori amoral; it has sophical and ethical roots. Rubashov’s no conscience. To want to conduct history according to the maxims of the thoughts reveal communism to be a sysSunday school means to leave everything as it is. You know that as well as tem in which the ends, however brutal, I do. You know the stakes in this game. . . . justify the means, and it is also one in Source: Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (New York: Macmillan, 1940). which the individual counts for nothing, while the community—represented by the party—was of paramount importance. In the conversations between Rubashov and actions, and the moral bankruptcy of communism. his interrogators, Koestler exposes the methods the party The novel achieved only modest initial sales in Brituses to build an ingenious case against Rubashov for ain, but it was picked up as a selection by the American crimes he did not commit. Through the protagonist’s Book-of-the-Month Club, and a wide audience became confession at a public trial to trumped-up charges, Koestaware of the ideology behind the Soviet experiment in ler shows that even the most dedicated communists are government. Many former Communists in the West saw being made into sacrificial figures to advance party leadin Darkness at Noon a vindication of their decision to ers’ revolutionary agenda. leave the party. At the same time, the novel prompted Although Koestler did not mention any real persons strong reaction against loyal Communists. by name, readers were able to see that Darkness at Noon The book’s popularity eventually forced members of was on one level a thinly disguised roman à clef that ficthe party to take action to refute Koestler’s accusations. tionalized the Moscow show trials of 1935-1936. In In 1945, two members of the British Communist Party these sham trials, a number of prominent Communist published a pamphlet titled The Philosophy of Betrayal, leaders were called upon to confess crimes against the which cataloged the propagandistic nature of Koestler’s state and the people. Among these supposed counterrevwork. The strongest reaction, however, came from the olutionaries was Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, on whom French Communists after a French translation of the the character of Rubashov was loosely based. novel was published in 1945. Party leaders directed memBukharin was one of the original Communist leaders bers to buy and destroy all copies of the novel; perhaps who had been in Vladimir Lenin’s inner circle when the because of this notoriety, sales in France reached a quarCommunists came to power in Russia in 1917. After Leter million. Important French intellectuals such as Jeannin’s death, Bukharin had sided with Leon Trotsky durPaul Sartre and Maurice Merlau-Ponty felt compelled to ing the power struggle in which Joseph Stalin eventually write strident attacks against Darkness at Noon, defendsecured power in Soviet Russia. Although he was briefly ing not only Marxist theory but also the practice of comreconciled with the new dictator, in the mid-1930’s Bumunism under Stalin. kharin was one of several prominent figures identified for elimination by Stalin. People in Western countries had received some information about these trials prior to Significance 1940, but Koestler’s novel vividly dramatized the nature In the first decade following its publication, Darkness at of the proceedings, the megalomania that drove Stalin’s Noon brought home to Western readers the philosophical
Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism underpinnings of what was becoming not only an important alternative system of government but also a radically different view of human nature. Claims by Soviet leaders, especially Stalin, that they were creating a workers’ paradise were undermined by Koestler’s portrait of the ruthless methods being employed by the revolutionaries against citizens who dared challenge any action by the party or its leader. Koestler’s novel made it clear that under the Soviet system, there was no respect for individual freedoms or even for individual lives. In contrast, the party’s power was so far-reaching that any action taken by party leaders was automatically deemed appropriate and justified. This chilling portrait of communism’s effects was influential in shaping the French elections of 1946. Although the French Communist Party was the largest party in the country at that time, it was unable to exert its will in the elections the following year, when France’s bicameral legislature was created. Several commentators attributed this failure to the campaign mounted by conservatives and socialists that used Darkness at Noon to illustrate communism’s evils. The novel played a part in shaping attitudes in other countries as well, including the United States, so that by 1946, when former British prime minister Winston Churchill spoke about the Iron Curtain that had descended over much of Eastern Europe, citizens in the West were predisposed to approve their governments’ moves toward the Cold War. —Laurence W. Mazzeno Further Reading Bloom, Harold, ed. Arthur Koestler: Darkness at Noon. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. Collection of previously published works includes an essay on Cold War discourse and one on the novel’s reception in France. Calder, Jenni. Chronicles of Conscience: A Study of George Orwell and Arthur Koestler. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968. Examines the careers of two writers whose political novels had significant impacts in building awareness of and revulsion for totalitarian systems of government.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Cesarani, David. Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind. New York: Free Press, 1998. Comprehensive biography attempts to place Darkness at Noon within the framework of Koestler’s development as a novelist and essayist. Also explains the novel’s importance as a political statement. Harns, Harold, ed. Astride Two Cultures: Arthur Koestler at Seventy. London: Hutchinson, 1975. Collection of essays about Koestler’s work includes a perceptive analysis by Growny Rees of Darkness at Noon, outlining the political events on which Koestler draws for his fiction and discussing the impact the novel had in the decades immediately after its publication. Levene, Mark. Arthur Koestler. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984. Chronicles Koestler’s career and discusses his works in their social, political, and historical contexts. Merrill, Reed, and Thomas Frazier. Arthur Koestler: An International Bibliography. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1979. Includes an introduction that provides insight into Koestler’s intellectual development, helping to explain the ideology that lies at the heart of his political fiction. Pearson, Sidney A., Jr. Arthur Koestler. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Features a chapter that outlines the plot and themes of Darkness at Noon. Includes a separate discussion of the novel’s influence in shaping attitudes about communism in Western democracies. Sperber, Murray A., ed. Arthur Koestler: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1977. Collection of essays includes several that focus on Koestler’s political novels and the reception that Darkness at Noon met in England, the United States, and France. See also: 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror; Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern; Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare; May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow; Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning; Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile; Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles
December 30, 1940
Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles The Arroyo Seco Freeway, the first part of the Los Angeles freeway system, began the development of a system of superhighways that would affect nearly every facet of life and culture in the United States. Locale: Los Angeles, California Categories: Transportation; travel and recreation; environmental issues; urban planning
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Summary of Event The Arroyo Seco Freeway, the first freeway constructed in Southern California, was built to help solve a serious transportation problem that had developed in the greater Los Angeles area. Its success led to the construction of many other freeways in the region, which in turn eventually led to new problems. In the early part of the twentieth century, when Los Angeles was growing fast, trains and streetcars provided the principal forms of transportation. Investors could make phenomenal profits by buying rural real estate, extending railway or streetcar lines through the area, and then selling the land at a much higher price. Companies and individuals engaging in such speculation set fares that encouraged people to buy land out in the suburbs but that were too low to sustain operating costs for the trains and streetcars. After all the land had been bought, transportation costs could no longer be offset by profits from real estate sales. Existing services soon became overcrowded, and few additional lines were built. Links were not established between suburbs, either—to reach a given suburb from a neighboring one, an individual had to make a trip in to the city and then out again. Railroad and streetcar companies often used campaign contributions and other financial inducements to ensure that the city government would ignore the complaints of citizens about the poor state of transportation in the region. One solution—at least for a while—was the automobile, and with increases in auto traffic, new roads were built. Usually these were thoroughfares, intended to connect suburbs to one another or to the central business district. These thoroughfares, however, provided frontage for merchants, who gradually lined the new roads with stores and other businesses. As shoppers began visiting the new establishments, the resulting congestion interfered with traffic flow. Soon a new road was needed, and the process would repeat itself. It thus became necessary to limit access to the new highways. As
California passed laws to limit such access, engineers began to study highways that had already been built or that were being built. These included the Bronx River Parkway in New York, completed in 1923, and the autobahns in Germany, constructed at Adolf Hitler’s direction beginning in 1933. The Bronx River Parkway, like many parkways to follow, was built to accommodate automobile traffic only. Because the cars of the day were slow, sharp curves that limited speeds to 35 miles per hour were not a problem. Only fifteen miles long, the parkway’s significance lay in the fact that access to it was limited and that it had been artfully designed as a long, narrow park with a road through it. Hitler’s autobahns had an entirely different purpose. During World War I, railroads had been used to transport troops, rations, and munitions to railheads, where they were transferred to trucks and horse-drawn carts. Because roads connecting the front with the railheads had been intended for the occasional farm vehicle, not for sustained use by major armies, they soon deteriorated into muddy ruts. Hitler wanted a highway system that could withstand continued use by heavy vehicles. The resulting design included shoulders for disabled vehicles and curves that permitted safe passage at speeds up to 120 miles per hour. The engineers who designed the Arroyo Seco Freeway drew on these and other examples. The land chosen for the purpose provided only a narrow strip for two roadways, each thirty-five feet in width, separated by a curbed median strip six feet wide. Funding was provided by the state of California, which for the first time agreed to fund highway construction within a metropolitan area. Reaction to the first two freeways (another was built at about the same time through the nearby Cahuenga Pass) was positive. City planners believed that the new roads would halt the decline of the city’s central business district. Downtown merchants considered the freeways essential to bringing shoppers to their stores. The people living in outlying areas considered the freeways a tremendous improvement over the congested roads and expensive, crowded public mass-transit systems they had endured before. The consensus was that additional freeways were needed, and the Los Angeles City Planning Department and the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission soon developed a com-
Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
The recently opened Arroyo Seco Freeway in 1940. (Caltrans)
prehensive master plan with that aim. Before any additional freeways could be built, however, World War II intervened. The war effort brought many defense-related industries to Southern California, and the limitations of the highway system impeded the movement of both workers and materials, underscoring the need for improved roads. After the war, freeway construction took off. In the eastern United States, toll roads were built with the expectation that the bonds issued to finance them would be paid off by the tolls. In contrast, California paid for its freeways with state taxes on gasoline and motor-vehicle registration, the same method later used by the federal government to fund the interstate highway system. Significance The Arroyo Seco Freeway showed that superhighways worked. In many ways, the freeway laid the groundwork for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, proposed in 1944 but not funded until 1956. 3302
This system, largely completed by 1981, eventually consisted of some 41,000 miles of high-speed, limitedaccess highways linking all major cities in the contiguous United States. The federal government covered 90 percent of the costs of construction, with state governments responsible for the remaining 10 percent. The National Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956 to pay for this system, with a tax of three cents levied on each gallon of motor fuel (the tax was raised to four cents in 1959). The system as a whole proved successful and not particularly controversial. In rural areas, the new superhighways were generally seen as beneficial. In the early 1960’s, however, it was found that fatal accidents occurred eight times more often on the interstate system than on other roads. Research showed that the primary cause was poor rural emergency medical care; ambulance personnel at the time had little medical training, and because the interstate highways were often far from towns, response times tended to be lengthy. The U.S. De-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
hedged in by the surrounding mountains. Air pollutants produced in the basin are part of this layer. Given the staggering health costs that stem from the pollution caused by automobile traffic congestion, serious efforts to reduce both the pollution and the congestion gained high priority in the Los Angeles area by the end of the twentieth century. —Otto H. Muller Further Reading Bottles, Scott L. Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Well-researched, thorough history of the role of the automobile in the growth and development of Los Angeles. One of the most informative and comprehensive sources on the topic available. Dasmann, Raymond F. The Destruction of California. New York: Collier Books, 1966. Argues that the freeway system in California is largely responsible for the demise of the state’s cities. Characterizes Los Angeles as the city that “surrendered to the freeway system.” Davidson, Janet F., and Michael S. Sweeney. On the Move: Transportation and the American Story. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2003. Companion volume to an exhibit at the National Museum of American History provides an overview of the evolution of transportation in the United States and how changes in transportation have affected other areas of American life. Includes illustrations. Lents, James M., and William J. Kelly. “Clearing the Air in Los Angeles.” Scientific American 269 (October, 1993): 32-39. Reports on improvements in air quality in Los Angeles and on plans for meeting federally mandated air-quality standards by 2010. Summarizes adverse health effects of smog and reviews the history of air-pollution abatement programs in Southern California. Lewis, Tom. Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997. Readable history of the building of the U.S. interstate highway system focuses in large part on the individuals involved in the enterprise and on the system’s impacts on American society. Includes photographs. Snow, W. Brewster, ed. The Highway and the Landscape. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1959. Collection of essays written by landscape architects and others during the period when the inter3303
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partment of Transportation responded by setting up programs to train emergency medical technicians to serve rural areas. The entire country benefited from the interstate highway system in that it brought American citizens closer together. Long-distance driving times and expenses were reduced, as were many of the risks, irritations, and inconveniences of travel. Easier access to what previously were considered to be remote locations improved the sense of national community and reduced the effects of geographic barriers. On rural interstate roads, cars generally carried multiple passengers, rest areas functioned well, and business spurs whisked motorists in and out of small communities for services. The story changed, however, and became more controversial, where the interstate system entered cities. In the cities, nearly all the benefits of superhighways went to local commuters, so it was more difficult to justify federal funding. At the same time, the costs were much higher than in rural areas. Apart from land acquisition and construction costs, which are always greater in metropolitan areas, there were other, more subtle, costs. For instance, interstate highways competed with mass transit. In the case of the Arroyo Seco Freeway, local mass transit was seriously deficient, and there was little local interest in improving it. Many cities, however, particularly in the East, originally developed with walking as the principal means of transportation. These cities had sufficiently high population densities to allow for efficient mass-transit systems. In such areas, competition from freeways sometimes resulted in decreased masstransit ridership and accompanying financial stress to mass-transit systems. Another cost of building freeways through cities came in the form of the barriers the freeways erected, often dividing areas within cities. A freeway may save commuting time, but it may also split the neighborhood it traverses and force residents to spend more time getting to places that were formerly within easy reach. Ironically, the same highway system that enhanced a sense of community across large parts of the United States served to interfere with that sense of community in many cities. Because automobile exhaust is one of the major contributors to urban air pollution, moreover, the proliferation of freeways had dangerous consequences for the environment. The Los Angeles basin is particularly susceptible to air pollution because of its geography: When air cooled by the Pacific Ocean is blown into the basin, it may be trapped there beneath a layer of warmer air
Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles
Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles state system was in its active construction phase. Emphasizes the aesthetic qualities of well-designed expressways and points out the need for careful thought in the planning of highways, their plantings, and their interaction with the larger landscape. A refreshing and thought-provoking approach to the topic.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 See also: Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established; Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation; Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct; 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens; 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four.
Great Events from History
Bibliography Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agriculture and the Land . . . . . . . . . . Archaeology and Anthropology . . . . . . Arts: Performing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arts: Visual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aviation and Transportation . . . . . . . . Business, Economics, and Finance . . . . . Civil Rights, Humanitarianism, and Social Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colonialism, Empire, and Decolonization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communism and Fascism. . . . . . . . . . Crime, Genocide, and Atrocities . . . . . . Diplomacy and International Relations . . . Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Engineering, Architecture, and Urban Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fashion and Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender and Women’s Issues . . . . . . . . Geography, Travel, and Exploration . . . .
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Introduction This bibliography is a starting point for general research in the various topics indicated by the headings below. It is by no means exhaustive, nor could it be for a century in which technology has made publication so relatively easy and in which virtually every country in the world has come to have a voice in the process. Emphasis here is placed on broad studies rather than on more narrowly targeted works. More recent works are also emphasized over older ones, although many of the best older works are also included. Most biographies, autobiographies, and general country studies are not included, as they are innumerable and easily found through standard catalog and database searches. No magazine or journal articles are included. Thorough research on any topic will require a literature search in databases that are updated regularly as well as a search of the World Wide Web, where an increasing number of excellent sites are daily being added to the surfeit of personal and propaganda portals. The works included in this bibliography will, however, help interested readers locate many of the most important
Government and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . Health and Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . Immigration, Migration, and Refugees . . . . Industry and Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Law and Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literature and Literary Studies . . . . . . . . Mathematics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Military History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nature and the Environment . . . . . . . . . Philosophy, Historiography, and Intellectual History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Publishing and Journalism . . . . . . . . . . Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures . . . Religion and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social and Cultural History . . . . . . . . . . Sociology, Psychology, and the Social Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sport and Leisure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Technology and Communications . . . . . . World War I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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studies relative to twentieth century themes and will serve as aids in framing research. Of the many general historical resources that might be helpful for those beginning to research early twentieth century themes, two are globally conceived and especially helpful. First, The Encyclopedia of World History, edited by Peter N. Stearns (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), is one of the most detailed and comprehensive compendiums of world events available. This work is arranged chronologically and extensively annotated to provide an invaluable reference narrative; it is supported by an exhaustive index and an excellent, searchable CDROM. Second, the two-volume third edition of The American Historical Association’s Guide to Historical Literature, edited by Mary Beth Norton et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), is one of the most comprehensive annotated bibliographies of historical sources available, covering the most important works in all areas of research for all parts of the world—a tall task but one that specialist section editors achieve remarkably 3307
Bibliography well. Although this work is increasingly dated, it is still an essential point of departure for research into unfamiliar areas. Since the last decades of the twentieth century, three kinds of studies have produced an exceptionally long list of both monographs and reference works that are readily found through general catalog and database searches: (1) works on the major themes of twentieth century history, including the two world wars, the Holocaust, imperialism and decolonization, civil rights, the rise of environmentalism, women’s issues, immigration, the Cold War, and international migration; (2) country and area studies, such as John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman’s China: A New History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) and Ian Richard Netton’s Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion (New York: Routledge, 2006); and (3) works on contentious social issues, which vary from year to year but in the early twenty-first century have included topics such as energy supply, global terrorism, abortion, the death penalty, and immigration. Some of the best of these works are cited in their appropriate sections in this bibliography, although many others are not. The sheer diversity of topics, cultures, and technologies in the twentieth century precludes the kinds of comprehensive treatments of the century on the World Wide Web that are more common for earlier centures. Amid a bewildering profusion of sites, an excellent guide to both research and historical Web sites is Richard Jensen’s “Scholar’s Guide to WWW” (http://tigger.uic.edu/ ~rjensen), which is especially useful for recommendations within categories. The Open Directory Project includes almost 3,000 websites devoted to the twentieth century, organized in a wide variety of topics and by decade (http://dmoz.org/Society/History/By_Time_ Period/Twentieth_Century). The Historical Text Archive provides links to more than 6,500 Web sites, many of which cover twentieth century topics (http:// historicaltextarchive.com). Yahoo has a growing collection of good history sites (http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/ Humanities/History/By_Time_Period/20th_Century). The Organization of American Historians keeps a list of “Links for the History Profession” (http://www.oah.org/ announce/links.html), although it is less comprehensive than one might expect. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School collects hundreds of twentieth century documents, focusing on but not limited to international and foreign policy issues (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/ avalon/20th.htm). One general reference site deserving special mention is the “Historical Atlas of the Twentieth 3308
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Century” (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry .htm), which illustrates much of the history of the entire world through maps. Finally, more than one hundred academic discussion networks, most of which cover twentieth century topics, can be accessed through the wellestablished academic portal H-Net (http://www.h-net.org/ lists). —John Powell General Reference Barraclough, Geoffrey, ed. HarperCollins Atlas of World History. 2d rev. ed. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Borders Press, 1998. Bothamley, Jennifer. Dictionary of Theories. London: Gale Research International, 1993. Bullock, Alan, and Stephen Tromby, eds. The Norton Dictionary of Modern Thought. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Christopher, A. J. The Atlas of States: Global Change, 1900-2000. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, 1999. Daniel, Clifton, ed. Twentieth Century Day by Day. American ed. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2000. Dictionary of World Biography: The Twentieth Century. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 1999. Encyclopedia of World History. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1998. Great Events: 1900-2001. Rev. ed. 8 vols. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2002. Great Stories of the Century: The Major Events of the Twentieth Century as Reported in the Pages of “The New York Times.” New York: Galahad Books, 1999. Horowitz, Maryanne Cline, ed. New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 6 vols. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. McNeill, William H., ed. Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History. 5 vols. Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2005. Merriam-Webster’s Biographical Dictionary. 3d rev. ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam Webster, 1995. Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary. 3d ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam Webster, 1997. Minahan, James, ed. Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations. 4 vols. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. Ramirez-Faria, Carlos, ed. The Historical Dictionary of World Political Geography: An Encyclopedic Guide to the History of Nations. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Sherby, Louise S. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-2000. 4th ed. Westport, Conn.: Oryx, 2002.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wintle, Justin, ed. New Makers of Modern Culture. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2006. World Leaders of the Twentieth Century. 2 vols. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2000. General Studies Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. 2d ed. 5 vols. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2005. Brower, Daniel R. The World in the Twentieth Century: From Empires to Nations. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. Davis, R. Hunt, Jr. ed. Encyclopedia of African History and Culture. Rev. ed. 5 vols. New York: Facts On File, 2005. Duiker, William J. Twentieth-Century World History. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2004. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. The World: A History. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. Gilbert, Felix, and David Clay Large. The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present. 5th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Goff, Richard. The Twentieth Century: A Brief Global History. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. 2 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Johnson, Paul. Modern Times: A History of the World from the Twenties to the Nineties. Rev. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Keylor, William R. The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond: An International History Since 1900. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Mansfield, Peter, and Nicholas Pelham. A History of the Middle East. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Mansoor, Menahem, ed. 1900-1941. Vol. 1 in Political and Diplomatic History of the Arab World, 19001967. Washington, D.C.: NCR/Microcard Editions, 1972. Overfield, James. Sources of Twentieth Century Global History. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Paxton, Robert. Europe in the Twentieth Century. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2004. Roberts, J. M. Twentieth Century: The History of the World. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Schraeder, Peter J. African Politics and Society: A Mo-
Bibliography saic in Transformation. 2d ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Stavrianos, Leften. The Balkans Since 1453. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Tarling, Nicholas, ed. From c. 1800 to the 1930’s. Vol. 3, part 1, in The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Wilkinson, James, and H. Stuart Hughes. Contemporary Europe: A History. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1997. Zinn, Howard. The Twentieth Century: A People’s History. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003. Agriculture and the Land Bonnifield, Mathew Paul. The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979. Cawley, R. McGreggor. Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Cochrane, Willard W., and C. Ford Runge. Reforming Farm Policy: Toward a National Agenda. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992. Cunfer, Geoff. On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Curtis, Byrd C., Sanjaya Rajaram, and H. Gómez Macpherson, eds. Bread Wheat: Improvement and Production. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2002. Donahue, Debra L. The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Hamilton, David E. From New Day to New Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, 19281933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Hansen, John M. Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Howkins, Alun. The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside Since 1900. London: Routledge, 2003. Saloutos, Theodore. The American Farmer and the New Deal. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1982. Steiner, Frederick R. Soil Conservation in the United States: Policy and Planning. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. 3309
Bibliography Worcester, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Great Plains in the 1930’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Archaeology and Anthropology Birx, H. James, ed. Encyclopedia of Anthropology. 2d ed. 5 vols. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2006. Bohannan, Paul, and Mark Glazer, eds. High Points in Anthropology. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. Freeman, Derek. The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998. McGee, R. Jon, and Richard L. Warms. Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. 1928. Reprint. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Murray, Tim, ed. Encyclopedia of Archaeology: History and Discoveries. 3 vols. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABCClio, 2001. Arts: Performing Adorno, Theodor W. Philosophy of New Music. Translated and edited by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Anderson, Jack. Art Without Boundaries: The World of Modern Dance. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1997. _______. The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2003. Bek, Mikulás, Geoffrey Chew, and Petr Macek, eds. Socialist Realism and Music. Brno, Czech Republic: Institute of Musicology, Masaryk University, 2004. Bordman, Gerald. American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1930-1969. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Charters, Samuel Barclay. The Blues Makers. New York: Da Capo Press, 1991. Cook, Susan C. Opera for a New Republic. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1988. Fitz-Simon, Christopher. The Abbey Theatre: Ireland’s National Theatre—The First Hundred Years. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003. Friedwald, Will. Jazz Singing: America’s Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990. Garafola, Lynn. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. Hagan, Chet. Grand Ole Opry. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. 3310
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hansen, Peter S. An Introduction to Twentieth Century Music. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1978. Hinton, Stephen. The Idea of Gebrauchsmusik. New York: Garland, 1989. Jasen, David A. Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song. Rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. Kerman, Joseph. Opera as Drama. 50th anniversary rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Krasner, David. A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Leach, Robert. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2004. Lee, Carol. Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution. New York: Routledge, 2002. Malone, Bill C. Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Malone, Bill C., and David Stricklin. Southern Music/ American Music. Rev. ed. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Miller, Terry E., and Andrew Shahriari. World Music: A Global Journey. New York: Routledge, 2005. Nettl, Bruno. Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1989. Riddle, Peter H. The American Musical: History and Development. New York: Mosaic Press, 2004. Rubin, Don, ed. World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre. 6 vols. New York: Routledge, 2000. Salzman, Eric. Twentieth-Century Music: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Schwartz, Bonnie Nelson. Voices from the Federal Theatre. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. Schwarz, Boris. Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1970. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972. Smith, Frederick Key. Nordic Art Music: From the Middle Ages to the Third Millennium. New York: Praeger, 2002. Thomas, Helen. Dance, Modernity, and Culture: Explorations in the Sociology of Dance. New York: Routledge, 1995. Titon, Jeff Todd, et al. Worlds of Music: An Introduction
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Goldberger, Paul. The Skyscraper. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. Gropius, Walter. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Boston: Charles T. Branford, 1955. Gutfreund, Owen D. Twentieth Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Huxtable, Ada Louise. The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: The Search for a Skyscraper Style. 1984. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Johnson, Stephen, and Roberto T. Leon. Encyclopedia of Bridges and Tunnels. New York: Facts On File, 2002. Kentgens-Craig, Margret. The Bauhaus and America: First Contacts, 1919-1936. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Lane, Barbara Miller. National Romanticism and Modern Architecture in Germany and the Scandinavian Countries. Edited by Richard A. Etlin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Le Corbusier. Precisions: On the Present State of Architecture of City Planning. Translated by Edith Schreiber Aujame. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. Lindner, Rolf. The Reportage of Urban Culture: Robert Park and the Chicago School. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Messler, Norbert. The Art Deco Skyscraper in New York. Rev. ed. New York: Peter Lang, 1986. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius. Rev. ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. Roth, Leland M. American Architecture: A History. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. Schleier, Merrill. The Skyscraper in American Art, 18901931. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1986. Schock, James W. The Bridge: A Celebration. Sherman Oaks, Calif.: Shock Ink, 1997. Scott, Mel. American City Planning Since 1890. 1971. Reprint. Chicago: American Planning Association, 1995. Snapp, Jeremy Sherman. Destiny by Design: The Construction of the Panama Canal. With photographs by Gerald Fitzgerald Sherman and Jeremy Sherman Snapp. Lopez Island, Wash.: Pacific Heritage Press, 2000.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Snow, W. Brewster, ed. The Highway and the Landscape. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1959. Stevens, Joseph E. Hoover Dam: An American Adventure. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Tauranac, John. The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark. New York: Scribner, 1995. Van Der Zee, John. The Gate: The True Story of the Design and Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
Fashion and Design (see also Engineering, Architecture, and Urban Planning) Bigelow, Marybelle S. Fashion in History: Apparel in the Western World. Minneapolis: Burgess, 1970. Boucher, François. Twenty Thousand Years of Fashion: The History of Costume and Personal Adornment. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967. Byrde, Penelope. A Visual History of Costume: The Twentieth Century. New York: Drama Book, 1986. Clark, Robert Judson, et al. Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision, 1925-1950. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983. De Marly, Diana. Fashion for Men: An Illustrated History. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985. _______. The History of Haute Couture, 1850-1950. London: B. T. Batsford, 1980. Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Rev. ed. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992. Johnson, J. Stewart. American Modern, 1925-1940: Design for a New Age. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000. Kallir, Jane. Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstätte. New York: George Braziller, 1986. Laver, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. 4th ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Ley, Sandra. Fashion for Everyone: The Story of Readyto-Wear, 1870’s-1970’s. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. Loewy, Raymond. Never Leave Well Enough Alone. 1951. Reprint. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Martin, Richard. Fashion and Surrealism. New York: Rizzoli, 1987. Mulvagh, Jane. “Vogue” History of Twentieth Century Fashion. London: Viking Press, 1988. Noyes, Eliot F. Organic Design in Home Furnishings. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1941.
Bibliography Nunn, Joan. Fashion in Costume, 1200-2000. 2d ed. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 2000. Pendergast, Tom, and Sara Pendergast, eds. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 5 vols. Farmington Hills, Mich.: St. James Press, 2000. Sparke, Penny. An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Steele, Valerie, ed. Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. 2 vols. New York: Gale Thomson, 2005. _______. Women of Fashion: Twentieth Century Designers. New York: Rizzoli, 1991. Tortora, Phyllis, and Keith Eubank. A Survey of Historic Costume. 4th ed. New York: Fairchild Books, 2005. Waugh, Norah. Corsets and Crinolines. 1954. Reprint. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 2000.
Gender and Women’s Issues (see also Social and Cultural History) Adam, Ruth. A Woman’s Place, 1910-1975. 1975. Reprint. London: Persephone Books, 2000. Alberti, Johanna. Beyond Suffrage: Feminists in War and Peace, 1914-1928. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Anderson, Bonnie S., and Judith P. Zinsser. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present. Rev. ed. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Antrobus, Peggy. The Global Women’s Movement: Origins, Issues, and Strategies. London: Zed Press, 2004. Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. New York: Hill & Wang, 2005. Boxer, Marilyn, and Jean H. Quataert, eds. Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. New York: Elsevier North-Holland, 1978. Cleverdon, Catherine L. The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada: The Start of Liberation. 2d ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974. Clift, Eleanor. Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Crawford, Patricia, and Philippa Maddern, eds. Women as Australian Citizens: Underlying Histories. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2001. Davidson, Caroline. A Woman’s Work Is Never Done: A History of Housework in the British Isles, 1650-1950. London: Chatto & Windus, 1983. Doumato, Eleanor Abdella, and Marsha Pripstein Poususney, eds. Women and Globalization in the 3323
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 States, 1900-1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Sanger, Margaret. International Birth Control Conference. 4 vols. New York: American Birth Control League, 1925-1926. Sawer, Marian, and Marian Simms. A Woman’s Place: Women and Politics in Australia. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1984. Schneider, Carl J., and Dorothy Schneider. Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I. New York: Viking Press, 1991. Seager, Joni. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Sharer, Wendy B. Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915-1930. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. Smith, Harold L., ed. British Feminism in the Twentieth Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. Stephenson, Marylee. Women in Canada. Rev. ed. Don Mills, Ont.: General Publishing, 1977. Storrs, Ladon R. Y. Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers’ League, Women’s Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Strong-Boag, Veronica, Mona Gleason, and Adele Perry, eds. Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Thönnessen, Werner. The Emancipation of Women: The Rise and Decline of the Woman’s Movement in German Social Democracy, 1863-1933. Glasgow: Pluto Press, 1976. Tilly, Louise A., and Joan W. Scott. Women, Work, and Family. 1978. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 1987. Vickery, Amanda, ed. Women, Privilege, and Power: British Politics, 1750 to the Present. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience: A Concise History. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. Woollacott, Angela. To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism, and Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Woolum, Janet. Outstanding Women Athletes: Who They Are and How They Influenced Sports in America. 2d ed. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1998. Young, Helen Praeger. Choosing Revolution: Chinese Women Soldiers on the Long March. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Young, Louise M. In the Public Interest: The League of Women Voters, 1920-1970. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. Geography, Travel, and Exploration Baines, John D., ed. The Encyclopedia of World Geography: A Country by Country Guide. San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Press, 2002. Bedesky, Baron. Matthew Henson and Robert Peary: The Race to the North Pole. New York: Crabtree, 2006. Berton, Pierre. The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909. 1988. Reprint. New York: Lyons Press, 2000. Bickel, Lennard. Mawson’s Will. New York: Dorset Press, 1988. Bingham, Hiram. Machu Picchu: A Citadel of the Incas. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1930. Confrey, Mick, and Tim Jordan. Icemen: A History of the Arctic and Its Explorers. New York: TV Books, 1998. Cook, Frederick Albert. My Attainment of the Pole. 1913. Reprint. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. De Porti, Andrea. Explorers: The Most Exciting Voyages of Discovery—From the African Expeditions to the Lunar Landing. Richmond Hill, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2005. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe, ed. The Times Atlas of World Exploration. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Fleming, Fergus. Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole. New York: Grove Press, 2001. Goetzmann, William H. New Lands, New Men: America and the Second Great Age of Discovery. 1986. Reprint. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1995. Guberlet, Muriel L. Explorers of the Sea: Famous Oceanographic Expeditions. New York: Ronald Press, 1964. Henderson, Bruce. True North: Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Huntford, Roland. Scott and Amundsen: The Race to the South Pole. New York: Atheneum, 1984. McGregor, Alasdair. Mawson’s Huts: An Antarctic Expedition Journal. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1998. Matsen, Brad. Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. Roerich, Nicholas. Heart of Asia: Memoirs from the Himalayas. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1990. Soule, Gardner. The Greatest Depths: Probing the Seas to Twenty-Thousand Feet and Below. Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1970. Stein, Aurel M. Innermost Asia: A Detailed Report of the Explorations in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, Tibet, and China. 2d ed. Delhi: Cosmo, 1991.
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 nent Court of International Justice. Reprint. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2000. Irons, Peter. A People’s History of the Supreme Court. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Johansen, Bruce E., ed. Enduring Legacies: Native American Treaties and Contemporary Controversies. New York: Praeger, 2004. Karst, Kenneth L. Belonging to America: Equal Citizenship and the Constitution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989. Kens, Paul. Judicial Power and Reform Politics: The Anatomy of “Lochner v. New York.” Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990. Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Leuchtenburg, William E. The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Levy, Leonard, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. 4 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Lewis, Thomas Tandy, ed. U.S. Supreme Court. 3 vols. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2006. Mason, Alpheus T., and Donald Grier Stephenson, Jr. American Constitutional Law: Introductory Essays and Selected Cases. 12th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998. Newton, Nell Jessup, ed. Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Rev. ed. New York: Matthew Bender, 2005. Olasky, Marvin, and John Perry. Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Scott, James Brown. The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1909. Tan, Alan Khee-Jin. Vessel-Source Marine Pollution: The Law and Politics of International Regulation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Tanenhaus, David S. Juvenile Justice in the Making. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Theoharis, Athan G. The FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Von Glahn, Gerhard. Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public International Law. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1995.
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Electronic Resources Web Sites The sites listed below were visited by the editors of Salem Press in 2006. Because URLs frequently change or are moved, the accuracy of these addresses cannot be guaranteed; however, long-standing sites, such as those of university departments, national organizations, and government agencies, generally maintain links when sites move or upgrade their offerings.
General The Long Nineteenth Century, VII: The End of European Hegemony http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/ modsbook4.html#hegend The highly regarded Internet Modern History Sourcebook includes an extensive collection of primary source materials and Web links about the early twentieth century. This part of the site includes a section titled “World War I: Tragic War and Futile Peace,” containing information about the causes, battles, key people, and aftermath of World War I. Information is also available about the Russian Revolution, including links to Internet archives of the works of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin, as well as information about the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and Bolshevik rule before and during Stalin’s leadership. In addition, the site includes documents about life in the United States, Europe, and Latin America between the world wars, including information about the Great Depression. WebChron: Web Chronology Project Then Again http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/index.html The Web Chronology Project was created by the History Department at North Park University in Chicago. It is now administered by David Koeller, the project’s originator, as part of his Then Again Web site. The site contains a series of hyperlinked time lines tracing developments in the United States, Africa south of the Sahara, the Middle East and west Asia, India and southern Asia, China and East Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe, and Western and Central Europe. Other chronologies provide information about Islam, Christianity, and Judaism and about art, music, literature, and speculative thought in the Western tradition.
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World History @fsmitha.com: 1901 to World War II http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/index.html Historian Frank Smitha has created this collection of essays, maps, and time lines providing a broad range of historical information. This page features essays about significant events that occurred between 1901 and the end of World War II, including conditions in the Middle East, the Mexican Revolution, politics and economic conditions in Latin America, world order in the 1920’s, and the United States in the 1920’s.
Africa The Story of Africa: Between World Wars (19141945) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/ storyofafrica/index_section13.shtml This is a section from The Story of Africa, a Web site that accompanied a series of radio programs of the same name produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The section contains information about Africa’s role in World War I; the aftermath of the war; early nationalist movements in Sudan, Nigeria, South Africa, and other African countries; and the rise of the pan-African movement. Site users can also listen to the radio programs in the series as well as other relevant information. A bibliography and a list of Web links are included for further research.
Art and Architecture Art History Resources on the Web, Part 13: Twentieth Century Art http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTH20thcentury.html Chris Witcombe, a professor of art history at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, compiled this unusually extensive list of Web sites about art history. This page of
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 the site deals specifically with twentieth century painting, sculpture, and architecture, featuring hundreds of links to information about Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Dadaism, Fauvism, and other art movements, as well as information about individual artists, sculptors, and architects of the early twentieth century, including Paul Klee, Edward Hooper, Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and many others. Art of the First World War http://www.art-ww1.com/gb/visite.html This site features a collection of one hundred paintings organized in 1998 to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War I. Included are essays about the war and the artists who represented it as well as paintings by Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Oskar Kokoschka, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, John Singer Sargent, and others. The paintings can be viewed in both thumbnail and enlarged formats. A Digital Archive of Architecture: Twentieth Century Architecture http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/arch/ 20arch_europe.html A Digital Archive of American Architecture: Twentieth Century Architecture http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/ fa267_20.html These two Web sites, which provide an overview of architecture in the twentieth century, were designed by Jeffery Howe, a professor at Boston College. The first site features photographs of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier; the second contains photographs of public and commercial buildings, homes, churches, universities, and skyscrapers constructed in the United States in two periods: 19001925 and 1925-1945. The photographs can be viewed in both thumbnail and enlarged formats. Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/flw This is a digitized version of a Library of Congress exhibition of the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The site features designs that Wright developed from 1922 to 1932 for five projects that used advanced building techniques and innovative geometric pat-
Electronic Resources terns. The projects include a summer colony of homes at Lake Tahoe, a resort in the Arizona desert, and the Doheny Ranch in Beverly Hills, California. Metropolitan Museum of Art: Timeline of Art History http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm The museum’s Web site describes itself as a “chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated especially by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.” The time line for the period from 1900 to the present contains works of art, maps, and chronologies organized by regions of the world, including North America, South America, Europe, Central America and Mexico, Africa, Oceania, and several areas of Asia. In addition to the time lines, the site offers a broad range of information accessible through alphabetical lists of artists and subjects as well as through a list of special themes in specific nations and geographic areas of the world. On-Line Picasso Project http://csdll.cs.tamu.edu:8080/picasso This enormous catalog of 9,681 works by Pablo Picasso has been compiled by Enrique Mallen, professor of Hispanic studies at A&M University, and other university faculty and staff. The site features a yearby-year listing of the events in Picasso’s life and a similar chronology of his works. The paintings and other works can be viewed in thumbnail and enlarged formats. The site also provides a list of museums, galleries, and other places in which Picasso’s work is exhibited and an archive of more than 3,300 articles about Picasso written in English, Spanish, German, and other languages.
Asia China in the Twentieth Century http://departments.kings.edu/history/20c/china.html This page from the Twentieth Century Resource Site, created by members of the History Department at Kings College, focuses on Chinese history. It includes information about the Boxer Rebellion, Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian), and Chiang Kai-shek as well as a bibliography of books and links to other Web sites for additional information. 3349
Electronic Resources Internet East Asian History Sourcebook http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/ eastasiasbook.html This site provides primary source materials tracing historical and cultural developments in China, Japan, Korea, and other East Asian nations. It includes separate sections that focus on Japan as a world power and Chinese history from 1840 through 1949.
Canada Canadian Economy Online: Key Economic Events http://canadianeconomy.gc.ca/english/economy/ key.html This chronology of key economic events in Canadian history is part of a Web site created by the government of Canada. The time line contains several pages describing the condition of the nation’s economy in the period 1910-1939, including information about the economic impacts of World War I, the imposition of a national income tax, the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the stock market crash of 1929, and the Great Depression. The site provides information in both English and French. The Canadian Encyclopedia http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/ index.cfm?PgNm=Homepage&Params=A1 This Web site provides authoritative information on “all things Canadian.” The “Feature Articles” section is organized by various subject areas and includes articles about the stock market crash of 1929, the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919, and the discovery of insulin by Canadians John J. R. Macleod and Frederick G. Banting. The site also features several pages pertaining to the early twentieth century from an extensive time line of Canadian history, covering “Expansion, 1885-1913,” World War I (1914-1919), the 1920’s, and the 1930’s.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 through an alphabetical index. It also describes various schools of economic thought, including a section devoted to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and some of his followers, such as Joan Robinson and the Cambridge Keynesians. Looking Back at the Crash of ’29 http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/index-1929crash.html This page from the Web site of The New York Times features reproductions of the newspaper’s front pages from Monday, October, 28, 1929, through November 1, 1929, the week the stock market crash dominated the headlines. The page links to other articles published in The New York Times that week about various changes and events surrounding the stock market crash, including the rise in the number of telephone calls made in the period and the decisions of many women stockbrokers to resign from their profession. McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3 This site provides an extensive collection of texts about economics, organized by author. The site features an excerpt from John Maynard Keynes’s book The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) as well as works by other twentieth century economists. 1929 Stock Market Crash http://mutualfunds.about.com/od/1929marketcrash This portion of About.com’s Web site about mutual funds contains links to several pages about the great stock market crash, including articles about the condition of the stock market on Black Monday, Black Tuesday, and Black Thursday as well as charts depicting stock market fluctuations and a collection of historical photographs depicting American life during the Great Depression.
France Economics The History of Economic Thought http://cepa.newschool.edu/het Created by the Department of Economics at the New School for Social Research, this site features biographical information and excerpts of texts from more than five hundred economists who can be accessed 3350
France 1900-1945 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/France.htm This is one of the many excellent sites created by Spartacus Educational, a British organization that seeks to provide Internet-based lessons for students. The site contains separate pages of information about French politicians and military leaders in the periods
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1900-1920 and 1920-1945, including excerpts from speeches and other primary source documents as well as referrals to books on related topics. It also provides a highly detailed chronology of World War I and information about France and the nation’s armed forces from 1914 through 1918. All of the site’s pages contain numerous links to other Web pages with related information.
Germany Germany 1900-1945 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Germany.htm This site created by Spartacus Educational focuses on life in Germany before and during the Nazi regime. The site includes separate pages of information about political and military figures in the periods 1914-1918 and 1918-1945, the Weimar Republic, political parties, German art, and World War I. In addition, a separate page devoted to Nazi Germany contains information about foreign policy from 1932 through 1945, biographies of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi figures, and information on German laws, anti-Semitism, education, major historical events, and other aspects of life under the Nazi regime. Weimar Germany, 1919-1933 http://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/weimar.htm Hitler: The Rise to Power http://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/hitrise.htm Hitler’s Foreign Policy http://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/hitfor.htm These three pages are presented on A Web of English History, which, despite its name, also provides information about other European countries. These pages contain articles written by Stephen Tonge, head of history at Catholic University School in Dublin, Ireland, describing, respectively, the Weimar government, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, and Hitler’s foreign policy from 1933 to 1939.
Great Britain British Timeline: Early Twentieth Century, 19011944 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/ cen_science.shtml
Electronic Resources This part of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Web site contains a series of time lines tracing British history from the Mesolithic era to the early twenty-first century. This section of the time line features information about key events in the early twentieth century, including the campaign for woman suffrage, liberal reforms adopted from 1906 to 1914, World War I, the Easter Rising and Irish independence, the economy and the Great Depression, and the Munich Agreement and appeasement. The site also contains similar time lines outlining early twentieth century events specifically in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Monarchy, 1042-1952 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/monarchy.htm This site contains individual pages about each of the British monarchs who reigned from 1042 through 1952, with portraits, biographical details, significant historical facts about their reigns, and links to sites with additional information. Prime Ministers, 1760-1960 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/pm.htm This site designed by Spartacus Educational provides portraits, biographies, and information about significant events that occurred during the terms of Britain’s prime ministers from 1760 through the mid-twentieth century, with links to sites with additional information. H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, and Neville Chamberlain are among the prime ministers represented. The individual pages about each prime minister are accessed through a list of the prime ministers presented in chronological order of their terms in office.
Ireland Irish History on the Web http://larkspirit.com/history This site includes a page with links to information about the Easter Rising of 1916 and the creation of the Irish Republic. It also provides access to historical documents, including the Proclamation of the Republic in 1916, as well as a separate page of links to information about Northern Ireland.
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Electronic Resources A Web of English History: The Home Rule Crisis, 1910-1914 http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/ireland/ homerule.htm This page outlines the Irish battle for home rule. It profiles some of the Unionist leaders and members of Parliament involved in the struggle and details the significant events that occurred in the period 19101914.
Italy Benito Mussolini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini This biography of the Italian premier is found in Wikipedia, a free Web-based encyclopedia. The biography provides an overview of Mussolini’s life and describes the rise of Italian Fascism.
Latin America Casahistoria: Latin American Home Page http://www.casahistoria.net/latam.html Casahistoria was created by a teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who wanted to provide a list of Web resources for his undergraduate history students. The site contains information in English and Spanish, including a page of links about Latin American history and culture, with a section devoted to the twentieth century. The site also features individual pages with links to information about Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
Literature American Literature on the Web: American Literature, 1865-1914 http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/19re/ overview_19re.htm American Literature on the Web: American Literature, 1914-1945 http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/20/ overview_20.htm This comprehensive compendium of Web links, maintained by Akihito Ishikawa of the Nagasaki College of Foreign Languages, includes a separate section 3352
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 about late nineteenth and early twentieth century American literature and another section about early and mid-twentieth century American literature. Each section has a page that provides access to information about individual authors, including Theodore Dreiser, William Dean Howells, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy Parker, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and John Steinbeck. The “Related Resources” page provides links to Web sites about modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and other literary topics of the period. Additional pages contain time lines, links to Web sites about music and the visual arts during each period, and links to sites placing the period’s literature within a broader social context. English Literature by Period: Modern (British and American) http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2747 This page is part of Voice of the Shuttle, a highly regarded Web site created by professors at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The page contains links to numerous Web sites, journals, Listservs, and other resources about twentieth century British and American literature. It also provides links to sites about individual authors. Introduction to First World War Poetry http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/jtap/tutorials/ intro Created by a professor at Oxford University, this Webbased tutorial contains poetry of the World War I era written by Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and other British poets. It also features the work of women poets during this period, “trench poems” written by a soldier, and some popular trench songs. Literary Resources: Twentieth Century British, Irish, and Commonwealth http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/20th.html One of the pages created by Rutgers University professor Jack Lynch in his Literary Resources, a compendium of Web links about literature. This page features links to several sites containing World War I poetry as well as links to information about individual authors, including Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and William Butler Yeats.
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Mathematics The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/ index.html This comprehensive Web site is maintained by the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. It features biographies of prominent mathematicians that can be accessed through alphabetical or chronological indexes. It also contains information about math history, with separate pages explaining important mathematical discoveries and concepts. Emmy Noether, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead are among the mathematicians included.
Mexico Mexico: Revolution and Twentieth Century http://www.casahistoria.net/ mexicorevolution.htm#2.%20The%20Mexican% 20Revolution%201910-1920 This page of the Casahistoria Web site provides links to information in English and Spanish about twentieth century Mexico, with separate sections about the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, documents from the revolution, and the nation’s history following that period.
Music Carolina Classical Connection: Twentieth Century Music Links http://www.carolinaclassical.com/twentieth.html This site provides a collection of links to a wide variety of music-related Web sites, with biographical information on composers, descriptions of musical genres and types of compositions, and encoded music files. The page with links to the twentieth century includes information on Gustav Mahler, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, George Gershwin, and many other composers. The Classical MIDI Connection: The Twentieth Century http://www.classicalmidiconnection.com/cmc/ twenty.html This site offers a collection of music MIDI files.
Electronic Resources MIDI, or musical instrument digital interface, is a digital technology that allows electronic musical instruments and computers to communicate with one another and enables people to listen to music on their computers. The site has an alphabetized list of composers with links to MIDI files of their music. The twentieth century period page contains links and MIDI files for Alban Berg, Edward Elgar, Manuel de Falla, George Gershwin, Sergei Prokofiev, and many other composers. Public Domain Music http://www.pdmusic.org This collection of MIDI and text files of lyrics for American music in the public domain contains a separate page featuring popular American songs from 1900 through 1922. The page about the blues features a number of selections from the early twentieth century, and the page about ragtime includes compositions written from 1897 through 1915 by Scott Joplin and other composers. The Red Hot Jazz Archive: A History of Jazz Before 1930 http://www.redhotjazz.com/index.htm This site’s name is something of a misnomer, as this multimedia collection of essays, film clips, and sound files contains not only voluminous information about early American jazz but also pages about blues music in the early twentieth century. Users can access information about bands led by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman, Jelly Roll Morton, and Tommy Dorsey as well as about hundreds of other musicians. The site also provides pages of information about individuals such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and other classic women blues singers of the 1920’s. The Roaring 1920’s Concert Extravaganza http://bestwebs.com/roaring1920/index.shtml This site creates an imaginary radio broadcast featuring performances by many popular entertainers of the 1920’s, including Al Jolson, Maurice Chevalier, Bert Williams, Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, and Helen Kane, better known as the “boop boop a doop girl.” The sound files are in Real Audio 2 Sound Format, with each selection lasting about sixty seconds.
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Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html This site presents a collection of articles about philosophers and philosophical ideas that can be accessed through an alphabetical table of contents. Among the materials included are articles about John Dewey, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as an article detailing Albert Einstein’s contributions to the philosophy of science.
Russia Russia, 1860-1945 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ RussiaIssues.htm This examination of Russian history from 1860 until the end of World War II contains several pages of information about issues and events in Russian history in the period 1901-1914, including the 1905 revolution. It also features an extensive collection of links to other Web sites about the Russian Revolution of 1917 and related topics, as well as several pages of lessons about the 1917 revolution.
Science and Medicine Albert Einstein Online http://www.westegg.com/einstein/index.htm This lengthy list of links to information about Einstein includes links to Web sites that provide overviews of his life and scientific achievements, photos, quotations from his works and interviews, excerpts from his writings, and information on his Nobel Prize in Physics. Eric Weisstein’s World of Science http://scienceworld.wolfram.com This online reference, compiled by a research scientist and former professor of astronomy, contains several encyclopedias of information about astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. It also provides brief biographies and portraits of noteworthy twentieth century scientists, including Albert Einstein, Edwin Powell Hubble, and Enrico Fermi. 3354
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 History of Western Biomedicine http://www.mic.ki.se/West.html#West3 Compiled by the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, this site contains links to Web sites that address various aspects of medical and scientific history from ancient times through the twenty-first century. The “Modern Period” section includes a list of sites related to twentieth century scientific and medical developments, including significant events in microbiology, the histories of blood transfusion and uranium, the discoveries of insulin and antibiotics, and the development of the electrocardiogram. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank This site, which provides 120 entries about twentieth century scientists and their stories, is part of the Public Broadcasting System’s (PBS) Web site. The entries can be accessed through a time line of significant scientific discoveries between 1900 and 1996 or through an alphabetical list of scientists. In addition, separate pages provide access to entries about medicine and health, physics and astronomy, human behavior, technology, and earth and life sciences.
Spain Spanish Civil War http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Spanish-CivilWar.htm Spartacus Educational has prepared this series of Web pages describing the main events and issues of the war and the political and military organizations involved in the conflict. The site also features biographies about Spaniards as well as people from other countries who played significant roles in the conflict and information about the participation of world leaders and countries other than Spain. A Web of English History: European History, the Spanish Civil War http://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/spaincw.htm This page provides an examination of the causes of the Spanish Civil War, a description of the outbreak and main events of the war, details about foreign involvement in the conflict, and an explanation why Francisco Franco was the war’s victor. The site also recommends books and links to other Web sites for further information.
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Technology The History of the Automobile http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/ aacarssteama.htm About.com’s Inventors Web site includes a four-part history of the automobile, tracing the various phases in automotive invention from the eighteenth century through the twentieth century. The last of the four parts focuses on developments in automotive technology during the early years of the twentieth century, describing the introduction of the assembly line and mass-produced vehicles as well as the contributions of Ransom Eli Olds and Henry Ford to the automobile’s development. Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Company http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edhome.html This site, created by the Library of Congress, contains digitized versions of 341 motion pictures and 81 disc recordings that were released by Thomas Alva Edison’s entertainment company. The site provides detailed explanations of how users can view the videos and listen to the sound recordings. It also features a time line outlining significant events in Edison’s life and links to pages describing Edison’s role in creating the phonograph and his contributions to the motionpicture industry. The Invention of Radio http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/ blradio.htm About.com’s Inventors Web site includes this page summarizing the history of the invention and development of radio, including information about Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, and other inventors. The page also provides links to Web sites about radio broadcasting history. Twentieth Century Inventions: 1900-1925 http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/ aa121599a.htm Twentieth Century Inventions: 1926-1950 http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/ aa122299a.htm These two pages from About.com’s time line of inventions are devoted to the first half of the twentieth century. The time line links to additional pages de-
Electronic Resources scribing inventors and inventions of the period, including information about the invention of the safety razor, vacuum cleaner, airplane, bubble gum, and Pez candy.
United States American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/nfhtml/nfhome.html Created by the Library of Congress, this site allows users to hear fifty-nine sound recordings of speeches delivered by American leaders in the period 19181920. The topics of these speeches include World War I, the presidential election of 1920, home rule for Ireland, the labor movement, the League of Nations, and internationalism. Among the speakers are Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, labor leader Samuel Gompers, General John J. Pershing, and businessman John D. Rockefeller. AmericanPresident.org http://www.americanpresident.org This accessible and inclusive site was created by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a research institution devoted to the study of the American presidency. The section titled “Presidency in History” contains several pages of information about each of the presidents. Brief biographies are illustrated with period drawings, photographs, and other images and are followed by more extensive pages of information about the presidents’ lives before and after their terms in office, their campaigns and elections, and significant domestic and foreign affairs during their administrations. The site also provides biographies of all the First Ladies, brief biographies of key cabinet members, lists of presidential staff members and advisers, and links to additional resources. Fireside Chats of Franklin D. Roosevelt http://www.mhric.org/fdr/fdr.html During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, the president described the state of the nation and his political programs in his radio-broadcast “fireside chats.” This site contains complete transcripts of thirty chats broadcast from March 12, 1933, through June 12, 1944. The topics of Roosevelt’s talks include the national bank crisis of 1933, the New Deal and 3355
Electronic Resources other programs aimed at helping the American economy recover from the Great Depression, the president’s proposed judicial reorganization, the unemployment crisis, and the European war that began in 1939. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp Created by the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, this site provides a wide range of information about Marcus Garvey and his role in the pan-Africanism movement. The site contains excerpts from the papers of the Universal Negro Improvement Association as well as portions of Garvey’s biography and editorials. It also features photographs and sound files of some of Garvey’s speeches. New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/index.htm This Web-based research and teaching resource devoted to the public works and art projects of the New Deal era is the result of a collaboration among the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and others. The site features more than five thousand Great Depressionera photographs and a library of some nine hundred articles, speeches, letters, historical documents, and other texts. It also contains a photographic essay about the impact of the Great Depression and the New Deal on a small town in Alabama as well as lesson plans for teachers and information on a variety of other resources about the period. Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/ coolhome.html This Library of Congress compilation of materials concerns the prosperity of the United States during the administration of President Calvin Coolidge, the transition to a mass consumer economy, and the role of the American government in the transition. The site includes legislative documents, books, pamphlets, personal papers, photographs, five short films, and audio selections from Coolidge’s speeches. Theodore Roosevelt Association http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org 3356
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 The association, which, in its own words, seeks to “perpetuate the memory and ideals” of the twentysixth American president, features a great deal of information about Theodore Roosevelt on its site. Included are a time line, a lengthy biography, numerous photos, lists of books and other research resources, and links to other sites about Roosevelt. The site also provides a link to a Web site created by the Library of Congress containing film clips of Roosevelt, who is described as “the first U.S. president to have his career and life chronicled on a large scale by motion picture companies.” Site visitors can view 140 films recording the events of Roosevelt’s life from his participation in the Spanish-American War in 1898 until his death in 1919.
Women By Popular Demand: “Votes for Women,” Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/ vfwhome.html Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html These companion sites, created by the Library of Congress, provide information about the campaign for woman suffrage in the United States, which culminated in 1920, when women achieved the right to vote. The first site contains thirty-eight photographs, including portraits of feminist leaders, suffragist parades and picketing, and political cartoons. The photos can be viewed in either thumbnail or enlarged formats. The second site holds 167 books, pamphlets, and other artifacts documenting the suffrage movement, many of which were donated to the Library of Congress by Carrie Chapman Catt, longtime president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
World War I Teacher Oz’s Kingdom of History: World War I http://www.teacheroz.com/wwi.htm Tracey Oz, a high school history teacher in Dallas, Texas, compiled the encyclopedic history site that includes this page on World War I. The page provides a broad range of materials, including time lines, pri-
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mary source documents such as letters and diaries, first-person accounts of battles, statistics, discussions of international diplomacy during and after the war, and descriptions of battles, weapons, and types of warfare. Numerous images are also available, including maps, as well as examples of wartime propaganda, audio clips, descriptions of women’s role in the war and the home front in wartime, and examples of the poetry, music, and art produced during the war years. The World War I Document Archive http://www.lib.byu.edu/%7Erdh/wwi This collection of primary documents and other materials about the war was compiled by Brigham Young University. One of the site’s best features is its collection of digitized books, in English and French, about various aspects of the war. It also includes the texts of conventions, treaties, and official papers related to the war, including the Treaty of Versailles, as well as dia-
ries, memorials, and personal reminiscences. One section of the site describes the various maritime battles fought during the war; another details the military and civilian medical aspects of the conflict. World War I: Trenches on the Web http://www.worldwar1.com Regarded as one of the best sources of information about World War I available on the Internet, this site is maintained by the Great War Society, an organization that encourages discussion, learning, and scholarship about the events surrounding the war. The comprehensive offerings include a detailed time line listing the events that led to war and the battles fought during the conflict. It also contains biographies of the major figures involved in the war, articles provided by historians, maps and information about the European nations that fought in the war, and links to numerous other Web sites.
Subscription Web Sites The following sites are posted on the World Wide Web but are available only to paying subscribers. Many public, college, and university libraries subscribe to these sources; readers can ask reference librarians if they are available at their local libraries.
General Oxford Reference Online http://www.oxfordreference.com The Core Collection of Oxford Reference Online is a virtual reference library of more than one hundred dictionaries, language reference, and subject reference books published by the Oxford University Press. The electronic versions of the books are fully indexed and cross-searchable and provide information on a wide range of subjects, including art, architecture, biological sciences, economics and business, history, law, literature, mathematics, medicine, military history, performing arts, political science, social science, religion, and philosophy. The Premium Collection contains all of the features of the Core Collection plus electronic versions of the Oxford Companions Series.
nomics, finance, philosophy, political science, and religion that are published by the Oxford University Press. The site contains the full texts of these books couple with advanced searching capabilities.
Art Grove Art Online http://www.groveart.com Grove Art Online provides authoritative and comprehensive information about the visual arts from prehistory to the present. In addition to its more than 130,000 art images, the site contains articles on a range of subjects, including fine arts, architecture, and the art of China, South America, Africa, and other world cultures, as well as biographies and links to hundreds of museum and gallery Web sites.
Oxford Scholarship Online http:www.oxfordscholarship.com Oxford Scholarship Online contains the electronic versions of more than one thousand books about eco3357
Electronic Resources
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Biography
Music
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online http://www.oxforddnb.com The online version of the recently revised Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a highly authoritative reference source of biographical information. According to the site’s description, the dictionary contains more than “50,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2002.”
Grove Music Online http://www.grovemusic.com This online version of the highly regarded New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians features more than 4,500 articles on musicians, instruments, musical techniques, genres, and styles. In addition to articles and biographies, the site provides more than five hundred audio clips of music and links to images as well as to related Web sites.
History
Science
Daily Life Through History Online http://dailylife.greenwood.com/login.asp Daily Life Through History Online, created by Greenwood Electronic Media, contains articles describing the religious, domestic, economic, material, political, recreational, and intellectual lives of people throughout history. It contains information from The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life as well as other books, reference works, and primary source documents. Users can also access chronologies, time lines, and hundreds of Web links.
Access Science: McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Online http://www.accessscience.com The online version of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology and McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms contains the information found in the latest editions of these books. Users can access biographies, more than eight thousand articles, and science news.
Electronic Databases Electronic databases usually do not have their own URLs. Instead, public, college, and university libraries subscribe to these databases and install them on their Web sites, where they are available only to library card holders or specified patrons. Readers can check their library Web sites to see if these databases are installed or ask reference librarians if the databases are available at their local libraries.
Biography Biography Resource Center Produced by Thomson Gale, this database includes biographies of more than 335,000 prominent people throughout history that were previously published in Thompson Gale reference sources. It also features biographical articles from almost three hundred magazines. Biography Resource Center: African Americans This electronic collection features almost 30,000 biographies of African Americans who have attained prominence in a number of areas, including the arts, business, government, history, literature, politics, and 3358
science. Produced by Thomson Gale, the database’s biographies have been culled from the company’s Biography Resource Center database. In addition to the biographies, the database provides links to related Web sites, about 2,000 portraits, and more than 42,000 articles from almost three hundred magazines. Wilson Biographies Plus Illustrated Produced by H. W. Wilson Co., this database contains more than 140,000 narrative profiles, more than 36,000 images, bibliographies, and links to related material. The database’s content derives from some of Wilson’s reference books, including Current Biography and the World Authors Series, as well as from information licensed from other reference publishers.
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
History American History Online This database, produced by Facts On File, contains information about more than five hundred years of political, military, social, and cultural history. Its content derives from the company’s publications, including the Encyclopedia of American History, as well as the Landmark Documents in American History database. Users can access information about historical events and topics, biographies of significant people, more than 1,300 primary source documents, time lines, essays providing overviews of significant time periods, maps, charts, and more than 1,300 images. American Women’s History Online This database is devoted to five hundred years of American women’s history. Produced by Facts On File, it contains more than 2,300 biographies as well as entries about issues pertaining to women, such as court cases and legislation, events, and social issues. It also features primary source documents, time lines containing hyperlinked entries (including a time line of woman suffrage), and more than six hundred images, maps, and charts.
Electronic Resources MagillOnHistory Available on the EBSCO Host platform, Salem Press’s MagillOnHistory database offers the full contents of the company’s Great Lives from History and Great Events from History series as well as entries from its many history and social science encyclopedias, such as the award-winning Ready Reference: American Indians and its decades volumes, The Fifties, The Sixties, and The Seventies. Several thousand full-length essays cross-link to coverage of historical events and to biographies about prominent persons from ancient times to the twenty-first century. World History Online Created by Facts On File, this database covers a wide range of historical events, from ancient times to the present. It includes more than 10,000 biographies and subject entries describing more than 14,000 events, places, and cultural events. Also available are hundreds of primary source documents, time lines, and more than 650 maps and charts.
Literature
History Reference Center A product of EBSCO Information Services, the History Reference Center is a comprehensive world history database. It includes the contents of more than one thousand encyclopedias, reference works, and nonfiction books as well as the full texts of articles published in about sixty history periodicals. It also features thousands of historical documents, biographies, photographs, maps, and historical film and video.
Literary Reference Online Facts On File has compiled this electronic examination of the lives and works of writers throughout history. Among the database’s features are author biographies searchable by type of writing or time period and information about the plots, themes, social contexts, and importance of literary works. Also available is a guide to more than 35,000 literary characters, a glossary of literary terms, and articles on literary movements, literary groups, magazines, and newspapers.
History Resource Center: U.S. This database, produced by Thomson Gale, contains primary source documents from digital archives, articles from current periodicals, and multimedia reference articles about U.S. history. Users also can access audio and video clips of historic speeches and events and link to digitized special collections.
Literature Resource Center This database produced by Thomson Gale includes biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from a wide range of literary disciplines, countries, and eras. It also features plot summaries, complete articles from literary journals, and critical essays.
History Resource Center: World This electronic collection compiled by Thomson Gale features information from the company’s publications as well as primary source documents and complete articles from academic journals and periodicals.
MagillOnLiteraturePlus Available on the EBSCO Host platform, MagillOn LiteraturePlus is a comprehensive, integrated literature database produced by Salem Press. The database incorporates the full contents of Salem’s many 3359
Electronic Resources literature-related reference works, including information from Masterplots (series I and II), Cyclopedia of World Authors, Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Cyclopedia of Literary Places, Critical Surveys of Literature, Magill’s Literary Annual, World Philosophers and Their Works, and Magill Book Reviews. Among the materials available are articles on more than 35,000 works and more than 10,000 writers, po-
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The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 ets, dramatists, essayists, and philosophers. Essays feature critical analysis as well as plot summaries, biographical information, character profiles, and authoritative listings of authors’ works with the dates of publication. The majority of the essays also include annotated bibliographies to help users conduct additional research. — Rebecca Kuzins
Chronological List of Entries 1901 Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity Early 20th cent.: Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi 1901: Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan 1901: Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms 1901-1925: Teletype Is Developed Jan., 1901: American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop
Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation May 27, 1901: Insular Cases July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway
1902 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience 1902: Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement
1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game Jan. 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the Photo-Secession Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established Apr., 1902: Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones Apr. 11, 1902: Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike 3361
Chronological List of Entries May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913: Expansion of Direct Democracy June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox” June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company Sept. 27, 1902: Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau
1903 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising 1903: Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman 1903: Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment
May 23, 1903: Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion July 1, 1903: First Tour de France Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope Fall, 1903: Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight
1904 1904: Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method 1904: Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy 3362
1904-1905: Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control 1904-1905: Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic” 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1904-1908: Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics
Chronological List of Entries May 18, 1904: International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal Sept. 7, 1904: Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet Oct. 31, 1904-1906: Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres Nov. 16, 1904: Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut Dec. 27, 1904: Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival
1905 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard 1905: Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity 1905: Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust Feb. 23, 1905: First American Service Organization Is Founded Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect
Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement Aug., 1905: Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto Aug.-Dec., 1905: Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion Dec. 9, 1905: Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences
1906 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass
1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements 3363
Chronological List of Entries 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins 1906: Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities 1906: Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure 1906-1913: Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll Jan. 11, 1906: Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Spring, 1906: Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations Apr., 1906-1908: Azusa Street Revival Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched Sept. 19, 1906: Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907: Persia Adopts a Constitution Oct. 6, 1906: Launching of the Dreadnought Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India
1907 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers 1907: Famine Strikes Russia 1907: Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India 1907: Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912: Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States Jan. 26, 1907: The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences
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Mar., 1907: Romanian Peasant Revolt Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914: Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia Spring, 1907: Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society Aug., 1907: Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907 Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference Oct. 22, 1907: Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus Dec. 22, 1907: Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chronological List of Entries
1908 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia
Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation Oct. 3, 1908: First Issue of Pravda Appears Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo Nov. 28, 1908: Christian Science Monitor Is Founded Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton Dec. 3, 1908: Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim Dec. 21, 1908: Cairo University Is Inaugurated Dec. 26, 1908: First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily
1909 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype” 1909: Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education 1909: Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy” 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart” Jan.-Aug., 1909: Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency Mar. 4, 1909: U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law
Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oct., 1909: Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory 3365
Chronological List of Entries
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1910 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era 1910: Angell Advances Pacifism 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity” 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes 1910-1913: Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement
1910-1930: Great Northern Migration Spring, 1910: Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis Apr. 5, 1910: First Morris Plan Bank Opens May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris July 1, 1910: U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea Oct. 5, 1910: Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace
1911 1911: Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics Mar. 15, 1911: Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason” May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company
July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art Sept. 4-15, 1911: Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty Nov. 20, 1911: Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences Dec. 14, 1911: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole Dec. 31, 1911: Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System
1912 1912: Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre
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1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs 1912-1929: Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded
Chronological List of Entries Apr. 14-15, 1912: Sinking of the Titanic May 5-July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics May 29, 1912: L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery July 10, 1912: Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy Aug. 4-Nov., 1912: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President
1913 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars 1913: Husserl Advances Phenomenology 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria 1913-1927: Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking Jan. 17, 1913: Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show
Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act
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Chronological List of Entries
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1914 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, EightHour Workday Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens Sept. 1, 1914: Last Passenger Pigeon Dies Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne
Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic
1915 1915: Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916: Gallipoli Campaign Falters Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns
May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences Sept. 11, 1915: Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism
1916 1916: Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad 1916: Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire 3368
1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education 1916: Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law
Chronological List of Entries Aug., 1916: Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress
1917 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917 Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution Mar. 2, 1917: Jones Act of 1917 Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee
May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter May 13-Oct. 17, 1917: Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence
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Chronological List of Entries
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1918 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government 1918-1919: Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair 1918-1921: Russian Civil War Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence
Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia
1919 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus 1919: Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme 1919-1921: Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power Jan. 15, 1919: Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion
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Spring, 1919: Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory Nov. 16, 1919: Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chronological List of Entries
1920 Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement 1920-1924: Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist 1920-1925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded
Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt May 7, 1920: Group of Seven Exhibition May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party
1921 1921: Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament 1921: Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph 1921: Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings 1921: Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher 1921-1922: Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives
1921-1923: Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment 1921-1923: Scandals of the Harding Administration 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South 1921-1948: King Era in Canada Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence
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Chronological List of Entries Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion Sept. 8, 1921: First Miss America Is Crowned
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act
1922 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction Apr. 16, 1922: Treaty of Rapallo June, 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated
July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine Sept. 22, 1922: Cable Act Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome” Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela
1923 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research 1923: Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation 1923: Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr
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Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues” Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine Mar. 5, 1923: Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment
Chronological List of Entries Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television
1924 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula 1924: Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food 1924: Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa 1924-1932: Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York Mar., 1924: Eddington Formulates the MassLuminosity Law for Stars Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting
May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924 May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation
1925 1925: The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology 1925: Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced 1925: Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells
1925: Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed Jan. 5, 1925: First Female Governor in the United States Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker 3373
Chronological List of Entries Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony May 5, 1925: Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded Aug. 14, 1925: Norway Annexes Svalbard Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty Oct.-Dec., 1925: Baker Dances in La Revue nègre Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin
1926 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War Mar. 16, 1926: Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes
July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation Dec., 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released
1927 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way 3374
1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park May 17, 1927: Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel Aug. 4, 1927: Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor
Chronological List of Entries Aug. 23, 1927: Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie” Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot
1928 1928: Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer 1928: Smith-Hoover Campaign 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service
May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning Dec. 10, 1928: Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature
1929 1929: Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe 1929: Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty
Feb. 14, 1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre Feb. 17, 1929: League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for Formal Systems Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930: The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel 3375
Chronological List of Entries Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created Winter, 1929-1930: Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope
1930 Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking 1930: Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States 1930: Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus 1930-1931: Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy 1930-1935: Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine
Feb. 18, 1930: Tombaugh Discovers Pluto Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934: First Manned Bathysphere Dives June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada Aug. 29, 1930: Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails
1931 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes 3376
Jan. 2, 1931: Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937: Scottsboro Trials Apr., 1931: First Electron Microscope Is Constructed
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Apr. 14, 1931: Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon July, 1931: Yellow River Flood
Chronological List of Entries July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations
1932 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control 1932: Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives 1932-1940: Development of Negritude Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron Mar. 9, 1932: De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature
May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements July 28, 1932: Bonus March Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement Sept., 1932: Anderson Discovers the Positron Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism
1933 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed Jan. 2, 1933: Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s
Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor
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Chronological List of Entries Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933 Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam Fall, 1933-Oct. 20, 1949: Lewis Convenes the Inklings Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous Dec. 17, 1933: End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule
1934 1934: Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art 1934: Squier Founds Muzak 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate 1934: Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed Feb. 6, 1934: Stavisky Riots Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde
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June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act June 26, 1934: Federal Credit Union Act June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge Sept. 1, 1934: Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the HeartLung Machine Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts Dec. 6, 1934: Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
Chronological List of Entries
1935 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama Feb. 27, 1935: Temple Receives a Special Academy Award Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established May 27, 1935: Black Monday June 10, 1935: Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous July, 1935: Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem”
July 5, 1935: Wagner Act Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada Nov.-Dec., 1935: Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting Nov. 10, 1935: Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded Nov. 27, 1935: New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration
1936 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core 1936: Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors Jan.-Mar., 1936: Consumers Union of the United States Emerges Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established Jan. 26, 1936: Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation Feb. 4, 1936: Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy Feb. 17, 1936: Corporatism Comes to Paraguay
Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine June 19, 1936: Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain Nov., 1936: Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature
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Chronological List of Entries Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act Nov. 23, 1936: Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne
1937 1937: Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea 1937-1939: Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes Jan.-Sept., 1937: Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins Mar., 1937: Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever
June-Sept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition Aug. 17, 1937: Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance Sept., 1937: Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature Sept. 2, 1937: Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man Oct., 1937: The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing Dec. 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1938 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide 1938: Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed 1938-1950: Golden Age of American Science Fiction Jan., 1938: Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway 3380
Feb. 10, 1938: Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising Apr., 1938: Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Apr. 5, 1938: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act July 6-15, 1938: Evian Conference Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis
Chronological List of Entries Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska Oct. 22, 1938: Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom Dec. 10, 1938: Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature
1939 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews 1939-1949: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music Jan. 2, 1939: Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope Mar. 31, 1939: Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins Apr., 1939: The Grapes of Wrath Portrays DepressionEra America Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania
Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair May 16, 1939: First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres
1940 1940: García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published 1940: Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France
May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a TwoOcean Navy June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland 3381
Chronological List of Entries Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt
3382
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses Nov. 13, 1940: Disney’s Fantasia Premieres Dec., 1940: Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles
Geographical Index List of Geographical Regions Africa . . . . . Albania . . . . Antarctica . . . Arctic . . . . . Argentina . . . Armenia . . . . Atlantic Ocean Australia. . . . Austria. . . . . Balkans . . . . Belarus . . . . Belgium . . . . Bohemia . . . . Bolivia. . . . . Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana . . . Bulgaria . . . . Burma . . . . . Cambodia . . . Canada. . . . . Caribbean . . . Chile. . . . . . China . . . . . Congo . . . . . Corfu . . . . . Croatia. . . . . Cuba . . . . . . Cyprus . . . . . Czechoslovakia Denmark. . . . Djibouti . . . . East Asia . . . Egypt . . . . . El Salvador . . England . . . . Estonia . . . . Ethiopia . . . . Europe . . . . .
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3384 3384 3384 3384 3384 3384 3384 3384 3384 3385 3385 3385 3385 3385
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3385 3385 3385 3385 3385 3385 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3386 3387 3387 3387 3389 3389 3389
Finland . . . . France . . . . . French Guiana. Gambia . . . . Germany. . . . Ghana . . . . . Greece . . . . . Hungary . . . . India . . . . . . Indochina . . . Indonesia . . . Iran . . . . . . Iraq . . . . . . Ireland . . . . . Italy . . . . . . Japan . . . . . Java . . . . . . Kenya . . . . . Korea . . . . . Laos . . . . . . Latin America . Latvia . . . . . Libya . . . . . Lithuania . . . Macedonia. . . Manchuria . . . Martinique. . . Mexico . . . . Moldavia . . . Mongolia . . . Montenegro . . Morocco . . . . Namibia . . . . Netherlands . . New Zealand . Nicaragua . . . Nigeria. . . . . North Pole . . . Norway . . . .
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3389 3389 3391 3391 3391 3392 3392 3393 3393 3393 3393 3393 3393 3393 3393 3394 3394 3394 3394 3394 3394 3394 3394 3394 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395 3395
Ottoman Empire. Palestine . . . . . Panama . . . . . Paraguay. . . . . Peru . . . . . . . Philippines . . . Poland . . . . . . Portugal . . . . . Rhodesia. . . . . Romania . . . . . Russia . . . . . . Saudi Arabia. . . Scotland . . . . . Senegal . . . . . Serbia . . . . . . Sierra Leone . . . Slovenia . . . . . Somalia . . . . . South Africa . . . South Asia. . . . South Pole . . . . Southeast Asia. . Soviet Union . . Spain . . . . . . Sweden . . . . . Switzerland . . . Tanganyika . . . Tibet . . . . . . . Turkey . . . . . . Uganda . . . . . Ukraine . . . . . United States . . Venezuela . . . . Vietnam . . . . . Wales . . . . . . Worldwide. . . . Yugoslavia . . . Zimbabwe . . . .
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3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3396 3397 3397 3397 3397 3397 3397 3397 3398 3398 3398 3398 3398 3398 3398 3398 3399 3399 3399 3399 3399 3399 3408 3408 3408 3408 3408 3408
3383
Geographical Index Africa. See also country names Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 74 May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion, 239 Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts, 317 Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis, 411 Dec. 21, 1908: Cairo University Is Inaugurated, 716 May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa, 830 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya, 856 Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria, 873 Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo, 879 July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis, 890 Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets, 954 Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion, 1566 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation, 1568 Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen, 1784 Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, 1862 Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil, 1938 Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt, 2228 Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created, 2343 Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, 2421 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins, 2945 May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations, 3020 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt, 3289 Albania Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania, 3184 3384
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Antarctica Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences, 916 Dec. 14, 1911: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole, 919 Arctic Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole, 759 Argentina Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 2971 Armenia Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins, 1195 Atlantic Ocean Apr. 14-15, 1912: Sinking of the Titanic, 972 May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania, 1206 May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, 2566 Australia Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed, 37 June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women, 160 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines, 1652 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament, 1669 May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service, 2238 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 2549 Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis, 3127 Austria Early 20th cent.: Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera, 4 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups, 10 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 77 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte, 192 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method, 286 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality, 644
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 697 Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays, 995 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria, 1043 Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres, 1070 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System, 1701 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle, 1754 July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for Formal Systems, 2317 May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails, 2503 May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon, 2506 Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss, 3093 Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht, 3141 Balkans. See also country names Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia, 244 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, 497 Mar., 1907: Romanian Peasant Revolt, 600 Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 697 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria, 2076 Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania, 3184 Belarus 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431 Belgium 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet, 372 Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo, 703 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory, 2155 Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East, 2259 Bohemia 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation, 1168
Geographical Index Bolivia June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise, 2309 Bosnia and Herzegovina Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 697 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Botswana 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation, 1568 British Commonwealth. See Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales Bulgaria Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria, 2076 Burma Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India, 3012 Cambodia Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Canada July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands, 54 Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, 70 1904: Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat, 281 July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement, 428 Oct., 1909: Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform, 778 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I, 859 Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote, 1377 Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion, 1397 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike, 1509 May 7, 1920: Group of Seven Exhibition, 1628 July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada, 1636 1921-1922: Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin, 1689 1921-1948: King Era in Canada, 1709 Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty, 1947 3385
Geographical Index Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression, 2335 May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act, 2424 Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada, 2440 Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation, 2448 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, 2566 July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572 July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements, 2575 Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement, 2581 Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution, 2834 Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada, 2879 Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act, 2960 Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II, 3213 Caribbean. See also country names Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever, 43 May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts, 149 May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment, 234 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Chile June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise, 2309 China 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms, 29 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty, 909 May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement, 1506 Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man, 1847 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War, 2096 July, 1931: Yellow River Flood, 2509 Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March, 2777 July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan, 3037 Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man, 3053 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059 June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees, 3114 Congo Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo, 879 3386
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Corfu Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis, 1853 Croatia 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, 497 Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Cuba Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever, 43 May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment, 234 Cyprus May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040 Czechoslovakia 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation, 1168 Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia, 1453 1921-1923: Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment, 1695 Denmark 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity, 369 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions, 576 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype,” 726 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure, 938 May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland, 1266 Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle, 2172 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core, 2893 Djibouti Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 East Asia. See also country names 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms, 29 Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603 Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea, 838
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company, 852 Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty, 909 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement, 1506 Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man, 1847 Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan, 1855 May 5, 1925: Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men, 2042 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War, 2096 July, 1931: Yellow River Flood, 2509 Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March, 2777 Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons, 2784 Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties, 2797 Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact, 2969 July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan, 3037 Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man, 3053 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059 June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees, 3114 Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, 3272 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Egypt Dec. 21, 1908: Cairo University Is Inaugurated, 716 Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen, 1784 Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt, 2228 May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations, 3020 Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt, 3289 El Salvador Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians, 2535 England 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan, 20 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones, 26 Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner, 56
Geographical Index Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, 70 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism, 87 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism, 91 Jan. 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets, 127 Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere, 134 Apr., 1902: Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted, 140 Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones, 142 June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox,” 162 Sept. 27, 1902: Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets, 177 1903: Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman, 199 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies, 213 Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union, 259 Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale, 331 Nov. 16, 1904: Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube, 352 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity, 378 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements, 471 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage, 474 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins, 484 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal, 492 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, 497 Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party, 513 Oct. 6, 1906: Launching of the Dreadnought, 552 1907: Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers, 573 Aug., 1907: Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts, 613 Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente, 616 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics, 638 Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter, 664 Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts, 670 3387
Geographical Index Dec. 3, 1908: Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim, 713 Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy, 756 July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel, 769 1910: Angell Advances Pacifism, 790 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes, 811 1910-1913: Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement, 814 July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis, 890 Sept. 4-15, 1911: Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools, 900 Dec. 31, 1911: Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System, 922 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs, 945 Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus, 962 Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement, 965 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton, 1103 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140 Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers, 1233 Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion, 1262 May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland, 1266 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published, 1328 Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, 1389 Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote, 1422 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes, 1455 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory, 1541 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot, 1571 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created, 1578 1920-1924: Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist, 1587 1920-1925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits, 1590 Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, 1621 3388
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher, 1686 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land, 1748 June, 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated, 1775 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears, 1824 Mar., 1924: Eddington Formulates the MassLuminosity Law for Stars, 1912 Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan, 1941 1925: Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness, 1993 May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040 Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity, 2066 May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike, 2105 July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars, 2119 Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel, 2129 Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered, 2168 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women, 2246 Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds, 2256 Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East, 2259 Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception, 2437 Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation, 2445 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass, 2471 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron, 2544 Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom, 2555 Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism, 2601 Fall, 1933-Oct. 20, 1949: Lewis Convenes the Inklings, 2681 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate, 2716 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense, 2722
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes, 2799 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books, 2802 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine, 2806 July, 1935: Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem,” 2846 Jan. 26, 1936: Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London, 2908 Feb. 4, 1936: Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy, 2919 Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program, 2956 Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne, 2973 Mar., 1937: Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle, 3005 Sept., 1937: Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature, 3047 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, 3069 Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis, 3127 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images, 3233 May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic, 3243 July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain, 3267 Dec., 1940: Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism, 3298 Estonia Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence, 1425 Ethiopia Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, 2421 Europe. See also country names June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed, 2734 Finland July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage, 538 Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony, 876
Geographical Index Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence, 1399 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea, 2982 Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War, 3219 France 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels, 81 Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects, 169 July 1, 1903: First Tour de France, 242 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane, 314 Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale, 331 Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics, 334 May 18, 1904: International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade, 336 Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons, 443 Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne, 447 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space, 481 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art, 494 June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race, 529 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers, 567 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography, 579 Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente, 616 Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works, 683 Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research, 699 Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton, 710 Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto, 747 May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris, 762 June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet, 766 July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel, 769 Spring, 1910: Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage, 820 June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris, 833 July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis, 890 May 29, 1912: L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences, 977 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism, 1015 3389
Geographical Index 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art, 1019 1913-1927: Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past, 1045 Jan. 17, 1913: Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere, 1053 May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences, 1079 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne, 1137 Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar, 1223 Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony, 1227 Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun, 1256 July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management, 1272 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published, 1328 Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari, 1383 Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1440 Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities, 1483 Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established, 1501 June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established, 1517 June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles, 1521 Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery, 1531 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion, 1549 Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six, 1601 Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, 1621 Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party, 1663 1921: Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student, 1665 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph, 1673 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed, 1683 Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction, 1767 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light, 1804 Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr, 1826 Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet, 1865 Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games, 1903 Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan, 1941 Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born, 1943 3390
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes, 1972 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques, 2001 May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco, 2037 May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized, 2044 Oct.-Dec., 1925: Baker Dances in La Revue nègre, 2073 Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation, 2139 May 17, 1927: Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie, 2186 May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, 2189 1928: Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog, 2213 Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact, 2252 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built, 2288 1930: Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere, 2383 Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture, 2486 1932: Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism, 2524 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought, 2527 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres, 2569 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed, 2615 Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous, 2693 Feb. 6, 1934: Stavisky Riots, 2740 Sept. 1, 1934: Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy, 2770 Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion, 2813 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors, 2899 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication, 2979 1937-1939: Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes, 2985 July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica, 3034 Oct., 1937: The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers, 3056 July 6-15, 1938: Evian Conference, 3125 Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis, 3127
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique, 3149 May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France, 3250 May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk, 3256 Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered, 3285 French Guiana 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Gambia Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Germany Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity, 1 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye, 8 Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays, 66 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 77 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope, 110 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed, 283 1904: Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter, 288 1904-1905: Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic,” 302 1904-1908: Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air, 308 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory, 311 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic, 376 Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke, 421 Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater, 456 Dec. 9, 1905: Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences, 465 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass, 468 Jan. 11, 1906: Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement, 504 Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched, 541 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History, 582 1907: Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, 587 Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente, 616 Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded, 618
Geographical Index 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics, 638 Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research, 699 1909: Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education, 729 1909: Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra, 731 Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory, 781 Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis, 823 July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis, 890 Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art, 897 Nov. 20, 1911: Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres, 913 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art, 932 Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift, 950 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary, 1031 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars, 1034 1913: Husserl Advances Phenomenology, 1037 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography, 1040 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare, 1143 Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids, 1174 Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops, 1192 May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns, 1202 Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity, 1230 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity, 1250 May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland, 1266 Aug., 1916: Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy, 1279 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation, 1406 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government, 1409 Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431 Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography, 1434 3391
Geographical Index 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus, 1460 1919: Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability, 1463 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power, 1476 Jan. 15, 1919: Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg, 1479 Spring, 1919: Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements, 1495 July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution, 1525 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1575 1921: Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings, 1677 Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany, 1719 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy, 1802 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation, 1814 Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr, 1826 Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch, 1869 1924: Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis, 1880 Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting, 1915 Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan, 1941 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced, 1983 Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle, 2027 Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 2030 July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought, 2058 Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin, 2086 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time, 2146 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis, 2152 July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel, 2193 Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling, 2242 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram, 2285 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built, 2288 Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War, 2292 3392
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Winter, 1929-1930: Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope, 2347 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity, 2360 Apr., 1931: First Electron Microscope Is Constructed, 2493 May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon, 2506 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives, 2529 Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany, 2625 Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire, 2632 Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating, 2640 Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933, 2649 June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge, 2767 1936: Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope, 2896 Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland, 2927 Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics, 2948 Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact, 2969 July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition, 3040 Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss, 3093 Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference, 3129 Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht, 3141 Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom, 3143 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews, 3159 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland, 3209 Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway, 3240 May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France, 3250 May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps, 3253 July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain, 3267 Ghana Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Great Britain. See England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales Greece Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis, 1853 Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria, 2076
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Hercegovina. See Bosnia and Herzegovina Hungary 1904-1905: Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs, 295 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 Nov. 16, 1919: Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary, 1544 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 India Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India, 564 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, 1183 Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar, 1497 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement, 1583 Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion, 1728 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, 2004 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass, 2471 Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact, 2480 Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, 2586 Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India, 3012 Indochina Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Indonesia 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi, 14 Iran Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code, 121 Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907: Persia Adopts a Constitution, 549 May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia, 681 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran, 2007 Iraq May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt, 1625 July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara, 2122
Geographical Index Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians, 2672 Ireland Dec. 27, 1904: Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival, 359 Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded, 459 Jan. 26, 1907: The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences, 597 Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140 Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion, 1262 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole, 1315 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot, 1571 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created, 1578 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Mar. 9, 1932: De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil, 2547 May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, 2566 Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne, 2973 Italy 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory, 99 Apr. 11, 1902: Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, 146 Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope, 247 1906: Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth, 490 Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily, 721 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya, 856 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics, 862 June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery, 983 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, 1025 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published, 1328 Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, 1621 May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc, 1630 May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres, 1721 Apr. 16, 1922: Treaty of Rapallo, 1772 Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome,” 1782 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy, 1997 3393
Geographical Index May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized, 2044 Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty, 2298 Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 2622 Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay, 2687 Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous, 2693 Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy, 2875 Jan.-Sept., 1937: Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element, 2989 Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism, 3009 Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope, 3173 Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania, 3184 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 Japan Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company, 852 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan, 1855 May 5, 1925: Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men, 2042 Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons, 2784 Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties, 2797 Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact, 2969 July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan, 3037 Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, 3272 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Java 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi, 14 Kenya Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 74 Korea Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea, 838 3394
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Laos Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Latin America Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia, 268 Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control, 298 Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal, 340 Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution, 843 July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu, 892 Aug. 4-Nov., 1912: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua, 991 Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens, 1130 Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition, 1259 Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code, 1332 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela, 1794 Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting, 1915 June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise, 2309 Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians, 2535 Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy, 2644 Feb. 17, 1936: Corporatism Comes to Paraguay, 2923 Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 2971 Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties, 3098 1940: García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published, 3226 Latvia Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence, 1425 Libya 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya, 856 Lithuania 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence, 1425
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Macedonia Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia, 244 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Manchuria Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan, 3037 Martinique May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts, 149 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Mexico Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution, 843 Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition, 1259 Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code, 1332 Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting, 1915 Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties, 3098 1940: García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published, 3226 Moldavia 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Mongolia 1923: Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs, 1798 Montenegro Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Morocco Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis, 411 July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis, 890 July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins, 2945 Namibia Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts, 317 Netherlands 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 77 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy, 291 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics, 305
Geographical Index 1905: Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography, 365 Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference, 625 Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed, 956 Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women, 1199 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism, 1312 1918-1919: Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair, 1412 Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established, 1657 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, 2161 New Zealand May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society, 611 July 10, 1912: Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand, 986 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Nov. 27, 1935: New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration, 2891 Nicaragua Aug. 4-Nov., 1912: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua, 991 Nigeria Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria, 873 Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 North Pole Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole, 759 Norway Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded, 62 Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent, 450 1919-1921: Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation, 1474 Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, 1790 Aug. 14, 1925: Norway Annexes Svalbard, 2064 Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway, 3240 3395
Geographical Index Ottoman Empire Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia, 244 July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire, 689 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans, 1158 Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916: Gallipoli Campaign Falters, 1180 Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins, 1195 May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War, 1511 May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040 Palestine 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine, 723 July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine, 1777 Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots, 2321 Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine, 2935 Panama Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia, 268 Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control, 298 Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal, 340 Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens, 1130 Paraguay Feb. 17, 1936: Corporatism Comes to Paraguay, 2923 Peru July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu, 892 June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise, 2309 Philippines 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States, 105 Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act, 2745 Poland Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence, 1715 Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany, 1719 3396
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland, 2109 Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska, 3133 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews, 3159 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland, 3209 Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, 3236 May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps, 3253 Portugal Oct. 5, 1910: Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed, 841 May 13-Oct. 17, 1917: Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal, 1360 Nov.-Dec., 1935: Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy, 2882 Rhodesia Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, 1862 Romania Mar., 1907: Romanian Peasant Revolt, 600 Russia. See also Belarus, Soviet Union, Ukraine 1901: Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination, 23 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement, 112 1903: Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel, 203 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut, 355 1905: Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia, 382 Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday, 399 Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto, 452 1906: Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities, 487 May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma, 526 1907: Famine Strikes Russia, 570 Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente, 616 Dec. 22, 1907: Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan, 632 Oct. 3, 1908: First Issue of Pravda Appears, 695 Mar. 15, 1911: Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow, 865
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, 904 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism, 1235 1916: Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1239 Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism, 1253 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church, 1318 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence, 1321 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror, 1324 Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution, 1343 Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution, 1393 Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence, 1399 1918-1921: Russian Civil War, 1416 Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431 Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve, 1486 Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern, 1490 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives, 1692 Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy, 1711 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature, 1884 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques, 1968 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere, 2089 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking, 2148 May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow, 2240 Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling, 2242 Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning, 2263 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater, 2282 Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile, 2295 Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers, 2558 Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature, 2562
Geographical Index 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect, 2701 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art, 2709 Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials, 2786 Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 2911 Jan., 1938: Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity, 3083 Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church, 3195 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War, 3219 Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, 3236 Saudi Arabia 1912-1929: Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia, 948 Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia, 3096 Scandinavia. See Denmark, Norway, Sweden Scotland 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism, 87 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot, 1571 Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne, 2973 Senegal 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Serbia Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Sierra Leone Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Slovenia Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Somalia Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion, 1566 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 3397
Geographical Index South Africa May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion, 239 May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa, 830 Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets, 954 Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil, 1938 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 South Asia. See also country names Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India, 564 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, 1183 Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar, 1497 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement, 1583 Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion, 1728 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, 2004 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass, 2471 Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact, 2480 Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, 2586 Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India, 3012
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Soviet Union. See also Belarus, Russia, Ukraine June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union, 2599 Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal, 2670 Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime, 2690 Spain Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis, 411 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House, 800 Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I, 1156 Apr. 14, 1931: Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed, 2496 July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins, 2945 Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain, 2951 Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica, 3014
South Pole Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences, 916
Sweden Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity, 275 Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent, 450 Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron, 558 Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama, 654 May 5-July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics, 975 1921: Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment, 1680 1924: Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge, 1889 Dec. 10, 1928: Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2267 Dec. 10, 1938: Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature, 3147
Southeast Asia. See also country names 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi, 14 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States, 105 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act, 2745 Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India, 3012 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279
Switzerland Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect, 408 Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity, 440 1906-1913: Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll, 500 Sept. 19, 1906: Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women, 545
3398
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics, 862 1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious, 928 Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, 1217 1916: Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire, 1242 June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed, 2047 Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty, 2069 Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention, 2135 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology, 2370 Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations, 2628 Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy, 2875 June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich, 3031 1938: Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25, 3072 Apr., 1938: Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia, 3104 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT, 3156 Tanganyika Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created, 2343 Tibet Sept. 7, 1904: Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet, 344 Dec. 17, 1933: End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule, 2695 Turkey Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia, 244 July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire, 689 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans, 1158 Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916: Gallipoli Campaign Falters, 1180 Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins, 1195 May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War, 1511 May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040
Geographical Index Uganda Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 74 Ukraine 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, 904 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence, 1321 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques, 1968 United Kingdom. See England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales United States 1901: Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp, 17 1901-1925: Teletype Is Developed, 32 Jan., 1901: American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament, 34 Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, 40 Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation, 47 May 27, 1901: Insular Cases, 51 Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner, 56 Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President, 59 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels, 81 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing, 84 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience, 94 1902: Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings, 96 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome, 102 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States, 117 Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game, 124 Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the PhotoSecession, 130 Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere, 134 Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established, 137 May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike, 152 June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913: Expansion of Direct Democracy, 157 3399
Geographical Index June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture, 165 Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company, 173 Sept. 27, 1902: Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets, 177 Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits, 180 Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau, 185 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws, 188 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising, 195 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory, 206 Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 217 Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 219 Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce, 222 Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established, 226 May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite, 230 May 23, 1903: Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law, 237 Fall, 1903: Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade, 250 Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques, 253 Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series, 256 Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published, 264 Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight, 278 Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities, 323 Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System, 327 Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres, 348 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard, 362 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite, 385 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks, 388 Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service, 392 Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established, 396 Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust, 402 3400
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Feb. 23, 1905: First American Service Organization Is Founded, 406 Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law, 413 June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens, 417 June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World, 425 July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement, 428 Aug., 1905: Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto, 432 Aug.-Dec., 1905: Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry, 436 Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion, 462 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process, 478 Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass, 507 Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle, 509 Spring, 1906: Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations, 516 Apr., 1906-1908: Azusa Street Revival, 520 Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake, 522 June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded, 531 June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, 534 Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools, 555 Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting, 561 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism, 591 Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912: Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States, 594 Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603 Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914: Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia, 606 Spring, 1907: Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed, 608 Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907, 622 Oct. 22, 1907: Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus, 629 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins, 635 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling, 642 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory, 648
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims, 651 Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts, 657 Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts, 661 Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon, 667 Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School, 674 May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, 677 June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots, 686 July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation, 692 Nov. 28, 1908: Christian Science Monitor Is Founded, 707 Dec. 26, 1908: First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion, 719 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy,” 734 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart,” 737 Jan.-Aug., 1909: Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment, 741 Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded, 744 Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency, 751 Mar. 4, 1909: U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law, 753 Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy, 772 Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 776 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms, 784 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era, 786 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced, 792 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control, 796 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses, 803 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity,” 807 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration, 818 Apr. 5, 1910: First Morris Plan Bank Opens, 827 July 1, 1910: U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established, 836 Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace, 847 1911: Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man, 849
Geographical Index Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 868 May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason,” 882 May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company, 886 Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map, 906 1912: Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre, 925 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy, 935 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney, 942 Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances, 959 Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement, 965 Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded, 968 June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States, 980 Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy, 988 Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established, 998 Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine, 1001 Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians, 1005 Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President, 1011 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures, 1022 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated, 1028 Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking, 1049 Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show, 1056 Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized, 1059 Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation, 1063 Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act, 1067 May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded, 1074 May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law, 1076 Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code, 1082 Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded, 1085 Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088 Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution, 1092 3401
Geographical Index Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, 1095 Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act, 1099 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts, 1106 Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, EightHour Workday, 1110 Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music, 1114 Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management, 1118 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Sept. 1, 1914: Last Passenger Pigeon Dies, 1133 Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized, 1145 Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act, 1149 Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws, 1153 Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic, 1161 1915: Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded, 1164 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms, 1171 Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made, 1177 Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation, 1188 May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex, 1209 Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens, 1211 Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin, 1215 Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony, 1227 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education, 1245 1916: Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony, 1247 June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice, 1269 July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law, 1276 Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created, 1282 Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission, 1285 Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens, 1288 Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded, 1292 3402
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens, 1295 Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress, 1299 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use, 1303 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods, 1306 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded, 1309 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published, 1328 Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917, 1336 Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created, 1339 Mar. 2, 1917: Jones Act of 1917, 1347 Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I, 1349 Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I, 1353 Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee, 1356 May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter, 1358 June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded, 1363 June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1367 July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board, 1371 Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded, 1374 Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax, 1379 Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson, 1385 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature, 1403 Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy, 1419 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 1437 Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I, 1444 Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era, 1447 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, 1458 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus, 1460 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme, 1470 Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion, 1493
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded, 1514 Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare, 1527 Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions, 1535 Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal, 1538 Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra, 1546 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard, 1551 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance, 1555 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit, 1558 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium, 1562 1920-1924: Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist, 1587 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays, 1594 Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth, 1597 Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition, 1604 Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded, 1607 Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded, 1610 Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands, 1614 Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation, 1618 July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers, 1633 Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association, 1638 Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins, 1641 Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote, 1644 Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, 1648 Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star, 1654 Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure, 1659 1921: Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph, 1671 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher, 1686 1921-1923: Scandals of the Harding Administration, 1698
Geographical Index 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System, 1701 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South, 1705 May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act, 1725 Sept. 8, 1921: First Miss America Is Crowned, 1730 Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier, 1734 Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control, 1737 Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference, 1741 Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act, 1745 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens, 1751 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets, 1757 Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed, 1760 Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded, 1763 Sept. 22, 1922: Cable Act, 1779 Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States, 1788 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research, 1796 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect, 1807 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams, 1810 1923: Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test, 1817 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle, 1820 Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues,” 1830 Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine, 1833 Mar. 5, 1923: Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions, 1838 Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established, 1840 Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws, 1844 June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence, 1850 Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal, 1857 Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1871 Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television, 1873 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula, 1877 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food, 1887 3403
Geographical Index 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa, 1892 1924-1932: Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity, 1896 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire, 1899 Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line, 1905 Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York, 1909 Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting, 1915 May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1918 May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924, 1922 May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol, 1926 June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act, 1929 June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated, 1931 June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters, 1935 Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan, 1941 Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty, 1947 Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President, 1949 Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems, 1953 Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres, 1956 Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, 1959 1925: The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology, 1962 1925: Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement, 1965 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States, 1976 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm, 1980 1925: Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet, 1987 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells, 1990 Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed, 2011 Jan. 5, 1925: First Female Governor in the United States, 2014 Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail, 2017 Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker, 2020 3404
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions, 2024 Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby, 2033 June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush, 2050 July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial, 2054 Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five, 2079 Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry, 2082 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales, 2092 Mar. 16, 1926: Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket, 2099 May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy, 2102 May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System, 2112 May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes, 2115 Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures, 2124 Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded, 2132 Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation, 2139 Dec., 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released, 2142 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory, 2155 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, 2158 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established, 2164 Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act, 2175 Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking, 2179 May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park, 2182 May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, 2189 Aug. 4, 1927: Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor, 2196 Aug. 23, 1927: Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed, 2199 Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie,” 2202 Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club, 2206 Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot, 2210
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer, 2216 1928: Smith-Hoover Campaign, 2219 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer, 2225 Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air, 2230 May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry, 2234 Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa, 2249 1929: Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care, 2269 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film, 2273 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe, 2276 1929: Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design, 2279 Feb. 14, 1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre, 2301 Feb. 17, 1929: League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded, 2304 May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement, 2306 June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act, 2311 July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator, 2314 Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930: The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel, 2323 Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career, 2327 Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes, 2331 Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression, 2335 Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public, 2340 Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans, 2350 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment, 2352 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States, 2356 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age, 2364 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, 2368 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems, 2373 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking, 2376 1930: Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States, 2380
Geographical Index 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus, 2386 1930-1931: Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond, 2389 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy, 2394 1930-1935: Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar, 2396 Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge, 2400 Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine, 2403 Feb. 18, 1930: Tombaugh Discovers Pluto, 2407 Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster, 2414 Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas, 2418 June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934: First Manned Bathysphere Dives, 2427 June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 2430 Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded, 2434 Aug. 29, 1930: Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded, 2442 Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf, 2452 Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon, 2454 Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails, 2457 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror, 2461 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors, 2464 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular, 2467 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes, 2474 Jan. 2, 1931: Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron, 2477 Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling, 2483 Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937: Scottsboro Trials, 2490 May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens, 2499 July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2512 Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York, 2514 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control, 2521 Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine, 2538 Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created, 2540 Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations, 2552 July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572 July 28, 1932: Bonus March, 2578 Sept., 1932: Anderson Discovers the Positron, 2583 3405
Geographical Index Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship, 2589 Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure, 2593 Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President, 2596 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career, 2605 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals, 2608 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, 2612 Jan. 2, 1933: Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s, 2618 Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor, 2637 Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy, 2644 Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days, 2646 Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established, 2652 May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created, 2656 June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System, 2659 June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663 July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game, 2667 Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests, 2674 Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam, 2678 Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation, 2683 Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime, 2690 1934: Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture, 2697 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals, 2705 1934: Squier Founds Muzak, 2713 1934: Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars, 2718 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy, 2725 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains, 2730 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed, 2734 Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed, 2736 3406
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, 2742 Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act, 2745 May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde, 2748 June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established, 2750 June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress, 2754 June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act, 2757 June 26, 1934: Federal Credit Union Act, 2761 June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act, 2764 Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the HeartLung Machine, 2773 Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society, 2780 Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts, 2790 Dec. 6, 1934: Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet, 2794 Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength, 2809 Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon, 2816 Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York, 2820 Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama, 2823 Feb. 27, 1935: Temple Receives a Special Academy Award, 2827 Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established, 2830 Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution, 2834 Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established, 2837 May 27, 1935: Black Monday, 2841 June 10, 1935: Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2843 July, 1935: Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem,” 2846 July 5, 1935: Wagner Act, 2850 Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act, 2853 Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control, 2857 Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater, 2860 Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts, 2865
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team, 2868 Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York, 2871 Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting, 2885 Nov. 10, 1935: Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded, 2888 Jan.-Mar., 1936: Consumers Union of the United States Emerges, 2902 Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established, 2906 Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation, 2915 Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed, 2930 June 19, 1936: Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination, 2937 June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel, 2941 Nov., 1936: Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature, 2953 Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act, 2960 Nov. 23, 1936: Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced, 2963 Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine, 2966 Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 2971 1937: Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone, 2976 Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon, 2992 Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain, 2996 Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight, 2999 Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins, 3002 May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames, 3017 May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens, 3022 June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever, 3025 June-Sept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope, 3028 Aug. 17, 1937: Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance, 3044 Sept. 2, 1937: Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding, 3050 Oct., 1937: The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers, 3056 Dec. 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 3063 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive, 3066
Geographical Index 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed, 3076 1938-1950: Golden Age of American Science Fiction, 3079 Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway, 3087 Feb. 10, 1938: Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership, 3090 Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising, 3101 Apr. 5, 1938: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts, 3107 May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established, 3111 June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act, 3116 June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act, 3119 June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 3122 Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis, 3127 Oct. 22, 1938: Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy, 3134 Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds, 3137 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach, 3152 1939-1949: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music, 3163 Jan. 2, 1939: Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall, 3166 Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes, 3170 Mar. 31, 1939: Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins, 3176 Apr., 1939: The Grapes of Wrath Portrays DepressionEra America, 3180 Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair, 3186 May 16, 1939: First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins, 3190 June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame, 3193 Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II, 3198 Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres, 3201 Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed, 3215 Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres, 3223 1940: Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America, 3230 May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning, 3246 June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a TwoOcean Navy, 3258 June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic, 3262 3407
Geographical Index July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed, 3265 Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement, 3276 Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast, 3282 Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses, 3292 Nov. 13, 1940: Disney’s Fantasia Premieres, 3295 Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles, 3301 Venezuela Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela, 1794
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sept. 11, 1915: Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain, 1220 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot, 1571 Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne, 2973 Worldwide June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428
Vietnam Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279
Yugoslavia Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450
Wales Oct. 31, 1904-1906: Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism, 346
Zimbabwe Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, 1862
3408
Category Index List of Categories Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Archaeology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Astronomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Atrocities and war crimes . . . . . . . . Banking and finance . . . . . . . . . . Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Business and labor . . . . . . . . . . . Chemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil rights and liberties. . . . . . . . . Colonialism and occupation . . . . . . Communications and media . . . . . . Computers and computer science . . . . Crime and scandal. . . . . . . . . . . . Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diplomacy and international relations . Disasters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Earth science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Economics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Environmental issues . . . . . . . . . . Expansion and land acquisition . . . . . Exploration and discovery . . . . . . . Fashion and design . . . . . . . . . . . Genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Government and politics . . . . . . . . Health and medicine . . . . . . . . . . Historiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Humanitarianism and philanthropy . . . Immigration, emigration, and relocation
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3410 3410 3410 3410 3410 3411 3412 3412 3412 3413 3414 3415 3416 3416 3417 3417 3417 3417 3419 3419 3419 3420 3420 3421 3421 3421 3422 3423 3423 3423 3423 3423 3424 3426 3427 3428 3428 3428
Independence movements. . . . Indigenous peoples’ rights . . . Inventions . . . . . . . . . . . . Laws, acts, and legal history . . Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . Manufacturing and industry. . . Marketing and advertising . . . Mathematics. . . . . . . . . . . Military history . . . . . . . . . Monuments . . . . . . . . . . . Motion pictures . . . . . . . . . Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Natural resources . . . . . . . . Organizations and institutions . Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . Photography . . . . . . . . . . . Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prehistory and ancient cultures . Psychology and psychiatry . . . Publishing and journalism . . . Radio and television . . . . . . Religion, theology, and ethics . Science and technology . . . . . Social issues and reform . . . . Sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . Space and aviation . . . . . . . Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . Theater . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trade and commerce . . . . . . Transportation. . . . . . . . . . Travel and recreation . . . . . . Urban planning . . . . . . . . . Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Women’s issues . . . . . . . . . World War I. . . . . . . . . . . World War II . . . . . . . . . .
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3428 3429 3429 3430 3432 3433 3433 3433 3434 3434 3434 3435 3436 3436 3438 3438 3439 3440 3440 3440 3441 3441 3442 3445 3447 3447 3447 3447 3448 3448 3449 3450 3450 3450 3452 3452 3453
3409
Category Index Acts. See Laws, acts, and legal history Advertising. See Marketing and advertising Agriculture 1904: Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat, 281 1904-1908: Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air, 308 1907: Famine Strikes Russia, 570 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use, 1303 May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1918 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established, 2164 June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act, 2311 July, 1931: Yellow River Flood, 2509 Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union, 2599 Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation, 2683 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains, 2730 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT, 3156 Ancient cultures. See Prehistory and ancient cultures Anthropology Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton, 710 1911: Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man, 849 Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man, 1847 Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil, 1938 1925: The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology, 1962 Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa, 2249 1934: Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture, 2697 Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man, 3053 Archaeology Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code, 121 Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton, 710 July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu, 892 3410
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen, 1784 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears, 1824 Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered, 3285 Architecture 1905: Hoffmann Designs the Palais Stoclet, 372 Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded, 618 Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory, 781 1910: Gaudí Completes the Casa Milá Apartment House, 800 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus, 1460 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens, 1751 May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco, 2037 Spring, 1931: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye Exemplifies Functionalist Architecture, 2486 May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens, 2499 Oct., 1932: Wright Founds the Taliesin Fellowship, 2589 1937: Prouvé Pioneers Architectural Prefabrication, 2979 1937-1938: Aalto Designs Villa Mairea, 2982 Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed, 3215 Arts 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States, 117 Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the PhotoSecession, 130 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte, 192 Summer, 1905: Avant-Garde Artists Form Die Brücke, 421 Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons, 443 Oct., 1905: Fauves Exhibit at the Salon d’Automne, 447 1906-1907: Artists Find Inspiration in African Tribal Art, 494 Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded, 618 Summer, 1908: Salon d’Automne Rejects Braque’s Cubist Works, 683 Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto, 747 Sept., 1911: Der Blaue Reiter Abandons Representation in Art, 897 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art, 932
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism, 1015 1913: Duchamp’s “Readymades” Redefine Art, 1019 Feb. 17-Mar. 15, 1913: Armory Show, 1056 Dec. 17, 1915: Malevich Introduces Suprematism, 1235 1916: Dada Movement Emerges at the Cabaret Voltaire, 1242 1917: De Stijl Advocates Mondrian’s Neoplasticism, 1312 1918-1919: Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair, 1412 1919: German Artists Found the Bauhaus, 1460 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance, 1555 May 7, 1920: Group of Seven Exhibition, 1628 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph, 1673 Mar. 31, 1924: Formation of the Blue Four Advances Abstract Painting, 1915 Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born, 1943 1925: New Objectivity Movement Is Introduced, 1983 May 17, 1927: Monet’s Water Lilies Are Shown at the Musée de L’Orangerie, 2186 Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public, 2340 Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York, 2514 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art, 2709 Feb., 1934: Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural Is Destroyed, 2736 Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion, 2813 Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York, 2820 July, 1937: Picasso Exhibits Guernica, 3034 July 19-Nov. 30, 1937: Nazi Germany Hosts the Degenerate Art Exhibition, 3040 1940-1941: Moore’s Subway Sketches Record War Images, 3233 Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered, 3285 Astronomy 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory, 206 1904: Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter, 288 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy, 291 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity, 369
Category Index Aug., 1905: Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto, 432 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions, 576 June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots, 686 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy, 935 Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances, 959 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars, 1034 Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution, 1092 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity, 1250 Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson, 1385 Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy, 1419 Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory, 1541 Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra, 1546 Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star, 1654 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula, 1877 Mar., 1924: Eddington Formulates the MassLuminosity Law for Stars, 1912 Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems, 1953 July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars, 2119 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory, 2155 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, 2161 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe, 2276 Winter, 1929-1930: Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope, 2347 1930: Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere, 2383 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy, 2394 Feb. 18, 1930: Tombaugh Discovers Pluto, 2407 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass, 2471 1934: Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars, 2718 3411
Category Index June-Sept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope, 3028 Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes, 3170 Atrocities and war crimes 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States, 105 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts, 317 Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday, 399 Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference, 625 Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops, 1192 Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins, 1195 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror, 1324 Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar, 1497 Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians, 2535 Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating, 2640 Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians, 2672 June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge, 2767 Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials, 2786 Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain, 2951 Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica, 3014 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059 July 6-15, 1938: Evian Conference, 3125 Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht, 3141 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews, 3159 Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church, 3195 Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, 3236 May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps, 3253 Aviation. See Space and aviation Banking and finance Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907, 622 Apr. 5, 1910: First Morris Plan Bank Opens, 827 Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized, 1059 Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act, 1099 1915: Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded, 1164 3412
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme, 1470 Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking, 2179 Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes, 2331 Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails, 2457 May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails, 2503 Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created, 2540 Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 2622 June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System, 2659 June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established, 2750 June 26, 1934: Federal Credit Union Act, 2761 Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control, 2857 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors, 2899 Feb. 10, 1938: Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership, 3090 Biology 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups, 10 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan, 20 1901: Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination, 23 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 77 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome, 102 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement, 112 Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones, 142 Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits, 180 Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System, 327 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity, 378 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage, 474 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins, 484 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Spring, 1907: Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed, 608
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins, 635 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics, 638 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory, 648 Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research, 699 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype,” 726 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses, 803 Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map, 906 Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin, 1215 Spring, 1919: Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements, 1495 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed, 1683 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food, 1887 1924: Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge, 1889 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells, 1990 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere, 2089 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus, 2386 July, 1935: Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem,” 2846 Mar., 1937: Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle, 3005 Business and labor May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike, 152 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws, 188 Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law, 413 June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World, 425 Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle, 509 Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party, 513 Spring, 1906: Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations, 516 June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, 534 Sept. 19, 1906: Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women, 545 Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603
Category Index Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts, 657 Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts, 661 Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon, 667 Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School, 674 Mar. 4, 1909: U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law, 753 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration, 818 July 1, 1910: U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established, 836 Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 868 Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo, 879 June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States, 980 Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation, 1063 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts, 1106 Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, EightHour Workday, 1110 Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music, 1114 Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management, 1118 Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws, 1153 July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management, 1272 Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens, 1288 Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded, 1292 Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code, 1332 Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax, 1379 Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I, 1444 May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike, 1509 June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established, 1517 Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions, 1535 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard, 1551 1920-1925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits, 1590 3413
Category Index Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth, 1597 Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure, 1659 Mar. 5, 1923: Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions, 1838 Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established, 1840 Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws, 1844 1924-1932: Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity, 1896 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire, 1899 May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1918 May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924, 1922 May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol, 1926 Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President, 1949 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States, 1976 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm, 1980 Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions, 2024 May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike, 2105 May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes, 2115 Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression, 2335 Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans, 2350 Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster, 2414 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors, 2464 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control, 2521 Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created, 2540 Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations, 2552 Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor, 2637 June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663 June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established, 2750 Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established, 2830 3414
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 July 5, 1935: Wagner Act, 2850 Nov. 10, 1935: Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded, 2888 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors, 2899 Jan.-Mar., 1936: Consumers Union of the United States Emerges, 2902 June 19, 1936: Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination, 2937 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive, 3066 June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act, 3119 Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II, 3198 Chemistry 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye, 8 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones, 26 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope, 110 1904-1908: Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air, 308 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane, 314 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic, 376 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite, 385 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process, 478 1906-1913: Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll, 500 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography, 579 Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis, 823 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs, 945 Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking, 1049 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use, 1303 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect, 1807 1924: Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge, 1889 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds, 2256 1930-1931: Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond, 2389 Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas, 2418 Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon, 2816
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mar., 1937: Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle, 3005 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, 3069 1938: Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25, 3072 Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom, 3143 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT, 3156 Civil rights and liberties June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women, 160 Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics, 334 July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement, 428 Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907: Persia Adopts a Constitution, 549 Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India, 564 July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation, 692 1909: Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education, 729 Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded, 744 Sept. 4-15, 1911: Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools, 900 Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians, 1005 May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law, 1076 Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded, 1085 Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I, 1353 May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter, 1358 June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1367 Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote, 1377 Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote, 1422 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power, 1476 Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities, 1483 Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare, 1527 Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery, 1531
Category Index Sept. 22, 1919-Jan. 8, 1920: Steelworkers Strike for Improved Working Conditions, 1535 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement, 1583 Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded, 1607 Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote, 1644 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South, 1705 Sept. 22, 1922: Cable Act, 1779 Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States, 1788 June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence, 1850 Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1871 May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol, 1926 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy, 1997 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran, 2007 May 5, 1925: Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men, 2042 July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial, 2054 Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty, 2069 Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention, 2135 May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow, 2240 July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women, 2246 Feb. 17, 1929: League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded, 2304 Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots, 2321 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937: Scottsboro Trials, 2490 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers, 2558 Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature, 2562 Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, 2586 Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire, 2632 Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating, 2640 3415
Category Index 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art, 2709 Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism, 3009 May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established, 3111 Jan. 2, 1939: Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall, 3166 Civil unrest. See Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest; World War I; World War II Colonialism and occupation Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 74 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism, 87 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism, 91 May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion, 239 Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts, 317 Sept. 7, 1904: Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet, 344 Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis, 411 Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded, 459 Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo, 703 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine, 723 May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa, 830 Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea, 838 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya, 856 Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria, 873 June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery, 983 Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, 1183 Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion, 1566 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation, 1568 May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt, 1625 Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion, 1728 July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine, 1777 Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis, 1853 Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, 1862 May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040 Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 3416
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt, 2228 Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots, 2321 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations, 2628 Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act, 2745 Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine, 2935 Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India, 3012 Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland, 3209 Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway, 3240 May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France, 3250 Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, 3272 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt, 3289 Commerce. See Trade and commerce Communications and media 1901-1925: Teletype Is Developed, 32 Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, 70 Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting, 561 Dec. 31, 1911: Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System, 922 Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made, 1177 Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony, 1227 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium, 1562 Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins, 1641 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research, 1796 Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television, 1873 Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures, 2124
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded, 2132 Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered, 2168 1934: Squier Founds Muzak, 2713 June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress, 2754 Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting, 2885 Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program, 2956 Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair, 3186 Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast, 3282 Computers and computer science Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line, 1905 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer, 2216 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine, 2806 Crime and scandal Aug.-Dec., 1905: Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry, 436 July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation, 692 Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari, 1383 1919-1920: Ponzi Cheats Thousands in an Investment Scheme, 1470 Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal, 1538 1921-1923: Scandals of the Harding Administration, 1698 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South, 1705 Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal, 1857 Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, 1959 Aug. 23, 1927: Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed, 2199 Feb. 14, 1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre, 2301 May 23, 1934: Police Apprehend Bonnie and Clyde, 2748 Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne, 2973 Dance Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut, 355 Dec. 22, 1907: Pavlova Performs The Dying Swan, 632
Category Index May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris, 762 June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet, 766 June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris, 833 May 29, 1912: L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences, 977 May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences, 1079 Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens, 1211 Oct.-Dec., 1925: Baker Dances in La Revue nègre, 2073 July 3, 1932: Jooss’s Antiwar Dance The Green Table Premieres, 2569 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals, 2608 Dec. 6, 1934: Balanchine’s Serenade Inaugurates American Ballet, 2794 Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team, 2868 Jan. 26, 1936: Tudor’s Jardin aux lilas Premieres in London, 2908 Apr. 5, 1938: Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Debuts, 3107 Design. See Fashion and design Diplomacy and international relations May 27, 1901: Insular Cases, 51 July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands, 54 Jan. 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets, 127 May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment, 234 Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia, 244 Apr. 8, 1904: Entente Cordiale, 331 Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis, 411 Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent, 450 Sept. 19, 1906: Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women, 545 Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools, 555 Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603 Aug. 31, 1907: Formation of the Triple Entente, 616 Oct. 18, 1907: Second Hague Peace Conference, 625 May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia, 681 3417
Category Index 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy,” 734 1910: Angell Advances Pacifism, 790 Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea, 838 Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace, 847 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I, 859 July 1, 1911: Agadir Crisis, 890 Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed, 956 May 5-July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics, 975 Aug. 4-Nov., 1912: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua, 991 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I, 1156 Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women, 1199 May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania, 1206 Mar. 2, 1917: Jones Act of 1917, 1347 Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I, 1349 Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari, 1383 Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, 1389 Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence, 1399 Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431 Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia, 1453 Jan. 19-21, 1919: Paris Peace Conference Addresses Protection for Minorities, 1483 Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern, 1490 Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established, 1501 June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established, 1517 June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles, 1521 Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare, 1527 Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery, 1531 Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, 1621 May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc, 1630 Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established, 1657 Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence, 1715 3418
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany, 1719 Nov. 12, 1921-Feb. 6, 1922: Washington Disarmament Conference, 1741 Apr. 16, 1922: Treaty of Rapallo, 1772 July 24, 1922: League of Nations Establishes Mandate for Palestine, 1777 Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr, 1826 Aug. 27-Sept. 29, 1923: Corfu Crisis, 1853 Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games, 1903 Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan, 1941 Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty, 1947 May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040 June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed, 2047 Aug. 14, 1925: Norway Annexes Svalbard, 2064 Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty, 2069 Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria, 2076 July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara, 2122 Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention, 2135 Aug. 27, 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact, 2252 Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty, 2298 June 3-Aug. 28, 1929: Tacna-Arica Compromise, 2309 June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 2430 Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation, 2448 Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact, 2480 Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine, 2538 July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572 July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements, 2575 Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, 2586 Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations, 2628 Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy, 2644 Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime, 2690 Dec. 29, 1934: Japan Renounces Disarmament Treaties, 2797 Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution, 2834 Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts, 2865 Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy, 2875
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada, 2879 Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland, 2927 Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics, 2948 Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act, 2960 Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact, 2969 Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 2971 Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain, 2996 May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations, 3020 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059 Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss, 3093 Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties, 3098 July 6-15, 1938: Evian Conference, 3125 Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference, 3129 Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope, 3173 Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania, 3184 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II, 3213 Aug., 1940: Japan Announces the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, 3272 Aug. 16, 1940: Ogdensburg Agreement, 3276 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Disasters May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts, 149 Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake, 522 1907: Famine Strikes Russia, 570 Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily, 721 Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 868 Apr. 14-15, 1912: Sinking of the Titanic, 972 Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion, 1397 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives, 1692 Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan, 1855 July, 1931: Yellow River Flood, 2509 Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union, 2599 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains, 2730 May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames, 3017 June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees, 3114
Category Index Discovery. See Exploration and discovery Earth science Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity, 1 Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere, 134 May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts, 149 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks, 388 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, 497 Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily, 721 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity,” 807 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs, 945 Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift, 950 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, 1025 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary, 1031 Jan. 17, 1913: Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere, 1053 Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar, 1223 1919-1921: Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation, 1474 Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan, 1855 Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 2030 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere, 2089 June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934: First Manned Bathysphere Dives, 2427 Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon, 2454 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes, 2799 Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength, 2809 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core, 2893 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, 3069 Economics 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism, 91 Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 3419
Category Index 1906: Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth, 490 Oct.-Nov., 1907: Panic of 1907, 622 May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, 677 1909-1913: United States Begins “Dollar Diplomacy,” 734 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration, 818 May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law, 1076 Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088 Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, EightHour Workday, 1110 Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism, 1253 Aug., 1916: Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy, 1279 Nov., 1918-June, 1920: Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I, 1444 1920-1925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits, 1590 Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, 1648 Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy, 1711 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation, 1814 Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr, 1826 Sept. 1, 1924: Dawes Plan, 1941 Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President, 1949 Oct., 1925: Germany Attempts to Restructure the Versailles Treaty, 2069 1929: Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care, 2269 Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes, 2331 Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression, 2335 Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans, 2350 Dec. 11, 1930: Bank of United States Fails, 2457 May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens, 2499 May 8, 1931: Credit-Anstalt Bank of Austria Fails, 2503 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control, 2521 Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created, 2540 Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President, 2596 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains, 2730 3420
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 May 27, 1935: Black Monday, 2841 July 5, 1935: Wagner Act, 2850 Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act, 2853 Feb. 4, 1936: Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy, 2919 Nov. 11, 1936: Reciprocal Trade Act, 2960 Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II, 3198 Education Apr., 1902: Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted, 140 Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools, 555 May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society, 611 Aug., 1907: Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts, 613 Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School, 674 Dec. 21, 1908: Cairo University Is Inaugurated, 716 1909: Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education, 729 Sept. 4-15, 1911: Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools, 900 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education, 1245 1920’s: Donham Promotes the Case Study Teaching Method at Harvard, 1551 July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial, 2054 Feb. 17, 1929: League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded, 2304 Emigration. See Immigration, emigration, and relocation Energy Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, 40 May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia, 681 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity,” 807 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, 1025 Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking, 1049 Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela, 1794 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams, 1810 Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East, 2259 May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created, 2656
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam, 2678 Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed, 2930 Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia, 3096 Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties, 3098 Engineering Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal, 340 Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched, 541 Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088 Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens, 1130 1916: Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1239 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer, 2216 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built, 2288 Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 2549 Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal, 2670 Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam, 2678 Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed, 2930 Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins, 3002 May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens, 3022 Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses, 3292 Entertainment Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres, 348 June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens, 417 Oct. 22, 1907: Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus, 629 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era, 786 Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy, 988 Sept. 8, 1921: First Miss America Is Crowned, 1730 Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry, 2082 Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures, 2124 Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie,” 2202
Category Index Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot, 2210 Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air, 2230 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment, 2352 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror, 2461 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular, 2467 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals, 2608 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense, 2722 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy, 2725 Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts, 2790 Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team, 2868 Dec. 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 3063 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach, 3152 Mar. 31, 1939: Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins, 3176 Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres, 3201 Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres, 3223 Nov. 13, 1940: Disney’s Fantasia Premieres, 3295 Environmental issues June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture, 165 Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established, 226 May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite, 230 Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service, 392 Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established, 396 June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded, 531 Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims, 651 May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, 677 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms, 784 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control, 796 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity,” 807 Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act, 1067 3421
Category Index Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088 Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, 1095 Sept. 1, 1914: Last Passenger Pigeon Dies, 1133 July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law, 1276 Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created, 1282 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use, 1303 Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created, 1339 July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 1437 Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve, 1486 May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded, 1514 Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands, 1614 Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed, 1760 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams, 1810 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature, 1884 June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated, 1931 June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters, 1935 Oct. 21, 1924: Halibut Treaty, 1947 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States, 1976 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere, 2089 May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park, 2182 Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created, 2343 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems, 2373 1930: Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States, 2380 Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster, 2414 May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act, 2424 Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon, 2454 July, 1931: Yellow River Flood, 2509 May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created, 2656 Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests, 2674 3422
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam, 2678 1934-1939: Dust Bowl Devastates the Great Plains, 2730 Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, 2742 Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society, 2780 Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution, 2834 Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established, 2837 July, 1935: Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem,” 2846 Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation, 2915 Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed, 2930 Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon, 2992 Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins, 3002 Sept. 2, 1937: Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding, 3050 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, 3069 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed, 3076 June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act, 3116 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT, 3156 July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed, 3265 Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles, 3301 Ethics. See Religion, theology, and ethics Expansion and land acquisition May 27, 1901: Insular Cases, 51 July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands, 54 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism, 91 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States, 105 Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 217 Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912: Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States, 594 Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 697 Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo, 703
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine, 723 Aug. 22, 1910: Japanese Annexation of Korea, 838 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya, 856 1916: Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1239 May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War, 1511 Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, 1621 Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence, 1715 Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany, 1719 Aug. 14, 1925: Norway Annexes Svalbard, 2064 July 18, 1926: Treaty of Ankara, 2122 Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty, 2298 June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act, 2764 Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy, 2875 Sept. 29-30, 1938: Munich Conference, 3129 Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania, 3184 Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War, 3219 Exploration and discovery July 1, 1901: Canada Claims the Arctic Islands, 54 Apr. 6, 1909: Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole, 759 Dec. 2, 1911: Australasian Antarctic Expedition Commences, 916 Dec. 14, 1911: Amundsen Reaches the South Pole, 919 June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934: First Manned Bathysphere Dives, 2427 Fashion and design 1902-1913: Tiffany Leads the Art Nouveau Movement in the United States, 117 1903: Hoffmann and Moser Found the Wiener Werkstätte, 192 Oct., 1907: Deutscher Werkbund Is Founded, 618 Spring, 1910: Poiret’s Hobble Skirt Becomes the Rage, 820 1918-1919: Rietveld Designs the Red-Blue Chair, 1412 1920’s: Chanel Defines Modern Women’s Fashion, 1549 1920’s: Jantzen Popularizes the One-Piece Bathing Suit, 1558 1925: Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement, 1965 May-June, 1925: Paris Exhibition Defines Art Deco, 2037
Category Index 1929: Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design, 2279 Jan., 1935: Schiaparelli’s Boutique Mingles Art and Fashion, 2813 1937: Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone, 2976 Films. See Motion pictures Finance. See Banking and finance Genetics 1901: Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination, 23 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 77 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome, 102 Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits, 180 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity, 378 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage, 474 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics, 638 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory, 648 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype,” 726 Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map, 906 Geography Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 2030 July, 1931: Yellow River Flood, 2509 Geology Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, 40 May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts, 149 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks, 388 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, 497 Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift, 950 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, 1025 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary, 1031 3423
Category Index Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength, 2809 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core, 2893 Government and politics 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms, 29 Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed, 37 Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President, 59 May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike, 152 May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913: Expansion of Direct Democracy, 157 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws, 188 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 219 May, 1903: Roosevelt and Muir Visit Yosemite, 230 May 23, 1903: Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law, 237 June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion, 239 Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union, 259 Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics, 334 Sept. 7, 1904: Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet, 344 Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday, 399 Mar. 31, 1905: Tangier Crisis, 411 Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent, 450 Feb. 12, 1906: Establishment of the British Labour Party, 513 May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma, 526 Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907: Persia Adopts a Constitution, 549 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History, 582 Jan. 16, 1907-Feb. 14, 1912: Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona Become U.S. States, 594 Mar., 1907: Romanian Peasant Revolt, 600 Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims, 651 May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, 677 May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia, 681 Oct. 3, 1908: First Issue of Pravda Appears, 695 3424
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oct. 7, 1908: Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 697 1909: First Kibbutz Is Established in Palestine, 723 Mar., 1909-1912: Republican Congressional Insurgency, 751 Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy, 756 Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy, 772 Oct., 1909: Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform, 778 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms, 784 1910: Angell Advances Pacifism, 790 May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa, 830 July 1, 1910: U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established, 836 Oct. 5, 1910: Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed, 841 Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution, 843 1911-1920: Borden Leads Canada Through World War I, 859 Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, 904 Dec. 31, 1911: Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System, 922 1912-1929: Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia, 948 Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed, 956 July 10, 1912: Massey Is Elected Prime Minister of New Zealand, 986 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President, 1011 Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized, 1059 Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088 1914: U.S. Government Begins Using Cost-Plus Contracts, 1106 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140 Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized, 1145 Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, 1217 Jan.-June, 1916: Lenin Critiques Modern Capitalism, 1253 Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion, 1262 July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law, 1276
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Aug., 1916: Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy, 1279 Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress, 1299 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church, 1318 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence, 1321 Jan. 31, 1917: Mexican Constitution Establishes an Advanced Labor Code, 1332 Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution, 1343 June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1367 July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board, 1371 Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax, 1379 Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution, 1393 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government, 1409 1918-1921: Russian Civil War, 1416 Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence, 1425 Nov. 5, 1918-Nov. 2, 1920: Republican Resurgence Ends America’s Progressive Era, 1447 Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia, 1453 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power, 1476 Jan. 15, 1919: Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg, 1479 Feb. 1, 1919: Lenin Approves the First Soviet Nature Preserve, 1486 Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern, 1490 July 31, 1919: Weimar Constitution, 1525 Aug., 1919-May, 1920: Red Scare, 1527 Nov. 16, 1919: Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary, 1544 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created, 1578 July 10, 1920-Sept., 1926: Meighen Era in Canada, 1636 Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party, 1663 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament, 1669 1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives, 1692
Category Index 1921-1923: Scandals of the Harding Administration, 1698 1921-1948: King Era in Canada, 1709 Mar., 1921: Lenin Announces the New Economic Policy, 1711 Mar. 20, 1921: Plebiscite Splits Upper Silesia Between Poland and Germany, 1719 Apr. 16, 1922: Treaty of Rapallo, 1772 Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome,” 1782 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams, 1810 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation, 1814 June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence, 1850 Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal, 1857 Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, 1862 Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch, 1869 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire, 1899 May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol, 1926 June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated, 1931 Nov. 4, 1924: Coolidge Is Elected U.S. President, 1949 Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, 1959 1925-1926: Mussolini Seizes Dictatorial Powers in Italy, 1997 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran, 2007 Jan. 5, 1925: First Female Governor in the United States, 2014 Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions, 2024 May 1, 1925: Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony, 2040 July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought, 2058 Aug. 14, 1925: Norway Annexes Svalbard, 2064 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War, 2096 May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike, 2105 May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland, 2109 May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park, 2182 1928: Smith-Hoover Campaign, 2219 May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow, 2240 3425
Category Index Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning, 2263 Jan., 1929: Trotsky Is Sent into Exile, 2295 Nov. 19, 1929: Serengeti Game Reserve Is Created, 2343 Apr. 2, 1930: Haile Selassie Is Crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, 2421 Aug., 1930-1935: Bennett Era in Canada, 2440 Apr. 14, 1931: Second Spanish Republic Is Proclaimed, 2496 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine, 2538 Jan. 22, 1932: Reconstruction Finance Corporation Is Created, 2540 Mar. 9, 1932: De Valera Is Elected President of the Irish Dáil, 2547 July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements, 2575 July 28, 1932: Bonus March, 2578 Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement, 2581 Nov. 8, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt Is Elected U.S. President, 2596 Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union, 2599 Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 2622 Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany, 2625 Feb. 27, 1933: Reichstag Fire, 2632 Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor, 2637 Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy, 2644 Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days, 2646 Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933, 2649 Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established, 2652 May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created, 2656 Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal, 2670 Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation, 2683 Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime, 2690 Dec. 17, 1933: End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule, 2695 1934: Soviet Union Bans Abstract Art, 2709 Feb. 6, 1934: Stavisky Riots, 2740 June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge, 2767 Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March, 2777 Dec., 1934: Stalin Begins the Purge Trials, 2786 3426
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established, 2830 Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established, 2837 May 27, 1935: Black Monday, 2841 Oct. 23, 1935-Nov. 15, 1948: King Returns to Power in Canada, 2879 Nov. 27, 1935: New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration, 2891 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors, 2899 Jan.-Mar., 1936: Consumers Union of the United States Emerges, 2902 Feb. 4, 1936: Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy, 2919 Feb. 17, 1936: Corporatism Comes to Paraguay, 2923 Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland, 2927 July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins, 2945 Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact, 2969 Dec., 1936: Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 2971 Dec. 10, 1936: Edward VIII Abdicates the British Throne, 2973 Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight, 2999 Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins, 3002 Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties, 3098 May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established, 3111 May 16, 1939: First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins, 3190 Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II, 3213 May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning, 3246 June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a TwoOcean Navy, 3258 July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed, 3265 Dec., 1940: Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism, 3298 Health and medicine 1901: Discovery of Human Blood Groups, 10 1901: Grijns Suggests the Cause of Beriberi, 14 1901: Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination, 23 Feb. 4, 1901: Reed Reports That Mosquitoes Transmit Yellow Fever, 43 Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded, 62
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1902: Carrel Rejoins Severed Blood Vessels, 81 Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones, 142 Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau, 185 1904-1905: Gorgas Develops Effective Methods of Mosquito Control, 298 1905: Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography, 365 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic, 376 Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion, 462 June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, 534 1907: Haldane Develops Stage Decompression for Deep-Sea Divers, 573 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Spring, 1907: Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed, 608 May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society, 611 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins, 635 Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research, 699 1910’s: Garbage Industry Introduces Reforms, 784 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses, 803 Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis, 823 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney, 942 Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established, 998 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography, 1040 1913: Schick Introduces a Test for Diphtheria, 1043 Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin, 1215 Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens, 1295 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed, 1683 1921-1922: Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin, 1689 Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control, 1737 Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act, 1745 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets, 1757
Category Index 1923: Kahn Develops a Modified Syphilis Test, 1817 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells, 1990 June 17, 1925: Geneva Protocol Is Signed, 2047 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established, 2164 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 Jan., 1928: Papanicolaou Develops a Test for Diagnosing Uterine Cancer, 2225 May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service, 2238 Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds, 2256 1929: Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care, 2269 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram, 2285 July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator, 2314 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology, 2370 1930’s: Wolman Begins Investigating Water and Sewage Systems, 2373 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus, 2386 Mar. 31, 1930-1931: Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Construction Leads to Disaster, 2414 1932-1935: Domagk Discovers That Sulfonamides Can Save Lives, 2529 Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the HeartLung Machine, 2773 June 10, 1935: Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2843 Nov.-Dec., 1935: Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy, 2882 June, 1937: Theiler Develops a Treatment for Yellow Fever, 3025 Apr., 1938: Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia, 3104 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT, 3156 May 16, 1939: First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins, 3190 May, 1940: Florey and Chain Develop Penicillin as an Antibiotic, 3243 Historiography 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History, 582 Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography, 1434 3427
Category Index
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940
1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears, 1824 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought, 2527 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate, 2716
1921-1923: Famine in Russia Claims Millions of Lives, 1692 Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, 1790 Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established, 2906
Human rights June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery, 983 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church, 1318 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror, 1324 Nov. 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration Supports a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, 1389 1919-1933: Racist Theories Aid Nazi Rise to Political Power, 1476 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement, 1583 1921: Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment, 1680 Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, 1790 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, 2004 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran, 2007 Sept. 25, 1926: League of Nations Adopts International Slavery Convention, 2135 May 18, 1928: Shakhty Case Debuts Show Trials in Moscow, 2240 Dec., 1932-Spring, 1934: Great Famine Strikes the Soviet Union, 2599 Mar., 1933: Nazi Concentration Camps Begin Operating, 2640 Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism, 3009 July 6-15, 1938: Evian Conference, 3125 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews, 3159 Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, 3236
Immigration, emigration, and relocation Oct. 25, 1906: Japan Protests Segregation of Japanese in California Schools, 555 Mar. 14, 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration, 818 May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law, 1076 Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917, 1336 May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act, 1725 Sept. 22, 1922: Cable Act, 1779 Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States, 1788 May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924, 1922 May 28, 1924: U.S. Congress Establishes the Border Patrol, 1926 Early 1930’s: Mass Deportations of Mexicans, 2350 Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine, 2935
Humanitarianism and philanthropy Apr., 1902: Rhodes Scholarships Are Instituted, 140 Feb. 23, 1905: First American Service Organization Is Founded, 406 Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace, 847 May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded, 1074 Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee, 1356 3428
Independence movements Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed, 37 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States, 105 May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment, 234 Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia, 268 Oct. 26, 1905: Norway Becomes Independent, 450 Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion, 1262 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence, 1321 Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence, 1399 Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence, 1425 Dec. 1, 1918: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Declares Independence, 1450 Dec. 21, 1918: Birth of Czechoslovakia, 1453 Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar, 1497 May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War, 1511 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created, 1578
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement, 1583 Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence, 1715 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact, 2480 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act, 2745 Indigenous peoples’ rights May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts, 317 Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India, 564 Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo, 703 Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets, 954 June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery, 983 Oct. 12, 1912: First Conference of the Society of American Indians, 1005 Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, 1183 Dec. 6, 1917-Oct. 14, 1920: Finland Gains Independence, 1399 Apr. 13, 1919: British Soldiers Massacre Indians at Amritsar, 1497 May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement, 1506 1920: Advisory Councils Give Botswana Natives Limited Representation, 1568 1920-1922: Gandhi Leads a Noncooperation Movement, 1583 Oct. 1, 1923: Great Britain Grants Self-Government to Southern Rhodesia, 1862 June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act, 1929 Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 Mar. 5, 1931: India Signs the Delhi Pact, 2480 Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, 2586 June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act, 2757 Industry. See Manufacturing and industry Institutions. See Organizations and institutions
Category Index International relations. See Diplomacy and international relations Inventions 1901: Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp, 17 1901-1925: Teletype Is Developed, 32 Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner, 56 Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, 70 1902: Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings, 96 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope, 110 Fall, 1903: Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade, 250 Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight, 278 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed, 283 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane, 314 Nov. 16, 1904: Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube, 352 1905: Einthoven Begins Clinical Studies with Electrocardiography, 365 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite, 385 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass, 468 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process, 478 Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting, 561 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography, 579 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling, 642 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced, 792 1912-1914: Abel Develops the First Artificial Kidney, 942 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures, 1022 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, 1025 Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made, 1177 May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns, 1202 May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex, 1209 Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar, 1223 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods, 1306 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes, 1455 1921: Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph, 1671 3429
Category Index Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television, 1873 Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures, 2124 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer, 2216 May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry, 2234 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram, 2285 July, 1929: Drinker and Shaw Develop a Mechanical Respirator, 2314 Winter, 1929-1930: Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope, 2347 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, 2368 1930: Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere, 2383 Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon, 2454 Jan. 2, 1931: Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron, 2477 Apr., 1931: First Electron Microscope Is Constructed, 2493 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed, 2734 Fall, 1934-May 6, 1953: Gibbon Develops the HeartLung Machine, 2773 Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon, 2816 Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting, 2885 1936: Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope, 2896 Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program, 2956 Nov. 23, 1936: Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced, 2963 Oct. 22, 1938: Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy, 3134 Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair, 3186 Journalism. See Publishing and journalism Labor. See Business and labor Land acquisition. See Expansion and land acquisition Laws, acts, and legal history Jan. 1, 1901: Commonwealth of Australia Is Formed, 37 May 27, 1901: Insular Cases, 51 June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913: Expansion of Direct Democracy, 157 3430
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture, 165 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws, 188 Jan. 5, 1903: Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 217 Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce, 222 May 22, 1903: Platt Amendment, 234 May 23, 1903: Wisconsin Adopts the First Primary Election Law, 237 Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities, 323 May 18, 1904: International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade, 336 Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust, 402 Apr. 17, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Maximum Hours Law, 413 Aug.-Dec., 1905: Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry, 436 Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto, 452 June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, 534 Jan. 27, 1908: U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Allows Yellow-Dog Contracts, 657 Feb. 3, 1908: Danbury Hatters Decision Constrains Secondary Boycotts, 661 Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon, 667 Mar. 4, 1909: U.S. Congress Updates Copyright Law, 753 Apr., 1909-Aug., 1911: Parliament Act Redefines British Democracy, 756 Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy, 772 May 31, 1910: Formation of the Union of South Africa, 830 May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason,” 882 May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company, 886 Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed, 956 June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States, 980 Feb. 25, 1913: U.S. Federal Income Tax Is Authorized, 1059 Mar. 4, 1913: Migratory Bird Act, 1067 May 20, 1913: Passage of the First Alien Land Law, 1076 Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, 1095
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Dec. 23, 1913: Federal Reserve Act, 1099 Sept. 15, 1914: Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140 Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act, 1149 Oct. 15, 1914: Labor Unions Win Exemption from Antitrust Laws, 1153 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms, 1171 Mar., 1915: Defense of India Act Impedes the Freedom Struggle, 1183 Feb. 5, 1917: Immigration Act of 1917, 1336 Feb. 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created, 1339 Mar. 2, 1917: Jones Act of 1917, 1347 June 15, 1917, and May 16, 1918: Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1367 Oct. 3, 1917: U.S. Congress Imposes a Wartime Excess-Profits Tax, 1379 July 3, 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 1437 1920-1921: Ireland Is Granted Home Rule and Northern Ireland Is Created, 1578 1920-1925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits, 1590 Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition, 1604 Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands, 1614 Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation, 1618 Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote, 1644 Dec. 13, 1920: Permanent Court of International Justice Is Established, 1657 1921: Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment, 1680 May 19, 1921: Emergency Quota Act, 1725 Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act, 1745 Nov. 13, 1922: Ozawa v. United States, 1788 Mar. 5, 1923: Nevada and Montana Introduce Old-Age Pensions, 1838 Apr. 9, 1923: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Minimum Wage Laws, 1844 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa, 1892 May 26, 1924: Immigration Act of 1924, 1922 June 2, 1924: Indian Citizenship Act, 1929 June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters, 1935 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, 2004 Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail, 2017
Category Index Feb. 28, 1925: Corrupt Practices Act Limits Political Contributions, 2024 May 5, 1925: Japan Introduces Suffrage for Men, 2042 July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial, 2054 May 20, 1926: Railway Labor Act Provides for Mediation of Labor Disputes, 2115 Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act, 2175 Feb. 25, 1927: McFadden Act Regulates Branch Banking, 2179 July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women, 2246 June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act, 2311 May 30, 1930: Canadian National Parks Act, 2424 1931: Ultramares Case Establishes Liability for Auditors, 2464 Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling, 2483 Mar. 25, 1931-July, 1937: Scottsboro Trials, 2490 Dec. 11, 1931: Formation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, 2517 Mar. 23, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act Strengthens Labor Organizations, 2552 July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572 Sept. 25, 1932: Poona Pact Grants Representation to India’s Untouchables, 2586 Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure, 2593 Mar. 4, 1933-1945: Good Neighbor Policy, 2644 Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days, 2646 Mar. 23, 1933: Enabling Act of 1933, 2649 June 16, 1933: Banking Act of 1933 Reorganizes the American Banking System, 2659 June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663 Mar. 16, 1934: Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, 2742 Mar. 24, 1934: Philippine Independence Act, 2745 June 6, 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission Is Established, 2750 June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress, 2754 June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act, 2757 June 26, 1934: Federal Credit Union Act, 2761 June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act, 2764 Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established, 2830 Apr. 15, 1935: Arbitration Affirms National Responsibility for Pollution, 2834 May 27, 1935: Black Monday, 2841 July 5, 1935: Wagner Act, 2850 3431
Category Index Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act, 2853 Aug. 23, 1935: Banking Act of 1935 Centralizes U.S. Monetary Control, 2857 Aug. 31, 1935-Nov. 4, 1939: Neutrality Acts, 2865 June 19, 1936: Robinson-Patman Act Restricts Price Discrimination, 2937 Nov. 25, 1936: Germany and Japan Sign the AntiComintern Pact, 2969 Feb. 5-July 22, 1937: Supreme Court-Packing Fight, 2999 Apr. 1, 1937: Britain Separates Burma from India, 3012 Aug. 17, 1937: Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance, 3044 Sept. 2, 1937: Pittman-Robertson Act Provides State Wildlife Funding, 3050 Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising, 3101 May 26, 1938: HUAC Is Established, 3111 June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act, 3116 June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act, 3119 June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 3122 Legal history. See Laws, acts, and legal history Literature Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded, 62 1902: Heart of Darkness Critiques Imperialism, 87 Nov., 1903: Henry James’s The Ambassadors Is Published, 264 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard, 362 Fall, 1905: Stein Holds Her First Paris Salons, 443 Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle, 509 Feb. 20, 1909: Marinetti Issues the Futurist Manifesto, 747 1911-1923: Rilke’s Duino Elegies Redefines Poetics, 862 1912: Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage Launches the Western Genre, 925 Spring, 1912: Pound Announces the Birth of the Imagist Movement, 965 Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine, 1001 1913-1927: Proust Publishes Remembrance of Things Past, 1045 3432
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1915: The Metamorphosis Anticipates Modern Feelings of Alienation, 1168 Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers, 1233 1917: Yeats Publishes The Wild Swans at Coole, 1315 1917-1970: Pound’s Cantos Is Published, 1328 June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded, 1363 1918: Cather’s My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature, 1403 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance, 1555 1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Introduces Hercule Poirot, 1571 1920-1924: Melville Is Rediscovered as a Major American Novelist, 1587 1921-1923: Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk Reflects Postwar Disillusionment, 1695 1922: Eliot Publishes The Waste Land, 1748 Feb. 2, 1922: Joyce’s Ulysses Redefines Modern Fiction, 1767 1924: Mann’s The Magic Mountain Reflects European Crisis, 1880 Oct., 1924: Surrealism Is Born, 1943 1925: Gide’s The Counterfeiters Questions Moral Absolutes, 1972 1925: Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Explores Women’s Consciousness, 1993 Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker, 2020 Apr. 10, 1925: Fitzgerald Captures the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby, 2033 Oct. 22, 1926: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises Speaks for the Lost Generation, 2139 Dec. 10, 1928: Undset Accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2267 Jan., 1929: All Quiet on the Western Front Stresses the Futility of War, 2292 Sept., 1929-Jan., 1930: The Maltese Falcon Introduces the Hard-Boiled Detective Novel, 2323 Oct. 7, 1929: The Sound and the Fury Launches Faulkner’s Career, 2327 Feb., 1930: Crane Publishes The Bridge, 2400 Sept., 1930: Auden’s Poems Speak for a Generation, 2445 1932: Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night Expresses Interwar Cynicism, 2524 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature, 2562 Winter, 1932: Huxley’s Brave New World Forecasts Technological Totalitarianism, 2601
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Fall, 1933-Oct. 20, 1949: Lewis Convenes the Inklings, 2681 Sept. 1, 1934: Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Stirs Controversy, 2770 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books, 2802 Sept., 1937: Tolkien Redefines Fantasy Literature, 3047 Oct., 1937: The Diary of a Country Priest Inspires American Readers, 3056 1938-1950: Golden Age of American Science Fiction, 3079 Dec. 10, 1938: Buck Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature, 3147 Apr., 1939: The Grapes of Wrath Portrays DepressionEra America, 3180 1940: García Lorca’s Poet in New York Is Published, 3226 1940: Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America, 3230 Dec., 1940: Koestler Examines the Dark Side of Communism, 3298 Manufacturing and industry Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation, 47 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing, 84 Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company, 173 Fall, 1903: Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade, 250 1905: Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia, 382 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process, 478 Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts, 670 Oct., 1909: Completion of the AEG Turbine Factory, 781 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company, 852 Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 868 Jan. 5, 1914: Ford Announces a Five-Dollar, EightHour Workday, 1110 Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure, 1659 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, 2158
Category Index 1929: Loewy Pioneers American Industrial Design, 2279 Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression, 2335 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age, 2364 June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel, 2941 May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning, 3246 Marketing and advertising 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising, 195 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated, 1028 Aug., 1913: Advertisers Adopt a Truth-in-Advertising Code, 1082 Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens, 1288 July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers, 1633 1923: A. C. Nielsen Company Pioneers in Marketing and Media Research, 1796 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales, 2092 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, 2368 1934: Squier Founds Muzak, 2713 Mar. 21, 1938: Wheeler-Lea Act Broadens FTC Control over Advertising, 3101 Mathematics 1902: Levi Recognizes the Axiom of Choice in Set Theory, 99 June 16, 1902: Russell Discovers the “Great Paradox,” 162 1904-1907: Brouwer Develops Intuitionist Foundations of Mathematics, 305 1904-1908: Zermelo Undertakes Comprehensive Axiomatization of Set Theory, 311 1906: Fréchet Introduces the Concept of Abstract Space, 481 1906: Markov Discovers the Theory of Linked Probabilities, 487 1909: Steinitz Inaugurates Modern Abstract Algebra, 731 1910-1913: Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement, 814 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity, 1250 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation, 1406 3433
Category Index 1919: Mises Develops the Frequency Theory of Probability, 1463 1921: Noether Publishes the Theory of Ideals in Rings, 1677 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer, 2216 July, 1929-July, 1931: Gödel Proves IncompletenessInconsistency for Formal Systems, 2317 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine, 2806 1939: Bourbaki Group Publishes Éléments de mathématique, 3149
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees, 3114 Apr. 7, 1939: Italy Invades and Annexes Albania, 3184 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk, 3256 June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a TwoOcean Navy, 3258 July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain, 3267 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274
Medicine. See Health and medicine
Monuments Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code, 121 Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier, 1734
Military history Sept. 7, 1904: Lhasa Convention Is Signed in Tibet, 344 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne, 1137 Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare, 1143 Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans, 1158 Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids, 1174 Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916: Gallipoli Campaign Falters, 1180 Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops, 1192 May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns, 1202 May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania, 1206 Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun, 1256 Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition, 1259 May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland, 1266 Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1440 Jan. 11, 1923-Aug. 16, 1924: France Occupies the Ruhr, 1826 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built, 2288 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed, 2734 Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March, 2777 Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland, 2927 July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan, 3037 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059
Motion pictures Aug., 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects, 169 Fall, 1903: The Great Train Robbery Introduces New Editing Techniques, 253 June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens, 417 1909-1929: Pickford Reigns as “America’s Sweetheart,” 737 Aug., 1912: Sennett Defines Slapstick Comedy, 988 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures, 1022 Mar. 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation, 1188 1920: Premiere of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1575 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph, 1673 1923: The Ten Commandments Advances American Film Spectacle, 1820 Dec. 4, 1924: Von Stroheim’s Silent Masterpiece Greed Premieres, 1956 1925: Eisenstein’s Potemkin Introduces New Film Editing Techniques, 1968 1925-1927: Gance’s Napoléon Revolutionizes Filmmaking Techniques, 2001 June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush, 2050 Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures, 2124 Dec., 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released, 2142 1927: Kuleshov and Pudovkin Introduce Montage to Filmmaking, 2148 1927: Lang Expands the Limits of Filmmaking with Metropolis, 2152
Media. See Communications and media
3434
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oct. 6, 1927: The Jazz Singer Premieres as the First “Talkie,” 2202 1928: Buñuel and Dalí Champion Surrealism in An Andalusian Dog, 2213 May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry, 2234 1929: Hallelujah Is the First Important Black Musical Film, 2273 May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement, 2306 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age, 2364 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking, 2376 1930-1935: Von Sternberg Makes Dietrich a Superstar, 2396 1931: Karloff and Lugosi Become Kings of Horror, 2461 1931-1932: Gangster Films Become Popular, 2467 1933: Forty-Second Street Defines 1930’s Film Musicals, 2608 1934: Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow Opens New Vistas for Film Musicals, 2705 1934-1935: Hitchcock Becomes Synonymous with Suspense, 2722 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy, 2725 Feb. 27, 1935: Temple Receives a Special Academy Award, 2827 Sept. 6, 1935: Top Hat Establishes the Astaire-Rogers Dance Team, 2868 1937-1939: Renoir’s Films Explore Social and Political Themes, 2985 Dec. 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 3063 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach, 3152 Mar. 31, 1939: Sherlock Holmes Film Series Begins, 3176 Aug. 17, 1939: The Wizard of Oz Premieres, 3201 Dec. 15, 1939: Gone with the Wind Premieres, 3223 Nov. 13, 1940: Disney’s Fantasia Premieres, 3295 Music Early 20th cent.: Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera, 4 Apr. 11, 1902: Caruso Records for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, 146 1903-1957: Vaughan Williams Composes His Nine Symphonies, 213 1904-1905: Bartók and Kodály Collect Hungarian Folk Songs, 295
Category Index Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres, 348 Dec. 26, 1904: Duncan Interprets Chopin in Her Russian Debut, 355 Dec. 9, 1905: Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences, 465 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal, 492 1907: Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, 587 1908-1909: Schoenberg Breaks with Tonality, 644 Dec. 3, 1908: Elgar’s First Symphony Premieres to Acclaim, 713 May 19, 1909: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Astounds Paris, 762 June 2, 1909: Fokine’s Les Sylphides Introduces Abstract Ballet, 766 1910’s: Handy Ushers in the Commercial Blues Era, 786 June 25, 1910: The Firebird Premieres in Paris, 833 Mar. 15, 1911: Scriabin’s Prometheus Premieres in Moscow, 865 Apr. 3, 1911: Sibelius Conducts the Premiere of His Fourth Symphony, 876 Nov. 20, 1911: Mahler’s Masterpiece Das Lied von der Erde Premieres, 913 May 29, 1912: L’Après-midi d’un faune Scandalizes Parisian Audiences, 977 Mar. 31, 1913: Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra Premieres, 1070 May 29, 1913: The Rite of Spring Stuns Audiences, 1079 1916: Ives Completes His Fourth Symphony, 1247 1920’s: Harlem Renaissance, 1555 Jan. 16, 1920: Formation of Les Six, 1601 1921: Boulanger Takes Copland as a Student, 1665 1921-1923: Schoenberg Develops His Twelve-Tone System, 1701 Feb. 15, 1923: Bessie Smith Records “Downhearted Blues,” 1830 Oct. 18, 1923: Stravinsky Completes His Wind Octet, 1865 Feb. 12, 1924: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Premieres in New York, 1909 Nov., 1925: Armstrong Records with the Hot Five, 2079 Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry, 2082 Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin, 2086 July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel, 2193 3435
Category Index Aug. 4, 1927: Rodgers Cuts His First Record for RCA Victor, 2196 Dec. 4, 1927: Ellington Begins Performing at the Cotton Club, 2206 Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot, 2210 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States, 2356 1930’s: Hindemith Advances Music as a Social Activity, 2360 Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers, 2558 1933: Billie Holiday Begins Her Recording Career, 2605 1934: Squier Founds Muzak, 2713 Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts, 2790 Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York, 2871 Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 2911 June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich, 3031 1939-1949: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Define Bluegrass Music, 3163 Jan. 2, 1939: Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall, 3166 Natural resources Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, 40 June 17, 1902: Reclamation Act Promotes Western Agriculture, 165 Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service, 392 Jan. 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims, 651 May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, 677 May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia, 681 July 1, 1910: U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established, 836 Nov. 5, 1913: Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088 Dec. 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, 1095 Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created, 1282 Feb. 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands, 1614 Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed, 1760 Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela, 1794 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams, 1810 3436
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature, 1884 June 3, 1924: Gila Wilderness Area Is Designated, 1931 June 7, 1924: Oil Pollution Act Sets Penalties for Polluters, 1935 May, 1927: Indiana Dunes Are Preserved as a State Park, 2182 Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East, 2259 1930: Dutch Elm Disease Arrives in the United States, 2380 Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established, 2652 May 18, 1933: Tennessee Valley Authority Is Created, 2656 Sept. 8, 1933: Work Begins on the Grand Coulee Dam, 2678 June 28, 1934: Taylor Grazing Act, 2764 Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established, 2837 Mar. 11, 1936: Boulder Dam Is Completed, 2930 Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon, 2992 Mar., 1937: Delaware River Project Begins, 3002 Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia, 3096 June 21, 1938: Natural Gas Act, 3116 Organizations and institutions Jan., 1901: American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament, 34 Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded, 62 Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established, 137 Dec. 2-5, 1902: Founding of the International Sanitary Bureau, 185 Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 219 Mar. 14, 1903: First U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Is Established, 226 Jan. 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service, 392 Jan. 5, 1905: National Audubon Society Is Established, 396 Feb. 23, 1905: First American Service Organization Is Founded, 406 June 27, 1905: Founding of Industrial Workers of the World, 425
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement, 428 Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded, 459 Jan. 11, 1906: Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement, 504 Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass, 507 May 10-July 21, 1906: First Meeting of the Duma, 526 June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race, 529 June 27-29, 1906: International Association for the Prevention of Smoke Is Founded, 531 Dec. 30, 1906: Muslim League Protests Government Abuses of Minority Rights in India, 564 Aug., 1907: Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts, 613 Oct. 22, 1907: Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus, 629 Apr. 8, 1908: Harvard University Founds a Business School, 674 July 26, 1908: Bureau of Investigation Begins Operation, 692 Dec. 21, 1908: Cairo University Is Inaugurated, 716 Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded, 744 Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 776 July 1, 1910: U.S. Bureau of Mines Is Established, 836 Nov. 25, 1910: Carnegie Establishes the Endowment for International Peace, 847 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company, 852 Jan. 8, 1912: South African Native National Congress Meets, 954 Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded, 968 Aug. 14, 1912: U.S. Public Health Service Is Established, 998 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated, 1028 May 14, 1913: Rockefeller Foundation Is Founded, 1074 Sept., 1913: Anti-Defamation League Is Founded, 1085 Feb. 13, 1914: ASCAP Forms to Protect Writers and Publishers of Music, 1114 1915: Merrill Lynch & Company Is Founded, 1164 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms, 1171 Summer, 1915: Denishawn School of Dance Opens, 1211 Sept. 11, 1915: Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain, 1220 June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice, 1269
Category Index Aug. 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created, 1282 Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission, 1285 Sept. 19, 1916: American Institute of Accountants Is Founded, 1292 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded, 1309 Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee, 1356 May, 1917: Universal Negro Improvement Association Establishes a U.S. Chapter, 1358 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, 1458 Mar. 2-6, 1919: Lenin Establishes the Comintern, 1490 Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion, 1493 Apr. 28, 1919: League of Nations Is Established, 1501 May 20, 1919: National Parks and Conservation Association Is Founded, 1514 June 28, 1919: International Labor Organization Is Established, 1517 Jan. 19, 1920: American Civil Liberties Union Is Founded, 1607 Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded, 1610 Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association, 1638 Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, 1648 Dec. 29, 1920: Rise of the French Communist Party, 1663 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South, 1705 Jan., 1922: Izaak Walton League Is Formed, 1760 Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine, 1833 Mar. 14, 1923: American Management Association Is Established, 1840 1924: Soviets Establish a Society for the Protection of Nature, 1884 Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line, 1905 Dec. 10, 1924: Hoover Becomes the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, 1959 1925: Cranbrook Academy Promotes the Arts and Crafts Movement, 1965 1925: McKinsey Founds a Management Consulting Firm, 1980 1925: Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet, 1987 Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed, 2011 3437
Category Index Aug. 7, 1925: West African Student Union Is Founded, 2062 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales, 2092 Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded, 2132 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, 2158 1927: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Is Established, 2164 Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered, 2168 Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt, 2228 1929: Baylor Plan Introduces Prepaid Hospital Care, 2269 Feb. 17, 1929: League of United Latin American Citizens Is Founded, 2304 May 16, 1929: First Academy Awards Honor Film Achievement, 2306 Nov. 8, 1929: New York’s Museum of Modern Art Opens to the Public, 2340 Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine, 2403 Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded, 2434 Aug. 29, 1930: Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded, 2442 July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2512 Nov. 17, 1931: Whitney Museum of American Art Opens in New York, 2514 Jan. 23, 1933: Italy Creates the Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 2622 Feb. 24, 1933: Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations, 2628 Apr. 5, 1933: U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps Is Established, 2652 June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663 Oct. 19, 1934: Marshall and Leopold Form the Wilderness Society, 2780 Feb. 12, 1935: Exhibition of American Abstract Painting Opens in New York, 2820 Apr. 8, 1935: Works Progress Administration Is Established, 2830 Apr. 27, 1935: Soil Conservation Service Is Established, 2837 June 10, 1935: Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2843 Nov. 10, 1935: Congress of Industrial Organizations Is Founded, 2888 3438
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jan.-Mar., 1936: Consumers Union of the United States Emerges, 2902 Jan. 1, 1936: Ford Foundation Is Established, 2906 Feb. 4, 1936: Darling Founds the National Wildlife Federation, 2915 May 26, 1937: Egypt Joins the League of Nations, 3020 Feb. 10, 1938: Fannie Mae Promotes Home Ownership, 3090 June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame, 3193 Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church, 3195 July 1, 1940: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Is Formed, 3265 Philanthropy. See Humanitarianism and philanthropy Philosophy 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience, 94 1903: Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman, 199 Jan. 11, 1906: Founding of the Monist League Leads to the Eugenics Movement, 504 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers, 567 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism, 591 1913: Husserl Advances Phenomenology, 1037 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education, 1245 Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography, 1434 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher, 1686 1922: First Meeting of the Vienna Circle, 1754 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy, 1802 Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity, 2066 May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy, 2102 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time, 2146 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought, 2527 Photography Feb. 17, 1902: Stieglitz Organizes the PhotoSecession, 130 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography, 579 1921: Man Ray Creates the Rayograph, 1673
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine, 2966 Jan., 1937-Feb., 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon, 2992 Physics Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity, 1 Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays, 66 Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere, 134 Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity, 275 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed, 283 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks, 388 Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect, 408 Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity, 440 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements, 471 Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron, 558 Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter, 664 Jan.-Aug., 1909: Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment, 741 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes, 811 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure, 938 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs, 945 Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus, 962 Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays, 995 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton, 1103 Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar, 1223 Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity, 1230 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity, 1250 1918: Noether Shows the Equivalence of Symmetry and Conservation, 1406 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes, 1455
Category Index 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory, 1541 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays, 1594 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light, 1804 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect, 1807 Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle, 2027 Mar. 16, 1926: Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket, 2099 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory, 2155 Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle, 2172 Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling, 2242 1930-1931: Pauling Develops His Theory of the Chemical Bond, 2389 Jan. 2, 1931: Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron, 2477 Apr., 1931: First Electron Microscope Is Constructed, 2493 May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon, 2506 Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron, 2544 Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom, 2555 Sept., 1932: Anderson Discovers the Positron, 2583 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed, 2615 Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay, 2687 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect, 2701 Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons, 2784 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes, 2799 1936: Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope, 2896 Jan.-Sept., 1937: Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element, 2989 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, 3069 Jan., 1938: Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity, 3083 Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom, 3143 Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes, 3170 Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses, 3292 3439
Category Index Politics. See Government and politics Prehistory and ancient cultures Jan., 1902: French Expedition at Susa Discovers Hammurabi’s Code, 121 Dec., 1908: Boule Reconstructs the First Neanderthal Skeleton, 710 July 24, 1911: Bingham Discovers Machu Picchu, 892 Nov. 4, 1922: Carter Discovers the Tomb of Tutankhamen, 1784 1923: Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs, 1798 Summer, 1923: Zdansky Discovers Peking Man, 1847 Summer, 1924: Dart Discovers the First Australopithecine Fossil, 1938 Fall, 1937-Winter, 1938: Weidenreich Reconstructs the Face of Peking Man, 3053 Sept. 12, 1940: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered, 3285 Psychiatry. See Psychology and psychiatry Psychology and psychiatry 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience, 94 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method, 286 1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious, 928 Mar., 1914: Gilbreth Publishes The Psychology of Management, 1118 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology, 2370 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Nov.-Dec., 1935: Egas Moniz Develops the Prefrontal Lobotomy, 2882 Apr., 1938: Cerletti and Bini Use Electroshock to Treat Schizophrenia, 3104 Publishing and journalism 1902: Hobson Critiques Imperialism, 91 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience, 94 1903: Scott Publishes The Theory of Advertising, 195 June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion, 239 1904: Freud Advances the Psychoanalytic Method, 286 1904-1905: Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic,” 302 Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics, 334 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal, 492 3440
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Spring, 1906: Lee Establishes the Field of Public Relations, 516 1907: Bergson’s Creative Evolution Inspires Artists and Thinkers, 567 1907: Meinecke Advances the Analytic Method in History, 582 1907: Publication of Busoni’s Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music, 587 1907: Publication of James’s Pragmatism, 591 Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914: Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia, 606 Oct. 3, 1908: First Issue of Pravda Appears, 695 Nov. 28, 1908: Christian Science Monitor Is Founded, 707 1910: Angell Advances Pacifism, 790 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control, 796 1910-1913: Principia Mathematica Defines the Logistic Movement, 814 1911: Boas Publishes The Mind of Primitive Man, 849 1912: Jung Publishes The Psychology of the Unconscious, 928 1912: Kandinsky Publishes His Theory of Abstract Art, 932 Oct., 1912: Harriet Monroe Founds Poetry Magazine, 1001 1913: Apollinaire Defines Cubism, 1015 1913: Husserl Advances Phenomenology, 1037 Nov. 7, 1914: Lippmann Helps to Establish The New Republic, 1161 1916: Dewey Applies Pragmatism to Education, 1245 July, 1916: Fayol Publishes General and Industrial Management, 1272 June, 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Are Awarded, 1363 Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded, 1374 Summer, 1918: Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography, 1434 1921: Wittgenstein Emerges as an Important Philosopher, 1686 Feb., 1922: Reader’s Digest Is Founded, 1763 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy, 1802 1923-1939: Cambridge Ancient History Appears, 1824 Mar. 3, 1923: Luce Founds Time Magazine, 1833 1925: The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology, 1962 1925: Hamilton Publishes Industrial Poisons in the United States, 1976 Feb. 21, 1925: Ross Founds The New Yorker, 2020 July 10-21, 1925: Scopes Trial, 2054
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 July 18, 1925-Dec. 11, 1926: Mein Kampf Outlines Nazi Thought, 2058 Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity, 2066 1926: Vernadsky Publishes The Biosphere, 2089 1926-1927: Mail-Order Clubs Revolutionize Book Sales, 2092 May, 1926: Durant Publishes The Story of Philosophy, 2102 1927: Heidegger Publishes Being and Time, 2146 Aug., 1928: Mead Publishes Coming of Age in Samoa, 2249 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology, 2370 Feb., 1930: Luce Founds Fortune Magazine, 2403 1932: Berle and Means Discuss Corporate Control, 2521 1932: Gilson’s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy Reassesses Christian Thought, 2527 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, 2612 Sept., 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests, 2674 1934: Benedict Publishes Patterns of Culture, 2697 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate, 2716 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books, 2802 Feb. 4, 1936: Keynes Proposes Government Management of the Economy, 2919 Nov., 1936: Carnegie Redefines Self-Help Literature, 2953 Nov. 23, 1936: Luce Launches Life Magazine, 2966 1938: Barnard Publishes The Functions of the Executive, 3066 Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska, 3133 Radio and television Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, 70 Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting, 561 Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony, 1227 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 1920’s: Radio Develops as a Mass Broadcast Medium, 1562 Aug. 20-Nov. 2, 1920: Radio Broadcasting Begins, 1641
Category Index Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television, 1873 Nov. 28, 1925: WSM Launches The Grand Ole Opry, 2082 Sept. 9, 1926: National Broadcasting Company Is Founded, 2132 Jan. 1, 1927: British Broadcasting Corporation Is Chartered, 2168 Mar. 19, 1928: Amos ’n’ Andy Radio Show Goes on the Air, 2230 1930’s: Americans Embrace Radio Entertainment, 2352 Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure, 2593 June 10, 1934: Federal Communications Commission Is Established by Congress, 2754 Dec. 1, 1934: Goodman Begins His Let’s Dance Broadcasts, 2790 Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting, 2885 Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program, 2956 Oct. 30, 1938: Welles Broadcasts The War of the Worlds, 3137 Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair, 3186 Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast, 3282 Rebellions. See Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Recreation. See Travel and recreation Reform. See Social issues and reform Religion, theology, and ethics 1902: James Proposes a Rational Basis for Religious Experience, 94 Aug. 9, 1903: Pius X Becomes Pope, 247 1904-1905: Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic,” 302 Oct. 31, 1904-1906: Welsh Revival Spreads Pentecostalism, 346 1906: Publication of The English Hymnal, 492 Apr., 1906-1908: Azusa Street Revival, 520 Mar. 19, 1907-Apr., 1914: Publication of The Catholic Encyclopedia, 606 June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery, 983 1917-1918: Bolsheviks Suppress the Russian Orthodox Church, 1318 3441
Category Index May 13-Oct. 17, 1917: Marian Apparitions in Fátima, Portugal, 1360 1919: Founding of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, 1458 May 16, 1920: Canonization of Joan of Arc, 1630 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy, 1802 May 17, 1925: Thérèse of Lisieux Is Canonized, 2044 Sept. 30, 1925: Chesterton Critiques Modernism and Defends Christianity, 2066 Mar., 1928: Muslim Brotherhood Is Founded in Egypt, 2228 Feb. 11, 1929: Lateran Treaty, 2298 Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots, 2321 1930’s: Jung Develops Analytical Psychology, 2370 Summer, 1930: Nation of Islam Is Founded, 2434 Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception, 2437 July 26, 1931: International Bible Students Association Becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2512 Dec. 8, 1933: Canonization of Bernadette Soubirous, 2693 Dec. 17, 1933: End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule, 2695 Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism, 3009 Oct. 5, 1938: Death of Maria Faustina Kowalska, 3133 Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope, 3173 Summer, 1939: Stalin Suppresses the Russian Orthodox Church, 3195 Relocation. See Immigration, emigration, and relocation Revolutions. See Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Riots. See Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Scandal. See Crime and scandal Science and technology Early 20th cent.: Elster and Geitel Study Radioactivity, 1 1901: Creation of the First Synthetic Vat Dye, 8 1901: Hewitt Invents the Mercury-Vapor Lamp, 17 1901: Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan, 20 1901: Ivanov Develops Artificial Insemination, 23 1901-1904: Kipping Discovers Silicones, 26 3442
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1901-1925: Teletype Is Developed, 32 Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, 40 Aug. 30, 1901: Booth Receives Patent for the Vacuum Cleaner, 56 Dec. 10, 1901: First Nobel Prizes Are Awarded, 62 Dec. 10, 1901: Röntgen Wins the Nobel Prize for the Discovery of X Rays, 66 Dec. 12, 1901: First Transatlantic Telegraphic Radio Transmission, 70 1902: Bateson Publishes Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, 77 1902: Johnson Duplicates Disc Recordings, 96 1902: McClung Contributes to the Discovery of the Sex Chromosome, 102 1902: Zsigmondy Invents the Ultramicroscope, 110 1902-1903: Pavlov Develops the Concept of Reinforcement, 112 Mar. and June, 1902: Kennelly and Heaviside Theorize Existence of the Ionosphere, 134 Apr.-June, 1902: Bayliss and Starling Establish the Role of Hormones, 142 May 8, 1902: Mount Pelée Erupts, 149 Dec., 1902: Sutton Proposes That Chromosomes Carry Hereditary Traits, 180 1903: Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel, 203 1903-1904: Hale Establishes Mount Wilson Observatory, 206 Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 Dec. 10, 1903: Becquerel Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering Natural Radioactivity, 275 Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight, 278 1904: Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat, 281 1904: First Practical Photoelectric Cell Is Developed, 283 1904: Hartmann Discovers the First Evidence of Interstellar Matter, 288 1904: Kapteyn Discovers Two Star Streams in the Galaxy, 291 1904-1908: Haber Develops Process for Extracting Nitrogen from the Air, 308 1904-1912: Brandenberger Invents Cellophane, 314 Apr.-May, 1904: Sherrington Clarifies the Role of the Nervous System, 327 Summer, 1904: Construction Begins on the Panama Canal, 340 Nov. 16, 1904: Fleming Patents the First Vacuum Tube, 352
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1905: Hertzsprung Notes Relationship Between Star Color and Luminosity, 369 1905: Introduction of the First Injectable Anesthetic, 376 1905: Punnett’s Mendelism Includes Diagrams Showing Heredity, 378 1905-1907: Baekeland Invents Bakelite, 385 1905-1907: Boltwood Uses Radioactivity to Determine Ages of Rocks, 388 Mar., 1905: Einstein Describes the Photoelectric Effect, 408 Aug., 1905: Lowell Predicts the Existence of Pluto, 432 Fall, 1905: Einstein States His Theory of Special Relativity, 440 Dec., 1905: Crile Performs the First Direct Blood Transfusion, 462 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass, 468 1906: Barkla Discovers the Characteristic X Rays of the Elements, 471 1906: Bateson and Punnett Observe Gene Linkage, 474 1906: Cottrell Invents the Electrostatic Precipitation Process, 478 1906: Hopkins Postulates the Presence of Vitamins, 484 1906-1910: Oldham and Mohorovi5i6 Determine the Earth’s Interior Structure, 497 1906-1913: Willstätter Discovers the Composition of Chlorophyll, 500 Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched, 541 Oct. 6, 1906: Launching of the Dreadnought, 552 Dec. 10, 1906: Thomson Wins the Nobel Prize for Discovering the Electron, 558 Dec. 24, 1906: Fessenden Pioneers Radio Broadcasting, 561 1907: Hertzsprung Describes Giant and Dwarf Stellar Divisions, 576 1907: Lumières Develop Color Photography, 579 1907: Plague Kills 1.2 Million in India, 584 Spring, 1907: Development of Nerve Fibers Is Observed, 608 1908: Chlorination of the U.S. Water Supply Begins, 635 1908: Hardy and Weinberg Present a Model of Population Genetics, 638 1908: Hughes Revolutionizes Oil Well Drilling, 642 1908-1915: Morgan Develops the Gene-Chromosome Theory, 648
Category Index Feb. 11, 1908: Geiger and Rutherford Develop a Radiation Counter, 664 Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts, 670 June 26, 1908: Hale Discovers Strong Magnetic Fields in Sunspots, 686 Nov.-Dec., 1908: Ehrlich and Metchnikoff Conduct Pioneering Immunity Research, 699 Dec. 28, 1908: Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Sicily, 721 1909: Johannsen Coins the Terms “Gene,” “Genotype,” and “Phenotype,” 726 Jan.-Aug., 1909: Millikan Conducts His Oil-Drop Experiment, 741 July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel, 769 1910: Electric Washing Machine Is Introduced, 792 1910: Rous Discovers That Some Cancers Are Caused by Viruses, 803 1910: Steinmetz Warns of Pollution in “The Future of Electricity,” 807 1910: Thomson Confirms the Possibility of Isotopes, 811 Apr., 1910: Ehrlich Introduces Salvarsan as a Cure for Syphilis, 823 Fall, 1911: Sturtevant Produces the First Chromosome Map, 906 1912: Slipher Obtains the Spectrum of a Distant Galaxy, 935 1912-1913: Bohr Uses Quantum Theory to Identify Atomic Structure, 938 1912-1915: X-Ray Crystallography Is Developed by the Braggs, 945 Jan., 1912: Wegener Proposes the Theory of Continental Drift, 950 Mar. 3, 1912: Leavitt Discovers How to Measure Galactic Distances, 959 Mar. 7, 1912: Rutherford Describes the Atomic Nucleus, 962 Aug. 7 and 12, 1912: Hess Discovers Cosmic Rays, 995 1913: Edison Shows the First Talking Pictures, 1022 1913: First Geothermal Power Plant Begins Operation, 1025 1913: Gutenberg Discovers Earth’s Mantle-Outer Core Boundary, 1031 1913: Hertzsprung Uses Cepheid Variables to Calculate Distances to the Stars, 1034 1913: Salomon Develops Mammography, 1040 3443
Category Index Jan., 1913: Burton Refines Petroleum with Thermal Cracking, 1049 Jan. 17, 1913: Fabry Quantifies Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere, 1053 Mar. 1, 1913: Ford Assembly Line Begins Operation, 1063 Dec., 1913: Russell Announces His Theory of Stellar Evolution, 1092 1914: Rutherford Discovers the Proton, 1103 Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare, 1143 Jan. 25, 1915: First Transcontinental Telephone Call Is Made, 1177 May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns, 1202 May 20, 1915: Corning Glass Works Trademarks Pyrex, 1209 Sept., 1915-Feb., 1916: McLean Discovers the Natural Anticoagulant Heparin, 1215 Oct., 1915-Mar., 1917: Langevin Develops Active Sonar, 1223 Oct. 21, 1915: First Demonstration of Transatlantic Radiotelephony, 1227 Nov. 25, 1915: Einstein Completes His Theory of General Relativity, 1230 1916: Schwarzschild Solves the Equations of General Relativity, 1250 1917: American Farmers Increase Insecticide Use, 1303 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods, 1306 Nov., 1917: Hooker Telescope Is Installed on Mount Wilson, 1385 Jan. 8, 1918: Shapley Proves the Sun Is Distant from the Center of Our Galaxy, 1419 Mar., 1918-1919: Influenza Epidemic Strikes, 1428 1919: Aston Builds the First Mass Spectrograph and Discovers Isotopes, 1455 1919: Principles of Shortwave Radio Communication Are Discovered, 1466 1919-1921: Bjerknes Discovers Fronts in Atmospheric Circulation, 1474 Spring, 1919: Frisch Discovers That Bees Communicate Through Body Movements, 1495 Nov. 6, 1919: Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation Is Confirmed over Newton’s Theory, 1541 Early 1920’s: Slipher Presents Evidence of Redshifts in Galactic Spectra, 1546 1920-1930: Millikan Investigates Cosmic Rays, 1594 Dec. 13, 1920: Michelson Measures the Diameter of a Star, 1654 3444
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1921: Larson Constructs the First Modern Polygraph, 1671 1921: Tuberculosis Vaccine BCG Is Developed, 1683 1921-1922: Banting and Best Isolate the Hormone Insulin, 1689 1922: McCollum Names Vitamin D and Pioneers Its Use Against Rickets, 1757 1923: Andrews Expedition Discovers the First Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs, 1798 1923: De Broglie Explains the Wave-Particle Duality of Light, 1804 1923: Discovery of the Compton Effect, 1807 Dec. 29, 1923: Zworykin Applies for Patent on an Early Type of Television, 1873 1924: Hubble Determines the Distance to the Andromeda Nebula, 1877 1924: Steenbock Discovers Sunlight Increases Vitamin D in Food, 1887 1924: Svedberg Develops the Ultracentrifuge, 1889 Feb., 1924: IBM Changes Its Name and Product Line, 1905 Mar., 1924: Eddington Formulates the MassLuminosity Law for Stars, 1912 Dec., 1924: Hubble Shows That Other Galaxies Are Independent Systems, 1953 1925: Whipple Discovers Importance of Iron for Red Blood Cells, 1990 Jan. 1, 1925: Bell Labs Is Formed, 2011 Spring, 1925: Pauli Formulates the Exclusion Principle, 2027 Apr., 1925-May, 1927: German Expedition Discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 2030 Mar. 16, 1926: Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket, 2099 July, 1926: Eddington Publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars, 2119 Aug., 1926-Sept., 1928: Warner Bros. Introduces Talking Motion Pictures, 2124 1927: Lemaître Proposes the Big Bang Theory, 2155 1927: Oort Proves the Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, 2161 Feb.-Mar., 1927: Heisenberg Articulates the Uncertainty Principle, 2172 May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, 2189 1928: Bush Builds the First Differential Analyzer, 2216 1928-1932: Szent-Györgyi Discovers Vitamin C, 2222 May 11, 1928: Sound Technology Revolutionizes the Motion-Picture Industry, 2234
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Summer, 1928: Gamow Explains Radioactive Alpha Decay with Quantum Tunneling, 2242 Sept., 1928: Fleming Discovers Penicillin in Molds, 2256 1929: Hubble Confirms the Expanding Universe, 2276 1929-1938: Berger Studies the Human Electroencephalogram, 2285 Winter, 1929-1930: Schmidt Invents the Corrector for the Schmidt Camera and Telescope, 2347 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, 2368 1930: Lyot’s Coronagraph Allows Observation of the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere, 2383 1930: Zinsser Develops an Immunization Against Typhus, 2386 1930-1932: Jansky’s Experiments Lead to Radio Astronomy, 2394 Feb. 18, 1930: Tombaugh Discovers Pluto, 2407 Apr., 1930: Midgley Introduces Dichlorodifluoromethane as a Refrigerant Gas, 2418 June 6, 1930-Aug. 27, 1934: First Manned Bathysphere Dives, 2427 Dec., 1930: Du Pont Introduces Freon, 2454 1931-1935: Chandrasekhar Calculates the Upper Limit of a White Dwarf Star’s Mass, 2471 Jan. 2, 1931: Lawrence Develops the Cyclotron, 2477 Apr., 1931: First Electron Microscope Is Constructed, 2493 May 1, 1931: Empire State Building Opens, 2499 May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon, 2506 Feb., 1932: Chadwick Discovers the Neutron, 2544 Apr., 1932: Cockcroft and Walton Split the Atom, 2555 Sept., 1932: Anderson Discovers the Positron, 2583 1933-1934: First Artificial Radioactive Element Is Developed, 2615 Nov.-Dec., 1933: Fermi Proposes the Neutrino Theory of Beta Decay, 2687 1934: Discovery of the Cherenkov Effect, 2701 1934: Zwicky and Baade Propose a Theory of Neutron Stars, 2718 1934-1945: Radar Is Developed, 2734 Nov., 1934: Yukawa Proposes the Existence of Mesons, 2784 1935: Chapman Determines the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Moderate Latitudes, 2799 1935-1936: Turing Invents the Universal Turing Machine, 2806
Category Index Jan., 1935: Richter Develops a Scale for Measuring Earthquake Strength, 2809 Feb., 1935-Oct. 27, 1938: Carothers Invents Nylon, 2816 July, 1935: Tansley Proposes the Term “Ecosystem,” 2846 Nov. 5, 1935: Armstrong Demonstrates FM Radio Broadcasting, 2885 1936: Lehmann Discovers the Earth’s Inner Core, 2893 1936: Müller Invents the Field Emission Microscope, 2896 Nov. 2, 1936: BBC Airs the First High-Definition Television Program, 2956 Nov. 23, 1936: Fluorescent Lighting Is Introduced, 2963 1937: Dreyfuss Designs the Bell 300 Telephone, 2976 Jan.-Sept., 1937: Segrè Identifies the First Artificial Element, 2989 Mar., 1937: Krebs Describes the Citric Acid Cycle, 3005 June-Sept., 1937: Reber Builds the First Intentional Radio Telescope, 3028 1938: Callendar Connects Industry with Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, 3069 1938: Hofmann Synthesizes the Potent Psychedelic Drug LSD-25, 3072 Jan., 1938: Kapitsa Explains Superfluidity, 3083 Oct. 22, 1938: Carlson and Kornei Make the First Xerographic Photocopy, 3134 Dec., 1938: Hahn Splits the Uranium Atom, 3143 1939: Müller Discovers the Insecticidal Properties of DDT, 3156 Feb. 15, 1939: Oppenheimer Calculates the Nature of Black Holes, 3170 Apr. 30, 1939: American Television Debuts at the World’s Fair, 3186 Sept. 1, 1940: First Color Television Broadcast, 3282 Social issues and reform 1901-1911: China Allows Some Western Reforms, 29 June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women, 160 June 6, 1903: Founding of the Weekly Indian Opinion, 239 Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union, 259 Apr. 18, 1904: L’Humanité Gives Voice to French Socialist Politics, 334 3445
Category Index Feb. 23, 1905: First American Service Organization Is Founded, 406 July 11, 1905: Founding of the Niagara Movement, 428 Nov. 28, 1905: Sinn Féin Is Founded, 459 Feb., 1906: Sinclair Publishes The Jungle, 509 July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage, 538 Oct., 1906-Oct., 1907: Persia Adopts a Constitution, 549 May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society, 611 Nov. 1, 1908: Belgium Annexes the Congo, 703 Dec. 26, 1908: First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion, 719 1909: Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education, 729 Feb. 12, 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Is Founded, 744 1910-1930: Great Northern Migration, 818 Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 868 Sept. 4-15, 1911: Students Challenge Corporal Punishment in British Schools, 900 Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed, 956 Apr. 9, 1912: Children’s Bureau Is Founded, 968 June 4, 1912: Massachusetts Adopts the First Minimum Wage Law in the United States, 980 June 7, 1912: Pope Pius X Condemns Slavery, 983 Nov. 5, 1912: Wilson Is Elected U.S. President, 1011 Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women, 1199 Sept. 5-8, 1915, and Apr. 24-30, 1916: Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, 1217 June 5, 1916: Brandeis Becomes the First Jewish Supreme Court Justice, 1269 Apr. 30, 1917: Formation of the American Friends Service Committee, 1356 Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote, 1377 Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote, 1422 Mar. 15-May 9, 1919: Formation of the American Legion, 1493 May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement, 1506 May 15-June 26, 1919: Winnipeg General Strike, 1509 Sept. 10, 1919: Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention Attempts to Curtail Slavery, 1531 1920-1925: Great Britain Establishes Unemployment Benefits, 1590 Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition, 1604 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament, 1669 1921: Sweden Abolishes Capital Punishment, 1680 3446
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act, 1745 Dec. 10, 1922: Nansen Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, 1790 Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1871 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, 2004 1925-1979: Pahlavi Shahs Attempt to Modernize Iran, 2007 May 3-12, 1926: British Workers Launch General Strike, 2105 Aug. 23, 1927: Sacco and Vanzetti Are Executed, 2199 July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women, 2246 Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning, 2263 Feb. 14, 1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre, 2301 1930’s: Guthrie’s Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States, 2356 Mar. 12-Apr. 5, 1930: Gandhi Leads the Salt March, 2410 Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception, 2437 Aug. 29, 1930: Japanese American Citizens League Is Founded, 2442 Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling, 2483 1932-1940: Development of Negritude, 2532 Apr. 23, 1932: Stalin Restricts Soviet Composers, 2558 Apr. 23, 1932-Aug., 1934: Socialist Realism Is Mandated in Soviet Literature, 2562 July 28, 1932: Bonus March, 2578 Aug. 1, 1932: Canada’s First Major Socialist Movement, 2581 Mar. 9-June 16, 1933: The Hundred Days, 2646 Dec. 17, 1933: End of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Rule, 2695 June 18, 1934: Indian Reorganization Act, 2757 Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama, 2823 June 10, 1935: Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2843 Aug. 14, 1935: Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act, 2853 Nov. 27, 1935: New Zealand’s First Labour Party Administration, 2891 June 25, 1938: Fair Labor Standards Act, 3119
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jan. 2, 1939: Marian Anderson Is Barred from Constitution Hall, 3166 May 16, 1939: First U.S. Food Stamp Program Begins, 3190 1940: Wright’s Native Son Depicts Racism in America, 3230 Sociology 1904-1905: Weber Posits the “Protestant Ethic,” 302 1906: Pareto Analyzes the Distribution of Wealth, 490 1924-1932: Hawthorne Studies Examine Human Productivity, 1896 1925: The City Initiates the Study of Urban Ecology, 1962 1934: Toynbee’s Metahistorical Approach Sparks Debate, 2716 Space and aviation 1903: Tsiolkovsky Proposes Using Liquid Oxygen for Space Travel, 203 Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight, 278 July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel, 769 Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids, 1174 May, 1915: Fokker Aircraft Are Equipped with Machine Guns, 1202 Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, 1648 Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines, 1652 Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail, 2017 Mar. 16, 1926: Launching of the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket, 2099 May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System, 2112 May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, 2189 May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service, 2238 May 27, 1931: Piccard Travels to the Stratosphere by Balloon, 2506 May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, 2566 June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel, 2941 May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames, 3017 June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic, 3262
Category Index Sports Jan., 1901: American Bowling Club Hosts Its First Tournament, 34 Jan. 1, 1902: First Rose Bowl Game, 124 July 1, 1903: First Tour de France, 242 Oct. 1-13, 1903: Baseball Holds Its First World Series, 256 Jan. 12, 1906: American College Football Allows the Forward Pass, 507 June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race, 529 Dec. 26, 1908: First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion, 719 Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 776 May 5-July 27, 1912: Stockholm Hosts the Summer Olympics, 975 Oct. 1-9, 1919: Black Sox Scandal, 1538 Jan. 3, 1920: New York Yankees Acquire Babe Ruth, 1597 Aug. 20-Sept. 17, 1920: Formation of the American Professional Football Association, 1638 June, 1922: New Wimbledon Tennis Stadium Is Dedicated, 1775 Jan. 25-Feb. 5, 1924: First Winter Olympic Games, 1903 Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel, 2129 Sept. 27, 1930: First Grand Slam of Golf, 2452 July 6, 1933: First Major League Baseball All-Star Game, 2667 Aug. 1-16, 1936: Germany Hosts the Summer Olympics, 2948 Sept. 17, 1938: First Grand Slam of Tennis, 3127 June 12, 1939: Dedication of the Baseball Hall of Fame, 3193 Technology. See Science and technology Television. See Radio and television Terrorism Sept. 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President, 59 Sept. 14, 1911: Assassination of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, 904 Jan. 15, 1919: Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg, 1479 1921-1924: Ku Klux Klan Spreads Terror in the American South, 1705 3447
Category Index June 26, 1923: Oklahoma Imposes Martial Law in Response to KKK Violence, 1850 June 30-July 2, 1934: Great Blood Purge, 2767 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059 Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht, 3141 Theater Early 20th cent.: Mahler Directs the Vienna Court Opera, 4 1903: Shaw Articulates His Philosophy in Man and Superman, 199 Nov. 7, 1904: Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones Premieres, 348 Dec. 27, 1904: Abbey Theatre Heralds the Celtic Revival, 359 1905: Baker Establishes the 47 Workshop at Harvard, 362 Nov. 24, 1905: Reinhardt Becomes Director of the Deutsches Theater, 456 Dec. 9, 1905: Strauss’s Salome Shocks Audiences, 465 Jan. 26, 1907: The Playboy of the Western World Offends Irish Audiences, 597 Jan. 21, 1908: The Ghost Sonata Influences Modern Theater and Drama, 654 May 10, 1921: Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author Premieres, 1721 Dec. 14, 1925: Berg’s Wozzeck Premieres in Berlin, 2086 July 17, 1927: Brecht and Weill Collaborate on the Mahagonny Songspiel, 2193 Dec. 27, 1927: Show Boat Is the First American Musical to Emphasize Plot, 2210 1929-1930: The Bedbug and The Bathhouse Exemplify Revolutionary Theater, 2282 1931-1941: The Group Theatre Flourishes, 2474 Jan. 2, 1933: Coward’s Design for Living Epitomizes the 1930’s, 2618 Feb. 19, 1935: Odets’s Awake and Sing! Becomes a Model for Protest Drama, 2823 Aug. 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater, 2860 Oct. 10, 1935: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Opens in New York, 2871 Jan. 28, 1936: Soviets Condemn Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 2911 June 2, 1937: Berg’s Lulu Opens in Zurich, 3031 Feb. 4, 1938: Our Town Opens on Broadway, 3087 Theology. See Religion, theology, and ethics 3448
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Trade and commerce Jan. 10, 1901: Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, 40 Feb. 26, 1901: Morgan Assembles the World’s Largest Corporation, 47 1902: Cement Manufacturers Agree to Cooperate on Pricing, 84 Jan. 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Treaty Brings Japan into World Markets, 127 May 12-Oct. 23, 1902: Anthracite Coal Strike, 152 Aug. 12, 1902: Founding of International Harvester Company, 173 Sept. 27, 1902: Tobacco Companies Unite to Split World Markets, 177 1903: Delaware Revises Corporation Laws, 188 Feb. 14, 1903: Creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 219 Feb. 23, 1903: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Powers to Regulate Commerce, 222 Fall, 1903: Gillette Markets the First Razor with a Disposable Blade, 250 1904: Canadian Cultivation of Marquis Wheat, 281 Mar. 14, 1904: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Northern Securities, 323 1905: Singer Begins Manufacturing Sewing Machines in Russia, 382 Jan. 30, 1905: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Prosecution of the Beef Trust, 402 June, 1905: First Nickelodeon Film Theater Opens, 417 Aug.-Dec., 1905: Armstrong Committee Examines the Insurance Industry, 436 June 30, 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, 534 May 26, 1908: Oil Is Discovered in Persia, 681 Aug. 5, 1909: Tariff Act of 1909 Limits Corporate Privacy, 772 Oct., 1909: Canada Cement Affair Prompts Legislative Reform, 778 1911: Hashimoto Founds the Nissan Motor Company, 852 Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria, 873 Apr. 14, 1911: Lever Acquires Land Concession in the Belgian Congo, 879 May 15, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Establishes the “Rule of Reason,” 882 May 29, 1911: U.S. Supreme Court Breaks Up the American Tobacco Company, 886 Dec. 31, 1911: Parliament Nationalizes the British Telephone System, 922
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Feb. 23, 1912: International Opium Convention Is Signed, 956 1913: Fuller Brush Company Is Incorporated, 1028 Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens, 1130 Sept. 26, 1914: Federal Trade Commission Is Organized, 1145 Oct. 15, 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act, 1149 Sept. 8, 1916: United States Establishes a Permanent Tariff Commission, 1285 Sept. 11, 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens, 1288 1917: Birdseye Invents Quick-Frozen Foods, 1306 July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board, 1371 Sept. 15, 1917: Forbes Magazine Is Founded, 1374 Jan. 16, 1920-Dec. 5, 1933: Prohibition, 1604 Mar. 1, 1920: United States v. United States Steel Corporation, 1618 Apr. 26, 1920: Great Britain and France Sign the San Remo Agreement, 1621 July, 1920: Procter & Gamble Announces Plans to Sell Directly to Retailers, 1633 Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines, 1652 Dec. 29, 1920: General Motors Institutes a Multidivisional Structure, 1659 1922: First Major U.S. Shopping Center Opens, 1751 Dec. 14, 1922: Oil Is Discovered in Venezuela, 1794 1923: Germans Barter for Goods in Response to Hyperinflation, 1814 Oct., 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal, 1857 1924: U.S. Government Loses Its Suit Against Alcoa, 1892 1924-1976: Howard Hughes Builds a Business Empire, 1899 May 21, 1924: Farmers Dynamite the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1918 1925: Sears, Roebuck Opens Its First Retail Outlet, 1987 Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail, 2017 May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System, 2112 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, 2158 Feb. 21, 1927: Eastman Kodak Is Found to Be in Violation of the Sherman Act, 2175 Sept. 17, 1928: Oil Companies Cooperate in a Cartel Covering the Middle East, 2259 Oct. 1, 1928: Stalin Introduces Central Planning, 2263 June 15, 1929: Agricultural Marketing Act, 2311
Category Index Oct. 24-29, 1929: U.S. Stock Market Crashes, 2331 Oct. 29, 1929-1939: Great Depression, 2335 1930’s: Hollywood Enters Its Golden Age, 2364 1930’s: Invention of the Slug Rejector Spreads Use of Vending Machines, 2368 1930’s-1940’s: Studio System Dominates Hollywood Filmmaking, 2376 June 17, 1930: Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 2430 Sept. 8, 1930: Canada Enacts Depression-Era Relief Legislation, 2448 Mar. 19, 1931: Nevada Legalizes Gambling, 2483 July 21-Aug. 21, 1932: Ottawa Agreements, 2575 Nov., 1932: Antitrust Prosecution Forces RCA to Restructure, 2593 1933: Kallet and Schlink Publish 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, 2612 June 16, 1933: Roosevelt Signs the National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663 Oct. 18, 1933: Roosevelt Creates the Commodity Credit Corporation, 2683 Nov. 16, 1933: United States Recognizes Russia’s Bolshevik Regime, 2690 1935: Penguin Develops a Line of Paperback Books, 2802 Oct. 11, 1935-July 15, 1936: League of Nations Applies Economic Sanctions Against Italy, 2875 1936-1946: France Nationalizes Its Banking and Industrial Sectors, 2899 Aug. 17, 1937: Miller-Tydings Act Legalizes Retail Price Maintenance, 3044 Mar. 3, 1938: Rise of Commercial Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia, 3096 Mar. 18, 1938: Mexico Nationalizes Foreign Oil Properties, 3098 June 25, 1938: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 3122 June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic, 3262 Transportation Dec. 19, 1901: Completion of the Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 74 Mar. 4, 1902: American Automobile Association Is Established, 137 Nov. 18, 1903: U.S. Acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, 271 Dec. 17, 1903: Wright Brothers’ First Flight, 278 1906: Anschütz-Kaempfe Invents the First Practical Gyrocompass, 468 3449
Category Index June 26-27, 1906: First Grand Prix Auto Race, 529 Aug. 4, 1906: First German U-Boat Is Launched, 541 Oct. 6, 1906: Launching of the Dreadnought, 552 Feb. 29, 1908: Cadillac Demonstrates Interchangeable Parts, 670 July 25, 1909: First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel, 769 Aug. 19, 1909: First Auto Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 776 Mar. 28, 1911: Baro-Kano Railroad Begins Operation in Nigeria, 873 Apr. 14-15, 1912: Sinking of the Titanic, 972 Aug. 15, 1914: Panama Canal Opens, 1130 1916: Completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1239 Dec. 6, 1917: Halifax Explosion, 1397 Sept. 8, 1920: U.S. Post Office Begins Transcontinental Airmail Delivery, 1648 Nov. 20, 1920: Formation of Qantas Airlines, 1652 Feb. 2, 1925: U.S. Congress Authorizes Private Carriers for Airmail, 2017 May 20, 1926: Air Commerce Act Creates a Federal Airways System, 2112 1927: Number of U.S. Automakers Falls to Forty-Four, 2158 May 20, 1927: Lindbergh Makes the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, 2189 May 15, 1928: Australia Begins the Flying Doctor Service, 2238 Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 2549 May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, 2566 July 18, 1932: St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572 Aug. 2, 1933: Soviets Open the White Sea-Baltic Canal, 2670 June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel, 2941 May 6, 1937: Hindenburg Dirigible Bursts into Flames, 3017 May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opens, 3022 June 30, 1940: Congress Centralizes Regulation of U.S. Commercial Air Traffic, 3262 Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles, 3301 Travel and recreation June 25, 1936: The DC-3 Opens a New Era of Air Travel, 2941 1938: John Muir Trail Is Completed, 3076 3450
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles, 3301 Uprisings. See Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Urban planning Apr. 18, 1906: San Francisco Earthquake, 522 July, 1916: New York City Institutes a Comprehensive Zoning Law, 1276 Sept. 1, 1923: Earthquake Rocks Japan, 1855 Mar. 19, 1932: Dedication of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 2549 Nov. 1, 1939: Rockefeller Center Is Completed, 3215 Nov. 7, 1940: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses, 3292 Dec. 30, 1940: Arroyo Seco Freeway Opens in Los Angeles, 3301 War crimes. See Atrocities and war crimes; World War I; World War II Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest. See also World War I; World War II 1902: Philippines Ends Its Uprising Against the United States, 105 May 31, 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging Ends the Boer War, 155 1903-1906: Pogroms in Imperial Russia, 210 Aug. 2-Sept., 1903: Ilinden Uprising in Macedonia, 244 Nov. 3, 1903: Panama Declares Independence from Colombia, 268 Jan., 1904-1905: Herero and Nama Revolts, 317 Feb. 9, 1904-Sept. 5, 1905: Russo-Japanese War, 320 Jan. 22, 1905: Bloody Sunday, 399 Oct. 30, 1905: October Manifesto, 452 Mar., 1907: Romanian Peasant Revolt, 600 July 24, 1908: Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire, 689 Oct. 5, 1910: Republic of Portugal Is Proclaimed, 841 Mid-Oct., 1910-Dec. 1, 1920: Mexican Revolution, 843 1911-1912: Italy Annexes Libya, 856 Oct. 10, 1911: Sun Yixian Overthrows the Qing Dynasty, 909 1912-1929: Wahh3btism Strengthens in Saudi Arabia, 948 Aug. 4-Nov., 1912: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua, 991
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Oct. 18, 1912-Aug. 10, 1913: Balkan Wars, 1008 June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne, 1137 Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare, 1143 Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I, 1156 Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans, 1158 Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids, 1174 Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916: Gallipoli Campaign Falters, 1180 Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops, 1192 Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins, 1195 Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women, 1199 May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania, 1206 Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers, 1233 Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun, 1256 Mar. 15, 1916-Feb. 5, 1917: Pershing Expedition, 1259 Apr. 24-29, 1916: Easter Rebellion, 1262 May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland, 1266 Aug., 1916: Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy, 1279 1917-1920: Ukrainian Nationalists Struggle for Independence, 1321 1917-1924: Russian Communists Inaugurate the Red Terror, 1324 Mar.-Nov., 1917: Lenin Leads the Russian Revolution, 1343 Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I, 1349 Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I, 1353 July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board, 1371 Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari, 1383 Nov. 6-7, 1917: Bolsheviks Mount the October Revolution, 1393 1918-1919: Germans Revolt and Form a Socialist Government, 1409 1918-1921: Russian Civil War, 1416 Feb. 24, 1918-Aug. 11, 1920: Baltic States Gain Independence, 1425 Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431
Category Index Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1440 May 4, 1919: May Fourth Movement, 1506 May 19, 1919-Sept. 11, 1922: Greco-Turkish War, 1511 June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles, 1521 Nov. 16, 1919: Horthy Consolidates Power in Hungary, 1544 Early 1920: Britain Represses Somali Rebellion, 1566 May-Nov., 1920: Great Iraqi Revolt, 1625 Mar. 18, 1921: Poland Secures Independence, 1715 Aug., 1921: Moplah Rebellion, 1728 Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier, 1734 Oct. 24-30, 1922: Mussolini’s “March on Rome,” 1782 Nov. 8, 1923: Beer Hall Putsch, 1869 Oct. 23, 1925: Greece Invades Bulgaria, 2076 1926-1949: Chinese Civil War, 2096 May 12-15, 1926: Piusudski Seizes Power in Poland, 2109 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built, 2288 Aug. 23, 1929: Western Wall Riots, 2321 Jan.-Feb., 1932: El Salvador’s Military Massacres Civilians, 2535 Jan. 7, 1932: Stimson Doctrine, 2538 Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany, 2625 Aug. 11-13, 1933: Iraqi Army Slaughters Assyrian Christians, 2672 Feb. 6, 1934: Stavisky Riots, 2740 Oct. 16, 1934-Oct. 18, 1935: Mao’s Long March, 2777 Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland, 2927 Apr. 15, 1936-1939: Great Uprising of Arabs in Palestine, 2935 July 17, 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins, 2945 Aug. 2-18, 1936: Claretian Martyrs Are Executed in Spain, 2951 Jan. 6, 1937: Embargo on Arms to Spain, 2996 Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism, 3009 Apr. 26, 1937: Raids on Guernica, 3014 July 7, 1937: China Declares War on Japan, 3037 Dec., 1937-Feb., 1938: Rape of Nanjing, 3059 Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss, 3093 June 7, 1938: Chinese Forces Break Yellow River Levees, 3114 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews, 3159 Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope, 3173 3451
Category Index Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II, 3198 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland, 3209 Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II, 3213 Nov. 30, 1939-Mar. 12, 1940: Russo-Finnish War, 3219 Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, 3236 Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway, 3240 May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning, 3246 May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France, 3250 May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps, 3253 May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk, 3256 June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a TwoOcean Navy, 3258 July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain, 3267 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt, 3289 Women’s issues June 12, 1902: Australia Extends Suffrage to Women, 160 Oct. 10, 1903: Pankhursts Found the Women’s Social and Political Union, 259 May 18, 1904: International Agreement Targets White Slave Trade, 336 July 20, 1906: Finland Grants Women Suffrage, 538 Sept. 19, 1906: Bern Convention Prohibits Night Work for Women, 545 May 14, 1907: Formation of the Plunket Society, 611 Feb. 24, 1908: Muller v. Oregon, 667 1909: Mecklenburg-Schwerin Admits Women to University Education, 729 1910: Euthenics Calls for Pollution Control, 796 Mar. 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 868 1915-1919: National Birth Control League Forms, 1171 Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women, 1199 Sept. 11, 1915: Women’s Institutes Are Founded in Great Britain, 1220 Oct. 16, 1916: First American Birth Control Clinic Opens, 1295 Nov. 7, 1916: First Woman Is Elected to the U.S. Congress, 1299 3452
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 1917: National Woman’s Party Is Founded, 1309 Sept. 20, 1917: Canadian Women Gain the Vote, 1377 Feb. 6, 1918: British Women Gain the Vote, 1422 Feb. 14, 1920: League of Women Voters Is Founded, 1610 Aug. 26, 1920: U.S. Women Gain the Right to Vote, 1644 1921: First Woman Elected to Australian Parliament, 1669 Sept. 8, 1921: First Miss America Is Crowned, 1730 Nov. 11-13, 1921, and Mar. 25-31, 1925: Sanger Organizes Conferences on Birth Control, 1737 Nov. 23, 1921-June 30, 1929: Sheppard-Towner Act, 1745 Sept. 22, 1922: Cable Act, 1779 Dec. 10, 1923: Proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1871 1925-1935: Women’s Rights in India Undergo a Decade of Change, 2004 Jan. 5, 1925: First Female Governor in the United States, 2014 Aug. 6, 1926: Ederle Swims the English Channel, 2129 July 2, 1928: Great Britain Lowers the Voting Age for Women, 2246 Aug., 1930: Lambeth Conference Allows Artificial Contraception, 2437 May 20-21, 1932: First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman, 2566 Feb. 28, 1933: Perkins Becomes First Woman Secretary of Labor, 2637 World War I June 28-Aug. 4, 1914: Outbreak of World War I, 1121 June 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918: World War I, 1124 Sept. 5-9, 1914: First Battle of the Marne, 1137 Sept. 22, 1914: Germany Begins Extensive Submarine Warfare, 1143 Oct. 30, 1914: Spain Declares Neutrality in World War I, 1156 Nov. 5, 1914: British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans, 1158 Jan. 19, 1915: Germany Launches the First Zeppelin Bombing Raids, 1174 Feb. 19, 1915-Jan. 9, 1916: Gallipoli Campaign Falters, 1180 Apr. 22-27, 1915: Germany Uses Poison Gas Against Allied Troops, 1192 Apr. 24, 1915: Armenian Genocide Begins, 1195 Apr. 28-May 1, 1915: International Congress of Women, 1199
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 May 7, 1915: German Torpedoes Sink the Lusitania, 1206 Dec. 8, 1915: Poppies Become a Symbol for Fallen Soldiers, 1233 Feb. 21-Dec. 18, 1916: Battle of Verdun, 1256 May 31-June 1, 1916: Battle of Jutland, 1266 Aug., 1916: Hindenburg Program Militarizes the German Economy, 1279 Apr. 6, 1917: United States Enters World War I, 1349 Apr. 13, 1917: U.S. Curtails Civil Liberties During World War I, 1353 July 8, 1917: United States Establishes the War Industries Board, 1371 Oct. 15, 1917: France Executes Mata Hari, 1383 Mar. 3, 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431 Sept. 26-Nov. 11, 1918: Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1440 June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles, 1521 Nov. 11, 1921: Harding Eulogizes the Unknown Soldier, 1734 World War II 1929-1940: Maginot Line Is Built, 2288 Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler Comes to Power in Germany, 2625 Mar. 7, 1936: German Troops March into the Rhineland, 2927
Category Index Mar. 14, 1937: Pius XI Urges Resistance Against Nazism, 3009 Feb. 12-Apr. 10, 1938: The Anschluss, 3093 1939-1945: Nazi Extermination of the Jews, 3159 Mar. 2, 1939: Pius XII Becomes Pope, 3173 Aug., 1939: United States Begins Mobilization for World War II, 3198 Aug. 23-24, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205 Sept. 1, 1939: Germany Invades Poland, 3209 Sept. 10, 1939: Canada Enters World War II, 3213 Apr.-May, 1940: Soviets Massacre Polish Prisoners of War, 3236 Apr. 9, 1940: Germany Invades Norway, 3240 May, 1940: Roosevelt Uses Business Leaders for World War II Planning, 3246 May 10-June 22, 1940: Collapse of France, 3250 May 16, 1940-1944: Gypsies Are Exterminated in Nazi Death Camps, 3253 May 26-June 4, 1940: Evacuation of Dunkirk, 3256 June 14, 1940: United States Begins Building a TwoOcean Navy, 3258 July 10-Oct. 31, 1940: Battle of Britain, 3267 Aug. 3, 1940-Mar., 1941: Italy Invades British Somaliland, 3274 Sept., 1940: Japan Occupies Indochinese Ports, 3279 Sept. 13, 1940: Italy Invades Egypt, 3289
3453
Great Events from History
Personages Index Aalto, Aino Marsio, 2982 Aalto, Alvar, 2982 4Abb3s II, 716 Abbott, Robert Sengstacke, 818 Abdülhamid II, 244, 689, 1195 Abel, John Jacob, 942 Abel, Niels Henrick, 732, 1407 Abrahams, Peter, 1556 Abrial, Jean-Marie Charles, 3256 Acheson, Barclay, 1765 Acheson, Lila Bell, 1763 Ackermann, Wilhelm, 2318 Acton, Lord, 1824 Acuff, Roy, 2082 Adams, Ansel, 2992 Adams, Brooks, 1329 Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 534 Adams, Stanley, 1114 Adams, Thomas, Jr., 2368 Adams, Thomas S., 1379 Adams, Walter Sydney, 371, 1385, 2119, 2471 Addams, Jane, 796, 968, 1199, 1367, 1976 Ader, Clément, 365 Adler, Alfred, 2370 Adler, Stella, 2474, 2823 Adrian, Edgar Douglas, 327, 2285 Adrian, Gilbert, 3202 Aehrenthal, Alois Lexa von, 697, 856 Afgh3nt, Jam3l ad-Dtn al-, 549 Aga Khan III, 564 Agee, James, 2144 Agramonte y Simoni, Aristides, 43 Aguinaldo, Emilio, 105 Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid, 565 Aikawa, Yoshisuke, 852 Aiken, George D., 3190 Aitken, William Maxwell, 778 Alanbrooke, First Viscount, 3267 Albee, Edward, 1724 Albert, duke of Württemberg, 1192 Albright, Horace M., 1282, 1514
Alcalá-Zamora y Torres, Niceto, 2496 Aldington, Richard, 965 Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth, 59, 535, 751, 772, 1059, 1099 Aleksi (head of Russian Orthodox Church), 3195 Alexander (king of Serbia), 697 Alexander I, 1450, 1511 Alexander II, 210 Alexander III, 210, 538, 1239 Alexanderson, Ernst F. W., 1641, 2134 Alexandra, 904, 1343 Alexieff, Evgeny Ivanovich, 320 Alfonso XIII, 1156, 2496 Ali, Noble Drew, 2434 Allen, Edgar, 2226 Allen, Fred, 2352 Allen, Horace N., 838 Allen, John Frank, 3083 Allen, Woody, 2053 Allibone, T. E., 2555 Allison, James, 776 Allison, William Boyd, 59 Almeida Lima, Pedro, 2882 Alpert, Richard, 3075 Alsberg, Henry G., 2830 Alvarez, Anacleto, 892 Alvarez, Luis W., 2479 Alwall, Nils, 943 Amadeo, 3274 Amador Guerrero, Manuel, 268 Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji, 2586 Amery, L. S., 2040 Amman, Max, 2058 Ampthill, second Baron (Arthur Russell), 344 Amundsen, Roald, 917, 919 Anable, Gloria Hollister, 2427 Andersen, Arthur E., 1379 Anderson, Carl David, 995, 2029, 2583, 2615, 2785 Anderson, George W., 1530 Anderson, John August, 1388, 2119 III
Anderson, Marian, 3166 Anderson, Selina, 161 Anderson, Sherwood, 2139 Anderson, Tempest, 151 Andersson, Johan Gunnar, 1847, 3053 Andresen, August H., 2742 Andrewes, Christopher Howard, 1428 Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1798 Andrews, Thomas, 972 Angell, Norman, 790 Anouilh, Jean, 1723 Anschütz-Kaempfe, Hermann, 468 Anthony, Susan B., 1644 Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Alexandrovich, 1321 Aoki Shuzo, 555, 603 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1015, 1944 Appiah, Joseph Emmanuel, 2062 Appleton, Edward Victor, 134 Arago, François, 1223 Aragon, Louis, 1943 Arai, Clarence Takeya, 2442 Arango, Doroteo. See Villa, Pancho Aras, Tevfik Rültü, 2122 Araújo, Arturo, 2535 Arbuckle, Roscoe, 988 Archer, Sir Geoffrey Francis, 1566 Archibald, Jules François, 37 Arita, Hachirf, 3272, 3279 Arlen, Harold, 3201 Arlin, Harold W., 1562 Armour, Jonathan Ogden, 402 Armour, Philip Danforth, 402 Armstrong, Edwin H., 1562, 2885 Armstrong, Lillian Hardin, 2079 Armstrong, Louis, 1555, 1830, 2079, 2605 Armstrong, William W., 436 Arno, Peter, 2020 Arnold, Harold D., 354, 1177, 1227, 2011 Arnold, Thurman, 1151
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Arp, Hans, 1242 Arrhenius, Svante August, 3069 Arriaga, Manuel José de, 841 Arteaga, Melchor, 892 Artin, Emil, 731, 733 Arwidsson, Adolf Ivar, 1399 Asaka, Yasuhiko, 3059 Asch, Joseph J., 868 Asensio Barroso, Florentino, 2951 Ashbery, John, 864 Asimov, Isaac, 3079 Asplund, Erik Gunnar, 2982 Asquith, H. H., 756, 832, 859, 1140 Astaire, Fred, 2610, 2868 Aston, Francis William, 811, 1455 Astor, Nancy, 2246 Astrup, Eivind, 759 Atatürk, 856, 1180, 1511 Atkinson Jones, William, 1347 Aubrey, John, 900 Auden, W. H., 863, 1750, 2445 Audubon, John James, 396 Aung San, 3012 Auric, Georges, 1601 Austin, Bunny, 3127 Averbakh, Leopold, 2562 Averescu, Alexandru, 600 Avery, Clarence W., 1063 Avery, Oswald, 183 Azaña y Díaz, Manuel, 2496, 2945, 2996 4Aztz, 4Abd al-, 411 Ba Maw, 3012 Baade, Walter, 1093, 1878, 2276, 2347, 2718 Ba4al Shem Tov, 1802 Babbage, Charles, 2216 Babel, Isaac, 2563 Babson, Roger W., 2331 Bachelet, Jean, 2985 Back, Ernst, 2028 Bacon, Lloyd, 2608 Baden-Powell, Agnes, 613 Baden-Powell, Robert Stephenson Smyth, 613 Badoglio, Pietro, 2875 Baekeland, Leo Hendrik, 385 Baer, George Frederick, 152, 516 Baeyer, Adolf von, 385
Bailey, DeFord, 2084 Bailey, James A., 629 Bain, Alexander, 1874 Baird, Arthur, 1652 Baird, John Logie, 285, 1874, 2956, 3282 Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 3265 Baire, René, 100 Baker, George F., 622, 1552 Baker, George Pierce, 362 Baker, Josephine, 2073 Baker, Newton D., 1356, 1607 Bakst, Léon, 762, 820, 833, 977 Balanchine, George, 2794, 3107 Balbo, Italo, 1782 Balch, Emily Greene, 1199 Balck, Viktor, 975 Balcon, Michael, 2722 Baldwin, Benjamin, 1967 Baldwin, James, 3232 Baldwin, Roger Nash, 1607 Baldwin, Stanley, 1590, 2105, 2168, 2246, 2430, 2927, 2973 Balfour, Arthur, 756, 1389, 1531, 1621, 1741, 1777, 2517 Ball, Hugo, 1242 Balla, Giacomo, 747 Ballinger, Richard Achilles, 392, 751 Balmer, Johann Jakob, 939 Baltimore, David, 803 Balzar, Fred B., 2483 Banting, Frederick G., 142, 1689 Banton, Travis, 2396 Baras, Paul, 530 Barber, Red, 1564 Barbusse, Henri, 1696 Barclay, Sir Thomas, 331 Bardeen, John, 354, 2013 Bardon, L., 710 Barfield, Owen, 2681 Baring, Evelyn. See Cromer, first earl of Barkla, Charles Glover, 68, 471, 1807 Barnard, Chester Irving, 3066 Barnard, Christiaan, 2775 Barnard, Edward Emerson, 288 Barnard, Joseph Edwin, 2493 Barnett, Miles A. F., 135 IV
Barney, Charles, 623 Barnum, P. T., 629 Barone, Domenico, 2298 Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 2340 Barrett, Clare Belle, 2129 Barron, Clarence W., 1470 Barrow, Clyde, 2748 Barrow, Edward Grant, 1597 Barry, Philip, 362 Bartel, Kazimierz, 2111 Bartels, Julius, 2799 Bartleman, Frank, 520 Bartók, Béla, 295 Barton, Edmund, 37 Barton, Otis, 2427 Baruch, Bernard Mannes, 1371, 2866 Barzanjt, Mawmnd, 2122 Barzini, Luigi, Sr., 721 Basil, Wassili de, 3107 Bassett, Edward, 1276 Bassøe, Johannes Gerckens, 2064 Bates, Ruby, 2490 Bateson, William, 77, 378, 474 Batista y Zaldívar, Fulgencio, 236 Baudot, Jean-Maurice-Émile, 32 Bauer, Max, 1279 Bauer, Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin, 542 Baum, L. Frank, 3201 Bavolek, Cecelia, 2773 Baxter, Warner, 2608 Bayliss, William Maddock, 142 Beach, Sylvia, 1767 Beale, L. S., 2225 Beatty, David, 1266 Beatty, Edward, 2448 Beaudouin, Eugène Elie, 2979 Beck, Józef, 2111, 3209 Beck, Thomas, 2742 Beckett, Samuel, 1723, 1750 Beckmann, Max, 423, 1983 Becquerel, Alexandre-Edmond, 283, 352 Becquerel, Antoine-Henri, 1, 275, 471, 664, 2687 Beebe, William, 2427 Beers, James R., 269 Beetson, Fred, 2306 Behrens, Peter, 618, 781
Personages Index Behring, Emil von, 700, 1043 Behrman, S. N., 362 Beijerinck, Martinus W., 804 Belasco, David, 737 Bell, Alexander Graham, 1177 Bell, Charles, 327 Bell, Francis, 986 Bell, Gertrude, 1625 Bell, J. Franklin, 107 Bell, Jocelyn, 2720 Bell, Vanessa, 1993 Belousov, V. V., 953 Benedict, Ruth, 851, 2697 Benedict XV, 1360, 1630, 2044 Beneduce, Alberto, 2622 Beneš, Edvard, 1453, 3129 Bennett, Frederick, 670 Bennett, Harry, 1110 Bennett, Hugh Hammond, 2730, 2837 Bennett, James Gordon, Jr., 529 Bennett, Richard Bedford, 1636, 1709, 2430, 2440, 2448, 2575, 2581, 2834 Benois, Alexandre, 762, 766 Bentinck, William, 2004 Bentley, C. E., 429 Bentley, Mary Ann Moore, 161 Benton, William, 2713 Berardelli, Alessandro, 2200 Berchtold, Leopold von, 1008, 1121 Berg, Alban, 644, 914, 1070, 1701, 2086, 3031 Berg, Helene, 3031 Berg, Paal, 2064 Bergengren, Roy F., 2761 Berger, Hans, 2285 Bergeron, Tor, 1474 Bergson, Henri, 567, 1045, 2146 Berkeley, Busby, 2608 Berle, Adolf A., Jr., 2521 Berlin, Irving, 2868 Berliner, Emile, 96, 1023 Berman, Matvei Davidovich, 2670 Berman, Pandro Samuel, 2868 Bernadette of Lourdes, 2693 Bernanos, Georges, 1974, 3056 Bernard, Claude, 144 Bernard, Harry Virden, 2509
Bernays, Paul, 313, 2317 Bernhard, Karl, 781 Bernheim, Hippolyte, 286 Bernier, J. E., 54 Bernoulli, Jakob, 487 Bernstein, Abe, 2301 Bernstein, Eduard, 1480 Bernstein, Felix, 99, 312 Bert, Paul, 573 Berthelot, Philippe, 1621 Berthold, Arnold, 142 Bertie, Sir Francis, 127 Bertoia, Harry, 1967 Besant, Annie, 1183, 1728 Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1877, 2471 Best, Charles Herbert, 1215, 1689 Besteiro, Julián, 2496 Betancourt, Rómulo, 1794 Bethe, Hans Albrecht, 2119 Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von, 890, 1121, 1279, 1349 Bettazzi, Rodolfo, 100 Beuys, Joseph, 1244 Bevan, Edward John, 314 Beveridge, Albert J., 222, 534 Bevin, Ernest, 2105 Bianchi, Michele, 1782 Biddle, George, 2830 Bielaski, A. Bruce, 692 Bier, August Karl Gustav, 376 Billings, John Shaw, 2966 Bing, Samuel, 117 Bingham, Hiram, 892 Bini, Lucino, 3104 Bird, Paul P., 531 Birdseye, Clarence, 1306 Birdwell, Russell, 3223 Birkbeck, William John, 492 Birkeland, Olaf Kristian, 2494 Birrell, Augustine, 1262 Bischoff, Theodor von, 730 Bismarck, Otto von, 542, 582 Bissell, Melville R., 56 Bitzer, Billy, 1188 Bixby, Harold, 2189 Bjaaland, Olav, 919 Bjerknes, Jacob, 1474 Bjerknes, Vilhelm, 1474 Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne, 450 V
Black, Davidson, 1847, 3053 Black, Hugo L., 2646, 3119 Blackett, Patrick M. S., 2584 Blair, Sir Robert, 900 Blanck, Max, 868 Blatch, Harriot Stanton, 1309 Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, 865, 932, 1476 Blériot, Louis, 769 Bleyl, Fritz, 421 Bliss, Lizzie P., 2340 Blomberg, Werner von, 2767, 2927 Bloom, Robert, 1848 Bloomfield, Meyer, 1840 Blore, Eric, 2869 Blum, Léon, 334, 1663, 2740, 2899 Blum, René, 3107 Boas, Franz, 849, 2249, 2697 Bobrikov, Nikolai, 1399 Boccioni, Umberto, 747 Boda, Mike, 2199 Bogrov, Dmitry, 904 Bohlin, Birger, 1848 Bohn, René, 8 Bohr, Niels, 277, 410, 938, 962, 1103, 1804, 2027, 2172, 2390, 2688, 3146 Bolger, Ray, 3201 Bolin, Bert R., 3069 Bolton, Elmer K., 2816 Boltwood, Bertram Borden, 3, 388 Bolzano, Bernhard, 100, 305 Bonaparte, Charles Joseph, 692 Bonfield, Margaret, 2248 Bonillas, Ignacio, 845 Booth, George, 1965 Booth, H. Cecil, 56 Borah, William E., 1615, 1742, 2252, 2538, 2663, 2865 Borden, Robert Laird, 778, 859, 1636, 1709, 2440 Bordet, Jules, 10 Borja, Alfonso de. See Calixtus III Börlin, Jean, 496 Bormann, F. Herbert, 2848 Born, Max, 2242 Borzage, Frank, 2307 Bosch, Carl, 308 Bose, Subhas Chandra, 2410, 2481, 3272
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bosscha, Johannes, 367 Bosset, Vera de, 1865 Boström, Erik Gustaf, 450 Botha, Louis, 155, 830 Bothe, Walther, 1596, 2544 Bouchardon, Pierre, 1383 Boudin, Eugène, 2186 Boulanger, Nadia, 1665, 1865 Boule, Marcellin, 710 Bourgeois, Léon, 1501 Bourke-White, Margaret, 2404, 2966 Bouvin, J. A., 1680 Bouyssonie, Amédée, 710, 3285 Bouyssonie, Jean, 710 Boveri, Theodor, 102, 180 Bowers, Claude, 2997 Box, John, 1926 Boyce, William Dickson, 613 Boycott, Arthur Edwin, 573 Boyd, Charles T., 1261 Boyle, R. W., 1225 Braddon, Edward, 160 Bradfield, John Job Crew, 2549 Bradford, Gamaliel, 105 Bradford, Perry, 788 Bradley, Charles Schenck, 1892 Bradley, Francis Herbert, 306 Bradley, Guy, 396 Braga, Teófilo, 841 Bragg, Lawrence, 68, 473, 945 Bragg, William Henry, 68, 473, 945, 1223 Brahe, Tycho, 2718 Brahm, Otto, 456 Brahms, Johannes, 644 Brainard, David, 759 Brainerd, Bertha, 1564 Brancusi, Constantin, 495 Brandeis, Louis D., 667, 1011, 1145, 1149, 1155, 1269, 2552, 2841, 2999 Brandenberger, Jacques Edwin, 314 Branting, Karl Hjalmar, 1680 Braque, Georges, 683, 749, 1015, 1312 Brattain, Walter H., 354, 2013 Braun, Heinrich, 376 Bravais, Auguste, 945
Breadon, Sam, 2667 Brecht, Bertolt, 2193 Breen, Joseph L., 2725 Breen, Robert, 2871 Bréhier, Émile, 2527 Brennan, Louis, 468 Brent, Charles Henry, 956 Bresci, Gaetano, 59 Breton, André, 1243, 1943, 1974, 2213, 3227 Brett, Jeremy, 3178 Breuer, Josef, 286 Breuil, Henri-Édouard-Prosper, 3285 Brewer, David J., 667 Briand, Aristide, 1258, 1719, 1741, 2069, 2076, 2252 Bridges, Calvin Blackman, 648 Bridges, Harry, 2637 Briell, Frank, 34 Briscoe, Benjamin, 2158 Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count Ulrich von, 1521 Brockman, Hans, 1888 Brod, Max, 1170 Broderick, Helen, 2869 Broderick, Joseph, 2457 Broglie, Louis de, 410, 1103, 1804, 2242, 2493 Brokenshire, Norman, 1564 Bromwich, John, 3127 Bronstein, Lev Davidovich. See Trotsky, Leon Brookes, Norman, 1775 Brooks, Jane M., 1610 Brooks, Mel, 2053 Brooks, Van Wyck, 1587 Brooks, William Henry, 745 Broom, Robert, 1938 Broun, Heywood, 2093 Brouwer, L. E. J., 305, 2317, 3149 Brown, Henry B., 51 Brown, John Mason, 362 Brown, Kay, 3223 Brown, Kenneth, 1669 Brown, Margaret Tobin. See Brown, Molly Brown, Mary Eliza Dircksey Wittenoom, 1669 Brown, Molly, 972 VI
Browne, Byron, 2820 Browning, Tod, 2461 Brownlee, John Edward, 2424 Brownlow, Kevin, 2001 Bruce, Edward, 2830 Bruce, Nigel, 3176 Bruckman, Clyde, 2143 Brundage, Avery, 2948 Brunner, Johann Conrad, 1690 Brunswick, John, 34 Brusso, Noah. See Burns, Tommy Bryan, William Jennings, 1059, 1076, 1099, 1458, 2054 Buber, Martin, 1802 Büchner, Georg, 2086 Buck, Pearl S., 3147 Budd, Ralph, 3247 Budenny, Semyon Mikhaylovich, 1715 Budge, Don, 3127 Buell, Dorothy, 2182 Buffington, Joseph, 1618 Buisson, Henri, 1053 Bukharin, Nikolay Ivanovich, 1253, 1711, 2241, 2263, 2562, 3298 Bulkley, Robert J., 3090 Bullen, K. E., 1033 Bullitt, William, 2690, 2997 Bülow, Bernhard von, 317, 411 Bülow, Karl von, 1137 Bulwer-Lytton, Victor. See Lytton, second earl of Bunau-Varilla, Philippe-Jean, 268, 271 Buñuel, Luis, 2213, 3226 Burali-Forti, Cesare, 162 Burchenal, John J., 1633 Burel, Léonce-Henry, 2001 Burgess, Ernest W., 1962 Burgess, Thomas William, 2129 Burkan, Nathan, 1114 Burleson, Albert Sidney, 1367, 1528, 1608, 1648 Burliuk, David, 749 Burnham, Daniel Hudson, 1386 Burnham, John B., 3050 Burns, George, 2352 Burns, John, 513 Burns, Lucy, 1309
Personages Index Burns, Tommy, 719 Burns, William J., 1959 Burroughs, John, 230-231 Burrows, Montrose, 610 Burton, Theodore E., 678, 2047 Burton, William Merriam, 1049 Bury, J. B., 1824 Busch, Hans, 2493 Bush, Vannevar, 2216 Bushnell, David, 541 Busoni, Ferruccio, 587, 2193 Bussel, Joseph, 723 Butler, Harold B., 1517 Butler, Josephine, 336 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 847, 1363, 2253 Butler, Pierce, 1892, 2841, 2999 Butler, Smedley, 991 Butlerov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, 2392 Buxton, First Earl (Sydney Charles Buxton), 1862 Byng, Julian, 1637, 1710, 1947 Byrne, Ethel, 1295 Byrnes, James F., 3198, 3246 Caballero, Bernardino, 2923 Cable, John Levi, 1779 Cáceras, Ramón, 735 Cachin, Marcel, 1663 Cadbury, Henry J., 1356 Cadman, Sir John, 1621, 2259 Cagney, James, 2366, 2467 Cagni, Umberto, 760 Cahill, Holger, 2830 Cai Yuanpei, 1506 Calder, Alexander, 1020 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 3226 Calixtus III, 1630 Callendar, Guy Stewart, 3069 Calles, Plutarco Elías, 843 Calmette, Albert, 1683 Calmette, Gaston, 978 Calvin, John, 302 Calvo Sotelo, José, 2945 Cambó, Francisco, 1156 Cambon, Jules, 1531, 1853 Cambon, Pierre Paul, 331 Cameron, Donald, 2343 Cameron, George Harvey, 1595
Campbell, Henry H., 1143 Campbell, John W., Jr., 3079 Campbell, Walter Gilbert, 2164, 3122 Campbell, William Wallace, 1912 Campbell-Bannerman, Henry, 830 Camus, Albert, 1974 Canales, José Tomás, 2304 Canby, Henry Seidel, 2092 Caneva, Carlo, 856 Canfield, Dorothy, 3230 Canham, Erwin D., 707 Cannon, Annie Jump, 576 Cannon, James, 2219 Cannon, Joseph Gurney, 535, 751 Cannon, William, 3201 Cantacuzino, Gheorghe, 602 Cantor, Eddie, 2352 Cantor, Georg, 99, 162, 311, 732, 2317, 3149 Cantril, Hadley, 3139 Canudo, Ricciotto, 2001 Canutt, Yakima, 3152 Capel, Arthur, 1549 Capone, Al, 1604, 2301 Capper, Arthur, 2761 Capra, Frank, 2364, 2376, 2725 Caraway, Hattie, 1301 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 843, 3098 Cardozo, Benjamin N., 2464, 2841, 2999 Carhart, Arthur H., 1931 Carlos I, 841 Carlson, Chester F., 3134 Carmichael, Franklin, 1628 Carnap, Rudolf, 1754, 2318 Carnarvon, fifth earl of. See Herbert, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Carnegie, Andrew, 47, 208, 428, 847 Carnegie, Dale, 2953 Carnovsky, Morris, 2474 Caro, Heinrich, 308 Carol I, 600 Carothers, Wallace Hume, 387, 2816 Carpenter, Farrington, 2764 Carr, Joseph F., 1638 Carrà, Carlo, 747 VII
Carranza, Venustiano, 843, 1259, 1332 Carrasco, Sergeant, 892 Carrel, Alexis, 81, 462, 610, 942 Carroll, James, 43 Carroll, Madeleine, 2722 Carson, Sir Edward, 1140, 1578 Carson, Hampton L., 217 Carson, Rachel, 2380 Cartan, Henri, 3150 Carter, Howard, 1784 Carty, John J., 1227, 2011 Caruso, Enrico, 98, 146 Casares Quiroga, Santiago, 2945 Cascariolo, Vincenzo, 2963 Casement, Sir Roger, 704, 983, 1262 Cassatt, Alexander J., 516 Casson, Alfred Joseph, 1628 Castelnau, Noël-Marie-JosephÉdouard de Curières de, 1256 Castle, William E., 639, 728 Castner, Hamilton Young, 635 Cather, Willa, 1403 Caton, Richard, 2285 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 1301, 1610, 1644 Cautley, R. W., 2425 Cavaillès, Jean, 2320 Cave, A. J. E., 712 Cayley, Arthur, 1407 Cecil, Robert (1830-1903). See Salisbury, third marquis of Cecil, Lord Robert (1864-1958), 790, 1501 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, 2524 Celler, Emanuel, 3044 Cemal Pala, Ahmed, 1195 Cendrars, Blaise, 496, 1601, 2001 Cerha, Friedrich, 3032 Cerletti, Ugo, 3104 Cernuda, Luis, 3228 Césaire, Aimé, 2532 Cézanne, Paul, 443, 496, 683, 1057, 2187 Chadwick, Henry, 3193 Chadwick, James, 2544, 2556, 2615, 2688, 3144 Chagall, Marc, 2709 Chagas, Carlos, 185
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Chain, Ernst Boris, 2256, 3243 Chamberlain, Austen, 2069 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 1476 Chamberlain, Joseph, 155 Chamberlain, Joseph P., 2253 Chamberlain, Neville, 1590, 2969, 3093, 3129, 3205, 3209, 3240 Chambers, Frank A., 531 Chancellor, Sir John, 2321 Chandler, Raymond, 2325 Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan, 1252, 2471 Chanel, Coco, 1549 Chaney, Lon, 2461 Chang Chih-tung. See Zhang Zhidong Chang Hsüeh-liang. See Zhang Xueliang Chang Kuo-t’ao. See Zhang Guotao Chanute, Octave, 278 Chaplin, Charles, 737, 988, 2050, 2307, 2378 Chaplin, Lita Grey, 2050 Chapman, Frank, 396 Chapman, Sydney, 2799 Charch, William Hale, 316 Charcot, Jean-Martin, 286 Charles, Arthur, 1216 Charles, Jacques, 2073 Charles VII, 1630 Chase, Lucia, 2908 Chase, Martha, 184 Chase, Stuart, 2902 Chashnik, Ilia, 1235 Chatfield-Taylor, Hobart C., 1001 Chautemps, Camille, 2740 Chavis, Benjamin F., 746 Chaykovsky, Nikolay Vasilyevich, 1416 Chen Duxiu, 1506 Ch’en Tu-hsiu. See Chen Duxiu Cheney, Arthur S., 721 Cheney, Charles H., 1277 Cherenkov, Pavel Alekseyevich, 2701 Cherington, Paul Terry, 675 Chernov, Viktor, 1326 Chesterton, G. K., 2066
Chevalier, Maurice, 2705 Chevalley, Charles, 3150 Chiang Kai-shek, 1835, 2096, 2509, 2628, 2777, 3037, 3059, 3114 Chiappe, Jean, 2740 Chicherin, Georgy Vasilyevich, 1772 Chiesa, Giacomo della. See Benedict XV Chilowski, Constantin, 1223 Chinda Sutemi, 1076, 1531 Choate, Joseph H., 847 Chopin, Frédéric, 355, 766 Chou En-lai. See Zhou Enlai Christie, Agatha, 1571, 2325 Christy, Howard Chandler, 1730 Christy, James, 2408 Chrysler, Walter P., 2158 Chu Teh. See Zhu De Church, Alonzo, 101, 1463, 2806 Churchill, Winston, 756, 1590, 1862, 2246, 2879, 2927, 2973, 3213, 3236, 3276; Abyssinian Campaign, 3274; Battle of Britain, 3267; British Broadcasting Corporation, 2170; Dunkirk evacuation, 3256; French collapse in World War II, 3250; Gallipoli Campaign, 1180; German invasion of Norway, 3240; Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140; Italian invasion of Egypt, 3289; opposition to Delhi Pact, 2481 Ciano, Galeazzo, 3184, 3209 Cicotte, Eddie, 1538 Cixi, 29 Clark, Champ, 1011 Clark, E. E., 152 Clark, James Beauchamp. See Clark, Champ Clark, Kenneth, 3233 Clark, Les, 3063 Clarke, Edward Young, 1705 Clarke, James. See Kachellek, Albert Clarke, Tom, 1262 Claus, Carl, 699 Clayton, Henry D., 1149 VIII
Clemenceau, Georges, 1483, 1521, 1531, 1621, 1719, 2186 Clément, Albert, 530 Clements, Frederic E., 2846 Cleveland, Grover, 157, 392, 1336 Clouston, Sir Edward Seaborne, 778 Clunet, Édouard, 1383 Clurman, Harold, 2474 Coacci, Feruccio, 2199 Coad, Bert Raymond, 1303 Coates, Joseph Gordon, 986 Coburn, Alvin Langdon, 130 Cochrane, Sir Archibald Douglas, 3012 Cockcroft, John Douglas, 2244, 2555 Cocteau, Jean, 1549-1550, 1601, 1673, 1865, 2813 Coghlan, Sir Charles Patrick John, 1862 Cohan, George M., 348 Cohen, Felix, 2757 Cohen, Fritz A., 2569 Cohen, Wilbur J., 2853 Cohnheim, Julius, 700 Colbert, Claudette, 2364, 2725 Colby, William E., 1282, 3076 Coldwell, James, 2581 Cole, Sydney W., 20, 484 Cole, William Morse, 675 Colin, Paul, 2073 Colladon, Daniel, 1223 Collet, Henri, 1601 Collier, John (1884-1968), 2757, 2780 Collins, George B., 2702 Collins, Michael, 2547 Collins, Tom, 3180 Collins, Wayne Mortimer, 2442 Collip, James Bertram, 1689 Colt, LeBaron Bradford, 1725 Comiskey, Charles A., 1538 Commons, John R., 3066 Compton, Archie, 2452 Compton, Arthur Holly, 410, 473, 1594, 1807 Comstock, Anthony, 1171, 1295 Condon, Edward U., 2242
Personages Index Connally, John, 2572 Connery, William P., 2855 Connolly, Bobby, 3203 Connolly, James, 1262 Connolly, Walter, 2725 Conrad, Frank, 1562, 1641, 2132 Conrad, Joseph, 87, 266 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz, 856 Constantine I, 1511 Conti, Piero Ginori, 1025 Cook, Frederick Albert, 759 Cook, William. See Tudor, Antony Coolidge, Calvin, 1447, 1698, 1857, 1935, 1949, 1959, 2047, 2115 Cooper, Kent, 32 Cooper, Merian, 2364 Coote, William Alexander, 336 Copeland, Melvin T., 674 Copeland, Royal S., 3122 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 1877 Copland, Aaron, 215, 1665, 3109 Corbusier. See Le Corbusier Corfield, Richard, 1566 Cormack, Allan M., 68 Corn, Alfred, 2402 Correll, Charles, 2230 Correns, Carl Erich, 77, 180, 378 Cortelyou, George B., 219 Cory, William Wallace, 2424 Cosgrave, William T., 2547 Costa, Afonso Augusto da, 841, 1531 Cottrell, Frederick Gardner, 478, 836 Coubertin, Pierre de, 976, 1903 Coughlin, Charles, 2338, 2737, 3058; socialist tenets, 2354 Coulson, Charles A., 2392 Couturat, Louis, 306 Couzens, James, 1063 Covici, Pascal, 3180 Cowan, C. L., 2689 Cowan, Edith Dircksey, 1669 Cowan, James, 1669 Cowan, Thomas H., 1562 Coward, Noël, 2618 Cowell, Henry, 1247
Cowles, Alfred, 1892 Cowles, Eugene, 1892 Cowles, Henry C., 2182 Cox, Harold, 1737 Cox, James M., 1447 Cox, Sir Percy Zachariah, 1625, 2122 Craft, Edward B., 2011, 2202 Craig, Burt J., 2907 Craig, Gordon, 355 Craig, James, 1140, 1578 Craig, Ralph, 975 Craig, Samuel W., 2092 Crane, Charles R., 3096 Crane, Frederick E., 1295 Crane, Hart, 1331, 1750, 2400 Crane, Stephen, 266 Crawford, Cheryl, 2474 Crawford, Joan, 2610 Creel, George, 1353, 1367 Crick, Francis, 68, 184, 2392 Crile, George Washington, 462 Crissinger, Daniel Richard, 2179 Croly, Herbert, 1161 Cromer, first earl of (Evelyn Baring), 716 Cromwell, William Nelson, 271 Crookes, Sir William, 558, 664 Crosby, Bing, 2352 Cross, Charles Frederick, 314 Cross, Milton, 1564 Crowe, Frank, 2930 Cukor, George, 3201, 3224 Cullen, Countée, 1555 Cullen, Michael, 1290 Cullinan, Joseph S., 40 Cumming, Hugh S., 185 Cummings, Homer S., 2999 Cuniberti, Vittorio, 552 Cuno, Wilhelm, 1826 Curie, Marie, 1, 275, 471, 2616 Curie, Pierre, 1, 276, 471 Curtis, Heber Doust, 291, 935, 1419, 1953 Curtis, Thomas, 34 Curtiz, Michael, 2378 Curzon, George Nathaniel, 344, 1779 Cyril III, 2040 Czolgosz, Leon, 59 IX
Daladier, Édouard, 2288, 2740, 3129, 3205, 3209 Dale, Henry Hallet, 327 Dalí, Salvador, 1943, 2213, 2813, 3226 Dalio, Marcel, 2985 Dalton, John, 811, 1455 Damant, Guybon C. C., 573 Damas, Léon-Gontran, 2532 Daniels, Josephus, 1614, 1857, 3098 Dante, 1329 Darcy, Jimmy, 2238 D’Arcy, William Knox, 681 Darling, Jay, 226, 2742, 2915, 3050 Darrow, Clarence, 2054, 2663 Dart, Raymond Arthur, 1848, 1938 Darwin, Charles, 106, 112-113, 567, 638, 726, 1458, 1477, 1938, 2066, 2697 Darwin, Charles Galton, 938 Das, Chittaranjan, 1583 Dato Iradier, Eduardo, 1156 Daugherty, Harry M., 1155, 1698, 1959, 2115 Daunt, John Gilbert, 3084 Daven, André, 2073 Davidson, Charles Rundle, 1542 Davies, Arthur B., 1056, 2340, 2515 Davies, Stuart, 1057 Davies, W. Sanders, 1292 Davis, Arthur Powell, 2930 Davis, Chester C., 2730, 3247 Davis, Cleo, 3163 Davis, Harry P., 1563, 1641 Davis, James J., 1926 Davis, John, 54 Davis, Stuart, 2820 Davis, Theodore M., 1784 Davison, Emily, 262 Dawes, Charles G., 1814, 1826, 1941, 2069 Dawes, Henry Laurens, 1929 Dawn, Jack, 3202 Dawson, Charles, 1938 Dawson, George Geoffrey, 2973 Dawson, Thomas C., 735, 992 Day, Albert M., 3051
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Day Lewis, C., 2445 Dearmer, Percy, 492 DeBarr, Edwin, 1850 De Bono, Emilio, 1782 Debrie, André, 2001 Debs, Eugene V., 425, 1353, 1367, 1608 Debussy, Claude, 932, 977 Debye, Peter J. W., 68 Decastello, Alfred von, 11 Dedekind, Richard, 732, 1677 De Dion, Albert, 242 Deering, William, 173 De Finetti, Bruno, 1463 De Forest, Lee, 352, 1022, 1177, 1227, 1562, 1641, 2593 Degas, Edgar, 2186 De Geer, Gerard Louis, 1680 De Groot, Francis, 2549 De Havilland, Olivia, 3223 Deisenhofer, Johann, 68 Delano, Frederic, 1100 De la Rey, Jacobus Hercules, 155 Delaunay, Robert, 749, 1015 Delcassé, Théophile, 331, 411 Delgado, Marcel, 2364 Delsarte, François, 1212 Delsarte, Jean, 3150 De Mille, Agnes, 2908, 3109 DeMille, Cecil B., 1820, 2376 DeMille, William C., 2306 Deming, Lola S., 1055 Dempsey, Jack, 1540 Denby, Edwin, 1616 Denham, Sergei, 3107 Denikin, Anton Ivanovich, 1321, 1416 Denman, Gertrude, 1220 Dennett, Mary Ware, 1171 Depew, Chauncey, 437 Derain, André, 447, 494, 1016 De Rossi, Michele Stefano, 2809 Descamps, Édouard Eugène François, 1657 Descartes, René, 327, 2527 Desgrange, Henri, 242 DeSilver, Albert, 1607 Desjardins, Alphonse, 2761 Deslandres, Henri-Alexandre, 288, 2384
Desnos, Robert, 1673 Dessauer, John H., 3134 Deterding, Henri W. A., 2259 Deupree, Richard R., 1633 De Valera, Eamon, 461, 1578, 2547 De Vecchi, Cesare Maria, 1782 DeVries, William, 2775 Dewey, John, 593, 1245, 1962 Diaghilev, Sergei, 355, 632, 762, 766, 833, 977, 1079, 1865 Díaz, Adolfo, 735, 991 Díaz, Felix, 844 Díaz, Porfirio, 843, 1259, 1332 Dickey, W. A., 1339 Dickson, William, 1022 Dickstein, Samuel, 3111 Diegel, Leo, 2452 Diem, Carl, 2948 Dies, Martin, Jr., 2637, 3111 Dietrich, Marlene, 2396 Dietrich, Noah, 1901 Dietz, Robert Sinclair, 952 Dieudonné, Jean, 3149 Dilg, Will H., 1760 Dill, Clarence C., 2855 Dillingham, William Paul, 1336, 1725, 1922 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 582, 2146 Dimitrov, Georgi Mikhailovich, 2632 Dinneen, Bill, 256 Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice, 2029, 2583, 2687 Disney, Walt, 3063, 3295 Dix, Otto, 423, 1983, 3040 Dixon, Frederick, 708 Dixon, Joseph M., 1838 Dixon, Thomas, Jr., 1188; The Clansman, 1189 Dixon, Walter F., 382 Dmowski, Roman, 2109 Dmytryk, Edward, 2378 Doak, William N., 2350 Dobson, G. M. B., 1053 Dodds, Johnny, 2079 Dodge, Mabel, 1056 Doesburg, Theo van, 1312, 1412 Doheny, Edward L., 1616, 1698, 1857 X
Doisy, E. A., 2226 Dokuchayev, Vasily Vasilyevich, 2089 D’Olier, Franklin, 1493 Domagk, Gerhard, 2529 Donald, Frank C., 137 Donat, Robert, 2722 Donath, W. F., 1888 Donham, Wallace B., 1551 Donovan, William J., 1493 Doolittle, James Rood, 1929 Dorzhiev, Agvan, 344 Dos Passos, John, 362 Dostoevski, Fyodor, 2524 Doubleday, Abner, 3193 Doubleday, Nelson, 2092 Douglas, Donald W., Sr., 2941 Douglas, Paul H., 2182, 2855 Douglas, Stewart, 701 Douglas, Tommy, 2581 Dowding, Hugh, 3267 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1571, 2325, 3176 Drebbel, Cornelis, 541 Dreier, Mary, 868 Drew, F. L., 1386 Drew, John, 1730 Dreyfus, Alfred, 334 Dreyfuss, Barney, 256 Dreyfuss, Doris Marks, 2976 Dreyfuss, Henry, 2279, 2976 Drinker, Cecil, 2314 Drinker, Philip, 2314 Drummond, James Eric, 1657 Dubbs, Carbon P., 1051 Dubbs, Jesse A., 1051 Dube, John Langalibalele, 954 Dubinsky, David, 2888 Dubois, Eugène, 712, 1848, 1938 Du Bois, W. E. B., 428, 744, 818 Dubrovin, Aleksandr, 452 Duchamp, Marcel, 749, 1019, 1056, 1243, 1673 Duckworth, George, 1993 Duckworth, Stella, 1994 Dudley, Caroline, 2073 Duff, Douglas, 2321 Dufy, Raoul, 820 Duke, James Buchanan, 177, 886 Duncan, Isadora, 355, 632, 932
Personages Index Dundas, Lawrence, 3012 Dupanloup, Félix-AntoinePhilibert, 1630 Du Pont, Alfred I., 188 Du Pont, Irénée, 1659 Du Pont, Pierre, 1659 Durant, Will, 2102 Durant, William Crapo, 672, 1659, 2158 Durey, Louis, 1601 Durham, Herbert Edward, 10 Durkheim, Émile, 302, 334 Duryea, Charles E., 2158 Duryea, J. Frank, 2158 Dutcher, William, 396 Du Toit, Alexander Logie, 950 Duwish, Faisal al-, 948 Dyer, Reginald Edward Harry, 1183, 1497 Dylan, Bob, 2359 Dyson, Frank, 1541 Dyson, Hugo, 2681 Dzerzhinski, Feliks Edmundovich, 1393 Dzhugashvili, Joseph Vissarionovich. See Stalin, Joseph Eames, Charles, 1965 Earhart, Amelia, 2566; map, 2567 Earle, Wilton, 610 East, Edward Murray, 728 Eastman, Charles, 1005 Eastman, Crystal, 1607 Eastman, George, 385, 1022, 2175 Eaton, Fred, 1088, 1918 Ebeid, William Makram, 3020 Ebert, Friedrich, 1409, 1479, 1491, 1525, 1719 Eccles, Marriner, 2857 Eccles, W. H., 135 Eckener, Hugo, 1174, 3017 Eckersley, Peter, 2168 Eckholm, H. Conrad, 1730 Eddington, Arthur Stanley, 290, 1252, 1541, 1654, 1912, 2119, 2471 Eddy, Mary Baker, 707 Eddy, Nelson, 2708 Eden, Anthony, 2875, 3256
Ederle, Gertrude, 2129 Edison, Thomas Alva, 18, 32, 96, 253, 352, 417, 561, 1022, 1209, 2175; motion-picture technology, 2202; motion pictures, 2461 Edlefsen, Niels, 2477 Edlén, Bengt, 2384 Edward VII, 331, 616 Edward VIII. See Windsor, duke of Edwards, M. L., 2775 Edwards, Marie Stuart, 1610 Egan, Robert, 1040 Egas Moniz, António, 2882 Ehrlich, Paul, 11, 376, 699, 823, 2529 Eichmann, Adolf, 3159 Eicke, Theodor, 2640 Eijkman, Christiaan, 14, 484, 1887 Einhorn, Alfred, 376 Einstein, Albert, 284, 408, 440, 1230, 1250, 1406, 1541, 1804, 2172, 3170; gravitation theory, 2155 Einthoven, Willem, 365 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 1836, 2112, 2572 Eisenstaedt, Alfred, 2966 Eisenstein, Sergei, 1968, 2002, 2148 Eldridge, Clark, 3292 Elgar, Edward, 713 Eliot, Charles William, 674, 1269 Eliot, T. S., 966, 1328, 1748, 2035, 2140, 2400, 2445 Elk, John, 1929 Ellenberger, Jules, 1568 Ellington, Duke, 1555, 2206 Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Gilbert John. See Minto, Lord Elliott, Harriet, 3247 Elliott, Maude Howe, 1366 Ellis, Charles A., 3022 Ellis, Havelock, 1296 Elster, Julius, 1, 283 Elton, Charles, 2848 Éluard, Paul, 3016 Elwell, Herbert, 1665 XI
Emde, Carl, 1063 Enders, John Franklin, 2386 Endicott, Thomas P., 1730 Engels, Friedrich, 1253, 2697 Engler, Carl, 308 Enstrom, John, 2774 Enver Pala, 689, 1195 Epstein, Abraham, 1838, 2855 Epstein, Charlotte, 2129 Epstein, Jacob, 1017 Epstein, Jean, 2001 Equevilley-Montjustin, Raymondo Lorenzo d’, 541 Erdman, Constantine Jacob, 657 Erikunnan Ali Mussaliar, 1728 Erlanger, Abraham, 350 Erlenberg, Samuel, 3150 Ermilov, Vladimir, 2283 Ermolaeva, Vera, 1235 Ernst, Max, 1019, 1943 Erté, 820 Escherich, Theodor, 1043 Estigarribia, José Félix, 2923 Estournelles de Constant, PaulHenri-Benjamin d’, 847 Estrada, Juan José, 991 Eugene, Frank, 130 Euler-Chelpin, Hans von, 1888 Euripéos, Petros, 1853 Evans, Florrie, 346 Evans, Hiram Wesley, 1705 Evans, Oliver, 1063 Evers-Williams, Myrlie, 746 Ewen, Harold, 2162 Exner, Franz, 995 Fabry, Charles, 1053 Fackenthal, Frank Diehl, 1363 Facta, Luigi, 1782 Fadeev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 2563 Fairbanks, Douglas, Sr., 737, 2306 Fairchild, George, 1905 Fairgrieve, John M., 531 Faisal I, 949, 1623, 1625, 1777 Falck, August, 654 Falkenhayn, Erich von, 1192, 1256, 1279 Falkenhorst, Nikolaus von, 3240 Fall, Albert B., 1614, 1698, 1857
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Farabundo Martí, Agustín, 2535 Fard, Wallace D., 2434; identity, 2435 Farley, James Aloysius, 2596 Farnham, Joseph, 2307 Farnsworth, Philo T., 3186 Farouk I, 2228 Farquharson, Frederick B., 3292 Farr, Leo, 2774 Farrakhan, Louis, 2436 Faulhaber, Michael von, 3009 Faulkner, William, 266, 2327 Faure, Élie, 2001 Faure, Paul, 1663 Faust, Frederick, 925 Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, 259, 545, 1422 Fay, Frank J., 359 Fay, William George, 359, 597 Fayol, Henri, 1272, 3066 Fechner, Robert, 2652 Fedin, Konstantin Aleksandrovich, 2563 Feigl, Herbert, 1754 Feininger, Lyonel, 1460, 1915 Fels, Joseph, 1059 Felsch, Happy, 1538 Felton, Rebecca Latimer, 1301 Ferber, Edna, 2210 Ferdinand I, 244, 1008 Ferguson, Miriam A., 1301, 2015 Fermi, Enrico, 2687, 2989, 3143 Ferris, Scott, 1615 Fersman, A. E., 2089 Fessenden, Reginald Aubrey, 73, 561, 1223, 1227, 1641 Fetter, Frank A., 84 Feynman, Richard P., 1408 Fields, Herbert, 3201 Figueroa y Torres, Álvaro de, 1156 Filene, Edward A., 2761 Finch, Stanley W., 692 Fini, Léonor, 2813 Finlay, Carlos Juan, 44, 185, 298, 3025 Finley, Harry, 1731 Fischer, Emil, 12 Fischer, Eugen, 3253 Fischer, Guido, 376
Fischer, Mochi, 601 Fischer, Theodor, 618 Fish, Hamilton, 1734 Fisher, Alva J., 792 Fisher, Carl G., 776 Fisher, Irving, 2331 Fisher, Sir John, 552, 1180 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 1459, 1750, 2033, 2139 Fitzgerald, LeMoine, 1628 Fitzgerald, Zelda, 2033 Fitzpatrick, John, 1535 Flanagan, Hallie, 2830, 2860 Flandin, Pierre-Étienne, 2927 Flatt, Lester, 3163 Flaubert, Gustave, 1168, 1972 Fleischmann, Raoul, 2020 Fleming, Alexander, 2256, 3243 Fleming, John Ambrose, 352 Fleming, Sir Sandford, 778 Fleming, Victor, 3201, 3223 Fletcher, Duncan U., 998, 2750 Fletcher, Harvey, 741 Flett, John Smith, 151 Flexner, Abraham, 1074 Flexner, Simon, 1074 Flick, J. B., 2773 Flint, Charles Ranlett, 1905 Flint, F. S., 965 Flohr, Albert, 382 Flores Magon, Ricardo, 1354 Florey, Baron (Howard Walter Florey), 2256, 3243 Florio, Vincenzo, 529 Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 425 Flynn, John, 2238 Fo, Dario, 2284 Foch, Ferdinand, 1137, 1192, 1440 Fokine, Michel, 355, 632, 762, 766, 833, 977, 3107 Fokker, Anthony, 1202 Follett, Mary Parker, 3066 Fonck, René, 2190 Fontanne, Lynn, 2618 Foraker, Joseph Benson, 430, 1347 Forbes, B. C. (1880-1954), 1374 Forbes, Bruce (1916-1964), 1374 Forbes, Charles R., 1698 Forbes, Malcolm, 1374 Force, Juliana Rieser, 2514, 2820 XII
Ford, Clara Bryant, 2906 Ford, Edsel, 2906 Ford, George B., 1276 Ford, Gerald R., 2047 Ford, Henry, 670, 1063, 1110, 1201, 1274, 1661, 2024, 2158; Ford Foundation, 2906 Ford, Henry, II, 1661 Ford, John, 2378, 3152 Forel, François-Alphonse, 2809 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 1705 Foss, Eugene N., 980 Foster, Michael, 327 Foster, William Z., 1535 Foucault, Léon, 468 Foucault, Michel, 1434 Fountaine, William, 2274 Fowler, Ralph H., 2119, 2471, 2896 Fox, William, 417, 2203, 2234, 2377 Fraenkel, Abraham Adolf, 311 Fraenkel, Michael, 2770 Franchet d’Espérey, Louis-FélixMarie-François, 1137 Francia, José Gaspar Rodríguez de, 2923 Francis, Thomas, Jr., 1428 Francis Ferdinand, 1121, 1124, 1450; assassination, 2070 Franck, Jean-Michel, 2813 Franco, Francisco, 2945, 2947, 2951, 2996, 3014, 3034 Franco, Rafael, 2923 Frank, Adolf, 308 Frank, Ilya Mikhailovich, 2701 Frank, Leo, 1085 Frank, Philipp, 1754 Frankfurter, Felix, 1844 Franklin, Benjamin, 2112 Franklin, Sir John, 54, 759 Fraser, Peter, 2891 Frazee, Harry, 1597 Frazer, George E., 1980 Frazer, Sir James George, 2066 Fréchet, Maurice, 481 Free, Edwin Elway, 2427 Freed, Arthur, 3201 Freeman, Derek, 2251 Freeman, Sir Ralph, 2549
Personages Index Freeman, Walter Jackson, 2882 Freeman-Thomas, Freeman, 1728 Frege, Gottlob, 162, 311, 814, 3149 French, John, 1137 Frenkel, Naftaly Aronovich, 2670 Frerichs, Friedrich Theodor von, 823 Fresnay, Pierre, 2985 Freud, Sigmund, 6, 286, 928, 1945, 2066, 2370 Freudenthal, Axel Olof, 539 Frey, Emile, 545 Frey, John P., 3111 Frick, Ford Christopher, 3193 Frick, Henry Clay, 47 Friedman, Milton, 2919 Friedmann, Aleksandr, 2156 Friedrich, Walter, 946 Frisch, Karl von, 1495 Frisch, Otto Robert, 3143 Fritsch, Werner von, 2927 Frobenius, Leo, 1329, 2532 Frobisher, Sir Martin, 54 Frölich, Theodor, 2222 From, Haakon, 1397 Frossard, Louis-Oscar, 1663 Frost, Edwin Brant, 288 Frye, Jack, 2941 Fu Sinian, 1506 Fu Ssu-nien. See Fu Sinian Fu$3d I, 716 Fuller, Alfred Carl, 1028 Fuller, Alvan T., 2199 Fuller, Avard E., 1028 Fuller, Howard, 1028 Fuller, Melville W., 51, 222, 661 Fuller, R. Buckminster, 2981 Funk, Casimir, 16, 484 Funston, Frederick, 522, 1259 Furtwängler, Wilhelm, 2360 Fysh, Wilmot Hudson, 1652 Gable, Clark, 2364, 2610, 2725, 3223 Gabor, Dennis, 2493 Gabrielson, Ira N., 3051 Gade Corson, Amelia, 2129 Gainford, First Baron. See Pease, Joseph Albert
Gaisberg, Frederick William, 146 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 3068 Galen, 1757 Galey, John H., 40 Galfand, Alexander, 695 Galileo, 1877 Galle, Johann, 2408 Galliéni, Joseph-Simon, 1137 Galois, Évariste, 732, 1407 Galton, Francis, 726, 1476 Gamelin, Maurice, 2927, 3250 Gamow, George, 1879, 2242, 2276, 2555 Gance, Abel, 2001 Gandhi, Mahatma, 239, 566, 1183, 1498, 1583, 1728, 2004, 2480; Poona Pact, 2586; Salt March, 2410 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. See Gandhi, Mahatma Gandil, Chick, 1538-1539 Gapon, George, 399 Garbo, Greta, 2364 García Lorca, Federico, 3226 Gardener, Cornelius, 105 Gardner, Erle Stanley, 1571 Garen, Amos, 3164 Garfield, James Rudolph, 219, 392, 751, 883 Garin, Maurice, 242 Garland, Charles, 1609 Garland, Judy, 3201 Garmes, Lee, 2396 Garner, John Nance, 2596 Garnier, Tony, 2979 Garrod, Archibald E., 183 Garros, Roland, 1202 Garvey, Amy Jacques, 1358 Garvey, Marcus, 818, 1358, 2062, 2435 Gary, Elbert Henry, 47, 173, 1535, 1618 Garza, Ben, 2304 Gasparri, Pietro, 2298 Gates, Frederick T., 1074 Gaudí, Antonio, 800 Gauguin, Paul, 495, 2187 Gaulle, Charles de, 2288, 2899; June 18 Appeal, 3252 Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 732, 1677 XIII
Gay, Edwin F., 674, 1551 Gay, Frank William, 1899 Gaynor, Janet, 2307 Gearhart, Bertrand Wesley, 2992 Geddes, Auckland C., 1741 Geddes, Norman Bel, 2279, 2976 Geiger, Hans, 3, 664, 962, 1103, 2242 Geiger, Robert, 2730 Geissler, Heinrich, 17, 66, 2963 Geitel, Hans Friedrich, 1, 283 Gellhorn, Edna Fischel, 1610 Genet, Jean, 1724 Genocchi, Giovanni, 983 George, Stefan, 645 George V, 756, 1124, 1775 George VI, 2974 Gerard, James Watson, 1349 Gerlache, Adrien de, 919 Gernsback, Hugo, 3079 Gershon-Cohen, Jacob, 1040 Gershwin, George, 1909, 2871 Gershwin, Ira, 2871 Gestetner, Sigmund, 2279 Gey, George, 610 Ghali, Wasef Boutros, 3020 Ghali, Wasif Butrus. See Ghali, Wasef Boutros Giannini, Amadeo P., 2457 Gibbon, John H., Jr., 2773 Gibbon, Mary Hopkinson, 2773 Gibbons, Cedric, 2307 Gide, André, 863, 1972 Gierke, Otto, 730 Giffard, Pierre, 242 Gifford, Walter S., 3066 Gil Robles y Quiñones, José María, 2496 Gilbreth, Frank Bunker, 1118 Gilbreth, Lillian Evelyn, 1118 Gillespie, A. Arnold, 3202 Gillette, King Camp, 250 Gillette, William, 3178 Gilson, Étienne, 2527 Ginsberg, Allen, 2402 Giolitti, Giovanni, 856 Giraudoux, Jean, 1723 Girouard, Sir Percy, 873 Gish, Lillian, 1188 Gladkov, Fedor Vasil’evich, 2563
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Gladstone, William Ewart, 74, 1140 Glaser, Joe, 2080 Glass, Carter, 1099, 2659, 2857 Glassey, Thomas, 160 Glazer, Benjamin, 2307 Glazunov, Aleksandr, 766 Gleason, Henry Allen, 2846 Gleizes, Albert, 1015 Gobineau, Joseph-Arthur de, 1476 Gockel, Albert, 1594 Goddard, Robert H., 203, 2099 Gödel, Kurt, 311, 1754, 2317, 2806, 3149 Godowsky, Leopold, 581 Godshall, Harry, 1731 Godwin-Austen, Alfred, 3274 Goebbels, Joseph, 1476, 2292, 2625, 2632, 2649, 2948, 3011, 3040, 3141, 3236 Goethals, George Washington, 340, 1130 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1168, 1434 Gogh, Vincent van, 2187 Gökalp, Ziya, 689, 1195 Gold, Thomas, 1879 Goldman, Emma, 1171 Goldmann, Max. See Reinhardt, Max Goldmark, Josephine, 667 Goldmark, Peter Carl, 3282 Goldmark, Rubin, 1665 Goldsborough, T. Alan, 3090 Goldschmidt, V. M., 2089 Goldsmith, Alfred N., 2134 Goldstein, Eugen, 558, 2896 Goldstein, Jonah J., 1295 Goldstein, Vida, 160 Goldwyn, Samuel, 1820 Golgi, Camillo, 327 Golovin, Alexander, 833 Goltz, Colmar von der, 1158 Gomer, Robert, 2896 Gómez, Juan Vincente, 1794 Gomez, Lefty, 2667 Gompers, Samuel, 661, 980, 1153, 1517, 1535, 1725, 1922 Goncharova, Natalya, 1016
Gonne, Maud, 1315 Gonzague, Marie de, 2044 Goodman, Benny, 2605, 2790 Goodrich, Lloyd, 2820 Goodwin, Hannibal W., 2175 Goodyear, Conger, 2340 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 1320 Gordon, Aaron David, 723 Gordon, Charles George, 713 Gordon, Mary, 3176 Gordon, Max, 2618 Gore, Spencer, 1775 Goremykin, Ivan Logginovich, 526 Gorgas, William Crawford, 43, 271, 298, 340 Göring, Hermann, 1869, 2625, 2632, 2640, 2649, 2767, 3093, 3141, 3256, 3267 Gorky, Arshile, 2820 Gorky, Maxim, 1692, 2562, 2670 Gorman, Margaret, 1730 Gorman, Ross, 1909 Gorst, Sir John Eldon, 900 Gort, Lord (John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker), 3256 Gosden, Freeman Fisher, 2230 Gotf Shimpei, 1855 Götz, F. W. P., 1053 Goudsmit, Samuel A., 2028 Gould, Elgin R. L., 827 Gowland, Gibson, 1956 Grafström, Gillis, 1903 Graham, Martha, 1211 Granger, Walter, 1798 Grant, Cary, 2725 Grant, Mrs. Gordon H., 1377 Grant, Jane, 2020 Grant, Madison, 1725 Grant, Ulysses S., 1130 Granville-Barker, Harley, 199 Gras, N. S. B., 1551 Graves, Abner, 3193 Gray, Charles F., 1509 Gray, Harry, 2274 Gray, Hawthorne, 2506 Graziani, Rodolfo, 3289 Greeley, Adolphus, 759 Greeley, William B., 1931 Green, Paul, 2474 XIV
Green, William, 1926, 2850, 2888, 3119 Greene, Hugh Carleton, 2956 Gregory, Lady Augusta, 359, 597, 1315 Gregory, Robert, 1316 Gregory, William K., 1799 Grey, Sir Edward, 411, 616, 698, 703, 890, 1008, 1121, 1349 Grey, Zane, 925 Griffin, Jocelyn Crane, 2427 Griffith, Arthur, 459, 1580 Griffith, D. W., 169, 255, 737, 988, 1188 Griffith, Frederick, 183 Griffith, Sir Samuel Walker, 37 Grijns, Gerrit, 14 Grimm, Robert, 1217 Grinnell, George Bird, 396, 1067, 1514 Gripenberg, Alexandra, 538 Gris, Juan, 1015 Groener, Wilhelm, 1279, 1409 Grofé, Ferde, 1909 Gronsky, Ivan, 2563 Gropius, Walter, 194, 618, 783, 1314, 1460, 2979, 2982 Grossman, Marcel, 1230 Grosvenor, Gilbert Hovey, 2427 Grosvenor, Hugh, 1549 Grosz, George, 423, 1243, 1983, 3040 Grotefend, Georg Friedrich, 121 Grotell, Maija, 1967 Grotrian, W., 2384 Grozier, Richard, 1470 Gruber, Max von, 10 Grünewald, Matthias, 2360 Grynszpan, Herschel, 3141 Guangxu, 29 Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich, 526 Güell, Eusebio, 800 Guérin, Anna, 1234 Guérin, Camille, 1683 Guest, Ivor Churchill, 1262 Guffey, James M., 40 Guggenheim, Simon, 157 Gugsa Welle, Ras, 2421 Guinzburg, Harold Kleinert, 2092
Personages Index Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis, 2259, 3096 Gullichsen, Henry, 2982 Gullichsen, Maire Ahlström, 2982 Gusenberg, Frank, 2301 Gusenberg, Pete, 2301 Gustav V, 975 Gutenberg, Beno, 497, 1031, 2809, 2894 Guthrie, Charles Claude, 81 Guthrie, Woody, 2356 H. D., 965 Haagen, Eugen, 3026 Haakon VII, 450, 3240 Haas, Georg, 942 Haas, Robert K., 2092 Haber, Fritz, 308, 1192, 2030, 3146 Habte Giorgis, Fitawrari, 2421 Hácha, Emil, 3129 Hadamard, Jacques-Salomon, 481 Hadden, Briton, 1833, 2404 Haeckel, Ernst, 504, 712 Haffkine, Waldemar Mordecai Wolff, 584 Hageman, Richard, 3153 Hagerty, J. E., 675 Hahn, Hans, 1754 Hahn, Otto, 3143 Haig, Douglas, 1440 Haigh-Wood, Vivien, 1748 Haile Selassie I, 2421, 2875 Halas, George, 1638 Haldane, Sir Aylmer, 1625 Haldane, John Scott, 573 Haldeman-Julius, Emanuel, 2102 Hale, George Ellery, 206, 686, 1385, 1654, 2384 Hale, Georgia, 2050 Hales, Stephen, 327 Halévy, Daniel, 334 Haley, Jack, 3201 Halifax, Lord (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood), 2410, 2480, 3209 Hall, Charles Francis, 759 Hall, Charles Martin, 1892 Hall, Marshall, 327 Hall, R. T., 643
Hallahan, Bill, 2667 Haller de Hallenburg, Józef, 2110 Hallwachs, Wilhelm, 283, 408 Halm, Jacob Karl Ernst, 1912 Halsted, William Stewart, 376 Hamaguchi Osachi, 2797 Hambro, Carl Joachim, 3240 Hamer, Frank, 2748 Hamilton, Adam, 2891 Hamilton, Alexander, 998 Hamilton, Alice, 1199, 1976 Hamilton, Sir Ian, 1180 Hamlin, Charles S., 1100 Hammerstein, Oscar, II, 2210 Hammett, Dashiell, 2323 Hammond, John, 2605, 2790 Hampton, Lionel, 2790 Hand, Learned, 1367 Handy, W. C., 786 Hanfstaengl, Ernst, 2632 Hanna, Marcus A., 59, 152, 2024 Hansbrough, Henry, 535 Hansen, Alvin, 2919 Hanssen, Helmer, 919 Hara Takashi, 2042 Harbord, James, 1444 Harbou, Thea von, 2152 Harburg, Edgar, 3201 Hardie, Keir, 513 Harding, Warren G., 1447, 1648, 1698, 1741, 1779, 1857, 1949, 2115; Emergency Quota Act, 1725; radio broadcast of election results, 1641; Teapot Dome scandal, 1616; Unknown Soldier eulogy, 1734 Hardinge, Sir Charles, 616 Hardy, Daphne, 3298 Hardy, G. H., 638 Harkin, James Bernard, 2424 Harkins, William Draper, 2544 Harlan, John Marshall, 51, 222, 413, 657 Harless, Leroy, 2414 Harmsworth, Alfred, 769, 790 Harper, Jesse, 507 Harridge, Will, 2667, 3194 Harriman, Edward H., 323 Harris, Chauncy D., 1962 Harris, Isaac, 868 XV
Harris, Jed, 3087 Harris, Lawren, 1628 Harris, Paul, 406 Harris, R. C., 531 Harris, Samuel, 348 Harrison, Ross Granville, 608 Harrod, Roy, 2919 Hart, Lorenz, 2705 Hartlaub, Gustav, 1983 Hartley, Walter Noel, 1053 Hartman, J. M., 531 Hartmann, Johannes Franz, 288 Wasan al-Bann3$, 2228 Hašek, Jaroslav, 1695 Hashimoto, Kingoro, 3059 Hashimoto, Masujiro, 852 Haskell, Charles Nathaniel, 594 Haskell, William N., 1692 Hassel, Sverre, 919 Hata, Sahachiro, 823 Hatch, Carl A., 2024 Hatshepsut, 1784 Haug, Thorleif, 1903 Haugen, Anders, 1903 Haugen, Gilbert N., 2311 Hauksbee, Francis, 2963 Hausmann, Raoul, 1243 Haüy, René-Just, 945 Hawes, Harry B., 2745 Hawks, Howard, 2467, 2725 Hawley, Willis C., 2430 Hawtrey, Ralph, 2919 Hay, George D., 2082, 3163 Hay, John, 268, 271 Hay, Ralph E., 1638 Hayashi Tadasu, 127, 603 Haycox, Ernest, 3152 Hayes, Patrick J., 1737 Hayes, William, 1397 Hayflick, Leonard, 610 Haynes, Daniel L., 2273 Hays, Arthur Garfield, 1607, 2054 Hays, Will, 2706 Haywood, Bill, 425, 1353, 1608 Hazen, Allen, 807 Hazen, Charles, 1353 Headlam, Stewart, 900 Hearst, William Randolph, 708, 1363 Heartfield, John, 1243
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Heaviside, Oliver, 134 Hecht, Ben, 2307 Heckel, Erich, 421 Heckroth, Hein, 2569 Heidegger, Martin, 1037, 2146 Heilprin, Angelo, 151 Heinemann, Mitch, 1558 Heinlein, Robert A., 3079 Heinz, Robert, 376 Heinze, F. Augustus, 622 Heisenberg, Werner, 1105, 1809, 2172, 2242, 2545, 2784 Heisman, John, 507 Heitler, Walter Heinrich, 2389 Held, Hans, 609 Heller, E. S., 478 Hellman, Lillian, 2323 Helmer, Alexis, 1233 Hemingway, Ernest, 266, 2033, 2139 Henderson, Fletcher “Smack,” 1555, 2079, 2207, 2790 Henderson, Leon, 2664, 3246 Henderson, Paul, 2017 Hengel, Adrianus Johannes van, 2503 Henie, Sonja, 1903 Henking, Hermann, 102 Henne, Albert Leon, 2418, 2454 Hennings, Emmy, 1242 Henri, Robert, 2514 Henry, Joseph, 70 Hensel, Kurt, 731 Hensen, Victor, 608 Henson, Matthew Alexander, 54, 759 Hepburn, Katharine, 2725 Hepburn, William, 535 Hepworth, Cecil, 255 Herbermann, Charles George, 606 Herbert, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux, 1784 Herbert, Victor, 1114 Hernández Martínez, Maximiliano, 2535 Herr, Lucien, 334 Herrick, Hiram H., 56 Herriot, Édouard, 1826 Herschel, William, 292, 936, 2119, 2408
Herschmann, Otto, 976 Hershey, Alfred, 184 Hersholt, Jean, 1956 Herter, Christian Archibald, 3190 Hertz, Heinrich, 70, 275, 408, 811, 1466, 1641, 1873, 2735, 3028 Hertzog, James Barry Munnik, 155, 832 Hertzsprung, Ejnar, 369, 576, 959, 1034, 1092, 1388, 1912, 2277 Herzl, Theodor, 723 Hess, Alfred F., 1888 Hess, Harry Hammond, 950 Hess, Rudolf, 1869, 2058 Hess, Victor Franz, 995, 1594, 2507 Heston, William M., 124 Heumann, Karl, 8 Hewitt, Peter Cooper, 17, 2963 Heyburn, Weldon, 535 Heydler, John, 2667 Heydrich, Reinhard, 3159, 3161, 3253 Heyer, Adam, 2301 Heyward, DuBose, 2871 Hicks, Clarence J., 1840 Higgins, Patillo, 40 Higham, Daniel, 1023 Hilbert, David, 305, 311, 731, 1231, 1406, 1678, 2317, 2806, 3149 Hilferding, Rudolf, 1253 Hill, James Jerome, 323 Hill, Joe, 425 Hill, Julian, 2817 Hillier, James, 2495 Hillman, Sidney, 2888, 3199, 3246 Himmler, Heinrich, 2640, 2767, 3159, 3253 Hindemith, Paul, 2193, 2360 Hindenburg, Paul von, 544, 1279, 1409, 1431, 2625, 2632, 2640, 2649, 2767 Hine, Lewis W., 2499 Hines, Fatha, 2079 Hipper, Franz von, 1266 Hirota Kfki, 2797, 3037 His, Wilhelm, 608 Hitchcock, Alfred, 1577, 2722 XVI
Hitchcock, Ethan Allen, 217 Hitler, Adolf, 1281, 1476, 1526, 1826, 1835, 2625, 2632, 2640, 2649, 3009, 3125, 3141, 3159, 3195, 3256; Anschluss, 3093; Anti-Comintern Pact, 2969; Beer Hall Putsch, 1869; Degenerate Art Exhibition, 3040; eugenics, 504; French collapse in World War II, 3250; Great Blood Purge, 2767; invasion of Norway, 3240; invasion of Poland, 3209; Mein Kampf, 2058; Munich Conference, 3129; Nazi death camps, 3253; Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3205; Olympic Games, 2948; Rhineland occupation, 2927; Spanish Civil War, 2945, 3014; World War II, 3213 Hittorf, Johann Wilhelm, 2494 Hoare, Sir Samuel John Gurney, 2875 Hobson, John Atkinson, 91 Hodges, Johnny, 2206 Hodges, Wetmore, 1306 Hodgins, Eric, 2403 Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot, 68 Hoffenstein, Samuel, 3201 Hoffmann, Erich, 824 Hoffmann, Josef, 192, 372 Hoffmann, Max, 1431 Hofmann, Albert, 3072 Hofmann, August Wilhelm von, 8 Hofmeister, Henry, 3216 Holgate, Edwin, 1628 Holiday, Billie, 2605 Hollaender, Felix, 458 Holland, Harry, 986 Holland, John P., 542 Holland, Lawrence, 1564 Hollerith, Herman, 1905 Holmes, Arthur, 950 Holmes, John Haynes, 1607 Holmes, Joseph A., 836 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 402, 413, 657, 1608, 1844, 2834 Holmes, Sherlock, 1572, 2325, 3176 Holst, Axel, 2222
Personages Index Holsti, Rudolf, 1399 Holt, Emmett, 1216 Homans, Eugene, 2452 Homer, 1768 Honegger, Arthur, 1601 Hood, Raymond, 3215 Hoodless, Adelaide Hunter, 1220 Hooker, John Daggett, 208, 1385 Hooks, Benjamin L., 746 Hooper, Charles W., 1991 Hoover, Herbert, 799, 1949, 2115, 2179, 2309, 2311, 2335, 2440, 2448, 2538, 2540, 2596, 2644, 2656, 2683; American Relief Administration, 1692; Bonus March, 2578; Boulder Dam, 2930; food relief in Germany, 1356; Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 2430; presidential candidacy 1928, 2219; Prohibition, 1604; St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572; stock market crash, 2331 Hoover, J. Edgar, 692, 1527, 1959, 2639, 3111 Hoover, William Henry, 56 Hope, Bob, 2352 Hopkins, Frederick, 20, 484, 1887, 2223 Hopkins, Harry, 2646, 2830, 3111 Hopkins, Linda, 1831 Horn, Alfred Aloysius, 2093 Hornaday, William T., 2743 Horniman, Annie, 359 Horst, Louis, 1211 Horthy, Miklós, 1544 Horton, Edward Everett, 2705, 2869 Horton, James E., 2490 Höss, Rudolf, 2640 Houdry, Eugene, 1049 Hough, Emerson, 1760 Houghton, Harry E., 2713 Hounsfield, Godfrey Newbold, 68 House, Edward M., 1483 Houseman, John, 2860, 3137 Howard, Edgar, 2757 Howard, Leland Ossian, 1303 Howard, Leslie, 3223 Howard, Sidney, 362, 3223
Howell, William H., 1215 Howells, William Dean, 264 Howland, John, 1757 Hoxha, Enver, 3184 Hoyle, Fred, 1879 Hoyt, Homer, 1962 Hu Shih, 1506 Huang Hsing. See Huang Xing Huang Xing, 909 Hubbell, Raymond, 1114 Hubble, Edwin Powell, 293, 935, 959, 1036, 1387, 1543, 1546, 1654, 1877, 1953, 2155, 2162, 2276 Huber, Robert, 68 Hudspeth, Claude, 1926 Huelsenbeck, Richard, 1242 Huerta, Adolfo de la, 843 Huerta, Victoriano, 843, 1259 Huggins, William, 576 Hughes, Charles Evans, 436, 1741, 1922, 1926, 1941, 1947, 2841, 2850, 2999 Hughes, Howard (1905-1976), 1899 Hughes, Howard, Sr. (1869-1924), 642, 1899 Hughes, Langston, 818, 1555 Huidobro, Vicente, 1017 Hull, Cordell, 1059, 2335, 2644, 2690, 2865, 2960, 2971, 2996, 3098 Hulme, T. E., 965 Hülsmeyer, Christian, 2734 Hulst, Hendrik Christoffell van de, 2162 Humason, Milton L., 1388, 1546, 2276 Humphrey, Doris, 1211 Humphrey, Hubert H., 1899 Humphrey, William E., 2841 Humphreys, Robert E., 1049 Hunley, H. L., 542 Hunt, Alfred, 1892 Hunt, George W. P., 594 Hunte, Otto, 2152 Hunter, John, 23 Hurley, Patrick J., 2578 Hurok, Solomon, 632, 3166 Wusayn, 4Abd All3 ibn al-, 2935 XVII
Wusayn ibn 4Alt, 1621 Wusaynt, Abd al-Q3dir al-, 2935 Wusaynt, Amtn al-, 1777, 2321, 2935 Wusaynt, Jam3l al-, 2935 Husserl, Edmund, 305, 1037, 2146 Huston, John, 2378 Hutcheson, William L., 2888 Hutchinson, G. Evelyn, 2089, 2848 Hutchison, Miller Reese, 1022 Huxley, Aldous, 2601, 3075 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 712, 726 Hyatt, John Wesley, 385 Hyde, Arthur M., 2311 Hyde, James F., 26 Hyde, James Hazen, 436 Hymans, Paul, 1531, 2135 Hyndman, Henry Mayers, 513 Ibáñez del Campo, Carlos, 2309 Ibn Bij3d, 948 Ibn Sa4nd, 948, 1624, 3096 Ickes, Harold, 1616, 2663, 2757, 2764, 2780, 2830, 2992, 3111 Illa, Ramón, 2952 Immelmann, Max, 1202 Imoudu, Michael, 873 Infeld, Leopold, 1542 Inge, William, 2439 Ingram, Rex, 1957 Inness, George, 117 Inukai Tsuyoshi, 2628 Ionesco, Eugène, 1724 Irvine, William, 2581 Irwin, Lord. See Halifax, Lord Isaacs, Godfrey, 2168 Isherwood, Christopher, 2445 Ismay, Joseph Bruce, 972 Esmet Pala, 1511 Itf Hirobumi, 838 Itten, Johannes, 1460 Ivanov, Ilya Ivanovich, 23 Ivanowski, Dmitri, 803 Ives, Charles, 1247 Ives, Frederick E., 579 Iyasu, Lij, 1566, 2421 Izvolsky, Aleksandr Petrovich, 616, 697, 1121
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 2321 Jackson, A. Y., 1628 Jackson, Shoeless Joe, 1538, 1597; confession, 1539 Jacob, Max, 1015 Jacobs, Aletta, 1200, 1737 Jacobs, Pattie Ruffner, 1610 James, Henry, 264, 1404 James, William, 94, 591, 1245 Janco, Marcel, 1242 Jannings, Emil, 2307, 2396 Janowitz, Hans, 1575 Jansen, B. C. P., 1888 Jansky, Karl G., 2394, 3028 Jantzen, Carl, 1558 Jaurès, Jean, 334, 1663 Jawlensky, Alexey von, 1915 Jay, Pierre, 2761 Jeanneret, Charles-Édouard. See Le Corbusier Jeanneret, Pierre, 2486 Jeffers, William Martin, 3198 Jefferson, Blind Lemon, 786 Jeffreys, Harold, 2894 Jeffries, James Jackson, 719 Jelley, John V., 2702 Jellicoe, John, 1266 Jenkins, Charles Francis, 1873 Jenkins, Joseph, 347 Jennings, Herbert Spencer, 726 Jensen, Michael C., 2521 Jervis, John B., 3002 Jewett, Frank B., 2011 Jewett, N. Clay, 1850 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1404 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali, 566, 1730 Joan of Arc, 1630 Joffe, Adolf, 1431 Joffre, Joseph-Jacques-Césaire, 1137, 1256, 2288 Jogiches, Leo, 1479 Johannsen, Wilhelm Ludvig, 476, 726 Johansen, Hjalmar, 919 John Paul II, 1039, 1360, 3133 Johns, Jasper, 1244 Johnson, Albert, 1725, 1922 Johnson, Eldridge R., 96 Johnson, Herbert, 2589
Johnson, Hiram Warren, 1076, 2865 Johnson, Hugh S., 2335, 2663 Johnson, Jack, 719 Johnson, John Arthur. See Johnson, Jack Johnson, Louis A., 3246 Johnson, Robert Underwood, 230 Johnson, Thomas Frank, 1790 Johnson, William Arthur, 3005 Johnston, Frank H., 1628 Johnston, Franz. See Johnston, Frank H. Joliot, Frédéric, 2544, 2615, 3143 Joliot-Curie, Irène, 2544, 2615, 3143 Jollie, Ethel Tawse, 1862 Jolson, Al, 2126, 2202, 2235 Joly, John, 579, 1223 Jones, Bobby, 2452 Jones, Chuck, 3296 Jones, Cora, 2414 Jones, Ernest, 286 Jones, Jesse H., 2683 Jones, Mary Harris. See Jones, Mother Jones, Mother, 425, 1535 Jones, O. M., 2414 Jones, Rufus, 1356 Jooss, Kurt, 2569 Jordan, Paul, 781 Joshua, Seth, 346 Joyce, James, 266, 1767, 2400 Joyce, John, 250 Jung, Carl, 286, 928, 2370 Juran, Joseph M., 490 Jusserand, Jean-Jules, 1366 Kaas, Ludwig, 2649 Kachellek, Albert, 2301 Kafka, Franz, 1168 Kahanamoku, Duke, 975 Kahane, Arthur, 458 Kahane, Jack, 2770 Kahl, Milt, 3063 Kahlo, Frida, 2736 Kahn, Gus, 2705 Kahn, Reuben Leon, 1817 Kahn, Richard, 2919 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, 683 XVIII
Kahr, Gustav Ritter von, 1869 Kaiser, Henry J., 2930 Kalle, Arnold, 1383 Kallet, Arthur, 2612, 2902 Kamenev, Lev Borisovich, 695, 2263, 2295, 2786 Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike, 3083 Kandinsky, Wassily, 897, 932, 1460, 1915, 2186, 2709, 3040 Kane, Elisha Kent, 759 Kang Youwei, 909 K’ang Yu-wei. See Kang Youwei Kanoldt, Alexander, 1983 Kant, Immanuel, 305 Kapitsa, Pyotr Leonidovich, 1104, 3083 Kaprow, Allan, 1244 Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius, 291, 1419, 2119, 2161, 2276 Karadjordjevi6, Alexander. See Alexander I Karloff, Boris, 2378, 2461 Károlyi, Mihály, 1544 Karsavina, Tamara Platonovna, 762, 766, 833 Käsebier, Gertrude, 130 Katayev, Ivan, 2563 Katf Hiroharu, 2797 Katf Takaaki, 2042 Katf Tomosaburf, 1741, 2042, 2797 Katsura Tarf, 127 Kattillasseri Muhammad Mussaliar, 1728 Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr., 2589 Kautsky, Karl, 1480 Kawamata, Katsuji, 852 Kaye, Nora, 2908 Keaton, Buster, 2052, 2142 Keeler, Leonarde, 1671 Keeler, O. B., 2452 Keeler, Ruby, 2608 Keeling, Charles D., 3069 Keesom, Willem Hendrik, 3083 Keilholtz, Lester S., 2419 Keller, Maurice, 766 Kelley, Florence, 667, 968, 1745, 1976 Kellogg, Frank B., 2252, 2309 Kellogg, Paul U., 1607
Personages Index Kelly, M. Clyde, 2017 Kelly, William, 1810 Kelvin, Baron (William Thomson), 388, 2216 Kemal, Mustafa. See Atatürk Kendrew, John Cowdery, 68 Kennan, George, 151, 604 Kennedy, Alexander, 1652 Kennedy, John F., 2007 Kennedy, Joseph P., 2236, 2752, 2997 Kennelly, Arthur Edwin, 134 Kent, William, 1282 Kenyon, William Squire, 1604 Kepler, Johannes, 2718 Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1324, 1393 Kern, Jerome, 2210 Kesselring, Albert, 3267 Kettering, Charles Franklin, 1659, 2418, 2454 Kettler, Hedwig, 729 Keyes, Sidney, 863 Keynes, John Maynard, 93, 2919 Khachaturian, Aram, 2560 Khama, Tshekedi, 1568 Khama III, 1568 Khlebnikov, Velimir, 1235 Khrushchev, Nikita S., 2599, 2711, 2789 Kierkegaard, Søren, 2146 Killilea, Henry, 256 Kimball, Justin Ford, 2269 Kimball, Ward, 3063 King, Charles Glen, 2222 King, Frederick Truby, 611 King, Isabella, 611 King, John H., 1990 King, William, 1615 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 778, 1636, 1709, 1947, 2448, 2517, 2879, 2960, 3276; Great Depression, 2440; HawleySmoot Tariff Act, 2430; National Parks Act (1930), 2424; Ottawa Agreements, 2575; World War II, 3213 Kinyoun, Joseph J., 998 Kipfer, Paul, 2506 Kipping, Frederic Stanley, 26
Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig, 421, 496 Kirklin, John Webster, 2775 Kirov, Sergey Mironovich, 2563, 2786 Kirstein, Lincoln, 2794 Kitasato, Shibasaburo, 584 Kitchener, Lord (Horatio Herbert Kitchener), 155 Kitchlew, Saif ud-Din, 1497 Kiyoura Keigo, 2042 Klann, William C., 1063 Klebs, Edwin, 1043 Klee, Paul, 1460, 1915 Kleiber, Erich, 2087 Klein, Felix, 1406 Kleine, George, 419 Kleinschmidt, Edward Ernest, 32 Klimt, Gustav, 192, 372 Kliun, Ivan, 1235 Kluck, Heinrich Rudolph Alexander von, 1137 Knight, James H., 1649 Knight, Thomas E., 2490 Knipping, Paul, 946 Knobelsdorf, Schmidt von, 1256 Knoll, Florence, 1967 Knoll, Max, 2493 Knoop, Franz, 3006 Knorr, Nathan Homer, 2512 Knox, Philander C., 323, 402, 734, 991 Knudsen, William Signius, 1063, 3198, 3246 Koch, Howard, 3137 Koch, Robert, 14, 635, 803, 1683 Kodály, Zoltán, 295 Koestler, Arthur, 3298 Kogalniceanu, Vasile, 600 Kogan, Lazar Iosifovich, 2670 Kohlschütter, Arnold, 371 Kojong, 838 Kokoschka, Oskar, 194 Kokovtsov, Vladimir Nikolayevich, 904 Kolchak, Aleksandr, 1416 Kolehmainen, Hannes, 975 Kolff, Willem Johan, 942 Kolhörster, Werner, 996, 1594 Koller, Karl, 376 XIX
Kolmogorov, Andrey Nikolayevich, 1463, 3149 Komenskù, Jan, 900 Komura Jutarf, 127 Kondolf, Frank, 1906 Konig, Jules, 312 Kook, Abraham Isaac, 2321 Korfanty, Wojciech, 1719 Kornberg, Hans Leo, 3005 Kornei, Otto, 3134 Kornilov, Lavr Georgiyevich, 1393, 1416 Korošec, Anton, 1450 Korzeniowski, Jósef Teodor Konrad Nauòcz. See Conrad, Joseph Korzybski, Alfred, 1688 Koussevitzky, Serge, 1665, 1865 Kowalska, Helena. See Kowalska, Maria Faustina Kowalska, Maria Faustina, 3133 Kramers, Hendrik Anthony, 2119 Kraus, Adolf, 1085 Krause, John, 531 Krauss, Werner, 1575 Krebs, Hans Adolf, 3005 Kroeber, Alfred, 2697 Kronecker, Leopold, 305, 731 Kruger, Jules, 2002 Krum, Howard Lewis, 32 Krupa, Gene, 2790 Krupp, Gustav, 541 Krylenko, Nikolai Vasilyevich, 2240 Kuang-Hsü. See Guangxu Kubin, Alfred, 897 Kudriashev, Ivan, 1235 Kühlmann, Richard von, 1431 Kuhn, Walt, 1056 Kuleshov, Lev Vladimirovich, 1968, 2148 Kummer, Ernst Eduard, 1677 Kun, Béla, 1544 K’un-i, Liu. See Liu Kunyi Kunitsky, R. W., 23 Kuroki, Tamemoto, 320 Kuropatkin, Aleksei, 320 Laban, Rudolf, 2569 Labouchere, Henry Du Pré, 74
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lacey, John F., 1067, 1282, 1437 Lacroix, Alfred, 151 Lada, Josef, 1696 Ladoux, George, 1383 Laemmle, Carl, 417, 2376 La Farge, John, 117 La Follette, Philip, 3113 La Follette, Robert M., 157, 237, 624, 751, 1059, 1269, 1614, 1857 La Follette, Robert M., Jr., 3111, 3182, 3190 Lagerlöf, Selma, 3147 La Guardia, Fiorello Henry, 2552, 3002 Lahr, Bert, 3201 Laidlaw, Patrick Playfair, 1428 Laidoner, Johan, 1425 Laing, Hugh, 2908 Lalique, René, 2038 Lamb, William F., 2499 Lambie, Robert M., 2414 Lamont, Thomas William, 2331 L’Amour, Louis, 925 Lampland, Carl O., 432, 2408 Lancia, Vincenzo, 529 Land, Emory Scott, 3198 Landau, Lev Davidovich, 2718, 3083, 3170 Landé, Alfred, 2027 Landes, Gaston, 149 Landis, Kenesaw Mountain, 1538, 1597, 3193 Landsteiner, Karl, 10, 83, 463 Lane, Allen, 2802 Lane, Franklin K., 1282, 1514, 1614 Lanfield, Sidney, 3176 Lang, Fritz, 172, 2152 Lang, John Thomas, 2549 Lang, William Cosmo Gordon, 2437, 2973 Langdon, Harry, 988 Lange, Dorothea, 2730 Lange, Helene, 729 Langerhans, Paul, 144, 1690 Langevin, Paul, 1223 Langley, Noel, 3201 Langley, Samuel Pierpont, 278 Langmuir, Irving, 354
Lansdowne, Lord (Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice), 127, 331, 756 Lansing, Robert, 1349, 1483, 2064 Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 1251, 1463, 2172, 2799 Lapointe, Ernest, 1709, 1948 Largo Caballero, Francisco, 2496, 2945 Larionov, Mikhail, 1016 Larrick, George P., 2164 L’Arronge, Adolph, 456 Larsen, Jack Lenor, 1967 Larsen, Roy E., 1833 Larson, Eric, 3063 Larson, Henrietta M., 1551 Larson, John A., 1671 Lasche, Oskar, 781 Laskey, Charles, 2794 Lasky, Jesse L., 1820 Latham, Hubert, 769 Lathrop, Julia C., 968, 1745, 1976 Latz, Harry, 1731 Lau, H. E., 576 Laubeuf, Maxime, 541 Laue, Max von, 69, 473, 945, 1808, 2493, 2897 Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 778, 859, 1636 Laval, Pierre, 2875 Law, Bonar, 1140, 1578 Lawrence, D. H., 1587 Lawrence, Ernest Orlando, 2477, 2555, 2989-2990 Laws, Curtis Lee, 1458 Lawson, Thomas W., 436 Lawyer, George A., 2742 Lazear, Jesse William, 43 Lea, Clarence Frederick, 3101, 3116, 3262 Lea, Luke, 1493 Leachman, Gerard, 1625 Leadbelly, 2356 Leakey, L. S. B., 1848 Leary, Timothy, 3075 Leavitt, Henrietta Swan, 959, 1034, 1419, 1654, 1877, 2276 Le Bargy, Charles, 172 Le Bris, Pierre Ange Marie, 149 Leck, Bart van der, 1312 XX
Le Corbusier, 783, 1313, 2486, 2979, 2982 Ledbetter, Huddie. See Leadbelly Lee, Ivy Ledbetter, 516 Lee, John A., 2891 Lee, Oliver Justin, 290 Leech, Margaret, 2093 Lefèvre, Geó, 242 Léger, Fernand, 496, 1015 Legge, Alexander, 2311 Leguía y Salcedo, Augusto Bernardino, 2309 Lehár, Franz, 2705 Lehman, Herbert, 3002 Lehmann, Ernst, 3017 Lehmann, Inge, 497, 2893 Lehrman, Henry, 988 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 814 Leibowitz, Samuel, 2490 Leigh, Vivien, 3223 Leishman, J. B., 863 Leland, Henry M., 670 Lelouch, Claude, 2003 Lemaître, Georges, 293, 1879, 2155, 2276 Lemass, Sean, 2547 Lenard, Philipp, 66, 408, 558, 811, 1103 Lenglen, Suzanne, 1775 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 452, 1318, 1345, 2263; agitprop films, 1968; Baltic states, 1425; Comintern, 1490, 1663; depiction in Rivera mural, 2738; environmental laws, 1884; famine of 1907, 570; Imperialism, 1253; nature reserves, 1486; New Economic Policy, 1711; October Revolution, 1393, 2295; Polish-Soviet War, 1715; Pravda, 695; Red Terror, 1324; Russian Civil War, 1416; Russian Revolution, 1343; Soviet art, 2709; Soviet cinema, 2148; Treaty of BrestLitovsk, 1431; Ukrainian independence, 1322; Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, 1217
Personages Index Lenroot, Irvine Luther, 1614 Lenya, Lotte, 2193 Leo XIII, 247 Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich, 2563 Leopold, Aldo, 1135, 1516, 1931, 2742, 2780, 2915 Leopold II, 89, 879; exploitation of the Congo, 703 Lepsius, Johannes, 1195 Le Roy, Édouard, 567, 2091 LeRoy, Mervyn, 2378, 2467, 3201 Lerroux, Alejandro, 1156, 2496 Leskov, Nikolai, 2911 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 271, 298, 340 Leutwein, Theodor, 317 Levavasseur, Leon, 769 Levee, M. C., 2306 Lever, William Hesketh, 879 Leverone, Louis E., 2368 Leverone, Nathaniel, 2368 Levi, Beppo, 99, 312 Levine, Philip A., 10 Levinson, Salmon O., 2252 Levy, Herbert, 3044 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, 334 Lewinski, Erich von. See Manstein, Erich von Lewis, C. S., 2068, 2681, 3047 Lewis, David J., 2853 Lewis, Gilbert N., 2389 Lewis, Hobart D., 1766 Lewis, John L., 2552, 2850, 2888, 3111 Lewis, Ralph, 1188 Lewis, Sinclair, 2863 Lewis, Thomas, 365 Lewis, W. F., 1649 Lewis, Warren, 2681 Lewis, Wyndham, 1017, 1328 Lewisohn, Richard, 463 Lewisohn, Sam A., 1840 Lewton, Val, 2378 Li Dazhao, 1506 Li Ta-chao. See Li Dazhao Liang Chi-chao. See Liang Qichao Liang Qichao, 909 Lie, Sophus, 732
Liebknecht, Karl, 1409, 1479, 1491, 1525 Likely, Gwendolyn, 610 Likens, Gene E., 2848 Lilienthal, David Eli, 2656 Lilienthal, Otto, 278 Lilly, Joseph, 2737 Lin Biao, 2096 Lin Piao. See Lin Biao Lincoln, C. Eric, 2434 Lindbergh, Charles A., 944, 2189, 2509, 2941 Lindblad, Bertil, 293, 2161 Lindeman, Edward, 463 Lindeman, Raymond L., 2846 Lindemann, Frederick Alexander, 1053 Lindenthal, Gustav, 2551 Lindhagen, Carl Albert, 1680 Lindsay, Sir Ronald Charles, 2122 Lindsey, Ben B., 968 Lineberger, Walter F., 1935 Lippincott, Joseph Barlow, 1918 Lippmann, Walter, 1161 Lismer, Arthur, 1628 Lissitzky, El, 1235 Little, Frank, 1355 Littleton, Jesse T., 1209 Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich, 1692, 2690, 3205, 3209 Liu Kunyi, 29 Livingston, Edward, 998 Livingston, Leonidas Felix, 998 Livingston, M. Stanley, 2477 Lloyd, Harold, 989, 2052 Lloyd George, David, 756, 859, 890, 1140, 1483, 1521, 1578, 1590, 1621, 1719, 1772, 1777, 1941 Lo Chia-lun. See Luo Jialun Lochner, Joseph, 414 Lockwood, James, 759 Lockyer, Sir Joseph Norman, 1092 Loder, Bernard Cornelis Johannes, 1657 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 1269, 1447, 1725, 1741 Lodge, Oliver Joseph, 478, 1466 Lods, Marcel, 2979 Loeb, Leo, 609 XXI
Loehr, Gus, 406 Loewy, Raymond Fernand, 1314, 2279, 2976 Löffler, Friedrich August Johannes, 803, 1043 Logan, Marvel Mills, 2937 Lomax, Alan, 2356 Lombard, Carole, 2725 Lombardo Toledano, Vicente, 1332 Lombroso, Cesare, 1671 London, Fritz Wolfgang, 2389 London, Jack, 719 Lone Wolf, 217 Long, Huey, 2338, 2596 Long, Walter, 1188 Longley, Clifford B., 2907 Longuet, Jean, 1663 Longwell, Daniel, 2966 López, Carlos Antonio, 2923 López, Francisco Solano, 2923 Lorimer, George Horace, 1764 Loriot, Fernand, 1663 Lorre, Peter, 2722 Lotka, Alfred, 2089 Loubet, Émile-François, 331 Lovell, Bernard, 3028 Lovell, Norman, 1800 Lovelock, James, 2089 Lowell, A. Lawrence, 1269 Lowell, Amy, 965 Lowell, Percival, 432, 935, 1546, 2407 Lowell, Robert, 2402 Löwenheim, Leopold, 2317 Lozano, Juan B., 2304 Lubbe, Marinus van der, 2632 Lubitsch, Ernst, 2705 Lucas, Anthony F., 40 Lucas, Scott, 3050 Luce, Clare Boothe, 1833, 2966 Luce, Henry R., 1833, 2403, 2966 Ludendorff, Erich, 544, 1279, 1409, 1431, 1869 Lugard, Lord (Frederick John Dealtry Lugard), 74, 873, 2135 Luger, Karl, 1477 Lugosi, Bela, 2378, 2461 Luke, Sir Harry Charles, 2321 Lumière, Auguste, 169, 579
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lumière, Louis, 169, 579 Lunacharsky, Anatoly, 934, 1486, 1884, 2709 Lunt, Alfred, 2618 Luo Jialun, 1506 Luther, Hans, 1814 Luwai, Khalid ibn, 948 Luxemburg, Rosa, 1253, 1409, 1479, 1526 Lvov, Georgy Yevgenyevich, 1318, 1324, 1393 Lynch, Edmund, 1164 Lynde, Frederick C., 2368 Lyne, Sir William, 160 Lyons, Enid, 161 Lyot, Bernard, 2383 Lysenko, Trofim, 1488 Lytton, second earl of (Victor Bulwer-Lytton), 2538, 2628 Maanen, Adriaan van, 935, 1419, 1953 MacArthur, Douglas, 2578 McCarran, Patrick Anthony, 3262 McCarthy, Charles, 237 McClintock, Francis Leopold, 55 McClung, Clarence Erwin, 102 McClure, Sir Robert John Le Mesurier, 54 McClure, Wilbur F., 3078 McCollum, Elmer Verner, 1757, 1887 McCormick, Cyrus Hall, 173 MacCracken, Henry Mitchell, 507 McCrae, John, 1233 McDaniel, Hattie, 3223 MacDermott, Sean, 1262 Macdonald, Dwight, 2403 McDonald, Frank, 2703 MacDonald, J. E. H., 1628 MacDonald, James R. L., 344 MacDonald, Jeanette, 2705 MacDonald, Ramsay, 513, 1590, 2322, 2430, 2575, 2586, 2935 McDonald, William C., 594 McDuffie, John, 2745 McEntee, James J., 2652 McFadden, Louis Thomas, 2179 McFarland, J. Horace, 1282
McGee, William J., 677 McGhee, F. L., 429 McGinness, Paul, 1652 McGrath, Matthew J., 975 McGurn, Jack, 2301 Mach, Ernst, 1230, 1754 Machado Santos, António, 841 MacKay, Angus, 281 McKay, Claude, 1555 Mackay, Donald, 438 Mackay, George, 438 Macke, August, 897 McKenna, Joseph, 657, 1618 McKenzie, Roderick D., 1962 McKinley, William, 59, 105, 234, 1285, 1347; assassination, 59 McKinney, Nina Mae, 2273 MacKinnon, William, 74 McKinsey, James Oscar, 1980 McKnight, Fannie Bell, 2274 McLean, George Payne, 1067, 1437 McLean, Jay, 1215 MacLeish, Archibald, 2403 McLellan, Archibald, 708 Macleod, John J. R., 144, 1689 McMahon, Sir Henry, 1621 McManamy, Frank, 2754 McMaster, Fergus, 1652 McMillan, Edwin Mattison, 2479 MacMillan, Kenneth, 915 McMullin, Fred, 1538 McNamee, Graham, 1562 McNary, Charles L., 2311 McNary, Robert, 2419, 2454 MacNeice, Louis, 2445 MacNeill, Eoin, 1140, 1262 McNeill, James, 2547 McNeill, William H., 2716 Macon, Uncle Dave, 2082 Macphail, Agnes, 2581 Macpherson, Jeanie, 1820 McReynolds, James C., 1271, 2841, 2999 Macune, Charles W., 2683 Madeiros, Celestino, 2199 Madero, Francisco, 843, 1259 Madriz, José, 992 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 645, 932 Magendie, François, 327 XXII
Maginot, André, 2288 Magón, Ricardo Flores, 844 Magritte, René, 1943 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 552, 1206 Mahdi Ali, Sayyid. See Mohsinul-Mulk Maherero, Samuel, 317 Maheu, Robert Aime, 1899 Mahler, Alma, 913 Mahler, Gustav, 4, 194, 644, 913, 1070, 1702 Makgatho, S. M., 954 Makhno, Nestor, 1416 Mako, Gene, 3127 Makonnen, Ras, 2421 Makonnen, Tafari. See Haile Selassie I Malcolm X, 2434 Malcomson, Alexander, 1110 Malevich, Kazimir, 749, 932, 1016, 1235, 2709 Malezewski, Juliusz, 2111 Malkam Khan, Mirza, 549 Mallarmé, Stéphane, 978 Mallet, Lucien, 2701 Malmrose, Al, 2774 Malone, Dudley Field, 2054 Malraux, André, 1974 Mamoulian, Rouben, 2873 Man Ray, 1019, 1673 Mandelstam, Osip, 2563 Manet, Édouard, 2186 Manguin, Henri-Charles, 447 Maniu, Iuliu, 600 Mankiewicz, Herman, 3201 Mann, James Robert, 535, 1082 Mann, Thomas, 1880 Mannerheim, Carl Gustaf, 1399, 3219 Mannes, Leopold, 581 Manning, Sir William Henry, 1566 Mannoury, Gerrit, 306 Manstein, Erich von, 3250 Manuel II, 841 Mao Tse-tung. See Mao Zedong Mao Zedong, 2096, 2777, 3037 Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, 2672 Marc, Franz, 897, 932 March, Peyton, 1444
Personages Index Marconi, Guglielmo, 70, 134, 561, 1227, 1466, 1531, 1641, 1873, 3028 Marcus, Bernard, 2457 Mare, André, 2037 Mare, Rolf de, 2073 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 747 Maritain, Jacques, 2527 Markov, Andrey Andreyevich, 487 Marquet, Albert, 447 Márquez Martínez, Benito, 1156 Marquis, Dean Samuel, 1111 Marr, Wilhelm, 1476 Marroquín, José Manuel, 271 Marsden, Ernest, 962, 1104 Marsh, Mae, 1188 Marshall, George C., 1442, 2096 Marshall, J. E., 716 Marshall, John, 222 Marshall, Robert, 1516, 2674, 2780 Marshall, Thurgood, 744 Marshall, Sir William Raine, 1158 Marston, William Moulton, 1671 Martel, Nellie, 161 Martí, José, 234 Martin, Anne, 1309 Martin, Homer, 2888 Martin, John Stuart, 1833 Martin, Marie, 2044 Martin, Pauline, 2044 Martin, Thérèse, 2044 Martius, Carl, 3006 Marto, Francisco, 1360 Marto, Jacinta, 1360 Martov, Julius Osipovich, 695 Martyn, Edward, 359 Martyn, Thomas S., 1834 Marx, Chico, 2364 Marx, Groucho, 2364 Marx, Harpo, 2364 Marx, Karl, 302, 1253, 2697, 2716 Marx, Zeppo, 2364 Masaoka, Mike Masaru, 2442 Masaryk, Tomáš, 1453 Mason, E. C., 1216 Mason, Perry, 1574 Massey, William Ferguson, 986 Massine, Léonide, 3107
Masson, André, 1943 Mata Hari, 1383 Mather, Frank Jewett, Jr., 1587 Mather, Stephen T., 1282, 1339, 1514, 1931, 2182 Matisse, Henri, 443, 447, 494, 683, 932, 1016, 1057, 2737 Matsui, Iwane, 3059 Matsuoka, Yfsuke, 2538, 2628, 3279 Matteotti, Giacomo, 1997 Matthews, Brian Harold Cabot, 2285 Maude, Sir Frederick Stanley, 1158 Maura y Gamazo, Miguel, 2496 Maurras, Charles, 1477 Maury, Antonia, 289, 370, 576 Mawson, Douglas, 916 Maxim, Hudson, 1730 Maximilian, 1409, 1525 Maxwell, George, 1114 Maxwell, James Clerk, 70, 275, 579, 1230, 1466, 1807, 2217, 2735, 2799 Maxwell, Sir John Grenfell, 1262 Maxwell, Marcuswell, 2343 May, George O., 1292 May, John, 2301 Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 749, 2282, 2562 Mayer, Carl, 1575 Mayer, Louis B., 1957, 2306, 2364, 2376, 3202, 3223 Mayo, George Elton, 1896 Mazza, Francesco, 721 Mead, Elwood, 2930 Mead, George Herbert, 1962 Mead, Margaret, 851, 2249, 2602, 2698 Means, Gardiner C., 2521 Meckling, William H., 2521 Meduna, Ladislas J., 3104 Meehan, Michael J., 2331 Mehmed VI, 1511 Meighen, Arthur, 859, 1509, 1636, 1709, 2440 Meinecke, Friedrich, 582 Meitner, Lise, 2688, 3143 Melba, Nellie, 146 Méliès, Gaston, 169 XXIII
Méliès, Georges, 169, 253 Mellon, Andrew, 1892, 1949 Mellon, William L., 40 Melville, Herman, 1587 Mena, Luis, 991 Mencken, H. L., 2054, 2219 Mendel, Gregor, 77, 102, 180, 378, 475, 638, 648, 726, 906 Mendeleyev, Dmitry Ivanovich, 2989 Mendelssohn, Kurt, 3084 Menelik II, 2421 Mengele, Josef, 3159 Menichella, Donato, 2622 Menjou, Adolphe, 2827 Menzel, Roderich, 3127 Menzies, William Cameron, 2307, 3223 Mercalli, Giuseppe, 2809 Meretskov, Kirill, 3219 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1037 Merneptah, 1785 Merriam, Clinton Hart, 3265 Merrill, Charles E., 1164, 1952, 2331 Merrill, John P., 943 Merrill, Oscar C., 1810 Merriman, John X., 830 Merry Del Val, Raphael, 983 Merton, John Kenneth, 3056 Mertz, Xavier, 916 Merwin, W. S., 864 Merz, Alfred, 2030 Messimy, Adolphe-Pierre, 1383 Metcalf, Eleanor Melville, 1587 Metchnikoff, Élie, 699, 823 Methvin, Henry, 2748 Metzinger, Jean, 1015 Meyer, Eugene, 2540 Meyer, Hannes, 1461 Meyerhoff, Arthur Augustus, 953 Meyerhold, Vsevolod Yemilyevich, 2282, 2563 Mfume, Kweisi, 746 Michael, Moina Belle, 1233 Michel, Hartmut, 68 Micheli, Giuseppe, 721 Michelsen, Christian, 450 Michelson, Albert A., 440, 1388, 1654
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Middleton, William, 2380 Midgley, Thomas, Jr., 2418, 2454 Midhat Pala, 689 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 618, 783, 1314, 1460 Miklas, Wilhelm, 3093 Miles, Samuel A., 137 Milestone, Lewis, 2307 Miley, Bubber, 2206 Miley, James. See Miley, Bubber Milhaud, Darius, 496, 1601 Miliukov, Pavel, 452, 526 Mill, John Stuart, 1422 Miller, Adolph C., 1514 Miller, Bernard J., 2773 Miller, Charles R., 188 Miller, Henry, 2770 Miller, Henry East, 478 Miller, John E., 3044 Millikan, Robert Andrews, 741, 995, 1594, 2428, 2507, 2583 Mills, A. G., 3193 Mills, Irving, 2206 Milne, John, 1031, 2893 Milner, Alfred, 155, 830, 1531, 1862 Milner, Viscount. See Milner, Alfred Mindell, Fania, 1295 Minot, George Richards, 1691, 1990 Minto, Lord (Gilbert John ElliotMurray-Kynynmound), 564 Miró, Joan, 1943 Mises, Richard von, 1463 Mitchell, Charles E., 2331 Mitchell, John, 152, 516 Mitchell, Margaret, 3223 Mitchell, Thomas, 3152 Mixter, Samuel Jason, 462 Mizrahi, Avraham, 2321 Modigliani, Amedeo, 495 Mowammad 4Alt Sh3h, 549 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, 681, 2007 Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, 1566 Mohammed Shah, Sultan Sir. See Aga Khan III Moholy, Lucia, 1675
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1460, 1675 Mohorovi5i6, Andrija, 497, 1031, 2893 Mohsin-ul-Mulk, 564 Moisseiff, Leon, 3022, 3292 Moley, Raymond, 1834, 2646 Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, 2969, 3205, 3209, 3219 Moltke, Helmuth von, 1137 Mondrian, Piet, 1312, 1412 Monet, Claude, 2186 Monk, Thelonious, 2208 Monroe, Bill, 2084, 3163 Monroe, Charlie, 3163 Monroe, Harriet, 965, 1001 Monroe, Marilyn, 1561 Montagu, Edwin Samuel, 1389 Monteux, Pierre, 1079 Montezuma, Carlos, 1005 Montgomery, Olen, 2490 Montgomery, Robert H., 1379 Moore, Fred H., 2199 Moore, George, 359 Moore, Henry, 3233 Moore, Joseph Hampton, 1082 Moore, Thomas, 1888 Morales, Gerardo Machado y, 234 Moran, George, 2301 Morant, Sir Robert Laurie, 900 More, Hermon, 2820 Moreau, Gustave, 448 Morel, Edmond Dene, 89, 703, 880 Morgan, Arthur Ernest, 2656 Morgan, Clement, 430 Morgan, Harcourt Alexander, 2656 Morgan, J. P., 47, 152, 175, 323, 436, 622, 1618 Morgan, Jacques de, 121 Morgan, John T., 271 Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 183, 476, 648, 726, 906 Morgenroth, Julius, 11 Morgenthau, Henry, Sr., 1195 Morínigo, Higinio, 2923 Morley, Christopher, 2094 XXIV
Morley, Edward Williams, 1654 Morley, John, 1183 Mornet, André, 1383 Morones, Luis N., 1332 Morozov, Pavlik, 2599 Morris, Arthur J., 827 Morris, Esther, 1300 Morris, Nelson, 402 Morris, William, 117, 192 Morrison, Herbert, 3017 Morrow, Irving F., 3024 Morse, Charles W., 622 Morse, Samuel F. B., 32, 70 Morse, William F., 784 Morton, Joy, 32 Mosaddeq, Mohammad, 681 Mokcicki, Ignacy, 2111 Moseley, Henry, 473, 2989 Moser, Koloman, 192, 372 Moskovitz, Henry, 744 Mountbatten, Louis, 1143 Mouttet, Louis, 149 Mo,affar od-Dtn Sh3h, 549, 681 Múgica, Francisco J., 1332 Muhammad, Elijah, 2434 Muwammad 4Alt Pasha, 716 Muir, John, 230, 651, 1095, 1282, 1514, 1810, 2992, 3076 Mulholland, William, 1088, 1918 Müller, Erwin Wilhelm, 2896 Muller, Hermann Joseph, 648 Müller, Otto, 421 Müller, Paul Hermann, 3156 Müller, Walther, 3, 666 Mumford, Lewis, 1589 Munárriz Azcona, Felipe de Jesús, 2951 Munday, Bill, 1564 Muni, Paul, 2366, 2467 Muñoz Rivera, Luis, 1347 Munro, J. Richard, 1836 Münsterberg, Hugo, 1118, 1671 Münter, Gabriele, 897 Murnau, Friedrich Wilhelm, 172 Murphy, Edgar Gardner, 968 Murphy, Frank, 2888, 3113 Murphy, William Parry, 1990 Murray, George Evelyn, 924 Murray, Gordon, 943, 1216 Murray, Philip, 2888
Personages Index Mussolini, Benito, 1997, 2060, 2298, 2622, 2927, 3093, 3209, 3250; Abyssinian Campaign, 3274; Anti-Comintern Pact, 2969; Corfu crisis, 1853; Italian annexation of Albania, 3184; Italian invasion of Egypt, 3289; League of Nations sanctions against Italy, 2875; March on Rome, 1782; Munich Conference, 3129; Spanish Civil War, 2945, 3014; World War II, 3213 Mussorgsky, Modest, 2559 Muthesius, Hermann, 618 Muto, Akira, 3059 Myer, Dillon S., 2442 Nagel, Conrad, 2306 Naww3s Pasha, Mu;zaf3 an-, 3020 Nanawtawi, Maulana Muhammad Qasim, 565 Nansen, Fridtjof, 1692, 1790 Nanton, Joseph. See Nanton, Tricky Sam Nanton, Tricky Sam, 2206 Narutowicz, Gabriel, 2110 Nash, Arthur J., 117 Nash, Ogden, 3201 Nash, Walter, 2891 Nasi, Guglielmo, 3274 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 2228 Nation, Carry, 796 Naumann, Friedrich, 618 Nazar, Mansukhlal Hiralal, 239 Nazzaro, Felice, 529 Ne Win, 3012 Neddermeyer, Seth, 2785 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 566, 1183, 1500, 2410, 2480 Nehru, Motilal, 1183, 1583, 2410 Neidlinger, George, 382 Neill, Charles, 535 Nelles, Walter, 1608 Nelson, Donald Marr, 3198, 3246 Nernst, Walther Hermann, 308 Neumann, J. B., 1915 Neurath, Otto, 1754 New, Harry S., 2017 Newberry, Truman Handy, 2024
Newby, Arthur, 776 Newcomb, Simon, 279 Newell, Frederick Haynes, 165, 677 Newlands, Francis Griffith, 165 Newmarch, Rosa, 876 Newton, Sir Isaac, 288, 440, 1230, 1250, 1541, 1807 Niblo, Fred, 2306 Nicholas II, 616, 1124, 1431; Bloody Sunday, 399; formation of Duma, 526; October Manifesto, 452; October Revolution, 1393; pogroms, 210; Russian famine, 570; Russian Revolution, 1343; Russification of Finland, 538, 1399; Russo-Japanese War, 320; Second Hague Peace Conference, 625; Stolypin assassination, 904; TransSiberian Railroad, 1239; World War I, 1121 Nichols, Dudley, 2727, 3152 Nichols, J. C., 1751 Nichols, John B., 1889 Nicholson, John W., 939 Nickerson, William Emery, 250 Nicolson, Arthur, 616 Nielsen, A. C., Jr., 1796 Nielsen, A. C., Sr., 1796 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 199, 421, 1434, 1880, 2146, 3033 Nijinsky, Vaslav, 762, 766, 835, 977, 1079 Nilsson-Ehle, Herman, 728 Nin, Anaïs, 2770 Ninnis, Belgrave, 916 Nipkow, Paul Gottlieb, 1873 Nivelle, Robert, 1256 Niven, John Ballantine, 2464 Nixon, Sir John Eccles, 1158 Nixon, Richard, 1899; Geneva Protocol, 2049 Nkrumah, Kwame, 2062 Nobel, Alfred, 62 Noel-Baker, Philip J., 1790 Noether, Emmy, 733, 1406, 1677 Nolde, Emil, 421, 3040 Noonan, Frederick Joseph, 2566 XXV
Norbeck, Peter, 2742 Norman, Montagu, 2503 Normand, Mabel, 988 Norris, Clarence, 2490 Norris, Frank, 1956 Norris, George W., 2552, 2656 Norris, T. C., 1509 Northcliffe, Lord. See Harmsworth, Alfred Northcliffe, Viscount. See Harmsworth, Alfred Nu, U, 3012 Nuqr3sht, Mawmnd Fahmt al-, 2228 Nnrt, Fazlullah, 549 Nnrt al-Sa4td, 2122 Nuttall, John Mitchell, 2242 Nye, Gerald Prentice, 2865 Nyerere, Julius, 2344 Oakley, Kenneth Page, 1939 O’Banion, Dean, 2301 Oberth, Hermann, 203 Obregón, Álvaro, 843, 1259 O’Brien, Willis, 2364 O’Casey, Sean, 359 Occhialini, Giuseppe, 2584 O’Conner, John, 532 O’Connor, Richard, 160, 3289 Odets, Clifford, 2474, 2823 Odum, Eugene P., 2848 Odum, Howard T., 2848 O’Dwyer, Sir Michael, 1497 Okada Keisuke, 2797 Olbrich, Joseph Maria, 194, 619 Oldham, Richard Dixon, 497, 1032, 2893 Olesha, Yury, 2563 Oliphant, Marcus Laurence, 2555 Oliver, King, 2079 Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr., 1282 Olmsted, Frederick Law, Sr., 1095 Olney, Warren, 2593 Olsen, George, 1798 O’Neill, Edmond, 478 O’Neill, Eugene, 362, 656, 1724, 2825; Pulitzer Prizes, 1366 Oort, Jan Hendrik, 293, 2161 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1252, 2785, 3170
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Orff, Carl, 2360 Orlando, Vittorio Emanuele, 1501, 1521 Orozco, José Clemente, 2736 Ørsted, Hans Christian, 686 Orteig, Raymond, 2190 Ory, Kid, 2079 Osborn, Fairfield, Sr., 1798 Osborne, Thomas Burr, 1757 Oscar II, 450 Osmeña, Sergio, 2745 Osmond, Humphry, 3073 Ostrovsky, Nikolai Alekseevich, 2564 Ostrowska, Djina, 1665 Ostwald, Wilhelm, 308 O’Sullivan, James, 2678 bsumi Mineo, 2797 Osuskù, Štefan, 1453 Otto, Louise, 729 Oud, J. J. P., 1312 Ovington, Mary White, 744-745 Owens, Jesse, 2948 Ozawa, Takao, 1788 Paasikivi, Juho Kusti, 1401 Pace, Edward Aloysius, 606 Pace, Harry, 787 Pacelli, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni. See Pius XII Pacelli, Francesco, 2298 Pach, Walter, 1056 Page, Robert M., 2734 Page, Walter Hines, 1349 Paget, Sidney, 3178 Painlevé, Paul, 2288 Painter, William, 250 Pais, Sidónio, 841 Paley, William S., 2132, 2354, 3282 Pallen, Condé Benoist, 606 Palmer, A. Mitchell, 1527, 1537, 1607, 1922, 1959 Palmer, Dewey, 2902 Pan, Hermes, 2868 Pangalos, Theodoros, 2076 Pankhurst, Christabel, 259, 1309, 1422 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 259, 1309, 1422
Pankhurst, Sylvia, 1422 Papanicolaou, George N., 2225 Papen, Franz von, 2625, 2632, 2649, 3093 Pardee, George, 230 Pareto, Vilfredo, 490, 3066 Parham, Charles Fox, 520 Park, Keith, 3267 Park, Maud Wood, 1610, 1779 Park, Robert E., 1962 Parker, Arthur Caswell, 1005 Parker, Bonnie, 2748 Parker, George F., 516 Parker, Horatio, 1247 Parkes, Alexander, 385 Parkes, Sir Henry, 37 Parmenter, Frederick, 2200 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 1140, 1579 Parry, Sir William Edward, 54 Parsons, Charles, 1025 Parsons, Talcott, 302 Parsons, William, 936 Paschen, Friedrich, 2028 Pašic, Nikola, 1123, 1450 Pasternak, Boris, 2563 Pasteur, Louis, 635, 803 Pathé, Charles, 169 Patman, Wright, 2579, 2937 Patout, Pierre, 2037 Päts, Konstantin, 1425 Patterson, Gerald, 1775 Patterson, Haywood, 2490 Patterson, J. H., 74 Patterson, Joseph Medill, 419 Patterson, W. E., 2941 Paul, Alice, 1309, 1644, 1871 Pauli, Wolfgang, 1103, 2027, 2687 Pauling, Linus, 2224, 2389 Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, 112, 142, 144, 327 Pavlova, Anna, 632, 766 Paxton, John, 2378 Payne, Fernandus, 648 Payne, Sereno Elisha, 772 Payr, Erwin, 1040 Payton, Philip A., Jr., 819 Peano, Giuseppe, 99, 814, 3149 Pearl, Raymond, 726 XXVI
Pearse, Patrick Henry, 1140, 1262 Pearson, Karl, 726 Pearson, T. Gilbert, 396, 1437, 3050 Peary, Robert Edwin, 54, 759 Pease, Francis Gladheim, 1386, 1655, 2119 Pease, Joseph Albert, 2168 Pecci, Vincenzo Gioacchino. See Leo XIII Peche, Dagobert, 192 Pechstein, Max, 421 Peckham, Rufus W., 413 Pecora, Ferdinand, 2659, 2750 Peel, Clifford, 2238 Peel, First Earl (William Robert Wellesley Peel), 2935 Peel, William Robert Wellesley. See Peel, First Earl Peer, Ralph S., 2196 Pei, W. C. See Pei Wenzhong Pei Wenzhong, 1847, 3053 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 1245, 1463, 2172 Penn-Lewis, Jessie, 346 Pennewill, Simeon, 188 Pennock, George A., 1896 Penrose, Boies, 2024 Perales, Alonso S., 2304 Pérez Alfonzo, Juan Pablo, 1794 Pérez García, Faustino, 2951 Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 1866 Perkin, Sir William Henry, 8 Perkins, Frances, 868, 2335, 2853, 3111, 3119; appointment as U.S. labor secretary, 2637 Perkins, George W., 173 Perkins, Maxwell, 2139 Pérot, Alfred, 1053 Perrin, Jean-Baptiste, 558 Perry, Enos J., 24 Pershing, John J., 1259, 1440, 1444, 1734 Perutz, Max, 68 Peshkov, Aleksey Maksimovich. See Gorky, Maxim Pétain, Philippe, 1256, 2288, 3250 Peter I, 697 Peters, William Wesley, 2589 Petipa, Marius, 764, 766
Personages Index Petliura, Symon Vasylovych, 1321 Petty-Fitzmaurice, Henry Charles Keith. See Lansdowne, Lord Pfeiffer, Richard Friedrich Johannes, 10 Pfitzner, Hans, 587 Phelan, Edward J., 1517 Philby, H. St. John B., 948, 3096 Philipp, Emanuel, 237 Phillippe, Deacon, 256 Piaget, Jean, 3151 Picabia, Francis, 1019, 1673 Picasso, Pablo, 443, 494, 683, 749, 932, 1015, 1312, 2737, 3016, 3034 Piccard, Auguste, 2429, 2506 Pickering, Edward Charles, 1034 Pickering, William, 2407 Pickford, Mary, 737 Pierce, Jack P., 2462 Pierce, Palmer E., 507 Pilnyak, Boris, 2563 Piusudski, Józef , 1321, 1425, 1715, 2109 Piltz, Marie, 1079 Pinchot, Gertrude Minturn, 1296 Pinchot, Gifford, 166, 392, 651, 677, 751, 1095, 1282, 1614, 1810, 1857, 2652, 2656, 2674 Pirandello, Luigi, 1721 Pirrie, William James, 972 Piston, Walter, 1665 Pitoëff, Georges, 1721 Pittenger, William, 2143 Pittman, Key, 1339, 3050 Pitts, ZaSu, 1956 Pius X, 247, 983, 1630, 2044, 2693 Pius XI, 2044, 2298, 2437, 2693, 3009, 3173 Pius XII, 3009, 3173 Plaatje, Solomon Tshekiso, 954 Planck, Max, 284, 408, 1804 Plaskett, John Stanley, 2161 Platt, Orville, 59, 234 Platt, Thomas, 436 Pleasant, Richard, 2908 Plehve, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich, 210 Ploetz, Alfred, 504
Plücker, Julius, 17, 67, 2493 Plunket, Lady Victoria, 611 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Petrovich, 210 Podialpolski, Nikolai, 1486 Poe, Edgar Allan, 2325 Pohl, Robert, 1888 Poincaré, Henri, 162, 305 Poincaré, Raymond, 890, 1772, 1826, 2071 Poiret, Paul, 820, 1550, 1560 Poirot, Hercule, 1572 Politis, Nikolaos Sokrates, 1853 Polk, Frank Lyon, 1531 Pollio, Alberto, 856 Pollock, Jackson, 1243 Pomeroy, Roy, 2307 Pommer, Eric, 2396 Ponzi, Charles, 1470; autobiography, 1471 Pooler, Frank C. W., 1931 Popenoe, Charles B., 1562 Popper, Karl Raimund, 1463 Porter, Edwin S., 169, 253 Porter, Steven, 250 Porthan, Henrik Gabriel, 539 Poulenc, Francis, 1601 Pound, Ezra, 965, 1001, 1328, 1748, 1767 Powell, Cecil Frank, 2784 Powell, Dick, 2608 Powell, John Wesley, 165 Powell, Ozie, 2490 Praeger, Otto, 1648, 2017 Prager, Robert, 1355 Pratella, Francesco Balilla, 747 Pratt, John Lee, 1660 Pratt, Wallace E., 1794 Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1056 Preobrajenska, Olga, 766 Preobrazhensky, Yevgeny, 2263 Prestrud, Kristian, 919 Preuss, Hugo, 1525 Prezent, Isai, 1488 Price, Victoria, 2490 Prieto, Indalecio, 2496 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 2945 Prince Louis of Battenberg. See Mountbatten, Louis XXVII
Procter, William Cooper, 1633 Prokofiev, Sergei, 2558 Proust, Marcel, 1045 Prout, William, 811, 1455 Prouvé, Jean, 2979 Ptolemy, 1877 Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich, 2148 P’u-i. See Puyi Pujo, Arsène, 1149 Pulitzer, Joseph, 708, 1363 Puni, Ivan, 1235 Punnett, Reginald Crundall, 378, 474 Purcell, Edward Mills, 2162 Putnam, George P., 2566 Puyi, 29, 911, 2538, 2628 Qass3m, Izz al-Dtn al-, 2935 Q3wuqjt, Fawzt al-, 2935 Quetelet, Adolphe, 488 Quezón, Manuel, 2745 Quirk, James R., 1820 Quisling, Vidkun, 3240 Qu. tb, Sayyid, 2228 Radek, Karl, 1217, 1491, 2558 Radomyslsky, Ovsel Gershon Aronov. See Zinovyev, Grigory Yevseyevich Raeder, Erich, 3267 Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm, 2761 Rainey, Ma, 786, 1830 Rainwater, Cedric, 3163 Raisuli, Mulai Ahmed el, 1156 Raker, John E., 1096 Rakovsky, Khristian Georgiyevich, 1321 Ralston, James Layton, 3276 Rambert, Marie, 2908 Ramón y Cajal, Santiago, 327, 608 Ramsay, Bertram H., 3256 Ramsay, William, 308 Ranke, Leopold von, 582 Rankin, Jeannette, 1299, 1745 Raskob, John Jakob, 1659, 2219, 2499 Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich, 904
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Rath, Ernst vom, 3141 Rathbone, Basil, 3176 Rathbone, Eleanor, 2246 Rathenau, Walther, 1772 Ratti, Ambrogio Damiano Achille. See Pius XI Raulston, John T., 2054 Rauschenberg, Robert, 1243 Rauschenbush, Elizabeth Brandeis, 2855 Rauschenbush, Paul, 2855 Ravidat, Marcel, 3285 Rayburn, Sam, 2750, 3116 Rayet, Georges, 2384 Read, Herbert, 3233 Read, William A., 436 Reber, Grote, 2394, 3028 Redmond, John, 460, 1140 Reece, Florence, 2358 Reed, David A., 1922 Reed, Walter, 43, 298, 340, 3025 Reeves, William Pember, 38 Reichenbach, Henry, 2176 Reid, Fergus, 827 Reid, George Houston, 37 Reid, Harry Fielding, 522 Reid, Kenneth A., 1760 Reiling, Victor G., 2702 Reimann, Walter, 1575 Reinhard, L. Andrew, 3216 Reinhardt, Max, 456, 654, 1721 Reinries, Frederick, 2689 Reith, John Charles Walsham, 2168, 2956 Reitherman, Wolfgang, 3063 Remarque, Erich Maria, 2292 Remington, Frederic, 925 Remsen, Ira, 2373 Renkin, Jules, 703, 879 Reno, Milo, 2337 Renoir, Auguste, 2187 Renoir, Jean, 2985 Replogle, Hartley L., 1539 Reuther, Walter, 3248 Reverdy, Pierre, 1017 Rex, Don, 2774 Rey, Sir Charles, 1568 Reynaud, Paul, 3250 Reynolds, George B., 681, 1794 Reynolds, James, 535
Reza Khan. See Reza Shah Pahlavi Reza Shah Pahlavi, 551, 681, 2007 Rhoads, Charles J., 2757 Rhodes, Cecil, 140, 1862 Rhodes, Erik, 2869 Rhondda, Margaret, 2246 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 2969, 3093, 3205, 3209 Rice, Elmer, 2862 Rich, Claudius James, 123 Richards, Ellen Swallow, 796 Richards, Laura E., 1366 Richardson, William, 998 Richarte, Toribio, 892 Richberg, Donald Randall, 2115 Richter, Charles Francis, 1033, 2809 Richter, Hans, 4, 713 Rickenbacker, Eddie, 2941 Ricketts, Edward F., 3180 Ricketts, Howard T., 2386 Riecke, Eduard, 2494 Riefenstahl, Leni, 2948 Riesz, Frigyes, 481 Rietveld, Gerrit Thomas, 1312, 1412 Rifat, Melvanzrade, 1196 Riley, Charles Valentine, 1303 Riley, William Bell, 1458 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 862 Rinde, Herman, 1889 Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 1571 Ringling, Albert C., 629 Ringling, Alfred T., 629 Ringling, August G., 629 Ringling, Charles, 629 Ringling, Henry, 629 Ringling, John, 629 Ringling, Otto, 629 Risberg, Swede, 1538 Riskin, Robert, 2726 Ritchey, George Willis, 1385 Ritter, Robert, 3253 Rivera, Diego, 2736 Rtza, Ahmed, 689 Roach, Hal, 989 Robeck, Sir John de, 1180 Roberson, Willie, 2490 Roberts, Evan, 346 XXVIII
Roberts, Frederick Sleigh, 155 Roberts, Owen J., 2841, 2999 Robertson, A. Willis, 3050 Robertson, Gideon, 1509 Robinson, Edward G., 2366, 2467 Robinson, Henry M., 1941 Robinson, Joan, 2919 Robinson, Joseph Taylor, 2937, 2999 Robozo, Bebe, 1902 Robscheit-Robbins, Frieda S., 1990 Rochow, Eugene G., 26 Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich, 2340 Rockefeller, John D. (1839-1937), 189, 882, 1074, 2259 Rockefeller, John D., Jr. (18741960), 174, 1074, 2843, 3215 Rockefeller, Nelson A., 2736, 3215 Rockne, Knute, 2941 Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, 2282 Rodgers, Jimmie, 2081, 2196 Rodgers, Richard, 2705 Rodgers, William F., 1049 Rodin, Auguste, 978 Roebuck, Alvah C., 1987 Roerich, Nikolay Konstantinovich, 762, 1079 Roethlisberger, Fritz Jules, 1896 Rogan, Ralph F., 1633 Rogers, Ginger, 2610, 2868 Roh, Franz, 1983 Röhm, Ernst, 1869, 2625, 2640, 2767 Röhrig, Walter, 1575 Roller, Alfred, 4 Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad, 66, 275, 471, 558, 664, 945, 1808 Rooney, William, 460 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 2596, 3166 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1447, 2219, 2575, 2850, 2879, 2888, 2915, 2960, 3098, 3116, 3186, 3236, 3262; appointment of Perkins as U.S. labor secretary, 2637; Banking Act (1933), 2659; Commodity Credit Corporation, 2683;
Personages Index conservation, 1616; Emergency Banking Act, 2333; Evian Conference, 3125; Fair Labor Standards Act, 3119; Federal Communications Commission, 2754; Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 3122; Federal Housing Administration, 3090; fireside chats, 2352; Food and Drug Administration, 2165; Good Neighbor Policy, 236, 2644, 2971; Indian Reorganization Act, 2757; internment of Japanese Americans, 2443; lend-lease policy, 3276; Miller-Tydings Act, 3045; National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663; naval expansion, 3258; neutrality acts, 2865; New Deal, 1860, 2335, 2540, 2646, 2652, 2830, 2837, 2841, 2860; Phillipine Independence Act, 2745; presidential election 1932, 2596; Securities Exchange Act, 2750; Social Security Act, 2853; Soil Erosion Service, 2730; Soviet-U.S. relations, 2690; Spanish Civil War, 2996; Stimson Doctrine, 2538; Supreme Court packing fight, 2999; Taylor Grazing Act, 2764; Tennessee Valley Authority, 2656; waterfowl management committee, 2742; World War II, 3198, 3246 Roosevelt, Theodore, 219, 516, 524, 594, 622, 751, 847, 980, 1145, 1149, 1285, 2024, 2915; Anthracite Coal Strike, 152; antitrust prosecution, 323, 402, 661; assumption of presidency, 59; autobiography, 153, 232; Bureau of Investigation, 692; college football, 507; conservation, 165, 226, 230, 392, 651, 677, 1614; consumer protection legislation, 534; diplomacy, 320, 555; Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603,
1337; Grand Canyon speech, 652; income tax, 1059; International Opium Commission, 956; naval expansion, 3258; Nobel Peace Prize, 838; opposition from Niagara Movement, 428; Panama Canal, 268, 271, 341, 1130; Philippine Insurrection, 105; presidential election 1912, 1011; rangeland leasing, 2764; Second Hague Peace Conference, 625; U.S. Steel, 1618 Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., 1493 Root, Elihu, 105, 152, 234, 555, 603, 847, 1741 Root, Elisha King, 1063 Roper, Daniel C., 2754 Roper, Elmo, 2404 Rorem, Clarence Rufus, 2269 Rose, Wickliffe, 1074 Rose, William Cumming, 20 Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, 74 Rosenberg, Alfred, 1476 Rosenberg, Leo H., 1641 Rosendahl, Charles E., 3017 Rosenfeld, Lev Borisovich. See Kamenev, Lev Borisovich Rosenwald, Julius, 1987 Rosher, Charles, 2307 Rosing, Boris L., 1875 Ross, Harold W., 2020 Ross, Nellie Tayloe, 1301, 2014 Ross, Ronald, 298, 342 Ross, William Bradford, 2014 Rossby, Carl-Gustaf Arvid, 1474 Rossen, Robert, 2378 Rostron, Arthur Henry, 972 Rothschild, Lionel Walter, 1389, 2503 Rothstein, Arnold, 1538 Rouaix, Pastor, 1332 Rouault, Georges, 447 Rougier, Henri, 530 Rous, Peyton, 803 Rouvier, Maurice, 411 Roux, Pierre-Paul-Émile, 823, 1043 XXIX
Rowell, Chester H., 230 Rowland, F. Sherwood, 2454 Rowland, Henry Augustus, 686 Rowntree, Leonard, 942 Roy, Pierre, 1946 Roy, Ram Mohun, 2004 Rozhdestvensky, Zinovy Petrovich, 320 Rubbia, Carlo, 2689 Rubinstein, Ida, 763 Rublee, George, 1145, 3125 Ruckelshaus, William D., 2380 Rüdenberg, Reinhold, 2493 Ruedin, Ernst, 3254 Ruge, Otto, 3240 Ruhlmann, Émile-Jacques, 2037 Runciman, Walter, 3129 Rundstedt, Gerd von, 3250, 3256 Runge, Otto, 1479 Runyon, Damon, 2827 Ruppert, Jake, 1597 Ruppin, Arthur, 723 Ruska, Ernst, 2493 Ruskin, John, 192, 800 Russell, Bertrand, 162, 306, 311, 814, 2317, 3149 Russell, Charles Edward, 404 Russell, Charles Taze, 2512 Russell, Henry Norris, 369, 576, 959, 1092, 1912, 2277 Russolo, Luigi, 747 Ruth, Babe, 1538, 1597, 2667 Rutherford, Ernest, 1, 560, 664, 811, 1807, 2242, 2477, 2544, 2555, 2687, 3083, 3144; discovery of the proton, 1103; nuclear model of the atom, 938, 962; radioactive decay, 275, 388; sonar research, 1225 Rutherford, Joseph Franklin, 2512 Ryan, Thomas Fortune, 436 Rydberg, Johannes Robert, 2027 Rydz-Smiguy, Edward, 2111 Ryerson, Florence, 3201 Saarinen, Eero, 1965 Saarinen, Eliel, 1965 Saarinen, Loja, 1967 Saavedra Lamas, Carlos, 2971 Sabath, Adolph J., 1725
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Sacco, Nicola, 2199 Sachs, Paul, 2340 Sachs, Sadie, 1172 Sackheim, Maxwell, 2092 Sáenz, José de la Luz, 2304 Sagnac, Georges, 472 St. Cyr, Johnny, 2079 St. Denis, Ruth, 1211 St. Laurent, Louis, 1709, 2879 Saionji Kimmochi, 555 Sakamoto, James Y., 2442 Salam, Abdus, 2689 Salimullah, Khwaja, 564 Salisbury, third marquis of (Robert Cecil), 74, 127 Salmon, André, 1015 Salomon, Albert, 1040 Salomon, Franz Pfeffer von, 2767 Salyer, John Clark, II, 226 Sampson, Ralph Allen, 2119 Samuel, Herbert, 2105 Samuelson, Paul, 2919 Sanders, Otto Liman von, 1180 Sandino, Augusto César, 991 Sandrich, Mark, 2868 Sanford, Katherine, 610 Sanger, Margaret, 1171, 1295, 1737, 2438 Sanger, William, 1171 Sanjurjo, José, 2496, 2945 Santos, Lúcia, 1360 Sapir, Edward, 851 Sarnoff, David, 1562, 1641, 2132, 2170, 2236, 2593, 2885, 3186, 3215, 3282 Sarraut, Albert, 2927 Sarto, Giuseppe Melchiorre. See Pius X Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1037, 1723, 1974 Satie, Erik, 1601 Satf, Nobuhiro, 3272 Satyapal, Dr., 1497 Saulnier, Raymond, 1202 Saunders, Arthur Percy, 281 Saunders, Sir Charles Edward, 281 Saunders, Clarence, 1288 Saunders, E. R., 476 Saunders, William, 281 Savage, Michael Joseph, 986, 2891
Savi6, Pavle Petar, 3143 Savoye, Mme Pierre, 2486 Sawers, William, 160 Sawyer, Wilbur Augustus, 3025 Saya San, 3012 Sayers, Dorothy L., 1571, 2068 Sazonov, Sergey Dmitriyevich, 1008, 1121 Scarritt, Winthrop E., 137 Schad, Christian, 1675 Schaffert, Roland Michael, 3134 Schaub, Lincoln Frederick, 675 Schaudinn, Fritz, 824 Scheer, Reinhard, 1266 Scheidemann, Philipp, 1409, 1491, 1525 Scheil, Vincent, 121 Schenck, Joseph M., 2142 Scherman, Harry, 2092 Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, 1195 Scheyer, Emmy, 1915 Schiaparelli, Elsa, 2813 Schiaparelli, Giovanni Virginio, 432, 2407 Schick, Béla, 1043 Schiele, Egon, 194 Schiele, Silvester, 406 Schiff, Jacob, 437 Schleicher, Kurt von, 2625 Schleiden, Matthias Jakob, 803 Schlick, Moritz, 1688, 1754 Schlick, Otto, 468 Schlieffen, Alfred von, 1137 Schlink, Frederick John, 2612, 2902 Schlosser, Max, 1847 Schmidt, Bernhard Voldemar, 2347 Schmidt, Erhard, 312 Schmidt, Guido, 3093 Schmidt, Walter A., 478 Schmidt-Hellerau, Karl, 619 Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 421, 3041 Schmitz, Eugene E., 522, 555 Schneider, Franz, 1202 Schneiderman, Rose, 868 Schoenberg, Arnold, 587, 644, 914, 1070, 1701, 1881, 2086, 3032 XXX
Schoenmaekers, M. H. J., 1312 Schoesdack, Ernest B., 2364 Scholl, Roland, 8 Scholz, Elfriede, 2294 Scholz, Georg, 1983 Schönbein, Christian Friedrich, 385 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1045, 1880 Schorr, Richard, 2347 Schreier, Otto, 733 Schrimpf, Georg, 1983 Schröder, Ernst, 2317 Schrödinger, Erwin, 1103, 1804, 2242, 2390, 2784 Schubert, Siegfried, 2732 Schuch, Ernst von, 465 Schüfftan, Eugen, 2152 Schuler, Max, 469 Schultz, Arnold, 3164 Schulze-Delitzsch, Hermann, 2761 Schuschnigg, Kurt von, 3093 Schuster, Max Lincoln, 2102 Schwab, Charles M., 47, 1618 Schwann, Theodor, 608, 803 Schwartz, Laurent, 3150 Schwarzschild, Karl, 576, 1250, 2119, 2347, 2384, 3170 Schwimmer, Rosika, 1199 Schwitters, Kurt, 1243 Scopes, John T., 2054 Scott, Adrian, 2378 Scott, Allan, 2869 Scott, David, 1216 Scott, Francis Reginald, 2581 Scott, Hugh L., 1259 Scott, Robert Falcon, 916, 919 Scott, Walter Dill, 195 Scott, William R., 272 Scriabin, Aleksandr, 865, 1866 Scripps, William E., 1642 Scruggs, Earl, 3163 Scrugham, James G., 1838 Sears, Richard W., 1987 Secchi, Angelo, 576 Sechenov, I. M., 112 Seddon, Richard John, 38 Sedgwick, William Thompson, 807, 2373 Seeckt, Hans von, 1772 Seeger, Pete, 2356
Personages Index Segrè, Emilio Gino, 2701, 2989 Sells, Elijah Watts, 1292 Selznick, David O., 3223 Seme, Pixley ka Isaka, 954 Semple, Bob, 986 Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, Andrey, 1486 Senghor, Léopold, 2532 Sennett, Mack, 988 Sergius, 3195 Sert, Misia, 1549 Seti I, 1785 Seurat, Georges, 2187 Severini, Gino, 747 Seyewetz, Alphonse, 579 Seymour, Jenny Evans Moore, 520 Seymour, William Joseph, 520 Seysenegg, Erich Tschermak von, 77, 378 Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, 3093 Shackleford, J. B., 1799 Shackleton, Sir Ernest Henry, 916, 919 Shahan, Thomas Joseph, 606 Shamst, Alt al-, 3020 Shang Chen, 3114 Shapley, Harlow, 291, 935, 959, 1034, 1419, 1655, 1877, 1953, 2161, 2276 Sharp, Cecil, 492 Sharp, Walter B., 642 Shattock, Samuel, 11 Shaw, Anna Howard, 1644 Shaw, Arch W., 674 Shaw, Frank, 2351 Shaw, George Bernard, 199, 1721 Shaw, Howard Van Doren, 1751 Shaw, Louis, 2314 Shaw, Sir Walter, 2321 Shaw, Wini, 2610 Shawn, Ted, 1211 Sheldon, Charles, 1339 Sheldon, Edward, 362 Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 2461 Sheppard, Morris, 1648, 1745 Sherley, Joseph Swagar, 1082 Sherman, John, 886 Sherrington, Charles Scott, 327 Sherwood, Marcia, 1499
Sherwood, Robert E., 362 Shidehara Kijnrf, 1741, 2797 Shtr3zt, Muwammad Taqt al-, 1625 Shockley, William, 354, 2013 Shoemaker, Carl, 3050 Sholokhov, Mikhail, 2563 Shope, Richard Edwin, 1428 Shorey, Hiram, 406 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 2282, 2558, 2911 Shotwell, J. T., 2253 Shu Maung. See Ne Win Sibelius, Jean, 876 Sidgwick, Nevil, 2392 Sidqi, Bakr, 2672 :idqi, Ism34tl, 2228 Siedentopf, H. F. W., 110 Siegbahn, Kai M., 68 Siegbahn, Karl Manne Georg, 68 Sierpinski, Waclaw, 101 Sikorski, Wuadysuaw, 1715 Silcox, Ferdinand A., 2674, 2730 Silkworth, William D., 2843 Simenon, Georges, 1571 Simmel, Georg, 1962 Simmons, Marhall Lee, 2748 Simmons, William Joseph, 1705, 1850 Simon, Richard L., 2102 Simond, Paul-Louis, 584 Simpson, James, 635 Simpson, Wallis Warfield. See Windsor, duchess of Sims, James Marion, 23 Sinclair, Harry F., 1616, 1698, 1857 Sinclair, Upton, 402, 509, 534, 798 Singer, Isaac, 382 Singer, Saul, 2457 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 2736 Sitter, Willem de, 1541, 1877 Sjöblom, Anna Sofia, 974 Skellett, Albert Melvin, 2394 Skolem, Thoralf Albert, 311, 2317 Skoropadsky, Pavlo, 1321 Skryabin, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich XXXI
Skutnabb, Julius, 1903 Slater, John C., 2389 Slipher, Earl Carl, 432 Slipher, Vesto Melvin, 288, 432, 935, 1546, 1953, 2276, 2407 Sloan, Alfred P., 1659, 1840, 2158 Sloan, David, 2477 Sloan, John French, 2514 Slocum, Tokie, 2442 Smetona, Antanas, 1425 Smith, Alfred E., 868, 2219, 2499, 2637 Smith, Bessie, 786, 1830, 2079, 2273 Smith, C. R., 2941 Smith, David, 2820 Smith, Edward John, 972 Smith, Frederick Edwin, 1140 Smith, George, 121 Smith, Harrison, 2327 Smith, Herbert, 2105 Smith, Hugh, 3025 Smith, Jesse, 1699 Smith, June Edith, 2770 Smith, Macdonald, 2452 Smith, Mamie, 788, 1830 Smith, Raymond I., 2483 Smith, Robert Holbrook, 2843 Smith, William Alexander, 613 Smith, Wilson, 1428 Smoot, Reed, 1282, 1614, 2430 Smuts, Jan Christian, 155, 830, 1501, 1862 Snaith, William T., 2279 Snellman, Johan Vilhelm, 538, 1399 Snow, John, 635 Snow, Neil, 124 Snyder, Hartland S., 1252, 3170 Snyder, Homer P., 1929 Snyder, Howard, 792 Sobelsohn, Karl. See Radek, Karl Soddy, Frederick, 275, 1103, 2688 Solanke, Lapido, 2062 Solari, Emilio, 1853 Solomon, Erich, 2404 Solomons, Theodore S., 3076 Somervell, D. C., 2716 Sommerfeld, Arnold, 2027, 2390 Sommerville, Sandy, 2452
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 991 Somoza Debayle, Luis, 991 Somoza García, Anastasio, 991, 993 Sopocko, Michael, 3133 Sorensen, Charles E., 1063 Soschka, Cyrill, 2292 Soubirous, Marie-Bernarde. See Bernadette of Lourdes Soucek, Apollo, 2506 Spaak, Charles, 2985 Spalding, Albert Goodwill, 34, 3193 Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 23 Spangler, James Murray, 56 Spargo, John, 968 Spear, Walter E., 3002 Spencer, Herbert, 106, 413, 567, 2066 Spender, Stephen, 863, 2445 Spengler, Oswald, 1434, 2716 Sperrle, Hugo, 3267 Sperry, Elmer Ambrose, 468 Spitzmüller, Alexander, 2503 Spivey, Victoria, 2274 Spooner, John Coit, 59, 271 Sprague, Oliver Mitchell, 675 Springer, William McKendree, 217 Squier, George O., 2713 Ståhlberg, Kaarlo Juho, 1399 Staley, Augustus Eugene, 1638 Stalin, Joseph, 696, 1320, 1324, 1345-1346, 1393, 1425, 1711, 1884, 2282, 2670, 2911, 2969, 3195, 3205, 3209, 3236, 3298; First Five-Year Plan, 2263; Great Purge, 2786; RussoFinnish War, 3219; show trials, 2240; Socialist Realism, 2558, 2562, 2709; Soviet-U.S. relations, 2690; Terror Famine, 2599; Trotsky’s exile, 2295 Stalling, Carl, 3296 Stanchinsky, V. V., 1486 Stang, Fredrik, 2064 Stanislavsky, Konstantin, 835 Stanley, George, 2307 Stanley, Henry Morton, 2135 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1299, 1644
Stark, Harold Raynsford, 3258 Starling, Ernest Henry, 142 Starr, Albert, 2775 Staudinger, Hermann, 2817 Stavisky, Serge Alexandre, 2740 Stavsky, Vladimir, 2563 Stead, William Thomas, 336 Steagall, Henry Bascom, 2659, 3090 Steenbock, Harry, 1887 Steenwyk, E. A. van, 2269 Stefanich, Juan, 2923 Štefánik, Milan, 1453 Steffens, Lincoln, 798 Steichen, Edward, 130 Stein, Edith, 1037 Stein, Erwin, 3031 Stein, Gertrude, 443, 2139 Stein, Leo, 443 Stein, Lorenz von, 730 Stein, Michael, 443 Stein, Sarah Samuels, 443 Steinbeck, Carol Henning, 3180 Steinbeck, John, 3180 Steiner, Rudolf, 932 Steinitz, Ernst, 101, 731, 1678 Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, 807 Stephan, Sol, 1133 Stephen, Leslie, 1993 Stephenson, D. C., 1707 Sterling, Ford, 988 Sternberg, Josef von, 2396 Stettinius, Edward Reilly, Jr., 3246 Stevens, John Frank, 298, 340 Stevens, Nettie Maria, 102 Stevenson, Sir Malcolm, 2040 Steward, Balfour, 134 Stewart, A. T., 2054 Steyn, Marthinus Theunis, 155 Stieglitz, Alfred, 130, 1056, 1674, 2514, 2820 Stillman, James, 622 Stimson, Henry L., 2538, 3037 Stine, Charles M. A., 2816 Stockard, Charles, 2225 Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 1701, 1866 Stocks, Theodor, 2031 Stoclet, Adolphe, 372 XXXII
Stoecker, Adolf, 1477 Stoker, Bram, 2461 Stokes, George Gabriel, 471, 2963 Stokes, Rose Pastor, 1367 Stokes, T. L., 2773 Stokowski, Leopold, 1249, 3295 Stolarski, Richard, 2454 Stoll, Arthur, 500, 3072 Stoll, Werner, 3072 Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich, 526, 570, 698, 904, 1239 Stone, Harlan Fiske, 692, 1959, 2841, 2999, 3119 Stone, Lucy, 1644 Stone, William Alexis, 152 Stoner, Edmund C., 2027 Stopes, Marie, 2437 Stowe, Emily Howard, 1377 Strachey, Ray, 1422 Straight, Willard, 1161 Strasberg, Lee, 2474, 2823 Strasser, Peter, 1174 Strassmann, Fritz, 3143 Strauss, Joseph B., 3022 Strauss, Richard, 465, 644, 714, 876 Strauss, W. L., 712 Stravinsky, Igor, 296, 764, 833, 1079, 1666, 1701, 1865, 2560 Strayhorn, Billy, 2208 Streicher, Julius, 1869 Stresemann, Gustav, 1814, 1826, 1941, 2069 Strindberg, August, 654 Stroheim, Erich von, 1956, 2985 Strong, Benjamin, 622, 1814, 2857 Strong, Eugénie Sellers, 1824 Strong, Henry A., 2176 Struss, Karl, 2307 Struve, Otto, 290 Stuart-Harris, Charles Herbert, 1428 Sturdza, Dimitrie Alexandru, 600 Sturgeon, Theodore, 3079 Sturges, Preston, 2052, 2726 Sturli, Adriano, 11 Sturm, Charles-François, 1223 Sturtevant, Alfred H., 648, 906 Süe, Louis, 2037
Personages Index Suess, Eduard, 951, 2090 Suetin, Nikolai, 1235 Sugi, Suma, 2442 Suleiman, Abdullah, 948 Sullivan, Dennis, 522 Sullivan, Eugene C., 1209 Sullivan, Eugene J., 2014 Sullivan, Mary, 2340 Sulzer, William, 1074 Sun Yat-sen. See Sun Yixian Sun Yixian, 909, 1506, 2096 Sunday, Billy, 1458 Sunjong, 838 Sutherland, George, 1788, 1844, 2841, 2999 Suttner, Bertha von, 62 Sutton, May, 1775 Sutton, Walter S., 102, 180 Svarstad, Anders, 2267 Svarstad, Hans Benedict, 2267 Svarstad, Maren Charlotte, 2267 Svedberg, Theodor, 1889 Sverdrup, Johan, 450 Svinhufvud, Pehr Evind, 1399 Svirbely, Joseph L., 2222 Swain, Mack, 2050 Swarts, Frédéric, 2418, 2455 Swayne, Sir Eric John Eagles, 1566 Swedenborg, Emanuel, 655 Sweetster, Jess, 2452 Swift, Gustavus F., 402 Swing, Philip D., 2930 Swinton, Alan A. Campbell, 73, 1873, 2956 Swope, Herbert Bayard, 1365 Sydow, Oscar von, 1680 Sykes, Eugene O., 2754 Sykes, Sir Percy, 681 Sylvester, James J., 1407 Synge, John Millington, 359, 597 Szent-Györgyi, Albert, 1888, 2222, 3006 Szeptycki, Stanisuaw, 2110 Szisz, Ferenc, 529 Tafel, Edgar, 2589 Taft, William Howard, 394, 594, 692, 772, 847, 998, 1011, 1059, 1269, 1336; dollar diplomacy,
734; oil reserves, 1615; opposition from Niagara Movement, 428; Republican Insurgency, 751; Taft-Katsura Agreement, 839; U.S. Supreme Court, 661, 1844 Tailleferre, Germaine, 1601 Takahashi Korekiyo, 2042 Talât Pala, Mehmed, 1195 Talley, Lynn P., 2683 Tamm, Igor Yevgenyevich, 2701 Tangney, Dorothy, 161 Tanguy, Yves, 1943 Tansley, Arthur G., 2846 Tatlin, Vladimir, 1235, 2709 Taurog, Norman, 3201 Taussig, Frank William, 1285 Taylor, Charles E., 278 Taylor, Dwight, 2868 Taylor, Edward T., 2764 Taylor, Frank Bursley, 950 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 1063, 1110, 1118, 1272, 1898, 3066 Taylor, Herbert J., 407 Taylor, John T., 1493 Taylor, Myron C., 2888, 3125 Taylor, William C., 1209 Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, 2559 Teagle, Walter Clark, 2259 Teague, Walter Dorwin, 1314, 2279, 2976 Tee-Van, John, 2427 Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 568, 2091, 3053 Teller, Edward, 2243 Tellini, Enrico, 1853 Temin, Howard M., 803 Temple, Shirley, 2378, 2827, 3202 Terauchi, Hisaichi, 3114 Terauchi Masatake, 838 Test, Herb, 1731 Thalberg, Irving, 1957, 2376 Thams, Jacob Tullin, 1903 Thayer, Webster, 2199 Theiler, Max, 3025 Thomas, Albert, 1517 Thomas, E. R., 1728 Thomas, Frank, 3063 Thomas, J. Parnell, 2863, 3111 XXXIII
Thomas, Lowell, 1564 Thomas, Norman, 1607 Thomas, Rowland, 1705 Thompson, Dorothy, 3138 Thompson, Uncle Jimmy, 2082 Thompson, William G., 2199 Thomson, Joseph John, 275, 284, 408, 471, 558, 811, 938, 962, 1455, 1542, 1807 Thomson, Tom, 1628 Thomson, Virgil, 1665 Thomson, William. See Kelvin, Baron Thorez, Maurice, 2899 Thorndike, Edward L., 112 Thorp, Willard, 1589 Thorpe, Jim, 975, 1638 Thorpe, Richard, 3201 Thubten Gyatso, 344, 2695 Thum, Joseph, 34 Thunberg, Clas, 1903 Thurber, James, 2020 Thutmose IV, 1784 Tiffany, Charles Louis, 117 Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 117 Tikhon, Vasily Belavin, 1318, 3196 Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 1183 Tile, Nehemiah, 954 Tillett, Ben, 513 Tillich, Paul, 1802 Tippu Tib, 2136 Tirpitz, Alfred von, 541, 1206 Tirtoff, Romain de. See Erté Tissé, Éduard, 1968 Tisza, Laslo, 3085 Tito, 1452 Tittoni, Tommaso, 1531 Tizard, Henry Thomas, 2734 Tobin, James, 2919 Tobin, Phil M., 2483 Toeplitz, Giuseppe, 2622 Tfgf, Heihachirf, 320 Tojo, Hideki, 2538, 3272, 3279 Toklas, Alice B., 443 Tolkien, Christopher, 2681 Tolkien, J. R. R., 2681, 3047 Tolley, Cyril, 2452 Tolstoy, Aleksey Nikolayevich, 2563
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Tombaugh, Clyde William, 432, 2407 Tomsky, Mikhail, 1711, 2263 Torgler, Ernst, 2632 Toscanini, Arturo, 148 Touche, George A., 2464 Towner, Horace, 1745 Townsend, Francis E., 2335, 2853 Townsend, Sir John Sealy Edward, 664 Townshend, Charles Vere Ferrers, 1158 Toynbee, Arnold Joseph, 2716 Traeger, Alfred, 2238 Trammel, Park, 3258 Trapp, Martin E., 1850 Traut, Herbert, 2225 Tressler, Donald K., 1306 Troeltsch, Ernst, 582 Trotha, Lothar von, 317 Trotsky, Leon, 452, 695, 13231324, 1343, 1345, 1393, 1416, 1431, 1490, 1711, 2263, 2786; exile, 2295 Trotter, William Monroe, 428, 744 Troyanovsky, Alexander, 2690 Truman, Harry S., 1835, 2683, 3198 Trumbi6, Ante, 1450 Ts’ai Yüan-p’ei. See Cai Yuanpei Tsederbaum, Yuly Osipovich. See Martov, Julius Osipovich Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin, 203, 2099 Tubb, Ernest, 2084 Tucholsky, Kurt, 2569 Tudor, Antony, 2908 Tugwell, Rexford Guy, 2646, 2663, 2855, 3122 Tukhachevsky, Mikhail, 1715, 2241 Tunnell, Ebe, 188 Tunney, Gene, 1540 Turing, Alan Mathison, 2806 Turner, Benjamin, 942 Turner, William Thomas, 1206 Tutankhamen, 1784 Twining, Edward F., 2343 Twitchell, Karl Saben, 3096 Tydings, Millard, 2745, 3044 Tyler, Elizabeth, 1705
Tylor, Edward B., 849 Tyson, Edwin, 1564 Tzara, Tristan, 1242, 1673 Udham Singh, 1500 Uhlenbeck, George Eugene, 2028 Ullman, Edward, 1962 Ulmanis, K3rlis, 1425 Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilich. See Lenin, Vladimir Ilich Underhill, Frank, 2581 Underwood, Oscar, 1011, 1285, 1741 Undset, Ingvald, 2267 Undset, Sigrid, 2267 U’Ren, William, 157 Vahideddin, Mehmed. See Mehmed VI Vail, Theodore Newton, 1177, 1227, 2011 Vallee, Rudy, 2352 Van Deerlin, Lionel, 2754 Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick, 2659 Vanderbilt, George W., II, 392 Vandervelde, Émile, 1217 Van Devanter, Willis, 217, 2841, 2999 Vandiver, Pendleton, 3163 Van Doren, Carl, 1587 Vann, Robert L., 2232 Van’t Hoff, Jacobus Henricus, 2389 Van Vogt, A. E., 3079 Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 2199 Varèse, Edgard, 589 Variyankode Kunhahammad Haji, 1728 Varley, F. H., 1628 Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 213, 492 Vauxcelles, Louis, 447, 683 Veeck, William L., 2667 Veidt, Conrad, 1575 Velde, Henry van de, 618 Venizélos, Eleuthérios, 1511 Venn, John, 1463 Vereker, John Standish Surtees Prendergast. See Gort, Lord XXXIV
Vernadsky, George, 2089 Vernadsky, Vladimir, 2089 Vertov, Dziga, 2148 Victor Emmanuel III, 856, 1782, 1997, 2298 Vidor, King, 2273 Vierkoetter, Ernst, 2129 Vikár, Béla, 295 Villa, Pancho, 843, 1259 Villard, Oswald Garrison, 744, 1607 Villard, Paul, 2687 Vinnichenko, Vladimir Kirillovich, 1321 Vinson, Carl, 3258 Viollet-le-Duc, EugèneEmmanuel, 800 Virchow, Rudolf, 710 Visel, Charles P., 2350 Viviani, René, 1741 Viyavaharik, Madanjit, 239 Vlaminck, Maurice de, 447, 494 Vogel, Julius, 986 Vogel, Kurt, 1479 Vogel, W., 1040 Volkoff, Alexandre, 2002 Volkoff, George Michael, 3170 Vollmer, August, 1671 Volstead, Andrew J., 1604 Volterra, Vito, 481 Von Neumann, John, 313, 2318, 2806 Voronsky, Aleksandr, 2563 Voroshilov, Kliment, 3219 Vries, Hugo de, 77, 378, 648, 726 Vyshinsky, Andrey Yanuaryevich, 2240 Vyshnegradsky, Ivan, 1239 Wadati, Kiyoo, 2809 Wadsworth, James, 536 Wagner, Honus, 256 Wagner, Otto, 192, 372 Wagner, Richard, 645, 1476, 1701, 1880 Wagner, Robert F., 868, 2663, 2850, 2853, 3090 Wahh3b, Muwammad ibn 4Abd al-, 948
Personages Index Waismann, Friedrich, 1754 Walcott, Frederic Collin, 2742 Wald, Lillian D., 968, 1607 Waldeyer, Wilhelm, 823 Waldron, J. Milton, 746 Wales, Julia Grace, 1200 Walker, Frank Comerford, 2830 Walker, Robert John, 1285 Walker, William H., 2176 Wallace, DeWitt, 1763 Wallace, Henry A., 2646, 2683, 3190 Wallace, Henry C., 1931 Wallace, John Findley, 341 Wallach, Meier Moiseevich. See Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich Wallenberg, Raoul, 3162 Waller, Augustus D., 365 Walling, William English, 744 Walpole, Horace, 1571 Walsh, Christy, 1599 Walsh, Raoul, 1188 Walsh, Thomas J., 1269, 1614, 1698, 1857, 3119 Walter, Bruno, 913 Walthall, Henry B., 1188 Walton, Ernest Thomas Sinton, 2555 Walton, Izaak, 1760 Walton, Jack, 1850 Wangenstein, Owen, 2775 Wanger, Walter, 3152 Warburg, Edward, 2794 Warburg, Paul Moritz, 1099 Ward, Arch, 2667 Wärendorf, Fritz, 192 Warm, Hermann, 1575 Warne, Colston, 2902 Warner, Albert, 2124, 2234 Warner, Harry, 2124, 2202, 2234 Warner, Jack, 2124, 2202, 2376 Warner, Sam, 2124, 2202, 2234 Warner, Sylvia Townsend, 2093 Warner, William Lloyd, 1896 Warren, Charles, 2834 Warren, Stafford L., 1040 Washington, Booker T., 428, 744, 1358, 1963 Washington, Dinah, 1831
Wassermann, August von, 825, 1817 Waters, Alexander, 745 Waters, Ethel, 1830 Waters, Walter W., 2335, 2578 Watson, Forbes, 2514 Watson, James D., 68, 184, 2392 Watson, John B., 2601 Watson, Maud, 1775 Watson, Morris, 2862 Watson, Thomas Augustus, 1177 Watson, Thomas Edward, 1085 Watson, Thomas J., Jr., 1905 Watson, Thomas J., Sr., 1905, 2773 Watson-Watt, Robert Alexander, 2734 Watt, Margaret, 1220 Watterson, Mark, 1918 Watterson, Wilfred, 1918 Watts, James Winston, 2883 Wauchope, Sir Arthur Grenfell, 2935 Wavell, Archibald, 3274, 3289 Wayne, John, 3152 Weaver, Buck, 1538 Weaver, Harriet Shaw, 1767 Weaver, Raymond M., 1587 Weaver, Warren, 1074 Webb, Beatrice, 545 Webb, Edwin Yates, 1604 Webb, Frank C., 137 Webb, Sidney, 545 Weber, Heinrich, 731 Weber, Marianne, 302 Weber, Max, 302 Webern, Anton von, 644, 914, 1070, 1701, 2086 Wedderburn, Joseph, 731 Weddigen, Otto, 544, 1143 Wedekind, Frank, 3031 Wedel-Jarlsberg, Fredrik Hartvig Herman, 2064 Weeks, Douglas, 2305 Weeks, John Wingate, 1067, 1437 Weems, Charlie, 2490 Weese, Harry, 1967 Wegelius, Martin, 876 Wegener, Alfred, 498, 950, 2031 Wehnelt, Arthur, 353 XXXV
Weidenreich, Franz, 1847, 3053 Weidman, Charles, 1211 Weierstrass, Karl, 732 Weil, André, 3149 Weil, Richard, 13 Weill, Kurt, 2193 Weinberg, Steven, 2689 Weinberg, Wilhelm, 638 Weinberger, Harry, 1608 Weiner, Alexander S., 10 Weininger, Otto, 1686 Weinshank, Al, 2301 Weismann, August, 726 Weissmuller, Johnny, 1560 Weitzel, George T., 991 Weizmann, Chaim, 1389, 1777, 2321, 2935 Welch, William Henry, 2373 Weldon, Walter, 79, 726 Welles, Orson, 1577, 2378, 2860, 3137 Welles, Sumner, 2644 Wellman, William, 2378, 2467 Wells, H. G., 2066 Wels, Otto, 2649 Wertheimer, Pierre, 1549 Wessel, Horst, 2949 Wet, Christiaan Rudolf de, 155 Wethered, Roger, 2452 Weygand, Maxime, 1717, 3250 Weyl, Hermann, 2317, 3149 Weyl, Walter, 1161 Whale, James, 2461 Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, 230 Wheeler, Burton Kendall, 2757, 2999, 3101 Wheeler, Frank, 776 Wheeler, John Archibald, 3171 Wheeler, Wayne Bidwell, 1604 Wheeler, William Morton, 102 Whipple, George C., 2373 Whipple, George Hoyt, 1990 White, Clarence H., 130 White, E. B., 2020 White, Edward D., 51, 217, 882, 886 White, George A., 1493 White, Katharine Sergeant, 2020 White, Walter, 2230 White, William Allen, 2094
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Whitehead, Alfred North, 569, 814, 2317, 3149 Whitehead, T. North, 1896 Whiteman, Paul, 1555, 1909 Whiting, Frank, 3194 Whitman, Charles O., 1133 Whitman, Walt, 213, 1589, 2400, 3226 Whitney, Edward Baldwin, 1059 Whitney, Eli, 1063 Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, 2514 Whitney, Josiah Dwight, 1095 Whitney, Richard, 2331, 2750 Whitney, William Collins, 177 Whittaker, David W., 1133 Whytt, Robert, 327 Wickersham, George Woodward, 47, 692, 883, 1604, 1619 Wickersham, James, 1339 Wideroe, Rolf, 2478 Wiechert, Emil, 498, 1032 Wien, Wilhelm, 812 Wiene, Robert, 172, 1575 Wiesel, Elie, 3162 Wiggins, Ella May, 2358 Wilbur, Ray Lyman, 2930 Wilde, Hagar, 2727 Wilde, Oscar, 465 Wilder, Billy, 2378 Wilder, Thornton, 3087 Wiley, Harvey W., 534, 2164, 2612 Wilhelm II. See William II Wilhelmina, 625 Wilkins, Maurice H. F., 68 Willard, Daniel, 2116 Willebrandt, Mabel Walker, 1604 William (1882-1951), 1256 William II, 317, 331, 411, 541, 545, 552, 616, 890, 1121, 1124, 1256, 1279 Williams, Aubrey Willis, 2830 Williams, Charles, 2681 Williams, Clarence, 1830 Williams, Eugene, 2490 Williams, Hank, 2084 Williams, Lefty, 1538 Williams, William Carlos, 966, 1328
Williams, Sir William Emrys, 2802 Willingdon, first marquis of. See Freeman-Thomas, Freeman Willis, Frank B., 1935 Willkie, Wendell, 1835 Wills, William Henry, 177 Willstätter, Richard, 376, 500 Wilson, Sir Arnold, 1625 Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees, 558, 1807 Wilson, Edmund (1895-1972), 2033 Wilson, Edmund Beecher (18561939), 102 Wilson, Fred T., 1182 Wilson, James, 534 Wilson, Joseph C., 3134 Wilson, Latimer, 2407 Wilson, Lois Burnham, 2844 Wilson, Milburn L., 2837 Wilson, Paul C., 2638 Wilson, Teddy, 2605, 2790 Wilson, William G., 2843 Wilson, Woodrow, 84, 1076, 1450, 1453, 2656; airmail, 1648; Clayton Antitrust Act, 1149, 1153; Emergency Quota Act, 1725; Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1367; Federal Reserve Act, 1099; Federal Tariff Commission, 1285; Federal Trade Commission, 1145, 3101; Fourteen Points, 1719; German Revolution, 1409; governor of New Jersey, 188; Immigration Act (1917), 1336; income tax, 1059; Jones Act (1917), 1347; League of Nations, 1501; Mexican Revolution, 844; Mineral Leasing Act, 1614; National Park Service, 1282; naval expansion, 3259; nomination of Brandeis to Supreme Court, 1269; Paris Peace Conference, 1483; Pershing expedition, 1259; post-World War I period, 1444; presidential election 1912, 751, 1011; Prohibition, XXXVI
1604; Red Scare, 1527; Republican resurgence, 1447; Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1621; Treaty of Versailles, 1521; Unknown Soldier, 1734; War Industries Board, 1371; woman suffrage, 1646; World War I, 1124, 1206, 1349, 1353 Wimborne, Baron. See Guest, Ivor Churchill Windaus, Adolf, 1887 Windsor, duchess of (Wallis Warfield Simpson), 2973 Windsor, duke of, 2973 Wingate, Orde Charles, 2935 Winslow, Samuel, 1745 Wirth, Joseph, 1772 Wise, Chubby, 3163 Wisting, Oscar, 919 Witbooi, Hendrik, 317 Witos, Wincenty, 2109 Witte, Edwin E., 2853 Witte, Sergey Yulyevich, 210, 383, 399, 452, 526, 538, 570, 1239 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1686, 1754, 2320 Wittich, Marie, 465 Wojciechowski, Stanisuaw, 2111 Wojtyua, Karol Jozef. See John Paul II Wolde-Mariam, Ato, 2875 Wolfe, Thomas, 362 Wolffe, Jabez, 2129 Wolman, Abel, 2373 Wolpoff, Milford, 712 Wontner, Arthur, 3176 Wood, Edward Frederick Lindley. See Halifax, Lord Wood, Eric Fisher, 1493 Wood, Robert E., 1987 Woodrow, O. B., 792 Woodrum, Clifton, 2864 Woods, Frank, 2306 Woods, Katherine, 3056 Woods, Rufus, 2678 Woodsworth, James Shaver, 2581 Woodworth, John Maynard, 998 Woolf, Edgar Allan, 3201 Woolf, Leonard S., 1993
Personages Index Woolf, Virginia, 266, 1993 Wooten, Art, 3164 Worringer, Wilhelm, 423, 898 Wozencraft, Oliver M., 2930 Wrangel, Pyotr Nikolayevich, 1416 Wright, Almroth Edward, 701, 2256 Wright, Andy, 2490 Wright, Carroll D., 219 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1413, 2589, 2982 Wright, Hamilton Kemp, 956 Wright, John L., 708 Wright, Luke E., 603 Wright, Orville, 278, 2112 Wright, Richard, 3230 Wright, Roy, 2490 Wright, Wilbur, 278, 769 Wulf, Oliver R., 1055 Wundt, Wilhelm, 195 Württemberg, duke of. See Albert Wüst, Georg, 2030 Wyman, Walter, 185 Wynne, John J., 606 Ya Gyaw. See Saya San Yagoda, Genrikh Grigoryevich, 2670 Yamamoto Gonnohyfe, 2042 Yard, Robert Sterling, 1514, 2780 Yatabe, Thomas T., 2442 Yeats, William Butler, 359, 597, 928, 1315, 1328
Yersin, Alexandre, 584, 1043 Yezhov, Nikolay Ivanovich, 2786 Yi Wan-yong, 838 Yoshikawa, Iwao, 1788 Yost, Fielding Harris, 124 Yost, Lenna Lowe, 1779 Young, Cy, 256 Young, Frederick H., 350 Young, Leo C., 2734 Young, Lester, 2605 Young, Owen D., 1552, 1941, 2593 Young, Reynold Kenneth, 290 Young, Sydney, 308 Young, Walker, 2930 Younger, Edward F., 1734 Younghusband, Francis Edward, 344 Yüan Shih-k’ai. See Yuan Shikai Yuan Shikai, 909 Yudenich, Nikolay Nikolayevich, 1416 Yukawa, Hideki, 2687, 2784 Zaghlnl, Sa4d, 716 Zambona, Jutta Ilse, 2292 Zamyatin, Yevgeny, 2563 Zanuck, Darryl F., 2827, 3176, 3202 Zapata, Emiliano, 843 Zauditu, 2421 Zawditu. See Zauditu Zdansky, Otto, 1847
XXXVII
Zeeman, Pieter, 686, 2027 Zehntbauer, John, 1558 Zehntbauer, Roy, 1558 Zeidler, Othmar, 3156 Zelaya, José Santos, 991 Zeledón, Benjamín F., 991 Zemlinsky, Alexander von, 644 Zeppelin, Ferdinand von, 1174 Zermelo, Ernst, 101, 164, 311 Zhang Guotao, 2777 Zhang Xueliang, 2096 Zhang Zhidong, 29 Zhdanov, Andrei, 2558, 2562 Zhou Enlai, 2096, 2777 Zhu De, 2777 Ziegfeld, Florenz, 2210 Ziegler, Adolf, 3040; letters, 3041 Zimmerman, William F., Jr., 2757 Zindel, Ernst, 3253 Zinovyev, Grigory Yevseyevich, 1490, 1711, 2263, 2295, 2786 Zinsser, Hans, 2386 Ziya, Mehmet. See Gökalp, Ziya Zog I, 3184 Zola, Émile, 1972, 2524 Zoshchenko, Mikhail, 2564 Zsigmondy, Richard, 110 Zubatov, Sergei Vasilyevich, 399 Zukor, Adolph, 417, 737, 1820, 2377 Zwicky, Fritz, 2718 Zworykin, Vladimir, 1873, 3186
Subject Index A&P grocery stores, 1290; price discrimination, 2938 A. C. Nielsen Company, 17961798 À la recherche du temps perdu. See Remembrance of Things Past (Proust) À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. See Within a Budding Grove (Proust) Aalto, Aino Marsio, 2982 Aalto, Alvar, 2982 4Abb3s II, 716 Abbey Theatre, 359-362, 597-600 Abbott, Robert Sengstacke, 818 Abdication of Edward VIII, 29732975 Abdülhamid II, 244, 689, 1195 Abel, John Jacob, 942 Abel, Niels Henrick, 732, 1407 Aborigines Protection Society, 880 Abrahams, Peter, 1556 Abrams v. United States (1919), 1370, 1608 Abrial, Jean-Marie Charles, 3256 Absalom, Absalom! (Faulkner), 2328 Absolute magnitude of stars, 1034 Abstract algebra, 731-734, 16771679 Abstract art, 897-899, 932-935, 1235-1238, 1313, 1915-1918, 2187, 2516, 2820-2823; Soviet ban, 2709-2712 Abstract expressionism, 1313, 2516 Abstract Painting in America (art exhibition), 2820-2823 Abstract space, 481-483 Abyssinian Campaign (19401941), 3274-3276 Academy Awards, 2306-2309, 2827-2830; Gone with the Wind, 3225; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 3065
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 2827-2830; Academy Awards, 2306-2309 Accelerator physics, 2477-2480, 2555-2558 Accessory chromosome, 103 Accident, The (Wiesel), 3162 Accountant’s Code of Professional Conduct, 2466 Accounting; liability of auditors, 2464-2467, 2752; managerial, 1981; professional development, 1108, 1292-1295, 1379-1382 Accounting Principles (McKinsey), 1981 Acheson, Barclay, 1765 Acheson, Lila Bell, 1763 Achnacarry Agreement, 22592262 Ackermann, Wilhelm, 2318 ACLU. See American Civil Liberties Union Action Française, 2741 Acton, Lord, 1824 Actors; Charles Chaplin, 20502054; Marlene Dietrich, 23962399; Boris Karloff, 24612464; Buster Keaton, 21422145; Bela Lugosi, 2461-2464; Mary Pickford, 737-740; Shirley Temple, 2827-2830 Acts. See Category Index under Laws, acts, and legal history Acuff, Roy, 2082 Adair v. United States (1908), 415, 657-661, 663 Adamkiewicz reaction, 21 Adams, Ansel, 2992 Adams, Brooks, 1329 Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 534 Adams, Stanley, 1114 Adams, Thomas, Jr., 2368 Adams, Thomas S., 1379 Adams, Walter Sydney, 371, 1385, 2119, 2471 XXXVIII
Adam’s Ancestors (Leakey), 1849 Adams Gum Company, 2368 Adamson Act (1916), 2117 Addams, Jane, 796, 968, 1199, 1367, 1976 Additive color theory, 579 Ader, Clément, 365 Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923), 1844-1847 Adler, Alfred, 2370 Adler, Stella, 2474, 2823 Administration Industrielle et Générale. See General and Industrial Management (Fayol) Adrian, Edgar Douglas, 327, 2285 Adrian, Gilbert, 3202 Adsorption chromatography, 501 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 1405 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The (film), 3177 Adventures with the Missing Link (Dart), 1939 Advertising; ethics, 1082-1085; radio, 1643; regulation, 2614, 3101-3103, 3123; theory, 195199. See also Category Index under Marketing and advertising Advertising Federation of America, 1084 Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense. See National Defense Advisory Commission AEG turbine factory, 619, 781784 Aehrenthal, Alois Lexa von, 697, 856 Aeronautics, 2506-2509 Aerosol sprays, 2420, 2455 Afgh3nt, Jam3l ad-Dtn al-, 549 Afognak Reservation, 227 Africa; map, dix. See also Geographical Index African Advisory Council, 1568
Subject Index African Americans; discrimination, 3166-3169; Harlem Renaissance, 15551558; motion pictures, 22732275; organizations, 428-432, 744-747, 1358-1360, 24342437; population shifts, 818820 African tribal art, 494-497 Aga Khan III, 564 Agadir crisis, 890-892 Âge d’or, L’. See Golden Age, The (film) Agee, James, 2144 Agramonte y Simoni, Aristides, 43 Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933), 2313, 2647, 2683-2687, 2842, 2999 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 2337, 2684, 2732 Agricultural Appropriations Bill (1907), 651 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 2311-2314, 2684 Agricultural Organization Society, 1220 Agricultural Workers Organization, 426 Agriculture; drought, 2730-2733; famines, 570-572, 1692-1695, 2599-2601; Federal Farm Board, 2311-2314; fertilizers, 308-311; insecticides, 13031306; irrigation, 165-169; Marquis wheat, 281-283; planned breeding of crops, 476; Taylor Grazing Act, 2764-2767. See also Category Index Aguinaldo, Emilio, 105 Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid, 565 Aids to Scouting (Baden-Powell), 613 Aikawa, Yoshisuke, 852 Aiken, George D., 3190 Air Commerce Act (1926), 21122115, 3262 Air-conditioning, 2420 Air ionization, 995-998, 1594
Air Mail Act (1925), 1650, 20172020, 2112, 3262 Air Mail Act (1934), 2943 Air pollution, 478-481, 807-811, 2834-2837, 3071; smoke, 531534 Air Pollution Control Association, 533 Air traffic control system, 2113 Air warfare, 1174-1176, 12021205 Airline industry, 2941-2944 Airmail, 2017-2020, 2942; transcontinental, 1648-1651 Airplanes, 2189-2192; B-247, 2941; DC-3, 2941-2944; development, 769-772; invention, 278-280; weapons, 1202-1205 Airships, 1174-1176; Hindenburg, 3017-3020 Aisne, Battle of the (1917), 1258 Aitken, William Maxwell, 778 Al-Aqsa Mosque, 2321 Alanbrooke, First Viscount, 3267 Alaska; map, 1340 Albania; annexation, 3184-3186; map, 3184. See also Geographical Index Albee, Edward, 1724 Albert, duke of Württemberg, 1192 Alberta Natural Resources Act (1930), 2424 Albright, Horace M., 1282, 1514 Alcalá-Zamora y Torres, Niceto, 2496 Alcoa, 1892-1895 Alcoa v. Federal Trade Commission (1924), 1892-1895 Alcohol, U.S. prohibition against, 1604-1607 Alcoholics Anonymous, 28432846 Alcoholism, 2843-2846 Aldington, Richard, 965 Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth, 59, 535, 751, 772, 1059, 1099 Aldrich-Vreeland Act (1908), 624, 1099 XXXIX
Aleksi (head of Russian Orthodox Church), 3195 Alexander (king of Serbia), 697 Alexander I, 1450, 1511 Alexander II, 210 Alexander III, 210, 538, 1239 Alexander’s Bridge (Cather), 1403 Alexanderson, Ernst F. W., 1641, 2134 Alexandra, 904, 1343 Alexieff, Evgeny Ivanovich, 320 Alfonso XIII, 1156, 2496 Algebra, abstract, 731-734, 16771679 Algebraic theory of mathematics, 731-734 Algeciras Conference, 411-413, 890 Algonquin Round Table, 2021 Ali, Noble Drew, 2434 Alien Land Act (1913), 557, 10761078, 1788 Aligarh movement, 565 All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, 1775-1776 All-India Anti-untouchability League, 2588 All-India Muslim League, 564566, 1730, 2482, 2586 All India Women’s Congress, 2005 All Quiet on the Western Front (film), 2378 All Quiet on the Western Front (novel by Remarque), 22922295 All-Russian Society for the Protection of Nature, 18841887 All-Star Game (baseball), 26672669 All the King’s Men (film), 2378 All-Union Congress on Conservation, 1885 Allegro Barbaro (Bartók), 296 Alleles, 475, 639 Allen, Edgar, 2226 Allen, Fred, 2352 Allen, Horace N., 838 Allen, John Frank, 3083
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Allen, Woody, 2053 Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897), 414 Allibone, T. E., 2555 Allison, James, 776 Allison, William Boyd, 59 Almanac Singers, 2357 Almeida Lima, Pedro, 2882 Alpert, Richard, 3075 Alpha particles, 1, 665, 963, 1103, 2242, 3144 Alsberg, Henry G., 2830 Also sprach Zarathustra. See Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche) Aluminum Company of America. See Alcoa Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company, 1893 Aluminum industry, 1892-1895 Alvarez, Anacleto, 892 Alvarez, Luis W., 2479 Alwall, Nils, 943 AM radio, 1468, 2885 Amadeo, 3274 Amador Guerrero, Manuel, 268 Amalgamated Clothing Workers, 2889 Amazing Stories (magazine), 3079 Ambassadors, The (James, H.), 264-267 Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji, 2586 American Abstract Artists, 2822 American Advertising Federation, 3101 American Airlines, 2018, 2942 American Association of Public Accountants, 1292-1295 American Automobile Association, 137-140 American Ballet, 2794 American Biograph and Mutoscope Company. See Biograph Studios American Birth Control League, 1297, 1740 American Bowling Congress, 34-36 American Broadcasting Company, 2133 American Cancer Society, 2226
American Civil Liberties Union, 1528, 2492, 3112; founding, 1607-1610; Scopes trial, 2054 American Composer Alliance, 1116 American Expeditionary Forces, 1440; demobilization, 14441447, 1493-1495 American Fair Trade League, 3044 American Federation of Labor, 425, 661, 773, 980, 1153, 1535, 1725, 1926, 2851, 2888, 3111, 3120 American Friends Service Committee, 1356-1357 American Fund for Public Service, 1609 American Indian Association. See Society of American Indians American Indians. See Native Americans American Institute of Accountants, 1292-1295 American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 2466 American League (baseball), 256259, 2667-2669 American Legion, 1493-1495, 1926 American Loyalty League, 2443 American Management Association, 1840-1844 American Management Review (journal), 1841 American Medical Association, 1746 American Motors Corporation, 2159 American Ornithologists’ Union, 397, 1068 American Petroleum Institute, 1859 American Professional Football Association, 1638-1640 American Protective Association, 1725 American Protective League, 1369 American Railway Union, 425 American Relief Administration, 1692-1695 XL
American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 11141117, 2714 American Steel Foundries v. TriCity Central Trades Council (1921), 2552 American Telephone and Telegraph, 33, 1177, 1227, 1562, 1641, 2011-2014, 2132, 2594; sound recording technology, 2124, 2234 American Tobacco Company, 177-180, 325, 886-889 American Union Against Militarism, 1607 Americans in Panama, The (Scott, W. R.), 272 America’s Sweetheart (Mary Pickford), 737-740 Amery, L. S., 2040 Amino acids, 20-23 Amman, Max, 2058 Ammonia, 308-311 Amos ’n’ Andy (radio program), 2230-2233, 2353 Ampthill, second Baron (Arthur Russell), 344 Amritsar Massacre (1919), 1186, 1497-1501, 1583 Amundsen, Roald, 917, 919 Anable, Gloria Hollister, 2427 Analog computers, 2216-2219 Analytical Engine, 2217 Analytical psychology, 928-931 Ancient cultures. See Category Index under Prehistory and ancient cultures Ancón, Treaty of (1883), 2309 And Quiet Flows the Don (Sholokhov), 2564 Andalusian Dog, An (film), 1944, 2213-2216 Andersen, Arthur E., 1379 Anderson, Carl David, 995, 2029, 2583, 2615, 2785 Anderson, George W., 1530 Anderson, John August, 1388, 2119 Anderson, Marian, 3166 Anderson, Selina, 161
Subject Index Anderson, Sherwood, 2139 Anderson, Tempest, 151 Andersson, Johan Gunnar, 1847, 3053 Andresen, August H., 2742 Andrewes, Christopher Howard, 1428 Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1798 Andrews, Thomas, 972 Andromeda nebula, 935-938, 1387, 1546, 1877-1879, 1954, 2276 Anemia, 1990-1993 Anemic Cinema (film), 1676 Anesthetics, 376-378 Angel exterminador, El. See Exterminating Angel, The (film) Angel of Portugal, 1360-1362 Angell, Norman, 790 Anglican Communion, 2437-2439 Anglo-Belgian India Rubber and Exploring Company, 704 Anglo-Catholic revival, 492-494 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty (1936), 3021 Anglo-French Entente. See Entente Cordiale Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitration (1903), 332 Anglo-Japanese Treaty (1902), 127-130 Anglo-Persian Oil Company, 681 Animal behavior, 1495-1497 Animal breeding, 23-26 Animation, motion pictures, 30633066, 3295-3298 Ankara, Treaty of (1926), 21222124 Anna Christie (film), 2366 Anna Karenina (film), 2366 Annexation Treaty (1910), 838-840 Anouilh, Jean, 1723 Anschluss, 3093-3096, 3125; map, 3094 Anschütz-Kaempfe, Hermann, 468 Ansco Company, 2176 Antarctica; exploration, 916-919; map, 917. See also Geographical Index
Anthony, Susan B., 1644 Anthony Comstock (Broun and Leech), 2093 Anthracite Coal Strike (1902), 61, 152-155, 219, 517 Anthropology; ancient man, 18471849, 1938-1940, 3053-3056; cultural, 849-852, 2249-2252, 2697-2701; Neanderthals, 710713; urban ecology, 19621965. See also Category Index Antibiotics, 585, 2256-2259, 3243-3246 Anti-Bookerites, 428 Anti-Chain-Store Act (1936), 2937-2940 Anti-chain-store movement, 30443047 Anticlericalism; Portugal, 841; Spain, 2951-2953 Anticoagulants, 1215-1217 Anti-Comintern Pact (1936), 2969-2971, 3205 Anti-Defamation League, 10851087 Anti-immigration legislation, 1076-1078, 1726 Antimatter, 2583-2585 Antimicrobial drugs, 2529-2532 Antiquities Act (1906), 652, 1282 Anti-Saloon League, 1605 Anti-Semitism, 1085-1087; Adolf Hitler, 2059; Nazi Germany, 1477, 3125; Romania, 602; Russia, 210-213; U.S., 1270 Antitoxins, 700 Antitrust legislation, 84-87, 323326, 402-405, 661-664, 882889, 1145-1156, 1618-1621, 1892-1895, 2175-2178, 25932596 Antiwar literature; All Quiet On the Western Front (Remarque), 2292-2295; The Good Soldier Švejk (Hašek), 1696 Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Alexandrovich, 1321 Aoki Shuzo, 555, 603 Apex Hosiery Company v. Leader (1940), 2553 XLI
Apocalypse Now (film), 89 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1015, 1944 Apostolic Faith Mission, 520-521 Appalachian Spring (Copland), 215 Appiah, Joseph Emmanuel, 2062 Appleton, Edward Victor, 134 Appleton layer, 135 Approach to Business Problems, An (Shaw), 675 Après-midi d’un faune, L’ (ballet), 977-980 Arab Higher Committee, 2935 Arago, François, 1223 Aragon, Louis, 1943 Arai, Clarence Takeya, 2442 Aramco, 1624, 3096-3098 Arango, Doroteo. See Villa, Pancho Aras, Tevfik Rültü, 2122 Araújo, Arturo, 2535 Arbuckle, Roscoe, 988 Arc lamp, 17 Archaeology; cave art, 3285-3288; Hammurabi’s Code, 121-124; Machu Picchu, 892-896. See also Category Index Archer, Sir Geoffrey Francis, 1566 Archibald, Jules François, 37 Architecture; AEG turbine factory, 619, 781-784; Art Deco, 20372039; Bauhaus, 1460-1463; Casa Milá apartment house, 800-803; Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1965-1968; Empire State Building, 2499-2502; Fagus shoe-last factory, 620, 783; Finland, 2982-2985; Germany, 618-621; International Style, 801; neoplasticism, 1312-1314; Palais Stoclet, 193, 372-375; prefabrication, 2979-2982; Rockefeller Center, 3215-3218; Schröder House, 1313, 1414; shopping centers, 1751-1754; Taliesin Fellowship, 25892592; Villa Savoye, 24862489. See also Category Index
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Arctic. See Geographical Index Arctic Circle, 54-56; map, 55 Argentina. See Geographical Index Arita, Hachirf, 3272, 3279 Arizona; map, 2932; statehood, 594-596 Arlen, Harold, 3201 Arlin, Harold W., 1562 Arlington National Cemetery, 1734 Armenia. See Geographical Index Armenian genocide, 1195-1199 Armory Show (1913), 119, 10561059, 2340, 2515 Armour, Jonathan Ogden, 402 Armour, Philip Danforth, 402 Arms embargo; Spanish Civil War, 2996-2998 Armstrong, Edwin H., 1562, 2885 Armstrong, Lillian Hardin, 2079 Armstrong, Louis, 1555, 1830, 2079, 2605 Armstrong, William W., 436 Armstrong Committee, 436-439 Arno, Peter, 2020 Arnold, Harold D., 354, 1177, 1227, 2011 Arnold, Thurman, 1151 Arp, Hans, 1242 Arrhenius, Svante August, 3069 Arriaga, Manuel José de, 841 Arroyo Seco Freeway, 3301-3304 Arsenic as insecticide, 1303-1306 Art; abstract, 897-899, 932-935, 1235-1238, 2820-2823; applied, 618-621; Armory Show (1913), 1056-1059; Canadian, 1628-1629; Dadaism, 1242-1245; Gesamtkunstwerk, 192; Harlem Renaissance, 1555-1558; modern, 1915-1918, 30403043; museums, 2340-2342, 2514-2517; painting, 10151018, 1312-1314, 2186-2189, 3034-3037; photomontage, 1243; prehistoric, 3285-3288; primitive, 494-497; Rayographs, 1673-1676; Rockefeller Center mural,
2736-2740; sculpture, 10191021; Shelter Drawings (Moore), 3233-3235; Socialist Realism, 2709-2712 Art Deco, 193, 2037-2039; architecture, 2499 Art Moderne. See Art Deco Art movements; Art Nouveau, 117-120, 372; Bauhaus, 14601463; Der Blaue Reiter, 897899; Creacionismo, 1017; cubism, 496, 683-686, 10151018; Cubo-Futurism, 1016; Dadaism, 750, 1242-1245; de Stijl, 1312-1314, 1412-1415; Fauvism, 447-449, 683, 1057; Futurism, 747-751, 1016, 1236; German expressionism, 421424, 1575, 1915-1918; Merz, 1243; New Objectivity, 19831986; Orphism, 1016; pop, 1243; Rayonism, 1016; Suprematism, 934, 1235-1238; Surrealism, 801, 1243, 19431947, 2213; vorticism, 1017; Wiener Werkstätte, 192-195. See also Design movements Art Nouveau, 117-120, 372, 619, 781; architecture, 800-803 Artcraft Pictures, 738 Arteaga, Melchor, 892 Article 123, Mexican Constitution of 1917, 1332-1336 Artificial insemination, 23-26 Artificial kidneys, 942-945 Artin, Emil, 731, 733 Arts. See Category Index Arts and Crafts movement, 117, 192, 619, 1965 Arvelighedslaerens elementer (Johannsen), 727 Arwidsson, Adolf Ivar, 1399 Arya Samaj, 565, 1497, 1729 Aryanization policies, 3142 As I Lay Dying (Faulkner), 2328 “As Is” Agreement, 2260 Asaka, Yasuhiko, 3059 ASCAP. See American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers XLII
Asch, Joseph J., 868 Ascorbic acid, 2224 Asensio Barroso, Florentino, 2951 Ash Wednesday (Eliot), 2445 Ashbery, John, 864 Ashcan School, 2515 Asia; map, dxi Asiatic Exclusion League. See Japanese Exclusion League Asimov, Isaac, 3079 Askania-Nova Research Station, 1488 Aspinwall, William H., 268 Asplund, Erik Gunnar, 2982 Asquith, H. H., 756, 832, 859, 1140 Assassinat du duc de Guise, L’. See Assassination of the Duke de Guise, The (film) Assassination of the Duke de Guise, The (film), 172 Assassinations; Carlos I, 841; Francis Ferdinand, 1121; Rosa Luxemburg, 1479-1482; William McKinley, 59; Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, 904-906 Assembly lines; automobile manufacture, 672, 1063-1067, 1110 Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg, 400 Associated Advertising Clubs of America, 1082-1085 Associated Music Publishers, 2713 Associated Press, 33 Association for the Reform of Women’s Education, 730 Association of American Painters and Sculptors, 1057 Association of American Portland Cement Manufacturers, 84-87 Association of Edison Licensees, 419 Assyrian National Pact (1932), 2673 Astaire, Fred, 2610, 2868 Aston, Francis William, 811, 1455 Astor, Nancy, 2246
Subject Index Astounding Stories (magazine), 3080 Astrakhan National Forest Preserve, 1486-1489, 1884 Astronomy; big bang theory, 2155-2157; expanding universe, 2276-2278; galaxies, 291-294, 935-938, 1877-1879, 1953-1956, 2161-2164; interstellar matter, 288-291; Milky Way galaxy, 1419-1421; planets, 432-435, 2407-2409; radio, 2394-2396, 3028-3031; solar, 206-210, 686-689, 23832385; spectroscopy, 288, 369, 936, 1546-1548; stars, 576-578, 959-962, 1034-1037, 16541656, 1912-1915, 2119-2121, 2471-2473, 2718-2721; stellar evolution, 1092-1095; telescopes, 1385-1388, 23472349. See also Category Index Astrophotography, 2347-2349 Astrophysics, 369, 1912, 21192121; black holes, 1250-1253, 3170-3172 Astrup, Eivind, 759 AT&T. See American Telephone and Telegraph Atatürk, 856, 1180, 1511 Atkinson Jones, William, 1347 Atlantic City Pageant, 1730-1733 Atlantic Ocean; map, 973. See also Geographical Index Atmosphere; carbon dioxide, 3069-3072; circulation, 14741475; ionosphere, 134-137; ozone layer, 1053-1056; radiation, 1594-1597 Atomic nucleus, 962-964, 2477, 2544, 2615, 2784 Atomic theory; Greek, 962 Atoms; isotopes, 811-814, 14551457; plum pudding model, 962; splitting, 2555-2558, 3143-3147; structure, 276, 812, 938-941, 962-964, 1103-1106, 1805, 2027-2030, 2390, 25442546 Atoxyl, 824
Atrocities. See Category Index Aubrey, John, 900 Auden, W. H., 863, 1750, 2445 Audions, 353, 1024, 1177, 1228, 1641, 2012 Audubon, John James, 396 Audubon Societies, 396-399, 1068 Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. See Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Weill and Brecht) Aung San, 3012 Auric, Georges, 1601 Auschwitz death camp, 2641, 3160, 3255 Austen Fox, 1270 Austin, Bunny, 3127 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 916-919 Australia; commonwealth formation, 37-39; woman suffrage, 160-162. See also Geographical Index Australia Act (1901), 2517 Australian Aerial Medical Service, 1653, 2238-2239 Australian Inland Mission, 2238 Australian parliament; first woman member, 1669-1670 Australopithecine fossils, 19381940 Australopithecus, 1848 Austria; annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 697-699; invasion by Germany, 30933096; map, 3094. See also Geographical Index Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, 192 Austrian National Bank, 2503 Autobahns, 3301 Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, The (Stein), 444 Autochrome plates, 579-582 Automatic Electric Washer Company, 794 Automobile Club of France, 529 Automobiles; American Automobile Association, 137140; Japanese manufacturers, XLIII
852-855; manufacture, 670674, 1063-1067, 1110-1114, 1659-1662, 1893, 2158-2161; racing, 529-531, 776-777 Auxiliary Service Law (1916), 1280 Aventine Secession, 1998 Averbakh, Leopold, 2562 Averescu, Alexandru, 600 Avery, Clarence W., 1063 Avery, Oswald, 183 Aviation, 278-280, 1202-1205; airplanes, 2941-2944; development, 769-772, 16481653, 2017-2020, 2112-2115, 2189-2192, 2566-2568; Hughes Aircraft Company, 1899; regulation, 3262-3264; zeppelins, 1174-1176. See also Category Index under Space and aviation Awake and Sing! (Odets), 28232826 Awful Truth, The (film), 2727 Axe, The (Undset), 2268 Axiom of choice, 99-102, 816 Axiom of convergence, 1464 Axiom of infinity, 816 Axiom of randomness, 1464 Axiom of reducibility, 816 Axiomization of set theory, 311314 Azaña y Díaz, Manuel, 2496, 2945, 2996 4Aztz, 4Abd al-, 411 Azusa Street Revival, 348, 520521 Ba Maw, 3012 Baade, Walter, 1093, 1878, 2276, 2347, 2718 Ba4al Shem Tov, 1802 Babbage, Charles, 2216 Babel, Isaac, 2563 Babson, Roger W., 2331 Bachelet, Jean, 2985 Back, Ernst, 2028 Bacon, Lloyd, 2608 Bacteriological weapons, 20472050
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Baden-Powell, Agnes, 613 Baden-Powell, Robert Stephenson Smyth, 613 Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik, 8, 310 Badoglio, Pietro, 2875 Baekeland, Leo Hendrik, 385 Baer, George Frederick, 152, 516 Baeyer, Adolf von, 385 Bailey, DeFord, 2084 Bailey, James A., 629 Bain, Alexander, 1874 Baird, Arthur, 1652 Baird, John Logie, 285, 1874, 2956, 3282 Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 3265 Baire, René, 100 Bakelite, 385-387, 2816 Baker, George F., 622, 1552 Baker, George Pierce, 362 Baker, Josephine, 2073 Baker, Newton D., 1356, 1607 Bakeshop Act (1895), 414 Bakst, Léon, 762, 820, 833, 977 Balanced drop method, 741 Balanchine, George, 2794, 3107 Balbo, Italo, 1782 Balch, Emily Greene, 1199 Balck, Viktor, 975 Balcon, Le. See Balcony, The (Genet) Balcon, Michael, 2722 Balcony, The (Genet), 1724 Baldwin, Benjamin, 1967 Baldwin, James, 3232 Baldwin, Roger Nash, 1607 Baldwin, Stanley, 1590, 2105, 2168, 2246, 2430, 2927, 2973 Balfour, Arthur, 756, 1389, 1531, 1621, 1741, 1777, 2517 Balfour Declaration, 1271, 13891392, 1621, 1777, 2936 Balfour resolution, 2517-2520 Balkan Wars (1912-1913), 246, 691, 857, 891, 1008-1011, 1124, 1450, 2071, 2077; map, 1010 Balkans; map, 1451. See also Geographical Index Ball, Hugo, 1242
Balla, Giacomo, 747 Ballad of the Brown Girl, The (Cullen), 1555 Ballet, 762-766; abstract, 766-769; L’Après-midi d’un faune , 977980; The Dying Swan, 632-635; The Firebird, 833-836; Jardin aux lilas, 2908-2911; Das Lied von der Erde, 913-916; The Rite of Spring, 1079-1082; Serenade, 2794-2797; Les Sylphides, 766-769 Ballet companies; American Ballet, 2794; Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 3107-3110; Ballets Jooss, 2570; Ballets Russes, 762-766, 833, 1079; New York City Ballet, 2796. See also individual names Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 3107-3110 Ballet Society, 2796 Ballets Jooss, 2570 Ballets Russes, 762-766, 833-836, 977, 1079, 1866, 2794, 3107 Ballinger, Richard Achilles, 392, 751 Ballooning, 2506-2509 Balmer, Johann Jakob, 939 Baltic states, independence, 14251427 Baltimore, David, 803 Balzac v. Porto Rico (1922), 1348 Balzar, Fred B., 2483 Banff National Park, 2425 Bank for International Settlements, 2503 Bank Holding Company Act (1956), 2180 Bank of America, 2180 Bank of Canada, 2450 Bank of Montreal, 778 Bank of United States, 2457-2460 Banking; credit unions, 27612764; failures, 2457-2460, 2503-2506; Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 26222625; legislation, 1099-1103, 2179-2182, 2659-2662, 28572860; Morris Plan, 827-829; XLIV
nationalization, 2899-2902; panics, 622-625; Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 2540-2543. See also Category Index Banking Act (1933), 2333, 2459, 2659-2662, 2858 Banking Act (1935), 2857-2860 Bankruptcy Act (1933), 2117 Bankus Corporation, 2457 Banting, Frederick G., 142, 1689 Banton, Travis, 2396 Banya. See Bathhouse, The (Mayakovsky) Baras, Paul, 530 Barber, Red, 1564 Barber paradox, 164 Barbusse, Henri, 1696 Barclay, Sir Thomas, 331 Bard, The (Sibelius), 877 Bardeen, John, 354, 2013 Bardon, L., 710 Barfield, Owen, 2681 Baring, Evelyn. See Cromer, first earl of Barkla, Charles Glover, 68, 471, 1807 Barnard, Chester Irving, 3066 Barnard, Christiaan, 2775 Barnard, Edward Emerson, 288 Barnard, Joseph Edwin, 2493 Barnett, Miles A. F., 135 Barney, Charles, 623 Barnum, P. T., 629 Barnum and Bailey Circus, 629631 Baro-Kano railroad, 873-875 Barone, Domenico, 2298 Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 2340 Barrett, Clare Belle, 2129 Barretts of Wimpole Street, The (film), 2377 Barron, Clarence W., 1470 Barrow, Clyde, 2748 Barrow, Edward Grant, 1597 Barry, Philip, 362 Bartel, Kazimierz, 2111 Bartels, Julius, 2799 “Bartleby the Scrivener” (Melville), 1589
Subject Index Bartleman, Frank, 520 Bartók, Béla, 295 Barton, Edmund, 37 Barton, Otis, 2427 Baruch, Bernard Mannes, 1371, 2866 Barzanjt, Mawmnd, 2122 Barzini, Luigi, Sr., 721 Baseball, 1597-1600; All-Star Game, 2667-2669; Black Sox scandal, 1538-1541; hall of fame, 3193-3195; World Series, 256-259 Baseball Writers Association of America, 3194 BASF. See Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik Basil, Wassili de, 3107 Bassett, Edward, 1276 Bassøe, Johannes Gerckens, 2064 Bates, Ruby, 2490 Bateson, William, 77, 378, 474 Bathhouse, The (Mayakovsky), 2282-2285, 2563 Bathing suits, 1558-1562 Bathyscaphe, 2429 Bathyspheres, 2427-2430 Batista y Zaldívar, Fulgencio, 236 Battle of _______. See _______, Battle of Battle of Fishes (Masson), 1945 Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (Melville), 1589 Battleships. See Ships Baudot, Jean-Maurice-Émile, 32 Bauer, Max, 1279 Bauer, Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin, 542 Bauhaus, 194, 620, 783, 801, 899, 1313, 1460-1463, 1675, 2980 Baum, L. Frank, 3201 Bavolek, Cecelia, 2773 Baxter, Warner, 2608 Bayliss, William Maddock, 142 Baylor Plan, 2269-2272 BBC. See British Broadcasting Corporation BCG tuberculosis vaccine, 16831686
Beach, Sylvia, 1767 Beale, L. S., 2225 Beatty, David, 1266 Beatty, Edward, 2448 Beaudouin, Eugène Elie, 2979 Beautiful and Damned, The (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 2033 Beauty pageants, 1730-1733 Beaverbrook, Lord. See Aitken, William Maxwell Bechuanaland Protectorate, 15681571 Beck, Józef, 2111, 3209 Beck, Thomas, 2742 Beck Committee, 2916 Becket (Anouilh), 1723 Beckett, Samuel, 1723, 1750 Beckmann, Max, 423, 1983 Becky Sharp (film), 2364 Becquerel, Alexandre-Edmond, 283, 352 Becquerel, Antoine-Henri, 1, 275, 471, 664, 2687 Bedbug, The (Mayakovsky), 22822285, 2563 Bedford Cut Stone Company v. Journeymen Stone Cutters’ Association (1927), 2552 Beebe, William, 2427 Beef trust, 325, 402-405, 1149 Beer Hall Putsch (1923), 1829, 1869-1871, 2058, 2625, 2633, 2767 Beer Wars, Chicago, 2301 Beers, James R., 269 Bees, communication, 1495-1497 Beetson, Fred, 2306 Behrens, Peter, 618, 781 Behring, Emil von, 700, 1043 Behrman, S. N., 362 Beijerinck, Martinus W., 804 Beijing man. See Peking man Being and Time (Heidegger), 1039, 2146-2148 Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull. See Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (Mann, T.) Belarus. See Geographical Index Belasco, David, 737 XLV
Belgian Congo, 89, 703-707; Lever Brothers, Ltd., 879-882; map, 705 Belgium; annexation of the Congo, 703-707, 880. See also Geographical Index Bell, Alexander Graham, 1177 Bell, Charles, 327 Bell, Francis, 986 Bell, Gertrude, 1625 Bell, J. Franklin, 107 Bell, Jocelyn, 2720 Bell, Vanessa, 1993 Bell Labs. See Bell Telephone Laboratories Bell-Magendie law, 327 Bell Telephone Laboratories, 354, 2011-2014, 2394 Bell 300 telephone, 2976-2979 Belle de Jour (film), 2215 Belousov, V. V., 953 Bends. See Decompression sickness Benedict, Ruth, 851, 2697 Benedict XV, 1360, 1630, 2044 Beneduce, Alberto, 2622 Beneš, Edvard, 1453, 3129 Benevolent assimilation, 108 Bennett, Frederick, 670 Bennett, Harry, 1110 Bennett, Hugh Hammond, 2730, 2837 Bennett, James Gordon, Jr., 529 Bennett, Richard Bedford, 1636, 1709, 2430, 2440, 2448, 2575, 2581, 2834 Benois, Alexandre, 762, 766 Bentinck, William, 2004 Bentley, C. E., 429 Bentley, Mary Ann Moore, 161 Benton, William, 2713 Berardelli, Alessandro, 2200 Berchtold, Leopold von, 1008, 1121 Berg, Alban, 644, 914, 1070, 1701, 2086, 3031 Berg, Helene, 3031 Berg, Paal, 2064 Bergengren, Roy F., 2761 Berger, Hans, 2285
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bergeron, Tor, 1474 Bergson, Henri, 567, 1045, 2146 Beriberi, 14-17, 485, 1887 Berkeley, Busby, 2608 Berle, Adolf A., Jr., 2521 Berlin, Irving, 2868 Berlin, Treaty of (1878), 1195 Berlin Act (1885), 1531 Berlin Conference (1884-1885), 1531, 2136 Berlin Secession, 423 Berliner, Emile, 96, 1023 Berman, Matvei Davidovich, 2670 Berman, Pandro Samuel, 2868 Bern Convention, 545-548 Bernadette of Lourdes, 2693 Bernanos, Georges, 1974, 3056 Bernard, Claude, 144 Bernard, Harry Virden, 2509 Bernays, Paul, 313, 2317 Bernhard, Karl, 781 Bernheim, Hippolyte, 286 Bernier, J. E., 54 Bernoulli, Jakob, 487 Bernstein, Abe, 2301 Bernstein, Eduard, 1480 Bernstein, Felix, 99, 312 Bert, Paul, 573 Berthelot, Philippe, 1621 Berthold, Arnold, 142 Bertie, Sir Francis, 127 Bertoia, Harry, 1967 Besant, Annie, 1183, 1728 Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1877, 2471 Best, Charles Herbert, 1215, 1689 Besteiro, Julián, 2496 Beta decay, 2687-2690, 3144 Beta particles, 1, 665 Betancourt, Rómulo, 1794 Betar, 2321 Betelgeuse (star), 1388, 1655 Bethe, Hans Albrecht, 2119 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, 2374 Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von, 890, 1121, 1279, 1349 Bettazzi, Rodolfo, 100 Betty Zane (Grey), 926
Beuys, Joseph, 1244 Bevan, Edward John, 314 Beveridge, Albert J., 222, 534 Bevin, Ernest, 2105 Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), 199 Bianchi, Michele, 1782 Bible Student movement, 25122514 Bicycle racing, 242-244 Bicycle Wheel (Duchamp), 1020 Biddle, George, 2830 Bidlack Treaty (1846), 268 Bielaski, A. Bruce, 692 Bier, August Karl Gustav, 376 Big bang theory, 209, 293, 1548, 1656, 1879, 1955, 2155-2157, 2276, 2720 Big Parade, The (film), 2273 Big Schmidt telescope, 2349 Billings, John Shaw, 2966 Billy Budd, Foretopman (Melville), 1588 Binary-cycle geothermal power plants, 1026 Binary stars, 1035, 2719 Bing, Samuel, 117 Bingham, Hiram, 892 Bini, Lucino, 3104 Biochemistry, 20, 484, 3007 Biogeochemistry, 2089-2092 Biograph Studios, 737, 988 Biologics Control Act (1902), 535 Biology; blood groups, 10-14; gene frequency, 638-641; hormones, 142-145; nervous system, 327-330, 608-611; nutrition, 484-486. See also Category Index Biosphere, The (Vernadsky), 2089-2092 Bird, Paul P., 531 Birds, protection, 226-230, 396399, 1067-1070, 1133-1136, 1761, 2742-2745 Birdseye, Clarence, 1306 Birdwell, Russell, 3223 Birkbeck, William John, 492 Birkeland, Olaf Kristian, 2494 Birrell, Augustine, 1262 XLVI
Birth control; access to information, 1171-1174, 17371741; clinics, 1295-1299; religious constraints, 24372439; Margaret Sanger on, 1738 Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, 1297 Birth Control League, 2005 Birth of a Nation, The (film), 172, 1188-1191, 1705, 2002 Bischoff, Theodor von, 730 Bismarck, Otto von, 542, 582 Bissell, Melville R., 56 Bitter Cry of the Children, The (Spargo), 969 Bitter Sweet (Coward), 2618 Bitzer, Billy, 1188 Bixby, Harold, 2189 Bjaaland, Olav, 919 Bjerknes, Jacob, 1474 Bjerknes, Vilhelm, 1474 Björkö Treaty (1905), 616 Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne, 450 Black, Davidson, 1847, 3053 Black, Hugo L., 2646, 3119 Black Boy (Wright, R.), 3230 Black Cat, The (film), 2463 Black Christ, and Other Poems, The (Cullen), 1555 Black dwarf stars, 1251, 2719 Black holes, 1232, 1250-1253, 2472, 2720, 3170-3172 Black Hundreds, 454 Black Monday, 2337, 2841-2843, 2999 Black Muslim movement, 24342437 Black nationalism, 1358, 2434 Black Sox scandal, 1538-1541, 1598 Black Spring (Miller, H.), 2772 Black Square on White (Malevich), 1235 Black Sunday (Dust Bowl), 2730 Black Tuesday (stock market crash), 2331-2334 Blackbody radiation, 1804 Blackett, Patrick M. S., 2584 Blair, Sir Robert, 900
Subject Index Blanck, Max, 868 Blatch, Harriot Stanton, 1309 Blaue Engel, Der. See Blue Angel, The (film) Blaue Reiter, Der, 423, 897-899, 933 Blaue Vier, Die. See Blue Four Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, 865, 932, 1476 Blériot, Louis, 769 Bleyl, Fritz, 421 Blink-microscope comparator, 433, 2407 Bliss, Lizzie P., 2340 Blitz (1940-1941), 3233, 3269 Blomberg, Werner von, 2767, 2927 Blonde Venus (film), 2398 Blood; coagulation, 1215; iron, 1990-1993 Blood cells; red, 1990-1993; white, 700 Blood groups, 10-14, 463 Blood transfusion, 462-464 Blood types. See Blood groups Blood vessels, 81-84 Bloody Sunday, 212, 399-402, 452, 571 Bloom, Robert, 1848 Bloomfield, Meyer, 1840 Bloomsbury Group, 1748, 1994 Blore, Eric, 2869 Blue Angel, The (film), 2396 Blue Cross Association, 22692272 Blue Four, 1915-1918 Blue Grass Boys, 3163-3166 Blue Monday (Gershwin and DeSylva), 2872 Blue-sky laws, 624, 1472, 2751 Blue stars, 370, 960, 1093, 1913 Bluegrass music, 3163-3166 Blues music, 786-789, 1557, 1830-1832, 2605-2608 Blueshifts, 1546 Blum, Léon, 334, 1663, 2740, 2899 Blum, René, 3107 B’nai B’rith, Anti-Defamation League, 1085-1087
Board of Agriculture (Great Britain), 1220 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2857 Boas, Franz, 849, 2249, 2697 Bobrikov, Nikolai, 1399 Boccioni, Umberto, 747 Boda, Mike, 2199 Boeing Aircraft, 2941 Boer War (1899-1902), 155-157, 331, 830, 954 Bogrov, Dmitry, 904 Bohemia. See Geographical Index Bohlin, Birger, 1848 Bohn, René, 8 Bohr, Niels, 277, 410, 938, 962, 1103, 1804, 2027, 2172, 2390, 2688, 3146 Bohr model of the atom, 277, 410, 938-941, 946, 1105, 1805, 2390 Bolger, Ray, 3201 Bolimov, Battle of (1915), 1192 Bolin, Bert R., 3069 Bolivia. See Geographical Index Boll weevil infestation, 1303-1306 Bolshevik Party (Russia), 455, 1324, 1344, 1393-1396 Bolshevik regime, U.S. recognition, 2690-2692 Bolshevik Revolution. See October Revolution (1917) Bolsheviks; Comintern, 14901493; October Revolution, 1393-1396; Red Terror, 13241328; Russian Civil War, 14161418; Russian Orthodox Church, 1318-1321, 31953198; Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, 12171219 Bolton, Elmer K., 2816 Boltwood, Bertram Borden, 3, 388 Bolzano, Bernhard, 100, 305 BOMC. See Book-of-the-Month Club Bonaparte, Charles Joseph, 692 Bonaparte et la Révolution (film), 2003 Bonfield, Margaret, 2248 Bonillas, Ignacio, 845 XLVII
Bonus Army, 2337, 2578-2580 Bonus March, 2578-2580, 2597 Book clubs, 2092-2096 Book-of-the-Month Club, 20922096, 3230, 3299 Bookerites, 428 Books, paperback, 2802-2805 Booth, George, 1965 Booth, H. Cecil, 56 Bootlegging, 1605 Borah, William E., 1615, 1742, 2252, 2538, 2663, 2865 Borah Resolution, 1742 Borden, Robert Laird, 778, 859, 1636, 1709, 2440 Border Patrol, U.S., 1926-1929 Bordet, Jules, 10 Borja, Alfonso de. See Calixtus III Börlin, Jean, 496 Bormann, F. Herbert, 2848 Born, Max, 2242 Borzage, Frank, 2307 Bosch, Carl, 308 Bose, Subhas Chandra, 2410, 2481, 3272 Bosnia and Herzegovina; annexation, 697-699. See also Geographical Index Bosons, 2029 Bosscha, Johannes, 367 Bosset, Vera de, 1865 Boston Red Sox, 1597 Boström, Erik Gustaf, 450 Botha, Louis, 155, 830 Bothe, Walther, 1596, 2544 Botswana, 1568-1571. See also Geographical Index Bouchardon, Pierre, 1383 Boudin, Eugène, 2186 Boulanger, Nadia, 1665, 1865 Boulder Canyon Project Act (1928), 2931 Boulder Dam, 2930-2934; map, 2932 Boule, Marcellin, 710 Boundary Waters Treaty (1909), 2572, 2835 Bourbaki, Nicolas. See Bourbaki group Bourbaki group, 733, 3149-3152
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Bourgeois, Léon, 1501 Bourke-White, Margaret, 2404, 2966 Bouvin, J. A., 1680 Bouyssonie, Amédée, 710, 3285 Bouyssonie, Jean, 710 Boveri, Theodor, 102, 180 Bowers, Claude, 2997 Bowling, 34-36 Box, John, 1926 Boxer Rebellion (1900), 30, 320 Boxing, 719-721, 1540 Boy Scouts, 613-616 Boyce, William Dickson, 613 Boycott, Arthur Edwin, 573 Boyd, Charles T., 1261 Boyle, R. W., 1225 Boys’ Brigade, 613 Braddon, Edward, 160 Bradfield, John Job Crew, 2549 Bradford, Gamaliel, 105 Bradford, Perry, 788 Bradley, Charles Schenck, 1892 Bradley, Francis Herbert, 306 Bradley, Guy, 396 Braga, Teófilo, 841 Bragg, Lawrence, 68, 473, 945 Bragg, William Henry, 68, 473, 945, 1223 Bragg equation, 947 Brahe, Tycho, 2718 Brahm, Otto, 456 Brahmo Samaj, 565, 1497 Brahms, Johannes, 644 Brainard, David, 759 Brainerd, Bertha, 1564 Branch banking, 2179-2182 Brancusi, Constantin, 495 Brand, Max. See Faust, Frederick Brandeis, Louis D., 667, 1011, 1145, 1149, 1155, 1269, 2552, 2841, 2999 Brandeis brief, 667-670, 1270 Brandenberger, Jacques Edwin, 314 Branting, Karl Hjalmar, 1680 Braque, Georges, 683, 749, 1015, 1312 Brassieres, 820 Brattain, Walter H., 354, 2013
Braun, Heinrich, 376 Bravais, Auguste, 945 Brave New World (Huxley), 26012605 Brave New World Revisited (Huxley), 2604 Breadon, Sam, 2667 Breakfast for Two (film), 2727 Breaking New Ground (Pinchot), 395 Breast cancer screening, 10401042 Breast-feeding, 1758 Brecht, Bertolt, 2193 Breen, Joseph L., 2725 Breen, Robert, 2871 Bréhier, Émile, 2527 Brennan, Louis, 468 Brent, Charles Henry, 956 Bresci, Gaetano, 59 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of (1918), 1431-1433, 1772 Breton, André, 1243, 1943, 1974, 2213, 3227 Brett, Jeremy, 3178 Breuer, Josef, 286 Breuil, Henri-Édouard-Prosper, 3285 Brewer, David J., 667 Briand, Aristide, 1258, 1719, 1741, 2069, 2076, 2252 Bridal Wreath, The (Undset), 2268 Bride (Duchamp), 1019 Bridge, The (Crane), 1750, 24002403 Bridges, Calvin Blackman, 648 Bridges, Harry, 2637 Bridges; Golden Gate, 3022-3024; Sydney Harbour, 2549-2551; Tacoma Narrows, 3292-3294 Briell, Frank, 34 Brill-Zinsser disease, 2387 Bringing Up Baby (film), 2727 Briscoe, Benjamin, 2158 Britain, Battle of (1940), 32673272; radar, 2735 British Amateur golf tournament, 2452 British-American Tobacco Company, 177-180 XLVIII
British and Continental Federation for the Abolishment of Government Regulation of Prostitution, 337 British Broadcasting Corporation, 1875, 2168-2171, 2956-2960, 3187 British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, 2880 British Commonwealth of Nations, formation, 2517-2520 British East Africa Protectorate; map, 75 British Isles; map, 1579 British mandate (Palestine), 17771779, 2935-2937; map, 1778 British National Vigilance Association for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, 337 British Open golf tournament, 2452 British Petroleum Company, 682, 2260 British Somaliland; invasion by Italy, 3274-3276; map, 3275; rebellion, 1566-1568 British South Africa Company, 1862-1865 Broadcast Music, Inc., 1116 Broadway theaters, 348 Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count Ulrich von, 1521 Brockman, Hans, 1888 Brod, Max, 1170 Broderick, Helen, 2869 Broderick, Joseph, 2457 Broglie, Louis de, 410, 1103, 1804, 2242, 2493 Broken Blossoms (film), 1190 Brokenshire, Norman, 1564 Bromwich, John, 3127 Bronenosets Potyomkin. See Potemkin (film) Bronstein, Lev Davidovich. See Trotsky, Leon Bronx River Parkway, 3301 Brookes, Norman, 1775 Brooks, Jane M., 1610 Brooks, Mel, 2053 Brooks, Van Wyck, 1587 Brooks, William Henry, 745
Subject Index Broom, Robert, 1938 Broun, Heywood, 2093 Brouwer, L. E. J., 305, 2317, 3149 Brown, Henry B., 51 Brown, John Mason, 362 Brown, Kay, 3223 Brown, Kenneth, 1669 Brown, Margaret Tobin. See Brown, Molly Brown, Mary Eliza Dircksey Wittenoom, 1669 Brown, Molly, 972 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), 669, 746 Browne, Byron, 2820 Brownian motion, 408, 441 Browning, Tod, 2461 Brownlee, John Edward, 2424 Brownlow, Kevin, 2001 Brownshirts. See Sturm Abteilung Broz, Josip. See Tito Bruce, Edward, 2830 Bruce, Nigel, 3176 Bruce array, 2394 Brücke, Die, 421-424, 496 Bruckman, Clyde, 2143 Brundage, Avery, 2948 Brunner, Johann Conrad, 1690 Brunswick, John, 34 Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. (1916), 1061 Brussels Conference (1889-1890), 1531 Brusso, Noah. See Burns, Tommy Bryan, William Jennings, 1059, 1076, 1099, 1458, 2054 Buber, Martin, 1802 Buch der hängenden Gärten, Das (Schoenberg), 644-647 Bucharest, Treaty of (1913), 1009; map, 1010 Büchner, Georg, 2086 Büchse der Pandora, Die. See Pandora’s Box (Wedekind) Buck, Pearl S., 3147 Budd, Ralph, 3247 Buddenbrooks (Mann, T.), 1880 Budenny, Semyon Mikhaylovich, 1715
Budge, Don, 3127 Budgetary Control (McKinsey), 1980 Buell, Dorothy, 2182 Buffington, Joseph, 1618 Buick Motor Company, 1659, 2158 Building codes, 522-526, 18551857 Buisson, Henri, 1053 Bukharin, Nikolay Ivanovich, 1253, 1711, 2241, 2263, 2562, 3298 Bulgaria; Greek invasion, 20762079; map, 2077. See also Geographical Index Bulkley, Robert J., 3090 Bullen, K. E., 1033 Bullitt, William, 2690, 2997 Bülow, Bernhard von, 317, 411 Bülow, Karl von, 1137 Bulwer-Lytton, Victor. See Lytton, second earl of Bunau-Varilla, Philippe-Jean, 268, 271 Bunting v. Oregon (1917), 415 Buñuel, Luis, 2213, 3226 Burali-Forti, Cesare, 162 Burchenal, John J., 1633 Bureau of Biological Survey, U.S., 227, 1068, 2916, 3050, 32653267 Bureau of Chemistry, U.S., 2164 Bureau of Conscientious Objectors, 1607 Bureau of Corporations, U.S., 219-222, 1145 Bureau of Fisheries, U.S., 32653267 Bureau of Immigration, U.S., 2350 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2758 Bureau of Investigation, U.S. See Federal Bureau of Investigation Bureau of Labor, U.S., 219-222 Bureau of Land Management, U.S., 837 Bureau of Legal First Aid, 1608 Bureau of Mines, U.S., 836-838, 2417 Bureau of Reclamation, U.S., 167 XLIX
Bureau of Standards, U.S., 836 Burel, Léonce-Henry, 2001 Burgess, Ernest W., 1962 Burgess, Thomas William, 2129 Burkan, Nathan, 1114 Burleson, Albert Sidney, 1367, 1528, 1608, 1648 Burliuk, David, 749 Burma; separation from India, 3012-3014. See also Geographical Index Burnham, Daniel Hudson, 1386 Burnham, John B., 3050 Burns, George, 2352 Burns, John, 513 Burns, Lucy, 1309 Burns, Tommy, 719 Burns, William J., 1959 Burroughs, John, 230-231 Burroughs and Cannon v. United States (1934), 2026 Burrows, Montrose, 610 Burton, Theodore E., 678, 2047 Burton, William Merriam, 1049 Burton process, 1049-1052 Bury, J. B., 1824 Busch, Hans, 2493 Bush, Vannevar, 2216 Bushnell, David, 541 Business; corporate centralism, 2521-2524; corporations, 19051908; incorporation, 188-191; management, 1118-1121, 12721275, 1840-1844, 1980-1983, 3066-3069; multidivisional structure, 1659-1662; periodicals, 1374-1376, 24032406; public relations, 516519. See also Category Index “Business Creed, A” (Associated Advertising Clubs of America), 1083 Business education, 674-677, 1551-1554 Business franchising, 1029 Business History Review (journal), 1552 Busoni, Ferruccio, 587, 2193 Bussel, Joseph, 723 Butler, Harold B., 1517
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Butler, Josephine, 336 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 847, 1363, 2253 Butler, Pierce, 1892, 2841, 2999 Butler, Smedley, 991 Butler Act (1925), 2054 Butlerov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, 2392 Buxton, First Earl (Sydney Charles Buxton), 1862 By the Law (film), 2149 Byng, Julian, 1637, 1710, 1947 Byrne, Ethel, 1295 Byrnes, James F., 3198, 3246 Caballero, Bernardino, 2923 Cabaret Voltaire, 1242-1245 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (film), 172, 1575-1578 Cable, John Levi, 1779 Cable Act (1922), 1612, 17791781, 2443 Cáceras, Ramón, 735 Cachin, Marcel, 1663 Cadbury, Henry J., 1356 Cadillac Motor Car Company, 670-674 Cadman, Sir John, 1621, 2259 Cadman-Berthelot Agreement (1920), 1623 Cagney, James, 2366, 2467 Cagni, Umberto, 760 Cahiers d’André Walter, Les. See Notebooks of André Walter, The (Gide) Cahill, Holger, 2830 Cai Yuanpei, 1506 Cairo University, founding, 716718 Calder, Alexander, 1020 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 3226 California; map, 1811 California Arabian Standard Oil Company, 3097 California Institute of Technology, 207 Calixtus III, 1630 Callendar, Guy Stewart, 3069 Calles, Plutarco Elías, 843 Calmette, Albert, 1683
Calmette, Gaston, 978 Calvin, John, 302 Calvo Sotelo, José, 2945 Cambó, Francisco, 1156 Cambodia. See Geographical Index Cambon, Jules, 1531, 1853 Cambon, Pierre Paul, 331 Cambridge Ancient History, 18241826 Cambridge Medieval History, 1825 Cambridge Modern History, 1824 Camelots du Roi, 2741 Camera Notes (journal), 130 Camera techniques, motion pictures, 1970 Camera Work (journal), 132 Cameron, Donald, 2343 Cameron, George Harvey, 1595 Camille (film), 2366 Campaign financing legislation, 2024-2027 Campbell, Henry H., 1143 Campbell, John W., Jr., 3079 Campbell, Walter Gilbert, 2164, 3122 Campbell, William Wallace, 1912 Campbell-Bannerman, Henry, 830 Camus, Albert, 1974 Canada; Arctic Archipelago, 5456; map, 55; woman suffrage, 1377-1379. See also Geographical Index Canada Cement Company, 778781 Canada Grain Act (1912), 282 Canadian Group of Painters, 1628 Canadian Manufacturers Association, 780 Canadian prime ministers; Richard Bedford Bennett, 2440-2442; Robert Laird Borden, 859-861; William Lyon Mackenzie King, 1709-1711, 2879-2881; Arthur Meighen, 1636-1638 Canales, José Tomás, 2304 Canby, Henry Seidel, 2092 Cancer; causes, 803-807; screening, 1040-1042; uterine, 2225-2227 L
Caneva, Carlo, 856 Canfield, Dorothy, 3230 Canham, Erwin D., 707 Cannon, Annie Jump, 576 Cannon, James, 2219 Cannon, Joseph Gurney, 535, 751 Cannon, William, 3201 Cantacuzino, Gheorghe, 602 Cantor, Eddie, 2352 Cantor, Georg, 99, 162, 311, 732, 2317, 3149 Cantos (Pound), 1328-1332 Cantril, Hadley, 3139 Canudo, Ricciotto, 2001 Canutt, Yakima, 3152 Capel, Arthur, 1549 Capital punishment, 1680-1682 Capitalism, 1254 Capone, Al, 1604, 2301 Capper, Arthur, 2761 Capra, Frank, 2364, 2376, 2725 Capriccio (Stravinsky), 1867 Caraway, Hattie, 1301 Carbon compounds, 8 Carbon dioxide, 3069-3072 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 843, 3098 Cardiovascular medicine, 2773 Cardiovascular surgery, 2773 Cardozo, Benjamin N., 2464, 2841, 2999 Carefree (film), 2869 Carey Act (1894), 166 Carhart, Arthur H., 1931 Caribbean. See country names; Geographical Index Carlos I, 841 Carlson, Chester F., 3134 Carmichael, Franklin, 1628 Carnap, Rudolf, 1754, 2318 Carnarvon, fifth earl of. See Herbert, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Carnegie, Andrew, 47, 208, 428, 847 Carnegie, Dale, 2953 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 847-849 Carnegie Steel, 47, 1618 Carnovsky, Morris, 2474 Caro, Heinrich, 308
Subject Index Carol I, 600 Caroling Dusk (Cullen), 1555 Carothers, Wallace Hume, 387, 2816 Carpenter, Farrington, 2764 Carr, Joseph F., 1638 Carrà, Carlo, 747 Carrancistas, 844 Carranza, Venustiano, 843, 1259, 1332 Carrasco, Sergeant, 892 Carrel, Alexis, 81, 462, 610, 942 Carroll, James, 43 Carroll, Madeleine, 2722 Cars. See Automobiles Carson, Sir Edward, 1140, 1578 Carson, Hampton L., 217 Carson, Rachel, 2380 Cartan, Henri, 3150 Carter, Howard, 1784 Carty, John J., 1227, 2011 Caruso, Enrico, 98, 146 Casa del Obrero Mundial, 1333 Casablanca (film), 2378 Casares Quiroga, Santiago, 2945 Cascade Crest Trail, 3078 Cascariolo, Vincenzo, 2963 “Case Against the Reds, The” (Palmer), 1529 “Case for Birth Control, The” (Sanger), 1738 Case study teaching method, 675, 1551-1554 Casement, Sir Roger, 704, 983, 1262 Cash-and-carry plan, 2866 Casinos, 2483-2485 Cassatt, Alexander J., 516 Casson, Alfred Joseph, 1628 Castelnau, Noël-Marie-JosephÉdouard de Curières de, 1256 Castle, William E., 639, 728 Castner, Hamilton Young, 635 Cat and Mouse Act. See Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for IllHealth Act (1913) Cat People (film), 2378 Catalan Landscape (The Hunter) (Miró), 1944 Cathay (Pound), 967
Cather, Willa, 1403 Cathleen ni Houlihan (Yeats), 359 Cathode-ray tubes, 66, 275, 284, 558, 811, 1875, 3187 Cathode rays, 471 Catholic Action, 2300 Catholic Encyclopedia, The, 606608 Caton, Richard, 2285 Catskill Aqueduct, 3003 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 1301, 1610, 1644 Cattle ranching, 2764-2767 Cautley, R. W., 2425 Cavaillès, Jean, 2320 Cavalcade (Coward), 2618 Cave, A. J. E., 712 Cave art, 3285-3288 Cavendish Laboratory, 276, 560, 811, 1103, 2544, 2555 Caves du Vatican, Les. See Lafcadio’s Adventures (Gide) Cayley, Arthur, 1407 CBS. See Columbia Broadcasting System CCC. See Civilian Conservation Corps Cecil, Robert (1830-1903). See Salisbury, third marquis of Cecil, Lord Robert (1864-1958), 790, 1501 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, 2524 Cell division, 102 Cell receptors, 700 Cell theory, 608, 803 Celler, Emanuel, 3044 Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), 84, 325, 1152 Cellophane, 314-317 Celluloid, 385 Cellulose nitrate, 314 Cellulose plastics, 314 Celtic Revival, 359-362, 597-600 Cemal Pala, Ahmed, 1195 Cement Institute, 85 Cement manufacture, 84-87, 778781 Cement Manufacturers Protective Association, 85 Cendrars, Blaise, 496, 1601, 2001 LI
Central Asiatic Expeditions, 1798 Central planning (Soviet Union), 2263-2266 Central Rada, 1322 Central Sikh League, 1500 Centre Court at Wimbledon. See Wimbledon tennis stadium Centrifuge, 1889 Cephalin, 1215 Cepheid variable stars, 292, 937, 959-962, 1034-1037, 1387, 1420, 1877-1879, 1954, 2120, 2276 Cerha, Friedrich, 3032 Cerletti, Ugo, 3104 Cernuda, Luis, 3228 Césaire, Aimé, 2532 Cézanne, Paul, 443, 496, 683, 1057, 2187 CFCs. See Chlorofluorocarbons Chaco War (1932-1935), 2924 Chadwick, Henry, 3193 Chadwick, James, 2544, 2556, 2615, 2688, 3144 Chagall, Marc, 2709 Chagas, Carlos, 185 Chain, Ernst Boris, 2256, 3243 Chain stores, 2938 Chamber plays, 654 Chamberlain, Austen, 2069 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 1476 Chamberlain, Joseph, 155 Chamberlain, Joseph P., 2253 Chamberlain, Neville, 1590, 2969, 3093, 3129, 3205, 3209, 3240 Chambers, Frank A., 531 Champion v. Ames (1903), 222226 Chancellor, Sir John, 2321 Chandler, Raymond, 2325 Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan, 1252, 2471 Chandrasekhar limit, 2471-2473 Chanel, Coco, 1549 Chanel No. 5, 1550 Chaney, Lon, 2461 Chang Chih-tung. See Zhang Zhidong
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Chang Hsüeh-liang. See Zhang Xueliang Chang Kuo-t’ao. See Zhang Guotao Chanute, Octave, 278 Chaplin, Charles, 737, 988, 2050, 2307, 2378 Chaplin, Lita Grey, 2050 Chapman, Frank, 396 Chapman, Sydney, 2799 Charch, William Hale, 316 Charcot, Jean-Martin, 286 Charles, Arthur, 1216 Charles, Jacques, 2073 Charles VII, 1630 Charnel House, The (Picasso), 3036 Charon (moon of Pluto), 2408 Chase, Lucia, 2908 Chase, Martha, 184 Chase, Stuart, 2902 Chashnik, Ilia, 1235 Chatfield-Taylor, Hobart C., 1001 Chautemps, Camille, 2740 Chavis, Benjamin F., 746 Chaykovsky, Nikolay Vasilyevich, 1416 Cheka, 1325, 1395 Chemical bond theory, 2389-2393 Chemical weapons, 1192-1195, 2047-2050 Chemistry; chemical bond theory, 2389-2393; dyes, 8-10; nitrogen-bearing compounds, 308-311; photosynthesis, 500503; plastics, 385-387; proteins, 20; silicones, 26-29. See also Category Index Chemotherapy research, 825 Chen Duxiu, 1506 Ch’en Tu-hsiu. See Chen Duxiu Cheney, Arthur S., 721 Cheney, Charles H., 1277 Cherenkov, Pavel Alekseyevich, 2701 Cherenkov effect, 2701-2704 Cherington, Paul Terry, 675 Chernov, Viktor, 1326 Chesterton, G. K., 2066 Chevalier, Maurice, 2705
Chevalley, Charles, 3150 Chevrolet Motor Company, 1659, 2159 Chiang Kai-shek, 1835, 2096, 2509, 2628, 2777, 3037, 3059, 3114 Chiappe, Jean, 2740 Chicago school of sociology, 1962-1965 Chicago White Sox, 1598; World Series scandal, 1538-1541 Chicherin, Georgy Vasilyevich, 1772 Chien andalou, Un. See Andalusian Dog, An (film) Chiesa, Giacomo della. See Benedict XV Child labor, 968-972 Child Labor Act (1916), 225 Children’s Bureau, 968-972, 1745 Chile; Tacna-Arica compromise, 2309-2311. See also Geographical Index Chilowski, Constantin, 1223 China, 2510, 2778, 3060; map, 2097; May Fourth Movement, 1506-1508; modernization, 2932; Revolution of 1911, 909912; Second Sino-Japanese War, 3037-3040. See also Geographical Index Chinda Sutemi, 1076, 1531 Chinese Civil War (1926-1949), 2096-2099; map, 2097 Chinese Eastern Railway, 1240 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 1337 Ch’ing Dynasty. See Qing Dynasty Chlorination of water (U.S.), 635638 Chlorofluorocarbons, 2420, 24542456, 2836, 3071 Chlorophyll, 500-503 Choate, Joseph H., 847 Cholecystokinin, 143 Cholera, 635 Chopin, Frédéric, 355, 766 Choreography; ballet, 632-635, 762-769, 833-836, 977-980, LII
1079-1082, 2794-2797, 29082911, 3107-3110; modern dance, 355-358, 1211-1214, 2569-2571; musical motion pictures, 2608-2611, 28682871, 3203. See also Dance Chou En-lai. See Zhou Enlai Christian organizations, 1458-1459 Christian Science, 707 Christian Science Monitor (newspaper), 707-710 Christie, Agatha, 1571, 2325 Christy, Howard Chandler, 1730 Christy, James, 2408 Chromosomal theory of inheritance, 102-105, 180-184, 476, 648-651 Chromosomes, 475, 648-651; hereditary traits, 180-184; mapping, 906-909; sex, 102105 Chrysanthemum and the Sword, The (Benedict), 2698 Chrysler, Walter P., 2158 Chrysler Motors Corporation, 2158 Chu Teh. See Zhu De Church, Alonzo, 101, 1463, 2806 Church of England, 492 Church-Turing thesis, 2807 Churchill, Winston, 756, 1590, 1862, 2246, 2879, 2927, 2973, 3213, 3236, 3276; Abyssinian Campaign, 3274; Battle of Britain, 3267; British Broadcasting Corporation, 2170; Dunkirk evacuation, 3256; French collapse in World War II, 3250; Gallipoli Campaign, 1180; German invasion of Norway, 3240; Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140; Italian invasion of Egypt, 3289; opposition to Delhi Pact, 2481 Churchill White Paper, 1391 Ciano, Galeazzo, 3184, 3209 Cicotte, Eddie, 1538 Cigarette industry, 177, 886 Circular Staircase, The (Rinehart), 1572
Subject Index Circuses, 629-631 Citizen Kane (film), 2378, 3138 Citizenship laws, 1779-1781, 1788-1789, 1929-1931 Citrate blood transfusion, 463 Citric acid cycle, 3005-3009 City, The (Park, R. E.), 1962-1965 City Financial Corporation, 2457 City Lights (film), 2052 Civil Aeronautics Act (1938), 3262-3264 Civil Aeronautics Administration, 2113, 3263 Civil Aeronautics Board, 32623264 Civil rights. See Category Index Civil Rights Act (1964), 225 Civil unrest. See Category Index under Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Civil Works Administration, 2337, 2830 Civilian Conservation Corps, 1761, 2648, 2652-2655, 2759, 2765, 2838, 2861 Cixi, 29 Clansman, The (Dixon), 1189 Claretian martyrs, 2951-2953 Clark, Champ, 1011 Clark, E. E., 152 Clark, James Beauchamp. See Clark, Champ Clark, Kenneth, 3233 Clark, Les, 3063 Clarke, Edward Young, 1705 Clarke, James. See Kachellek, Albert Clarke, Tom, 1262 Claus, Carl, 699 Clayton, Henry D., 1149 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 84, 222, 325, 663, 885, 888, 1146, 1149-1156, 1619, 1892, 2552, 2937 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 271 Clean Politics Act (1939), 2026 Clemenceau, Georges, 1483, 1521, 1531, 1621, 1719, 2186 Clément, Albert, 530
Clements, Frederic E., 2846 Cléopâtre (ballet), 763 Cleveland, Grover, 157, 392, 1336 Clothing. See Fashion design Clouston, Sir Edward Seaborne, 778 Clunet, Édouard, 1383 Clurman, Harold, 2474 Coacci, Feruccio, 2199 Coad, Bert Raymond, 1303 Coal mining; accidents, 836; Great Britain, 2105 Coal tar, 9 Coates, Joseph Gordon, 986 Coburn, Alvin Langdon, 130 Cochrane, Sir Archibald Douglas, 3012 Cock and Harlequin (Cocteau), 1601 Cockcroft, John Douglas, 2244, 2555 Cocoanuts, The (film), 2366 Cocteau, Jean, 1549-1550, 1601, 1673, 1865, 2813 Coffee industry, El Salvador, 2535 Coghlan, Sir Charles Patrick John, 1862 Cohan, George M., 348 Cohen, Felix, 2757 Cohen, Fritz A., 2569 Cohen, Wilbur J., 2853 Cohnheim, Julius, 700 Colbert, Claudette, 2364, 2725 Colby, William E., 1282, 3076 Coldwell, James, 2581 Cole, Sydney W., 20, 484 Cole, William Morse, 675 Colin, Paul, 2073 Colladon, Daniel, 1223 Collective bargaining rights, 1535, 2115-2119, 2552, 2850-2853 Collective unconscious, 930 Collet, Henri, 1601 Collier, John (1884-1968), 2757, 2780 Collins, George B., 2702 Collins, Michael, 2547 Collins, Tom, 3180 Collins, Wayne Mortimer, 2442 Collip, James Bertram, 1689 LIII
Colloids, 110, 1889 Colombe. See Mademoiselle Colombe (Anouilh) Colombia; union with Panama, 268, 273 Colonialism. See Category Index Color (Cullen), 1555 Color-luminosity relationship of stars, 369-372, 1092-1095, 1913 Colorado River Compact (1922), 2930 Colossus of Maroussi, The (Miller, H.), 2772 Colt, LeBaron Bradford, 1725 Columbia Broadcasting System, 1116, 1564, 2133, 3282-3285 Columbia Pictures, 2376-2379 Columbia Records, 148, 1830 Colver v. Skeffington (1920), 1530 Combines Investigation Act (1910), 779 “Comedy’s Greatest Era” (Agee), 2144 Comenius, Jan. See Komenskù, Jan Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead), 2249-2252, 2602 Comintern, 1490-1493, 1664, 2969, 3205 Comiskey, Charles A., 1538 Commerce. See Category Index under Trade and commerce Commerce clause (U.S. Constitution), 222 Committee of Forty on Permanent Organization (NAACP), 746 Committee of One Hundred, 1296 Committee of Twelve, 429 Committee of Union and Progress, 689-692 Committee on Economic Security, 2855 Committee on New States and the Protection of Minorities, 1484 Committee on Public Information, 1353-1356, 1368 Committee on the Cost of Medical Care, 2270
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Commodity Credit Corporation, 2541, 2683-2687 Common Reader, The (Woolf), 1995 Commons, John R., 3066 Commonwealth Franchise Act (1902), 160-162 Commonwealth of Australia, establishment, 37-39 Communications; radio, 70-74, 1227-1230, 1466-1469; telegraphic, 32-34; telephone, 922-924, 1177-1180. See also Category Index Communictions Act (1934), 27542757 Communism; Red Scare (19191920), 1527-1531; Soviet Union, 1711-1715 Communist International. See Comintern Communist Party; China, 1507, 2096-2099, 2777-2780; France, 1663-1665; Germany, 1482, 1491; Soviet Union, 1325, 1345, 1396, 1490-1493, 22952298, 2559, 2563, 2786-2790; U.S., 1527, 2491, 2580 Community of the United Church of Christ v. FCC (1966), 2756 Compagnie du Kasai, 704 Compass; gyroscopic, 468-471; magnetic, 468 Composer’s World, A (Hindemith), 2362 Compton, Archie, 2452 Compton, Arthur Holly, 410, 473, 1594, 1807 Compton effect, 1596, 1807-1810 Computer science. See Category Index under Computers and computer science Computers; analog, 2216-2219; development, 1907, 2806-2808. See also Category Index Computing-Tabulating-Recording company, 1905-1908 Comstock, Anthony, 1171, 1295 Comstock law, 1172, 1295, 1737, 2437
Concentration camps, Nazi, 26402643, 3142. See also Holocaust; Nazi death camps Concentric-circle theory of cities, 1962 Conceptual art, 1019-1021 Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular (Kandinsky), 897, 932-935, 2188 Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (Stravinsky), 1867 Condensation polymers, 28162819 Condition humaine, La. See Man’s Fate (Malraux) Conditional reflex, 112-116 Condon, Edward U., 2242 Conduction of Electricity Through Gases (Thomson), 812, 1455 Confederation of Mexican Workers, 1334 Conference of Ambassadors, 1853 Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, 677-680 Conference on the Status of the Negro, 745 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (Mann, T.), 1881 Confidence Man (Melville), 1588 Congo; exploitation by Leopold II, 89, 703-707, 879; Lever Brothers, Ltd., 879-882. See also Geographical Index Congo, Belgian; map, 705 Congo Reform Association, 89, 704, 880 Congress of Berlin (1878), 690, 697, 1484 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 2553, 2851, 2888-2891, 3111, 3120 Congress of Vienna (1815), 2136 Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, 1309, 1645, 1872 Connally, John, 2572 Connery, William P., 2855 Connolly, Bobby, 3203 Connolly, James, 1262 LIV
Connolly, Walter, 2725 Conrad, Frank, 1562, 1641, 2132 Conrad, Joseph, 87, 266 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz, 856 Conscription Act (1917), 1440 Conscription, Canada, 2880, 3213 Conservation; natural resources, 394, 677-680, 1614-1617, 2652-2655; organizations, 1760-1763, 1884-1887, 27802783, 2915-2918; soil, 28372840; wilderness, 230-234, 392-396, 651-653, 1095-1099, 1282-1284, 1486-1489, 15141517, 1931-1934, 2182-2186, 2424-2426, 2674-2677, 29922996, 3076-3079; wildlife, 226-230, 396-399, 1067-1070, 1133-1136, 1339-1343, 19471949, 2343-2346, 2742-2745, 3050-3053, 3265-3267 Conservative Christian organizations, 1458-1459 Conservative Party (Canada), 2440 Conservative Party (Great Britain), 757 Conservative Party (Norway), 451 Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, 2834 Constantine I, 1511 Constitution of 1917 (Mexico), 845 Constitutional Democratic Party (Russia), 454, 527, 1393 Constitutionalists, 844 Consumer Goods Pricing Act (1975), 3045 Consumer protection, 2164-2167, 2612-2615, 2902-2905, 31223124 Consumer Reports (magazine), 2904 Consumers Research, 2903 Consumers Research Bulletin (magazine), 2903 Consumers Union, 2902-2905
Subject Index Conti, Piero Ginori, 1025 Continental drift, 498, 2031; map, 951; theory, 950-953. See also Plate tectonics Continental System, 3278 Continuation War (1941-1944), 1401 Contraception. See Birth control Contracts; cost-plus, 1106-1109; yellow-dog, 416, 657-661, 2552 Controlled Materials Plan, 3248 Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds (1916), 1438 Conventionalists, 844 Convulsive therapies, 3104-3106 Cook, Frederick Albert, 759 Cook, William. See Tudor, Antony Coolidge, Calvin, 1447, 1698, 1857, 1935, 1949, 1959, 2047, 2115 Cooper, Kent, 32 Cooper, Merian, 2364 Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, 2581-2583 Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit Program, 2916 Coote, William Alexander, 336 Copeland, Melvin T., 674 Copeland, Royal S., 3122 Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, 2173 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 1877 Copland, Aaron, 215, 1665, 3109 Coppage v. Kansas (1915), 658 Copper Sun (Cullen), 1555 Copyright, music, 1114-1117 Copyright Act (1909), 753-756 Coq et l’Arlequin, Le. See Cock and Harlequin (Cocteau) Corbusier. See Le Corbusier Corfield, Richard, 1566 Corfu; Italian occupation, 18531855. See also Geographical Index Cormack, Allan M., 68 Corn, Alfred, 2402 Corning Glass Works, 1209-1211 Coronagraph, 2383-2385
Corporal punishment, British schools, 900-903 Corporate excise tax, 772 Corporations; centralism, 25212524; laws, 188-191; privacy of records, 772-775 Corporatism, Paraguay, 29232926 Corrector plate (optics), 2347-2349 Correll, Charles, 2230 Correns, Carl Erich, 77, 180, 378 Correspondence principle, 940 Corrupt Practices Act (1907), 438 Cortelyou, George B., 219 Cory, William Wallace, 2424 Cosgrave, William T., 2547 Cosmic rays, 995-998, 1594-1597, 2507, 2584, 2785 Cosmopolitanism and the National State (Meinecke), 582-584 Cost accounting, 1107 Cost-plus contracting, 1106-1109, 3199, 3248 Cost-plus-percentage-fee contracts, 1107 Costa, Afonso Augusto da, 841, 1531 Côté de Guermantes, Le. See Guermantes Way, The (Proust) Cotton Club, 1556, 2206-2210 Cottrell, Frederick Gardner, 478, 836 Coubertin, Pierre de, 976, 1903 Coughlin, Charles, 2338, 2737, 3058; socialist tenets, 2354 Coulson, Charles A., 2392 Council of Better Business Bureaus, 3101 Council of Economic Advisers, 2922 Council of National Defense, 1371 Council of People’s Commissars, 1325, 1395 Council of Workers of Mechanical Factories of the City of Moscow, 400 Council on Hospital Service Plans, 2271 Counterfeiters, The (Gide), 19721975 LV
Countess Cathleen, The (Yeats), 359 Country Club Plaza (shopping center), 1751 Country music, 2082-2085, 21962198, 2355 Country of the Pointed Firs, The (Jewett), 1405 Cours d’économie politique (Pareto), 490 Court of International Justice, 1503 Couturat, Louis, 306 Couzens, James, 1063 Covici, Pascal, 3180 Cowan, C. L., 2689 Cowan, Edith Dircksey, 1669 Cowan, James, 1669 Cowan, Thomas H., 1562 Coward, Noël, 2618 Cowell, Henry, 1247 Cowles, Alfred, 1892 Cowles, Eugene, 1892 Cowles, Henry C., 2182 Cox, Harold, 1737 Cox, James M., 1447 Cox, Sir Percy Zachariah, 1625, 2122 Crab nebula, 2719 Crack-Up, The (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 2035 Cradle Will Rock, The (Blitzstein), 2863, 3137 Craft, Edward B., 2011, 2202 Craft of Musical Composition, The (Hindemith), 2362 Craig, Burt J., 2907 Craig, Gordon, 355 Craig, James, 1140, 1578 Craig, Ralph, 975 Craig, Samuel W., 2092 Cranbrook Academy of Art, 19651968 Crane, Charles R., 3096 Crane, Frederick E., 1295 Crane, Hart, 1331, 1750, 2400 Crane, Stephen, 266 Crawford, Cheryl, 2474 Crawford, Joan, 2610 Creacionismo, 1017
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Création du monde, La (ballet), 496, 1602 Creative evolution, 199 Creative Evolution (Bergson), 567-570 Credit-Anstalt Bank, 2503-2506 Credit insurance, 828 Credit Union National Extension Bureau, 2762 Credit unions, 828, 2761-2764 Creel, George, 1353, 1367 Creel Committee, 1353-1356, 1368 Crick, Francis, 68, 184, 2392 Crile, George Washington, 462 Crime. See Category Index Crisis, The (magazine), 746 “Crisis of Social Democracy, The” (Luxemburg), 1481 Crissinger, Daniel Richard, 2179 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 305 Croatia; map, 1451. See also Geographical Index Croix de Feu, 2741 Croly, Herbert, 1161 Crome Yellow (Huxley), 2601 Cromer, first earl of (Evelyn Baring), 716 Cromwell, William Nelson, 271 Crookes, Sir William, 558, 664 Crookes tubes, 558, 664 Crosby, Bing, 2352 Cross, Charles Frederick, 314 Cross, Milton, 1564 Cross, The (Undset), 2268 Crossing-over, genetics, 649, 906 Crowd, The (film), 2273 Crowd Looking at a Tied-Up Object (Moore), 3233 Crowe, Frank, 2930 Crystallography, 473 Crystals; X-ray crystallography, 945-948 Cuba. See Geographical Index Cuba-U.S. relations, 234-236 Cubism, 496, 683-686, 10151018, 1057, 1312, 2188 Cubism and Abstract Art (art exhibition), 2822
Cubist Painters, The (Apollinaire), 1015-1018 Cubo-Futurism, 1016 Cukor, George, 3201, 3224 Cullen, Countée, 1555 Cullen, Michael, 1290 Cullinan, Joseph S., 40 Cultural anthropology, 849-852, 2249-2252, 2697-2701 Cultural relativism, 850, 14341436, 2700 Cumann na nGaedheal, 460, 2547 Cumming, Hugh S., 185 Cummings, Homer S., 2999 CUNA Mutual Insurance Society, 2762 Cuniberti, Vittorio, 552 Cuno, Wilhelm, 1826 Curie, Marie, 1, 275, 471, 2616 Curie, Pierre, 1, 276, 471 Curtain (Christie), 1573 Curtis, Heber Doust, 291, 935, 1419, 1953 Curtis, Thomas, 34 Curtiz, Michael, 2378 Curzon, George Nathaniel, 344, 1779 Cyclone development, 1474 Cyclotrons, 2477-2480, 2555 Cygne, Le. See Dying Swan, The (ballet) Cyprus; Crown Colony status, 2040-2042; map, 2041. See also Geographical Index Cyril III, 2040 Cytology, 102 Czechoslovakia; founding, 14531455. See also Geographical Index Czolgosz, Leon, 59 D-day invasion, 3213 Dachau concentration camp, 2640 Dadaism, 750, 1242-1245, 1674, 1944, 1974 Dáil Éireann, 1580, 2547-2549 Dain Curse, The (Hammett), 2323 Daladier, Édouard, 2288, 2740, 3129, 3205, 3209 LVI
Dalai Lama, Thirteenth. See Thubten Gyatso Dale, Henry Hallet, 327 Dalí, Salvador, 1943, 2213, 2813, 3226 Dalio, Marcel, 2985 Dalton, John, 811, 1455 Damant, Guybon C. C., 573 Damas, Léon-Gontran, 2532 Dams; Boulder, 2930-2934; Grand Coulee, 2678-2681; O’Shaughnessy (Hetch Hetchy Valley), 233, 1095-1099 Danbury Hatters decision, 661664 Dance; ballet, 632-635, 762-769, 833-836, 977-980, 1079-1082, 2794-2797, 2908-2911, 31073110; modern, 355-358, 12111214, 2073-2076, 2569-2571; motion pictures, 2868-2871. See also Category Index Dancing Lady (film), 2610, 2868 Daniels, Josephus, 1614, 1857, 3098 Dante, 1329 Darcy, Jimmy, 2238 D’Arcy, William Knox, 681 Dardanelles Campaign (19151916), 1180-1183 Dark Elegies (ballet), 2909 Dark-field illumination, 111 Darkness at Noon (Koestler), 3298-3300 Darling, Jay, 226, 2742, 2915, 3050 Darrow, Clarence, 2054, 2663 Dart, Raymond Arthur, 1848, 1938 Darwin, Charles, 106, 112-113, 567, 638, 726, 1458, 1477, 1938, 2066, 2697 Darwin, Charles Galton, 938 Das, Chittaranjan, 1583 Dato Iradier, Eduardo, 1156 Datsun automobiles, 852-855 Daugherty, Harry M., 1155, 1698, 1959, 2115 Daughters of the American Revolution, 3166-3169
Subject Index Daunt, John Gilbert, 3084 Daven, André, 2073 Davidson, Charles Rundle, 1542 Davies, Arthur B., 1056, 2340, 2515 Davies, Stuart, 1057 Davies, W. Sanders, 1292 Davis, Arthur Powell, 2930 Davis, Chester C., 2730, 3247 Davis, Cleo, 3163 Davis, Harry P., 1563, 1641 Davis, James J., 1926 Davis, John, 54 Davis, Stuart, 2820 Davis, Theodore M., 1784 Davison, Emily, 262 Dawes, Charles G., 1814, 1826, 1941, 2069 Dawes, Henry Laurens, 1929 Dawes Plan, 1815, 1828, 19411943, 2072 Dawes Severalty Act (1887), 217 Dawn, Jack, 3202 Dawson, Charles, 1938 Dawson, George Geoffrey, 2973 Dawson, Thomas C., 735, 992 Day, Albert M., 3051 Day Lewis, C., 2445 DDT, 2382, 3156-3158 Dearmer, Percy, 492 Death camps, Nazi, 2640-2643, 3159-3163, 3253-3255. See also Holocaust; Nazi concentration camps Death Comes for the Archbishop (Cather), 1404 Death in Venice (Mann, T.), 1880 Death on the Nile (Christie), 1573 Death penalty. See Capital punishment Death’s Head (Picasso), 3036 DeBarr, Edwin, 1850 De Bono, Emilio, 1782 Debrie, André, 2001 Debs, Eugene V., 425, 1353, 1367, 1608 Debs v. United States (1919), 1370 Debussy, Claude, 932, 977 Debye, Peter J. W., 68
Decastello, Alfred von, 11 Decisive battle theory, 1206 Declaration of Corfu (1917), 1451 Declaration of Rights of Toiling and Exploited People, 1327 Decline of the West, The (Spengler), 1434-1436, 2717 Decompression sickness, 573-575 Dedekind, Richard, 732, 1677 De Dion, Albert, 242 Deep-sea diving; stage decompression, 573-575; vehicles, 2427-2430 Deering, William, 173 Defense agreements, Canada-U.S., 3276-3279 Defense of India Act (1915), 1183-1187 De Finetti, Bruno, 1463 De Forest, Lee, 352, 1022, 1177, 1227, 1562, 1641, 2593 Deganya kibbutz, 723-725 Degas, Edgar, 2186 De Geer, Gerard Louis, 1680 Degenerate Art Exhibition, 30403043; Adolf Ziegler on, 3041 De Groot, Francis, 2549 De Havilland, Olivia, 3223 Deisenhofer, Johann, 68 Delano, Frederic, 1100 De la Rey, Jacobus Hercules, 155 Delaunay, Robert, 749, 1015 Delaware, corporation laws, 188191 Delaware Aqueduct, 3003 Delaware River Project, 30023005 Delcassé, Théophile, 331, 411 Delgado, Marcel, 2364 Delhi Pact (1931), 2413, 24802483 DeLima v. Bidwell (1901), 51 Delsarte, François, 1212 Delsarte, Jean, 3150 Delta Orionis (star), 289 De Mille, Agnes, 2908, 3109 DeMille, Cecil B., 1820, 2376 DeMille, William C., 2306 Deming, Lola S., 1055 LVII
Demobilization of American Expeditionary Forces, 14441447 Democracy; direct (U.S.), 157159, 237-238; Great Britain, 756-758; Portugal, 841-842 Democracy and Education (Dewey), 1245-1247 Democratic Party (U.S.), 22192222 Demoiselles d’Avignon, Les (Picasso), 495 Dempsey, Jack, 1540 Denali National Park and Preserve. See Mount McKinley National Park Denby, Edwin, 1616 Denham, Sergei, 3107 Denikin, Anton Ivanovich, 1321, 1416 Denishawn School, 1211-1214 Denman, Gertrude, 1220 Denmark. See Geographical Index Dennett, Mary Ware, 1171 Deoband movement, 565 Deoxyribonucleic acid. See DNA Department of Agriculture, U.S.; food stamps, 3190-3193 Department of Commerce and Labor, U.S., 219-222 Department of Commerce and Labor Act (1903), 219-222 Department of Energy, U.S., 837 Department of Labor, U.S., 221; first woman secretary, 26372640 Depew, Chauncey, 437 Deportation; U.S. to Mexico, 2350-2352 Depression. See Great Depression Derain, André, 447, 494, 1016 De Rossi, Michele Stefano, 2809 Descamps, Édouard Eugène François, 1657 Descartes, René, 327, 2527 Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, The (Darwin), 106, 1938, 2066 Desert War (1940), 3289-3291 Desgrange, Henri, 242
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Design; clothing, 820-823, 15491551, 1558-1562, 2813-2816; education, 1965-1968; streamlining, 2280, 2976. See also Category Index under Fashion and design Design for Living (Coward), 26182621 Design movements; Art Deco, 2037-2039; Arts and Crafts, 117; Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1965-1968; Deutscher Werkbund, 618-621; industrial, 2279-2281, 2976-2979; Wiener Werkstätte, 192-195 Designing for People (Dreyfuss), 2976 DeSilver, Albert, 1607 Desjardins, Alphonse, 2761 Deslandres, Henri-Alexandre, 288, 2384 Desnos, Robert, 1673 Dessauer, John H., 3134 Detective novels, 1571-1574 Deterding, Henri W. A., 2259 Deupree, Richard R., 1633 Deuterons, 2784 Deutscher Werkbund, 194, 618621, 781 Deutsches Theater, 456-459 De Valera, Eamon, 461, 1578, 2547 De Vecchi, Cesare Maria, 1782 Devil Is a Woman, The (film), 2398 DeVries, William, 2775 Dewey, John, 593, 1245, 1962 Diabetes mellitus, 1689; insulin, 144, 1689-1691 Diaghilev, Sergei, 355, 632, 762, 766, 833, 977, 1079, 1865 Diamond code (Gamow), 2243 Diary of a Chambermaid (film), 2215 Diary of a Country Priest, The (Bernanos), 2046, 3056-3059 Diatonic harmony, 646 Díaz, Adolfo, 735, 991 Díaz, Felix, 844 Díaz, Porfirio, 843, 1259, 1332
Dichlorodifluoromethane, 24182421, 2455 Dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane. See DDT Dickey, W. A., 1339 Dickson, William, 1022 Dickstein, Samuel, 3111 Dictatorship Versus Democracy (Trotsky), 1325 Die höhere Mädchenschule und ihre Bestimmung (Lange), 730 Diegel, Leo, 2452 Diem, Carl, 2948 Dieppe, Battle of (1942), 3213 Dies, Martin, Jr., 2637, 3111 Dies Committee, 3111-3114 Diet. See Nutrition Dietrich, Marlene, 2396 Dietrich, Noah, 1901 Dietz, Robert Sinclair, 952 Dieudonné, Jean, 3149 Differential analyzer, 2216-2219 Dilg, Will H., 1760 Dill, Clarence C., 2855 Dillingham, William Paul, 1336, 1725, 1922 Dillingham Commission, 1338 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 582, 2146 Dimitrov, Georgi Mikhailovich, 2632 Dingley Tariff Act (1897), 773 Dinneen, Bill, 256 Dinner with the Family (Anouilh), 1723 Dinosaurs, 1798-1801 Diodes. See Vacuum tubes Diphtheria; antitoxin, 700, 1043; testing, 1043-1044 Diplomacy; disarmament, 17411744; East Asian nations, 3272-3274; France, 331-333, 616-618; Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603-605; Good Neighbor Policy, 2644-2646; Great Britain, 127-130, 331333, 616-618; Japan, 127-130; League of Nations, 1501-1505; peace conferences, 625-628, 2971-2972; Permanent Court of International Justice, 1657LVIII
1658; Russia, 616-618; TacnaArica compromise, 2309-2311; Versailles treaty, 1521-1525. See also Category Index Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice, 2029, 2583, 2687 Direct democracy, 157-159, 237238; initiative, 158; recall, 158; referendum, 158 Directive and Plan of Action for the Resolution of the ItalianAbyssinian Question, 2875 Directors; theater, 458. See also Motion-picture directors Disarmament; international, 17411744 Disasters; earthquakes, 522-526, 721-723, 1855-1857; famines, 570-572, 1692-1695, 25992601; fires, 868-872; floods, 2509-2512, 3114-3116; Halifax explosion, 1397-1399; Hawk’s Nest Tunnel, 2414-2417; Hindenburg, 3017-3020; Titanic, 972-975; tsunamis, 721-723; volcanic eruptions, 149-152. See also Category Index Disc recordings, 148; duplication, 96-99 “Discourse on the General Principles of Administration” (Fayol), 1273 Discoveries. See Category Index under Exploration and discovery Discrimination; ethnic, 2304; gender-related, 1871; racial, 555-557, 603-605, 1076-1078, 1788-1789, 2490-2492, 31663169, 3230-3232; religious, 564-566, 1318-1321 Diseases; beriberi, 14-17, 485; cancers, 803-807, 2225-2227; cholera, 635; diphtheria, 10431044; hepatitis, 806; immunity, 699-703; infectious, 1043; influenza, 1428-1431; occupational, 1976-1979; plague, 584-586; rickets, 1757-
Subject Index 1760; silicosis, 2414-2417; syphilis, 823-826, 1817-1819; tuberculosis, 1683-1686; typhus, 2386-2389; yellow fever, 43-47, 298-301, 635, 3025-3027 Disenchanted, The (Schulberg), 2035 Dishonored (film), 2397 Disney, Walt, 3063, 3295 “Distribution of Electrons Among Atomic Levels, The” (Stoner), 2028 Distribution of wealth, 490-492 Divina commedia, La. See Divine Comedy, The (Dante) Divine Comedy, The (Dante), 1329 Divine Mercy in My Soul (Kowalska), 3133-3134 Divorce law, Nevada, 2484 Dix, Otto, 423, 1983, 3040 Dixon, Frederick, 708 Dixon, Joseph M., 1838 Dixon, Thomas, Jr., 1188; The Clansman, 1189 Dixon, Walter F., 382 Djibouti. See Geographical Index Dmowski, Roman, 2109 Dmytryk, Edward, 2378 DNA, 182, 728, 908, 2243, 2392 Doak, William N., 2350 Dobson, G. M. B., 1053 Dobuans, 2698 Doctor Faustus (Mann, T.), 1880 Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (film), 1577 Dodds, Johnny, 2079 Dodecaphony, 1701-1704 Dodge, Mabel, 1056 Doesburg, Theo van, 1312, 1412 Doheny, Edward L., 1616, 1698, 1857 Doisy, E. A., 2226 Doktor Faustus. See Doctor Faustus (Mann, T.) Dokuchayev, Vasily Vasilyevich, 2089 D’Olier, Franklin, 1493 Dollar-a-year men, 1371, 3248 Dollar diplomacy, 734-736
Domagk, Gerhard, 2529 Domestic servants (U.S.), 794 Dominion Experimental Farms, 281 Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act (1911), 2424 Dominion Parks Service, 2424 Don Flows Home to the Sea, The (Sholokov), 2564 Donald, Frank C., 137 Donat, Robert, 2722 Donath, W. F., 1888 Donham, Wallace B., 1551 Donovan, William J., 1493 Doolittle, Hilda. See H. D. Doolittle, James Rood, 1929 Door-to-door sales, 1028-1031 Doppler effect, 289, 1878 Doppler shifts, 289, 936, 1546, 1809, 1953 Doroga na okean. See Road to the Ocean (Leonov) Dorpat, Treaty of (1922), 3219 Dorr v. United States (1904), 52 Dorzhiev, Agvan, 344 Dos Passos, John, 362 Dostoevski, Fyodor, 2524 Double Indemnity (film), 2378 Double stars, 289, 1912 “Double Vision of Michael Robartes, The” (Yeats), 1315 Doubleday, Abner, 3193 Doubleday, Nelson, 2092 Douglas, Donald W., Sr., 2941 Douglas, Paul H., 2182, 2855 Douglas, Stewart, 701 Douglas, Tommy, 2581 Douglas Aircraft Company, 29412944 Dowdell v. United States (1911), 53 Dowding, Hugh, 3267 Downes v. Bidwell (1901), 52 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1571, 2325, 3176 Dracula (film), 2378, 2461-2464 Dreadnought (ship), 552-554 Dream and Lie of Franco, The (Picasso), 3035 Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, The (film), 254 LIX
Dream Play, A (Strindberg), 654 “Dreams” (Hughes, L.), 1555 Drebbel, Cornelis, 541 Dreier, Mary, 868 Dreigroschenoper, Die. See Threepenny Opera, The (Weill and Brecht) Dresdener Werkstätte, 619 Drew, F. L., 1386 Drew, John, 1730 Drew, Timothy. See Ali, Noble Drew Dreyfus, Alfred, 334 Dreyfus affair, 242 Dreyfuss, Barney, 256 Dreyfuss, Doris Marks, 2976 Dreyfuss, Henry, 2279, 2976 Drift and Mastery (Lippmann), 1161 Drinker, Cecil, 2314 Drinker, Philip, 2314 Drömspel, Ett. See Dream Play, A (Strindberg) Drought, Dust Bowl, 2730-2733 Drug Importation Act (1848), 2164 Drugs; antibiotics, 2256-2259, 3243-3246; antimicrobials, 2529-2532; convulsive, 3104; hallucinogens, 3072-3076; illegal, 956-959; psychotropic, 3106 Drummond, James Eric, 1657 Dry steam geothermal power plants, 1026 Du côté de chez Swann. See Swann’s Way (Proust) Dual Alliance, 333 Dubbs, Carbon P., 1051 Dubbs, Jesse A., 1051 Dube, John Langalibalele, 954 Dubinsky, David, 2888 Dubliners (Joyce), 1767 Dubois, Eugène, 712, 1848, 1938 Du Bois, W. E. B., 428, 744, 818 Dubrovin, Aleksandr, 452 Duchamp, Marcel, 749, 1019, 1056, 1243, 1673 Duck Soup (film), 2366 Duck Stamp Act (1934), 228, 2742-2745
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Duckworth, George, 1993 Duckworth, Stella, 1994 Dudley, Caroline, 2073 Duff, Douglas, 2321 Dufy, Raoul, 820 Duineser Elegien. See Duino Elegies (Rilke) Duino Elegies (Rilke), 862-864 Duke, James Buchanan, 177, 886 Duma; first meeting, 526-528; provisions in October Manifesto, 453 Dumbarton Oaks (Stravinsky), 1867 Duncan, Isadora, 355, 632, 932 Dundas, Lawrence, 3012 Dunkirk evacuation, 3256-3258; map, 3256 Dupanloup, Félix-AntoinePhilibert, 1630 Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering (1921), 663, 1155, 2552 Du Pont, Alfred I., 188 Du Pont, Irénée, 1659 Du Pont, Pierre, 1659 Du Pont Corporation, 188, 1661; cellophane, 316; Freon, 24542456; nylon, 2816-2819 Durant, Will, 2102 Durant, William Crapo, 672, 1659, 2158 Durey, Louis, 1601 Durham, Herbert Edward, 10 Durkheim, Émile, 302, 334 Duryea, Charles E., 2158 Duryea, J. Frank, 2158 Duryea Motor Wagon Company, 2158 Dust Bowl, 2337, 2730-2733; The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), 3180; map, 2731; soil conservation, 2837-2840; waterfowl effects, 2743 Dutch elm disease, 2380-2383 Dutcher, William, 396 Du Toit, Alexander Logie, 950 Duwish, Faisal al-, 948 Dwarf stars, 370, 576-578, 1251, 1913, 2120, 2471-2473, 2719
Dyer, Reginald Edward Harry, 1183, 1497 Dyes, 8-10; effects on microorganisms, 2529 Dying Swan, The (ballet), 632-635 Dylan, Bob, 2359 Dyson, Frank, 1541 Dyson, Hugo, 2681 Dzerzhinski, Feliks Edmundovich, 1393 Dzhugashvili, Joseph Vissarionovich. See Stalin, Joseph Dzienniczek Sulugi Bo/zej S.M. Faustyny Kowalskiej. See Divine Mercy in My Soul (Kowalska) E = mc2, 409, 440-443, 2557, 2584 Eagle Glass & Manufacturing Company v. Rowe (1917), 660 Eames, Charles, 1965 Earhart, Amelia, 2566; map, 2567 Earle, Wilton, 610 Earth science. See Category Index Earthquake construction, 1856 Earthquakes, 498, 2893; Japan, 1855-1857; measurement, 2809-2812; San Francisco, 522-526; Sicily, 721-723 Earth’s structure, 497-500, 10311034, 2893-2895 East, Edward Murray, 728 East African Campaign (19401941), 3274-3276 East Asia. See Geographical Index East of Eden (Steinbeck), 3181 East Wind, West Wind (Buck), 3147 Easter Rebellion (1916), 461, 1262-1265, 1580, 2547 Eastern Airlines, 2019 Eastman, Charles, 1005 Eastman, Crystal, 1607 Eastman, George, 385, 1022, 2175 Eastman Kodak Company, 21752178 Easy Living (film), 2726 Eaton, Fred, 1088, 1918 Ebeid, William Makram, 3020 LX
Ebert, Friedrich, 1409, 1479, 1491, 1525, 1719 Eccles, Marriner, 2857 Eccles, W. H., 135 Echo sounding, 1223, 2030-2032 Eckener, Hugo, 1174, 3017 Eckersley, Peter, 2168 Eckholm, H. Conrad, 1730 Eclipse of the Sun (Grosz), 1984 Eclipsing binary stars, 959, 1035 Ecological theory, 2846-2849 Economic Consequences of the Peace, The (Keynes), 2920 Economics; Keynesian revolution, 2919-2923. See also Category Index Economy Act (1932), 2647 Ecosystem ecology, 2846-2849 Eddington, Arthur Stanley, 290, 1252, 1541, 1654, 1912, 2119, 2471 Eddington’s limit, 2120 Eddy, Mary Baker, 707 Eddy, Nelson, 2708 Eden, Anthony, 2875, 3256 Ederle, Gertrude, 2129 Edison, Thomas Alva, 18, 32, 96, 253, 352, 417, 561, 1022, 1209, 2175; motion-picture technology, 2202; motion pictures, 2461 Edison effect, 352 Edlefsen, Niels, 2477 Edlén, Bengt, 2384 Education; business, 674-677, 1551-1554; Cairo University, 716-718; design, 1965-1968; German women, 729-731; philosophy of, 1245-1247. See also Category Index Education Act (1870), 900 Education for Responsible Living (Donham), 1553 Education of a Wandering Man (L’Amour), 927 Edward VII, 331, 616 Edward VIII. See Windsor, duke of Edwards, M. L., 2775 Edwards, Marie Stuart, 1610 EEG. See Electroencephalography
Subject Index Efficiency experts, 509, 799, 1118, 1288 Egan, Robert, 1040 Egas Moniz, António, 2882 Egoist, The (magazine), 965 Egypt; invasion by Italy, 32893291; League of Nations membership, 3020-3022; map, 1785, 3290. See also Geographical Index Egyptian University, 716-718 Egyptology, 1784-1787 Ehrlich, Paul, 11, 376, 699, 823, 2529 Eichmann, Adolf, 3159 Eicke, Theodor, 2640 Eighteenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 1604-1607 Eighth Symphony (Mahler), 913 Eighth Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 215 80-20 law of wealth distribution, 490-492 Eijkman, Christiaan, 14, 484, 1887 Einhorn, Alfred, 376 Einsatzgruppen, 3159 Einstein, Albert, 284, 408, 440, 1230, 1250, 1406, 1541, 1804, 2172, 3170; gravitation theory, 2155 Einthoven, Willem, 365 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 1836, 2112, 2572 Eisenstaedt, Alfred, 2966 Eisenstein, Sergei, 1968, 2002, 2148 El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. See Malcolm X El Salvador; la matanza, 25352537. See also Geographical Index Élan vital, 568 Eldridge, Clark, 3292 Electrical power generation, 807811, 2680; Tennessee Valley Authority, 2656-2659 Electrocardiography, 365-368 Electroconvulsive therapy, 31043106
Electroencephalography, 22852288 Electromagnetic spectrum, 275 Electron degeneracy in stellar interiors, 2471 Electron microscopes, 2493-2496 Electron optics, 2494 Electron theory of metals, 283, 938 Electronics industry, 354 Electrons, 1, 741-743, 938, 1805, 2027-2030, 2544, 2584; discovery, 558-561, 962 Electrophotography, 3134 Electroshock. See Electroconvulsive therapy Electrostatic precipitation, 478481 Electroweak theory, 2689 Elektra (Strauss), 467 Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre (Johannsen), 726-729 Elements; artificial, 2989-2992; radioactive, 2615-2617 Elements (Euclid), 162 Éléments de mathématique (Bourbaki), 3149-3152 Elephant of the Celebes, The (Ernst), 1943 Elgar, Edward, 713 Eliot, Charles William, 674, 1269 Eliot, T. S., 966, 1328, 1748, 2035, 2140, 2400, 2445 Elixir of Sulfanilamide, 2165, 3123 Elk, John, 1929 Elk Hills scandal, 1857-1861 Elk v. Wilkins (1884), 1930 Ellenberger, Jules, 1568 Ellington, Duke, 1555, 2206 Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Gilbert John. See Minto, Lord Elliott, Harriet, 3247 Elliott, Maude Howe, 1366 Ellis, Charles A., 3022 Ellis, Havelock, 1296 Elster, Julius, 1, 283 Elton, Charles, 2848 Éluard, Paul, 3016 LXI
Elwell, Herbert, 1665 Emak-Bakia (film), 1676 Emde, Carl, 1063 Emergency Banking Act (1933), 2333, 2647 Emergency Conservation Work, 2652-2655 Emergency Immigration Act (1921), 2350 Emergency Quota Act (1921), 1725-1728 Emergency Railroad Transportation Act (1933), 2117 Emergency Relief Act (1935), 2861 Emergency Relief Appropriation Act (1934), 2830-2834 Emigration. See Category Index under Immigration, emigration, and relocation Empire State Building, 24992502; statistics, 2500 Employment Stabilization Act (1931), 2639 En attendant Godot. See Waiting for Godot (Beckett) Enabling Act (1933), 2627, 26492651, 2768 Enchanted, The (Giraudoux), 1723 End of St. Petersburg, The (film), 2150 Endangered species, 1135 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1135 Endecs. See National Democrats (Poland) Enders, John Franklin, 2386 Endicott, Thomas P., 1730 Energy; geothermal, 1025-1028. See also Category Index Engels, Friedrich, 1253, 2697 Engineering; aqueducts, 10881091, 3002-3005; bridges, 2549-2551, 3022-3024, 32923294; dams, 2678-2681, 29302934; Panama Canal, 271-274, 340-344, 1130-1133; White Sea-Baltic Canal, 2670-2672. See also Category Index
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 England. See Geographical Index Engle Sanitary and Cremation Company, 785 Engler, Carl, 308 English Channel (map), 2130 English Hymnal, The (Dearmer et al.), 492-494 Enstrom, John, 2774 Entarte Kunst. See Degenerate Art Exhibition Entente Cordiale (1904), 331-333, 411, 616, 890, 1123 Entertainment. See Category Index Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane, Die. See Origin of Continents and Oceans, The (Wegener) Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst. See Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music (Busoni) Enver Pala, 689, 1195 Environmental issues. See Category Index Environmental law, 1935-1937, 2834-2837 Environmental organizations, 531534, 1514-1517, 1760-1763, 1884-1887, 2780-2783, 29152918 Environmental Protection Agency, 1920 Environmental warfare, 31143116 Epidemiology; plague, 584-586 Epstein, Abraham, 1838, 2855 Epstein, Charlotte, 2129 Epstein, Jacob, 1017 Epstein, Jean, 2001 Epstein-Barr virus, 806 Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee, 2247 Equal Rights Amendment, 1311, 1871-1873 Equal Suffrage Act (1928), 2248 Equevilley-Montjustin, Raymondo Lorenzo d’, 541 Equilibrium theory, 490 Equitable Life Assurance Society, 436-439 Erdman, Constantine Jacob, 657
Erdman Act (1898), 657, 663, 2117 Ergosterol, 1888 Erikunnan Ali Mussaliar, 1728 Erlanger, Abraham, 350 Erlenberg, Samuel, 3150 Ermilov, Vladimir, 2283 Ermolaeva, Vera, 1235 Ernst, Max, 1019, 1943 Ernst Mach Association, 17541756 Erté, 820 Escherich, Theodor, 1043 Espionage Act (1917), 1353, 1367-1370, 1607, 2513 Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. See Time and Free Will (Bergson) Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines. See Essay on the Inequality of Races (Gobineau) Essay on the Inequality of Races (Gobineau), 1477 Essay on the Vital and Involuntary Motions of Animals, An (Whytt), 327 Essays Before a Sonata (Ives), 1249 Essays in Radical Empiricism (James, W.), 591 Estigarribia, José Félix, 2923 Estonia; independence, 14251427. See also Geographical Index Estournelles de Constant, PaulHenri-Benjamin d’, 847 Estrada, Juan José, 991 Ether pulse theory of X rays, 471 Ethics. See Category Index under Religion, theology, and ethics Ethiopia; Haile Selassie I, 24212423; invasion by Italy, 28752879; map, 2422. See also Geographical Index Ethnomusicology, 295-298 Étranger, L’. See Stranger, The (Camus) Étudiant noir, L’ (journal), 2534 Eugene, Frank, 130 Eugenics, 477, 650, 796, 1923, 3253; Monist League, 504-506 LXII
Eugenics Research Association of America, 1727 Euler-Chelpin, Hans von, 1888 Euripéos, Petros, 1853 Europe; map, dx. See also Geographical Index European Advisory Council, 1568 Euthenics (Richards, E. S.), 796800 Evans, Florrie, 346 Evans, Hiram Wesley, 1705 Evans, Oliver, 1063 Event horizon, 1251 Eveready Hour (radio program), 1565 Everlasting Man, The (Chesterton), 2066-2069 Evers-Williams, Myrlie, 746 Evian Conference, 3125-3127 Evolution; “missing link,” 712; theory, 114, 638, 726, 1458, 1477, 2054-2058, 2091 Évolution créatrice, L’. See Creative Evolution (Bergson) Ewen, Harold, 2162 Exceptional decrees (Italy), 1998 Exclusion principle, 1105, 20272030 Ex-Convict, The (film), 254 Exhibit of Eight (art exhibit), 2515 Exhibition of Futurist Painters, 749 Exile, The (Buck), 3147 Exner, Franz, 995 Expansion. See Category Index Expatriation Act (1907), 1780 Exploration; Antarctica, 916-919; Arctic, 54-56; North Pole, 759761; South Pole, 919-921. See also Category Index Exploring the Dangerous Trades (Hamilton, A.), 1977 Export-Import Bank, 2541, 2645 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, 2037 Expressionism; German, 421-424; motion pictures, 1575-1578 Exterminating Angel, The (film), 2215
Subject Index Extinction; Neanderthals, 711; passenger pigeon, 397, 1069, 1133-1136 Fabian Socialists (Great Britain), 201, 513, 546 Fabry, Charles, 1053 Fackenthal, Frank Diehl, 1363 Facta, Luigi, 1782 Fadeev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 2563 Fagus shoe-last factory, 620, 783 “Fahne Hoch, Die” (Wessel), 2949 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 971, 2337, 3119-3122 Fair trade legislation, 3044 Fair use doctrine, 755 Fairbanks, Douglas, Sr., 737, 2306 Fairchild, George, 1905 Fairgrieve, John M., 531 Faisal I, 949, 1623, 1625, 1777 Faisal-Weizmann Agreement (1919), 1778 Falange, 2945 Falck, August, 654 Falkenhayn, Erich von, 1192, 1256, 1279 Falkenhorst, Nikolaus von, 3240 Fall, Albert B., 1614, 1698, 1857 Fallingwater, 2589 Falstaff (Elgar), 715 Family Limitation (Sanger), 1173, 1737 Famines; Russia, 570-572, 16921695, 1791; Soviet Union, 2599-2601 Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, 1820 Fannie Mae, 2541, 3090-3093 Fantasia (film), 1916, 3295-3298 Fantasound, 3295 Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism (art exhibition), 2822 Far Side of Paradise, The (Mizener), 2035 Farabundo Martí, Agustín, 2535 Faraday-Tyndall cone, 111 Fard, Wallace D., 2434; identity, 2435
Fard Muhammad, Wallace. See Fard, Wallace D. Farewell to Arms, A (Hemingway), 2140 Farley, James Aloysius, 2596 Farm Credit Institute, 2503 Farm machinery industry, 173176 Farm price supports, 2683-2687 Farmers National Grain Associations, 2312 Farnham, Joseph, 2307 Farnsworth, Philo T., 3186 Farouk I, 2228 Farquharson, Frederick B., 3292 Farr, Leo, 2774 Farrad, Wali. See Fard, Wallace D. Farrakhan, Louis, 2436 Fascist Party (Italy), 1782-1784, 1997-2000 Fashion. See Category Index Fashion design, 1549-1551, 28132816; hobble skirt, 820-823; swimsuits, 1558-1562; undergarments, 820 Fashion designers; Coco Chanel, 1549-1551; Paul Poiret, 820823; Elsa Schiaparelli, 28132816 Fathometry, 1223-1226 Faulhaber, Michael von, 3009 Faulkner, William, 266, 2327 Faure, Élie, 2001 Faure, Paul, 1663 Faust, Frederick, 925 Fauvism, 447-449, 496, 683, 932, 1057, 2188, 2515 Faux-monnayeurs, Les. See Counterfeiters, The (Gide) Favrile glass, 119 Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, 259, 545, 1422 Fay, Frank J., 359 Fay, William George, 359, 597 Fayol, Henri, 1272, 3066 FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation FCC. See Federal Communications Commission LXIII
FDA. See Food and Drug Administration FDIC. See Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Febreristas, 2925 Fechner, Robert, 2652 Federal Aid in Wildlife Act (1937), 3050-3053 Federal Airport Act (1946), 2114 Federal Art Project, 2832 Federal Aviation Act (1958), 3263 Federal Aviation Administration, 2113, 3262 Federal Baseball League, 1597 Federal Bureau of Investigation, 692-694, 1369, 1608, 2639; Red Scare, 1529 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 837 Federal Coal Mine Safety Board of Review, 837 Federal Communications Commission, 2754-2757, 2886; color television standards, 3282; video transmission standard, 3188 Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1910), 2024 Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925), 2024-2027 Federal Credit Union Act (1934), 2761-2764 Federal Dam Act (1906), 1810 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2333, 2459, 2647, 2659 Federal Election Campaign Act (1971), 2024 Federal Emergency Relief Act (1933), 2648 Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 2337, 2648, 2830 Federal Farm Board, 1952, 23112314, 2335, 2684 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 2165, 3122-3124 Federal Home Loan Bank, 3091 Federal Home Loan Bank Act (1932), 2336
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Federal Housing Administration, 3091 Federal Mine Safety and Health Act (1977), 837 Federal National Mortgage Association. See Fannie Mae Federal Oil Conservation Board, 1857-1861, 2261 Federal Open Market Committee, 2857 Federal Power Act (1935), 3116 Federal Power Commission, 18101813, 2573, 3116-3118 Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas (1944), 3117 Federal Radio Commission, 1643, 2754 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 624, 1099-1103, 2179, 2857 Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1816, 2857 Federal Reserve Board, 1099, 1951, 2659, 2857 Federal Reserve system, 10991103, 1145, 2179, 2659, 2857 Federal Tariff Commission, 12851287 Federal Theatre Project, 2832, 2860-2864, 3111, 3137 Federal Trade Commission, 85, 221, 1145-1148, 1473, 1619, 1894, 2594, 2841, 2938, 31013103, 3116, 3123 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 885, 888, 1145-1149, 3044 Federal Water Power Act (1920), 1811, 2993 Federal Writers’ Project, 2832, 3111 Federales, 844 Federated Council of Australasia, 37 Fedin, Konstantin Aleksandrovich, 2563 Feeding and Care of Baby (King, F. T.), 612 Feigl, Herbert, 1754 Feininger, Lyonel, 1460, 1915 Felicistas, 844
Fels, Joseph, 1059 Felsch, Happy, 1538 Felton, Rebecca Latimer, 1301 Fennoman movement, 539 Ferber, Edna, 2210 Ferdinand I, 244, 1008 Ferguson, Miriam A., 1301, 2015 Fermat’s last theorem, 1677 Fermi, Enrico, 2687, 2989, 3143 Fermions, 2029 Ferris, Scott, 1615 Fersman, A. E., 2089 Fertilizers; ammonia, 308-311; potash, 480 Fessenden, Reginald Aubrey, 73, 561, 1223, 1227, 1641 Fetter, Frank A., 84 Feu, Le. See Under Fire (Barbusse) Feynman, Richard P., 1408 Fianna Fáil, 461, 2547 Fidelity Savings and Trust Company, 827-829 Field emission microscopes, 28962898 Fields, Herbert, 3201 Fifth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 1276 Fifth Piano Sonata (Scriabin), 865 Fifth Symphony (Sibelius), 877 Fifth Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 214 Fight for Birth Control, The (Sanger), 1172 Fight for Conservation, The (Pinchot), 394 Fighting Angel (Buck), 3147 Figueroa y Torres, Álvaro de, 1156 Filene, Edward A., 2761 Film Service Association, 420 Film trust, 419 Filmmaking techniques, 169-173, 253-256, 1968-1971, 20012004, 2148-2155 Films. See Motion pictures Finance. See Category Index under Banking and finance Finance Capital (Hilferding), 1254 LXIV
Financial panics, 622-625 Finanzkapital. See Finance Capital (Hilferding) Finch, Stanley W., 692 Fingerprinting, 1961 Fini, Léonor, 2813 Finland; independence, 13991402; map, 3220; Russification, 538; RussoFinnish War, 3219-3222; woman suffrage, 538-541. See also Geographical Index Finlandia (Sibelius), 876 Finlay, Carlos Juan, 44, 185, 298, 3025 Finlaycolor process, 581 Finley, Harry, 1731 Finnegans Wake (Joyce), 2401 Finnish Women’s Association, 539 Firebird, The (ballet), 833-836 Fires; Reichstag, 2632-2636; San Francisco, 522-526; Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, 868-872 Fireside chats (Roosevelt), 2352, 2647 First Abstract Watercolor (Kandinsky), 897 First American Birth Control Conference, 1173, 1738 First Balkan War (1912-1913). See Balkan Wars (1912-1913) First Chamber Symphony (Schoenberg), 1702 First Congress of the Soviet Writers’ Union, 2563, 2709 First Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union), 2240, 2263-2266, 2558, 2599, 2786 First Hague Peace Conference, 625, 1501 First International Conference of American States, 185 First Sino-Japanese War (18941895), 30, 2629 First Symphony (Elgar), 713-716 First Symphony (Sibelius), 876 First Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 213 Fischer, Emil, 12
Subject Index Fischer, Eugen, 3253 Fischer, Guido, 376 Fischer, Mochi, 601 Fischer, Theodor, 618 Fish, Hamilton, 1734 Fish and Wildlife Act (1956), 228 Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (1934), 228 Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S., 227, 3265-3267 Fisher, Alva J., 792 Fisher, Carl G., 776 Fisher, Irving, 2331 Fisher, Sir John, 552, 1180 Fisher Body Corporation, 1659 “Fisherman, The” (Yeats), 1317 Fishing; commercial, 1935, 19471949, 3265; recreational, 1760 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 1459, 1750, 2033, 2139 Fitzgerald, LeMoine, 1628 Fitzgerald, Zelda, 2033 Fitzpatrick, John, 1535 Five Movements for String Quartet (Webern), 1072 Five Piano Pieces (Schoenberg), 1702 Five Pieces for Orchestra (Webern), 1072 Five-Power Treaty (1922), 1743, 2047, 2797-2799, 3039, 3259 Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union), 1487, 2263-2266 Fixed-fee cost-plus contracts, 1107 “Flag on High, The” (Wessel), 2949 Flags in the Dust (Faulkner), 2327 Flanagan, Hallie, 2830, 2860 Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy, 1234 Flandin, Pierre-Étienne, 2927 Flappers and Philosophers (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 2033 Flash steam geothermal power plants, 1026 Flatt, Lester, 3163 Flaubert, Gustave, 1168, 1972 Fleas as disease vector, 584-586 Fleischmann, Raoul, 2020
Fleming, Alexander, 2256, 3243 Fleming, John Ambrose, 352 Fleming, Sir Sandford, 778 Fleming, Victor, 3201, 3223 Fletcher, Duncan U., 998, 2750 Fletcher, Harvey, 741 Flett, John Smith, 151 Flexner, Abraham, 1074 Flexner, Simon, 1074 Flick, J. B., 2773 Flint, Charles Ranlett, 1905 Flint, F. S., 965 Flint v. Stone Tracy Company (1911), 774 Flohr, Albert, 382 Flood Control Act (1944), 2839 Flores Magon, Ricardo, 1354 Florey, Baron (Howard Walter Florey), 2256, 3243 Florida; map, 227 Florio, Vincenzo, 529 Fluorescent lamps, 19, 2963-2965 Flying doctor service (Australia), 1653, 2238-2239 Flying Down to Rio (film), 2610, 2868 Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 425 Flynn, John, 2238 FM radio, 2885-2888 Fo, Dario, 2284 Foch, Ferdinand, 1137, 1192, 1440 Fokine, Michel, 355, 632, 762, 766, 833, 977, 3107 Fokker, Anthony, 1202 Folk music; American, 2082, 2356-2359; Hungarian, 295-298 Folle de Chaillot, La. See Madwoman of Chaillot, The (Giraudoux) Follett, Mary Parker, 3066 Follow the Fleet (film), 2869 Fonck, René, 2190 Fontanne, Lynn, 2618 Food; labeling, 2166; preservation, 1306-1308 Food and Drug Administration, U.S., 510, 2164-2167, 2612, 3122 Food and Drug Administration Act (1988), 2165 LXV
Food stamps, 3190-3193 Football, 507-508; American Professional Football Association, 1638-1640; bowl games, 124-127 Footlight Parade (film), 2610 For Children (Bartók), 296 For the Time Being (Auden), 1750 For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway), 2140 Foraker, Joseph Benson, 430, 1347 Foraker Act (1900), 1347 Forbes, B. C. (1880-1954), 1374 Forbes, Bruce (1916-1964), 1374 Forbes, Charles R., 1698 Forbes, Malcolm, 1374 Forbes (magazine), 1374-1376 Force, Juliana Rieser, 2514, 2820 Ford, Clara Bryant, 2906 Ford, Edsel, 2906 Ford, George B., 1276 Ford, Gerald R., 2047 Ford, Henry, 670, 1063, 1110, 1201, 1274, 1661, 2024, 2158; Ford Foundation, 2906 Ford, Henry, II, 1661 Ford, John, 2378, 3152 Ford Air Transport, 2017 Ford Foundation, 2906-2908 Ford Motor Company, 672, 853, 1063-1067, 1274, 1661, 1893, 2158, 2691, 2906, 3247; fivedollar, eight-hour workday, 1110-1114 Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act (1922), 1287 Forel, François-Alphonse, 2809 Forest and Stream (magazine), 396 Forest Service, U.S., 392-396, 653, 1283, 1931, 2782, 2992; John Muir Trail, 3078; livestock grazing, 2765; URegulations, 2676 Forestry, 392-396. See also Conservation; Wilderness preservation Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 1705 Fort Apache (film), 3154
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Fortune (magazine), 1834, 24032406 Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway (Cohan), 349 Forty-Four Duos for Two Violins (Bartók), 297 Forty-Second Street (film), 26082611 47 Workshop, 362-365 Forward pass (football), 507-508 Foss, Eugene N., 980 Fossil Man in China (Black, D., et al.), 1848 Fossil Primates of China (Schlosser), 1847 Fossilen Säugethiere Chinas, Die. See Fossil Primates of China (Schlosser) Fossils; australopithecine, 19381940; dinosaur eggs, 17981801; Neanderthals, 710-713; Peking man, 1847-1849, 30533056 Foster, Michael, 327 Foster, William Z., 1535 Foucault, Léon, 468 Foucault, Michel, 1434 Foundations of Arithmetic, The (Frege), 815 Foundations of Geometry, The (Hilbert), 305, 312, 2317 Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, The (Chamberlain), 1478 Fountain (Duchamp), 1020 Fountaine, William, 2274 Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art (Breuil), 3287 Four-Power Treaty (1921), 1743, 2797 Four-Way Test (Rotary Club), 407 Fourteen Bagatelles (Bartók), 296 Fourteen Points, 1014, 1201, 1483, 1501, 1506, 1523, 1625, 1719, 1777 Fourteenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 415, 1929 Fourth Neutrality Act (1939), 2867
Fourth Symphony (Ives), 12471250 Fourth Symphony (Sibelius), 876879 Fourth Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 214 Fowler, Ralph H., 2119, 2471, 2896 Fox, William, 417, 2203, 2234, 2377 Fox Film Corporation, 2235 Fraenkel, Abraham Adolf, 311 Fraenkel, Michael, 2770 Fram (ship), 919 France; Maginot line, 2288-2291; map, 243, 2289, 3286; nationalization of banking, 2899-2902; Ruhr occupation, 1826-1829; Stavisky riots, 2740-2742; World War II collapse, 3250-3253. See also Geographical Index Franchet d’Espérey, Louis-FélixMarie-François, 1137 Franchise Amendment Bill (1896), 239 Franchising, 1029; Muzak, 2713 Francia, José Gaspar Rodríguez de, 2923 Francis, Thomas, Jr., 1428 Francis Ferdinand, 1121, 1124, 1450; assassination, 2070 Franck, Jean-Michel, 2813 Franco, Francisco, 2945, 2947, 2951, 2996, 3014, 3034 Franco, Rafael, 2923 Franco-British Entente Cordiale. See Entente Cordiale Frank, Adolf, 308 Frank, Ilya Mikhailovich, 2701 Frank, Leo, 1085 Frank, Philipp, 1754 Frankenstein (film), 2378, 24612464 Frankfurter, Felix, 1844 Franklin, Benjamin, 2112 Franklin, Sir John, 54, 759 Fraser, Peter, 2891 Frazee, Harry, 1597 Frazer, George E., 1980 LXVI
Frazer, Sir James George, 2066 Fréchet, Maurice, 481 Fred Stern and Company, 2464 Free, Edwin Elway, 2427 Free association, 286 Freed, Arthur, 3201 Freeman, Derek, 2251 Freeman, Sir Ralph, 2549 Freeman, Walter Jackson, 2882 Freeman-Thomas, Freeman, 1728 Freeways, 3301-3304 Frege, Gottlob, 162, 311, 814, 3149 French, John, 1137 French Communist Party, 16631665 French Guiana. See Geographical Index French Indochina; Japanese occupation of ports, 3279-3281 French Resistance, 3252 Frenkel, Naftaly Aronovich, 2670 Freon, 2418-2421, 2454-2456 Frequency theory of probability, 1463-1466 Frerichs, Friedrich Theodor von, 823 Fresnay, Pierre, 2985 Fresno American Loyalty League, 2443 Freud, Sigmund, 6, 286, 928, 1945, 2066, 2370 Freudenthal, Axel Olof, 539 Frey, Emile, 545 Frey, John P., 3111 Frick, Ford Christopher, 3193 Frick, Henry Clay, 47 Friedman, Milton, 2919 Friedmann, Aleksandr, 2156 Friedrich, Walter, 946 Frigidaire, 2418 Frisch, Karl von, 1495 Frisch, Otto Robert, 3143 Fritsch, Werner von, 2927 Frobenius, Leo, 1329, 2532 Frobisher, Sir Martin, 54 Fröken Julie. See Miss Julie (Strindberg) Frölich, Theodor, 2222 From, Haakon, 1397
Subject Index Fronts, atmospheric, 1474-1475 Frossard, Louis-Oscar, 1663 Frost, Edwin Brant, 288 Frozen foods, 1306-1308 Fruit of Islam, 2435 Frye, Jack, 2941 FTC. See Federal Trade Commission Fu Sinian, 1506 Fu Ssu-nien. See Fu Sinian Fu$3d I, 716 Fu$3d University, 716-718 Fuller, Alfred Carl, 1028 Fuller, Alvan T., 2199 Fuller, Avard E., 1028 Fuller, Howard, 1028 Fuller, Melville W., 51, 222, 661 Fuller, R. Buckminster, 2981 Fuller Brush Company, 10281031 Functions of the Executive, The (Barnard), 3066-3069 Fundamental Law (Persia), 549552 Fundamental Laws (Russia), 526 Fundamentalist Christians, 14581459 Funk, Casimir, 16, 484 Funston, Frederick, 522, 1259 Furniture design, 1412-1415; Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1965-1968 Furtwängler, Wilhelm, 2360 “Future of Electricity, The” (Steinmetz), 807-811 Futurism, 747-751, 1016, 1236, 1242 Futurist Evenings, 749 Futuristengefahr (Pfitzner), 588 Fysh, Wilmot Hudson, 1652 Gable, Clark, 2364, 2610, 2725, 3223 Gabor, Dennis, 2493 Gabrielson, Ira N., 3051 Gade Corson, Amelia, 2129 Gaelic League, 459 Gaia hypothesis, 2090 Gainford, First Baron. See Pease, Joseph Albert
Gaisberg, Frederick William, 146 Gala Performance (ballet), 2909 Galaxies, 208, 1953-1956, 22762278; Andromeda nebula, 1877-1879; Milky Way, 291294, 1419-1421, 2161-2164; spectra, 1546-1548 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 3068 Galen, 1757 Galey, John H., 40 Galfand, Alexander, 695 Galilean relativity, 1230 Galileo, 1877 Galle, Johann, 2408 Galliéni, Joseph-Simon, 1137 Gallipoli Campaign (1915-1916), 986, 1128, 1180-1183; map, 1181 Galois, Évariste, 732, 1407 Galton, Francis, 726, 1476 Gambia. See Geographical Index Gambling, Nevada, 2483-2485 Game Refuge-Public Shooting Grounds Bill, 2743 Gamelin, Maurice, 2927, 3250 Gamma rays, 1, 276, 665, 1808, 3145 Gamow, George, 1879, 2242, 2276, 2555 Gance, Abel, 2001 Gandhi, Mahatma, 239, 566, 1183, 1498, 1583, 1728, 2004, 2480; Poona Pact, 2586; Salt March, 2410 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. See Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931), 2413, 2480-2483 Gandil, Chick, 1538-1539 Gangster films, 2467-2470 Gapon, George, 399 Garbage industry, 784-786 Garbo, Greta, 2364 García Lorca, Federico, 3226 Gardener, Cornelius, 105 Gardner, Erle Stanley, 1571 Garen, Amos, 3164 Garfield, James Rudolph, 219, 392, 751, 883 Garin, Maurice, 242 LXVII
Garland, Charles, 1609 Garland, Judy, 3201 Garmes, Lee, 2396 Garner, John Nance, 2596 Garnier, Tony, 2979 Garrod, Archibald E., 183 Garros, Roland, 1202 Garton Foundation, 791 Garvey, Amy Jacques, 1358 Garvey, Marcus, 818, 1358, 2062, 2435 Gary, Elbert Henry, 47, 173, 1535, 1618 Gary dinners, 49, 1618 Garza, Ben, 2304 Gasoline, 1049; taxes, 3302 Gasparri, Pietro, 2298 Gates, Frederick T., 1074 Gatun Dam, 342 Gaudí, Antonio, 800 Gauguin, Paul, 495, 2187 Gaulle, Charles de, 2288, 2899; June 18 Appeal, 3252 Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 732, 1677 Gay, Edwin F., 674, 1551 Gay, Frank William, 1899 Gay Divorcee, The (film), 2868 Gaynor, Janet, 2307 Gearhart, Bertrand Wesley, 2992 Gebrauchsmusik, 2193, 23602363 Geddes, Auckland C., 1741 Geddes, Norman Bel, 2279, 2976 Geer v. Connecticut (1896), 1437 Geiger, Hans, 3, 664, 962, 1103, 2242 Geiger, Robert, 2730 Geiger counter, 3, 664-667 Geiger-Nuttall law, 2243 Geissler, Heinrich, 17, 66, 2963 Geissler tubes, 2964 Geitel, Hans Friedrich, 1, 283 Gellhorn, Edna Fischel, 1610 Gene-chromosome theory, 648651 Gene frequency, 638-641 Gene linkage, 474-478 General, The (film), 2142-2145 General Act of Brussels (1890), 2136
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 General Allotment Act (1887), 217, 1930 General and Industrial Management (Fayol), 12721275 General Bakelite Corporation, 386 General Electric Company, 1227, 1562, 1641, 1661, 2132, 2593 General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1283, 1644 General Film Company, 420 General Foods, 1306 General German Women’s Association, 730 General Mining Act (1872), 1614 General Motors, 672, 855, 16591662, 2158, 3247; Frigidaire division, 2418; World War II manufacturing, 3246-3250 General Munitions Board, 1371 General Pact for the Renunciation of War (1928), 2252-2256 General relativity, 441, 12301232, 1250-1253, 1406, 1542, 1548, 2471, 3170 General semantics, 1688 General Strike (1926), 2105-2109, 2170 General Syrian Congress (1919), 1778 General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, The (Keynes), 93, 2919-2923 Genes, 726-729; alleles, 180 Genesis (Tanguy), 1945 Genet, Jean, 1724 Genetic linkage, 649 Genetics, 77-81, 378-381; artificial insemination, 23-26; chromosomes, 180-184, 648651, 906-909; crossing-over, 649, 906; Lamarckian, 1488; law of independent assortment, 906; linkage, 474-478; population, 638-641; pure-line studies, 726; sex chromosomes, 102-105; terminology, 726729. See also Category Index Geneva Convention, 626 Geneva Protocol, 2047-2050
Genocchi, Giovanni, 983 Genocide; Armenia, 1195-1199; Holocaust, 3159-3163; Southwest Africa, 317-319 Genotypes, 726-729 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 556, 603-605, 1076, 1337, 1725 Geochronology, 388-391 Geography. See Category Index Geological Survey, U.S., 836 Geology; earthquakes, 522-526, 721-723, 1855-1857, 28092812; Earth’s structure, 497500, 1031-1034, 2893-2895; nuclear methods, 388-391; volcanoes, 149-152. See also Category Index George, David Lloyd. See Lloyd George, David George, Stefan, 645 George V, 756, 1124, 1775 George VI, 2974 Geothermal power, 1025-1028 Gerard, James Watson, 1349 Gerlache, Adrien de, 919 Germ theory of disease, 803, 1043, 1683 German Community Party, 1410 German expressionism, 421-424, 1575, 1915-1918 German Revolution (1918-1919), 1409-1412, 1814 German Society for Racial Hygiene, 505 German-Soviet alliance (1922), 1772-1774 Germany; Anti-Comintern Pact, 2969-2971; economy, 12791281; hyperinflation, 1281, 1814-1817, 1941-1943, 2071; invasion of Austria, 3093-3096; invasion of Norway, 32403243; invasion of Poland, 3209-3212; map, 2927, 3094; Nazi Party, 2625-2628; Reichstag fire, 2632-2636; Weimar Constitution, 15251527. See also Geographical Index LXVIII
Gernsback, Hugo, 3079 Gershon-Cohen, Jacob, 1040 Gershwin, George, 1909, 2871 Gershwin, Ira, 2871 Gesamtkunstwerk, 192, 374, 834, 1242, 1461 Gestapo, 2641, 3009, 3161 Gestetner, Sigmund, 2279 Gey, George, 610 Geysers geothermal field, 1026 Ghali, Wasef Boutros, 3020 Ghali, Wasif Butrus. See Ghali, Wasef Boutros Ghana. See Geographical Index Ghost Sonata, The (Strindberg), 654-657 G.I. Bill of Rights (1944), 1494 Giannini, Amadeo P., 2457 Giant stars, 370-371, 576-578, 1092, 1388, 1913, 2120, 2719 Gibbon, John H., Jr., 2773 Gibbon, Mary Hopkinson, 2773 Gibbons, Cedric, 2307 Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), 223 Gide, André, 863, 1972 Gierke, Otto, 730 Giffard, Pierre, 242 Gifford, Walter S., 3066 Gifford Pinchot National Forest, 395 Gil Robles y Quiñones, José María, 2496 Gila Wilderness Area, 1931-1934 Gilbreth, Frank Bunker, 1118 Gilbreth, Lillian Evelyn, 1118 Gillespie, A. Arnold, 3202 Gillette, King Camp, 250 Gillette, William, 3178 Gillette razor, 250-252 Gillette Safety Razor Company, 250-252, 1446 Gilson, Étienne, 2527 Ginger Group, 2582 Ginsberg, Allen, 2402 Giolitti, Giovanni, 856 Giraudoux, Jean, 1723 Girdles, 820 Girl Guides, 615 Girouard, Sir Percy, 873 Gish, Lillian, 1188
Subject Index “Give My Regards to Broadway” (Cohan), 349 Gladiators, The (Koestler), 3298 Gladkov, Fedor Vasil’evich, 2563 Gladstone, William Ewart, 74, 1140 Glanzer v. Shepard (1922), 2465 Glaser, Joe, 2080 Glass; artistic medium, 117; Favrile, 119; Lalique, 2038; Pyrex, 1209-1211 Glass, Carter, 1099, 2659, 2857 Glass Key, The (Hammett), 2323 Glass-Steagall Act (1932), 2336, 2858 Glass-Steagall Act (1933), 2179, 2333, 2659-2662 Glassey, Thomas, 160 Glazer, Benjamin, 2307 Glazunov, Aleksandr, 766 Gleason, Henry Allen, 2846 Gleichschaltung, 2627, 3042 Gleizes, Albert, 1015 Glimpses of Our National Parks (Yard), 1515 Global warming, 3071 Globular clusters, 292, 1420, 1877, 2161 Go Down, Moses (Faulkner), 2328 Gobineau, Joseph-Arthur de, 1476 Gockel, Albert, 1594 Goddard, Robert H., 203, 2099 Gödel, Kurt, 311, 1754, 2317, 2806, 3149 Godowsky, Leopold, 581 Godshall, Harry, 1731 Godwin-Austen, Alfred, 3274 Goebbels, Joseph, 1476, 2292, 2625, 2632, 2649, 2948, 3011, 3040, 3141, 3236 Goethals, George Washington, 340, 1130 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1168, 1434 Gogh, Vincent van, 2187 Gökalp, Ziya, 689, 1195 Gold, Thomas, 1879 Gold Diggers of 1933 (film), 2610 Gold Diggers of 1935 (film), 2610 Gold Rush, The (film), 2050-2054
Gold standard, 1099, 1814, 1952, 2505 Golden Age, The (film), 2214 Golden Age of Hollywood, 23642367 Golden Bough, The (Frazer), 2066 Golden Gate Bridge, 3022-3024 Goldman, Emma, 1171 Goldmann, Max. See Reinhardt, Max Goldmark, Josephine, 667 Goldmark, Peter Carl, 3282 Goldmark, Rubin, 1665 Goldsborough, T. Alan, 3090 Goldschmidt, V. M., 2089 Goldsmith, Alfred N., 2134 Goldstein, Eugen, 558, 2896 Goldstein, Jonah J., 1295 Goldstein, Vida, 160 Goldwyn, Samuel, 1820 Golf, 2452-2454 Golgi, Camillo, 327 Golovin, Alexander, 833 Goltz, Colmar von der, 1158 Gomer, Robert, 2896 Gómez, Juan Vincente, 1794 Gomez, Lefty, 2667 Gompers, Samuel, 661, 980, 1153, 1517, 1535, 1725, 1922 Goncharova, Natalya, 1016 Gondwanaland, 951 Gone with the Wind (film), 2364, 2377, 3202, 3223-3226 Gonne, Maud, 1315 Gonzague, Marie de, 2044 Good Earth, The (Buck), 3147 Good Neighbor Policy, 236, 26442646, 2961, 2971-2972, 3099 Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War, The (Hašek), 1695-1698 Goodman, Benny, 2605, 2790 Goodrich, Lloyd, 2820 Goodwin, Hannibal W., 2175 Goodyear, Conger, 2340 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 1320 Gordon, Aaron David, 723 Gordon, Charles George, 713 Gordon, Mary, 3176 Gordon, Max, 2618 LXIX
Gordon Bennett Cup, 529 Gore, Spencer, 1775 Goremykin, Ivan Logginovich, 526 Gorgas, William Crawford, 43, 271, 298, 340 Göring, Hermann, 1869, 2625, 2632, 2640, 2649, 2767, 3093, 3141, 3256, 3267 Gorky, Arshile, 2820 Gorky, Maxim, 1692, 2562, 2670 Gorman, Margaret, 1730 Gorman, Ross, 1909 Gorst, Sir John Eldon, 900 Gort, Lord (John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker), 3256 Gosden, Freeman Fisher, 2230 Gotf Shimpei, 1855 Götterdämmerung (Wagner), 4 Götz, F. W. P., 1053 Goudsmit, Samuel A., 2028 Gould, Elgin R. L., 827 Government. See Category Index Government of India Act (1919), 1583 Government of India Act (1935), 2005, 2413, 2482, 2519, 30123014 Government of Ireland Act (1920), 1578-1582 Governors’ Conference. See Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources Gowland, Gibson, 1956 Grabski, Wuadysuaw, 1715 Grafström, Gillis, 1903 Graham, Martha, 1211 Grain Stabilization Boards, 2312 Gramophone, 97 Gramophone and Typewriter Company, 146-149 Grand Canyon National Monument, 651-653 Grand Canyon National Park, 1615 Grand Canyon Scenic Railway Company, 652 Grand Coulee Dam, 2678-2681; map, 2679 Grand Illusion, The (film), 29852988
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Grand Ole Opry, The (radio program), 2082-2085, 3163 Grand Prix, 529-531 Grand slam of golf, 2452-2454 Grand slam of tennis, 3127-3128 Grande Illusion, La. See Grand Illusion, The (film) Granger, Walter, 1798 Grant, Cary, 2725 Grant, Mrs. Gordon H., 1377 Grant, Jane, 2020 Grant, Madison, 1725 Grant, Ulysses S., 1130 Granville-Barker, Harley, 199 Grapes of Wrath, The (film), 2378 Grapes of Wrath, The (novel by Steinbeck), 3180-3183 Gras, N. S. B., 1551 Graves, Abner, 3193 Gravitation theories, 1231, 1250, 1406, 1541-1543, 2155 Gray, Charles F., 1509 Gray, Harry, 2274 Gray, Hawthorne, 2506 Graziani, Rodolfo, 3289 Great Blood Purge, 2627, 27672769 Great Britain; abdication of Edward VIII, 2973-2975; dominions, 2517-2520; electoral system reforms, 513; map, 1579; woman suffrage, 1422-1425, 2246-2249. See also Ireland; Geographical Index Great bull market, 1165, 1952 Great Depression, 2335-2339, 2350-2352; agriculture, 2312; bank failures, 2457-2460, 2503-2506; Canada, 1710, 2440, 2448-2451, 2575-2578, 2880; causes, 1952, 2331-2334; crime, 2748; Dust Bowl, 27302733; economics, 2919; El Salvador, 2535; housing industry (U.S.), 3090; literature, 3180-3183; military veterans, 2578-2580; motionpicture industry, 2364-2367, 2467; music, 2356-2359;
National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663-2666; New Deal, 2540-2543, 2596-2599, 26462649, 2830-2834, 2860-2864; New Zealand, 2891; radio programming, 2352-2356; tariffs, 2430-2434, 2961 Great Dictator, The (film), 2378 Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 1750, 2033-2036, 2139 Great German Art Exhibition, 3042 Great Illusion, The (Angell), 790792 Great Iraqi Revolt, 1625-1627 Great Kanto earthquake, 18551857 Great Locomotive Chase, The (Pittenger), 2143 Great Northern Migration, 818820, 1359 Great Plains; Dust Bowl, 27302733 Great Purge, 2786-2790 Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons, The (Foster, W. Z.), 1537 Great Train Robbery, The (film), 171, 253-256 Great War. See World War I (1914-1918) Great White Hope, 719-721 Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, 2631, 3272-3274, 3280 Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), 1511-1513; map, 1512 Greece; invasion of Bulgaria, 2076-2079. See also Geographical Index Greed (film), 1956-1959 Greeley, Adolphus, 759 Greeley, William B., 1931 Green, Paul, 2474 Green, William, 1926, 2850, 2888, 3119 Green Table, The (dance), 25692571 Greene, Hugh Carleton, 2956 Greenhouse effect, 3069-3072 Gregory, Lady Augusta, 359, 597, 1315 LXX
Gregory, Robert, 1316 Gregory, William K., 1799 Grey, Sir Edward, 411, 616, 698, 703, 890, 1008, 1121, 1349 Grey, Zane, 925 Griffin, Jocelyn Crane, 2427 Griffith, Arthur, 459, 1580 Griffith, D. W., 169, 255, 737, 988, 1188 Griffith, Frederick, 183 Griffith, Sir Samuel Walker, 37 Grignard reagents, 26 Grijns, Gerrit, 14 Grimm, Robert, 1217 Grinnell, George Bird, 396, 1067, 1514 Gripenberg, Alexandra, 538 Gris, Juan, 1015 Grocery stores, 1288-1292 Groener, Wilhelm, 1279, 1409 Grofé, Ferde, 1909 Gronsky, Ivan, 2563 Gropius, Walter, 194, 618, 783, 1314, 1460, 2979, 2982 Grossman, Marcel, 1230 Grosvenor, Gilbert Hovey, 2427 Grosvenor, Hugh, 1549 Grosz, George, 423, 1243, 1983, 3040 Grotefend, Georg Friedrich, 121 Grotell, Maija, 1967 Grotrian, W., 2384 Group of Seven, 1628-1629 Group Theatre, 2474-2477, 2823 Group theory, 732 Grozier, Richard, 1470 Gruber, Max von, 10 Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Frege), 164, 815 Grundlagen der Arithmetik, Die. See Foundations of Arithmetic, The (Frege) Grundlagen der Geometrie. See Foundations of Geometry, The (Hilbert) Grundlagen des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Die. See Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, The (Chamberlain) Grünewald, Matthias, 2360
Subject Index Grynszpan, Herschel, 3141 Guam, 51-53 Guangxu, 29 Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich, 526 Güell, Eusebio, 800 Guérin, Anna, 1234 Guérin, Camille, 1683 Guermantes Way, The (Proust), 1045 Guernica, bombing raids, 30143016 Guernica (Picasso), 3016, 30343037 Guest, Ivor Churchill, 1262 Guffey, James M., 40 Guffey Coal Act (1935), 3119 Guggenheim, Simon, 157 Guggenheim Museum; architecture, 2590 Gugsa Welle, Ras, 2421 Guide to Kulchur (Pound), 1329 Guinzburg, Harold Kleinert, 2092 Gujarat; map, 2411 Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis, 2259, 3096 Gullichsen, Henry, 2982 Gullichsen, Maire Ahlström, 2982 Gurrelieder (Schoenberg), 645 Gusenberg, Frank, 2301 Gusenberg, Pete, 2301 Gustav V, 975 Gutenberg, Beno, 497, 1031, 2809, 2894 Gutenberg Discontinuity, 1032 Guthrie, Charles Claude, 81 Guthrie, Woody, 2356 Guy Domville (James, H.), 264 Gypsies, extermination by Nazis, 3253-3255 Gypsy Ballads of García Lorca, The (García Lorca), 3227 Gypsy moths, 1303 Gyrocompass, 468-471 Gyroscopes, 468 Gyroscopic forces, 468 H. D., 965 Haagen, Eugen, 3026 Haakon VII, 450, 3240
Haas, Georg, 942 Haas, Robert K., 2092 Haber, Fritz, 308, 1192, 2030, 3146 Habte Giorgis, Fitawrari, 2421 Hácha, Emil, 3129 Hadamard, Jacques-Salomon, 481 Hadden, Briton, 1833, 2404 Haeckel, Ernst, 504, 712 Haffkine, Waldemar Mordecai Wolff, 584 Haganah, 2322 Hageman, Richard, 3153 Hagerty, J. E., 675 Hague Peace Conference. See First Hague Peace Conference; Second Hague Peace Conference Hahn, Hans, 1754 Hahn, Otto, 3143 Haig, Douglas, 1440 Haigh-Wood, Vivien, 1748 Haile Selassie I, 2421, 2875 Halas, George, 1638 Haldane, Sir Aylmer, 1625 Haldane, John Scott, 573 Haldeman-Julius, Emanuel, 2102 Hale, George Ellery, 206, 686, 1385, 1654, 2384 Hale, Georgia, 2050 Hales, Stephen, 327 Halévy, Daniel, 334 Haley, Jack, 3201 Halibut Treaty (1924), 1710, 1947-1949 Halifax, Lord (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood), 2410, 2480, 3209 Halifax explosion, 1397-1399 Hall, Charles Francis, 759 Hall, Charles Martin, 1892 Hall, Marshall, 327 Hall, R. T., 643 Hallahan, Bill, 2667 Hallelujah (film), 2273-2275 Haller de Hallenburg, Józef, 2110 Hallwachs, Wilhelm, 283, 408 Halm, Jacob Karl Ernst, 1912 Halsted, William Stewart, 376 Hamaguchi Osachi, 2797 LXXI
Hambro, Carl Joachim, 3240 Hamburg Observatory, 2348 Hamer, Frank, 2748 Hamilton, Adam, 2891 Hamilton, Alexander, 998 Hamilton, Alice, 1199, 1976 Hamilton, Sir Ian, 1180 Hamlin, Charles S., 1100 Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), 225 Hammerstein, Oscar, II, 2210 Hammett, Dashiell, 2323 Hammond, John, 2605, 2790 Hammurabi’s Code, 121-124; map, 121 Hampton, Lionel, 2790 Hand, Learned, 1367 Handy, W. C., 786 Hanfstaengl, Ernst, 2632 Hanna, Marcus A., 59, 152, 2024 Hansbrough, Henry, 535 Hansen, Alvin, 2919 Hanssen, Helmer, 919 Happy End (Weill and Brecht), 2194 Hara Takashi, 2042 Harbor in Normandy (Braque), 684 Harbord, James, 1444 Harbou, Thea von, 2152 Harburg, Edgar, 3201 Hardie, Keir, 513 Harding, Warren G., 1447, 1648, 1698, 1741, 1779, 1857, 1949, 2115; Emergency Quota Act, 1725; radio broadcast of election results, 1641; Teapot Dome scandal, 1616; Unknown Soldier eulogy, 1734 Hardinge, Sir Charles, 616 Hardy, Daphne, 3298 Hardy, G. H., 638 Hardy-Weinberg law, 638-641 Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act (1933), 2745 Harkin, James Bernard, 2424 Harkins, William Draper, 2544 Harlan, John Marshall, 51, 222, 413, 657 Harlem Renaissance, 819, 15551558, 2532
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Harlem Shadows (McKay), 1555 Harless, Leroy, 2414 Harmonielehre. See Theory of Harmony, The (Schoenberg) Harmony (Piston), 1667 Harmsworth, Alfred, 769, 790 Harold’s Club (casino), 2485 Harper, Jesse, 507 Harridge, Will, 2667, 3194 Harriman, Edward H., 323 Harris, Chauncy D., 1962 Harris, Isaac, 868 Harris, Jed, 3087 Harris, Lawren, 1628 Harris, Paul, 406 Harris, R. C., 531 Harris, Samuel, 348 Harrison, Ross Granville, 608 Harrod, Roy, 2919 Hart, Lorenz, 2705 Hartlaub, Gustav, 1983 Hartley, Walter Noel, 1053 Hartman, J. M., 531 Hartmann, Johannes Franz, 288 Harvard Bureau of Business Research, 675 Harvard Business School, 674677, 1551-1554, 3068 Harvard College Observatory, 289, 369, 576, 959, 1034, 1092, 1912, 2277 Harvard University, 674-677 Háry János (Kodály), 297 Wasan al-Bann3$, 2228 Hašek, Jaroslav, 1695 Hashimoto, Kingoro, 3059 Hashimoto, Masujiro, 852 Hasidism, 1802 Haskell, Charles Nathaniel, 594 Haskell, William N., 1692 Hassel, Sverre, 919 Hata, Sahachiro, 823 Hatch, Carl A., 2024 Hatch Act (1939), 2026 Hatshepsut, 1784 Haug, Thorleif, 1903 Haugen, Anders, 1903 Haugen, Gilbert N., 2311 Hauksbee, Francis, 2963 Hausmann, Raoul, 1243
Hausmusik, 2360-2363 Haüy, René-Just, 945 Hawaii, 51-53; Japanese laborers, 603 Hawaii v. Mankichi (1903), 52 Hawes, Harry B., 2745 Hawks, Howard, 2467, 2725 Hawk’s Nest Tunnel, 2414-2417 Hawley, Willis C., 2430 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (1930), 1287, 1952, 2312, 2335, 24302434, 2449, 2540, 2575 Hawthorne studies, 1896-1899 Hawtrey, Ralph, 2919 Hay, George D., 2082, 3163 Hay, John, 268, 271 Hay, Ralph E., 1638 Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903), 270-271 Hay-Herrán Treaty (1903), 273 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901), 272 Hayashi Tadasu, 127, 603 Haycox, Ernest, 3152 Hayes, Patrick J., 1737 Hayes, William, 1397 Hayflick, Leonard, 610 Haynes, Daniel L., 2273 Hays, Arthur Garfield, 1607, 2054 Hays, Will, 2706 Hays Code, 1822, 2706-2707, 3224 Haywood, Bill, 425, 1353, 1608 Hazen, Allen, 807 Hazen, Charles, 1353 Headlam, Stewart, 900 Health. See Category Index Health insurance, 2269-2272 Hearst, William Randolph, 708, 1363 Heart-lung maching, 2773-2776 Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964), 225 Heart of Darkness (Conrad), 8791 Heartfield, John, 1243 Hearts in Dixie (film), 2273 Heaviside, Oliver, 134 Heaviside layer, 135 Hecht, Ben, 2307 LXXII
Heckel, Erich, 421 Heckroth, Hein, 2569 Heidegger, Martin, 1037, 2146 Heidelberg man, 1938 Heilprin, Angelo, 151 Heinemann, Mitch, 1558 Heinlein, Robert A., 3079 Heinz, Robert, 376 Heinze, F. Augustus, 622 Heisenberg, Werner, 1105, 1809, 2172, 2242, 2545, 2784 Heisenberg uncertainty principle, 2172-2175, 2244 Heisman, John, 507 Heitler, Walter Heinrich, 2389 Held, Hans, 609 Heldenleben, Ein (Strauss), 714 Helium, 389, 3144; liquid, 30833086 Heller, E. S., 478 Hellman, Lillian, 2323 Hell’s Gate Bridge, 2551 Helmer, Alexis, 1233 Hemingway, Ernest, 266, 2033, 2139 Hemoglobin, 1990-1993 Henderson, Fletcher “Smack,” 1555, 2079, 2207, 2790 Henderson, Leon, 2664, 3246 Henderson, Paul, 2017 Hengel, Adrianus Johannes van, 2503 Henie, Sonja, 1903 Henking, Hermann, 102 Henne, Albert Leon, 2418, 2454 Hennings, Emmy, 1242 Henri, Robert, 2514 Henry, Joseph, 70 Henry Draper Catalog, 576 Henry Ford Company, 672 Henry Ford Health System, 2907 Hensel, Kurt, 731 Hensen, Victor, 608 Henson, Matthew Alexander, 54, 759 Heparin, 1215-1217 Hepatitis, 806 Hepburn, Katharine, 2725 Hepburn, William, 535 Hepworth, Cecil, 255
Subject Index Herbermann, Charles George, 606 Herbert, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux, 1784 Herbert, Victor, 1114 Hercegovina. See Bosnia and Herzegovina; Geographical Index Heredity. See Genetics Herero revolt, 317-319 Herman Melville (Weaver), 1587 Hernández Martínez, Maximiliano, 2535 Herr, Lucien, 334 Herrick, Hiram H., 56 Herriot, Édouard, 1826 Herschel, William, 292, 936, 2119, 2408 Herschmann, Otto, 976 Hershey, Alfred, 184 Hersholt, Jean, 1956 Herter, Christian Archibald, 3190 Hertz, Heinrich, 70, 275, 408, 811, 1466, 1641, 1873, 2735, 3028 Hertzog, James Barry Munnik, 155, 832 Hertzsprung, Ejnar, 369, 576, 959, 1034, 1092, 1388, 1912, 2277 Hertzsprung gap, 371 Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams, 369-372, 577, 960, 1092 Herzegovina. See Bosnia and Herzegovina; Geographical Index Herzl, Theodor, 723 Hess, Alfred F., 1888 Hess, Harry Hammond, 950 Hess, Rudolf, 1869, 2058 Hess, Victor Franz, 995, 1594, 2507 Heston, William M., 124 Hetch Hetchy Valley, 233, 10951099, 1282, 1514 Heumann, Karl, 8 Heures Claires, Les, 2486-2489 Hewitt, Peter Cooper, 17, 2963 Hexuronic acid, 2223 Heyburn, Weldon, 535 Heydler, John, 2667 Heydrich, Reinhard, 3159, 3161, 3253
Heyer, Adam, 2301 Heyward, DuBose, 2871 Hicks, Clarence J., 1840 Higgins, Patillo, 40 High-energy physics, 2585 Higham, Daniel, 1023 Highways of Progress (Hill, J. J.), 324 Hilbert, David, 305, 311, 731, 1231, 1406, 1678, 2317, 2806, 3149 Hilferding, Rudolf, 1253 Hill, James Jerome, 323 Hill, Joe, 425 Hill, Julian, 2817 Hillier, James, 2495 Hillman, Sidney, 2888, 3199, 3246 Himmler, Heinrich, 2640, 2767, 3159, 3253 Hindemith, Paul, 2193, 2360 Hindenburg, Paul von, 544, 1279, 1409, 1431, 2625, 2632, 2640, 2649, 2767 Hindenburg (airship), 3017-3020 Hindenburg Program, 1279-1281 Hine, Lewis W., 2499 Hines, Fatha, 2079 Hipper, Franz von, 1266 Hirota Kfki, 2797, 3037 His, Wilhelm, 608 Histograms, 487 Histoire du soldat, L’. See Soldier’s Tale, The (Stravinsky) Histoire d’une âme, L’. See Story of a Soul, The (Martin, T.) Historiography. See Category Index History, study of, 582-584, 14341436, 1824-1826, 2716-2718 Hitchcock, Alfred, 1577, 2722 Hitchcock, Ethan Allen, 217 Hitchman Coal and Coke Company v. Mitchell (1917), 660, 2552 Hitler, Adolf, 1281, 1476, 1526, 1826, 1835, 2625, 2632, 2640, 2649, 3009, 3125, 3141, 3159, 3195, 3256; Anschluss, 3093; Anti-Comintern Pact, 2969; LXXIII
Beer Hall Putsch, 1869; Degenerate Art Exhibition, 3040; eugenics, 504; French collapse in World War II, 3250; Great Blood Purge, 2767; invasion of Norway, 3240; invasion of Poland, 3209; Mein Kampf, 2058; Munich Conference, 3129; Nazi death camps, 3253; NaziSoviet Pact, 3205; Olympic Games, 2948; Rhineland occupation, 2927; Spanish Civil War, 2945, 3014; World War II, 3213 Hitler Youth movement, 3009 Hittorf, Johann Wilhelm, 2494 Hoare, Sir Samuel John Gurney, 2875 Hoare-Laval proposal, 2877 Hobbit, The (Tolkien), 2682, 3047-3049 Hobble skirt, 820-823 Hobson, John Atkinson, 91 Hodges, Johnny, 2206 Hodges, Wetmore, 1306 Hodgins, Eric, 2403 Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot, 68 Hoffenstein, Samuel, 3201 Hoffmann, Erich, 824 Hoffmann, Josef, 192, 372 Hoffmann, Max, 1431 Hofmann, Albert, 3072 Hofmann, August Wilhelm von, 8 Hofmeister, Henry, 3216 Holden v. Hardy (1898), 415 Holgate, Edwin, 1628 Holiday, Billie, 2605 Hollaender, Felix, 458 Holland, Harry, 986 Holland, John P., 542 Holland, Lawrence, 1564 Hollerith, Herman, 1905 Holmes, Arthur, 950 Holmes, John Haynes, 1607 Holmes, Joseph A., 836 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 402, 413, 657, 1608, 1844, 2834 Holmes, Sherlock, 1572, 2325, 3176
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Holocaust, 2640-2643, 3141-3143, 3159-3163; international response, 3125-3127; papal response, 3174. See also Nazi death camps Holst, Axel, 2222 Holsti, Rudolf, 1399 Holt, Emmett, 1216 Holy Synod, Russian Orthodox Church, 1318 Homans, Eugene, 2452 Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934), 2842 Home Owners’ Loan Act (1933), 2648 Home ownership (U.S.), 2541, 3090-3093 Home rule, Ireland, 1140-1142, 1578-1582 Home Rule League (India), 1185 Homer, 1768 Homo erectus, 1848, 1938, 3055 Homo neanderthalensis, 710-713 Homo sapiens, 1939; comparison with Homo neanderthalensis, 711 Honegger, Arthur, 1601 Hood, Raymond, 3215 Hoodless, Adelaide Hunter, 1220 Hooker, John Daggett, 208, 1385 Hooker telescope, 208, 1036, 1385-1388, 1547, 1655, 1877, 1954 Hooks, Benjamin L., 746 Hooper, Charles W., 1991 Hoover, Herbert, 799, 1949, 2115, 2179, 2309, 2311, 2335, 2440, 2448, 2538, 2540, 2596, 2644, 2656, 2683; American Relief Administration, 1692; Bonus March, 2578; Boulder Dam, 2930; food relief in Germany, 1356; Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 2430; presidential candidacy 1928, 2219; presidential election 1928, 2221; Prohibition, 1604; St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty, 2572; stock market crash, 2331
Hoover, J. Edgar, 692, 1527, 1959, 2639, 3111; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 19591961 Hoover, William Henry, 56 Hoover-Bennett Treaty (1932), 2572-2574 Hoover Company, 57 Hoover Dam, 2930-2934 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine, 25382540 Hoovervilles, 2336 Hope, Bob, 2352 Hopkins, Frederick, 20, 484, 1887, 2223 Hopkins, Harry, 2646, 2830, 3111 Hopkins, Linda, 1831 Horizons (Geddes), 2280, 2976 Hormones, 142-145; hormone D, 1759; insulin, 1689-1691 Horn, Alfred Aloysius, 2093 Hornaday, William T., 2743 Horniman, Annie, 359 Horror films, 2461-2464 Horst, Louis, 1211 Horst Wessel song, 2949 Horthy, Miklós, 1544 Horton, Edward Everett, 2705, 2869 Horton, James E., 2490 Hospital Reconstruction Act (1946), 2271 Hospital Service Association, 2270 Höss, Rudolf, 2640 Hot Five, 2079-2082 Houdry, Eugene, 1049 Hough, Emerson, 1760 Houghton, Harry E., 2713 Hound of the Baskervilles, The (film), 3176-3180 Hounsfield, Godfrey Newbold, 68 House, Edward M., 1483 House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, 2638, 2862, 3111-3114 House of German Art, 3040 House Un-American Activities Committee, 2638, 2862, 31113114 LXXIV
Household appliances; electric washing machines, 792-796; refrigerators, 2418-2421, 2454; vacuum cleaners, 56-58 Houseman, John, 2860, 3137 Houses at L’Estaque (Braque), 684 Housing and Urban Development Act (1968), 3092 Housing industry (U.S.), 30903093 How the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began (Ovington), 745 “How to Differentiate the Classes in the Rural Areas” (Mao), 2779 How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (Carnegie), 2955 How to Win Friends and Influence People (Carnegie), 2953-2956 How We Advertised America (Creel), 1354 Howard, Edgar, 2757 Howard, Leland Ossian, 1303 Howard, Leslie, 3223 Howard, Sidney, 362, 3223 Howell, William H., 1215 Howells, William Dean, 264 Howland, John, 1757 Howland Island; map, 2567 Hoxha, Enver, 3184 Hoyle, Fred, 1879 Hoyt, Homer, 1962 Hsing-chung Hui. See Revive China Society Hu Shih, 1506 HUAC. See House Un-American Activities Committee Huang He flood, 2509-2512 Huang Hsing. See Huang Xing Huang River, destruction of levees, 3114-3116 Huang Xing, 909 Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, 2848 Hubbell, Raymond, 1114 Hubble, Edwin Powell, 293, 935, 959, 1036, 1387, 1543, 1546, 1654, 1877, 1953, 2155, 2162, 2276
Subject Index Hubble constant, 2277 Hubble’s law, 937, 1655, 2276 Huber, Robert, 68 Hudspeth, Claude, 1926 Huelsenbeck, Richard, 1242 Huerta, Adolfo de la, 843 Huerta, Victoriano, 843, 1259 Huggins, William, 576 Hughes, Charles Evans, 436, 1741, 1922, 1926, 1941, 1947, 2841, 2850, 2999 Hughes, Howard (1905-1976), 1899 Hughes, Howard, Sr. (1869-1924), 642, 1899 Hughes, Langston, 818, 1555 Hughes Aircraft Company, 18991902 Hughes Production Company, 1899-1902 Hughes Tool Company, 42, 643, 1899-1902 Huidobro, Vicente, 1017 Huis clos. See No Exit (Sartre) Hull, Cordell, 1059, 2335, 2644, 2690, 2865, 2960, 2971, 2996, 3098 Hull House, 797, 1976 Hulme, T. E., 965 Hülsmeyer, Christian, 2734 Hulst, Hendrik Christoffell van de, 2162 Human Genome Project, 908 Human rights. See Category Index Human trafficking, 336-340 Humanitarianism, 847-849, 17901793; American Friends Service Committee, 13561357; famine relief, 1692-1695; Ford Foundation, 2906-2908; Rockefeller Foundation, 10741076; service organizations, 406-407. See also Category Index Humanité, L’ (newspaper), 334336, 1664 Humason, Milton L., 1388, 1546, 2276 Humphrey, Doris, 1211 Humphrey, Hubert H., 1899
Humphrey, William E., 2841 Humphreys, Robert E., 1049 Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), 2999 Hundred Days, the, 2646-2649 Hungary; Horthy regime, 15441545. See also Geographical Index Hunger strikes; Ethel Byrne, 1297; suffragists, 261, 1646 Hunley, H. L., 542 Hunt, Alfred, 1892 Hunt, George W. P., 594 Hunte, Otto, 2152 Hunter, John, 23 Hunting; recreational, 1760; regulation, 1067-1070, 1761, 2742-2745, 3050; taxation, 3050-3053 Hurdes, Las (film), 2214 Hurley, Patrick J., 2578 Hurley Machine Company, 794 Hurok, Solomon, 632, 3166 Wusayn, 4Abd All3 ibn al-, 2935 Wusayn ibn 4Alt, 1621 Wusaynt, Abd al-Q3dir al-, 2935 Wusaynt, Amtn al-, 1777, 2321, 2935 Wusaynt, Jam3l al-, 2935 Husfrue. See Mistress of Husaby, The (Undset) Husserl, Edmund, 305, 1037, 2146 Huston, John, 2378 Hutcheson, William L., 2888 Hutchinson, G. Evelyn, 2089, 2848 Hutchison, Miller Reese, 1022 Huxley, Aldous, 2601, 3075 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 712, 726 Hyatt, John Wesley, 385 Hyde, Arthur M., 2311 Hyde, James F., 26 Hyde, James Hazen, 436 Hydroelectric power development, 1810-1813, 2656-2659 Hydrosphygmograph, 1671 Hymans, Paul, 1531, 2135 Hyndman, Henry Mayers, 513 Hyperinflation, Germany, 1281, 1814-1817, 1941-1943, 2071 Hypnosis, 286 LXXV
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (film), 2378 I and Thou (Buber), 1802-1804 I Married an Angel (film), 2708 Ibáñez del Campo, Carlos, 2309 IBM, 1905-1908 Ibn Bij3d, 948 Ibn Sa4nd, 948, 1624, 3096 Iceman Cometh, The (O’Neill), 1724 Ich und Du. See I and Thou (Buber) Ickes, Harold, 1616, 2663, 2757, 2764, 2780, 2830, 2992, 3111 Iconoscope, 3187 Ideals in rings, theory, 1677-1679 “Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen” (Noether), 1678 Ideas (Husserl), 1037-1040 Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. See Ideas (Husserl) “If We Must Die” (McKay), 1555 ILGWU. See International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Ilinden Uprising (1903), 244-246 Illa, Ramón, 2952 Im Westen nichts Neues. See All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque) Imagist movement, 965-968, 1748 Immelmann, Max, 1202 Immigration; Asia to U.S., 603605, 1076-1078, 1788-1789; illegal, 1926-1929; legislation (U.S.), 1336-1339, 1725-1728, 1922-1925; Mexico to U.S., 2350-2352. See also Category Index Immigration Act (1917), 13361339, 1726, 2350 Immigration Act (1924), 1789, 1922-1926, 2350 Immigration Restriction League, 1337, 1725 Immoralist, The (Gide), 1973 Immoraliste, L’. See Immoralist, The (Gide)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Immunité dans les maladies infectieuses, L’. See Immunity in Infective Diseases (Metchnikoff) Immunity from disease, 699-703 Immunity in Infective Diseases (Metchnikoff), 700 Immunology, 10, 699-703, 2388 Imo (ship), 1397 Imoudu, Michael, 873 Imperial British East Africa Company, 75 Imperial Conference of Prime Ministers (1926), 2518 Imperial Crystal Night. See Kristallnacht Imperial Tobacco Company, 177180 Imperialism, 91-93; Botswana, 1568-1571; Congo, 87-91, 703707; India, 1583-1586, 24102414; Vladimir Ilich Lenin on, 1254; Libya, 856-859; Nigeria, 873-875; northern Somalia, 1566-1568; South Africa, 830833; Southwest Africa, 317319 Imperialism (Hobson), 91-93 Imperialism (Lenin), 93, 12531256 “In a Station of the Metro” (Pound), 966 “In Defense of October” (Trotsky), 2296 In Dubious Battle (Steinbeck), 3180 “In Flanders Fields” (McCrae), 1233-1235 “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory” (Yeats), 1316 In Our Time (Hemingway), 2139 In plurimus (encyclical), 984 In the Shadow of the Glen (Synge), 360, 597 In the Wilderness (Undset), 2268 In Time of War (Auden), 863 Inaugural addresses; Calvin Coolidge, 1951; Franklin D. Roosevelt, 2338 Inca Land (Bingham), 894
Incan civilization, 892-896 Incineration of rubbish, 785 Income tax (U.S.), 1059-1062 “Income Tax and the Constitution, The” (Whitney), 1060 Incompleteness-inconsistency theorems, 2317-2320 Incorporation laws, 188-191 Indanthrene (synthetic vat dye), 9 Independence movements. See Category Index Independent Labour Party (Great Britain), 513 Independent Social Democratic Party (Germany), 1481 Independent Socialist Party (Germany), 1410 Independent Television Authority, 2958 India; Amritsar Massacre, 14971501; Defense of India Act (1915), 1183-1187; Muslim separatism, 564-566; noncooperation movement, 1583-1586, 2410-2414, 24802483; Poona Pact, 2586-2588; relations between Hindus and Muslims, 564; separation of Burma, 3012-3014; women’s rights, 2004-2007. See also Geographical Index Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 1929-1931 Indian Civil Service, 1498 Indian Councils Acts (1909), 566 Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act (1913), 1184 Indian Currency and Finance (Keynes), 2920 Indian Defense Association, 2758 Indian General Allotment Act (1887), 2757 Indian Mutiny (1857), 1497 Indian National Congress, 565, 1583, 2410, 2480 Indian Opinion (newspaper), 239241 Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 2757-2760 Indian Rights Association, 218 LXXVI
Indian Women’s Association, 2005 Indiana; map, 2183 Indiana Dunes State Park, 21822186; map, 2183 Indianapolis 500, 776 Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 776-777 Indians, American. See Native Americans Indigenous peoples’ rights. See Category Index Indochina. See Geographical Index Indonesia. See Geographical Index Industrial accidents, 2414-2417 Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, 955 Industrial design, 194, 781-784, 1314, 2279-2281, 2976-2979; Deutscher Werkbund, 618-621; Tiffany lamp shades, 118 Industrial Designer Society of America, 2280 Industrial Finance Corporation, 828 Industrial Poisons in the United States (Hamilton, A.), 19761979 Industrial psychology, 1118 Industrial Reconstruction Institute, 2622-2625 Industrial reform legislation, 871 Industrial Relations Association of America, 1840 Industrial research, 2011-2014 Industrial sociology, 1120, 18961899 Industrial Toxicology (Hamilton, A.), 1978 Industrial Workers of the World, 1353, 1369, 1528; founding, 425-427 Industrialization; U.S., 818-820 Industry. See Category Index under Manufacturing and industry Infection; cellular defense, 702; diseases, 1043 Infeld, Leopold, 1542
Subject Index Influence of Sea Power upon History, The (Mahan), 552 Influenza pandemic (1918-1919), 1428-1431 Infomercials, 2755 Inge, William, 2439 Ingram, Rex, 1957 Initiative, 158 Inklings (literary group), 26812683 Inland Waterways Commission, 677 Inness, George, 117 Enönü, First Battle of (1921), 1511 Enönü, Second Battle of (1921), 1512 Insecticides; arsenic, 1303-1306; DDT, 3156-3158 Institute of Accountants in the United States of America, 1292-1295 Institutions. See Category Index under Organizations and institutions Insular Cases, 51-53 Insulin, 144, 1689-1691 Insulin shock treatment, 3104 Insurance; health, 2269-2272; unemployment, 1590-1594 Insurance industry; corruption, 436-439; development, 22692272 Integrative Action of the Nervous System, The (Sherrington), 327 Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 29712972 Intercalated Games, 975 Interchurch World Movement, 1537 Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, 507 Interferometer, 1053, 1654 Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, 3126 Interior design; Art Deco, 20372039; Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1965-1968 Interlocking directorates, 1149
Intermezzo. See Enchanted, The (Giraudoux) Internal Constitution of the Stars, The (Eddington), 2119-2121, 2471 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, 244, 2077 Internal Revenue Service, 772 International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, 336-340 International Association for Labor Legislation, 547 International Association for the Prevention of Smoke, 531-534 International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1960 International Bible Students Association, 2512-2514 International Biological Program, 2848 International Business Machines. See IBM International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace, 1201 International Conference on Oil Pollution, 1936 International Congress of Women, 1199-1202 International Congress on the White Slave Traffic, 338 International Council of Women, 1780 International Court of Justice, 1658 International Exhibition of Modern Art. See Armory Show (1913) International Federation of Trade Unions, 1518 International Fisheries Commission, 1948 International Geophysical Year, 136 International Harvester Company, 173-176, 384, 518 International Joint Commission, 2835 LXXVII
International Labor Code, 547 International Labor Defense, 2490 International Labor Office, 547 International Labor Organization, 548, 1503, 1517-1521 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, 869, 2889 International Opium Convention (1912), 956-959 International Phytogeography Excursion, 2183 International Prize Court, 627 International Red Cross, 63 International relations. See Diplomacy; Category Index under Diplomacy and international relations International Sanitary Bureau, 185-187 International Slavery Convention (1926), 2135-2138 International Socialist Bureau, 1217 International Style, 801, 1314, 1462, 1967 International Trade Commission, U.S., 1287 International Winter Sports Week, 1903-1905 International Women’s Suffrage Alliance, 1200 International Workers of the World, 1608 Interparliamentary Union, 625 Interpretation of Dreams, The (Freud), 287 Interpretive dance, 355-358 Interstate Commerce Commission, 225 Interstellar matter, 288-291 Intimate Theater, 654 Intolerance (film), 1190 Intracellular Pangenesis (de Vries), 77 Introduction à la métaphysique. See Introduction to Metaphysics, An (Bergson) Introduction to Metaphysics, An (Bergson), 567
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Introduction to the Science of Sociology, An (Burgess and McKenzie), 1962 Intuitionism, 305-308 Inukai Tsuyoshi, 2628 Invasion from Mars, The (Cantril), 3139 Inventions; airplane, 278-280; analog computer, 2216-2219; artificial kidney, 942-945; Bakelite, 385-387; bathysphere, 2427-2430; cellophane, 314317; census tabulating machine, 1905; color photography, 579-582; corrector plate (optics), 23472349; cyclotron, 2477-2480; disposable razor blades, 250252; electric washing machine, 792-796; electroencephalography, 22852288; electron microscope, 2493-2496; field emission microscope, 2896-2898; fluorescent lamp, 2963-2965; Freon, 2454-2456; frozen foods, 1306-1308; gyrocompass, 468-471; heartlung machine, 2773-2776; interchangeable automobile parts, 670-674; kinetophone, 1022-1024; mammography, 1040-1042; mass spectrograph, 1455-1457; mechanical respirator, 2314-2316; mercury-vapor lamp, 17-20; nylon, 2816-2819; photoelectric cell, 283-285; polygraph, 1671-1673; Pyrex, 1209-1211; radar, 2734-2736; radiation counter, 664-667; radio, 70-74; rotary cone rock drill bit, 642-644; slug rejector, 2368-2370; sonar, 1223-1226; sound recording, 96-99; string galvanometer, 365-368; teletype, 32-34; television, 1873-1876, 2956-2960, 31863190; ultracentrifuge, 18891892; ultramicroscope, 110-
112; vacuum cleaner, 56-58; vacuum tube, 352-355; xerographic photocopier, 31343137. See also Category Index Investment fraud, 1470-1473 Invisible Man, The (film), 2463 Ionesco, Eugène, 1724 Ionization, 995-998 Ionosphere, 134-137, 1468, 2394 Iran; map, 121, 682; Pahlavi Dynasty, 551, 682, 2007-2011. See also Persia; Geographical Index Iraq; British mandate, 1625-1627; map, 2123. See also Geographical Index Iraq Petroleum Company, 1624, 3097 Ireland; Easter Rebellion, 12621265; home rule, 1140-1142, 1578-1582. See also Geographical Index “Irish Airman Foresees His Death, An” (Yeats), 1316 Irish Citizen Army, 1264 Irish Free State; creation, 1581; map, 1579; parliament, 25472549 Irish Home Rule Bill, 1140-1142 Irish Literary Theatre, 359 Irish National Theatre Society, 360, 597 Irish Nationalist Party, 757, 1140 Irish Parliamentary Party, 460 Irish Press (newspaper), 2548 Irish Republican Army, 461, 1581, 2547 Irish Republican Brotherhood, 459, 1263, 1580 Iron as dietary ingredient, 19901993 Iron lung, 2314-2316 Irvine, William, 2581 Irwin, Lord. See Halifax, Lord Isaacs, Godfrey, 2168 Isherwood, Christopher, 2445 Island universes, 292, 936, 1421, 1953, 2278 Islets of Langerhans, 144, 1689 Ismay, Joseph Bruce, 972 LXXVIII
Esmet Pala, 1511 Isolationism, U.S., 2865-2867, 2996-2998 Isotopes, 276, 811-814, 14551457, 2545 Israel, establishment, 1391 It Can’t Happen Here (Lewis, S.), 2863 It Happened One Night (film), 2365, 2378, 2726 Italian Mobilization Institute, 2622 Italy; annexation of Albania, 3184-3186; annexation of Libya, 856-859; banking crisis, 2622-2625; Corfu occupation, 1853-1855; Fascism, 17821784, 1997-2000; invasion of British Somaliland, 3274-3276; invasion of Egypt, 3289-3291; invasion of Ethiopia, 28752879; map, 2299. See also Geographical Index Itf Hirobumi, 838 Itten, Johannes, 1460 Ivanov, Ilya Ivanovich, 23 Ivanowski, Dmitri, 803 Ives, Charles, 1247 Ives, Frederick E., 579 IWW. See Industrial Workers of the World Iyasu, Lij, 1566, 2421 Izaak Walton League of America, 1760-1763 Izvestia (newspaper), 696 Izvolsky, Aleksandr Petrovich, 616, 697, 1121 Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 2321 J’Accuse! (film), 2001 Jackson, A. Y., 1628 Jackson, Shoeless Joe, 1538, 1597; confession, 1539 JACL. See Japanese American Citizens League Jacob, Max, 1015 Jacobs, Aletta, 1200, 1737 Jacobs, Pattie Ruffner, 1610 Jacob’s Pillow School of Dance, 1213 Jacob’s Room (Woolf), 1995
Subject Index Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (1919), 1186, 1497-1501 Jamaica Inn (film), 2724 James, Henry, 264, 1404 James, William, 94, 591, 1245 Janco, Marcel, 1242 Jannings, Emil, 2307, 2396 Janowitz, Hans, 1575 Jansen, B. C. P., 1888 Jansky, Karl G., 2394, 3028 Jantzen, Carl, 1558 Jantzen Girl logo, 1560 Jantzen, Inc., 1558-1562 Japan; annexation of Korea, 838840; Anti-Comintern Pact, 2969-2971; map, 321; Meiji era, 127; militarism, 27972799; occupation of French Indochina ports, 3279-3281; Russo-Japanese War, 320-323; Second Sino-Japanese War, 3037-3040; suffrage, 20422044. See also Geographical Index Japanese American Citizens League, 2442-2444 Japanese Americans, discrimination, 555-557, 603605, 1076-1078, 2443 Japanese Exclusion League, 556, 604, 1076 Jardin aux lilas (ballet), 2908-2911 Jasper National Park, 2425 Jaurès, Jean, 334, 1663 Java. See Geographical Index Java man, 712, 1848, 1938 Jawlensky, Alexey von, 1915 Jay, Pierre, 2761 Jazz, 787, 1555, 1602, 1909-1912, 2079-2082, 2206-2210, 2355, 2605-2608; big band, 27902794 Jazz (Matisse), 496 Jazz Singer, The (film), 2126, 2202-2206, 2235, 2364 Jeanneret, Charles-Édouard. See Le Corbusier Jeanneret, Pierre, 2486 Jeffers, William Martin, 3198 Jefferson, Blind Lemon, 786
Jeffreys, Harold, 2894 Jeffries, James Jackson, 719 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2512-2514 Jelley, John V., 2702 Jellicoe, John, 1266 Jenkins, Charles Francis, 1873 Jenkins, Joseph, 347 Jennings, Herbert Spencer, 726 Jenny (Undset), 2267 Jenseits von Gut und Böse. See Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche) Jensen, Michael C., 2521 Jerome Commission, 217 Jersey Standard, 2259 Jerusalem, Western Wall riots, 2321-2323 Jervis, John B., 3002 Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, 1823 Jewett, Frank B., 2011 Jewett, N. Clay, 1850 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1404 Jewish National Fund, 723 Jewish State, The (Herzl), 723 Jews; Holocaust, 2640-2643, 3159-3163; homeland in Palestine, 1389-1392; kibbutzim, 723-725; Kristallnacht, 3141-3143; organizations, 1085-1087; refugees, 3125-3127; Russia, 210-213; Soviet Union, 1327; U.S. Supreme Court, 12691272 Jiddah, Treaty of (1927), 3097 Jim Crow laws, 818 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali, 566, 1730 Joan of Arc, 1630 Joffe, Adolf, 1431 Joffre, Joseph-Jacques-Césaire, 1137, 1256, 2288 Jogiches, Leo, 1479 Johannsen, Wilhelm Ludvig, 476, 726 Johansen, Hjalmar, 919 John Muir Trail, 3076-3079; map, 3077 John Paul II, 1039, 1360, 3133 Johns, Jasper, 1244 LXXIX
Johnson, Albert, 1725, 1922 Johnson, Eldridge R., 96 Johnson, Herbert, 2589 Johnson, Hiram Warren, 1076, 2865 Johnson, Hugh S., 2335, 2663 Johnson, Jack, 719 Johnson, John Arthur. See Johnson, Jack Johnson, Louis A., 3246 Johnson, Robert Underwood, 230 Johnson, Thomas Frank, 1790 Johnson, William Arthur, 3005 Johnson Quota Act (1921), 17251728 Johnson-Reid Act (1924), 19221925 Johnston, Frank H., 1628 Johnston, Franz. See Johnston, Frank H. Joint Committee of the Friends of India, 565 Joliot, Frédéric, 2544, 2615, 3143 Joliot-Curie, Irène, 2544, 2615, 3143 Jollie, Ethel Tawse, 1862 Jolson, Al, 2126, 2202, 2235 Joly, John, 579, 1223 Jones, Bobby, 2452 Jones, Chuck, 3296 Jones, Cora, 2414 Jones, Ernest, 286 Jones, Jesse H., 2683 Jones, Mary Harris. See Jones, Mother Jones, Mother, 425, 1535 Jones, O. M., 2414 Jones, Rufus, 1356 Jones Act (1917), 1347-1349 Jooss, Kurt, 2569 Jordan, Paul, 781 Joshua, Seth, 346 Jour, Le. See Accident, The (Wiesel) Journal d’un curé de campagne. See Diary of a Country Priest, The (Bernanos) Journal of Economic and Business History, 1552 Journal of Genetics, 379
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Journalism; Pulitzer Prizes, 13631367; sensationalism, 707. See also Category Index under Publishing and journalism Journey to the End of the Night (Céline), 2524-2527 Joyce, James, 266, 1767, 2400 Joyce, John, 250 Judenstaat, Der. See Jewish State, The (Herzl) Judentum und Deutschtum (Marr), 1477 Judgment of Paris (ballet), 2909 Jugendstil, 618, 781 Jung, Carl, 286, 928, 2370 Junge Klassizität. See Young classicality Jungian archetypes, 929 Jungle, The (Sinclair, U.), 224, 404, 509-512, 535, 798, 2164, 2613 Junius Pamphlet, The (Luxemburg), 1481 Juran, Joseph M., 490 Jusserand, Jean-Jules, 1366 Jutland, Battle of (1916), 12661269; map, 1267 Kaas, Ludwig, 2649 Kabinett des Dr. Caligari, Das. See Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (film) Kachellek, Albert, 2301 Kafka, Franz, 1168 Kahanamoku, Duke, 975 Kahane, Arthur, 458 Kahane, Jack, 2770 Kahl, Milt, 3063 Kahlo, Frida, 2736 Kahn, Gus, 2705 Kahn, Reuben Leon, 1817 Kahn, Richard, 2919 Kahn test, 1818 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, 683 Kahr, Gustav Ritter von, 1869 Kaiser, Henry J., 2930 Kak zakalyalas stal. See Making of a Hero, The (Ostrovsky) Kalevala (Finnish folk epic), 876, 1400
Kalle, Arnold, 1383 Kallet, Arthur, 2612, 2902 Kamenev, Lev Borisovich, 695, 2263, 2295, 2786 Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike, 3083 Kandinsky, Wassily, 897, 932, 1460, 1915, 2186, 2709, 3040 Kane, Elisha Kent, 759 Kang Youwei, 909 K’ang Yu-wei. See Kang Youwei Kanoldt, Alexander, 1983 Kant, Immanuel, 305 Kapitsa, Pyotr Leonidovich, 1104, 3083 Kaprow, Allan, 1244 Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius, 291, 1419, 2119, 2161, 2276 Kapteyn’s universe, 1420 Karadjordjevi6, Alexander. See Alexander I Karitane Home for Babies, 611 Karloff, Boris, 2378, 2461 Károlyi, Mihály, 1544 Karsavina, Tamara Platonovna, 762, 766, 833 Käsebier, Gertrude, 130 Katayev, Ivan, 2563 Katf Hiroharu, 2797 Katf Takaaki, 2042 Katf Tomosaburf, 1741, 2042, 2797 Katsura Tarf, 127 Kattillasseri Muhammad Mussaliar, 1728 Katyn Forest massacre, 3236-3239 Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr., 2589 Kautsky, Karl, 1480 Kawamata, Katsuji, 852 Kaye, Nora, 2908 KDKA (radio station), 1563, 1641 Keaton, Buster, 2052, 2142 Keeler, Leonarde, 1671 Keeler, O. B., 2452 Keeler, Ruby, 2608 Keeling, Charles D., 3069 Keesom, Willem Hendrik, 3083 Keilholtz, Lester S., 2419 Keller, Maurice, 766 Kelley, Florence, 667, 968, 1745, 1976 LXXX
Kellogg, Frank B., 2252, 2309 Kellogg, Paul U., 1607 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 22522256; text of, 2254 Kelly, M. Clyde, 2017 Kelly, William, 1810 Kelly Act (1925), 1650, 20172020, 2112 Kelvin, Baron (William Thomson), 388, 2216 Kemal, Mustafa. See Atatürk Kendrew, John Cowdery, 68 Kennan, George, 151, 604 Kennedy, Alexander, 1652 Kennedy, John F., 2007 Kennedy, Joseph P., 2236, 2752, 2997 Kennelly, Arthur Edwin, 134 Kennelly-Heaviside layer, 135 Kent, William, 1282 Kenya. See Geographical Index Kenyon, William Squire, 1604 Kepler, Johannes, 2718 Kerensky, Aleksandr Fyodorovich, 1324, 1393 Kern, Jerome, 2210 Kesselring, Albert, 3267 Kettering, Charles Franklin, 1659, 2418, 2454 Kettler, Hedwig, 729 Keyes, Sidney, 863 Keynes, John Maynard, 93, 2919 Keynesian revolution, 2919-2923 Keystone Studios, 988-991, 2052 Khachaturian, Aram, 2560 Khama, Tshekedi, 1568 Khama III, 1568 Khlebnikov, Velimir, 1235 Khrushchev, Nikita S., 2599, 2711, 2789 Kibbutzim, 723-725 Kid, The (film), 2051 Kid Auto Races in Venice (film), 2050 Kidney transplantation, 82, 943 Kidneys, artificial, 942-945 Kiel, Treaty of (1814), 450 Kienthal Conference, 1217-1219 Kierkegaard, Søren, 2146 Killilea, Henry, 256
Subject Index Kimball, Justin Ford, 2269 Kimball, Ward, 3063 Kindertotenlieder (Mahler), 913 Kinescope, 1875, 3187 Kinetic Chemicals, 2455 Kinetophone, 1022-1024, 2203 Kinetoscope, 1022 King, Charles Glen, 2222 King, Frederick Truby, 611 King, Isabella, 611 King, John H., 1990 King, William, 1615 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 778, 1636, 1709, 1947, 2448, 2517, 2879, 2960, 3276; Great Depression, 2440; HawleySmoot Tariff Act, 2430; National Parks Act (1930), 2424; Ottawa Agreements, 2575; World War II, 3213 King Kong (film), 172, 2364, 2378 King Kullen grocery stores, 1290 Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; independence, 14501452; map, 1451 Kingdom, the Hope of the World, The (Rutherford), 2513 Kings Canyon; map, 1811; preservation, 2992-2996 Kings Canyon National Park, 1810-1813 Kinyoun, Joseph J., 998 Kipfer, Paul, 2506 Kipping, Frederic Stanley, 26 Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig, 421, 496 Kirklin, John Webster, 2775 Kirov, Sergey Mironovich, 2563, 2786 Kirstein, Lincoln, 2794 Kitasato, Shibasaburo, 584 Kitchener, Lord (Horatio Herbert Kitchener), 155 Kitchlew, Saif ud-Din, 1497 Kiyoura Keigo, 2042 Klann, William C., 1063 Klebs, Edwin, 1043 Klee, Paul, 1460, 1915 Kleiber, Erich, 2087 Klein, Felix, 1406 Kleine, George, 419
Kleinschmidt, Edward Ernest, 32 Kleptomaniac, The (film), 254 Klimt, Gustav, 192, 372 Kliun, Ivan, 1235 Klop. See Bedbug, The (Mayakovsky) Kluck, Heinrich Rudolph Alexander von, 1137 Knickerbocker Trust Company, 622-625 Knight, James H., 1649 Knight, Thomas E., 2490 Knights of America, 2304 Knipping, Paul, 946 Knobelsdorf, Schmidt von, 1256 Knoll, Florence, 1967 Knoll, Max, 2493 Knoop, Franz, 3006 Knorr, Nathan Homer, 2512 Knox, Philander C., 323, 402, 734, 991 Knudsen, William Signius, 1063, 3198, 3246 Koch, Howard, 3137 Koch, Robert, 14, 635, 803, 1683 Kodachrome, 581 Kodály, Zoltán, 295 Kodály method of music instruction, 297 Koestler, Arthur, 3298 Kogalniceanu, Vasile, 600 Kogan, Lazar Iosifovich, 2670 Kohlschütter, Arnold, 371 Kojong, 838 Kokoschka, Oskar, 194 Kokovtsov, Vladimir Nikolayevich, 904 Kolchak, Aleksandr, 1416 Kolehmainen, Hannes, 975 Kolff, Willem Johan, 942 Kolhörster, Werner, 996, 1594 Koller, Karl, 376 Kolmogorov, Andrey Nikolayevich, 1463, 3149 Komenskù, Jan, 900 Kompaniya Singer, 382-384 Komura Jutarf, 127 Kondolf, Frank, 1906 Konig, Jules, 312 Kook, Abraham Isaac, 2321 LXXXI
Korea; annexation, 838-840. See also Geographical Index Korfanty, Wojciech, 1719 Kornberg, Hans Leo, 3005 Kornei, Otto, 3134 Kornilov, Lavr Georgiyevich, 1393, 1416 Korošec, Anton, 1450 Korset. See Cross, The (Undset) Korzeniowski, Jósef Teodor Konrad Nauòcz. See Conrad, Joseph Korzybski, Alfred, 1688 Koussevitzky, Serge, 1665, 1865 Kowalska, Helena. See Kowalska, Maria Faustina Kowalska, Maria Faustina, 3133 KRA. See Kriegsrohstoffabteilung Kramers, Hendrik Anthony, 2119 Kransen. See Bridal Wreath, The (Undset) Kraus, Adolf, 1085 Krause, John, 531 Krauss, Werner, 1575 Krebs, Hans Adolf, 3005 Krebs cycle, 3005-3009 Kriegsrohstoffabteilung, 1279 Kristallnacht, 3141-3143 Kristin Lavransdatter (Undset), 2268 Kritik der reinen Vernunft. See Critique of Pure Reason (Kant) Kroeber, Alfred, 2697 Kronecker, Leopold, 305, 731 Kronstadt rebellion, 1326, 1712 Kruger, Jules, 2002 Krum, Howard Lewis, 32 Krupa, Gene, 2790 Krupp, Gustav, 541 Krylenko, Nikolai Vasilyevich, 2240 Ku Klux Klan, 1705-1708; Oklahoma, 1850-1853 Kuang-Hsü. See Guangxu Kubin, Alfred, 897 Kudriashev, Ivan, 1235 Kühlmann, Richard von, 1431 Kuhn, Walt, 1056 Kuleshov, Lev Vladimirovich, 1968, 2148
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Kuleshov effect, 2149 Kummer, Ernst Eduard, 1677 Kun, Béla, 1544 K’un-i, Liu. See Liu Kunyi Kunitsky, R. W., 23 Künstler Kolonie, 619 Künstlerhaus, 192 Kuomintang; conflict with Chinese Communist Party, 2096-2099, 2777 Kuroki, Tamemoto, 320 Kuropatkin, Aleksei, 320 Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works, 853 Kwakiutl, 2698 Laban, Rudolf, 2569 Labor. See Category Index under Business and labor Labor Defense Council, 1609 Labor law, 773; collective bargaining rights, 2115-2119, 2850-2853; maximum hours, 413-417, 3119-3122; Mexico, 1332-1336; minimum wage, 980-983, 1844-1847, 31193122; protection from antiunion actions, 2552-2555; secondary boycotts, 661-664; yellow-dog contracts, 657-661 Labor organizations; Great Britain, 2107; international, 1517-1521 Labor strikes; Anthracite Coal Strike (1902), 152-155; Consumers Research, 2904; General Motors (1936), 2889; General Strike (1926), 21052109; gold miners (New Zealand), 986; Lawrence, Massachusetts, 426; public relations, 516-519; railroad industry, 2115; Red Scare, 1528; steelworkers, 1535-1538; Taff Vale Railway Company, 514; Winnipeg General Strike, 1509-1510 Labor unions; automobile industry, 1112; Congress of Industrial Organizations, 2888-
2891; Great Britain, 2105; impacts of Adair v. United States, 658; impacts of Loewe v. Lawlor, 662; Industrial Workers of the World, 425427; legislation, 1153-1156, 2552-2555, 2850-2853; Mexico, 1333; Nigeria, 875; opposition to immigration, 1923, 1927. See also individual names Labouchere, Henry Du Pré, 74 Labour Party (Great Britain), 757; founding, 513-516 Labour Party (New Zealand), 2891-2893 Labour Representation Committee, 514, 662 Labours of Hercules, The (Christie), 1573 Lacey, John F., 1067, 1282, 1437 Lacey Act (1900), 227, 397, 1068, 1135, 1437 Lacrimabili Statu (encyclical), 983-985 Lacroix, Alfred, 151 Lada, Josef, 1696 Ladoux, George, 1383 Lady from Shanghai, The (film), 3138 Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Shostakovich), 2560, 2911-2915 Lady Vanishes, The (film), 2724 Laemmle, Carl, 417, 2376 La Farge, John, 117 Lafcadio’s Adventures (Gide), 1973 La Follette, Philip, 3113 La Follette, Robert M., 157, 237, 624, 751, 1059, 1269, 1614, 1857 La Follette, Robert M., Jr., 3111, 3182, 3190 La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, 1537 Lagerlöf, Selma, 3147 Lagos-Ibadan railroad, 873 La Guardia, Fiorello Henry, 2552, 3002 LXXXII
Lahore Conspiracy Trials, 1185 Lahr, Bert, 3201 Laidlaw, Patrick Playfair, 1428 Laidoner, Johan, 1425 Laing, Hugh, 2908 Laissez-faire doctrine, 415, 1145, 1844 Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 2932 Lalique, René, 2038 Lamarckian genetics, 1488 Lamb, William F., 2499 Lambda point, 3083 Lambeth Conference, 2437-2439 Lambie, Robert M., 2414 Lamont, Thomas William, 2331 L’Amour, Louis, 925 Lampland, Carl O., 432, 2408 Lancia, Vincenzo, 529 Land, Emory Scott, 3198 Land acquisition. See Category Index under Expansion and land acquisition Land-use laws, 1276-1278 Landau, Lev Davidovich, 2718, 3083, 3170 Landé, Alfred, 2027 Landes, Gaston, 149 Landis, Kenesaw Mountain, 1538, 1597, 3193 Landsteiner, Karl, 10, 83, 463 Lane, Allen, 2802 Lane, Franklin K., 1282, 1514, 1614 Lanfield, Sidney, 3176 Lang, Fritz, 172, 2152 Lang, John Thomas, 2549 Lang, William Cosmo Gordon, 2437, 2973 Langdon, Harry, 988 Lange, Dorothea, 2730 Lange, Helene, 729 Langerhans, Paul, 144, 1690 Langevin, Paul, 1223 Langley, Noel, 3201 Langley, Samuel Pierpont, 278 Langmuir, Irving, 354 Lansdowne, Lord (Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice), 127, 331, 756
Subject Index Lansing, Robert, 1349, 1483, 2064 Laos. See Geographical Index Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 1251, 1463, 2172, 2799 Lapointe, Ernest, 1709, 1948 Larderello geothermal field, 1025 Largo Caballero, Francisco, 2496, 2945 Larionov, Mikhail, 1016 Larrick, George P., 2164 L’Arronge, Adolph, 456 Larsen, Jack Lenor, 1967 Larsen, Roy E., 1833 Larson, Eric, 3063 Larson, Henrietta M., 1551 Larson, John A., 1671 Lascaux Cave, 3285-3288; map, 3286 Lasche, Oskar, 781 Laskey, Charles, 2794 Lasky, Jesse L., 1820 Last Laugh, The (film), 1577 “Last Stage to Lordsburg, The” (Haycox), 3152 Lateran Treaty (1929), 2298-2301 Latham, Hubert, 769 Lathrop, Julia C., 968, 1745, 1976 Latin America. See Geographical Index Latvia; independence, 1425-1427. See also Geographical Index Latz, Harry, 1731 Lau, H. E., 576 Laubeuf, Maxime, 541 Laue, Max von, 69, 473, 945, 1808, 2493, 2897 Lauf v. E. G. Shinner and Company (1938), 2553 Laughter (Bergson), 567 Laundries, commercial, 795 Laurasia, 951 Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 778, 859, 1636 Lausanne, Treaty of (1923), 1513, 2040, 2122 Laval, Pierre, 2875 Law, Bonar, 1140, 1578 Law of Civilization and Decay, The (Adams, B.), 1329 Law of filial regression, 726
Law of large numbers, 487 Law of war, 625-628 Lawrence, D. H., 1587 Lawrence, Ernest Orlando, 2477, 2555, 2989-2990 Laws. See Category Index Laws, Curtis Lee, 1458 Lawson, Thomas W., 436 Lawyer, George A., 2742 Lay Down Your Arms (Suttner), 62 Lazear, Jesse William, 43 Lea, Clarence Frederick, 3101, 3116, 3262 Lea, Luke, 1493 Lea Act (1948), 228 Leachman, Gerard, 1625 Lead Poisoning in the Smelting and Refining of Lead (Hamilton, A.), 1978 Leadbelly, 2356 League for Social Reconstruction, 2582 League of Latin American Citizens, 2304 League of Nations, 338, 1014, 1129, 1448, 1484, 1720, 3039; Corfu crisis, 1853-1855; Covenant, 1501, 2252; Egyptian membership, 30203022; founding, 1501-1505; Greco-Bulgarian conflict, 2076; International Slavery Convention, 2135-2138; Japanese aggression in Manchuria, 2539; Japan’s withdrawal, 2628-2632; minority rights, 1451; Mosul question, 2122-2124; Palestine, 1777-1779; Permanent Court of International Justice, 16571658; refugee aid, 1790; sanctions, 2875-2879; Versailles treaty, 1523 League of United Latin American Citizens, 2304-2306 League of Women Voters, 16101614, 1646, 1978, 2443; Sheppard-Towner Act, 1745 Leakey, L. S. B., 1848 LXXXIII
Leary, Timothy, 3075 Leavitt, Henrietta Swan, 959, 1034, 1419, 1654, 1877, 2276 Le Bargy, Charles, 172 Le Bris, Pierre Ange Marie, 149 Leck, Bart van der, 1312 Le Corbusier, 783, 1313, 2486, 2979, 2982 Ledbetter, Huddie. See Leadbelly Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda. See Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Shostakovich) Lee, Ivy Ledbetter, 516 Lee, John A., 2891 Lee, Oliver Justin, 290 Leech, Margaret, 2093 Lefèvre, Geó, 242 Legal Defense League, 1608 Legal history. See Category Index under Laws, acts, and legal history Legend of the Baal-Shem, The (Buber), 1802 Legende des Baalschem, Die. See Legend of the Baal-Shem, The (Buber) Léger, Fernand, 496, 1015 Legge, Alexander, 2311 Leguía y Salcedo, Augusto Bernardino, 2309 Lehár, Franz, 2705 Lehman, Herbert, 3002 Lehmann, Ernst, 3017 Lehmann, Inge, 497, 2893 Lehrman, Henry, 988 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 814 Leibowitz, Samuel, 2490 Leigh, Vivien, 3223 Leishman, J. B., 863 Leland, Henry M., 670 Leland & Faulconer, 672 Lelouch, Claude, 2003 Lemaître, Georges, 293, 1879, 2155, 2276 Lemass, Sean, 2547 Le Médec, Aimé, 1397 Lenard, Philipp, 66, 408, 558, 811, 1103 Lend-lease policy, 2880, 3276
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lenglen, Suzanne, 1775 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 452, 1318, 1345, 2263; agitprop films, 1968; Baltic states, 1425; Comintern, 1490, 1663; depiction in Rivera mural, 2738; environmental laws, 1884; famine of 1907, 570; Imperialism, 1253; nature reserves, 1486; New Economic Policy, 1711; October Revolution, 1393, 2295; Polish-Soviet War, 1715; Pravda, 695; Red Terror, 1324; Russian Civil War, 1416; Russian Revolution, 1343; Soviet art, 2709; Soviet cinema, 2148; Treaty of BrestLitovsk, 1431; Ukrainian independence, 1322; Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, 1217 Leningrad Symphony (Shostakovich), 2560 Lenroot, Irvine Luther, 1614 Lenya, Lotte, 2193 Leo XIII, 247 Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich, 2563 Leopold, Aldo, 1135, 1516, 1931, 2742, 2780, 2915 Leopold II, 89, 879; exploitation of the Congo, 703 Lepsius, Johannes, 1195 Le Roy, Édouard, 567, 2091 LeRoy, Mervyn, 2378, 2467, 3201 Lerroux, Alejandro, 1156, 2496 Leskov, Nikolai, 2911 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 271, 298, 340 “Let America Be America Again” (Hughes, L.), 1555 Let’s Dance (radio program), 2790-2794 Letter to the Mothers of England, A (Butler), 337 Letzte Mann, Der. See Last Laugh, The (film) Leutwein, Theodor, 317
Levavasseur, Leon, 769 Levee, M. C., 2306 Lever, William Hesketh, 879 Lever Brothers, Ltd., 879-882 Leveraged buyouts, 2522 Leverone, Louis E., 2368 Leverone, Nathaniel, 2368 Levi, Beppo, 99, 312 Levine, Philip A., 10 Levinson, Salmon O., 2252 Levy, Herbert, 3044 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, 334 Lewinski, Erich von. See Manstein, Erich von Lewis, C. Day. See Day Lewis, C. Lewis, C. S., 2068, 2681, 3047 Lewis, David J., 2853 Lewis, Gilbert N., 2389 Lewis, Hobart D., 1766 Lewis, John L., 2552, 2850, 2888, 3111 Lewis, Ralph, 1188 Lewis, Sinclair, 2863 Lewis, Thomas, 365 Lewis, W. F., 1649 Lewis, Warren, 2681 Lewis, Wyndham, 1017, 1328 Lewisohn, Richard, 463 Lewisohn, Sam A., 1840 Lewton, Val, 2378 Lhasa Convention, 344-346 Li Dazhao, 1506 Li Ta-chao. See Li Dazhao Liang Chi-chao. See Liang Qichao Liang Qichao, 909 Libeled Lady (film), 2727 Liberal Party (Great Britain), 513, 757 Liberal Party (Norway), 451 Liberal Union (Ottoman Empire), 691 Liberal Unionists (Great Britain), 1140 “Liberté, La” (Éluard), 3016 Liberties. See Category Index under Civil rights and liberties Liberty Defense Union, 1608 Liberty of contract doctrine, 413, 1845 Libido; Freud, 928; Jung, 928 LXXXIV
Libro de poemas (García Lorca), 3227 Libya; annexation, 856-859; map, 857. See also Geographical Index Libyan War, 856-859 Lie, Sophus, 732 Lie detectors, 1671-1673 Liebknecht, Karl, 1409, 1479, 1491, 1525 Lied von Bernadette, Das. See Song of Bernadette, The (Werfel) Lied von der Erde, Das (Mahler), 913-916 Life (magazine), 1834, 2966-2969 Life force in Nietzschean philosophy, 199 Life of an American Fireman, The (film), 253 Light, wave-particle duality, 410, 1804-1806 Light in August (Faulkner), 2328 Light quanta. See Photons Light-years, 960, 1034, 1420, 2276 Lighting (artificial), 17-20; fluorescent, 2963-2965 Likely, Gwendolyn, 610 Likens, Gene E., 2848 Lilac Garden (ballet), 2908-2911 Lilienthal, David Eli, 2656 Lilienthal, Otto, 278 Lilly, Joseph, 2737 Lin Biao, 2096 Lin Piao. See Lin Biao Lincoln, C. Eric, 2434 Lincoln Motor Company, 672 Lindbergh, Charles A., 944, 2189, 2509, 2941 Lindblad, Bertil, 293, 2161 Lindeman, Edward, 463 Lindeman, Raymond L., 2846 Lindemann, Frederick Alexander, 1053 Lindenthal, Gustav, 2551 Lindhagen, Carl Albert, 1680 Lindsay, Sir Ronald Charles, 2122 Lindsey, Ben B., 968 Line test, 1758 Lineberger, Walter F., 1935
Subject Index Linkage, genetic, 474-478, 649 Linked probabilities, theory, 487489 Linked Ring (photography group), 130 Lippincott, Joseph Barlow, 1918 Lippmann, Walter, 1161 Lippmann interference process, 579 Liquid oxygen, 203-206, 20992102 Lismer, Arthur, 1628 Lissitzky, El, 1235 Literacy testing of immigrants, 1338 Literary groups, 2681-2683 Literary Guild of America, 20922096 Literary salons, 443-446 Literature; fantasy, 3047-3049; Futurism, 747-751; Harlem Renaissance, 1555-1558; Imagist movement, 965-968, 1748; Melville revival, 15871590; modernism, 2328; mystery genre, 1571-1574, 2323-2326; negritude movement, 2532-2534; Nobel Prizes, 63, 569, 2267-2269, 2328, 3147-3149; Pulitzer Prizes, 1363-1367; regional, 1403-1406; science fiction, 3079-3082; Socialist Realism, 2562-2565; Western genre, 925-928. See also Category Index Lithuania; independence, 14251427. See also Geographical Index Little, Frank, 1355 Little, Malcolm. See Malcolm X Little Blue Books, 2102 Little Caesar (film), 2366, 2378, 2467-2470 Little Johnny Jones (Cohan), 348352 Little Leather Library, 2093 Little Mahagonny, The. See Mahagonny Songspiel Little Miss Marker (film), 2827
Little Review, The (magazine), 1003, 1768 Littleton, Jesse T., 1209 Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich, 1692, 2690, 3205, 3209 Liu Kunyi, 29 Living Newspaper, 2862 Living Wilderness, The (magazine), 2782 Livingston, Edward, 998 Livingston, Leonidas Felix, 998 Livingston, M. Stanley, 2477 Lloyd, Harold, 989, 2052 Lloyd George, David, 756, 859, 890, 1140, 1483, 1521, 1578, 1590, 1621, 1719, 1772, 1777, 1941 Lo Chia-lun. See Luo Jialun Lobotomy, 2882-2885 Local anesthetics, 376-378 Locarno Treaties (1925), 1828, 2069-2073, 2078, 2252, 2927 Lochner, Joseph, 414 Lochner v. New York (1905), 413417, 662, 667 Lockwood, James, 759 Lockyer, Sir Joseph Norman, 1092 Loder, Bernard Cornelis Johannes, 1657 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 1269, 1447, 1725, 1741 Lodge, Oliver Joseph, 478, 1466 Lodger, The (film), 2722 Lods, Marcel, 2979 Loeb, Leo, 609 Loehr, Gus, 406 Loewe v. Lawlor (1908), 661-664, 1153 Loewy, Raymond Fernand, 1314, 2279, 2976 Löffler, Friedrich August Johannes, 803, 1043 Logan, Marvel Mills, 2937 Logical Investigations (Husserl), 305 Logical positivism, 1688, 17541756 Logische Untersuchungen. See Logical Investigations (Husserl) LXXXV
Logistic movement, 814-817 Lohengrin (Wagner), 4 Lolly Willowes (Warner, S. T.), 2093 Lomax, Alan, 2356 Lombard, Carole, 2725 Lombardo Toledano, Vicente, 1332 Lombroso, Cesare, 1671 London, Fritz Wolfgang, 2389 London, Jack, 719 London, Treaty of (1913), 1009 London, Treaty of (1915), 1451, 1523 London Convention (1841), 689 London Naval Treaty (1930), 1743 London Symphony, A (Vaughan Williams), 213 London Treaty (1930), 3259 Lone Wolf, 217 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903), 217-219 Long, Huey, 2338, 2596 Long, Walter, 1188 Long-Berenger Agreement (1919), 1623 Long March (1934-1935), 2097, 2777-2780; map, 2778 Longley, Clifford B., 2907 Longuet, Jean, 1663 Longwell, Daniel, 2966 López, Carlos Antonio, 2923 López, Francisco Solano, 2923 Lorca, Federico García. See García Lorca, Federico Lord Jim (Conrad), 266 Lord of the Rings, The (Tolkien), 2682 Lorimer, George Horace, 1764 Loriot, Fernand, 1663 Lorre, Peter, 2722 Los Angeles; freeways, 33013304; water issues, 1088-1091, 1918-1921 Los Angeles Aqueduct, 10881091, 1918-1921; map, 1089 Los Angeles Citizens Committee on Coordination of Unemployment Relief, 2351
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Lost generation, 443, 1459, 2139, 2141 Lost Lady, A (Cather), 1404 Lost Weekend, The (film), 2378 Lotka, Alfred, 2089 Lottery Case. See Champion v. Ames (1903) Loubet, Émile-François, 331 Louisville Bank v. Radford (1935), 2999 “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The” (Eliot), 967, 1748 Lovell, Bernard, 3028 Lovell, Norman, 1800 Lovelock, James, 2089 Low-temperature physics, 30833086 Lowell, A. Lawrence, 1269 Lowell, Amy, 965 Lowell, Percival, 432, 935, 1546, 2407 Lowell, Robert, 2402 Lowell Observatory, 432-435, 936, 1546, 2407 Löwenheim, Leopold, 2317 Lozano, Juan B., 2304 LSD-25, 3072-3076; Albert Hofmann on, 3074 LSD, My Problem Child (Hofmann), 3074 Lubbe, Marinus van der, 2632 Lubitsch, Ernst, 2705 Lucas, Anthony F., 40 Lucas, Scott, 3050 Luce, Clare Boothe, 1833, 2966 Luce, Henry R., 1833, 2403, 2966 Ludendorff, Erich, 544, 1279, 1409, 1431, 1869 Lugard, Lord (Frederick John Dealtry Lugard), 74, 873, 2135 Luger, Karl, 1477 Lugosi, Bela, 2378, 2461 Luke, Sir Harry Charles, 2321 LULAC. See League of United Latin American Citizens Lulu (Berg), 3031-3033 Lumière, Auguste, 169, 579 Lumière, Louis, 169, 579 Lunacharsky, Anatoly, 934, 1486, 1884, 2709
Lunar atmospheric tide, 27992802 Lunt, Alfred, 2618 Luo Jialun, 1506 Luonnotar (Sibelius), 877 Lusitania (ship), 544, 1128, 1144, 1206-1208 Luther, Hans, 1814 Luwai, Khalid ibn, 948 Luxemburg, Rosa, 1253, 1409, 1479, 1526 Lvov, Georgy Yevgenyevich, 1318, 1324, 1393 Lynch, Edmund, 1164 Lynde, Frederick C., 2368 Lyne, Sir William, 160 Lyons, Enid, 161 Lyot, Bernard, 2383 Lysenko, Trofim, 1488 Lysozyme, 2256 Lytton, second earl of (Victor Bulwer-Lytton), 2538, 2628 Lytton Commission, 2538, 2629, 2798 Maanen, Adriaan van, 935, 1419, 1953 MacArthur, Douglas, 2578 McCarran, Patrick Anthony, 3262 McCarran-Lea Act (1938), 32623264 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 1789, 2444 McCarthy, Charles, 237 McClintock, Francis Leopold, 55 McClung, Clarence Erwin, 102 McClure, Sir Robert John Le Mesurier, 54 McClure, Wilbur F., 3078 McCollum, Elmer Verner, 1757, 1887 McCormick, Cyrus Hall, 173 McCormick Harvester Company, 174 McCormick reaper, 173 MacCracken, Henry Mitchell, 507 McCrae, John, 1233 McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), 224 McDaniel, Hattie, 3223 LXXXVI
MacDermott, Sean, 1262 Macdonald, Dwight, 2403 McDonald, Frank, 2703 MacDonald, J. E. H., 1628 MacDonald, James R. L., 344 MacDonald, Jeanette, 2705 MacDonald, Ramsay, 513, 1590, 2322, 2430, 2575, 2586, 2935 McDonald, William C., 594 McDuffie, John, 2745 Macedonia. See Geographical Index McEntee, James J., 2652 McFadden, Louis Thomas, 2179 McFadden Act (1927), 1952, 2179-2182 McFarland, J. Horace, 1282 McGee, William J., 677 McGhee, F. L., 429 McGinness, Paul, 1652 McGrath, Matthew J., 975 McGurn, Jack, 2301 Mach, Ernst, 1230, 1754 Machado Santos, António, 841 Machine tools industry, 673 Machu Picchu, 892-896; map, 893 Mack Sennett Studios, 989 “Mack the Knife” (Weill and Brecht), 2194 MacKay, Angus, 281 McKay, Claude, 1555 Mackay, Donald, 438 Mackay, George, 438 Macke, August, 897 McKenna, Joseph, 657, 1618 McKenzie, Roderick D., 1962 Mackey, Francis, 1397 McKinley, William, 59, 105, 234, 1285, 1347; assassination, 59 McKinney, Nina Mae, 2273 MacKinnon, William, 74 McKinsey, James Oscar, 1980 McKinsey & Company, 19801983 McKnight, Fannie Bell, 2274 McLean, George Payne, 1067, 1437 McLean, Jay, 1215 MacLeish, Archibald, 2403 McLellan, Archibald, 708
Subject Index Macleod, John J. R., 144, 1689 MacLeod, Margaretha Geertruida. See Mata Hari McMahon, Sir Henry, 1621 McManamy, Frank, 2754 McMaster, Fergus, 1652 McMillan, Edwin Mattison, 2479 MacMillan, Kenneth, 915 McMullin, Fred, 1538 McNamee, Graham, 1562 McNary, Charles L., 2311 McNary, Robert, 2419, 2454 MacNeice, Louis, 2445 MacNeill, Eoin, 1140, 1262 McNeill, James, 2547 McNeill, William H., 2716 Macon, Uncle Dave, 2082 Macphail, Agnes, 2581 Macpherson, Jeanie, 1820 McReynolds, James C., 1271, 2841, 2999 McTeague (Norris), 1956 Macune, Charles W., 2683 Mad Miss Manton, The (film), 2727 Madame DuBarry (film), 1576 Madeiros, Celestino, 2199 Mademoiselle Colombe (Anouilh), 1723 Maderistas, 844 Madero, Francisco, 843, 1259 Madriz, José, 992 Madwoman of Chaillot, The (Giraudoux), 1723 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 645, 932 Magazines; Astounding Stories, 3080; Consumer Reports, 2904; Forbes, 1374-1376; Fortune, 1834, 2403-2406; Life, 1834, 2966-2969; The New Republic, 1161-1164; The New Yorker, 2020-2023; Poetry, 1001-1004; Reader’s Digest, 1763-1767; Time, 1833-1837. See also individual titles Magellanic Clouds, 960 Magendie, François, 327 Magic Mountain, The (Mann, T.), 1880-1883 Magic realism, 1983-1986
Maginot, André, 2288 Maginot line, 2288-2291, 3250; map, 2289 Magnetic resonance acceleration of ions, 2479 Magnetoionic theory of the ionosphere, 136 Magnificent Ambersons, The (film), 3138 Magón, Ricardo Flores, 844 Magonistas, 844 Magritte, René, 1943 Mahagonny Songspiel (Brecht and Weill), 2193-2196 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 552, 1206 Mahdi Ali, Sayyid. See Mohsinul-Mulk Maherero, Samuel, 317 Maheu, Robert Aime, 1899 Mahler, Alma, 913 Mahler, Gustav, 4, 194, 644, 913, 1070, 1702 Maichew, Battle of (1936), 2422 “Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, The,” 338 Main-sequence stars, 370, 577, 960, 1092, 1913 Maine (ship), 235 Maison du Peuple, 2979 Majdanek death camp, 3161 Major League Baseball; All-Star Game, 2667-2669; World Series, 256-259 Makgatho, S. M., 954 Makhno, Nestor, 1416 Making of a Hero, The (Ostrovsky), 2564 Mako, Gene, 3127 Makonnen, Ras, 2421 Makonnen, Tafari. See Haile Selassie I Malaria, 299, 341, 3157; treatment, 2529 Malcolm X, 2434 Malcomson, Alexander, 1110 Malevich, Kazimir, 749, 932, 1016, 1235, 2709 Malezewski, Juliusz, 2111 Malkam Khan, Mirza, 549 Mallarmé, Stéphane, 978 LXXXVII
Mallet, Lucien, 2701 Malmrose, Al, 2774 Malone, Dudley Field, 2054 Malraux, André, 1974 Maltese Falcon, The (film), 2378 Maltese Falcon, The (Hammett), 2323-2326 Malthusian League, 1737 Mammography, 1040-1042 Mammonart (Sinclair, U.), 511 Mammoth Oil Company, 1858 Mamoulian, Rouben, 2873 Man and Superman (Shaw, G. B.), 199-202 Man in Lower Ten, The (Rinehart), 1572 Man Ray, 1019, 1673 Management; consulting, 19801983; professionalization, 675, 1840-1844; theory, 1118-1121, 1272-1275, 1898, 3066-3069 Management buyouts, 2522 Managerial Accounting (McKinsey), 1981 Manchukuo, creation, 2097, 2539, 2629, 3114 Manchuria. See Geographical Index Manchurian Motor Company, 853 Mandelstam, Osip, 2563 Manet, Édouard, 2186 Manguin, Henri-Charles, 447 “Manifeste de Futurisme” (Marinetti), 747-751 Manifeste du surréalisme. See Manifesto of Surrealism (Breton) Manifesto of Surrealism (Breton), 1943-1947, 3227 Manitoba Natural Resources Act (1930), 2424 Maniu, Iuliu, 600 Mankiewicz, Herman, 3201 Mann, James Robert, 535, 1082 Mann, Thomas, 1880 Mann Act (1910), 339, 694 Mann-Elkins Act (1910), 752 Mannerheim, Carl Gustaf, 1399, 3219 Mannes, Leopold, 581
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Manning, Sir William Henry, 1566 Mannoury, Gerrit, 306 Man’s Fate (Malraux), 1974 Manstein, Erich von, 3250 Mantle-outer core boundary, 1031-1034 Manuale d’economia politica (Pareto), 490 Manuel II, 841 Manufacturing; air pollution, 478481; automobiles, 670-674, 852-855, 1110-1114, 16591662, 2158-2161; continuous flow, 1064; cost-plus contracting, 1106-1109; disasters, 868-872; farm machinery, 173-176; sewing machines, 382-384. See also Category Index Mao Tse-tung. See Mao Zedong Mao Zedong, 2096, 2777, 3037 Maori, 2892 Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, 2672 Marc, Franz, 897, 932 March, Peyton, 1444 March of Time, The (radio program), 1834 March on Rome, 1782-1784, 1997 Marco Polo Bridge, Battle of the, 3037-3040 Marconi, Guglielmo, 70, 134, 561, 1227, 1466, 1531, 1641, 1873, 3028 Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, 2168 Marcus, Bernard, 2457 Mare, André, 2037 Mare, Rolf de, 2073 Margaret Mead and Samoa (Freeman), 2251 Marian apparitions, 1360-1362 Mariés de la tour Eiffel, Les (ballet), 1602 Marine Hospital Service, 9981001 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 747 Maritain, Jacques, 2527 Market Square (shopping center), 1751
Marketing; direct selling to retailers, 1633-1635; door-todoor, 1028-1031; media research, 1796-1798; selfservice, 1288-1292. See also Category Index Markov, Andrey Andreyevich, 487 Markov chains, 487-489 Marne, First Battle of the (1914), 1127, 1137-1139; map, 1137 Marquet, Albert, 447 Márquez Martínez, Benito, 1156 Marquis, Dean Samuel, 1111 Marquis wheat, 281-283 Marr, Wilhelm, 1476 Marroquín, José Manuel, 271 Mars (planet), canals, 432, 2407 Marsden, Ernest, 962, 1104 Marsh, Mae, 1188 Marshall, George C., 1442, 2096 Marshall, J. E., 716 Marshall, John, 222 Marshall, Robert, 1516, 2674, 2780 Marshall, Thurgood, 744 Marshall, Sir William Raine, 1158 Marshall Field and Company, 1982 Marshall Plan, 2901 Marshlands (Gide), 1972 Marston, William Moulton, 1671 Martel, Nellie, 161 Martí, José, 234 Martin, Anne, 1309 Martin, Homer, 2888 Martin, John Stuart, 1833 Martin, Marie, 2044 Martin, Pauline, 2044 Martin, Thérèse, 2044 Martinique; map, 150. See also Geographical Index Martius, Carl, 3006 Marto, Francisco, 1360 Marto, Jacinta, 1360 Martov, Julius Osipovich, 695 Martyn, Edward, 359 Martyn, Thomas S., 1834 Marx, Chico, 2364 LXXXVIII
Marx, Groucho, 2364 Marx, Harpo, 2364 Marx, Karl, 302, 1253, 2697, 2716 Marx, Zeppo, 2364 Marx Brothers, 2365 Masaoka, Mike Masaru, 2442 Masaryk, Tomáš, 1453 Mason, E. C., 1216 Mason, Perry, 1574 Mass-energy equation, 409, 440443 Mass-luminosity law, 1912-1915 Mass-luminosity relationship of stars, 2120 Mass-production methods, 673, 1063-1067 Mass spectrograph, 813, 14551457 Massacres; Amritsar, 1497-1501; Bloody Sunday, 399-402; El Salvador, 2535-2537; Katyn Forest, 3236-3239; Simmele, 2672-2674; Valentine’s Day, 2301-2304 Massey, William Ferguson, 986 Massine, Léonide, 3107 Masson, André, 1943 Master of Hestviken, The (Undset), 2268 Masters golf tournament, 2453 Mat. See Mother, The (Gorky) Mata Hari, 1383 Matchseller, The (Dix), 1984 Material science, 387 Materials for the Study of Variation Treated with Especial Regard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species (Bateson), 78 Mathematics; abstract space, 481483; algebraic field theory, 731-734; Bourbaki group, 3149-3152; continuum hypothesis, 100; frequency theory of probability, 14631466; incompletenessinconsistency theorems, 23172320; infinity, 99; intuitionist foundations, 305-308; linked probabilities, 487-489; logistic
Subject Index movement, 814-817; metrics, 482; set theory, 99-102, 162165, 311-314; symmetry and conservation, 1406-1409; theory of ideals in rings, 16771679. See also Category Index Mather, Frank Jewett, Jr., 1587 Mather, Stephen T., 1282, 1339, 1514, 1931, 2182 Mathis der Maler (Hindemith), 2362 Matière et mémoire. See Matter and Memory (Bergson) Matisse, Henri, 443, 447, 494, 683, 932, 1016, 1057, 2737 Matrix mechanics, 2244 Matsui, Iwane, 3059 Matsuoka, Yfsuke, 2538, 2628, 3279 Matteotti, Giacomo, 1997 Matter and Memory (Bergson), 567 Matthews, Brian Harold Cabot, 2285 Maude, Sir Frederick Stanley, 1158 Maura y Gamazo, Miguel, 2496 Maurras, Charles, 1477 Maury, Antonia, 289, 370, 576 Mauveine (synthetic dye), 9 Mavra (Stravinsky), 1867 Mawson, Douglas, 916 Maxim, Hudson, 1730 Maximilian, 1409, 1525 Maximum hours laws, 413-417 Maxwell, George, 1114 Maxwell, James Clerk, 70, 275, 579, 1230, 1466, 1807, 2217, 2735, 2799 Maxwell, Sir John Grenfell, 1262 Maxwell, Marcuswell, 2343 Maxwell Motor Company, 2158 May, George O., 1292 May, John, 2301 May Coup. See Piusudski’s coup d’état May Fourth Movement, 912, 1506-1508 Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 749, 2282, 2562
Mayer, Carl, 1575 Mayer, Louis B., 1957, 2306, 2364, 2376, 3202, 3223 Mayo, George Elton, 1896 Maytag Company, 794 Mazza, Francesco, 721 Mead, Elwood, 2930 Mead, George Herbert, 1962 Mead, Margaret, 851, 2249, 2602, 2698 Means, Gardiner C., 2521 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 61, 510, 534-538 Meatpacking industry, 509-512, 534-538 Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity, The (Morgan et al.), 650 Meckling, William H., 2521 Media. See Category Index under Communications and media Media research, 1796-1798 Medicare, 2271 Medicine; anemia, 1990-1993; anesthetics, 376-378; anticoagulants, 1215-1217; artificial insemination, 23-26; Australian Aerial Medical Service, 2238-2239; birth control, 1737-1741; blood transfusion, 10-14, 462-464; cancers, 803-807; decompression sickness, 573575; dialysis, 942-945; diphtheria, 1043-1044; electrocardiography, 365-368; electroencephalography, 22852288; heart-lung machine, 2773-2776; immunology, 699703; industrial hazards, 19761979; influenza, 1428-1431; insulin, 1689-1691; mammography, 1040-1042; mechanical respirator, 23142316; Papanicolaou smear, 2225-2227; penicillin, 22562259, 3243-3246; plague, 584586; prefrontal lobotomy, 2882-2885; public health concerns, 784-786; Public LXXXIX
Health Service, 998-1001; rickets, 1757-1760; sulfonamides, 2529-2532; surgical procedures, 81-84; syphilis treatment, 823-826, 1817-1819; tuberculosis, 16831686; typhus, 2386-2389; vitamins, 2222-2225; waterborne diseases, 635-638; yellow fever, 43-47, 30253027. See also Category Index under Health and medicine Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 217 Medieval philosophy, 2527-2529 Meduna, Ladislas J., 3104 Meehan, Michael J., 2331 Meet John Doe (film), 2378 Mehmed VI, 1511 Meighen, Arthur, 859, 1509, 1636, 1709, 2440 Mein Kampf (Hitler), 1870, 20582061 Meinecke, Friedrich, 582 Meiosis, 102, 182 Meitner, Lise, 2688, 3143 Melba, Nellie, 146 Méliès, Gaston, 169 Méliès, Georges, 169, 253 Mellon, Andrew, 1892, 1949 Mellon, William L., 40 Melville, Herman, 1587 Melville revival, 1587-1590 Memoir on a Trans-Neptunian Planet (Lowell), 433 “Memphis Blues” (Handy), 787 Mena, Luis, 991 Mencken, H. L., 2054, 2219 Mendel, Gregor, 77, 102, 180, 378, 475, 638, 648, 726, 906 Mendeleyev, Dmitry Ivanovich, 2989 Mendelism (Punnett), 378-381 Mendel’s Principles of Heredity (Bateson), 77-81, 475 Mendelssohn, Kurt, 3084 Menelik II, 2421 Mengele, Josef, 3159 Menichella, Donato, 2622 Menjou, Adolphe, 2827
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Menshevik Party (Russia), 455, 1324, 1344 Mental illness, treatment, 28822885, 3104-3106 Menzel, Roderich, 3127 Menzies, William Cameron, 2307, 3223 Mercalli, Giuseppe, 2809 Mercantile National Bank, 622 Merchant Marine Act (1936), 3119 Mercury barometer, 18 Mercury Theatre, 3137 Mercury-vapor lamps, 17-20, 2964 Meretskov, Kirill, 3219 Mergers; Canada, 778-781; international, 177-180; U.S., 47-50, 84-87, 173-176, 323326, 885, 887, 1149, 1619 Meriam Report (1928), 2758 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1037 Merneptah, 1785 Merriam, Clinton Hart, 3265 Merrill, Charles E., 1164, 1952, 2331 Merrill, John P., 943 Merrill, Oscar C., 1810 Merrill Lynch & Company, 11641167 Merriman, John X., 830 Merry Del Val, Raphael, 983 Merry Widow, The (film), 27052709 Merton, John Kenneth, 3056 Mertz, Xavier, 916 Merwin, W. S., 864 Merz, Alfred, 2030 Merz (art movement), 1243 Mesons, 2784-2786 Messimy, Adolphe-Pierre, 1383 Metamorphosis, The (Kafka), 1168-1171 Metcalf, Eleanor Melville, 1587 Metchnikoff, Élie, 699, 823 Meteor expedition, 2030-2032 Method acting, 2474 “Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, A” (Goddard), 2100 Methvin, Henry, 2748 Methylene blue dye, 2529
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2236, 2273, 2365, 2376-2379, 2610, 3201 Metropolis (film), 172, 1577, 2152-2155 Metropolitan Life Assurance Company, 437 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2515 Metropolitan Opera House (New York City); Marian Anderson, 3169; Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 3108; Enrico Caruso, 148; Das Lied von der Erde (ballet), 915; memorial for Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire victims, 870; Anna Pavlova, 634; Salome (opera), 466 Metzinger, Jean, 1015 Meuse-Argonne offensive, 14401443 Mexican expedition. See Pershing expedition (1916-1917) Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), 843-846, 1259-1262 Mexico; Constitution of 1917, 1332-1336; map, 1261; nationalization of oil industry, 3098-3100. See also Geographical Index Meyer, Eugene, 2540 Meyer, Hannes, 1461 Meyerhoff, Arthur Augustus, 953 Meyerhold, Vsevolod Yemilyevich, 2282, 2563 Mfume, Kweisi, 746 MGM. See Metro-GoldwynMayer Miasma theory of disease, 299 Michael, Moina Belle, 1233 Michel, Hartmut, 68 Micheli, Giuseppe, 721 Michelsen, Christian, 450 Michelson, Albert A., 440, 1388, 1654 Microbiology, 803, 2256 Microscopes; electron, 2493-2496; field emission, 2896-2898 Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 2030-2032 Middle Eastern oil, 2259-2262 XC
Middleton, William, 2380 Midgley, Thomas, Jr., 2418, 2454 Midhat Pala, 689 Mid-Siberian Railway. See TransSiberian Railroad Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 618, 783, 1314, 1460 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 10671070, 1437 Migratory Bird Conservation Act (1929), 228 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 228, 2742-2745 Migratory Bird Treaty (1916), 2916 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 228, 1068, 1437-1440, 1936 Miklas, Wilhelm, 3093 Mikrokosmos (Bartók), 297 Miles, Samuel A., 137 Milestone, Lewis, 2307 Miley, Bubber, 2206 Miley, James. See Miley, Bubber Milhaud, Darius, 496, 1601 Military Appropriations Act (1916), 1371 Military history. See Category Index Military Service Act (Canada, 1917), 860 Miliukov, Pavel, 452, 526 Milky Way, The (film), 2215 Milky Way galaxy, 288, 1546, 1877, 1953, 2161-2164, 22762278, 2394; measurement, 1419-1421; radio maps, 3029; star streams, 291-294; structure, 1034-1037 Mill, John Stuart, 1422 Miller, Adolph C., 1514 Miller, Bernard J., 2773 Miller, Charles R., 188 Miller, Henry, 2770 Miller, Henry East, 478 Miller, John E., 3044 Miller-Tydings Act (1937), 1151, 3044-3047 Millikan, Robert Andrews, 741, 995, 1594, 2428, 2507, 2583
Subject Index Mills, A. G., 3193 Mills, Irving, 2206 Mills Commission, 3193-3195 Milne, John, 1031, 2893 Milner, Alfred, 155, 830, 1531, 1862 Milner, Viscount. See Milner, Alfred Mind and Society (Pareto), 490 Mind of Primitive Man, The (Boas), 849-852, 2249 Mindell, Fania, 1295 Mine Safety and Health Administration, 837 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 1614-1617, 1858 Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, 2105-2109 Minimum Wage Board, 1844 Minimum wage legislation, 18441847, 3119-3122; Massachusetts, 980-983 Mining, 651-653; labor issues, 152-155; safety, 836-838 Minority rights; California, 555557; India, 564-566; international, 1483-1486 Minot, George Richards, 1691, 1990 Minto, Lord (Gilbert John ElliotMurray-Kynynmound), 564 Mir Iskusstva, 762, 834 Miró, Joan, 1943 Mises, Richard von, 1463 Miss America pageant, 1730-1733 Miss Julie (Strindberg), 654 Missouri v. Holland (1920), 1437 Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas (1924), 3116 Mistress of Husaby, The (Undset), 2268 Mit brennender Sorge (encyclical), 3009-3011, 3173 Mitchell, Charles E., 2331 Mitchell, John, 152, 516 Mitchell, Margaret, 3223 Mitchell, Thomas, 3152 Mitosis, 102, 182 Mixter, Samuel Jason, 462 Mizrahi, Avraham, 2321
Moby Dick (Melville), 1587 Model T automobile, 509, 673, 1063, 1110, 1951, 2158, 2280 Modern art, 192-195, 2340-2342, 3040-3043 Modern Corporation and Private Property, The (Berle and Means), 2521-2524 Modern dance, 1211-1214, 25692571, 2909; Josephine Baker, 2073-2076; Isadora Duncan, 355-358 Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Jung), 2371 Modern Times (film), 2052, 2378 Modernism; literature, 2328; papal encyclicals, 247 Modernismo; architecture, 800803 Modigliani, Amedeo, 495 Mowammad 4Alt Sh3h, 549 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, 681, 2007 Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, 1566 Mohammed Shah, Sultan Sir. See Aga Khan III Moholy, Lucia, 1675 Moholy-Nagy, László, 1460, 1675 Mohorovi5i6, Andrija, 497, 1031, 2893 Mohorovi5i6 Discontinuity, 499, 1032 Mohsin-ul-Mulk, 564 Moisseiff, Leon, 3022, 3292 Moldavia. See Geographical Index Molecular biology, 1891 Molecular orbital theory, 2392 Molecules, structure, 938-941 Moley, Raymond, 1834, 2646 Molodaya gvardia (Fadeev), 2564 Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, 2969, 3205, 3209, 3219 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), 2970, 3197, 3205-3208, 3210, 3220 Moltke, Helmuth von, 1137 Mombasa-Lake Victoria Railway, 74-76; map, 75 XCI
Mondrian, Piet, 1312, 1412 Monet, Claude, 2186 Monetary control, centralization, 2857-2860 Money trust, 624, 1149 Mongolia. See Geographical Index Monism, 112, 504-506 Monism as Connecting Religion and Science (Haeckel), 505 Monist League, 504-506 Monk, Thelonious, 2208 Monkey trial (1925), 2054-2058 Monroe, Bill, 2084, 3163 Monroe, Charlie, 3163 Monroe, Harriet, 965, 1001 Monroe, Marilyn, 1561 Monroe Brothers, 3164 Monsieur and Madame Poulot (Rouault), 447 Mont Blanc explosion, 1397-1399 Montage, motion pictures, 1969, 2002, 2148-2151 Montagu, Edwin Samuel, 1389 Montenegro. See Geographical Index Monteux, Pierre, 1079 Montezuma, Carlos, 1005 Montgomery, Olen, 2490 Montgomery, Robert H., 1379 Montgomery Ward, 1988 Montreal Suffrage Association, 1378 “Monument to the Pigeon, A” (Leopold), 1135 Monuments. See Category Index Moon, atmospheric tide, 27992802 Moon’s Our Home, The (film), 2727 Moore, Fred H., 2199 Moore, George, 359 Moore, Henry, 3233 Moore, Joseph Hampton, 1082 Moore, Thomas, 1888 Moorish Science Temple, 2434 Moplah rebellion, 1728-1730 Morales, Gerardo Machado y, 234 Moran, George, 2301 Morant, Sir Robert Laurie, 900 More, Hermon, 2820
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Moreau, Gustave, 448 Morel, Edmond Dene, 89, 703, 880 Morgan, Arthur Ernest, 2656 Morgan, Clement, 430 Morgan, Harcourt Alexander, 2656 Morgan, J. P., 47, 152, 175, 323, 436, 622, 1618 Morgan, Jacques de, 121 Morgan, John T., 271 Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 183, 476, 648, 726, 906 Morgenroth, Julius, 11 Morgenthau, Henry, Sr., 1195 Morínigo, Higinio, 2923 Morkrum Company, 33 Morley, Christopher, 2094 Morley, Edward Williams, 1654 Morley, John, 1183 Mornet, André, 1383 Morocco. See Geographical Index Morocco (film), 2397 Morones, Luis N., 1332 Morozov, Pavlik, 2599 Morris, Arthur J., 827 Morris, Esther, 1300 Morris, Nelson, 402 Morris, William, 117, 192 Morris Plan, 827 Morris Plan banks, 827-829 Morris Plan Corporation of America, 828 Morris Plan Insurance Society, 828 Morrison, Herbert, 3017 Morrow, Irving F., 3024 Morse, Charles W., 622 Morse, Samuel F. B., 32, 70 Morse, William F., 784 Morse code, 70 Mortgage lending, 3090-3093 Morton, Joy, 32 Mosaddeq, Mohammad, 681 Mokcicki, Ignacy, 2111 Moscow, Treaty of (1940), 3221 Moscow Art Theater, 835 Moscow show trials, 2240-2242, 3299 Moseley, Henry, 473, 2989
Moseley’s law, 473 Moser, Koloman, 192, 372 Moskovitz, Henry, 744 Mosquito Brigades and How to Organise Them (Ross), 299 Mosquitoes (Faulkner), 2327 Mosquitoes as disease vectors, 4347, 298-301, 341, 3025 Mosul; map, 2123 Mosul question, 2122-2124 Mother (film), 2149 Mother, The (Gorky), 2563 Motion-picture directors; Busby Berkeley, 2608-2611; Cecil B. DeMille, 1820-1824; Sergei Eisenstein, 1968-1971; John Ford, 3152-3155; Abel Gance, 2001-2004; D. W. Griffith, 1188; Alfred Hitchcock, 27222725; Buster Keaton, 21422145; Fritz Lang, 2152-2155; Ernst Lubitsch, 2705-2709; Edwin S. Porter, 253-256; Jean Renoir, 2985-2988; Josef von Sternberg, 2396-2399; Erich von Stroheim, 1956-1959; King Vidor, 2273-2275. See also individual names Motion Picture Patents Company, 419 Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, 1822, 2706-2707, 3224 Motion pictures; Academy Awards, 2306-2309; An Andalusian Dog, 2213-2216; awards, 2827-2830; The Birth of a Nation, 1188-1191; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 15751578; Marlene Dietrich, 23962399; editing, 171, 2148-2151; Fantasia, 3295-3298; FortySecond Street, 2608-2611; gangster genre, 2467-2470; The General, 2142-2145; The Gold Rush, 2050-2054; Golden Age of Hollywood, 2364-2367; Gone with the Wind, 32233226; The Great Train Robbery, 253-256; Greed, XCII
1956-1959; Hallelujah, 22732275; horror genre, 2461-2464; The Jazz Singer, 2202-2206; The Man Who Knew Too Much, 2722-2725; The Merry Widow, 2705-2709; Metropolis, 21522155; Napoléon, 2001-2004; Mary Pickford, 737-740; Potemkin, 1968-1971; screwball comedies, 27252729; Sherlock Holmes series, 3176-3180; slapstick comedies, 988-991; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 3063-3066; sound technology, 1022-1024, 2124-2128, 2234-2237; Stagecoach, 3152-3155; studios, 2376-2379; The Ten Commandments, 1820-1824; theaters, 417-421; The ThirtyNine Steps, 2722-2725; Top Hat, 2868-2871; A Trip to the Moon, 169-173; Westerns, 253; The Wizard of Oz, 3201-3204. See also Category Index Mount McKinley National Park, 1339-1343; map, 1340 Mount Olympus National Monument, 1282, 1615 Mount Pelée; eruption, 149-152; map, 150 Mount Wilson Observatory, 206210, 1036, 1385-1388, 1547, 1655, 1877, 1954, 2155, 2276 Mountbatten, Louis, 1143 Mouttet, Louis, 149 Movietone newsreels, 2236 Movietone sound system, 2203 Mo,affar od-Dtn Sh3h, 549, 681 “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” (Woolf ), 1995 Mr. Tompkins series (Gamow), 2243 Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf ), 19931996 Múgica, Francisco J., 1332 Muhammad, Elijah, 2434 Muwammad 4Alt Pasha, 716 Muir, John, 230, 651, 1095, 1282, 1514, 1810, 2992, 3076
Subject Index Mukden incident, 2538, 2629 “Mule Skinner Blues” (Rodgers, J.), 3163 Mulholland, William, 1088, 1918 Müller, Erwin Wilhelm, 2896 Muller, Hermann Joseph, 648 Müller, Otto, 421 Müller, Paul Hermann, 3156 Müller, Walther, 3, 666 Muller v. Oregon (1908), 415, 667-670, 1269, 1845, 1871 Multidivisional business structure, 1659-1662 Mumford, Lewis, 1589 Mummy, The (film), 2463 Munárriz Azcona, Felipe de Jesús, 2951 Munday, Bill, 1564 Muni, Paul, 2366, 2467 Munich Conference, 3129-3132 Municipal Finance, 2457 Muñoz Rivera, Luis, 1347 Munro, J. Richard, 1836 Münsterberg, Hugo, 1118, 1671 Münter, Gabriele, 897 Muons, 2785 Murder at the Vicarage, The (Christie), 1573 Murder in Mesopotamia (Christie), 1573 Murder, My Sweet (film), 2378 Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The (Christie), 1573 Murder on the Links, The (Christie), 1573 Murders in the Rue Morgue (film), 2463 Murnau, Friedrich Wilhelm, 172 Murphy, Edgar Gardner, 968 Murphy, Frank, 2888, 3113 Murphy, William Parry, 1990 Murray, George Evelyn, 924 Murray, Gordon, 943, 1216 Murray, Philip, 2888 Muscle Shoals Hydroelectric Power Company, 2656 Museum of Modern Art (New York), 2340-2342, 2488, 2822 Music; atonality, 644-647, 17011704, 2086; ballet, 762-769,
833-836, 977-980, 1079-1082; bluegrass, 3163-3166; blues, 786-789, 1830-1832; country, 2082-2085, 2196-2198; dance, 355-358; folk, 295-298, 23562359; Futurism, 749; Gebrauchsmusik and Hausmusik, 2360-2363; Harlem Renaissance, 15551558; jazz, 787, 1602, 19091912, 2079-2082, 2206-2210, 2605-2608, 2790-2794; neoclassicism, 1703, 18651868; opera, 4-7, 465-467, 2086-2089, 2911-2915, 30313033; orchestral, 1070-1073; popular, 2713, 2715-2716; publishing, 1114-1117; recordings, 146-149; Romanticism, 1701; sacred, 492-494; Les Six, 1601-1603; Socialist Realism, 2558-2562; symphonic, 213-216, 713-716, 865-867, 876-879, 913-916, 1247-1250; theory, 587-590, 1665-1668. See also Category Index Music Appreciation Hour, The (radio program), 1564 Musical motion pictures; FortySecond Street, 2608-2611; Hallelujah, 2273-2275; The Merry Widow, 2705-2709; Top Hat, 2868-2871 Musical notation, 587 Musical recordings; Louis Armstrong, 2079-2082; Enrico Caruso, 146-149; Billie Holiday, 2605-2608; Jimmie Rodgers, 2196-2198; Bessie Smith, 1830-1832; Mamie Smith, 788 Musical theater, 348-352, 21932196, 2210-2212, 2871-2874 Muslim Brotherhood, 2228-2230 Muslim separatism (India), 564566 Mussolini, Benito, 1997, 2060, 2298, 2622, 2927, 3093, 3209, 3250; Abyssinian Campaign, XCIII
3274; Anti-Comintern Pact, 2969; Corfu crisis, 1853; Italian annexation of Albania, 3184; Italian invasion of Egypt, 3289; League of Nations sanctions against Italy, 2875; March on Rome, 1782; Munich Conference, 3129; Spanish Civil War, 2945, 3014; World War II, 3213 Mussorgsky, Modest, 2559 Muthesius, Hermann, 618 Mutiny at the Curragh, 1141 Mutiny on the Bounty (film), 2377 Muto, Akira, 3059 Mutual Guarantee, Treaty of (1925), 2069-2073 Muzak, 2713, 2715-2716 My Ántonia (Cather), 1403-1406 My Life (Trotsky), 1693 My Lord, What a Morning (Anderson, M.), 3169 My Man Godfrey (film), 2726 Myer, Dillon S., 2442 Mysterious Affair at Styles, The (Christie), 1571-1574 Mysterium (Scriabin), 866 Mystery genre fiction, 1571-1574, 2323-2326 Mysticism and Logic (Russell), 163 NAACP. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Nach-Expressionismus, magischer Realismus (Roh), 1983 Nadja (Breton), 1946, 1974 Nagel, Conrad, 2306 Naww3s Pasha, Mu;zaf3 an-, 3020 Nama revolt, 317-319 Namibia. See Geographical Index Nanawtawi, Maulana Muhammad Qasim, 565 Nanjing; atrocities, 3059-3063; map, 3060 Nansen, Fridtjof, 1692, 1790 Nansen passports, 1792 Nanton, Joseph. See Nanton, Tricky Sam
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nanton, Tricky Sam, 2206 Napoléon (film), 2001-2004 Narutowicz, Gabriel, 2110 Nash, Arthur J., 117 Nash, Ogden, 3201 Nash, Walter, 2891 Nasi, Guglielmo, 3274 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 2228 Natal Indian Congress, 239 Nation, Carry, 796 Nation of Islam, 2434-2437 National Advertising Review Board, 3102 National Advertising Review Council, 198 National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1300, 1309, 1610, 1644, 1871 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 430, 744-747, 2490; opposition to Amos ’n’ Andy, 2232 National Association of Broadcasters, 2756 National Association of Corporate Training, 1840 National Association of Employment Managers, 1841 National Association of Manufacturers, 1726, 3120 National Association of Retail Druggists, 3044 National Audubon Society, 396399, 1069 National Barn Dance, The (radio program), 2082 National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, 3193-3195 National Birth Control League, 1171-1174 National Bison Range, 228 National Broadcasting Company, 1564, 2084, 2132-2135, 31863190; Amos ’n’ Andy, 2230 National Cash Register, 1906 National Center for Atmospheric Research, 2799 National Child Labor Committee, 969
National Civil Liberties Bureau, 1608 National Collegiate Athletic Association, 507-508 National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, 1535 National Committee on People’s Banks, 2762 National Conservation Commission, 679 National Consumers League, 1976 National Council (Irish political party), 461 National Council of Women, 1377 National Credit Corporation, 2540 National Credit Union Administration, 2761 National Defense Act (1916), 1371, 2656 National Defense Act (1920), 3246 National Defense Advisory Commission, 3199, 3247 National Democrats (Poland), 2110 National Dunes Park Association, 2183 National Electric Signaling Company, 561 National Elk Refuge, 228 National Fascist Party (Italy), 1997 National Food and Grocery Conference Committee, 3190 National Football League, 16381640 National Forest Commission, 392 National Geographic Society, 2428 National Highway Trust Fund, 3302 National Housing Act (1934), 3091 National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 86, 1860, 2117, 2553, 2648, 2663-2666, 2830, 2838, 2841-2843, 2851, 2999, 3119, 3260 National Industrial Recovery Board, 2664 National Insurance Act Part II (1911), 1591 National Irrigation Congress, 166 XCIV
National Labor Relations Act (1935), 660, 1155, 2117, 2337, 2553, 2665, 2850-2853, 3000, 3119 National Labor Relations Board, 2553, 2851 National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937), 2852, 3001 National League (baseball), 256259, 2667-2669 National Mediation Board, 2116 National Monetary Commission, 624, 1099 National monuments; Denali, 1341; Devils Postpile, 3077; Grand Canyon, 651-653; Mount Olympus, 1282 National Origins Act (1924), 1922-1925, 2350 National Park Service, U.S., 12821284, 1339, 1933, 2782 National Park Service Act (1916), 1282-1284 National parks (U.S.), 1339-1343 National Parks Act (Canada, 1930), 2424-2426 National Parks and Conservation Association, 1098, 1514-1517 National Parks Portfolio (Yard), 1515 National Personnel Association, 1840 National Prohibition Enforcement Act (1919), 1605 National Protective Association, 1354 National Question and Autonomy, The (Luxemburg), 1480 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 3029 National Recovery Administration, 2337, 26632666, 2841 National Recovery Review Board, 2664 National Resources Board, 3247 National Security League, 1354 National Socialist German Workers’ Party. See Nazi Party
Subject Index National Society for Women’s Suffrage (Great Britain), 261 National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, 3302 National Telephone Company (Great Britain), 923 National Television Standards Committee, 3282 National Transportation Safety Board, 3264 National Union of Railwaymen, 2105-2109 National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, 2246 National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 261, 1422, 2246 National Vocational Conference, 1840 National Wildlife Federation, 2915-2918, 3050 National Wildlife Refuge System, U.S., 226-230, 2744 National Woman’s Party, 13091311, 1645, 1871 National Youth Administration, 2832 Nationalization; British telephone service, 922-924; French banking, 2899-2902; Mexican oil industry, 1335, 3098-3100; Russian land, 1319 Native Advisory Council, 1568 Native Americans; citizenship, 1929-1931; organizations, 1005-1007; property rights, 217-219; self-government, 2757-2760 Native Son (Wright, R.), 32303232 “Native Union” (Seme), 955 Natural disasters. See Disasters Natural Gas Act (1938), 31163118 Natural Gas Policy Act (1978), 3118 Natural resources; conservation, 677-680, 1614-1617, 18841887. See also Category Index Natural selection theory, 638, 726
Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals, The (Pauling), 2389 Nature versus nurture debate, 2249 Naumann, Friedrich, 618 Naval Expansion Act (1938), 3260 Navigation instruments, 468-471, 1223-1226 NAWSA. See National American Woman Suffrage Association Nazar, Mansukhlal Hiralal, 239 Nazarin (film), 2214 Nazi concentration camps, 26402643 Nazi death camps, 3159-3163, 3253-3255 Nazi Germany; Anschluss, 30933096; anthem, 2949; art, 1461, 1916, 1985, 3040-3043; Great Blood Purge, 2767-2769; Holocaust, 3159-3163; Katyn Forest massacre propaganda, 3238; Kristallnacht, 31413143; racism, 1476-1479 Nazi Party, 2625-2628, 2649; Beer Hall Putsch, 1869-1871; racist theories, 1476-1479 Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), 2970, 3197, 3205-3208, 3210, 3220 Nazism; papal condemnation, 3009-3011 Nazzaro, Felice, 529 NBC. See National Broadcasting Company NDAC. See National Defense Advisory Commission Ne Win, 3012 Neanderthals, 710-713, 1938 Near East Development Corporation, 1624, 2260 Nebular hypothesis, 936 Nebulas, 292; spiral, 935-938, 1036 Neddermeyer, Seth, 2785 Negritude movement, 2532-2534 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 566, 1183, 1500, 2410, 2480 Nehru, Motilal, 1183, 1583, 2410 Neidlinger, George, 382 XCV
Neill, Charles, 535 Nelles, Walter, 1608 Nelson, Donald Marr, 3198, 3246 Neoplasticism, 1312-1314, 1414 Neoprene, 2817 Neo-Salvarsan, 825 NEP. See New Economic Policy Neptune (planet), 432 Nernst, Walther Hermann, 308 Nerve fibers, 608-611 Nervous system, 112, 327-330, 608-611 Netherlands. See Geographical Index Neue Künstlervereinigung, 897 Neue Sachlichkeit. See New Objectivity Neues vom Tage (Hindemith), 2360 Neuilly, Treaty of (1919), 1523 Neumann, J. B., 1915 Neural biology, 608-611 Neurath, Otto, 1754 Neurophysiology, 327-330, 22852288 Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, 1201 Neutrality acts, 2865-2867, 2996 Neutrinos, 2703; beta decay, 2687-2690 Neutron stars, 1251, 2472, 27182721 Neutrons, 2544-2546, 2784, 3144 Nevada, gambling, 2483-2485 New, Harry S., 2017 New Criticism, 1750; The Great Gatsby, 2035 New Culture movement, 1507 New Deal, 1013, 2337, 25962599, 2841-2843; agriculture programs, 2313; Civilian Conservation Corps, 1761, 2652-2655; the Hundred Days, 2646-2649; Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 25402543; Supreme Court, U.S., 2999; Works Progress Administration, 2830-2834 New Democratic Party (Canada), 2581-2583
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 New Economic Policy, 1320, 1326, 1693, 1711-1715, 1884, 2263, 2282, 2296, 2562 New Freedom, 1011-1014, 1145, 1153 New Freedom, The (Wilson, W.), 1013 New Freewoman, The (magazine), 965 New French Canal Company, 269 New Man, The (Freundlich), 3041 New Mexico statehood, 594-596 New Objectivity, 423, 1314, 19831986, 2193, 2360 New Panama Canal Company, 272 New Republic, The (magazine), 1161-1164 New Secession, 423 New Tide (magazine), 1507 New Woman, 1549 New York City; water system, 3002-3005; zoning laws, 12761278 New York City Ballet, 2796 New York State Factory Investigating Commission, 870, 981, 2638 New York State Industrial Commission, 871 New York Stock Exchange; commissions, 1165; Panic of 1907, 623 New York World’s Fair (1939), 2280, 2964, 2983, 3186 New York Yankees, 1597-1600 New Yorker, The (magazine), 2020-2023 New Youth (magazine), 1506 New Zealand. See Geographical Index New Zealand prime ministers; William Ferguson Massey, 986-988 Newberry, Truman Handy, 2024 Newberry v. United States (1927), 2026 Newby, Arthur, 776 Newcomb, Simon, 279 Newell, Frederick Haynes, 165, 677
Newlands, Francis Griffith, 165 Newlands Act (1902), 165-169 Newlands Act (1913), 2117 Newmarch, Rosa, 876 Newsmagazines, 1833-1837 Newspapers; Christian Science Monitor, 707-710; L’Humanité, 334-336; Indian Opinion, 239241; Pravda, 695-696 Newsweek (magazine), 1834 Newton, Sir Isaac, 288, 440, 1230, 1250, 1541, 1807 NFL. See National Football League Niagara Falls Conference. See Niagara Movement Niagara Movement, 428-432, 744 Niblo, Fred, 2306 Nicaragua; corruption, 993; U.S. intervention, 991-995. See also Geographical Index Nicholas II, 616, 1124, 1431; Bloody Sunday, 399; formation of Duma, 526; October Manifesto, 452; October Revolution, 1393; pogroms, 210; Russian famine, 570; Russian Revolution, 1343; Russification of Finland, 538, 1399; Russo-Japanese War, 320; Second Hague Peace Conference, 625; Stolypin assassination, 904; TransSiberian Railroad, 1239; World War I, 1121 Nichols, Dudley, 2727, 3152 Nichols, J. C., 1751 Nichols, John B., 1889 Nicholson, John W., 939 Nickelodeons, 255, 417-421 Nickerson, William Emery, 250 Nicolson, Arthur, 616 Nielsen, A. C., Jr., 1796 Nielsen, A. C., Sr., 1796 Nielsen Media Research, 1797 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 199, 421, 1434, 1880, 2146, 3033 Nigeria. See Geographical Index Nigerian Railway, 874 Night, The (Beckmann), 1984 XCVI
Night (Wiesel), 3162 Night of Broken Glass. See Kristallnacht Night of the Long Knives, 27672769 Night work; women, 545-548 Nijinsky, Vaslav, 762, 766, 835, 977, 1079 Nilsson-Ehle, Herman, 728 Nin, Anaïs, 2770 Nine-Power Treaty (1922), 1743, 2797, 3039 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell), 2604 Nineteenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 1310, 1611, 1644-1648, 1871 Ninety-Nines, 2568 Ninnis, Belgrave, 916 Ninotchka (film), 2366 Ninth Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 213 Nipkow, Paul Gottlieb, 1873 Nissan Motor Company, 852-855 Nitrocellulose, 314 Nitrogen fixation, 308-311 Nivelle, Robert, 1256 Niven, John Ballantine, 2464 Nixon, Sir John Eccles, 1158 Nixon, Richard, 1899; Geneva Protocol, 2049 Nkrumah, Kwame, 2062 NKVD, 3236; Great Purge, 2788 No Exit (Sartre), 1723 Nobel, Alfred, 62 Nobel Peace Prize, 1790-1793 Nobel Prize recipients, 68; Jane Addams, 1976; American Friends Service Committee, 1357; Carl David Anderson, 2584; Norman Angell, 792; Francis William Aston, 1455; David Baltimore, 806; Frederick G. Banting, 145, 1690; John Bardeen, 2013; Charles Glover Barkla, 473; Antoine-Henri Becquerel, 275277; Emil von Behring, 63; Henri Bergson, 569; Carl Bosch, 310; Lawrence Bragg,
Subject Index 946; William Henry Bragg, 946; Walter H. Brattain, 2013; Aristide Briand, 2072, 2255; Louis de Broglie, 1805; Pearl S. Buck, 3147-3149; Melvin Calvin, 502; Alexis Carrel, 82; James Chadwick, 2615; Ernst Boris Chain, 2258, 3244; Austen Chamberlain, 2072; Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 2473; Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, 2703; John Douglas Cockcroft, 2557; Arthur Holly Compton, 474; Marie Curie, 276; Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, 2584; Gerhard Domagk, 2531; Jean-Henri Dunant, 63; António Egas Moniz, 2884; Paul Ehrlich, 699, 824; Christiaan Eijkman, 15, 485; Albert Einstein, 441; Willem Einthoven, 367; William Faulkner, 2328; Enrico Fermi, 2989; Hans Fischer, 502; Alexander Fleming, 2258; Baron Florey, 2258, 3244; Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, 2703; Karl von Frisch, 1495; Fritz Haber, 310; Otto Hahn, 3146; Frederick Hopkins, 21, 485; International Labor Organization, 1520; Frédéric Joliot, 2616; Irène Joliot-Curie, 2616; Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, 3083; Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, 3086; Frank B. Kellogg, 2255; Lev Davidovich Landau, 3085; Karl Landsteiner, 13; Max von Laue, 946; Ernest Orlando Lawrence, 2479; John J. R. Macleod, 145, 1690; Guglielmo Marconi, 72; Élie Metchnikoff, 699; George Richards Minot, 1991; Thomas Hunt Morgan, 650; Paul Hermann Müller, 3157; William Parry Murphy, 1991; Fridtjof Nansen, 1790-1793; Wilhelm Ostwald, 309;
Frédéric Passy, 63; Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, 113; Sully Prudhomme, 63; Robert Robinson, 502; Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, 63, 66-69; Theodore Roosevelt, 61, 839; Peyton Rous, 805; Ernst Ruska, 2495; Ernest Rutherford, 1103; Emilio Gino Segrè, 2990; William Shockley, 2013; Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn, 473; Gustav Stresemann, 2072; Theodor Svedberg, 1890; Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm, 2703; Howard M. Temin, 806; Joseph John Thomson, 558-561; Sigrid Undset, 2267-2269; Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff, 63; Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton, 2557; George Hoyt Whipple, 1992; Richard Willstätter, 500; Adolf Windaus, 1888; Robert Burns Woodward, 502; Hideki Yukawa, 2784; Richard Zsigmondy, 111. See also individual names Nobel Prizes, 62-66 Noces, Les. See Wedding, The (Stravinsky) Noel-Baker, Philip J., 1790 Noether, Emmy, 733, 1406, 1677 Nolde, Emil, 421, 3040 Nonbank banks, 2180 Noncooperation movement (India), 1583-1586, 2410-2414, 2480-2483 Nonviolent resistance, 1584, 2410-2414 Noonan, Frederick Joseph, 2566 Noosphere, 2090 Norbeck, Peter, 2742 Norbeck-Andresen Act (1929), 2743, 2916 Norman, Montagu, 2503 Normand, Mabel, 988 Normandy, Battle of (1944), 3214 Norris, Clarence, 2490 Norris, Frank, 1956 Norris, George W., 2552, 2656 Norris, T. C., 1509 XCVII
Norris-La Guardia Act (1932), 660, 1155, 2552-2555 North America; map, dxii. See also Canada; Mexico; Geographical Index under Canada, Mexico, United States North American Company, 2713 North American Conservation Conference, 679 North American Wildlife Conference, 2917, 3050 North China flood, 2509-2512 North Pole; exploration, 759-761; map, 760. See also Geographical Index Northcliffe, Lord. See Harmsworth, Alfred Northcliffe, Viscount. See Harmsworth, Alfred Northern Aluminum Company, 1893 Northern Ireland, creation, 15781582 Northern Migration. See Great Northern Migration Northern Securities Company v. United States (1904), 60, 323326, 404, 1149 Northwest Airlines, 2019 Norway; annexation of Svalbard, 2064-2066; German invasion, 3240-3243; independence, 450452; map, 451, 3241. See also Geographical Index Nosferatu (film), 172 Notebooks of André Walter, The (Gide), 1972 Notes from a Child of Paradise (Corn), 2402 Nothing Sacred (film), 2727 Novas, 959, 1035, 1420, 2718 November Group, 423 Novocaine, 376-378 Novye materialy k rabote. See Imperialism (Lenin) Now and Forever (film), 2827 Nu, U, 3012 Nuclear fission, 2545, 2617, 31433147 Nuclear fusion, 1094, 1251
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Nuclear model of the atom, 962964 Nuclear physics, 2555-2558; cyclotrons, 2477-2480 Nucleons, 2545 Nude Descending a Staircase (Duchamp), 1019 Nude with Raised Arms (Picasso), 496 Nuées ardentes, 150 Nuqr3sht, Mawmnd Fahmt al-, 2228 Nuremberg Laws (1935), 3010, 3125, 3141 Nnrt, Fazlullah, 549 Nnrt al-Sa4td, 2122 Nutrition; amino acids, 20-23; citric acid cycle, 3005-3009; iron, 1990-1993; organizations, 611-613; related diseases, 1417, 1757-1760; vitamins, 484486, 1887-1889, 2222-2225 Nuttall, John Mitchell, 2242 Nye, Gerald Prentice, 2865 Nye Committee, 2865 Nyerere, Julius, 2344 Nylon, 2816-2819 O Pioneers! (Cather), 1403 Oakley, Kenneth Page, 1939 O’Banion, Dean, 2301 Oberth, Hermann, 203 Obregón, Álvaro, 843, 1259 O’Brien, Willis, 2364 Obscure Destinies (Cather), 1404 O’Casey, Sean, 359 Occhialini, Giuseppe, 2584 Occupational diseases, 1976-1979, 2416 Occupational Poisoning in the Viscose Rayon Industry (Hamilton, A.), 1979 Ocean exploration, 2427-2430 Oceanides, The (Sibelius), 877 O’Conner, John, 532 O’Connor, Richard, 160, 3289 Octet (Stravinsky), 1865-1868 October Manifesto, 212, 452-455, 526-528, 539, 571, 904
October Revolution (1917), 1128, 1318, 1393-1396, 1416, 1663, 1711 Octobrists (Russia), 454, 527, 1393 Odets, Clifford, 2474, 2823 Odum, Eugene P., 2848 Odum, Howard T., 2848 O’Dwyer, Sir Michael, 1497 Odyssey (Homer), 1768 Oedipus complex, 929 Oedipus Rex (Stravinsky), 1867 Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck), 3180 Office of Economic Stabilization, 3199, 3249 Office of International Public Hygiene, 186 Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, 3248 Office of Production Management, 3199, 3248 Office of War Mobilization, 3200, 3249 Ogdensburg Agreement, 32763279 Ohio Gang, 1699 Oil discoveries; Persia, 681-683; Spindletop, 40-43, 642; Venezuela, 1794-1796 Oil-drop experiment, 741-743 Oil industry, 40-43, 681-683, 1857-1861, 2259-2262; drilling, 642-644; labor strikes, 1334; Mexican nationalization, 3098-3100; petroleum refining processes, 1049-1052; San Remo Agreement, 1621-1625; Saudi Arabia, 3096-3098; Standard Oil, 882-886 Oil Pollution Act (1924), 1761, 1935-1937 Oil Reserves scandal, 1857-1861 Oil well drilling, 642-644 Oiseau de feu, L’. See Firebird, The (ballet) Okada Keisuke, 2797 OKeh Record Company, 1830, 2079 Oklahoma; martial law, 18501853; statehood, 594-596 XCVIII
Olav Audunssøn i Hestviken. See Master of Hestviken, The (Undset) Olav Audunssøn og hans børn. See Master of Hestviken, The (Undset) Olbrich, Joseph Maria, 194, 619 Old-age pensions, 1838-1840, 2853-2857 Old-Age Revolving Pension Club, 2854 Old Man and the Sea, The (Hemingway), 2140 Oldham, Richard Dixon, 497, 1032, 2893 Olds Motor Works, 672, 2158 Olesha, Yury, 2563 Oliphant, Marcus Laurence, 2555 Oliver, King, 2079 Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr., 1282 Olmsted, Frederick Law, Sr., 1095 Olney, Warren, 2593 Olsen, George, 1798 Olvidados, Los. See Young and the Damned, The (film) Olympic Games; Berlin (1936), 2948-2950; Chamonix, France (1924), 1903-1905; Stockholm (1912), 975-977 Omoo (Melville), 1587 On Baile’s Strand (Yeats), 359 “On Being Asked for a War Poem” (Yeats), 1317 On Guard for Peace (Prokofiev), 2561 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Darwin), 106, 638, 726, 1458, 2066, 2697 On the Witness Stand (Münsterberg), 1671 Oncogenic viruses, 803-807 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (Kallet and Schlink), 2612-2615, 2903 One of Ours (Cather), 1404 O’Neill, Edmond, 478 O’Neill, Eugene, 362, 656, 1724, 2825; Pulitzer Prizes, 1366 Oort, Jan Hendrik, 293, 2161
Subject Index Open door policy (U.S. toward China), 128 Open-heart surgery, 2773-2776 Open Market Investment Committee, 2858 Open star clusters, 369 Opera, 4-7; Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Shostakovich), 2911-2915; Lulu (Berg), 3031-3033; recordings, 146-149; Salome (Strauss), 465-467; Wozzeck (Berg), 2086-2089 Operation Sea Lion, 3268 Operation Weserubung, 3241 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 958 Opium trade, 956-959 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1252, 2785, 3170 Optics, 2347-2349 Orators, The (Auden), 2446 “Oread” (H. D.), 966 Orff, Carl, 2360 Organ transplantation, 82, 943 Organic Act (1900), 1347 Organic Act (1916), 1282-1284 Organic Act (1917), 1347-1349 Organizations. See Category Index Organized crime; Prohibition, 1604-1607; Valentine’s Day Massacre, 2301-2304 Origin of Continents and Oceans, The (Wegener), 950-953 Orlando, Vittorio Emanuele, 1501, 1521 Orozco, José Clemente, 2736 Orozquistas, 844 Orphans of the Storm (film), 1190 Orphism, 1016 Ørsted, Hans Christian, 686 Orteig, Raymond, 2190 Orthodoxy (Chesterton), 2068 Ory, Kid, 2079 Osborn, Fairfield, Sr., 1798 Osborne, Thomas Burr, 1757 Oscar II, 450 Oscars. See Academy Awards O’Shaughnessy Dam, 1095-1099 Osmeña, Sergio, 2745 Osmond, Humphry, 3073
Osteoporosis, 1809 Ostrovsky, Nikolai Alekseevich, 2564 Ostrowska, Djina, 1665 Ostwald, Wilhelm, 308 Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za svetove války. See Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War, The (Hašek) O’Sullivan, James, 2678 bsumi Mineo, 2797 Osuskù, Štefan, 1453 Ottawa Agreements (1932), 2450, 2575-2578 Otto, Louise, 729 Ottoman Empire; Armenian genocide, 1195-1199; map, 1181; Young Turks, 689-692. See also Geographical Index Ouchy, Treaty of (1912), 857 Oud, J. J. P., 1312 Our Town (Wilder), 3087-3090 Our Wandering Continents (Du Toit), 951 Outdoor America (magazine), 1760 Outline of History, The (Wells), 2066, 2102 Over de Onbetrouwbaarheid der logische Principes (Brouwer), 306 “Over There” (Cohan), 350 Ovington, Mary White, 744-745 OVRA, 1998 Owens, Jesse, 2948 Owens Valley; Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1088-1091, 19181921 Oxford University, Rhodes Scholarships, 140 Ozawa, Takao, 1788 Ozawa v. United States (1922), 1788-1789 Ozone layer, 1053-1056, 2420, 2836 Paasikivi, Juho Kusti, 1401 Pace, Edward Aloysius, 606 Pace, Harry, 787 Pacelli, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni. See Pius XII XCIX
Pacelli, Francesco, 2298 Pach, Walter, 1056 Pacific, War of the (1879-1883), 2309 Pacific Crest Trail System, 3078 Pacific Ring of Fire, 1855 Packaging industry, 314 Packers and Stockyards Act (1921), 405 Pact of Paris (1928), 2252-2256 Pact of Steel (1939), 3209 Page, Robert M., 2734 Page, Walter Hines, 1349 Paget, Sidney, 3178 Pahlavi Dynasty, 551, 682, 20072011 Painlevé, Paul, 2288 Painter, William, 250 Painting; abstract, 932-935, 19151918; cubism, 683-686, 10151018; Futurism, 749; Impressionism, 2186-2189; neoplasticism, 1312-1314; primitive, 494-497; still life, 684; Suprematism, 1235-1238; Surrealism, 1943-1947 Pair creation, 2584 Pais, Sidónio, 841 Palais Stoclet, 193, 372-375 Paleontology, 1798-1801; Neanderthals, 710-713 Palestine, 1389-1392; British mandate, 1777-1779, 29352937; kibbutzim, 723-725; map, 1778. See also Geographical Index Paley, William S., 2132, 2354, 3282 Pallen, Condé Benoist, 606 Palmer, A. Mitchell, 1527, 1537, 1607, 1922, 1959 Palmer, Dewey, 2902 Palmer raids, 1527, 1923 Palomar Observatory, 1655, 2349 Paludes. See Marshlands (Gide) Pan, Hermes, 2868 Pan-African movement, 20622063 Pan American Health Organization, 185-187
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Panama; map, 273; revolution, 268-271, 273, 341. See also Geographical Index Panama Canal, 46, 61, 268, 271274, 340-344, 1130-1133; map, 273; yellow fever, 298-301 Panama Canal Act (1912), 342 Panama Canal Treaty (1978), 274 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1177, 1228 Panama Railroad Company, 268 Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company, 1858 Pancreas, 142, 1690 Pandora’s Box (Wedekind), 3031 Pangaea, 950-953; map, 951 Pangalos, Theodoros, 2076 Panic Broadcast, The (Koch), 3139 Panic of 1907, 622-625, 1099 Pan-Indianism, 1005 Pankhurst, Christabel, 259, 1309, 1422 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 259, 1309, 1422 Pankhurst, Sylvia, 1422 Pan-Turkism, 691 Pap test, 2225-2227 Papal encyclicals; Lacrimabili Statu, 983-985; Mit brennender Sorge, 3009-3011; Non abbiamo bisogno, 2300 Papanicolaou, George N., 2225 Papanicolaou smear, 2225-2227 Papen, Franz von, 2625, 2632, 2649, 3093 Paperback books, 2802-2805 Parade (ballet), 1601 Paradox, Russell’s, 162-165, 311 Paradoxes of the Infinite (Bolzano), 100 Paradoxien des Unendlichen. See Paradoxes of the Infinite (Bolzano) Paraguay; corporatism, 29232926; map, 2924. See also Geographical Index Parallax method of measuring stellar distances, 370, 577, 960, 1034, 1419, 1877, 1953
Paramount Pictures, 1820, 2236, 2376-2379 Pardee, George, 230 Pareto, Vilfredo, 490, 3066 Pareto principle, 490-492 Parham, Charles Fox, 520 Paris, Treaty of (1856), 690 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 51, 235, 1347 Paris Conference on the White Slave Trade, 336 Paris Peace Conference (1919), 1483-1486, 1501, 1506, 15211525, 1622, 1777, 1827, 2064, 2517; International Labor Organization, 1517-1521 Park, Keith, 3267 Park, Maud Wood, 1610, 1779 Park, Robert E., 1962 Parker, Arthur Caswell, 1005 Parker, Bonnie, 2748 Parker, George F., 516 Parker, Horatio, 1247 Parkes, Alexander, 385 Parkes, Sir Henry, 37 Parkesine, 385 Parliament Act (1911), 756-758, 1140 Parmenter, Frederick, 2200 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 1140, 1579 Parry, Sir William Edward, 54 Parsons, Charles, 1025 Parsons, Talcott, 302 Parsons, William, 936 Particle accelerators, 2477-2480, 2555-2558 Pas perdus, Les (Breton), 1944 Paschen, Friedrich, 2028 Paschen-Back effect, 2028 Pašic, Nikola, 1123, 1450 Passage of the Virgin to the Bride (Duchamp), 1019 Passenger pigeons, 1069, 11331136 Passing of the Great Race in America, The (Grant, M.), 1726 Pasternak, Boris, 2563 Pasteur, Louis, 635, 803 C
Pastoral Symphony, The (Gide), 1973 Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 213 Pathé, Charles, 169 Patman, Wright, 2579, 2937 Patout, Pierre, 2037 Päts, Konstantin, 1425 Patterns of Culture (Benedict), 2697-2701 Patterson, Gerald, 1775 Patterson, Haywood, 2490 Patterson, J. H., 74 Patterson, Joseph Medill, 419 Patterson, W. E., 2941 Paul, Alice, 1309, 1644, 1871 Pauli, Wolfgang, 1103, 2027, 2687 Pauli exclusion principle, 20272030 Pauling, Linus, 2224, 2389 Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, 112, 142, 144, 327 Pavlova, Anna, 632, 766 Paxton, John, 2378 Payne, Fernandus, 648 Payne, Sereno Elisha, 772 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 752, 772-775, 1060, 1285 Payr, Erwin, 1040 Payton, Philip A., Jr., 819 Peace activism, 847-849, 17901793; World War I, 1199-1202 Peace conferences; First Hague Peace Conference, 625, 1501; Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 2971-2972; International Congress of Women, 11991202; Paris Peace Conference (1919), 1483-1486, 1501; Second Hague Peace Conference, 625-628 Peace of Riga (1921), 1715-1718 Peace Preservation Law (1925), 2044 Peano, Giuseppe, 99, 814, 3149 Pearl, Raymond, 726 Pearl Harbor, Japanese attack, 2539 Pearse, Patrick Henry, 1140, 1262
Subject Index Pearson, Karl, 726 Pearson, T. Gilbert, 396, 1437, 3050 Peary, Robert Edwin, 54, 759 Peasant Party (Poland), 2110 Peasant’s Gazette (Kogalniceanu), 601 Pease, Francis Gladheim, 1386, 1655, 2119 Pease, Joseph Albert, 2168 Pecci, Vincenzo Gioacchino. See Leo XIII Peche, Dagobert, 192 Pechstein, Max, 421 Peckham, Rufus W., 413 Pecora, Ferdinand, 2659, 2750 Peel, Clifford, 2238 Peel, First Earl (William Robert Wellesley Peel), 2935 Peel, William Robert Wellesley. See Peel, First Earl Peer, Ralph S., 2196 Pei, W. C. See Pei Wenzhong Pei Wenzhong, 1847, 3053 Peintres cubistes, Les. See Cubist Painters, The (Apollinaire) Peirce, Charles Sanders, 1245, 1463, 2172 Peking man, 1847-1849, 30533056 Pelican, The (Strindberg), 654 Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, 226-230; map, 227 Pelikanen. See Pelican, The (Strindberg) Pelleas and Melisande (Schoenberg), 645 PEMEX. See Petróleos Mexicanos Penguin Books, 2802-2805 Penicillin, 2256-2259, 3243-3246 Penn-Lewis, Jessie, 346 Pennewill, Simeon, 188 Pennock, George A., 1896 Pennsylvania Railroad, 518 Penrose, Boies, 2024 Pensions, 1838-1840, 2853-2857 Pentatonic scales, 295 Pentecostalism, 346-348, 520-521 People (magazine), 1836 People’s Budget (1909), 757
People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. See NKVD People’s Forests, The (Marshall), 2674-2677 Perales, Alonso S., 2304 Perelandra (Lewis, C. S.), 2682 Pérez Alfonzo, Juan Pablo, 1794 Pérez García, Faustino, 2951 Perfect gas law, 1913 Performance art, 1244 Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 1866 Period-luminosity relationship of stars, 959-962, 1035, 1877 Period-luminosity scale, 1035, 2276 Periodic table, 2989 Perkin, Sir William Henry, 8 Perkins, Frances, 868, 2335, 2853, 3111, 3119; appointment as U.S. labor secretary, 2637 Perkins, George W., 173 Perkins, Maxwell, 2139 Permanent Court of International Justice, 1657-1658 Pernicious anemia, 1990-1993 Pérot, Alfred, 1053 Perrin, Jean-Baptiste, 558 Perry, Enos J., 24 Pershing, John J., 1259, 1440, 1444, 1734 Pershing expedition (1916-1917), 844, 1259-1262; map, 1261 Persia; constitution, 549-552; map, 121, 682; oil discovery, 681-683. See also Iran Persistence of Memory, The (Dalí), 1945 Personal computers, 1907 Personnel management, 1840-1844 Peru; map, 893; Tacna-Arica compromise, 2309-2311. See also Geographical Index Perutz, Max, 68 Peshkov, Aleksey Maksimovich. See Gorky, Maxim Pétain, Philippe, 1256, 2288, 3250 Peter I, 697 Peters, William Wesley, 2589 Petipa, Marius, 764, 766 Petliura, Symon Vasylovych, 1321 CI
Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, 1325, 1344, 1393 Petróleos Mexicanos, 3099 Petroleum Administration Board, 1860 Petroleum Administration for Defense, 1860 Petroleum cracking processes, 1049-1052 Petroleum Reserves Corporation, 1860 Petty-Fitzmaurice, Henry Charles Keith. See Lansdowne, Lord Pfeiffer, Richard Friedrich Johannes, 10 Pfitzner, Hans, 587 Phagocytosis, 699-703 Pharmaceuticals, FDA regulation, 2166 Phelan, Edward J., 1517 Phenomenological movement, 1037-1040 Phenotypes, 726-729 Philanthropy; Ford Foundation, 2906-2908; Rockefeller Foundation, 1074-1076. See also Category Index under Humanitarianism and philanthropy Philby, H. St. John B., 948, 3096 Philipp, Emanuel, 237 Philippine Commission, 105 Philippine Independence Act (1934), 2745-2747 Philippine Insurrection (1902), 105-109 Philippines, 51-53, 105-109; independence from U.S., 27452747; map, 107. See also Geographical Index Phillippe, Deacon, 256 Phillips Petroleum Company v. Wisconsin (1954), 3117 Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein), 1687 Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft. See Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science (Weyl)
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Philosophische Untersuchungen. See Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein) Philosophy; divine mercy, 31333134; instrumentalism, 593; logical positivism, 1754-1756; medieval, 2527-2529; monism, 504-506; phenomenology, 1037-1040, 2146-2148; pragmatism, 591-594, 12451247; The Story of Philosophy (Durant), 2102-2104; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein), 1686-1689. See also Category Index Philosophy of education, 12451247 Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science (Weyl), 3149 Phonograph, 96, 147 Phosphorus 30, 2615-2617 Photo-Secession, 130-134 Photocells. See Photoelectric cells Photocopying, 3134-3137 Photoelectric cells, 283-285 Photoelectric effect, 283-285, 408411, 1805 Photographers, 130-134; Ansel Adams, 2992-2996; Margaret Bourke-White, 2967; Lewis W. Hine, 2501; Dorothea Lange, 2732; Man Ray, 1673-1676 Photographic film, 2176 Photography; color, 579-582; Fortune (magazine), 2404; history, 2176; Life (magazine), 1834, 2967; Photo-Secession, 130-134; pictorial, 130; Rayographs, 1673-1676; spectral, 369, 576; stars, 433. See also Category Index Photomontage, 1243 Photons, 1, 408-411, 1596, 1805 Photosynthesis, 500-503 Physics; Cherenkov radiation, 2701-2704; general relativity, 1230-1232; gravitation, 15411543; low-temperature, 30833086; photoelectric effect, 283285, 408-411; Schwarzschild
solution, 1250-1253; special relativity, 440-443; uncertainty principle, 2172-2175. See also Category Index Piaget, Jean, 3151 Piazza Tales, The (Melville), 1588 Picabia, Francis, 1019, 1673 Picasso, Pablo, 443, 494, 683, 749, 932, 1015, 1312, 2737, 3016, 3034 Piccard, Auguste, 2429, 2506 Pickering, Edward Charles, 1034 Pickering, William, 2407 Pickford, Mary, 737 Pierce, Jack P., 2462 Pierce, Palmer E., 507 Pierre (Melville), 1588 Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, 1288-1292 Pigment (Damas), 2533 Pillar of Fire (ballet), 2910 Pilnyak, Boris, 2563 Piusudski, Józef, 1321, 1425, 1715, 2109 Piusudski’s coup d’état, 21092112 Piltdown man, 1938 Piltz, Marie, 1079 Pi-mesons. See Pions Pinchot, Gertrude Minturn, 1296 Pinchot, Gifford, 166, 392, 651, 677, 751, 1095, 1282, 1614, 1810, 1857, 2652, 2656, 2674 Pinocchio (film), 3295 Pions, 2784-2786 Pirandello, Luigi, 1721 Pirrie, William James, 972 Pisan Cantos, The (Pound), 1329 Piston, Walter, 1665 Pitoëff, Georges, 1721 Pittenger, William, 2143 Pittman, Key, 1339, 3050 Pittman-Robertson Act (1937), 1439, 2917, 3050-3053 Pitts, ZaSu, 1956 Pittsburgh plus system, 49, 85, 1618 Pius X, 247, 983, 1630, 2044, 2693 CII
Pius XI, 2044, 2298, 2437, 2693, 3009, 3173 Pius XII, 3009, 3173 Plaatje, Solomon Tshekiso, 954 Plague, 584-586 Plaisirs et les jours, Les. See Pleasures and Regrets (Proust) Plan of Agua Prieta, 845 Plan of Ayala, 844 Plan of Guadalupe, 844 Plan of San Luis Potosí, 843 Planck, Max, 284, 408, 1804 Planck’s constant, 939, 1805 Planets; Mars, 2407; Pluto, 432435, 2407-2409 Planned obsolescence, 197, 2281 Plant communities, 2846 Plaskett, John Stanley, 2161 Plastics, 2816; Bakelite, 385-387; cellulose, 314 Plate tectonics, 952 Platt, Orville, 59, 234 Platt, Thomas, 436 Platt Amendment, 234-236 Playboy of the Western World, The (Synge), 360, 597-600 “Plea for Wilderness Hunting Grounds, A” (Leopold), 1932 Pleasant, Richard, 2908 Pleasures and Regrets (Proust), 1045 Plehve, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich, 210 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 555 Ploetz, Alfred, 504 Plöner Musiktag (Hindemith), 2361 Plücker, Julius, 17, 67, 2493 Plum pudding model of the atom, 962 Plumb Plan, 2117 Plumbism in the Industries of the Middle West (Hamilton, A.), 1977 Plunket, Lady Victoria, 611 Plunket Society, 611-613 Pluralistic Universe, A (James, W.), 593 Pluto (planet); discovery, 24072409; search, 432-435
Subject Index Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Petrovich, 210 Podialpolski, Nikolai, 1486 Podnyataya tselina. See Virgin Soil Upturned (Sholokhov) Poe, Edgar Allan, 2325 Poem of Ecstasy, The (Scriabin), 865 Poem of the Deep Song (García Lorca), 3227 Poema del cante jondo. See Poem of the Deep Song (García Lorca) Poème de l’extase, Le. See Poem of Ecstasy, The (Scriabin) Poems (Auden), 2445-2448 Poet in New York (García Lorca), 3226-3229 Poeta in Nueva York. See Poet in New York (García Lorca) Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, The (Stravinsky), 1868 Poetry, 1001-1004; The Bridge (Crane), 2400-2403; Cantos (Pound), 1328-1332; Duino Elegies (Rilke), 862-864; Harlem Renaissance, 15551558; Imagist movement, 965968; Poems (Auden), 24452448; Poet in New York (García Lorca), 3226-3229; The Waste Land (Eliot), 1748-1751; The Wild Swans at Coole (Yeats), 1315-1318. See also individual titles Poetry (magazine), 1001-1004, 1748 Pogromnacht. See Kristallnacht Pogroms, 210-213, 454; map, 211 Pohkishchenie Evropy (Fedin), 2564 Pohl, Robert, 1888 Poincaré, Henri, 162, 305 Poincaré, Raymond, 890, 1772, 1826, 2071 Poindexter Bill (1919), 1107 Pointillism, 2187 Poiret, Paul, 820, 1550, 1560 Poirot, Hercule, 1572
Poison-squad experiments, 535 Poland; German invasion, 32093212; independence, 17151718; map, 1716, 1720, 3210; Piusudski’s coup d’état, 21092112. See also Geographical Index Polar wandering, 952 Poliomyelitis, 2314 Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921), 1492, 1715-1718, 2109; map, 1716 Political action committees, 2025 Political bosses, U.S., 2024 Political campaign financing, 2024-2027 Political parties; Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, 2581-2583; French Communist Party, 1663-1665; Labour Party (Great Britain), 513-516; Labour Party (New Zealand), 2891-2893; Republican Party (U.S.), 751-753, 1447-1449. See also individual names Politics. See Category Index under Government and politics Politis, Nikolaos Sokrates, 1853 Polk, Frank Lyon, 1531 Pollio, Alberto, 856 Pollock, Jackson, 1243 Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company (1895), 1059, 1380 Pollution, 807-811; air, 478-481, 531-534; control, 796-800, 2915-2918; national responsibility, 2834-2837; water, 635-638, 1935-1937, 2373-2376 Polygraphs, 1671-1673 Polymers; silicones, 26; synthetic, 386, 2816 Pomeroy, Roy, 2307 Pommer, Eric, 2396 Ponzi, Charles, 1470; autobiography, 1471 Ponzi schemes, 1470-1473 Poole, Elijah. See Muhammad, Elijah Pooler, Frank C. W., 1931 CIII
Poona Pact (1932), 2586-2588 Pop art, 1243 Popenoe, Charles B., 1562 Popes; Pius X, 247-249; Pius XII, 3173-3175. See also individual names Popper, Karl Raimund, 1463 Poppies as symbol for war dead, 1233-1235 Popular Front (France), 2899 Popular Front (Spain), 2945 Population genetics, 638-641 Porajmos, 3253-3255 Porgy and Bess (Gershwin), 1910, 2871-2874 Porte étroite, La. See Strait Is the Gate (Gide) Porter, Edwin S., 169, 253 Porter, Steven, 250 Porthan, Henrik Gabriel, 539 Portland Knitting Company, 1558 Portrait of a Lady, The (James, H.), 264 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A (Joyce), 1767 Portsmouth Treaty (1905), 839 Portugal; establishment of republic, 841-842. See also Geographical Index Positive electricity, 812 Positrons, 997, 2029, 2615, 2784; discovery, 2583-2585 Post Office Department, U.S., 1648-1651, 2017, 2112 Post-Mortem (Coward), 2618 Potemkin (film), 1968-1971 Poulenc, Francis, 1601 Pound, Ezra, 965, 1001, 1328, 1748, 1767 Powell, Cecil Frank, 2784 Powell, Dick, 2608 Powell, John Wesley, 165 Powell, Ozie, 2490 Powell v. Alabama (1932), 2490 Power Monopoly, The (Pinchot), 395 Power plants, geothermal, 10251028 Practice of Management, The (Drucker), 3068
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Praeger, Otto, 1648, 2017 Prager, Robert, 1355 Pragmatism (James, W.), 591-594 Prairie Club of Chicago, 2183 Pratella, Francesco Balilla, 747 Pratt, John Lee, 1660 Pratt, Wallace E., 1794 Pravda (newspaper), 695-696 Prefabricated buildings, 29792982 Preface to Politics, A (Lippmann), 1161 Prefrontal lobotomy, 2882-2885 Prehistory. See Category Index Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1056 Preobrajenska, Olga, 766 Preobrazhensky, Yevgeny, 2263 “Present Dilemma in Philosophy, The” (James, W.), 592 Presidency, U.S.; Calvin Coolidge, 1949-1953; Warren G. Harding, 1698-1700, 18571861; Franklin D. Roosevelt, 2596-2599; Theodore Roosevelt, 59-62, 152-155; Woodrow Wilson, 1011-1014 Presidential elections, U.S.; 1912, 1011-1014; 1928, 2219-2222; 1932, 2596-2599; map, 1012, 2221, 2597 Prestrud, Kristian, 919 Preuss, Hugo, 1525 Prezent, Isai, 1488 Pribiloff Reservation, 227 Price, Victoria, 2490 Price discrimination legislation, 2937-2940 Prieto, Indalecio, 2496 Primary elections, 158, 237-238; campaign financing, 2025 Prime ministers; Canada, 859-861, 1636-1638, 1709-1711, 24402442, 2879-2881; New Zealand, 986-988 Primitive Culture (Tylor), 849 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 2945 Prince Louis of Battenberg. See Mountbatten, Louis Princess Theater shows, 2210
Principia Mathematica (Whitehead and Russell), 163, 313, 814-817 Principle of absolute identity, 2029 Principle of complementarity, 2173 Principle of indifference, 1463 Principles of Mathematics, The (Russell), 164, 312, 815 Principles of Psychology, The (James, W.), 593 Printmaking, 422 Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act (1913), 262 Probability, frequency theory, 1463-1466 Probability, Statistics, and Truth (Mises), 1464 Problems in Marketing (Copeland), 675 Procaine, 376-378 Proclamation of the Republic (Ireland), 1264 Procter, William Cooper, 1633 Procter & Gamble, 1633-1635 Professor’s House, The (Cather), 1404 Progressive movement, 157-159, 230, 406, 535, 677, 751, 797, 968, 1145, 1162, 1269, 1300, 1438, 1645 Prohibition, 1604-1607, 2483; organized crime, 2301 Prohibition Party, 1605 Prokofiev, Sergei, 2558 Proletarian Musician (magazine), 2559 Prométhée. See Prometheus (Scriabin) Prométhée mal enchainé, Le. See Prometheus Misbound (Gide) Prometheus (Scriabin), 865-867 Prometheus Misbound (Gide), 1972 Prontosil rubrum, 2530 Propaganda; Bolsheviks, 1327, 1968, 2691; Mein Kampf (Hitler), 2060; Nazi Germany, 2626, 2949, 3011, 3040, 3238; Red Scare, 1529; World War I, 1353, 1368 CIV
Propellants; aerosol sprays, 2420, 2455; rockets, 203-206, 20992102 Propositional functions, 816 Prostitution, 336-340 “Protect the Emperor” Society, 910 Protectorate Treaty (1905), 839 Protein chemistry, 20 Proteins, 1890; animal, 22; plant, 22 Protest drama, 2823-2826 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The (Weber), 302305 Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, Die. See Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The (Weber) Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The, 1478 Protons, 2544, 2584; discovery, 1103-1106 Proust, Marcel, 1045 Prout, William, 811, 1455 Prouvé, Jean, 2979 Psychedelic drugs, 3072-3076 Psychiatry, 286-288, 2370-2372; electroconvulsive therapy, 3104-3106; prefrontal lobotomy, 2882-2885. See also Category Index under Psychology and psychiatry Psychoanalytic method, 286-288 Psychological Types (Jung), 2371 Psychologie und Wirtschaftleben. See Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (Münsterberg) Psychologische Typen. See Psychological Types (Jung) Psychology, 286-288; advertising, 195-199; analytical, 928-931, 2370-2372; business, 11181121; reinforcement, 112-116. See also Category Index Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (Münsterberg), 1118 Psychology of Management, The (Gilbreth), 1118-1121
Subject Index Psychology of religion, 94-96 Psychology of the Unconscious, The (Jung), 928-931, 2371 Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The (Freud), 286-288 Psychosurgery, 2882-2885 Psychosurgery (Freeman and Watts), 2883 Psychotropic drugs, 3106 Ptolemy, 1877 Public Enemy, The (film), 2366, 2378, 2467-2470 Public health concerns; garbage, 784-786; water quality, 635638, 809, 2373-2376 Public Health Service, U.S., 636, 998-1001, 2417 Public opinion polls, 2404 Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act (1921), 1745-1747 Public relations, 516-519 Public Utilities Commission v. Pollak (1952), 2715 Public Utilities Holding Company Act (1935), 1151 Publishing. See Category Index Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich, 2148 Puerto Rico, 51-53; relationship with U.S., 1347-1349 Puerto Rico v. Tapia (1918), 53 P’u-i. See Puyi Pujo, Arsène, 1149 Pujo Inquiry, 624 Pulcinella (ballet), 1866 Pulitzer, Joseph, 708, 1363 Pulitzer Prizes, 1363-1367 Pulsars, 2720 Puni, Ivan, 1235 Punnett, Reginald Crundall, 378, 474 Punnett squares, 378-381 Purcell, Edward Mills, 2162 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 61, 224, 510, 534-538, 2164, 2612, 3123; Sherley Amendment, 1082 Pure-line genetics studies, 726 Purge trials (Soviet Union), 27862790
Purple of Cassius, 110 Putnam, George P., 2566 Puyi, 29, 911, 2538, 2628 Pyramidal zoning, 1277 Pyrex, 1209-1211 Q3j3r Dynasty, 681, 2007 Qantas airlines, 1652-1653, 2238 Qass3m, Izz al-Dtn al-, 2935 Q3wuqjt, Fawzt al-, 2935 Qing Dynasty, 29-32; overthrow, 909-912 Quality management, 490-492 Quantum mechanics, 2029, 2242, 2390, 2784 Quantum theory, 938-941, 18061810 Quantum tunneling, 2242-2245 Quarterly Journal (Society of American Indians), 1005 Quatre cents siècles d’art pariétal. See Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art (Breuil) Quetelet, Adolphe, 488 Quezón, Manuel, 2745 Quirk, James R., 1820 Quisling, Vidkun, 3240 Quod Erat Demonstrandum. See Things as They Are (Stein) Qu. tb, Sayyid, 2228 Racial indeterminism, 850 Racism. See Discrimination Radar, 136, 2734-2736 Radek, Karl, 1217, 1491, 2558 Radiation. See Radioactivity Radiation Laboratory, 2479 Radical Party (France), 2740 Radical Party (Norway), 451 Radical Party (Spain), 2496 Radio; antitrust violation, 25932596; audience research, 1797; broadcasting development, 561-563, 1562-1566, 16411644, 2885-2888; networks, 2132-2135, 2168-2171; programming, 2352-2356, 2790-2794; shortwave, 14661469; technological development, 1227-1230; CV
telegraphic, 70-74. See also Category Index Radio Act (1927), 2754 Radio astronomy, 2162, 23942396, 3028-3031 Radio Corporation of America, 354, 1562, 1641, 1875, 21322135, 2170, 2331, 2751, 32823285; antitrust lawsuit, 25932596; FM radio, 2885; sound recording technology, 2124, 2236; television, 3186 Radio detectors, 353 Radio-Keith-Orpheum, 1899, 2236, 2376-2379, 2868 Radio programs; Amos ’n’ Andy, 2230-2233; The Grand Ole Opry, 2082-2085; Sam ’n’ Henry, 2231; The War of the Worlds, 3137-3140 Radio telescopes, 2394-2396, 3028-3031 Radio Times (newspaper), 2170 Radio trust, 2593-2596 Radio wave propagation, 135 Radioactive alpha decay, 22422245 Radioactive beta decay, 26872690 Radioactive decay, 3, 388, 1103, 3144 Radioactive elements, 2 Radioactivity, 1-4, 66-69, 275277, 388-391, 995-998, 18071810, 2242-2245, 2615-2617; artificial, 3144; Cherenkov effect, 2701-2704; measurement, 664-667 Radioelements, 1, 939 Radioisotopes, 2989 Radiometric dating, 1-4, 388-391 Radiotelephony, 561-563, 1178; transatlantic, 1227-1230 Radomyslsky, Ovsel Gershon Aronov. See Zinovyev, Grigory Yevseyevich Raeder, Erich, 3267 Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm, 2761 Railroad Labor Board, 2115
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Railroad Retirement Act (1934), 2841 Railway Belt and Peace River Block Act (1930), 2424 Railway Labor Act (1926), 660, 2115-2119 Rainey, Ma, 786, 1830 Rainwater, Cedric, 3163 Raisuli, Mulai Ahmed el, 1156 Raker, John E., 1096 Rakovsky, Khristian Georgiyevich, 1321 Ralston, James Layton, 3276 Rambert, Marie, 2908 Ramón y Cajal, Santiago, 327, 608 Ramsay, Bertram H., 3256 Ramsay, William, 308 Random walk problem, 488 Rangelands, U.S., 2764-2767 Ranke, Leopold von, 582 Rankin, Jeannette, 1299, 1745 Rapallo, Treaty of (1922), 17721774 Rape of Nanjing, 3039, 30593063, 3273 Rapsodie nègre (Poulenc), 1601 Raskob, John Jakob, 1659, 2219, 2499 Rasmussen v. United States (1905), 53 Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich, 904 Ratana movement, 2892 Rath, Ernst vom, 3141 Rathbone, Basil, 3176 Rathbone, Eleanor, 2246 Rathenau, Walther, 1772 Rational-emotive therapeutic approach, 1688 Rats, Lice, and History (Zinsser), 2387 Ratti, Ambrogio Damiano Achille. See Pius XI Raulston, John T., 2054 Rauschenberg, Robert, 1243 Rauschenbush, Elizabeth Brandeis, 2855 Rauschenbush, Paul, 2855 Ravidat, Marcel, 3285 Rayburn, Sam, 2750, 3116
Rayet, Georges, 2384 Raymond Loewy Associates, 2279 Rayographs, 1673-1676 Rayon, 315 Rayonism, 1016 Razor blades, 250-252 RCA. See Radio Corporation of America RCA Victor recording label, 2196 Read, Herbert, 3233 Read, William A., 436 Reader’s Digest (magazine), 1763-1767 Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club, 1766 Readymades (Duchamp), 10191021 Reber, Grote, 2394, 3028 Recall, 158 Reciprocal Trade Act (1936), 2960-2962 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (1934), 2337 Reciprocity agreement (CanadaU.S.), 780, 859, 2961 Reclamation Act (1902), 165-169 Reclamation Service, U.S., 1918, 2678 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1952, 2335, 2459, 2540-2543, 2684, 3090, 3199 Recreation. See Category Index under Travel and recreation Red Army, 1326, 1345; Baltic states, 1426 Red-blue chair (Rietveld), 1313, 1412-1415 Red Harvest (Hammett), 2323 Red Line Agreement (1928), 1624, 3097 Red Scare (1919-1920), 427, 1459, 1527-1531, 1536, 1607, 1923; Sacco and Vanzetti case, 2199-2202 Red stars, 370, 960, 1093, 1913 Red Terror, 1324-1328 Red Virgin Soil (journal), 2563 Redmond, John, 460, 1140 Redshifts, 1546-1548, 2276; Sirius B, 2471 CVI
Reece, Florence, 2358 Reed, David A., 1922 Reed, Walter, 43, 298, 340, 3025 Reeves, William Pember, 38 Referendum, 158 Reflexes, 327-330 Reforestation Relief Act (1933), 2648, 2652 Reform Party (New Zealand), 986 Refrigeration, 2418-2421, 24542456; frozen foods, 1306-1308 Refugee Convention (1933), 1793 Refugees; Chinese, 2511; Jews, 3125-3127; Russians, 1791 Regina Manifesto, 2581 Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers, 1334 Règle du jeu, La. See Rules of the Game, The (film) Rehearsal, The (Anouilh), 1723 Reichenbach, Henry, 2176 Reichsbank, 1814, 1942, 2504 Reichskristallnacht. See Kristallnacht Reichstag fire, 2632-2636 Reid, Fergus, 827 Reid, George Houston, 37 Reid, Harry Fielding, 522 Reid, Kenneth A., 1760 Reiling, Victor G., 2702 Reimann, Walter, 1575 Reinforcement, Pavlovian, 112116 Reinhard, L. Andrew, 3216 Reinhardt, Max, 456, 654, 1721 Reinries, Frederick, 2689 Reith, John Charles Walsham, 2168, 2956 Reitherman, Wolfgang, 3063 Relations, Treaty of. See Platt Amendment Relativity; general, 441, 12301232, 1250-1253, 1406, 1542, 1548, 2471, 3170; special, 409, 440-443, 1231, 1407, 1655, 2557, 2702 Relevant/irrelevant questioning technique, 1671 Relief and Construction Act (1932), 2336
Subject Index Relief Camp Workers’ Union, 2450 Religion. See Category Index Religious movements; Christian Science, 707; Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2512-2514; Muslim Brotherhood, 2228-2230; Nation of Islam, 2434-2437; Pentecostalism, 346-348, 520521; Wahh3btism, 948-950 Religious philosophy, 1802-1804 Relocation. See Category Index under Immigration, emigration, and relocation Remarque, Erich Maria, 2292 Remembrance of Things Past (Proust), 1045-1048 Remington, Frederic, 925 Remington Rand, 1907 Remsen, Ira, 2373 Rendez-vous de Senlis, Le. See Dinner with the Family (Anouilh) Renkin, Jules, 703, 879 Reno, Milo, 2337 Renoir, Auguste, 2187 Renoir, Jean, 2985 Répétition, La. See Rehearsal, The (Anouilh) Replogle, Hartley L., 1539 Representation of the People Act (1918), 1422-1425 Representation of the People Act (1928), 262, 2246-2249 Republic of China, establishment, 909-912 Republic of Portugal, establishment, 841-842 Republican Automatons (Grosz), 1984 Republican Insurgency, 751-753, 1060 Republican Party (U.S.), 751-753, 1447-1449 Republican resurgence, 1447-1449 Republikanische Automaten. See Republican Automatons (Grosz) Requiem (Hindemith), 2362 Rescued by Rover (film), 255
Resonance acceleration of ions, 2478 Respiration (Haldane), 575 Respirator, mechanical, 23142316 Responsibilities (Yeats), 1315 Responsible Government Association, 1863 Retailing; chain stores, 3044; grocery stores, 1288-1292, 1633; Sears, Roebuck, 19871990; shopping centers, 17511754; store design, 2279 Retour à la raison, Le. See Return to Reason (film) Return to Reason (film), 1675 Reuther, Walter, 3248 Revenue Act (1861), 1379 Revenue Act (1913), 1380 Revenue Act (1935), 2906 Revenue Act (1940), 3199 Reverdy, Pierre, 1017 Réverie romantique (ballet), 766 Revive China Society, 29, 910 Revolts; German Southwest Africa, 317-319; India, 17281730; Iraq, 1625-1627; Macedonia, 244-246; Palestine, 2935-2937; Panama, 268-271, 273, 341; Romania, 600-603 Revolution of 1905 (Russia), 452455 Revolution of 1910. See Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) Revolution of 1911 (China), 909912 Révolution Surréaliste, La (journal), 1944 Revolutionary Alliance, 911 Revolutionary theater, 2282-2285 Revue nègre, La, 2073-2076 Rex, Don, 2774 Rey, Sir Charles, 1568 Reynaud, Paul, 3250 Reynolds, George B., 681, 1794 Reynolds, James, 535 Reza Khan. See Reza Shah Pahlavi Reza Shah Pahlavi, 551, 681, 2007 CVII
Rhapsody in Blue (Gershwin), 1909-1912 Rhineland; German occupation, 2927-2929; map, 2927 Rhineland Security Pact (1925), 2069-2073 Rhoads, Charles J., 2757 Rhodes, Cecil, 140, 1862 Rhodes, Erik, 2869 Rhodes Scholarships, 140-142 Rhodesia; map, 1863. See also Geographical Index Rhondda, Margaret, 2246 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 2969, 3093, 3205, 3209 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. See Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) Rice, Elmer, 2862 Rich, Claudius James, 123 Richards, Ellen Swallow, 796 Richards, Laura E., 1366 Richardson, William, 998 Richarte, Toribio, 892 Richberg, Donald Randall, 2115 Richter, Charles Francis, 1033, 2809 Richter, Hans, 4, 713 Richter scale, 1033, 2809-2812 Rickenbacker, Eddie, 2941 Rickets, 1757-1760, 1887; and breast-feeding, 1758 Ricketts, Edward F., 3180 Ricketts, Howard T., 2386 Rickettsia, 2386 Riders of the Purple Sage (Grey, Z.), 925-928 Riders to the Sea (Synge), 597 Riecke, Eduard, 2494 Riefenstahl, Leni, 2948 Riesz, Frigyes, 481 Rietveld, Gerrit Thomas, 1312, 1412 Rifat, Melvanzrade, 1196 Rift Valley Railway, 74-76 Riga, Treaty of (1921), 1323, 1715-1718 Riley, Charles Valentine, 1303 Riley, William Bell, 1458 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 862
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Rinde, Herman, 1889 Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 1571 Rinehart and Dennis Company, 2415 Ring des Nibelungen, Der. See Ring of the Nibelungs, The (Wagner) Ring of the Nibelungs, The (Wagner), 5 Ringling, Albert C., 629 Ringling, Alfred T., 629 Ringling, August G., 629 Ringling, Charles, 629 Ringling, Henry, 629 Ringling, John, 629 Ringling, Otto, 629 Ringling Bros. Circus, 629-631 Rio Grande (film), 3154 Riots; Anacostia Flats, 2597; Stavisky, 2740-2742; Western Wall, 2321-2323, 2935 Rire, Le. See Laughter (Bergson) Risberg, Swede, 1538 Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Weill and Brecht), 2194 Rise of Mr. Ponzi, The (Ponzi), 1471 Riskin, Robert, 2726 Ritchey, George Willis, 1385 Rite of Spring, The (ballet), 979, 1079-1082 Ritter, Robert, 3253 Rivera, Diego, 2736 Rivers and Harbors Act (1899), 784 Rtza, Ahmed, 689 RKO. See Radio-Keith-Orpheum Roach, Hal, 989 Road Back, The (Remarque), 2293 Road to the Ocean (Leonov), 2564 Roaring Twenties, 1949-1953, 2033-2036, 2331 Robeck, Sir John de, 1180 Roberson, Willie, 2490 Roberts, Evan, 346 Roberts, Frederick Sleigh, 155 Roberts, Owen J., 2841, 2999 Robertson, A. Willis, 3050 Robertson, Gideon, 1509
Robinson, Edward G., 2366, 2467 Robinson, Henry M., 1941 Robinson, Joan, 2919 Robinson, Joseph Taylor, 2937, 2999 Robinson-Patman Act (1936), 84, 325, 1151, 2937-2940, 3046 Robozo, Bebe, 1902 Robscheit-Robbins, Frieda S., 1990 Rochow, Eugene G., 26 Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich, 2340 Rockefeller, John D. (1839-1937), 189, 882, 1074, 2259 Rockefeller, John D., Jr. (18741960), 174, 1074, 2843, 3215 Rockefeller, Nelson A., 2736, 3215 Rockefeller Center, 3215-3218; Rivera mural, 2736-2740 Rockefeller Foundation, 1074-1076 Rocketry, 203-206, 2099-2102 Rockne, Knute, 2941 Rocky Mountain World Heritage Site, 2426 Rocky Mountains Park Act (1887), 2424 Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, 2282 Rodeo (ballet), 3109 Rodgers, Jimmie, 2081, 2196 Rodgers, Richard, 2705 Rodgers, William F., 1049 Rodin, Auguste, 978 Roebuck, Alvah C., 1987 Roerich, Nikolay Konstantinovich, 762, 1079 Roethlisberger, Fritz Jules, 1896 Rogan, Ralph F., 1633 Roger Tory Peterson, 398 Rogers, Ginger, 2610, 2868 Roh, Franz, 1983 Röhm, Ernst, 1869, 2625, 2640, 2767 Röhm Purge, 2767-2769 Röhrig, Walter, 1575 Roland Garros Aeroclub, 2979 Roland Park Shopping Center, 1751 Roller, Alfred, 4 CVIII
Roman Catholic Church; Lateran Treaty, 2298-2301; opposition to birth control, 2438; papal encyclicals, 247-249, 983-985, 2439, 3009-3011, 3173; popes, 3173-3175; publications, 606608; saints, 1630-1632, 20442046, 2693-2694, 3133-3134; Second Spanish Republic, 2496 Roman Scandals (film), 2610 Romancero gitano. See Gypsy Ballads of García Lorca, The (García Lorca) Romania. See Geographical Index Romanian peasant revolt, 600603; map, 601 Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad, 66, 275, 471, 558, 664, 945, 1808 Room of One’s Own, A (Woolf ), 1995 Rooney, William, 460 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 2596, 3166 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1447, 2219, 2575, 2850, 2879, 2888, 2915, 2960, 3098, 3116, 3186, 3236, 3262; appointment of Perkins as U.S. labor secretary, 2637; Banking Act (1933), 2659; Commodity Credit Corporation, 2683; conservation, 1616; Emergency Banking Act, 2333; Evian Conference, 3125; Fair Labor Standards Act, 3119; Federal Communications Commission, 2754; Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 3122; Federal Housing Administration, 3090; fireside chats, 2352; Food and Drug Administration, 2165; Good Neighbor Policy, 236, 2644, 2971; Indian Reorganization Act, 2757; internment of Japanese Americans, 2443; lend-lease policy, 3276; Miller-Tydings Act, 3045; National Industrial Recovery Act, 2663; naval expansion, 3258; neutrality acts, 2865; New Deal, 1860,
Subject Index 2335, 2540, 2646, 2652, 2830, 2837, 2841, 2860; Phillipine Independence Act, 2745; presidential election 1932, 2596-2597; Securities Exchange Act, 2750; Social Security Act, 2853; Soil Erosion Service, 2730; SovietU.S. relations, 2690; Spanish Civil War, 2996; Stimson Doctrine, 2538; Supreme Court packing fight, 2999; Taylor Grazing Act, 2764; Tennessee Valley Authority, 2656; waterfowl management committee, 2742; World War II, 3198, 3246 Roosevelt, Theodore, 219, 516, 524, 594, 622, 751, 847, 980, 1145, 1149, 1285, 2024, 2915; Anthracite Coal Strike, 152; antitrust prosecution, 323, 402, 661; assumption of presidency, 59; autobiography, 153, 232; Bureau of Investigation, 692; college football, 507; conservation, 165, 226, 230, 392, 651, 677, 1614; consumer protection legislation, 534; diplomacy, 320, 555; Gentlemen’s Agreement, 603, 1337; Grand Canyon speech, 652; income tax, 1059; International Opium Commission, 956; naval expansion, 3258; Nobel Peace Prize, 838; opposition from Niagara Movement, 428; Panama Canal, 268, 271, 341, 1130; Philippine Insurrection, 105; presidential election 1912, 1011; rangeland leasing, 2764; Second Hague Peace Conference, 625; U.S. Steel, 1618 Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., 1493 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 61 Root, Elihu, 105, 152, 234, 555, 603, 847, 1741
Root, Elisha King, 1063 Roper, Daniel C., 2754 Roper, Elmo, 2404 Rorem, Clarence Rufus, 2269 Rose, Wickliffe, 1074 Rose, William Cumming, 20 Rose Bowl Game, 124-127 Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, 74 Rosenberg, Alfred, 1476 Rosenberg, Leo H., 1641 Rosendahl, Charles E., 3017 Rosenfeld, Lev Borisovich. See Kamenev, Lev Borisovich Rosenwald, Julius, 1987 Rosher, Charles, 2307 Rosing, Boris L., 1875 Ross, Harold W., 2020 Ross, Nellie Tayloe, 1301, 2014 Ross, Ronald, 298, 342 Ross, William Bradford, 2014 Rossby, Carl-Gustaf Arvid, 1474 Rossen, Robert, 2378 Rossi-Forel scale, 2809 Rostron, Arthur Henry, 972 Rotary Club, 406-407 Rotative Glass (Duchamp), 1020 Rothschild, Lionel Walter, 1389, 2503 Rothstein, Arnold, 1538 Rotoreliefs (Duchamp), 1020 Rouaix, Pastor, 1332 Rouault, Georges, 447 Roue, La (film), 2001 Rougier, Henri, 530 Round dance (bees), 1495-1497 Round Table Conference, 2410, 2481 Rous, Peyton, 803 Rous sarcoma, 803-807 Rouvier, Maurice, 411 Roux, Pierre-Paul-Émile, 823, 1043 Rowell, Chester H., 230 Rowell-Sirois Commission, 2451 Rowland, F. Sherwood, 2454 Rowland, Henry Augustus, 686 Rowlatt Acts (1919), 1186, 1498 Rowlatt Commission, 1186 Rowntree, Leonard, 942 CIX
Roy, Pierre, 1946 Roy, Ram Mohun, 2004 Royal Automobile Club, 671 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1681 Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations, 2451 Royal Dutch/Shell Corporation, 1794, 2260 Royal Flying Doctor Service, 1653, 2238-2239 Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, 611-613 Royal Securities Corporation, 778 Rozhdestvensky, Zinovy Petrovich, 320 RR Lyrae stars, 961 Rubbia, Carlo, 2689 Rubbish disposal, 784-786 Rubinstein, Ida, 763 Rublee, George, 1145, 3125 Ruckelshaus, William D., 2380 Rüdenberg, Reinhold, 2493 Rudy Vallee Show, The (radio program), 2353 Ruedin, Ernst, 3254 Ruge, Otto, 3240 Ruhlmann, Émile-Jacques, 2037 Ruhr Valley; French occupation, 1815, 1826-1829, 1941, 2071; map, 1827 Rule of reason principle, 325, 882-887, 1146, 1150, 1619, 1894 Rules of the Game, The (film), 2985-2988 Runciman, Walter, 3129 Rundstedt, Gerd von, 3250, 3256 Runge, Otto, 1479 Runyon, Damon, 2827 Ruppert, Jake, 1597 Ruppin, Arthur, 723 Rural Electrification (Roy), 1946 Rural Electrification Administration, 2541 Ruska, Ernst, 2493 Ruskin, John, 192, 800 Russell, Arthur. See Ampthill, second Baron
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Russell, Bertrand, 162, 306, 311, 814, 2317, 3149 Russell, Charles Edward, 404 Russell, Charles Taze, 2512 Russell, Henry Norris, 369, 576, 959, 1092, 1912, 2277 Russell’s paradox, 162-165, 311 Russia; Bloody Sunday, 399-402; map, 211; October Manifesto, 452-455; October Revolution, 1393-1396; Russo-Japanese War, 320-323. See also Geographical Index Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians, 2559 Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, 2563 Russian Civil War (1918-1921), 1241, 1319, 1326, 1396, 14161418, 1486, 1712, 2690; map, 1417 Russian Orthodox Church, 211, 1318-1321, 1327, 3195-3198 Russian Revolution (1917), 455, 1318, 1321, 1324, 1343-1347; refugees, 1791 Russification of Finland, 538, 1400 Russo-Finnish War (1939-1940), 3207, 3219-3222, 3240; map, 3220 Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), 129, 212, 320-323, 400, 452, 553, 571, 838, 1240; map, 321 Russolo, Luigi, 747 Russo-Polish War. See PolishSoviet War (1919-1921) Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), 1195 Ruth, Babe, 1538, 1597, 2667 Rutherford, Ernest, 1, 560, 664, 811, 1807, 2242, 2477, 2544, 2555, 2687, 3083, 3144; discovery of the proton, 1103; nuclear model of the atom, 938, 962; radioactive decay, 275, 388; sonar research, 1225 Rutherford, Joseph Franklin, 2512 Rutherford model of the atom, 560, 1104
Ryan, Thomas Fortune, 436 Rydberg, Johannes Robert, 2027 Rydz-Smiguy, Edward, 2111 Ryerson, Florence, 3201 SA. See Sturm Abteilung Saarinen, Eero, 1965 Saarinen, Eliel, 1965 Saarinen, Loja, 1967 Saavedra Lamas, Carlos, 2971 Sabath, Adolph J., 1725 Sacco, Nicola, 2199 Sacco and Vanzetti case, 21992202 Sachs, Paul, 2340 Sachs, Sadie, 1172 Sackheim, Maxwell, 2092 Sacre du printemps, Le. See Rite of Spring, The (ballet) Sáenz, José de la Luz, 2304 Safeway Stores, 1165 Sagebrush Rebellion, 1617 Sagnac, Georges, 472 St. Cyr, Johnny, 2079 St. Denis, Ruth, 1211 St. Elijah’s Day Uprising (1903), 244-246 St. Germain, Treaty of (1919), 1523 Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention, 1531-1534, 2137 St. Laurent, Louis, 1709, 2879 St. Lawrence Seaway Treaty (1932), 2572-2574 St. Louis Blues (film), 1831, 2273 “St. Louis Blues” (Handy), 787 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, 2301-2304 Saints, canonization, 1630-1632, 2044-2046, 2693-2694 Saionji Kimmochi, 555 Sakamoto, James Y., 2442 Salam, Abdus, 2689 Salimullah, Khwaja, 564 Salisbury, third marquis of (Robert Cecil), 74, 127 Salmon, André, 1015 Salome (Strauss), 465-467 Salomé (Wilde), 465 Salomon, Albert, 1040 CX
Salomon, Franz Pfeffer von, 2767 Salon d’Automne, 443, 447, 683686 Salon des Indépendants, 683 Salt March (1930), 2410-2414, 2480; map, 2411 Salvarsan, 823-826, 2256, 2529 Salvation Nell (Sheldon), 363 Salyer, John Clark, II, 226 Sam ’n’ Henry (radio program), 2231 Sampson, Ralph Allen, 2119 Samuel, Herbert, 2105 Samuel Report, 2106 Samuelson, Paul, 2919 San Francisco Board of Education, 555-557 San Francisco earthquake, 556 San Francisco New American Citizens League, 2443 San Joaquin Light and Power Company, 1810 San Remo Agreement (1920), 1621-1625 San Remo Oil Agreement (1920), 1623 San Stefano, Treaty of (1878), 1195 Sanacja regime (Poland), 2111 Sanctuary (Faulkner), 2328 Sand County Almanac, A (Leopold), 1135 Sanders, Otto Liman von, 1180 Sandino, Augusto César, 991 Sandrich, Mark, 2868 Sanford, Katherine, 610 Sanger, Margaret, 1171, 1295, 1737, 2438 Sanger, William, 1171 Sanitary Information Committee, 186 Sanitation; organizations, 185187; water supply, 635-638, 809, 2373-2376 Sanjurjo, José, 2496, 2945 SANNC. See South African Native National Congress Santiago, Treaty of (1929), 23092311 Santos, Lúcia, 1360
Subject Index Sapir, Edward, 851 Sarda Act (1929), 2005 Sarnoff, David, 1562, 1641, 2132, 2170, 2236, 2593, 2885, 3186, 3215, 3282 Sarraut, Albert, 2927 Sarto, Giuseppe Melchiorre. See Pius X Sartoris (Faulkner), 2327 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1037, 1723, 1974 Saskatchewan National Resources Act (1930), 2424 Satie, Erik, 1601 Satf, Nobuhiro, 3272 Satyagraha, 1584 Satyapal, Dr., 1497 Saudi Arabia; Wahh3btism, 948950. See also Geographical Index Saudi Arabian Oil Company, 3096-3098 Saudi Aramco, 3096-3098 Saulnier, Raymond, 1202 Saunders, Arthur Percy, 281 Saunders, Sir Charles Edward, 281 Saunders, Clarence, 1288 Saunders, E. R., 476 Saunders, William, 281 Savage, Michael Joseph, 986, 2891 Save the Dunes Council, 2184 Savi6, Pavle Petar, 3143 Savoy Ballroom (Harlem), 1556 Savoye, Mme Pierre, 2486 Sawers, William, 160 Sawyer, Wilbur Augustus, 3025 Say It with Songs (film), 2127 Saya San, 3012 Sayers, Dorothy L., 1571, 2068 Sazonov, Sergey Dmitriyevich, 1008, 1121 Scandal. See Category Index under Crime and scandal Scandinavia; map, 451. See also Norway; Sweden Scarface (film), 2366, 2467-2470 Scarlet Empress, The (film), 2398 Scarritt, Winthrop E., 137 Schad, Christian, 1675
Schaffert, Roland Michael, 3134 Schatten. See Warning Shadows (film) Schaub, Lincoln Frederick, 675 Schaudinn, Fritz, 824 Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States (1935), 2664, 2842, 2999 Scheer, Reinhard, 1266 Scheidemann, Philipp, 1409, 1491, 1525 Scheil, Vincent, 121 Schenck, Joseph M., 2142 Schenck v. United States (1919), 1370, 1608 Scherman, Harry, 2092 Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, 1195 Scheyer, Emmy, 1915 Schiaparelli, Elsa, 2813 Schiaparelli, Giovanni Virginio, 432, 2407 Schick, Béla, 1043 Schick test, 1043-1044 Schiele, Egon, 194 Schiele, Silvester, 406 Schiff, Jacob, 437 Schizophrenia, treatment, 2884, 3104-3106 Schleicher, Kurt von, 2625 Schleiden, Matthias Jakob, 803 Schlick, Moritz, 1688, 1754 Schlick, Otto, 468 Schlick Circle, 1754-1756 Schlieffen, Alfred von, 1137 Schlieffen Plan, 411, 1137, 1279 Schlink, Frederick John, 2612, 2902 Schlosser, Max, 1847 Schmidt, Bernhard Voldemar, 2347 Schmidt, Erhard, 312 Schmidt, Guido, 3093 Schmidt, Walter A., 478 Schmidt camera, 2348 Schmidt-Hellerau, Karl, 619 Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 421, 3041 Schmidt telescope, 2348 Schmitz, Eugene E., 522, 555 Schneider, Franz, 1202 CXI
Schneiderman, Rose, 868 Schoenberg, Arnold, 587, 644, 914, 1070, 1701, 1881, 2086, 3032 Schoenmaekers, M. H. J., 1312 Schoesdack, Ernest B., 2364 Scholl, Roland, 8 Scholz, Elfriede, 2294 Scholz, Georg, 1983 Schönbein, Christian Friedrich, 385 School and Society, The (Dewey), 1246 School of American Ballet, 2794 School strike of 1911 (Great Britain), 900-903 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1045, 1880 Schorr, Richard, 2347 Schreier, Otto, 733 Schrimpf, Georg, 1983 Schröder, Ernst, 2317 Schrödinger, Erwin, 1103, 1804, 2242, 2390, 2784 Schrödinger’s wave equation, 1805 Schubert, Siegfried, 2732 Schuch, Ernst von, 465 Schüfftan, Eugen, 2152 Schuler, Max, 469 Schultz, Arnold, 3164 Schulze-Delitzsch, Hermann, 2761 Schuschnigg, Kurt von, 3093 Schuster, Max Lincoln, 2102 Schutzstaffel. See SS (Schutzstaffel) Schwab, Charles M., 47, 1618 Schwann, Theodor, 608, 803 Schwartz, Laurent, 3150 Schwarzschild, Karl, 576, 1250, 2119, 2347, 2384, 3170 Schwarzschild radius, 1251 Schwarzschild singularity, 1252 Schwarzschild solution, 1250-1253 Schwimmer, Rosika, 1199 Schwitters, Kurt, 1243 Science. See Category Index Science and Sanity (Korzybski), 1688 Science fiction; literature, 30793082; motion pictures, 169
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Scientific management, 1118, 1274, 1898, 2270 Scopes, John T., 2054 Scopes trial (1925), 2054-2058 Scotland. See Geographical Index Scott, Adrian, 2378 Scott, Allan, 2869 Scott, David, 1216 Scott, Francis Reginald, 2581 Scott, Hugh L., 1259 Scott, Robert Falcon, 916, 919 Scott, Walter Dill, 195 Scott, William R., 272 Scott of the Antarctic (film), 215 Scottsboro Defense Committee, 2492 Scottsboro trials, 2490-2492 Scouting for Boys (Baden-Powell), 613 Screwball comedy, 2052, 2365, 2725-2729 Screwtape Letters, The (Lewis, C. S.), 2682 Scriabin, Aleksandr, 865, 1866 Scripps, William E., 1642 Scruggs, Earl, 3163 Scrugham, James G., 1838 Sculpture, 1019-1021; Henry Moore, 3233; primitive, 494497 Scurvy, 1888, 2222 Sea Symphony, A (Vaughan Williams), 213 Sears, Richard W., 1987 Sears, Roebuck and Company, 1987-1990; price discrimination, 2938 Seattle Progressive Citizens League, 2443 SEC. See Securities and Exchange Commission Secchi, Angelo, 576 Secessionists (artists’ group), 192, 372 Sechenov, I. M., 112 Second Aliyah, 723 Second Balkan War (1913). See Balkan Wars (1912-1913) Second Boer War (1899-1902), 155-157, 830, 954
Second Chopiniana (ballet), 766 Second Futurism, 750 Second Hague Peace Conference, 625-628, 839, 1501 Second International, 1217, 1490 Second Moroccan crisis, 890-892 Second Neutrality Act (1936), 2865 Second New Deal, 3119 Second Republic (Poland), 2109 Second Round Table Conference, 2413, 2480, 2586 Second Sino-Japanese War (19371945), 2097, 2539, 3037-3040, 3114 Second Spanish Republic, 24962498 Second Symphony (Elgar), 715 Second Symphony (Sibelius), 876 Second Viennese School, 914, 1071 Secondary boycotts, 661-664 Secret Adversary, The (Christie), 1573 Secret ballot, 157 Secretin, 142 Sector theory of cities, 1964 Securities Act (1933), 1473, 2333, 2459, 2522, 2647, 2752 Securities and Exchange Commission, 1473, 2333, 2522, 2750, 2754 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 1473, 2333, 2459, 2522, 2750, 2754 Seddon, Richard John, 38 Sedgwick, William Thompson, 807, 2373 Sedition Act (1918), 1354, 13671370 Seeckt, Hans von, 1772 Seeger, Pete, 2356 Segrè, Emilio Gino, 2701, 2989 Segregation; Japanese in California, 555-557 Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore. See Six Characters in Search of an Author (Pirandello) Sein und Zeit. See Being and Time (Heidegger) CXII
Seismic waves, 498, 2810, 2893 Seismographs, 1031, 2809 Seismology, 498, 1031, 28092812, 2893; elastic rebound theory, 524 Selby Smelting and Lead Company, 479 Self-help books, 2953-2956 Self-service grocery stores, 12881292 Sells, Elijah Watts, 1292 Selznick, David O., 3223 Selznick International Pictures, 3223 Seme, Pixley ka Isaka, 954 Semple, Bob, 986 Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, Andrey, 1486 Senate Civil Liberties Committee, 3112 Senegal. See Geographical Index Senghor, Léopold, 2532 Sennett, Mack, 988 Sequoia National Park, 2993 Serbia; map, 1451. See also Geographical Index Serenade (ballet), 2794-2797 Serengeti Game Reserve, 23432346; map, 2344 Serengeti National Park, 23432346 Sergius, 3195 Serialism, 1701-1704, 2086, 3032 Sert, Misia, 1549 Service organizations, 406-407 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944), 1494 Set theory, 99-102, 162-165, 816, 3150; axiomization, 311-314 Seti I, 1785 Settlement houses, 797 Seurat, Georges, 2187 Seventeenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 159, 2025 Seventh Symphony (Sibelius), 878 Severini, Gino, 747 Sèvres, Treaty of (1920), 1511, 2122 Sewage systems, 808, 2373-2376 Sewing machines, 382-384
Subject Index Sex-limited heredity, 649 Seyewetz, Alphonse, 579 Seymour, Jenny Evans Moore, 520 Seymour, William Joseph, 520 Seysenegg, Erich Tschermak von, 77, 378 Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, 3093 Shackleford, J. B., 1799 Shackleton, Sir Ernest Henry, 916, 919 Shahan, Thomas Joseph, 606 Shakhty trials, 2240-2242 Shall We Dance (film), 2869 Shame of the Cities, The (Steffens), 798 Shamst, Alt al-, 3020 Shang Chen, 3114 Shanghai Express (film), 2398 Shapley, Harlow, 291, 935, 959, 1034, 1419, 1655, 1877, 1953, 2161, 2276 Sharp, Cecil, 492 Sharp, Walter B., 642 Shattock, Samuel, 11 Shaw, Anna Howard, 1644 Shaw, Arch W., 674 Shaw, Frank, 2351 Shaw, George Bernard, 199, 1721 Shaw, Howard Van Doren, 1751 Shaw, Louis, 2314 Shaw, Sir Walter, 2321 Shaw, Wini, 2610 Shaw Commission, 2322, 2935 Shawn, Ted, 1211 She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (film), 3154 Sheldon, Charles, 1339 Sheldon, Edward, 362 Shell Oil Company, 41 Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 2461 Shelter Drawings (Moore), 32333235 Sheppard, Morris, 1648, 1745 Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 970, 1612, 1646, 1745-1747 Sherley, Joseph Swagar, 1082 Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (film), 3177, 3179
Sherman, John, 886 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 60, 84, 177, 323, 402, 661, 773, 883, 886, 1145, 1149, 1153, 1618, 1893, 2175, 2552, 3044 Sherrington, Charles Scott, 327 Sherwood, Marcia, 1499 Sherwood, Robert E., 362 Shidehara Kijnrf, 1741, 2797 Shimonoseki, Treaty of (1895), 128 Shipping industry, oil pollution, 1935-1937 Ships; dreadnoughts, 552-554; Lusitania, 544, 1144, 12061208; submarines, 541-545, 1143-1145, 1223-1226; Titanic, 972-975, 1468 Shtr3zt, Muwammad Taqt al-, 1625 Shock treatment. See Electroconvulsive therapy Shockley, William, 354, 2013 Shoemaker, Carl, 3050 Sholokhov, Mikhail, 2563 Shope, Richard Edwin, 1428 Shopping centers, 1751-1754, 1988 Shorey, Hiram, 406 Shortwave radio, 1466-1469 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 2282, 2558, 2911 Shotwell, J. T., 2253 Show Boat (Kern and Hammerstein), 2210-2212 Show trials, Soviet Union, 22402242, 2601, 2788, 3299 Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon (architectural firm), 2499 “Shroud of Color, The” (Cullen), 1555 Shu Maung. See Ne Win Sibelius, Jean, 876 Siberia; map, 1240 Side-chain theory, 700 Sidgwick, Nevil, 2392 Sidqi, Bakr, 2672 :idqi, Ism34tl, 2228 Siedentopf, H. F. W., 110 Siegbahn, Kai M., 68 CXIII
Siegbahn, Karl Manne Georg, 68 Sierpinski, Waclaw, 101 Sierra Club, 233, 1098, 1283, 1514, 1761, 2780, 2993, 3076 Sierra Forest Reserve, 233 Sierra Leone. See Geographical Index Sierra Nevada (Adams, A.), 2994 Sikh soldiers; World War I, 1498 Sikorski, Wuadysuaw, 1715 Silcox, Ferdinand A., 2674, 2730 Silent Spring (Carson), 2382 Silicones, 26-29 Silicosis, 2414-2417 Silkworth, William D., 2843 Silly Symphonies, 3296 Silmarillion, The (Tolkien), 3047 Simenon, Georges, 1571 Simmel, Georg, 1962 Simmele Massacre, 2672-2674 Simmons, Marhall Lee, 2748 Simmons, William Joseph, 1705, 1850 Simon, Richard L., 2102 Simon & Schuster, 2103 Simon Commission, 2410 Simon of the Desert (film), 2215 Simond, Paul-Louis, 584 Simpson, James, 635 Simpson, Wallis Warfield. See Windsor, duchess of Sims, James Marion, 23 Sinclair, Harry F., 1616, 1698, 1857 Sinclair, Upton, 402, 509, 534, 798 Sinfonia Antarctica (Vaughan Williams), 215 Singer, Isaac, 382 Singer, Saul, 2457 Singer Manufacturing Company, 382-384 Singing Fool, The (film), 2127, 2204 Sinn Féin, 1141, 1580, 2547; founding, 459-461 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 2736 Sirius B (star), 2120, 2471 Sitter, Willem de, 1541, 1877 Six, Les, 1601-1603
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Six Bagatelles for String Quartet (Webern), 1072 Six Characters in Search of an Author (Pirandello), 1721-1725 Six Elegies (Busoni), 588 Six Pieces for Large Orchestra (Webern), 1070-1073 Sixteenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 774, 1059-1062, 1379 Sixth International NeoMalthusian and Birth Control Conference, 1739 Sixth Symphony (Sibelius), 878 Sixth Symphony (Vaughan Williams), 214 Sjöblom, Anna Sofia, 974 Skellett, Albert Melvin, 2394 Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music (Busoni), 587-590 Skolem, Thoralf Albert, 311, 2317 Skoropadsky, Pavlo, 1321 Skryabin, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skutnabb, Julius, 1903 Skyscrapers; Empire State Building, 2499-2502; Rockefeller Center, 3215-3218 Slapstick comedy, 988-991, 2052, 2727 Slater, John C., 2389 Slavery; papal condemnation, 983985; Saint-Germain-en-Laye Convention, 1531-1534; suppression, 2135-2138; U.S., 2832 Slipher, Earl Carl, 432 Slipher, Vesto Melvin, 288, 432, 935, 1546, 1953, 2276, 2407 Sloan, Alfred P., 1659, 1840, 2158 Sloan, David, 2477 Sloan, John French, 2514 Slocum, Tokie, 2442 Slot machines, 2368 Slovenia; map, 1451. See also Geographical Index Slug rejector, 2368-2370 Small Business Act (1953), 2541
Small Business Administration, 2541 Small Magellanic Cloud, 577, 1035 Smetona, Antanas, 1425 Smith, Alfred E., 868, 2219, 2499, 2637 Smith, Bessie, 786, 1830, 2079, 2273 Smith, C. R., 2941 Smith, David, 2820 Smith, Edward John, 972 Smith, Frederick Edwin, 1140 Smith, George, 121 Smith, Gladys Louise. See Pickford, Mary Smith, Harrison, 2327 Smith, Herbert, 2105 Smith, Hugh, 3025 Smith, Jesse, 1699 Smith, June Edith, 2770 Smith, Macdonald, 2452 Smith, Mamie, 788, 1830 Smith, Raymond I., 2483 Smith, Robert Holbrook, 2843 Smith, William Alexander, 613 Smith, Wilson, 1428 Smoke Prevention Association, 531-534 Smoot, Reed, 1282, 1614, 2430 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. See Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act Smuts, Jan Christian, 155, 830, 1501, 1862 Snaith, William T., 2279 Snake Pit, The (Undset), 2268 Snellman, Johan Vilhelm, 538, 1399 Snow, John, 635 Snow, Neil, 124 Snow solar telescope, 207 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (film), 3063-3066, 3201, 3295 Snyder, Hartland S., 1252, 3170 Snyder, Homer P., 1929 Snyder, Howard, 792 Soap operas, 2353 Sobelsohn, Karl. See Radek, Karl Social constructionist therapeutic approach, 1688 CXIV
Social Darwinism, 105, 509, 1923, 2055 Social Democratic Federation (Great Britain), 513 Social Democratic Party (Germany), 1409, 1479 Social Democratic Party (Russia), 400, 695, 1344. See also Bolshevik Party (Russia) Social evolutionary theory, 849 Social Gospel movement, 2581 Social insurance, 2853-2857 Social protest, 259-264 Social reform. See Category Index under Social issues and reform Social Reform and Revolution (Luxemburg), 1479 Social Revolutionary Party (Russia), 455 Social Security Act (1935), 971, 1746, 2337, 2853-2857, 3000 Socialist Party (Italy), 1782, 1997 Socialist Party (Spain), 2496 Socialist Realism, 1237, 2282, 2709-2712, 2738, 2914; literature, 2562-2565; music, 2558-2562 Socialist Revolutionary Party (Russia), 400, 1325 Société Anversoise du Commerce du Congo, 704 Society for the Preservation of National Parks, 1283 Society for the Reform of School Discipline, 901 Society of American Indians, 1005-1007 Society of Creative Musicians, 645 Society of Industrial Designers, 2977 Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment, 902 Society of the Muslim Brothers, 2228-2230 Sociological jurisprudence, 667670 Soddy, Frederick, 275, 1103, 2688 Sodium Salvarsan, 825
Subject Index Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Dalí), 1945 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (1935), 28372840 Soil Conservation Service, 2731, 2837-2840 Soil Erosion Service, 2838 Solanke, Lapido, 2062 Solar astronomy, 206-210, 686689, 2383-2385 Solar corona, 2383-2385 Solar hemicycle, 2590 Solar telescopes, 687 Solari, Emilio, 1853 Soldiers’ Pay (Faulkner), 2327 Soldier’s Tale, The (Stravinsky), 1865 Solomon, Erich, 2404 Solomons, Theodore S., 3076 Somalia. See Geographical Index Somaliland, rebellion, 1566-1568 Somervell, D. C., 2716 Sommerfeld, Arnold, 2027, 2390 Sommerville, Sandy, 2452 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 991 Somoza Debayle, Luis, 991 Somoza García, Anastasio, 991, 993 Son Avenger, The (Undset), 2268 Sonar, 1223-1226 Sonderbund Exhibition, 423 Sonette an Orpheus, Die. See Sonnets to Orpheus (Rilke) Song of Bernadette, The (Werfel), 2694 Song of the Lark, The (Cather), 1403 Sonnenfirsternis. See Eclipse of the Sun (Grosz) Sonnets to Orpheus (Rilke), 862 Sonora Clique, 845 Sons of America, 2304 Sopocko, Michael, 3133 Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The (Dukas), 3295 Sorensen, Charles E., 1063 Soschka, Cyrill, 2292 Soubirous, Marie-Bernarde. See Bernadette of Lourdes
Soucek, Apollo, 2506 Sound and the Fury, The (Faulkner), 266, 2327-2330 Sound recording technology, 9699, 2013; motion pictures, 1022-1024, 2013, 2124-2128, 2202-2206, 2234-2237, 2364 South Africa; map, 831. See also Geographical Index South Africa Act (1909), 1862, 2517 South African Native National Congress, 954-956 South America; map, 2924, dxiii. See also country names; Geographical Index under Latin America South Asia. See Geographical Index South Manchurian Railroad, 2538 South Pole; exploration, 919-921; map, 917. See also Geographical Index Southeast Asia. See Geographical Index Southern Aluminum Company, 1893 Southern Rhodesia; map, 1863; self-government, 1862-1865 Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940), 3219-3222 Soviet Union; art, 2709-2712; literature, 2562-2565; map, 1240, 1322, 1417, 2671; motion pictures, 1968-1971, 2148-2151; music, 2558-2562; New Economic Policy, 17111715; Russo-Finnish War, 3219-3222; Terror Famine, 2599-2601; U.S.-Soviet relations, 2690-2692. See also Geographical Index Soviet Writers’ Union, 2563, 2709 Spaak, Charles, 2985 Space science, 203-206, 20992102, 2506-2509. See also Category Index under Space and aviation Space-time, 409, 440-443, 1231, 1250, 1542 CXV
Spain; map, 2946; Second Spanish Republic, 2496-2498; World War I, 1156-1158. See also Geographical Index Spalding, Albert Goodwill, 34, 3193 Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 23 Spangler, James Murray, 56 Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), 2498, 2945-2948, 2996-2998; Claretian martyrs, 2951-2953; Guernica, 3014-3016, 30343037; map, 2946 Spanish Testament (Koestler), 3298 Spargo, John, 968 Spartacists (Germany), 1410, 1480 Spear, Walter E., 3002 Special Conference Committee, 1840 Special effects, motion pictures, 169-173, 1821, 2152-2155, 2273-2275, 2364, 3202 Special Judicial Presence, 2240 Special relativity, 409, 440-443, 1231, 1407, 1655, 2557, 2702 Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State, 1998 Specificity of Serological Reactions, The (Landsteiner), 12 Spectral photography, 369, 576 Spectrography, 208, 1912 Spectroheliograph, 686, 2384 Spectroscopy, 288, 369, 936, 1053, 1546-1548 Speed of light, 440 Spencer, Herbert, 106, 413, 567, 2066 Spender, Stephen, 863, 2445 Spengler, Oswald, 1434, 2716 Sperrle, Hugo, 3267 Sperry, Elmer Ambrose, 468 Spezifität der serologischen Reaktionen, Die. See Specificity of Serological Reactions, The (Landsteiner) Spinal cord, 327 Spindletop; map, 41; oil discovery, 40-43
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Spinning Room (Kodály), 297 Spinthariscope, 666 Spiral nebulas, 935-938, 1036, 1387, 1420, 1546, 1953 Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, The (Gilson), 2527-2529 Spirit of St. Louis, The (airplane), 2190 Spirit of the Border, The (Grey), 926 Spiritual triangle, 932 Spitsbergen Commission, 20642066 Spitzmüller, Alexander, 2503 Spivey, Victoria, 2274 Spöksonaten. See Ghost Sonata, The (Strindberg) Spooner, John Coit, 59, 271 Spooner Act (1902), 273, 1131 Sports; automobile racing, 529531, 776-777; baseball, 256259, 1597-1600, 2667-2669, 3193-3195; bicycle racing, 242-244; bowling, 34-36; boxing, 719-721; football, 124127, 507-508, 1638-1640; golf, 2452-2454; Olympic Games, 975-977, 1903-1905, 29482950; swimming, 2129-2131; tennis, 1775-1776, 3127-3128. See also Category Index Sports Illustrated (magazine), 1836 Sprague, Oliver Mitchell, 675 Spreading the News (Gregory), 359 Springer, William McKendree, 217 Spruce Goose (airplane), 1900 Squaw Man, The (film), 1823 Squier, George O., 2713 SS (Schutzstaffel), 2627, 2640, 2767-2769, 3255 Stage decompression, 573-575 Stagecoach (film), 2378, 31523155 Ståhlberg, Kaarlo Juho, 1399 Staley, Augustus Eugene, 1638 Stalin, Joseph, 696, 1320, 1324, 1345-1346, 1393, 1425, 1711,
1884, 2282, 2670, 2911, 2969, 3195, 3205, 3209, 3236, 3298; First Five-Year Plan, 2263; Great Purge, 2786; RussoFinnish War, 3219; show trials, 2240; Socialist Realism, 2558, 2562, 2709; Soviet-U.S. relations, 2690; Terror Famine, 2599; Trotsky’s exile, 2295 Stalling, Carl, 3296 Stanchinsky, V. V., 1486 Stand Up and Cheer (film), 2828 Standard City Planning Enabling Act (1926), 1277 Standard Oil, 40, 189, 220, 325, 774, 882-886, 2259; petroleum processing, 1050 Standard Oil of California, 3097 Standard Oil v. United States (1911), 882-886, 1150 Standard Zoning Enabling Act (1924), 1277 Standardized tests, 1907 Standing Nude (Braque), 684 Stang, Fredrik, 2064 Stanislavsky, Konstantin, 835 Stanislavsky method, 2474 Stanley, George, 2307 Stanley, Henry Morton, 2135 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1299, 1644 Star Film Company, 170 Stark, Harold Raynsford, 3258 Starling, Ernest Henry, 142 Starr, Albert, 2775 Stars; absolute magnitude, 1034; Cepheids, 1034-1037; classes, 576-578; color-luminosity relationship, 369-372; double, 289; evolution, 371, 577, 10921095, 2119-2121; massluminosity relationship, 19121915; measurement, 1388, 1654-1656; motions, 291-294, 2162; neutron, 2718-2721; period-luminosity relationship, 959-962; photography, 433; proper motions, 291; spectra, 289, 370, 576; structure, 24712473 CXVI
State of Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Company and Ducktown Sulphur, Copper, and Iron Company (1907), 2835 Statehood; Arizona, 594-596; New Mexico, 594-596; Oklahoma, 594-596 Stationers’ Company, 754 Statute of Anne (1710), 754 Statute of Westminster (1931), 2517-2520, 2576 Staudinger, Hermann, 2817 Stavisky, Serge Alexandre, 2740 Stavisky riots, 2740-2742 Stavsky, Vladimir, 2563 Stead, William Thomas, 336 Steady state theory, 1879 Steagall, Henry Bascom, 2659, 3090 Steam power, 1025-1028 Steel industry, 47-50, 1618-1621; labor strikes, 1535-1538 Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee, 2889 Steelworkers’ strike (1919-1920), 1535-1538 Steenbock, Harry, 1887 Steenwyk, E. A. van, 2269 Stefanich, Juan, 2923 Štefánik, Milan, 1453 Steffens, Lincoln, 798 Steichen, Edward, 130 Stein, Edith, 1037 Stein, Erwin, 3031 Stein, Gertrude, 443, 2139 Stein, Leo, 443 Stein, Lorenz von, 730 Stein, Michael, 443 Stein, Sarah Samuels, 443 Steinbeck, Carol Henning, 3180 Steinbeck, John, 3180 Steiner, Rudolf, 932 Steinitz, Ernst, 101, 731, 1678 Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, 807 Stellar distances, 1034-1037, 1877-1879 Stellar evolution, 371, 577, 10921095, 1912-1915, 2119-2121 Stellar interiors, 2471
Subject Index Stellar spectra, 576, 1092 Stephan, Sol, 1133 Stephen, Leslie, 1993 Stephenson, D. C., 1707 Sterling, Ford, 988 Sterling area, 2519 Sternberg, Josef von, 2396 Stettinius, Edward Reilly, Jr., 3246 Stevens, John Frank, 298, 340 Stevens, Nettie Maria, 102 Stevenson, Sir Malcolm, 2040 Steward, Balfour, 134 Stewart, A. T., 2054 Steyn, Marthinus Theunis, 155 Stieglitz, Alfred, 130, 1056, 1674, 2514, 2820 Stijl, de, 1312-1314, 1412-1415 Still life paintings, 684 Still Life with African Sculpture (Matisse), 495 Stillman, James, 622 Stimson, Henry L., 2538, 3037 Stimson Doctrine, 2538-2540, 2798, 3039 Stine, Charles M. A., 2816 Stock market crash (1929), 1952, 2331-2335, 2751 Stock-Raising Homestead Act (1916), 2765 Stockard, Charles, 2225 Stockbrokerages, 1164-1167 Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 1701, 1866 Stocks, Theodor, 2031 Stoclet, Adolphe, 372 Stoecker, Adolf, 1477 Stoicheia. See Elements (Euclid) Stoker, Bram, 2461 Stokes, George Gabriel, 471, 2963 Stokes, Rose Pastor, 1367 Stokes, T. L., 2773 Stokes’s law, 473, 743 Stokowski, Leopold, 1249, 3295 Stolarski, Richard, 2454 Stoll, Arthur, 500, 3072 Stoll, Werner, 3072 Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich, 526, 570, 698, 904, 1239 Stone, Harlan Fiske, 692, 1959, 2841, 2999, 3119
Stone, Lucy, 1644 Stone, William Alexis, 152 Stoner, Edmund C., 2027 Stopes, Marie, 2437 Storm development, 1474 Storting, establishment, 450 Story of a Soul, The (Martin, T.), 2045 Story of Philosophy, The (Durant), 2102-2104 Stowe, Emily Howard, 1377 Strachey, Ray, 1422 Straight, Willard, 1161 Strait Is the Gate (Gide), 1973 Strait of Dover; map, 3256 Stranger, The (film), 3138 Stranger, The (novel by Camus), 1974 Strasberg, Lee, 2474, 2823 Strasser, Peter, 1174 Strassmann, Fritz, 3143 Stratosphere, 2506-2509 Strauss, Joseph B., 3022 Strauss, Richard, 465, 644, 714, 876 Strauss, W. L., 712 Stravinsky, Igor, 296, 764, 833, 1079, 1666, 1701, 1865, 2560 Strayhorn, Billy, 2208 Stream-of-consciousness technique, 266 Streamlining, 2280, 2976 Streicher, Julius, 1869 Streichholzhändler. See Matchseller, The (Dix) Stresemann, Gustav, 1814, 1826, 1941, 2069 Strikes, labor. See Labor strikes Strindberg, August, 654 String galvanometer, 365-368 String Quartet in D Minor (Schoenberg), 645 String Quartet in F-sharp Minor (Schoenberg), 645 Stroheim, Erich von, 1956, 2985 Strong, Benjamin, 622, 1814, 2857 Strong, Eugénie Sellers, 1824 Strong, Henry A., 2176 Struss, Karl, 2307 CXVII
Struve, Otto, 290 Stuart-Harris, Charles Herbert, 1428 Studebaker-Packard Corporation, 2159 Student of Prague, The (film), 172, 1576 Student strikes, 900-903 Student von Prag, Der. See Student of Prague, The (film) Studies in Classic American Literature (Lawrence, D. H.), 1587 Studies of Miners at Work (Moore), 3234 Studio Program, Theatre Guild, 2474 Study in Scarlet, A (Doyle), 1572 Study of History, A (Toynbee), 2716-2718 Sturdza, Dimitrie Alexandru, 600 Sturgeon, Theodore, 3079 Sturges, Preston, 2052, 2726 Sturli, Adriano, 11 Sturm, Charles-François, 1223 Sturm Abteilung, 1869, 2625, 2767-2769, 3009 Sturtevant, Alfred H., 648, 906 Subatomic particles, 2784-2786 Submarines, 541-545; detection, 1223-1226; navigation, 469; World War I, 1128, 1143-1145, 1207, 1350 Subtractive color process, 579 Suburbs; architecture, 2591; shopping centers, 1751-1754, 1988; traffic, 3301; zoning, 1277 Sudetenland, German occupation, 3129-3132 Süe, Louis, 2037 Suess, Eduard, 951, 2090 Suetin, Nikolai, 1235 Suez Canal Company, 271 Suffrage; Finland, 538-541; Japan, 2042-2044; men, 2042-2044; women, 160-162, 1299, 13091311, 1377-1379, 1422-1425, 1610-1614, 1644-1648, 22462249
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Suffragists. See Woman suffrage Sugi, Suma, 2442 Suite for Piano (Schoenberg), 1702 Suleiman, Abdullah, 948 Sulfa drugs, 585, 825, 2529-2532 Sulfonamides, 2529-2532 Sullivan, Dennis, 522 Sullivan, Eugene C., 1209 Sullivan, Eugene J., 2014 Sullivan, Mary, 2340 Sullivan’s Travels (film), 2366 Sulzer, William, 1074 Summer Olympic Games; Berlin (1936), 2948-2950; Stockholm (1912), 975-977 Sun Also Rises, The (Hemingway), 266, 2139-2142 Sun Yat-sen. See Sun Yixian Sun Yixian, 909, 1506, 2096 Sunday, Billy, 1458 Sunjong, 838 Sunrise (film), 2307 Sunspots, 686-689, 2394 Superfluidity, 3083-3086 Superhighways, 3301-3304 Superior Roadless Area, 1761 Supernovas, 997, 1251, 27182721 Supplementary Fundamental Law (Persia), 549-552 Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, 3248 Suprematism, 934, 1235-1238 Supreme Court, U.S.; antitrust and corporate regulation, 85, 323326, 402-405, 661-664, 882889, 1618-1621, 2175-2178; antiunion trend, 2552; citizenship laws, 1788-1789; Court-packing fight, 29993002; Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1370; immigration legislation, 1336; Insular Cases, 51-53; justices, 12691272; labor law, 413-417, 657664, 1155, 1844-1847, 3120; Native American rights, 217219; New Deal legislation, 2337, 2841-2843; regulation of
commerce, 222-226; Scottsboro trials, 2490-2492; sociological jurisprudence, 667-670; tax law, 1380; zoning ordinances, 1277 Supreme Economic Council, 1712 Surface science, 2898 Surrealism, 801, 1243, 1943-1947, 1974, 3227; fashion design, 2813-2816; motion pictures, 2213-2216 Surréalisme et la peinture, Le (Breton), 1946 Susa; map, 121 Susan Lenox (film), 2366 Sutherland, George, 1788, 1844, 2841, 2999 Suttner, Bertha von, 62 Sutton, May, 1775 Sutton, Walter S., 102, 180 Svalbard, annexation, 2064-2066 Svalbard Act (1925), 2064-2066 Svalbard Treaty (1920), 20642066 Svarstad, Anders, 2267 Svarstad, Hans Benedict, 2267 Svarstad, Maren Charlotte, 2267 Svecoman movement. See SwedeFinn movement Svedberg, Theodor, 1889 Sverdrup, Johan, 450 Svinhufvud, Pehr Evind, 1399 Svirbely, Joseph L., 2222 Swain, Mack, 2050 Swann’s Way (Proust), 1045 Swarts, Frédéric, 2418, 2455 Swayne, Sir Eric John Eagles, 1566 Swede-Finn movement, 539 Sweden; capital punishment, 1680-1682; dissolution of union with Norway, 450-452. See also Geographical Index Swedenborg, Emanuel, 655 Sweetster, Jess, 2452 Swift, Gustavus F., 402 Swift & Company v. United States (1905), 325, 402-405, 1149 Swimming; English Channel, 2129-2131 CXVIII
Swimsuits, 1558-1562 Swing, Philip D., 2930 Swing music, 2790-2794 Swing Time (film), 2869 Swinton, Alan A. Campbell, 73, 1873, 2956 Switzerland. See Geographical Index Swope, Herbert Bayard, 1365 Sydney Harbour Bridge, 25492551 Sydow, Oscar von, 1680 Sykes, Eugene O., 2754 Sykes, Sir Percy, 681 Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), 1621, 1625, 1777 Sylphides, Les (ballet), 766-769 Sylvester, James J., 1407 Symbole der Wandlung. See Symbols of Transformation (Jung) Symbolic interactionism, 1964 Symbolist movement, 834, 866, 933, 1972, 2187 Symbols of Transformation (Jung), 929, 2371 Symmetry of physical laws, 1407 Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (Hindemith), 2362 Symphonic music, 213-216, 713716, 865-867, 876-879, 913916, 1247-1250 Symphonie pastorale, La. See Pastoral Symphony, The (Gide) Symphonies of Wind Instruments (Stravinsky), 1866 Symphony of Psalms (Stravinsky), 1867 Synapses, 328 Synchrocyclotron, 2479 Synchronicity, 930 Syndicate of Revolutionary Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers, 2738 Synge, John Millington, 359, 597 Synthetic polymers, 386, 2816 Synthetic rubber, 2817 Syphilis; testing, 1817-1819; treatment, 823-826, 2529, 3243
Subject Index Szent-Györgyi, Albert, 1888, 2222, 3006 Szeptycki, Stanisuaw, 2110 Szisz, Ferenc, 529 Tacna-Arica compromise, 23092311 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 32923294 Tafel, Edgar, 2589 Taff Vale decision, 514, 662 Taft, William Howard, 394, 594, 692, 772, 847, 998, 1011, 1059, 1269, 1336; dollar diplomacy, 734; oil reserves, 1615; opposition from Niagara Movement, 428; Republican Insurgency, 751; Taft-Katsura Agreement, 839; U.S. Supreme Court, 661, 1844 Taft-Hartley Act (1947), 1155, 2554 Taft-Katsura Agreement (1905), 839 Tailleferre, Germaine, 1601 Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864), 909 Taisho democracy, 2042 Takahashi Korekiyo, 2042 Talât Pala, Mehmed, 1195 Tales of the Jazz Age (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 2033 Taliesin Associated Architects, 2591 Taliesin Fellowship, 2589-2592 Talkies. See Motion pictures Talley, Lynn P., 2683 Tamm, Igor Yevgenyevich, 2701 Tanganyika; map, 2344. See also Geographical Index Tangier crisis, 411-413 Tangney, Dorothy, 161 Tanguy, Yves, 1943 Tansley, Arthur G., 2846 Tanzimat, 689 Tapiola (Sibelius), 878 Tariff Act (1909), 772-775 Tariffs; Canada, 2448-2451, 25752578; Federal Tariff Commission, 1285-1287
Tartar emetic, 2529 Tartu, Treaty of (1920), 1401 Tatlin, Vladimir, 1235, 2709 Taung child, 1938-1940 Taurog, Norman, 3201 Taussig, Frank William, 1285 Tax laws (U.S.), 1379-1382 Taylor, Charles E., 278 Taylor, Dwight, 2868 Taylor, Edward T., 2764 Taylor, Frank Bursley, 950 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 1063, 1110, 1118, 1272, 1898, 3066 Taylor, Herbert J., 407 Taylor, John T., 1493 Taylor, Myron C., 2888, 3125 Taylor, William C., 1209 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 27642767 Taylorism. See Scientific management Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, 2559 Teagle, Walter Clark, 2259 Teague, Walter Dorwin, 1314, 2279, 2976 Teapot Dome scandal, 1699, 1857-1861, 1959 Technetium, 2989-2992 Technicolor Corporation, 2364 Technology. See Category Index under Science and technology Tee-Van, John, 2427 Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 568, 2091, 3053 Telegraphy, 70 Telephone industry, 2011-2014; Great Britain, 922-924; longdistance service, 1177-1180 Teleprinter. See Teletype Telescopes, 206-210, 1385-1388; coronagraphic, 2383-2385; optics, 2347-2349; radio, 30283031 Teletype, 32-34 Teletype Corporation, 33 Teletypewriter Exchange Service, 33 Television; audience research, 1797; color, 3282-3285; Great Britain, 2956-2960; CXIX
technological development, 1873-1876; U.S., 3186-3190. See also Category Index under Radio and television Teller, Edward, 2243 Teller Amendment, 235 Tellini, Enrico, 1853 Temin, Howard M., 803 Temperance movement, 799, 1604-1607 Temple, Shirley, 2378, 2827, 3202 Temporary National Economic Committee, 1151 Temporary Slavery Commission, League of Nations, 2137 Temps retrouvé, Le. See Time Regained (Proust) Ten Commandments, The (film), 1820-1824 Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925), 2054-2058 Tennessee Valley Authority, 2656-2659 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 2648 Tennis, 1775-1776, 3127-3128 Tenterfield Oration (Parkes), 37 Tenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 223 “Tenth Clew, The” (Hammett), 2325 Terauchi, Hisaichi, 3114 Terauchi Masatake, 838 Terrace of Hotel Mistral (Braque), 683 Terror Famine, 2599-2601 Terrorism. See Category Index Test, Herb, 1731 Texas; map, 41; oil discovery, 4043 Texas & N.O.R. Company v. Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks (1930), 660 Texas Fuel Company, 41 Thalberg, Irving, 1957, 2376 Thams, Jacob Tullin, 1903 Thayer, Webster, 2199 Theater; dance, 355-358; Federal Theatre Project, 2860-2864; Futurism, 749; Germany, 456-
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 459; Ireland, 359-362, 597600; modern drama, 654-657, 1721-1725; musical, 348-352, 2193-2196, 2210-2212, 28712874; opera, 4-7, 465-467, 2086-2089, 2911-2915, 30313033; playwriting, 362-365; protest drama, 2823-2826; revolutionary, 2282-2285; staging, 3087-3090. See also Category Index Theater companies; Group Theatre, 2474-2477 Theater of the Absurd, 656, 1723 Theaters, motion picture, 255, 417-421 Theatre Guild, 2474 Theiler, Max, 3025 Theodora Goes Wild (film), 2727 Theology. See Category Index under Religion, theology, and ethics Theory of Advertising, The (Scott, W. D.), 195-199 Theory of Harmony, The (Schoenberg), 645 “Theory of the Firm” (Jensen and Meckling), 2522 Theosophical Society, 1477 Theosophy, 865, 932, 1312 Thermal cracking, 1049-1052 Thermionic valves, 284, 353 Thermosetting compounds, 385 Thiamine, 14-17, 1887 Thin Man, The (Hammett), 2323 Things as They Are (Stein), 444 Third International, 1490-1493, 1664 Third Neutrality Act (1939), 2866 Third Pandemic, 584-586 Third Symphony (Copland), 215 Third Symphony (Sibelius), 876 Thirteenth Dalai Lama. See Thubten Gyatso This Side of Paradise (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 1459, 2033 Thomas, Albert, 1517 Thomas, E. R., 1728 Thomas, Frank, 3063 Thomas, J. Parnell, 2863, 3111
Thomas, Lowell, 1564 Thomas, Norman, 1607 Thomas, Rowland, 1705 Thompson, Dorothy, 3138 Thompson, Uncle Jimmy, 2082 Thompson, William G., 2199 Thomson, Joseph John, 275, 284, 408, 471, 558, 811, 938, 962, 1455, 1542, 1807 Thomson, Tom, 1628 Thomson, Virgil, 1665 Thomson, William. See Kelvin, Baron Thorez, Maurice, 2899 Thorndike, Edward L., 112 Thorp, Willard, 1589 Thorpe, Jim, 975, 1638 Thorpe, Richard, 3201 Three Lives (Stein), 445 Three Standard Stoppages (Duchamp), 1020 Threepenny Opera, The (Weill and Brecht), 2194 Thubten Gyatso, 344, 2695 Thum, Joseph, 34 Thunberg, Clas, 1903 Thunder over Mexico (film), 1970 Thurber, James, 2020 Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche), 199 Thutmose IV, 1784 Tibet; British protectorate status, 344-346; Thirteenth Dalai Lama, 2695-2697. See also Geographical Index Tibet Frontier Commission, 345 Tiffany, Charles Louis, 117 Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 117 Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, 117 Tiffany Studios, 117-120 Tikhon, Vasily Belavin, 1318, 3196 Tikhy Don. See And Quiet Flows the Don (Sholokhov); Don Flows Home to the Sea, The (Sholokhov) Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 1183 Tile, Nehemiah, 954 CXX
Till Damaskus, forsta delen. See To Damascus I (Strindberg) Tillett, Ben, 513 Tillich, Paul, 1802 Tillie’s Punctured Romance (film), 989 Tillman Act (1907), 2024 Time (magazine), 1833-1837, 2403 Time and Free Will (Bergson), 567 Time-and-motion studies, 509, 1110, 1118, 1274, 1288 Time Inc., 1833; Fortune, 2404; Life, 2966-2969 Time Regained (Proust), 1045 Tippu Tib, 2136 Tirpitz, Alfred von, 541, 1206 Tirtoff, Romain de. See Erté Tissé, Éduard, 1968 Tissue culture techniques, 609 Tisza, Laslo, 3085 Titanic (ship), 972-975, 1224, 1468; map, 973 Tito, 1452 Tittoni, Tommaso, 1531 Tizard, Henry Thomas, 2734 To Damascus I (Strindberg), 654 To the Lighthouse (Woolf ), 1995 Tobacco industry, 177-180; American Tobacco Company, 886-889 Tobata Casting Company, 853 Tobin, James, 2919 Tobin, Phil M., 2483 Tod in Venedig, Der. See Death in Venice (Mann, T.) Toeplitz, Giuseppe, 2622 Tfgf, Heihachirf, 320 Tojo, Hideki, 2538, 3272, 3279 Toklas, Alice B., 443 Tolkien, Christopher, 2681 Tolkien, J. R. R., 2681, 3047 Tolley, Cyril, 2452 Tolstoy, Aleksey Nikolayevich, 2563 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 1734-1736 Tomb of Tutankhamen, 17841787; map, 1785
Subject Index Tombaugh, Clyde William, 432, 2407 Tomsky, Mikhail, 1711, 2263 Tonio Kröger (Mann, T.), 1880 Top Hat (film), 2868-2871 Topsoil conservation, 2837-2840 Torgler, Ernst, 2632 Toronto Women’s Literary Club, 1377 Toronto Women’s Suffrage Association, 1377 Torque amplifiers, 2218 Tortilla Flat (Steinbeck), 3180 Toscanini, Arturo, 148 Touch of Evil (film), 3138 Touche, George A., 2464 Touche, Niven, and Company, 2464-2467 Tour de France, 242-244; map, 243 Tournament of Roses Association, 124 Tours Congress (1920), 1663-1665 Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier), 2486 Towner, Horace, 1745 Townsend, Francis E., 2335, 2853 Townsend, Sir John Sealy Edward, 664 Townshend, Charles Vere Ferrers, 1158 Toynbee, Arnold Joseph, 2716 Toyota Motor Corporation, 853 Tract on Monetary Reform, A (Keynes), 2920 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein), 1686-1689, 1755 Trade. See Category Index Trade agreements, Canada-U.S., 780, 2960-2962 Trade Agreements Act (1934), 2961 Trader Horn (Horn), 2093 Trades Union Congress (Great Britain), 513, 2107 Traeger, Alfred, 2238 Trail Smelter arbitration, 28342837 Traité de l’homme. See Treatise of Man (Descartes)
Trammel, Park, 3258 Tramp, The (film), 2051 Trans World Airlines, 1900, 2019, 2941 Transatlantic flight, 2190 Transbaikal Railway. See TransSiberian Railroad Transcontinental & Western Air Lines, 2941 Transistors, 354, 2013 Transjordan; map, 1778 Transplantation surgery, 82, 943 Transport and General Workers’ Union, 2105-2109 Transportation; air, 278-280, 769772, 1648-1653, 2112-2115, 2189-2192, 2566-2568, 29412944; American Automobile Association, 137-140; automobiles, 2158-2161, 33013304; railroads, 74-76, 873875, 1239-1241; sea, 468-471, 541-545, 552-554, 1130-1133. See also Category Index Transportation Act (1920), 2115 Transportation Security Administration, 2114 Trans-Siberian Railroad, 320, 1239-1241; map, 1240 Transuranic elements, 3145 Trapp, Martin E., 1850 Trattato di sociologia generale. See Mind and Society (Pareto) Traumdeutung, Die. See Interpretation of Dreams, The (Freud) Traut, Herbert, 2225 Travel. See Category Index Traveler Without Luggage (Anouilh), 1723 Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (film), 2378 Treatise of Man (Descartes), 327 “Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” (Maxwell), 2217 Treatise on Money, A (Keynes), 2920 Treaty of _______. See _______, Treaty of Treblinka death camp, 3161 CXXI
Tressler, Donald K., 1306 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 868-872, 2638 Triangle Studios, 989 Trianon, Treaty of (1920), 1544 Tricarboxylic acid cycle, 30053009 Trip to the Moon, A (film), 169173 Tripartite Pact (1940), 3280 Triple Alliance, 333, 617 Triple Alliance, War of the (18641870), 2924 Triple Entente, 333, 616-618 Triple Intervention, 320 Tripolitan War. See Libyan War Tristan und Isolde (Wagner), 4 Troeltsch, Ernst, 582 Trojan Horse, The (Dies), 3112 Tropic of Cancer (Miller, H.), 2770-2773 Tropic of Capricorn (Miller, H.), 2771 Trotha, Lothar von, 317 Trotsky, Leon, 452, 695, 13231324, 1343, 1345, 1393, 1416, 1431, 1490, 1711, 2263, 2786; exile, 2295 Trotter, William Monroe, 428, 744 Troyanovsky, Alexander, 2690 Truax v. Corrigan (1921), 2552 Truman, Harry S., 1835, 2683, 3198 Trumbi6, Ante, 1450 Trust Company of America, 623 Truth in advertising, 197, 10821085 Trypan dyes, 2529 Tryptophan, 20-23 Ts’ai Yüan-p’ei. See Cai Yuanpei Tsederbaum, Yuly Osipovich. See Martov, Julius Osipovich Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin, 203, 2099 Tsunamis, 1855; Sicily, 721-723 Tsushima, Battle of (1905), 321, 553, 838 Tubb, Ernest, 2084 Tuberculosis; vaccine, 1683-1686 Tucholsky, Kurt, 2569
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Tudor, Antony, 2908 Tugwell, Rexford Guy, 2646, 2663, 2855, 3122 Tukhachevsky, Mikhail, 1715, 2241 T’ung-meng Hui. See Revolutionary Alliance Tunnell, Ebe, 188 Tunney, Gene, 1540 Turing, Alan Mathison, 2806 Turing machine, 2806-2808 Turkey; map, 1181, 1512, 2123. See also Geographical Index Turkish Petroleum Company, 1622, 2260, 3096 Turkish War of Independence (1919-1922), 1511-1513 Turn in the Road, The (film), 2273 Turn of the Screw, The (James, H.), 264 Turner, Benjamin, 942 Turner, William Thomas, 1206 Tuskegee Machine, 430 Tutankhamen, 1784 TVA. See Tennessee Valley Authority TWA. See Trans World Airlines; Transcontinental & Western Air Lines Twelve-tone system, 1072, 17011704, 2086, 3032 Twentieth Century-Fox, 23762379; Sherlock Holmes films, 3176 Twenty-first Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 1606 Twenty-One Demands, 1506 Twining, Edward F., 2343 Twitchell, Karl Saben, 3096 Two Rumanian Dances (Bartók), 296 Tydings, Millard, 2745, 3044 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 2745-2747 Tyler, Elizabeth, 1705 Tylor, Edward B., 849 Typee (Melville), 1587 Typhus, 3157; vaccine, 2386-2389 Tyson, Edwin, 1564 Tzara, Tristan, 1242, 1673
U-boats, 541-545, 1143-1145. See also Submarines Über das Geistige in der Kunst, insbesondere in der Malerei. See Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Painting in Particular (Kandinsky) “Über das Gravitationsfeld eines Mass enpunktes nach der Einstein Theorie” (Schwarzschild), 1251 Übermensch, 199 Udham Singh, 1500 Uganda. See Geographical Index Uganda Railroad, 74-76 Uhlenbeck, George Eugene, 2028 Ukraine; independence struggle, 1321-1324; map, 1322, 1716. See also Geographical Index Ukrainian Uprising (1917-1920); map, 1322 Ullman, Edward, 1962 Ulmanis, K3rlis, 1425 Ulster Volunteers, 1579 Ultracentrifuge, 1889-1892 Ultramares Corporation v. Touche (1931), 2464-2467 Ultramicroscope, 110-112 Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilich. See Lenin, Vladimir Ilich Ulysses (Joyce), 1767-1771 Un di Velt hot geshvign. See Night (Wiesel) Uncertainty principle, 1809, 21722175, 2244 Uncle Tom’s Children (Wright, R.), 3230 Under Fire (Barbusse), 1696 Underhill, Frank, 2581 Underwood, Oscar, 1011, 1285, 1741 Underwood Tariff Act (1913), 1061, 1286 Underworld (film), 2399 Undset, Ingvald, 2267 Undset, Sigrid, 2267 Unemployment; Great Depression, 2335-2339, 2350-2352, 2450; U.S., 2860 Unemployment Act (1920), 1592 CXXII
Unemployment insurance; Canada, 2449; Great Britain, 1590-1594; U.S., 2337, 28532857 Unemployment Insurance Act (1925), 1590 Unified Socialist Party (France), 1663 Uniform Crime Reports, 1961 Uniform Dress Law (1928), 2008 Uniform Small Loan Law, 828 Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, 1661, 2415 Union of Liberation (Russia), 400 Union of South Africa, formation, 830-833 Union of the Russian People, 454 Unions. See Labor unions United Air Lines, 2019 United Artists, 739, 2143, 2236, 2376-2379 United Auto Workers, 2889 United Irishman (newspaper), 460 United Kingdom. See Ireland; Geographical Index United Mine Workers, 152, 219, 425, 517, 773, 2889 United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Company (1922), 663 United Motors Corporation, 1659 United Nations, 1503 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 2836 United Negro Improvement Association, 2063 United Shareholders Association, 2522 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2415 U.S. Border Patrol, 1926-1929 U.S. Congress; first woman member, 1299-1302; Republican Insurgency, 751753; Republican resurgence, 1447-1449 U.S. Navy, expansion, 3258-3261 U.S. Postal Service, 1648-1651 U.S. presidency. See Presidency, U.S.
Subject Index U.S. Steel. See United States Steel Corporation United States; map, 1012, 2221, 2597. See also Geographical Index United States Amateur golf tournament, 2452 United States Motor Company, 2158 United States Open golf tournament, 2452 United States Steel Corporation, 47-50, 220, 623, 1535, 16181621; labor relations, 2889 United States v. American Tobacco Company (1911), 179, 886-889, 1150 United States v. Butler (1936), 2999 United States v. Darby Lumber Company (1941), 3121 United States v. Hutcheson (1941), 2553 United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980), 218 United States v. United States Steel Corporation (1920), 1618-1621 United Textile Workers, 2889 UNIVAC, 1907 Universal determinism, 2172 Universal Manhood Suffrage Act (1925), 2042-2044 Universal Negro Improvement Association, 819, 1358-1360, 2434 Universal Pictures, 2376-2379, 2461; Sherlock Holmes films, 3177 Universal serological reaction, 1818 Universal Turing machine, 28062808 Universe; expansion, 1546-1548, 1878, 1955, 2155-2157, 22762278 University of Cairo, 716-718 University of Rostock, 729-731 Unknown Soldier, 1734-1736 UNOVIS, 1236
Untamed, The (Brand), 927 Untergang des Abendlandes, Die. See Decline of the West, The (Spengler) Unterweisung im Tonsatz. See Craft of Musical Composition, The (Hindemith) Up from Slavery (Washington, B. T.), 1358 Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, 228, 1761, 2916 Upper Silesia; division between Poland and Germany, 17191721; map, 1720 Uprisings. See Category Index under Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest Uranium; fission, 2990, 31433147; radioactivity, 276 Uranium-lead method of dating, 389 Urban ecology, 1962-1965 Urban planning, 522-526, 18551857; Rockefeller Center, 3215-3218; zoning laws, 12761278. See also Category Index Urbanization; Great Britain, 1220; U.S., 784, 818-820, 2219 U’Ren, William, 157 “Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms” (Tansley), 2846 Uterine cancer, testing, 22252227 Vaccines; diphtheria, 1043; tuberculosis, 1683-1686; typhus, 2386-2389; yellow fever, 3025-3027 Vacuum cleaners, 56-58 Vacuum tubes, 352-355, 1228, 2012 Vague de r0ves, Une (Aragon), 1944 Vahideddin, Mehmed. See Mehmed VI Vail, Theodore Newton, 1177, 1227, 2011 Valence bond theory, 2392 CXXIII
Valentine’s Day Massacre, 23012304 Vallee, Rudy, 2352 Valley of the Kings, 1784-1787; map, 1785 Van Deerlin, Lionel, 2754 Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick, 2659 Vanderbilt, George W., II, 392 Van der Rohe, Mies. See Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Vandervelde, Émile, 1217 Van Devanter, Willis, 217, 2841, 2999 Vandiver, Pendleton, 3163 Van Doren, Carl, 1587 Vann, Robert L., 2232 Van’t Hoff, Jacobus Henricus, 2389 Van Vogt, A. E., 3079 Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 2199 Varèse, Edgard, 589 Variable stars, 959-962, 10341037, 1420, 1877 Variations for Orchestra (Schoenberg), 1702 Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) (Elgar), 714 Varieties of Religious Experience, The (James, W.), 94-96, 593 Variyankode Kunhahammad Haji, 1728 Varley, F. H., 1628 Vascular surgery, 81-84, 462 Vat dyes, 8-10 Vatican City; Lateran Treaty, 2298-2301; map, 2299 Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 213, 492 Vauxcelles, Louis, 447, 683 Veeck, William L., 2667 Vegetable, The (Fitzgerald, F. S.), 2033 Veidt, Conrad, 1575 Velde, Henry van de, 618 Vending machines, 2368-2370 Venezuela, oil industry, 17941796 Venizélos, Eleuthérios, 1511 Venn, John, 1463
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Verdun, Battle of (1916), 12561258 Vereeniging, Treaty of (1902), 155-157 Vereker, John Standish Surtees Prendergast. See Gort, Lord Verifiability criterion of meaning, 1755 Verism, 1946 Verklärte Nacht (Schoenberg), 645 Vermilye and Company, 437 Vernadsky, George, 2089 Vernadsky, Vladimir, 2089 Vers une architecture. See Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier) Versailles, Treaty of (1919), 547, 1129, 1448, 1502, 1507, 15211525, 1621, 1772, 1853, 2069, 2626; British dominions, 2517; German reparations, 1827, 1941, 2030; German violations, 2927; International Labor Organization, 1517-1521 Vertov, Dziga, 2148 Verwandlung, Die. See Metamorphosis, The (Kafka) Veterans Administration, 1494 Veterans of Foreign Wars, 1234 Viborg Manifesto, 528 Vicious circle principle, 164 Victor Emmanuel III, 856, 1782, 1997, 2298 Victor Talking Machine Company, 98 Vidor, King, 2273 Vienna Circle, 1688, 1754-1756 Vienna Court Opera, 4-7 Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society, 287 Vierkoetter, Ernst, 2129 Vikár, Béla, 295 Villa, Pancho, 843, 1259 Villa Mairea, 2982-2985 Villa Savoye, 2486-2489 Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty (1926), 1277 Villard, Oswald Garrison, 744, 1607
Villard, Paul, 2687 Villistas, 844 Vinnichenko, Vladimir Kirillovich, 1321 Vinson, Carl, 3258 Vinson-Trammel Act (1934), 3260 Violin Concerto (Sibelius), 876 Viollet-le-Duc, EugèneEmmanuel, 800 Viral nucleic acid, 804 Virchow, Rudolf, 710 Virgin Mary, visions at Fátima, 1360-1362 Virgin Soil Upturned (Sholokhov), 2564 Viridiana (film), 2214 Virology, 610 Viruses, oncogenic, 803-807 Visel, Charles P., 2350 Vitamins, 484-486; vitamin B, 1887; vitamin B1, 14-17; vitamin B12, 1992; vitamin C, 2222-2225; vitamin D, 17571760, 1887-1889 Vitaphone, 2203, 2235 Viviani, René, 1741 Viyavaharik, Madanjit, 239 Vlaminck, Maurice de, 447, 494 Vogel, Julius, 986 Vogel, Kurt, 1479 Vogel, W., 1040 Volcanoes; Mount Pelée, 149-152; Pacific Ring of Fire, 1855 Volkoff, Alexandre, 2002 Volkoff, George Michael, 3170 Volkswagen automobiles, 854 Vollmer, August, 1671 Volstead, Andrew J., 1604 Volstead Act (1919), 1605 Voltage multiplier, 2556 Voltaic cells, 283 Volterra, Vito, 481 Voluntary Domestic Allotment Plan, 2684 Voluntary Parenthood League, 1173 Von Neumann, John, 313, 2318, 2806 Voronsky, Aleksandr, 2563 Voroshilov, Kliment, 3219 CXXIV
Vortex, The (Coward), 2618 Vorticism, 965, 1017 Voting rights. See Suffrage; Woman suffrage Voyage au bout de la nuit. See Journey to the End of the Night (Céline) Voyage dans la lune, Le. See Trip to the Moon, A (film) Voyage Out, The (Woolf ), 1994 Voyageur sans bagage, Le. See Traveler Without Luggage (Anouilh) Vries, Hugo de, 77, 378, 648, 726 Vyshinsky, Andrey Yanuaryevich, 2240 Vyshnegradsky, Ivan, 1239 W., Bill. See Wilson, William G. Wadati, Kiyoo, 2809 Wadsworth, James, 536 Waffen nieder!, Die. See Lay Down Your Arms (Suttner) Wagner, Honus, 256 Wagner, Otto, 192, 372 Wagner, Richard, 645, 1476, 1701, 1880 Wagner, Robert F., 868, 2663, 2850, 2853, 3090 Wagner Act (1935), 660, 1155, 2117, 2553, 2665, 2850-2853, 3000, 3119 Wahh3b, Muwammad ibn 4Abd al-, 948 Wahh3btism, 948-950 Waihi strike, 986 Wailing Wall riots, 2321-2323 Waismann, Friedrich, 1754 Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 1724, 1750 Waiting for Lefty (Odets), 2475, 2823 Walcott, Frederic Collin, 2742 Wald, Lillian D., 968, 1607 Waldeyer, Wilhelm, 823 Waldron, J. Milton, 746 Wales. See Geographical Index Wales, Julia Grace, 1201 Walker, Frank Comerford, 2830 Walker, Robert John, 1285
Subject Index Walker, William H., 2176 Wallace, DeWitt, 1763 Wallace, Henry A., 2646, 2683, 3190 Wallace, Henry C., 1931 Wallace, John Findley, 341 Wallach, Meier Moiseevich. See Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich Wallenberg, Raoul, 3162 Waller, Augustus D., 365 Walling, William English, 744 Walpole, Horace, 1571 Walsh, Christy, 1599 Walsh, Raoul, 1188 Walsh, Thomas J., 1269, 1614, 1698, 1857, 3119 Walsh-Healy Act (1936), 3119 Walter, Bruno, 913 Walthall, Henry B., 1188 Walton, Ernest Thomas Sinton, 2555 Walton, Izaak, 1760 Walton, Jack, 1850 Walvis Ridge, 2031 Wanderers (artists’ group), 2710 Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido. See Psychology of the Unconscious, The (Jung) Wangenstein, Owen, 2775 Wanger, Walter, 3152 War Communism, 1418, 1693, 1711, 1884, 2264 War crimes. See Category Index under Atrocities and war crimes War Industries Board, 1108, 13711374 War of _______. See _______, War of. See also Category Index under Wars, uprisings, and civil unrest War of the Worlds, The (radio drama), 3137-3140 War Powers Act (1942), 3248 War Production Board, 3199, 3248 War Relocation Authority, 2444 War Resources Administration, 3246
War Resources Board, 3199 War Revenue Act (1917), 13791382 Warburg, Edward, 2794 Warburg, Paul Moritz, 1099 Ward, Arch, 2667 Wärendorf, Fritz, 192 Warm, Hermann, 1575 Warne, Colston, 2902 Warner, Albert, 2124, 2234 Warner, Harry, 2124, 2202, 2234 Warner, Jack, 2124, 2202, 2376 Warner, Sam, 2124, 2202, 2234 Warner, Sylvia Townsend, 2093 Warner, William Lloyd, 1896 Warner Bros., 2234, 2376-2379, 2609; gangster films, 2467; The Jazz Singer, 2202-2206; Vitaphone, 2124-2128 Warning Shadows (film), 1577 Warren, Charles, 2834 Warren, Stafford L., 1040 Warsaw, Battle of (1920), 2110 Washing machine, electric, 792796 Washington (state); map, 2679 Washington, Booker T., 428, 744, 1358, 1963 Washington, Dinah, 1831 Washington Disarmament Conference, 1507, 1741-1744, 2047, 2797, 3039 Washington Naval Treaty (1922), 2797-2799 Wassermann, August von, 825, 1817 Wassermann test, 825, 1818 Waste Land, The (Eliot), 1331, 1748-1751, 2035, 2140, 2329, 2400 Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 2512-2514 Water; access, 1088-1091, 10951099, 1918-1921, 3002-3005; pollution, 807-811, 1760-1763, 1935-1937, 2373-2376; treatment, 635-638 Water Lilies (Monet), 2186-2189 Water Pollution Control Act (1948), 1761 CXXV
Waters, Alexander, 745 Waters, Ethel, 1830 Waters, Walter W., 2335, 2578 Watson, Forbes, 2514 Watson, James D., 68, 184, 2392 Watson, John B., 2601 Watson, Maud, 1775 Watson, Morris, 2862 Watson, Thomas Augustus, 1177 Watson, Thomas Edward, 1085 Watson, Thomas J., Jr., 1905 Watson, Thomas J., Sr., 1905, 2773 Watson-Watt, Robert Alexander, 2734 Watson’s Cash Register & Second-Hand Exchange, 1906 Watt, Margaret, 1220 Watterson, Mark, 1918 Watterson, Wilfred, 1918 Watts, James Winston, 2883 Wauchope, Sir Arthur Grenfell, 2935 Wave mechanics, 2390 Wave-particle duality of light, 410, 1804-1806, 1808, 2173 Wave theory of radiation, 945 Wavell, Archibald, 3274, 3289 Way Down East (film), 1190 Wayne, John, 3152 We (Lindbergh), 2190 Wealth distribution theory, 490492 Weapons; air warfare, 1202-1205; chemical and bacteriological, 1192-1195, 2047-2050 “Weary Blues, The” (Hughes, L.), 1555 Weather forecasting, 1474-1475 Weaver, Buck, 1538 Weaver, Harriet Shaw, 1767 Weaver, Raymond M., 1587 Weaver, Warren, 1074 Webb, Beatrice, 545 Webb, Edwin Yates, 1604 Webb, Frank C., 137 Webb, Sidney, 545 Webb-Henley bill. See Alien Land Act (1913) Webb-Kenyon Act (1913), 1605
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Weber, Heinrich, 731 Weber, Marianne, 302 Weber, Max, 302 Weberian hypothesis, 302-305 Webern, Anton von, 644, 914, 1070, 1701, 2086 Wedderburn, Joseph, 731 Weddigen, Otto, 544, 1143 Wedding, The (Stravinsky), 1865 Wedekind, Frank, 3031 Wedel-Jarlsberg, Fredrik Hartvig Herman, 2064 Weeks, Douglas, 2305 Weeks, John Wingate, 1067, 1437 Weeks-McLean Act (1913), 1067-1070, 1438 Weems, Charlie, 2490 Weese, Harry, 1967 Weg zurück, Der. See Road Back, The (Remarque) Wegelius, Martin, 876 Wegener, Alfred, 498, 950, 2031 Wehnelt, Arthur, 353 Weidenreich, Franz, 1847, 3053 Weidman, Charles, 1211 Weierstrass, Karl, 732 Weil, André, 3149 Weil, Richard, 13 Weill, Kurt, 2193 Weimar Constitution, 1410, 15251527, 2633 Weimar Republic, 1409-1412, 1525-1527, 1814; art, 1984; culture, 2360; Enabling Act (1933), 2649-2651 Weinberg, Steven, 2689 Weinberg, Wilhelm, 638 Weinberger, Harry, 1608 Weiner, Alexander S., 10 Weininger, Otto, 1686 Weinshank, Al, 2301 Weismann, August, 726 Weissenhof Siedlung exhibit, 620 Weissmuller, Johnny, 1560 Weitzel, George T., 991 Weizmann, Chaim, 1389, 1777, 2321, 2935 Welch, William Henry, 2373 Weldon, Walter, 79, 726
Welfare programs; aid to mothers and children, 1745-1747; food stamps, 3190-3193 Well of the Saints, The (Synge), 597 Welland Canal, 2572 Welles, Orson, 1577, 2378, 2860, 3137 Welles, Sumner, 2644 Wellman, William, 2378, 2467 Wells, H. G., 2066 Wels, Otto, 2649 Welsh Revival, 346-348, 521 Weltburgertum und Nationalstaat. See Cosmopolitanism and the National State (Meinecke) Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, 14 Wertheimer, Pierre, 1549 Wessel, Horst, 2949 West African Student Union, 2062-2063 West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish (1937), 1844, 3001 West Indies; map, 150 Western Canada Cement and Coal Company, 778 Western Electric Manufacturing Company, 1896, 2011, 2132, 2202 Western Federation of Mines, 425 Western front (World War I); map, 1127, 1441 Western genre; fiction, 925-928; films, 253, 3152-3155 Western Union, 33 Western Wall riots, 2321-2323 Westinghouse, 1562, 1641, 1875, 2132, 2593, 3187 Wet, Christiaan Rudolf de, 155 Wethered, Roger, 2452 Weygand, Maxime, 1717, 3250 Weyl, Hermann, 2317, 3149 Weyl, Walter, 1161 Whale, James, 2461 Wharton School of Finance, 1552 “What Every Girl Should Know” (Sanger), 1172 CXXVI
What Every Girl Should Know (Sanger), 1297 Wheat, hybridization, 281-283 Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, 230 Wheeler, Burton Kendall, 2757, 2999, 3101 Wheeler, Frank, 776 Wheeler, John Archibald, 3171 Wheeler, Wayne Bidwell, 1604 Wheeler, William Morton, 102 Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), 197, 1147, 3101-3103 Whipple, George C., 2373 Whipple, George Hoyt, 1990 White, Clarence H., 130 White, E. B., 2020 White, Edward D., 51, 217, 882, 886 White, George A., 1493 White, Katharine Sergeant, 2020 White, Walter, 2230 White, William Allen, 2094 White Buildings (Crane), 2400 White dwarf stars, 1251, 2119, 2471-2473, 2719 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, 970 White House Conservation Conference. See Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources White Paper of 1939, 1391 White Revolution, 2009 White Sea-Baltic Canal, 26702672; map, 2671 White-Slave Traffic Act (1910), 694, 1960 White slavery, 336-340 White Sox, World Series scandal, 1538-1541 Whitehead, Alfred North, 569, 814, 2317, 3149 Whitehead, T. North, 1896 Whiteman, Paul, 1555, 1909 Whiting, Frank, 3194 Whitman, Charles O., 1133 Whitman, Walt, 213, 1589, 2400, 3226 Whitney, Edward Baldwin, 1059
Subject Index Whitney, Eli, 1063 Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, 2514 Whitney, Josiah Dwight, 1095 Whitney, Richard, 2331, 2750 Whitney, William Collins, 177 Whitney Museum of American Art, 2514-2517; Abstract Painting in America, 28202823 Whitney Studio Club, 2515 Whittaker, David W., 1133 Whole-number rule, 811, 1455 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Albee), 1724, 2476 Whytt, Robert, 327 Wichita National Forest, 227 Wickersham, George Woodward, 47, 692, 883, 1604, 1619 Wickersham, James, 1339 Wideroe, Rolf, 2478 Widows’ and Orphans’ and Old Age Contributory Act (1925), 1592 Wiechert, Emil, 498, 1032 Wien, Wilhelm, 812 Wiene, Robert, 172, 1575 Wiener Werkstätte, 192-195, 372 Wiesel, Elie, 3162 Wiggins, Ella May, 2358 Wilbur, Ray Lyman, 2930 Wild Swans at Coole, The (Yeats), 1315-1318 Wilde, Hagar, 2727 Wilde, Oscar, 465 Wilder, Billy, 2378 Wilder, Thornton, 3087 Wilderness Act (1964), 1616, 1762, 1934 Wilderness preservation, 230-234, 392-396, 651-653, 1095-1099, 1282-1284, 1339-1343, 15141517, 1760-1763, 1931-1934, 2182-2186, 2674-2677, 27802783, 2992-2996, 3076-3079; Canada, 2424-2426; Soviet Union, 1486-1489. See also Wildlife conservation Wilderness Society, 1516, 2676, 2780-2783
Wildlife conservation, 226-230, 396-399, 1067-1070, 11331136, 1282-1284, 1339-1343, 1760-1763, 2343-2346, 27422745, 2915-2918, 3050-3053. See also Wilderness preservation Wiley, Harvey W., 534, 2164, 2612 Wilhelm II. See William II Wilhelmina, 625 Wilkins, Maurice H. F., 68 “Will to Believe, The” (James, W.), 95 Willard, Daniel, 2116 Willebrandt, Mabel Walker, 1604 William (1882-1951), 1256 William II, 317, 331, 411, 541, 545, 552, 616, 890, 1121, 1124, 1256, 1279 Williams, Aubrey Willis, 2830 Williams, Charles, 2681 Williams, Clarence, 1830 Williams, Eugene, 2490 Williams, Hank, 2084 Williams, Lefty, 1538 Williams, William Carlos, 966, 1328 Williams, Sir William Emrys, 2802 Willingdon, first marquis of. See Freeman-Thomas, Freeman Willis, Frank B., 1935 Willkie, Wendell, 1835 Wills, William Henry, 177 Willstätter, Richard, 376, 500 Wilson, Sir Arnold, 1625 Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees, 558, 1807 Wilson, Edmund (1895-1972), 2033 Wilson, Edmund Beecher (18561939), 102 Wilson, Fred T., 1182 Wilson, James, 534 Wilson, Joseph C., 3134 Wilson, Latimer, 2407 Wilson, Lois Burnham, 2844 Wilson, Milburn L., 2837 Wilson, Paul C., 2638 CXXVII
Wilson, Teddy, 2605, 2790 Wilson, William G., 2843 Wilson, Woodrow, 84, 1076, 1450, 1453, 2656; airmail, 1648; Clayton Antitrust Act, 1149, 1153; Emergency Quota Act, 1725; Espionage and Sedition Acts, 1367; Federal Reserve Act, 1099; Federal Tariff Commission, 1285; Federal Trade Commission, 1145, 3101; Fourteen Points, 1719; German Revolution, 1409; governor of New Jersey, 188; Immigration Act (1917), 1336; income tax, 1059; Jones Act (1917), 1347; League of Nations, 1501; Mexican Revolution, 844; Mineral Leasing Act, 1614; National Park Service, 1282; naval expansion, 3259; nomination of Brandeis to Supreme Court, 1269; Paris Peace Conference, 1483; Pershing expedition, 1259; post-World War I period, 1444; presidential election 1912, 751, 1011-1012; Prohibition, 1604; Red Scare, 1527; Republican resurgence, 1447; Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1621; Treaty of Versailles, 1521; Unknown Soldier, 1734; War Industries Board, 1371; woman suffrage, 1646; World War I, 1124, 1206, 1349, 1353 Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act (1894), 234 Wimbledon tennis stadium, 17751776 Wimborne, Baron. See Guest, Ivor Churchill Wind Quintet (Schoenberg), 1702 Windaus, Adolf, 1887 Windsor, duchess of (Wallis Warfield Simpson), 2973 Windsor, duke of, 2973 Winesburg, Ohio (Anderson, S.), 2139 Wingate, Orde Charles, 2935
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Wings (film), 2307 Wings of the Dove, The (James, H.), 265 Winnipeg General Strike (1919), 1509-1510 Winslow, Samuel, 1745 Winter Olympic Games, 19031905 Winter War (1939-1940), 1401, 3219-3222 Wir bauen eine Stadt (Hindemith), 2361 Wirth, Joseph, 1772 Wisconsin, primary elections, 237-238 Wisconsin Idea, 237 Wise, Chubby, 3163 Wisting, Oscar, 919 Witbooi, Hendrik, 317 Within a Budding Grove (Proust), 1045 Witos, Wincenty, 2109 Witte, Edwin E., 2853 Witte, Sergey Yulyevich, 210, 383, 399, 452, 526, 538, 570, 1239 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1686, 1754, 2320 Wittich, Marie, 465 Wizard of Oz, The (film), 2610, 3201-3204 Wobblies. See Industrial Workers of the World Wojciechowski, Stanisuaw, 2111 Wojtyua, Karol Jozef. See John Paul II Wolde-Mariam, Ato, 2875 Wolfe, Thomas, 362 Wolffe, Jabez, 2129 Wolman, Abel, 2373 Wolpoff, Milford, 712 Woman Rebel, The (newspaper), 1172, 1296 Woman suffrage; Australia, 160162; Canada, 1377-1379; Finland, 538-541; Great Britain, 259-264, 1422-1425, 2246-2249; U.S., 1299, 13091311, 1610-1614, 1644-1648 Woman with the Hat (Matisse), 443, 447
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1377, 1605 Woman’s Party. See National Woman’s Party Woman’s Trade Union League, 869 Women; aid for mothers and children, 611-613; athletic achievements, 2129-2131; Australian parliament, 16691670; birth control, 1171-1174, 1295-1299, 1737-1741, 24372439; citizenship (U.S.), 17791781; domestic issues, 796800; education opportunities, 729-731; Equal Rights Amendment, 1871-1873; India, 2004-2007; labor issues, 667670; organizations, 259-264, 1220-1222, 1309-1311, 16101614; peace activism, 11991202; politicians, 1299-1302, 2014-2017; suffrage, 160-162, 538-541, 1377-1379, 14221425, 1644-1648, 2246-2249; workplace safety, 545-548, 868-872 Women’s Franchise League, 261 Women’s Institutes, 1220-1222 Women’s issues. See Category Index Women’s Joint Congressional Committee, 1612, 1646, 1745 Women’s Legal Status Act (1923), 1670 Women’s Peace Party, 1200 Women’s Rights Convention (1848), 1300 Women’s Social and Political Union, 259-264, 1423 Women’s Trade Union League, 980, 1978 Wontner, Arthur, 3176 Wood, Edward Frederick Lindley. See Halifax, Lord Wood, Eric Fisher, 1493 Wood, Robert E., 1987 Woodrow, O. B., 792 Woodrum, Clifton, 2864 Woods, Frank, 2306 CXXVIII
Woods, Katherine, 3056 Woods, Rufus, 2678 Woodsworth, James Shaver, 2581 Woodworth, John Maynard, 998 Woolf, Edgar Allan, 3201 Woolf, Leonard S., 1993 Woolf, Virginia, 266, 1993 Wooten, Art, 3164 Worker productivity, Hawthorne effect, 1896-1899 Workplace safety; children, 968972; health hazards, 19761979; manufacturing, 868-872; mining, 836-838; night work, 545-548 Works Progress Administration, 1761, 2337, 2738, 2830-2834, 2861 World Christian Fundamentals Association, 1458-1459 World court. See International Court of Justice; Permanent Court of International Justice World Radiocommunication Conference, 1469 World Series (baseball), 256-259; Black Sox scandal, 1538-1541 World War I (1914-1918), 11241129; air warfare, 1174-1176, 1202-1205; aluminum industry, 1893; Armenian genocide, 1195-1199; Canadian involvement, 860, 1636; causes, 697-699, 890-892, 2069; chemical warfare, 2047; effects on U.S. workforce, 819; espionage, 1383-1385; Gallipoli Campaign, 11801183; German economy, 12791281; India, 1498; Battle of Jutland, 1266-1269; literature, 1233-1235, 1695, 2292; map, 1127, 1441; First Battle of the Marne, 1137-1139; MeuseArgonne offensive, 1440-1443; Native Americans, 1930; New Zealand, 986; Ottoman campaign, 1158-1160; outbreak, 1121-1124; postwar period, 1409, 1425, 1444-1448,
Subject Index 1450-1455, 1472, 1483-1486, 1493-1495, 1501, 1525, 1544, 1621-1625, 1705, 1719-1721, 1742, 1790, 1814-1817, 18261829, 1941-1943, 1984, 1997, 2288; Spanish neutrality, 11561158; submarine warfare, 544, 1143-1145, 1206-1208; support among American conservative Christians, 1458; Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1431-1433; Unknown Soldier, 1734-1736; U.S. involvement, 1349-1356, 1367-1374, 1379-1382; Battle of Verdun, 1256-1258; Versailles treaty, 1521-1525, 2069; Second Battle of Ypres, 1192-1195. See also Category Index World War II (1939-1945); Abyssinian Campaign, 32743276; Blitz (1940-1941), 32333235; Battle of Britain, 32673272; Canadian involvement, 1710, 2880, 3213-3215; Desert War, 3289-3291; Dunkirk evacuation, 3256-3258; French collapse, 3250-3253; German invasion of Norway, 32403243; Holocaust, 3159-3163; Katyn Forest massacre, 32363239; Maginot line, 2288-2291; outbreak, 3209-3212, 3220; prewar period, 2625-2628, 2797-2799, 2866, 2875-2879, 2927-2929, 2969-2971, 30933096, 3129-3132, 3184-3186, 3205-3208; radar, 2734; Roman Catholic Church, 3174; submarine warfare, 1144; U.S. mobilization, 3198-3201; U.S. planning, 3246-3250. See also Category Index World Zionist Organization, 723, 1778 World’s Fair, New York (1939), 2280, 2964, 2983, 3186 Worringer, Wilhelm, 423, 898 Wozencraft, Oliver M., 2930 Wozzeck (Berg), 2086-2089, 3032
WPA. See Works Progress Administration Wrangel, Pyotr Nikolayevich, 1416 Wright, Almroth Edward, 701, 2256 Wright, Andy, 2490 Wright, Carroll D., 219 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1413, 2589, 2982 Wright, Hamilton Kemp, 956 Wright, John L., 708 Wright, Luke E., 603 Wright, Orville, 278, 2112 Wright, Richard, 3230 Wright, Roy, 2490 Wright, Wilbur, 278, 769 Wright Flyer (airplane), 279 WSM (radio station), 2082-2085 Wulf, Oliver R., 1055 Wundt, Wilhelm, 195 Württemberg, duke of. See Albert Wüst, Georg, 2030 WWJ (radio station), 1641 Wyman, Walter, 185 Wynne, John J., 606 Wyoming; first female governor, 2014-2017 X-ray crystallography, 945-948 X-ray spectra, 69 X rays, 66-69, 275-277, 558, 664, 1807-1810; physical characteristics, 471-474 X-Rays and Crystal Structure (Bragg and Bragg), 947 Xerography, 3134-3137 Xerox Corporation, 3135 Xuzhou, Battle of (1949), 2098 Ya Gyaw. See Saya San Yagoda, Genrikh Grigoryevich, 2670 Yamamoto Gonnohyfe, 2042 Yangtze River; flood, 2509-2512; map, 2510 “Yankee Doodle Dandy” (Cohan), 349 Yard, Robert Sterling, 1514, 2780 CXXIX
Yatabe, Thomas T., 2442 Years with Ross, The (Thurber), 2022 Yeats, William Butler, 359, 597, 928, 1315, 1328 Yellow-dog contracts, 416, 657661, 1154, 2117, 2552 Yellow fever, 43-47, 185, 271, 298-301, 341, 635; vaccine, 3025-3027 Yellow Fever Board, 44 Yellow River; destruction of levees, 3114-3116; flood, 25092512; map, 2510 Yellow stars, 1093, 1913 Yellowstone National Park, 1282 Yeravda Pact (1932), 2586-2588 Yerkes Observatory, 207, 1385, 2347 Yerkes telescope, 207 Yersin, Alexandre, 584, 1043 Yezhov, Nikolay Ivanovich, 2786 Yi Wan-yong, 838 Yosemite, The (Muir), 1097 Yosemite National Park, 230-234, 1095-1099, 1514, 1812, 1933, 2992, 3076 Yoshikawa, Iwao, 1788 Yost, Fielding Harris, 124 Yost, Lenna Lowe, 1779 Young, Cy, 256 Young, Frederick H., 350 Young, Leo C., 2734 Young, Lester, 2605 Young, Owen D., 1552, 1941, 2593 Young, Reynold Kenneth, 290 Young, Sydney, 308 Young, Walker, 2930 Young and the Damned, The (film), 2214 Young classicality, 589 Young Ireland Society, 459 Young Men’s Buddhist Association, 3012 Young Ottomans, 690 Young Socialists (Sweden), 1680 Young Turks, 1195, 1511; coup, 245, 689-692, 698
The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 Younger, Edward F., 1734 Younghusband, Francis Edward, 344 Your Money’s Worth (Schlink and Chase), 2903 Youth organizations, 613-616 Ypres, Second Battle of (1915), 1127, 1192-1195, 1233, 2047 Yüan Shih-k’ai. See Yuan Shikai Yuan Shikai, 909 Yudenich, Nikolay Nikolayevich, 1416 Yugoslavia. See Geographical Index Yukawa, Hideki, 2687, 2784 Zaghlnl, Sa4d, 716 Zambona, Jutta Ilse, 2292 Zamyatin, Yevgeny, 2563 Zanuck, Darryl F., 2827, 3176, 3202 Zapata, Emiliano, 843 Zapatistas, 844 Zauberberg, Der. See Magic Mountain, The (Mann, T.) Zauditu, 2421 Zawditu. See Zauditu Zdansky, Otto, 1847
Zeeman, Pieter, 686, 2027 Zeeman effect, 687, 2028 Zehntbauer, John, 1558 Zehntbauer, Roy, 1558 Zeidler, Othmar, 3156 Zelaya, José Santos, 991 Zeledón, Benjamín F., 991 Zelle, Margaretha Geertruida. See Mata Hari Zemlinsky, Alexander von, 644 Zentralstelle zur Bekaempfung des Ziguenerunwesen, 3254 Zeppelin, Ferdinand von, 1174 Zeppelins, 1174-1176; Hindenburg, 3017-3020 Zermelo, Ernst, 101, 164, 311 Zhang Guotao, 2777 Zhang Xueliang, 2096 Zhang Zhidong, 29 Zhdanov, Andrei, 2558, 2562 Zhou Enlai, 2096, 2777 Zhu De, 2777 Ziegfeld, Florenz, 2210 Ziegfeld Follies, 2210 Ziegler, Adolf, 3040; letters, 3041 Zimbabwe. See Geographical Index Zimmerman, William F., Jr., 2757
CXXX
Zimmerwald Conference, 12171219 Zindel, Ernst, 3253 Zinovyev, Grigory Yevseyevich, 1490, 1711, 2263, 2295, 2786 Zinsser, Hans, 2386 Zionism, 723, 1327, 1389-1392, 1777 Zionist Federation, 1777 Ziya, Mehmet. See Gökalp, Ziya Zog I, 3184 Zola, Émile, 1972, 2524 Zoning laws (New York City), 1276-1278, 2499 Zoos, breeding programs, 1135 Zoshchenko, Mikhail, 2564 Zsigmondy, Richard, 110 Zubatov, Sergei Vasilyevich, 399 Zukor, Adolph, 417, 737, 1820, 2377 Zuni, 2698 Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens. See Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The (Freud) Zwicky, Fritz, 2718 Zworykin, Vladimir, 1873, 3186
